Item: Anchor by Spotify
Rating: 7
Author: Alejandro Huerta

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Since we started doing more web-based support in our company, instead of having clients just create support tickets if they needed help, we wanted a solution to host voice-based support files. One of our engineers had heard about Anchor and had dabbled, but once it became obvious that we might need something like it for our next phases I started looking into it to see if it would cover our very basic needs. We started uploading some files to it, easy enough and then sending those to our clients. Since there are no costs to host or distribute the files, we didn´t have to go to accounting to get funds for it. We are in the process of adding new audios every week and seeing if it makes sense for us to have them there. Since most of our support is based on how-to videos, we are under review to see if our clients get the same level of support from audio as from videos, and we are sending out queries to all clients to see what they thought about it. If we get enough good responses then we might start moving more and more of our support to audio files.

Pros and Cons

Easiest way to create podcasts, or in reality any audio files.
Have some level of reporting on how many people are accessing the files.
The Android app is excellent, feature rich and quick.
Different levels of compression to have smaller files.
Good audio level support.

More reporting options
The monetizing options are basic
It is based on, or at least subsidized by Spotify, so for a company that might not be a good option

Most Important Features

Free access to audio files
Excellent audio creating tools
Really good mobile apps
Web based interface that actually works

Return on Investment

Minimize the time our clients require to find the resources and help they are looking for.
Maximize my support teams' time by having users self serve themselves with the information in our audio files.
Free usage of the service, via both web and mobile apps.
Excellent audio quality and streaming support.

Alternatives Considered

Applause

We only tested Applause a bit but it did not cover what we were looking for, we actually are not using a lot of options for digital releases. We only use it for in-house support, and our audio files are not available for the general public and we do not use any releasing options.

Key Insights

Do you think Anchor by Spotify delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Anchor by Spotify's feature set?

Yes

Did Anchor by Spotify live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Anchor by Spotify go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Anchor by Spotify again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Jira Software, Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams

Likelihood to Recommend

It is excellent for audio files and has a listing of all your files available and labeled for anyone to use It has plenty of options for uploading audio files and managing them The mobile apps are excellent in both Android and iOS, with features that even paid options do not have It is not the best option for companies that have different levels of audio files, meaning one batch of files for marketing, another for sales, etc., since the options to separate by theme is limited, and it is quite difficult to search all over your audio files archive to find exactly what you're looking for It is also lacking in high-level support and help in using the system, but it makes sense since it is a free service and there are no hosting nor usage fees We also found one situation when a user wanted to listen to a file and it did not download it and started "skipping", but we were never able to reproduce the error and chalked it to network failure or something like that

Anchor is a surprisingly feature complete, completely free audio delivery solution

Overall Satisfaction with Anchor, by Spotify