A conversation with John Surdakowski, Founder and CEO at Avex
Somewhere between $10M and $30M in revenue, most eCommerce brands have accumulated a growing stack of tools: a retention platform, a helpdesk, a CDP, and maybe SMS.
Each decision makes sense on its own. But few brands stop to ask what it all looks like from the customer’s perspective.
Avex and Rise.ai work from the same premise: the experience gaps that emerge as brands scale are not random. They are usually the result of disconnected systems, fragmented data, and customer journeys that were never designed to work together.
Avex, a Platinum Shopify agency partner, helps brands build the operational and data foundation required to support customer experience at scale. Rise.ai helps brands deliver consistent value across the journey through store credit, gift cards, rewards, and membership experiences.
We sat down with John Surdakowski, Founder and CEO of Avex, to talk about where eCommerce experiences start to break as brands grow, and what it takes to build experiences that scale without breaking.
When growth starts creating friction
Customer experience rarely breaks in one obvious moment. More often, it starts to erode through a series of reasonable decisions made in isolation.
A new retention platform. A new support system. A new channel. Each addition helps the business grow. But over time, the customer experience becomes spread across more teams, more systems, and more handoffs.
The warning signs usually appear in different parts of the business at the same time:
| Signal | What it looks like | What’s actually happening |
|---|---|---|
| Support volume creeps up | Tickets take longer to resolve, and customers repeat themselves. | There is no shared customer record across support and other teams. |
| Email engagement plateaus | Open rates stop climbing despite more sends. | Messaging stays generic because customer history is not reaching the inbox. |
| Repeat customer cohort shrinks | Fewer customers come back for a second or third order. | The post-purchase experience drops off immediately after checkout. |
Each issue appears to be a problem for a specific team to solve. Marketing focuses on engagement, retention focuses on repeat purchases, and support focuses on ticket resolution.
But according to Surdakowski, the underlying issue is often the same.
“The journey fragments because the org fragmented first. The technology is usually fixable. The organizational alignment problem is harder and takes longer to solve.”
– John Surdakowski, Founder & CEO, Avex
That disconnect often becomes most visible after the purchase. While brands invest heavily in acquisition and conversion, the post-purchase experience frequently receives far less attention. Yet it’s one of the most important moments in determining whether a customer comes back.
Creating continuity across the customer journey
Solving these challenges requires both a strong foundation and experiences that keep customers engaged beyond the first purchase.
That’s where Avex and Rise.ai complement one another.
Set up the right organizational and data layer with Avex
Before brands can create connected experiences, they need a foundation that connects the teams, systems, and touch-points behind them.
Avex’s work starts with the unified customer record: a single, real-time view of the customer that connects the systems, teams, and touch-points involved in the customer journey.
This record becomes the connective tissue between acquisition, conversion, and post-purchase, three stages that Surdakowski views as one continuous experience rather than three separate functions.
“Acquisition buys you a chance, conversion confirms the transaction, and post-purchase determines the lifetime value.”
– John Surdakowski, Founder & CEO, Avex
That shared customer view gives teams the context they need to deliver more consistent experiences across every stage of the journey.
Make loyalty visible at the right moments with Rise.ai
A unified customer record only creates value when it helps brands deliver more relevant, connected experiences.
That applies to loyalty, too. The strongest loyalty experiences don’t live in a separate portal that customers have to remember exists. They show up in the moments customers are already engaged with the brand.
Rise.ai helps brands deliver rewards, store credit, gift cards, cashback, and membership benefits as part of the customer journey rather than as a separate loyalty program.
This might mean surfacing store credit in a post-purchase email, displaying available credit while a customer is browsing, or reminding customers about available value before they disengage.
Rise.ai’s unified wallet keeps those balances synchronized across online and in-store experiences, ensuring customers can access and redeem value wherever they interact with the brand.
For example, when a customer initiates a return, Avex’s connected customer data gives the support team immediate visibility into their history and context.
The fastest-growing brands scale retention by offering small promotional credit bonuses, giving customers a compelling reason to opt for store credit instead of a refund to their original payment method.
With an integrated help desk, support teams can issue credit on the spot, immediately updating the customer’s wallet and triggering a personalized notification.
Together, these experiences create a seamless transition from support to redemption, rather than a series of disconnected interactions.
Build an eCommerce experience that scales without breaking
Growth creates complexity. The brands that scale successfully are the ones that make sure customers never feel it.
“Everyone tracks CAC and ROAS. Almost nobody is calculating what a fragmented experience costs them in lost second purchases and declining LTV.”
– John Surdakowski, Founder & CEO, Avex
The brands that win long-term are not just acquiring more customers. They are creating experiences that feel consistent, connected, and valuable at every stage of the customer journey.
Whether you’re looking to create those experiences or build the foundation behind them, here’s where to start:
Request a demo to see how Rise.ai helps Shopify brands use store credit, gift cards, memberships, and rewards to keep customers engaged long after checkout.
Most brands don’t know what a fragmented experience is costing them until they go deeper. Book a complimentary call with the Avex growth team to discuss your eCommerce potential and map a path forward.
