For online marketplaces and platforms
There’s an operation behind every marketplace.
Your platform brings buyers and sellers together. What follows still needs people.
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What we do
The work is answering buyers and sellers, settling their disagreements and checking what gets listed. Both sides come back when it’s done well.
Which parts we take on is up to you
It could be support for your buyers, your sellers or both. It could be the sellers who signed up and never listed, contacted to find out why. Or it could be nothing customer-facing at all, such as listings waiting for a check, reported reviews or chargebacks.
We can also set up and plan
If you need it, we can set up what the work runs on, for instance your helpdesk, your reporting, or your processes mapped out end to end, improved and written down. And we can work with you to plan how your operations should run, now or in the future.
Who gets in touch, and why.
A marketplace hears from both sides of a sale, often about the same thing. We’ve said buyers and sellers here. Yours may be guests and hosts, customers and operators, or clients and freelancers.
About an order or a booking
From the day it’s placed to the day it arrives or takes place
- A buyer whose parcel hasn’t come
- A buyer who says it isn’t what the listing showed
- A seller told it never arrived, with tracking that says it did
- A customer who wants to move a booking after the cut-off
- An operator who has to cancel a session
- Either of them, when the other has stopped replying
About a payment or a payout
After paying, after a claim, and when payouts go out
- A buyer waiting for a refund
- A customer charged twice
- A seller asking when they’ll be paid
- A seller whose payout is on hold
- A question about a fee or commission
- An operator asking why a booking was refunded
About a listing or an account
Joining, selling, and when something is taken down
- Someone new asking how to get approved
- A seller whose listing was rejected, or isn’t showing
- A seller asking what a warning means
- A buyer reporting a listing that looks like a scam
- A review one side thinks is unfair
- An account that’s been suspended, and an appeal
What we’d take on
Behind every listing and every sale.
Each of these is a separate piece of work, run in your name and in the systems you already use. Hand over one, or several.
Answered with the order open.
Orders, deliveries, bookings and refunds, answered by chat, email or phone. The team takes what your help pages and tracking haven’t settled.
- A parcel that hasn’t come, or isn’t what was shown
- A booking to move or cancel
- A refund that hasn’t arrived
Buyer support · A booking site
“Can we move Saturday’s lesson to Sunday?”
- Still inside the time the operator allows for changes
- Sunday has a space
- Moved, and the operator told
Settled in the conversation
An exact answer, from your own terms.
Listings, payouts, fees and warnings explained from your terms and from what the account shows.
- When a payout is due, and why one is on hold
- Why a listing was rejected or isn’t showing
- What a warning means, and what to do about it
Seller support · A marketplace for handmade goods
“Why is my payout on hold?”
- The hold found on the payout record
- One order has a claim open against it
- The seller told which order, and what would release it
Explained, and noted on the account
Both sides heard, and your rules applied.
The cases a buyer and a seller couldn’t settle between them. Both accounts are read against your rules, and both are told the outcome with the reason.
- Not delivered, or not as described
- A service one side says wasn’t given
- What your rules don’t cover, brought to you with both accounts
Dispute · A second-hand marketplace
A phone sold as “like new”
- The buyer’s photos show a cracked back
- The listing’s photos don’t show the back at all
- Your rules cover an item that isn’t as described
Refunded under your policy, and both told why
Helped through to a first listing.
Where an automatic check on a new seller hasn’t passed, they’re told what’s missing and how to put it right. Sellers who signed up and never listed are contacted to find out what stopped them.
- Applications an automatic check couldn’t pass
- What is on your own list that no software looks at
- Sellers who went quiet after signing up
Seller follow-up · A marketplace for handmade goods
Signed up a month ago, nothing listed
- Contacted after your reminder emails went unanswered
- Stuck at delivery prices, and not sure what to charge
- Talked through your delivery settings, and the first listing went up
To you
Delivery prices are where they stop. The set-up page asks for them before it explains them.
On the seller’s record, with what stopped them
Checked against your rules.
New listings your filters have held back for a person to look at, and anything a user has reported, checked against your rules and acted on as far as you’ve agreed.
- Listings held back by your filters
- Listings, profiles and reviews that users report
- Appeals from sellers whose listing came down
Listing check · A second-hand marketplace
Held by your filter for a brand name
- Your rules ask for a photo of the label and proof of purchase
- Both are in the listing
Released, as your rules say
Beyond buyers and sellers
And the things you hadn’t thought to ask for.
Six more things we could do for a marketplace, each marked with how we’d help.
- We set it up
The rulings your policy doesn’t cover
Each case that had to come to you, and what you decided, written into the guide the team works from. The next one like it is settled the same way.
Processes and knowledge base - We set it up
What each side is writing in about
Each conversation recorded by what it was really about, in enough detail to act on, with buyers and sellers kept apart.
Reporting - We set it up
Order questions answered at any hour
An AI agent answering from help pages you’ve approved, with a proper handover to a person when a case needs one.
AI for customer service - We run it
Chargebacks
When a buyer goes to their bank and not to you, the order, the messages and the proof of delivery are gathered, and the chargeback is answered as far as you’ve agreed.
Disputes and chargebacks - We run it
Your social channels, answered
Buyers and sellers asking under your posts or by message, answered there and moved somewhere private once an order is involved.
Social media inboxes - We plan it with you
Before a new country or a new category
How the work on each side should be organised as you add sellers, languages or kinds of listing.
Consultancy
When a sale goes wrong
Both of them were there. You weren’t.
When something goes wrong, the two people involved can each tell it differently. The team hears both, checks the order and your rules, and tells each of them where it stands. What your rules don’t settle comes to you.
The team
A second-hand marketplace · a coat
The buyer
“It says delivered. Nothing has come.”
The team
A second-hand marketplace · a coat
The tracking shows it handed over in a different town from the address on the order.
Settled under your policy for a parcel that went astray
The seller
“I posted it the next day. The tracking shows it arrived.”
A booking site · a paddleboard lesson
The customer
“We were there at ten and nobody came.”
The team
A booking site · a paddleboard lesson
The meeting point on the listing was changed after this booking was made.
Lesson rebooked, and you told how it happened
The operator
“I waited at the meeting point until quarter past.”
A platform for freelancers · a logo
The client
“This isn’t what I asked for. I want my money back.”
The team
A platform for freelancers · a logo
Both accounts hold up. Your rules cover work that wasn’t delivered, and this was delivered.
Passed to you, with the brief and both accounts
The freelancer
“It’s what the brief said, and I’ve done two rounds of changes.”
However it ends, both hear back with the reason, and it’s on the order for you to see.
The team behind it.
Buyers and sellers both deal with your platform. The team works in your systems and to your rules.
Our employees, our team leads
Trained on your platform and your rules before they answer anyone, and led by team leads whose job is coaching.
How we workOne location, chosen with you
The Philippines, Portugal or Ireland. Which one depends on the hours, the languages and the work, and it’s agreed with you before anything starts.
Where we workWhat the team can see
Each person works under their own login, with only the access the work needs. One client’s information is never visible to another client’s team.
Security and data protection
Questions, answered.
The things marketplaces and platforms are likely to ask first.
What kind of work can you help us with?
It could be support for your buyers, support for your sellers, the disputes between them, checks on new sellers, listings and reviews, or the sellers who signed up and went quiet. We can also set up what that work runs on, and work with you to plan how it should run. Whether that’s one part or several is up to you.
How do we get started?
With a conversation about your operation and what you need. From there, we work out together where we can help and what comes next.How we work
Is there a minimum team size?
No. It can be a single person or an enterprise-scale operation. We build the structure around the work, whatever its size.
Can you cover just a busy season?
Yes. Cover for a busy season is planned with you ahead of it, and comes back down afterwards.
Does the team decide disputes, or only gather the evidence?
As far as you set. The team can apply your published policy and tell both sides. Or you can make every decision yourselves. Either way, an exception comes to you. So does anything the policy doesn’t cover.
Do the same people answer buyers and sellers?
They can, or they can be separate groups within the team. The two are different work. A buyer wants a fair answer, and a seller is running a business and needs an exact one. Which way it’s organised is worked out with you, from how much arrives on each side.
Can the team work in more than one language?
Yes. Which languages, and which of our locations the team works from, is worked out with you from where your buyers and sellers are.Where we work
Will the team work in our own admin tools?
Yes. That might be a helpdesk, your own back office and your payment provider’s dashboard. The team works in whatever you run on. Each person needs a login of their own in each, which is yours to give, because we don’t work from a shared password.
How does the team learn our platform and our rules?
Through training, before anyone does any work for you. How that training happens depends on what material you already have, how soon you need people, and how much of it you want to run yourselves.How we work
How do we know how it’s going?
Real pieces of work are reviewed against your process, and what the reviews find goes into each person’s coaching. You get regular reporting on how the work is going, what we’ve found and what we’re doing about it.How we work
What if the work I need help with isn’t listed here?
Tell us about it. This page covers the work marketplaces and platforms are most likely to need, not everything we do. If the work follows a process and happens in an inbox, on a call or in your own systems, there’s a good chance we can take it on. If it isn’t one for us, we’ll say so.Tell us about your business
How much does it cost?
It depends on the kinds of work, the hours you want covered and the languages you need. We work it out with you once we understand your operation.
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