June 28, 2023
TLDR: oxio was averaging one Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) customer service agent per 1,240 subscribers, while onboarding ~20 new customers per day. Six months after onboarding gaiia and implementing end-to-end automation, oxio's CSR team averaged one FTE for over 1,600 subscribers, while onboarding approximately 120 new customers per day, and was progressing towards achieving one FTE for 2,000 subscribers.
oxio is a digital-first ISP in Canada that focuses on providing exceptional customer experience, transparent pricing, and accessible internet to Canadians.
From 2019 to 2022, oxio scaled from 0 to 50,000 customers, becoming Canada’s fastest growing ISP, while also achieving an average rating of 4.7/5 stars (planhub), and being recognized as Canada’s best-loved ISP.
‘Customer experience’ wasn’t just a buzz word used in oxio’s website copy; oxio’s customer service team had a First Response Time below 5 minutes, while covering three different time zones across Canada (PST, MST, EST) from 8am-10pm, seven days of the week, in two languages (English & French).
oxio faced two main challenges due to its rapid customer growth. Firstly, the customer service team was overwhelmed with routine customer questions, requests, and set-up tasks, leaving them with less time to focus on high-value tasks. Secondly, as the customer base grew, oxio was unable to achieve cost efficiencies in customer service due to the constant need to hire and train new employees to handle routine tasks and customer onboarding. It became clear to oxio's leadership team that their existing processes and systems were inadequate for achieving the necessary economies of scale for profitability.
In June 2022, Oxio decided to migrate all its data to gaiia and integrate the frontend customer checkout with the backend operating system. This integration brought immediate benefits, especially in the areas of customer onboarding, package modification, and service cancellation tasks.
gaiia’s fully integrated & customizable online checkout allowed for oxio to automate the entire provisioning process for new customers from addresses validation to network integrations & technician scheduling (Read more about the gaiia checkout, and how it increase oxio’s conversion rate by 6x here). The updated journey reduced the workload of an average CSR’s by 40mins per new customer. This was especially important, as oxio was adding more than 120 new customers per day during peak seasonality.
gaiia’s white-labeled customer portal was implemented, allowing customers to make subscription modifications themselves; resulting in approx. 100 fewer email tickets per month & turned a 15min task for the CSR team into a fully automated workflow triggered by the client. One of the most critical features of package modification operation was the integration with gaiia’s billing system, so that any change to a customers subscription was immediately reflected in their account, and automatically pro-rated for their monthly invoice.
The oxio client portal also allowed customers to cancel their subscription, and through a few short survey questions (Date, Cancellation Reason, & Address Info Confirmation) the gaiia backend system would be able to schedule the service’s end date, pro-rate the customers invoice, and email a return shipping label with instructions. Not only did this significantly reduce the workload for CSRs, but oxio found that offering an easy-to-use client portal helped reduce churn. Read how oxio reduced churn by 25% here.
With gaiia's customer account dashboard, agents gained the necessary context to address customer inquiries, provide personalized service, and make account changes seamlessly. Key features such as active subscriptions, equipment details, next billing dates, communications history, and a timeline of previous events empowered agents to deliver efficient and effective customer service.
By having immediate access to information about a customer's active subscriptions, representatives could quickly understand the services the customer had and address any inquiries or issues related to them. This allowed CSRs to provide accurate and timely assistance, reducing the time spent on gathering information and increasing the speed of response.
The customer dashboard provided details about the equipment associated with a customer's account, such as modems, routers, or other devices. This information enabled representatives to troubleshoot technical issues more effectively by referring to specific equipment configurations or identifying potential hardware-related problems. By having this knowledge readily available, agents could provide more targeted support, resulting in faster resolution times.
From a single interface, CSRs can view customer invoices, payment history, and upcoming billing cycles allowing them to quickly identify billing & payment issues. The streamlined access to billing data enabled CSRs to provide customers with relevant information about their billing cycle, payment options, or upcoming charges, ensuring a smooth customer experience and minimizing delays in addressing billing-related concerns.
The communications tab in the account dashboard showcases all previous messages & invoices that oxio has sent to a customer. This feature enabled representatives to have a comprehensive view of past interactions, including emails, chats, or phone calls. By reviewing the communication history, agents could quickly grasp the customer's context, understand previous issues or requests, and avoid asking repetitive questions. This streamlined approach significantly improved response time and demonstrated a personalized level of service to customers.
The timeline of previous operations provided a chronological overview of significant activities or changes related to the customer's account. It could include information such as service activations, plan upgrades or downgrades, technician visits, or any other account-related events. Having this timeline at their fingertips empowered representatives to have a contextual understanding of the customer's journey with oxio. This knowledge allowed them to address inquiries or issues more efficiently, as they could refer to specific events and provide accurate information or assistance without the need for additional follow-up questions.
Overall, gaiia's customer dashboard and its ability to automate core operational functions eliminated the need for representatives to switch between multiple applications or systems to gather information and trigger updates. As a result, oxio’s CSR team experienced on average a 30% reduction in first-response time and a 43% decrease in overall resolution time for all customer tickets 🤯.
By providing agents with instant access to relevant customer data and a comprehensive overview of account details, representatives were equipped to deliver personalized and efficient customer service, contributing to oxio's exceptional customer satisfaction ratings and its reputation as the best-loved and highest-rated ISP in Canada.
Within six months of implementing gaiia, oxio achieved a remarkable 29% increase in operating efficiency, measured by the ratio of total subscribers to full-time customer service agents. Prior to gaiia, oxio had one full-time equivalent (FTE) customer service agent for every 1,240 subscribers. After implementing gaiia, this ratio improved to one FTE for every 1,600 subscribers and was well on its way to one FTE for > 2,000 subscribers.
To illustrate the cost savings, a detailed cost analysis was conducted, comparing agent costs before and after implementing gaiia. The analysis demonstrated the significant impact on customer service salaries as subscriber ratios improved. For instance, at an average salary of $65,000 (average between customer service and tech support) and 50,000 subscribers, the difference between managing 1,240 subscribers per FTE and 2,000 subscribers per FTE amounted to almost $1,000,000 per year.
The above metrics don’t consider the additional costs savings oxio recognized by lowering their rate of hiring new CSRs, and the training & onboarding associated with each new agent.
To illustrate the cost savings achieved through this efficiency gain, we created a cost savings analysis that compares agent costs pre-gaiia and post-gaiia.
In order to see the impact gaiia can have on an ISPs bottom line, we’ve created data table to illustrate how many CSRs would be needed at each Subscriber/FTE ratio (along to top) and the total number of subscribers the ISP has (Along the left hand side).
The next data table multiples the number of CSRs by $65,000 (the average oxio CSR salary) to show the total annualized salary expense that an ISP will spend at each Subscriber/FTE ratio.
In conclusion, oxio, Canada's fastest growing ISP, faced the challenge of scaling their customer service operations while maintaining exceptional customer experience and cost efficiency. By partnering with gaiia and leveraging its automation capabilities, oxio successfully transformed their customer onboarding, package modification, and service cancellation processes. This resulted in a 29% increase in operating efficiency, significant cost savings, and improved customer service metrics. With gaiia's integrated platform, oxio's customer service team was able to handle rapid customer growth, deliver personalized service, and maintain their position as Canada's best-loved ISP.
June 28, 2023
