MìLà Cut Support Tickets 80% and Unlocked 5X Subscription Growth with Skio

COVID Pivot Created DTC Dumpling Empire

MìLà began as Xiao Chi Jie (XCJ), a Seattle restaurant known for authentic soup dumplings and sauces. When COVID-19 hit, co-founders Caleb Wang and Jennifer Liao pivoted to nationwide DTC delivery of frozen soup dumplings—a massive success that created natural subscription opportunity.

Brian "Blok" Lok joined as Chief of Staff during the hypergrowth phase with clear mandate: scale subscription model to boost customer lifetime value and lift subscriber rate from ~3% into double digits. The team targeted subscription revenue as core growth driver for the $10.5M business.

By late 2020, subscriptions became essential for repeat customers during DTC expansion. But their initial platform was actively holding back growth through operational dysfunction and customer experience failures.

Recharge Was Drowning Support Team in Manual Fixes

MìLà's Recharge setup was hemorrhaging team bandwidth through system failures and poor user experience. The platform couldn't keep up with hypergrowth, forcing excessive manual work on the support team who had to manually fix about half of all subscription issues.

Customers struggled with basic functions—logging in, managing subscriptions—due to clunky interface with unresponsive buttons. This friction led to frustration and cancellations as subscribers couldn't access basic self-service capabilities.

Basic actions like adding or removing cart items would break because of Recharge's conflicts with their custom-coded site. Subscription adjustments often failed, generating mountains of support tickets that consumed team resources needed for growth initiatives.

"We knew pretty quickly that Recharge wasn't the best long-term system for us, especially as we hit DTC hypergrowth. It just required way too much oversight and manual lifts."

The oversight and manual effort required were unsustainable during rapid expansion when the team needed to focus on strategic growth rather than platform firefighting.

White-Glove Migration With Custom Engineering

Blok spearheaded the search for better solution after enduring enough Recharge headaches. Skio caught his attention for intuitive design and reliability promise—simplified engine that actually worked versus Recharge's "bells and whistles" that created subscriber frustration.

Skio delivered white-glove onboarding from start to finish, including custom feature development during migration. Engineers coded a tool on the spot to correctly map historical subscription SKUs and real-time shipping fees, addressing nuances specific to their setup.

"The Skio team is always thinking two steps ahead and is deeply focused on our outcomes. With Skio, I'm very confident XCJ can scale our subscriptions by 2x to 5x."

The custom SKU mapping tool and rapid feature deployment demonstrated Skio's proactive, customer-focused approach that contrasted sharply with Recharge's 72-hour response times.

Intuitive Portal Eliminated Support Chaos

Skio's subscriber portal virtually eliminated customer confusion through intuitive UI/UX that enabled self-service basic changes. Subscribers could log in without issues and manage subscriptions independently, freeing support team from constant password resets and "how do I...?" questions.

Support team redirected focus from firefighting subscription problems to higher-value tasks like product inquiries and retention initiatives, opening new revenue opportunities instead of burning bandwidth on platform issues.

Skio's tailored, responsive service included almost white-glove support for client-specific solutions and rapid feature rollouts. Whether custom tools or quick platform tweaks, delivery was fast and effective.

The stable infrastructure enabled innovation on subscription experience instead of constant fire-fighting. Detailed order history logging enabled user segmentation planning and personalized offers for future growth initiatives.

Support Tickets Plunged, Growth Potential Unlocked

80% reduction in subscription-related support tickets

5x growth confidence from stable platform foundation

Strategic focus shift from troubleshooting to LTV maximization

Thousands of monthly dumplings shipped through reliable system

The transformation was immediate and dramatic. Support ticket volume plunged 80% as friction disappeared from routine subscription management. Customer satisfaction soared as managing orders and updating delivery dates became painless.

Team bandwidth savings translated directly to bottom-line impact through focus shift from platform problems to strategic subscription growth initiatives.

Leadership now trusts subscription channel as reliable "second engine" of growth rather than operational liability requiring constant attention.

Foundation for Aggressive Subscription Scaling

MìLà transformed subscription operations from support nightmare into growth foundation that enables aggressive scaling. With churn-causing issues solved, Blok confidently projects 2x to 5x subscriber growth through Skio partnership.

Armed with stable platform and responsive support, they're doubling down on subscriptions as core growth strategy, planning to leverage upcoming features like subscription gifting and group discounts to attract and retain more subscribers.

The team can finally focus purely on maximizing customer LTV and repeat rates instead of fighting platform limitations that previously capped their subscription potential.