The premier destination for cult favourite stationery
About
Led by a passion for design, stylish stationery and the finer things in life, friends Scott Druce and Matt Harris launched the business that would become Milligram in October 2007. More than a decade later, Milligram has firmly established itself as the premier destination for cult favourite brands from pen icons like LAMY and Kaweco, to local and international notebook makers like Rhodia, Clairefontaine, MiGoals, Field Notes and more. Milligram worked with Convert Digital to shape their Shopify Plus development, design and UX, their Gorgias integration and more.
CHALLENGES
Customers who purchase from premium lifestyle brands like Milligram demand premium customer support. Milligram was keen to deliver it, but its efforts were limited by the support system the team had set up, which was essentially a collection of Gmail accounts that were monitored daily.
With an active presence on social media and daily in-depth customer reviews, the brand needed a dedicated representative to answer enquiries in real time. Milligram’s customer service manager, Joanna, was the only team member available to manage all channels and answer enquiries promptly. This process quickly became a major challenge for the Milligram team, and finding an automated solution to help Joanna became a priority.
Beyond workload limitations, relying on Gmail meant that Milligram had no insight into key customer service metrics such as number of inbound tickets per day, week, or month, average response time per ticket, average resolution per team, or percentage of escalations required.
During the 2020 lockdown Milligram was forced to close five retail stores and move its entire in-store business online. Ticket volume leapt from 600 enquiries a month to more than 1,000.
Milligram was able to pivot in-store personnel to online customer service. While the extra hands were helpful, multiple team members using the same Gmail credentials for ticket response quickly turned unmanageable. The biggest challenges for Milligram was tracking who was responsible for each ticket, whether a ticket was even assigned to a representative, and how much time had elapsed before a resolution. The Milligram team found it challenging to provide the customer service its shoppers deserved.
SOLUTIONS
Milligram partnered with ecommerce web design and development agency, Convert Digital, to help the brand migrate from Magento 1 to Shopify Plus in 2020. Convert Digital helped manage the migration and redesigned the frontend of Milligram’s online store. The brand experienced immediate improvements with the new website, lifting conversion rates by .8% and average transaction value by $8.00.
While working with Milligram the Convert Digital team uncovered the challenges the team experienced while relying on Gmail to handle its daily customer service enquiries. Convert Digital partnered with the Gorgias team to help Milligram automate its customer service processes. “Convert Digital really set us up to succeed,” explained Ginger Valentine (Digital Editor, Milligram).
Simultaneously launching a new site, dealing with a bump in sales and tickets, all while learning a new customer service platform is a daunting proposition. But the Gorgias team made it a seamless transition for Milligram. “I was a bit concerned about learning a new system on top of doing my job at the same time, but I didn’t really come across any issues. I had some sit-in sessions with the Gorgias team, where I learned about macros, the snooze function (which snoozes tickets that are awaiting a customer response), and other features I now use daily. We had all the support we needed to get going really quickly,” said Joanna (Customer Service Manager, Milligram).
Gorgias assigns a unique ID, and every ticket is assigned to a member of the Milligram team, eliminating the confusion and redundancies that were part and parcel of Gmail.
“I create macros whenever I see patterns in queries and it allows me to get back to customers really quickly,” said Joanna.
"Gorgias for me has been a real game-changer. I’ve gone from hopping between multiple gmail tabs and accounts to now having a single user friendly platform for accessing and responding to queries easily. It has fundamentally improved what I do on a daily basis. And also making the customer experience as good as it can be. ”
Joanna, Customer Service Manager
81%
Increase in first response time
88%
Tickets tagged
33%
Increase in one touch tickets
SEAMLESS INTEGRATION INTO MILLIGRAM'S TECH STACK
Gorgias’ API offers a seamless and instant connection to a brand’s full tech stack within minutes. Utilising this functionality the Milligram team can centralise all support tickets across Shopify Plus, Yotpo reviews, and its full social media suite including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The Milligram team can now provide a stellar and instant customer experience by leveraging the centralised solution.
“I get a notification if a customer uses one of those channels to ask a question about a specific product, and I get a notification from Yotpo in the inbox if there are any reviews pending a response. I can respond to all from within Gorgias,” said Joanna (Customer Service Manager, Milligram).
Since implementing Gorgias the Milligram team is an efficient machine. Automating its customer support allowed the team to relaunch its Friends for Life loyalty program, which led to numerous enquiries from customers about account status. Effectively answering these enquiries was never possible prior to Gorgias.
“It’s been really cool to see the customer account panel on the side. I can see their status level instantly and make changes faster,” said Joanna.
“The main benefit of Gorgias is the way it enabled me to improve the overall customer experience. Now that I’m not spending as much time swapping between gmail tabs and hopping on to different social media platforms I have a lot more time to just jump in and help out with queries and I’m finding it’s really helpful to be able to contact customers quickly.”
Better Insight, Better Customer Experience
The Gorgias dashboard provides ample insight into how the customer team is performing. Now that Milligram can track incoming ticket volume, time to response, and time to resolution, the team has been able to establish benchmarks and goals. The end result has been a significantly improved customer experience for the brand.
