At a Glance

April is a customer experience leader with close to a decade of experience across fashion, retail, and e-commerce; spanning brands including Meshki, Strandbags, Accent Group, Asics, and By Charlotte. She joined Vital+ in March 2026 as Customer Service & Experience Manager with a mandate to build the brand's CX function from the ground up. She leads a fully remote offshore team supporting a high-performance portfolio of at-home recovery products, including cold plunges and infrared saunas. Her focus: translating hard-won operational experience into the kind of service infrastructure that makes genuine excellence possible at scale.

Who is April?

Meet April Moutia, Customer Service & Experience Manager at Vital+!

About Vital+

Vital+ is a premium wellness brand specialising in high-performance cold plunge ice baths and infrared saunas. Its mission is to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of millions through affordable, science-backed wellness solutions.

April's CX Journey

April brings close to a decade of experience across customer experience and fashion retail spanning brands including Meshki, Strandbags, Accent Group, Asics, Billini, and finally By Charlotte, where she spent the last two years building the CX function from scratch and driving a significant uplift in sales from support. 

At the end of last year, she made a deliberate decision to step back and be selective about her next move. "I wanted to take everything I'd built and put it somewhere it would actually compound," she explains. "I'm drawn to roles where there's a real challenge, especially in CX, where you can see the direct commercial impact of what you build."

She joined Vital+ in March 2026 as Customer Service & Experience Manager, and the fit was clear from the start. Founder Cameron Mehr's approach to customer experience, treating it as a business function rather than an afterthought, was a significant draw. "The business is only three years old, so we're genuinely building the foundations," April says. 

"I have the opportunity to create a department that operates in lockstep with the C-suite. That's not something most CX leaders get."

What Excites April Most About CX in Wellness

April's career started in customer service after finishing school, not as a planned path, but one that stuck because it aligned with how she thinks. "Service excellence has always mattered deeply to me," she says. "I find the psychology behind customer behaviour genuinely interesting, what people expect, how they feel when those expectations aren't met, and what it takes to actually shift that."

Over time, she's seen CX evolve from a support function to a strategic commercial driver, and believes that shift is accelerating, especially as AI changes what's expected of the humans still in the loop. "There's a real tension right now between 'how does the customer feel cared for' and 'how do we keep this operationally efficient.' Navigating that gap is one of the more interesting problems in space."

April has spent most of her career in fashion; a saturated, fast-moving space that sharpened her instincts for operational rigour and brand-aligned service. Wellness was the natural next chapter. "Any brand that advocates for wellness, kindness, and consideration needs to have that reflected in how it treats its customers. Vital+ is a natural fit for the way I approach the work."

The CX Team at Vital+

April leads a fully remote offshore team of six agents at Vital+, supporting customers across the US, UK, and Australasian markets . For her, the priority isn't headcount, it's building a team equipped to handle everything from straightforward order queries to complex escalations with the same level of care. "When someone is spending thousands of dollars on a recovery product, the bar for service has to match that investment," she says. "Every interaction is an opportunity to either reinforce that decision or undermine it."

How April Addresses the Challenges of Leading an Offshore Team

Leading a remote offshore team comes with real complexity, and April approaches it with structure from day one. Onboarding isn't just about support processes, she brings agents up to speed on the commercial side of the business too, from product knowledge and pricing to new launches. "If your team doesn't understand what they're selling or what it costs, they can't have meaningful conversations with our community," she explains. 

Clear SOPs and well-built decision trees do the heavy lifting between those conversations, giving agents the confidence to resolve issues independently without needing to escalate every grey area. Cultural awareness underpins all of it. "Our team is based in the Philippines. Taking the time to understand their priorities, cultural norms, and key dates has made me a better manager, and set them up to do better work."

Main Channels Vital+ Customers Use for Support

Vital+ currently supports customers across email, social media, and chat. This quarter, April has been focused on building the infrastructure to support what comes next; launching a completely rebuilt knowledge base and re-rolling out Gorgias AI with the right foundations underneath it.

Phone support is next on the list, with plans to bring it on before the end of Q4. "Getting the knowledge base right before expanding the AI was non-negotiable for me," she says. "If the content isn't accurate and structured well, you're just teaching the AI to confidently give wrong answers and creating friction and poor optics for your brand and community."

April's CX Goals for Vital+

April's roadmap for Vital+ is methodical by design. The foundations came first (SOPs, knowledge base, AI refinement)  and the layers are being added from there. Phones are in progress, a returns portal is in the works to close the loop on the post-purchase experience end to end, and EDM flows and product page updates are on deck to reduce the volume of questions that shouldn't need to reach the team at all. "The goal is a support function that's proactive, not just reactive," she says. 

"Every gap we close on the self-serve side means our team can spend more time on the interactions that actually need a human."Underpinning all of it is a conviction that CX can't do its best work from the sidelines. "We're the ones hearing directly from customers every single day. If that insight isn't feeding back into the business, you're leaving a lot on the table," April says. "I want Vital+ to be known for its service as much as its product. If someone is investing thousands of dollars in a cold plunge, the experience around that purchase has to match."

Tech Stack

Vital+ runs a helpdesk platform for support operations and AI-assisted workflows, with a shopping assistant currently live on site. Phone support is in the pipeline, with a deliberate approach to how AI integrates into that channel before it goes live. "A large tech stack isn't always a flex. It can just as easily create complexity as solve it. I'd rather lean into platforms that do a great job across multiple use cases than stack tools for the sake of coverage."

April's Thoughts on AI in CX

April is clear-eyed about AI's role: it's a tool, not a replacement. "AI is well-suited to routing, basic information, and reducing friction in straightforward interactions; but it doesn't replace judgment. “Human agents can read emotional context, adapt on the fly, and navigate ambiguity in ways AI simply can't (yet!). The more complex your product and service offering, the more that gap matters.”

She's equally direct about the risk of leaning too hard on automation in the name of efficiency. "Customer service is often treated as a cost centre, but your customers are what drive your revenue. If you're cutting corners on how you treat them, that's a short-term decision with long-term consequences." That said, April also believes that AI is here and those that don’t jump on board will be left behind.

April's Advice for CX Leaders

April's advice for CX leaders comes from hard-won experience across brands at very different stages of maturity. Her first rule: get close to your data, but never lose your customer empathy. Over-indexing on either creates blind spots. "The metrics will tell you what's happening," she says. "Your customers will tell you why. You need both to actually fix anything." The second is to advocate (loudly and consistently) for your function. 

CX is still treated as a support cost in too many organisations, and that perception doesn't shift on its own. "Push for the seat at the table, show the commercial impact, and make the case repeatedly," she says. "If a business isn't willing to invest in doing this well, find one that is." Third: build for your team, not for the pitch deck. Elaborate frameworks that look impressive but fall apart in practice help no one. 

Simple, well-constructed processes that agents can actually follow with confidence will always outperform systems that require a manual to use. Finally, take care of your people, genuinely. "You're absorbing frustrated customers, navigating complex escalations, weighing business costs, and holding both the commercial and emotional complexity of every interaction, every single day” April says. "Recognising that and actively supporting your team is the difference between a team that burns out and one that consistently performs."

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