In the latest podcast episode (#120), we explore how replacing static web forms with an interactive bot Contact Us form can transform consumer engagement and streamline contact center operations. My colleague, @john Calhoun, Consumer Services Manager, at @McKee Foods Corp is here to help me with this topic.
đPodcast link of the @my curious Colleague podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-curious-colleague-cpg-cx/id1565590157
⢠đŻ Enhanced User Experience: Find out how an interactive bot form transforms the traditional âcontact usâ experience into a dynamic, conversational journey.
⢠đ Continuous Improvement: Hear about the roadmap for evolving these toolsâfrom enhancing user experience to integrating live chat and AI-driven insights planned for down the road.
I should mention, John is also a leader in his industry group, @socap international as the VP of Membership in the Southwest Region.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Denise Venneri (00:00):
Welcome to the My Curious Colleague podcast
(00:03):
with me, Denise Venneri. I am atwenty year practitioner in the
consumer engagement space havingworked for two large CPG
organizations. My intent here isreally to share best practices
with particular focus around thespecialist and analyst roles and
to give back to this greatcommunity because CPGCX rocks.
(00:29):
This week, I'm curious about implementing an
interactive bot form on yourwebsite. So I'm talking about
instead of a static contact usweb form just for a little
clarity. And to help meunderstand just that is my
colleague, John Calhoun,consumer services manager at
(00:49):
McKee Foods Corporation. Welcometo the podcast, John.
John Calhoun (00:55):
Hey, Denise. Thank you for having me. I'm looking
forward to the conversation.
Denise Venneri (01:00):
Start with how did you get to hear in your
career at a top line?
John Calhoun (01:07):
Yeah. So, I mean, I've had my my foot in customer
service in various roles at acouple of different companies
over the years. And, yeah, onething led to another, and this
opening came available. And I Istepped into it and have been
doing this role for just overtwo years and and really
(01:29):
enjoying, the things that I'mlearning and the people that I'm
engaged you with both internallyand outside the company.
Denise Venneri (01:38):
Yeah. Externally outside of the company, I agree
with you. It's a great industryfor sure. Yeah. So hey.
Now let's get into what therationale may have been or maybe
the pain point you were tryingto solve, when you decided to
implement this interactiveplatform.
John Calhoun (01:59):
Yeah. It actually kinda came out of nowhere. We
were, we use Amplify as our CRMand our static web form that was
hosted by a local vendor, had anissue. They they did an upgrade,
but with the upgrade, it lostsome functionality and therefore
broke our connection withAmplify. I worked hand in hand
(02:23):
with Amplify and the localvendor, and we're unable to get
that solved.
That wasn't a Amplify issue.That was a local vendor issue.
So it kinda put me in a spotwhere I needed to figure out a
solution. And so in talking withAmplify, they brought up this as
an option, and so we ended up,you know, vetting that out and
(02:46):
ended up implementing that. Andso that's kinda where we are
today.
Denise Venneri (02:53):
Got it. Got it. You know, I love that you were
just so transparent then becauseI you know, when there's an
upgrade to your systeminvariably, every one of us has
experienced another area of thesystem kind of undoing itself,
so to speak. So it it happens.It it happens.
(03:15):
So thanks for, like, kind ofbringing that out into the open.
What what was that functionalitythat was lost, to the contact
center CRM that you were tryingto solve for? Yeah.
John Calhoun (03:27):
Yeah. So what would happen, you know, before
is a consumer would go to thewebsite, they would fill out the
form, they would hit submit, andthat would, generate an email
that would automatically hit ourAmplify CRM and put it into a
queue. And when the agent wouldpull that email, into into their
(03:47):
work with the the item they weregonna work on, it would populate
a lot of the information intothe case. Well, that population
of data was broken. So all ofthe tags that we built with the
formatting of the email, theybroke.
And Amplify was fantastic tohelp figure out ways to work
(04:09):
around the issue with the localvendor. But, unfortunately,
there were some limitationsbecause of the the local vendor.
So Yeah. So it really it reallycaused my agents to have a lot
more work. They had to basicallytake this block of the text, and
they would have to manually moveit and break it apart into
(04:32):
different fields.
Where before, it willautomatically do that. And so
that that it was awful. We werestill obviously able to work and
handle consumer input andfeedback, but it wasn't ideal.
Definitely was not efficient.
Denise Venneri (04:50):
Right. I mean, it sounds a little arduous, or,
like, you know, extra work doesnot help the whole the whole
process, because you want theagents to have a good experience
as well as your your consumers.So, good call. Hey. Take us
through the details.
You know we love the detailshere on the My Curious Colleague
podcast. So if you don't mind,break it down for us. You know,
(05:12):
take us through the experiencethere on the web page that a
consumer would have when goingto your website, you know, if
that a comment of some sort thatthey wanna share that they
wanted
to share.
Look. Take me through, you know, the drop
downs, the pop ups, you know,all the all the stuff.
John Calhoun (05:31):
Absolutely. So in in a previous way, it was five
different web pages. And thenwithin those, they all had
different links that led them todifferent forms. This bot
interactive form is all in one.So instead of going to five
places, they come to one.
And so when you get to thelanding page, you see our hours
(05:52):
of operation, you see where youcan send us a letter. Consumers
still do that a lot. And thenyou're greeted by Cookie, our
customer support bot. And so hehe, she, I would assume is a she
by the name of Cookie, but whoam I? And so Cookie, greets the
(06:16):
person, lets them know thatshe's not a real person, but she
is capable of addressingcomments, requests, and
concerns.
And so, we ask for the consumerto agree to our privacy policy
where that is linked. We do aage verification check,
(06:37):
something our legal departmentwanted us to do. And then it
drops you into options that theycan select as a consumer. And we
have six different options. Wehave consumer comments, which is
where a consumer will sharetheir feedback, whether it's
something that they loved ormaybe they had issue with the
(06:58):
product.
We have retail contact, whichactually is a different team
that I manage. And then we havedistributorship opportunities,
product donation requests,promotional sponsorship
requests, and then last but notleast, monetary contribution
(07:19):
requests. And so based onwhatever the consumer needs
there, they select that and thenit basically like a tree. It
takes them through whatinformation is needed to be
gathered to address theirconcern or their request.
Denise Venneri (07:37):
Let's say in this example, the consumer
chooses consumer comments as thefirst Yeah. Button is it, I
would say, or part of part ofthe tree.
John Calhoun (07:49):
Yeah.
Denise Venneri (07:50):
Then then what happens?
John Calhoun (07:53):
So it was first asking them questions. Right? It
will you know, I asked them whatbrand are they interested in.
Right? Mhmm.
And so what country are youfrom? You know, we have US or
Canada. Canada actually isn'tsomething that we do right now.
We have in the past, and we arelooking to potentially move back
there in the future. And so webuilt that out just in case.
(08:15):
But we also have consumers whogo over the border and Mhmm. Buy
our product and then go backhome. And so we wanted to make
sure we knew, you know, wherethey were from and whatnot. So
it's just first asking theconsumer basic contact
information. What's your prefix?
You know, are you a mister ormissus Mhmm. Or whatnot. You
(08:35):
know, to ask their first name,last name. And then after it
gets all that demographic infoor or contact information, it's
just breaking it down to figureout, is there a specific product
that they're they're they have aquestion about or maybe a
(08:56):
concern with or maybe they hadcomplaint. It gives them the
ability to select the brand andthen the actual specific
product.
And that will walk them throughmaking sure that they can pass
along the information from thecarton that allows us to
identify, the specific run ofthe product, the specific
(09:20):
manufacturing facility that itwas made at, all the way down to
the the wrapper of the time, allall that information. And so
we're able to gather that info.We verify that at the end, and
then the bot banks them for forsharing their information and
lets them know that it's gonnabe passed on to an agent, and
(09:42):
then they will be in touch withthem within x period of time.
And so then, like the old staticform used to do, it'll be routed
to Amplify where it sits in aqueue and is worked first in,
first out by therepresentatives. And so when
they select that case, it autopopulates that information like
(10:06):
it did before.
We added a few fields becausewe're able to customize it more
with this by our active forms.So we're able to get a little
bit more information now than wedid before, and is is served to
be helpful for the agents tomake sure we're getting the
information we needed. One ofthe benefits with this form that
(10:27):
we didn't have with theinteractive was we're able to
mix we were able to make somefields required before, but we
were able to carry that over.But we're also, we had we have
certain lengths. Like, forexample, the UPC code is a
certain length.
And so we require that fulllength for them to be able to
(10:49):
submit because if someonesubmits a partial UPC, it's not
really helpful. And, obviously,we really want to get their
feedback and be able to passthat feedback along to the
appropriate department so we canreview it, look for trends, make
changes, whatever that may be.
Denise Venneri (11:10):
Yep. I I think that's the sweet spot of the of
the traditional contact center,no matter how you're you're
serving it up to the consumer,is that patience and
encouragement to get that batchcode information. That makes all
the difference in a lot offronts. So kudos on that one.
John Calhoun (11:30):
Yeah. And we actually we actually have issues
on the static form before. We'vejust some limitations with what
we were doing. And oftentimes, aconsumer will have great input,
but because they couldn't giveus the the the best buy
information, it was it was hardfor us to we could trend that a
(11:51):
product and brand level, but wecouldn't trend the BS scale on a
line level. And so Yeah.
If that product is made ofmultiple lines and potentially
multiple manufacturingfacilities, how are we supposed
to isolate their concern andtrend it properly? And so this
has really allowed us to getbetter information from
(12:11):
consumers. Maybe it's the way weask it. Maybe it's for a
required field. Whatever it is,it's working, and so we're
thankful for that for sure.
Denise Venneri (12:22):
I wanna get back on that front end again for the
consumer. You were talking aboutthe tree and the different
inputs. And I just wannaclarify, are they are they being
served up to the consumer, like,one at a time?
John Calhoun (12:37):
They are.
Denise Venneri (12:37):
In other words?
John Calhoun (12:38):
It's really it's almost like if you were chatting
with somebody online. It's aconversational form. I think
that's the whole point of the ofAmplify's interactive form,
focused on interactive. Right?You want that experience to be
like it's almost like aconversation.
Right? Hey. What's your name?Hey. What's your what's your
(13:00):
first name?
What's your last name? And so onand so forth. And so, it I'll be
honest with you, though. It itdid it is taking some consumers
who are used to our static forma little bit to get adjusted to
this because you're going fromseeing a web page where
everything is right in front ofyou that they're asking to one
(13:21):
that's a conversation. So youdon't see what's gonna be asked
until they ask it.
And so if there's a potentialthat you may not have a carton
with you, maybe someone's, youknow, pausing, going to the
kitchen, grabbing the carton,and whatnot, like, whereas the
static form, they're reallydoing the same thing, but it's
all right there in front ofthem. So a lot of people
(13:43):
probably were looking that formover before they even started
it. And, yeah, it's just it'sjust with change, people have to
learn and adapt, and it's itsome some people have it's taken
a little bit, and some peoplejump right on board. And so
Denise Venneri (14:01):
Yeah. Were were you surprised by that outcome
that you
John Calhoun (14:05):
noticed when you were surprised? It's it's hard,
right, when you're you know, Iwas one of I was I wanted to be
extremely involved in thisprocess with it being new, and I
had some of my team involved.And so I tested a lot of this
bot. And, unfortunately, whenyou test something to that
level, your your blinders are sofar covering your eyes that you
(14:28):
forget the consumer experienceto some degree. And so the the
the part that I enjoyed or Ienjoyed, I was appreciative of
is we had various departmentsthat these forms route to
besides my teams.
And so I was able to get theirfeedback. And so some of their
(14:48):
feedback was really differentthan my feedback because I
probably went through the botform hundreds of times. And so
it became easy to me. But, youknow, hindsight is twenty twenty
at the essay. Right, Denise?
And so I think if I were to dothis over again or, like, hop in
the DeLorean and go back to thefuture, I would I would probably
(15:12):
give a different intro to to letthis know. Hey. This is a new
page, but here are some thingsthat you're gonna see. And so I
can't go back and do that fromthe beginning. I have had some
talks with our corporatecommunications team, and we are
actually gonna make an update tothe bot interactive form.
(15:33):
And what it's gonna do is wherepeople were used to those,
excuse me, six different pagesbefore, they will now see those
options at the top of the at thetop of the chat so they know
that it's the right place.Because the options that I
shared with you earlier don'tshow up until you've done the
(15:56):
privacy policy and you verifyyour your age. And so this will
show them before that evenhappens, hopefully, making them
feel like, hey. Yes. I am in thecorrect spot.
Denise Venneri (16:11):
Yeah. What I'm hearing is a passion for
continuous improvement. SoAbsolutely. That's all good.
That's all good.
Hey. Did we cover all yourbenefits of, this or all of the
things you expected to achieve?Did we cover them all?
John Calhoun (16:29):
So, one thing I would say that I didn't mention
is, you know, when I got in thisrole a few years ago, there were
there were some things that Ifelt like needed to be on the
road map for the future of ourteam. One of those was chat.
Right? I wanna have a chat toolwhere consumers can literally
(16:49):
chat with an agent. Right?
But I knew there were some stepsthat I wanted to take prior to
that so we would be ready. Well,like I said earlier, this came
out of nowhere. But, you know,you you adapt and you you you
solve problems and that's just apart of everyday life. But I I I
think this is gonna be a reallygood step from us going from a
(17:12):
static form to this botinteractive form with the next
step being chat, which, I thinkwill bring consumers along from
this experience that they've hadfor, you know, a normal web page
form experience, to this chat.And I'm looking forward to
seeing how that progresses.
(17:33):
So that that to me is a benefit.Yeah. Other people may not see
it that way, but I I definitelysee it that way. So
Denise Venneri (17:41):
So am I hearing, I think you were what you're
touching on is the road map,which is one of my questions
here. So is your road map, wereyou just talking about swinging
all the way to the chat channelas, you know, going full bot on
a chat channel, or are theregonna be some steps you know,
are you gonna do live chat firstand then move into what people
(18:05):
call chat?
John Calhoun (18:05):
Sure. So Amplify, if I'm if I understand what me
and the representative I I workwith on Amplify, I think they
call it CSM. But what she's toldme is that the CSM yeah. They
call it a CSM. Yeah.
And what I believe the way thatour chat works is it comes with
(18:29):
the bot. It's, one in the same.And so one of the components
that we knew was importantbefore that happened is that we
had a knowledge base built,which was on the road map. And
so we're actually we're we'relaunching that actually
tomorrow. And it's called it'scalled LivePro.
It's not part of Amplify. Wechose to do that outside of
(18:51):
Amplify, but we're hoping in thefuture to leverage that. I
actually just had a call withthe CEO of LivePro. He wanted to
check-in and thank me for mybusiness and and meet me. And so
we were talking about Amplifyand our future road map, and so
it was a great conversation.
And and so far, even though wehaven't launched yet, I've been
(19:14):
heavily involved with experienceunit and my team building it,
and we've been extremely happy.I'm looking forward to seeing
the impact the positive impacton the team and ultimately of
the consumer. So yeah.
Denise Venneri (19:28):
What what timeliness on our part. And it's
funny. I literally I maybe yousaw it earlier today. I reached
out to my community to see ifanybody on the brand side has a
knowledge based story they maywanna share.
John Calhoun (19:42):
Really? I didn't see that you I
Denise Venneri (19:44):
just posted not too soon before we connected.
And, yeah, basically, what whatI'm what I'm doing is a series
because you're you're spot on.Like, the old dusty knowledge
base, you know, is really, like,step one of so many cool things,
some of them with AI, some youknow, in chat and all that good
(20:04):
stuff. You have to have thatsolid step. So, I'll love to
talk about that.
I'll I'll say whether you mightwanna come back and talk about
your, knowledge
and stand up.
Won't
put you on the spot here. I do have one more
question, and then then we'regonna wrap. Is the bot
interactive web form used byjust your team, did you say, or
(20:26):
just other parts of the org usethis as as well?
John Calhoun (20:31):
Yes. So it's used by multiple teams. Now our team
does the administration of theentire interactive form, but
there are multiple departmentsthroughout the company that get
the output of this botinteractive form. So yeah. So
(20:52):
there's I mean, I I don't knowhow many departments, but it's
it's definitely a handful.
It covers some of our corporatelocation, and some goes out to
different plants. And so, yeah,it's it's used by various. And
we like I said, we went from allthese different web forms to
(21:12):
this one by interactive form andand one place to go, one place
to gather information. But atthe end, it disperses to the
right place, which is a part ofthe whole administration and
setup process. But it's beengoing good so far.
We we still remain committed toimproving the experience for the
(21:35):
consumer. We've learned somethings. We've talked to
consumers. We've gotten somefeedback. And so we have made
some minor changes so far with acouple more coming in the
future.
Denise Venneri (21:46):
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, sadly, as I
mentioned, we are at the end ofthe podcast, John, and I just
wanted to say thanks so much fortaking time out of your day to
talk and sharing sharing yourstory, or should I say stories.
Appreciate that.
John Calhoun (22:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Denise, thank you for having me.
It was a pleasure to getting toknow you over this process, and
I hope this conversation ishelpful to somebody. And,
hopefully, I'll ski up the nextSOCAP here in October.
Doug Venneri (22:16):
You have been listening to the My Curious
Colleague podcast with DeniseVenneri. Thank you for your
time.
Welcome to the My Curious Colleague podcast
(00:03):
with me, Denise Venneri. I am atwenty year practitioner in the
consumer engagement space havingworked for two large CPG
organizations. My intent here isreally to share best practices
with particular focus around thespecialist and analyst roles and
to give back to this greatcommunity because CPGCX rocks.
(00:29):
This week, I'm curious about implementing an
interactive bot form on yourwebsite. So I'm talking about
instead of a static contact usweb form just for a little
clarity. And to help meunderstand just that is my
colleague, John Calhoun,consumer services manager at
(00:49):
McKee Foods Corporation. Welcometo the podcast, John.
John Calhoun (00:55):
Hey, Denise. Thank you for having me. I'm looking
forward to the conversation.
Denise Venneri (01:00):
Start with how did you get to hear in your
career at a top line?
John Calhoun (01:07):
Yeah. So, I mean, I've had my my foot in customer
service in various roles at acouple of different companies
over the years. And, yeah, onething led to another, and this
opening came available. And I Istepped into it and have been
doing this role for just overtwo years and and really
(01:29):
enjoying, the things that I'mlearning and the people that I'm
engaged you with both internallyand outside the company.
Denise Venneri (01:38):
Yeah. Externally outside of the company, I agree
with you. It's a great industryfor sure. Yeah. So hey.
Now let's get into what therationale may have been or maybe
the pain point you were tryingto solve, when you decided to
implement this interactiveplatform.
John Calhoun (01:59):
Yeah. It actually kinda came out of nowhere. We
were, we use Amplify as our CRMand our static web form that was
hosted by a local vendor, had anissue. They they did an upgrade,
but with the upgrade, it lostsome functionality and therefore
broke our connection withAmplify. I worked hand in hand
(02:23):
with Amplify and the localvendor, and we're unable to get
that solved.
That wasn't a Amplify issue.That was a local vendor issue.
So it kinda put me in a spotwhere I needed to figure out a
solution. And so in talking withAmplify, they brought up this as
an option, and so we ended up,you know, vetting that out and
(02:46):
ended up implementing that. Andso that's kinda where we are
today.
Denise Venneri (02:53):
Got it. Got it. You know, I love that you were
just so transparent then becauseI you know, when there's an
upgrade to your systeminvariably, every one of us has
experienced another area of thesystem kind of undoing itself,
so to speak. So it it happens.It it happens.
(03:15):
So thanks for, like, kind ofbringing that out into the open.
What what was that functionalitythat was lost, to the contact
center CRM that you were tryingto solve for? Yeah.
John Calhoun (03:27):
Yeah. So what would happen, you know, before
is a consumer would go to thewebsite, they would fill out the
form, they would hit submit, andthat would, generate an email
that would automatically hit ourAmplify CRM and put it into a
queue. And when the agent wouldpull that email, into into their
(03:47):
work with the the item they weregonna work on, it would populate
a lot of the information intothe case. Well, that population
of data was broken. So all ofthe tags that we built with the
formatting of the email, theybroke.
And Amplify was fantastic tohelp figure out ways to work
(04:09):
around the issue with the localvendor. But, unfortunately,
there were some limitationsbecause of the the local vendor.
So Yeah. So it really it reallycaused my agents to have a lot
more work. They had to basicallytake this block of the text, and
they would have to manually moveit and break it apart into
(04:32):
different fields.
Where before, it willautomatically do that. And so
that that it was awful. We werestill obviously able to work and
handle consumer input andfeedback, but it wasn't ideal.
Definitely was not efficient.
Denise Venneri (04:50):
Right. I mean, it sounds a little arduous, or,
like, you know, extra work doesnot help the whole the whole
process, because you want theagents to have a good experience
as well as your your consumers.So, good call. Hey. Take us
through the details.
You know we love the detailshere on the My Curious Colleague
podcast. So if you don't mind,break it down for us. You know,
(05:12):
take us through the experiencethere on the web page that a
consumer would have when goingto your website, you know, if
that a comment of some sort thatthey wanna share that they
wanted
to share.
Look. Take me through, you know, the drop
downs, the pop ups, you know,all the all the stuff.
John Calhoun (05:31):
Absolutely. So in in a previous way, it was five
different web pages. And thenwithin those, they all had
different links that led them todifferent forms. This bot
interactive form is all in one.So instead of going to five
places, they come to one.
And so when you get to thelanding page, you see our hours
(05:52):
of operation, you see where youcan send us a letter. Consumers
still do that a lot. And thenyou're greeted by Cookie, our
customer support bot. And so hehe, she, I would assume is a she
by the name of Cookie, but whoam I? And so Cookie, greets the
(06:16):
person, lets them know thatshe's not a real person, but she
is capable of addressingcomments, requests, and
concerns.
And so, we ask for the consumerto agree to our privacy policy
where that is linked. We do aage verification check,
(06:37):
something our legal departmentwanted us to do. And then it
drops you into options that theycan select as a consumer. And we
have six different options. Wehave consumer comments, which is
where a consumer will sharetheir feedback, whether it's
something that they loved ormaybe they had issue with the
(06:58):
product.
We have retail contact, whichactually is a different team
that I manage. And then we havedistributorship opportunities,
product donation requests,promotional sponsorship
requests, and then last but notleast, monetary contribution
(07:19):
requests. And so based onwhatever the consumer needs
there, they select that and thenit basically like a tree. It
takes them through whatinformation is needed to be
gathered to address theirconcern or their request.
Denise Venneri (07:37):
Let's say in this example, the consumer
chooses consumer comments as thefirst Yeah. Button is it, I
would say, or part of part ofthe tree.
John Calhoun (07:49):
Yeah.
Denise Venneri (07:50):
Then then what happens?
John Calhoun (07:53):
So it was first asking them questions. Right? It
will you know, I asked them whatbrand are they interested in.
Right? Mhmm.
And so what country are youfrom? You know, we have US or
Canada. Canada actually isn'tsomething that we do right now.
We have in the past, and we arelooking to potentially move back
there in the future. And so webuilt that out just in case.
(08:15):
But we also have consumers whogo over the border and Mhmm. Buy
our product and then go backhome. And so we wanted to make
sure we knew, you know, wherethey were from and whatnot. So
it's just first asking theconsumer basic contact
information. What's your prefix?
You know, are you a mister ormissus Mhmm. Or whatnot. You
(08:35):
know, to ask their first name,last name. And then after it
gets all that demographic infoor or contact information, it's
just breaking it down to figureout, is there a specific product
that they're they're they have aquestion about or maybe a
(08:56):
concern with or maybe they hadcomplaint. It gives them the
ability to select the brand andthen the actual specific
product.
And that will walk them throughmaking sure that they can pass
along the information from thecarton that allows us to
identify, the specific run ofthe product, the specific
(09:20):
manufacturing facility that itwas made at, all the way down to
the the wrapper of the time, allall that information. And so
we're able to gather that info.We verify that at the end, and
then the bot banks them for forsharing their information and
lets them know that it's gonnabe passed on to an agent, and
(09:42):
then they will be in touch withthem within x period of time.
And so then, like the old staticform used to do, it'll be routed
to Amplify where it sits in aqueue and is worked first in,
first out by therepresentatives. And so when
they select that case, it autopopulates that information like
(10:06):
it did before.
We added a few fields becausewe're able to customize it more
with this by our active forms.So we're able to get a little
bit more information now than wedid before, and is is served to
be helpful for the agents tomake sure we're getting the
information we needed. One ofthe benefits with this form that
(10:27):
we didn't have with theinteractive was we're able to
mix we were able to make somefields required before, but we
were able to carry that over.But we're also, we had we have
certain lengths. Like, forexample, the UPC code is a
certain length.
And so we require that fulllength for them to be able to
(10:49):
submit because if someonesubmits a partial UPC, it's not
really helpful. And, obviously,we really want to get their
feedback and be able to passthat feedback along to the
appropriate department so we canreview it, look for trends, make
changes, whatever that may be.
Denise Venneri (11:10):
Yep. I I think that's the sweet spot of the of
the traditional contact center,no matter how you're you're
serving it up to the consumer,is that patience and
encouragement to get that batchcode information. That makes all
the difference in a lot offronts. So kudos on that one.
John Calhoun (11:30):
Yeah. And we actually we actually have issues
on the static form before. We'vejust some limitations with what
we were doing. And oftentimes, aconsumer will have great input,
but because they couldn't giveus the the the best buy
information, it was it was hardfor us to we could trend that a
(11:51):
product and brand level, but wecouldn't trend the BS scale on a
line level. And so Yeah.
If that product is made ofmultiple lines and potentially
multiple manufacturingfacilities, how are we supposed
to isolate their concern andtrend it properly? And so this
has really allowed us to getbetter information from
(12:11):
consumers. Maybe it's the way weask it. Maybe it's for a
required field. Whatever it is,it's working, and so we're
thankful for that for sure.
Denise Venneri (12:22):
I wanna get back on that front end again for the
consumer. You were talking aboutthe tree and the different
inputs. And I just wannaclarify, are they are they being
served up to the consumer, like,one at a time?
John Calhoun (12:37):
They are.
Denise Venneri (12:37):
In other words?
John Calhoun (12:38):
It's really it's almost like if you were chatting
with somebody online. It's aconversational form. I think
that's the whole point of the ofAmplify's interactive form,
focused on interactive. Right?You want that experience to be
like it's almost like aconversation.
Right? Hey. What's your name?Hey. What's your what's your
(13:00):
first name?
What's your last name? And so onand so forth. And so, it I'll be
honest with you, though. It itdid it is taking some consumers
who are used to our static forma little bit to get adjusted to
this because you're going fromseeing a web page where
everything is right in front ofyou that they're asking to one
(13:21):
that's a conversation. So youdon't see what's gonna be asked
until they ask it.
And so if there's a potentialthat you may not have a carton
with you, maybe someone's, youknow, pausing, going to the
kitchen, grabbing the carton,and whatnot, like, whereas the
static form, they're reallydoing the same thing, but it's
all right there in front ofthem. So a lot of people
(13:43):
probably were looking that formover before they even started
it. And, yeah, it's just it'sjust with change, people have to
learn and adapt, and it's itsome some people have it's taken
a little bit, and some peoplejump right on board. And so
Denise Venneri (14:01):
Yeah. Were were you surprised by that outcome
that you
John Calhoun (14:05):
noticed when you were surprised? It's it's hard,
right, when you're you know, Iwas one of I was I wanted to be
extremely involved in thisprocess with it being new, and I
had some of my team involved.And so I tested a lot of this
bot. And, unfortunately, whenyou test something to that
level, your your blinders are sofar covering your eyes that you
(14:28):
forget the consumer experienceto some degree. And so the the
the part that I enjoyed or Ienjoyed, I was appreciative of
is we had various departmentsthat these forms route to
besides my teams.
And so I was able to get theirfeedback. And so some of their
(14:48):
feedback was really differentthan my feedback because I
probably went through the botform hundreds of times. And so
it became easy to me. But, youknow, hindsight is twenty twenty
at the essay. Right, Denise?
And so I think if I were to dothis over again or, like, hop in
the DeLorean and go back to thefuture, I would I would probably
(15:12):
give a different intro to to letthis know. Hey. This is a new
page, but here are some thingsthat you're gonna see. And so I
can't go back and do that fromthe beginning. I have had some
talks with our corporatecommunications team, and we are
actually gonna make an update tothe bot interactive form.
(15:33):
And what it's gonna do is wherepeople were used to those,
excuse me, six different pagesbefore, they will now see those
options at the top of the at thetop of the chat so they know
that it's the right place.Because the options that I
shared with you earlier don'tshow up until you've done the
(15:56):
privacy policy and you verifyyour your age. And so this will
show them before that evenhappens, hopefully, making them
feel like, hey. Yes. I am in thecorrect spot.
Denise Venneri (16:11):
Yeah. What I'm hearing is a passion for
continuous improvement. SoAbsolutely. That's all good.
That's all good.
Hey. Did we cover all yourbenefits of, this or all of the
things you expected to achieve?Did we cover them all?
John Calhoun (16:29):
So, one thing I would say that I didn't mention
is, you know, when I got in thisrole a few years ago, there were
there were some things that Ifelt like needed to be on the
road map for the future of ourteam. One of those was chat.
Right? I wanna have a chat toolwhere consumers can literally
(16:49):
chat with an agent. Right?
But I knew there were some stepsthat I wanted to take prior to
that so we would be ready. Well,like I said earlier, this came
out of nowhere. But, you know,you you adapt and you you you
solve problems and that's just apart of everyday life. But I I I
think this is gonna be a reallygood step from us going from a
(17:12):
static form to this botinteractive form with the next
step being chat, which, I thinkwill bring consumers along from
this experience that they've hadfor, you know, a normal web page
form experience, to this chat.And I'm looking forward to
seeing how that progresses.
(17:33):
So that that to me is a benefit.Yeah. Other people may not see
it that way, but I I definitelysee it that way. So
Denise Venneri (17:41):
So am I hearing, I think you were what you're
touching on is the road map,which is one of my questions
here. So is your road map, wereyou just talking about swinging
all the way to the chat channelas, you know, going full bot on
a chat channel, or are theregonna be some steps you know,
are you gonna do live chat firstand then move into what people
(18:05):
call chat?
John Calhoun (18:05):
Sure. So Amplify, if I'm if I understand what me
and the representative I I workwith on Amplify, I think they
call it CSM. But what she's toldme is that the CSM yeah. They
call it a CSM. Yeah.
And what I believe the way thatour chat works is it comes with
(18:29):
the bot. It's, one in the same.And so one of the components
that we knew was importantbefore that happened is that we
had a knowledge base built,which was on the road map. And
so we're actually we're we'relaunching that actually
tomorrow. And it's called it'scalled LivePro.
It's not part of Amplify. Wechose to do that outside of
(18:51):
Amplify, but we're hoping in thefuture to leverage that. I
actually just had a call withthe CEO of LivePro. He wanted to
check-in and thank me for mybusiness and and meet me. And so
we were talking about Amplifyand our future road map, and so
it was a great conversation.
And and so far, even though wehaven't launched yet, I've been
(19:14):
heavily involved with experienceunit and my team building it,
and we've been extremely happy.I'm looking forward to seeing
the impact the positive impacton the team and ultimately of
the consumer. So yeah.
Denise Venneri (19:28):
What what timeliness on our part. And it's
funny. I literally I maybe yousaw it earlier today. I reached
out to my community to see ifanybody on the brand side has a
knowledge based story they maywanna share.
John Calhoun (19:42):
Really? I didn't see that you I
Denise Venneri (19:44):
just posted not too soon before we connected.
And, yeah, basically, what whatI'm what I'm doing is a series
because you're you're spot on.Like, the old dusty knowledge
base, you know, is really, like,step one of so many cool things,
some of them with AI, some youknow, in chat and all that good
(20:04):
stuff. You have to have thatsolid step. So, I'll love to
talk about that.
I'll I'll say whether you mightwanna come back and talk about
your, knowledge
and stand up.
Won't
put you on the spot here. I do have one more
question, and then then we'regonna wrap. Is the bot
interactive web form used byjust your team, did you say, or
(20:26):
just other parts of the org usethis as as well?
John Calhoun (20:31):
Yes. So it's used by multiple teams. Now our team
does the administration of theentire interactive form, but
there are multiple departmentsthroughout the company that get
the output of this botinteractive form. So yeah. So
(20:52):
there's I mean, I I don't knowhow many departments, but it's
it's definitely a handful.
It covers some of our corporatelocation, and some goes out to
different plants. And so, yeah,it's it's used by various. And
we like I said, we went from allthese different web forms to
(21:12):
this one by interactive form andand one place to go, one place
to gather information. But atthe end, it disperses to the
right place, which is a part ofthe whole administration and
setup process. But it's beengoing good so far.
We we still remain committed toimproving the experience for the
(21:35):
consumer. We've learned somethings. We've talked to
consumers. We've gotten somefeedback. And so we have made
some minor changes so far with acouple more coming in the
future.
Denise Venneri (21:46):
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, sadly, as I
mentioned, we are at the end ofthe podcast, John, and I just
wanted to say thanks so much fortaking time out of your day to
talk and sharing sharing yourstory, or should I say stories.
Appreciate that.
John Calhoun (22:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Denise, thank you for having me.
It was a pleasure to getting toknow you over this process, and
I hope this conversation ishelpful to somebody. And,
hopefully, I'll ski up the nextSOCAP here in October.
Doug Venneri (22:16):
You have been listening to the My Curious
Colleague podcast with DeniseVenneri. Thank you for your
time.
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