With sales doubling, thousands of monthly support requests and AI creating new headaches, founder David Groechel is betting that taking care of players is one of the smartest ways to grow.
11SIX24 founder David Groechel has a pretty good problem on his hands.
When we caught up with him recently, his team was roughly 1,100 orders behind, thanks to a massive influx of demand during a promotional sale.
And while the brand's innovative paddles continue to fly off shelves, Groechel believes something else is just as important to its success.
Taking really, really good care of its customers.
"I think it's kind of our number one guiding principle," Groechel told The Dink. "We just take care of our customers, or players as we call them, because it's something that's in your control."
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The Numbers Tell the Story
For a relatively small pickleball brand, 11SIX24 handles a staggering amount of customer communication.
During a record-setting September, the company fielded 3,490 customer service tickets, representing an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 individual messages.
Its average first response time across all tickets? Just 11.5 hours, including nights and weekends and overnight hours.
But dig a little deeper, and things get even more impressive.
Of those 3,490 tickets, 1,100 were first answered by Max, the company's custom-built AI support agent.
- 64 seconds: Max's median first response time.
- 98.5%: Share of Max's first responses delivered within two minutes.
- 72.3%: Share of Max's tickets closed within 24 hours.
- 191: First responses Max delivered on weekends.
Customer surveys reinforce the strategy. The overwhelming majority of respondents rated their support experience as easy, repeatedly praising the company's speed, simplicity and personal attention.
"Your customer service is always great. Even if it's Max the AI," wrote one customer, awarding the experience a perfect 7/7 score.
And behind all that technology are actual people. Employee Ben, who has handled much of the brand's customer support since last October, has earned something of a cult following.
"Ben is a legend," wrote another satisfied customer.
It's all part of a larger commitment to service that's helping support 100% year-over-year growth in 2026, with another 50% targeted for 2027.
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Customer Service in the Age of AI
Max wasn't some off-the-shelf chatbot. Groechel built the system specifically for 11SIX24 after finding that existing solutions struggled with the nuances of pickleball.
It handles straightforward questions about warranties, returns, paddle comparisons and maintenance, freeing up human employees to tackle more complicated issues.
The goal is simple: Use technology to eliminate unnecessary friction without sacrificing personal service.
But AI is creating an entirely different headache, too.
Groechel says customers have started submitting AI-generated images of supposedly broken paddles to claim warranty replacements.
"We get a ton of AI images claiming to be a broken paddle," he said, explaining that altered logos and suspicious details often give the fakes away.
The problem has become serious enough that 11SIX24's warranty explicitly voids coverage for claims submitted with AI-generated or otherwise manipulated images.
It's a tricky balancing act.
Groechel doesn't want legitimate customers waiting weeks while damaged paddles are shipped back, inspected and replaced. He'd rather send a replacement immediately and have it arrive within days.
But protecting that experience increasingly means identifying bad actors without punishing everyone else.
Alex E. Weaver
A Competitive Advantage That Can't Be Copied
As the pickleball paddle market becomes increasingly crowded, technological advantages can be difficult to maintain.
Great customer service, however, builds something harder to replicate: trust.
Groechel says 11SIX24 typically ships orders placed before 2 p.m. that same day, outside unusually busy periods like its recent sale.
It's part of what he calls delivering the "Amazon experience" from a much smaller operation.
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And with the brand growing rapidly, he's determined not to lose the personal touch that helped get it here.
"We truly care," Groechel said.
"We care about making good paddles. We care about taking care of people, and we care about what we sell."
In a sport obsessed with the next big paddle innovation, that's a pretty compelling competitive advantage.
Because the best paddle in the world doesn't mean much if the company behind it won't pick up the phone.
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