I sat down with Max Wallace, the Customer Experience Director at Tommy John, an innovative comfort apparel brand. We covered the goals and challenges that premium apparel brands are facing, plus covered tips for building customer loyalty, balancing tech and personalization, and lessons from Max's decade-plus tenure with Tommy John.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Hope: Let’s start by talking about some of the goals that your team has for 2025.
Max: In 2025 we’re certainly working toward addressing friendly fraud - fraud not related to credit card fraud, the more traditional fraud along the lines of customers making false claims about whether a package was delivered or not or related to return fraud, things of that nature. We really have seen an increase in that in the past couple of years, especially around the holidays. So it's really a goal of ours prior to Q4 to have a better process in place for our agents to really be able to navigate those waters a bit better because it is very difficult. You certainly never want to wrongfully assume a customer is being dishonest.
Another one is somewhat related to that, but probably some form of package protection for customers at checkout. A number of different companies offer this, and we really like what they have to offer in terms of just making it seamless for the customer to go ahead and file a claim.
Of course, we'll help any customer even if they didn't purchase the protection. But I think it's really just about streamlining it, and making it easy for the customer to quickly get a resolution there. It also takes that off our plate as well as we’re not the ones handling the replacement.
Thirdly, I would say, a hot topic for sure, increasing the presence of AI in some capacity, whether that be customer facing, or simply as a tool for our agents in a way. We’re always staying curious and exploring ways to implement new technologies.
Hope: Those are some really important goals. I started my career as a customer service agent, and so many of the tickets that I dealt with were either actual fraud or we had to investigate because it looked like fraud. And with the rise of fraud in general, I think that's really important. And your second goal ties into that with order protection can be something that's helpful and and just a really kind of a win-win for customers and businesses.
Now I'm wondering, how does that stack up to your last year's goals for these things that you were really prioritizing last year? Are these different from 2024?
Max: The friendly fraud was a goal of ours last year as well. We made strides in addressing it by providing our team with ways to identify customers that are potentially not being truthful, just through some guidelines, because a lot of the times we do see the same thing.
Last year one of our goals was related to our amazing team and their extensive product knowledge. Our Tommy John store associates, in our brick and mortar stores, are referred to as Comfort Concierges. We really wanted to embrace that on my team as well, and we did. We wanted to be more more personal shoppers for our customers and really focusing on that with the added benefit of increasing revenue by cross selling or upselling.
So that was a goal last year, and we did really well with it. We enforced that and made sure everyone was remembering to simply offer to add something a customer hadn't tried to their cart. We added that as a part of our QA rubric now, which has proven to be very helpful. And we also have some fun incentives related to that as well, which has really helped.
Hope: Neat. I love that the associates are called Comfort Concierges. I think that's really cool and kinda ties into some of the other topics I wanna talk about digging into the fashion industry specifically. I'm wondering if you could share some of the unique challenges that Tommy John faces in delivering really great customer experiences compared to other apparel categories.
Max: This has kind of evolved over the years as I've been here, but I would say when I first joined Tommy John quite a long time ago, the market for premium men's underwear wasn't as developed as it is today. A lot of customers that we spoke with had trouble understanding the benefits of investing in high quality underwear, which made their decision to purchase a bit of a leap of faith. So, that was always a challenge and still is a challenge to an extent today.
But I think the market is much more saturated with premium men's underwear, which is great. But, another challenge to this day is that our underwear, which is our best selling product, it's a highly personal and deeply ingrained, like, preference that we all have as far as just, comfort related to that. So we really do need to do an excellent job in educating our customers and working with them to find the right fit if for whatever reason at first, they weren't happy with what they purchased with us.
We want to make sure that we get them into something that's really going to work for them and have them continue to shop with us. The good news is that once they really do find that perfect pair with us, which is usually the first time around, we often have a customer for life.
I think what really sets us apart is the fact that we do have so many different fabrics and styles, which really allows us to cater to many different needs of our customers. And like I mentioned earlier, also, our team's extensive product knowledge is just absolutely invaluable when it comes to assisting customers with this. It's really just that, level of care and expertise going back to the whole, comfort concierge ideal ideal that, really creates an exceptional experience overall.
Hope: Then speaking of customer loyalty, what advice would you give to other CX leaders that are looking to build that long term customer loyalty, those repeat customers in the apparel industry?
Max: I actually feel very strongly about this. First, flexibility is crucial for building loyalty, especially related to policies. It's really important to work with customers, for us specifically to help them find, like I mentioned, their best fit, whether it's, style, size, fabric. Everyone is unique, and being able to accommodate them with solutions builds that trust and loyalty.
For me, if I've been in touch with brands that aren't as flexible and are more rigid and if it's my first purchase with them, I may not be back if they're not willing to work with me. I want to shop with them, and it's helpful if they're trying to work with me to find something that's going to work out best.
In order to do this, we do need to empower our agents to make judgment calls on their own. They are on the front lines and have a real understanding of what our customers are needing and saying. Just giving them the autonomy to make decisions, without having to reach out to a supervisor or a team lead, is just really important. You don't want to have to speak with an agent, then it goes to three different people then back to an agent when ultimately, it could have just been solved in one touch and much more efficiently.
So whether that's allowing them to issue a discount code to appease a customer or extend our return window and make an exception, we want to know that we trust them to make the proper decisions based on the training guidelines that we provided.
I think flexibility overall with customers is of the utmost importance. Every customer, every situation is slightly different and it's important to just have a holistic approach there.
Hope: I think that's huge. When I was a frontline agent, the biggest trouble that I had was not having that autonomy. Oftentimes, customers just wanted a little bit of something. Right? Life gets in the way. Ultimately, it just kinda comes down to realizing that your agents are people, your customers are people, and if you can't be flexible, they will go somewhere else to make that next purchase. But if you are flexible, you can win them over, and they're willing to spend more on that premium product and really come back and recommend it when they have that great experience.
Max: It is a premium product and we do want to provide a premium level of service with that. Obviously we never want our agents to feel taken advantage of or doing anything that's not reasonable, especially if maybe a customer is not being honest or is looking for a little too much. Like, we take that all into consideration. But overall, providing that autonomy is so important.
Recently I reached out to a company recently, and I knew that I was slightly outside of a return window, and I would probably have to address it. But, it was just a bit outside of the window, and they were happy to help. And it didn't even come up, and I imagine that they had the same sort of philosophy and that the agent that I was speaking with was given that autonomy. So that was really nice.
Hope: Love that experience. That tees up my next question pretty well, about personalization and delivering that high level of service. CX leaders are under pressure to maximize all the technology they have to make the support teams more efficient, which sometimes can be a little bit conflicting with personalization. So I'm wondering how you and your team balances leveraging technology, but also maintaining that high personal touch with your customer interactions or if Tommy John has a different approach as a brand?
Max: That's a really great question and, obviously on a lot of people's minds right now. It's definitely a challenge. Happily, those at Tommy John that I report to aren’t looking to push AI on us. And that's kind of where I'll take this question is just in terms of AI. With AI, we've taken a very careful and gradual approach. We currently just have a dedicated team of agents that are always ready to assist our customers.
But we have introduced AI, in ways for our customers to self-serve specifically, for calls. So when a customer comes in, we have a very advanced AI assisting them at first. If it isn't able to assist them, they will easily get passed along to an agent. It's really important to me that we never make it difficult to reach a live agent when they need one. The human element is a huge part of the experience we provide and we always want to prioritize that.
As we explore new technologies, we are always committed to monitoring them very closely so it's really just a balancing act. Ultimately, we want to make the experience more efficient for everyone involved. It’s testing things out, monitoring them, if they don't work out, you move on. But like I said earlier, we always try to stay curious and at least aware of what is out there and what could potentially help us.
Hope: We are seeing from our research that for a lot of CX leaders, the first step for AI is really focused on internal things, whether it's better automations of workflows to speed up work on the back end or tools to help human agents be more efficient or effective or do less tab switching. There are a lot of opportunities for AI and technology that really go hand in hand with allowing the agents to do that personalization and that higher level of service because other stuff is freed up and made more efficient. I think that's right in line with what we're seeing with the industry, and I think you've got a great approach there.
So now I'd love to hear more about your personal career trajectory. I know we've touched on it that you've been with Tommy John for eleven years. That's really huge to work your way up in an organization like that. So I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit how your experience rising through customer experience with the same company has shaped how you approach leadership.
Max: I kind of fell into CX as many do. I was at a company prior to Tommy John, and I'm fortunate to have hands-on experience working directly with customers at Tommy John originally as a team lead. I experienced firsthand those the typical challenges that agents face and learned how to navigate them. So that experience has definitely shaped my leadership style.
I'm always thinking about how the decisions or changes that we make will impact our agents, whether it's anticipating customer questions about a new product, or understanding, kind of the realistic volume of interactions, that our agents can handle while still delivering a really high level of service. I'm constantly mindful of the agent experience, and this overall helps me create solutions that are practical and support our team as best as possible.
So, I'm really fortunate for that. Because that's not the case for everyone, I think even if you weren't previously an agent or anything else in CX, and you are leading a team, I think it's crucial to stay really close and connected to what customers are saying - and not just through reporting or analytics. While that's very important, I think that you really do need to also be reviewing customer interactions, whether that's reading through live chats or emails or listening to calls. That's still something that I do and the rest of our leadership team does and our CX team, weekly, quite honestly. It's not like we're in there 24/7 reading every customer email, but we're certainly staying close to what our customers are saying. Some people may criticize that and say, ‘oh you're in the weeds.’ But I think it's vital. We certainly take the time to really review what our customers are saying, especially if an issue arises, if our agents raise a red flag.
Hope: Yeah. That's a really great way to keep building that institutional knowledge that you've built over over a decade, which is incredible. And it stays that way by taking time to really hear directly from the customer.
Before we wrap up, I'm wondering, do you have any final bits of advice you want to share with our community?
Max: I think the most important thing overall in leading any team, and, specifically in CX, is listening to your team. Not just listening to the customers, but also listening to your agents and showing that you value their opinion or concerns. We have a wonderful team at a couple different sites, BPOs that we visit several times a year. We meet with them, chat with them, get to hear what's working, what's not working. They're just our coworkers, essentially. Hearing from them and making changes as needed to really show ‘we're listening to you’ I think it's just so important. That’s something I would encourage everyone to do is just to really take the time, to listen to their team as they have a lot to share.
