Who is Lauren?

Meet Lauren Schorr, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Nestig!

About Nestig

Nestig designs safe and functional nursery furniture and décor for families both new and old. The company values “everyday magic,” and creates worlds for the youngest of us to thrive, explore, and grow in. Crafted by artisans in Brazil with kindness and dedication, Nestig’s products are sustainable and valuable options for families of every kind.

Lauren’s CX Journey

Taking a path not typical of a CX professional, Lauren went to school for musical theater and first pursued acting. To help fund those ventures, she worked in a variety of customer service jobs, primarily in restaurants and hospitality. After a while, she realized that she was finding more fulfillment in working with customers than in acting. Although she began in customer service simply as a convenient opportunity for the meantime, it was her newfound love of human connection in customer experience that made her stay.

“I was really drawn to these interactions with customers and that human connection,” she says, “It is so fulfilling to me in a way that has definitely made me want to stay and continue doing it.”

“Being able to solve people’s problems and have that connection… there is so much opportunity in that single interaction to build upon the experience [and] to make it memorable.”

Lauren was Nestig’s first and only CX hire for several months, and she had the opportunity to build the CX team from the ground up. She loved that the experience was very hands-on as she worked with customers and identified the brand’s voice. As the business grew, she was able to grow with it, learning new things as time went on.

“I’ve been so lucky in this position,” she says. “Our co-founders made customer experience at Nestig a priority from the get-go… it’s such an important value for our company, and [it] definitely makes the decisions a lot easier and smoother.

“I think customers can feel that as well. It’s not just something we’re saying. It’s something that we really feel and do every single day.”

The CX Team at Nestig

Lauren manages a four-member team at Nestig. The team works on a hybrid schedule, meaning that they spend three days in the office and work from home the rest of the week. Lauren acknowledges that in-person collaboration is important for her team because her team thrives when they’re able to brainstorm and work together to solve problems that may arise day-to-day.

“Just being able to problem solve together and bounce ideas off of each other is really valuable,” she says.

One challenge that comes up for her team is the amount of increasing complexity in the company’s products. As Lauren mentions, because it’s such a small team, everyone needs to be an expert in all of the products the company offers. To offset this issue, she and her team have been brainstorming ideas to increase product knowledge as the brand’s assortment increases. Because the company changes and grows quickly, it’s important for the team to be up-to-date on all that is happening.

“With such a small team, we have to really be able to answer any question about anything,” she says.

Lauren wants each of her team members to feel accomplished, even though their day-to-day work can seem never-ending. A few years ago, she began prioritizing time in the team’s schedule to work on larger projects to explore different interests and increase opportunities for career advancement. So far, the projects have helped her team feel a more fulfilling sense of accomplishment when each project is finished.

Additionally, she encourages her team members to work together and make decisions on their own so they can feel more empowered when working with customers. In extreme cases, she’ll jump on a ticket and help out, but this method has worked most of the time and has increased collaboration and professional development within her team.

“We get these little wins all day, every day, where you’re talking to one person,” she says, “But to be able to still feel a lot of accomplishment from doing that same sort of work every day is another thing that I’m always striving to help my team with.”

Training New Members

Lauren loves using Notion when training new members because it’s a great way to store information. Through the platform, the team can refer to troubleshooting tips, product information, and how-to guides, depending on the questions they have. The CX team’s Notion also has mock questions for new hires, which is a way for them to practice interacting with customers without pressure. 

By using Notion to explore all of the information, new hires can find answers without asking for help, adding to their sense of empowerment. Lauren also ensures that her new team members shadow older members to learn how to interact with customers. All of these tactics allow new hires to become resourceful and, in no time, capable of creating positive customer interactions.

“Doing those mock questions allows them to… figure out where the information lives so that when they’re fully onboarded, they’re already feeling some independence in their work,” she says.

KPIs Lauren is Tracking

When it comes to quality assurance, Lauren looks for content, tone, actions taken, and concessions throughout her agents’ customer interactions. She also takes note of the general KPIs like how many tickets the agent handles, response time, and how many times they respond to the customer. Day to day, Lauren looks through the tickets to see the work her team is doing, which helps her keep track of what’s going on within her team. 

Lauren likes to analyze KPIs holistically and looks at her agents’ performances with a “quality over quantity” mindset, but maintains a healthy balance between the two.

“We want to be able to answer as many customers as possible with [a] high quality,” she says, “So there’s always a balance.”

Additionally, Lauren reviews customer moods, which is a newer aspect one of her team members measured during a long-term project. She finds that tracking customer moods for different types of problems can be helpful because you can discover different insights and get a sense of the priorities your team may need to shift to. It’s a measurement of not only how the team is doing, but also how customers feel after each interaction.

“It really stuck because it’s exciting to be able to have a metric like that,” she says. “We can see a lot of different insights from that, [like] what types of problems customers are most upset about [and] what types of problems customers are most understanding about.”

“It just gives us a better sense of priorities and exactly what’s going on.”

Tech Stack

Zendesk

Notion

Slack

Klaviyo

Yotpo

Monday.com — A game-changer for Lauren’s team because of the platform’s innovative data analysis.

Using Data in CX

Lauren is detail-oriented and has adopted a data-oriented mindset over the years as well. She has found data to be helpful when collaborating with her team and discussing trends with Nestig’s co-founders because quantifiable metrics will help people understand the trends that pop up in customer experience. 

As for CX teams, data can help members understand how often problems arise and where the team’s priorities should be.

“Data can be very helpful… in getting your point across,” she says. “It [wasn’t] something that came naturally to me at first, but I realized that a lot of the things that I was saying were anecdotal. A lot of the time, the response to that [was] ‘What are the numbers?’ That’s what got me more into the data… to back up things that we’re seeing.”

The CX Philosophy At Nestig

Almost every decision the company makes is a CX decision, as Lauren mentions because everything that touches the customer will affect them. In the beginning, the trickiest part for Lauren to get right about Nestig’s customer experience was figuring out the most seamless experience for the customer while keeping the company’s unique business model in mind. Because each product is made to order from Brazil, Lauren’s CX team has to consider many factors such as shipping and returns.

“[The solution] was zooming out a little bit more and trying to think [of] how we can design our customer experience and our ability to solve problems within the business model [we] created,” she says.

Since its inception, CX has become a central part of what Nestig is. When it was in its early years, Lauren knew that building trust with customers was crucial to the company’s success. Great CX builds trust and increases word of mouth within the community, which can drive sales — especially for Nestig’s products. Because new parents ask their friends and other parents before purchasing products for their nursery, having a good reputation in the community helps the company immensely.

“If we have great CX,” she says, “then that only helps us in the long run.”

Advice for CX Leaders

For Lauren, the most important aspect of CX leadership is trust. She advises other leaders not only to trust in their team but to also encourage team members to speak up when they have feedback because, in their daily interactions with customers, they become the experts. They know what their customers want and what works best for the team’s CX processes.

“As you [transition] into a management role, your team really does become the experts in the day-to-day with customers in a way that you used to when you were [in that position],” she says. “Creating that culture of really encouraging your team to speak up… and come up with ideas is definitely a huge part of my management.”

Additionally, Lauren tells leaders to create a culture of ownership within the team. As a leader, you should always be there for your team to help guide them, but you should also let them have some independence and ownership in their decisions.

“This can help your team grow,” she says, “letting them learn and contribute in meaningful ways.”