The power of incredible customer experience - Jamie Domenici, Klaviyo

**Jon Evans** (0:00)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now, one topic I am very passionate about is customer experience. It is something we do not talk enough about, and we really need to. So in this episode, I'm joined by someone that really knows all about how to create good customer experience, Jamie Domenici, the CMO of Klaviyo. Now, they provide fantastic customer relationship marketing platform for retailers, and they're helping lots of businesses make sure that their customer experience is on point. So in this episode, we're talking all about how to do that and why it matters. Here we go.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO, and I'm joined by the incredible Jamie Domenici. Welcome to Uncensored.

**Jamie Domenici** (0:45)
Thank you, thanks for having me.

**Jon Evans** (0:47)
It's great to have you. This is good fun. So you come from San Francisco, I come from London, and here we are in Sydney.

**Jamie Domenici** (0:53)
I mean, where else would we meet?

**Jon Evans** (0:54)
Exactly, yeah. It took a flight to Sydney for our agendas to cross over. Now let's go back to the beginning, because I think you've got one of the most unusual first jobs I've ever come across.
Tell me where your career started.

**Jamie Domenici** (1:07)
This always comes up. Yeah, it was a strange first job.
My first job, I was a mortician, or I worked at a mortuary, I should say. Yeah, so I was the teenager in high school who drove a hearse. Very odd.

**Jon Evans** (1:19)
Do you actually drive a hearse?

**Jamie Domenici** (1:20)
Yeah, I did. Wow. You would see me on the freeway.
But there's a reason I wasn't just like applying to be a mortician. It is my family's business. So our family was four generations in Burlingame, of running funerals. Wow.

**Jon Evans** (1:37)
So what kind of preparation for life does that give you? I'm not just intrigued to know.

**Jamie Domenici** (1:41)
Well, it's a great story, so it's interesting. But all jokes aside, it's a really hard job. You really are with people when they're in their most sad moments. So I feel like it gave me a deep understanding of being compassionate and really understanding my customer and being there to support them in different times in their life.
Also, it made me realize I did not want to go into that field. So here we are, I'm in tech, complete change. But it was a good starting point of understanding your customer and being supportive of people.

**Jon Evans** (2:11)
Well, you're in the business of customer service now, aren't you? And delivering great customer experiences. And I guess you started out in probably the hardest ever position to be in where you're dealing with people going through trauma. So yeah, it must have put you in good stead for what you do now.

**Jamie Domenici** (2:24)
Yeah, tough job to start in for sure.

**Jon Evans** (2:27)
Now talking about great customer experiences, I thought I'd ask you for your best and worst experience of great customer service.

**Jamie Domenici** (2:35)
Okay, let's start with a positive experience. So one of the brands I love interacting with is Aloe Yoga. One great product. They have great drops, great advertising. But what I love most about them is they have a lot of tall, long pants. I'm six feet tall, so I'm a tall lady. And they have tall pants. And what I love about them is they know that about me. So anytime that they have a drop or they have a sale, they notify me right away and let me know, oh, we have a new inventory, tall pants, this is for you. So I think they know you, they have a great experience. And because of that, I have probably 64 pairs of really tall aloe vera pants, every color.
So that's a great brand. Negative experience.
Oh man, I've been having some trouble with my cable company.

**Jon Evans** (3:20)
Have you?

**Jamie Domenici** (3:21)
Oh. Yeah, you know. Which is unfortunate because I really like TV. I watch a lot of TV. I'm a big Bravo fan, a big House Vibes fan. Do you have the House Vibes?

**Jon Evans** (3:31)
I know what they... Apparently, something I learned as well, talking to NBC, is you even have BravoCon, don't you?

**Jamie Domenici** (3:37)
Oh, I've been to it.

**Jon Evans** (3:38)
Have you been to BravoCon?

**Jamie Domenici** (3:39)
Oh, not only have I been to BravoCon, I went with two other CMOs.

**Jon Evans** (3:42)
No.

**Jamie Domenici** (3:42)
Three CMOs at BravoCon. It was an incredible experience. Yes, could talk about that the whole podcast, but it's very fun, very deep into reality TV. But back to cable, I had a problem with my bill, and I called and tried to get ahold of someone. No one answered. I was talking to an agent. They didn't know me. They definitely didn't know my love of Bravo.