Executive Summary
Electric scooters are relatively fast, eco-friendly, and never get caught in traffic jams. With multiple scooter companies in most cities, it is the quality of the product and service that helps one brand corner the local market. With this in mind, Tier decided to create a platform to allow the customer service team to quickly and efficiently solve user issues. No customer service traffic jams.
The company found that the cost of their external SaaS platform for fleet management was getting out of control as the number of devices ran into the thousands. Tier decided to create its own management tools, including a customer support application, for which they turned to ValueLogic.
About Tier
Tier was founded in 2018, the German micro-mobility startup already offers electronic scooters in most German cities and is rapidly expanding to other European countries.
Intentions
- Development of the client’s vehicle management tool, including a key solution - a customer service application
- Enhance its performance for users and the customer service team
- Getting the solution right for the client’s budget
Outcome
- A tool that needs a minimum amount of data to identify the vehicle, the problem and then proceed to resolve it
- Fast identification of devices and users and then completing the ride, unlocking the person renting the vehicle, compensating them for any bad experience
- Very quick communication with customer service to reduce the time to resolve issues
The agility, flexibility and speed of delivery has helped my team to deliver more, better service - quicker. This was achieved by developing our internal tools further plus integrating with industry standards simultaneously.
Thomas Neuschäfer, Head of Customer Support, TIER Mobility
The challenge
- We needed to provide the Tier customer support team with a tool that rapidly identifies the customer and the device in question
- Whether a customer is reporting an issue by phone or by e-mail, the customer support team needs to type a minimal amount of data into the system to identify the specific device and issue, then set to work solving it
Approach
Tier Customer Service agents are the human element of the process we were improving. Over the 4 months it took to create the core application, and in the later improvement cycles, we cooperated with the agents with regular testing, interviews and feedback sessions at each stage of the design and building process. Their hands-on experience guided us as we strove to make the most effective tool.
Close cooperation allowed us to understand the big picture, both of the solution and the company’s philosophy and plans for the future.
Marek, UX Designer and Frontend Developer, Project Leader
Solution
We delivered the working MVP in a short time, at the quality. By working in a practice CI/CD, we were then able to provide Tier with subsequent, quick iterations without disturbing the daily work of customer service agents.
We based the user interface on Typescript with Vue. One of the most important values for the client was high engineering standard, therefore high pressure was put on tests, mostly functional ones with Cypress, and contracts with Pact.io.
Result
We have been able to significantly improve the operation of the customer service team allowing them to identify devices and customers quickly and then end the ride, unblock a user, compensate for the bad experience with bonuses or return an overpaid amount. The company has been able to significantly reduce costs, shorten the queue of customers waiting for help, and improve user experience.
The tool is constantly developing to become more effective and convenient for the Tier customer service team, through integrations such as a ticket system. Instead of switching between tabs, employees will be able to see notifications in the pop-up chat window and enter all the necessary information in a single click.