Supernova Award Category
The Problem
Because Mercari is a peer-to-peer marketplace, a certain level of moderation is necessary to make sure none of the vendors are actually business merchants masquerading as individual sellers. Mercari was receiving thousands of tickets by users wanting to know why their account had been suspended. The company also routinely encounters difficulty with shipping and shipping labels when USPS is down or the label API fails. Their FAQ section did not adequately address users’ questions about these common issues, and they were inundated with users all asking the same question, but had no way of tracking it. The result? A seven day time to first response, churned users, no visibility into the process, and overworked, confused agents. Mercari’s proprietary customer support system didn’t allow for multi-thread communication, had no tiered agent system, didn’t allow for tagging capabilities, and offered no automation. To make matters worse, the app is highly dependent on photos, and the CS admin tool didn’t allow screenshots-- this made it very as difficult to describe and illustrate users’ problems. Customer service was a huge pain point for them.
The Solution
Helpshift has enabled Mercari to reduce tickets, gain visibility into individual customers as well as patterns across users, and automate ticket segmentation. “I love using Helpshift,” says Chiaki Osaka, Customer Experience Manager at Mercari. As a manager, she can now automatically assign tickets to agents, and has visibility into what types of tickets they are receiving and how well they are being resolved-- data that allows her to improve FAQs and request product iterations.
The results
Agents are happier, customers are happier, and Mercari’s product is better than ever. “Our customer experience vision is to invite users to be loyalists, improve engagement even more, and create a community of evangelists,” says Chiaki. “That’s where Helpshift comes in.”
Metrics
Mercari has cut down their time to first response by 163 hours with Helpshift. They have a 4.5 star app rating on Google Play, and have improved their average resolve time by 84 hours in the past year alone.
The Technology
FAQs
Disruptive Factor
On paper there are probably a lot of competitors in the CRM space, but Helpshift is built around a very high quality experience inside mobile, and that’s what sets us apart. The advantage we have is our mobile focus and our ability to do it right. There are other companies with large products and services that would love to say they’ve done this, but it’s a complicated space and we’re the first to master it.
“Our FAQ section is really detailed now with Helpshift,” explains Osaka. “By the time a user has contacted us they have probably been to the FAQs, which reduces the number of inquiries coming in.”
Shining Moment
This time two years ago, it took Mercari an average of 7 days to respond to their customers’ requests for help. Just as they were starting to despair, drowning in a sea of tickets, Helpshift stepped in. Fast forward to 2016: Mercari, using Helpshift, now responds to their users within 5 hours.