Introduction

StyleMe was founded by Kristen Hancock, an interior design maven with a passion for expanding the unique products she sourced for clients to a larger audience. Since its inception, the StyleMe team has travelled throughout the globe to curate versatile and functional pieces in a wide range of styles. As the business and team grew, so did the need for both an online and brick-and-mortar store.

Today, StyleMe is continuously expanding its team of specialists, visionaries, and industry professionals to deliver only the best curated pieces for both its in-person and online customers.

Quality products damaged in transit create friction

As the company increased its product assortment and started shipping large furniture pieces, the burden of damaged products grew. Without a loyal third-party carrier to rely on, the amount of broken and damaged pieces arriving to customers grew. “We saw so many order issues without a dedicated carrier or a solid freight solution,” stated Yiana Ramaj, StyleMe’s Customer Service Specialist. “It felt like every order was arriving damaged.” These damaged orders quickly led to an insurmountable influx of customer inquiries, time-consuming resolutions, and costly replacements.

Yiana, charged with tackling all customer inquiries at the time,  began to feel overwhelmed. “Resolving customer order issues through the vendor would take at minimum  a few weeks. It was a lot.” Attending to customers, vendors, and damaged items was difficult and cumbersome, and it sometimes didn’t end with a clear resolution. Yiana quickly started seeking a solution to help decrease support volume, protect valuable merchandise, and maintain customer satisfaction at scale.

StyleMeGHD utilizes Route’s hybrid protection model to seamlessly cover order issues.

While looking for a way to ease the workload of support tickets and damaged items, Yiana found Route and the StyleMeGHD team partnered with a reliable freight carrier. “Route was a godsend. It was so helpful right from the start,” recalls Yiana. “Before Route, it would take weeks to resolve an issue, and now, managing claims is quick and easy when the order has been protected.” 

StyleMeGHD also took advantage of Route’s hybrid coverage offering, which is package protection that merchants can customize based on cart value. StyleMeGHD believes this is the biggest advantage to using Route, especially as a business that deals in high-quality, often fragile, pieces. Yiana describes hybrid as “a great solution that helps us immensely. Hybrid protection makes covering the costs for replacements for damaged or lost items while maintaining a world-class customer experience really simple.” Thanks to Route, there is no guesswork on issues and no need to spend hours calling or investigating claims that are protected by Route. Now, StyleMeGHD has the ability to spend more time expanding the company’s vision by focusing on perfecting their internal systems and globally sourcing uniquely curated products for the store.

“If you’re considering hybrid coverage, do it. When you break down the cost savings, it is a no-brainer!”

Previously, Yiana was handling several hundred emails per week. With Route, most of the email communications are inventory-related and not necessitating hours of research. Resolving issues is now instantaneous and as Yiana explains, “our speed and quality of customer service has been greatly improved, and the hybrid model has allowed us to focus on other areas of the business. We couldn’t be happier with Route!”