During my first week of working with Outlaw Soaps, a peculiar pattern caught my eye: quite a few customers were telling us, in one way or another, that they loved us.
Please don't get the wrong impression: we're not married to most of our customers and we don't (yet) make intimate-themed soaps and shampoos. No—the type of love our customers were referring to was a form of amazement that far too few companies care to—or are able to—provide.
What was it about Outlaw Soaps that was so special? What was in the DNA of Outlaw Soaps that was provoking such a positive response from our spectacular customers? I was genuinely curious to find the answer.
The truth is that the relationship between Outlaw Soaps and its customers is far too deep to explain in one simple blog post. However, as time when on I realized that everything Outlaw starts with the simple, yet powerful values that we espouse. While you can read about those here, there's one important line that stands out to me in particular: "We want to make sure that you know that no matter what, the Outlaws have your back."
In other words, Outlaw stands in solidarity with our customers: "Don't worry, we get you and we understand you because we actually are just like you in a lot of ways. We're real people working to to create something neat that we think you appreciate, and we're bootstrapping this thing. You've had our backs from the beginning and, likewise, we're here for you in the good and the bad."
Sometimes, an order might go missing or we might get a wire crossed and that's OK. The social contract we've entered into with our customers states that they know it's OK because they know we're doing our best and they trust us to make things right.
Armed with that newfound knowledge of how things jive between Outlaw Soaps and its customers, the data nerd inside of me decided to try to measure it. So, beginning in early October, the customer satisfaction team began to tag every e-mail message with the word "loveability." Guess what? The numbers are in:
Since early October, we've received about 2,000 e-mails and chats from you fine folks. In around 200 of those interactions—or one out of every 10—a customer either expressed the word "love" to us or expression sincere appreciation.
In addition, around one month ago we turned on CSAT surveys (or, as my aunt likes to call them, 'the little thumbs up thumbs down thingy that a company e-mails after you talk to them'). We're now encouraging our customers to let us know exactly how they felt about their interactions with us, and I'm proud to report that (so far) we've received only positive reviews of our customer satisfaction enthusiasts.
Thank you for that glowing praise. You're making our faces turn red!
While we aim to please, we also genuinely appreciate all of you for simply being our customers (a.k.a. "riding with the Outlaws"). You all keep the lights on around here and we're always eternally grateful for that.
Even more importantly, you know that we're not perfect—but that we're human and we know that you know that we'll always make things right. You've got our backs, too and that means the world to us.
So, without further ado, here goes: we love you, too!
