Ant’s flexible service helps major food and beverage company to enhance service levels

Client overview

Founded over 150 years ago, this client is the world’s largest and most diversified food and beverage company. With a global presence, their products are sold in 188 countries worldwide.

Client challenge

More than a decade ago, this major food and beverage company approached Ant when their in-house customer support team became overwhelmed during a product recall. Facing a surge in enquiries, they needed an agile contact centre provider capable of rapidly adjusting services and offering customer contact advisors who could resolve issues swiftly and professionally.
Additionally, they recently decided to offer an out-of-hours customer care line. After evaluating their options, they chose to outsource this part of their service rather than expanding it internally. The client sought a multi-lingual outsourced customer contact centre partner with industry knowledge and 24/7 operational capabilities.

Our solution

When initially selected by the client to assist with a product recall, Ant rapidly scaled up operations to provide the high level of support required by this prestigious brand.
Impressed by Ant’s response and professionalism, the client continued to rely on them for national product recalls, including incidents involving product contamination and allergen risks.

As the partnership deepened, Ant was chosen to implement an out-of-hours careline. The combination of industry insight with 24/7, multi-lingual, omnichannel capabilities made Ant the clear choice.

Service offering – customer careline

The customer careline handles a variety of calls, including general customer queries, complaints, and urgent risk-to-life situations such as foreign objects found in products or potential allergen contamination.
In complex cases, the team gathers specific details like product codes, batch numbers, and other relevant information needed by the client’s manufacturing, marketing, and senior leadership teams. This critical data is often collected from emotional customers, requiring a highly empathetic approach. Accuracy is essential for the client to make informed decisions, such as stopping production or, in extreme cases, initiating a nationwide product recall.

Service offering – product recall

During a product recall, Ant can swiftly deploy additional customer service advisors, often scaling up to 150 FTE within 24 hours. Information is shared across the team in real-time, ensuring product issues are categorised consistently, with specific details collected according to the client’s requirements to mitigate risk. Hourly reporting and insights are provided to help quickly identify and address issues and risks.
Protecting the client’s brand in challenging circumstances is paramount, and their customers expect—and receive—a high level of service from Ant. Throughout the complex case management process, Ant’s team remains empathetic, caring, and focused on delivering customer satisfaction with the actions taken during calls.

Results

Throughout our collaboration, our services have:

• Improved customer service levels – The client’s CSAT scores from customer complaints have increased.
• Quickened response times – Manufacturing stop orders are now issued more rapidly.
• Reduced product recalls – Fewer recalls have occurred, safeguarding the client’s brand integrity.

Our 24/7 omnichannel and multi-lingual customer support solution has surpassed the client’s expectations. This partnership has led to tangible improvements in their service, further enhancing their reputation.