Blueground gives renters a personal customer experience with Front

Blueground is a global proptech startup offering a curated network of thousands of quality, turnkey homes enabling people to flexibly live wherever they choose. Blueground does all the legwork so guests can book and move as quickly as they like. With Front, their sales team gives a personal experience as they guide renters to find a home they love—and they cut response times by an hour.

Challenge

The Blueground sales team supports their company mission by talking to potential guests and helping them find their ideal apartment. Communication is a crucial part of the sales process, and success hinges on it. Initially, the team began using a shared Gmail account, but they moved to a ticketing system because it wasn’t working well. This system wasn’t meant for collaboration, however. It was transactional, intended primarily for resolving customer problems. The team needed a solution that would allow them to work together to help guests have a great experience.

Solution

The company’s entire global sales organization began using Front in 2020 for both inbound and enterprise sales. Mehreen Mundh, Director of Sales Strategy and Operations, is thrilled with Front and is now advocating for the company’s other departments to adopt the platform.

Establishing ownership on messages across time zones

With Front, Blueground can easily create rules for auto-assigning messages, ensuring every email goes to the right team member for a response. This capability is significant since Blueground is a global company that operates in many geographies across many different time zones.

And since Front provides full visibility, every team member can see all previous interactions with a guest, ensuring that every rep is informed when replying. Mundh says, “Integrating Front into our system allows us to offer a seamless experience for our guests. We can tell the Blueground guest appreciates that we’re all in sync and we’re thoughtfully and efficiently communicating with them.”

Collaborating saves time and cuts response times by an hour

The Blueground team uses Front’s commenting feature to collaborate on responses, which saves them time internally. Mundh shares, “If I’m responding to an email or see someone else responding, I can leave feedback or comments directly in the email chain—no need to go out of Front, no Slack, no forwarding. As a manager, this is my favorite part.”

And with this time saved, the team can devote more attention to guests to ensure a quality sales experience. She adds, “Our guests aren’t just looking for a place to stay and a furnished corporate apartment. They’re looking for a more holistic moving experience. Every quarter, our average response time is going down. And as a customer-facing team, that’s what I want to see.” Using Front, the team has reduced their response time by an hour, and they’re continually getting faster as they use more of Front’s features.

Since the Blueground team is working remotely, Front’s collaboration features have been even more valuable. Mundh says, “Sales reps can @mention managers, managers can @mention reps, and they can collaborate, share drafts, and respond together.Front has helped us get through and thrive as a remote workforce.”

Keeping emails personal with a shared inbox

All of Blueground’s sales teams operate from a shared inbox. Each team member’s ability to use their custom email signature allows them to communicate with guests more personally. Mundh explains, “For guests to be able to see who they’re communicating with, even though it’s coming from a shared inbox, it feels personal and less robotic. This is a guest communication tool we’re proud to have adopted at Blueground, and we’re making great use of it so far.” And with Front’s assignment feature, the team ensures that each message is assigned to the team member best able to help.

Up-leveling individual performance

Because Front’s shared inbox provides visibility and the collaboration features are real-time, sales managers can more effectively coach team members. And when a rep needs help, they can @mention their manager, who can quickly see the entire communication thread and history. Mundh says, “Our guests are having a better experience, our reps are having a better experience, and our managers are able to give very effective feedback to reps in real-time.”

Mundh adds, “Front has revolutionized how we communicate internally, making for efficient and effective communication with our guests. Any time you want your customers to have a seamless experience, I would highly recommend Front. Get your team functioning at a higher level with Front!”