Who is Emily?

Meet Emily McEnany, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Dr. Bronner’s!

About Dr. Bronner’s

Dr. Bronner's is a family business committed to making socially and environmentally responsible products of the highest quality, while dedicating our profits to help make a better world. In all we do, let us be generous, fair & loving to Spaceship Earth & all its inhabitants. For We're All-One or None!

Emily’s CX Journey

Emily traces her CX journey to when she worked for luxury footwear company, Christian Louboutin, in New York City. An interest in CX and after sales led her to start the company’s first care and repair department, growing her team from 1 (her) to 4 members who were responsible for the entire North American operations. “We rolled out our CRM into more than 30 boutiques, elevating the luxury after sales experience, eventually introducing the CRM model to the European teams,” she recalls.

Entering a new season in life, Emily wanted a change and says, “working in luxury fashion in New York City was amazing during my 20s, but my heart was pushing me towards sustainability.” When a position at Dr. Bronner’s opened in California, Emily saw it as the perfect opportunity to realign her career path and personal values. “I’ll never forget my interview with the family,” she remembers. “I just couldn’t believe that I was talking to David Bronner about regenerative organic agriculture.” 

Emily was hired to create the customer experience department for the organic soap and personal care company. She’s drawn from her luxury retail background, which prioritizes service, to build education and transparency into CX at Dr. Bronner’s. “It’s such a beautiful and collaborative place to work. And it makes CX so much fun,” she exclaims.

The CX Team at Dr. Bronner’s

Emily’s CX Team is small yet robust with members who work remotely and are based in Southern California. Because the company is omnichannel and uses web-based programs, the move for CX to go fully remote during the pandemic has been seamless and effective. “CX is an exchange of energies,” Emily explains. “To be able to take a beat and sit down on your own couch, take a walk, whatever you need to fill your cup back up is so valuable.” Having your own personal space is not only healing, but also agreeable to the focus and fast-paced approach needed to handle tickets. In-person connection is prioritized as well with monthly to quarterly meetups taking place in Vista, CA where the company is based.

Dr. Bronner’s ‘ALL-ONE!’ Company Culture

Dr. Bronner’s treats employees like they are family with a caring ‘All-One’ mission pervading company culture. Ingrained in the brand’s core values, the sentiment has not gone unnoticed by customers. “We close for two weeks at the end of the year,” Emily says. “We post about the break on social media and our customers celebrate it. They recognize we are humans and deserve time to take a break, restore, spend time with our family, and get ready for the new year.” As e-Commerce companies push around-the-clock customer service, Emily’s team is available Monday to Friday from 8 – 3pm by phone with the option of chat and tickets. She says it’s exciting to see people resonate with their ‘All-One’ mission and that a company can be successful while balancing intentional business practices that push the employee, the planet, and the consumer forward.

Hiring New Team Members

Emily looks for empathy, patience, and flexibility in people who join her team. She elaborates, “We value human connections with our customers. Building that ‘All-One’ connection is the foundation of Dr. Bronner’s. People need to feel a real sense of trust and that they can come to us and share their questions, frustrations, and values.” The idea is that connection and trust build confidence in the product and awareness in fair trade practices, which influences their shopping behavior and ultimately changes the world. 

The company’s ‘be the change’ ethos has translated seamlessly over to her current team. “I’m really so proud of them,” she says. “They’re not just getting through a to-do list or just resolving calls and tickets. They are focused on improving the overall CX and UX at Dr. Bronner’s for a greater cause.” 

CX Philosophy Built on Education and Transparency

The foundation of CX at Dr. Bronner’s depends on education and transparency. “We have a customer service manual over 200 pages full of Q and As, which we drafted with our PR, HR, Quality, and Marketing teams,” Emily reveals. In it are answers for the parents trying to buy products without hidden ingredients their child is allergic to or for the person who has been on a 70-year eczema journey. In addition to providing direct service, they are building out tools for customers, like a new Help Center. “There, we have an incredibly extensive ingredient glossary, packaging glossary, and certification glossary. People want to know everything,” Emily says.

Trust’s Role in the CX Journey

A great customer service experience at Dr. Bronner’s happens when someone comes to the company, wants to engage, becomes connected with the brand’s mission, and walks away inspired and knowing more. Emily elaborates, “they leave us with more education around some aspect of our products or business practices. They trust us as a source of information and trust our intention.” She points out that they wouldn’t have been able to use AI if people didn’t trust the company and believe in its mission.

CX Team Success Factors

Introducing Automation to CX

Feeling the strain to keep up with business growth while meeting customers expectations, the company quickly incorporated automation into its CX strategies. “Within the last year, we implemented Gorgias, switched CRMs and transitioned all our data and processes. We also recently launched a new AI-powered chat alongside our Help Center that offers several self-service workflows” Emily explains. “We want to give people all the information possible at their fingertips.” The tools have been extremely successful for servicing transparency and education, allowing for 40% of customer interactions to be automated within the first 3 months of launching.

“I don’t think you could run a CX department without these tools anymore. Your day would work against you. We couldn’t function without a CRM that is so automated,” Emily admits. For customer service, they currently use Gorgias to manage multiple channels and Aircall to handle texts and phone calls. Microsoft Teams is used to facilitate company collaboration and communication. “We are in constant communication with other teams in the marketing and quality departments,” Emily notes. “We are always developing and strengthening our internal and external workflows and communications.”  

Automation aside, Dr. Bronner’s is a company that values one-on-one connection with customers, and vice-versa – customer’s preferred channel of communication are phone calls. Emily adds, “Without calls, we would miss out on so many amazing interactions with our customers.”

Key Metrics Emily is Tracking

A self-described ‘insight and data nerd,’ Emily and her CX Supervisor closely monitor the CX team’s metrics related to CSAT, response time, and resolution time to gain insight on performance and setting initiatives. Unlike the other categories, calls do not have a definitive goal for metrics. “We’re not focused on getting the call done as quickly as possible,” Emily says. “We really value those 45-minute conversations – it’s trying to balance meaningful exchange with efficiency to make sure we are connecting with as many people as possible with short wait times.” 

Customer Feedback Leads to Change

Valuing customer feedback, Dr Bronner’s listened when people voiced concern about plastic-free alternatives (the company uses 100% post-consumer plastic bottles). “This wasn’t good enough anymore,” Emily reveals. “Customers were saying, ‘we love you, but we need to see a change in order to keep being part of this community.” Introducing refill-cartons, with over 80% less plastic, was intentional and took time - the company kept an open dialogue with customers throughout the development process. “It’s really exciting that we can inspire that level of change rooted in customer feedback from CX,” Emily adds.

Empowerment is integral to the CX journey at Dr. Bronner’s. Emily and her team invite questions about products, ingredients, packaging, etc. understanding that these conversations that challenge intention and advocacy will take the company to a higher level. Customers will know exactly what product they’re buying and what company they’re supporting - so much so, they’ll hold their other purchases to a higher standard of quality, intention, and transparency. 

Tech Stack

Gorgias “Working on an automated program like Gorgias is a game-changer.”

Aircall

Shopify

Pretty Damn Quick

Microsoft Teams “We use it to support constant communication between our CX team and the other customer-facing teams within the company.”