October 3, 2023 • 29 mins
This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes. We’ve all heard it, but what does it really mean?
A happy, engaged and empowered agent leads to a happy, engaged and empowered customer. In this episode, we meet with four-time Chief Marketing Officer in B2B and B2B2C SaaS, Michelle Randall. She currently serves as CMO at Playvox, a company that provides solutions that help empower folks to deliver better customer experiences via quality management and sentiment analysis. Michelle has displayed committed, long standing behavior to invest in other people, leading to a more positive customer experience.
Join us as we discuss:
More information about Michelle Randall and today’s topics:
A happy, engaged and empowered agent leads to a happy, engaged and empowered customer. In this episode, we meet with four-time Chief Marketing Officer in B2B and B2B2C SaaS, Michelle Randall. She currently serves as CMO at Playvox, a company that provides solutions that help empower folks to deliver better customer experiences via quality management and sentiment analysis. Michelle has displayed committed, long standing behavior to invest in other people, leading to a more positive customer experience.
Join us as we discuss:
- How effective communication, support, encouragement, and education can accelerate the journey to success
- Why it’s worthwhile to shift the focus from increasing share of wallet to providing customers with the resources and tools they need
- When to offer self-service options over personalized assistance
- How to implement quality evaluations and sentiment analysis to enhance customer interactions and satisfaction
- Why CMOs should embrace their role as storytellers
More information about Michelle Randall and today’s topics:
- LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleburrows/
- Company Website: https://www.playvox.com/
- Other Relevant Links: REI
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
The single most important thing you cando today is to create and deliver a
better experience for your customers. Learnhow sales, marketing and customer success experts
create internal alignment, achieved desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal
and human way. This is theCustomer Experience Podcast. Here's your host,
(00:24):
Ethan Butte. A happier contact centermeans happier customers. So one of the
keys to improving customer experience is improvingagent experience. That's what we'll be getting
into here with a four time chiefmarketing officer in B to B and B
to B two c sas today,she serves as CMO at play Vox,
(00:45):
and throughout her career she's been passionateabout building remarkable teams and delivering outstanding experiences.
Michelle Randall, Welcome to the CustomerExperience Podcast. Oh, thank you
so much, Ethan. It's adelight to be here. Really looking forward
to essentially a conversation in two mainparts, and we'll start it where we
always start here, Michelle, whichis customer experience. When I say that,
(01:07):
what does it mean to you?So it means when I call into
or interact with a brand, whatis the overall experience? How do I
feel about that particular brand? Soto me, it's a mix of customer
sentiment and also do I walk awayfrom any experience with a positive, negative,
(01:30):
or neutral attitude? Really good?That emotional resonance or sentiment is what
kind of guides our future thoughts andbehaviors. And I'm with you completely on
that. When did this language ofcustomer experience come out of your radar?
Oh, that's really that's an interestingquestion. So I've been talking about an
involved in customer experience for a reallylong time. And I'll give you an
(01:55):
example. Ethan years and years andyears ago, I was at a company
called Genesis conference saying and was oneof an I was an early adopter of
marketing automation. And what's interesting ismost people adopted marketing automation at the time
for net new prospects. However,we actually adopted it to increase usage for
(02:16):
existing customers. So we started talkingabout customer experience. And I want to
date myself, but it's been overtwenty years and it's it thrills me that
now it's become essential focus for somany companies and brands. Yeah, really,
good. So I what I heardin that is this idea of we
(02:38):
have a sense of what the journeyis, we have a sense of what
the path to success is, andso let us layer in some communication,
support, encouragement, education to movepeople there faster. Yes, exactly exactly.
I think you've absolutely nailed it.And sorry, sorry, sorry,
you can. It's not just mappingout the customer journey and making sure that
(03:01):
that's sort of ticked and tied.It's also like what resources can you give
to people, what tools, whattips. It goes beyond trying to increase
share of wallet, which I thinkcompanies often think of when they think of,
oh, we'll improve customer experience andincrease share of wallet. And while
that is one of the lovely outcomesof focusing on customer experience, it's just
(03:23):
the right thing to do to treatcustomer as well and give them what they
need to better use your solutions orour system. Yeah. So I hear
like between your long term understanding andexperimentation and what I assume was probably success
out of that over the years,blended with your personal passion for leadership and
(03:46):
mentoring, I'm particularly interested to heara quick go from you on the relationship
between employee experience and customer experience beforewe even get into playbox and agent experience
and all of that. Like,at a high level, how do you
think about those two dynamics inside ourorganizations? So, at a high level,
(04:06):
to me, it just makes sense. You know. So if you
think about if I'm happier in myrole in my job, then when I
talk to people about whatever problem they'rehaving with my company, no surprise,
I will be more optimistic, morehelpful, etc. If I'm also happy
(04:28):
in my role. So that justmakes sense to me. And I think
the way some companies tackle customer experiences, they think about, oh, let
me reduce the interactions to you know, the live interactions, let me provide
self help and more and more.Thankfully folks who are thinking, okay,
(04:48):
but what if we actually focused onthe people who are taking those interactions and
make sure that they are engaged andempowered to solve problems and have the right
education, and then by association,I will deliver a better customer experience.
Super I really want to pick upreally quickly and get your take on this
(05:12):
idea of because I think everybody doesit. I want to self serve.
I want to drive people, perhapseven force people into self service, minimize
contact with humans. It's obviously acost saving effort. It's probably more done
with our interests as the company inmind, versus what's best for the customer
(05:32):
in general. And I think it'sa big missed opportunity because so much of
that emotional resonance, so much ofhow I feel about a brand. You
know, am I going to befrustrated digging for a phone number that I'll
literally never find? Will I befrustrated by interacting what I hope is a
human being in this chat experience,but really it's just kind of a dumb
bot that sends me in a loop. You know, there's this frustrating thing,
(05:55):
or this human to human interaction wheresomeone can recognize where you're calling in
from, have a quick little kindof personal or oh I've been to Denver
a number of times, you know, these things to kind of add some
color and life and ultimately positive interactionswith the brand in a distinctly emotional human
to human interaction. I think it'sa missed opportunity, and it's difficult to
(06:17):
quantify that, but I think youmight have a unique perspective on that because
of the nature of the work thatyou've done throughout your career, like any
thoughts on the cost of the humanto human interaction versus the intangible benefits of
it. That's such a good questionand such a good area to dive into.
So so a couple of things.There are indeed a lot of customers
(06:41):
that want to self serve, Soif you force them to interact with a
contact center, they're not going tobe very happy. So if you take
most millennials, they want a selfserve. So what we see at Playbox
is folks reach out to make thatpersonal interraction, either through chat or email
or voice or whatever it is,when they can't solve it. So when
(07:02):
something is really complex, So whatwe have seen is simple interaction, simple
questions, what's my account balance,when was my last payments? Things like
that that can be all automated.There is no reason to put somebody in
the middle of what can be verywell self served. However, say I
have a complex question and I needto talk to someone. I'm taking over
(07:26):
my mortgage and I need to understandthe entire application process. Can you walk
me through Do I need this formor this form or whatever it is.
That's an opportunity to train your agentsin a much more effective way so that
they can answer those really I wouldsay, more dynamic, complicated queries,
(07:50):
and sometimes those might take multiple steps, like I might have to go to
billing or membership services, and thatcan't all be automated. As much as
we want to leverage AI, andwe use AI to automate a lot of
things at Playbox, you can't automateeverything. You can't automate what is a
(08:11):
one off. But what you cando is better engage and empower and educate
your agents so that they're ready forthose queries. I really appreciate the way
you took that on and I thinkyou're exactly right, and it reminds me
of conversations we've been having for along period of time about kind of some
of the no this is on thesales side, but like BDR SDR functions
(08:33):
are becoming more and more consultative.Depends a little bit on your ICP,
but you know, in general,the simpler transaction or the shorter transaction whatever
is all it doesn't demand. Thatis self service on the sales side,
and it's the same thing on thesupport side, and so our team members
let's just call them agents, supportpeople, service people, even to some
(08:56):
degree customer success managers. That alreadyhas a lot of this flavor that I'm
about to communicate, but those frontlineroles, to your point, the simpler
stuff goes to the machine, andthese people need to be leveled up,
They need to be supported, theyneed to be selected, higher trained,
coached differently for a more complex solutionand more consultative type of engagement. You
(09:22):
mentioned Playbox a couple of times there, so just to go straight at in
for context for listeners, tell usa little bit about Playbox, like who
are you serving and what are someof the problems that you're solving for them?
Oh so I could, I couldwax poetic about Playbox quite a lot
obviously, Marketing officer, So Playbox, you know, as it at a
(09:43):
high level, we provide solutions thathelp empower folks to deliberate better customer experiences.
And we do that through two primarysolutions. One is quality management,
and that is you know, empoweringand helping agents become better, you know,
through doing quality evaluations, giving empoweredcoaching, things like that. And
(10:05):
then we also have an AI infusedworkforce management solution that enables folks what used
to be a really complex job ofmany, many spreadsheets and trying to match
a forecast against somebody scheduling and thenfigure out like, how do I judge
adherence in real time? So wealso provide that. So it's quality management
(10:30):
plus workforce management, and that's workforceengagement management altogether. And in terms of
the types of companies that we serveand re least deserve, global brands and
many you know you would be familiarwith. However, you know a lot
of times we can't mention the exactcompany because legal teams and things like that,
(10:50):
but I can safely say we servesome of the largest brands in the
world and the problems we solve forthem is is many of the companies that
we're working with have been doing manualforecasting or they're using something that's a slight
step up from a spreadsheet, forexample, and they find out like,
(11:11):
oh, we need something that's muchmore complex that lets me forecasts for multiple
channels, so forecasts for email andchat pots and things like that, not
just to use a system that wascreated for voice or is just a simple
step up from an Excel spreadsheet.Really well done. And for folks who
are listening, this is a littlebit of tighter episode than normal. So
(11:33):
I'm not going to ask you toexplain it to us, Michelle, but
folks can go to playbox dot com. You can see some of the logos
and brands that they're serving. Youcan see some of the very specific business
impacts that they're delivering for those companiesand more. What I would love to
hear you go at a little bitdeeper, though, is that quality assurance
piece, Like just take us,all of us who have heard this call,
(11:54):
maybe recorded for quality assurance purposes,take us a little bit behind that
curve, like what is that about? What are we doing with and through
these recordings and other means of rawmaterials that we can turn into teachable,
coachable, trainable elements. Yeah,so what we saw at Playbox a number
(12:16):
of years ago is, you know, tier point, most calls are recorded,
and so there are a lot ofsolutions out there and systems out there
that do voice analytics, and butnobody was doing anything on the digital side.
And digital is growing at a phenomenalrate and is now sixty to seventy
(12:37):
percent of all interactions at some companieseven more. And so what we saw
is okay, voice fine, butnobody is doing quality on tech based interaction.
So that's really where we came in. So one of the things to
think about is there's a number ofways to measure quality. So are you
using a greeting So am I sayinghello, hello, Ethan, like lovely
(13:01):
to see you today? Okay,check I've done that? Or did I
close the interaction with hey, didyou have your problem fully resolved today?
Is there anything else I can helpyou with? So normally there is a
quality analysts that then takes those interactionsand says, hey, you know,
say you're an agent, Hey,Ethan, you did this really well,
(13:24):
but you didn't do this really well. And one of the things that we're
doing at Playbox is we're also offeringsentiment analysis. So that is, you
know, c, SAD and NPSare all really great metrics and scoring a
five out of five on a qualityscorecard, you know, thumbs up,
But what is the sentiment? Andthat goes back to what I said at
(13:45):
the beginning, How did I leavethat that interaction? Was it positive?
Was it negative? Was it neutral? And then I can measure. I
can take that, bubble it upand compare it against my quality scorecards to
say, okay, there's seems tobe a disconnect there. And what's nice
about sentiment is you can do thatacross one hundred percent of your interactions versus
(14:07):
most people only score two to fivepercent of most of their interactions. So
you can spend more time fixing problemsas opposed to identifying them. So good.
How what is the scope of youryou know, responsibility as CMO in
this environment? Do you get intoand I know now I'm bleeding into how
(14:33):
you all serve your customers, notjust how your customers serve their customers,
but what is the school like doyou do you have some of this responsibility
internally for experience in some of theyou know, to degree that sentiment plays
into what you're doing and maybe notbe at the same volume to say,
a very large call center for aglobal brand. But share a little bit
(14:56):
about the scope of what it meansto be a CMO for you. Oh
so I will say, you know, cmos in today's world, we are
responsible for everything. So no longer, you know, long gone are the
days of marketing? Comes in andsays oh I like this color or this
the you know, let's do thisfor the brand. It is really everything.
(15:20):
So it's branding, it's positioning,it's messaging, it's go to market
motion. It is sales enablement,which is really really important. So our
sales team and our customer success teampositioned for success with growing wallet, chair
with net new business. It iscreating that demand. It's doing things like
(15:41):
this, which I love, youknow, thought leadership kinds of things.
And it's also talking to our customersand working with our customers to tell their
stories. I'm not a big fanof asking a customer like, hey,
we wax poetic about Playbox while theycould, I would much rather hear,
and they're peer would rather hear whatbest practices did you put in place?
(16:03):
So, for example, we're doingwebinar with the company called five c A
and they do support for the videogaming industry, which is so interesting,
especially because I have a sixteen yearold son who is very much a gamer.
And what they've done is this wholedigital transformation journey. And we're doing
(16:23):
a webinar with the woman who oneof the women who has led that in
a month, so it's capturing thosestories and telling those stories to serve their
peers as opposed to sort of selfserving us as playbops do have you had?
I mean, I'm with you onehundred percent on that approach in generals,
(16:45):
like how can I use the platformand spotlight that we have to elevate
our customers and to train other customersand build a sense of community among them
in a way that we're facilitating itand it's not the self serving playvox playvox
playvox situation, but you're certainly goingto get some of the halo on that.
I feel like in a lot ofcontext, that still feels like a
(17:10):
contemporary or modern approach, even thoughyou and I and lots of people listening
are like, that's just how itshould be done period. I feel like
this is somehow still ahead of thegeneral curve. I think there's still a
lot of pressure, perhaps to makeit very directly about the brand, about
the brand name, etc. Likewhere are we in the adoption of this
(17:33):
mindset and the exercise of this asa normal practice that's so obviously healthy for
everybody involved. But I think there'sstill some resistance to it, and I
don't think it's coming from the CMOseat, No, I don't think it
is at all. I think cmostat our heart, we're storytellers, so
we uniquely understand the need to tellinteresting stories. And it isn't that interesting
(18:00):
if it is all focused on youuuuand not your customer. But to your
point, I do think that thereis a lot of pressure from other groups
in an organization or externally, sofolks are like, well, no,
tell me exactly what your benefit wasfrom using this particular solution, and you
(18:22):
have to balance that. You haveto constantly balance that. So I think
if you can do both, youcan tell really good stories but also make
sure that you're capturing the real benefits, whether it's you know, savings in
in productivity or better productivity, orsavings in your staff and agent. So
(18:45):
I think you can still capture that. But at the heart, you have
to tell a story. Agree.It's what adds an entertainment layer. And
I don't mean that as shallow asit sounds. I don't mean petty entertainments,
but like, is this something Iwant to follow along with and continue
with? Do I want to spendanother minute, another ten minutes, another
fifteen minutes with this thing? Andthe story structure. The narrative structure obviously
(19:08):
has some of this leading edge toit, where it's like, well,
I have to find out what happenstext, So up with you on that
completely. I know that you've hada deep personal passion and commitment to team
building, leadership and mentoring throughout yourcareer. I would love for you just
to share a few tips kind ofin two zones or maybe I'm thinking about
(19:32):
it the wrong way and you cantake this however you want, but like
maybe a few practical tips or lessonsor things you'd like to share with people
about perhaps coming in and taking overa new team and or building a new
team from scratch and then kind ofon the other side, mentoring, I
feel like tends to be a bitmore one to one, although I may
(19:52):
be thinking about that too simplistically.So I'd love for you to speak to,
you know, teams and individuals likewhat motivates you? How do you
think of and what are maybe acouple tips that other people have found helpful
as you teach them to do thesame. So a lot to unpack there,
knows of what motivates me? Imean, I grew up in a
very blue collar town north of Foston, and at the core, that's really
(20:15):
who I am. And it's funnybecause I was at a Fortune fifty company
and I used to get introduced islike, this is our VP, and
I'd be like, no, I'mMichelle and from Winthrope, you know whatever.
So when I join a new team, I spend a lot of time
listening. I don't go in andthink that I know best or I'm going
(20:37):
to quickly evaluate people. I reallywant to get to know at the core,
what makes that person tick and themakeup of the team, Like do
folks complement each other, what's thedynamic, who's good at what? I
often i'm you know, sometimes peopleare in the exact right role, and
sometimes you have the right you know, there's that concept of deo the right
(20:57):
people on the bus. Sometimes youhave the right people on the bus,
but you might need to switch upsome of the roles. Excuse me.
So I've gone in and had teamsthat are set up like as more a
project management team where everyone is responsible, so no one is responsible, and
I've divided it up and said,Okay, this person's demand gen, this
(21:19):
person is marketing ops, et cetera. So that's My approach when I very
first go into a team is reallyjust spend a good month sixty days just
getting to know people as people.And that's more important to me than the
skill set, quite honestly, becauseI can teach somebody how to build out
(21:40):
a really good nurture stream at youknow, sort of a base layer,
I can teach someone how to betterpull together content. I cannot teach passion.
I cannot teach the desire to wantto do a really good job for
the sake of doing a good job. And then in terms of my approach
and hiring, so say I'm inand I have done this as well,
(22:02):
where I'm a team of one ora team of two and hiring, I
think that you should spend all youshould always basically be recruiting, and you
should always be building your network becauseyou never know when you might have an
opportunity to either. I love connectingreally good people, so it's not I'm
(22:23):
always thinking about, Oh, Iknow somebody over here that could really use
that talent, because I believe inthis sort of karmic great life cycle of
talent will keep coming back around andeventually, like you might get an opportunity
to work directly with that person.So that's my approaches. I'm always kind
(22:44):
of recruiting and always evaluating like,Okay, well that was a good person
to know. And I feel very, very lucky to be in the role
that I'm in. So I alsofeel real personal passion responsibility, and especially
with women. So I've gotten towhere I've gotten and I feel like it
is my personal responsibility to reach behindand pull women to stand alongside me and
(23:08):
then go past me. And Ijoke all the time that some of the
women that I've mentored over the years, eventually they will hire me. And
you know, that might sound alittle it's a little self serving, but
I want everyone to pay it forward. So if I can reach behind me
and pull up a woman who thengoes on to do remarkable things, and
(23:30):
then she does the same, andthe next person does the same, like
that whole just keep paying it forward, I believe everything will. The workplace
is better with diversity of opinion,of just diversity in general. And it
is our responsibility to make sure thatthose who work with us and alongside us
(23:56):
have opportunities, you know, intheir career. That's our job as leader
is to make sure that they're havingfantastic experiences. I really appreciate that sentiment
so much, and in particular thatblend of I believe this is a responsibility
and it's karmic. I don't knowwhere the payoff is. I don't know
(24:21):
if there's a payoff in it forme. I just feel like the most
successful people I know are of themindset that you just expressed and have lived
obviously to share it in that waywhere it's not transactional in the least,
it's just this. At some level, it's this is just the right thing
to do, so I'm going todo it. And at another level it's
(24:42):
it's a little bit of a leapof faith. I'm going to invest my
time in a lot of different waysand in a lot of different people.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I feel like it's going to
be worth more than the time Iput into it. Yeah, Yeah,
I just I absolutely believe it isthe right thing to do very good and
I think I think we are organizationswould be more successful if we invested in
(25:07):
this way a bit more. I'msure you've been in and out of organizations
that have done that well and poorly. Yes, I think those of us
who become better leaders at one pointin time had a horrible leader that they
said, I will do everything oppositefrom that person. I mean, thankfully,
for me, I've worked for veryfew quote quote bad bosses. I've
(25:32):
had amazing, remarkable mentors in myown life and that has inspired me to
pay it forward. Awesome, We'regoing to hear probably about one of them
in just a moment for folks listening. I absolutely failed to follow up very
specifically around sentiment analysis. So ifyou want a conversation on the Customer Experience
(25:52):
podcast, where we spent about fortyfive minutes to an hour on sentiment analysis
in particular, go check out episodeone hundred ninety five with Lewis angel Lalan.
He's the VP of Customer Voice atAmerican Express. We called that one
customer Voice and sentiment analysis, solike straight in zone here, So we
went pretty deep on that topic andI failed to do so here, Michelle.
(26:15):
But I want to make sure youget to your next meeting on time,
and I hope that it's a mentoringmeeting. But before I let you
go, I'd love for you todo a few different things for us and
it is to think or mention someonewho's had a positive impact on your life
or career, and to give anor a shout out to accompany or brand
that delivers a great experience for youas a customer. And then certainly where
(26:37):
can people follow up connect with youlearn more about Playbox. Okay, So
a person who has had an influenceon me as a woman named Maryann McDonough,
who I have worked for twice andjust absolutely adore the brands that I
admire and love is RII. Ilove that you can. I'm a big
(27:00):
outdoors person. I'm mountain bike,I ski, I hike, I do
all of the things. And thenwhere you can find out more about Playbox
Go to playbox dot com and wehave a ton of resources. We have
webinars and ebooks and great blogs andeverything you could ever want to know about
the customer experience. Super with youon ARII. I've been a member for
(27:22):
a long time. I tend tobuy things on sale there almost exclusively,
so I don't get the dividend I'malways hoping for. Like I bought a
lot of stuff there and you getthe dividend, You're like, oh,
but I guess I bought a lotof it on sale, but I guess
she's the differences. Yeah, yeah, but it said enough, you know,
they said up with that twenty percentoff, So like together, I'm
definitely gonna pay a visit. Ialso appreciate it too, to the point
(27:45):
of the returns. Like so manybrands and companies, I'm seeing it more
and more often. I feel likePatagonia has done this well for a long
time. Among others, I'm seeingit with you know, Vivo Barefoot for
examples. Another brand that is doingthis is they're taking those returns, make
some minor repairs, and then puttingit back in kind of like a reduced
reuse, recycle, safe money kindof a way. And so there's a
(28:07):
section in several of the riis thatI visit on a somewhat regular basis,
or it's like I'm just I gotto check this section out, like it
might be a little too used tobut I love that they're keep it giving
it another life. Yes, yes, cool. Well, thank you so
much for your time today, Michelle. I wish you continued success. I
so appreciate your sentiment. It wasinspiring to me, and it's not a
(28:29):
sentiment I'm sorry. You're committed longstandingbehavior to invest in other people. I
do not want to minimize it.And it's a it's a good reminder,
and it's a good inspiration for meand for folks listening. So I really
appreciate this time today, Michelle,Thank you so much. Even who was
absolutely a delight, a marketing futuristfrom Salesforce, the first salesperson at HubSpot,
(28:52):
an emotional intelligence expert with seven USpatents in the analysis of facial coding
data. These are just three ofmore than a dozen and expert's featured in
the Wall Street Journal bestseller Human CenteredCommunication, a Business Case against Digital Pollution.
The purpose of the book to giveyou frameworks, strategies, and specific
(29:12):
tactics to create human connection across thedigital divide. Learn to break through the
noise, build trust, and enhanceyour reputation and revenue despite the ever increasing
digital noise and pollution that separates usall. Get your copy of Human Centered
Communication absolutely free at bombomb dot comslash freebook. That's bomb bomb dot com
(29:40):
slash free book.
The single most important thing you cando today is to create and deliver a
better experience for your customers. Learnhow sales, marketing and customer success experts
create internal alignment, achieved desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal
and human way. This is theCustomer Experience Podcast. Here's your host,
(00:24):
Ethan Butte. A happier contact centermeans happier customers. So one of the
keys to improving customer experience is improvingagent experience. That's what we'll be getting
into here with a four time chiefmarketing officer in B to B and B
to B two c sas today,she serves as CMO at play Vox,
(00:45):
and throughout her career she's been passionateabout building remarkable teams and delivering outstanding experiences.
Michelle Randall, Welcome to the CustomerExperience Podcast. Oh, thank you
so much, Ethan. It's adelight to be here. Really looking forward
to essentially a conversation in two mainparts, and we'll start it where we
always start here, Michelle, whichis customer experience. When I say that,
(01:07):
what does it mean to you?So it means when I call into
or interact with a brand, whatis the overall experience? How do I
feel about that particular brand? Soto me, it's a mix of customer
sentiment and also do I walk awayfrom any experience with a positive, negative,
(01:30):
or neutral attitude? Really good?That emotional resonance or sentiment is what
kind of guides our future thoughts andbehaviors. And I'm with you completely on
that. When did this language ofcustomer experience come out of your radar?
Oh, that's really that's an interestingquestion. So I've been talking about an
involved in customer experience for a reallylong time. And I'll give you an
(01:55):
example. Ethan years and years andyears ago, I was at a company
called Genesis conference saying and was oneof an I was an early adopter of
marketing automation. And what's interesting ismost people adopted marketing automation at the time
for net new prospects. However,we actually adopted it to increase usage for
(02:16):
existing customers. So we started talkingabout customer experience. And I want to
date myself, but it's been overtwenty years and it's it thrills me that
now it's become essential focus for somany companies and brands. Yeah, really,
good. So I what I heardin that is this idea of we
(02:38):
have a sense of what the journeyis, we have a sense of what
the path to success is, andso let us layer in some communication,
support, encouragement, education to movepeople there faster. Yes, exactly exactly.
I think you've absolutely nailed it.And sorry, sorry, sorry,
you can. It's not just mappingout the customer journey and making sure that
(03:01):
that's sort of ticked and tied.It's also like what resources can you give
to people, what tools, whattips. It goes beyond trying to increase
share of wallet, which I thinkcompanies often think of when they think of,
oh, we'll improve customer experience andincrease share of wallet. And while
that is one of the lovely outcomesof focusing on customer experience, it's just
(03:23):
the right thing to do to treatcustomer as well and give them what they
need to better use your solutions orour system. Yeah. So I hear
like between your long term understanding andexperimentation and what I assume was probably success
out of that over the years,blended with your personal passion for leadership and
(03:46):
mentoring, I'm particularly interested to heara quick go from you on the relationship
between employee experience and customer experience beforewe even get into playbox and agent experience
and all of that. Like,at a high level, how do you
think about those two dynamics inside ourorganizations? So, at a high level,
(04:06):
to me, it just makes sense. You know. So if you
think about if I'm happier in myrole in my job, then when I
talk to people about whatever problem they'rehaving with my company, no surprise,
I will be more optimistic, morehelpful, etc. If I'm also happy
(04:28):
in my role. So that justmakes sense to me. And I think
the way some companies tackle customer experiences, they think about, oh, let
me reduce the interactions to you know, the live interactions, let me provide
self help and more and more.Thankfully folks who are thinking, okay,
(04:48):
but what if we actually focused onthe people who are taking those interactions and
make sure that they are engaged andempowered to solve problems and have the right
education, and then by association,I will deliver a better customer experience.
Super I really want to pick upreally quickly and get your take on this
(05:12):
idea of because I think everybody doesit. I want to self serve.
I want to drive people, perhapseven force people into self service, minimize
contact with humans. It's obviously acost saving effort. It's probably more done
with our interests as the company inmind, versus what's best for the customer
(05:32):
in general. And I think it'sa big missed opportunity because so much of
that emotional resonance, so much ofhow I feel about a brand. You
know, am I going to befrustrated digging for a phone number that I'll
literally never find? Will I befrustrated by interacting what I hope is a
human being in this chat experience,but really it's just kind of a dumb
bot that sends me in a loop. You know, there's this frustrating thing,
(05:55):
or this human to human interaction wheresomeone can recognize where you're calling in
from, have a quick little kindof personal or oh I've been to Denver
a number of times, you know, these things to kind of add some
color and life and ultimately positive interactionswith the brand in a distinctly emotional human
to human interaction. I think it'sa missed opportunity, and it's difficult to
(06:17):
quantify that, but I think youmight have a unique perspective on that because
of the nature of the work thatyou've done throughout your career, like any
thoughts on the cost of the humanto human interaction versus the intangible benefits of
it. That's such a good questionand such a good area to dive into.
So so a couple of things.There are indeed a lot of customers
(06:41):
that want to self serve, Soif you force them to interact with a
contact center, they're not going tobe very happy. So if you take
most millennials, they want a selfserve. So what we see at Playbox
is folks reach out to make thatpersonal interraction, either through chat or email
or voice or whatever it is,when they can't solve it. So when
(07:02):
something is really complex, So whatwe have seen is simple interaction, simple
questions, what's my account balance,when was my last payments? Things like
that that can be all automated.There is no reason to put somebody in
the middle of what can be verywell self served. However, say I
have a complex question and I needto talk to someone. I'm taking over
(07:26):
my mortgage and I need to understandthe entire application process. Can you walk
me through Do I need this formor this form or whatever it is.
That's an opportunity to train your agentsin a much more effective way so that
they can answer those really I wouldsay, more dynamic, complicated queries,
(07:50):
and sometimes those might take multiple steps, like I might have to go to
billing or membership services, and thatcan't all be automated. As much as
we want to leverage AI, andwe use AI to automate a lot of
things at Playbox, you can't automateeverything. You can't automate what is a
(08:11):
one off. But what you cando is better engage and empower and educate
your agents so that they're ready forthose queries. I really appreciate the way
you took that on and I thinkyou're exactly right, and it reminds me
of conversations we've been having for along period of time about kind of some
of the no this is on thesales side, but like BDR SDR functions
(08:33):
are becoming more and more consultative.Depends a little bit on your ICP,
but you know, in general,the simpler transaction or the shorter transaction whatever
is all it doesn't demand. Thatis self service on the sales side,
and it's the same thing on thesupport side, and so our team members
let's just call them agents, supportpeople, service people, even to some
(08:56):
degree customer success managers. That alreadyhas a lot of this flavor that I'm
about to communicate, but those frontlineroles, to your point, the simpler
stuff goes to the machine, andthese people need to be leveled up,
They need to be supported, theyneed to be selected, higher trained,
coached differently for a more complex solutionand more consultative type of engagement. You
(09:22):
mentioned Playbox a couple of times there, so just to go straight at in
for context for listeners, tell usa little bit about Playbox, like who
are you serving and what are someof the problems that you're solving for them?
Oh so I could, I couldwax poetic about Playbox quite a lot
obviously, Marketing officer, So Playbox, you know, as it at a
(09:43):
high level, we provide solutions thathelp empower folks to deliberate better customer experiences.
And we do that through two primarysolutions. One is quality management,
and that is you know, empoweringand helping agents become better, you know,
through doing quality evaluations, giving empoweredcoaching, things like that. And
(10:05):
then we also have an AI infusedworkforce management solution that enables folks what used
to be a really complex job ofmany, many spreadsheets and trying to match
a forecast against somebody scheduling and thenfigure out like, how do I judge
adherence in real time? So wealso provide that. So it's quality management
(10:30):
plus workforce management, and that's workforceengagement management altogether. And in terms of
the types of companies that we serveand re least deserve, global brands and
many you know you would be familiarwith. However, you know a lot
of times we can't mention the exactcompany because legal teams and things like that,
(10:50):
but I can safely say we servesome of the largest brands in the
world and the problems we solve forthem is is many of the companies that
we're working with have been doing manualforecasting or they're using something that's a slight
step up from a spreadsheet, forexample, and they find out like,
(11:11):
oh, we need something that's muchmore complex that lets me forecasts for multiple
channels, so forecasts for email andchat pots and things like that, not
just to use a system that wascreated for voice or is just a simple
step up from an Excel spreadsheet.Really well done. And for folks who
are listening, this is a littlebit of tighter episode than normal. So
(11:33):
I'm not going to ask you toexplain it to us, Michelle, but
folks can go to playbox dot com. You can see some of the logos
and brands that they're serving. Youcan see some of the very specific business
impacts that they're delivering for those companiesand more. What I would love to
hear you go at a little bitdeeper, though, is that quality assurance
piece, Like just take us,all of us who have heard this call,
(11:54):
maybe recorded for quality assurance purposes,take us a little bit behind that
curve, like what is that about? What are we doing with and through
these recordings and other means of rawmaterials that we can turn into teachable,
coachable, trainable elements. Yeah,so what we saw at Playbox a number
(12:16):
of years ago is, you know, tier point, most calls are recorded,
and so there are a lot ofsolutions out there and systems out there
that do voice analytics, and butnobody was doing anything on the digital side.
And digital is growing at a phenomenalrate and is now sixty to seventy
(12:37):
percent of all interactions at some companieseven more. And so what we saw
is okay, voice fine, butnobody is doing quality on tech based interaction.
So that's really where we came in. So one of the things to
think about is there's a number ofways to measure quality. So are you
using a greeting So am I sayinghello, hello, Ethan, like lovely
(13:01):
to see you today? Okay,check I've done that? Or did I
close the interaction with hey, didyou have your problem fully resolved today?
Is there anything else I can helpyou with? So normally there is a
quality analysts that then takes those interactionsand says, hey, you know,
say you're an agent, Hey,Ethan, you did this really well,
(13:24):
but you didn't do this really well. And one of the things that we're
doing at Playbox is we're also offeringsentiment analysis. So that is, you
know, c, SAD and NPSare all really great metrics and scoring a
five out of five on a qualityscorecard, you know, thumbs up,
But what is the sentiment? Andthat goes back to what I said at
(13:45):
the beginning, How did I leavethat that interaction? Was it positive?
Was it negative? Was it neutral? And then I can measure. I
can take that, bubble it upand compare it against my quality scorecards to
say, okay, there's seems tobe a disconnect there. And what's nice
about sentiment is you can do thatacross one hundred percent of your interactions versus
(14:07):
most people only score two to fivepercent of most of their interactions. So
you can spend more time fixing problemsas opposed to identifying them. So good.
How what is the scope of youryou know, responsibility as CMO in
this environment? Do you get intoand I know now I'm bleeding into how
(14:33):
you all serve your customers, notjust how your customers serve their customers,
but what is the school like doyou do you have some of this responsibility
internally for experience in some of theyou know, to degree that sentiment plays
into what you're doing and maybe notbe at the same volume to say,
a very large call center for aglobal brand. But share a little bit
(14:56):
about the scope of what it meansto be a CMO for you. Oh
so I will say, you know, cmos in today's world, we are
responsible for everything. So no longer, you know, long gone are the
days of marketing? Comes in andsays oh I like this color or this
the you know, let's do thisfor the brand. It is really everything.
(15:20):
So it's branding, it's positioning,it's messaging, it's go to market
motion. It is sales enablement,which is really really important. So our
sales team and our customer success teampositioned for success with growing wallet, chair
with net new business. It iscreating that demand. It's doing things like
(15:41):
this, which I love, youknow, thought leadership kinds of things.
And it's also talking to our customersand working with our customers to tell their
stories. I'm not a big fanof asking a customer like, hey,
we wax poetic about Playbox while theycould, I would much rather hear,
and they're peer would rather hear whatbest practices did you put in place?
(16:03):
So, for example, we're doingwebinar with the company called five c A
and they do support for the videogaming industry, which is so interesting,
especially because I have a sixteen yearold son who is very much a gamer.
And what they've done is this wholedigital transformation journey. And we're doing
(16:23):
a webinar with the woman who oneof the women who has led that in
a month, so it's capturing thosestories and telling those stories to serve their
peers as opposed to sort of selfserving us as playbops do have you had?
I mean, I'm with you onehundred percent on that approach in generals,
(16:45):
like how can I use the platformand spotlight that we have to elevate
our customers and to train other customersand build a sense of community among them
in a way that we're facilitating itand it's not the self serving playvox playvox
playvox situation, but you're certainly goingto get some of the halo on that.
I feel like in a lot ofcontext, that still feels like a
(17:10):
contemporary or modern approach, even thoughyou and I and lots of people listening
are like, that's just how itshould be done period. I feel like
this is somehow still ahead of thegeneral curve. I think there's still a
lot of pressure, perhaps to makeit very directly about the brand, about
the brand name, etc. Likewhere are we in the adoption of this
(17:33):
mindset and the exercise of this asa normal practice that's so obviously healthy for
everybody involved. But I think there'sstill some resistance to it, and I
don't think it's coming from the CMOseat, No, I don't think it
is at all. I think cmostat our heart, we're storytellers, so
we uniquely understand the need to tellinteresting stories. And it isn't that interesting
(18:00):
if it is all focused on youuuuand not your customer. But to your
point, I do think that thereis a lot of pressure from other groups
in an organization or externally, sofolks are like, well, no,
tell me exactly what your benefit wasfrom using this particular solution, and you
(18:22):
have to balance that. You haveto constantly balance that. So I think
if you can do both, youcan tell really good stories but also make
sure that you're capturing the real benefits, whether it's you know, savings in
in productivity or better productivity, orsavings in your staff and agent. So
(18:45):
I think you can still capture that. But at the heart, you have
to tell a story. Agree.It's what adds an entertainment layer. And
I don't mean that as shallow asit sounds. I don't mean petty entertainments,
but like, is this something Iwant to follow along with and continue
with? Do I want to spendanother minute, another ten minutes, another
fifteen minutes with this thing? Andthe story structure. The narrative structure obviously
(19:08):
has some of this leading edge toit, where it's like, well,
I have to find out what happenstext, So up with you on that
completely. I know that you've hada deep personal passion and commitment to team
building, leadership and mentoring throughout yourcareer. I would love for you just
to share a few tips kind ofin two zones or maybe I'm thinking about
(19:32):
it the wrong way and you cantake this however you want, but like
maybe a few practical tips or lessonsor things you'd like to share with people
about perhaps coming in and taking overa new team and or building a new
team from scratch and then kind ofon the other side, mentoring, I
feel like tends to be a bitmore one to one, although I may
(19:52):
be thinking about that too simplistically.So I'd love for you to speak to,
you know, teams and individuals likewhat motivates you? How do you
think of and what are maybe acouple tips that other people have found helpful
as you teach them to do thesame. So a lot to unpack there,
knows of what motivates me? Imean, I grew up in a
very blue collar town north of Foston, and at the core, that's really
(20:15):
who I am. And it's funnybecause I was at a Fortune fifty company
and I used to get introduced islike, this is our VP, and
I'd be like, no, I'mMichelle and from Winthrope, you know whatever.
So when I join a new team, I spend a lot of time
listening. I don't go in andthink that I know best or I'm going
(20:37):
to quickly evaluate people. I reallywant to get to know at the core,
what makes that person tick and themakeup of the team, Like do
folks complement each other, what's thedynamic, who's good at what? I
often i'm you know, sometimes peopleare in the exact right role, and
sometimes you have the right you know, there's that concept of deo the right
(20:57):
people on the bus. Sometimes youhave the right people on the bus,
but you might need to switch upsome of the roles. Excuse me.
So I've gone in and had teamsthat are set up like as more a
project management team where everyone is responsible, so no one is responsible, and
I've divided it up and said,Okay, this person's demand gen, this
(21:19):
person is marketing ops, et cetera. So that's My approach when I very
first go into a team is reallyjust spend a good month sixty days just
getting to know people as people.And that's more important to me than the
skill set, quite honestly, becauseI can teach somebody how to build out
(21:40):
a really good nurture stream at youknow, sort of a base layer,
I can teach someone how to betterpull together content. I cannot teach passion.
I cannot teach the desire to wantto do a really good job for
the sake of doing a good job. And then in terms of my approach
and hiring, so say I'm inand I have done this as well,
(22:02):
where I'm a team of one ora team of two and hiring, I
think that you should spend all youshould always basically be recruiting, and you
should always be building your network becauseyou never know when you might have an
opportunity to either. I love connectingreally good people, so it's not I'm
(22:23):
always thinking about, Oh, Iknow somebody over here that could really use
that talent, because I believe inthis sort of karmic great life cycle of
talent will keep coming back around andeventually, like you might get an opportunity
to work directly with that person.So that's my approaches. I'm always kind
(22:44):
of recruiting and always evaluating like,Okay, well that was a good person
to know. And I feel very, very lucky to be in the role
that I'm in. So I alsofeel real personal passion responsibility, and especially
with women. So I've gotten towhere I've gotten and I feel like it
is my personal responsibility to reach behindand pull women to stand alongside me and
(23:08):
then go past me. And Ijoke all the time that some of the
women that I've mentored over the years, eventually they will hire me. And
you know, that might sound alittle it's a little self serving, but
I want everyone to pay it forward. So if I can reach behind me
and pull up a woman who thengoes on to do remarkable things, and
(23:30):
then she does the same, andthe next person does the same, like
that whole just keep paying it forward, I believe everything will. The workplace
is better with diversity of opinion,of just diversity in general. And it
is our responsibility to make sure thatthose who work with us and alongside us
(23:56):
have opportunities, you know, intheir career. That's our job as leader
is to make sure that they're havingfantastic experiences. I really appreciate that sentiment
so much, and in particular thatblend of I believe this is a responsibility
and it's karmic. I don't knowwhere the payoff is. I don't know
(24:21):
if there's a payoff in it forme. I just feel like the most
successful people I know are of themindset that you just expressed and have lived
obviously to share it in that waywhere it's not transactional in the least,
it's just this. At some level, it's this is just the right thing
to do, so I'm going todo it. And at another level it's
(24:42):
it's a little bit of a leapof faith. I'm going to invest my
time in a lot of different waysand in a lot of different people.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I feel like it's going to
be worth more than the time Iput into it. Yeah, Yeah,
I just I absolutely believe it isthe right thing to do very good and
I think I think we are organizationswould be more successful if we invested in
(25:07):
this way a bit more. I'msure you've been in and out of organizations
that have done that well and poorly. Yes, I think those of us
who become better leaders at one pointin time had a horrible leader that they
said, I will do everything oppositefrom that person. I mean, thankfully,
for me, I've worked for veryfew quote quote bad bosses. I've
(25:32):
had amazing, remarkable mentors in myown life and that has inspired me to
pay it forward. Awesome, We'regoing to hear probably about one of them
in just a moment for folks listening. I absolutely failed to follow up very
specifically around sentiment analysis. So ifyou want a conversation on the Customer Experience
(25:52):
podcast, where we spent about fortyfive minutes to an hour on sentiment analysis
in particular, go check out episodeone hundred ninety five with Lewis angel Lalan.
He's the VP of Customer Voice atAmerican Express. We called that one
customer Voice and sentiment analysis, solike straight in zone here, So we
went pretty deep on that topic andI failed to do so here, Michelle.
(26:15):
But I want to make sure youget to your next meeting on time,
and I hope that it's a mentoringmeeting. But before I let you
go, I'd love for you todo a few different things for us and
it is to think or mention someonewho's had a positive impact on your life
or career, and to give anor a shout out to accompany or brand
that delivers a great experience for youas a customer. And then certainly where
(26:37):
can people follow up connect with youlearn more about Playbox. Okay, So
a person who has had an influenceon me as a woman named Maryann McDonough,
who I have worked for twice andjust absolutely adore the brands that I
admire and love is RII. Ilove that you can. I'm a big
(27:00):
outdoors person. I'm mountain bike,I ski, I hike, I do
all of the things. And thenwhere you can find out more about Playbox
Go to playbox dot com and wehave a ton of resources. We have
webinars and ebooks and great blogs andeverything you could ever want to know about
the customer experience. Super with youon ARII. I've been a member for
(27:22):
a long time. I tend tobuy things on sale there almost exclusively,
so I don't get the dividend I'malways hoping for. Like I bought a
lot of stuff there and you getthe dividend, You're like, oh,
but I guess I bought a lotof it on sale, but I guess
she's the differences. Yeah, yeah, but it said enough, you know,
they said up with that twenty percentoff, So like together, I'm
definitely gonna pay a visit. Ialso appreciate it too, to the point
(27:45):
of the returns. Like so manybrands and companies, I'm seeing it more
and more often. I feel likePatagonia has done this well for a long
time. Among others, I'm seeingit with you know, Vivo Barefoot for
examples. Another brand that is doingthis is they're taking those returns, make
some minor repairs, and then puttingit back in kind of like a reduced
reuse, recycle, safe money kindof a way. And so there's a
(28:07):
section in several of the riis thatI visit on a somewhat regular basis,
or it's like I'm just I gotto check this section out, like it
might be a little too used tobut I love that they're keep it giving
it another life. Yes, yes, cool. Well, thank you so
much for your time today, Michelle. I wish you continued success. I
so appreciate your sentiment. It wasinspiring to me, and it's not a
(28:29):
sentiment I'm sorry. You're committed longstandingbehavior to invest in other people. I
do not want to minimize it.And it's a it's a good reminder,
and it's a good inspiration for meand for folks listening. So I really
appreciate this time today, Michelle,Thank you so much. Even who was
absolutely a delight, a marketing futuristfrom Salesforce, the first salesperson at HubSpot,
(28:52):
an emotional intelligence expert with seven USpatents in the analysis of facial coding
data. These are just three ofmore than a dozen and expert's featured in
the Wall Street Journal bestseller Human CenteredCommunication, a Business Case against Digital Pollution.
The purpose of the book to giveyou frameworks, strategies, and specific
(29:12):
tactics to create human connection across thedigital divide. Learn to break through the
noise, build trust, and enhanceyour reputation and revenue despite the ever increasing
digital noise and pollution that separates usall. Get your copy of Human Centered
Communication absolutely free at bombomb dot comslash freebook. That's bomb bomb dot com
(29:40):
slash free book.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.