Aqua Bound’s Customer Service Team: The Who and Why
10-minute read
We place a tremendously high value on serving our customers well. Why? Because you’re our reason for existence! It doesn’t matter if you’re a brand-new paddler or our biggest retail partner, our goal is to care for your needs and answer your questions the best we know how.
Susie, Micah and Brian—Aqua Bound’s Customer Service team
If you’ve been around Aqua Bound for any length of time, there’s a good chance you’ve already interacted with someone on our Wisconsin-based customer service team in one way or another.
We thought we’d introduce these team members to you and allow them to share their perspectives on the values they live by when they come to work every day. We all consider it a privilege to serve the paddling community worldwide, and these folks get the chance to face you directly—our customer.
Who Is Aqua Bound’s Customer Service Team?
Aqua Bound’s customers include individual kayakers, paddle boarders, whitewater kayakers and canoeists—from novice to elite. Our customers also include retailers, outfitters and guides around the world.
Each of our three team members helps answer phone calls and emails and engage with online chats from any of these customers. In addition, they each are responsible for direct sales in specific territories:
Micah DeLong works with our retailer networks in the US including the Midwest, East Coast, Southeast and West Coast. He began work here at Aqua Bound in the production area in 2022. This gave him a ton of insight into what goes into making our paddles. Micah transitioned to the customer service team in 2024.
Susie Kadlec supports our retailer partners in the US Mountain states and Alaska. She is also responsible for our international customers, including Canada. Susie has been a mainstay of our customer service team since 2018.
Brian Boyea is the veteran of the team, joining Aqua Bound in 2015 in the customer service department. In 2022 he became one of three employees to buy the company from Ed Vater, the former owner and president. Now he’s a co-owner, the VP of Sales and he oversees the customer service and sales area.
(Photo courtesy of Caj Koskinen)
We asked this team several questions to give you an idea of what goes into these all-important roles:
Why is terrific customer service such a priority for us?
MICAH: One of our core values is Elevate the Experience. That entails how we understand the importance of our products and what they offer to that customer in terms of getting out on the water and creating memories. Living that lifestyle they want to live.
That starts with how we answer the phone and how we answer an email from each individual. That then impacts how they view the company. So it starts even before they get a paddle in their hands.
SUSIE: My dad used to tell me, “You only get one reputation.” He said that to me as a teenager but it very much applies here. We value the reputation we have. We’re seen as a leader in the industry, and you really only get one chance to make that first impression.
We want to perpetuate that strong reputation whether a customer comes to us from a place of positivity in their first contact with us or negativity because they bought a paddle and broke it. Our goal is to end every interaction on a positive note.
Without customers, we don’t exist. Unfortunately, we’ve seen other brands go out of business in recent history. Without giving customers those positive experiences, we don’t have a brand. So we like to maintain that good, healthy relationship.
And we’re also consumers ourselves. You never forget a customer service interaction whether it’s a positive or negative experience. We want it to be the former.
(Photo courtesy of Cameron Lawson)
BRIAN: We all [the Aqua Bound team] have a passion for the outdoors, whether it’s paddling or hunting or fishing. And so we all understand why having good gear is important. Why having somebody that backs up that gear is important, and having someone who can help you pick out that gear.
We understand why that makes a difference because we’ve all seen that in our personal lives. That helps make it super easy to be passionate about it when it comes to business.
What surprises our customers the most when they interact with us?
SUSIE: Most people are pretty surprised that they get a human being, whether that’s a phone call or a chat. We especially get a lot of people on the chat who will ask point-blank: “Are you a bot or are you a real person?”
We have a polished website, high-end products and quick turnaround times for orders. So we give the appearance that we’re a big brand, but we’re actually really small. It’s kind of fun to have that conversation with people.
People are surprised at the efficiency and the personal level of care, especially when they realize we’re how small we are. It’s neat to be the one who sends somebody an email and then also be the same person who picks up the phone when they call later.
MICAH: We try to answer the phone within one ring and that also surprises people. We just enjoy talking with our customers, truly. I think that sets us apart. Where somewhere else it might be “We have to talk to our customers,” here, it’s “We get to talk to them.”
BRIAN: It doesn’t matter what your role or title is here. We don’t have a call tree. If the phone rings and Micah is at lunch and Susie’s on the line, you’re getting me. You’re not going to know I’m a co-owner of the company. Jason, our president, he’s going to pick up the phone if he needs to.
It doesn’t matter if you’re our largest customer or the guy who’s never paddled before. You’re getting a live human one way or the other and we’re all going to be able to help out.
Why do you feel confident representing Aqua Bound to customers?
MICAH: Being fairly new to this role—at least compared to Susie and Brian—much like in the rest of the factory, we’re encouraged to make mistakes. Lean Forward is another of our core values. It’s “Hey, let’s learn together. We’re going to mess up, but let’s mess up in a way that we can learn from.”
One of the reasons we’re able to do that is that we have a great core team of the sales and service folks that we can, quite literally, turn our chairs to ask a question. We have the autonomy to make decisions but at the same time, if I feel stuck, I have a team to go to for a quick answer. I can turn that around to make it a good experience for the customer.
I’ll build off my experience on the shop floor where I started—building paddles. We were encouraged to make mistakes. That goes in many different areas of the company as well.
There’s a sense that we’re humans. We make very custom product that’s going to be in the hands of customers. We have a high sense of quality standards. But at the same time, we know we’re going to learn together, make mistakes along the way, and learn from them to grow as a company.
SUSIE: When I was first hired, I was very nervous about the fact that I didn’t know everything there was to know about paddles. But when you get hired, you spend a lot of time learning about the process that goes into building them and the assortment we have. And our website is a really great resource. We’re directed to take a look at that, and it helped me get familiar with what I was doing.
Responding to emails or hopping on the chat gives us time to process the question and ask questions of those around us. So you kind of dip your toe in the water of responding to customers.
We’re supported in the idea that it’s okay to not know the answer. And in my experience, customers resonate with that and actually appreciate that. We have permission to say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but let me find somebody who does.” That releases a lot of pressure.
So our tiered approach to dealing with customers and then also having the authority to not be an expert has always been really helpful for me.
(Photo courtesy of Andrew Strain)
BRIAN: We operate as a “top-down/bottom-up” company. When you make a super awesome product, it’s easy to be comfortable being in the forefront. I’m fortunate to be the one who gets to interact with the customers. I don’t do anything in the back to help us build these awesome products, but when I’m talking to the customers, I get the credit for it. All of us make this whole thing tick.
Another of our core values is Master Our Machine. Everybody within the factory has their place, their expertise. If any one of those things isn’t working properly, then we all have issues. Because we’re a well-oiled machine it’s easy to be comfortable facing the customer.
What are some frequent questions you hear?
MICAH: There are a lot of kayaks out there that people are trying to match their paddles to, so we get questions about that.
As far as our retailers, they’re really knowledgeable. They’re the experts in their specific part of the world. They know what their customers need and in that sense, we’re here to help. It’s less of a question of size or what type of paddle and more of “How quickly can I get it or can I add it to my order?” It’s more order support.
(Photo courtesy of Ryan Hill)
SUSIE: We get questions a lot about why we have two brands [our other brand is Bending Branches]. “Are they the same company? Same factory?” We try to keep the lines pretty clear about the type of customers each brand is designed for.
Bending Branches is canoeing, kayak fishing and recreational kayaking. Aqua Bound is very much sea kayaking with perhaps more enthusiastic and frequent paddlers. We also are growing our presence in the whitewater niche, especially since launching the Aerial line.
One piece we talk to retailers about would be if consumers come back to them with some sort of paddle issue. Then most of them will reach out to us directly and we’ll try to work with them to get their customer taken care of. We want to support that triangulation between the customer, the retailer and us when we can.
BRIAN: Our goal is to make it easy for all parties—consumers, retailers, guides, outfitters, everybody. You’re calling us because you’re excited about getting out on the water. We want to help you do that as quickly and comfortably as possible.
What else would you like our readers to know?
MICAH: Not all of us paddle as much as our customers, but at the same time, we know why our products make a difference in their lives. Every conversation we have is centered around that, even internally.
We make paddles—we don’t make medical devices, right? We know that, but it’s still important stuff for peoples’ lives. A woman called me last year who was buying another paddle. She told me paddling is what’s helped with her mental health over the last few years.
Those are the types of stories that remind us we’re allowing someone to experience life to their fullest. To have a good quality of life. It might not be a pacemaker, but it’s also important.
BRIAN: The big thing that maybe shocks people is that we genuinely care about our customers. When you ring in we try not to make you jump through too many hoops. We ultimately want to get you back out of the water.
What we do here is manufacture paddles. But what we get to work with customers on is helping them with experiences. It’s things people aspire to want to be doing and we get to be a part of it.
So…what paddling questions can our friendly Customer Service team help you with today? Contact us at 715-755-3405 or sales@aquabound.com
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