The high-flying field service management platform Zuper was founded in August 2016 by Raghav Gurumani, Karthik Rao, and Vijay Narasiman. While Anand Subbaraj joined Zuper as the CEO in 2020 after having spent more than 13 years in Microsoft as the Head of Product in Azure Data.
Since its founding in 2016, Zuper has been providing an industry-leading field service management platform to over 500 service businesses and tens of thousands of users globally. From residential and commercial cleaning, HVAC, electricians, Internet Service Providers, plumbers, disaster restoration, lawn care & landscaping businesses, and many other types of service-based businesses. Since their inception,Zuper has helped them all modernize their operations and provide an on-demand service booking experience for their customers.
We sat down with CEO Anand Subbaraj and Head of Growth Rob Freedman togeta deeper look into this FSM tech startup who is hell-bent on making “Field Service, Your Way” for startups to Fortune 500 brands of all types & sizes. They’re doing this by empowering them all to better customize their field service, work order, service scheduling, invoicing, and customer management software so their customers can make their businesses far more efficient and profitable.
1) What was your prime motivation to start up Zuper?
In short, the way that most businesses with field service teams (residential/commercial cleaning, HVAC, property maintenance, landscaping, etc.) manage their service management operations, workforce, and customer experience is completely outdated. From backend operations like work order management and dispatching to customer-facing tasks like appointment scheduling, invoicing and payments, companies have relied on archaic manual processes for years.
Based on a negative service experience of one of the founders, the Zuper team saw a significant need and opportunity for service businesses to modernize their operations in a way that created better efficiencies internally and also exponentially improved the experiences of their customers. The framework for this was based largely on the emerging “on-demand” economy, the ongoing push for digital transformation, and ever-increasing expectations by customers for better experiences.
Additionally, there was a gap in the market with the existing core platforms that service businesses use for back-office operations (CRM, ERP, etc.). These solutions weren’t built with field service in mind and therefore they couldn’t fully leverage or optimize their existing IT investments, as the specific processes required for field service were still stuck in pen and paper and spreadsheets. The convergence of these factors was the main motivation for the founding of Zuper.
2) What makes Zuper’s FSM software so different from all the others?
Many other FSM software solutions focus solely on back-office management and tracking of field service workers. While this is definitely a critical element of any FSM platform, Zuper set out to build a true end-to-end solution that empowers businesses to operate efficiently, as well as attract, acquire, engage, and retain customers.
Zuper prioritizes flexibility and customization, making it very easy for users to leverage the platform based on their individual needs. As part of the focus on customization, Zuper makes it very easy for users to control and build out their own applications. Zuper has the highest number of low-code workflows available in any FSM solution, making it extremely easy to configure even for non-technical users.
What really sets Zuper apart is its integration capabilities. Zuper has the largest number of industry-leading business app ecosystem integrations including Zoho, HubSpot, ServiceHub, Zendesk, QuickBooks and more. Integrations with popular CRM and ticketing apps makes Zuper enable service businesses to deliver seamless customer experience end-to-end. An integration with Wisetack provides consumer financing options directly within our field service management app.
3) What are 3 things Zuper does better than everyone else?
First is the flexibility and customization abilities of the platform.
Second are integrations with other business applications that field service organizations use.
Third is customer service. The company provides white glove service for all customers. This includes exceptional and highly personalized, one to one onboarding, training, and post deployment service and 24×7 phone support for all customers.
4) How much has your business grown since its inception?
Zuper has grown exponentially over the past 6 years since its founding. Most recently, in the first half of 2022, Zuper grew significantly with big customer wins, partner integrations and platform innovations. Zuper’s $19M funding year-to-date has enabled it to make strategic hires and accelerate the product development, marketing, and sales. See the most recent growth announcement for more details.
5) Where are your offices located?
Zuper is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with offices in Chennai, India, and Austin, Texas.
6) How many employees do you currently have?
80
7) How many employees do you plan on hiring in 2022?
Zuper is poised for 50% growth in staffing for 2023.
8) What types of industries do you currently serve?
Zuper specializes in field service management-based industries and largely assists field service businesses as they strive to achieve digital transformation and modernization. Specifically, Zuper’s target industries are residential and commercial cleaning, HVAC, electrical, ISPs, plumbing services, landscaping, garage repair, roofing, swimming pools, property maintenance, managed service providers, disaster restoration, pressure washing and solar/renewable energy.
9) What industries do you plan on serving in the future?
City and local governments are something we are currently pushing into. This includes the facilities management departments of cities and municipalities that are responsible for snow removal, landscape maintenance of public parks, road and bridge maintenance, waste, and recycling, etc.
10) How many customers do you service worldwide?
Our field service management software platform is used by over 13,000 active users globally across 500+ companies. In H1 2022, Zuper grew its global customer base by more than 50%, securing TRIM and Origem. Other top customers include IKEA, TVS Credit, NIA, Brick Red Systems, Denso, NIIT, Ferrero, Modern, PSA Group, Farnek, Clairvoyant and Sail Internet.
11) How many countries do you currently offer services in?
We are currently present in over 20 countries, including the United States, Canada,
India,Mexico,United Kingdom,Netherlands, Singapore,Germany,Belgium,Sweden,Australia, Malaysia,Vietnam,Romania,Malta,Dubai, Saudi Arabia,Guatemala, Maldives,France,Denmark,Ireland,Brazil,Zimbabwe,Puerto Rico,Portugal, and Brunei.
12) What are the main traits you look for in hiring new employees?
Zuper believes what matters is the size of one’s heart and the strength of one’s character.
We also believe in building an empathetic, inclusive, and accepting culture. So employees with empathy and traits that can help foster this type of environment are very desirable to us.
Zuper employees must also be very customer focus. While we are employee-centric, we are also customer-centric. And our NorthStar is providing truly caring service with a personal touch, from sales to onboarding to ongoing support.
We also look for grit and curiosity and people that have the resilience. To forge through challenges and also have the desire to learn and grow ongoing.
