Quality over satisfaction: CityGo’s strategic use of Zendesk QA

As CityGo continues to scale, the company’s customer service team faces unique challenges in providing seamless support to carpoolers. We spoke with Michael Buczynski (Micka), CityGo’s Head of Customer Service, about the journey of expanding their successful car-sharing service.

Buczynski emphasizes the importance of the Internal Quality Score (IQS) over traditional metrics like CSAT, highlighting how quality impacts the entire business. Their team’s advanced structure and tools contribute to high service standards, ensuring that their deep understanding of customers positively influences company growth.

Why IQS is more important to them than CSAT

“The quality score is our most important metric. If the quality score is very high, all of the other KPIs fall in line,” says Buczynski. “Customers may have problems with other user pain points and business decisions, so the satisfaction score may vary monthly. The quality score is the most important thing for insight into customer service performance.”

Although CityGo also includes CSAT, NPS, First Reply Time, Resolution Time in their KPIs, the team places the most emphasis on the IQS calculated through quality assurance.

The Internal Quality Score (IQS) is a critical metric for expanding or changing teams because it evaluates support performance based on internal standards, rather than customer feedback. IQS helps identify how well agents adhere to company guidelines and the quality of their interactions, independent of external factors like product or pricing.

During times of change or growth, customers may be unhappy due to disruptions in service, changes in product features, or adaptation periods, which can lead to negative experiences and lower Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores. CSAT may not accurately reflect the quality of customer service as it is influenced by these external factors.

Building a strategic team structure

CityGo’s main market is currently in France. However, the company ensures 24/7 support coverage through team members located not only in Europe, but also in Japan, Thailand, Colombia, and Indonesia. This is a key element for any Customer Support team with global ambitions, as it allows smooth future expansion into other markets by already covering strategic time zones.

Buczynski leads a well-equipped team:

• A deputy Head of Customer Service who is in charge of customer service performance and who is the primary interlocutor with the product team.

• A Quality and Performance Manager and three quality specialists responsible for the quality of the team, training, and skill development.<text

• A Customer Onboarding Manager who is responsible for onboarding, as well as combating driver churn and reinvigorating inactive app users.

However, the team’s refined structure includes its tools, in addition to the organizational chart.

“Customer service teams need the right tools to work at their best. Using spreadsheets, my quality manager lost a lot of time each month. Zendesk QA offers the possibility for the whole team to participate, it gives voice to your team,” says Buczynski. “In startups, it’s common to use manual tools in the beginning. But to improve, you need something more professional.”

CityGo’s customer service team has been tightly coordinated to function as a vital asset to the company’s growth objectives, thanks to its seamless coordination. Theirs is an excellent example of a scalable, data-driven set up. It means the team is close to the ground, with users, including those at risk of churning.

How quality assurance aids growth

CityGo’s impressive monthly quality scores, often in the 90 percent to 96 percent range, reflect the effectiveness of thec ompany’s quality assurance practices. However, quality assurance at CityGo also helps the customer service team proactively address issues by monitoring and reviewing conversations between carpoolers.

By evaluating instances where drivers give low ratings to passengers, the team can identify and resolve problems before they escalate. This proactive approach allows them to address common issues across the team, improving overall service quality. When repeated problems are noticed, training is provided to ensure consistent and clear communication.

The team uses the Outlier filter to find conversations which offer the best material for review. Outlier is an intelligent filter that automatically finds must-review conversations. AI understands what kinds of conversations are atypical: a custom analysis for each team.

Customer support proactivity and its role in combating churn

“There are many rules we have to follow as a car sharing company in France. Sometimes that makes the application complicated for the customer, and helping drivers understand everything is the primary responsibility of our customer service team. To be proactive, our team monitors reviews between carpoolers to identify issues and resolve them before they contact us,” says Buczynski.

CityGo’s service team maintains a strong relationship with both the product and marketing teams due to their in-depth understanding of customer issues and feedback. Providing excellent service goes beyond offering good support; it also involves influencing the product and marketing strategies.

CityGo’s proactive customer support is essential for combating churn amidst the complexities of its platform and French compliance regulations in the car-sharing industry.