AutoPlay founder Craig Brown is stepping out of his comfort zone to take on the New York Marathon – all for a good cause.

Brown, whose company provides dealers with digital sales tools, wants to support the family of his friend Mark, who died last year, after a long battle with mental health problems.

Brown’s goal is two-fold – to raise about $25,000 that will help provide Mark’s daughter with an assistance dog, alongside boosting awareness about suicide prevention.

“My mate Mark was an absolute champion,” Brown says.
“He had been suffering from mental health issues, but we all thought he was in a good space.”

Brown says he made the decision to run the marathon at Mark’s funeral, along with fellow friend Isaac Piper.
“I have never been a marathon runner and never seen myself as one.
“But we thought what could we do to support Mark’s family
“We thought ‘stuff it, we’ll run the New York marathon.’
“Running the marathon means we can make it an annual event.”

Training for the event has been tough on Brown’s knees after years of martial arts participation, with 24km the longest distance he’s managed so far.
“But all the pain will be worth it if we can raise enough money to get the assistance dog for Mark’s daughter,” he says.

Brown and Piper are also covering their own entry costs and flights.
“Every cent we raise will go to the family.”

If people are struggling with their mental health, Brown says they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help.
“Once it gets hold of you, it can be pretty relentless.“
“There’s lots of support networks out there for people. It’s quite a big step to go to a support group.
“Or if you don’t want to go to a support group, talk to your mates.”

WATCH A SHORT VIDEO ABOUT CRAIGS TRAINING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d76D-3yu90&feature=youtu.be
 
TO DONATE TO THE CAUSE VISIT THE GIVE A LITTLE PAGE 
https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/marathon-for-marks-family-and-mental-health

As many of you will be eagerly awaiting, we've been rebuilding our existing Silverlight based Desktop Studio in HTML5.  This will give our customers huge benefits including the ability to run the Desktop on any browser (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Edge, Safari etc), as well as on any device (iOS, Android, Windows tablet and devices).  This obviously means that installs are easier, and it becomes a lot more flexible for our users to jump on and manage leads at any time.

We've been working diligently on this project on/off from January, but it's been a while since we last updated all our customers on our progress towards completing this massive project.  Where possible we are pumping as much resources into this project as possible, and we are making good progress.  At present we are working on the most important part of the system - the Dashboard of the Sales Pipeline.

As you can see from the screenshot above we are making good progress on this.  The Dashboard is much faster loading and has had a few subtle improvements, whilst still maintaining all the amazing features our customers are used to.

The HTML5 version of the AutoPlay Studio for Desktop is our number one development priority.  At this stage we are hoping to get an early release BETA version out to selected customers at the end of Q1.  If this changes then we will advise you as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about the HTML5 version of the AutoPlay Studio then please feel free to email matt@autoplay.co.nz with your questions.

Last week we launched a refresh of the AutoPlay website.  The new site does a better job of showcasing the full range of products and features that AutoPlay can offer.  In addition there are now separate versions of the site for New Zealand and Australia that include customised content for each country, that more closely reflects our product offerings in each respective market.

Feel free to take a look via the links below.  We'd love to hear your feedback.

For New Zealand customers - https://www.autoplay.co.nz/ 
For Australian customers - https://www.autoplay.com.au/​

The weather may have taken a turn for the worse recently, but Lead, Test Drive and Sales activity remains buoyant.  Following a strong May, June 2018 saw the number of Leads generated increase by 6.2%, Test Drives increase by 5.9% and Sales by 1.2%.

For the second consecutive month the number of leads from the ‘Web – Dealer’ source decreased – by 1.2% from May to June.  As expected with Fieldays activity we experienced a 30.8% increase in the number of leads generated to dealers by their ‘Brand’.  After a significant increase in leads from ‘Web Classified’ sources last month, this source again accounted for the 3rd most leads and increased by 5.7% from May to June 2018.

After the volume of Test Drives from the ‘Web – Dealer’ source decreased in May, the source rebounded to increase by 17.3% from month to month.  Test Drives attributed to the ‘Direct’ source again occupied second spot and increased by 7.8% from May to June.  Test Drives from ‘Brand’ generated leads did increase – by 4.9% - but perhaps less than expected from the higher volume of Fieldays leads.  This potentially means that Fieldays activity has been a bit slow to translate to Test Drives, and potentially means we may see a proportionate increase in Test Drives from the ‘Brand’ source in future months.

In June 2018 there was a change in the status quo for Sales tracking.  Whilst ‘Web – Dealer’ retained the top spot and increased by 8.9% from May to June 2018.  However, whilst in May ‘Repeat’ and ‘Direct’ accounted for the 2nd and 3rd most Sales by source, these sources were overtaken by ‘Web Classified’ (up 27.4% from May 2018) and ‘Brand’ (up 32.9%) respectively. 

Make sure to check in next month to find out the top sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales for kiwi dealers in July.  Lead Source reports are just one of the reports available to dealerships and OEM’s who use AutoPlay Sales Pipeline.  To find out more about the range of reports available via AutoPlay contact us on sales@autoplay.co.nz or +64 9 361 1505.

The rebuild of our Desktop Studio has now been going 4 weeks and we've made some great progress towards getting the structure and skeleton of the new system built out.  Over the coming months we'll continue to update you all with our progress.  For the moment check out the highlights from the first month of development.

1.  NEW LOGIN SCREEN & PASSWORD CONTROL
The first step for this project was to create the basic structure that will allow our users to login.  We've rebuilt the login page on the new application to work with a wider range of browsers and devices.  That means that when the new application is released users will be able to login using IE11+, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari (Mac &  iOS), Opera browsers instead of just Internet Explorer.  They would also be able to login using Android tablets and smartphones and not just Desktop and iOS.

2.  PASSWORD RESET EMAIL
We've restyled the password reset email to match all AutoPlay branding, as well as cleaned up the email design and content to help users who have multiple accounts know which password they are resetting.

3.  RESET PASSWORD WEB PAGE
Like the password reset email we've rebranded the Reset Password web page to bring it in line with the look and feel of all the other AutoPlay applications.  The new page also features a count of the number of characters entered, as well as a rating on the strength of your new password - all designed to make it more user friendly for users resetting their passwords.

4.  RED APPLICATION HEADER MENU
We've restyled the header menu to work on all devices.  We've also created a new 'Profile' menu located at the top right corner of the screen.  The 'Profile' menu features some commonly used screens such as My Details and the Logout button.  We've made these changes to make these screens more accessible to our customers.

5.  MAIN LHS NAVIGATION MENU
We've also rebuilt our main navigation menu as part of this project.  If using a smartphone or tablet the menu will automatically snap shut to give users the maximum screen space, whilst on Desktop screen sizes the navigation menu will remain open to take advantage of the extra screen real estate available.  Additionally when each section is opened (i.e Emails, Contacts or Sales Pipeline) it will automatically collapse the other sections - saving a lot of scrolling from top to bottom of the screen.

AutoPlay are pleased to announce a partnership with Customer Radar.  Customer Radar allows your customers to provide feedback quickly, easily and directly.  

HOW DO CUSTOMER RADAR SERVICES WORK?

VISIT https://www.customerradar.com/ TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CUSTOMER RADAR.  

 WHAT IS NPS (NET PROMOTOR SCORE)?
​The NPS is a globally recognised management tool that is used to gauge the loyalty of a businesses customer relationships.  Knowing that promoters churn less means you can invest more in creating an amazing customer experience that turns more 'Passives' and 'Detractors' into 'Promoters'. Detractors are your biggest headaches. Work on reducing the percentage of defectors to improve your NPS and grow your business.
 
WHY DO I NEED TO BE WORRIED ABOUT MY NPS SCORE?
- 96% of dissatisfied customers don't complain. For every 1 complaint you know, there are potentially 25 others that haven't complained.
 - 66% of consumers who switched brands did so because of poor service
- 85% of customer churn due to poor service was preventable.
- 11% of customer churn could be prevented by simple company outreach.
- 67% of customer churn is preventable if the customer issue was resolved at the first engagement.
 - Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable compared to companies that are not focused on the customer.
​- Research shows that 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience. 
- 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for an upgraded experience. Air travel and hospitality are examples where upselling better experiences can generate incremental revenue and bolster customer loyalty.
- 84% of consumers are frustrated when the agent does not have information.
- Customer frustration leads to the following: 13% tell 15 or more people if they’re unhappy. Conversely, 72% of consumers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people.
- 67% of consumers site bad experiences as reason for churn.
- 50% of customer experience natural occurring churn every 5 years.
- Only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain. The rest churn. A lesson here is that companies should not view absence of feedback as a sign of satisfaction. The true enemy is indifference.
- 91% of unhappy customers who are non-complainers simply leave.
- It is 6-7X more expensive for companies to attract new customers than to keep existing customers.
- 65% of companies are able to successfully upsell or cross-sell to existing customers.
- Only 12% of companies are able to successfully upsell or cross-sell to new customers.
- 75% of brands do not know what engagement means - but are measuring “it”

​Contact sales@autoplay.co.nz to find out more about Customer Radar services, pricing and how to sign up.