Who is Max?

Meet Max, CX Manager at Loop Earplugs!

About Loop

Loop offers high-quality earplugs that are easy to use, comfortable, stylish, lightweight, and reusable. Loop’s innovative collections are designed to allow you to live life at your own volume while protecting your hearing.

Max’s CX Journey

Max’s path to CX began in marketing. He started to notice a crossover between his marketing duties and CX. Looking back, he says, “I was constantly looking at who our target audience was, and the message that we were sending them. I began to realize that the success of a brand isn’t just dependent on marketing, the customer’s experience is an integral component as well.” When a position in customer experience opened, he jumped at the opportunity.

Max acknowledges that dealing with business processes, systems, and data all day long can make it easy to lose sight of the customer’s perspective. “It’s an honor to represent the voice of the customer,” he says of his leadership role at Loop. “I truly believe that customer experience goes beyond problem-solving and fulfilling a need. Experience can be a key differentiator, because it can touch on a human level – it’s memorable and can surprise you.”

Structure of the Loop Team

At Loop, the customer experience team and customer service team are separate but work closely together. Customer experience looks at the holistic journey, taking all channels and touchpoints in consideration while customer service handles day-to-day interactions – informational exchange between the two teams is pivotal. Max explains, “When we receive feedback, or vice-versa, we communicate information to customer service so they can address the matter immediately.”

Max’s CX Team is composed of 5 experts, each specializing in a key area along the CX journey from the customer’s introduction to Loop and Loop products to shipping and delivery to post-purchase. “The division and flow of work across the team is efficient, allowing us to address, adjust, and improve each and every part of CX,” Max says.

The customer service team has 3 core members who are supported by approximately 30 outsourced members. Asked about Loop’s decision to outsource, Max says that it allows the company to be flexible and accommodate seasonal needs that can follow Loop’s growth. Max acknowledges that outsourcing also poses challenges like ensuring Loop’s tone of voice and sharing the same values. 

“That’s why we work closely with our outsourced partner and invest heavily in training and communication. We consider them as our internal team and treat them also like that. A good example is our Engagement roadmap. We organize activities, have a reward strategy in place, send out a monthly ENPS survey and do a lot of other things to make them part of Loop’s project and deliver an excellent experience for our customers.” 

Loop’s CX Approach

Loop approaches CX with 3 guiding pillars: input (customer centricity), output (CX delivery), and outcome (CX results). Max explains why it’s crucial to perceive CX as a simple and interdependent input-output relationship. 

“We often talk about CX in terms of outcome – loyal customers, repurchases, and referrals. These CX outcomes are dependent on all the output you deliver that impacts customers, from the product pages and emails sent to customers to the interaction and support offered during the purchase journey. If you want to increase the desired outcome, you need to increase the quality of the output, so that means your input needs of high quality as well. Input is related to customer centricity – being customer-centric means knowing your customer data, insights, and knowledge as they relate to every area of a company. At Loop, we are constantly asking, ‘Do we actually know who our customers are? What is their motivation? What are their needs?’ It’s a mindset and behavior that needs to be aligned across all members, not just those in CX.”

To measure and track customer experience, Loop uses metrics as NPS and CSAT in combination with qualitative feedback and drivers. Max views metrics as guides that every company needs to see how you perform and to set priorities, but they shouldn’t be the single focus. “Scores don’t give the guarantee that a customer will make a referral or repeat purchase,” he notes. Rather, Max believes the key to understanding, and ultimately improving CX, happens at the interactive level. “Because CX is happening here and now, we are going to give customers every opportunity to tell us how they feel, using this information to make actionable changes during the customer journey in order to make customers like us a lot, want to stay with us, and tell others how awesome we are”

Tech Stack 

Loop 

Gorgias

KNO 

Qualtrics

ChatGpt

Yotpo

Loop’s CX Philosophy

At Loop, customer experience is  related to brand values. “Brand value is how you want to be perceived to the outside world… it shows what you stand for as a company,” Max says. “As soon as a person visits Loop’s website and becomes a customer, those same values must be reassured across the entire customer journey. For example, maintaining an approachable tone and natural, open dialogue creates a space where customers can ask us questions and freely express themselves.”

Curiosity is also central to Loop’s CX philosophy. No matter how big and successful a company is, Max believes it’s important to keep asking questions, because customer behaviors, needs and expectations change. “‘What was your motivation for buying this type of earplug? Was there anything confusing when you were making your purchase?’ The more questions we ask, the more authentic feedback we get from our customers. This helps us understand how we can do better next time.”

Customer Retention & Education

Loop has taken great strides to build a dynamic online community where customers can interact with each other, share Loop experiences, take challenges, and make referrals to gain exclusive members-only access to products, giveaways, discounts, and more. 

Customers can join Loop Circle and apply to be a Loop Legend, the brand’s ambassador program where members are rewarded for sharing their Loop stories. “Earplugs are usually not something you buy every month,” Max acknowledges. “These programs have helped us cultivate a deeper engagement while staying connected with our customers. Additionally, perhaps someone bought earplugs because they go to music festivals. By hearing others’ stories, they may realize they want another type of earplug to control sound in other areas of their life.”

Loop products protect a key marker of health & wellness - our hearing. Educating customers on sound and hearing benefits is becoming a bigger part of the experience. “Through these programs, we have learned so much about our customers, their needs, and how our products fit within their lifestyles. Education is also a platform where we can take a stand.” Max says.

Advice for CX Leaders

Max stresses the 3-pillar approach to CX: input (customer centricity), output (CX delivery), and outcome (CX results), you can only improve CX if you understand that full picture. Additionally, he believes that CX strategies can’t be typed into a 100-page document with a 5-year plan. Rather, he sees the customer experience as happening in ‘the here and now.’ 

“Make your approach as lean and mean as possible. You know as a CX leader, and a brand, what you are trying to achieve and what you stand for. Based on that, do an entire analysis on your experience and look for gaps and areas where you are underperforming or where you can stand out. Those gaps are initiatives that can be turned into a road map, which can be put into action immediately. Customers don’t wait.”