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Dear business partner and customers!
We would like to inform you that due to the current state of emergency in Slovenia, we are going to work from home from 17th to 31th of March 2020.
During this time you may contact us via mail or in emergency cases 00386-40-943940.
The health of our employees and you our business partners and customers is on first place. Thank you in advance and wish you well.
Yours ITC d.o.o.
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A new school year begins and with it a new challenge as a principal. Our duty is to be the institution´s name, face and voice so I had to call in for the yearly parents meeting. These gatherings are usually a moment in which I speak a lot, and nobody listens to me because they want to move on with their lives. I go through the basics: explain the school´s rules, goals and aims, inform them of their role as parents and then we come to an agreement to all do our best and help the little ones as much as we can in their first educational endeavor.
Don´t get me wrong, it is a beautiful moment because you get to explain them exactly what you expect from their children and from them as companions; the only drawback is that they do not want to be there because they are usually too busy and see it as a waste of time. That can be a bummer at times because I really do put lot of effort in preparing the meetings. I gather all the info and try to present it in a way that is understandable, useful and interesting for them. The result is usually parents looking at their watches and yawning all the time.
This year it was different, because this year I got to explain them the eFollowr app we are using as an institution. If I was to put it into words, I would say their faces changed drastically, they were suddenly interested in what I was saying.
I began by telling them to take out their phones and downloading the app so I could explain the basics and the most remarkable benefits it would have throughout the year and to my surprise they were finishing my sentences! It was amazing because by the end of the meeting I already had some statistics showing me that all the parents had downloaded the app and were signed in as anonymous users. I mean, the ratio was 100%; that never happened before, they were very enthusiastic about it.
My first emphasis was on SPAM and how to avoid it; I told the parents they wouldn´t get any spam at all like they would if they were to receive emails from us. They opened their eyes and lifted their eyebrows in awe before smiling. People, especially very busy one, get a lot of spam in their inbox which makes it impossible to follow on important stuff; they get lost on the trivial things. With eFollowr, they can just follow the group that belongs to their children´s classes and not get a single unwanted notification of any kind. I took the time to create the groups beforehand and to my surprise, they did it perfectly in the first attempt and each group was populated with the exact number of parents per student that attended the meeting!
When eFollowr was presented to me I was a little skeptical about it because I had been reading about the whole GDPR thing and was scared I was going to get the school and myself into trouble for data handling. As a principal you have to take care of many more things besides educating the nation´s future. To my pleasant surprise, parents can decide to become known or to remain unknown followers and that decision takes the responsibility away from the school. When their children graduate, they can just stop following the school and voilà! No record of them was ever stored.
For the first time in many years, I can say that the meeting was a very productive one in which all the parents paid attention and got a real insight of all the info I gave them. The fact that they can download it together with the teacher is another advantage to be close to the educators who work directly with their children.
From a school perspective, eFollowr platform helped us reduce the budget spent on paperwork also protecting the environment. We closed the time gap between the moment we create the info and the moment it reaches our students and their families because with a simple API the platform is linked to the school´s homepage and every event published in it reaches parents immediately.
With eFollowr I was able to reach out to a new generation of parents who are used to getting notifications on their phones and want to reduce spam in their work-related emails. After all, we are also a more eco-friendly institution and I can redirect funds into activities like procurement of beehives rather than spend them on paperwork. eFollowr is the future in communication and it really works.
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I started my career in marketing a long time ago and have worked with every communication channel that has been available for the past thirty years. I am a man moved by passion; I love my job and I want to be the best at it at all times. This fire has kept me going for decades updating my knowledge and adapting to every piece of technology that could serve my purpose.
Although this is my background and my pride, I was stuck in a small part of the communication process with the guests: I couldn´t figure out a way to effectively reduce the ecological impact of the IT department and the news bulletins to inform all our guests about special offers, activities and events. It seemed to me that all the old tried-and-true ways of marketing I was an expert at had more impact than benefit (pamphlets, news boards, etc…) I managed to accommodate everything else to be as green as it can be going the extra mile and hand-picking specific providers that supplied us with products the right way, the greenway.
Still, the information bulletin was a bristle on my foot and I felt it every day. I wanted to find a new, innovative way of communicating our guests all the activities that I had planned and nobody was attending to.
One of the basic marketing rules for a hotel is that if you don´t offer your customers an incredible experience, you are just one more in their list. I had to struggle for amazing; otherwise, I was condemned to oblivion along with the resort.
The answer to this predicament came in the form of an App. I was talking to my best friend who is also a hotel marketing director and he told me he had started using eFollowr. Although his hotel approach is quite different, he runs an urban-based boutique hotel; the way of promoting special offers and events was a revolution.
I started working with it the very next morning and in the following two days, I had put together a package that no guest of no hotel in the world could resist. I included a happy hour in drinks from 9 am to 11 am in the pool restaurant, special discount for females only at the spa and many more things. In between them I also added all the items that made drinks, facilities and spa treatments eco-friendly in our establishment.
I took some minutes to instruct all receptionists, bell boys, and other hotel personnel on how to inform every guest that they had to download the eFollowr app to get the special discounts and events in the hotel. Together, we came up with some very effective ideas like to install QR-codes that can be easy and instantly scanned with a cellphone in every area a guest might see and need it. This QR code took them directly to the hotel´s eFollowr app reducing navigation time and hassles for them. Also, we programmed a notification for the Wi-Fi modem that will advise them to download the app to have access to exclusive discounts and events in the hotel. These strategies assured us that they were going to get all the info in their phones and finally, the strategy for communicating them of the activities I had struggled to put together was successful.
Every time you innovate in your line of work, you are exposed to mistakes and problems, but with eFollowr, it all went as smooth as it gets.
The amount of happy-hour drinks at the pool went up for almost 200% and the bookings in the ladies spa also increased by a similar number. All guests were downloading the app and enjoying the results. By Friday of the first week, numbers had changed so much that I decided to hire a hot local group and make a cocktail party on the beach with special prices and discounts. The event was the party of the century and all the guests were becoming loyal clients. I had managed to turn their experience from great to unforgettable.
Saturday morning was a sunny day and I went down to reception just to witness two very excited guests who were checking eFollowr in their phones. They were checking the daily hotel activities to plan their day and telling another guest on how to download and use it. At this point I was not even using man-hour work from hotel personnel, it was guests who promoted the app among them.
eFollowr changed my approach to marketing once again and made me love my profession even more. I recommend it to every business owner who wants a truly effective 21st-century marketing strategy at a very low cost.
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So, this summer my business trip took me to a small and slow town in Slovenia. While a part of me was refreshed to be among the mountains, far away from the city life; another part of me knew that it would be just another boring business trip. I landed there early morning and got done with the meeting right after breakfast. At this point I decided to head out and do a bit of sightseeing and maybe grab a late lunch at the town pub as well.
The town seemed to contain quite a bit of historical architecture, so I decided to visit some of the popular areas. I spoke with a few people close to the hotel and from what I find out they directed me towards the town centre, and I thought to myself that I might be able to find more information there. The town centre was adored with a grand and ancient Town hall and at the gate, I found a sticker with an eFollowr-City QR code and a message that told I would be provided information about the city upon downloading it.
Simply out of curiosity I chose to scan the QR code and this took me to the play store where I could download the eFollowr App. Once I downloaded the App, I was given an entire summary of the history of the Town hall and also photos of it from different eras. I thought to myself that this is a wonderful way to receive information. I walked around the church and soon found a tavern where I could get some lunch, and once again eFollowr provided me with a quick notification about an offer I could redeem at the tavern. I was delighted to have saved some money out of nowhere and chose to explore the App some more.
On my way back to the hotel I found a few more similar QR codes and whenever I was near one the App would give me a notification. I was able to find out a lot about the history of this Slovenian small town through the App. And the fact that this history was site specific and given to me while I was at the site was quite delightful to me as well. In the evening I reached back to my hotel and thought of spending a quite night before I headed home.
But just as I was about to order dinner eFollowr notified me that a gin festival would be hosted at the town square along with some other festivities. I decided to make the most of my trip and headed for the festival. It was a grand celebration of the town’s historical gin and I was glad that I could witness such a festive site. I learnt more about the origins of the festival and its different aspects from the eFollowr App and was quite thankful for it.
The amount of help eFollowr would provide me with was not over yet! I was once again notified that there was a restaurant nearby that would be hosting a special food event and eFollowr could provide me with exclusive discounts. Needless to say, that I had quite a sumptuous dinner after the gin festivities, and then headed back to my guest room. The next morning, I took my flight back home but with recollections of a beautiful trip in a Slovenian mountain town.
If it was not for eFollowr this would have turned out to be a mundane trip. I would have not known about the great history of this town, nor would I have visited the gin festival. And not to forget the amazing discounts I was offered through the app. Anyone who is planning to visit a small town or would like to gain knowledge about historic sites, eFollowr is the perfect on-site guide that you can find. And this of course is the perfect companion of a foodie on any journey!
I will surely be using more of eFollowr on my next trip and try to find myself the best possibilities that my destination holds!
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I was visiting Koper a town in Slovenia due to my business-related meetings.
It was the usual routine: get there, grab some lunch, attend the meeting, grab some dinner, and then catch the flight back home. However, this time on my trip according I was introduced to a new app eFollowr and my stay was the most pleasant and eventful ever.
Upon arrival I was notified that the meeting time would need to be shifted a few hours. This meant I would be catching the early next morning flight and would need to book a hotel for the overnight stay. So, I went ahead and checked myself in. The kind receptionist handed me over the wi-fi password and also asked me to download an app called eFollowr which would allow me to access the hotel rather easily. I decided to download it. The app was small in size and the sign-up process did not require personal info so it seemed like a nice app.
As I installed the app an immediate notification appeared that the hotel was providing a discount on spa sessions at the in-house spa only for the users of this app. I was quite delighted with this deal since it totally took away the pre–meeting stress that one suffers from. Also, the notifications could be followed anonymously. This is a feature I quite prefer in my apps. I thought of ordering lunch at the hotel itself but eFollowr again notified me that there was a chain of restaurants the hotel is tied up with, and if I were to have lunch at any of these places I would receive perks and in some cases even discounts. And as soon as I clicked on this offer, I was taken to my Google Maps app and was given direction to the closest chain.
Needless to say, that eFollowr not only provides great deals but also is a very helpful app overall. I was quite delighted at how much precious time and money I had saved with this app but what made me even happier was the fact that I could discover such great places in such a short notice. But now it was time to head for the meeting and once I got done with it, I thought why should I not try to explore some nightlife since I have the night to myself? In comes eFollowr again. It notified me that the hotel would be hosting an exclusive open-air food festival where a local ethno band would be playing.
Not only was this dinner one of the best experiences I had on this trip, but I also once again got a fair amount of discount on my bill. The idea that a single provider could provide me with so many offers on a single day was quite unknown to me before I used eFollowr. Sure, I have used coupon apps, but this app ensures that the offers and discounts you receive are from a provider you are already in contact with, and thus the entire process becomes really easy. Just when I thought it was the time to go home eFollowr decided that the night is not over. The hotel provided me with an in-app free entry coupon to a bar with excellent piano music; once again this was an establishment that was associayted with the hotel where I had put up. Needless to say, that I had an amazing time and got a good night’s sleep before heading back home next morning.
What I learnt from this trip and my use of the eFollowr app is that using the right technology can surely make a difference. If I did not use this app, I would have spent just another regular day. But with the help of eFollowr, I got to know about all the interesting things that my hotel had to offer that were quite unknown to me otherwise, and my stay turned out to be much more pleasant than expected. Another great thing is that the range of discounts and other freebies that the app has to offer can fit in with any kind of mood and personality. It is clear that more and more businesses will use this app to reach out to their customer base and provide them with unique offers that can increase the footfall.
And of course, you have the option of providing them your email id and other such personal info, so that the next time you are near a eFollowr service tie-up establishment, you will be notified about the benefits you can receive as an user. Once you stop following a certain provider, you will stop receiving the notifications about them. Less junk notifications is always a great aspect in my books!
So, eFollowr is an app I would definitely recommend everyone to use since it not only provides the best offers around you, but also provides you with the chance to explore new places of interest.
If you are visiting a new city, this app can be your best guide and it can also introduce you to great deals right where you live!