LouderVoice, a lesson in never standing still
One of the big areas where a lot of Irish firms are failing is continuing to integrate new technologies; for the want of a concept – it’s a case of failing to see the Big Picture. For example, online stores should all have blogs, newsletters and email marketing. Street teams, exclusive content and competitions should be bundled in. How about redeemable points for products? And shouldn’t all web companies be looking at how they can partner with others in the market to build products they hadn’t considered. Being nimble business-wise permeates throughout a firm; decisions about marketing, technology and where to move next spring from this.
A great example of never standing still is LouderVoice, the Irish review site. In case you’re not aware of what LouderVoice is – it’s a landing pad for your reviews. It’s an Irish Yelp, but better. Much easier to use. You can send reviews of that restaurant dinner you had, the last Britney Spears album or the disappointing bottle of plonk you bought into it using myriad mediums. You can use SMS, your blog and microblog to review. If that’s just a bit too techie for you, you can just go to the site and type it up there.
What I like about LouderVoice is that it’s never willing to sit back tech-wise. It’s an Irish startup punching above its weight by adopting new ways for its users to interact with the site. Each iteration of LouderVoice has been a huge step forward for its user base. And just today, LouderVoice started using Get Satisfaction, the online support site as a hub for dealing with users support issues. Get Satisfaction is a service that some of the Silicon Valley biggies like Ping.fm and Twitter use to administrate support issues with their users. I’m not aware of many other Irish firms using Get Satisfaction as the public face of their support effort. Are you? Yes, it’s just another outlet for the support story, but LouderVoice’s commitment to integrate it into their business speaks volumes on the dynamism of their DNA. A testament to Conor O’Neill and his LouderVoice team. That’s a lesson that a lot of Irish firms, technological or not, could learn from.
Really appreciate the mention Alexia, thanks. We’ve been so caught up in getting our new services out the door that I think we’ve fallen behind on progressing the existing site. Get Satisfaction is just the first step in righting that.
Our attitude has always been “if it doesn’t take huge effort or cost, then why not try something and see how it goes?”. That’s the mindset that gave us services like LouderMinis last year. We’ve lots of other things we want to try and I hope you’ll see much more regular news from us over the second half of the year.
Excited to see where ye go next, Conor. LV demonstrates some of the best instincts in leveraging tech. Best of luck in H2