2020 was really a very special year. It feels like it has happened as much as it has in three years, there were some lows but also a lot of highs. So today we’re getting a little nostalgic and looking back at everything that happened trbo-wise this year.
But first of all, we would like to say thank you – to all our customers and partners who have accompanied us through 2020 – and will continue to do so in 2021!
New employees and cancelled plans
We had a great start in 2020: We had the pleasure of announcing four new hires in January. After that, we were overcome by travel fever, which, however, was nipped in the bud relatively quickly. Because we actually had 2020 pretty packed with events. The kick-off was supposed to be in March – at the ITB Berlin, where we were going to have a booth for the first time. But then Corona came and threw everything upside down. We were hopeful for a long time. The ITB – cancelled, our travel plans and especially our presentation – canceled. No problem for trbo, though, because we made a webinar out of necessity and thus very successfully launched a new event format for us, which we were happy to continue using again and again this year.
Then Covid-19 came along
The first lockdown started in March and we switched to home office. trbo suddenly became a fast Corona communication tool in addition to the onsite personalization platform. Ordering options were adapted, the option for store delivery hidden, delivery notes faded in. Customers place references about opening and closing hours via trbo, even regionally adjusted via geotargeting. But there are also messages of encouragement or even coupons played out to the users.
Defying the crisis, that became our motto. We hired Anna, our fifth employee in 2020, the first to be trained completely remotely, followed by Katja. At Easter, we brought a smile on the faces of our customers with gamification implementations. This paid off – sales and conversion rates even doubled compared to the Easter weekend 2019. As the Corona situation in Germany slowly eased again, further scheduled events were canceled – unfortunately, we had to live without the onsite version of the Heroes of CRM, the Online Career Day and the K5 (hopefully only for the year 2020). Instead, there were some exciting webinars we held together with our great partners. The events also gained new digital momentum. In the second half of the year, the digital events really took off. For example, both K5 and Heroes of CRM launched very successful and exciting online formats.
New event formats, new partnerships, new employees
What stuck with us in 2020 – quite against the odds, was our staff growth. Further reinforcement followed in marketing with Amina and in the technical department with Uli. Then things went crazy – with Olga and Olga und Scarlett joining the team. In November we also had two new additions to announce: Jihad und Knuth. Altogether we have taken on 12 new employees by the end of the year! Thus we can always offer you the very best and trbo-fastest service. But we also had other trbo-growth: our account manager Jonas adopted the little dog Hoko (aka bat), our account manager Ella the baby cat Bounty and our senior account manager Daniel became a dad for the second time!
We also successfully launched our digital version of our Breakfast Bash series for our partners and existing customers. This will continue in 2021 – your account managers will keep you up to date.
In August, we were even able to celebrate our Sommerfest – at a distance and in accordance with the hygiene regulations, but at least a joint event in a year in which we saw much less of each other than we were used to. And at least we have saved Munich from a dangerous hacker attack.
In October, we also stepped it up again in terms of events. We had a total of four virtual events on our agenda. The Bits & Pretzels and the Data Driven Commerce Days, our existing customer series and the great E-Com Experience Summit by our partner Findologic together with Florian Schlütter from our customer Thomas Sabo. At the end of October, we were even guests on “TV” – with our presentation at K5.TV!
Keep calm and relax – Not with trbo
Quite a lot has happened, hasn’t it? But we didn’t just put our feet up and rest in December. We held a new Breakfast Bash and our VP Account Management Anna was a guest at Touchpoints Digital with Adrian Goller from our client ETERNA. The result: a very exciting presentation on homepage personalization! The crowning “finale”: At the beginning of December, we were once again awarded the Technology Fast 50 Award by Deloitte – a great acknowledgement of our work.
So 2020 wasn’t all bad – we gained great new partners and deepened existing partnerships, we’re really happy about our new customers and thank all our existing customers for standing by our side and using trbo every day to create the perfect shopping and surfing experience for your users.
Thank you for your trust, your support and your fun with trbo – we are already looking forward to a trbo-like 2021!
Your trbos