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BRIGHTCOVE WINS 7TH STRAIGHT TSIA SUPPORT STAFF EXCELLENCE AWARD

bsp-admin-1 on December 3, 2020

AWARD-WINNING SUPPORT, SEVEN YEARS AND COUNTING

At Brightcove, we’re immensely proud and excited to share that once again, the Technology & Services Industry Association recognized our customer support team for Support Staff Excellence, a recognition we have received for seven years in a row.

We sat down with Brightcove’s Chief Customer Experience Officer, Denise Grimley, to find out what it takes to build a high-level global customer support team for a B2B business and why it matters. A lot.

Denise, what is the Technology Services and Technology Association (TSIA) Award criteria?

It’s a couple of things; the first is that every single person in the support organization, every two years, has to go through a program to become a “Certified Support Professional”. Once this is complete, our Technical  Support Organization must prove, through metrics, that we’ve made a significant change in our organization that makes a better experience for our customers.

This year, the TSIA evaluated Brightcove on customer satisfaction and feedback.

We went from an 18.37% response rate to a 31.05% response rate. We were able to accomplish this by rethinking the way we ask customers for feedback.  In addition, we lowered our case age metric by over 2.5 days, this means our customers have the answers they need faster.

What does it mean for Brightcove to be recognized as a Support Staff Excellence Award recipient seven years in a row?

I believe anyone can learn software languages, javascript, HTML, CSS, or whatever software is required for the role, in fact, that is how I started in the tech industry – but I can’t teach empathy. You either have it, or you don’t. For me, why we’ve done so well in this area is because we hire for precisely that. We look for people who understand that the customer’s ability to run their business and feed their families depends on our ability to help them solve their problems.

I’m incredibly proud that as we hire new talent, we keep that as a center point for our search. We look for individuals who bring the mindset that we’re all humans trying to make our way in this world and that every single exchange that we have has a profound impact on that person and their job.

How do you grow a support organization to compete at a high-level year after year?

It starts with who you hire. Patrick Lencioni, an author that our leadership team has worked with to help build better teams, has a book all about hiring individuals who are hungry, humble, and smart. The “smart” you should be looking for doesn’t necessarily refer to intellect or technical knowledge, but rather the ability to interact with others.

Your ability to infer stress, a plea for help, or the customer’s temperament through a plain text email is essential for the role.

You’ve been at Brightcove for ten years. How has customer support changed over those ten years? What’s the most important thing now, and what will be important moving forward?

One thing that has changed over the past decade is the speed of technology. From live chat to call me now buttons to web portals. There are so many different ways to interact with your customers and so many tools to enable your support organization to help customers faster.

We’re always looking for what’s next for tools that will improve our communications with our customers.

Why is having a global support organization crucial for B2B companies?

We’re all humans, and each region has its differences and preferences. Employing customer support team members across regions ensures the person customers interact with understands the nuances in language and culture that are paramount to providing top-notch customer service. Employing a human being who understands the language and the customer’s background inspires confidence that a solution will be reached quickly and efficiently.

Additionally, a global support team enables around-the-clock coverage to help solve problems faster and more efficiently, wherever or whenever the need arises. For example, if you open a case in Sydney, we can pass it to London, Boston, and even Guadalajara so that you will have someone working with you around the clock.

What else do people need to know about support and why it’s so important?

When it comes to customers, they need to know more about how they can get the support they need. If they know all the different ways they can contact your business, they can get help faster. Companies should make it clear how customers can and should get in touch for specific issues.

For businesses, we must have a greater awareness that those who work on technical support teams are truly the unsung heroes of many organizations. I think it’s vital for businesses to acknowledge how much our support teams do to keep customers happy and engaged. The phone rings, slack dings, and live chat beeps non-stop, always with a problem that needs to be fixed.  It takes a resilient individual to get up every day, solve the case at hand, and then do it all over again, often without any thanks.

THE VALUE OF VIDEO IN GOVERNMENT TO PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

bsp-admin-1 on November 23, 2020

WHY VIDEO IS THE NEXT BIG THING FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

Government communications have undergone a significant transformation, one where the information expectations of the public are central to the strategy. As part of this transformation, Government departments have transitioned their communications approach from ‘managing’ citizens and stakeholders to one of partnership, where engagement and collaboration are highly sought. With new digital technologies, every government department and agency can now create useful, relevant, and consistent communications with the intent to inform, engage and collaborate with stakeholders about policy, programs, services, and regulations.

A recent review conducted by the Australian Public Service revealed that Australians now expect the same level of personalisation and information integrated across departments in the same manner as they receive from private-sector businesses. Public sector communications professionals need to prioritise the right communication channels, formats, and the public’s preferences on when and where they want to be reached to encourage responsiveness and build trust, while delivering information in an open, timely, and meaningful way.

And this is where a video content strategy and an online video platform make a compelling case for engagement. A communications strategy with video can be useful in:

  • Building trust – Deliver an authentic, transparent, and consistent communications experience using video. Connect and engage with constituents in more meaningful ways, and provide live and on-demand interactions with the public about their expectations, needs, and concerns. 
  • Driving engagement
    • Nothing cuts through general noise and delivers an engaged audience like video, especially when content and messages can be streamed securely, at any time and across any device, in a format that the public will be likely to be responsive to.
  • Communicating at scale
    • Whether you’re targeting selected stakeholders or an entire community, you can reach audiences of any size reliably and securely using an online video platform. Enhanced accessibility using captions, subtitles, and audio descriptions can be added to enhance the video experience. 
  • Manage identity and reputation
    • An online video platform lets you control both the content and context of your communications across websites, social media networks, and mobile apps so that communications can be delivered with a unified vision and voice.

For government agencies and departments, using a secure and reliable video hosting and streaming platform is essential to ensure security, quality, and scalability of communications. Key metrics such as time watched, video completion rates, and engagement level can also help you better understand which messages are resonating with the public and other stakeholders and help inform future communication strategies.

While many government departments are already capitalising on video communications, not all agencies are quick to adopt video as part of their communications strategy. Video is a much more effective tool for engagement than any other forms of government communication, such as lengthy written public statements or policy documents. For an increasingly digital-savvy public, who want information in just a few clicks and who demand trust and authenticity, the opportunity for government departments to embrace video is now.

BRIGHTCOVE TO STREAM DAY-LONG HALLOWEEN EVENT

bsp-admin-1 on October 28, 2020

BRIGHTCOVE BRING THE HAUNTS TO HOME WITH STREAMING EVENT

It’s that time of year again, jack-o-lanterns on the porch, scary movie marathons galore, and oh so many treats. However, this year’s Halloween festivities will have to be enjoyed from the comforts of home – but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your fill of happy haunts.

Brightcove is excited to announce that we’ll be powering the spookiest virtual event this October. 31, an all-day event hosted by AMC Networks’ Shudder, for horror and thriller fans everywhere.

Here’s the full announcement as it appears on AMC Networks:

Staying home for Halloween this year? Fear not: Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller, and the supernatural, is bringing the holiday to you with ShudderFest, a horror celebration you don’t need to leave the house to attend. This incredible day-long virtual event will feature panels, presentations, conversations, and screenings led by legendary genre icons, fan-favorite musicians, and acclaimed directors, writers, and producers, free to all and available anywhere in the world via the shudderfest.com website.

Highlights of the event include a virtual hang with “horror royalty” including genre luminaries Tony Todd (Candyman), Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and others; a conversation between the stars and creators of 2020’s Zoom-horror Host and the makers of 1999’s found footage masterpiece, The Blair Witch Project; a panel of musicians who love Horror, including Bright Light Bright Light and Starcrawler’s Arrow De Wilde; Scary Story Time with Scare Me’s Josh Ruben and friends; a special recording of The Kingcast podcast with Creepshow showrunner Greg Nicotero; and a one-time secret screening of a future Shudder Original film that won’t be available until 2021.

“Most people aren’t able to go out for Halloween this year due to the pandemic, so we decided to bring Halloween home to them with an all-day celebration of everything that’s spooky and scary. And it’s not limited to Shudder members either—anyone around the world can participate in ShudderFest, because Halloween is a holiday that everyone should be able to enjoy,” said Craig Engler, Shudder’s General Manager.

EXPERT PANEL: A Q&A SESSION WITH WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY

bsp-admin-1 on October 28, 2020

YOUR QUESTIONS ON WOMEN IN TECH: ANSWERED

You had questions, and these inspiring women had answers. Salient Venture’s CEO, Diane Hessan, sat down with four of the most innovative and forward-thinking female leaders in tech to share their best insights on how women in tech can reach their full potential.

Here’s what you wanted to know— and what this group of amazing women had to say:

Five of the top tech companies only have a workforce of 34% of women….what gives?

For most women pursuing tech careers, the perception of the kind of person who fits-in in tech and the kind of person who doesn’t is a huge part of why the industry faces a diversity drought.

The only way to successfully bring more women into the field is to “battle the image,” says AnitaB.org’s Brenda Wilkerson. We as a society need to assert, early on, that the tech world is everyone’s world and that there’s something for everyone to pursue and explore.

“Start with an increase in educational opportunities for young women,” says Google’s Ritcha Gupta Ranjan. “Let women and young girls know that there are role models out there.”

What if you don’t have a tech-savvy support system? How do you get the mentors or the help you need?

“It’s on you to make a network amongst the people that you admire,” says Brightcove’s Namita Dhallan. You have to put yourself out there and get involved to build the network or mentorship you wish to have.

“You don’t just have to join the women in tech group,” she says; it’s about joining the type of team or group that resonates with you or aligns with your interests. Speak, listen, and, more importantly, learn. You’ll never know the kind of connections you’ll end up making.

What should we be telling younger generations of women?

LaShawn McGhee of Revry says we should be telling younger women who want to explore a future in tech to chase it. “It doesn’t matter when you start; all that matters is: if it’s your passion, and it’s something you’re interested in, just start.”

What should you do if you’re the only woman on your team?

“When you think about what diversity means, – different ideas and backgrounds help to bring ‘you’ to the table,” says Brenda Wilkerson. The only way to make sure everybody fits in equally is to throw out the notion that there is, in fact, a way to fit in.

What role can male team members play to best support their female peers in the business and tech world?

“Sometimes, when you’re in a meeting, you need to make your point heard – it’s important to look around the room and see if any of your women counterparts has something to say,” says LaShawn McGhee. Far too often, women are interrupted or not heard, and it’s time we put an end to poor communication skills. It’s important, not just for men, but for everyone to remain observant, respectful, and attentive.

TIPS FOR MONETIZING YOUR NEXT VIRTUAL EVENT

bsp-admin-1 on October 27, 2020

Virtual events are a fantastic way to attract an unlimited number of viewers from anywhere in the world. But, did you know that virtual events can also drive revenue?

Here are some tips that we’ve seen help brands turn their virtual experiences into dollar signs.

DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF BEING SEEN BY A BIG AUDIENCE? SPONSORS DO TOO

Companies can now reach and connect with wider global audiences than they ever could with in-person events – and that reach is just as appealing to sponsors as it is to the businesses hosting the events.

The larger the audience, the larger the conversation.

Here are a few things you can offer your sponsors to drive value:

  • Sponsorship of the overall event or of particular tracks and sessions.

  • Speaking opportunities.

  • Ad placement before, during, and/or after video sessions.

  • Logo placement on your video player or window.

  • Video analytics and data.

And, you have the flexibility to price or bundle these sponsorships in whatever way works for you and your sponsors.

DELIVERING PREMIUM CONTENT GIVES BOTH YOU AND YOUR ATTENDEES OPTIONS FOR HOW DEEP TO DIG IN

You’ve got stacks upon stacks of insights, trends, how-tos, and industry best practices, but what’s the best way to make the most of your virtual event’s content?

Flexibility is the name of the game when it comes to virtual event monetization. Here are a few ways you can monetize and structure your content:

  • Give attendees the opportunity to pay for access to incredibly valuable or on-demand content.
  • Create a tiered structure with a few pricing levels that provide access to increasing amounts of content.
  • Organize your content by track and allow attendees to pay for access to those tracks that interest them.

If you’re planning a virtual or hybrid event, we’d love to help. Get in touch with us here.

BRIGHTCOVE AND LTN GLOBAL HELP FREIGHTWAVES LIVE STREAM AT SCALE

bsp-admin-1 on October 13, 2020

In the massive global freight industry, FreightWaves is the leading provider of global supply chain data and media content to industry leaders and analysts. You could call them the Bloomberg of freight based on how many subscribers they have to their Sonar data platform, their viewing audience for FreightWaves TV, and their recent success in virtual events.

                                     

Cody Mathis is a broadcast engineer at FreightWaves who implemented the tech stack powering FreightWaves TV, and he decided to leverage Brightcove and Brightcove partner LTN Global in his workflow. LTN’s Schedule product is how Cody’s team pulls together live streams and other content that they produce for the FreightWaves TV channel. Brightcove Live, Brightcove Video Cloud, and the Brightcove Player are how they stream it to their audiences worldwide, and they’ve seen dramatic viewership growth in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, and Germany.

Cody reports that his primary goal in vendor selection for FreightWaves TV was the ability to scale in the cloud and deliver a reliable and high-quality playback experience across the many screens, like freight brokerage houses, that keep FreightWaves TV on constantly. An added benefit was what the integration between LTN Global and Brightcove meant for his team’s efficiency. In comparison, it used to take a week of training and two weeks of practice for a new team member to operate the FreightWaves TV workflow. Cody explains, “The mixture of LTN and Brightcove lets us train a new person on the entire system in a day, and they can now completely build up the schedule and hit play, and it just works flawlessly.”

                                                     

The key to the integration is that the user interface of LTN Schedule offers the option of sending a stream to Brightcove while maintaining all markers and metadata needed for Brightcove to facilitate ad-insertion and analytics.

Cody and team have extended their live streaming expertise into virtual events in 2020. FreightWaves LIVE was supposed to be an in-person event with 2000 attendees, but the pandemic necessitated going virtual. FreightWaves LIVE @ Home, in the early spring, featured over 5MM minutes of content in 3 days and netted 92,000 unique viewers who streamed over 250,000 sessions. This success inspired the addition of more live-streamed virtual events to the schedule, including FreightWaves LIVE: Global Trade Tech in mid-September.

The ease of operation and high technical performance of LTN Global and Brightcove has enabled FreightWaves to go bigger with confidence. Said Cody of the workflow, “Our entire team is trained in it. So if anyone has to step in, they’re more than confident to know what to do if someone has to push a show longer or cut a show early or anything like that. Everyone on the team knows what to do in those situations because the integration is so simple. So it’s been really great.”

KEY TAKEWAYS FROM THE VIRTUAL EVENT STRATEGY SUMMIT

bsp-admin-1 on October 2, 2020

In a virtual world, your audience has a front-row seat no matter where they sit, which means they’re closer to your brand than ever. But what does it take to keep them entertained, engaged, and connected before, during, and after your virtual event?

Last week, Brightcove invited some of the event industry’s brightest minds to join our very first, fully-virtual, Video Strategy Summit delivered on our Virtual Event Experience portal. We brought together top business leaders from Cvent, TalkDesk, and PTC; technology and production experts from Stagedge, MediaLoft, and Hartmann Studios; and engagement gurus from Socialive, Drift, and Livelike.

Together, we took this opportunity to learn each other’s best-kept secrets on developing successful virtual event strategies. Here are three key takeaways from our three-day summit:

THE ROLE OF THE EVENT PLANNER IS EVOLVING

It’s “the rise of the event technologist,” says Cvent CMO, Patrick Smith. The latest trend for event planners is learning how to get down and technical as events have become entirely reliant on video to reach their audiences. Event planners now responsible for how their events look, sound, AND stream will also need to learn how their virtual experience brings in new business through both demand generation and marketing technology integration.

CONTENT IS STILL KING, BUT BITE-SIZED CONTENT KEEPS VIEWERS’ ATTENTION

Media Loft’s Dan Peeples said that there’s no shame anymore when attendees want to walk away from a presentation. If you’re going to “keep them in their screens, watching what’s going on, and paying attention,” you’ll need to focus on creating content that’s quick and relevant.

Here are three tips for developing content that will keep your audience engaged:

  • Make it quick and to the point, yet visually appealing.

  • Give your speakers enough time to prepare. Are you planning to pre-record your sessions? You’ll need to add a bit more time to the plan (Drift recommends 12 weeks).

  • If your speakers plan to be live, make sure they’re able to pivot quickly if something changes – live is live after all.

In addition to relevant content, you’ll also want to consider keeping your events shorter and more frequent. Virtual audiences may not have the same amount of time they used to, so it’s important to keep their valuable time in mind.

YES, YOU CAN HAVE A MEANINGFUL CONVERSATION IN A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT

It’s about time we threw away the notion that you can’t have the same sort of connection with your virtual audiences that you have with your in-person ones.

When it comes to building a virtual experience that connects your audience with your speakers, each other, and your brand, try to create a community feeling through:

  • Polling

  • Live Q&A

  • Shared experiences

  • One-on-one conversations

Another key way to keep the conversation going, before, during, and after your event, is to “activate your entire company,” says Drift’s Mark Kilens. Get your sales team to bring up the event to customers and prospects or have marketing live Tweet key sessions.

If you’re looking to create a stand-out virtual experience for your audiences, you need to hear what the experts are saying on what you should and shouldn’t do when putting together a successful virtual event strategy.

If you’re planning a virtual or hybrid event, we’d love to help. Get in touch with us here.

WITH IOS 14, AD PERSONALIZATION REQUIRES PERMISSION

bsp-admin-1 on September 11, 2020

You might’ve heard that Apple is making changes to its user tracking policies that will impact the use of device identifiers in iOS 14. Now, if you’re not using tracking for advertising, these new policies won’t affect you. And since the data that Brightcove analytics collects is anonymous and isn’t shared between publishers, it’s not subject to Apple’s new policies.

But let’s take a look at what’s changing and what you need to know as an app publisher.

WHAT IS IDFA?

IDFA is Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers, a unique ID string that identifies a particular device. It’s used in a few different ways, but the most common one is to support personalized advertising. Say I’ve opened the app for my favorite local restaurant chain, but I didn’t actually buy anything. Then I open the app for my local news publisher and start watching a video. When the app goes to fetch a preroll ad, it passes along my device’s IDFA, and the restaurant chain might choose to pay a little extra to run an ad about their latest meal deal. Everybody wins — the advertiser reaches someone who’s more likely to make a purchase, the publisher gets paid more for the preroll, and I see an ad that’s actually relevant to me.

But that same mechanism can get a bit creepy. The industry is trending away from sharing this sort of data without more transparency, and the latest move from Apple is a way to push for more privacy by default.

WHAT’S CHANGING?

With iOS 14, if an app doesn’t get explicit permission to provide the IDFA of the device it’s on, then it won’t get something unique. (This new policy will go into effect in early 2021.) This won’t make things fail, but it’ll prevent the advertiser from seeing that an ad request comes from a device they want to sell to, so the value chain is broken.

Apple is making a key change to support this, with a new API to request permission for the IDFA. This only needs to be requested once for each app, and a user can change whether they opt in or out any time in Settings (similar to how permission for location tracking is handled now). As an app publisher, you should explain to your users why you’re asking for this information – the value of personalizing ads. Just throwing up the system dialogue when a user first opens the app is a sure way to get a lot of opt outs. (Especially if you’re also asking for location permissions at the same time!)

For customers using the Brightcove Native iOS SDK, we’ve added support for the OS-level opt-in/out API, along with the latest Google IMA SDK (v3.12.1). Without integration with this API, any requests for the IDFA on iOS 14 – regardless of user preference – will have a value of 0, just as if the user had opted out. This update ensures that developers have access to the IDFA whenever possible. You’ll find this in our September release of iOS SDK v6.7.12, with full iOS 14 compatibility.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

IDFA was designed for personalized advertising, but it has also been used in a couple of other ways that Apple is offering alternatives for.

If an app publisher has a network of apps but doesn’t identify users themselves (e.g., via a login), they can access an IDFV (Identifier for Vendors), which is structured like an IDFA but is only unique across that publisher’s apps. So it can’t be used to share an ID between a news publisher and the restaurant, but it does allow a publisher to track a user’s viewing habits across different apps in their own network. (This doesn’t require a user to opt in.)

Another common use case is attributing app installations – IDFAs are used to identify referrals between apps that might be bounced through the App Store. Apple has provided a new StoreKit API (SKAdNetwork) to support this particular use case that also doesn’t require end user opt in.

SHOULD PUBLISHERS BE WORRIED?

No one really knows. Apple has provided users with a way to opt out of the IDFA since iOS 7 way back in 2013, but it’s buried in Settings so it never caught on.

At the other extreme, as Safari has made it harder and harder to work with 3rd-party cookies, publishers have found that advertiser demand (and therefore revenue) has dropped. The IDFA change doesn’t go as far, so if you’re thinking about deploying a native app, you can still monetize it more effectively than you can mobile web on iOS.

It’s likely this will land somewhere in the middle. Encouraging users to opt in and explaining the value of getting relevant ads will certainly help. And separately, publishers should be looking at other ways to trade on their own first- or second-party data to maximise the value of their inventory.

WHY MOZART, BEETHOVEN, AND TCHAIKOVSKY WOULD HAVE LIVE STREAMED

bsp-admin-1 on September 10, 2020

Performers want to perform; audiences want to watch. It’s that simple. And nothing should come between this time-honored relationship that’s existed since the first cavemen gathered around their buddy singing dinosaur songs. As concerts and performances rapidly evolve, Brightcove makes sure you don’t get left behind with video experiences that meet all the demands of today’s digital world. From staying connected to donors to building new audiences, the potential of video is unlimited, and Brightcove is ready to put you at center stage.

THIS HAS BECOME ONE LONG INTERMISSION

With the global pandemic shutting down most in-person performances, arts organizations realize they can’t stay silent for long. This is especially crucial when it comes to donors and patrons, the lifeline of any organization. By developing live stream performances and video content on-demand, your organization stays connected to these supporters and demonstrates that you’re committed to engaging with them. Brightcove’s video technology and solutions are helping The Tribeca Film Festival, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Opera, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and more to remain vibrant, innovative, and top-of-mind with their loyal benefactors.

REVENGE OF THE BALCONY DWELLERS

For those audience members who’ve always been squinting from the balcony, a video performance now brings the stage up-close and personal. Brightcove’s flawless live streams deliver every note and nuance in absolute clarity, creating a virtual performance that, in some ways, will rival an in-person performance. What’s more, arts organizations are using the power of video to give audiences an even stronger appreciation for what they’re about to see.

This might be an interview with the composer, an informative lecture about an opera, or a day in the life of a ballet dancer before she soars onto the stage.

THE CONCERT HALL JUST GOT WAY, WAY BIGGER

As video lets you connect with your current audiences, it also opens up a whole new world–literally. With Brightcove’s powerful technology, your sonata, pirouette, or soliloquy can be seen on phones, tablets, TV, and any other screen across the globe. Think of the new audiences you will reach. Maybe a couple who could never find a babysitter will now pay to sit at home and enjoy the performance. Or, maybe someone who could never afford the expensive night out will now find this much more accessible. People want to be entertained, and they’re already living a digital life, so meet that willing audience with outstanding video solutions from Brightcove and rest assured that you will look and sound your absolute best.

The future of musical and theatre performance is clearly transforming, and Brightcove will make sure you stay on top of it all. Let our recognized video technology and solutions fuel your imagination as you keep your organization thriving and relevant in today’s changing world.

Watch our latest webinar, Keeping The Main Stage Alive With Video, to discover the latest trends impacting the performing arts industry and learn how some top organizations are implementing digital strategies and using streaming video to survive and grow their audience-base.