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This is your go-to podcast for all things marketing, branding, and customer experience. We’re bringing you honest and fun conversations with bite-sized insights. Hosted by BrightSign’s CMO Brian Rowley and Head of Integrated Marketing Laura Smith, you’ll hear from industry pros, creatives, and innovators about what’s actually working in today’s evolving, digital-first world. No fluff — just real insights on how brands are connecting with audiences and driving growth. Tune in for fresh ideas, big thinking, and all the tips you need to take your marketing game to the next level.
Unfortunately, see a lot of organizations not following through on the promises that the marketing campaign has said will be there, the sales team have said will be there. That is incredibly common.
Brian Rowley:Welcome to Prose + Comms: Engagement, Unplugged. I'm Brian Rowley.
Laura Smith:And I'm Laura Smith.
Brian Rowley:And today we've got an interesting conversation because every company says it cares about customer experience. But I would say not every company understands what that really means in overall practice. And of course, there are companies, you know, should care about the customer. But of course, the ultimate experience is really what matters. And CX is often treated like another metric to hit a customer service function.
Brian Rowley:But in reality, it touches everything from brand and marketing to operations, technology, and ultimately culture. So today we're getting into a tough question. If every company says it wants to be customer centric, what does it actually take to build a business around the customer?
Laura Smith:But before we dive in and introduce our guests for today, let's start with something every customer has, a customer experience pet peeve. We're not talking about the worst brand experience you've ever had. It's just the recurring little things that immediately make you lose your patience. Brian, we probably could go on about this for way too long, but let's just hit on a couple that you, in your everyday life, you experience more often than not that just drives you crazy. Robocalls
Brian Rowley:as a category drive me absolutely insane. There is nothing worse than having a phone call come in and you know that it's not a real person. They act as if they are a real person. And then you just get stuck in this. I mean, I immediately hang up.
Brian Rowley:It's just, it doesn't work for me.
Laura Smith:Yeah. I mean, I feel like they're very common right now. So it's it's quite obnoxious. So I would agree. But it's not even like you have a relationship with them.
Laura Smith:That's like an example where like, you're not even a customer of whatever they're selling you potentially. It's a cold calling. Right?
Brian Rowley:Yeah.
Laura Smith:So I just had an experience recently, just this past weekend, so it's very top of mind. But I had to call an airline because my email was hacked and I could automatically see that like they changed my password and whatever. So I immediately called the airline and the fraud department because when I got one online, it told me where to go. It's actually probably twofold. The chatbot told me where to go, which who to call because they couldn't solve the problem.
Laura Smith:And then I called and this gentleman was super helpful and explained the situation. So he immediately like locked my account and then he's like, I don't need to transfer you to somebody else in a different department. Which I'm like, okay. But did this person have all this information I just gave you? And he's like, yes.
Laura Smith:It's all in your file. Well, got transferred. I gotta repeat everything I just said. And I'm like, I just gave all this information. And, thankfully, now I have it top of mind, but some things were like all these crazy questions, and I appreciate the security of it all.
Laura Smith:But that was just very it was so long. And so forget about long. Obviously, I want to make sure my account and they did, and they ended up clearing it up, and it was done relatively seamlessly. But as the customer, that was very frustrating.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. And you say long. There's nothing worse than the you pick up the phone, you make that phone call, and you're on hold for, like, ninety minutes, half hour, whatever the number is. Right? And you constantly have the prompt that says, your call is very important to us.
Brian Rowley:If my call was so important, why am I sitting here forty five minutes later waiting to speak to some like, I could go on on this. Like, just it drives me insane.
Laura Smith:But just on that note, in the same experience I had, that message said, we are experiencing higher than normal call volume. So please, whatever patient but then the guy came on in seconds later. So I was like, actually, you set me up for, like and it wasn't the I mean, I was pleasantly surprised, but they're obviously just have this automated system that doesn't change with actually the levels of calls. So yeah. So that I I think the one that, going back to, like I said, is a little twofold was the chatbots that don't resolve your issue.
Brian Rowley:Mhmm.
Laura Smith:It is purely just to have a chatbot to help with some navigation or problems, but it doesn't really solve the problem. And you spend quite a bit of time trying to get to a resolution and then they just turn you over to a phone call. So what is this chatbot supposed to do?
Brian Rowley:Yeah. Yeah. I think those are all great examples that make CX actually so interesting. I mean, a customer experience doesn't have to be dramatic, right, to change how someone feels about a brand. And sometimes it's actually the small moments that matter more like you being pleasantly surprised that call volumes weren't higher than normal, like you got to someone right away.
Brian Rowley:Today's guest actually is the perfect person for us though to discuss what customer experience really means. She's a certified CX leader, author, speaker, who's actually known for helping companies drive growth through better customer experiences. So please help us welcome Katie Stabler.
Laura Smith:Hi, Katie. Welcome, Katie.
Katie Stabler:Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Hi.
Brian Rowley:Well, it's great to have you here. We've got a big, big discussion to unpack here and we're really excited for you to be here.
Laura Smith:We saw you cringing in some of those examples, Katie, right?
Katie Stabler:Oh, it was painful. But everything you said just make total sense. I mean, the the point that you made about how you don't have to have these big wow moments and actually just getting the foundations and the fundamentals right is is the first thing you have to do. My pet peeve, if you'd like me to share One love. Is, I suppose, going one step before, it's when a company makes it so hard for you just to make contact in the first place.
Katie Stabler:So this morning, very timely, I had a delivery not delivered, but the delivery company was saying it was delivered. So I just wanted to speak to somebody and say, look, you're saying this, I'm saying this, what's the resolution? But I must have spent five minutes going around in loops on their website trying to get to a chatbot and answering different questions and it was just a nightmare. They made it so hard for a customer to get in touch with them. That is my biggest frustration in CX.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. I think I think we've all experienced that. But on that line, you know, we hear and that same company, right, is probably one that stands up and says, you know, oh, just like every other company, we're a CX company. So when people actually make that statement and say, every company is a CX company, what does that mean to you?
Katie Stabler:So I think it's like this holy grail, this aspiration that companies have that they are customer centric. They're saying out loud and proud, we care about our customers. But what to do that actually means in reality means you have to design around your customers. You have to manage that design implementation. And it's a constant iteration.
Katie Stabler:You said it before, Brian. You said culture. For a company to be customer centric, it has to be woven so deeply into their culture. Very, very few actually reach that aspiration. They say they're there, but they're not.
Katie Stabler:I mean, we can talk about why they're not, but it's a it's a huge goal and it's not unachievable. It's just very few companies manage it.
Laura Smith:And a big part of what you talk about though, it's like we wanna peel back layers on the psychology behind customer experience. Because, again, you're saying that people are a lot of companies say they are or they wanna be or they're thriving to be, but very few are doing it. So why not? So when you think about customer experience, what do companies do to understand how people actually experience brands? Like, what work is being done to truly understand the customer to better serve them?
Katie Stabler:Well, I'll answer that in two parts. So the first question, you said, why not? I think, fundamentally, customer experience, despite Net Promoter Score, so NPS, that was born about twenty two, twenty three years ago by Fred Reichfield, and that was probably the time when customer experience really started to boom, when we started to take it seriously, where we had this measurement that all of a sudden could be pretty well benchmarked across companies. But that's really new for a business function. You know, HR, ops, marketing, these functions have been around for a long time.
Katie Stabler:So customer experience is like this little baby as far as a company function goes. And because it's so new, it's not properly embedded into organizations. So I think one of the reasons companies fail to be customer centric, be a customer led company, is because they're just not set up to be that way. And it takes a lot of time, a lot of hard work, and a lot of effort to create that culture where actually CX isn't an add on. It isn't just a department.
Katie Stabler:It isn't just a person, but actually it's a fundamental part of the business. So I think that's a big thing that we need to bear in mind when we are looking at customer experience. But when we come into the psychology of customer experience, which is my sweet spot, absolutely love, a lot of companies don't go to the depth that they need to when it comes to CX. We all know what customer experience is. Right?
Katie Stabler:We all experience it on paper. It's pretty easy. It makes common sense. But actually, customer experience is more than just words on a page. It's more than just a term.
Katie Stabler:And one of the things that I like to try and support companies to understand is the customer experience chain, which in a nutshell, just explains slightly deeper level what CX is. So, yes, it's an interaction, which is where most companies start and stop. They say when a customer interacts with their company, that's where they're getting the customer experience. Yes. It's an interaction.
Katie Stabler:But every single interaction creates an emotion. Whether that's a strong, deliberately designed emotion or whether it's a subdued, completely accidental emotion, every interaction still has an emotion. You're either happy, sad, angry, frustrated, or meh. And those emotions, they are what create memory. So this is backed by research, backed by neuroscience, backed by psychology.
Katie Stabler:Emotions create memory. The stronger the emotion, the bigger the memory. The more of these that happen, the more the memory compounds. So all of these emotions that we have as customers, they are sticking in our mind as memories. And we all know that these memories are not black and white.
Katie Stabler:It's not a photo. It changes over time. It's manipulated by different things that happen that connect to that company. And, ultimately, the last link in that chain, so we've got interaction, we've got emotion, we've got memory. The last link is perception.
Katie Stabler:So those memories fade, change, manipulate, and they become our perception of that customer experience, and that is customer experience. But most companies don't look into the depth of that. They don't train. They don't support the organization to understand that. And they just stay at that interaction phase with or without the emotion, with or without the memory, with or without the perception.
Katie Stabler:And that's a fundamental I think all companies need to understand.
Laura Smith:As you do talk to companies, because in your role, and obviously, you have a book on this and all that, and I feel like how do people respond to that? Do you feel like when you are consulting, you're talking to organizations? Do you feel like that resonates and that they understand that that's a shift in the way they're doing business and thinking about doing business with potential customers, or do you find it to be people's reaction is, oh, in theory, that sounds great, but what do I do with that?
Katie Stabler:A bit of both. I mean, put it this way. The companies that I'm working with, they chose to work with me. So they know a bit about me, and they've obviously got the intention to develop and to grow. So they want this kind of thought leadership.
Katie Stabler:They want to understand more, and they want to improve. So generally, yes, they're they're very perceptive and and they want to to look at it in a different way. You also ask, you know, what do we do with this? You know, how do we translate this into something that can actually change and support a movement in the business? And that's what comes next, really, you know, and that all depends on organization to organization as to how we would approach that.
Katie Stabler:But generally, people kind of sit in the rooms, and you can see their eyes widening and going like, yeah, because it all makes sense. You know, none of this is unsurprising. It's just we just don't talk about it in this way. We don't look at it in this way, and we certainly don't work in a way that takes any of this on board. You know, we're not deliberately designing for emotion, for memory, for perception.
Katie Stabler:We're just designing for that moment. So, yeah, most companies kind of have that light bulb moment when this goes on. It's like, holy holy moly. Yeah. This we need to do this.
Katie Stabler:We need to get on board with this. Yeah.
Brian Rowley:I actually the thing that I love about that is how many times, you know, do you sit in a room and, you know, when we talk about CX, we we do default back to, like, what was our NPS score versus, like, how many people did we absolutely thrill or how many people did we actually infuriate? Right? Like, we never we never take that approach because that's the emotion. Right? That is the piece to it that actually is a result of that very first interaction.
Brian Rowley:And we're always having the conversation that and and I do believe that everybody in the organization is responsible for the overall customer experience, because at any point, any person, any role within the organization can ultimately be responsible for emotion, right? For memories, and ultimately the perception, right? That's driven after that interaction takes place.
Katie Stabler:Totally. And I think that's the magic, Brian, you know, right at the beginning of this conversation, we're talking about, you know, what is a customer experience company? What's a customer centric company? And I truly believe that the ones who can tag themselves with that badge are exactly what you've just said. They're the companies where every single person in that organization understands that they, some way, have an impact on the end customer experience.
Katie Stabler:No matter who they are, no matter what they do, something will ultimately knock back onto the customer experience. And it's those companies who have the teams that understand that and who when they are making decisions, when they are talking in boardrooms, you know, when they are designing policies and process, not just journey maps, they're thinking about the customer all the way through.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. Because that is customer centricity. I mean, that's a term that is overused all the time, but I think you just clearly define that. Right? That truly is what customer centricity is actually all about.
Katie Stabler:Absolutely. And look, we can't be naive in the fact that to do that is awesome. And if you can do that, great. There are always going to be barriers, though. There is always going to be that conflict moment where the best thing for the customer is a, but the best thing for the business is b.
Katie Stabler:There And are gonna be people in the organization battling both for a and b, and there has to be compromise because we're all businesses. Right? We all have to make profit. You know, sometimes there will be compromise. But again, it's where those conversations still are fully grounded in the understanding of the impact on the customer experience.
Katie Stabler:It's not always about doing absolutely everything the customer would definitely, definitely want. It's about just making sure that your decisions are thoughtful around the customer.
Laura Smith:But you bring up a good point though, because, you know, I think to truly be customer centric, the business has to be willing to give up in certain areas. You know? Like, there may be a feature that is a horrible user experience, but that feature is a revenue generator for the organization. If you're truly customer centric, you will fix that experience in order to better serve the customer. And that may mean there's a revenue or profit.
Laura Smith:There's some kind of hit financially. And I think if you really you're not gonna go and rebuild your business holistically, I guess. I guess it just goes back to, like, challenging those organizations. If they're not willing to make changes because it does have a financial impact, then then you can't call yourself customer centric because you've been given feedback that these certain things don't work or these certain things don't make sense or benefit the the customer's experience. So you must face that too in conversations around, like, what point do we make a call?
Katie Stabler:Yeah. Absolutely. And this is this is why I don't think there are many companies that can actually say they are customer centric because there are always these internal battles. So, I mean, even if because what you just said, Laura, it makes total sense. And gosh, yes, if a company that I was working with was always doing the right thing for the customer, dream come true.
Katie Stabler:In fact, I probably wouldn't be working with them because they've got it nailed already. But the reality is, you know, I work mostly with customer experience leaders. So normally the people who are bringing me into the business are CX managers, CX directors, or people who informally are just looking after CX. And, you know, gosh, they care. They are passionate.
Katie Stabler:They want to be doing all of the right things when it comes to CX. They see all of the problem areas. They're working with different departments to try and hopefully, you know, fix these problem areas. But this is where the biggest challenge comes in, right, is you've got these different departments that care, that get it, that wanna make a change, but that change might negatively impact another department. Then the other department, for whatever reason, might be scared, it might cost them money, it might show some failure areas that they don't want to have shown, and it's that internal conflict which stops progress in organizations.
Katie Stabler:So when we talk about culture, it's not just a culture of being customer centric. It's a culture of so much, you know, not being scared of failure, you know, being being more comfortable to open up to areas of problems Two, sometimes focus on loss leaders and know that eventually that'll be a profit generator. But all of these different conflicts that every organization experiences tends to just be another little chip going against customer experience. And more the you talk about this, the more you can see why customer experience is so hard to really embed in culture because, again, while it's common sense, while it while it feels like, yeah, just do the right thing for the customer, in reality, in business, it just is not that easy.
Brian Rowley:But I think the other side to that too is companies also have to be honest. Like the example that we gave at the very beginning that I mentioned where you're sitting on hold for two hours and, you know, you're constantly being told, you know, we're sorry, you know, you're very important to us. Like there's a decision that's being made there that that wait time is an acceptable amount of time. Like we all have all the metrics. We all know how long the queues are.
Brian Rowley:We all know all of that stuff. So there does get to be that point where the company is making a decision to say that is a tolerable amount for us, even though it may not be for the end user. So those are things that I think there's a level of honesty that companies need to have to, to say, okay, we realize we're probably gonna make a couple of people really angry in this process, but we're actually okay with that.
Katie Stabler:Yeah. Or or what I think is often more likely is there's this huge gap between what customers feel, their reality of the experience, and what the company believes that customer experience to be. And that gap is for so many reasons, you know, inefficient data or data that just isn't being used accurately. It's due to lack of customer feedback. You know, there's an old statistic.
Katie Stabler:I don't think it's accurate anymore, but it was where one in 26 customers complain, the rest just leave. Whilst that statistic might not be accurate, it's still a good representation of what actually happens in the world. You know, most customers who are unhappy, they don't complain. They don't let feedback. They just sorry, leave feedback.
Katie Stabler:They just don't come back again. There's bias internally in organizations as to what we think the customer experience is. So that company who's got that two hour wait time, yes, they may well have said, do you know what? We're fine with that. Or it might be they just don't really look deeply at the impact that has on the customer experience, and they don't think it's a big deal.
Katie Stabler:And often, when I work with companies, their their reality of what they think the customer experience is and the actual customer experience is there's a big gaping gap in the middle. And showing that, illuminating that gap is usually kind of the first step in kicking into action.
Laura Smith:Yeah. Because I think people, you you only have so much patience to kind of solve the problem. And and I think one of those situations is going back to something you talked about earlier, Katie, is about like when someone you can't figure out how to get in touch with somebody, and I won't name this company, not that whatever, but it's a ride sharing type company. And when something bad happens and you can't figure out how to complain, it became an issue. So at one point, I had to take it to Twitter.
Laura Smith:And that's just not me normally, but, like, in order to get them to respond, you have to then take it to social media, tagging them and out outing them, really, and and shining light on the fact that there is this this fundamental problem. And then, of course, they respond to that, but don't make the customer hap don't make it so difficult for them to because I would've left. Mean, they actually were quick to respond, and everything was resolved just fine. But and I only did that because someone had said to me, oh, yeah. If you want them to resolve anything, you need to call them out on social media, because then they respond to it.
Laura Smith:So like you're staffing a social team, but you're not staffing a team to manage inbound emails or a chatbot or whatever else. It's very, very frustrating, but people you're gonna hear about it. So if Yeah. People aren't quiet.
Katie Stabler:Yeah. That's appalling. It it that's so bad. I actually know a few companies who are basically it feels like that's a policy, like you say, they won't do anything unless, of course, it suddenly becomes visible and then they'll act, which is obviously so in the opposite direction of what we're talking about. It's like the worst of the worst.
Brian Rowley:But Laura, I guess on that example that you just gave, did does did your perception of the company change throughout that process? So like you were obviously very frustrated, which led you to social media. Once you actually got that response from them in the end and they resolved whatever it was, did the handling of that change anything to do with your perception?
Laura Smith:Yeah. I mean, think if they never got back to me, I would just probably have then opted for another ride sharing company to use, And you honestly, and I already had another one like in my, you know, that I use or switch up on, but that did give me a, okay, I don't have to now go call this other you know, use the other company all the time. Like, I'm willing to give them a try because there was a financial, like, they owed me money back kinda thing. So that would have been really annoying and I probably wouldn't have done business with them again if they didn't fall through and really and and taking my side. Now whether they thought I was right or wrong, they at least gave the the customer the benefit of the doubt in that situation.
Laura Smith:So, yeah, I think I think the outcome of that made me give them a little bit of leeway. Yeah. Yeah. Still use them.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. It's interesting. Katie, during sort of some of the prep that we are have done for this, we've heard you say that marketing actually shapes the promise, but CX is actually where that promise gets delivered. And I'm just curious there in that because that I find really fascinating. And I think this is an interesting part of the conversation.
Brian Rowley:But where do you actually see the biggest disconnect between what companies say and what customers actually are experiencing?
Katie Stabler:So in the world of B2C, I actually don't see it significantly standing out. Don't get me wrong. You know, there are a few companies here and there that I've worked with where that has been the case. But actually where it's more more prolific is the world of b to b. So it's obviously a very competitive market.
Katie Stabler:You're in b to b, you're typically tendering. So the whole early marketing and sales piece, it's very much, we can do everything. We're shiny. We're sexy. We're gonna give you what you want.
Katie Stabler:And then when that translates into actually onboarding the customer and then delivering that service and having a BAU of service delivery, that's where, unfortunately, I see a lot of organizations not following through on the promises that the marketing campaign has said will be there, the sales team have said will be there. And, you know, there's a lot of reasons as to why that happens, but it is incredibly common. And then, of course, especially in the b to b environment, you're in a contract. You're stuck. And this is even applies to to b to c, and I almost mentioned it in your car sharing example, Laura.
Katie Stabler:But there's a a thing called captive customers. It's a a term that I coined where, for many reasons, you might be stuck with an organization, whether it's because it's convenient, whether it's because it's cheap, whether it's because it's the only one near you, and oh, whether it's because you're in a contract. And and then when when you're captive to an organization and a company knows that, unfortunately, the customer experience could really kind of waver.
Laura Smith:That's so true, Brian. Think about think about I mean, some we we inherited some marketing tools and contracts when we came on board and and you just we have to continue on with them because we're in a contract and this is the only tool we have that does this and here we go. But actually, the service is not it's it's poor.
Brian Rowley:Make the best of it. Right? That you're you're forced.
Katie Stabler:Totally. Yeah. And in these environments, even when maybe the contract is up and you are in a position to move, sometimes it's just not that easy because, again, legacy systems, sometimes it can be more expensive and way harder to actually change to another provider than just try and make the best of what you've got. And that's yeah. It's a really difficult position as a consumer to be in in that position.
Brian Rowley:I will say though that one of the things that's really interesting and one of the things that I I've always referred back to is when you get in and sit around a table, because oftentimes within these discussions, you've got a table full of executives that are having a conversation. And if you if you have the problem that you're trying to solve for and you always ask the question, how does it impact the customer? Usually, you can get to a better answer. And I don't think people ask that question enough. They try to solve the problem for the business without thinking.
Brian Rowley:And if you interject that, what impact does that have on the customer? It does change the conversation every single time.
Katie Stabler:Oh, yeah, I totally agree. And I think so so one of the tactics that I would often use in an in an organization to do that is have a customer chair in the room. So physically, an empty chair which represents the customer, And you would normally need a customer advocate to be always pointing at that chair saying, okay, but what's the customer gonna say to that? What's the customer gonna say? I mean, it's even better and a lot braver if you can actually have a customer in that room, which I do see does happen.
Katie Stabler:But normally, people are a bit more comfortable with the customer chair than the actual customer. And and, yeah, you're absolutely right, Brian. It does change the conversation because when people start to think nobody doesn't want to give the customer a good experience, nobody's against that. It's just the realities of doing it. But herein is the problem.
Katie Stabler:If you have to put a customer chair in the room or if you have to be asking that question all the time, it demonstrates that that company just isn't there yet on customer centricity because you shouldn't have to be asking that. It should just be intrinsically part of the conversation. And this is why, again, a lot of companies aren't yet where they're planning to be, and it's a growth journey. You know, it's not that they're not gonna get there, but these things are not as natural as we would hope that they would be.
Laura Smith:And I have a question because, Brian, you brought up earlier. We haven't really talked about the measurement and the tools and the data people or companies are using. Like NPS, I hear a lot of call BS on that as a measure or the only measure. I think it's sometimes skewed, like, where executives take that to a a place where that's the end all be all. So talk to us about what do you recommend as those data points when you are working with a company to see, like, do are customers happy?
Katie Stabler:Yeah. NPS is a big one, and I don't think we can ever really get away from that conversation. I know I, if I ever put a social media post out that mentions NPS, which I'm reluctant to do because, personally, I find it a boring topic, but social media just goes mental. Everybody loves to talk about NPS. And I think it is because it's so Marmite.
Katie Stabler:And for anyone listening, net promoter score NPS, and it's a measure of loyalty. But you're right, Laura. You know, over the years, it's changed from what it was intended. It can get very heavily manipulated, and it's not really a strong benchmark as it once was. However, to caveat that, I am a big advocate that really it doesn't matter what metric you use.
Katie Stabler:It's how you use it. If you are just a company that's chasing the score, that's focusing on the number, it doesn't matter what metric you're using, you're using it wrong. What you need to be doing, of course, is looking at what is driving that measurement, what is driving that number, and how you deploy that in the organization makes a big difference as well. You know, it's not just a matter of checking a survey out and thinking that will do the trick. But really, when it comes to measures, I work with organizations in quite a bespoke way to identify what are your outcomes and what are your customer outcomes.
Katie Stabler:And then we create metrics that deliberately hit on those. And we might use some of the traditional ones like NPS because they might be really serious about benchmarking externally. So at the moment, that's pretty much the way you have to go. But it would never just be NPS alone. You know, we might use customer satisfaction scores.
Katie Stabler:We might use customer effort score. In fact, customer effort score, which, as the name suggests, just tell you how easy was it to interact with a a a company. Customer effort score is actually known to be a better metric for loyalty than NPS, but a lot of companies don't know and don't utilize that. And we might use these big ones because for a lot of companies, it's a bit of a comfort blanket to be familiar with these metrics. But then I'll always work to deploy more experiential metrics that do measure sentiment, that do measure emotion, that measure specific parts of the journey which are particularly important to the customer or the company.
Katie Stabler:And again, it's you can almost measure anything when it comes to a a bespoke measurement, but it's how you use that measure. It's what you do within the organization. It's how you communicate it to everybody so they know what's going on. They know how they can influence it, and I think that's the crucial part. Less about what it is and more about how you use it.
Laura Smith:Yeah. That's interesting. And do you find that are some companies willing to have, like, customer councils? Because I know some organizations have that. Right?
Laura Smith:Whether do they have big customers, they kinda sit in this council and they're they do engage on ongoing basis to gather feedback and all that. And some of that might be more anecdotal, than it is, you know, a a data point, but that's okay. Do you find that to be a a good, you know, activity for some of our company to run?
Katie Stabler:Totally. And love that. Anything that you're actually getting information from the horse's mouth as it were, the better. I mean, you still have to take some of it with a a bit of bias because, you know, it depends on who you're speaking to, what experience they've had, like, how good of a day they've had that day.
Laura Smith:Right.
Katie Stabler:There's so many things to factor in. Yeah. Totally true. But this is it is. I mean, this is why customer satisfaction is a really hard score to use because you can have two customers who go through the exact same experience.
Katie Stabler:The one has been sat in the sunshine all day, they've had a glass of rose, happy, happy, happy. The other have had, you know, school holidays, they've got six kids running around their feet, they're stressed out of their minds, less happy. So, you know, all of this data, you have to be conscientious how you use it. But that's a great point about the customer councils, Laura, because actually the best companies who get the best data and therefore the best insight are the companies who use multiple different data sources. So, yes, use your customer journey mapping.
Katie Stabler:Yes, have your relationship surveys. Get your customer councils. Talk to your frontline staff, you know, outside of your customers. They are the next best people who know what the customer experience is and feels like. Get customer forums.
Katie Stabler:There is just so many different avenues. And one of the first kind of diagnostics I'll do with an organization is give them a big list of all of these different inputs and get them to tick, you know, which ones do you use. Very few of them have, like, more than five, that's where you're really limiting your information source. And especially now with the age of AI and the technology that we're using, getting this data is not that hard anymore, but we're definitely on a data growth journey.
Brian Rowley:Yes. Yeah. I think the other side to that too is to people need to think in capturing those data points, right? What's the minimal amount of impact to their customers? Because I think in gathering that data, there's a CX element to that as well.
Brian Rowley:There's nothing worse than being surveyed. And then six months later or a year later, you're getting a survey again, nothing's changed, and you're surveying again. So I do think that as part of capturing and collecting those data points, that should be somewhat as as much as possible seamless to the customer. And you should be able to get that in a way that it just doesn't impact them because that in itself can create a terrible customer experience.
Katie Stabler:Absolutely. And that's why one of the technology growth that we have seen is in conversational analytics and sentiment collection. And gosh, I couldn't advocate for that more strongly because there, you are getting direct informal feedback time and time and time again for your customer. They're giving you it organically. You're not having to ask for it.
Katie Stabler:You're not asking for surveys. They are just telling you in the moment what they like, what they don't like. You can hear the frustration. You can hear the happiness. If any company isn't using conversation analytics to some form right now, I'd be asking why?
Katie Stabler:Like, you absolutely should be. But on the other point that you just had there, Brian, about, you know, asking for feedback, six months later asking for it again, and you've seen that there has been no change. I mean, that's the importance of a properly structured closed loop feedback program in your organization. It is no good asking your customer for their feedback and not first acknowledging it, thanking them for it if there is something to be done about it, telling them what they've done. And this can be micro or macro.
Katie Stabler:You know, you can be speaking to every individual customer and thanking them and giving them a bit of feedback. Or it could be at a larger level where, you know, maybe there's a newsletter that goes at one's quarter to say, look, guys. You've told us this. We've listened. These are the changes we've made.
Katie Stabler:Please continue to give us your feedback. We really appreciate it. Yada yada yada. But, again, you don't often see companies being that proactive.
Laura Smith:Right. I think it's starting with the internal too. Right? They do people companies do employee engagement surveys, like, do employees see actions taken? If they're not happening to the own employee experience, not gonna happen to the customer experience.
Laura Smith:So that's a true sign of of how that much that company really cares about either. But I don't wanna I don't wanna you mentioned AI, so of course we're gonna talk about AI because that's always what we talk about in every conversation.
Katie Stabler:Sorry. But
Laura Smith:but like let's talk about it as it relates to how do companies think about empathy and humanity as they are trying to automate. Because I think if someone thinks about AI from a customer experience perspective, I think they're immediately go to it's about like replacing agents with an AI chatbot. And that's really not what it's about because I think that that could be if you're do it effectively. But really, it isn't about taking away the human side of it or it shouldn't be. It's because the AI could be how you drive efficiencies in running the business versus, like, using with data and analytics and all that.
Laura Smith:But how would you recommend or how do you talk about this with organizations? Because I think sometimes the gut reaction is, oh, just get AI tools that will just do this for us and removing that human element to it.
Katie Stabler:Yeah. And do you know what? I mean, actually, there is a reality that the human workforce is reducing, and there's some pretty scary stats out there from a customer service perspective about what the level of production will look like over the next five to ten years. But I'm about some of those changes. And and you're right.
Katie Stabler:You know, actually, lot of the changes that are happening at the moment when it comes to customer experience tend to sit on the customer service side of things. And, yes, it can be an increased use of chatbot, things that I just mentioned a second ago, conversation analytics, a fully automated quality assurance, which means, you know, your QA team is massively reduced because that manual effort of listening to and scoring calls is now done a 100% by a computer. It's like such a a time saver. So there are there are big areas where definitely workforce is being reduced. More so what I see though is actually agents are being helped by this technology.
Katie Stabler:So a lot of companies are utilizing transcription so that at the end of a call, obviously, the agent doesn't have to take the time to write the notes. It's just automatically transcribed. Or in better knowledge bases, so agents are being the information straight away that they need. They're not having to go and search for it. They know it's accurate this time.
Katie Stabler:So there's loads of things that are being utilized to help at the moment rather than replace, which is great. But ultimately, from a AI usage perspective, my biggest piece of advice to any organization is make sure your technology strategy is heavily intertwined with your customer experience strategy. I mean, that goes actually customer experience strategy for every different important strategy in the business. They all need to be connected. But definitely AI and CX because anything obviously customer facing, technology wise, is going to affect your customer.
Katie Stabler:You need to make sure your customer experience leader, whoever that is, is part of that discussion and that your strategy is really well thought out. And at the moment, we talked about silos at the beginning of this conversation. I still think there's a lot of catastrophic silos where the IT, the tech department are making decisions around AI usage, and the customer experience department has got nothing to do with it. I'll I'll give you an example. I was sat having a chat with a lady who leads customer experience at a big UK energy company.
Katie Stabler:And she said she got into work one morning and found that there was a brand new customer facing chatbot that they had no idea was coming. They hadn't had any part of the design or creation in. And chaos. Chaos. And you just think, how?
Katie Stabler:How was that decision made? How was that not been a bigger discussion in the company? But these things happen all the time, and they need to stop happening. I think that's the the crucial thing when we're talking about customer centric AI, doesn't matter what it is, anything, there needs to continue to be that conversation with your CX leader about any changes that will affect the customer.
Brian Rowley:Well, and I think I think more of a focus on just the efficiency factor and more on how does it help? Like, because, you know, I was on a call earlier today and we were talking about, you know, some of the call prep that is being done and also some recordings that are done during calls and how the AI tool can actually capture some of, like, confusion from someone on the other end that the actual support person may not be able to or salesperson may not. So it's almost like an honesty check to be able to say, I know you are hoping that the customer said this or felt this way, but the reality is is this AI tool is saying that's not the case. So now maybe reach out again and just create and close that loop where there seemed to be confusion. It can be a better customer experience.
Brian Rowley:And I think if you look at it that way versus oh, it saved me a ton of time and I can jump on to the next call. That's not really its goal. Its goal is to try to do that plus. But if you put the CX side to it, I think there's a lot of benefit there.
Katie Stabler:Yeah. I love the way you put that. And again, you know, the hope is that more and more organizations will start to think that way. I think the reality is, as you said, efficiencies.
Brian Rowley:Mhmm.
Katie Stabler:And the exactly what you've just said, those things don't have to be at odds. So if the customer experience is great, if you're doing all the right things, efficiencies will come. You know, maybe it looks like it's upfront effort, but in the end, there will be less. You know, there's less repetition. There's less resources involved.
Katie Stabler:There's less opportunity for frustration and complaint. These all eventually create efficiencies rather than just going straight in for, let's save money.
Laura Smith:Right. And that those efficiencies can make the customer experience better. Like, we might be solving the problem faster. You know? So the the really Yeah.
Laura Smith:It can have that that dual outcome, which is
Katie Stabler:Yeah. That's exactly what I mean. I I remember, working for a credit company many, many years ago, and we deployed a big customer journey mapping program. It's something that they've never really seen before. And when we mapped out some real life customer journeys, I mean, using data to show, like, one person's lifetime experience with this company.
Katie Stabler:It was appallingly scary. The amount of duplicated letters, the amount of duplicated calls. And from a customer experience perspective, you could see clearly this was shocking and this shouldn't be happening. But from a cost perspective, you could also see how incredibly detrimental and wasteful and inefficient to the company this experience was. So, yeah, you know, like, we're looking for savings because, of course, every company would, why wouldn't they?
Katie Stabler:But actually, we're looking to improve the customer experience, which will create those savings anyway, so there will be efficiencies. And it all leads to the greater good of whichever perspective your c suite is looking to, whether it's customer centricity, whether it's growth, whether it's profit. Customer experience always helps those two.
Laura Smith:Absolutely. Okay. This has been a fascinating discussion, but we need to move on to, start our next segment, which is the hot seat.
Brian Rowley:Brace yourself.
Laura Smith:Thank you, Joey.
Katie Stabler:Love that.
Laura Smith:That was fun. We never know what it's gonna be, Katie. So Joey just surprises us all that was that one. Love that. I mean, I'm
Katie Stabler:definitely gonna be sharing that constantly.
Laura Smith:Alright. So we're gonna have a little fun and get your gut reactions. No pressure. We're gonna basically gonna go through some myth busters around CX. So we're gonna give you some common statements about customer experience, and you're just gonna give us your quick take on whether it's a myth or it actually holds up.
Laura Smith:So you can say one word answer. You can elaborate on it, but we have a few we're gonna go through. So just whatever your gut reaction is, let us know. Okay? Super.
Laura Smith:The first one is CX is everyone's job.
Katie Stabler:Absolutely true. Yes.
Brian Rowley:Customers want to be wowed.
Katie Stabler:Myth. Wowing is always nice, but customers just want to trust the organization that they're buying a service or product from.
Laura Smith:A great product can overcome a bad experience.
Katie Stabler:Yes. I mean, I'm I'm saying that with a scowly face, but yes, it's true. We can.
Brian Rowley:I think we've covered this one, but NPS is the best way to measure customer experience.
Katie Stabler:Does that answer your question?
Laura Smith:I mean, I love the noises, right? Whatever whatever that kind of reaction is. Okay. Last but not least, the best customer experiences are the ones customers barely notice.
Katie Stabler:Oh, and that's interesting because, yes, can be. But going back to the CX chain we talked about, if you don't notice it, harder to remember. So yes and no. I'm sitting on the fence.
Brian Rowley:Katie, this has been amazing. Such a great conversation. We love all your insights and and thank you. Thank you so much for being here.
Katie Stabler:So thank you for having me. It's been a great conversation. Lovely to chat to you guys.
Brian Rowley:Thanks, Katie. So Laura, I think, you know, one of the things that sort of stuck out for me is, and I think this just rings true even more as a result of this is, it doesn't matter actually where you are. There's always room for improvement on CX. And I would challenge that I don't think there's a company out there that could say that they're perfect at that. And if they are, we would love to have you on here, to be able to talk about that.
Brian Rowley:But I think the most important thing is when customers are looking at the overall customer experience chain, remember interaction is only one part of it because every interaction creates an emotion, every emotion creates a memory, and every memory becomes a perception.
Laura Smith:Yeah. That's definitely, a great takeaway that I think a lot of people will benefit from to use as an evaluation and to think about the fact that there is even this chain. The other thing I would say that I wrote down because to challenge ourselves as marketers and at our organization is looking at or being more diligent about conversational feedback and listening and analyzing conversation as well as that customer effort score. I don't know if we look at that, and that's something that I feel like is it could be easily forgotten or not part of the mix of the data piece of it that is super important. So tons of great insights she shared and something we can carry back to our own every day, but also for our listeners to do the same.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. It was a great conversation. Thanks for listening. And most importantly, if you like what you heard today, be sure to follow us. And if you wanna hear more from Katie Stabler, you can find her on LinkedIn.