Christian Napier 00:12 - 00:30 Well, good morning everyone and welcome to another episode of Teamwork a Better Way. I'm Christian Napier and I am joined by the incomparable Just amazing person that we've known each other for more than 20 years, Spencer. Spencer Horn. Spencer, how are you doing today? Spencer Horn 00:30 - 00:41 I am humbled that you will still say that after knowing me for 20 years, all my foibles. But brother, I feel the same way about you. I'm just so glad to be with you. And we were just together on Friday. Spencer Horn 00:41 - 00:48 I know. And our guest today actually knows our guest from Friday. So that's really cool. Christian Napier 00:49 - 01:00 Yeah, well, you know, if we had planned this a little bit better, we could have marketed this as like customer experience week or something like that. What's wrong with us? Spencer Horn 01:00 - 01:18 Here's the reality. Things are happening in our lives, right? We are busy for our listeners. You know that we don't have this regularly, but whenever we can schedule it, we schedule it usually on a Friday or a Monday, which is probably not great for, for podcasts, but obviously the, you know, the life part of it anyway, but the rest is fine. Spencer Horn 01:18 - 01:24 But you have, you are busy in your family today. I understand. There's some great, exciting news. Christian Napier 01:25 - 01:36 Yeah. So early this morning, our daughter had, uh, their first child. They had a grand, so I now have a grandson. I had, I had two granddaughters and now we have a grandson. Christian Napier 01:36 - 01:44 So, uh, we're super excited. for them and we're gonna go visit them this weekend. Spencer Horn 01:44 - 01:51 Pretty hard to beat grandchildren or great nieces and nephews. Christian Napier 01:51 - 02:01 That's right, so we hear because we've got an amazing guest and I understand that probably the most amazing thing about her is she is the greatest aunt in the world. Spencer Horn 02:02 - 02:11 That's what I hear, that's what I hear. Among other things, pretty darn amazing. Can I let the cat out of the bag and tell our listeners who we've got today? Christian Napier 02:11 - 02:13 Yeah, let this cat out of that bag. Spencer Horn 02:14 - 02:26 We are so excited to invite you, Jeannie. We have Jeannie Walters, the founder and chief experience investigator. And I forgot to ask you about this. What's a CCXP? Spencer Horn 02:26 - 03:06 I imagine that it has something to do with a customer experience ninja, which I think she created this association that hands out those awards or something, because that's how amazing she is. Well, you can correct me when I'm done here. She's also a CSP with the National Speakers Association, which means she is amazing as a speaker. She's an award-winning customer experience expert, author, international keynote speaker, and the founder of the Experience Investigators, a firm that has pioneered helping companies increase sales and customer retention throughout elevator custom, elevated, not elevator, elevated customer experiences. Spencer Horn 03:06 - 03:13 And her book, Experiences Everything, is coming out in two weeks. Is that right, Jeanne? Jeannie Walters 03:13 - 03:16 Yeah, just about. April 14th is the big day. Spencer Horn 03:16 - 03:28 Big, big, big day. So we're going to talk a lot about that and the focus of that. Experiences Everything, making every moment count in the age of customer expectations. This is the age of customer expectations, you're right. Spencer Horn 03:29 - 03:59 And that really is just going to showcase how amazing she is with her focus. She's trailblazing the movement from reactive customer service to proactive experience, which Customer experience, which I am excited to learn and dig into. And GD has considered, Christian, the leading authority for improving both employee and customer relationships. And as you know, as we're focused so much on team performance, that has a huge impact on team performance. Spencer Horn 03:59 - 04:35 So we want to definitely dig into that. And a certified customer experience professional and charter member, that's what I was referring to, of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. And she's worked with numerous for, I mean, I could go on and I'm going to, so just hang on, uh, numerous fortune 500 companies, including orange theory, fitness, fitness, uh, SAP Comcast, and JP Morgan chase. Just a few little, little mom and pop organizations as a certified speaking professional and professional member of the national speakers association. Spencer Horn 04:35 - 04:50 She has spoken to tens of thousands of people across three continents. on the power of proactivity to increase personal brand. And she's had 500,000 people go through her LinkedIn courses, Christian. We're going to have to, we're going to have to check those out. Spencer Horn 04:51 - 05:07 And, um, I, I see what else she's been on, uh, featured in Forbes, the Chicago Tribune, wall street journal, and many more. And now she's being featured on teamwork, a better way podcast. Welcome Jeannie. Jeannie Walters 05:08 - 05:13 Thank you, Spencer. I need to update my bio, just right now, to mention a few words. Spencer Horn 05:13 - 05:14 I was going to say, did I miss something? Jeannie Walters 05:14 - 05:18 No. You did a great job. Thank you for that. Spencer Horn 05:19 - 05:48 Well, we are super, super glad to have you. I want to just throw a, just to get us started, customer experience is something a lot of people talk about. A lot of companies spend a lot of money training their employees on it, and yet, We still have a huge problem in the world today, and it seems like it's not getting better. But what's something that most leaders believe about customer experience that's just completely wrong? Jeannie Walters 05:50 - 06:10 I think a lot of people believe that, first of all, we just know it. We just know what it means to deliver great customer experiences. We're customers ourselves, so we know what it feels like when we have a great experience versus not so great. So leaders talk a lot about it, but they don't actually treat it like it's part of the business. Jeannie Walters 06:11 - 06:43 And so what I see a lot is that leaders say things like, well, we're going to be customer-centric. Or we put customers first, and they expect those words to just translate magically throughout the organization. And what I'm making an argument for is to treat customer experience like any other part of the business, like sales or marketing or operations. If we put real oomph to it, if we give it the discipline it requires and the vision it requires, the results are spectacular. Jeannie Walters 06:43 - 06:51 But we have to focus on it. And we can't treat it like something like fairy dust. And that's what a lot of organizations do. Spencer Horn 06:52 - 07:19 So if you, I'm sure you're familiar with people like John Cotter leading change, right? And one of the things that he said that most leaders would just clicked in my mind when you said this, that many leaders underestimate how many hundreds and maybe even thousands of times we need to focus on an area like what we're going to be working on. So we can't just say we're customer centric and then everything's going to change. What does it take? Spencer Horn 07:19 - 07:23 What's the work involved? I mean, how long before it sticks? Jeannie Walters 07:25 - 07:48 Oh, if I knew that answer, I would share that immediately. But the real kind of message of the book that I'm releasing is about this idea that I kept seeing the same mistakes over and over. And they would call, call us in and say, we want to fix our customer experience. And I'd say, okay, let's do it. Jeannie Walters 07:48 - 08:04 You know, where do we start? What do we do? And a lot of times what they were trying to fix was the wrong measurement. So decades, well, for decades, we've been talking about things like customer satisfaction rate and net promoter score. Jeannie Walters 08:04 - 08:30 And we were holding on to those as results. But those tell you what customers might be feeling, but those are telling you about a certain segment, the people who actually respond to surveys in a certain moment in time. And that doesn't actually show you the behavior, that doesn't show you when they're shopping around, that doesn't show you when they're not always being honest. Spencer Horn 08:31 - 08:35 And so- Oh, you're telling me that people aren't always honest about their experiences? Jeannie Walters 08:35 - 08:58 Well, and here's the part that I'm interested in having this conversation with the two of you because of the focus on teamwork. I have found that in B2B relationships, people really have real personal relationships, right? So they don't want to tell their account manager or their customer success manager, yeah, we're not happy. So they just keep telling them. Jeannie Walters 08:58 - 09:12 No, it's fine. Everything's fine. And so we're not getting that type of information, not because people are necessarily trying to lie, but because they don't want to hurt that person in front of them. They have a real relationship with them. Spencer Horn 09:12 - 09:15 I'm sorry, keep going. I'm interrupting you. Jeannie Walters 09:15 - 09:16 Keep going. No. Spencer Horn 09:17 - 09:37 This is a problem that also managers have with their direct reports. Many of them are afraid to actually confront difficult conversations. And so one of the things that I teach them is they actually have to mine for conflict. In other words, I'll give you an example. Spencer Horn 09:37 - 09:39 You're having an executive meeting and you have this new idea. Christian Napier 09:39 - 09:42 We're going to be a customer-centric organization. Spencer Horn 09:42 - 10:05 Everyone goes, yeah, OK, great. We're on board. And then nothing changes. Instead, what I mean by mine for conflict is we cannot move forward with this initiative until I hear what are the challenges that are going to happen, what are the problems that we have that are going to be preventing us from implementing it, or why this is even Spencer Horn 10:05 - 10:25 a good idea or a bad idea. We cannot move forward until I hear contrarian views. And you have to make it safe for those people that report to you to actually say, here's what I think the problems are going to be. And I'm wondering if there's an opportunity in the relationship with our customers if we could do the same. Jeannie Walters 10:26 - 10:51 Absolutely. I love the way you said that, Spencer, because I think that When we talk about these things, we're making assumptions about individual life experience. We're making assumptions about judgment. And so when we tell people, just do the right thing on behalf of the customer, and then they don't do exactly what we were thinking, that creates that conflict that we don't always talk about as well. Jeannie Walters 10:52 - 11:16 Sometimes the customer has different expectations because not based on what we've promised, but based on what the world has promised. I mean, if we get packages delivered overnight from Amazon, why can't that happen with everybody else we interact with? These are the expectations that I'm talking about. So in the book, one of the things I talk about is this idea that there are really three foundational pieces we need. Jeannie Walters 11:16 - 11:35 And the first is mindset. But you can't just say something like, be customer-centric. You have to actually define what does that mean here at our organization and how do we show up not just for customers but for one another no matter what. And that's not really about products and services. Jeannie Walters 11:36 - 11:40 That's about who are we and who do we agree to be for our customers. Spencer Horn 11:40 - 11:46 I'm just cheering. I'm just cheering because I love that so much. Keep going. I'm just I'm saying amen. Spencer Horn 11:46 - 11:47 That's all I'm doing here. Jeannie Walters 11:47 - 12:05 I love it. I love it. So one of the things that I was realizing through the decades of conversations and consulting I was doing was, you know what, everybody kind of has either this really aspirational idea. And so they say things like, well, yeah, but we have a customer promise. Jeannie Walters 12:06 - 12:25 And that's to deliver the best customer experience to every customer every time. Well, we have to get into what does the word best mean? What does that actually mean? One of the things I do when I'm hosting workshops or keynote speaking is talk about, you know, we use words that we just assume everybody uses the same way. Jeannie Walters 12:26 - 12:55 But if we cannot always be the fastest and the most accurate, sometimes it takes time to get information to get things right. So if we're saying the best, and I think, well, I better be fast, and you're thinking, I better be accurate, then we're literally creating an inconsistent customer experience. And if that happens, then we lose trust with the customer, because they're thinking, well, I don't know who you are. You're making promises you can't keep. Jeannie Walters 12:56 - 13:11 So the mindset is super important to get aligned from the beginning. And we do this using a tool called the Customer Experience Mission Statement, where we literally define who are we, no matter what. And you can be a little aspirational. I'm not telling people not to do that. Jeannie Walters 13:12 - 13:24 But we have to get really clear on what do these words actually mean? For us and for the promise we're keeping because we can't be all things to all people so we have to define that from the beginning and Then we move into strategy Spencer Horn 13:35 - 13:49 I thought that was important. And so now we're on to number two. But I love this because I think it ties into value. So many companies just throw values out there without really defining those meaning. Spencer Horn 13:50 - 14:03 And if they're not living those values, they're breaking trust with their employees, which then relates, I'm sure, to breaking trust with their customers. When you say something is aspirational, it means, hey, we may not be the fastest. We're striving to be better. We're letting you know we're trying. Spencer Horn 14:04 - 14:05 I think that really helps. Jeannie Walters 14:07 - 14:08 Yeah. Christian Napier 14:08 - 14:23 Can I cut in here and ask a question about this best thing? So I'm coming back to my own experience working for the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Winter Games. Spencer Horn 14:24 - 14:27 And by the way, he's done that for decades for a whole bunch of others. Christian Napier 14:27 - 15:11 So we had a workforce, roughly 2,000 full-time paid staff, another 7,000 or 8,000 part-time workers, 26,000 volunteers. Our head of HR came up with a forward mission statement, or value statement, or guiding, whatever you want to call it. It was best games workforce ever. It was not like super granularly defined what best meant, but in our view as employees, it was about a feeling. Christian Napier 15:11 - 15:48 And we genuinely felt that to the point where even though before the games, out of 90 calendar days, I worked 88. I worked 18-hour days. It was incredibly time-consuming, stressful, took me away from my small, young family. When it was all over, The person who sat next to me in the organization, who was the director of workforce planning and operations, we looked at each other and we said, will we ever have a better work experience in our lives than this? Christian Napier 15:49 - 16:25 Because this was amazing. And so I am really curious to hear from your perspective, Is it possible that organizations can get too into the weeds, trying to dissect and figure out what everything means and whatnot and come to an agreement? It never happened there, but we all just kind of innately understood that we were the best games workforce ever. And even though it was really hard work, we were working for something really cool. Christian Napier 16:25 - 16:38 And at the end of the day, we all felt like that. Spencer knows this. When COVID hit, I ended up doing a podcast on looking back at the Salt Lake 2002 games. And I interviewed 100 of my coworkers. Christian Napier 16:39 - 16:58 they all said the same thing. Like, working there was amazing. It was one of the highlights of their professional lives. And, and so I'm really curious to hear from you, you know, how that happens, where, you know, you've got a leader who comes up with a 4-word statement, Best Gains Workforce Ever. Christian Napier 16:58 - 17:04 And we all end up believing the thing. Like, how does that happen? Jeannie Walters 17:05 - 17:28 Well, I mean, such a great example of a few things. And I want to kind of tie this back to what Spencer brought up, too, because one of the things that we talk about with the Customer Experience Mission Statement is it cannot be four paragraphs with 17 bullet points. It has to be something people can internalize. And so I like to think of it as shorthand, as like, OK, did we live up to this mission or not? Jeannie Walters 17:29 - 17:57 That's what that question becomes. And the or not is not a punitive thing. It's an OK, what can we do differently next time to make sure we do live up to that? What you're explaining in such a beautiful way around the Olympics, I would say that's like what I would call a game day mission, because you have a very specific goal around finite time of things. Jeannie Walters 17:57 - 18:27 And so I think about game day or race day, because like Horst Schultz, who I hope I got that name right, but when Porsche tried to win a race for the first time after not winning, they basically had this race day philosophy of here's where it happens. And it becomes that one target that's a day in time. It's a moment in time. I also think you had the advantage of You know what, you knew exactly what the Olympics were. Jeannie Walters 18:27 - 18:41 There is a big mission around the Olympics. There are values around the Olympics. And so when we write the CX mission statement, we always start with, let's talk about your organizational vision, values, mission. Let's start there. Jeannie Walters 18:41 - 19:10 That needs to inform what we're doing with the customer experience. So I think to your point, it has to be something that people can internalize and kind of tuck into their heart. Because otherwise, we are asking every single person to just kind of make things up as they go. But with this, if we're in that situation where we have to make a judgment call, because we, that happens, we can think how can we best represent this idea, this mindset. Jeannie Walters 19:11 - 19:38 So I think it's probably a combination of those two things. But I really believe that most organizations don't include the very people they need to in order to deliver on this idea. And by your head of HR embracing that role, you're including the very people who have to deliver on the experience. And that is so critically important. Jeannie Walters 19:38 - 19:58 So it all fits together and I also think that if we are promising to show up a certain way for our customers, if we are not showing up for one another that way, people feel that misalignment and they feel like they're not living the values that they're promising. And this shows up again and again. Spencer Horn 19:58 - 20:03 Nor how can they go and turn around and treat people differently than they're being treated internally. Jeannie Walters 20:04 - 20:19 That's a misalignment. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you hear about this sometimes when big tech flare outs and things like that, sometimes you'll hear employees say, well, yeah, we were doing this and all our advertisements said this, but this is what it felt like. Jeannie Walters 20:19 - 20:49 And then there's basically a revolt at some point. I do think that that's part of the beauty and also the challenge of really aligning a mindset. Because when you have leaders who are thinking, well, people just need to do their jobs, and the people who need to do those jobs are feeling like, yeah, but we're not being treated a certain way when we're promising to treat other people that way. That shows up. Jeannie Walters 20:50 - 21:14 So that's why I'm so passionate about that CX mission statement, because I have seen it. become a tool for good, basically. And we always say, too, it's not a poster on the wall. This is like part of the process that we outline is, okay, you've got the draft the working mission statement, and I always tell people, be prepared. Jeannie Walters 21:14 - 21:18 People are going to go to the mat over it, like, should we say will or shall, you know, like. Spencer Horn 21:19 - 21:20 Those are the weeds. Jeannie Walters 21:21 - 21:41 You have to get, you have to kind of bring yourself out of that, but then you need to use it. And one of the best ways to use it is something we call mission moments. which is where every staff meeting, every time you're opening a retail store, every time you are going over your accounts, you ask people to bring a mission moment. And either you lived up to the mission. Jeannie Walters 21:42 - 21:50 And here's how we did that. Or you know what, we didn't do it this way. And let's talk about it. So that next time, we have a better way of living up to that mission. Jeannie Walters 21:51 - 21:58 And then it becomes something that is just part of the oxygen of how we're delivering the customer experience. Spencer Horn 22:08 - 22:28 I feel like we should dance. Yeah, we are dancing. I actually think that makes sense, Jeannie, because I think it's easier to focus all your energy when you know there's an end date, right? And so how do you create those event moments within an organization? Jeannie Walters 22:29 - 22:51 I mean, there are, there are lots of different things that can come up. But one of the things that I like to do is, if you are, if you have that really clear customer experience mission statement, and you're starting to use it as mission moments where you're really examining How are we delivering the customer experience? You probably have some dates coming up. In retail, holidays are big. Jeannie Walters 22:51 - 23:06 You might have something, a product launch. You might have something like a, you know, your CEO is going on CNBC or something to talk about results. You have those moments. Or you're launching a book, for instance. Jeannie Walters 23:06 - 23:07 Here we go. Spencer Horn 23:07 - 23:08 Exactly. Jeannie Walters 23:09 - 23:27 And yeah, the whole idea of those moments right now are really used as kind of PR and promotional moments. But if we look at them as customer experience moments, that really changes the game, too. And that includes more people. So you're not just saying, Oh, that's our PR department. Jeannie Walters 23:27 - 23:33 You're saying everybody's included in this. And this is what we're looking for. And this is how we're going to deliver on this mission. Spencer Horn 23:34 - 23:42 So I think it's something for them to feel proud about, because if they're involved, then they can feel that sense of pride, which will then emanate to the customer. Jeannie Walters 23:43 - 23:59 Yes, yes, you are absolutely right. And the reverse is also true. So I've, I've had a situation where sometimes I describe my job as sharing the hard truths. Because a lot of times I have to be the one who says, Yeah, I know that's what you think is happening. Jeannie Walters 24:00 - 24:22 But, and there was an example where they were really struggling with their customer experience. They had a lot of customers who were calling in and complaining there were There was miscommunication about the bills and things that really create mistrust. And I asked to just interview some of the employees in the contact center. And they were like, well, why would you want to do that? Jeannie Walters 24:22 - 24:32 They're all working too hard. They've got all these complaints. And I said, no, let me just get in there and talk to them. And the one question I asked every single one was, would you refer somebody to work here? Jeannie Walters 24:33 - 24:51 And they all said, no, I can't do that. And I was able to bring that back and say, you're going to have a much bigger problem. if we don't address these things now, because nobody wants to work in a place that they feel is not delivering in a trustworthy way. They don't want to deal with complaints all day. Jeannie Walters 24:51 - 25:13 So everything is connected in order to deliver on the customer experience. And I think for decades, A lot of what we've been doing is treating things like anybody who calls in for customer service is the only person we have to worry about and the only thing we have to worry about. And it's so much bigger than that. It's so much bigger than that. Christian Napier 25:13 - 25:36 All right, I want to come back to something you just said about this process that you went through with a client who said, don't interview our people because they don't have time. They're too busy and they're just going to complain anyway. But you go do it. And the key thing there, in my view, is, and I'd like you to explain how this happened. Christian Napier 25:38 - 25:50 In your process, you were able to establish enough trust with these employees that they were willing to tell you, I would not recommend- Spilled the tea to you. Spencer Horn 25:50 - 25:51 Right? Christian Napier 25:52 - 26:24 Because I think that's a huge, huge win. I think it's super important because if the people you're talking to are not willing to open up to you and tell you what's really going on, then you have a big problem. And sometimes bringing in an independent party can have pros and cons, you know, sometimes they might, you know, people might think, I am- Christian, there are no cons with Jeannie. Other times you might think, oh, well, they're just hired guns from the higher ups. Christian Napier 26:25 - 26:43 And so I'd like you to explain how you were able to go through a process that even if the employees did not trust their own leadership, they were willing to trust their secrets with you? Jeannie Walters 26:44 - 27:13 What a great question. One of the things I've always loved about my job and the reason I named my company Experience Investigators and our process, our framework is the CXI Navigator, which is Customer Experience Investigation. is because I really believe that my role is to come in and be that investigator. And part of that is that what we see on the surface is not always reality. Jeannie Walters 27:14 - 27:29 And so I've actually, I'm very upfront with the leaders I work with. And I often say, I can find things out that you can't necessarily, because I don't know the politics. I don't want to know the politics. that's not my role. Jeannie Walters 27:29 - 27:56 I am there to advocate for your customers. And if that means that I need to talk to different levels in your organization, so be it. I've had to fight the other way too, because we do a lot of exercises around customer journey mapping and customer service blueprinting, where you're really mapping out what's happening from the customer's perspective. And I've had situations where the leaders don't want to participate. Jeannie Walters 27:56 - 28:05 They're like, Oh, just talk to the frontline people. They'll, they'll be great. And I'm like, No, we need you in that room. They need to see that you are invested in this. Jeannie Walters 28:05 - 28:22 And you will hear things in that room that you will not hear anywhere else. And that is where the magic happens. And I really believe that when we get people together, and we're talking in a way that is truly just about, we're all here for the customer. I don't care about titles. Jeannie Walters 28:22 - 28:40 I don't care about politics. It frees people to think differently. And it frees people to not be in a situation where they're trying to point fingers or they're saying, well, that department never gets back to me. And that's why I can't get this information to the customer. Jeannie Walters 28:41 - 28:58 When I start hearing things like that, and I set the ground rules about this is not a blame game as well. What I translate that into is what does that mean for the customer? Well, that means they're not getting what they expected. So let's work backwards from there and figure out what is the root cause of that? Jeannie Walters 28:58 - 29:22 Oh, it sounds like it's taking too long to get some information. How can we improve that? So it just opens people up in a way that is really telling. And one of the things I absolutely love that happens is you know, in any organization, there are impasses, because somebody doesn't know who's actually in charge of the thing that needs to be improved. Jeannie Walters 29:23 - 29:38 Or somebody knows but is too fearful to say anything. Or it's just been happening for so long that nobody knows exactly why it happens that way. I've been in rooms where I've been able to say, well, why are we doing that? And everybody looks around says, I don't know, that's a pretty terrible way to treat people. Jeannie Walters 29:38 - 29:51 Can we fix it? Yeah, we could probably fix it today. then let's fix it today. We don't need 20,000 surveys to tell us. Jeannie Walters 29:51 - 30:04 We don't need those, you know, a bunch of surveys to tell us that we can actually do what's right in that moment. And the the lens of we're here for the customer allows people freedom to share that. Spencer Horn 30:18 - 30:44 Christian, I'm curious how what she just described compared to what you did with the IOC, because one of the things that Christian did was actually interview all the people that would work or volunteer for the organization so they could capture the learning and the mistakes and the challenges. How did you go about that? Because I assume your experience really helped inform that amazing question. Christian Napier 30:44 - 31:19 Yeah, it was a similar thing. And just for a little bit of context there, what we were trying to do is, from a knowledge and learning perspective, is give opportunities for people who are working in an organizing committee, planning and delivering the games, to share their experiences with future games organizers. So I would go to every host city, and I would conduct these interviews with the people who are organizing these games. And we would just try to make them feel comfortable. Christian Napier 31:19 - 31:36 So we would have it in a comfortable setting, as comfortable as we could. And we made sure that we had some snacks and things ready for them. And we explained what we were doing and what the purpose of it was. And in that one hour conversation, people would open up. Christian Napier 31:36 - 31:59 They would start to say things much more candidly than they would in the traditional way. The traditional way was you would fill out reports. One of the challenges with the reporting was that it was heavily sanitized. Because the words that were written would have to go through a number of reviews and approvals, and people didn't want to say those things negatively. Christian Napier 31:59 - 32:35 But if you just get into a casual conversation with people, then chances are they will just open up and be more candid. And so that actually takes me to another question that I that I've got for you, which is, so we have these different ways of harvesting feedback to know what's going on with our customers. You have a lot of these in-person workshops and interviews and so on and so forth. You mentioned surveys, and surveys is a popular mechanism because it's relatively low cost. Christian Napier 32:35 - 33:22 I can just spew the thing out to thousands or millions of people, and I get some people who, for whatever reason, want to respond, but many, many people don't. And so I'm curious to understand from you, what feedback mechanisms or strategies are the ones that we should be deploying to see if our mission is succeeding or failing? Because I kind of feel like you know, sometimes the way we go about the thing is, you know, you do the hard work, you do all this heavy lifting to get everybody on board, and then we just start using the wrong tools to see, like, how our people are doing. Christian Napier 33:22 - 33:36 And so, you know, what are those tools? And how is it, how important is it for organizations to make sure they're using the right tools to get the right information at the right time from their customers or their employees to see what's really going on? Jeannie Walters 33:37 - 34:00 Yeah, another great question, because, you know, I mentioned how the, the book is Mindset, Strategy, Discipline. And so the first part of the mindset is aligning around that CX mission statement. Then weirdly, in customer experience, a lot of people skip strategy. And what I mean by that is, they rely on the feedback mechanism. Jeannie Walters 34:00 - 34:24 So they have a score, like a customer satisfaction score or net promoter score. And that's what they use as results. And what that does is it creates this very reactive environment where we are focusing maybe on folks who are responding to the surveys or however we're gathering that. And we're not focusing on what is this really doing for the organization. Jeannie Walters 34:25 - 34:44 And so what happens, what I've seen happen, is there's a lot of investment in the tools and the technology around these things. So To your point, we can get so many results so quickly that it's very tempting to say, well, this is what we're doing. We're just sending all these surveys. And I think we all got a little survey happy. Jeannie Walters 34:44 - 34:57 And now there's survey fatigue from customers, right? We don't, we're sick of surveys. So now we're in a situation where some of these tools are amazing. We can use artificial intelligence. Jeannie Walters 34:57 - 35:17 We can do all sorts of things to get deeper into not only what are people saying, but actually what are they doing and feeling because humans don't make any sense. We say one thing and we behave completely differently. So Part of that is understanding what are we really trying to measure here? What do we care about? Jeannie Walters 35:18 - 35:45 So if we don't have a strategy that is aligned to our organizational goals, then we're constantly reacting to different priorities based on what customers say. Now, one of the things that I've seen happen, and I'm sure anybody who is part of the customer experience world has had this happen. Some customer gets the CEO's email address. and sends a very long email about something that's happening. Jeannie Walters 35:46 - 36:09 That suddenly becomes five alarm fire priority number one, because the CEO was contacted. Customers have learned, we have taught them that you have to do certain things to get noticed. So that becomes the five alarm fire. But what if our goal as an organization right now, a lot of organizations right now are worried about budgets, right? Jeannie Walters 36:10 - 36:27 We have costs that are going up for all sorts of reasons. So what if we are focusing on something that isn't going to help us with those organizational goals? Well, then people start questioning, why are we doing this in the first place? Why are we worrying about customer experience when we have budget cuts? Jeannie Walters 36:27 - 36:57 But if you actually develop a strategy based on your organizational goals, and we use something called a CX success blueprint, which is hard to say three times in a row, but essentially, we start with what are your organizational goals? What are the top things that your board, your executive suite, what do they care about? And then you need to think about your leaders, because your chief financial officer thinks differently than your chief marketing officer. And you have to make both of them happy. Jeannie Walters 36:58 - 37:12 So how can you do that with customer experience? Well, that's how you start thinking about what are the levers we can actually pull. And I think about measurement as kind of a Venn diagram. Because yes, we have to keep asking customers, what is it you want? Jeannie Walters 37:12 - 37:30 Did we deliver? You know, what are you seeing with our, with the marketplace that you want us to do differently? It's very, very valuable to continue to ask customers for their opinions, their feelings, what they want to see from us. We can do that with surveys. Jeannie Walters 37:30 - 37:44 We can do that with transactional surveys and responses like the thumbs up, thumbs down, and the emoji things you'll see. You can do that through observation. You can do that in all sorts of ways, interviews. That's what they're saying. Jeannie Walters 37:44 - 37:55 And then we want to look at, OK, what are they actually doing? And this is where we get into things like behavioral analytics. How are they behaving online? Where do they go in their digital journey? Jeannie Walters 37:55 - 38:06 What happens when they are renewing a contract with us? Is the time to renew getting longer? Are they asking for more deals? Whatever the behavior is, we want to look at. Jeannie Walters 38:07 - 38:23 And then we want to look at operational metrics as well. So if our goal is more market share, let's say we're in a growth mode, and our organization says, We want more in the market. Well, then we have to look at things like, Okay, how can we use customer experience? to drive market share? Jeannie Walters 38:24 - 38:51 Well, we can look at things like referral programs, we can look at things like renewal rates, we can try to limit customer churn. In some organizations and in some industries, 1% higher customer retention can mean millions of dollars, but we often don't even look at that. We just look at things like customer acquisition, new customers, because that's, I like to say that's easier math. It's very easy to see. Spencer Horn 38:51 - 38:55 We're not counting the hole in our bucket as we're putting new customers in. Jeannie Walters 38:55 - 38:56 That's right. Spencer Horn 38:56 - 39:15 That's right. So in my introduction, I actually said, I'm really excited for you to dig into this reactive versus proactive customer experience. And you just described it incredibly well. And that is, I just think how many organizations are reactive in so many areas in their life. Spencer Horn 39:15 - 39:27 And really getting clear on the strategy is powerful. Because you may not react or solve every customer's problem. I have an anecdotal story. Maybe you can correct that. Spencer Horn 39:27 - 39:54 I don't know if it was Herb Kelleher, but it was one of the CEOs at Southwest Airlines. And somebody complained that in the lavatory on the plane that the toilet paper was upside down. And I think that the CEO, and I don't know if it was Herb or somebody else, would read all the customer notifications or randomly look at some of them. And so he actually responded to this customer saying, what the H were you doing in our bathroom upside down? Spencer Horn 39:56 - 40:11 So first of all, they had a focus of what's important, right? It didn't get sized ways by somebody complaining about the toilet paper upside down and also being a little tongue-in-cheek and having fun and standing up for their employee. And being human. Being human. Spencer Horn 40:12 - 40:15 Because the customer is not always right. Jeannie Walters 40:15 - 40:21 Right. Absolutely. And, and there are times where we can't always give them what they're expecting. Spencer Horn 40:21 - 40:22 Right. Jeannie Walters 40:22 - 40:35 And sometimes that's a business decision and we have to be okay with that. And I think the, the part that I see a lot of customer experience leaders get burned out because they put everything into that mindset and they think this is it. Spencer Horn 40:35 - 40:42 And then the CEO is scrambling every time you got to change this. You got to change this. And so everybody's in panic mode all the time. Jeannie Walters 40:43 - 40:45 And everything feels like a priority. Spencer Horn 40:45 - 40:51 Because that becomes the call center that's dealing with problems all the time and then you can't deal with problems all the time. Jeannie Walters 40:51 - 41:04 That's right, because you're not fixing anything. You're not doing root cause analysis. You're not actually asking, did we deliver on the mission or not? You're just reacting, reacting, reacting, and not actually connecting the dots to a line around a bigger strategy. Jeannie Walters 41:05 - 41:07 And so how do you know if you're improving? Spencer Horn 41:07 - 41:19 Well, we've gotten through the, we've really interrupted you as you tried to explain the three foundational requirements for customer service promise. We've gotten through two now. Remind us again what the third was. Jeannie Walters 41:19 - 41:47 So the third is the easiest to explain in a macro way and probably the hardest to deliver on a micro way. And what I mean by that is it's discipline, it's business discipline around this. So what that means is when you create that mission and then you create that strategy, you have to figure out then, okay, what are the tools in our toolkit to actually deliver on these things? Because otherwise what happens is the customer experience leader says, we're gonna make all these changes, we're gonna do this for the customer. Jeannie Walters 41:47 - 42:03 And this happens all the time right now. They put something like, our goal is to improve net promoter score by one point or something. but they are not the ones who are responsible for the changes. They can't change the mobile app if that's what everybody's complaining about. Jeannie Walters 42:03 - 42:18 That's not their job. So then we, you know what happens to the messenger, right? Because then they just keep reporting the same numbers because nothing's changing because nobody else is involved in this. Nobody sees that this is a bigger role for everybody. Jeannie Walters 42:18 - 42:48 So within the strategy, we also have to decide what is realistic, what can we do? And so the discipline part is leveraging the tools that we have available, all these best practices that we've developed in customer experience work for the past decades plus, things like customer journey mapping, things like data analysis, things like service blueprinting, where we get others involved and we say, okay, This is what we're hearing from customers. This is the goal. Jeannie Walters 42:48 - 42:59 We know that it's preventing us from meeting this goal. How can we work on this? What are the things we can do together to improve this for the customer? So there's no like magic formula for discipline. Jeannie Walters 42:59 - 43:16 It's all about being that strategic, intentional leader. A lot of times in customer experience, what I see is good intentions. And good intentions don't deliver results. But intentional leadership does. Jeannie Walters 43:18 - 43:19 And that's the difference. Spencer Horn 43:20 - 43:38 Okay, I know you have a question, Christian, and I wanna punctuate that because this is something that I always talk about in terms of leadership. Good intentions do not matter at all. What matters is our impact, always and forever. So we have to identify, as leaders, what's the gap between our good intention and our impact? Spencer Horn 43:38 - 44:01 And that's a self-awareness issue from a leader. So this is the same, and we've got to be aware of, of what we're saying and you're giving our listeners ways to be aware of how they're showing up with their customers and to be intentional, proactive versus reactive. So I just wanted to highlight that and well done. Really, really awesome. Christian Napier 44:02 - 44:46 Yeah, my my thought really is just kind of a Name into that because you mentioned that to do this you have to be proactive in a reactive World you cannot have that kind of discipline because you will get distracted So that's the challenge with the good intention is yes. We want to do this and now we've brought a experience investigators in and they've done workshops and they've, you know, we've created this roadmap that's going to lead to better customer experience. And then three weeks later, the next five alarm fire comes along and distracts us from the things that we planned on doing three weeks ago. Christian Napier 44:46 - 45:04 And so that really leads to my question is how do you help organizations maintain that level of discipline because, and really truly change from that reactive to that proactive mindset because if they have that reactive mindset. Spencer Horn 45:04 - 45:06 Give us a success story. Jeannie Walters 45:07 - 45:27 Yeah, yeah. So what, what I typically see is that there's one leader who we kind of identify as, they're the customer experience change agent, right? They're trying, they want to do the right thing. But they don't always know exactly how to change the culture the impact that they and their team are having. Jeannie Walters 45:28 - 45:59 So typically, what happens is we work with the team to develop things like the Customer Experience Mission Statement, the Success Blueprint, etc. So we have that game plan. And then I and other leaders on my team work directly with the CX leaders on a regular basis. So a lot of that is executive coaching where we're meeting them where they are because you know, in these corporate environments, priorities do change or they get a new leader or whatever happens. So we wanna make sure we're meeting them in the moment with that. Jeannie Walters 46:00 - 46:25 But we have a rhythm of working with their team around workshops and coaching and things like that. So that throughout the year, and this goes back to the point about repetition and how important it is, we are getting them to use the language of customer experience differently. We're getting them to show up for their executive sessions differently. We're getting them to report differently. Jeannie Walters 46:26 - 46:54 We did something with a group for a very large organization When they first started working with us, the team was called the Net Promoter Score Team, the NPS team, because they had invested for years in the technology and tools and resources to get that reporting. done for the customers. So their whole role was around how do we get that score and report it out. But nobody knew what to do with that score. Jeannie Walters 46:54 - 47:12 Their leaders were not seeing changes because nobody was doing anything with the score. So we literally worked with the team to change their entire identity and name. So then they became the customer experience team. And then we were able to actually step into a different role with, for instance, the product team. Jeannie Walters 47:13 - 47:30 and say, we know that's your roadmap, great. Let's work together on this one piece because this is what we're showing has the biggest impact on customers. It's the biggest point of friction. We know if we could get rid of that friction point, we could actually invoice more. Jeannie Walters 47:31 - 47:52 That means good things for everybody. That means that you product people will also get a bonus. So you start working within the actual structure of the organization and the culture of the organization to not only make an impact for the customer, but to make an impact for the people who are part of the organization as well. And then you have results. Jeannie Walters 47:52 - 48:06 And so who doesn't love results? Your leaders love results. So then they could show up differently. So it literally became from a team of about three people who were literally called the NPS team, They transformed into a team of about 12 people. Jeannie Walters 48:07 - 48:17 And it was the customer experience team. And every quarter, we were there with them, figuring out what is the priority for the quarter? How can we make this happen? How do we report on it? Jeannie Walters 48:17 - 48:21 And then we were working with their leaders throughout. And it made a huge difference in the organization. Spencer Horn 48:33 - 48:41 I'm curious how quickly you were able to get those individuals on board. Did it happen fairly quickly or did it take time or varied? Jeannie Walters 48:42 - 49:02 Great question. So the first leader that I started working with there was kind of middle management, I would say. And one of the most amazing things that happened was her leader reached out to me to say, I'm seeing this change in her and how she's talking about this. And clearly we need to talk. Jeannie Walters 49:02 - 49:18 And so I felt like part of it was she was doing my own advertising. She was just showing up differently. And so once her leader got in touch with me, he was in charge of the whole team. And he's the one who really started making this happen. Jeannie Walters 49:18 - 49:35 But I mean, there are always leaders who you have to work harder on. I think again, because we don't treat this like any other part of the organization, people don't know what to do with it at first. And if they don't see results immediately, or if they don't see the types of results they're expecting, then it's very easy to write off. Spencer Horn 49:36 - 49:59 And that's right. You're not just going up on the stage saying, hey, we need to smile more, we need to really connect with our customers. You're talking about a transformational change to create sustainable customer service experiences, and that's going to impact the bottom line, it's going to create sustainability, it's going to impact retention. There's so many things that it impacts. Spencer Horn 49:59 - 50:21 Well, we're kind of getting, we're running out of time, but I'm interested is if the leader or somebody gets your book, what's it going to help them do? I mean, how can, I get my book and what am I, am I just going to learn the model? Am I going to get tips and tricks? Am I going to get Jeannie's home phone number? Spencer Horn 50:22 - 50:23 I mean, what am I going to get? Jeannie Walters 50:24 - 50:42 You can find me anywhere. But really, what I tried to do with this book was give real tools. And so there are templates in here. There are ways to write your own mission statement, your own success blueprint. Jeannie Walters 50:42 - 50:56 So if you wanted to take this book and use it as a workbook, you really could. And you can make change in your organization. I just got a huge compliment from one of my early readers She contacted me and she said, I have to tell you, I had to stop reading your book. And I said, why? Jeannie Walters 50:56 - 51:20 And she said, because that first exercise, I figured, oh my gosh, we have to do this right now. I had to have a team meeting. And she called it my Mad Libs exercise, which I also really appreciate because it is truly a template that you can right out. And so that just gave me this really great sense of, you know, maybe I'm accomplishing that mission where people feel like, oh, yes, this is going to help me right away. Jeannie Walters 51:20 - 51:34 And then, of course, sometimes it's harder. Sometimes in these big organizations, it does take a little more. And so that's what we're here for. That's what, you know, me and my team work with organizations all over the world, both virtually and in person, and we do that. Jeannie Walters 51:34 - 51:55 because I believe in our mission. And my mission from the beginning has been to create fewer ruined days for customers. And that sounds so simple, but I really believe it's not only a true mission, but it's an important mission. Because if we can prevent somebody from having negativity in their day, then they don't bring that negativity to that next person. Jeannie Walters 51:56 - 52:05 They don't bring that home. They have more optimism about the world. And I'm unapologetically an optimist in today's world. I feel like we need to be. Jeannie Walters 52:05 - 52:14 That's not toxic. I'm not saying don't look around. I'm saying, My role in this world is to bring positivity and I want that for customers. Spencer Horn 52:14 - 52:20 And that's what- And you do, I've seen you and you are absolutely bringing positivity every day. Jeannie Walters 52:21 - 52:28 Thank you. I appreciate that. So yeah, I love this stuff. I love this stuff because I really believe it makes a better world. Christian Napier 52:30 - 52:31 I love that. Spencer Horn 52:37 - 52:41 Sorry, man, that was a delay. I pressed it before you started talking. Christian Napier 52:42 - 53:03 It's like, go, go, go. Okay, so Jeannie, I've got like a billion questions and we can continue this conversation for a long time, but we are up against it. And Spencer, I know you've got- I'll sacrifice that for your question. No, no, we gotta get through it because it's our thing and I love it. Christian Napier 53:04 - 53:06 I love how you do it. And so let's get to the lightning round. Spencer Horn 53:06 - 53:17 All right, are you ready, Jeannie? These are just like one word or super short answers, okay? Customer experience or employee experience, which comes first? Jeannie Walters 53:20 - 53:22 Can I say tandem? They have to be together. Spencer Horn 53:23 - 53:29 Okay. They're self-reinforcing. One word that defines a great customer experience. Jeannie Walters 53:30 - 53:31 Personal. Spencer Horn 53:32 - 53:34 Biggest customer experience myth. Jeannie Walters 53:36 - 53:37 That you can just talk about it. Spencer Horn 53:38 - 53:40 Most underrated leadership skill. Jeannie Walters 53:43 - 53:47 No, uh, communicating a vision. Spencer Horn 53:47 - 53:55 Yeah. I mean, I, I think that ties into the trust issue that we were talking about, right? What habit every leader should build? Jeannie Walters 53:57 - 54:01 Uh, bringing the customer into every decision. Spencer Horn 54:02 - 54:05 A brand that delivers great customer experience. Jeannie Walters 54:07 - 54:07 Costco. Spencer Horn 54:08 - 54:10 One word that describes high performing teams. Jeannie Walters 54:15 - 54:15 Integrated. Spencer Horn 54:17 - 54:20 Biggest mistake companies make with customer experience. Jeannie Walters 54:21 - 54:22 Ignoring it. Spencer Horn 54:23 - 54:26 Customer experience is a strategy or a culture. Jeannie Walters 54:32 - 54:34 You need the culture to deliver the strategy. Spencer Horn 54:35 - 54:39 Finish this, great teamwork happens when? Jeannie Walters 54:39 - 54:43 There is trust. Spencer Horn 54:43 - 54:45 Love it. Christian. Christian Napier 54:46 - 54:57 Oh, that's awesome. I cede. That's awesome. Jeanne, thank you so much for spending an hour of your day with us and sharing so much knowledge. Christian Napier 54:57 - 55:07 I am really, really looking forward to the book coming out. Where can people pre-order the book? Where can people connect with you? Jeannie Walters 55:08 - 55:24 Yes. Well, we have a fun launch thing where we're going to do a three-week live book club with me. So we're going to walk through those three sections, mindset, strategy, discipline. And your ticket to that is a pre-order of the hardcover. Jeannie Walters 55:24 - 55:43 And all you have to do is go to experienceiseverythingbook.com. And then you put in your receipt number, and we will send you those invitations to join us for the book club and we're really, really excited. We've gotten some great responses and I have some fun activities and it's really to help you activate the ideas from the book right away. Christian Napier 55:44 - 56:06 I love it, so people wanting a positive experience. Go check this out, pre-order the book. Spencer, you've been helping organizations build high-performing teams. You've been helping leaders develop the skills they need to run and manage high-performing teams. Christian Napier 56:07 - 56:12 What is the best way for listeners and viewers to reach out and contact you? Spencer Horn 56:12 - 56:19 LinkedIn, just find Spencer Horn on LinkedIn and say, hey, Jeannie, did I tell you he's awesome? Jeannie Walters 56:20 - 56:25 You did. You told me. You're right. Delivered on your promise. Spencer Horn 56:25 - 56:38 Everybody who wants to get a hold of you, Christian, for your brilliant mind. Problem is, is he's so busy because he's in demand right now. How can they get a hold of you for the time when you're not busy? Christian Napier 56:38 - 56:42 Just reach out. LinkedIn as well. It's easy. Just look for Christian Apier. Christian Napier 56:42 - 56:49 Happy to connect with folks there on LinkedIn. All right. Thank you, Jeanne. Thank you, Spencer. Christian Napier 56:50 - 57:00 Really, really love this hour of conversation. And thank you listeners and viewers for joining us along this journey. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. We'll catch you again soon.