High-Value Customer Experiences for the Modern Beauty Consumer

Summary

In this lively discussion, Gabe Larson, the Vice President of Growth at Kustomer, and special guest Erin Garrity, Customer Service Director at Prose, explore the topic of delivering high-value customer experiences for the modern beauty consumer. Erin highlights how Prose, a custom hair care company, focuses on guiding customers through every aspect of their hair care journey. The conversation emphasizes the evolving expectations of modern beauty customers, who seek more personalized and meaningful interactions with brands. Key trends include the importance of instant gratification, being present on every channel, and seamless cross-channel experiences. Erin discusses how their 24-hour business model manages customer inquiries through email and SMS, which has proven highly successful for them.

Key Takeaways

1. Personalization is crucial: Modern beauty customers expect more than just transactional interactions with brands. They want personalized experiences that align with their identity and values, making it essential for companies to focus on building meaningful relationships with their customers.
2. Embrace the digital age: In the era of instant gratification, businesses must adapt to provide real-time support and engagement across multiple channels, including email, SMS, and social media. Being available 24/7 and offering seamless cross-channel experiences are key to meeting customer expectations.
3. Omnichannel support is essential: To ensure a consistent and positive customer experience, companies need to adopt an omnichannel support strategy. This approach allows customers to switch between channels without losing context or having to repeat their inquiries, providing a seamless and efficient service.
4. SMS as a valuable customer service channel: While traditional email support remains strong, SMS or texting emerges as a highly effective channel for quick and casual customer interactions. Customers appreciate the ease of conversation and immediate responses it provides, making it a valuable addition to the support arsenal.
5. Customer feedback matters: Listening to customer feedback is vital for improving products and services. Companies must actively seek and utilize customer input to enhance their offerings and deliver higher value experiences, building stronger brand loyalty in the process.

Transcript

Welcome everybody. We’re excited to get going today. We’re gonna be talking about a very meaningful whole topic. It’s how prose delivers high value customer experiences for the modern beauty consumer. Now we will be focusing specifically on Prose. We’ve got a great guest, and we’ll introduce her in just a minute, but there are so many applicable lessons across the board as we think about driving a great customer experience.
So as always, you’ve got myself. I’m Gabe Larson. I’m the Vice President of Growth here at Kustomer. And Kustomer is an omnichannel customer service platform that helps you reimagine the customer experience.
And we have our special guests Erin Gary, who is the Director of Customer Service at Prose. Erin, can you take just a minute and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do over there at Prose? Yeah. Hi, everyone.
Like Gabe said, I’m Erin Garrity. I’m the director of customer service at prose.
We’re a custom hair care company.
So that means my team of custom haircare experts help kind of guide our customer through every touch point of their hair care journey.
I love that. I love that. I feel like that’s a trend, Erin. You know, it’s you know, the hair care experts. It’s not necessarily the customer service agents or representatives.
It’s about something different. We’ll dive into that today. So with that, let’s dive into this. I want to kinda set the stage and see if I could kinda paint the picture Some of the trends going on in the market, and then we wanna bring Erin in and get her feedback on how that’s translating specifically in her business. So I’ll be high level and talk a little bit about the expectation shifting? This kinda interesting thing we’re doing between customer service and brand loyalty. And then as I said, we’ll dive a little bit more into probably what you wanna hear mostly, which is how it’s kind of a modern day company looking at customer service differently and especially this idea of personalization.
So let’s dive in and go number one.
The modern day beauty customer expects from companies they do business with this kinda expectation component. So this is an interesting one, and, Erin, it’ll be fun to maybe get your quick top track on this. But one of the biggest developments we’re seeing is how customers expect to interact. You know, they’re not really thinking of brand relations as simply transactional.
They’re shopping with companies because truthfully, they believe in their mission. They feel like shopping with them is part of their identity, they wanna really build relationships with these brands. But it is a give and take. They expect to have conversation relationships with brands. They wanna give feedback, and the company needs to be able to take that feedback and actually do something with it. The customer wants to be personalized, a relationship, and the brand needs to see if they can find a way to ultimately deliver that experience.
That’s not all, though. We’ve seen that in some of the surveys, but truthfully, There’s other trends that are going on in this concept of the digital age. It really is transforming what customers expect from brands they do business with. I love that first one. It’s all about instant gratification.
You know, we’re the generation of instant gratification. We expect things real time, and it’s not just it’s not just during business hours. I think it’s all times of the day.
And so if you’re not managing around that, you’re probably putting yourself in an interesting place. Couple points I wanna highlight here.
Being present on every channel, especially for retailers, is imperative.
Eighty eight percent of customers are frustrated when they can’t contact the company on a channel that they prefer, but it’s not just being omnichannel.
This idea of cross channel, a lot of customers are finding themselves starting conversations on one channel, and then switching to another channel.
But still wanting to not skip a beat experience that kind of great customer experience throughout the entire journey. In addition, There is something about knowing this problem when it starts. Sixty six percent of consumers expect customer service agents to know the problem they are inquiring about as soon as they know their name. That just puts something at a different place.
You have to have full context. You need the customer history right at the agents or consultants fingertips so that they can provide that type of you know, instant gratification as we said today. So these are some of the things that we think retailers must be aware of and really treat customers accordingly. Erin, I want to get your thoughts on just a couple of these points.
Been reading a couple different things about during business hours versus after business hours.
What has been kinda your guys’ experience on that? Most of your traffic happens kind of between nine to five, or is it Gabe? Look, it’s a twenty four hour shop, and we gotta manage around that. Yeah. It’s definitely a twenty four hour business, people expect support to be available at any time, whether it’s, you know, on social media or in a text message or an email, and so we’ve definitely had to figure out how to manage around that and make sure that we have people available, you know, not maybe twenty four hours, but available when our customers want to talk to us.
Interesting. And guys, I do want this to be interactive. I’m seeing a couple questions. I forgot to mention that. We’ve got one that just came in from Tom. I think this one’s thing retailers, I think, debate the channels that are most popular, most used. And you may be touching on this later, but what is the predominant channel for you?
For you is it true kinda omnichannel, or is there one that kinda sticks out that most of your customers and prospects are using? Yeah. I would say there’s two for us, that work both well for us and for our customers. So, Email is, I think, a really strong channel for us. It’s kind of a traditional customer service or support channel.
But something that’s been really successful for our team is, SMS or texting, that allows customers to, like, get an answer really quickly in a way that email doesn’t necessarily allow for. It feels like a much more casual conversation.
With a lot of back and forth, more like you’re texting a friend than anything else.
So that’s been kind of a secondary channel that’s been incredibly successful for us. And are you finding that people are doing channel switching? And if so, how do you think about managing that?
Yeah. I mean, people kind of come at us from all angles. That’s for sure. The thing that, you know, kind of brought us to to Kustomer in general was this idea of omnichannel, support. So it helps us to shift very easily from an email interaction to an SMS interaction without losing that, you know, history or having to have a customer re-explain what the issue is. It’s really a seamless transition for both the customer and for our team too.
Do you feel like, I mean, It’s probably a little bit of a before and after, but how big of a difference is it to be able to kind of manage that channel switching a little more effectively. Was it that big of a deal or is it like, no, Gabe, that is, you know, we gotta find a way to kinda meet the customer where they are.
I would say before having the ability, I didn’t know quite how important it was after being able to have our customers switch back and forth, I would say, oh, yeah. You know, absolutely. That is a huge game changer. It prevents just so much duplicate work and also a poor experience for people.
It’s, yeah, a huge game changer for us.
Yeah. I wondered, you kind of that’s so insightful. It’s like, well, you sometimes just don’t know what you don’t know, but ultimately it has been a big deal. Yeah. Let me let me draw it a couple stats and I wanna get your opinion on one other thing here, Erin. So, this one, I always find it faster. You know, seven percent of customers expect retailers to know them and to personalize how they interact.
This one, seventy eight percent of consumers expect online and in store retailers to treat them the same way.
This one I feel like kinda jumped out to me. It’s like, okay. So while our interactions with brands are moving more and more towards the digital realm, really, consumers still want to have that one on one, and they they want it to be the same as it is as if, you know, it’s person to person, kind of the way you experience it, in, in, like, a regular store.
So ultimately, you know, customers expect they say they wanna have this kind of experience with the brand. They wanna have it better than they normally have it.
Flipping it over to you, Erin, do you maybe wanna briefly discuss how prosee is implementing some of these ideas with your customization model?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Customization is kind of at the core of everything that we do at prose.
You know, like I said before, our customized care care company. So a customer comes to our site and immediately is given the opportunity to fill out an online consultation.
That asks really comprehensive questions about their hair and their scalp needs. It’s about twenty five questions in total. And we go really in-depth from everything. We ask about your scalp, your hair, your, you know, environmental aggressors. So, you know, pollution levels, kind of water hardness, you know, your exercise and diet habits, which are things that no other hair care company is looking at. And the result is kind of eight, or excuse me, a hundred and thirty five different factors that we take to develop a completely unique formula or blend of ingredients for you.
So that was all kind of built in house and his proprietary.
It was built by our CTO, Niko Musat, and it really is delivering a complete customer, excuse me, customized experience.
We like to say that we wouldn’t exist without you, the customer, and it’s true. You know, a formula doesn’t exist for you until you come on our site and start filling out our consultation.
Got it. Got it. So but that it’s that ability then is really what helps you establish the relationship in probably a way that, you know, even, you know, an in person retailer would have a hard time doing. These types of questions allow you to have a real meaningful experience once you actually start interacting with the person post consultation form.
Correct? Yeah. Exactly. From the beginning, a customer has a really high level of trust with us.
And then it’s up to us to continue to deliver on that throughout the experience.
Yeah. Do you find I mean, one of the problems I feel like, and I’m just using myself is a shopper here. You know, sometimes I feel like I will go to an in person retailer, and they may ask me a couple questions.
But that information quickly falls by the wayside. You know, I go look at a couple other items or I come back to them and they’ve either forgotten it. They aren’t able to kinda bring it into the continued talk track.
Have you guys been able to take that information and continually bring it into the conversation so that you keep that customized experience throughout the process?
Yeah. I mean, I think we’re definitely at an advantage over, you know, in person retail. If I ask you a question in person, I have to remember it.
Luckily, my team has some really cool resources at their fingertips. So, something that’s worked really well for us with Kustomer in particular as we’ve been able to pull in all of the information that our customers are telling us about themselves. So we know when we’re talking to someone how they have, you know, rated their, you know, ends. Are they dry? Are they not dry? We know if they have an oily scalp or, maybe an itchy scalp, and it really helps us to guide the conversation in a thoughtful way.
Interesting. Yeah. I might need to go through this survey. I’ve had kind of an itchy scalp lately, but we can talk later.
Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. Let’s continue on here. So the next point we want to jump into was just how customer service is directly tied to brand loyalty and some of the business implications or impact that it has. So three quick pillars here. A lot of people ask, you know, what is the value of a satisfied customer?
Some of you might think it’s obvious, but truthfully a satisfied customer. They bring this loyalty in this increased customer lifetime value and probably even word-of-mouth in cases. So when a feedback loop is there, customers, they’re more likely to be satisfied and really become that that I think we’re all shooting for. Now if you reach that advocacy level, they won’t just come back to buy again, but they might buy at a higher price or they might recommend a product to a friend or, you know, the list goes on and on. What have you seen there from your customer base when it comes to this concept? This feedback loop or advocacy. Have you guys been able to nail that down and see it grow your business?
Yeah. I I think it’s been something that’s worked really well for us, and the end result is an incredibly high level of engagement from our customers. You know, they feel connected to us from the minute they start filling out that consultation, and it trickles down into, you know, the community. And like I said, just how engaged they are, how willing they are to, you know, post a review or share on social media, maybe send us a love note or a thank you note, send us a selfie. We get a lot of, happy hair day selfies, which is really fun. My team gets to be on the front lines of receiving those, which is really wonderful.
Just like a really quick example is, you know, we had a customer who we were able to work with her and her formulas, and she sent us a photo of her hair getting sworn in, in local government.
And you could tell that, you know, she felt so proud and so accomplished and so confident, and it’s really meaningful to see and and, you know, meaningful that our customers are so willing to share that information with us and with the larger Prose community.
Wow. How have you been able to kind of – now I’m trying to steal secrets from you for my own life here, but, you know, every once in a while, you know, businesses, they’ll get some good feedback from customers. They may not get selfies like you’re talking about, but they get some good stuff, in comment, forms, social, pictures, etcetera. How have you been able to then really amplify that or put it out to your audience? Are you mostly just using social channels? You’re putting on your website, they’re mostly just putting you on their social channels, and then you’re trying to amplify that. Like, how have you taken that made it, you know, get it out to even a broader audience so people hear it and see it and taste it and touch it.
Yeah. I mean, For the most part, it’s customers who are sharing things on their own social channels, and we try to do a good job every week of rounding those things up both internally and externally on our social channels, just so we can kind of share the the prose’ praise as we like to call it.
Yeah. That’s interesting. That’s something I think all of us can do a little better. So they’re actually going through and trying to round up some of those and make it part of your brand as well as their own.
Let’s dive into this point here.
Lot of people talk about customer service as a revenue dot driver, but how does it actually impact the bottom line? And maybe why should you think about it as a revenue driver, not really a cost center? That’s one of the things as I’ve talked to prose and some of these other modern retailers, that line is just so resonating. It’s not a cost center.
We’re thinking about this as a revenue driver, a differentiation, etcetera. So Here’s some of the ways that it can really impact your revenue. So with bad customer service, customers will leave your brand for the competition. And, obviously, that’s lost revenue.
So the average consumer, they say they’ve sworn off a lot of brands due to customer service. I think we’ve seen some of those stats. Couple of these other things. One is your bad service could also create truthfully bad PR, you know, meaning a brand reputation hit.
In the stats I’ve seen, fifty four percent of customers will post an online review, and forty one percent will complain on social media after they have bad customer service. May Erin, maybe I can just get your quick feedback on this one. I mean, we just talked about the great feedback.
What, if you do, and hopefully, you don’t get a lot of someone kinda mentioning some feedback on one of the different channels that isn’t as positive as you as you’d like. How have you been able to internalize that and make a change or get back to them quickly or just address the problem and, you know, in as professional a way as possible. Yeah. I mean, it happens to every brand, no matter how many positive reviews you have, you know, you’re gonna get a negative one every now and then too.
For us, we definitely don’t shy away from them.
We try to look at them as areas of opportunity. So we wanna make sure that we get back to those customers just as quickly as possible.
And that they really feel heard. We try to have a lot of the conversation as publicly as possible, so it doesn’t look like we’re trying sweep something under the rug, or kind of shy away from the negativity, and then luckily enough, we had some really cool, systems in place which I’ll touch on in a little bit that allow us to really capture, customer feedback, especially as it relates to, our products and our formulas that allow us to, build on what customers say that’s constructive and and ultimately optimize their experience.
Cool. Cool. Yeah. I like that. I mean, it’s funny because that is, you know, it’s, it’s becoming more obvious, but still is hard to grapple.
It’s like, if there is a problem in the public, you know, I I loved your point. You know, we try to address it kind of in public and be as professional as possible. We don’t try to hide it and sweep, but we just deal with it out there and make it great.
It happens to everyone, and we want everyone to see that we’re quick to respond to it, and we’re happy to help. I love that. I love that. This one jumps out to me at that kinda higher price point there.
Box number three. Think that’s kinda the opposite side. Right? So conversely, seventy four percent are saying they’re willing to spend more money for exceptional customer support.
This seems like one that you guys have been able to nail down. Do you mind touching on, from your customer base what the situation is when it comes to premium beauty products? Yeah. Absolutely.
Like you mentioned, our price point is a bit more premium. It skews a bit higher, but we found that that is really you know, it works for us for a couple reasons, the level of customization and personal, excuse me, personalization that we’re able to offer our customers you know, our incredibly high quality product and elevated product development experience. And again, that one on one really high touch customer support, is kind of why our customers are willing to pay that slightly higher price point.
Yeah. No. It makes a ton of sense, and I think you guys deliver that value, so they’re willing to do it.
Alright. Well, let’s dive a little deeper into Prose, and then we’ll touch up on personalization here. Ended.
Let’s have you dive into some real life examples on how this this you know, Prose company has been able to really incorporate customer feedback and drive success. So let’s dive in. Maybe you can start. Well, you touched on this briefly, but go a little deeper into kinda who poses and some of the things you guys are doing. Yeah. Absolutely.
So as Gabe mentioned, I mentioned this earlier, but we are, you know, the most personalized beauty brand in the world, you know, when I mentioned our consultation, All of our customers fill that out, and the end result is a formula that is completely customized and unique to the customer.
There’s a hundred and thirty five different factors that go into that. And when you take that amount of factors combined with the number of ingredients that we combined with the number of products that we offer, we’re able to produce about fifty billion different formulas which is kind of crazy.
Wow.
That is true customization right there. That is true customization. Truly. It is.
I can’t even count that high.
So, but to tell you a bit more about us, we have seven totally personalized products, our shampoo, our conditioner, our pre-shampoo mask, and then our very rapidly growing styling line. So we have a customized hair oil, a dry shampoo, a leave-in conditioner, and a curl cream that launched earlier this week.
And all of this kind of tells us that it makes us the most personalized beauty brand in the world and also the largest.
Which is a really unique position to be in. Well, congrats. I did not realize that. What one question that just came in there and I think it is interesting. This one came in from Ashley.
On that form that, you know, you’ve mentioned out a couple times. How have you gotten? It sounds like you people are giving a decent amount of information up, and they don’t have a real, you know, deep relationship potentially at that point with Prose. And there are certain things you’ve done to help that form be filled out and get people to convert and and actually fill out the questions versus, you know, fill out a couple and then bounce out fairly quickly.
Any thoughts on that? Yeah. We’ve tried to kind of ease that experience. Like I mentioned, it’s an extensive conversation.
So, kind of all throughout the process, you’ll find different tips and tricks from our experts on how to answer a particular question so you’re not hung up on it. Or how, you know, if you’re kind of between hair types, how we suggest you might select your hair type, So ultimately, you’re not too stuck on any question, and you can, you know, answer it correctly to get the right formula for you.
Got it. Interesting. Okay.
Okay. So that’s a little bit about prose and some of the things you guys are doing. I didn’t realize some of those stats, man, that is crazy, fifty. Those are some big, big numbers. Let’s dive into this.
I think you called the review and refine program. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. How does this work? Let me touch on a little bit, but this is a good visualization of it, I think.
Yeah. This is something that’s relatively new to us. It is our first iteration of this technology launched in 2019, and it is really meant to be a platform for our customers to come back to us after they’ve used their products and tell us what worked and what didn’t.
So about four weeks after you receive your products, you’re prompted to come back to our site. You can find it organically before then, and you’re able to tell us, oh, my hair was more manageable.
Or less frizzy or, you know, my dandruff issues weren’t fully addressed. My scalp might still feel a little bit tight. I want to, you know, try a different fragrance, kind of anything between those points.
And we’re able to take all of that, capture that feedback and offer truly optimized formulas available for that customer to order, at that moment. So it’s a really great example of how we’re able to take really tangible feedback and apply it in real time, to the customer’s experience.
Wow. Wow. So it is just that last part. It is basically a real time based on the way they’ve — Mhmm.
— kind of brought me back and said stuff to you, then, oh, wow.
Got it. And the feedback from the I mean, it sounds like it’s newer, but the feedback from the audience has been pretty, pretty positive so far, I assume. Yeah. Our customers love it. I think it’s a really interesting tool and a really wonderful way to know, you don’t often find brands who are so willing to get your feedback, whether positive or negative, and this is something that we’re, you know, just asking our customer base, how did you like your formulas? We wanna know, we wanna improve them or not. Maybe we’re just gonna make a small change to them, in real time.
Got it. And how long after again do you typically do this? This is normally what would they It’s about about four weeks after. Got it.
Yeah. They’ve been there long enough to really understand the product, see the results, and then you’re able to continue the relationship based on the feedback. Oh, I love it. That makes tons of sense.
Alright. Well, let’s continue. One more piece I wanted to hit on with you. This is a big buzzword in space, you know, personalization.
But it seems like it has become a word that is talked about, but I don’t know if it’s executed in certain areas as well as certain brands would like, but I think you guys in particular have been able to do this both in a product and in a service.
I like this quote. It says, you know, customers no longer want to be treated like a problem that needs to be solved. They wanna be treated like humans. Being that the brand really cares about and has a relationship with.
Here’s a few ways we’ve seen brands thinking about, you know, just how do you actually do that? How do you start to personalize some of your interactions? So first and foremost, These were kinda relevant interactions. If they bought something with you in the past and are already inquired about an issue, I think they expect that branch and know that and talk to them accordingly.
Imagine if you’re, you know, having a conversation with a friend, but not having a memory of any interaction you’ve ever had with them in the past. That’s something sometimes.
I know I feel that way, certainly as a customer, and it just feels I don’t know, robotic. It feels a little bit distant.
So that’d be one second.
They definitely want this personalization. They don’t wanna be, you know, Customer number five three seven. They wanna be, you know, Jane Smith, who prefers to chat via email, and has, you know, a certain type of interaction with you in the past. So, those are two. The last one I probably threw out there is that helpful and frictionless interaction.
Man, every customer wants their problem to be solved as quickly possible, but they don’t wanna repeat themselves. They don’t want to get differing solutions from different reps. As you hear that list, Erin, anything kind of stands out to you that you guys have either run-in to, or maybe some of the things you’ve approached it to make sure that you are able to give relevant personalized or helpful interactions.
Yeah. I mean, I think this list really rings true. Like, this is how you provide gold standard customer service in this age.
For us, the two that really stand out is this idea of personalized, helpful interactions.
That’s kind of the core of what my team does at prose.
You know, personalization is our bread and butter. So we need to deliver on that standard when we’re talking to customers about, you know, my package didn’t arrive, or I need to help you know, I need help refining my formulas.
We need to be able to have their information at our fingertips which is something Kustomer has helped us with, to really guide that conversation, to a successful place.
Yeah. Do you feel like, and this will probably be in line with this? Is there some ways that, even in your own business where you’ve found roadblocks that maybe been over-able to overcome them Man, if we could just do this one extra thing, or we found if we could you know, be that channel switching you had mentioned before. Once we did that, we felt like our customer service game really jumped up. Seems like a lot of people run into roadblocks when it comes to personalization.
Anything you’ve run through that you’ve been able to kinda overcome and when it comes to personalizing that customer experience?
Yeah. I mean, I think a really big one is the idea of overwhelmed agents, something that we really pride ourselves on is the ability to have a very long conversation with a customer that’s filled with, you know, really educational, helpful information and that can take a bit of time. And sometimes, you know, it could potentially lead to my team being super overwhelmed.
We’ve been able to put workflows in place to help mitigate that. So we have the right people answering the right information.
So you know, we have people who are really knowledgeable about, you know, all of our operations and delivery times and a normal USPS delivery is answering those inquiries still at a really high standard of personalization using all the information that we have access to. While kind of separating out into a different workflow, what are some of the higher touch, higher value things that agents should be working on so they can kind of take the time to do that. And by separating out those workflows, we’ve prevented people from being too overwhelmed, with the kind of standard that we’ve set in terms of service.
Oh, got it. So that is always almost kind of a routing capability, right, what you’re saying? Yeah. So we’ve got some of these little more low touch, kind of deflection comments about the shipping times, etcetera.
We’re able to push those to a certain group or certain individuals. And then some of these more high touch, we go to a different group. Have you tried to match experience levels with that, or how do you match the right agents then with those kinda right type of queries? Has that been something you guys have thought through?
Yeah. It’s definitely experience level, something that has been a challenge for us in the past is this idea of you know, just breadth of knowledge. So my team needs to be super, knowledgeable and have the relevant and right information when it comes to our verification or to our consultation or our ingredients, and that’s not something that you can teach someone overnight. You kind of need to have practice and training and see things happen, in real time and be able to ask questions about it.
So we do kind of route our, you know, more logistical or operational questions to people who maybe haven’t been on the team for a super long time or or, just haven’t been able to put in the hours to learn those things. And we build to, you know, being able to walk someone through, the review and refined feature that we looked at a few slides back or to be able to people who are not able to speak about allergies or ingredients or or something like that that requires just a more, you know, knowledge base?
Yeah. Fascinating. Fascinating. I feel like this one’s a little bit overlooked. You know, people you know, matching the right question to the right person, you know, call it routing or, you know, scoring, etcetera is, it can make all the difference.
And it dovetails. You know, now you’re talking about training and expertise, but, it sounds like when it comes to that overwhelmed the agent. This load bearing workflow kind of routing capability has been a big differentiator in that. I think I’m glad we touched on that.
This personalization, and maybe we’ll end with this, Erin, but you guys, I think, have been able to not just do personalization, but you’ve done it both with the product and the service.
I think sometimes people think of this just from a service standpoint. You know, how do we make sure we personalize that but you guys have really brought the product in so that it almost feels like it’s personalization, again, both kind of on the product delivery. As well as on the service you provide.
Maybe touch on this briefly on the balance that you’ve found on bringing kind of this or personalization to your audience?
Yeah. So, I mean, as I’ve touched on many times, you know, personalization is something that is so apparent in our product from the moment you get on our site. So we really need to deliver on it both in terms of product delivery, and then you know, on the support side of things too, when maybe something doesn’t go wrong. So just to touch on the physical product for a moment. You know, we take the time to see that every box has a leaflet in it with, you know, your name on it and, you know, specific ingredients that are completely unique to the blend in the bottle to the information that you provided us in your consultation.
And just like a fun little touch. All of our products have your name on the label. So it really feels like something that was, you know, hand bottled for you.
And then on the service side of peace, you know, what happens when maybe something doesn’t go right, or a customer has a question, that’s really where my team is able to shine.
So at our core, we really believe on my team that hair is so, so personal. I like to talk to my team about, I don’t know if you’ve seen the most recent season of Fleabag, but there’s a scene in that show where two characters confront a hairstylist about a really bad haircut and they say, you know, hair is everything. We wish it weren’t, but it is everything.
And that’s kind of, you know, something that I jokingly, kind of talk to my team about a lot. Like, that’s what our customers are expecting. They’re affecting everything from us.
So we’ve really put a lot of work in trying to deliver on that expectation.
So when you contact us, whether it’s on social media or it’s in a text or an email or what have you, we really focus on giving you one person who you’re gonna talk to, about the questions or concerns that you have. And kind of like we talked about a little bit before, there’s no need to catch up on something that happened, you know, two weeks ago or, you know, two months ago, where we understand and we’re able to kind of catch up very quickly. We don’t rely on the customer to tell us that.
We have and and the result is that we’re having really in-depth very, very, you know, personal, sometimes emotional conversations with our customers, about their hair and their formulas and just like their overall experience. It’s not uncommon for us to have you know, exchanges that are, you know, weeks or months long. I think our record is almost a two month two month long exchange, which is not because we weren’t providing the right information, but it was just building, on, you know, a customer’s question or, you know, I need to talk a little bit more about this. Customers felt very trusting of us to come back to us and talk more about, you know, their hair and their scalp really personal things.
You know, it’s not uncommon that customers come back to us and say, you know, your customer service was impeccable. Like, the fact that you were knowledgeable and committed to helping me through this process is the reason that I I chose to stay with your brand, and I’m so be that I did.
Yes.
Couple follow-up questions on that. Yeah. This will also couple the audience questions here as well, Bart, in particular. But that that you mentioned in there, and this is obviously this is a frustrating thing for consumers.
I don’t know if you’ve been able to get around this, but, you know, I do call in sometimes and I get obviously different agents. It’s one day I get this person, one day that person.
If you are you trying to get to a place where you’re managing around that to where when someone kinda reaches out, they are rerouted to someone they’ve already talked to, or you just gotten it down pat enough that it almost feels like the same person because you kinda have that that timeline ability to keep that dialogue just going over days and weeks and months?
Yeah. We’re so it would definitely be the first. We’re working to a place where, you know, we’re able to route back to the original person to have that conversation.
That is easy. That’s awesome. Because ultimately, I don’t want my team to be carbon copies of each other.
You know, it shouldn’t feel like you’re talking to the same person even though you’re talking to so many different people. They should have a personality, and a different point of view.
But rather, like, if you have a connection to me, you should come back to me every time. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Any thoughts on, yeah, I’d I’d wow. That’s super impressive. Any thoughts on the ability to do that? I mean, you’ve had a couple people writing in and being like, how is she doing? How is she doing that effectively?
Any quick tips or secrets?
I mean, really, we’ve been using the tools that Kustomer has given us to really route things efficiently back to the correct person.
Obviously, it’s not a not always perfect. People go on vacation. People take days off. So there are sometimes other agents having to step in there.
But we do our best to keep things kind of in one person’s stream of work without too much switching back and forth.
That was not meant to be a push for Kustomer. You guys, that was a legitimate question. Thank you for the answer, Aaron. Couple other people have just mentioned, we do have to highlight this because I just these quotes, you didn’t go through them.
But on the left side, if you didn’t see that, you know, I couldn’t believe how fabulous the services I wrote in. They didn’t have the product. They write me back a month later, and they’re like, we developed a product for you. I was astonished.
Talking about personalization. And then this one, I don’t know if it’s better or equal, but you’ve got this one that, you know, I came back from a long day. There was a package on my front door. And if you skipped down a little bit, It says the candle and the handwritten note were completely unexpected. How do you do that? I mean, are you automating if someone puts a legitimate handwritten note in there?
Or is that automated handwritten? I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but, like, that does fall back within the office. It’s okay. It is completely personalized. We’re not automating a handwritten note. It comes from someone on my team.
You know, that person who you had a connection with. So if you and I were conversing back and forth, I might decide I wanna send you a personalized handwritten note and maybe a candle, maybe it’s a product that we talked about, maybe it’s something else, but that comes directly from me.
And it’s not, you know, a carbon copy of a note. I wrote it. I sent it to you, Gabe.
Wow. Yeah. That.
Okay. Well, I’ve been sufficiently impressed. I, oh, and we’re actually done. So this is probably a good place to stop and that is just I mean, it’s so fun to see this because it’s what we want.
It’s what we as consumers want. Mean, you’re literally taking it to a level. Just thinking about all the brands I interact with, and I’ve been flying back and forth to different places a lot, and just that last one, you know, talking to different agents. It’s like, I literally i’m on the phone with these people all the time.
If I could just call I’ve almost said to one of I’ve almost said, like, hey, what’s your personal phone number? And I just, like, call you that I’ve called you, you know I’ve done that.
Because I’m like, I literally call in, like, twice a week. You know? That just means I’m unorganized in my flight time, but that’s on globalization for another time, but I love it. I love the focus on personalization on the brand.
I love to focus on personalization of the product. Let me just leave that with, with maybe this quick question real quick, for companies trying to, you know, go on this journey of where I don’t know how to describe this kind of transformational customer experience you’ve got to. What is the formula formula or the couple step process, you’d say guys, if you wanna get to where we’ve gotten, you know, you gotta do these three things or focus here. Are there any quick you’d you’d lead for the audience?
I think the first thing is maybe a little bit of a non answer, but what we do make might not work for someone else. It’s all about finding what the right thing is for the brand or or the company.
For us, I think we’ve had a lot of success, particularly in delivering this personalized support experience, with first of all, just making sure that we’re hiring the right people, you know, then we’re pretty rigorous in our vetting of candidates. We wanna make sure we have people who are empathetic and can really understand where someone is coming from when they’re talking about their hair. And then the second piece of it is, you know, that knowledge is power. So we focus a lot on arming the team with the right knowledge.
I think I touched on this a few times as well, but we focus a lot on training and making sure that we have the right people who are knowledgeable about, you know, our consultation ingredients, etcetera, answering the right things, and that ultimately, like, reads to the customer, it builds a sense of trust, and it also ultimately empowers the the team to want to go above and beyond and send that handwritten note to. So it’s kind of a blend of all of those things I’ve found to be the right kind of thing for us at least at Prose. Well, I I love it to your point. You’re right.
To each their own, but guys, some great principles here going the extra mile, finding a way to personalize the product and the service, in ways that I think most brands aren’t doing. I love the talk track, Erin. Very interesting to hear how you guys have been able to go above and beyond. So appreciate you taking the time.
You can learn a little bit more about prose. We put a little paragraph there. And if you wanna see more, you can check that out at prose dot com. And then on the customer side, again, being able to enable some of these things that are happening real time to provide that personalized, efficient, and then effortless customer experience You can check out our personalization guide.
We’ve got a link here. So with that, Erin, thanks so much again for joining and taking the time to kind of explain what you guys do over there at Prose, and we wish everybody else a fantastic day. Thank you.