How Ola Tech, a refurbished electronics marketplace, builds customer confidence through excellent support with SleekFlow

Introduction

Consumer electronics producers like Apple and Samsung launch new products every year, wooing tech-savvy customers with cutting-edge technology and immersive functionality. Unfortunately, the success behind these tech companies comes at a price, creating more electronic waste when people ditch their old yet perhaps still functional devices.

Asia is the region that generates most of the electronic waste worldwide, according to a Statista research. To reduce e-waste and cultivate trust and desire for renewed devices, Ola Tech, a marketplace for refurbished electronics goods, provides a platform where reliable, sustainable, and long-lasting green electronics are sold with a warranty of up to 1 year.

Used good sales are nothing new, but some people are still skeptical about the quality as scams do happen. Therefore, Ola Tech utilizes SleekFlow to deliver the best customer support via different channels, ensuring inquiries are answered and complaints are heard. Eric Pong, Co-founder and COO of Ola Tech, comments on how SleekFlow has helped them get closer to their goal.

Co-founder Eric Pong (Left) and Co-founder Peter Lam (Middle)

The significant challenges Ola Tech once faced

Scattered conversations on various social platforms

In an increasingly digitized world where e-commerce is booming, conversational commerce (or chat commerce) has never been more important as messaging apps are now the preferred means of communication. Ola Tech, like many other companies, has a presence on various platforms, including the most popular instant messaging application, WhatsApp. How to provide prompt customer service on multiple platforms in addition to phone and email becomes their priority.

Inability to collaborate and lack of scalability 

What makes excellent customer support is offering a solution to customers in a short period of time with empathy. But it cannot be done without the right tool. As WhatsApp Business App does not support multiple logins, Ola Tech knew from the start that they needed extra help for scalability in the long term so that team members could work together. What they also needed was a solution to standardize replies and respond to messages in a timely fashion instead of keeping notes in a file and sharing them among colleagues.

Distinct disadvantages of email communication

Business-to-consumer communication does not confine to customer support. Transactional messages and marketing materials are also delivered to customers on a regular basis. Owing to the low cost and accessibility, email is usually the default method to connect with customers. Nonetheless, as the landscape continues to evolve, the disadvantages become more visible. Ordinary consumers do not check email frequently and sometimes emails go directly to spam folders. As a result, those transactional messages and marketing materials become unheard and it is a situation that Ola Tech tries to avoid.

How SleekFlow offers an all-in-one chat solution

A centralized platform to manage all messaging channels

While global internet users use 7.5 social platforms actively each month on average, it is unwise to bet on just one platform. The ability to manage WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram in just one place was the most important feature that Ola Tech was looking for. With SleekFlow, they can now merge all channels into an easy-to-use platform, providing efficient customer support in real-time. A centralized platform with a user-friendly interface enables them to review all conversations at a glance.

Multiple logins to team up with co-workers

Ola Tech sees the potential across the Asian market so they have been eying on expansion and growing their team. In order to collaborate better, they are now using SleekFlow which supports multiple logins to access their WhatsApp Business API account. When team members are assigned a conversation, they can add collaborators to the same chat to receive shared notifications and respond to messages.

Quick replies and automated messages to shorten response time

Facebook lists out the response rate and response time of Pages and they do matter as speedy customer support is the first step to winning their hearts. To shorten the response time, Ola Tach now has set up quick replies, standardizing the answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs).

But the values that SleekFlow can bring are more than that. The automation feature allows users to send an auto-reply if an incoming message contains specific keywords. They can even add wait time, e.g. 1 minute, to send another message for the conversation to be more natural. After using SleekFlow, the response time is reduced by 50%. Ola Tech is now looking into building a chatbot as well in the hope of automating their workflow and reducing repetitive tasks.

Chat marketing to nurture customer loyalty

Ola Tech has put more focus on chat communication in their daily operation now. One of the most common inquiries they receive from customers is about the delivery status which is usually sent via email. Knowing that customers tend to read text messages, they now send updates and shipment tracking numbers on WhatsApp to make sure that shoppers will not miss the vital information.

Another step they have taken is to utilize these instant messaging tools for marketing purposes. Using SleekFlow, they can send broadcast messages with fewer limitations instead of sticking to email direct marketing and achieved a doubled open rate and boosted sales by 20%. It proves that chat marketing is more effective and a better solution for customer relationship management, attracting repeat purchases, nurturing customer loyalty and increasing customer lifetime value.

About Ola Tech

Launched in 2020, Ola Tech is the first e-commerce marketplace for refurbished electronics with a 1-year warranty in Hong Kong. The platform offers a wide range of renewed devices including iPhones, Android smartphones and laptops with high quality and affordable prices. Since its launch in 2020, Ola Tech has sold more than 20,000 refurbished electronics with a less than 3% return rate. With a mission to maximize the reuse and recycling of electronic devices and make refurbished electronics the new normal in Asia, it plans to expand to Southeast Asia this year to grow continuously.