Who is Kris?

Meet Kris Dehnert, Owner & Co-Founder of Dugout Mugs!

About Dugout Mugs

Dugout Mugs® are baseball bat-themed drinking mugs that have garnered the interest of baseball fans, players, and collectors alike. Created by Randall Thompson and co-founded by Kris Dehnert, this unique brand offers a diverse lineup of memorable gifts for the biggest of fans the game ranging from mugs and tumblers to bottle openers and coasters.

Kris’ Journey

Before Kris helped found Dugout Mugs, he launched nine other ventures, including several online. He was one of the first entrepreneurs to explore the print-on-demand apparel market in the E-Commerce space. With an expansive background in business, Kris applied his knowledge, real-world business techniques, and work ethic to his E-Commerce ventures, which led to his eventual success. From there, he went into social media management, running accounts for notable people through his agency, and business consulting. His consulting company helped Kris establish connections with other entrepreneurs and business leaders and ultimately resulted in a wide network in the industry. This network eventually became a breeding ground for great ideas and people, which is where many of the current ventures came from.

“That’s how I came to my current portfolio,” he says. “Many of these companies came to me for consulting, but I recognized the opportunity. Other than the uniqueness of the products, there was talent in the team, and I believed in that. I liked what they were doing. I believed in my ability to improve the company significantly.”

Crafting the Company

In 2014, Randall Thompson, came up with the idea of a wooden mug crafted from a bat, serving as the foundation of Dugout Mugs. Two years later, he and Kris partnered up and decided to bring that idea off the shelf and make the dream into a reality. Kris helped Randall fine-tune the growing company and positioned it for success and growth. The co-founders both took halves of the company and Dugout Mugs began to grow in leaps and bounds. The business boomed out of the gates and grew by 1200% in the first year, and by double digits the years following.

The CX Philosophy at Dugout Mugs

Since the company started the team’s commitment to customer experience hasn’t changed. At its core, the business doesn’t sell mugs, but memories. In fact, the mission of Dugout Mugs is to “Celebrate and Serve the Heroes of the Baseball Community by Creating Uniquely FUN Gifts That Bring People Closer to the Game They LOVE!” Because of this, the company goes above and beyond for their customers. One time, Kris remembers, the team delivered mugs to a customer’s wedding because they wouldn’t have gotten there in time otherwise. The company’s commitment to service and ensuring customer satisfaction has given it over 50,000 five-star reviews online, and most are related to CX.

“We don’t make mugs, we make memories,” Kris says. “From the very beginning we instilled in our employees the importance of what we’re doing, and that’s felt externally by our fans and followers. We really went above and beyond… I think that’s important and it goes a long way because in a world that continuously gets more and more automated, it’s tough to be real.”

People need to connect with other people, and this is why Kris thought it was important for the team to lean into this approach. Customers can reach out to the company and speak to a live person who can help them with their issues. These genuine interactions also impact the company’s LTV. Kris says that in E-Commerce, LTV is crucial, and a great approach to customer experience can boost this measurement. Not only does the team help customers, but the Dugout Mugs’ CX philosophy also helps the brand.

Integrating AI into Customer Experience

In regards to AI implementation, Kris doesn’t think the new technology is advanced enough to emulate what the company works to achieve. The team does use AI to help with other areas such as content creation, reviewing documents, and automatic posting. In the future, Kris says that AI is inevitable and will exponentially change the landscape of E-Commerce and customer experience.

“If you’re going to replace one of the most crucial pillars in the business, you better make sure it’s sturdy, right? Without us having somebody to dedicate a lot of time on making sure that’s the case, we haven’t pulled the trigger.”

The team uses platforms like Klaviyo, Emotive, Shopify, and affiliate programs to carry out some of the business’s demands, but overall, the company believes that the systems and programs are only as good as the people operating them. Thus, the company focuses on the internal side, considering that the team members who run the platforms will be able to transcend them.

Dugout Mugs’ Growth Strategies

Fostering Innovation

Innovation can be achieved by listening to customers and hearing their needs, Kris says. It’s important for companies to understand their demographic and ask them often, with the intent of listening, what they have to say. The company has millions of followers on its social media platforms and SMS and email lists, so it can gather a wide range of opinions and suggestions from customers. The company sends out surveys and test posts and uses social media to receive responses from customers. Kris says that these methods are resourceful and help with gathering data.

“Innovation comes by giving people what they want,” Kris says. “Where you’re going to find that is by asking the right questions.”

Boosting Revenue

Using media has helped the company’s base grow exponentially. Kris says that companies should know their numbers to understand their target audience. Dugout Mugs, for instance, will be featured on Good Morning America and has been featured on Fox and Friends, which are large deals. However, the key to these deals being fruitful is based heavily in the viewer demographic!

“Knowing your numbers is just as important as knowing your demo,” he says. “I know that the number one word used to describe my product is “cute” and I know a 42-year-old woman is the number one buyer of our mugs… With that in mind, things like GMA and Fox and Friends make perfect sense. When the opportunities present themselves to be in front of that audience with that narrative, we’ll hedge our bet on that.”

Peak Season Strategies

The Dugout Team forecasts peak seasons and tries to match the spike in business year-round. Kris creates business cycles that intertwine with each other and levels out the company’s seasonality. This tactic also helps the company with staffing and scaling the business as a whole. Kris says that he is transparent with his team and sets clear expectations for their performance. Furthermore, the company also offers a priority processing option for customers who want their orders processed at a faster rate during busy seasons.

Elevating to the Next Level

In the future, Kris wants the company to become more efficient in its international sales. Currently, the company ships to seven countries (including the USA,) including Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Australia. Kris thinks that connecting with potential customers in these countries with a more opportunity, so efficient process, and determining logistics is something he and his team will prioritize within the next few months. Kris has also been developing other products that are in line with the company’s demographic. Rather than offering just one flagship product, Dugout Mugs has several (equally unique) different products that customers can purchase.

“It’s trying to understand how to create additional streams of revenue with the products and the people, processes, systems and machinery I already have in place,” he says. “That’s what I’m trying to do, create ways to get more efficient at making money with what’s already in place.”

Advice for Entrepreneurs

Because a lot of aspiring business leaders strive to be the next Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, or Gary Vaynerchuk, Kris encourages other entrepreneurs to reflect on which qualities of successful business people they want to emulate. Young business leaders need to understand what’s important to them. Kris measures his decisions based on the things that are important to him, and he considers these values his core metrics. They aren’t monetary but are more based on fulfillment.

“I encourage anybody out there that’s coming to find their own set of metrics… It’s a daily practice,” he says. “Understanding more clearly where you’re trying to go and why you’re trying to go there [helps you become] somebody like me who has opportunities everywhere and connections in a lot of places.”