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1. If the team is feeling connected then they can carry on that connection to the customer.
2. AI can be a great tool to help out but it can’t replace human interaction in customer service.
3. Efficiency is important, but it’s even more important to provide quality customer service.
4. Always keep learning, growing, and adapting in order to be a better leader.
5. Customer service can definitely help with sales, but their focus needs to be on the customer first.
Newark Auto focuses on restoration of classic vehicles like Fords, BMW’s, Porches, and Mercedes, specifically in the upholstery area, rather than replacement parts.
Meet Karen Belmonte, Customer Success Lead at Newark Auto.
Karen Belmonte has actually worked in the customer service industry for about 20 years, working her way from sales and customer support at companies like MSC Mediterranean Shipping and Theramart to her current position as Customer Success Lead at Newark Auto.
Each position has allowed her to develop additional skills and start building outward from not just a customer facing perspective, but into the operational side of the customer experience.
Already certified in customer experience management, Karen is continuing her education and training by working toward customer success management certifications. She’s interested in continuing to evolve into each new role and to delve into the learning process wherever she can.
The CX industry has a lot going for it, but for Karen, the most exciting part is the impact that the connection can have on customers and the company. It’s not just about the end customer, but also about the team members. And being focused on building connections with everyone involved in the company is crucial to top notch customer service.
The team is quite small still, with four people on the customer service side who work directly with the sales team. But they’re not all reporting to the office every day. Only one of the customer service team actually goes to the factory. And the other three are remote. Plus, Karen herself is signing in from Bolivia, while the other two remote team members are from the United States.
What does customer service really look like at Newark Auto? It looks like focusing on that connection piece first, but with very different types of clients. In fact, Newark Auto deals with primarily two types of clients.
The first are the customers who are actually vehicle owners themselves. In this case, often owners for many years who have classic cars that may have been passed down through the family for some time. And it’s all about being a part of the restoration process with them, creating a connection that can only continue to grow.
The second are the customers that are dealers or larger companies. These are the ones that act more as a middleman, getting products from Newark Auto and then passing those on to their own customers.
It’s not always easy working with a remote team, simply because you have to make sure that everyone has all of the information that they need, when they need it. And also, that they understand that information correctly. With so many different products and new ones coming out all the time it’s important that the team never stops learning. And when it comes to getting exactly what the customer wants, it’s even more important to know the products thoroughly.
What else can be a difficult task when you have remote team members? Team building. Making sure that everyone feels connected to everyone else can be difficult when you’re talking about people who don’t meet up every day in an office.
Finding the right people starts with looking for experience. Making sure that someone knows how to work in this kind of dynamic and fast-paced environment. And it’s also about empathy. They need to be able to connect with people and relate to people.
From there, hands-on training is essential for Newark Auto. That’s because they want to make sure that their agents have the right training and enough practice before they start working with the customers.
It starts with a general overview of the platforms, the website, the products, the processes, and everything that Newark Auto has to offer. And then it gets into shadowing other agents to make sure that they understand live interactions and what to do on their own. For a while, someone will supervise them on easier calls and then more and more complex calls, until they’re ready to take it on for themselves.
In a business like Newark Auto, it can be more difficult to measure NPS and return customers, but measuring CSAT and SLA are extremely important. Making sure that they are tracking overall sales as well as keeping to good response times means that they are being more successful and giving customers what they need.
On the other hand, while the customer service team does help out with sales and does look for opportunities to help in sales, they don’t track conversions from conversations. The sales part of the job is more circumstantial and not the main part of their job, especially since conversations can take a long time to turn into sales just from the nature of the company and the work they do. Having the customer service team too focused on sales could add stress and reduce the overall quality of the interaction.
When the customers are reaching out, phone calls and emails seem to be the most popular methods. After all, the general demographic for Newark Auto is actually retired individuals who are working on cars as a hobby. For them, talking on the phone is more interesting and a great way to share the history of their vehicle and to really connect. They can often talk for hours all about their car and their lives.
Let’s zoom in on the engine behind your customer experience, the tech stack. We’re eager to understand what tools you rely on, how they fit together, and where you see the most impact. Your answers will help fellow CXplained members uncover practical ideas for their own setups.
When it comes to tools, Newark Auto starts with Gorgias. This helpdesk is linked together with their Shopify e-Commerce account. This gives them the customer information and all of the interactions and analytics. From there, they also use Cin7Core for factory operations, but Karen acknowledges they don’t have as much information connected in this area to respond to the customers quickly, which can result in them waiting too long to get information that they need.
The key is finding new ways to connect with the factory to find out more about things that can be done for the customer (or not) so that answers can be given more quickly.
Great customer service isn’t just about customers reaching out when they have a problem either. It’s about making sure that they know what’s available. For Newark Auto that means sending out automated responses for customers that visit specific pages or for different promotions that the company is running. It means sending out free samples for materials so potential customers can see what they’re getting. And it’s reaching out after sending those materials to find out what the customer thought.
Follow-ups are important, but Karen admits that there aren’t as many automations about that as there could be. And that automating more in general could help to free up some time for their agents to do other types of customer service.
The peak season for Newark Auto is actually in the warmer months around spring and summer. With more people spending time outside and working on their vehicles, this is when they’re more likely to need parts. That’s why Newark Auto makes sure that they have everything they could possibly need during those times.
They make sure that their processes are ready and that they have all of the information in the right places to answer customer questions. And they want to make sure as much information as possible is more easily available and quick to find or to provide to those customers to make basic queries short and quick.
Where does AI fit in at Newark Auto? Karen believes it’s a great tool to help organize information and make it easier for the customer service team to do their job, by keeping a record of customer preferences, past orders, and previous interactions, etc. On the other hand, she doesn’t believe that it should be used to replace agents when it comes to human interaction.
The helpdesk does have AI implemented and it can be used occasionally, however they don’t feel that it can be trusted as well because the training process is difficult. Tickets are quite complex and there isn’t a clear pattern, which means it’s more difficult to program AI to be able to handle them. Instead, Newark Auto uses AI for operational side activities and dashboards as well as metrics.
The future of customer service is definitely coming, and Karen believes that it’s great to have a lot to do with predictive analytics. It’s going to be about hyper-personalization and being as unique as possible. Being able to really know the customer and provide the service that they need customized to their needs and their situation, is definitely coming.
What's the 1 tool your CX Team couldn't live without? Our helpdesk. It has everything.
Favorite Communication channel for support? I would say phone as well, because you can solve the things more easily and you can understand the tone and it leaves less room for confusion.
What would you most like to improve in your customer experience right now? I would say grow revenue and maybe some automations for repetitive tasks that can help.
Imagine you can compare your CX to some other similar brands in your industry. What would you want to know? I would love to hear how they handle their fitment problems. That’s a pain point for us. And I would love to see their communication with the operational side of the company.
Your #1 Challenge as a CX Leader? I think balancing efficiency and personalization, like, we want to be quick, but we don’t want to leave the customer thinking that we are just checking boxes with them. So that's hard and transmitting that to the team. So, I need to push them but not so much.
What’s your advice for others looking to become a better leader? It’s important for them to stay close to both their teams and their customers. Understand both sides and be a liaison between the two, like the bridge between the two. See the needs of each one. And always stay curious, keep learning, growing, and keep that empathy and adaptability that took you to that point.
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