Samir Balwani 0:03
Hi. I'm Samir Balwani, host of Chief Advertiser and founder of QRY. Join me as I talk to industry leaders about their strategies, challenges and successes in managing their advertising and marketing. On our episode today, I have Samantha Gagliardi, the senior Customer Experience Manager at Rhoback. I'm so excited to have her. I'm a huge fan of the brands, and I'm so excited for what you do. So let's, let's jump into things. I'm so excited. Thank you.
Samantha Gagliardi 0:31
Oh yeah, of course, I'm super excited to be here, and it's kind of fun having two Sams on the same call.
Samir Balwani 0:37
I know, I know. I think I was telling you that the only person who calls me Sam is my sister, and it's just like the one person that has figured out my sister and her best friend who thought my name was Sam for quite a long time before she realized it was severe. But yeah, I love this, and I'm excited for this. Samantha, thank you for joining us today, and I'm I just want to start from the beginning, because I love your career path and who you are and what you do and all of those things. So can you kind of share that for for the the listeners here?
Samantha Gagliardi 1:09
Yeah, totally. I kind of have a crazy career path, for sure. Um, unusual story. It did not start in this industry. I actually used to sing for a living, and so I've been on cruise ships. I've lived all over. I was living in China when covid started. That's like my favorite story to tell people, right? But I joined e-comm, and I specifically got into customer service with this brand called Jackson, which shout out to them, love them to death. Um, basically started as a customer service agent and worked my way up. I fortunately able to help with training and development there start a lot of cool initiatives. Then I moved on to a company called business and pleasure CO, where I built up everything. We're talking warranty stuff. We're talking FAQs, like anything customer experience, and which all led to today. Roback hit me up like March of last year, and interested in looking at me for the senior role, and so I'm actually hitting my one year mark with Rhoback. It'll be yay. Congrats. That's awesome, yeah, but I like to say acting skills are really awesome in customer service and diving into, like, understanding the customer, I pulled a lot from my experience in performing arts to get into this industry.
Samir Balwani 2:23
Yeah, and I love I love your background, and I love the conversation we had. Because the thing that got me excited was your perspective around how customer experience and brand work together, and like the intersection of the two, and how customer experience is an extension of a brand, right, and like the way it presents itself. So I'd love to kind of dive into that. And even here, just like high level, like, how does Roback and maybe just like a quick What does Roback do, and who they are, and then how does customer experience kind of fit into that?
Samantha Gagliardi 2:55
Yeah, totally. So if you all don't know, roe back, we started in 2016 as a high end, like lifestyle sportswear brand, all with the performance Polo. We're very well known for our ridge that we have on the back of our polos, and then our little bunker dog emblem on corner. And basically, the founders were looking for a product that could easily be worn to work out do something active, but also can be worn out, like if you want to grab drinks. And that's kind of how roe back came to be. We're kind of known as a golf brand, you know, we have a lot of polos. We have a ton of stuff in the men's line and women's line and all of that as we expand. But we believe in activity. So it's interesting tying that into customer service. Customer experience has been okay. How is our brand? What is the brand voice? Who are we? To make sure the like customer service team aligns, and then make sure the entire experience aligns, that the heart of who we are in the heart of our brand, and expand that upon every touch point so that the customer, be it, they see an ad, they purchase the delivery process, whatever the case may be, they feel and recognize that this is Rhoback.
Samir Balwani 4:09
Oh, I love that. That's us apart. That's awesome. And, you know, I think that that's a really interesting this idea of like, everything connecting together is key. So when you were thinking about that, how did you guys come up with this? Like, how did you guys make it happen? I guess it's like, easy to say, like, we're going to make everything connect, but like, how does it happen?
Samantha Gagliardi 4:32
I mean, ultimately it comes down to, like, the founders get all the credit for the main points. It's really what they believe in, right? They really drive into, we love being active. That's how we believe we in connecting people. You actually see in our website that we have a statement of who we are, and that's something that drives the rest of what we do. That's going to drive how our products look and feel, what kind of fabrications we dive into. It drives how we do our social media marketing and. Sort of marketing. And then it drives like, in my mind, I'm always thinking of, how does this customer talk? How are we relating to our customers and relating to them, getting them connected to us? And so for me personally, the first thing I do is do, like a sweep of everything, and I come up with, kind of, like the quote, unquote Bible, the law of what we're following for everything like, these are the core aspects of who we are. This is who we are as a brand. We need to make sure everything else is going to align and collaborate with those core things while still being flexible trying things, you know. But I like to look at it as musician. So if you look into a musician breaking out into the industry, you can't be country, rock, pop and rap, oh yeah. You have to choose something. Who are you to? Where you build a fan base, you build a brand of people that love your art, love what you're producing, to where you can get to the point where you're like, Great, I'm going to release whatever genre I want. I have enough people that care. Taylor Swift can release a rap album, and everyone was like, That's
Samir Balwani 6:07
so true. And I love that. I love that metaphor, and I love that visualization of it, because I think it's true. It's like, you have to figure out who your core customer is, what you stand for first, before you kind of expand into it. And it's interesting, because we are talking about brand, voice and and consistency. And you know, you and I know how important that is, but I guess, how do you convince somebody who is like, I'm just gonna do performance ads all day long, and you know what? We're gonna test every variation and everything's gonna look entirely different, but like, how do you convince that person that, no, you also need some level of consistency, and you need to think about it.
Samantha Gagliardi 6:45
I mean, I'm going to be data driven times five, you know, anything, we have to look at the percentage. We have to look at what the customer is saying. And so I'm pulling information like I'm going into our product return reports, actually pulling up the comments, you know, AI, is this really cool thing now, where it can summarize a ton of and you can pull data points you didn't have before, but like for example, testing different marketing and testing different ads, your customer is going to react, we can look at the basic stats. We're always looking at how many sales came from it, how many people are interacting, so on, so forth. But are they just one time purchases? Are they actually coming back? Are they commenting positively negatively? Like something I love thinking about with reviews in particular, is it could be a positive review negative sentiment? So how are you pulling in all these data points to then make the argument? I always love to say I'm Like a Lawyer for the customer. I'm gonna pull up the data, pull up an argument, and be like, great. This is what the customer is saying. This is what my team is seeing. This is what the data is saying. How can we align this? This is who we've said. We are going back to that concept of the law of brand voice. This is who we say we are. This is what the customer is saying, which doesn't align with who we say we are. How can we update this? Let me show you how this is going to improve all of our stats and bring things up. And you know, sales, you know, everything's money, so like, how do and then also, on top of that, the customer feels seen. The customer is even more committed. You get things you can't track, like word of mouth marketing.
Samir Balwani 8:23
That's really fascinating. I love this idea of like, looking at your reviews to make sure, because, you know, we look at reviews and it's like, okay, well, how, what's our competitive differentiation? Is our ops good, but using your reviews to track against your brand voice and are you going in the direction that you committed yourself to is really great feedback loop that's really interesting. You know, we do a lot of brand health tracking for some of our clients, and so we'll ask like statements around, like, you know, we want great performing products or a brand that we trust, etc, etc. And, you know, it never dawned on me to then use reviews as, like a secondary element of that as well and and kind of align it with that. That's a great idea, and I hope somebody kind of takes that away and actually implements it. You know, we're talking about feedback, and reviews are a great way to get feedback. What other tools, or what other ways are you kind of looking at? So just really understand is, is your brand voice even resonating? Is that the right brand voice right? Like, what? And you know, we play the game of who are you not for, more often than Who are you for, and that helps define your brand voice. But what happens when that's wrong or you're just, like, not even sure if that's the right one. Yeah.
Samantha Gagliardi 9:43
I mean, what's crazy is, like, usually, when the customer is happy, they'll speak to you less you're going to get less information. If they feel like they align with your brand, they're not going to have to tell you all about it. They're going to be the people come back silently. They do their thing. They tell their friends and family about. It, but they're not actually going to talk to the company. So how can you use the negative sentiment to understand like you have such a smaller pool of people to choose to get that from? Now we're not doing this, but something I think is amazing is diving into NPS, diving into surveys like diving into customer panels. Take those people that are consistent and be like, great, you want to join a panel for the next year. We're going to ask you all these random questions, right?
Samir Balwani 10:27
Almost like a customer advisory board, right? Like we're thinking about this new product. What do you think we're like, here's where we're trying to go. Yeah. I mean, I think that that is so valuable. It's so funny, because it's like, it boils down to talk to your customer, talk to your prospects like, just like, don't be afraid of them. And I think so many e-comm and DTC businesses where you've kind of started behind a computer in, you know, in an office, you don't have to go door to door. You don't have to go to store to store. The customer is not a real person in front of you. It's a ping on your app to let you know that there's a Shopify sale. You kind of lose that element of I understand my customer, I understand my audience. I can talk to John, and he buys our stuff all the time, and I know exactly what his like persona is in my head. I almost would challenge people to say, think about a real customer and visualize them in your head. And if you can do that, great, but I would imagine that a lot of people can't
Samantha Gagliardi 11:22
Well, and that's the thing too. Like, the main goal is, how can you bring the in store experience online? That's a big challenge that so many people are going through, especially in the clothing industry. Like, you know, especially I'm even thinking about the other day, I needed to try to buy a dress for a wedding, and I'm, like, so overwhelmed with the amount of choices for dresses, I really want someone that I can just chat with about it, jump into it, so I just default to the brands I know the best, and I hope one of them has a dress that I like. But that process like, how do you make those connections with the customer? And that's been like, my personal goal the last couple years of being like, how are we creating those touch points where you get to socialize even more with the customer, you resource them with that like, how many self service options are we giving them? How many ways are we making them feel seen?
Samir Balwani 12:13
Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. What What are like metrics and tools that you're using to just really understand, is your brand voice working? Like, I know we talked about AI and using, I'm sure, like, a chatgpt or anything like that, to actually, like, summarize some stuff. But is there anything else that kind of stands out to you that you said, Hey, this has been super helpful for just better understanding what's working what's not working.
Samantha Gagliardi 12:38
Yeah, totally. So brand voice for me, like, contains everything. So I'm thinking, does the product aligning or ads aligning? Does the website experience align? Blah, blah, blah, blah, operations, all the things and so, like, when I think of product in particular, I'm thinking of returns. I'm thinking of reviews on the product in particular. You're going to get so much information, which we already kind of talked about, so I won't go into that too detailed, yeah, but I'm looking at those stats there. When it comes to just general customer sentiment, I'm pulling everything from the CRM. You know, you can have so much information there, be it, how the team is tagging, what kind of sentiment are they flagging, all that jazz. I pulled five reports from that alone, and then you jump into the actual like, with marketing, I'm always thinking of socials marketing. I'm looking at the comments, I'm looking at how people are interacting, and obviously we're looking at sales and the other important stats. So that's just like a couple examples, yeah, main core things I'm also looking at operations, does the shipping align with us? Is that, like, is the customer happy with that? Unhappy, etc, etc, etc. So those are some, like, practical, ground level things I'm looking at. And then sometimes I'll just build out a whole nother report based on something in particular I'm curious about. I am pulling so many Excel sheets,
Samir Balwani 13:59
yeah, of course, I know there's so much in there. It's interesting, because one of the things that I think a lot of marketers just don't understand is, you know, as a media buying agency, we're always looking at CAC to LTV, right? And it's like, okay, great. Like, you know, I want my CAC and LTV to align, but I'm only a third of the puzzle right, like I can get the person in the door, but ops and customer experience needs to get them to come back. And so it's, it's really understanding that element of it, and having, I always say, like having a really consistent brand voice, having a strong brand that people feel committed to, allows you the flexibility to make mistakes and get not get away with it, but be allowed to make mistakes, because you will make mistakes. Mistakes are the reality of it. Something's going to happen. Someone's got to get the wrong product. It'll get delayed. Something's going to happen, right? And so having a good brand allows you to kind of extend out those mistakes. But also being a marketer. It's your job to make sure that what you are saying is being delivered upon in the back end of the so if I create an ad that promises something that better be true and and I think that that is the piece where we get caught up in offers, and it's like, oh yeah, this product can do all of these things. And you're like, not really. It's just like, it's such a bad experience for people, and you start to burn brand cache. So, you know, I'm sure that is something you guys are monitoring and looking at and thinking about all the time.
Samantha Gagliardi 15:32
Oh, yeah. And I love that, because it's just an alignment of the team itself, right? Like, I, what you just said, reminded me of a reel I saw of like, there was a caricature of a salesperson being like, hey, so the product can do this thing. And then the customer service is like, Can the product do this thing? The Tech person's like, I mean, technically no, but it might at some point, salesperson happened now, because they said it's gonna happen, yes, 100% team as a whole aligned, like, it's like, they're that person that's like, great. Like, here's, I get to be the person that makes sure the brand voice stays consistent. So I gotta make sure everyone else is aligned. Like, if marketing wants to do this thing, is the customer service team prepared for that? Is the operations team prepared to, like, succeed. If you're like, cool, everyone's gonna get next day shipping. Great. Are your fulfillment centers ready to do next day shipping. Is your team ready to support that and say it's going to happen if you're using any sort of AI bot in your CX, which my team does, is that prepared information to do that before it drops? Like, that's a huge part of it. It's just like making sure everyone has that communication for anything like that that drops. That makes a massive difference.
Samir Balwani 16:42
It's so funny because it's like, are you prepared, and then are you measuring if it was successful or not? Too right? Like, there's this, like, back end piece where it's like, Yes, we did it, but we don't even know if it actually worked. Like, that piece always gets left behind. And so, yeah, I mean, I love, I as you know, like, I am a big fan of all of these things, and I'm always curious about like, how do we integrate teams more? How do we make sure there's a really good feedback loop? Because I think customer service, ops and marketing, getting together and talking is what leads to great brands, because things can't live in a silo, otherwise the learnings that marketing have never go to ops, so that the next product is never really interesting. Product is just being built automatically. Customer Experience is getting customer feedback, both positive and negative, and that's never going to marketing and ops. So like, again, you just like creating product and marketing for yourself, not for the market, and you kind of get stuck in this death spiral, which I think is really important.
Samantha Gagliardi 17:43
You can do less from the customer too, even if they notice that it's not consistent multiple times, like they have space for a couple mistakes again, fan base for a musical artist, they are committed. You can do crazy things if they're that committed to you, but if you consistently don't show that alignment, it affects your main customer base too. Like, that's, yeah, I
Samir Balwani 18:06
mean, returning customer rate is probably one of the best ways to understand if you're doing the right thing. You know, I do want to move into a question for you, is, you get to see so much in the market? Just, you know, there's so much happening. I'm so curious. Have you seen anything either in your category, out of your category, anything like that, that just made you stop and go, Oh, that's actually a really good idea. I wish we were doing
Samantha Gagliardi 18:29
that. Oh my gosh. I mean, there's so many things, but I think actually, funny enough. The main thing I talked about this earlier, but this, there are a couple customer advisory panels that I've seen drop from a couple brands that I'm like, Oh, these are unique. We're not asking the basic things. You're actually challenging your own concept of your brand, going to your customers and finding out, like, firsthand, if it's all aligning, you're asking very interesting questions, like, you're investing all this time into the customer advisory and in that you're actually building this, like, loyal customer base that's going to stay just because they got involved. You're also giving them perks for doing it, like free shipping, free two day shipping, you know, whatever perks get, x, y and z for whatever that, to me, is core, because I'm always thinking about the person behind the sale. Yeah, it's like, how can we relate to the person? How can we actually get first hand understanding versus I can pull data for days, but I'm not actually seeing the customer. I'm not seeing who they are. I'm not stalking their Facebook. We're no we're not doing things like we are getting consensual information. The customer is more invested. They feel ownership. And then that helps us grow and helps us plan like right?
Samir Balwani 19:48
It's also just gives you context around the numbers, right? Because otherwise, numbers might tell a very different story than what's actually happening. You know, sometimes we'll see, you know, clients, you know, their sales drop for. Three or four days, and we're like, oh, well, what happened? And unless we talk to a customer, we don't really understand, like, oh, this button stopped working, and that's why, like, it was really hard to find this, or actually, your competitor was on sale. And all of these things are, like, happening all at once. So, you know, you can dig and you can, you know, ultimately, we probably would have figured it out at some point. But, like, there's a shortcut, and the shortcut is getting context from your customers, so it's, you know, there's a piece of that. So, yeah, I mean, I think that that's really interesting and from an outside standpoint, but I would love also, you know, my last question for you is, what are you guys experimenting with right now that you're really excited about what I know you want to do customer advisory panels, and I think that they're really smart. We used to do them at American Express when I was there. And the amount of information and just like the feedback you get is unreal, and just the openness and excitement that it brings So highly recommend that for anyone that is thinking about it. But what are you guys doing right now that you're really excited about.
Samantha Gagliardi 21:01
I mean, the main thing really, is actually expanding upon the brand, expanding upon our audience space, like we are really leaning into women's products. Even more, we've released things like the everyday act, address stuffy, active skort, gosh, if I remember that correctly, all these different pieces to where we're actually we're challenging ourselves a bit by trying new things in the actual, like, athletic wear range, and kind of seeing what our customer receives and what they don't receive. And there's other, like, fun things there that, you know, I'm gonna keep under box, but that's like a main thing on top of that, resourcing the customer better with sizing. Again, like I had mentioned concepts of in store online, it's like, how am I actually helping you purchase instead of what a good amount of dudes, what they do is buy five sizes and try them all on and then return the other four.
Samir Balwani 21:57
Yeah, we're for we're form and function. It's like, we are very much there's no like, I wonder if I feel good in this. It's what fits. And let's just get that. Yeah, we talk about this all the time, that men and women shop very differently and like, the way you present product and the way you talk about product is very and their shopping habits are just very different. I mean, it's changing over time, but fundamentally, there are some, like, key differences, and so it is a really interesting experience to have to market against. Samantha, thank you so much for joining us. This was such a great conversation, and I love your perspective on all of this. So someone wants to find you online and learn more about what you do and what you're thinking. Where can they find you?
Samantha Gagliardi 22:46
LinkedIn is gonna be the best place. So it's Samantha Gagliardi. You'll see the spelling. It's doesn't look the way it's pronounced.
Samir Balwani 22:54
We'll include it in the show notes for sure. Yeah.
Samantha Gagliardi 22:57
But that's the best place. But this has been so much fun. I've loved chatting with you. Thank you so much for the time. It's incredible.
Samir Balwani 23:04
Thank you for being here. I love it.
Outro 23:09
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