September 27, 2022 - NEW YORK - Back Market, the leading dedicated marketplace for expertly renewed tech, this week unveiled details of industry-transforming initiatives that raise the levels of efficiency, reliability and quality in how refurbished electronics are evaluated, repaired, delivered and supported, to ensure longer life cycles and a like-new user experience. This includes the debut of the industry’s first Innovation Lab for renewed electronics, as well as a new global customer service initiative that centralizes the entire customer experience with Back Market for all purchases made on the marketplace. Customer Care by Back Market is deploying a team of 650 dedicated customer service professionals to ensure there is an expertly trained agent available as a single point of contact throughout the buying experience, from unboxing smartphone purchases to after-sales management.
Details and hands-on demonstrations were announced at its annual sellers event: BackForum, where the company brought together key industry leaders to talk about the trends and the future of refurbished electronics.
“We are investing not just in an efficient marketplace for buying and selling, but in expanding our transformative mission to help ensure devices spend more time in the hands of users and extending their useful life cycle. To do that we need to better understand how to prevent and address life-shortening technical issues before they reach consumers and deliver world-class service and support once they are in their hands,” said Lauren Benton, General Manager, US of Back Market.
The Innovation Lab will serve two purposes: to elevate and ensure quality and to conduct research and development work to advance repair efforts. The facility in Brooklyn is equipped with leading-edge diagnostic technology and a dedicated team of technical experts who are focused on extending the usable lives of a wide range of electronics products.
To fully address the issues hampering wider adoption of renewed electronics, Back Market announced a new mandate around customer support that requires all sellers on its platform to sign up for Customer Care by Back Market (CCBM). The program is backed by one of the industry's largest team of service professionals dedicated specifically to supporting refurbished devices, providing customers expert and readily-accessible support for their purchases.
The Innovation Lab At Back Market
The Innovation Lab operates as an integral part of Back Market’s quality department while also serving to establish and improve best practices for the industry. It sets the rigorous quality standards for all products on the Back Market platform. The lab places hundreds of mystery orders per month and runs products through functionality and quality tests looking at things like aesthetics, battery life, and even after-sales service.
To further support its sellers, the lab is building and sharing its industrial expertise around repair techniques and serves as an advocate for access to quality parts and the right-to-repair movement. It has developed tools and equipment that improve the verification and reconditioning of tech devices (such as automating tasks like battery drain and stress testing) and shares these freely with its sellers to advance the repair process. It also conducts free training workshops and master classes for sellers on topics such as: AirPods Quality Insights and Safe, Effective Battery Removal Techniques.
“Innovation plays a key role in achieving our mission - to make refurbished tech the first choice for consumers. By applying leading edge thinking and technology to recondition used devices we are making significant improvements on quality. This, combined with the dwindling feature advancements in new products, will enable us to hold on to our hardware longer - thus reducing the environmental and social impact of tech,” said Dylan Jackie, Refurbishment Operations Manager at Back Market. “With the Innovation Lab, we are sharing what we’ve learned over the last eight years working with more than 1,700 active sellers and 6.5 million customers around the world. Elevating the quality of renewed devices is going to benefit everyone and encourage even more participation in the circular economy.”
Launched in 2014 by Thibaud Hug de Larauze, Quentin Le Brouster, and Vianney Vaute, Back Market is the leading dedicated renewed tech marketplace. The company brings high-quality professionally refurbished electronic devices and appliances to customers in 16 countries (including the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Japan, Finland, Ireland, Greece, Slovakia and Sweden). It employs a team of 700 employees across its six offices located in New York, Berlin, Paris, Bordeaux, Barcelona and Tokyo.
