BloomNation

And not just any partner.

BloomNation is a two-sided marketplace: a software platform for florists, and an ecommerce marketplace where consumers can buy unique bouquets handcrafted by florists across the U.S.

BloomNation needed a partner that could offer complex technical support to florists, who are often not technically savvy.

In addition, the outsourced team would be serving consumers seeking to purchase from local florists on BloomNation’s ecommerce platform.

Agents needed to be highly technical as well as relentlessly focused on improving the customer experience. And they needed to do it while maintaining BloomNation’s brand voice and being an ambassador of the brand.

“We’re not here to make a quick buck. We want to make sure we’re turning our customers into evangelists,” says Heather Hansen, Director of Customer Success at Promenade. “That’s why we needed a customer support team who is just as crazy about the BloomNation product and provides above and beyond service, the same way that the founders do.”

Peak Support’s partnership with BloomNation began in April 2017.

The Peak team was tasked with serving customers buying flowers, as well as providing front-line tech support for florists – troubleshooting, editing links, updating product listings.  When florists reported a bug or error, the Peak team communicated directly with Promenade’s internal engineering team to explain the problem and ensure it was fixed quickly.

Providing exceptional tech support for a software product comes with challenges. Agents need technical training as well as training on customer service and brand specific topics.

In addition, communication with the in-house team needs to be seamless. This is particularly important for a software company, where the customer support reps typically need to communicate closely with the engineering team.

“When I’m working with an offshore company, there’s always a challenge to ensure communication is strong, especially virtually,” says Heather. “The team needs to feel like a united front.”

That’s why Peak Support asks clients to treat its agents like they would treat any member of the in-house team. Peak Support’s agents learn the client’s mission, vision, history, and brand voice.

Peak Support agents are also on all the same communication systems as the in-house team: Slack, Jira, Asana, or any other platform the client uses. This ensures the customer support team can quickly and efficiently communicate with the engineering team or any other in-house team.

Training is also critical. Typically, the client trains the first group of Peak Support agents on the brand, product, and customer support processes. Then, Peak Support’s trainers take over for subsequent groups of trainees.

At Promenade, Peak Support is now also responsible for training BloomNation’s in-house agents – a testament to the seamless integration of the outsourced team.

“My team would not be able to do what they’re doing without this Peak Support team in place,” says Heather. “We would not be able to see this success or be this strategic, and instead would be in the weeds just playing catch up all the time.”

BloomNation has an extremely high client retention rate of 97%, and a revenue churn goal of <1%. To get to this impressive rate, BloomNation has leaned on Peak Support to do more than just provide customer support.

Adding Implementations, Upsells, and More

BloomNation has tapped the Peak Support team for higher-level services, including implementations, upsells, outbound promotional calls, graphic design and more.

Peak’s agents now serve as “mini account managers” to ensure high product adoption. They are tasked with communicating the full suite of products and seizing opportunities to upsell. The Peak team also produces analytics reports to give florists’ insights on how their websites are performing, and how they can improve.

Because of the results the Peak Support team showed, BloomNation started to use Peak Support for larger strategic initiatives. One of those projects was reaching out to customers to get them to sign up for “BloomSocial,” BloomNation’s new social media content service.

“I know I can rely on Peak Support to take on challenging tasks and have difficult conversations and with a high degree of success,” Heather says. “They proved that we could lean on them for project-based tasks and more strategic efforts.”

Analyzing Customer Insights to Drive Growth

Peak Support is on the front line every day with customers. So they often hear customer insights, including product feedback and ideas for new services, which they communicate back to the Promenade team.

“Through phone support, Peak Support helped us understand what was and wasn’t working from our customers’ perspective and they brought that lens to the entire team,” says Heather.

Analyzing customer insights will become even more important as the company expands.

In 2020, the founders of BloomNation started Promenade, taking their business model and software to other small business verticals.

“Peak will definitely be involved with the strategic plans for Promenade,” Heather says.

“We need to understand how to communicate with these new stakeholders and partners so that we can tap into these verticals and provide the same stellar customer experience but tailored to new audiences. Peak Support will be on the frontline to understand their needs and pain-points, which will help us create roadmaps and priorities. Peak’s voice will be amplified, rightfully so, to help steer what these verticals look like.”

Using Data To Drive Improvements

Peak Support and Promenade are both data-driven, so the team frequently uses data to assess performance and identify areas for improvement.

Peak Support has regular huddles, where they discuss opportunity areas from the previous week. They also produce a customer satisfaction (CSAT) analysis, looking at every negative comment they’ve received on CSAT surveys, assessing what went wrong, and explaining the actions they’re taking to turn the customer’s satisfaction around. The team has also started regular Quality Assurance audits.

“This speaks to the intentional continual growth and improvement. The Peak team is always ready to listen, receive, and implement. Because of what they possess on an underlying level, it has allowed us to see valuable improvement each day,” says Heather.

Poised for Continued Growth

Today, Peak Support is serving tens of thousands of BloomNation customers. But the team has gotten more efficient, so Promenade hasn’t had to add as many reps as they expected. According to Heather, this has been a standout element of this team.

“Peak Support became the heartbeat of our customer experience. They provide a supreme support experience to thousands of accounts and tens of thousands of customers while creating streamlined processes so they’re not reinventing the wheel every time,” Heather says.

With its new brands, and a scalable way to provide exceptional support, Promenade is now poised for continued growth. And Peak Support will be there every step of the way.

• Technical support for enterprise customers
• Account management services
• Software implementations
• Customer support
• Outbound phone sales for strategic initiatives
• Graphic design
• SEO copywriting
• Web development
• Video editing