October 30, 2023 • 31 mins
Are you prepared to revolutionise your understanding of customer service in the e-commerce realm? Natalie Barton from Gorgias brings her vast experience to the table, discussing how Gorgias streamlines customer communication and enhances customer relationships.
The platform’s impressive features and international presence simplify customer service, ensuring every crucial detail fits into a single screen, making agents the masters of first impressions.
Ever wondered how to marry efficiency and personalisation in customer service?
Get a fresh perspective on how businesses can budget for automation implementation, with the ROI calculator shedding light on the cost benefits of an automated customer service process.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, welcome to the Big Comerce Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello, welcome to the brand new episode of the Big
Comerce Podcast.
I'm your co-host, luigi, and intoday's episode, we're joined
by Natalie Barton from Gorgeous.
Gorgeous is an e-commercefocused customer service
platform, and today we talkabout automations and offering
excellent customer serviceduring Black Friday, cyber
Monday.
Enjoy the episode, hi, natalie.
(00:28):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hello, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I am good.
I was going to say I'm actuallyvery timely with this podcast
in the midst of trying to prepall of my brands, customers,
agencies etc.
With Black Friday, so I'm busyin a good way.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
As we all are, I think we're looking forward to
Black Friday being over.
It was so busy last year Iactually forgot to do any
shopping on Black Friday.
That's kind of how it is for us, really.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Can I just say I always tell the brands I work
with I love Black Friday.
I am such a cliche AmericanBlack Friday shopper.
I've done the line waiting, allthose things that you see on TV
.
I've been at those things Eversince I've worked in e-com.
I have not done it once.
My mind is totally elsewhere.
It's more of a planning behindthe scenes perspective now, and
(01:20):
I don't enjoy it.
The same way, I have a lot ofrespect for the brands that do
it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's kind of ruined it for us, I think.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
You're from one of our partners, Gorgeous.
Why don't you introduceyourself, your role at Gorgeous
and obviously tell people aboutGorgeous itself?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, so my name is Natalie.
I'm based in Charlotte, northCarolina.
I started at Gorgeous as acustomer success manager and now
I'm actually a partnershipsuccess manager.
Just tilted my workingrelationships a little bit more
less brands directly, and nowthe agencies that work the magic
for those brands.
For anybody who's not superfamiliar with Gorgeous yet, it
(02:00):
is an e-commerce help desk, thekind of TLDR that I tell
everyone, depending on howfamiliar with that jargon that
you are.
It just houses all of yourcustomer communications in one
place your email, your chat,your social channels, any
marketing platforms.
It just hones everything intoone.
Ideally, you don't have youragents and your team going from
(02:22):
tab to tab to streamlineseverything, so you can best
reply to customers having theirfull scope of their relationship
with the brand.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I think the difference between Gorgeous and
other solutions on the market isthat you're specialized in
e-commerce, and that's somethingthat we really love, because
when we talk about yourcompetitors, who are just a bit
more of a generic, I wouldn'tcall it ticker system, because
that's not fair, but it's justgeneric.
(02:53):
You've been built fore-commerce merchants.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
It's always nice to hear someone else say it, so I'm
glad it's not just me braggingabout us, but it's true.
Everything natively is justbuilt from an e-com eye.
Those competitors are good atother things.
They have positives, negatives.
I'm not even here to bash themby any means, but for e-com
(03:18):
brands, gorgeous just tends tobe the most natural fit, just
because everything is built withthat in mind, which is a nice,
strong group of ours.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You've been around, I think for around about, or
certainly quite mainstream, forthe last four years, three years
.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, I was going to say, if I have to guess, I've
been at Gorgeous.
In all honesty, I've been hereat two for two years, but yeah,
I would say about the last fouryears sounds about right or a
top shop if I have now, sothat's always nice.
And you started off in Francedidn't you?
No, I wish I started off inFrance.
I didn't.
(03:54):
I'm in.
So Gorgeous actually has quitea few headquarters, which is
great, very international brand.
We have CSMs and supportmembers around the world, but I
started off in our NorthCarolina office, but before that
I've been at a few techcompanies, google included.
So I'm just bringing all thisinfo that I've gathered up until
(04:15):
then and just making it workfor Gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
When I first learned about Gorgeous one of the
obviously you were growing onShopify at the time so I was
like I'm going to have a look atthis kind of live chat system.
And then it was kind of likeright, let's throw everything
else, that we're working withall the other platforms, that we
probably work with three otherplatforms one email marketing
platform that offered live chatand then two others that were
ticketing it as all right, we'regoing all in on Gorgeous only
(04:44):
because the feature set that hadbeen built was for e-commerce
merchants.
It was just so much easier formerchants to be able to, I guess
, get a picture of the contextbehind the tickets that were
coming in.
So somebody emailing you sayingwhere's my order or I've I
(05:05):
ordered these products, onlyreceived two.
You don't have to switchbetween Windows instead of let
me log into big commerce now andall my warehouse management
system or auto management systemand have a look.
It's all there on the samescreen.
So those operators can makequick you know quick actions to
make sure that the customersbecause fundamentally I think
potentially a lot of people lookat it from an operational
(05:25):
perspective.
It's so easy to use Gorgeous.
I've got all the information onone screen.
But obviously, where you'vekind of come from the angle is
it's all about customer service.
It's not necessarily aboutmaking it easy for the user, the
agent.
It is about how you quickly youcan respond with the correct
information to the person.
That's potentially, nine timesout of 10 got a problem that you
(05:49):
want to resolve by exceedingtheir expectations.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
A hundred percent and a lot of these, just even from
an agent standpoint.
They are kind of the directorof first impressions.
Right, there's only one shotand typically if you're reaching
out to a customer, you know toa brand directly.
It's for guidance and it's likethe big presale moment.
You know make or break andthere are so many options of
absolutely everything nowadays.
(06:13):
So they have that one moment tokind of strike and make a good
impression, or maybe not themost positive experience, or
just the majority of theinteractions.
Something was deliveredincorrectly, whether it be on
the brand or not, and then theyhave to basically win back that
loyalty and make sure that theycome back.
So these are such big momentsthat I think for some companies
(06:35):
feel like, oh, that's just adrop in the bucket, it's
inevitable.
But these are make or break fora brand.
So just having everything asaccessible for the agent is
going to obviously help theagent, but long term it's going
to be the best customerexperience.
So they should be workingtogether.
If one is succeeding, so shouldthe other, and that also shows
in customer satisfaction surveys.
(06:56):
So they both talk to each otherand they're both key components
.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Because most people are fairly reasonable in saying
right, you know, we've got aproblem, maybe something arrived
damaged, something didn'tarrive at all, something.
Really, both sides of the coin,ie the customer and the
merchant, want the sameresolution, which is you ordered
three of this and we're goingto give you three of this and we
want to make sure that you getthem.
So most of those negativeinteractions are quite winnable.
(07:21):
You know you can normally winback.
It's just all about findingresolution.
And if you're, I mean it irksme when you know, kind of on
customer service channels it'slike speak to us on live chat
and then clearly that person'smanaging like three
conversations.
You always know you can tellyeah and it's kind of like you
know all they're having to loginto another system or whatever,
(07:42):
and it's just like it gorgeous,makes it so much easier.
So it's kind of our go tosolution for customer service.
Customers love it.
As soon as you kind of showthem a couple of things, they're
sold.
It's incredible so you've reallybeen able to reinvent customer
service.
And I think it's always thoseand I've said this before those
unsexy things.
(08:03):
So I said it with ShipRHQ about, kind of like, you know, the
shipping and the checker, it'sall those little things that you
kind of think are on thefringes and it's like, but
actually are probably more of a,you know, a pillar in terms of
that customer experience thananother.
I wouldn't call it fancybecause that sounds a bit wrong,
but you know just the stuffthat isn't so sexy, I guess.
So you know customer servicemaking sure that the response
(08:24):
times are, you know, areadequate and they're getting all
the information.
So on that basis obviously kindof you know about.
Let's talk about, you know,helping merchants offer a really
good service to their customers.
We're going to talk aboutautomation and, yes, we are in
Q4, so Black Friday, so Monday,and whilst I've spoken to some
people who say you need to startplanning in, you know, july and
(08:46):
August and September, the greatthing about gorgeous is it does
not take a long time toimplement, so merchants can
still be still got time toimplement gorgeous for the busy
season.
So I guess the first thing toask is kind of, with Black
Friday, you know, five-ish weeksaway, how important is it for
(09:10):
merchants to offer a high levelof customer service?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's key.
I don't even think that'salmost like a question, it's.
It is a non-negotiable,especially on Black Friday kind
of, for a few reasons.
And it's not even Black Fridayanymore, right, I was just
talking to a brand yesterday whothey were telling me that
they're real.
Black Friday sales starts theMonday before, and then you have
Black Friday and then you haveCyber Monday.
(09:37):
So it's really a non-negotiable, just for the sheer fact that
there is a lot of competition.
It's a different time.
There's brick-and-mortarcompetition, there's online
competition.
There's no such thing as just,oh, I want this black t-shirt.
There's hundreds of brands thatoffer kind of a similar or
variation of this one item.
So what's going to make youguys stand out is speed and just
(10:02):
access to basically whatever acustomer needs.
Customers even though I'd liketo say you have the best
intentions still can getstressed or kind of the hype of
the moment happens and they'renot really factoring in if it's
during business hours or not.
They are just they're likeready to kind of be sold on your
product and get them to the end.
(10:22):
So you need to kind of have allyour kind of chips lined up to
basically fall appropriatelywhen they're on the site,
whether it be with automations,kind of just making sure that
your website is able to supportthe volume that's coming, but
that's like a non-negotiable tome.
That's what sets brands apart.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Because exactly that kind of.
We're coming into a periodwhere merchants are going to get
busy, and not just with avolume of orders but, also
potentially the volume ofreturns and potentially the
volume of issues.
So really, customer service isgoing to be busy over the next
kind of couple of months, and soI would 100% agree with you to
kind of be prepared and not justyou know, I mean, I had one of
(11:05):
our is a merchant, tom from GTSE, and one of the things that
they really are proud of istheir customer service, like we
respond, and that I think thathe puts down to be one of the
pillars of his success, of hisbusiness, and that's because
they've got a process in place.
They've got kind of those, Iguess, as expectations are
(11:26):
managed, and, like you said, ifyou get kind of all the chips
ready, then when the time comesyou're not then having to run
around and work out what to do.
You kind of feel a bit moreconfident and prepared.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
They should be very proud of that.
Honestly, it's not an accident.
Good customer service is not ahappy accident.
It is strategic.
It's people that have plannedand prepped accordingly and I
think the nice thing is thatit's kind of doable.
Everybody has access to havethe best customer you know
service around.
So it's a matter of putting inthe work to get there beforehand
so that when it's all systemsgo, it shows.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And also you just touched on saying kind of you
know the automation, so let'shave kind of a use case.
A merchant says great, ok, howmuch does gorgeous cost?
Gorgeous costs what it costs.
Ok, so now I've got to employpeople to manage my customer
service, if that's got toimprove.
Well actually I would counterthat just knowing gorgeous the
product inside out is, you'regoing to become a lot more
(12:22):
efficient with gorgeous than youwould on any email or phone or
social media system around,absolutely, and so actually you
know that respect it's it's.
It's false to be under thepretext that actually you know
going into this strategically isgoing to cost you more.
I think it's not only anefficiency, but it's most
certainly an investment.
(12:44):
And so you touched onautomation there and I know even
works closely with with youguys.
So why don't we just talk a bitabout how the automation and
the customer service, I guess,will go hand in hand?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I think, even to your initial comment, there's
a reason that gorgeous becausegorgeous doesn't price per user
like more competitors reallyisn't about the users at all.
Like we have so many things inplace to keep your team
depending on how much of a painpoint that is for you pretty
lean, but it not reflecting tothe customer Right.
(13:19):
They feel like they have awhole team of people kind of
supporting them and their accessto information is in the blink
of an eye.
So it's definitely a strategythat gorgeous knows and we kind
of focus on.
And then that's why we have alot of these automation things
put into place.
And I'm glad that you also saidit doesn't take long to set up,
because it really doesn't.
From an automations standpoint,there's a lot of options.
(13:43):
It really depends.
I would say the two make orbreak.
If you had to just pick two forBlack Friday prep order
management.
Everybody knows the wisdom.
The where is my order?
Or the anxiety kind of kicks inand everybody is kind of
spoiled by Amazon.
Right, as soon as you place yourorder you have, like this
immediate portal at yourdisposal, and now gorgeous has
(14:08):
something similar so you can seeyour order history, you can
reorder you can track.
So that to me is key and that'sjust turning it on with one
button.
It's pretty simple and alsomaking sure that y'all are set
up for your presale questions.
Help with sizing what skincareshould I start with first?
What sneakers?
A good fit?
Presale questions are obviouslygoing to be there, and it's
(14:31):
just a matter of when your teamis available to answer those or
not.
So if we can automate all ofthose things, you can leave your
team readily available forthose interactions that
genuinely need human interactionand a little bit more kind of
specific rapport building arekind of the two that come to
mind.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I've set up some automations for some customers
and I think they're fantasticbecause it just saves so much
time.
One of our one of our merchantsin Canada shout out to Dallas
because when I saw him a coupleof weeks ago I found out he
listened to the podcast, or heclaimed anyway.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So let's see if we're going to trust him, we're going
to say he's listening, so we'llsend him.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He's Canadian, we'll have, we'll certainly trust him.
But, anyway they they were bigfans of gorgeous and actually
those automations have helped torelieve the burden on the
customer service team, becausethey have some different
challenges in that they shipsome very large, bulky,
potentially heavy itemsthroughout Canada, so their
challenges aren't necessarilyaround the product, but it's
actually how do we get theproduct to the customer.
(15:31):
And so you know between usingClavio and for certain things,
and gorgeous is just made somany efficiencies for for them.
But yeah, even I don't know ifyou've got any questions you
want to ask Natalie.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah, I totally agree there and just kind of to chime
in, you know, looking at thingsfrom the customer perspective,
really customer service is amust, kind of.
As you said, natalie.
You know it's not anon-negotiable.
If you know I'm having issueswith my order, if something is
not going the way I thought itwould, you know, I would say
(16:09):
it's a must to have someone tothat you can contact and the
gorgeous making that easier.
It just kind of takes things tothe next level.
Yeah, you can.
As you said, luigi, there aresometimes costs to these things,
but in the end it's probably aprofit center really that you
just haven't uncovered and, asyou said Natalie, it's up to the
(16:29):
company itself to do goodcustomer service.
So really it's in their handsand anyone has the possibility.
But I wanted to see you know ifyou thought are there any cost
effective strategies forimplementing automation in
customer service and kind of howbusinesses can budget for these
expenses?
You know, I know Gorgeous is apotential answer, but if you
(16:50):
could expand on that.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
No, that's not there.
I was going to say no, maybehere at Co.
Sorry about that, making sureeverybody can hear my hopefully
helpful answer.
Honestly, it really depends onhow much you want to automate,
at least from a cost perspective.
So, for example, we have abrand.
They sell baby strollers andsupplies.
(17:16):
They are automating about 60%of all of their tickets.
So just think of what a leanteam that they're able to run.
60% of their tickets are fullyautomated.
So that means people are usingthe article recommendation.
They're using the ordermanagement.
The quick response is they havetotally built this out so that
they don't have to hire for theholiday.
They don't maybe need to hireseasonal agents, so they're
(17:38):
saving that way.
And when you actually, ifanybody here has any questions
about this specifically, makesure that the team has my
contact info or you'll know whoto go to.
We usually have a really goodROI calculator basically doing
the math of a seasonal agent orjust an agent in general versus
an automated interaction from acost savings perspective.
So you are putting yourinvesting in something that
(18:02):
ultimately is going to have avery high ROI way past Black
Friday, cyber Monday.
But for some people maybe youwant to automate just the order
management piece and not put toomuch money in but get those
kind of low hanging fruit out ofthe way.
The plans are all reallycustomizable so you can kind of
control how much automationthere is versus how much human
(18:24):
interaction.
It's also to say there areautomation features that are
included in many plans, so youdon't think that you kind of
have to invest in this featureto necessarily get the benefits.
It's preparing for kind of mybiggest tip, if anything and I
do think this has to come with amoney piece also it's preparing
(18:46):
for the worst case scenariowith just the foundation of your
help desk.
How are you guys assigningtickets?
Are you auto assigning them?
Are you sorting out yourtickets by what customers are
writing in about, by intent,even by keywords?
Are you having your agents bekind of like subject matter
(19:07):
experts?
So I have one clothing brandthat they have somebody who's
really good at sizing and theyare auto assigning all of the
tickets to her to increase speedand access to these customers.
That's something that's alreadyincluded in your help desk.
You're not doing anything thatcosts extra money.
Do you have your macros builtin?
So the questions that you'regoing to answer over and, over
(19:28):
and over.
Do you have those set up andupdated?
Are you setting up your tagsaccurately so that when the
hecticness of Black Friday,cyber Monday, is over, you
actually have data that you canuse for next year to help you
prep?
So there are things that don'tcost any money at all that can
set you up for success thisround, but also going forward
next year.
(19:48):
So you know what to expect Ifthat hopefully shed some light
on that.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I love.
You said that I can justpicture somebody or picture
yourself.
You're running your customerservice on email and phone and
then natively in Instagram orFacebook or Twitter, and then
you've got somebody else who'skind of working on Gorgeous and,
like you said, you've got tagsthat will give you data for next
year.
I mean, it's I don't know, it'sjust comparing apples and
oranges because they're sodifferent, but fundamentally the
(20:15):
desired result is all the sameto give the customer a response.
What you're saying is we canhelp you to make better
decisions in the future becauseyou're building up this database
, this bank of data that canhelp you with that information.
And all this I'm presuming Iguess loaded question here comes
(20:35):
out of the box of Gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So yeah, a lot of it's already native.
I mean ultimately, I mean Ilove using my Gmail inbox.
I am never going to shade myregular just straight direct to
email inbox option, but in termsof actually getting the
interactions from customers andbeing able to do something with
it, just the out of the boxfunctionality that Gorgeous has,
(21:00):
you just can't compare.
It is very much an apples andoranges type of example.
We also have like AI featuresnow that are going to recommend
certain macros to you.
So, based off of Yvonne, let'ssay you email me and Gorgeous is
going to automaticallyrecommend like oh hey, natalie,
you as the agent looks like thisresponse would be a good one to
(21:21):
send Yvonne, like it's going tohelp speed up the agents as
much as possible.
And even then, when everythingis over, let's say you go to the
team and I'm giving a very muchworse case scenario but let's
say, once this crazy week isover, you can go to the team and
say, actually, I noticed thatthere was just based off of,
like the data that you get alonefrom the baseline of your help
desk, I noticed that there was a30% increase in people saying
(21:44):
that their orders arriveddamaged this week and somebody
can then put together oh, weactually did change who our
distributor is, and then you canactually use this data to move
the needle and further kind ofimprove your company.
So customer service is not justthis one little bucket.
You're able to make very largescale moves if you have the
(22:05):
numbers and the data to back itup, and Gorgeous just makes that
natively available to you.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, I agree, I'm definitely data centric and I
believe that data should leadthe way.
So, yeah, if you have systemsthat are in place that can tell
you what customers are askingabout, and then you can put
processes in place to save timewith each interaction, you know
the benefits in the long run.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
We even have and, yvonne, depending on how much
I'm a data nerd too, so I get itbut we have for our article
recommendation feature.
I actually love this onebecause we have statistics
specifically that show, forexample, let's say, I clicked on
the sizing chart.
It'll tell you what percent ofpeople were able to fully kind
(22:52):
of get their answer from thearticle recommendation and what
number of people still hadissues.
So then maybe you're going togo back to your team and say,
okay, this article in particularis not really helping.
It's not deflecting as manytickets as we want.
Maybe we need to go up in andupdate this.
So it really tries to have youwork smarter, not harder, and
(23:12):
know where a little bit of TLCis needed to just help your
customers further.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
You can kind of see why kind of customers that move
on to gorgeous just view it assuch a game changer, because
it's not replacing a phone, anemail or a social media inbox.
It is just, I don't know.
That's like the tip of theiceberg.
Everything else that comes outof that is just mind blowing,
and it helps to make betterbusiness decisions, like you
said, maybe improve descriptionson pages or make sure that
(23:44):
there's some kind of informationthat customers can use in order
to get the right size orwhatever it is that they need
Absolutely.
I mean, implementing a customerservice system isn't easy
anyway.
And then when we're talkingabout automation, obviously that
takes a bit of time to do so.
(24:04):
Are you aware of any challengesthat businesses can face when
they're kind of approaching anautomation implementation?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Definitely I would say I'm trying to think what's
the biggest challenge.
If I'm being totally honest, Inoticed just the biggest pain
point, if anything, is justbandwidth especially.
Let's even lean into that thisis a quarter that a lot of
people already have their handsquite full right, but that tends
to be the case all the time.
(24:32):
There's always like an excuse,you know, or some sort of
blocker.
So I understand, but bandwidthtends to be the biggest blocker.
I will say gorgeous has beenvery thoughtful about holding
all of these things to be out ofthe box.
So two examples come to mind.
Let's say, migrating your helpcenter or like your FAQ page so
(24:52):
that you can use the articlerecommendation and hopefully
lean on that.
Gorgeous has a process where youcan actually send a request for
the gorgeous team, like anengineer, to transfer your help
center over for you, ultimatelytaking one thing off your to-do
list.
That's an option Also if youalready have your top macros
(25:13):
used.
So let's say you're just divinginto really automations and
you're not sure what your quickresponses, what those common
questions are for you to set up.
We can just look easily someonefrom our wonderful support team
or a CSM if you have one, or awonderful agency partner can
look at your macros and seewhich ones you use the most and
quickly add those.
I mean, you have the data toback up what is actually the
(25:35):
most utilized.
So the setup that tends to bethe most kind of time consuming
piece or biggest blocker, isactually not going to take that
much time.
You just need to kind of liketap on somebody for support.
But you have a lot of peopleand tools at Gorgeous that can
kind of speed you up so you cansee the benefits faster than
like your concern of how longit's going to take to set up.
(25:56):
That's what I see all the time.
People are like, oh, I love it,I just don't have the time.
And then you tell them aboutthese tools and they're like oh,
we can do that this afternoon.
And I'm like yes, like it isdoable.
I promise I'm not just sayingthat, it's very true, I've done
it many a time.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
But I think it's one of those things you kind of have
to sell the end goal to say,look, it takes some hard work at
the beginning, but it's justgoing to be plain sailing
thereafter.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And those are things that you set up one time.
Maybe if, depending on how muchyou've hung out in Gorgeous,
you set them up one time andthey're running.
It doesn't require thisconstant maintenance, unless
maybe some of your product linesdo, obviously like any policies
.
But it's a one and donesituation that you'll be able to
reap the benefits from longafter Black Friday, cyber Monday
.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Natalie, I've realized we're at what time.
Just one final question for youactually got to, but the first
one is could you share some lastminute tips or insights for
e-commerce merchants to make themost of their automation during
, or even customer serviceduring, Black Friday, Cyber
Monday?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, I would say the biggest one, and I'm having
this talk almost every day, so Ifeel good enough, I feel
confident that I can give kindof this tip Plan for the worst
case scenario.
This is a time where thatshould almost feel soothing.
So this is what I mean Plan forif your top agent or your, like
(27:16):
you know, most knowledgeableagent isn't going to be there,
do we have the macros that theywould use?
Do we have the automations inplace so that the volume doesn't
kind of overwhelm the team thatis there?
Okay, plan for your escalations.
There's always going to besomebody.
You can have your A game inplace, but there's always going
to be some sort of escalation,someone who's upset, who needs
(27:38):
to talk to somebody.
What is the plan?
Are we going to kind of run ina panic and post on Slack I need
help immediately.
Or are we going to set up asystem?
When a ticket is tagged withescalation, it immediately
slacks the team lead Like planfor whatever the worst case
scenario is, so that when thosehappen because they will happen,
it is inevitable you can haveall your ducks in a row.
(27:58):
They will always be something.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
It wouldn't be fun if they didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I know I look ideally this never happens and you
think I'm crazy on this call.
But if they happen it won'teven be that scary because you
already have a process in placeand it's not going to really
disrupt anything.
So I would just say run throughyour worst case scenarios and
plan accordingly is like tipnumber one.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Plan for the worst, hope for the best?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Exactly that is the motto.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I'm just down to that .
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, I have your second question, if you want.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, the second one was we like to ask all our
guests kind of if they read abook recently or if they
listened to a podcast and ifthey wouldn't mind sharing that
with us.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yes, oh, I feel so cliche.
I feel like a lot of peopleknow about this podcast, but
I've been listening to it for avery long time and I still
genuinely enjoy it.
How I built this with Guy Raz.
I love that podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
I've been listening for years.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I never get sick of it.
I've also been listening foryears, especially the ones with
brands that I buy and I feelpersonally invested in.
It's just crazy how smallthings can start with almost
something as silly as like alittle idea, and take these for
like your brands too, that arestarting small and they can end
up being Spanx, like somethingcrazy.
(29:14):
So I just find that podcastsuper inspiring.
I've been sucked in for years,but obviously it's for a reason,
so that is my favorite.
If anybody has not, it's nevertoo late 100%.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I would second that and I think the great thing
about that is it's quite a rawpodcast as far as people, as far
as the founders talk about thestruggles they've had and the
problems they've had and howthey've had to pivot or whatever
, and it's not just been plainsailing.
And they've not becomeovernight successes.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
They're very upfront about it, which I genuinely
appreciate.
They're not.
I agree 100%.
They are not just coming inlike, oh it's great, it just
worked.
They will tell you all theproblems and hopefully we learn
from their mistakes.
So we don't do it twice.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Exactly.
We'll put a link to that again,but I like that podcast as well
, and they're not too longeither.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
No, they're nice.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So that's a really good one, but but, Ivan, I don't
know if there's anything youwanted to add.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Just wanted to add that I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Good, okay, I feel like I made a good suggestion
then for all fans, but it reallyhas been great to talk today.
If anybody finds me helpful, Iwould always love to talk some
more, but make sure you share myinfo.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And if anyone wants to learn more about gorgeous, go
straight to the websitegorgeouscom.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Go to the website.
I will happily plug my email ifanybody finds it helpful.
I don't mind talking to anybodyif you have any questions.
Even on an automation front Maytake a little while to respond,
since that is the hot topic ofthe moment.
So don't get disappointed if Idon't have a five minute first
response time.
But feel free to contact me andthe website is great.
Everybody can help you outthere.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
We'll put some information in the show notes at
LinkedIn as well.
Well, natalie, thank you verymuch for your time.
Thank you so much, all the bestduring quarter four, and I look
forward to catching up with youagain.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
You too.
We'll talk after the craziness.
Thank you both.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Have a good one.
Bye, bye.
Thank you for listening to theBigCommerce Podcast.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please leave us a
review on your favorite podcastplatform and make sure you're
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If you've got ideas orsuggestions for future episodes,
please send us an email info atthebigcommercepodcastcom or on
(31:22):
our social media platforms.
Hi, welcome to the Big Comerce Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hello, welcome to the brand new episode of the Big
Comerce Podcast.
I'm your co-host, luigi, and intoday's episode, we're joined
by Natalie Barton from Gorgeous.
Gorgeous is an e-commercefocused customer service
platform, and today we talkabout automations and offering
excellent customer serviceduring Black Friday, cyber
Monday.
Enjoy the episode, hi, natalie.
(00:28):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hello, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I am good.
I was going to say I'm actuallyvery timely with this podcast
in the midst of trying to prepall of my brands, customers,
agencies etc.
With Black Friday, so I'm busyin a good way.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
As we all are, I think we're looking forward to
Black Friday being over.
It was so busy last year Iactually forgot to do any
shopping on Black Friday.
That's kind of how it is for us, really.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Can I just say I always tell the brands I work
with I love Black Friday.
I am such a cliche AmericanBlack Friday shopper.
I've done the line waiting, allthose things that you see on TV
.
I've been at those things Eversince I've worked in e-com.
I have not done it once.
My mind is totally elsewhere.
It's more of a planning behindthe scenes perspective now, and
(01:20):
I don't enjoy it.
The same way, I have a lot ofrespect for the brands that do
it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's kind of ruined it for us, I think.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
You're from one of our partners, Gorgeous.
Why don't you introduceyourself, your role at Gorgeous
and obviously tell people aboutGorgeous itself?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, so my name is Natalie.
I'm based in Charlotte, northCarolina.
I started at Gorgeous as acustomer success manager and now
I'm actually a partnershipsuccess manager.
Just tilted my workingrelationships a little bit more
less brands directly, and nowthe agencies that work the magic
for those brands.
For anybody who's not superfamiliar with Gorgeous yet, it
(02:00):
is an e-commerce help desk, thekind of TLDR that I tell
everyone, depending on howfamiliar with that jargon that
you are.
It just houses all of yourcustomer communications in one
place your email, your chat,your social channels, any
marketing platforms.
It just hones everything intoone.
Ideally, you don't have youragents and your team going from
(02:22):
tab to tab to streamlineseverything, so you can best
reply to customers having theirfull scope of their relationship
with the brand.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I think the difference between Gorgeous and
other solutions on the market isthat you're specialized in
e-commerce, and that's somethingthat we really love, because
when we talk about yourcompetitors, who are just a bit
more of a generic, I wouldn'tcall it ticker system, because
that's not fair, but it's justgeneric.
(02:53):
You've been built fore-commerce merchants.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
It's always nice to hear someone else say it, so I'm
glad it's not just me braggingabout us, but it's true.
Everything natively is justbuilt from an e-com eye.
Those competitors are good atother things.
They have positives, negatives.
I'm not even here to bash themby any means, but for e-com
(03:18):
brands, gorgeous just tends tobe the most natural fit, just
because everything is built withthat in mind, which is a nice,
strong group of ours.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You've been around, I think for around about, or
certainly quite mainstream, forthe last four years, three years
.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, I was going to say, if I have to guess, I've
been at Gorgeous.
In all honesty, I've been hereat two for two years, but yeah,
I would say about the last fouryears sounds about right or a
top shop if I have now, sothat's always nice.
And you started off in Francedidn't you?
No, I wish I started off inFrance.
I didn't.
(03:54):
I'm in.
So Gorgeous actually has quitea few headquarters, which is
great, very international brand.
We have CSMs and supportmembers around the world, but I
started off in our NorthCarolina office, but before that
I've been at a few techcompanies, google included.
So I'm just bringing all thisinfo that I've gathered up until
(04:15):
then and just making it workfor Gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
When I first learned about Gorgeous one of the
obviously you were growing onShopify at the time so I was
like I'm going to have a look atthis kind of live chat system.
And then it was kind of likeright, let's throw everything
else, that we're working withall the other platforms, that we
probably work with three otherplatforms one email marketing
platform that offered live chatand then two others that were
ticketing it as all right, we'regoing all in on Gorgeous only
(04:44):
because the feature set that hadbeen built was for e-commerce
merchants.
It was just so much easier formerchants to be able to, I guess
, get a picture of the contextbehind the tickets that were
coming in.
So somebody emailing you sayingwhere's my order or I've I
(05:05):
ordered these products, onlyreceived two.
You don't have to switchbetween Windows instead of let
me log into big commerce now andall my warehouse management
system or auto management systemand have a look.
It's all there on the samescreen.
So those operators can makequick you know quick actions to
make sure that the customersbecause fundamentally I think
potentially a lot of people lookat it from an operational
(05:25):
perspective.
It's so easy to use Gorgeous.
I've got all the information onone screen.
But obviously, where you'vekind of come from the angle is
it's all about customer service.
It's not necessarily aboutmaking it easy for the user, the
agent.
It is about how you quickly youcan respond with the correct
information to the person.
That's potentially, nine timesout of 10 got a problem that you
(05:49):
want to resolve by exceedingtheir expectations.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
A hundred percent and a lot of these, just even from
an agent standpoint.
They are kind of the directorof first impressions.
Right, there's only one shotand typically if you're reaching
out to a customer, you know toa brand directly.
It's for guidance and it's likethe big presale moment.
You know make or break andthere are so many options of
absolutely everything nowadays.
(06:13):
So they have that one moment tokind of strike and make a good
impression, or maybe not themost positive experience, or
just the majority of theinteractions.
Something was deliveredincorrectly, whether it be on
the brand or not, and then theyhave to basically win back that
loyalty and make sure that theycome back.
So these are such big momentsthat I think for some companies
(06:35):
feel like, oh, that's just adrop in the bucket, it's
inevitable.
But these are make or break fora brand.
So just having everything asaccessible for the agent is
going to obviously help theagent, but long term it's going
to be the best customerexperience.
So they should be workingtogether.
If one is succeeding, so shouldthe other, and that also shows
in customer satisfaction surveys.
(06:56):
So they both talk to each otherand they're both key components
.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Because most people are fairly reasonable in saying
right, you know, we've got aproblem, maybe something arrived
damaged, something didn'tarrive at all, something.
Really, both sides of the coin,ie the customer and the
merchant, want the sameresolution, which is you ordered
three of this and we're goingto give you three of this and we
want to make sure that you getthem.
So most of those negativeinteractions are quite winnable.
(07:21):
You know you can normally winback.
It's just all about findingresolution.
And if you're, I mean it irksme when you know, kind of on
customer service channels it'slike speak to us on live chat
and then clearly that person'smanaging like three
conversations.
You always know you can tellyeah and it's kind of like you
know all they're having to loginto another system or whatever,
(07:42):
and it's just like it gorgeous,makes it so much easier.
So it's kind of our go tosolution for customer service.
Customers love it.
As soon as you kind of showthem a couple of things, they're
sold.
It's incredible so you've reallybeen able to reinvent customer
service.
And I think it's always thoseand I've said this before those
unsexy things.
(08:03):
So I said it with ShipRHQ about, kind of like, you know, the
shipping and the checker, it'sall those little things that you
kind of think are on thefringes and it's like, but
actually are probably more of a,you know, a pillar in terms of
that customer experience thananother.
I wouldn't call it fancybecause that sounds a bit wrong,
but you know just the stuffthat isn't so sexy, I guess.
So you know customer servicemaking sure that the response
(08:24):
times are, you know, areadequate and they're getting all
the information.
So on that basis obviously kindof you know about.
Let's talk about, you know,helping merchants offer a really
good service to their customers.
We're going to talk aboutautomation and, yes, we are in
Q4, so Black Friday, so Monday,and whilst I've spoken to some
people who say you need to startplanning in, you know, july and
(08:46):
August and September, the greatthing about gorgeous is it does
not take a long time toimplement, so merchants can
still be still got time toimplement gorgeous for the busy
season.
So I guess the first thing toask is kind of, with Black
Friday, you know, five-ish weeksaway, how important is it for
(09:10):
merchants to offer a high levelof customer service?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's key.
I don't even think that'salmost like a question, it's.
It is a non-negotiable,especially on Black Friday kind
of, for a few reasons.
And it's not even Black Fridayanymore, right, I was just
talking to a brand yesterday whothey were telling me that
they're real.
Black Friday sales starts theMonday before, and then you have
Black Friday and then you haveCyber Monday.
(09:37):
So it's really a non-negotiable, just for the sheer fact that
there is a lot of competition.
It's a different time.
There's brick-and-mortarcompetition, there's online
competition.
There's no such thing as just,oh, I want this black t-shirt.
There's hundreds of brands thatoffer kind of a similar or
variation of this one item.
So what's going to make youguys stand out is speed and just
(10:02):
access to basically whatever acustomer needs.
Customers even though I'd liketo say you have the best
intentions still can getstressed or kind of the hype of
the moment happens and they'renot really factoring in if it's
during business hours or not.
They are just they're likeready to kind of be sold on your
product and get them to the end.
(10:22):
So you need to kind of have allyour kind of chips lined up to
basically fall appropriatelywhen they're on the site,
whether it be with automations,kind of just making sure that
your website is able to supportthe volume that's coming, but
that's like a non-negotiable tome.
That's what sets brands apart.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Because exactly that kind of.
We're coming into a periodwhere merchants are going to get
busy, and not just with avolume of orders but, also
potentially the volume ofreturns and potentially the
volume of issues.
So really, customer service isgoing to be busy over the next
kind of couple of months, and soI would 100% agree with you to
kind of be prepared and not justyou know, I mean, I had one of
(11:05):
our is a merchant, tom from GTSE, and one of the things that
they really are proud of istheir customer service, like we
respond, and that I think thathe puts down to be one of the
pillars of his success, of hisbusiness, and that's because
they've got a process in place.
They've got kind of those, Iguess, as expectations are
(11:26):
managed, and, like you said, ifyou get kind of all the chips
ready, then when the time comesyou're not then having to run
around and work out what to do.
You kind of feel a bit moreconfident and prepared.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
They should be very proud of that.
Honestly, it's not an accident.
Good customer service is not ahappy accident.
It is strategic.
It's people that have plannedand prepped accordingly and I
think the nice thing is thatit's kind of doable.
Everybody has access to havethe best customer you know
service around.
So it's a matter of putting inthe work to get there beforehand
so that when it's all systemsgo, it shows.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And also you just touched on saying kind of you
know the automation, so let'shave kind of a use case.
A merchant says great, ok, howmuch does gorgeous cost?
Gorgeous costs what it costs.
Ok, so now I've got to employpeople to manage my customer
service, if that's got toimprove.
Well actually I would counterthat just knowing gorgeous the
product inside out is, you'regoing to become a lot more
(12:22):
efficient with gorgeous than youwould on any email or phone or
social media system around,absolutely, and so actually you
know that respect it's it's.
It's false to be under thepretext that actually you know
going into this strategically isgoing to cost you more.
I think it's not only anefficiency, but it's most
certainly an investment.
(12:44):
And so you touched onautomation there and I know even
works closely with with youguys.
So why don't we just talk a bitabout how the automation and
the customer service, I guess,will go hand in hand?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah, I think, even to your initial comment, there's
a reason that gorgeous becausegorgeous doesn't price per user
like more competitors reallyisn't about the users at all.
Like we have so many things inplace to keep your team
depending on how much of a painpoint that is for you pretty
lean, but it not reflecting tothe customer Right.
(13:19):
They feel like they have awhole team of people kind of
supporting them and their accessto information is in the blink
of an eye.
So it's definitely a strategythat gorgeous knows and we kind
of focus on.
And then that's why we have alot of these automation things
put into place.
And I'm glad that you also saidit doesn't take long to set up,
because it really doesn't.
From an automations standpoint,there's a lot of options.
(13:43):
It really depends.
I would say the two make orbreak.
If you had to just pick two forBlack Friday prep order
management.
Everybody knows the wisdom.
The where is my order?
Or the anxiety kind of kicks inand everybody is kind of
spoiled by Amazon.
Right, as soon as you place yourorder you have, like this
immediate portal at yourdisposal, and now gorgeous has
(14:08):
something similar so you can seeyour order history, you can
reorder you can track.
So that to me is key and that'sjust turning it on with one
button.
It's pretty simple and alsomaking sure that y'all are set
up for your presale questions.
Help with sizing what skincareshould I start with first?
What sneakers?
A good fit?
Presale questions are obviouslygoing to be there, and it's
(14:31):
just a matter of when your teamis available to answer those or
not.
So if we can automate all ofthose things, you can leave your
team readily available forthose interactions that
genuinely need human interactionand a little bit more kind of
specific rapport building arekind of the two that come to
mind.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I've set up some automations for some customers
and I think they're fantasticbecause it just saves so much
time.
One of our one of our merchantsin Canada shout out to Dallas
because when I saw him a coupleof weeks ago I found out he
listened to the podcast, or heclaimed anyway.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So let's see if we're going to trust him, we're going
to say he's listening, so we'llsend him.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He's Canadian, we'll have, we'll certainly trust him.
But, anyway they they were bigfans of gorgeous and actually
those automations have helped torelieve the burden on the
customer service team, becausethey have some different
challenges in that they shipsome very large, bulky,
potentially heavy itemsthroughout Canada, so their
challenges aren't necessarilyaround the product, but it's
actually how do we get theproduct to the customer.
(15:31):
And so you know between usingClavio and for certain things,
and gorgeous is just made somany efficiencies for for them.
But yeah, even I don't know ifyou've got any questions you
want to ask Natalie.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah, I totally agree there and just kind of to chime
in, you know, looking at thingsfrom the customer perspective,
really customer service is amust, kind of.
As you said, natalie.
You know it's not anon-negotiable.
If you know I'm having issueswith my order, if something is
not going the way I thought itwould, you know, I would say
(16:09):
it's a must to have someone tothat you can contact and the
gorgeous making that easier.
It just kind of takes things tothe next level.
Yeah, you can.
As you said, luigi, there aresometimes costs to these things,
but in the end it's probably aprofit center really that you
just haven't uncovered and, asyou said Natalie, it's up to the
(16:29):
company itself to do goodcustomer service.
So really it's in their handsand anyone has the possibility.
But I wanted to see you know ifyou thought are there any cost
effective strategies forimplementing automation in
customer service and kind of howbusinesses can budget for these
expenses?
You know, I know Gorgeous is apotential answer, but if you
(16:50):
could expand on that.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
No, that's not there.
I was going to say no, maybehere at Co.
Sorry about that, making sureeverybody can hear my hopefully
helpful answer.
Honestly, it really depends onhow much you want to automate,
at least from a cost perspective.
So, for example, we have abrand.
They sell baby strollers andsupplies.
(17:16):
They are automating about 60%of all of their tickets.
So just think of what a leanteam that they're able to run.
60% of their tickets are fullyautomated.
So that means people are usingthe article recommendation.
They're using the ordermanagement.
The quick response is they havetotally built this out so that
they don't have to hire for theholiday.
They don't maybe need to hireseasonal agents, so they're
(17:38):
saving that way.
And when you actually, ifanybody here has any questions
about this specifically, makesure that the team has my
contact info or you'll know whoto go to.
We usually have a really goodROI calculator basically doing
the math of a seasonal agent orjust an agent in general versus
an automated interaction from acost savings perspective.
So you are putting yourinvesting in something that
(18:02):
ultimately is going to have avery high ROI way past Black
Friday, cyber Monday.
But for some people maybe youwant to automate just the order
management piece and not put toomuch money in but get those
kind of low hanging fruit out ofthe way.
The plans are all reallycustomizable so you can kind of
control how much automationthere is versus how much human
(18:24):
interaction.
It's also to say there areautomation features that are
included in many plans, so youdon't think that you kind of
have to invest in this featureto necessarily get the benefits.
It's preparing for kind of mybiggest tip, if anything and I
do think this has to come with amoney piece also it's preparing
(18:46):
for the worst case scenariowith just the foundation of your
help desk.
How are you guys assigningtickets?
Are you auto assigning them?
Are you sorting out yourtickets by what customers are
writing in about, by intent,even by keywords?
Are you having your agents bekind of like subject matter
(19:07):
experts?
So I have one clothing brandthat they have somebody who's
really good at sizing and theyare auto assigning all of the
tickets to her to increase speedand access to these customers.
That's something that's alreadyincluded in your help desk.
You're not doing anything thatcosts extra money.
Do you have your macros builtin?
So the questions that you'regoing to answer over and, over
(19:28):
and over.
Do you have those set up andupdated?
Are you setting up your tagsaccurately so that when the
hecticness of Black Friday,cyber Monday, is over, you
actually have data that you canuse for next year to help you
prep?
So there are things that don'tcost any money at all that can
set you up for success thisround, but also going forward
next year.
(19:48):
So you know what to expect Ifthat hopefully shed some light
on that.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I love.
You said that I can justpicture somebody or picture
yourself.
You're running your customerservice on email and phone and
then natively in Instagram orFacebook or Twitter, and then
you've got somebody else who'skind of working on Gorgeous and,
like you said, you've got tagsthat will give you data for next
year.
I mean, it's I don't know, it'sjust comparing apples and
oranges because they're sodifferent, but fundamentally the
(20:15):
desired result is all the sameto give the customer a response.
What you're saying is we canhelp you to make better
decisions in the future becauseyou're building up this database
, this bank of data that canhelp you with that information.
And all this I'm presuming Iguess loaded question here comes
(20:35):
out of the box of Gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So yeah, a lot of it's already native.
I mean ultimately, I mean Ilove using my Gmail inbox.
I am never going to shade myregular just straight direct to
email inbox option, but in termsof actually getting the
interactions from customers andbeing able to do something with
it, just the out of the boxfunctionality that Gorgeous has,
(21:00):
you just can't compare.
It is very much an apples andoranges type of example.
We also have like AI featuresnow that are going to recommend
certain macros to you.
So, based off of Yvonne, let'ssay you email me and Gorgeous is
going to automaticallyrecommend like oh hey, natalie,
you as the agent looks like thisresponse would be a good one to
(21:21):
send Yvonne, like it's going tohelp speed up the agents as
much as possible.
And even then, when everythingis over, let's say you go to the
team and I'm giving a very muchworse case scenario but let's
say, once this crazy week isover, you can go to the team and
say, actually, I noticed thatthere was just based off of,
like the data that you get alonefrom the baseline of your help
desk, I noticed that there was a30% increase in people saying
(21:44):
that their orders arriveddamaged this week and somebody
can then put together oh, weactually did change who our
distributor is, and then you canactually use this data to move
the needle and further kind ofimprove your company.
So customer service is not justthis one little bucket.
You're able to make very largescale moves if you have the
(22:05):
numbers and the data to back itup, and Gorgeous just makes that
natively available to you.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, I agree, I'm definitely data centric and I
believe that data should leadthe way.
So, yeah, if you have systemsthat are in place that can tell
you what customers are askingabout, and then you can put
processes in place to save timewith each interaction, you know
the benefits in the long run.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
We even have and, yvonne, depending on how much
I'm a data nerd too, so I get itbut we have for our article
recommendation feature.
I actually love this onebecause we have statistics
specifically that show, forexample, let's say, I clicked on
the sizing chart.
It'll tell you what percent ofpeople were able to fully kind
(22:52):
of get their answer from thearticle recommendation and what
number of people still hadissues.
So then maybe you're going togo back to your team and say,
okay, this article in particularis not really helping.
It's not deflecting as manytickets as we want.
Maybe we need to go up in andupdate this.
So it really tries to have youwork smarter, not harder, and
(23:12):
know where a little bit of TLCis needed to just help your
customers further.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
You can kind of see why kind of customers that move
on to gorgeous just view it assuch a game changer, because
it's not replacing a phone, anemail or a social media inbox.
It is just, I don't know.
That's like the tip of theiceberg.
Everything else that comes outof that is just mind blowing,
and it helps to make betterbusiness decisions, like you
said, maybe improve descriptionson pages or make sure that
(23:44):
there's some kind of informationthat customers can use in order
to get the right size orwhatever it is that they need
Absolutely.
I mean, implementing a customerservice system isn't easy
anyway.
And then when we're talkingabout automation, obviously that
takes a bit of time to do so.
(24:04):
Are you aware of any challengesthat businesses can face when
they're kind of approaching anautomation implementation?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Definitely I would say I'm trying to think what's
the biggest challenge.
If I'm being totally honest, Inoticed just the biggest pain
point, if anything, is justbandwidth especially.
Let's even lean into that thisis a quarter that a lot of
people already have their handsquite full right, but that tends
to be the case all the time.
(24:32):
There's always like an excuse,you know, or some sort of
blocker.
So I understand, but bandwidthtends to be the biggest blocker.
I will say gorgeous has beenvery thoughtful about holding
all of these things to be out ofthe box.
So two examples come to mind.
Let's say, migrating your helpcenter or like your FAQ page so
(24:52):
that you can use the articlerecommendation and hopefully
lean on that.
Gorgeous has a process where youcan actually send a request for
the gorgeous team, like anengineer, to transfer your help
center over for you, ultimatelytaking one thing off your to-do
list.
That's an option Also if youalready have your top macros
(25:13):
used.
So let's say you're just divinginto really automations and
you're not sure what your quickresponses, what those common
questions are for you to set up.
We can just look easily someonefrom our wonderful support team
or a CSM if you have one, or awonderful agency partner can
look at your macros and seewhich ones you use the most and
quickly add those.
I mean, you have the data toback up what is actually the
(25:35):
most utilized.
So the setup that tends to bethe most kind of time consuming
piece or biggest blocker, isactually not going to take that
much time.
You just need to kind of liketap on somebody for support.
But you have a lot of peopleand tools at Gorgeous that can
kind of speed you up so you cansee the benefits faster than
like your concern of how longit's going to take to set up.
(25:56):
That's what I see all the time.
People are like, oh, I love it,I just don't have the time.
And then you tell them aboutthese tools and they're like oh,
we can do that this afternoon.
And I'm like yes, like it isdoable.
I promise I'm not just sayingthat, it's very true, I've done
it many a time.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
But I think it's one of those things you kind of have
to sell the end goal to say,look, it takes some hard work at
the beginning, but it's justgoing to be plain sailing
thereafter.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And those are things that you set up one time.
Maybe if, depending on how muchyou've hung out in Gorgeous,
you set them up one time andthey're running.
It doesn't require thisconstant maintenance, unless
maybe some of your product linesdo, obviously like any policies
.
But it's a one and donesituation that you'll be able to
reap the benefits from longafter Black Friday, cyber Monday
.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Natalie, I've realized we're at what time.
Just one final question for youactually got to, but the first
one is could you share some lastminute tips or insights for
e-commerce merchants to make themost of their automation during
, or even customer serviceduring, Black Friday, Cyber
Monday?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, I would say the biggest one, and I'm having
this talk almost every day, so Ifeel good enough, I feel
confident that I can give kindof this tip Plan for the worst
case scenario.
This is a time where thatshould almost feel soothing.
So this is what I mean Plan forif your top agent or your, like
(27:16):
you know, most knowledgeableagent isn't going to be there,
do we have the macros that theywould use?
Do we have the automations inplace so that the volume doesn't
kind of overwhelm the team thatis there?
Okay, plan for your escalations.
There's always going to besomebody.
You can have your A game inplace, but there's always going
to be some sort of escalation,someone who's upset, who needs
(27:38):
to talk to somebody.
What is the plan?
Are we going to kind of run ina panic and post on Slack I need
help immediately.
Or are we going to set up asystem?
When a ticket is tagged withescalation, it immediately
slacks the team lead Like planfor whatever the worst case
scenario is, so that when thosehappen because they will happen,
it is inevitable you can haveall your ducks in a row.
(27:58):
They will always be something.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
It wouldn't be fun if they didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I know I look ideally this never happens and you
think I'm crazy on this call.
But if they happen it won'teven be that scary because you
already have a process in placeand it's not going to really
disrupt anything.
So I would just say run throughyour worst case scenarios and
plan accordingly is like tipnumber one.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Plan for the worst, hope for the best?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Exactly that is the motto.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I'm just down to that .
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, I have your second question, if you want.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, the second one was we like to ask all our
guests kind of if they read abook recently or if they
listened to a podcast and ifthey wouldn't mind sharing that
with us.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yes, oh, I feel so cliche.
I feel like a lot of peopleknow about this podcast, but
I've been listening to it for avery long time and I still
genuinely enjoy it.
How I built this with Guy Raz.
I love that podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
I've been listening for years.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I never get sick of it.
I've also been listening foryears, especially the ones with
brands that I buy and I feelpersonally invested in.
It's just crazy how smallthings can start with almost
something as silly as like alittle idea, and take these for
like your brands too, that arestarting small and they can end
up being Spanx, like somethingcrazy.
(29:14):
So I just find that podcastsuper inspiring.
I've been sucked in for years,but obviously it's for a reason,
so that is my favorite.
If anybody has not, it's nevertoo late 100%.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I would second that and I think the great thing
about that is it's quite a rawpodcast as far as people, as far
as the founders talk about thestruggles they've had and the
problems they've had and howthey've had to pivot or whatever
, and it's not just been plainsailing.
And they've not becomeovernight successes.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
They're very upfront about it, which I genuinely
appreciate.
They're not.
I agree 100%.
They are not just coming inlike, oh it's great, it just
worked.
They will tell you all theproblems and hopefully we learn
from their mistakes.
So we don't do it twice.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Exactly.
We'll put a link to that again,but I like that podcast as well
, and they're not too longeither.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
No, they're nice.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
So that's a really good one, but but, Ivan, I don't
know if there's anything youwanted to add.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Just wanted to add that I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Good, okay, I feel like I made a good suggestion
then for all fans, but it reallyhas been great to talk today.
If anybody finds me helpful, Iwould always love to talk some
more, but make sure you share myinfo.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And if anyone wants to learn more about gorgeous, go
straight to the websitegorgeouscom.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Go to the website.
I will happily plug my email ifanybody finds it helpful.
I don't mind talking to anybodyif you have any questions.
Even on an automation front Maytake a little while to respond,
since that is the hot topic ofthe moment.
So don't get disappointed if Idon't have a five minute first
response time.
But feel free to contact me andthe website is great.
Everybody can help you outthere.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
We'll put some information in the show notes at
LinkedIn as well.
Well, natalie, thank you verymuch for your time.
Thank you so much, all the bestduring quarter four, and I look
forward to catching up with youagain.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
You too.
We'll talk after the craziness.
Thank you both.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Have a good one.
Bye, bye.
Thank you for listening to theBigCommerce Podcast.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please leave us a
review on your favorite podcastplatform and make sure you're
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If you've got ideas orsuggestions for future episodes,
please send us an email info atthebigcommercepodcastcom or on
(31:22):
our social media platforms.
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