Mar 3, 2014 · 22m · mad
Jordy Leiser, StellaService // Data Driven NYC 23 // January 2014 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)
Jordy Leiser · 11m spoken Dave Miller · 7m spoken Mr. Dunks · 24s spoken Rick Zulo · 24s spoken Matt Turck · 9s spoken
0:00 / 0:00
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
At Data Driven NYC, StellaService co-founders Jordy Leiser and Dave Miller present how their company manufactures proprietary customer service data through mystery shopping to benchmark e-commerce retailers and power search ratings.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 0.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Matt as informed peer 0.2 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 1.0 Matt pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:15 Rejecting conventional big data framing
Jordy forcefully distinguishes StellaService from typical big data companies, arguing that competitors merely pick up crumbs while StellaService uniquely manufactures its own data.
Hardest push from Matt ▶ 22:11 Host cutting off further questions due to timeMatt Turck intervenes at the end of the presentation to terminate the Q&A session strictly due to time constraints.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:00 Educating on the relative nature of customer service metricsJordy explains how major retailers spend millions on arbitrary targets without knowing competitor benchmarks like L.L. Bean's 51-minute email response time.
Matt holds his own ▶ 19:06 Host asserting event moderationMatt Turck briefly asserts control over the stage transition, limiting audience Q&A to maintain schedule discipline.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Matt as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Matt pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company Overview and Value Proposition | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Jordy Leiser introduces StellaService, contrasting its proprietary data generation model against other big data startups that collect public crumbs. Because this is a guest presentation monologue without host participation, host-side scores are zero. | |
| Enterprise Benchmarking and Relative Experience | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Jordy presents benchmarking examples such as email response times across major retailers to demonstrate relative service metrics. The presentation format continues without host commentary or pushback. | |
| Data Operations and Mystery Shopping Methodology | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Dave Miller takes over to explain the operational necessity of rotating phone numbers and emails to preserve mystery shopper anonymity. The segment remains a monologue, keeping host scores at zero. | |
| Contact Center and Fulfillment Measurement Framework | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Dave and Jordy discuss contact center and fulfillment tracking metrics alongside humorous anecdotes regarding delivery drivers and hold times. As a presentation monologue, host participation remains non-existent. | |
| Determining Key Metrics and Wrap-Up | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Jordy finishes explaining how metrics are chosen before host Matt Turck briefly steps in to moderate an audience Q&A session. Questions regarding measurement bias and repeat customers are answered politely by Jordy. |
Statements from this episode (10)
StellaService manufactures proprietary data rather than aggregating external sources.
“We're a unique beast in this world of big data, and that we're not really big data, it's sort of a big secret is that we actually make our own data. And pretty much every other data company that I think is presenting today and that you pretty much ever hear ab…”
StellaService customer service data integrates directly into Google and major marketplaces.
“So we are now integrated into Google and other search engines and shopping marketplaces with real live data about what it's like to buy from Finish Line or from Zappos.”
L.L. Bean achieved a 51-minute customer email response time benchmark.
“So L.L. Bean responds to emails in 51 minutes for this particular time period that we looked at.”
StellaService photographs every ordered package to benchmark out-of-box customer experience.
“We also take photos of every single package that we order. So we're out there measuring all these companies every day, and we literally have photos of what the out-of-box experience is like”
StellaService never reuses phone numbers or emails to maintain mystery shopper anonymity.
“We can never use the same phone number twice with the company. We can never use the same email twice.”
StellaService mystery shoppers log roughly 50 days of aggregate customer hold time.
“That also means we wait on hold forever. Humanity, just around 50 days. So overall that means, it's not one person sitting there 50 days, obviously, but it's a lot of time, because it takes us a lot of time to get to the person on the phone, as we all know.”
StellaService orders and returns nearly 12,000 e-commerce products annually for testing.
“We get a, you know, almost 12,000 products are shipped around the country to our shoppers' homes, and they're, all of them get sent back.”
A retailer attempted to bill StellaService for its mystery shopping test costs.
“Today I was actually out with a retailer who, Literally tried to give me a bill for all the products that we've ordered and returned and all the phone calls and emails that we have placed to that company.”
Retailer clients actively help StellaService maintain mystery shopper anonymity during testing.
“One is that it's actually it's actually to the benefit of our clients that they don't know. That they want to keep it anonymous. So they actually work with us to help us ensure that we don't set off any triggers at their company, because they're the ones actua…”
Harvard Business School licenses StellaService data to study customer service improvements.
“Second of all, we're actually working with Harvard Business School. We license our data to a team of researchers there to actually try to uncover, once we actually told the market, we were cut, we were measuring a lot of these companies before We told anybody,…”