Episode Transcript
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Alex Turkovic (00:03):
I don't think
there's going to be a time where
we say, yep, we have exactlywhat we need to measure, we're
measuring it correctly and we'regood.
We're always developing newthings to measure and how we're
looking at the data and howwe're even approaching it.
Samantha David (00:19):
Once again,
welcome to the Digital Customer
Experience podcast with me, AlexTurkovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
(00:42):
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to theDigital CX Podcast.
I'm so glad you're back with mehere this week and every week
as we talk about all thingsdigital in CS.
It is December and it's finallystarting to get I'll call it
(01:07):
cool.
Here in Austin, texas, it's notquite cold yet, but typically
that didn't happen for us tillFebruary.
I know a lot of you are in alot colder climates, but it is
December, middle of the holidays.
Hope everybody had a greatThanksgiving if you're US-based,
and we have a greatThanksgiving if you're US based,
(01:28):
and we have a great episodelined up for you today in
Samantha David, who joined us afew weeks ago for a quick
conversation all about digitalprogram management.
She's a digital CS programmanager at Mondaycom and you
know, if you've listened to theshow for a little bit, you know
that I've been trying to pull ina lot more people who are
(01:52):
tactical at the ground levelactually building some of this
stuff, and so Sam was kindenough to come and join us and
share some of her experiencesand some of the work that she's
doing at mondaycom as a programmanager.
You've probably heard SamanthaDavid's name around a bit as
well, because she for a longtime has hosted a meetup all
(02:16):
about digital and scaled, andshe has joined forces with
myself and Scott Wilder, who wason episode 79.
And you know, we're hostingmonthly digital CS meetups which
, if you're interested inregistering and signing up for
some of those, you can do thatat digital successgradualus.
(02:38):
Again, that's digitalsuccessgradualus.
I'll put a link down in theshow notes for that.
We hope to see you there.
We've had some pretty awesomeguests join us there and a great
lineup coming up as well.
So, without further ado, I hopeyou enjoyed this conversation
with Sam David, because I suredid.
(02:58):
Sam David, a warm welcome tothe Digital CX Podcast.
I've been looking forward tothis episode for quite some time
, ever since we started chattingand we met like several months
ago.
I don't know when it was, butit was a while ago.
But yeah, welcome to the show.
So great to have you Thank you.
Alex Turkovic (03:19):
Thank you, I'm
happy to be here and chat with
you.
Samantha David (03:21):
Yeah, we were
just chatting before we recorded
about your recent transplant orreintroduction into the Denver
market which is cool, so thatyou got your move out of the way
.
That's great.
So you're now Denver based.
Alex Turkovic (03:35):
Denver based,
started my tech journey here and
I'm back after being in NewYork for almost eight years.
Samantha David (03:43):
Yeah, for sure,
but you, what's funny?
So, okay, I did some snooping,right, as you do some LinkedIn
snooping, and what's funny?
You triggered a few memories inyour background, which is well.
First off, you were a marketingassistant at Boston Market for
(04:05):
some time.
Alex Turkovic (04:07):
And the memory
that triggered in me is
literally college, likedestroying, you know, roasted
chickens from Boston Market, thebest part is I sat right next
to the test kitchen, so everyday I got to go home with one or
two rotisserie chickens,because they just brought it out
for all the employees.
Samantha David (04:31):
So I was a
favorite among my friends that
just needed dinner as a poorcollege student, Totally,
totally, and then before thatyou were at Hallmark for a bit
as an intern right.
Alex Turkovic (04:38):
Yeah, I was at
Hallmark.
I'm from Kansas City.
I think Hallmark is a KansasCity-based company, so I was
working in marketing analyticsthere.
Samantha David (04:48):
Are you from the
Missouri side or the Kansas
side?
Alex Turkovic (04:50):
Kansas side, so
the suburbs of Kansas City which
are mostly on the Kansas side.
Samantha David (04:55):
Totally.
I'm a Missouri native, so wecan't talk anymore.
Oh no, no, it's cool.
See, Hallmark, have you everread this?
This is a total tangent.
I told you we were going to getinto tangents.
Have you read this book calledOrbiting the Giant Hairball?
Alex Turkovic (05:13):
I have not.
I've never even heard of it.
Highly recommend it.
Samantha David (05:16):
Okay, so it's
written by this guy who used to
I guess he worked in corporateHallmark for like a long time.
Used to.
I guess he worked in corporateHallmark for like a long time,
and I think Hallmark is knownfor pretty notorious for not a
great corporate culture.
I don't know for sure but,whatever.
And he wrote this book all aboutlike I'm paraphrasing,
(05:39):
obviously, but like, if you'restuck in a thing or stuck in a
position, stuck in a whatever,which is the giant hairball to
get out of it, you just orbit itand you create your own
projects and you create your ownwork and you take ownership of
something that nobody else hadownership of and you look for,
like the gross stuff that nobodywants to do and you go do it
and you escape.
Alex Turkovic (06:00):
Yeah, I
definitely saw a lot of that,
which has, like, led me on towhere I am today.
That's a big learning.
But I think, with Hallmark justbeing one of those corporate
giants that's existed fordecades, there's a lot of people
that have worked there fordecades doing the same thing,
but over and over again andknowing that that's their job
and that's what they do.
(06:21):
But I think we live in that newenvironment where things are
changing so rapidly that youkind of have to change with
what's changing out there,either in your industry or just
trends as a whole.
Samantha David (06:32):
Yeah.
Alex Turkovic (06:32):
Enter AI, or else
you do become disposable, and I
think there's a section of homemarketing companies just like
that.
I think Boston Market could beone of those two that still
operate in that way, and thenthere's sections that don't, but
I think areas of the companyare super innovative.
Yeah, but you have a mix ofboth, because it's such a large
(06:55):
organization.
Samantha David (06:56):
Totally, yeah,
absolutely.
I mean I can't even imagine, Imean, that Hallmark has been
around forever.
I mean I remember as a kidgoing to the Hallmark store,
which I don't even know if thatstill exists.
Alex Turkovic (07:05):
Oh, they still
exist.
Samantha David (07:06):
They still exist
, they still probably sell the
same old stuff.
Alex Turkovic (07:10):
Ornaments yeah,
mm-hmm.
Samantha David (07:13):
Keepsakes.
That's a particular smell of aHallmark store, yes, but yeah, I
mean transitioning from, youknow, a very physical product,
you know, and paper organization, to a digital one.
That's interesting.
Anyway, we're not here to talkabout Hallmark.
We are here to talk about whatyou do today, which is very
(07:37):
apropos for the podcast.
You're digital program managerat Mondaycom, which is super
cool, and you, I think, I thinkyou're the first person on the
podcast who's holds the titleand position of digital CS
program managers, which is supercool, and it's it's it's a role
that is growing leaps andbounds.
(08:00):
I think recently there's a lotof people hip to like, hey, you
can't just throw digital CSMs atit, you have to have people
managing the stuff that you'redoing.
So I'm excited on that front tohave you on, but will you talk
a little bit about your journeyinto this world that you live in
now?
Alex Turkovic (08:16):
Yeah.
So, like I said before, mycareer in tech started in Denver
and it was right after Igraduated where I had a job
offer with Boston Market.
And then I also found thiscompany called Workiva that was
hiring a customer successmanager and was looking at both
and I really had no idea what Iwanted to do.
I majored in marketing, did alittle in finance, but I wanted
(08:41):
to try something new and techjust kind of spoke to me in this
way.
That was not your big corporategiant where you had one job
only and you want to stick tothat and we went through the old
school ways of doing things inmarketing.
I wanted something that wasinnovative, changed all the time
(09:01):
, that I could kind of run inthe way that, learn a lot but
run it in my own little businesstype of way.
And that's how they explainedthe customer success role to me,
like I own this book ofbusiness, and that just sounded
really exciting.
So I took the leap and startedat Workiva as a customer success
manager right out of school andreally just fell in love with
(09:24):
the client relationship side andhow much it was changing all
the time.
I really wanted to work forsome of our larger enterprise
clients, some of our banks.
We handled a lot of banks justthrough the nature of what we
did and moved to New York andwas one of the first ones on our
enterprise customer successteam.
(09:44):
So was working with the largerbanks out there Fortune 500
companies to do their financialreporting and it gave me a lot
of on-site experience and wasable to develop those
relationships with clients butalso kind of see into the back
end of what they were doing withclients.
(10:05):
But also kind of seeing to theback end of what they were doing
and, yeah, spent almost fouryears there and then move kind
of to a little different of ascene.
It was with a hedge fundBridgewater, up in Connecticut
to work on an internal startupthat they had so lots smaller of
a team, not mature as a productat all, so was building and
managing their customer supportteam and had not really seen the
(10:28):
reactive side of things insupport and success as much
because I was so hands on and itwas a lot of learning and how
to manage a team like that, someof our strategies or best
practices as a customer supportteam like.
Initially I wanted to go in withmore of like a white glove
service type of handholdingsituation and and I the way that
(10:52):
I learned through working ondeveloping the product and
bringing it to market with therest of the team was that these
need to be very quickinteractions.
We have to get right to thepoint.
This cannot be just like dragon conversation that a lot of
CSMs likes to have.
So really enjoyed thatexperience was gave me a lot of
(11:14):
hands-on experience of likemanaging and seeing everything
from the ground up and I lovethat startup feel of teams and
positions.
And from there went to moneycom,where I am today.
So I've been here with for morethan four and a half years
which is crazy to say that and Idefinitely one of the more
dinosaurs within Monday and washired initially onto our mid
(11:38):
market customer success team anda couple months in, my manager
at the time asked if I wanted tohelp her start the scale team.
Had no idea what scale wasdigital touch.
I just thought it was forcustomer support.
I was like, okay, you know Ihave that type of background.
That makes sense and the waythat they phrase it to us.
You know we're getting ready.
We're getting ready for an IPOthat next year.
(12:00):
We had a lot of customersengaged.
We were one of those platformsthat really made a boom with
COVID too.
Just with work from home andneeding to invest in those tools
, Absolutely yeah.
So and starting to gain tractionin the US market as well.
So develop a scale team becausewe just needed to scale our
(12:21):
resources as CSMs.
How do we interact with thismany customers and ensure that
they're being successful withouthaving a customer one-on-one
relationship with every singleone?
So that's really what startedthis team and been on this team
ever since, seeing it go throughso many different phases.
No year has looked the same.
And also where I started to bemore interested in our digital
(12:46):
program side because, yes, wecan still have human
interactions, one-on-oneinteractions as a scale CSM,
which is something we can neverreally get rid of but automating
the other side of things withthis many customers and this
structure was amazing, really,really valuable to start looking
(13:07):
into at that early stage backin 2021 when we started this
team.
So that's where I took more ofa lead on the program side of
things and one to many than onour one-on-one side for scale,
but been able to watch it growfrom the infancy.
Samantha David (13:25):
So I would
imagine, throughout your
adopting and adapting to thisrole and really taking ownership
of it, that your definition ofdigital CS has probably evolved
a little bit.
How would you describe it inlayman's terms to somebody
walking on the street or arelative?
Alex Turkovic (13:43):
Yeah, I think the
customer success role as a
whole.
I've had to explain to myparents multiple times.
I'm just not reallyunderstanding what I do here and
with digital CS.
It's kind of the same to othersthat maybe work in tech, that
just don't know what is thisrole for.
I haven't seen it a lot.
This is a new term for me.
Is this different from customersuccess?
(14:03):
Is this more marketing?
So yeah, I've had to explain ita lot, but what I would say is
digital program managers, csprograms, whatever you want to
call it.
We drive those personalizedexperiences that are going to
impact value, impact adoption,using targeted resources to
support these customers.
(14:24):
So, whether that's a marriage ofresources and content that
we're developing just for them,or they're receiving this based
on their segment or productusage.
In a way, that content we'retargeting to them to better
improve their experience withinthe tool.
Samantha David (14:45):
Yeah, I love
that I was having a conversation
with my sister the other nightbecause she, she's been binging
the podcast even though she'snot in CS or whatever.
So shout out to my sister yeah,that's awesome.
But she, yeah, she was like I'mlearning about, you know what
customer success is, and I'mlike, oh, that's great, because
you probably you could probablydefine it better than than
(15:07):
anyone working in CS sometimesGreat because you could probably
define it better than anyoneworking in CS sometimes, yes, I
agree, it's like you know, thedefinition, especially in
digital, is so all over theplace, but I really like what
you said about, you know,targeting specific people at the
right time with the rightresources, which is, I think,
something that we can all getbehind.
I think something that we canall get behind One of the things
(15:38):
that I'm, you know, I you knowthis is my first rodeo speaking
with someone from mondaycom,although Dan Ennis is no longer
with mondaycom, but I rememberat the time one of the things
that we talked a lot about inrelation to his work at
mondaycom was utilizing the datato create that segmentation
that I would imagine you'restill working off of today,
which is so important, and alsowhat a lot of people can't
(15:58):
really get their arms around ina good way.
I think data is the number oneproblem everybody's facing in
digital.
Alex Turkovic (16:07):
It's just hard.
Yeah, problem everybody's facingin digital.
It's just hard.
Yeah, I mean there's.
No, I don't think there's goingto be a time where we say, yep,
we had it.
We have exactly what we need tomeasure, we're measuring it
correctly and we're good.
Um, we're always developing newthings to measure and how we're
looking at the data and howwe're even approaching it,
(16:27):
because if we're seeingsomething in what we're
measuring, we tweak a program orchange the segmentation of who
we're reaching out to, then wehave to continue measuring it or
look at another way to measurethis data to produce those ideal
outcomes.
Samantha David (16:44):
Yeah, yeah for
sure.
Absolutely, it's absolutely key.
So the way that I've describedthe digital CS program manager
role to people in the past hasbeen to basically equate it or
call it or compare it to what wetraditionally look at as a
product manager.
(17:04):
It's literally somebody owninga piece of the product and
managing you know what the nextphase of it is going to be and
what the development around itis going to be, and managing the
release of it and checking ifthe data is meeting expectations
and those kinds of things.
Is that something that yousympathize with and agree with,
(17:25):
or would you classify your roledifferently?
Alex Turkovic (17:30):
Yeah, I think
product managers and digital
program managers are verysimilar in that we are customer
focused.
Of course, product managers aremore on the back end of the
product, making sure that thisproduct does what a customer
needs, or what our customersneed, and a digital program
manager is more focused on howthe product is influencing these
(17:55):
customers or the ability forour customers to use this to
achieve those goals.
So they are essential in this.
On making sure that I mean.
Yeah, obviously productmanagers are needed.
They're very important inmaking sure that the platform or
app or whatever you're creatingis doing what your customers
(18:15):
need, and then our job is tobring it to them.
But it might be in more of aone-to-many focused direction
than like a CSM, where they'rechecking in, they're working
directly with them Okay, youstarted to use it, but let's
make sure it works for you thanlike a CSM where they're
checking in there.
They're working directly withthem Okay, you've you started to
use it, but let's make sure itworks for you instead of just
(18:35):
how you can use it as a as acustomer.
Samantha David (18:38):
Yeah, and I
would imagine you're tracking
the hell out of it and mondaycom.
Alex Turkovic (18:42):
Yes, so
everything we do is tracked.
Samantha David (18:46):
On Monday
Everything is in Monday, what so
?
What does your kind of day looklike?
And part of the reason why I'masking is because I know a lot
of leaders who are looking athiring for this type of role,
like you know.
So I guess walk me a little bitthrough like what your typical
kind of workflow or day or kind?
Alex Turkovic (19:08):
of activities
looks like that you're involved
in.
Yeah, and to be clear, we'restill nailing down what this day
looks like Things are changingso rapidly and I think that's
been great.
What's been great with Monday,too, is that they're fine with
my role not being defined andalso I work better in like a
(19:29):
situation like that.
That's a little more ambiguous,with the ability to go in a
direction that I feel isnecessary.
Samantha David (19:37):
Yeah.
Alex Turkovic (19:38):
So right now I
would say we're nailing down
more programs that are involvingthe majority of customer
success, instead of just scale.
The last three years this rolehas just been targeted at scale,
but we're seeing this as astrategy that we can apply to
all of customer success or everyCSM managed account that will
(20:01):
give us those same outcomes andnot just for scale touch
customers.
So I love that it's becomingmore of that overarching
strategy instead of just like asegmented role.
Yeah, but I think when it comesto my day to day, it's a lot of
managing these programs contentwise, because content needs to
be changed ever so often.
(20:21):
Our product changes so rapidly,so we need to make sure that
it's updated to support this,and then also looking at data
and seeing what needs to betweaked yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Samantha David (20:34):
I love that you
said it's like different all the
time and changing all the time,because it's true, like you
know, one day you might beinvolved in a certain automation
flow that goes you know, thatdoes a certain thing and others.
It's like helping CSMs be moreefficient and I love that that's
the direction y'all are going,because I think any solid
(20:57):
digital program shouldn't bejust focused on the customer
experience.
They should be focused on theemployee experience as well.
Alex Turkovic (21:05):
Employee
experience, our time, because
what I really believe in is thatprograms and every program that
we have running will allow forcustomers to not have as many
one-on-one calls that are justtraining or teaching or very
basic, because what a customersuccess manager is good at is
(21:25):
having those high-levelstrategic conversations and
that's what we want to betrained in.
So, when it comes to just thevery basics of training a
customer, we have things to dothat we have our support team
and our resources out there andI'll talk about office hours
later, I'm sure but those arethere to fill in those gaps so
that customer success can dowhat they do best and be
(21:47):
strategic.
Samantha David (21:49):
Which shows a
lot of the evolution of the
program and I think a lot ofprograms where it kind of sounds
like you know, digital itMonday started as coverage for a
segment like a lot of them doyou know, my program included.
It started as coverage for thesegment of unassigned accounts
basically and has morphed intokind of this more you know
(22:13):
strategic thing and set ofmotions that really cover the
entire account base.
Is there a particular you knowmaybe part of that journey or a
particular program that ismemorable or has been
particularly impactful that youmight want to call out memorable
?
Alex Turkovic (22:31):
or has been
particularly impactful that you
might want to call out.
Yeah, I would say specificallyoffice hours, because that's
been the biggest one that we'vebuilt on over the past three,
three and a half years.
Obviously, other one-to-manystrategies email campaigns and
app notifications, which are onthe roadmap, and other things
that we're planning for butoffice hours have been developed
(22:53):
, I would say, to the fullestout of everything that we've
been running regularly.
Samantha David (22:58):
Yeah, that's
really cool.
Alex Turkovic (23:00):
Office hours.
Samantha David (23:01):
I mean, I don't
know if a lot of people knock
them necessarily, but they'rekind of like glossed over, like
oh, that's just a thing we do,like you know, just like check
the box kind of activity, butit's way more than that.
Alex Turkovic (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, I
mean, at the beginning we were
getting maybe a couple ofsignups and most of our sessions
had to be canceled because wedidn't have enough people or
nobody showed up and we werelike, is this worth it?
Does anybody want these?
We saw them as a great resourcebecause we limited our
customers' one-on-one supporthours and we had to tell them
you only get this many hours ayear, but we have office hours
and we just wanted to translatethat to them.
(23:43):
But since building them out more, advertising them more,
spreading the awareness to ourcustomers, finding what exactly
they wanted the topics to be inthe content to be, we were able
to build that awareness and nowwe have them happening five
times a week globally, in everysingle region and and have a at
(24:03):
least I would say, five to 20per session.
I mean, it ranges a lotdepending on what campaigns
we've sent out and what thetopics are and how we're pushing
them out to our customers, butjust by them being these
standing sessions that customerscan depend on, that they know
exist and that our sales teamknow that they can promote to
(24:28):
our customers too.
I've just seen the reactionfrom our customers and when they
do join, it makes even more ofan impact for our customers
because they need it in thatmoment and they were able to get
exactly what they came for.
Samantha David (24:43):
Sure.
Hey, I want to have a briefchat with you about the show.
Did you know that roughly 60%of listeners aren't actually
subscribed to the show, onwhatever platform they're
listening to it on?
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(25:03):
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Anything that you want to dothere really helps us to grow
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(25:23):
Now back to the show and itprobably becomes part of your
brand a little bit too.
You know, especially you knowthose that are regular attendees
.
They probably start to formsome relationships with.
You know those that are orconsulting or sales engineering
and all that kind of stuff tostaff these hours, because I
know that's a huge issue for alot of people.
Alex Turkovic (25:56):
Yeah, right now
it's actually just our scale
CSMs that are hosting them.
But a lot of the work is, Iwould say, on this role.
A lot of things that I do tomake sure that they don't have
to dedicate so much time is thatall of the demos that we are
doing for each session arealready built, so they don't
(26:16):
have to create that on their own, that they can just kind of
jump in and go through theproduct and they're all already
in the product all the time andknow how to talk to customers.
So it's very natural for them.
But just educating them on thedifferences between okay, a
working session with one-on-onewith a customer versus a small
(26:37):
group session where we want themto interact with each other,
ask questions to you, you askquestions to them, get them
talking, get them sharing, toprovide that sense of community,
is a little different of aapproach than the one-on-one
session.
So I would say that's thebiggest for our scale CSMs to
learn, but I mean, they're greatat it.
(26:58):
So yeah, that's awesome.
Samantha David (27:00):
I love that
they're doing that and it it
displays also a level of productknowledge and probably
technical knowledge that'sinherent within the team, which
is which is super cool, I think.
I know.
You know, in in in my orgthere's there's like there's a
level of product knowledge andthen there's a level of product
knowledge that's like way uphere and you kind of have to tow
(27:22):
the toe of the balance betweenthe two to be able to do those
effectively.
And you know, invariably youalways get your naysayers in
those sessions and stuff likethat, which is always hard to
deal with.
So kudos to the team formanaging that.
That's good.
That's good stuff.
Alex Turkovic (27:36):
Yeah, no, they're
great.
They're good with rolling withthe punches too, when we change
things up, and still being thesestellar hosts.
So, yeah, couldn't do itwithout them.
Samantha David (27:48):
That's cool.
So maybe a little bit of ascenario for you.
Let's say there's a newinitiative or a new campaign or
something like that and you'retasked with digitally.
How do we tackle this from likean automation and a data
standpoint?
Would you humor us, theaudience of the Digital CX
(28:10):
podcast, and walk me through alittle bit about how you would
approach getting a newautomation stood up and how you
go about testing it andmeasuring it and all that kind
of stuff?
Alex Turkovic (28:23):
Yeah, definitely,
and this is something that we
hit probably a couple times amonth and try and approach it
monthly because things aregetting released and changed so
often on the Monday platform.
And a big one was a release inour project management solution
and the ability to take out alot of the manual work for the
(28:45):
customer, and it's somethingthat we've seen a lot of CSMs
and we know how to tell themthat it's coming soon and that
it's going to get better and allof that stuff.
But now we actually have thisfeature out there for them to
use.
We know, it's going to be huge,and the main trigger for us to
start to think about this indigital programs is that I see
(29:07):
our CSMs are being asked a lotto learn more about it.
Customers are reaching out tothem saying can we have a
meeting on this?
I want to learn more, but thosemeetings are probably going to
be very, very basic training andwalking through the information
that's already on our resourcesonline.
So, how do we develop thisprogram to be able to educate
(29:31):
customers, to spread theawareness that this is something
new and improved.
It will make their lives easier, but also allow them for that
time to ask questions, if theystill have them aside from the
training.
So what we did is we havemonthly email campaigns that the
sole purpose there is to keepthem very open-ended so that we
can use them to target thesefeatures that are coming out
(29:54):
monthly or okay, or just companyinitiatives that we want to run
.
So this one, specifically, wasaround the portfolio solution
and walking through how to setit up.
I put loom videos.
I don't know if you've used loomin these instead of more, more
formatted or ones that arecreated by our video team,
(30:16):
because those are great, but Ithink having a little bit of
that personalization or humantouch behind it is better for
these customers on getting theinformation to them.
Yeah, so I'll put a loom videoin there, just a demo on how
walking through it, how to setit up and benefits of it, and
we'll we sent this to, I believe, every customer, every end user
(30:38):
, within scale, but the the keypart of this and a lot of the
email campaigns that we run isallowing them or advertising our
office hours.
So, we built an office hourdirectly related to this new
solution, so that our customersthat read this, watch the video,
see this as a topic that theywant to learn more about.
(31:00):
And let's say they don't have aCSM, or they do and they're
going to reach out to their CSMto ask them can you walk through
this with me again?
Take another hour of our time.
Let's put together a groupfocus session so that we can
answer their questions as thatnext step, and all of our email
campaigns have that next step ofoffice hours or interacting
(31:22):
with a CSM.
Because if we're sparking theircuriosity in any way, if we are
opening that conversation, wewant to make sure that it
doesn't just end with that email, that they're either jumping
into the tool or they're able tohave that human interaction to
close the loop there, so thatthey can take that all the way
(31:43):
through.
Samantha David (31:45):
I absolutely
love two things about all that
you just said.
There's a lot to love, love, butthere's two specific things
that I like to preach about the.
The first one is sourcing theneed, or the specific topic or
content or or need, yeah, the,the, the motive behind the
(32:06):
automation from the team, fromthe CSM team or whatever team,
because part of the goal of adigital program is to really
meet the demand of what is beingasked, and one of the best ways
to do that is by asking theteam what are you being hammered
(32:27):
on right now?
What are you getting over andover and over again that we can
automate to alleviate that paina little bit for you, but then
also to meet the customer wherethey're at.
I think you know monitoringcommunity and support tickets is
another great way to do that,but I love that you're engaging
the team that way.
The other thing that I reallylove about what you said was the
(32:48):
inclusion of a way to interactwith a human off of the back of
your digital motions, and Ithink that should be one of the
mainstays of operating digitallyis, yeah, you have a digital
motion in place and yeah, youknow it's tech touch or whatever
the hell you want to call it,but at the end of the day, you
(33:10):
know, having line of sight to ahuman, whether that's invitation
to an office hour or a webinaror, you know, invitation to book
a call or whatever absolutelyLike.
Whatever that is, it doesn'treally matter.
As long as that option existsand your customers feel you know
comfortable and always feellike that there's a human behind
(33:33):
the automation.
I think those two things arephenomenal.
Yeah, really cool.
Alex Turkovic (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, I
mean, human touch is never going
to go away.
It's the bread and butter ofcustomer success and it's why
some of these larger techorganizations built out customer
success and why we're stillgoing to need it.
But they could just make ourjobs easier with having built
out customer success, and whywe're still going to need it.
But they could just make ourjobs easier with having built
out programs and even make iteasier for our customers to
(34:00):
learn information and gainknowledge without having to
interact with one of us.
Samantha David (34:06):
Yeah, exactly,
and that's the whole point, the
interaction with the CSM or thescale CSM or whoever.
Alex Turkovic (34:14):
Ideally you're
building your program in a way
to where those interactions arehigh value interactions, not
just like transactional, likeyou could have self-serviced
something, where it's actuallylike a value add conversation,
which is I think a big, a bigpurpose behind having some
content like this and especiallywith our email campaigns that
(34:37):
are customer journey, that's,reaching the customer at least
monthly is making the productmore familiar so that when a CSM
does reach out, they don't feellike this is coming in from
left field or they're not evenusing the tool, which hey, which
that could be why a CSM isreaching out because we can see
in the customer data thatthey're not using specific
(34:58):
features or maybe their usage isdeclining, but at least they're
seeing our name.
They're seeing the productmonthly.
They have that familiarity forit to be something that they
know that they should be usingor that they're curious and
learning more about.
So it's making a CSM job easierby having these automated and
(35:19):
running.
Samantha David (35:20):
Yeah, absolutely
, that's good stuff.
That's really good stuff.
I just to pivot a little bit,you know I I am in my career
let's let's put it that way I'mlike super grateful to have
landed in the world of digitalCX and I've, you know,
thoroughly hung my hat there,obviously, and as have you,
(35:44):
because you know you haveorganized, you know meetups and
you're working in digital everyday and you're doing the thing.
Is this a long-term thing foryou, career-wise?
Do you see yourselftransitioning into other things
in the future?
Like, what's that looking likefor you?
Alex Turkovic (36:03):
Yeah, I think
this is definitely for the
long-term and, however, thisrole does develop because I
think, looking at customersuccess as a career, I mean it's
still new in this world.
I mean it goes back a long timebut I don't think it's been a
(36:24):
regular role that people comingout of college know that they
can start creating their careersaround this for 10, 15 years
and and with how tech is isdeveloping year over year and
how it's just changing so, sorapidly, I don't think tech's
going to look the same in thenext five years and I don't
(36:46):
think this role is going to havethe same qualifications or
responsibilities that it doestoday and I think it's just
going with the trends and makingsure that, just personally, I'm
not stuck in a role that couldbe changing, where my skills
don't change as well.
And I think digital programscale is going to be on
(37:09):
everyone's mind and I still seeit today that it is starting to
be on everyone's mind.
And I still see it today thatit is starting to be on
everyone's mind because we'relooking at using less resources
to do more work, and that'sexactly what this team does and
we can use these strategies tomake the existing resources on
our team's lives a whole loteasier to do more, but it
(37:31):
wouldn't be done withoutdeveloping more skill practices.
So it's definitely in for thefuture of my career.
I love working in tech and Ilove this world and I don't see
myself moving anytime soon.
But I think if you could beflexible in the rules and
responsibilities that you haveand if you see a problem you
(37:52):
approach it and you starttackling that right away, then
then I think you're you're in itfor the long run, no matter
what?
Samantha David (37:58):
yeah, totally, I
couldn't agree more.
I mean, it's like, especiallywith the proliferation of
artificial intelligence and ohyeah, uh, all the automations
around that, like it'll beinteresting to see even how that
affects the C level.
Like I'm waiting for, you know,chief AI or something, or chief
(38:18):
automations officer orsomething like that to become a
thing, because ultimately that'syou know that you you're going
to have to focus a massive partof your business around that if
you want to really takeadvantage of all that stuff.
For sure, so that'll beinteresting.
One of the things that I lovedoing is just discovering
(38:38):
interesting digital emotions inthe wild, so to speak, and
especially in B2C.
There's all kinds of cool stuffthat B2C has done and does on a
regular basis.
Are there things that you'veencountered in the wild, maybe
recently, where you've been like, oh, that's really cool, maybe
we should do something like that.
Alex Turkovic (38:57):
Yeah, something
on our roadmap for next year is
a digital success hub, and I'veseen some other companies doing
this in the past and now we'regoing to invest just more time
and resources into it.
So, like I've seen one withQualics and I've seen one with
Pendo and a couple others thataren't coming to mind, but I
think the strategy behind it isso needed, because just having
(39:22):
all of this content in one place, it to talk to this type of
customer is ideal, and westarted to create it with our
office hour schedule and ourcustomer facing site that we use
for them to sign up for thesesessions.
We had some content on therefrom old email campaigns and
(39:44):
wanted to teach them throughthis site, but then we were
still sending them resources andlinks, all over the place, we
only treated that landing pagefor scheduling office hours.
But if we kind of approach theidea of this differently and
have this more topic or usagefocused and what do you want to
learn?
Here are your options you caneither watch this video or
(40:08):
attend this office hour or readthis article then I think we're
going to be able to communicatewith the customer better.
For these ideal outcomesinstead of the main goal of this
website that we've beenmaintaining and we we've worked
on building to just be like ifyou're interested in office
hours, here's how you sign up.
So, definitely, digital successhub is is on the radar and I've
(40:32):
really liked what othercompanies have put out there and
I think it's a great idea to beable to get that customer,
their information, a lot easier.
Samantha David (40:42):
Totally.
There's nothing that pains memore than sending a customer an
email with links to more thanone platform in it.
Alex Turkovic (40:51):
Like I freaking
hate that yeah, and you're just
copying and pasting links overand over again and and I feel it
for a customer too, like dothey even click on these?
Samantha David (41:03):
I don't even
know, but no, what if they knew
even?
Alex Turkovic (41:07):
yeah, exactly
like they're not gonna click on
this.
I know when I get links Ibarely click on it, totally yeah
yeah, and then you know youcan't log in and you give up.
Samantha David (41:18):
That's like you
know it's so stupid.
Look, we are woefully out oftime and that makes me sad
because I've enjoyed thisconversation, but I do want to
give you the opportunity to uh,give us a little bit of an
insight into what you're payingattention to and what your
content diet is all about.
Alex Turkovic (41:40):
Yeah, I think a
lot of LinkedIn, because there's
so many great influencersaround scale customer success
and customer success that arevocal on LinkedIn.
So reading their posts, readingthe content that they put out
and a lot of what I am sayinginteresting part of my content
diet is talking to others.
(42:00):
So, yeah, the what youreferenced, the meetup group
that I've created.
I created it out of not knowingwhere to start and just asking
for advice somewhere.
I think it was three years agothat I started that.
I was there on LinkedIn said whowants to talk about this?
And now it's grown so much thatI know that there's others
(42:21):
looking for the same thing.
And if we're all doing the samething, why aren't we sharing
our experiences and what'sworked and what doesn't?
Samantha David (42:29):
So a lot of it
is just through these types of
conversations and brainstormingwith others in the industry
where you can access a calendar,because we're teaming up along
with Scott Wilder to host someregular monthly meetups that
(42:56):
also will include some specialguests and whatnot.
So roughly the first Thursdayof every month, roughly yeah.
Alex Turkovic (43:06):
No, thanks to you
.
I'm really excited for that too.
It'll just change the format ofit a little bit, but bring in
some of the leaders in thisspace to share what they've been
working on.
Samantha David (43:14):
Yeah, so cool.
I love, I love that communityapproach to your knowledge.
Knowledge, you know, gainingknowledge, because obviously the
CS community is like so tightlyknit.
We, you know, we all kind ofknow each other either directly
or tangentially, and everybody'sso forthright in sharing and
whatnot, as have you, you know,that's it's.
(43:36):
It's.
It's really cool and awesome,you know, from a just taking
taking ownership and leadingwith that stuff.
That's so cool thank you anykudos that you want to give out?
Alex Turkovic (43:49):
any kudos.
Probably anybody using ai yeah,I would whenever I see that it
catches my eye and I just wantto.
Nothing, no one comes to mind,but I know I've seen it.
Yeah, definitely just theimplementation of ai to further
automate within this segment orusing it to our advantage to
(44:10):
help the customer more, justanything with ai, because I
think there's so much out therethat we don't really know what
to focus on specifically withinthis new wave.
So if I see anything on it,then that that really catches my
attention yeah, all you aiwarriors out there consider
yourself, shout it out, reachout um speaking consider
(44:33):
yourself shouted out.
Reach out Speaking of which, howcan people reach out to you and
engage with you?
Yeah, I can slide into myLinkedIn DMs.
I'm on LinkedIn every day, sojust my name on LinkedIn is
Samantha David, so feel free toreach out to me and, yeah, I
would love to chat aboutanything, awesome.
Samantha David (44:53):
Well, thank you
again for taking the time and
it's super fun having you on theshow and, yeah, looking forward
to getting this one out there,but appreciate your insights.
Alex Turkovic (45:03):
No, thanks for
having me.
This has been great.
Samantha David (45:08):
Thank you for
joining me for this episode of
the Digital CX Podcast.
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(45:29):
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This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
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Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.