00:10
Ciaran
Hello and welcome to Customer Friendship Conversations, the show where we bring you the latest trends, tools and insights into delivering customer experiences. It’s meant to be. I’m Ciaran Nolan and I lead relationship management at Dixa. Today’s customer experience hero is Kasper. Kasper is head of Customer Success at Hobbii, the one stop shop for yarn lovers around the world. Hobbii pride themselves on having everything someone might need for their next knitting or crocheting project all in one place. And as you’ll hear later, Kasper’s Yarn Heroes are leading the industry and customer experience in this space. All their products are designed in Copenhagen, Denmark, and that’s where Kasper joined me from today. Kasper, thank you so much for joining the Customer Friendships Conversations podcast. How are you doing today?
00:56
Kasper
I’m doing great, thanks. And thanks for having me.
00:59
Ciaran
Yeah, we’re thrilled to have you. So, Kasper, why don’t we kick off? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about you and what you do at Hobbii?
01:06
Kasper
I’m Kasper and I am the head of our Customer Success Department at Hobbii. And I’ve been leading this department for close to three years now and transitioned it from a very hands on department to a more digital and modern department.
01:26
Ciaran
I would say our listeners may some may not know Hobbii. Why don’t you tell us a little more about Hobbii and what you guys are up to there?
01:34
Kasper
Yeah, sure. So, Hobbii is a Danish company. We used to be a startup. I would say we are now a scaler. So we are seven years old. And what we do is that basically we buy yarn and accessories and we sell it to customers around the world. So everything from the US to Australia to Canada, Europe, UK, we are there. And, yeah, we cater for our customers with different products in relation to yarn and accessories.
02:00
Ciaran
And I can see in the background you have some nice pieces there. Did you make any of them yourself?
02:06
Kasper
Unfortunately not, but some of my colleagues did.
02:09
Ciaran
Yeah, it looks excellent. Those watching this at YouTube will be able to see your lovely background, which is just excellent.
02:15
Kasper
Yeah, I once did a granny square myself. We had, like, kind of a competition, so every colleague or every hobbit knows how to either knit or crochet. Teeny tiny bit.
02:25
Ciaran
What’s the name?
02:25
Kasper
Hobbii. So I think we call ourselves Hobbits.
02:31
Ciaran
Excellent. Yeah, I love that. Love that.
02:33
Ciaran
So, I know a lot about Hobbii. Having been able to visit your wonderful offices in Copenhagen, which were just really, I guess, inspiring spaces, beautiful products and a really creative atmosphere, which was really lovely to be around and be within, I think I always say. One of the things I love about the job I have here at Dixa is visiting customers who are just so cool. They’re at the cutting edge of the industry and selling really cool things. So what is the approach you have there to customer success or customer experience, what’s kind of approach that you’re leading with there?
03:12
Kasper
So two different approaches of course. One is towards our customers, how we deal with them, but also internally, how do we deal with our colleagues and each other. Because as you said before, we have just moved to a new environment, new offices in the center of Copenhagen, which are very inspiring, very colorful, that’s our universe is very colorful. So we have a lot of these creations and colors that makes looks nice and inspiring to come to work for us. But we try to treat our people in a great way that comes of course, through leadership. We give them a lot of power and responsibility when they face customers. So in order to serve our customers great, I believe that we need to set our experts free. So we have a lot of yarn experts, a lot of knitting experts and we need to set those people free so when they deal with their customers, with our customers, sorry, they have the freedom to deal with that specific issue the customer is dealing with.
04:16
Kasper
Of course, we have different frameworks and policies, of course, but our yarn heroes, as we call them, can act within those frameworks to make sure the customer gets the right service and the right help. So we don’t want to put customers into boxes, but we want to have these open policies where the reps can choose from and choose what is the best solution in this specific scenario. So we do enable our reps to use that knowledge they have both when it comes to service, but also when it comes to knitting and crocheting because they do know a tremendous amount of knowledge when it comes to knitting and crocheting.
04:55
Ciaran
And is that something you look for? Because obviously your core business is knitting and crocheting and the materials in which to do that. Is that something you’d look for when you’re out hiring in the industry?
05:07
Kasper
No, not necessarily. If they know how to knit or crochet, it’s of course a bonus. But I would say first and foremost we look for people who we think are of course great people and would fit into the customer success department. But of course also the Hobbii culture, the DNA we have in Hobbii which is very colorful and very creative and we basically want to hire people that we want to hang out with and who of course have a passion for what we do. They don’t necessarily need to have the passion for yarn and knitting or crocheting. I didn’t have that passion myself when I started. So for me, when we’re looking at people, we are looking for people who has this ability to give great service and who think of others before they necessarily think of themselves, not in a negative way. And people and that’s probably what’s most important.
05:58
Kasper
Who understands and wants to work in a company like Hobbii, where we are in a constant transformation. Because Hobbii has been growing a lot since we started. And when we hire people, they have to understand that what we do today might not be the same in three, four, six months time. So they have to be able to adapt to processes and to a company that grows and with growth comes changes. So we have this high focus on, you can say change management. And it’s a great conversation to have with people when we hire them because, of course, it’s intriguing to work in a company where things change and not just remain the same all the time. And I also think, personally, for me, that’s one of the fun things about being at Hobbii is that we are I mean, yes, we sell yarn, which is a product from the old days to say and we work in a business where we constantly think digitalization.
07:04
Kasper
We think about how can we grow the business online and how can we create a place for our customers to share knowledge and share photos, share creations. And going back to your question, when we hire people, we want them to understand that we are taking an old industry into the new world, right? So historically, yarn shops have been around small towns all over the place. Maybe you know it from yourself.
07:32
Ciaran
I’m from rural Ireland where a lot of yarn is actually made. And yeah, like close to my house, my home place in Ireland, you can go up to literal cottage and buy yarn if you needed to.
07:47
Kasper
Yes, so we are really taking this like, old business model where an individual buys a small store and then they, for some reason, find some yarn and they sell it to whoever wants to buy yarn in their neighborhood. Right? And we’re taking that. And of course, there are bigger shops as well, but we’re taking that business model and making it digital. So we are catering for the online community now for people who wants to buy yarn. And they can do that online. They can browse a whole universe of yarn, of inspiration. And we want to inspire our customers. So we also at Hobbii, we create a lot of inspirational patterns. We have thousands, so there are plenty more to choose from. The whole idea is like, when we generate inspiration and content and creations, our customers will come back to be inspired. And then customers can create these creations themselves and then they can either give it to friends, families, or inspire the people around them.
08:43
Ciaran
One thing I’d love for you to kind of talk a little bit about is you take and the business and Hobbii take a really big interest in fostering community and culture within your customer base. So I know you have the app, which is super cool, and you do some interesting stuff there to keep your users engaged, your customers engaged. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about that.
09:07
Kasper
Yeah. So the idea is that of course we want to spend time with our customers, and we want our customers to spend time with each other. And how do we do that? We try to build this community. So instead of people scrolling on Instagram and Facebook, we want them to spend time in our universe and be inspired by yarn and designers and creations, because we know that our customers are incredibly passionated and creative. And I haven’t seen this before in my life. It’s incredible how passionated they are about yarn and creating these different things. They can create for and often they actually created for family. So what we saw in order to grow the business, one thing is like, yes, we can sell a lot of yarn online. That’s great. But how can we cater for the audience we have? How can we make sure that we do something more than just sell yarn?
10:04
Kasper
So we have built this universe. So, yes, we have an app now where customers can browse our products, our patents, they can make a purchase, they can get answers to some questions in there as well. And that’s cool, but it’s just the beginning. We want to build this universe where customers similar to Instagram, Facebook, other social media, so we want to make, like, a platform where customers can, as I said before, be inspired by each other, figure out a way to deal with a pattern. If they have issues, why not ask the community to help them out, right? And yeah, that’s the idea, to build this place where customers can go and be inspired.
10:46
Ciaran
Kasper one thing I found really interesting, and also quite a great way to do community engagement, is that Hobbii. You launched your own bingo online, bingo for your community.
10:59
Kasper
Yeah. So a few years ago, we had this idea that we wanted to do more, we wanted to interact more with our customers. And we want to get out there and show our customers and new customers that we are authentic. We are a real company. We act and we speak as we are. It’s not just a charade. So what we did is we introduced bingo in Denmark to begin with, and we have quite a big crowd following. Now, every week, I think we have around 50,000 every week following our bingo sessions in Denmark, Germany, and the US. So we’re going live three times a week with bingo. And the idea came because, of course, we have a customer base at a certain age. I think the average age, sorry, is around 55 years. And we just know in Denmark, at least, there’s a history for bingo.
11:50
Kasper
So we thought, why not try bingo and have fun with that? So it’s a whole thing now. And yeah, as I said, now we have a lot of people following our bingo sessions every week, and basically, they just have to turn on their phone and then they participate. They don’t have to do much, they can make comments and they can win prizes and, yeah, it’s great fun and I have quite some great colleagues who are the faces of bingo.
12:17
Ciaran
I personally just think that’s one of the most bespoke things to do for a customer base that I’ve come across. I think it’s really inspiring. It’s really nice to see you creating community amongst your customers as well. And obviously they definitely enjoy winning too, I guess, because I think the prizes are nice yarn prizes. Whatnot?
12:39
Kasper
And going back to the passion I talked about before, they are very passionate, right? So they want to win least like free skins of yarn, these patterns, these accessories, whatever it is, and if they don’t get it, we will hear from them in customer success, of course.
12:50
Ciaran
Amazing. Yeah, I love it. It’s really great. So, Kasper, I know you’ve been at Hobbii for a number of years now, so what was the Customer Success and Customer Experience Team like at the start of your journey there?
13:07
Kasper
So, I’ve been with Hobbii for four and a half years, something like that, and I didn’t start in CS. I have a supply chain background, so it was a different step for me to go to CS. So when I came to CS, were incredibly attentive and present with the customers, meaning that we spent quite a lot of time with each customer and giving like a very good service. Like, we really spent time on the phone, on emails, long emails going back and forth, and it wasn’t very efficient, it wasn’t very great for those customers who waited for answer to say so it’s great for the customers who got the answer, but the response time for those in the queue were too long, basically. So we had to figure out a way, how do we keep giving good service, but still in a friendly Hobbii tone of voice, right?
14:09
Kasper
So we still want to be present, we still want to be available to the customers and if they want to talk about their cat or their daughters or whatever, then we’ll do that. I mean, we are that friend they didn’t know they had, right? So we are very nice people, we talk to the customers for sometimes a long time and that’s also fine. But we wanted to move on from these repetitive questions. One of the ideas that we came up with was that customers, I mean, one of the great things as a user of a website is to be able to find the answers yourself, instead of reaching out and waiting for answer. So we worked a lot with this self service idea that customers were to find answers themselves, either via FAQ, now via chatbot, proactive communication. So basically, we wanted to inform the customers before they knew they had an issue.
15:09
Kasper
That was the whole idea, to be more proactive in our communication and thereby avoid all these repetitive questions where the answer was actually out there.
15:19
Ciaran
So Kasper, how did you come about actually beginning to partner with Dixa?
15:23
Kasper
We switched to Dixa two and a half, three years ago. And the reason for that was were working with a large company and we wanted to be more conversational. We wanted to go into a place where were having these conversations with our customers and be more present. And I think that’s where Dixa offered a very intuitive system where we could be conversational. And it was very clear that we could also, because we work with multiple countries, we have eleven different domains and all customers are getting service in local language. And Dixa provided us with a set up where we could easily set this up so each country in Hobbii could get their own queues, we could build multiple queues depending on the questions and be more conversational with the customers, basically.
16:13
Ciaran
So Kasper, you mentioned that you really built up a very resilient self serve capability as well as human capability within the organization. But that was obviously put to test during COVID when a lot of people were at home, including myself, and taking up a lot of new hobbies. And I’m guessing that meant that your organization became a lot busier.
16:38
Kasper
Indeed, as you said, people got new interest during COVID They spent quite some time on the couch and for some reason knitting and crocheting became a huge interest for a lot of people. I personally think it’s due to the contrast that it presents to a digital world that customers can sit on, or people can sit on the couch knitting crocheting in some kind of ascend mode. And yes, it did put a lot of pressure on Hobbii as a company, but of course also on customer success as a department. We saw a huge incline in orders, meaning that we created backlogs in our warehouse carriers around the world, capacity was lower because there were no commercial flights. So we couldn’t just fly orders around the world or to the US. To Canada, Australia, as we usually do. And of course, with delays comes customer frustration, right?
17:41
Kasper
Because at Hobbii we look at this at least in customer success, we look at this perception gap, like what is it customers are expecting and what is it we are delivering? And the bigger the gap, the more the conversations we see in Dixa. And that’s also what happened to us. Customers had an expectation and we didn’t deliver various reasons. We were not ready for that amount of orders. We overcame it and it was quite a journey. I would have to say that we grew that much as a company and basically in the beginning we just had to hire people, more orders, more hands, internally. And of course that’s not sustainable, it’s not a good way to grow your business. So we had to figure out ways to make sure that we could scale during COVID but also of course now after COVID, how do we land after that?
18:41
Ciaran
And I think from my seat, speaking to a very large amount of customer experience professionals, that’s the key question people are looking to solve for is how do we continue to scale the business but not with people. And I think you at Hobbii are actually a really good example of this because you have a huge amount of self serve and really personalized self serve capability as well as a lot of great humans working for you and you’ve managed to land at a consistent CSAT in the high 80s, early 90s. Tell us more, how are you achieving that?
19:24
Kasper
So we have done a lot of initiatives, right? I’m a data guy so I’m very analytical and I’m trying to figure out how do we prioritize the issues our customers are facing with the idea that if we neutralize those issues we will see fewer conversations in dixa. So what we did was, as mentioned before, we wanted to build this place of information where customers can find information. So hence using the FAQ, hence using a chatbot now where a lot of the you can say generic questions are answered. So the idea was to make sure customers can find answers to the in quotation, mark easy questions and give and liberate my yarn heroes from answering these generic you can say boring questions, straightforward questions and instead focus on the more technical questions like product questions, yarn questions, patent questions.
20:29
Ciaran
So really through this self service capability that you’ve built out, it meant that your yarn heroes were working on things that were where they could add the most value for your customer base. Is that fair to say?
20:42
Kasper
Good example was the biggest issue for our customers when I came and for a long time was tracking. So customers had an issue understanding what happened to their order after they placed it. So what happened in our warehouse, what happened with the carriers? When could they pick it up? There was a lot of communication there that was not proactive. Meaning an abundance of customers reached out to us and asked what’s going on with my order? Right? Because they placed an order, they paid some money so of course they want to know what’s going on and we fixed that with various initiatives. Customers could track their order, they get an email if there are delays in our warehouse, they get an email when they can pick it up, they get emails if there are issues on the carrier side now. So we try to proactively inform customers about this just as an example and then we kind of like that big issue.
21:38
Kasper
We took that and made it a smaller issue, meaning that we liberated our clever yarn heroes from answering these generic questions, being able to spend more time on questions where they bring value in terms of products in terms of accessories, in terms of patterns and actually helping and enhancing the customers knitting crocheting journey.
22:04
Ciaran
I think, Kasper, from knowing you and knowing quite a lot about the Hobbii organization, I would say that you’re quite lucky in the sense that you don’t have much challenges working across the organization to solve problems. So some customers I’m working with and speaking to every day, the teams are very siloed and it’s very hard to get time and tech resource. It’s very hard to get in with the logistics team. It’s hard to understand what the warehouses are doing. How do you approach that? Because that’s something that a lot of people I work with say is one of their biggest challenges.
22:37
Kasper
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think first and foremost, in Denmark overall, we have a tradition for a very flat hierarchy. So I am allowed to say I’m not asking, at least to talk to my colleagues. So whenever I have an issue, whether it’s related to logistics or marketing, let’s say a campaign went wrong, we wrote something offensive in our newsletter, we give that feedback to the marketing team. Right. And we have a management meetings once a week where we brief each other and we are very transparent in terms of issues, and at least I am, because of course I have to report what’s happening on the customer side. Of course, there’s this ongoing thing with capacity within our tech department. I think that’s very normal for a lot of companies that every time you want something done, it has to be prioritized. Right. You don’t have unlimited tech resources, neither do we.
23:39
Kasper
But we are not an organization that takes the customer seriously. So when there are issues, we are also aware that we need to get them fixed. And also for me, as a department leader, I want to do a good job. And my job is to scale my department. And if I am to scale that, I need some help from the organization. And luckily I get that. So it’s also my job to put the customers issue on the agenda. And often I use data to present what are the consequences, what’s happening, and usually it works and I get the biggest issues prioritized. I have a lot of small issues that still needs to be fixed, but the bigger ones are being fixed. That’s for sure.
24:22
Ciaran
Excellent. And one thing you mentioned was you want to be the friend to the customer that they didn’t know they had. Just tell us more about that kind of philosophy and how you’ve brought that into your team and organization.
24:39
Kasper
Yeah, so that’s actually a philosophy that we have had since we started that. I think the founders, when they founded Hobbii seven years ago, they wanted to build a customer success team that were present with the customer, were listening and took in whatever feedback the customers had. And if they wanted to talk about whatever that was not related to orders or yarn. We do that and that’s still how it is. So when our customers called, we are that friend they didn’t know they had. We want to be friendly, we want to talk to them like their family, like their friends. We don’t want to be too corporate, we don’t want to be too distant from our customers. We want to just be down to earth and be the people we are. So when our people go to work, they can just be themselves basically. They don’t have to take on a mask, they don’t have to do anything else, they just speak as they do to the customers, of course.
25:33
Kasper
So going back to when we hire people, that’s also something we talk about. This is how we talk to our customers. Like the way we have a very informal job interview. That’s also how we talk to our customers. We are informal. We use emojis, we use gifs. Sometimes it goes wrong. But we’re not afraid to take risk and we’re not afraid to be ourselves. Hopefully the customers are recognizing that when they talk to us and hopefully that’s one of the reasons they come back, because they can mirror themselves in how we are as a company and how we treat them and how we treat each other.
26:06
Ciaran
Do some of your yarn heroes who join the organization, perhaps from more corporate environments find that an adjustment?
26:17
Kasper
Yeah, definitely. I wouldn’t say that. My department, we have a lot of young people coming in, so they don’t necessarily have that experience. But of course from other departments, myself included, when you come from a corporate world with a not so flat hierarchy, with a more formal tone, it’s definitely a change, that’s for sure.
26:42
Ciaran
And it’s just so obvious from visiting your offices that’s something that you and the management and leadership team have been able to really instill in the organization, which is really inspiring and something that should be commended. So I guess on that you’re providing customer experience and customer success for a very fast growing online market. What would you say are some of the challenges that you face that are more specific to the industry you’re working within?
27:15
Kasper
When it comes to yarn, you have an online business and you have an offline business. We are both the majority coming from online. We have eight stores. I think we are in a period of time where the industry is changing to be more online. But the biggest part of the yarn industry is still offline. So our biggest challenge now is to perceive the customers buying offline. How do they go online? So how do we create a universe where offline shoppers decide to go online?
27:54
Ciaran
And I guess it kind of leads nicely to what I was thinking about next is you’re a man, I feel like with an eye always on the future and thinking ahead and perhaps thinking ahead of even the current trend to the next trend. What’s next for customer success at Hobbii? Like, what are you keeping an eye out for and what are you thinking about?
28:16
Kasper
Yeah, so it’s no secret, I think, that last year we all saw this Chat GPT going live and had to understand, what is this about the hype around AI, at least within customer service or customers, who says is unbelievable. I have never seen so many invites for events or companies who wants to talk to me about selling a certain solution. So I can definitely say that the next step for us is to embrace what’s coming. We’re not afraid of AI, we’re not afraid of new technology. I think we are a tech company, so we embrace those changes because it can definitely help us. I see AI as more of a colleague and a support than it’s a robot taking all our jobs. But I also think that you have to embrace it. And if you don’t embrace AI, I think as a customer success, you’re probably going to lose in the long run because it’s going to change the way we perceive customer service.
29:26
Kasper
I’m quite sure of that.
29:27
Ciaran
I think that’s a very open way to look at this trend. And of course, it’s something here at Dixa we’re hugely working on and investing in, and we’re very excited for what we bring to market there. And to wrap us up, I have three quick fire questions for you. So the first one is, what do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your customer experience journey?
29:57
Kasper
That’s a good question and a big one, right? I’ve learned a lot over the last three years. I would say the whole data part to consolidate customer insights and turn that into changes in order to make a better customer journey.
30:15
Ciaran
How do you measure the success of your customer friendships?
30:19
Kasper
We use CSET. So you mentioned in the beginning that we have a high CSET between 85 90 on a weekly basis, also during peak, which is really great to see. So we use the customer satisfaction score to get an understanding of how our customers perceive the support they get, and we’re doing great.
30:41
Ciaran
What would your number one tip be for companies and organizations to get as good as you are?
30:46
Kasper
I would say build a clear strategy and be clear about and honest and transparent about the direction you’re going in as a company and get buy in from your team. That’s what we have done and I think it has worked out great. And, yeah, that has taken us to the level we are at now. Excellent. I think our CSAT when we started measuring was around 70 or something like that.
31:11
Ciaran
Okay. Yeah. Significant. That’s amazing. Well, Kasper, thank you so much for joining us today. I know we here at Dixa absolutely love partnering with you, love having Hobbii as a client, and we’re just constantly inspired by your forward thinking and the innovative nature of the organization. So thank you for taking the time and I know our listeners will find our conversation very valuable today.
31:34
Kasper
Thanks for having me on the show. See you around in Copenhagen.
31:39
Ciaran
Thanks for listening today’s episode of Customer Friendship Conversations. If you’ve enjoyed the show, then make sure you’re following us on your podcast platform of choice. It means that you’ll get notified each time we release a new episode so you won’t miss out on any of the other amazing customer friendship heroes we’ll be showcasing in the coming months. Of course, our rating or review is huge help to the show, so we always massively appreciate those as well. And if you’re interested in learning more about Customer Friendship, then head to Dixa.com to discover everything you want to know about customer experience as it’s meant to be. I’m Ciaran Nolan, and this was customer Friendship Conversations. Huge thanks to Kasper from Hobbii for his time today. After sharing his knowledge and expertise, I think he’s proven himself to be a friend we didn’t know we had. Until next time.