Damage, errors and service in an online furniture business

An online furniture retailer was seeing an unsustainable level of items arriving damaged, order errors reaching customers, and a customer service team spending too long on each call resolving avoidable problems.

The three issues were connected. Damaged and incorrect orders were driving a large share of the call volume, and slow calls were, in turn, delaying the fixes that would have prevented the next one.

We reviewed packaging specifications and carrier performance with suppliers, renegotiating terms and packaging standards where the data showed damage was avoidable rather than incidental.

Order processing was audited end to end to find where errors were entering the system, and the steps most prone to mistakes were tightened or checked twice before dispatch.

Customer service scripts and escalation paths were simplified so agents could resolve damage and error related calls faster, without needing to pass customers between departments.