Helpware

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO of a pain treatment center.

What challenge were you trying to address with Helpware?

A lot of our new patients were coming in through different offices. In total, we had five clinics and three surgery centers, so we got referrals every day from doctors that come in through different channels. After that, those referrals went to individual offices, and they had different processes in handling them. As a result, we hired Helpware to centralize our processes.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Helpware started by helping us put together a workflow that identified the internal team’s training needs and KPIs that would be used to measure their performance. The team continues to provide outsourcing services to us.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with three people in the management and performance improvement team. They also have one trainer and other members.

How did you come to work with Helpware?

We interviewed several companies who could help us, and Helpware turned out to be the best choice.

How much have you invested with them?

Weve spent $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in January 2017.

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

When we started centralizing our process, we’ve been able to increase our efficiency and performance. Helpware’s quality of work is phenomenal, and they ensure that they present regular reports. Overall, we have a close-knit integration with them.

How did Helpware perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication skills are outstanding, and their project management process is good. Above all, they meet their deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their transparent and proactive approach has been impressive. On top of that, they’re great to talk with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they have no areas to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend working with Helpware. To get the most out of the partnership, have an idea of the end result you want. Start with the end in mind and work your way to the project’s phases.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Operations for VaccinateCA / Vaccinate The States. We gather the latest information about which locations are offering the COVID-19 Vaccine, who is eligible, and how to get an appointment.

For what projects/services did your company hire Helpware, and what were your goals??

In March, we needed to quickly scale up our calling operation, from several hundred calls per day to several thousand calls per day. We were expanding our footprint from California to the entire United States, as well as responding to frequent updates to which groups of individuals were eligible to be vaccinated (which meant frequent updates were needed to our site statuses.) We hired Helpware to be able to quickly hire and manage the additional callers necessary.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We completed interviews and trial periods with 2 vendors. We selected Helpware because of their quality scores, their team lead's responsiveness to feedback, and their proactive customer account management.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package, including any calling tools used.

Helpware's agents work 5 days per week, making outbound calls to pharmacies, clinics, and other locations that are prioritized in our calling app. They use their own lightweight dialer that they were able to configure to dial out based on our app's call link. We provided a script, training, and QA rubric/guidance. Given that we had already done this with internal volunteers and paid agents, we were able to re-use processes and training, and ramp Helpware's agents up quickly. Our script covers whether a given location is vaccinating, which groups are eligible, and the process for scheduling appointments. There's also a process to submit data corrections. Throughout the day, Helpware's managers/QA continually review their agents work and coach them to achieve truly impressive QA metrics as well as efficiency.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

We have a manager who directly oversees around 25 agents. As we grew the project, one agent was promoted to also work on QA with the manager. This prior experience as an agent makes them very valuable on QA! We have a shared Slack channel that we talk on regularly, as we see any QA issues or they have any questions. We also have a regularly weekly sync as our main touchpoint.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the service?

Their latest calls per hour was 15.3, compared with our target range of 10-15 calls per hour. Their QA accuracy is currently around 99%. In general, we've found them to be motivated, professional, and responsive to feedback.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

In the beginning, our team was an implementation manager, team lead, operations lead, and technical lead. This was a good balance of expertise and keeping the team small enough to move quickly. At this point, we have weekly check-ins with the customer success lead, team lead, and QA, as well as a monthly QA trends meeting.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I've been most impressed by their enthusiastic and proactive approach to calling out things going well, things going poorly, and risks. The communication has helped us move quickly and prevent issues before they happen.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We had noticed a few issues with agents' grammar in some of our public-facing notes, which we want to ensure make a good impression on our site. But, this was also addressed very well through coaching and creating guides with standard phrasing for the agents.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Rocket-Resume.com provides workers with software to easily create robust and attractive resumes. Our passion is helping people best represent their experience and skills so to help them get hired. I manage the Customer Service and Operations functions for the company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Helpware?

Our customer growth necessitated hiring a partner to handle the growing number of customer inquiries. We hired Helpware to provide English language support via email and phone channels.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to ensure a positive and smooth customer experience, reflected in an improved Customer Satisfaction score.

How did you select Helpware?

We started with an Internet search, identified several potential providers, set up conversations with each, and then asked for bids from those that aligned best with our project. We wanted a partner who could be nimble, would be willing to start with a smaller project and then grow with it, and one who had a proven track record of success working with companies like ours.

Describe the project in detail.

We have phone and email English language support, 8am-5pm CST. Customer support consisted of transactional questions related to customers' accounts, but also product support and technical troubleshooting. Helpware onboarded easily as, after we ran them through the product, and most common customer questions, Helpware had a team of outstanding personnel who ensured quality standards were met, all documentation was maintained, etc. We were charged monthly a single amount that covered our agents, as well as those supporting the overall project.

What was the team composition?

We started with a single agent at the start, which is not a typical team size that most outsourcing partners will accept. Team minimums of 3-5 are more common. To support our single agent, there was an additional team of 4 who managed our agent as well as agents on other projects, a project leader, an account manager, and a quality and training specialist.

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

The team answered 100% of tickets beginning day 1. This was hugely impactful because it freed other employees up to focus on growth and product development. Over the duration of the partnership, our principal metric for measuring customer satisfaction (CSat) improved by 30 points and that had tangible impact on the growth of our business as well. They really exceeded our expectations in that regard. I can't say enough good things about Jonathan, Areli, Marcela, Sergio, and Oliver.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We connected virtually both via a shared Slack channel, and met bi-weekly to review key performance metrics on a shared Google Slides deck. This regular, ongoing contact ensured we were always aware of what was happening with our customers.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Helpware was critical to our business growth. They were very quick to onboard and ramp up, which allowed others to focus on other business matters. They were extremely proactive in surfacing opportunities for improvements either in our product or our business practices. We appreciate most just how flexible they were in working with a smaller, but rapidly growing, business.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Like working with any team based in another country, there is an opportunity to improve customer communications when conducting it not in one's native language. Word choice/vocabulary/accent work, all help with the customer experience.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager of partner success at Headspace Inc, but I’m leaving the organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with Helpware?

We hired them to support our small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). We’re trying to automate, so we brought on Helpware to support those organizations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Helpware has reps that support our SMBs, and they're fully embedded in our organization as far as technology. They automated and documented our onboarding. Helpware also works with our CX support team, so they brought forward some ideas to me that had worked on that other team.

What is the team composition?

We work with five reps, and we also have a manager who oversees everything.

How did you come to work with Helpware?

They started working with our CX team. Additionally, one of our senior directors had previously worked with Helpware at his previous company. I wasn’t part of the initial conversations.

How much have you invested with them?

For the year, we would’ve spent between $90,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Initial implementation began in March 2020, and the engagement is ongoing. 

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

They’re an awesome organization to partner with. We had clear expectations in terms of revenue targets and they exceeded them. In their first quarter, they were right on-par with if not performing better than our previous rep.

When we first engaged them, we were expecting them to at least perform at 55% net retention, and they’ve exceeded that for two quarters going into their third in the 70% range. Helpware has performed well.

How did Helpware perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent. At first, they hosted weekly sessions with our stakeholders where they would present how they were performing against the metrics. We did that for about six months, and they now present a biweekly review. 

They present on how they’re performing on their retention, how the sales reps are doing, and how many outreaches they’ve done. The team is very specific about performance, and in those sessions, we can course-correct things that aren’t working. There’s been some turnover on their team, but the manager was there to cover for the reps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication is impressive. The team has been excellent. Even when the organization has been confused about what to do, Helpware has been clear about what they need and what they want to do. 

They document everything and send follow-up emails after every single one of our calls. It’s been great working with them, and they’ve accelerated some of our slow decisions. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no suggestions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go in with some clear expectations on how you need them to perform. For example, we had 12 months’ data on how we needed them to perform. We knew our KPIs, so it was easy for us to communicate on performance. Because we had that bar set, it was just a matter of Helpware reaching and exceeding it, which they were able to do. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Rocket Resume, a web site where users can build a resume in less than 10 minutes. We also provide other services around helping people get jobs.

What challenge were you trying to address with Helpware?

We needed help with customer support.

What was the scope of their involvement?

 They’re basically handling all of my customer support, including fielding emails, and handling in- and outbound phone calls. Before them, we didn’t have any support. They also helped with the hiring and training process so our new call center agents were up to speed on my product. It was the full white glove treatment for rolling out customer support.

They use Zendesk and interact with our payment processor dashboard to cancel subscriptions and issue refunds when appropriate.

What is the team composition?

They have a very big team. I would say I've interacted with 15 people at some point or another.

There’s a training team, and onboarding team, a continuous improvement team, a sales team, and the  CEO was involved briefly.

How did you come to work with Helpware?

I found them on Clutch. I selected them because my business is small, but is growing rapidly. They had the option of a single call service agent so we could start small and scale as needed. Once I want a second agent, they will find and train them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $2,400 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2020 and it’s ongoing.

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

They’ve exceeded expectations. Once we agreed to the deal, they had an agent hired in two weeks. Now they’re handling all of my customer support issues. They created a schedule and a plan and they always hit their deadlines.  

How did Helpware perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great. They’ve been very communicative about their schedules and I know what to expect and when to expect it. They hit every aspect of those expectations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There are so many people involved in the onboarding, so it went smoothly. It was quick and efficient.

To me, I really appreciated that I can scale my business with Helpware. On top of that, they were affordable and were competitive when it came to cost. The value we get for our money is off the charts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they’re accustomed to working with people who have customer service experience. We had zero experience before this so I needed them to set up everything. There was some training that I had to give that I was completely unprepared for. I’m the only one who can explain my business to them, but if the process was more formalized, it could have gone a lot smoother. It was uncomfortable for me, but if I had an outline of what I needed to explain, it could have been easier.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend Helpware. Trust them because you’re in good hands.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

SportsEngine is a sports management technology platform that's used by youth and adult organizations throughout the country and into Canada as well with multiple platforms underneath this pretention umbrella. And I'm the director of customer support.

What challenge were you trying to address with Helpware?

We were looking to expand our hours of live coverage.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They function and have been trained the same as our support teal. They assist customer with technology needs while building sports registrations. They do not do live conversations because we only do scheduled calls and do not have an inbound line.

What is the team composition?

I have two points of contact. We currently have four contractors and are looking for a fifth.

How did you come to work with Helpware?

I did research online and talked to colleagues about companies they’ve worked with. I heard great feedback on Helpware, and they’ve worked with NBC Universal, who owns SportsEngine, so I know they were vetted in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

Our annual contract is for $130,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2019 and it’s ongoing.

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

Receipts are at 100% for the month of May. So far, everyone who has worked with them has given them five stars, and that’s incredible. They’re keeping up with our expectations. Volume is lower than normal due to COVID-19, but they’ve still me our expectations.

How did Helpware perform from a project management standpoint?

We use a joint slack account to communicate throughout the day. Any questions they have, they’re quick the jump on and reach out to us. Whenever we need anything, it doesn’t matter what time it is, they will jump on a phone to connect with us and ensure we’re on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re constantly asking to grow. They’re not complacent and are always looking for additional things to do. They ask for they can assist us further. We greatly appreciate the fact that they’re forward-thinking and driving results constantly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear, set firm deadlines, and have a very detailed training outline and point of attack to onboard the team. It has been helpful for us to use onboarding materials that we’ve consistently used for our internal team.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Visiture helps eCommerce companies grow their brand online and increase their bottom line. We do this through an omni-channel marketing approach that incorporates web design, CRO, best-in-class development, Google Shopping campaigns, content marketing, social ads and more. As SVP of Sales, I am responsible for our new client acquisition, =go-to-market strategy and overall revenue growth.

For what projects/services did your company hire Helpware?

Visiture hired Helpware to augment our internal sales and marketing efforts. Helpware has been instrumental in helping us to craft personalized, relevant messaging for our prospective clients, through various email campaigns. Additionally, Helpware has taken on various other projects to save our team time and resource, and all have been very successful.

What were your goals for this project?

Our overall goal in partnering with Helpware was to create an extension of our small sales team while keeping costs low and quality high. The idea was that Helpware would assist with the more manual, time-intensive tasks.

How did you select this vendor?

We found Helpware through online research.

Describe the project in detail.

Email sequence project (ongoing): Helpware uses several online tools to find specific organic google search effectiveness for the websites of our prospective clients. They take screenshots and build customized prospecting emails. We've won some great clients using this approach!

Sales deck project (ongoing): Helpware uses several online tools to help us create customized sales demo decks for our prospect meetings. They are able to take 90%+ of the work off of our plate! Helpware has assisted with numerous other projects, and all have been completed in time and with high-quality output.

What was the team composition?

We have 3 dedicated, professional, talented Helpware staff (full-time), in addition to a fantastic project manager!

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

As I mentioned, through Helpware's efforts, we have won multiple clients and saved our team countless hours of manual, time-intensive tasks, buying them time to focus on selling.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective workflow. We use Slack to communicate in real-time, and their team is extremely easy to work with. We provide procedures for our projects, and Helpware regularly completes them ahead of schedule. We have regular meetings with our project manager to stay in sync.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Professionalism, communication and results!

Are there any areas for improvement?

None that I can think of.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the customer experience assistant manager for Dastmalchi. Here at Dastmalchi LLC, we own and operate a collection of lifestyle, beauty, and wellness brands ideal for the every day consumer.

For what projects/services did your company hire Helpware?

We were looking to Helpware to provide customer support services for all customer inquiries including order status, refunds and exchanges, direct and 3rd party replacement orders, as well as provide product education for troubleshooting our consumer products and devices. We specifically needed help tackling a high volume of customer inquiries, as we were suddenly receiving an influx of live chats and emails, we wanted to ensure we responded within a certain amount of time. We lacked the resources to conduct support in-house at the time.

What were your goals for this project?

We were looking to add additional support to provide quick and efficient responses for all customer inquiries as our engagement was growing quickly. We needed a support staff to provide exceptional and personable experience to our customers while also providing product education on our devices to help assist with all customer opportunities.

How did you select this vendor?

We connected with Helpware through a recommendation from our CEO.

Describe the project in detail.

Helpware began assisting with a variety of incoming customer requests we had through Zendesk. Throughout time we've transitioned to another CRM platform, Gorgias. The team has built dedicated tasks within team roles to keep in order for us.

Their agents then took on responsibilities such as responding to our high volume of incoming support tickets via email, answering incoming calls for all brands and multiple channels, such as retail, wholesale, and marketplaces. Helpware also assists us with tracking and reporting product defects to our product development team as well as handling disputes across a variety of payment gateways to avoid charge-back fees and fight fraud.

What was the team composition?

The size of the team has changed over time, we've had a support staff of up to 8 agents for our peak months and as small as a team of 3. Regardless of staffing, Helpware has continued to establish roles, tasks and responsibilities as needed to assist with the customer service department.

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

Our first reply times have improved, as well as our total resolution times are down to just over an hour. Helpware's team lead, Charley, has provided constant coaching and direct communication with us to create a strong partnership within our customer service department. Thanks to their internal procedures and overall productivity, incite and attention to detail, Helpware has shown reliability and high-quality work.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We've developed a strong communication between both customer service teams as well as an effective work flow. For any processes that are in need of a clearer understanding or expectation, the team is vocal and open with communicating to deliver the best outcome. Otherwise, Helpware operates independently and continues to improve our positioning.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Helpware has provided continuous support helped build proficient processes, and developed open communication in our customer service department. Each team member is thoughtful with their time and attentive to our requests.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We don't have any that come to mind. We're pleased with the partnership we've grown with Helpware throughout our time together. Their quality and attentiveness has exceeded our expectations.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We provide outsourced custom software services, specializing in Salesforce and UI/UX. We work with small and medium sized organizations with different levels of experience dealing with custom software. Our mission is to help identify and deliver solutions that provide measurable value first and fast while iterating towards an organization's strategic goals. My position is the CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire Helpware?

Operations and assisting with account management. Our company is guided by processes when we provide services. These processes ensure requests are tracked and prioritized, converted to action items, and reported back to the customer. This transparency is highly valued and it could become difficult for project resources to self manage.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were as follows:

• Centralize collection of tasks and hours
• Report to customers on services performed at a task level on a weekly basis with inclusion of budget impact.
• Documentation of processes
• Iterate on improvement of processes
• Automate task capture and reporting on a continuing basis

How did you select this vendor?

I was impressed with their organization during the sales process. Their service offering and price was considered to be of great value with low risk if it did not turnout well.

Describe the project in detail.

The project started out without specific tactical requirements because we planned to adapt to the strengths of the person we onboarded. Our new colleague proved to be very capable of handling the initial tasks and we found ourselves falling behind on developing and iterating improvements - my fault alone. She quickly became a valuable member of the team assisting with project task tracking, project summary and billing reports, and documentation.

Eight months ago we expanded our team with a local operations lead and a full-stack developer from Helpware. Since then, with this additional help, our processes have improved at a much faster pace. We have implemented new task and hour tracking systems. Automation has been introduced to facility vendor and client management. Most importantly, there is now a process in place to ask, plan, and execute on "What can we improve next?"

What was the team composition?

The team is a project assistant and a full stack developer. They work primarily on non-billable operational or strategic tasks. The project assistant will act as a project manager on internal mini projects designed to evaluate or deliver incremental improvements. The developer helps us with tool automation and our web presence.

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

1. Moved from Harvest time tracking to Everhour. Moved from monthly, high-level, reports to weekly reports of time per task (or story) and feature per customer
2. Moved from Trello to Asana, Integrates with Everhour, Able to report on time/cost per period as well as time/cost per deliverable
3. Automatically create internal tasks from customers task management system
4. For customer with no task management system we now provide a board for their tasks
5. New main website. New process website that explains how we operated internally and externally

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are a remote business so it has been easy to make them as part of our team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have found two spectacular people who have been a pleasure to work with. They have been very helpful in addressing any of our concerns. It feels like there is a team behind our people. It's probably because there is.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There always are for everyone. I think having some more templates for customers who haven't used these type of outsourced services before. During the start, once I realized that our new team members could do much more than we anticipated, I couldn't assign tasks fast enough. That could also lead to up-sells.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a single person consulting firm that provides business strategy services relating to digital transformation and business transformation, which includes executive level coaching as well as project management and strategy development.

For what projects/services did your company hire Helpware?

As a single person firm with a broad spectrum of services much of our work is bespoke and I needed help with my back office administration and internal support services such as web design and presentation development as well as the delivery of client services. This scope has grown as my Helpware team (I hired one person, but have three working with me on a regular basis, not including the staff augmentation specialists that we bring on board, such as graphic designers) has proven itself.

What were your goals for this project?

Simply my goal was to off-load work that I do not need to perform myself, but this has transformed into building my whole business around their support. I can focus on building my business and not performing the back-office activities. The goal has transformed from supporting my business to generating value for my clients through this partnership.

How did you select this vendor?

I evaluated several vendors and based upon cost to value ratio, I felt this was the best option. What blew me away was that I was talking with the customer success manager and not a sales team. I always hated being handed off from sales to account management. In talking with the head of Customer Success, I was able to have my questions about business processes addressed in the initial conversation.

Describe the project in detail.

They have help me design and build my complete new brand design and collateral. Also working on our social media campaigns and larger marketing strategy. We did this while also formalizing the process and will be rolling out a digital agency solution to our clients as a result. Along with other critical partnering tactics I am building my business around their support. They are open to working with me and really understand that as I grow, they will grow, too.

What was the team composition?

We have an associate assigned to us, plus a customer success manager and a project manager. I am in touch with the head of customer success as well on a regular basis, and we all work together. While only the single resource I have contracted is dedicated to me, I have full access to the other two resources as project requirements require. Additionally, as we need resource, we bring them on board on a gig basis.

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

I have been able to re-brand and build marketing materials as well as develop new services to bring to market. The current goals have obviously expanded in scope from the original, but that is due to the level of support and capability of my Helpware team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As I mentioned there are multiple levels of oversight with the ability for constant feedback.. Helpware has their own project tools, into which I have full visibility and in fact am held accountable by the team when I need to be. We are truly a team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I can ask for assistance and if they can provide it they will. I had a need for a client and I did not have the time to fit it into my schedule, and My Team was able to pull someone in to help out so we could secure the gig. I won, Helpware won, and most importantly, my client won! They are responsive and attentive. They understand how to make this work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are always areas for improvement, but when I bring up my concerns they are addressed immediately, which is the key. Obstacles are a part of life, the question is what we do with them. My Team understands what to do with them and we work together to make sure we get it done.