How Bolt helped Monster Gardens reduce the number of hours spent on manual review

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"That’s one thing I appreciate about Bolt. There’s always new and improved things and ways of doing things, it’s not the standard old merchant services I’ve had. That’s a huge improvement.”

<h3>After years of searching for the right solution, Monster Gardens finds Bolt</h3><p>When <a href="https://monstergardens.com/?SID=f3282844083695dbeb588e55960f915e">Monster Gardens</a> first started out of a garage in 2008, the founders only ever intended to have an online store. However, its explosive growth and customer demand for in-person shopping caught them by surprise. By 2012, in addition to managing their booming eCommerce store, they were operating in a new location with a large warehouse, office, and storefront that they’ve called home ever since.</p><p>Their physical location wasn’t the only aspect of their business gaining a large following either. The company’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MonsterGardens">YouTube channel</a> became a cornerstone of industry education and gained them a devoted following. Heather Lott, CFO at Monster Gardens, explains “we’ve always pushed education” which is apparent to their 68,000 YouTube subscribers — a number that well exceeds any other company in their industry.</p>

<h3>Early exposure to fraud</h3><p>It didn’t take long for fraudsters to catch onto Monster Gardens’s success either. “You learn really quickly the hard way when you get hit with fraud,” Heather recalls. “You ask, ‘How did these people find us already? We just started.’ Over the years, that was probably our biggest challenge.”</p><p>In one particularly rough year, the company lost roughly $50,000 in fraud orders. Every time Monster Gardens was hit, they pivoted and put new security procedures in place to ensure fraudsters couldn’t get through. But fraudsters pivoted right alongside them and only evolved their methods used to circumvent new security measures.</p><p>In an attempt to get their fraud problem under control, Monster Gardens subscribed to a service that helped cross-reference addresses, phone numbers, and emails to help verify orders. But that simply ended up creating even more manual work for the team. Heather says, “that was probably an hour or two a day of researching to see if we can find anything on this person to see if it looks like a good order.” Not only was that process tedious and time-consuming, but it also wasn’t always reliable — which Heather can personally attest to. She’s had the same phone number for almost 20 years, and when she looked up herself using the service, her own phone number wasn’t listed to verify her identity.</p>

<h3>Introducing Bolt</h3><p>After years of using a service that only increased hours spent on manual reviews, an employee at Monster Gardens took a call with Bolt and recommended Heather look into the solution further. Since the team had only seen fraud scoring solutions or tools that only increased time spent on manual reviews, Heather first thought it was good to be true. “I was like ‘you actually indemnify us against fraud? Wait, no.’ I didn’t believe it. I had to look into it further because I had never found anything like that.”</p><p>After switching to Bolt, many of their biggest pain points — such as approving fraudulent orders or time-consuming manual reviews — were instantly addressed. As for the service they had hoped would help them verify orders but instead created even more work for the team? Heather says, “there was a lot of time spent on that and we don’t have to do that anymore.” In addition to saving countless hours during manual reviews, Bolt also helped Monster Gardens eliminate their fraud exposure. “Our rate of fraud has basically dropped to zero,” Heather explains.</p><p>Outside of the fraud solution itself, Monster Gardens was impressed with how hands-on and helpful the Bolt team was getting them up and running. Heather recalls during implementation, “Bolt actually helped our developers set this up on our website which most places are like ‘nope, the developers take care of it. That’s it.’ No communication once you set it up, they just have to figure it out. The overall customer service, I have to say, is great.”</p><p>That dedication to customer service didn’t end with implementation either. The team at Monster Gardens has appreciated how much attention Bolt places on product development and improvement. “That’s one thing I appreciate about Bolt. There’s always new and improved things and ways of doing things,” Heather explains. “It’s not the standard old merchant services I’ve had. That’s a huge improvement.”</p>

How Bolt helped Monster Gardens reduce the number of hours spent on manual review

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