Trade show exhibitors now have an AI-powered solution to help them solve the common challenge of forgetting or losing critical lead information collected at trade shows, conferences, and other sales events. Back in timea retroactive audio recording mobile application created specifically for exhibitor booths by the parent company Yacdeveloper of an asynchronous voicemail platform for remote teams.
Designed to transform the way exhibiting professionals capture and recall crucial business interactions, the new app helps users accurately summarize and extract action items from conversations held at their booth, after which AI-generated summaries and transcripts are automatically sent to their CRM. In addition Ensuring critical details are captured and reliably documented, Backtrack also allows users to take a photo of a business card, scan a QR code on LinkedIn, or enter an email address.
“Exhibitors spend over $10,000 to attend events, only to forget 90% of the conversations within a week,” “We hear from exhibitors all the time that traditional lead capture systems are useless because they don’t give the real context of what they talked about with their leads. What makes Backtrack magical is that it records in reverse like a car dash cam, giving exhibitors the ability to choose what they want to record, and not leaving them with huge 8-hour recordings,” said Hunter McKinley, co-founder and CEO of Backtrack.“
Pass: After failing to impress Silicon Valley investors and regretting not capturing and recording the experience, Yac founders –– McKinley and Jordan Walker –– began building the first version of Backtrack in 2018. However, the project was quickly shelved for the parent company’s flagship product, Yac, once it quickly raised over $10 million in venture capital funding from investors including GGV Capital and Slack. (now Salesforce). When the Yac team discovered that people were using Backtrack to remember conversations at trade show booths, they turned the app into an ROI tool for exhibitors in late 2023, Official app launch at CES 2024.
Backtrack’s main features include:
- Retroactive audio history snapshot: Backtrack records and saves 5 to 20 minutes of previous conversations on demand.
- Automatically deletes unimportant conversations: Running constantly in the background, the app will not record any retroactive conversations until prompted to do so for privacy reasons.
- Stored locally: Audio history is stored locally and securely on the device until a user decides to download or share it. Recordings are never streamed live over the internet.
- AI-powered transcripts/summaries: Provides near-instant summaries and transcriptions, eliminating the need for anyone to take notes.
- AI-powered digitization: Allows you to scan and analyze LinkedIn business cards and QR codes, no typing required.
- CRM Integration: Backtrack seamlessly uploads information to the exhibitor’s CRM, automating tracking processes and manual data entry.
The $21 billion events industry faces a significant gap that presents a significant opportunity to create a new category of technology: conversation capture, McKinley said.
“Traditional lead capture apps often fail to generate ROI, leading to inconsistent experiences and exhibitor dissatisfaction,” he continued. “Attendees often provide false information, struggle with the user experience, and bypass these apps by using LinkedIn or business cards. Backtrack helps (exhibitors) maximize ROI in ways that were never possible before with AI.”
Since Backtrack launched, thousands of sales teams from companies including Paramount, NBC and Amazon have signed up to use the app, according to Yac officials.
“Backtrack has transformed the way I manage my trade show interactions,” said Sarah Evans, Backtrack customer at Tech Innovators. “No more lost leads or forgotten details.”
The app is available for download on iOS and Mac platforms, with an Android edition coming soon.
Do you have event technology insights to share? Contact us at lisa.savas@informa.com and danica.tormohlen@informa.com.
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