Meet Hilleri Nicley, Fitted’s Director of Customer Success, courageous leader, and organizational wizard. We are lucky to have Nicley proactively supporting our Customers (Retailers, Brands, Reps) with her sincere passion for delivering a world-class experience to all. We are eager to share her thoughts on all things Fitted and Customer Success (CS). Our Partners mean the world to us!
Can you walk me through your professional Customer Success journey?
I like to think that my upbringing inspired my Customer Success journey. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My mother was a small business owner – she owned and operated a retail store. I worked in her store throughout middle and high school and completed tasks like stocking the backroom, unpacking orders, pricing, and other miscellaneous responsibilities. I lived retail and customer success from the very beginning. To make my mother’s business successful, we depended on our customer’s happiness with our service and product(s). I debated about taking over my family business or going off on my own, and I still think about “what if I would have” from time to time. After college, I began working for Verizon Wireless. I had about seven different roles within Customer Service and Sales. Following Verizon, I went to the startup TSheets (a small business productivity tool). This was a shift for me going from a large company like Verizon to TSheets, an up-and-coming company with a much smaller team but still supporting small business owners. I was allowed to grow both with the Sales teams and Customer Success teams in the tech and startup sectors.
What does Customer Success mean to you, and why is it important to have?
Customer Experience, Customer Service, and Customer Success each have their own sound, look, and feel to me. I think each one is just an elevated presence of the other. With Customer Service, there’s an expectation of solving a problem and providing an answer. To me, Customer Experience and Customer Success add that elevated level of excellence that includes reactive and proactive support. Customer Success is imperative to foresee problems before the retailer does. An effective Customer-serving team can foresee potential problems and will resolve them before a customer experiences this potential future issue. Being proactive is the difference between just servicing our customers versus truly supporting and empowering them.
How does Customer Success drive forward Fitted?
Fitted’s success depends on our Retailer’s, Rep’s, and Brand’s success. We will not be successful without our Partners being successful. Fitted’s CS team is driving forward our company’s mission by putting our focus on what is going to make our customer’s life easier, happier, and more enjoyable. We want brands and retailers alike to be delighted because of who they’re talking to on our team and what product experience they’re getting from us. That’s what’s going to truly fuel Fitted.
Can you talk a little bit about your team and each of their roles?
Fitted has quite a fantastic Customer Success team. We recently restructured our team to shift focus to brand and retailer success.
We have Brand Success Managers focused solely on ensuring our brands are flourishing. We meet regularly with our brand partners to ensure that we are all aligned on expectations, goals, and exceeding KPIs.
Then we have our Retail Success Managers, who are solely responsible for driving Fitted engagement, and adoption while ensuring retailers are happy with their brand purchase experience on our platform. There is a lot of newness that comes with what Fitted is doing. The Retailer Success Manager role is crucial because these CS individuals are helping guide and manage a change of habit for our retailers. Our platform is designed to innovate the retail experience and help retailers work smarter, so our team is structured to support our Retail Partners.
Last but certainly not least, we have our Customer Success Specialists. These team members are there to answer the phone when retailers call. This exceptional group works hard behind the curtain when retailers need a resolution. Our CS Specialists aim to answer Customer questions as quickly as possible and surface problems internally. We’re continuing to improve and learn from the mistakes, learn from the problems that our retailers are having, and make it better next time.
Can you recall an impactful moment with a retailer that you’ve had recently?
Two moments come to my mind with this question. First is a notable retailer that I have been in constant contact with. This retailer provides us with outstanding feedback but also holds us accountable. Even if we can’t deliver on something she wants, she still cheers us on. For me, this is when you know you have a good relationship. We can’t always say yes to everything, as much as we wish we could; sometimes we have to go back to retailers and say “Not right now,” or “We can’t do that today.” What I appreciate the most about this individual is her support, understanding, and partnership to transform the retail industry and make us better as a company.
The second individual that I think of I was introduced to fairly early in my journey at Fitted. This retailer works behind the scenes with many different brick-and-mortar locations. She expressed her frustrations about not being able to export and view invoices. I was fortunate to connect with her in a 1-on-1 session, which proved invaluable. After meeting with this retailer, I immediately turned over the feedback to our internal team, and we were able to deliver on this request quickly. Then, reconnecting with this retailer and sharing our new product update of Exporting Invoices, getting the response of, “Wow, you listened to what I had to say, took my feedback, and did something with it.” That’s when you know you’re making a difference.
Customer Success is responsible for gathering our customers’ voices and shouting them internally so that our Fitted team can pick up on patterns. Our customers mean the world to us, and we want to deliver a top-tier experience for them every day.
Looking beyond restructuring, how else have you helped transform Fitted?
I strive to bring excellence in expectations- always driving urgency and owning our work is imperative to Fitted’s success and every brand and retailer we partner with. I would also say heart and care- not only do I genuinely want to see our partners succeed, but I hope to bring an inspiring, positive outlook to Fitted’s internal team. Collaboration, teamwork, and cross-functional communication are vital. All that being said, we are stronger together.
How do you prefer to spend your time away from work?
I enjoy escaping into the mountains of Idaho. My family owns a cabin that is off the grid. It has solar power, but it’s a very minimalistic type of living. It truly is a place to disconnect and dip my toes in the fresh mountain water. I also love spending quality time with my husband and two daughters. We are a very sport-centric family- soccer, volleyball, basketball; we love it all.
What our retailers are saying about us means the world to us! Whether that’s telling our team internally what our partners have to say, reading feedback we receive on Google reviews, or hearing that Fitted is being shared from retailer to retailer. We want to provide experiences retailers want to tell their friends about regarding Fitted. After all, our Founding team includes a brick-and-mortar retailer who wanted to make retailers’ lives easier and see them thrive.
