Nicely does it as Kiwi SaaS firm takes on the world

New Zealand SaaS business AskNicely aims to revolutionise customer service capabilities as its Net Promoter Score (NPS) software platform gains global momentum.

The brainchild of Auckland entrepreneurial duo Aaron Ward and John Ballinger, AskNicely is a Kiwi built online platform that enables businesses to use real-time customer feedback to improve retention and drive referrals.

Launched in November 2014, AskNicely already has almost 1,000 businesses worldwide using the software with triple-digit percentage month on month growth.

Net Promoter Score is regarded as the gold standard ‘boardroom barometer’ of customer satisfaction, used by local and global giants in the retail, telco, airline sectors in particular.

Inspired by the practices of customer-centric heavyweights like Uber, AirBnB and Amazon, Ward and Ballinger have created a self-serve platform that is designed to make it easy for any business to implement.

Co-founder Ward says the AskNicely platform has lifted the limitations around deploying NPS to meet a distinct gap in the market.

“Beyond any other marketing tool, positive word of mouth has become the holy grail of business success,” he says.

“Until now, businesses unable to afford the six-figure price tags for NPS have put up with conventional survey platforms that get poor response rates (10 percent) and deliver feedback too late.

“We knew the timing was right to launch an affordable, cloud-based solution that will deliver regardless of scale, sector, region or language.”

Through the ability to immediately intercept and remedy poor experiences or encourage customers to post reviews online, Ward says AskNicely puts the “listen, react, engage” controls into the hands of decision makers from CEO’s right through to customer care team members to drive positive word of mouth.

Successful software developer Ballinger says the challenge of building the AskNicely platform wasn’t just about making it simple for businesses to integrate and use, but also to leverage the insatiable appetite of consumers to give their opinions fast and effectively.

“Put simply - thanks to the meteoric rise and influence of social media and the online marketplace there is an expectation that you can, actually should, give feedback on everyday experiences,” he adds.

“We purposefully engineered AskNicely to be an experience that is respectful, easy, fast and with the opportunity for brands to engage customers faster than ever before – it’s a formula that has earned us outstanding reviews from clients and their customers.”