Season 2 Preview: How Did We Get Here and Where are We Headed?

Val Geisler: 

Hey. Everyone. I'm Val Geisler, your host here at Playing for Keeps. I'm interviewing top eCommerce and DTC experts about all things customer retention. From tips and tactics to cutting edge thought leadership in the eCommerce space. We'll be uncovering how top brands are building customer loyalty and, well, playing for keeps. Playing for Keeps is brought to you by Churn Buster, the app that makes you money by recovering failed payments. It's the one retention tool that every eCommerce subscription brand needs. Make sure to check us out at trendbuster.io/pod, and now let's get into today's episode.

Kristen L.: 

Do you think the listeners are confused?

Val Geisler: 

I love it. I love pretending that I am the host.

Kristen L.:

I love it. I love it. I just hope that some people were listening to this because this is the first episode of season two and they just heard that intro and they're like, "What?"

Val Geisler:

Who's this?

Kristen L.: 

Who? What?

Val Geisler: 

Who's this now?

Kristen L.: 

I will say, I think you delivered that better than me.

Val Geisler: 

Well, you can use it for the rest of the season.

Kristen L.:

I'm just not the host anymore. I'm Val Geisler.

Val Geisler:

This is Kristen LaFrance.

Kristen L.: 

Ooh, I like how you said my name.

Val Geisler: 

I should do the podcast voiceover stuff as a side hustle.

Kristen L.: 

Yes. You should. You absolutely should.

Val Geisler: 

I don't know. Yeah. In all my free time, I'll do that.

Kristen L.: 

Listeners, we wanted to do something crazy today as a season two. I feel like I just took over as the host. I'm going to stop talking, Val.

Val Geisler: 

You are. Well, I-

Kristen L.:

You're the host.

Val Geisler: 

You are the actual host. Kristen. Kristen asked me to play host today because I'm actually interviewing her in this very first episode of season two.

Kristen L.: 

Ooh, I'm on the other side of the mic.

Val Geisler: 

So, Kristen and I met on Twitter where all good friendships thrive and Taylor Holiday has called Kristen the mayor of DTC Twitter and I agree with that designation.

Kristen L.: 

That's crazy.

Val Geisler:

Fully agree. Co-sign. Votes for Kristen? I'm starting a campaign. If Kristen is running for mayor, I am campaign manager.

Kristen L.: 

Absolutely. Yes, you are.

Val Geisler:

So I have a fun perspective on DTC in that I work in both eCommerce and SaaS. So if a monthly recurring revenue is your jam, that's mine too. So we get to trade thoughts that we both have and ideas, and mostly we just spend a lot of time re-tweeting each other.

Kristen L.: 

Yep.

Val Geisler:

So re-tweet Kristen often enough and you will be invited to co-host a portion of a podcast.

Kristen L.:

I mean that's the thing. Just retweet me enough and you can come host Playing for Keeps.

Val Geisler: 

You too can be my friend.

Kristen L.: 

You too, can be our friend.

Val Geisler: 

So Kristen asked me to do this really fun thing for season two we are recording digests, which is essentially a recap of the episode, it's a TL;DR or top takeaways for the episode as a whole that is at the end of every episode this season. So we have been recording those and we thought it'd be really fun to get Kristen on the other side of the microphone, though logistically she's still sitting directly in front of her microphone.

Kristen L.: 

Technically I'm on the same side of the mic that I've always been. It'd be weird if I was actually on the other side.

Val Geisler: 

Would not sound as good if you were-

Kristen L.: 

Probably, yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. If you turned your mic around.

Kristen L.: 

Sound quality.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. Our editors prefer you to be in front of the mic.

Kristen L.: 

They really do, yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. But we're going to flip your role here and turn you into guest for a little bit.

Kristen L.: 

Exciting. Honestly, guys, I'm a little nervous. Which is weird.

Val Geisler: 

Well, I do have a pop quiz for you later, so get ready for that.

Kristen L.:

I love it. I was good at pop quizzes in high school, so I feel I'm going to be okay.

Val Geisler:

Okay.

Kristen L.: 

We'll see.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, you heard it. You heard her stake her claim right here, right now.

Kristen L.: 

Let's see how it goes.

Val Geisler: 

Okay. So we're going to kick this off by talking about Playing for Keeps. One thing that I think some people know about Churn Buster, but maybe some people don't is that Churn Buster didn't always exist in the DTC eCommerce space. That initially when Churn Buster started it was really designed for SaaS and then there were all these eCommerce customers using it. So I guess I've always wondered is that the evolution of Playing for Keeps that eCommerce people love listening to podcasts? Would Playing for Keeps exist if Churn Buster were still focused on SaaS?

Kristen L.:

Yeah, it's a good question and it's such a fun story that we went through. I joined Churn Buster just about two years ago now. I'm a month away from year two anniversary, which is really exciting. And when I first joined, like you said, we were marketing in the SaaS space really heavily. So the tool is for ... Churn Buster helps anybody with a subscription. So we do provide a lot of services for enterprise SaaS, but what we found was at some point last year we were looking at our customers, and I love this story because we actually really walk the walk on everything we talk in this story is that we looked at our customers and we went in and we were looking at Churn, we were looking at support costs, we are looking at which accounts we're doing the best, which customers were the most excited. Then I went on about a two month tear of just calling customers.

Kristen L.:

And what we found out of that was the people that were connecting to us the most and we're getting the most out of the tool really where our eCommerce merchants. And now when we look back at it, it makes so much sense because like I said, a SaaS company can use our tool and a lot of them do it and we help them out a lot. But the biggest thing we focus on is that we are making sure that at this really volatile moment in a customer's experience that the recovery process isn't just feature-wise really strong, but it's actually that we are caring about your customers experience more than a basic dunning system would. So what we found out was that mission really connects any commerce, obviously. That's all I talk about in eCommerce.

Kristen L.: 

So when we did that, we started looking at, "Okay, this is the space that we need to go into. These are our best customers, these are the people who really share the values that we share at Churn Buster." And it's also a really fun space. eCommerce and DTC, it's a fun space. People want to learn, people want to talk, and so about six months we started creating content and I was doing a lot of research and just talking to people and trying to understand really what people in the space needed and how I could provide it. What I found was there's this huge conversation happening around retention and yet it's really difficult to copy other brands on retention. You can see someone's ads, you can see how a Casper and Allbirds are in the inbox.

Kristen L.: 

All these kind of marketing things are very open to other brands to see and learn from. Retention tends to happen behind closed doors. It's what you're doing for your customers, it's the little meetings that you're having about copy and all this stuff. So I really wanted to bring that out into the world and say, "Everybody needs to be focusing on retention, but how do we do it? How do we actually do it from the operator stance, from the back end, what's happening in these meetings?" So all of that came together and we hit about September last year and some of our team have done a podcast before so we had that experience on the partner side. And they were just like, "Kristen, do you want to do a podcast?" And a year ago they had asked me that and we thought about doing it for SaaS and I'm pretty sure when Matt Goldman, our CEO asked me, I laughed at him and I was like, "Absolutely not. Matt, have you met me? I am the least social person. No way will I ever host a podcast."

Kristen L.: 

Then when we got in the eCommerce space and I just ... It felt so right. Everything felt right for us as a company. The people we were talking to, the relationships we were building was just, we had this energy inside of our company and especially at a ... We had a retreat in November and we had our first Playing for Keeps meetup and it was just like ... We all looked at each other and we were like, "This is it. We are in the space we need to be, we are talking to the people we want to talk to." So it just came into this thing where I was like, "We're going to do this."

Kristen L.: 

And I just jumped on the mic. I had no experience. We just started calling people. I just started doing interviews and if ... I was in the Headspace of, "If they suck we don't publish them. It's just learning." And what happened after that was the conversations were amazing and the people who were coming on the show are bringing us such amazing stuff that we really felt this is our lock, this is where we can build community, this is where we can share all this stuff that ... These conversations that I was already having with customers, now we can put them out and actually help everybody with retention.

Kristen L.: 

So that was a super long-winded answer to that question, but it's a story that I'm really proud of because we did exactly what we preach, which is we stopped, we took a beat, we looked at our customers, we looked at our best customers, we really honed in on our values and our mission. Then from there it's just been absolute acceleration of growth in community building, and the team is just, I mean this show is really our passion project, that's what we say. It's not necessarily a customer driver. It's not really an acquisition driver right now. It's more of this bigger mission and community that we're building, and it's been such an amazing experience that we're, I mean we're all in on it. This show is going to be around for a while now.

Val Geisler: 

Well, and you can tell that in the conversations that you're having with the guests on the show that it's really ... It always sounds to me two friends sitting down to talk about their favorite things. It's not an interview, it's not an agenda or anybody promoting anything. It's really about just sharing experiences and ideas together.

Kristen L.:

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. I would love to know, as someone who has run a podcast for a full season now and going into your second season, what's one thing that you wish you had known when you started the show?

Kristen L.: 

Oh man, it's such a good question because there's so many things obviously from technical standpoint and skills I've learned in all this. I think the one thing that I really wish I could go back to myself as we were planning this and tell myself it's really, "Don't put so much pressure on this." I wish I had known how truly amazing the community is, how amazing the brands are and how many people are willing to come and really talk to me about that. I was really, really caught up when we started on ... I had a lot of imposter syndrome, why would somebody come talk to me? We don't have any shows. I'm not going to be able to get high-value guests on season one. I was really just worried about that and what I've really learned is that people love to talk ... The best brands out there, they want to talk about what they're doing and they want to talk about it with anybody. I didn't need to be some experienced podcaster or to create a show, and that's really the biggest thing that I wish I had known and saved myself a lot of stress. Is that this is just fun and the community really is more amazing than you could have ever imagined in DTC. And to just really own that and own the passion behind what we're doing because people connected with it.

Val Geisler:

Yeah, I mean you can tell it's there and there's almost a point in each episode in season one where everybody relaxes into the conversation a bit, you know?

Kristen L.:

Yeah.

Val Geisler:

It's one thing I love about longer interviews is that you really get that moment where everybody relaxes and you get to talk about things that maybe aren't on your talking points list, or your list of questions, or their list of things that they want to make sure they bring up. So it's very special and I'm glad the community has it.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah, it's so fun. At first, I really wanted to keep episodes pretty short because I felt there were too many long podcasts out there and really as we went, and you guys will see in season two there are episodes that are almost two hours long and it's because of that magic that happens usually somewhere around 15, 20 minutes where the guest really relaxes. And actually, I think more than that, I relax and I stop really looking at my notes and I just listen to what they're saying and approach it with so much more curiosity than trying to get the right answer from somebody. That's something that I've had to work on as an interviewer. Especially, I'm an over-prepper so I will come to an interview with, "I know this brand's entire background. I listened to every episode that this person has ever done. Any interview, I've read it, I have their quotes." I know what I want them to say and bring out. And that's been a really big learning for me as an interviewer, that that prep is so important, but also giving them the space to say maybe not what they've said before, and that's where the length I think really comes in because it gives both of us a chance to step off our talking points and realize like, "Oh, hey. We can actually just really have a conversation here."

Val Geisler: 

So to that point, there's a lot of conversation going on in eCommerce about talking to your customers and talking to your community, and that's a lot of the conversation in this season as well. I wonder if you have any best practices or things you've learned along the way about listening because talking is as much more listening than talking.

Kristen L.: 

Yep, yep. It's really hard. I will say that's the biggest skill that I feel like I'm still crafting and honing in on as an interviewer is being able to listen to what's actually being said versus what I expect to be said, or planning for where I want the conversation to go. Best tactics I can give you honestly is just slowing down your brain in conversations and thinking about what someone is saying. I take a shit ton of notes on every episode that I do. I actually am literally three pages away from finishing out an entire notebook in a month. I'm like, oddly really proud of that stat.

Val Geisler: 

Yes.

Kristen L.: 

So note-taking also when you're listening helps but making sure that you're not focusing too hard on what you're writing down. Something I do with notes is I will write down one or two words that someone said, and that will just give me a hook of this is the essence of what they're saying and I want to come back to this exact thing and giving myself those markers so then I can actually still listen to the conversation is still hear everything but know that I want to go back to this specific thing. That's my biggest tip as far as really active listening is making sure you're taking notes but then also taking notes that you can track your mind back to versus trying to get everything perfectly down and exactly what they said.

Kristen L.: 

Then on the note of slowing down, I tend to really jump into an answer really quick or jump into the next question really quick. And I've been working really hard on being okay with moments of silence and being okay with after someone said something, taking a second to really process and go back and look at my notes and say, "Okay, what from that little speech that they gave really do I want to hone in on?" And being comfortable with those kinds of moments in a conversation, that lull is ... Someone like me with a lot of social anxiety, I always want to fill the silence. So as far as active listening, take notes and slow down are my two really big tips for that.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense too. Especially when you take a note that is like, what does this say? You write it so fast that you're like, "What is that? Shoelace? What is this?"

Kristen L.: 

I sent a whole tweet thread out I think a week or two ago of my favorite notes from my notebook and it's ridiculous. I'm also a big doodler. When someone's saying something that's really interesting to me and I want my brain to focus, I will doodle circles or stars or something because I have the need to write something down and I'm like, "Just listen, Kristen. Just draw a nice circle again and again and again."

Val Geisler: 

It's actually one of the best learning tools that I think it's trained out of us in school and I have two little kids who are in school and you're constantly told to sit down, and be quiet, and focus, and pay attention to the teacher. And sometimes the best way to listen to a book being read to you or a lesson you're learning is to be doodling or even flipping through another picture book. I see my kids doing that and it's not that they're not listening, it's that they are trying to actually listen.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, it's interesting.

Kristen L.: 

I think focus as a skill. I think you and I have talked about this before, focus as a skill is something that we're always told when we're growing up. Like, "You need to sit down and you need to focus." But how many of us are actually taught how to focus?

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, you're just supposed to do it but ...

Kristen L.: 

You're just expected to know how to do it.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. It says skill for sure, and talking to people as a skill too, and listening for sure. But it's vitally important to talk to people when you have a product to sell and you have customers to market to.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah. And my biggest piece of advice on that is don't be afraid. I really had to learn. I always am working on letting go of perfection. I have a really strong hold on perfectionism. I think that comes from growing up as a gymnast where literally the goal of everything is perfection and there's a number tied to it. So I am that kind of person who I need things, I want things to be perfect and it really can hold me back. So something I've worked on a lot, especially in interviews and in talking to people is I don't have to be perfect because this is just a conversation. And if you approach customer interviews, if you want to hop on the phone with your customers, there's nothing you can say that really will absolutely destroy the relationship or make the customer never come back unless you're an asshole, which I wouldn't assume any listeners are assholes.

Kristen L.: 

So if you're just getting on the phone and being genuinely yourself and being curious, and if you don't know the right thing to say, that's okay. If you don't know the right question to ask, that's okay. Just letting go. Aiming for learning instead of perfection is really, really important in conversations like this.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, and there's a lot of imperfection in this season as you will come to find out.

Kristen L.: 

You guys will find out. Next week is a nice one.

Val Geisler: 

I would love to talk a little bit about the eCommerce community since you've been a strong part of it for so long now. And I guess my question is, I'm asking you about three people, but it could be ... People could represent actual individuals, it could represent brands, and it also doesn't have to be in the eCommerce space. But I would love to know about three or two or four or you know, roughly three. Let's just not have a long list. People who or brands or whatever, insert word here, that have been especially influential to you in that shift from SaaS to eCommerce.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah, I love this question because the people have, I mean made me who I am and have now made my career where it's going is the people who I've connected with in the last year or so. Obviously, this is so meta but I have to do it. Val, you're the number one on my list. When you send me this question, this was a no-brainer. I remember when I first reached out to you it was to get a quote about an article I was writing in the SaaS space about a year and a half ago, and I ended up talking to I think your assistant at the time and you were very busy and I remember feeling so intimidated by emailing you and I was like, "Oh my gosh, she is Val Geisler." And now we're doing this podcast and we're doing the digests, and I've learned so much from you about the way that you present information, the way that you write, your thoughts about email marketing. And then the way that you connect with people I think is what I've learned a lot from you in the last year and a half. Then also just your friendship and your support, obviously.

Val Geisler: 

Oh my gosh. Well, that was not as dig for a long compliment but thank you. I'm ...

Kristen L.: 

I had to. The other people on my list, I have to shout out to our internal team at Churn Buster. All the partners, Matt, Joel, and Ken have really crafted my experience and they're so focused on helping me be the most successful person I can be in the role. And they've helped me really shape a lot of my passions and direction of things. I want to really highlight Ken Johnson, he's on our team. He actually had one of the first subscription businesses called Manpacks and so he's been crazy influential for me. Anytime I have a question about how things work, I can go to him. He sends me these brain dumps on Slack and then he's always like, "Sorry about that." And I'm like, "Ken, I save all of these things that you send me because they're genius."

Kristen L.: 

Having someone internally that you can go to that has experience in building exactly what I'm helping other people build has been just a total game-changer, and hearing his stories and sometimes he'll just hop on a call and I'm like, "Just tell me about it. Tell me how it was to build a business." And having that in my back pocket at all times and having that lens to go back to has been so powerful. So he's a really big part. Everybody at Churn Buster, but I got to highlight Ken because he deals with my brain dumps a lot too. Other than that, Aaron Orndorff has been just a game-changer for me as a connection. He is a genius. He is so kind. He is so supportive and helpful. I had followed him way before I was in eCommerce and he was always this celebrity in my mind and now I'm slacking back and forth with him on a daily basis and we're talking about all this stuff we're learning, and his interview last year is hands down one of my favorite from season one. We really got into the weeds on stuff.

Kristen L.: 

Then lastly, I got to give a shout out to really the whole team at Common Thread Collective. Taylor Holiday, Matt Axline, Coleman and Adrian at Admission. It's crazy. You guys are going to hear this season. I think we have four or five people from Common Thread on as guests this season and I actually didn't even realize they were all at Common Thread. I think when we were booking and then as I've gotten to know them I'm like, "Oh my God, Taylor. All these people are working at Common Thread." We're going to be doing a bunch of stuff with them this year. They've just been such an amazing team to connect with and watch them grow as a brand and see what they do. They are pushing out amazing stuff in the eCommerce space and beyond that, I've just learned a lot from all of them and they're all really open and helpful. I'm a one-person marketing team and so to have this other team that I can go to, I have a Slack channel with these guys and they will help with things like, "Hey, can you look at this and tell me what you think?" Just little things that. They are really ... I'm an adopted CTC or I think at this point and that team has been just so supportive in my journey and so yeah, that's my list.

Val Geisler:

Oh, just a small one. I felt like-

Kristen L.:

Just a small one.

Val Geisler:

It was almost like, you know when Julia Roberts got played off the stage? Was it Julia Roberts?

Kristen L.: 

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

At the Oscars. They started playing the music when she's going through her thank you speech.

Kristen L.: 

Yep. Maybe we should have the editor throw in some music at the end of that just so it's funny.

Val Geisler: 

We need an awards show playoff.

Kristen L.:

Yeah, like, "Kristen, wrap it up, wrap it up."

Val Geisler: 

I'd like to thank the cast and crew.

Kristen L.: 

I'd like to thank everybody on Twitter. Let me just read out my followers.

Val Geisler: 

So, okay. So with all of that said and all those people who have influenced you, there are likely ways that they have changed your mind about things in either just business in general, but maybe especially the eCommerce space. What is something that you have changed your mind about recently?

Kristen L.: 

Yeah, this is a good question because there's a lot that I have been pushed to think differently about, but the biggest thing honestly, that I've changed my mind about recently is actually the need for fast shipping in eCommerce. And that's a super-specific example that I wanted to bring out, but we have a really interesting episode coming out soon with Corinne Watson from Big Commerce and she talked a lot about sustainability and you and I in that episode we talk a lot about how impactful that conversation was for us. And between that and the episode of Bite Toothpaste Bits last season and just a bunch of other conversations I've had, there seems to be this dichotomy happening between the go-to response of, "You absolutely need two-day shipping." And, "You don't actually need it if that's not what your customers want and if sustainability is important." And that's been a big mental shift for me because I'm a consumer that loves two-day shipping. So now I'm trying to change my mind both from a consumer standpoint and from the advice I give out on the eCommerce standpoint that something ... This benchmark tip is not necessarily always true.

Val Geisler: 

Right? You have to find out if that's what your customers actually want. Your customers, not just customers in general.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah. Because also on the flip side of that, we have an episode this season with Casey from ShipBob, and we talk about two-day shipping and why it's so important. So there are two sides to this coin, right? Two-day shipping for a lot of brands is really important, for some brands it's not. That's a good example to me of something that I really took as this benchmark all brands should be doing this, and in the last few weeks I've changed my mind on that and I've really started to understand, and it spreads out to everything else I'm learning. Understand that things aren't always so black and white, and they're going to continue to get more gray this year because that's going to be where brands differentiate themselves.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. Love it. You're so smart.

Kristen L.: 

You're asking such good questions.

Val Geisler:

Okay. Well, how about a little pop quiz then since you're so smart.

Kristen L.: 

Let's do it.

Val Geisler: 

Okay, so I'm going to throw some eCommerce acronyms at you.

Kristen L.: 

Oh, man.

Val Geisler: 

You know, we love our acronyms in eCommerce and in marketing in general. And there are some common ones, there are some less common ones and I just want to see what you got. No Googling.

Kristen L.:

Oh, man. Okay, let's do it.

Val Geisler:

Close that browser.

Kristen L.:

Close that browser.

Val Geisler:

ROI.

Kristen L.: 

ROI. Return on investment.

Val Geisler: 

That's the ratio between your net profit and the cost of your investment into a project.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah. Wow. You really did that well. You defined that so nicely.

Val Geisler: 

You're welcome. AOV.

Kristen L.: 

Average order value. So the average monetary value of the orders of your customers.

Val Geisler: 

Yes.

Kristen L.: 

Yes. An important one to think about guys.

Val Geisler: 

QOQ.

Kristen L.: 

QOQ?

Val Geisler: 

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kristen L.: 

My brain is going quality over quantity?

Val Geisler: 

Wrong.

Kristen L.: 

What is it?

Val Geisler: 

Quarter over quarter. Also-

Kristen L.: 

Quarter over quarter.

Val Geisler: 

Also used as month over month or year over year, but that was too obvious.

Kristen L.:

Yeah, what would have been too easy.

Val Geisler: 

Yes. [crosstalk].

Kristen L.: 

I mean it could also be quality over quantity.

Val Geisler:

It could be, and I think that that's a valid acronym to insert into our daily vocabulary.

Kristen L.: 

It is.

Val Geisler: 

So MLM, QOQ, YOY refer to the standard formula for measuring businesses' gross.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, so to calculate your eCommerce store's month over month revenue growth for a single month, you need to take the difference between this month's total revenue and last month's total revenue and divide it by last month's total and then multiply it by a hundred to convert it into a percentage.

Kristen L.: 

Wow. That was so such a nice layout of that formula.

Val Geisler: 

You can do it quarter over quarter and year over year too, which is how I got you on QOQ. Okay, so two out of three. RPU.

Kristen L.: 

RPU. Revenue per unit?

Val Geisler: 

Per user.

Kristen L.: 

Per user. Per unit. What? Kristen, what is a unit?

Val Geisler: 

Right.

Kristen L.:

Revenue per user?

Val Geisler: 

The revenue your store generates on a per-user basis or per customer.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

RPC maybe some in cases.

Kristen L.: 

Oh yeah, yeah. Revenue per customer.

Val Geisler: 

CPM.

Kristen L.: 

CPM. Cost per ... Val, you really got me on this pop quiz.

Val Geisler: 

Here's the thing. CPM is tricky. CPM stands for cost per thousand impressions.

Kristen L.: 

Oh my goodness.

Val Geisler: 

Mpressions? I don't know where the M is pulled from in that, like in the middle of impressions.

Kristen L.: 

Cost per mpressions.

Val Geisler: 

Right. Is the amount of money you must pay another website to show your ads per 1000 visitors who see them.

Kristen L.: 

Nice. I'm rusty on my acronyms evidently.

Val Geisler: 

Okay. Got a few more.

Kristen L.:

Let's do it.

Val Geisler: 

CAC or CAC.

Kristen L.: 

CAC. Cost of acquisition.

Val Geisler:

Yeah. Sometimes customer acquisition costs.

Kristen L.: 

Yes.

Val Geisler: 

It refers to the cost of convincing a customer to buy from your store.

Kristen L.: 

A very important metric.

Val Geisler: 

What about-

Kristen L.: 

Because they're going so high.

Val Geisler: 

Oh my gosh.

Kristen L.:

Which is why we're talking about retention all day long.

Val Geisler:

Exactly. How about my personal favorite acronym? ROAS. R-O-A-S.

Kristen L.: 

ROAS. Return on ad spend.

Val Geisler: 

Correct. It's a marketing metric that measures the efficacy of a digital advertising campaign. It helps you know which ads are working and how you can improve your future ad efforts.

Kristen L.: 

Yes. A very important metric in ... Later in the season, we have Taylor Holiday on who talks a lot about all these metrics and it's going to be a real good episode.

Val Geisler: 

It's amazing. I have a page of notes.

Kristen L.: 

Yes, me too.

Val Geisler: 

How about PCI?

Kristen L.:

PCI. Oh, I know this one. I don't know this one.

Val Geisler: 

I'll give you a hint. It's PCI compliance.

Kristen L.: 

Yes. That's where my brain is going. PCI.

Val Geisler: 

Payment card industry compliance.

Kristen L.: 

Payment card industry compliance

Val Geisler: 

Yeah.

Kristen L.:

[Inaudible].

Val Geisler:

Come on, Mr. Investor. The standard that credit card companies require to ensure credit card processing and personal information is secure.

Kristen L.:

I really should have known that one. Honestly. I apologize, Churn Buster. I let you down.

Val Geisler: 

So the payment card industry data security standard, PCI-DSS, was formed in 2006. It's been around for a little while.

Kristen L.: 

Been around for a little while.

Val Geisler:

SSL.

Kristen L.:

SSL. Oh gosh, Val. These are tricky ones.

Val Geisler:

Yeah. What does SSL do?

Kristen L.:

What does SSL do? I don't know.

Val Geisler: 

So it stands for secure sockets layer. It's a security protocol.

Kristen L.: 

Secure sockets layer.

Val Geisler: 

So SSLs are used to protect personal and sensitive information by ensuring it is properly encrypted.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Val Geisler: 

So and SSL certificate on a website shows Google and everyone else that your site is safe and secure to use. It's the S and your HTTPS.

Kristen L.: 

Oh, I didn't know that.

Val Geisler: 

3PL.

Kristen L.: 

3PL. This is third-party logistics.

Val Geisler: 

Yes.

Kristen L.: 

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Val Geisler:

Yes.

Kristen L.: 

I know this one.

Val Geisler: 

So 3PL refers to your company's use of third-party businesses to outsource elements of your distribution, warehousing, and fulfillment services.

Kristen L.: 

Yes, like ShipBob is a 3PL.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Okay. One final one for our international friends, DDU.

Kristen L.:

DTU?

Val Geisler: 

DDU.

Kristen L.: 

DDU. Domain distribution understanding.

Val Geisler: 

Those are words that start with those letters.

Kristen L.:

Those are words.

Val Geisler: 

That works. However, DDU in our eCommerce world stands for a delivered duty unpaid and this one is new to me. So it was definitely total trick question because I have not run an international eCommerce business and it's something I've never really thought about. So delivery duty unpaid is an international trade term indicating that the seller is responsible for making a safe delivery of goods to a name destination, paying all transportation expenses and assuming all risks during transportation.

Kristen L.:

Very important.

Val Geisler: 

Yes.

Kristen L.: 

I think I saw something on Twitter where someone was talking about in some cases the businesses will have customers pay duty fees and stuff.

Val Geisler: 

Yes. Yes. You and I were in that same conversation as per usual, which is what actually made me put that one in this pop quiz.

Kristen L.: 

Wow.

Val Geisler: 

So you did good. You got a bunch of them.

Kristen L.: 

I feel like I did a little meh.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. Well, hopefully everyone was a little bit stumped on at least one.

Kristen L.:

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. We're all in this together.

Kristen L.: 

There were some of them that I definitely should have known and now you've taught me that I need to go brush up on my acronyms.

Val Geisler: 

Need a little cheat sheet next to your computer.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah. I feel like these are things that you know what they are and you see them. Like the SSL was like, "I know what it is but I don't know what it is."

Val Geisler:

Right.

Kristen L.:

You know?

Val Geisler: 

Yeah.

Kristen L.: 

Tricky.

Val Geisler: 

And I think it's important too because in marketing a lot of acronyms get thrown out and people nod their heads and they don't really know what it means. You and I have talked about measuring a turn rate by monthly versus annual, and so people talk about like, "Oh, my turn rate is 7%." or whatever. And it's like, "Well, what are you actually talking about here? Is it monthly or annual or what kind of turn are we discussing?" Right?

Kristen L.: (38:18)

Yeah.

Val Geisler: 

So I think it's really important to understand what the acronyms are that are being used. And I highly suggest everyone grab an acronym cheat sheet for the Taylor Holiday episode.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah, you're going to want one of those for the Taylor Holiday episode for sure.

Val Geisler: 

Bone up on your acronyms there,

Kristen L.: 

I'm surprised you didn't ask me about LTV.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah, I know. I couldn't make it that easy.

Kristen L.: 

It was too easy.

Val Geisler: 

Come on.

Kristen L.: 

Too easy.

Val Geisler: 

I gave you a bunch of other easy ones.

Kristen L.: 

That one's ... Oh, I almost just said something not appropriate for work.

Val Geisler: 

Oh.

Kristen L.: 

It means lifetime value.

Val Geisler: 

NSFW?

Kristen L.: 

Yeah. NSFW.

Val Geisler: 

To use another acronym.

Kristen L.: 

Yeah, I was going to do something funny about LTV, but my brain went right into the gutter.

Val Geisler: 

Yeah. As per usual.

Kristen L.:

So you guys can just try and assume what I was thinking about on that one.

Val Geisler:

We'd have to bleep it.

Kristen L.: 

We'd have to bleep it for sure.

Val Geisler: 

Okay. So that was it. I like to end on a high note like failing a pop quiz.

Kristen L.: 

Yes. I love it.

Val Geisler: 

But before we completely wrap up, I would love to know your assessment of this interview and if there's anything that you would have asked you if you were me.

Kristen L.: 

Well, I loved this interview. I would give you an A-plus-plus.

Val Geisler: 

Fantastic.

Kristen L.: 

On your side of the thing. This was so much fun. We were able to dive into some stuff that I don't actually get the opportunity to talk about a lot, which was really fun for me. If I had to have asked myself anything, and I think I actually answered this a little bit, but maybe what is the mission of this podcast for Churn Buster? Why are we doing this? What my mission is with it and maybe also what it really means to me.

Val Geisler: 

So tell us that.

Kristen L.:

At Churn Buster, we've honed in on our mission, like I said, a lot and really it boils down to this idea of the importance of the customer experience. That is our "Gospel." Right now. That is everything we're doing we're looking at it through the lens of is this creating the best possible customer experience for our customers' customers?

Val Geisler:

That's a lot of customers.

Kristen L.: 

That's a lot of customers. The bottom line of everything really is customer experience. Ken put it in a really nice way in something he sent me where we were talking about eCommerce is booming because it's so easy to get into now and everyone can do it and that's different from where it used to be in retail. Especially where it costs a lot to get in and you have to do it right, and you have this physical entity that can fail for you or not. And we were talking about the difference in retail and in eCommerce and the feeling of when you own a store you can rely on things foot traffic, seasonality, people just walking by and walking in.

Kristen L.: 

And then you can also rely on having those conversations with people in your store and having a really good experience around shopping, and that was a huge focus in retail. That's why there's no sales agents. That's why there's pop up things in stores now. That's why sometimes you go into the liquor store and there's free tastings. There's so much of an emphasis on the shopping experience in retail and that hasn't quite fully transitioned into eCommerce, and what we saw and what Ken was saying like, "You don't have any of these things to rely on any eCommerce. So at the end of the day, the only thing that makes you stand out from the next person on the next tab of someone's website is the experience they have with your brand through and through."

Kristen L.:

So that's this really big mission that we have that we're trying to convince the eCommerce masses that ... We can go into metrics all you want. We can talk about benchmarks. We can say, "Are you good compared to this business?" But at the end of the day, all of this is really hard to measure. So if you are just focused on customer experience over everything else, if you care about your customers more than you care about your metrics, then everything's going to follow. You're going to hear me say this a lot in this season, this idea of customers before metrics or customers over metrics. And the idea is that we have a lot of people who come in to Churn Buster and then they grill us on recovery rates and they want to know the exact metric. They want to know how they're compared to the next guy. Is my recovery rate as good as this other coffee company? And a lot of times we have to really back up and try to reshape the mindset of our customers in that this isn't the end of a journey for a customer when they're passively churning, and we are committed to making that the best possible experience for a customer and we're going to recover a lot more than you would somewhere else.

Kristen L.: 

But at the end of the day, your recovery rate is also dependent on your relationship with your customers. If you have a crappy experience, someone is going to use a credit card failure as a way to get out of a subscription. So there's always that salt with it that we have to add that if you really want to increase your recovery rate or increase your LTV at a certain point, if you have the things in place that are really optimized around it, then you have to go back to the customer experience and think, "Okay, further up the line there's this big lag between churn that what else happened that maybe this person is using X, Y, or Z to get out of a subscription?"

Kristen L.: 

Again, I'm going on just a total ramble here, but that really is season two. The mission is this idea of customers before metrics. Thinking about doing right by your customer at every single moment you possibly can and then the metrics we are so dearly holding onto. We want to see LTV increase. We want to see churn rate go down. Those are going to naturally follow that.

Val Geisler: 

I think that understanding that your customers determine metrics and your metrics don't determine your customers.

Kristen L.: 

Yes.

Val Geisler: 

Is the most important takeaway from the Churn Buster message, from your personal message, and from this show. So if you believe that, then stick around, keep listening to season two. If you don't believe that, if you think metrics are more important and that they lead the way, then also stick around and keep listening to season two and Kristen was right that the one conversation with Corrine has changed my mind about shipping policies and the sustainability in the way that we make purchases. If one episode can change my mind about a lifetime of living, then I guarantee you that this season can change your mind about what matters the most in your business

Kristen L.:

Challenge. Challenge your mindset. If that whole spiel I just went into is a little bit uncomfortable or feels a little bit wrong because you're a very data-heavy company, that's okay. And just challenge your mindset a little bit. Listen to the episodes, listen to the brands we're talking about. Even in the most metric heavy conversations, Taylor Holiday especially, we talk specifically about a certain metric. Even in that conversation, the entire takeaway is, are you doing best by your customers or are you trying to take advantage of your customers? So it's what we come around to in every single conversation I've had. So yeah, stick around. See what you think.

Val Geisler: 

It's going to be fun.

Kristen L.: 

It's going to be fun.

Val Geisler:

This has been really fun. Thank you for letting me metaphorically turn the mic around on you.

Kristen L.: 

I loved it. Thank you for agreeing to do it. And, Val, thank you for so much that you're doing this season for us. Val mentioned the digest at the beginning and it's really exciting. I've heard some of the full episodes, and honestly, Val brought a lot of value to the show and it's going to be fun.

Val Geisler: 

Val brings the value.

Kristen L.: 

Val brings the value.

Val Geisler: 

Well, I am stoked to be here and I can't wait to hear the rest of season two.

Kristen L.: 

Yay. Thank you.

Val Geisler: 

Bye, everybody.

Kristen L.:

Bye.