Eileen Spitalny, co-Founder and co-Owner of Fairytale Brownies, participated in an enlightening Q&A with Loyalty360 to discuss a variety of loyalty themes related to her 22-year-old company.
What does Customer Experience/Customer Engagement mean to your organization, and how has it changed in recent years?
The Fairytale experience: Receiving a gift from Fairytale Brownies is a magical experience, from opening the shipping box to reveal the beautiful custom packaging, to savoring each bite of the delicious assortment of treats. I wouldn't say the customer experience when purchasing a gift is magical, but it's definitely simple.
In 2005, the process for ordering custom gifts had a few more steps than it does now. We had minimum requirements and one-week lead times for artwork. Today, we have no minimum order requirements and we can ship the gift as early as the same day ordered.
Social Media has helped increase customer engagement as well.
What group runs it within your organization? How has the strategy and focus changed in recent years?
Marketing, sales, PR, and IT run our loyalty program. We introduced a new loyalty program a couple of years ago to thank our new buyers for discovering Fairytale. They have responded favorably to our personal touch. We often receive thank-you calls or notes in response to our thank-yous!
What role does technology play in your customer engagement, experience, and loyalty efforts?
Social media has definitely helped us get to know our customers more intimately. We have loyal followers on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter who regularly engage in conversations, participate in contests, and post photos or recipes with our products. Technology allows us to quickly handle a problem if one arises. But then again, there’s something to be said for personal service. When our customers speak with one of our customer service team members, they tend to leave the conversation feeling as though they’ve made a new friend.
How do you define loyalty, what does it mean to your organization, and how has it changed in recent years?
A customer who continues to purchase Fairytale products year after year is considered loyal. A new customer could become loyal if their experience with the company is a good one.
We value our loyal customers because they know our brand and trust that we will provide them with a quality product and the best service possible. Our loyal customers are our best advertisement. They are like family.
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities in the next two years?
Challenges: Continued growth on both business and consumer ends of our business; communicating our customization options.
Opportunities: Spreading the gourmet brownie word.
Marketers are tasked to be more data-centric than ever before, yet the challenge of creating actionable insight from data is more challenging than before. What is your advice for marketers?
Try to keep conversation personal.
Can you offer our audience a high level overview of your customer philosophy and share how this perspective helps drive more effective engagement and better marketing outcomes?
Customer philosophy: Customer satisfaction is our priority. Our “One Pure Promise” is to do whatever it takes to make things right for our customers. We’ve reshipped gifts, refunded shipping charges, credited accounts, and written apology letters. We do whatever it takes.