Bubble is a powerful no-code platform that empowers entrepreneurs to build production-ready web apps. The Bubble customer success team used their own platform to develop it a custom CRM that integrates with Front, making their team a powerhouse for customer happiness.
Challenge
Bubble is a small but mighty company with around 40 employees. One of the reasons for their success is the personalized attention they devote to their customers. They don’t automate replies to messages—a human is involved in every response.
Initially, Bubble’s customer service team used HelpScout to manage inquiries and bug reports, and they collaborated in Slack. But the process was inefficient and inflexible—conversations easily got lost across the two tools. To provide a more personal level of account management and support, the team needed a way to collaborate on customer requests and customize their software to their needs.
Solution
Jeff Thill, who works in customer success at Bubble, has seen the team double in size and witnessed its growing pains using inadequate tools. He’s thrilled with what they’ve been able to accomplish with Front. He shares, “Previously, there was a lot of friction. Switching to Front was a game-changer. It enabled us to do things we just couldn’t do before, especially with collaboration.”
Previously, there was a lot of friction. Switching to Front was a game-changer. It enabled us to do things we just couldn’t do before, especially with collaboration.
Quick collaboration translates into better resolutions
Bubble has messages coming into Front from email, Twitter, and Facebook, centralizing all communication in one place. Additionally, bug reports also flow into Front. The team manages about 5,000 messages each month. Because discussions live alongside each conversation in Front, the customer service and engineering teams can collaborate quickly to deliver the best response and resolution for each customer.
Front makes my life much easier. I have my personal inbox, the success inbox, and I can see everything everyone is working on.
Efficiency enables personal communication
Unlike a lot of companies, Bubble’s engineering team also interacts directly with customers. When an engineer finishes servicing a bug report, they use Front to reach out to the customer and communicate what they did. This direct interaction has contributed to an increase in NPS and customer happiness scores. And thanks to the visibility Front provides, customer service associates can ensure everything has been addressed at a glance.
Tagging and message templates reduce response times
Bubble auto-applies tags based on where the message originated from (such as the bug report form where customers select the nature of the bug) and auto-assigns the messages to the appropriate inbox. The team uses message templates to get a jumpstart on composing messages while keeping the personalized feel. As a result, they’ve reduced response time to 15 minutes for priority issues and 2 hours for general guidance requests.
Custom CRM integrated with Front enables personal account management
The Bubble team was able to raise their customer happiness scores in large part because they could view all communication and information related to each customer in one place in a custom CRM plugin they built using Bubble and Front. Bubble’s no-code platform enabled Jeff, a non-technical team member, to build the integration without needing help from engineering. This unique integration would not have been possible without Front’s API and Bubble’s robust ability to create custom web apps without code.
The Bubble team built a customer CRM that integrates with Front without engineering resources.
The CRM collects data from Front and Bubble’s platform. Everything done in Front is automatically updated in the CRM. Thill explains that this has enabled hyper-personal account management because they can now see a holistic picture of the customer and all interactions. It’s also allowed them to offer premium-level support, which they weren’t able to do prior to Front.
Bubble’s CRM allows them to edit and access customer data directly next to their emails in Front.
After implementing Front, the team has dramatically increased its productivity and enjoys an organized, streamlined process. Thill says, “Front makes my life much easier. I have my personal inbox, the success inbox, and I can see everything everyone is working on.”
