Firstup named the top choice in employee communications two years in a row

At Firstup, we take pride in our role as the leading workforce communications platform. We’ve achieved that title in part because our FirstUp platform offers more capabilities and a better user experience than any other in the space. And it’s for that reason that we’ve held our latest recognition—we’re excited to announce that ClearBox Consulting has named Firstup their recommended Employee App Choice for North America. We were honored to receive this award in 2020 and again in 2021.

The review

To deliver this recommendation, ClearBox conducted an extensive review of the most well-known workforce communications solutions. It may be one of the most comprehensive reviews done to date (see their methodology in the next section). 

Here’s their snapshot summary of Firstup:

“Firstup is a robust communications platform that targets users with actionable content, and integrates with many services, including other platforms. It is ready-made to drive deep content engagement and will particularly appeal to Internal Comms teams.”

In their review, the consultancy gave us top marks in a number of categories:

ROI Leader 

Firstup ranked in the top quadrant for price-to-performance ratio, indicating that our platform delivers a high level of value compared to the investment made. 

Perfect Score – Company Communications

The FirstUp platform received a perfect score for company communications due in part to its dynamic targeting and campaign automation capabilities, which ClearBox indicated were unexpected in the employee communications space. Additional accolades were given to our rich feature set for content creation and our ability to meet the “diverse needs of firstline workers and office workers in a single package.” 

Top Score – Unified Analytics

ClearBox reviewers were impressed with the depth of the insights that Firstup provides into audiences, channels, content performance, comments, publishers and polls. Our Initiatives feature was considered particularly remarkable for enabling reporting on business initiatives and their outcomes. Campaign tracking and report sharing were also mentioned as key. 

Top Score – Publishing Experience

FirstUp Studio, our mission control for professional communicators and other business leaders, was highly rated for both corporate and team communications. Reviewers lauded the six levels of permissions and sophisticated targeting, which enable any regional location or business unit to run their own unique programs. ClearBox also mentioned that the platform “provides several options to reach distributed workforces.”

“A particular highlight of Firstup is its emphasis on cross-channel communications. Campaigns can be managed centrally and then pushed out to the app, web, email newsletters, SharePoint and digital signage, for example. Analytics reports, too, stand out for their clear presentation and dashboard views that show performance across all channels.” ~ Employee Apps Report ❘ CLEARBOX CONSULTING

The methodology

The experts at ClearBox completed a comprehensive review in order to arrive at these conclusions. The process included multiple steps: live demonstrations in each of 9 scenarios, testing by the consultants  themselves in a sandbox environment, scenario evaluation and scoring, and a vendor fact-check. ClearBox also requested feedback from each vendor’s current customers; this customer feedback was delivered directly to the consultancy, with vendors having no ability to review or impact it. 

17 leading names in workforce communications were selected for the full evaluation, with 5 other tools with fewer capabilities being given a more limited review. The report also includes guidance for organizations of all types and sizes, including “Top Choice” recommendations in 5 different categories

The roadmap for the future

While we’re thrilled with the review and recommendation we’ve received in the ClearBox Employee Apps Report, we’re not planning to rest on those accomplishments. As market leaders, we see it as our role to keep evolving workforce communications and the digital workplace. Multiple expansions are already planned for upcoming versions of our platform:

• Expanded campaign automation – Using our Smart Campaigns feature, communicators and business leaders will soon be able to apply specific “goals”  to their campaigns, allowing them to track and measure their impact with even greater accuracy.
• More precise targeting and personalization – A new point-in-time view will reveal which workforce segments did or did not engage with a campaign, enabling publishers to retarget content to those groups to better engage and mobilize them. 
• Improved digital employee experience – We will continue to meet employees where they are by making FirstUp Assistant accessible within more enterprise systems, and by integrating more of the apps and services workers use every day. As ClearBox put it, this will “significantly ease employees’ admin.”
• Deeper insights from data – Users of our FirstUp Analyze dashboard will gain employee sentiment analysis, more in-depth reporting on engagement and greater functionality for pulse polls. 

We’ll keep you updated as these features are tested and released, as it’s our goal to ensure that every customer is getting the most possible benefit from our platform. Until then, you can learn more about the Firstup evolution here, and visit ClearBox Consulting to download your own copy of the Employee Apps Report.