BrüMate is a premium drinkware and cooler brand founded by Dylan Jacob in 2016. Within six years of operating in the market, the BrüMate team grew and scaled the brand to over $100 million in revenue through DTC (direct to consumers) and retail channels.

In a recent interview with the Gorgias team, Colin Waters, BrüMate Customer Service Manager, shared that their target audiences are young people who often travel and want to improve their drinking experience. This, plus the fact that 94% of their customers shop on their mobile site, has driven the team to prioritize CX (customer experience) and build a customer-centric company. The team constantly focuses on pushing the boundaries on innovation, listening to their customers, and creating and fostering community, as Dylan wrote in their site.

Regarding customer support, BrüMate currently has about 15 agents. According to Colin, their hiring strategy for this position is to find those who align with their CX philosophy and brand values. For the brand, CX is in the middle of everything, and every action impacts customers. By building an A-team of skilled support agents, they can ensure that anytime they get customer feedback, they can assign it to the right agents who are ready to create an individualized customer experience each time.

Let's dive into our interview with Colin and learn more about how BrüMate excelled in customer service and turned it into a profit center.

Moving from Zendesk to Gorgias

Previously BrüMate used Zendesk for customer support. But it didn't offer the features that the team wanted, so they started looking at other platforms. When the team found Gorgias, they were delighted.

Colin shared that Gorgias is "so much more simplified" than Zendesk. But it's not the only reason the team made the switch.

They also love the individual support they get from the Customer Success team. Colin added that their CSM has been helping them a lot and really understands what BrüMate is trying to accomplish.

Here are some of Gorgias' top features that benefit BrüMate team most:

• Gorgias supports integrations with many other systems the team is working on, including 3PL (third-party logistic solutions.
• Gorgias allows the BrüMate's team to give feedback, get involved in testing, and trial new features. "The ability to have a bit of influence and be a part of a product development makes an easy decision for us to put Gorgias our number one platform," says Colin.
• Gorgias allows BrüMate's support agents to handle tickets faster and more efficiently than ticketing platforms they've seen. Previously in 2018, their first response time was about 5 hours and 30 minutes, but today after using Gorgias's live chat, this metric dropped to 1 minute 30 seconds. The team also drove over $9 million in revenue from their support team over the last two years, with live chat bringing the most revenue.
• Gorgias is the best suited for growing teams like BrüMate. "As our company grows, the thing we're looking for isn't having to add extra people but using some of the tools Gorgias has. It keeps our volume to the point where it's manageable for our current team," explains Colin.

Using Gorgias to support retail customers

Retail is one of BrüMate's core revenue streams. The team also uses Gorgias to create better experiences for their retail customers. Help center, live chat, and automation are Gorgias' three most valuable and impactful features they "can't live without."

• The team uses live chat campaigns on products where customers have the most questions. This helps customers who are shopping at retailers when they visit BrüMate's website for more product information. "We never know when someone's going to reach out, and Gorgias' live chat campaigns just help us push that pace."
• Create a help center and make it a learning environment where customers can learn everything about their products and services. The BrüMate team also leverages search engine optimization (SEO) to help customers self serve and find answer faster.

"All of the things that the platform does on a day-to-day basis make our lives easier. And that is why we trust Gorgias to do our ticketing. We're definitely interested and highly invested in the success of Gorgias because it's the success of us."

Colin Waters, Customer Service Manager, BrüMate