Bulletproof

The Challenge

Bulletproof sought a solution that could scale with its rapid growth and integrate with Amazon Connect, enabling its CX team to do more without adding resources.

The Results

• Implementing automated workflows and routing helped to deflect simple inbound requests and improve agent efficiency decreasing handle times by 50%.
• By seamlessly integrating its voice and digital channels on one platform, Bulletproof increased FCR and drove a 15% improvement of customer’s perception of service quality.
• Bulletproof used Kustomer’s reporting capabilities to improve decision making and drive further process improvements.

 

“Kustomer has a very well-architected and well-developed set of services. If you want a true partner in the CRM technology space, then Kustomer is a phenomenal choice.”

Michael Callahan, Head of Customer Care and Experience, Bulletproof

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Bulletproof is a nutritional and wellness brand with a mission to help people perform better, think faster, and live better. Bulletproof’s Customer Care Advocates are at the front lines of relationship-building with the brand’s passionate following. Their customer conversations tend to fall into three buckets: transactional, discovery, and feedback.

Transactional conversations cover items like coupon codes not working or delivery concerns — disruptive problems that the Advocates work to solve quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, Advocates must offer high-touch support for customers who are new to a Bulletproof product or category and in a discovery mindset. These customers want to have an authentic conversation that doesn’t feel rushed and doesn’t feel like a sales pitch. Advocates need to build trust with these customers, educating and inspiring them.

Driving effective, efficient, and valuable customer care is a priority for Bulletproof’s Head of Customer Care and Experience, Michael Callahan. Callahan oversees Customer Care Advocates and led the brand’s recent CRM evaluation, selection, and implementation.

One of the most significant areas of opportunity for the Advocates team is with passionate customers who want to provide feedback on Bulletproof products. “Listening to these customers and the nuances of what they’re sharing are our number one key to success,” says Callahan. “So having a support Advocate who can both efficiently handle delivery issues and shift context quickly to have an extended conversation about the benefits of, for example, coconut oil with someone who wants to talk is essential.”

Automating Workflows and Routing for Increased Efficiency

Kustomer enabled Bulletproof to streamline its transactional customer support conversations, freeing up more time for high-value activities without expanding Advocate headcount. Bulletproof uses Kustomer’s custom workflows to automate the resolution of common transactional problems for customers without the help of their development team.

As an example, product delivery notifications and problem solving have transformed. With this new workflow, an Advocate’s time is freed up for higher value activities. When an online shopper receives a Bulletproof delivery, a notification is sent that asks for feedback: “If this order exceeded your expectations, reply and say #BPDelivered. And if it didn’t, reply with #BPCares.” If the customer replies with #BPCares, the workflow automatically triggers an order lookup based on the phone number and troubleshoots if there was a delivery problem. If the delivery is delayed, the customer automatically gets a text without needing an Advocate to send it.

 

“Primarily from our increased efficiency with Kustomer, we’ve seen a significant reduction of $3 to $4 for every cost per contact.”

Michael Callahan, Head of Customer Care and Experience, Bulletproof

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This type of workflow has significantly reduced the number of transactional conversations that inbound to the Advocates team. Callahan says Advocates noticed the difference right away, “Previously, customers would call when they had a bad delivery experience. Then we would look up the account. Then we would look at their order… so we’re altering customer behavior by driving more to these automated mobile experiences.”

When Callahan talks about improving efficiency with the Customer Care Advocates, it’s in the context of how this type of transactional automation gives them more freedom to make “cool” choices in other conversations. As an example, he notes that an Advocate might now have the extra time to research products they aren’t familiar with and get back to customers with an excellent follow-up. As a result, Advocates are now proactively identifying new opportunities for the team to improve productivity and efficiency with Kustomer.

Omnichannel Care With a Focus on Mobile Quality

Omnichannel capabilities were also at the top of Bulletproof’s priority list for a new customer care platform. “It drove me insane that I used to have people logging into Facebook to talk to customers. I want all our conversations to be coming into the same listening system, and I just don’t think anyone outside of the combination of Kustomer and Amazon Connect are going to get me to the point where I am tracking all of the same analytics across all of our channels.”

Mobile-friendly support channels make sense because Bulletproof’s customers are shopping on mobile and also because Callahan has learned that mobile voice and text conversations tend to be more efficient to resolve than email.

Bulletproof customers have already noticed the difference in care when Kustomer empowers advocates. The brand’s satisfaction survey model asks customers how strongly they exceeded expectations in the last support conversation, on a scale from one to five. After launching with Kustomer and Amazon Connect and optimizing workflows to push to text and voice channels with a focus on first contact resolution (FCR), Bulletproof customers’ perception of service quality increased 15 points in two months.

Native Amazon Connect Integration

Kustomer’s native Amazon Connect integration was another key value driver and selection criteria for Bulletproof Previous telephony solutions had raised call quality and cost-effectiveness concerns for Callahan, so the scalability of Amazon Connect along with the native Kustomer integration was a compelling combination. Another benefit with Amazon Connect is that, unlike a cost-per-agent or voice license model, Bulletproof only pays for actual call volume.

With the integration, the agent telephony experience is simple to use and call data is available natively in Kustomer. In the future, Callahan also plans to leverage more advanced Amazon Connect capabilities, including Amazon Lex’s natural language processing and Amazon Comprehend’s sentiment analysis. “I think there’s a ton of opportunity for us with the AWS solution,” he confirms.

Enterprise-Class reporting

Bulletproof is also excited about the combination of in-platform data for all their channels and Kustomer’s integration with Amazon Kinesis. The Advocate team now has the ability to analyze and report back on customer conversations, which can help improve how the brand shares information on the website, communicates with customers, and develops products. And Callahan refers to the ability to push real-time Kustomer events data into an Amazon Kinesis stream as “enterprise-class” business intelligence data — versus the “excel-kind of functionality” of competitors.

What’s Next

Through the combination of Kustomer, Amazon Connect, and Bolt, Bulletproof’s custom-built chatbot, the Bulletproof Customer Care Advocates plan to continue increasing high value customer touches with just incremental headcount growth. Callahan considers the partnership with Kustomer and Amazon Connect “rocket fuel” for the future of the brand’s customer care experience. Bulletproof also plans to utilize Kustomer’s sentiment measurement capabilities in the near future.