9,000 tickets cleared in 11 days.
Corrie & Fell came to us six weeks before Black Friday with a backlog their own team could not clear. We cleared it with 24 agents in Cebu, then stayed on.
| Sector | Outdoor footwear, online and 40 stores |
|---|---|
| Team | 42 agents, 3 team leads |
| Studios | Cebu and Bogotá |
| Services | Customer support, back office |
| Client since | 2021 |
Six weeks out, nine thousand behind.
Corrie & Fell sells walking boots and trail shoes in the US and Canada. A warehouse move in September 2021 delayed thousands of orders, and their in-house team of eleven went from answering in hours to answering in days.
By mid-October 9,000 tickets were open and the median first reply was 31 hours. Most were customers asking where their order was, and many had already written twice. Black Friday was six weeks away.
“I ordered these boots three weeks ago for a trip on Saturday and nobody has answered my last two emails.”
Found them in Reno. They arrive Thursday.
Joel Abellana, Cebu · replied in 7mWhat we set up.
One team on Corrie & Fell’s tools and policies, with the authority to fix things on the first reply instead of escalating.
| Team | 42 agents, 3 team leads, 2 QA analysts and Ana Ferrer as account lead |
|---|---|
| Studios | Cebu (24 agents) and Bogotá (18) |
| Hours | 7 days, 6 am to midnight US Eastern |
| Channels | Email, chat, Instagram and review replies |
| Languages | English and Spanish |
| Tools | Zendesk, Shopify, their returns portal and a shared Slack channel |
| Authority | Refund or reship up to $150 without asking |
Week by week.
From the first call to where the account stands today.
- Week 1Read the backlog
We sampled 1,200 of the open tickets and sorted them into 31 contact types. Two thirds were “where is my order”.
- Weeks 2–3Hired and trained 24 agents
Most came from our Cebu bench of trained agents. Product training covered fit, materials and the warranty, and every agent passed Corrie & Fell’s certification.
- Week 4Started on the oldest tickets
Oldest first, with an apology macro and a $150 refund or reship authority so agents could close without escalating.
- Week 5Backlog cleared in 11 days
The last of the 9,000 was answered on 14 November, ten days before Black Friday.
- Week 6Black Friday
Contacts tripled for four days. Median first reply held at 14 minutes.
- Month 8Bogotá added
A bilingual team for Spanish and the US evening. It started with 12 agents and is now 18.
What changed.
Before: Corrie & Fell’s own figures for October 2021. After: the weekly report for 15 to 21 September this year.
- Median first reply
- 9 minfrom
31 h - Customer satisfaction
- 94%from
81% - Cost per contact
- $3.95from
$6.40 - Tickets open at 9 am
- 240from
9,000
“We went into Black Friday nine thousand tickets behind and came out of it with the best satisfaction scores we had ever had. We stopped thinking of them as a vendor about a month in. The weekly report is the most honest document I get from anyone.”
Two more client stories.
Got a backlog you can’t clear?
Tell us how many tickets are open and how old the oldest one is. A person who runs teams replies within one working day.