MercadoLibre boosts marketplace trust with Twilio Voice

MercadoLibre has been connecting millions of buyers to sellers in its online marketplace for nearly two decades, offering a superior online shopping, auction, and payment experience. Today, with more than 60 million buyers and sellers using the platform, MercadoLibre.com ranks among the 50 most visited websites in the world.

With a goal of maintaining 100% customer satisfaction, the company’s strategic focus is to provide the best customer experience possible. So when MercadoLibre realized that they needed to expand their contact channels beyond the single option of email, they decided it was time to incorporate multiple online communication options into their contact centers.

Choosing a Provider

With operations throughout Latin America, MercadoLibre felt it was critical to find a partner who offered high-quality voice services that could effortlessly scale to support all 19 countries on the platform. They also needed a solution to integrate easily with their existing CRM system, ensuring straightforward access to customer information as well as the ability to track and measure all CRM activity.

The company evaluated a range of telephony providers but quickly concluded that Twilio offered the best solution for their multi-country operation.

“The decision to go with Twilio, more than anything, had to do with the quality of the products that they offer us and the regional availability of the service,” said Rodrigo Guzman, Senior Manager of Product Development of MercadoLibre. “In the countries where we provide telephone support, it was important to have a reliable service provider. Instead of hiring a provider in each country, with Twilio we only have to talk with one provider and we can solve any problem.”

Connecting with Buyers and Sellers Online

MercadoLibre introduced a Twilio-powered click-to-call support option on their website. Using JavaScript, MercadoLibre engineers embedded Twilio’s Click-to-Call solution within their Help Portal. Now, instead of waiting to get a response through email, customers input their questions and enter their phone numbers on a Twilio-embedded contact form.

Once an inquiry is submitted, it’s routed to an agent in one of their contact centers in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, or Uruguay. While the majority of inquiries are handled in the order they are received, high priority sellers are funneled to the front of the queue. When an agent is ready to speak with the next customer, the agent simply clicks a link in the MercadoLibre contact center dashboard to be automatically connected using a conference line from the Twilio WebRTC client-connected browser.

The seamless and easy integration of Twilio Programmable Voice within MercadoLibre’s CRM gives support agents immediate access to the customer’s question, profile, and call controls all within the same browser interface. Now, with specific customer information in hand, agents can instantly respond to questions, facilitate a transaction, or route a call to an expert agent or seller to make the sales experience easier and faster.

Agents and sellers have the added benefit of access to reports with specific details about each call, how many calls were received, when they were received, and how long they lasted. This valuable information gives MercadoLibre, their agents, and their sellers the insights they need to continue to improve the overall customer experience.

Committing to a Superior Customer Experience

Speaking with an agent is often the quickest way to resolve a customer issue, so phone call quality is vital. “We rely on the stability and quality of our calls. If the sound was poor, the connection was cut, or the service was not available all the time, it would hurt our customer experience very much,” said Guzman.

“Trust in our platform as well as our marketplace is fundamental,” Guzman continued, “We are always thinking in terms of what is best for the user,” said Guzman. “Based on our customer feedback, our customers tell us they are happy with our Twilio-powered voice support. In fact, now more than 50% of users opt for voice or chat instead of email.”

Because Twilio provides in-country numbers, the customer is more comfortable knowing the service agent is local, and having local phone numbers means it’s more cost-effective for MercadoLibre. With Twilio, all calls are monitored and automatically logged into their CRM system, which enables comprehensive call tracking, monitoring, and reporting of agents’ effectiveness.

Reaping Rewards from Customer Loyalty

MercadoLibre’s focus on creating a superior customer experience has earned them one of the highest Net Promoter Scores (NPS) for customer experience and loyalty. According to a National Customer Experience study prepared by Argentinian consultancy Bain, MercadoLibre ranks among the top five Latin American brands to receive this recognition and is the number one e-commerce brand, judged against more than 60 companies in 12 industries.

The correlation between high NPS and business performance is well documented. The National Consumer Experience study indicates the correlation between high customer loyalty and profitability. Companies like MercadoLibre that have the highest NPS incurred costs, 15% below market average, and achieved a compounded annual growth rate of 7.2%, more than twice the market average.

“Integrating Twilio Voice was clearly a win for us in terms of NPS. In general, the responses by these communication channels provide much more information to the user and we end up winning in NPS points,” said Guzman. “But the important thing for us is the experience of the user. Aside from cost savings, we gained real and measurable improvements in customer experience and user satisfaction.”

“At the end of the day, a good experience is what generates trust. That’s why it’s the preference of our users that are calling the shots.”