At A Glance

Nate offers a novel perspective on CX leadership, having led virtual teams and enabled his employees to come up with innovative solutions to challenges. This post reveals how he manages third-party difficulties while maintaining a positive client experience. Learn how Nate's inspiring yet detached leadership style makes a difference for the CX team at DRNXMYTH.

Who Is Nate?

Nate is the Head of Customer Experience at DRNXMYTH!

About DRNXMYTH

DRNXMYTH offers the only D2C fresh bottled cocktails! Born from the minds of bartenders, cocktail aficionados, and drink artists, DRNXMYTH aims to bring the magic of craft cocktails to people everywhere with their patented twist-to-mix technology.

Nate’s CX Journey

Looking for a better work-life balance, Nate jumped from the restaurant business to a local meal delivery company over 6 years ago. “My role was not only managing people but also educating the team about food, such as the difference between black and white truffles,” Nate recalls. “They were looking for someone who could not only talk well and write well but also who understood the food well because they were attempting to elevate their brand.“ The transition didn’t provide the work-life balance he was hoping for, however. “The meal delivery thing was on demand, so it really threw me into the fire in terms of what people are expecting in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, but it was my first real foray into CX.”

He then transitioned to Molecule, a bed-in-a-box mattress company. Nate notes, “There’s a nice transition to move into a little more traditional E-Commerce where you’re not up to the minute—but maybe up to the day—on shipments and deliveries.”

After doing CX consulting, Nate eventually landed at DRNXMYTH, where he’s been for nearly 2 years. His work, he says, always required cross-functional communication, and fighting for the team, both essential for successful CX. On the flip side, Nate shares, “It took me a little bit to get used to the people. Customers can be a little bit abrasive.

He delves into the nuances of virtual communication, a significant aspect of his later roles, stating, “One of the things that was interesting was the virtual communication, as opposed to the restaurant business where you’ve got everyone with you. Now and then I was working with teams all over the country or all over the world to really serve our customers.”

The cross-functional and cross-communication demands in these roles were crucial to his career development. As Nate explains, “So the cross-functional cross-communication was really, really important there, where we need lias with marketing, with operations and logistics and shipping and all these different teams to ensure that we’re getting what we need here.”

Team Structure

At DRNXMYTH, Nate has a team of five, all remote, based in L.A. “The team’s small enough where I can jump in and handle tickets If need be,” he says.

The CX team is responsible for marketing and customer service. A retail partner handles the sale and shipment of products. Nate provides insights into the intricate workings of the sales and fulfillment process, emphasizing the complexity introduced by third-party involvement.

He notes, “There is some goofy work within that where we have to say to the customer, ‘I have no visibility to where your package is until it actually gets shipped.’ We are transparent about it, not hiding anything from the customer. However, certain complexities arise, especially since our product is food or beverage. For instance, we don’t accept returns unless there’s a significant issue like an expired product, in which case we replace it. But sometimes, customers want to return items due to delivery delays affecting their plans. It becomes tricky when we must clarify that, as a third-party seller, we can’t directly process refunds,” he reports.

“Empowering the team to handle such conversations is crucial, even though it can get challenging with customers at times,” he says, adding “It’s important to hire smart people and people who are confident taking the ball and running with it, given this framework.”

The CX team is also an ad hoc sales team in a lot of ways because DRNXMYTH does a lot of corporate gifting. “Someone will email us wanting to throw a virtual happy hour for their team,” he explains. “It’s actually a major chunk of our business. As a CX team, that’s what we’re dealing with a lot right now in the holiday season. Everyone’s throwing a holiday party and it’s all hands on deck,” he says, adding “but it’s crucial to recognize that my team has a life outside of work.”

Nate prioritizes work-life flexibility akin to the rest of the Western world, especially during this time of year when various personal commitments arise—holiday preparations, gift shopping, kids being off school, and more. “While we track everyone’s time and contributions, it’s essential to understand that we have a queue to manage. I aim to strike a balance without compromising customer service or burdening our team excessively. It’s a delicate but effective equilibrium we’ve established.”

Empowering The CX Team At DRNXMYTH

“I really enjoy problem-solving. I really enjoy building systems,” Nate says, “though I don’t like the type of CX that is really super prescribed in terms of using scripted responses.” Nate emphasizes the importance of providing a framework that allows creativity, saying, “Having the ability to let team members out on their own, but also communicate, ‘Look, this is the framework within which we’re going to work,’ allows them creativity and the empowerment to solve the problem in a way I feel is appropriate.”

In a managerial approach that fosters autonomy, Nate shares, “I do that thing where I tell my team, ‘Hey, if it costs less than 100 bucks to fix, just do it. You won’t get in trouble for that decision, even though we might review it later and discuss it.’”

Summing up, Nate identifies the key factor that keeps him interested in customer experience: “The one thing that really keeps me interested is just having this ability to empower my team to be creative in that sense.”

KPIs

When it comes to defining a good customer experience, Nate says “I like my team to report on things that are affecting the entire experience, as a whole. We don’t only deal with tickets. It’s everything from packaging complaints to website issues. So when we discuss KPIs, I like to have that in the background.”

Nate outlines his approach to KPIs, emphasizing a realistic definition of customer experience beyond just customer support. “Because the team is relatively small, I do look at our chat platform and I do look at our email platform for response metrics, but I tend not to be super by the book when it comes to those KPIs because I feel like they don’t tell the whole story. So while I track them, I don’t want my team to feel like they’re being reduced to just a number. It’s also why I’m not a big fan of delighted scores or anything like that. I look at NPS 1-10, but there’s so much context that’s missing from that.”

The quality of the interactions is important, he says. “I want to know they’re communicating with people correctly and appropriately. If we start veering off that path, that’s when we have a discussion and I’ll offer corrections or suggestions.”

Nate shares that he doesn’t explicitly track revenue tied to customer experience. “As far as actual sales numbers go, those are so variable and defined by silly things, so I don’t think it’s fair to track those with our team when their focus is not explicitly on driving sales,” he says, adding “We try to stay away from direct and aggressive sales within the customer experience. It is kind of a cool brand with a cool angle to it, so we find that a lot of people are driven to us from that. We don’t have to be super desperate for their purchase.”

DRNXMYTH also leverages retail partnerships, such as Whole Foods, to drive sales. Nate emphasizes the symbiotic relationship where positive retail experiences lead customers to the website for shipping options and vice versa for local purchases. “If a customer balks at the $15 shipping fee, we can say, ‘Let me find out you the nearest Whole Foods.’” They can drive on down there, pick up that product, boom, sale’s done. If they don’t want to drive down the street, they can get, for example, Instacart to deliver it  And that is customer experience.”

Tech Stack

G Suite

Airtable

Gorgias

To AI or Not To AI?

“We’re not currently doing anything with AI,” Nate states, emphasizing his skepticism about AI implementation and the need for thoughtful application. He shares concerns about the widespread and often hasty adoption of AI, recounting instances where poorly implemented chatbots led to customer frustration.

Nate points out the risk of compromising the personalized touch they strive to provide. “I have a really difficult time with it,” he admits, acknowledging the timing and suitability of the technology’s current capability. “I certainly agree with the idea of putting up a decision tree on your chatbot,” he says, suggesting that having it directing the interaction to an FAQ or an agent is useful. “But ultimately, I don’t want AI to handle the entire experience.”