scaling up an integration ecosystem on a budget
DESCRIPTION
Unlike the cheese, no piece of software stands alone: rare is the company whose product is used in isolation. Your users are using your tool in conjunction with many others to get a single “job” done. Simply having an API doesn’t mean your job is done. These users want seamless integrations not a link to developer docs. But how do you as a business justify the expense in building out a robust ecosystem of integrations? In this talk I’ll cover how we at UserVoice justify, plan, prioritize and build high quality integrations as well as 11 key things we've done (or not done) that have allowed us to scale up our ecosystem on limited resources.TRANSCRIPT
Scaling up an integration ecosystem on a budget
Richard WhiteFounder, CEO@rrwhite
three goals
three warnings
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.
Helpdesk Launched May 2011
Easy to use & (self-service) setup - Customers can get setup in hours, not days or weeks.
Designed for simplicity but has the backend to handle complicated routing and queuing.
Inspector - Answer messages quicker and more carefully by having the complete social context of who you’re talking to.
Game mechanics - Our leaderboard drives friendly competition amongst customer teams to respond quickly and comprehensively
Ticket system emails look like normal emails. End-users never know they’re being tracked. There's no ticket # or 'reply above this line', People bristle at the notion of being “in a system” - they want human connection.
A YEAR AGO
1MM tickets have been handled by UserVoice Helpdesk
@rrwhite
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.
NOW
5MM tickets have been handled by UserVoice Helpdesk
1MM per month
@rrwhite
Feedback forums are the unique UserVoice way of helping customers get and respond to inbound customer feedback at scale.
Feedback is a natural, and highly successful, way to engage large numbers of otherwise passive users who wouldn’t contact companies for support.
Feedback Launched April 2008
Scalability - Get feedback from thousands or millions with the same level of effort.
Frictionless feedback - 80+% of those who give feedback will provide an email address and subscribe to updates. This works wonders for pre-sales engagement.
Response rates double that of newsletters. Permission based marketing at its best. Users are opting into updates on other user generated content.
We provide the most comprehensive and robust set of tools to help our customer communicate with their users where they already are: in-app.
Complete set of APIs, Push Notifications and SDKs make it easy for companies to integrate UserVoice into their business.
Instant Answers - All embedded experiences drive customers to self-service their issues. Up to 40% (and higher on mobile) of requests are resolved through suggesting a relevant knowledge base article or existing forum post.
Feedback tab widget - Embed a complete customer portal directly into a website with a couple lines of code.
UserVoice is everywhere users are
UserVoice is everywhere users areWe provide the most comprehensive and robust set of tools to help our customer communicate with their users where they already are: in-app.
Complete set of APIs, Push Notifications and SDKs make it easy for companies to integrate UserVoice into their business.
Instant Answers - All embedded experiences drive customers to self-service their issues. Up to 40% (and higher on mobile) of requests are resolved through suggesting a relevant knowledge base article or existing forum post.
Feedback tab widget - Embed a complete customer portal directly into a website with a couple lines of code.
Mobile optimized - All of our interfaces are optimized to work on desktop and mobile web. (22.5% of our usage is mobile web)
UserVoice for iOS - A native customer portal directly inside your iPhone or iPad app.
NEW
The next generation in (meaningful) in-app user engagement: bundling together customer satisfaction, product feedback and support to create engagement rates that blow away traditional VoC or Helpdesk solutions.
Combined with a robust analytics system to give you a complete view of your user base from 10K feet down to individual users.
New features debuted at UserVoice Summit 2013:
Instant Answers
Satisfaction Surveys
SmartVote
Touchpoint SDK & Analytics
In-app engagement
Our data & partnersNEW
Data in UserVoice is valuable at both an individual level as well as at an aggregate level (for targeting whole segments of users). We provide the universal record of user activity to complementary tools.
user
s
Support ticketsHelp solve issues which reduces churn and improves satisfaction.
Product feedbackInsight into product improvements to reduce churn
Satisfaction scoresInsight into product improvements and customer segments to target to reduce churn
Usage & conversion data: User activity, LTVs, etc. - (help analyze and refine which feedback and user segments to pay attention to)
Product feedbackInforms potential upsell conversationsSatisfaction scoresUsed to help inform potential rescue salesSupport tickets Sales and support in sync - efficiency gains
CRM Partners
All UserVoice activity Helps inform lead scoring for improved conversion targeting - people who submit feedback or support tickets are more engaged in the self-serve buying process. Helps to identify brand advocates.
Marketing Automation Partners
Real-time product feedbackHelps make entire team aware of front-line product deficiencies driving dissatisfaction
Internal Collaboration Partners
Live Chat
users
Social / Mobile
CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing
our process
Live Chat
users
Social / Mobile
CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing
The value of integrationsOUR THINKING
@rrwhite
Live Chat
users
Social / Mobile
CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing
The value of integrationsCustomer retention
OUR THINKING
@rrwhite
Live Chat
users
Social / Mobile
CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing
The value of integrationsCustomer retention
Co-marketing & press
OUR THINKING
@rrwhite
Live Chat
users
Social / Mobile
CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing
The value of integrationsCustomer retention
Co-marketing & press
New distribution channels
OUR THINKING
@rrwhite
Live Chat
users
Social / Mobile
CollaborationProduct CRM Marketing
OUR THINKING
@rrwhite
The value of integrationsCustomer retention
Co-marketing & press
New distribution channels
Closing new customers
@rrwhite
Most integrations are crap
A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
The integrator’s dilemmaA HUMBLE OBSERVATION
@rrwhite
The integrator’s dilemmaOptimize for quantity or quality?
A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
@rrwhite
The integrator’s dilemmaOptimize for quantity or quality?
Pushing failure down the funnel.
A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
@rrwhite
The integrator’s dilemmaOptimize for quantity or quality?
Pushing failure down the funnel.
No right answer. We chose quality.
A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
@rrwhite
The integrator’s dilemmaOptimize for quantity or quality?
Pushing failure down the funnel.
No right answer. We chose quality.
Can we have both?
A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
@rrwhite
Write the user stories for a new class integrations.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
Write the user stories for a new class integrations with actual users.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
We try to build the first integration in-house.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
We try to build the first integration in-house.
Validates that we have the API / platform tech to support it.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
We try to build the first integration in-house.
Validates that we have the API / platform tech to support it.
Quality of APIs is a considered when picking our first partner.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
We lean on others to build N+1 integrations
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
We lean on others to build N+1 integrations
This is how we hope to achieve quality and quantity.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
We lean on others to build N+1 integrations
This is how we hope to achieve quality and quantity.
We need to have a great set of APIs & integration tech.
OUR PROCESS
@rrwhite
eleven things
Use your own damn API
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY
Our first hackathon
@rrwhite
Use your own damn API
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
A dedicated API engineer
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
SDKs for a multitude of programming languages
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
An API for provisioning accounts
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Web hooks
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Web Service hooks
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY
Supporting Bidirectional syncing (between us and less awesome APIs)
@rrwhite
“External ID” supportTHINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
@rrwhite
“External ID” supportticket = findTicket( :title => “Help me”, :user => “[email protected]”)
updateTicket(ticket.id, {DATA})
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
@rrwhite
“External ID” supportticket = findTicket( :title => “Help me”, :user => “[email protected]”)
ticket = findTicket( :external_id => 123, :external_app => “salesforce”)
updateTicket(ticket.id, {DATA})
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
@rrwhite
“External ID” supporttickets = findTickets( :external_app => “salesforce”, :filter => “no_external_id”)
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
@rrwhite
Upsert supportTHINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
@rrwhite
ticket = findTicket( :external_id => 123, :external_app => “salesforce”)
if ticket doesn’t exist createTicket({DATA})else updateTicket(ticket.id, {DATA})end
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Upsert support
@rrwhite
upsertTicket( :external_id => 123, :external_app => “salesforce”, {DATA})
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Upsert support
@rrwhite
THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY
Integrations involving the words “on” & “premise”
@rrwhite
Integrations that don’t involve any APIs
THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
thanks