TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
product, wallet, website, customers, loyalty program, campaign, brand, kickstarter campaign, returns, retention, years, kickstarter, purchase, email, experience, part, netherlands, customer experience, super, place
SPEAKERS
Oliver Momma, Mariah Parsons
Mariah Parsons 00:04
Hi there, I'm Mariah Parsons, your host of retention Chronicles, ecommerce brands are starting to shift their strategy to focus on retention in the customer experience. And so we've decided to reach out to top DC brands and dive deeper into their tactics and challenges. But here's the thing, we love going on tangents. And so with our guests, you'll often find us talking about the latest trends, as well as any and all things in the Shopify ecosystem. So go ahead and start that workout or go on that walk and tune in as we chat with the leading minds in the space retention Chronicles is sponsored by Malomo. A shipment in order tracking platform, improving the post purchase experience, be sure to subscribe and check out all of our other episodes at go. malomo.com. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to retention Chronicles. Super excited for our guest today. All of our so so, so thankful for you to join us today. It's gonna be great. We're gonna kick off the episode with you having with you saying hi, the audience and just with an intro.
Oliver Momma 01:17
Thanks. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'll go ahead and introduce myself. So I was born in Amsterdam. I'm a Dutch guy, who is living in Amsterdam at the moment, but I grew up abroad. So I, we moved around every five years. So I grew up in Japan, Italy, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, all over the place. And after that, after my childhood, I moved to the US for a Fulbright scholarship that one year in the US, and actually met my co founder there, but that will come later in the story. And then I returned to the Netherlands to start studying. And in my second year of my studies, I decided to start a business. And that business was called excerpt. So that's why we're here today.
Mariah Parsons 02:04
Yeah, it's awesome. I can't wait to dive into all that. But I want to ask just because I think it's so interesting that you got to move around a lot when you were younger. So I'd be curious to hear how you think like that shaped just your worldview in general, or like your professional viewpoints because I am white, in the opposite category where I grew up in a very small town in New Jersey. And only really started I would travel when I was younger, but only started living in other places once I went to university, so curious to hear kind of how like moving around you said every fiave years or so.
Oliver Momma 02:43
Yeah, yeah. So I remember very clearly, whenever my parents knew that we were going to move to the next place, they would come to my room in the morning and tell me sit on my bed and tell me okay, we're we're leaving. So we're gonna have to leave your friends behind. And we're going to a new place, new city, new school. And there was not a single time that I remember being sad about it, which is kind of crazy. Like I've really, genuinely loved moving from place to place. And I guess starting out from at a young age, that does shape the way you're open to change and also open to meeting new people and just to see the world. And in the end for me, that's why I did start the business, at least for myself is the freedom to be able to see the world and meet new people. But if you look at our team, I think we have over 30 nationalities in our team. So they're from all over the all over the place. I we only have one Dutch person that we hired while we're based in the Netherlands. So that's kind of crazy. So we're very internationally minded as a team. And I think, my my youth or my, I guess the way I grew up helped to that.
Mariah Parsons 03:54
Yeah, that's awesome. Wow, I really, I think that's so interesting that now, with remote work after the pandemic, it's like so normal to have teams all over the place. I feel like I didn't really get to see that be an option, just with the environment that I grew up in. And now having to have having the ability to have such a big team and have that be normal that you have so many different nationalities represented on your team is really cool.
Oliver Momma 04:21
Yeah. And the crazy part is that they're actually based, most of them are based in Amsterdam. So they're from all over the place, but they're living in Amsterdam. We also have a big team in other cities. So I think we have teams now in about three different countries. But most of them are based here.
Mariah Parsons 04:37
Wow, that's wonderful. Okay, thank you for that personal background. I think that just helps shape for the listeners who are listening, like hopefully get an idea of who you are and how your back influences the person that you know, are so let's dive into professional background. Can you give us kind of a walkthrough of how you and your co founder Rick
Oliver Momma 04:58
created extra Yeah, so it was six years ago, I was living in Hong Kong at the time doing an internship in finance, where I found out that I didn't ever want to work in finance again. And then I was living there. And I realized that people were opening with their phones, even paying cute QR codes with their phones on the market, which didn't exist in Europe yet. And in the US, people didn't really hear about this, either. I guess seven years ago, that wasn't the thing. So I thought okay, so why are people still carrying fat bifold wallets in Europe? Like, why is that still a thing? So I got together with Rick, we started brainstorming about other things that could have been improved, but the wallet we really wanted to bring it to the 21st century. And then yeah, I guess that's what the idea for extra was born. We wanted to change the way you carry your everyday items, starting with the wallet. Not long after that our third co founder joined us, Richard, he was a few years older, add some more experience in business that really helped set up the website and all that stuff. But yeah, so that really developed over the years. So I would say we started as you know, changing the way that you carry and creating the very first trackable wallet, which didn't exist back then. We knew that one of the main issues with wallets was you losing them. So we thought, Okay, what if we launch that on Kickstarter. And that launch wasn't pleasant success from the very beginning. So the first year, we did 1 million in revenue, we sold 1000s, of wallets globally. And from there, we had enough capital to just keep growing the team. And now six years later, we have a team of 50 people, we're making better gear for life on the go. So not only Well, it's anything we carry with you on a daily basis. And we're trying to do it in a better way to sustainably.
Mariah Parsons 06:53
Yeah. Okay, that's awesome. So I'm not super familiar with just the industry specifics as one would be when you're working in that industry. So was it kind of like the first prototype are first on the market? Like I try? Like, I feel like, I only have started to hear about more accessories that are trackable. And I feel like the you know, just technology has come a long way. But I haven't really come across a ton of that before. And if this was six years ago, that I imagined you'd be kind of for the wave, correct?
Oliver Momma 07:27
Yeah, we were right before the wave. So I would say that the year we launched is when Internet of Things like trackability really took off. And we were the first wallet with an integrated tracker, which was the right place at the right time. Obviously, there was definitely a demand for it. People were losing their stuff all the time. So Eric tags didn't exist yet. And the fact that Apple jumped on that just says enough. So it was definitely a need at that time, which is why we broke through as a brand, I think.
Mariah Parsons 07:57
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like now I just think of everyone would just have an apple tag, right? Like, that's really and that is been, like you said, just more recent, and Apple's kind of, I feel like hopping on that bandwagon. Whereas now like people are wanting that, especially just with, you know, being able to find your devices. And if you're in that Apple ecosystem, being able to find your air pods, or whatever it is. So yeah, it's really cool to see kind of the, I guess, the being on the cusp of the new technology, and then see other players in the space, start to adopt that. So let's talk a little bit more about what inspired you I know, you mentioned, building out, you know, you're just thinking about the process of why having a smaller, maybe more modern wallet hasn't been widely accepted or why widely taken on in the US and Europe. So can you walk us through that story a little bit deeper, and just like in detailing kind of the process of trying of starting your own company, and
Oliver Momma 09:09
yeah, building a product. Yeah. So like I said, I was living in Hong Kong. Rick was living in Rotterdam, and Richard was living in Singapore. So we were all over the place. We were not in the same place trying to think this through we were literally calling FaceTiming China trying to sketch this thing and put it together. I would go to the market in Hong Kong, allowed by different types of leather, and different types of like metal to put together with screws to really build this mechanism. And Rick was in the Netherlands trying to find local prototyping companies to work with and partner up with. And Richard was behind the scenes setting up the website, helping us like set up the official incorporation in the Netherlands because we had no idea how that works. And so Rick When I came back to Rotterdam, Rick and I started interviewing prototyping companies, and I remember we made a shortlist of about 12 prototyping firms in the Netherlands because we wanted local just to make sure that we had the control of the product at the beginning. And out of those 12 that we spoke, all of them. So only one company actually said yes to working with us, all the other ones rejected us, because they saw that we were 22 years old, had no business experience, didn't really have any budget. So we were like, Okay, this is never gonna work. And so there was one company that decided that they wanted to take the leap, which was super cool, because we were kind of hopeless. At the time, we're like, hey, we can't really make a sample with our bare hands. We don't have the technology for this. So we needed that sample for our Kickstarter campaign. So we started working with this firm. And I guess that was the step that kick started the whole thing. And then after that, finding the right audience all went through Kickstarter marketing, and we can dive into that later if you want.
Mariah Parsons 11:03
Yeah, yeah, that'd be awesome. So everyone kind of took on their separate portion, then you'd come together. That's so interesting that, like, I get out of the 12, prototyping places that you spoke with only one was willing to accept that risk. And I have to imagine that just from, you know, my like, what I've seen other entrepreneurs talk through is, sometimes it's just like, you find the right match where someone is willing to take the gamble, and then things just launched from there. So that's, do you still work with that same prototype?
Oliver Momma 11:37
I, they were like our step first step to becoming a business. So we don't work with them anymore. But they did help us kickstart everything, and have our first sample, which is all we needed to start a Kickstarter campaign. So in a way that really helps us get there, right?
Mariah Parsons 11:54
Yeah, yeah. 100%, I would love to dive into that Kickstarter marketing and take a little bit of a detour from the questions that I intended to ask you, because I think that'd be really interesting to talk through that. And we haven't had a guest do that previously on the podcast. So if you could walk us through now, like, after, you know, you have your Kickstarter campaign, what that process looks like, that'd be great.
Oliver Momma 12:15
Yeah, for sure. So I guess there's a few pillars to really watch out for this. It's I've by now I've written a whole guidebook of how to do a good Kickstarter campaign because people started reaching out to us. And I was kind of sick of winging it. So I wrote out this whole like step by step process of how to build your successful Kickstarter campaign, even started coaching people on it. Haven't done one in a few years. But from what I remember, the most important part, what helped us succeed was benchmarking the best campaigns out there. All the best campaigns, if you look at like the ones that have raised millions of dollars, they all have like this certain recipe in the way their campaign is built up and in the way that their rewards, which is are the products that you order on the campaign, in the way they're structured, and price and the way they work with the urgency of each reward. So when you start a Kickstarter campaign, you have to submit your campaign, you have to have a super cool video, that's going to grab the attention of the viewer. And after that, you need to make sure that the campaign explains everything in a very short format. But obviously, you want to hit your goal as soon as possible. So I would say the main goal, to get your Kickstarter campaign to succeed is to have a target that you can hit within 24 hours. And to make sure that the amount of pledges is as high as possible. And in the early days of the campaign, this causes your campaign to come on the popular page of Kickstarter, which is where all the traffic goes. And in the end, that's the reason you're on Kickstarter is because you're trying to get those people that are already on their website. If you're just going to be doing performance marketing straight to your campaign, then you could be doing that to your website. And you wouldn't have to pay the fee to Kickstarter. So in short, the main goal is to get onto that popular page as quickly as possible. There's many tricks, and many ways to try to work the algorithm and your favorite. But that's the main purpose. And then after that, there's obviously a lot of marketing tactics like performance, marketing, referral campaigns, cross promotions, with other campaigns that you can do to push your campaign to success.
Mariah Parsons 14:30
That's really interesting. So is it kind of like users are pledged like you pledged to the campaign? I know nothing about Kickstarter, right? So okay, so
Oliver Momma 14:38
it's pretty much like, yeah, they buy your product before you have produced it because you don't have the budget to produce it yet. So you try to get as many people to buy your product. You use that money to go to your factory and produce it and then you deliver it about six, seven months later. So it's almost like they're investing in your company but they're not getting any stock. They're just getting the product in return.
Mariah Parsons 15:02
Gotcha. So it's kind of like a pre sale almost. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you order. Okay. Yeah, pre order. Okay, that's awesome. Um, so getting on the popular page, I assume, like the algorithms probably similar to social media, and that it's just like engagement and pledges. And yeah, once you understand that, then you can, you know, make sure your campaign aligns, like the strategy aligns with those goals. So would you say then, how, like, how was the transition from going from a Kickstarter campaign to then using, like, the website that Richard built out and kind of going to like the E commerce, DDC side of things.
Oliver Momma 15:43
So we actually spent our entire first year crowdfunding because we went into the Indiegogo in demand program, which is like a evergreen Kickstarter campaign where you can just keep funding through through a crowdfunding website, it's kind of a cool way to continue your Kickstarter campaign, if you don't have the means to build a webshop. In the background, we were building our Shopify webshop basic theme designed just by ourselves. And I would say that process was relatively smooth, because we had Richard and Richard is a coder, like he's been building websites his whole life. So because of his experience in coding, and my, like, my my design, I guess, of the website, we were able to get it very quickly. And I don't remember many roadblocks when it comes to the webshop the roadblocks came later when we started scaling hard and, you know, wanting to optimize the website for conversion.
Mariah Parsons 16:42
Yeah, okay, I definitely want to put a pin in that and come back to it about just like roadblocks and problem solving on that side of things. But before we do, so, I want to talk more about building out your Shopify store, and kind of the experience that you all anticipate or hope that a customer has, with your branding with your company. So now we've kind of talked about the background and Kickstarter campaign, what is that message that you all were hoping you know, someone lands on your site or someone interacts with your brand? What What message are you hoping to convey?
Oliver Momma 17:17
So everything we do at Exeter, revolves around getting the most out of every single day. So we make better gear for life on the go, you can see it in our content, we pretty much aim to save you time with our products. So you can focus on living life. And if you look at our feed, if you look at our website, it's all about it's quite adventurous, it's out there, it's like not afraid to be off the grid. And I would say that the main thing, if you look at, for example, the features of our product, one example would be, we created the card trigger for the wallet. So you could more efficiently grab your cards and literally save your time every single day. And all the times you use your card, you're not going to be your wallet, you're not going to be fumbling. And we've thought of smart features for all of our products to save you time. So in the end, trying to have our customer get more out of every single day.
Mariah Parsons 18:11
Yeah, I think that's a great mission that everyone relates to, like if you lose your wallet, or if you're struggling to get whatever you need out of your wallet. It does add those, like precious moments to your day. And even if you're in a rush, right, which is probably
Oliver Momma 18:29
exactly the reality that so the hassle of losing a wallet is is one of the worst things, right? Having to like block all your cards, get all that stuff back. Like it's just such a pain.
Mariah Parsons 18:42
Yeah, and even just the process of trying to if you're not sure that you've lost it, like maybe it's lost our house or like in a purse or something you're trying to you're trying to decipher like, Okay, do I just call it quits and say it's lost, and then go through the whole process of your cards and everything, or to continue funneling more time into the process and looking for your wallet? And then, you know, might not even find it anyways? Or maybe you do and then still time time devoted to trying to find it. Um, so yeah, I think that's that message resonates even just from a consumer point of view with me, of anything that can save time. And funnel that time back into something else that you'd rather be doing is is a great mission to have. And I imagine that it has resonated well with customers. And that's why you know, you have seen that growth that it has its own challenges in itself. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I want to now talk about you mentioned just in the intro of Exeter, the sustainability piece and the materials that you're using to ensure that you all are doing your part as a company to have more sustainable materials and action. So can you dive into that a little bit deeper?
Oliver Momma 20:04
Yeah. So sustainability for us starts at the very beginning of the supply chain. So it starts with the product. And every time that we design a product, we start with the materials. And we look at how can we source the most sustainable material possible to build this, and then we build it from there. So you can see that in the leathers, we use, you can see it in the partners, the factories that we partner up with, from the very beginning, the very first product we ever made, we actually decided to go for the most, the more expensive, more expensive option, because of their track record. And because of their sustainability certificates, and all the other big brands they were working with, there was many cheaper options out there, but we went for that one, because we trusted them. And that has translated into all of our products. If you look at our business as a whole, we are now in the final steps of becoming a B Corp, which is taking a lot of time and effort. But it's crucial to the happiness of your people and you know, the well being of the planet. And on top of that, I would say like looking at offsetting carbon emissions. And just the way of sourcing all these materials is it's crucial to have sustainability in the back of your head. for that.
Mariah Parsons 21:23
Yeah, we've had a couple of I completely agree, I think it's one of those things that customer experience it and customer just like customer loyalty in general and customer retention, it adds to the experience, as I'm sure many, many of our listeners and many of our past, guests have agreed in that. If you're able to commit to a mission, and you're able to say, we are going the extra mile, we are thinking through all of these different critical pieces in the way that your product is developed and shipped to you and the way that we're interacting not only with our customers, but also our surroundings and the earth that it eases I think some of the maybe psychological or some of the mental or emotional aspects of the customer experience because you do feel better when you're with a brand that is able to commit and, and be a B Corp. And we've had other other brands come on the podcast as well who speak to the process of becoming a B Corp and why it's important to them. And just in full transparency. Transparency is something that I very much respect as being in this industry. Yes. But then also as a consumer, which I'm sure a lot of other others relate to?
Oliver Momma 22:44
For sure. Yeah, I once again, I mean it for us, it's it starts from the very beginning. And if you start there, then the rest is is Childsplay. Right? Your product just needs to be sustainable. You should your supply chain needs to be sustainable.
Mariah Parsons 22:59
Yeah. And then once you know Florida, tax, it'll keep growing. And getting to that scaling that we'll talk about in a little bit. But before we do so, we spoken about, you know, your mission and the branding that you want to convey and the messaging that you're hoping customers receive when they're interacting with extra. So now I want to talk about the website design because of you. As you've mentioned, Richard was building out kind of the back end of the Shopify store. And then, to my understanding, you came in and helped design the website. Is that correct?
Oliver Momma 23:32
Yeah, so I didn't have any web design experience. But I, after my study, so when I was already building the company, I did this growth hacking course here in Amsterdam took about a year. And that was heavily focused on web design and conversion rate optimization. And, like me, I just love design in general. That's what I've been doing. From the very beginning, I've been looking, I've been looking at the way we're shooting the photos, the products the way they look. And that's definitely my forte within the business. And that's why the website, I would consider is my domain as well. Super important that it always looks onpoint and it converts super well. So yeah, I've I'm always closely working together with Richard, to get the design on.
Mariah Parsons 24:17
Yeah, would you say just high level, you will do a lot of like AV testing on the site or anything like that to see for that conversion rate optimization, like this product shot versus this product socket or this copy versus that
Oliver Momma 24:31
we do and we've we've done it over the past few years. The funny part is that when you benchmark the best websites out there, based on like Shopify numbers like the top performing Shopify web shops, if you kind of benchmark the way they set up their website, then you can a B test as much as you want, but the original design will almost always win. That's what we've seen. So there's there are some tests where we found like small discrepancies but That's like we always had the joke in the office that like, we can be test, but like our original design is going to win anyway. So we still AB test. But rarely do we find like super big, winning be variations.
Mariah Parsons 25:16
Okay, that's really that's an interesting finding that you all have observed, would you say like my hearing that my first take is that if someone's already familiar with your website, it's going to be the best experience because they already know what they're going to expect. Versus if you change it with an AP test, then maybe that would perform lower, would you
Oliver Momma 25:35
think that but but like, I would say, 80% of the people on our website, have never seen our website before. So it's, it's almost never recurring people, or like, revisiting people. So I would say that theory would make sense if you only have people on the website that know your brand already. So do
Mariah Parsons 25:52
you have any theories as to why the original tends to provide this thing
Oliver Momma 25:56
that like, if you can't, it's almost impossible to reinvent the wheel. These days when it comes to web design, because it just needs to be super clean, super clear for the customer. And if you're just looking at the top 10, best performing deep sea websites and what they're doing, and keeping an eye on on, like, the changes they make. And if you stay in line with that, then I would say you're, you're 80% there, and then maybe the last 20%, you can win with some AP tests.
Mariah Parsons 26:29
Okay. Okay, that makes that makes sense. So, questions about your website design, because there are some things that I just while scrolling through, of course, had to do my due diligence. Some things that I noticed that I don't typically see all that often. So on your homepage, you have the loyalty signup. So what was kind of like the inspiration behind wanting to have that, like CTA, kind of right, right there for the customer to see in their first interactions.
Oliver Momma 27:00
So we are big fans of not making it more complicated for people. So the goal always has been like, has been to have as little links clicking out or linking out of the page that are not going to a PDP. But we recently launched this loyalty program, and we are trying to get that retention rate up. Because while it's not really a product you would buy multiple times a year. And so we decided to give it a prominent place on the website, because we also want to show how important this loyalty program is. And that's why we gave it its own specific logo set, people really had the feeling that they're joining a membership Club, which they are because they're getting a lot of benefits, you know, they're getting lifetime warranty. They're getting all these different discounts. When they're ordering more, they're getting gifts for their birthday, there's all these different perks that they're getting. And it would be a shame if you build such a nice program and then not inform them about it, especially for new customers coming in. So I would sell on desktop, it's definitely more prominent than a mobile, because there's not much screen real estate on mobile. But I definitely like the way it looks for now. And we're just going to test it see what happens. If it doesn't get any clicks, then we'll think of something else.
Mariah Parsons 28:18
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I that's I'm glad you brought up the distinction between like a loyalty program and a membership program, because I'm starting to see more and more distinction between the two. Because often I just conflate the two and call them the same thing. But I do see them as different depending on what is offered in each program. And I think memberships for a product like those that you all offer. Makes sense in that, like you said, you're not It's not like CPG you're not consuming, you're not going to probably the rate between purchases is going to be longer, because you're hoping that the product is so well made that you don't need to go back and buy whenever you you know, a couple of months. Right. So I think the distinction between a membership where these are the added bonuses that you're getting access to by being a member in this club versus a loyal, you know, typical loyalty program.
Oliver Momma 29:12
I wouldn't have, I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily say they're so different from each other. But it just feels more like you're part of something, if it's like a membership, but it's whether it's loyalty or membership, it doesn't really matter. They're not paying for it. It's for free. But we just want to have them like feel that they're getting more because they actually are getting a lot more for it. So that's why it's so prominently
Mariah Parsons 29:38
shown. Yes, yeah. And make, you know, make a customer relationship stronger because they're in the program. Yes, that that totally makes sense. And so I also have another question about the homepage specifically. Because when you pop into the website, there is a pop up you know, is it's an email capture. And so what was the strategy or what was the thought behind having that be part of the customer experience.
Oliver Momma 30:08
So I always say you should always have some kind of email capture on your website doesn't have to be instant, it can be later in the browsing process. But it's mostly for people that don't convert right away, you do want to stay in touch with them. And it doesn't have to be extremely invasive. In the US people are used to getting text messages from brands in Europe, they would hate you if you do that. But we sign them up for email. And then if they want like an extra perk, they sign up for SMS. And then we send them the offer through email and SMS. So I would say it's definitely a no brainer to try to generate those leads.
Mariah Parsons 30:49
So now we're getting a little bit more into the weeds with the customer experience. Once that email is captured, is there a specific cadence other than you know, the discount? Or the offer from the original pop up? Or is it just kind of like seeing what happens? If someone takes you up on that offer? Then great. If they don't, then you know that that customer experience ends? Or do you filter them into kind of like a drip campaign?
Oliver Momma 31:19
Yeah, so we have a drip campaign where when they do sign up for both, they get the free products. And they get that sent to them through SMS and email. And then after that, they are entered into this welcome flow where they get multiple touchpoints over a over a period of a few weeks, some of them elaborating on the brand, kind of telling them why we're doing this, the others giving them another offer. And then if they haven't purchased to keep getting those emails, but if they do purchase, they lead that flow. And then they start getting specific campaigns from us about like new product launches and other stuff that might be interesting to them. We add a drip campaign is definitely that's the biggest performer for us. So also a no brainer.
Mariah Parsons 32:07
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. If it works well. And you don't want to change anything up there. And so I think it's really interesting having brands that have multiple ideas and that you there's also like cultural aspects, or just like, what's the norm, and you mentioned, SMS, people in the US are more likely to expect or be comfortable with the idea of brands sending them text messages, but in Europe, that's not exactly the trend. So are you looking at your like communication strategy? Are you looking to see if someone lives in the US or is ordering from a specific address then, okay, like maybe preferential to SMS, and sending different campaigns then because obviously, there's often so someone in, in Europe,
Oliver Momma 32:57
so we actually, so we send specific, we show different popups to different regions. So we have a pop up for the US, we have a pop up for Canada pop up for the UK and a pop up for the rest of the world. And each of these communicate different things. It does complicate things, but it's legally mandatory, because you're collecting them in different ways. And it's also like the messaging is different. Like I said, Europe, like just don't even try sending text messages yet. Unless it's about like their order shipping or tracking number
Mariah Parsons 33:32
like that. Yeah. transactional applications. Yeah. That also makes me think to which I'm sure you do this, but maybe different holidays in different regions that you'd want to celebrate. Is there anything like the copy itself or the pop up changes?
Oliver Momma 33:48
It does? Yeah. So we recently opened our warehouse in the UK. And we've definitely made some changes to the copy in the UK on the website, in the emails. In our ads, I would say like the basic spelling like the grammar stuff, make sure to change that but also there are different holiday dates in different countries. So those are always opportunities to do like a sale or promotion or something. So it'd be a shame if you don't jump on that.
Mariah Parsons 34:17
Yeah, yeah, I just think like Canada with boxing day and then us thanksgiving, all those fun things, which I'm sure is fun to think through like the different copy and ads that you're going to run and all that but yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense both from a legal standpoint and then a marketing one as well. So now we've we've talked about a little bit with the communication strategy with customers, I want to dive into just the whole customer experience in general. Because we have mentioned you know, you land on the website, what does that look like you are getting you sign up for a discount or a free product, what is the communication strategy look like there? But in general, can you walk us through kind of the typical or ideal customer experience that someone would have with Dexter.
Oliver Momma 35:06
Yeah, so I would say, retention is all about making your customers happy, and giving them what you promise on the website. So once again, it starts with the product, like your product just needs to be amazing. And it needs to be durable. And people need to give it great reviews, because that's when they come back. So for us, I would say a typical journey would be people find us on Facebook, or Instagram through ads, that's probably the majority of the people, they land on the website, then, preferably, they land on a landing page that connects really well with the ad that they saw so that they don't bounce away, and that they kind of feel like, this is what I was promised. They click around. Hopefully they have a good browsing experience. And they end up at the PDP and select their color and checkout. Now that Shopify is going to release that one page checkout, that's going to make everything a lot smoother, and probably increase the conversion rate as well. After that, we send them their transactional emails. So obviously, we thank them for the purchase, and we enter them in into the newsletter if they want to be so they can stay up to date with new product launches or other offers. And then we just stay in touch through email and SMS. And I think the most important part here is two things to notice your post purchase survey, super crucial if you want to get to know your customer, and if you want to know where they came from important to scale everything as well, because then you can track what's happening, especially with attribution issues lately, so And then secondly, is the support, like just offering instant support and making sure that they understand that they can reach out and get a quick answer. That's going to really help increase the customer satisfaction.
Mariah Parsons 36:56
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really great point with using the post purchase strat survey, as part of your strategy to inform like, attribution and all those things. And would you say so, that post purchase survey are you sending Are you like sending it after the product arrives, like after a specific length of time?
Oliver Momma 37:21
We actually send it, we put it on the checkout page. So after they check out the installation survey, because then it's still fresh. Most people that buy with us are impulsive, so they buy it right after they find us. And so people will remember where they saw us if you're gonna if you're gonna send that later, people won't even remember. I don't remember where I find things half the time because you have so many things coming at you all day.
Mariah Parsons 37:47
Hmm, yeah. Yeah, smaller attention span to it's just like so many different tasks to juggle. Okay, gotcha. Because I've definitely seen, which maybe would be more of a like product feedback form where it's sent, you know, after the delivery notification gets sent, then it's triggered after, you know, X amount of days, like, how are you enjoying your experience with our product? XYZ. Okay, but this is yeah, more for the attribution piece. So it's pretty, it's instant after checkout? Yeah. So okay, so that's the typical kind of pre purchase customer experience upfront. Now, post purchase. I know we've talked a little bit about the transactional notifications. But can you walk us through what a customer they check out on that page? They fill out that post purchase survey? What what, on the back end? What kind of notifications are you sending?
Oliver Momma 38:42
Other Yeah, so we, I am, I need to make sure I get this right. But we get the we have the order confirmation email, which thanks them and tells them a bit about what's coming their way. Then we have a aftercare email, which talks about the product and tells them how to take care of it. And what could possibly happen with the leather and what to expect when using the products. Then we have a tracking email, which shows them exactly where their product is, and then the buy then their product should arrive. And after that, there is a review request. But I think that's like a week or two after so people can have the time to use it. And then we send a if they're happy with it, we send them a refer friend email, which now has been pivoted to our loyalty program. So we asked them to become part of loyalty and then within that program, they can earn points for referring friends.
Mariah Parsons 39:44
Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So with then the do you do typically see a lot of referrals? Because I feel like that is something we see time and time again is like word of mouth marketing or do If the conversion rate of like referrals is very strong, especially when you're motivated by, you know, getting points through a loyalty program that you're signed up,
Oliver Momma 40:08
I wouldn't say it's like part of our top 10 revenue drivers. But it's definitely a nice revenue stream and people do. It's one of the nicest ways of selling your product, because people are recommending your brand to someone else. And there's no better ad than a person telling their friend that they love your brand. So I guess it just for that already. It's worth it.
Mariah Parsons 40:33
Yeah. And then this is something we also see time and time again, in the post purchase experience is educating your customers and making sure that when the product arrives, they know how to use it. And that's different, obviously, for every company, every brand, every product. So what are you specifically, like what's industry specific that you're sharing, you know, once your ex their wallet arrives? This is what you can expect, like how the leather is changing? Can you go into details about that?
Oliver Momma 40:59
Yeah, so we we send, it's like a five things to know about your product when it arrives. First of all, when it arrives, the leather may appear a little stiff, or maybe like, it may appear like not supple or something, because it's fresh out of the box, it needs to be used for a few days, and it will form to your pocket, you know, become slimmer with time, you know, stuff like that, like details about how the product will evolve, because that will also decrease the return, right? Because sometimes people unboxing they're like, Oh, this is kind of like, because it's super nice leather, it's kind of stiff, you know, so they need to use it, and it builds this beautiful patina over time. Another thing is we have a link that goes directly to an online user manual, which takes them step by step through everything that they need to know about the product. And then I think we also highlight our main features like the quick card access feature. And then when they received the product inside of this wallet, there was a cool feature because we obviously had that card feature shooting out the cards. So the six cards that are inside of the wallet are part of like the user manual experience. So you reject them. One of them as a QR code to the user manual. The other one has a little bit about us like our story. The other one has, like follow us on Instagram and join our giveaways. There's a bunch of different like, join our loyalty program, all that kind of stuff. So it's like they instantly experience how the wallet works while getting all these unboxing messages.
Mariah Parsons 42:31
Okay, so that's like, that's a very creative way to get the message across it. Like these are all the things that we offer. But you're also learning how to use the wallet. Exactly. Like by getting that information. Yeah. Oh, that's really that's really cool. So within. So the user User Guide, it like walks you through, like, I'm sure you have to like set up tracking actual wallet, right. Like I like the software side of things, and then sharing like community and social. Yeah, that's okay. That's, that's a really cool unboxing experience. I've heard I've heard some cool ones before. That's awesome. So sharing your mission mission statement, I take it that is like, is it learning more about, you know, you and your other two co founders learning about your mission, like your sustainability, becoming a B Corp all that. It's like
Oliver Momma 43:29
a little short version of our about page. So it talks about us, it talks about the product talks about the brand and the vision, so it's a nice little message for them to understand why we're doing this.
Mariah Parsons 43:41
Yeah, makes sense. And you mentioned so returns, like, there's obviously part of the post purchase education that you're going through is to hopefully, you know, manage expectations and that this is, what your product can do and what it does, and all these different things that a consumer might want when they're interacting with your products. But I think everyone just from consumers to industry specific. Ecommerce experts would say, you know, returns or exchanges are inevitable. And so I wanted to ask you about you know, the process you know, what, what they look like in your industry, kind of your experience with it all because I'm just I'm, I'm purely curious. And we we, as a company Malomo just started, we just launched our loop with integrations and so like, returns to me personally is fascinating, because it's just not something we were, you know, we were looking into before so it's kind of a new unlock. And so I've been asking our guests recently dive into it.
Oliver Momma 44:47
Yeah, returns are definitely a tough one. So we are lucky to not like to be in an industry or vertical where you kind of see what you see is what you get, because there's no sizes you Don't you don't have to, like, try it on it, send it back. And that's probably the biggest issue in the fashion industry is that people buy 10 things. And I keep one. Yep, I would say like the average in our verticals about 5% return rate. So super low. And once again, to reiterate what I previously said, the most important part is clearly communicating on the website, what they're going to get with good imagery, perhaps even videos, and then offering outstanding support so that they can ask questions if they need to, that's going to decrease your return rate the most. And then, once again, back to the product, like it just needs to be the high quality product that you're promising that you're gonna get show.
Mariah Parsons 45:41
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because when I was thinking that I was like, I don't think personally, unless it was something really just kind of, you know, just didn't expectation or whatever. Yeah, I was like, I couldn't see a major use case in terms of returns being super, super large, like they would be with something like apparel, in something that is just more more unique to each specific person. So are you then once Do you see exchanges at all too, because I know they're very similar, but obviously different?
Oliver Momma 46:16
We do. But super, super low percentage. I wouldn't even know what the percentage is.
Mariah Parsons 46:21
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just have to ask. Okay, thank you for sharing. I appreciate it. It's always it's always so fun to learn. And that's obviously why we're sitting here. So almost done with my questions for you. And this has been so, so fascinating. But I always like to ask, when you think of retention? We've been talking about it? Obviously, this podcast is called retention Chronicles. What does that mean to you? Like, what's your take on retention? Like, if you had to describe it to someone, what would you say?
Oliver Momma 46:51
I would say retention is the metric that shows how satisfied your customers are. And if you're able to keep your retention high, that means you're doing something right with your relationship with your customers. So I would say the three pillars that are most important to get high retention is building a great product, offering outstanding support, and then keeping them in the loop with personalized messaging, try to offer like try to send them stuff that is specifically interesting for them. So don't just blast messages to everyone, but segments to make sure that they get more personalized messages.
Mariah Parsons 47:34
Yes, I love that segmentation comes up a lot. I feel like in this in this realm, and it's it is it is the extra mile, right. It just makes more sense it for both parties involved. So I love that. Thank you. And then final question, what's one piece of advice that can be just like general life advice, business advice, wherever you want to take it. But what's one piece of advice that has helped you along the way of starting extra and just where he's gotten to today?
Oliver Momma 48:05
I would go for a recent one actually, recent learning that we've only really started doing in the past few years is getting to know your customer through surveys or through emailing them directly or calling them up is probably one of the most valuable things you can ever do for your business. Because that's going to shave your strategy for the future. So we've recently been doing a lot of service to our customers to ask them about. What do you like about the product? What don't you like? What would you like to see more of other other products? You want to see that information? You have such a big database already being a DC brand, but why are like people need to use that? No, you need to and customers actually enjoy responding to this question. So it's a win win situation.
Mariah Parsons 48:49
I love that. Yeah, using product information or customer feedback to inform product and strategy is always Yeah, I feel like that's kind of a like an unsung hero sometimes where it can be easily forgotten about but like you just said, customers do enjoy feeling like they're helping in a way right. Like that's human nature. Yeah, that's really fascinating. Well, thank you so much all over. This has been absolutely fantastic to get to take this almost hour. Get to chat with you and learn more about your brand.
Oliver Momma 49:16
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.