Customer support · for ecom brands $1M–$20M
Your support team. Hired, trained, managed by us.
The same agency running your retention email runs your customer support. Live chat, email, tickets, phone, SMS, social. Live in 10 to 14 business days. 90-day first term, then month-to-month. We own the SLA, you own the customer.
hwm-cs > handover --status
first response: < 3 hours
channels: chat / email / phone / sms / social
coverage: US hours / 24-7 on scale+
team: agents + ops + qa
stack: your existing tools
✓ ramp in 10–14 days
✓ 90-day initial, then month-to-month
✓ same data feeds your email engine
Problem 01
Customer asks "where's my order" at 2am Saturday. Nobody answers until Monday.
Problem 02
Hiring 3 agents + a manager + QA is a $15K+/mo commitment with onboarding tax.
Problem 03
Support is fragmented from email, ads, ops. Same customer treated as a stranger every time.
Problem 04
Quality drifts after month 3. Tickets pile up. Refunds eat conversion.
Every channel your customer reaches you on. One team.
Frontline support across the channels ecom shoppers actually use, staffed by humans who know your brand voice. AI helps agents draft and QA replies; a human sends them.
01
Live chat & email The 80% of tickets where speed wins.
Shipping questions, order edits, product clarifications, refund triage. First response under 3 hours, target under 30 minutes during business hours.
- Gorgias, Zendesk, Help Scout, Front
- Macros + SOPs built around your products
- Brand-voice trained, not script-read
02
Phone & SMS For the 20% that needs a voice.
Returns, escalations, high-LTV customers, urgent shipping. US business-hours coverage standard, 24/7 available on the higher tier.
- Inbound + outbound handled
- SMS reply within 5 minutes target
- Recording + transcript fed back to your CRM
03
Social & reviews The channel marketing forgets.
DMs, comments, Trustpilot, Google Reviews, BBB. Every public response is a prospect-facing impression. We treat them like ads.
- Reply within 1 hour during business hours
- Negative review recovery playbook
- Conversation logs feed your email segments
Live in 10 to 14 business days.
You hand us the keys. We audit, build the playbook, recruit the pod, and go live.
STEP 01 · DAY 1–3
Audit & SOPs.
We read every macro, every help doc, every old ticket. You get a full teardown: what's repeated, what's broken, where revenue is leaking through bad replies.
>hwm-cs audit --depth=full
STEP 02 · DAY 4–8
Pod assembly.
Agents recruited from our trained bench, matched to your category. Ops manager assigned. QA framework wired. Macros + tone training shipped.
>hwm-cs pod --recruit --train
STEP 03 · DAY 9–14
Stack integration.
We plug into Gorgias / Zendesk / your stack. Shadow your team for 2–3 days, then take over. Daily standups during ramp, weekly after.
>hwm-cs deploy --stack=yours
STEP 04 · DAY 15+
Manage & improve.
Weekly QA scoring, monthly metrics review, quarterly playbook update. Same pod every month. Coverage backups baked in for sick days and holidays.
>hwm-cs run --weekly --qa
The numbers ecom support is measured on.
Targets go into the SLA before go-live. We report against them every week, misses included.
< 3h
First response, email
SLA target, tracked weekly
< 30m
First response, chat
During business hours
75+
Tickets / agent / day
Top performers hit 90+
92%+
CSAT target
QA-scored weekly, aligned to rubric
We work in your tools, not ours.
No platform migration. No tool consolidation pitch. Your team logs into Gorgias today, our team logs in tomorrow.
Gorgias
Zendesk
Help Scout
Front
Freshdesk
HubSpot
Shopify
Klaviyo
Per agent, per hour. No per-ticket games.
Flat hourly rate. You scale up or down by the headcount you need. Includes ops manager, trainer, QA, and backup coverage at no extra cost.
// Starter pod
1–3 dedicated agents.
$14 / agent / hour
- 1–3 dedicated agents on your account
- Ops manager + QA framework included
- All channels (chat, email, phone, SMS, social)
- Macros, SOPs, brand-voice training
- Weekly metrics + monthly QA review
- Backup coverage built in
Most popular // Scale pod
4–9 dedicated agents.
$12 / agent / hour
- 4–9 dedicated agents on your account
- Same ops + QA structure as starter
- 24/7 coverage available
- Customer Success Manager assigned
- Quarterly business review with founders
- Email + SMS + CS data unified into one view
// Enterprise pod
10+ dedicated agents.
$10 / agent / hour
- 10 or more dedicated agents
- Multi-pod structure with team lead per pod
- 24/7 coverage included
- Sales concierge + EA agents available on same model
- Optional AI deflection layer (30–50% auto-resolve)
- Custom SLAs and dedicated success ops
01 90-day initial commitment so the pod has time to learn your brand. Converts to month-to-month after.
02 No per-ticket fees. No volume surcharges. The hourly rate is the rate.
03 Email + CS bundle: existing email retainer clients get $1/hr off all CS rates. Same data, one team.
04 AI deflection add-on (Enterprise tier): we layer agent-assist + auto-resolve macros to deflect 30–50% of routine tickets. Quoted separately.
The questions ecom founders ask first.
If yours isn't here, ask on the call. Same-day reply.
Q.01 How is this different from hiring agents off Upwork or a BPO?
Upwork gives you a person. A BPO gives you seats. Every HWM pod comes with an ops manager and a QA reviewer, tickets get re-scored weekly so quality holds past month 3, and if we also run your email, support data feeds your Klaviyo segments.
Q.02 Are agents dedicated or shared across clients?
Dedicated. One pod per client. Backup coverage exists for sick days, but day-to-day, your agents work on your brand only. They learn your products, your tone, your edge cases.
Q.03 Do I have to switch helpdesks?
No. We work in your existing stack: Gorgias, Zendesk, Help Scout, Front, Freshdesk, HubSpot, whatever you have. We can recommend optimizations but the platform is your call.
Q.04 Will customers know they're talking to an outsourced team?
No. Agents reply from your domain, in your brand voice, signed off as your team. The customer has one experience: yours.
Q.05 How does AI fit in? Will my customers chat with a bot?
Not unless you ask for it. By default, AI stays inside the team (agent assist, draft suggestions, automated QA scoring) and a human sends every reply. The one exception is the optional Enterprise auto-resolve add-on, which answers routine tickets like order status. It is off until you switch it on.
Q.06 What happens after the 90-day initial term?
Converts to month-to-month. Cancel with 30 days notice. We'd rather you stay because the work is good than because you're locked in.
Q.07 Do I have to be an HWM email client to use CS?
No. CS is a standalone service. But if you do both, the bundle saves $1/hr per agent and we connect support data to your email segments: winback triggers from cancelled orders, VIP tags from high-touch tickets, replenishment timing from product questions.
Q.08 What's the smallest brand you take on?
Roughly $1M annual revenue minimum. Below that, the math on a dedicated pod doesn't work for either side, and you'd be better off with a freelancer or a part-time hire. Above $1M, we win on speed-to-coverage and quality consistency.
Q.09 Where are your agents located?
Vietnam. We have offices in Dong Nai City and Hanoi. Agents are fluent English (near-native written, conversational on phone), trained for US/UK/AU brand voice. We staff in shifts to cover US business hours, US evenings, and 24/7 on the Scale and Enterprise tiers. Plenty of "US-based" CS BPOs staff offshore without saying so. We say so, because the Vietnam cost base is how a managed pod with ops and QA fits into $10–$14/hr.
Q.10 Can you place roles other than support agents?
Yes, on the Enterprise tier. Same dedicated-pod model, different role: executive assistants, marketing assistants (campaign QA, social DM monitoring, influencer outreach), e-commerce sales concierges (live-chat-driven upsell + cart recovery). Pricing follows the same $10/hr Enterprise rate. Most clients start with CS, then add 1–2 specialist roles once the rhythm is proven.
Free · SOW the same day if it fits
A 30-minute call. No pitch deck.
Tell us your ticket volume, your stack, and your current coverage. We tell you what a pod looks like and what it costs. If it fits, we send the SOW the same day.