How Outsourcing Helped a Cashback Alliance Reward E-Commerce Shoppers

Cashback rewards are among the most popular loyalty incentives for both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers. According to industry surveys, 84% of consumers say they’re more likely to stick with a brand that has a rewards program – and cashback is one of the most popular consumer programs.

Our client, a premier online cashback platform, was founded on the principle of building brand loyalty while enhancing the customer shopping experience. This e-commerce cashback platform believes every click holds the potential for rewarding users with added value. Yet despite its innovative mission, the client faced roadblocks with tracking transactions and meeting consumer expectations.

To overcome their challenges, the client partnered with Hugo to outsource e-commerce call center services and other support operations. We leveraged the strategic expertise of our outsourcing teams to help the client scale their customer support and improve the process of tracking and verifying transactions. Our outsourced teams also provided reputation management to help minimize the impact of negative reviews and regain trust.

Let’s take a deeper look at how we helped this dynamic cashback e-commerce program overcome its obstacles and thrive:

Addressing Key Challenges

The client’s core values center around rewarding shoppers and preserving integrity for its e-commerce partners. Unfortunately, as the cashback rewards platform grew, the client’s in-house team struggled to keep up. They were confronted with multifaceted challenges, such as:

1. Digital Attribution

Consumers interacted with multiple online touchpoints before purchasing, which challenged the platform’s ability to track transactions accurately. Additionally, manual receipt reviews were conducted to combat incorrect attribution. This process was time-consuming, with an average of 15 minutes spent reviewing each receipt – and was prone to human error.

How Outsourcing Helped: The outsourcing team implemented smarter attribution systems using tagging and machine learning, helping the company minimize manual reviews and maximize reward accuracy.

2. Redemption Flexibility

Meeting modern consumer expectations for redemption flexibility posed a significant challenge. Shoppers preferred to choose how rewards were redeemed, and the platform’s limited options – such as gift cards or direct cash deposits – revealed a gap between consumer expectations and offerings. This gap reduced user satisfaction and limited the platform’s adaptability to changing market demands.

How Outsourcing Helped: Through customer service outsourcing, the platform was able to gather ongoing feedback, test new reward formats, and launch more flexible redemption pathways. These efforts were supported by a responsive, 24/7 multilingual call center team ready to walk users through their options.

3. Expanding Retailer Network

The platform aimed to grow its network of partnered retailers by 45% to bolster its market presence and diversify shopping options. However, the competitive e-commerce landscape presented significant partnership development and integration challenges, making the expansion complex.

How Outsourcing Helped: A dedicated outsourced support team helped manage partner onboarding, communications, and user education about new retailer offerings. This freed up internal resources and enabled the client’s in-house team to focus on their core competencies.

4. Reputation Management

Safeguarding the platform’s reputation in the volatile online review environment posed a continuous challenge. With over 500 negative reviews each month (20% of all monthly reviews), the company had to proactively manage and respond to user feedback to maintain a positive online presence.

This relentless battle to uphold its reputation highlighted the need for a strategic approach to review management and customer engagement.

How Outsourcing Helped: The outsourced e-commerce call center services team included reputation specialists who continuously monitored third-party review sites. This team responded to negative reviews with care and encouraged satisfied users to share positive feedback. By embracing a human-first approach, the outsourcing team helped the client regain trust in its brand and boost its ratings.

“We recognized the necessity for a partner who could offer not just a tech-forward approach but also deep strategic leverage. Hugo has proven to be that. From the moment we onboarded them, they’ve provided a wealth of strategic, actionable insights,” shared Sophia Martinez, the client’s Vice President of Customer Success.

Strategic Solutions and Key Outcomes

Choosing to outsource e-commerce call center services and other support proved to be a game-changer. The client gained a flexible, tech-enabled partner capable of supporting users, collecting insights, and managing both growth and quality.

Hugo’s outsourcing solutions for the client included:

Enhancing Attribution Accuracy and Verification

We implemented an advanced tracking system to improve the accuracy of digital attribution. This system combined a sophisticated tagging matrix with machine learning algorithms to accurately track user interactions. It ensured that each click on the cashback platform was precisely attributed to its corresponding transaction at the retailer’s checkout.

Our team further introduced an additional quality assurance (QA) layer by deploying a team of analysts who meticulously verified transaction data, enhancing the system’s accuracy. This integration of technology and human expertise effectively minimized discrepancies in the cashback reward system, leading to increased consumer satisfaction.

Adding More Redemption Options

Loyalty programs shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. While some consumers love store-specific gift cards, others prefer direct deposits or prepaid Visa cards. We provided strategic consulting that helped the client develop more flexible reward options. By analyzing market trends and consumer preferences, our team identified the most effective reward options for the client’s users.

We further established a feedback loop mechanism to fine-tune the platform’s rewards. This involved gathering and analyzing user feedback on the redemption process, enabling the client to make data-driven decisions. Armed with insights from real users, the client was able to continuously improve their offerings to meet consumer demand..

Expanding the Retail Partner Network

We also tackled the challenge of expanding the platform’s retailer network. By conducting thorough market research, our experts identified potential retail partners who shared the client’s values and who would benefit most from a rewards platform partnership. We also helped the client develop a seamless onboarding process for new retail partners.

While offering this support service, we launched a targeted email campaign to drive engagement on the platform and re-engage dormant users. By leveraging insights from user data and segmentation, this campaign delivered personalized content and incentives. Users were encouraged to come back and explore the platform’s expanded retailer network and extra rewards options. This drove an influx of new growth.

Proactive Reputation Management

Finally, our outsource e-commerce call center services experts developed a management strategy that combined sentiment analysis with a specialized customer engagement team.

The team proactively monitored and responded to feedback on platforms like Trustpilot, addressing concerns and fostering positive interactions. We also launched a campaign to encourage satisfied customers to share their positive experiences, boosting the platform’s overall rating.

In parallel, sentiment analysis was used to identify areas for improvement, ensuring the continuous enhancement of the platform’s reputation.

Turning Call Center Complaints into Loyalty

Similar to our team’s work on the client’s reputation management, we provided outsourced e-commerce call center services to handle the high volume of support tickets that overwhelmed the platform’s internal team. Our trained agents addressed users who had issues with reward redemptions, transaction errors, and other platform problems.

Thanks to the robust, multilingual support provided by the outsourced team – which included coverage across multiple timezones – the client reduced wait times and experienced a significant drop in complaint escalation.

Key Results

• 40% increase in user participation across the platform.
• 99% accuracy in reward attribution, an increase from the previous benchmark of 90%.
• Customer satisfaction (net promoter score) regarding reward accuracy improved by 35%.
• Addition of 1,500+ retailers within 18 months, a 150% increase vs 45% target.
• 20% growth in user transactions with new retail partners, indicating successful integration and user adoption.
• Re-engaged 25% of previously inactive users, driven by targeted email campaigns.
• ​​Successfully encouraged the submission of 5,000+ Trustpilot reviews within 12 months, elevating the platform’s rating from 4.1 to 4.6.

E-Commerce Outsourcing for Success

Our collaboration with this client demonstrates the power of combining visionary strategy with cutting-edge technology to drive transformative change and lasting impact.

Reflecting on the partnership results, Martinez commented, “Witnessing our strategies come to life and drive such significant advancements fills me with immense gratitude. This journey with Hugo helped us redefine what’s possible in our field.”

Outsourcing e-commerce call center services and other support services gave this cashback platform a strategic edge – offloading complex operations while elevating customer support. By partnering with an outsourcing company like Hugo that understood both the tech and the human sides of ecommerce, the client improved satisfaction, scaled growth, and protected their brand reputation.

What can Hugo do for you? Contact us today and find out!