What was in the way
Charlie Hustle makes vintage-inspired apparel that celebrates Kansas City and the Midwest. The team knew its customers buy the message more than the product. Someone who buys a Kansas City shirt wants more Kansas City gear, so a generic t-shirt email misses.
Customer data sat in separate tools. Service ran in Zendesk and email in Klaviyo. There was no text messaging and no shared reporting. The team couldn't group customers by what they care about, and the service setup was getting hard to grow.
What we did
- Connected Shopify to HubSpot. Customers are grouped by the city or team they care about, based on what they actually ordered. Products are tagged the same way.
- Moved service and email into HubSpot. Customer service came over from Zendesk and email from Klaviyo. We ran HubSpot alongside the old tools first, then switched over once everything checked out.
- Added text messaging. SMS campaigns now run from the same account. It's a channel the brand didn't have the year before.
- Used one audience everywhere. The same customer groups drive email, text and Google Ads. At the start of a season, for example, a team's fans can see its full range everywhere they look.
What changed
Service, email, SMS and reporting now run in one place, with campaign results side by side. Customer lists update themselves from order data instead of old one-time imports. The Missouri list grew by more than 2,600%, and the Nebraska list by about 4,900%.
Service staff also see each customer's full history, so they can spot a loyal repeat buyer and treat them that way.
