Needle turns product fans into customer service reps
Needle turns product fans into customer service
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Doug Fleming, left, does customer service for Astro Gaming in the
Needle Mobile Contact Center, while Nick Joy does customer service for
headphone maker Skullcandy, which makes headphones.
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Lynch is the founder and CEO of Needle.com. The Salt Lake
City-based start-up is his answer to all those call centers in India
and elsewhere. Lynch pays fans of products to handle customer service
and sales for about 20 companies — from home, a nearby coffee shop or
wherever there's a stable Internet connect. The "Needlers," as they are
known, get $9 to $12 an hour for answering customer questions, plus
flexible hours and opportunities to win products.
"We
as shoppers want to engage with people who actually own these products
and services, as opposed to someone who really doesn't," says Lynch, 40.
That's where the Needlers come in.
The Needle Mobile Contact Center (otherwise known as an Airstream) parked here, started in Salt Lake recently and continued to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas
to attract new Needlers and meet with companies interested in tapping
their services. Headphone company Skullcandy, clothing retailer Urban Outfitters, and athletic apparel maker Under Armour are among Needle's clients.
In
business since 2010, Lynch has some 200 Needlers doing customer service
for the firms, and says he has plenty more job openings. Needle finds
new Needlers by cruising Facebook and Twitter and by dropping notes to
customers on company pages offering a chance to make extra money by
working for Needle.
Client companies like what
they get. Needlers are "more familiar with our product," says Brett
Barlow, Skullcandy vice president. Because they already love the brand,
they are better at sales and have convinced 15% to 20% of customers to
buy new products. The deal with Needle has "more than paid for
itself," Barlow says.
Needlers don't talk with customers on the phone. They're engaged in online chats only.
Nick Joy, 26, lives in Salt Lake City
and spends the winter months skiing. He works for Needle the rest of
the time from wherever he is. Last summer, he spent a few months in
Madrid, making about $40 a day chatting with Skullcandy customers in the
morning and late afternoon.
Folks asked him
about what kind of headphones to buy, and how various shirts fit. "I ski
with the headphones daily, so I really know them in and out," he says.
"I can relate."
Doug Fleming, 25, lives in San Diego,
and puts in 20 hours weekly, representing Astro Gaming, which makes
headphones and clothing. In two months, he has sold $15,000 worth of
products. He says he could live on his Needle hours if he stuck to a
budget.
subhed here
Before
Needle, Lynch founded a Salt Lake City graphic arts firm, Arteis (also
known as Logoworks) which he sold to Hewlett-Packard for an undisclosed
sum in 2007. He got the idea for Needle when he went shopping for a
triathlon wetsuit online and couldn't find what he wanted. "At the end
of the day, I just wanted to click a button and talk to an expert," he
says. "But that expert wasn't there for me."
That
problem turned into a company. He went to venture capital firms to
raise money, and in two years has amassed $4.5 million in financing from
various firms, including Rembrandt Venture Partners, Lightbank and
angel investors. The privately held firm is currently unprofitable, and
doesn't release sales fugures.
Competitors
include LivePerson.com and LiveOps.com, which both offer "Click to Chat"
software for firms to embed on their websites. Both hire traditional
freelancers, as opposed to Needle's pursuit of company fans.
Rembrandt
General Partner Douglas Schrier says he thinks Needle's take on
crowd-sourcing support is a unique twist on general sites, such as Dell
and Apple, where fans of the products already chime in with help, for
free.
"There's no question this works in all verticals," says Schrier. "It makes the sales experience so much more personal."
Gene
Alvarez, a research vice president at market tracker Gartner, says the
notion of leveraging the expertise of the masses for companies is a
"great idea. There's some opportunity there." He says Needle has a good
shot at attracting workers in a down economy. "The challenge is scaling
this over time."
end quote from:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/talkingtech/story/2012-05-30/needle-talking-tech/55287900/1
I think you likely will see a lot more of this with product fans turned into customer service and sales reps who work anywhere there is an internet connection.
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