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#523: Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Brand Stories | How SharkNinja Drives Customer Loyalty through Customer Engagement · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

0:02
SPEAKER_00: On this episode of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty Podcast, we're diving into a brand that has redefined what customer loyalty means in the modern home, Shark Ninja.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Best known for iconic products across cleaning, cooking, and now even beauty, to keep that away from my daughters, Shark Ninja has built one of the most trusted portfolios in consumer products without relying on a traditional Pointspace program.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: That's very interesting.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Instead, their success has been fueled by relentless product innovation and a obsessive focus on their customers and a deep belief that trust and value are the true currencies of customer loyalty.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Today we're joined by Jake Vanth.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: He's the vice president of global customer experience at Shark Ninja.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Jake leads the brand's customer experience efforts, and he sits at a very unique intersection of customer experience, customer loyalty, and service, bringing the voice of customer directly into how Shark Ninja designs products, supports customers, and most importantly, builds long-term relationships.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, we'll explore how Shark Ninja thinks about customer loyalty and it's beyond transactions, how they listen, I mean actually truly listen to the customers and how they're responding to evolving expectations around value, service, and trust.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Dick, that was a lot in that introduction.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: But thank you very much for taking the time to join us today.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
1:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm really good.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: Yourself, Martin.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Doing well, thank you.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, first off, for those who may not be familiar, can you give us a short introduction to Shark Ninja?
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Shark Ninja is really the uh the combination of two brands, is one.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: You're probably more familiar with Shark uh vacuums and ninja blenders, but that is ultimately what Shark Ninja is.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: And we're an innovation problem-solving consumer machine.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, when you look at the great success of Shark Ninja, what's that actually led to some of the great success that you guys have seen?
2:04
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it's really about taking it one consumer at a time, right?
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Our CEO often talks about building building this business one five-star review at a time.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: That's what gets people to come back over and over and over again to buy the next great thing from Shark Ninja.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've obviously have great products and uh a great uh reputation kind of customer experience as well.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: So uh you guys seem to be doing a great job.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: When you look at your role, um tell us a little bit more about your role, how you got into the role you are, how you got into marketing, how you got into global customer experience, and yeah, what do you do in day-to-day?
2:41
SPEAKER_01: So, right now, uh yeah, I'm the VP of Global CX here at Shark Ninja, and really how did I get into it?
2:47
SPEAKER_01: I think like many people that got into CX and customer service started off answering the phone uh many, many years ago.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: I've actually been at Shark Ninja since uh 2007.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, so sort of just grown with the company seeing this kind of level of growth.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And my role now isn't just contact centers, it's it's voice of the consumer, is taking that information, that feedback of what we hear, that one-to-one relationship with a consumer and bringing it back into the problem-solving product machine.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: So we actually have a pretty big role to play in what's coming next all the time.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when you talk about voice of the customer, that's something that everyone talks about.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Some brands do it uh very well effectively and truly believe in the power of the customer, right?
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And and and uh, you know, honor an action on it.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Some are challenged uh to do it in an effective manner.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you guys look at it?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: How do you do it effectively?
3:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, what makes it kind of the basis or the foundation of all your customer loyalty and customer experience efforts, it sounds like.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really is the basis of it.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: It is taking that information of that conversation that the agent's having or the business is having with the consumer and understanding, like, oh, you still have this pain point.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: You're still calling about uh, man, I really wish the hair in this vacuum would would get off the brush roll.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: And we're like, you know, we hear about this a lot.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we go back and tell the engineers, like, and they're going, you know, we got to solve for this.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: We'll get the the no the no hair wrap brush roll going, right?
4:09
SPEAKER_01: But how do we actually do that?
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Is we've been empowered, uh you know, many companies like, oh, it's written on the walls, it's written here.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh the the interesting and unique power we have here in CX with our voice of the consumer program is I also have the power to say no when I look at new products, be like, hey, we've got to fix this before you can launch it.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think that sort of empowerment from the top down is is really a real big difference maker.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, you look at your role.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you said you started off answering the phones, uh, made uh pretty uh quick extension ascension of the chart, uh the org chart.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, what's the biggest challenge, or maybe even the biggest opportunity you see in customer will with your customer experience at Shark Ninja?
4:49
SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's moving into the new paradigm of trust, right?
4:53
SPEAKER_01: That's the biggest opportunity, right?
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Sort of moving away from the traditional metrics of customer service, like your net promoter score, right?
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And moving towards a different measurement of like, did you leave this call with a good call, with a great experience that we just had?
5:10
SPEAKER_01: And how do we start measuring that?
5:11
SPEAKER_01: And that's really where I think the evolution is is really harnessing that one-to-one relationship with personalization, speed, and confidence.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: When you look at your industry, uh, a lot of disruption in your industry, and then you've done a lot of the disruption, right?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: People want better products, people, you know, you have uh different kinds of cleaning and and uh home uh products.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, how is that industry changing?
5:36
SPEAKER_00: How is it evolving?
5:37
SPEAKER_00: How are the customers changing, their expectations?
5:40
SPEAKER_00: What are you seeing?
5:41
SPEAKER_01: I think the fundamental expectation is the same, and that's great value.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's not just from the product, but also from the service side, right?
5:50
SPEAKER_01: So, what what's interesting to me is the real shift of offering value throughout the entirety of the journey, not just at the point of purchase, right?
5:58
SPEAKER_01: So being there with the customer or the consumer if something happens to go wrong or even when it goes right.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the real shift that's happening, is that CX is starting to become more and more part of the conversation further up the proverbial funnel of what makes brands different these days.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And also the big discussion around value right now as well, right?
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Value in the program, value of the customer of the program, value of the customer experience efforts internally to the C-suite.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the words that uh obviously has uh a number of different definitions.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Are you seeing that as well?
6:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, value is a big part of the Shark Ninja journey.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: We try to, we strive, and I think we've been very successful at achieving value, right?
6:40
SPEAKER_01: Giving exceptional value from uh exceptional products to the consumer.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: It uh it truly is the I wouldn't say the non-secret sauce.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: No.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh and having a great product, I think, is is uh foundational in driving value or driving customer loyalty.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And I know you don't have a traditional point space loyalty program, but customer loyalty to your brand is is very strong.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you think about building customer loyalty, you know, through product innovation and uh you know addressing some of those needs and opportunities for the customer?
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, look, loyal loyalty for us is is is the value proposition, right?
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Like we we don't win as a business now that we're at this size of consumers buy one thing one time, right?
7:24
SPEAKER_01: So we we need consumers that are excited and engaged with their products, but also where I think in the value chain for the consumer goes is where where my myself and my team steps in is something might go wrong or bump in the night.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's there to pick them up at that at that level.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: So to me, the that's really where where we're at now is driving loyalty at relative scale, but still one-to-one.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: So so really to hammer that home is we we create that loyalty by being there where we answer the phone really quickly, but we also want to represent and give consumers choices in everywhere they want to be to communicate with us to fix whatever problem they might have.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: You talked about it a little bit, but customer loyalty is very important to brands.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they have different definitions.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And one of the best things about what I get to do is I get to talk to smart people like you about customer loyalty, customer experience.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: When you look at customer loyalty, the product's very important, but holistically, what does customer loyalty mean to you and to Shark Ninja?
8:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, customer loyalty is everything, and that's why we've started going down um measuring trust, right?
8:33
SPEAKER_01: So when consumers call us, we want to understand do you trust this brand?
8:37
SPEAKER_01: Because we I'm of the opinion, I think many are, the same mindset that if you trust the brand and you trust having a conversation with them, that they'll be there for you, you're gonna come back because you have that trust.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: So we've started a process of trying to measure trust as a metric uh as consumers call us and how they leave that call, feeling that they had what we like to call the good call, which is we were there, gave you a confident solution, and that now you want to go out and either re-engage with that product or go get a new one.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And trust is an interesting uh idea, concept.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's uh was very uh hot a couple of years back, right?
9:14
SPEAKER_00: You want to trust them.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: People talk about like trusting your family.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's kind of a strange uh idea, right?
9:19
SPEAKER_00: How do you trust them like you trust your family?
9:21
SPEAKER_00: But you know, when you look at trust, it's it's much more in vogue now than it has been in a couple of years.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you trust it?
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Is it simple?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Do you trust the product?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes, no.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Is it qualitative?
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Is it sentiment-based?
9:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you get around defining trust?
9:35
SPEAKER_01: So we leverage a lot of different tools to do that.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: The number one tool is literally asking you, the consumer, do you you know, did you trust us?
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Did you trust us before you called?
9:46
SPEAKER_01: How do you trust us after the call?
9:47
SPEAKER_01: But the other thing we now take advantage of is, you know, you can't do CX without AI these days, or at least have a conversation about it, is leveraging um AI to start looking for sentiment in conversations and how our agents are speaking and how consumers are reacting to those conversations.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: And what we're really finding is at the end of the day, the consumer just wants you to be there to fix their problem and that they're confident that you're gonna follow through on your word.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: So when you say trust your family, we're not we're not your family.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: We're we're you we're a business.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: You we want you to trust us because we execute on the thing we said we were gonna do.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: When you look at your customers, uh, do they usually start off with one product and then move into others?
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I know you have kind of a why to store one of different products.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do how does a customer engage with them?
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you look at a connected ecosystem of different products, uh, you know, how how does that impact or enhance the customer journey?
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I that's a great question because just this past year we actually officially merged our two brands into one website.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: So previously Shark and Ninja were quite separate, and not many consumers knew that.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And we're we're on a big effort to really make sure everyone's aware.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: So uh rather funnily, we would find that consumers were very much in a state of um buying a shark product, buying a ninja product, and not even knowing they were buying it from the same company.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the strengths of our business is we move ourselves from, you know, you start with a blender and then we have an air fryer, right?
11:14
SPEAKER_01: And you you follow that trust and that loyalty with us as we move from segment to segment.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And what are the differences between shark and ninja?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, is there kind of a different collection of products?
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh so shark ninja shark is more of our cleaning side of the house.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: So the vacuums, the the steam mops, and now recently into the shark beauty space.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Ninja is definitely more of your um indoor and outdoor uh cooking assistant, let's call it.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: So they do all the blending, uh air frying and cooking products.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Is is there one product that you have maybe that uh if they buy, they're gonna buy several products?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Is there kind of a leading product?
11:54
SPEAKER_01: I think if you if you uh you know the proverbial gateway to Shark Ninja, I think if you get your hands on, I would say on the ninja side, one of our air fryers, you're you're never cooking the same way again.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you get in on the ground floor of one of our vacuums as well, I think you'll find exceptional cleaning performance at an exceptionally good price.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: And those those are usually the gateway to the Shark Ninja brand that fosters that loyalty across all the rest of our products because they're all in a similar vein of quality.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: When you look at uh customer experience, uh some of the platforms you use to drive trust and then loyalty among uh your customers, you know, how are you leveraging different platforms?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: You talked about kind of the measurement of trust.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, what are you doing in that regard?
12:38
SPEAKER_01: So so we we leverage um we're actually using it right now, Zoom.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: So Zoom is our is our provider that sort of you know connects the consumer to our agent.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: So one of the the we leverage them to um through their AI suite of tools as well as a few other partners to, you know, you always hear that this call may be monitored.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, that that that's Zoom that is helping us do that.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And that's we work and partner with family behind the scenes to understand how a consumer is really reacting to a conversation with our frontline agents, and that's where we we really try to maximize what is that trust?
13:14
SPEAKER_01: And we have these programs in place where we call we call um hear it, feel it, fix it.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we really try to drive through to that frontline agent that you're speaking with.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Did they hear what you're saying?
13:27
SPEAKER_01: Did they really feel what your problem was like and did they fix it?
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and and hearing and and listening are two different things, right?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: So hearing, I always talk about his passive.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: You hear a tree fall, right?
13:37
SPEAKER_00: You hear a noise, but listening is kind of a uh has empathy, right?
13:41
SPEAKER_00: There's reciprocity.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: So listening, especially if you empower your customer servants, the line agents, to take command and to make things right, will build that trust.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: But you know, hearing versus listening can be two different things, correct?
13:54
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: And it's owning that moment, right?
13:56
SPEAKER_01: No one wants to repeat themselves like, hey, my name is Mark.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what?
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, what was your name?
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Like you're instantly off to uh the wrong foot.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: And we also want to make sure that we empower our frontline agents to make the call in that moment, right?
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you might need an upgrade, maybe you might need a discount because you are trying to cook dinner for your kids and our and the air fryer burnt out for a second.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Who knows, right?
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Something went wrong, and you're just in a panic.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I gotta make dinner at six o'clock.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do here?
14:26
SPEAKER_01: We we wanna we we make sure and pride ourselves that our agents are listening to that moment, they have empathy towards that moment, and then they provide you a solution in that moment that we can we can be proud of and and earn your loyalty and your trust.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had a call when you kind of listen in and do some coaching around them, right?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that you do that on Monday, listen to calls.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Either you know, you always hear about CEOs, CMOs that go on and listen to some call agents or they they listen to some recordings.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard a call taped and you're like, what the heck was that person?
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, what's the crazy craziest thing you've ever heard?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Like they they they did something with the blender, or they did something with Fryer and it broke.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this this ties it all back to in fact.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: We have uh, because we like to we like to name things here, we called it hear what we hear inside of our office that I'm here at and need them.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: We have a mini call center in the back, and we through our hiring process, we bring people through it so they can listen so that our engineers are hearing it.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, sometimes when they're there, a consumer might call and get the engineer directly on the phone to solve your problem.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, some of the craziest things, and it in fact ties back to the voice of the consumer program is you know, having a coffee machine, and we told consumers you could froth milk in it.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: So people putting milk in places they shouldn't be putting, and then you scratch your hand and we're like, of course they did.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: We said, right, and taking that information from what you might consider that's that's crazy.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: That's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: And they go off and um and and we go off to the engineers and we make a fix.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: But if I could, maybe the craziest story we ever had that we solved was, and this is going back a few years, a lady had her um engagement ring sucked up into our vacuum.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, um, she returned that vacuum for to us to be uh to be repaired and and and put back out there.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: So we had over 4,000 vacuums in our in our repair facility, and we had to go through all of them looking for this wedding ring.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: And it was probably one of the most insane stories, but we found it and returned it to her.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: You went through 4,000 vacuums and found it and found it, yeah.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, what what did you tell me?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: 4,000, four or 4,000 uh vacuums to find it.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: One person did tell that.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, it was a few people on making a joke.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one poor guy had a long day, but no, it was and that's the level of effort and care we try to put in um for consumers like that.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: She was in in the spirit of listening here, right?
16:45
SPEAKER_01: Like truly listening to their complaint and then really going out of our way to try to fix that.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's that kind of post-purchase uh support, right, that you offer that many people don't, many brands don't do, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a cost associated with that.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And when you get so laser focused on cost, you lose kind of the spirit of the experience, the spirit of the customer.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that story right there is amazing.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Great to hear.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that when you tell that to people, that there's kind of a virality around that, but I'm sure she's telling hundreds of people what you guys did for them, right?
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Or she may have been posted in social media that that it becomes so much more valuable to do those small things.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those all those little small things add up.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And I I would I would also go, you know, you mentioned cost center.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't Shark Ninja, we don't view the call center as a as a cost center.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: We view it as a as I would argue as an opportunity center, right?
17:36
SPEAKER_01: We get to hear directly from the consumer about their problems and maybe go fix it in our next generation, and as well as drive loyalty and trust through all those conversations of fixing the problem.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: I I genuinely believe that when you call customer service, and no one really enjoys that, but you have that good experience, that good call, that great experience, you walk away from going, well, that was way better than expected.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: That was pretty easy.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm gonna buy from them again and I'm gonna continue to give them my hard-earned dollars.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we don't view it as a cost center, and we view it actually as a brand building center.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's interesting because there's a big divide right now in our community.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: We meet with our brands, you know, we have 120, 130 brands that are members.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: We meet on different topics.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And right now there's this CMO CFO divide where the CFO is laser focused on costs.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: We talked about value, right?
18:24
SPEAKER_00: CFO has become uh in this time of economic uncertainty.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we need to cut this, maybe we need to trim this, right?
18:29
SPEAKER_00: But when you do that, it can have some pretty deleterious impacts on the program, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And then to get back to where you were, you have to invest a lot more, you have to get refocused.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what may hit one quarter's numbers could have pretty significant impacts longer term when you look at longitudinally, correct?
18:48
SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't agree more.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: And I we don't view, you know, despite being a publicly traded company, we don't really manage it to the quarter.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: We manage it to, we just want the best for the consumer.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that that's that's a top-down and a bottom-up driven experience here uh really is a testament to Shark Ninja's commitment to the consumer that it ultimately will cost what it costs to make sure that we do we do the best we can for the consumer in those experiences.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: Now, it it always lands within like, well, what what does that exactly mean?
19:19
SPEAKER_01: But we will do our absolute utmost to solve every consumer problem that very first time.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that's that that's important too, because you know, we've all had uh the case studies in business school where you know, when we become so scripted, right?
19:33
SPEAKER_00: When the call center becomes scripted, you have to answer here by a certain time, you have to get off call.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And the problem invariably isn't fixed, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna have to call back one, two, three, four times to uh, you know, assuage the issue you have, which creates consternation.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: It creates just a whole list of, you know, they're not gonna recommend, they're gonna post something uh bad, you know, they're where getting that first call resolution, that's you know, the metric everyone looks at is very important.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: But many brands have gotten away from that, correct?
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say first call resolution is definitely an area that we focus on a lot.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, you even mentioned the word script.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: The only script we really have is hi, my name is Jake Finch, how can I help you today?
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Beyond that, we leave it up to our, we empower our agents to have a real human conversation, not working you through a thing to get you out.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh, one of the metrics that everyone loves to have, right, you know, beyond first call resolution is handle time.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: How basically how long did you talk?
20:29
SPEAKER_01: We don't really care how long the conversation goes, other than we want you to leave that call satisfied with the outcome and confident in the resolution.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: So if the call takes 20 minutes, it takes 20 minutes.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: If it takes five minutes, it takes five minutes.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't penalize any of our agents for having a call that went too long, but the outcome was fantastic for the consumer.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: There is no penalty for that.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: And that also ties back to the conversation about being a cost center.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: That, you know, the for real time is money.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: On that side of the of the fence, we we have no no qualms spending the money to have a conversation with you.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Do you uh going back to the kind of the calls you may hear?
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever uh have someone that's called in about every product they have, right?
21:10
SPEAKER_00: They're just complainers, right?
21:11
SPEAKER_00: They see, oh, it's it's Mark again, he's got a new ninja and he's just bitching about it.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: He wants a discount, right?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: He's just he calls about every product he had.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: You do you have kind of a way to identify those people and do you have people like that?
21:24
SPEAKER_01: We certainly do.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think a brand that gets to our size, you know, you get to around you know seven-ish billion dollars in sales doesn't have a few consumers that are looking for things.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: We we are aggressive with our promo culture.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, and in fact, we would if you own more than one or two of our things, that's not a problem for us.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: If you're continuing to get a uh trying to get a discount from us, guess what?
21:43
SPEAKER_01: You'll get one.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, we like consumers that buy more than once from us.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, are there always going to be a bad actor out there?
21:50
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: But our our premise is that we're not gonna there's there is we're not gonna punish all the good consumers because there's a few bad actors out there, and obviously there's Tools in place to catch people trying to order 700 things on a 50% off coupon.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: But that being said, you know, if you want to try to get that many things from us, give us a call.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: We'll probably work out a deal.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the big uh opportunities right now is engaging younger consumers, right?
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh Gen Z, especially, uh, that's 14 to 28, 29, depending on how you look at it.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, being able to identify what their needs are.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Many brands are kind of with privacy concerns, right?
22:30
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that some the some groups may not want to be identified.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: It can be challenging to get them into a traditional program, but once you get them involved in a program, the brand, the experience, they become pretty significant advocates for the the you know the brand, correct?
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Is that something you see as well?
22:45
SPEAKER_01: We we see that as well.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: We we don't really go down the the big demographic area, but we do um we do try to meet every consumer where they are.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: So if you're on TikTok, guess what?
22:56
SPEAKER_01: We're on TikTok.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: If you're on Instagram, we'll be on Instagram.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: We support all those channels, not just from a sales side, but also a service side.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: So we look to meet you where you are, whether you're 15 or 55 or 85.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: In fact, some of the many of the, you know, we asked before about some of the callers.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: We we do have a lot of elderly um people trying to connect a connected robot to their app.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: And that can be extremely challenging for everybody, right?
23:22
SPEAKER_01: But that's the type of call we want to take, as much as the uh, you know, 19-year-old who's like, why doesn't this app have these 10, 15 features on it that they are that they're come used to?
23:32
SPEAKER_01: So really it is about a shark ninja, like just the way we are is meet the consumer where they are and engage with you there.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: AI is a big topic right now.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's interesting when last year the community, customer loyalty people, customer, they weren't doing much last year, right?
23:48
SPEAKER_00: They're very concerned about regulations, they're concerned about who's gonna own it and what data you share, what data you don't share.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: But it's definitely starting to take off uh with regard to kind of either segmentation, personalization.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, even last year, brands were hiring teams to manage the AI because they were concerned about having that target moment, right?
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Where the debt gets that uh uh the robot gives everything away.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: So they don't they don't want that.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: But when you look at AI, you know, how are you using AI to enhance your customer experience or customer loyalty efforts?
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh look, A AI, look, you you nailed it, right?
24:23
SPEAKER_01: AI is is is it in CX right now.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's looking at it as a huge opportunity, be that a chat bot and all this, but we leverage most of our AI efforts are actually leveraged to try to get around enhancing the human-to-human moments.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we how do we look for a call that might not be going well in the moment and surface that up immediately in real time for a manager to interject because the agent isn't doing right by the consumer?
24:48
SPEAKER_01: How do we leverage AI to like serve up, like, hey, I'm AI, you might have never heard this call before, but I have.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: This guy needs a filter for their vacuum.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: So we'll help you out and cut to the chase and get that filter out, right?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: The other area that we do is is we do have a team that looks at all of our chat conversations to make sure that we're always improving the outcome for the consumer, that it's giving them the answers, right?
25:12
SPEAKER_01: So we look at um AI conversations almost, if not more, than we look at our human-to-human conversations, because each conversation, whether you're talking to an AI bot or you're talking to a real human, the quality of that conversation is so important to us to continue driving that loyalty.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense, absolutely.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: So when you look at customer experience, uh, you know, what's the next big thing when it comes to customer loyalty, customer experience that uh Shark Ninja is focused on?
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Is there something uh that comes to mind?
25:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really about trying to be known just as much for all the services we provide as much as we are for our products.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: That Shark Ninja is the brand that is there for you on day one, day 10, day 180, day 400, right?
25:58
SPEAKER_01: And and where we're really trying to go is is build out uh our AI future that enhances those moments.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's the real future of all of contact centers and consumer experience is that these tools are here to help us connect better to each other, not replace those conversations.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and when you look at uh all the things that you've done for the program, customer multi customer experience, you know, what are two or three things you're most proud of personally when when you kind of look back?
26:29
SPEAKER_01: The things I'm most proud of, you know, doing this for for many years is the innovation that we've been able to put back into the system for our products, right?
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh then the second thing is we've we've been talking about a lot is how proud I am that we've moved on from being a cost center to being that innovation brand center just in the last year or so, as we've really taken a real step forward from you know, traditional experience um contact center to a modern brand building experience.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm really proud of is really the transition we've made over the last 12 to 14 months to really explore that opportunity and engage in a totally new and totally more personalized way with our consumers.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And last question what can loyalty 360 do to help you and your team and your customer loyalty journey?
27:22
SPEAKER_01: I I think it's continue to partner with us and talk about what is happening out there in the marketplace, listening to other podcasts like this and what other leaders are doing.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we connect enough as a leadership group of like-minded individuals trying to do a better, do better one-to-one with our consumers and how others are doing it.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Cause I think the the learning opportunities from all of our, all of our shared experiences in this space is what's going to push all of us to be better.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jake, thank you very much for joining us today and sharing how Shark Ninja is building customer loyalty through trust, value, and truly listening to your customers.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Your perspective on putting the voice of the customer and the customer first and at the center of product, service, and customer experience really brought this conversation to life in a very unique way.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Your passion resounded throughout the conversation.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: You got it.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: Great to meet you, Mario.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Also, want to thank everyone else for taking the time to listen today.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you join us back every Thursday for another edition of our Leader in Customer Loyalty podcast, the Brand Stories edition.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, don't forget to subscribe and follow us on YouTube and across our social media channels listed below.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Until then, have a wonderful day.