“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. ‘ Or something like that, according to Epictetus, a Greek philosopher.
Never is this more true than in customer service, where I spent 9 years of my career in the outdoor industry working with a leading UK-based outdoor clothing brand.
I wanted to write this post as I felt that perhaps if one individual from our industry found some value, it would have been all worth the Saturday evening I spent on it. After all, there are probably better things I could be doing with my time, like throwing my kettlebell around, fussing the dog, or badly painting yet more Warhammer models.
So, what exactly did I learn from my time behind the phone and email when working in customer service?
Funny you ask. Quite a lot..
Most customers have found the right product for them, but need help making the final choice.
I saw this time and time again. A customer would call, “Hello? Yes, I’m looking to do some mountaineering in Scotland this January, and I’m interested in this particular jacket, is it suitable?”
Usually, it was. But what was stopping our customer from feeling confident enough to purchase the coat and wear it with pride on their Scottish trip? Why was the biased opinion of an employee, who, for all they know could be clueless and counting the hours until 5 pm, willing to offer any old answer to get the customer off the phone?
Honestly, I think the need for consumer confidence comes down to a lack of information on product pages and intuitive content that links athlete stories to perfect products. I also feel that well-trained AI will eventually solve these final pre-purchase questions for customers, but we are a little way off that.
Self service options do work
The truth about customer service.
Customers don’t want to talk to brands, and brands don’t want to talk to customers. Having back-to-back customer calls is no fun. It’s exhausting.
And in this exhaustion, we decided to automate the balls out of the ‘customer journey’. Why? to make the lives of our customers easier, and to allow the customer service team to work smarter, not harder.
Hard Work / Automation = More time for tea and chatter ☕
And it worked! From offering up pre-written answers to customers’ biggest pain points, in the form of articles and answers, to having chat widgets that tried to answer customer questions before they came in as a ticket. And as for the tickets/customer emails that did make it past the iron wall? Pre-scripted answers that cover 85% of customer questions
The result? Less work, more space for growing into more work as demand grew and consistency in comms.🔥
It didn’t matter if an employee was a bit shabby at their job. When replying to a customer with a macro that was mostly written, save some personalization, the customer always had the right answer.
Countering my previous point, customers are also clueless
Yes, customers do find the products right for them, but they also fail to understand much beyond the product, other than it being made of fabric, feathers, thread, and zippers.
The truth is that customers don’t care if the product is GoreTex or eVent, Primaloft or Polartec. They don’t give a banana 🍌
Instead, they ask:
Is it well made, is it going to last, is it going to keep them warm, dry, cool, etc.
AND. Does it look good. This is the first question by the way.
They don’t care if the fabric is borrowed from a special navy seal team, and now incorporated into their fancy new jacket so they can look great in the frozen isle at Waitrose. They also don’t care if the jacket now uses 10,000 fill power swan down, with a seal of approval from King C.
Be real. All jackets made in the last 10-15 years look the same. The fit may have improved, and some designs are sleeker, but a waterproof still looks like a waterproof, and a down jacket is still big, puffy and comfortable.
Women’s colours are messed up
I was talking to somebody in the climbing wall only a few days ago about this. We agreed that women’s colourways are broken. this is not a jab at the outdoor brand I worked for but at the industry as a whole.
Y’all doing it wrong!
“But purple sells!”
Yes it does! Because if you want another colour its black, grey or blue. So of course purple sells. It’s also a popular discount rail colour.
Women also want bright greens, yellows, reds, and other colors that allow them to be visible on the hill. But no. We keep feeding them purple.
“Purple jacket with your purple trousers mam?”
I heard this time and time again from female customers. “Please change your colors!”
It’s about time brands started listening.
Brands make too many new products
If you are a design director for an outdoor brand this is for you. 🎁
You’re making too much stuff. There. I said it.
Imagine an outdoor brand that decided to be like Le Creuset. You know, the iron cookware brand.
I can think of one actually, Buffalo, but that’s a case study for another time.
What if that outdoor brand stuck with its range of products, choosing to re-invent one, or bring a new release only if necessary AND if there was genuine, hard-researched, and thoughtful consideration into this new design or style. Drool… 🤤
What If, these products were allowed to speak for themselves, while also being supported by a long-term and sustained marketing strategy? Drool… 🤤
What if, a customer who purchased a jacket from this brand 15 years back, could then return to the same brand 15 years later and buy the same jacket, made with the same fabrics, to the same quality? Droo… Ok you get the point.
Our customer would be confident and would pay with little hesitation. They would also be unlikely to contact customer service, and would probably not be heard from for another 15 years as they would be happy with their high-quality jacket.
The number of customers who were disappointed that a product had either changed or being discontinued completely astounded me
This is not a suggestion to bring manufacturing back home. I know that’s not financially viable for most brands at this point, but instead to slow the hell down, and make less stuff.
If we are preaching about making less of a splash 💦 on the environment, then this is the best way to achieve it.
Customers love their garments enough to repair them
When a repair service was rolled out I wasn’t sure how popular it would get. Very, was the simple answer, with the repair service taking on thousands of paid non-warranty cases each year.
This surprised me as I thought customers would be quick to shove a damaged jacket to the back of a wardrobe and never see it again.
Yet instead of doing this, they opted for a repair. They wanted their beloved jacket to be working again, so they could continue to enjoy it for years to come.
This always filled me with hope and also showed me how sentimental customers are with their products.
Perhaps a customer wouldn’t feel this way for an old jumper or their lucky undies, but jackets and outdoor gear? Well, they accompany you on days when memories are etched in their heads. These pieces hold space in customers’ hearts and they are rooting for their favorite garments to live on and support them on another misadventure.
If you are an outdoor brand and not offering a comprehensive repair offering you are missing out.
Expensive outdoor gear is an expensive investment
Take my word for it. Most people wearing pricey brands on the hills cannot easily afford them. The same applies to most people driving expensive cars.
I know this to be the case from the amount of customers who were angry with the amount they paid for the product when it failed or were desperate to find a discount to ease the cost of a purchase.
Seriously, some felt like Charlie buying a Wonker bar as a treat and I totally got it. With the average wage being £682 weekly gross (and that inflated due to a make-you-sick-high-1%🤑🤑🤑) a £300-400 jacket is a huge financial commitment.
This goes back to my previous comments about making sure brands bring out gear that’s thoughtful and well-made, and having a repair offering to keep costs down should you happen to punch a hole in the jacket on a door handle when you’ve only just received it for your birthday. Not that I’m talking from experience of course. Damn, I was annoyed, and Alpkits repair job was bad too. That was however 15 years ago.
Outdoor industry customers are mostly lovely
Other than the occasional a-hole 🍩. The vast majority of customers were awesome.
I had the pleasure of getting to know some fantastic repeat customers over the years who trusted me time and time again to offer advice and help them should any issues arise. I never took this trust for granted and appreciated that I was in a lucky position to be serving passionate like-minded people over the phone, rather than picking up the telephones in a life-insurance call center.
Also. The customer service team I worked with? They were an awesome bunch of guys. Best in the industry, and still are.