155: How to Build Customer-Obsessed Cultures (That Don’t Burn Out Your Team) | Van Battle

Release Date: 

April 30, 2025

Release Date: Apr 17

“73% of customers say experience is a key factor in their purchasing decisions just behind price and product quality,” according to a report from PwC.

Customer experience is no longer just a support function of your business... it’s a leadership strategy.

In this episode, we’re joined by Van Battle, a seasoned customer experience leader who has first hand experience on how it can improve a company’s success based on his career working with brands like Jamba Juice, Urban Remedy, and The Sharper Image.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The real difference between customer service and customer experience
  • How to turn your support team into your company’s most strategic asset
  • Why empathy is a leadership skill
  • How “minor league” development programs can retain top talent
  • What most companies get wrong when using AI in customer experience
  • How to empower reps to resolve issues without escalating every time
  • What leaders must do to instill a culture of ownership

In This Episode:

  • 00:16 – Leading through stewardship: what it looks like
  • 01:09 – Lessons from the restaurant world: empathy starts on the frontlines
  • 03:26 – The invisible value of busboys and call center reps
  • 05:18 – Why Van sends reps into stores and orders their own products
  • 06:58 – Customer service vs. customer experience
  • 08:46 – Anticipating issues before they happen
  • 10:23 – Turning reps into “insight engines”
  • 12:32 – Avoiding burnout: how to distribute workload fairly
  • 13:40 – Baseball, development, and team balance
  • 14:57 – The “minor league program” for career growth
  • 17:11 – Upskilling with Learnit: real examples that worked
  • 19:03 – Creating a culture of learning and mobility
  • 20:04 – Training teams to own the resolution
  • 22:45 – Building confidence through empowerment
  • 23:39 – When the customer isn’t right—and how to respond
  • 25:22 – Tracking patterns to prevent abuse
  • 26:52 – Balancing trust between customer and employee
  • 29:36 – How to turn customer data into internal action
  • 32:01 – Getting specific: “friendly” means what exactly?
  • 33:18 – How customer expectations have evolved
  • 35:52 – Humanizing digital experiences in a tech-first world
  • 37:49 – What Southwest’s shift says about customer loyalty
  • 39:14 – What AI should never replace
  • 41:04 – Will AI replace frontline workers?
  • 42:47 – Van’s biggest leadership lesson about customer experience

Resources Referenced:

Want to Learn More?:  

  • For more episodes on personal growth and success stories, subscribe to “The Learn-It-All Podcast.”
  • Share this episode to motivate others.
  • Visit learnit.com for additional resources and learning opportunities.

Podcast Contact Information:  

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0:05

phone call or an email and knowing that at the other end of that email or that

0:11

chat there really is a person there there should always be a way to get to a

0:16

human being what is one thing that you wish every leader understood about

0:22

customer experience and what does that really say about their uh leadership style the customer

0:28

experience comes down to 73% of customers say experience is a key

0:35

factor in purchasing decisions just behind price and product quality at the heart of every great business is not

0:42

just a great product but a feeling you give your customers because how you make your customers feel is what they're

0:48

going to remember welcome to the Learn It All Podcast the show for today's leaders who want to get ahead and stay

0:54

ahead because we believe great leaders aren't born or made we're always in the making i'm your host Damon Ley two-time

1:00

best-selling author and CEO of Learn It a live learning platform that has helped upskill over 2 million people over the

1:07

past three decades joining me today is Van Battle a veteran customer experience leader who shaped teams and strategies

1:14

at brands like Jamba Juice and Urban Remedy van's going to be sharing with me his thoughts on the real difference

1:19

between customer service and customer experience how to turn your support team into your company's most strategic asset

1:26

what most companies are getting wrong when using AI and customer experience and what leaders must do to build a

1:31

culture of ownership and trust so you lead with a mission of stewardship what does that actually look like when it

1:38

comes to team customer and culture i I think it it's a having an obligation to

1:44

be representative of those of the team members uh be representative of the

1:52

customer of your environment and having that as at the

1:58

forefront of what what I'm doing or what my what my goal is is um it's I guess

2:06

it's of being being of service to those things that I guess that's the word being of service to the different parts

2:13

of your organization and to the people that are in your your community Where

2:19

did you learn that mindset or that approach is that just something that you've always been like that way or has

2:24

it been something that you've learned and evolved over time um I I think it's been part of my my journey um I think it

2:33

starts you know way back my first job was I was working in restaurants waiter

2:40

bus boy barback um was got into management was convinced

2:46

to go into management so doing that and working just watching people watching

2:52

how the community work together and some of the challenges in a restaurant where

2:57

you have all these different roles you know that have their different priorities i look at the weight staff

3:05

has theirs bus boys have theirs the host is like I need that table I need this I

3:12

need that waiter is you know I need waters on these tables let's go bus

3:17

person saying "I got 12 I have 12 tables coming up here you got the kitchen

3:23

busting at people come pick up your food come pick up your food." Um and so I I

3:29

learned that you have all these types of people coming together with the goal of

3:35

satisfying that customer um and I think that's where it started and just

3:42

watching that interplay between each group within the restaurant watching the

3:48

interplay between the manager and the team members and how important that

3:56

relationship was to make it all work and I think that's that was the the seed as

4:04

I went from restaurants to working in customer service on the phones to being a

4:11

supervisor to going to different organizations

4:17

um managing teams managing ecommerce teams

4:22

um and then just trying to find my role in that situation so would you say then

4:29

I'm hearing you uh going back to the restaurants you know you have the weight staff you have the management you have the people at the front would you say

4:36

then that that had a big impact on helping shape how you thought about emp empathy in the workplace uh oh

4:43

definitely um and again I I was a bus boy starting out um and it was you know I always felt

4:50

that maybe the best people were the low people in the totem pole it was get me

4:57

this get me that get me this very rarely was did I hear thank you um or see the

5:04

appreciation all right here's your 15% tips um but I also knew that it was the

5:12

bus people that sort of made that restaurant go they were the ones that

5:18

clean the tables they were the one that picked up the empty food plates from the table they were the one that the

5:24

customer saw more often than anybody else in that restaurant um so that

5:30

that's where I think that empathy of don't forget that frontline person don't

5:36

for because that's the person that's touching the customer don't forget that telephone customer service rep that

5:43

every day is taking you know 25 50 75 phone calls a day and getting you know

5:51

busted most of the time um don't forget that person and

5:56

appreciate that person because they're getting the information so yeah that that's that's where it started from of

6:03

that frontline worker that's right in front of the customer the most i feel

6:08

like it had a big impact on me really with my journey as well you know I started off as a receptionist at Learn

6:13

It i taught some classes did sales and I moved into a leadership role and doing

6:20

all of those uh pieces of the of of the job really helped put me in other people's shoes to see what what their

6:26

experience was like and it was helped you really relate with uh your other team members i mean I do that in the

6:34

restaurants i've done that in customer service now um with my teams where at

6:41

you know I was at Urban Remedy um managing customer service there i was at

6:47

Jamba Juice managing customer service there and in both places

6:52

uh at Jamba I would give my customer service reps like a a free smoothie card

6:59

and say you know go into one of our stores they don't know you um and buy a

7:04

smoothie and just experience what a rep what a customer would see were they

7:10

friendly was the smoothie full um and just sort of mark off those that

7:17

criteria the same with Urban Remedy I would ask my team members I'd say "All

7:23

right here's a promo code once a month go place an order B to C get that order

7:30

shipped to you open it up what does it look like are the salads open did you

7:36

are you missing the product?" And so there's that that empathy where

7:41

they can say when they get that phone call "Yeah I I can I know that happens." And

7:49

their their first instinct isn't you're trying to rip us off it's more okay i I can understand that happening and that's

7:56

where they meet the customer it from that from that standpoint so Van how

8:01

would you differentiate customer service from

8:07

customer experience the the customer service is more um in my mind

8:14

transactional it's that I have a problem can you tell me this where's my order um

8:21

it's that that one time thing um the customer experience is more um how you

8:29

made the customer feel it's the Maya Angelou line about they'll forget what

8:35

you said they'll forget what you did for them but they're not going to forget how you made them feel and that in my mind

8:43

is what the customer experience is how did you make those customers feel and I

8:49

think it's that bridge between here's my problem this went

8:54

wrong fix it and the bridge to customer experience is how did you fix that

9:01

problem how did you approach the person coming to you and that's the customer

9:07

experience that stays with them and I think it comes full circle where if it's

9:13

a good experience for the customer when they call you they may they'll probably

9:19

come at you like "All right they get on the phone they're going to take care of me i don't need to sit there and yell

9:24

and scream i know it's going to be a positive experience and they're going to they're going to help me." So I think it

9:31

is circular but it's one's transactional one-time thing one is how

9:38

that customer service rep took care of you and made you feel about resolving your issues and do you also think that

9:45

customer service is a little bit more reactive and customer experience you want to kind of get ahead of it and

9:51

maybe even anticipate what could go wrong uh yes it it is reactive and the

9:56

getting ahead of it is those are that the data it's all right we got all this feedback these are

10:04

the issues that came in and so now we take that you know 10,000 data points

10:10

and let's you know drill down into maybe the two or three things that are really driving

10:16

um the key drivers for that for those for the customer and let's focus on

10:22

those and let's work with our internal business partners to try to

10:29

solve those two or three key drivers and what those key drivers are um so so it

10:36

is taking that data taking those phone calls those emails those social media

10:42

post and saying these are the common threads this is what people are really

10:48

care about these are the important things in our for our business to retain

10:55

those customers and keep them coming back and I want to just kind of restate what I said when I said always looking for challenges or issues it's also

11:02

looking about the obviously the p the most you know great experiences that

11:07

people have that you want to look so you can strive and and hit towards those now

11:13

when we when we spoke before you know off camera you were kind of talking about how you were able to turn your

11:18

customer service team into really like insight engines what does that really look like to be able to embed you know

11:25

the voice of the customer into a company's DNA there there's you can I think you can do it a few different ways

11:31

um but I I I think again going back to Bush Boys and customer service it's

11:38

it comes down to that individual the one that's really working with the customer

11:44

face to face or on the phone or via email and it's getting them to have the

11:53

conversation with the the team with the customer and then being able to take

11:58

that information and then getting it to your your business partners to

12:06

um to know what what the customers are asking for um at Jamba it was you know

12:15

friendliness it was you know how quickly the order was made and it's knowing what

12:21

those key drivers are to really drive the customer

12:27

satisfaction at um urban remedy it was finding those departments

12:33

it was shipping which was a a big issue and it was QA and it's getting that data

12:40

data together and working with those two departments knowing that they're the ones that are driving the biggest

12:47

drivers for customer satisfaction and getting them that information um in a

12:53

digestible way they they don't have time for a 30page report it's

13:01

Ben give me two sentences and give me two things I need to work on and and

13:07

working with them um allows the customer service team the reps to be a powerful

13:14

engine inside the company now let me ask you this because a lot of times we're talking about frontline workers do you

13:22

think that there's a risk of asking too much of your customer service team you know you're expecting them to deliver

13:28

insights retain customers solve problems how do you avoid overloading them once

13:34

you start building that team you you will see the different individuals and

13:39

they may have some may be set this is what they can do this is their threshold

13:46

where others are going to be challen they want to be challenged man I want to do this what else what else what else do

13:53

you have for me and when you have that team like that you can rely upon the

14:00

different individuals and I look at it we thought about this before it's baseball um and

14:08

again with music base you have the rookies you have the whistle veterans

14:15

and you have them work together as a team and some are going to be there i

14:20

just want both i just need you this where others are here to do the two

14:26

three four and five things and they're going to want that challenge they're going to be wanting to build a career

14:32

that builds it through so as a new leader or maybe just any leader how how

14:39

do you identify the difference between somebody who maybe want more challenges

14:44

or those who are just kind of fine where they're at over time you start to identify and you have those communicate

14:51

conversations with teams and you can tell some that are going to be like van

14:58

some of them going to be very aggressive van what else do you have what else do you have um and you see them getting

15:04

stagnant um but it's part of that conversation of offering training

15:11

offering other opportunities i mean at um Jamba Juice I

15:18

mean I had my whole I called it my minor league program where I would you know

15:24

tell people when they came into the department you're not going to make a lot more money in this department than

15:30

what you're making right now you might get another quarter raise or whatever but I'll give you 10% of your time 4

15:38

hours a week two hours a week and if there's a different department that you're interested in I'll make

15:44

introductions you go there you work for maybe a month four hours a week for a

15:50

month a set amount of time and if you like it maybe somewhere down the line if

15:56

there's an opening you can move to that department um and that that worked out

16:02

very very well for us in that over like a four-year period we had you know I

16:09

think 18 people from my team a team of like six seven eight people that went to

16:15

different departments throughout the company um and again

16:20

that's patting it on the back that's how I came to learn it is that we would have

16:28

team members that would go to finance or accounts payable and one guy went there

16:35

was there for a month came back he said "Ban I like accounts payable that'd be a good work in I spoke to the manager."

16:43

She said "Ban he's he's a nice guy he's earnest but he doesn't have the skill

16:49

set he's taking him 10 keystrokes to do what he should be able to do in Excel in

16:55

you know two or three and so we sent him to learn it for you know a couple of

17:01

Excel classes he came back and he was this rock star of an Excel guru and he

17:08

ended up going to work in supply chain international supply chain and we did

17:14

that with a few different people we did that with the woman that went to work in our creative department she went and

17:21

took like Photoshop and a few other um photo manipulation courses at Learn It i

17:27

mean I did that at way back when at Sharper Image when I worked there i took

17:32

courses at Learn It or I think like um Pro MS Project or Excel or some other

17:39

projects like that so it's giving people those tools and seeing are they are they

17:45

going to take it um and if you open the door for folks I I think they're going

17:50

to start running towards that door and be great for it and what I like about what you're saying is so you're saying

17:56

to recap that you you had probably 18 different employees at Jamu who got

18:01

promoted into other positions outside of your department and I think what's so great about that is even though maybe

18:08

they only received a 25 cent raise you as a leader put 10% of their

18:15

time aside to give them learning opportunities okay sure great that's awesome about learn it but also learning

18:22

and exploring in other departments i think there's a lot of leaders out there Van who wouldn't do

18:28

that because they're going to be losing their top employees into these other departments which gets them out of their

18:34

comfort zone and it's putting themselves first and really what you're doing is

18:40

you are uh listeners what what Van's doing is he's being a people first leader so it's not about him you're

18:46

making it about everybody else i also had ulterior motives because in my mind

18:52

I have these folks that were in my customer service department working and then they go to a different department

18:59

and I know and it may only last for six months or a year that they're still

19:05

going to have that customer service mindset and if they're in a marketing meeting in marketing saying we're going

19:11

to do this we're going to do this we're going to do this someone in that room going to say yeah but when you do that

19:17

this is what the customer says and on that email you send out you really do need to

19:23

have only in these stores in in the small print and so it it is you know

19:30

doing good for my team members but it's also instilling that customer service

19:36

mindset throughout the company and I I think that's that's what I got out of it

19:42

um for companywide um engagement through the process this when I think of the

19:48

customer service or customer experience mindset is getting your team training

19:54

them to learn how to own the resolution what's been your experience over time and maybe you can share a story about

20:00

how you can get people to take ownership and see something through without always

how you can get people to take ownership and see something through without always

20:05

having to go back to management for help i I think it's easier to pull somebody

20:12

back as far as accommodations or customer service than it is to push them

20:17

out and I would tell my team members you know what you know I'm more

20:25

likely to come to you and say you maybe can offer them more you maybe should

20:31

offer them this instead of saying you gave them too much um I would tell

20:37

customers you know what or my rep if if you don't give that to the customer

20:42

they're going to come to me let me talk to your manager and if for some reason I say no they're going to go over my head

20:49

they're going to go to the vice president or the CEO or whatever and I just I said "Well you know what there's

20:56

your salary then there's you know 20 minutes of my time then there's 20

21:02

minutes of my boss's time then there's 20 minutes of the CEO's

21:08

time and that the money gets higher as you go up that at that chain of command

21:14

and in the end the CEO is going to come back to me and say "Ban can you take care of this?" Um and so I'm telling

21:21

them go ahead and do it go ahead and do it you're not going to get in trouble

21:27

for giving them too much you're going to make it easier on

21:33

yourself because if you fight with if you're fighting with that customer on the phone for 5 10 minutes you're going

21:39

to hang up the phone and you're going to still be bent out of shape from that last phone call another phone call comes

21:46

in the next phone call comes in you're going to be like "Okay now what?" Um and

21:52

you're going you're going to have that mindset for the next customer that comes in

21:57

so own it again i'm going to say yes then can I do this yes then this

22:05

customer wants to ship this package you know two-day air instead of 7-day ground

22:13

can I do that as an accommodation to them and not charge them yes you can and

22:18

again that builds confidence in that team member to own it and that builds

22:23

that customer experience from the customer's perspective of yeah these

22:28

guys are taking care of me they're going to they're going to make mistakes every now and then but I know they're going to

22:35

take care of me and that just makes that relationship between the company and the

22:42

customer healthier and I I I try to impress that upon the team member that

22:48

that's our goal is customer satisfaction but let me ask you this you know there's

22:53

the old saying the customer is always right that's not always true do you think that there's ever times where

23:00

you're leading a team and the customer is taking advantage a and the the

23:05

customer service rep should be giving them polite push back instead of just

23:11

you know saying yes yes yes all the time i don't again I don't think the customer is always right but I think it's rare

23:18

that the customer is trying to actively rip us off um I I think out of a hundred

23:26

times it might be five times less than that that they're saying you know I'm

23:32

going to call up and we're going to take advantage of these people they may just think you know I'm not happy with the

23:38

way this went so um let's talk about this but there are times there have been

23:45

times where they talk to the rep we say "No this just isn't it." And it may come

23:51

down to um you know what we may not be the c the company for you um and again I

23:59

I think I've only done that in my career maybe five times if that many times

24:04

where you're actually on the phone saying "You know what um we may not be the best um experience

24:14

for you and you may need to go somewhere else um and so but that that that's a

24:20

conversation we have up and down the line in the company they just say give and no just say no some sometimes it is

24:28

just say no sometimes you just send those people to your competitors go take classes from these guys and it's like

24:34

drop right you said it like go let them go blow up their organization you know as far as disruption when it comes to it

24:41

um and if you have if you have a good tracking system you can tell the

24:48

customers just like you can tell the customers that come and order every week or every month light medium and heavy

24:55

users um you also can tell the customers and we had it at Jamba Juice they call

25:02

in they're going to complain about something they're going to send them a pre- smoothie card they're going to you

25:09

know use that free smoothie card they're going to call again i had another bad experience you know what we set this

25:17

address you know five free smoothie cards in two months and then we can

25:23

track in our system that says "Well this free smoothie card was used on this purchase which was this person and it

25:30

goes back and back and back." So with the right system you can track people who abuse your generosity your the

25:39

kindness of strangers one question I was thinking about in my mind is okay you're

25:44

a leader let's say you're a leader you have a customer service rep who's got one perception of a of a story and you

25:52

have a customer who thinks the exact opposite of what's going on you know they're how do you balance between uh

25:59

having the back of your employee and also trying to balance it with satisfying the customer i mean I I

26:06

that's going to be that that process of maybe in instilling confidence

26:13

um with that team member where if it's you know we've had a very good

26:19

relationship we're having open conversations you know throughout their stay in the department um is this an

26:25

aberration um and is it all right this customer you know may maybe they did

26:32

have the wrong tone maybe they are asking for something too much um but

26:40

again in my mind if it gets to us it's probably an issue whether it's at a

26:47

store or at an order but is it possible

26:53

that the customer their tone was wrong but they're right about the issue

27:00

and is it the issue or is it that customer's tone that's setting that rip off and if it's if it's the

27:09

tone that's right are they having a bad day um or or do they come at you in a

27:15

way that's derogatory and if that's it then maybe I'm going to have the co

27:21

conversation with the customer and I'll be honest well you know this is how the

27:27

rep heard you say that well I I said that but I was pissed off at that okay

27:33

but this is this is the reality of it and I'll sit in there between them um to

27:39

try to resolve it but then I'll go back to the rep and say again you know you're not wrong in how

27:45

you feel but this is how I think we're going to do this but we're going to we

27:51

know who that customer is to see if it's something that happens frequently but

27:56

but that that can be a challenge it can be a challenge and um it just kind of

28:02

reminds me of you know if I look at 20 reviews from a class and 17 18 are

28:08

fantastic and two are poor you can't just jump to the the

28:13

teacher to do well didn't do a good job in the class you know it could have been these people were having a bad day or

28:18

maybe they just didn't connect and you have to kind of balance it because you want to take care of your customer but

28:23

you you want to have the backs of your people because if you don't I think it erodess trust if people feel like that

28:30

they're their leader is not going to have their back in a situation like that let's talk a little bit about you're

28:35

really big on tracking and data how does data play into the overall leading of a

28:43

customer service customer experience team and benefiting both the organization and the customer there

28:50

there's all this data that's coming in and you know the the telephone reps

28:56

checking emails I mean they they they have this stuff in their heads they they know it um they know I think if you ask

29:04

a a frontline rep if you do 10 phone calls how many will be this this and

29:10

this and they can probably tell you those numbers bam without looking at the

29:15

num without looking at specific charts because they they hear it all the time

29:21

um but getting that from them in a digestible form to the department

29:30

uh that's the challenge because you can have I can put it together a chart that

29:35

shows the top 10 issues for the company and how often it happens and the cost of

29:41

it um but you have 20 departments in the

29:47

company and they they don't want to see all that they want to know what what's what does this mean to

29:54

me and that's what I think I've been very good at is pinpointing those

30:01

departments that um are most affected by the data and working with them to say

30:09

well this is some data I have and they'll say okay that's interesting that's interesting and then over time

30:16

they start to come back at me okay but you told me this can you tell me this or

30:22

what does this mean can you drill a little deeper in these things and it's setting up

30:28

those relationships where it's not just shipping all right we're having shipping

30:34

issues okay then what does that mean well it's fulfillment we're missing

30:40

products uh we're out of stock on items packaging is not done well with the

30:45

boxes um retail stores customers are unhappy with their

30:51

instore experience well then what does that mean it means that people aren't friendly they're not being greeted

30:57

they're not being given samples so it's breaking it down into you know

31:04

digestible bits of information that can be passed along to the that frontline

31:10

rep in the stores or in shipping um at at Jamba Juice it was initially it

31:19

was feedback was customers our team members weren't friendly and so we said you have to be

31:25

friendlier and so then in the stores people were just joking around and having a good time behind the counters

31:33

and said no that's not what customer meant by friendly they meant when they walked into the store were they greeted

31:41

um when they were handed their juice did they say when we said thank you and call them by their name it's those type of

31:48

things were they suggestive we sold South so it's it's not just friendly

31:54

it's what does that mean not that that's this what does this mean that's actionable for that department you've

32:02

been in customerf facing roles for for decades now how have you seen the

32:08

customer experience evolve over these decades and and do Do you think it's changed for the better or the worst as

32:14

far as what a customers are expecting from the um companies that they're purchasing from i still think it comes

32:21

down to if I place an order if I'm coming to you for some sort of

32:27

service I want good service and it may that may change a little bit

32:34

what that means in terms of how how I'm going to give it to you whether it's you

32:41

know AI there's more phone trees now um

32:46

there's more options on the menu um there's more way to order your food

32:52

now before was you walk into a restaurant you sit down you came in you place something order now I can order

32:58

ahead now I can order you know 8 o'clock in the morning say "I want to come pick it up at 5:00 in the afternoon." So

33:06

there's more ways to get to that service but I I still think it comes

33:12

down to how you treat that individual and how they receive that service and

33:21

you know things can get in the way a little bit of that but I I don't think we can forget that basic tenant of

33:29

there's the customer there's the company and there in most cases they're a oneto-one relationship where they're

33:36

dealing with a person at some level and that has to be at the core of how you

33:43

deal with um your product your service and your company on one hand you have

33:50

Amazon for instance Amazon which makes the the buying experience very easy trust me I know there's packages at my

33:57

house every day very easy then on the other hand we were talking about this

34:03

beforehand you want to book a hotel room for $1,000 a night at a five-star hotel

34:09

you got to go through a phone tree and hit five six different numbers before you actually get a hold of somebody

34:16

and and I just feel like I want to hear what you have to say about this i just feel like that if you can go back to

34:21

humanizing customer experience in a lot of ways or making it very easy and

34:27

taking out some of the roadblocks that can really just set you ahead i mean if I if I'm booking a hotel

34:34

I mean I'm I'm going to go I know the sites I'm going to go to um airline tickets i know the sites I'm going to go

34:40

to cuz I I guess I know how to get where I want to go the fastest um but I'm I'm

34:48

also going to pay attention to how easy was it for me to book that that hotel

34:55

how many pages did I have to go through to get to it um was it two clicks or was

35:01

it three clicks when I read reviews um were the reviews upfront and then when I

35:09

got to that hotel did did the pictures on the website match the experience and if they

35:18

were too far apart from Yeah okay that's and I don't mean this in a bad

35:23

way that's that's marketing that that's just marketing and that's not the truth

35:28

of the matter um but but again when I get to that

35:34

hotel when I get to that airline it's going to be that experience with that individual and if going through the

35:41

website was a challenge but I get to that hotel and it's a good hotel the

35:46

people are friendly I'm going to come back to them because I know I jumped

35:52

through some hoops but that's a good hotel the people are friendly that airline there's going to be a delay but

35:58

the people that treated me treated me well and they talked to me and not and not at me speaking of airlines and I

36:05

don't know if you've seen this yet but uh Southwest which used to have the best customer service I think they just

36:12

announced yesterday that they're stripping out all of the customer service friendly things that they did

36:20

for all these years um you know what do you think about that how how are they

36:25

going to be able to go from here i mean I I just read that I think starting in

36:31

May there will be no more free booking or free

36:38

um luggage checks um they they stopped the way that you board planes that's

36:44

that's changing now um and I'm sure there's going to be some push off or

36:50

push back from that but they're going to be like everybody else um Exactly this

36:57

would be there and will there be another differentiator in there um I mean

37:03

JetBlue years ago they had they were sort of like the the beautiful child and that's the fly jet blue fly JetBlue and

37:12

they've taken a step back I believe as they're it's not the same they're like

37:17

the same as everybody else now so what's going to be the differentiator between the different airlines that that'll be

37:24

the question that comes up exactly i at lunch today I was talk speak talking to one of my friends and they said just

37:29

that Southwest is just going to be like everybody else um and I wonder what their game plan's going to be you know

37:36

we talked a little bit about AI is there anything when it comes to AI because

37:41

that's the buzz around everything HR learning and development and even

37:46

customer experience is there anything specific do you think that we should not

37:52

definitely not hand off to AI when it comes to customer experience i I I think there there should always be a way um to

38:02

get to a human being and there should be fewer roadblocks to get to that human

38:11

being whether it's chat or a phone call that it shouldn't take you operator

38:18

operator operator operator to get to a human being um you know I've been with

38:26

internet um supplier yesterday and I'm hitting it oh this is

38:34

chat G yeah this is it oh like no no give me a real person give me a real

38:39

person let me chat to somebody um so I think AI can give you

38:46

information and then you can massage that AI into putting it for that

38:52

individual request but at some point I would be able to get to a live human

38:59

being without going through 30 clicks on my computer and yelling operator or

39:06

hitting no no um yeah that that's that's the challenge

39:12

of AI we're we're maybe using it for too much and not massaging it enough per

39:20

industry now a lot of people think that AI will eventually replace most frontline and

39:28

service roles do you think that's fear-mongering or is that something you that you envision could really happen in

39:34

the next decade or so i I think again it'll get better and better and as

39:41

technology builds we when you call some if you call an 800 number they probably

39:47

know who you are um but by your phone number they should

39:52

know by your phone number who you are they could probably tell right there and then what you've ordered um what your

40:01

past feedback has been they probably know all of that and so I think AI can take all that and deal with you

past feedback has been they probably know all of that and so I think AI can take all that and deal with you

40:10

um on a one-toone basis up to a point but again at some point I'm going to

40:18

want to know all right now why is this and how can I get this done and why did

40:25

my hotel reservation get cancelled um and that's you're you're going to need

40:31

human interaction and I I would imagine we're going to swing the pendulum too

40:36

far this way to AI and then we're going to start coming back and and we'll find

40:43

that that that right spot where everything's working um communally and

40:49

working the way it should um but yeah I I think we will swing this way too far

40:55

and then we'll come back um where it's at that point that's working for everybody van we're kind of coming up on

41:01

time here and I really enjoy our conversation what is one thing that you wish every leader understood about

41:09

customer experience and what does that really say about their uh leadership style the customer

41:14

experience comes down to the human interaction

41:20

um technology plays a role in it but I think it comes down to human

41:26

interaction and that's here's my issue here's the

41:31

company how do we get those two things together with all the technology um yeah

41:38

I I think we shouldn't forget the importance of people the importance of

41:44

getting on a phone call or an email and knowing that at the other end of that

41:50

email or that chat there really is a person there um typing back at me versus

41:57

here's a template here's another template here's another template so that's what I would hope leaders

42:05

understand is that it comes down to people talking to people to resolve

42:11

issues to build that experience um they're going to forget what you did

42:18

they're going to forget what you said but they're not going to forget how you made them feel and that's the customer

42:25

experience part of it that I hope leaders don't forget whether it's the customer or your team members they're

42:32

gonna they're going to remember how you made them feel no that's great i mean Van Van you've been awesome um just to

42:39

go back and what we talked about is we talked about the difference between customer experience and uh customer

42:45

service and how customer experience can really be a leadership strategy just not a support function uh we talked about

42:52

how important your frontline team is you know how that a lot of ideas bubble up from them and it's important to use and

43:01

learn and use the data that you have and most of all I think it's about being

43:06

human and keeping in mind that it's not really what you're selling or what

43:11

you're doing but how you make people feel that's what they're going to remember at the end of the day that that that is it again

43:18

there's 30,000 smoothie shops in the world there's all these different healthy options things around the world

43:25

that you can you can take advantage of but it's when you think of that company

43:30

how does it make you feel um and that's that's going to be a

43:36

differentiator it's going to take you from Southwest to JetBlue to other airlines how do they make you feel when

43:43

you're interacting with them thank you Van where can our audience connect with you at uh LinkedIn Van Battle um I'm

43:52

there um feel free to drop by drop me a note connect with me i'd love to have

43:58

conversations with people about this well thanks for coming on today i always enjoy our conversations and it's been

44:05

great getting to know you so thank you Van and for our audience do me a favor if you haven't already rate and

44:10

review Learn It the Learn It All podcast on your favorite podcast channel really helps get our message out and if you

44:17

know somebody who's in a customer experience role or let's say that they're in a leadership role that

44:22

oversees a customer experience team and they could get value out of this conversation do me a favor send it to

44:28

them i think Van's got some great tips in here today and until next time everybody stay curious keep learning and

44:35

have a great day see you here's the deal i'm finding fewer people today want to

44:40

be champions than ever because they're afraid of being on the wrong side of the decision

44:46

yeah they

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