Who Is Hannah?

Hannah Beasley is the VP of Customer Experience and Operations at Zoe!

About Zoe

Zoe is a DTC baby stroller brand that delivers the best combination of function, quality, and value. “Our goal is to help people travel lightly through parenthood and the world,” she says. 

Hannah’s CX Journey

Just a few years ago, Hannah sat in a completely different world of CX, working in customer success for a software startup. It was a B2B company with a digital product used by a different demographic—a far cry from an E-Commerce brand selling a physical product to parents of babies and young children. 

Still, at her former job, she was able to interact with both businesses and their employees. “I got a taste for what it was like to connect directly with individuals, solve problems, and use that customer feedback to make products better,” she says.

“That is the foundation of what I’m doing here at Zoe.”

Now at Zoe for three years, she has seen two key shifts between the worlds of software and strollers. In terms of customer interactions, she now brings to the table a natural empathy toward their target demographic. “I have two little kids. I get it,” she says.

That empathy leads her and her team toward creative, customer-centered solutions. “If you’ve got to return this product, it’s cumbersome for you to walk it to FedEx with nothing to carry your children,” she explains. “We have to schedule a pickup—whatever makes the world go round.” 

Beyond returns, selling a physical product has meant transitioning troubleshooting techniques. “If you have a bug in software, a lot of times you can fix it pretty quickly,” she says, “but if somebody’s got a problem with their stroller and they’re in California, there’s not a whole lot you can do to fix that in 15 minutes.” 

So as she has leaned into her empathetic side, she has also learned to grow comfortable with the fact that sometimes, things take time. 

And unlike her old software company, Zoe has a product whose safety is critical to its success. “That is at the core of everything we do, making sure that the children and families we serve are safe all the time in our products,” she says.

So while her time in customer success introduced her to customer interaction, her transition to Zoe has been layered with new customer needs and priorities. Empathy, patience, and safety are at the forefront of her mind. With this mindset, she leads a team of six to engage with customers, addressing their needs thoroughly and compassionately. 

The CX Team at Zoe

“At Zoe, we see customer service as a core function of our brand and as truly a competitive advantage,” Hannah says. “We’re really focused on parents and our customer experience team is built heavily on empathy for people who are living in that season—whatever we can do to support them is what we’re all about,” she adds.

Her CX team themselves understand their customers, especially considering that many on her team are moms. They’ve experienced first-hand how Zoe’s products allow them to get out of the house with young children. “Which is no small feat,” she says, “just physically, it’s challenging. You can’t always carry two or three little kids at once!’

Employing mothers of young kids is in fact an intentional part of their CX strategy. “They provide that magic touch, being able to say, ‘I totally understand. My child does that, too.’”

It’s with a team of six (four part-time, two full-time) that Zoe plays out this empathetic approach to CX. Leveraging remote part-time staffing, they have the flexibility to make help available throughout the day, while their full-time in-house team members help cover on-site duties even beyond customer experience, processing returns and orders for example. 

Each team member takes shifts on live chat, taking general queue tickets. But everyone is also an expert in a certain specialty, with some skills overlapping to ensure coverage of tickets. “We have a warranty specialist. We have a return specialist. We have somebody who focuses on escalations,” she explains. “Someone also manages reviews, reaching out to customers if they need additional support on that front.” Collectively, they address even the most specific pain points with excellence.

Leading a CX Team

“The best advice I have for leaders in customer experience is to have your ear to the ground. Hear and see directly from customers,” she says.

While she has a team dedicated to listening and responding, Hannah still periodically takes tickets or joins a live chat. She frequently asks what her reps are hearing from customers. “The insights that customers give us are not silly, stupid, or uneducated—they are the greatest resources in our entire company,” she says. She can’t ignore the feedback from people who have used their product again and again. 

“It does not serve us if we see customer problems as customer problems. Customer problems are our problems, problems for which we need to create solutions.”

For example, from an engineering standpoint, there may be an increase in the claim of a specific part starting on a particular date. Leading a CX team successfully means following those trends. “It doesn’t matter how good of an idea we think we’ve had. If people don’t love it, and it’s not working for them, it’s not a good idea,” she says. 

So the key to leading a CX team, from Hannah’s point of view, is leading with customer feedback, and she has full confidence in her team to do so. But, that doesn’t mean her position doesn’t come with challenges. 

“It’s really hard for me to see when my team members are drowning due to a surge in demand,” she says. “I sometimes find out a couple of days later when it shows up in the numbers.” As a CX leader, it’s her job to keep her team afloat. “I’ve constantly coached my team to raise their hands, or for us, put a message out in Slack and ask for help when they need it,” she adds. 

This attunement to her team directly impacts results. “We’re able to get really high-caliber employees by offering some flexibility and being a great employer,” she says. She leads her team by valuing them, and in return sees a level of talent, skills, maturity, and competency that aligns with how Zoe’s brand should be portrayed.

Proactive CX

At Zoe, CX isn’t just waiting for the customer to come to them. It’s about going to the customer, meeting them where they’re at, and proactively making their lives easier.

Think of their target demographic. “There’s a certain level of stress that most of our customers are living with. The mental state of somebody who has twins who are six months old—that is a tough season,” she says. To meet this demographic’s needs, the Zoe CX team utilizes a few unique strategies. “We understand their stress in the situation is likely due to lots of things, but it’s our opportunity to serve them, to make one thing in their life a little bit simpler. 

Take their SMS support, for example. Unlike live chat, it stays with the customer, in their text inbox, whether they need to run and change a diaper or clean up a spill. They can send photos and videos easily. It gives parents the flexibility to address any spontaneous stressful situations without losing their chat session, while also delivering a faster response than email—exactly what their demographic needs. Not a marketing ploy, Zoe uses this SMS line strictly for support, demonstrating their priority of serving the customer. 

They also pay special attention to each phase of the purchase and usage journey, from pre-purchase to unboxing. Understanding the shift between retail and E-commerce purchasing patterns in the baby space, they found the unique opportunity to make buyers feel confident making a large purchase online, typically with a phone in one hand and a baby in the other. 

“When you’re making a purchase from us, it’s not going to be like that bad experience you had one time online when you bought something, had a problem, and could never get in touch with anybody,” she says. Rather, questions are answered as the customer shops. Their online help center is extensive. Their specs are detailed. “It feels less burdensome for the consumer,” she says, again emphasizing how even prior to a purchase, there are ways to serve. Through education and the availability of support, Zoe customers can rest easy throughout the pre-purchase process.

That ease continues through to unboxing. Building on a customer’s excitement receiving a product so thoroughly researched and looked forward to, Zoe aims to make sure they know exactly how to use it, keeping it simple as soon as it’s opened. Even the manual is cute, with stickers for kids to play with.

“We’re trying to touch the customer at every step, not just when they reach out because there’s an issue.”

As a result, the CX team gets to hear the incredible stories of how the product is actually helping a mom get out of the house confidently for the first time, for example, or empowering a mom to start walking with their special needs child. “You have potentially more emotional inbound communication. But you also get these wonderfully rich interactions,” she says.

Tech Stack

Gorgias

Shopify

Aftership

Slack

Zoom

Klaviyo

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