How Quo helped Zazzy Box move 3x faster than their competition

About Zazzy Box

Industry:

eCommerce

Founded:

2018

HQ:

Houston, TX

Previous provider:

Personal phone

Zazzy Box was born from a legacy of diamond wholesaling spanning four generations, Zazzy Box has modernized operations by replacing traditional, paper-based legacy systems with digital tools and an online, e-commerce experience. 

By integrating advanced communication platforms and automation — with Quo being key among them — Zazzy Box has streamlined customer interactions and workflows, enabling them to transition into a scalable, nationwide e-commerce model. Their combination of tradition and modern technology helps them build lasting relationships with clients locally and nationally. 

Quo integrations used:

The challenge

Zazzy Box and its founder, Asit Shah, face a (literal) wake-up call 

How do you transform a 40-year-old family business that’s always been run with pen-and-paper so it’s fully accessible online? And do so without losing the personal touch that made it so successful in the first place?

It’s a daunting challenge, but it was the exact one Asit Shah faced when he took over his family’s custom diamond jewelry business.

"When I entered the business, I wanted to create a digitally friendly experience so we could make amazing jewelry for people across the United States," Asit explains. "It’s been a turbulent, challenging process."

He’s not alone in facing this challenge. Asit has seen many of his competitors tackle the same problems. Second- and third-generation business owners grapple with increasing their family companies' relevance in an era where online shopping is dominant. Many are struggling to adapt, unable to bridge the gap between skilled craftsmanship and a base of customers who expect everything to be accessible at the touch of their fingers. 

Asit couldn’t just come in, design a nice website, add some buy now buttons, and call it a day. When a customer invests in a $3,000 custom diamond ring — a deeply personal purchase likely to become a cherished family heirloom in the years to come — they expect more than just transactional service. A chat box exchange or a series of emails sent off into the ether to face unpredictable and unknowable response times aren’t going to cut it.

Customers want real connection. They want to feel like they’re talking to a human being, not an automated system. This means having conversations, building trust, and providing the kind of experience that can only be delivered in the same way many customers talk to their friends and family: via text. 

“I actually hated texting in the beginning. But I had to quickly learn to text with everyone because the supply chain side of our business uses WhatsApp and other texting tools. I just had to accept that this is how our supply chain likes to talk.” says Asit. “And then I found out that customers also like that experience.”

In the early days, Asit was the main point of contact for Zazzy Box. Every order, every customer conversation, every update; it all went through his personal phone. This ensured customers had direct access to the human connection they craved while also guaranteeing a high level of support.

But as the business grew, so did his stress. 

With everything tied to his phone, Asit started to become a bottleneck. His assistants couldn’t step in to help, and every task that involved interacting with a customer — from sending designs for approval to answering basic questions about store hours — demanded his personal attention. Every notification and text exchange chipped away at his ability to scale the business without going crazy. 

He knew it was a problem, but with a million other priorities, finding a solution kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list. Plus, he’d never seen a tool that could support what Zazzy Box needed. 

Until one day…

“I got a few text messages between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. I was like, yeah, no, we can't be doing this anymore. This is my breaking point. The business had grown from one customer to hundreds of customers. And as we scaled, my phone became anxiety inducing. I either needed something that could contain this or change the entire way we managed customer communication.”
Quo came out of nowhere like a superhero. It’s been truly revolutionary for us.

Asit Shah

Founder of Zazzy Box

The solution

Quo allows Zazzy Box to seamlessly manage customer communication as a team — jumping in and out of text and phone conversations, adding notes for context, and ensuring every customer engagement feels smooth, personal, and well-coordinated. 

Asit set out to find a solution that would eliminate him as a bottleneck while also enhancing the level of service customers received. He needed a replacement for his personal cell phone that would streamline communication, empower his team, and maintain the personal touch his customers expected. 

He explored several options, but each had its own drawbacks:

  • Google Voice: Asit was familiar with this from a previous business, but it lacked team texting features, making it a non-starter. 
  • RingCentral: Felt overly corporate and needlessly complicated, requiring too much setup, which was an immediate barrier to adoption.
  • Podium: It had potential but would lock Zazzy Box into a contract that would make switching to a new provider difficult if things didn’t work out. 

But then he found Quo. 

“I thought Quo couldn’t actually be real at first,” said Asit. “I was like, this must be a scam or some sort of joke being played on me, because I hadn’t seen a single other service that supported our text-first approach to supporting our customers.”  

What made Quo stand out?

  • Team collaboration: Multiple team members could handle communication with a customer within the same text conversation. Designers could speak directly to customers as jewelry was created and then pass the conversation on to the shipper. 
  • Automation & integration: With Zapier they could create automations that would generate personalized text messages to hundreds of customers 
  • Scalability: Quo brought all customer conversations and all employees under one roof, ensuring no person or team could ever become a bottleneck again. 

Even though Quo checked all the boxes, there was still some hesitation about making the switch. Would the team struggle with remote connectivity? Would iPhone users be put off by green text bubbles? The fear of disrupting what was already working, even if it wasn’t working perfectly, lingered. 

But those concerns quickly disappeared.

Customers embraced the change, appreciating the ability to speak directly with different team members involved in their orders, making the process feel even more personal and transparent. Meanwhile, the team found Quo intuitive and easy to use, fitting into their daily workflow without issue. 

See how Zazzy Box uses Quo to vet customers and coach team members in this playbook ->

The impact

Delivering quotes 2x faster and completing projects 3x faster than their competition

With Quo, the entire Zazzy Box team can act as the face of the company. They can quickly switch between customer conversations with full information, including notes, history, and past interactions. This ensures a smooth, personal experience for both the customer and the employee, no matter who is responding.

This approach to shared customer communication gives Zazzy Box a distinct speed advantage. Their team delivers tailored quotes to customers within 24 hours. This is at least 2x faster than the 48 hours to 1 week it takes for their competitors. 

This also translates to their turnaround time for project delivery. Zazzy Box is able to accommodate customer requests and revisions in their workflow and deliver projects in 2-3 weeks. That turnaround time is in stark contrast to the industry average of 6-8 weeks. 

The best part is that Asit and the Zazzy Box team are able to save time while they move fast, saving over 160 hours per month

“In this kind of business, information capacity and growth is connected to customer relationships, and those relationships are built through texting. Even the big companies are texting their customers. It stands to reason that you should use the software that gives you the most empowerment here and Quo, in my opinion, is the leader in this category.”

Learn exactly how Asit and his team use Quo for their day-to-day tasks ->

Quo lets me work as if I have eight arms without paying for eight arms. ‍

Asit Shah

Founder of Zazzy Box

Read the full customer story here ->

Read the full customer story here ->