Case Study: Man Crates achieves rapid, coordinated handling of PR-driven contact spikes with Olark live chat

How Man Crates uses All Hands Support to handle PR hits

Man Crates, a San Francisco retailer that curates gift crates for men, faces predictable surges around Cyber Monday, Father's Day and Valentine's Day — plus unpredictable spikes when they get media mentions. With only three full-time customer service reps and East Coast TV segments that air early for their West Coast team, those “All Hands Support” days can create sudden, intense volumes across phone, email and chat.

To handle spikes Man Crates flips to an all-hands model: staff from across the company (including the CEO and marketers) join support, and agents use Olark live chat plus HipChat for fast coordination and triage. That approach — divide-and-conquer, real-time coordination, and prioritizing chat — reduced phone/email overflow (notably on Valentine’s Day), kept response times manageable during peaks, and let the team capture the increased order volume that comes with media exposure.

Man Crates

James Stillian

Customer Champion