Case Study: Customer Loyalty

Nurturing Customers for Life for a Market-Leading, UK Animal Health and Food Company

HGS builds CPG brand loyalty with long-tenured, multi-talented, compassionate petcare associates

Overview

With a focus on enhancing the lives of pets, a renowned international company that serves the nutrition and health needs of dogs, cats, horses, fish, and birds came to HGS in 2018 to find and retain loving pet owners in the UK to assist and delight their domestic customers, retail accounts, and veterinarian partners.

Our small, warm, and patient team provides product recommendations and substitutions, feeding advice, answers on ingredients and packaging, samples and discounts, and complaints resolution. When customers require more technical, detailed information on the products, agents point callers to the nearest retailer or veterinarian as per the client’s escalation and triage processes.

0%Extra headcount,
despite dramatic increase in volumes

3.5 CSATScore based on a rating from 1-5,
even with major product changes

3.5 YRSAverage tenure
of HGS agents

Client background

This well-known animal health company produces dry and wet food, treats, medicines, health monitors, grooming products, and diagnostic testing solutions for more than half of the globe’s pets. Through its 50+ brands, this manufacturer truly believes that pets make Earth a better place. Focused on quality and value, the client nurtures the deep bonds that people form with their pets.

Business objectives

The client is on a mission to become a lifelong pet partner. Pets are often considered full-fledged members of the family, and the client wants customers to feel that the company is always there for them as they navigate the challenges and highlights of pet ownership.

The client asks its contact centre team to build long-term brand loyalty by balancing friendliness, professionalism, accuracy, and speed. In addition to caring for individual customers, protecting the brand reputation and keeping a pulse on customer sentiment is part of the contact centre’s role.

While loyalty is paramount, cost containment and scalability are also goals. By choosing FTE-based billing, the client is ensuring pricing predictability, even when volumes increase, products change, or extra channels are required for optimal customer engagement.

Solution strategy

The client has engaged several teams to engage with its B2B and D2C customers. The client has elected to leverage HGS for the more challenging, important cases and contacts, due to our high quality, senior-level talent.

Talented, senior, work-at-home agents

We specifically recruit articulate pet owners—knowing what it is like own a pet is essential. All agents are multi-skilled, with the ability to handle inquiries from any type of customer, brand, or channel (chat, phone, social media direct messages, email/web form, or letter). Agents build rapport and collect important information about pets, customers, and products by asking seemingly casual questions about the pet’s behaviour, age, health, etc. This information is used to strengthen relationships with customers, reveal the customers’ real motivations, and address concerns before customers defect or vent on social media.

Training specifically tailored to each new hire

Due to the high level of agent retention, the need for new hire training is minimal. There is little need for a multi-week, multi-module, formal training programme! Instead, team members share the responsibility of bringing new colleagues up to speed. Over time, the team has created a comprehensive systems and product checklist to ensure a new agent can build all the skills she needs to succeed. Training is delivered over a number of weeks, in the form of presentations, demos, and mentoring, as the new employee demonstrates competence.

In-depth product knowledge

Because the client arranges a product overview webinar for each new product release or update, agents have accumulated an unparalleled level of product knowledge over time. After each group product session, agents have an opportunity to ask the questions they expect customers to ask. When an agent receives a customer inquiry she has not encountered before, she can access a product knowledgebase, or ask an HGS or client staff member over Microsoft Teams.

Regular reporting, collaboration, and insights

HGS uses the client’s Salesforce-based CRM to document and track all incoming cases. HGS and client leaders exchange messages throughout the day to ensure process adherence, departmental alignment, and prompt case management/closure. The team is measured on case closure speed, quality, and CSAT. The HGS team takes its “voice of the customer” monitoring and distillation role seriously and provides monthly updates to ensure the customer remains top of mind.

Active social media monitoring

The client is very aware of the impact an open/unsatisfactory conclusion can have on social media and their brand reputation. In addition to working with the client to handle all cases and complaints with professionalism and speed, HGS provides social media listening services using a Salesforce-integrated version of Sprinklr and responds to any Facebook or Instagram direct messages that may fall within scope.

Results

While loyalty can be difficult to measure, clients can rest assured that they are receiving value from HGS’s services. HGS provides friendly, reliable, high quality service that ensures customers for life – across not just one pet’s life, but multiple pets’ lives – at a reasonable, predictable cost.

50+ Brands supported
for consumers, retailers, and veterinarians

+3.5 CSAT score
based on a 1‒5 rating, even with major product changes

0% Extra headcount,
despite dramatic increase in volumes

5 Channels managed
by only 7 team members

3.5 Yrs Average tenure
of HGS agents

0% Annual agent attrition
in 2023