How an Australian DTC Brand Scaled Customer Support 3×
A fast-growing home goods brand tripled support capacity during peak season without hiring locally — protecting CSAT and repeat purchase rates.
Coastal Living Co. was drowning in order enquiries during Q4. Two in-house staff couldn't keep up — response times hit 24+ hours, refund requests piled up, and negative reviews started appearing.
Apex Admins deployed two customer support VAs and a part-time media buyer — handling inbox, returns, Shopify order issues, and Meta ad optimisation through the holiday rush.
3× support capacity, 4-hour average response time during peak, 22% improvement in repeat purchase rate, and ROAS improved 18% on holiday campaigns.
Coastal Living Co. had built a loyal following for sustainable home products — but success created an operations bottleneck. During their first serious Q4 on Shopify, customer enquiries tripled while the team stayed at two.
Founder Emma Chen considered hiring locally but couldn't justify full-time headcount for seasonal demand. Apex Admins proposed a flexible pod: two support VAs scaling from 20 to 40 hours weekly, plus a media buyer for peak campaign management.
Within 10 days, the team was live in Gorgias and Shopify — handling order tracking, returns, product questions, and review responses in Australian English with brand-appropriate tone.
Peak season response times held at 4 hours average (down from 24+). Repeat purchase rate climbed 22% quarter-over-quarter. The media buyer's campaign optimisations delivered 18% ROAS improvement on Meta spend.
"We scaled through our biggest season without a single local hire. The support team felt in-house from day one."
Key takeaways
- → Seasonal e-commerce needs flexible scaling
- → Support quality protects brand reputation
- → Combining support + paid media creates compound ROI
- → Remote teams integrate with Shopify/Gorgias stacks
How it unfolded
-
1
Week 1
Brand voice guide, Gorgias setup, and VA shortlist.
-
2
Week 2
Support team onboarded; media buyer briefed on campaigns.
-
3
Month 1
Q4 peak handled — response times under 4 hours.
-
4
Post-season
Scaled hours down; retained core support team.
Roles Coastal Living Co. hired
Related case studies
Brightside Digital
How a Melbourne Agency Built a White-Label Delivery Team
A 15-person digital agency added design, content, and dev capacity behind the scenes — growing revenue 40% without proportional headcount costs.
Flowstack
How a SaaS Founder Reclaimed 25 Hours Per Week
A pre-Series A SaaS founder offloaded operations to a VA and SDR — freeing time for product and fundraising while pipeline grew 2×.
Ready for results like Coastal Living Co.?
Book a free consultation and get matched with vetted talent in days.
Book Consultation