🥗 Crush CX with Automation

Hey there,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

We hope you’re having a great weekend thus far and are ready to crush this week ahead.

In this week’s newsletter, we talk about a topic that’s becoming increasingly important in eCommerce: CX

CX, often overlooked, is equally as crucial as the more glamorous eCommerce topics like marketing and creatives.

And speaking of CX, we've decided to collaborate with Gorgias on a comprehensive Playbook about automation and CX.

For those unfamiliar, we've automated 27% of our CX tickets at Obvi, handling thousands of tickets each month with just 1.5 people.

Whenever we've shared this at conferences or dinners, we’re always asked: "HOW??! Is that even possible??!"

So, we've crafted a 27-page playbook detailing precisely how to achieve this.

We're releasing it on the 14th of February.

By subscribing to this newsletter, you're automatically entered into the playbook giveaway for an all-expenses-paid trip to NYC, 45 minutes of mentorship by Ron or Ash, and a ticket to the COT summit in March.

But, we ask for a small favor: if you could take 2 seconds to show some love to this post, we'd greatly appreciate it, plus it would help spread the word to other Founders and operators.

Alright.

Now that we've covered that, let's dive into today’s newsletter.

Retention & Automation - How Do They Interact?

Many, including us, often say, "Oh, retention is the name of the game."

However, few actually share battle-tested and proven methods to boost retention.

How do you truly create a customer for life? Here’s what we think:

1. Listen closely to your customers' feedback—whether through emails, SMS replies, or within your community. They're essentially telling you what they need.

2. Actively ask them questions. Trust us, they’ll share their desires. Once you've collected their feedback, take action.

3. Ensure your communication is swift, responsive, and efficient when they reach out (automation is crucial here!).

In summary: Listen, ask, and respond quickly—it's that simple.

When executed well, good automation enhances LTV in several ways:

• Improved customer experience: Quick and efficient responses to inquiries and issues boost customer satisfaction, a key factor in retention and, consequently, LTV increase.

• Personalization: Advanced automation tools can analyze customer data to offer personalized experiences, like product recommendations based on past purchases or tailored support, deepening customer relationships.

• Cost efficiency: Automation lowers the labor costs of customer support, allowing for increased profit margins or reinvestment in customer-centric areas like product development or marketing.

Our team has learned over the past four years that the best automation strategy combines personalization with live support.

So, how do you personalize your automation?

Using Macros (AKA customer service scripts): 

Customer service scripts are pre-written answers to frequently asked questions. By preparing these scripts, we've equipped our CX team (and future members) with accurate, comprehensive responses.

We recommend organizing them by topic, such as product inquiries or order status questions.

A scripted response to, "Where is my order?" is automatically generated from Shopify and sent to the customer in a format consistent with our brand’s voice.

The canned response is just the start. Pairing Macros with Rules also triggers actions like assigning tickets to agents, prioritizing tickets, changing shipping addresses, refunding orders, and much more.

We use these for both email and live chat. To demonstrate their effectiveness in CX and back-end operations, here are common use cases:

• Order status

• Shipped

• Not shipped

• No order found

• Delivered, not received

• Not shipped, preorder

• Already shipped

• Order change/cancel

• Cancel and refund

• Edit address

• Edit last order note

• Return/exchange and refund

• Order damaged, replace item

• Full refund

• Partial refund

• Damaged item, request more information

• Return instructions

• Check return eligibility

• Check reason for cancellation

Rapid-Fire CX Q&A Session

Time for another rapid-fire Q&A Session. Some of you have mentioned enjoying this section, so let’s continue.

Question 1: How do you find great CX talent?

We’re not experts, but we’ve learned to:

• Look for individuals from industries like hospitality or teaching, known for patience and a genuine desire to help.

• Hire your most loyal customers, especially if you have an active community.

Question 2: When should you hire a CX person?

Our answer is twofold:

• Consider hiring part-time if you spend over 45-60 minutes daily on CX.

• Hire if it drains you, diverting energy from more critical tasks.

Question 3: When should I use a CX Tool vs. just Gmail?

Initially, we used Gmail and brute-forced our way through tickets. Now, we recommend starting with a tool like Gorgias or Zendesk to automate and streamline your workflow. It’s simply more efficient.

Now It’s Your Turn…

Our story is a prime example of how a well-executed CX strategy can change your business.

Choosing Gorgias was more than a strategic decision;

It was a commitment to changing our customer service into a true brand difference-maker.

This playbook is our way of sharing that revolution with you.

It’s about providing real solutions and building lasting relationships with your customers.

Tool of The Week

Continuing on the automation theme, influencer marketing is another area where we’ve saved countless hours through automation.

For instance:

• Automatically sending drip campaigns to desired influencers and then adding them to a database upon reply.

• Automatically sending care packages.

• Automatically creating tickets for our influencer marketing manager to write personalized notes.

Influencer marketing involves a lot of mundane tasks.

Fortunately, tools like SARAL can automate the entire influencer seeding process.

This allows you to focus solely on building relationships with influencers.

If you aim to build or expand your influencer marketing program in 2024, we strongly recommend checking out SARAL.

We’ve been using it for over a year, and it’s a key reason we can seed over 100 influencers weekly.

Click here to check out SARAL

Thanks for reading along

As always, we appreciate you and look forward to serving you again next week.

And hey, if you have 2 seconds, please show some love to this post to help spread the word.

All the best,

Ron & Ash