5 lessons on the road from S to M

1 min

Companies who have customer service software can respond to queries, on average, in under a minute.

5 X

Customers who speak to an agent with a service app can be up to five times more likely to make a purchase

Learn more at: lc.chat/hpe

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1. When disaster strikes, strike back

“When the markets crashed in 2009, LiveChat almost crashed with them. We had been running the first customer service software app in Poland since 2002, but our clients were heavily weighted towards large banking and financial institutions—and when the economy tanked, those service contracts were ripped up in the first wave of financial-domain cost-cutting. LiveChat, however, had already identified the fact that working on one market exclusively with large clients meant that their risk was poorly spread. We had been thinking about changing the business to serve a greater number of smaller customers, but had not taken all the steps to make it happen. So, rather than signaling the end, the financial meltdown was really an opportunity to start making the changes we already knew were necessary.”

2. It’s a cultural thing

“Different markets will be ready for the same product at different times. Even if we had tried to expand in Poland in 2009, it wouldn’t have worked, as the businesses were reluctant to use or did not even own a credit card. Most of the businesses wanted to pay us by wire transfer. The new business model we had in mind involved moving away from service contracts to simple pay-as-you-go subscription. In order to take the step up from being a small business, we needed to gain traction in markets that were ready for the service we wanted to offer.”

3. Stop being a business, become a brand

“Within a few years the app was working and the business was growing fast. But while a small business needs to offer a good service, an increase in size means you have to start thinking about becoming a brand. That means having a unified customer experience from the way to speak, to the user experience, and the way everything looks. Our app worked brilliantly but it used to be designed by developers. When we started to grow, we employed a designer to unify the look and feel of the app, the website, the logo, the blogs, etc. These are all little markers that register with people. By letting go and giving work over to professionals, we are not giving up control, we are actually gaining more control of our overall brand story.

4. Smaller business doesn’t necessarily mean better customer service

It is that interesting paradox that many small firms think they are giving better customer service just because they are giving “personal” service or not saying “no”, but customer service should actually improve as you increase in size. As Szymon says “When a company is small, you believe you are giving the best service because you are giving your heart and soul to the customers. But there are certainly situations when you are going to miss things. And you make assumptions about what good service means. As you gain experience and get bigger, you learn more about what really matters to your customers and can then build great teams to focus solely on providing that to them.” As experts in the field—seriously, you should check out the website www.livechatinc.com and see just how obsessed they are with helping companies provide better customer service—the company understands a thing or two about providing good experiences.

5. Know your limits

“We are getting close to 20,000 customers and our team of less than 20 people is able to support them. That’s an average of one customer service person supporting over 1000 companies. As a tech company—and one that has been in the cloud since 2009—it would mean that our processes were failing somewhere if we needed to add the same percentage of staff to that of new clients we gain. We need to constantly find ways of servicing more and more clients but not adding to our overheads, such as automating processes and making use of the best technology available. Good business means getting the most out of the available resources and always improving efficiencies.”