Unlike the cheese, no piece of software stands alone: rare is the company whose product is used in isolation. Your users are using your tool in conjunction with many others to get a single “job” done. Simply having an API doesn’t mean your job is done. These users want seamless integrations not a link to developer docs. But how do you as a business justify the expense in building out a robust ecosystem of integrations? In this talk I’ll cover how we at UserVoice justify, plan, prioritize and build high quality integrations as well as 11 key things we've done (or not done) that have allowed us to scale up our ecosystem on limited resources.

1. Scaling up an integration
ecosystem on a budget
Richard White
Founder, CEO
@rrwhite

2. three goals

3. three warnings

4. hi

5. We are...
24
1 people in San Francisco &
Raleigh who want to enable you
better help and understand your
2 users all with less effort than you
thought possible.
3
4
@rrwhite

6. UserVoice is...
UserVoice is a true multi-tenant SaaS, freemium platform that helps companies scale not only
their customer support (by driving self-service) but also customer insight (through proactive user
engagement).

7. UserVoice is...
UserVoice is true multi-tenant SaaS, freemium platform that helps companies scale not only their
customer support (by driving self-service) but also customer insight (through proactive user
35,000
engagement).
people have logged into their
UserVoice admin console the
127% YoY last 30 days.
@rrwhite

8. Our history
Founded in 2008, and the originators of
the now ubiquitous Feedback Tab, what
makes us special is how much we care
about the end-user interface. We know
that communication starts with users, not
with surveys or flying banners.
We’ve had a little help along the way in
the form of $3MM in capital raised from
Baseline Ventures (our lead), WTI,
Betaworks, Founders Fund, TAG, Tekton
Ventures and an assortment of amazing
angels.

9. Our history
363
Founded in 2008, and the originators of
the, now ubiquitous Feedback Tab, what
makes us special is how much we care
people see a UserVoice
about the end-user interface. We know widget every second which
that communication starts with users not
with surveys or flying banners. is ...
We’ve had a little help along the way in
the form of $3MM in capital raised from
943MM
Baseline Ventures (our lead), WTI,
Betaworks, Founders Fund, TAG, Tekton
people every month across
Ventures and an assortment of amazing 170 different countries and
angels.
43 languages (translated
110% YoY courtesy of UserVoice users)
@rrwhite

10. Our customers
Are not ITSM & traditional contact centers.
They are predominantly technology companies
and often SaaS platforms, games or mobile
apps.
We work with everyone from startups to
business units of Fortune 500 companies. Most
sales are self-service, credit card & month to
month but we do work with annual billing,
invoices, training and higher level account
management.

11. 120,000 UserVoice sites that
have been setup
170 countries where there’s
an organization using
UserVoice
@rrwhite

12. Helpdesk Launched May 2011
Easy to use & (self-service) setup - Customers can get setup in hours, not days or weeks.
Designed for simplicity but has the backend to handle complicated routing and queuing.
Inspector - Answer messages quicker and more carefully by having the complete social context of who
you’re talking to.
Game mechanics - Our leaderboard drives friendly competition amongst customer teams to respond quickly
and comprehensively
Ticket system emails look like normal emails. End-users never know they’re being tracked. There's no
ticket # or 'reply above this line', People bristle at the notion of being “in a system” - they want human
connection.

13. Helpdesk Launched May 2011
A YEAR AGO
Easy to use & (self-service) setup - Customers can
1MM
get setup in hours, not days or weeks.
Designed for simplicity but has the backend to
handle complicated routing and queuing. tickets have been handled by
Inspector - Answer messages quicker and more
UserVoice Helpdesk
carefully by having the complete social context of who
you’re talking to.
Game mechanics - Our leaderboard drives friendly
competition amongst customer teams to respond
quickly and comprehensively
Ticket system emails look like normal emails. End-
users never know they’re being tracked. There's no
ticket # or 'reply above this line', People bristle at the
notion of being “in a system” - they want human
connection.
@rrwhite

14. Helpdesk Launched May 2011
NOW
Easy to use & (self-service) setup - Customers can
5MM
get setup in hours, not days or weeks.
Designed for simplicity but has the backend to
handle complicated routing and queuing. tickets have been handled by
Inspector - Answer messages quicker and more
UserVoice Helpdesk
you’re talking to.1MM
carefully by having the complete social context of who
per month
Game mechanics - Our leaderboard drives friendly
competition amongst customer teams to respond
quickly and comprehensively
Ticket system emails look like normal emails. End-
users never know they’re being tracked. There's no
ticket # or 'reply above this line', People bristle at the
notion of being “in a system” - they want human
connection.
@rrwhite

15. Feedback
Launched April 2008
Feedback forums are the unique UserVoice
way of helping customers get and respond
to inbound customer feedback at scale.
Feedback is a natural, and highly
successful, way to engage large numbers
of otherwise passive users who wouldn’t
contact companies for support.
Scalability - Get feedback from thousands or
millions with the same level of effort.
Frictionless feedback - 80+% of those who give
feedback will provide an email address and
subscribe to updates. This works wonders for
pre-sales engagement.
Response rates double that of newsletters.
Permission based marketing at its best. Users are
opting into updates on other user generated
content.

16. UserVoice is everywhere users are
We provide the most comprehensive and robust set of tools to help our customer
communicate with their users where they already are: in-app.
Complete set of APIs, Push Notifications
and SDKs make it easy for companies to
integrate UserVoice into their business.
Instant Answers - All embedded
experiences drive customers to self-service
their issues. Up to 40% (and higher on
mobile) of requests are resolved through
suggesting a relevant knowledge base
article or existing forum post.
Feedback tab widget - Embed a complete
customer portal directly into a website with a
couple lines of code.

17. UserVoice is everywhere users are
We provide the most comprehensive and robust set of tools to help our customer
communicate with their users where they already are: in-app.
Complete set of APIs, Push Notifications
and SDKs make it easy for companies to
integrate UserVoice into their business.
Instant Answers - All embedded
experiences drive customers to self-service
their issues. Up to 40% (and higher on
mobile) of requests are resolved through
suggesting a relevant knowledge base
article or existing forum post.
Feedback tab widget - Embed a complete
customer portal directly into a website with a
couple lines of code.
Mobile optimized - All of our interfaces are
optimized to work on desktop and mobile
web. (22.5% of our usage is mobile web)
UserVoice for iOS - A native customer
portal directly inside your iPhone or iPad
app.

18. NEW
In-app engagement
The next generation in (meaningful) in-app user
engagement: bundling together customer satisfaction,
product feedback and support to create engagement rates
that blow away traditional VoC or Helpdesk solutions.
Combined with a robust analytics system to give you a
complete view of your user base from 10K feet down to
individual users.
New features debuted at UserVoice Summit 2013:
Instant Answers
Satisfaction Surveys
SmartVote
Touchpoint SDK & Analytics

19. NEW
Our data & partners
Data in UserVoice is valuable at both an individual level as well as at an aggregate level (for targeting
whole segments of users). We provide the universal record of user activity to complementary tools.
CRM Partners
Product feedback
Informs potential upsell conversations
Support tickets Satisfaction scores
Help solve issues which reduces Used to help inform potential rescue sales
churn and improves satisfaction. Support tickets
Sales and support in sync - efficiency gains
Product feedback
Insight into product improvements
to reduce churn Marketing Automation Partners
users
Satisfaction scores All UserVoice activity
Insight into product improvements Helps inform lead scoring for improved conversion
and customer segments to target targeting - people who submit feedback or support
to reduce churn tickets are more engaged in the self-serve buying
process. Helps to identify brand advocates.
Usage & conversion data: User
activity, LTVs, etc. - (help analyze
and refine which feedback and Internal Collaboration Partners
user segments to pay attention to)
Real-time product feedback
Helps make entire team aware of front-line product
deficiencies driving dissatisfaction

20. users
Live Chat Social / Mobile
Product Collaboration CRM Marketing

21. our process

22. OUR THINKING
users
The value of integrations
Live Chat Social / Mobile
Product Collaboration CRM Marketing
@rrwhite

23. OUR THINKING
users
The value of integrations
Live Chat Social / Mobile
Customer retention
Product Collaboration CRM Marketing
@rrwhite

24. OUR THINKING
users
The value of integrations
Live Chat Social / Mobile
Customer retention
Co-marketing & press
Product Collaboration CRM Marketing
@rrwhite

25. OUR THINKING
users
The value of integrations
Live Chat Social / Mobile
Customer retention
Co-marketing & press
Product Collaboration CRM Marketing
New distribution channels
@rrwhite

26. OUR THINKING
users
The value of integrations
Live Chat Social / Mobile
Customer retention
Co-marketing & press
Product Collaboration CRM Marketing
New distribution channels
Closing new customers
@rrwhite

27. A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
Most integrations are
crap
@rrwhite

28. A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
The integrator’s dilemma
@rrwhite

29. A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
The integrator’s dilemma
Optimize for quantity or quality?
@rrwhite

30. A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
The integrator’s dilemma
Optimize for quantity or quality?
Pushing failure down the funnel.
@rrwhite

31. A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
The integrator’s dilemma
Optimize for quantity or quality?
Pushing failure down the funnel.
No right answer. We chose quality.
@rrwhite

32. A HUMBLE OBSERVATION
The integrator’s dilemma
Optimize for quantity or quality?
Pushing failure down the funnel.
No right answer. We chose quality.
Can we have both?
@rrwhite

33. OUR PROCESS
Write the user stories for
a new class integrations.
@rrwhite

35. OUR PROCESS
Write the user stories for
a new class integrations
with actual users.
@rrwhite

37. OUR PROCESS
We try to build the first
integration in-house.
@rrwhite

38. OUR PROCESS
We try to build the first
integration in-house.
Validates that we have the API /
platform tech to support it.
@rrwhite

39. OUR PROCESS
We try to build the first
integration in-house.
Validates that we have the API /
platform tech to support it.
Quality of APIs is a considered when
picking our first partner.
@rrwhite

40. OUR PROCESS
We lean on others to
build N+1 integrations
@rrwhite

41. OUR PROCESS
We lean on others to
build N+1 integrations
This is how we hope to achieve
quality and quantity.
@rrwhite

42. OUR PROCESS
We lean on others to
build N+1 integrations
This is how we hope to achieve
quality and quantity.
We need to have a great set of APIs
& integration tech.
@rrwhite

43. eleven things

44. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Use your own damn API
@rrwhite

45. THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY
Our first hackathon
@rrwhite

46. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Use your own damn API
@rrwhite

51. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
A dedicated API engineer
@rrwhite

53. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
SDKs for a multitude of
programming languages
@rrwhite

55. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
An API for provisioning
accounts
@rrwhite

57. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Web hooks
@rrwhite

59. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Web Service hooks
@rrwhite

64. THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY
Supporting Bidirectional
syncing (between us and
less awesome APIs)
@rrwhite

66. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
“External ID” support
@rrwhite

67. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
“External ID” support
ticket
=
findTicket(
:title
=>
“Help
me”,
:user
=>
“sidson@uservoice.com”)
updateTicket(ticket.id,
{DATA})
@rrwhite

68. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
“External ID” support
ticket
=
findTicket(
:title
=>
“Help
me”,
:user
=>
“sidson@uservoice.com”)
ticket
=
findTicket(
:external_id
=>
123,
:external_app
=>
“salesforce”)
updateTicket(ticket.id,
{DATA})
@rrwhite

69. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
“External ID” support
tickets
=
findTickets(
:external_app
=>
“salesforce”,
:filter
=>
“no_external_id”)
@rrwhite

70. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Upsert support
@rrwhite

71. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Upsert support
ticket
=
findTicket(
:external_id
=>
123,
:external_app
=>
“salesforce”)
if
ticket
doesn’t
exist
createTicket({DATA})
else
updateTicket(ticket.id,
{DATA})
end
@rrwhite

72. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Upsert support
upsertTicket(
:external_id
=>
123,
:external_app
=>
“salesforce”,
{DATA})
@rrwhite

73. THINGS THAT MAKE US CRY
Integrations involving the
words “on” & “premise”
@rrwhite

74. THINGS THAT MAKE US HAPPY
Integrations that
don’t involve any
APIs

75. thanks