CPM and Zendesk deliver AI-driven CX excellence for New Balance

CX outsourcer continues to innovate the customer experience

As a premier contact center provider, CPM International knows the importance of great customer experience more than most. The company is an award-winning multi-channel, multi-language partner, specializing in bespoke CX solutions for many household name clients in a wide range of market sectors. A host of well-known brands such as New Balance, Harley Davidson, Hackett London, Pepe Jeans, and Façonnable partner with CPM to receive everything from consumer care lines and eCommerce support through to first-line technical support and order management. Whether it’s through traditional or digital channels, CPM aims to be an extension of the businesses it serves by offering bespoke solutions.

The company currently employs approximately 2,500 full time staff working across 12 global hubs, including two multilingual Contact Centers that serve the EMEA region in Bratislava and Barcelona (which recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary).

CPM has partnered with global sports brand New Balance for 5 years and uses Zendesk Suite, including Explore, Support, Talk, and Messaging, Zendesk WFM (formerly Tymeshift), and Advanced AI. The partnership has seen year-on-year growth and expansion into new markets, necessitating the addition of a new hub in Davao, The Philippines, to help cater to their client’s needs in the APAC market. The use of Zendesk is noteworthy because of the shared emphasis placed on giving the customer the best service possible and removing all the necessary barriers to make that happen.

Innovating with AI

“CPM is all about innovation,” says Lorenzo Puca, Global Client Delivery Manager at CPM. This is true for all of the company’s business, but for New Balance in particular CPM saw an opportunity to introduce new tools that would help the brand to enhance the way it services its customers.

New Balance was growing quickly and needed a way for that growth to continue to scale while still offering quality service. CPM rolled out Zendesk Advanced AI tools on behalf of the customer, initially as a pilot scheme and was very pleased with the results.

“I was at an event hosted by Zendesk and heard AI being discussed,” says Lorenzo. “I wanted to onboard it for our customer to boost efficiency. Right from the beginning, we could see the benefits that AI brought. For example, with the AI Summarize feature, our agents are able to get up to speed quickly on the status of each case they’re working on, so cases are resolved faster.”

On the back of the successful pilot, CPM has now taken Zendesk Advanced AI tools for the customer on an ongoing basis. As well as Summarize, CPM is benefitting from Agent Assist, especially for its ability to convert formal responses to informal responses to customers, and Expand, which has increased the quality of communication with customers by 6 percent and reduced the number of mistakes. Also, since implementing Advanced AI, average handle time has fallen by 30 percent and CSAT has increased by 3 percent.

Going digital

An important aspect for both CPM and New Balance was their ability to offer support wherever and however customers need it. Increasingly, that means digital channels because that’s where they’re customers spend more and more of their time.

“We’re moving from the classic chat widget to Messaging because that will allow us to use WhatsApp, which further enhances CX by being where the end customers are,” explains Lorenzo. “If a customer starts a conversation but then has to leave for whatever reason, when they come back online, we will still have the full conversation available. This gives better continuity and added flexibility for the customer.”

The move to Messaging, as well as an update for the web widget will enable CPM and its customers to be able to provide market segmentation. This means when a query comes in, it will be easier to see where in the world that ticket originated from and offer relevant support for that market. This makes customers feel more like the support they are receiving is tailored to them.

The blueprint

This sportswear brand is just one of CPM’s many customers, some of whom also use Zendesk. When CPM and New Balance started working together, the brand was already using Zendesk but CPM decided to start from scratch so that it could build an instance of Zendesk that it could fully customize to get the most value out of it. Now, this instance of Zendesk is the most talked about among employees at CPM.

“This instance of Zendesk is now considered a blueprint for how our business should work with Zendesk,” says Lorenzo. “That’s because of the digital pathway we’re taking and the innovation journey we’re on. Now, when we talk to new or existing clients about the technology we can use with them, we find ourselves referring to the way we’ve worked with Zendesk on this project.”

A valuable part of the successful implementation was the working relationship CPM has with Zendesk.

“Achieving is a part of our DNA, and CX always comes first,” says Lorenzo. “Reducing costs is good but the customer has to always be the priority. Zendesk helps us reach this goal because they’re always making improvements that have a direct effect on CSAT. They understand what we need.”