16May / 2012

Meet the guys behind WebEngage’s instant and proactive customer support

“What does it take to create an awesome technology company?”. If you’d have asked us the question 6 months ago, we would have answered – two things, #1. A kickass product and #2. A smart team which codes like monkeys & makes swift strategic moves. Fast forward to today, our answer will include another component – #3. Quick, reliable and proactive customer support.

We launched in October, 2011. Since then, we have achieved tremendous scale. That bring its own set of challenges in managing technology, sales and support. While we eat, breath and live technology, we have also taken good care of managing our sales and marketing. We are learning the art of managing our customer support while being “on the job”. We, now, spend a lot of our time, during the day and night (thanks to timezones and our global customer base), handing support queries through our feedback tab, emails and phone calls. Infact, we are proactively using our own tool to manage customer support.

Managing customer and tech support is a demanding task. Customers look for help only when they need it. We make sure that they get it instantly too. We try and respond to all online queries in less than 4 hours. Most of the times, our responses are instantaneous. We love to delight our customers. Earning their faith, love and trust is gratifying.

Against all advice, we haven’t hired anyone, yet, to manage our customer support. Between the two of us (Avlesh and Ankit), we respond to over 75 support queries everyday via WebEngage feedback tab, email and phone calls. Our support queries are mostly technical in nature. As co-founders and creators of the tool, we are best placed to address those. Also, given the passionate characters we are, there is this extra love and passion that automagically gets added to our responses. As founders of the business, we are committed to delight you with our proactive support.

These are the faces behind those instant replies you’d have received as customers.

Avlesh: co-founder, CEO and chief of customer support

Ankit: co-founder, CTO and chief of technical support

A customer replied to one of our product update emails this morning – “Avlesh, I am glad to hear great things about you guys. I had some feedback to share but did not end up sending it. Because, I believe that you are no longer directly responding to user feedback and the same is managed by some ‘customer support representatives’. (S)he would not get it. Though I might be wrong“. With this email, we learned one more lesson on “human psychology”. So much so, that it triggered this post!

We believe in the Zappos mantra of customer support. We are all ears. 24×7. Let us know.

Stay tuned. We love you!

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01May / 2012

[Announcement] Free trial period duration revised to 14 days on all paid plans

Starting today, customers will get 14 days of free trial period on all paid plans (webengage.com/pricing) instead of the 30 days, that we used to offer earlier.

This change does not affect any of the existing customers under trial period. They’ll continue to enjoy their 30 days of free trial as promised to them while signing up.

There were quite a few reasons for us to bring in this change -
  1. A lot of trial accounts with us keep lying dormant despite repeated system reminders. A larger trial period duration doesn’t help the cause here.
  2. All paid customers, we have today, either paid us instantly or in less than two weeks of signing-up.
  3. We have identified some cases wherein customers would opt for the paid plans but they never intended to pay in the very first place. So, they’d sign-up, use surveys, and all the premium features that come with the paid plans, for a month. Then they’d never show up again.

For a tool as powerful as WebEngage which integrates with your site in less than 2 mins, we thought it was about time to inflict this change so that we can control our sales cycles much more effectively and also make our customers save some precious time on account of decision making.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Announcement, Product-Update

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28Apr / 2012

Introducing WebEngage Javascript API and new version of the integration code

We are pleased to announce the introduction a new version of WebEngage integration code (Version 3.0). Not only is it better and faster but it is also a first step towards our commitment to open up the platform so that you can run WebEngage in a much more controlled manner using our API’s.

So, here’s how the new WebEngage integration code will look like -
<script id="_webengage_script_tag" type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
  window.webengageWidgetInit = window.webengageWidgetInit || function(){
    webengage.init({
      licenseCode:"82617417"
    }).onReady(function(){
      webengage.render();
    });
  };
 
  (function(d){
    var _we = d.createElement('script');
    _we.type = 'text/javascript';
    _we.async = true;
    _we.src = (d.location.protocol == 'https:' ? "//ssl.widgets.webengage.com" : 
              "//cdn.widgets.webengage.com") + "/js/widget/webengage-min-v-3.0.js";
    var _sNode = d.getElementById('_webengage_script_tag');
    _sNode.parentNode.insertBefore(_we, _sNode);
  })(document);
// ]]></script>
This change allows you to do a whole bunch of things. E.g. now, you can have multiple links to the feedback tab and each time you can choose to open the feedback form with a different category. You can also choose to have your own trigger points for invoking a particular survey depending on some use-case scenarios. Check out these cool demos:
Clicking this button opens the feedback tab with the category “Sales/pricing related query” pre-selected. The feedback form also displays custom fields linked to this category, by default (notice the “what kind of help do you need” dropdown in the form). Clicking this button opens the feedback tab with “Jobs and hiring” as the category. And it also displays the corresponding custom field by default (“upload your resume”, in this case). Oh, did you notice that the category field is not being shown at all? Thanks to the API call below! Clicking this button triggers a particular survey pre-created in your WebEngage dashboard. You can override a lot of default behaviors of WebEngage via the API – e.g display a survey even if its taken, ignore the targeting rules etc, apply time delays (or ignore them) etc.
Underneath is the JS API code that makes all of the above demos happen:
<script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
  /**
   * define a function called webengageWidgetInit in the current window. 
   * if you define one, we'll use yours, otherwise we switch back to the 
   * default one that we ship along with our integration code.
   */
  window.webengageWidgetInit = function(){
    webengage.init({
      licenseCode:"82617417" //this is how we identify your site
    }).onReady(function(){
      //render the feedback (tab) and survey (if any) by default
      webengage.render();
 
      //Demo 1: bind the click event of sales-related-query button
      $("button#sales-related-query").click(function(){
        //render the feedback tab
        webengage.feedback.render({
          defaultFeedbackCategory:"Sales/pricing related query",
          showAllFeedbackCategories:true,
          showFeedbackForm:true //open the tab
        });
      });
 
      //Demo 2: bind the click event of apply-for-job button
      $("button#apply-for-job").click(function(){
        webengage.feedback.render({
          defaultFeedbackCategory:"Jobs and hiring",
          showAllFeedbackCategories:false, //don't show the category drop-down
          showFeedbackForm:true
        });
      });
 
      //Demo 3: bind the click event of take-a-survey button
      $("button#take-survey").click(function(){
        //call the survey renderer
        webengage.survey.render({
          //specify the survey to invoke (get ID from your dashboard)
          surveyId:"7djl619",
 
          //don't worry about targeting-rules for the survey
          //more on what is targeting and why should you use it -
          //http://webengage.com/features/survey-and-lead-generation#feature-01
          skipRuleExecution:true,
 
          //once a user has taken a survey or closed it on your site
          //we don't display the same survey to this visitor again.
          //now, you can choose to override this behavior
          showAllClosedAndTakenSurveys:true,
 
          //to keep the user experience intact on your site, WebEngage
          //let's you time-delay the survey. this works great in
          //auto mode. however, while using the API, you'd want the survey
          //to immediately pop upon some user action. "delay" is your friend :)
          delay:0
        });
      });
    });
  };
// ]]></script>
What’s next?

  1. We’ll release the API documentation and JS SDK officially next week. Until then, please free to play around and poke us if you have some crazy ideas on how do you want to make use of the JS API on your site.
  2. We’ll optionally let you pass user data along with each request made to the WebEngage API. Our ultimate goal is to pass this data to our reporting and analytics modules so that you get access to some amazing insights on user behavior.
  3. We’ll publish the anatomy of this API and our thought processes behind its design on our engineering blog for our hacker friends.
Note for existing customers:
We’ll continue to back support the older versions of integration code (Version 2.x.x and below). However, we highly recommend upgrading to the latest one. This code can be obtained from within your dashboard. We’ll send an official communication to all our customers once the API documentation is released next week.
New to WebEngage? Give us a go – www.webengage.com

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Announcement, Engineering, Product-Update

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14Apr / 2012

WebEngage is now available in 16 languages

We are now available in 16 languages. In all cases, other than English, the translations were done by our loving customers. Underneath is a quick list of supported languages, as on date.

English We love you!
Czech Máme tě rádi!
Dutch We houden van je!
Finnish Me rakastamme sinua!
French Nous vous aimons!
Georgian გვიყვარხართ!
German Wir lieben dich!
Hebrew אנחנו אוהבים אותך!
Hindi आप हमें पसंद हैं!
Italian Vi vogliamo bene!
Japanese 私たちはあなたを愛し！
Korean 우리는 당신을 사랑합니다!
Portuguese Nós te amamos!
Romanian Noi te iubim!
Russian Мы вас любим!
Spanish Te amamos!

Go ahead, use the world’s simplest and most insightful in-site feedback and survey tool ever – in a language of your choice. We’ll continue to add support for more and more languages moving forward. Your language is missing? Are you willing to help us translate some 40 odd phrases? If you said yes, please get in touch.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Announcement, Product-Update

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09Apr / 2012

Our WordPress plugin just got better

This one is for our WordPress customers. An all improved version of the WebEngage WordPress plugin has been released and is now available in the WordPress plugin repository.

WebEngage WordPress Plugin
(Version 1.1.0)

We have made some major enhancements to the plugin which will now let customers directly sign-up from within their WordPress admin interface itself. No more coming to the WebEngage site to do so. The complete integration process now takes less than 5 mins. What more can you ask for from an end-to-end feedback management solution? :) . To get an idea about the 2 step installation process, please have a look at the screenshots underneath -

Plugin search results > WebEngage

Step 1. Find us using plugin search in your WP admin. We are now listed in top 3 for most keywords.

WP one click installation

Step 2. Activate. Fill up this simple form to create your WebEngage account and install the plugin. Done!

Some notes on this release for our WordPress customers:
  1. Though not required, but if you are using an older version of our plugin, we recommend upgrading to the latest version. You’ll get to see the “upgrade notification” on your plugins page inside WordPress admin.
  2. If you use WebEngage on a WordPress website by directly copying the integration code in your site template, we highly recommend undoing it and using this plugin instead.
  3. All customizations for feedback/survey options can be done inside the WebEngage dashboard. They reflect automatically on your site without any code change.
  4. If you use the plugin or plan to use it on your site, please consider reviewing/rating our plugin on the WordPress plugin page. Your feedback will help us make a better tool.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Engineering, Product-Update, Wordpress-Plugin

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04Apr / 2012

[Announcement] Morpheus gang companies to get 6 months of FREE WebEngage subscription

We have said this a gazillion times in the past – we love startups. And we mean it. Literally! We earlier announced freebies for The Startup Centre and iAccelerator & CIIE residents.

Moving forward on our commitment to help fellow startups, we are now elated to announce a 6 months FREE subscription of the Standard Plan for Morpheus gang companies. This offer is for 20 residents on a first-come-first-serve basis.

As on date, over 1200 online business trust WebEngage as their feedback management and in-site survey tool. The young and energetic residents at Morpheus would be a proud addition to the list that has heavyweights like MMT, Yatra, Indiatimes, Park n Fly, Future Group, Cleartrip, Buytheprice, Justeat, Reliance Insurance etc as customers onboard. We believe that WebEngage would help these companies consolidate their offering by getting valuable customer insights. Our best wishes are with these companies. We’d love to see them grow and become immensely successful (so that they eventually start paying for WebEngage …)

We’d like to thank Sameer and Nandini for getting this done.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Announcement, Morpheus-Tie-Up, Partnerships, Startup

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01Apr / 2012

Say hello to shiny new, fully customizable WebEngage feedback tabs

From being a feature request to almost life threatening support calls – a fully customizable feedback tab has been one of the most requested features of all times at WebEngage. We kept deferring this till date because the task was a bit non-trivial in nature. WebEngage is available in 11 lanugages as of now, but the tab, thus far, was only offered in English.

Not any more. We did it, finally! Have a look at these shiny tabs underneath; now you can create one for your website in a language of your choice.

Some examples of custom feedback tabs. You can choose your own feedback text, color, background color and border color for the tab.

Oh, and we have a reason for our non-english customers to rejoice as well. Now, in a first, we let you choose your own unicode text to display on the tab!

Underneath is a preview from the WebEngage dashboard to illustrate how does the tab customization UI looks like for a customer.

Customizing the feedback tab. Manage at Dashboard > Settings > Feedback Configuration > Feedback Layout

Notes related to this new feature:
  1. All existing customers have been upgraded to the new design of feedback tab. Those who chose custom background colors earlier will see their tabs in the same background color and border.
  2. WebEngage icon in the tab is turned on by default for all customers. Premium or Assisted Plan customers can choose to turn it off for their corresponding tabs.
  3. Like all sweet things inside WebEngage, customization of your tab in the dashboard doesn’t need any code changes on your site. The changes will automatically reflect on your tab.
We scanned our database before publishing this post to find out some of the shiniest WebEngage tabs around. These guys seem to have done a great job – concerts.com, portraitsofparadise.com and abreakplease.com. Do you think yours is better? Show us!

Go ahead, get a über cool tab and an entire feedback/support management tool for your website. Oh yes, for FREE! Sign-up today for WebEngage.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Announcement, Feedback, Product-Update

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23Mar / 2012

Cool pitch from a job applicant

This morning, we received a job application. Underneath is the guys pitch (posted verbatim) -

I want to work with you guys because,
♥ You guys are a hardcore techie startup in Java domain.
♥ You guys are working on MongoDB and Relational database !!! Very few startups in India must be doing polyglot persistence ! Thats cool as well as a visionary thing !
♥ Yours is a SaaS product !!
♥ I believe you are creating a nice team which has the potential to become 37 Signals of India with solid usable and meaningful product portfolio !
♥ I am reasonably well at Java and most of the time I think of web scale architectures..!!!
♥ Because I am from Mumbai
♥ Because I am tired of working in a typical IT setup where most of your energy goes wasted in bureaucratic process oriented hell !
♥ Because I feel like home when I visit Web Engage site and read “about us” page ! I just want to be there :)
♥ Because I need a mentor in my life and you guys are perfect for the same !
♥ Because I eat,sleep and drink ideas and its possible implementation.
♥ Because I do believe that working on-line demo without any hassle of registration is the best selling point of a SaaS product..!!!
♥ Because I do believe and think and advocate a lot about restful APIs !
♥ Because I want to master JavaScript ( i know it already but lazy enough to thoroughly learn it , as jQuery and it’s ecosystem spoils your native JavaScript needs :P ) as I believe that is the core of Web App development.
♥ Because I hit “bulls eye” when I search something on Google !
♥ Because I have compiled/understood nice tool set of open source libraries which makes Java development more enjoyable ! Play Framework, JSoup, JOOQ, JDBCHelper.
♥ Because I believe in Web oriented Architecture !
♥ Because I can shoot , track 100s of email communications per day ! Which I already do as I have subscribed to some of the high traffic mailing lists for open source Java libraries.
♥ Because I can complement Team Web Engage and contribute in many meaningful ways !

If you are looking to pitch to a startup for your candidature, this can be a great example of how to do it. We are retaining the identity of this candidate.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in General, Startup

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10Mar / 2012

First milestone achieved – we have reached 1000 customers worldwide!

We woke up to a sweet system alert this Saturday morning – WebEngage is now powering in-site surveys and feedback on 1000 websites worldwide. Aha!

Meet our 1000th customer – www.pacificpavingstone.com. As a token of love, we have offered them a free upgrade to the Standard Plan for first 6 months.

Alright, so there we are – growing at a breathtaking pace. On an average, we have been adding 10 new customers everyday for the last 4-5 weeks. Our survey windows and the feedback tabs are fast reaching ubiquity; people are not taken by surprise anymore when they see our stuff working on sites they use everyday.

Do you have an online business? Yet to try us? 3 simple reasons for you to give us a go today -

  1. You’d have never seen a stickier product - From designing survey questionnaire to changing the CSS to match your site’s look-n-feel to managing support queries via a powerful feedback inbox, WebEngage has all it takes to keep you hooked. Period.
  2. You’d have never felt, being so much in control – From being able to “filter” the appearance of your surveys to specific audiences on your website to the world’s best one-time integration, we made sure that the power doesn’t lie with some silly robot. It lies with YOU. Period.
  3. You’d have never felt, being so much loved and pampered – Over 90% of our support queries were resolved or replied to in less than 4 hours. Most of the times, almost instantaneously. We are humans who love humans. We hate dogs though. Period.

Get your dose of WebEngage dope - webengage.com/features/overview (view in full-screen mode).

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Uncategorized

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05Mar / 2012

Help us find our lucky mascot – pig, crow, snake, bear or something else?

The BIG League!

We, at WebEngage, are a fast growing startup. In less than 6 months of our public launch, we are now powering in-site feedback and surveys on over 950 websites worldwide. Quite a feat. Right? Maybe. In a world where significant numbers are always counted in the unit of millions, our numbers appear to be small.

So, we put our heads down trying to find out how we can become an insanely big enterprise. We looked up to the big boys. Then we realized we have done the same set of things as they did early on i.e. built an awesome product, created some noise around it and iterated so fast that customers started loving them and became evangelists. So, what’s missing? Well, an unusual suspect.

Finding 1: We don’t have an animal behind our back. Yet.
Ah, we know the reason now. It’s the goddamn animal mascot which is your path to glory. It is this creature that takes you in to the big league.

Finding 2: All the good looking ones are taken. We are not left with too many options :(
Monkey is the most abused one. Everyone seems to be betting their lives on the chimp. Going by the revenue figures and valuations of a few companies using chimp as their mascot, our ancestor seems to be the safest bet. But wait … we can’t copy. We are an “original” startup. So, we started looking around on what’s not taken yet. Our research implies that we can use one of these – Pig, Snake, Crow, Bear (not sure) etc. Yikes!

Help us please.
Help us by first telling us if our assessment is correct – can we become a multi-million dollar enterprise without having one of those creatures as our lucky mascot? If you think, we have to have one – let your suggestions come our way. Thanks in advance for helping us out by killing your time thinking about a silly animal.

Stay tuned. We love you!

Posted in Uncategorized

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