October 6, 2025 • 33 mins
You're obsessed with getting new customers, but the world's top brands are quietly focused on a different goal. Ken Rapp, the CEO and Co-founder of BluStream will reveal the simple retention strategies they use to build unbreakable loyalty and create lasting profit.
Ken Rapp is the CEO and co-founder of BluStream, a company reshaping how brands build loyalty, reduce churn, and drive revenue after the sale, by owning the product experience. With a career spanning over two decades in digital transformation and customer experience, Ken has consistently been at the forefront of connecting technology to real business impact. At BluStream, he leads the charge in helping D2C and subscription brands solve one of the most critical (and often overlooked) problems in marketing: post-purchase drop-off. While most platforms focus on acquisition or reactive support, BluStream’s PX platform is designed to activate and personalize the customer journey from the moment a product arrives - through usage, replenishment, renewal, and advocacy. With integrations across SMS, email, WhatsApp, and Shopify, BluStream gives brands a direct line to customers during their most critical ownership moments.
Contact Details:
Email: ken@blustream.io
Business: BluStream Corporation
Website: https://blustream.io/
PXAI Journey Builder - https://blustream.io/products/ai-journey-builder?utm_campaign=13746024-PXAI%20Journey%20Builder&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=earned-media
Product Experience Strategy eBook - https://getstarted.blustream.io/px-readiness-ebook?utm_campaign=12306435-PX%20Strategy%20ebook&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=earned-media
Social Media:
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rapp-b922766/
Remember to SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss "Information That You Can Use." Share Just Minding My Business with your family, friends, and colleagues. Engage with us by leaving a review or comment. https://g.page/r/CVKSq-IsFaY9EBM/review Your support keeps this podcast going and growing.
Visit Just Minding My Business Media™ LLC at https://jmmbmediallc.com/ to learn how we can support you in getting more visibility on your products and services.
Ken Rapp is the CEO and co-founder of BluStream, a company reshaping how brands build loyalty, reduce churn, and drive revenue after the sale, by owning the product experience. With a career spanning over two decades in digital transformation and customer experience, Ken has consistently been at the forefront of connecting technology to real business impact. At BluStream, he leads the charge in helping D2C and subscription brands solve one of the most critical (and often overlooked) problems in marketing: post-purchase drop-off. While most platforms focus on acquisition or reactive support, BluStream’s PX platform is designed to activate and personalize the customer journey from the moment a product arrives - through usage, replenishment, renewal, and advocacy. With integrations across SMS, email, WhatsApp, and Shopify, BluStream gives brands a direct line to customers during their most critical ownership moments.
Contact Details:
Email: ken@blustream.io
Business: BluStream Corporation
Website: https://blustream.io/
PXAI Journey Builder - https://blustream.io/products/ai-journey-builder?utm_campaign=13746024-PXAI%20Journey%20Builder&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=earned-media
Product Experience Strategy eBook - https://getstarted.blustream.io/px-readiness-ebook?utm_campaign=12306435-PX%20Strategy%20ebook&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=earned-media
Social Media:
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rapp-b922766/
Remember to SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss "Information That You Can Use." Share Just Minding My Business with your family, friends, and colleagues. Engage with us by leaving a review or comment. https://g.page/r/CVKSq-IsFaY9EBM/review Your support keeps this podcast going and growing.
Visit Just Minding My Business Media™ LLC at https://jmmbmediallc.com/ to learn how we can support you in getting more visibility on your products and services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
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Speaker 4 (01:55):
Welcome to just Monding my Business Media.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I am so happy that you join this today and
I am so excited to bring to you Ken Red,
who is the CEO and co founder of Bluestream, which
is a company reshaping how brands build loyalty, reduce churn,
and drive revenue after the sale by owning the product experience. Wow,
(02:23):
thank you, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Ken. So when you talk
about reducing the churn and bettering the product experience, can
you explain to us what that actually means.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Sure, thank you so much for having me and blue
Stream on your show. We're excited. So what's interesting is
that if as we looked out at the landscape, and
we we see that the e commerce and online buying
(03:01):
has really made it difficult in the pre sale environment
to differentiate a brand and a product. And the example
I use is I just typed in that I wanted
to get some dog food for my dog, and I
got over a million hits of like potential dog food,
(03:22):
and I said to myself, geez, you know, after I
buy the dog food, I generally don't have a lot
of help I have to the assumption is I know
how to use the product, or I know how to
read the instructions on the back. And essentially what we
determined was if we provided a connection, a new channel
(03:48):
to a customer around the product after the sale, for example,
asking a question what kind of puppy do you have?
And you know how much exercise might you be taking
your dog for? And do you live in a hot
climate or a cooler climate, we could begin to build
an automated relationship through this mess these messages or dialogues
(04:10):
we call them, so that a brand could have this
value added trusting relationship with their consumer after the sale.
And so now when it comes time to buy again,
that consumer is connected to the brand and so they'll
basically have a pretty high conversion rate when they recommend
(04:31):
through a trusted channel, a trusted set of dialogues, Hey,
it's probably time for you to buy some more food,
and did you know that we have a supplement that
could be helpful for your kind of breed might have
itchy skin, the cross sell is incredibly powerful. So to
date the most important part of sort of what we
(04:53):
stand for is everybody ahead of a sale. All the
systems and all the technology are doing great. You know,
you have CRM, you have your websites, and you have
e commerce, and we even track our products all the
way to a doorstep of our customer, our consumer. But
from the doorstep to delight, what blue Stream we call
(05:15):
the doorstep to delight is the next step in e
commerce and post sale experience. And so by connecting to
the customer, the results are super powerful. We see thirty
percent plus reduction in churn, we see twenty percent plus
increase in average order value through those recommendations, and we
(05:37):
see lifetime values just you know, grow by a factor
of two.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I like that that approach because I mean I'm one
of those people out hood online pretty much all the time,
and you know, I get a thank you email basically
thanking me from approaches, but I don't.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
And then sometimes I might get some thing that maybe
like leave a review.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Something like that, what did you think of the product?
And but I never get what you just mentioned, you know,
you know what in your in your example.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
The dog you know, they need to know what kind
of dog you have, how much exercise.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's like really important questions when you buyd dog food
and you up against millions of other providers of dog food.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
That's right, And I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead, go
right ahead, go right ahead. Well, it's we're super passionate
at blue Stream about helping brands and leading product providers
with this connection. And I'll share a story from one
of our customers who said when when her store was
small enough and she was just starting, she knew every
(06:57):
dog's name, and she knew every pet parent's name, and
she knew how often they did things, and you know,
what their lifestyle was with their pet. But as she
began to grow in the business, it just became impossible
to have that personal touch when it became thousands and
thousands of customers. And so blue Stream provides that same
(07:21):
personal touch, only in an automated way. And then what
she gets is she gets to see the data. So
you know, it's we're all about how do you make
more of your customers your best customers right, so you
can quickly see when someone is struggling or having a problem.
For example, if there's a video that you might have
(07:44):
on your brand and your product's website that helps be
a startup guide or or you know how to guide,
or some tips, and your customers are clicking on them.
You can see that this group of this audience, this
segment of your audience is actually clicking on it, and
that might be an opportunity to reach out and provide
(08:05):
them with a few more tips or maybe even a
personal phone call to help them if they're struggling in
the same area of a dialogue. We call them product
journeys throughout the life cycle of the product, which could
ultimately be a series of dialogues that go on throughout
the journey. So I loved her story because she was
(08:26):
all about personalization and you can't do it at scale
if you're an individual or a team. So providing this
automation just leveraging technology to be able to do that.
Most of our customers use SMS or text messaging. Blusstream
offers our journeys in SMS or in Internet based messaging
(08:51):
or WhatsApp or other channels, but most of our customers
use text messaging these days.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yes, yes, well, I'm just loving it because that, after
the fact, is important because you know, it shows a
level of caring about your customer.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
One percent, and we find that the NPS and CSAT
scores to be just off the charts. You know you're
you're talking about. So here here's a great example. One
of our customers, they actually on their journey at the
at the right moment, asked the question, are we meeting
(09:30):
your expectations with our great product? And they get feedback
that says and in this particular example, when we first
started working together, it was only around fifty percent of
their customers were saying yes, like you've met my expectations.
And and what our automation did was it started a
(09:52):
dialogue with all the nose and said, geez, can you
help us understand why is it? Because maybe this that
or the third other thing? And with ninety three percent
of the ones who said no, you're not meeting my expectation,
continued on with a nurturing dialogue that showed you care
(10:12):
just like you just said. I like that. That says
we care as a brand about you being happy. And
I call it the sixth star, you know, the delighted star. Uh.
And those who said yes, I'm already you're meeting my expectation,
we run them right over to well, here's our link
to leave us a review. Would you mind leaving us
(10:33):
a review? And those that said no, we took the
corrective action with the incremental dialogues and then move them
either to leave a review or a direct call right
a link right to their support line of the brand.
So you're now going to get right to those customers
who are struggling so you can help them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Wow, I love that, you know, And it takes a
lot of the work out from the company because the
automation is there number one to be able to, you know,
determine what the next step is going to be.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
So yeah, that gets me too. How your.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
How brands are use that data? You know, because what's
the point of collecting data if you can't use.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
It, you know what I mean? So can we talk
a little bit about that sure thing?
Speaker 5 (11:30):
So we see the data being used in both front
end i'll call it and back end. Front end being revenue.
How do you grow your revenue through delighted customers? And
so by having information about product usage, the particular unique
(11:50):
set of data around how your customers are using your
products leads to incremental revenue through higher retention through repeed
sales and through the right recommendations at the right time.
You know, knowing that a chihuahua is exercising, you know,
going for a walk for ten minutes a day versus
(12:11):
a spring of spaniel that is going for you know,
an hour a day or is not because they should
changes the recommended next sale, and so the data unlocks
the potential for a business to make the right recommendations
at the right time to their customers. The second side,
or the back end, is if you see a lot
(12:33):
of struggling going on with a particular question or a
link to one of Most of our customers have all
the content and guides and tips already on their websites,
but when we buy things as consumers, we generally use
Google or a different search engine and don't go back
to the website that we you know, where we bought
(12:54):
the product and might be confused by that, and so
you'd you'd see the the data around struggling consumers, which
leads you to even build preventative journeys that will prevent
calls from coming into your support line. So some of
our customers have reported a dramatic reduction in the support
(13:16):
costs and the team because they prevent the problem from
happening in the first place. Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
That's that's awesome. Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So let me ask you if companies want to work
with you, how did.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
They do so?
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Yeah, great question. So we have actually a team of
customer success leaders and anyone on your audience as I'm
happy to take you know, a first chat with so
they can reach me directly at Ken at bluestream dot
io without a without an E. But generally the process
(13:54):
is we'd have an introductory meeting and talk about the
objectives and the products that your customers, your clients are providing,
and then we have what's called the journey builder and
right there live in less than five minutes, we'll type
in the product brand, We'll type in the product name
(14:15):
and then hit a button and our technology will combine
the content and tips and information that's publicly available about
that product and brand with our knowledge about usage data
from our data lake on when to send a welcome message,
when to send the question about are you're ready to
(14:36):
unbox that product? Because sometimes, like you said, sometimes you'll
have a product arrive at your door, but you're not
going to open it till the weekend, and yet you
might get a promotional message saying, hey, would you like
to leave us a review? You haven't even opened the
box yet, right, So what our journey builder does is
it goes out and looks at our data lake of
(14:58):
cadence and content. I call it the when to send
which message and the publicly available information from the brand
and product that we're talking with the company and the
product line, and combines that and actually builds a journey
that's a draft starting point for our customers to get started,
and with a few edits and connecting the right links
(15:21):
up to the journey, they're up and running.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Wow, this is this is amazing, So thank you, It
really is, because I mean, as a business owner, you know,
especially a solo entpreneur, you know, you always.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Trying to create stuff all the time.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And I'm very grateful for AI because it has definitely
cut down a lot of my creativity time for sure.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
So what I want to ask you is.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
When when you bring a customer one okay, and we
talked a little bit about it, does the size matter,
where they are in their business matter? What kind of
things matter to you to your company?
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yeah, So we work with a lot of early stage
companies that are growing. We also work with some very
large household names. But so to us, our job as
a technology partner to brands in an industry like this
is to provide make it as simple and light of
a lift as possible, and so using tools and technology
(16:37):
we can have some of our customers will will use
some templates and tools right out of the box, and
other companies that maybe the larger ones, they have the
ability to change things and edit things and add their
own touch points and dialogues, and it's a continuous process.
Once you get started on the Bluestream Product Experienced platform
(17:01):
or PX platform, you can continue to add dialogues in
context of the product lines. And so we work with
you know, from small to very large companies, and it's
on us to make sure that it's something that's easy
for someone to do and quick so that you can
be up and running. If you're small, or if you
(17:23):
want to put in more work and really tailor the
personalization to your brand, you can do even more of
that as you go. And I'll give you an example.
There's an industry segment that I love. I'm a musician
and I play a mean rock and roll guitar. And
that's to a degree. There's a history here as to
why we started Bluestream around that I have a guitar
(17:47):
that actually cracked, and it cracked because I live in
the Boston area and it's cold and dry up here
in the winter, and some of my colleagues as well.
We got together and had challenge is with a particular guitar.
And what's funny is I have a lot of guitars.
Don't tell my wife how many I have, but I
(18:07):
have enough guitars that I'm not a beginner to a guitar.
Yet this particular model, which is a beautiful model, it
was very susceptible to humidity, and because it got so
dry and cold in October November, it actually it cracked.
And so you know, to me, we love the musical
(18:28):
musical instrument industry, and we found ourselves helping the kids
in the rental programs in elementary school and high school.
And if you think about that business, that's simply like
a subscription or a repeat business. They've rent a violin
or a cello or a guitar every month. And the
more you can keep the kids engaged and excited, the
(18:51):
more likelihood the following semester they're going to keep going.
And very similar to our work that we do in
the pet wellness and human wellness and subscription economy, they
lose fifty percent plus of those school kids students in
the first semester or two. But by nurturing them with
(19:16):
automated dialogues about that violin, did you know that if
you put a little special oil on the fret board
it will last longer and be easier to play? And
then asking a question how often do you play your violin?
And I might say fifteen minutes every other day, and
you might say I love it. I'm playing an hour
(19:37):
a day. Those that data will help our client, our
customer support those consumers, those renters. For example, maybe the
lower or lighter player needs some lessons, and so offering
some supplemental lessons to the school program is a cross
(19:58):
sell up sell for the sake of the sale, but
for the sake of helping the student actually achieve love
for playing the violin. And for the one who plays
a lot more, maybe they should be offered a workshop,
because you have workshops every month and they didn't know
about it. For more advanced players to get together and jam.
(20:19):
And so what we see is the same thing. We
see increased repeat sales through understanding the behavior and usage
of the usage of the instruments. And then we see
the churn reduction of thirty to forty percent, And that
means we're really psyched that we had. There's tens of
thousands more little kids, little souls out there still playing
(20:42):
music who would have been lost had they not had
that nurturing and support through an automated set of dialogues.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yes, and we all know nurture and works.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know it works without kids, so why wouldn't it
work in business?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
For sure? Wow?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So let me ask what type of companies do you
work with? Service companies? Give us a snippet of the
different types of companies you work with.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yeah, so we find a great question you asked to
tie back. The last one is the ideal customer for
Bluestream is a business that sells a product or service
that has some amount of complexity and could use some guidance. So,
if it's a very very simple product like buying a
(21:33):
case of soda or water, you really don't need blue Stream.
If it's special water with you these days, wellness and
health ingredients in it. There's a great use case because
those consumers maybe finding out why they're buying that water.
Is it for diet, is it for exercise? Do they
(21:55):
have a goal of running a ten k by the
end of the summer. Then you really can nurture around that.
So our best customers are the ones where you care
a lot about repeating revenue. Again, if it's a one
time sale, like you're buying a house and that's it,
I'm not sure that you really need to engage that
(22:17):
consumer because consumers who buy houses maybe only buy them
one house every ten years or something. But you know,
if there's a repeatability to your business model and you're
losing customers, we're an excellent fit and we're a center
of the bullseye, a double bullseye if your product really
needs a little nurturing and guidance throughout the course of
(22:39):
the life cycle of the product. We're a perfect fit
for small or large companies where you know, software, hardware,
physical goods and services.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Will you explain that very well?
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Thank you very well? Indeed.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Right, So your platform is is it handheld type scenario
or can people is can it be a do it
yourself or has the platform actually engaged customers.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
So typically when a consumer, when we as consumers, buy something,
we will start their journeys from the point of sale system,
whether that's a contract that's signed and then the contract
system automatically starts our journeys, or if it's Shopify woo
commerce where you your consumer clicks a button and says
(23:36):
I'm buying this and they buy it. We then the
journey gets triggered and from there it's it goes in
that cadence and content based on our view with you,
your your customer, the brand on how they want to
run those journeys over the following days, weeks, and months.
So from a blue stream perspective, we really do today
(24:00):
work with all our customers one on one. We call
it a white glove. There's no fees for the white
glove because together we're building this post sale product experience,
market and category and we're learning from that to get
smarter about it and better. And our job is to
provide more tools and technologies to make it easier and
easier for our customers to deploy and expand.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yes, okay, wow, so you get caught a blank service,
you know.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
And what we do is we charge a monthly fee
for the number of connected consumers that are active and
that you have as a business, so we're in it.
It's an interesting thing. We had a discussion about this
at the company at blue Stream. You know, we are
incentivized to delight you as a brand, because if your
(24:52):
consumers start on journeys and then stop, then blue Stream
won't get paid. We're paid on making sure that the
messages and dialogues are going to nurture and engage and
build trust between the brand and their customer. And I'm
super proud to share that our connection rate, or we
(25:16):
measure every day, is north of ninety percent to the
end consumers who start on journeys with Bluestream. We have
some even too high to mention, but the average across
all our customers and all consumers is over ninety percent.
Connection rates where consumers are still receiving messages, where they're
(25:38):
engaging by responding, clicking on tips and educational links, answering
questions about how often they use products, are they happy
or are they struggling. All those kinds of things are
engagements underneath the connection rates, and all that data is
at our client's fingertips.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Wow, that's awesome, Ken. I'm just you've got everything covered.
There's accountability there, you know, because if you don't do
a good job, then you know, the customer doesn't owe
you anything, and that's kind of important, and that gives
your company incentive to really strive to be the best
(26:18):
that it can be.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
Keeps us busy, I'll tell you that. And we've you know,
we're so I'm only thirty five in here, but I'm
my body's no longer thirty five. And you know, I've
been lucky enough to be involved in helping solve what
I call unmet needs in the past and in my career.
And the only way that you succeed and build you know,
(26:43):
wonderful relationships with people and businesses is when when you
own your half of the of the equation. You know,
and you and you know, we're committed to not just provide,
you know, some hard technology that someone has to go
struggle with without you know, us learning why and fixing
that and making it easier and easier. It's not perfect,
(27:04):
I mean, it's very important. We have a list a
mile long of things we want to do, and like
every business, we only have enough resources to do part
of the list. So we'll just chip away at it.
But we're excellent listeners. We want to hear from our clients.
We want to know what it is. That's how we're
growing so fast because we're listening to the market. And
(27:26):
I call it get on the field to play and
listen and then then our customers will teach us what
they need.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Absolutely, absolutely yes, you must listen to your customer because
I know when you first start a business, you know,
you got this beautiful business plan and as soon as
you put it in action, you quickly find things have
to change based on your customer.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
For sure.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Not a straight line, is it.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
No, indeed, not at all.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
So Ken again, how can come and these connect because
this is an amazing opportunity to be able to take
all of that frustration companies have and you know in
customer retaining, you know, retaining the customer base.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
Yeah, so you know, in ten minutes we can run
a quick journey builder analysis and what it was the
result of that is really two things. One is it
will provide you as a as a brand and a
company for that product line with a set of dialogues
(28:36):
that we recommend would be absolutely wonderful between you and
your customer. So we have about fifteen to twenty dialogues
that we automatically generate. And the second is, well, we
generate what we call our doorstep to delight draft journey
and so ten minutes of a conversation, delighted to do
(28:57):
this if any of your your listeners with like to
would like to learn more, and my email again is
kannat bluestream dot io and I'll provide some links that
you know will allow allow your audience to check us out.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Absolutely. Wow, Thank you so much. Ken.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
You have definitely dropped some gems on us today.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Thank you for that. It's a lot of fun to
work with great people, and so thank you for having
us today.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
I appreciate you saying yes for sure, because I mean
I often think about that, you know, after the fat
kind of thing, and because I'm small enough at this
point I can reach out to people, you know, I
can talk to people.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
But I know it's going to come a point where
that's not going to be feasible. And having your service
around to make sure that the community, the communication continues
in a caring way, because that's important.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah, I'll leave you with the thought, you know, one
of one of the consumers of one of our customers.
So one of the consumers who I met at an
interaction opportunity, she said to me, you know, I actually
feel like I have a new friend on my phone
from the brand, like a friend. And that was really
(30:21):
We have Friday lunches or virtual lunches every Friday with
our team, and I shared that story from this particular
end user, end consumer, and I'm saying, and we told
the brand, you know, can you imagine if you were
a brand and and you know, you've got thousands of
people out there, customers, and you you have them feeling
(30:41):
like they're friends with you because of the messaging. That's
a very special thing and that's what we're striving to do.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Oh wow, that is a beautiful thing, Ken, because if
you can work with a business and.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
They make you feel that way.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
You are definitely owing to something and at the top
of the game, because most companies do not make you
feel like that, especially the largest larger companies. Oh wow,
I am so happy that we met and audience. I
(31:17):
know there has been a lot of gyms dropped this
day and reach out because you know, at the end
of the day. We all want to retain our customers.
It's one thing to get the customer, but it's a
better thing to keep the customer.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Well, it's a great point there. You know, it's ten
times harder to get a new customer than it is
to keep a customer. And like I said earlier, all
of our investments to date, most of our investments have
been to try and get customers, and it's so hard,
and we work on that. We invest in that with
CRMs and with you know, websites and e commerce and
(31:57):
then even tracking to doors and after the sale, we
invest in when a customer has a problem, they can
call our hotline or use our website and they have
a support line. But there's this huge opportunity in between
those two places where your customer is. You want them
to fall in love with your product, and we just
(32:19):
simply have put together a platform to allow that to happen.
So thank you so much for having us today.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Thank you, and we definitely have to do this again, Ken,
because I've really enjoyed your aura. You know, it's one
thing of bringing information, but it's also another thing as
to how you make your audience feel, and you have
done both. You made us feel comfortable while bringing good information.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
That's very special of you to say thank you.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Thank you, and thank you audience.
Speaker 7 (32:57):
We appreciate you being here as well. Thank you to
our guests and you our values audience at Stop you.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
By, We truly appreciate you.
Speaker 7 (33:12):
Many blessings to you and yours
Welcome to Just Minded My Business Media LLC, where you
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Speaker 4 (01:55):
Welcome to just Monding my Business Media.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I am so happy that you join this today and
I am so excited to bring to you Ken Red,
who is the CEO and co founder of Bluestream, which
is a company reshaping how brands build loyalty, reduce churn,
and drive revenue after the sale by owning the product experience. Wow,
(02:23):
thank you, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Ken. So when you talk
about reducing the churn and bettering the product experience, can
you explain to us what that actually means.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Sure, thank you so much for having me and blue
Stream on your show. We're excited. So what's interesting is
that if as we looked out at the landscape, and
we we see that the e commerce and online buying
(03:01):
has really made it difficult in the pre sale environment
to differentiate a brand and a product. And the example
I use is I just typed in that I wanted
to get some dog food for my dog, and I
got over a million hits of like potential dog food,
(03:22):
and I said to myself, geez, you know, after I
buy the dog food, I generally don't have a lot
of help I have to the assumption is I know
how to use the product, or I know how to
read the instructions on the back. And essentially what we
determined was if we provided a connection, a new channel
(03:48):
to a customer around the product after the sale, for example,
asking a question what kind of puppy do you have?
And you know how much exercise might you be taking
your dog for? And do you live in a hot
climate or a cooler climate, we could begin to build
an automated relationship through this mess these messages or dialogues
(04:10):
we call them, so that a brand could have this
value added trusting relationship with their consumer after the sale.
And so now when it comes time to buy again,
that consumer is connected to the brand and so they'll
basically have a pretty high conversion rate when they recommend
(04:31):
through a trusted channel, a trusted set of dialogues, Hey,
it's probably time for you to buy some more food,
and did you know that we have a supplement that
could be helpful for your kind of breed might have
itchy skin, the cross sell is incredibly powerful. So to
date the most important part of sort of what we
(04:53):
stand for is everybody ahead of a sale. All the
systems and all the technology are doing great. You know,
you have CRM, you have your websites, and you have
e commerce, and we even track our products all the
way to a doorstep of our customer, our consumer. But
from the doorstep to delight, what blue Stream we call
(05:15):
the doorstep to delight is the next step in e
commerce and post sale experience. And so by connecting to
the customer, the results are super powerful. We see thirty
percent plus reduction in churn, we see twenty percent plus
increase in average order value through those recommendations, and we
(05:37):
see lifetime values just you know, grow by a factor
of two.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I like that that approach because I mean I'm one
of those people out hood online pretty much all the time,
and you know, I get a thank you email basically
thanking me from approaches, but I don't.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
And then sometimes I might get some thing that maybe
like leave a review.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Something like that, what did you think of the product?
And but I never get what you just mentioned, you know,
you know what in your in your example.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
The dog you know, they need to know what kind
of dog you have, how much exercise.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's like really important questions when you buyd dog food
and you up against millions of other providers of dog food.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
That's right, And I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead, go
right ahead, go right ahead. Well, it's we're super passionate
at blue Stream about helping brands and leading product providers
with this connection. And I'll share a story from one
of our customers who said when when her store was
small enough and she was just starting, she knew every
(06:57):
dog's name, and she knew every pet parent's name, and
she knew how often they did things, and you know,
what their lifestyle was with their pet. But as she
began to grow in the business, it just became impossible
to have that personal touch when it became thousands and
thousands of customers. And so blue Stream provides that same
(07:21):
personal touch, only in an automated way. And then what
she gets is she gets to see the data. So
you know, it's we're all about how do you make
more of your customers your best customers right, so you
can quickly see when someone is struggling or having a problem.
For example, if there's a video that you might have
(07:44):
on your brand and your product's website that helps be
a startup guide or or you know how to guide,
or some tips, and your customers are clicking on them.
You can see that this group of this audience, this
segment of your audience is actually clicking on it, and
that might be an opportunity to reach out and provide
(08:05):
them with a few more tips or maybe even a
personal phone call to help them if they're struggling in
the same area of a dialogue. We call them product
journeys throughout the life cycle of the product, which could
ultimately be a series of dialogues that go on throughout
the journey. So I loved her story because she was
(08:26):
all about personalization and you can't do it at scale
if you're an individual or a team. So providing this
automation just leveraging technology to be able to do that.
Most of our customers use SMS or text messaging. Blusstream
offers our journeys in SMS or in Internet based messaging
(08:51):
or WhatsApp or other channels, but most of our customers
use text messaging these days.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yes, yes, well, I'm just loving it because that, after
the fact, is important because you know, it shows a
level of caring about your customer.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
One percent, and we find that the NPS and CSAT
scores to be just off the charts. You know you're
you're talking about. So here here's a great example. One
of our customers, they actually on their journey at the
at the right moment, asked the question, are we meeting
(09:30):
your expectations with our great product? And they get feedback
that says and in this particular example, when we first
started working together, it was only around fifty percent of
their customers were saying yes, like you've met my expectations.
And and what our automation did was it started a
(09:52):
dialogue with all the nose and said, geez, can you
help us understand why is it? Because maybe this that
or the third other thing? And with ninety three percent
of the ones who said no, you're not meeting my expectation,
continued on with a nurturing dialogue that showed you care
(10:12):
just like you just said. I like that. That says
we care as a brand about you being happy. And
I call it the sixth star, you know, the delighted star. Uh.
And those who said yes, I'm already you're meeting my expectation,
we run them right over to well, here's our link
to leave us a review. Would you mind leaving us
(10:33):
a review? And those that said no, we took the
corrective action with the incremental dialogues and then move them
either to leave a review or a direct call right
a link right to their support line of the brand.
So you're now going to get right to those customers
who are struggling so you can help them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Wow, I love that, you know, And it takes a
lot of the work out from the company because the
automation is there number one to be able to, you know,
determine what the next step is going to be.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
So yeah, that gets me too. How your.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
How brands are use that data? You know, because what's
the point of collecting data if you can't use.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
It, you know what I mean? So can we talk
a little bit about that sure thing?
Speaker 5 (11:30):
So we see the data being used in both front
end i'll call it and back end. Front end being revenue.
How do you grow your revenue through delighted customers? And
so by having information about product usage, the particular unique
(11:50):
set of data around how your customers are using your
products leads to incremental revenue through higher retention through repeed
sales and through the right recommendations at the right time.
You know, knowing that a chihuahua is exercising, you know,
going for a walk for ten minutes a day versus
(12:11):
a spring of spaniel that is going for you know,
an hour a day or is not because they should
changes the recommended next sale, and so the data unlocks
the potential for a business to make the right recommendations
at the right time to their customers. The second side,
or the back end, is if you see a lot
(12:33):
of struggling going on with a particular question or a
link to one of Most of our customers have all
the content and guides and tips already on their websites,
but when we buy things as consumers, we generally use
Google or a different search engine and don't go back
to the website that we you know, where we bought
(12:54):
the product and might be confused by that, and so
you'd you'd see the the data around struggling consumers, which
leads you to even build preventative journeys that will prevent
calls from coming into your support line. So some of
our customers have reported a dramatic reduction in the support
(13:16):
costs and the team because they prevent the problem from
happening in the first place. Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
That's that's awesome. Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So let me ask you if companies want to work
with you, how did.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
They do so?
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Yeah, great question. So we have actually a team of
customer success leaders and anyone on your audience as I'm
happy to take you know, a first chat with so
they can reach me directly at Ken at bluestream dot
io without a without an E. But generally the process
(13:54):
is we'd have an introductory meeting and talk about the
objectives and the products that your customers, your clients are providing,
and then we have what's called the journey builder and
right there live in less than five minutes, we'll type
in the product brand, We'll type in the product name
(14:15):
and then hit a button and our technology will combine
the content and tips and information that's publicly available about
that product and brand with our knowledge about usage data
from our data lake on when to send a welcome message,
when to send the question about are you're ready to
(14:36):
unbox that product? Because sometimes, like you said, sometimes you'll
have a product arrive at your door, but you're not
going to open it till the weekend, and yet you
might get a promotional message saying, hey, would you like
to leave us a review? You haven't even opened the
box yet, right, So what our journey builder does is
it goes out and looks at our data lake of
(14:58):
cadence and content. I call it the when to send
which message and the publicly available information from the brand
and product that we're talking with the company and the
product line, and combines that and actually builds a journey
that's a draft starting point for our customers to get started,
and with a few edits and connecting the right links
(15:21):
up to the journey, they're up and running.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Wow, this is this is amazing, So thank you, It
really is, because I mean, as a business owner, you know,
especially a solo entpreneur, you know, you always.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Trying to create stuff all the time.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And I'm very grateful for AI because it has definitely
cut down a lot of my creativity time for sure.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
So what I want to ask you is.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
When when you bring a customer one okay, and we
talked a little bit about it, does the size matter,
where they are in their business matter? What kind of
things matter to you to your company?
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Yeah, So we work with a lot of early stage
companies that are growing. We also work with some very
large household names. But so to us, our job as
a technology partner to brands in an industry like this
is to provide make it as simple and light of
a lift as possible, and so using tools and technology
(16:37):
we can have some of our customers will will use
some templates and tools right out of the box, and
other companies that maybe the larger ones, they have the
ability to change things and edit things and add their
own touch points and dialogues, and it's a continuous process.
Once you get started on the Bluestream Product Experienced platform
(17:01):
or PX platform, you can continue to add dialogues in
context of the product lines. And so we work with
you know, from small to very large companies, and it's
on us to make sure that it's something that's easy
for someone to do and quick so that you can
be up and running. If you're small, or if you
(17:23):
want to put in more work and really tailor the
personalization to your brand, you can do even more of
that as you go. And I'll give you an example.
There's an industry segment that I love. I'm a musician
and I play a mean rock and roll guitar. And
that's to a degree. There's a history here as to
why we started Bluestream around that I have a guitar
(17:47):
that actually cracked, and it cracked because I live in
the Boston area and it's cold and dry up here
in the winter, and some of my colleagues as well.
We got together and had challenge is with a particular guitar.
And what's funny is I have a lot of guitars.
Don't tell my wife how many I have, but I
(18:07):
have enough guitars that I'm not a beginner to a guitar.
Yet this particular model, which is a beautiful model, it
was very susceptible to humidity, and because it got so
dry and cold in October November, it actually it cracked.
And so you know, to me, we love the musical
(18:28):
musical instrument industry, and we found ourselves helping the kids
in the rental programs in elementary school and high school.
And if you think about that business, that's simply like
a subscription or a repeat business. They've rent a violin
or a cello or a guitar every month. And the
more you can keep the kids engaged and excited, the
(18:51):
more likelihood the following semester they're going to keep going.
And very similar to our work that we do in
the pet wellness and human wellness and subscription economy, they
lose fifty percent plus of those school kids students in
the first semester or two. But by nurturing them with
(19:16):
automated dialogues about that violin, did you know that if
you put a little special oil on the fret board
it will last longer and be easier to play? And
then asking a question how often do you play your violin?
And I might say fifteen minutes every other day, and
you might say I love it. I'm playing an hour
(19:37):
a day. Those that data will help our client, our
customer support those consumers, those renters. For example, maybe the
lower or lighter player needs some lessons, and so offering
some supplemental lessons to the school program is a cross
(19:58):
sell up sell for the sake of the sale, but
for the sake of helping the student actually achieve love
for playing the violin. And for the one who plays
a lot more, maybe they should be offered a workshop,
because you have workshops every month and they didn't know
about it. For more advanced players to get together and jam.
(20:19):
And so what we see is the same thing. We
see increased repeat sales through understanding the behavior and usage
of the usage of the instruments. And then we see
the churn reduction of thirty to forty percent, And that
means we're really psyched that we had. There's tens of
thousands more little kids, little souls out there still playing
(20:42):
music who would have been lost had they not had
that nurturing and support through an automated set of dialogues.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yes, and we all know nurture and works.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know it works without kids, so why wouldn't it
work in business?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
For sure? Wow?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So let me ask what type of companies do you
work with? Service companies? Give us a snippet of the
different types of companies you work with.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yeah, so we find a great question you asked to
tie back. The last one is the ideal customer for
Bluestream is a business that sells a product or service
that has some amount of complexity and could use some guidance. So,
if it's a very very simple product like buying a
(21:33):
case of soda or water, you really don't need blue Stream.
If it's special water with you these days, wellness and
health ingredients in it. There's a great use case because
those consumers maybe finding out why they're buying that water.
Is it for diet, is it for exercise? Do they
(21:55):
have a goal of running a ten k by the
end of the summer. Then you really can nurture around that.
So our best customers are the ones where you care
a lot about repeating revenue. Again, if it's a one
time sale, like you're buying a house and that's it,
I'm not sure that you really need to engage that
(22:17):
consumer because consumers who buy houses maybe only buy them
one house every ten years or something. But you know,
if there's a repeatability to your business model and you're
losing customers, we're an excellent fit and we're a center
of the bullseye, a double bullseye if your product really
needs a little nurturing and guidance throughout the course of
(22:39):
the life cycle of the product. We're a perfect fit
for small or large companies where you know, software, hardware,
physical goods and services.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Will you explain that very well?
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Thank you very well? Indeed.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Right, So your platform is is it handheld type scenario
or can people is can it be a do it
yourself or has the platform actually engaged customers.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
So typically when a consumer, when we as consumers, buy something,
we will start their journeys from the point of sale system,
whether that's a contract that's signed and then the contract
system automatically starts our journeys, or if it's Shopify woo
commerce where you your consumer clicks a button and says
(23:36):
I'm buying this and they buy it. We then the
journey gets triggered and from there it's it goes in
that cadence and content based on our view with you,
your your customer, the brand on how they want to
run those journeys over the following days, weeks, and months.
So from a blue stream perspective, we really do today
(24:00):
work with all our customers one on one. We call
it a white glove. There's no fees for the white
glove because together we're building this post sale product experience,
market and category and we're learning from that to get
smarter about it and better. And our job is to
provide more tools and technologies to make it easier and
easier for our customers to deploy and expand.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yes, okay, wow, so you get caught a blank service,
you know.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
And what we do is we charge a monthly fee
for the number of connected consumers that are active and
that you have as a business, so we're in it.
It's an interesting thing. We had a discussion about this
at the company at blue Stream. You know, we are
incentivized to delight you as a brand, because if your
(24:52):
consumers start on journeys and then stop, then blue Stream
won't get paid. We're paid on making sure that the
messages and dialogues are going to nurture and engage and
build trust between the brand and their customer. And I'm
super proud to share that our connection rate, or we
(25:16):
measure every day, is north of ninety percent to the
end consumers who start on journeys with Bluestream. We have
some even too high to mention, but the average across
all our customers and all consumers is over ninety percent.
Connection rates where consumers are still receiving messages, where they're
(25:38):
engaging by responding, clicking on tips and educational links, answering
questions about how often they use products, are they happy
or are they struggling. All those kinds of things are
engagements underneath the connection rates, and all that data is
at our client's fingertips.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Wow, that's awesome, Ken. I'm just you've got everything covered.
There's accountability there, you know, because if you don't do
a good job, then you know, the customer doesn't owe
you anything, and that's kind of important, and that gives
your company incentive to really strive to be the best
(26:18):
that it can be.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
Keeps us busy, I'll tell you that. And we've you know,
we're so I'm only thirty five in here, but I'm
my body's no longer thirty five. And you know, I've
been lucky enough to be involved in helping solve what
I call unmet needs in the past and in my career.
And the only way that you succeed and build you know,
(26:43):
wonderful relationships with people and businesses is when when you
own your half of the of the equation. You know,
and you and you know, we're committed to not just provide,
you know, some hard technology that someone has to go
struggle with without you know, us learning why and fixing
that and making it easier and easier. It's not perfect,
(27:04):
I mean, it's very important. We have a list a
mile long of things we want to do, and like
every business, we only have enough resources to do part
of the list. So we'll just chip away at it.
But we're excellent listeners. We want to hear from our clients.
We want to know what it is. That's how we're
growing so fast because we're listening to the market. And
(27:26):
I call it get on the field to play and
listen and then then our customers will teach us what
they need.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Absolutely, absolutely yes, you must listen to your customer because
I know when you first start a business, you know,
you got this beautiful business plan and as soon as
you put it in action, you quickly find things have
to change based on your customer.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
For sure.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Not a straight line, is it.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
No, indeed, not at all.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
So Ken again, how can come and these connect because
this is an amazing opportunity to be able to take
all of that frustration companies have and you know in
customer retaining, you know, retaining the customer base.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
Yeah, so you know, in ten minutes we can run
a quick journey builder analysis and what it was the
result of that is really two things. One is it
will provide you as a as a brand and a
company for that product line with a set of dialogues
(28:36):
that we recommend would be absolutely wonderful between you and
your customer. So we have about fifteen to twenty dialogues
that we automatically generate. And the second is, well, we
generate what we call our doorstep to delight draft journey
and so ten minutes of a conversation, delighted to do
(28:57):
this if any of your your listeners with like to
would like to learn more, and my email again is
kannat bluestream dot io and I'll provide some links that
you know will allow allow your audience to check us out.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Absolutely. Wow, Thank you so much. Ken.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
You have definitely dropped some gems on us today.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Thank you for that. It's a lot of fun to
work with great people, and so thank you for having
us today.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
I appreciate you saying yes for sure, because I mean
I often think about that, you know, after the fat
kind of thing, and because I'm small enough at this
point I can reach out to people, you know, I
can talk to people.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
But I know it's going to come a point where
that's not going to be feasible. And having your service
around to make sure that the community, the communication continues
in a caring way, because that's important.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah, I'll leave you with the thought, you know, one
of one of the consumers of one of our customers.
So one of the consumers who I met at an
interaction opportunity, she said to me, you know, I actually
feel like I have a new friend on my phone
from the brand, like a friend. And that was really
(30:21):
We have Friday lunches or virtual lunches every Friday with
our team, and I shared that story from this particular
end user, end consumer, and I'm saying, and we told
the brand, you know, can you imagine if you were
a brand and and you know, you've got thousands of
people out there, customers, and you you have them feeling
(30:41):
like they're friends with you because of the messaging. That's
a very special thing and that's what we're striving to do.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Oh wow, that is a beautiful thing, Ken, because if
you can work with a business and.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
They make you feel that way.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
You are definitely owing to something and at the top
of the game, because most companies do not make you
feel like that, especially the largest larger companies. Oh wow,
I am so happy that we met and audience. I
(31:17):
know there has been a lot of gyms dropped this
day and reach out because you know, at the end
of the day. We all want to retain our customers.
It's one thing to get the customer, but it's a
better thing to keep the customer.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Well, it's a great point there. You know, it's ten
times harder to get a new customer than it is
to keep a customer. And like I said earlier, all
of our investments to date, most of our investments have
been to try and get customers, and it's so hard,
and we work on that. We invest in that with
CRMs and with you know, websites and e commerce and
(31:57):
then even tracking to doors and after the sale, we
invest in when a customer has a problem, they can
call our hotline or use our website and they have
a support line. But there's this huge opportunity in between
those two places where your customer is. You want them
to fall in love with your product, and we just
(32:19):
simply have put together a platform to allow that to happen.
So thank you so much for having us today.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Thank you, and we definitely have to do this again, Ken,
because I've really enjoyed your aura. You know, it's one
thing of bringing information, but it's also another thing as
to how you make your audience feel, and you have
done both. You made us feel comfortable while bringing good information.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
That's very special of you to say thank you.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Thank you, and thank you audience.
Speaker 7 (32:57):
We appreciate you being here as well. Thank you to
our guests and you our values audience at Stop you.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
By, We truly appreciate you.
Speaker 7 (33:12):
Many blessings to you and yours
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