Introducing Strum: the First Customer-to-Business Customer Experience Platform

Strum connects customers directly with their favourite places, so customers can enjoy more personalization, more influence and more rewards at their favourite local businesses 

TORONTO, May 28, 2013 /CNW/ - Launching today, Strum is a platform that connects customers directly with local business owners. Strum's patent-pending architecture makes it super-easy for customers to locate and send messages to their favourite businesses, tag specific employees for great service and send private or public messages to business owners directly. Strum enables customers to earn Strum Points for their activity and use those points to bid on great local goods and services in the Strum Auction. Employees noted for Great Service earn Strum Points too. For businesses, Strum offers a robust, cloud-based tool to engage with the customers that love them, recognize their 'rock-star' employees, and give their regular customers more attention and rewards.

Click to Tweet: Introducing Strum: the first Customer-to-Business Customer Experience Platform @strumapp  

Click to Tweet: Check out Strum's Launch Video by Adam Lisagor http://bit.ly/115rySt @lonelysandwich @strumapp #startup  

"We all have one or two local businesses where we know the owner, where we know a couple of the staff by name, and we enjoy going there more because of it. Strum wants to give you a little more of that at all of your favourite places," said Andrew Smith, Strum Founder & CEO. "The customer-to-business relationship is dramatically different than the friend-to-friend relationship and with Strum, we are providing customers a way to feel more welcome, more important and more appreciated at the places they like best."

How Strum works

• Strum is "location aware" meaning Strum can quickly locate you in your favourite places. This makes it fast and easy to send a message to (or "Strum") the business owner directly. 
  
  
• By tapping into the employee selection list and pressing a "quick applause" button, customers can "Strum" an employee for great service - and get to know the faces behind their favourite places.
  
  
• Strum lets the customer decide the privacy setting on each message - allowing customers to send some quick, discreet feedback to the places they really enjoy and interact 1:1 with the business.
  
  
• By choosing to favourite up to 20 local businesses, customers can now show they care -- and businesses can now respond with some extra special attention.
  
  
• Each time a customer messages ("Strums") a local business, they receive Strum Points that can be used to bid on great local goods and services in the Strum Auction. Employees that are "Strummed" for great service also receive Strum Points.

"The Churchmouse & Firkin and our customers and staff have been beta testing with Strum over the last two months, and during that time one thing has become clear: We're all having more fun at the Churchmouse," said Andrew Dunn, General Manager of The Churchmouse & Firkin. "Customers have gotten to know our team better, our team has gotten to know our customers better, and both our customers and our team tell me they feel more appreciated at the Churchmouse."

Strum connects customers with the businesses they care about - at the store-level - so they can feel more welcome, more important and more appreciated. Today, Strum is bringing this experience to the game-changing Sport Chek retail lab - located on Yonge Street in Toronto.

"The Sport Chek Retail Lab is designed to provide customers with next-in-class digital innovation for an unparalleled shopping experience", said Duncan Fulton, CMO of FGL Sports. "The Lab acts as a test and learn environment, allowing us to utilize a number of revolutionary programs. Strum is an ideal application to incorporate at the Lab due to the core focus on connecting with our customer on a much more personalized level."

Strum is a free application currently available in the Canadian iTunes App Store, supporting Apple iOS 5+. Strum will be available on the Android platform in the coming weeks.

Related Links:

Visit Strum at: www.strumapp.com

Strum launch video: http://vimeo.com/strumapp/review/66654024/d3867de4d5startup-videos.com

Strum in the iTunes App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/strum/id606092380?mt=8

Andrew Smith bio: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-smith/35/570/943

@StrumApp
#Strum

Image with caption: "Strum connects customers with the businesses they care about - at the store-level - so they can feel more welcome, more important and more appreciated. (CNW Group/Strum)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20130528_C2637_PHOTO_EN_27168.jpg

Image with caption: "Strum makes it super-easy for customers to locate and send messages to their favourite businesses, tag specific employees for great service and send private or public messages to business owners directly. (CNW Group/Strum)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20130528_C2637_PHOTO_EN_27169.jpg

Image with caption: "Strum enables customers to earn Strum Points for their activity and use those points to bid on great local goods and services in the Strum Auction. (CNW Group/Strum)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20130528_C2637_PHOTO_EN_27163.jpg

SOURCE: Strum

Laurie Smith
Maverick PR
416.640.5525 ext 244
[email protected]

Julie Federman, Marketing & Communications
Strum Inc.
647-828-3564
[email protected]