Interview With Rachel Black from Chubbies

Who is Rachel?

Meet Rachel Black, CX Manager at Chubbies!

About Chubbies

Chubbies is a brand of men’s casual shorts and other apparel. They offer built-for-the-weekend clothing designed to help individuals have fun, relax, and laugh. Since launching with their core shorts in 2011, Chubbies has expanded their product line to include pants, shirts, jackets, and accessories.

Rachel’s CX Journey

Rachel’s early introduction to customer service began working in restaurants growing up in Alaska. After working for the Alaska State Department, Rachel moved to Montana and took a part-time position as a customer service agent with Horizon Air. Looking for additional part-time work, she came across a listing for a seasonal agent at Chubbies, applied, and got the job.

With Chubbies since 2018 and now living in Portland, Oregon, Rachel reflects on the last 6 years as a period of evolution and growth – professionally and personally. “Eventually, I was hired full-time and worked my way up to CX manager. We’ve gone through phases of restructuring but are now an official department of customer. Chubbies is such an awesome group of people,” she says. “I’ve met co-workers who I will be friends with for the rest of my life.”

Chubbies promotes a fun, cool, relaxed lifestyle through its line of men’s shorts. This sentiment carries over to the brand’s work culture and how Rachel leads her department. “In customer service specifically, we try to find a balance between fun and professional. We are often the only interaction that customers have with the brand – our goal is to come across as upbeat and sociable without going overboard.”

The CX Team at Chubbies

Rachel leads a fully remote team of 8 members and 2 direct reports – one manages the agents, the other handles administration. “We also use Awesome OS as a BPO. They are based in the Philippines and have been great. This combined approach to customer service using contractual offshore agents has helped us provide greater coverage over 24 hours.” Additional agents are brought on for 6-month contracts to accommodate peak seasons. Rachel explains their decision to increase seasonal contracts, which formerly ran for 3 months. “It was difficult to get someone fully trained, motivated, and ready to go in such a short amount of time. With this shift, they come on, typically March through September, and are fully trained for the busy summer months.”

Rachel admits that managing a fully remote CX team presents challenges. “The option for in-person training stopped shortly after I started. There was a learning curve on how to present information that I was taught directly in a remote environment. One of my direct reports and I have dialed in our process and created a complete training manual and library of training videos.” Understanding that everyone learns differently, Rachel asks each new hire about their preferred method so they can tailor individual training accordingly.

Remote management also makes observing QA (quality assurance) difficult. To get a solid sense of how agents are performing, Rachels looks at benchmarks to make sure that important processes are followed, and tone and language align with the Chubbies brand. To promote team unity, Rachel holds two weekly team meetings with an icebreaker followed by monthly or quarterly events. She adds, “I want everyone to work well together while fostering an atmosphere of camaraderie and friendliness.”

Chubbies CX Philosophy

Rachel finds working in CX at Chubbies exciting for several reasons. She appreciates the autonomy that the company has given her and works to pass this independence on to her team. “Because we are the ones talking with Chubbies customers, we are also the voice of the brand,” she says. “It’s important for me to empower our agents to make their own decisions.” Creating space for agents to be themselves, Rachel maintains, allows them to feel like they are part of company culture, and ultimately reflect the Chubbies ethos in their work.

Whereas most brands present a crafted, aspirational image of who you can be if you just wear their clothing, Chubbies wants their customers to come just as they are. This authentic approach to CX has resulted in meaningful connections with buyers. “Chubbies has such an awesome customer base. We get emails from people just to say how much they like us and what we are doing. To see our brand culture connecting with customers like that is so exciting,” Rachel says.

“When I first started at Chubbies, we put little gifts like drink umbrellas and stickers in our orders. It was a fun, playful way to continue our message post-purchase.” She believes leveling up the unboxing experience again will be valuable for retaining customer loyalty. “We received such great feedback. I’m looking forward to bringing back that element of surprise and delight in our work. We are constantly asking ‘what can we do to go above and beyond for our customers?’ We want to show them our personality and human side.”

CX KPIs & Metrics Rachel Is Tracking

When it comes to KPIs, Rachel is primarily focused on CSAT scores. “We look at our overall monthly CSAT and then each agent individually,” she says. If an agent isn’t meeting the set level as the rest of the team, additional training sessions are implemented. To make sure her team is hitting QA goals, Rachel looks at a point system, zeroing in on tone, policy, grammar, and efficiency.

“I also monitor how many customers reach out to us for every ten orders with the goal of being below 20% - less than 2 people.” Rachel continues, “The top reason people contact us is because they have a question about exchanges & returns or shipping.” While this is true for any e-commerce companies, the brand is using these numbers to investigate better resolutions.

CX: Revenue vs. Retention

When asked about revenue vs. retention, Rachel responds, “We are more focused on retention. While I see the value, I never want our department to be viewed as a sales channel.” Retention is a major stimulus in the CX journey mapping, which Rachel has envisioned for the next year. In addition to reintroducing elements of ‘fun & surprise,’ Chubbies is rebranding its loyalty program. She goes on to say, “I’m encouraging my agents to provide a level of excellence with our high LTV (lifetime value) customers that they deserve and may not even have been expecting.”

Rachel’s Thoughts on AI

While Rachel feels first touch should always come first, she does see the value of using AI in customer service for e-commerce. “Right now, Gladly is the only AI platform we are using – it has a tool for rewriting text to capture tone and sound more professional.” She continues, “We are not utilizing Chat at the moment, but I feel it could be helpful for self-service related to returns and exchanges.”

Advice for CX Leaders

“It’s important to be invested in the growth of your team,” Rachel maintains. For many companies, customer service is seen as a ‘cost department’ with high turnover. She responds to this notion, “I genuinely believe that my team can be great. There is so much value in empowering your agents, so they stay on and grow. I’ve had people with me for three years – several moved on to different positions within the company.” Rachel reminds that this is her Chubbies story as well – starting at entry level, she moved her way up because others believed in her potential.