Body & Fit delivers more qualitative customer service thanks to
Freshdesk Omnichannel

Freshworks’ solutions help Body & Fit focus on what's really relevant to the customer.

E-commerce company Body & Fit's mission is to help people live healthier and more active lives. Through their website, the company sells a wide range of (sports) nutrition, vitamins and supplements. They also support their customers with blogs and articles full of practical tips and advice. Their in-house nutritionists also provide personalized advice.

Body & Fit operates internationally and 72% of their customer base consists of millennials and Gen X. The customer service team consists of 25 people working from the Amsterdam office. From there, 13 countries are served including Japan and South Korea. However, the focus is on the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Customer service vision

Gerben Tegenbosch, Global Head of Customer Service: "Body & Fit wants to be a 'fitness ally' for our customers. Our products help them live a healthier and more active life. And because of the way we deliver service, we actively build on customer loyalty."

Body & Fit’s customer service goes beyond the traditional ‘Let me check that for you’. "Body & Fit really wants to add value for the customer," Tegenbosch says. "We deliver on that promise by giving personalized advice for each specific client."

In order to do so, the customer service team includes multiple specialists in the field of sports, nutrition and dietetics. From their expertise and background, they can give very specific advice - the added value of Body & Fit. More focus on advice, and less on 'standard' order questions.

With traditional customer service, usually about 60 to 70 percent of the questions are ‘post sales’, i.e. questions after the order has been placed - for example, where the delivery is at. At Body & Fit, this number is 35 percent. Tegenbosch: "And I actually want to bring that percentage down even further. Not because I don't want to speak to these customers, but because many of these kinds of questions can also be solved without speaking to anyone. With bots, proactive communication, self-service and good FAQs, these queries can easily be solved without human intervention."

Modern vision, modern software

This innovative vision called for new tooling. Two years ago, the customer service software Body & Fit was working with no longer met the company's omnichannel needs. It also did not fit Body & Fit's vision in terms of reporting and support. After a brief search of the market, Freshworks was chosen.

Body & Fit uses Freshdesk Omnichannel, where all incoming questions (via phone, chat, email, web form, Facebook and Instagram) enter the central platform as a ticket and are then assigned to the right agents via smart routing.

Currently, 60 percent of inquiries come in via live channels (telephone and the various chat channels). The remaining 40 percent is primarily email. "One of our goals is to push even more contacts to live channels," Tegenbosch says. "This will allow us to offer personalized service as well as maximize the chances of first contact resolution."

From data to insight to change

"We want to use Freshworks to its full potential and have invested a lot of time and energy in, for example, the Freshworks’ capabilities for data and reporting. This helps our agents to see the added value. And because we learn to better analyse the data, we can make improvements that benefit everyone."

And that pays off. For example, through Freshcaller's phone analysis, Body & Fit found out that phone occupancy during the day was not quite right and agents were deployed at times when it was (too) quiet. They adjusted phone opening times accordingly, and the hours saved as a result could then be deployed differently during the day.

Tagging tickets also resulted in useful insights. Tegenbosch: "When we notice an increase in return questions, we take a closer look at our return process. Why does the customer necessarily have to call us to return an order? That's a pretty standard process, they should be able to do that themselves. Freshworks’ platform gives us a very clear overview of things like that."

Bots and automations

In the upcoming months, Body & Fit will be focussing on further AI automation with chat and bots with a clear two-step approach. "Contact that does not add any value for the customer and for us, such as questions about order delivery, will be automated as much as possible - or can be solved with self service,"

One of the most recent developments is the Freshchat-Instagram integration. Body & Fit has many influencer collaborations (for example with Dutch Olympic ice skater Jutta Leerdam) and their target audience is very active on social media, especially on Instagram. The customer service team, in coordination with the social team, works on all Instagram DMs (Direct Messages) that are product- or order-related. Thanks to the Freshchat integration, these DMs automatically show up as tickets on the Freshdesk platform, and are then assigned and picked up by customer service agents accordingly.

Employee experience

And for those agents, working with Freshworks is a true delight, Tegenbosch notes. "The fact that we can service our clients over all contact channels, all from one unified platform, makes our work a lot easier. It allows us to work faster and more efficiently."

Marketplace apps such as autoticket merger, automation rules, customize form, email address, etc also significantly reduce the amount of manual work for agents.

Plans for the future

Body & Fit’s customer service keeps evolving. The company currently considers integration with translation tooling, and the customer and agent journey will be further mapped to see where they can improve even further. In the near future, integration with review platforms will be implemented, in order to respond quickly to customer issues there as well.

"Freshworks’ solutions enable us to provide a highly qualitative customer experience," Tegenbosch summarizes. "Working from one system helps us focus on the things that are really relevant to the customer."