Key Takeaways
- 5 years and counting - Partnership launched in spring 2021, still running strong today
- 70%+ overall cost reduction - Combined platform and staffing costs fell dramatically
- <5% agent turnover - The same agents have been handling these calls for years
BBQ is serious business in America
Walk into any American suburb on a Saturday afternoon and you’ll smell it before you see it. Smoke rising from backyard grills. Neighbors leaning over fences. Someone arguing about the right internal temperature for brisket.
BBQ isn’t just a cooking method in America. It’s a ritual.
The brand at the center of this story has been part of that ritual for over 50 years. Millions of American households own their products - grill tools, thermometers, gas burners, specialty accessories that serious BBQ people argue about online. By the time they came to Callnovo, they were one of the most recognized kitchenware names in the country (identity withheld at their request).
And they had a customer service problem that had nothing to do with their products.
2021. Nobody wanted to work.
The pandemic changed something in the American labor market that hasn’t fully reversed.
Extended unemployment benefits meant a significant portion of the US workforce wasn’t looking for work. For companies that needed customer service staff - roles that required handling complaints, explaining complex products, and staying patient under pressure - finding reliable people had become genuinely hard.
This brand’s business was growing. Their product line was expanding into more complex gas burner equipment with specific safety requirements. Customer inquiries were climbing. They needed a dedicated support team that could handle calls, emails, live chat, and social media - seven days a week, around the clock.
Hiring that team in the US wasn’t working - that’s when they started talking to Callnovo.
Why the Philippines, specifically
This brand wasn’t looking to cut corners. They needed agents who could handle technically complex questions - gas burner operation, safety precautions, troubleshooting, cleaning and maintenance - with accuracy and confidence. Getting those answers wrong wasn’t just a bad experience. It was a safety risk.
After multiple rounds of conversations, they chose to build their English-language support team at Callnovo’s Philippines operation center. The reasons were practical:
- Neutral English accent that works across American, European, and global markets
- Over a decade of operational history running English-language programs - the experience was real
- 24/7 omnichannel coverage without US labor law complexity, union issues, or constant churn
- Significant cost savings on staffing - building an equivalent English-language team in the US would have cost multiples of what the Philippines operation required
They didn’t just hand over the keys. Their leadership sat in on interviews, reviewed candidates directly, and helped build the team alongside Callnovo.
“We were outsourcing the logistics — not the accountability.” — VP of Customer Care
They shipped actual grills to Manila
Here’s the detail that stuck with us.
Some of their products - particularly the gas burner line - involve real technical complexity. Customers call with questions about ignition systems, heat output settings, safety shutoff features, correct cleaning procedures, and what to do when something doesn’t work the way it should. Getting these answers right matters.
To get there, our trainer Marco sourced one of the brand’s gas burner units and took it apart himself. He worked through the assembly, tested the ignition system, ran through the safety shutoffs, and identified the three steps where a first-time user would most likely lose patience.
That hands-on knowledge went directly into how agents answered calls - not a script, but actual understanding of how the product works and where things go wrong.
Why they left their enterprise platform - and what replaced it
When the partnership started, this brand was running their customer communications on a major enterprise CRM platform. It had worked well enough for years. But as their needs evolved, a familiar problem emerged.
It’s a powerful platform. It’s also an enterprise platform - designed for enterprise-scale customization with enterprise-scale pricing to match. Every small change to their workflow required a customization request. Every customization request came with a quote.
For a brand that needed to move quickly - updating workflows for new products, adjusting processes for seasonal volume spikes - this friction was costing them time and money they didn’t want to spend on a rigid customer service platform.
After spending time with HeroDash, they made the switch. The contrast was immediate:
- Changes that took weeks and significant budget on their old platform were handled quickly and at minimal cost
- US 800 number integration, email ticketing, and live chat - unified in one place
- Combined platform and staffing costs dropped by more than 70%. The platform switch from enterprise CRM to HeroDash accounted for roughly half the savings; the rest came from running the team out of the Philippines instead of a US-based hire.
In five years of working together, every time we checked in on satisfaction - formally or informally - the answer came back the same: very satisfied. No complaints about agent quality. No complaints about platform performance. No complaints about how issues were handled.
That consistency across five years means something. Products changed. Volumes fluctuated. Seasonal peaks hit hard. New inquiry types emerged. Through all of it, the delivery held.
Agent turnover remains below 5% - the people answering calls today have often been doing it for years. The product knowledge is deep. The brand voice is consistent.
What this looks like for your brand
Most brands in this situation are dealing with the same combination: rising support volume, a platform that charges too much for too little flexibility, and a domestic hiring market that isn’t working. If that sounds familiar, this is usually the point where companies start evaluating managed customer service operations.
The fix isn’t complicated. Stay involved in team building. Invest in real product training. Look at the full cost picture including platform fees. And find a partner who treats your standards as the baseline, not the ceiling.
FAQ
How long does it take to launch an outsourced customer support team in the Philippines?
Typical launches for English-language operations of this complexity take four to eight weeks. The first weeks go to team selection and product training (in this case, including the gas burner disassembly). A soft-launch period under QA review precedes full-volume operations.
What’s the cost difference between US-based and Philippines-based customer support?
For an English-language team running 24/7 omnichannel coverage, building equivalent capacity in the US typically costs 2–3× the Philippines equivalent — once benefits, turnover, training, and management overhead are included. The 70%+ savings on this account combine that staffing efficiency with the platform switch from enterprise CRM to HeroDash.
How do you maintain product knowledge for technically complex products?
Trainers physically source and disassemble the brand’s products before agents go live. For this account, our trainer ran the gas burner unit’s ignition, tested the safety shutoffs, and walked through assembly to find the exact steps where customers would call for help. That knowledge feeds the agent training and the brand’s own support documentation.
Thinking about building a dedicated support team outside your home market? See how HeroDash compares to your current platform, or talk to our team about what this looks like for your business.
