March 19, 2024 • 37 mins
Not only does Delores Cooper of Zendesk have a pretty amazing back story, she's also doing some pretty amazing things with a small and scrappy team at Zendesk. Short form video has become an increasingly popular medium for distribution of content and Zendesk is utilizing this as part of their digital enablement strategy.
In this conversation, we talk about:
- Delores' entry into tech from social work & psychology
- Timing of digital motions along the customer journey
- Dealing with variables such as industry-specific differences
- Team structure at Zendesk to support digital & scaled program
- Getting scrappy with resources and cross-functional departments to help build the program
- Short-form content as part of the ‘Success on Zendesk’ program
- Using data to determine what content to produce
- Distribution model for video-based learning
- Taking learnings from B2C on how to interject more human language into B2B
Delores' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delorescooper/
DCS Connect Community: https://airtable.com/appLGhZyujOoYp8BQ/shr4ixoZmB8hBoLbM
Shoutouts:
- Grace Maxon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-lofgren-maxon-a98049156/
- Cooper Roe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cooper-roe/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
And digital.
If you want to do it, and youwant to do it well, you have to
be comfortable with with notachieving perfection.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And, once again, welcome to the digital customer
success podcast with me, alexChokovic.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as I seek
out and interview leaders andpractitioners who are innovating
and building great scaled CSprograms.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
(00:34):
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started, andwelcome to episode 44 of the
digital customer success podcast.
Is so great to have you back.
As usual, today's episodefeatures Dolores Cooper of
(00:54):
Zendesk.
She runs their America's scaledteam and I was excited to have
her on after I met her during aDCS connect event where she gave
us an overview of some of thegreat work that's being done
with micro learning in the videoformat at Zendesk to help
(01:17):
customers at scale.
And so we talk about Dolores'sbackground, which is actually
completely unrelated to CS.
She started her life and careerin social work and rehab
psychology and has been a kindof moving through different
roles in tech at Zendesk overthe last few years, where she
(01:40):
currently works in scale.
We talk about you know, not justhow Zendesk is structured
around digital, but we get intosome of the specifics of you
know the programs that she hashelped build out, and one of the
things that we hit on quite abit is just the scrappiness of
(02:01):
it, because not all of us areblessed with massive budgets to
go build all kinds of fun stuffRight, in fact, the majority of
us probably aren't.
So we talk a little bit aboutyou know how to utilize the
resources that you have aroundyou on a shoestring budget and
those kinds of things.
So a really awesomeconversation with Dolores Cooper
(02:21):
.
I hope you enjoy it, because Isure did.
Dolores Cooper, it's a delightto have you on the show and I'm
pleased that you took some timeout of your busy day and end of
quarter to join me, so welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you, I'm so excited to talk to you, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah for sure.
We met each other because weare mutual members of the DCS
Connect Slack community.
So if you're not a member ofthe DCS Connect Slack, you
better get your butt over thereand sign up for that, because
it's a great place where a bunchof DCS practitioners talk and
(02:59):
in your case you did a bit of alike a tech stack kind of deal
that was really cool and had thepleasure of attending and where
you showed off some of thiscool stuff that you're doing at
Zendesk.
So that's where we first metand have had the pleasure of
chatting a couple of times withyou.
But I'm surprised to say you'redoing some great stuff and I
(03:21):
can't wait to you know, sharewhat you're doing with the
community a little bit.
First, I figured it might begood to get a little bit of your
kind of origin story, because Iknow that most people don't
really utilize their like earlyeducation and stuff like that,
(03:42):
you know, in their long tailcareer.
I'm one of those people, butyou kind of took a hard left,
like you're.
I think you were kind of insocial work and psychology or
something like that early on andnow you're in tech.
What's that all about?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, um, well, after high school had no idea what I
wanted to do, like many peopleentering the world of higher
education, but somehow I woke upand I thought to myself I'm
going to change the world andI'm going to do it in social
work and it's going to be greatand I'm going to be so fulfilled
(04:17):
and make a difference.
And social work is veryfulfilling, um, but it takes a
certain kind of human being, areally tough person, to work in
social work, and I'm not ashamedto say that that was, that was
not me.
Um, I went into college knowingone thing that I did not want
to be a teacher, because alsoremarkable human beings who are
(04:41):
educators.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Um, just for me.
And underappreciated, I think,in both categories.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Absolutely 100% Um.
But yeah, so I landed on umrehabilitation psychology.
I really liked um learningabout um disabilities and and
things like that, and I wantedto, and for a while after
college or even during college,um, I was working in um
nonprofit and just helping withadults with developmental
(05:11):
disabilities and that was greatUm.
And then I was hungry forsomething else, so I put a sharp
left turn, sharp left turn.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah For sure, into Zendesk, where you've been for a
while.
What?
What led you into Zendesk tobegin with?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Funny story.
Um, I saw it on a bus, on thecity bus.
Um, just the logo.
And you know how, when you buya red car, then you see red cars
like everywhere, everywhere.
Um, I was working at the YWCAin Madison and um, which is a
nonprofit.
Zendesk is a huge supporter ofthe YWCA and they were allowing
(05:50):
us to host some event in theiroffice space and had never heard
of Zendesk.
After we hosted the event there, I saw it everywhere on the
side of buses, on like likebenches, like everywhere, yeah,
and then on the website, likejust everywhere.
Um, and what really got me out?
We walked into the Zendeskoffice and there was a live moss
(06:13):
wall and I was like that's,that's grass on the wall.
That's really cool.
And then there was a vendingmachine full of Apple products.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I was like what is this?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
place.
This is where.
This is where I need to be.
So the rest is history.
I applied and then I got it.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, that's cool that was it.
You're still there.
You've had, you know, you'vetransitioned through a bunch of
different roles, um, with yourcurrent, I think it was like
scale customer manager, scale tocustomer says something like
that.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yep Manager.
Um, yeah, I definitely had acouple of positions as started
at a as a customer advocate andsupport, just which I think
everyone just like retaileveryone.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Some some great way.
And it humbles you right 40secs customer service and then
from there from advocacy movedover to customer experience,
really working with newcustomers, newer customers, and
(07:18):
then that department at the timeor org at the time merged into
customer success and with theCSM and then worked my way up to
senior manager.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So that transition into tech, how difficult was,
was that like?
I mean, I would imagine thatwas.
It's two completely differentworlds, bunch of acronyms, you
know just totally differentthing what?
Was that challenge like?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
The work that comes to mind again.
It's just, it was a veryhumbling experience.
You, you know, typically innonprofits you are it's a very
everyone do does everyone's jobright, because you have to.
Resources are limited, it'sjust the nature of it and
(08:14):
sometimes it can involve sometech, but not not really not
what I was doing.
I was doing development workand event planning, things like
that when I was at the YWCA Imean.
So, moving over to Zendes, it'shere's this shiny Mac and I was
a PC person.
I was like how do I turn it on?
And they're like also, here'sthis suite of products that
(08:39):
people are going to be askingyou questions about when they
call.
They're probably going to beangry because people don't call
support usually when they'rehappy.
So just just fix it.
So yeah, that transition wasvery humbling, but I will say I
had.
I've been like honored to havesuch amazing managers at every
(08:59):
position that I've been in fromthe very beginning and they've
helped me tremendously.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So I mean that's hard .
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Totally worth it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's like the key right.
You have good leadership inplace and you can.
You can persevere through thatstuff.
So that's, that's awesome.
Well, that's off to you forthat Transition, and then also
just the because that's that.
You know it's easy to getcomplacent and you're obviously
one that wants to like, strivefor new stuff, which is cool,
(09:29):
yeah.
So you know, one of thequestions that I ask all of my
guests which I'd love to pose toyou as well, since you've been
in scale and digital for a whileis literally what's, what's
your elevator pitch definitionof digital.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I knew you're going to ask me this and I
intentionally did not scriptanything, draft anything.
So I think sorry one.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, we got some sirens.
It's, it's, it's, it's makingthe whole thing real dramatic.
I gotta say it's good.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Okay, it's on now.
Hopefully everyone's.
Okay, there's no fire, but,yeah, elevator pitch.
So I think it's the the perfectmix right and the right balance
between timing and tooling,using that qualitative data,
using the quantitative data tounderstand what customers need
and want and when they want it,and then doing it right and
(10:31):
providing those resources andtools for them to be successful.
The ultimate goal is to createthe ideal experience for every
customer so that they know andlike confidently believe that
the partnership that they havewith you and whatever product
you have is exactly what they dofor their business.
Yeah, and obviously one of theemotions of digital is is doing
(10:54):
all of that in a scalable way,and that is definitely a
challenge.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So it is yeah for sure.
The best elevator pitch you'veheard so far is real good.
Actually, I love the, thecombination of you know tooling,
because it is all about likeyou can.
You can have like really great,you know automated stuff, but
if you send it at the wrong timeyou might as well not send it
(11:18):
at all.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
How much of that timing is based on timeline
events, like, like you know,you've got onboarding plus
whatever and you've got renewalminus whatever versus like
timing based on like telemetry.
Okay, this, this went down.
(11:43):
We got to jump in here.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
In a perfect world 5050.
There we are right now.
I think it's definitelyidentifying key parts on the
customer journey and customertimeline or lifecycle.
You know yeah.
So yeah, like yeah, Ionboarding retention, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And it's super hard to because that stuff changes
with every customer.
You know you have you haveconstants along the timeline,
but then some customers justkind of coast through there
taking yourself service stuffthere don't need much help and
others are just, like you know,constant, yeah, fire.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Totally and then throw in.
Throw in industries right, likewhere people are in onboarding
and retail could be drasticallydifferent from manufacturing or
distribution right.
So, yeah, it's figuring out,it's.
It's a tough pill to swallowout.
For me, I guess it beingcomfortable with like not
(12:44):
knowing or not having like theperfect solution.
You know, like she got, youhave indigital.
If you want to do it and youwant to do it well, you have to
be comfortable with with notachieving perfection.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, yeah, ooh, that's, that's a, that's a,
that's a good spicy nugget rightthere.
And it's so true.
It's so true because thevariables are astronomically
massive and you can't developsomething that hits every single
variable all the time.
Yeah, Right.
(13:17):
Yeah, and that's a that's achallenge too, that not a lot of
people have talked about, whichis to say that there are some
platforms out there, likeZendesk, where you're not
focused on a specific industry.
There are, you know, hundredsand hundreds of different
industry.
You know, probably not justsoftware, but just any.
Anything you need a ticketingsystem for is using the tool.
(13:41):
So you know there'srequirements among requirements
there to do on guessing.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's a struggle, it's .
It's probably one of the themost general sort of lessons
I've learned, because you candefinitely apply something like
that like to personal things andjust even outside of digital
it's not as much as you want.
A one size fits all solution isnever gonna happen, nope.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Nope, never gonna happen.
So give us a little insight interms of team structure, because
this is what this is, somethingthat's, you know, unique to
every person I've ever talked to, but how?
Zendesk is doing some coolthings around digital and scale,
but but how?
Are the team structure tosupport that.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Sure.
So, like you we've talked aboutI I lead our a mayor scale team
and when we identified andreally wanted to take action on
building out a digital motion,we knew that we wanted to work
really closely and not just wewanted to be hands on in
(14:54):
building it.
So what that meant isidentifying people within the
scale team to sort of agree totake on, you know, managing
their scale duties but alsobuilding up this wonderful
digital success experience forour customers as well.
We had to get really creativewith resources to make it happen
(15:16):
.
I think a benefit all customerscan use digital.
It's not just you know, hey, ifyou're not a scale customer,
you can't touch our digitalsuccess content.
It's for everyone.
So I also want to call out thatwe had, like many, many
different partners and players,community self-service and
(15:38):
automation team marketingobviously success.
All of those teams, all ofthose players saw a need to have
to create, to optimize ourdigital experience for customers
and it was super easy to getthem to participate.
So I think really fortunate inthat.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
That's cool.
Yeah, because so much of whatwe do on a daily basis relies on
other teams and other tools toaccomplish.
So when you've got goodrelationships that way, that
helps for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yes, the power of networking.
So also going back to your callout for the Slack community
totally network where you can.
You would be surprised at howmany solutions you find and
people you haven't even met yet.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Totally, absolutely All corners of the globe too,
which is cool.
Well, you recently, speaking ofthat community, you recently
showed off some of the thingsthat you're doing, especially
around like short form video,which is, I think, well, I think
short form video period is justcrazy effective because it
(16:48):
speaks more to how we consumecontent these days, in the
TikTok generation, so to speak.
But do you want to give us alittle bit of a walk through,
about through, kind of how thatprogram came to be, what it
looks like today, how you wentabout building it and those
kinds of things?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sure, yeah.
So I guess, starting from thebeginning, just understanding
from our own lived experiencesas consumers, we know that our
attention spans aresignificantly different since
COVID, right, and sincemigrating to work from home
environments, or to work fromhome environments, not bad, it's
just different.
(17:28):
Like we're all type-tasking,we're moving we have limited
time to commit to focusing onone task right, Especially in a
world of competing priorities.
So we knew that, with whatevercontent we created for digital,
it needed to be bite-sized, itneeded to be digestible.
We knew that we would have ourcustomers' attention If we're
(17:52):
lucky like 20 minutes right, andwe want to do a lot of stuff in
that 20 minutes.
And just like you said, Ialways say this and I always
tell my team that we are in theTikTok era.
Like we, I love TikTok.
I'm not ashamed to admit it.
People want their like ahamoments and realizations quickly
.
Yeah, so also partnering withour self-service team and
(18:16):
tapping into feedback collectedby our customer insights team,
which I mentioned in thatpresentation, we were able to
understand what customers needed.
We didn't have to assume, right, we're just like oh yeah,
customers will love this.
Well, do we know?
Like, maybe they're just like,I don't care about this.
We went directly to them.
We can understand what theirpain points are and understand
(18:40):
the impact that those painpoints cause right, but also
understand what they love, like,why are they committed or why
are they loyal customers?
What do they love about Zendeskthe product, what do they love
about Zendesk the people?
And we took all of that.
All of that identified where,on the customer journey, on the
customer lifecycle, we wanted tostart, got all our key players
(19:03):
suited up, and now we have adigital experience called
Successful Zendesk and it'sgreat.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, I went on the Zendesk YouTube channel, which I
guess you know is where a lotof that is hosted, and started
started going through some ofthose things.
They're easy to spot becausethey're like three minute videos
, you know, but they're reallycool and they're, you know,
again, short and engaging andthey look super pro.
(19:33):
But from what you were saying,yeah, from what you were saying
their, you know, budgetconstraints are a real thing,
right, and you and the team hadto get kind of scrappy to get
these produced right.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yep, we.
Scrappy is the perfect word.
We had to get scrappy.
We had to identify.
I'm lucky, like truly, findingpeople on my team that were
committed and passionate aboutbuilding this out.
Like truly saw it.
It took no convincing.
They saw the need for it, theywanted to try something new,
(20:13):
they wanted to build a newmuscle right.
And then there was just like ageneral sort of willingness to
get it wrong almost you know.
And I think that kind of braveryallows you to create like
really cool, fun, creativecontent, and I think that's what
we have with like eachcomponent of Success.
(20:35):
Within Desk, we have thecommunity, or the discussion
space within our community,which is super crucial to have
like customers networking andtalking to each other.
We have our customer success ondemand, our video series.
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
So it's.
You know, I love the fact thatyou actually used data to
determine what you wanted toinclude, because that's hard to
get to sometimes, so I thinkthat was probably a luxury, but
I love that you were veryanalytics driven, in terms of
(21:11):
you know, kind of making surethat you hit the right marks, so
to speak.
Well, what did that processlook like?
For, okay, you've identified,like, these key areas where you
and I'm trying to get a littletactical here were you very
script-driven?
Was this kind of loose and youknow more based around the
(21:37):
persona who was presenting theinformation?
What did the production of thatstuff look like?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, so Grace Maxson is our main content creator.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
She is.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
you know?
Yes, you've seen her on thevideos.
It probably was a littlecombination of both, right, like
.
So we knew, when we chosewhatever theme we were focused
on for that month or whatevertopic, we knew key bullets of
what we wanted to get across,and sometimes, yes, we did write
a script of a couple ofsentences that said the thing we
(22:13):
wanted to say over and overagain.
Sometimes we started from asuccess measures perspective of,
like how will we know this issuccessful?
Okay, if we see this activity,this activity, or if a customer
does this, well then let's writesomething that encourages that
behavior.
(22:33):
Right, so it was a littlemixture of both.
And then the other half, shejust winged it.
It was great, she's awesome.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I love that approach, actually, because you know you
want to hit on the things thatyou want to make sure you hit on
, but at the same time you wantit to be human and having a
fully scripted video is like thequickest way to being non-human
.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Absolutely.
I could probably say that wehad A equal list of things that
we for sure wanted to do in ourvideos and a list of things that
we wanted to avoid in ourvideos, and that's one of them,
like have a large support board.
We don't want to providetechnical assistance in these
(23:20):
videos.
We don't even want to reallyget into like the functionality
piece Too deep.
Sometimes you just can't avoidit and that's fine.
We we knew what we didn't wantour video to be want to have our
own personality, our owncustomer success brand coming
across in these videos.
We want it to be like a moreuseful tick tock.
(23:41):
You can, yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
What lately tick tock is just like selling stupid
products.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Oh my god, tick tock shop.
It's like ruined it.
I love the hate.
Yeah, yeah, I don't need theneck massage.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
No, I can't leave me alone, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Um, but yeah, so we knew what we wanted and we knew,
we knew the message and sort ofthe brand that we did not want
to create with a video.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
So yeah, and most folks who are consuming that
content aren't like me and goingto the YouTube channel and, you
know, going through, probablynot.
I mean, I'm sure there are, but, um, so what is?
What is that delivery mechanismlook like?
(24:32):
Um, you know, and how are youdistributing those in a timely
fashion, like you were saying?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Absolutely Um.
Well, another shout out toCooper Rowe Um, he is so
obsessive.
Data like in a um, in a scaryway, but like it totally play,
it's to our benefit.
Um, he is tasked with, as, asit relates to digital success,
identifying our target audience.
(25:00):
Right, so we can know, um, whattheme we want to focus on, or
what topic we want to focus on.
We come together determine, hey, how do we want to measure
success?
And then Cooper goes off and heidentifies our target audience.
Cool, once we have that, we, um,we are a game site house.
We definitely leverage anyorchestrator, um that feature of
(25:22):
game site to send all of thisstuff out.
So, um, we put together anewsletter with the help of our
customer lifecycle marketingteam, um, that links all of
their relevant resources.
Here's some videos for you todigest, um, or and or you can go
to the community if you preferto read.
If that's the kind of learnerthat you are, um and you want to
(25:43):
engage, you can also do someanother one of our scale
programs CS live, if you want tohave like a small group, um, so
just sit back and not beoverwhelmed by 600 person
webinar, you know?
Yep, um, yeah, so we usejourney orchestrator emails the
way we are playing withhopefully in the next couple of
months um putting this digitalsuccess content into the product
(26:07):
um through IPM.
So that will be exciting too.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That'll be super cool .
Yeah, just shooting that stuffin product is is super useful,
because then you can likesomebody's struggling with this
thing and you can like say here,here's some help.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah exactly, and at some point you have to think
like, if I'm building content toget people to understand the
value of the product, howhelpful is it if I'm taking them
away from the product to viewthe content?
You know, yeah, yeah, justdon't really make sense yeah,
totally, totally.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Um, on a related but tangential note what is your,
what does your team look like,who's who's like, who's on your
team and and kind of, what rolesdo you have on the team?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Well, only cool people on my team obviously um.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
The only cool must apply.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, I think it's on, I thinkit's in the top screen.
Um, so again, everyone titlewise on my team or role wise on
my team.
They're skilled CSM and some ofthem have this opportunity to
(27:23):
sort of dabble a little bit inin digital, so they're sort of
honorary roles, would be likecontent creator, data analysts,
things like that.
But I think that's technicallystill like that.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I love that, um, because it solves a problem that
I see quite a bit where youdon't necessarily have the
resources to do the full blownapproach of, hey, you've got a
scale team that's literally justcustomer facing and reacting to
stuff and reaching out andtaking inbound, and I think that
(28:01):
this digital team that all theydo is live and journey
orchestrator and all they do isanalyze data and all the you
know there's there's kind oflike that separation and that's
kind of like the full tiltapproach.
The reality is is that Most ofus don't have the resources to
do that, and I always love itwhen you can, you know, find
(28:24):
people that have an interest andhave a passion and and know
about something that you canutilize in a unique way, and
then being able to structure theteam in such a way to where,
hey, if you want to specializein this one thing, grow your
career, gain some new skills,take on some projects, add stuff
to your resume, go to town.
I love, I love those kinds ofopportunities and it sounds like
(28:45):
you're you're able to providethat.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, it's, I'm happy that that's how it's really
played out.
Yeah, yeah, I think theinsights that they have from
being having a owning a book ofbusiness, being a scale CSM, are
invaluable to what they createand how they create and how they
approach, you know, bringforming things or even just the
(29:12):
content creation.
It totally influences that.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, have you gotten specific in terms of like, hey,
20% of your gig is this and 80%is that, or is it?
Does it just kind of work outin the wash?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
We're working it out, we're figuring it out.
I think it's agility, it'sflexibility, it's understanding.
Something that's notpredictable is the number of
customers that are going torespond to you any given week.
So sometimes they don't want totalk to you and look, I have a
whole week of time to commit todigital and another week, or the
(29:47):
entire month of January, itseems, everything that wants to
talk to you every day, everyminute, so it's a little less
time to commit.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah.
Yeah, it gives you some leversto purr for sure.
One of the things that I loveto do is just keep my eye out
for different digital emotionsthat I see in the wild, so to
speak, Because we all recognizethem when we get those emails or
we get those text messages orwhatever.
So it's something that eitheryou've worked on or that you've
(30:19):
seen out in the wild recentlythat you thought were really
cool.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Well, obviously, the stuff that we're doing has been
done.
Obvi.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
That's all right.
I have been receiving somereally cool success newsletters
from outreach, oh yeah, and fromGangside.
Those have been really cool,and the things that I've seen
Qualtrics put out as far as acustomer hub and their digital
(30:51):
success motion super cool.
I want to.
This is consumer Dolorestalking now.
I really like ButcherBox andHelloFresh.
I know that they're both foodrelated but whatever Amazing.
Really I don't mean any moresubscriptions in my life, but
(31:14):
they're convincing me.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Well, here's the deal , and we've said this before on
the show.
It's like, for some weirdreason, there's this reluctance
to take lessons learned andexamples from B2C, when B2C has
been killing it in this fieldfor ages because that's how they
(31:39):
operate and stuff like that.
So I love it when people bringthose kinds of examples, because
I think that there's hugepotential is the wrong word, but
there's huge, like we should be, communicating as humans.
Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Absolutely yes.
Digital doesn't mean you justlike drop a mask and put on your
like robot face and voice andyeah, no, like people still want
to have a connection and youcan.
It's totally possible to createthat with digital.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I totally agree, I totally agree Any glaring
mistakes that you've learnedfrom or I was.
I was love to ask this questionbecause, like digital, is all
about making mistakes andlearning and then pivoting.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And then, yes, I don't, even, I don't.
I'm going to reframe thequestion, it's not a mistake.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
They're like huh learning learning opportunity.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
And I think it goes back to something I said in the
beginning just a willingness tonot get it right the first time.
It does not need to be perfect.
I think we definitely were ableto create good quality content
and get it out pretty quickly,but I think it probably could
have been faster, Just with thelevel of detail, my as my own
(33:07):
patient and wanting it to beright.
I don't know I won't know it'sright until I put it up and then
get feedback.
So just that part.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
So we're getting over myself and just get it out
there.
Yeah, for sure, Get it outthere.
I think.
I think there's a mantra we canall live by.
Yeah, absolutely, just do it.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, that'scool, I dig it.
Look, I, I've reallyappreciated this time and, as we
(33:38):
kind of round down, I'd love tokind of learn a little bit more
about what you're payingattention to.
I know you give some some coolshout outs, but, like, is there,
is there, like you know,content that you consume on a
regular basis?
Are there some shout outs tocool people doing cool stuff and
digital right now?
Like, what are you payingattention to?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, definitely.
Again, that DCS Slack communityhas been so helpful for me and
just feeling, I guess, a senseof belonging Like there's so
many people.
This is not a slight, butthere's so many people in that
channel who also don't have itfigured out that it's just
refreshing to be among people.
(34:21):
Okay, I'm not the only one.
This is great.
Let's talk about love.
That I think when I'm beingtasked with a digital project, I
actually try to learn moreabout like human behavior than
like what digital success is, oryou know what it means for this
(34:43):
industry or that industry.
Just what are consumers doing?
What are the trends, Lovetrends reports and in those
kinds of insights, things likethat.
That helps me go to my team andsay we should try this or
something's not, something'smisfiring, Like let's, let's
pivot a little bit.
(35:03):
So those are the things thatI've been like focusing a lot of
my time on, for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, that's.
That's super cool and yeah, theSlack community will link it
down in the show notes.
If you guys want to join it, Ihighly recommend you do.
But yeah, it is.
It is like a sense of belongingand, you know, there's like
there's a unspoken, no stupidquestions kind of policy in
(35:31):
there, which is cool.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
I was told about it.
I honestly can't remember whotold me about it.
If you're listening and youtold me about it, credits to you
.
I sat on it for a while becauseI was just so nervous of like,
okay, I'm going to enter thespace and everyone's going to be
so much further along than I am, I'm going to be the newbie.
No, I, that's.
(35:53):
That's a big mistake Notjoining sooner.
Not asking questions.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you know it's.
It's funny because there are asurprising, a surprisingly few
number of CS orgs that have adedicated, like scaled or
digital program.
And yeah, some of it is throughops or whatever, but it's still
this kind of black box.
You either have it or you don't, mentality, which is not
(36:22):
obviously not not right, but youknow it's, it's, it's a
testament to Zendesk and othersthat have, you know, substantial
scale teams and these cool kindof programs that they've
invested in be scrappy.
Hey, you're still doing it.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
So yes, exactly yeah.
So how do you just kind of rollup your seats?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You do.
Yeah Well, look, it's been apleasure having you on.
I always love chatting with you.
We'll obviously keep in touchand immunity, but I'm working
people.
I'm just trying to find you,reach out to you, chat with you,
all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yes, hit me up in the in the Slack community,
linkedin, I'm here.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, well, thanks again.
Have a good rest of your dayand good rest of the quarter,
and I wish you lots of luck.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Thanks, alex, me too.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of the
digital customer success podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
It helps us to grow and toprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the digitalcustomer success definition word
map and get more details aboutthe show at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
My name is Alex Turkovich.
(37:34):
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
And digital.
If you want to do it, and youwant to do it well, you have to
be comfortable with with notachieving perfection.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And, once again, welcome to the digital customer
success podcast with me, alexChokovic.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as I seek
out and interview leaders andpractitioners who are innovating
and building great scaled CSprograms.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
(00:34):
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started, andwelcome to episode 44 of the
digital customer success podcast.
Is so great to have you back.
As usual, today's episodefeatures Dolores Cooper of
(00:54):
Zendesk.
She runs their America's scaledteam and I was excited to have
her on after I met her during aDCS connect event where she gave
us an overview of some of thegreat work that's being done
with micro learning in the videoformat at Zendesk to help
(01:17):
customers at scale.
And so we talk about Dolores'sbackground, which is actually
completely unrelated to CS.
She started her life and careerin social work and rehab
psychology and has been a kindof moving through different
roles in tech at Zendesk overthe last few years, where she
(01:40):
currently works in scale.
We talk about you know, not justhow Zendesk is structured
around digital, but we get intosome of the specifics of you
know the programs that she hashelped build out, and one of the
things that we hit on quite abit is just the scrappiness of
(02:01):
it, because not all of us areblessed with massive budgets to
go build all kinds of fun stuffRight, in fact, the majority of
us probably aren't.
So we talk a little bit aboutyou know how to utilize the
resources that you have aroundyou on a shoestring budget and
those kinds of things.
So a really awesomeconversation with Dolores Cooper
(02:21):
.
I hope you enjoy it, because Isure did.
Dolores Cooper, it's a delightto have you on the show and I'm
pleased that you took some timeout of your busy day and end of
quarter to join me, so welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you, I'm so excited to talk to you, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah for sure.
We met each other because weare mutual members of the DCS
Connect Slack community.
So if you're not a member ofthe DCS Connect Slack, you
better get your butt over thereand sign up for that, because
it's a great place where a bunchof DCS practitioners talk and
(02:59):
in your case you did a bit of alike a tech stack kind of deal
that was really cool and had thepleasure of attending and where
you showed off some of thiscool stuff that you're doing at
Zendesk.
So that's where we first metand have had the pleasure of
chatting a couple of times withyou.
But I'm surprised to say you'redoing some great stuff and I
(03:21):
can't wait to you know, sharewhat you're doing with the
community a little bit.
First, I figured it might begood to get a little bit of your
kind of origin story, because Iknow that most people don't
really utilize their like earlyeducation and stuff like that,
(03:42):
you know, in their long tailcareer.
I'm one of those people, butyou kind of took a hard left,
like you're.
I think you were kind of insocial work and psychology or
something like that early on andnow you're in tech.
What's that all about?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, um, well, after high school had no idea what I
wanted to do, like many peopleentering the world of higher
education, but somehow I woke upand I thought to myself I'm
going to change the world andI'm going to do it in social
work and it's going to be greatand I'm going to be so fulfilled
(04:17):
and make a difference.
And social work is veryfulfilling, um, but it takes a
certain kind of human being, areally tough person, to work in
social work, and I'm not ashamedto say that that was, that was
not me.
Um, I went into college knowingone thing that I did not want
to be a teacher, because alsoremarkable human beings who are
(04:41):
educators.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Um, just for me.
And underappreciated, I think,in both categories.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Absolutely 100% Um.
But yeah, so I landed on umrehabilitation psychology.
I really liked um learningabout um disabilities and and
things like that, and I wantedto, and for a while after
college or even during college,um, I was working in um
nonprofit and just helping withadults with developmental
(05:11):
disabilities and that was greatUm.
And then I was hungry forsomething else, so I put a sharp
left turn, sharp left turn.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah For sure, into Zendesk, where you've been for a
while.
What?
What led you into Zendesk tobegin with?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Funny story.
Um, I saw it on a bus, on thecity bus.
Um, just the logo.
And you know how, when you buya red car, then you see red cars
like everywhere, everywhere.
Um, I was working at the YWCAin Madison and um, which is a
nonprofit.
Zendesk is a huge supporter ofthe YWCA and they were allowing
(05:50):
us to host some event in theiroffice space and had never heard
of Zendesk.
After we hosted the event there, I saw it everywhere on the
side of buses, on like likebenches, like everywhere, yeah,
and then on the website, likejust everywhere.
Um, and what really got me out?
We walked into the Zendeskoffice and there was a live moss
(06:13):
wall and I was like that's,that's grass on the wall.
That's really cool.
And then there was a vendingmachine full of Apple products.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I was like what is this?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
place.
This is where.
This is where I need to be.
So the rest is history.
I applied and then I got it.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, that's cool that was it.
You're still there.
You've had, you know, you'vetransitioned through a bunch of
different roles, um, with yourcurrent, I think it was like
scale customer manager, scale tocustomer says something like
that.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yep Manager.
Um, yeah, I definitely had acouple of positions as started
at a as a customer advocate andsupport, just which I think
everyone just like retaileveryone.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Some some great way.
And it humbles you right 40secs customer service and then
from there from advocacy movedover to customer experience,
really working with newcustomers, newer customers, and
(07:18):
then that department at the timeor org at the time merged into
customer success and with theCSM and then worked my way up to
senior manager.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So that transition into tech, how difficult was,
was that like?
I mean, I would imagine thatwas.
It's two completely differentworlds, bunch of acronyms, you
know just totally differentthing what?
Was that challenge like?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
The work that comes to mind again.
It's just, it was a veryhumbling experience.
You, you know, typically innonprofits you are it's a very
everyone do does everyone's jobright, because you have to.
Resources are limited, it'sjust the nature of it and
(08:14):
sometimes it can involve sometech, but not not really not
what I was doing.
I was doing development workand event planning, things like
that when I was at the YWCA Imean.
So, moving over to Zendes, it'shere's this shiny Mac and I was
a PC person.
I was like how do I turn it on?
And they're like also, here'sthis suite of products that
(08:39):
people are going to be askingyou questions about when they
call.
They're probably going to beangry because people don't call
support usually when they'rehappy.
So just just fix it.
So yeah, that transition wasvery humbling, but I will say I
had.
I've been like honored to havesuch amazing managers at every
(08:59):
position that I've been in fromthe very beginning and they've
helped me tremendously.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So I mean that's hard .
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Totally worth it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's like the key right.
You have good leadership inplace and you can.
You can persevere through thatstuff.
So that's, that's awesome.
Well, that's off to you forthat Transition, and then also
just the because that's that.
You know it's easy to getcomplacent and you're obviously
one that wants to like, strivefor new stuff, which is cool,
(09:29):
yeah.
So you know, one of thequestions that I ask all of my
guests which I'd love to pose toyou as well, since you've been
in scale and digital for a whileis literally what's, what's
your elevator pitch definitionof digital.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I knew you're going to ask me this and I
intentionally did not scriptanything, draft anything.
So I think sorry one.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, we got some sirens.
It's, it's, it's, it's makingthe whole thing real dramatic.
I gotta say it's good.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Okay, it's on now.
Hopefully everyone's.
Okay, there's no fire, but,yeah, elevator pitch.
So I think it's the the perfectmix right and the right balance
between timing and tooling,using that qualitative data,
using the quantitative data tounderstand what customers need
and want and when they want it,and then doing it right and
(10:31):
providing those resources andtools for them to be successful.
The ultimate goal is to createthe ideal experience for every
customer so that they know andlike confidently believe that
the partnership that they havewith you and whatever product
you have is exactly what they dofor their business.
Yeah, and obviously one of theemotions of digital is is doing
(10:54):
all of that in a scalable way,and that is definitely a
challenge.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So it is yeah for sure.
The best elevator pitch you'veheard so far is real good.
Actually, I love the, thecombination of you know tooling,
because it is all about likeyou can.
You can have like really great,you know automated stuff, but
if you send it at the wrong timeyou might as well not send it
(11:18):
at all.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
How much of that timing is based on timeline
events, like, like you know,you've got onboarding plus
whatever and you've got renewalminus whatever versus like
timing based on like telemetry.
Okay, this, this went down.
(11:43):
We got to jump in here.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
In a perfect world 5050.
There we are right now.
I think it's definitelyidentifying key parts on the
customer journey and customertimeline or lifecycle.
You know yeah.
So yeah, like yeah, Ionboarding retention, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And it's super hard to because that stuff changes
with every customer.
You know you have you haveconstants along the timeline,
but then some customers justkind of coast through there
taking yourself service stuffthere don't need much help and
others are just, like you know,constant, yeah, fire.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Totally and then throw in.
Throw in industries right, likewhere people are in onboarding
and retail could be drasticallydifferent from manufacturing or
distribution right.
So, yeah, it's figuring out,it's.
It's a tough pill to swallowout.
For me, I guess it beingcomfortable with like not
(12:44):
knowing or not having like theperfect solution.
You know, like she got, youhave indigital.
If you want to do it and youwant to do it well, you have to
be comfortable with with notachieving perfection.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, yeah, ooh, that's, that's a, that's a,
that's a good spicy nugget rightthere.
And it's so true.
It's so true because thevariables are astronomically
massive and you can't developsomething that hits every single
variable all the time.
Yeah, Right.
(13:17):
Yeah, and that's a that's achallenge too, that not a lot of
people have talked about, whichis to say that there are some
platforms out there, likeZendesk, where you're not
focused on a specific industry.
There are, you know, hundredsand hundreds of different
industry.
You know, probably not justsoftware, but just any.
Anything you need a ticketingsystem for is using the tool.
(13:41):
So you know there'srequirements among requirements
there to do on guessing.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's a struggle, it's .
It's probably one of the themost general sort of lessons
I've learned, because you candefinitely apply something like
that like to personal things andjust even outside of digital
it's not as much as you want.
A one size fits all solution isnever gonna happen, nope.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Nope, never gonna happen.
So give us a little insight interms of team structure, because
this is what this is, somethingthat's, you know, unique to
every person I've ever talked to, but how?
Zendesk is doing some coolthings around digital and scale,
but but how?
Are the team structure tosupport that.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Sure.
So, like you we've talked aboutI I lead our a mayor scale team
and when we identified andreally wanted to take action on
building out a digital motion,we knew that we wanted to work
really closely and not just wewanted to be hands on in
(14:54):
building it.
So what that meant isidentifying people within the
scale team to sort of agree totake on, you know, managing
their scale duties but alsobuilding up this wonderful
digital success experience forour customers as well.
We had to get really creativewith resources to make it happen
(15:16):
.
I think a benefit all customerscan use digital.
It's not just you know, hey, ifyou're not a scale customer,
you can't touch our digitalsuccess content.
It's for everyone.
So I also want to call out thatwe had, like many, many
different partners and players,community self-service and
(15:38):
automation team marketingobviously success.
All of those teams, all ofthose players saw a need to have
to create, to optimize ourdigital experience for customers
and it was super easy to getthem to participate.
So I think really fortunate inthat.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
That's cool.
Yeah, because so much of whatwe do on a daily basis relies on
other teams and other tools toaccomplish.
So when you've got goodrelationships that way, that
helps for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yes, the power of networking.
So also going back to your callout for the Slack community
totally network where you can.
You would be surprised at howmany solutions you find and
people you haven't even met yet.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Totally, absolutely All corners of the globe too,
which is cool.
Well, you recently, speaking ofthat community, you recently
showed off some of the thingsthat you're doing, especially
around like short form video,which is, I think, well, I think
short form video period is justcrazy effective because it
(16:48):
speaks more to how we consumecontent these days, in the
TikTok generation, so to speak.
But do you want to give us alittle bit of a walk through,
about through, kind of how thatprogram came to be, what it
looks like today, how you wentabout building it and those
kinds of things?
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sure, yeah.
So I guess, starting from thebeginning, just understanding
from our own lived experiencesas consumers, we know that our
attention spans aresignificantly different since
COVID, right, and sincemigrating to work from home
environments, or to work fromhome environments, not bad, it's
just different.
(17:28):
Like we're all type-tasking,we're moving we have limited
time to commit to focusing onone task right, Especially in a
world of competing priorities.
So we knew that, with whatevercontent we created for digital,
it needed to be bite-sized, itneeded to be digestible.
We knew that we would have ourcustomers' attention If we're
(17:52):
lucky like 20 minutes right, andwe want to do a lot of stuff in
that 20 minutes.
And just like you said, Ialways say this and I always
tell my team that we are in theTikTok era.
Like we, I love TikTok.
I'm not ashamed to admit it.
People want their like ahamoments and realizations quickly
.
Yeah, so also partnering withour self-service team and
(18:16):
tapping into feedback collectedby our customer insights team,
which I mentioned in thatpresentation, we were able to
understand what customers needed.
We didn't have to assume, right, we're just like oh yeah,
customers will love this.
Well, do we know?
Like, maybe they're just like,I don't care about this.
We went directly to them.
We can understand what theirpain points are and understand
(18:40):
the impact that those painpoints cause right, but also
understand what they love, like,why are they committed or why
are they loyal customers?
What do they love about Zendeskthe product, what do they love
about Zendesk the people?
And we took all of that.
All of that identified where,on the customer journey, on the
customer lifecycle, we wanted tostart, got all our key players
(19:03):
suited up, and now we have adigital experience called
Successful Zendesk and it'sgreat.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, I went on the Zendesk YouTube channel, which I
guess you know is where a lotof that is hosted, and started
started going through some ofthose things.
They're easy to spot becausethey're like three minute videos
, you know, but they're reallycool and they're, you know,
again, short and engaging andthey look super pro.
(19:33):
But from what you were saying,yeah, from what you were saying
their, you know, budgetconstraints are a real thing,
right, and you and the team hadto get kind of scrappy to get
these produced right.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yep, we.
Scrappy is the perfect word.
We had to get scrappy.
We had to identify.
I'm lucky, like truly, findingpeople on my team that were
committed and passionate aboutbuilding this out.
Like truly saw it.
It took no convincing.
They saw the need for it, theywanted to try something new,
(20:13):
they wanted to build a newmuscle right.
And then there was just like ageneral sort of willingness to
get it wrong almost you know.
And I think that kind of braveryallows you to create like
really cool, fun, creativecontent, and I think that's what
we have with like eachcomponent of Success.
(20:35):
Within Desk, we have thecommunity, or the discussion
space within our community,which is super crucial to have
like customers networking andtalking to each other.
We have our customer success ondemand, our video series.
Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
So it's.
You know, I love the fact thatyou actually used data to
determine what you wanted toinclude, because that's hard to
get to sometimes, so I thinkthat was probably a luxury, but
I love that you were veryanalytics driven, in terms of
(21:11):
you know, kind of making surethat you hit the right marks, so
to speak.
Well, what did that processlook like?
For, okay, you've identified,like, these key areas where you
and I'm trying to get a littletactical here were you very
script-driven?
Was this kind of loose and youknow more based around the
(21:37):
persona who was presenting theinformation?
What did the production of thatstuff look like?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, so Grace Maxson is our main content creator.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
She is.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
you know?
Yes, you've seen her on thevideos.
It probably was a littlecombination of both, right, like
.
So we knew, when we chosewhatever theme we were focused
on for that month or whatevertopic, we knew key bullets of
what we wanted to get across,and sometimes, yes, we did write
a script of a couple ofsentences that said the thing we
(22:13):
wanted to say over and overagain.
Sometimes we started from asuccess measures perspective of,
like how will we know this issuccessful?
Okay, if we see this activity,this activity, or if a customer
does this, well then let's writesomething that encourages that
behavior.
(22:33):
Right, so it was a littlemixture of both.
And then the other half, shejust winged it.
It was great, she's awesome.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I love that approach, actually, because you know you
want to hit on the things thatyou want to make sure you hit on
, but at the same time you wantit to be human and having a
fully scripted video is like thequickest way to being non-human
.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Absolutely.
I could probably say that wehad A equal list of things that
we for sure wanted to do in ourvideos and a list of things that
we wanted to avoid in ourvideos, and that's one of them,
like have a large support board.
We don't want to providetechnical assistance in these
(23:20):
videos.
We don't even want to reallyget into like the functionality
piece Too deep.
Sometimes you just can't avoidit and that's fine.
We we knew what we didn't wantour video to be want to have our
own personality, our owncustomer success brand coming
across in these videos.
We want it to be like a moreuseful tick tock.
(23:41):
You can, yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
What lately tick tock is just like selling stupid
products.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Oh my god, tick tock shop.
It's like ruined it.
I love the hate.
Yeah, yeah, I don't need theneck massage.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
No, I can't leave me alone, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Um, but yeah, so we knew what we wanted and we knew,
we knew the message and sort ofthe brand that we did not want
to create with a video.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
So yeah, and most folks who are consuming that
content aren't like me and goingto the YouTube channel and, you
know, going through, probablynot.
I mean, I'm sure there are, but, um, so what is?
What is that delivery mechanismlook like?
(24:32):
Um, you know, and how are youdistributing those in a timely
fashion, like you were saying?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Absolutely Um.
Well, another shout out toCooper Rowe Um, he is so
obsessive.
Data like in a um, in a scaryway, but like it totally play,
it's to our benefit.
Um, he is tasked with, as, asit relates to digital success,
identifying our target audience.
(25:00):
Right, so we can know, um, whattheme we want to focus on, or
what topic we want to focus on.
We come together determine, hey, how do we want to measure
success?
And then Cooper goes off and heidentifies our target audience.
Cool, once we have that, we, um,we are a game site house.
We definitely leverage anyorchestrator, um that feature of
(25:22):
game site to send all of thisstuff out.
So, um, we put together anewsletter with the help of our
customer lifecycle marketingteam, um, that links all of
their relevant resources.
Here's some videos for you todigest, um, or and or you can go
to the community if you preferto read.
If that's the kind of learnerthat you are, um and you want to
(25:43):
engage, you can also do someanother one of our scale
programs CS live, if you want tohave like a small group, um, so
just sit back and not beoverwhelmed by 600 person
webinar, you know?
Yep, um, yeah, so we usejourney orchestrator emails the
way we are playing withhopefully in the next couple of
months um putting this digitalsuccess content into the product
(26:07):
um through IPM.
So that will be exciting too.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That'll be super cool .
Yeah, just shooting that stuffin product is is super useful,
because then you can likesomebody's struggling with this
thing and you can like say here,here's some help.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah exactly, and at some point you have to think
like, if I'm building content toget people to understand the
value of the product, howhelpful is it if I'm taking them
away from the product to viewthe content?
You know, yeah, yeah, justdon't really make sense yeah,
totally, totally.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Um, on a related but tangential note what is your,
what does your team look like,who's who's like, who's on your
team and and kind of, what rolesdo you have on the team?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Well, only cool people on my team obviously um.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
The only cool must apply.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, I think it's on, I thinkit's in the top screen.
Um, so again, everyone titlewise on my team or role wise on
my team.
They're skilled CSM and some ofthem have this opportunity to
(27:23):
sort of dabble a little bit inin digital, so they're sort of
honorary roles, would be likecontent creator, data analysts,
things like that.
But I think that's technicallystill like that.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I love that, um, because it solves a problem that
I see quite a bit where youdon't necessarily have the
resources to do the full blownapproach of, hey, you've got a
scale team that's literally justcustomer facing and reacting to
stuff and reaching out andtaking inbound, and I think that
(28:01):
this digital team that all theydo is live and journey
orchestrator and all they do isanalyze data and all the you
know there's there's kind oflike that separation and that's
kind of like the full tiltapproach.
The reality is is that Most ofus don't have the resources to
do that, and I always love itwhen you can, you know, find
(28:24):
people that have an interest andhave a passion and and know
about something that you canutilize in a unique way, and
then being able to structure theteam in such a way to where,
hey, if you want to specializein this one thing, grow your
career, gain some new skills,take on some projects, add stuff
to your resume, go to town.
I love, I love those kinds ofopportunities and it sounds like
(28:45):
you're you're able to providethat.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, it's, I'm happy that that's how it's really
played out.
Yeah, yeah, I think theinsights that they have from
being having a owning a book ofbusiness, being a scale CSM, are
invaluable to what they createand how they create and how they
approach, you know, bringforming things or even just the
(29:12):
content creation.
It totally influences that.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, have you gotten specific in terms of like, hey,
20% of your gig is this and 80%is that, or is it?
Does it just kind of work outin the wash?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
We're working it out, we're figuring it out.
I think it's agility, it'sflexibility, it's understanding.
Something that's notpredictable is the number of
customers that are going torespond to you any given week.
So sometimes they don't want totalk to you and look, I have a
whole week of time to commit todigital and another week, or the
(29:47):
entire month of January, itseems, everything that wants to
talk to you every day, everyminute, so it's a little less
time to commit.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah.
Yeah, it gives you some leversto purr for sure.
One of the things that I loveto do is just keep my eye out
for different digital emotionsthat I see in the wild, so to
speak, Because we all recognizethem when we get those emails or
we get those text messages orwhatever.
So it's something that eitheryou've worked on or that you've
(30:19):
seen out in the wild recentlythat you thought were really
cool.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Well, obviously, the stuff that we're doing has been
done.
Obvi.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
That's all right.
I have been receiving somereally cool success newsletters
from outreach, oh yeah, and fromGangside.
Those have been really cool,and the things that I've seen
Qualtrics put out as far as acustomer hub and their digital
(30:51):
success motion super cool.
I want to.
This is consumer Dolorestalking now.
I really like ButcherBox andHelloFresh.
I know that they're both foodrelated but whatever Amazing.
Really I don't mean any moresubscriptions in my life, but
(31:14):
they're convincing me.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Well, here's the deal , and we've said this before on
the show.
It's like, for some weirdreason, there's this reluctance
to take lessons learned andexamples from B2C, when B2C has
been killing it in this fieldfor ages because that's how they
(31:39):
operate and stuff like that.
So I love it when people bringthose kinds of examples, because
I think that there's hugepotential is the wrong word, but
there's huge, like we should be, communicating as humans.
Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Absolutely yes.
Digital doesn't mean you justlike drop a mask and put on your
like robot face and voice andyeah, no, like people still want
to have a connection and youcan.
It's totally possible to createthat with digital.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I totally agree, I totally agree Any glaring
mistakes that you've learnedfrom or I was.
I was love to ask this questionbecause, like digital, is all
about making mistakes andlearning and then pivoting.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And then, yes, I don't, even, I don't.
I'm going to reframe thequestion, it's not a mistake.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
They're like huh learning learning opportunity.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
And I think it goes back to something I said in the
beginning just a willingness tonot get it right the first time.
It does not need to be perfect.
I think we definitely were ableto create good quality content
and get it out pretty quickly,but I think it probably could
have been faster, Just with thelevel of detail, my as my own
(33:07):
patient and wanting it to beright.
I don't know I won't know it'sright until I put it up and then
get feedback.
So just that part.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
So we're getting over myself and just get it out
there.
Yeah, for sure, Get it outthere.
I think.
I think there's a mantra we canall live by.
Yeah, absolutely, just do it.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, that'scool, I dig it.
Look, I, I've reallyappreciated this time and, as we
(33:38):
kind of round down, I'd love tokind of learn a little bit more
about what you're payingattention to.
I know you give some some coolshout outs, but, like, is there,
is there, like you know,content that you consume on a
regular basis?
Are there some shout outs tocool people doing cool stuff and
digital right now?
Like, what are you payingattention to?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, definitely.
Again, that DCS Slack communityhas been so helpful for me and
just feeling, I guess, a senseof belonging Like there's so
many people.
This is not a slight, butthere's so many people in that
channel who also don't have itfigured out that it's just
refreshing to be among people.
(34:21):
Okay, I'm not the only one.
This is great.
Let's talk about love.
That I think when I'm beingtasked with a digital project, I
actually try to learn moreabout like human behavior than
like what digital success is, oryou know what it means for this
(34:43):
industry or that industry.
Just what are consumers doing?
What are the trends, Lovetrends reports and in those
kinds of insights, things likethat.
That helps me go to my team andsay we should try this or
something's not, something'smisfiring, Like let's, let's
pivot a little bit.
(35:03):
So those are the things thatI've been like focusing a lot of
my time on, for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, that's.
That's super cool and yeah, theSlack community will link it
down in the show notes.
If you guys want to join it, Ihighly recommend you do.
But yeah, it is.
It is like a sense of belongingand, you know, there's like
there's a unspoken, no stupidquestions kind of policy in
(35:31):
there, which is cool.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
I was told about it.
I honestly can't remember whotold me about it.
If you're listening and youtold me about it, credits to you
.
I sat on it for a while becauseI was just so nervous of like,
okay, I'm going to enter thespace and everyone's going to be
so much further along than I am, I'm going to be the newbie.
No, I, that's.
(35:53):
That's a big mistake Notjoining sooner.
Not asking questions.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you know it's.
It's funny because there are asurprising, a surprisingly few
number of CS orgs that have adedicated, like scaled or
digital program.
And yeah, some of it is throughops or whatever, but it's still
this kind of black box.
You either have it or you don't, mentality, which is not
(36:22):
obviously not not right, but youknow it's, it's, it's a
testament to Zendesk and othersthat have, you know, substantial
scale teams and these cool kindof programs that they've
invested in be scrappy.
Hey, you're still doing it.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
So yes, exactly yeah.
So how do you just kind of rollup your seats?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You do.
Yeah Well, look, it's been apleasure having you on.
I always love chatting with you.
We'll obviously keep in touchand immunity, but I'm working
people.
I'm just trying to find you,reach out to you, chat with you,
all that kind of good stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yes, hit me up in the in the Slack community,
linkedin, I'm here.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, well, thanks again.
Have a good rest of your dayand good rest of the quarter,
and I wish you lots of luck.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Thanks, alex, me too.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of the
digital customer success podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
It helps us to grow and toprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the digitalcustomer success definition word
map and get more details aboutthe show at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
My name is Alex Turkovich.
(37:34):
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
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