How This Leader Turned a Viral Burnt Pan Video into Customer Experience Gold!
Welcome to the first episode of The Juice with Jess Cervellon! In this episode, we sit down with Nancy Gurd, the Associate Director of CX at Caraway, and talk about everything from dealing with negative viral videos, implementing AI into your customer support, personalizing customer support, and Nancy's best (and worst) customer experiences!
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- Welcome to The Juice With Jesser-Vian.
I'm super stoked to bring you this podcast.
I've been working really hard behind the scenes
with the team at Customer and many others
to get amazing guests on the show,
to bring you stories about everything
in your customer's journey,
everything from customer acquisition
to making the purchase of your product,
of your features, whatever it is, to also retaining them.
And this podcast isn't gonna just be for CX Pro.
So this podcast is for anybody who's interested
in the customer's journey
and what makes your customer loyal
and wanting to continue coming back.
So stick with us every week
as we bring you episodes with many, many experts
in the marketing and customer experience
and customer success fields.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
- This week I'm joined by Nancy Gurd,
associate CX director of Careaway, Nancy, welcome.
- Thank you.
- Do you wanna tell the audience a little bit about yourselves?
- Well, where do I start?
I'm a native New Yorker born and raised.
- She's definitely a New Yorker.
- Yeah.
And I've been in CX for about the past eight years now.
- And then where did you get your start?
- I started in retail.
I was just little me in college doing whatever,
not knowing what was gonna happen to me.
Obviously I was gonna be okay.
But one day I had an opportunity to dive into CX
and I was like sure, I love people.
Just never stopped.
- I love that.
So like you pretty much started
from like the omni-channel experience
and then worked your way into like the e-comm experience.
So then you really got to understand like a customer
at this point, right?
Like the angrier version of the customer, right?
- I got everything from the in-person to phone calls
to now behind the screens.
- So you moved to Caraway in 2021 then, correct?
So how do you think the customers are similar or different
than your retail job at or rate?
- For our retail store, you know,
we had a physical store location
which I have to say didn't realize how much customers love.
And now moving to Caraway home,
we don't have that in-person experience
and it's something that I'm seeing is created a lot more,
especially after COVID.
- I think people really like that human touch,
that human experience, right?
But it's so interesting because like going through
the pandemic, like we didn't have that obviously, right?
Which yes, like people really want the human experience
but at the same time, they just really want to talk to people.
Right?
So do you think like your tickets or I'd love to hear
like your tickets at Caraway, like tell me a little bit
about the human experience that you guys deliver on like Caraway?
- Yeah, I mean, we have two very direct sides
where one part people want to come and talk about design.
Sometimes we get to Photoshop our collection
into people's kitchen and like give them color recommendations
which is really fun, especially when people maybe aren't too out there
with their choices in purchasing for their kitchen.
- Yeah.
- And then we do have the opposite side where we have to actually
teach a lot of people how to cook.
And it is a very sensitive topic because growing up,
you know, we had our mom and dad's pants, we all use them.
I know growing up, I got yelled at all the time.
- For the fork.
- For the fork.
- I know.
- And I'm an up and toe college.
I was just like, I can turn my chicken with a fork.
It's totally fine.
- Yeah.
- And now that I'm working it and I'm like teaching people
like how to properly cook or different cooking techniques rather,
it's definitely a very testy subject.
- I'm kind of curious about the recent TikTok that went viral
with the girl and she had a pan that was like super burnt, right?
So, you know, when you have this like a social piece, right?
Like go viral.
Like how do you guys combat that?
Like how do you, how do you like,
did you get any inquiries about this?
But also like how do you combat that with like educating
your customer like on how to utilize the product?
- I mean, it gets really tricky.
- Yeah.
- But at the forefront, just you can't be afraid
of social media.
- Yeah.
- You can't, it's going to come, it's going to happen.
I have been involved in Sony viral videos.
Just product wise and just don't be afraid.
If you know that you are backing and working for a product
that is legit, which I believe Gariboue is legit,
makes your job a lot easier.
For this one here, you know, she had a burnt pan,
exterior interior, and I can't tell exactly what happened
without a full warranty evaluation.
But it is safe to assume her oils got burnt
and her heat might have been a little high.
You know, we could have just went with her
and sent her a bunch of articles to read,
a bunch of cleaning videos, a bunch of cooking videos.
But instead I messaged her and I was like,
"Hey, it seems like your cooking technique
is a bit more on the stainless steel level."
And we just released it, like,
"Do you want to swap your pans out
and try this new material that might work better
with your cooking?"
And she was so happy.
She was like, "I didn't know that ceramic
and nonstick didn't last forever.
You know, this was really nice of you guys to do.
Are you sure it's okay?"
And I'm like, "Yeah."
- Yeah.
- It's going to help you have a better experience,
especially since cooking is a part of our everyday lives.
- Right.
And not everybody can, like,
not everybody knows how to use a product
or like fits into like their specific,
like it's kind of like makeup, right?
Like not every shade of a concealer is the right color, right?
And so, you know, in pans, I guess.
And like--
- Especially pans.
- Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
And I think that that's like an interesting opportunity
to like educate people on like how to like utilize
like the kitchen equipment.
Like I don't fucking know how to use kitchen equipment.
Like you guys, like I had a kitchen aid for a long time.
And the most that I knew how to make in it was like,
I don't know, adding flour and like eggs in it
to make like some sort of dough, right?
Like you know what I mean?
Like I never, I like,
because I was never really educated on that tool.
I'm like, how to utilize it.
- Yeah.
And what's crazy too is I think, especially cookware,
like I'm not going to lie before Caraway,
I would have never thought twice before ordering a pan.
- Yeah.
- And I was like, yeah, this is a great pan
and I'll cook my meals in it and it's fine.
But now that I'm really into the world,
like how things are made in the materials
and it really matter on what you want
out of your cooking experience and you know,
your investment.
- Yeah, absolutely.
I think everybody's experience is completely different,
you know, which actually switching gears a little bit,
but you know, CX customer experience has its pulse
on the customer and the insights you get
can affect every department.
Can you share some examples and highlights
of why it's important for CX,
CX's information to bleed into the rest of the company?
- Yeah, I think one way recently,
we had a gift to purchase this holiday season.
And when I heard about the sale,
I was like, oh, this is great.
I don't think it's gonna,
I didn't think it was gonna be such a hit.
And not only was it a hit,
it was so wanted by our community.
And we just learned in different ways from CX tickets
that some people had confusion on like how to redeem
their free gift with purchase.
Some people had confusion on when they were going to get it.
And all of those little things,
we were able to bring back to our marketing team
and mid sale changed things in terms and conditions,
changed how it was displayed on the website.
And it slowly brought down all of those inquiries.
So customers didn't even have to contact us
and had a more enjoyable experience.
And that's the thing is,
if they are contacting us and we can reduce it, why not?
- Right, right.
Well, I think it's really hard to like make a company
or a brand very customer centric.
I think that every department has their own,
their own process, their own wants, right?
So like when you think of like marketing,
or you think of creative, they're like,
"Oh, I'm gonna make this like really dope email campaign."
Or, "I'm gonna make this really dope like picture."
But like not everybody thinks about the psychology
of a consumer, the psychology of like a human being, right?
I think it's really important.
Like even when I look at like email marketing, right?
Like the way I'm writing an email
and the way I'm putting out like copy in an email
or if photos or whatever, it's kind of like a funnel in a way.
It's like, okay, I've captivated you.
I'm gonna fill the middle with like the information
and then I'm gonna close it out, right?
But I think, I think a lot of times people,
like what happens, what I see, like just in general
of like marketers and just like people get like too insular
into like what it is that they're doing
and they think that like you can like care away,
for instance, let's go back to like care away.
So with the pans, for instance, right?
Like they, each of your pan has a different type
of instruction, right?
And you might actually know the experience
with that pan in particular, right?
But then like explaining that to a customer
who's never had an experience is two different things.
And I feel like, and so this is what I'm going back on
is saying, I think what happens is that sometimes
like marketers get a little too insular
into like what they're saying, like utilizing like terms
that maybe you're only thinking about internally, right?
And then when you're like kind of describing it
to the customer, it's not going to be perceived
the same way because you're utilizing terms
that like you only know internally.
Like you have to kind of treat your customers
as if like you're teaching a child
to do something for the first time.
- Absolutely.
- Right?
And I think, I even get frustrated.
Like I'm like getting frustrated, like thinking about it, right?
I get frustrated thinking about like how many times
people like are just too high level
in like a marketing campaign or in a social campaign
or whatever or the copy on the website.
And it's like sometimes you just gotta dumb it down.
- I think one thing that I crack the code at Caraway with,
when I was in the interviewing process,
I went to my then interviewer, my now boss, Mark.
And I was like, "Hey, am I allowed to just look
"at people's schedules and join meetings
"if I think it's relevant to my team?"
And he was just like, "Well, no one's done that before,
"but sure, as long as it's not like going out of your way."
And I was like, "No."
So very early on, I started sitting in all of these meetings.
And as we were talking about things
just even in the scoping periods,
I put into the CXVOC, I'd be like,
"Hey, you know, customers might actually like this better
"or like this term a little better.
"They're not in the e-commerce world.
"Like maybe they'll understand this a little better."
And it took some pushback naturally
because data is displayed differently across departments.
But they eventually kind of got onto it.
And they were like, "Okay, this makes so much more sense
"because this is who we're selling to
"and not who we're selling for."
- So switching gears slightly,
like we're talking about like feedback looping
into other departments, right?
What types of tools are you using?
What types of tools are you using
to kind of like gather like insights
and like feed it back to the rest of the company?
Are you utilizing AI or utilizing Google Sheets?
Like, what's the jam?
- Yeah, I think everything starts on Google Sheets
as old school as it is.
It's our first place in Caraway to start tracking.
And once we realize, okay, this has a lot of value,
then we'll start looking for a tool.
So we have recently onboarded NoFraud,
which was a very manual process for us previously
for combating fraud orders.
And NoFraud utilizes AI and a thousand different techy terms
that I do not have off the top of my head.
But that's something that we had three agents on.
And now it's completely automated.
We spend maybe 10 minutes a day on it.
- Interesting, interesting.
I actually tried to use NoFraud
for one of my fractional clients.
But they didn't have enough fraud to like kind of...
- Make it worth it.
- Yeah, yeah, in a way.
But you actually bring up a really good point.
So I know we're talking about like tech stack
and like all of these things, right?
And I think what's interesting,
and this is more of a statement that I'm gonna make,
I think what's really interesting as CX leaders,
as leaders or decision makers who are purchasing a SaaS tool,
right, for their tech stack,
we don't know the technical terms of your features.
Straight up, like we don't know.
What we do know is in order for us to advocate for your tool
across the company and like get buy-in for it,
we're going to describe it in the terms that we know it in,
right? - Yeah.
- And I think it's really interesting
that it's like all these tools have like all of these like
ways of saying this feature or that feature.
And like in the sales process, you're talking about,
oh, you gotta say this feature like in this particular manner.
- Yep.
- But at the same time as like us as decision makers,
we're not gonna know what your feature is called.
Like straight up, I'm not--
- No, the way I'm gonna advocate for it.
And that's it.
Would you agree?
- No, I 100, there's a tab open on my laptop religiously
of me just searching these terms.
And I have to keep track of them all
'cause like I'm just like, I'll hear it in a meeting.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
I know I know this, I know what's going on,
I know what this tool is for,
but I don't know what this term is.
And I'll just Google it, I'm like, oh,
you could've just said this.
- Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's really interesting.
Like there's so many tools out there, right?
And in like, and a lot of these tools like we needed,
especially as like CX or marketing leaders,
like it's like you need AI and you need your CRM,
you need all these things, right?
But everybody has a different way
of calling their feature set.
And I'm like, can we just dumb it down?
Just a little bit, you know, all we want.
I know, that was more of like my hot take
and then I'm just taking.
Cool, like actually I do wanna talk to you
a little bit more about AI, like how else other than
like reporting or like fraud, like how else
are you utilizing AI or utilizing it in like chat bots
or help center, I don't know.
Like, yeah, so I'm just dipping my toes
into the whole AI world.
This holiday season, we did, we trial two different AI
functions, one chat bot for our help desk
and there was clear value in there.
But you also need to remember when setting up AI,
you have to keep the customers in mind
of not just what are you taking away,
but how do they wanna use it?
And I think that's probably our biggest,
I don't wanna say struggle, but our biggest
experiment right now.
How do our customers who purchase Kerouay
want to use AI in their shopping experience?
And a lot of the times like our customers
really just wanna speak to a human being.
Yeah.
So it has to be all just functions that you can find
on a FAQ page to reduce confusion for them,
but if they're gonna wanna talk to us, we have to let them.
Yeah.
I think you bring up a really interesting point
about like chat bots and AI specifically,
it's like listen, and I'm like, I'm,
I love AI, I love chat bots, like I love all this stuff,
right?
I come from the world of like,
feastables or like high ticket types of like support teams,
right?
So I wanna deflect as much as possible,
but I also wanna always have access to the humans, right?
And I think it's like, it's a common misconception
that we think that, I wouldn't say we in particular,
I would just say like in general in this like world
of like AI that people think that like AI
is gonna come for your jobs, but I don't think
about like the home for your job,
I think it's literally going to help
the external and internal customer
and internal customer being like your agent or even,
you know, anybody who's executing like marketing strategy
or whatever it is, like right?
With to be able to like do their job really well.
That like, I think that's what it's gonna come in.
And I, and the other point that you bring up
and that I definitely want to also touch on
is the fact that like for the customer,
you always have to put your customer first.
So you always have to have the option
to say like, do you want to speak to an agent?
Even if it's not a toggle, if somebody says human being
or human in any sort of sentence,
you better be transferring them to a human
and humanizing that experience
because all you're gonna do is create friction
in your experience.
- I jumped on when we set up our AI bots
just to see how customers were liking it
and I'm talking to them and more than not,
people thought I was AI when I would like join
a conversation.
- Oh yeah.
- So I was just like, okay, how can we use this?
So now my agents introduce themselves to our customers,
they give them a nickname.
They're like, hey, my name is Lincoln,
but for this conversation, call me links.
Like, what can I call you today?
That way, like they know they're speaking
to an actual person and it's not just a hi there.
- Postscript has a really good,
let's call it feature, like in their set,
it's called like SMS sales.
And so I've incorporated this SMS sales into like--
- We do as well.
- Okay, nice.
- You know exactly where you're going.
- Yeah, and so like, I actually,
like it's really interesting because before,
I used to not really, I didn't wanna like do things
to like a call center or like, you know,
somewhere where it was like, you know,
50 to 100 plus people and like,
they're not like dedicated to our brand,
but I've seen like a lot of success in this, right?
Because in the onboarding process,
it's not necessarily automation.
It is automation in the sense of like taking over the ticket,
your SMS ticket, and then it like introduces
the character as like, hey, this is Marie,
or hey, my name is, I don't know, Tyler, right?
- Or is it Sophia?
- Okay, cute.
Sophia from Caraway.
But I like that the personalization of it is my point, right?
Like even though it's like, none of that portion
is like an automation, the automation is just like
handing over the ticket.
And then what happens is it's actually humans
on the back end of like having a conversation.
- Yeah.
- But like they're under Sophia or Marie
or whatever their name is, right?
And I think like, I think that's really important,
whatever, whichever way you do this, right?
Whichever way if it's like slight automations
in or full AI automation,
you're giving it some sort of personality
and some sort of personalization,
because then that way like doesn't feel like it's like,
I'm a robot named Beboop.
- Yeah, that was honestly one of my biggest fears
with bringing on like outside teams in general.
When I joined Caraway, we're very like,
if you tell me that your mother is in the hospital
and X, Y, and Z, and then you tell it go into your CX issue,
I always make sure we address that human aspect
of like, is your mom okay?
Like we're so sorry, we send flowers sometimes,
try to get really that human aspect there.
So bringing on outside teams was really scary for me.
'Cause I was like, I know how long it took us to learn.
- Right.
- Or how am I able to monitor this
and have the same tone across different channels.
So it's a holistic experience,
no matter who you're talking to,
and you don't know that it's an outside team.
Like you still think it's Caraway.
But PostScript was a beautiful partner to work with.
They studied our product for days on days before launch
and haven't had issues.
So it's been really great.
I'll look through text messages sometimes
and they'll catch things that even sometimes I might miss.
And I'm like, okay, this is more than just selling
to the customer.
This is engaging with them.
This is creating that community with them.
- Yeah.
Well, that's the point, right?
So whether it's PostScript, whether it's a BPO,
whether it's like any sort of like services
that are an extension of your team,
I think what's really important is that like
the onboarding process of that is so tight
with what your brand's process is
and they spend the time
and actually understanding that brand voice
to then deliver on it.
And I see, and so like completely switching gears
from like PostScript, right?
Like you brought up like a good point
about like outsourcing, right?
And so if you think about like BPOs,
like a lot of people hate BPOs
because and like to be honest with you,
I don't really like utilizing BPOs
and like my support teams.
Like I'd rather automate as much as many tickets
as possible and then humanize the experience
with like a low head count
so I can keep my teams like really tight, right?
And that's like essentially what like my philosophy
and that my philosophy varies from like yours,
you know, or anybody else's, right?
But the reason, the reason for that,
and this is again, my just humble opinion
is that like BPOs, like it's sometimes really hard
to work with them, you know, and like,
and it's really important that they're like really engulfed
in like your brand and your brand voice.
And I've had quite a few like partner heroes
are really good like BPO that I would say
that like really tries to like ingrain themselves
in that brand voice in your brand.
I think another one that I've worked with is FCR,
had a really good experience with them.
But I'd love to like hear about,
'cause I think your staff is like in the US
and then in South Africa, right?
- Yeah, so we have a BPO Boulder right now
that we work with and I'm absolutely in love with them.
We have agents in the Philippines, in Mexico
and in South Africa.
And I have to say before them,
I did have a very bad BPO experience
and I was very turned off.
I was like, I am sticking to my guns.
This isn't the way to work with, you know,
work in CX and keep that personalization.
And chatted with Boulder and from the first call,
I kind of felt very light and airy.
I was like, wait, they don't want to just give me
their normal way of doing things.
Like I'm allowed to actually change their processes.
So I worked and still to this day,
work very close with them.
And we don't, it's almost like there are a team
just in different country and they take care
of some admin work.
But their agents really do care
and embody everything within the care away process.
So I couldn't be more grateful as part,
and honestly.
- Yeah, yeah.
And I love that.
I love that.
I think just more so a shot out,
like if there's, 'cause there's plenty
of like BPO companies out there, right?
But I think it's like any BPO companies
that might be listening to this,
I think it's really important that in your training,
and in your onboarding with a client,
like you're not just saying like,
"Oh yeah, we're gonna invest in the brand voice."
And like really be an extension of your team.
Like no, like you really need to like engulf yourself
in that brand in order to be successful
with your brand in particular.
- Right?
- Yeah, I mean, even with Boulder,
we completely changed how they hire for us.
Their interviewing process,
we changed every single step of the way.
And they had no pushback.
They were like, "Yeah, let's try your way."
- Yeah.
- Yeah, and that's a good partnership.
- It's so good.
- Yeah, I love that.
- Not to mention we do get to visit them,
which is really nice.
- Yeah, yeah.
You recently were in South Africa, right?
Like 2023?
- Yeah, I've gone twice before now.
So 2022 and 2023.
- All right, Jelly 2024 coming in hot again.
So I kind of want to talk about a little bit more
about on-me channel experience.
Like I would love to know like what retailers are you in.
I know you're in QVC,
but like I would love to know,
like are you in other retailers?
Like...
- Yeah, so we started off a relationship with Craton Barrel.
- Okay, Q.
- And that was a huge one.
We actually did an exclusive collection with them.
So they had colors that no one else had, not even us.
And we really saw the success from there.
And over, I want to say the past 12 to 18 months,
we've launched in Target with an exclusive collection
as well for their client base.
We've launched with Indigo for our international customers.
And then shortly after seeing the want there,
offered international directly on our site, let's see.
QVC was a new one that we've recently launched
with which was so much fun.
I grew up watching QVC, so it was a little throwback for me.
Not sure if anyone younger than us knows what they are.
(laughing)
- Yeah, yeah, shopping talk shows.
- Yeah, it was big, you know, back in the day.
But yeah, we've just really, we want to partner
with different retail locations that can get our product
in front of customers, but they themselves still hold
the care way values to them.
So at the forefront, they always have to have
good customer service.
We do not want to work with a retail partner
if they can't provide the same seamless service that we can.
- Yeah.
- And that's very big for us.
We have not yet gotten anybody to reach out to us
and say, "Hey, I bought this product from Macy's
and they're refusing to work with me.
They're not answering me."
I think that's terrible as a partner
'cause it reflects back on you.
You choose them.
- Yeah, I think that's the hardest part, right?
Like, and I've seen this a lot with like
omni-channel brands that I like work with, right?
You know, Fisables is a good example.
It's like, okay, so it primarily was like in D2C E-com
and then switched to like Walmart.
And then if somebody had an issue with like Walmart,
specifically, they would come to us, right?
Because like it was our email on the back of these bars, right?
But then there's nothing you can do.
You can't do anything with like,
like if they've had a bad retail experience,
which leads me to my question.
Like, so I think there's not a lot of brands out there
that are on QVC.
So I would actually be really interested to know for you,
like how did you prepare your customer experience team
to launch on QVC?
Like, I know that they have obviously
like their own customer support,
but like, are you seeing any of those tickets?
Are you seeing any of those conversations?
Like, and how did you prepare your team
to even be ready to handle that if they were coming in?
- Yeah, so about last year, we had Jeff come in and,
oh, Jeff, if you hear this, I'm so sorry.
I think his title is CMO.
I'm pretty sure that's what it is.
But he came in and he really led a lot
of our retail expansion.
And one of the first things he did was,
hey, what information as a customer,
do I need to know when I'm buying in store?
And we put together a deck and he launched this deck
with every single retailer so that they know everything
about our products so that when customers are shopping
with them, they get the same service.
It's not just a product being carried in the store.
Like other teams really do know the product.
So it makes the customer journey a lot more well-rounded
and almost replicates what we would do.
- Yeah.
- So that's really nice.
And for QVC specifically,
because we have an international team,
we just had to teach them what it was.
Which was, it's the biggest,
I think roadblock when working with international teams
is just making sure they understand what's big in the US,
why it's big, how it's big,
and how it can affect a customer.
So our biggest was just really teaching the team
what QVC was.
And now, we have agents that just like to watch
QVC videos, which is so cute.
- I love that.
I love that.
There's like an IG person.
I'll have to put this in the show notes,
but there's somebody on IG, it's like a personality
and it's a comedy personality.
And it does the impressions.
- Oh, I know you're talking about.
(laughs)
And that's literally all I'm picturing in my head right now
is like, your collar's going in.
(laughs)
Last point on just going into retail.
I'm like, how do you deal with the obstacle
of losing your customers' data?
And I don't mean like customers' data like,
okay, like I wanna know about like,
you're this and that.
I mean like the demographics of your customer,
or like their wants, their needs,
like all of that stuff.
How is your brand managing that?
- So we have a lot of tools
that our retention team uses there.
But of course, if they're buying any other retailer,
you lose the data.
What we do is on our end for our CRM,
we track every contact that we get and where they purchased.
So through that, it's a very small amount of reach out,
but about 10% reach out from our retailers.
And from those tickets, we obsessively tag
and try to collect as much information as we can,
just so we can then share all of the sentiments going on
with the larger teams.
It's one of the only ways to do it right now that we found.
And as we continue to expand different tools,
we do hope to collect more information.
But as a kind of roundabout,
we are looking into a community management platform
to bring all of our customers into one spot,
regardless of where they purchased,
so that we then again have all of those care way lovers
together and seeing what we can learn from them.
'Cause that's the biggest thing
is we're learning from our customers.
And that should be everyone's first thought
when thinking about the VOC.
- Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I think that the world is so social forward.
And that bringing in those channels
are such an important piece of customer experience.
And I think it's, I normally see like community management
sitting more on the marketing side,
but then you only think about it from like
the marketing lens of like marketing to social channels, right?
- Yeah.
- You really have to think about the social piece,
like community management piece
as like actually managing that community
and then like getting data from that community too.
And it's really hard.
It's really hard 'cause it's like,
what are you gonna do?
- So hard.
- Like take a tweet and be like,
this person is a male in 34 in Indiana.
You know what I mean?
Like how are you gonna know all that?
- Yeah.
I mean, what gets really hard with community
and social itself is we're getting way less information.
And we already as CX leaders struggle with,
hey, we got 15 complaints about this one thing.
And you have to figure out how to make that 15
actually sound impactful when raising issues
to other departments.
- Yeah.
- And then you go on social media and it's just
a whole new ball game of like how to even find
these comments because it's not in one spot.
It could be on an ad.
It could be on an influencers post.
It could be on your own post in your DMs
sent from someone else.
The touch points are endless.
But I think if you can really figure out how to listen,
then you can grow a brand that customers want to work with.
That's how we've launched a lot of our new products actually.
- Yeah.
Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right.
I think it's like developing out that VOC.
I also think it's a little bit of like utilizing AI
to like help you decipher.
Like, or I would say like go through
like all these hundreds of tweets or these like LinkedIn
posts, whatever, like TikTok, all these other places, right?
I think that's actually where AI is like gonna make
the biggest play because you literally physically
cannot sit there to just sift through something to like
to tag it with like a negative or a positive sentiment.
I've lived that and I'm like, no way.
- So hard.
- Yeah, I'd rather pay for the tool that has AI
to help me decipher that.
And maybe it's not always 100% accurate,
but it's gonna get me at least to the 80/20 rule.
- Exactly.
- Right.
- And I think with AI too, it gets really scary for people,
but AI's been around for way longer than we think.
We're just calling it AI now.
- I know, I know.
It's just still kind of creepy, but you know.
- It's insane, but it's really helpful.
And I think a lot of companies should encourage their
employees to explore how they can use AI
in their day to day.
- Right.
- 'Cause every single person in your company
is gonna use it differently and for different things
to make their job a bit easier or take something
off their plate.
- Right, absolutely.
A couple of hot take questions for you.
Are you ready?
Nancy, let's look at the personality shine up in here.
- See.
- What is the best customer experience you've ever had?
And I want like biggest, baddest, like love it.
Man, okay, this one I feel so bad because I wanna say
it's a call-out, but it's not.
Best buy, man.
They saved me 2021.
I, it's so hard being in customer service
'cause you realize the things that you do that it's like,
wow, this is all my own fault.
I waited until the last day before the Christmas deadline
to get my boyfriend this new black screen TV.
I work in a CX to forget to shop yourself.
- Yeah.
- And I got it right there.
It was like two day delivery will be here by Christmas Eve.
And I was like, great, that's what I need.
The next day I log on and the package wasn't even picked up
by FedEx, which we all know is not the company's fault.
So I call them up and I'm like, hey, like,
I totally understand this is my fault.
Like it's not picked up, it's not moving.
Like it's my only present this year.
I really need your help.
And the woman on the phone before anything,
which is like, well, first off,
I'm gonna go ahead and apply 15% discount
because this is not moving the way it should be.
So I want to let you know we're doing that first.
And I was like, whoa, thank you.
I didn't even ask for that, but okay.
And then she goes, this might get picked up today,
but just in case I'm actually gonna schedule a delivery
from one of our store locations to your house.
And if the second TV just shows up,
let us know and we'll come pick it up.
I got the TV.
Second one didn't come, thankfully,
because I hate returns, but I got the TV.
Even afterwards, she gave me a call back
and asked me how the gift went.
And I was shocked.
I was like, whoa, best buy?
- Yeah.
- You guys are killing it.
- Yeah, that's really awesome.
I mean, I'm really surprised to hear that
from like best buy because,
especially during that timeframe, they're so busy.
- And they're just, they're corporate, you know?
They're not a smaller team that can have a bit more
flexibility with what they're doing,
but they really set up everything they got, I feel like,
from customer feedback to make sure
when those escalation points are happening,
they know how to calm down the customer.
I wasn't irate, but I was definitely panicking.
- Dude, do you think this is like not even a hot bike,
but like in general, do you think that we have more patience
because we've been on the other end?
Because I don't feel like I'm always patient.
I'm gonna be really cute.
- No, I had a terrible experience.
I don't know if this is a next hot take,
but a terrible experience recently with Quip.
- Oh. - Called out.
- Sorry. (laughs)
Again, totally my fault, but I think being a six-leader,
I always go into issues.
I explain everything.
I try not to name drop because we don't need to necessarily,
unless I need to.
And I had a subscription with them.
I moved, totally didn't even realize I missed my pass
to Quip subscriptions.
And I got the delivery notification.
I was like, oh my God, like let me email them
and see like what I can do.
And I'm like, hey guys, like this is totally my fault.
Explain to them the whole situation.
Did I give them more information than needed 100%?
And they responded with a macro.
- Ooh. - Just a macro, no help, nothing.
Basically, not our problem, your problem.
And I was floored.
- That's, yeah, yeah.
I'm bummed for that.
- So bummed.
Now I have to cancel Quip.
- Well, now I'm changing my toothbrush.
I know, they're so cute.
- They're so cute and perfect.
But you know, it really does.
Every time I pick up that toothbrush in the morning,
I think about those emails that I'm like.
- Is this so bad?
Like you're using a product or whatever.
Like I, symbiotica was a brand that I was so stoked for.
So, so stoked for, right?
And I even signed up for subscription for them.
And then what happened was sign up for subscription,
all jammed, like, or not jammed, sorry, it was the jam.
And I was like super excited about it.
And then I like couldn't really get into their portal.
Like it was like really hard.
And I wanted to change some of the products.
And so I was like waiting for the email to say like,
oh, you're things about to ship or, you know,
you're a notification, right?
- Something.
- Something.
Instead of all I got was a notification that it shipped.
And I was like, okay, so I immediately went
and talked to customer support.
And I was like, hey, like literally within like 20, 30 minutes.
And I was like, hey, listen, like, I want to like make some changes
to some of the products or whatever.
And they were like, oh, sorry, it's already shipped.
Mind you, it is like two, three in the morning.
And I'm like, listen, ma'am, sir, there is no way
this has already shipped my guy or ma'am, whatever, right?
And I'm like, there's no way.
So then I ask him to like escalate it
'cause they were like just going back and forth,
back and forth, not getting anywhere.
Then like the CX manager doesn't even come back to me
until like the next day in the afternoon was like,
now it's really shipped.
And I'm like, okay.
And then they were like, well, you can return it
and we'll give you 20% off or something, something, something.
And I was like, what?
I was like, honestly, I just took my $200 worth of products
and canceled the subscription.
And then it all lived in a box for a year
because I was so mad about it.
You know?
Those impressions are just lasting.
- I know.
I know.
- All right, one more hot take.
You ready?
- Okay.
- Is the customer always right?
- Oh, I hate this.
No, they are not.
(laughing)
I don't know how many people are gonna hear this
and be like, wow, okay, not gonna email her.
But like, no, you're not always right.
- Yes, I agree with you.
- But it is our job to make sure you feel like
you got your issue resolved
and how you wanted it to be resolved.
We've gotten some of the most surprising customer reachouts
over the years.
My favorite has to be like the BBB,
not the BBB, the FTC or like the general attorney threats.
- Oh, yeah.
- I'm like, I'm giving you everything my heart
and soul possibly can and more.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I'm so sorry, but they're not always right.
- They're not always right.
I'm sorry, they're not always right.
And you're right, it is our job to definitely help
and service, but they're not always right.
And that's okay.
- Especially, you know, there'll be customers,
we will have some traditional ones.
Who will think my way or the highway.
That's how a lot of my older family members think
I'm very versed in it.
You can't change mine sometimes.
You just can't do it.
But as long as you put your best effort in,
it's what you can go to sleep with at the end of the day.
- Yeah, I agree with you.
- All right, Nancy, while I appreciate you coming on,
where can the listeners find you?
- Oh, well, you guys can find me on LinkedIn.
I do want to post this here.
So hopefully or at some of the DTC events in New York City.
- Yes, girl.
Don't worry, we're going to gas you up.
Well, I appreciate everybody listening
into this week's episode and I'll see you next week.
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