In mid-2024, Johannes Kayser joined Stockholm-based apparel brand Ninepine as COO. Coming from a background in scaling e-commerce companies, Johannes was drawn to Ninepine for one reason: the product.

"I told my wife I wanted to work with a killer product. One that customers truly loved," he recalls. "Two weeks later, she bought a pair of pants from Ninepine and said, ‘This is it.’"

That unexpected moment led to a cold LinkedIn message to Ninepine’s founders, an in-person meeting, and shortly after, a new chapter in Johannes’ career. But while the product and the team impressed him, he quickly identified a constraint: the customer experience (CX) team was excellent but not scalable.

About Ninepine: Quality and comfort apparel for women

Ninepine is a Stockholm-based apparel company that designs pieces for women that are both comfortable and stylish. They commit to comfort, versatility and classic minimalist aesthetics while producing according to ethical practices.

Why Customer Experience is so important to Ninepine

"Many fashion brands invest in billboards. For us, brand investment is customer perception, fast delivery, quick answers, and quality interaction," Johannes explains.

For emerging e-commerce brands, trust is everything. Ninepine focuses on two pillars:

• Speed of delivery: Partnering with reliable carriers like next-day delivery in the U.S.

• Speed and quality in support: Offering fast, high-quality responses tailored to a mature, quality-conscious demographic.

The persona of their average customer is a woman aged 35-50, she expects quality at every stage of her buying process.

“We want to replicate a physical store experience, sometimes you buy online and want someone to be there and help you, however sometimes you just want to be left in peace, browse, and if you need help, it’s there.” Johannes Kayser

But delivering this consistently became a challenge, especially during peaks.

To do so, a hybrid solution combining AI tools and humans that are ready to reach out to customers five days a week, 9 to 5, allowed Ninepine to build a customer support that is as cost-efficient as possible, but never compromises on quality.

What was Ninepine’s turning point to choose externalisation?

Black Friday 2024 exposed the limits of Ninepine’s internal support setup. Despite growing 120% year-over-year and seeing a 200% spike during the sales period, the customer care team hadn’t scaled.

“We were still four freelancers, like the year before. They were excellent but overwhelmed. We had backlogs everywhere, and one of our top agents was going on maternity leave. It was clear the setup wasn’t sustainable.”

That’s when they started to discuss outsourcing customer support.

Onepilot as a Partner to Ninepine, Not a Vendor

Johannes didn’t just want an outsourcer: he wanted a strategic partner. While researching CX tools and partners, he discovered Onepilot through Gorgias’ premium partner network. He quickly saw alignment in mindset:

“I messaged our founders: ‘These guys can help us choose the right system and maximize the use of it, without us putting an actual additional layer on top of our existing team.”

Onepilot’s hybrid model combining trained human agents with scalable tech was the right match. It wasn’t about being cheap; it was about being the best.

Scaling with Confidence

Onepilot now handles email and contact form support five days a week (soon expanding to seven). The results?

• CSAT: Stable at 4.8 despite rising volumes

• First Response Time: Cut from 12 hours to 3 (4x faster)

• Resolution Time: Down from 48 hours to 12 (4x faster)

More importantly, the internal team is no longer firefighting. They’ve leveled up. One of their internal collaborators, once a frontline agent, is now leading AI implementation and strategic planning. Meanwhile, internal freelancers have regained the freedom they chose freelancing for.

“I was super happy when my internal freelancer could go surfing while my main agent is on maternity leave and I didn’t have to worry about anything.”

Deep Integration with a Personal Touch

The onboarding with Onepilot was surprisingly smooth even for Johannes.

“I thought I would be worried about the creation and update of the Knowledge Base but it turned out super smooth and super easy.”

Johannes also appreciates Onepilot’s transparency and coaching mindset.

“I’m still new to CX. Onepilot gives me the ability to bounce ideas, review tools, and think strategically. They’re not just a vendor, they’re a CX coach.”

Ninepine looking ahead with Onepilot

“We won’t increase the amount of tickets we do internally as we are not planning to grow our internal team, so anything additional will go to Onepilot.”

Ninepine isn’t stopping here. With Onepilot, they plan to:

• Launch pre-sales live chat, focused on product recommendations

• Train agents using in-store walkthrough videos and gift cards so they can truly embody the brand

• Extend service to 7 days a week

• Keep AI at ~10% and human agents at the core of CX

“Our dream model is 70% Onepilot, 20% internal, 10% AI. That balance gives us quality, scale, and adaptability.”

What Ninepine likes the most about Onepilot

Having quality at scale, combining both and being able to scale up and down.

Johannes also likes Onepilot’s transparency and position. As he is quite new to Customer Support, he appreciates having experts available to work with him towards the same goals. He sees Onepilot as a partner, a coach to have the best Customer Experience possible.

“That’s where I really like the Onepilot model, having additional competences next to me.”

Final world

“We’re not always the easiest to work with, we have standards. But we also walk the talk. And Onepilot does too.”

Ninepine’s CX journey isn’t just a case study in outsourcing: it’s a blueprint for modern, scalable customer support that stays personal, even as it grows.