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SocialBee, a social media management platform and SaaS based in Romania, first started using FastSpring in 2018.
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Bee Ovi Negrean has used the word “flawlessly” to describe how FastSpring’s merchant of record use case has worked for SocialBee (more on that below!).
After adopting FastSpring as their merchant of record, SocialBee even saw 2x year-over-year growth in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) after their first year with FastSpring.
However, as SocialBee utilizes many different ways to package and monetize their software as a service subscriptions, they began discovering new ways to test the FastSpring platform’s capabilities.
Here’s how FastSpring not only rose to the challenge but continues to impress Ovi and the SocialBee team, especially with:
- A dedication to listening to customers’ needs and providing communicative customer support.
- An actively involved leadership team that gets to know customers personally.
- Our continued focus on developing and improving a great product, especially features and tools for subscription management to support SaaS businesses.
Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.
Why SocialBee Chose FastSpring as a Merchant of Record
FastSpring’s function as a merchant of record has always been very important to SocialBee. When they wanted to expand their business to new global marketplaces, knowing that FastSpring handles VAT and taxes made FastSpring an easy choice.
“FastSpring, for us, has always solved the problem of not having to worry about VAT and taxes, as well as the core of simply getting money from our customers,” Ovi explained. “And that use case always worked flawlessly; there wasn’t any problem.”
It worked so well that SocialBee was able to double their MRR year over year.
But it takes a lot more than facilitating payments and managing taxes to make a merchant of record function within a business’ online environment, and SocialBee was going to ask FastSpring just how much it could do.
SocialBee’s Specific Business Needs
SocialBee was selling their SaaS product as a subscription with many different options and add-ons when they switched to FastSpring in 2018. Any one of those options and add-ons might not be that complicated on its own, but when stacked in many possible combinations, it created complex product and subscription needs.
“Our setup may have been a bit more complex, or stranger, than most of FastSpring’s other customers,” Ovi said.
Plus, SocialBee needed many subscription-specific features such as pricing proration for customers who change their subscription mid-payment period.
Because of that setup, SocialBee helped FastSpring discover a lot of edge cases and bugs that, while completely normal for any software company like FastSpring to work through with their users, were still annoying for SocialBee to work through. “For most customers and most use cases, things just worked. But the things that didn’t work were irritating and kept us from being 100% happy.”
So they reached out to FastSpring.
FastSpring’s Support and Product Development
Ovi said that the way FastSpring has handled SocialBee’s needs has made obvious FastSpring’s dedication to great support and to providing a great product.
Support From Customer Success Managers
The first thing that impressed Ovi was how communicative and attentive SocialBee’s customer success manager (CSM) Gareth has been.
“Since our new manager [Gareth] came in, he has been very on point, creating a list of all the issues we had and following up weekly to find out what was being done on the FastSpring side to solve those issues,” Ovi said about FastSpring’s support. “But we’re also being told expected delivery dates and what progress has been made. We’re also able to let them know which issues are a priority for us and which are less important.”
In particular, there was one incident in which an issue SocialBee was experiencing was time-sensitive thanks to a pricing increase they implemented.
“Gareth was there to very quickly support us, and something that could have been a blocker — or that could have delayed our related marketing campaign — wasn’t a blocker anymore, because they knew how important it was for us to have it solved.”
Support From FastSpring Leadership
The FastSpring leadership team has also been very active in SocialBee’s success, making it clear to SocialBee that FastSpring is really committed to their partnership.
Before Gareth was assigned as their CSM, SocialBee was reached out to by Chief Customer Officer Mansoor Bajowala. Ovi appreciates how some of the newer executives at FastSpring have really made it clear how dedicated FastSpring is to their customers’ success.
“We’ve had very good communication with [CSM] Garreth, but also with the leadership team at FastSpring,” Ovi said. “We saw not just lip service that you would do things, but that you actually did them.”
Product Development and a Subscription Focus
Because FastSpring’s support and leadership teams have been so active with SocialBee, it’s been easy to have their needs communicated to the teams at FastSpring who can fulfill those needs.
Plus, they’ve seen how dedicated FastSpring has been to developing out new features and focusing on where the market is going, such as more and more subscription tools and analytics.
“People don’t like to hear about software platform issues, even though all of them have them,” Ovi explained. But he has seen FastSpring’s commitment toward ironing out the inevitable issues that come with any software product. “We saw how many early bugs we reported one by one went away,” he continued. “Those issues were solved, and the platform keeps getting better and better.”
Now, as FastSpring has added more and more features geared toward subscriptions, including a subscription analytics dashboard, SocialBee is happier than ever.
“I think we were about 80-20 happy with FastSpring in the past. Now, I’d say we’re 95%-98% happy.”
Partner With FastSpring
Are you ready to explore how your SaaS, software, video game, or digital goods business can benefit from FastSpring’s continued commitment to customer satisfaction?
FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or sign up to check out the platform yourself.
