Rachel Tyers is SVP of Marketing and Partnerships at Okendo. She’s been in digital marketing and ecommerce for about 15 years. She started as a Facebook ads media buyer, then moved from Australia to LA, and along the way co-founded a headless ecommerce platform called Nasal.
She joined Okendo five years ago. Okendo helps brands on Shopify with reviews, loyalty, referrals, quizzes, and surveys. Okendo currently works with 16,000 merchants—and that number is growing fast. Brands like SKIMS, Soylent, and True Classic are among our customers.
Rachel sat down with CMO Gabe Larsen at the CX Summit to discuss engaging customers across all touchpoints.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Gabe: You've had a really dynamic career—from marketing to partnerships. Do you like having your hands in both areas?
Rachel: Definitely. In the Shopify ecosystem, partnerships and partner marketing go hand in hand. It's been a great combination for growth.
Gabe: That makes sense. Let’s talk about customer journey—something you know a lot about. Where do most brands lose customers, and how do you coach them to fix that?
Rachel:
We focus on maximizing on-site conversion once you’ve driven traffic. There are a few key ways we help:
- Robust Reviews – Not just basic content, but customer attributes that help shoppers align with people like them.
- Quizzes – These help reduce decision fatigue and convert at over 20%. You also gain valuable zero-party data to use later.
- Pop-Up Surveys – One of our clients, Neil Popkin from Kut from the Kloth, set up surveys for high-intent shoppers that collect preferences and trigger follow-up emails with discount codes. It's now his highest-converting email.
Gabe: That’s great. One quick follow-up—on quizzes. Are they short? Fun? How do brands typically structure them?
Rachel: Usually five or six questions. Summer Fridays, for example, has one for skincare routines and another as a shade finder for foundation. You can use quizzes to improve product discovery, personalize email flows, and strengthen your community connection.
Gabe: Very cool. Everyone’s talking about AI and automation. How do you recommend brands balance automation with authenticity?
Rachel: Great question. On the AI side, we offer AI-powered review summaries to help quickly capture product sentiment.
For automation, one helpful tactic is auto-publishing reviews above a certain star rating—say four or five stars—so your team doesn’t have to approve them manually. At the same time, negative reviews (three stars or below) can automatically create a support ticket in a platform like Kustomer. That helps your team proactively resolve issues and potentially turn a negative experience into a positive one.
Gabe: That’s a smart approach. Shifting gears—do you see any underutilized touchpoints where brands could be doing more?
Rachel: Loyalty programs, surprisingly. Many brands say, “Loyalty doesn’t work for us,” but often it's because the program wasn’t designed with intention.
At Okendo, we take a tailored approach—looking at data to structure tiers, perks, and incentives in a way that aligns with your margins and doesn’t compete with your subscription base. It’s not one-size-fits-all, and reminding customers consistently that your loyalty program exists is crucial for success.
Gabe: That makes sense. Loyalty needs strategy and reinforcement. Now, on reviews—CX sometimes gets seen as “soft” metrics. Any examples of brands using reviews to drive tangible business results?
Rachel: Yes! One of my favorites is Meisen, a premium knife brand. They ran a Facebook ad using a one-star review that said, “Too sharp—almost cut myself opening the box.” It was hilarious and effective! Generally, we encourage merchants to use real customer content in their paid ads. Whether it's a snippet of text or a photo/video from user-generated content, that authenticity resonates. Also, if you're on TikTok Shop, syndicate your review content there—it’s been our most popular integration in the past year. Using social proof across every channel really amplifies results.
Gabe: That’s awesome. The TikTok piece especially sounds huge. Let’s touch on personalization. How are brands navigating that effectively?
Rachel: It all comes back to collecting zero-party data at every touchpoint—through quizzes, reviews, or surveys.
If you collect attributes like skin type, body shape, health goals, etc., you can sync that data to tools like Klaviyo, Attentive, or Postscript. From there, you build segments and send highly personalized recommendations that feel like a 1:1 conversation. And personalization, when done well, drives higher conversions and more revenue.
Gabe: Totally agree. Bringing your tech stack together really makes personalization powerful. Alright—last question. A lot of CX leaders today are feeling overwhelmed. Any advice or best practices to leave them with?
Rachel: Yes—make sure your tech stack is integrated. When your tools talk to each other, it lightens the load, creates a better customer journey, and saves time for your team.
At Okendo, we’ve always prioritized best-in-class integrations so everything runs seamlessly. It reduces manual work and enables you to focus on strategy rather than troubleshooting.
Gabe: That’s such an important point. A disconnected stack leads to a disconnected experience.
Closing thoughts
Creating standout customer experiences doesn’t stop at the buy button. It’s about every touchpoint that follows. For customer service leaders, it’s clear when your tools work together and zero-party data is used smartly, you can personalize at scale and drive serious impact. From loyalty to reviews, it’s time to rethink “support” as a growth engine. Keep it connected and authentic and your customers will keep coming back.
Looking to supercharge your brand’s customer support? Check out our guide on consolidating your CX tech stack or explore Kustomer today!
