At A Glance

Taylor DosSantos took a leap into the unknown with BRUNT Workwear and ended up shaping one of the best CX teams in the industry. Learn how she handles challenges like time zones, remote teams, and demanding customers, all while keeping her eye on what matters most—customer satisfaction.

Who is Taylor?

Meet Taylor, Customer Experience Manager at BRUNT Workwear!

About BRUNT Workwear

BRUNT Workwear is a company that was built “for workers with workers.” Since its establishment, the company has set itself apart from industry standards, which was saturated with expensive, mediocre products. BRUNT Workwear provides work boots and apparel that meets the needs of trade workers, as the team works closely with those in the field.

Taylor’s CX Journey

Taylor has always been involved in the CX space in some way. At 15, she started working in restaurants. She was always eager to make her own money.

Later, she worked in a call center space, but knew it wasn’t a good fit for her within the first two months because the job was very numbers-driven and competitive. 

After leaving the call center, she moved back into restaurants and then worked for Toast, a POS and management system for restaurants. She got laid off after working there for a while, and began to figure out her next steps. She was looking for a career, but wasn’t sure where to start.

“I was sick of hopping around,” she says. “I knew I wanted a career, and I knew that I loved helping people. I loved talking to people.”

During her daily commute, she saw a billboard with BRUNT’s bright orange logo. She just had to learn more! After doing some research and reading about the company’s story, she wanted to join the team. It was almost fate, considering that her family worked in the trades when she was younger.

Soon, Taylor started working for the company in its early stages and was able to solidify the company’s CX strategies. She enjoyed being able to create new CX philosophies and make a positive impact on the people the team served.

“It was just something I’ve always been passionate about,” she says. “[Being able to watch] it take shape in the way that it has here made a difference for me.”

The CX Team at BRUNT Workwear

Taylor manages a 13-member team. Eleven team members are remote, while two work in-office. The team works closely together despite the fact that everyone’s scattered across the country, in places like Washington and Wisconsin.

When Taylor stepped into the management role a year ago, the team worked a typical 9-5 schedule from Monday to Friday. This set-up didn’t work for long because customers called at all times of the day, and the team had to play catch-up often. Now, the team operates on a stacked schedule.

One of the challenges the team deals with is the varying time zones. Taylor mentions that at times, it can be difficult to navigate schedules because of the distance between her team members, but ensuring a great sense of communication helps.

“...The constant communications we have keeps things flowing,” she says.

KPIs Taylor is Tracking

Primarily, Taylor tracks first contact resolution and CSAT scores because it gives insight into the company’s policies. By listening to the customer, the team can determine which policies need to be updated.

“We evolved a lot, but… the more we listen to our customers, the better we’re going to be,” she says.

Listening to the customer creates a space where the team can evolve their policies when needed. Even though there are policies in place, the team has to use their best judgment when necessary. 

“Don’t lose your shirt over a shirt,” she says, recalling one of the founder’s sayings. “If a customer is asking for something, it’s probably valid and not worth us losing a customer. We should probably just give them what they want… within reason.”

Taylor encourages her team to get to the resolution as quickly as possible without going back and forth. Even though that may work for other CX teams, BRUNT’s customers don’t have a lot of time or patience for lengthy conversations. Because of this, it’s crucial for her team to understand the customer and their needs.

She credits high CSAT scores to one of the company’s core values — “No B.S.” Team members must know that if they don’t have the answer for the customer, then they shouldn’t feed them inaccurate information. The key is for her team to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and strive to go above and beyond with their service.

Tech Stack

Gorgias — “I can’t say enough good things about it!”

Slack

Aircall

Loop

Route Package Protection

Outerspace

Google Drive

Prioritizing the Customer Life Cycle

The BRUNT team took everything into consideration when they transitioned to an online platform. Usually, customers ask pre-purchase questions about boot sizes, and the CX team is prepared to answer any question about anything. 

When it comes to pre-purchase, the CX team needs to understand what the customer's needs are. In the industry, boots are typically expensive but mediocre. To overcome some challenges of selling working boots in the e-commerce space, the company offers a 30-day boot trial. Customers can experience and work with the boots at their own pace and in working environments.

Taylor mentions that word-of-mouth helps in the pre-purchase process. It brings potential customers to the site and allows them to explore BRUNT’s products on their own.

As far as the customer life cycle, Taylor explains that the team has to keep up with the demands of the customers and try things that other companies aren’t doing. For instance, BRUNT offers a range of waterproof and water-resistant products to meet a variety of their customer's needs, and the company offers zip-up hoodies with larger hoods to accommodate hard hats because the customers requested those features.

Marketing also helps boost customer lifetime value by paying attention to each product’s minute details. BRUNT’s hoodies have snaps rather than strings because in a work environment, strings can be dangerous in the wrong circumstances. The marketing team has to understand the reasons behind the product features to advertise them, which will bring more customers in.

“[It’s] pointing out small things that we’re doing differently than others,” she says. “That goes a long way with our customers, almost like a ‘you asked, we listened’ type of thing. It’s noticed, for sure.”

Driving Revenue Through Customer Experience

Taylor’s team has one of the highest repeat customer rates in the industry, and this is due to their expert customer experience. The company pays close attention to the low drivers of customer experience and evolves its processes to reduce friction throughout the customer journey.

The team can see how much impact their interactions are having on customers completing purchases with each interaction through Gorgias, and this motivates them to improve each time they interact with a customer. Each interaction makes an impact that propels the business forward, which is a great benefit. Moreover, Taylor mentions that this leads the team to think about which policies they can do differently and how they can improve in their customer experience

“Making sure that we’re constantly evolving goes a long way,” she says.

Advice for CX Leaders

As a successful CX leader, you have to be honest and transparent with your team, Taylor explains. She makes a point to work alongside her team to show that she’s willing and able to help them when they run into an issue. 

Taylor also mentions that CX leaders have to understand and acknowledge that customer experience is not easy. When things are difficult, let them be difficult and give your team time to work through these challenges. You have to avoid toxic positivity.

“What we do is not easy,” she says. “We are the face of the company… We talk to [customers] on a regular basis. So I think it’s important to acknowledge [that].”