Alternatives to Spectrio & Automotive Broadcasting Network (ABN) for Dealership TV

Looking for an alternative to your dealership TV system? Are your customers bored by it? Does it cost too much? Are you not getting what you want to out of it?

If you’re using a service like Spectrio, or Automotive Broadcasting Network (ABN), and it just isn’t working; this article is for you. Keep reading to see the reasons how your dealership’s custom TV software might be failing you, and your car business. If you’re fed up, not thrilled, or just simply disappointed with your current provider, we recommend that you start your search for a better dealership TV here.

Your Dealership TV System: What Went Wrong?

Custom TV networks for car dealerships have been around for years. While the technology has grown in the world, most of the car TV services have not. As a result, a number of the older “pioneer services” are being left in the dust by alternative providers delivering a lot more, for a lot less. Innovative ideas and technologies have transformed the dealership TV systems of 5-10 years ago into new, forward-thinking tools that are better at delivering your marketing messages, and better at entertaining your customers. If you’re browsing automotive TV solutions in today’s day and age, hone your selection by finding one that is feature-rich, and cost-effective.

A Feature-Rich Dealership TV System

If you are currently using a dealership TV system, chances are you probably liked the features that came with it, hence why you originally got it. If those features failed to live up to your expectations, or got dull over time, then you’re doing the right thing by going online and seeing what else is out there.

So what should you expect from your TV? The best TV for your dealership’s lobby is one that gets your messaging across, and provides entertaining content for customers who might be waiting for longer periods of time. It should be customizable. You should have control over more than just your own videos, but the content you’re paying for as well. More importantly; managing that paid content, as well as your own personal ads/videos should be easy, and able to be done on most smart devices. From anywhere. Lastly, your dealership TV system should integrate with your social media accounts.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are often the best ways to keep in touch with your customers, generate repeat business, and get referrals. If your brand is on one, or more of these platforms – get your TV integrated! Display those posts right on your TV for visitors who aren’t following you, and give them a reason to check out your pages. If you’re interested in this feature in particular, visit click here to learn more about the automotive TV software that does it best.

A Cost-Effective Dealership TV System

Dealerships are playing HUGE amounts of money each month for services that barely include half of the features listed above. A more in-depth article comparing the top 6 dealership TV systems worth checking out can be found at the link above. But if you are currently using Spectrio or Automotive Broadcasting Network (ABN) you are likely paying way too much.

The big takeaway is that car businesses are paying upwards of $500, to $1,000+/month for their TVs. What’s truly interesting, is what those dealerships are often getting in return for that cost. The answer: A playlist.

Looping playlists, in general, are bad news. Avoid any dealership TV service that mentions the word “playlist”. Avoid them like the plague, or a live-action movie remake. A playlist is simply a list of pre-loaded videos. And whether it’s 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour long, a playlist is not creating a quality waiting experience.

Neither are clips from top TV networks like NBC or CBS. Be wary of TV providers who claim to have content from those big networks. Most often, they’re just short promotional segments– a.k.a. commercials, designed to market the networks and have your customers go home and watch the full shows on their own time.

Dealership wait-time is a little longer than the average waiting room wait when looking across industries. That being said, you don’t want your customers watching a looping playlist of the same videos over and over again. It’s maddening, and creates a bad impression of your brand. Good, quality content goes a long way. Additionally, car videos showing outdated models that you no longer sell have no place being on your TV. When it comes to videos, up to date content is the best way to deliver programming to your dealership.

It’s Relevant TV: A Feature-Rich & Cost-Effective Dealership TV System

There’s only one automotive TV service that has every feature that was listed up above, and won’t burn a hole in your pocket; It’s Relevant TV. It’s Relevant has everything from the ability to upload and easily manage your own videos, access to one of the world’s largest library of licensed short-form content, and perhaps most importantly; real-time social media integration.

This is the automotive TV service you were waiting for. Partnering with brands across the spectrum, from Toyota, Ford and Subaru to Lexus and Mercedes-Benz, It’s Relevant is providing car businesses across the country with the best choice in dealership TV.

Top 5 Tips For Improving Your Hospital Waiting Room

Looking to spruce up your hospital waiting room? If you manage a hospital you probably want everything to look as nice as possible; that goes double for anywhere visitors are sitting for any length of time. This article will share the top 5 tips and tricks towards making your waiting room welcoming.

Tip #1: The Waiting Room TV

What waiting room feels complete without a TV for people to watch? TVs in waiting rooms is a tale as old as time, however simply having a TV is only half the battle. What you decide to put on it makes all the difference.

The waiting room TV options available to hospitals vary in terms of quality, and practicality. There’s the default standard cable/satellite service, which is a bad idea for all of the reasons listed in this article. But in short, cable is a missed opportunity, it allows competing hospitals to show up uninvited on the screen, and you can’t control what programming plays beyond choosing the channel.

Alternatively, there are patient education videos for medical offices. Yet they’re just as risky for the fact that most visitors find them boring, or in some cases; upsetting. However educational or informative they might be, the truth is that your patients most likely won’t see it that way.

Finally, there are custom TV networks, which are arguably the safest, and most cost-effective type of waiting room TV solution. It’s hard to beat a service that’s specifically designed to improve patient experience through fun and interesting videos. Utilizing a service that has videos that are fun, and interesting, is the trick though. For a head-start on where to begin looking, check out It’s Relevant TV.

Tip #2: Comfortable Furniture

Now, no one’s expecting a waiting room full of heated massage-chair recliners with built-in speakers. But some nice, well-maintained and intact chairs can go a long way when it comes to patient comfort. The bar for visitors’ expectations isn’t set very high in regards to what kind of seating they’re going to find in a hospital waiting room. Still – these are going to be chairs where either patients or relatives of patients might be expected to sit for a very long time. So it helps to invest in some furniture that won’t cause them to visit a chiropractor. Generating repeat business is important, however that’s not way to go about doing it.

Tip #3: Cleanliness!

Cleanliness. Hospitals are full of germs, sicknesses, and plenty of people anxious about catching them; so making sure that your hospital’s waiting rooms are spick-and-span is instrumental to your visitor’s comfort, and the overall state of the waiting room itself. Cleanliness is more than just vaccuming the floor, or mopping the slick surfaces with cleanser. Dust has a habit of gathering on surfaces such as lampshades, picture frames, or plastic plants that are easy to miss; but the perceptive, and scrutinizing visitors will notice the dust in these places in a heartbeat.

Next time you’re in your waiting room, run a finger over these places and see what, if anything, is being missed. If you don’t find any dust, treat your cleaning staff to something nice. Because you’ve got some folks working for you who are doing a good job!

Tip #4: Plants & Art

Plants, artwork, and other decorative accents turn a bland, or daunting waiting room into one that is aesthetically pleasing. A hospital waiting room doesn’t have to be on par with the Musée d’Orsay, but a piece of art here and there can make all the difference. It’s just a simple way to make the place your visitors will be waiting in feel more natural.

Artwork can be bought at any local gallery, thrift store, or flea market for reasonable prices. Likewise, you can find a number of plastic plants at just about any home improvement, or department store. But as with Tip #3 – don’t forget to dust them from time to time!

Tip #5: Music & Ambiance

Hospitals are a haven of sick people coughing, doctors being paged, and a host of other administration noises. These, and other typical hospital sounds, can be anxiety-inducing for some patients and a constant reminder of where they are. That’s why it’s important, or at least considerate, to invest in some kind of music, ambiance, or white-noise soution for your visitors’ comfort.

Whether it’s a radio speaker, a calming white noise generator, or even somthing as simple as a TV that’s not muted; a little sound can go a long way. If you do end up going the route of television- make sure it’s not too loud. Yelp is full of medical office reviews of patients complaining about noise levels being too high. Patients are tons more likely to post a bad experience online before they’d ever approach you, the hospital, about it.

Bonus Advice!

Play it safe with your TVs. The best thing any medical office can do for its waiting room is put something on the TV that will give the visitors something enjoyable to watch. Fun and interesting is the key. Visitors in waiting are always looking to kill time, so programming that helps pass the time is what you should be on the lookout for.

Look online for waiting room TV software for medical offices. There’s plenty of options to pick from. See what you can find, schedule some demos, and talk to some experts about how implementing a custom TV network for your hospital is a forward-thinking strategy.

3 Tips on Choosing The Best Dental Videos For Your Patients

Choosing the best dental videos to have playing in your waiting room depends on what you’re looking for. Are you looking for educational videos? Dental-specific content? Or just something visitors will enjoy watching?

Whichever it is, the following 3 tips for picking out the best TV programming for your patients should help you in your decision-making process. If you’re hot-to-trot, and you’d like to jump right into exploring your options, start your search with It’s Relevant TV.

Tip #1: Remember Who the TV is For

The TV in your waiting room isn’t for you, or your staff – it’s for your visitors. You, as a dentist, might find dental-related content interesting; the same, however, cannot always be said for your patients. Wait-time in a dentist’s office doesn’t tend to be very long– It’s actually amongst the shortest wait-periods in the healthcare industry. Even with a short wait, a 2-minute video of rotting teeth, bleeding gums, or a plaque-ridden mouth can make patients anxious, or paranoid about the state of their own teeth.

Even if the videos are meant to be educational, your viewers might not see it that way. But does that mean dental videos for patients are a bad idea? Not necessarily. The key to a successful waiting room TV for dentists is having a mix of dental-related content and traditional programming.

Tip #2: Avoid Looping Content!

The length of time that your patients are waiting may be short, but they’re not always by themselves. Parents of multiple kids might have 2-3 back-to-back appointments during the same visit to sit through. The last thing you want on the TV are the same 10 videos playing over-and-over. That can leave a bad impression on your messages, and your practice as a whole.

The best dental videos for your patients aren’t looping playlists, or medical displays anyway. Variety of content, and a large library of videos, are the two pillars of an effective dental TV solution.

Tip #3: Have Control Over Your TV

“Control. You must have control.” -Master Yoda

Having control over what’s playing is paramount to the success of your waiting room TV. The freedom to edit, upload, or remove videos and messaging from your TV is the level of customization you should expect from your waiting room TV software. But why is this feature important? Because not every custom TV network out there allows you to manage your TV’s content on your own or in a timely manner.

Some services leave you stuck with a short list of paid, preselected videos. Others, are chalk-full of ads that you can do nothing about, or contain messaging that you don’t want visitors to associate with your practice. And some make you wait weeks to implement any changes you need done.

Tips On The Best Patient Education Videos For Your Waiting Room TV

Patient education videos are a great way to inform any visitors in your waiting room about health-related topics. However, many hospitals, urgent care centers, and dentists, aren’t aware that these videos often make their patients feel uncomfortable. Are you currently playing patient education videos on your waiting room TV, or considering it? In this article we’ll explore why so many doctors, dentists, and medical specialists are so keen on showing patients educational or medical-related content; but most importantly, examine why that isn’t necessarily the best idea.

Patient Education Videos on the TV: Good or Bad?

Generally speaking, people aren’t really interested in watching medical-related content in waiting rooms. They’re not (usually) doctors, dentists, or a part of the medical industry themselves, therefore the chances of them having your level of appreciation for health-related videos is low. Regardless of how educational the videos are, patients tend to perceive them as boring, gross, or even depressing. Which is not how you want your visitors to feel.

“The TV in the waiting room was playing some gross health news infomercial.” -Yelp Review

As doctors and professionals concerned for the well-being of others, it’s only natural to want to educate patients wherever possible. However, you don’t want your good intentions accidentally making things worse. Additionally, you don’t want a video being the reason a patient had a bad experience, or left a bad review. Therefore, you should think carefully about what’s playing on your TV.

gross_tooth — Sitting in a waiting room shouldn’t feel like pulling teeth.
FREE DENTAL PICTURE BY AUTHORITY DENTAL UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS 2.0

Waiting rooms across the country are playing videos that make patients feel uneasy. Many of these medical offices are paying, or have paid, a lot of money to put this kind of content on their TVs. Whether it’s cross-sections of clogged arteries, rotten teeth being pulled, or eyes getting scraped with scalpels (I wish that was only a joke, but it’s happened), it simply isn’t the sort of thing people in waiting rooms want to see. That goes double if those videos are on a 10-minute looping medical display. Medical offices – you can do better. Fortunately, there are ways of getting around the gross, or graphic content.

Waiting Room TV: The Best of Both Worlds

Should you do away with all of your patient education videos? Not at all. There’s a happy medium between showing videos with educational, or important health messages, and fun, interesting content that your visitors will enjoy watching. Finding a good balance between the two is the key to crafting the best waiting experience for your patients. Patient comfort comes first.

The Best Waiting Room TV: Where To Begin Looking

It doesn’t matter if you’re a hospital, urgent care, dentist, or specialist of some kind; finding the best waiting room TV software for a medical office is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, except the hay are countless custom TV providers telling you that they have the best technology, cheapest devices or easiest to use system. So how does one narrow the list down? Follow these 3 simple steps, and you’ll find the custom TV software that’s perfect for your waiting room:

1.) Avoid Medical-Only Content: For every reason that’s been detailed above. Medical videos are best shown when played alongside traditional TV content that people enjoy watching– like food/cooking, entertainment, home/garden, sports or fashion. Medical content can be good when it’s educational, and not gross. However, who doesn’t like watching something fun over something medical?

2.) Don’t Fall for “Free” TV Services: Nothing is free. That “free” TV for your medical office is likely paid-for by pharma ads that have no business in your waiting room. For more information about why “free tv” is a bad idea, check out this article: “Top 5 Reasons a Free TV Service is Bad for your Waiting Room.”

3.) Feature Your Own Content: Find waiting room TV software that allows you to upload, and mix-in your own personal videos. Medical videos aren’t bad, they’re just best in small doses. They are especially effective when the videos are personally-branded, and the people on the TV are your own staff. Most importantly, your messaging is better-received when it’s played in between content that puts visitors in a good mood. That’s really all it takes.