America's No. 1 financial conglomerate

Chapter 482 Problem Arises

The conference room of Flashbuy Company has now been temporarily transformed into the strategic decision-making center.

The air was thick with a mixture of tension and anticipation. The floor-to-ceiling windows sliced ​​sunlight into irregular patches, which fell on the long table covered with a dark gray velvet tablecloth. The scattered documents on the table, the still-warm coffee cups, and the tense focus in everyone's eyes all silently spoke of the special significance of this day.

Today marks the official launch of the flash sale platform. All senior managers have gathered here to form an efficient and collaborative decision-making loop, ensuring that operational issues are identified and solutions are communicated quickly to address any unforeseen circumstances that may arise in the early stages of the launch.

The wall directly in front of the conference room was completely occupied by four spliced ​​display screens, with the data jumping on the screens as vivid as a pulse, presenting various data since the launch of the flash sale platform.

Website traffic is steadily increasing at a rate of hundreds per minute, the curve of user registrations is rising sharply, transaction volume shows a significant increase after each refresh, and the click heatmap of different product categories clearly marks the focus of consumer attention.

"Our dual-engine marketing strategy of low price and novelty has been very successful. The market feedback has far exceeded our expectations, and we have successfully captured consumers' attention." Ake Meier's tone revealed his satisfaction with the marketing results.

"According to the latest data from our partner Google Ads, the exposure of our subway ads has exceeded 50 times, covering core commuter lines in major cities. The reach of our supermarket poster ads has reached 82%, and our flash sale ads can be seen on TV and other media at any time. Many users are also discussing our ads and website on the Internet."

He paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the traffic data on the screen, and added, "Based on the current data growth rate and user behavior analysis, today's website traffic will most likely exceed our previously preset target, and the user conversion path will also remain within a healthy range."

Sitting at the head of the long table, Affili nodded slightly, but his gaze remained fixed on the constantly fluctuating transaction figures on the main screen. He straightened his tie and gave the order in a firm tone, "The market's enthusiasm has formed a positive cycle. We need to seize this opportunity to expand our reach. Immediately increase the advertising budget, optimize the Google Ads campaign matrix, achieve full market penetration across the United States, and ensure that every potential consumer knows about the launch of the flash sale platform."

The flash sale is currently well-funded, with the $6.8 million raised by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund still sitting in the bank, giving the entire flash sale a strong foundation.

With the platform experiencing explosive growth immediately upon launch, there's no reason not to increase advertising investment to consolidate the current positive situation and lay the foundation for future user retention and market share expansion.

Ak Mel nodded to indicate that he understood. "I will contact the major GG vendors we are cooperating with to discuss increasing the amount of GG available."

Afeier withdrew her gaze from the screen, the joy that had appeared on her face due to the increase in data instantly vanishing, replaced by a calm scrutiny.

On the first day of the flash sale, in addition to the good news, many problems inevitably arose.

The surge in user traffic in a short period of time far exceeded the estimated scale before the platform went live. Although the server cluster deployed in advance by the technical department withstood the impact of the traffic peak with its elastic scaling mechanism and there was no system crash or data loss, the page response speed has been significantly delayed, and the page loading time has increased by about 1 second compared to the initial stage of the launch.

However, the technical team withstood the pressure and narrowly escaped disaster, but the customer service team almost collapsed.

It can only be said that Ernst's choice of these two blockbuster products was extremely successful. They accurately targeted market gaps and instantly stimulated consumers' desire to buy.

However, both pet supplies and furniture belong to emerging consumption scenarios. Consumers lack mature online purchasing experience and have many concerns about product quality, size compatibility, after-sales service, and other aspects.

eBay is probably the only company in the US with experience in selling these products online.

However, eBay primarily uses an auction model, and the goods are mostly second-hand or unused items. But flash sales feature new products, which naturally makes consumers more cautious and leads to a surge in inquiries.

As a result, a barrage of inquiries followed, and the entire customer service system is now on the verge of collapse.

Originally, we had planned that customers' questions would mainly revolve around electronic payments and inquiries about returns and exchanges.

Therefore, the customer service staff for the flash sale were divided into groups, with most employees dedicated to answering these two questions.

But accidents always happen unexpectedly. Flash sales hit the nail on the head with electronic payments and returns, but who could have imagined that there would be so many other inquiries?

Looking at the endless stream of messages and the numerous questions on them, the customer service staff handling other issues must be about to explode with frustration.

According to data from the customer service system backend, the average waiting time for each reply from customer service personnel has exceeded 20 seconds. A large number of users send duplicate inquiry messages while waiting, further increasing the system load.

The pop-up consultation windows on the screen were like an endless tide; for every reply, ten new ones would immediately pop up, leaving no time to catch one's breath.

"The customer service response time has exceeded the user's tolerance threshold, and we must take immediate intervention measures." Ak Meier's tone was tinged with helplessness. "The popularity of the flash sale has exceeded all contingency plans, and there is no time window to organize customer service training. We must think of some solutions."

If customer service issues lead to customer dissatisfaction, resulting in user churn or the spread of negative word-of-mouth, all previous market investments and operational achievements will be wasted, and may even affect the platform's long-term brand image.

"What are your thoughts?" Affil asked, looking at the other person.

Ak Mel looked at the heads of various departments present and explained his solution: "My suggestion is to have the technology department connect all office equipment in the company to the customer service system backend, coordinate with various departments to select employees in non-urgent positions, and temporarily supplement them to the customer service team to handle basic inquiries."

Afeier frowned, somewhat worried, and asked, "The temporarily assigned staff haven't received professional customer service training. How can we guarantee the quality of their responses? If this leads to customer complaints, won't that just exacerbate the problem?"

"I think there's no problem. We can mitigate the risks through a tiered response mechanism." Ak Meier quickly explained the details of the plan: "Establish a problem classification standard. Define issues that require professional knowledge as Level 1 inquiries, which will still be handled by the professional customer service team. When temporary staff receive such inquiries, they only need to transfer them to the corresponding customer service team."

"Non-technical questions, such as inquiries about product details, are handled by temporary staff."

"From what I've gathered, most of the questions consumers ask fall into two main categories: one is about detailed product information, where they don't look at the product details page and directly ask customer service."

"Everyone can answer this question; the answer is on the item details page."

"Another large category is those who are worried about the quality of the product. These users just need to be reassured."

"Even if we encounter a problem we don't understand, simply saying hello and asking the customer to wait a moment shows our attitude and buys time for professional customer service to follow up. It's much better than making the customer wait idly."

"That makes sense." Afei nodded, then decisively ordered, "Do as you say. I'll have the entire company cooperate with you."

"Another issue is that the training of customer service personnel must be accelerated."

Seeing Ak Mel nod, Afiel turned to Ernst, who was sitting silently to the side, and asked if he had any additional suggestions.

Ernst's gaze fell on Mar, the director of the technology department. "Mar, could the technology team urgently develop an intelligent pre-response function for the customer service system? When a user initiates an inquiry, the system should not wait for human intervention but should immediately and automatically send a standardized message, such as 'Hello, your inquiry has been received. Customer service personnel are processing it for you as quickly as possible. Please wait a moment. Thank you for your patience.'"

"Great idea!" Ak. Meyer's eyes lit up, and he immediately chimed in, "Although users still have to wait in essence, automated responses can create the illusion that the flash sale platform is solving their problems immediately. This will effectively alleviate anxiety during the waiting process and reduce the probability that users will give up on their inquiries or develop a negative impression due to a lack of feedback."

Mar quickly assessed the feasibility of the feature development and responded confidently, "From a technical perspective, the development of this feature is not difficult. The technical department can develop it quickly based on the existing system framework, and it is expected that the feature can be launched and tested within 3-4 hours."

The customer service issue was resolved, while Darzel walked in from outside the office with a somber expression.

He went out to answer a phone call just now, and Ernst could tell from the expression on his face that something must have happened.

"What happened? Is there a problem with the logistics and delivery?" Ernst asked as he approached.

"There was a problem with the offline delivery."

Seeing Ernst's bad expression, Dahlzel quickly explained, "It's not a problem with our delivery, it's with Wshop."

"There's a surge in offline delivery orders in one area of ​​Chicago. A neighborhood convenience store called Willison has run out of a certain item, and their inventory can't keep up with the demand."

"Normally, the goods should be sourced from the nearest WShop store, but the Willison store insisted on restocking from another Willison store seven kilometers away, and made our delivery riders pick up the goods, which led to the dispute."

Ernst instantly understood what was going on, and his voice blared with barely suppressed rage as he yelled, "What the hell is going on? This is only the first day and it's already like this! What will happen later?"

Many of WShop's chain stores are not wholly owned, so they still use the original brand names. Naturally, the owners of each brand store want the stores in which they have a stake to sell more products, which is why this situation occurs.

"Has Massim lost his mind? Is this the result of their integration? They only know how to integrate, but don't they know how to manage?"

Ernst's voice rose slightly with anger. "I've repeatedly emphasized that user experience must be the core focus in the initial launch of flash sales, and all partners must unconditionally cooperate with logistics scheduling. Is this how they cooperated with me?"

After finishing his tirade, Ernst asked, "Have you notified WShop?"

Dalzel shook his head. "I just found out about this; I haven't informed them yet."

"You don't need to worry about this, I'll inform them," Ernst said, waving his hand.

Dahlzel was naturally pleased with this, and he had this intention in mind when he came to report the matter to Ernst.

After all, his words didn't carry enough weight, and he couldn't possibly make any serious statements to WShop.

But Ernst was different; when he unleashed his fury, he would immediately launch into a tirade of abuse.

Don't forget, the Garfield family business is one of the major shareholders of WShop.