ReviewTrackers employees assembling furniture at the company's new offices at 320 W. Ohio yesterday.
“We've outgrown our office space four times in three years,” said co-founder and COO Kevin Kent in a statement. “This time we wanted to ensure that our next space would be able to withstand our projected growth for a couple years.”
According to CEO Chris Campbell, the company is looking to make hires in every department, from finance and accounting, to operations, sales, marketing, product and engineering. On the sales side it expects to be expanding from 10 to 20 people by mid-year, in part by supplementing its regular salesforce enterprise sales representatives to get in front of decision makers at larger companies.
Founded in 2012, ReviewTrackers grew from 10 to 30 employees in 2015, tracking 250 percent growth in revenue. A big portion of these gains come from the growth of existing customers said Campbell, adding that his company tends to align itself with brands that care a lot about their customers. Over the long term he expects the company to evolve beyond tracking reviews, to help brands get a more complete understanding of their customers’ experiences.
“We think the voice of the customer comes in many different ways,” said Campbell, who believes social monitoring is a natural extension of what ReviewTrackers does.
Right now, the company is working to expand its text analytics capabilities to increase the level of insight garnered from structured reviews. This in turn will help businesses improve their products and customer service. For instance, if a restaurant receives consistent five-star ratings for the quality of the food it serves, but several reviewers note that the staff were rude or unorganized, a more sophisticated platform could notify management that the staff may be in need of additional training.
The lease for ReviewTrackers’ bigger office was made possible in part through a job creation tax credit made available to the startup by the Illinois Department of Commerce.
"Chicago continues to rise as a center for tech and startup companies, and it's great to see a homegrown tech company like ReviewTrackers grow their workforce and footprint in Illinois,” said Department of Commerce and Economic Development Director Jim Schultz in a statement. "The State of Illinois is proud to be a partner in ReviewTrackers' expansion and we look forward to their continued success in Illinois."
At three times the size of the company’s previous office, it remains to be seen whether the new digs will last through the year.
Image via ReviewTrackers.
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