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Book: Smart Customers

A Digital Customer Experience Case Study: Sephora’s Supremacy

A few years ago, i wrote digital experience: the new heart of customer engagement that makes the point that digital experience strategy isn’t an it-driven initiative...it’s a customer-needs initiative. sounds intuitive, right, digital rules.

No matter what business you’re in, there’s something to learn from Sephora’s digitally enabled customer-centricity and brilliant incorporation of technology into brand.

Technology that Makes Customers’ Lives Easier

What elevates Sephora’s digital and mobile customer experience strategies to a truly inspirational level is their obvious understanding that customers look to technology (and adopt it) when it makes their lives easier . In a recent case study , Sephora’s Director of Mobile & Digital Store Marketing described their customers as: “women who have shown historically that they adopt technology where it is useful.”

With more than 2,600 retail stores in 30 countries, Sephora has made “useful technology” a central part of its brand. Customer expectations are for a company that offers “unbiased service from experts, an interactive shopping environment and innovation.”

Right out of the best-practice customer experience playbook, whenever Sephora does something innovative, creative, tech-savvy, etc., they’re strengthening their customer relationships—because they’re consistently delivering on customer expectations better than anyone else in their industry. That is how you leverage customer experience to actually differentiate.

Embracing (and Profiting From) Smart Customers

Today, Sephora has almost 5 million Facebook fans; 900,000 Twitter followers; 600,000 Apple Passbook registrations; and mobile devices make up 1/3 of all Sephora.com traffic. Sephora’s customers do more than adopt technology—they live it. And by creating digital experiences that actually make customers lives easier, Sephora is reaping the rewards. For example:

Dissecting Sephora’s Customer Experience Strategy

What makes Sephora’s interplay between technology and brand so powerful is that it can’t be easily duplicated. Not because the technology itself is difficult to replicate—it isn’t. But because their success is built on a deep alignment between brand and customer experience , and they consistently deliver on it with a level of customer-centricity that competitors would have a lot of trouble copying.

You see, what Sephora has figured out is that companies shouldn’t roll out customer-facing technology for technology’s sake. Embracing the concept of “digital innovation” doesn’t just mean embracing digital.

It means embracing your customers, based on a deep understanding of them and their unique wants and needs. And then determining the role of digital experience and how it can actually make customers lives easier. That’s the “middle part” that many companies simply don’t get.

Like Sephora, the companies that are winning in the digital customer experience race are those that roll out technologies that, first and foremost, benefit their customers. In the Smart Company Pantheon, Sephora ranks pretty high.

Luckily, the steps it takes to join them are fairly well defined, and the concepts around customer-centricity and customer experience strategy can be embraced by anyone. The bad news, of course, is that even though the process is straightforward, it isn’t simple.

Which is why when your competitors are focused on selling, you can focus on serving. And, like Sephora, you can reap the rewards of rabidly loyal customers and a position your competitors will envy – but won’t have the guts to actually pursue.

CASE STUDY: Czech-Inspired Texan Hotel Enhances Guest Experience with Music

Situated blocks from the Brazos River and Baylor University in the Silos district in downtown Waco, Texas, sits Pivovar —a Czech-inspired, luxury boutique hotel destination serving guests a unique European getaway. Complete with a bakery, restaurant, brewery, beer garden, and a spa with copper soaking baths filled with Pivovar’s Czech-style beer (yes, beer), Pivovar prides itself on providing the ultimate guest experience and chose AtlasIED audio products to help deliver music at the property.

Pivovar is the Czech word for beer, and with beer central to the Pivovar’s brand and theme, hotel management wanted to create a memorable and authentic beer spa experience with a uniquely Texas twist. Beer baths are a rich part of Eastern European culture, particularly in the Czech Republic. Guests of Pivovar’s beer spa enjoy not only bathing in beer, but also can also enjoy drinking a beer flight or snacking on a cheeseboard during their spa treatments. To enhance customer experience is critical for repeat visitors and key to the success of hotel properties, which is why hotel management prioritized music as an element of the Pivovar experience. In the spa and throughout the property, the hotel installed AtlasIED’s Atmosphere Audio Processing and Control System and loudspeakers offer softly played background music to set different moods depending on the location.

To bring this brew-centric wonderland to life, Pivovar looked to local Waco-based AV distributor, KHT Electronics , to specify and install a scalable, user-friendly solution to effectively address the unique audio needs of each area within the hotel. With the requirement of playing different music at different volumes in indoor and outdoor spaces, KHT selected the Atmosphere platform and a variety of AtlasIED amplifiers and loudspeakers to deliver an audio experience as refreshing as the venue’s wide selection of craft beers.

“KHT Electronics was present from the very onset of Pivovar’s construction, and in doing so, we had the freedom of working from a blank slate,” said Tabetha Koerth, Chief Executive Officer, KHT Electronics. “With this autonomy, it was critical for our team to find a long-lasting, cutting-edge solution that would exceed Pivovar’s needs without overwhelming the venue staff with the tricky technicalities often associated with AV systems.”

Centered at the heart of Pivovar’s expansive AV installation is the AtlasIED AZM4 4-Zone Commercial Audio Processor , which includes a built-in message player and ambient noise compensation capabilities. The Atmosphere platform was designed to be installation-friendly and simple to use, which shines through its simple yet innovative interface.

The Atmosphere platform offers the largest selection of accessories of any commercial digital audio platform on the market. These accessories allow staff to select sources, adjust volume levels, and choose zones from a wall controller, mobile device, or computer, and offer audio inputs like XLR, RCA and Bluetooth. The Pivovar installed three AtlasIED C-ZSV Remote Zone Source and Volume Controllers throughout the property to allow employees to quickly and easily adjust the sources and volume levels in the venue’s unique zones, such as the restaurant, bakery and brewery. Additionally, KHT can use a computer or mobile device to manage or troubleshoot the entire audio system remotely to avoid having to rely solely on onsite hotel staff to make audio adjustments.

Installed throughout the venue are a collection of AtlasIED loudspeakers, including 4.5-inch FAP43T-W in-ceiling speakers in the lobby, plus SM42T-B and SM52T-B two-way loudspeakers in the beer garden and restaurant. In addition to seamless integration with the Atmosphere platform and accompanying time-saving speaker EQ presets, the AtlasIED weather-resistant loudspeakers deliver a high-performance, low-distortion listening experience to keep guests informed and entertained throughout their stays.

The hotel installed the AtlasIED M600-DT paging microphone to broadcast announcements to guests in the restaurant. Additionally, an AtlasIED DPA804 800-watt, networkable 4-channel power amplifier helps boost power to the loudspeakers installed throughout the property.

Since Pivovar’s opening in 2022, KHT has received raving feedback about the system, particularly regarding Atmosphere’s streamlined ease of use. “With Atmosphere, employees, regardless of technical skill, can easily adjust the volume or change what music is playing from a wall controller or directly from their mobile devices,” said Shawn Koerth, Chief Operations Officer, KHT Electronics. “Better yet, Pivovar can limit access to certain functionality to prevent the risk of someone accidentally messing up important sound balance settings.”

After an extremely successful opening, Pivovar and KHT Electronics look forward to further leveraging AtlasIED and its Atmosphere system to support venue expansions, including a performance stage and private presentation area for social gatherings and business meetings.

Until then, AtlasIED will continue delivering guests an unforgettable experience that will leave them yearning for another visit and more Pivovar beer.

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33 Case Study Questions for Customer and Client Interviews

When selling your product or service to prospective customers, you make a stronger case when you can show concrete results. This is where a case study comes in. A case study strengthens your sales pitch by showing firsthand results. You can boost your case studies by interviewing previous customers and asking them to share how they benefited from your business. Interview your loyal customers using the following questions to build strong case studies you can share with new prospective clients.

two women speaking at a table near a large window

What is a Case Study?

A case study is a detailed report that showcases how your product has benefited previous clients. It is a way to show firsthand how your product or service can benefit potential new clients. Case studies help you build trust with new clients — 88% of whom trust online customer reviews and ratings. Conversely, only 14% of customers trust advertisements.

Asking the right types of questions to your previous customers will help you better craft your final case study. Since you will be writing these studies with new clients in mind, drafting your questions beforehand will give you the right information to highlight how you have previously solved similar client issues in the past.

How to Write Case Study Questions

This section offers an outline of sections that should be included in your final case study and sample questions to ask of your clients.

Start With the Backstory

Before writing your case study questions, determine why you are writing it. Outline the major problems you intend to highlight and create questions that will allow you to articulate how you solved them. The following section includes case study question examples you can use to conduct your client interviews, but you can modify them based on your goals.

When interviewing your previous clients, first introduce them to your audience by including some background information on their company. Next, set up the case study by presenting the initial problem.

Establish Your Relationship

After setting up the problem and why it was significant to your customers, ask them to define their relationship with your brand. If you are interviewing repeat customers, ask them how they discovered your business, why you were their chosen solution, and what's kept them coming back. If you are interviewing a first-time client, ask what drew them to your business over another.

Some questions can include:

Have Them Demonstrate Your Product

Once you have set up the initial problem and delved into how your client chose you to solve it, you can get into the details of the actual case study. Ask specific questions about how your client used your product or service.

Be detailed. These answers will help you draft a case study that resonates with prospective buyers who are facing the same issue.

Outline the Product’s Benefits

This section of your interview will delve into the actual solution and its results. Use this section to ask about specific outcomes and metrics the company used to track successes.

Wrap Up the Interview

At the end of the interview, ask some general business case study questions relating to customer satisfaction and relationship management. You can use these to conclude the case study. This section of the interview is also likely to generate some potential customer quotes you can use in your marketing materials .

How to Ask Your Clients for an Interview

If you have been in business for a while, you probably know your best advocates. Think about your top customers, and start by asking those who are the most likely to promote your business. If you know a client who often refers customers to you, ask them for a specific example of how your company helped them solve a problem.

You might draw a blank when asked to identify your best advocates. In this case, talk to your sales team or your project managers to see if they know of any potential customers who would be happy to share their success stories.

Consider your customers’ time. Don’t approach them for an interview in the middle of a busy season or if they have had a recent issue with your company. Get familiar with your selected clients and how they intended to use your product so you have some background information before starting the interview.

Finally, write a personalized request. Don’t send out a form email requesting case studies. Make your requests relevant to each potential interviewee so they know they are valued customers.

How to Write the Case Study

Instead of taking notes during the interview, take a recording on your phone or a portable recording device and transcribe it when you’re done. You can take minor notes as you go along, to help when you go back to transcribe. This way you can be more engaged in the interview and follow up on interesting information that might pop up. Be sure to check that your recording hardware or software is working ahead of time, to ensure you don't lose valuable information during the interview.

The case study questions listed above are arranged as an outline of a typical case study. Start by introducing the company and the problem they were trying to solve when they sought out your business. Next, explain the process of how they used your product to solve their problem.

End the case study with numbers and statistics demonstrating how you helped the business successfully solve its problem. Make sure you get specific numbers and figures to illustrate your clients’ successes. If you don’t get them during the initial interview, follow up with a phone call or email.

Sample Case Study Questions and Answers

These sample case study questions and answers demonstrate how to extract information from your interview and turn it into an engaging business case study that is interesting and informative.

This case study from Switch, a digital marketing agency, details how the company was able to help a client improve its return on investment (ROI) on search and Facebook ad campaigns by moving them from their in-house marketing team.

The case study starts with an impressive statistic — the company improved its ROI on search ads from 1.2x to 19x in a short time period. The case study breaks this statistic down for potential leads who might not be familiar with marketing terminology, indicating that its client was able to increase sales without spending more on search engine ads.

While the actual case study interview is not published, a sample question and answer that would have generated this data could be:

This case study goes into detail about how Switch worked with its clients to refine the Facebook and search ad strategy, ending with impressive results.

Rogers Communications

Rogers Communications featured this case study detailing how its client Brampton Caledon Community Living (BCCL) used the company’s cloud-based mobile phone system to better service clients. This case study is simple, laid out with headings like “Challenge” and “Solution.”

Rogers Communications pulled relevant quotes from the client and included them in text boxes throughout the study to break up the text. Rogers also included direct quotes from personnel at BCCL, making a strong case for its product. While it doesn’t offer hard numbers like the previous example, it does include a quote detailing how the cloud-based system has improved the work environment.

Again, the interview for this case study is not included in the example, but it does include the answers as client quotes.

Best Practices for Conducting A Business Case Study Interview

When you’ve found client advocates who are willing to talk to you about how your company led them to success, draft your interview questions. Keep these best practices in mind.

Be Prepared

Being well-prepared for your interview is the best way to ensure its success. Before meeting with your client, learn what you can about the client so you can flesh out the case study. Conduct a mock interview to prepare. Talk to your sales team or the client’s specific project manager for details to better understand the client and what they were facing when they hired your company or purchased a product.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Structure your questions so the interviewee has to give detailed answers. If you limit your interview to "yes" or "no" questions, it can be hard to gather enough information to write your case study. Open-ended questions let your client get into the specifics surrounding the study.

Do a Deep Dive

One reason you should record your interviews and transcribe them later is so you can focus on the client’s answers. Often, information will come up in an answer to one question that will prompt you to ask a follow-up question. Recording your interview lets you deviate from your prepared questions to get a more robust analysis of the case.

Getting Started on Your Case Study

Case studies are a great marketing tool for building credibility. They give prospective clients a better understanding of how you work and how you can provide alternative solutions for key issues. But the key to writing a good case study is to start with a quality interview.

You have the tools needed to draft powerful questions. So start the process by looking through your list of past clients and determining who would be the best to interview. Develop a thorough understanding of their situation and their history with your company, and then conduct your interview.

After your first few case studies, you'll be confident on how to best structure questions and refine your interviews to get the best information. Soon, you will be crafting detailed and engaging case studies to best market your business.

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Why digital experience is the way forward to build customer loyalty

This year, businesses will have to dig deep to deliver the tripod of better CX, lower costs, and more efficient operations says Sandie Overtveld at Freshworks.

The past few years, while littered with planet-scale challenges – a pandemic, a recession, a supply-chain crisis, and now inflation – have served as an impressive case study for the resilience of the United Arab Emirates. It was by no means immune to any of these shocks, and yet the country showed why vision is one of the words with which it is most associated.

In the UAE’s pulsating private sector, cool heads are already planning a route through the current economic instability and a climate of expectation from consumers that has no equal in history. Customer loyalty is more important than it has ever been, given a range of factors. One is that new customers are more expensive to onboard than existing ones are to retain. Another is that loyalty can lead to advocacy, which amounts to free advertising. Both considerations are vital to marketing functions that are seeing their budgets dwindle.

So, loyalty – how do we achieve it? Customer experiences, that’s how.

But while toning up CX, organisations still must align business operations with other budgetary constraints. It is a balance. This year, businesses will have to dig deep to deliver the tripod of better CX, lower costs, and more efficient operations.

Here are some ways to get it right.

Bye-bye bloatware

Legacy, resource-heavy applications are an obvious target for fat-trimming. CIOs should review their digital assets and flag bloatware for ousting. Some decisions will be difficult. Some bloatware is part of the core system suite and must be maintained. But wherever possible, it should be jettisoned. It drains resources; it drains energy in the age of ESG; it adds complexity for the end user; and it is a frequent source of cyber-vulnerability.

So, bloatware stands in the way of efficiency, productivity, employee satisfaction, and cyber-resilience. Removing it allows employees room to breathe, move, react, and grow. They will engage with customers on a more meaningful level. Loyalty is just around the corner.

There is potential in the current technology landscape for bots to become an integral part of the workforce. If staff must be downsized anyway, then why not replace them with cost-effective, customisable bots that are efficient, reduce operational costs, and eliminate human error?

This trend need not apply routinely to companies that are understaffed. Other businesses may increase their capacity and seek to improve the employee experience by leveraging bots. This can begin to address the reduction in interest seen in self-service tools. As consumers turn back towards a preference for human-to-human interaction, time-saving solutions like robotic process-automation and dynamic canned responses will support agents and prevent burnout amid an escalation of customer contacts.

The UAE has one of the world’s most forward-looking visions for increasing STEM skills. The National Program for Coders is recognition that digital prowess is a differentiator on the world stage and that these skills are in short supply. For the private firm that faces rising labour costs, the training of existing staff to become developers is an attractive proposition. Not only is it cheaper, but the internal employee knows the company better and is likely to become more fulfilled by work that challenges them.

They will hence be more likely to stay than the graduate software professional who, as a fresh hire, already has one toe on the next career stepping-stone. Low-code development platforms allow non-technical employees to become citizen developers. They can build modern, secure, scalable solutions rapidly, thereby accelerating digital transformation and enhancing CX.

Survey after survey shows that the modern consumer does not forgive delays. Over the generations, we have evolved from expecting delivery of products and services in weeks to expecting them in days, hours, minutes, and now, perhaps, seconds.

Part of this expectation shift involves a demand for engagement through everyday consumer tools like social media. As of 2022, the UAE had a reported 99% social media penetration, and we are seeing surges in use of all these channels, from mainstays like Facebook and WhatsApp to new sensations like video-sharing app TikTok, which is now used by 60% of UAE digital socialites.

Marketing professionals and experienced engineers are always talking about finding customers where they are. After months of pandemic lockdowns, they are now to be found on social channels more than ever. In 2023, regional enterprises must find ways to allow agents to engage with the social digi-sphere and its native population. Millennials and Gen Z will appreciate the outreach and respond, leading to better brand reputation and higher levels of capture, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy.

The need for speed shows that serving customers on time, in real time, is critical. But if the accuracy and relevance of the service is suboptimal, this will irk the modern consumer just as much as any delay. Today, AI can be tied into contacts as they happen, wherever they happen. Chat, SMS, WhatsApp – all major messaging platforms are digestible by AI algorithms, and these systems can supply agents with context across contact history that will allow better feedback and greater individualisation of the customer journey.

As they review their IT budgets, regional enterprises will look for the most cost-effective ways to grow as digital businesses. They will improve CX while consolidating operations and shopping around for more equitable long-term subscriptions. They will retain the parts of the tech stack that make sense in modern times, and rip out those that do not.

But at the centre of these overhauls will be the customer. The standard business model in the digital economy is one that ditches the one-to-many B2C relationship for many one-to-one relationships. Digital natives respond to being treated like individuals. It may be the only future. But its dividends are endless.

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Customer Case Studies

We’re proud to work with some incredible companies and people here at Customer Thermometer. Our client case studies are testament to how effective our survey product is. Customer Thermometer’s founder often says that ‘bad businesses don’t use Customer Thermometer’ and it’s very true… only the best companies want more customer feedback because they are the ones who want to constantly up their game.

In this section you’ll find customer case studies describing the many different types of feedback that our customers solicit using the service. Companies ranging from BT and Gigmasters through to Vanarama and AnyPerk describe their customer and employee successes in the range of case studies contained in this area.

Numeric Eight puts employee wellbeing first and hits top NPS scores with Customer Thermometer

Scotland’s No.1 MSP drives success using Customer Thermometer’s real time NPS feedback

PPSPower Plugs Customer Thermometer Into Exclaimer Engine To Supercharge Customer Feedback

Paving the Way to Customer Experience Excellence with Tobermore

ParentPay Passes CSAT Exam With Flying Colors

Fond: Employee engagement specialists

How TOOTRiS Uses Customer Feedback as a Springboard Into Deeper Customer Engagement

How MasteryPrep raised the bar in feedback excellence

How MasteryPrep is raising the bar in feedback excellence

CMI setting the bar for MSP helpdesk support

allen associates customer experience case study survey

How Allen Associates succeeded by putting service over sales

Putting customers at the heart of phs Compliance’s service

CMD covid pulse feedback survey case study

How CMD is using pulse surveys to stay connected during the pandemic

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Crafting a Superior Insurance Customer Experience: Hexaware’s Digital Experience Solution for a Premier UK Personal Lines Insurer

Legacy systems were causing our client, a leading personal lines insurer in the United Kingdom, multiple issues, such as fragmented customer experiences, slow decision-making, high costs, extended sales cycles, and subpar self-service experiences.

Hexaware’s digital insurance transformation helped reshape the client’s advisor and customer experience. Our innovative approach involved platform consolidation to Sitecore, enabling real-time dashboards for effective decision-making, an improved interaction experience, and providing better policy insights for stakeholders. We also enabled microservice-powered integrations for resiliency and enriched customer experience by depicting the different phases of a policy journey. Hexaware also introduced the Protection Progress Hub (PPH), an online platform that efficiently tracks and updates application status information, offering numerous benefits.

Key Benefits:

Are you struggling with legacy systems, inadequate online experiences, and high customer acquisition costs? Learn how Hexaware helped one of the largest personal lines insurers in the UK overcome these challenges and achieve impressive results!

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Customer References

Mutual Materials uses OCI to meet a 30% increase in demand

February 3, 2022 | 6 minute read

Mutual Materials is a manufacturer of building bricks, blocks, pavers, and stone slabs. Founded in Seattle in 1900 as Builders Brick Company, it has since grown, adapted, and changed names, but it has always kept the legacy of a local family-owned business. Now the largest supplier of masonry and hardscape products in the Pacific Northwest, Mutual Materials employs over 400 people and has manufacturing facilities in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

As the demand in hardscape sales skyrocketed, the company needed a faster and more reliable way to process orders, increase production, and ship its finished products to customers. Key to addressing demand was the creation of a more efficient process for communicating product inventory and availability to customers, especially those working in the field. As part of this process transformation, Mutual Materials envisioned a self-service environment for receiving and fulfilling customer orders that would coordinate supply and demand across 11 manufacturing sites, two mining sites, and 18 locations.

A move to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) allowed Mutual Materials to lift and shift existing IT infrastructure to the cloud and see an immediate 20% increase in speed. The move to the cloud also allowed Mutual Materials to scale and grow to meet the 30% increase in overall business demand.

Figure 1: Mutual Materials demonstrates its mission of creating beauty that lasts

Goals for moving to the cloud

The company needed a way to scale its infrastructure to meet the increased demand and coordinate the complexities of a modern business. To handle transaction processing and new business, Mutual Materials turned to OCI to reduce costs and enhance performance as it migrated on-premises applications to OCI.

The company partnered with Dallas-based technology consulting company, Doyensys , which specializes in application and database deployments, migrations, and managed services. This partnership enabled a rapid lift-and-shift of legacy systems into the cloud and the implementation of a scalable IT solution.

The suite of Oracle products used

Technical implementation

The implementation partner Doyensys began work by selecting a region with multiple availability domains, which included OCI VCNs, Compute shapes, public and private load balancers, block volumes, Oracle Data Guard, Identity and Access Management (IAM), and audit logs. They created a VCN as the foundation to house all network components. All services and applications are accessed through a DRG, which routes users and uses an IPSec VPN connection to ensure security.

All public communication is routed to the production compartment in availability domain 1. Administrators with proper access permissions can access disaster recovery or non-production compartments. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) products Oracle Solution Center and Oracle Transportation Management are accessed using the internet gateway but routed outside the VCN to a native Oracle Cloud application server.

A separate public load balancer connected to the internet gateway routes traffic to both production and non-production fault domains. Within the production environment, Doyensys created three subnets across two availability domains to ensure high availability and redundancy.

Availability domain 1 includes two subnets: One containing the production applications and the other containing the production database. Both are paired with a block storage instance.

Availability domain 2 contains the non-production environment, mirroring the production fault domain: Load balancers, fault domains, and block storage instances. This environment allows system admins to test deployments before deploying services to the production environment.

If catastrophic failure occurs, availability domain 3 contains a compartment housing a recovery database, applications, and block storage. Connected to the production compartment with Data Guard, this design ensures data synchronization and rapid recovery.

Figure 2: Technical architecture for Mutual Materials implementation on OCI

The results

The move to OCI gave Mutual Materials’ applications an immediate 15–20% boost in speed. An increase in speed and efficiencies improved operational efficiencies, helping drive up average order sizes. This combination led to an increase of year-over-year sales by nearly 20%. By running business applications and databases on virtual machines replicated across multiple fault domains, Mutual Materials has experienced zero downtime, despite the 30% jump in orders.

The success in operational efficiency, productivity, and lower costs was the catalyst to move almost all hosted applications from on-premises to OCI. The migration of Oracle Transportation Management and EBS resulted in increased stability, processing time, and lower overall costs. The Transportation Management migration yielded increased fleet utilization, reduced expenses, a better relationship with customers and distribution partners, and allowed virtually infinite scalability. Oracle CX adoption allowed their customers to self-serve, buy online, and benefit from a highly personalized shopping experience. The incorporation of customer-specific pricing models—pre-negotiated, job-specific, or public pricing—improved the customer experience and improve operational efficiencies.

“When we went live on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, frankly, we were not expecting the 15% to 20% faster performance that we saw,” said Guy DeFlorio, CTO of Mutual Materials.

Mutual Materials continues to focus on growth through increased sales, acquisitions, and new products. Where business growth was previously complicated by IT infrastructure logistics, OCI allows the company to scale quickly, seamlessly adding new manufacturing facilities, offices, and product lines to the platform. Confident in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s ability to scale and meet demand, Mutual Materials can continue to build beauty that lasts across communities throughout the US and Canada.

Explore the Mutual Materials’ story in our customer success stories or dig deeper into the cloud architecture at Built & Deployed .

Meesho e-commerce platform quadruples call center volume with SD-WAN

Meesho operates a pure play marketplace model, connecting millions of consumers with sellers across India. With a vision to enable 100 million small businesses to succeed online, Meesho is democratizing internet commerce and continuously facilitating the India Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’ (MSME) transition from the offline to the online realm.

As the fastest ever e-commerce business to acquire over 100 million users in India, it is critical for Meesho to ensure high service levels and customer satisfaction, as well as to maintain timely responses to all incoming queries.

To keep up with demand, Meesho adopted the Juniper Session Smart Router to connect its customer service locations to its contact center platform.

Calls dropped during peak holiday sales

Customer service calls per day during peak holiday sales

Orders successfully placed during the five-day festive sale

140 million+

Annual transacting users

Keeping up with high call volume

Meesho’s outsourced customer service agents are at the ready to help its buyers and sellers in seven languages.

With the operation of their 13 partner call centers being integral to the business, they required a high-performing SD-WAN solution that could provide greater agility and scalability to support its Voice over IP applications, especially during periods with high call volume.

“With Juniper’s AI-driven SD-WAN solutions, we have not only achieved an overall increase in call volume and retention rates, but we have also managed to build a service-centric network that allows us to unlock new levels of growth while strengthening our customer relationships. Through our partnership with Juniper, we believe we are one step closer to realizing our vision of democratizing internet commerce, all while achieving higher levels of customer satisfaction and business momentum,” says Mohideen.

SD-WAN enables call reliability

Meesho turned to the Juniper Session Smart Router to build a next-generation SD-WAN. The router creates an application-aware network fabric that meets Meesho’s stringent call center performance, security, and availability requirements.

“Now when a link goes down, the Juniper SD-WAN automatically reroutes the traffic over an alternative available link,” says Mohideen. “Connectivity is up all the time and customer calls are answered by the most appropriate available agent.”

Since deploying the Juniper Session Smart Router, Meesho has seen a 30% increase in the total support related calls received from its users.

The Session Smart Router integrates secure vector routing with zero-trust access control and segmentation policy, strengthening security. Its tunnel-less architecture overcomes the inherent inefficiencies and cost constraints of traditional routing and frees up more bandwidth for applications.

‘Not a single call dropped’ during peak

Since deploying the Juniper Session Smart Router, Meesho’s outsourced customer service centers have seen a 30% increase in call volume.

Efficient and reliable call routing to agents ready to help buyers and sellers has allowed Meesho to keep up with the surge of customer demand, coming strongly from India’s tier 2, 3, and 4 regions. It now offers 24-hour customer service.

“During our peak festive period, we saw a significant increase in sales,” says Mohideen. “The peak sales period has always been very hectic, as we worked with our ISPs to maintain connectivity. However, after the Juniper SD-WAN deployment, not a single call dropped.”

Juniper Networks AI-driven SD-WAN Solution Transforms Customer Service Experience for Meesho

The products.

Session Smart Router

Our software-defined router provides a flexible, application-aware network fabric that meets stringent enterprise performance, security, and availability requirements. Session optimization, intelligent features, and granular service controls enable the highest-quality routing for diverse applications and services.

Published February 2023

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