First, Colour My Plate needed a scalable business messaging platform that could support an increasing volume of chats and the expansion of its sales and support teams. It was also keen on streamlining interdepartmental communication. Finally, it wanted to supervise agents’ conversations and reduce resolution times for inquiries and issues.
Colour My Plate COO Malek Barghout was using respond.io for 800 Storage. As he was already familiar with and trusted the platform, he worked with a Customer Success Manager to implement the following solutions for Colour My Plate.
Colour My Plate upgraded its WhatsApp Business App accounts to WhatsApp API. It then connected WhatsApp API, Instagram and Facebook Messenger to respond.io so chats on all channels flow into one inbox.
With multiuser access to all channels, more sales and support agents can be scheduled for shifts. Confident it can now systematically handle a high volume of customer conversations, Colour My Plate added WhatsApp click-to-chat links to its website to drive more inquiries.
Finally, agents update and retrieve data on the company’s purpose-built Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system while talking to customers. Colour My Plate integrated its ERP with respond.io so agents no longer have to switch between platforms for this.
Daily operations involve the collaboration of five teams. Initially, resolving meal plan customization inquiries was tedious as agents took hours to go back and forth between the kitchen manager and customers.
Colour My Plate onboarded all five teams onto respond.io. Agents no longer have to repeat requests or information, which reduces resolution time and room for errors. All teams have access to customer profiles and conversation histories, and can collaborate seamlessly on one platform.
When customers make a purchase, the ERP automatically creates a Tag on respond.io to identify them as active customers. Respond.io’s Workflows automation routes them to the support team and assigns them to an available agent when they message.
Meanwhile, Workflows routes new customers to the sales team. If they require complex nutrition advice, agents can escalate the conversation to an expert dietician. If agents are unavailable, automated away messages inform customers of an expected response time.
With Tags, Colour My Plate discovered a surprise benefit: The ability to segment customers for WhatsApp Broadcasts. Respond.io’s Broadcast Module allows it to define targeted recipients and schedule or send bulk messages.
Aside from informing active subscribers about plans or promotions, these re-engage inactive customers.
Around 40% of customers reach out to discuss their needs before deciding if they want to proceed with a meal plan. Previously, managers could only review these conversations after they ended and mistakes had been made that negatively affected the outcome.
Now, managers have an eagle-eye view of conversations in real-time and can actively supervise chats. They ensure the messaging is accurate and guide agents via internal comments to steer conversations in more favorable directions.
“I like that respond.io lets us design the exact workflows we need. For instance, we escalate clients with complex needs so discreetly that customers don’t realize they’re speaking to another dietician. These are high-value clients. Talking about medical conditions can be distressing and we want them to feel comfortable. Working with a Customer Success Manager helped us quickly achieve the customer experience we had in mind.” – Malek Barghout, COO of Colour My Plate
Unifying all teams on respond.io allows Colour My Plate to onboard new agents easily as expands. Not only does respond.io support multiuser access for all messaging channels, but managers can also supervise, train and evaluate new agents from one platform.
Automated routing and assignment cut first response time from 3 minutes 15 seconds to 1 minute 56 seconds. Even more impressively, better internal collaboration reduced the resolution time for meal plan customizations by 90%, from 180 minutes to just 15 minutes.
In essence, agents are able to keep customers interested with quick responses and navigate tough conversations well with supervised interactions. As a result, Colour My Plate now sees 45% more conversions among undecided customers, with many of them subscribing to high-value customized plans.