Creating the Ideal Hybrid Customer Happiness Team

Transcript

[00:00:05] Steve MacDonald: Welcome everyone to the Contact Center Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host. Today, we’ve got a very special guest: Gemma DePalma, the COO of Foria. We’ll discuss how to create the ideal hybrid customer happiness team.

[00:00:27] Steve MacDonald: We focus on our business’s long-term success and rely on our customers’ happiness. You’ll focus on and talk a lot about that happiness factor, which has a lot to do with our internal teams, how we treat them, and the culture we create. But you’ve got a pretty varied background, and I’ll get into just a little bit of it.

[00:00:48] Steve MacDonald: You’re a cookbook author and a consultant with Accenture. You’ve consulted for several years. Please expand a little bit on that background that I just gave there. Give us a bit more of a rounded view of who you are and talk about Foria before we start.

[00:01:05] Gemma DePalma: Sure, Steve! Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I’m excited to be here. 

[00:01:09] Gemma DePalma: My background is quite varied. You are correct, I come from the food world and retail consulting world as you mentioned. My background includes R&D, product development, supply chain, and logistics. How does that relate to customer happiness? All of it ultimately lands with the customer. So, what products we’re developing in the supply chain can we get the product to the customer? All lands to servicing your end user and your consumer. That is my background before I joined Foria.

[00:01:42] Gemma DePalma: I joined Foria five years ago as the Director of Supply Chain. Now, I’m Foria’s COO. I still manage all those areas of product development, supply chain, and logistics. Customer happiness also sits underneath me, so it’s great to have the whole product lifecycle from start to finish, and our products end up in the consumer’s hands.

[00:02:04] Steve MacDonald: I love your holistic viewpoint because in many companies, the contact center, the customer happiness team, is viewed as a cost center. It’s a necessary evil, and you have a very dramatically different point of view on that. Tell us a little bit about Foria so we can understand the industry you’re playing with. Then, I want to jump into this customer happiness team and talk more about that. 

[00:02:29] Gemma DePalma: Sure. Foria’s mission is to bring more pleasure to more people. We focus on females’ intimate well-being across their lifespan, and we address time of day, time of month, and time of life, and that shows up in our products, which are intimacy, relief, and vibrant signs. That’s important because we’re discussing very intimate topics with our customers. Hence, we need a strong customer happiness team that customers can reach. They can be comfortable, can be knowledgeable, and they have what’s considered embarrassing questions because it’s all about our bodies and our experiences.

[00:03:04] Gemma DePalma: In these three areas, we want to ensure that our customer happiness team has the tools and knowledge to support the end user who contacts them. 

[00:03:14] Steve MacDonald: You may have some of those intricacies about Foria and the customers and your products. But what you’re going to talk about here today is whether it is limited to Foria or whether this advice covers the entire industry.

[00:03:27] Gemma DePalma: I think this advice covers the entire industry because there is always an opportunity with a customer. The majority of customers reach out to complain about something. They haven’t had a good experience, whether the shipment was late or they haven’t liked the product. So, when they’re reaching out to you, how can you turn that complaint from that unsatisfied customer into an opportunity to either try a new product or to experience the company differently, and to change the negative into a positive? I think if you’re selling something, it could be across all channels that you can make this an excellent opportunity to connect with your customers and expand.

[00:04:05] Steve MacDonald: Could you tell me before we talk about the makeup of the customer happiness team? Talk about how it’s so holistic and interconnected with all the other different departments that you can’t look at the customer happiness team on its own as a silo, as a department. 

[00:04:26] Gemma DePalma: We definitely don’t have our customer happiness team sitting over here where the rest of the company operates separately. It’s very important to us that our customer happiness team is integrated with our marketing team and our operations team. That’s actually why it sits with me because they need to know inventory levels.

[00:04:41] Gemma DePalma: That’s actually why it sits with me. They need to know inventory levels if we’re running out of something, for example. If there are any price changes, they need to be on the front line of that information because the customer reaches out to them first, not the person making the price changes or managing inventory. Another key thing is that our customer happiness team is integrated with our marketing team because the marketing team talks to our customers.

[00:05:04] Gemma DePalma: But if we send out a promotion, an exciting campaign with language that doesn’t land with our customers, our customer happiness team will get those responses from our customers. So, if we have a postcard that is sent out, a GWP, or a discount, our customer happiness team works closely with our marketing team to say, ‘Hey, this language we used last time, we got a certain number of calls around confusion. Maybe we should change it to this language.’

[00:05:28] Gemma DePalma: So, we’re utilizing that information from our customer happiness team within our marketing team. This is really important because it’s the voice of the customer coming through the customer happiness team. Who wouldn’t want that in their marketing, right? It’s like a full circle. It’s great. 

[00:05:45] Steve MacDonald: Yeah, but it doesn’t happen much. That’s the thing. 

[00:05:48] Gemma DePalma: From my understanding, it doesn’t happen much, but at Foria, we want to hear from our customers. That is because we’re here to serve them. We’re here to bring more pleasure to more people and make the experience of their whole life cycle more pleasurable and enjoyable. If we don’t hear what they have to say and integrate it into our business, it’s a missed opportunity for us. 

[00:06:13] Steve MacDonald: Gartner recommended within the last year that most CMOs need to act more like Chief Customer Officers. They need to be able to represent the customer the way the customer thinks, talks, and preferences.

[00:06:30] Steve MacDonald: Now, you’ve got this customer happiness team that talks to the customer every single day. So, I think my big takeaway from the podcast here is this feedback loop, but it’s circular like it’s not a one-way conversation.

[00:06:44] Steve MacDonald: It’s a collaboration so that’s special. 

[00:06:47] Gemma DePalma: Thank you. 

[00:06:48] Steve MacDonald: So, tell me a bit more about the importance of the customer happiness team. What is the ideal customer happiness team, and how would you put one together? 

[00:06:56] Gemma DePalma: Sure. Our team specifically has a bit of a hybrid team.

[00:07:00] Gemma DePalma: We have a full-time employee who’s been with us for several years, a part-time employee, and another full-time support staff member who has been outsourced. That is an ideal team for us because customers happen 24-7. I don’t want to just be available to our customers five days a week, nine to five, because again, that leaves someone hanging for two to three days.

[00:07:21] Gemma DePalma: If they have a question on a Friday evening, we can get to Monday and if Monday is a holiday, then we don’t answer them until Tuesday. The hybrid team is great because we can cover more hours and questions and have a faster response time. I want to be clear about something, faster response time doesn’t mean faster customer end time and resolution time for our products in particular, we want to be the first contact with the customer.

[00:07:48] Gemma DePalma: We also want to spend time with the customer, listening to what they need and answering their questions. Many of these products and customer inquiries are sensitive in nature, so we don’t want to rush the customer, and we want to be really thorough and knowledgeable about the answers we’re providing to them.

[00:08:04] Gemma DePalma: Ideally, it’s a hybrid team. So, we can really cover more hours and more days of the week. We can take our time with the customers to respond quickly but also answer properly.

[00:08:15] Steve MacDonald: So, Foria has certain ways that you want to interact with your customers. What I took away from what you said is that you want to show great empathy, you don’t want to rush them, and you want to make sure that they’ll know that you really care. That’s a very good lesson for everyone.

[00:08:29] Steve MacDonald: We all want to show empathy for the customer. We all want to show what’s right and that we care. So, there may be some significant differences in your business than others, but it’s a strong lesson to learn here. That goes in the opposite direction of the key KPIs that we get judged on, such as average handle times and first-time resolution. Why is that going up? We care. That’s why. 

[00:08:53] Gemma DePalma: We care. Yeah, we’re a different model in that sense. It’s the nature of our products, empathy, active listening, and solution-oriented thinking that are really important. It’s not just a checkbox off a sheet.

[00:09:06] Steve MacDonald: Could you translate that? I clearly understand the benefits for the customer in that. What are the benefits for the company? Having that kind of empathy, taking that kind of time, and doing things right for the customer. How does that translate into good business practice? 

[00:09:21] Gemma DePalma: If we can turn a customer’s experience around, we’ll have a lifetime value for the customer.

[00:09:25] Gemma DePalma: They’ll be with us through all the phases of our lives. Our company is very focused on time of day, time of month, and time of life. We want to be with our customers’ journeys as they grow. That’s really important to us, and our products overlap so we can support our customers in many different areas of their lives with many different products.

[00:09:46] Gemma DePalma: We want them to have a good experience with our customer service. If one product doesn’t work for him, another can, and we can still support them in their journey. 

[00:09:53] Steve MacDonald: Do you have a customer story that illustrates that loyalty that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

[00:10:01] Steve MacDonald: That’s what every company wants. We want people to recommend us and capture the lifetime value of that customer. Is there anything you could put into a story that you could share with us? 

[00:10:11] Gemma DePalma: I think two instances come to mind. We have a lot of partners email us and say, ‘I got this for my wife. I’ve got this for my partner. I saw her in so much pain when she was going through menopause, and this has been a game-changer for us. Thank you. What other products do you have? How can I expand this? I’m new to this space and I need some guidance. I don’t know who to ask.’

[00:10:28] Gemma DePalma: Our customer happiness team will help that person understand our products and what may be right for his or her partner to expand on the good experience that they’ve had.

[00:10:44] Gemma DePalma: That’s been really rewarding and satisfying. Then we’ve had customers who use one of our line’s intimacy, for example, and then they’re like, ‘We want more.’ We can recommend other products, and they’ll be excited because they didn’t realize. They thought we were just an intimacy line focused on sexual wellness but now we’re midlife and they can expand their product line, expand their pleasure, expand where they are in their life, and feel good in their bodies.

[00:11:11] Gemma DePalma: So, that type of knowledge base is important for our customer happiness team to understand the issue someone is calling us about. Then, they can support them with our knowledge and products. Some customers call for complaints, of course. We don’t get it right all the time. The first one to say that, whether it’s a shipping delay or maybe a bottle arrived broken because we do have glass. We’ll be able to replace anything if something arrives damaged. 

I think every company does that or should do that, hopefully. So, that’s another example. One more example was a customer who was not satisfied with our product. Maybe they used a product that they thought would help with one of their intimate experiences and it wasn’t the right product for them. They didn’t have a good experience. We can refund them their money or replace it with a new product.

[00:11:59] Gemma DePalma: I think it’s just that extra step of, ‘Okay, you tried this and it didn’t work. Let’s refund you. We will give you this product or you can try this product and that will work.’ 

[00:12:09] Steve MacDonald: Has this translated into good business practice?

[00:12:15] Steve MacDonald: One of the criteria you’re outlining here is that for the makeup of a good customer happiness team, they must be good recommenders. They have to be a tour guide. This isn’t about answering with pat questions. This is about understanding the customers’ needs, being intuitive enough, and being trained well enough that you can be a consultant and a recommendation engine for them.

[00:12:40] Steve MacDonald: That is huge in terms of cross-sell, upsell, loyalty, and impact on the business. It really is. The contact center and the customer happiness team don’t always get that credit, but how important is that for the company? 

[00:12:53] Gemma DePalma: That leads tremendously important. 

[00:12:55] Steve MacDonald: I’d love to get on a scale and see what you think about this: How important is the customer happiness team to Foria’s overall growth and vitality? One, it’s not important at all. Ten, it’s vital. How would you rate that?

[00:13:14] Gemma DePalma: For our company, it’s upwards of ten. It works because we integrate it with the rest of our company, and that is key for us. 

[00:13:22] Steve MacDonald: So, expand on that a little bit. Go deeper into how you want it to work together and how it actually ties into growth.

[00:13:32] Gemma DePalma: Sure. So, it’s upwards of ten and when I say it’s important, it’s because it integrates with the rest of the company. We have weekly meetings with marketing and operations. They are a key player at the table to let us know what our customers are saying.

[00:13:47] Gemma DePalma: If I have an issue with a product, they bring it to me directly because they’re hearing it. So, if I don’t hear that, I don’t want to keep selling a leaky pump tap. I don’t want to lose customers if a customer isn’t getting the proper message. I need to change things and I can act quickly but I can’t do that if I don’t have the customer information and I don’t have my head of customer happiness at the table.

[00:14:05] Gemma DePalma: They influence my decisions for the next time we do a product run, for the next marketing GWP, or for the next postcard we sell. That’s how important it is. We do have weekly meetings and town halls every quarter where customer happiness presents its side as well to gain a view into what customers are saying.

[00:14:27] Gemma DePalma: How are customers rating our products? How many ratings? How are they rating us? That’s important to us and that’s why they’re upwards of a ten; it’s important to the business. 

[00:14:40] Steve MacDonald: Having that proverbial seat at the table, what does that do? Because the industry faces a very difficult challenge with very high agent turnover. Being in a position where as an agent, as a part of a happiness team, you have a seat at the table that is influencing and helping to consult with the rest of the different departments on what we’re doing and how we’re successful as a company, how does that impact the happiness of the team being an employee of Foria and the longevity of that agent or that person on your customer happiness team? What does it do for them? 

[00:15:17] Gemma DePalma: I think everyone wants to be included. Whether you’re a Foria employee or even an agent, it is important to be included, to be a part of product launches, to be a part of town halls, and to be a part of company meetings. You’ll feel like you’re part of something bigger, which an agent or an employee is, which is great.

[00:15:38] Gemma DePalma: You feel empowered because you know firsthand what’s happening in the business. You’re not reading it in an email that just comes out. You’re not hearing it in the third, fourth, or fifth person. You’re at the table hearing how great the company is doing, for example, or this exciting new product.

[00:15:55] Gemma DePalma: The other important thing we do is send products to all our employees. If we have released a new product, our agent is included. If our agent is talking to a customer who has reached out, they need to know how the product works.

[00:16:08] Gemma DePalma: So, we will send a product to an agent. They won’t be excluded just because they don’t have a Foria employee. Does that make sense? 

[00:16:16] Steve MacDonald: That makes perfect sense. We’re talking about, this ideal customer happiness team and how important is to try to reduce agent turnover. How significant is the impact of agent turnover on the overall growth of the business, whether you’re a small company or a large company, on the same scale of one to ten? Where would you put that? 

[00:16:51] Gemma DePalma: I do feel like it’s a ten. I feel like it’s very important. Our products are so sensitive to nature that it takes a long time to train people, and because we are such a different model, we’re faster, but faster isn’t better.

[00:17:06] Gemma DePalma: It’s also a specific personality type—someone empathetic, an active listener, and someone who can be very solution-oriented. It’s really important to find a person with that skill set and then start training them on product knowledge, how Foria works as an ecosystem, and how we want our customers to be really satisfied with how we greet them and how we invite them into the conversation.

[00:17:32] Gemma DePalma: We’re fortunate because of our model. Our customer happiness lead has been with us for three years and part time person has been with us for seven years. So, it’s been satisfying and exciting to have our people with us for such a long time, see their growth, and see what they want to do with customers.

[00:17:48] Gemma DePalma: They’re exploring so many other opportunities, such as interacting with customers rather than just answering a question. Now, we’re looking into surprise and delight customers. Do we send merchandise out as a surprise and delight? How can we raise the bar to engage the customer?

[00:18:05] Steve MacDonald: I think you’ve already answered my next question, but I will ask it differently because it becomes obvious based on the whole conversation we’ve been having. The question is about the perception of contact centers as cost centers. Many companies consider this one of the biggest overhead costs in the business.

[00:18:23] Steve MacDonald: So, how do we control that? How do we reduce that cost? How do we reduce our average handle times? How do we increase our first-time response rates? What’s your perspective on the contact center or customer happiness team as a value center versus a cost center?

[00:18:46] Gemma DePalma: For us, it’s a value center because everyone who contacts us, that is an opportunity to turn that customer experience around. That is an opportunity to help educate the customer, engage the customer, and share the customer’s other product information and product knowledge. If this product didn’t work maybe this product could work or maybe you weren’t using the product correctly. 

[00:19:06] Gemma DePalma: It’s an opportunity and a marketing opportunity to turn the sale and the customer experience around. It’s important because if you have a good customer, you get something from a company, and you don’t like it, you call their customer experience.

[00:19:22] Gemma DePalma: You will tell all of your friends. This was a fantastic customer experience. I’m going to be loyal to them and grow with them because I know they have a really good customer happiness team and stand behind their product. If you have a bad experience, you’re going to tell so many people that this company is the worst.

[00:19:40] Gemma DePalma: We don’t want to be in that category. We want to be in the other category where we’re very excited. Our customers are excited too. I participate in the joy of Foria and our products. I participate in learning, growing, and education, which comes from interacting with the customer happiness team.

[00:19:58] Steve MacDonald: A big part of this interaction with the customer happiness team is answering questions, satisfying needs, and making recommendations. But you’ve also got to be really good at turning negative situations into positive ones. You’ve talked about empowering with refunding or sending a new product or things like that.

[00:20:12] Steve MacDonald: But how important is the role of the customer happiness team in turning an unsatisfied customer into a loyal customer? We all know the studies all say that can happen. 

[00:20:26] Gemma DePalma: It can happen. 

[00:20:27] Steve MacDonald: Do you train for that? How do you empower your agents to address negative situations and turn them into positive ones?

[00:20:34] Gemma DePalma: A lot of the stuff we talked about. The active listening, really understanding the issue that the customer is having, and our escalation process. So, if one agent is not getting it, she’ll say ‘Hey, I need help. I’m going to escalate this to my manager.’ I think that’s really key.

[00:20:50] Gemma DePalma: You should not be afraid to ask your coworkers questions because that does happen. So, support your team and have the escalation process. Sometimes, things will come to me like, ‘Hey, this customer asked XYZ. I don’t know how to answer it.’ Okay, let’s figure out how to answer it. Let’s figure out what we can do.

[00:21:07] Gemma DePalma: So, that’s important for customer support, whether it’s an agent or someone working at the company. Then, turning that negative experience into a lifelong customer is important. That is the goal. This is why we’re empowering our customer happiness team to refund and replace the product, as well as having the support staff for the escalation process.

[00:21:31] Steve MacDonald: Very important. Another important thing—I want to make sure that we cover this—is that you talked right up front about the makeup of the ideal customer happiness team and outsourcing. You talked about the importance of that because if you can’t be there full-time. Outsourcing is very common—70 percent of companies outsource or are looking to outsource.

[00:21:53] Steve MacDonald: Can you share some of the concerns and challenges you had before you started outsourcing? So that we get a foundation because everybody’s going to understand why but there are a lot of concerns it might have.

[00:22:04] Gemma DePalma: So, we had a concern about outsourcing. Will the person we outsource be as dedicated? Will the person that we outsource really understand our products? Will they understand the company? Will they understand the mission? Because our customer happiness is so important to us, that’s a concern. Will they be bought into the brand and want to cheer for us as we cheer for ourselves?

[00:22:26] Gemma DePalma: We’re invested in this brand. If you outsource, will they be as invested? It’s a big question and a big risk. How did we get around that? These are all the things I mentioned, including that person in the town halls, company meetings, product launches, and sending whoever you outsource to the product.

[00:22:47] Gemma DePalma: If they’re answering your customer happiness questions, they have to understand the product. They have to feel it, touch it, and experience it. So, that inclusion is really key. It really quieted any fears that we’ve had. We’ve had an incredible experience outsourcing. 

[00:23:01] Steve MacDonald: So, basically you treat them as if they were a part of your in-house team. Is that a good way to think about it? 

[00:23:07] Gemma DePalma: Yes, absolutely. They are part of our in-house team. They are included in Foria as a company and what we do as a company in there, as I mentioned from product launches to campaigns to GWPs, they know everything at the get-go and they’re not chasing information.

[00:23:25] Steve MacDonald: Then comes what you would call the company’s culture, atmosphere, and the way that you treat your agents. For the folks who are listening here today, what’s your advice for others who are running a customer happiness team or a contact center?

[00:23:43] Gemma DePalma: I think it’s similar to what I just said. I keep coming to the word inclusion. That is important. The inclusion of your contacts in your business and not looking at it as a driving cost but as a marketing opportunity to expand your business, as a way to learn more about your customers so you can make more informed decisions about your customers. There is so much information you can mine from the customer service team whether they’re outsourced or not.

[00:24:14] Gemma DePalma: Even if they’re outsourced, there’s still great information. So, partner with them to get that information to grow your business. 

[00:24:21] Steve MacDonald: If you had the opportunity to talk to another CEO, what would you say? I love the way you’re talking about this.

[00:24:29] Steve MacDonald: What would you recommend to that CEO, in terms of not just looking at the cost and maintaining it, but also tracking two or three of the critical KPIs and ensuring that they’re always increasing or following the desired trend? There’s so much more to it. How would you, in a conversation, convey the message that they need to change their perspective?

[00:24:51] Gemma DePalma: I’m going back to the beginning of our conversation and talk about it as a holistic business view because the customer happiness service center doesn’t live outside your business. If you look at it as a holistic business view and everything you’ve been doing from product development to logistics, supply chain, and marketing, you are doing that for your customer. So, you can get whatever you’re producing to your customer’s hands.

[00:25:18] Gemma DePalma: It must be a holistic business part. That would be my number one advice to anyone looking to outsource or grow their customer team. What can I do? How can I make this more of an opportunity than a straight cost? 

[00:25:29] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. If there was one thing that you wanted people to take away from everything we’ve talked about here, this is what I want you to remember. 

[00:25:37] Gemma DePalma: It’s similar to what I just said. The customer happiness team is a golden nugget that’s overlooked. If you look at that nugget holistically and make it a whole part of your team, it can impact your business in such a positive way. You can learn more about your customers, meet your customers’ needs, and grow your business in a way that really is very exciting. The sky’s the limit.

[00:26:06] Steve MacDonald: I love how you said that there. You used a word that you haven’t used yet, the word undervalued. The big takeaway is that there’s so much potential and value to be gained from making that customer happiness team a much more holistic part of your company.

[00:26:25] Steve MacDonald: If people had follow-up questions for you, what would be the best way to get ahold of you? Would it be okay if we provided your link on LinkedIn? 

[00:26:34] Gemma DePalma: You can provide my LinkedIn. No problem. Absolutely. You can include my email if you would like gemma@foriawellness.com 

[00:26:42] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on.

[00:26:46] Gemma DePalma: Thank you for having me!