Help Scout
Customer service platform
Company mission
To make customer service more human.
Employees
201-500
HQ Location
South of Washington, Boston, MA
OTTA INSIGHTS
42% employee growth in 12 months
Otta's take on Help Scout
Sam Franklin
CEO of Otta
Customer service is fundamental to customer-centric businesses in all industries, with studies suggesting that 73% of companies with good customer service make more money. However, many companies fail to interact with their customers effectively, especially at scale. This is the problem that Help Scout is out to remedy.
The company offers an automated customer service platform with multiple features including email management, live chat software, and customer knowledge bases. More than 12000 businesses employ Help Scout, including big names such as Nordstrom, Mixmax, and Honey.
The company has a number of competitors, most notably Zendesk, however Help Scout differentiates itself by offering a streamlined service that can be better utilized by smaller businesses as well as enterprises, with affordable pricing making it suitable to serve all sizes of company.
Total funding - $13.1m
Last fundraise
Feb 2017
$6.2m
SERIES B
This company has top investors
Company benefits
- Everyone is paid based on a formula that’s public to employees and optimized for fairness. You are paid the same no matter where you live
- We invest in 100% health and dental for your family, life/disability insurance, and retirement savings (1% 401k match in US) for all our teammates
- We recommend four weeks, but it’s flexible. New parents get twelve weeks to welcome a new family member. Stay 4 years and take a sabbatical!
- Work at Help Scout, become a world traveler! It’s all part of our semi-annual retreats. Recent locations include Portugal, Mexico, Spain, and the US
- Every employee has the opportunity to become a shareholder and be part of the company’s success. We also have a public formula for option grants
- In addition to a laptop and the basics, we help fund your home office, co-working space, personal development, and more
Company values
- For profit and for purpose: We’re a Certified B Corporation, which means Help Scout is accountable to inclusive, sustainable business practices. We’ve also committed 1% of our equity to corporate philanthropy via Pledge 1%. If your organization is making an impact, we’d love to help!
- Diverse team, better everything: The data is indisputable: diverse teams perform better. In the interest of building the best product and the most thriving and inclusive company, we’re committed to a diverse team that understands and reflects our customer base.
- Do less, do it better: Instead of chasing feature parity, we aspire to build products that get the details right. Doing support is a tough job, and we’re fiercely committed to helping our customers feel like they’ve got superpowers.
- Remote first: We’ve worked remotely from day one and have seen the extraordinary benefits of a remote-first company and culture. It enables us to hire the best talent we can find, and for our team to enjoy flexibility and unprecedented work-life harmony.
Articles
Founders
Nick Francis
(CEO)Previously an Owner at Project 83, before co-founding Help Scout.
Jared McDaniel
(Designer)After graduating with a degree in Graphic Design from the University of Tennessee, they were a President and Designer at Studio430 before co-founding Help Scout.
Denny Swindle
(CTO)After working as Senior Systems Analyst at The Associates, they were a Senior Consultant at Springbow and a Technical Lead at American Express. Before co-founding Help Scout, they founded Akcelo, a consulting service.