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CoGoBuzz At-A-Glance

Overview:

Founded in 2002, NConnections is the leading provider of guest internet services providing guest WiFi, telecommunication services and customer engagement solutions to hotels, convention centers, office centers, fitness centers, restaurants, breweries and main streets across the country. The company focuses on the best way to provide each guest a quality internet experience through strong technical solutions through a variety of products.

CoGoBuzz™ powered by NConnections is a powerful mobile marketing solution that combines all the best features of WiFi, SMS, digital signage, social media and customer loyalty through CoGoWiFi™, CoGoText™ & CoGoTV™. The platform provides an innovative way to collect customer data for personalized messages and drive customer engagement to generate loyalty for independent and franchise concepts.

Website:
www.nconnections.com
www.cogo.buzz

Contact:
General Information: (866) 928-7834
Email: info@cogo.buzz


 

Stephen Gould, CEO and Founder

Stephen Gould is an entrepreneur with a successful history in providing guest-engagement software solutions for the hospitality industry, and the founder and CEO of NConnections. Upon graduation from University of Central Florida in 1984 with a bachelor’s in computer science, Gould worked for Harris Corporation 16 years. Steve led many research programs, authored development methodologies, and built and delivered software products around the world. Steve left government contracting in 1999 to join an internet security firm, e-Security. In late 2000, Steve broke away from e-Security to found System Integrity, a software toolset built to test application integrity and provide utilities for eliminating vulnerabilities in high profile commercial software. 

In 2003, Steve formed HotAir Network Group, later rebranded NConnections, to provide emerging WiFi technologies into the hospitality industry. While operating NConnections, Steve founded Panoptic Technology with the specific charter of bringing customized hardware to the hospitality industry. While operating Panoptic Technology, Steve received a US Patent for his work in utilizing existing telephone infrastructure to deliver dedicated, unshared, high-speed internet to each room enabling the Smart Room Network™.

In 2014, Steve returned to his software development roots and launched the CoGoBuzz and MyConcierge initiatives. Steve’s vision of a fully integrated set of everyday technologies, built using an Open Architecture, would enable his customers to build a highly customizable and personal engagement platform around the customer driven preferred communications tool. The overall purpose is to dramatically increase customer interaction with the  venue, provide for personal, direct communications to better understand the customer, and meet or exceed customer expectations and therefore increase brand loyalty. The vision extends beyond a single venue solution, to include an integrated global franchise solution, as well as an integrated geographical solution for Main Streets, malls, and disparate venue types serving an entire commercial community such as Key West.

With over five million customer connections to their networks and thousands more every day, Steve and his team understand the evolving challenges of providing great connectivity and value to any venue and recognize that communication to the end customer is key for future success in the connected world.
 

Lara Disch, Marketing Director

Lara Disch has been with NConnections as the Marketing Director since 2016. She is responsible for brand development and one of the key contributors to product development. She has always had a passion for Mobile Technology. Lara is a graduate of the University of Central Florida and holds a degree in Digital Media, Interactive Systems and Marketing.

Prior to joining NConnections, Lara co-founded, and successfully managed, a web-based, high tech company providing leading edge, commercial grade Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, marketing & business consulting services for six years. During this time, she started an online store, becoming the first online supplier for commercial and consumer NFC technology in the United States. Lara’s startup supplied Google with NFC tags for their Google Cardboard project and was featured on their official website for the project as the NFC Supplier. Lara helped shape the solutions and sales models for emerging agencies, with services including branding and programming for innovative marketing and mobile payment solutions.

She also co-built a work order and customer management platform. The challenge came from a roofing inspection company in Texas. They needed a platform to manage leads that came from both the website and sales agents, assign & schedule inspectors, and automatically generate PDF reports, required by the government, from the inspector’s submitted data. Realizing this would help drive other service industry businesses, such as home inspection, HVAC and plumbing companies, that were stuck in an outdated, paper driven world, Lara and her business partner instead built a customizable platform to handle different types of data and meet different government requirements, and automatically email completed reports to all appropriate parties.

Product Background

CoGoBuzz™ has everything a business owner needs, located in one simple box, which plugs directly into an existing internet connection – with no professional IT assistance needed. Once connected, CoGoBuzz™ instantly downloads the business’ settings from the highly secured cloud. On average, a business can be up and running in 60 seconds or less and once connected, clients have access to real-time customer service.

CoGoBuzz™ packages start at $99 per month and include the following options:

CoGoWiFi™– an easy “plug & play” HotSpot that allows businesses to provide instant, branded WiFi to their customers, and begin building extensive customer profiles. The information collected provides insightful and useful statistics as well as real-time analytics for managers and marketers. Extensive customized reports can be scheduled, automatically emailed and conveniently viewed and managed in the CoGoBuzz™ Dashboard, any time.

CoGoText™– a full-service text messaging program that provides personalized texts to customers, unlimited keywords, market segments and more. When integrated into the CoGoBuzz™ solution, the CoGoWiFi™ automatically adds customers to SMS remarketing lists and begins fully automated engagements and delivers social media loyalty offerings. customers can select the type of messages they receive, such as events and coupons, and a business can tailor those messages on a real-time basis. This feature can also be viewed and managed in the CoGoBuzz™ Dashboard or provided as an additional marketing service.

CoGoTV™– a service that helps drive customer engagement using digital menu boards, interactive digital signage and social media engagement. This platform gives a business the ability to display customer photos as they post using a company’s unique hashtag, creating a sense of excitement, loyalty and enhanced on-site customer engagement.

 

Pitch Angles

Mobile Marketing: Mobile Marketing Platform Designed to Impact Customer Loyalty
Since its debut, CoGoBuzz™ has established an integrated marketing platform designed to drive customer engagement and provide loyalty solutions for independent restaurants, cafes, bars and franchise concepts. The company is changing the way these establishments communicate through WiFi, text and digital displays to develop a deeper connection with their customers. The platform has proven to dramatically increase social media engagement rates while also providing a path for customers to more easily express their brand loyalty.

Future of Customer Engagement: Know When Your Customer Want to Hear from You
CoGoBuzz™ is a groundbreaking mobile marketing platform that allows businesses to develop stronger relationships with their customers. Upon the initial connection to a venue’s WiFi, each customer will automatically enroll, building a unique profile that automatically grows with every visit. The solution automatically captures publicly shared social information as well as customer provided specifics, like age and gender. The solution allows for customer customization as well as individualized insight on how they would like to receive communications. Furthermore, the platform also tracks when these customers visit different venues, such as franchises, to help businesses elevate their engagement response.

Improve Brand Loyalty: Capture Unique Data on Your Customers to Drive Brand Loyalty
CoGoBuzz™ helps businesses improve marketing and sales goals by collecting unique data provided by each customer to determine what types of offers will likely increase their brand loyalty. By using the CoGoBuzz™ Dashboard, businesses in various industries have the option to use this captured data to create a campaign dedicated to improving brand loyalty.

Data Collection: Understand Your Customers to Increase Your Businesses’ Sales
Once CoGoBuzz™ has collected data on each of the businesses’ customers, that business now has the power to transform this information into sales. By understanding when customers visit, CoGoBuzz™ creates the opportunity to perform specific tasks upon customers’ arrival and departure. Businesses also can provide customers with specific incentives that increase revenue and drive overall sales during their visit.

Device Privacy: Allow Customers to Choose How They Connect
CoGoBuzz™ understands that privacy is important to all guests. When logging into the WiFi account of each business, customers have the option of providing an email, phone number, or they can connect to a Facebook account to authenticate access.

Client References

“In the world of technology and who has the latest and greatest, we were challenged to find a platform that fit us. When we came across CoGoBuzz™, it checked all the boxes. Allowed us to gather information without having to spend time putting in the data ourselves. CoGoTV gives us the ability to show our beer selection or what specials or promotions we may have going on. And finally, it was so simple to install and get up and running. They sent us the equipment with clear, plug and play instructions on what needed to be done and once we had purchased and hung up the TV that is the video board, we were up and running 15 minutes later.”

– Dan Davis, Central Florida Regional Manager of Votey Enterprises,
Three Mellow Mushroom franchise locations


“Our Facebook likes and check-in rates have gone crazy! Our customers love it, they’re enjoying their coffee and want to let their friends know – and CoGoBuzz™ makes it so easy.”

“We operated for three years and had 600 Facebook followers, and not for lack of trying, we post our menus, updates, and told all our customers to follow us on Facebook with minimal success. Then we got CoGoBuzz™ and three months later we had 1,800 followers. Within three months CoGoBuzz increased our followers 300% over what we had been able to achieve in 36 months. The best part, these aren’t paid followers that have minimal value, instead these are our organic customers, that have real value, who enjoy sharing and posting pictures for all their friends to see. CoGoBuzz™ put us on the map!”

– Mike Anaya , Owner of Anaya Coffee


“This is amazing, within weeks of installing CoGoBuzz™ our social media activity started growing. I knew that social media was important, but it was something my staff did on the side. By installing CoGoBuzz™, our regular customers, who had been coming in for years, suddenly started following us because CoGoBuzz™ made it easy. Almost instantly the numbers went through the roof. What was even more amazing, just like the team at CoGoBuzz™ told me, those numbers led to one positive impact after another, more positive reviews, more customer posts and mentions, likes and shares on Facebook and Instagram, and much more participation in our posted events. With the flexibility of CoGoBuzz™, my staff still manages our social media, but the impact of their work is one hundred times what it used to be.”

– Steve McGann, Owner of Charlie & Jake’s Brewery