Who is Joy?

Meet Joy Shure, Social Media/Community Manager and CX collaborator at Skratch Labs!

About Skratch Labs

Skratch Labs started with pro cycling and events like the Tour de France. Founder Allen Lim, an exercise physiologist and chef, saw that people were getting sick from traditional sports nutrition products. To solve this problem, he devised a concept of balancing real food and science. He used it to create natural food nutrition without dyes, preservatives, or artificial flavors. 

Now, Skratch Labs sells nutritional products and cookbooks that are fueling, taste good, and help people perform better. Plus they have a cafe in Boulder, CO where their cookbook recipes have come to life in a vibrant community focused on food and sport.

Joy's CX Journey

Before she ended up at Skratch Labs, Joy worked a handful of different jobs, from being a dog sled musher to working in restaurants and retail. Her adaptability in various fields made her a great fit in the customer experience field. 

Joy began working for Skratch Labs as a customer experience agent during the company's first few years. Over time, her role evolved to handle more tasks and take on leadership responsibilities. Now, Joy's role crosses CX and marketing departmental lines as she focuses on creating community content within the customer experience field.

The idea of surprise and delight excites Joy about the CX field. As a customer experience team member, you can have a huge impact on making someone's day better—you can even change their life. An example Joy gave is that she and her team have received emails from hospice patient’s families’ who have told them that Skratch Labs' product helped them live a little bit longer because of the hydration and fuel boost. 

In her position, Joy says that she can also have fun when she surprises customers. In some cases, customers mention that they're getting engaged or married or another major life event, and she and her team send them a nice gift, points or coupons to show their thoughtfulness and express that the company values its community and wants to celebrate their wins whatever those might be.

The CX Team at Skratch Labs

Skratch Labs CX team is made up of two CX specialists, two dealer service specialists, and a head of customer experience who all live within 40 minutes of the Boulder, Colorado, area, and work two days per week in the office. Within the CX department, the company also has the athlete care division, which consists of a dietitian and a dietitian fellow. Joy works in the marketing department but works closely with the CX team for the loyalty program, social media, and content creation. 

Joy and her team face challenges when they're in the middle of a busy season and don't hire additional agents. She says the company's CX ebbs and flows in terms of business. Sometimes, the team will be in a busy season, and the influx of customer tickets can make the workload a bit hefty for the team, but at other times, there's more of a dynamic equilibrium when the CX is slower and more manageable.

The CX team doesn't hire temporary agents to ensure they provide the highest customer experience possible. From Joy's perspective, there are niche things that the team looks for, so it's better to teach the team's standards to a person who will stay longer rather than a shorter one.

KPIs Joy is Tracking

Usually, the team connects with customers via a handful of channels, including email, phone, live chat, and social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X. The team has specific standards and guidelines to ensure that customers are responded to within a reasonable time. Live chat, for instance, has an average response time of under two minutes during business hours, and phone calls are picked up immediately during business hours or responded to same day if the team is in a meeting and miss a call. Social media platforms are checked three times per day, but the less popular ones are checked less frequently.

Regarding KPIs, Skratch measures team's response and resolution times, tickets handled per person, customer ratings, and email responses.

Hiring New Team Members

The Skratch Labs CX team looks for people who align with the company's values. Each member of the team tries to be empathetic and real, which Joy thinks can contradict each other at times. Overall, Joy and the team believe that you can hold two contradictions at the same time—you can deliver your truth without being a jerk. By prioritizing these ideals, the team collaborates with grit and passion to uplift and help their customers and maintain a positive attitude. 

Other than those aspects, Skratch also looks for people with experience in the service industry, be it retail or a restaurant, because in their experience working in customer experience is one of the best experiences a person can have.

Once a team member is hired, the CX team has an elaborate onboarding process. During the first week, they cover the company documents; during the second week, they will review more of the CX process documentations. The new hire meets with the dietitian, goes through product training, and then gets trained under the VP of customer experience and learns how to use the team's tech stack. 

Finally, the new hire meets the rest of the team during 15-minute rotations and gets to know everyone and their roles. Joy says that it is important for the new employee to feel a sense of camaraderie and collaboration.

The CX Philosophy at Skratch Labs

When it comes to frustrated customers, the Skratch team will try to fix the situation to alleviate their frustration. From a bigger picture, it may seem like the customer is wrong, but they might have a lot of other things going on. Joy tries to figure out how to improve the customer's day in every interaction. 

Skratch Labs runs an athlete care program staffed by a dietitian. The program aims to support customers by offering nutrition knowledge and product samples. So far, the company has received positive feedback.

Sometimes, the CX department receives questions from customers that they can't answer because they are concerned about training or health specific needs, the CX team will send them to the dietitian for guidance. Ultimately, the Skratch philosophy is a want to help each customer as best they can, whether it's troubleshooting or offering resourceful tips.

Elevating to the Next Level of CX

One aspect of the company's eight-year vision is to emphasize its CX philosophy more. Skratch wants the team to lean more into the company's understanding of hospitality and caring for people wherever they have a touch point. The team intends to carry out this plan through in-person interactions and the customer journey, such as unboxing products or troubleshooting. 

She and the team want to make the customer journey more efficient and easy to experience. They do this by listening to customer feedback, discerning what customers want from the company, and pursuing product innovation.

Prioritizing Proactive CX

Loyal customers participate in the company's loyalty programs. The Loyalty program is multifaceted and has many ways to engage. The team sends customers emails at specific points since their last purchase to check in and remind them of points or rewards as well. The company has offers on the website and informational events for new customers to garner general interest. If new or interested customers have issues placing orders or need help deciding what to purchase, the team encourages them to reach out for one-on-one feedback. 

The company also provides educational content that doesn't necessarily push products but rather customer interest and knowledge. Joy calls this type of content information that anyone could use, and she thinks it attracts prospective customers and athletes.

Integrating AI into Customer Experience

Joy considers AI a mixed bag. At an E-Commerce conference that she attended, AI was a hot topic, and many brands talked about how they tried to implement AI chatbots. Still, they didn't go as successfully as the companies originally planned. In Joy's opinion, if you use AI, you must do it well because it can be more challenging to use than most people think. There is an art to utilizing AI well.

Joy says there are easier ways to implement AI's resources, such as using a simpler AI resource like Chat GPT to generate an email response. AI could also help newer team members learn how to develop helpful customer responses as they gain more experience and become more comfortable in their roles. 

Although there are more complex ways to use AI, Joy says that you need the right team and the right people to set up AI elements for how the team wants to use it. If AI isn't set up well, it can backfire and become a nightmare to fix.

Advice for CX Leaders

When it comes to CX professionals becoming better leaders, Joy advises them to let go of their ego because it can get in the way of helping the greater good of the company, the greater good of themselves, and the greater good of their customers. 

Aspiring and current leaders should also immerse themselves in the industry, reading books and listening to podcasts about customer experience. While it's easy to let your work become your personality and become burnt out, leaders must remember to be humans and interact with different people.

Joy says the key to being a good leader is maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and having respect and trust for each other. Leaders should remember that everyone is human and trying to do their best.