Tabby is a flexible payment method that gives users the security and freedom to buy everything they need now, with the option to pay later in interest-free installments while earning cashback at their favorite stores. Looking to increase user satisfaction, Tabby sought to improve its customer support system for mobile users. Unable to replace its existing solution entirely, Product Manager Dasha Shulgina had the idea to integrate a chat API to connect users to agents quicker and resolve issues faster.
Challenge: Tabby relied on Zendesk Forms to field customer support questions, complaints, and user requests. But, the mobile UX felt clunky and inefficient, which led to lower user satisfaction and longer resolution times.
Strategy: The Tabby team believed integrating a ready-made chat API would mitigate mobile UX issues for customers seeking support while allowing engineers to focus on developing the core competencies of the app.
Result: Tabby chose to integrate Stream Chat because of its rich feature list, reliability, and hyper flexibility. Tabby was able to customize Stream Chat to meet its specific customer support use case and unique needs.
About Tabby
Tabby lets users split the total cost of their purchases into four interest-free payments, whether they're shopping online or in-store. It enables them to buy what they love and need now while reducing the upfront purchase cost by dividing it into installments.
Tabby prioritizes its users and considers the in-app experience at every step. Product Manager Dasha Shulgina noticed that the app's existing mobile customer support ticketing system was not as efficient as the team had hoped. With nearly 70% of all support tickets originating from mobile users, Shulgina knew the app needed a solution—and fast. She mapped out an ideal support flow for Tabby users and realized that a real-time chat interface would allow them to implement customer support best practices without requiring them to replace Zendesk.
To Build or To Buy Chat?
When asked if Tabby ever considered building an in-house chat solution, Shulgina says, "Yes. We were actually thinking about it but then decided since we didn't know how our customers would interact with it we shouldn't risk using the bandwidth of our developers on it. We also thought we would eventually switch to an in-house solution, but we will continue using Stream."
Given Tabby's unique use case, Shulgina was evaluating Stream Chat against the most customer-support-oriented competitors. But, when asked what her decision came down to, she says,
"Stream Chat had the flexibility we were looking for, and its features like push notifications, a Zendesk integration, and open-source code ticked every box on our list of must-haves."
Working With the Stream Team
Shulgina had nothing but positive feedback to share about Stream's sales and support teams. "I met with Elaine McGlaughlin from the customer success team, and we had a productive conversation. Everyone was super supportive—thanks for that—answering my many questions about invoices and support. It is a new channel for us, so I appreciate everyone's quick responses."
Putting Stream Chat to the Test
The Tabby team built a prototype with Stream Chat for Android and iOS to test the product and finalize backend development plans. Shulgina adds, "Our design team was impressed with the UI kit, and they use it a lot. It provides a fast, straightforward way for them to create a custom look for our chat."
Tabby hopes that by increasing user satisfaction, its user base will continue to grow. Shulgina says, "We are just testing the waters at this time. We will have to consider upgrading our plan as we continue to monitor performance. The flexibility of Stream's pricing has allowed us to focus on scaling confidently without worrying that we will be locked into a plan we've outgrown."
Shulgina elaborated on the Tabby team's metrics to measure Stream Chat's performance, saying, "We use Tableau to monitor customer support analytics. We use basic metrics like customer satisfaction, the number of tickets, resolve time, reopens, etc., to evaluate performance. We hope to see improvements across the board with the addition of Stream Chat."
Looking Into the Future of Stream and Tabby
Currently, the Tabby team is focused on improving its mobile UX with Stream Chat. But Shulgina shares that the team plans to leverage the custom message feature to make a customer service chatbot flow available for desktop users in 2023. When asked about her final thoughts, Shulgina said, "I definitely recommend Stream Chat to other companies. I don't see any cons to using it. It's really convenient, and I feel very comfortable working with the Stream team."
