It’s the start of a new year (though, in some ways [#pandemic] it feels remarkably like 2020 hasn’t really ended – but we won’t focus on that…). We’ve got lots of exciting plans for 2021, and can’t wait to dive in; however, we also wanted to take a moment to reflect on all that progress that has been made since Billsby began. Incredibly – because so much has happened since then - Billsby only launched publicly on 8th June 2020!
Prior to our 8th June launch, Billsby had been through a private-beta and public-beta testing round, during which we made lots of tweaks and changes. As such, though the first incarnation of Billsby was seen as a springboard for growth, we remain extremely proud of the product that we launched: it included many of the key features we have today, such as:
Add-ons and allowances
Discounts and coupons
Global tax support
Card tokenizer
Self-service invoices
Contract terms
Annual pro-rating
Multiple currencies.
The fact that ‘version one’ of Billsby was so ‘feature complete’ is testament to our fantastic team who worked tirelessly to respond to beta feedback and ensure our initial offering was ready to deliver what customers needed.
When compiling this article, we caught up with some of our team to learn more about their key moments from the year. Here are some of the highlights…
Customer service
It’s been a bumper year for the customer service team – and the numbers reflect this.
We’ve:
Had 2631 conversations with our customers since March.
Created over 200 auto-bot answers to help us respond to customers more quickly.
Written over 30,000 words of help content through guides, documentation, etc.
Spent nearly 7,500 hours on Zoom, demonstrating Billsby to our customers and helping them get set up!
We were also thrilled to score highly in the latest G2 awards, which dubbed Billsby the highest-rated and most affordable subscription billing software on the market. G2’s independently-collected review data shows that Billsby is easier to use, set up and has higher quality support than our competitors (check out the image below!)
Development
We love developers at Billsby – in fact, our platform was designed to make their life easier! It’s no wonder, then, that our own dev team are complete superstars. Over the last year, they’ve worked their socks off, fixing 1146 bugs and continually improving stability and performance. They also brought the new Billsby Checkout to life, which includes the following whizzy features:
Mobile version of the checkout and self-service account management modals.
Larger screens (and fewer of them) for quicker checkout and account management tasks.
Increased branding customisation: more colour options, choice of font and capitalisation, etc.
Enhanced feature customisation: turning off and on features to get the checkout and account management to work exactly as the customer requires.
And that’s just the start! As ever, our development team are hard at work on more exciting improvements to our checkout and account management tools. Stay tuned…
Outreach and Growth
As the global pandemic has raged on over the last twelve months, many businesses have counted themselves lucky just to stay afloat – the challenges have been so immense. With that in mind, we’re even more delighted with the progress we’ve made. In six short months, we launched Billsby and attracted 1800 customers, brought on 30 kickstarters, and reached over $140,000 monthly transactions by December 2020.
2020 was a tumultuous year by any stretch of the imagination, but also a thrilling one – we can’t wait for what comes next!
Billsby vs. Pandemic
Funnily enough, the transition to ‘coronavirus-safe’ working practises was actually a highlight for the Billsby team in 2020: the fact that we were able to keep the whole team working, productive, and happy during a pandemic (the like of which none of us had ever seen before) felt like quite the achievement.
If 2021 has more challenges in store, it'll be smooth sailing with Billsby: we're set up perfectly to handle them. All of our systems can be accessed remotely (and securely), meaning that our customers experience only the outstanding standard of service they’ve come to expect from us. Furthermore – and just as importantly – it’s allowed us to keep working as a tight-knit team: we all genuinely like each other, and feel it’s crucial that we stay in touch, particularly during a lockdown situation (which can have severe impacts on mental health).
As a team we have adapted to a completely new way of working - everyone in their own home - but have managed to collaborate, innovate and deliver. Here's to a brand new year, and more innovations, great teamwork, and service enhancements!
Happy new year to all our customers and supporters, past, present and future! Whatever the current circumstances, please remember that we're here to help - don't hesitate to drop us a line (hello@billsby.com) or give us a call (+1 (855) 934-0707 or +44 (0)800 090 3656) if you have any queries or concerns.