Trust, Connection, and Growth: Michael Buffham-Wade’s CX Philosophy at Monpure

At a Glance

After 20 years at leading financial institutions including Lloyds of London, Michael transitioned to Virgin Group as Head of Customer Experience and Customer Strategy. He now partners with clients such as Monpure, a luxury scalp and hair care brand, to rebuild systems that set companies up for sustainable growth. Grounded in hands-on leadership, Michael's approach to CX centers on building trust and fostering genuine connection, equipping his team to deliver empathetic support that helps customers find the right products for their needs.

Who is Michael

Meet Michael Buffham-Wade, Customer Strategy Advisor at Monpure!

About Monpure

Crafted by leading scientists, trichologists, beauty experts and dermatologists, MONPURE believes the scalp should be at the heart of any hair regime, which is why its products were created to treat both scalp and hair. Monpure’s products deliver fundamental benefits for better hair growth, as well as improving the quality of the scalp and hair itself, for boosted health, strength and shine.

Michael’s CX Journey

Michael Buffham-Wade traces his start in CX to his time at Lloyds Bank, over two decades ago. Working in product marketing, building propensity models, running data analysis, and developing customer segmentations, he began noticing telling patterns in customer behavior. "I realized that what the bank said it wanted to do, what it said its purpose was, and how it delivered products and services to customers was very different to the reality of what they were doing," he recalls. That gap between stated mission and lived customer experience became his focus, and he shifted toward brand marketing to help the bank bring the two into alignment.

From there, Michael went on to senior roles at Santander's investment bank and HSBC's commercial bank before joining Virgin Group in 2019 to lead customer experience and customer strategy. Drawing on his varied career, he reflects, "I think that the combination of things, when you pull them together – where you're talking to customers every day – that becomes a really, really powerful qualitative tool." At Virgin, he was tasked with building out the global loyalty platform, Virgin Red, before moving to Virgin Voyages to help launch the brand to the world. "It was at that point that you recognized just how design, spatial experience, sound, smell, and communications come to life in a product," he says.

Michael is now a Consulting Partner for Customer Strategy at Arcan Theory, where he works with clients including Monpure, a luxury scalp health and hair brand. In that role, he oversees the analysis and rebuilding of systems and processes to position the company for sustainable, scalable growth.

The CS Team at Monpure 

Monpure's customer service team is fully remote, with all members based in and around London. As a startup, the company prides itself on its agility, quickly adapting to ensure customers are never left without support. Michael explains that when someone goes on annual leave, it's not uncommon for senior leaders to step in. "You might have the Chief Marketing Officer or even the Chief Financial Officer leaning in to provide customer service support, because we're all in it together to get the right outcomes."

CX Team Success Factors

Hiring Process: What Michael Looks for in a CX Team Member 

People come to Monpure because they are experiencing scalp problems or hair loss – sensitive issues for most. For this reason, Michael looks for team members who are curious, invested, and genuinely care about customer outcomes. "It's not a product that you buy and then get instant gratification," he explains. "There needs to be a degree of understanding, trust, and curiosity to figure out what the customer's needs are and what product regime will get them the best results. It’s about creating a community with the customers."

How Michael Evaluates CX Performance

When tracking CX performance, Michael focuses on customer lifetime value (LTV) over standard, short-term KPIs. "Having an adult conversation with your customers and delivering an outcome is really important," he explains. The goal, he notes, is to make the customer journey positive and respectful so that three years later, they are still shopping with, loyal to, and advocating for your brand. "It's about building the data points to capture the commercial impact over time," he adds.

Tech Stack

Shopify, Klaviyo, Gorgias, Yotpo (Standard D2C Suite): “How these technologies are configured, talk to each other, and are educated is one of the more important things. Building an AI agent that ingests your product catalogue, brand tone and voice along with the risk, appetite, and tolerances for the firm sitting in the background, I think, is the right thing to do. And then having a human supervisor.”

AI and Topics of Interest

Michael’s Thoughts on AI in CX

Michael's time in the banking world introduced him to AI-generated models and data analysis for future projections nearly twenty years ago. What we are seeing now is AI evolving at a rapid pace and integrating across new markets. "Taking that insight, capability, and methodology and applying it in other industries is new," he explains. In E-Commerce, AI optimization helps companies reach customers at the right moment to drive sales and build loyalty. "It's becoming more and more sophisticated and it's super sexy to watch," he adds.

Michael’s Predictions for the Future of CX

Reflecting on his time working with large financial institutions, where he tracked extensive data to understand customer patterns, Michael believes that to succeed in the next five to ten years, e-commerce companies must learn from customer experiences and embed those insights into their organizational DNA. He gives an example: "If a bottled product is getting smashed in transit, it's not so much about serving the customer. It's more about what we are learning and how we evolve our product, shipping, and logistics to make the problem go away in the future." He also envisions AI playing a key role in automating repetitive tasks.

Michael’s Advice to CX Leaders

Michael believes that staying close to customers and maintaining direct contact is essential to strong CX leadership. He recalls working with the utterly incredible Terri Dial, former Vice Chairman of Wells Fargo and former CEO of Retail Banking at Lloyds Bank, who insisted on personally responding to twenty customer emails or letters each day. "Working with people like that, you recognize you cannot walk away from the front line," he says. "It's about talking to customers and using it as a point of research. What do they want? How are they enjoying it? How can we do better?"

Also, get out and talk to people outside, that could be peer companies you’re not competing with, vendors and suppliers of various solutions in this space. For example, at the most recent TalentPop virtual event there was a person in a similar field to my team. She leads the RoC Skincare service team in New York. I am not competing with her, she is a few years ahead of our business’ maturity, but we struck up a conversation, connected on LinkedIn and we now bounce ideas around with each other on the toolset we’re both working on.

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