For this customer case we went to Epplejeck in Drachten. Epplejeck is the largest equestrian shop in the Netherlands, once started at the kitchen table with the goal to change the image of the equestrian industry. How they have done this can be read in this blog!
Out with the corny
When Epplejeck entered the market, the image of the equestrian sport was very typical. There was a lack of bright colours in the assortment, often aimed at the professional rider and this resulted in a limited assortment. With this in mind, Epplejeck started to conquer the market and change the image of the equestrian branch for good.
In order to achieve this, they also had to do a lot in the area of customer service. At Epplejeck, the goal was to come across as very personal when it comes to customer service. This resulted in a young look of the company. The ultimate goal is to give the customer the feeling that he has actually been helped when he hangs up the phone.
The informal atmosphere allows the passion of equestrianism to come across well. Everyone in customer service shares this passion too, and this ensures that everyone has the insight to solve the customer's problems. In addition, this passion provides the drive needed to complete all these conversations.
Favourite Belco feature
Rixt and Marije's favourite feature is the quick response. It allows you to set a standard text that you often use in a conversation. The risk of these standard texts is that it can seem impersonal. Marije has a tip for that. "The trick is to go through this text every once in a while and give it a makeover. This applies to all texts, by the way. Also the texts in the widget and the automatic answers in the app.
The reason that they often use the quick response is because it takes a lot of time to have to type out pieces of text every time. Epplejeck is known for their super fast service. In a normal situation, the customer should be fully assisted within 2 hours and the problem should be solved. For such a large company, this is a huge challenge, but Epplejeck succeeds in this 90% of the time. A large part of these conversations consist of warranty requests, returns and customer questions. Especially with the first two, the fast responses are often very useful because the correct information is always requested.
Physical shop & online shop
At Epplejeck, they are very proud of their physical shops, and with no fewer than 15 branches, with two more on the way, they should be. Many customers like the fact that physical shops are available. "That way the customer takes you much more seriously." So says Marije. The reason for this is that customers are more likely to order if there is a physical shop nearby. If there is something wrong with the product, they can always drop by physically. In addition, products are often delivered to the physical shops. This way, the customer can drop by to see what the product looks and feels like.
They also have Belco open at the checkout to see if there are still certain conversations open with a certain customer or to read back if a customer has a problem and indicates to have had contact before.
Personal shopping experience
Epplejeck is currently experimenting more and more with personal shopping. For example, they want to use the livechat much more for questions about products during shopping. In this way, the customer service agent can offer very personal assistance via Belco. Tip from the author: Another function that ties in with this is, for example, cobrowsing. This allows the customer service agent to look along with the customer. This way they can look for products together and the customer service agent can give advice in the meantime.
Epplejeck is a pioneer in this because it does not happen very often at the moment. They have recently opened from 4 to 9 in the evening on Sundays, because many customers do not have to work then and are looking for horse articles in their spare time. The idea for personal shopping arose at another of their shops, horsefitshop.nl. Here, they give a lot of advice to customers via chat, because this often concerns sick horses and the customer often does not know what to do about it.
