eSellerPro kicked off their first ever annual customer sales conference this morning. Keith Bird opened the conference with a frank discussion of the state of eSellerPro’s service beginning with an apology. Keith said sorry that customer service and technology hasn’t always lived up to what eSellerPro customers should rightly expect but with a promise that things are changing.
The conference had a 100% attendance of some 150 eSellerPro customers (out of a total of 221 clients in the UK) and since he became CEO Keith has heard loud and clear that the company is in their customers eyes “The best of a bad lot”. That has to change and Keith laid out six key areas already being addressed for the future.
- Support – eSellerPro have already doubled their support team and this is continuing to grow
- Software quality – The company has traditionally tried to serve their customers by innovating fast and being fleet of foot. This has led to software being released before it was fully tested. They have no doubled the test team to ensure updates are only released when fully tested
- Communication – Today is the start of better communication between eSellerPro and their customers. There will be more customer events, e-Updates and Software Release Notes. Last night eSellerPro held their first customer council which will be held twice a year where customers can let eSellerPro know how they’re performing
- Implementation – This is an area where eSellerPro already excel with one of the top support offerings in the industry. However they recognize that implementation can be a long process and aim to cut the time to get up and running with their solution
- System Performance – Over coffee this morning I’d already heard complaints that eSellerPro’s servers sometimes run slowly. That’s already being addressed with increased and upgraded servers as well as a dedicated technician whose sole responsibility is to manage the servers eSellerPro runs on.
- Over Commitment – The message comes across loud and clear that eSellerPro want to assist their customers to succeed. This in the past has meant they’ve sometimes promised more than they could deliver. In future updates and new features will be prioritized and sometimes they’ll say “No” to development of new features rather than over promise on delivery of the solution.
eSellerPro road map
Since Keith Bird became CEO there has been a sea change in the way eSellerPro operate. They’re now changing from a new business to a mature business preparing for rapid growth – not that they’re not growing rapidly already. Their customers businesses have grown 30% on eBay, 43% on Amazon and increased international sales by 28% over the last year. Overall eSellerPro’s business has grown some 72% this year and that’s projected to be over 100% in the next 12 months.
A year ago the company had 36 employees – they now have 85. That’s more than some of their competitors have worldwide employees and they are solely focused on supporting UK customers. Future growth is intended to be through UK customers, EMEA and even North American growth will in the short term be achieved through UK sellers exporting. That makes sense as UK consumers already have the highest online spend of some €1,333 per year which is the highest spend per capita in the world. For UK merchants to see stellar growth they need to be exporting.
Overall the future looks rosy for eSellerPro – they’ve grown fast since Chris Farrelly and his team set up the company and have a good base of customers. They’ve imported a new CEO in Keith Bird who has experience of rapidly growing companies but at the same time committing to providing excellence in customer service.
The main aims of eSellerPro in addition to customer service is to continue to develop and innovate their service offering, identify talent in their existing and future employess, but above all to maintain the hyper-growth that their merchants have become accustomed to.
