Celebrating the birth of every new customer at BabyBjörn

Statistically about 4 babies are born every second, which is around 385,000 babies born every single day, amounting to 140 million births annually. That explains why the global baby products market was valued at USD 225 billion for 2022, and is forecasted to grow to USD 352 billion by 2030. As alarming as those figures are, it can be twice as daunting if you are a customer experience (CX) specialist for a premium retailer operating in the baby goods industry.

Putting customer experience first

BabyBjörn has been a leader in the baby products market for more than 50 years. Founded in 1961, this Swedish family-owned company became famous for putting families first by designing high-quality products for their newborn babies. In February 2018, a visionary woman joined the company to complement its vision and to create an outstanding customer experience supported by a strategic partnership.

Nine months after joining BabyBjörn’s New York office, Emily McCormack noticed that she was the sole CX representative. Though the company’s expansion plans were always carefully handled, their internal and customer support processes had somehow been stalled. Her biggest concern was the increase in numbers from clients and orders worldwide, not just during season ramp ups, but also during their ongoing expansion.

For this reason, she decided to lead her department into a positive direction that would significantly change business operations for BabyBjörn. The first step was to look for the right help.

“When BabyBjörn planned to launch a North American eCommerce shop, I knew it was time for back up,” recalls Emily. “I’d been a department of one since our New York office opened in 2018, and it would be impossible to keep up with all of our new consumers alone. Before the launch, I researched plenty of potential partners to share the load.”

Finding the right partner

BabyBjorn needed a unique consumer-facing team to handle all incoming inquiries, taking into account the nature of the market niche: moms and families. That’s why it was important for the team to get aligned with the company’s family culture, which has always been a critical deciding factor for its customers. The solution was clear: a third-party partnership.

“In my research I heard about massive call centers. I was not looking for robotic or automated message centers. I felt that picky moms like me wouldn’t want that, either. In terms of how many people we have and how many hours we need, I was looking for something scalable, easy, flexible, and cost-effective.”

She was drawn to Boldr because of our ability to create custom-oriented teams for companies that make custom-oriented products, which is exactly what BabyBjörn has become renowned for. The fact that we shared the same values, simplified the partnering process and ensured an excellent client experience.

For Emily, Boldr team members became part of the BabyBjorn family. “I was finally able to focus on other vital aspects of my work – and my personal life. I now have the confidence to know that there’s a team covering the issues that worried me before.”

Transitioning to a new CRM platform

BabyBjörn was in the process of migrating from their current customer relationship management (CRM) platform to Zendesk. This can be a tedious task that ties up time and resources, but we’ve done this exercise for clients and we knew what benefits the transition would hold for BabyBjörn’s aspirations to improve their customer experience.

A typical migration process not only includes the transfer of macros (templates) and contacts, but also the implementation of new best practices or guides for agents, potentially even the filing of historical ticket data. It might sound like a trivial matter, but data is a sacred thing in the retail space. Capturing old data can have a knock-on effect on figures, stats, planning, etc.

However, changing your preferred CRM to another platform could also impact your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). In this scenario, FRT became Reply Within SLA, and Speed of Answer became Call Wait Time. These minor changes often create an adjustment phase within a company, but consulting experts who understand KPIs and best practices of various CRMs can help navigate your team through this phase.

The scope of our involvement during BabyBjörn’s CRM migration, became more pronounced when our team helped to upload their agent-only articles or internal knowledge base, which can be an excruciatingly time-consuming exercise. When BabyBjörn’s European support team heard about our help, they also reached out to us. Boldr’s French, German and Spanish speaking capabilities have often been put to task when providing support to European-based teams. In this instance, we were able to assist by doing revisions to their French FAQs.

SUPPORT INSIGHTS FOR ECOMMERCE

With most eCommerce or retail-oriented companies being a business of scale, it makes the rate of reply a priority KPI to keep an eye on. That is why we focus on exceeding our “Reply Within SLA” rate that constantly hits a target of 95% or above. These are our Email and Chat Support KPIs using Zendesk based on our experience with BabyBjorn:

James Fouche is a Content Writer at Boldr, an author and a columnist. He is passionate about sharing his love of reading and writing with others.