Behind Tokopedia Care’s 100% WFH: 1-Year of Delivering the Impossible!
It was early March of 2020 when Indonesia announced its first case of COVID-19. Since then, there have been rapid shifts in consumers’ lifestyles, purchase patterns, and consumption behaviors. Not only for buyers, but it was also a wake-up call for businesses (sellers/merchants) to adapt and reiterate their ways of interacting and engaging with their customers (i.e.: physical distancing, work-from-home policy, etc.) and shifting to online.
During this unprecedented time, the customer’s experience and trust are determinant factors for businesses to make or break, even though all team members were overwhelmed by feelings of panic at the beginning of the pandemic. The Tokopedia Care team must always be ready at the frontlines of customer service, matter what, to provide users (buyer, seller, and partners) with the best possible service.
The customer interaction traffic in customer support channels spiked during the first 3 months of COVID-19. I did expect that it would stabilize after 3–6 months to the level prior to the COVID-19 crisis. With all of my optimism, I also thought the curve would flatten after 6 months. The key reasons for the spike included:
- Purchase patterns & customer behavior changed almost permanently (they pushed to do so). Many new buyers and sellers were newly exposed to this online commerce mechanism and processes.
- Massive growth in several product categories due to new behavior related to enhancing life skills aside from health categories or essentials, i.e. cooking, home improvement, games, and hobbies.
- Local lockdown at that time limited the mobility and speed of sellers and couriers to deliver products ordered by customers on time which caused an increase in the number of complaints.
The number was tremendously high — customer interaction traffic from all support channels stabilized at a 70% increased level. It was considered a “normal” increment given the transaction level for some categories had also increased by more than 3x. During this time, all of Tokopedia’s campaigns focused on onboarding local SMEs, and on buyers namely to provide them with everything they needed to make them feel safe at home during the pandemic. However, for the customer operations team, it’s a super huge challenge to deal with. Why?
At that time I still remember it being the second week of March 2020. I only had a short time-frame to decide on the biggest changes in our operations, namely to implement a100% Work-From-Home (WFH) policy for the customer operations team. I wouldn’t have been worried if it was only a few hundred members of the Customer-FIRST Squad team (the title for our customer service front-liner), but we had to make sure this process worked for 1,000+ employees, running in 3 cities (Jakarta-Semarang-Yogyakarta), encompassing 100+ processes and policies, with an advanced cloud-based CRM system connected with multiple APIs, whereby all new methods of monitoring and security processes was imperative. During those moments, hiring, moving and transitioning from one service to another, and from one city to another, was not as easy as prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For your consideration, during the thinking and prepping phase, the customer service process can never stop. It must be ON all the time, 24/7 at our best performance. I cannot say to customers that because of the pandemic our service level will be lower. In fact, the increase in inquiry traffic, elevated customer tension due to increased panic and physical restrictions, interacting online was their only choice.
Moreover, during that time, I also had to ensure the safety and happiness of the entire team. Otherwise, we cannot expect them to deliver a whole-hearted service experience. I had some conversations with team members of all levels, and they mentioned that professionalism and a “focus on consumer” is in their blood, but the situation was difficult and scary, as it brought a lot of uncertainty to them and their families.
Why is deploying WFH in Customer Operations so difficult?
A bit of background for the general audience, if you’re a contact center and customer engagement practitioner, you’ll know how difficult it is to deploy work-from-home operations. If you know someone, ask them. Most people say — why is it so difficult?
Traditionally, this people-heavy operations rely on offline floor management, heavy on-premise infrastructures with security and control mechanisms inside the call center wall, and most importantly the mandate to deliver almost 100 percent forecast accuracy between incoming customer traffic and resource allocation including productivity level per staff, sometimes up to a very tight time interval.
The impact of messing with those variables can be devastating. It could create a massive backlog that will be carried over to the next hours or shift. It’s like a snowball rolling down from the top of the mountain getting bigger and more intense, going increasingly fast until it triggers a killer avalanche. There are also concerns related to data security, power outages, and poor internet service which varies from one CS staff’s home to another, as mentioned by Bruce Einhorn and Siegfried Alegado in the article released by Bloomberg dated 11 June 2020.
These are the main reasons and risks for which the majority of companies still decide to have their customer operations team work from the office, while letting the non-operations team work from home, with modifications to the occupancy to maintain seating distance and comply with COVID-19 protocols.
Personally, when making the decision to shift the team’s operations to remote-based, I was also at a crossroads. I was aware of the risks, both related to the security and our operational performance. However, I believed that the health, safety, and happiness of the team was the utmost priority at that time. I never differentiated the team members working under Tokopedia or with the BPOs, as I see the team as a family with whom I shared the same level of love and attention.
I was also informed of several process and technology improvements prepared by CEx Tech & Product teams, the security hardening process was already in the pipeline, security shields were installed in our Salesforce CRM, along with some initiatives to support the team’s well-being such as Service Culture & Engagement programs, access to dedicated online medical staff, and internet cost support agreed upon with our BPO partners. All the support made it much easier to work remotely, as I believe only a “healthy and happy team can create happy customers!”.
WFH roll-out
I will share more in this section on the behind the scene in the period of 6 months before the pandemic, that really made the 100% WFH roll-out easier, smoother, and faster (2-weeks time only):
- A successful project named “Nakabunda”
Nakabunda is a project dedicated to housewives who decided to leave their careers to focus on their familial duties. I believe these women still have a chance for self-actualization and can continue to contribute to their family and community. So, the Customer Excellence team enabled them to remain part of our Customer-First Squad by working from home, and continue to serve Tokopedia customers. This initiative was very well received by our female Nakama. It also allowed us to maintain a large team during WFH. . For more details on the project, please read this article. - In January 2020, Tokopedia Care switched from a channel-based to a service-based operations model. This transformation changed the team’s work from being generalists to specialists. So, one service line, such as marketplace support (PG), has a more in-depth knowledge and serves many customers from multiple channels, resulting in their ability to solve problems with fewer contacts. This reduced the team’s number of interactions with the customers and helped us manage the traffic spike during the pandemic, without increasing our headcount.
- Bring our automation capabilities to the next level.
Boosting our automation capabilities allowed us to learn from customer feedback, as well as improve our intent, flow, and algorithm. The bot serves more complex problems than just regular FAQ. It is connected to transactions, payment, and even delivery-tracing APIs. It is capable of doing what their human peers previously did, such as process of refunds and returns, delivering SLA & Tracking troubleshoot, among others. Currently, the bot serves more than half of the load before it reaches human Customer-First Squad members. - Empower our social media strategy from reactive care to (proactive + protective) engagement
Social media is not just a complaint-handling space, but also a “perception plus customer advocacy” playground. Customers love to be engaged and involved in the conversation, or act as an army to report and help other customers. Tokopedia shut down thousands of shops that sold health category products at an inflated price, for which Tokopedia was made aware by a customers’ report Find more details about how Tokopedia Care manages our social media by reading this source. - The Customer Engagement Hub
Launched in Sept 2019, The Customer Engagement Hub has revealed the meaning behind customer’s words as well as NPS and CSAT metrics, allowing us to better understand the social sentiments and prioritize our actions accordingly. Find more details about how Tokopedia runs a customer-centric culture through this link. - Strong support from our IT enterprise, IT security, and Office Management teams
The highly collaborative culture at Tokopedia during WFH has been very supportive. The IT Enterprise, IT Security and Office Management teams spent day and night preparing all security measures, infrastructure, and making equipment upgrades to prepare and enable the Customer-First Squad to work from home.
Challenges of “WFH”
Working from home did not come without its challenges. As the pandemic was something we didn’t anticipate, in the beginning, we weren’t prepared.
The employee NPS and employee/CFS motivation score dropped in Q2 of 2020, but thankfully a dedicated unit within the Customer Excellence team spent most of their time thinking about service culture and employee engagement on our partner’s sites. All of our initial focus and programs were aimed at uplifting employees’ motivation and help them remain focused on handling customers regardless of the internal and external challenges faced by the team.
The Service Culture & Engagement team deployed all employee happiness programs in Q2 of 2020. This increased the eNPS to an even higher level than Q1 of 2020 (before COVID-19). An increase in employee motivation is truly a testament to our Focus on Consumer DNA and #OneTokopedia spirit. Many programs put in place were beyond my imagination and expectation, and the team’s excitement truly helped us deliver the same level of happiness to our customers, reflected by strong customer satisfaction scores, even at an increasing NPS trend for Tokopedia. You can find more details about how the team maintains their happiness level through this article.
Another almost impossible achievement during the pandemic was the transition process of more than 70% of the Tokopedia Care offices’ capacity from Jakarta to Semarang (404 Kilometers distance) without any service disruption to customers. It was completed on time, with a super-detailed transition, development, and preparation processes. Moreover, the Tokopedia Care office in Semarang was officially launched and greeted by the Governor of Central Java, Ganjar Pranowo, and Vice Chairman & Co-Founder of Tokopedia, Leontinus Alpha Edison in December 2020. Read more about the office opening it in this article.
Every single story mentioned above was proudly presented by the Tokopedia Customer Excellence Team at the Contact Center World — Top Ranking Performer Awards 2020. During this occasion, Tokopedia won the Gold Medal in “The Best Home Remote Agent Program” at the Asia Pacific level and also the World level. This ultimately proved that we are capable to operate at a world-class level. Considering the Contact Center World — Top Ranking Performer Awards is one of the most prestigious events in the CX and contact center industry, Tokopedia Care’s recognition during the award was truly humbling.
1 Year of “WFH”
Today, 16 March 2021, marked our 1-year running our Work-From-Home operations with more than 1,000 people in our Customer-First Squad, from which our automation and digital chatbot learned many valuable lessons from complex and unpredictable situations. These learnings and operating model has shown a glimpse of the future of customer contact center operations, including things like on-demand workforce, a more agile and self-organizing team, hybrid workforce management, remote crisis management, fully flexible hours vs full-time, online frontliners triage, asynchronous vs. synchronous handling model, service-based vs. channel-based, omnichannel vs. channel assimilation, among others.
At this moment, I can say that nothing can replace a pat on the back or physical meetings to motivate the team, and nothing can fully replace the emotional connections you make working together in one office space.
Nevertheless, as a leader, managing and motivating a more remote team will never be easy, but I believe that trusting and empowering my team is currently my number one priority, in order for Tokopedia to continue to deliver the best possible experience for all of our users, without exception.
Happy 1-year of work-from-home to all Nakama, frontliners, and professionals in Indonesia!
Stay healthy and happy!!
