INTRO:
You're listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. In each episode, we’ll share the customer experience stories and insights you need — straight from the sharpest minds in CX to better connect with your customers and create customers for life. Let's start the show.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome back to CX Confessions. We are so excited to have another great conversation. I'm Katherine Calvert, CMO of Khoros and joined as always by my magnificent co-host, Spike Jones, GM of our Strat Services business. Spike, we have, we have an amazing guest today that I cannot wait to talk to and share her stories with our audience. So who do we have here? I am so excited and privileged to introduce Erin Lowenberg. Now, Erin is a legendary, I would say, merchant in the retail industry. She's worked with many of the biggest brands. She's being bashful, if you could see her right now, but it is true: GAP, Patagonia. She has spent the last six years building one of the hottest brands in retail. If you don't know or aren't wearing Rothy’s, you should be.
Rothy’s is, it well, it started as a shoe company, it's much more than that, but it started as a as a brand committed to sustainable fashion and accessories and they figured out how to craft a high-fashion, super accessible shoe out of plastic bottles — over a hundred million plastic bottles, Spike, have been saved and repurposed and created and reimagined as beautiful footwear and accessories. Erin is one of the visionaries behind that whole story. She's been there for almost six years — since the beginning — she is the Senior Vice President of merchandising and product for Rothy’s. Erin, welcome to the show!
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Thank you, Katherine, I'm so honored to be included in this conversation and it's great to meet you, Spike. It’s good to see you both.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Well, I am, I'm wearing Rothy’s right now. I'm wearing the sneaker. It's a Friday, casual Friday, in my home office. And so I'm a long time fan and I'm from San Francisco. It's a San Francisco story. But I, you know, I love beautiful things. I know you do too. It's hard to create — to bring a new brand to market and to create such adoration and then to do it in a way that is actually, like, has an impact on the world. You guys — congratulations — were recently named one of the most influential companies of 2021 by Time magazine. That's not retail company, that's all companies. What is it that is so different about Rothy’s?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Wow, I would say, what's different about Rothy’s is that it was, it didn't start as a company with a branding exercise, or, it started with the earnest desire to do something better with product in the world. It has always been a very happy brand. It has always been a very optimistic brand. And it's been a brand from the very beginning that's been considered sustainable. And it was back before sustainability was table stakes, cost of entry. Everyone needed that version. We just wanted to do things a little differently and the brand itself is emotional and there's some fashion and some fun that I feel like it's very accessible.
They’re comfortable shoes, flat shoes, they’re versatile, they’re soft, they’re colorful. They can change your outfit and they'll take you through your entire day. So they could sit at the front of the closet for you and sit at your front door and they’re, oh, by the way, made out of recycled water bottles and oh, by the way machine washable, which footwear has never been. So I think that's, we had some beautiful timing, had some tail winds. We had a consumer who thought we had a great idea, and we haven't looked back.
SPIKE JONES:
I mean in all the things that you've mentioned, I mean, it makes your brand so talkable and the word-of-mouth just travels and travels and travels, and so you know one of the things that I love about this brand is the true sense of community, and people even making their own communities on Facebook and out there into the world, because they want to gather like-minded people together, and it's really a cool thing to see such authenticity when it comes to to those communities and the people that joined them and carry them on. So with that in mind, like, when did this, when did that idea, or when did this idea, not idea, but when did the community start to scale, and when did you really know that you had something that was really special?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Wow, so community started to scale, I'm going to say, it started in 2016 as really was our first year being truly in business for a year. It was very much a year of growth and learning and in our own design and product point of view, we were still in tip toe mode a little, and I remember one of the first moments of seeing somebody — I'm from San Francisco, I live in San Francisco — seeing somebody I didn't know wearing our shoes and I was like, wow! What is that?
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Like hearing your song on the radio.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
That's right. And so I remember that moment, to me, striking me, and having come from really big brands, you know the products had always been sort of massive and international when I was working there, so it was not — it was a moment I had not felt. So I was like, that's exciting, and then by ‘17, 2017, we took all of our manufacturing vertical. We opened our own factory and we really started driving the process with the product.
We could hear what the customer was saying, but we could produce more effectively and more broadly, our aperture opened a little bit, had more assortment, and this incredible organic process of Facebooks and Instagrams and every platform that I can think of, customers and and the community was kind of building on its own, and I didn't know about it. I didn't know much about that and I think that at one point, customer service on our team might have gotten an email — like an old fashioned email — from someone referencing a group of Rothy’s addicts, and I was thinking, what is that? And so I started the journey that day — see how many people talk to each other about our product and I've never seen anything like it. And these groups have continued to grow and they're positive in that they’re, I think these groups are built with customers who really love to talk about the product and the versatility of it, or they're in search of things, or should they wear this with that? And it's really beautiful to see. It's beautiful to see the range of the customer base we’re building and those who are participating in the dialogue. And it's part of what I think of when I make product decisions. It's why we're here and we appreciate that. We appreciate these communities and how big they are — how broad they are, and it's inspiring to me.
So it's been about two full years of really significant customer-based interaction. It's been at least two, you know, two or three years, but for me it's been, it's not even something I am surprised by any more. It's part of my every day. You know, who needs this? Who wants this? What will they think? It helps me every day.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
And when you think about that, Erin, I've heard you talk about the gulp rate. I mean, sometimes it's one thing when you're in the, you know, sort of old store model — and you all do have stores, right, where you're actually talking to the customer, and you can see it on their foot versus this explosion of virtual communities that Rothy’s created organically, again, the customers created it, but it's a lot of feedback. How do you take it in? How do you think about that? You have a vision for your product. Do you want to keep your customers happy? How do you keep that conversation alive and make them feel heard, but maybe, you know, there might be spots where you want the feedback? Sometimes you don't.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Gulp rate is my favorite phrase ever because there's just so much you can consume, one can consume, and I think the way we, the way I look at it is it's important for us to have a have a really strong, clear reason for being a brand and a reason for designing product and with that comes lots of opinions and lots of ways to maximize that. But we have a vision and we care a lot about what we're putting into the world — what the colors are and what the styles are and that they're of use or that they will delight. So with a vision, getting lots of feedback is helpful. It's helpful because we have a North Star in sort of our, what we hope our brand will offer people in the world as we grow in scale, hopefully knock on wood. So it is hard. It's easy to just — it's easy for me to be gone on a chat just reading something for like an hour and I look up and I'm like, oh, my, I don't even know what just happened. And I value that. I value that and I value and will always appreciate the quote-unquote problem of too much feedback. That's the best problem to have. So, I think, keeping a vision, understanding of course we're a business, I'm financially responsible, and I have a point of view on what we believe should come next and how we can surprise and delight the customer — and by the way, acquire new ones.
Having a vision in place is helpful because then the feedback just becomes, like, it's validating, it's honest information, and it gives me ways to think about things differently that, quite frankly, COVID aside, I can't be everywhere all the time, so I feel really appreciative of that. Yes, there are times where I just want to, you know, the feedback is not always nice. It's like, “I don't know who's in charge of these colors, but they should be fired.” And yet, I could say that there's a “why,” what is it that I can learn from that?
Anyway, it's all perspective, but it's the best thing to have.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Yeah and gives you that filter through which to kind of pick and choose.
SPIKE JONES:
Erin, as you already know, feedback is a gift at even the, “You should be fired for making this these colors,” that's people, because they care and they're passionate and, you know, silence would be a totally different thing, and that's the other part of it. You mentioned it before, but the idea and not the idea, but the true concept of community, and you said these people come together and they support one another and, like that's the true ethos of what community is and when it originally was on the internet too, on social. And now, you know, people are just like to go argue, but when people come together, I mean that's what that's why I got into social in the first place too. So it's so cool to see passion brands like yours that still have those folks to say, we might not have a lot in common, but we have this one thing in common, let's come together. Super cool.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I know, and I have to tell you guys this story. There have been so many moments that keep me grounded and balanced on that we're building a community and that it's a caring moment when someone might write to us or share that they went to see a parent who is not well. And this is, again, take the COVID world away, and this is pre-COVID. And didn't realize that her parent was as unhealthy as she was when she arrived and all that her mom at that time wanted to do was just kind of go for a long walk. That's all she was able to do. This Rothy’s customer had only brought one pair of shoes and it was only a pair of Rothy’s and she was new to the brand and she put fifteen miles on them a day and didn't even think that she would be doing that and just openly, with the most, I mean, for me, the real thing about being human is that this connection of just saying how appreciative she was that she was wearing this product that she thought was cute, but it got her through one of her hardest weekends. And they were comfortable for her. They did everything that she wanted them to do.
And it's just a shoe, but it made me realize, it just made me realize the value of that kind of feedback and how important that is for me and for our whole company to to consider all of our customers and all their end use and how she took the time to write us that story and sent us photos of her mom and we were in tears, and that is amazing, and I love that. So again: valuable.
SPIKE JONES:
Passion brands, you know, they don't get like yours, don't get to where they are by following the status quo. So one of my favorite questions is what is something in your industry, a commonly held belief if you will, that you passionately disagree with?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Goodness, I mean I cannot be more in disagreement over manufacturing. I mean just, period, just over manufacturing and I say that with so much respect, because I've come from a place of big, big brands and attempting to buy the right amount of inventory in anything at the right time is really, really hard to do, and it is why retail is full of markdowns and sales, and there are times where one does need to liquidate, or the passion of a creative idea didn't quite resonate — that, that's going to happen.
But I know the world of, “Hurry up and do something at the cheapest price,” and it's not something that our planet can sustain. It's very easy to sit in a place of saying: We've got a better way to do it. We do have a better way to do it. We are not saying that ours is the best way to do it, but our founders came from a place of, there's got to be a better way to do this. If you need to make a product with, that's a shoe and the center of it is actually the hole with which one's foot is put, don't make the upper and cut the whole hole and throw it on the floor, make the upper with a hole in the middle of it. I mean that's just sort of a logical design idea that then led us to knitting, and knitting with recycled yarn, with plastic water bottles that are recycled into a beautiful, soft, proprietary yarn.
So I value, I value the creativity that it takes to try to do things differently and I'm so disheartened by what retail has had to do that got us to where we are today and that the consumer demands the lowest price and that creates waste. Creates pollution. Creates over-manufacturing. So that being vertical, as a passion brand but being vertical, allows us, hopefully to continue and we’ll always produce, as close as we can in-market, so that we get that demand as right as possible. Because, despite making something from recycled yarns and using recycled materials, if we're just creating something no one wants, our product will end up in landfill.
So it's that circularity vision that I hope to perpetuate in the world and I hope becomes a standard that the consumers and the brands that we all love can just continue to work toward.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
That had to be, Erin though, like a pretty radical business decision for a fledgling brand to then go say we're going to take on the expense of creating our own factory. I mean that's a big leap. Was that in that for your leader for you and, you know, the founders, how did you, how did you cross that chasm in terms of near-term expense and risk and long-term vision?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I think it goes back to believing in the reason for inception. Just believing in the simplicity. Our product is not — we didn't launch a company to try to be a trend brand. We've launched a company to make things that worked really well, that held up their value proposition, that added something to one's arsenal of things you can put on that performed well, but they were made differently. And if you use these tropes as your vision then doing it well and doing it in a simple, cleaner, better way makes the most sense. You know, contract manufacturing is messy and the quality is often questionable and the controlling of the quality that we attempt to provide in our brand — controlling it not meaning in like a psychotic way, but controlling it to produce something that people still say like, this doesn't, you know, this still works, since I've had this product, I'm going to get something else, and it's, it's still the same high quality. And that is really important to protect if you really want to be a brand for the ages.
And so you know, it also allows us to innovate and allows us to continue to protect IP. Our brand has a hundred or two hundred patents, some pending, but really being able to do something differently is, is why we started, is why our founders started the brand and so being able to take it in-house allows us to innovate, do what's right for the customer, respond, and be as effective as possible from a sustainable and circularity standpoint.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
And I've heard you talk about that in sort of through the agility lens, right, like to get to other sizes, and so when you think about that customer — your customer — and responding to their needs, what's the data? Like through the lens of tech, or through the lens of demand? How do you — what's the data that you hope for and that you think about as you think about products and expanding your line or new opportunities for the Rothy’s vision?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I mean, I think the data comes from — it’s art and science. I mean it's science in that, of course, we hear and listen and watch sales. We hear, listen, understand, and observe commentary from our communities. I think what's important is to add that to, what does a customer maybe not know they need? What can we fulfill for them, that we feel really passionate about and how are people's lives changing? How is the world evolving pre- and post-COVID to need certain things that are either hands-free or washable? How do we serve a need that is part of the evolution of, you know, human kind in this world we all live in?
And so I use, as far as data, I would say, of course, there's competitive research, there's sales and investment strategies and how they pan out and there's customer behaviors and there's feedback, but I think it's really important to balance that with, are we making something? Are we continuing to produce goods that, at the end of the day, we see the future for and that we stay true to our mission? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Just because you can make something really inexpensively and charge a lot for it, doesn’t mean you should. We want to build things that are lasting.
So, it's both. It's data. It's left brain, right brain. It's quantitative and qualitative and it's amazing to me that we could have as much quantitative data that might tell us, inform us of a future decision, but then there's this one color of a bag that just hit because it did. It was the right bag at the right time, or the right shoe at the right time, and there is no math that would tell you to do that. And so again it's, it has to always be both. But it's really hard. And the world of data makes it better. But sometimes data can be paralyzing. So you have to make sure, again back to the comment of like having that — the brand vision in mind all the time and just continuing to take the long view and looking out on the horizon as best as you can so that you stay focused with, again, gulp rate — the amount of data you can use.
SPIKE JONES:
So speaking of data and learning, so the name of the podcast is CX Confessions and what I do love about careers across different industries as we learn from where we might not have made the right choices. So what is a hard lesson that you have learned in this journey of yours?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Well.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
The deep sigh. I love it, Erin.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
It's such a deep sigh! I take it all so personally, too. I’m like, my gosh, I failed.
SPIKE JONES:
I want, I want a fail conference so marketers can come together and just talk about the times that we screwed up, but what we learned from it and took to the next one to make it better, like, but we don't, marketers, we don't ever mess up.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Right. No cameras, no recording, just a, yeah, just tell our stories.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I would be a fly on wall in that conference. I always joke, like, you know, no good deed goes unpunished. We all know that. That's a true story. You know I could, I designed a really special shoe for a product launch two years ago and we had just started opening stores. We may have only had one, or we may have had two stores.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Brick and mortar. Physical stores.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Physical stores. I can't even remember what day anything occurred, mainly probably because it's Friday right now as we're having this conversation, but I did this beautiful shoe with rose quartz point. It’s just pretty. I went a metallic, it's based on a beautiful giraffe print, and it was special and I thought, hey, I love our retail store experience and I want to make sure that they always have this steady flow of some things that you can get by walking down the street and walking in our store.
And man did we piss people off. I mean we, the shoe was so beautiful and it wasn't available to everyone at that moment. It was available to those only on our Fillmore Street store, I think. And I felt terrible. I mean the, it wasn't even, I wish we could get it and it's sold out, but it was like, I love your brand and I live nowhere near that store and I want to participate, and you are bumming me out. And I was like: Oh my God, I've ruined, like, I’ve ruined someone’s life. I felt, it feels terrible to do things that are special because they can feel that they are not inclusive, and that is not the intention, but it can land like that, and I think it's hard and I think we try to be very smart about a brand of scarcity, not because we think it's funny, nor because we want to piss people off, but because we don't want to over-manufacture.
So when something is so exciting and emotional and I missed it and I didn't figure out the right depth of that investment perhaps, the, I mean I just like don't want to get out of bed the next day, because the feedback is so, they're so angry that our community, and I, you know, those are the days where I'm like, Oh my God, I don’t even know what I'm doing. But I get it, and again, these are, like, problems to have. Somebody cared and, but so you know that's an example, or even trying to get into a mask business, trying to get into the face covering business —
KATHERINE CALVERT:
In the middle of it, right, in the heart of the time, right, in March?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
And not saying because we wanted to capitalize on it, and be really clear. It was just that we have a manufacturing facility, should we be producing something different that our customer might need?
KATHERINE CALVERT:
And this was March 2020 when it seemed like the whole world needed masks.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Exactly. And in addition, anything and everything we could do to use our supply chain to help, solve, putting things where we could put them. Because we didn't want to sell shoes, we weren't, we didn’t want to go to market with a new thing. We were like what should, what can we do? And there's no playbook and there's no right way to do any of it other than let's, what can we do?
One of the cool things, we created was this coalition that we pulled together a lot of, through all of our networks of other individuals with different brands — not all Bay Area Brands, but national brands that, were their liabilities of things in certain factories in certain places, could we help a brand if they've got elastic by the bucket and they're not making their product because of a pandemic, can we re-deploy that? Can we use that? Can we help?
And so it created this great opportunity for conversation with other brands who were sitting in a different place, but also wondering what can we do? Can we share patterns? Can we help inform one another? But you know, again, trying to get to market with a mask — you know, a lot of brands were trying to donate. A lot of brands were trying — which, there's legal constraints and we did the best we could. We really did. And the timing of trying to make donations versus put something in our arsenal to sell — you know it was, it was stressful.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
It was a call in the moment.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Yeah and we called it out, and we also said: Hey we're going to do the best we can. We're going to — we will address this and our customer will tell us, our community will tell us when they need us to hear what they feel very strongly about, and we respond. When it was something that we were — we have no problem saying: We've got, we misstepped. Our timing was bad. This idea, we didn't execute it. Or, you know, we, I think, as a brand have always been really humble. We've always been appreciative of feedback we get. We've always tried to do the right thing. I fundamentally can put my head down at night and sleep because our efforts are in the right place and when we have to make an apology, when we have to take something and take our lumps, we do.
And, we are always better for it. Always. And we hope that the community always knows that, and you know I would love to say there's presumed innocence, but it's okay, and in the heat of stress, a community can come together really quickly and tell you, hey, I need you to listen to us, and we do.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Yeah. And you have. You have. Well, thank you for that. We got two confessions. That is very generous of you. And now, as we wrap up, Erin, and send you off —
ERIN LOWENBERG:
The only two things I’ve ever not done well [laughs].
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Speaking of — we want to get to know you, Erin Lowenberg. I have the privilege of knowing you. You are amazing. So, five quick questions about you as we wrap up — quick confessions. Okay, so, Erin Lowenberg, ready? Who are you — ready? Okay, so five questions. What was your first concert?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Psychedelic Furs.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
So cool. Second question: What was your first job?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
At my parents’ company, which is a tiny company that sold electronics and surveillance. I pretend like I'm in the CIA, but I'm not. I was in accounts payable.
SPIKE JONES:
In the CIA, good, yeah.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I was fifteen [laughs].
KATHERINE CALVERT:
All right, third question: If you could do something else, if you had to do something else, what profession other than your own, would you attempt?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I mean I always wanted to be a chef.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
There we go. Awesome. Okay, number, four: What's your favorite app on your phone?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
There's so many. Is it bad to say that, like, I don't, I can't deal with my phone?
KATHERINE CALVERT:
No, no, it sounds like the snooze button is your favorite app?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
It's almost like, airplane mode. I don't know. Or, or it's when I'm like checking into a flight on whatever airline I'm allowed to be on. I love traveling and, I don't know, I'm, I have like a pencil and paper and I like write stuff — and I don't know, I'm very, I'm very analogue, but I of course love every app that makes my life easier, but it's not as if I can't wait to be on one as much. I know that seems so weird.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
It’s not, it’s not. [laughs]. Airplane mode is the best answer we’ve had. I love that. I love it. Okay, so speaking of analogue and food and all these things, the last question is what is Erin Lowenberg’s biggest indulgence?
ERIN LOWENBERG:
I mean, I would go and spend an egregious amount of money at like, Buy Right to try to make something that nobody even wanted me to make. It's a creative thing. I'm a creative person but like to go think that I need this specific salt and then I need to go to it like the architecting of a meal and the excessiveness of it all — like the florals, or a candle, or the lighting — because bringing people I love together is such an expression of love for me that it would be over-spending on a dinner party.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I love that.
SPIKE JONES:
Great answer.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Oh, and some cocktails.
SPIKE JONES:
Yeah there it is. I was like, indulgence: all right, there’s gin, there's, ah, Bourbon —
KATHERINE CALVERT:
All right, we'll be there at seven.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
That is like, to throw a party and to go over-the-top — that nobody knows you did —
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Make it effortless. The experience.
ERIN LOWENBERG:
It is. Johnny will be like what? I'm sorry, you, what is this? And I'm like, it's this knife that I got at March, because it's the right size for the small plates — like I can't talk about this.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I love it, Erin. Thank you. Thank you for telling your story. Thank you for letting us get to know you, and if anybody listening doesn't have a pair of Rothy’s, go right now. Amazing shoes. All right everybody!
ERIN LOWENBERG:
Katherine, thank you for including me, and Spike, thank you for our wonderful conversations today. I appreciate it.
SPIKE JONES:
Thank you.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Okay, thanks everyone for listening in and we'll see you next time.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Hello. I have a very exciting postscript to the episode you just heard. Spike, guess what?
SPIKE JONES:
What, what, tell me tell me.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
You won't believe it. Remember how you asked Erin if they had a men's line and she was a little bit vague about it and said maybe, you know, we're talking about it.
SPIKE JONES:
Yeah, I'm very familiar.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Well, they have launched a men's line.
SPIKE JONES:
Get out.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I am not kidding. There's a loafer and a sneaker that’ve got your name all over it.
SPIKE JONES:
Holy Moly. I knew it. Yes. From my lips to the creator's ears. Look, that's it! I'm just going to start inventing stuff. So now, in my driveway, BMW, I’d like an M14, an M14. That can be a car.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
It could be, yeah. It could be. Well I'll send a link to this and we'll see what they say.
SPIKE JONES:
I'm super excited.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Super cool. Congrats to the Rothy’s team. They look amazing and cannot wait. You should all check them out. Rothys.com and thanks again for listening.
KHOROS:
Your customers expect to be understood — their likes and dislikes, their history with your brand, and their communication preferences. But so many companies struggle to connect the dots of the interaction across their own teams and channels and its creating customer experience challenges and disasters. That's where Khoros can help. Khoros is the award-winning customer engagement platform built to turn those siloed interactions with your customer into enterprise value. Khoros works with more than 2,000 of the world's leading brands and powers more than 500 million digital interactions every day. Khoros is the award-winning platform for digital-first customer engagement. Ready to create human connection across the digital customer experience to create customers for life? Learn more at Khoros.com.
Thanks for listening to CX Confessions brought to you by Khoros. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to hit subscribe in your favorite podcast player and give us a rating, see you next time.
