From startup to scaleup: the challenges of customer relations 

Unicorns and new rising stars, fintech, foodtech, travel and healthtech have no need of introduction these days – embodied by audacious teams and offers that seek to make a place for themselves within traditional ecosystems as much as to disrupt them by providing effective resolution of “pain points” encountered among historical actors.

These actors in the “new economy” meet high expectations in terms of service quality and customer relations. Each startup asserts its signature and DNA to the benefit of its (future) customers by eliminating the “pain points” encountered among historical actors. This customer enchantment strategy, which is of key importance to reputation and differentiation, generally gives rise to “hypergrowth” during the first few years: a phenomenon that can set many companies dreaming but is nonetheless not without risks. It is essential for any startup to stick to its promise of relational excellence and service quality, even in periods of rapid growth with automatically (sharply) increasing volumes of requests to the customer service department. If it does not do so, impacts on image and economic consequences can prove fatal.

The challenge is therefore a sizeable one: how do you reconcile exponential growth and maintenance of relational excellence? And how do you make sure that the latter does not become an economic burden over the long term?

Maintenance of relational excellence in hypergrowth phase

Customer relations are a key component of any startup’s strategy, insofar as their economic model is based on proximity with their customers.

At the same time, they are a real challenge, in particular during transition to the scaleup stage. There are two reasons for this: first of all, it is necessary to maintain high levels of proximity with customers already acquired, and secondly, startups need to fight in order to prove their relevance and expertise in the eyes of newcomers.

A startup’s DNA shows through in its agility and audacity, and is based on the highlighting of values and convictions: the “why” before the “what”. Teams focus on creation of a strong brand image and maintenance of an ongoing dynamic of innovation.

Despite often regular changes in products and offers, the company’s convictions stay the same, both as regards concept and everyday customer relations. Such engagement and proximity often defines a startup’s success, in particular with younger generations.

Nonetheless, its credibility may also very much depend on the clarity of the end product in the eyes of consumers used to more traditional, less disruptive actors whose stability and longevity inspire confidence. Therefore, acquisition of a customer base less used to or attentive to the “Tech” ecosystem can be a real challenge, which may perhaps be met by optimisation and agility of customer relations in an often highly competitive context.

Proximity, personalisation and proactiveness of customer relations are therefore major assets for growth, as they enable knowledge and anticipation of customers’ and prospects’ expectations, whatever their typologies. Hence, relational excellence, combined with an intelligible innovative offer, enables the company to bring together and grow diversified customer ecosystems.

Investing over the short term in order to economise over the long term

Any startup in the hypergrowth phase must be able to rationalise its internal ecosystem in order to move forward more coherently, clarify its end product, be in sync with legislation and optimise customer journeys all at the same time – a real headache that can also be very expensive.

With expected growth rates of 30% to 50% a year, how do you make sure that costs don’t increase proportionally?

The resources required for optimisation of customer relations must also follow the same rhythm: recruitment, staff training, compliance and so on all necessitate expenditures whose total may impact profitability. Building on expert partnerships able to take over some of these tasks is an increasingly widespread solution.

Startups often make a priority of focusing on digitised customer interactions, social networks in particular, which they use a great deal.

Nonetheless, traditional channels, which are being made increasing use of after having been ignored for a while, are essential in terms of customer proximity and are a vital complement to digital channels.

Tomorrow’s customer relations are hybrid, and even though startups often stand out for their responsiveness and reachability, they may be undermined when their customers’ expectations diversify.

Therefore, outsourcing your customer relations guarantees homogeneous service quality along with personalisation of multi- and omnichannel relations, in which outsourcers have all the required expertise.

Hence, startups can ensure that their exponential growth is not achieved to the detriment of their brand image.

They can optimise the use of each channel in a structured context that also provides legal support and consistency in customer service, while maintaining a top-quality, personalised customer journey.

Any partnership therefore becomes a stakeholder in innovation strategies. Even though it may represent a short-term cost centre, it is nonetheless a real investment, quantifiable in terms of customer retention, acquisition, and satisfaction.

The essential point being to anticipate your needs in order to build partnerships that correspond to requirements, values promoted and long-term future plans.

Customer relations are one of the main drivers of a startup’s reputation.

Any growth strategy must contain a game plan including all the elements necessary to their maintenance and optimisation over the long term, independently of context and local and international development dynamics.

These days, outsourcing customer relations is having increasing success among actors in the “new economy”.

A guarantee of growth in itself, insofar as it is the basis for retention of a customer base as well as for the conquest of new markets, outsourcing is now a real best practice for ensuring maintenance of customer proximity, whatever changes come about in growth strategies and context.

Article published by JDN on september 8, 2021.