The challenge

A wellness platform that gives corporate employees access, through their employers, to a network of fitness gyms and apps at a discounted rate struggled to keep up with seasonal surges.

There was a huge influx of customer interactions, mostly via email and chat, around New Year’s Day each year. As many people made resolutions to improve their health, a surge of new and existing customers contacted the company about setting up and managing accounts with the platform.

A small, U.S.-based internal customer support team couldn’t keep up with the demand, leading to backlogs and frustrating customer experiences.

Our solution

We quickly stood up a team of offshore TTEC associates to handle the volume surge; they were trained in early December and fully in production by New Year’s Day.

The associates handled customer inquiries over chat, email, web forms, social media, and phone. We started with 16 FTE associates but grew to 38 FTEs to support to the client’s U.S. customers. Based on that success, TTEC associates also managed other customer volume surges for the company as needed throughout the year.

We also identified and implemented proactive solutions to improve the customer journey. We streamlined the account registration process, improved how customer information integrated within the company’s app, and established a call-back process to resolve inquiries faster.

The results

Our improvements led to a CSAT consistently above 85%. We also helped decrease its inquiry backlog and achieved a 90% answer rate among all inquiries, hitting a target benchmark. In the process, we saved the client money by shifting customer support labor offshore.

The client has been so pleased with our work that we’re discussing ways to expand our partnership, including the possibility of TTEC providing support for customers outside the United States. We also continue to advise the client on process improvements that can enhance the customer and associate experience.