Who is Tyson?

Meet Tyson, Customer Support Manager at Vego Garden!

About Vego Garden

Vego Garden is redefining raised garden beds for its customers. The company’s products give customers an innovative way to create their own unique garden by using eco-friendly garden beds, extension kits, and trellises, all with a life expectancy of more than 20 years. The company also sponsors nonprofit farms in the U.S and works to keep the planet green. With the help of Vego Garden, customers can make an efficient garden that fits their individual ideas and needs.

Tyson’s CX Journey

After spending 15 years in restaurants, Tyson went to work at Zappos for a steady paycheck. In his first years there, he had a great conversation with one of the managers there who shared a similar journey to Tyson’s. He then became really focused and worked there for 11 years.

A year and a half ago, Tyson received a random phone call with a human resources manager who recruited him to work for Vego Garden. 

When he began working for the company, he didn’t have to build their CX strategies from the ground up since the company had been established for five years. Tyson did work with his colleague to elevate Vego Garden to a new level.

“The opportunity was excellent because… the opportunity to [get] the ground under our feet and [make] that jump from a small company to a larger piece of the market,” he says.

Tyson loves the autonomy of customer service, and the basics of which he learned while working at Zappos. You always have to do what’s best for the customer, but within reason.

“You can’t sell the farm,” he says. “Be reasonable with what you’re doing, but don’t be afraid to compensate… Make the customer happy.”

By doing his best to satisfy his customers’ needs, Tyson was complimented and rewarded through every interaction. In his leadership, he has been able to implement this idea and encourage his team to do the same.

The CX Team at Vego Garden

Tyson manages a team of 20-25 people at Vego Garden. Because Spring is the company’s busy season, they’re looking to fill more spots on the CX team. There is some turnover because the winter is the company’s slow season. People are less likely to buy planting products in cold weather.

Fifteen team members work in the Houston office, and the remaining 10 work remotely along with Tyson. The team also partners with an offshore company based in the Philippines that provides extra support.

As far as the team’s challenges, Tyson mentions that people forget how far empathy and ownership can take customer experience. Customer experience can be difficult at times, so people usually say to have a thick skin. Tyson thinks that this creates the wrong mentality — to be successful at CX, you need to have empathy to share the customer’s mindset.

“If [agents] get yelled at enough, it kind of seems to break them down, and they don’t really have that empathy after a little while,” he says. “...The real key is to maintain that empathy.”

Tyson’s CX Strategy

The key to Tyson’s CX strategy is measuring CSAT, NPS scores, or any kind of set structure that gives the customer a voice. These tools grade the CX agent’s soft skills and leverage customer feedback.

“I can sit here all day and say somebody’s tone wasn’t correct, but if the customer’s consistently happy with it, then I would really be doing that individual a disservice,” he says.

Tyson also incorporates SLAs for chat and email platforms to ensure that team members are staying within the timeframes that were set. People can get caught up in the details, but time is of the essence when you don’t have a one-on-one connection that can be achieved with a phone call.

Otherwise, he monitors utilization scores to ensure that work is being done so his agents don’t have to interact with customers all day. They can spend some time improving their soft skills or product knowledge.

“I do like to make sure that there’s things like Linkedin Learning so that a person’s not [facing customers] 100% of their day,” he says. “Leave some room for growth.”

Prioritizing Proactive CX

It’s usually during Christmas months when people aren’t reaching out to the Vego Garden team, but Tyson considers that “no news is good news.”

Higher customer interactions usually means that the company is running out of products due to the high demand in the Spring. Sometimes those gaps happen, so you have to be able to communicate properly with customers and have people available to interact with them. Outside of that, Tyson’s team doesn’t have a lot of downtime, but when the team does, they complete training.

Driving Revenue Through Customer Experience

Tyson incorporates a “proactive practice” within his team when it comes to driving revenue. He and his team take high-dollar customers and treat them with “white glove service.” They reach out shortly after delivery to ensure that the process is going to plan. This usually happens with large orders either over $5,000 or 2,000 pounds.

Furthermore, his team encourages customers to leave reviews to implement the understanding that the team was readily available and helpful every step of the way.

“The people who order one bed go nuts with how tedious it can be, and I was one of those people as well,” he says. “I could imagine that if you ordered 50 beds, a kind of repetitive nature of trying to get some of that stuff handled [in] the setup.”

Tech Stack

ChatGPT

Slack

Integrating AI into Customer Experience

Tyson fell in love with AI and its versatility shortly after he began working for the company. 

The AI platform that his team uses has been very resourceful in crafting documentation. As far as customers go, ChatGPT is a live-in coach, and provides email notes that the team can pick and choose from to enhance their responses. 

Tyson notes that AI requires a lot of coaching to get it to the level that works best for your team, but most people miss this part. You have to dedicate attention and give regular feedback to create resourceful AI that works to your team’s advantage.

“From a manager’s point of view, why wouldn’t you use it?”

Advice for CX Leaders

Tyson advises other CX leaders to consistently self-evaluate. If you aren’t the same leader who encouraged and inspired you along the way, then you have to get back to the things that work best.

Moreover, whoever you become a stakeholder for, they become your external customer. For instance, if you were an agent but moved up to a management position, your agents then become your connection to CX.

“Whatever level you move up to, the place [where] you were becomes your customer,” he says.

Finally, Tyson tells other leaders to create lasting relationships. Don’t treat your agents as your subordinates because the relationship might help the both of you in many ways as time goes on.