Spacer provides 2x faster support on multiple channels with Front

Spacer’s support teams use Front to provide 24-hour support across the US and Australia.

Spacer is the premier peer-to-peer marketplace for storage space, connecting people with space to people who need space. Founded in 2015 by Mike Rosenbaum and Roland Tam in Sydney, Australia, the company acquired U.S. space-sharing company Roost in 2017 to help them take on the $27 billion U.S. self storage market, and disrupt commercial real estate across America. Today, Spacer’s business is growing 20% every month and operating in a dozen cities across the US and Australia.

Challenge

Busy people want to get things done fast, and they always have their mobile phones. That’s why CEO and Co-founder Mike Rosenbaum knew it was critical that Spacer implement SMS messaging in their platform to enable real-time communication with their hosts and renters. Spacer managed their SMS text support using Twilio. They also used Microsoft Outlook for email, and Olark for live chat. But they experienced problems with this set up.

Multiple tools led to confusion and inefficiency

The customer support team shared responsibility for responding to email, phones, SMS texts, and chat across multiple platforms and cities. This became very confusing, inefficient, and difficult to manage.

Scaling support was difficult with Outlook

With small customer support team, managing email communications in Outlook was doable. But with incredible business growth and a half dozen people in multiple offices, it was time to explore another solution.

Solution

After Spacer acquired Roost, they learned that Roost had been using Front. Seeing Roost’s streamlined customer support and operational efficiencies, Spacer decided to use Front to manage their customer support as well.

Front has aligned all of our customer communications in one place so that we can offer better customer support. We have faster response times, and can communicate with customers how they want to be communicated with — whether that’s via SMS texts, chat, email, or phone.

– CEO and Co-founder Mike Rosenbaum

Boosted efficiency to get more done

Front has helped Spacer transform their team’s workflow. Using Front’s tags and rules, the team routes customer inquiries to experienced customer service team members who have deeper, more specialized knowledge. Front’s collision detection helps the team from having two people work on the same customer inquiry, which was a common issue using Outlook.

Using the Reminders feature, Spacer’s team can schedule reminders to themselves to follow up on certain requests. Front’s message templates have helped the team quickly respond to common requests.

Collaborating to respond 2x faster

Today, Spacer’s support teams are providing customer assistance 24 hours a day. Team members use Front’s internal commenting feature to communicate with one another and let the next wave of support know where the previous team left off. This smooth hand-off allows the new team to easily take over and deliver a great customer support experience.

Mike proudly says, “Front has helped us respond to our customers twice as fast. Customers rate us 4.7 out of 5 stars for our support.” And he recommends Front to others.

“If your team is looking for an integrated customer support platform and team collaboration tool, you should look at Front. Front worked for our business, streamlined the process, and allowed us to provide a higher level of customer support.”