Insights and musings about customer service and managing a SaaS software company
Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category
May 29, 2013 by Yuval Brisker
Of course, the smartphone has changed all of our lives. That’s a given. Within the coming years there are going to be very few people on this planet who won’t be touched by this revolution.
But currently, I think it’s safe to say that the most intense beneficiaries of the mobile and smartphone revolutions are people living in an urban setting in the affluent world. The quantity of information and opportunity for connecting, for making the mundane daily things much easier is almost infinite – and the apps addressing these opportunities are almost impossible to quantify. Every time I look around, there’s a new app for something that has the potential to really redefine how that something is found, completed, tracked, etc.
For anyone who has lived in a big, dense urban center like New York, San Francisco, London, Paris or Tokyo, we know that one of the great blessings, privileges AND annoyances of the urban existence is public transportation in all of its forms. Subways and buses are amazing transportation networks – but you have no control over their movement or their schedule, and so your relationship with them is defined by your showing up, catching or missing them. So other than seeing schedules and knowing more easily and accurately when the train or bus will arrive, there is not much more you can do.
Taxis on the other hand are totally different…a lovely creation of convenience that is really only “semi”-public transportation but one that simplifies the lives of many. Taxis are great. But could they get better?
Über is the ultimate manifestation of an app that takes full advantage of the revolutionary qualities of the combined mobile smartphone platform and the mobile Internet – particularly three:
- Always on communications capabilities
- Location-based services
- Constant connectivity that matches and processes transactional info (such as connecting things and procesding payments)
Über connects people who need a taxi of any kind with member drivers. By knowing where both are and giving drivers the ability to be available and accessible – anyone can find a quality car from the comfort of their sofa or their restaurant chair without having to go out and hail a cab in the driving rain, freezing snow, wind or burning sun. And you won’t ever have to fight over a cab with someone on the street.
You can choose from a variety of cars at your price level, know the name of the driver, the make and license plate of the car and the driver’s cell phone number (anyone ever lose anything in a taxi and had no way of finding the driver?) and order a pickup wherever you want by just dropping a pin on map and pressing “order.” It’s ingenious and it works.
Not only can anyone be a driver (ever need an extra little bit of cash?) and work their own hours in their own car, which creates a new twist on the old transportation workforce model, but it also builds another type of functional social network – you can rate the driver, know his rating AND he or she can rate you, so drivers are safe from abusive passengers. All of this is the ultimate transportation upgrade for the urban dweller – both for the transporter and traveler.
Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes, one of the most important things…NO monies are exchanged in the car – at all! It’s all credit card enabled and there is no tipping (that’s calculated into a slightly higher fare). So at the end of a trip, when you get to your destination, you just get out of the car and say thank you and goodbye. All the unpleasantness is gone and all that is left is pure convenience – and a very civilized experience.
Truly amazing.
A few weeks back, I was having lunch with a friend in Manhattan and he brought along his nine year old son. As the meal was ending, I ordered an Über via my iPhone app.
I saw the driver that Über chose for me on the app’s map, and as he made his way towards me, I could track his progress. Über also gives you an ETA AND sends you a text message when the driver is one minute away. (Did I say it takes FULL advantage of the mobile smartphone?!).
When I saw the Cadillac SUV pulling up, we got up from the table and walked out to the car. As the driver was opening the door for me to slip in – my friend’s son asked me with amazement – “Do you have a private car and driver?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do!”
Über. My second favorite app.
April 11, 2013 by Yuval Brisker
 As a co-founder and CEO of an amazing and fast growing SaaS company, I have the honor of being part of many great moments – large and small - in the life of the company, moments that usually mark an interesting and exciting shift in our business. Yesterday was such a moment - a milestone for our business, the coming together of a lot of what we’ve been working towards over the years, but really much more than that. What really makes this moment so exciting is that, I believe, it is also a landmark representing the sea change that’s happening in enterprise software.
Telefónica, a global provider of telecommunication services, an innovator, has selected TOA Technologies to deploy our industry-leading SaaS field service management solution to their global mobile workforce – a deployment that is ultimately going to span 24 countries. This could well be the largest footprint of an enterprise cloud software solution ever. They’ve made this decision after carefully surveying the market of existing on-premise solutions vendors – and decided to take the bold leap into the future and select TOA.
Amidst my pride, I can’t help but look back to when Irad Carmi, my co-founder and our CTO, founded TOA with the idea that one day every company – extra-large, large, medium and small – would need, and be using, software like ours by being built in the browser and managed as a service in the cloud (and designed with a clear focus on the user, providing tangible total value and built for partnership). We never had a doubt that this day would come. Today is special – because when a company of the size and reach of Telefónica has come to the conclusion that nothing but a true, native SaaS solution would do. That’s big.
If we’ve been waiting for any single customer to signify the ‘Crossing of the Chasm’ of enterprise software – from on-premise to the cloud. This is the clear marker.
Why did Telefónica go for the cloud? What is the lesson here?
- Scale: A cloud solution represents scalability and the ability to grow without the headache of buying new hardware and managing the growth. Scale and growth are built in.
- Standardization: A cloud solution like TOA’s represents the best way for companies with a large geographic and operational footprint to standardize their business processes and customer experience.
- Reliability: The solution that we and other cloud software vendors provide is the most reliable of all enterprise software solution. It’s the lifeblood of our business – and without reliability, cloud software would not have a business.
- Long-term innovation: This is assured. Cloud software is service. It’s always current, always the latest version and always reflects the latest and greatest thinking of the developers who develop the solution.
Ultimately, though, it’s all about partnership and the enormously positive people who work with us and believe in our company and TOA’s solutions. Our global team is expert at forging professional, collaborative and lasting partnerships with customers. And these partnerships are further enabled through our software service which keeps us close. This gives all of us at TOA the opportunity to work with the business and technology leaders of great companies – and in this case an important Tier 1 telecommunications service provider with an incredible global reach.
October 12, 2012 by Yuval Brisker
Did I say I love Brazil?? Well I do!
TOA Brazil is growing and growing stronger every day - 0ur great team here is kicking it out of the ball park and today we proudly announced that TIM Brasil- a subsidiary of Telecom Italia Mobile – and the second largest telecom operator in Brazil is a customer of ours. We are not tourists here – TOA and our team is here and here to say – we are Brazilian!
Our momentum is significant and keeps accelerating – at Futurcom we exhibited had two speaking session – one by our customer GVT’s CIO Alessandra Bomura – and you could feel the excitement – the excitement of being able to offer something to customers and meet those commitments and the TIM story in this respect is incredible and is pretty nicely delineated in the press release.
A journalist here asked me today what are the three things that TOA is focused on broadcasting to the Latin American market and my response was:
1) Embracing the Cloud: Businesses across the continent are skipping over a generation of software and demanding Cloud-based solution and we are here to tell them that by committing to a true, native and only Cloud-based solution – they are getting the best of the best – advanced technology solutions that always current, always the latest version and technology that are easy to deploy, easy to use, and easy to pay for. And on top of that customers don’t need to deal with the hassle of running or maintaining software – and they get even more – a solution that is rock-solid, secure and provides the ultimate in reliability.
2) Enhancing customer service: This is a great moment for businesses in countries like Brazil – the economic environment continues to be very positive, people have more disposable income and an appetite to buy and are evolving as consumers – so companies across Latin America need to step up and take control of the customer service experience. They need to leap over a whole generation of companies who did or are not doing it well and take advantage of technology to enhance that aspect of their business and now – so that they can reap the rewards of service differentiation in a more and more competitive market.
3) Lastly, it’s all about trust and the ability to deliver and deliver with the highest quality and consistency – companies here need to look for long-term partners who they can trust in a new generation of business.
Obrigado to the great TOA team in Brazil!
A little tidbit -
TOA’s Brazil team at Futurecom 2011:
And TOA’s Brazil Team at Futurecom 2012:
Something’s Up!
October 9, 2012 by Yuval Brisker
It’s Tuesday the 9th of October and I’m in the Citta Maravilhosa – Rio de Janeiro!
Today The Sun Shines especially bright in Rio – heralding the dawning of the new age for Service Everywhere™ in Brazil and in Latin America.
Yesterday – TOA Technologies announced that GVT chose TOA over all our legacy competitors to power the transformation of its customer and field service operations.
By deploying ETAdirect rapidly across its footprint (in 4 months instead of 18 months offered by the legacy providers) GVT will be able to quickly better optimize and better manage all field service across Brazil. But more than that GVT’s executive management was also focused on continuing to advance their market leadership and competitive differentiation by focusing on enhancing precision of appointment and customer information and enabling advanced automated communications with it’s nationwide growing customer base! ETAdirect will enable all that and more!
We are so proud to be in partnership with GVT a visionary and innovative company that is also the fastest-growing telecom in Brazil. This is a company that has been thinking out-of-the-box it from day one rising from start-up just over 10 years ago to be a dominant force in technology and telecom in this great country.
GVT is one of the slew of companies that TOA is partnering with across Latin America in a surge of new customers that we are seeing across this amazing continent. There are many more new Latin American customer announcements in store in the coming weeks and months, reflecting the the leadership position that TOA and other native, pure Cloud-based technology providers are seeing in the fast growing and technologically progressive countries in Latin America The Nexus of Forces that TOA is smack dab in the middle of – Cloud, Mobile and Social – is capturing the imagination and the ambition of visionary leaders across the continent and we are right there with them. Leaders such as GVT’s amazing CIO, Alessandra Bomura Nogueira, who is a great new TOA customer and will be discussing her view of why superior customer relationship management and field service management are so interconnected at Futurecomm here in Rio tomorrow. These combined mega-trends are transforming the way business is being done at so many levels – but none with more verve and potential than the world of mobile employees, and field and customer service and with no more energy than here.
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