Mindy Support

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of customer success at Kili Technology, a data labeling platform with AI and machine learning (ML).

What challenge were you trying to address with Mindy Support?

We have customers that want to label certain data better which could significantly improve the version of their data. As a result, we needed to outsource to find people who could help us do that work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We spend a couple of hours training the Mindy Support team on the platform. For every single new project that we have in production, we train them again on the version of our software. We also show them the new specificities that we have in production.

Their work is similar to people who are on Facebook and are tagging their friends in pictures. They basically annotate videos, texts, and digital texts for us, and their main goal is to spend minimum time to complete their work while keeping accuracy high.

What is the team composition?

I’m in contact with 2–3 people, including a project manager.  

How did you come to work with Mindy Support?

I wasn’t at the company when they were brought on, but I think our CEO wanted to outsource and found them by recommendation or through an online search.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $20,000–$30,000 in five months.

What is the status of this engagement?

I began working together with Mindy Support in May 2021, and it’s ongoing.

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

We closely monitor their performance, and our metrics include the time they spend on the platform to finish their work and the quality of their annotation. In connection with that, we’ve been happy with their results.

How did Mindy Support perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a dedicated channel with them together with our customers. They also have one project manager who filters the questions of their annotators; she highlights the information regarding the team. Overall, they’re very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Everything is clear because they pay attention to details.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their price because it’s a little bit high for this type of project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be transparent with Mindy Support.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an AI software company. We develop software for image analysis and, in particular, for smart parking. We get images from parking areas and give our users real-time information on parking occupancy.

What challenge were you trying to address with Mindy Support?

We needed help with data annotation in order to improve our machine learning models. When we started the company, we were doing the annotations internally but it wasn’t a very scalable model.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mindy Support has a couple of different tasks. One task is about visibly annotative research of what an image represents. The other one is a more general task. They get an overview of a certain parking area, and they manually annotate around each one of the cars. We mostly use C++ and Python for our software.

We provide them some annotations to work on. We send them a few links, and they connect to those links to work on the annotation campaigns. Then, they use our annotation tools to do their work.

What is the team composition?

We work with one main point of contact and a technical contact.

How did you come to work with Mindy Support?

We chose Mindy Support out of convenience. We were working with another firm, and we asked them to do data annotation for us. However, they weren’t specialized in that area, so they recommended Mindy Support.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €3,000–€4,000 (approximately $3,600–$4,800 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

The quality of Mindy Support’s work has been very satisfactory. These tasks are repetitive and relatively easy to carry on. However, quality is extremely important. So far, I’m very happy with the quality.

How did Mindy Support perform from a project management standpoint?

Mindy Support’s project management has been working well. We communicate through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Mindy Support succeeds in the whole process. We give them annotations, and they do them and give them back to us. The results have been very positive, and everything is very smooth.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning, but that’s normal. We have very specific tasks, and we've had to provide them with very detailed instructions. We did a couple of joint sessions in which we explained exactly what we needed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear on your expectations. This applies to most outsourcing companies, not just them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

As a crowdsourcing company we offer a variety of different services. One of those services is what we call “data labeling”. Most of the content we provide to our customers is created by our own crowd but in some cases, especially when time and output quality is of the essence, we choose to work with external agencies.

With one of our recent labeling projects we once again teamed up with “Mindy” and were very satisfied with the quality of their results. We are looking forward continuing our partnership with “Mindy”.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindy Support?

One of our crowd’s greatest strong points is that it consists of a diverse selection of people from all around the world with different cultural and educational backgrounds. It represents a large cross section of today’s society with different work ethics as well as working hours depending on the type of employment and location.

However, managing a work force like this and directing it in a way that leads to creating high quality, streamlined data in a strict time frame can sometimes be a challenge. In the Drive thru Study, we needed a small group of people that would be able to deliver high quality data in a certain amount of time.

Using an agency as our co-operation partner on this project allowed us to stay within our set time frame while keeping our own manual quality assurance efforts as low as possible.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to analyze satellite imagery of different drive thrus. The customer planned on using the data to optimize the usage of a particular parking lot.

How did you select Mindy Support?

We have teamed up with Mindy on several occasions while working on various projects. Mindy have helped us with quality assurance in data collection projects as well as other types of tasks.

We chose to work with Mindy on this project as we were certain that they would be able to deliver high quality data in a short period of time which was essential for us.

Describe the project in detail.

The agents had to analyze the number of parking spaces, the number of entrances and exits and a few other things. They also had to use Google Street View to find out if the sign of the restaurant was visible from several spots.

We were working in close communication via Teams. Every member of the team had to read our briefing and complete a few test jobs that we reviewed to see if the agent understood the task. After passing the test we allowed them to work on the project.

What was the team composition?

We did only communicate with one project manager who forwarded our feedback to the agents in question. We knew that the agency’s team consisted of 20 workers using different accounts on our platform to complete the provided tasks.

We were able to provide daily updates on the task progress per account, so that the project managers could make sure that we would stay within our set time frame.

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

The customer was very satisfied with the results and didn’t have any remarks for any of the tasks. We think that this work will have a direct impact on the optimization of the parking lot’s usage.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was quite effective. The time we had to wait for a response from the other team was very short. We were able to provide and forward feedback to improve the quality during the early stages of the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The high-quality data that the agency was able to deliver convinced us to ask them to participate in the Drive thru Study project. We were very satisfied with both the results and the communication over the 2 weeks they were working on the tasks.

We will certainly consult them again if we encounter a future project that requires high quality data sets with narrow time frames as we know that we can rely on Mindy in those instances.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are always small things that can be improved, e. g. the quality of the results of a few agents that didn’t pass the test jobs and continued to make the same mistakes.

However, Mindy reacted quickly, took them off the project and replaced them with new agents who immediately understood the task. We are looking forward to continuing our collaboration.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Mindy Support?

We needed some back-office services, so we hired Mindy Support.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mindy Support works with us on our AI-based software. 

What is the team composition?

Anastasia (B2B Expert) and 1–2 other people from their team work with us.

How did you come to work with Mindy Support?

We found their team online — we liked their responsiveness and reasonable pricing.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €400 (approximately $480 USD). We pay €60–€70 (approximately $72–$84 USD) per month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around June 2020 and our engagement is ongoing.

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

We’re happy with the services they’re providing.

How did Mindy Support perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication between our teams is quite good. They’re meeting our deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re pleasant to work with and they do a good job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve right now. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just let them do what they do.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the business development manager of a consumer goods marketplace. I work as a business development manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Mindy Support?

We have our own customer service team in-house, but we wanted more cost-efficiency. An outsourced partner can do the work more cost-effectively than we can do with an in-house team. The KPI cost per ticket optimization was one of the reasons we decided to outsource some of the work. We also wanted the flexibility of ramping up and downsizing the team very quickly.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We first outsourced our tier-one tickets to Mindy Support, which is when our users complain about basic things like they can’t log in to their account, there are some bugs and they do not know what to do, they want to complain other users using the marketplace, and other typical marketplace issues.

In the beginning, Mindy Support focused only on those tickets. When they proved that the service is good, we then outsourced our level-two tickets to them as well. Additionally, they support us with item moderation. There are some prohibited items people cannot list within the marketplace, and some areas need to be reviewed manually. That manual review of the items is part of the scope.

What is the team composition?

Currently, we are working with around eight people. There is a project manager from Mindy Support who deals with things like KPIs, performance, or contractual things. They are responsible for the cooperation from their side.

How did you come to work with Mindy Support?

We looked at 16 different outsourcing providers in different countries. We then did a small RFP process where we requested some basic information from them about how they could support us as well as their pricing. In the final stage, we had two or three of them and they did a skill test of the agents. Mindy Support convinced us that they have the best service and they were also very competitive on the pricing, so we decided to go with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

It began in June 2019, and we are still working with them.

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

In terms of quantity, we measure the volume of tickets or items moderated. In terms of quality, we focus mainly on client satisfaction and feedback given after the ticket was solved. Those are the two main metrics, but we have one more KPI that’s called first contact resolution. That measures how many tickets they are able to solve with their first reply. Mindy Support doesn't always hit our KPIs, but we are satisfied.

How did Mindy Support perform from a project management standpoint?

They always keep deadlines. When we agree on something, Mindy Support always delivers in terms of project management. For example, when we ask to increase the team size or when come up a new contract version release with new KPIs, they are very fast.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The price is something that we checked during the selection process, and Mindy Support had the best price for the same services that other vendors offered. This is definitely a strength for them. Their other strength is in contractual flexibility when it comes to upsizing and downsizing the team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were times where people left the project after two or three months. It’s the nature of the work, and I understand that, but this might be something Mindy Support should check during recruiting and maybe set up expectations better in order to avoid that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about the KPIs from the beginning. When someone wants to start a partnership, it is always very important to understand what the KPIs are and to have the same definition. You should also be clear about what the impact will be if the KPIs are not met. If there is some sort of monetary consequence, a motivational contractual set-up helps drive the partnership.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a Microscopy Specialist at the Institut for Research in Biomedicine (Bellinzona, Switzerland)

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindy Support?

Manual tracking of cells in microscopy videos

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

I was not the person who made this decision

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They provided several operators for manual annotation of cells in microscopy videos. We provided a customized tool for cell tracking and its documentation. We provide the data in batches of about about 10 videos, which are distributed among several operators.

We also provide annotation instructions and examples, and the operators give back the cell tracks.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We discussed our project with our account manager. She was responsible of the recruitment of the operators, which received from us the documentation to install and use the tracking tool.

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

Over the past year we have sent a series of batches of videos. In general, we are happy with the performance of the operators. In addition, the team is always attentive to our feedback to improve the results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication between teams is good despite working remotely. We have always received the results quickly.

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

They provided highly efficient operators at a profitable price.

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

Since operators need to learn how to use the program and recognize cells, it would be desirable, as far as possible, to keep the same people involved in the project.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of the the AI-based agriculture tech startup. We are developing Video Intelligent solutions for customers in various industry.

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

All AI problems nowadays need human-annotated data to train the AI model to be able to replicate some human tasks. The amount of data is huge, and thus it costs a massive time to annotate all of them. Our dataset contains images with a complex annotation setup and we need to annotate all of them in high accuracy, fast delivery, and cost effective.

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

We searched online and MindySupport appears with good reviews and their website contains all features and certificate that we need/believe they are a good fit.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Kick off meeting Project & data description send & feedback A test project provided and MindySupport do the test Go to full scale project Feedback after the delivery Fixing data annotations if needed

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Two key persons: Business Development, Project Manager and many people behind to do the actual data annotations.

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

The accuracy of MindySupport data annotation service is high >95% accurate according to our check.

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

We communicate mostly through emails and Google Meet. The timeliness is very professional.

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

MindySupport was able to fulfill our special needs for customization in terms of our software. That is not something that universal available online.

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

Nothing until now.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company is one of the leading SaaS in the mobile OCR space and my position there is leading Data Operations.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindy Support?

We faced the problem of having more and more AI data to be annotated and that's where we hired Mindy Support who helps us managing the workload on the annotation side in a very reliable and efficient way.

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

Mindy Support is Europe based and therefore comply to GDPR standards. That was very important to us. They are also very reliable and quick in their response and service.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

We have AI data (images) that need to be annotated with a particular eye on the quality in oder to feed and train our AI system with reliable data. This is what Mindy Support delivers to our greatest satisfaction.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We work directly with their Business Development Director and other IT specialists.

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

Based on Mindy's work we were able to deliver multiple custom made mobile OCR scanning solutions on time and to our customer's satisfaction.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our coordination is mainly by email and that works very well. The specialists from Mindy Support are very thorough and respond very quickly to all our inquiries.

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

I'm impressed by Mindy's reliability, quick response time and clear communication. They are real professionals.

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

All issues we had were solved and cleared within hours. I have nothing to complain about.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Customer Success Manager and Head of Annotations Management for Voiceitt, a start-up developing speech assistive technology for people with speech disabilities in the form of a mobile application

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindy Support?

With the increase in application users, our volume of recordings increased and we were no longer able to manage review and annotation of each recording in-house.

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

We reviewed a number of different companies and even conducted a one month trial period with Mindy and another company. We chose Mindy because the team proved themselves to be more efficient, more communicative, and more adaptable than the other company.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

The team reviews all recordings we receive through the app. They evaluate and tag each recording based on a set of criteria laid out during their onboarding. This process is done on an internally developed data management tool. The team also reports any issues with or suggested improvement for the tool.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We work with a project manager for invoicing questions or personnel changes and a team leader for more day to day instruction. In addition there are 4 other annotators on the team.

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

Clear and consistent tagging of signals improves the experience for our users and provides a valuable database for our R&D team

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have weekly communication with the Team Lead. She is very responsive and acts as a liaison between our company and the annotations team.

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

They're communicative. Mindy Support adapts well as data and instructions for their work evolve.

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

The team is very exact in following instruction. Some work involves subjective decision-making that does not adhere to the general regulations so it will be helpful for the team to understand more fully not only how to complete the tasks but why as well. Team members are encouraged to ask questions about why and discuss exceptions to general task rules.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Production and Project Management of a small company that enables utilities such as recycling centers to have smart containers that detect wrongly sorted trash.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mindy Support?

We needed qualified annotators that helped us with the annotation of the training material that trains our neural networks.

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

We found this agency online and they provide a very straightforward bundle. All the services and cost structure are outlined and simple to calculate with when deciding on outsourcing a project. The quality of the annotators' work is great.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They provided multiple annotators that were given clear instructions on the desired scope and quality of annotations. After a short test and evaluate period we quickly grooved in to a process where we provide the material with a deadline and needed little supervision from our side.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We were appointed a project manager who took in all of our requests and provided the right amount of annotators to meet our deadlines with the high amount of material we provided.

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

With the support we were able to free up a lot of internal HR capacities while still keeping a high quality of annotated training material.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They quickly communicate, and they provide realistic deadlines. So far, they've always met the deadlines they set. After a few days of working together we found a way of stating our requirements that was suitable for both side. The result was a high quality of their results.

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

They provide a very straight-forward and easy to plan with cost structure.

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

In the beginnings our requirements seem to not have been 100% clear but after some communication we were able to have a mutual understanding of them. I think they could have developed their own annotation tool so that they can have a higher variety of services.