OutboundEngine vs. Shorthand

OutboundEngine does a referral campaign and I've been able to close a couple of deals based on getting in touch with people who engage with this campaign and state they could use my services in the next 6 months. This is a great follow up tool for those you may or may not know are going to be needing your services.

Incentivized

Shorthand is ideally suited to visual stories where you have a good number of images and/or embeds or video to include. It is well-suited to long-form stories, where you wish to keep the readers' attention longer than usual. It can help to differentiate particularly important or intriguing stories from others on your website - and for this reason, it could be used as a premium content tool, perhaps for subscribers. It can also be used to showcase stories about awards you've organised, giving them special treatment. It is less suited to breaking news, or very time-sensitive news stories, as it can take some time to prepare, post or update shorthand stories. And it doesn't work well for stories with strong accompanying imagery

Incentivized

• The content that they generate to send to our clients is relevant and the clients want to engage with us. It makes us appear more professional and consistent, even though we are a smaller company.
• It helps us stay in touch with clients and helps us stay top of mind. We are able to generate more new business leads if we are in consistent contact with current, former, and potential clients.
• Their customer service and support is outstanding. All my questions were answered and I went into the program feeling confident and knowledgeable.

• Enabling visual storytelling with multiple pictures
• Embedding rich media within a story, including video
• Engaging readers for longer than average dwell times
• Making it easy to create striking article design without coding experience

Incentivized

• Logging into Outbound Engine on my phone is difficult because I can't save the login name and password. Being able to save it would be very helpful.
• Posting my new listings on social media would help if that's possible.
• Being informed of what you're posting on social media and when would also be helpful.

Incentivized

• Additional flexibility in how text is overlaid on pictures would be welcome so that there are more choices on what images to use with particular layouts
• Enabling users to control the path of text - for example, enabling runaround - could enable some excellent designs
• Adding additional section templates could speed up design
• More flexibility in caption placement would be helpful

Incentivized

AS my business is beginning to change and with volatility in the market, I have to rely seriously on a budget. That and nearing retirement consideration has me more likely to opt out in the near future.

Incentivized

Overall, OutboundEngine is very user friendly. It is simple to set up and explore, and if there are any issues or questions, the customer service team and account managers are always available to help. They are very knowledgeable and were able to explain everything in detail to me. The program is easy to navigate and helps me stay organized, and an uncomplicated and straightforward solution was exactly what I was looking for

I don't recall having any issues needing to contact OutboundEngine. I believe maybe I once emailed about an issue and got a quick response. I also believe I may have messaged through the app and gotten a response. To my knowledge, there has been nothing like app errors or outages.

Incentivized

I have never known it to be down during my use of it. All you require is an internet connection to log in and you can use it on multiple devices. Adding ease of accessibility, there are simple ways to log in. I've also never known a Shorthand story to go down once live on our site.

Incentivized

Due to the integration with our content management software, there is a short delay on our site while it loads, which may cause some readers to drift away. However, I've seen other sites where it instantly loads articles, so I believe this to be down to the content management software behind our site more than Shorthand itself. Once that brief initial period is over, it doesn't require additional loading time.

Incentivized

The customer service was excellent! Everyone I spoke to was kind and knowledgeable. My account manager was easily reachable. Setup of the OutboundEngine program was explained really thoroughly, and we knew how we could best use the product to meet the needs of our clients and get our online and social media presence off the ground.

I selected it for the ability to have an automated system do 3 things all at once, social media posts, emails and the instant communication with the chat box. I have never seen a chat come through that lead to a helpful client touchpoint. I have never used another product but have since begun to weigh some of the less expensive options.

Incentivized

As a web-based service, it is easy for users to log into from anywhere. Content can easily be shared, as you can set up teams that enable access to each other's work as required. And content can be reviewed by others before publication using the sharing function. You can also view how an article will look on different devices.

Incentivized

• Outbound Engine keeps me top of mind by automatically sending articles to my database and posting to my facebook.
• I spend zero time researching and writing articles.
• I spend zero time taking great pictures.
• I spend zero time dealing with mailing lists.

Incentivized

• Helped us create one of our top 10 most-read and most-shared stories in the last year
• Enabled us to elevate key pieces of content, boosting dwell time on our site
• But can also be time-consuming to adopt for some stories, meaning you need to choose well what stories really deserve the investment in time
• Boosted collaboration between teams via its ability to share, including offering the chance for others to preview content prior to publication

Incentivized