What We Learned About Service From Selling Our First Platform

When we sold a performance management company to a private equity firm, I thought the hardest part was behind us. We’d built a successful platform, grown to over 1,200 SMB clients, and proven that performance management software could work really well for small to mid-sized companies.

Then I watched the industry closely over the next few years and saw more degradation of service levels and increases in churn rates. It was heartbreaking to me since our model of delivering world-class service and relationship development was so near and dear to our hearts.

Once we were beyond our non-compete period, we began considering jumping back into the performance management market. Our research accelerated and the planning for our next performance management platform was underway.

Our focus was on how to improve what we had done previously in every facet of the business — software design, functionality, service delivery, and user experience. We wanted to ensure our UI, UX, and implementation process led the industry while providing an unmatched level of customer support.

To say that we’re highly focused on our level of service to our customers would be an understatement. Maniacal is more like it.

Watching companies prioritize growth over customer success, it's clear that service excellence isn't overhead. It's competitive advantage. When your performance management platform fails during review season, careers get delayed. That's why human support matters more than chatbots.

Why Service Matters More in HR Software

Performance management touches the most sensitive aspects of people’s work lives. Managers use these tools to evaluate careers, determine raises, and plan development. Employees see these systems during their most vulnerable professional moments.

When your email platform goes down, people are annoyed. When your performance management platform fails during review season, careers get delayed and relationships get damaged.

That’s why service quality isn’t just about customer satisfaction — it’s about whether your software helps or harms the most important conversations happening in a business.

The Performance Management Company Service Model

Our approach was simple: when someone needed help, a human answered the phone. Not a chatbot, not a ticket system, not a knowledge base search. A person who understood both the software and the business challenges our customers faced.

This wasn’t because we were trying to be nice. It was because we learned that performance management questions are rarely just software questions.

“How do I set up quarterly, semi-annual, or annual reviews?” usually meant “My team is growing and I need better feedback processes.”

“Can you help with engagement surveys?” usually meant “I’m losing people and I don’t know why.”

“The system isn’t working” usually meant “My managers aren’t adopting this, and I need to figure out what’s wrong.”

Those conversations required human understanding, not scripted responses.

What We Got Right

The 5% churn rate wasn’t an accident. It came from treating customer success as an early warning system, not damage control.

We tracked usage patterns, not just subscription renewals. When engagement dropped at a client company, we reached out proactively. When managers stopped logging into the system, we called to understand what was happening.

Most importantly, we measured our success by our customers’ success. Companies that saw improved performance management outcomes stayed with us longer and referred more business than companies that just used our software. We were consultative, not mechanical.

What We Got Wrong

The model worked, but it didn’t scale as efficiently as we’d have liked. As we grew, the personal touch became harder to maintain. Response times stretched, and the depth of customer relationships became inconsistent across our team.

We also learned that some customers needed more self-service options for simple questions, while others needed even more hand-holding for complex implementations.

The challenge wasn’t maintaining service quality — it was delivering the right level of service to each customer without losing the personal approach that differentiated us.

The Acquisition Lesson

Watching a performance management company change hands taught us that service philosophy either permeates a company culture or it doesn’t exist at all.

The ownership transition highlighted something crucial about performance management software: it doesn’t play by typical SaaS rules. The standard growth playbook of automating support, minimizing human touchpoints, and systematizing everything delivers results for most software categories — project management platforms and CRM systems thrive with this approach. But performance management is different. When your platform is present during career-defining conversations and reviews, efficiency tactics that work elsewhere can actively damage trust and outcomes.

People don’t buy performance management software — they buy better people management outcomes. That requires ongoing partnership, not just ongoing subscriptions.

Building Service Into Upward365

We’re structuring Upward365 differently because of what we learned.

First, service capability is built into our business model from day one, not added later when problems emerge. We planned for the cost and complexity of human-centered support before our first line of code was written.

Second, our service team isn’t separate from product development. Customer feedback directly influences platform improvements because the people hearing about problems are connected to the people who can solve them.

Third, we measure success metrics that matter to customers — platform adoption rates, manager satisfaction scores, and performance management outcomes that customers achieve.

The Competitive Advantage

Most of our competitors are optimizing for scale, automation, and efficiency. They’re building platforms that work well when everything goes right and struggle when customers need help.

That creates an opportunity for companies willing to invest in service excellence. In a market full of platforms with great features and poor support, being the company that actually helps people succeed stands out immediately.

The SMB customers we’re targeting especially value this approach. They don’t always have internal IT teams or HR specialists to troubleshoot complex software problems. They need partners who understand their challenges and help them succeed.

Performance management questions aren't just software questions. "How do I set up reviews?" usually means "My team is growing and I need better feedback processes." These conversations require human understanding, not scripted responses.

Service as Product Strategy

Here’s what we mean by service being the product: every support interaction should make customers better at performance management, not just better at using our software.

When someone calls with a technical question, we solve the technical problem and make sure they understand how to prevent it. When someone struggles with manager adoption, we share specific tactics that have worked for similar companies.

The goal isn’t just resolving tickets — it’s building customer capability so they get better results from their investment in our platform.

The Long-Term Vision

We’re not trying to automate customer service. We’re trying to make customer service so valuable that it becomes a reason people choose our platform and stay with it.

In a market where most vendors compete on features and pricing, competing on outcomes and relationships creates substantial, sustainable differentiation.

The companies that thrive with Upward365 won’t just be using better software. They’ll be part of a community that’s getting better at people management through better tools and better support.

Service excellence isn’t overhead — it’s a competitive advantage. And after watching what happened with various performance management companies, we’re building it into our foundation instead of adding it as an afterthought.