SupportYourApp is a Support-as-a-Service company that provides secure customer support to fast-growing startups and tech companies.
What started as a tiny startup grew into an international company with 800 people on the team and 150 clients around the world. SupportYourApp provides comprehensive customer care solutions: technical and customer support, concierge services, help desk and back-office solutions, telemarketing, etc.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
I was working as a customer support consultant at a tech company. After I became the head of support, I rebuilt the whole department to make it more efficient. Soon after, we received an inquiry from the founder of a startup with an office next door to ours: his business was growing fast and needed someone to take care of a growing number of customers. We agreed to take over their support.
That’s when it hit me: there is a booming market of tech startups that are growing so fast they have no time to build their own customer support. They were looking for flexible service providers with tech-savvy consultants who were not afraid of dealing with complicated issues. I pitched this idea to the founders of the company I worked for. One of them believed in me and together we created SupportYourApp. Within 10 years, we grew from a three-people startup to a Top-3 customer support provider in the world.
More from Interviews
- Meet Henry Wilkinson, Co-Founder at Drop-in, Ahead Of The Opening Of Drop-in Richmond
- Meet Oli Cook, CEO and Founder of ekko.
- Meet Marko Maras, CEO and Founder of Trustfull
- Meet Jeff Warren, Chief Technology Officer at Netwrix
- Evgeny Filichkin, Investment Advisor at Keytom & FinTech50 Judge, Tells Us What He’s Looking For From Entrants
- Tracy Prandi-Yuen, VP, Global Partnerships at Boku Inc. & FinTech50 Judge, Tells Us What She’s Looking For From Entrants
- Valentina Drofa, Co-Founder and CEO at Drofa Comms & FinTech50 Judge, Tells Us What She’s Looking For From Entrants
- Meet Oliver Bourne, Co-Founder Of WYSPR
How has the company evolved during the pandemic?
When COVID-19 hit, we had to switch over 500 people to WFH mode within three days. In 2020, 56 percent of newcomers were onboarded remotely. As challenging as it was, it helped us polish our remote work processes and expand our hiring outreach abroad.
In the beginning of the pandemic, we lost roughly 15 percent of our clients, but by the end of the year not only we compensated for the loss, but grew 100%. We landed over 30 clients from the booming industries and achieved our initial business goals.
Despite the growing WFH trend, we were expecting a hiring surge. That’s why we took a risk and opened our third office in the middle of the pandemic. Just like two other offices, this one has a vast collection of art integrated into the working environment and is getting more and more people coming into it post-COVID.
We emerged from the pandemic stronger and bigger than ever! Our team proved to be resilient and capable of cooperating remotely. But we are ready to get back to a new normal.
What can we hope to see from SupportYourApp in the future?
We are expanding the geography of our hiring efforts and currently have seven hiring hubs around the world. It allows us to source the most qualified candidates with exceptional language skills.
We’ve been developing software for corporate use for years: ticketing system, chat-bot constructors, productivity tools. But those developments were internal and offered exclusively to our clients. We’re currently focusing on making those products available for purchase and switching from being a service provider to a product company. We believe our experience of personal communication with customers will greatly contribute to the quality of our tools.
