Working together with CX: Your Handbook šŸ“–

Hey hi hello!

A few firsts this week.

1. Potty training a toddler (not for the faint of heart)
2. A (Messi)Soccer game in Metlife (DEF NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART)

It was a great week outside of this chaos, though. Working on a really fun first-of-its-kind ā€œconferenceā€ for Retention folks later this year (TBA šŸ‘€ ), and we have a bunch of new and fun product stuff coming down the line on the Yotpo side.

This weekā€™s topic is something that I have been meaning to discuss for a long while.

CX folks are in most businesses, yet most folks outside the CX / Customer Service corner of the office have no idea how to properly work with these folks.

If you are a CXā€™er, keep scrollingā€¦ (or actually, drop this in the #general slack channel for everyone to read.) 

If you are not, this might be the handiest newsletter you have ever laid your eyes on. šŸ˜

Letā€™s ride. 

This weekā€™s newsie is brought to you by Chargeflow. 

If you donā€™t know them by now, Chargeflow is the obvious choice for DTC brands when it comes to winning chargebacks, trusted by Obvi, Jones Road, Olipop, and thousands of high-growing DTC brands.

Speaking of high growth, on July 17th, they are hosting "Level Up Your DTC Brand", a webinar that will discuss scaling DTC brands on Shopify. This is your chance to:

  • Gain Expert Insights: Learn from the CEOs of growing DTC brands such as Caleb Ulffers (Haven Athletic), Shani Steinberg (Allermi), and eCom SaaS leaders like Jimmy Kim (Sendlane), Erin Watt (Triple Whale), and Alicia Gan (Aftersell).

  • Discover Practical Strategies: Get actionable tips and tools to grow your brand.

  • Explore Real-World Examples: Hear success stories to inspire and inform your strategy.

Whether you're an eCommerce founder, CX manager, marketer, or product manager, you cannot miss this one.

Growth Marketing

Growth guys (and gals), I get it, you turn dollars into customers with some cost caps, but have you ever thought about how closely you should be working with your CX team to improve your own work?? 

Recently, I have been hearing so much from growth folks about why CX is all the rage, but then when they explain what CX is or what CX does, most are either way off or do not utilize this relationship well at all. 

Hereā€™s what you can learn from your CX squad:

Leveraging Customer Insights

Your CXā€™ers have firsthand knowledge of what customers love, what frustrates them, and what they wish you offered. By tapping into this data, you can tailor your ads and funnel strategies to better meet customer needs and preferences.

Like, make sure your ads actually resonate. 

  • Feedback Loops: Establish regular meetings with your CX team to discuss customer feedback, or glean insights from a weekly CX report. What are the recurring themes? What are customers thrilled about? What pain points are they highlighting? 

  • Personalized Campaigns: Use the data from CX to create marketing campaigns. For example, if your CX team notes that customers are frequently asking for product tutorials, consider creating a campaign around educational content that addresses these needs pre-purch to remove the biggest objections. 

  • Learn about your customers: We all think we know our customers super well. But very often, there might be a whole sub-segment of customers you have no idea exists. For example, at Jones Road, we thought most of our customers were middle aged Bobbi Brown fans, and we learned lots of young moms loved JRB because it was clean and easy. 

Retention

Retention marketers, retaining customers is a science and an art, and collaborating with your CX team is imperative to create content that resonates and drives value. 

Hereā€™s how to work with CX: 

Understanding Customer Pain Points

Your CX team has a direct line to your customers and hears about their pain points every day. Leveraging this information can help you address issues before they lead to churn.

  • Why they struggle with your products: Schedule regular feedback sessions with your CX team to discuss complaints and identify trends that might be affecting customer retention. You can often solve lots of these in welcome flows and post-purchase flows, as I find lots of these complaints due to not understanding the product or not knowing how to use it properly. 

  • Why they love your products: Some of our most successful campaigns across email, SMS, and direct mail have been directly from customer feedback. Ask your CX team ā€œwhat do customers love most about xā€ and you will be blown away by what you learn. Use these in a campaign.

Building Loyalty Programs

Your CX team can help you understand what motivates your customers to stay loyal. Use this information to build or refine your loyalty programs. 

90% of loyalty programs I have seen over the years are generic as hell, and CX teams would have a ton of knowledge to create something that resonates and is on-brand. 

  • Reward Systems: Design reward systems that resonate with your customers. Whether itā€™s points for purchases, exclusive access, or personalized gifts, make sure your loyalty program offers real value. Even the tier names and digital experience should feel like an extension of your brand. 

  • Feedback Integration: Continuously integrate feedback from your CX team to improve the loyalty program. If customers are not engaging with certain aspects, tweak them based on the feedback.

Operations

Ops folks, you all are the backbone of the business, ensuring everything runs smoothly (with rarely enough credit.)

But how often do you liaise with your CX team to understand the impact of your operations on customer satisfaction? 

Hereā€™s how you can bridge the gap and why itā€™s essential.

Streamlining Processes

Your CX team often hears about inefficiencies directly from customers. By working together, you can identify and streamline these processes to improve overall efficiency and customer satisfaction.

  • Feedback Integration: Create a system where customer feedback from CX is directly funneled into your operational reviews. Are there consistent complaints about delivery times? Packaging issues? Use this feedback to refine your processes. I love analyzing feedback from tools like PDQ and Wonderment to better understand shipping to delivery time frames by geo so you can better deliver what you promise. 

Improving Product Quality

Quality control is vital, and your CX team can provide real-time data on product performance from the customerā€™s perspective. This collaboration can lead to higher quality standards and fewer returns or complaints.

  • Quality Checks: Incorporate CX feedback into your quality control checks. If customers are consistently reporting issues with a specific product, prioritize it in your quality assessments.

  • Proactive Improvements: Use insights from CX to make proactive improvements to your products. For example, if customers are finding certain products difficult to use, consider how you can provide better instructions or unboxing experience.

Thatā€™s it for this week!

Any topics you'd like to see me cover in the future?

Just shoot me a DM or an email!

Cheers, 

Eli šŸ’›

P.S. Looking for inspo on your next email/sms campaign?

I know you will love this