‘We’re Invested in Building a User-Centric Platform’ – A Q&A With Tapjoy’s Sherry Zarabi

Tapjoy’s rewarded ads reach over 1B users every month, but at that scale, some users need technical support throughout their journey. Our Customer Experience Team fields these issues, freeing publishers to focus on what they do best — making exceptional games. Now Sherry Zarabi, Tapjoy’s Senior Director of Revenue Operations and Customer Experience, shares insight into how our team improves the lives of users every day.

What does Tapjoy’s Customer Experience Team do?

Our team supports Tapjoy users throughout their reward journey across all of the apps in our publisher network. We do this by resolving issues and responding to inquiries regarding the offers on our offerwall. Most users reach out to us for missing rewards via support tickets. In most cases, these users need help understanding the offer terms, or background information on third-party attribution. We also share best practices on our FAQ page and keep our community up to date via Twitter.

What is the Customer Experience team most proud of in 2020?

1. 1. We are more connected. We have increased our customer service team by headcount at around 50%. This expansion includes dedicated regional support in the US, Mexico, and Philippines. We’re looking to expand in Europe in 2020. This growth has radically improved our global operations. We are available to provide support wherever and whenever our users require it.
   2. We are more engaged. Our users can now connect with us through more channels, including Twitter, our FAQ page, and a Dispute Resolution Channel. This last option allows users to dispute a ticket resolution — it’s currently in beta in certain apps, but with a full roll out planned. We also launched a User Panel Research program that we use to gather feedback from our users directly. We use these insights to improve our users’ offerwall experience, product, and how we serve.
   3. We are more streamlined and effective. We have improved our customer service addressability and response times tremendously in the last year. This is reflected in our internal CSAT score and by outside agencies, such as the BBB, giving us an A+ rating in 2020.

What’s the biggest lesson you have learned while working in customer support?

The biggest lesson I have learned is to listen to each user and treat every case as unique. Because of the high volume of activity on our platform, we get a substantial number of tickets. Over 95% of those issues are, “where is my currency?” It would be easy to approach it with the mindset that each user’s situation is the same just because their problem is the same. However, when we review each case, we learn so much from our users. Our users are passionate about the games they play and they give us so much feedback to improve our platform. In fact, user feedback led us to launch the User Panel Research program to identify opportunities to improve the UX. We use these interviews to increase user satisfaction with the end-to-end experience of the Tapjoy Offerwall.

Listening to our users is the lesson we embrace every day. Our team trains every new Tapjoy employee on our commercial team. We begin by describing what our team does —  we listen to our users in an effort to create the best experience possible. We want to make more people feel like Raj, a user that we interviewed in one of our user panels. In his words, Raj said, “What differentiates Tapjoy is the fact they have human customer support. This is more than I can say for other reward providers. I generally receive really good rewards, and customer support is responsive. Tapjoy is awesome!” We want every user to say Tapjoy is awesome!

Can you explain the ticket investigation process?

Tapjoy acts as a bridge between publishers and advertisers. We partner with app publishers who host Tapjoy ads through our rewarded video or offerwall ad units. We connect premium advertisers with our publisher network, allowing them to place in-app ads at scale. These ads appear as offers or video placements. When a user completes an ad offer, the advertiser verifies the engagement. Tapjoy receives confirmation that the action is complete and delivers the reward. We reward users for their time and attention while helping app publishers drive revenue, meanwhile advertisers reach users who may be interested in products and services. Essentially, we mediate a value exchange between publishers, advertises and users. But this model is not without challenges. Often users submit tickets for missing rewards, and we see that advertisers have denied their claim because they did not meet every requirement.

What is the most challenging thing with working in customer support?

Our biggest challenge is that we do not own the entire outcome of a case. This can be very frustrating at times, because all we want to do is make every user feel satisfied with the outcome. We love to reward our users and give them a great experience, so they walk away feeling that Tapjoy is incredible. Unfortunately, even if a user is respectful and deserving of a reward, we cannot circumvent the advertiser guidelines. We have been working on ways to deliver partial rewards to see if we can create a better experience. Above all, we’re invested in building a user-centric platform. That is the guidepost that informs our product roadmap.

What are we excited about in 2021?

There is so much to look forward to. We plan to roll out chat early next year to help our users get their answers faster! We are also excited to introduce more programs that allow us to connect with our users on the issues that are most important to them. The User Panel Research program has been incredibly effective so far, and and programs that enable us to reward our loyal users will make their experience even better. 2021 will be an excellent year for Tapjoy users. Stay tuned for more!

Thanks, Sherry! For more consumer insights, check out our 2020 Modern Mobile Gamer report.