d.code: 20% Higher Repurchase Rate Over Competitors

d.code: 20% Higher Repurchase Rate Over Competitors

The Problem

High-end products require a greater amount of involvement in the purchasing process so d.code needed a way to handle communication with customers effectively.

The Solution

Channel Talk’s Support bots allowed d.code to focus on customer service and solve customer pain points by listening to the VOC (voice of the customer) which resulted in a 20% higher repurchase rate than competitors.

Check out our interview with d.code’s CEO Joon-Young Jung as he talks about his journey starting a luxury e-commerce brand.

Death Valley - 3 Years of Business and 12 Failed Projects

What is Death Valley?

This is the stage where of a startup before generating revenue and its where CEO of d.code, Joon-Young Jung, found himself in after using up almost all his investment money after starting his businesses.

In order to dig himself out of the valley, Joon-Young attempted 12 projects - and they all failed.

Do Luxury Buyers Want Lower Prices?

Joon-Young, however, wasn’t ready to give up.

"I started asking myself the important question. ‘What do customers really want in this market?’

“Paradoxically, luxury buyers want lower prices.”

I realized at this point, that we needed to solve a very simple problem, and that was price sustainability."

Joon-Young was also aware of another critical issue that luxury brands faced, which was high inventory risk.

Products left unsold meant potential losses for these brands, and relying too heavily on discounts and sales posed the risk of damage to the brand image and value.

Starting a Pre-Order Business

“Holding onto the last bit of hope, I was able to acquire about 100 pairs of Italian sneakers from the brand Buttero and sold them on a ‘pre-order’ basis.

Everyone was against the idea.

But surprisingly, our company made the same amount of sales within 16 hours that would have normally taken a month! We also did this with very little advertising.

I knew that this was what would save d.code.”

Even in the face of complete failure, Joon-Young was able to come up with a way to solve two seemingly unrelated issues with one simple solution:

→ An advanced order placement system he called, 'Pre-order'

“Pre-order is a service where you can order famous overseas brand collections at a reasonable price, one season earlier during Fashion Week, and receive the items on the official release date. It’s not the conventional way of buying already produced inventory.”

Solving Inventory Problems in the Luxury Goods Industry

“In the end, I believed that if this system worked, we would be solving inventory issues within the industry, while also maintaining price sustainability for our customers.”

How d.code Utilized Channel Talk

So how exactly does Channel Talk fit into the picture?

With luxury goods fitting into the ‘high-end’ category, it was absolutely essential for d.code to actively engage customers and provide sufficient information about the products and the processes involved.

1) Creating an Offline Customer Experience Online

💡Channel Talk’s live chat feature helps you talk to your online customers as if they were walking through your offline store

“In essence, we wanted to make our customers feel as though they were getting assistance the same way they would if they were shopping physically in the stores.

When you visit an offline store, a clerk comes and asks, ‘Can we help you?’ ‘What kind of products are you looking for?’ “

“I wanted our customers to have the same experience and Channel Talk enabled us to do just that.”

2) Easy Tag Management

💡Channel Talk’s CRM system provides operators with a rich database of information on customer behavior so you can be fully prepared when starting a conversation.

For d.code, having access to customer data through Channel Talk’s CRM meant that customers no longer had to wait for the right staff to be contacted and then forwarded to the customer, eliminating the usual steps prevalent in traditional CS processes.

“It was very useful when recommending products to customers.

Information on what products they’ve looked at, what purchases they made, or how they responded to specific promotions, were all recorded in Channel Talk’s database.

We could also see the total number of incoming inquiries and the types of inquiries received through its ‘tag’ function.

This allowed us to approach customers prepared with the right information.”

3) Support bots During Busy Season

💡Channel Talk’s Support bot feature helps handle influxes of inquiries during busier times by providing answers to FAQs.

When a new item or season was introduced, d.code also faced challenges of fluctuations in the number of incoming inquiries.

“The amount of daily inquiries averaged around 100 to 190 when it was busy.

It was impossible to answer all of these inquiries without hiring more staff if we had to handle them by phone or email.

Questions wouldn’t get answered, which inevitably would lead to customer complaints.”

Using the support bot system and customizing it to answer frequently asked questions, d.code was able to focus more of their attention on the more difficult questions and provide better quality service, even with the limited staff they had.

The Result? 20% Higher Repurchase Rate

Channel Talk’s customer-centric approach helped d.code improve customer satisfaction, and since using it as an integral part of their CS process, customer repurchase rate has also increased significantly.

“In fact, our repurchase rate is at least 20% higher than that of other competitors. The effort we put into customer engagement definitely played a big role.”

“Our repurchase rate is 20% higher than competitors.”

Advice from d.code’s CEO

“I think one of the best decisions I’ve made in d.code was introducing Channel Talk into our business.”

I have reviewed and used a lot of different customer service platforms, but among them, Channel Talk was the most customer-focused, and for many online businesses, customer engagement is so important.

I think it’s a good product that you can pull out and use for any company that’s contemplating customer needs.

When you start a business, your goal is to grow your business, so you need to make decisions considering the future, not just the present, but 2-3 years from now. 

Ultimately, the amount of CS inflow will inevitably increase in proportion to the growth of the business. 

I believe that Channel Talk is the tool that can operate CS most effectively while maintaining customer satisfaction.

 I would like to highly recommend Channel Talk to all companies aiming for growth from a long-term perspective! In particular, if you are an early-stage startup doing B2C business, adopting Channel Talk over other solutions will greatly help your business!