Scaling up an integration ecosystem on a budget

Scaling up an integration ecosystem on a budget

Richard WhiteFounder, CEO@rrwhite

three goals

three warnings

hi

1

2

3

4

people in San Francisco & Raleigh who want to enable you better help and understand your users all with less effort than you thought possible.

24

We are...

@rrwhite

UserVoice is...UserVoice is a true multi-tenant SaaS, freemium platform that helps companies scale not only their customer support (by driving self-service) but also customer insight (through proactive user engagement).

UserVoice is...UserVoice is true multi-tenant SaaS, freemium platform that helps companies scale not only their customer support (by driving self-service) but also customer insight (through proactive user engagement).

people have logged into their UserVoice admin console the last 30 days.

35,000127% YoY

@rrwhite

Founded in 2008, and the originators of the now ubiquitous Feedback Tab, what makes us special is how much we care about the end-user interface. We know that communication starts with users, not with surveys or flying banners.

We’ve had a little help along the way in the form of $3MM in capital raised from Baseline Ventures (our lead), WTI, Betaworks, Founders Fund, TAG, Tekton Ventures and an assortment of amazing angels.

Our history

Founded in 2008, and the originators of the, now ubiquitous Feedback Tab, what makes us special is how much we care about the end-user interface. We know that communication starts with users not with surveys or flying banners.

We’ve had a little help along the way in the form of $3MM in capital raised from Baseline Ventures (our lead), WTI, Betaworks, Founders Fund, TAG, Tekton Ventures and an assortment of amazing angels.

Our history

363 people see a UserVoice widget every second which is ...

people every month across 170 different countries and 43 languages (translated courtesy of UserVoice users)

943MM110% YoY

@rrwhite

Are not ITSM & traditional contact centers.

They are predominantly technology companies and often SaaS platforms, games or mobile apps.

We work with everyone from startups to business units of Fortune 500 companies. Most sales are self-service, credit card & month to month but we do work with annual billing, invoices, training and higher level account management.

Our customers

120,000 UserVoice sites that have been setup

countries where there’s an organization using UserVoice

170

@rrwhite

Helpdesk Launched May 2011

Easy to use & (self-service) setup - Customers can get setup in hours, not days or weeks.

Designed for simplicity but has the backend to handle complicated routing and queuing.

Inspector - Answer messages quicker and more carefully by having the complete social context of who you’re talking to.

Game mechanics - Our leaderboard drives friendly competition amongst customer teams to respond quickly and comprehensively

Ticket system emails look like normal emails. End-users never know they’re being tracked. There's no ticket # or 'reply above this line', People bristle at the notion of being “in a system” - they want human connection.







A YEAR AGO

1MM tickets have been handled by UserVoice Helpdesk

@rrwhite







NOW

5MM tickets have been handled by UserVoice Helpdesk

1MM per month

@rrwhite

Feedback forums are the unique UserVoice way of helping customers get and respond to inbound customer feedback at scale.

Feedback is a natural, and highly successful, way to engage large numbers of otherwise passive users who wouldn’t contact companies for support.

Feedback Launched April 2008

Scalability - Get feedback from thousands or millions with the same level of effort.

Frictionless feedback - 80+% of those who give feedback will provide an email address and subscribe to updates. This works wonders for pre-sales engagement.

Response rates double that of newsletters. Permission based marketing at its best. Users are opting into updates on other user generated content.

We provide the most comprehensive and robust set of tools to help our customer communicate with their users where they already are: in-app.

Complete set of APIs, Push Notifications and SDKs make it easy for companies to integrate UserVoice into their business.

Instant Answers - All embedded experiences drive customers to self-service their issues. Up to 40% (and higher on mobile) of requests are resolved through suggesting a relevant knowledge base article or existing forum post.

Feedback tab widget - Embed a complete customer portal directly into a website with a couple lines of code.

UserVoice is everywhere users are

UserVoice is everywhere users areWe provide the most comprehensive and robust set of tools to help our customer communicate with their users where they already are: in-app.

Complete set of APIs, Push Notifications and SDKs make it easy for companies to integrate UserVoice into their business.

Instant Answers - All embedded experiences drive customers to self-service their issues. Up to 40% (and higher on mobile) of requests are resolved through suggesting a relevant knowledge base article or existing forum post.

Feedback tab widget - Embed a complete customer portal directly into a website with a couple lines of code.

Mobile optimized - All of our interfaces are optimized to work on desktop and mobile web. (22.5% of our usage is mobile web)

UserVoice for iOS - A native customer portal directly inside your iPhone or iPad app.

NEW

The next generation in (meaningful) in-app user engagement: bundling together customer satisfaction, product feedback and support to create engagement rates that blow away traditional VoC or Helpdesk solutions.

Combined with a robust analytics system to give you a complete view of your user base from 10K feet down to individual users.

New features debuted at UserVoice Summit 2013:

Instant Answers

Satisfaction Surveys

SmartVote

Touchpoint SDK & Analytics

In-app engagement

Our data & partnersNEW

Data in UserVoice is valuable at both an individual level as well as at an aggregate level (for targeting whole segments of users). We provide the universal record of user activity to complementary tools.

user

s

Support ticketsHelp solve issues which reduces churn and improves satisfaction.

Product feedbackInsight into product improvements to reduce churn

Satisfaction scoresInsight into product improvements and customer segments to target to reduce churn

Usage & conversion data: User activity, LTVs, etc. - (help analyze and refine which feedback and user segments to pay attention to)

Product feedbackInforms potential upsell conversationsSatisfaction scoresUsed to help inform potential rescue salesSupport tickets Sales and support in sync - efficiency gains

CRM Partners

All UserVoice activity Helps inform lead scoring for improved conversion targeting - people who submit feedback or support tickets are more engaged in the self-serve buying process. Helps to identify brand advocates.

Marketing Automation Partners

Real-time product feedbackHelps make entire team aware of front-line product deficiencies driving dissatisfaction

Internal Collaboration Partners

Live Chat

users

Social / Mobile

CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing

our process

Live Chat

users

Social / Mobile


The value of integrationsOUR THINKING

@rrwhite

Live Chat

users

Social / Mobile


The value of integrationsCustomer retention

OUR THINKING

@rrwhite

Live Chat

users

Social / Mobile



Co-marketing & press

OUR THINKING

@rrwhite

Live Chat

users

Social / Mobile




New distribution channels

OUR THINKING

@rrwhite

Live Chat

users

Social / Mobile


OUR THINKING

@rrwhite



New distribution channels

Closing new customers

@rrwhite

Most integrations are crap

A HUMBLE OBSERVATION

The integrator’s dilemmaA HUMBLE OBSERVATION

@rrwhite

The integrator’s dilemmaOptimize for quantity or quality?


@rrwhite


Pushing failure down the funnel.


@rrwhite



No right answer. We chose quality.


@rrwhite



No right answer. We chose quality.

Can we have both?


@rrwhite

Write the user stories for a new class integrations.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite

Write the user stories for a new class integrations with actual users.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite

We try to build the first integration in-house.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite


Validates that we have the API / platform tech to support it.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite


Validates that we have the API / platform tech to support it.

Quality of APIs is a considered when picking our first partner.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite

We lean on others to build N+1 integrations

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite


This is how we hope to achieve quality and quantity.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite


This is how we hope to achieve quality and quantity.

We need to have a great set of APIs & integration tech.

OUR PROCESS

@rrwhite

eleven things

Use your own damn API

@rrwhite

THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY

THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY

Our first hackathon

@rrwhite

Use your own damn API

@rrwhite


A dedicated API engineer

@rrwhite


SDKs for a multitude of programming languages

@rrwhite


An API for provisioning accounts

@rrwhite


Web hooks

@rrwhite


Web Service hooks

@rrwhite



Supporting Bidirectional syncing (between us and less awesome APIs)

@rrwhite

“External ID” supportTHINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY

@rrwhite

“External ID” supportticket = findTicket( :title => “Help me”, :user => “[email protected]”)

updateTicket(ticket.id, {DATA})


@rrwhite

mailto:[email protected]


“External ID” supportticket = findTicket( :title => “Help me”, :user => “[email protected]”)

ticket = findTicket( :external_id => 123, :external_app => “salesforce”)

updateTicket(ticket.id, {DATA})


@rrwhite



“External ID” supporttickets = findTickets( :external_app => “salesforce”, :filter => “no_external_id”)


@rrwhite

Upsert supportTHINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY

@rrwhite

ticket = findTicket( :external_id => 123, :external_app => “salesforce”)

if ticket doesn’t exist createTicket({DATA})else updateTicket(ticket.id, {DATA})end


Upsert support

@rrwhite

upsertTicket( :external_id => 123, :external_app => “salesforce”, {DATA})


Upsert support

@rrwhite


Integrations involving the words “on” & “premise”

@rrwhite

Integrations that don’t involve any APIs


thanks

Technology

Scaling up an integration ecosystem on a budget