How Equip Foods Scaled Personalized CX with Siena and Open Late Collective

"If someone asks, 'If I take this protein powder and I liked this other one, what's your suggestion?' — that needs to have a brand experience and a human touch. It can't just be a workflow."— Jess Cervellon, Founder of Open Late Collective

About Open Late Collective

Open Late Collective provides customer experience, retention and brand strategy to growing brands. As their tagline states, "Because brand building never sleeps," they help companies develop exceptional customer experience strategies to improve retention.

When brands grow, their customer inquiries don't just increase in volume — they increase in complexity. This is especially true for companies in nutrition and wellness, where customers aren't just asking about orders and returns; they're seeking personalized advice about product combinations and usage recommendations.

This case study explores how Open Late Collective uses Siena to help their clients scale customer support operations without sacrificing the personalized experience that builds brand loyalty. We'll look at their work with Equip Foods, a nutrition brand that found a solution that maintained their customer-first approach while handling increasing demand.

The challenge: Maintaining quality during rapid growth

"We've been working with Equip Foods for two years, watching the evolution of their brand and growth," explains Jess Cervellon, founder of Open Late Collective. "When we first started, they had just one support agent. Then their marketing team set ambitious growth goals, and suddenly that small team needed to scale rapidly to keep pace."

For nutrition and supplement brands like Equip Foods, simply adding more agents isn't always the most cost-effective solution. But automation alone wouldn't work either.

"The questions from customers are incredibly nuanced," notes Jess. "When someone is putting supplements in their body, they need thoughtful, personalized responses — not just automated workflows."

With customer inquiries becoming increasingly complex and specific, Equip Foods needed a solution that could:

1. Provide 24/7 availability for customer questions
2. Maintain the personal touch customers expected
3. Keep support costs manageable as they scaled
4. Handle nuanced health and product questions with care

The solution: Data-driven CX with AI assistance

Rather than following the typical path of hiring more agents or implementing basic automation, Equip Foods took a more strategic approach through their partnership with Open Late Collective.

"One of the biggest things for Open Late is we operate on data, not just gut feeling," explains Jess. "We forecast based on scaling plans and channel volumes, then incorporate automation to keep costs low while maintaining quality."

This data-driven approach led Open Late to recommend Siena as a key part of Equip Foods' support strategy.

Knowledge that captures brand expertise

What made Siena different was its ability to learn from Equip Foods' internal documentation.

"With Siena, you can upload your brand kit, tone of voice documents, and CX playbooks," explains Jess. "The AI absorbs all these resources to truly embody your brand voice and approach to customer care."

This was crucial for Equip Foods, as their support team had built up significant knowledge about product combinations, ingredient questions, and customer preferences that needed to be reflected in any automated support.

A personality that keeps evolving

Kellianne Johnston from Open Late Collective emphasized how they continuously refined Siena's approach based on customer interactions.

"We make targeted adjustments to Siena's persona — perhaps showing more understanding in certain situations or changing how she phrases recommendations — and then see immediate improvements in customer satisfaction," explains Kellianne.

This ability to adjust and refine meant that Siena didn't just maintain quality — she continuously improved it.

Agent productivity boosted by AI assistance

Beyond direct customer interactions, Siena also functions as a Copilot for Equip Foods' human agents.

"Siena can summarize conversations and draft personalized replies, which dramatically speeds up resolution times," notes Jess. "Agents don't need to read through entire ticket histories — they can quickly understand the context and respond appropriately."

Kellianne adds: "The Copilot gathers specific information from the ticket and automatically drafts replies, even when there's no pre-built macro available. It's bringing together all the context needed for a personal response."

The results: Faster responses with higher satisfaction

Equip Foods saw impressive results from implementing Siena through their partnership with Open Late Collective:

• Consistent 4.5/5 CSAT score maintained by Siena's customer interactions
• 80-90% reduction in first response times compared to purely human-handled tickets
• Significantly faster resolution times through AI-assisted agent workflows
• 24/7 availability for customer questions without adding overnight staff
• Scalable support infrastructure that grows with the business

"What's truly impressive is how Siena has been on an upward trajectory from day one," notes Kellianne Johnston from Open Late Collective, who works closely with Equip Foods. "As she learns from interactions, the quality of support continues to improve."

The insight: True personalization goes beyond using someone's name

The partnership between Equip Foods, Open Late Collective, and Siena revealed something important about modern customer support.

"What does personalization actually mean? It's not just saying somebody's first name," explains Jess. "It's understanding somebody's problem and helping them solve it in a way that feels unique to them."

This deeper form of personalization — understanding context, remembering preferences, and providing thoughtful responses — is what customers increasingly expect, especially from brands they trust with their health and wellbeing.

"We're seeing advancements with AI that we can use alongside human expertise to deliver truly personalized experiences at scale," Jess adds.

Looking ahead: Building on success

As Equip Foods continues to grow, their AI-enhanced customer experience approach provides a flexible foundation that can scale with them.

"It's been great to work with the Siena team," notes Kellianne. "You guys are really paying attention to the feedback that we give you. It just feels like you are really paying attention to the bigger picture and not just answering tickets, but really gathering all those details to improve."

Ready to transform your customer experience?

If you're looking for ways to enhance your customer support without exponentially increasing team costs, contact us today to see how Siena can help your business provide faster, more personalized support while maintaining the human touch that builds lasting customer relationships.

Reach out to Open Late Collective if you’re looking to implement similar cx, retention and growth strategies to grow your brand.

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