Case Study
Upside
Upside teams up with Peak
Support to stay ahead in the
fight against fraud
Reduced Average Handle Time by 53.3%
Developed dozens of macros to reduce average handle time
Reduced First Response Time by 38.2%
First reply time reduced significantly in just three months
Consistent QA Scores above 99%
Overall experience resulted in consistently high QA scores
“Peak Support gets into the weeds of the business and how it works. It doesn’t feel rudimentary when you’re working with them in a business review setting—it feels like you’re working with a business leader.”
-Dan Spar, Senior Director of Consumer Operations Upside
Introduction
Founded in 2016 and based in Washington, DC, Upside is a one-stop cash back app that lets people “get more” from shopping at brick-and-mortar grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, and beyond.
Whenever a customer makes a purchase and pays with a card, they earn cash back. It’s a triple-win scenario: customers save money on purchases they’re already making, retailers gain incremental profit by attracting more customers, and Upside wins by sharing in that profit.
Unfortunately, the chance to earn cash also means Upside’s a target for various kinds of fraud.
To combat this threat, Upside joined forces with Peak Support, ensuring that dishonest and suspicious behavior is swiftly addressed, while legitimate users are protected and taken care of.
Dan Spar, Senior Director of Consumer Operations, oversees a large support team of over 100 customer service specialists, 40 people reviewing receipts, and about a dozen fraud prevention agents.
This small but mighty team is responsible for Trust & Safety, one of the most complex functions at Upside—and it’s formed entirely by outsourced team members from Peak Support.
Situation: Fighting fraud, an ever-shifting target
From customers submitting fake receipts to “cashier fraud,” where cashiers or employees take customers’ receipts and upload them, fraud on Upside’s platform takes various forms over time. Staying on top of the latest trends and tactics is a never-ending task.
Another common practice is credential stuffing, in which lists of emails are bought on the black market, which fraudulent actors then attempt to use on Upside’s platform. If they’re successfully able to login, these bad actors withdraw the real user’s cash.
Luckily, the Trust & Safety team spearheaded by Peak Support is not just “very dedicated to fraud prevention” but also “constantly doing sweeps—trying to understand how people are trying to break into Upside’s system” and taking action to kick the “bad customers” off to create a more secure and safer platform, according to Dan.
Examples of Peak Support’s recommendations include:
- Identifying new fraud trends (such as fake/modified receipts), leading to automatic user bans and improved processes
- Recommending auto-escalation of certain tickets, boosting resolution time and customer satisfaction (CSAT)
- Detecting social media groups sharing unauthorized promo codes; took action to ban users and update processes
Solution: Joining forces through the right people and tools
For Dan, the relationship between both companies is a partnership and not a “top-down” setup. Being able to trust Peak Support as expert partners is one reason why the partnership has been so successful.
“We have a really good ecosystem of trust with the team, and it makes our weekly business reviews (WBRs) good to go to every week,” says Dan. The WBRs are an opportunity to discuss additional resources needed or tooling improvements. It’s also where Peak Support will bring in ideas to solve problems, like Term of Use violations and suggested process improvements.
For example, Peak Support provided tool recommendations to help frontline agents assess what they see more quickly and take the right action, which Upside implemented. This guidance has been instrumental in helping team members succeed.
Difficult conversations are also unavoidable when dealing with Trust & Safety. Peak Support has proactively helped develop language guidelines based on clarity, honesty, and transparency so that Upside “can handle tough situations well.”
“Usually, in the business process outsourcing (BPO) world, there’s a sense of ‘do what the client says, that’s it,’” says Dan. However, with Peak Support, he can rely on mutual openness and a constant feedback loop, which means the Upside team will not miss out on anything, even though they aren’t actually handling tickets most tickets directly.
“What’s been really lovely about working with Peak is the honesty — the team is confident to tell us what’s up, and it’s been lovely and wonderful to be a part of,” says Dan.
Take QA scores, for example, which are consistently over 99%.
“QA is paramount because it’s the only way to complete the feedback loop,” explains Dan. “It’s not about how someone is doing poorly, but how they can do better.” In other words, “it’s an opportunity to help people grow and improve.”
Although Peak Support is handling some of the toughest customer conversations Upside sees — like a real user getting locked out of their account for suspected fraud — they’re able to create a consistently good experience that builds trust with Upside’s users.
Through constant feedback, Peak Support stays on top of Upside’s business needs.
“They spend the time and energy to understand what the business needs are and what we’re trying to achieve,” says Dan. “They’re really smart people to work with.”
Results: Keeping user’s accounts secure faster
Peak Support is not only a reliable fraud prevention partner—it brings deep knowledge that benefits the business, too.
“Peak Support gets into the weeds of what the business is about and how it works. They understand their function, so it doesn’t feel rudimentary when you’re working with them in a business review setting—it feels like you’re working with a business leader,” concludes Dan.
Responsiveness is critical for Upside, because when you’ve accidentally cut off access to someone’s money, every minute matters. One way Upside benefited from Peak Support’s expertise is when Peak Support created dozens of fraud-specific macros, contributing to reducing handle time from 15 minutes to 7 minutes and response time from 17 to 10.5 minutes.
SIDEBAR: Achievements of the Upside and Peak Support partnership include:
- Receiving consistently high CSAT scores from legitimate users that were accidentally blocked (due to suspected fraud)
- Creating dozens of macros, dropping average handle time from 15 to 7 minutes.
- Reducing response time from 17 to 10.5 minutes.
- Developing language guidelines in line with Upside’s brand, which help Upside effectively manage challenging situations.
- QA scores consistently above 99%
For good users flagged and reversed, Upside sees a relatively high CSAT. That’s meaningful, because while it’s an upsetting situation for users, the way Peak Support handles those conversations results in users appreciating their efforts to keep Upside secure, keep their funds safe, and to quickly resolve issues.
Peak Support also identified fraud flags that typically led to false positives, creating bad customer experiences for honest users. As a result, Upside adjusted its filters to avoid flagging those accounts.
The Peak Support team’s readiness to deal with the constantly changing fraud landscape means Upside can focus on its business priorities.
“If Peak Support was to disappear tomorrow…I would be emotionally devastated,” Dan says. “Fraud is such a complicated topic. As we’re about to move into a new year and great growth opportunities, the thought of having to try and rebuild what we have with another team would be a really tough thing to do.”
Luckily, Peak Support’s Trust & Safety team makes it possible for Upside to scale confidently, knowing they have a reliable partner managing fraud prevention.
Results
Receiving high CSAT scores
from legitimate users that were accidentally blocked (due to suspected fraud)
AHT: 15 to 7 min
Developed dozens of macros to reduce average handle time
First Response: 17 to 10.5 min
First reply time reduced significantly in just three months
Consistent QA Scores above 99%
Overall experience resulted in consistently high QA scores
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