Behaviorial Interview Flashcards
What are your superpowers?
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What is your Strength?
S: My super power would be problem solving, having the ability to ask laser-focused questions to get to the root cause of the issue and see a path forward in a timely manner.
T: In my current role, our D2C ecommerce store had been experiencing unsually high return rates
A: (1) As a first step, I reviewed our returns data to define the root cause and identified the top returned item was our newly released exclusive Funko SKU with the reason of return being “damaged product”. (2) In digging deeper with my inventory team to assess the returned product, I uncovered it was the packaging was actually damaged. (3) I was able to quickly address the issue thru multiple approaches by (1) adjusting our packaging protocol by product type for collectibles where guests display in-packaging and (2) tweak the return form options for guests so the team can quickly identify the root cause.
R: Within 1 month of implementation, our return rates not only reduced but dropped -5% further resulting in a total 10% drop below avg.
Your Weakness? (it’s actually a strength!)
S: My weakness is I’m customer obsessed, even if that means that sometimes the business suffers because I’m doing what’s right
T: In my currnet role, we recently launched a top selling line of Activision Blizzard Pride T-Shirts, where 50% of the proceeds were going to LGBTQ organizations (Human Rights Campaign). The line was our top seller at launch, team members started insisting we develop more designs where some go to the organization and others were for pure profit.
A: I strongly advised against this and reiterated, the reason why customers buy these t-shirts is to support the community and tied to our values as a company.
R: As a end result, I persuaded the team against this and this line is still outperforming our items today. It shows our customers invested in this because they support our values.
Above & beyond for your customer?
S: I built an exclusive collector program at Amazon partnering. Every month, a limited run of the a Mickey plush released tying back to Mickey’s historical moments. This program was catered to the D23 customer, considered our Disney Best Guests. Guests were notified pre-launch.
T: In the first month of launch, although we sold out of 3K units in <1hr, we experienced a high volume of customer complaints from D23 members. They were not able to purchase soon enough because the product page was public and non-members stumbled on the page via searches or Amazon Bestsellers list.
A: I proposed the solution of making the product page non-searchable as an unlisted ASIN, so only D23 members could access the page to purchase if they had the link.
R: The 2nd month of launch, there were zero complaints filed to D23’s customer service. Although product sell-through was longer (24 hrs vs 1 hr), we were doing what’s best for the customer.
Above & beyond for your customer?
“S: I built an exclusive collector program at Amazon partnering. Every month, a limited run of the a Mickey plush released tying back to Mickey’s historical moments. This program was catered to the D23 customer, considered our Disney Best Guests. Guests were notified pre-launch.
T: In the first month of launch, although we sold out of 3K units in <1hr, we experienced a high volume of customer complaints from D23 members. They were not able to purchase soon enough because the product page was public and non-members stumbled on the page via searches or Amazon Bestsellers list.
A: I proposed the solution of making the product page non-searchable as an unlisted ASIN, so only D23 members could access the page to purchase if they had the link.
R: The 2nd month of launch, there were zero complaints filed to D23’s customer service. Although product sell-through was longer (24 hrs vs 1 hr), we were doing what’s best for the customer.
Tell me about a time you had a difficult customer experience/how did you handle it?
S: In my current role, our D2C ecommerce store had been experiencing unsually high return rates
T: I wanted to dig into why customers were not happy with the products they had purchased and understand what exactly they were returning.
A: (1) As a first step, I reviewed our returns data to define the root cause and identified the top returned item was our newly released exclusive Funko SKU with the reason of return being “damaged product”. (2) In digging deeper with my inventory team to assess the returned product, I uncovered it was the packaging was actually damaged. (3) I was able to quickly address the issue thru multiple approaches by (1) adjusting our packaging protocol by product type for collectibles where guests display in-packaging and (2) tweak the return form options for guests so the team can quickly identify the root cause.
R: Within 1 month of implementation, our return rates not only reduced but dropped -5% further resulting in a total 10% drop below avg.
How do you understand what your customer really wants?
S: At my last role with Disney, manging the Amazon account.
T: I used counterfeit merchandise and customer reviews to help identify areas of improvement for our own dress up / roleplay line.
“A: Using Vendor Central Brand Analytics Tool - I identified the top counterfeit items with the highest conversion share. I analyzed reviews and top performing SKUs to key elements that were important to the customer and product design / functionality that appeal to the customer.
(1) Partnered w/ Jakks to add more accessories so 10 / 17 piece trunk included ways to differentiate the outfits. (2) Due to Jakks’ price margin issues, I worked w/ our Licensing team to expand contract rights to Just Play who could produce dress up sets under the $30 price range. “
R: As a result, the Frozen Jakks trunk delivered $300K in sales revenue during the first 3 months of launch. Just Play’s Minnie Trunk was their best seller in the Minnie Portfolio the first year of launch.
Sacrafice short-term decision for long-term gain?
S: I built an exclusive collector program at Amazon partnering with Just Play. It was the first time Disney launched a collector plush program on Amazon, the goal to sell out fast and gauge performance to launch a larger program in 2021.
T: I received push back from my our internal teams due to the lower qtys which was not typical for account exclusive at this scale.
A: To help the program get greenlit by PD, I presented back to our internal leadership team using expected total revenue of the program ($2.4M) and shared a plan for 2021 w/ larger qtys to hit their revenue benchmark of $5M to commit to this year as a test program.
R: Successfully, got our internal Disney teams on board, committed to launch a test program in 2020 at $2.4M in revenue and received buy in to build a larger collector program in 2021.
Career Failure? (your biggest mistake)
S: Early in my career, I managed the Lucas team’s largest ad buy of the year spending a $1M to drive conversion of Star Wars: Force Friday product on ShopDisney.com
T: I was under tight deadlines and had not managed my bandwidth properly to prioritize this project.
A: Unfortunately, I skipped a step in checking blacklisted sites across Google’s DSP ad network and the SW ad was served on a politically-skewed site during the 2016 election. I caught the mistake instantly and had quickly escalated to our partner. I also immediately worked w/ Google to implement a standardized blacklist of sites for our team to future use.
L: As a learning, I learned the importance of prioritization to manage your bandwidth. Secondly, transparency and speed in communicating to your partner is extremely important.
Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility, and why was that important?
S: When I was on the Disney Digital Network team, I was an associate manager in acquisition marketing. My responsibility was focusing on our ad products and targeting data initiatives.
T: The account executives would work with the same partners (ex. Hasbro) that I was working with to develop native ad video content for my team to then use in media buying.
“A1: Because my Sales colleagues were not based in LA, they were not able to be on set to act as the brand advocate.
A2: I took it upon myself to be on set to help the videographer / photographers to align w. the play patterns of toys they were shooting and optimize the content for conversion as an native ad. “
R: The partner had heard about this and was pleased w/ the results. They had asked my manager at the time for me to be their account lead and renewed their contract as a result.
Describe a time you didn’t think you were going to meet a commitment you promised?
S: During my time at Disney managing the Amazon account, I developed an exclusive Summer program called Pixar Pool Party. This involved getting internal buy in, on-boarding new cross-category licensees to develop new product lines to target the millenial Pixar audience.
T: I worked with 10 different licensees to develop exclusive new products under tight timelines to launch by Summer of 2020 and worked with Grants and the VMs to coordinate buys based off their forecasted buys / MOQs. We had to halt the project due to COVID but unfortunately, 5 of our licensed vendors were already in the process of manufacturing.
“A1: I worked back with Grant to communicate the risk but suggesting pausing this program as it wouldn’t be right for the customer to message ““Pool Party”” during the brink of quarantine.
A2: From the time I had anticipated the program’s delay to the time I can discussed with Grant and team, I had created an email alias with our participating vendors to communicate the latest updates.
A3: I also worked back with 5 of the vendors in process of manufacturing to come up with an alternative plan, either selling via their D2C sites, or launching with Amazon w/o the program w/ the goal to expand their selection for 2021’s Pixar Pool Party. “
R: By escalting quickly and working with the vendors to mitigate the risks, I was able to earn trust of these partners. Collectively between Toys, Apparel & Home, we were still able to drive $500K in revenue and the program will be launching fully this summer.
Tell me about a time where you’ve had to resolve a conflict.
S: In my current role, I have a Retail counterpart who also manages the Amazon business. For S3 of CoD’s product launch on Amazon, because of my background, I offered to run the ad campaigns, redo the brand stores and work w/ licensees to optimize their A+ content.
T: I could tell there was friction with my colleague.
To mitigate and earn her trust, I included her in all the activities, walked her through set up so she could take over moving forward and gave her all the info she needed to share externally with the team.
R: This in turn, helped me form a great relationship with the colleage and enabled her to navigat the Amazon business separately and successfully.
“Tell me about a time you took a risk?
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Can you give me an example of a calculated risk you have taken where speed was critical? What was the situation, and how did you handle it?”
S: Launching Disney’s Merch by Amazon business
T: I was challenged to working with our PD teams to identify design opportunities, seasonal thematics and franchises w/ no historical MOD data to comp, limited headcount and pressure to scale quickly in time for Halloween and Holiday.
“A1: Started with identifying what currently appealed to customers in the market by using tools I had available, looking at Amazon Best Sellers list, Etsy and Pinterest to identify top performing trends, used Helium10 to identify what counterfeit Disney tees that appealed to customers.
A2: Identified key priorities / trends our PD team could lean into to scale quickly “
R: This resulted in Halloween & Holiday sales, of $2M hitting 40% of our revenue goals within the first three months of launching
Tell me about a time you had to analyze facts quickly, define key issues and respond immediately?
S: Embargoed product set on TFF / FFF midnight launch event across retail.
T: To ensure there were no leaks and the product pages were flipped live, transferred over to the our brand store at the same time we had Gateway placements driving to SW and Frozen’s brand store.
“A1: I had worked with the licensed vendors, Grant and the VMs to set up 100+ embargoed product listings and work back with licensees at the nick of the hour when product pages went live with code names.
A2: To be able to react quickly, I tag teamed with Grant, running through our product listings switched over accordingly and was reflected on the brand store.
A3: Separately, I had to work with the licensees the next day to access sell-thru to be able to mitigate any risk of overinventory by submitting some of the slower sell-thru items into the SW a”
R: Moving fast was absolutely crucial as we had a limited window to ensure sell-thru of exclusives and collectibles. Accounting for 58% of total sales that opening weekend. The event drove $1.1M in revenue @ 39K units.
How do you motivate your team-mates?
S: Especially for my team, I like to ensure I’m referencing Maslow’s hierarchy of motivations. I create an environment of transparency.
T: An example of this, was I had a team member recently joined and upon understanding what is long term goals were, I was able to identify that one area to grow Dylan’s self-esteem needs was to grow his confidence in data analysis.
A: I worked with him to identify a project that he could work on to learn Google Analytics separate from his day job to be motivate him in other areas of work.
R: By doing this quickly, it shows Dylan that I take his needs seriously and value him as a team member. This has given him the confidence and stepped up to lead out affiliate ecommerce efforts driving $10M since starting
Most complex problem you solved?
S: At Disney, I was responsible for growing the Home category on Amazon. I identified 10 licensees that made up 40% of the Disney Home business at competitor accounts (ex. Walmart, Target) that did not have a presence on Amazon.
T: My task was to onboard them and build out a comprehensive selection. The challenge was most of these licensees were family owned business who were brand new to Amazon.
“A1: To be able to help guide these licensees, I had to first understand the basics of selling on Amazon and challenges you run into as a seller. I learned how to become a 3P seller and managed all aspects including manufacturing, procurement, product set up and advertising.
A2: Having access to a seller account and understanding the basics of launching a product successfully gave me the knowledge to set these licensees up for success. “
R: As a result, I drove $25M in new vendor sales by Y1 which contributed to 60% of the total category growth
“Give me an example of when you used data to make a decision/solve a problem.
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Tell me about a time when you had to dig 2/3 levels deep to get an answer”
S: In reviewing Amazon Best Sellers list on daily basis, Tara Toys Disney Princess arts & craft kit was consistently on the top sellers list. Prior to this they were not on our radar as a top licensee as they were not in the top 20 list in sales revenue in 2019.
T: I dug into our sales reports from 2019 to further understand where they were in comparison to the rest of the Disney business was surprised to find although the item was not on the top 20 list in sales revenue, the item was the number 1 selling in units for Disney Toys.
“A1: Looking at their revenue, units and average price, I noticed they were made 45% less in sales.
A2: Using Camelcamelcamel, identified this as a price matching issue as the item was regularly discounted at Walmart. This also posed a challenge working with Tara Toys in DOTD where unpredictable price matching would cause profitability issues to participate in the DOTDs.”
R: Knowing these challenges, I immediately worked with our licensing team to explore exclusives for Amazon, one of which they launched last Summer which as a result negated all issues of price matching and was on the best sellers list for the first 3 weeks of launch.
