Cotera's CX Blog

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The Price of Praise: What Incentivized Reviews Do for Brands

Nowadays, it seems like tons of brands have started to “incentivize” reviews. Shein, for example, offers customers a decent number of spending credits for posting reviews and/or photos after purchasing a product. Most of the time, people who had a negative experience with a brand or product are more likely to leave a review than someone who was neutral or generally satisfied. So a major advantage of a brand offering incentives like these is that it motivates more satisfied customers to leave reviews as well. Free People is one brand that does exactly this. So we decided to run an analysis on Free People to see how these incentivized reviews might actually affect their rating and public perception.

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CX Retention data

Preventing Churn with Real-Time Sentiment Analysis: A Hydrant Case Study

Churn is a HUGE issue for any and all companies. But a common misconception is that identifying a customer at risk of churning is too difficult to do with accuracy. The truth is, there are actually a few effective ways you can identify unhappy customers before it’s too late. But a commonly overlooked method is sentiment analysis. To give you a quick example of this, we ran an analysis on Hydrant’s reviews for 3 of their products: Hydrate, Energy, Immune.

data CX

Navigating Product Innovation in a Multi-Product Environment: Insights from Steve Joos at Vanco

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Steve Joos, a seasoned product leader currently serving at Vanco, a company specializing in payment solutions for churches, schools, and nonprofit organizations. Steve's experience in managing complex product ecosystems, particularly in companies built through acquisitions, offers valuable insights for product leaders facing similar challenges. Here's what we discussed:

Driving Product Innovation Through Customer Centricity: An Interview with Shadi Majzoub from Postal

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Shadi Majzoub, who runs product at Postal, a leading gifting platform for offline engagement that serves sales, marketing, customer success, and people ops teams. Our conversation delved into Shadi's journey from early employee to product leader, the unique challenges of blending SaaS and physical product delivery, and the critical role that customer insights play in shaping Postal's product strategy. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

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Driving Customer-Centric Support: Insights from Stephen Ng at Splashtop

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Stephen Ng, who leads global support, sales engineering, and technical account management at Splashtop, a remote access software company. Stephen's insights into building a customer-centric support organization and leveraging customer feedback to drive product improvements offer valuable lessons for support and product leaders across industries. Here's what we discussed:

Driving Customer Success Through Data-Driven Insights: Lessons from Dylan Sewell at Workyard

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Dylan Sewell, Head of Customer Success at Workyard, a company specializing in time tracking and location tracking for construction companies. Dylan's insights into building a customer success function from the ground up and leveraging data to drive retention offer valuable lessons for customer success leaders across industries. Here's what we discussed:

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From Buzz to Bust: How Sentiment Analysis Forecasted the EV Sales Slump

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how EV growth forecasts aren’t looking too hot. Sales momentum has been pretty weak this year and last year, even despite top EV sellers like Tesla making huge price cuts across the board. There’s lots to blame here for these weakening sales. But we wanted to see whether or not changes in buyer sentiment about EV’s (specifically toward Tesla) could have predicted this slowdown. AND whether or not we could uncover any interesting patterns/trends.

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Leveraging Data for E-commerce Success: Insights from Karen Hershenson, Product Consultant for Titan Network

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Karen Hershenson, a product consultant for Titan Network, a company that provides education, mentoring, and software tools for Amazon sellers. Karen's insights into using data to drive e-commerce success offer valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and product managers across industries. Here's what we discussed:

CX data

Leveraging Data for Customer Experience: Insights from Adrian Mendes at QuestionPro

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Adrian Mendes, Global Director for Customer Success at QuestionPro, a leading provider of survey and research solutions. Adrian's insights into using data to drive customer experience improvements offer valuable lessons for CX leaders across industries. Here's what we discussed:

Designing Customer-Centric Products: Insights from Stefan Stahl

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Stefan Stahl who has been leading product development teams for the better part of a decade. Stefan's approach to product development, which combines data-driven insights with a deep understanding of customer needs, offers valuable lessons for product leaders across industries. Here's what we discussed:

CX data

Beyond the Paycheck: How Staples Can Transform Employee Satisfaction Using Sentiment Analysis

Research has found that happier employees are more than 20% more productive in the workplace. And this is especially important for companies that still rely on in-store employees to deliver high quality customer service. Staples, for example, is one of these companies. This means that a lot of emphasis is (or at least should be) placed on hiring excellent employees to maintain high customer satisfaction. To show you what we mean, let’s use sentiment analysis to find out 1) how happy employees currently are, 2) how to make employees happier, and 3) how to use this information to attract more outstanding employees at Staples.

CX data

Uncovering Hidden Signals - AI and CX with Oren Yaqobi

Last week we had a conversation with Oren Yaqobi, who leads Customer Success at Frontegg, a company specializing in identity and security solutions. Oren's insights from managing customer experience for a highly technical product were both unique and valuable. Here's what we learned:

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Driving Product Decisions in a Diverse Market: Insights from Ryan Johnson, CPO of CallRail

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Ryan Johnson, Chief Product Officer at CallRail, a leading provider of lead intelligence software for small and medium-sized businesses. Ryan's insights into product development, customer feedback analysis, and the challenges of scaling a SaaS product in a diverse market offer valuable lessons for product leaders and founders alike. Here's what we discussed:

CX data

Designing Customer-Centric Experiences: Insights from Gessica Puglielli at MPB

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Gess Puglielli, Head of Product Design at MPB, a leading platform for buying and selling used camera equipment. Gess' insights into building customer-centric design processes and leveraging data to drive product decisions offer valuable lessons for design and product leaders across industries. Here's what we discussed:

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Scaling Customer Success with Data-Driven Strategies: Insights from Becca Weiss at Flatfile

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Becca Weiss, VP of Customer Success at Flatfile, a data onboarding platform. Becca's unique approach to scaling customer success and support in a high-growth startup environment offers valuable lessons for CX leaders across industries. Here's what we discussed:

Listening to Customers Wins The Race - with David Robinson, Hydrow

Last week, we had an insightful conversation with David Robinson, Head of Product Design at Hydrow, a leading connected fitness company. David's unique background spanning Silicon Valley startups to major tech companies offers valuable insights into product design and customer-centric innovation. Here's what we learned:

CX data

From Keywords to Context: Comparing Customer Sentiment Between Top Website Builders

You may be able to observe feedback at a large scale — see how many customers give you 5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars, or calculate how many keywords (ex. “technical issues”, “customer service”) are mentioned — but accurately breaking down reviews into categories and sentiment is the hard (and way more important) part. But we did the work so you don’t have to — here’s an example of a quick analysis we did on public reviews for Squarespace, Wix, Hostinger, and GoDaddy, using Cotera’s sentiment analysis program.

CX data Retention

Loyalty in Turbulence: How Cancellations and Delays Impact Airlines

When flights are delayed or cancelled, it’s almost never the airline’s fault (think the Crowdstrike Outage). But airlines would accumulate a huge loss if they had to give refunds to every single person whose flight got cancelled because of a sudden storm or whose flight got delayed because there was unexpected air traffic. Obviously, it’s frustrating for flyers when this happens. And while some people bite the bullet and move on, others will vow to never fly that airline again. But the question is — how many people actually stop flying with an airline due to non-compensated flight cancellations/delays?

CX data

Data-Driven Product Management in Fintech: Insights from Angela Fleming of FreeAgent

We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Angela Fleming, VP of Product at FreeAgent, a cloud accountancy software solution that's part of the NatWest Group. Angela's got a fascinating background spanning automotive tech, retail, and now fintech, giving her a unique perspective on building data-driven, customer-centric products. We dove into how she structures her product org, leverages data for decision-making, and fosters a culture of innovation. So grab your favorite analytics dashboard, and let's jump in!

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Leveraging Consumer Insights to Grow Your Business Faster - with Scott Holloway, APS Bank

Last week we had a conversation with Scott Holloway, who leads Customer Experience at APS Bank in Malta. Scott's approach to CX is both pragmatic and forward-thinking, balancing manual processes with a keen eye on future technological advancements. Here's what we learned:

CX data

Channeling Strategy Through CX - Manny Ruiz, VP of CX at JumpCloud

Last week we had a conversation with Manny Ruiz, Vice President of Customer Success at JumpCloud, a cloud directory platform. Manny's unique background spanning engineering and customer success brings a fresh perspective to CS. Here's what we learned:

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Prioritizing Issues to win in CX - Emre Tekoglu at Zywave

Last week, we had an insightful conversation with Emre Tekoglu, Vice President of Customer Support at Zywave, a leading insurance software company. Emre's unique approach to scaling customer support and using data to drive improvements offers valuable insights. Here's what we learned:

data CX

From Trend to Truth: What Abercrombie's Customer Sentiment Reveals About Their Rebrand

When companies go through a rebrand, it’s ALWAYS high risk. Most rebrands fail (around 70% according to Forbes), and it’s usually pretty obvious whether or not a rebrand is a success or a failure based on the initial public reaction. For Abercrombie, I’m sure they breathed a huge sigh of relief when sales surged 16% in 2023, shooting their stock up by nearly 300% that same year. But this story’s likely not over. There’s been a LOT of hype about A&F recently, but the question is: Is this just a fad, or is A&F actually making the comeback many are claiming they’re making?

data marketing

Bai Tea and Beyond: Analyzing Consumer Choice in the Healthy Beverage Industry

When your brand lives in a market where differentiation is especially difficult, it’s frustrating in so many ways. Let’s take the healthy beverage market for example — specifically brands selling a healthy water/tea. If a customer tried your product and liked it, that’s fantastic, but it certainly doesn’t mean you’re safe from churn. There’s a good chance that there’s another brand out there that’s even more catered to that customer’s taste buds with the same number of calories and same “healthy beverage” hook as yours. So how can you be sure that you’re doing a good enough job at retaining your customers? How do you know what actually encourages customers to stick around? We’ll show you exactly how through an example with Bai Tea.

CX data

Iterating on Your Startup by Listening to Customers - Jason Zhang, Head of Product @ Mesh

Last week, we had an insightful conversation with Jason Zhang, Head of Product at Mesh and founder of HomeLight. Jason's unique perspective, spanning both early-stage startups and established companies like StubHub and Upwork, offers valuable insights into product development and company building. Here's what we learned:

CX data

The CX to Product Feedback Loop - With Maggie McCarthy, VP of CS at Thought Industries

Last week we had a conversation with Maggie McCarthy, Vice President of Customer Success at Thought Industries, a customer education platform. Maggie's unique background spanning hospitality, product management, and customer success brings a fresh perspective to CX. Here's what we learned:

CX data

The Pitfalls of Scaling CX too Fast - with Kathryn Mahdavi, VP of CX at Rinse

Last week we had a conversation with Kathryn Mahdavi, Vice President of Customer Experience at Rinse, a technology-enabled dry cleaning and laundry service. Kathryn's approach to CX is both data-driven and deeply human-centered. Here's what we learned:

CX data

When Impact and Growth Align - Rebecca Holliday, Head of Impact at Groundswell

Last week we had a conversation with Rebecca Holliday, who holds the unique dual role of Head of Impact and Customer Success at Groundswell, a social impact platform. Rebecca's background in corporate social responsibility and the nonprofit sector brings a fresh perspective to customer success. Here's what we learned:

Maximizing Growth Through Customer Success - With Jameson Braddock, VP of CS at Rently

Last week we had a conversation with Jameson Braddock, Vice President of Client Success at Rently, a company that provides self-guided tours and smart home technology for the real estate industry. Jameson's unique background in sales engineering and his experience across various company sizes brings a fresh perspective to client success. Here's what we learned:

data

Worth the Upgrade? A Sentiment Analysis of Premium Dating App Reviews

When you download a new, free app, there’s a good chance they’ll probably try to upsell you premium features or a premium version once you actually start using it. Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge all have their own niche quirks and target users. But despite these differences, we’ve identified two overlapping metrics used to measure user satisfaction: “match success” and “user experience.” We wanted to understand how these two metrics compare for the premium (paid) version of each app against the free version. And not from just one perspective, but thousands.

CX data

Everlane vs Zara: Why the Two Have Unexpected Parallels in Customer Satisfaction

The go-to assumption most people make is that a more sustainable brand = higher quality, especially when it comes to the fashion industry. And for the most part, that’s pretty true. So we wanted to run an experiment comparing two apparel companies with drastically different brand images — Everlane and Zara — to compare and contrast what customers REALLY think about each company. Our goal here was to try to understand how big a difference a brand’s public perception can really make on customer satisfaction.

CX data

The CX to Product Feedback Loop - With Maggie McCarthy, VP of CS at Thought Industries

data CX

Bridging Product, Sales, and Customer Experience: Insights from Steven Hunt of Skytap

My team and I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Steven Hunt, the Vice President of Product Management at Skytap. Steven's been around the block a few times in the tech world, and boy, does he have some stories to tell. From his days as a self-proclaimed "Windows guy" to leading product teams at various startups and established companies, Steven's got a unique perspective on how to use data to drive product decisions and ultimately, business growth. ‍We dove deep into how product teams can work hand-in-hand with sales and customer experience to create a data-driven culture that actually moves the needle.

CX data personalization

Creating a Customer-Obsessed Culture: An Interview with Stephanie Ouellet from Earth Rated

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Stephanie Ouellet, the Customer Experience Manager at Earth Rated, a leading brand in the pet industry known for their eco-friendly dog waste bags and dispensers. Our conversation delved into how Earth Rated has built a customer-centric culture from the ground up, the challenges of scaling a personalized customer experience, and the innovative ways they're leveraging customer insights to drive product innovation and delight their customers. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Data-Driven Product Management in Affiliate Marketing: Insights from Meytal Markman of Rakuten Advertising

Hey there, product folks and data enthusiasts! We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Meytal Markman, VP of Product at Rakuten Advertising. Meytal has been in the affiliate marketing game for over 15 years, and she's got some fascinating insights on how to use data to drive product decisions in this unique corner of the digital marketing world. Here’s just some of our awesome conversation:

data CX

Data-Driven Product Management: Insights from Ibrahim Bashir of Amplitude

Happy Monday, people - We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Ibrahim Bashir, VP of Product Management at Amplitude. Ibrahim's got quite the resume - from launching the first Kindle Fire at Amazon to helping take Twitter public, and now leading product strategy at one of the top analytics platforms out there. Oh, and did we mention he's running for local office in his spare time? Talk about a superachiever!

data

Pacifica Beauty VS Amazon Basics: Can Customers Really Tell the Difference?

There was obvious skepticism at first at the sight of “Kirkland Signature” or “Amazon Basics,” but it’s certainly cleared up as customers have continued to share their positive experiences with these in-house brands. This means that it’s more important than ever for major brands to differentiate their products in a unique way. But how will they know if they’ve done enough to set themselves apart? How will they know where they need to improve or what unique benefits to emphasize in order to weed out their private label counterparts? Well, that's what sentiment analysis is for. Let’s do some comparing and contrasting between Pacifica Beauty and Amazon Basics to show you what we mean.

CX data

Value, Value, Value - The Secrets of Understanding your Customer with Nir Kalish

Last week we had a conversation with Nir Kalish, who leads Customer Success at Nimble, a company specializing in AI-powered web scraping. Nir's journey to his current role is as unique as his approach to CS. Here's what we learned:

data CX

Standardizing Excellence: Using Sentiment Analysis to Improve Consistency Across Corepower Studios

When you have a brand that sells a product or offers a service in-person, no two locations can really be the exact same. But if the quality of these different locations are vastly inconsistent, customer sentiment toward your brand will also vary — and that’s not a good thing. Corepower Yoga is a pretty good example of this. All their yoga classes are led by specific instructors, but standardizing the quality of instructors is a very difficult task. But it's not impossible. The first step is finding out which locations people think are better and why.

CX data

Empowering CX Teams with Data and AI: An Interview with Nicole Brown from GotPhoto.com

In today's fast-paced, customer-centric business landscape, support leaders are increasingly turning to data and AI to drive efficiency, uncover insights, and deliver exceptional experiences. We had the pleasure of speaking with Nicole Brown, Head of Customer Care at GotPhoto.com, a leading volume photography platform. Our conversation explored Nicole's philosophy on the strategic role of support, her approach to leveraging data and AI to empower her team, and her tips for getting started with AI even on a small scale. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Holistic Insights: Why Every Feedback Channel Matters at Elf Cosmetics

When it comes to getting ahold of customer feedback, the first few channels that come to mind are usually surveys or even just product review pages. But it’s impossible for these two outlets alone to offer a holistic view of what ALL customers think. Every feedback channel is different. And this makes understanding the full scope of your customers pretty tough. But if you can find a way to look at feedback from every channel using one unified view, it makes this task a whole lot easier. So let’s do exactly this for Elf Cosmetics.

CX data

Cultivating a Customer-Centric Culture: Insights from Happy Luther

Hey there - happy Wednesday! We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Happy Luther, a veteran CX leader who's steered customer success ships at tech giants like LinkedIn and Salesforce, as well as growth-stage companies like Cleverbridge. Happy's got some fascinating insights on how to build a truly customer-centric organization, leverage data to drive decisions, and align cross-functional teams around customer outcomes. Let’s dive in:

CX data

Bridging the Gap Between Product and CX to Drive Revenue: An Interview with Aidan Parisian of the Connor Group

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Aidan Parisian, the former Chief Customer Officer at Fastpath, a leading provider of access control and risk management solutions that was recently acquired by Delinea. Our conversation delved into Aidan's unique perspective on the evolving role of customer success, the importance of aligning product and CX efforts, and the critical role that data plays in driving revenue growth. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data marketing

Insights from Sentiment Analysis: How Planet Fitness Actually Stacks Up Against Competitors

Instead of settling on your brand’s value proposition on your own, why not let the customer decide for you? You can guess that the problem is, it’s hard to know what actually matters to customers and whether or not you’re meeting those needs. Unless you look at customer feedback. And I don’t mean simply reading over a couple of reviews — I mean taking all the feedback you’ve gotten over the years and looking at it holistically to get the full picture. But that’s not easy to do, right? So let's do it for you.

CX data

Generosity Pays: How Reformation Could Benefit from Improved Refund Policies

Research has shown that a singular bad review can deter over 22% of potential customers from buying from your company. And tons of customers leave bad reviews when they have a singular bad experience, or if they felt the employees or customer service agents were rude, or even if delivery was a bit slower than expected. But so many brands overlook the importance of customer experience when it comes to unlocking new opportunities to boost revenue. Reformation is the perfect example of a brand that has products people love, but a customer experience people aren’t too happy with.

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Leveraging AI to Enhance Analytics: An Interview with Dr. Michael Flaxman from Heavy AI

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the technology landscape, even established fields like data analytics are experiencing profound transformations. We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Michael Flaxman, Head of Product at Heavy AI, a company that has spent the last decade pioneering big data analytics solutions and is now at the forefront of integrating AI into their platform. Our conversation explored the challenges and opportunities of bringing conversational AI to enterprise analytics, balancing accuracy with usability, and the evolving expectations of users in an AI-powered world. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Driving Acquisition through Customer Stories: An Interview with Rich Donnellan from Aro

In the competitive world of consumer tech, delivering an exceptional customer experience can be the key differentiator between rapid growth and stagnation. We had the pleasure of speaking with Rich Donnellan, Head of Customer Experience at Aro, a startup on a mission to help families prioritize real-world connections over screen time. Our conversation explored how Rich and his team use customer insights to refine their product, shape their marketing strategy, and fuel sustainable growth. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

personalization CX

Driving Product Innovation with Data Insights: An Interview with Jonathon Ben-Haim from SundaySky

In today's data-rich business landscape, product leaders must be savvy at leveraging a wide range of inputs to guide their roadmap decisions and deliver outsize value to customers. We had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathon Ben-Haim, VP of Product Management, at SundaySky, a leading video platform that enables organizations to create, integrate and distribute personalized video content at scale. Our conversation explored Jonathon's approach to gathering and actioning customer insights, the frameworks he uses to prioritize feature development, and how SundaySky itself is harnessing data to power more relevant, engaging customer experiences. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Bridging the Gap Between Customers and Product: An Interview with Andy Magnusson, Customer Engineering Leader

In the fast-paced world of B2B SaaS, delivering exceptional customer experiences while rapidly iterating on product can be a delicate balancing act. We had the pleasure of speaking with Andy Magnusson, a seasoned customer engineering leader with experience at companies like StrongDM and Gitpod. Our conversation explored how customer-facing technical teams can serve as a vital bridge between users and product development, the importance of maintaining tight feedback loops as organizations scale, and the potential role of AI and machine learning in enhancing customer support. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Beyond the Stars: How Sentiment Analysis Offers Deeper Insights into Levain Bakery

Levain Bakery, based in New York, exploded into a huge craze pretty recently — in fact, many have named them the source of New York’s most famous cookies. But it seems a little unbelievable, right? I mean — people are naturally impatient and a high price brings on high expectations. But despite all that, they still have a nearly 5-star rating across all locations. Do people really think Levain is worth it? And how can they be sure they’ll be able to keep this vast sea of customers around long term? These are the questions we wanted to answer using a little help from sentiment analysis.

data CX

Driving Retention and Growth Through Customer-Centric CX: An Interview with Justin Crosbie from TULA Skincare

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Justin Crosbie, the Head of Customer Experience at TULA Skincare, a leading doctor-founded clinically effective skincare brand. Our conversation delved into Justin's journey building out TULA’s CX function from scratch, his approach to balancing automation with human connection, and the critical role that customer insights play in driving both retention and revenue growth. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Leveraging Empathy, Competition and Technology for Customer Success: An Interview with David Karp from DISQO

In today's fast-paced business landscape, truly understanding and serving customers is more critical than ever for driving growth and building lasting relationships. We had the privilege of speaking with David Karp, Chief Customer Officer at DISQO, a customer experience platform that helps businesses connect with their audiences. Our conversation delved into David's core pillars for success, how DISQO leverages data and AI to gain deep customer insights, and the importance of cross-functional collaboration. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Balancing Data Insights and Human Intuition in CX Leadership: An Interview with Disha Gosalia from Gladly

In today's fast-evolving world of customer experience, leaders must be adept at harnessing data to guide their decisions while also knowing when to trust their gut. We had the pleasure of speaking with Disha Gosalia, Chief Customer Officer at Gladly, a radically personal customer service platform that uses the best of AI and people to drive lifelong customer loyalty. In our conversation, Disha shared her thoughts on the key metrics that matter most in CX, the growing role of AI and automation, and the art of balancing quantitative insights with experience-bred intuition. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion.

data personalization

Driving Product Innovation with Data Insights: An Interview with Britney Russ from Codecademy

In today's fast-evolving tech landscape, education platforms must constantly innovate to meet the changing needs of learners and stay ahead of the curve. We had the pleasure of speaking with Britney Russ, VP of Product and Technology at Codecademy, a leading interactive learning platform for coding and technical skills. Our conversation explored how Britney and her team leverage data to inform content strategy, measure brand resonance, and deliver an engaging learning experience. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

data

Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Carbon Accounting: An Interview with Sara Pealy from Persefoni

As businesses face increasing pressures to measure and manage their environmental impact, carbon accounting has emerged as a critical capability. We had the pleasure of speaking with Sara Pealy, VP and Head of Product Management at Persefoni, a leading carbon accounting and management platform. Our conversation explored how Sara and her team navigate the complex and evolving regulatory landscape, leverage customer insights to drive product innovation, and harness the power of AI to scale their impact. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX marketing data

Harnessing Sentiment Analysis: How Do Shoppers Really Feel About Erewhon's Sea Moss Gel?

When a brand first launches a product, people from their own team are usually the ones to decide how to market it. But what if their customers end up disagreeing about what value it provides? And even worse, what if they don't find any value in it at all? So we took a pretty controversial product — Erewhon’s $40 Sea Moss Gel — and ran it through our software to see if customers were actually seeing benefits from this fascinating (and very expensive) substance.

CX data

Driving CX Excellence Through Cross-Functional Collaboration: An Interview with Erica Simmons

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Erica Simmons, a seasoned customer experience leader currently heading up CX efforts at a rapidly growing tech startup. Our conversation delved into Erica's unique background straddling both technical support and customer-facing roles, the importance of cross-functional partnerships in driving CX improvements, and the evolving role of data in prioritizing and tackling customer pain points. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Leveraging Data for Exceptional Customer Experiences: An Interview with Candace Wallace from Relias

In today's data-driven business landscape, understanding how to harness the power of information is crucial for driving growth and delivering outstanding customer experiences. We had the pleasure of speaking with Candace Wallace, the Chief Customer Officer at Relias, a workforce education company focused on the healthcare space. Our conversation delved into Candace's career journey, the key data Relias tracks to gain customer insights, and how they leverage that information to drive real business outcomes. Here are the highlights from our discussion:

CX data

Driving Better Outcomes Faster: An Interview with Michael Heffelfinger from DryvIQ

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Heffelfinger, the Chief Customer Officer at DryvIQ, an unstructured data management company. Our conversation delved into Michael's extensive background in leading customer experience organizations, the evolving data challenges facing enterprises today, and the key metrics and strategies he employs to deliver exceptional outcomes for DryvIQ's customers. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX data

Leveraging Customer Insights to Elevate the B2B Experience: An Interview with Hannah Hoyle from Funnel.io

leveraging-customer-insights-to-elevate-the-b2b-experience-an-interview-with-hannah-hoyle-from-funnel-io

data marketing

The Power of Positive Sentiment: Tatcha's Social Media Strategy for Successful Product Launches

Does the sentiment toward a new product launch (which could be observed through Instagram likes) foreshadow the future sales of that product? If we find evidence that the positive sentiment toward a new product's content (from its launch until the present) correlates with the product's current total sales quantity, it suggests that the amount of positive sentiment toward a product over time can drive sales. Or, if we find evidence that the first few weeks of positive sentiment toward a new product's content correlates with the product's current total sales quantity, it suggests that social media can predict whether a new product will be successful.

CX marketing data

Connecting the Dots: How Social Media Sentiment Mirrors Growth at Shake Shack

While eateries like Red Lobster and Rubio’s are going bankrupt, a fast food chain with New York origins has sat in a relatively stable position for a couple of years now: Shake Shack. Last week, I analyzed how a brand’s Instagram engagement could potentially correlate with their stock price. This time around, I decided to look at how sentiment observed on social media could influence the growth of sales on a quarterly basis by doing a quick experiment on Shake Shack.

CX E-Commerce data

Unlocking Growth Through Proactive Churn Analysis: Secily Selert, Shogun

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Secily Selert, the Head of Customer Success at Shogun, an e-commerce experience platform that powers storefronts for over 20,000 brands. Our conversation delved into Secily's unique background spanning journalism, PR, and customer success, her rapid ascent into CS leadership roles, and her philosophy on leveraging churn data to drive proactive retention strategies. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

marketing data

Predicting Express's Bankruptcy: The Warning Signs in Their Social Media

A lot of brands fail to understand that social media engagement doesn’t only rely on the quality of the content you’re posting. It more importantly relies on how customers feel about your brand in general. Express recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But if you had just quickly scrolled through any of their social media pages, this announcement wouldn’t actually be too surprising.

CX data

Amplifying the Voice of the Customer Across the Organization: An Interview with Colin Crowley from Maven Clinic

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Colin Crowley, the Vice President of Customer Support at Maven Clinic, a leading virtual clinic for women's and family health. Our conversation delved into Colin's extensive background in CX leadership, the evolving convergence of B2B and B2C customer engagement strategies, and the critical importance of establishing strong feedback loops between customer-facing teams and the rest of the organization. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX E-Commerce marketing

Temu vs. Alibaba: How Temu Triumphs Through CX

Over the past decade, Amazon has been the crystal clear frontrunner in the e-commerce industry. But just a year ago, the Chinese company Temu launched and has since nearly matched Amazon in number of users, slowly but surely eating away at Amazon’s market share in the US. The question is, how did a practically brand-new company with a not-so-new concept win over millions of customers in just one year? And will they be able to keep these customers around long term?

CX data

Unpacking Data-Driven CX: Insights from Simone Silva (CX Consultant, Prev Head of CX @Whirlpool)

We recently spoke with Simone Silva, an expert in customer experience and quality with an impressive 16-year tenure at Whirlpool. We learned a lot about how Simone thinks about the customer experience, and in particular we delved into the critical role data plays in understanding and improving it. Simone shared many valuable insights and practical examples from her experience, highlighting the importance of a multi-layered approach to data analysis and the potential for unstructured data to uncover hidden opportunities. Here are some of the highlights from our discussion:

CX E-Commerce

Uncovering Painpoints: Mapping Wayfair's Customer Journey Through Sentiment Analysis

Ever since the pandemic hit, consumers have turned even more so toward prioritizing convenience and price. Even for industries like home furnishing, which has historically drawn the majority of its sales from brick and mortar purchases, people feel more comfortable than ever picking out furniture or decor online, rather than in person. Wayfair saw this window of opportunity and took it. But running a fully online brand for furniture has proven to be harder than expected.

CX personalization

Unpacking Customer Experience at Meta's Reality Labs with Pegah Valeh

Recently we had a conversation with Pegah Valeh, who leads the customer experience and analytics program at Meta's Reality Labs division. Reality Labs is on the cutting edge, covering virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and Meta's vision for the metaverse, including Horizon World. It was fascinating to learn about her team's data-driven approach to understanding the customer experience. Here's what we discussed:

data CX

A Case Study on Under Armour: Identifying Brand Weaknesses Using Sentiment Analysis

You may remember that just a few years ago, Under Armour was considered one of the biggest sportswear brands in the world, valued at over $5 billion and equivalent to frontrunners like Nike and Adidas. Now, the company is facing exceptionally weak sales, a valuation sliced in half since its peak, paired with a single-digit stock price that’s been on the decline for the past decade. But why?

CX data

Building a Scalable Customer Support Program: An Interview with Jordan Hooker from Tavolo Consulting

This week, we sat down with Jordan Hooker, the founder of Tavolo Consulting, a firm specializing in helping early to mid-stage startups build world-class customer support programs. Our conversation delved into the key pillars of an effective support operation, the importance of data-driven decision making, and how to future-proof your customer experience as you scale. Here are the key takeaways from our discussion:

CX personalization

The Key to Sephora’s Omnichannel Success: Making Every Touchpoint Personable

Sephora shattered glass ceilings by surpassing a record of $10 billion in sales in 2023. And it’s no surprise when we think about just how well Sephora has been building out their omnichannel experience over the years. When it comes to customer experience, there’s no doubt that Sephora is a clear leader in the industry. Sephora doesn’t just meet customer expectations — they go above and beyond to connect with their customers and make every touchpoint personable in a unique, exciting way.

CX data

Optimizing the End-to-End Customer Journey: An Interview with Sarah Nohe, Founder @ Special Sauce

optimizing-the-end-to-end-customer-journey-an-interview-with-sarah-nohe-founder-special-sauce

CX personalization data

From Browsing to Bingeing: A Customer Journey Fueled by Netflix’s Value Proposition

Everyone is talking about Netflix — and for good reason. Just a year ago, Netflix began to really crack down on password-sharing. And while users were infuriated and threatened to cancel their subscriptions, the opposite ensued. This quarter, Netflix ended up adding 9.33 million new subscribers to their customer base — 5x their results from last year. And while there are lots of reasons it played out this way, one underlying reason this decision didn’t negatively affect their CX journey too badly was because this decision actually aligns very well with their overall value proposition.

CX company data

Punching Above Your Weight: An Interview with Courtney LeBlanc at Willful

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Courtney LeBlanc, Senior Customer Support Manager at Willful, a Canadian online platform that enables users to create powers of attorney and last will and testament documents without the need for a lawyer. Our conversation delved into how Willful leverages a small but mighty support team to deliver empathetic, efficient service to customers navigating a complex and often emotionally charged process. Here are the key insights from our discussion:

data CX

Fine-Tuning UNIQLO's Customer Experience: From Good to Great

It’s majorly impressive how smoothly UNIQLO has adapted to the overseas market — global expansion is a task most brands tend to struggle with. And while their products are great, their product line isn’t necessarily the main reason for their success. The truth is — UNIQLO does a fantastic job of utilizing data to fuel its customer experience strategy — so much so that it’s allowed them to connect their physical and digital touch points in a seamless way. BUT there’s always room to improve, and here’s how.

CX personalization marketing

A CX Dilemma: Why THE YES Struggled to Select a Segment

If you’re an avid Pinterest user, you might have noticed that over the years, their algorithm for personalizing users’ feeds has become more and more precise, making it all the more addicting. You probably wouldn’t have guessed that you have THE YES, an AI-powered shopping app, to thank for these improvements. In 2022, Pinterest acquired THE YES, but before this acquisition, THE YES was on its way to revolutionizing the average shopper’s customer journey and experience. But turns out — making a perfectly personalized shopping experience for every single user was no easy feat. So let’s break down one particular challenge they faced getting their platform off the ground.

personalization CX data

Listening to Customers: How Sentiment Analysis Can Refine H&M's Customer Experience

When competing in the same industry as Shein and Temu, a brand like H&M must do one of two things to survive: 1) match these competitors’ prices (which is near impossible) or 2) justify higher prices. And in order to justify higher prices, H&M has had to do a lot more than simply improve the quality of their clothing. For them, it’s all about customer experience. And while H&M’s customer experience initiatives have been receiving tons of hype from investors and shareholders, there’s a bit of disconnect between the opinions of customers and investors.

CX data company

Unlocking the Voice of the Customer at PTC - Steve Davenport

data company MDS

How ERA brings last mile analytics to any data warehouse via DuckDB

Have you ever waited for a dashboard to load for so long that you forgot what you were even looking for? I think we all have. It can be incredibly frustrating (especially if your organization is using Redshift…).

marketing E-Commerce

Turning the Tide: How Outdoor Voices Can Rebuild by Prioritizing Retention and Personalization

Outdoor Voices, a loved outdoor apparel company, recently made the decision to close ALL physical retail stores, all while barreling toward bankruptcy. Unfortunately, their reckless spending decisions caught up to them this year, and a once very successful apparel brand suddenly ran fresh out of cash. So let’s look at how their marketing efforts contributed to this unfortunate turn of events and what they can try to do to make a comeback.

CX data E-Commerce

Building a World-Class CX Operation from Zero: An Interview with Emily Stubbs

As a CX leader, what do you do when you're tasked with building out customer support for a company that hasn't even launched yet? We sat down with Emily Stubbs, who is currently doing exactly that as she stands up the CX function at Aerflo, a new sparkling water hardware startup. Emily shares her playbook for learning a new product inside and out, building a knowledge base from scratch, and using data to proactively surface customer pain points.

E-Commerce

Predicting The Next Customer Purchase Day To Improve Email Campaigns

Predicting the next time that a consumer is expected to buy a product allows you to make well timed offers that boost conversion. Here's how to do it.

Retention marketing

Fresh Ingredients, Stale Retention: HelloFresh Confronts High Customer Churn

Just this year, HelloFresh was fined £140,000 for sending over 79 million emails and 1 million SMS messages that violated privacy regulations. More specifically, HelloFresh had not been given direct consent from a huge chunk of their customers to constantly send marketing content to their inboxes but continued to do so anyway. And the truth is — not only were these aggressive marketing tactics unauthorized, but they weren’t exactly effective toward reducing churn either. In fact, HelloFresh has historically had huge issues with customer retention — seemingly more so than Blue Apron. So just like we did for Blue Apron, let’s break down why.

data

Snowflake Cortex

Snowflake have launched an LLM function feature, they call it Cortex. The idea is it lets you create a new column with a plain old SQL expression, which makes it super flexible. It's in public preview, so anyone can try it out.

E-Commerce personalization Retention data

In Focus: How Warby Parker Redefines CX through Digital-Physical Integration

Warby Parker is just one example of a digitally native brand that is absolutely demolishing the game, with revenues up over 12%, average revenue per customer up 9.3%, and their total customer base up over 2% in just 2023 alone. Rather than focusing on e-commerce alone, Warby Parker opened over 230 stores used primarily as showrooms for their products. Using stores as showrooms rather than the primary point of sale also means they can open smaller (and therefore more inexpensive) stores in larger volume. This method of balancing e-commerce with physical retail has been more than successful for the brand. But this isn’t the only way they’ve been able to intertwine the digital customer experience with the physical customer experience.

A Conversation with Josh Kernan at Catalant

Last week we had a conversation with Josh Kernan, who is a VP and Head of CX & Marketing at Catalant Technologies. Catalant is a fascinating business一they run a platform to connect businesses with top-ter freelance consultants. Think an ex CMO or ex-VP of Supply Chain that has gone into independent consulting and is running 6 month projects for Fortune 500 companies.

personalization Retention

From Hype to Hurdles: Farfetch's Battle for Attention and Loyalty

To understand the reasoning behind the price increases in the luxury industry, we first have to understand what makes luxury, luxury. And it’s clear that at the center of it all, exclusivity is a major component of any luxury good or service. To make a product or service exclusive, it should be a) limited in supply and b) difficult to acquire. Because the supply for luxury goods is typically very limited, demand often surpasses supply, and as a result, prices continue to shoot up. And a lack of exclusivity is exactly why Farfetch, an e-commerce space for luxury brands, didn’t perform nearly as well as expected.

data

The Power of Segmentation Analysis

In the dynamic landscape of business, understanding your audience is crucial. Picture this: you have the key to uncovering the complexities of consumer behavior and preferences. This key is none other than the transformative field of segmentation research!

E-Commerce Retention CX data

How to Stop Losing Sales: Taming the Cart Abandonment Beast

So, you've got an online store, and you're pumped about it. People are adding stuff to their carts, but after a little while...poof! They vanish without completing their purchases. What happened? This phenomenon is called Shopping Cart Abandonment, and this article will cover what this metric is, why it’s a big deal, and how you can prevent it.

CX personalization

Redefining Retail: Walmart's AI-driven Winning Streak

For the past 8 years, Walmart has been pretty insistent on keeping its number of stores constant. But recently, the company has made plans to open up over 150 stores across the country. This might seem like a strange move considering how rapidly e-commerce is growing and how steadily in-person sales seem to be declining, but here’s why it makes sense for Walmart.

CX data

Cotera's Lifecycle Model: A Case Study

E-Commerce personalization CX

AI in Action: Unveiling Amazon's Latest Customer-Centric Innovations

Nowadays, AI is absolutely everywhere - and everyone knows it. But here’s a common misconception. Lots of people believe that AI takes away the element of personalization by removing human-powered touchpoints entirely. But the truth is, it’s actually quite the opposite. Amazon — a company we’ve touched on before — just launched Rufus, a new AI-powered shopping assistant. And it’s a prime example of how AI is an incredibly powerful tool for personalization.

data

What is content-based filtering?

Content-based filtering considers item features and characteristics to find similar items that you might like. In this article we take a deep dive into how they work and how to use them effectively!

data

What is Entity Resolution?

Whenever a customer interacts with a business, a unique record is logged in the business’s database. Sometimes, this results in two different data points such as “T. Cruise” and “Tom Cruise” referring to the same Tom Cruise. If you want to get a more accurate, comprehensive view of customer behavior to improve your customer service and marketing, you may need to resolve these two points into one distinct entity. This is one example of what is called entity resolution, the process of merging various records into a single entity.

data Retention marketing

Denim in the Digital Age: Levi's D2C Transformation

Last week, I wrote an article about why Macy’s is laying off employees out of a desperation to save up for a new customer-centric strategy this year. And it turns out this leading retailer isn’t the only one. Just a few days ago, Levi Strauss announced that they would be cutting over 10% of their workforce — almost 2000 employees — this year for the very same reason. But if all of these companies appear to be struggling with the heavy financial burden of an effective customer strategy, why even bother? Well, as Levi’s recent transformation shows, the returns clearly outweigh the costs.

CX data personalization Retention

Future-Forward Retail: How Macy's is Reinventing the Customer Experience

Macy’s recently announced that they plan to lay off over 2000 employees AND shut down several stores entirely. But why? The answer is simple. Traditional marketing, sales, and growth strategies were simply no longer cutting it, so they *had* to cut down on costs to fund new projects that would completely change their business strategy for the better.

E-Commerce

What is a good sales conversion rate?

In today’s data-driven landscape, mastering key metrics is vital for any successful business. And out of the countless number of metrics out there, the sales conversion rate is one of the most important metrics that e-commerce businesses should master.

Automating Surprise and Delight with AI

In the dynamic commerce world, businesses are strategically implementing programs with complimentary gifts, advanced technologies, and surprise programs to enhance customer satisfaction, promote brand loyalty, and differentiate themselves from competitors.

E-Commerce

What is collaborative filtering?

Imagine you’re at a bookstore to find your next read, and your friend recommends you an action novel promising that it will be just as fun as the typical romance novels that you read. Although it’s a completely different genre, your friend knows you enjoy dramatic, emotional stories and promises that this action novel will be enjoyable. Surprisingly, you end up loving it and look for more action novels with similar emotional depth. Amazing, right?