A company that sells nutritional supplement shakes via subscriptions hit the ground running and began growing soon after its launch. The fast-growing startup’s founder wanted the brand to keep expanding, but knew he’d need help meeting the business’ growing customer support needs.

The company came to TTEC Agility in 2019, seeking an experienced customer experience (CX) partner. Its needs were small at the time, but the brand was on a fast growth trajectory and needed a partner that could scale with it. The founder was drawn to TTEC Agility because we had the people, technology, and strategy to meet a growing company’s evolving needs and take its CX to the next level.

In the years since, we’ve deepened our collaboration to become a trusted companion to the brand. We troubleshoot problems as they arise, with top talent and cutting-edge technology – but beyond that, we work hand-in-hand to make customers happier by identifying pain points and eliminating them with proactive solutions.

The right mix of onshore and offshore support elevates CX

When the company’s founder first came to us, the then-startup needed associates to expand its customer support team. Specifically, it needed to handle ticket resolutions via chat, phone, and email.

We started by providing two full-time equivalents (FTEs) and soon doubled that number to four. The company’s needs were small, but TTEC Agility specializes in providing expert support in those situations. When the pandemic hit in 2020, we were able to quickly ramp up the number of associates we provided substantially – growing from 2 FTE to 74 FTE – to meet a surge in demand. In the time since, we’ve provided as many as 83 associates during volume peaks.

With TTEC’s guidance, the company has reaped the financial and logistical benefits of offshoring. Its customers are based in the United States and Germany, but our associates provide expert customer support from within the U.S., as well as the Philippines, and Poland. We are expecting and ready to add more locations as the brand keeps growing.

Feedback, communication fuel mutual collaboration

From the beginning of our partnership, we curated a customized CX strategy for the company and provided the people and technology needed to bring it to life. We dove deeply into the company’s data around customer behaviors and preferences, for instance, to help inform marketing efforts and business decisions.

With the insights we’ve culled, TTEC helped the company provide more personalized experiences. We also provided training to sales associates so they can better meet each customer’s individual needs and expectations. As one example, we tested verbiage used during sales and customer support interactions to determine which words and phrases improved (and hurt) outcomes.

We constantly keep a finger on the pulse of customer sentiment for the company, including a daily analysis of dissatisfied customer (DSAT) data. Each day we assess what contributes to a positive or negative customer experience and relay those insights back to the company so successes can be replicated and problems can be resolved.

Proactive solutions help customers and employees alike

Our expertise in data analysis enables us to spot and act on areas of improvement. We’ve been well positioned to proactively identify parts of the customer journey where things like automation and voice of the customer can improve CX and grow CSAT.

One proactive way we helped the company was by testing its return and refund policies and comparing them to those of similar businesses. We found the company’s 30-day refund policy hurt sales; when customers had that long to return products, they put off trying them. We recommended shortening the window to 14 days to encourage customers to try the products sooner.

In another instance, when we noticed a surge in customer questions about the brand’s coupons, we proactively sought to understand why. After experiencing the customer journey first-hand, we noticed nearly all the links on the company’s website were yellow – except for the link to the coupon code, which was white. Customers didn’t realize the code was a clickable link, so we changed the link’s color, which led to more coupon codes being used and helped increase CSAT.

Our proactive approach also helped when a newly deployed fraud detection tool erroneously flagged many interactions as fraudulent when they weren’t. This overwhelmed the lone person at the company tasked with managing flags and caused backlogs that frustrated customers and employees alike.

We proactively assembled a team to work with the company to identify and fix bugs within the fraud technology. TTEC Agility’s plug-and-play model, which bundles complementary services in a way that eliminates most guesswork, let us quickly deploy proven technology solutions to meet the company’s needs. We responded to the bugs within 24 hours.

CX partners, now and in the future

As the company continues to grow, TTEC remains by its side ready to grow with it. We have plans to add three new contact center locations in France, Spain, and Italy, and we continue to closely monitor the brand’s needs so we’re prepared to adapt quickly.

We also keep examining the customer journey and associate experience, looking for ways to eliminate friction, increase efficiencies, and cut costs for the client wherever we can.