Tag Archives: online contest

BetterBNC Spring Platform Updates

We work hard to continuously improve the BetterBNC contest platform now being used by hundreds of organizations across North America. Now, we’re pleased to share details on two important updates.

Captcha: Thanks to user feedback, we’ve made two significant changes to the contestant entry form.

  1. The entry form has been redesigned and simplified.
  2. We have replaced the “Google Captcha” with a more widely known system which saves time by asking fewer and easier questions.

Why do we need Captcha? The “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” program helps ensure your contestant entries are legitimately made by a real person — computers cannot successfully read the distorted text, which greatly reduces the chances of a “hacker bot” gaining access to your contest.

PayPal Integration: For users of the Revenue Manager module — a software update from PayPal we deployed closes a rare occurrence related to timely reporting of payments to your PayPal Advanced account from certain bank cards. Note that some cards, such as American Express, may require additional setup within your PayPal Advanced account (contact PayPal for information).

Have a question? Just complete a trouble ticket and we’ll get back to you.

BetterBNC’s Outstanding Customer Support

At BetterBNC, our mission is to help all of our users enjoy a successful contest experience. A lot goes into that – intuitive design, great features, and robust capability.  But there’s one particular feature that turns out to be one of the strongest components of the BetterBNC®  contest platform – our tech support.

At BetterBNC, Tech Support is not an add-on; it is not an additional charge; and it is not available for just a couple of hours in the day. Our Tech Support team is available to help contest administrators, contestants and judges if and when they need it and all support for the year is included in the base price.

TroubleTicket_redThe team is eager to help contest users with their experience.  It’s easy to contact them – the platform user simply submits a Trouble Ticket which is automatically forwarded to Tech Support. Tech team members monitor user inquiries seven days a week, early until late. Additionally, questions submitted are reviewed by BetterBNC to determine whether platform changes are needed to address the issue for all users.

Contact us if you have any questions or would like to take a look at the platform and consider it for your contest.

The BetterBNC Difference for Your Contest

Thank you for helping make 2015 the most outstanding year yet at BetterBNC! We’ve welcomed more than a dozen new contests in recent months including 3 Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) chapters, 7 National Council for Marketing & PR (NCMPR) chapters, a new high school press association and the first National Association of Black Journalists chapter. Additionally, we are busy processing renewals for upcoming 2016 contests. It’s an exciting time at BetterBNC.

All of us at BetterBNC wish you a warm and wonderful holiday season. We appreciate your partnering with BetterBNC to create the very best journalism, creative and PR contest experience for everyone involved in your awards program.

The BetterBNC Difference
We’re often asked by organizations looking to move to BetterBNC, what the main difference is between BetterBNC and other contest platforms. Built and designed specifically for journalism, creative and PR awards programs, BetterBNC offers the most features and benefits important to the media trades.  Our comprehensive, on-demand contest administrator training and support program sets us apart from all others. Unlimited support for contest administrators, judges and contestants is included in your base price – there is never a limit on the support you receive with your contract and you never receive a bill at the end of the year for support.

>>Click here to read what our customers say.
>>Click here to read our December newsletter.

BetterBNC is completely independent of any trade association or political organization and has no external agenda.
We are committed to fairness, transparency and security,
and we work only for you.

The platform that can improve your awards program.

logo-300As we’re processing all of the renewals that are coming in and setting up the contests that have just signed on with BetterBNC, we find ourselves amazed at the growth in the platform over the past year alone.  At this time a year ago, we were excited to have expanded into more PR and broadcast contests and contest administrators were delighted to be using a new feature allowing them to create their own customized contest homepages.

Since then, we have welcomed dozens of new contests to BetterBNC and added new features like the Marketing Manager which allows contest administrators to email contestants and judges right from the dashboard.  It’s made it really easy to send out call for entries, reminders and thank yous.  We launched a BetterBNC website refresh which contest admins describe as clean, fresh, intuitive and easy to navigate and we are adding more creative contests such as advertising awards programs.

Some of the biggest fans of BetterBNC continue to be judges who say its far and away the easiest platform they’ve used to judge print and broadcast journalism, creative and public relations contests.  We appreciate all the feedback we receive from those using the platform and look forward to continued work with the best journalism, creative and PR awards programs out there.

Contact us anytime or email karen@smalltownpapers.com if you’d like to schedule a complimentary platform demo.