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1. Advocate for Your Customers: In E-Commerce, CS is the front lines. Shannon believes CS leaders must consistently advocate for the customer by using data to communicate product value, even when it’s challenging to be heard within revenue-focused companies.
2. Build a Customer-Centric Team: Shannon maintains that great CS stems from a genuine desire to help others, creative problem-solving, and alignment with a company’s mission—making it both vital to brand success and a strong starting point for career growth.
3. Integrate ‘Surprise and Delight’ in CS: nutpods recently launched a ‘surprise and delight’ campaign thanking nutritionists, dieticians, and doctors for their work. Shannon says strategies that make customers feel they are appreciated are key to increasing loyalty and brand awareness.
4. Be Transparent: As a plant-based alternative to dairy creamer, nutpods emphasizes transparency when talking about its product and mission. Shannon understands the importance of honesty in CS and sharing customer feedback to help consumers make informed choices based on health and taste preferences.
5. Leverage Social Media as a CS Channel: Social media offers brands the opportunity to proactively support customers. Shannon notes that DMs and the comments section have been particularly effective for engaging in helpful conversations with the nutpods community.
Meet Shannon Clark, Senior Customer Service Manager at nutpods!
nutpods dairy-free creamer is one of the fastest-growing plant-based brands in the U.S. and is a standout in the natural foods industry. Introduced in May 2015, nutpods' signature almond and coconut blend creamers are best sellers in their category on Amazon and are now available at many of America's largest grocery chains including Kroger, Publix and Wegmans. The nutpods brand has developed a cult-like following amongst health-conscious consumers living a dairy-free, plant-based lifestyle, and has become an integral part of wellness programs like Whole30.
After working in CS for rover.com and Blueprint Registry among others, Shannon joined nutpods as Senior Customer Service Manager in September 2024. In less than a year, Shannon successfully launched initiatives focused on increasing customer loyalty and brand awareness. You’ll want to learn how Shannon uses cross-team collaboration, communication, and human touch to best serve customers while supporting a growing, mission-driven E-Commerce company.
With over 15 years’ experience in customer service, Shannon credits learning basic interpersonal skills to when she worked as a bank teller. She then transitioned to the tech startup world, taking a customer support position at rover.com. – an online marketplace and booking service for pet owners. The department grew from 15 to 40 agents, offering Shannon a unique perspective of how a growing E-Commerce company achieves success using a high-touch approach to CS. “I had some really wonderful leaders who showed us what it meant to give amazing customer support.” Eventually, she moved on to Blueprint Registry where her responsibilities focused on product and helping clients navigate online wedding and baby registries. After a brief return to a tech-startup home repair company, Shannon joined nutpods as Senior Customer Service Manager in September 2024. The job marks her first time working for a CPG (consumer packaged goods) company. “It’s been a different ballgame, but always exciting to learn,” Shannon remarks, noting that a major difference is the collaboration between CS and quality assurance teams. “I’ve learned a ton here. We’re growing quickly. It’s been quite the journey and I’m loving where I’m at currently.”
For small, emerging E-Commerce companies especially, customer experience is the one department that everyone looks to for insight about how their product is performing and being received. “You truly get to be that voice of the customer. It’s great to be able to share the wealth of knowledge with other people,” Shannon says, revealing that she finds motivation knowing her team’s work impacts the success and growth of the company.
The customer service team at nutpods is lean and follows a hybrid model with Shannon and 1 agent, Alanna (a 3-year veteran), dividing their time between home and the office in Bellevue, Washington. “I was fortunate to have inherited a department that was such a well-oiled machine,” Shannon exclaims and goes on to praise Alana’s commitment and hard work. Founded by a woman of color, nutpods promotes a company culture that emphasizes work-life balance for employees. “Everyone’s wonderful – it’s flexible in the case you have an issue with your child or something,” Shannon adds. “It’s a really great, positive work environment.”
Shannon believes that the core value of customer service is an innate desire to help people. She elaborates, “you must want to work with people, talk with people. Ultimately, I think that helps with burn out.” Creative problem-solving skills are also important, even if it means being flexible with policy. Order issues become opportunities “to go above and beyond for a customer.” Shannon explains, “typically we would give a refund. But wouldn’t it be awesome if we sent them a care package with different flavors and a frother?” Finally, the evolution of purpose-driven brands like nutpods rely on employees who support the mission. Often considered a foot in the door, customer service opens the path for career development. Having observed CS agents move onto roles in sales and marketing, Shannon says, “You want someone who is willing to commit to doing an amazing job, because they know there’s going to be a big future for them at the company as well.”
Due to the reasons customers are reaching out, product quality, email is the preferred CS channel, allowing for the collection and exchange of information in a clear and efficient way. While some people still opt for a phone call, Shannon reveals that social media has been a growing channel, providing “proactive support” to nutpods customers. In addition to assisting through Instagram DM, she says, “If we’re noticing that there’s people in the comments asking questions, we love to join the conversation and help and educate people.”
When Shannon started at nutpods, she was told, “Our customer service is so important to us. We have really high standards.” Focus is put on customer satisfaction and response and resolution times – marks they’ve had no trouble meeting. Looking ahead, Shannon says, “the other key piece is to increase customer loyalty and retention while building brand awareness.” Recent strategies included a ‘surprise and delight’ campaign – for National Nutrition Month (March), nutpods reached out to dieticians, nutritionists, and doctors, gifting free samples as a “thank you for what you’re doing to educate the community.”
Transparency is in nutpods’s DNA. Valuing customer feedback, the brand is sharing customer reviews on both its website and social media channels to inform consumers about the product so they can make the best decisions for their individual health and taste preferences.
People take their morning coffee very seriously. As a CPG company, nutpods relies on product feedback to understand flavor trends and sales – red flags would be raised if customers stopped commenting about their experience. CS is on the front lines and Shannon reminds, “We work very closely with our quality team. We have procedures to make sure that we’re gathering feedback, using Airtable to filter information in a consumable way for the rest of the company.”
In an age when online shopping is synonymous with “instant gratification”, Shannon recognizes AI’s appeal for efficiency and quick responses. While nutpods’s current ticket volume doesn’t require AI, Shannon is open to integrating automation tools in CS if needed (ChatGPT is used internally for review FAQs). Thinking in the longer term, she believes there will be a shift back to human touch. “I do think there’ll be a refocus back to having higher quality agents and those more personal, at times difficult, conversations.”
Shannon’s key piece of advice for CS leaders is: “You truly have to be the voice of the customer.” She emphasizes the importance of analyzing and isolating data, as it helps tell a compelling story about how a product is performing. Communication can be challenging—especially in companies that prioritize revenue-generating departments. “CS can be such a great resource. Sometimes it feels like you have to shout from the rooftops,” she says. “Just don’t be discouraged—keep trying. Because once it clicks, people really get it.”
Can’t-live-without-tool? Zendesk. There’s a lot of things out there. Nothing has compared. It’s great not for only communication, but for tracking all those metrics.
Shannon’s favorite communication channel for CS? It depends on the scenario, but anytime I can hop on the phone, talk to people, have that real conversation, and hear people’s stories – it doesn’t get old.
Recent book or podcast? I’m a new mom. An amazing parenting book that I recently read is Expecting Better by Emily Oster. She’s actually an economist. So, she pulls a ton of data for things like, “Should you be eating sushi while you’re pregnant?” It’s going back to using data and the power within it. I always recommend it to every mom – you don’t need to be like, “Oh, I can’t eat turkey….” She really gives you the power to make decisions about your pregnancy and having children. She’s amazing – she’s great on social media, she has an amazing blog, and a podcast now.
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