1. Empathy is key in CX: Jacob emphasizes that understanding and connecting with customers’ experiences is crucial. It fosters trust and helps solve problems effectively.
2. Build relationships, not just solutions: Whether with team members or customers, creating strong, personal relationships leads to better communication and teamwork, ensuring more satisfied customers.
3. Product knowledge empowers agents: Jacob believes that letting CX agents experience the products first-hand allows them to become advocates, which enhances authenticity in customer interactions.
4. Customer retention drives growth: He views retention as a critical focus, highlighting how great CX can influence long-term loyalty and repeat purchases, contributing to brand success.
5. Leverage flexible outsourcing: Jacob appreciates how outsourcing offers flexibility in staffing, ensuring the team remains nimble and responsive to customer needs and sudden changes.
Jacob Meyers' expertise in hospitality has shaped his approach to customer service at Laird Superfood. His emphasis on building teams, empathizing with customers, and utilizing outside assistance has produced a customer-focused, adaptable atmosphere that improves both product and service advocacy.
Jacob is the Customer and Logistics Manager at Laird Superfood!
Founded in 2015, by Laird Hamilton, Laird Superfood launched on a simple premise: consumers deserve more than the highly processed foods the industry was giving them. Laird Hamilton began experimenting with adding healthy plant-based fats and other real-food ingredients to his morning cup, eventually perfecting a recipe that not only sustained his energy but tasted incredible.
Laird Superfood has grown significantly in the ensuing decade, providing a host of natural keto, vegan, and paleo-friendly snacks and food products including coffee, coffee creamers, and even daily greens.
Jacob’s CX Journey began right out of school when he took a job in the hospitality management industry. There, he was responsible for managing front office teams and later moving into a role to assist in restructuring teams and helping to open new hotels.
It was through working with Hilton that he discovered his true passion for delivering an overall experience to customers. Jacob says he was captivated when he started “Thinking about…that warm welcome that a customer gets when they walk into a DoubleTree with that warm cookie in their hands.”
He came to appreciate the connection CX provides.
“That's really where I found that passion. You can connect so much more with different users when somebody comes to you with a problem and you're able to fix that for them.”
Jacob came to Laird Superfood during the pandemic after hearing from a friend how much they enjoyed working there.
His ambition behind the move was simple. He wanted to find a way to help people on a larger scale. It quickly became clear that Laird Superfood was the right place to achieve that goal.
“The brand is really based around providing real food nutrition at a reasonable cost to everyone that we can. We don't believe in like marking up, you know, a thousand percent.”
Laird Hamilton grew up in Hawaii where the concept of family is about more than just the people living in your home. It’s a cultural attitude that generously spreads warmth and hospitality to everyone in the community.
This attitude is important to Laird Superfood and is visible in how the brand handles CX. Jacob leverages empathy and understanding in every customer encounter that he facilitates.
“We didn't want to create any friction with our customers when they reached out and we wanted to listen and hear and empathize with them about whatever experience they're going through in life. Individuals may be reaching out with health concerns that they have or products that they're trying to get away from that they feel have made them sick and are looking for an alternative.”
Jacob’s experience in hospitality has helped fix his focus on the entire customer journey. “Retention is probably one of the most important things to think about for a brand and customer experience has a huge impact on that.”
Jacob’s team contributes to that end by focusing on the entire customer experience and sharing their feedback to help holistically shape brand decisions.
Jacob leads a diverse team of fully remote professionals—many of whom have been with the brand for years. Relying on the services of blended internal and outsourced staff (including two team members located in the Philippines) Jacob’s team is optimized to effectively handle anything that comes their way.
The internal staff is used primarily to handle escalated or niche concerns as well as day-to-day management. The outsourced team manages simpler ticket items.
Jacob approaches team management with the same accommodating attitude that drives his entire CX approach. “What I'm passionate about as a manager is watching people and allowing them to have the growth that they desire.”
Jacob’s team began outsourcing within the last two years. Jacob attributes the fast success of Laird Superfood’s outsourcing efforts to the flexibility and additional support it provides. He appreciates the way the outsourced team handles the resource-intensive onboarding process.
“That's been really great and that flexibility to be able to go in and say, hey, this person's not working out, we need to backfill them with another, or somebody called in sick and we have somebody help cover that from a different account based upon who we've previously trained in that bucket.”
Jacob has specifically enjoyed working with his staff in the Philippines. “I was really excited for that because, in my previous experience, I found that we have an opportunity to really build that culture in and allow these folks to grow. Some are a little bit less fortunate than what we probably have here in the US and so I think if we allow them some space to create a relationship and build their knowledge, they've been really appreciative and really like cultural building to our clientele.”
Jacob applies the same philosophy to management that he does to CX. For him, it’s all about relationships. “I think it's creating a close-knit relationship, whether it's through Slack or Teams, because we're remote,” he explains. “That allows our teammates to feel that they're being heard and that the customers that they're talking to are being heard.”
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Jacob is conscientious of the fact that customer service is often viewed as a “cost center.” While he recognizes the intrinsic value of high-quality CX, he also looks for ways to reflect that value in revenue generation.
Jacob’s team leverages cross-sells and upsells, but believes that the formula to success lies in allowing his team to become true advocates for Laird Superfood products.
“Everyone [on the CX team] has the opportunity to try any product that we offer to our consumers….to get that in front of them to feel the package, you know, for them to feel like they've tasted that [product], they can talk about it with a customer.”
What's the number one tool that your CX team couldn't live without? Their CRM
What’s the number one thing you look for in a new customer service agent? Empathy
What’s your favorite communication channel? “I think business-wise, my preferred source is email which gives us a lot more characters to talk through. There's a delay in response time for both the customer and the agent, which allows us to think about our issue a little bit more, or how we're responding to that.
My personal favorite, though, is voice. I don't think there's anything like hopping on a quick call and hashing out a problem or listening to the tone of the individual and talking through how passionate they are about the topic that they may be reaching out about.
If you had to choose: AI or no AI in customer service? No AI. “At least in the next, you know, five to ten years, there's probably not going to be any way to replace a human touch to a situation.”
Favorite podcast? “I think a little shameless plug for the brand… Laird was on Shawn Ryan recently.”
What’s your number one challenge as a CX leader?
“I think that's been the challenge as a CX professional is like making sure that we have that seat at the table and that educated quick view into what we're so passionate about that we can make digestible for the rest of the company and the team.”
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