SITS13 - The customer revolution & why you should care

The Customer Revolution & why you should care

Richard WhiteFounder, CEO@rrwhite

three goals

@rrwhite

three warnings

@rrwhite

Limited Life Experience

+Overgeneralization

=

Advice

Paul BucheitCreator of Gmail, Co-founder of FriendFeed

ITIL

@rrwhite

ITIL(I have no idea what this even stands for)

@rrwhite

hi

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

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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.

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

phew

@rrwhite

No one goes to school for customer service

A HUMBLE OBSERVATION

@rrwhite

Two different worlds of “customer service”

@rrwhite

Customer Service

@rrwhite

“All agents are currently serving other customers”

“Your call is important to us”

“Press 9 to hear these options again”

Entering your account # only to have to repeat it to the agent

Customer Service

@rrwhite





Customer Service

20% handle multiple channels

40% respond to tweets

29% respond < 1 day

@rrwhite





Customer Service Our World

Highly skilled agents

Delivering great support on any medium

A product issue is solved in hours or days not months

Every customer engagement is an opportunity



29% respond < 1 day

Customer Service


Our World



29% respond < 1 day

Customer Service



Our World



29% respond < 1 day

Past



83% respond < 1 day

Future

the future

the futureis here

or is it?

@rrwhite

Exceptional customer care isn’t new.

@rrwhite

No, this is different.Things have changed.

@rrwhite

four changes

@rrwhite

The internet has spawned a generation of businesses built around self-service.

CHANGE #1

@rrwhite

Is this really necessary?

@rrwhite

43%

62%

of people said they could have solved their customer service issue on their own if better self-service tools were available.

of people age 18 to 24

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

More user self-service

50% of smartphone users would prefer to use a mobile customer service application to try to resolve their customer service issue before calling into the contact center.

@rrwhite

56% of online consumers agree that their (customer service) calls are more complex as simple transactions are often automated

THE FUTURE IS...

More user self-serviceLess customer contacts but more complex issues

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

More user self-serviceLess customer contacts but more complex issues

Less agents but better training (and pay)

@rrwhite

Companies are moving to subscription-based revenue models.

CHANGE #2

@rrwhite

I know. You’re shocked.

@rrwhite

50% of US businesses have either adopted or were planning to adopt a subscription based model

@rrwhite

50%

90%

of US businesses have either adopted or were planning to adopt a subscription based model

of mobile game spending (US) on free to play games.

@rrwhite

Ye olde sales funnel.

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

Subscription revenue

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

Subscription revenueThe blurring of the line between sales & support.

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

Subscription revenueThe blurring of the line between sales & support.

Better training and pay for agents

@rrwhite

Social media is the catalyst but not the medium of the future.

CHANGE #3

@rrwhite

1% of people said they preferred to get support via Twitter instead of traditional mediums.

@rrwhite

1% of people said they preferred to get support via Twitter instead of traditional mediums.

of US consumers are very to somewhat interested in resolving customer service issues.email: 67%, phone: 90%

22%

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

Social Media level of care on traditional channels.

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...


Word-of-month matters again. It’s too expensive to let something spill out onto Twitter.

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...


Word-of-month matters again. It’s too expensive to let something spill out onto Twitter.

Companies want more than “like”

@rrwhite

The era of (digital) marketing gimmicks is coming to an end.

CHANGE #4

@rrwhite

The digital marketing land rush is over.

@rrwhite

The digital marketing land rush is over.

11% The increase in the average cost per click (CPC) on Google Adwords in 2011.

Increase in app marketing costs in the last year on iOS platform (70% on Android)

56% @rrwhite

Groupon, Zynga, eHow, Swoopo, Turntable.fm

WHAT DO THESE HAVE IN COMMON?

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

Customer retention over acquisition.

@rrwhite

THE FUTURE IS...

Customer retention over acquisition.

how much more it expensive it is to acquire new customers than satisfy and retain current ones

5X

@rrwhite

Customer retention is the new acquisitionIt’s getting more expensive to acquire customers as marketing channels become saturated. Subscription businesses live and die by retention. The best way to retain customers is through great service but more importantly by building the product they want.

Social media is the catalyst of, but not the medium of, the futureTwitter is the small claims court of bad support. It’s forcing companies to re-examine the cost of providing poor service through the traditional channels that users prefer.

Excellent customer service, like performance, is a killer feature.Support is increasingly not just a cost center to be shunted offshore. It's part of your product and your sales process.

@rrwhite

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER...

Business is going old school.

@rrwhite



The last 30+ years have been one big scaling problem.

@rrwhite



The last 30+ years have been one big scaling problem.

We now have the technology and enough incentives to provide old fashioned service at web scale.

@rrwhite

The customer portal is dead. Be where your users are... and it isn’t Facebook: it’s inside your app. Make getting support or giving feedback a great in-app experience.

@rrwhite


Drive ever more self-serviceEspecially with Freemium or Free2Play. Without sacrificing quality as a bad experience is now expensive.One to many communication when possible

@rrwhite



Support teams are looking more like sales teams. Not scripted. Given liberty to solve the issue.

@rrwhite




Agility over process. This is what you get with these sorts of support teams.

@rrwhite





Proactive engagement before there is a problemCreate ways for users to engage outside of when they have a problem. Get out from behind your help desk.

@rrwhite





Proactive engagement before there is a problemCreate ways for users to engage outside of when they have a problem. Get out from behind your help desk.

Drive meaningful, win-win engagement (with analytics).That which is actionable to the company and important to users. Move beyond the shallow pond of “likes” and “follows”. No flying banner 10 minute surveys either.We can do better than social media vanity metrics.

@rrwhite

So what?

@rrwhite

A HUMBLE HYPOTHESIS...

Maybe employees and consumers aren’t all that different.

@rrwhite



BYOD

@rrwhite



BYOD

companies that allow some form of BYOD (bring your own device) usage74%

thanks

@rrwhite

Technology

SITS13 - The customer revolution & why you should care