1. Embrace continuous learning: Alix emphasizes that constant learning and refining practices are crucial for CX improvement, ensuring the team adapts to changing customer needs.
2. Prioritize relationship building: Genuine connections with customers create lasting loyalty, as highlighted by Alix’s belief in the value of personal interactions over automated responses.
3. Foster team empowerment: Alix aims to empower her team to make decisions, boosting morale and engagement, which is essential for maintaining a motivated customer experience team.
4. Be adaptable with policies: Alix advises CX leaders to prioritize being good people over strict policies, allowing flexibility when customer needs dictate a change in approach.
5. Value curiosity in hiring: Alix stresses that hiring curious individuals enhances team performance, as they’re more likely to seek out details and improve processes continually.
Lo & Sons' CX innovator, Alix Malarky, unique combination of customer service and sustainability is breaking records. Discover how her varied background and dedication to the development of her team are changing the CX scene and why her strategy might be the way e-commerce goes forward. You won't want to miss this tale of invention, passion, and leadership!Lo & Sons' CX innovator, Alix Malarky, unique combination of customer service and sustainability is breaking records. Discover how her varied background and dedication to the development of her team are changing the CX scene and why her strategy might be the way e-commerce goes forward. You won't want to miss this tale of invention, passion, and leadership!
Meet Alix Malarky, Customer Experience Manager at Lo & Sons!
In 2010, a 65 year-old Helen Lo and her two sons Jan and Derek created their company, named Lo & Sons as a nod to its creators. The business hopes to create the perfect travel bag that not only fits any customer’s needs, but also leaves a positive impact on the planet. Lo & Sons is a minority-owned company that offers sustainable, high-quality products for any world traveler.
Alix began her customer experience journey in retail. During college, she worked at Macy’s and learned a bit about CX. After graduating, she worked for Marine Layer, a sustainable company that produces t-shirts made of recyclable material. Through her work for Marine Layer, Alix realized that she could have various interests such as sustainability and philanthropy, and still work in the CX space.
Alix went to grad school and studied nonprofit work and policies related to textile recycling, where she was able to truly hone her eco-friendly passions. After working for other companies, Alix began working for Ruggable in their samples program and later joined its CX team on the international side.
Soon after, Alix joined the Lo & Sons team, which was a great fit because the company’s values meshed well with her own.
Alix loves that in the CX space, you touch base with every department and work with everyone in the company. In CX, you can also learn so much about how a business runs effectively.
“I think any company sort of needs someone in the CX role that has an interest in what other departments do,” she says. “I feel like I learn in this role, and I find myself learning so much, just like how a business is run and all these [other] details.”
It’s a valuable position to be in because you can gain the insight of the business as well as the customer.
Alix manages a 9-member remote team at Lo & Sons. The team is composed of a CX leadership consultant, who serves as Alix’s soundboard and gives her essential advice, five associates, a team lead, and a QA and Reporting Specialist.
Because Lo & Sons is a smaller company, it can feel like a start-up at times because of its size. While Alix is contributing to the team and helping them complete projects and achieve goals, she also has to train them when quick decisions have to be made. For instance, if a policy suddenly changes, Alix has to coach her team through it when they interact with customers. Despite this, Alix’s overall goal is to help her team feel empowered to make their own decisions.
Alix also tries to provide numerous professional development opportunities for her team to learn more about the growth opportunities that the company provides.
“So something that I try to work our leadership team on is [learning] what they’re interested in outside of answering emails and chats,” she says, “I do little workshops for them like goal setting [and assessing] where they want to be and how [we can get them to that point].”
There are a lot of constraints that come along with a mid-size team, such as technology and other platforms, Alix explains. Because of this, she has to advocate for her team since she knows what they can and can’t handle.
“Where’s the space for the people who don’t have this enormous growth, but aren’t tiny? [I have] to advocate for my team in our company and when I’m meeting with different vendors. It’s like, yeah, we might not have hundreds and thousands of emails, but we do have volume and we do need help. We can’t do it all.”
When it comes to hiring new members, Alix looks for a great attention to detail. Lo & Sons offers products with very unique features, so it’s important for a team member to know how to explain these details to customers.
“We’re lucky to have customers that are very passionate and pay attention to detail,” she says. “It’s important that anyone we bring onto the team picks up on those things.”
Relationship building is also essential to Lo & Son’s CX philosophy. If a customer mentions a small detail about their lives, like they’re looking for a travel bag because they’re going to Paris with their daughter, Alix wants her CX associate to connect with the customer, because, by doing so, they can create a lasting, genuine connection with them.
Potential team members should also have great organizational skills, especially because the Lo & Sons CX team works from home, Alix explains. A successful team member needs to be able to keep up with the changes and fast-paced work environment.
Within Alix’s team, everyone has their own specialty. Alix sends the more complex tickets to certain members of her team that she knows can handle them. She and her team use Gladly, which allows the team to have an internal knowledge document that they can refer to when needed.
“Constantly learning and refining things is probably our biggest thing,” she says. “We don’t really have fancy automations, an AI bot, or things like that. I really just like to look at the data… [If something’s not working,] that’s on us to fix it. That’s how we get better.”
Alix likes to use customer data to make changes to policies when needed. For instance, Alix mentions that if a FAQ article isn’t working for the customers and they have a lot of questions, then that means the team should fix it. She also encourages her team to let her know when things aren’t working for a customer. Above all else, it’s about collaboration within the Lo & Sons CX team.
In Alix’s opinion, AI can be helpful in various circumstances. Because Lo & Sons value relationship building, they wouldn’t use AI to streamline customer conversations or substitute human interactions. It’s such an important touch point for the team, she explains, so instead, AI helps the team in gaining insight and summarizing large volumes of tickets.
“We all learn from that touch point. I would never want to eliminate it.”
When there’s less customer interactions, Alix considers it to be neither good or bad. The CX team’s work is seasonal, meaning that the holiday, spring, and summer seasons are busier for the team. In the off-season, Alix tries to make the most of her team’s downtime. She encourages everyone to aggregate high QA scores and holds professional development meetings.
“We’re like, okay, we’ll take the slowness [during that time] and then when it’s busy, that’s when it’s a little chaotic.”
Alix believes that in the future, e-commerce companies will need to find ways to meet with customers, via phone calls, Zoom calls, etc. Teams will have Zoom calls and get to know customers for who they are rather than as data points and purchase history. She sees the future of CX as “going back to the basics,” she says.
CX professionals will talk to their customers and truly interact with them again. The future of CX will be about finding the value in humanizing customers past AI developments.
“I feel like there’s so much data and automation,” Alix says. “All these things are going so fast. I think people are going to start thinking, ‘Oh, we forgot to actually talk to these people,’ or ‘We forgot to actually humanize them and understand how they interact with the brand.’ I think that’s going to come back [and] people are going to see the value of that.”
Don’t let policies keep you from being a good person, Alix advises other CX leaders.
“I think a lot of times, as a CX leader, you can be hyper-focused on having an airtight policy and making sure everything’s perfect and you have everything in place,” she says. “At the end of the day, you should just want to be a good person.”
Alix tells this to her team all the time. If there’s a situation that they wouldn’t want to be in, then they can help the customer as they feel is needed. They should also be able to own up to their decisions, explain why, and, of course, Alix will understand.
“I think that’s my biggest piece of advice,” she says, “Just do what you would want [to see] and [understand] that policies are important, but be willing to let them go when that’s the right thing to do.”
Slack
Notion
Gladly
Loop
Medallia Agent Connect
Can’t-Live-Without-Tool: Slack
Key Hiring Trait: Curiosity. “You just have to be a curious person who wants to find out details, adapt, and improve.”
Favorite Book or Podcast: Alix loves to read about and understand customer behavior. Recently, she read a Bloomberg article about doom spending and found it fascinating. “It helps me think about what’s going on externally that we might not have been considering.”
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