Everybody Helps

Coming Soon: CrossLoop Professional Edition

Many of you have seen it already on our software if you recently used it but here is some information for others.

The genesis of the company has been its free screen sharing software - we launched with it in November 2006 and suffice to say, it has been loved by millions. We wrapped up 2008 with some stunning growth for it and started this year with an exciting award for that software by LAPTOP Magazine.

At this time, I am excited to inform you that we are tracking at an astounding 100% growth for the number of sessions - the software's robustness has stood up strong against this traction and we want to continue growing that by incorporating feedback from all our millions of users.

So if you are interested in a premium version of the software, the CrossLoop Professional Edition that will enable individual entrepreneurs and small businesses to brand their service and more, you should sign up here now. [Hint: Early birds will benefit]

Good Afternoon and Good Luck

The Use Case for CrossLoop Tech Experts ... In Pictures

I will let Scott Adams, who always does an amazing job of catching the pulse of our behavior, say it all with the Dilbert strip below:

  Good Afternoon and Good Luck!

CrossLoop Editor's Pick for Windows 7

Its pretty exciting for us to get this honor so quickly - it speaks for itself!!

Editor's pick on Windows 7 Download

The details are available on the Windows 7 Download site here

And if you are trying to figure out whether you should upgrade to Windows 7 or not, our CrossLoop experts can help you with an assessment here

Good Afternoon and Good Luck!

CrossLoop in The New York Times

Juuuust in case you missed all my tweets about this very exciting coverage of CrossLoop in The New York Times (which has a circulation of just a little over 1,000,000 of their print edition and about 14M uniques/month online) last Saturday in print, here it is:

Repair Options for Ailing Electronics by Alina Tugend

and the same story got syndicated in the San Jose Mercury News locally here in Silicon Valley

Recently we were covered by Forbes and Inc. and all these media stories on CrossLoop by national publications, continue to strengthen the CrossLoop vision and inspire us every day - thanks again to all our users who have made all this possible!

Good Afternoon and Good Luck!!

CrossLoop Recognized By Inc. and Forbes

If you have not seen these yet, you want to - two recent articles that covered us and the one from Forbes is an in-depth story.

You, our users made this happen because at the end of the day, it all starts and ends with your excitement and success using CrossLoop.

 

"BEST FOR REMOTE TECH SUPPORT:

CROSSLOOP

CrossLoop is an easy-to-use desktop sharing tool that allows your company's IT experts to diagnose and fix computer problems even if they are thousands of miles away. Don't have an IT department? Use CrossLoop's marketplace to find prescreened, independent IT professionals who set their own fees and are rated by other people who have hired them."    

The detailed article, by Mark Spoonauer, the Editor of LAPTOP magazine, is here Great No-Cost Software

 

The entire article is on CrossLoop - click on 'Freemium' PC TroubleShooting

Here is some more of our media coverage if you are interested

Good Afternoon and Good Luck!   

 

An Open Letter to CrossLoop from Sherrie Reits

"Dear CrossLoop,

I wanted to take the time to thank you for being there for me to help a customer today. I've used the service in the past for family/friend matters, but this is the first time I used the service for business reasons and I felt it necessary to provide you with a detailed testimonial.
 
Part of my job entails acting as a customer service representative to assist online traffic school customers with technical support. Today I was assisting a hearing impaired customer, who was having browser looping issues in our course. I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was, so I sent him an email with step by step instructions on how to change his browser settings.
 
The customer's secretary called to inform me that he had made the suggested changes, but was still experiencing the same problem. She was speaking to me via telephone and texting my questions to him via cell phone and vice versa. I felt bad that she had to play the middle man and asked if the customer had a username with Yahoo or Hotmail, so we could communicate more directly via IM, but he did not. We continued this third party communication with no real results until I remembered CrossLoop.
 
The customer agreed to download CrossLoop and allowed me to access his computer. I went straight to the browser settings, located the setting which was causing the looping issue and had him taken care of in a matter of about three seconds! I then pulled up MS Word on his screen for him and typed what I wanted to say to him. I explained the next steps and he was off and running and hasn't had another problem since!
 
I was so relieved to be able to get the problem fixed for the customer so he could complete the school by his deadline. I actually said to my co-workers "Thank God for CrossLoop".
 
CrossLoop is a valuable tool for businesses and customers as well. I'm glad I thought to use your service today. Thanks for being there and making the service so easy to use!
 
Sincerely,
 
Sherrie Reits
Executive Assistant
 
Ticketschool.com
http://www.drivertrainingassociates.com
http://www.ticketschool.com
http://www.driverlicenseschool.com
http://www.floridasfirsttrafficschool.com
http://www.easyadi.com
http://www.texasdrivesafe.com
http://www.virginiaticketschool.com
And more!"

and a letter from CrossLoop to Sherie:

Dear Sherie -

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Its stories like these that make every moment of our effort wonderful and inspirational. We strive hard to make a difference in the world we live in every little way possible and to get that feedback is very very exciting.

Thank you for thinking of us.

We love you Sherie!!

Sincerely

Mrinal
Co-Founder and on behalf of your CrossLoop team
CrossLoop.com

Celebrating SysAdmin Day with Jim and 95 Year Old Grandma Billie

We are all about the people who fix and support computers for people all over the world due to the ubiquity and the growing complexity of technology in our every day lives.

So today on Sysadmin Day, as we wish all the people who help their friends and family, the employees at their companies, their customers like our expert Helpers and tolerate us with all the issues we raise, I would like to bring this excellent video case study of a family with:

- 95 year old very active internet users: Grandma Billie and Uncle Ferd and their
- Family sysadmins, Jim Billie (Grandma Billie's son) and Andy (uncle Ferd's grand son)

All of them are very active CrossLoop users who love us and Yes - we love them!

There is so much to get excited about here - some for me are:
- CrossLoop is literally grandma friendly
- CrossLoop is making a big difference in this family's life
- The internet is changing how we all live, communicate and build stronger relationships together independent of geography and its just the tip of the iceberg

 

Good Afternoon, Good Luck and Have a great weekend!

Have you seen this Product Marketing Intern?

Hard to believe but Dmitry, who worked with me for almost 2 years now, and many of you have probably exchanged some emails with, is moving on. He did such a great job that I alone can not achieve it so here is who we are looking for as his replacement.

If you know someone who fits the following characteristics, I would appreciate an introduction. I can be reached at mrinal at crossloop dot com

Job Title: Product Marketing Intern

Description:
Do you like people?
Do you like connecting with them - online (Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn etc.) and offline?
Do you read and write lots of blogs and tech news articles?
Do you have good writing skills?
Are you constantly unlearning and learning to be up front in the tech world?
Do you question conventional wisdom?
Do you get excited about gadgets and web services and share your experiences with others? 
Are you excited about helping a startup in Silicon Valley expand its user base? and finally
Do you believe in having a FUNomenal pursuit?

If you kept saying: “yes, yes, yes” to the questions above (without any exception) – working along with me at Crossloop IS your true calling! We are looking for a product marketing intern who is excited about EACH and EVERY user of the company's products and can help us build deep relationships with them. 

Quick Overview of CrossLoop
 
Crossloop is a venture funded startup in Silicon Valley that provides:

1) a free, award winning, desktop software that people can use to train each other, collaborate and provide computer support
2) a Network of over 15k+ technical experts that can help with computer problems or train customers on anything remotely from products like Photoshop to social media

Our software has received awards from LAPTOP Magazine for 2008 Innovation, Top 5 Downloads from CNET for 2007.

Our service has been reviewed by many credible national outlets like Forbes, BusinessWeek, PC Advisor, Computer World, The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, AARP, and many others. Details and reviews of our media coverage is here and here. You can learn more about us and even try it at www.crossloop.com

I love interns - they know no limit, they have a lot of positive energy and carry no baggage!

Good Afternoon and Good Luck.

Crossloop for Teaching the Disabled

Needless to say, we celebrate all our users, their various use cases, their comments and feedback since the day we opened our doors. But then every once in a while we come across stories that get us extremely excited and inspired of the difference we are making in a little way and so here is Debbie, from UCanDoIt.

"UCanDoIT teaches disabled people computer and internet skills. We aim to combat social exclusion, promote independent living, enhance social, educational and employment opportunities and to increase pleasure and quality of life."

So without further adieu, here is Debbie:

Good Morning and Good Luck!

The Anatomy of Referrals - You Media

One fundamental thing that drove the vision of CrossLoop for me was real people, real relationships - I fundamentally believe that a business process of speaking to a 'Mrinal' using 'Tom' as an identity is completely broken. In fact, fake identities can lead to law suits like that by Tony La Russa of the Cardinals against Twitter recently.

And that is the fundamental thing we provide to all - a platform to enable people to fix computer problems but most importantly, an opportunity for customers to know the real 'Mrinal' helping them. Our expert Helpers mostly use their own picture, their real name and have an individual link to their profile that one can go back to. This enables the customers to make an informed decision to go back again and again to 'Mrinal' and refer him/her to their friends and family through word-of-mouth assuming the service provided is excellent.

When did you last go to a attorney or an accountant who used an alias while doing business with you? When did you last go to another lawyer or attorney, with another alias, at the same firm for follow-up questions or sign them up for another year?

So you can imagine my excitement when I found this eMarketer report today that states the top overall customer priority named was service excellence, followed by building a trusting relationship.

But as rightly pointed out, trust is not as an easy thing to build - it takes time and commitment personally and professionally. I have personally written about this on my personal blog way back but Its a bit like having a cat versus a dog - the former lives well with asynchronous food and water left behind whereas the dog needs you to take them out on walks, runs and some tlc.

 
So when you build that trust and customers love you... yes, love you .... they tell their friends and family - each one of us consequently becomes a media for transportation of that event - I call that 'You Media' (a pun intended on new media)

The study goes on to speak more to what purchases are effected by word-of-mouth but I can assure you that the best brands, and our expert Helpers on CrossLoop are one, are built through it.

So go ahead - Be 'connect-able'....

Good Afternoon and Good Luck!