Lamarsa Coffee is among Malaysia’s largest coffee equipment retailers, carrying premier brands such as Rocket Espresso, La Marzocco, Mahlkönig and more. It serves B2B and B2C customers from Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan and Australia as well as the local market

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The Problem

As its business grew, Lamarsa Coffee struggled to handle the flood of sales, order and after-sales inquiries through WhatsApp. It wanted to resolve inquiries efficiently, automate tasks and target the right contacts for broadcasts on the channel.

It also wanted to reach customers on other popular messaging channels in its markets and create special access to dedicated salespeople for high-value customers.

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The respond.io Solution

When Lamarsa Coffee was searching for a business messaging solutions provider that could streamline customer communication and shorten its sales cycle with automation, a respond.io customer recommended the platform.

Omnichannel Communication was Centralized

Lamarsa Coffee was chatting with customers over WhatsApp Business App. However, limited user access meant only a few agents could handle sales conversations at a time.

Respond.io recommended it migrate to WhatsApp API and connect it to the platform for greater multiuser access. Lamarsa Coffee also connected Facebook and Instagram as click-to-chat ads on both drive customer acquisition. Then, it created a web chat and WhatsApp click-to-chat links for its website on respond.io to encourage engagement.

Instead of switching between messaging platforms and potentially missing messages, agents now have conversations across channels on a single platform. They can also identify returning customers even if they reach out on another connected channel.

Routing Strategies for Customers and VIPs were Implemented

Previously, agents used to manually determine the nature of inquiries and pass them to the relevant teams. This severely delayed response times and meant Lamarsa Coffee risked losing prospective customers to competitors who responded faster.

This is where respond.io’s Workflows automation comes in. Now, customers select an inquiry category from a menu and Workflows routes them to the relevant team. Meanwhile, it instantly assigns high-value customers to their dedicated salespersons.

If agents are away or busy, automated away messages manage customers’ expectations and assure prospects of a response.

Customers were Segmented for Precise Broadcast Targeting

For the first time, Lamarsa Coffee is able to easily segment imported and new contacts by customer category and other criteria. This lets it send targeted bulk messages about promotions, pre-order notifications, shipment updates and more over WhatsApp.

Through respond.io, it is even able to broadcast to certain interested prospects who haven’t messaged the company first or added Lamarsa Coffee to their WhatsApp contact list. This way, it can nurture contacts from the start of the sales cycle.

Conversations are Monitored and Measured for Quality Improvement

Agents were initially chatting with customers over their personal phones. Managers had no insights into what they were saying or how long they were taking to respond to customers or resolve conversations.

Respond.io enables managers to monitor live conversations and step in to guide agents if necessary. They can also access valuable analytics such as first response and resolution times to hold agents accountable and set performance goals.

“In a short time, respond.io was able to solve problems we’d been facing for years. We signed up for the Enterprise Plan to have a dedicated Customer Success Manager, who helps us make the most of the platform. Customers quickly lose interest when they feel like they are talking to a robot. Respond.io lets us balance automation and the human touch so we can meet customers’ expectations while exceeding our goals.” — Claudia Tan, co-owner of Lamarsa Coffee

Results

Since web and WhatsApp click-to-chat links were added to its website, Lamarsa Coffee has acquired 10x times more leads per quarter.

Consolidating all channels on respond.io and adjusting routing and assignment strategies over time have improved first response times by 38% since Lamarsa Coffee began tracking this metric. Resolution strategies are currently in progress.

Ultimately, this has translated to 50% more sales from quarter to quarter in less than a year. Lamarsa Coffee credits this success partly to the improved customer acquisition and retention empowered by respond.io.