Firmex - Customer Service Department of the Year

Company: Firmex, Toronto, Ontario
Company Description: Firmex is a global provider of virtual data rooms where more deals, diligence and compliance get done. Whenever professionals need to share sensitive documents beyond the firewall, Firmex is their trusted partner. Since 2006, Firmex has helped over 140,000 companies worldwide take control of their confidential documents.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Department of the Year

Nomination Title: Small Team Supports Fast-Growing Global Customer Base, and Exceeds Reply Times

How do you become the most trusted virtual data room for mission-critical projects like mergers and acquisitions, compliance and litigation worth billions of dollars in total transaction value? One satisfied customer at a time. Every business day, our clients open over 40 new projects. Our small team, which consists of 10 full-time product experts, assist over 220,000 active product users.

2020 proved challenging for everyone, with the onset of the pandemic and constantly changing dynamics, our support team stepped up to the challenge. Regardless of their own transition to working from home, they continued to provide industry-leading customer service. In total spending 4,434 hours supporting clients in high stakes corporate transactions. Our corporate SLA to respond to a voicemail, email or web form is 15 minutes, and our team far surpassed that in 2020, with a medium reply time of 6 minutes.

Aside from the metrics, quality of service is also important. After every support case is completed, we send out a CSAT (customer satisfaction) survey. Respondents are asked a series of questions, including how satisfied they are. 2020 was no exception, with 99.5% of respondents saying they were “very satisfied’ with the support they received (the other 0.5% said they were satisfied).

These results are achieved through our Product Support strategy, based on the pillars of personalization, communication and empathy/positivity.

Personalization: When dealing with clients, our team doesn’t use scripts. Team members are product experts providing a personalized solution to every user who needs support. Our team strives to understand our users’ specific issue and provide the best solution for each individual person.

Communication: We ensure communication is always ongoing - both between departments and within the Client Services team. This is implemented with daily stand up meetings to share success stories and concerns, within the team and among other departments. By reaching out to other departments and working together, we ensure that the client is getting the best resolution.

Empathy/Positivity: We strive to understand not only what the client is saying but what they are trying to accomplish. Asking questions, listening, and being patient to find the issue and resolve it in the best way for the client. Our team’s focus on empathizing and remaining positive is especially important when a client is frustrated and the stakes are high. It isn’t enough to just resolve the issue; we also strive to stay upbeat and turn a client’s mood around by the end of the call.

Proving our team’s amazing work, here is some of the positive feedback received from our clients:

“Lydia Nguyen was extremely helpful and helped me execute something very time sensitive. She knew exactly what I needed!” - Makayla, Grain Management

“Thank you so much for all the time you spent with me ensuring that I successfully completed what I needed to on Firmex. I appreciate your professionalism, competence, and excellent client service. Indeed, you are a 10 out of 10 in all categories! I wish you the best, and stay safe in these unprecedented times.” - Joseph, Phosplatin Therapeutics

“Kier was amazingly responsive, quick and to the point. Congratulations ! Your hotline and your support team is absolutely fantastic! Thanks a lot.” Eric, Trinity Advisers

“Quick and easy process, no wait time and the agent that helped was able to quickly walk through the answer to my question.” Matthew, Fifth Third Bank

Firmex’s focus on providing truly outstanding customer service 24/7/365 has enabled us to win and retain happy clients, achieve industry-leading client referral rates, and establish ourselves as one of the most widely used and trusted VDR services in the world.

-In 2020: 90% Live pickup on calls Mon - Fri with a median 1st reply time of 6 mins
-0% of SLA’d tickets (not assigned within 15 mins) in 2019 & 2020. (2019: 0.11% / 2020: 0.019%)
-Streamlined the archive order process: online order form, automatic creation of ticket and automatic inventory logging.
-Added additional languages available for training and support - expanded Spanish, added German and in the process of having French
-Created and Improved reporting and KPIs
-Expanded support with the EMEA support team to provide local support and improve service/ shipping times for EMEA clients
-No interruptions in support due to COVID, onboarded 5 new hires since WFH