Meet END.
Endclothing (END.) is a fashion retailer with a rich history that started 17 years ago at a little store down an old cobbled street in Newcastle, England. Fast-forward to 2022, END. is one of the most influential and forward-thinking fashion businesses around the world with more than 800+ employees and multiple stores around the UK. Putting customer satisfaction at the very core of their values, END. always strives to give seamless shopping experiences to their customers by ensuring easy access to exclusive lifestyle, sport, and fashion products.
END. have been actively using Kaizo for only 6 months, but have already witnessed a considerable change in the way they approach customer support. Within that same time frame, they managed to build the most productive and devoted team in END.’s history.
We talked to Noreen McDaid, a Customer Service Manager who has been with END. for 6 years, and Jessica Sinclair, a Customer Service Team Leader who has been building END.’s teams for a year, to learn about their journey to exceptional customer service with Kaizo.
Kaizo for END. in 5 seconds
Within 6 months, END. did not only grow in terms of quantity, but quality too. With insights into agent productivity, speed, and quality they now have a tighter grip on team management and understand what needs to be done for everyone to move forward.
“A lot has changed since I first joined but getting on board with Kaizo has really transformed how we’ve worked together to deliver customer service. It’s provided us with so much invaluable information in one place and it’s given us so much more understanding of our team and our own performance.”
Noreen McDaid, Customer Service Manager at END.
Tackling performance insight challenges
If there is one thing END. is good at, it’s doubling down on numbers.
Today we’re talking 800+ employees, 24+ customer service agents, 4 Team Leads — all working on managing an online store,4 bricks and mortar stores, 800 brands, and hundreds to thousands of requests every day.
Despite their massive volume of contacts per month, they want to be sure customers can reach END. at any stage, whether they are having problems at the checkout, experiencing quality issues, or just trying to learn more about the product. Being accessible and answering all the questions has always been END.’s priority. But with all of those numbers on the plate, keeping track of every metric was no walk in the park, to say the least.
With Kaizo’s out-of-the-box Scorecards, they managed to save a lot of time and consolidate all the relevant data in one place, giving both Team Leads and Agents invaluable insights into real-time performance.
Creating reports was another time-consuming task that reduced productivity, but with Kaizo’s Reports, END. managed to leave that problem behind and save their Team Leads 4-8 productivity hours every week.
“A lot of the reports were broken down. The reporting was just focused on volume, not quality. That’s something Kaizo has brought in for us. It has given us an overall understanding of our team’s performance. Kaizo saves us a lot of time on reporting. It’s at least half a day, if not a full day of work per person per week, to be able to go in and just see it there.”
Noreen McDaid
Increasing employee engagement
Underscoring just how important employee engagement is for retention and performance, END. transformed it’s system of sporadic rewards and incentives to one focused on quality. Rather than rewarding employees for hitting the numbers, they are able to give recognition to the agents who ensure great customer experience as a whole.
And it’s not just the rewards system, END. also managed to make their Agents more invested in the work they deliver to really care about each project and every customer.
“Internal notes within the tickets increased by 150% between June and December. We also halved our First Reply Time (FRT) within that same period. It’s having that visibility which we didn’t previously have.”
Noreen McDaid
Hiring the right talent
Hiring right is the ultimate mantra many customer support leaders follow today. And END. is no exception. But more often than not, identifying that potential in employees is harder than it might seem. And with a deadline like a probation period added on top, making the best decision can be stressful.
With Kaizo’s support, END. managed to make sure that no talent flies under the radar — they have learnt how to identify future Team Leads and high performers during their three-month probation period. And by knowing people’s strengths and weaknesses, they can later develop a coaching plan for every employee to grow within the company and beyond it.
“The plan of action is something we missed before Kaizo. We now have the agendas and those performance insights. We can really delve into the data and put something in place to say: this is where we’re going to go, this is where you need help.”
Noreen McDaid
Enabling performance growth
Changing their approach to quality assurance helped END. reinvent the way they empower their agents. With positive and constructive feedback in place, they can always look at real-time data to give actionable advice for the agents to increase their performance outcomes and grow within their role, while climbing up the career ladder in customer support.
For the past few months, END. have been steadily increasing their Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) by 5% month on month, and managed to cut their Resolution Time by almost 66%.
But it doesn’t end there — they are now also able to help agents feel more driven and involved with their performance objectives by using Missions.
END. has already undergone a considerable change, but even more change is yet to come with all the Performance Coaching features at Kaizo. We can’t wait to see the heights END. reach and we will surely be there to cheer for them!
Interested to see how we can help you reinvent the way you approach customer support? Get Kaizo now!
