Instead of dwelling on whether an economic apocalypse is about to loom upon us, some startups are plugging away at improving their products. Israeli Kampyle is a case-in-point. Today the company is extending its feedback analytics platform from websites to client software—with a specific focus on the installation process, a major pain point for client applications.Most software client application installations have high abandonment rates. There’s no shortage of reasons for users to abort the installation process, these include: slow/heavy downloads, too many steps, security concerns, lack of information, and too many ads. Speaking to customers, Kampyle learned that the aborts leave companies with many assumptions, but few conclusions. Sure, many companies trigger uninstall feedback forms when the user abruptly ends the installation, but it seems—at least from what Kampyle has learned—companies find it difficult to translate the collected information to actionable items.

Kampyle for Software is designed to do just that. It leverages Kampyle’s feedback analytics platform to aggregate and manage feedbacks generated by two forms it produces—one for the Installation, the other for uninstall. Instead of manually going through each feedback form, as many companies do today, Kampyle groups the feedback alltogether and presents the aggregate information in easy-to-read charts.  The forms are completely customizable of course, and so are the landing pages that are designated to open upon installation termination. No special programming knowledge is required to integrate the calls into installer creation tools such as InstallShield.

Kampyle for Software is free for Open Source applications. Commercial applications will be priced by scale, with a minimum of $99/mo. The first month is free so there’s no reason not to give it a shot.

From its debut 5 months ago, Kampyle has amassed 3000 customers. It may not be the next Google, but at least it’s plugging away.

This post was originally posted on TechCrunch.com where I cover the Israeli startup scene.

Kampyle has integrated its user feedback management platform into Google Analytics and Nuconomy to provide side-by-side analysis of user feedback and website analytics.

Since the launch of its platform last March, Kampyle has been implemented by over 1,500 websites whose users have generated over 100,000 feedback messages collectively. The company claims that small sites average one to five feedback messages per day, medium sites average 20-30, and large sites average 50-1,000. Kampyle presents the most value to these large sites, which must manage their feedback effectively or drown in a sea of suggestions.

Kampyle naturally got the idea to integrate into website analytics from user feedback. The startup found that users would often keep two browser tabs open at once: one for Google Analytics and one for its own dashboard. Tracking analytics and feedback side-by-side allows website owners to keep a closer eye on usage patterns and quickly identify technical and usability issues. The integration is also meant to help with A/B testing and the measurement of other changes to a site, such as the addition of new pages or sections and how they affect user behavior.

Kampyle has been integrated into Google Analytics by way of a greasemonkey script. Publishers must install a Firefox Add-on to enable the functionality (no other browser is supported at this time). The integration with Nuconomy, a next generation web analytics platform, is far “cleaner” since both companies are in Yossi Vardi’s portfolio. The two companies worked out a private API that enables users to view feedback messages related to particular pages and then hop over to analyze engagement and interaction analytics for the same pages in Nuconomy.

Beyond these integrations, Kampyle has also added 60 language translations to its feedback form. Forms created in English can now be instantly deployed in French, German, or any of the other available languages. A greater degree of customization is also now available with categories, sub-categories, colors, icons and feedback button styles.

This post was originally posted on TechCrunch.com where I cover the Israeli startup scene

One of the key ingredients to success on the Web is rapid iteration, and to do so, eliciting user feedback is a must. As we know, TechCrunch is a breeding ground for avid beta testers keen to provide input and suggestions. Yet, more often than not, when we do offer feedback to a site all we receive in return is an auto-reply, thank-you email. When was the last time you submitted feedback to a site that was then followed up with an actual acknowledgment that the bug was fixed or the feature integrated? My guess, not very often.Kampyle—yet another Yossi Vardi startup from Israel—has developed a feedback management platform aimed at assisting site owners better manage this feedback loop and, along the way, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. The underlying premise here being that users expect not only to be heard, but also responded to. This is especially true when providing feedback on services, products or customer experiences. Sites that manage their feedback right end up with deeper customer engagement, lower shopping cart abandonment, and better usability.

There are four moving parts in Kampyle’s feedback analysis platform:

1. Collection: A feedback collection form (see screenshot on right) is launched through buttons scattered across a site. Kampyle will roll out advanced customization options throughout the coming weeks.

2. Analysis: Kampyle provides user feedback along with contextual data such as screen resolution, browser type, operating system, etc. Slicing and grouping functionality delivers a greater understanding of why an issue occurred, which ultimately translates into what to do about it.
3. Management: Data and suggested corrective actions are arranged in intuitive dashboards. Data is exportable to XML & Excel. Nothing much to write home about here.

4. Action: CRM-like functionality completes the feedback loop by allowing site owners to inform groups and individual users of the corrective action they have taken. The notification even includes a link to where the fix was made and offers a thumbs-up/down rating to further express satisfaction.

All-in-all a wide variety of companies can benefit from a service such as Kampyle’s, which is bridging the gap between CRM and site-side analytics. Extending the CRM functionality to piggyback on full-blown CRM platforms such as SalesForce, SugarCRM, and even Zoho would go a long way in popularizing the service.

Kamplye is still in closed beta so pricing is yet to be established, but once the service is commercially available 250 TechCrunch readers will get their first month free. Sign-up here to get on the list.

This post was originally posted on TechCrunch.com where I cover the Israeli startup scene.