Hey, thanks for tuning in to another Partner Spotlight interview at OutsourceSchool.
My name is Connor Gillivan. I’m the CMO and an Owner of Outsource School.
We’re on a mission to help 10,000+ business owners master hiring virtual assistants and freelancers, and industry partnerships is a big way that we’re able to make it happen.
We’re all about creating win-win partnerships where we are able to grow with other companies in the eCommerce, agency, SAAS, and online space.
In this exclusive interview, we interview Andrew Kamide from Chat HQ. Andrew provides high-quality, industry exclusive, lead generation using Google Adwords and Facebook ad campaigns.
With nearly 10 years of marketing experience, he is able to maximize his client’s lead generation opportunities using highly targeted audiences across various marketing channels.
To put it simply… Andrew helps businesses grow with proven marketing strategies!
Connor: Hey Andrew, thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. As a company, one of our goals is to highlight our partners so that our clients can benefit where it makes most sense. To get started, can you give us a high-level introduction to Chat HQ and a little bit about how the company got started?
Andrew: ChatHQ helps digital marketing agencies deliver SaaS products to their customers. By incorporating ChatHQ products into their product offerings, we are helping these digital marketing agencies transition either into a full SaaS company, or a hybrid SaaS company that offers both software and marketing services to their clients (SwaS).
ChatHQ was founded back in Feb 2021 when both myself and my co-founder and CTO Sergio Leon almost became competitors. We both had ideas for a particular software add-on to a popular platform called HighLevel, and instead of competing, we decided to partner up and leverage each other’s strengths to grow together.
Connor: Thanks for sharing that! Can you dive a bit more into the products and services that you offer to help increase profit margins and customer retention rates? Our audience is always looking for reputable companies that they can lean on for specific parts of their online businesses.
Andrew: ChatHQ’s flagship product is called the Engagement Widget™ that was designed to be used in both sales and support capacities. This widget looks like a website chat widget, but operates as a “shell” to many other tools and gadgets that function independently and differently of one another.
The sole purpose of having multiple tools and gadgets is to provide the exact combination of options for website visitors or customers to interact with in order to achieve a specific outcome or conversion event.
We also currently offer:
- Livechat software
- Workflow Automation software
- and soon will have other software solutions like knowledge base building software, onboarding help guide software, and Ai bot functionality
Our product suite at ChatHQ was designed to help our customer’s business internally but also designed to be white-labeled by our customers and resold to THEIR customers. So when we reference “increasing profit margins and retention rates” we are referring to the ability of the digital marketing agency to provide their customers with sticky software solutions that solve THEIR problems.
Increasing Profit Margins – Generally, digital marketing agencies have low-profit margins, while software companies tend to have large profit margins. This is statistically documented. This tends to come from long sales cycles and a heavy reliance on human labor to fulfil traditional marketing services sold by the agencies to their customers.
By incorporating ChatHQ software into their offerings, they have the ability to cut down the length of the sales cycle by offering a lower ticket product/service up front. With a lower ticket product/service, the digital marketing agency will get less objections, resulting in more sales at a higher profit margin.
Once the software starts providing results, their customers will gain more trust for the digital marketing agency, and they will then have the opportunity to sell higher ticket services moving forward.
Increasing Retention Rates – SaaS holds one of the highest customer retention rates ranging from 92%-97%, while most digital marketing agencies’ retention rate is anywhere from 75%-80%. So if digital marketing agencies incorporate Saas into their offerings, and provide results for their customers with that software, then they will ultimately increase their retention rates by becoming a hybrid SaaS company.
Connor: Jumping off of that…when you’re thinking about your ideal customer, who is that? What are they selling? Where are they located in the world? How much sales do they typically have in a year? If there’s any other qualities, please include them as well. We’re all about making introductions where it benefits both parties.
Andrew: ChatHQ’s ideal customer profile is as follows:
- Digital marketing agencies selling traditional marketing services
- Short term: Digital marketing agencies using HighLevel
- Long term: Any digital marketing agency
- 3 to 200 customers
- $100k + in gross revenue
- Global
The perfect customer would be a digital marketing agency that already uses HighLevel and is determined to add additional revenue streams to their agency through SaaS, or looking to make the switch from a digital marketing agency to a SaaS company entirely.
Connor: For our audience to truly understand what makes you stand out from other companies in the SaaS space, can you share a story of how ChatHQ truly helped one of its customers?
Andrew: We have not gathered any case studies from our customers yet. We can only speak on behalf of our perspective of their success using ChatHQ.
Connor: As you and your company think about the next year ahead, what does it look like? Are there any specific initiatives that you’re working on as a team to better your product or service for your customers?
Andrew: The year ahead has many challenges for ChatHQ, but ones we are very excited to take on. We will be incorporating Ai into our product in both livechat and the knowledge base software, and we will be making our product much more flexible so customers can customize more and more to best suit their needs and their customer’s needs!
We will also be adding more software solutions to our product suite like onboarding software!
Connor: How about this…everyone loves a company’s growth story. We all naturally go through ups and downs as a company. What was one of the biggest challenges that the company faced in its growing stages?
Andrew: The biggest challenge we faced, and continue to face, is being bootstrapped. We have launched a few different products to try and boost revenue so that we can properly engineer the software solutions we are imagining and ideating, and that process of building many products creates a fragmented organization with many points of failure.
We are in the process of consolidating our product suite and combining products to make it easier to understand, purchase, and consume as a customer. This will also help our team stay focused and organized as we grow which is a top priority of ours.
Connor: Thanks! Let’s talk some outsourcing! What’s been your experience with outsourcing for your business? What platforms do you use most? And how has it impacted your business over the years?
Andrew: We do not outsource as of today. There are a few projects that we will need outsourcing for, such as creating product videos, SEO, and some others, but we are managing all projects in-house as of today.
Connor: On a similar train, what do you look for when you’re hiring someone online? Are there any specific countries that you prefer to hire from? What traits are most important to you in a remote hire?
Andrew: We do not have a specific country in mind when hiring. We have the need to hire on both sides of the world as we are a global company and could use the active workforce during all hours of the day. Our team today has US, Latin American, Filipino, and Indian workers.
The most important aspect to a remote worker is punctuality and self-motivation. If they have attention to detail and they are able to manage their time and energy, they will succeed in almost any project/department they are needed in.
Connor: Finally, outsourcing can have a bad rap, what would you say to someone who is thinking about outsourcing for the first time? What advice do you have for them?
Andrew: Pick your outsourcing partner wisely. If you invest too much and don’t get the return you hoped for, you will have not only wasted money but also wasted time the could have been spent with the RIGHT partner.
Connor: As we close this out, I just have one more question. Where is the best place to find and follow you and the company online? Also, if you have one, is there any special offer that you’ll be offering to the community today?
Andrew: Website, Facebook,IG, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter
Special offer – Anyone that signs up through this partnership will receive a 10% discount for life on any/all ChatHQ products!
Hailey: 