StellaService Inc. is a

privately held A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

American information and measurement company with

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, New York. The company measures and rates the

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...

performance of online companies in a process audited by global accounting and auditing firm

KPMG KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a net ...

. Founded in 2009, it produces both Stella Metrics (a mystery shopping platform) and Stella Connect (a customer feedback system).

Company background

The company was founded in 2009 by Jordan Leiser and John Ernsberger, college roommates at

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineering. ...

, and incorporated in 2010. Leiser serves as StellaService’s Chief Executive Officer and Ernsberger serves as the EVP of sales and service. In 2013 the company received $15 million from a series B round of financing led by

Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...

. As of that year the company had raised a total of $22.2 million in financing from investors including

Battery Ventures Battery Ventures is an American technology-focused investment firm. Founded in 1983, the firm makes venture-capital and private-equity investments in markets across the globe from offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Israel and Lon ...

, Consigliere Brand Capital, DFJ Gotham Ventures,

RRE Ventures RRE Ventures is an American Venture capital, Venture Capital firm based in New York City. The firm primarily invests in Seed money, seed, Series A round, series A and series B rounds and focuses on companies operating in the software, internet, c ...

. In 2015 StellaService raised an additional $15 million from Toba Capital and Novel TMT, in a series C round led by Comcast Ventures. The company is headquartered in

Software

Stella Metrics

The company launched Stella Metrics in February 2013, a

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

offering that syndicates the company’s proprietary data to online retailers. The company focuses on measuring the customer service performance of retail and eCommerce companies. This is done through hiring a few hundred shoppers to make purchases or returns at companies in the US or UK, and then measuring the quality of delivery, refund speed, and response times via phone or email. Google also licenses StellaService data and utilizes it in the star rating system used on Google AdWords. In addition to this, Stella Metrics has also been integrated into the Google Merchant Profile system. Each month the company "stress-tests" about three hundred metrics for client companies for approximately twenty thousand Internet transactions. Clients can either view this data about themselves or their competitors. The program has been referred to as a mystery shopping service. StellaService has used this data to release reports on trends on US and UK customer service as well, such as the results of increases in free shipping practices the use and effectiveness of social media as a customer service platform, shipping times and the amount of late packages during high volume shipping periods like holiday seasons, and call waiting times during periods of high call volume. They also publicly rate companies according to their findings.

Stella Connect

The company produced Stella Connect in 2015, which sends customers feedback request emails including personal information about the representative they were interacting with, including a photo and list of hobbies. The customer rates reps according to a five star system, and provides customers with the option of encouraging the company to provide the rep with small gifts in exchange for any high rated customer service, which can range from lunch to gift cards, or other items of the customer's choice. This feedback is sent directly to the customer rep that has been rated, and to a real-time dashboard where management can view employee performance on a rolling basis. The response rate of customers has been averaged at 40-50%.

Clients and recognition

As of 2011 the websites displaying the StellaService Seal include

Zappos.com Zappos.com is an American online shoe and clothing retailer based in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The company was founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn and launched under the domain name Shoesite.com. In July 2009, Amazon acquired Zappos in an ...

, Diapers.com and

1-800-Flowers.com 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. is a flower, floral and foods gift retailer and distribution company in the United States. The company's focus, except for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, is on gift baskets. They also use the name ''1-800-Baskets.com' ...

. Other clients include

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

and Abercrombie & Fitch. In May 2013, the company announced a multi-year agreement with

Google Inc Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. I ...

. StellaService ratings and data are licensed by Google in multiple offerings, including the Google Trusted Stores program. In March 2013, the company received a grant of $250,000 from the

New York City Economic Development Corporation New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is a nonprofit corporation whose stated mission is to "leverage the city’s assets to create beneficial jobs that drive growth. This ensures equitable and sustainable development across al ...

to relocate and hire in Manhattan’s Financial District as part of the Take the H.E.L.M. program.Rosenbaum, Steven (March 14, 2013
“Lower Manhattan Sparks Startup Competition”
Forbes.com.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://stellaservice.com/
StellaService News & Views blog
Privately held companies based in New York City Customer relationship management software 2009 establishments in New York City