Supporting our Broadcast Clients in the “I Need it Yesterday” Breaking News Scenarios

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LiveU’s VP of Professional Services, Ari Epstein talks about the value LiveU brings to its customers in the form of white-glove service and support. 

Anyone in the broadcast news industry knows that when breaking news happens every second counts. No matter how much you prepare or how proactive you are, there is just no way to be ready for every possible scenario. At LiveU we understand that sense of urgency and have teams ready to go “yesterday” when our clients need support in a pinch. Our professional sales engineers provide 24/7 phone/email support and onsite support as needed. Our expansive network of LiveU-equipped freelancers throughout the world is also ready to go live. Many of our reseller partners around the globe not only sell our product but also provide live video services to assist our broadcaster customers. The LiveU support team – internal and external – are always prepared for last-minute customer needs and rise to the challenge

A common example of this “white glove service” happened just yesterday. I had left the office at the end of the day with a few coworkers – one of which was my technical manager from Latin America who was in the states for sales meetings – and received an urgent email from our customer, CBS News. The cause of a tourist’s death on vacation in Cancun may have been tainted alcohol and the news has been all over the developing story.

CBS was requesting a unit in Cancun for some morning live shots and scheduled an evening flight for a freelance videographer to go from Mexico City to Cancun to obtain them. The only problem: He didn’t have a LiveU unit to transmit the live shots. We jumped into action. It helped that I had Francisco in the car with me. He immediately called our awesome reseller in Mexico City – Magnum Digital and within an hour, they were rushing one of our units to meet the videographer at Mexico City Airport to make his flight to Cancun.

This morning, we tuned into the morning news and saw that everything went off flawlessly from Playa Del Carmen. We also received this note from Mel Olinsky, Executive Director at CBS News.

Big kudos to Ari and Dom for getting a unit for Cancun at the last minute and making it work this morning. Thanks!

Admittedly, some stars need to be aligned to make this happen in such a quick timeframe – but it happens often and this is the service we always try to provide. Our day-to-day customer support is also built on this model from advanced RMAs to reduced downtime to having our support engineers with broadcast credentials so we can be “on the ground” with our clients in the scrum. This is what LiveU is all about. And this is why our customers value our partnership.

About Ari Epstein

Ari has been with LiveU for nearly 10 years and was one of the first U.S. employees. He currently manages North and South American Sales Engineers and Support Teams, strategic account management, and development, and works closely with R&D, Local PSG/Engineering, and Product Development as an advisor.

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