Company
4 min read
How We Think About Customer Experience at Pimento
Sait Cham
WMS support doesn't need to suck. Here’s how we think about customer experience at Pimento.
Time and time again, when customers switch to Pimento from systems like Mintsoft and Orderwise, one of the top three complaints we hear is about the lack of support they experienced.
We've built the most flexible and dynamic WMS for brands and 3PLs, but we strongly believe great customer support is just as vital as the software itself. The WMS is the heartbeat of operations, often switched on before the warehouse lights are even turned on. If someone relies on you to keep their business ticking, you have a duty to always be there for them.
Finding the Pimento Sweet Spot
We thought long and hard about how we wanted to approach this. We knew we didn't want to be like Allbirds, prioritising great support at the cost of efficiency. And we didn't want to be like Deliveroo, prioritising efficiency at the cost of great support. So we set out to find our own sweet spot between the two.
Here's how we do it.
We Call It CX, Not Support
We think of support as an extension of our product and a chance to reinforce our brand. That's why we call it customer experience (CX) rather than customer support.
When we build Pimento, we aim to add touches of thoughtfulness, care and small moments of delight. We believe every customer interaction should feel just as considered. By framing it as CX rather than CS, we're pushed to think about how customers feel before, during and after they reach out, not just whether their problem got solved.
Everyone Does CX
At Pimento, talking to customers every day is the best way to understand the challenges they face and build the best product possible. That's why everyone on the team, regardless of role, regularly joins the support rota.
As companies like Mintsoft and Orderwise have grown and been acquired, their communication with customers has become more limited. We want to build a culture that's completely against that from the very start, everyone should be excited to talk to customers.
We Don't Do Tickets
We do use a ticketing system internally to manage and organise requests. But we never make customers fill out a form and wait three days for a response, only to receive an auto-reply.
We want it to be genuinely easy to reach us. Customers can contact us via live support from within the Pimento platform, WhatsApp, phone or email. We also hold bi-weekly catch-ups with all our customers, giving them a regular space to share feature requests, raise challenges or get help onboarding new clients.
Unlike the incumbents, we don't see support as a cost centre. We see it as a value driver.
We Make Sure the Product Just Works
As much as we love talking to customers, the reality is they use Pimento to get stuff done, shipping, picking, managing inventory. That's why we put serious effort into making sure everything runs smoothly in the first place. We focus on three things:
Intuitive design and great documentation - We've made the product easy to use and provide thorough documentation to help customers avoid hiccups before they happen.
Stability and security - Bugs and issues are a rare occurrence. We put a lot of effort into keeping the system stable and secure.
Real testing - We still have access to the 3PL business we built, which we use as a testing ground. Our customers are never the first to try something new. Everything gets tested in a real environment, with any issues resolved before it reaches their hands.
A Commitment, Not a Guarantee
We're not perfect and we don't pretend to have it all figured out. But we know the best products come from staying close to customers and that's exactly what we're committed to doing.
