Aspiring to become the obvious-choice operating system for SME’s, Superchat has created a platform that makes it as easy and natural for customers to contact small and medium-sized businesses as it is to contact their friends and family.
Founded in 2020, the young startup has just raised €13.6 million in a Series A round led by Blossom Capital, with participation from 468 Capital.
Based in Berlin, Superchat pulls in and streamlines conversations from various channels – WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Google Business, Telegram, webchat, email and SMS – into a single, easy-to-use inbox. This gives companies unprecedented insight into the data they have on customers and how they’re engaging – in turn, boosting sales and revenue.
It allows for greater transparency and efficiency across business communications as all team members can see and reply to messages. For customers, it means conversations flow more naturally – goodbye to the days of getting frustrated with automated messaging systems.
Founders Yilmaz Köknar and Mika Hally built the innovative tech to address the challenges they themselves had in trying to contact companies – creating a platform that does away with SME’s current juggle of conversations across multiple channels.
Having a wide range of channels to connect to customers gives SME’s an amazing reach to engage with target audiences, and it means customers can easily contact businesses however and whenever they need. At the same time though, it presents challenges – namely that it becomes messy and confusing.
Each channel needs to be monitored and managed individually. There can be confusion around which staff member is responsible for replying, or how the communication should be actioned. For teams, the process is fragmented and inefficient, for customers it leads to confusion and bad experiences.
Superchat’s founders are on a mission to change this; to disrupt the status quo around how small businesses interact with their customers. Within the platform, managers can assign tasks to employees, staff can add internal notes and labels to conversations to improve workflow and make sure customers are getting the very best, joined-up service.
Since the launch of the inbox feature in April 2021, the platform has processed more than half a million messages from hundreds of customers across 30 industries in Germany alone. These customers have been able to increase sales, boost their Google rankings, get in front of new audiences, offer personalised and tailored advice and improve reply rates all while using Superchat.
Yilmaz Köknar, Superchat founder, said: “Customer service and reputation can make or break a business yet they’re notoriously difficult to get right. Especially for small and medium-sized firms who are only just dipping their toes in the world of digital. This is because today’s customers want and expect to be able to contact businesses wherever, and whenever suits them. Some want to email, others prefer text, many rely on social media or web chats to connect directly. This can prove to be a logistical nightmare for the companies, and results in poor experiences for the customers. No-one wins within the current status quo, but with Superchat, everyone does.”
In addition, the Superchat platform allows for more than just conversations. It also streamlines a place for invoices, payments and reviews to be made and managed. Further, with Superchat’s campaign feature, companies are able to send WhatsApp campaigns – similar to an email newsletter- to their customers for sales, marketing and customer service purposes.
The funding will be used to continue building out Superchat’s features and integrations with a wide range of existing CRM and workflow tools. It will also help the team grow and see Superchat expand into new countries.
Alex Lim, managing partner at Blossom Capital, said: “Superchat has built a platform that empowers small and medium-sized businesses to leverage the benefits of digital channels and provide the very best service to even the most discerning customers. The founders and the team understand the unique pain points being felt by companies, many of which are still relying on email and phone calls despite the significant shift to digital seen in the wake of the pandemic. The technology has the potential, and the founders have the ambition, to become the leading European player in this space.”
