KÜHL Blends Human Touch with AI to Drive Sales Excellence

The Challenge

Salt Lake City’s outdoor brand KÜHL taps into the core of its adventurous customer base. As an independent company embracing the values of personal freedom and ethical business practices, KÜHL never settles for second best when it comes to its customers.

That’s why KÜHL’s leadership knew they needed to move away from their ticket-based system, which was creating barriers to exceptional customer service.

Before partnering with Gladly, KÜHL was constrained by a ticket-based system that prioritized problems over people. The system created inefficiencies that strained their small, dedicated customer service team.

“When I first came on board — before Gladly and in the dark days — they had a lovely little system, and I was told, ‘You’re going to love it. It’s just easy to navigate,’” says Nancy Orgill, the Customer Support Manager at KÜHL. “And I not only saw that it was a huge issue for managing customer needs, but the workload was too much.”

KÜHL adheres to their own unique customer service philosophy that differs from the norm, such as refusing to record customer calls. With their previous system, every customization required purchasing additional apps, drastically raising costs while still not meeting their unique needs.

KÜHL’s rugged individualism also posed an initial challenge for buy-in, both for a new customer service platform and implementing AI. Maintaining the humanness of KÜHL was paramount to leadership — their customers deserved more than a bot parroting answers.

The Solution

That’s when they turned to Gladly, a customer-centric platform that ditches disjointed ticket systems and brings together customer interactions into a single, unified view. Like KÜHL, Gladly emphasized usability, customer centrality, and a first-rate customer experience, making the partnership a natural fit. “Everyone has understood we have such a unique way we have to operate,” notes Nancy. “I’ve never been told you can’t do that. It’s always ‘Let us see what we can do.'”

The team was able to deploy the platform quickly despite its highly customized features, and due to the small team, they could reduce training time.

Part of the reason for the quick uptake was the efficiency of the unified profile. Centralizing customer data from an enriched profile tab, such as purchase history and current orders, enabled agents to answer queries rapidly.

To complement the profiles, KÜHL implemented an omnichannel chat. By using voice, SMS, chat, and email options, they offered customers several ways to contact support — with no extra workload for agents. All customer communications are streamlined in the unified conversation view, making it a cinch for agents to track conversations. Furthermore, agents can add notes — making up for not recording calls.

Building on this foundation of success, KÜHL strategically expanded their capabilities by implementing Gladly’s AI.

KÜHL’s AI isn’t generic. It has been trained to mimic the company’s tone and voice and strictly handles repetitive inquiries. Gladly’s AI enables KÜHL to engage with customers seamlessly over chat and SMS. The conversational AI generates answers from KÜHL’s knowledge base, ensuring the information is correct and on-brand.

Outcome

KÜHL’s rapid deployment of Gladly enabled them to see immediate results. Email volume dropped dramatically after centralizing customer data into a singular profile — weekend emails decreased from over 100 to just 40. The AI now handles 59% of email inquiries and 27% of chat conversations, allowing agents to focus on more complex customer needs.

First, consolidating customer data into a unified profile saved considerable agent time. Rather than shuffling through multiple tabs and systems, agents could immediately see the customer and their current dilemma, resulting in significant efficiency improvements.

While voice remains the preferred channel for KÜHL’s customers, the omnichannel approach has transformed how agents work. Rather than jumping between systems, agents now seamlessly access customer data across all channels, shifting their focus from managing tickets to driving revenue.

Rather than try to pinpoint customer concerns, agents now have the time to help customers find the perfect fit — as well as upsell relevant accessories. While KÜHL experienced a 4.4% increase in voice AHT, they also noticed an uptick in sales. Agents could now focus on deeper customer conversions and offload repetitive and simple questions to AI. With this shift from managing tickets to building relationships, KÜHL drove a 120% increase in revenue per call.

“Before, because the agents were so worried about bringing down that ticket number, they really didn’t care to talk about our product or do any kind of a sale,” notes Nancy. “And now I hear them making upsells and giving tailored advice.”

The efficiency gains have expanded the team’s impact beyond customer service. Agents now collaborate with returns and warranties teams, developing broader expertise and creating more value across the organization. “They’re able to help out in those areas. And I think they enjoy it because it’s a change in their day-to-day and allows them to learn other areas of the business,” notes Nancy.

The team at KÜHL believes that their customers deserve the best, whether that be in outdoor gear or customer service. They embraced AI not to replace their agents but to give them the tools to provide a superior, kind, and helpful experience. As a result, KÜHL has not only rapidly improved customer satisfaction and handle times but also turned customer support into a revenue center, dramatically increasing their return on investment.