At A Glance

Beatriz Martínez is the Manager of Customer Experience at Blue Banana, a Spanish fashion brand inspired by those who seek to explore and discover. Far from fast fashion, Blue Banana creates versatile, high-quality apparel designed for both everyday casual wear and active exploration. As a B Corp certified company, the brand is committed to conscious fashion and transparency, prioritizing durability and responsibility in every collection. Blue Banana fosters a community united by a respect for nature and a passion for discovering the world.

Who is Beatriz Martinez

Meet Beatriz Martinez, the Manager of Customer Experience at Blue Banana!

About Blue Banana

Founded in 2016, Blue Banana is a Spanish fashion house designed for a dynamic and active lifestyle. Moving away from fast fashion and fleeting trends, the brand focuses on "doing less but doing it better," offering high-quality, timeless collections for men, women, and children. Whether it’s casual everyday wear or technical apparel for outdoor activities, Blue Banana creates versatile and durable pieces built for exploration. As a B Corp certified company, they prioritize transparency and responsibility, fostering a global community united by a deep respect for nature and an adventurous spirit.

Beatriz’ CX Journey

Beatriz’s journey into customer experience began with her background in Tourism and Business Administration. Her job in a London Michelin-starred restaurant working as a hostess gave her the opportunity to interact with customers and to learn the importance of giving customers what they need. 

Driven by a natural curiosity, Beatriz has always pushed to understand the 'why' behind every process, analyzing what works, identifying what doesn’t, and constantly looking for ways to innovate. This focus on continuous improvement has been a key part of her career, serving her well as she grew into her role in management.

Though she’s only been with Blue Banana for about a year, she loves the opportunities that the position offers. She’s especially excited that ‘Simply by listening to a customer conversation, you can build new processes, improve metrics, and drive real change. There is so much you can achieve when you work directly with this data and information.’

The CX Team at Blue Banana

Customer experience is a top priority at Blue Banana, and it begins with a team ready to handle every customer's needs. The company has grown to approximately 300 employees across its headquarters and retail stores. Despite this growth, the direct Customer Experience team remains agile and efficient.

As far as the direct customer experience team, however, there are only three agents during the off-season, Beatriz herself, a senior agent and a regular agent. However, up to six additional specialists may join during the peak season, as well as another senior agent. That way, customer concerns can be taken care of at the same level as they are during the off-season. 

Bringing on New Team Members

Joining the Blue Banana team requires two essential qualities: empathy and curiosity. Beatriz believes that truly putting yourself in the customer’s shoes is a non-negotiable part of the role. However, curiosity is what drives long-term success. She looks for people who constantly ask how to refine processes and add more value to the business.

This philosophy is reflected in their training. While it begins with written protocols and theory, the focus quickly shifts to hands-on experience with real customers. This allows the team to see how a new specialist navigates live situations and connects with people in real-time.

CX Team Success Factors

What does it take to create a great customer experience? First, it means providing the right channels for customers to communicate, which for Blue Banana is primarily email. While they do interact with customers via chat and their website forms, email remains the main point of contact. 

To ensure they are meeting every customer need, Beatriz and her team closely monitor customer satisfaction (CSAT) and response times. By tracking these metrics, they can guarantee a positive experience and measure success, with the ultimate goal of maintaining the same high KPIs during both peak and off-peak seasons.

Tech and AI

Blue Banana relies on Gorgias as its core tech platform, making the most of its features, especially AI. In fact, Beatriz and her team are very proud to have achieved a 65% automation rate in customer interactions. They are constantly looking for new ways to optimize this process even further. 

While she acknowledges that some customers are still adjusting to AI-driven support, many find that the experience is so seamless they don’t even realize it’s automated. Ultimately, this technology is key to significantly improving response times and overall efficiency.

Revenue Generation/AI/topics of interest

Where are things going in the future? Well, Beatriz thinks that AI is here to stay and customer experience departments will need to pivot to more strategic functions as well as creating real value. In order to do that, she’s looking to continue using AI wherever she can, not just for firefighting and answering customer questions but actually adding that value. 

For those looking to get involved in customer experience, she believes it’s much more than just answering questions. It’s actually about empowering the team. Beatriz says that the customer experience is actually the voice and the face of the company, with a team that feels confident in themselves and proud of the place they are working.