How Freshdesk helped Oceanic Catering manage volume and reduce resolution time

About Oceanic

Oceanic is a world-leading supplier of catering services to the marine community. It is an integral part of the V.Group - a global leader in ship management and marine services, managing 2200 vessels in 30 countries worldwide. With over 20 years of experience in catering, Oceanic provides 40 million meals a year for seafarers, most of which are served aboard commercial and merchant vessels at sea. Oceanic is the first catering provider for cargo vessels in the world.

The company handles about 2000 customer queries per month. Previously, these tickets were resolved by various teams within Oceanic - in siloes - which led to a higher resolution time. The company needed an integrated system to consolidate multiple touchpoints and help agents across teams provide better and faster customer service.

To get more insights into the challenges and how they were solved, we spoke to Charalampos, System Support Manager at Oceanic Catering. This case study explores how Oceanic used Freshworks’ products and services to improve its customer service.

The Challenges

Lack of a 360-degree view into a customer's history

Inability to retrieve essential data increased the time to resolution

About 2500 vessels used Oceanic’s portal to manage purchases and reporting. The portal was equipped with processes for raising and addressing queries and tickets. However, it did not give agents sufficient context about the customers to resolve tickets quickly. Eventually, it led to ineffective troubleshooting and maintenance. 

For instance, when agents wanted to retrieve information about a previous ticket, they had to search through their inboxes and find the correct email. Post which, it took them considerable time to understand the context of the query. As a result, the resolution times were always high.  

Overload of manual processes

Manual processes impacted productivity and efficiency

Back in 2019, when organizations across the globe raced to automate business processes, Charalampos found that the shipping industry lagged. For instance, basic automation features like email sorting were untapped. 

Every task was done manually using traditional email software – from sorting emails to binning them. Moreover, the teams felt highly pressured under growing ticket volumes. As a result, resources spent more time on mundane, repetitive tasks that did not add much value to customers or the business.

The lack of a scalable solution and the inability to handle the growing volume of tickets was evident. The company needed a solution that could help its team manage tickets seamlessly, automate repetitive tasks, and boost the productivity and efficiency of agents.

Why Oceanic Chose Freshworks?

Oceanic leveraged a combination of Freshworks’ integrated solutions: Freshdesk and Freshchat, to make its customer support ecosystem more efficient.

Given Oceanic's dedication to serving the marine industry, it was imperative to establish a reliable, round-the-clock support system. By transitioning to Freshdesk, Oceanic gained enhanced control over its customer support environment. The team was empowered to efficiently handle tickets, including escalations and adherence to SLA policies. This enabled us to effectively track, troubleshoot, and resolve any customer case, regardless of the time or circumstances.

Through the utilization of Freshworks, Oceanic was able to streamline its processes, resulting in a more efficient and organized approach to daily operations. The team also discovered a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) method to enhance their time to resolution, further improving overall performance.

Freshworks’ Features at Work

An integrated ticketing system enabled quicker ticket resolution.

Freshdesk proved instrumental in accelerating the resolution of customer queries for Oceanic while enabling personalized and intuitive support interactions. Through this platform, teams at Oceanic now collaborate effectively, providing prompt responses to customers. With Freshdesk, agents gain a comprehensive understanding of a customer's history, allowing them to prioritize and categorize tickets efficiently, thus ensuring timely support for vessels. 

Charalampos confirms that Freshdesk has significantly fostered teamwork and collaboration, resulting in faster issue resolution. Teams can swiftly engage in discussions within tickets, maintaining visibility and delivering consistent customer care. Additionally, Freshdesk empowered Oceanic's end-users to find answers to their inquiries through its built-in knowledge base, further enhancing their experience.

Scenario automation enabled agents to spend more time on more crucial tasks.

At Oceanic, agents were responsible for managing a large volume of tickets, many of which contained nearly identical queries. In the past, agents had to engage in repetitive tasks to address these tickets, leaving them with limited time to focus on more critical responsibilities such as handling complex inquiries.

By implementing scenario automation, the team gained the ability to execute multiple functions with a single click. Whether it was adding specific notes, setting priority levels, or assigning tickets to particular teams, agents could perform these actions effortlessly within a ticket or across a group of tickets. This automation significantly contributed to a reduction in Average Handle Time (AHT) for query resolution. As a result, agents could allocate more time to crucial tasks instead of individually managing the progression of each ticket.

Reporting analytics helped the management to track and improve performance

Oceanic's teams are geographically dispersed, spanning from Cyprus to Manila to Mumbai, and they are committed to providing round-the-clock support to customers. To ensure seamless customer support, it was vital for Oceanic to have real-time visibility into ticket volumes, performance metrics, and other relevant data. This challenge was effectively addressed through the Reporting and Analytics features offered by Freshdesk.

With Freshdesk Analytics, Oceanic was able to capture and derive valuable insights from the ticket data. This enabled the company to monitor productivity levels, measure customer satisfaction, and effectively plan and optimize agent workload. The Analytics feature provided Oceanic with comprehensive visibility into the performance of individual agents as well as the overall group. Additionally, the company now has a better understanding of ticket volume trends and performance distribution, allowing them to make informed decisions and improvements.

Seamless communication with suppliers through Freshchat

The Oceanic team primarily utilized Freshchat for their supplier portal, enabling suppliers to directly communicate their queries and receive necessary support. Freshchat provided agents with real-time context, facilitating quicker responses to questions. Additionally, Freshchat has become a valuable tool for gathering feedback and fostering meaningful conversations across various teams within Oceanic.

What’s ahead for Oceanic

Following positive feedback from suppliers regarding the use of Freshchat, Oceanic has decided to implement the same system for vessels. Charalampos is confident that this expansion will enhance customer support for vessels and result in a significant reduction of at least 50% in resolution time.

Concluding the talk, Charalampos said, “As we strive to enhance our customer support and meet customer expectations, we recognize the ongoing nature of customer complaints. Freshdesk has played a pivotal role in our journey, enabling us to continually improve our support services.”