FILA CASE STUDY
How FILA increased online sales by 25%
We were tasked with representing the FILA brand and applying best practices at a crucial moment for the brand’s reputation with consumers.
Over the course of just two years, we not only met FILA’s expectations, we redefined what a positive brand experience can be.
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Goals
Drastically improve customer experience management to turn around customer attrition and online sales.
Challenges
High level of customer complaints about their third-party contact center, leading to a significant negative impact on FILA’s sales.
Results
After switching to Global Response, FILA saw complaints go down, resolved cases go up, and online sales increase.
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Building customer loyalty with the right engagement strategies
FILA is a South Korean sportswear company of international acclaim, worn by celebrities, athletes, and consumers around the world.
At the beginning of 2020, FILA was experiencing a high level of customer complaints with its previous third-party contact center team, leading to a negative impact on FILA’s sales.
FILA’s VP of E-Commerce in North America, Dawn Trenson, knew about our reputation for providing an excellent brand experience for customers – and the FILA / Global Response partnership was born.
FILA + Global Response
Our team’s customer-first mentality, “one-team” philosophy on partnership with our clients, and dedication to continuous improvement engaged the next generation of FILA-obsessed customers.
As Dawn Trenson puts it: “There was a transformation from people reacting to our [third-party] customer service with comments like, ‘I never want to do business with you again’ to now, with Global Response, becoming repeat loyal customers.”
The FILA brand was already a pillar of excellence in the athleticwear industry. Our team didn’t alter this about the brand—we reinforced it. Through our team’s customer service solutions, we embody and convey FILA’s brand excellence in our customer interactions.
FILA’s customers now know that they are being assisted by brand-obsessed specialists who go above and beyond to help them, and as a result, they feel a stronger affinity with FILA than they did before they reached out to us.
Key Challenges
- Lack of trust between FILA and their previous third-party call center
- Loss in online sales from past poor customer service team performance
- Customers waiting months for customer service to respond
- Hundreds of backlogged open cases
- Customer complaints about fulfillment, delayed refunds, and returns
- No best practices in place from the previous team for customer interaction
Strategies
We wanted to create a 180 for FILA’s brand management. So our customer experience management team went to work applying best practices and increasing transparency with the following strategies.
Reducing case response time
When our customer experience management team arrived, there was a substantial amount of backlog in open email cases—hundreds of cases to be exact. In addition, we joined the FILA brand at one of the busiest times of the year in 2020.
Our team was trained to find and address the specific concerns that consumers were bringing up in their outreach to customer service. By approaching customer requests with a prioritization model, they were able to streamline solutions and response time.
Within the first few weeks, we were able to resolve all backlogged cases and set FILA up for a quick turnaround on all responses and increased first call resolution. The change in pace was a “breath of fresh air” for FILA’s internal team, who could now put their faith in a professional, fully-functioning team dedicated to going above and beyond for customers.
Creating templates and standards for customer-brand interaction
When our team arrived, we found the previous call center had developed almost no best practice standards or response templates – and we knew that we needed to rectify that immediately.
We needed to simultaneously apply best practices while also addressing the backlog in open customer cases. Our account manager documented patterns in customer concerns. The team then prioritized common customer service inquiries to structure new templates and best practices.
We developed a full portfolio of scripts, templates, and procedure maps to optimize call response, training, and customer support.
Scalability and team training
At Global Response, we don’t hire just anyone—we selectively match hires to specific brands.
All of our customer experience representatives are highly skilled, brand passionate, performance-driven critical thinkers. We tailor each team member’s training to a brand’s unique culture and positioning so that the entire customer experience management team embodies the brand they partner with.
We have a strong commitment to high standards and ethics. This helps build a team to tackle new challenges and unexpected situations as they arise for the client.
“Global’s ability to scale up, scale down and use agents to help us with other things besides customer care is very impressive and not all partners are able to do,” Dawn Trenson observed.
The voice of the customer
The account manager for our team on FILA affirms that we are “the voice of the customer” for the client. This means we not only assist customers and enhance their experience, but we also relay their concerns and desires back to the internal team at FILA.
This flow of open communication between the brand and the consumer, with our team as the messenger, strengthens FILA’s foothold in the industry. Our transparency with FILA has led to improvements across the board in the customer experience, the internal FILA team’s processes, and even in the products themselves.
Mark Frucci of FILA Online Operations remarked: “We have weekly calls with the [customer experience management] team and collaborate on what needs improvement, get suggestions from the team on products, and escalate customer feedback. For example, we finally learned customers had been expressing a desire for larger sizes in shoes, so we changed production and sold out of them almost right away.”
Outcomes
- FILA has a direct line to the customers’ needs and concerns through our team’s commitment to transparency and being the voice of the customer.
- FILA and Global Response are unified in a collaborative, “one-team” partnership with trust and transparency. In the words of FILA’s President, the improvement on the customer experience and relationship with a third-party team is “night and day” compared to their negative experience with their previous partner.
- FILA’s VP of E-Commerce in North America is now able to focus on internal team improvement and supervision, boosting her control of brand performance.
- FILA improved product lines due to our team’s feedback, helping to increase sales and the company’s bottom line.
- FILA is confident that open customer cases will be answered and resolved in industry-standard time or better.
“Our previous contact center team almost effectively put us out of business. Now we are seeing an increase in existing and repeat customer business…with people who are super engaged and really work with us. Online business has been up 25% this past year.”
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