Experience is Everything - Interview with Jeannie Walters

0:00Welcome to the next edition of the Punk CX podcast. Love it. Part two. Take two, in fact. Because we had a horror show before. Well, we didn't have a horror show. I had a horror show. You were part of the horror show. Not complicit in it. I'm with Jeannie Walters. We're recording a podcast at Qualtrics X4 event in Seattle, but we're just taking the opportunity to record it because Jeannie's written a book. Yay! which we want to talk about but before we go into that genie can you give us a little bit of a thumbnail sketch on on on you just for our listeners sure yeah i have a company called experience investigators i started in 2009 the mission of the company is to create fewer ruined days for customers and we do that through consulting and advisory and strategic work as well as training and speaking and all sorts of things but i love it yeah awesome now i I'm going to look at my notes because I want to make sure I get the title right.

0:59You've just recently published a book. And I will say, first of all, congrats on that. Thank you. I know how much of an effort that is. You sure do. And the book is called Experiences Everything. Making Every Moment Count in the Age of Customer Expectations. And so, first of all, can you give me the headline? Tell me about the book. Tell me how it came about. Tell me the headlines. Because then I want to dive into a couple of things that stood out for me when I went through the book. That's right. Great. Yeah. So I basically have been seeing similar patterns in a lot of the organizations that we partner with.

1:34Okay. And a lot of times customer experience is kind of a bottom-up approach. It's about what feedback are we finding? What are those insights? What do we have to fix? What I do in the book and what we do with our clients is essentially walk through a more strategic way of looking at this. Okay. So we want to align the mindset, make sure everybody's making the right decisions on behalf of the customer and the organization. then we want to build a strategy, a real strategy, not just something where we say, be nice to customers. I know. And then we need the business discipline to actually back that up.

2:04So we prioritize the right efforts. So those are the three parts of the book, mindset, strategy, discipline. And it's really a guidebook for leaders. And it's born out of experience, I guess, the stuff that you've kind of done. You've almost just like, this is what we've done. This is what we've figured out. I'm not going to write it down the book. Exactly. So to give people a flavor of the book, there's a couple of things I wrote down that stood out for me and I wanted to ask you about. Well, they stood out, but also I thought, I need to ask you about some of these things. The first one, right at the start, you wrote, customer experience is proactive, customer service is reactive.

2:40And I was a bit like, hang on, you have to explain that to me. Sure. I'm not sure I completely agree. Yeah. So please explain it. Yes, for sure. So when we think about customer service, really what that is, is when something isn't going right or when a customer needs something, they have to often reach out to the organization. They have to call the contact center. They have to use the chat. They have to make that decision to reach out and say, this is not working. And then our job on the organizational side is to respond to that and say, here's what you can do about it. All those things. Really important for any organization.

3:14but that is reactive. What I want to do is look at customer experience as proactive and be really intentional about leading it, meaning that we design the experience not only to deliver for the customer but also to consider things like what happens if it doesn't work? Let's figure that out too. Really get clear on the entire customer journey. Okay. Now, so I don't have to pick a fight with you. So now I understand. And then I want to circle back on what you said about kind of mindset, because that's one of those foundational kind of things. And so help me understand what you mean by mindset, because it's a big, well, it's not a big word.

3:53It's only like seven letters. But it's a big concept. Yeah, it's a word that gets thrown around. You'll have the right mindset. Right, right. You'll feel like, oh, OK. Yeah, that's what? That's exactly right. And one of the things that drives me crazy is when we make these declarations, right? A CEO will be like, we are a customer-centric company or we are customer first. And they just expect everybody to kind of understand what that means. And they expect everybody to snap to with that mindset. What we do is we actually talk about aligning the mindset so that every single person in the organization understands who are we to our customers no matter what.

4:31And what's unique about that? We can internalize that, that instead of asking every single individual, like if you just say, be customer centric, you're asking every single individual in your organization to make a judgment call about what that means. Right. And you and I might think differently on that. And it's not that either one of us is right or wrong. It just means that that creates an inconsistent customer journey. Yeah. And that's what breeds mistrust and all these other things. So what I want to do is make sure we have something that is very clear that people can internalize and understand how to be empowered about that.

5:05And we use something called a customer experience mission statement to do that. The thing I like about that is that it's about being explicit. Yes. And in the trashed version of the previous attempt, I mentioned a quote to you that I really like, which I think is really appropriate here. and it comes from Alan Alda and was giving it that commencement address at his daughter's college. Seems to be a thing at the actors. Yeah, he's got famous parents, I guess. Famous parents that go to their college just to say a few words. Anyway, he said something which I thought was really smart. He said that assumptions are our windows on the world.

5:44We should clean them off every now and again so we can see clearly. I love it. And I just thought it's a beautiful thing to say because we do make a lot of assumptions. like you're a leading time, but you say, oh, you should be customer-centric, or she should be customer-focused, or people are like going, yeah. What does that mean? Right. Unless you're explicit about it, and sometimes you almost have to be continually explicit, because then you can align behavior around it. So I'm guessing the mission statement or the customer mission that you have, that's probably something that needs refreshing from time to time.

6:19Yes, yes. And first of all, Well, I love that you said explicit because I think that's what it is. It's about defining it in a way that we all agree. We all align around that. I love when we can develop a customer experience mission statement that will stand the test of time for a while. But the for a while could be, you know, let's figure out who we are. Let's figure out if we're actually delivering on that mission. And if we made something a little too lofty or a little not lofty enough, you can adjust. You can make it something refreshed as you go. But I do think that the ones who do this well, they internalize all that.

6:57We're talking about being explicit with the customer mission that you write and how it probably needs to be refreshed from time to time because it just does. I mean, the contact window shifts, right? There's a thing that I wanted to ask about. This is in the book, you write, and this gets the hub of, I guess, the organizational reality of some of this stuff is because you write to define to define your cx strategy in ways that ensure your customer experience goals are aligned with your organizational goals flip your thinking and start with what your organization and leaders need then build your cx goals around those outcomes that's one quote it's a long quote but this is one quote and then you go on to say this is the piece i see missing in most customer experience programs and i want just you I think it's really important, something that's very much aligned to something that I've been talking about for like a while.

7:52I want you just to explain to me what you mean by that. And also I want you to explain to me what happened yesterday after you did your talk, and if you came up to what the person said. Just as like a bonus. Yes, a bonus. I love it. So yeah, a lot of times what I see is customer experience programs are basically the ones collecting information, reporting on it, and kind of begging people to care. And they go to these different groups and they say, look, look what the customers are saying. But those are not connected to organizational goals or outcomes that, you know what, if I'm on the product team and my product roadmap is already approved and nobody holds me accountable for this stuff, then why should I care about this?

8:30I'm going to focus on what I'm held accountable for. And everybody wins when we focus on the organizational goals. If your CEO has said, we need to gain more market share, we need to reduce our service costs. If everybody's aligned on those things, then you have much more productive conversations and you can actually move things forward. But you have to start with those organizational goals. And most people start with the feedback or the insights and then try to get there. I'm saying flip the script. And yeah, yesterday I had a keynote here at X4 and somebody came up to me and she said, this is like the opposite of what we're doing.

9:06And I was like, exactly right so it's but i think you know our industry has had to define itself and redefine itself and it gets a little stuck sometimes so i think the thing that i would that occurs to me about this is that we have to realize that kind of customer experience as a thing as a domain as a skill as a capability doesn't exist in a vacuum yes in fact if anything it is a serving function. And it's there to empower people, to make things work better, to achieve more. And I think that's the thing that we, and I guess it's something that I railed against in the whole Punxie X book, is that it's a bit like, it's not about you.

9:52Right. That's exactly right. That is exactly right. And sometimes I think about this as like, think about how much respect Chief Financial Officer gets, right? They have so much that they can influence, even though they're not the ones actually making the money, but they are the ones who are helping optimize it. And everybody understands that. I think that's where we have to move for customer experience. People have to understand, like, we're not the ones always making the changes. We can't. That's not our role. But if we can optimize things for those organizational goals, we're going to get respect.

10:24Actually, probably more immediately, optimize them for the people that are trying to achieve as an operator. Because if you do that and you help somebody else be successful, guess what? Yeah. It's got to be a win for everybody. What's in it for me? You've got to figure that out. So, yeah, it's a bigger idea than I think a lot of organizations give it credit for. Fair. That's fair. And I love the fact that the book is born out of hard-earned experience that you kind of brought together over a few years. And so I hope that gives people kind of a better flavor of the books. But anything you want to highlight that I've missed out before I ask you some quick thought questions?

11:02Sure. Well, I would just say everybody's on their own unique kind of customer experience journey. I've never seen two organizations that have the same organizational structure or accountabilities or anything. So I always like to encourage folks, like, start where you can, where you are. Because you might not be ready to, like, gather the whole executive team and get that CX mission statement done. But can you take steps to be more strategic, to have that strategic vision, to start communicating in a way where you show up differently as a CX leader? Start there and start making progress wherever you can.

11:34And that's how you earn credibility and respect. And that's how you get momentum around these things. Nice. Nice. Well said. So quick, four questions. Yeah. First one, your best advice. I want you to give me your best advice by completing this sentence. So if you'd like to improve your customer experience, Jeannie Walters says do this, dot, dot, dot. Focus on outcomes. Focus on outcomes. Thank you very much. We'll stop. Second question is a punk one because it has to be Punk CX Podcast. What company do you think is taking a more punk approach to CX and why? I would say right now Costco. The reason is because they're going beyond just looking at their customers.

12:17they're really looking at kind of the bigger picture. And in Los Angeles, there's a housing crisis. They have announced that they're building a Costco there, that they're going to build apartments on top of. And part of it is to also develop a community with walkable and good jobs. And so they're investing in more than just our box of a store. They're investing on that. And I think that's kind of punk. Then it's brilliant. It's very, very aligned with the second punk book, which was Punk X-Out, which was Experience Physiature because I realized that it starts with you and then it goes to your team and your organization and then your customers and then your society and your environment and so on and so forth.

12:57You end up, it's almost like ripples. Yeah, I totally agree. And so, I mean, it's kind of brilliant. And sometimes those things are connected because sometimes you can help other people and by helping other people, you end up helping yourself. That's right. And it's just beyond this taking a bit of a systemic kind of look at things, which I love. That's brilliant. again um and final question world's in a weird place lots of doom scrolling are going up going on tell me if you need stories please brighten up my day yes i'll i'll try so i think it's easy to think that we're not so much alike that we are living in that doom scrolling world but i find that when i really aim to have one-on-one conversations you realize you do have a lot more in common.

13:39And something I've been adopting lately is just saying I am unapologetically optimistic. And by doing that, it helps me look at the world a different way. And also, I feel like once you train your radar to look for things, they start appearing for you. And so being optimistic like that, I feel like I'm making my own world a little better and that I hope will help other people too. Love it. Thank you so much. Congratulations again on the book. Thank you so Thank you for bearing with me in terms of the making of this podcast. It's been a bit of an effort, but hopefully we got there in the end. So thank you so much.

14:15Well, thank you. It's always a joy to spend time with you, Adrian. Love it. Thank you. Thank you.

14:22Wow, what a great interview. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did. Find out more about me and the work that I do at adrienswinsko.com. Do leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. and if you have any comments, feedback or questions about the podcast then feel free to send me a message to podcast at adrianswinsco.com and do tune in again. Thanks very much.