At A Glance

Rashko believes that flexibility is the best policy when it comes to making customers happy. Read on to learn how Rashko and Glorious Gaming foster empathy and human touch in customer service while adapting to the evolving landscape of AI and E-Commerce.

Who is Rashko?

Meet Rashko Temelkovski, Customer Service Manager at Glorious Gaming!

About Glorious Gaming

Glorious is a lifestyle gaming hardware company, built by passionate enthusiasts on a mission to change the status quo of an industry that we think is in dire need of a shake-up. We want to help enthusiast & professional gamers ascend their ‘battlestation’ with the best quality gear possible and reasonable prices. We believe that buying gaming gear shouldn’t be complicated. With a focus on form, function, and aesthetics, we painstakingly perfect each product we sell so our customers can be confident that every purchase is the right one.

Rashko’s CS Journey

Rashko joined Glorious in 2017 as social media manager. “Glorious needed somebody to keep its social media channels alive and occasionally post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Basically, keep the audience alive and entertained,” he recalls. Within a short time, he was answering comments with questions about the brand and products – essentially doing customer service-related tasks. His hard work did not go unnoticed. The company founder gave Rashko the opportunity to establish and grow the CS team from the ground up. With the new found success of the CS team, he was then made Customer Service Manager. Rashko has watched Glorious go from a one-person start to a respected gaming hardware company recognized for modular mechanical keyboards and lightweight mice including the Model O, “which literally took the market by storm.” Rashko looks back and says, “It’s been a very interesting, and exciting journey ever since.”

The CS Team at Glorious

Since stepping into his managerial role, Rashko, who is based in North Macedonia, has built Glorious fully remote CS team from 1 to multiple agents with locations in the United States, South Africa, Latvia, and Philippines. The team structure is divided into 2 tiers made up of CS agents and Senior CS agents. Based in Dallas, TX, Glorious transitioned to a first-remote company during the Pandemic and never looked back.  “We’ve realized that as long as you have the right employees, it doesn’t matter whether they’re in office or remote, they’re going to get the job done,” Rashko states. “Speaking for myself, I have zero problems managing a team from overseas.”

Main Challenges as a CS Manager

As an E-Commerce company like Glorious grows, new products and policies are introduced which adds to the complexity of being a CS agent. Consequently, Rashko’s main challenge is ensuring that his team is aligned on policies while maintaining flexibility for customers’ needs. He elaborates, “Sometimes it can be easy for an agent to blindly stick to a policy when it’s clear that in certain situations, it’s us who need to adapt or change something about that policy.” To make sure everyone is on the same page and ultimately avoid frustrated customers, Rashko connects with agents regularly to hear their feedback and provide guidance.

Key Traits Rashko Looks for In CS Agents

While having gaming experience and industry knowledge is a plus, Rashko says he’s more focused on building a team of agents who show empathy and can relate to the customer. Reasoning with an example, he says, “Even I have found myself in the situation of having a complex ticket with a customer where there seems to be no solution in sight. It’s easy to want to just close that support ticket, but that’s not the right approach. "Yes, you need to get to a state where it's safe to close the ticket, but only if it means you are leaving the customer happy with a strong possibility that they are going to support the brand again."

Glorious hiring process is multi-stage – after a review by HR, candidates have a second interview with Rashko. Those making it to the next round are put on a short list for final evaluation. 

CS Team Success Factors

Data Points and KPIs Rashko Is Measuring

Like most CS managers, Rashko pays attention to standard metrics including customer satisfaction scores, average first response time, and average resolution time along with surveys. However, he constantly reminds his team to ensure the customer is taken care of even if it takes a little longer. He explains, “I tell my agents, as long as you respond in a respectable manner and don’t leave the customer waiting too long, it's perfectly fine if you take 2 or maybe 12 hours to close a ticket. Just make sure that you address all their concerns.” 

Rashko values one-on-one meetings with his agents to gain further customer insight. “I ask them about tickets where they felt we could have handled things differently or made adjustments to policy. We want to make things easier for our customers and avoid future frustrations throughout the support process." he says.

Goals and Priorities: Leveraging AI While Maintaining Human Touch

Understanding that AI in customer service is unavoidable, Rashko is exploring ways to leverage AI technologies for solving everyday, simple tasks while maintaining human touch. This means implementing strategies that avoid customers coming away from a situation feeling as though their concerns are getting a fully-automated treatment.. He even considers how his own team will receive incorporating AI into CS processes and operations. “I want to help them understand the difference AI is going to make. Now is the time for them to start focusing on more complex tickets. They don’t need to worry that AI is here to replace them – that couldn’t be further from the truth as far as I’m concerned.”

Proactive Customer Service

Post-purchase communication with customers is critical for the company to gain valuable insight on major touch points throughout the CX journey. Glorious sends each customer a review request for the product they purchased and the overall shipping/delivery service.. “We make it clear that this is when they can share feedback if something wasn’t satisfactory, so that we could follow up with them and make sure they're taken care of.” Rashko notes. He goes on to say that some people don’t reach out when they are having a negative experience and simply choose not to support the brand in the future. By being proactive in CS, there is opportunity to make things right even when the customer doesn’t initiate contact.

The Future of CS in the Next 5 to 10 Years

Given the changing habits of customers, communication channels, and AI, Rashko believes that customer service is entering a phase of adaptation. Gamers are turning to platforms like Reddit for help and to voice their concerns. He maintains, “I believe there should be much more focus on those external channels, which are not usually considered typical customer service channels.” Rashko views AI as a useful tool for handling simple tickets while stressing that CS leaders must make sure agents aren’t feeling threatened by new technologies. His message, “AI is here to stay, not to replace you, but to complement your work.”

Advice for CX Leaders

From personal experience, Rashko’s advice to aspiring CS leaders is to be flexible and keep an open mind. "You may feel confident you have the best CS policy in place. Until one day, a customer experiencing a peculiar issue "comes out of nowhere" and shows you that you can improve that policy." At the end of the day, it’s not about closing that extra support ticket. It’s about making the customer happy and ultimately, a return customer.