Founder Insights
STELLAService produces data, ratings and insight on the service performance of online retailers. Through its network of analysts and mystery shoppers, STELLAService independently measures and benchmarks businesses across the entire service delivery chain, from phone, email, chat and social media support to shipping, returns and usability metrics.
Enhancing Transparency
"STELLAService was created to provide consumers with an unprecedented level of transparency around the customer service performance of online businesses. Studies continue to show that customer service is one of the most critical factors in determining where online consumers shop, yet there is currently no available resource for consumers to completely and objectively benchmark one online store against another. By taking an independent approach in evaluating every possible element of the online customer experience, STELLAService will reveal a truly unbiased and comprehensive assessment of the kind of service you can expect from an Internet retailer. This will fundamentally improve the way consumers make online purchasing decisions." – Jordy Leiser
Refining Methodology
“When we first started, we spent months digging up and researching every single touch point of the online customer experience. For each element, we had to figure out how to objectively measure it, how to fairly compare it across merchants, and how to weigh it in our scoring algorithm (i.e. how important one element is vis-a-vis the others). Since day one, we've continued to add, subtract, refine and enhance parts of our methodology based on our continued learning of the space and the changing attitudes and expectations of online shoppers.” – Jordy Leiser
Taking a New Approach
“What we do is effectively evaluate comprehensively the service of an online business. To do that and to do it objectively and unbiased and in an independent way, we employ a staff of full-time people that literally go out and become the customer of all these businesses. They are trained through our methodology to basically understand what are the most important elements that drive the online customer experience.” – Jordy Leiser
Success Story
Jordy Leiser and John Ernsberger founded STELLAService, the first completely independent customer service ratings agency, with the dual goal of helping online shoppers make more informed purchasing decisions, while also helping online retailers grow their businesses through customer service data and marketing services.
The company officially launched in March 2010, and within a year Jordy and John had raised $2 million in early stage funding from Battery Ventures and DFJ Gotham Ventures, with participation from RRE Ventures, Consigliere Brand Capital, Doug Lebda, Mark Wachen and other angels. They followed this round with $5 million in Series A financing from Battery Ventures, DFJ Gotham Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Forerunner Ventures.
In February 2013, STELLAService raised a $15 million Series B round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Existing investors Battery Ventures, DFJ Gotham Ventures, RRE Ventures and Forerunner Ventures contributed to the financing. This round of funding will allow the company to expand the number of retailers it monitors as well as the depth of the data it collects.
In March 2013, STELLAService was named a winner of Take the H.E.L.M.: Hire + Expand in Lower Manhattan, a competition that gives creative and innovative businesses $250,000 to move their operations to the southern tip of Manhattan or expand facilities already there.
Through its experienced and independent Customer Service Analysts, STELLAService has anonymously collected tens of thousands of data points already across hundreds of customer service metrics for today’s leading Internet retailers. Once data is collected on a company, STELLAService assigns a “STELLA Rating”: ELITE; EXCELLENT; APPROVED; or NOT APPROVED. Companies with top ratings are awarded STELLAService’s “Seal of Approval” to display on their websites. Consumers use the STELLA ratings to make more informed online purchasing decisions and by companies to obtain crucial business and industry intelligence.
In 2019, STELLAService raised $11 million in fresh funding for its Stella Connect platform. The new API-powered platform allows customer service representatives to receive immediate feedback from customers via a social media-like user interface.