Argeweb is a web hosting service provider founded in 1999 that aims to be the most customer-friendly service in the Netherlands. They provide personal and proactive advice for web hosting, domain & email services to businesses and consumers. They are based in Maassluis (near Rotterdam) and focused on customers in the Netherlands. The team consists of about 35 employees & most of them are working in customer support.

Customer support is also the main pillar for Argeweb as the majority of their customers view it as the most important attribute. Argeweb support agents understand that customers are often overwhelmed by all the technical jargon and therefore they take the time to answer any questions their customers have.

This use case was created in cooperation with Joost Pisters. “I am a product strategist which means I am responsible for the future portfolio of the company and the transition we make towards a future where the emphasis is on supporting the online success of our customers with a wide range of products and services.”

Problem

NPS and CSAT have been an important performance indicator for Argeweb since 2016, but the tools they have used in the past were developed and maintained by their own development team. “Although these tools worked fine, they formed a part of our software stack that provided a service that was not unique to Argeweb nor did we bring our “own perspective” to this software. As our development team is trying to focus more on the core products that make us unique we decided to take functionality out of this software stack and find commercially available software.”

Solution

“As I have a history of working with SaaS companies, making an informed choice for one of the many SaaS solutions out there has been part of my job for a long time. Before choosing Nicereply I made a quick but thorough list of features we were looking for and suppliers that were able to provide these.”

Argeweb created a test account with the top 5 SaaS suppliers and began testing their capabilities. The main factors Argeweb focused on were price, API access, and also GDPR compliance. “We initially did not select Nicereply and went with another supplier but during implementation, we noticed a fatal mismatch in API functionality of the other supplier and discovered we made an error in comparing the pricing of Nicereply. We initially compared players on the amount of surveys we could send out, and mistook Nicereply’s pricing to be also per sent survey instead of the price per submitted survey. This makes a big difference because only a certain number of customers we invite for a survey actually fill it in. This way of billing actually makes a lot more sense because it is based on usage, not on customers queried (who don’t react). So this meant that Nicereply not only had a perfect fit in terms of features but also in pricing.”

Argeweb has implemented Nicereply via an API because they wanted to customize their Nicereply workflow to match their needs. “We are currently using Nicereply for NPS (quarterly) and are in the process of moving our CSAT survey to Nicereply as well. These are big transitions and we are also adding other CSAT surveys for specific groups of customers.”

“For instance, beginning this month, we invite new customers to comment on the onboarding experience & survey them after a technical migration from one platform to another. This way we can keep an eye on the quality of our own work or the work of our suppliers. Outsourcing certain aspects to external contractors is great, but how do you make sure the quality of their work is up to snuff? Just ask the customers. We have even made it part of the contract that we expect a certain level of customer satisfaction for the processes performed by external suppliers. These surveys are great because they can quickly provide customer feedback loops. In our own developed survey software, this was not possible or not without a big development effort.”

Company culture

Argeweb management team is constantly looking and sharing examples of great customer service examples they can implement as well. “The customer feedback gathered via Nicereply is immediately shared with the team via email so they can follow up with the customers when necessary. Sometimes they just thank them with a small token of gratitude for their kind words, or make sure any negative feedback is followed up and handled in the best possible way.”

In terms of motivating their employees, people at Argeweb use the CSAT scores from customers in bonus structure and review discussions. They also use both positive and negative feedback for training purposes. “More generally we use a lot of techniques to make people feel special. There is an A-team operating within the company that comes up with activities and makes sure that special occasions in team members’ lives don’t go unnoticed. I personally love that I get a handwritten card on my birthday or a work anniversary with a very personal message, not just a generic card and “congratulations”. It feels great to know someone has made an effort to make you feel noticed and appreciated.”

When we asked Joost what advice would he give to other companies to be successful in supporting their customers he replied: “This is not my quote but I think it is great advice and very true: The Key to Happy Customers? Happy Employees.”

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