Atender Challenges the Outsourcing Industry
Article written by Ida Amalea Furseth, KundeserviceAvisen.no, published June 5th 2025. Read original article in Norwegian here: KundeserviceAvisen.no
“Employees who thrive create better customer experiences. When we combine that with technology, we can offer a comprehensive solution that no one else can,” says Atender’s CEO & Co-Founder.
What do you do when every solution on the market misses the essentials? “We built the company we could never find ourselves,” says Atender founder Andreas Helland.
Together with Erik Windahl Olsen, one of the founders of Webhuset, Helland took an idea to Málaga. The result was Atender.
The outsourcing company is now growing at record speed and believes it has found a recipe that can transform the entire industry.
“Relentless Efficiency”
Bergen native Andreas Helland spent part of his childhood in England, dreamed of working in football, and began his career in television. He later moved into the tech world and helped launch Vimond Media Solutions.
Both Helland and Windahl Olsen ran into the same problem as other forward-leaning tech firms: “We wanted a partner who shared the values we had.”
“Finding an outsourcing partner that suited us was incredibly difficult. They were set up a bit differently,” Helland explains.
He describes the outsourcing landscape back then as extremely KPI-driven, where efficiency was the only thing that mattered.
“We saw a kind of brutal streamlining that came at the expense of almost everything else. We wanted a partner who shared our values,” Helland says.
“Like a Ketchup Bottle”
So they conceived the big idea of creating the perfect outsourcing partner for companies like their own.
“We started Atender to be a strategic partner for forward-thinking tech companies. We aim to be experts in customer support - mastering the technology and gathering the industry’s best people. When employees thrive, they do great work. That creates long-term value.”
The company was founded in 2019, and at the beginning of 2020 it was still losing a lot of money. Then the pandemic hit.
“The market took time to understand us,” says Andreas Helland. PHOTO: Ida Amalea Furseth
“At first we saw things in very dark terms. Our approach to support, and the customer segment we targeted, needed time to mature into the solutions we offered - solutions quite different from traditional models.”
During the spring, however, they landed key customers and the company began to grow. Several firms appreciated an approach that challenged the traditional outsourcing philosophy.
“It took time for the market to understand us. Only now, in 2024–2025, are we really seeing the effect. From six employees in 2019 to more than 150 now. It’s like a ketchup bottle - nothing, then everything at once,” Helland says.
Behind the growth lies focused work on developing technologically strong solutions - always with people at the center.
“Culture Is Our Greatest Strength”
Atender offers innovative options: customers can plug in AI tools, choose different subscription models, operate in multiple languages, and run 24/7 teams.
“We want to give our clients flexibility. Some want only people, some want technology, some want everything,” Helland explains.
Although Atender is technologically advanced, what truly sets it apart is how it treats people.
“Culture is our greatest strength. If people are seen and respected, motivation rises. Then they take ownership, dare to fail, and create positive dynamics. We want to show the industry that you can build a good work culture - and that this is what it takes to excel at customer service.”
Good culture is the sum of many small details:
“We create closeness in everything we do. I’ve taken part in every interview; we have an extremely clear onboarding process, strong cultural norms, clear expectations both ways, team leads who get regular coaching, and of course plenty of fun social activities,” Helland says.
The Nordic Mind-Set
Team lead Evelyn Beret Kleven, who works with the Xplora Nordic team, confirms this.
“I’ve never felt as seen as I do here. I started in 2023, and we’ve grown enormously since then, but the closeness and openness are still the same.”
Atender focuses weekly on well-being and culture, using tools like Winningtemp to gauge organizational “temperature” and satisfaction. They hold dedicated “Atender Days,” monthly social events, and aim to be the most attractive workplace in their field.
“The best part of the job is the people. I always look forward to going to work,” she says.
She also appreciates the option of working from home:
“Most people working from home are more efficient,” Kleven notes.
She likes that the company retains a Nordic approach:
“We take care of and trust people. Atender has a strong value set: we believe in people and treat them well.”
“Surprised by the Kind of Company They’ve Joined”
Finance Manager Rocío Parrilla Fernández agrees.
“People are at the center here; it’s a place where you can truly thrive and feel at home.”
With Atender since 2019, she enjoys projects where people always come first:
“Working as a customer-service partner is both fun and motivating. It’s rewarding to help people with challenges and make their day a little easier.”
“What delights me most is when new colleagues start and are genuinely surprised by the type of company they’ve joined. Many are positively struck by how warmly they’re welcomed, how different we are from other workplaces, and by the warm, inclusive environment.”
These Are the Principles
Atender has developed its own leadership principles to keep culture stable even as it grows.
They focus on a trust-based culture combined with accountability. A team should consist of no more than ten agents and one team lead, ensuring scalability without excessive complexity.
“We build psychosocial safety,” Helland says, “with extra attention to mastery and expectation management.”
Atender has seven principles that serve as daily guidelines and are used actively in onboarding and training:
Be a coach – Help others and share knowledge.
Empower – Every voice matters and can change processes. Staff should be autonomous and skilled, taking ownership of their success.
Be interested – You can’t separate who you are privately and at work. Leaders must care about people and listen well.
Be ambitious – They aim to completely transform outsourced customer service, working by soft values while being the best in the field.
Communicate – Transparent, open communication is a prerequisite for success; every voice is equally important.
Enable career development – Customer service is not merely a stepping-stone; thinking otherwise creates cultural problems. There must be real growth opportunities.
Get your hands dirty – Everyone is responsible for fostering closeness, building trust, and helping wherever needed.
The most important thing is hiring the right kind of person:
“We focus intensely on recruitment. Candidates get a clear picture of who we are, and we manage expectations in every direction.”
Thanks to strong hiring processes, they rarely bring in external managers:
“Our team leads have mostly started as agents.”
Key KPI? Employee Satisfaction
Their most important KPI is employee satisfaction, measured every single week since the company started.
“It’s incredibly valuable, but only a temperature check - like canaries in the old mines. Such metrics give us good control and let us spot trends early.”
Over the past year their average eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) has been 74 - three times higher than the industry standard.
“We’re miles ahead of others measuring customer-service eNPS. That makes us an attractive workplace and lets us draw the best people.”
“The people on our team are highly engaged, take ownership, are autonomous, and operate efficiently. We keep that identity close to heart, and we’ve found a recipe we believe in.”
Helland hopes their approach can inspire and improve the industry. It has been their formula for scaling rapidly without losing control.
“We’ve really scaled without problems - thanks to the solid foundation we laid.”
The company has offices in Málaga, Mexico, and Bangkok, with big ambitions for the future. “It’ll be exciting to see what adjustments we need when we grow toward 500 people,” he says with a smile.
“The Industry Faces an Unprecedented Shift”
Looking ahead, Helland is curious about the challenges they will face.
“It’s an industry struggling to adapt to today’s reality and what’s coming. Many buyers out there are still too distanced from what ultimately delivers high customer satisfaction.”
“AI is a bigger change than the arrival of the internet. We expect a period of much trial and error, where some players become obsolete.”
Regardless, Atender’s ambition is to stay at the forefront—both technologically and human-wise.
“Many have thought that a good culture and happy employees are expensive. But we see it’s profitable. Employees who thrive create better customer experiences. And when we combine that with technology, we can offer a completeness no one else does,” Helland concludes.
Read the original norwegian article here: KundeserviceAvisen.no