Cleo customer service — professional guide and operational playbook

Cleo customer service must be designed as a high-trust, low-friction support system that matches the product’s brand promise: fast financial insight and clear, friendly guidance. This guide assumes Cleo is a consumer-facing financial assistant (mobile app + web) and lays out practical, implementable details: channels, SLAs, staffing ratios, tooling, compliance and measurement. The recommendations below are actionable and framed with specific numeric targets you can adopt immediately.

Treat customer service as a product-facing function that directly impacts retention, conversion and lifetime value. In many fintech firms, improving first-response time from 12 hours to 30 minutes can reduce churn by 2–5 percentage points and increase conversion of trial users by 3–6% — numbers worth translating into budget and headcount decisions.

Support channels, availability and SLAs

Recommended channel mix: in-app live chat (primary), email/ticketing, help center/knowledge base, voice for escalations, and social monitoring (Twitter/Instagram). For a consumer fintech, aim for 70–80% of volume handled via in-app chat and self-service. Set hours by tier: free-tier self-service 24/7 with email SLA; paid-tier live chat 08:00–22:00 local time with 15-minute target first-response; premium customers (e.g., enterprise or subscription above $10/month) get 24/7 phone escalation within 60 minutes.

SLA examples to implement: first response time (FRT) — 15 minutes for premium chat, 1 hour for standard chat, 4–8 hours for email tickets; time-to-resolution (TTR) — 24–72 hours for complex account issues, 0–48 hours for refunds and disputes. Track SLA adherence weekly and aim for 95% SLA compliance within 6 months of rollout.

Self-service, FAQs and bot automation

Design a help center that resolves at least 50% of incoming queries. That means publishing 40–80 high-value articles at launch covering: account linking, bank connectivity (re-auth flow), spending categorization, subscription billing, refunds and security. Each article should include clear step-by-step actions, screenshots, and an estimated read/solve time (30–90 seconds).

Implement a two-tier bot strategy: (1) a triage bot to authenticate (non-PII) and gather intent, reducing average handle time (AHT) by 20–35%; (2) an automated resolution bot for the top 10 recurring tasks (password resets, subscription changes, basic transactions). Measure bot containment rate and target 40–60% containment within the first quarter.

Staffing, training and tooling

Staffing model: start with a core team sized to handle peak concurrent volume. A reliable rule of thumb is 1 full-time agent per 300–600 monthly MAUs for chat-heavy fintechs, adjusted for automation. For example, with 60,000 MAUs you’d start with 10–20 agents. Maintain a 20% buffer for peak hours, leave and training time.

Training curriculum should include 40 hours initial onboarding: 16 hours product and compliance, 8 hours soft skills and de-escalation, 8 hours tooling and chat etiquette, 8 hours live-shadowing. Ongoing training should be 4–8 hours per quarter plus monthly QA sessions. Use playbooks with exact phrasing for sensitive topics (billing, suspected fraud) and include legal-approved escalation scripts.

Recommended tools and integrations

Use a combined platform: ticketing/CRM (e.g., Zendesk or Freshdesk), in-app messaging (Intercom/Front), knowledge base with analytics, and an SSO-linked agent desktop. Add a fraud-monitoring feed (real-time flags) and one-click account view that surfaces KYC, last 10 transactions, subscription status and consent logs. Integrate with product analytics (Amplitude/Heap) to trace support interactions back to feature usage and conversion funnels.

Budgeting: expect tooling license costs of $8–$25 per MAU-equivalent agent per month, plus an initial setup and workflow customization fee commonly in the $5,000–$20,000 range for enterprise-grade stacks.

Escalation paths, security and compliance

Escalation matrix: Level 1 — front-line agent (resolve 70–80% of tickets); Level 2 — specialist (billing, integrations) within 4 hours; Level 3 — engineering for product bugs within 24–72 hours; Executive escalations resolved within 48 hours. Use ticket tags and SLA timers to automate handoffs and audit trails.

Security and compliance are non-negotiable. For any customer data, follow GDPR retention principles and ensure PCI DSS compliance for card-handling flows. Agents should never request full card PANs; mask data in the agent UI and log all agent accesses with 2FA. Keep detailed consent records and be ready for SARs (subject access requests) — typical fintech teams provision 30–90 person-hours annually for SAR fulfillment.

Pricing, refunds and account management policies

Define transparent billing and refund rules: e.g., subscription charges are refundable within 14 days for annual plans and within 48 hours for monthly plans unless explicitly used for premium services. Keep a documented chargeback process: response within 7 business days, supporting documentation prepared within 3 business days of dispute. Maintain a standardized refund approval matrix where team leads can approve up to $100, managers up to $1,000, and finance approves anything above.

Consider support pricing tiers: free (self-service), Plus ($4–$9/month with prioritized chat), Pro ($9–$19/month with phone access and fraud assistance). Monitor support cost per interaction; benchmark ranges are $1–$12 per contact depending on channel and geography.

• Key operational KPIs to track weekly: CSAT (target ≥85%), NPS (target 30–60 depending on maturity), FRT (premium ≤15 minutes), resolution rate (≥90%), cost per contact (monitor trend), and containment rate for bots/self-service (target ≥50%).
• Executive reports (monthly): volume by channel, top 10 issues, SLA compliance %, escalations by severity, live CSAT trends, churn attributed to support issues, and two product suggestions driven by support feedback.