CS Week 2023
INTRODUCING GROUPON'S CUSTOMER SERVICE WEEK
30 Oct - 3 Nov, 2023
Customer Service are a significant part of any business's success, especially in busy periods like Q4. For Groupon, while it's true that outstanding CS extends beyond our dedicated team, there's no denying that they are the heart and soul of our operations. They are the ones who engage directly with our customers, working tirelessly to resolve issues, optimize experiences, and leave lasting impressions. Their efforts influence customer satisfaction, loyalty, our brand reputation, revenue, and our overall competitiveness.
a note from the interim vp, gso
The Global Service Organisation (GSO) is the vital front line of Groupon on a daily basis, solving customer and merchant issues directly, and supporting the business as a whole to ensure we live up to our Customer and Merchant Value Propositions. When I first visited our Shared Service Centre (SSC) in India in May, I was really impressed by our agents’ speed of work and ability to navigate multiple windows, and tools, to respond to customer queries. They were highly efficient in spite of the toolset provided to them. Findings from our shadowings on site are still the foundation of our technical transformation journey in GSO and CS in particular.
CS has come a long way since that visit with significant improvements over the past two quarters: productivity increased from ~7.2 sessions per hour at the beginning of Q2 to almost 13.9 by the end of Q3, a stellar performance increase of 92%!! Achieving such levels of productivity is certainly very challenging for the team, and I want to thank and applaud everyone involved in this massive improvement. Part of this success is fueled by the introduction of Grouptimize, our bespoke AI tool to help formulate answers to customers. We are continuously developing this tool and want to have it better integrated to further improve the frontline communications.
Lucie Bresova
While some of the work may seem straightforward, this quarter has been anything but business as usual for GSO. Here’s a glimpse at some of the key projects we’ve been working on:
We are transitioning CS from Zendesk to Salesforce, meaning that all of our ecosystem will be operating within one tool, which will bring efficiencies for the Customer-Merchant communications.
Zingtree (our 3rd-party decision tree tool) is expanding from the Merchant Centre and Merchant Operations team, to become our decision tree provider for Customer Service and Customers directly. Implementing a single tool across Customers, Merchants and self-service results in the creation of a true Marketplace Ecosystem. Plenty more to come on this in 2024!
In 2023 alone, we have reduced the number of tools in use by approximately 50%. CS is a firm believer in buying best-in-class tools versus building or maintaining legacy applications. This transition continues in Q4 as we continue to invest in Salesforce and 3rd-party solutions, building a Customer Service function fit for the next 10 years.
Finally, we are going to implement our new reporting solution, Salted. This has been built over the last 3 quarters and will provide almost real-time insights to our service delivery teams (and with the added bonus of AI powered QA).
Please check out the Employee Spotlights below on Mahmood, Pradeep, Nandhini, Jennifer & VinothKumar; they are just some of our hidden heroes who strive each day to deliver best in class service for our customers and merchants!
I can't wait to continue our mission and deliver a successful Q4 and beyond, together!
Lucie
TEAM SPOTLIGHTS
We're going behind the scenes with some of the incredible people who drive our Customer Service function with some special edition Employee Spotlight interviews. Providing valuable insights into the key roles they play within our GSO team, as well as a deeper understanding of the vital work they do, this is a great opportunity to celebrate our teammates across the globe, share in their experiences, and get to know them a little better!
nandhini Kandasamy
Join us as we head over to Chennai 🇮🇳 for the first in our very special edition interviews with CS Team Lead, Nandhini Kandasamy!
Nandhini, thank you for everything you do 💚
Pradeep Anand Rathnavel
Join us as we head over to Chennai 🇮🇳 for the second of our very special edition interviews with COps Team Lead, Pradeep Anand Rathnavel!
Pradeep, this was so insightful, thank you 💚
Mahmood Abdullah M
Next up in the Customer Service spotlight is INTL Operations Manager, Mahmood Abdullah M from Bangalore! With 10 Groupon years under his belt, he's seen many sides of the CS function.
Mahmood, what a ride so far - thank you! 💚
Jennifer Roslin P
Check out this special edition spotlight interview with Jennifer Roslin P, Senior Customer Support Representative.
Jennifer, it was a true pleasure, thank you 💚
VinothKumar Ravindraraj
Our final employee spotlight to share with you is from Merchant Operations Manager, VinothKumar Ravindraraj, who is based in Chennai🇮🇳
Thank you VinothKumar, you rock 💚
A huge thank you to Nandhini, Pradeep, Mahmood, Jennifer & VinothKumar, and the entire CS team. We appreciate you, and everything you do to elevate our customers and merchants experience with Groupon! 💚