A cross-border launch that did not need launch-day firefighting
Readiness run early across logistics, customer service and returns, then the service model rebuilt around what the complaints were actually saying.
Revibe.me, Dubai · market launch into Kuwait
Context
Revibe was opening a new market across a border, which meant teams in two countries, different logistics, and a customer-service function that would be answering questions nobody had answered before. Cross-border launches rarely fail on strategy. They fail on the day, on the specific thing nobody checked.
What I did
- Ran the readiness checks a week ahead rather than on launch week, across logistics, customer service and returns, so problems surfaced while there was still time to be boring about them.
- Coordinated the cross-border teams onto aligned processes, so the same customer question got the same answer regardless of which side handled it.
- Standardised customer service, logistics and returns afterwards, and built the reporting and dashboards that showed which categories of complaint were actually recurring.
- Closed the loop with feedback routing, so a resolved complaint also went back to whichever step in the process had produced it. Resolving a complaint helps one customer. Removing its cause helps everyone after them.
- Aligned the performance metrics with the growth KPIs leadership was already tracking, working with the Head of Operations and Data, so operations and the board were reading one story rather than two.
And first-time resolution up 25%, after the service model, reporting and feedback loops were rebuilt around the go-live.
Customer complaints, indexed to the starting level
First-time resolution moved separately, up 25% over the same period. Shown here as its own number rather than on this scale, since it measures something different.
What I would tell you in an interview
A readiness checklist done a week early prevents launch-day firefighting. Launches are won in the preparation, not on the day, and the temptation is always to spend that week on the launch communications instead of the returns path. The unglamorous checks are the ones that decide how the first month feels.
Before this
The service half of this work started earlier. At the German Neuroscience Centre I brought several clinic branches onto one standard and improved turnaround time by 18% through workflow redesign and documentation accuracy. Before that, at Dubai Electricity & Water Authority, I led a customer-service team of more than ten people under the Dubai Government Service Model and improved first-call resolution by 23% with structured protocols and targeted training.