Uberlife, a startup based in the UK, launched this week just as the SXSW festivities are beginning. The company is hoping to be one of the new hot startups that people remember from the show.
WebProNews spoke with Sanchita Saha, uberlife’s CEO and Founder, who told us that the service is designed to extend online connections into the real world. She explained that it is different from services such as Foursquare since it goes beyond the basic check in.
Saha said the service is intention-based, which means users create “hangouts” around where they are going to be. These hangouts are public, so that others can join as well.
Bands are already taking advantage of the platform to connect with both their peers and fans. Saha told us that businesses are also using the service to build better relationships with their customers.
Will uberlife be the next hot startup to take off at SXSW? What do you think?
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Mar 8th, 2012. 
For fashion lovers out there, there’s a new startup that could become your newest addiction. The site is called I-ELLA, and it allows consumers to buy, sell, swap, and borrow designer clothing and accessories.
As Ella Gorgla, the startup’s Founder and CEO, told us that she wanted to create “the eBay for fashion insiders.” She said most people haven’t worn at least 25 percent of their closets in the past 9 months and wanted to give them an opportunity to “share their closet” with others.
What’s also unique about this startup is the fact that a portion of the proceeds goes to a charity that is selected by the buyer. In addition, I-ELLA hosts celebrity auctions featuring items that celebrities have donated. For these events, 75 percent of the money raised goes to a charity chosen by the celebrity who donated the items.
While the site features brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Diane Von Furstenberg, the site also includes vintage goods, which offers up and coming fashion designers an outlet to distribute their work.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Mar 2nd, 2012.
“Social media” is the big buzzword humming around business advice articles these days, and is undoubtedly going to be a permanent outlet for small, medium, and large businesses to reach out to the public through their marketing and PR efforts. But social media can play even a much more basic but powerful role in general business operations- a way to provide good ol’ customer service, with new opportunities.
Business owners can choose to embrace this new way of providing customer service, taking an excellent opportunity to perceive and address their customer’s needs, or they can choose to ignore what may being said about them, to their own demise.
Great Customer Service Should be a Goal
Early on in business development of our legal company, we had one goal in mind: win cases. As time went on, we realized that just as equally important as providing a great core product and outcome is providing excellent customer service and a helpful user experience.
I think this goal should be one that all companies should strive for: customer service being first and foremost even over providing a great product or service. Why? Because if you leave people feeling like you gave them your best, and that they were important to you as a customer, perhaps they may still recommend others to your business, even if they particularly didn’t care for the product, or perhaps, in our field, even if they didn’t win their case. People send us referrals all the time, even if they didn’t win their case, because we were helpful, and for them, it was worth a shot.
Customer Service in Action
The perfect example of this was when last sunday I was trying to find a parking spot in the streets of Pacific Beach, a little San Diego beach town full of bars, restaurants, tattoo shops, and nearly non-existent parking spots. I rarely come to this area, but I was there to attend a Thanksgiving potluck my friend was throwing at her house.
I drove around and around in the rain looking for parking. I ended up finding the perfect size spot to fit my little Smart Car, right in front of a raging dive-bar that I wasn’t particularly excited about. It was game day and the San Diego Chargers were playing the Greenbay Packers, and fans were going wild inside watching the game. I was hesitant to park in front of a bar overflowing with drunk, enthusiastic football fans, but I was grateful for the spot. Right as I was getting out of my Smart Car, I dropped a big glass bowl of steamy hot mashed potatoes right in the street. Needless to say, being a blonde in a Smart Car in heels on a rainy day with mashed potatoes all over me right in front of Divey Mc. Dive Bar, I had quite the enthusiastic audience.
Stay with me, I’m getting to the point here. Immediately, the manager of the bar came running out to help me. With some cardboard and a box, he scooped up all the broken glass and mashed potatoes in the street while I cleaned myself up. Feeling indebted to him, I asked him if he was the manager of the bar, and promised to send customers his way. I was so impressed with the level of customer service he had shown to me (and I wasn’t even a customer yet), that when I got home I went onto Yelp and wrote a great review about them.
People Will Share Their Experiences
It’s not that I think it’s uncommon or rare for people to write good reviews about their good experiences, but here’s the thing, I would NOT have written a great review about this bar if it hadn’t have been for that manager helping me. It’s not that I would have necessarily written a bad review, but had it not been for him helping me and leaving me with an excellent opinion about the type of people who run their business, I probably would have not recommended anyone to them, simply because I’m not into these type of bars. Their customer service far outweighed the fact that I didn’t really care for their type of establishment. Just because I’m probably not going to go there, I will still refer people there who are into that kind of thing, and much of my referrals are done through social media online.
But What About Reviews That Aren’t Great?
People love to talk online, in fact, even shy people have no problem voicing their opinions and concerns for all to see on the internet, making it even more likely for there to be bad (and good) reviews out there about your business. Isn’t it easier to complain via lots of CAPITALS AND EXPLANATION POINTS!!! then it is to walk into a restaurant and express that kind of emotion face-to-face? As a business, you’ve got to be prepared to respond, because it’s going to happen. You simply can’t leave those kind of comments un-responded to anymore. You’re expected to bring your customer service as present online as you are in your actual place of establishment.
How We Approach (not) Great Reviews Online
I love when our customers post their concerns online. We have a very open door policy with social media, and we don’t restrict comments on our Facebook or Twitter pages. We know we have nothing to hide. If someone posts something negative, we know we’ll address it and do whatever it takes to leave them satisfied. We WELCOME the opportunity, and you should embrace it too.
Yes, although we take pride in providing a great service, we too have had customers post negative things on our page, followed by a phone call from us in attempt to straighten out their concern, and then go right back onto our page to let everyone know that we had addressed their concerns and they were very happy about it. This, I think, is the ultimate goal. You can’t avoid unhappy customers from time-to-time, but if you have it in your business model to do whatever it takes to leave them satisfied, they will respond appreciatively.
People Realize Companies Aren’t Perfect
This is so powerful because people who do their research before doing business with you want to see the good and the bad of what people are saying about your company. People realize that no company is perfect, and if they see the bad AND they see how the company addressed it, they will be confident that they too will be taken care of in any circumstance.
Again, providing customer service via social media is an excellent opportunity to find out what customers need, what’s being said (no longer behind your back but right in front of everyone to see, including you as a business), and best of all: it gives the customer the opportunity to publicly thank you as a business for helping them out IF you respond to them. It’s great advertising of the level of service your company provides, and your presence and your responsiveness speaks for itself.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Nov 19th, 2011.
As a result of the frustration that is building around the daily deals’ space, myVici launched in an effort to revive the space. The new service gives control to the consumers by allowing them to request deals to their favorite places. Mike Tokar, the company’s CEO and founder, told us that this model benefits both consumers and merchants.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Nov 1st, 2011.
Why are Terms of Service agreements so hard to understand? Not only is the legal jargon difficult to understand, but the appearance of agreements is also difficult to digest. For this reason, Gregg Bernstein decided to take on the task of making the terms more readable. He even redesigned Apple’s terms for his master’s thesis.
In an interview with WebProNews, Bernstein told us that both consumers and vendors would benefit if the agreements looked better. Consumers would be more knowledgeable about products, and companies would be less likely to face litigation.
Do you agree with his solution?
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Oct 9th, 2011.
