Who is Rebecca?

Meet Rebecca Blount, Senior Manager, CX Strategy & Operations at Coterie!

About Coterie

Coterie is a modern baby care brand committed to giving you a better diapering experience. Their high-performing products are dermatologist tested, hypoallergenic, free of 200+ chemicals, cruelty free, and made with sustainably sourced plant-based materials.

Rebecca’s CX Journey

Rebecca spent the first half of her career working in business operations. “My last job asked me to take over a call center. It was the first time I ever worked in the customer service space,” she says. “I have a psychology degree and have always been fascinated by humans and their experiences. I got to know my team and make their lives easier while also getting to know our customers. My job felt much more purposeful.”

Working in various operations roles focused on creating a superior customer experience prepared Rebecca to take her position at Coterie. “They were looking for someone to come in and focus on both strategy and operations behind CX, which is my bread and butter. Coterie is a modern day baby care company that has taken diapers, typically viewed as a mundane product, and elevated it. Our service is high-end as well – orders are shipped to your door and delivery can be managed by a text command system. We meet people where they are – it’s great to work for a brand that is so customer-centric.”

It's no wonder that Rebecca ended up where she is today professionally. She explains, “Curating an experience for people is something that I have always been passionate about. I’m obsessed with luxury hotels and restaurants and how they make you feel. To be able to curate a similar meaningful experience for something that people usually dread doing, talking to customer service, is exciting for me.”

The CX Team at Coterie

Rebecca leads a fully remote team of 17 associates and 4 leaders based in the USA and Philippines. Unlike many e-commerce brands that go through a third party, Coterie hires their offshore members directly. “This allows us to look for the top talent while giving us more control over how they are trained and work,” Rebecca notes.

Top Challenges as a CX Leader

Rebecca admits that creating an exciting and engaging work environment for a remote, international team is challenging. To foster a sense of connectedness among members, Coterie holds team meetings every week and makes occasional trips to the Philippines. 

Hiring New Team Members

Asked what key trait she looks for in a new hire, Rebecca responds, “I’m looking for someone who is service-minded and prioritizes peoples’ experiences and feelings. Our CX manager was a former concierge at a high-end hotel and knows that world inside and out. I recently interviewed a candidate and asked them what their dream job is. They said a housekeeper, because they love taking care of others and making sure things are organized so people feel good when they come home after a long day. It was the perfect answer.”

CX Team Training

New associates begin virtual training through Lessonly, an online training platform, which allows them perform the click-paths they use in their day-to-day roles without being inside/disrupting Coterie’s system. “We can make sure they know how to create a discount code and select the correct items prior to moving into the QA process. They then move onto answering tickets,” Rebecca explains. “We use a tagging system – conversations are checked with internal notes prior to being sent to customers. New hires get weekly one-on-one meetings until they are 100% up to speed.” A bonus program keeps the team motivated and performing at top level - team members are paid bonuses once they hit a certain metric.

CX Team Success Factors

KPIs Rebecca is Tracking

Coterie focuses on both big picture and granular data to track how its CX team is performing. Rebecca elaborates, “We closely monitor CSAT, FRT, net promoter, and CPO. Daily, we also look at the reasons people are reaching out, what subscription and order changes they are making, and the different discount codes that are being used and why.” 

Using Cotera, a qualitative analytics platform, Coterie delves even deeper to analyze unstructured data and sentiment. “Cotera combs all of our channels, populates findings into a dashboard, and tags it with a language model to reveal what customers are talking about and how they are feeling.”  

The CX Philosophy

Coterie understands that while the experience of being a new parent is exciting, it can be overwhelming. The brand aims to provide high-quality products and exceptional service to customers. “As soon as you sign up, our message is ‘We see you, we hear you, we understand the place you are in and want to make things as easy as possible for you. Our goal is to meet our customers where they are at,” Rebecca says. To achieve this, they send thoughtful reminder emails and use SMS, which gives text command options to manage orders and subscriptions. 

Topics of Interest

Integrating AI into Customer Experience

Rebecca believes the current debate around CX and AI focuses on two approaches – super-human and fully-automated. The first approach views AI as a tool for excelling human thought while the latter thinks in terms of robotic, detached systems. Based on Cotera’s data, she says that the perfect customer service experience exists somewhere in the middle. “Our customers in parenthood want a speedy resolution. Fully automated AI can give that fast resolution. There are certain tasks customers are fine with being automated, like rescheduling an order. At the same time, they probably don’t want to chat with a Bot to figure out the right size for their baby – these are personal interactions that require a human touch.” Being thoughtful about what is and isn’t AI automated lets Coterie’s CX associates create connections with customers and respond to their questions and needs while offering white glove service.

Advice for CX Leaders

“Look at the data. If you are leading a team, your job is to understand the pain points of your agents and customers and try to improve them from a holistic view. There are a lot of problems that can be solved at the root by stepping away from your inbox and spending time with the data. With this information, you’ll be better equipped to remove roadblocks and make the customer experience as smooth, efficient, and meaningful as possible.”

Tech Stack

Kustomer

Siena

Cotera

Lessonly

Shopify

Prive

Giftogram