At A Glance

Bridget’s career started in sales and marketing, eventually leading her to roles with running shoe and apparel brands like Saucony. But her journey took a new direction 2.5 years ago when she joined Saalt as Director of CX. “It’s my first official customer experience role,” she admits, “but it pulled together everything I’ve always loved, solving problems and helping people.”

What sealed the deal? Saalt’s values. As a founder-led, B Corp brand, Saalt offered a mission-driven culture that resonated with Bridget’s values and skill set. Since joining, she’s helped the company double in size while maintaining a stable, low-turnover team.

Who is Bridget?

Meet Bridget Laye, Director of Customer Service at Saalt!

About Saalt

Saalt is a female-founded, women-owned period care company on a mission to make cleaner, more sustainable menstrual care accessible to everyone. Known for their stigma-breaking brand voice and modern, reusable products, Saalt empowers people to make informed choices about their menstrual health—without shame or compromise.

As a certified B Corp, Saalt donates 1% of revenue to improve period care access in underserved communities and funds initiatives in menstrual health, girls’ education, and sustainability. Since launching in 2018, Saalt has donated over 100,000 period cups in 50 countries.

Bridget’s CX Journey

Bridget's lifelong passion for sports took her through college where she ran track and cross country at Cal Berkeley. After graduating, she pursued a career in marketing and sales, working for various running footwear and apparel companies that ranged from start-ups to Saucony. Bridget joined Saalt, a reusable period care company, as Director of Customer Experience 2.5 years ago. “It’s my first official customer experience role,” she says, admitting that she didn’t even know that the CX world existed until she took the position. “CX is a melting pot of everything that I had been doing – I had always loved helping customers and solving problems.” That Saalt is a B Corp, founder-led brand has allowed Bridget to apply her acquired skill set toward marketing, customer retention, and insight strategies. “We’ve grown and transitioned while I’ve been here,” she remarks. “It’s been an exciting ride.”

What excites Bridget about CX

Asked what excites her most about her work, Bridget begins by discussing the flexibility and variety that CX offers, for both day-to-day and long-term projects. Compared to the rigid structure of other departments, CX leaves room for creativity and the implementation of new strategies to find solutions. Additionally, Bridget highlights meeting and connecting with customers as a perk of the job. “I like learning about people and hearing about insights directly from the consumer,” she explains and then points out, “you do a little bit of everything. I like that in CX, there is always a problem to be solved, so you are never going to feel stagnant or stale.”

The CX Team at Saalt

Bridget describes her CX team as “a true hybrid workforce.”  From Saalt’s headquarters in Boise, Idaho, Bridget along with her team leads, or ‘coaches,’ manage both in-office and remote members based in the US with the help of one person working overseas.

Bridget’s Top Challenge as a CX Team Leader

In E-Commerce, CX is on the front lines when it comes to managing customers’ expectations – Bridget understands that her team’s job is difficult and complex. As Director of Customer Experience, her biggest challenge is “making sure they feel appreciated, get the support from me as a leader, and ensure that they are heard throughout the company.” She goes on to praise her agents for their ‘amazing’ work, noting that she’s been fortunate to have little turnover and a dedicated team.

Using A Comprehensive Hiring Process to Find Mission-Driven Applicant

Saalt’s successful hiring process results from a combination of a work sample and core values interview. “It’s just making sure upfront that people are comfortable with the work they’re going to be doing and the company culture,” Bridget emphasizes. And this means being comfortable with talking about periods and female anatomy. Because the subject is intimate, candidates must demonstrate empathy and flexibility revolving around sensitive issues. Period care has become a topic of interest in recent years. “We are very lucky. We have smart motivated people who want to work for our mission,” Bridget says. “So generally, our applicant pool is pretty strong.” While Saalt’s CX team is currently all female, Bridget isn’t opposed to hiring male agents. “Some of the savviest people in our company around periods and period care are men,” she reveals. “I’ve been astounded about how much they know.”

Saalt’s Collaborative Approach to Training New CX Agents

Bridget uses a collaborative approach to training CX agents and says, “Everyone’s involved from the start. There’s a lot of job shadowing and round robin training across the team.” Because period care is a nuanced topic and varies from one customer to the next, she doesn’t use a script, but prefers new hires learn from seasoned agents about how to address situations. Bot auditing has become a successful tool in the onboarding process as well – new hires examine the bot to make sure it’s giving helpful information. Bridget elaborates, “Because the bot is pulling from our help center and different resources, it’s a great way to learn the topics and the brand voice that we use when talking to customers.” After a month of training, a new member is ready to work on their own.

CX Channels, KPIs, and Marketing

Preferred Channels and How Saalt’s Customers are Reaching Out

Because customers have done much of their own research about period care by the time they find Saalt, their preferred channel is email followed by chatbot and DMs through social media. “We have an active social media presence,” Bridget adds while highlighting the success of Saalt’s TikTok lives, many of which are run by CX team members.

Core KPIs and Tech Stack
Taking a holistic view to analyze her CX team’s performance, Bridet lists NPS (the guiding star), help-center views, first response time, product reviews, and automation rate as the “core KPIS on our scorecard.” The company doesn’t specifically use CX to drive sales but understands its vital role in keeping customers happy and loyal to the brand. Speaking from her marketing background, Bridget underscores CX as being “extremely important, a kind of retention tool.”

Saalt uses a standard E-Commerce tech stack in cross-department operations that includes Shopify, Klaviyo, Attentive for SMS, Gorgias for CX, and a number of AI and automation tools.

Post Purchase Marketing Strategies

Saalt uses a hybrid approach to post-purchase marketing - key strategies include email, print mailers and package inserts along with organic social media campaigns. Bridget mentions that the brand has an active Facebook page, which is customer-run with 26,000 members.

How AI is Making CX Agents’ Jobs Easier at Saalt

An early advocate for integrating AI in CX, Bridget says, “I like any technology that raises the level of work that you do while keeping you from doing menial tasks.” Going back 2+ years, Saalt’s AI adoption predates Gorgias’s native offering of AI tools. Bridget recalls, “We had a custom solution Y Meadows that was built and integrated into our help desk that ran on automations.” AI has supported her agents’ day-to-day tasks so efficiently that they haven’t had to add new members despite the company doubling in revenue. 

While AI may not be perfect, it stands as an immediate point of CX entry – if customers don’t get the desired answer, they move on without waiting for a response. “I love that it’s meeting people where they are at and what they are looking for in support,” Bridget finishes.

CX Goals: Scaling the Conversation for Everyone on A Period Care Journey

How women approach period care is a personal decision. Research shows that many women are using the same period products that their mothers used. The takeaway – ingrained habits are hard to change. Bridget discloses that customers consider Saalt anywhere between 1 week to 1 year before making a purchase. Consequently, her main goal is how to have the conversation with people who are ‘on the fence’ at all points within that timeline. “I’d love to figure out how to talk to people who are along different parts of that journey and do so on scale.”

The Future of CX in E-Commerce

Like many E-Commerce brands, Saalt is dealing with how Tariffs will impact the brand’s sustainable manufacturing model. Admittedly unsure about the future, Bridget does believe that as prices increase so will customers’ expectations. Saalt is collecting data to prepare for potential seismic shifts on the cost of overall business. “All these systems are working together, and they must talk to each other. You must have personalized marketing and be savvy to handle escalating issues,” she concludes.

Bridget’s Key Advice for Aspiring CX Leaders

To be a successful CX leader, Bridget says you must listen to your team while developing relationships with members on an individual level. “One of the reasons our team has been so successful is because people really connect and work hard for their team members. And we try to set that foundation from the start. People are what matters and what moves the business forward.” She goes on to say, “Celebrate people, their gifts, and what they bring to the table. And don’t be afraid to push people to get better or learn something new.”