Who is Rose

Meet Rose, the Head of Decorator Success at Lick, a UK-based E-Commerce paint store.

About Lick

More than just a retailer, Lick guides customers through a personalized, Pinterest-worthy home transformation journey. Anyone can go to their local paint store and pick up a can of paint, but Lick takes their customers on a different journey – one where they have a decorating partner to help them choose the color that matches their energy.

One of the cornerstones of their customer service philosophy is being community-driven and people-powered. At Lick, Customer Service is not about fielding queries; it’s about being a trusted advisor for customers, helping them decide the perfect colors for their living spaces.

Rose’s CX Journey

Rose’s path to CX was unexpected. She initially studied drama and theater at university and jokes about the competitive nature of being successful in that field, but does credit her CX skills to what she learned at uni, saying, “There’s that trope of transferable skills, but knowing how to talk to somebody and how to listen… can be really useful [in Customer Experience].”

Post-university, she worked at a pub, where she realized her passion for customer service. Since this realization in 2016, she has continued to work in the field.

Structure Of The Lick Team

Rose leads a four-member team at Lick. The team is remote-first but does have occasional office meet-ups. They undergo special training to become color experts, offering a unique value proposition to their customers.

CX Tech Stack

Zendesk

Slack

Shopify

Platforms Under Consideration

Rose is currently considering adding a returns platform to Lick’s tech stack. Despite a low 2% return rate, she believes a platform could be a time-saver.

The big question is, which returns platform is she flirting with the most?

Rose says Swap is most intriguing, due to the potential within the platform to retain revenue through exchange options for customers.

Biggest Struggle As A CX Leader

Rose’s answer was quick for this question – Logistics. If even one person is sick or OOO, that means 25% of their workforce is down.

On the flip side, Rose loves her small team, saying, “It’s really nice to have an intimate team that all get to know each other. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We’re quite happy to just compensate for each other in the different ways that we lack or don’t lack.”

Rose actively pushes to have everyone in the company step into the role of a customer service representative from time to time, especially during busy seasons or times when their team is limited.

“One, because it helps us solve our problems. If tech can see firsthand what we’re talking about, then they’re more motivated to go away and fix it. But also, just from a cost perspective, it makes sense for us at the stage that we are with being a startup.”

Metrics That Rose Tracks

The success of the agents on Rose’s team is measured on a person-by-person basis. As the leader of her team, Rose understands that some members might close more tickets but have a higher resolution time, while some who close fewer tickets resolve issues with one touch.

Each agent has an individual goal, and Rose knows that her job is to support them with how they work best and build the goals of the team around their working style.

To AI Or Not To AI

Rose has a cautious mentality towards AI in customer service, saying, “[It’s not that] I don’t think AI has a place. It’s more that AI has a very narrow window where it’s actually useful.”

In Lick’s case, their agents are positioned as color experts. She feels AI has not gotten to the level of understanding necessary to step in and provide the same level of color expertise that human agents can.

Lick currently uses AI very minimally through Zendesk for easy, one-touch tickets.

Advice For Other CX Leaders

Bonding with your team is not a waste of time. Rose strongly feels that rapport communication with your team should not start and end with monthly or quarterly one-on-ones.

Not only does more frequent conversation allow for a deeper interpersonal relationship between Rose and the agents on her team, but it also helps problems to be solved more efficiently.

“You get fed the reaction as it happens and that means that the whole team has been more dynamic, myself and them.”

Rose prides herself on the dynamics of her team, and to further prove the effectiveness of her strategy, Rose has only had one agent not last for over a year in the 3 years the company has been in operation (quite a victory for any customer service team!)

Driving Revenue Through Customer Service At Lick

The two channels where Rose has seen the most revenue generation through customer service are social media and WhatsApp. Although not your typical customer service channels, these channels allow for conversational interactions and even picture exchanges, crucial for customers choosing colors.

Rose also implements what she calls “Soft-selling” into her customer service team’s strategy. For instance, if a customer was deciding between a color from Lick’s website and a different color from a competitor, you would think the agents would definitely push for Lick’s product, right?

However, Rose prioritizes customer trust over making the sale, saying “[Doing what’s right for the customer] is the answer because we’re trying to bring the trust and they’ll come back to us in the future.” So even if it’s a decision between Lick’s product and a competitor, Rose encourages her team to use honesty as the best policy.