HiOperator

Customer support as a service

2 followers

Customer support as a service

2 followers

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Customer support tools

Launch tags:Customer Communication•SaaS•Calendar

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Customer support is an area aching for disruption, and the team behind HiOperator looks like they could be the ones to do it?? A startup team is stretched thin for resources and this could help offload some work, BUT does that mean the founders are risking losing out on unique insights b/c they're distancing themselves from customers? At what stage in a company's life do you think HiOperator is the best fit?

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@afhill That's a good point! Concern over missing out on customer insights and learnings is something we hear a lot from companies. To address this, we drill down into what insights are important to founders and go above and beyond to make analytics and digests on content available. We also automatically flag any bits that we find interesting or different from previous interactions. For startups, there are two stages where we've found that we fit in well. One is right after seed where they are getting a bit more volume at peak hours than they can efficiently handle. It's still important for them to be close to their customers but the team is lean and they need time to work on product too. The other is right after a later funding event or expansion where they are looking to upgrade their customer support service.

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10yr ago

@elizabethtsai I would like to follow up on this a bit. How do you handle frequent product changes / updates? In my previous role, we had changes rolled out every two weeks. It worked out well for our customer support representative to be part of our team meetings in order to stay up-to-date. Is this a scenario you can handle as well?

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@cdmartens that sounds like it would be a good test for our process! We haven't had a customer need "major" changes every two weeks. We have discussed internally how we want to handle refresher training and skills maintenance as we scale. Perhaps this would be something to incorporate into that schedule.

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10yr ago

@afhill Customer support IS aching for disruption, the model really hasn't changed in 20 years... Amen to that!

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10yr ago

@elizabethtsai It might be unnecessary for a majority of companies, and it's totally possible that it's not even worth developing a process for immediately. We had a SaaS platform that was used by external users and internal staff. Usually, our changes were small, but were made available to users/staff immediately. Our support representative had to be made aware of those changes on an ongoing basis.

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

Hi everyone! I’m the co-founder of HiOperator along with @philsalesses and we’re excited to share what we’ve been working on. We provide scalable multichannel customer support as a service staffed by Americans. We believe that startups and companies should be able to outsource customer service - including for overflow and after hours support - without suffering drops in quality and losing out on customer learnings. Our goal is to keep customer service agents in the process and make them more efficient by integrating bits of tech into the workflow - i.e. automating order capturing and using adaptive UIs. Happy to answer any questions either here or at liz@hioperator.com. Would love any and all feedback! We love learning about what’s most important to you and your company when it comes to supporting your customers. :)

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

Hi all, I'm the other HiOperator founder, Phil. On a plane back to SF now but United WiFi is holding up, so send us your questions.

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10yr ago

@phil_salesses Cool concept, congrats Phil (and hi!)

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@amarkbo Thanks Amar!

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10yr ago

@elizabethtsai does anyone else find "Staffed by Americans" as funny as I do?! I mean I get it, but lol!

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10yr ago

@elizabethtsai hi! Are you planning to offer multilingual support? If you are using American agents you can give them multilingual super-powers with Unbabel.com so they can read and write in multiple languages. Let us know if you want to talk about it.

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10yr ago

I have to say that I think you have an awesome product. I think it is great that in order to solve the problems in the customer service space that you actually built a service instead of the 1,000,000,000,000,001th helpdesk SASS product. The pricing seems very affordable (considering what it is replacing). If I wanted after hours support it would probably require a minimum of 2 employees, probably 3 employees when you consider alternating shifts and so forth (thats about $10K in salaries) and for most companies those employees would have a couple calls a night is all. So is it worth it? Probably not, which is why most companies (mine included) don't offer after hours support. It only makes sense when you have enough ongoing calls all night long to finally keep that minimal staff busy. So its awesome for a service like this to come in and for $150/mo plus a-la-carte pricing per call I can offer 24 hours support but really only pay for that one or two calls a night that might come in. Such a genius move. Good luck with everything. Most of the products we see on productHunt anymore are just silly quick cash grabs but this looks like a service that could really turn into a meaningful and valuable business.

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@_jacurtis Thanks for the note! We know this isn't a sexy industry or a viral app but we think it's something that matters to a lot of companies and is a real pain point - both for companies and for contact center agents today. if you want to drop me a note at liz@hioperator.com, we'd love to talk more about your after hours support.

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10yr ago

Love this idea! Does your service allow for tech support only? Or would it be able to handle on-boarding support inquiries as well (e.g. 15 min product demo)?

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@lumbadoja We would love to do more product demos.

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10yr ago

@phil_salesses so that's a yes? And cost would be case price + per price minute?

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@lumbadoja That is a yes. We would just charge per minute though. The case price is only if there is no voice. What's your email? I'll send you more details.

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10yr ago

Love this concept for helping out with peak times or when we are at retreats, etc. Your website definitely focuses on phone support. If we didn't offer that channel, but had chat and/or email, that could work, as well?

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@jenn_southan Yes! We do support non-voice channels as well such as chat and email. We'll see what we can do about making the messaging more clear. We're great for helping clear support tickets during busy times or over the weekends.

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10yr ago

Awesome product guys. So how do you handle the "More questions". Eg Ecommerce store, client rings to place an order over the phone, but before he does, he asks few questions about the product. What happens then?

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@smartpercent We do that for >50% of our customers currently. Customers call in with questions, we know the product and answer them. We learn about your business in anyway we can. You can send us a product FAQ, we can study the product material on your website or you can send us a product and we'll use it. If none of those work for you, we can give it our best attempt using whatever you can provide us and run any uncertainties by you. Over time we learn and should be asking for your help less and less. Think of our team as an extension of yours. If you can do it with someone at a desk next to yours, you can probably do it with HiOperator.

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10yr ago

@phil_salesses That sounds perfect! Thanks for your reply

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10yr ago

@elizabethtsai great service! FYI, it looks like you might have a typo/bug on your chat window: "Hi, anything I can help with? I read every reply personally so, if there is, let me know!"

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10yr ago

HiOperator

Maker

@chris_smeder @elizabethtsai Thanks. Fixed.

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10yr ago

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