Sendle ups productivity with omnichannel CX and WFM tools

Australian startup Sendle puts customers front and center, allowing them to send parcels affordably, while caring for the planet. The company evolved from a circular economy marketplace into a sustainable door-to-door parcel delivery service, offering cost-effective shipping rates to small businesses. By tapping into big business delivery networks, the company helps small businesses compete against large companies. To account for the environmental impact of its courier services, Sendle works to reduce the carbon footprint, and then addresses all remaining emissions through carbon offset and removal projects around the world.

As the company strives to turn shipping from cost into value, the team is highly focused on understanding their customers’ needs and building an emotional connection. In the past, reaching that goal posed a challenge. The customer service team struggled with a clunky email system and slow, manual support processes.

Before using Zendesk, Sendle only had five people working in support, contacting customers through direct email. To ensure smooth communication with customers, Sendle expanded its support team and stepped up the use of Zendesk.

A stepping stone for growth

Sendle’s journey with Zendesk began with integrating the existing customer relationship management (CRM) platform to different interaction channels, bringing agility into support operations.

“In the beginning, we used Zendesk as a very simple support tool, with one view for all the tickets,” reveals Lynne De Castro, Director of Support Operations at Sendle. “As time passed, we started to think about how to maximize the use of Zendesk through integrations.”

The coronavirus pandemic incentivized Sendle to ramp up the use of the Zendesk platform quickly. As the number of online shoppers drastically increased and the demand for dependable delivery services grew, it created a flood of support inquiries from small businesses.

To ensure customer parcels would ship reliably, Sendle grew its support team from 50 to 125 people. The intuitive user interface from Zendesk and tips from its customer success experts made the onboarding of new users a breeze. Support agents (known as Champions) now handle inquiries round the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Zendesk WFM streamlines operations

The company also started using Zendesk’s native workforce management (WFM) tool, to enable easier attendance tracking, real-time adherence monitoring, performance management, and operational visibility on their scaling team.

Previously, team members were manually tracking attendance via Slack and spreadsheets, resulting in low visibility that dragged performance. The need for a more efficient, automated solution to monitor agent work activity, handle tickets, and manage staffing prompted Sendle’s move to Zendesk WFM.

“With Zendesk WFM, it’s not only easier to check attendance, but also real-time adherence, at a glance. I can see who’s working at any given time and adjust our staffing requirements,” says Janine Sibayan, Real-time Performance and Reporting Lead at Sendle.

In the past six years, Sibayan’s role at the company has evolved from Champion to Escalations Manager to Queue Admin, culminating in a promotion to WFM Lead two years ago. The ability to streamline processes through Zendesk WFM automated tracking is a major process improvement for the team.

“As soon as agents click on a ticket, Zendesk WFM automatically starts tracking, so there’s no need to log in,” Sibayan explains. “It’s definitely easier and more organized now, because our WFM channel is only for important things, beyond the attendance declaration.”

Higher visibility keeps agents engaged

Using Zendesk WFM provides valuable insights that help team members work more effectively and efficiently. For example, agent activity reveals how long an agent spends on each ticket, so leaders can see who may be struggling and intervene in real-time. It’s a vital way to improve customer support and potentially decrease average handle time (AHT).

“Zendesk WFM has really helped our support team and enabled us to deliver a better customer experience,” adds Sibayan. “We can quickly spot when Champions have a long handling time, so we can offer assistance right away.”

When team leads are reporting to managers, they can also use Zendesk WFM real-time activity monitoring to supplement each agent’s scorecard and analyze performance. If Sibayan notices that a Champion’s handled ticket count for the day is especially low or that they are sitting idle, she reaches out to them personally. “Every time I see a Champion go untracked, I check in via Slack to find out if they’re having a technical issue or a personal problem, or they just needed a break,” she says.

Incentives to boost productivity

Sibayan is a huge advocate of Zendesk WFM and even gave a presentation to Sendle management highlighting the benefits of the tool for a remote team like hers, focused on open communication and transparency. She says using the tool has made staff more aware of their work habits and increased level of engagement, which contributes to higher productivity and performance overall.

“With Zendesk WFM, Champions know that we can see what they’re doing and if they’re on track. I believe that helps improve their handled ticket performance, because they know they have an advocate to help them with any challenges, from a difficult ticket to a family emergency,” Sibayan explains. “We now have greater transparency, not only for the management, but also with the agents and team leads. Using Zendesk WFM helps build trust, because everything is being declared.”

Real-time adherence monitoring and advocacy gives agents an incentive to stay focused and builds a stronger partnership with team members. Thus, the adoption of Zendesk WFM goes hand in hand with Sendle’s value-driven, engaging culture.

Leveraging stronger WFM tools has ultimately put Sendle on to track generate ROI through time savings and better management oversight. The team is already seeing the value of Zendesk WFM through the reduction of untracked time and the potential for a more productive workforce.

Connecting experiences for faster service

Implementing Zendesk Agent Workspace has been transformative for the team, too. It enables agents to work seamlessly across email, chat, phone, social media, and other channels, while helping reduce duplicate tickets from customers and improve cross-channel visibility.

As a single source of truth for all customer interactions, Zendesk has expedited ticket handling thanks to automated incident grouping and assignment. Agents can focus more easily on responding to tickets within their skill set, leading to higher productivity. As a result of these optimizations, the first reply time decreased by 92 percent from 8.3 hours to 0.7 hours, while the full ticket resolution time was reduced by half compared to a year earlier.

Letting customers decide

With Zendesk omnichannel support, Sendle can now let customers decide how and when they want to reach out, rather than forcing them to use specific pathways. The Zendesk setup also empowers small businesses to redirect their energy to key business operations, because they trust Sendle to handle shipping and logistics details and provide quality support along the way.

Despite these tremendous outcomes, Sendle keeps upgrading its tools to streamline the carbon-neutral delivery experience for its customers. It takes advantage of the Zendesk Marketplace to add new support solutions and access them all in one place.

Working in close partnership with Zendesk, managers at Sendle regularly explore new ways to enhance customer service. “The Zendesk team has always kept us ahead of the game,” says Laura Hill, Managing Director-International at Sendle. “Along with explaining changes in the industry and support systems, they ensure that we’re ready for innovations and have the right tools at our disposal, should we want to give them a go.”

Building a loyal fan base

Through Zendesk, Sendle has unlocked self-service options, allowing customers to research and troubleshoot issues by themselves. The use of a help center with Zendesk bots effectively intercepts tickets that can be addressed with existing help articles.

Continuous innovation is the cornerstone of the company’s international success. The ability of Zendesk to integrate with other tools has given Sendle great transparency on metrics, so they can make decisions quickly and launch new channels as needed.

Following its overseas expansion, the company rolled out Live Chat, Messaging, and Talk to streamline communication with global customers. “Our messaging channels are now available for everyone around the world so that they can get real-time support,” says De Castro. “When we introduced those new channels, customer satisfaction greatly increased thanks to the quick response times.”

All these features and enhancements serve one major purpose: to maximize value for customers. Embracing omnichannel support through Zendesk has helped Sendle better understand customer needs and promptly deliver in meaningful ways.