Originally ran on October 14, 2010
Featured Startup Pitch: Assistly wants to make customer support more social
Editor’s Note: Once in a while, StartUp Beat re-runs Featured Startup Pitches from the past based on relevant news or to revisit a cool startup that has continued to build momentum. Today we’re re-running one from almost a year ago from Assistly founder and CEO Alec Bard. Assistly announced last Wednesday that it had been acquired by Salesforce.com for approximately $50 million. Check out the business and the strategy that successfully led to the company’s acquisition…
Company: Assistly
Website: www.assistly.com
Headquarters: San Francisco
Year Founded: 2009
Founder: Alec Bard, CEO
Investors: True Ventures and Social Leverage
Employees: 10
Company Description: Assistly is an elegant, web-based platform that makes customer support in a social marketing culture smarter, easier, and more affordable.
By Alec Bard, CEO
What Is Assistly?
Assistly is a hosted customer support platform that organizes and manages all of your customer conversations into a system that makes customer support efficient, fast, and effective. Assistly delivers the most current and relevant information about your customer requests to the right people in your organization and gives your teams intuitive and powerful tools to WOW your customers.
We understand that a sustainable competitive advantage is determined by your relationship with your customer. We help our clients embrace the customer-focused model, drive positive customer experiences, and build brand value.
So How Is Assistly Different?
– Listen to Your Customers IN REAL TIME
Assistly’s help desk software collects and organizes all of your customer conversations into a single framework. This comprehensive, real-time view captures not only what customers are saying to you but also about you so you can intervene to manage your reputation and capitalize on “good buzz.” As your support organization grows, this will keep your customer service agile and efficient.
– Manage All Your Customers in One Place
Assistly integrates traditional support channels (self service, phone, email, chat) with social media channels like Twitter and Facebook (coming soon) to give you a complete overview of all of your customer conversations. In addition, employees can see and manage a customer’s account, order history, and more. The system prioritizes inquiries based on business rules you set up, so requests can be directed to and handled by the right people on your team.
– Efficiency through Automation
Assistly is focused on helping you retain and support your existing customers, particularly in high volumes. Today, even small and medium sized businesses might have millions of customers all over the world. Being able to service those customers requires a quantum leap in efficiency through automated tools. Assistly provides this. No matter how big your company gets, a single employee can handle thousands of customer inquiries and have a pleasurable working experience.
The elegant and agile knowledge base, macros, and business rules eliminate wasted motion. Your personnel can handle common questions quickly so they can focus on unique questions and deliver high-quality support where it matters most. When additional expertise is needed, anyone in the company can be pulled forward to participate. Support becomes an integral part of the corporate culture rather than a cost center.
360 Degree View of Your Customer
Assistly gives your support team access to your customer’s entire support history at a glance—including data about your customers from your other systems (such as order history and account management)—enabling personalized, knowledgeable service tailored to their exact needs. In seconds, they can create and send tested, thoughtful answers to any question in the knowledge base and move on to wowing the next customer.
Assistly’s Goal is to WOW Our Customers
Our Payment Model Buoys a Customer-Centric Culture
Assistly has created a flexible, innovative pricing model that allows companies to have as many agents as they wish. Users simply pay by the hour of usage (in five-minute increments) for complete flexibility in the support environment. No costly licensing. More employees involved in crucial support and service. With Assistly all employees can participate in a culture of customer centricity.
Business Model
Assistly has an innovative payment system that makes it possible for all employees to participate in a culture of customer service. Monthly service fees are based on actual usage. Full-time agents can use the system for unlimited hours, and other employees participate hourly and pay usage fees only for the time they log.
Assistly offers a 30-day free trial, with no contract or long-term obligation.
Assistly has received funding from True Ventures and Howard Lindzon’s new investment fund, Social Leverage. Advisors include Mark Cuban and David Liu.
Current Job Openings
Assistly currently has openings for several key positions, including: Customer Service Ninja, Ruby-On-Rails Engineer, Product Designer, Marketing Director, and Systems Engineer
Assistly – www.assistly.com
