Fashion brand Everlane and logistics company Happy Returns share a vision: innovating the way consumers shop and interact with retailers. So they paired up, and together they’re redefining customer service with the help of Slack.
From same-day delivery to the creation of an app that offers weather updates along with clothing suggestions, Everlane entered the scene as a different kind of retailer. Happy Returns recognised that dissatisfied shoppers prefer to make returns in person – and really like immediate refunds – so they set up Return Bar® locations in shopping centres and stores across the United States.
The two companies meet in a Slack channel, a secure space where customer experience teams from both sides come together from all across the country to exchange information, solve customer issues and escalate any tech glitches in real time. When customers visit a Return Bar® location, Happy Returns ReturnistaTM assistants can contact central support staff, who in turn get in touch with Everlane employees via the Slack channel to get answers to questions and complete returns.
‘Having channels means that the setup is so much easier, especially for our vendors if they’re already in Slack. I can definitely see us moving pre-existing relationships into Slack.’
‘One of the biggest benefits of having channels is using Slack to communicate with vendors with their timely requests, since email would not be very helpful if there’s someone waiting with a product to return,’ explains Alenduff.
Prior to setting up their join channel, Everlane and Happy Returns resorted to a mix of email and Slack guest accounts to communicate between different subsets of people. As a result, collaboration among teams – and internally – was disjointed at times, and it took longer to resolve customer issues.
Now, in their joint channel, Happy Returns associates can easily reach the Everlane team if they’re having trouble finding a product or customer in their system, post photos and relay customer questions, and alert them of any glitches in the system within seconds.
‘Channels have increased our ability to collaborate and the level of transparency,’ says Andre Julien, Manager of Operations at Happy Returns. ‘We’re able to solve customer issues a lot faster.’
