Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Sometimes an introduction catches you off guard. I'm always on the lookout for interesting stories to share on CX passport, which results in phenomenal opportunities to meet new people. When I met today's guest, Brian Elliot, co founder of Wove, I stumbled onto a concept so hyper focused on the customer, I was truly amazed. personalization and customer experience go hand in hand these days, but would you expect to see hyper personalization in the engagement ring design and manufacturing space? Check out this quote. "Each love story deserves a truly one of a kind product, and a one of a kind customer experience to match." That's a high bar for customer experience. Indeed. Prior to Whoa, Brian gathered corporate, additional entrepreneurial and West Point graduate military experience. Brian has a unique character filled with great stories stemming from those experiences. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the global experiences he had inside the US Army for sure. Having been married now 22 and a half years I am far removed from the engagement ring buying experience. I know that how I went through the experience back in the late 90s is much different than today. Brian, and we'll strive to take today's experience and make it even more unique. It'd be fun to explore this with Brian today, Brian, welcome to CX passport.

Brian Elliott: 1:50

Right. Thanks for having me on.

Rick Denton: 1:52

It's gonna be a it's gonna be a fun show here. So I think we need to just start off right at the bat. Whoa was such a unique concept to me. So let's just start with you letting listeners tell them a little bit about wove.

Brian Elliott: 2:01

Yeah, happy to share Rick. So what was the direct to consumer customer engagement ring company, but we uniquely build couples an exact replica of their ring for an at home tryon experience. And so what we do with this, this add on Try on, and I'm holding a ring up that Rick can see he's smiling, because it looks exactly like the final ring.

Rick Denton: 2:23

And it's very beautiful. Thank you, Brian, I am happily married. So but otherwise, I might be tempted, thank you for showing, yeah,

Brian Elliott: 2:29

she's got you down for 22 years, so you're gonna for at least 22 more. But what this allows folks to do is try it on the comfort of their home and know that the exact ring for them. And so we remove the uncertainty of buying online. And we match that with sort of this total certainty of an add on trial experience. And we remove the pressure of the in store experience and the limited options at the store experience with truly unlimited design options. And so how we get at that, and I'll just walk you through the CX inquiry. Before we dive in further, Rick, I know that's really what you're thinking about is we actually match our clients with a jewelry designer remotely over zoom. Now, they custom design a rain approved a sketch and then we go into that build phase of the replica before moving on to that final ring, which he also built those.

Rick Denton: 3:20

I think that's the part that really caught me off guard when I thought about it, because custom rings exist, right? That concept is there. But this idea of designing it in person live right there with the designer, and then allowing the replica to come home. That's that's a pretty interesting thing. I'm curious, how did you come up with that concept? How did how did that idea become sort of the genesis of this is how we want wove to be.

Brian Elliott: 3:46

Yeah, so it really maps back to understanding what the buyers problems are, I had a pretty poor experience. God didn't engage during the process my co founder did as well. And then a lot of our friends come into this space, but we struggled. And so as we dove all the way back to what are the true problems that this customer was trying to face try to surpass, there's there's really two core problems. And then once we understood those problems, we could go on on two solutions that might work. But problem number one was actually a limit of options, right. And so for a typical consumer journey, you would walk into a store, and you would look at 25 options. And that's sort of your reality. And if those don't map on to what you're looking for, like you're at a kind of a standstill, which is a common point that books get to that sort of transitioned to online at that point where there's maybe 1000 or 2000 options inside of the store, but looking at it on top of an online store, but looking at it on a video screen and saying Yep, I'm going to spend $10,000 on his forever purchase. Yeah, just doesn't really bridge the competence gap. And so folks sort of end up taking this less than ideal, like the leap of faith overpaying for something that they're not in love with and then they kind of feel stuck with it. because they proposed with it. And so we wanted to address both of those problems. And then we sort of built a user experience that basically took both those problems and made them assets for our customers.

Rick Denton: 5:12

I like that a lot. I'm curious, though, you know, it sounds like you're describing a particularly unique, well, maybe not unique, maybe. I know, when I went through the process, I had an inkling what my then girlfriend and fiance and spouse wanted, had an idea. We talked about it, but she was not really involved in my selection process and was very involved. You're describing something that seems a little more joined together and something that explores together, how did you know who that wove customer would be and what they would want?

Brian Elliott: 5:40

Yes, it's so interesting. So, well, over 60% of couples are actually designing rings together. And, and so that we've seen a cultural shift, we do that through their surveys and some other techniques. But really where we got the key inside that this was going on, as we actually incubated a company out of the top store of a brick and mortar jewelry store, my co founders parents store, okay, able to do is actually kind of cure over every single day, and watch all these engagement ring sales proceed over time, what we noticed that was so interesting was couples would come in together, they would act kind of bashful and almost a little ashamed. And say, we actually both want to be a part of this process, I want to help him figure out what the design is going to be because I want to wear it forever. And over and over. Couples would come in with the same sort of I know we shouldn't be doing this together. But we want to and no one actually realizes this is what everyone's doing. shop now. And so that was one of the key insights, as we want to know, what is the unique market that this process really, really solves a problem for. And it's that couple that wants to be a part of that design process together. We call it co creation of modern union here.

Rick Denton: 6:52

The the oh man, there's so many themes woven into what you just said there. One is this idea of you, not only are you I guess participating in a cultural shift, you're helping an enable it as well. So it's not just a case of where you've identified it. And you're just kind of riding away, but rather you're because of helping facilitate this, you're removing that embarrassment, you're removing some of the awkwardness, you're to some degree normalizing what was certainly a right. It's a cultural shift. I did mention when I was doing this is a lot different today than what it was before. And the second thing that I heard in there is this idea, it's almost a shame that for those that are brick and mortar, how did you learn about this, while you listen to and observe the customer? Like just just simply that right, you sat there in a store and watch what they were doing? That's that's, that's fascinating. Why do you think that that wasn't happening already? Why was the voice of the customer not being heard inside the industry before?

Brian Elliott: 7:50

Yeah, it's a great question. It's a very fragmented industry. And so anytime you have hyper fragmented industries, it's usually signals some opportunity for disruption advocates, we have 10s of 1000s of successful small business owners that have a good enough solution to service their local market. And really, that's, that's good enough for them. But really, what we're showing is like the market, writ large has opportunity to be disrupted. And we can provide a new model that can serve as customers everywhere in a really unique way.

Rick Denton: 8:22

There's, you know, what we could do is carve out those last 40 seconds, maybe it was 90 seconds, that could be the signature line of some entrepreneurial podcast, you just gave a phenomenal little nugget of wisdom there. If you are looking for a new business idea, look for that incredibly fragmented industry, you gave a little bit of your secret sauce away there. But it does make me think about the industry in general. And it could be just my own lack of awareness of the the jewelry, the diamond industry, that sort of thing. But I have this perception that it does not welcome new entrants, with with these open arms. It's not a very welcoming and easy to enter industry. So how challenging was it to break into this space in general?

Brian Elliott: 9:01

Yeah, that's another point of dovetail. What you just said was like looking at hyperpigmentation, and then barriers to entry. And if you have those two things that exist, there's probably major opportunity area in there. And so you know, any, any market that you know, if a freshman at Stanford can get into this space, right is probably innovated in jewelry is an incredibly hard market to break into. It's really you know, without or without Andrew, my co founders 40 year plus relationship in the industry, there's not a chance we're gonna be able to get these relationships with these downside holders, these relationships with these vendors. But in that we were able to sort of accelerate all of the required processes to actually source and build through or in a way that was really compelling. And so that made the space as I as I was evaluating it from a an outside and marketing perspective, not from jewelry. I initially made it all the more interesting and sort of explain Hey, this is why this hasn't been innovated in a way that we are seeing, it's really, really hard to get into. We've done that.

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Rick Denton: 10:32

That so having the access to a barrier Buster, like that is certainly helpful. I still go back to that that voice of the customer element of it was there this particular moment where you and your co founder looked at each other with that Aha, is there that Genesis moment of Whoa, where you're, you're peering over the ledge, and you hear that story, anything in that space.

Brian Elliott: 10:54

I think the couple's bind together really happens. You know, over a long duration of time, there wasn't a single Aha, we had an aha moment when we were testing out different user experiences. So we started with these problems, we sort of built a job to be done framework where we can service our customers. And then we began testing different ways to solve those those jobs for folks, which really was different business models, right. And this is a few different ways to solve this. And so we went out, we tested business models, we acquire customers against those business models. And then we were waiting for exactly what you described that aha moment of wow, like this, this was this for this customer was qualitatively 10 times better than any other solution that could provide. And there's a moment in a consultation, where this woman, we just sold this engagement ring to start bawling. And we were like, oh, no, like, you're like, Well,

Rick Denton: 11:48

we really screwed this one up.

Brian Elliott: 11:50

Like, you're like a startup like, just like this, like this might not be recoverable from and then, you know, she said, I just tried so many other ways to get what I wanted. And with you guys, it just felt so heard, and so certain that this is forever. And those are powerful words. After you think she's crying, it's just you mess something up.

Rick Denton: 12:13

You've handed over the tissues. Sorry.

Brian Elliott: 12:16

Yeah. And so that was sort of a moment where we said, okay, this person tried many industries, right, this person really had a market need. And this person was like, exactly like a very typical 30 year old persona. Like this wasn't like a pretty unique customer. And so we knew that, you know, we've got a really tight match for our persona, we found a the right application of our user experience against that job to be done framework

Rick Denton: 12:43

Gosh. That is, that's a beautiful story. Like I'm sitting here struggling to think of the next question. Not really, but just it makes me want to just sit and steep in that, that answer the idea. Especially in your space, how important emotion is, I think I want to circle back to that. But right now, I want to ask you about your West Point experience. I know it's a bit of a turn here. But I know that had to influence even how you approach customer experience in general. But with that global experience through West Point through the US Army, you've got to have some influence from the globe around how you think of customers and business in general. What does that look like? How did that West Point experience and US Army derive some of that for you?

Brian Elliott: 13:23

Yeah, a few things there. One, my co founders also last winter went to West Point together. So that helped, we kind of get, we kind of get teased from our friends, because it's like, had a couple infantry, Army Rangers get into jewelry? So there's

Rick Denton: 13:38

It's not a a typical path? No, yeah.

Brian Elliott: 13:41

But what I would say is, you know, the experience of living, you know, South Asia, Middle East, Eastern Western Europe, Alabama, right, like, Yeah, different, different ways of viewing the world and I, in what that's provided me an opportunity to it just question the assumptions about how we think the world works and how we think people work. And just with every single, you know, this has to be done X, Y, Z, like, that just washes over me. And it's like, inherently untrue. Nothing sort of has to be done a certain way. And until you see people successfully living and operating in totally different paradigms, you approach every single moment of oh, this is just the way it's done. And just look at that. Not as that as fact but as opportunity. .

Rick Denton: 14:30

Yeah. Not just customer experience, what you're describing, even starting a business or anything like that. I have often and listeners have heard me say this on the show before that I actually wish that everyone could travel that everyone could experience that I think we would find greater humanity and expressions of humanity if we would understand exactly what you just said there, Brian and that was the way that I do it may not be the way that someone else does it and how that influences my approach to just another human has to has found it. Self to be grown by when I've been exposed to cultures that are not my own. Do you find that that I'm specifically thinking about this massive shift? And this new idea of wove? Do you think? How much do you think that your exposure to global cultures helped influence that? Did you even get into perhaps even the proposal or marriage or even kind of how families oriented in different areas across the globe? Or was it more just recognizing, hey, this is something different?

Brian Elliott: 15:31

I think we did an analytical, international lens from the company from a growth perspective. So the sort of, you know, Hey, how is this trend changing in eastern Western Europe and in Asia as well. And so we're seeing the adoption of your to sort of this US centric proposals globally. And so that's sort of like one piece of side but I think really, what's what was more important to us is just accepting the background for this tradition of man surprises, woman with rock is is changing, and it's going to change. And I think until you are around places that inherently do things very, very differently. It's very hard to sit in your own culture and say, like, Oh, this is just the way this is the way that this is gonna work. It's like no, like, people do this very differently all over the world. Our own culture is changing, and it's reflecting us urban changing within our society and in other cultures are gonna change, you know, potentially parallel to them.

Rick Denton: 16:35

Brian, I want to do a little change of pace here. Thinking about the global travels, thinking of all that, I want you to join me here in the first class lounge. But before we even walk in the doors, I just want to sit on that answer there. I love the sentence. Man surprises woman with rock. I don't think I've ever heard the proposal description so blunt like that. But you're right. It is so different across the globe. And I'm glad that you've had that opportunity to travel the globe. And see those different cultures. Now, when you travel the globe. That's got to be exhausting. And I imagined the army did not present too many opportunities to have a rest in the first class lounge. But today, we are going to so let's have some fun here in the first class lounge. What is the dream travel location from your past?

Brian Elliott: 17:15

I think four wins. Which I feel like Bill on the show has said not a single person has said Yeah, yeah. Like places like Krakow are just incredibly beautiful. And I think underrated from a tourist perspective. And so it just incredible cultural incredible people and see incredible architecture, so and it's not full of other tourists, which I love. And so you can just go to a small, small city in Europe and just like have a very fulfilling experience.

Rick Denton: 17:46

You Brian, you clearly Zig where others zag right. I know that's a cliche phrase, but that's probably why you've been successful as an entrepreneur. The fact that you're saying yeah, Poland is great, because no one's there because it's beautiful because no one else explores it. I love that. I love that as a as a fun dream travel location from your past. Absolutely. Now, go into the future. What's a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Brian Elliott: 18:09

Yeah, I would love to spend. Gosh, great question. I think I just love just spend some time in like the Outback and Australia. I think that is just, it's really just an adventure and will just be like awesome outdoor activities.

Rick Denton: 18:26

There is a former guest that described it, like a 10 Maybe a 10 day hike. She's Australian, a 10 day hike through the Outback that is something that's kind of iconic and legendary. And it was it was one that I just sat there and listened to her thinking that is a hike that I would love to go to so yes the Outback. I can see what that would be on a dream travel location for the future. What is a favorite thing to eat?

Brian Elliott: 18:52

I've been in anything that my partner cooks is delicious. She she has a specialty for tacos for sure.

Rick Denton: 19:00

Oh, you hit one of my favorites. Now I'm talking to you from Texas. So I obviously have access to quite a few great tacos. But yes, that's the one item that when that is made at home, I go into full glutton mode. It's just like I can't stop eating Oh, you definitely hit this podcasters heart with the taco answer. On the other side. What is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you're hated as a kid?

Brian Elliott: 19:23

Great question. I think I hate is like just Broadway as a kid. I love it now I'm an avid consumer. Yeah, so nothing too unique on that line.

Rick Denton: 19:32

You know that was weird as a kid I actually liked broccoli as a kid and I like it now but there are plenty of vegetables that I could not stand but broccoli has certainly come up as an answer to that question many times before what is one travel item not including your phone? You will not leave home without

Brian Elliott: 19:47

great question. I think that's oh and a toothbrush and that's it. Like your toothbrush is critical. Like I really will like grab a toothbrush. I should have a phone a cell phone charger and just head out. I strap like that a lot more than I do now. But those those portable toothbrushes that have the case that go with them are I fit well in your pocket, and then you don't even need it back there.

Rick Denton: 20:17

Brian, I want to circle back to something, the story that you told about the the aha moment when the tears flowed. You've got a bit of a responsibility here. When it comes to an experience. This is a very meaningful moment, we talked about moments that matter. But you know, folks talk about that and a transaction with a credit card, right? You're talking about a really meaningful moment. How do you all I guess embrace that responsibility and understanding that this experience is more than just a nice server at a restaurant? This is a meaningful moment, not just in that transaction, but in the your customers lives? How do you How does that responsibility weigh on the company and drive how you intend to create the experiences?

Brian Elliott: 21:04

Yeah, it's a great question. So it's twofold for us. One is the experience that we're able to deliver human to human right, matching them with a designer who's going to understand their needs, and ensuring that the people that we hire into those roles are incredibly empathetic, and incredibly competent individuals. So we have an incredibly high barrier to come into that and a pretty rigorous process to move in. So that's part one of the actual experience. And then part two, comes down to having the highest level of confidence in the fifth product that we have to deliver. And so most of our money, and most of our staff is actually on the building and creation of the actual rings, all right here in the US. And so we have a independent shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Stafford master Goldsmiths that ensure that we are building highest quality, one of the kinds of pieces that are built to last a lifetime and beyond in that competence, it actually enables our salespeople and designers to be to be brave, because they know when they can see like, I know that lives are Brian Jackson, always Goldsmiths are the best in the industry are building the product that I'm designing for this person. And so in that there's a nice synergy of competence. And for us like having, the most important thing we do is build this thing or delivery method is incredibly unique. But at the end of the day, we are building and selling physical product, or somebody's going to have the life.

Rick Denton: 22:27

That is I love what you said there about the designer, I was thinking of the responsibility of the emotional relationship between customer and even the designs you're describing. But there's a a level of trust and the emotional layer right there between your designer and your Goldsmith as well that the designer knows, I can go all in on something incredibly wild, incredibly creative and have the confidence and trust that my Goldsmith is going to be able to deliver a phenomenal product and that and I would think, especially in this space trust is really important. So I'm kind of curious. It sounds like you've mentioned a little bit of this, but trust beyond that emotion. How do you make sure that customers are trusting you through this experience?

Brian Elliott: 23:14

Yeah, it's a great question. I think one the that the tribe before you buy is inherently a trust building process. So you kind of get to wear this thing. And no, this is what I'm gonna get before you get the final thing. And so I don't really know how you'd start an engagement ring company without this like just like, Oh, I'm gonna start an E commerce what best sounds foreign, right, like, right? Because like, how are you going to break the first first 100 sales of like, yeah, like, I know, we're a new company, but just trust us, trust us. Like that seems tough. I think we do a few other things uniquely around social proof that really enables the customer and a designer to build great about the product, we we have an on site content creator in our manufacturing location, this person actually creates Instagram ready reels of people's rings being crafted from start to finish so nice. And so you get this nice moment of social protocol as actually my reign going through this process. And this is awesome for me from a trust perspective, I can look at previous customers see their rings being truly crafted in the United States by master goldsmith look at their assets and then have a nice digital asset for myself and I can have on my socials or my wedding video.

Rick Denton: 24:23

Who I've really liked that the idea because exactly what you're saying. It's not just you know, social proof, okay, hey, watch your you customer can watch your screen, but I guarantee they're out there sharing their because it's so cool and unique. It's so different. That absolutely, they'd want to share that. Now I think that we're kind of coming close to the end of time. I got another question for you that I want to understand. You've created this remote native company. From the beginning you've been remote with your customers. And I've got to imagine that has created sort of this unique way of doing business with them. So what does that meant for customer expect? variants that wove delivers, when it's from the very beginning, it's remote, only they can't walk into a store and see this.

Brian Elliott: 25:06

Yeah, I think for our customer, they're, they're very zoomed. There, they typically they've at least four times over the last couple of years, they probably work in hybrid environment at a minimum, right. And so the idea of bringing their hyper personalized, tailored shopping experience into their home by Zoom is very, very normal at this point, in a way that even five years ago, it wasn't. And so I think, you know, this zoom is just a new channel that people use to connect with as well that people don't think about it as a channel as much. But it's, it's a one to one channel of design and, and ultimately, connection for us. And so it really comes down to you know, is this a way that your target market can connect in a way that's quite comfortable and native to them? And the answer for us for our business is yes. And so it's not we're meeting them where they're already used to being.

Rick Denton: 25:58

All the way back to what we talked about at the beginning. And that was listening to the customer. How did you identify this customer segment where you watch them? How did you understand how they want to interact with it, whether resume native, so they're more comfortable in this? In fact, it sounds like from what you're describing, in many cases, they're more comfortable talking to someone on Zoom than walking into a store, and having this potentially deeply emotional conversation with someone there in person. You mentioned the I'm cheating, I'm asking another question. Because going back to if it's zoom, if it's the emotion, if it's all of those things together, the quality of the employee that you bring in, you mentioned this, how do you this is a challenge for a lot of folks right now just hiring in general. But you're talking about hiring some pretty significantly skilled in empathy, skilled in design and in skilled in the craft, as well, how do you go about doing that?

Brian Elliott: 26:45

This all comes back to people want to work somewhere where there is a true competitive advantage to being successful. And so we have a unique selling proposition to our customers that enables a designer for the first time to provide total confidence in what they're providing to that customer. And so this is a pain point that as a jewelry designer, these individuals have built your entire life, which is how do I cross this this chasm of, oh, I want to design this thing to get you totally certain and we're bridging the gap for them for a way that's like, it was incredible as somebody that's trying to really express and provide our for somebody. So that helps us from a recruiting perspective, bring in really talented people. And we're also like one of the only places where you can sell jewelry and not have to have an in person retail location, which comes with its own sort of stressors and constraints based on your lifestyle. And so we provide, you know, basically probably the best remote jewelry design rule in the industry that

Rick Denton: 27:41

that's it I like that I like that a lot. I like the idea of of how are you? It's not so much how are you selecting the talent? It's how are you attracting them with this great environment in which for them to express their creativity, their skill set and the other you basically took my question flipped it on its head, but that's probably what most employers shouldn't be doing is not how do I select but how do I attract and I love that approach. wove is Brian I mentioned it it really caught me off guard. I'm intrigued by it. I'm looking forward to my children experiencing it as I have missed that window thankfully, happily where I am today. But I hope my children will experience something like whoa, how can people learn more about wove? How can they get to know more about you and woven the experience? That will

Brian Elliott: 28:27

Yeah, they go to wovemade.com wovmade.com It's our website, we're across all the major socials at wove underscore made and add just a nod to us making all the things that we also also build sets the spin on the URL there. And yeah, feel free to reach out to me on on LinkedIn, if you want to connect Brian Elliot two Ls two Ts always happy to talk anything growth or product or customer experience. I'm always happy to jam out.

Rick Denton: 28:58

That's, that's awesome. I I will get all of that into the show notes so that you didn't have to write that down. Just scroll down and you'll be able to find out more about Brian and find out about Well, Brian, thank you so much for being on the show today. I learned a lot. I did not expect to hear the story, the emotional aha moment. But that was That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And certainly thank you for sharing your insight into how you got into web and what the experiences are that you're creating there. I appreciate you being on the show, Brian. Thanks.

Brian Elliott: 29:27

Thanks so much Rick

Rick Denton: 29:31

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.