Zach Blank is an entrepreneur, experience designer and technologist based in Portland, Oregon. As the CEO of Straightaway, Zach leads creative teams to think that the most inspired results are inevitable when design and technology conflict.
Zack has spent his career with product and experience designers, strategists, engineers, and creatives. Through these relationships, he has inspired and been inspired to push forward leading technology innovations.
Questions
Highlights
Zach’s Journey
Zach shared that like most entrepreneurs, his journey is a roller coaster and full of weird strange turns. And he likes to start back when he was in elementary school. He’s fond of the story of selling beaded necklaces and little things like that in front of his elementary school when he was in maybe the fourth or fifth grade. And that's when it all began. And obviously when you’re eight, nine years old, there's not much planning to what you're doing there. But the bug, what he was realizing was pretty intense.
And that stayed with him, he was always kind of on that hustle. It wasn't necessarily a motivation to make money; it was more maybe better described as a motivation to get reactions out of people. He was a one of those kids who acted out in class and he thrived the reaction from people and so to make something and build something and see people want to pay for that, he got a thrill out of that and a lot of pride.
So, that carried with him until now. A couple other key milestones were building an eCommerce, that was the first eCommerce rock climbing site back in the late 90s he thinks it was called Rock Air. And that was selling rock climbing equipment to rock climbing enthusiasts; he was a competitive rock climber at the time. And that was really spurred on by his dad, who was also an entrepreneur saying, “Hey, there's this thing, the internet that seems to be doing really well. And you seem to know a lot about rock climbing, there's nothing out there, let's do something.”
And that was the first real foray into it beyond the bead endeavour. And then fast forward to today, he runs a company called Straightaway that is really disrupting the logistics industry in a way that nobody else is really paying much attention to and he’s excited to explain a little bit more what he means about that.
What is Straightaway?
Zach stated that today Straightaway is a native iOS and Android application to help delivery drivers primarily be as effective and efficient with their routes. Imagine the Amazon or UPS, USPS, DHL, all of those really big carrier drivers; those people are doing up to 200 sometimes more stops a day. And first of all, that's really hard. It's hard to imagine, think for a second.
Me: When I have to make like 10 stops for the day to get work done, just a drop off and pickup it’s exhausting, much less that times 20 or 200.
Zach agreed and stated that he has never done it. He has done ride alongs with drivers, and the hustle and the tricks and all of these things that are really unimaginable. And now imagine people doing it, they're new to that job and they're looking at these 200 stop days, and maybe they know their city, maybe not, maybe they just moved there. It's near impossible.
And so they build the technology and tools to help them navigate that, that's what they are today. And what they're building currently is infrastructure to support local logistics. And that's something that there hasn't been a ton of investment in yet and something that they're very excited and bullish about.
Opportunities in the Logistics Market and Technology Being Applied
Me: So you are basically as you indicated in the logistics market, what opportunities do you see in the logistics market that probably are not existing today, especially in light of the pandemic that we're going through, have you seen that side of the business or that industry really vamped up since COVID? I'm sure, but how have you seen trends in that area? Has technology being applied more? Is there anything new that you think our listeners would benefit from based on your insights?
Zach shared that they're kind of a dark inflection point right now, there's a lot of disappointing news coming out about the treatment of drivers, it's not necessarily the overt treatment of companies setting out it's more the result. And it's the result of how the drive and demand and a pretty constant supply. So, he thinks it's easy to imagine that COVID has really disrupted and changed the logistics industry and package delivery more than anything else and food delivery is way, way up.
And there's been more delivery drivers, the infrastructure by and large hasn't changed though. So the result is, these drivers are busier than they've ever been before. And that's what they're looking at right now and they're looking at an industry that's really suffering, and one that's craving for change.
So what they're setting out to do, their focus is a little bit different. These other companies, the bottom line has nothing to do with the driver, they need to get packages delivered to customers and that's the objective. They believe that by focusing on the driver and focusing on that experience, and making that as good as it can be, then everybody will win. So the opportunity that exists right now is to instead of treating drivers like a commodity, to create tools and focus on them and empower them to be as effective in their jobs as they can be and that's their mission, and that's what they're going after.
Tips for a Driver to Deliver an Excellent Experience
Me: What are maybe one to three things that you think are critical for a driver to really deliver an excellent experience. Apart from the fact that he has to deliver the package, there's a softer side of it in terms of communicating with the customer, is it that the technology updates the customer as to where the driver is along the way almost like an Uber? Or is it a case where the driver actually makes those telephone calls, which I think is humanly impossible for him to be calling 200 different stops, two to three times throughout the day, that would probably make him go insane. But how can he add the softer side of it to enhance the customer experience so the customer feels that more a part of the process? I'm sure you know if people don't feel in the loop, it's like they don't know what's happening and that's when they get skittish and start to argue and complain.
Zach stated that there are a couple pieces to that. So, backing up a moment before getting into the driver customer interaction. The earlier part of the question, he thinks really talks to on the surface how simple the problem seems. And that's the most powerful tool we can give a driver is to get them to understand where they are, where they're going, and how to get there. And so, it's a mapping problem. And mapping problems are tough, they've gotten easier, and they continue to get easier but they're still tough when you take into account all of the shifting variables throughout the day. And by that he means traffic and road closures and other sorts of missed deliveries and change in deliveries and all those constraints that can change.
So, building the technology that can make sure a driver knows where they're going and how they're getting there. That's kind of the baseline.
And then getting into the interaction between the driver and their customer. You're absolutely right, it's a fine line, you don't want to open up a live line of communication between those two people. And that might seem counterintuitive with customer experience, generally speaking, transparency is a good thing.
In this case, it actually gets into security and safety concerns too, we don't want drivers bombarded with messages when they're driving, just simply, we don't want to distract them period.
The other is a big problem that they face is these drivers go to buildings that have security codes, entrance codes, access codes. When they can't get in the building to deliver the package, now their whole day is backed up, they're standing there, maybe they're trying to call the customer, they're trying to find a safe place to leave it, they don't want it to get stolen, they're trying to do the best thing that they can.
So, how do you build in a layer that can allow that communication? “Hey, I'm trying to get into your building to leave this package, but make sure that that code isn't accessible to bad actors and the wrong people.”
And so, they spend a lot of time thinking about that. Also, the first idea very naive from them was, well, what if we just put in a note system where one driver who gets the access code can leave it as an annotation on that stop for anybody else. Well, now as soon as someone downloads Straightaway, they can basically have a key to the city and they definitely don't want that.
Me: I never thought of it that way. But yes, that's crazy.
Zach shared that he interviewed a USPS driver a couple months ago talking about this problem specifically. And it was fascinating. He told him that, if you look hard enough at most apartment buildings or gated communities, anything that have an access like that, you'd look hard enough, you'll find the code written somewhere, he said, some will like scratch it on rocks, or like put a sharpie kind of underneath it kind of like hidden spots, but within the delivery industry, they know. And it highlights the problem and the security risk. And it's another one of those things they're super interested in solving but it's not easy to solve.
Me: Wow, that's crazy. Technology, then there are so many variables as you just indicated that are out of your direct control. Because as you said, if you indicated to the customer that you would need to have access to the building or the home or the business place in order to have the package delivered and the necessary things were not put in place, it really does push back the experience for other people who are waiting on their packages who may be home, because he or she is left stranded there trying to figure out what do I do with the package? And as a customer, you don't know some of those challenges, and most customers don't really care what you're faced with, they just want their item that they ordered. But the reality is, those are the challenges that the drivers face.
Me: What are some things that they try to do to overcome that? How do they compensate for situations like that, if they can't genuinely leave packages feeling that it's going to be safe? Because the company would now accept liability if something happens to the package if it was left in an unsafe environment?
Zach shared that the simplest thing to do is they just don't leave the package. And they take it back and the customer gets notification that it couldn't be delivered. And every company, he wants to be clear, every company has its own policy, and they don't operate on that level.
They provide the tools to allow drivers to be successful, how they operate their route, and their policies are up to them. But that's kind of the best case scenario. Worst case scenario, it gets left somewhere else where it's not supposed to and then it gets stolen. That’s just package stuff does a huge problem as most listeners know and hopefully haven't experienced, but I imagine many have. And that's what happens.
Tips for Building Strong and Efficient Teams
Me: What are some tips for building strong and efficient teams? Because I imagine even though the drivers are doing their deliveries, they have to kind of support each other. I imagine that maybe they may need to call on their co-worker for assistance, maybe accessing a location that maybe they're more experienced with. How do they ensure that they're really working collaboratively and cooperatively together versus in silos? Because “Okay, I'm just concerned with my deliveries, my truck, I'm not concerned about anybody else. Because if I help him, then I'm going to get pushed back and that's going affect my pay.” So how do you get them to work cohesively and collaboratively together?
Zach stated that if Yanique doesn't mind, he’s going to take that question and apply it to something else that he knows a little bit more about. Because he hasn't been a delivery driver on a team with years of experience, so he doesn't think he can answer that question with any authority from that perspective. But from the perspective of building technology, and building the tools that they're building for the drivers, he has a lot of experience and he can weigh in a little bit more there and some tricks that his team have employed recently that he found successful.
He considers himself a servant leader and he actually think it's the easier way of leadership, it's the more comfortable way of leadership and maybe that's just for him, but just so that everyone's on the same page, servant leadership is being there to serve your team rather than dictating orders, that's the very oversimplified version of it.
Now, taking that a step further, what he does with his team is he drives empowerment and ownership. So it's sort of like, he likes to use the example of inception. If there are ideas that they're trying to get across and it's his job to paint the vision, and then for the team to figure out and own how it is they're going to get there.
So it's his job, where are they going? And their job, how are they going to get there and then actually get them there.
And so, they break down distinct tasks and everyone on the team is an owner of that and is accountable to that and when they feel like it's their brainchild, they're much more likely and much more invested in, it's much more likely to be successful. And that's kind of a driving thesis that he focuses on a lot with his team.
App, Website or Tool that Zach Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Zach shared that this is a big plug for a partner of theirs. They use Intercom. intercom is a third party platform that enables communication with customers. So it's pretty unique within Straightaway. So they've integrated Intercom technology tool, and it allows live chat between them and all of their drivers. And when he says their drivers, it's a little bit unique, they're not their employees, they actually pay them Straightaway.
Straightaway is a subscription service, they pay them, they are their customers. And so, they have a two minute SLA to respond to anybody. If anyone is having trouble with their route, they can hit chat right in Straightaway and that's all powered by Intercom. And the other thing that that tool allows them to do is send very targeted messages to different people to help them improve their product. So we can do things like, let's send a message to all drivers who've been using Straightaway for 3 months who do on average 150 to 160 stops, do those within 9 hours, and are located in Georgia, for example. They can get very, very targeted and they can send them a message and be like, “Hey, we'd like you to try out this new feature and give us feedback.” For example. So sort of everything that they do around their customer experience is driven through Intercom. And they've been using the platform for two and a half going on three years now and it's just instrumental to their process.
Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Zach
When asked about books that have an impact, Zach shared that he sort of sped read Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr recently. It's a fantastic book. It's a really quick read. It explains what OKRs are which is a management framework, it stands for Objectives and Key Results and it is a goal setting framework.
And John Doerr, the author of it didn't invent it but he's probably one of the most, if not the most outspoken leaders about it. Andy Grove out at Intel, he invented it.
Anyway, the great part about it is it's all told from the perspective of all of these very, very notable companies that we all know and love, and how they implemented OKRs in their early days to be successful.
And these are companies like Google, which John Doerr was an early investor, and he was the one who brought OKRs to Google when they were still in a garage and got those up and running.
So, Measure What Matters is a fun read just if you're interested in nothing other than early day successful start-up stories, it's sort of fun. And then I think the tools in it are instrumental for building a team that's goal oriented.
He’s in Portland, Oregon, which is where Nike is from so he’s in Nike town. His wife works out there. He spent many years consulting in a previous life out there, he’s fond of the brand and he’s not done yet, but he’s pretty much through Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE which is Phil Knight, the founder’s memoir.
And that again, another fun story about how companies are built. The thing he loves about that book is Nike really started coming up in the early 70s and the stories that Phil tell in there, he could kind of equate to, if you want to be successful in business in the early 70s, all you have to do is lie.
It's a very fun read of the stories and the things that he said and how he stuck his neck out there. And some of the absurd situations and you look at it now it's like, wow, the success that Nike’s had, it's not even about humble beginnings, it's just the balls, the approach and he doesn't think that approach would work these days. And it's just fascinating to him. It's a really fun read.
What Zach is Really Excited About Now!
When asked about something that he’s working on, Zach shared that it's very hard to choose one. He has so many personal ones coming up and he knows that's not the focus here. The team has been so focused in heads down on building out their fleet platform, which they have a go to market motion starting next month, he’s extremely excited about.
They're a customer obsessed organization, so everything that they build is from the focus of customers and feedback that they've gotten directly from them. So before they ever start designing, building ideating around something, they go and they talk to customers, and they throw out ideas and say, “Hey, will something like this be useful?”
So, they've been having those conversations around their fleet platform for a year now and they've been building for maybe the last 3 months on it, and another month ago before they really start getting it in the hands of their customers. And that's going to accelerate their business tremendously, up until now, they sell and have relationships direct with drivers, and that's fantastic.
And they're always going to focus on the driver but through the fleet platform, they're able to empower even more drivers in that scale, where entire fleets can onboard to Straightaway and use all of their features to not just transform the experience of one driver, but all of their drivers and thus their entire business.
Advice for Business Owners Who Lack the Constant Motivated Human Capital
Zach stated in other ways, “How do you keep your team motivated?”
He shared that it comes down to what he spoke about before, in its ownership. For the people that he works with, they're very, very passionate about what they do and that is often designing interfaces and writing code. And that can be applied to so many different problems.
So it's how do we keep them motivated on this problem, and it comes down to ownership. When people feel personally invested in something, they are going to fall asleep and wake up thinking about that. And that's how he operates anyway. And maybe it's a rosy picture that he thinks others operate that way. But he has put it into practice and he does see the results there.
Where Can We Find Zach Online
Email – zach@getstraightaway.com
Twitter – @zachianblank
LinkedIn – Zachary Blank
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Zach Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Zach stated that that's the hardest question he has gotten. He doesn't have a quote but he has a different tactic. He usually goes to motivational speakers on YouTube and he'll pull up a random clip and he'll sit there and he'll listen or he'll watch it. Some of his favourites, while polarizing, he still thinks he's a great guy is Gary Vaynerchuk.
Me: And Gary's awesome. Gary has his own podcast. Gary has quite a few books out there and he has a ton of free content that if you just need that extra oomph to get going, it will definitely provide that for you.
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Robert Wallace is VP of Growth at Tallwave which works with companies like PayPal, Banner Health, and Lumin Digital on their products and customer experiences. Robert has 20+ years of experience in branding, marketing and communications programs to help drive the company's growth.
Questions
Highlights
Robert’s Journey
Robert shared that at the moment, he’s based in Scottsdale, Arizona, where his company Tallwave is located. But he’s from Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh and that is where he spent a lot of his formative years before he went to college and graduate school.
And after that, he started his professional career, jumped right into a fast growth company called Airwalk. Airwalk was a head to toe action sports manufacturer, they did everything from skateboarding shoes to head to toe snowboarding equipment, to BMX shoes, etc. And that's where he really got his first taste of what magic it is when a customer base and a brand really merge together and make that emotional bond because Airwalk had that bond at that time and they had seen some pretty meteoric growth as a consequence of that. And when he was there, he ran retail marketing.
So anything that happened at the point of sale, at the retail point of sale, and then he also put his toe in the water, he’s dating himself now but he opened up the Airwalk’s online store, which at the time was not an easy feat and was a very controversial endeavour as well, because this is back in later 90s when eCommerce wasn't as ubiquitous and there was a lot of worry about cannibalization and those type of things. But he ran all of the operations of the online business for Airwalk. And that's really how he sort of backed into to the technology world.
From there, he moved out to Boston and work for a couple startups. One was a very large eCommerce site called FarmandCountry.com where he really started his product and product meant side of his background.
And so, he ran the product there at FarmandCountry.com. And then he took that experience to a startup coming out of MIT called Afanova. They were, how would I call it, they used evolutionary algorithms that came out of MIT and they use that evolutionary algorithms to do high throughput consumer testing for brand packaging, logos, product designs, those type of things.
So think of it as an incredibly efficient, a marketing research and feedback tool. He was there early on and helped commercialize the product and the technology itself, taking it and pointing it at different markets, but the one that was particularly worthwhile at that point was the consumer packaging goods industry. So they sold into Procter and Gamble, Coca Cola, Johnson and Johnson, Conagra, you name it, Nestle, the big CPG companies.
And from there he moved to Arizona and that's when he was early on in Tallwave - they’re a customer experience design company. And he was brought on early on to stand up the services side of the business, which has now grown, that was about 10 years ago. So it has grown to a much larger company where now and like as you mentioned, they work with companies as big as Amex and JP Morgan Chase all the way to well-funded startups and great up and coming companies like Lumin Digital, let's see, Emailage, Algolia, those type of startups that you may have heard of.
What he would say is the common thread in his career, he has done footwear, he has done farm equipment, he has done tech, and he has done crazy technology out of MIT and now he’s in a business that works with all sorts of companies.
But he would say the one common thread is a great brand doesn't really care about what industry you're in, it's about making that kind of emotional connection between the customer and the company itself.
And you do that by having an amazing experience from the beginning, you have a need as a customer all the way through, you bought product, use the product, maybe had to get some customer service from that company, all the way through being a repeat customer.
So thinking about all the touch points in there is a huge part of what excites him about brand experience and customer experience, which he’ll tip his hand in his bias, he thinks those two things are very close to the same thing, if not the same thing. But understanding the customer experience and what its impact can be is what he would say the common thread is through his marketing, branding and product management career so far.
Navigating Through the Customer Experience Design Space
Me: A very fullsome journey that has taken you to different industries and different touch points so you have a very diverse approach as it relates to these different industries. So, you span quite a few industries as you indicated in explaining your journey. I know you said your current organization is a customer experience design company and we are going through a global pandemic, how have you been able to navigate in this space as an organization? And have you found it difficult to get the strategy or the design across to your clients, or even to your own employees to relate to your clients, especially during this environment that we're operating?
Robert shared that they've been very fortunate, and the nature of their work, which is creative designers, marketers, consultants, those type of people, it wasn't a huge stretch for them to work remotely, so they were very fortunate in that regard.
And they were also very fortunate because they had a broad variety of clients and some were impacted more fundamentally than others during the pandemic, so that helped them as well. But they definitely have faced the customer experience situation both from their own standpoint, but also their clients. And if you think about, if you think customer experience broadly, they've almost become more acutely aware of the customer’s experience and the individuals customers experience more acutely than they ever have before because of the pandemic. So, companies have had no choice but to take a long, hard look at how they service and provide value to their customer base. And depending on the industry, of course, you've had to adjust accordingly. But he believes it hits all industries.
So they've seen what has happened in retail, for example, that everything that probably was on the customer experience roadmap so to speak, curb side pickup, buy online, pick up in store, touch less flooring, all of those things were probably on the roadmap already but the pandemic pushed it all forward by 5 years or so.
So, he thinks that's an easy one and a pretty straightforward one. But anytime you've had to think about how your customers are interacting with you, he thinks every company, and almost every person in that company has had to rethink how we do that effectively and how we provide value and where the value actually lies, versus necessarily just in person interactions.
Robert stated that Yanique had mentioned how do they actually deliver some of their work, like he said, it lends itself pretty well to a virtual world. They're able to shift a lot of their workshops online and there are some pretty cool tools that they've been using in order to do that. But he will say that that everybody's itching to have a little bit more human interaction.
Customer Experience Design From a Product Based Perspective Versus Service Based Perspective
Me: So tell us a little bit about customer experience design from a product based perspective versus service based perspective, could you share with us maybe one or two things that as a company, whether you're a big organization like let's say, a PayPal an Amazon versus a small company, because we do have quite a range of listeners that listen to this podcast, some of them hold very big positions in these large organizations and some of them who run their own business so they wear the hat on product development, marketing, social media, all of the different things. So if we were to look on it from that perspective, what are maybe one or two things that you think they really need to consider to really be above the rest as it relates to customer experience design.
Robert stated that the one thing that he would recommend regardless of whether you're a product company or a service company, and regardless of how big or small your company is, he thinks he would highly recommend that all companies look at and be very diligent and honest about what the actual customer journey is.
That is from the point that the customer realizes they have a need, and every step all the way through purchase, use, service, and repurchase, hopefully. So, every single touch point and then making sure that you understand who those user personas are that would be going through that journey.
And that's actually not demographic, per se at all, it's more behavioural when he says persona. So who are the types of people that are using your products or services, once you have really a good deal of empathy for who those personas are, and what they go through in terms of every step of the process around their customer journey, which may or may not have to do with your company specifically, but what is actually their journey as a customer.
He thinks from there, you're in a great position to see where the opportunities are, the opportunities might be, “Wow, there's a gap in the market in terms of how they are accessing our product and using it.” And in that case, you can do a lot of user experience exploration and redesign and see if you can remap how that looks in order to make the product part of that experience more seamless, easier to use, and generally more delightful for the customer.
Or if you're a services-based business, you may have a look at it and say, “Okay, how are we going to actually support all these interactions with our customers.” And knowing how they interact and the pains they're feeling, you can start to tailor what services you might provide to them, how you might provide to them, etc. So, speaking for Tallwave even so, he would say that the customer journey is the core component, the starting point he would say for any kind of company product or service.
App, Website or Tool that Robert Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Him Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Robert shared that there are a few that their company uses. But he’ll mention two and he would say that they're less do or die for him personally, but certainly for customer experience type work and the kind of work that their team does so well.
The first one is InVision, which is a design tool to make high fidelity mock ups and present them and interact with them with their clients. So they do a tonne of work in software and mobile app development and then they also do some web work as well and laying those out in InVision and then being able to show something that's high fidelity and in some cases even clickable to their clients and to even perhaps some validation work really helps them understand if they're on the right track and making sure that they're building a product that meets the market need.
The other one that he would say has really become pretty invaluable this year is a company called Miro. And that company, their tool allows them to do a whole plethora of interactive activities, from whiteboarding sessions to mind mapping to post it note work, where they put up business model canvases and interact. But it allows everybody to interact in the tool simultaneously as if they were in the room together doing that with physical post it notes and whiteboards like they used to pre pandemic.
So, every time he uses Miro, he’s very impressed with how well they've taken into consideration the users of that tool and the people that use whiteboards and workshopping and those types of things so often, like a lot of agency folks, design folks, consulting folks, that's a great example of a company that has really listened to who the personas are, what behaviour do they take place in, and then what is the journey that we go through to implement that, and they've built that into the product. So, he thinks they're actually a good example of what he was describing before.
What Robert is Really Excited About Now!
Robert shared that on a personal level, the more and more of the world keeps getting vaccinated, and he’s halfway home, meaning he got one of the two shots, so he'll soon be fully vaccinated and that is a relief, he’s sure to everybody that gets it for themselves and their loved one. So the things that come with that are more time and more quality time with family and friends. And so, that's probably his number one personal item.
On a professional level, he thinks it is when we all go through times like this, and the pandemic was unlike any other. He thinks when we come out of the other side, we've all transformed a little bit and he’s excited by what that transformation, as painful as it might have been, that transformation has opened up a lot of opportunities for all of us, especially in the business world.
Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Robert
When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Robert shared that one he has read about 4 years ago, 5 years ago maybe, it's called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. And he found it to be very useful and worthwhile for both his personal and professional life and it's really about identifying what really is adding value to the time that you're spending on something and when to say no, and why and being very deliberate about that. And in very simple terms, because he thinks most of us, at least at some point struggle with saying no, and being a little overburdened, but what really is important now is something that Essentialism definitely has taught him. So that's sort of a both a professional book.
And then he’s also reading a book that he’s finding fascinating, it's called Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke as in gambling bets, and it's written by a former professional poker player. And it's not at all about poker, it is about decision making, processes and using the mind-set that a professional poker player or gambler that they use and the processes they use in order to evaluate what they're doing. There's a lot of them that are very cool ways to think about the decision making we have to do in our professional lives day to day.
Where Can We Find Robert Online
Website – www.tallwave.com
LinkedIn – wallacera
Twitter - @Tallwave
Instagram - @tallwave
LinkedIn - Tallwave
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Robert Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Robert shared that it's a little long can I read it. It’s called The Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt, one of their former Presidents. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
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The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience
Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”
The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty.
This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately!
This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others.
Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!
Chad Neufeld is the Director of Marketing at Chaordix (kay-or-dix), a Canadian online community platform. He works with global brands like LEGO, Bosch, HPE, Stihl and Decathlon to make community central to their customer connection. Chad also founded a seasonal D2C company called Small City Stockings to create curated stocking stuffer packages (and so he could add the title Head Elf to his LinkedIn). When he's not at work, he's probably writing a sci-fi novel or trying to get better at volleyball.
Questions
Highlights
Chad’s Journey
Chad shared that he came out of University, and he started in the world of advertising. And so, he jumped into kind of his first role was managing digital projects like complex website development and honestly, he had never built a website before in his life. But he was coming out of school and he thought that he knew more than he actually did.
And so, that was kind of the first six months of his career was thinking that he knew what he was doing. And then he got his six month review, and found out that the people that he worked with kind of saw through that and didn't think that he was very good at his job, which is absolutely 100% true. He didn't know what he was doing but he pretended that he was and coming out of College, he was kind of a big fish in a small pond when you're coming out of University and then you start working with professionals and kind of top performers. And so, he learned really, really quickly that he didn't know what he was doing.
And so, that kind of set him on a path of learning. And so in the next kind of 4 years of working in the agency, in the ad agency world, he tried to get much better at understanding the objectives of the people that he was working with and build relationships, and be much more humble and recognize how much he kind of had to learn.
So he did 4 years on the agency side while he was working for marketing agencies, he was also starting to experiment with some stuff on the side, so doing some freelance work with friends, he sat on the board for a local theatre group here in town.
And started a small kind of side hustle with some friends called Small City Stockings, as mentioned and they launched. Basically it was their first attempt at eCommerce and the 3 of them and so they tried to set up this business building stocking stuffer packages. And so, the idea was people hate shopping for stocking stuffers, it's like a Christmas Eve kind of thing and you're grabbing a bunch of plastic garbage and throwing it into a stocking and everybody's kind of disappointed.
What if there was curated stocking stuffer packages filled with kind of local goods. And so, they started that as well and that ran for 2 years and was incredibly fun.
And he also joined Chaordix, which as mentioned is an online community platform here in his hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And he guessed that kind of gets them to here where he is right now at Chaordix, he leads product marketing, brand marketing and growth and customer marketing as well.
Having a Community Customer Connection
Me: So I think one of the things that intrigued me about dealing or having an interaction with you for this podcast was the idea of having a community customer connection. Could you explain to our listeners what that's all about? Because I was really, really intrigued when that was put forward to us?
Chad shared that Community is this term that he personally think is really overused in marketing and in customer experience and because oftentimes when somebody says community, what they really mean is audience or what they really mean as list like, “Join our customer community,” but really, they're like, sign up, get emails that tell you when we have a discount, and that's not a community.
If you think about community, it's a bunch of people coming together to do something special, or it's a local group. So, it's people that live around you, or it's people who have a similar interest to you that are trying to get better at something or learn more, or engage with other people with similar interests.
And so, their community platform allows brands to launch their own customer communities. And so, you can think about it, he likes to describe it kind of community, there's two approaches to community building so you can either kind of go to where everybody is and so Yanique has a Facebook group, for example, with customer experience professionals, and that's on Facebook. And so that's kind of that first approach. So you're going to where everybody is, you're setting up a community that's part of Facebook, that's on Facebook, that's hosted by Facebook, that's one approach.
The other approach is building something special that you own that people come to. And so it's a bit like kind of Amazon versus Shopify, you can sell your products through Amazon and that's great because Amazon has this huge customer base. But you also have to deal with kind of all the baggage that's associated with the Amazon brand, and you have to play by their rules.
Or you can build your kind of own online store using Shopify. And so you get to use world class technology, but you get to make your own rules. And so, they're kind of like a Shopify for building customer community.
So you can kind of think about it as your own private Facebook for your brand and what it allows you to do is connect with your customers in a space you own and control, you can give them fun and interesting things to do, communicate with them, give them kind of a peek behind the scenes, give them insider access, allow them to connect with influencers and kind of leaders within your organization, help you create new products, answer questions and stuff like that.
Me: That's pretty cool. It's just a better way of really getting to know your customers on a deeper level, and then on a platform that you own. So you have a little bit more leverage to do what you want. And of course, you own the content, or you own the whole platform, so you can manage it better.
Chad agreed and stated that you get all that data as well. So you would know how much you're able to get from Facebook, because you run a community on Facebook. But what you're able to do when you own the community is you can really get to know and understand those individuals, build personas because you have you have all that data.
Marketing and Product Development at Chaordix During the Pandemic
Me: So tell us a little bit about Chaordix, what you do in terms of marketing and product development, and how has it been since we've been going through a global pandemic, my sister lives in Canada, and she's constantly complaining, “Oh, they're locking us down again.”
Whereabouts does she live?
Me: I think she lives in Toronto. Don't quote me. The last time I went to Canada was when I was 12 years old and I just turned 40 what, two weeks ago, so I'm not too familiar with the burroughs that's what you guys refer to them as right burroughs.
Chad stated that maybe not out west here. So he’s in Calgary. So it's kind of the other end of the country from Toronto. It's snowing right now as he looks out the window. But it has been seasonally nice, they we had a very mild winter up here outside of a couple of weeks where it was -40, which was hard to live through. But so when it comes to marketing, they sell to a large enterprise brands, their largest customers LEGO. So they host the LEGO IDEAS community. And there are 1.7 million members of that community hosted on their platform. And they're a little bit of an outlier; they're a massive household name. They also work with brands like Rustoleum, and Ford and Procter and Gamble, and Bosch.
And so they're really trying to get in front of kind of global leaders in customer engagement and marketing and customer experience. And those folks are honestly, they're not easy people to market to because they're extremely busy, they're very discerning when it comes to what they're looking for, they plan far out when you're selling into organizations like that, you have to expect that it's going to take six months to a year to even just go through the procurement process.
And so, what it requires on their part, when it comes to marketing is ensuring that they are kind of stewarding people through that whole process, educating them about community because it's relatively new still, not very many organizations recognize that the tools exist on the market to allow them to build really vibrant communities. Oftentimes, communities are seen as kind of their one dimensional, like there's just forums for answering questions like, if he can't get his dryer to work, he'll go on the LG forum and ask a question, and hopefully somebody will be able to answer it. And community can be so much more than that.
And so, marketing a lot of times for them is really about thought leadership, and helping people understand the power of community. And so, it involves a lot of writing and a lot of making videos and a lot of webinars and stuff like that.
What Type of Organization Benefits From This Type of Community Involvement
Chad shared that he thinks that it would be much harder to think of a type of organization that wouldn't benefit from building a relationship with their customers. He thinks that once people wade into community, once people experience what it's like to have a direct connection with their customers just 24/7, it's something that people don't give up because they go, “Hey, my executive, my boss's boss, asked a question of my boss, who said, hey, how do I answer this question.”
And you can go to the community, and within less than 24 hours you can have hundreds of responses from engaged users of your product. And that's something that just really is impossible in a scalable way without a community. And so, if you're an individual running a yoga studio, building a connection that is more than just an email list where people can engage with one another, can encourage one another and kind of build relationships with one another around your brand, that is extremely valuable because it locks people into that relationship, it helps them feel better about your brand, it helps them expand their knowledge.
And that scales all the way up to a brand like LEGO and although they are a kid's brand, the LEGO IDEAS community is actually for adults. And so there are 1.7 million adults who are building new LEGO sets and so LEGO is crowdsourcing ideas for new LEGO sets from the people who actually use those. And so you can see that most brands who build something for customers and those customers can be business people, like they can be B2B brands, or it can be consumers. Either way, having that direct connection to your customers is invaluable.
App, Website or Tool that Chad Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Him Business
When asked about online resource, Chad shared that for him it's Notion. Notion’s a basically a project or it's kind of like Evernote. He thinks a lot of people are starting to use it. It's just a visual way to kind of build and organize information. And so, when he’s doing his planning and writing, he’s doing it in a way that he can organize and so Notion’s a super fun way to do that. So personally, that's been kind of his secret weapon for the last year.
What Chad is Really Excited About Now!
Chad shared that they're launching a new website at Chaordix and that's something that is really exciting. It's a project as he mentioned earlier in his career, he built websites and so it's really fun to build one for a brand that you really care about and love and so as part of that experience, he gets to do a lot of writing and thinking about how to explain what they do and the value they bring into the world to somebody who might have never heard about them or has no idea how much impact community can have. And so that's something that he’s doing right now for work that he loves.
And then on the personal side, he’s working on a Sci-Fi novel, and he’s writing a pilot for a TV show with his wife, and so those are like those fun things. They will probably never see the light of day, but it's something to do during COVID and quarantine that gets the creative juices flowing.
Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Chad
When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Chad shared that one of his favourite books that he’s ever read is called The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer. So Amanda Palmer did a TED talk that is wonderful and she was one of the first artists to actually crowdsource, using Kickstarter, she crowdsourced an album. And he thinks she raised a lot of money on Kickstarter.
And she's a really wonderful person and her book is all about being authentic and being emotionally open and realizing that it's better to just ask for help or ask for support, then pretend you have it all together. And there was one thing that he noted in that book that he thought really, really stuck with him over the years.
And she said that everyone out there is winging it to some extent, the professionals know they're winging it, and the amateurs pretend they're not. And that really stuck with him because every day he’s listening to podcasts, even people on this podcast, he’s going, “Man, there's no way I could manage a workforce of 50,000 people,” for example. That's crazy.
But he thinks if you think about it that way, and go, every one of us is just trying to make sure that by the end of the day we've kind of held it all together. And sometimes it's just pure luck and when you realize that he thinks it helps you not feel so small and incapable of kind of managing those big things.
Where Can We Find Chad Online
Website – www.chaordix.com
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Chad Uses
When asked about a quote or saying to he tends to revert to, Chad shared that he does, this one is a tiny bit gendered. But it's from Seneca and he was very old school.
So it's, “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no winds are favourable.”
And to him, that just goes to show like you need to have a vision in your mind for where you want to get to and once you've got that vision, it allows you to make a plan. And having a vision and a plan, he thinks leads to conviction and once you've got that conviction, and you can share that with the people around you, he thinks it's much easier to lead a group to the right destination. So, that's something that he read a while ago, that's really stuck with him.
Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest
Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners
Links
The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience
Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”
The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty.
This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately!
This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others.
Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!
Elias Guerra is the Founder and CEO of Popwallet, a Mobile Wallet Customer Experience platform working with some of the most innovative brands in the world to deliver contactless customer experiences to people through mobile wallets like Apple Wallet and Google Pay. These experiences include dynamic coupons and offers, rebates, loyalty and gift cards, tickets and other lightweight branded content. Prior to founding Popwallet, he spent his career doing product and market development for Yahoo (twice), Flurry, IBM, and Thomson Reuters. Elias has an MBA from USC and a BA from Pepperdine University.
Questions
Highlights
Elias’ Journey
Elias shared that he started the Popwallet about 5 years ago along with a co-founder, CTO, Wes Biggs. Popwallet is a mobile wallet, marketing automation and customer experience management platform, that's really just a long way of saying that they provide software tools for companies to engage their consumers through mobile wallets like Apple Wallet and Google Pay. But Popwallet is a technology company and ironically, his own journey did not start in technology, he kind of fell into it at a young age.
When he went to university, Pepperdine, he studied history and languages and liberal arts. And as a child, he really wanted to be a lawyer. He thought that that's what he wanted to be. And his first job out of undergraduate school, his whole plan was to work in a law firm, study for the L SATs and then start law school the following year. And after working in that environment, just realized and seen firsthand what that work really was like, realizing “I don't think this is for me.”
And so, as a 22 year old was confronted with this watershed moment and somebody at the firm actually connected him to a consulting firm, the firm that did litigation consulting. And so, he started with consulting shortly thereafter, but in the technology space and learning technology as he went along. And not having studied that in school, but being familiar with how some of these things work, he was able to take classes at night, things like data communications, and programming and database management, and ultimately learn how technology works and did that for a few years, went to business school, came out of business school, really on the other side.
So from that point, less about building technology, more about selling technology, and doing partnerships and sales and business development for companies like IBM, and then Yahoo. And ultimately, about a decade ago, started getting into the mobile space and being really fascinated by mobile advertising technology and mobile marketing technology and he was fortunate to work for a company that Yahoo acquired a mobile app analytics company that was called Flurry and he worked for Yahoo before Flurry, and then left Yahoo to join Flurry, worked there for 2 years. And then Yahoo acquired them and so went back to Yahoo as part of this acquisition. But it was really that experience with this mobile app analytics company and seeing a lot of data around consumer behaviour in this new paradigm that was mobile. Think about the past decade is more and more people using smartphones, and apps proliferated, and smartphones proliferated and seeing what people were doing on their phones, and just recognizing an opportunity and market to make those user experiences better and to make it better for the brands they're trying to reach those users. And that's when they saw the middle part of the last decade mobile wallets really around 2015 become more prominent in that arena, and they just saw business opportunity there. So, that's a little bit about his own journey, how he got to starting Popwallet about 5 years ago.
Integrating of Contactless Customer Experience
Me: So, your company focuses a lot on integration of contactless customer experiences with these mobile pay platforms. If you're in a culture, because like, in Jamaica, people are still very skeptical. I travelled to the US quite often and my sister lives in Canada. And I see people use the Apple Pay and Google Pay and it's very easy, they've clearly adapted to the technology really well, and they trust it. But what if you're trying to integrate this into a culture or a country, or a market where it is that the persons there are very skeptical? Because they don't understand how the technology works, they're not necessarily quick to jump on board. How do you get those customers to feel as comfortable using those methods of payment as they would if they were using their credit card or even cash? How do you get into that state?
Elias shared that it can be difficult to break through initially and there often are concerns. It's ironic, because there are often concerns around security using a mobile wallet to pay for something, or to transact and not really knowing where your data is going.
The irony is that it's actually far more secure, the way that the data is encrypted and transmitted, is far more secure than say, certainly carrying paper cash or even a credit card. The plastic credit cards, certainly with the magstripes before now those have largely have been replaced by chips is more secure.
But an easy way to think about the difference in security is, let's say I hand you my credit card, and you hand me your phone, who is more likely to be able to go out and run up some purchases, some fraudulent purchases, the person with the credit card or the cash, this paper or plastic, they can use that, they can spend that at least until that credit card is cancelled.
With your phone, there's this layer of security where you have to be able to authenticate, you have to be able to get into the phone into the first place and then you often have to authenticate again to do your transaction. And when that transaction occurs, it is done in a safe and encrypted manner, but that's a lot for an individual to really think about, “Whoa, is this that much safer.” But once we really start using it, where we find the key is, it's just that convenience, it's just easier. And rather than carrying around your paper or plastic, these physical objects, more and more people globally, they just have their smartphones with them at all times.
And so if you're in the store, and you need to buy something, or you're going somewhere and you need to access something, it's likely that your phone is with you, on your person within arm's reach and you can easily use it to make that transaction.
And that's where they see on a really large scale that shift in consumer behaviour where that smartphone, it used to be that it's very much about these heads down immersive experiences where you're scrolling your social feed, and you're reading your news and that still happens by and large, these content consumption experiences, but increasingly, that phone, that smartphone is becoming the way that people interact with the world around them and it becomes that interface. To think about if you're buying your groceries in a store or you mentioned travelling if you're getting on a flight, not that we're doing a lot of flying these days.
But back when we used to get on airplanes more often, you're saving your boarding pass to your mobile wallet and you're going to a theatre, a movie theatre and saving your ticket, these types of experiences, they're just easier to do as people use that smartphone to interact with the world around them. So in these new markets, they find this usually convenience and once people start using it and doing it, it really takes off from there.
To add one more note on that that is actually shifted a bit more recently where safety has become paramount in the minds of consumers, obviously, with the pandemic, this idea of being in a store and touching things, and handing a card to somebody or handing paper to somebody, that consumer consciousness around remaining safe during their shopping experiences is another driver of these contactless transactions, your mobile wallets.
Safety and Customer Experience During the Pandemic
Me: So based on your experience and the fact that you guys are clearly pioneers in this space, and you're doing really, really well. Maybe could you share with us one or two things that you think trends that maybe will continue or new emerging things that you think will come about in the next maybe two to three years, based on where we're at? Because I know definitely since the pandemic globally, safety, where as safety, it may not have been as important to a business when it relates to customer experience; it is now something that you have to integrate into your customer experience strategy.
How are we going to let our customers feel safe in this environment?
And some companies definitely, I think integrated it before COVID. But it's become even more prevalent now as you mentioned before, I would definitely prefer to take out my phone and do a tap then have to go into my wallet and hand you my card and you touch it, I don't know where your hands were or any form of money transaction. So do you see any emerging trends coming about?
Elias shared that precisely what they're talking about, it's critical. If you want to deliver that outstanding customer experience, what does your customer want, the person coming into your store or attending your event, they want to engage with you as a brand or as a store, the shopper in a way that feels good to them, in a way that in this scenario is safe and this idea of touching things.
So, this trend towards contactless and enabling people to go about their daily lives out in the real world without having to touch anything more than they have to, is this unnecessary contact is this idea of if I'm standing at a checkout line, do I really have to pull out my plastic loyalty card and hand it to the checkout person and have them scan and then hand cash or can I do this from about 10 centimetres away by holding my phone near the payment terminal and transacting that way.
And that's a more delightful experience for the customer and that's something that can be enabled and delivered. And that's something that they're seeing increasingly, the customers want.
And now we talked about shopping but really anything, the trend that we see really developing and continuing into the future is that what he mentioned earlier, this idea of his smartphone as an interface to the world around him, so whatever he’s trying to access.
They've seen implementations around cars, automobiles, there are certain car manufacturers where you can start your car using your mobile wallet. Student IDs, and if you're accessing your dorm room using your mobile wallet to unlock that door or access your meal plan. Of course, things like tickets for transportation here in New York City, all of the subway stations now you can just tap your phone, tap your mobile wallet, and easily access and get on the train. So, really anything that you need to access that requires some type of authentication as an individual, they see more and more of those use cases developing over the couple of years and even related to the pandemic, this idea of getting vaccinated and having your vaccine passport right now and even his.
Today, he has a paper vaccination card. But now we see different government authorities enabling that to be mobilized and in some instances saved into a mobile wallet. So if you want to go somewhere and prove that you've been vaccinated, we're talking about how the world has changed so rapidly, you'll be able to use your mobile wallet for that. So we definitely see that trend continuing in the coming years.
How Elias Stay Motivated
When asked how he stays motivated, Elias shared that there's a feedback loop. He does what he can to motivate his team, the people that he works with, they do the same for him. It's really energizing when they see products that are built capabilities that are added that they can then deliver to a customer and their own customers, the companies that they work with.
They're a B2B to C platform, so they'll work with brands like Nestle and Mars or DSW and David's Bridal, different brands and retailers. But they'll provide them technology that they can then go use to engage their customers in this safe and contactless way through mobile wallets. And so he gets motivated when he sees something that they've enabled out in the wild, where he can save a Nestle, DiGiorno offering to his mobile wallet and go use it in a store, he thinks that's fantastic. Or if he receives a Mars Snickers gift card and that he can save into his mobile wallet and go see it.
And so, that gets their team excited and then their excitement excites him. And so, it's this feedback loop and reinforcement. And so, he thinks it's a matter of moving forward every day, and benefiting frankly from some tailwinds in the market that really helped and they had to anticipate this several years ago. It wasn't as obvious when they started as it's become obvious now this need for these mobile wallet types of interactions. But it's all very motivating and when they see it come together out in market.
App, Website or Tool that Elias Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Him Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in your business, Elias shared that that's a tough question, because he a voracious consumer of content, he access quite a bit. He will say that interestingly, something that he looks at a lot is, for him and maybe it's not as obvious. But something like the New York Times where it's more about, what are people doing?
How are humans behaving?
What's happening in different markets, different global markets?
How is behaviour changing?
And what are those stories that are representing this human behavioural change?
So trying to understand really what's happening in the world? And then, of course, that's the 30,000 foot view.
How do we then apply it to ground level that says, well, based on these behaviours, based on these trends or these things that are happening, here's what we can build, and then sell and then service and market to help capitalize on what's happening in the world around us. So he does try and of course, he reads industry trade and technology, journals, things of that nature, pretty constantly, but just trying to remove yourself from that to a degree and just understand what's happening in the world around he think really helps their business quite a bit.
Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Elias
When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Elias shared that he does enjoy reading; he thinks it's something he’s trying to work in his own life is reading more fiction, he tend to read a lot of nonfiction. But a book he just finished a couple of weeks ago is called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is written by this author Yuval Harari, he wrote a while back, he wrote Sapiens, which is human history, but condensed within 300 pages, which is quite a monumental task. And then he wrote the follow up to that is Homo Deus, which is thinking about how does mankind, humankind evolve in the years to come with the technologies like AI and robotics and what does the future look like.
In 21 Lessons for the 21st century, he thought it was appropriate, because as we entered 2021 thinking about these different topics, and it looks at big topics and each chapter is broken out by a topic that he'll cover in great detail. So just again, to his earlier point, he’s reading the New York Times it just gives us other perspective on what's happening in the world, these things around globalization and politics and nationalism and liberalism and how all these things interplay.
And so, he'll read a book like that and he'll think about, “Okay, how does this apply to our mobile wallet, marketing automation and customer experience management platform.” So, trying to tie those things back to their business as he can, but that was a great book that he recently read, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.
What Elias is Really Excited About Now!
Elias shared that Popwallet, having started 5 years ago, they're seeing good growth and momentum but they're still a startup. And so, they're still in that growth stage and seeing these shifting trends and their ability to build and deliver on it, he thinks that gets him excited every day. So, that's probably what consumes the bulk of his time is just thinking and it's really taking that step that they took and going from zero to one, creating something out of nothing that is of value and then thinking, “Well, how do we go to those next levels that from 1 to 10?” And that's really what they're focused on now, is how do they scale that? He will say, Yanique asked for one thing but he’s going to say 2 things.
So, also just being a father, he has a 9-year-old daughter, her name is Gwen, she's absolutely wonderful, she is the apple of his eye. And so, when he’s not focused on Popwallet, she's his primary focus and what kinds of things can they do. And it's exciting here in New York City, as people are getting vaccinated, the weather's getting nicer, there's this sense of vibrancy and life things coming back and so experiencing a lot of that, not only himself but through her eyes as they try and reintegrate into the world as things open up more since they've been close. It’s been a difficult year for so many this past year, but there's optimistic signs going forward and he’s very encouraged by that.
Mobile Brand and Contactless Customer Experience
Me: So, we spoke a lot about Popwallet, we spoke about why it's important to have this contactless customer experience. One of the things that popped into my mind while you were speaking is, like with the Mobile Wallets, they have the power to drive, not just commerce, but also loyalty and affinity for all kinds of brands. So what I wanted to know was how is it that as a mobile brand or do you have to be a mobile brand in order to have a contactless customer experience?
Elias stated that not necessarily, that tends to be their sweet spot where they work the most. And so, it's a brand that can be a brand for a product like consumer packaged goods, like, again, think of Snickers or DiGiorno Pizza, or it can be a store, they work a lot with actual retailers.
The best use case for mobile wallet usage, is when you're a product that's sold in physical stores, or if your store yourself, it's less effective when it comes to eCommerce. And of course, eCommerce more and more people buying things online.
Vast majority of purchases are still made in store and stores aren't going away, that environment is shifting and changing, but they're not going away. And so they've worked with brands primarily to engage shoppers in this safe and contactless way and the idea and how it drives affinity and loyalty is, can I just make it easy and convenient and safe for the shopper?
Can I delight them when they come into my store?
Or when they buy my product, can I reward them?
Can I understand what they're interested in and relate to them in a way that's personal, and that that shopper responds to?
And so, they are enabling technology, they're not a panacea that solves world hunger and all these problems. But for a brand that wants to engage consumers in a meaningful way on their mobile devices, they can provide them pretty interesting and robust tools to do that. And if you make a shopper happy, if you go into a store, and you have a good experience, you're more likely to come back. If you buy a product, and that was a delightful experience and maybe you get rewarded for your loyalty. And they can make it easy to deliver those rewards all through the mobile wallet, then you're more likely to remain loyal to that brand. And so it's really about enabling those behaviours.
Now, of course, mobile wallets, the purview is much larger than that. Again, it's this idea of using the phone to interact with the world around so there's a lot more that can be done with it. But working with brands and retailers, that's primarily where they've been focused thus far.
Me: So that definitely puts into perspective, who it is that it's this technology is best suited for. And then, depending on where the listener is at in their business line, they can identify if this would be something that they would definitely benefit from and how it is that it will definitely integrate to help, as you said, have their customers have a more delightful experience. Because I mean, we all want to have experiences that when we think about it, we say, “Hmm, I'll do it again.” And I mean, when you think about your customer experiences, how many of those would you really want to repeat over and over again?
Elias stated that customers; and they really appreciate being rewarded for their loyalty and that's something that can be made easy through the mobile wallet. And so an example, when they think about the use cases that are supported, that their clients deliver through mobile wallets is for things that people want, it is things like coupons. Who doesn't like to save a couple bucks when they're making a purchase or loyalty? If he’s buying the same brand, or shopping at the same store, you're a customer, hey, show me some love.
Give him a little kickback, or give him some points or some other reward. And so they can make it easy for the customer to earn these rewards, to redeem their offers, but do so in the same way that gives the brand or that store visibility into that customer and the ability to directly interact with them through that mobile wallet, through that coupon that they save into the mobile wallet, or that gift card that they use, or that ticket to the event. Then that, their role as a technology provider makes it better for the customers, it makes it better for the brands. And if they can just bridge those two things, and he thinks they're on to something.
Where Can We Find Elias Online
Website – www.popwallet.com
LinkedIn – Elias Guerra
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Elias Uses
When asked if he has a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Elias stated that absolutely and it's funny because this came up last year reading a book with his daughter. The book is called WOLFPACK: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game and is written by Abby Wambach who's a great US women's soccer player. And it's a very inspiring book. And it's wonderful reading with his then 8 year old daughter, but there's a quote in this book and the quote is, “A girl who never gives up can never fail.”
And he was reading this with his daughter and it just resonated. A girl who never gives up can never fail. And it's something that he tries and teaches her as she grows and empowering her to know that if she doesn't quit, that she can succeed, that she can achieve her objectives. But also, he applies that to their own business. They're still a startup as he mentioned, they're still small, they're growing, and they’re doing some good things and as long as they don't give up, as long as they keep moving forward, they're going to be successful, they're not going to fail. And so, when he read that last year really resonated and it is something that he does repeat to himself and those around him often.
Me: And that came from my children's book.
Elias shared that it's actually not a children's book, he read it to a child. It's child friendly. It was written by Abby Wambach who's one of the great US American women's soccer players in history. It's just a very inspiring book and it's a lot about female empowerment and just wonderful lessons for his young daughter, so he read it with her.
Me: Amazing. That's a good message for her to learn. It's good for her to learn it at a very early age as well.
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