Catch Creation is a New York-based e-commerce incubator managing customer support for multiple fast-growing consumer brands, with a lean team of 15 virtual agents handling up to 6,000 inbound calls a day during peak season. Their previous platform couldn’t keep pace with seasonal surges, offered no flexibility on contracts, and left performance data buried or missing. After switching to CloudTalk and redesigning their workflow with call tagging, whisper coaching, and real-time analytics, average handle time dropped by 33% and each agent now handles up to 66% more calls per shift — without adding headcount.
About Catch Creation
Catch Creation is a New York-based e-commerce incubator that launches and scales consumer product brands through direct response advertising. Led by CEO Matthew Squillace, the company manages the full lifecycle in-house: from product development and marketing to fulfillment and support. Catch Creation is best known for launching viral consumer brands like Muddy Mat and Incense Waterfall, and serves hundreds of customers across North America.
Jessica leads a lean, distributed support team of 15 virtual agents, two supervisors, and two support specialists. Together, they handle everything from order issues and cancellations to refund disputes and fulfillment delays. On an average weekday, the team handles 400-600 calls. But during high-volume seasons (especially Q4), that number skyrockets to over 6,000 inbound calls per day. Support operations need to scale fast, adapt to real-time changes, and maintain quality across multiple brands at once.
To stay ahead, Jessica needed more than just a call platform: she needed one that could scale fast, flex on demand, and give her complete visibility into performance.
Problem
“We Needed to Grow Without Getting Bigger”
When Jessica joined the company, Catch Creation was still using Nextiva. But the system couldn’t keep up.
We were frequently experiencing delays of calls coming in to the softphones of our VAs.
Tech issues aside, the bigger problem was operational inflexibility. Their contracts couldn’t adjust to seasonal headcount changes, and performance metrics were limited or buried.
Our business is seasonal. We drastically increase headcount during peak months, and scale down right after. We needed a solution that would let us adapt.
Evaluation
Why CloudTalk Was the Clear Winner
She considered other providers like RingCentral, but only one stood out:
CloudTalk was the only provider that offered the flexibility we needed, and at pricing that made sense for our size and growth.
What sealed the decision wasn’t just the commercial model — it was CloudTalk’s usability, performance, and support.
With Nextiva, we had frequent downtime. With CloudTalk, we’ve had barely any disruptions in four years. It’s user-friendly and the support team is always responsive.
At one point, Jessica tested Zendesk Talk to see if it could cover her needs. But even with that experiment, she kept one number running through CloudTalk.
After close to a year, we pulled our numbers back from Zendesk and moved everything to CloudTalk again. The flexibility, reliability and support were unmatched.
Solution
Features That Made a Difference
Jessica used CloudTalk to redesign the support team’s entire workflow. The first major change was tagging calls by type.
We set up a tagging system for every call. If it’s about delivery delays, a wrong item, a warranty request, we know exactly what it is.
With tags in place, QA no longer had to sample calls blindly.
Now our QA filters calls by tag, like ‘order status beyond delivery timeframe’, and listens to all the calls that match. It saves hours.
The next big upgrade came from whisper mode — a feature that lets supervisors coach agents during live calls.
We don’t wait until after the call to give feedback. We can jump in and guide them during the call itself.
CloudTalk’s analytics suite also gave Jessica a clearer view of call traffic, helping her plan staffing accordingly.
We can see hourly call volume and adjust staffing in real time. That visibility helps us make better decisions every single day.
Results
33% Faster Calls, 66% More Capacity
Before CloudTalk, each agent could handle about 30 to 40 calls during an eight-hour shift. After implementation, that number rose to 50-60 calls per shift, an increase of up to 66% in volume handled, without hiring additional staff.
At the same time, average handle time dropped by 33%, from 6-7 minutes to just 4-5.
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33% reduction in average handle time
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Up to 66% increase in calls handled per agent per shift
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QA reviews based on call tagging
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Smarter staffing using hourly call insights
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4+ years of stable service with minimal downtime and responsive support
These results didn’t just reduce pressure on the support team; they directly improved the customer experience. Agents could respond faster, with better coaching and clearer oversight.
Eyes on the Future
Jessica’s next priority is implementing AI voice agents, especially for handling common inbound requests.
We’re averaging 400 to 600 calls per day right now, and during Q4 that goes up to 6,000. With AI voice, we wouldn’t need to hire and train as many people during peak season.
She’s working with CloudTalk’s product team to explore what’s possible.
I’m looking forward to exploring how inbound voice agents could work in our setup, and ideally, we’ll be ready to test well before peak season hits.
