Problem / Challenge
The Australian client maintains an ecommerce site that offers unique gift items expertly sourced from a global community of cottage industries, independent studios, and hole-in-the-wall retailers. They market the products and process orders for delivery by the manufacturers directly to the customers.
The client’s market was growing and because of the nature of the business, their customer support team needed to be expanded. Their inhouse customer support team was not as cost-effective as they would have wanted, thus they were looking for a more sustainable set up, while maintaining high touch customer service.
Solution
Eastvantage transitioned the client’s customer service function from Australia to the Philippines and built a pilot team of five experienced Customer Support Representatives with the appropriate soft skills. In addition, a team lead with expertise in large scale ecommerce customer support team management background was hired for the team. The team provides assistance to the client’s online customers via email and uses Zendesk as their ticketing tool.
The team size scales up or down depending on the market. On peak periods, the team composition goes to as high as 30 representatives. Eastvantage works with the client’s marketing and sales team to forecast seasonal volumes based on different marketing campaigns.
Eastvantage assisted in establishing key performance metrics and knowledge bases for reference of the customer support team. An operations Business Partner oversees all the operational requirements of the team to ensure the utmost performance and serves as the liaison between the Philippine team and the Australian management.
Eastvantage was also able to continue providing seamless customer support operations when the client transitioned management due to the transfer of business ownership.
Outcome
With a well-managed dedicated customer support team, the client’s customers’ concerns and logistical requirements are taken care of in a timely and personalized manner in line with the company’s service standards. This allows the client’s in-house resources to focus on growth initiatives while Eastvantage takes ownership of their customer service.
The Eastvantage customer support team helped the client:
- achieve over 11% increase in annual sales; and
- move up in website ranking from #15 to #13 under the Australia ecommerce “gifts ideas” category.
As the partnership has been highly beneficial to the client, they have retained their customer support function with Eastvantage for a decade now.
Eastvantage provides inspired solutions to outsourcing challenges. Click on the following links to find out more about our flexible customer support services and the successes we’ve helped our clients achieve.
