How Drink Delta Cut Operational Errors 73% with a Remote Operations Manager from Oceans Talent

Item: Oceans Talent
Author: Erika Schneid

~73%

reduction in error-related replacements

25,000+

customer inquiries resolved

2,000+

customers retained

Industry

CPG

Company size

Startup

Role

Executive assistants

Published

July 27, 2026

Introduction

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Drink Delta is a U.S.-based beverage company producing hemp-derived THC seltzers designed as a modern alternative to alcohol. Founded in 2020, the brand offers fast-acting beverages in multiple flavors and strengths, sold direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and through select retail partners in states where permitted.

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As the company grew, customer support, still handled internally by the operations team, became increasingly difficult to sustain. Drink Delta partnered with Oceans Talent to hire someone who could take ownership of direct customer inquiries, introduce more structure, and help leadership stay ahead of operational issues.

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The Challenge: Scaling the Customer Experience Without Losing Operational Control

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Three obstacles emerged as the business scaled:

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Rising inquiry volume. Daily customer inquiries grew from roughly 50 to 70 to between 100 and 200 on a normal day, with major spikes during stockout and fulfillment issues.
Reactive support wasn’t enough. The team needed someone who could identify patterns, flag recurring issues, and help the business solve problems earlier, not just answer tickets.
Reporting needed structure, and a trusted operator. Month-end sales reconciliation, replacement tracking, KPI reporting, and inventory support all grew in importance, and leadership needed someone who could handle sensitive operational responsibilities across departments with minimal oversight.

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Nadeesh is a highly talented and valued member of our team. He consistently demonstrates a deep commitment to our consumers and puts significant thought into improving every step of our processes to ensure a premium customer experience. Over the last few years, his partnerships and engagement have been instrumental as we’ve grown, particularly in building our customer service, operational integrations, and consumer engagement processes.

Erika Schneid

VP, People & Organizational Design

Integration & Results

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Nadeesh joined through Oceans Talent to strengthen and scale customer support, and the role grew into cross-functional operational ownership without requiring a new hire at each stage:

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Owns consumer experience operations end to end, managing inquiries at scale, handling escalated issues, and reviewing refund and replacement requests. 25,000+ customer inquiries resolved over two years, with 2,000+ customers retained through tailored replacement and resolution support.
Replaced guesswork with replacement tracking and trend analysis, surfacing which issues were controllable and cutting operational error-related replacements from roughly 260 to 270 per month to around 70: a 73% reduction in a directly controllable cost line [optional: add estimated annual dollar savings — ~200 fewer replacements/month × landed cost per order].
Strengthened operational reporting, with end-of-month sales reconciliation across distributor, wholesale, and D2C channels, plus ongoing KPI tracking.
Led key internal initiatives, including Drink Delta’s transition from HubSpot to Zendesk and new reporting and communication processes, with the cross-functional trust to own system migrations with minimal oversight.

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[OPERATOR QUOTE — to be sourced from Nadeesh. Ideal angle: earning ownership of escalations and reporting, mirroring the New Seas operator quote.]

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Conclusion

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What began as one hire to relieve pressure on the internal team became a trusted operating layer across customer experience, reporting, analytics, and cross-functional coordination, giving Drink Delta more structure, better visibility into controllable costs, and more leadership bandwidth for growth.

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That arc, one role with expanding ownership and no re-hire, is the Oceans Talent model working as designed: operators accepted at a roughly 1% rate, matched in about two weeks, and managed continuously after placement.

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Erika Schneid

VP, People & Organizational Design

Drink Delta

Nadeesh

Business Operations Manager