At A Glance

Anya Kelly, CEO of Ciao CX, didn’t just stumble into customer experience—she’s been living and breathing it from her days on Capitol Hill to scaling innovative D2C brands. Discover how Anya is helping disruptors unlock the secret to CX success, one empathetic connection at a time.

Who Is Anya?

Meet Anya Kelly, the CEO of Ciao CX! 

How Did You Get Your Start In CX?

“Customer experience has always been my world, and the career I’ve built started on the Hill in DC, working with constituents.” She describes her position as the government’s erstwhile voice. 

“From there I moved into renewable energy, working with a clean tech company that promoted energy management as a subscription and offered smart home products that made for a clean tech ecosystem inside customers' homes.” She was a technical agent, focussing on retention through product understanding. 

“I took that retention lens to Your Super, a D2C superfoods brand that’s now carried by a number of retailers… it was my first foray into CPG.” The shift into physical goods allowed Anya to bring her background to a space she knew well. “I'm definitely a bit of an online shopping addict. If I want to buy your product…” she laughs, “I want to work with you.” 

Her next venture was Air Up, a brand revolutionizing the beverage delivery space. “It’s a water bottle that tricks your brain into thinking you're drinking flavored water via a scent pod on the top. I was part of the founding team tasked to launch the US market.” Scaling their operation to support that launch sparked the “aha” moment that many other brands shared the same challenges, and she could expand her impact and access new verticals branching out as a consultant.

With that she launched a 6-month gameplan to develop an offering that tapped into that market, offering brands the ability to drive transformational change regardless of size or stage. “There are so many cool brands out there that don’t know where to start when it comes to investing in CX. They know it’s important, but between day-to-day operations and limited resources, building out a scalable CX program tends to take a back seat.” 

In July, her agency was ready to say "Ciao" to the world, offering fractional CX Executive leadership, quickly taking on a half dozen disruptors, "All in CPG, all D2C, all super fun!"

What Excites You About CX?

“One, I'm a true empath. I really do take pride in that. To really succeed in customer experience, you need to have a deep level of empathy,” she notes, “not just for the consumer, but because CX is often viewed as a cost center. Leading from a place of empathy and really advocating for your team is essential.”

“Also, I'm the target demo for every brand—almost every brand—I work with,” she laughs. “I’m a consumer of these up-and-coming, authentic, pre-seed companies people feel good purchasing products from. And because of that, I’m advocating for the consumer and ensuring that in decisions, the customer has a seat at the table.”

Anya says her advocacy includes everything from the site UX/UI to the rewards program, to how they speak to customers. “My passion is really in fundamentally changing the way people view customer experience,” she says, adding that the consumer view of CX isn’t necessarily the company’s view of it. “It's sometimes locked under operations or viewed as a production function when really it's a marketing and brand function. It is the voice of the customer.”

“Throughout my career,” she concludes about her role in CX, “I've just been pushing and using my empathy to try to change corporate thinking about CX as a revenue driver. I like to think of CX in a hub-and-spoke model. CX and the voice of the customer is in the center of the wheel, while all other functions represent the spokes because the feedback that CX brings is so valuable for decision making in the company.”

Which Companies Are Doing CX right?

“The magic of D2C brands is they want to be customer-centric but often don't know where to start or how to integrate it into their existing business structure,“ she notes, adding that small companies have more potential than large companies to be nimble. “There isn't a 20-person committee that needs to review the decision. The most satisfying thing about that is seeing the decision reflected in KPIs.”

Anya has considered how the shift to customer-centric can happen for large companies. “Amazon, believe it or not, is one of the best examples. In every meeting room, there is an empty seat and that's supposed to represent the customer—the customer voice in every meeting.”

“Many big brands,” she says, “were the D2C darlings back in the day. Warby Parker has always been a massive inspiration to me and my career. They were customer-centric truly from the start.”

Anya says there’s a difference between purely D2C companies and those that transitioned to D2C from brick and mortar. “Retailers historically haven't had access to the sort of data as those operating a D2C model, but this offers a huge opportunity for brands launching in either space if they build data-sharing practices across teams, and journey map the handoff between both experiences”. She notes, “It starts with acquisition and bringing in the right customer, developing a persona and a person—defining your ideal customer.”

After identifying the customer, Anya suggests the next step is promoting the CX voice. “Elevate your people in CX. Commit to a monthly voice of the customer presentation, one that's mandatory for department heads.”

Leveling the playing field is another of her recommended strategies. “I think Sweet Green is an incredible brand for so many reasons,” she says. “Every single person who starts at Sweet Green—it doesn't matter where you are in terms of hierarchy—you spend the first 2 weeks in a kitchen, in the back, prepping.” 

“I think every new hire at a company should sit with CX,” she says. “When you actually hear a customer call or read a customer email, it gives you so much empathy for the CX team.” She suggests that a new hire in Operations, for example, might be inspired to generate ideas to optimize some aspects of CX. As a consultant, Anya has implemented this new hire shadowing program, along with a quarterly shadowing program for existing employees. “Having the champion be a founder or a CEO is super important.”

What Are The First Things You Do When Working With A Brand? 

“Before I even have a conversation with a brand, I already am stalking on social. I’m looking for customer commentary—voices,” she says.

“Then, when we’ve officially partnered and I’m taking a look at the back end, my first look is the configuration of the help desk and specifically how they are quantifying contacts,” she states, adding that this is how she prioritizes business process change. “I will go blue in the face talking about the importance of contact reasons.” She is also looking for a robust knowledge base that agents can reference.

Anya is very boots on the ground. “I sign up for a subscription or I purchase a product to be able to understand CRM flow. I look at post-purchase emails to understand the product onboarding experience and whether customers are able to self-serve from this content. I look at the top inbound contact reasons, which is almost always WISMO.”

“That leads me to the front end, the site UX UI experience. Is there a CX front, like an FAQ or help center? Are customers able to self-serve within this platform versus needing to add friction to their day and their life by reaching out to CX for something that ideally is proactively given to them?”

“I always take a look at the existing KPIs. The three most important to me always are contact rate, NPS, and CES,” she states.

Contact rate, she says, is nuanced based on the company. “There are brands that want to engage with their community as much as possible. Others do not want any customers contacting them. They want to be as lean as possible from a CX perspective.”

“For me, NPS is the most important KPI,” she states. A lot of times companies don't have any sort of surveying in place, which is such a mistake because, as I’ve mentioned, that ‘authenticity’ feeling. The best brands are ones that embrace feedback – positive and negative – and understand that customer experience begins at the first touch point. NPS is a ticking clock—the clock starts ticking at that first touch point—so, as a consumer, if I see an ad on Instagram with a discount code and I go to the site to enter the code and it doesn't work, that's already going to tank my experience with the brand. I'm annoyed I have to reach out to CX, fill out a contact form, and all of that. If there are any other hiccups, like shipping issues, it just decreases that potential NPS score.”

“And the last one is CES. I think it’s so much better than CSAT,” she insists, “because rather than putting the onus on the agent, it shifts to the company and the stakeholders to proactively solve customer issues versus putting it on the CX team. CES measures any sort of friction in the buyer's journey.”

After observation and evaluation, Anya comes up with a plan. “I will do a 30-day audit and then blueprint recommendations they should be implementing and when,” she says.

How Do You Evaluate Team Structure?

“I think it's really smart for brands to always start out with one generalist. This could be a recent college grad or intern who straddles departments—answering a few emails, handling some social stuff, working with Ops, liaising with vendors—gaining that internal perspective. Once the brand needs to hire a second person, that's when they should take a step back and ask themselves, ‘Do we really need to make this an internal hire? Will this be another generalist or a specialist? Is there a professional growth path for this person? Oftentimes, this is where I come in, to lay the foundation and propose a staffing plan.” 

Anya’s thoughts on outsourcing have changed over time. “When I first started in CX at the clean tech company, I was against outsourcing CX because as my boss, who was incredible—came from Warby Parker—said, we need to be as close to the customer as possible. We want these agents who start in entry-level jobs to be able to move up and throughout the company in order to bring that customer institutional knowledge with them. Obviously, that stopped after the early days of D2C, because it became clear we needed to hire people who have been doing CRM for years and not entry-level applicants.”

“I became a fan of BPOs when I understood how many are designed specifically for E-Commerce. I have seen so many incredible things, like brands truly embracing outsourced agents as part of their internal team. I always say, ‘You will get as much out of this partnership as you put in.’”

“Staffing is huge with me. It really is. What I love about TalentPop—I'm just going to go on a TalentPop hype session—I was beyond impressed meeting the team, and understanding the resources and what goes into partnering, especially for a brand that had literally no documentation for CX processes. TalentPop comes in and builds out training materials, trains agents across a bunch of different E-Commerce helpdesks, records training sessions, and handles quality and KPI reporting.”

So AI, What Are Your Thoughts? 

“I think people have a strong opinion of AI because they're scared of it,” Anya says, stating that she’s made ChatGPT her preferred search engine to help allay her fears. “At this point, it is so powerful and can really empower people on the CX team to have richer conversations with customers.

“I’m working with a brand that recently did a mini rebrand. Their brand voice and tone has changed. CX is taking the old macros and responses, uploading them to ChatGPT, and getting new scripts in the brand's new voice, tone, and style. All of the things that used to take a lot of time are reduced by using AI.”

“Everyone wants to have live chat on their website,” she cautions, “without understanding the actual cost of it. AI reduces these costs. AI can handle the WISMO contacts and the returns. That frees up so much time for their agents to be able to build way stronger, loyal relationships with customers. It allows them to have time and space to proactively engage.”

“An example is proactive CSAT… If you have CSAT firing as a survey post-interaction, and if you know something didn't go right, you reach back out. AI is just helping us foster those deeper relationships by reducing the busy work—it reduces the repetitive, transactional conversations and allows CX to focus on conversion, retention, and loyalty.”

What’s Your Top Piece Of Advice For CX Leaders? 

Anya’s advice to other CX leaders is about connecting the dots and packaging the message. “You need to tie your operation to revenue in order to get attention. If the subscription experience is full of friction—whether that’s subscribing or canceling—CX needs to figure out what this actually costs the business from a logistics standpoint, from a staffing perspective, CX has to figure in loss of product, refunds, etc” Being able to have a strong read on this equation, and understanding the levers CX has to drive revenue, Anya notes, “Allows you to free up capital that can be reinvested in building out programs, teams, and platforms that continue to develop customer-centricity”.

She continues, ”If you’re going to advocate for customers and your team, tie retention to loyalty. Splice NPS and LTV between customers who have contacted CX versus customers who haven't. A ton of times, the customers who have contacted CX score significantly higher on NPS than those that don't. That is another way to show there is so much value in having a personal connection to customers. The peak-end rule is so real. The service recovery paradox is so real. If it's a negative ticket, CX is the last line of defense before the company loses that customer,” adding that Gorgias, with a revenue reporting dashboard, can help provide much-needed clarity when it comes to churn.

“Consider how you tell that story to fellow stakeholders,” she says. “You know what's right for the customer, have the confidence to advocate.” Your role is critical in bridging the gap between customer expectations and reality, recognizing the profound impact of every touchpoint on the overall customer experience. This is how you turn your brand into a household name, and set yourself apart from the competition.”