OFM. focuses on continuous CX optimization with Zendesk AI and pluscloud

From local shop to national fashion chain

Since founder Piet Feenstra opened the first OFM. store in Reusel, Brabant, the company has experienced strong growth. With a clear ambition and a striking approach, the fashion brand, now led by his son Arthur, has expanded to 25 stores.

In 2011, a now busy online store was added, receiving an average of 12,000 orders each month. This growth meant that the customer service team also had to evolve. Under the leadership of customer service manager Jessica Beverloo, the department focused on automating and standardizing processes, while always keeping a personal touch at the heart of their transformation.

From Outlook to Zendesk: more efficiency in customer contact

Initially, the service team, which now consists of four employees, worked with Outlook to answer customer questions. However, partly due to the large number of repetitive questions, this was not scalable. The use of categories and priorities didn’t fit the realities of daily operations and was therefore discontinued.

During the search for a new, more scalable solution, various alternatives were considered. Eventually, the choice fell on Zendesk. What made the difference was the ability to manage the platform on their own, along with smart tools that help answer customer questions more quickly and efficiently. The fact that Zendesk offers the opportunity to constantly innovate, including the addition of new channels and AI features, was a huge plus.

OFM. offers various channels for customers to reach out to, which consist of email, a webform, WhatsApp, Messenger, chat, and voice. “These plus all questions from external sales channels such as Bol.com’s marketplace are now all in one spot within the Zendesk platform,” says Beverloo. “The goal is to solve each customer question within a maximum of two hours during opening hours. An important step forward in optimizing our service was setting up a knowledge base with the help of the Zendesk partner pluscloud, whom we have collaborated with since 2021. This is continuously enriched, among other things, with answers to customer questions and information about special promotions.”

“We previously had an FAQ section on our site, but it was not very extensive. With our knowledge base, we enable customers to solve their questions themselves via self-service.” According to Beverloo, this offers an advantage for both OFM. and for the customer, “Customers don’t have to wait for a response, and the service team has time to focus on more complex questions.”

Every question is a chance to optimize

pluscloud plays an important role in optimizing customer service at OFM. “You’ll notice that they have a lot of experience and that they understand our business processes well. Together, we continuously look at what the next step should be and how we can serve customers even better,” says Beverloo. “Every question is an opportunity for us to optimize. The real challenge is actually to prevent questions from coming in at all.”

The deployment of Zendesk’s AI solutions plays a major role in this. For example, repetitive tasks are automated with smart workflows so that the team can work more efficiently. pluscloud first implemented Zendesk copilot, which supports the service team by automatically generating responses that match the desired tone of voice. Then Zendesk AI agents were added, a tool that answers customer questions directly. The knowledge base that OFM. has developed is an important source of information that feeds both solutions.

“With AI agents, we can grow along with store expansions, online growth, and revenue without extra personnel costs. The goal is not to make the service team smaller, but to help more customers, faster and better. In doing so, we also use the insights Zendesk gives us from the data. For example, we can easily see in the reports where the largest volumes of questions lie and what possible bottlenecks are. That way, you also know where the most impact can be made.”

Fewer questions about returns thanks to integration with Returnless

For OFM., major benefits were achieved by streamlining questions about returns. Thanks to pluscloud’s integration of Zendesk with Returnless, customers can now easily track the status of their returns, resulting in significantly fewer questions. Moreover, the use of AI reduces pressure on the team. Like returns, delivery time questions represent the bulk of OFM.’s customer inquiries, a volume that will hopefully be handled by AI agents going forward.

Beverloo is also enthusiastic about copilot’s added value for the service team: “With the auto assist feature, answers to questions are automatically prepared for us, so all we have to do is review them. Copilot may not always solve the question, but it also helps to save time with triage, like asking for the order number or determining the nature of the problem. We can then immediately get started with a solution.”

Reaction time accelerated by 96%

Thanks to Zendesk and ongoing optimization in collaboration with pluscloud, OFM. has made great progress in serving customers more quickly and efficiently. During opening hours, the average response time has been accelerated by 96 percent–from 5 hours to a mere 12 minutes. Now, 60 percent of customer questions coming in through chat are answered by AI. This saves the service team about 105 minutes per day.

Beverloo’s next mission would be to integrate more data into Zendesk. This mainly concerns data from legacy systems, meaning the availability of APIs is essential. She also sees possible value in using a voicebot in the future. “Customers are becoming increasingly digitally skilled and we must respond by continuing to optimize our service.”

Confidently growing further together

OFM. also wants to focus on smartly using the possibilities of AI to remain personal and striking, and be able to handle the growing number of questions with the same team. This is important given the company’s ambitions, which reach beyond just the Netherlands.

“With Zendesk and pluscloud, we have the perfect partners for that,” says Beverloo. “From the beginning of our collaboration, Zendesk has proven itself as an innovative partner in innovation and development. I never felt that we ran into limitations; everything we wanted turned out to be possible in Zendesk. With the guidance of pluscloud as our sparring partner, we can confidently continue to grow together.”