How JOANN created a “happy place” for teams & customers

Featuring Drew Chamberlain

Director of Operations and Customer Experience at JOANN

In this Gladly podcast episode, learn from Drew Chamberlain, the Director of Operations and Customer Experiences at fabric and craft retailer JOANN, how their brand evolved to embrace digital innovation while always putting customers first.

When this episode was recorded, JOANN's approach to customer experience started with recruiting the right customer service team members and aimed to turn customers into dedicated, lifelong fans.

Drew hired for care over call center experience. He says the team could teach someone to answer a phone or write an email, but if a candidate didn't put the customer first, they probably weren't the right fit. The other half was giving team members tools that made their jobs easier.

"We’re always looking at how we can make the experience better for the retail customer and how we can make it better for our team members, too."

Drew Chamberlain

Director of Operations and Customer Experience, JOANN

Two of his favorite interview questions get at how candidates think. He asks them to describe a time they got poor customer service and what they would have done differently. And whatever the role, he asks, "On your next opportunity, what's one thing you'd like to avoid?"

When Drew joined JOANN, customers could only reach the team by phone or email, and each channel went to a different person. After JOANN upgraded its support technology, an agent could start a conversation on the phone and move it to email or text from the same screen, without the customer starting over.

His favorite example came from social media. A team member saw a customer post a photo of the sign outside JOANN headquarters in Hudson, Ohio, after she drove up from Kentucky to shop. Drew and the team walked next door to the store, paged her to the front, thanked her, and gave her a gift card. She looked at one team member and asked, "Are you Justin from Twitter?"

Drew traces his customer service skills back to high school, when he was the school mascot, Sam the Ram. He couldn't talk in the costume, so he had to connect with people through movement alone, and he says that's shaped how he builds relationships ever since.