How Yumwoof! Automated CX And Grew The Business At The Same Time

‍It picked up responses very quickly. Sometimes we didn’t even add an automation, but she learned from our conversations with customers and started replying the same way. It was very fast to see how she adapts to real situations and replies. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

About

Yumwoof applies data analytics to understand what ingredients are tied to real health results in dogs. They use data to offer personalized nutrition plans for your dog based on their breed and health needs.

Challenge

Drowning in support requests was distracting from growing the business 

Founded in 2020, Yumwoof! is an emerging pet care brand that makes organic, nutrient-packed food that dogs deserve. A small, family-owned and operated company, Yumwoof caters to some of the most demanding customers out there – devoted dog owners. After coming out with a successful core SKU of dog food, it wasn’t long before co-founder Ana Padilla found herself head-first in the inbox handling customer questions and requests for additional help. Over time, she realized that most customers were asking the same questions like: “How many cups of food come in a three-pound bag?”  “What is the mineral level of the food?” and the classic, “Where is my order?” 

Looking back on this, Ana says:

We had a lot of repetitive questions, and we're still a very small company. There's a point where it just feels so expensive to be answering the same questions over and over again. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

Providing top-tier customer support was critical for this small-growing startup, but by spending all her time in the inbox, answering repetitive questions, Ana ultimately started neglecting other parts of the business. She says, “We did have a few issues of running out of inventory because we just didn’t have time to pay attention to the inventory because we were answering customer questions.”

Yumwoof! was in a tough situation; they needed a solution that would give Ana back time and unlock their ability to grow the business without sacrificing the high caliber of customer service they were known for. 

Since Yumwoof! customer service runs on Gorgias, Ana decided to start by looking at Gorgias for a solution, but it wasn’t long before she discovered that Gorgias' macros and automation flows were time-intensive and lacked the level of precision & accuracy Yumwoof! needed, “We’ve always been using Gorgias for customer service and they do have a few tools…they have macros which help but you still have to go through them and customize it, so I still wasted a lot of time.” 

Desperate for some tool that could automate customer support,  Ana tasked her cofounder, Jaron Lukas, with finding a superior tool that would do three main things: 

1. 1. Give them back time to focus on important projects that would grow the business
2. 2. Easily reduce the headache of answering repetitive questions without giving customers any clue that AI was answering them
3. 3. Give personalized, accurate responses

Solution

A self-learning autonomous agent that provides attentive support and fast response times

It wasn’t long before Jaron found Siena, a CX automation solution powered by Empathic AI. Upon hearing all of Siena’s amazing capabilities, Ana was skeptical, remarking, “You’re always skeptical at the beginning, and I was like okay let’s see.”

But Siena’s cofounder Lisa Popovici gave an in-depth presentation on how Yumwoof! could implement and integrate Siena with Gorgias. The presentation impressed Ana and she said:

I remember we had a presentation with Lisa from Siena, and it just made sense. Lisa made it so easy, and she actually made a comparison for us like this is what you get with Gorgias right now. This is what you get when you combine Siena with Gorgias, so it just felt right. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

In addition to fulfilling their main criteria, Siena continued to impress Ana with its customization features.

I think the main feature that we loved was the ability to personalize the answers. I also love how we can always change the persona, so we can make Siena more sassy or have her use emojis or what not. It’s so customizable. It’s very impressive. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

Onboarding Siena

Even though it only took a month to onboard Siena, the Siena team took no shortcuts and were hands-on when onboarding to set Yumwoof! up for success. This included creating a dedicated Slack channel and assigning Yumwoof! a customer success agent that routinely checked in on Siena (the AI bot) performance. 

Recalling the onboarding process and the support she received, Ana says:

It was pretty easy. This is a tool where I feel like there’s a more personable approach. I know who to email if I have an issue. With Gorgias, it’s very corporate and not personal…I can’t even tell you who I’d talk with to solve something. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

Attentive support

Siena’s customer-centric approach never stopped - even after Yumwoof! completed onboarding. Ana points out that she often uses the slack channel to message the Siena team with any questions and they’re always quick to resolve.

I like with Siena I have a Slack channel, and I can have a direct conversation with Mike (our customer success agent) and we can slack him if we have an issue and he’ll be on it. It’s very simple. I love that. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

Next-level automation

Siena’s customer success team regularly checks in with Yumwoof!, keeps them updated on new features and helps them improve their automations. Since implementing, the progress Siena has made is remarkable.

It picked up responses very quickly. Sometimes we didn’t even add an automation, but she learned from our conversations with customers and started replying the same way. It was very fast to see how she adapts to real situations and replies. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

Results

Happy customers and a happy founder who’s back to doing what she loves – growing the business

By integrating with Siena, Ana was able to gain back valuable time to work on critical projects. She’s launched approximately 3 strategic projects that have had a significant impact on revenue and growth:

Loyalty Program 

Since integrating with Siena, Ana was able to focus on launching Yumwoof!’s membership program Yum Club, a valuable loyalty and retention driver. 

Unlocking Revenue Drivers 

Ana was able to devote considerable time to analyze data on subscription churn and build actionable solutions. 

She was also able to focus on ensuring subscribers had a valid form of payment. Ana says,

We weren't paying attention because we didn't have time but there were a lot of subscribers who had invalid payment forms... so we were losing a lot of money in that regard. - Ana Padilla, Co-founder of Yumwoof!

To solve this, now they send customers text messages in addition to emails when their payment is declined. 

Brand Marketing and Community 

During the Maui fires, Yumwoof! donated dog food to dog parents affected by the fire. This was a great way to introduce people to Yumwoof! and give back to their community. Now that Ana has time to focus on brand marketing and community she hopes to do another project like this.

Without using Siena, Ana would still be stuck in customer support and unable to focus on other aspects of the business that drive brand recognition and growth. 

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If you want to learn more about hiring Siena to join your team, just book a demo with us here.