October 24, 2023 • 45 mins
Solving for multiple stakeholders is the essence of human-centered design.
Our latest guest is Saira Taneja, a seasoned professional who has journeyed from the realms of corporate strategy to her current role as Chief Experience Officer at Cover Whale, a leading insurtech company specializing in the commercial auto industry.
Together we explore the evolving world of customer experience in high-growth environments, from human-centered design to the role of data and technology. We dive into the delicate balance between leveraging cutting-edge technology and maintaining a personal touch in customer interactions. Learn how Cover Whale addresses the needs of multiple stakeholders, and why Saira advocates for open-minded hiring and education.
Join as we discuss:
Our latest guest is Saira Taneja, a seasoned professional who has journeyed from the realms of corporate strategy to her current role as Chief Experience Officer at Cover Whale, a leading insurtech company specializing in the commercial auto industry.
Together we explore the evolving world of customer experience in high-growth environments, from human-centered design to the role of data and technology. We dive into the delicate balance between leveraging cutting-edge technology and maintaining a personal touch in customer interactions. Learn how Cover Whale addresses the needs of multiple stakeholders, and why Saira advocates for open-minded hiring and education.
Join as we discuss:
- Why Human-Centered Design is crucial in improving the customer journey
- How data impacts customer experience and business strategy
- How businesses can effectively address the needs of multiple stakeholders
- How a company can maintain consistent CX during scaling and growth
- Where tech and personal touch intersect in the commercial auto industry
- LinkedIn Profile: http://linkedin.com/in/sairataneja/
- Company Website: https://www.coverwhale.com/
- Other Relevant Link: Dan Abrahamsen and Kevin Abramson; IDEO
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, achieve 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. Designing, delivering andimproving experiences for multiple stakeholders, Figuring out
your ideal customer in a high growthenvironment, Evolving the customer experience as you
go up market. These are justa few things I can't wait to talk
about with today's guest. She builta career in corporate strategy. She spent
(00:45):
more than a decade with Blue CrossBlue Shield of Massachusetts. Today, she
serves as Chief Experience Officer at CoverWhale, an insured tech company serving the
commercial auto industry. Syrah Tanasa,Welcome to the Customer Experience Podcast. Thank
you, Ethan. I'm excited tobe here. Yeah, me too.
As I mentioned as we initially connected, I don't know that I've interviewed a
(01:07):
chief experience officer on the show,which is crazy considering this is going to
be episode two hundred and seventy sowe'll certainly get into the role and kind
of the expanding nature of the rolefrom the way that I understand it.
I look at your corporate structure andI think I know why the chief Experience
officer role is expanding. But beforewe get into that, I want to
start where we always do, whichis customer experience. When I say that
(01:30):
to you, Cyril, what doesthat mean? It means everything ethan.
What I like to say internally,a cover well is that for us,
it's the second that somebody becomes awareof our organization. So it's pre purchase,
it's purchase, it's post purchase ifthey decide to leave us for any
reason. So it is not just, you know, potentially the experience that
(01:51):
they have with our products or services. It is literally every single aspect of
the experience from becoming aware of coverWell the brand, to choosing to continue
on with us or disconnect with us. Really good. And of course that
includes analog, digital, direct,and synchronous, asynchronous, all the things,
(02:14):
all the things very good. Whendid this term come on to your
radar, Like, when did youstart using the language of experience in general
or customer experience in particular. Yeah, it started in my first year at
Lucressel's Shield of Massachusetts where we wereand so at this point that's been fourteen
fifteen years ago, where we werereally starting to explore what does customer experience
(02:37):
mean and how do we mobilize internallyaround it? And so was really involved
with the strategy team around developing initiativesthroughout the organization where we needed to redevelop
with patients at the time or membersat the center of those initiatives. And
really that's where I started growing mydiscipline in it. So, as you
(02:57):
mentioned, you know, with thediscipline and a strategy, strategic frameworks,
but really trying to grow my understandingof what was at the time a nebulous
concept into what's now become explosive growthin this part of our industry or the
experience industry in general too. Thereare real tools and techniques that can be
(03:22):
applied to improve experience for companies.Yeah, does my imagination here is that
your strategy work is similar to customerexperience or your experience work in this way.
I'd love for you to say yesor no and explain there's the ethos
kind of the cultural element, right, Like we think strategically you know,
(03:46):
innovation might be part of that experiencefrankly might be part of that. And
the same thing with CX and evenex is like there's a cultural component,
it's kind of part of who weare and because part of how we operate.
But then there's also the actual workin the organization and the structure that
we build. Speak to kind ofthose two sides of strategy or experience?
Did I observe that correctly? BecauseI have not done the work that you
(04:09):
have. Did I observe that correctly? And how do you kind of peel
those two aspects of each of thosethings apart? Well? Again, I
think over the last I would say, five to seven years, my observation
has been that we have a lotmore data to prove that a good experience
is good for the bottom line.So experience is tied to strategy inherently,
especially with what we do at coverWhale. We're trying to solve for as
(04:31):
you mentioned, we're in commercial autos, so we're trying to solve for multiple
stakeholders. We're trying to solve forour truck drivers agents that are actually distributing
the insurance to those truck drivers oncover Well's behalf, and so it is
absolutely connected that you have to lookat how you're solving for your various stakeholders,
(04:53):
and that's the experience, right,that's human centered design, and that
it ties to how we approach everythingstrategically at the organization, because what we're
finding is when there's an issue withthe experience, we may not get that
renewal. And so really I thinkboth and so I work very closely with
our chief strategy officer internally on everyinitiative. Very good, and you just
(05:15):
mentioned human centered design. I noticedthat you spent a summer as a fellow
with IDEO's collab and we're absolutely goingto talk about that before I let you
go. But I want to stayin this track for folks. Let's just
come straight at it so we canlevel set for everyone. For folks who
aren't familiar, tell us about coverwhale, like who's your ideal customer and
what are some of the problems thatyou're solving for them? Yeah, our
(05:38):
ideal customers are really So I liketo take a step back too, because
always say more commercial auto. I'vebeen asked, oh, so you provide
health insurance for the drivers, andit's like, no, similar to how
people have car insurance for their personalvehicles. We provide commercial auto insurance for
truck drivers or trucking companies. Andso we do this by, you know,
(06:01):
really trying to marry innovative technology withexcellent customer service. And so that's
why I'm really excited to talk toyou about rehumanizing, because we're trying to
marry tech with the human experience intricately, and so we're an insurer tech We
have created a proprietary platform. Internally, we also have AI powered dash cameras
(06:25):
that we place in vehicles to beable to detect driver behavior, lane departures,
heartbreaking, and then are actively coachingour drivers so that they can become
safer drivers. It's good for them, it's good for other motorists on the
road, and it's good for coverwell as the insurer. And so that's
really in a nutshell, what we'retrying to do. Awesome. Okay,
(06:46):
a lot of directions to go,but I'm going to pick right up on
live coaching, like as part ofthe solution, blended probably with humanization at
some level, but like talk alittle bit more about this live coaching dynamic.
It's super interesting. I'd see howit would mitigate risk. This sounds
a little bit like some of theother solutions I've seen in a variety of
other applications I'm thinking about, likelive call coaching for salespeople, for example.
(07:11):
That's AI driven, So I'd loveto hear about in this context.
Yeah, so we're not it's notreal time. I'll just call that out
because we don't want to draft distractdrivers by reaching out to them while they're
on the road. Yeah, that'sexactly what I was wondering. I feel
like it'd be distracting for a salespersonas well. I'm like, give me
the summary afterward and me, Imean absolutely absolutely. But you know,
(07:33):
after we observe an event occurred,I mean we call them events, and
the sister at MAI, there's nobodyactually watching real time, the system triggers
us and we will reach out.We will call set up some time and
have a conversation. And I wouldsay probably ethan seven times out of ten,
(07:54):
we've seen improved driver behavior as aresult of the coaching. So something
is working. And this is reallya part of our secret sauce of what's
what's working with cover well and whywe're growing. So fast and at the
end of the day, insurance isabout mitigating risk, but it's the experience
and incorporating the experience and the journeywith our truck drivers to make sure that
(08:15):
they're comfortable that we're approaching them theright way, that you know that we're
communicating to them pretty clearly and effectively, and frankly that it's making them save
our drivers. And we've had toupdate our model too. There may be
reasons as to why there was alane departure or a hardbreaking incident, and
so over the last three years.That's what is the secret sauce, if
(08:37):
I will for Cover Well of what'sreally improved from our standpoint is a telemedics
Very good talk a little bit aboutthat. You've mentioned the drivers, you
mentioned agents. Just break that relationshipdown a little bit. And in terms
of the work that you're responsible for, are you do you think about them
fifty to fifty or do you spendmore of your time kind of evaluating and
(09:01):
improving experiences for one versus the other? Just talk about that dynamic a little
bit. Yeah, So when Icame into Cover Well, I was like,
Okay, I know what I'm doing. We are going to go digital
first, and that was what wasworking in health insurance, and that's what
we're going to apply here. There'snot you know, insurances insurance boy was
irom with commercial auto. So interestinglyenough, we have agents we've partnered with
(09:26):
throughout the fifty throughout the United States, and so we've built a platform for
agents to sign on to. Butat the end of the day, it's
our truck drivers that are being insuredthrough cover Well. So the question for
me was who's the customer? Right, We're solving for multiple stakeholders in different
(09:46):
ways, and who do we solvefor first? And for me, where
I landed was if you solve forthe policyholder for the drivers, you're going
to be solving for everybody along thespectrum that gets to them. That's exactly
what we've done. What's interesting you'reasking about sort of the dynamic between the
agents and the policyholders. These arelocal agencies spread throughout the United States.
(10:11):
Some are larger than others, butthey are localized in communities and so I
can't emphasize enough how the human connectionis really important. So we've stood up
an insurance tech platform, but wehave people, we have people that have
relationships with them, and that's adifferentiator for us as an organization because we're
trying to balance the element of techand human as I mentioned, and so
(10:35):
it's been it's been just a reallyfascinating journey and that that dynamic continues to
change because now we're seeing sort ofchanges in the market overall, and so
everybody's adoption and comfort level what technologyis changing too. If you, I
don't know, if you travel toNew York City or if this is the
(10:56):
case in Colorado Springs, you jumpingin uber lift, there's a camera in
there and that's very new as ofthe last couple of years. And so
people's comfort level with technology is changingand their expectation of companies are changing too.
Yeah, very good. I wouldlove for you to take a swing,
like really really high level, youknow, just kind of going back
(11:18):
to customer experiences everything and all ofthe touch points and all of the moments.
Uh, how how have you becauseyou've been with the team about a
year and a half ish or sosince April of last year. Yeah,
yeah, and how as you're asyou're looking at kind of the touch points
(11:39):
with both of these stakeholder groups.You mentioned the importance of human relationships and
really human interaction. How have youthought about, gosh, maybe this touch
that we're planning to be a digitaltouch only, let's make it a human
touch instead. Or you know,this typically is happening asynchronous lea, but
(12:01):
we should look to create kind ofa synchronous direct interaction. Like just I
know this is vague and high level, but like, how are you thinking
about balancing those elements as you're tryingto make sure that you're serving people in
the way that you intend, Becauseit seems very clear in the way that
you're talking that this experienced dynamic isfundamental to the way that you differentiate in
the way that you're kind of perhapseven disrupting maybe a old fashioned dish in
(12:26):
some pockets industry. Yeah, Ithink, Ethan, the first step is
understanding what are the values and whatis it the expectations are of our various
stakeholders and when we asked, andwe ask a lot and various feedback mechanisms.
For our Asian partners, it's speed. They want to be able to
close deals as quickly as possible,and that's what we've offered them. Within
(12:50):
two minutes they can get a bindablequote and for our drivers, it's price.
They're price sensitive. So just takingthose two variables into what it is
that we build. So for agents, what we were originally thinking about was,
well, do we need a phonenumber? Do we become one of
(13:11):
those companies that hides the phone numberand hope that you reach out to us
or you email us because we're outsourcingemails and you know, we don't have
to sort of service. That's notwhere we landed. Where we landed was
that even within our agents wanting tomove quickly with us, there are a
lot they're made up of a diverseagent base across the country, and so
(13:37):
we have to stand up every channelthat they want to interact with us in
and one of those is a phone, and you can get a human on
the other end of the phone,and I even call them at this point
where I'm doing a listening to ourwith every one of our agent partners and
having conversations with them, and atthe end of the day, we're all
human. We like human connection andit's really important, I think differentiating for
(13:58):
us to make sure that we don'tlose that. So that's sort of the
efficiency part. On the price part, what's really interesting is so our underwriting
team sits in one of my organizationsof customer success. So customer success typically
is contact center type organization, andunderwriting doesn't usually live there in other insurance
(14:20):
companies, but we have our underwritersfacing our customers and policy holders if need
be, where we're offering that humantouch so that we can hear them out.
If something came back as declined,what was the reason? Okay,
let's exclude a driver in this fleetand write the policy with you. And
(14:41):
I really think that's a differentiating factorof understanding what the drivers are, what
the wants are of our various stakeholders, and then solving for them that way.
I agree with you. I can'timagine how much empathy for lack of
maybe a different word or a combinationof words that builds into the organization as
well as your own listening tour.What was the motivation for that? I
(15:03):
mean it's I mean it does doesn'tstrike me as like counter to your personality
or philosophy in any way, Sonot asking in that in that spirit,
I'm asking more just in the whendid it occur to you? And how?
Like how did you structure it?Like? Are you are you seeking
to have conversations with X number ofpeople in Uh you know why number of
(15:24):
weeks or something, or is itjust uh, this is a background element,
and I'm going to try to talkto X number of people every month
forever. So Uh, it's it'sthe latter. I have a conversation every
single day, and I hope Inever stop because we're growing so so quickly.
Bet we have thousands of this pointof conversations that I'll need to have
and it will take years. Uh. The catalyst for it really was,
(15:48):
We're a growing company and things changevery very quickly. It's not like an
older established organization where an initiative takessix months to decide on, another six
months to execute, another six monthsto go back on and redo. We
are making active decisions every single day, every single week. And for me,
it was to get a better intimateunderstanding than a PowerPoint presentation presented to
(16:11):
me of what our agents think andfeel, and having conversations and building relationships
and even having my go to thatI'll go back to on a weekly basis
and say, hey, this iswhat we're thinking. What do you think?
You know? Check me, becauseyou've been in this industry a lot
longer than I have, so reallythat was the catalyst for it. But
(16:32):
what we learned was so rich thatI just kept it going. The goal
was, Okay, I'm going totalk to maybe twenty five and we just
kept it going. And I don'tthink it's something I'll ever stop, ever
stop doing, and so that wasreally the rationale for it. Awesome.
How do you share the learnings thetakeaways? I mean I could just hear
(16:55):
I could see in your face.For folks who are listening. We do
put up video highlights and things atdot com slash podcast. This is episode
two seventy, so you can gothere and meet Cyra through some video clips
that I'll put up. But Icould see on your face just the how
meaningful some of these insights were,perhaps probably surprising or validating, or you
(17:17):
know, I've seeing this in thedata and now I'm hearing what it actually
sounds like in real life. Allthese things that happen, And obviously one
of the most valuable things we cando with those experiences that we each have
individually is find or even develop mechanismsto share them with other people in some
kind of a meaningful way. Howare you circulating some of the most valuable
stuff. Yeah, it's it's areally great question because the world I came
(17:40):
from, it was all buttoned upand organized. We'd have a system like
Medalia that we could use to actuallymeasure every touch point. We're not there
yet from from an experience tracking sharingstandpoint. So it is centralized in Google
doc at this point, where everyevery bit of feedback and is organized by
(18:00):
myriad tabs. At this point iscentralized in one place because what I might
learn in January of this year willbe applied in May of this year or
you know, through another initiative,and I just don't want to lose those
nuggets. And so that's where Istarted. That was my ask to the
company as well. And everybody isusing it at this point, and it
is a starting point for every initiativejust to make sure that we are and
(18:23):
frankly, from my strategy background,secondary research is important. I mean,
you can look at the competition.You should also just get a good pulse
on the market. So this isjust yet another input to every initiative,
so good. I don't want anyonelistening to miss the idea that it's not
about the tool, it's about theconcept. And it's practical application, google
(18:45):
docs, google sheets, like,There's a lot that can be done,
and the most important thing is isdoing the work. And at a certain
point you'll feel the pain and havethe opportunity to get a better tool to
do the same job. But thetool, I feel like historically the tool
and the job get conflated at somelevel and we think that like the tool
is the job and the job isthe tool, and it really isn't.
(19:08):
So a great, great tip there. I would love to get a little
bit more into the role. You'veshared a couple of insights into it already,
including that the customer success organization iswithin your purview or scope of responsibility
and opportunity. I want to startwith how did you find cover Whale or
how did they find you? Itwas actually a recruiter that reached out to
(19:29):
me at an interesting time in mycareer where I wasn't looking and so I
know our conversation before this podcast wasisn't that the best time? I mean,
when when you're pretty comfortable and happyin your career. So I was
just promoted at Blue Cross, thingswere going well, I was pregnant,
and you know, here I amprobably wore or five months pregnant at the
time and approached by this company andI'm like, commercial auto, this is
(19:53):
this is not my jam. I'mnot sure, but one conversation led to
another to me coming to New Yorkand meeting with the president and CEO Kevin
and Dan, and I was hooked. I just I was so intrigued by
the value prop and what they weretrying to do and frankly the success that
(20:15):
they had already started seeing. AndI said, you know, I think
this might be a once in alifetime opportunity. Let me let me think
about this. And I said,yes, I mean that's that's kind of
that's what it was. So itstarted the recruiter because apparently I didn't even
realize this. I had yes tobeing contacted on LinkedIn and that's where it
(20:38):
went from super interesting. What wasthe vision where you hired as chief Experience
Officer? I think you were solike, what was the vision you know,
a year and a half ago orwhenever they you know, kind of
scope the role or whatever. Whatwas your I want to kind of like
layer this a little bit, sofeel free to time all together into one,
like, you know, what wasthe vision? Before they had you
(21:00):
or anyone else in mind for it, and then like what was your first
you know, sixty ninety and twentydays like, and then what is the
role today compared to you know thatthat initial launch window. I'm sure there's
a lot of change through those threelayers. So take them one at a
time or all together, mash themup, do whatever you like with that.
(21:21):
It's interesting because originally it was itwas to lead the customer success organization.
It was it was they had reachedout to say, we need somebody
who's leading our customer success organization.That's we're interested in, that's what we're
looking for. And when I startedasking questions and seeing strategically what they were
(21:41):
or were not thinking about, justreally poking holes at how they're thinking about
experience overall, it built to somethingmuch bigger. And so when I came
on, it was the customer successorganization. Marketing and growth really was what
I was overseeing. And even togo from you know, a comfortable career
(22:03):
and health insurance you know what you'redoing for MI CX and strategy standpoint to
completely different industry, completely different sizedcompany, completely different trajectory at this point
was interesting to say the least.I was seven months pregnant when I joined,
so I did everything that I couldto soak up in the first thirty
days and then really started to delaya roadmap and a vision for where I
(22:26):
wanted to go over the next thirtyand then I was gone for over three
months. I tried to reconnect andwas given feedback from my leaders that you
don't need to just be with yourdaughter, take your time, which if
I could, if I could justshare. I think that's what really is
(22:48):
my experience with pever Well and whyI'm so loyal to the organization now is
because they let me sort of livemy life and lean into life at a
time that was really important to leaninto life. And so when I came
back, it was really about blockingand tackling and understanding how we get to
a stable state. And when Isay stable state, it's not it wasn't
(23:12):
complete chaos. But when a companyscales so quickly and doesn't have established processes
or at least automated processes leveraging technology, it's only so much that that a
team of people can do, andthat's when customers get upset because we're not
being as responsive as we should beor we're not, sort of you know,
(23:37):
giving them what they're asking for.And so it's really been it's been
a journey, but I can tellyou this year and three months or two
months or so has has flown by. I've had fun like never before,
really happy to hear, and Ireally appreciate too, essentially the long gain.
You know, let us give herthe space that she needs and wants
(24:00):
frankly at a time that's super important, and you know it's gonna net out
in the end we found the rightperson. I love also that you kind
of pushed through questioning, probably probablythrough pure curiosity rather than I want more
responsibility. It's probably like, arewe doing this the right We're doing this.
(24:22):
I'm here, We're doing this,Let's do it the right way.
It's interesting when I look at thecorporate structure, I look at your position
a little bit like a cro butmaybe bigger. It's not really COO and
neither of those rules exists in theorganization for folks listening. Cover Whale has
a Chief Strategy Officer, Chief DataOfficer, Chief AI Officer, Chief People
(24:48):
Officer, a CFO, a chieffinancial officer, and then CEO, Founder
President, chief of staff, solike this, this head of marketing,
head of sales, head of CSdoesn't exist. I just think it's soon.
We're interesting that all of this andsome other things like billing, which
is kind of where I got COOand my head kind of all rolls up
together talk about I don't know thatI've seen that now, and I'm not
(25:11):
like reading corporate structures over and overand over again from a positional standpoint,
but you know, I do itoften enough that this stands out to me,
and I think it's really interesting theway that chief experience officers being expressed
and experienced in your organization. Ican tell you from my experience with chief
experience officers previously and others that I'vespoken with, it's not this level or
(25:37):
this span of responsibility. Sometimes largerorganizations, in particular for your listeners,
people may have experience with your chiefexperience officer kind of being off to the
side and to plug into various functionalareas to help with specific initiative. But
they're not owners. And that's thereal tough part about it when it comes
to experience and companies, is thatwhen you're not when you don't own it,
(26:03):
you may or may not achieve whatit is that your agenda is,
and I think that's recover all wherereally differentiates itself. You mentioned billing in
a lot of the conversations. I'vehad a lot of the feedback We've received
a lot of the calls and emailsthat our teams have received. It is
in regards to sort of improvements thatwe need to make from a billing standpoint.
(26:23):
I was pretty vocal about it fora handful of months, and so
last week the change has been madethat now the billing function has moved over
to my responsibility as well, andso I'm working really closely with existing management
that ran that team to really tryto understand how we should be designing this.
(26:44):
And you mentioned idea and that wasgoing to be my shout out when
you asked our company, But really, human centered design is a big part
of my process and my approach.Really let's start and work backwards. What
is it we're trying to deliver andhow do we make sure that feedback is
a part of that. And we'remaking this, we're creating sort of the
(27:06):
output in partnership with our stakeholders.We can sit from our sides of the
desk and create everything all day andin fact, a lot of a lot
of times companies do that and thenput it on the market and wonder why
it doesn't stick. So, butif you're creating with the people, then
it's going to be for them,right, and they're going to adopt it.
And so really that's that's my approach, and then very very rigorous when
(27:27):
it comes to process all as well. And so it's a kind times.
Yeah, it really is. I'mexcited for you. A number of times
in these conversations, of course,we talk about journey mapping at some level,
and so often it not necessarily inthese conversations, but as we have
conversations about this theme and topics,so many organizations approach it from a what
(27:51):
do we want to deliver? Whichyou know, bonus points for thinking about
it instead of just letting it happen. You know, if you're advanced,
then you're adding like kind of ablueprint layer underneath it to make sure that
the organization is prepared structure, toequip staffed to deliver the desired experience.
But this idea of starting with whothe experience is for and designing from that
(28:12):
perspective, I think is obviously theright way to do it, just from
an intuitive perspective, and I wouldassume that if anyone's done studies around it,
that the numbers would validate it aswell. You've mentioned a couple of
times now. It was something thatI immersed myself in as we were trying
to develop a framework for how tobuild human relationships across the digital divide.
(28:33):
We ended up with a book anda framework called Human centered Communication. Essentially,
it's just human centered design applied toour daily digital communication. And of
course you can design any product,service, system, process, anything with
human centered design principles. How didyou become acquainted with human centered design?
(28:55):
What let you up about it initiallysuch that you would continue to bring it
into new environment It's like the onethat you're in. Yeah, so you
mentioned that IDEO Fellowship. So myformer organization had a close tie because we
were over the water from them inCambridge, and so we adopted all things
the school, So from a dschool certification to coaching throughout the organization is
(29:19):
something that I was involved in,and we would shut down for days at
a time to understand to try tofigure out how to fix healthcare and to
fix our corner of healthcare leveraging thedesign thinking and what I always find really
fascinating for anybody that doesn't have experiencewith design thinking, you might come to
a very very different conclusion if yougo through the process. If you start
(29:41):
by empathizing, defining what you're tryingto do, id eating and no idea
is stupid, and put different constraintson it, and lift those constraints too,
and then you prototype just a rapid, rapid sort of you know,
duct tape together prototype test. It'sjust you end up in a much much
(30:03):
different place. And so I builtthat discipline over the years, and that's
something that I'm I've brought here.And what's really interesting is what you mentioned
earlier is that sometimes people just goto the solution. And it's like,
if you if you take the rigorand the steps to go through all of
them with respect to design thinking,then you might end up in a very
different place and probably a better place. Gosh, I guess you already described
(30:26):
uh the process at a high levelnicely in terms of the you know,
the time that you spent at coverWhale. I assume that it's my understanding
is that it's a high growth period, And obviously, human centered design starts
with what people need and want firstand foremost. Has that have the is
(30:48):
your is you're trying to develop anew system or a process or perhaps even
a product or some kind of aservice innovation? Is your interview? Has
has the has the person or thepeople the characteristics of the you know,
people you're looking to engage in orderto start that process or to validate some
of your initial ideas. Perhaps,how has that population changed over that time?
(31:12):
You know? When you and Iconnected earlier, I was describing some
of the challenges and excitement about tryingto go up market, for example,
like how do we sustain the experiencesthat we've you know, designed and iterated
on. How do we evolve thosefor a different similar in a lot of
ways, but it's a different customerand they look and feel and sound and
(31:34):
need different things from us. Howhas that changed for you in the in
the time that you've been there already? Yeah, it's it's it's a it's
a great question. So what's reallyinteresting is that Coverall is found a success
in the smaller fleet market. Right, So when I say the term on
our operator, that means those thatour drivers are also owning the company itself,
(31:59):
so you know, it may befleets with one to five trucks.
As we go up market and establishrelationships with larger organizations, the motivations of
those of those leaders may or maynot change, but the core of what
cover Will has built sustains throughout.And that's what's really really been fascinating to
(32:22):
see is our platform is where wekeep coming back to. Our coaching program
that we've created with cameras that areinstalled in the vehicles is what we continue
to come back to. I thinkit's a matter of not necessarily changes to
the product or the offerings itself,even though we're nimble enough to be able
to do that because we're a smallerorganization, but it is that we need
(32:45):
to be able to establish all thetechnology and automation on the back end to
be able to support that scaling growth. And that's what we're developing. That's
where we're leveraging AI on the backend. That's why we have our Chief
AI officer that you mentioned, whowas really helping us really scale internally with
multiple processes so that we don't haveto you know, it's not an X
(33:09):
number of customers that you've got youhave to hire. Why, that's not
really what cover Well is about.We're a technology first company. But what's
interesting in that is we want tokeep the human element going too, and
so really apply people to be ableto be a customer facing or market facings
as opposed to be doing back endwork. I would love to hear just
(33:30):
another go. You've mentioned it acouple of times now, I'd love for
you to just come like straight atit, because you know, we hear
language like this from time to time. You know, we're a technology company
that just happens to do X,you know, and I know, just
again for a variety of reasons,some of my researching, even some of
what you share in this conversation thatit's true to you all, but talk
(33:53):
about that a little bit. Imean, a technology company could really if
that is kind of a core skillset in a or focus and where we're
investing in people and other things,you could apply that in a variety of
different ways, Like just talk aboutthe relationship between being technology first or even
being a technology company that happens tobe solving these types of problems for these
(34:15):
types of people. Yeah, No, it's a very fair question. So
what I can share with you isthat a year ago our customer service department
was larger than it is today.But what we've done is we created scripts,
we trained everybody, We made surewe stood up a chat on,
(34:35):
a knowledge base and a host ofother tools to try to figure out how
we can solve for inquiries coming in. What I can tell you about applying
technology to that problem is if youasked me this Eathan, probably two months
ago, I would say, Idon't know if I'm comfortable with that yet?
Can we leverage chat GPT to handleservice inquiries? And you know,
(35:00):
for me, and it's still thecase, I'm not sure, uncomfortable with
that. It's too unpredictable in termsof what would be said on the market.
However, how do we use itto optimize our workforce internally? And
that's what we've done. So forevery email that we receive, there is
an AI generated response that the serviceassociate looks at and either approves or changes
(35:24):
and sends back out. And we'retraining our own model internally to be smarter
every day to get to a pointwhere someday might might we be comfortable without
sort of having to do that humancheck that technology. And that's one small
example, but a really impactful oneof why we can have such a small
team but be responding to a significantvolume of inquiries internally. This just reinforces
(35:49):
the idea that we dwelled in fora moment earlier on focus on the job,
not on the tool. And whatyou offered. There is like two
layers that are apps true that everyonecan be participating in right now. One
of them is, and we've heardthis number of times in these conversations on
the show, is that it's it'shuman with the output like you. The
(36:10):
output is never in almost any circumstance, at least not now or in the
immediate future appropriate just to offer outwithout some scrutiny. And so really it's
how do we help our people notjust prompt and we hear a lot about
prompt engineering and all these other things. How do we coach people to evaluate,
(36:30):
you know, some some quick rawoutput and steered in the right direction.
And then the other layer you addedthat I think is certainly more progressive
a practice and even a more progressiveand idea than that first one, which
is how do we make sure thatwe're training a model on our stuff only
and this is and that's the onlyroute to trusting the output. And so
(36:54):
I really liked what you shared there, and it's I think it's a fantastic
example light change of direction because wedon't talk about it often enough. I
notice you have a BA in anMBA from Bentley University. I feel like
for a variety of reasons, businessmodel at some level, kind of hustle
culture, and a variety of otherfactors, like that higher education seems to
(37:16):
be at risk. You obviously havea level of commitment to it. I'd
love your thoughts thoughts on higher education, like what is its value in light
of you know, a variety ofdynamics that potentially have it under threat?
And perhaps even how are you thinkingabout it as a relatively new parent,
like where are we going over thenext twenty years? Yeah, oh,
I love this question. This isso interesting. So I would say that
(37:40):
I think that the barrier to entryneeds to be lowered or removed altogether.
I'm helping by the time my daughteris eighteen. This isn't sort of a
linear path in terms of what we'vebeen seeing for cost of higher education.
I've also really appreciate what the internethas done for education, it's remote barriers
and what MIT and Harvard and otherareas that are organizations and universities that are
(38:07):
local to me that have done thathave rude sort of location barriers cost bearers
by offering education, and frankly,Ethan, I think podcasts have even done
this. If there is a thirstearn interest to learn, and this is
what my father instilled in me veryvery young age, then there should be
no barrier. And so my hopeis that for anybody who has an interest
(38:28):
in learning around the world, thatthere is an opportunity for them to be
able to do so. I thinkwe have to think differently as organizations in
terms of what our barriers are toentry to hiring. And so when we
say we want diverse talent, thatdiverse talent isn't just race, isn't just
gender, it is just ethnicity.It's also educational background. And so that's
(38:50):
certainly something that we look to atcover weal. You can look at sort
of the most brilliant technology companies outthere, and if you look at sort
of the backgrounds of people that arethere, I'm sure there are people who
don't have her traditional education background.So I think we all have to be
more open minded. You covered alot of ground in one response. It's
obviously something that's important to you.I really appreciate. I also appreciate the
(39:13):
nod to podcasting. I'll say tosomeone who has guested on you know,
a couple few hundred shows over thepast, probably primarily eight years or so,
it's it's I love the format.But then as a host, I
host another show on the side forfun mornings, nights and weekends because I
appreciate the format so much, andI call a show like this, and
(39:35):
I've had a validated through outreach overthe years about this show in particular.
I don't know that it's a master'sdegree, but I kind of think about
it as like a master's degree youcan't get. This is like the most
contemporary stuff. It's it's practice aswell as theory, like a nice intersection
of those two. And we areso far away from any of this ever
(39:57):
being normalized to the point that wecan codify it and put it into some
kind of a formal package. Inmy mind, I'm thinking of a textbook,
but there are a variety of waysthat people are teaching these days.
It's all it's all of the above, and it's it's one to one shared
learning too, right, and thenhopefully our listeners are engaged en off that
they're learning. Also, yeah,absolutely, if you're listening to this episode
(40:21):
and you're enjoying it, I wouldlove to point into two other episodes.
One is episode two forty with CaitlinDrake. She is the SVP of Customer
Experience at a bank called Bucy,and we talked a lot about bringing the
human touch to digital banking. Wedid talk a little bit about that pandemic
period that really was highly disruptive forall I mean so many different people in
(40:43):
basically all of us, but bankingin particular, like regional and local banking,
was such an in person thing,and so we talked a lot about
how to make sure that they're differentiatingthrough human to human interaction despite the fact
that they have, you know,tens of thousands of customers and it's a
lot of them are electing an exclusivelydigital experience anymore. So some some common
(41:05):
themes there on episode two forty withCaitlin Drake and then more recently episode two
sixty three with Naomi Wheelish, theglobal head of Customer Success at Square.
Like you Sira they have you know, they started, of course with like
that point of sale thing that we'reall familiar with of like jacket into your
phone, put the credit card in, but now they have like these full
like like there are three dozen productsfor you know, some of the largest
(41:28):
organizations in the world. Another thingthat we talked about there that we covered
here a little bit is the growingscope of her responsibility running customer success and
really pulling other pieces of the organizationin. I think she has like fifteen
hundred people in ten countries, soa little bit different scale, but a
lot of the same challenges and opportunities. So that was episode two sixty three
with Naomi Wheelis before I let yougo. Sirah a thank you so much.
(41:51):
This has been absolute joy, andI would love for you to do
two things for us, and IDEOcan be part of one of them if
you want. The first is tothink her mentioned someone who's had a positive
impact on your life or career.And the other is to give a nat
or a shout out to a companyor brand that you enjoy or appreciate for
the experience they deliver for you asa customer. Thank you for that.
(42:12):
So I would say for the personI'm going to make it people. And
it's Dan and Kevin, our presidentand CEO that I mentioned because this has
been once in a lifetime opportunity.I'm so excited to continue to be on
this ride. And if it wasn'tfor sort of progressive leadership like them,
(42:32):
and this is why it's kind ofturned into a story in the market.
And for me, it was thisis unusual, and people said to me,
yes, it's very unusual to joina company seven months pregnant and take
leave and come back and still haveyour scope of responsibility. And then some
so shout out to them, andit's got to be ideo Ethan or I'll
add the Concept Group or other designconsultancies, because I think that they really
(42:53):
have paved the way for human centeredworld and I think I wish that all
companies sort of, you know,thought more like this before they put things
out there. But I just findit fascinating that we are all having such
interesting experiences in our daily lives andbeing touched by companies in so many different
(43:14):
ways. So just just shout outto them and the d School for establishing
that for for all of us tocontinue to carry the torches on Very Good.
I gosh, what a joy.I didn't know that that layer was
anywhere. I sensed that it mightbe there. But I really appreciate the
shout out to anyone working in serviceof a more human centered world. Just
(43:37):
really appreciate that practically and sentimentally aswell. If folks have enjoyed this conversation,
because they've made it almost to theend here, where would you send
people to learn more about you andabout cover Well? To my website for
me, Syra Tanasia dot com,and to cover Well just you can.
You can reach out to us directly, but cover will dot com is the
(44:00):
website of the company Very Good.As I mentioned earlier, I link all
this stuff up. I drop invideo highlights and more at bombomb dot com
slash podcast. Syra, thank youso much for sharing all of this with
us. It's a really exciting timein your life and in your career,
and I find some of the themesthat you see and focus on in the
(44:21):
world to be transcendent of those situationsand useful to all of us. Thank
you so much, Ethan. Thisis really fun. Every single day you're
entrusting some of your most important andmost valuable messages to plain black text on
a plain white screen to faceless typedout text. It doesn't differentiate you,
(44:42):
it doesn't build trust and rapport,and it doesn't convey feelings, thoughts,
arguments, ideas, or details nearlyas well as you do. As a
result, your customer experience, employeeexperience, and business outcomes suffer. So
it's time to put you back intoyour digital communication. It's time to restore
(45:02):
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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, achieve 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. Designing, delivering andimproving experiences for multiple stakeholders, Figuring out
your ideal customer in a high growthenvironment, Evolving the customer experience as you
go up market. These are justa few things I can't wait to talk
about with today's guest. She builta career in corporate strategy. She spent
(00:45):
more than a decade with Blue CrossBlue Shield of Massachusetts. Today, she
serves as Chief Experience Officer at CoverWhale, an insured tech company serving the
commercial auto industry. Syrah Tanasa,Welcome to the Customer Experience Podcast. Thank
you, Ethan. I'm excited tobe here. Yeah, me too.
As I mentioned as we initially connected, I don't know that I've interviewed a
(01:07):
chief experience officer on the show,which is crazy considering this is going to
be episode two hundred and seventy sowe'll certainly get into the role and kind
of the expanding nature of the rolefrom the way that I understand it.
I look at your corporate structure andI think I know why the chief Experience
officer role is expanding. But beforewe get into that, I want to
start where we always do, whichis customer experience. When I say that
(01:30):
to you, Cyril, what doesthat mean? It means everything ethan.
What I like to say internally,a cover well is that for us,
it's the second that somebody becomes awareof our organization. So it's pre purchase,
it's purchase, it's post purchase ifthey decide to leave us for any
reason. So it is not just, you know, potentially the experience that
(01:51):
they have with our products or services. It is literally every single aspect of
the experience from becoming aware of coverWell the brand, to choosing to continue
on with us or disconnect with us. Really good. And of course that
includes analog, digital, direct,and synchronous, asynchronous, all the things,
(02:14):
all the things very good. Whendid this term come on to your
radar, Like, when did youstart using the language of experience in general
or customer experience in particular. Yeah, it started in my first year at
Lucressel's Shield of Massachusetts where we wereand so at this point that's been fourteen
fifteen years ago, where we werereally starting to explore what does customer experience
(02:37):
mean and how do we mobilize internallyaround it? And so was really involved
with the strategy team around developing initiativesthroughout the organization where we needed to redevelop
with patients at the time or membersat the center of those initiatives. And
really that's where I started growing mydiscipline in it. So, as you
(02:57):
mentioned, you know, with thediscipline and a strategy, strategic frameworks,
but really trying to grow my understandingof what was at the time a nebulous
concept into what's now become explosive growthin this part of our industry or the
experience industry in general too. Thereare real tools and techniques that can be
(03:22):
applied to improve experience for companies.Yeah, does my imagination here is that
your strategy work is similar to customerexperience or your experience work in this way.
I'd love for you to say yesor no and explain there's the ethos
kind of the cultural element, right, Like we think strategically you know,
(03:46):
innovation might be part of that experiencefrankly might be part of that. And
the same thing with CX and evenex is like there's a cultural component,
it's kind of part of who weare and because part of how we operate.
But then there's also the actual workin the organization and the structure that
we build. Speak to kind ofthose two sides of strategy or experience?
Did I observe that correctly? BecauseI have not done the work that you
(04:09):
have. Did I observe that correctly? And how do you kind of peel
those two aspects of each of thosethings apart? Well? Again, I
think over the last I would say, five to seven years, my observation
has been that we have a lotmore data to prove that a good experience
is good for the bottom line.So experience is tied to strategy inherently,
especially with what we do at coverWhale. We're trying to solve for as
(04:31):
you mentioned, we're in commercial autos, so we're trying to solve for multiple
stakeholders. We're trying to solve forour truck drivers agents that are actually distributing
the insurance to those truck drivers oncover Well's behalf, and so it is
absolutely connected that you have to lookat how you're solving for your various stakeholders,
(04:53):
and that's the experience, right,that's human centered design, and that
it ties to how we approach everythingstrategically at the organization, because what we're
finding is when there's an issue withthe experience, we may not get that
renewal. And so really I thinkboth and so I work very closely with
our chief strategy officer internally on everyinitiative. Very good, and you just
(05:15):
mentioned human centered design. I noticedthat you spent a summer as a fellow
with IDEO's collab and we're absolutely goingto talk about that before I let you
go. But I want to stayin this track for folks. Let's just
come straight at it so we canlevel set for everyone. For folks who
aren't familiar, tell us about coverwhale, like who's your ideal customer and
what are some of the problems thatyou're solving for them? Yeah, our
(05:38):
ideal customers are really So I liketo take a step back too, because
always say more commercial auto. I'vebeen asked, oh, so you provide
health insurance for the drivers, andit's like, no, similar to how
people have car insurance for their personalvehicles. We provide commercial auto insurance for
truck drivers or trucking companies. Andso we do this by, you know,
(06:01):
really trying to marry innovative technology withexcellent customer service. And so that's
why I'm really excited to talk toyou about rehumanizing, because we're trying to
marry tech with the human experience intricately, and so we're an insurer tech We
have created a proprietary platform. Internally, we also have AI powered dash cameras
(06:25):
that we place in vehicles to beable to detect driver behavior, lane departures,
heartbreaking, and then are actively coachingour drivers so that they can become
safer drivers. It's good for them, it's good for other motorists on the
road, and it's good for coverwell as the insurer. And so that's
really in a nutshell, what we'retrying to do. Awesome. Okay,
(06:46):
a lot of directions to go,but I'm going to pick right up on
live coaching, like as part ofthe solution, blended probably with humanization at
some level, but like talk alittle bit more about this live coaching dynamic.
It's super interesting. I'd see howit would mitigate risk. This sounds
a little bit like some of theother solutions I've seen in a variety of
other applications I'm thinking about, likelive call coaching for salespeople, for example.
(07:11):
That's AI driven, So I'd loveto hear about in this context.
Yeah, so we're not it's notreal time. I'll just call that out
because we don't want to draft distractdrivers by reaching out to them while they're
on the road. Yeah, that'sexactly what I was wondering. I feel
like it'd be distracting for a salespersonas well. I'm like, give me
the summary afterward and me, Imean absolutely absolutely. But you know,
(07:33):
after we observe an event occurred,I mean we call them events, and
the sister at MAI, there's nobodyactually watching real time, the system triggers
us and we will reach out.We will call set up some time and
have a conversation. And I wouldsay probably ethan seven times out of ten,
(07:54):
we've seen improved driver behavior as aresult of the coaching. So something
is working. And this is reallya part of our secret sauce of what's
what's working with cover well and whywe're growing. So fast and at the
end of the day, insurance isabout mitigating risk, but it's the experience
and incorporating the experience and the journeywith our truck drivers to make sure that
(08:15):
they're comfortable that we're approaching them theright way, that you know that we're
communicating to them pretty clearly and effectively, and frankly that it's making them save
our drivers. And we've had toupdate our model too. There may be
reasons as to why there was alane departure or a hardbreaking incident, and
so over the last three years.That's what is the secret sauce, if
(08:37):
I will for Cover Well of what'sreally improved from our standpoint is a telemedics
Very good talk a little bit aboutthat. You've mentioned the drivers, you
mentioned agents. Just break that relationshipdown a little bit. And in terms
of the work that you're responsible for, are you do you think about them
fifty to fifty or do you spendmore of your time kind of evaluating and
(09:01):
improving experiences for one versus the other? Just talk about that dynamic a little
bit. Yeah, So when Icame into Cover Well, I was like,
Okay, I know what I'm doing. We are going to go digital
first, and that was what wasworking in health insurance, and that's what
we're going to apply here. There'snot you know, insurances insurance boy was
irom with commercial auto. So interestinglyenough, we have agents we've partnered with
(09:26):
throughout the fifty throughout the United States, and so we've built a platform for
agents to sign on to. Butat the end of the day, it's
our truck drivers that are being insuredthrough cover Well. So the question for
me was who's the customer? Right, We're solving for multiple stakeholders in different
(09:46):
ways, and who do we solvefor first? And for me, where
I landed was if you solve forthe policyholder for the drivers, you're going
to be solving for everybody along thespectrum that gets to them. That's exactly
what we've done. What's interesting you'reasking about sort of the dynamic between the
agents and the policyholders. These arelocal agencies spread throughout the United States.
(10:11):
Some are larger than others, butthey are localized in communities and so I
can't emphasize enough how the human connectionis really important. So we've stood up
an insurance tech platform, but wehave people, we have people that have
relationships with them, and that's adifferentiator for us as an organization because we're
trying to balance the element of techand human as I mentioned, and so
(10:35):
it's been it's been just a reallyfascinating journey and that that dynamic continues to
change because now we're seeing sort ofchanges in the market overall, and so
everybody's adoption and comfort level what technologyis changing too. If you, I
don't know, if you travel toNew York City or if this is the
(10:56):
case in Colorado Springs, you jumpingin uber lift, there's a camera in
there and that's very new as ofthe last couple of years. And so
people's comfort level with technology is changingand their expectation of companies are changing too.
Yeah, very good. I wouldlove for you to take a swing,
like really really high level, youknow, just kind of going back
(11:18):
to customer experiences everything and all ofthe touch points and all of the moments.
Uh, how how have you becauseyou've been with the team about a
year and a half ish or sosince April of last year. Yeah,
yeah, and how as you're asyou're looking at kind of the touch points
(11:39):
with both of these stakeholder groups.You mentioned the importance of human relationships and
really human interaction. How have youthought about, gosh, maybe this touch
that we're planning to be a digitaltouch only, let's make it a human
touch instead. Or you know,this typically is happening asynchronous lea, but
(12:01):
we should look to create kind ofa synchronous direct interaction. Like just I
know this is vague and high level, but like, how are you thinking
about balancing those elements as you're tryingto make sure that you're serving people in
the way that you intend, Becauseit seems very clear in the way that
you're talking that this experienced dynamic isfundamental to the way that you differentiate in
the way that you're kind of perhapseven disrupting maybe a old fashioned dish in
(12:26):
some pockets industry. Yeah, Ithink, Ethan, the first step is
understanding what are the values and whatis it the expectations are of our various
stakeholders and when we asked, andwe ask a lot and various feedback mechanisms.
For our Asian partners, it's speed. They want to be able to
close deals as quickly as possible,and that's what we've offered them. Within
(12:50):
two minutes they can get a bindablequote and for our drivers, it's price.
They're price sensitive. So just takingthose two variables into what it is
that we build. So for agents, what we were originally thinking about was,
well, do we need a phonenumber? Do we become one of
(13:11):
those companies that hides the phone numberand hope that you reach out to us
or you email us because we're outsourcingemails and you know, we don't have
to sort of service. That's notwhere we landed. Where we landed was
that even within our agents wanting tomove quickly with us, there are a
lot they're made up of a diverseagent base across the country, and so
(13:37):
we have to stand up every channelthat they want to interact with us in
and one of those is a phone, and you can get a human on
the other end of the phone,and I even call them at this point
where I'm doing a listening to ourwith every one of our agent partners and
having conversations with them, and atthe end of the day, we're all
human. We like human connection andit's really important, I think differentiating for
(13:58):
us to make sure that we don'tlose that. So that's sort of the
efficiency part. On the price part, what's really interesting is so our underwriting
team sits in one of my organizationsof customer success. So customer success typically
is contact center type organization, andunderwriting doesn't usually live there in other insurance
(14:20):
companies, but we have our underwritersfacing our customers and policy holders if need
be, where we're offering that humantouch so that we can hear them out.
If something came back as declined,what was the reason? Okay,
let's exclude a driver in this fleetand write the policy with you. And
(14:41):
I really think that's a differentiating factorof understanding what the drivers are, what
the wants are of our various stakeholders, and then solving for them that way.
I agree with you. I can'timagine how much empathy for lack of
maybe a different word or a combinationof words that builds into the organization as
well as your own listening tour.What was the motivation for that? I
(15:03):
mean it's I mean it does doesn'tstrike me as like counter to your personality
or philosophy in any way, Sonot asking in that in that spirit,
I'm asking more just in the whendid it occur to you? And how?
Like how did you structure it?Like? Are you are you seeking
to have conversations with X number ofpeople in Uh you know why number of
(15:24):
weeks or something, or is itjust uh, this is a background element,
and I'm going to try to talkto X number of people every month
forever. So Uh, it's it'sthe latter. I have a conversation every
single day, and I hope Inever stop because we're growing so so quickly.
Bet we have thousands of this pointof conversations that I'll need to have
and it will take years. Uh. The catalyst for it really was,
(15:48):
We're a growing company and things changevery very quickly. It's not like an
older established organization where an initiative takessix months to decide on, another six
months to execute, another six monthsto go back on and redo. We
are making active decisions every single day, every single week. And for me,
it was to get a better intimateunderstanding than a PowerPoint presentation presented to
(16:11):
me of what our agents think andfeel, and having conversations and building relationships
and even having my go to thatI'll go back to on a weekly basis
and say, hey, this iswhat we're thinking. What do you think?
You know? Check me, becauseyou've been in this industry a lot
longer than I have, so reallythat was the catalyst for it. But
(16:32):
what we learned was so rich thatI just kept it going. The goal
was, Okay, I'm going totalk to maybe twenty five and we just
kept it going. And I don'tthink it's something I'll ever stop, ever
stop doing, and so that wasreally the rationale for it. Awesome.
How do you share the learnings thetakeaways? I mean I could just hear
(16:55):
I could see in your face.For folks who are listening. We do
put up video highlights and things atdot com slash podcast. This is episode
two seventy, so you can gothere and meet Cyra through some video clips
that I'll put up. But Icould see on your face just the how
meaningful some of these insights were,perhaps probably surprising or validating, or you
(17:17):
know, I've seeing this in thedata and now I'm hearing what it actually
sounds like in real life. Allthese things that happen, And obviously one
of the most valuable things we cando with those experiences that we each have
individually is find or even develop mechanismsto share them with other people in some
kind of a meaningful way. Howare you circulating some of the most valuable
stuff. Yeah, it's it's areally great question because the world I came
(17:40):
from, it was all buttoned upand organized. We'd have a system like
Medalia that we could use to actuallymeasure every touch point. We're not there
yet from from an experience tracking sharingstandpoint. So it is centralized in Google
doc at this point, where everyevery bit of feedback and is organized by
(18:00):
myriad tabs. At this point iscentralized in one place because what I might
learn in January of this year willbe applied in May of this year or
you know, through another initiative,and I just don't want to lose those
nuggets. And so that's where Istarted. That was my ask to the
company as well. And everybody isusing it at this point, and it
is a starting point for every initiativejust to make sure that we are and
(18:23):
frankly, from my strategy background,secondary research is important. I mean,
you can look at the competition.You should also just get a good pulse
on the market. So this isjust yet another input to every initiative,
so good. I don't want anyonelistening to miss the idea that it's not
about the tool, it's about theconcept. And it's practical application, google
(18:45):
docs, google sheets, like,There's a lot that can be done,
and the most important thing is isdoing the work. And at a certain
point you'll feel the pain and havethe opportunity to get a better tool to
do the same job. But thetool, I feel like historically the tool
and the job get conflated at somelevel and we think that like the tool
is the job and the job isthe tool, and it really isn't.
(19:08):
So a great, great tip there. I would love to get a little
bit more into the role. You'veshared a couple of insights into it already,
including that the customer success organization iswithin your purview or scope of responsibility
and opportunity. I want to startwith how did you find cover Whale or
how did they find you? Itwas actually a recruiter that reached out to
(19:29):
me at an interesting time in mycareer where I wasn't looking and so I
know our conversation before this podcast wasisn't that the best time? I mean,
when when you're pretty comfortable and happyin your career. So I was
just promoted at Blue Cross, thingswere going well, I was pregnant,
and you know, here I amprobably wore or five months pregnant at the
time and approached by this company andI'm like, commercial auto, this is
(19:53):
this is not my jam. I'mnot sure, but one conversation led to
another to me coming to New Yorkand meeting with the president and CEO Kevin
and Dan, and I was hooked. I just I was so intrigued by
the value prop and what they weretrying to do and frankly the success that
(20:15):
they had already started seeing. AndI said, you know, I think
this might be a once in alifetime opportunity. Let me let me think
about this. And I said,yes, I mean that's that's kind of
that's what it was. So itstarted the recruiter because apparently I didn't even
realize this. I had yes tobeing contacted on LinkedIn and that's where it
(20:38):
went from super interesting. What wasthe vision where you hired as chief Experience
Officer? I think you were solike, what was the vision you know,
a year and a half ago orwhenever they you know, kind of
scope the role or whatever. Whatwas your I want to kind of like
layer this a little bit, sofeel free to time all together into one,
like, you know, what wasthe vision? Before they had you
(21:00):
or anyone else in mind for it, and then like what was your first
you know, sixty ninety and twentydays like, and then what is the
role today compared to you know thatthat initial launch window. I'm sure there's
a lot of change through those threelayers. So take them one at a
time or all together, mash themup, do whatever you like with that.
(21:21):
It's interesting because originally it was itwas to lead the customer success organization.
It was it was they had reachedout to say, we need somebody
who's leading our customer success organization.That's we're interested in, that's what we're
looking for. And when I startedasking questions and seeing strategically what they were
(21:41):
or were not thinking about, justreally poking holes at how they're thinking about
experience overall, it built to somethingmuch bigger. And so when I came
on, it was the customer successorganization. Marketing and growth really was what
I was overseeing. And even togo from you know, a comfortable career
(22:03):
and health insurance you know what you'redoing for MI CX and strategy standpoint to
completely different industry, completely different sizedcompany, completely different trajectory at this point
was interesting to say the least.I was seven months pregnant when I joined,
so I did everything that I couldto soak up in the first thirty
days and then really started to delaya roadmap and a vision for where I
(22:26):
wanted to go over the next thirtyand then I was gone for over three
months. I tried to reconnect andwas given feedback from my leaders that you
don't need to just be with yourdaughter, take your time, which if
I could, if I could justshare. I think that's what really is
(22:48):
my experience with pever Well and whyI'm so loyal to the organization now is
because they let me sort of livemy life and lean into life at a
time that was really important to leaninto life. And so when I came
back, it was really about blockingand tackling and understanding how we get to
a stable state. And when Isay stable state, it's not it wasn't
(23:12):
complete chaos. But when a companyscales so quickly and doesn't have established processes
or at least automated processes leveraging technology, it's only so much that that a
team of people can do, andthat's when customers get upset because we're not
being as responsive as we should beor we're not, sort of you know,
(23:37):
giving them what they're asking for.And so it's really been it's been
a journey, but I can tellyou this year and three months or two
months or so has has flown by. I've had fun like never before,
really happy to hear, and Ireally appreciate too, essentially the long gain.
You know, let us give herthe space that she needs and wants
(24:00):
frankly at a time that's super important, and you know it's gonna net out
in the end we found the rightperson. I love also that you kind
of pushed through questioning, probably probablythrough pure curiosity rather than I want more
responsibility. It's probably like, arewe doing this the right We're doing this.
(24:22):
I'm here, We're doing this,Let's do it the right way.
It's interesting when I look at thecorporate structure, I look at your position
a little bit like a cro butmaybe bigger. It's not really COO and
neither of those rules exists in theorganization for folks listening. Cover Whale has
a Chief Strategy Officer, Chief DataOfficer, Chief AI Officer, Chief People
(24:48):
Officer, a CFO, a chieffinancial officer, and then CEO, Founder
President, chief of staff, solike this, this head of marketing,
head of sales, head of CSdoesn't exist. I just think it's soon.
We're interesting that all of this andsome other things like billing, which
is kind of where I got COOand my head kind of all rolls up
together talk about I don't know thatI've seen that now, and I'm not
(25:11):
like reading corporate structures over and overand over again from a positional standpoint,
but you know, I do itoften enough that this stands out to me,
and I think it's really interesting theway that chief experience officers being expressed
and experienced in your organization. Ican tell you from my experience with chief
experience officers previously and others that I'vespoken with, it's not this level or
(25:37):
this span of responsibility. Sometimes largerorganizations, in particular for your listeners,
people may have experience with your chiefexperience officer kind of being off to the
side and to plug into various functionalareas to help with specific initiative. But
they're not owners. And that's thereal tough part about it when it comes
to experience and companies, is thatwhen you're not when you don't own it,
(26:03):
you may or may not achieve whatit is that your agenda is,
and I think that's recover all wherereally differentiates itself. You mentioned billing in
a lot of the conversations. I'vehad a lot of the feedback We've received
a lot of the calls and emailsthat our teams have received. It is
in regards to sort of improvements thatwe need to make from a billing standpoint.
(26:23):
I was pretty vocal about it fora handful of months, and so
last week the change has been madethat now the billing function has moved over
to my responsibility as well, andso I'm working really closely with existing management
that ran that team to really tryto understand how we should be designing this.
(26:44):
And you mentioned idea and that wasgoing to be my shout out when
you asked our company, But really, human centered design is a big part
of my process and my approach.Really let's start and work backwards. What
is it we're trying to deliver andhow do we make sure that feedback is
a part of that. And we'remaking this, we're creating sort of the
(27:06):
output in partnership with our stakeholders.We can sit from our sides of the
desk and create everything all day andin fact, a lot of a lot
of times companies do that and thenput it on the market and wonder why
it doesn't stick. So, butif you're creating with the people, then
it's going to be for them,right, and they're going to adopt it.
And so really that's that's my approach, and then very very rigorous when
(27:27):
it comes to process all as well. And so it's a kind times.
Yeah, it really is. I'mexcited for you. A number of times
in these conversations, of course,we talk about journey mapping at some level,
and so often it not necessarily inthese conversations, but as we have
conversations about this theme and topics,so many organizations approach it from a what
(27:51):
do we want to deliver? Whichyou know, bonus points for thinking about
it instead of just letting it happen. You know, if you're advanced,
then you're adding like kind of ablueprint layer underneath it to make sure that
the organization is prepared structure, toequip staffed to deliver the desired experience.
But this idea of starting with whothe experience is for and designing from that
(28:12):
perspective, I think is obviously theright way to do it, just from
an intuitive perspective, and I wouldassume that if anyone's done studies around it,
that the numbers would validate it aswell. You've mentioned a couple of
times now. It was something thatI immersed myself in as we were trying
to develop a framework for how tobuild human relationships across the digital divide.
(28:33):
We ended up with a book anda framework called Human centered Communication. Essentially,
it's just human centered design applied toour daily digital communication. And of
course you can design any product,service, system, process, anything with
human centered design principles. How didyou become acquainted with human centered design?
(28:55):
What let you up about it initiallysuch that you would continue to bring it
into new environment It's like the onethat you're in. Yeah, so you
mentioned that IDEO Fellowship. So myformer organization had a close tie because we
were over the water from them inCambridge, and so we adopted all things
the school, So from a dschool certification to coaching throughout the organization is
(29:19):
something that I was involved in,and we would shut down for days at
a time to understand to try tofigure out how to fix healthcare and to
fix our corner of healthcare leveraging thedesign thinking and what I always find really
fascinating for anybody that doesn't have experiencewith design thinking, you might come to
a very very different conclusion if yougo through the process. If you start
(29:41):
by empathizing, defining what you're tryingto do, id eating and no idea
is stupid, and put different constraintson it, and lift those constraints too,
and then you prototype just a rapid, rapid sort of you know,
duct tape together prototype test. It'sjust you end up in a much much
(30:03):
different place. And so I builtthat discipline over the years, and that's
something that I'm I've brought here.And what's really interesting is what you mentioned
earlier is that sometimes people just goto the solution. And it's like,
if you if you take the rigorand the steps to go through all of
them with respect to design thinking,then you might end up in a very
different place and probably a better place. Gosh, I guess you already described
(30:26):
uh the process at a high levelnicely in terms of the you know,
the time that you spent at coverWhale. I assume that it's my understanding
is that it's a high growth period, And obviously, human centered design starts
with what people need and want firstand foremost. Has that have the is
(30:48):
your is you're trying to develop anew system or a process or perhaps even
a product or some kind of aservice innovation? Is your interview? Has
has the has the person or thepeople the characteristics of the you know,
people you're looking to engage in orderto start that process or to validate some
of your initial ideas. Perhaps,how has that population changed over that time?
(31:12):
You know? When you and Iconnected earlier, I was describing some
of the challenges and excitement about tryingto go up market, for example,
like how do we sustain the experiencesthat we've you know, designed and iterated
on. How do we evolve thosefor a different similar in a lot of
ways, but it's a different customerand they look and feel and sound and
(31:34):
need different things from us. Howhas that changed for you in the in
the time that you've been there already? Yeah, it's it's it's a it's
a great question. So what's reallyinteresting is that Coverall is found a success
in the smaller fleet market. Right, So when I say the term on
our operator, that means those thatour drivers are also owning the company itself,
(31:59):
so you know, it may befleets with one to five trucks.
As we go up market and establishrelationships with larger organizations, the motivations of
those of those leaders may or maynot change, but the core of what
cover Will has built sustains throughout.And that's what's really really been fascinating to
(32:22):
see is our platform is where wekeep coming back to. Our coaching program
that we've created with cameras that areinstalled in the vehicles is what we continue
to come back to. I thinkit's a matter of not necessarily changes to
the product or the offerings itself,even though we're nimble enough to be able
to do that because we're a smallerorganization, but it is that we need
(32:45):
to be able to establish all thetechnology and automation on the back end to
be able to support that scaling growth. And that's what we're developing. That's
where we're leveraging AI on the backend. That's why we have our Chief
AI officer that you mentioned, whowas really helping us really scale internally with
multiple processes so that we don't haveto you know, it's not an X
(33:09):
number of customers that you've got youhave to hire. Why, that's not
really what cover Well is about.We're a technology first company. But what's
interesting in that is we want tokeep the human element going too, and
so really apply people to be ableto be a customer facing or market facings
as opposed to be doing back endwork. I would love to hear just
(33:30):
another go. You've mentioned it acouple of times now, I'd love for
you to just come like straight atit, because you know, we hear
language like this from time to time. You know, we're a technology company
that just happens to do X,you know, and I know, just
again for a variety of reasons,some of my researching, even some of
what you share in this conversation thatit's true to you all, but talk
(33:53):
about that a little bit. Imean, a technology company could really if
that is kind of a core skillset in a or focus and where we're
investing in people and other things,you could apply that in a variety of
different ways, Like just talk aboutthe relationship between being technology first or even
being a technology company that happens tobe solving these types of problems for these
(34:15):
types of people. Yeah, No, it's a very fair question. So
what I can share with you isthat a year ago our customer service department
was larger than it is today.But what we've done is we created scripts,
we trained everybody, We made surewe stood up a chat on,
(34:35):
a knowledge base and a host ofother tools to try to figure out how
we can solve for inquiries coming in. What I can tell you about applying
technology to that problem is if youasked me this Eathan, probably two months
ago, I would say, Idon't know if I'm comfortable with that yet?
Can we leverage chat GPT to handleservice inquiries? And you know,
(35:00):
for me, and it's still thecase, I'm not sure, uncomfortable with
that. It's too unpredictable in termsof what would be said on the market.
However, how do we use itto optimize our workforce internally? And
that's what we've done. So forevery email that we receive, there is
an AI generated response that the serviceassociate looks at and either approves or changes
(35:24):
and sends back out. And we'retraining our own model internally to be smarter
every day to get to a pointwhere someday might might we be comfortable without
sort of having to do that humancheck that technology. And that's one small
example, but a really impactful oneof why we can have such a small
team but be responding to a significantvolume of inquiries internally. This just reinforces
(35:49):
the idea that we dwelled in fora moment earlier on focus on the job,
not on the tool. And whatyou offered. There is like two
layers that are apps true that everyonecan be participating in right now. One
of them is, and we've heardthis number of times in these conversations on
the show, is that it's it'shuman with the output like you. The
(36:10):
output is never in almost any circumstance, at least not now or in the
immediate future appropriate just to offer outwithout some scrutiny. And so really it's
how do we help our people notjust prompt and we hear a lot about
prompt engineering and all these other things. How do we coach people to evaluate,
(36:30):
you know, some some quick rawoutput and steered in the right direction.
And then the other layer you addedthat I think is certainly more progressive
a practice and even a more progressiveand idea than that first one, which
is how do we make sure thatwe're training a model on our stuff only
and this is and that's the onlyroute to trusting the output. And so
(36:54):
I really liked what you shared there, and it's I think it's a fantastic
example light change of direction because wedon't talk about it often enough. I
notice you have a BA in anMBA from Bentley University. I feel like
for a variety of reasons, businessmodel at some level, kind of hustle
culture, and a variety of otherfactors, like that higher education seems to
(37:16):
be at risk. You obviously havea level of commitment to it. I'd
love your thoughts thoughts on higher education, like what is its value in light
of you know, a variety ofdynamics that potentially have it under threat?
And perhaps even how are you thinkingabout it as a relatively new parent,
like where are we going over thenext twenty years? Yeah, oh,
I love this question. This isso interesting. So I would say that
(37:40):
I think that the barrier to entryneeds to be lowered or removed altogether.
I'm helping by the time my daughteris eighteen. This isn't sort of a
linear path in terms of what we'vebeen seeing for cost of higher education.
I've also really appreciate what the internethas done for education, it's remote barriers
and what MIT and Harvard and otherareas that are organizations and universities that are
(38:07):
local to me that have done thathave rude sort of location barriers cost bearers
by offering education, and frankly,Ethan, I think podcasts have even done
this. If there is a thirstearn interest to learn, and this is
what my father instilled in me veryvery young age, then there should be
no barrier. And so my hopeis that for anybody who has an interest
(38:28):
in learning around the world, thatthere is an opportunity for them to be
able to do so. I thinkwe have to think differently as organizations in
terms of what our barriers are toentry to hiring. And so when we
say we want diverse talent, thatdiverse talent isn't just race, isn't just
gender, it is just ethnicity.It's also educational background. And so that's
(38:50):
certainly something that we look to atcover weal. You can look at sort
of the most brilliant technology companies outthere, and if you look at sort
of the backgrounds of people that arethere, I'm sure there are people who
don't have her traditional education background.So I think we all have to be
more open minded. You covered alot of ground in one response. It's
obviously something that's important to you.I really appreciate. I also appreciate the
(39:13):
nod to podcasting. I'll say tosomeone who has guested on you know,
a couple few hundred shows over thepast, probably primarily eight years or so,
it's it's I love the format.But then as a host, I
host another show on the side forfun mornings, nights and weekends because I
appreciate the format so much, andI call a show like this, and
(39:35):
I've had a validated through outreach overthe years about this show in particular.
I don't know that it's a master'sdegree, but I kind of think about
it as like a master's degree youcan't get. This is like the most
contemporary stuff. It's it's practice aswell as theory, like a nice intersection
of those two. And we areso far away from any of this ever
(39:57):
being normalized to the point that wecan codify it and put it into some
kind of a formal package. Inmy mind, I'm thinking of a textbook,
but there are a variety of waysthat people are teaching these days.
It's all it's all of the above, and it's it's one to one shared
learning too, right, and thenhopefully our listeners are engaged en off that
they're learning. Also, yeah,absolutely, if you're listening to this episode
(40:21):
and you're enjoying it, I wouldlove to point into two other episodes.
One is episode two forty with CaitlinDrake. She is the SVP of Customer
Experience at a bank called Bucy,and we talked a lot about bringing the
human touch to digital banking. Wedid talk a little bit about that pandemic
period that really was highly disruptive forall I mean so many different people in
(40:43):
basically all of us, but bankingin particular, like regional and local banking,
was such an in person thing,and so we talked a lot about
how to make sure that they're differentiatingthrough human to human interaction despite the fact
that they have, you know,tens of thousands of customers and it's a
lot of them are electing an exclusivelydigital experience anymore. So some some common
(41:05):
themes there on episode two forty withCaitlin Drake and then more recently episode two
sixty three with Naomi Wheelish, theglobal head of Customer Success at Square.
Like you Sira they have you know, they started, of course with like
that point of sale thing that we'reall familiar with of like jacket into your
phone, put the credit card in, but now they have like these full
like like there are three dozen productsfor you know, some of the largest
(41:28):
organizations in the world. Another thingthat we talked about there that we covered
here a little bit is the growingscope of her responsibility running customer success and
really pulling other pieces of the organizationin. I think she has like fifteen
hundred people in ten countries, soa little bit different scale, but a
lot of the same challenges and opportunities. So that was episode two sixty three
with Naomi Wheelis before I let yougo. Sirah a thank you so much.
(41:51):
This has been absolute joy, andI would love for you to do
two things for us, and IDEOcan be part of one of them if
you want. The first is tothink her mentioned someone who's had a positive
impact on your life or career.And the other is to give a nat
or a shout out to a companyor brand that you enjoy or appreciate for
the experience they deliver for you asa customer. Thank you for that.
(42:12):
So I would say for the personI'm going to make it people. And
it's Dan and Kevin, our presidentand CEO that I mentioned because this has
been once in a lifetime opportunity.I'm so excited to continue to be on
this ride. And if it wasn'tfor sort of progressive leadership like them,
(42:32):
and this is why it's kind ofturned into a story in the market.
And for me, it was thisis unusual, and people said to me,
yes, it's very unusual to joina company seven months pregnant and take
leave and come back and still haveyour scope of responsibility. And then some
so shout out to them, andit's got to be ideo Ethan or I'll
add the Concept Group or other designconsultancies, because I think that they really
(42:53):
have paved the way for human centeredworld and I think I wish that all
companies sort of, you know,thought more like this before they put things
out there. But I just findit fascinating that we are all having such
interesting experiences in our daily lives andbeing touched by companies in so many different
(43:14):
ways. So just just shout outto them and the d School for establishing
that for for all of us tocontinue to carry the torches on Very Good.
I gosh, what a joy.I didn't know that that layer was
anywhere. I sensed that it mightbe there. But I really appreciate the
shout out to anyone working in serviceof a more human centered world. Just
(43:37):
really appreciate that practically and sentimentally aswell. If folks have enjoyed this conversation,
because they've made it almost to theend here, where would you send
people to learn more about you andabout cover Well? To my website for
me, Syra Tanasia dot com,and to cover Well just you can.
You can reach out to us directly, but cover will dot com is the
(44:00):
website of the company Very Good.As I mentioned earlier, I link all
this stuff up. I drop invideo highlights and more at bombomb dot com
slash podcast. Syra, thank youso much for sharing all of this with
us. It's a really exciting timein your life and in your career,
and I find some of the themesthat you see and focus on in the
(44:21):
world to be transcendent of those situationsand useful to all of us. Thank
you so much, Ethan. Thisis really fun. Every single day you're
entrusting some of your most important andmost valuable messages to plain black text on
a plain white screen to faceless typedout text. It doesn't differentiate you,
(44:42):
it doesn't build trust and rapport,and it doesn't convey feelings, thoughts,
arguments, ideas, or details nearlyas well as you do. As a
result, your customer experience, employeeexperience, and business outcomes suffer. So
it's time to put you back intoyour digital communication. It's time to restore
(45:02):
human connection across the digital divide withbomb bomb video messages. They have the
clarity and richness of in person meetingsand video calls, and the convenience of
asynchronous emails, text messages, LinkedInmessages, and Slack messages. For clearer
communication, human connection, and higherconversion, try bombbomb record, screen record,
(45:29):
send and track videos in Gmail,Outlook, LinkedIn, Salesforce Outreach,
zendesk, iPhone, Android, andbeyond. Try bombomb absolutely free or learn
how it works for your team oryour entire company. Check it out at
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