1. AI’s Role Beyond Customer Interaction: Martin emphasizes the power of AI in customer service, not just for chatbots, but for routing, NLP, and quality assurance, helping streamline processes and improve service efficiency.
2. Speed vs. Quality: While speed is crucial for CSAT, Martin believes that as the company grows, the real challenge lies in balancing quick responses with high-quality service to push satisfaction scores higher.
3. Creative Hiring Practices: Martin values creativity in his hires, focusing on linguistic skills and unique perspectives rather than just prior customer service experience, building a more diverse and adaptable team.
4. Process vs. Intuition: As waterdrop grows, Martin faces the challenge of balancing flexible, intuitive customer service with the need for more structured processes, ensuring the company adapts without losing its personalized touch.
5. Scalability Across Geographies: Ensuring that every customer, regardless of location, receives the same high-quality service is a priority for Martin, as waterdrop expands into new markets.
Martin Vatchkov discusses waterdrop’s unique approach to customer service, highlighting how AI is transforming behind-the-scenes operations, the challenges of balancing speed with quality, and the importance of creativity in hiring.
Meet Martin, the Global Head of Customer Success at waterdrop!
waterdrop specializes in all things water. Their product line consists of everything from flavored drops to reusable water bottles. Currently, the brand estimates that their products have helped keep more than 20 million single-use waterbottles out of landfills.
Martin’s career began in the call center industry in Bulgaria, a booming sector in the 2000s and 2010s. His first role was at C3i Healthcare Solutions, which was later acquired by HCL.
“It was a very strong industry back in 2010, and I stayed there for about three years.” Starting from answering phones, Martin quickly advanced to a team leader position before joining IBM, where he worked as a team leader for the National Call Center for Australia and New Zealand. “I did that role for about one year, and after that, I became a delivery manager for IBM, again for Australian New Zealand,” he recalled. “We had the biggest telecommunications company in Australia, so that was my contract along, of course, with a few other colleagues of mine.”
After years of working in Bulgaria and gaining international experience, Martin sought a role outside his home country. “I wanted to work outside of Bulgaria because I am the son of two diplomats,” Martin explained. “That meant a lot of traveling for me back and forth all the time, so much also to split between different continents and different countries.” His desire for a global career led him to waterdrop, where he landed a team leader role. “I managed to land a team leader role at waterdrop and that was three years and four months ago,” he said. Martin’s journey highlights the expansive growth of the call center industry and his personal progression from an entry-level role to managing large global accounts.
What Excites Martin About CX
For Martin, leadership is driven by data—pivot tables, Excel sheets, and plenty of analysis. "I love that part," he admits. However, what truly motivates him is helping people when they face problems and contact companies for support. "Sometimes, we go into these situations with the mindset that we’re going to fight, almost like it’s a game of tennis," he explains.
But Martin believes in flipping the narrative, ensuring that the customer walks away with a positive outcome. "There are hundreds of thousands of opportunities to interact with customers, and you have their attention for such a short period of time—you better make the best use of that time," he says.
waterdrop takes a unique approach compared to other companies by focusing on community engagement, creating localized teams in each country where they operate. In addition to the customer service team, there’s a separate team dedicated to CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which works alongside other departments to ensure that customers get the best possible experience.
When combining these teams, the total workforce dedicated to customer care reaches about 50 to 60 people. Specifically for customer service, Waterdrop has four on-site team members in Vienna and another 10 working remotely through a partner.
Qualities Martin Appreciates
Martin is deeply interested in the creativity and unique skills that new hires bring to the table. While previous experience is valuable, he often finds that candidates with strong language skills or other unique talents can be just as impactful. The hiring process itself, however, is handled by a third party, ensuring that the right individuals are selected for the team.
Martin emphasizes that speed is one of the most important KPIs in customer service. "You can give a poor answer, but if you get the speed, people are sometimes willing to neglect what you actually answered," he explains.
While not always the case, speed plays a significant role in driving customer satisfaction, with a substantial portion of their CSAT scores relying on it. He notes that achieving a speed-driven CSAT of 80% is relatively easy, but improving that score to 90% or higher requires a focus on quality.
Quality, along with understanding the reasons customers are reaching out, is crucial to their success. With a reactive team, it's vital for Martin’s team to track contact reasons to ensure they are targeting the right areas for improvement and maintaining a strong customer experience.
Top Challenges
Martin identifies one of the biggest challenges in customer service as managing and interpreting the vast amounts of data teams have to process. "There’s no human being out there that can think of everything the data is showing," he explains.
Despite the help of AI solutions, the task remains difficult. Martin emphasizes that even with dedicated leaders for each data point—such as speed, quality, and CSAT—there can still be conflict over priorities. "Even if you have a team of 1,000 people, there will be at least 100 people pulling towards their own agenda," he states. Ultimately, he believes the real challenge lies in making sense of all the data and taking effective action based on it.
When Martin joined waterdrop three and a half years ago, one of his first questions was about the company's use of AI. The answer at the time was that they weren’t using AI, which led Martin to push for change. "I was like, yeah, we need to change this ASAP," he recalls. He believes that when implemented correctly, AI can be incredibly powerful in the customer service environment.
However, he stresses that AI in customer service goes beyond just chatbots answering questions. It's about improving the entire process, from routing inquiries to enhancing quality and utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP). He points out that AI can be leveraged in various ways, such as improving quality assurance, citing Zendesk’s acquisition of Klaus, a platform that uses AI for this purpose. Martin also notes the increasing importance of AI in areas like telephony, which he believes will continue to evolve and shape the future of customer service.
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