This autumn, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Klium webshop— ten years during which our customers can choose from a massive assortment of tools and accessories and over 200,000 products at the moment! You’d think it can’t get easier, but there’s more to it than just packing and shipping. And who better to discuss this than our customer service colleagues? Els and Stefanie interact with customers daily through phone, WhatsApp, chat, or email. They discuss their work and the sometimes humorous situations they encounter as the first point of contact for queries and issues.
Conversations with Stefanie and Els are often full of joyful laughter as they recall tales from their daily practice — points to the relaxed atmosphere at Klium’s offices, where the entire team works in an open-plan environment. “We all sit next to very different people, but there’s no one you couldn’t enjoy a pint with at a pub,” says Els. It’s also very convenient to have the right expert practically sitting next to you when a customer has a question.
Els and Stefanie’s workday starts at eight. The first task is to handle cancellations. “You do get people who order something at midnight and then decide at 6 am that they don’t want it after all.” Then the chat opens. Chats and WhatsApp messages are prioritized, with emails answered in between. “When you get a chat, many initially think they’ve landed a robot. The way we write or speak in chats is just the way we are; we don’t spout standard lines. ‘We’re glad you’re not a robot,’ is a comment we sometimes receive.”
There’s a solution for everything.
One of Customer Service’s tasks is handling complaints, and of course, when things go wrong sometimes, this leads to angry calls. How do they handle this? Els says: “Sometimes you do get angry customers, but they’re typically a bit panicked thinking they won’t get what they’re entitled to. Often, it’s about packages not arriving. Only a tiny percentage genuinely get lost, and in most cases, they end up with a neighbor or at a collection point. We almost always sort it out. Yes, some customers are never satisfied, but they’re few and far between. People can have off days, and sometimes it’s directed at us. But most of our customers are genuinely lovely.” The feeling is mutual. “How come Klium always has such cheerful ladies, and I can’t find any?” lamented one customer.
Stefanie recalls an instance where an order went wrong in an unusual way. “We had a customer who ordered a level, a very long one of two meters. The customer wasn’t home, so the driver removed the packaging from the level and pushed it through the mail slot in the door. So, when the customer returned in the evening, he couldn’t enter his house. Luckily, he found it funny.”
Common questions
Most of the questions Els and Stefanie receive are about delivery times. “We stock a lot ourselves, but holding 200,000 products in stock is impossible. The biggest challenges we face are product-related questions. If we don’t know, we consult our contacts at major brands. They often provide solutions quickly as they know their products better than we ever could. For instance, if someone inquires about a good angle grinder, our first question is: what will you use it for? You could offer an angle grinder, but if it’s not powerful enough for the customer’s needs, it’ll be back for repairs within a month, pleasing no one. Our advice: ‘Put one in the cart, and we’ll take a look, but we won’t make direct recommendations.’ Customers can ask us anything, and if we know, we’ll certainly tell, but in most cases, we’ll refer them to someone who knows the correct answer.”
“Our role isn’t to sell,” is the concluding remark of our conversation with Els and Stefanie, “We’re here to assist our customers, and we genuinely enjoy doing that every day.”
