Listening, Learning, and Getting Better: A Look Inside XTEINK Customer Support

Behind every support conversation is a person waiting for an answer. We spoke with Eileen Liu, who leads XTEINK's international customer support, about the people behind the replies, the changes underway, and the work still ahead.

Over the past few months, we've received feedback about slow response times and frustrating after-sales experiences. We know there have been times when we haven't met the expectations of our customers.

Rather than simply say we're working on it, we wanted to share what that work actually looks like.

We sat down with Eileen Liu, who leads XTEINK's international customer support, to talk about her experience, the people on her team, and some of the questions our customers care about most.

First, Making Sure Every Message Gets an Answer

Eileen has spent more than a decade working in customer service, supporting customers across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

"People express frustration differently in different markets. Some send several emails, some leave comments on social media, and others turn to the marketplace. But what they expect is essentially the same: someone responds, someone takes responsibility, and the issue reaches an outcome."

When Eileen joined XTEINK in early October, she encountered a situation that needed immediate attention.

There were more than 900 unanswered emails in the support inbox, with over 1,000 unanswered conversations across all channels.

Some customers had sent four or five messages about the same issue. Others had taken to social media to say they hadn't heard back from anyone.

For Eileen, the first priority was clear: before trying to make replies faster, the team needed to make sure every customer would actually receive one.

As she looked more closely, she realized the problem wasn't simply a lack of people. Customer inquiries were scattered across different platforms, there were no consistent rules for closing conversations, and important performance data wasn't being reviewed regularly.

Working longer hours could help temporarily, but it couldn't solve these underlying problems.

That meant changing the way the team worked.

What Has Changed Behind the Scenes

XTEINK's international customer support team has around 15 members working across different time zones and customer channels.

The team handles email, live chat, and marketplace support, including customer messages and after-sales inquiries from Amazon and TikTok Shop.

Over the past few weeks, the team has been making several practical changes:

• Bringing conversations together. Email, live chat, and marketplace inquiries are being managed through a more centralized workflow, making it easier to track conversations and avoid missed messages.
• Establishing clearer follow-up rules. Different situations now have defined procedures for when to follow up, when a conversation can be closed, and when an issue needs escalation.
• Reviewing performance every day. The team tracks first-response time, incoming messages, replies, closed conversations, and outstanding cases.
• Using AI more carefully. AI helps handle repetitive questions with clear answers, allowing human agents to focus on more complicated cases.

These changes are already making a difference.

During October 1–14, the average first-response time for email was around 66 hours.

In the October 29 daily report, that figure was 7.87 hours. The overall first-response time across channels was 5.81 hours, while live chat responses were at a minutes-level pace.

These figures measure the time to the first response, not the time needed to resolve an entire case. They also represent different reporting windows: a two-week average compared with a single-day snapshot.

By October 24, the team had largely returned to a same-day backlog-clearing rhythm.

For Eileen, there's another encouraging sign: fewer customers are writing back simply to ask why nobody has responded. More conversations are moving directly to the next step.

But she is careful not to call the problem solved.

There is still work to do around handoffs between time zones, AI accuracy, and coordination with other departments.

The People Behind Every Reply

Behind every process and performance metric is a team of people with different strengths.

Some work behind the scenes to make sure information is accurate. Others handle customer conversations directly, investigate complicated cases, or make sure nothing gets lost between shifts.

Here are a few of the people helping make these changes happen.

• Torina works on email support and helped establish the team's clearer conversation-closing procedures. She was also the first to spot inconsistencies between shipping information on the website and in order notification emails, helping bring the issue to the attention of the relevant team.
• Shaw is one of the team's key email support members. She's usually quiet, but she's persistent about following unresolved cases through rather than leaving customers without an answer.
• Claire handles marketplace support, including customer messages and after-sales inquiries from Amazon and TikTok Shop. When an issue needs further investigation, she'll reach out directly to product colleagues to find out what's happening.
• Alberich handles live chat and helps coordinate the chat team. He sees his role as more than answering questions, describing it as "doing something that helps other people grow."

Two colleagues who joined in October also found their footing quickly, supported by the workflows and guidance the existing team had already built.

The handovers between shifts are another important part of the work. Unresolved cases, conversations waiting for customer replies, and issues requiring escalation are recorded one by one, so important information doesn't disappear when another teammate takes over.

These details might not be visible to customers, but they're what help make a consistent support experience possible.

What Happens Behind a Support Conversation

A customer support conversation often involves much more than writing an email.

A delivery issue might require checking tracking information, contacting a shipping partner, requesting an address change, or trying to intercept a package.

A product issue might require distinguishing between a usage question, a firmware issue, and a hardware fault.

A refund might follow a completely different process depending on whether the original payment was made through PayPal, a credit card, or a marketplace.

And sometimes, there simply isn't an immediate solution.

Eileen remembers one customer whose package was held at customs for more than 40 days.

The team had been following the situation, but customs clearance wasn't something they could directly control.

"We couldn't guarantee a result in that situation. But we could make sure the customer knew we were following up, that every update was meaningful, and that we weren't giving false hope."

Another case involved a customer who had purchased an X4 Pro as a birthday gift for his son. The package had reached its destination country, but the local carrier repeatedly failed to complete the delivery.

The customer was understandably frustrated and was considering returning the order.

The team continued contacting the carrier to request another delivery attempt and kept the customer informed along the way.

There are also happier moments.

One customer initially contacted the team to return an X3. Instead of rushing the process, the team kept the return option open and suggested giving the device a little more time. The customer took it on a trip, tried it out, and eventually decided to keep it.

These experiences are very different, but they point to the same principle: customer support should be about helping people make informed decisions, not simply closing tickets.

Eileen has a simple way of describing good customer service:

1. Be there. Customers should know someone has received their message and when they can expect an answer.
2. Be clear. Explain what can be done, what can't, and what happens next.
3. Don't make customers repeat themselves. Their information should follow the conversation, even when another team member takes over.

The third point matters most to her.

"A good support experience means customers don't have to write a second email."

Customer Support Is a Team Effort

Not every customer problem starts with customer support, and not every problem can be solved by customer support alone.

That's why the team is working more closely with operations, product, and other departments.

Rather than simply forwarding individual complaints, they bring actual customer messages, screenshots, and recurring patterns to the people who can address the underlying issue.

For example, customers noticed that shipping dates displayed on the website didn't always match the information in their order confirmation emails. The feedback was brought to the operations team, and the email wording was updated to make the information clearer.

Another recurring issue involved customers applying discount codes but seeing additional shipping charges that made the final price higher than expected. Customer examples and screenshots were shared with the relevant teams to help review and adjust the rules.

These may seem like small details, but they matter.

If a customer has to contact support to understand something that should have been clear before checkout, that's an experience worth improving.

The same thinking applies to after-sales policies.

The team is working to make the relevant rules clearer on product pages and policy pages, so customers can understand what happens if something goes wrong before making a purchase.

For confirmed product faults that affect normal use and aren't caused by the customer, the current approach is to arrange a replacement rather than ask customers to wait through a repair process. The team aims to provide a replacement tracking number within 48 hours of confirmation.

For accidental damage outside the standard warranty, such as drops or water exposure, a paid replacement option may be available under the applicable policy.

The goal is straightforward: customers shouldn't have to search through different pages or contact multiple people just to understand their options.

Customer support is not only where problems end up. It should also be one of the places where improvements begin.

AI Can Help, but People Still Matter

AI is becoming part of how the team handles customer inquiries, but Eileen is clear about its role.

"AI should handle repetitive questions, not act as a barrier between customers and people."

Questions with clear, standard answers, such as order status or routine address changes, can be handled by AI.

But complicated product issues, emotionally sensitive conversations, and cases that require judgment should go to a human agent.

The team also follows three important rules:

• If a customer asks to speak to a real person, they should be transferred.
• If AI isn't confident about an answer, the conversation should go to a human.
• If accuracy hasn't reached the required standard, the system shouldn't be expanded just for the sake of efficiency.

Customers should also know when they're interacting with AI. The team doesn't want automation to pretend to be a human conversation.

Technology can make support more efficient, but it shouldn't make customers feel further away from the people who can help them.

What We're Working on Next

There are four areas the team is continuing to focus on.

More consistent human support across time zones.

The team hopes to establish 24/7 human support by early November, so customers won't have to wait for another region to start its working day before someone can help. This is still a goal in progress, and we'll share an update once full coverage is in place.

A better balance between AI and human support.

AI will continue to take care of clearly defined, repetitive inquiries, while people handle situations that need understanding, judgment, and responsibility.

Clearer after-sales policies.

Product pages, policy pages, and customer support responses need to communicate the same information. Policies will also be adapted to applicable regional requirements.

Better self-service and internal coordination.

Help articles, FAQs, order tracking, and clearer internal handoff procedures should help customers find answers more easily, while ensuring that the same question receives a consistent answer regardless of the channel or time zone.

The direction is simple: move beyond replying faster and work toward resolving issues properly the first time.

A Message to Our Customers

Before we wrapped up, we asked Eileen what she wanted to say to customers who have supported XTEINK for a long time, as well as those who haven't been happy with their previous service experience.

Her answer was straightforward:

"First, thank you. We see the customers who have been with us from the beginning, and we genuinely appreciate those who continue to support us and share their experiences.

And I also want to say we're sorry.

Slow replies and delays in handling customer issues have been real problems. I don't want to make excuses for them.

We've made some changes over the past month, and we're seeing progress in the numbers. But I wouldn't say we've got everything right yet. We still need to improve how teams coordinate across time zones, how accurately AI handles inquiries, and how quickly we work with other departments.

What I can promise is that we'll keep working on four things:

• Making sure customers can reach someone when they need help.
• Following up on the things we've promised, rather than making customers chase us for another answer.
• Making after-sales policies clearer and easier to understand.
• Making sure customer feedback reaches the teams that can actually make a difference.

And please, keep telling us what we're getting wrong. We want to hear it, and we want to do better."

We know that an article like this doesn't, by itself, change anyone's experience.

What matters is what happens after someone sends us a message: whether it gets answered, whether the next step is clear, and whether someone takes responsibility until the issue is resolved.

We're still learning, still improving, and still have a long way to go.

To everyone who has taken the time to share feedback, raise a concern, or continue supporting XTEINK, thank you.

We'll keep listening. And more importantly, we'll keep working on it.

— The XTEINK Team