How Blenders Eyewear Is Making Waves With Aircall

Catching waves in the morning, playing volleyball in the afternoon, and heading to a gig at night is just a typical day for your average SoCal local. And as anyone with an active lifestyle knows, you need the right kit to keep up.

That’s why San Diego-based Blenders Eyewear created affordable sunglasses for the adventurous and bold. Their shades are both practical and stylish, so you can go from the beach to the club and let your accessories do the talking.

Reaching point break

Blenders takes meticulous care of its customers, offering highly detailed fit and style guides as well as a support team that puts customer satisfaction above all else.

But customer care isn’t always easy when you’re a scrappy start-up. Lexi Horn, Blenders’ Director of Customer Success, explains, “When I first started here, I was handed an iPhone 4. We were logging calls in Zendesk, but because we were bootstrapping everything, it was all very manual: listening to voicemails on this and making calls out on that. It’s just really difficult to have everything run smoothly when everything is so disconnected.”

Blenders realised that the best way to deliver great customer service is to make sure their team is looked after. “We want our employees to be happy, and we're happy when our customers are happy,” Lexi continued.

It was important for Blenders to find a solution that would not only make them more efficient in serving customers but help prevent employee burnout as well.

Partnering up

Blenders first looked to Aircall for a more reliable and sophisticated phone solution but were really impressed with Aircall’s customer service.

“Aircall actually wants to develop a relationship with you. There’s no hidden implementation fee, and there’s an onboarding manager guiding you on everything. It was just so refreshing to work with that kind of partner,” Lexi explains.

Since working with Aircall, Blenders has been using the Zendesk integration, allowing them to quickly get context on customer issues and resolve support tickets faster. The Zendesk integration also lets them transfer calls internally to the right team member and use features like call monitoring as learning opportunities.

“Being able to record calls – I know it sounds simple but being able to download calls right then and there, and then send recordings to someone else for context instead of writing a page full of notes is just a much quicker handover.”

When the Customer Success team is freed from manually logging support issues, they can dedicate more time to their customers. While business operates through a variety of communication channels, Lexi knows that the phone offers a unique experience.

“You can really get to know the customer so much more. You can develop a personal relationship, understand someone’s style – it's great when you have a conversation with someone, and honestly, you can just solve issues so much faster. There’s not as much back and forth.”

The right shades are stylish all year round, but Blenders knows that business is seasonal, too. Whether they’re hitting the slopes in winter or riding waves in summer, people are keen to look the part.

But without the right systems in place, even these expected seasonal swings can be hard to predict. Support can quickly scale from 15 to 60 people in busy months, making forecasting a complex and delicate challenge.

“I can see exactly how many orders we have in a month and actually break down expected versus existing cases and how many minutes someone will be on the phone. We know how many people will need to work certain hours in the day. I can see that 70% of our calls might happen right as we open, so we know we need to staff up in the morning. And the reason why I know all of that is because of Aircall. I have all these metrics right in front of me, and that's really opening us up for success.”