SupportYourApp

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our team runs an online self-care and miscellaneous items shop. I am a Project manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

The SupportYourApp team handles customer communication and delivery logistics for us. They resolve our customers’ issues and talk to the delivery companies.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to have a professional support team talking to our customers. We also wanted to streamline and optimize our communication with both out- and incoming delivery services.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

We were referred to SupportYourApp by another Ukrainian business. After talking with their representatives and receiving their offer, we decided to try them out because of their flexible solutions.

We also wanted our support to be secure — our system deals with and stores information that might be considered sensitive. Their security measures were and still are very impressive.

Describe the project in detail.

SupportYourApp receives incoming emails and calls from our customers, answers various questions and deals with the issues that might occur along the way. They also talk to our suppliers and delivery services and take care of our logistics.

What was the team composition?

There are three shared Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking consultants on our team. Two of them talk to our customers and one deals with delivery-related questions. They work on our project a couple of hours a day, Monday through Friday.

We are also considering adding one more member to our team to handle inquiries coming in on the weekends.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Since we started working with SupportYourApp, we started getting messages from our customers, commending the level of our customer service. There is also no backlog of supplier messages and questions.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We meet with our delivery manager once every 2 weeks and discuss any roadblocks that might have occurred during this time.

Normally, these questions are related to difficult customers or big orders — something that requires escalation and attention from our internal management. They are always very professional and friendly at the same time. We have never had an issue connecting with them.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

How efficiently and seamlessly they integrated into our team. We don’t really see them as outsource. They are an essential part of our company.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They want to make sure the customer is satisfied, so they might stay on the call a bit longer than needed. If the flow is big this might cause small delays, but the level of service can always be discussed and adjusted in accordance with the team’s workload.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a kindergarten in Kyiv, Ukraine. I am a business development specialist.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

SupportYourApp took over client consultation from us. This means they are the primary POC for the families interested in our services.

They take the calls from those interested in us and provide them with the information on pricing, scheduling, teachers, groups and learning programs available in our kindergarten.

What were your goals for this project?

Our primary value is the families that trust us with their children, so we wanted to make our communication as efficient, informative and swift as possible.

We could not reach our business goals and focus on customer communication at the same time, so we decided to outsource at least one of these tasks.”

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

I have learned about SupportYourApp from researching the market for about a couple of weeks. We wanted to make sure we were making the best decision for our team and our customers.

SupportYourApp were very friendly and their communication with us was on-point. After talking with their business development and their CEO, we saw that they would be great for us

Describe the project in detail.

We have coverage 6 days a week from 12 AM to 8 PM. Our dedicated consultant speaks Russian and Ukrainian. For now, she only handles phone calls.

We are currently working on integrating social media and chat support for scheduling, attendance and home tasks control into our every-day communication. After that is done, we might add another consultant to the team

What was the team composition?

Our team has 1 dedicated agent.”

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The only thing we can say is that we started to receive more positive reviews about the first impression we make — we stopped missing calls, and we can now answer any question with ease due to the knowledge base SupportYourApp helped us put together.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Even with one member on the support team, we can say that SupportYourApp is always glad to help us and resolve any issue our customers may have. Big shoutout to our SDM here!Alex

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are very willing to help our customers no matter how long it takes.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They are fulfilling everything perfectly for us. We are very glad we are working with them

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company sells our private label products online and my title is CFO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

We hired them as our customer service representatives. (Basic customer support work, such as answering calls, responding to the customers' emails, resolving the problems, etc)

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals are to make sure that all inquiries are taken care of, no matter what, we want to close the tickets only after making sure that the customers are happy with the support service, and stress-free for both customers and agents.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

We compared many support agencies and companies, and their salesperson I initially talked with did an amazing job. (We already kind of decided to use another company's service, but I had a call appointment with SuppotYourApp's salesperson already so I joined a call to hear the talk.)

However, I was totally sold after I talked to the salesperson. He was confident, but not pushy, explained so well about his company and services. He did the best among all the other agencies so I decided to select SYA.

Describe the project in detail.

It started from a small group. The initial tasks were answering a call and responding to the customers' tickets. Nothing much, but we grew the sales and increased our staffs more.

More we grow, their work amount increased as well, such as learning our company, products, how to deal with the irregular questions, creating the documents, managing, and training, and they did perfectly.

What was the team composition?

1 Manager, 3 supervisors, and 10 agents under them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

"All the inquiries have been taken care of." Maybe it sounds not right because this is what they do, however, it is so difficult to take every single one of the tickets seriously and make the customer say "Thank you for your help." at the end.

We had a really bad experience from the previous service, and so many tickets were abandoned. The SYA agents took their time to learn about us, the previous tickets, irregular questions and even found the critical issues a few times.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We put 100% of our trust in SYA so it has been so easy to work with them and our work became more productive because we don't have to be worried about the customers' inquiries.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Can't choose one. They are always motivated to learn. They try to find something that we can improve our company and sales as their own, responsible, and communication skills...many many things!

Are there any areas for improvement?

NOPE at all!!!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a marketing specialist in a marketing agency that develops strategies for other businesses, monitors their results and overall provides businesses with marketing expertise.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

We hired SupportYourApp to handle our phone customer communication as it is a primary source for our customers to reach our team.

What were your goals for this project?

We were looking to optimize our customer communication. It became especially pressing when the requests from our customers started to pile up after the pandemic started.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

We were referred to SupportYourApp by another business that has been working with them for several years. After talking to their team, we saw not only how flexible they were, but that they have the entire package of security requirements we needed from our outsourced support vendor.

Describe the project in detail.

Our project implies a lot of communication with the customers: getting their exact requirements for the project, supporting them through the process of development of the strategy, answering any question they may have through the process and so on.

We needed a team that would handle the communication not only during the working hours, but on the weekends as well. This required fast integration into our system and the ability to get to know our product and customers fast.

What was the team composition?

Our team consists of one dedicated and one shared support agent. A dedicated consultant handles all communication during the week, while a shared one helps our customers on the weekends.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Having SupportYourApp handle our incoming communication and helping our customers on the weekends has greatly decreased our churn rate as we started to answer calls on the weekends — something that is not often done in Ukrainian market.

The team sets a very good first impression for our first-time customers which helps us bond from the first moments of communication.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Being in the same country, we saw absolutely no difficulties connecting with the team, so I can easily say it is very good and effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

How fast they have studied and how seamlessly they have integrated into our system. They have also delivered on every expectation we had and were able to adjust their service in accordance with our requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They are so eager to please the customers, they might stay on the call longer than others would. When the inflow is big, that might cause slight delays, although with a bigget team that would pose no issue at all.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a learning academy that helps people acquire new skills and find a perfect working place in the IT field. I am a QA engineer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

We started our collaboration with SupportYourApp for them to handle our communication with our potential, future and current students. We wanted them to take over all channels of communication and set up a CRM that would help us track all important KPIs and follow the entire scope of communication.

What were your goals for this project?

After the pandemic started, we saw a huge inflow of new students, who wanted to get new skills and find a company that would allow them to work remotely. As a result, our customer communication spiked, and we started to look for a partner that would help us manage all that newly-found communication.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

We wanted to find a partner company that would understand the specificity of the market we are working within and at the same time be flexible and be able to scale fast, as we could not predict how long we were going to have the communication spike and how much it could increase overtime.

Describe the project in detail.

Our team helps those seeking to acquire new skills not only to satisfy their craving for new knowledge, but also to find a perfect job where they would be able to display it.

As a result, we communicate with a lot of different people and resolve a lot of questions as we have to communicate not only with our future, current and potential students, but with the companies, seeking new talent as well as arrange interviews and see the hiring process with the businesses’ HR departments through.

What was the team composition?

Our team consists of one dedicated bilingual customer communication agent (Russian and Ukrainian) as well as one shared English-speaking agent. They handle all student-facing communication for us which took a lot of pressure off of our team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

With our student communication being handled by SupportYourApp, we were able to streamline communication with the companies that are seeking new talent in the Ukrainian job market. As a result, we started seeing more and more of our graduates find new jobs as we were able to form a more personal relationship with local businesses.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are very satisfied with our collaboration with SupportYourApp. We have established a very good relationship, and we will definitely prolong our work with them for years to come.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We found SupportYourApp’s speed very impressive. We have signed a contract, onboarded and had a team up and running in the shortest time, when other companies would take their time with the integration process.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything is very good.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an online store that sells products of German company-manufacturer. We specialize in heart rate monitors and provide help on their characteristics and use.

Since product supply, partner programs and documentation routine took a lot of time, we’ve decided to hire a customer support company to consult our clients and walk them through the buying process. I am the operations manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

We hired SupportYourApp for customer support.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to free up the space for all our operational processes that took a lot of time.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

We have already spoken to several suppliers when we saw SupportYourApp advertisement. After talking to their sales team and their CEO we understood that their offer was the most flexible and suitable in the market. Having talked to their team, we decided to go with them. The team was set up not long after we signed everything.

Describe the project in detail.

We have coverage during CET business hours when our customers are at their most active. Our team speaks English and German. We also have the option to add French into our team. Our support consultants fully handle customer communication for us with only occasional escalation possible.

What was the team composition?

We have 2 dedicated and 1 shared support consultant. The dedicated team works steadily and a shared agent joins in during peak hours.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have NDAs prohibiting us to share any details and numbers. I can only say that we are totally satisfied with SupportYourApp processes and work.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team of SupportYourApp are very open to communication. They listen to every suggestion that we make.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their working processes are very well set-up.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a financial services provider. We provide capital for talented traders in the financial market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SupportYourApp?

We wanted to outsource part of our customer support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SupportYourApp’s agents reply to emails and live chats. The integration was pretty easy. The training was done on our side. 

What is the team composition?

We have 10 support agents, and five more will be joining soon, so in total it will be 15 people. We have a manager who is responsible for the SupportYourApp team.

How did you come to work with SupportYourApp?

I found them through a Google search, and we started talking. The experience was pretty casual, and there was no sales team whatsoever. It was a nice conversation between them and our team.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in September 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We don’t have targets, but in general, we know that agents in Europe should reply to 50 emails a day which they are doing, and there are no complaints. It’s been flawless and I have nothing bad to say about SupportYourApp.

How did SupportYourApp perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication has been perfect. The only thing that was complicated was that we had to individually train the agents when they started. This typically happens, so it wasn’t a big deal. We have our internal chat system, and we use WordPress in our company, so we started using WordPress with them as well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are doing a good job in their field. We have received what we have ordered so I can’t complain about it at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They need to have training in place. For a bigger company, it isn’t a problem, but we are a smaller company with close to 100 people, so the training wasn’t as structured. Be ready to work remotely.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a recently launched startup - our product is a platform for building digital community online through 1-on-1 and group video interactions. I am in charge of aspects of our operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

SupportYourApp is providing outsourced 24/7 customer support, primarily through live chat.

What were your goals for this project?

Find a provider for 24/7 live chat coverage so that the rest of the company could focus on their core work.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

I interviewed seven different companies with various mixes of domestic / off-shore staff and a number of distinct business models. SupportYourApp was right in-line with our pricing expectations for off-shore staff, but provided a better structure for scaling with our company and limiting the fragmentation of its representatives across shared clients.

Describe the project in detail.

We needed tier-1 support via livechat 24/7 at a reasonable cost who could spin up quickly and scale over time with our organization. I drove the vendor selection process and made the final call. The vendor helped us roll out a more sophisticated process around conversation tagging and analytics and took on all training/hiring of their staff beyond our onboarding process.

What was the team composition?

Four standard reps, one team lead, one manager and a short-term engagement manager focused on onboarding. No changes in staffing as of yet, but as we grow our team at SYA will grow as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They did a great job of spinning up quickly and owning the process. They integrated with our Slack fairly seamlessly and developed expertise in our product within the first few weeks. The % of live chats that had to wait more than 2 minutes for a response fell dramatically, and the % above 5 minutes was almost eliminated.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It went fairly smoothly - our manager has been hands-on throughout the process and responsive to any changes we needed to make.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're an all-around solid provider with no major issues and they seem to treat their staff very well. The company's CEO also reached out personally after our onboarding for feedback - they are very in-touch with the needs of their customers.

Are there any areas for improvement?

For startups it would be great to get additional guidance on best practices and protocols during the setup process, but it still went very smoothly. I imagine that more established clients wouldn't need the same resources we did.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software development company specializing in providing digital services to businesses with different technical needs. I am the COO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SupportYourApp?

We were looking for a team that could professionally handle a very large amount of calls and chat conversations, primarily for tier 1 and 2 technical support during business hours and occasionally after them.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to see customer satisfaction grow and resolution time decrease.

SOLUTION

How did you select SupportYourApp?

We started looking for a support vendor when the communication flow became too much to handle. So, the ability to scale the team fast and deal with a large flow of customer tickets was the key point for us. We were also looking to cut back on expenses when it came to support.

SupportYourApp was perfect for us, because they offered a very flexible solution — best value for the offer.

Describe the project in detail.

We operate within business hours Monday-Friday 9 AM-6 PM. First we only wanted a support provider that would swiftly take care of our communication with the customers over chats and occasional emails.

But with the offer from SupportYourApp we also saw that their team would be perfect for handling our calls. Their offer included 4 dedicated consultants who could also work in shifts and provide us with around-the-clock support as well as a free first month of integration.

What was the team composition?

Over time, we expanded the support team to 6 support consultants as the flow of incoming messages and calls became even bigger. It also allowed us to have an efficient rotation and have 24/7 support during hot seasons.

We did not notice a bigger-than-usual turnover inside the team, so we can say that we are very satisfied with the support consultants that we have been working with for the last 2 years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After hiring SupportYourApp, our team saw a lot of resources to focus on our own business processes. Having SupportYourApp team handle all the customer communication allowed us to save a lot of time and improve our own company structure.

We started to get letters commending our technical support for the speed and accuracy of the service. Overall, the expectations for SupportYourApp's services were met by 110%.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We asked the management team to conduct a QA process at least once a month as well as provide us with the numbers for the KPIs that were the most important for us — average handling time, first response time and resolution time.

And while we did have to reach out to their management team the first couple of times to ask whether the QA results will be delivered on time (which they were), after that they have been sending the numbers to us themselves without any reminders and additional questions.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

SupportYourApp team uses their in-house built CRM system for our product. I believe that this was one of the reasons for such a quick set up although I do not see a reason why the process would stall should they work with any other CRM system.

We were also pleasantly surprised when we learned that their team was open to integrating any of the needed communication channels upon request, so that surely influenced the way that we can communicate with our customers and vice versa.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Didn’t see anything for my team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a triage solutions manager at Accelo. We provide a SaaS service automation solution for companies that deal with service as a business, such as law offices, real estate agencies, IT experts, and so on. Our software has CRM, invoicing, and project and ticket management functionalities, and allows clients to focus more on their actual work. We automate aspects like dealing out tasks, emailing, scheduling, and so on.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SupportYourApp?

We were having difficulties providing adequate support to our customers at a reasonable cost. Like many advanced CRM and invoicing platforms, ours is quite complex and difficult to understand at times. So, our own support agents would have trouble understanding the product in a reasonable amount of time and addressing client issues. We were looking for a way to get a high level of dedicated support. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SupportYourApp adopts the process and training methods that the client outlines, and we can further groom it from there as the platform evolves. I set up a training document for them to utilize, with exercises to put through. I haven’t updated it since the beginning, but they’ve done so themselves after the initial training. There’s a seamless process for any new hires or switching of agents. It’s rare that they ask us a question regarding training.

The issues they’ve helped address are to do with our coverage and support. They offer 24-hour support for our clients. 

They can respond to all our clients within two hours at most, but we try to prioritize certain clients based on size, level of complexity, and so on. They usually respond to all emails, chats, and phone calls within 5–15 minutes, depending on how much they have to dig into the issue before responding.

We have regular phone support through a hotline that routes calls to one of our agents. For live chats from the website, the agents are able to see details regarding the client’s account and try to troubleshoot accordingly. People that don’t have SLAs with us are routed to the appropriate sales funnels, whether it be account management or otherwise. Regarding email support, SupportYourApp is quite well-versed in triaging and troubleshooting the issue.

Even if they have agents that are new to this, their peers and training process will ramp them up to the quality we require before they start charging us for the agent. The training is also free.

What is the team composition?

We started with 3–4, but we’re using six agents from SupportYourApp at the moment. We have four agents on the tier-two team, and two for tier-one. One of them is the team leader. If the team gets to a certain size, it’ll be nice to have more than one team leader. We also have a dedicated service manager who jumps in if there’s a higher-level issue.

How did you come to work with SupportYourApp?

We were researching outsourced companies on a whim, to see if we could get the coverage and expertise needed, and SupportYourApp stood out from the rest. They were able to address our needs and concerns in a way that we didn’t think they could.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re paying $10,000 per month, and the overall cost so far is around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SupportYourApp in March 2018, and it’s ongoing. We were hoping to expand the team, but Coronavirus has, unfortunately, hit all companies. We’ve implemented a hiring freeze to make sure that we don’t expand too much during these uncertain times.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We send out customer service satisfaction surveys with most of our tickets. There is variability between the tier-one and tier-two agents, but their scores are often higher than those of our local staff. That’s a nice thing to see. They average a 4.8/5.

How did SupportYourApp perform from a project management standpoint?

They meet deadlines and perform tasks like making sure our help pages are up to date without issue. They’re very concerned about making sure they can do the job, and they don’t make too many presumptions about whether or not they can. They like being clear, and they ask lots of questions.

The service manager was one of the original agents we hired. Knowing that there’s internal growth at SupportYourApp gives us relief knowing that there isn’t a high turnover level with agents. It’s also good to know that the service manager used to be an agent because he knows our platform in and out and has dealt with our customers. That helps us get high-quality agents when we need it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They aim to please. They’re receptive to feedback and usually deal well with criticism. With a lot of outsourced companies, the team members will give stock responses like “We understand”, and escalate things to their managers. SupportYourApp’s team tries to understand whatever we’re telling them.

They really want to know what’s best for the customer and what the mindset behind a decision was, so that they can be more autonomous in the future. We were surprised by how driven they were.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The collaboration within their own team could be improved. While they do work together well, they don’t push themselves amongst each other. If we tell them to train an agent because they’re lagging behind, that’s fine, but they don’t push each other as much as we’d like.

It could be our fault for separating them into two teams. Oftentimes, the tier-one support team would ask us a question when someone in tier two could answer it.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’ve found that it’s best not to use them as a set-and-forget team, and treat them more as we would our own team, with weekly meetings. They get invested in learning and doing new things. Just like with anyone else, stagnation doesn’t help, and a sense of progression is what they need to enjoy their job day-to-day. If the client makes sure that they have those, they’ll really excel at their roles.

Similarly to hiring within their own company, the client needs to know exactly what role they want them to fulfill, and set up clear training for them, but don't expect them to wear multiple hats. They won’t know what to do if the client just expects them to fill in the blanks.

There must be a clear regiment and examples for them to look at. A key feature to SupportYourApp’s success is their internal training process, which they evolve and use as a reference source. If what’s put in there isn’t very good, we can’t expect good agents to be rolled out.