I’ve always loved hardware products; electronics, gadgets, machines, robots... you name it. I love how they can make our lives easier, more enjoyable, and more efficient. And natural part of anyone’s experience with hardware is support— whether it’s help choosing the right model, troubleshooting an error, fixing a broken part, or ordering the latest upgrade— support is a vital part of every customer’s journey with a product. So as a hardware fanboy, it always irked me that all the support tools out there weren’t really helping brands provide a great customer experience. There were too many times to count when I had to scour pages of FAQs/articles, restart uninformative chatbot conversations, wait days for a reply to my ticket, or even weeks for someone to come service my product onsite. Why?
Because hardware products have unique challenges. And unfortunately, generic solutions don’t solve those unique challenges.
The result? End users who become frustrated with even the world's best products, and hardware brands that want to a provide phenomenal customer experience but are faced with overly burdensome costs and resource dependencies to do so.
I just wanted to make stuff work.
And I wasn’t alone. So in 2017 my co-founder Gintas and I started Mavenoid with the broad vision to make stuff work. That stuff being those hardware products (electronics, gadgets, machines, robots, etc.) that we love so much.
We understood that if we wanted to address the unique challenges that hardware products face, we would need to revisit the problem. Our core finding: product support did not scale.
When it comes to customer support for physical products:
- It’s human-powered but extremely repetitive
- There is a lack of effective self-service
- Service is often not remote-friendly
- It typically has longer resolution times
- Physical returns and visits are expensive for both users and companies
- All of the above are exacerbated by the increasing complexity of products
To address these unique challenges we knew a different approach was needed. And with our hyper-focus on hardware products, we launched Mavenoid self-service. Instead of applying misappropriated methods like chatbots, our customers were able to resolve ~4X more inquiries with our self-service approach. Not only would this mean that more users were able to make their stuff work, but the efficiency gains and cost savings to our customers were significant.
Not long after, COVID started to lock the world down, and we knew that products that relied on in-person servicing would need a new way to make their support work. To combat that pain, we launched Mavenoid live support so brands could offer hardware-first experiences remotely. Capabilities like interactive video calling, so agents can actually see and identify a problem, and then walk someone through how to fix it all over video. No costly return, exchange, or in-person visit is needed.
As Mavenoid continued to grow, so too did our obsession to “make stuff work”:
Customers were investing a lot of time into creating support content and wanted a way to streamline that process. We dove into the world of GPT-3 to autogenerate initial support models & content and built AI Retrieval to convert existing documents into support materials so our platform could “make content creation work.”
Customers mentioned that at times it was difficult to best match a solution to a user’s search query. So to “make free text search work” we invested in out AI’s intent recognition capabilities.
Customers wanted a way to ensure Mavenoid and their other tools and workflows always remained in sync. So we built deep integrations with Zendesk, Salesforce , and Zapier, plus browser extensions like Mavenoid Copilot to ensure that we “made Mavenoid interconnectivity work.”
By constantly striving to “make stuff work” for our customers, we’ve been able to build the leading product support platform that empowers the world's largest and most innovative hardware companies to provide great customer experiences while streamlining operational efficiency.
But the most exciting part is that we’ve only scratched the surface.
With this new investment, Mavenoid is better equipped to dive deeper into the world of product support.
- We can continue to push the boundaries of AI and how it can be utilized, beyond other’s typical conversational AI, to make support organizations more efficient and cost-effective.
- We can research and build more hardware-first support experiences that address the growing complexities of physical technology products.
- We can continue to invest in our people and organization so we can help more companies “make their stuff work”.
But most importantly, we can continue to invest in our customers, ensuring that we deliver the strong impact and outcomes that you’ve come to expect from Mavenoid.
To everyone who has been part of our journey so far— our customers, Mavens, advisors, friends and family— thank you. We couldn’t reach this stage without your support.
But this is still just the beginning. And you can, and should, expect more from Mavenoid in the years to come.
