SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., April 05, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Auburn, Virginia, Michigan State and Texas Tech all fought their way into the semi-final of the “Big Dance,” which starts tomorrow afternoon. The tournament’s Elite Eight wrapped up last weekend, and two of the Final Four teams, including Texas Tech and Auburn University, will be battling for the first time in school history and hoping to declare victory since the tournament was originally established in 1939. Fast-forward nearly eighty years and the era of technology - specifically mobile technology - has made an unyielding impact across every market, and that includes the sports segment. However, it’s no mistake that today almost one-third of all NCAA tournament teams are now using the same emerging technology behind the scenes.
A broad-based business platform called ReplyBuy designed for mobile engagement, customer communications and instant purchases does it all with a quick text message catering to a next generation of consumers. The company aims to disrupt the status quo of simply emailing, cold calling customers and hoping for the best by trying to engage via social media or paid placements online. With a rapidly growing presence across various market segments, ReplyBuy now has a dominant presence within professional sports and collegiate athletics.
“Our partnership has been incredible and ReplyBuy’s platform is unlike anything else from a technology standpoint,” said Brent Fletcher, Associate Athletics Director at Texas Tech University. “Being able to cut through the noise, quickly engage thousands of customers on a personalized level and enabling them to instantly purchase and complete sales transactions with a quick text message is amazing. It’s completely frictionless and a big win for everyone.”
Each of these progressive major athletics programs have been longstanding partners of ReplyBuy and are continually pushing to deliver a world-class experience to engage and communicate with their most valued customers. As an early adopter, Auburn has been using ReplyBuy since mid-2016 to engage fans, and Virginia, Michigan State and Texas Tech quickly followed suit in late 2017.
“We are absolutely thrilled that this year’s Final Four are completely represented by four of our partners, and that 16 of our other tremendous NCAA clients made the tournament this year,” said Joshua Manley, ReplyBuy Founder & CEO. “Each of these partners has had an incredible season and it’s an honor to see ReplyBuy embraced as a part of their overall strategy. As an organization, we’d like to wish each of our Final Four partners the best of luck this weekend.”
The University of Virginia is also now leading the charge as one of many ReplyBuy customers to quickly embrace a robust new peer-to-peer messaging capability. Released earlier this year, the company’s new addition empowers individual team members from service, sales and marketing departments to send and receive personalized text messages right from their computer using an existing business phone number.
“ReplyBuy has been a really valuable asset to our team,” said Corbin Hunt, Associate Athletics Director, Ticket Sales and Operations at the University of Virginia. “The inherent simplicity of the platform allows our fans to easily engage and purchase on the channel that they use the most. This unique approach has been paramount.”
Virginia, and other customers across a wide variety of industries, can now easily manage a large number of customized, individual text conversations in a scalable and efficient manner. They can also track the results from a single dashboard along with other critical business metrics. ReplyBuy’s new business peer-to-peer messaging also integrates directly with commonly used CRM solutions like Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics and others.
“Customers are already reaching audience engagement rates as high as 60 percent, which far surpasses the traditional use of cold calls and emails. We’re constantly adding new platform capabilities that create value to delight our customers. It’s core to our DNA and who we are as a company. We’ve been thrilled with the response,” Manley said.
On the road to the Final Four, ReplyBuy had customers represented in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, including LSU, Florida State, Michigan and Kentucky.
“The kind of innovation ReplyBuy delivers, along with their partnership and dedication, is precisely why we had an official Kentucky team jersey made for them. Their results are unmatched and we feel their solution is destined to succeed not only within professional and college athletics but all other industries as well based on what we’ve seen. We knew early on we wanted to be part of that success in blazing new trails as one of their first customers to engage with Big Blue Nation in new and innovative ways,” said Taylor Stapleton, Associate Director of Ticketing Strategy & Analytics.
Virginia and Auburn will tip-off at 6:09 ET on Saturday, and Michigan State and Texas Tech will be following at 8:49 ET. The Championship game will be played on Monday, April 8 at U.S. Bank Stadium.
About ReplyBuy
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, ReplyBuy is the #1 solution for engagement, one-to-one messaging, sales, retention & integrated payments. ReplyBuy enables customers to more effectively engage, communicate and transact with their audience by delivering personalized messages to drive action. Support, sales and marketing representatives can efficiently manage conversations at scale to increase performance, results and retention to exceed company goals faster. The company has been rapidly embraced across multiple industry segments, which include the sports segment, having 100+ customers across the NBA, NHL, MLS and NFL, as well as working with major universities.
For more information, visit www.replybuy.com. Twitter: @ReplyBuy
Media Contact:
Ashley Jones
ashley.jones@replybuy.com
Direct: 480.320.3813