The Situation
Forest is on a mission to build happier, healthier cities for all, nurturing our urban environment one eBike at a time. The company offers a micro-mobility platform, providing affordable and accessible bike-sharing solutions in London. Users enjoy 10 minutes free daily, sponsored by their sustainable partners, followed by a £0.19 (US$0.24) per minute rate. This fun rate is made possible by their ad-driven model, delivering targeted ads before and after rides. Pioneering this innovative model, Forest connects users and partners sustainably, powered by their in-house tech. With zero emissions, their eBikes aim to enable over 10,000 rides daily, preventing almost 5 tonnes of CO2 from London’s air.
Every Forest team member owns a piece of the company and works directly for the startup. Their customer vision: treating users like friends and family—with respect, warmth, and empathy. It takes more than one tree to create a forest, which is why, together, they’re crafting a community into a human forest.
The Challenge
When Forest launched in 2020, they relied on Zendesk Support, Explore, and Chat as their full CS platform. However, as Forest’s customer base began to grow and journeys increased, they soon realized that connecting with users across multiple platforms was proving to be a challenge. The existing setup lacked smooth communication between channels, resulting in fragmented customer histories. Given Forest’s customer-centric focus, they sought a platform championing communication, not just treating interactions as tasks.
Forest also aimed to enhance the agent experience. Their goal was to motivate and empower champions, steering away from selectively choosing conversations to resolve and an unequal agent workload. They wanted an intuitive, user-friendly platform, where they could easily streamline workflows and sustain high customer satisfaction.
Biggest reason for making the change from Zendesk is the support we get from Dixa. With Zendesk we didn’t feel important. Response times were very long. We might not be the biggest Dixa customer but we feel quite cared about. Our opinion is valued— we feel heard and there is always an action plan to improve.”
Sanna Jaan
Support & Community Manager
Forest
The Solution
In June 2021, HumanForest made a pivotal choice by selecting Dixa as its dedicated customer service platform.
We were looking to have the least amount of software in our service tech stack and Dixa helped us do that. The fact that Dixa has an integrated knowledge base was a big benefit. With a lot of vendors, that just isn’t the case and you’d have to have another integration that could cause problems. Technically, you don’t have to leave Dixa to see the knowledge base, which is a really big help.”
Sanna Jaan
Support & Community Manager
Forest
An intuitive platform with unified conversations
Changing to the Dixa platform allowed Forest to unify all conversations across multiple platforms so customer histories were no longer fragmented. All channels are natively built into Dixa, enabling agents to set themselves as active on multiple channels at once. Meanwhile, managers have visibility into agent activity, and can ensure no channel gets backed up. If one channel needs support, an agent can be there with just a click (and without even switching tabs). Meaning agents have all the context they need to provide highly personalized service.
An accurate, comprehensive knowledge base
With Dixa’s assistance, Forest now boasts a comprehensive knowledge base, encompassing more than 10 organized folders. This wealth of processes and insights is readily accessible to the entire customer support team. The beauty lies in its dynamic nature—it can be updated without relying on their tech team, who are based outside of the UK, minimizing the risk of inaccurate information being relayed to customers. Thanks to their internal manual, training can now be done remotely and in just one week.
Increasing conversational capacity with data-driven insights
Operating as a 24/7 live service, Forest gains invaluable insights through Dixa’s analytics. This allows them to align peak ride times with when users were most likely to seek support. The result? Informed decisions to scale the support team, creating targeted shift patterns for high-demand periods. This strategic approach efficiently supports growth while managing costs. Notably, the data prompted a shift in support operating hours—turning off calls after 6 p.m. and redirecting customers to Dixa Messenger. This adjustment reduces burnout while increasing conversation capacity, leveraging quicker chat handling times. This made for happier customers and happier agents. This helped meet the goal of steering away from selectively choosing conversations to resolve and an unequal agent workload. Dixa’s intuitive, user-friendly platform helps streamline workflows and sustain high customer satisfaction.
The right agent at the right time with smart routing
Dixa’s intelligent routing system optimizes how customer inquiries are directed to agents. By considering factors like workload, and historical interactions. Forest goes the extra mile by giving urgent matters the front seat. For instance, incoming Dixa Messenger chats are pushed ahead of emails and account deletion requests. This strategic allocation ensures timely responses, especially for users in the midst of their rides, guaranteeing immediate assistance!
We needed a platform that empowered and gave the service team independence. With Zendesk, we had to rely on the tech team that was many time zones away for analytics and changing how we used the product. Dixa gives us the visibility we need to make data-driven decisions and make all the necessary day to day changes we need on our own.”
Sanna Jaan
Support & Community Manager
Forest
What’s Next?
Next year, Forest is planning to expand into new markets in Europe. That means a whole new team and things like localization and onboarding need to be organized. They’ll want to expand their internal knowledge base with content relevant for these new markets, such as return policies.
Forest is also exploring Dixa’s AI chatbot. Dixa Messenger is their most used channel, as everyone uses the app and contacts Forest via the app. Forest will continue to look for ways to streamline and automate as they continue to make their service experience faster and better.
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