At A Glance

Dawn Wildes oversees the complete U.S. operations chain at HydraPak, managing everything from inventory logistics to customer experience for the Colorado-based hydration products manufacturer. Leading a lean team of 17 employees across multiple locations, she has transformed their seasonal staffing challenges by implementing AI technology to handle up to 75% of warranty inquiries during peak season. Her focus on process optimization and cross-functional collaboration enables HydraPak to maintain efficient operations, having over 40 OEM partners and providing lifetime warranty support to outdoor enthusiasts.

Who is Dawn Wildes?

Meet Dawn, Director of U.S Operations at HydraPak!

About HydraPak

Founded in 2001, HydraPak has been producing high-performance hydration systems for more than two decades. With an emphasis on quality and sustainability, their water bottles and reservoirs have accompanied thousands of hikers and athletes on their adventures. 

Dawn’s CX Journey

Dawn Wildes oversees the entire U.S. operations chain at HydraPak, managing everything from product arrival to customer satisfaction. "I am the Director of U.S. Operations. I oversee customer experience, our fulfillment team, production, QC, and our in-house custom teams," she explains from their Longmont, Colorado headquarters.

HydraPak specializes in hydration solutions for outdoor enthusiasts. "We manufacture water storage, anything from reservoirs to handheld flasks for runners, to bottles for biking," Dawn notes. Her operational responsibility begins at a crucial handoff point: "Once things hit the port on U.S. soil, that is where my responsibility takes over."

Managing inventory across multiple facilities requires careful coordination. Dawn's team works between their main warehouse and "an off-site warehouse that's about an hour from here, just outside of Denver," ensuring they maintain adequate stock levels for order fulfillment.

The CX Team at HydraPak

Dawn's customer experience team operates with a lean but focused structure at HydraPak. "We have two representatives and then we have a customer operations manager," she explains, describing how this three-person team handles the full scope of customer interactions.

Their responsibilities encompass both service and operational functions. The team manages "warranty customers, any questions customers have, like our end consumer, and all order entry," Dawn notes. While most processes run through a combination of manual and automated systems, the team oversees "anything from order entry to processing the orders and sending them out to the warehouse to be filled," ensuring smooth operations from initial customer contact through fulfillment.

Dawn’s Biggest Challenges

Dawn faces the classic challenge of maximizing output with limited resources at HydraPak. "Running lean, we're a smaller company. In totality, we have about 45 employees," she explains, describing their scale across "three U.S. offices and then we have an office in Hong Kong."

Her team operates from their Colorado headquarters with a commitment to in-person collaboration. "We're in an office in Longmont, Colorado, which is just outside of Boulder, five days a week. We firmly believe that collaboration happens better in person," Dawn notes. This lean structure demands constant optimization: "Some of our biggest challenges are because we are so lean. We've really had to focus on streamlining processes, creating efficiencies." Her primary focus reflects this reality: "That's typically my main focus is very much processes, how we can focus on continuously improving them to create efficiencies with a lean team."

CX Team Success Factors

Dawn has developed a comprehensive onboarding approach that emphasizes gradual skill building and cross-functional collaboration. "For onboarding, typically it's about two weeks, kind of layering in systems, training, cross-training through other teams," she explains. This process recognizes HydraPak's collaborative business model, particularly with custom products: "We do custom products for let's say a swim team, retailers want a bottle with their logo on it."

The training methodology balances structure with hands-on learning. "We start with systems. We built out robust SOP's and this helps set up new hires for their onboarding experience." Dawn notes, before adding the practical component: "A lot of trial and error, having them jump in slowly, kind of tackling some of the questions." She acknowledges that mastery takes time in their complex environment: "It is a lengthy onboarding process, and people that have been here for a couple years still ask questions every day."

Handling Peak Seasons

Dawn has transformed HydraPak's seasonal staffing challenge into a technology-driven efficiency strategy. "This year it's going to look a little differently. We are a seasonality business, basically May to September, October," she explains. "Historically, we have brought in a seasonal person, but this year we have implemented some AI functionality to help with responding to our warranty customers."

The warranty process represents their largest customer service volume due to HydraPak's extensive OEM partnerships. "We do a lot of original equipment manufacturing for a multitude of brands. Osprey, Solomon, Nathan to name a few" Dawn notes, explaining how their lifetime warranty coverage creates significant customer contact: "Anytime a consumer has an issue with that product, they'll reach out to our team for product replacement." During peak season, this translates to "anywhere between 300 to 500 emails a week."

Their AI implementation targets this high-volume, routine process. "We've implemented AI to respond to those warranty customers by looking at the product photo and then capturing certain fields based on product issue," she explains. The strategic goal is ambitious but realistic: "Our hopes, our end goal is with this AI to be able to manage about 75% of those questions or those emails," allowing human staff to focus on more complex customer needs while maintaining their commitment to keeping customers "in the outdoors and staying active."

Revenue Generation/AI/topics of interest 

Dawn sees AI and automation as tools for enhancing rather than replacing customer service quality. "I see a lot more just of the AI world, not necessarily for our business, but I think, in general, just automations," she observes.

Her perspective emphasizes the customer experience benefits of immediate problem resolution. "There's something to be said about calling a company and being able to speak to a human," Dawn acknowledges, "but if you have an issue and it can be addressed immediately from a bot rather than waiting until a human is in the office, from a customer experience standpoint, that's top-notch customer experience." The advantage is clear: "Being able to respond immediately versus having to wait till business hours or a couple days when the customer service rep could actually respond to it."