Freshpet | Emplifi case study

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Case study

How Freshpet scaled pet parent care without losing the human touch

Freshpet used Emplifi to automate routine questions, speed up high-stakes responses, and help agents stay personal across every pet parent interaction.

40% Reduction in overall call volume after rolling out the full Emplifi suite

29% Faster response times for live agents on high-stakes pet parent inquiries

97% Chatbot match rate

For Freshpet, consumer care is about far more than answering product questions. Pet parents reach out with concerns about feeding routines, nutrition, ingredients, and the health of pets they consider family members. Every interaction carries emotional weight, and every response shapes trust in the brand.

As Freshpet expanded into new recipes, products, and channels, those conversations grew quickly across phone, chat, social media, and the FAQ bot on freshpet.com. The consumer care team needed a way to scale without making interactions feel automated or impersonal.

Lisa Diehl, Senior Director of Consumer Care at Freshpet, leads that effort across every consumer touchpoint, from real-time social conversations to live-agent support and self-service experiences.

Freshpet Interview Video from Emplifi on Vimeo

The challenge: scaling support without making care feel transactional

As more pet parents turned to digital channels with questions about nutrition, feeding routines, and product guidance, Freshpet’s consumer care operation became more complex to manage. Conversations were spread across growing channels and workflows, making it harder for teams to maintain consistency and respond efficiently at scale.

Before expanding the company’s use of Emplifi, existing tools were not being fully utilized, limiting visibility across interactions and making it harder to keep pace as engagement volumes grew.

What's really been important for us is making sure our consumer care experience can grow with us without losing the personal, empathetic touch that pet parents expect from our team. When I arrived at Freshpet, one of my first infrastructure changes was to implement the full suite of Emplifi products.

Lisa Diehl

The challenge became especially important because Freshpet’s conversations are rarely transactional. Questions about pet health and nutrition often come with anxiety, emotion, and urgency. The team needed a way to move faster across channels while still making every interaction feel thoughtful and human.

The approach: meet pet parents where conversations are already happening

Freshpet focused its strategy on the channels where pet parents naturally look for advice, recommendations, and wellness conversations. Rather than trying to maintain a presence everywhere, the team prioritized platforms where real-time engagement mattered most.

TikTok and Instagram quickly became central to that approach, giving Freshpet visibility into the conversations pet parents were already having around feeding routines, nutrition, and pet wellness.

It's really about meeting our pet parents in the channel of their choice and not trying to be everywhere just for the sake of it. TikTok and Instagram have become really important because that's where so many conversations around pet health, food, and wellness are happening in real time. We're also thinking about channels like SMS, but only when they're truly useful and add value.

Lisa Diehl

At the same time, the team redefined how care responsibilities were handled. Routine questions were routed through Scout, Freshpet’s FAQ bot on freshpet.com, along with Chaser, the custom meals subscription delivery bot on delivery.freshpet.com, while live agents focused on more sensitive conversations involving feeding guidance, product concerns, and health-related questions where empathy matters as much as speed.

Emplifi has helped us scale care in a way that still feels very Freshpet, which is helpful, personal, and certainly centered around our pet parents.

Lisa Diehl

The solution: one connected view of the pet parent journey

Freshpet implemented the full Emplifi suite to unify consumer care workflows and create a shared view across channels. Each part of the platform now plays a specific operational role within the team’s day-to-day support model.

The result is a more coordinated operation where conversations can move smoothly between automation and live support without losing context. Teams can identify recurring themes faster, respond more efficiently, and engage with a clearer understanding of the pet parent’s full experience.

Trust is everything for Freshpet, especially when conversations involve health or nutrition. We don't see AI replacing that human touch, we see it as an opportunity to partner more closely with Emplifi to support our agents and keep the interaction feeling helpful, responsible, and human.

Faster responses, deeper trust, and care built around real conversations

With routine inquiries handled through Scout and Chaser, Freshpet reduced pressure on live support teams and created more capacity for thoughtful, high-emotion interactions. Agents can now spend more time helping pet parents navigate feeding questions, nutrition concerns, and product guidance without sacrificing responsiveness.

The bigger story has been more around scalability for us. Those results have matured into a more sustainable operating model that allows us to handle higher engagement across channels while still being responsive and thoughtful. Scout and Chaser play a big role in that, helping resolve routine questions in real time, which gives our agents more space to focus on the conversations that really need a human touch.

Lisa Diehl

The operational improvements also changed how Freshpet uses consumer care insights internally. Instead of treating conversations as isolated support tickets, the company now uses recurring patterns and themes to inform decisions across multiple teams.

We share themes with marketing, digital product, or quality teams so they can improve messaging, website content, education, or even address potential product concerns. Emplifi helps us move beyond narratives, so everyday parent conversations can inform smarter business decisions for us.

Lisa Diehl

For Freshpet, the biggest lesson was that scaling consumer care did not require choosing between efficiency and empathy. The more routine questions Scout and Chaser could resolve in real time, the more space agents had for the conversations that mattered most, helping nervous pet parents navigate feeding changes, nutrition questions, and health concerns with reassurance and care.

What started as an effort to better manage growing engagement across channels evolved into something larger: a connected system where everyday conversations now shape marketing, product education, quality feedback, and proactive support.

Key takeaways

By 2026, Freshpet has evolved its consumer care capability from reactive support to proactive engagement and strategic insight. With Emplifi, the brand continues to deepen the bond between people and their pets, ensuring every interaction feels personal, helpful, and caring.