Ep 402: Breanna Moreno – True Classic - Turn Customer Support Into A Profit Center

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Today we're talking customer support, with a brand leader who's supported A LOT of customers, potentially the most customers of any DTC apparel brand in the last five years...TRUE CLASSIC, the T-shirt giant who last year reported a quarter of a billion dollars in their first four years..

Today Breanna Moreno, Customer Support Maverick and VP of CX at True Classic gives us the breakdown of the system she's built to support the incredibly fast paced growth, while actively turning her division into a profit center.

Breanna is a True Classic herself, literally, as she was the company's first official hire beyond the founders, so she's been there for the whole wild ride.

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Listen and you'll get Breanna's insights on:

Support as a Sales Channel for upselling and cross selling

How to harness support data and interactions to fuel effective marketing and product development

as well as how and why you should be integrating your support with your customer retention and loyalty programs

Topics Covered

Customer Experience (CX), Customer Support, Business Growth, Brand Loyalty, Professional Background, Corporate America, Work-from-Home, Operational Efficiency, Career Transition, Team Expansion, Human Touch in Business, Internet Connectivity Issues, Women in Business, Economic Downturn Impact, True Classic

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Timestamps

00:00​​​​​ - Introduction

02:10 - Leveraging Partnerships for Innovation

05:00 - The Importance of Custom Solutions

08:30 - Expanding Internationally: Challenges and Opportunities

11:45 - Building Community Through Brand Narrative

14:50 - Aligning Brand Tone Across Touchpoints

18:15 - Surprise and Delight: Creating Memorable Experiences

21:30 - Innovating at Trade Shows: The True Classic Approach

24:55 - Connecting with Customers on a Global Scale

28:20 - Overcoming Challenges as a CX Leader

31:40 - Conclusion & Future Endeavors

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Hashtags:

#CustomerExperience #Innovation #ApparelIndustry #TrueClassic #BrandNarrative #InternationalExpansion #Partnerships #CustomSolutions #BrandIdentity #CXLeadership

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Transcript:

Eric: Hello, and welcome to the DTC podcast. I'm Eric Dick.Today, we're talking customer support with the brand leader who supported a lotof customers, potentially the most customers of any DTC apparel brand in thepast five years; we're talking true classic, the t-shirt giant who reported aquarter of a billion dollars over their first four years last year. Today,Brianna Moreno, customer support Maverick and VP of CX at True Classic, givesus the breakdown of the system she's built to support the incredibly fast-pacedgrowth that they've built. They've experienced their well actively turning herdivision into a profit center. Brianna is a true classic herself and thecompany's first official hire beyond the founders. So she's been there for thewhole wild ride. Listen in, and you'll get Brianna's insights on support as asales channel for upselling and cross-selling, how to harness support data andinteractions to fuel effective marketing and product development, as well ashow and why you should be integrating your support with your customer retentionand loyalty programs. I hope you enjoy this one on with the show.

Breanna Moreno: I decided to challenge myself on how toleverage AI. How can we get to understand it better? Is this a tool that'sgoing to work? Where is this going to take us? We implemented an AI help desksolution last year. We saw phenomenal results, both from an acquisition and retentionstandpoint. We're seeing that conversion just significantly increased. We sawover 3 million in increased revenue from our support team. Everybody in the CXspace knows Q4 is generally when you'll have to staff up, right? You're goingto have to bring in extra resources. You'll typically have a backlog, meaningyou're not burning through your tickets as much. It's going to take you longer.And we saw none of that.

Eric: Content from real people equals instant credibility foryour brand. Consumers today crave real connections with real people, andthey're guarded about who they'll trust. Highly polished branded content doesn'tcut it anymore. Let many social build a network of powerful micro-influencersaround your brain. Who all know and love your products? They'll createsomething compelling that resonates with their audience and deliver it directlyacross all your marketing channels. Yeah, that includes ads. Meet millennialsand Gen Zers who are already hanging out in the feeds of their favoriteinfluencers and get started with mini-socials. Brianna, welcome to the DTCpodcast. I am thrilled to have you here. Can you start us off by giving us alittle bit of a rundown of your hero's journey and how you became where you aretoday?

Breanna Moreno: Yeah. It's not really exciting. I wish I hadsome amazing story to tell, but I don't. I got actually into the new homebuilding industry while I was still in college, worked in corporate America. Iwas really young, so it took twice the amount of everybody else for me toreally create a name and stake for myself. During the market crash in 2009, Iwas presented an opportunity and I was so grateful, as we consolidated thebusiness. I was able to work with one of my mentors that I had absolutelyadmired for so long and really learned the value of getting more done withless. And I think that's what's stuck with me to this day. I stayed in the newhome building industry probably a good 12 to 14 years. When I was pregnant withmy third child, the company relocated. And I was just not willing to have threeyoung kids in daycare and a really hefty commute. So I decided to try thestay-at-home mom thing, which I proved to not be very well at because I kind ofloved that aspect of me time and, and really the challenge of work and, and allof that. So I decided to look at what I could do from home and I was a consumerof a product called chat books. They're automated photo books and I lovedjournaling. So it kind of went hand in hand and I started to work in theircustomer support team, quickly scaled with them. Obviously I was probably alittle bit overqualified. But again, it was just fun. And I was looking forchallenge. And I was working with one of the co-founders on potentially movingover into coding, because again, I just thrive on challenge and I want tocontinue to grow. And I was presented by the CEOs and told that they had afriend of theirs in the business that was looking for somebody to grow andscale their CX team. And from there, I moved over to freshly picked, built andscaled their CX team. Had an amazing time building that company. And then NickVentura from true classic found me, I think probably on LinkedIn or somethingand connected with them and then inevitably made the choice to leap over totrue classic and work with the guys hand in hand on, on building CX for them.So fun fact is I was actually employee number one at true classic.

Eric: Wow. What are they at approximately now? What are you atapproximately now as a whole organization?

Breanna Moreno: Oh my gosh. We're well over 50 probably I wouldsay 75 maybe. I don't know. I haven't, we just had another hiring span. Um, funfact again this week we're doing our company all hands. We do our QBR meeting.So I'm actually going into the office tomorrow. Um, we have some of ourinternational team visiting, so it's always so fun to get face time. But yeah,we're, we've got to be. I would say between 60 to 70 now maybe.

Eric: Very cool. Um, on this podcast, we talk all the timeabout, you know, we're an agency and so we talk about ads a lot. We talk aboutgrowth a lot. Uh, when I, when I reached out to you about, about, uh, coming onthe podcast, you were really eager to speak about customer support, about CX.What do you feel about like today's e-commerce climate and how hyper-relevantCX is versus maybe things like ads and growth specifically today?

Breanna Moreno: Such a good question. Um, I think inevitably somuch of our industry is focused on marketing and initiatives of acquisition,right? Retention. But at the end of the day, I always find value in that firsttouchpoint of the brand, that human touchpoint, which is generally the supportteam. Um, it's something that I'm super passionate about and very proud ofbecause we really have the ability to sway that consumer from, you know,converting or from staying when something goes wrong, right? So whether it belike in our world, maybe they need help with sizing or in previous worlds, youknow, we would help with pairing of product of whether, you know, we're workingon a mom brand or a kid's brand and you yourself are a mom. You can obviouslygive really good insights on styling or experience and really the ability toconnect with your consumer. I think is what sets CX apart.

Eric: Love it. I think marketing's job is often to kind of getthat first purchase in a lot of ways, but what's so important for, for brandsto thrive and for brands to grow the way that True Classic has, you need to beoptimizing down the line to the second, third, fourth purchase. I am an ongoingpurchaser of true classic. It's funny. My duplex neighbor beside me. I'mconstantly seeing true classic packages coming to his house. So you're doing agood job of getting people to make more than one purchase in an ongoingfashion, which is probably just absolutely critical to your meteoric growththat you've had.

Breanna Moreno: Yes. Yes. And that is again, I think with adsyou see so often people are like, is there a real company behind this? Is thisa shell company? I don't know if you've purchased from companies before and youlike never get your product shipped. I'm part of that. I get it. I understand.And I think that's where the support team can really make a difference. It'snot just about, you know, the support team on the other end. That's, that'sworking. To try to get somebody to convert, right? Or maybe they're working tomitigate something that went wrong. But at the end of the day, it's about thathuman element, which I think is is why I love leveraging our support thatfeedback, the data insights that they get. Generally 99 percent of the time oursupport team is going to know whether something is a good idea or not becausethey just know our, our consumers better than anybody. I mean, they're talkingto them day in and day out. So I think again, that's just something that I'm,I'm so proud of is it's not just about what we're selling at true classic, butmore about the community that we're building. And, and we're more than willingto work to earn trust because we understand in the e com space Either there's aton of other, you know, people in the market, it's, maybe it's saturated, butthere has to be a reason why you're purchasing from a brand and, and to comeback and time and time again, we may get influenced, right? And like, Oh, okay,I'm going to get this because I saw it on whatever. Um, but then there's adifferent element to actually connecting with the brand. And that's somethingthat I'm so proud of what we've built here. And, um, certainly makes it easierwhen you have founders that are, are definitely just as passionate. Aboutgiving back, about creating a sense of community, about doing the right thing,even, you know, in an instance where maybe the customer clicked the wrongthing. Like, it doesn't matter. We're going to fix it no matter what, becauseWe want you to trust us and we want you to feel that, you know, this is aninclusive space for you. So excited that your neighbor knows about us and is,is continuously purchasing from us. That's, that's such an honor.

Eric: And it's also, you know, to bring it to ads as well,which is where my mind always goes. A lot of the best. Advertising and is, isin so often informed by that human side of things. Like you can learn so muchabout the angles that you're talking about in your ads or you're sending inyour emails from these, these human interactions that you have on the supportside. Do you guys do a, I imagine you do, but you do a good job connectingthose, you know, those instances that happen one to one with, with customersupport through back to the whole marketing funnel.

Breanna Moreno: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I can't tell you how manytimes, like we've taken. actual feedback from our consumers and use that inpaid or just any type of marketing leverage because it's like, look, this isreal life. And, and I think that's such a huge aspect of earning trust, right.And showing that you're a real company and there's real people behind that. Butyeah, we, we love, we have a, um, Membership group in, uh, Facebook and thishas just been so fun getting to know them more so on like a personal level and,um, getting in there and just engaging with them. But we have some really greatstories of people coming to us and sharing their story or their experienceswith True Classic. That's kind of like over the top that we've, we've askedlike, Hey, we would love to use this in a campaign or we'd love to share yourfeedback. feedback. Um, that's always fun and it, and it really, you know,connects us with them just as much as, um, them with us kind of thing.

Eric: Very cool. What does your team look like at this point?I've talked, I, when I've talked to CX leaders in the past, there's, we're,we're really having a moment right now with AI and the tools that areavailable. Be on the support side of things. So talk about what your team lookslike and whether has it, has it been, has it been getting bigger? Is it gettingsmaller with AI? And then how do you view the AI as a tool in this process?

Breanna Moreno: Such a good question. Um, I think AI is a buzzword.We've seen it since last year. That's actually when I decided to reallychallenge myself on how can we leverage AI? How can we get to understand itbetter? You know, is this a tool that's going to work? Where is this going totake us? Um, I met such unique brands that are leading AI and have been buildingit and leading it for years before we even pulled our stuff together to look atit. Um, but yeah, we, we implemented an AI help desk solution last year. We sawphenomenal results, like amazing, both from an acquisition standpoint and aretention standpoint. We're seeing like conversion just significantlyincreased. I think they did a case study and it was, you know, we saw over 3million in increased revenue just from our support team. It was amazing to see.And I think again, everybody in the CX space knows Q4 is generally when you'regoing to have to staff up, right? You're going to have to bring in extraresources. You'll usually have a backlog, meaning you're not burning throughyour tickets as much. It's going to take you longer. And we saw none of thatthis year. We scaled down in our support team quite significantly. Um, we cutcosts, which was really interesting, but leveraging these automation tools is coolbecause many won't charge you unless they are entirely automated. Uh, sothat's, that's really interesting. And I learned so much in the differencebetween automation and true AI where it's coming in and solving the problemeither. Partially, which cut down, you know, your resolution times or it's entirelydeflecting. Meaning, you know, customers email or chat never even touched alive agent. It was just living with AI the whole time. Still, one of the thingsthat was so important to me was that I didn't want to sacrifice CSAT for that,which allowed us to measure a 94 percent CSAT across deflection. Again, noagents involved to me was a win. I am willing to assume the risk on such asmall percentage. Percentage of. Again, the costs and the benefits are so muchgreater. Um, we saw this again, even like through our [00:14:00] returnsportal, post purchase, like being able to leverage AI there for our previous,we were with a vendor prior, having challenges from a global perspective, AIreally came in, helped us solve for that. So a strong proponent, definitely ofthe mindset that it doesn't get it right all the time. Which neither do humans.Um, but it really did shift my perspective. Even, even, uh, using AI on phones,uh, was something just mind blowing again, to see the decrease in costs andincrease in customer experience. It really proves the point of people areresponding really well to this, if you do it right. And that's what we'rechallenging ourselves with is

Eric: making sure we're doing it right. We're not addingfrustration, but we are leveraging, um, the tools that are out there. Amen.Follow up with that because it's freed up so much of our agent time that thenallows them to have more impactful conversation We could do proactive messagingwith a live agents, you know from like a stylist perspective a marketingperspective having live conversation and engagement or you know troubleshootingwhatever type of issues you're running into It allows them to be moreintentional in those instead of having to move so quickly to solve foreverything.

Eric: And then practically with AI, when, when the customer isengaging it, are they in your system? Are they aware it's, are you sort oflike, hi, I'm a, I'm an AI bot here to help you or is it all sort of like oneseamless process? How do you go about identifying what's AI and what's not?

Breanna Moreno: Yeah, it's one. I don't want people to knowthat it's a I off the bat. Most of them do in the current state. We're in rightnow. Ton of testing last year that we're doing to really understand how arepeople responding to it. But I don't want to come out and say, Hey, we're a botbecause I think it just Automatically puts up a guard, so we're testing. We'retesting so many different aspects of it. Um, obviously from a generative AIperspective, we're using Zowie. So in their solution, so it's less risk thanlike an open AI. That's just God only knows what it's going to say.

Eric: Hallucinating. Yeah.

Breanna Moreno: Yeah. Yeah. I trust in their, their offer,their system. They've, like I said, been building this for years, but again,we're testing, seeing what works, seeing what consumers respond to. And Again,there's so much. I don't think people realize how much effort is put intotraining an AI that to me, this may be an automated response, but it's not 100percent without a human. We are absolutely teaching it, enabling it, monitoringit, growing it. So there's so much Effort put into the AI that I don't wantpeople to think this is just a bot. Um, it really is a personality and we'reworking on building that right now. So I kind of leave it up and there is,there's generally a handoff and you, you don't really know, like, is this thehuman or not? And that's the element of surprise that I want to, I want tokeep. Cause it, it doesn't matter whether it's. A bot or a human, we need tosolve your problem as quickly and as painlessly as we can. And that's the goal.

Eric: Ideally, you want to create a web experience that is soclear or so intuitive that you don't even get to the point where support isnecessary. You want your marketing message and your product to be so alignedthat you, you know, the best customer supporters are what you don't even hearabout because they solved it all themselves, I guess. Right?

Breanna Moreno: Yeah, yeah, true. Like proactive messaging, ofcourse, setting expectations. Um, you know, those post purchase flows, we'veseen such an increase in that and making more intentional interactions. Again,like I said, with our global markets, you know, we're missing the beat thereand setting expectation. Then you're right. If you do not set clearexpectation, then it's going to lead to friction. It's going to lead to peoplepopping over and saying, what the heck's going on with my order? Um, you know,it's been X amount of time. We know people don't read. So it is such an art totry to set clear expectation on your website, making sure that you're givingthem as much insight as possible without overloading them. But but 100 percentthat is always the goal. And we've seen a significant decrease in our ticket toorder ratio. By just like you said, proactively solving something before itbecomes an issue.

Eric: You mentioned CSAT and I love new acronyms. I, I, I canadd a new acronym every time I do a podcast. That's a big win. Uh, customersatisfaction. How do you actually measure customer satisfaction practically?

Breanna Moreno: So everybody that we talk to on every channelis given a CSAT request. So we send them a survey that just says, Hey, howwould you rate the interaction you had With your support agent, and that is.where they will give like a one to five star rating and then they can leavecomments. Again, we do the same thing, even if it's automated or with a liveagent because I want to know from that consumer, not just how would you rateit, but as their feedback, is there somewhere that we fell short? Is theresomething we need to improve? We do this on the phone lines too, that are alsoautomated. Uh, so again, any feedback, my perception is, right. Any feedback isgood. Feedback positive or negative, obviously to help us increase. But thegood news is we run about a 98 percent collective CSAT, which is freakingamazing, amazing in our industry and something that I'm so proud of.

Eric: Super cool. And you mentioned it earlier, just being ableto isolate the fact. That I think you said 3 million of, of, uh, additionalsales kind of made through this customer support channel. Talk, you know,everyone, the buzzword on the marketing side is, is profitable marketing. Andwe used to call it performance marketing. The big buzzword these days is, isjust really making sure that you're profitable from your first dollar spent inmarketing. If you can talk about profitable customer support and how youmeasure that and how, like, cause I know there's all sorts of, there's, there'stools, there's sort of like sales concierges that you mentioned, that abilityto say, Hey, you might like this, this pants with the shirt kind of thing. Talkabout how you think about profitable customer support.

Breanna Moreno: Yeah, I look at, I mean, our conversion alone,you know, we put every company out there, put so much money and effort to theirsite, right? You want it to perform, you want it to convert. The reality is ifyou look at that, your site conversion compared to your support conversion,you're going to see a vast difference. difference in there, which is greatbecause if you did not have that support team, imagine how much lower your siteconversion would be. So we look at a ton of things, but one of them is ourconversion. How valuable are we as support agents to be able to either convertfirst time customers, returning customers, or Retain customers aftersomething's gone wrong. Let's say there was a mishap with their delivery,right? They could essentially kind of lose trust on us and be a little leeryand upset. So it's up to us to make sure we're utilizing all of our trainedskills to ensure that that customer is coming back time and time again. All ofthat we're doing so efficiently that we have such a low cost per ticket. Italked to many vendors who don't believe me on it and I have to show them ourcost per ticket is, is like. Staggeringly low and that comes from a processstandpoint. You have to be good You have to know your costs in order to kind offall that low But at the end of the day for our team, I'm really giving them aplatform to show their value And that's how we're doing it across CSAT, acrossour cost per ticket, across our LTV. We're generating like a 34 percent higherLTV than just customers that don't correspond with support. So that's, again,we have a higher conversion rate. We're at like a 14 percent conversion rateversus our site conversion rate. We have a higher LTV, which means Theseconsumers are spending more after conversing with our support team. And mindyou, these are very like low windows. We're looking at 72 hours. That's whatwe're capturing. But again, these are all aspects of value that are driven by asupport team, which I think often goes unnoticed, right? Like. People just tendto look at it as a cost center. It's just a necessity, an operational need, anoperational cost. But the reality is if you're doing it well, it can mean moreprofit than anything you've ever seen before.

Eric: And you're doing all of this innovation on the supportside amidst one of the, like the fastest growing. Like apparel brands in theworld, I think, you know, you're reducing your team size, which is prettycrazy. But to do all of this amidst like the incredible growth trajectory thattrue classic has had, it's gotta be pretty, pretty breakneck. Like talk alittle bit about that experience of sort of innovating within such a crazy highgrowth environment.

Breanna Moreno: You know, it really starts with the team. Itreally starts with like that foundational build of like, look, here's wherewe're going. Uh, some of the girls. Had followed me from brands prior. Andthat's kind of like the conversation that we had initially right off the bat isthis is going to be a wild ride. This company has the ability to just soar andwe get to be part of it. So the sky's the limit. And these, these team playersare so insanely good at what they do, that they're not afraid. They're notafraid to take the risk. They're not afraid to take the leap. Uh, we're all init together. We support each other. When, you know, when challenges arise, likewe have each other to bounce ideas off of, but at the end of the day, we lookback at the things that we just can't even fathom. And we're already here. Andit's like going on year four for me and I still have the same team. So, yes,support has scaled, but our internal team that does all the backend processbuilds and manages the day-to-day is still the same size as when we startedback in 2020, which is mind-blowing.

Eric: And then can you share any insights into how you've keptthat team really motivated and driven to succeed? I imagine, it's a departmentthat quite often has a fair amount of turnover. Uh, it sounds like you've hadvery little. Talk a little bit about how you built this team out and how youincentivize and inspire people.

Breanna Moreno: Yeah, I think, I think that's a great word isinspire people. Um, like I said, the sky's the limit, right? So my goal as aleader here in the industry is to help everybody get to that next level ofwhere they're headed and where they want to go. Really trying to empower peopleto be thoughtful, forward thinkers, right? We want to be thought leaders in ourindustry, in our space. We want to constantly be three, four or five stepsahead because again, from a support perspective, we always have to be fluid,right? We always have to be agile. We're going to be cleaning up problems thatwe didn't necessarily create, but at the end of the day, like you can't stopand complain about it. You can't stop and, and. Be fearful of it. We have toadapt. We have to already have a solution before a problem arises. And I thinkhaving that mentality and having that space enables you to accept thatthroughout the entire organization. So as the organization grows and scales ata rapid pace, it's easy for us to adapt. It's easy for us to be agile becausewe're already accustomed to that. It's like in our blood. And I think again,how you get to that space is it's Making sure that you have a platform forpeople to give feedback. You know, you have these working sessions where you'rekind of bouncing off ideas off of each other. You're, you're being mindful ofthe industry and what's happening and what's changing. Um, you're, you're sortof defensive over what you've accomplished and the partnerships that you've builtbecause you've put so much heart and soul into it. And I think you're only ableto achieve that with a really strong team. Um, I have this analogy that I, Iused to do when I would do team calls, but it's like, we're all in a boatrowing, right? And we all have to be, I mean, if you've ever seen rowing, it'slike a freaking art where they're just rowing. Like, and you think how the hellsomebody messes up and that boat is like, Boats, you know, going to soar left.And I, I tell the team, like, we all have to do our part in rowing. And theminute somebody stops, you're dragging us down or you're deflecting ourdirection of where we're going. And so I think again, collectively, we havesuch a great culture. We have such great relationships. We've built thistogether that everybody literally does this and it, it really is magic.

Eric: So that's the human side. And then from the technicalside, growing as fast as you have, can you give an example of how you've kindof leveraged customized solutions to help true classics customer support needs?

Breanna Moreno: This is my favorite thing ever. And I'm sopassionate about this. And sometimes people laugh at me and they're like, areyou on their payroll? And I'm like, no, but this is a big freaking deal becausewe've all worked so hard to make solutions that are not out there. And so whenyou finally get to like, Check that box. You're like hell of excited. So weleverage these partnerships and we build really strong relationships with themand they in turn support us. Right. And they make these amazing builds to solvefor problems that we're facing as a brand, which I think more people in ourindustry need to think about. Like the out of the box solution is great for soand so, but what about you? What about your business? And we saw this so much.So when we. Expanded internationally. People just were not supporting theinternational side. So really partnering with amazing vendors that are solvinga need for us with a custom build allows us to do things that are just not onthe market. Like again. AI automation we're doing with Zowie, the integrationsthat they've built, the fact that my support team never wants pops out of theirhelp desk is unheard of. I mean, you could talk to brands and they're like,yeah, 30 to 40 percent of the agent's time is spent popping into variousdifferent solutions. And we solved for that because I knew it was going todrive down costs. It was going to drive up efficiencies. You know, we, wepartnered with Parcel Lab last year to build. AI solution for an estimated deliverydate. That's like not a guarantee, but again, like we talked about earlier,setting that expectation, giving people clear expectation, we couldn't, wecouldn't solve that with these other vendors. And they came up with a solution.We built an amazing return platform with them. They built a custom solution forus with quality issues. So this automates it for the support agent wherethey're not having to do replacement orders. It's all automated. Drills downinto the data so specific that we can then offset, you know, potential creditsor issues with manufacturing or with fulfillment. Like aga