Interview with Airtasker on CX, AI and KPIs

Cindy Dent is Director of Customer Experience at one of Australia’s favourite brands – Airtasker. In this exclusive interview with Matchboard, she talks CX, customer communication, KPIs and, of course, AI. She also shares her most unusual Airtasker use case!

Airtasker is a brand loved by millions. How do you ensure the customer experience is equally loved by users on both sides of the marketplace?

Both sides of our marketplace have different needs but are equally important. Our Help Centre and Support workflows are set up to seamlessly work alongside each other, with our support teams separated into specialist areas.

We capture as much information from our users as possible before it reaches our support teams. Knowing who’s contacting us and why upfront helps our specialist team offer the best customer experience.

Our platform has a very loyal and committed community, and we encourage them to interact with and protect our platform by using moderation tools. We’ve allowed all users to flag tasks, comments and user behaviours that aren’t in line with our community guidelines.

This transparency has helped create even more trust within our community, which in turn also helps us build a deeper connection with our users.

As Airtasker expands beyond Australia, what are some of the cultural nuances unique to the UK and the US which you need to incorporate in the CX strategy?

At this stage, Customers’ needs have been very similar, but that doesn’t mean we’re being complacent. We’re very fortunate to have fantastic country managers in both locations. They’ve been an asset to my team’s growth and development during these times.

We’ve built a glossary of terms that are culturally relevant. We’re also capturing statements or phrases that may need translating if they feel out of context. This includes dedicated help centres with local spelling and nuances.

As we expand into these markets we stay connected to our Taskers, understanding their needs and adjusting what we can. We aren’t afraid of asking for clarification if something feels amiss or misunderstood. As we build out both regions, we want to be respectful while staying true to Airtasker’s culture and vibrancy.

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Which channels are the most popular and effective for customer communication?

We focus on self-service as much as possible, giving both our Customers and Taskers the opportunity to manage their profiles, tasks and communication. When we are required to help, email is still the most effective channel of communication.

As tasks involve two or more parties, we need time to investigate and gather facts. Using email rather than phone or chat manages expectations better and offers the ability to provide supporting documentation.

To what extent is AI a focus for the business?

We’ve recently invested in an AI tool to better support our Help Centre. It’s been successful with ticket deflection and managing Customers’ expectations. Our broader business, engineering and SEO have been using various AI tools to help drive efficiencies for many years.

While AI isn’t new to Airtasker, the technology is improving daily, and we want to stay on top of it. This week, our engineering team will host an AI hackathon, encouraging the entire business to contribute.

The hackathon aims to develop and stress test several ideas our team members have come up with. AI opportunities are infinite, but as a business that connects people, we’re also very focused on staying at the forefront of our customers’ needs. I’m very excited to see what our great minds come up with, so watch this space!

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What are the KPIs you keep an eye on the most?

After introducing our Help Centre AI tool, I’ve become obsessed with our ticket deflection numbers. It was very important early on that we monitored the responses to ensure our help centre was written in the correct format to give accurate feedback.

Outside of being AI-obsessed regardless of the teams I lead, my focus has always been on:

Team response times
Total tickets solved by our top 10 categories
Average requester wait hours

This is a perfect mix to manage headcount and rostering, but also provide feedback to the business on what our Customer pain points are. Working across the business and sharing CX pain points is key to my success.

Tracking why Customers need to contact us and how long it takes our team to process each ticket is extremely important when contributing my business needs to the product roadmap or further team initiatives.

Please share your wildest Airtasker use case!

The standout was when someone requested a chicken nugget bouquet to celebrate a friend’s birthday. In fact strangely, we’ve had this request a few times over the years! While we don’t have a photo of the completed task, my team thought it was a fun idea and recreated it for a team member’s birthday.