Summary

In this interview, Andrea Paul, who leads content and research at Kustomer, sits down with Jordan, the Director of CX at Glossier, a six-year-old New York-based beauty and skincare brand. They discuss Glossier’s success as a social-first direct-to-consumer brand and their strong emphasis on customer experience (CX). Jordan explains that CX is core to the company, and the team’s philosophy revolves around supporting, advising, and being the voice of the customer within the organization. She highlights the importance of engaging with customers on different social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, where the CX team responds promptly to build community and ensure customer satisfaction. They also touch on Instagram’s evolving role as a customer service platform and the impact of meeting customers on their preferred channels. Overall, Glossier’s personalized service, distinct branding, and social media presence have contributed significantly to their loyal customer base and brand success.

Key Takeaways

1. Social-First Strategy: Glossier’s success as a direct-to-consumer brand stems from its origins on social media, especially Instagram. They prioritize engaging with customers on various social platforms to build a loyal community.
2. Customer Experience (CX) Core: Glossier considers CX as a fundamental aspect of its business. The CX team’s philosophy revolves around supporting, advising, and being the voice of the customer within the organization.
3. Personalized Support: The CX team provides personalized support to customers, helping them make informed purchasing decisions and building trust in the brand.
4. Efficient Omnichannel Approach: With an omnichannel CRM, Glossier’s remote CX team efficiently handles interactions across different channels, ensuring a seamless experience for customers.
5. Proactive Engagement: Glossier goes beyond reactive customer service by actively reaching out to customers and considering their feedback for product development, fostering brand loyalty and excitement among customers.

Transcript

Guys. Thank you so much for joining us today.

As Gabe said, my name is Andrea. I am sort of heading up content and research here at Kustomer.

And I’m joined by Jordan, who’s the director of CX Glossier. How are you, Jordan?

I am good. How are you? Good.

And today’s been crazy, and so it’s I know. Typically, when we have these, I don’t know. Some of things we get to go away from the office for the day and take the day off and not think about what’s happening in the office and doesn’t happen when you’re when you’re work from home anymore. So Exactly. There’s no escaping. I saw it earlier that it was a crazy day. So we appreciate like, so much more that you’re taking the time to chat with us today.

I’m particularly selfishly excited for this conversation because I’m a huge fan of glossy. I literally have bomb dot com within arms reach at all times. I’m sure it’s, like, on my desk here somewhere right now, but, yeah, glossy is just one of those brands, you know, that has this crazy loyal following, their customers, you know, your guys customers are true advocates of the brand. And I think a a huge part of that is, like, the fact that you guys have built such a great community, your team. But I guess, before we get into sort of the meat of things, There may be some people listening who aren’t super familiar with glossier. So I’d love if you could take just a few minutes to, you know, Hey, give us a brief overview of Glossier as a brand, and then maybe a little bit about yourself Jordan and your your role at Glossier.

Yeah. Thanks.

So yeah. So I am head of CX at Glossier. I’ve been with the company for three and a half years.

It’s only a six year old company now. So it was it was two and a half when I joined.

So toddler stage. Now we’re teenagers.

But it’s a six year old company based out of New York, direct to consumer online beauty and, skin care. And so we have a makeup portfolio and a skin care portfolio, and we ship within the United States and Canada, the UK and a few European countries. So we’re international, but not everywhere yet.

And Glossier, it started on Instagram. It launched on Instagram before it launched a web site. And so it really started building that community before anything else. And so I knew that. It I think Instagram, and maybe into the gloss, which is our, our our blog that glossier came from. So our founder Emily started a blog around writing about people’s beauty routines and from everything she learned about people’s amazing beauty routine. She decided to create her own products that were at an affordable price, but just as amazing.

And so I think into the gloss and Instagram started, I wanna say the same month.

Wow. And so it’s all we’ve I feel like brands have grown up together, and so it’s been driven into journey. And so our company started on Instagram before anything else. And so it’s been social has been integral into Clasi since it launched.

Yeah. You’re, like, social first to the core. Yes. A hundred percent.

Yeah, I feel like one of the reasons that that you guys have been so successful is that you really do put the customer first, which I can obviously attest to as a customer myself.

But I feel like a lot of brands, you know, they say that they do that or they attempt to do that, but it doesn’t really, like, bleed into all parts of the organization. Right? And, like, that’s exactly what you were saying. Like, the founder wanted to create beauty products that were of this high standard that were really exceptional quality, but at a good price point. And that starts with, like, thinking of the customer first, being able to, like, deliver this great product to everyone And I feel like you guys really know who your customer base is, which I’m sure has expanded greatly over time and probably shifted slightly.

But could you talk me through sort of at a high level, like, your the glossier CX philosophy and how your your team sort of approaches the customer experience?

Yeah. So, CXFaucier is it I feel very fortunate to work for a company where CX is truly core to the company. I’m not having to always. I think there’s other people in my role out there you know that when there’s a meeting, you’re like, hey, can I get in on that?

Have you considered this? Have the customer, And I feel very fortunate that at glossier, it’s there’s a meeting. It’s like, oh, CX isn’t here. They recognize when we’re missing.

Because they wanna hear how whatever promotion, whatever product they’re launching, whatever it might be might impact the customer. What has the customer said in the past. And with I’m fortunate that they’re always thinking about the customer, but then with that, they want, the voice of customer. So our our philosophy is to support the customer to, of course, number one, be there to support them.

Number two be their advisors.

Like Gabe was talking about earlier is We would love to be the advisors full time, but support. We have to get back to them quickly. And then third is just then being the voice of the customer within the company. And so figuring out how we can take what we hear from the customers on all of our channels, email, social, TikTok now, those fun channels taking that voice back to the company and back to all of those meetings to ensure that they’re being heard within the company as the company makes decisions.

Yeah. And I feel like that sort of feedback loop is often lost in a lot of businesses. And I think CX plays such an essential role there, because you’re the one really, you know, boots on the ground, like, with your ear to the customer at all times. So the fact that that is a pillar of what you guys do is is amazing and probably, very relevant to your success. So, I mean, in addition to to all of what you said, I feel like, you know, you’ve built this great community.

You’re able to deliver this really personalized service.

I’d also say that you guys are, like, quite notorious or notorious might not be the right word because that was a negative connotation, but You guys have you know, you’re known very well for your social media presence as you said, that’s where you guys started. You have this incredibly distinct and aesthetically pleasing branding.

It’s super recognizable. You create really awesome content and media and advertisements and You have these, like, one on one connections, with customers and with prospects on these social media channels. So one thing I would ask is, like, obviously the brand started on social. So that’s a large part of why.

You guys have a huge presence there, but, like, what channels do you focus on?

You said you’re sort of experimenting with TikTok right now. What’s the what’s the role and the importance of social media for you guys at glossier.

Yeah. So social for us, we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram TikTok.

And then my team, the CX team, we’re the ones that respond to everything. I It’s always been that case even since before I started. So it was never the marketing team responded — Yep. — to Instagram comments.

It was always that the CX team handled all interactions with the customer.

So our team knows everything from how to process a return to which emojis you can use related to which product launches and things like that. But, within those channels, we have different different customers. So our Twitter customer is very funny. And so we want to be witty and we’re not as clever.

Some of big brands out there with those responses, but we understand that our Twitter customer is funny. Our Facebook customer, which for us Facebook isn’t I think ads wise, it it’s really successful, but, engagement wise for us, the CX team, it’s not a busy plot form for us, but — Okay.

— they’re they don’t know us as well on customer or on Facebook. So it’s important that we get back to them quickly so they do get to know us because they’re similar ads and they’re like, what is this company about? I don’t know this company.

And then there’s occasional trolls. So we need to be in there so that they can they can see our face instead of just what other people might be seeing. So Facebook is we need to be prompt on that channel.

And then Instagram people just want inclusion. Instagram is very much about liking their post about, sending a heart emoji after they’ve tagged us in a product or letting them know they look good when they post a selfie wearing our, our skin care or makeup. And so Instagram is about that inclusive environment, and building that community. And so they’re I think it’s a lot about we don’t do the social commerce in the sense yet, where you can send a link and they purchase and all of that stuff. We’ve talked to Facebook. I’m excited about what’s coming, but but, we’re not doing it yet.

It’s just about engaging. And so they they know us. They love our brand. And from that, that leads to sales and brand loyalty and and wanting to be a part of that. And So the different channels, how we interact, and what we use them for is very different.

And actually this holiday season we just saw because Twitter’s where people say my package isn’t here. What do I do? Sure. It’s like the complaining platform.

It is. Instagram became that this holiday season.

Really? So we saw such an interesting tidbit in our Instagram conversations going from there’s a lot of unboxings. People are receiving their orders. They’re really excited.

But they’re in our comments and in our DMs for the first time really is my package hasn’t arrived, whereas and so all these transactional conversations have now come to Instagram. So it’s different this week than it was last month. So Yeah.

That’s so interesting. Yeah. I mean, that also speaks to the fact that, like, people are now thinking of Instagram in that way. Right? Because I Twitter’s been around for quite some time longer than Instagram and also traditionally, you know, Instagram was like share your photos with your friends. So now the, like, shift of the mindset of Instagram is like a place to interact with brands and get your questions answered is coming to fruition.

For us, it’s been important to have the CX team as the ones responding. Because we know how to handle it all versus we don’t want, non support people saying not a problem, just email, the g team will get back to you because our email is we’re behind right now.

We wanna help them on the channel that they’re at quickly. And so if they have to DM us and then have to email us, that’s two contacts for us versus we can just help them in the one contact.

Yeah. I mean, also, I mean, as silly as it sounds, I think meeting customers where they are is really, really critical.

We did some consumer research a couple of months ago, here at customer, and we found that, like, seventy nine percent of consumers got frustrated when they couldn’t contact customer service on their, like, preferred medium or platform or can get a response there. And it’s just that, like, little extra effort to switch channels to get your questions answered that, like, start this underlying frustration. It’s like, I can’t even tell you the amount of times that I haven’t completed a purchase because my, like, credit card was in the other room, and I was too lazy to get up off the couch. And, like, thank you.

So it’s that same mentality. Right? It’s, like, just being able to respond on the channel of the customers choosing is, yeah, hugely impactful.

Yeah. Oh, it’s so dangerous. The Instagram ad I love how accurate Instagram ads are, but Even last night, I was like, okay. I have to get sleep. I have to, I have to be fresh for tomorrow. And then I was scrolling Instagram and an ad came up eighty percent off.

Ordered by midnight.

And then my phone died. I was like, Instagram, you’re killing me, but I went and got my charger, ported by eighty percent off. Something I didn’t need. Yeah. Exactly. It’s a I mean, I feel like everyone I know has bought something on Instagram during quarantine. Like, it’s just unavoidable.

It’s crazy. But, I mean, like I said, the ads are accurate. And so I’m getting stuff that I didn’t I want and, but I was looking at these these pants that I really wanted, and there were no reviews, but I wanted to know the size. So had I just been able to quickly I still bought them and I’m hoping they fit, but it would have been nice to quickly been able to message someone and say, hey, I’m looking at these what size, like, do you recommend sizing that sizing down type of thing? Totally.

And that’s how we want to be with our customers is you’re shopping for makeup online. It’s hard. And so it’s like, hey, here’s a selfie of me. What shade should I get?

And so we wanna be there at all steps of their purchase so that they can quick quickly reach out, and get that support so they can make an educated purchase, and be more likely to purchase and feel like they they’re excited about that. They trust it and they’re able to move forward with it. Totally.

You actually just reminded me of something, which is that throughout the year, whenever I get targeted with ads on Instagram, I always, like, add them to this saved folder that I created called Gimme.

And when that when my parents asked me for what I wanted for Christmas, I, like, scrolled through that to see, like, what do I still want that I haven’t bought for myself. So it’s really good idea. Like, interesting style. Yeah.

Purchasing thing for me. But I was just forwarding it to my husband. He’s like, why are you sending me this random stuff? I was like, so when you ask what I want for Christmas, it’s in your Instagram as well. Yeah. Exactly.

But then it’s it’s been outing me when I got him his father’s day gifts all of a sudden. He’s like, oh, I’ve been getting ads for this. They’re like the last one.

The algorithm’s too good sometimes. Yeah.

So I think another thing that, like, is an interesting development that’s quite recent, obviously, is the fact that, like, brick and mortar instead of obviously taking a huge hit, this year with all the shutdowns and sort of safety issues during the pandemic. So, I think, like, in store sales for Black Friday, cyber Monday, dropped by, like, fifty percent year over year. Like, rightfully so to keep everyone safe, but, brands are trying to create these sort of rich retail experiences in these new digital channels in order to make up for that.

Earlier this year, actually customer did some research about how the pandemic was, affecting customer service organizations and something that, like, really stood out to me was that, you know, an interaction with a customer service representative, like, especially during the beginning of the pandemic, it could have been the only support interaction or personal interaction that anyone had for like a day or a week, like, the opportunity to help someone bond with someone, like, just talk to someone with so huge during the pandemic.

And the sort of support representatives were a face of the organization for this time period. For lack of a better word. So I’m wondering, like, how you guys approach that. Like, I’m assuming the glossier stores were not open at that time or or maybe not now. So Yeah. Did you guys think of think through that in terms of how you’re interacting with customers?

Luckily for us, so, unluckily and luckily, our stores have been closed since March, unfortunately.

So we we were the first ones to close.

You come into our stores and you have to use your hands. You’re using your it’s close proximity. And so we were the first ones in New York to say, like, We just don’t feel comfortable being open at this point. So we’re gonna close our doors. Yep.

And we’ve said we’ll probably be one of the last ones to come back. It’s we wanna do it smart and right. And so we haven’t opened back up just yet.

I’m excited for that when we do next year, what it can look like. Our retail team is putting so much thought and effort into what is the future of class a retail look like, in this new post post COVID world. So I’m excited for that. And then for us, I feel like we’ve always done omnichannel really well.

In terms of the experience you get with our team online should be the same as you’re getting with the editors in the store.

Training is the same across.

The platforms that we use are the same across when if you purchase something online, it’s an easy and seamless, in store return, things like that.

And so for us, it was just embracing more volume of that. And it’s, that’s the stuff our team loves to do. We we want to get those DMs with this is the skin type I have. What routine would you recommend?

Here’s my selfie, what shade am I? Here’s my mom’s selfie. It’s her birthday. Coming up.

I’d love to give her some products. What shade is she?

So just driving more of those conversations. And we did. We saw an increase of of people reaching out, and I think it is that people are looking for contact. They they just want someone to talk to someone to engage with, and I think we all miss going to the stores. I the only place I go is the grocery store, but I love that now because it’s the place I go.

And so I totally agree. Yeah. So because our retail stores are closed, we do get to have more of those interactions online, which is always a lot of fun for our team when you’re so deep in, returns and exchanges and all the transactional type of questions. It’s really refreshing to get the this is why we’re here. This is what we really wanna do. So to get those more advising questions to help purchase.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, we haven’t.

We had so many grand plans this year around, like, what are we how are we going to be proactive with this type of stuff? And it’s so hard because everything else got turned upside down. So all the proactiveness went out the window this year. But next year, hopefully, even more proactiveness on how we can be on the website where we have a shade finder.

You can click and you can see how can that shade finder turn into a a chat or connect to your Instagram or your Facebook messenger so that we can start connecting with you right from where you are on the website and all those different things. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s something that that mindset, that, like, full funnel support mindset is something that a lot of companies haven’t adopted. It’s relatively new when you’re thinking of support, like, you know, if I think of historically contacting customer service, it’s like, oh my god, my cable’s out.

My flight got canceled.

My shoes came in the wrong size. Like, I need to call customer service and get my issue fixed.

So something goes wrong after you’ve done business. With this brand and support is like the Band Aid covering over the wound, so to speak.

And, obviously, that’s unavoidable. There’s always gonna be a need for that. Customer services customer service teams are always gonna have to do this, like, post transaction support.

But you guys are really providing that, like, consultative pre purchase, support, which is something that’s relatively new, and I feel like speaks so much to the role of customer service.

As, like, a revenue generator versus a cost center because that’s always the stereotype of customer service. Is it a cost center, and you guys are are, you know, providing so much value before even, purchase and you’re building this community and you’re building this trust and you’re building this, like, brand equity.

It’s almost like your team is, like, a mixture of support and marketing and sales. Like, it’s this superhero team that you’ve got you guys have built. Do you feel like that’s, like, how the organization sees your team as a whole?

Definitely. I think we the CX team, they wear a lot of hats.

And that’s, I believe, in I don’t believe in specialization so much.

Our our agents can do it all. And it if we have an influx in tech issues. They can all jump into that. If we have an influx in, product questions, we can all jump to that so we’re able to be a little bit of reactive there. So we’re able to do that. But then, they wanna work with us. They wanna say, hey, we’re launching this product.

Who should we read? Like, what customers would wanna know about this and, like, pulling lists for people and being that kinda cross functional thought partner around what what would the customer want, because we’re in we’re the ones with them day to day.

So it’s I think the company definitely recognizes that it’s it is a cost center, unfortunately, and I try to be interested. But tyne revenue. And so being able to say that these interactions actually increase the LTV of the customers and We have really high conversion on those customers who reach out and ask about, shade recommendations. So how do we proactively let them know they can do that?

Or the follow-up of we tag. It’s we have all of our product requests even if our future product requests, even if it doesn’t exist in our to do list. In the next five years, it’s there. So I can’t even think, but, like, candles, mascara we came out with, candles, bronzer, like, all these things that customers ask for. We tag it And so then when we eventually launch these products, we can let those customers know, hey, a few years ago, you asked for this product and it’s finally here.

And so those are really exciting for customers to be like, oh, they were actually listening. And — Yeah. — and we can do that now with Instagram. We do it with Twitter and face book.

And because everything’s in customers, it’s an easy seamless tagging experience, and it’s an easy oh, handles are coming here. Candles aren’t coming. I’m not.

But, yeah. Here’s here’s everyone who asked for it. So it’s an easy list for our marketing team or for us to send out a nice email from the g team just to reply and say, hey, that product you requested a long time ago with it’s here. So just some of those things are really fun that we’re able to do as well.

Yeah. I mean, that is a seamless transition sort of my last question for you, which is essentially, like, how you guys do it simply, like, how you’re able to create this community and and have, you know, these amazing agents. Obviously, you guys have culture that supports this, sort of work, putting the customer at the center of everything you do. You have an awesome team of talented people.

It sounds like, and you have technology that’s able to, like, scale, this exceptional social support that you deliver.

But, like, I heard for instance that, like, you guys before you had an insta Instagram integration you had to buy your teams, cell phones to respond to DMs, but, like, scalability efficiency, having sort of an omnichannel CRM help you guys in in that way. Yeah. Definitely. So We’ve we’ve had a remote CX team for the last few years.

We decided instead of growing our in house New York team, we were go going to grow our in house remote around the US and London, and Montreal, team. So our our editors have always been remote and as Instagram DMs were getting busier, we’d have to buy cell phones, have our IT team. I don’t know if do whatever they needed to do. Mail them out to the editors in London in Oregon in Chicago.

Say, okay. You work from the top up. You work from the bottom up.

It it just it wasn’t happening.

And so when we’ve been bugging Instagram for a long time, pretty much anytime you talk to any email platform, social media platform, the first question is, do you have access Instagram DMs. They say no. They have a closed API.

So when the opportunity came up, we’re like, okay. Yep. We’re ready. And then before Black Friday last year.

Instagram DM is just not broke. They just weren’t working for us. And we’re not gonna be able to support this this Black Friday weekend. Let’s turn on the customer integration.

They said we have access to this random thing. So we turned it on, and so we’ve had it now for over a year. And it’s it’s been such a difference because before we could only have three people in DMs at once because only three people have phones. Well, now when there’s a huge influx of DMs, the team is able everyone’s able to jump in and help out in that channel.

They have their shortcuts already there. We have social specific shortcuts and, then if a customer deems us, but then they email us and then they tweeted at us.

We can then respond. Say, hey, I saw your tweet and your Instagram. I’m gonna follow-up here on email. Just to acknowledge that everything’s been seen. And so it just really makes it easier and scalable for our team.

Being remote prior to COVID, but especially being remote now at the whole company’s remote. And so, the tools and having having customer with all of our channels, all of our orders, everything within it just makes the agents life easier, and I we couldn’t do it without it. There’s no way.

We were able to our staffing for this year, our, forecasting team was like, I think we did something wrong. We need less hours than we needed last year. But, like, border projections are not less than what’s going on. It’s like we’ve just become more efficient. Yeah.

Yeah. So — Yeah. — we’re busy now. So, like, can’t guarantee that or forecast you.

Right. I think it was. I think it was. But, yeah, we’ve just become more efficient, and it’s really exciting.

I also feel like, you know, efficiency, like, someone has, like, a bad connotation in in customer service because people like, presume that efficiency might mean less effective or less personal or less helpful or something like that. But efficiency really means that, you know, these low level questions or sort of the channels that you can manage multiple conversations at once or you see a full history right in front of you, like, those can those transactional conversations can get resolved really quickly.

And then your agents have more time for, like, the consultative work that, yeah, you guys are so great at. So it’s not like the customers are getting less It’s like they’re actually getting more valuable attention because you’re able to spend your time on on more, like, brand building activities and building trust with your customers. Yeah. And that’s that’s my ultimate goal.

And I never want my team to get scared when it’s like we want less emails. I’m like, but then are we gonna have a job? I was like, yeah, then we can send the proactive stuff. Then we can have the fun emails.

I just want less of the the time consuming or the ones that we do have to handle, how do we do it quicker? How do we handle it better?

And I don’t think they realize it’s happening, but will make changes on customer where now there’s a tracking link available. So they don’t have to it’s just all the tabs that CX teams have to have open within customer. We don’t have to have all the tabs. We can add it all within the customer timeline right there.

And I think Yeah. They’re not realizing that that’s making them more efficient, but we’re able to see it with the numbers. The number of emails they’re able to handle Instagram DMs. We can handle twice as many DMs than email.

So, obviously, we wanna engage there.

So, yeah, the efficiencies in driving the conversations to where we want to, the fun conversations we can start to Yeah. Absolutely.

Well, we’re out of time. We went a little bit over, but thank you so much, Jordan. This was so insightful. I absolutely loved hearing sort of like the back end strategy that creates this magic, customer experience at Casier. So I know it’s a busy day. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with to talk with us, and I I hope that you guys have a great rest of the holiday season.

Thank you very much. It was great chatting with you.