Laws of Motion’s founder is offering up her personal phone number in an effort to provide extremely high-touch customer service.
Many digital-first brands, and even some legacy companies, have turned to texting as a way to communicate with customers, whether they’re sending updates on product drops and upcoming sales or using it as a customer service tool. DTC companies including Mejuri and Lively are increasingly adopting SMS as a marketing and customer acquisition tool. Typically, texts are connecting customers with brand representatives to answer questions. At Laws of Motion, founder Carly Bigi has answered 33,000-plus phone calls, text messages, emails and Instagram DMs since the company launched in May.
But as the company nears its one-year mark, the question remains whether Bigi will be able to continue answering calls while growing the business. For many founders, year one is spent building the company culture, seeking external funding and expanding the team, but Bigi has been laser focused on building an engaged community of shoppers in a time when customers are looking for the brands they shop to provide some sense of community, like Outdoor Voices.
“It’s fantastic to have that much contact with customers, but it is definitely not scalable,” said Woodrow Levin, CEO and founder of extended warranty startup Extend. “What you will get from interacting with customers at that level is amazing feedback on your business, and that is invaluable. No survey or research firm is going to give you that kind of information.”
When Laws of Motion first launched, Bigi put her personal cell phone number on the company website so consumers could call or text her directly. That number is accessible to customers today and is part of Bigi’s plan to build trust with shoppers, she said. Also, it helps her learn how to improve the business and product through conversations with customers.
“[Putting my number on the website] was a big point of discussion internally before we launched. I felt very strongly about that, and I still do,” Bigi said. “I think it’s so important [for a founder] to have a pulse on what is going on with customers and the business.”
By having conversations on the phone with customers, Bigi said she learned of fit problems customers had with specific sizes and of the products or features that customers wanted Laws of Motion to make next. When Laws of Motion launched in May, the direct-to-consumer company started with one product — the Alpha dress — in 99 micro-sizes between 00 and 24. The company has a 20% reorder rate, Bigi said, with just one product made in three colors.
Laws of Motion’s algorithm assigns a customer one of these sizes based on their height, weight, bra band size, cup size and jean size. Within a few months, Bigi found that some customers had fit issues with existing sizes — gaping or tightness here or there — which led her team to create 45 additional micro-sizes.
“It’s a lot of information to gather, but it’s led us to really double-down on our commitment to research and development,” said Bigi.
Beyond the 45 new sizes added to the mix, Laws of Motion has hit a return rate of less than 6% at a time when e-commerce companies are seeing high return rates, roughly 20%, according to Shopify. Bigi attributed the low return rate to the high-touch customer service experience.
Bigi said she hopes to continue having as many one-to-one conversations with customers as possible and has a customer service liaison, along with several other team members, help answer all the incoming texts and emails every day.
