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:
In This Episode:
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phone call or an email and knowing that at the other end of that email or that
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chat there really is a person there there should always be a way to get to a
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human being what is one thing that you wish every leader understood about
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customer experience and what does that really say about their uh leadership style the customer
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experience comes down to 73% of customers say experience is a key
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factor in purchasing decisions just behind price and product quality at the heart of every great business is not
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just a great product but a feeling you give your customers because how you make your customers feel is what they're
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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
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past three decades joining me today is Van Battle a veteran customer experience leader who shaped teams and strategies
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at brands like Jamba Juice and Urban Remedy van's going to be sharing with me his thoughts on the real difference
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between customer service and customer experience how to turn your support team into your company's most strategic asset
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what most companies are getting wrong when using AI and customer experience and what leaders must do to build a
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culture of ownership and trust so you lead with a mission of stewardship what does that actually look like when it
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comes to team customer and culture i I think it it's a having an obligation to
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be representative of those of the team members uh be representative of the
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customer of your environment and having that as at the
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forefront of what what I'm doing or what my what my goal is is um it's I guess
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it's of being being of service to those things that I guess that's the word being of service to the different parts
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of your organization and to the people that are in your your community Where
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did you learn that mindset or that approach is that just something that you've always been like that way or has
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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
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starts you know way back my first job was I was working in restaurants waiter
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bus boy barback um was got into management was convinced
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to go into management so doing that and working just watching people watching
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how the community work together and some of the challenges in a restaurant where
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you have all these different roles you know that have their different priorities i look at the weight staff
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has theirs bus boys have theirs the host is like I need that table I need this I
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need that waiter is you know I need waters on these tables let's go bus
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person saying "I got 12 I have 12 tables coming up here you got the kitchen
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busting at people come pick up your food come pick up your food." Um and so I I
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learned that you have all these types of people coming together with the goal of
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satisfying that customer um and I think that's where it started and just
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watching that interplay between each group within the restaurant watching the
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interplay between the manager and the team members and how important that
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relationship was to make it all work and I think that's that was the the seed as
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I went from restaurants to working in customer service on the phones to being a
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supervisor to going to different organizations
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um managing teams managing ecommerce teams
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um and then just trying to find my role in that situation so would you say then
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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
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then that that had a big impact on helping shape how you thought about emp empathy in the workplace uh oh
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definitely um and again I I was a bus boy starting out um and it was you know I always felt
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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
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appreciation all right here's your 15% tips um but I also knew that it was the
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bus people that sort of made that restaurant go they were the ones that
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clean the tables they were the one that picked up the empty food plates from the table they were the one that the
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customer saw more often than anybody else in that restaurant um so that
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that's where I think that empathy of don't forget that frontline person don't
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for because that's the person that's touching the customer don't forget that telephone customer service rep that
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every day is taking you know 25 50 75 phone calls a day and getting you know
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busted most of the time um don't forget that person and
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appreciate that person because they're getting the information so yeah that that's that's where it started from of
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that frontline worker that's right in front of the customer the most i feel
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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
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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
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experience was like and it was helped you really relate with uh your other team members i mean I do that in the
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restaurants i've done that in customer service now um with my teams where at
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you know I was at Urban Remedy um managing customer service there i was at
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Jamba Juice managing customer service there and in both places
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uh at Jamba I would give my customer service reps like a a free smoothie card
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and say you know go into one of our stores they don't know you um and buy a
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smoothie and just experience what a rep what a customer would see were they
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friendly was the smoothie full um and just sort of mark off those that
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criteria the same with Urban Remedy I would ask my team members I'd say "All
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right here's a promo code once a month go place an order B to C get that order
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shipped to you open it up what does it look like are the salads open did you
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are you missing the product?" And so there's that that empathy where
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they can say when they get that phone call "Yeah I I can I know that happens." And
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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
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where they meet the customer it from that from that standpoint so Van how
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would you differentiate customer service from
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customer experience the the customer service is more um in my mind
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transactional it's that I have a problem can you tell me this where's my order um
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it's that that one time thing um the customer experience is more um how you
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made the customer feel it's the Maya Angelou line about they'll forget what
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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
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is what the customer experience is how did you make those customers feel and I
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think it's that bridge between here's my problem this went
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wrong fix it and the bridge to customer experience is how did you fix that
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problem how did you approach the person coming to you and that's the customer
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experience that stays with them and I think it comes full circle where if it's
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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
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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
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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
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and let's you know drill down into maybe the two or three things that are really driving
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um the key drivers for that for those for the customer and let's focus on
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those and let's work with our internal business partners to try to
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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
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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
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when we when we spoke before you know off camera you were kind of talking about how you were able to turn your
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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
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um but I I I think again going back to Bush Boys and customer service it's
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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
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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
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um to know what what the customers are asking for um at Jamba it was you know
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friendliness it was you know how quickly the order was made and it's knowing what
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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
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digestible way they they don't have time for a 30page report it's
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Ben give me two sentences and give me two things I need to work on and and
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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
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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
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you start building that team you you will see the different individuals and
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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
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again with music base you have the rookies you have the whistle veterans
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and you have them work together as a team and some are going to be there i
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just want both i just need you this where others are here to do the two
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three four and five things and they're going to want that challenge they're going to be wanting to build a career
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that builds it through so as a new leader or maybe just any leader how how
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do you identify the difference between somebody who maybe want more challenges
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or those who are just kind of fine where they're at over time you start to identify and you have those communicate
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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
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stagnant um but it's part of that conversation of offering training
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offering other opportunities i mean at um Jamba Juice I
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mean I had my whole I called it my minor league program where I would you know
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tell people when they came into the department you're not going to make a lot more money in this department than
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what you're making right now you might get another quarter raise or whatever but I'll give you 10% of your time 4
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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
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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
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very very well for us in that over like a four-year period we had you know I
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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
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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
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ended up going to work in supply chain international supply chain and we did
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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
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mean I did that at way back when at Sharper Image when I worked there i took
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courses at Learn It or I think like um Pro MS Project or Excel or some other
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projects like that so it's giving people those tools and seeing are they are they
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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
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promoted into other positions outside of your department and I think what's so great about that is even though maybe
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they only received a 25 cent raise you as a leader put 10% of their
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time aside to give them learning opportunities okay sure great that's awesome about learn it but also learning
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and exploring in other departments i think there's a lot of leaders out there Van who wouldn't do
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that because they're going to be losing their top employees into these other departments which gets them out of their
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comfort zone and it's putting themselves first and really what you're doing is
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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
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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
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back as far as accommodations or customer service than it is to push them
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out and I would tell my team members you know what you know I'm more
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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
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customers you know what or my rep if if you don't give that to the customer
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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
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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
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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
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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
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customer wants to ship this package you know two-day air instead of 7-day ground
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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
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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
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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