Who is Marie-Prune?

Meet Marie-Prune de Batz, Performance Marketing & Merchandising Director at Adore Me!

About Adore Me

Created in 2012, Adore Me is a luxury lingerie company that creates sexy and fun styles that come in more than 67 sizes. From bra and panty sets to PJs and swimwear, Adore Me has paved the way for both current and future brands. The inclusive brand follows a subscription-based business model that offers three options for customers — one, the customer can buy a box of their favorite items; two, the customer can receive a box every month with a selection of curated items where they keep the ones they want and return the rest; and three, VIP customers can pay $39.95 per month and purchase products on the website at a discounted price.

Marie-Prune’s CX Journey

Before working for Adore Me, Marie-Prune began her own start-up—a skincare brand that specialized in creating personalized skincare routines for customers. Customers would talk through a chatbot, and the team would recommend the best products on the market that fit their needs. 

After COVID hit, Marie-Prune joined Adore Me for various reasons. Since then, she’s been working there for four years and has enjoyed her experience!

Marie-Prune loves that there is never a dull day in the CX field. Because the field is always changing, there’s always something new to learn. In her position, Marie-Prune handles the company’s data analytics and understands that customer feedback is king. 

When you’re a data analyst in CX, Marie-Prune says that you’re a detective — you see trends and try to interpret them, searching for the best comprehension. Sometimes, this task is easy because there are external factors to consider, but other times, teams have to consider internal factors. Sometimes, products aren’t working, and it’s difficult to figure out why.

The CX Team at Adore Me

The team uses offshore agents to provide customer support. The overall Adore Me team has different sectors, including the customer engagement team, in which Marie-Prune handles performance and merchandising.

Marie-Prune’s team primarily takes care of the company’s subscribed VIPs. The marketing team organizes customer interviews and surveys, whereas the UX focuses on user experience and builds the company website. Because Adore Me is a subscription-based service, each team must consider customer feedback. 

There are three main ways that she and her team aggregate customer feedback. First, she and her team use quantitative data. The second method is a blend of qualitative and quantitative feedback, such as customer reviews, which the team reads and analyzes to bring to the creation team. Last, the third method utilizes qualitative feedback, where the team interacts with customers. The consumer insight manager of the team is responsible for meeting with customers, interviewing them, and recording their feedback. From this specific method, the team has learned amazing things that can help the company interpret data and continue to grow.

Utilizing Customer Feedback

Marie-Prune says the team wants to ensure the customer experience is seamless and satisfactory. One of her main responsibilities is turning feedback into action. For instance, she works in product development and collaborates with the design team to ensure that customer feedback is incorporated into future products and improvements from the beginning to the end of the process. "This is one of the biggest challenge the team faces because incorporating customer feedback into product development while taking future market trend into consideration is never an exact science. "To try to get the most accurate feedbacks from customers, we have a Community of Practice: a meeting where all the team in contact with customers can present their inputs. It can be interviews, data insights, retail trends observed in stores..." It helps fluidify the communication between all the teams." Marie-Prune says.

Although most of the company’s revenue comes from online sales, the brand’s products are sold in six stores. The retail team is in direct contact with customers, and because of this, they also hear useful feedback from customers in daily interactions. 

She says the challenge is to make sure that the customers’ feedback reflects what most of the brand’s customers want. When you talk to one customer in a one-on-one interview, it’s easy to be convinced to do exactly what they ask for, but it’s important to assess and ask yourself which issues are recurring. Those would be the ones to focus on improving.

Communicating with Customers 

The team communicates with customers primarily through email. Customers can reach out via email, receive the support they’re looking for, and complete a survey that helps the team garner feedback. Marie-Prune says that although the company has a call center, emails are better for customers to receive help with a specific problem. Otherwise, the team also sends out standard marketing emails.“Our main channel is email. [A customer] can send an email and then… gets a customer survey. [We] can answer you through email and just give you the best answer to your issue, but it also depends on what your issue is.”

The team generally uses emails and phone calls to chat with customers, but eventually, it wants to integrate AI to develop a chatbot feature that can help customers more immediately. Marie-Prune says the main goal is for customers to find the exact product they’re looking for on the website.

Handling Customer Escalations

The Adore Me team’s procedure for handling customer escalations depends on the situation, but they have policies to prevent further issues with an upset customer. For instance, if a customer’s order is late, the team will send out a preemptive message that explains what is happening to give the customer a heads-up. If the order is still late after a certain number of days, the team will send the customer a coupon or discount, complete with a short apology. If the customer is still unsatisfied, they can call customer service and request a refund, discount, or customer credit. “Most of our [customer support] depends on how big the issue is. If you call customer service usually and you had a bad experience with it, they can help you in different ways, first trying to solve your issue, and if it cannot be done or it's too late, they can give you store credit or a full refund depending on your preference,” Marie-Prune said. “You can always get a refund on it if that’s what you're looking for. In the case of a very specific issue, we are handling it by calling the customer and emailing them to try to solve the issue.”

Tech Stack

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Cordial — CRM tool

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Google Big Query — Uses for data-related questions

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Looker Studio

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“An Amazing Tech Team”—One-third of the company works in this department. Although it’s unusual for a fashion brand, leadership decided to establish an in-house team because the company has specific models that are difficult to integrate with other tools. For example, the team uses an in-house equivalent of Shopify to manage products and render them on the website. 

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Adore Me’s Growth Strategies

Elevating to the Next Level

Overall, Marie-Prune thinks that the E-Commerce world is changing very quickly. Over time, she’s found that the digital customer experience hasn’t changed much, but it will soon. The Adore Me team is currently improving the Adore Me app to have an interface similar to a TikTok feed and features influencers and customer reviews about the brand’s products. On the app, customers can see products from someone who looks more like them and see more unique reviews of products not shown on the website. Marie-Prune says this is a new way to transform the e-commerce experience. The app is more interactive and personalized, which the team wants to implement on the brand’s website. 

The team's ultimate goal is for each customer to have a completely different experience on the website because the interface is tuned to their preferences. Because the website has 2,000 products live, it can be difficult for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for. 

Eventually, the team will integrate as much data as they can and get the opportunity to listen to customers tell them what they are looking for to improve their experience on the website. This can be as simple as providing an inspiration page for customers who need a bit more help finding the products they prefer.

Strategies for Boosting Revenue

As the leader of the engagement team’s performance, 100% of Marie-Prune’s job is customer retention, meaning that once a customer gets subscribed to a membership, the acquisition team connects her to the customer. From there, it’s her responsibility to make them happy as long as possible and ensure a successful relationship with the brand.

To do so, she works to get to know the customer as best as possible to give them what they want within reason. Marie-Prune and her team will implement technological innovations to provide the customer with what they are looking for. “My day-to-day question is what can we do with retention to  maximize customer lifetime value? It’s a mix of a lot of things, but it’s really just getting to understand the customer the best we can to give her what she wants.” she says.

Peak Season Strategies

During peak seasons, Marie-Prune and her team hire more agents and try to be more proactive. For instance, Marie-Prune’s goal during Black Friday is to prevent an increase in customer inquiries. If they do, then that means the team didn’t handle the issue quickly enough. The team communicates with the company’s call centers and gives them specific lines in case there’s a shipping issue or another issue where they might get more customer calls. Then, the agents can answer each call as soon as possible. 

Considering the Future of CX

In the next five to ten years, Marie-Prune thinks that CX will be more automated but will retain the sense of human interaction that makes customer support such an asset. In her eyes, simple customer questions can be answered by AI, while more specific issues will be handled by an agent. 

Each CX agent will receive intensive training to understand the brand and what it stands for deeply. Eventually, the agents will be able to respond to customer requests quickly and be proactive by anticipating issues that occur frequently. Ultimately, Marie-Prune envisions the future of CX will feel more like a human-to-human relationship.

Advice for CX Leaders

According to Marie-Prune, a good leader is receptive to feedback, listens, and is aware that the world is changing very quickly. Because of this, it’s okay for leaders not to know everything or understand everything immediately. To learn, leaders have to be open to feedback, trust people who know more, and pay attention to what’s happening around them—in time, they’ll get up to speed. 

Finally, leaders should question themselves and push to try new things and explore new ideas.