How Customer Service Outsourcing Companies Helped Online Educators During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic changed how we live, work, and study. For young students, online classes suddenly became a way of life. In the United States alone, 7 out of 10 schools moved to remote learning platforms in early 2020. Due to the sudden influx of demand, many online learning platforms struggled to keep up with support tickets and turned to customer service outsourcing companies.

One company discovered that online multilingual support made a huge difference in their ability to provide services to students. Our client is an innovative education platform that offers a variety of engaging, small-group classes online. It gives kids the unique opportunity to explore their interests in-depth via interactive, live video by experienced, independent educators on topics covered in the traditional school system and out of it.

Like many in the education sector, it needed to pivot its operations strategy during the pandemic. Customer service outsourcing companies were the key to their success during this challenging period. This is a case study on how Hugo’s customer support teams helped overcome its challenges.

The Challenge: Keeping Up with Unprecedented Demand

The platform was founded on a simple but powerful idea: provide a flexible online platform where students of all ages could learn everything from core subjects to specialty interests. From coding to ballet, music lessons to math tutoring, it offers live classes on almost any topic imaginable.

The company saw steady growth, facilitating thousands of online classes globally. But when COVID-19 hit, the platform – like most of us – wasn’t fully prepared. No one could anticipate the sudden shift in educational needs. Enrollment in online classes from EdTech platforms surged.

School closures led to a 150x spike in demand – practically overnight. Although growth is usually something to celebrate, their internal team was overwhelmed. Customer support ticket requests bombarded the company’s support system. As a result of this sudden influx of new users, response times ballooned from 4 hours to a staggering 15 days.

Their leadership knew they had to address this problem right away. After all, poor customer service can quickly impact all aspects of a business. When agents feel rushed to clear a backlog of tickets, they’re more likely to make mistakes or provide resolutions that don’t fully address the customer’s problem. When paired with a long delay time, this can erode a company’s positive reputation.

The Dangers of Poor Customer Service

Without strong, timely customer service, companies may experience:

• Declining customer retention rates: Unhappy customers will unsubscribe or stop making repeat purchases.
• Higher customer acquisition costs: When current customers leave, you’ll need to spend more to acquire new ones.
• Negative word of mouth: People may share their bad experiences with their community, leave negative reviews online, or potentially file complaints with organizations such as the Better Business Bureau.
• Decreased employee morale: When your in-house team is overwhelmed and dealing with unhappy customers, it will affect their performance.
• Vulnerability to competitors: If your competitors discover that customers are unhappy with your support services, they may seize the opportunity to market to them directly and thus steal your market share.

The Solution: Customer Service Outsourcing

“It was a challenging time,” remembers C. Schwabb, Approvals Lead. “We needed to get wait times under control quickly while maintaining our reputation for great customer service.”

The platform realized they needed help, and fast. But there was some initial hesitation about reaching out to customer service outsourcing companies.

To build confidence, Hugo offered its risk-free startup pilot. In just 30 days, Hugo’s team demonstrated deep knowledge of the client’s business, resolving tickets rapidly while maintaining high satisfaction scores.

Beyond sheer competency, the geographic diversity of Hugo’s global operations ensured resilient service delivery – even when other outsourcing regions faced shutdowns. This combination of proven excellence, multilingual customer support, and “always-on” 24/7 reliability gave the platform the confidence to proceed with the partnership.

By selecting Hugo, our client gained a dedicated customer support team to handle their needs seamlessly, no matter the circumstances.

Swift Stabilization: Clearing the Support Backlog

Hugo moved rapidly, constructing a dedicated team to tackle the backlog. Within a week, over 5,000 pending tickets were cleared. In two weeks, customer satisfaction scores exceeded those of the in-house team.

“I was amazed by how quickly Hugo stabilized things,” Schwabb recalls. “They really understood our needs and culture.”

Built for Scale: Meeting Growing Customer Demand

But Hugo didn’t stop there. As demand grew, so did the Hugo team. Agent count doubled in the first six weeks. New workflows reduced response times while increasing satisfaction. Custom training materials targeted frequent customer issues.

Soon, Hugo was handling over 25,000 tickets per week flawlessly. The platform leaned on us for additional customer support needs – teacher verification, content moderation, and escalations.

The Results: Empowering Uninterrupted Learning

“I’m so grateful for our partnership with Hugo,” Schwabb says.

Hugo enabled continuous learning during an unprecedented crisis. By clearing the ticket backlog, Hugo helped the platform scale during a period of hypergrowth and allowed thousands of eager students to finally access enriching classes.

But Hugo’s impact went further:

Starting without templates, Hugo’s team quickly identified key issues needing standardized responses. We proposed comprehensive templates that were implemented by the client.

• Hugo onboarded 110 new agents in just 2 weeks. They built an immersive curriculum that swiftly leveled up support capabilities.
• We instituted robust quality assurance, including daily standups to review issues and enhance knowledge with the internal CX team.
• Hugo recommended an LMS that the client adopted and created the first training modules on the platform.
• We introduced ongoing performance improvements like targeted training, workgroups, and brand guidelines.

Hugo’s work not only addressed the immediate crisis of overwhelming demand but also laid a foundation for sustained growth and excellence in customer support.

Customer Service Outsourcing Companies for Education

Our partnership proved the value of customer service outsourcing for online education platforms. Our adaptable, efficient approach and deep understanding of the client’s mission transformed a challenging situation into an opportunity for innovation and improved service delivery.

Discover how Hugo can help your company with highly trained, skilled professionals across a variety of specializations. Get started today.