Last Updated on June 9, 2023 by Tony Fowler
How do you handle the overwhelming amount of customer conversations when you become the fastest growing protein bar company in the world?
This is only one of the problems Built Bar struggled with before implementing Re:amaze on their Shopify-powered storefront.
In this case study, we’re discussing Re:amaze and Smile.io with Jeff Newman, Co-Founder and VP of Marketing of Built Bar and why native integrations with Shopify and Smile matter for eCommerce brands
About Built Bar
High-quality product packed with flavor, protein, and fiber that only contains 100 calories – this is Built Bar’s value proposition.
Built Bar is truly a standout among protein bars. With its exceptional nutritional profile and eight delicious flavors, Built Bar is the favorite bar of discerning fitness trainers and fitness enthusiasts alike.
Built Bar opened its online store via Shopify to the public in August 2018 and quickly became the fastest growing protein bar company in the world. According to BuiltBar Co-Founder and VP of Marketing, Jeff Newman, Built Bar is like a candy bar, but healthier!
The texture is light and fluffy, and with each bite you take, you will think you are cheating on your diet, indulging on a chocolate dessert! There isn’t a more delicious way to get your protein.
Challenges in Growth for Built Bar
Due to its overwhelming growth in such a short amount of time, Built Bar was faced with several roadblocks.
Overwhelming Number of Live Chats with Customers
First, their loyal customers used several platforms to communicate with the company. Built Bar’s audience lives on all social platforms like email, live chat, Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.
And instead of closing down these channels of communication, Built Bar needed to stay true to their customers and make it as easy as possible for them to communicate their needs with their customer service reps.
However, Built Bar had no way to organize and respond to all incoming messages quickly and efficiently. Using these many platforms to communicate was not only costly and time-consuming, but it made it difficult to track the performance of customer service reps and refer back to old conversations as needed.
In order to continue their growth, Built Bar needed to have a method to track these conversations to learn from them.
Inability to Segment Live Chat Channels
Not only did Built Bar need to find a way to make the customer conversation process more efficient, but the dispersed conversations made it difficult to segment the channels and specific customer requests to the right team members and departments.
Because communications were not uniform, neither was their ability to segment. And thus, it became increasingly difficult to handle customer requests.
Helpdesk Lacking in Access to Customer Data
Customer data is key to the Built Bar team. To continually improve on their products, Built Bar needed to access customer data from a variety of sources and apps, such as the following:
- Shopify
- Rewards data from Smile.io
- Newsletter preference from MailChimp
However, Built Bar’s previous helpdesk app simply wasn’t robust enough to support this need.
Re:amaze and Smile.io Provide Stronger Live Chat Features
All of these challenges may sound overwhelming, but they were all solved using two solutions: Re:amaze and Smile.io.
Implementation was quick and painless for the entire team at Built Bar. Soon enough, they were geared with:
- A user-friendly chatting tool that’s accessible from the web dashboard, a mobile app, or via email
- A shared inbox for all communication channels
- In-depth reporting tools
- Automation tools to instantly reply to customers when the team is out of office
Built Bar experienced a major shift in customer service quality after Re:amaze was deployed on their Shopify-powered storefront.
“The difference between what we had before Re:amaze and now has been incredible.” – Jeff Newman, Co-Founder and VP of Marketing of Built Bar
A Powerful Helpdesk Alternative
Re:amaze’s multi-channel shared inbox provided a single point of communication for Built Bar’s customer service, social media, and wholesale channels. No more stretching their team thin by alternating between Shopify, Messenger, Instagram and more. Now all Built Bar’s team needs to do is log in to a single platform using Re:amaze and handle all client conversations seamlessly.
There is no more need to use several separate apps to communicate with clients. Re:amaze integrates Built Bar’s communications channels seamlessly. This means that customers are free to send inquiries via any channel that they prefer, and the support team will receive these inquiries in a common inbox.
And when the team replies to the customers, they get quick messages from their channel of choice.
With features like notes, reminders, assignments, and a powerful notification system, they have everything they need to keep track of all conversations happening at once – and related tasks they need to complete to enhance the consumer experience for Built Bar. And because Re:amaze uses effective collision detection, Built Bar’s team doesn’t waste time responding twice to the same customer!
Thanks to Re:amaze native integrations with Shopify, Smile, Stripe, and MailChimp, Built Bar’s team became well-equipped to ensure data accuracy across all communication formats.
But that’s not all. With the powerful reporting features that come embedded with the Re:amaze platform, the team no longer needed to worry about staying focused on the tasks at hands. They were now well equipped to respond quickly to urgent support issues and identifying areas where they can improve. Now, Built Bar can continually grow their customer service to better reflect what their customers need.
Having Smile.io connected to Re:amaze and Shopify has been phenomenal for the Built Bar team, they are able to instantly see everything about a customer and answer questions about their program registration, personal referral links, reward point balances, and more, without the need to switch between apps. When the team does need to access the customer’s account in Smile.io, it’s as simple as the click of a mouse on their Re:amaze conversation to open the needed profile.
The Astounding Results of Effective Live Chat Support
Since using Re:amaze and Smile.io, Built Bar has been able to reduce customer service response time by 12 minutes overall.
For a business-to-consumer market like this one, 12 minutes means so much to the consumer. Just imagine asking a question about your favorite protein shake and waiting 20 minutes for a response. How likely would you be to stick around in the web browser for a response?
On the other hand, you would be much more satisfied – and likely to purchase again – if you were contacted within 2 to 3 minutes by a customer service rep.
This is the situation for Built Bar – their baseline numbers before the implementation of Re:amaze showed that their average response time on email, live chat, and social media channels was 15 to 20 minutes on average.
Compare that to an astounding 2 to 3 minutes average response time after implementation. That’s a 5.6x improvement – Built Bar’s support team is on fire!
This is what happens when an already great team is given the best tools to perform. And now, Built Bar is better equipped to understand their performance so that they can continually strive to improve it.
New Beginnings for Built Bar
Not only did Built Bar tackle all of the challenges that were thrown in front of them to continue their growth and improve their customer experience, but the implementation of Re:amaze and Smile.io has empowered them to go beyond customer service.
Now, Built Bar is planning its new beginning with a dedicated social media team for their main social channels.
In the past, the customer service team and social media team was one and the same. But with a dedicated social media team, Built Bar will have even more room for growth.
Their support team will be able to 100% focus on what they do best: communicate with customers to help solve their problems and create a better experience for Built Bar fanatics. All of that, without getting bogged down by the other aspects of social media.
For instance, the new social media team will take on managing customer expectations effectively on social networking platforms via amazing content. Not only will this help boost customer satisfaction – since expectations are better managed – but it will also help Built Bar get a solid grasp on their branding.
Jeff’s final thoughts
“Re:amaze and Smile.io has reinvented our customer service model, and in amazing ways!” – Jeff Newman, Co-Founder and VP of Marketing of Built Bar