Customer case
Revolutionizing Retail Customer Service with Amazon Connect: From Overwhelmed Call Center to AI-Powered Customer Experience
The Challenge
The customer required a complete transformation of their customer support infrastructure to handle extreme seasonal demand fluctuations while maintaining consistent service quality year-round. Their previous legacy call center system created critical operational challenges that threatened customer satisfaction during their most important revenue periods.
The company faced overwhelming challenges managing customer support for garden center operations across Nordic markets. Their outdated system created significant seasonal bottlenecks:
Seasonal Scalability Crisis:
- Legacy system requiring manual agent scaling during spring season, often taking weeks to implement
- Peak season call volumes increasing by 400% within 2-3 week periods, overwhelming existing infrastructure
- Inability to predict and prepare for weather-driven demand spikes affecting gardening activities
- High seasonal staff turnover due to complex training requirements on disconnected systems
- Customer abandonment rates reaching 35% during peak gardening weekends
Technical Infrastructure Limitations:
- On-premises system requiring significant operational costs during peak season with limited scalability
- Manual order lookup processes taking 2-3 minutes per customer inquiry
- No integration with e-commerce platform, forcing agents to use multiple systems simultaneously
- Limited queue management causing customers to wait 10+ minutes during busy periods
- Inability to offer callback options or queue position information
Customer Experience Challenges:
- No omnichannel capabilities, forcing customers to repeat information across different touchpoints
- Limited product expertise routing, with general agents handling specialized gardening questions.
- Seasonal customers unable to get consistent service quality compared to year-round operations
- No self-service options for common inquiries about plant care, delivery status, or store hours
- Language barriers in international Nordic markets without proper routing capabilities
Business Impact Concerns:
- Peak season revenue at risk due to poor customer service during critical buying periods
- Inability to capture customer insights during high-interaction periods for inventory planning
- No real-time visibility into customer satisfaction or operational performance during crucial seasons
- Competitive disadvantage as online garden retailers offered superior digital customer experiences
- Limited ability to provide proactive customer communication about seasonal products and services
As the garden retail market became increasingly competitive and customers expected digital-first experiences, these limitations became critical business risks that threatened the company’s market leadership position.
Why Elastic Move
Elastic Move was selected for our proven expertise in Amazon Connect implementations specifically within retail and seasonal businesses, combined with our deep understanding of Nordic market requirements and customer expectations.
As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with specialized retail competencies, we understand the unique challenges of businesses with extreme seasonal demand variations.
Our team brings extensive experience in designing scalable customer service solutions that can handle massive demand fluctuations while maintaining cost efficiency during low-season periods. This seasonal expertise, combined with our technical capabilities in Amazon Connect and serverless architectures, enables us to deliver solutions that excel during peak periods without over-provisioning for year-round operations.
We specialize in building intelligent, cloud-native platforms that transform traditional retail customer service operations into competitive advantages. Our approach focuses on creating seamless omnichannel experiences that support both seasonal customers and year-round gardening enthusiasts with appropriate service levels and expertise.
Our proven methodology combines rapid seasonal scaling with comprehensive agent training programs, ensuring that customer service quality remains consistently high even as staffing levels fluctuate dramatically throughout the year.
- 15+ years of experience of AWS
- Certified Amazon Connect experts
- Amazon Connect Delivery Partner
Solution
Elastic Move designed and implemented a comprehensive cloud-native customer service platform using:
Core Amazon Connect Architecture:
- Multi-region Amazon Connect deployment with automatic seasonal scaling capabilities
- Advanced contact flow design with AI-driven routing based on customer type, inquiry complexity, and seasonal patterns
- Integrated chat and voice channels providing seamless omnichannel customer experiences
- Dynamic queue management with callback options and real-time wait time announcements
Serverless Automation and Intelligence:
- AWS Lambda functions to process customer interactions in real-time and execute seasonal business logic
- Amazon Lex for natural language understanding and automated handling of common gardening inquiries
- Custom serverless components to integrate with e-commerce platforms and inventory management systems
- Automated order lookup and status updates reducing manual agent workload during peak periods
Enterprise Integration and Data Management:
- Secure API integrations with existing e-commerce platform and inventory management systems
- Amazon S3 for scalable storage of customer interactions and seasonal analytics data
- Real-time data synchronization ensuring agents have immediate access to customer order history and preferences
- Automated seasonal reporting and analytics for inventory planning and customer behavior insights
Analytics and Monitoring:
- Amazon CloudWatch for comprehensive system monitoring and seasonal performance analytics
- Amazon QuickSight dashboards providing real-time visibility into peak season operations
- Custom analytics for tracking seasonal customer patterns, agent performance, and service quality metrics
- Predictive insights enabling proactive staffing and inventory decisions based on weather and seasonal trends
High Availability and Scalability:
- Auto-scaling architecture supporting growth from 15 agents during off-season to 200+ during peak periods
- Multi-AZ deployment ensuring service continuity during critical gardening season periods
- Elastic infrastructure that scales costs appropriately with seasonal demand patterns
- Comprehensive disaster recovery ensuring business continuity during peak revenue periods
The solution automatically adjusts capacity based on seasonal demand patterns, eliminates manual order lookup processes, and provides customers with immediate access to gardening expertise and order information through multiple channels.
Result
Current Implementation Status:
- Successfully deployed and undergoing final testing before spring 2026 peak season
- Initial performance testing demonstrates seamless scaling capabilities and system reliability
- Agent training programs completed with positive feedback on improved system usability
- Integration testing with e-commerce and inventory systems completed successfully
Projected Business Impact:
- Estimated 50%+ reduction in operational costs through elastic scaling and automation
- Projected significant improvement in customer satisfaction scores during peak season
- Expected dramatic reduction in customer abandonment rates through improved queue management
- Anticipated faster order processing and inquiry resolution through automated lookups
Operational Excellence Achievements:
- Scalable architecture supporting seasonal demand fluctuations without infrastructure investment
- Seamless integration with existing e-commerce platform eliminating manual data entry
- Comprehensive analytics platform ready to capture peak season insights for business optimization
- Multi-channel customer experience providing flexibility for different customer preferences
Technical Success Metrics:
- System successfully tested at projected peak capacity with stable performance
- Integration APIs performing within required response time parameters
- Disaster recovery procedures validated and ready for critical business periods
- Security and compliance requirements met for Nordic market operations
The Benefits
Strategic Business Advantages:
- Scalability: Cloud-native architecture enables unlimited seasonal growth without infrastructure constraints
- Agility: Rapid capacity adjustment capabilities supporting unpredictable weather-driven demand
- Cost Efficiency: Pay-as-you-scale model eliminating over-provisioning during quiet periods
- Competitive Differentiation: Superior customer service capabilities during critical peak seasons
Operational Excellence:
- Automation: Intelligent workflows eliminating manual order lookups and reducing response times
- Integration: Seamless connectivity with e-commerce and inventory systems
- Reliability: Enterprise-grade availability ensuring service continuity during peak revenue periods
- Flexibility: Multi-channel support accommodating different customer communication preferences
Customer Experience Innovation:
- AI-Powered Intelligence: Advanced routing connecting customers with gardening specialists immediately
- Seasonal Optimization: System designed specifically for extreme seasonal demand variations
- Omnichannel Support: Consistent experience across voice and chat channels
- Self-Service Options: Automated handling of common inquiries freeing agents for complex issues
This solution demonstrates how Amazon Connect and comprehensive AWS cloud services can transform seasonal retail customer support operations, providing the scalability and intelligence needed to excel during critical business periods while maintaining cost efficiency year-round.