Case 03 · Conversational commerce SaaS platform

Scaling a new support channel without sacrificing quality

SaaS / Conversational commerce · Designing and scaling a new customer-support channel · Jul 2022 — pilot handoff · via Hugo

90%
Onboarding pass rate vs 60% target
+18%
Productivity above target by pilot end
0.09%
Quality flag rate vs <1% target
57,051
Total pilot sends
The business problem

A brand-new support channel had to launch across dozens of brands on unfamiliar technology, with an aggressive ramp — and speed could not be bought by dropping quality.

The diagnosis

Onboarding, not agent capability, was the constraint: new starters were being asked to learn tooling, brand voice and throughput expectations at the same time.

The intervention

Redesigned onboarding and performance management for the channel: staged certification, brand-voice standards, throughput coaching and quality flag monitoring.

The business impact

Onboarding pass rate rose from 67% to 90% against a 60% target, throughput reached 33 sends/hour against a 28 target, with quality flags at 0.09% against a 1% ceiling.

Overview. The client is a leading conversational-commerce platform, reinventing business-to-consumer communication through SMS. Hugo ran its outsourced customer support pilot, launched 18 July 2022, handling inquiries and approved troubleshooting for dozens of the platform's own retail and e-commerce brands through its CRM.

I served as Team Lead through the pilot with 10+ agents across two onboarding batches, owning training, quality and performance — then stepped up as Operations Manager on the standing post-pilot team once the account converted.

My role
  • Led the pilot as Team Lead over 10+ agents across two onboarding batches, reporting to both Hugo and client leadership.
  • Built and delivered the agent training curriculum, including brand-research “scavenger hunt” assignments across a dozen real client brands.
  • Took over training mid-pilot after an initial 67% pass rate and pushed it to 90% against a 60% target.
  • Owned an 8-category QA taxonomy and the weekly feedback loop that held quality flags at 0.09%.
  • Authored the pilot's Weekly Business Reviews and the final client-facing Post-Pilot Report.
  • Transitioned the account into steady state and continued as Operations Manager on the standing post-pilot team.
The challenge

This was a from-zero pilot: a brand-new CRM agents had never touched, and a client base that wasn't one brand but dozens — apparel, footwear, photography gear, hair extensions, electronics, furniture — each with its own notes, templates and escalation rules.

The success criteria were explicit and aggressive: sends-per-day and sends-per-hour targets that climbed every week, a hard ceiling on quality flags, and an onboarding pass-rate bar the client had historically struggled to hit even at 60%. Speed and accuracy were both being tested at once, on unfamiliar ground, from day one.

What I did

A 5-day, brand-immersion onboarding curriculum

Day 1 covered the Concierge platform and compliance fundamentals through guided tutorials and knowledge checks. Days 2–3 put agents through seven brand-specific research assignments on real client brands, building the research muscle before anything went live, plus hands-on demos of restocks, promo codes, order edits and cart-link features. Day 4 moved into trainer and peer shadowing plus a Slack crash course. Day 5 onward was nesting — live conversations worked side-by-side with a trainer before flying solo.

The client's own pass rate for this process had been 60%; my pilot team hit 67% on that model, and once I took over training directly, the pass rate reached 90%.

QA taxonomy — 8 flag categories
Flag categoryWhat it catches
Abandoned CustomerSkipping a conversation, or asking questions that should have been obvious
Acknowledgement / EmpathyFailing to acknowledge what the customer is experiencing
Critical ThinkingMisreading the issue, or missing nuance that should have been clear
Notes / TemplatesNot using the brand's own notes and templates correctly
ResearchInsufficient research into the brand, product or order before replying
Workflow / ProcessDeviating from the required escalation or handling process
English / Soft SkillsGrammar, structure, tone-matching and personalisation quality
Missed ConversionMissing a clear opportunity to recommend a product or drive a sale

Closing the quality loop weekly

Every week, regardless of which agent was flagged, the whole team reviewed the flags together, plus best-practice syncs with Hugo's top performers and the client's own team. After the first sync, average 'Needs Work' flags per agent dropped 71% week-over-week (2 in Week 3 vs 8 in Week 2), and a later push on note-taking habits and pre-shift brand-update review drove a further 33% drop (14 in Week 6 vs 21 in Week 5).

Weekly ramp — targets vs actualstargets climbed every week
WeekSends/day targetActualSends/hr targetActual
Wk 1100–12013312.5–15+14
Wk 2120–14016615–18+16
Wk 3160–18020820–23+26
Wk 4180–20021623–25+27
Wk 5200–22024726–28+31
Wk 6220–24026328–30+33

Training a second cohort that outperformed the first

By the final week, average sends/hour had grown 136% from where the team started, and total pilot sends reached 57,051 — 13,649 in the final week alone — while the skip rate held at 4% against a 15% ceiling.

Partway through, I onboarded a second batch onto the now-refined training model. Despite starting a week later, Batch B held its own on total output, and its top performer led all agents with 6,207 total sends, finishing ranked #10 on the client's own company-wide leaderboard at 41 sends/hour. A clean signal that the curriculum, not just tenure, was driving performance.

Results — audit summary
MetricResult
Onboarding pass rate90% vs 60% target (from a 67% baseline)
Sends/hour, final week33 vs 28 target (+18%)
Sends/day, final week263 vs 220–240 target
Quality flags0.09% average vs <1% target
Skip rate4% average vs ≤15% target
Total pilot sends57,051 (13,649 in the final week)
Post-pilot steady-state volume308,204 outbound messages; 103,228 closed chats
Results — audit summary
  • Onboarding pass rate60% cap → 90%
  • Quality flag rate against ceiling0.09% vs <1%
  • Productivity targets met or beaten6 of 6 weeks
  • Sends/hour growth across pilot+136%
  • Turned a training process the client had capped at 60% pass rate into one that reliably hit 90%, without lowering the bar.
  • Every productivity target in the ramp plan was met or beaten while quality flags stayed roughly 10x under the ceiling.
  • Handed the QA taxonomy, curriculum and reporting cadence to the standing team intact, rather than leaving it in my own head.

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