At A Glance

Amanda Tarantino didn't plan on a career in customer experience—it started with a temp job at Skims that she fell in love with. Now, as Manager of Consumer Experience at True Botanicals, she's built a "tiny but mighty" team of four that treats every customer inquiry as a revenue opportunity. In this interview, Amanda shares her approach to keeping CX human in an AI-driven world, why empathy beats technical skills in hiring, and how her team uses the same training docs as retail sales associates to turn product questions into upsells.

‍Who is Amanda Tarantino?

Meet Amanda, the CX Manager at True Botanicals! 

About True Botanicals

True Botanicals is a luxury clinical skincare brand on a mission to make safe and sustainable skincare irresistible. . 

Amanda’s CX Journey

Amanda's path into customer experience began somewhat by chance in 2021 when she took a temporary position at Skims. "I took a temp [role] as a customer service agent at Skims and immediately fell in love with the fast-paced environment, the thrill of turning angry customers into happy customers," she explains. What started as temporary work quickly became a passion. During a weekly team meeting icebreaker where colleagues shared personal goals like reading more books or going to the gym, Amanda made a bold declaration: "I want to be full-time at Skims. I love it here and I love this job." Her enthusiasm paid off—she was soon brought on full-time and played a crucial role in scaling the CX team as the company grew.

Transitioning Into Leadership

When Amanda felt ready to lead her own team, True Botanicals presented the perfect opportunity. "I've always really been interested in clean beauty. And then when I saw the True Botanicals job listing, I was like, OK, this is a perfect opportunity for me. I feel really aligned with the mission of the company. And that is just really important for me in my career," she says. 

What continues to drive her in customer experience is the human element that many customers don't expect to find. "I think sometimes people's expectations are really low, or they feel like they're not talking to a human," Amanda notes. "When something that a customer thought wouldn't be taken care of is, and it's done quickly and thoughtfully, that's what excites me."

The CX Team at True Botanicals

Amanda leads what she describes as a "tiny but mighty team of four people right now" at True Botanicals, with a distributed structure that reflects the modern workplace. The team includes Amanda, an in-house coordinator who "specializes in product education and upselling," and offshore coordinators who "specialize in more of the operational inquiries." While True Botanicals has a Bay Area office that Amanda personally loves visiting, the team makes the most of both in-person collaboration and remote flexibility.

Amanda’s Approach to Hiring

When it comes to hiring, Amanda prioritizes character. "In my opinion, a great CS agent is resourceful, communicative, and definitely a team player," she explains. "When hiring, [I] typically look for someone who can prove their attention to detail and shows that they're very passionate about CX."

The biggest challenge Amanda faces in managing her team isn't operational—it's keeping everyone connected to their impact. "The top challenges with managing a customer support team, I think keeping the team connected to the bigger picture is always like the key," she says. "So when you're in the trenches and you're kind of answering tickets, dealing with tough conversations, it's very easy to forget the impact that your work has on retention, brand loyalty, customer lifetime value."

 To combat this, Amanda makes recognition a priority: "I like to share customer feedback wins very publicly in Slack and make sure the team always feels that they're genuinely valued."

CX Team Success Factors

True Botanicals faces the modern challenge of customers reaching out across every conceivable platform. While their primary customer service channels are "email, contact form, phone," the reality is much broader: "We get a lot of inquiries on Instagram, on Facebook ads , we're everywhere.”

To maintain consistency across this sprawling landscape, Amanda's team supports CS-related inquiries on social channels and uses "the same training docs that our retail sales teams use. So that also helps ensure consistency. It's just about keeping communication in all of these different channels as consistent as possible for us."

Amanda’s Plans For The Future

Looking toward the future, Amanda has ambitious plans to transform her team from reactive support to proactive revenue generation. "Definitely want to place a big focus on retention and turning the CX team into more of a revenue driver where we're not necessarily just handling reactively, but we're really proactive, being able to lead [customers]  in the right direction and make a sale or upsell."

Revenue Generation/AI/topics of interest 

True Botanicals has turned customer inquiries into revenue opportunities by equipping their team with comprehensive product knowledge. "We equip our entire team with a product education handbook that contains not only information about all of our products, but we also have information on how to sell it," Amanda explains. 

"We give them the same training documents that we give our retail sales team. So anytime we get a call or an email with product questions for us, that's an opportunity to upsell." The personal nature of skincare works in their favor: "Since skincare is such a personal thing, we do have a good amount of opportunity where customers are reaching out, what do you think is best for me? And then that's our opportunity there to upsell."

When it comes to AI, Amanda takes a measured approach that prioritizes the human connection her luxury beauty customers expect. She believes that AI can be helpful for repetitive inquiries like WISMO and returns, but reaching a human should always be easy to do. 

Her reasoning is rooted in understanding her audience: "Skincare is so personal and in an industry like this, customers appreciate the human connection.] I think backend, behind the scenes, AI is great to use for our team, but I don't think necessarily it's great to be customer facing, especially with a luxury brand. People expect that luxury service as well."

Amanda’s Advice for CX Leaders

Amanda's advice for fellow CX leaders is refreshingly straightforward: "Just be human as much as possible. That's, in a world of AI, how we're going to stand out - is to just be human and empathetic and real. And just remember that the people on your team are also human. CX can be really daunting and it's much easier to focus on the negative than the positive if you don't make a conscientious effort to do so. So celebrate every win, big or small, and make sure your team always feels appreciated."