Curated Experience

What does the invention of the Air conditioner have to do with the call center? We discuss the impact of your phone system to your customer experience.

The status quo is to focus on acquisition as opposed to retention. Most of the current approach is built on faulty premise that customers are promiscous.  How can you build customer intimacy in a few clicks Preview (see attachment or web link for the full transcript): Speaker 0 (0s): Most of what you consume from so-called experts contains either half-truths outright lies or information that is not useful. They keep telling you how wet water is and you know, it is doing, you know, gut. I am committed to share in nothing but the absolute unfiltered on edited, no euphemism truths. Every single time you hear my voice. Speaker 2 (37s): Welcome everyone. I have been having this conversation with my friend, Ana, who is in Australia. We've been talking about human to human relationship in the customer experience on, are you still with me? Speaker 3 (54s): I am still here. I must. Thanks for having me back. Speaker 2 (58s): You're welcome. I am. I'm excited to have the second part of this conversation. So, you know, you educated me a lot around how we think about the front end of the funnel today and conversion and, and how that sort of operates. And now I want to turn the conversation and set the stage again into, in today's world. We acquire a customer, right? We deliver some goods and services to them, and then we never talked to them again, most companies. And to the extent we talked to them, it's when they call in or email or go online and send the chat in and have a problem. And we work really, really, really hard to solve whatever problem it is they have, and then rinse and repeat. And then eventually like some relationships they want to break up with us, right? They say, Hey, I want the cans. I think about the cable companies. For example, the cable companies have a retention departments that if you called and said, Hey, I want to break up with you. They send you there. But when you get to this place, it's not, let me tell you the value in of, they just simply go, Hey, I'll buy, you know, about, we give you a discount, right? Because you know, clearly I'm not a customer. I am for sale. I am some type of deal and they throw money at the problem and maybe the customer stays and maybe they don't. So as I think about your framework, first off, let's start by you just sort of saying like, why have we accepted this to be the norm? And do you agree that there could be a better way of retention and loyalty than all the, all the ways we're doing it today? Speaker 3 (2m 45s): Absolutely. And you know, it's not me saying it, look at the stats if retention and loyalty and all of that was not severely dysfunctional. Then we would have really good retention. And a lot of businesses would have really loyal fans. And that isn't the case right now, the status quo is to put all of the energy and all of the funding into customer acquisition, right? So customer acquisition costs are escalating. I think the latest Shopify figures show that customer acquisition costs are going through the roof. It's becoming untenable to acquire customers. So unless you've got large pockets of VC funding and you're in the red as sustainable businesses, getting harder and harder. Why is, you know, we look at, and it's not just digital businesses. You look at established institutions like banks, right? And I'm sure it's the same in the states, as it is here in Australia, you're a loyal customer of a bank for years and years, you go in with a complaint and you say, listen, you've got to help me out. I want to stay with you. I want to stay with your institution, but this isn't working and they go, ah, too bad. So sad. Right? So they're ha they're putting all of their energy into acquiring new customers. It's like we live in a, you know, if you look at e-commerce and digital commerce, we are effectively living in a Tinder world where at any moment in time, there's 2 billion people on your phone and you can keep swiping and going on dates and keeps wiping and going on dates. And then, you know, read the full, hilarious book by Aziz Ansari at the end of the day, all of that access, access to new and new and new dates doesn't make you happy. And so all of this focus on customer requisition without putting energy at all into the back end into the, what happens next is just escalating costs and making businesses unsustainable. Speaker 2 (4m 34s): And, and I think that is so obvious when you think about it, right? It's the cliche of, it's easier to keep a customer than to get a new one, but in some ways, one of the many side effects of the localization and Facebook ads, as if you have deep pockets, you don't have to be loyal to any customer anymore, right. You just swipe, right. And it's financial. It's why, you know, many large companies that are doing billions and billions of dollars in revenue are either on profitable or are showing very, very sort of little profits. So we get that. Is there a, another way, is there another way, or shouldn't meet this, except this is the world we live in. No one can ever figure out loyalty or is there a, is there another way or is, or do you just think we're not trying? Speaker 3 (5m 34s): Well, I think, I think everyone's putting in a solid effort. I think it's like anything, you know, until you understand that donuts are not good for you every day as a main food source, you'll keep eating the donuts cause they taste good. So, you know, there is a better way. There's a better way. And in the last couple of years, I've had success with over a hundred different brands. So all high growth brands exporting into new markets and we've consistently been able to raise customer loyalty, retention and lower customer acquisition costs for all brands from literally from rice horses to shoes, to engineering companies like right across the board. And the reason we've had the success is because we've gone back to first principles. How do people form relationships? There's a pattern to that. We can leverage that. How do people make decisions? There's a pattern to that. We can leverage that, you know, I'm sure your audience has come across. Robert Cialdini's work. He wrote a book principles of influence back in the eighties. It's I dunno, a gazillion copies sold, right? The book is brilliant. It talks about seven leavers that you can use to influence anyone about anything, or we know this stuff. And then it's like a giant mass amnesia when we step into the digital space and we don't use any of these same tactics, we forget that at the end of every transaction in the digital space is a human and humans are influenced in predictable ways. So it's just a matter of kind of reminding ourselves and not accepting the status quo and saying, yes, there is sensibility and putting energy into Customer Retention. We're going to weather the storm of economic downturns better. We're going to build a loyal customer base that will stay with us for better. We're going to create at the risk of sounding old, go back to the old fashioned world where businesses made profits Radical, right? So I'm going to, I'm going to just stay on this radical roll and throw something very controversial out there, right? Low conversion rates are helping your competitors grow. And here's the science behind that 97% of the customers that come to your website leave, and these could be customers looking for a new product, or it could be customers coming in to get reassurance or make a complaint or whatever. But 97%, if your conversion rate is two or 3%, 97% of people leave. And the people that leave because there's now an element of frustration, they didn't get what they wanted when they came looking, they are willing to spend up to 16% more with your competitor. So your failure to engage, your failure to delight is making that customer go to your competitor. Who's in the next tab. They're not over here in Australia. No, no. There's zero energy to go to the next tab and they're willing to spend 16% more. So your low conversion rates are helping your competitors grow. Speaker 2 (8m 35s): And, and man, when I, when I, when I think about that, I wonder when most people say that, Hey, we're going to spend energy to keep a customer, right? Whether that's keeping them after they've purchased and keeping them on our sites and do all of that, it seems to be very sort of reactive and almost selfish. And I don't mean selfish in any judgmental way. You know, you know, like that's kind of where, so, so what I mean by that is if you come to my site and I think you want to buy something, I'm going to put this big, buy something so that you get by the thin and you're off, right? There's all this literature around. Don't let them hang around your site that often, quickly convert them off. You go on the support side. Did you come to my site? Looking for help is also the same deal. It's costing me money. If you want it to have this, let me just give you, here's an FAQ. What have you. So like, there's this push in the other direction and I'm, you know, I'm a recovering technologist. I'm not fashion technology for technology sake. I'm simply saying there's this energy that's like, I don't want to really interact with you any deeper. Then come in, get the stuff you got. Problem. Here's the answer. And I know what do you, where do you say to that kind of reflexive businesses leaning away? If you will, like, I wanted to be sanitized, come in, buy the stuff, go have a problem, click your off your goal. And then I hear you talk about building a relationship and it seems like the marketplace is going vast in the opposite direction. Speaker 3 (10m 19s): Yeah. I mean, it's a great, great point. And I actually enjoyed one of your past interviews with Steven, where you talked about this at length. So I think direct your audience. There won't repeat any of that. Goodness. But I think fundamentally let's take an example. Let's look at a business like Qualtrics. So Qualtrics started with doing survey staff and now, you know, I think they, they raised $600 million at the last race. They're enormous. And they're able to effectively formulate how to do the retention part of customer service at scale, by looking at patterns and being predictive. So as an example, if you're selling shoes and there is a break in a particular line of shoes and people are coming back and complaining about, you know, this particular model of shoe, more than the average they can pro they can capture that and get the customer service departments to proactively reach out to people who bought those shoes and say, look, we know that we've got an issue with these shoes. You might want to keep them, but if you don't, here's a remedy. And so it all comes back. You know, if we come back to first principles, which is often useful to understand the all going forward, if we look at satisfaction, right? So customer satisfaction, how is that calculated? In essence people, it's a, it's sort of a, it's a product of two things, your expectations and your perceptions. If your expectations are really, really low coming back to our earlier conversation, if your expectations about things are really low and the perception or the delivery of the product was just a little bit above, you're going to be super happy because your expectations were low. If your expectations are high and the delivery is at the same level above average, but lower than your expectations, you're going to be really unhappy. And so you think, okay, well, all of this is subjective. How do I, as a business influence whether my customers are satisfied or not. And again, it's proven that you can do that through the provision of information. So take, for example, you know, in the olden days, when we used to fly and you'd chop for a flight and American airlines would say, sorry, your flight is delayed by 30 minutes. And so your natural reaction, you were expecting to fly at a certain time, your flight is delayed. They tell you a flight is delayed. You're unhappy. You're like pissed. I'm unhappy. I'm going to go and complain, right? But if the person on the little megaphone says your flight's delayed by 30 minutes, we've just had an unfortunate situation where a lady is delivering a baby on the plane. And it's going to take us a little bit longer than expected to get that plane turned around for you. All of a sudden you're like warm and fuzzy, right? So the delivery of the delivery of the actual experience didn't change. Your expectations were where they were. But simply by providing information, you're able to completely change a negative into a positive. You know, if you're a restaurant, you go to a restaurant, your table's not ready and you get offered a little appetizer while you're waiting in line. Your negative is turned into a positive. And so coming back to your point around customer service and putting energy into the front end, rather than the backend at the backend, using information and using the tools that you have to moderate satisfaction levels and customers is huge. And so, yeah, and that doesn't get delivered with a coupon for stay with that cable company for another year. We'd know you're really unhappy, but we'll make it, you know, we'll give you a little teaser so that you're unhappy with us longer. Something that makes them happy. Speaker 2 (13m 58s): Yeah. I mean, that is, that is, that is so spot on. And I think one of the lessons I'm taking from this, and for those of you who are listening to, or on the, on the service or contact center, or what have you, is that you've got to separate the, the act of break things from what we're talking about, which is loyalty. Like the break fix is a transactional. And I, this is a completely different than this is the same reason, right? Why you call your grandma with no, like you're just checking in on her, right? It's, it's a relationship. It's not because you need something or you something no. And oh, by the way, when your grandma also calls at once you to be her tech support, you, you fix it. But then that doesn't mean you, you still don't work on the relationship. And I think it's that mindset. And, and, and, and for too long, we've kind of given up on everything has become, I can acquire a new customer by going out and just paying for it, eating into profits, or I can acquire a customer by giving them one who was unhappy credits, again, eating into profits. Like we have no other tools in the tool belt. There is a given up on it. And in some ways, you know, when I, when I talk about service about why companies don't invest in do all the MRIs on it, this is part of the reason, like, if you're pouring all of your money into acquisitions, right. And credits and those things, then all of a sudden, you don't have money to pour into this. Then you consider, you know, kind of mundane because we've not done a good job of tying those kinds of service things into retaining a cost. It's not purposeful. Does that make sense? Like, it's just, you're just answering questions and doing that. It's not a purposeful thing it's designed to create a lot. Speaker 3 (16m 2s): Absolutely. And you probably would have come across Ellen, the Baton, he wrote a famous book called the week, right. So if you've read his follow or your audience has totally recommended, it's called the course of luck. And the course of life is a book about, you know, everyone wants to know how I met you. Right. How did you guys meet? Oh my God, how romantic, terrific, whatever. But it's what happens after that. That's interesting. Right? It's what happens after the honeymoon that is the make or break in a relationship. And this is, you know, the parallels between human to human relationships and human to digital and brand relationships are so incredibly high. Right? We get so focused on the acquisition. That's the sexy part. Let's get new customers in. Yay. And it's actually what happens next? That's the important thing it's, you know, do you deal with your customers with empathy when they call you or do you, do you just be rude to them and give them 20% off the next year and entice them to stay in a dysfunctional relationship longer. Right. And when you lay it out like that, you go, well, why aren't we making these crazy decisions? Why don't we build our businesses on a foundation of providing value and serving customers and forming long-term relationships. It's stuff that works for the longterm. But you know, many people are just in for a quick thing, how fast can we spend the VC funds and, you know, get the evaluation to a place where we can exit out and, you know, there'll be market corrections. There'll be, you know, this is things find the right level. But I think for your audience, you know, whether you're a young entrepreneur or as a student and you're starting out, or you're looking for a career change, or you work in customer experience in some way, I think staking your career in the future, on your, of your business, on a foundation or building strong relationships and putting in place the mechanisms in digital to facilitate and nurture that it's a long-term strategy that leads to a win it's it's, you know, there's the science, there's a formula to it. Speaker 2 (18m 10s): I want to, I want to ask you one last question. I'll let you go. And it's, I suspect you have to be going crazy. I know we talked on the last conversation about the front end, how people trying to convert then all that I got to imagine, if you have, I'd love to hear your perspective that you you're driven just as crazy on the backend, meaning on the digital, on the websites, on their support pages as well. In the same way. As we jumped straight into that, an add-on on the front end, a buy this, then sign up for my demo. Have you on the backend. W and when someone's, they're just looking for information, I got, I'm curious to hear your perspective around what have you seen there? That just makes you go, oh my gosh, just here, Speaker 3 (18m 59s): You have hit a big red button. Let me spend with your audience. So literally yesterday, you know, right now, COVID you try and book flights and all your plans change, and you have to cancel flights on the airlines are terrific. They give you a credit voucher, and then you come around and you go, well, I've got another fantasy. I remain optimistic. I want to rebook that trip to wherever I want to use my credit voucher. And this is where everything just falls off. And you really get a taste for how much they don't care about you as a customer at all right. Try and use a credit voucher. Oh, ladies, sorry. You can't combine two credit vouchers to buy a ticket. Sorry. Can't do that. Oh, lady, you can't use that credit voucher online to buy a ticket. You can use this other one, but not this one. Why not? This one? I don't know. Call our call center, call centers busy. Three hours later, you get a call back. Sorry. I can't help you out with that. I mean, it's just atrocious. It's like, literally you, you finish a day of trying to rebook a ticket with the money that was used in the first place that the airline has held for the last year and a half. Right. And you feel battered from the experience and there is, you know, you, you go again from being, I don't think anyone has very high expectations in these, in these situations and you just, you just don't want to be really, really mistreated, be happy if you would treat it. Okay. You know, so yeah. There's, you know, there's lots of examples and I'm sure your audience will have tons of their own experiences where you just feel like, hang on. Why am I being penalized for being a loyal customer or brand? Speaker 2 (20m 42s): And this, the psychology of that, right. I suspect in that same moment, if you want it to buy a new tickets, right. Click on Google, there's an ad. And meanwhile, like I've already paid, I'm already a customer like I already, right. Versus the person who was comparing you to all the other airlines I'm here. Like you've got me Speaker 3 (21m 11s): Decision to be paid your mind. You're my choice already. I don't need to go and compare you against other airlines. I don't need to do an evaluation. I don't need to compare and contrast 60% of the process for me to choose a brand is done. So you've literally been handed a gift. It's like someone who comes recommended to your brand is such a gift, you know, grab that. It's really atrocious to let that fall through the cracks and not have the mechanisms in place to engage those customers and see them through to a really good conclusion. Speaker 2 (21m 47s): You know, it reminds me of some of the legendary businesses. That's, you know, some are world famous, some are known locally. And what have you, who don't do any marketing? Not that there's anything wrong with marketing, who says their entire business is word of mouth. And when you go study each and every one of them, and probably one that comes to mind at scale is Zappo is, I don't know if you, Speaker 3 (22m 10s): Yeah. I lived in Vegas. I know. Is that post? Speaker 2 (22m 13s): Yeah. So at least when the late Tony Shay was w was there, it was kind of this oddity of a place that focuses, you know, all about keeping the existing customers they had into this rabid fans and the economics would just bore that out. Right? Like they did sort of these radical things. So if you think about business after business, if you put it on a spreadsheet, right. For the quants out there to say, what's the economics of keeping customers and treating them, building it versus going in and doing more paid search and clicks and all of that, it's sort of a no brainer. I guess I'll leave you with a very difficult question, which is what is it about this, right? That most companies just decide not to do? Is it because there's so much free money? Is it because it's like doing the dishes and it's not as sexy? What is the thing that drives people, right. To the, the loving arms of Google and Facebook or whatever, and spend all their money's there and drain profitability versus doing the best, which it's, it's, it's the economics of better. The everything is better, but we keep going there. Is it like, I just like the taste of donuts and I'm going to just eat it regardless of what happens, no matter what I read. Speaker 3 (23m 39s): Yeah. You know, it's a great question. And for, you know, for the listeners, it actually brings us back to where we started the conversation and the very first part, right. At the inception point. And I think the reason why the status quo perpetuates is that in most businesses you have three really different teams who are driven by really different KPIs, right? So sales is transactional. Make the quarterly, you know, you make your monthly goals, you make your quarterly goals, you get a bonus that is literally your fixation. And the only thing you care about marketing, you're looking at numbers and the numbers that we follow, all the vanity numbers, how many site visitors did we get? We're not looking at what's the proportion of buyers. We're looking at how many impressions, how many site visitors, because those numbers are big. And they're great when we present them to the board. So we hooked on vanity metrics and that's how we get evaluated our KPIs. And then you look at engineering teams and product design teams, engineering teams get evaluated on how fast they cut code. You know, they have it last year and they look at the velocity graphs and they're like, we're doing well because we're cutting code fast. And then designers, for the most part, don't have metrics for evaluation. Right? Design is just the number of times I've been brought into a business, which is engineering led and being asked to add design we're shipping next week. Could you add design? It's like, no, we need to build it into the cake, right? From the beginning, we can't ice it on the top. So the reason why I think some of this is hard is that we have teams who are working together on the same, you know, on the same brand, on the same business, but the KPIs by which they are evaluated often conflict with each other. And so until there's alignment and until there's a common framework and a way to measure success across the board, using the same measurements, it's really, really challenging for our business. And so it's not that we don't know the stuff. It's just that whenever there is a complexity in life and you come back to first principles and then you follow the money flows, the answers are usually there. Speaker 2 (25m 49s): Yeah. You're, you're, you're a spot and I'll add a fourth team to this. Then you've got the support guys also care about, like, in that sort of way, I came up, right? I'll take care of this customer. And, and your, your corrected usually takes a powerful leader or founder, which it, which is probably explains why some of the best examples we have doing it right, are tends to be led by these, right? Despite someone at the top was visionary. Well, the, the thing that gives me hope is the work you're doing now. This is in theoretical. There's a video listening. She is done this with, you know, in, in, in the triple digits of companies and brands and various industries where the conversation is, how can we kind of shift mindset and then, but it's a work and she is showing great results there. So we're going to post your info. I think you said, LinkedIn is your preferred way to, to engage, but please feel free to shoot us, shoot us a message. Contact us. What was that website again? Where folks can get the magic pills that would make all of their conversion and all their things, right? What was that website? Speaker 3 (27m 12s): Good@rant.com. And from there, you'll be able to either read the book which describes the process. And you can apply that in your own business. No secrets. It's patented. It's out there for anyone who wants to take the time to read. There's also a series of courses. If you just want snippets of three and four minute videos, or there's a button, you know, for the folks that don't want to read the books and up and do the rest. So Yeah. Are a double M P breath like ramping up. Speaker 2 (27m 47s): Yeah. Speaker 3 (27m 48s): I'm not suffering question for you. What is your favorite meal to cook? I think that's the questions you've asked me. So I know you're a bit of a chef. What is the go to for Speaker 2 (28m 2s): Yes. If I am, if I am put on the spot and say, gosh, this is make, make something. I make a slightly spicy spaghetti and meatballs. The CRA Fresh tomatoes are a must. So there's a labor of love. You've got to get the blender. There's no, I don't have any. She has a magic button. There's not for you here. You got to take the tomatoes. You've got to blend them. If you want to cheat, I would blend more than I need and freeze some of my fresh tomatoes so I can cheat next time. But yeah, a spaghetti and meatballs, it's, it's a labor of love, but it takes a few hours, but that is, I cook all kinds of things, Asian cuisine. I used to Southeast Asia for some time. So I that too, but spaghetti and meatballs that's Speaker 3 (28m 60s): Wow. Well, I'm starving right this time. Speaker 2 (29m 4s): Well, this has been terrific. I cannot thank you enough. I cannot, I cannot wait for the audience to, to learn from your insights. It's it's, it's, it's an honor to have you on because you are given me something new for that I have not encountered before. So thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. Speaker 3 (29m 25s): Thanks amass really appreciated and look forward to any questions or, you know, follow up comments that your audience has set up through. Speaker 2 (29m 35s): Sounds good. Thank you for listening, please subscribe and follow me online at a mosque. Tenumah look forward to chatting with you next time. Connect with Anna - https://rammp.thinkific.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaharrison/

-The status quo is to convert less than 5% of guests - Most of the current approach is built on faulty language -How can you build customer intimacy in a few clicks Connect with Anna - https://rammp.thinkific.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaharrison/ 

Government and citizen services Calling the Taliban government Has anyone knocked at your door yet? Why do you think the Taliban government can respond to citizens so much quicker than an American government agency? Quote: ‘The recent pandemic put a finer point on this century-long problem - when they were forced to shut down physical offices, the deficiencies in the system were further exposed.' Are there any positive ways the pandemic can shape government services? Quote: ‘Most states are leaning into being digital-first - they're putting greater emphasis on the websites and mobile apps' Previously, and in the book, you recommended reaching out to your local representative, how would that be helpful when your issue is about government services? Post office Started hilariously Quote: “The post office seems to be trying to be good at customer service, but they're still failing. I know they're trying to be good because they have a massive banner in their offices that says they care about the customer experience. Yet, they proceed to make you wait for hours and deal with rude employees What is caring then? How are they bad Why are they bad Are they sour that they aren't so necessary anymore? Are they stuck between a rock and a hard place? . #waitingforservice #customerexperience #customerservice #amastenumah

Quote “I used to say I was stuck in an abusive relationship with American Airlines.”  My first experience with an American Airline - is this the norm? Airlines are notoriously hated Was it the same customer experience regardless of which country the airline is from? How many different airlines have you used while jet setting? waitingforservice #customerexperience #customerservice #amastenumah

Shauna and Amas continue the conversation and laughs while discussing Waiting for Service.  Is the start up cost of setting up good customer service always the sticking point? ROI of customer service American vs British customer service

“Your customer service experience isn't bad by accident. Most of it was intentionally built to be mediocre.” Shauna and Amas discuss his new book Waiting for Service. Enjoy the insights delivered with humor and get your signed copy at: https://www.betterexperiencegroup.com/product/waiting-for-service/ #waitingforservice #customerservice #customerexperience #amastenumah 

Amas has a great conversation with world renown author and keynote speaker Steven Van Bellghem. You will enjoy hearing about: The evolution of customer experience The new customer expectation What is the next great development in regards to customer experience And much more. Learn more about... Amas: https://www.amastenumah.com/ Steven: https://www.stevenvanbelleghem.com/

The conversation continues with those crazy people guys, Brian and Ted from 5th Talent.  In part two they discuss: The methodology to getting the human to human challenge right It's not the ping pong table, pizza party or even higher wages so what is it? What makes a person want to flip burgers for less money rather than work in the contact center And much more Learn more about Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briankearney-meaningfulwork/ Learn more about Ted:                   https://www.linkedin.com/in/tnardin/  

Amas visits with Brian Kearney and Ted Nardin, founders of 5th Talent for two great discussions. In this first one, they discuss the following: The disconnect between what companies say and how they actually treat their people  They discuss whether or not the contact center job a worthwhile job How does getting the human to human piece right actually benefit you? And much more Learn more about Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briankearney-meaningfulwork/ Learn more about Ted:                   https://www.linkedin.com/in/tnardin/  

This week Amas and Bob take a look forward to the opportunities of 2021: Contact centers may end as we know them Companies may start to focus on service in a new way What will 2021 mean for AI? Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss  

Amas and Bob take a look back at 2020 and discuss: The Bromance is real The biggest positives for the industry last year Cloud telephony  Being more thoughtful about the DNA of your company  and much more.  Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss

Amas and Bob are back together to discuss the most difficult job in any company and why: They illustrate what life in a call center looks like One uncomfortable challenge for male supervisors How socioeconomic factors impact call centers  A direct message for call center executives And much more! Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss

Tune in to hear a great conversation with Amas and Luke Anderson as they discuss the following: What exactly is "Customer Experience"? Is the chief customer officer a real role? What are companies actually doing to improve 'Customer Experience'? Can technology really help the experience of the customer? How can technology help service employees? And much more.   Learn more about Luke Anderson Learn more about Amas Tenumah  

Amas and Bob have engaging conversation about communities.  Here are a few topics you will hear about: Should communities be a tool in your self service toolbox? Hear how a few companies have made communities work for them How do I migrate people into your community from the social network built communities? If you want to know how to get the most out of the community tool, listen to this podcast.  Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss    

The discussion on chatbots continues this week.  After a quick recap, you will learn more about: The difference between a chatbot and an expanded knowledgebase What makes a good chatbot? Is your chatbot authenticated? Just like a human, a chatbot has its limits, plan handoffs And so much more. Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss  

In this episode Amas and Bob discuss the following: Are chatbots delivering what they promised? Chatbots don't work well without one thing and Bob tells you exactly what that is. You will hear key tips to designing more effective chatbots. Just like pets and kids, chatbots need care and feeding. Should you be transparent about using a chatbot or more subtle? And much more... Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss  

Amas and Chris have an insightful conversation about: Who really designs brand promise? What causes the gap between what is expected and what is delivered? How do you measure the gap? The real work to fulfill brand promise is internal. And Much More  Learn more about Amas  Learn more about Chris 

Amas and Bob continue the discussion about social media channels and take a deeper look at operationalizing social media care.  They discuss: Whether or not you should have to be on every social media channel your customers are on? TikTok for Service? Your organization voice on social media How important is a channel transition plan? Measuring success on social media And much more... Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss

Amas and Bob enjoy answering a question from an Omaha listener: Do you have to be everywhere you customers are? Which channels would work best for you? One of the most popular social media channels doesn't have service options yet, do you know which one? They will discuss the trend of over investing in social media at the cost of other channels  They also share the best way to stop issues from going viral  And much more... Learn more about Amas Tenumah Learn more about Bob Furniss

What is the function of CX Consulting in 2020? How the loss of strategy planning impacts implementation? Why playing it safe no longer works? Where do you start when it is apparent you have a problem? Eagle Creek: https://eaglecrk.com/ Ray Goff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ray-goff-457067154/  

How did the idea of shipping cookies start for Nom? How can you use gifts to break through the noise in our digital world? How can you use gifting in a service recovery environment? She shares her goldfish moment - it is a delightful Christmas story. Chelsea is cofounder of Nom - https://www.getnoms.com/assortments https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-martin-88005512/ 

The Curated Experience Podcast hosts Joseph Maxwell of Parlance, for episode #79 Why is the phone automated system and IVRs so universally hated Why speech recognition alone doesn't get the job done Building a phone system that works for elderly patients 35% of callers gets transferred, they don’t like it, and it can be prevented You can improve the employee experience by letting callers speak naturally to connect, when they call into your organization on the phone Easy to use self-service and automated call routing frees up employees to help callers who need complex support or empathy Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Linkedin or visit the Parlance website https://www.parlancecorp.com 

The power of very simple changes to your language to the customer experience How do you use words to remove customer friction in service  In service recovery - How to Say Sorry less, apologize more What are the steps in actually getting forgiveness when your brands screw up How do you use words to reduce turnover Where do you start? Contact Krister - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristeru/ on Twitter: @meetkrister

How many metric should you have? Should it be uniform across roles Not every metrics belongs on a scorecard Should you vary the weighting by role? What are the five metrics? CSAT First Contact resolution Tune in to hear the other 3 Follow Bob on linkedin and twitter

The CFO and the C suite are humans with their own needs Your communication must be tailored to what they care about Focus on their metrics, and their outcomes Stop assuming everyone cares about happy customers as an end to itself. You need political Capital Start by executing on small changes in your purview Bank the capital from small wins Spend the capital on big projects Reach Bob on twitter

Bob & I discuss why training for front line leaders are so important What you can do to educate yourself continually as a supervisor? This course is for current and future contact center leaders What is included in my Contact center Management course Who should take it and some high praise  The contact center management course is available for purchase at https://www.betterexperiencegroup.com/ccm/  Follow Bob on linkedin and twitter

  Everyone claims they want to provide a great customer experience and then their actions don't match their words We have a bias in our CX Strategy that get sin the way of seeing the entire customer Journey from the customer POV We hire people then brainwash them into thinking they now work for the greatest company on earth with the greatest products and services. We do not train them to be curious about customers in a way that will uncover value This is why he created Value Selling 2 things you can start doing immediately Ask Why And listen well enough to use your customers language. Connect with Chad Sanderson on linkedin and on twitter

Don't be afraid to make a mistake Build a "river of information" Get a tribe - make connections  Join associations like CCNG 13:23 What learning looks like in a remote world Learn from mentors and being a mentor   Reach us at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobfurniss/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/amastenumah/  

Is the stereotype of contact center true? Did you watch the show about the call center called Outsourced The characteristics of a bad contact center environment in one word is surveillance If you do not trust your employees you are doing it wrong Contact centers create too many rules for the exceptions not the rule. Are your rules for the employees or for you Tips for making changes in the contact center for the better without spending a penny Getting to the bottom of the employee sentiment.   Reach out to Bob @bobfurniss on twitter Reach out to Amas @amastenumah on twitter

Gary York is a serial entrepreneur and technologist and CEO of helplightning Teleportation is coming but in the mean time we have Augmented reality specifically virtual presence. Differentiation Virtual Reality from Augmented Reality How does Augmented reality help on the front end (sales) of the experience -proposals for B2B in Pre-Sales  Field Service may be the biggest opportunity for Virtual Reality in CX The potential reduction and elimination of truck roll is a game changer It is one of those solutions that can reduce costs and improve the customer experience Covid is accelerating this trend. More information about Help Lightning and Gary York   @garyyorktech on twitter

Show Notes Bob once wrote 5 years ago "Omnichannel or Die" we ask Bob if that article aged well The compounding effect of doing better on digital channels The rumors of the voice channel demise was greatly exaggerated  What are the new goals of Omni Bob's Sales/Marketing envy rears its ugly head agan Situational Video vs Video everywhere

Employees, customers or Shareholders if you had to start with one Is your "Why" Strong enough but more importantly "who" will you become. What separates the "haves" vs "have nots" How do you turn turnover into an opportunity Why leadership is the number one investment every organization should make.

Haves or Have nots The most customer centric Company on earth story Why posters on the wall and a new value statement telling the world you care about the customer is worthless How do you get the CFO on board for your cx efforts Commercial Chief customer officer StakeHolder Hierarchy - who comes first -  customer, employee or stakeholder. His answer will surprise you Your company needs a North Star for CX that is meaningful and attainable. Jason is on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonsbradshaw/ 

Books to read - Never eat alone, Good to Great, who move my cheese, freakonomics Contact center churn - Why did you stick around so long Diversity in contact center Most embarrassing day of your professional career

In the age of Ai, and tech and more tech we still need humans and more than ever before. _ Chatbots, chatbots chatbots -reducing cognitive load on the rep by getting every single agent an AI assistant  -Trends post Covid-19 Embrace WFA - Work from Anywhere Beware of data/asset protection Think about its impact on channels Full view of the customer experience. GQ is cofounder of LTV plus - https://www.ltvplus.com/author/gq/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gqfu 

3 Tips if you have never managed a WFH team Distraction Management Engagement  Reporting Digital for short communications Zoom/Webex isn't feedback Use the YMCA method of coaching Bob's dress code on Video conferencing

- People first - Be honest -Say when you don't know -Take stock in things that are working now or not working to incorporate into your playbook -Be a decent Human Being 

What role do surveys play in getting the voice of the customer? Why do less and less people respond? How do you build a world class VOC program? Where do you start? our show was listed a top show on https://blog.feedspot.com/customer_experience_podcasts/ Reach Bob across all channels @Bobfurniss

All the talk about AI eliminating jobs of folks in trucking and contact center agents Is this true? We are not there yet. AI will democratize decision making  Reducing the needs for front line manager It will improve the customer experience

Bob Furniss and I prognosticate on what the future of the contact center would look like. Starting with its mission What skills the people will need Goals and Metrics Reward and Incentive

Predictions are a risky game, so naturally I invited Bob to play. It is clear we are in for a wild ride. #customerservice #customerexperience

Live show with an in studio audience with my partner in crime Bob Furniss. What CX means Role of AI  Do we still need humans? How do you get buy in from senior leaders Much much more.

Leadership lessons and career Mistakes How do you continue to grow in your career Bad bosses What makes a good boss  Servant leadership in practice

Effort vs Delight Is effort sexy? Is empathy a skill or an Emotion What happens when you have to show empathy 27 times in a row What happens when the company sucks but the agents are good. Favorite customer survey question @bobfurniss

Tell stories to be effective 6:00 Why it is a tough gig 7:29 Agents picks their own supervisors 9:00 Recognize good agents 9:37 What do you read 11:00 Are you a traffic cop or a leader 13:32 Tips for gaming the stats system 19:28 The YMCA coaching method Attached is a must read list

Show Notes:   I start the show talking about my biggest career regret Bob shares his opportunity to be one of the first Fedex employees Interviewing for a job is like dating - everyone lies on the first date. Find a way to find out who your future boss is, pick the wrong one and you are screwed. At any stage in your career you are, find a wave and ride it. Bob found Salesforce a decade ago before it became big in the service world. I ask Bob about how he got comfortable bringing his whole self to work Without warning I asked Bob about his daughter - Keesha, who passed away after a grueling battle with Cancer. It was emotional and powerful testimony on how his Why fuels him every day. Bob talked about intimacy with your employees Learn more about Keesha's story at http://www.warriorprincess.org Follow Bob @Bobfurniss

Bob Furniss is a 40 Year veteran of the space Customer Service Agent and Supervisor are the toughest jobs in the space Human emotion has a formula that is changing in real time As you improve Self Service the CS job gets harder  Level 1 customer Service is going out of business Best Practices/Benchmarking should be you comparing customer's latest expectations with your level of service Focus on getting a little better every day Employees over Customers

- Odds are against you - Why are the odds against you? - What can you do?

-Explore gen 1, gen 2 and gen 3 service employees -What skills do you need now

- Leading people is hard - It is for the select few  - You do not and should not promote your best people