This is a special episode highlighting key takeaways from past cases. In this episode, host Lyssa Myska Allen discusses tips for the best customer experience, from in-person to virtual, from top industry leaders.
This is a special episode highlighting key takeaways from past cases. In this episode, host Lyssa Myska Allen discusses tips for the best customer experience, from in-person to virtual, from top industry leaders.
Quotes
*”There's no easier audience to sell to than people who have already bought from you, know that you exist, and like the product. And so if you want to sell more to your existing customer base, you can increase their lifetime value, either through your core offering and doing a subscription service, or you can continue to launch new products that are complementary to whatever you're selling.” - Orchid Bertelsen
*”When you're designing an [educational] experience, you have to get out of the learner's way as much as possible. And anything you do that adds a little bit of cognitive load or unnecessary cognitive load, the learners feel it, and you'll see that in the churn.” - Ori Ratner
*”If you do it really well, you have this nice flow between an intelligent virtual assistant and an agent. If it needs to hand off for context, that's going to make or break an experience.” - Melissa O’Brien
*“The most important thing to me is the symbiotic nature of technology and customer experience. In this day and age, you can't really have one without the other. Or you can, but it just won't be a great experience.” - Boone Putney
*“I think the best thing that has come out of the blended world is really seeing how much we're able to do without having fans actually come to the building, and how much we've been able to engage with the community and help in other ways, besides from the hockey standpoint. We have great ownership that allow us to do that and have given us the ability and the resources to be able to do that. And so it's just a testament to our foundation and our DNA that's within the brand.” - Keren Lynch
*“You need to have focus and say no to 98% of audience expansion tactics. And then you have to have a super clear origin myth that almost acts like a magnet. A brand is not that visual styling you put on at the end. It's your brand voice and your attitude and your very reason for being. It's the mission. And that's what millennials and others will get attracted to. Nobody wants some generic corporate thing. It's very forgettable. So you have to have a narrow focus and a clear appeal to those people based on a deep understanding of their needs and their larger context. You may be just a small, transactional part of their life, but if you want to attract them, you should still resonate for them.” - Tim Ash
*“We really should be the guide along a customer's journey, not the hero of their journey. Like they are the hero, right. We're just here to make their lives better. And so much of it is listening to their pain points, listening to what brings them joy, listening to the words that they say, and then writing them down and then saying them back to them. I mean, that's literally what we do. We do a lot of case studies with our customers and we'll take the exact words that our customers say about why they like Transect, some feature that's helpful for them, and we'll regurgitate it in a marketing campaign because we know that that's what their peers are used to hearing.” - Robin Laine
Time Stamps
The Case of…
*[0:43] Scaling up a DTC Brand with Orchid Bertelsen, COO at Common Thread Collective
*[1:42] The Move to Mobile with Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner, Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer at Quantic School of Business and Technology
*[2:30] Balancing Automation with Human Interaction with Melissa O’Brien
*[3:08] Leveraging Technology to Meet the Needs of End Users with Boone Putney
*[3:58] The Pandemic Pivot with Keren Lynch
*[5:17] Getting Inside Your Customer’s Head with Tim Ash
Thank you to our friends
This podcast is brought to you by HGS. A global leader in optimizing the customer experience lifecycle, digital transformation, and business process management, HGS is helping its clients become more competitive every day. Learn more at hgs.cx.
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Lyssa Myska Allen: You’re here! Come on in. I have someone here I want you to meet. My boss!
Cece Hex: Hello there, happy to finally meet you. I’m Cece Hex, [“See-see”] head of the Federal Bureau of CX Investigations.
Lyssa Myska Allen: She’s here because we have a special bonus episode for you. Today, we’re popping open our case files. We’re going to revisit the cases we’ve cracked and the CX lessons learned along the way.
Cece Hex: That’s right. Because we are CX Detectives. Real cases, solved.
Lyssa Myska Allen: And I’m Lyssa Myska Allen, VP and Global Head of Marketing at HGS. Let’s get started.
Cece Hex: From what I gather, you’ve been very busy solving customer experience challenges. I want to hear the highlights,some of the best takeaways you’ve gotten working with your co-detectives. Let’s start with this file…
Lyssa Myska Allen: Oh yeah, that was the case of scaling up a DTC brand. I worked with Orchid Bertelsen on that one. She’s Chief Operating Officer at Common Thread Collective. She taught us the three ways to make money. Cut costs, sell to a broader audience, or…sell more to your current customers.
Orchid Bertelsen: There's no easier audience to sell to than people who have already bought from you, know that you exist, and like the product. And so if you want to sell more to your existing customer base, you can increase their lifetime value, either through your core offering and doing a subscription service, or you can continue to launch new products that are complementary to whatever you're selling.
Cece Hex: That’s right. Lifetime Value is sometimes abbreviated as L-T-V. And it measures the average revenue a person will generate over their lifespan as a customer. So like Orchid says, either add more SKUs [“skews”] or make a product consumable through a subscription service…What’s this next file, there’s a lot in here. Oh, it’s because you had two co-detectives: Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Yes! They are Co-Founders of the Quantic School of Business and Technology. Alexie is the Chief Product Officer and Ori is the Chief Technology Officer there. We worked on the case of the move to mobile. They had created an app for students to use instead of traditional textbooks, and taught us how to create a frictionless app experience.
Ori Ratner: When you're designing an [educational] experience, you have to get out of the learner's way as much as possible. And anything you do that adds a little bit of cognitive load or unnecessary cognitive load, the learners feel it, and you'll see that in the churn.
Cece Hex: Even though they were designing an educational app, this can apply to any user experience. People are less likely to use it if it’s not a smooth experience. Let’s look at this next file here. [Sound Effect] The case of balancing automation with human interaction.
Lyssa Myska Allen: I worked with Melissa O’Brien on that one. She’s a Research Leader at HFS Research. And she helped us figure out how to automate just enough of the digital customer experience to lighten the load of employees but also have customers still feel cared for. That way it’s better for the employees, better for the customers.
Melissa O’Brien: If you do it really well, you have this nice flow between an intelligent virtual assistant and an agent. If it needs to hand off for context, that's going to make or break an experience.
Cece Hex: Brilliant. There’s a bit of finesse there but it makes a big difference in how customers feel about the experience. What’s this file?
Lyssa Myska Allen: Ah, this case was super fun too. It’s the case of leveraging technology to meet the needs of multiple users. Boone Putney was my co-detective, and he’s Chief Technology Officer at Fetch Package. Our client was trying to figure out how to create a technology solution for three different customer personas. But I think Boone summed up the overall lesson well here.
Boone Putney: The most important thing to me is the symbiotic nature of technology and customer experience. In this day and age, you can't really have one without the other. Or you can, but it just won't be a great experience.
Cece Hex: Absolutely, well said. Technology is a powerful tool, and you can use it in so many ways to create an amazing digital customer experience.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Exactly! Let’s look at this one next. Keren Lynch and I investigated the pandemic pivot. Keren is the Publicist and Manager of Communications for the Anaheim Ducks. And they had to figure out what to do through the pandemic shutdowns. There was a lot of creative problem solving and thinking outside the box.
Keren Lynch: I think the best thing that has come out of the blended world is really seeing how much we're able to do without having fans actually come to the building, and how much we've been able to engage with the community and help in other ways, besides from the hockey standpoint. We have great ownership that allow us to do that and have given us the ability and the resources to be able to do that. And so it's just a testament to our foundation and our DNA that's within the brand.I think that that's something that our ownership, the Samueli's, really try and touch upon and make part of our culture. And obviously we love having people to hockey games and that's always going to be the biggest draw. But I think that our charity component and everything we do off ice has really taken center stage.
Cece Hex: I love that they were giving back during that time, and were still a presence in the community. They were working to bring hope to people and fans during that dark time. A lot of businesses had to do what the Anaheim Ducks did, and really go out of their normal function. But they’re still grounded in their foundational values and I think that’s key.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of foundational values, let’s talk about branding. Because strong brands are not just about the visual representation of your company. It’s your company values. It’s what customers are drawn to. So if defining your brand means deciding what you’re all about, you also have to decide what you’re not about. That’s what we discussed with Tim Ash. He’s an international keynote speaker, bestselling author and marketing advisor.
Tim Ash: You need to have focus and say no to 98% of audience expansion tactics. And then you have to have a super clear origin myth that almost acts like a magnet. A brand is not that visual styling you put on at the end. It's your brand voice and your attitude and your very reason for being. It's the mission. And that's what millennials and others will get attracted to. Nobody wants some generic corporate thing. It's very forgettable. So you have to have a narrow focus and a clear appeal to those people based on a deep understanding of their needs and their larger context. You may be just a small, transactional part of their life, but if you want to attract them, you should still resonate for them.
Cece Hex: Yeah, resonating for customers is huge. And having a defined mission doesn’t just draw customers in, but helps build brand loyalty as well. Well, as long as you are also leveraging technology, creating a seamless experience, increasing LTV. You know, all the things we’ve been talking about and more…Lyssa, the filing cabinet is almost empty. It looks like there’s just one more case to review.
Lyssa Myska Allen: Yes, it’s Robin Laine’s file! It seems like so long ago now that I worked with her. But we covered some critical ground talking about how to build your customer experience from the ground up. Robin is the Co-Founder and CEO at Transect, and she was speaking from experience.
Robin Laine: We really should be the guide along a customer's journey, not the hero of their journey. Like they are the hero, right. We're just here to make their lives better. And so much of it is listening to their pain points, listening to what brings them joy, listening to the words that they say, and then writing them down and then saying them back to them. I mean, that's literally what we do. We do a lot of case studies with our customers and we'll take the exact words that our customers say about why they like Transect, some feature that's helpful for them, and we'll regurgitate it in a marketing campaign because we know that that's what their peers are used to hearing.
Lyssa Myska Allen: It still makes me laugh when she says she listens to customers and writes their words down. Because it seems so simple but it shows you’re listening and care about them. And I love how she frames businesses as the guide, and customers as the hero in their journey. There’s so much in her file that still resonates with me. And it’s a good note to wrap up on! So Boss, how did we do?
Cece Hex: Lyssa, you’ve uncovered so much in the past few months of what makes an excellent customer experience. You’ve investigated balancing automation with human interaction, the pandemic pivot, getting inside your customer’s head, and much, much more. You’ve done a fantastic job. But we’re not closing these case files yet. We still have work to do.
Lyssa Myska Allen: That’s right. There’s more to come, so stay tuned. Because we are CX Detectives. Real Cases, solved.
Thank you for listening to CX Detectives, brought to you by HGS. If you liked what you heard today, tell a friend, a colleague, your neighbor who cooks very pungent food next door. And don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Next time there’s a CX case to be solved, we’ll be there!