September 11, 2024 • 28 mins
In this episode of the What If, So What podcast, Jim Hertzfeld speaks with Todd Unger, Chief Experience Officer of the American Medical Association and author of "The 10-Second Customer Journey."
The conversation uncovered valuable insights on customer experience (CX) and its impact on business growth. Unger emphasized the importance of adapting to the rapid pace of customer decision-making in today's digital landscape and highlighted the need for organizations to unify their approach to customer experience, breaking down silos between product, marketing, commerce, and service departments. They discussed how small changes can lead to significant conversion rate increases, and that measurement is a critical aspect of CX strategy.
Unger introduced the concept of a "customer friction index" and discussed the use of automated tools to identify pain points in real-time, such as detecting "rage clicks" on websites. The two also discussed alignment between marketing and CX initiatives, with a focus on growth while maintaining the operational capability to address day-to-day customer issues.
The conversation underscored that effective CX is not just about high-level strategy but requires rolling up sleeves and tackling concrete problems that impact customer satisfaction and, ultimately, business growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Todd Unger (00:05):
Spend all sorts of time on all these features on
your site.
You're trying to build demandand get people to interact on
the stuff.
Pay attention to the thing thatactually converts people into
customers, because all of thisA-B testing and incremental
improvements that you make, theypay off in such a huge way.
I was like, wow, that was verygood advice.
(00:27):
And I, you know, go into workthe next day and I find out that
we have like a little upsell inone of our major kind of
offerings.
That wasn't working and thatwas like the answer to why we
were so far down in the countfor, you know, customers coming
from this thing and I was like,oh my God, we've spent so much
time adding new features andcontent and all this stuff.
(00:50):
It's like you got to payattention to the upsell.
Jim Hertzfeld (00:53):
Welcome to what If so what, the podcast where we
explore what's possible withdigital and discover how to make
it real in your business.
I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld,and we get shit done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions what, if so what?
And, most importantly now, what?
Hey, I'm really excited to behere with Todd Unger.
He's the Chief ExperienceOfficer of the American Medical
(01:14):
Association and the author ofthe 10-Second Customer Journey,
a book about really for the CXO.
In fact, it's the CXO'splaybook for growing and
retaining customers in a digitalworld.
That's what we're here for.
That's what we all want to know.
Todd, welcome to the podcast.
Todd Unger (01:31):
It's great to be here today.
Jim Hertzfeld (01:32):
So, Todd, just quick background, maybe a little
bit about your role.
But then I'd love to ask peoplelike what got you here?
And you have a great backstory,so maybe you could just give
the folks a little background onwhere you're coming from and
what you do with the AMA.
Todd Unger (01:45):
Yeah, I will tell you.
First off, I never thought ofor aimed to be a chief
experience officer.
In fact, if you had asked mewhat that was 10 years ago, I
wouldn't have been able to tellyou.
But my background really is ina few different places that have
added up to what I thinkexperience is today.
I started out in classicmarketing and advertising.
I worked for Procter and Gamble, I worked for a big ad agency,
(02:08):
Leo Burnett, and then I jumpedin the late nineties into the
digital world.
I worked for America Online, asit used to be called, and a
bunch of other kind of NewYork-based media companies where
I learned about kind of contentdevelopment and product
management.
It was really my kind ofinitial foray into that, ran a
(02:28):
bunch of websites and the lastthing I did before I came to the
AMA was I was in horse racing,where I really started to get
into a combination of digitalcontent and commerce.
I helped build a bettingplatform and selling premium
content and data and all thatkind of stuff and, although it
sounds very far away frommedicine and healthcare kind of
(02:50):
under the hood type ofactivities are very much the
same of what I do as a chiefexperience officer today.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:09):
I think that broad experience is important
for any type of experiencebecause it may not be obvious
for everyone, and so thatdiversity of thought I think is
really important.
In fact, I think a lot ofbrands look for that right.
They they're looking to go andundergo some sort of
transformation.
They're going to look outsideof what they're used to.
Yeah.
Todd Unger (03:21):
I wonder.
I mean they did specifically atthe AMA and they knew I didn't
have any healthcare backgroundor anything like that.
But when I think back aboutlike in my career and what you
know, say at Procter and Gamble,where they kind of moved you
around a lot and you had to takea turn at sales, and I don't
think they really do that widelyanymore and so when you think
about the skill set into gettinga building experience, like
(03:45):
finding people like that in thepipeline, it's a challenge that
have experience across all thosecomponents.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:51):
Yeah, I think you're right.
I know when I was coming up inmy career, it seemed like all
the large corporations you knewyou were going to go into a two
year rotation every time.
And I don't I, with my clients,I don't see that as much as I
used to, but I do think thatgives you an appreciation for a
lot of different things.
It just makes you a betterprofessional.
So so yeah, you've gone througha lot and what would you say?
(04:14):
And it sort of changed the most, like what sort of changed in
the world that, and inparticular, has brought us to a
world, like you said, you neverexpected you know around being
responsible for your customer'sexperience.
Todd Unger (04:28):
I'd say, and I'm not going to say AI right off the
bat, which is what I thinkeverybody would say Thank you.
Jim Hertzfeld (04:32):
This is an AI-free zone.
Todd Unger (04:33):
Okay so, but it will figure into, I think, probably
what we talk about, butespecially compared to when I
first entered the world ofmarketing much more
one-dimensional and especiallyslow, and so I think the biggest
thing that has changed today isthe speed with which people
make and execute buyingdecisions.
(04:55):
It is a totally differentparadigm than the one I learned
about when I was coming upthrough marketing, and so having
layered on these additionalparts of my career in digital
media and commerce has reallychanged me in terms of how I
think about my job and what I do.
Jim Hertzfeld (05:14):
Yeah, that's a.
You know there's a lot ofnostalgia in there.
Todd right, like like good word, yeah, I'm thinking of like
it's back to school season now,right, and there's brands that
plan all year for back to schooland you really just can't do
that anymore because you have tobe pretty responsive.
I was just thinking like, okay,what do I do with the Olympics?
(05:36):
And I know the convention ishappening.
We were just talking about thatand how the weather's changing.
All these things are factoringinto really journey steps along
the way.
So that's a good point.
So in the AMA in particular,you know, why do these things?
Why does this decisioningmatter and the speed matter?
Todd Unger (05:55):
Yeah, I think it applies to any business, any
operation out there where you'retrying to get more members or
more customers.
You just have to accept thatthe way that decision-making
happens right now on the otherend of that is fundamentally
different than it used to be.
And that change, along withjust the serendipitousness of,
(06:16):
or serendipity of, being named achief experience officer,
really challenged, I think, myown identity as a I would have
considered myself a marketer ora digital marketer or a digital
person in the past and toembrace this paradigm of
experience, which I found to beneeding to be updated, let's say
, for the digital world, andreally caused me to rethink,
(06:38):
kind of my role.
And what I talk about and we'lltalk more in the book is just
the orchestration of theelements of experience, product
marketing, commerce and serviceand how, in the customer's minds
, they all go together.
They're just one thing, whetherthat's digital or in retail and
(07:00):
in-store, whatever environment,they don't care what department
it is.
They just want an easyexperience with getting done
what they want.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:07):
Well, that reminds me of a phrase I
remember hearing or using a lotDon't make your customer
interact with the channel, theyjust want to interact with the
brand, right?
So I think one of the thingsthat we can all relate to as
consumers is the need for that,and we but we don't always apply
that professionally.
The formula seems easy, itsounds easy, and you've done a
(07:29):
great job of kind of simplifyingthis, and we're going to get to
that in a second.
But why do you think this is sochallenging for organizations,
for institutions, today?
Todd Unger (07:39):
Yeah, it's literally structural because
organizations are not set up tohave a seamless experience
internally between those fourpillars of experience.
They all sit in differentplaces and report into different
people and a lot of the earlypioneering work done and
experience I think points outthe problem.
There's a famous kind of personand experienced, bruce Temkin,
(08:01):
that says a lot of experienceproblems are like they're in
between.
They're in between differentparts of your organizations are
in between different parts oflike the customer's journey and
literally nobody owns those inbetween places.
And yet we're so focused,especially, like I would have
said in my earlier days ofmarketing you know, to treat it
(08:22):
like a marketing problem wherethere's somebody on the other
end of it that's treating it asa customer service problem, or
is it a product problem or atechnology problem?
It's like nobody cares, theyjust want to get through it.
So there just literally isn'tnormally somebody in an
organization that has thepurview and the motivation and
oversight and sometimesauthority to unify those streams
(08:46):
of work.
And that's a hard job.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:49):
Yeah, sort of sometimes I call that like
you're either gluing thingstogether or you're putting
varnish on something right, orpolyurethane right, it's like.
Todd Unger (08:58):
Yeah, people talk all the time about silos and
stuff like that.
It's so old, you just want to,and the unhappiness with which
every organization I've everworked in in my whole life, like
you, have these same kind ofactivities where they're just
not together.
It's so easy for portions of anof an organization to get out
of whack because they're notfocused on the customer.
Jim Hertzfeld (09:21):
Right.
No, that's good, I mean, andprobably worth and one of the
hardest things to solve, right.
But and of course it comes backto humanity and how
organizational dynamics and andyou mentioned motivation, right,
communication, some, somefundamentals things we've heard
before.
Here's a kind of a randomquestion Is there a disconnect?
The other organizationaldisconnects, but do you think
(09:41):
that there are, let's say,different perceptions within the
organization about or degreesin which we buy into this
customer centricity?
Do you think there are leadersout there who are still not
ready for the customer centricworld?
Todd Unger (09:57):
Absolutely, and there's so many definitions even
around like the term customerexperience.
It's one of the reasons I wrotethe book, because people can't
even agree on what that is.
But I think there's one thingthat everybody agrees on growth.
And so you know, when I startedthis job, my very specific kind
of marching orders were to growmembership, and I looked at it
(10:18):
that way and broadened kind ofmy purview over what it took to
drive those things, all thedifferent levers.
But a lot of people in the worldout there are focused on more
intermediate measures orcustomer experiences, just like
in the old days of like digitaltransformation, like the big
highfalutin term and other termsthat are intermediary.
(10:40):
Everybody wants to grow,everybody's got to build
customers, build revenue, and soif you can unify the operation
around that and all thedifferent parts of it and how
they contribute to that, that'skind of where the action is.
Everybody's going to bemotivated by different things
and has different skills theybring to the table.
But it's really at thatstrategic level where the power
(11:02):
can be in terms of bringing theprocess together.
Jim Hertzfeld (11:07):
That's a good one .
Growth I like that youimmediately juxtaposed
membership, maybe, versusrevenue, because I think
people's minds usually go torevenue.
I've worked with manufacturersor, in particular.
They kind of stand out.
The only number, sometimes theonly number they care about, is
the opposite of growth, meaning,how do we take cost out of the
business?
Right?
That's another one, maybeanother way of saying the same
(11:28):
thing.
But I really enjoyed the book,todd, and one of the things I
liked about it is it's don'tmean this to come across the
wrong way, but it's short andreadable, and what I like about
that is I had time to read itand I'm intrigued by the stories
and I always love to hear otherpeople's perspectives because I
learn a few things, but I alsosort of validate things that I
(11:50):
think I already know.
I'm like, yeah, like Toddagrees with me, this is good,
like, and you found a reallygood way of putting things.
But I thought as I was readingthrough it, I thought this is I
need 10 copies of this becauseand I think you do need 10,
maybe a hundred copies, you knowbecause it's something that I
(12:11):
could put in front of a client,you know, a prospect to say hey,
are you?
You know, if you weren't reallysure about what it meant to be
customer centric or adopt acustomer experience program or
mindset, you know you're unsureabout why or how to do it.
This is a great process, it's agreat approach, it's a great
start and I think you did agreat job at, you know, taking
your learnings but making themaccessible to to others who
(12:34):
maybe had lived in their ownsilo, their silo, their part of
this equation, and I thought,wow, if I could really kind of
get somebody a primer you know,before I was able to do anything
else with them as a consultant,this to get somebody a primer,
you know, before I was able todo anything else with them as a
consultant this might be the wayto do it.
So thank you for writing thebook and I really mean that it
was really well put together.
Now you just needed like a photopart in the middle, like the
(12:54):
old books.
I need more pictures.
Yeah, I need more pictures.
I noticed that as a thing.
You know, here's a suggestionfor the second edition, a
graphic novel.
That might be kind of cool.
That's a lot that goes into it.
But I've seen books have secondeditions with a graphic novel,
so you just kind of read it likea comic strip.
Todd Unger (13:11):
So and it's unfortunate because I had.
We had our annual customerexperience forum at the AMA and
my customer experience directordid something so cool.
We have about 40 or 50different kinds of leads on
projects that are all across thehundreds of people working on
customer experience issues atAMA and she made a personalized
(13:32):
sign for each one of them aboutwhat they did and they all.
You know we have this onepicture of all of them holding
up their signs and I was likethis is like bringing tears to
my eyes and I wish I'd had thatpicture to put in the book, but
it shows how you can catalyze anorganization and how you scale
a CX operation.
It's not through the team only,it's through the whole group of
(13:56):
people that are stakeholders inthis.
Jim Hertzfeld (13:58):
That is one of the coolest things.
I remember.
You did show that to me.
We've got to share that for theaudience here because that was
powerful.
But those are little things,tangible things, that make a
difference.
I was actually with a softwarepartner this week and we were
asking them what can we do tobring our customer or client
(14:19):
story back to you?
And they said it's almost saidthe same thing.
Give us use cases.
You know, give us.
I was able to do this, you knowI was.
I stopped doing that.
I was able to offer my customerthis.
So those those little bits, Ithink are really important
because they're they're tangible, yeah, they're tangible.
So well, you talk about a fewother things.
That, and then many techniques,but a couple of them really
(14:42):
stood out to me.
I just wanted to kind of getyour take on them.
So I've read it, I went throughit and I thought these are
things that little bits I'mgoing to start sharing with
people right away.
The first one that you talkedabout was fix your checkout page
right F-Y-C-O-P.
Yeah, and a couple of thingsthat I really liked about it.
(15:02):
One is you talk aboutexperimentation, which I love.
Experimentation A B testing,try something out, try out
something small, see how itworks out, see what you learn
from it, test and learn.
It has a few other monikers,and you told a story about
challenging a team I think itwas a developer who was trying
to improve conversion.
(15:22):
They made this change and itwas 7%.
Then somebody else built on itand conversion was improved by,
I think, like 10 or 11%.
And just the power of thosesmall changes.
Trial and error, it sounds like,but it's not.
It's thoughtful, it's ahypothesis.
You experiment, right, you testit and it comes back.
But the thing I really likedabout it is you know you made a
point that these details matterand you can make incremental
(15:47):
change.
You don't have to beoverwhelmed.
And it's not just the checkoutexperience.
It could be an online forum ora CTA, it could be how you walk
into a waiting room or how youorder coffee at a coffee shop.
I mean, am I thinking aboutthis the right way?
I mean, this is not just aboutcheckout pages, right.
(16:08):
This is about incrementalchanges.
I want to make sure I'm readingthat right.
Todd Unger (16:11):
Yeah, in fact that the story and that acronym or
hashtag or whatever you want tocall it.
It was inspired by a dinnerthat I had with the co-founders
of Stripe, the brothers John andPatrick Collison, and I don't
know how I got invited to thisdinner, but at the end of it was
a question and answer sessionand I asked what would you do to
eliminate customer friction formy book?
(16:33):
I'm looking for something formy book and Patrick said fix
your checkout page.
And, as you might expectsomeone from Stripe to say, but
the way that he told the storywas so compelling and simple,
which is like you spend allsorts of time on all these
features on your site.
You're trying to build demandand get people to interact on
the stuff, but, like, payattention to the thing that the
(16:54):
you know that actually convertspeople into customers, because
all of this AB testing andincremental improvements that
you make, they pay off in such ahuge way and I kind of I was
like, wow, that was very goodadvice and I, you know, go into
work the next day and I find outthat we have like a little
upsell in one of our major kindof offerings.
(17:15):
That wasn't working and thatwas like the answer to why we
were so far down in the count,for, you know, customers coming
from this thing and I was like,oh my God, we've spent so much
time like adding new featuresand content and all this stuff.
It's like you got to payattention to the upsell and so I
talked to my team about it.
It's like it's not just fixyour checkout page, it's every
(17:37):
page, but there is a hugeconversion metric that rides on
that.
You better make sure it'sworking and that you're
improving it all the time.
Jim Hertzfeld (17:48):
Every effort you make to do that pays off
literally, well, and it kind ofreminds me of some other old
rules in the 80-20 world, right?
I mean, you really have to kindof figure out what matters the
most, right?
So maybe we're saying twothings like the details matter,
but you got to know what whichdetails matter.
Todd Unger (18:10):
Yeah, absolutely Don't take your eye off the ball
of that.
So I thought that was good.
I got to.
I immediately started thinkingabout all the incremental
improvements you know we couldmake.
But you mentioned measurement.
That was kind of the secondthing that stuck out to me in
terms of different tactics andtechniques.
And you know you mentionedTemkin.
I remember years ago maybethey're still doing that there's
kind of a customer index score,I think the Temkin score.
(18:31):
We have a similar approach wecall CXIQ.
But this kind of inspired mebecause I about some other
measurements to sort of evaluatemaybe not how you're doing, but
at the end does the experienceitself working right and only
the customer can kind of definethat it's at some point.
But you talked about thecustomer effort score.
(18:51):
You know to sort of you knowhow much work they have to put
in.
What's the friction score?
What's pushing against them?
You talked about first contactresolution.
So if there's an issue, does itget resolved the first time?
You talk about channelswitching.
You know it sort of has littleechoes of omni-channel, you know
can do a how?
Yeah, you know, and this iseverybody's, you know, favorite
(19:12):
story.
Well, I tried to do this and I.
But now I have to call and youknow I'm going to be in, I'm
going to wait, you know, in aqueue forever.
Or you know the cloud now, theone you hear all the time I'm
trying to cancel my account.
There's no way to do it, thereis no number, all that sort of
by design.
But maybe put some shed alittle light on measurement,
(19:32):
because you know, I think that's, you know, one of the sort of
great eye openers right Is tosee, you know, we have our gut
feel and we have our experience,but what do the numbers have to
say?
So maybe you can elaborate alittle bit on, kind of, where
you're going with measurement.
Yeah, it really is.
It's such an important piece of this, the
whole metric situation, butespecially in the book, what I
(19:54):
talk about are the differentways that we look at customer
experience.
And then I think there are somebasic customer service metrics
that you employ there too.
I mean, you've got yourmeasures around customer effort
that are pretty standard.
You go to the bathroom atO'Hare and said you know how
easy was it to use it.
You've got those kinds ofthings.
I think the biggest change forus is in the customer friction
(20:18):
index that we've created, whichis really simple, which is
basically like how many problemsare people having out of how
many sessions are on this, andso that just kind of gives you a
general idea of like what's myfriction score on that thing,
and you can track that over timeand you can monitor for when
that goes outside of normalparameters that might indicate a
(20:40):
problem.
And I think the biggest changethat we've made in terms is like
what gets input into thenumerator of that particular
equation has changed.
For us it used to just be youknow people that contacted our
service center either by youknow whatever channel it was
chat, email or phone call andthen we would track those things
, and then we would see all thesessions and we would count that
(21:02):
.
But we've since put in a moreautomated solution onto the site
and throughout all our products.
We use something called quantummetric that actually automates
the collection of that and usingcertain signals on the site
like oh, there's a button beinghit and nothing's happening.
Oh, there's a button being hitand nothing's happening, and
(21:23):
that's my favorite one, a rageclick, as we might call it.
It's like you push the elevatorand it's just not coming any
faster, if at all, and so thatkind of sends up a red flag and
you get the signal and someonecould go fix that.
Now there are two things aboutit.
One is like that's the kind ofthing that could go on forever
and you don't know about it.
That's my nightmare, right.
The other thing is that it doesbroaden the amount of instances
(21:48):
that are going to go into thatnumerator.
So it can be pretty depressingif all of a sudden your
collection has gone beyond themanual world.
Now you're in a automatedmachine learning type solutions.
But boy does it make a hugedifference to know, track and
improve, and so that's reallythe key there for us.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:07):
Yeah, that's cool .
I mean again, I just love yourattention to these details and
focusing on the right things.
Rage click is something Ihaven't heard in a while.
It's a great term and everyoneknows what it means it is.
Yeah, you bet everyone knowsthe elevator is a little more
tangible, knows what it means itis.
Yeah, you bet everyone knowsthe elevator is a little more
(22:28):
tangible.
Like come on,, I'm late, Iguess
.
, then the.
You know you spend a little bitof time on this or a few pages
on this, and I think this comesup a lot.
And you mentioned sort of thein-between-ness of this, all
sort of the.
You know there's sort of atwilight zone or no man's land
or demilitarized zone, right,that's where these roles sort of
happen.
But you talk about differentorganizations.
(22:49):
You talk about and I've seenevery variety of this and I
think everybody is wonderingwhere this CXO function lives,
right.
And you list a few options forthe combinations.
Is it a standalone unit?
You know it's just.
This is the CX team, I see.
For the combinations, is it astandalone unit?
You know it's just.
This is the CX team.
I see that a lot.
Is it in marketing, which seemsto be sort of the default.
(23:10):
I don't know why, I guess,cause maybe that's where someone
made a, wrote a persona onceyou know operations, which is
interesting, I you know, cause Ithink I see that a lot in call
center.
I think you look at sort ofolder books about customer
experience.
They seem to be contact center,call center oriented.
Yeah, because that was the onlyway outside of sales.
(23:30):
That's kind of where ithappened.
Or you talk about sort of anenterprise COE.
That's another model where,gosh, we kind of acknowledge
that it's everybody'sresponsibility, but we're not
really.
If we just put this on Todd'splate, then, like no one else
will feel accountable to it,right, and then you have sort of
the office of the CXO and thisis saying, hey, we're taking
(23:50):
this to the, you know, to thenext level.
I think you nailed all thecombinations.
But what do you?
You know and you kind of alludeto different debates and
LinkedIn.
I think they're very passionateabout this.
Yeah, they are, they are.
I always, I always have a goodReddit debate myself, you know,
just cause it's, it's it seems alittle be a little spicier.
But yeah, so you know, sinceyou've written that, what do you
(24:11):
, what do you, you know, do youhave any kind of thoughts or
advice for people in terms ofcause?
Again, they're going to readthis, they're going to buy into
it, but then now, what?
Like, how do I make it work ifI don't feel like it's working
in my organization yet?
Todd Unger (24:22):
Yeah, well, I think one of the things I'd love to
tell you is kind of the originstory of my customer experience
journey, and it really beganbecause I have customer service
as part of my team and a thingthat I noticed was just the
volume of calls they weregetting in with people unable to
log into our site for whateverreasons, and they did a great
(24:44):
job of fixing every one of theseproblems on the spot and
getting somebody on the way, butit just kept happening every
day and I finally looked at theperson that was running customer
service and I'm like you knowwhat we actually need to fix
this problem and the reason that, like CX has a hard time if
it's centered in customerservice is because they don't
(25:04):
have the authority necessarilyto reach out across the
organization and involve all thepeople who need to fix this
problem.
This is a classic case of thein-between, where this problem
involves 50,000 players acrossevery part of the organization,
from mine to product, it, tocommerce, to service, you name
(25:24):
it.
It runs the gamut and there'sno one to step in and say I'm
going to pull the players heretogether.
We're going to figure out howto identify what this problem
looks like how to measure it,how all the things that goes
into fixing it.
That kicked off our customerexperience journey and the need
to begin a CX operation.
And so we started that CXoperation in the marketing group
(25:48):
because that's what I run.
But as we matured as anorganization we turned it into a
center of excellence for therest of the organization where
we are kind of on loan to helppeople bust down those problems
that create friction.
And so I think that kind ofcenter of excellence housed
within marketing works for a lotof reasons on growth and there
(26:13):
is alignment between marketinginitiatives and CX Todd
initiatives, because on its ownCX initiatives like they're
tough to fund and so that's whywe don't talk about them.
I just build that into mygrowth plan and we fund those
initiatives through that.
And then the other thing islike they're operational, like
(26:33):
this is not like for the faintof heart, right, you got to roll
up your sleeves and get inthere.
And so I think a lot of thesethings that are housed at, like
you know, office of customerexperience and the C-suite,
they're very highfalutin things.
They're not the day-to-dayproblems that people experience
in, you know, in their journeysthat prevent growth.
(26:55):
And that's really what our teamis about.
Jim Hertzfeld (26:58):
That's great.
I love calling back to growthand which goes back to
measurements, you know, andgoing back to sort of rolling up
your sleeve.
I'm going back to you know, fixyour checkout page, like that's
kind of roll up your sleevestuff, like what does it matter?
So I love it.
So you have a lot more in thebook, todd, and I really mean it
, like I'm I'm getting morecopies because you know it's
(27:19):
like I want to meet my next, mynext customer and say OK, before
we come back and like really,really, really get into, you
know, a solution.
You need to buy into this.
So I appreciate you.
Todd Unger (27:31):
I appreciate that too.
Thank you so much Of all thethings that like are meaningful.
Jim Hertzfeld (27:36):
As an author, it's feedback like that where
somebody
Todd Unger (27:38):
comes back and says, like I learned something and I
put it to use.
So definitely, yeah, well then.
So when somebody comes back andsays, like I learned something
and I put it to use.
Jim Hertzfeld (27:42):
So definitely, yeah, well then.
So thanks for writing andthanks for joining the podcast.
Todd, my pleasure.
Thanks for having me today.
Joe Wentzel (27:47):
It was really fun.
You've been listening to what?
If so, what A digital strategypodcast from Proficient with Jim
Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our Proficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
You can find this season, alongwith show notes, at
proficientcom.
(28:08):
Thanks for listening.
Spend all sorts of time on all these features on
your site.
You're trying to build demandand get people to interact on
the stuff.
Pay attention to the thing thatactually converts people into
customers, because all of thisA-B testing and incremental
improvements that you make, theypay off in such a huge way.
I was like, wow, that was verygood advice.
(00:27):
And I, you know, go into workthe next day and I find out that
we have like a little upsell inone of our major kind of
offerings.
That wasn't working and thatwas like the answer to why we
were so far down in the countfor, you know, customers coming
from this thing and I was like,oh my God, we've spent so much
time adding new features andcontent and all this stuff.
(00:50):
It's like you got to payattention to the upsell.
Jim Hertzfeld (00:53):
Welcome to what If so what, the podcast where we
explore what's possible withdigital and discover how to make
it real in your business.
I'm your host, Jim Hertzfeld,and we get shit done by asking
digital leaders the rightquestions what, if so what?
And, most importantly now, what?
Hey, I'm really excited to behere with Todd Unger.
He's the Chief ExperienceOfficer of the American Medical
(01:14):
Association and the author ofthe 10-Second Customer Journey,
a book about really for the CXO.
In fact, it's the CXO'splaybook for growing and
retaining customers in a digitalworld.
That's what we're here for.
That's what we all want to know.
Todd, welcome to the podcast.
Todd Unger (01:31):
It's great to be here today.
Jim Hertzfeld (01:32):
So, Todd, just quick background, maybe a little
bit about your role.
But then I'd love to ask peoplelike what got you here?
And you have a great backstory,so maybe you could just give
the folks a little background onwhere you're coming from and
what you do with the AMA.
Todd Unger (01:45):
Yeah, I will tell you.
First off, I never thought ofor aimed to be a chief
experience officer.
In fact, if you had asked mewhat that was 10 years ago, I
wouldn't have been able to tellyou.
But my background really is ina few different places that have
added up to what I thinkexperience is today.
I started out in classicmarketing and advertising.
I worked for Procter and Gamble, I worked for a big ad agency,
(02:08):
Leo Burnett, and then I jumpedin the late nineties into the
digital world.
I worked for America Online, asit used to be called, and a
bunch of other kind of NewYork-based media companies where
I learned about kind of contentdevelopment and product
management.
It was really my kind ofinitial foray into that, ran a
(02:28):
bunch of websites and the lastthing I did before I came to the
AMA was I was in horse racing,where I really started to get
into a combination of digitalcontent and commerce.
I helped build a bettingplatform and selling premium
content and data and all thatkind of stuff and, although it
sounds very far away frommedicine and healthcare kind of
(02:50):
under the hood type ofactivities are very much the
same of what I do as a chiefexperience officer today.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:09):
I think that broad experience is important
for any type of experiencebecause it may not be obvious
for everyone, and so thatdiversity of thought I think is
really important.
In fact, I think a lot ofbrands look for that right.
They they're looking to go andundergo some sort of
transformation.
They're going to look outsideof what they're used to.
Yeah.
Todd Unger (03:21):
I wonder.
I mean they did specifically atthe AMA and they knew I didn't
have any healthcare backgroundor anything like that.
But when I think back aboutlike in my career and what you
know, say at Procter and Gamble,where they kind of moved you
around a lot and you had to takea turn at sales, and I don't
think they really do that widelyanymore and so when you think
about the skill set into gettinga building experience, like
(03:45):
finding people like that in thepipeline, it's a challenge that
have experience across all thosecomponents.
Jim Hertzfeld (03:51):
Yeah, I think you're right.
I know when I was coming up inmy career, it seemed like all
the large corporations you knewyou were going to go into a two
year rotation every time.
And I don't I, with my clients,I don't see that as much as I
used to, but I do think thatgives you an appreciation for a
lot of different things.
It just makes you a betterprofessional.
So so yeah, you've gone througha lot and what would you say?
(04:14):
And it sort of changed the most, like what sort of changed in
the world that, and inparticular, has brought us to a
world, like you said, you neverexpected you know around being
responsible for your customer'sexperience.
Todd Unger (04:28):
I'd say, and I'm not going to say AI right off the
bat, which is what I thinkeverybody would say Thank you.
Jim Hertzfeld (04:32):
This is an AI-free zone.
Todd Unger (04:33):
Okay so, but it will figure into, I think, probably
what we talk about, butespecially compared to when I
first entered the world ofmarketing much more
one-dimensional and especiallyslow, and so I think the biggest
thing that has changed today isthe speed with which people
make and execute buyingdecisions.
(04:55):
It is a totally differentparadigm than the one I learned
about when I was coming upthrough marketing, and so having
layered on these additionalparts of my career in digital
media and commerce has reallychanged me in terms of how I
think about my job and what I do.
Jim Hertzfeld (05:14):
Yeah, that's a.
You know there's a lot ofnostalgia in there.
Todd right, like like good word, yeah, I'm thinking of like
it's back to school season now,right, and there's brands that
plan all year for back to schooland you really just can't do
that anymore because you have tobe pretty responsive.
I was just thinking like, okay,what do I do with the Olympics?
(05:36):
And I know the convention ishappening.
We were just talking about thatand how the weather's changing.
All these things are factoringinto really journey steps along
the way.
So that's a good point.
So in the AMA in particular,you know, why do these things?
Why does this decisioningmatter and the speed matter?
Todd Unger (05:55):
Yeah, I think it applies to any business, any
operation out there where you'retrying to get more members or
more customers.
You just have to accept thatthe way that decision-making
happens right now on the otherend of that is fundamentally
different than it used to be.
And that change, along withjust the serendipitousness of,
(06:16):
or serendipity of, being named achief experience officer,
really challenged, I think, myown identity as a I would have
considered myself a marketer ora digital marketer or a digital
person in the past and toembrace this paradigm of
experience, which I found to beneeding to be updated, let's say
, for the digital world, andreally caused me to rethink,
(06:38):
kind of my role.
And what I talk about and we'lltalk more in the book is just
the orchestration of theelements of experience, product
marketing, commerce and serviceand how, in the customer's minds
, they all go together.
They're just one thing, whetherthat's digital or in retail and
(07:00):
in-store, whatever environment,they don't care what department
it is.
They just want an easyexperience with getting done
what they want.
Jim Hertzfeld (07:07):
Well, that reminds me of a phrase I
remember hearing or using a lotDon't make your customer
interact with the channel, theyjust want to interact with the
brand, right?
So I think one of the thingsthat we can all relate to as
consumers is the need for that,and we but we don't always apply
that professionally.
The formula seems easy, itsounds easy, and you've done a
(07:29):
great job of kind of simplifyingthis, and we're going to get to
that in a second.
But why do you think this is sochallenging for organizations,
for institutions, today?
Todd Unger (07:39):
Yeah, it's literally structural because
organizations are not set up tohave a seamless experience
internally between those fourpillars of experience.
They all sit in differentplaces and report into different
people and a lot of the earlypioneering work done and
experience I think points outthe problem.
There's a famous kind of personand experienced, bruce Temkin,
(08:01):
that says a lot of experienceproblems are like they're in
between.
They're in between differentparts of your organizations are
in between different parts oflike the customer's journey and
literally nobody owns those inbetween places.
And yet we're so focused,especially, like I would have
said in my earlier days ofmarketing you know, to treat it
(08:22):
like a marketing problem wherethere's somebody on the other
end of it that's treating it asa customer service problem, or
is it a product problem or atechnology problem?
It's like nobody cares, theyjust want to get through it.
So there just literally isn'tnormally somebody in an
organization that has thepurview and the motivation and
oversight and sometimesauthority to unify those streams
(08:46):
of work.
And that's a hard job.
Jim Hertzfeld (08:49):
Yeah, sort of sometimes I call that like
you're either gluing thingstogether or you're putting
varnish on something right, orpolyurethane right, it's like.
Todd Unger (08:58):
Yeah, people talk all the time about silos and
stuff like that.
It's so old, you just want to,and the unhappiness with which
every organization I've everworked in in my whole life, like
you, have these same kind ofactivities where they're just
not together.
It's so easy for portions of anof an organization to get out
of whack because they're notfocused on the customer.
Jim Hertzfeld (09:21):
Right.
No, that's good, I mean, andprobably worth and one of the
hardest things to solve, right.
But and of course it comes backto humanity and how
organizational dynamics and andyou mentioned motivation, right,
communication, some, somefundamentals things we've heard
before.
Here's a kind of a randomquestion Is there a disconnect?
The other organizationaldisconnects, but do you think
(09:41):
that there are, let's say,different perceptions within the
organization about or degreesin which we buy into this
customer centricity?
Do you think there are leadersout there who are still not
ready for the customer centricworld?
Todd Unger (09:57):
Absolutely, and there's so many definitions even
around like the term customerexperience.
It's one of the reasons I wrotethe book, because people can't
even agree on what that is.
But I think there's one thingthat everybody agrees on growth.
And so you know, when I startedthis job, my very specific kind
of marching orders were to growmembership, and I looked at it
(10:18):
that way and broadened kind ofmy purview over what it took to
drive those things, all thedifferent levers.
But a lot of people in the worldout there are focused on more
intermediate measures orcustomer experiences, just like
in the old days of like digitaltransformation, like the big
highfalutin term and other termsthat are intermediary.
(10:40):
Everybody wants to grow,everybody's got to build
customers, build revenue, and soif you can unify the operation
around that and all thedifferent parts of it and how
they contribute to that, that'skind of where the action is.
Everybody's going to bemotivated by different things
and has different skills theybring to the table.
But it's really at thatstrategic level where the power
(11:02):
can be in terms of bringing theprocess together.
Jim Hertzfeld (11:07):
That's a good one .
Growth I like that youimmediately juxtaposed
membership, maybe, versusrevenue, because I think
people's minds usually go torevenue.
I've worked with manufacturersor, in particular.
They kind of stand out.
The only number, sometimes theonly number they care about, is
the opposite of growth, meaning,how do we take cost out of the
business?
Right?
That's another one, maybeanother way of saying the same
(11:28):
thing.
But I really enjoyed the book,todd, and one of the things I
liked about it is it's don'tmean this to come across the
wrong way, but it's short andreadable, and what I like about
that is I had time to read itand I'm intrigued by the stories
and I always love to hear otherpeople's perspectives because I
learn a few things, but I alsosort of validate things that I
(11:50):
think I already know.
I'm like, yeah, like Toddagrees with me, this is good,
like, and you found a reallygood way of putting things.
But I thought as I was readingthrough it, I thought this is I
need 10 copies of this becauseand I think you do need 10,
maybe a hundred copies, you knowbecause it's something that I
(12:11):
could put in front of a client,you know, a prospect to say hey,
are you?
You know, if you weren't reallysure about what it meant to be
customer centric or adopt acustomer experience program or
mindset, you know you're unsureabout why or how to do it.
This is a great process, it's agreat approach, it's a great
start and I think you did agreat job at, you know, taking
your learnings but making themaccessible to to others who
(12:34):
maybe had lived in their ownsilo, their silo, their part of
this equation, and I thought,wow, if I could really kind of
get somebody a primer you know,before I was able to do anything
else with them as a consultant,this to get somebody a primer,
you know, before I was able todo anything else with them as a
consultant this might be the wayto do it.
So thank you for writing thebook and I really mean that it
was really well put together.
Now you just needed like a photopart in the middle, like the
(12:54):
old books.
I need more pictures.
Yeah, I need more pictures.
I noticed that as a thing.
You know, here's a suggestionfor the second edition, a
graphic novel.
That might be kind of cool.
That's a lot that goes into it.
But I've seen books have secondeditions with a graphic novel,
so you just kind of read it likea comic strip.
Todd Unger (13:11):
So and it's unfortunate because I had.
We had our annual customerexperience forum at the AMA and
my customer experience directordid something so cool.
We have about 40 or 50different kinds of leads on
projects that are all across thehundreds of people working on
customer experience issues atAMA and she made a personalized
(13:32):
sign for each one of them aboutwhat they did and they all.
You know we have this onepicture of all of them holding
up their signs and I was likethis is like bringing tears to
my eyes and I wish I'd had thatpicture to put in the book, but
it shows how you can catalyze anorganization and how you scale
a CX operation.
It's not through the team only,it's through the whole group of
(13:56):
people that are stakeholders inthis.
Jim Hertzfeld (13:58):
That is one of the coolest things.
I remember.
You did show that to me.
We've got to share that for theaudience here because that was
powerful.
But those are little things,tangible things, that make a
difference.
I was actually with a softwarepartner this week and we were
asking them what can we do tobring our customer or client
(14:19):
story back to you?
And they said it's almost saidthe same thing.
Give us use cases.
You know, give us.
I was able to do this, you knowI was.
I stopped doing that.
I was able to offer my customerthis.
So those those little bits, Ithink are really important
because they're they're tangible, yeah, they're tangible.
So well, you talk about a fewother things.
That, and then many techniques,but a couple of them really
(14:42):
stood out to me.
I just wanted to kind of getyour take on them.
So I've read it, I went throughit and I thought these are
things that little bits I'mgoing to start sharing with
people right away.
The first one that you talkedabout was fix your checkout page
right F-Y-C-O-P.
Yeah, and a couple of thingsthat I really liked about it.
(15:02):
One is you talk aboutexperimentation, which I love.
Experimentation A B testing,try something out, try out
something small, see how itworks out, see what you learn
from it, test and learn.
It has a few other monikers,and you told a story about
challenging a team I think itwas a developer who was trying
to improve conversion.
(15:22):
They made this change and itwas 7%.
Then somebody else built on itand conversion was improved by,
I think, like 10 or 11%.
And just the power of thosesmall changes.
Trial and error, it sounds like,but it's not.
It's thoughtful, it's ahypothesis.
You experiment, right, you testit and it comes back.
But the thing I really likedabout it is you know you made a
point that these details matterand you can make incremental
(15:47):
change.
You don't have to beoverwhelmed.
And it's not just the checkoutexperience.
It could be an online forum ora CTA, it could be how you walk
into a waiting room or how youorder coffee at a coffee shop.
I mean, am I thinking aboutthis the right way?
I mean, this is not just aboutcheckout pages, right.
(16:08):
This is about incrementalchanges.
I want to make sure I'm readingthat right.
Todd Unger (16:11):
Yeah, in fact that the story and that acronym or
hashtag or whatever you want tocall it.
It was inspired by a dinnerthat I had with the co-founders
of Stripe, the brothers John andPatrick Collison, and I don't
know how I got invited to thisdinner, but at the end of it was
a question and answer sessionand I asked what would you do to
eliminate customer friction formy book?
(16:33):
I'm looking for something formy book and Patrick said fix
your checkout page.
And, as you might expectsomeone from Stripe to say, but
the way that he told the storywas so compelling and simple,
which is like you spend allsorts of time on all these
features on your site.
You're trying to build demandand get people to interact on
the stuff, but, like, payattention to the thing that the
(16:54):
you know that actually convertspeople into customers, because
all of this AB testing andincremental improvements that
you make, they pay off in such ahuge way and I kind of I was
like, wow, that was very goodadvice and I, you know, go into
work the next day and I find outthat we have like a little
upsell in one of our major kindof offerings.
(17:15):
That wasn't working and thatwas like the answer to why we
were so far down in the count,for, you know, customers coming
from this thing and I was like,oh my God, we've spent so much
time like adding new featuresand content and all this stuff.
It's like you got to payattention to the upsell and so I
talked to my team about it.
It's like it's not just fixyour checkout page, it's every
(17:37):
page, but there is a hugeconversion metric that rides on
that.
You better make sure it'sworking and that you're
improving it all the time.
Jim Hertzfeld (17:48):
Every effort you make to do that pays off
literally, well, and it kind ofreminds me of some other old
rules in the 80-20 world, right?
I mean, you really have to kindof figure out what matters the
most, right?
So maybe we're saying twothings like the details matter,
but you got to know what whichdetails matter.
Todd Unger (18:10):
Yeah, absolutely Don't take your eye off the ball
of that.
So I thought that was good.
I got to.
I immediately started thinkingabout all the incremental
improvements you know we couldmake.
But you mentioned measurement.
That was kind of the secondthing that stuck out to me in
terms of different tactics andtechniques.
And you know you mentionedTemkin.
I remember years ago maybethey're still doing that there's
kind of a customer index score,I think the Temkin score.
(18:31):
We have a similar approach wecall CXIQ.
But this kind of inspired mebecause I about some other
measurements to sort of evaluatemaybe not how you're doing, but
at the end does the experienceitself working right and only
the customer can kind of definethat it's at some point.
But you talked about thecustomer effort score.
(18:51):
You know to sort of you knowhow much work they have to put
in.
What's the friction score?
What's pushing against them?
You talked about first contactresolution.
So if there's an issue, does itget resolved the first time?
You talk about channelswitching.
You know it sort of has littleechoes of omni-channel, you know
can do a how?
Yeah, you know, and this iseverybody's, you know, favorite
(19:12):
story.
Well, I tried to do this and I.
But now I have to call and youknow I'm going to be in, I'm
going to wait, you know, in aqueue forever.
Or you know the cloud now, theone you hear all the time I'm
trying to cancel my account.
There's no way to do it, thereis no number, all that sort of
by design.
But maybe put some shed alittle light on measurement,
(19:32):
because you know, I think that's, you know, one of the sort of
great eye openers right Is tosee, you know, we have our gut
feel and we have our experience,but what do the numbers have to
say?
So maybe you can elaborate alittle bit on, kind of, where
you're going with measurement.
Yeah, it really is.
It's such an important piece of this, the
whole metric situation, butespecially in the book, what I
(19:54):
talk about are the differentways that we look at customer
experience.
And then I think there are somebasic customer service metrics
that you employ there too.
I mean, you've got yourmeasures around customer effort
that are pretty standard.
You go to the bathroom atO'Hare and said you know how
easy was it to use it.
You've got those kinds ofthings.
I think the biggest change forus is in the customer friction
(20:18):
index that we've created, whichis really simple, which is
basically like how many problemsare people having out of how
many sessions are on this, andso that just kind of gives you a
general idea of like what's myfriction score on that thing,
and you can track that over timeand you can monitor for when
that goes outside of normalparameters that might indicate a
(20:40):
problem.
And I think the biggest changethat we've made in terms is like
what gets input into thenumerator of that particular
equation has changed.
For us it used to just be youknow people that contacted our
service center either by youknow whatever channel it was
chat, email or phone call andthen we would track those things
, and then we would see all thesessions and we would count that
(21:02):
.
But we've since put in a moreautomated solution onto the site
and throughout all our products.
We use something called quantummetric that actually automates
the collection of that and usingcertain signals on the site
like oh, there's a button beinghit and nothing's happening.
Oh, there's a button being hitand nothing's happening, and
(21:23):
that's my favorite one, a rageclick, as we might call it.
It's like you push the elevatorand it's just not coming any
faster, if at all, and so thatkind of sends up a red flag and
you get the signal and someonecould go fix that.
Now there are two things aboutit.
One is like that's the kind ofthing that could go on forever
and you don't know about it.
That's my nightmare, right.
The other thing is that it doesbroaden the amount of instances
(21:48):
that are going to go into thatnumerator.
So it can be pretty depressingif all of a sudden your
collection has gone beyond themanual world.
Now you're in a automatedmachine learning type solutions.
But boy does it make a hugedifference to know, track and
improve, and so that's reallythe key there for us.
Jim Hertzfeld (22:07):
Yeah, that's cool .
I mean again, I just love yourattention to these details and
focusing on the right things.
Rage click is something Ihaven't heard in a while.
It's a great term and everyoneknows what it means it is.
Yeah, you bet everyone knowsthe elevator is a little more
tangible, knows what it means itis.
Yeah, you bet everyone knowsthe elevator is a little more
(22:28):
tangible.
Like come on,, I'm late, Iguess
.
, then the.
You know you spend a little bitof time on this or a few pages
on this, and I think this comesup a lot.
And you mentioned sort of thein-between-ness of this, all
sort of the.
You know there's sort of atwilight zone or no man's land
or demilitarized zone, right,that's where these roles sort of
happen.
But you talk about differentorganizations.
(22:49):
You talk about and I've seenevery variety of this and I
think everybody is wonderingwhere this CXO function lives,
right.
And you list a few options forthe combinations.
Is it a standalone unit?
You know it's just.
This is the CX team, I see.
For the combinations, is it astandalone unit?
You know it's just.
This is the CX team.
I see that a lot.
Is it in marketing, which seemsto be sort of the default.
(23:10):
I don't know why, I guess,cause maybe that's where someone
made a, wrote a persona onceyou know operations, which is
interesting, I you know, cause Ithink I see that a lot in call
center.
I think you look at sort ofolder books about customer
experience.
They seem to be contact center,call center oriented.
Yeah, because that was the onlyway outside of sales.
(23:30):
That's kind of where ithappened.
Or you talk about sort of anenterprise COE.
That's another model where,gosh, we kind of acknowledge
that it's everybody'sresponsibility, but we're not
really.
If we just put this on Todd'splate, then, like no one else
will feel accountable to it,right, and then you have sort of
the office of the CXO and thisis saying, hey, we're taking
(23:50):
this to the, you know, to thenext level.
I think you nailed all thecombinations.
But what do you?
You know and you kind of alludeto different debates and
LinkedIn.
I think they're very passionateabout this.
Yeah, they are, they are.
I always, I always have a goodReddit debate myself, you know,
just cause it's, it's it seems alittle be a little spicier.
But yeah, so you know, sinceyou've written that, what do you
(24:11):
, what do you, you know, do youhave any kind of thoughts or
advice for people in terms ofcause?
Again, they're going to readthis, they're going to buy into
it, but then now, what?
Like, how do I make it work ifI don't feel like it's working
in my organization yet?
Todd Unger (24:22):
Yeah, well, I think one of the things I'd love to
tell you is kind of the originstory of my customer experience
journey, and it really beganbecause I have customer service
as part of my team and a thingthat I noticed was just the
volume of calls they weregetting in with people unable to
log into our site for whateverreasons, and they did a great
(24:44):
job of fixing every one of theseproblems on the spot and
getting somebody on the way, butit just kept happening every
day and I finally looked at theperson that was running customer
service and I'm like you knowwhat we actually need to fix
this problem and the reason that, like CX has a hard time if
it's centered in customerservice is because they don't
(25:04):
have the authority necessarilyto reach out across the
organization and involve all thepeople who need to fix this
problem.
This is a classic case of thein-between, where this problem
involves 50,000 players acrossevery part of the organization,
from mine to product, it, tocommerce, to service, you name
(25:24):
it.
It runs the gamut and there'sno one to step in and say I'm
going to pull the players heretogether.
We're going to figure out howto identify what this problem
looks like how to measure it,how all the things that goes
into fixing it.
That kicked off our customerexperience journey and the need
to begin a CX operation.
And so we started that CXoperation in the marketing group
(25:48):
because that's what I run.
But as we matured as anorganization we turned it into a
center of excellence for therest of the organization where
we are kind of on loan to helppeople bust down those problems
that create friction.
And so I think that kind ofcenter of excellence housed
within marketing works for a lotof reasons on growth and there
(26:13):
is alignment between marketinginitiatives and CX Todd
initiatives, because on its ownCX initiatives like they're
tough to fund and so that's whywe don't talk about them.
I just build that into mygrowth plan and we fund those
initiatives through that.
And then the other thing islike they're operational, like
(26:33):
this is not like for the faintof heart, right, you got to roll
up your sleeves and get inthere.
And so I think a lot of thesethings that are housed at, like
you know, office of customerexperience and the C-suite,
they're very highfalutin things.
They're not the day-to-dayproblems that people experience
in, you know, in their journeysthat prevent growth.
(26:55):
And that's really what our teamis about.
Jim Hertzfeld (26:58):
That's great.
I love calling back to growthand which goes back to
measurements, you know, andgoing back to sort of rolling up
your sleeve.
I'm going back to you know, fixyour checkout page, like that's
kind of roll up your sleevestuff, like what does it matter?
So I love it.
So you have a lot more in thebook, todd, and I really mean it
, like I'm I'm getting morecopies because you know it's
(27:19):
like I want to meet my next, mynext customer and say OK, before
we come back and like really,really, really get into, you
know, a solution.
You need to buy into this.
So I appreciate you.
Todd Unger (27:31):
I appreciate that too.
Thank you so much Of all thethings that like are meaningful.
Jim Hertzfeld (27:36):
As an author, it's feedback like that where
somebody
Todd Unger (27:38):
comes back and says, like I learned something and I
put it to use.
So definitely, yeah, well then.
So when somebody comes back andsays, like I learned something
and I put it to use.
Jim Hertzfeld (27:42):
So definitely, yeah, well then.
So thanks for writing andthanks for joining the podcast.
Todd, my pleasure.
Thanks for having me today.
Joe Wentzel (27:47):
It was really fun.
You've been listening to what?
If so, what A digital strategypodcast from Proficient with Jim
Hertzfeld.
We want to thank our Proficientcolleagues JD Norman and Rick
Bauer for our music.
Subscribe to the podcast anddon't miss a single episode.
You can find this season, alongwith show notes, at
proficientcom.
(28:08):
Thanks for listening.
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