Transforming Customer Service in the Fantasy Sports Market

A rapidly growing fantasy football platform faced significant challenges as its user base exploded from 500 to over 16,000 daily users in just three months. The platform’s support infrastructure couldn’t keep pace with this growth, resulting in a backlog of over 7,800 tickets as it approached its inaugural season launch.

Recognizing the need for a strategic overhaul of its support system, the platform partnered with Hugo. The Senior Manager of Customer Relations explained: “The rising volume and specificity of customer inquiries demanded a more sophisticated approach to support, one that could offer swift, accurate, and individualized responses.”

The Challenge: Managing a Surge in Customer Tickets

Overwhelmed Support Infrastructure

The existing support system, designed for a smaller user base, couldn’t handle the influx of inquiries about account access, draft tools, and league management. Response times extended beyond 14 days, leading to 20% of affected users reducing their platform activity during the crucial early-season period.

Manual Dependency in Ticket Routing

Despite investing in leading CX platforms like Zendesk, its support system struggled with complex inquiries, forcing agents to review and reroute up to 70% of tickets manually. This resulted in a 37% ticket misclassification rate and a 30% increase in customer complaints about response delays.

The Solution: Enhancing Customer Support Through AI and Resource Optimization

AI-Powered Triaging System

Hugo implemented an advanced AI system that:

• Categorized inquiries using natural language processing
• Prioritized urgent cases through sentiment analysis
• Directed inquiries to appropriate support channels
• Employed language detection for multilingual support
• Identified trends in customer inquiries for proactive resolution

Strategic Resource Optimization

Hugo assembled a team of experienced CX specialists and optimized support channels, including social media and self-service options. This combination of human expertise and AI cleared the backlog of 7,800 tickets within five days.

Outcomes

• Ticket Management: Resolved 65,000+ tickets within three months
• Response Time: Reduced from over 14 days to <20 minutes on average
• Manual Review Requirement: Dropped from 70% to <10% of total tickets
• Ticket Misclassification: Fell from 37% to <3% error rate
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Achieved a 98% satisfaction rating
• First Contact Resolution (FCR): Increased by 41%, reaching 87%

Conclusion

The Senior Manager reflected: “This journey with Hugo has helped us move from reactive firefighting to proactive, data-driven customer engagement. This shift has improved our metrics and positions us for sustainable growth in the market.“