The Customer Experience Podcast is a UK podcast from Sullivan & Stanley (https://www.sullivanstanley.com/) hosted by its Chief Customer Experience Officer, Emma Dark (https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-dark-15a4918/) .
By uncovering stories of disruption and innovation from business leaders at the top of their game, who live and breathe all things customer. From strategy to execution, we will bring to life real stories of how to drive customer centricity within your organisation and deliver successful customer change.
Hello and welcome to the Customer Experience Podcast with host Emma Dark. In the final episode of the Customer Experience podcast, Emma chats with Kate Birtles from Biffa. Whilst almost everyone won’t deem waste management as something all that ‘CX:ie’, the way we think about it has never been more important when you think about its environmental impact and how it affects the customer. Kate outlines how her new customer team ensures they are always walking in their customer's shoes, getting out on the frontline and getting to know them, whilst cascading the customer's voice right across the business. Lots to take in here so with no further ado, here’s Emma and Kate. –
Shownotes:
Introduction - Meeting Kate Birtles Customer Service Director at Biffa - Introducing the topic on driving customer experience in waste management How is Kate driving the customer experience strategy? 1:40 - Where ever you have a customer interaction, it is important to have a customer strategy to ensure the best CX - improving the customer experience team within Biffa during the restrictions of the past couple of years What does Biffa do to perfect the customer experience? 3:40
- Covering the basics, Biffa being an invisible service to customers, picking up waste at the right time, efficiently, sustainability, improving the environmental impact of waste management. How does being sustainable and looking after the planet benefit the customer? 5:55 - Our purpose is to change the way people think about waste - what can we do to prevent waste from being waste, looking into recyclables and recovering energy from waste, minimising landfill, encouraging education, keeping things as simple as possible. How do you approach the complexities of waste management within the organisation and externally to the customer? 8:20
- Understanding who the customer is. - Having a sensible conversation and understanding what their need is and then finding solutions first before imposing needs. - Managing local council needs and customer needs. How does digitalisation come into play within waste management? 9:55 - We are still learning but eager to further develop with customer portals to offer feedback. - Making sure the customer experience is as flawless as possible. - Making sure the service is customisable so customers can choose what they do and don’t want. What does the new CX team do at Biffa? - Management spending time with the front line going out to understand customers and the company voice face to face. - Understanding the customer journey from start to finish. - Understanding if there is a process problem looking in from a customer perspective. How do you manage your customer maps? 14:45 - Initiatives and methodologies on how to prioritise tasks. - Needing to start from the beginning with a blank piece of paper and mapping out what the ideal customer experience should be and spring boarding from there. - Understanding what the customer pain is and offering solutions as soon as possible and implementing them as trials.
How to cascade the customer voice across the organisation? 16:20 -It is a challenge as always especially due to the recent challenges; people are change fatigued. - Increasing the positivity and transparency about the customer journey and experience. How do you approach customer centricity? 18:30 - It helps that everyone is customer centric. It is a challenge that everyone’s idea of what the customer needs are slightly different. - It’s good to celebrate the wins with customers but equally it is important to recognise the problems customers can face as well. - Focus groups from various areas of the organisations, bringing ideas to them and discussing the pros and cons. - Making sure everyone is apart of the change. How involved is the customer in those changes? 20:40 - Getting customers to come in, starting discussions on the portal, getting feedback with customer panels. - Although we have so much information available, we are still not always able to transfer that into palpable changes, it can be trial and error. What have you noticed with regards to poor service as a customer yourself? 24:10 - A lot of organisations are still using the pandemic as an excuse for poor customer service. - Not using the amazing technological advances to optimise customer experiences, chatbots, FAQ’s on-demand. - Walking in the shoes of the customer is still a basic but vital option to improve customer experience. How to make the customer experience the beating heart of the organisation? 28:40
- Making sure we don’t drive anti-customer behaviour that generates money but pushes customers away. - Making sure you’re measuring things that customers actually care about. - Working out the balance between customer-centricity and employee satisfaction. Does Biffa have enough customer metrics so that you can see the impact to the customer? - Yes, although we can still do better. - It is one thing to say we are customer centric but its more important to act it. What are some brands you think are doing well? 33:00
Welcome to the Customer Experience Podcast with S&S Chief CX Officer and host Emma Dark.
As leaders, how do we successfully approach digitisation in the retail industry? In this episode, Emma has a chat with Heidi Reynolds, Retail Director at WHSmith - one of the oldest retailers in history established over 200 years ago. This is a true heritage brand and while its core values have remained, the organisation has had to continually evolve and transform their customer experiences over two centuries.
So how has WHSmith embraced the shifting sands of digitisation? How do they pair physical and digital experiences? What about under the hood, internally with their people - how do they bring them on the digital journey?
A fascinating discussion that is valuable for anyone in the retail space, learning from one of the biggest and best.
Enjoy.
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SHOWNOTES
Introduction - 0:54
How to reinvent the store of the future - 3:50
The essential component to truly understand your customer - 4:50
The partnership between physical and digital - 8:20
How can you bring your 'in-store staff' on the digital journey? - 11:15
What are the biggest change skills needed? - 16:36
What is the purpose of a physical store when everything is moving online? 19:50
How to take the customers along with you on the changes - 21:55
How have your teams set themselves up to manage different customers? - 31:35
How retailers can ‘get it right’ - 35:35
What obstacles have you had to face? - 37:50
How has change changed? - 39:45
What are predictions for the next 5 years? - 41:55
Find the full show notes and episode here:
https://www.sullivanstanley.com/insights/the-customer-experience-podcast-how-whsmith-led-digitalisation-in-the-retail-industry/
“Customer-first, not digital-first. Work in the shoes of your customers and figure out what they want for today and tomorrow.”
Those are the sage words of Andrew Clayton, Head of Customer Experience at Close Brothers. Having previously worked as an executive across multiple sectors for the past 30 years, Andrew provides us with some great insight into how organisations can handle the gap between those who benefit from the Digital Age and those who don’t.
Emma and Andrew discuss how to create a ‘design tribe’ that sits within teams and units across the business, how to identify, approach and support ‘vulnerable customers’ and some of the future challenges for organisations going through this transformation.
There is loads of value for any CX exec leading teams in the digital age, so we hope you enjoy the show.
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SHOWNOTES:
Introduction
How to bring brand and purpose together
Bravery to say we let the customer down
How has the digitalisation of the financial services industry impacted CX?
Deciding which journeys need humans, and which should be digital (or both?)
How do you involve the customers with the testing?
What skillsets enable digital customer experiences?
Getting cultural buy-in across the organisation
Going from bricks and mortar to fully digital
Employee journey for that digital transformation
Ensuring customers are embracing the changes
How to identify, approach and support ‘vulnerable customers’
The greatest challenge when digitalising customer experience
What keeps you motivated to keep pushing ‘customer first’
Using Covid as an excuse to not deliver a good customer experience
What are the future battlegrounds and innovations in the world of customer?
Find the full show notes and episode description here: https://www.sullivanstanley.com/insights/the-cx-podcast-the-digital-divide-with-andrew-clayton
Join Emma Dark, S&S Chief Customer Experience Officer in episode 004 of the Customer Experience Podcast, with our guest Amy Farrer on the jump from Telco to Tech-co. Amy Farrer is the Digital Capability and Planning Director at BT where her responsibilities include mobilising squads to support the Consumer Strategy, developing BT’s Digital Capability with a focus on agile ways of working, and continuing to put customers at the heart of BT’s mission statement. Amy and Emma talk about the importance of the customer sitting within every department, and how Amy is a champion of continuous improvement in BT, delivering customer and business value, quickly and sustainably. Today she talks us through the challenges the pandemic presented, how the demands of the customer continue to change, and how adaptation and agile working is the new normal while supporting her staff's development in the process. Hope you enjoy the show!
SHOWNOTES:
Introducing Amy Farrer
Where does the customer feature within the digital transformation 3:07 * Being data led, understanding customer needs and developing solutions that serve these needs * Learn and adapt to the changes to customer needs * Thoughts of the digital mindset * Personalising customer needs to offer a holistic service
How can the customer experience be imbedded in business culture 4:47 * 5 capability pillars * How do leaders become role models * Live and breathe your customers needs * Investment in different skills and develop the tools and processes to support staff
Putting customers at the heart of your mission statement 7:00 * BT’s new digital unit established and developed * Setting the vision for the future * How has the culture changed
What actions are needed to be taken as you scale to make sure your mission statement is felt across other departments and teams? 9:07 The 5 pillars and their application to digital first approach 10:44 * Build cross functional teams * Bring different skills together to solve customer problems * How new templates and tools were developed during covid restrictions and how to see a positive through drastic organisational change
Understanding user centred design 12:34 * Build, measure, learn * How do we know there is a need? What does the data show? * Feasibility of bringing forward a protocol and understanding its utility
Digital Transformation 16:18 * Communication is key and can help drive change * Digicon events and how to generate excitement & increase engagement * Driving cultural change * Empowering colleagues to drive change
The journey to being more IT oriented 19:06 * Digital and customer transformation * Dial up the change from legacy systems and make use of the data we have to make personalised experiences * Changing technologies to manage change appropriately * The importance of gaining feedback from customers and involving them on the journey
What changes have you needed to make to focus on becoming more customer centric 23:07 * Supporting development within the team * Nurturing a growth mindset - The Evolve Programme * Employee satisfaction taking the whole business on the journey together * What examples prove the benefit of implementing these changes
How did you pivot to manage the restrictions over the pandemic period 31:00 * How do you keep growing when faced with such drastic challenges * How to manage adaptations effectively * Key challenges within the next 18 months with digital transformation * Is hybrid working the future and what challenges does this face to team development and growth * Change is here to stay, how do we recognise the need to continually adapt * Taking care of people and supporting them after such drastic change
How will the demands of the customer change 36:02 * Customers want more * Personalise the customer experience * Investing in data and AI capabilities * The energy should be not in predicting the future but ensuring the organisation is ready to respond to whatever * Focusing energy on how you build customer centered thinking into your everyday practice because that is how to ensure success
Change fatigue and how to manage it 38:17 * Seeing potential within your organisation and capitalise on all the positives * Taking pride in the small wins and being excited for the future
Key advice to prepare for successful digital transformation * Investing in the team and skills available * Be ready to learn from everyone * Listen to the experts * Take your people on the journey and build something new together
Where does the customer sit within the business 41:47 * Everywhere * Top-down and bottom up
Watch the whole episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkOwVZTosoY
Find the full show notes and episode description here: https://www.sullivanstanley.com/insights/tel-co-to-tech-c…-with-amy-farrer/
Intro 1.04 * Harvard Business Review - to compete today, companies need to be data-driven * Culture is the biggest barrier to enable data-driven transformation * Important to understand the value that data can bring
How do you create a culture where data is more meaningful? - 2.54 * At Specsavers - creating data assets (platforms/tools/accessible) * Showcasing value -demonstrations * Create a culture of sharing - creates a ripple effect across the business
What are the focuses? 5.43 * You need to be willing to share and train others * Team spirit - our stakeholders aren’t different, we’re all in it together * FOMO if people aren’t sharing these stories gleaned from the data
Specsaver stories on using data to drive a strong customer experience? 🔥 - 8.13 * 66% drop in referrals during lockdown to opthamologists * Shared with NHS and Glaucoma UK * That informed the decision to keep all optometrists open for appointments * This was derived by business users and made a huge impact
What are the challenges to build that culture? - 11.20 * The regional difference and separation * Global vs. local strategy * Taking everyone's micro-objectives towards big goal * Continued alignment when everyone wants to be apart of it * Balance the foundation building and delivering
Role of Technology - 13.42 * Culture is more important than technology * Re-platforming was tough (Azure) but a great decision * Tech isn’t the solution to everything
Artificial Intelligence and data initiatives working together - 16.00 * Can work together and be effective in any industry * At giffgaff - we used it as additional approval for credit vetting * Can save time through automation, reduce churn * Big impact for customers, but also for colleagues - processes/job satisfaction
Is there an internal focus to use AI out there in the market? - 18.55 * It happens, but almost unintentionally * The care and emotion can’t be replicated by AI and needs to be embraced
Examples of data informs a more human digitised experience - 22.02 * It comes down to personalisation and relevance * We are trying to get back to that 121 feeling (impossible) but data does it for you
Capabilities within data transformation - 24.11 * Sharing capability and can-do attitude as part of a mission * Strong engineering focus * Data science capability along with governance * Community-minded +++
Setting up ownership of governance for quality and security - 28.00 * Need support at senior level * Once you have buy-in - then identify pain points * Find owners for important assets and adoption will come * Lots of hearts and minds to get it embedded - show the benefit
Biggest benefits of being a data-driven organisation - 31.33 * Customer experiences and colleague experiences * Better job satisfaction and opportunities for your colleagues * Each company will be subtly different
Inspiring brands who get data - 32.40 * When companies make a really positive impact i.e. health/society * Companies that are using AI
Advice - 34.29 * You need to give people time to get there, cultural shifts take time * Once you’ve achieved that, you can move at pace and get stuff done quickly
Future Predictions on where firms will invest in data and analytics - 36.11 * Historically brains > muscle but now its about emotion for humans * Data skills are as common as Excel and Word * Huge amount of robotics, automation and personalised experiences
Finally, is Big Data Hype or Big Opportunity? - 39.03 * (Ed - you will have to listen to the podcast to find out)
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WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HOW S&S CAN HELP YOU AND YOUR ORGANISATION?
Terminator. Blade Runner. Ex Machina. iRobot. While Emma’s chat today with Mark Billingham of the Very Group isn’t quite as dramatic as some of those blockbusters, the topic of AI has been around for a long time. Mark gives us some amazing insight into his learnings, practical tips and overwhelmingly positive results of building a bot to handle a huge amount of customer queries each month - 250,000 to be exact. They dive into what capability you need sitting behind the bot, how they got customers involved using their UX Lab (which is as cool as it sounds), the opportunities it creates for your internal team and why the job is never done even after you have built your bot. If you are looking to build an AI chatbot in your organisation, here is a 45-minute practical guide from someone who has done just that. So please enjoy the show and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. Intro - 1.20 * 250,000 contacts handled per month at The Very Group * AI frees up advisers for more complex and emotive questions for customers * Contacts have reduced by 23% and nearly 50% over two years * The bot is getting ⅘ stars for ease of use from customers
The catalyst for building AI functionality - 2.37 * Previously navigated trying out a bot in Vodafone called Toby * Learnt how NOT to do it * Need to understand every single reason a customer contacts you * There were 10,000 different reasons they got in touch * Acts as a concierge service and fix it, otherwise will send to a human * Training a bot is like training a person - takes time
What was the goal? - 7.29 * Don’t upset our customers * Put something on the web that got users to the right place and answers quickly * Ideally, people can self-serve which benefits both us and customers * Start with ease and simplicity
The Capability that sat behind the AI - 9.43 * Used our own web development team to create a look and feel * Then use tech dev team to build but use IBM Watson technology in the background * But all knowledge comes from the customer care team
Customer Involvement - 11.24 * We have a UX lab where we get customers to come in and try out the bot * Kept it going during the pandemic virtually, but not the same as the face to face * Feedback can often be based on how comfortable they are with technology * ‘I wouldn’t have used this bot before, but now I absolutely would’ * 40% of customers use our bot, so plenty of work to do
UX Lab Investment - 14.14 * Need two rooms - can be really basic * Just need customers using the tech and giving you feedback * Doesn’t have to be Big Brother /MI5
Intentional Actions Delivered During Change Project - 17.07 * Identify key reasons why they contact us * Understand what we need to build * Build the most important questions first * Make sure its useful straight away means the customers are on board * Where does the bot need guidance? * The balance between it being too ‘botty’ but also not too human and missing the tone
What are the next steps to perfection? - 20.51 * Target is to go from 40% to 70% using the bot * Need to expose the bot to more people - only available for people who are logged in * The next step will be using them on the outside of the site * SEO needs to work for us to point to the bot * Teach it to answer more queries * 25% have to ring contact centre after - so need to focus on them, get it below 10%
Biggest Challenges - 25.19 * Hygiene - we are a digital business so web changes * Finding the right resource and prioritisation * Making sure the language is absolutely spot on * How far through the maturity curve is AI? * Have to make sure using the bot is optional for users
Managing the internal feeling that the robots are taking our jobs? - 29.11 * The organisation has been continuously evolving for the last 90 years * We have a high tolerance for change * Give lots of notice and move onto other campaigns * Re-investing savings made and into your people
Biggest benefits for your employees - 32.21 * The new set of skills and roles that have been developed internally * Continuous improvement, change management culture * Created specialism that people can grow entire careers from
Where is the future headed? - 36.50 * Pandemic has swung it back to the preference for human touch * Bots will become more mainstream and better * You will have a divide of people based on consumer demographics * My 8-year-old son uses Alexa for everything * Bots could be superseded by voice assistants * Video is up for debate. It’s expensive and Zoom fatigue hasn’t helped
Customer Feedback - 42.24 * Yes, positive reaction and easy to navigate * Use NPS and TrustPilot feedback * Negative is when there’s a handover between channels
Advice before an organisation kicks off a bot build? - 43.19 * Understand why customers contact you. * Don’t shoe-horn assumptions into the bot * Don’t lie to people that its a human * No dead ends * It’s a consistent journey and needs continual management
Join Emma Dark in her debut episode of the Customer Experience Podcast where she chats with Chief Customer Officer and Author Sharon Boyd.
As new technology emerges that in a lot of ways makes life much easier for customer teams the world over through automation and process, there is a real danger that we lose the all-important human element. Sharon and Emma unpack how to keep your customer soul intact, using customer demo’s or sandboxes to put yourself in their shoes and create a seamless experience between the machine and the human.
Every aspect of this debate is covered so if you love tech and you know that customer should be at the heart of everything your business does - we reckon you’ll love this.
Intro
You’re CX’y and we know it’. book launch
Connection between Tech and Operation with customer in mind
Digitals role in Customer Experience - 4.22
Tech speeds it all up and is great
Need to keep a firm on the fact we are human
Customers always asking if I’m human (not a bot)
You must give them both options
Key things to consider to maintain human character - 7.22
Authenticity and empathy
Character and culture - all wording in our comms/system are consistent
Take opportunities for customers to connect to your human side
Empathy is vital for building strong customer relationships
How do you check in with your customer? - 11.37
Eat your own dog food
Include your employees internally
Spend time on the ground, in the tills, walking the shop floor
Demo - create a sandbox and get customers to try it out
How do these customer demo’s for new products work? - 15.43
Example at MKL - building versions of these sandboxes
More powerful than looking at a static website and going through sales pitch
We just put it on social media for customers to try and it doesn’t cost anything
Creating a seamless journey and experience between machine and human - 20.01
Need to be really intentional
Follow where they are dropping out and join up the gap
Encourage your staff to focus on CX rather than rely on tech
How do we use data in the Customer Experience? - 23.35
Gemba walk - watch and observe
Review CSAT at various parts of their journey
Use the richness of the ‘in the moment’
Employee feedback as a whole picture 🔥
Challenges Companies Face with Human Customer Experiences - 27.28
Moving too fast with a new piece of technology
Don’t forget the change curve
Take the humans on the journey
Help them understand the ‘why’
Key Capabilities and Resources that need to be in place for success - 31.09
Sponsorship from the senior leaders
Bring your back office alongside your front of house for a day
Do organisations have those skills in house or need external expertise? - 34.05
Companies often outsource tech teams where there can be disconnect
Physically show them the coalface of how the customer will see it
How to create advocacy and loyalty in a digital word? - 36.36
Respect, interaction and communication
Connect back and treat them as a real human being/ actual relationship
Send them useful content, not just marketing and comms. Free gifts
Data and Tech Prompting the need for Human Touch
Prediction for technology and human in the future - 43.59
We will keep moving forward with digital transformation and automation, but we will realise we went too fast
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