Elevating CX in Fast-Growing Brands
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Chelsea Jones, Founder and CEO of Shopify agency Chelsea & Rachel Co. In this session, we'll explore the dynamic world of fast-growing ecommerce brands and the evolving landscape of Customer Experience (CX) strategies. Chelsea brings a wealth of experience in helping brands scale their operations while maintaining a customer-centric approach. Discover the secrets to success in delivering exceptional CX as your brand experiences rapid growth.
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(upbeat music)
- And welcome back to our next session
with Chelsea Jones from Chelsea and Rachel.
Chelsea, how are you doing today?
- I am doing good.
It's so good to be here, Brian.
- Aw, thanks for joining us.
I really, I really appreciate it with your time.
Well, let's just dive right into things.
First of all, co-founding with Rachel, Chelsea and Jones,
Shopify Plus Agency, can you give us kind of just the deal
of like what type of work do you do at your agency?
- Yeah, I love this.
So we're actually OG in the agency space.
In January, it's going on 10 years
that we have had this agency and our specialty
in this timeframe has really grown just as Shopify
has grown with kind of going up market
and focusing on strategy, design, UX design and development.
I have a philosophy that we take brands from OJV
to Varsity level online.
So I'm all about best of class work
and putting out creative that really makes commerce better
and makes brands just excited about the work
that they're showcasing as their website
and their digital presence.
- I love that JV to Varsity.
That's cool.
Makes it really simple, honestly.
Actually, one other question on that.
You work on customer experience, also marketing development.
Is it pretty much broad strokes?
You kind of dabble in all of those for your clients?
- So great question.
We are professional problem solvers in this ecosystem.
So we have two paths as an agency.
We do both projects and retainers.
When we're doing retainer model,
it's more of like ongoing strategy
and development work and organic growth.
When we do projects, it's more like,
we're building your house
and we're doing everything from content creation
to overhaul of your Figma files
to then the rebuild of the custom theme development
that we do a lot of that in Shopify Plus.
But migrations and subscription have been our main focus
for a lot of brands and their growth strategies.
And we don't do any paid media.
We don't do anything regarding the driving of the traffic.
We do all organic growth and then specialize
in the tech stack to help from a flywheel standpoint
to help them actually improve the sales.
- So I guess the first question I have for you is,
it sounds like you deal with a lot of fast growing
D2C Shopify brands.
So, and you mentioned that it's more about problems,
like solving problems.
So can you actually talk about what are the patterns
that you see when you're diving into these clients
that are fast growing specifically about customer experience?
Is there a pattern that typically kind of,
you see often in your space?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
Before I answer that question, I'll tag it with this.
So Chelsea and Ray's company is also known as CNRCo,
like C+ Sign RCo.
Like a little bit of an Ode of like CRO.
So conversion rate optimization
and then the plus sign, Popify Plus.
- But I shared that.
- I love that, I didn't know that, that's great.
- So it's kind of fun.
I share that from a branding standpoint
that it's so important that like we as experts
in this space help brands understand that clarity
of what is that they're actually doing.
Because I believe that the future is really the output
of information has to be clear, concise,
and also worthwhile because we're inundated with so much stuff.
So when you come full circle to your question
about customer service and experience,
my passion is saying in this AI and bot generated world,
we're still humans talking to humans.
And as brands, we need to elevate our experience level
because it's not just given, it's expected.
Right, it's just like when Target went more into Tarje
and started bringing in designers
and their stuff got a little bit better
and the quality is there and people started spending more.
You have the same concept for brands right now
is you have to elevate your presence,
your branding, your content,
because it's expected for you to actually survive
and grow into this next phase of information
that we're leaning into as like an industry.
- So then I hope I'm not getting too deep here.
And if you could share some of things,
like do you have an approach that you take with your clients?
Like is there other questions that you ask
that kind of get to that brainstorm thinking
with a client that you could better understand
what they're looking for when it comes to
a next kind of level of customer experience for them?
- Yes.
- So we do, we have kind of a whole process
that we do in strategy.
But the big thing I always say is we are doctors and specialists
as well as the visionaries and reverse engineering
where you're going from.
So when I say doctors and specialists,
like there's always problems that are in everybody
is e-commerce and site and stuff
because most companies have grown pretty quickly
or had a lot of technical debt from just trying things
and it comes to technology.
So there needs to be an understanding of like,
okay, just like our bodies, we go to doctors
and specialists as something's hurting, of like understanding
what is it on your site that is a problem,
is not and that you need to address now.
And then the opposite is true of like the creative
and the content creation.
So we use a program called Figma,
which is the UX UI design creative program.
And what I love about Figma and the way we've been able
to innovate is we really are leaning into
what is the future of design?
What is the future of storytelling?
And how does storytelling equate with technology?
And how does that ultimately impact brands?
So in full circle to your question of how we take people
in a strategy process, that's my passion is to be like,
all right, Ryan, if you had a brand right now,
where is it you want this brand to go?
What is it you're trying to accomplish?
Is it just more sales?
Is it that you have an impact in mind?
Are you B-Corp certified?
Are you interested in, you know, let's say like Tom's shoes
for example, they were wanting to give away
a pair of shoes for every shoe they sold?
Like that was their ethos.
And I think it's more and more important
that the companies that are gonna survive
and thrive in the future have a real foundation
of their why and their storytelling about that
and the way that they're communicating
across all digital channels.
And their website is hub for that.
Like their website and the way that they engage
with commerce on mobile and on desktop
needs to be addressed all the way through.
- You're inspiring me.
How important is consistency then?
- It sounds like you can help uncover the why
and the why is the first and now that you have the why
and what the brand should be.
I assume that then it's the consistency
of that across all touch points is rather important.
Is that true or is that not important?
- It's very important and consistency matters
because it's just like how people present
and different things matter.
So I'm a big component of coaching and therapy
and life like, you know, we always need to be learning
and growing.
I think it's the same thing for brands
in a consistent pattern of what does your brand mean?
What are you doing?
And then how are you making steps to do that?
But you have to do it in a way that doesn't get
into the perfectionism.
We're not gonna put anything out there mode.
I say imperfect action is better than no action every day,
but it needs to be in direction
to elevating where you're going to go.
So for example, my own practice,
I do visualizations on like my team, myself,
where we're kind of going into the future.
Regarding the work that we're doing now.
And I think it's important for brands to do the same thing.
And then the work that they craft now
can be elevated to that space.
Does that make sense?
Like on a little bit more clarity,
like without a North Star, people don't know
where they're going.
And when it comes to elevation,
and because I'm a woman, I'm gonna go in this,
I wear lipstick and dresses and I love the concept
of an outfit can change your mindset sometimes.
If you feel really good in your space
and with different things,
it's the same for brands.
Putting out content that you're really proud of
that you feel like is an ethos and an up level
in the way that you look and feel, it matters.
And so the full circle of that
is really comes back to like kind of a challenge
to two brands and companies that are looking
at elevating their directed and humor channel.
Stop looking at it, it's just one channel,
and look at it as a whole arch of this elevates
your entire company because we're commerce first
and how you engage with somebody all the way to check out.
It matters for the rest of your company growth goals.
- So I guess what I wanna ask on this subject
is more on like the customer support side.
And this is more out of curiosity
because when I've talked to founders, it's almost like,
or I should say there's some founders that are like,
okay, let's just kind of solve this issue
and move on from it, which is where like
the outsourcing comes in with the,
okay, just hire this BPL with them, solve it,
not worry about it, but it sounds like to me Chelsea,
like you would take the point of view of like, again,
every single touch point is an opportunity
to tell that why.
And so you shouldn't think or you would tell
a founder or CEO that like, there's no reason to say,
like, okay, just solve this and move on rather than like,
no, like let's really go deep into every single channel,
whether that's the first touch in marketing
for the last touch in customer support.
Is that true or can you push me off of that?
- Yeah, so I think there's definitely true to that.
I always advocate that brands and companies and founders
need to look at what is it they're really trying to accomplish
and then put into places experts or teams
to execute in that vision.
So what I say is different about our agency
when we get to be involved with a brand
and build their house, let's say it was a project,
you came to us and you had a new brand refresh
that you're doing, you want us to build your whole new website
in a custom theme.
Well, the reason people choose to work with us
or the reason that we're elevating in this JV diversity
is because we're collaborative by nature.
It is a process and it's a journey.
It's not just a output destination.
And so that's part of what I'm trying to change
in this landscape of having more conversations
with founders and CEOs that commerce matters
and commerce is more than just a transaction.
You need to be looking at it from an overarching brand,
storytelling and pulling your wife forward
because this is the time that you will engage with people
more often than not.
And it's becoming more difficult in the marketplace, right?
We're seeing cost of acquisition is higher.
We're seeing longer engagement
before people make a purchase,
you know, the different factors in economy.
So those things all aside, it matters the output
that you're putting and that you're being consistent
in that messaging, in that creative
and in that way that really draws people in based on
an ethos of not only what you're selling, but who you are.
- Can the wide change in a point of time
during the brand's existence or would you ever say,
or would you say that should be the most consistent thing
about your brand from the day that you start to the end?
Or have you dealt with clients that do change their why
in the middle of the process?
- I have dealt with both.
I think it's depends on the brand.
And it depends on their leadership, to be honest.
I am a firm believer without quality leadership.
You don't have the way and path forward.
And in this space, people change at a sea level quite often.
So I think that's a good question,
but I don't think it fully matters if it changes or not.
Life is about change.
It matters still about that consistency
and being very clear on the why.
And if it is to change, you have to be very tactful
and strategic on how you do that change across all touch points.
So it's very unified in nature.
- Now, as you called out your company and yourself, OGs,
now knowing that have you seen change
in the last 10 years of just how people are thinking
about customer experience and prioritizing customer experience?
Has it always been that way or has it been a shift in your mind?
- Oh, I think it's absolutely been a shift
because I think originally when Shopify started
and people were just excited to put something out there
and sell some products,
they weren't actually thinking of engaging with customers
or the data about their customers
in the same way that we are now.
Customer experience has grown extensively,
just like the demand for quality design has, right?
And quality in general, when it comes to your messaging,
your transparency, we're in an age now
where transparent leadership, it like trumps over anything, right?
Like we are, anything can be found out, you know,
via Google searches or videos or different stuff.
So those that do rise to the top, I'm a big reader
and I like Brené Brown.
So she speaks about like vulnerability and this concept
is I think really imperative as we go forward
because we're in a world where everything's tracked,
everything's recorded, we have, you know, you could say,
I like pizza and then all of a sudden your phone
is showing you ads based on pizza in the area.
You know, like it's very much this is our reality,
not a fiction.
And so to lean into that, we have to be more engaged
with customer service because without asking the marketplace,
without asking your customers, you don't always know,
you can have theories or ideas
and so back to your question of does the Y change?
I think it can based on the market and the customers themselves
if you have the right leaderships that's listening
and adapting to that and making that more of the priority.
- Yeah, I think just to clarify,
like continuous listening to your customers, right?
Throughout the entire existence is super important
because if customers change, right?
And then you're gonna have to listen
and you might be changing as well.
- So right before we were talking,
we talked about AI really quick.
And you recently, it sounded like you're at an AI conference
yourself, how often are you talking about AI
to your clients now?
- Okay, so honestly, quite a bit.
And here's why.
AI is the fastest growing eclipse
that we've ever seen in something, right?
Like you look at chat GTP and how many people
like engaged with it almost overnight.
And then the growth hockey puck of it,
like it's not a matter of this,
but when this changes people's behavior in consumer buying,
right?
So what do we do with that?
Without going down a rabbit hole
or getting scared about the robots taking over the world,
there is, it's more of a question of,
okay, this is happening.
How do we assess this and still get back to our purpose
of we're humans talking to humans.
How do we use this to as a tool
to be able to better serve them?
So my philosophy and AI and customer service in particular
is, and you guys, any of you have played with chat GTP,
nothing can be like completely verified, right?
You have to like get it for research,
you can get it for ideas,
but you need to absolutely edit things
and make it more specific because it's not accurate.
And it's just not built that way yet.
Just the latest launch just started researching the internet
whereas before it wasn't.
And this is just a few weeks ago.
So I say that to say it's innovating,
it's growing, there's some powerful tools there,
but how it equates back to customer service
is that we understand what is happening,
but also that it makes it easier for us
to have a day-to-day engagement.
Let me give you an example.
I see this AI as a shift in tools,
just like we saw iPhones when they came out
and now everybody can even run a business
on their phone versus just having computers and big rooms,
right?
So if you know that,
you put that perspective of this is a tool,
how do we use this tool?
I think you're gonna start seeing incredible innovation
happening in entrepreneurs that lean into it,
that want to do it better.
And you're gonna see some companies go out of business
because they can't adapt and adjust to the changing times.
So the fact of those that wanna lean in
and adapt and adjust,
just understand what tools are best for you.
One of my favorite applications is rebuy.
It sits on the power of AI and e-commerce
for upsells and cross-sells and insights.
And that's like a good example of an assas company
that's doing it well.
But because AI is such a trend in a buzzword right now,
I think it's more important than ever
that you get experts involved
and you don't just start going off
on all this shiny object syndromes
because people are claiming AI that's not real AI.
There are companies out there though,
like Clickly is another one.
It's an AI performance marketing company
that is really good and gives people results.
So I think it's just doing your homework,
doing your due diligence of how this is being used
and making sure that there's an edit process
of humans reviewing what is output of AI
so that you're not just publishing stuff as a brand
that doesn't have at least a check-in balance right now.
- Yeah.
I love that you're starting to rattle off
all these technologies.
Now, what I find really interesting, Chelsea,
is that there's so much innovation going on
across the entire ecosystem
that it probably puts the pressure on you and the team
to have more understanding in the spaces,
well, too, if I'm correct on that.
And again, I also think it puts a lot of,
it's not pressure, but another reason to look at an agency
like yourself because again, there's so much going on.
Let me go to an expert in the space like yourself
and like tell me, like what are the things
that actually I need to know right now
and to the value add from an agency?
Are you experiencing that yourself right now with clients?
- Yeah, I completely agree it's a value add as an agency
and I think that's what I want to put out in the world more
is like I have blocked out my time.
Like I said, I just went to a conference.
I had AI specialized this last weekend.
I'm actively learning and curious
because that's who I am by nature,
but I can't lead or have the right strategies
for my clients and customers
if I don't know myself as well.
So I think because it's a changing landscape,
it's important that we have these conversations,
but I'm excited.
I feel like this is an innovation time.
And to me, that's the fun part of how can we be more creative
to solve problems that we know are in the marketplace,
but on the flip side, while being more creative,
how do we make sure it has checks
to be be back to that why?
That's why I kind of like do those as a balance
because where I think people and even brands
or companies can get off track
is they can go down a rabbit hole in some of the AI world
stuff and then they're off track to actually what they're wise.
Like, is this tool gonna help with this?
So it's kind of going back to that clarity piece
and that's what I love helping companies understand.
And then we can bring those tools to the forefront
so that they can run at a faster clip
and have those results that they want to see,
but also be more innovative.
Like part of my vision for my team
is that we put best in class work out there.
And the only way that's gonna happen in this AI world
is that we also are testing and trying
and being a leader in this space.
So I want to lead like this innovation
because to me it impacts anybody
that's in this commerce world as they are.
And quite frankly, the way that Shopify is rejected
to kind of go more up market
in some of these big traditional large enterprise companies,
there's a lot of confusion around AI
and how it's going to affect them.
And I think the important thing is you get smart people
in the room together and then you innovate
on those problem solvings.
And that's what I love to do is collaborate in strategy
of like, how can we make this a strategic move for AI
for this company's growth goals
or this company's why that we're executing on?
- Is it from your conversations with your clients now,
are they more centered around the efficiency?
And how do you utilize AI to be more efficient?
Is it centered around growth right now
and how do you use AI to grow even faster?
Or is it more centered around,
and I'm just gonna pick out another one, maybe like money,
and how do we save on certain tools
or customer support or whatever and utilize AI?
Is there any sort of focus there or has it been all three?
- Good question.
I think it's actually been all three
and it depends on the brand a little bit.
In the efficiency category,
I think where this is gonna be really helpful
is for us to diagnose things faster.
Every company and every brand has technical debt
in this space going into 2024,
because the internet and ways things were built
was moving at such a fast clip, right?
And so without the efficiency of like auditing that
or like you're tune up in a way,
I think AI is gonna help with that.
I think in terms of the growth and the money side,
it's gonna help in getting more creative ideas
around competition and around avatar research
and around market research in general.
It's not always as accurate, but the data that like,
for example, a prompt I put into chat GTP recently
for a client of mine and was able to do
in just a few minutes time that used to take hours
of research is like, give me a list of every company
that has this GMV level with this kind of wellness thing
with this and it'll spit out stuff.
Sometimes it's accurate, but sometimes you just have to check.
But the amount of information that we have access to right now
is just incredible and it's how we use it
that's going to matter.
So that's right, all three of those questions
are pretty important in my bank.
- I kinda knew it was gonna be all three,
but I wanted to see if you would shift one way or the other.
If you don't mind, are there any,
I know you talked about a couple examples with Rebye
and then it was click C, is that what it was?
- Clickly, yeah.
- Clickly, quickly.
Any other examples, use cases like that,
that you have implemented yourself earlier on
with now the innovations of AI that you can talk about?
- Sure, I'm an open book.
People know that when it comes to me.
So I actually just implemented daily.ai,
which is a newsletter concept about AI performance stuff.
One of my growth goals for this next year
is to be more of an influencer in this space with my team.
And the only way I'm gonna do that
is actually to put out information and get more content going.
I have been so busy just focusing on the client work
that I haven't had time to actually strategize
on our own marketing plans as an agency.
So that's one I'm using and gonna lean into
because I wanna put good work out there
and from a newsletter perspective.
But I also think it's going to be a game changer
for the way algorithms are addressing for brands.
So it's really important now that ever
that decision makers in marketing
and founder level look at commerce in a different way
because of AI.
Meaning are you knowing your numbers really well now
because they're going to shift probably
at a more rapid pace as we get into the future
than they did prior?
So we have to be able to adapt to that
based on the data that we're seeing.
- Oh, that's great.
I wanna end on one thing, Chelsea.
And that's kind of again, looking forward.
It's hard to say like looking forward to the future
'cause I feel like we're in the future right now.
So maybe it's just like current state.
Now, I know a lot of people listening are VP CEOs
or even just managers of a lot of DTC brands here.
Now, if they haven't even touched anything
around AI right now, specifically centered around CX,
like what would your advice be to them
to take those next steps?
Or maybe your advice is not to take the next steps,
but what would you tell them if it's like AI's
all around them and they're like,
"What do I do here?
"Like how should I move forward
"with everything and all the innovation going on?"
- I love it.
Well, the first thing I would do is lean
into your SaaS for customer service.
So we're gorgeous partners.
Pervert example would be ask gorgeous.
Like you pay for this software on the back
and then Shopify for a reason.
What innovations are they doing with AI?
Shopify is doing innovations with AI.
I think before they pivot into more tools
or more understanding,
ask with a certain SaaS technology
that you have now on what innovations are happening.
Clavio as well as a good one, or SMS,
what are ways that you can do that?
And then implement things that make sense for your brand.
So for example, like I just shared personally,
my implementation was daily.ai.
So I knew in my roadmap,
I wanted to start putting out a more consistent newsletter.
You said consistency was really important
and I want the open rate to be better.
Well, that's what this particular function
is supposed to do and help me with.
So if I can shortcut some of that,
that's an intent based on something I had as a goal.
So I think for these brands and CEOs that are looking at,
what do they want to do this next year?
If it's, like you said, money,
if it's the sales side of it
and they want to increase,
let's say their conversion rate from three to four.
Well, what are tools right now
that are focused on conversion rate optimizations
based on AI patterns that they can maybe think of?
Is it a traffic problem?
Is it a development problem because their site is too slow?
Is it a content problem because the creative?
There are certain tools in AI and all those categories.
You just have to be specific about the ask.
It's just like chat GTP.
It's only as good as the prompts that you put in there.
I would just encourage and challenge those CEOs
to do the same thing.
- No, that's great.
Well, Chelsea Jones, thank you so much for your time.
Really appreciate that.
Chelsea Jones, co-founder of Chelsea,
sorry, Chelsea Rachel, taking,
I'm gonna just say this for myself,
taking JV D to C Shopify brands to the varsity level.
Do I got that?
- You got that, love it.
- That's awesome.
Okay, again, thank you for your time
and we'll talk later.
- Thank you so much.
Bye, Brian.
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