OUR Boosts Effectiveness of Business Development Organizations
Ourco Inc. created the OUR platform to ensure that business development organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce, have a pulse on the businesses and people they represent. OUR provides an online network that supports thriving commercial centers and businesses—key factors to building a healthy community, no matter its shape and size.
Organizations using OUR create digital “communities” and are led by moderators who generate informational posts and polls that are embedded into one continuous content feed allowing users to get informed, vote and see what others think in real time. A poll question or article link can be posted to an entire community or targeted to a specific group, e.g., business owners, customers/clients or municipal leaders, to gather a 360° perspective of sentiment for collective decision making.
OUR creates an immersive user journey through data visualization, animations, and AI. As users interact with content on the platform, the system keeps track of responses and gives insights into voting patterns and how answers compare with others. Users are anonymous, though they have the option to reveal their identity, and can change their votes should their opinion evolve.
Moderators, who host the OUR community, can easily identify trends in responses. Filters allow for granular reporting of demographics, such as race, age, and gender identity. Putting polls and surveys in one place enables business organizations to understand sentiment in the community, while insights from the platform are easily shared among users.
The digital age has wreaked havoc on businesses large and small, as customers moved to online shopping and social media, where it is not uncommon for a local business to get unwarranted hostile reviews on Yelp for small inconveniences. Social media giants are geared toward advertising and data mining. OUR is devoid of spam, pop-ups and user information is always protected. The platform is designed to engage with audiences by providing a fact-based, rational forum for outlining business strategies. OUR can blend in-person and digital interactions through use at business gatherings or on mobile devices to connect businessowners and their customers in a more human way.
Local business leaders intimately know the communities they serve, while municipal leaders rely on its businesses for critical tax revenue to support city services. The OUR platform is the intersection where business, city staff and customers meet to generate new approaches to tackling challenges and creating innovative ways to spur economic vitality.
