In the past couple of months, Zype has added new Video CMS and Connectors features that can help video teams deliver an even better viewing experience with improved Roku UX and added player messaging flexibility. 

Keep Viewers Engaged With Improved Roku UX With Trick Mode 

Trick mode is a new user experience that provides visual feedback during playback operations such as seek, forward, and rewind, showing the timestamp and preview thumbnail of the video content while seeking along the player bar. Both time-based and scene-based trick mode are supported for Zype hosted content, as shown below: 

Trick mode allows the viewer to find or rewatch specific parts of videos with ease, making for a more convenient and enjoyable viewing experience. 

If you'd like to learn more about building Connected TV apps with Zype, you can read more here.

Customize In-Player Messaging to Align With Your Brand

We’ve enhanced our player messaging support with additional custom options, allowing you to update default player error messages. For example, these messages may appear if a playback attempt is made on an unauthorized device or on an unauthorized domain, or if a subscription is required to watch. 

Here you can see the default player messaging that appears when a video is accessed from an unauthorized domain:

Here you can see a custom player message is set:

These new customization options help ensure your player messages are in line with your product messaging and allows for better control over communication with your viewers. 

Zype provides many ways for teams to own their branding. Learn more about player and video embed customization here.

Improve Web Streaming Security with Domain Whitelisting

Protect your videos and increase security by enforcing domain-level protection on your web player embeds. Enabling the “web player referrer protection” feature allows you to whitelist the exact domains your embeds will be able to render on. Using domain-level protection, you can prevent your players from serving content when embedded on unauthorized websites. Read about how to better protect your content using web player referrer protection here.

Zype Introduces New Video CMS and Connector Updates to Help Teams Customize Their Viewer Experience and Improve Streaming Security

Zype has added new Video CMS and Connectors features that can help video teams deliver an even better viewing experience with improved Roku UX and added player messaging flexibility. 

 In this article, Michael Smith, the Director of Support for Zype, explores what he learned coming into Zype as a SaaS Support Engineer, without specific video infrastructure expertise. He digs into the key concepts he learned that allowed him to scale the support team at Zype and achieve 50+ NPS and 98%+ CSAT for the last 4 quarters. 

Beginning my professional career in 2014, I worked for a year as a call-center support specialist on a team of 30+ people, taking 40-50 phone calls a day while logging support tickets for each call. I then moved on to a different role at the company, starting a new team internally. The team was built to work with customers through BETA testing of new products, document successful strategies, then train the larger onboarding team on the onboarding processes we built. Having a couple of years of call-center style customer support and SaaS platform onboarding under my belt, I thought I knew it all.

I was hired at Zype in November of 2016, filling the need for someone who could work directly with customers to operate any function from support, onboarding, and even account management. When I got hired, I felt confident in my abilities to communicate effectively, document and log support tickets, and teach customers how to use a product. What I severely underestimated was the complexity of video technology, and the learning curve I was about to experience. In my 2+ years at Zype, I’ve learned a few key concepts about what it takes to learn an industry, a product, our customers, and what it takes to support video businesses.

Learn the industry lingo, and learn it fast

My previous support experience was at a booking SaaS platform, primarily geared towards salons and spas. I was able to talk to customers confidently about how to set up discounts for pedicures, set up appointment confirmation emails with your customer information auto-populated, and integrate your POS hardware. That should translate to video technology, right?

What I couldn’t do was talk about SVOD pricing plans, ad tag macro implementation, transcoding, or HLS manifests. I knew I needed to understand the technology I was going to be supporting, or I wouldn’t be successful. It’s crucial to be able to provide good support, and I was a video technology newbie.

I memorized the Zype glossary, in order to learn the language customers will be speaking to me. I spent time reading anything I could find on the internet about live streaming, monetization models, and the video industry as a whole. Zype’s customers are video experts, and I had to be also. I began learning the industry jargon, and it felt great to understand the language I’d be speaking every day.

Hang out with the engineers, become a product expert

Ask me to take a look at an MRSS feed today, and it’s like I’m looking at the back of my hand. If you asked me to look at an MRSS feed my third week at Zype, I wouldn’t have had a clue about where to start when the XML file populated a browser on my 13-inch MacBook screen. Well, guess what, I was asked to do just that. It’s my third week on the job, and I’m tasked with reviewing a new customer’s MRSS feed because they're having issues ingesting it to the platform. This may have been the first MRSS feed I’d seen in my life, and I was completely lost. I ask the VP of Engineering at the time for some help, he takes a glance and says “the word title is misspelled in the item blocks,” and walks away after looking at it for, let’s say 10 seconds, which is a high estimate.

This moment sticks with me to this day. I realized how much I had to learn and how knowledgeable the people around me were, and I knew I had to get there. I made it a point from this day forward to spend time in the Zype fishbowl, the office where our engineers used to have to play desk Tetris to fit them comfortably (don’t worry, it’s been since upgraded!). I would pair with engineers on bug investigations, demonstrating how to replicate them, while learning how that feature was built in our platform. While we were upgrading our transcoding systems I listened to the daily product and engineering conversations, “ What happens when a rendition fails? Do we want to consider auto-scaling to make the system more efficient? When should the video source become active?” In doing so, I gained a deep understanding of how the technology was going to work, our technology was going to work . I can’t stress enough how productive I became after learning the Zype APIs. I spent an enormous amount of time with our app developers, learning how the Zype app templates use the APIs, and learning what tools to use when using them. I made sure that I could troubleshoot and provide guidance on how to use the APIs on my own, without having to consult with a developer each time a simple question came in.

I found myself becoming extremely comfortable with the product, inside and out, and being able to talk about the Zype platform confidently (even MRSS feeds!). Absorb what the engineers know, be a sponge and use the information you learn from them to support customers.

Consumers need their content, and they need it now!

Supporting a video business is unlike supporting any other. Consumers need their content, and they need it now. Unlike other SaaS platforms, the urgency that comes with supporting a video infrastructure platform is unmatched.

The APIs are responding slowly? Now 300 consumers are very unhappy because they tried to watch their after-work cooking show and couldn’t load the website. The video player is constantly buffering? A group of subscribers just canceled because their first $9.99 paid experience was not what they expected. A platform misconfiguration is causing the Roku app to crash? 30 consumers just deleted the app, and may never download it again.

Understanding the urgency under which video businesses operate changed my mindset for the better. Every second matters to a video business, because every second that something doesn’t work perfectly is a poor experience for the consumer. Consumer experience drives video businesses, and you have to be ready to respond with urgency and get issues resolved as quickly as you can.

Being a support engineer for a video infrastructure is no easy task. Every day brings new challenges, and you have to be prepared to face any number of issues or questions that may come your way. If you are dedicated to becoming an industry and product expert, and you understand the impact you have on people’s everyday lives, you will be successful. It won’t happen overnight, and that’s okay! To this day, I still leave work every day and ask myself “What did you learn today?” In an ever-changing industry, there is an unlimited amount of information to be learned. I’m glad that I was able to learn what would make me successful, and I’m happy that I could pass this information along to you.

The 3 Secrets that Transformed me into a video infrastructure support leader with 50+ NPS

Make tracking your platform usage a breeze! Zype’s Usage Report has a fresh new look that is sure to make your life easier. Diving into the report will provide a more granular view of platform usage over a specified time period, and is exportable for simplified sharing and evaluation.

The usage dashboard is broken into three metrics: transcode hours, stream hours, and paywall transactions, and includes a date range to frame your search.

Transcode metrics encapsulate total hours for content that has been transcoded or encoded (for all you live streamers out there). Stream hours metrics show the total duration of video content delivered to your audience during the selected time period; this is viewable looking at hours streamed for Live + VOD content, or looking at hours streamed for Paywall + Non-paywall content. Lastly you’ll be able to see paywall transaction metrics, which include all purchase transactions and subscribers in a given time frame.

Viewing the Usage Report will help you better gauge your platform activity, which can in turn help you strategize for the optimal import cadence, live event support, monetization setup, and more.

For example, you can easily view your first quarter paywall transactions to see if you’re reaching your goals and determine if you want to make changes on your monetization approach. You can also view the present month’s transcode hours to help plan current imports more strategically or schedule live events more thoughtfully.

Bottom line: More visibility in your usage will help you operate more efficiently.

Anything come to mind we didn’t cover? We’re here for you! Just email anna @zype.com to get in touch.

What's New at Zype: Track Your Usage

Sometimes your viewers aren’t viewing - they’re listening instead. Zype has updated the monetization and web embed options to better serve your audience, no matter their preference for accessing your content.

We’ve added the option for a free audio-only stream on the monetization page; now, you can allow your consumers to listen for free before subscribing to watch. We’ve also enhanced the web embed to allow for an audio-only embed, and to allow switching between video and audio options.

Using these features will greatly benefit your listen-only consumers, who love to hear to your content even if they can’t watch every moment.

Read on for all the details on how to get the most out of these new features!

You may be interested in offering audio for free as a way of capturing interest in your paywalled videos. This feature allows you to offer a free audio stream while still preserving paywalls on your video renditions.

Offering audio-only content for free is an excellent way to introduce new consumers to your content and get them hooked. We’ve seen free audio-only streams especially successful with live events, where new consumers might prefer just to listen or might not be ready to purchase a subscription until they’ve tested the merchandise, so to speak.

It’s sort of like “if you give a mouse a cookie” - give your consumers free, partial access to your product, and watch them keep coming back for more.

We’re excited you want to start using the free audio stream option, and the great news is that this is already available in your Zype account. Simply visit the monetization tab in the video details page of your video and be sure to toggle Free Audio Stream ON .

For the times that’d you’d like to embed an audio-only version of your video, or if you only have an audio file to share, the Zype platform now makes it quick and easy. With audio-only streams, consumers will view the thumbnail image assigned to your video or audio file as they listen. Audio-only embeds can be particularly helpful in sharing podcasts or allowing early, web-only, listen-only access to a live event.

You can start embedding audio-only streams today by adjusting your embed code on the Embed & Publish tab of the video details page of your video. This adjustment requires a valid HLS audio rendition and is configurable with both paywalled and non-paywalled videos. Once you’ve confirmed your audio source, simply toggle Audio Only ON and copy your code!

Learn more on how to embed an audio-only stream >

 Switch between Video and Audio on a Monetized Embed 

For monetized content, you have the option to embed a video that can switch between video and audio-only. If the audio-only option is enabled, your consumers will view the thumbnail assigned to your video as they listen. This is excellent for providing subscribers or purchasers the chance to pick their preferred experience (viewing or listening), while still monetizing your content.

You can start using the “switch between video and audio” option on monetized embeds right away. Visit the Embed & Publish tab of the video details page of your video to adjust your embed code. This adjustment requires monetization, paywall turned ON , and a valid HLS audio rendition. Once you’ve confirmed your monetization and audio source, simply toggle Offering Switching Between Video and Audio ON and copy your code!

Learn more on how to configure this feature >

Question? Comment? Just want to chat? We’d love to hear from you!

What's New at Zype: Enhanced audio-only playback options

We’ve enhanced the consumers page in Zype to provide in-depth filtering options to better track and manage subscriptions, cancellations, and other data related to your consumer base. Using Zype’s consumer filters will help you quickly see more granular segments of your consumers at the click of a button.

 How can I best utilize Consumer Filters? 

For SVOD businesses, understanding consumer subscriptions and churn data is probably the number one most important aspect of your business aside from delivering the product itself. There are a number of ways you can use Zype’s consumer filters to your advantage, but we have a few popular ones listed below.

Filter by Subscription Status = Not Subscribed to find all consumers that have not yet converted into paying customers. Use this list to target messaging to these consumers to increase  conversion.

Filter by Subscription Sign Up Date to see a granular view of which new subscriptions you’ve gained last month, or last quarter. This is helpful in understanding your real-time or most recent market appeal, and again help target this segment in new marketing initiatives.

Filter by Subscription Canceled Date to identify which customers have canceled their subscriptions and when. Did you shift your product during that time? Were these “bad fit” customers? Narrowing down the details of your consumer list can help uncover the answers to these tough business questions.

After you've filtered your consumers to your desired view, you can easily copy a link to that filtered view and bookmark it for easier future access. You can also easily export a filtered view of consumers, which is helpful if you want to export all your canceled consumers and import them into an email marketing tool like MailChimp or Constant Contact to target for a win back campaign.

We’re excited you want to leverage consumer filters, and the great news is that they are already available in your Zype account. Simply visit the consumers page from the Make Money section of the platform and start filtering.

What's New at Zype: Track consumer subscription and cancellation data more easily

Zype’s Live Events APIs allow customers to build and launch awesome Live Broadcast experiences. The Live Events APIs provide access to every facet of live events management, from encoder management, creating and scheduling live events, to archiving completed live broadcasts, and more.

 What can I do with Zype's Live Events APIs? 

When creating a live event with Zype’s Live Events APIs, developers can easily configure granular elements of the live stream such as:

Event details - title, description, and event type

DVR window - duration that the DVR will be available for the event

Scheduled broadcast times - when the broadcast will start and stop

Paywall monetization settings - set whether the broadcast requires subscription, purchase, rental, or pass plans

Auto archive settings - enable auto archiving of the live event at the conclusion of a broadcast

You can also use Zype’s Live Events APIs to start, stop, or archive live events as discrete controls. This provides a control surface for custom applications where live events may not have set scheduled start and end times.

Zype also provides a Ruby gem to quickstart building your custom live broadcasting solution. Using our Ruby gem you’re able to more easily connect complex live broadcasting workflows to support your team's needs.

If you're an existing customer, head on over to our our help center to get an overview of Zype's Live Events API, see our Live Events API reference or check out our Ruby gem to start your integration today.

Interested in learning more about broadcasting great live events with Zype? Check out our Live Events API solutions page to talk with a team member!

Zype Launches Live Events APIs to Help Customers Build Amazing Live Experiences

Zype Wins Third Stevie Award for Customer Service and Support

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