Fluid Services Enhances Customer Support and Agent Accountability with Freshdesk

Fluid Services is a field service marketing and operations company based in Ohio. The company was co-founded by Adam Butcher and Alex Hallmark, who have extensive experience in the field service industry. Fluid Services was launched to provide service companies with expertise on how to market their services online. The company started working remotely in January 2019, before the pandemic forced other companies to adopt a similar model. Fluid Services is associated with Fred’s Appliance, a Cleveland-based appliance repair and training company founded by Adam’s father.

Fluid Services, a field service marketing and operations company, was initially managing customer queries and requests through a shared inbox. This system lacked accountability and transparency, often leading to a bystander effect where no one took ownership of incoming service requests. The company also faced challenges with their initial help desk solution, Zendesk, which did not meet their growing requirements. Fluid Services also needed to manage their customer support channels more efficiently. Phone support was the most popular but also the most time-intensive channel, and with a fixed number of agents, it was not a scalable solution. The company wanted to push text support but needed an integrated solution that could manage customer interactions across channels.

Fluid Services switched to Freshdesk, a help desk solution that provided features not available in their previous system, Zendesk. Freshdesk allowed the team to track their daily activities and all customer communication, providing agents with greater visibility into their roles and enabling them to offer better support to customers. Fluid Services also integrated Freshdesk with Textline, a leading text support provider. This integration allowed the company to initiate text conversations with customers, improving the adoption of this support channel. The integration also provided the support team with 360-degree visibility into customer interactions across channels, helping them manage it out of a single help desk solution. Despite ticket volumes doubling over the last year, the team was able to manage the increase effortlessly with the integrated solution.

• The implementation of Freshdesk has led to significant operational improvements at Fluid Services. The system has ensured fair and even distribution of work across the team, eliminating the need for close monitoring of agent productivity metrics. The integration with Textline has allowed the company to automate several repetitive questions, freeing up time for other tasks. The company has also created an interactive knowledge base using Freshdesk, providing agents with a constantly updated reference guide. The simplified interface and interactive knowledge base have reduced training times and improved team morale. The technology-driven system has also facilitated cross-team collaboration. The improved support setup has led to positive customer reviews, with customers appreciating the responsiveness and variety of support channels. The integrated Freshdesk-Textline setup has transformed the company's customer support, making the customer journey smoother.

• 50% reduction in agent onboarding time, from 4-5 months to just 60 days

• 2X surge in ticket volume successfully managed with the integrated Freshdesk and Textline solution

• 90 minutes saved daily with the Freshdesk and Textline integration, reducing phone support hours