Who is Ashely?

Meet Ashely McCubbin, Program Manager for Customer Experience at Manscaped!

About Manscaped

Manscaped is a global men’s lifestyle consumer brand and male grooming category creator. They offer a diversified line of premium tools, formulations, and accessories designed to introduce and elevate a whole new self-care routine for men.

Ashley’s CX Journey

Ashley’s CX journey began during college when she worked retail selling cowboy boots at Western Outfitter in South Texas. “That was my first introduction to how impactful the customer experience can be to the bottom line,” she recalls. “At the end of the day, the relationship that you build with customers is crucial to success.” After receiving a degree in communications with a focus on marketing, she worked for a boutique agency where networking and fostering client relations continued to be a focus.

What Excites Ashley About Working in CX

Ashley credits Manscaped’s creative marketing approach as the reason she took notice of the brand. She notes, “I’m not a key demographic or user of Manscaped’s products, but I loved what they were doing.” Starting as a customer support representative, Ashley remembers, “While there were only three of us, I worked under amazing leaders who showed me a new side of being creative in a professional sense. Until then, I thought creativity meant producing something tangible.” 

As Manscaped grew, so did the company’s need to establish a dynamic CX team. Ashely moved her way up and eventually took the position of Program Manager for Customer Experience. She finds creative fulfillment in work from problem solving, developing, planning, and implementing processes, and producing training materials. Ashley finishes, “Taking the company from the startup stage to helping build the CX team is something that I am really proud of.”

The CX Team at Manscaped

Ashley leads a fully remote CX team with 20 in-house members supported by a BPO of 35 members based in the Philippines. Using a hybrid approach to management, various duties and responsibilities are delegated to address customers’ needs efficiently and effectively. “In-house focuses on escalated situations, fraud, quality assurance, and tech support, and logistics and operations. Our BPO handles all frontline inquiries,” Ashley says.

Top Challenges as a CX Leader

“‘I’ve been with the company from the beginning and have done everything up to this point,” Ashley explains. Because her current position requires her to focus on both immediate and long-term projects, she finds delegating responsibilities a primary challenge. “It’s not a lack of trust, but rather the drive to finish a task that was needed when our CX team was in its initial stages.” Ashley has worked on letting go of a ‘do it all’ mentality, understanding that it takes away from the team's opportunity to learn and grow.

Key Hiring Traits

When hiring new team members, Ashley looks for people who are empathetic with strong problem-solving skills. “Empathy allows our agents to relate to customers,” she says. Because CX is multi-faceted and people are often reaching out because they have a question or problem, her team must listen to and understand their customers’ needs. With good problem-solving skills, the agent is inclined to go out of their way to seek creative solutions, leading to stronger customer relations and brand loyalty.

Onboarding and Training New Hires

Manscaped is focused on maintaining an inclusive, fun, and collaborative work culture. Towards the end of the interview process, panel interviews are held remotely to welcome new talent. “This gives us a full perspective of the new team member, Ashley notes. “They aren’t just working for CX, they are also working for the company at large.”

CX Team members go through a formalized training program, which includes meeting with the HR and PR departments, so they have full understanding of Manscape as a brand. “It’s crucial that we maintain a certain voice and set of values across the board,” Ashley says. Additionally, new products are sent to CX team members, and they are trained on how to use them. “Having the product in hand allows us to provide our customers with the best virtual support.”

CX Team Success Factors

Data Points Ashley is Tracking

The company relies heavily on data analysis and Ashley looks at her team’s NPS, CSAT, response time, sentiment, and customer effort on a regular basis. Their goal is to make the CX journey at Manscaped as easy and agreeable as possible. “For example, we’ve made the process of opting out of a subscription very easy,” Ashley reveals. “Data has shown, if we make it as effortless as possible, the customer is more likely to come back and remain loyal to the brand.”

Prioritizing Proactive CX

In 2021 during the height of the pandemic, Manscaped’s customer service department transitioned into customer experience with the vision of building a holistic team equipped to take the CX journey from beginning to end. Ashley is focused on continuing this effort as Manscaped emerges in a post-Covid era. “It’s a new dynamic now,” she points out. “We have a great online marketplace and expanding global retail presence. Continuing to bridge that gap is a primary focus while making sure we are considering potential issues before they become real problems.

Focusing on communication and education, Ashley hopes to see CX become a revenue driver. “Because of my marketing background, I’m always thinking about ways to get to the customers before they are even customers. Manscaped’s product line has evolved tremendously. In addition to the groin, we now offer solutions from head to toe for men. It’s our job to let our customers know this and help them find what they are looking for.”

Ashley credits Manscaped’s incredible marketing team for increasing the brand’s visibility and outreach, particularly with the use of social influencers. After making a purchase, customers receive up-to-date emails about order confirmation, shipping status, and subscription reminders. A post-purchase perk comes when customers are invited by email to join The Ballers Club, a private Facebook page. “We learn so much from this community,” Ashley says. “It gives our social team the opportunity to connect with customers and a chance for customers to connect with each other.” To further brand loyalty, members receive early access to new products and take part in surveys directed toward product development.

Advice for CX Leaders

Ashley advises CX Leaders to ‘practice what you preach’ and elaborates, “Don’t just show your team that you are capable of getting in the weeds, but that you are willing and able to.” As a remote leader for a growing brand, she stresses the importance of breaking down organizational silos across departments to ensure unity and alignment. Lastly, because CX relies on data, Ashley maintains that the right people must be analyzing information for it to be valuable.

Tech Stack 

Kustomer - “For our CRM, we use Kustomer.”

Shopify - “We use Shopify for e-commerce.”

Homegrown Admin Portal - “We have a great tech department that built our Homegrown Admin Portal. I helped with the development from the beginning and am really proud of it. Our reps handle all of our transactional management along with subscription and account management there. The tool has grown so that other departments are using it as well.”