There are a lot of startup founders who begin their careers at Procter and Gamble, where oftentimes, they notice an industry-wide problem they can solve.
Take Mark Jeffreys, the founder of Mobile Agent Now, a review management tool for companies. He left P&G last November, where he served for 16 years, after he saw an opportunity to help large and small brands with their reviews.
This idea germinated during his tenure as a marketing director for shaving razor brand Gillette, which is owned by P&G. Jeffreys' team was struggling to keep up with Dollar Shave Club, a subscription razor company, and other emerging competitors.
“The [review] space is growing; it’s exploding."
“One of the things I observed, in trying to compete with them, is the way they’re growing their businesses [and] a lot of the direct consumer businesses," Jeffreys said. "They’re engaging in a different way in the digital space."
For example, he saw that these companies were responding to every customer review and comment, personally.
“They would engage and talk to [the consumer] as if they were having a cup of coffee or a beer with you,” he said.
It was a simple-seeming move that was actually helping disrupting the online review world, much like other companies (think Uber/Lyft, Airbnb) worked to shake up the transportation and hotel industry.
Jeffreys knew that there was a potential to help other companies do the same, thanks again in part to his experience with P&G.
“At Gillette, it was really hard to compete from a cost structure and organization standpoint, and I knew that was a big opportunity because large brands have a hard time engaging in that way."
Mobile Agent Now, his subsequent creation, wants to change that.
“We leverage reviews to help fuels brands’ growth,” he said.
The simple (yet thorough) process works like this: Agents, who are contractors similar to Uber drivers, log in to the Mobile Agent Now system when they choose, where they respond to reviews for a company. Then, their reviews go through a quality assurance process that begins with software-based check for spelling, grammar and other errors. A highly qualified editor reads the review to make sure it’s factual, true and that there aren’t any major content issues. Agents also get rated on the quality of the review.
He emphasizes the process isn’t like Twitter, where an employee can accidentally tweet out from the wrong account. Agents aren’t responding directly to consumers in the review forum, such as Google, Yelp or Facebook. Instead, they are working directly in Mobile Agent Now’s software. Agents are also vetted to make sure they can do the job. Agents then get assigned to a brand. They get notified when there’s a review. They respond to the review. If the review gets approved, they get paid.
But Jeffreys isn’t just using the software to have contractors respond to reviews.
“There’s two things that we do: One is, we enable brands to respond to those reviews in a very unique, innovative model,” he said. “The second is we mine all the insights that are in those reviews.”
He spoke to how a company like Hilton gets around 10 million reviews. Each one contains important thoughts regarding how the company is specifically succeeding or needs improvement.
Mobile Agent Now has an "insight" portion of their software that can then break down these millions of reviews into specifically themed chunks — think, grouping reviews that mention cost or issues with a specific hotel. With this sorted information, companies then can respond in actionable ways, ultimately improving their customers' experiences with their brand.
This work is needed, Jeffreys continued.
“The [review] space is growing; it’s exploding,” he said. “Companies and brands need to engage with it. Sixty-five percent of consumers expect a response to a review. And these reviews have a huge amount of insight.”
