Launching a company that revolves around customer service

Based in San Francisco, GoPhoto helps people preserve memories by scanning their photos, slides, and negatives onto DVDs. The company was founded in 2010 and has a growing team of professionals who continue to innovate and perfect GoPhoto’s techniques for digitizing images. GoPhoto’s primary focus is to provide a superior customer experience centered on ease of use.

Easy-to-use ticketing system powers successful company launch

“We strive to ensure that all of our customers are completely satisfied with their experience and we will not rest until that happens….no matter what.” This sentence from GoPhoto’s website isn’t just marketing-speak. The company’s three founders have made outstanding customer service a priority since GoPhoto’s launch in summer 2010. That’s why they wanted to give customers easy ways to get in touch with GoPhoto from day one.

Providing an 800 number was a no-brainer. But finding the right support ticketing solution required much more thought. As a startup with a limited budget, GoPhoto’s co-founders craved a SaaS solution that would be easy and affordable to implement and maintain – and one that offered a free trial. Zendesk fit the bill.

“Zendesk was ridiculously simple to set up,” recalls John Schmidtt, Co-founder, GoPhoto. “Within two days, I had added our branding, triggers, and a DNS entry for our domain. Zendesk gave us exactly what we were looking for: an easy, cost-effective way to start providing exceptional customer support since day one.”

iPhone app enables immediate responses to customers

Today, Schmidtt and four administrators use Zendesk as their go-to solution not only for customer support requests, but also internal ticketing. About 80 percent of the tickets in the system are relatively straightforward questions from customers. But when Schmidtt can’t address a more technical ticket himself, he can easily turn it into an internal ticket and assign it to the company’s production staff.

“Every morning at 7:30 when I log onto my computer, Zendesk provides me with a single-screen view of all my open and unassigned tickets,” Schmidtt explains. “It only takes a few clicks to either respond or reassign the tickets. Nothing falls through the cracks.”

When new requests arrive, Zendesk’s triggers automatically send acknowledgement emails to customers, giving them reassurance that GoPhoto is listening. Triggers also keep GoPhoto’s staff informed. “I get new ticket notifications throughout my day, which helps me stay on top of the queue and eliminate delays,” says Schmidtt.

Of course, as an executive of a fast-growing startup, Schmidtt isn’t often at his desk during the day. That’s why he relies on Zendesk’s iPhone and iPad apps to keep him in the loop.

“Whenever I have a break between investor meetings, I can log onto Zendesk from my iPhone or iPad,” says Schmidtt. “It only takes a few seconds for me to write back to a customer, ‘Your order just shipped’ – and that can make all the difference in a relationship.”

In addition, Zendesk’s live chat integration lets GoPhoto’s customers chat with agents from within support tickets. If customers try to launch a chat after business hours, Schmidtt can simply retrieve and answer their questions from within Zendesk next time he logs on – preventing a missed connection.

Responsive customer service drives company growth

GoPhoto uses its Net Promoter Score (NPS) – a customer loyalty metric – to gauge how well it is treating its customers. Nine months after launching its business, GoPhoto earned a 71 – an excellent rating.

“One reason our NPS is so high is because of our extreme responsiveness to customers, which wouldn’t be possible without Zendesk,” Schmidtt remarks. “There’s never a ticket open for more than an hour. I’ve literally logged on from an airport terminal to take care of a customer.”

GoPhoto’s growing reputation for good service is helping the company in more ways than one. When Schmidtt pitches potential investors, he always mentions that the company’s differentiator is good customer service – and backs it up by pointing out that GoPhoto has no bug queue or support ticketing queue and more than 2,000 highly satisfied customers.

“In this day and age, customer referrals are the reason you succeed, period,” Schmidtt concludes. “So it would be stupid not to have a solution like Zendesk in place. I would gladly pay double what I do for Zendesk, even though I’ve probably only used 20 percent of its features. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Zendesk can do – and where it will take our business.”