Andrew Ou is an award-winning UX strategist, designer and author based in Vancouver, BC. He helps SaaS companies increase their revenue and profitability by reducing cost of support and while building a better customer experience. His past clients include HSBC, Rosetta Stone, and Asurion.
Questions
Highlights
Andrew’s Journey
Me: So, we always like to give our guests the opportunity to share in their own words, a little bit about their journeys. So, how did you get to where you are today? I know we read like a brief bio, but it's always good to get in guests own words, a little bit about their own journey.
Andrew shared that he started off in UX design, he’s been doing that for he thinks over around 8 to 10 years now. And like Yanique mentioned, he used to work for companies like HSBC, Asurion and fit brains Rosetta Stone. And now he’s just sort of running his own consultancy where he helps SaaS founders build beautiful products that impact the world. And a lot of that has to do with creating an excellent customer journey and a good customer experience.
Customer Experience, SaaS Products, Support Service – Trends Emerging Since 2022 as it Relates to Service Delivery and Customer Experience
Me: Now, customer experience, SaaS products, support services, can you share with us maybe some trends that you see emerging or have emerged since 2022 as it relates to this part of service delivery or customer experience?
Andrew shared that he thinks there's a very interesting intersection between customer experience and user experience, mainly that, both of the words and with experience and so it's a very interesting intersection, because they sort of do affect each other. And a lot of the overarching trend is that we're always moving towards a better user experience and what he noticed is that when there's a customer experience issue, it typically always comes back to something related to sort of the design of the product and that's where users get stuck.
So, one of the things he noticed is that when there's a support issue, and you can actually fix it and make the product better from a user experience standpoint, and by getting to the root cause, it actually improves the product by a lot and there are a lot of benefits to it.
UX Strategy – How Does the Customer Travel Through the Journey and its Impact on Revenue and Profitability
Me: A lot of our listeners are also interested in the direct correlation between revenue profitability and customer experience. From a UX strategy point of view, how are you going to use an experience? Because whereas customer experience probably talks to the more tangible, user experience is probably more talking about the digital experience? Like, if you're building a product, how does the client or the customer travel through the journey that you are taking them through in a digital way, while still holding all of the same principles and values that you would if it was a face to face interaction, or even over the phone? So, how can we translate that in a positive way? And if it's not done positively? Why would it impact our revenue and profitability?
Andrew shared that the thing you have to realize is that, like, when a user is using your product, they sort of have an idea of how to use the product and that's sort of like a customer's intuition on how the product should work. So, when you're designing a product, you should always keep that in mind and also set the expectations so that the users know where they are in the journey.
Now, a big part of where customer experience comes into play is that, with a good product experience, for example, like Google, and most of the time he thinks like, if you never had like most of those users never probably have to contact Google because their product, they’re just so easy to use.
Now, the opposite of that is you're contacting a product for support, because experience is bad, and that's what happens, right? That's because somewhere along the way, you were trying to do something, and you couldn't do what you needed to do so then you need to contact support to get it done. So that's primarily what happens and that means there's a cost to support associated with that, that means you got to spend the resource into fixing that issue.
So that's how like a bad customer experience makes a direct impact, or has a direct impact on the revenue and profitability. Because you shouldn't rely on customer support to help your users navigate the product. And if you're seeing a really high cost of support in that aspect, that means there's a really sort of like a gap in the user experience.
Me: So, dovetailing off of what you just said Andrew, what about those companies or products that don't have an avenue for you to get through to customer support. So, I've bought products already and as you mentioned, I've bucked up on a roadblock, and I need to get some assistance, and I go to their website, and the only avenue that they have for me to get through to someone is to send an email, they have no live chat with live agents, there is no telephone number there for me to actually call a number and get through. And sending an email, of course, is clearly not going to have my issue resolved in the next 5 or 10 minutes. What are your thoughts on companies that take that approach?
Andrew shared that well, that means they definitely have a gap in the product experience, because you're in a situation where you need to contact support, but it's not there. So that means you must feel kind of frustrated, or you wanted to get your problem solved, but it's not available, right? Is that how you're feeling at that moment?
And he would always like to say that it's really crucial that a company focuses on building a good customer experience, because that's how you get loyal users to come back to you and raving fans that love your product. So, if you sort of like have that cut off for customer support, and people are having trouble reaching the company where they actually needed, he doesn't think that's a really good strategy and users like you will get frustrated and that might negatively impact your relationship with that company.
Me: So, then your recommendation is they should have an avenue by which you can actually get through to someone, a live human being who can answer your question, correct?
Andrew stated that that's actually one of two strategies. So, yes, like talking to a human helps, but on the other hand, you can also look at when these problems occur, like why did they happen, and from a company strategy point of view, if you're having these issues come up pretty often, they should look into solving that so that it doesn't happen again and that will actually be a better strategy for improving the user experience.
Reducing the Cost of Customer Support and Eradicate Complaints From Coming Forward
Me: One of the other things that we do get asked a lot is, how can we reduce the cost of customer support? So, what's one way? Would the strategy, putting something in place that eradicates that complaint from coming forward again be one way to reduce customer support? And are there any other ways?
Andrew stated absolutely. And that's coming from like a UX strategy point of view. So, he'll sort of tell you like a lot of what companies do when they have these issues, because he’s experienced it himself.
Andrew shares a story, he was using this product, it was like a LinkedIn outreach tool. And he was having trouble using it because he was expecting the software to function a certain way, but it didn't. So, then he had to contact support and then support was explaining to him like, “Oh, no, that's not how our product works. You got to use it this way, or do this and that. And then then you won't run into this issue.” And he’s thinking like, if he’s having this issue, there must be a lot of users who are also having it because the way that he had envisioned it to work was actually really, really different.
So then, what's happening is these companies are training their customer experience reps to explain the product should function a certain way. And they have to do that over and over again, and it's not solving the root of the problem.
So, what companies should actually do is, when they encounter these issues, and these issues, they're likely frequent, they should actually look at it from a design point of view and see how they can solve that because once they do, it leads to a lot of benefits downstream, like when you eliminate the root of the problem, you eliminate the cost of training and the cost of support and documentation for that problem, because they no longer exist.
So, he thinks companies, when they face a situation where they're seeing the same support issues over and over again, they should look into solving that and getting to the root of that problem and solving that directly. And that will actually ease up the support volume, and also reduce the cost of support.
Tips that Will Help Organizations Build a Better Customer Experience
Andrew shared that he thinks number one, is you got to be really customer centric and that means doing your best to make sure that you give the customers the best experience in whatever avenue. So, if they're having troubles, become human and try to help them solve that problem directly, instead of being so strict or so robotic, and your policies.
And he'll give you one example. He was using a software a while ago, and he had forgotten to turn off my billing, and they just billed him without even telling me and they didn't even send out emails or anything. So, he sort of felt like a complaint because he was not happy with the way they were doing things.
And they actually responded and there's two ways that they could have gone, one is they just say, “Well, sorry, according to our policy, we don't actually offer any refunds.” But the support rep was really, really human and sort of talked to him in a way that was human and really nice and she actually helped him solve that problem. And he actually appreciated that, that gave him so much more like hope and happiness, because he really appreciated the fact that they were customer centric. And being that, it makes him want to become more of their customer. So, he thinks that's definitely the most important tip.
Because if you focus on just giving value to your customers, he thinks your customers will really appreciate that. And he thinks the second thing is, again, sort of similar. But again, it's focusing on the user experience side of things because if you really focus on building a great customer experience, you'll have like an amazing product and the benchmark of a really amazing product is that it doesn't require so much support for the user to navigate the product and learn how to use it.
App, Website or Tool that Andrew Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Andrew stated that that's a sort of interesting one. He thinks from like a business owner’s perspective, he thinks tools that helped him eliminate time, like, count Calendly, for example, definitely helps just clean things up. He definitely thinks he can't live without that, because organizing all his meetings and becoming aware of them. Getting like a good email is also good because, again, it helps him organize his time and everything. He guesses that's coming from more of like a business owner perspective. Getting all your tools done, the main idea is to cut out all the little things, all the little distractions, and any tools that will help you do that, it's something that you want to look into.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Andrew
When asked about books that have had an impact, Andrew shared stated that this is going to sound interesting, because this book isn't really like a design book, it's actually a martial arts book from Bruce Lee called the Toa of Jeet Kune Do. But what he really appreciated from this book was just the philosophies in there were just so eye opening, it talks a lot about like, simplicity and everything. So, it talks about like a lot of principles of simplicity, economy and efficiency when it comes to martial arts and it's totally different, he gets it. But he’s adapted a lot of that principles in his design. So, that means, like a lot of his design principles actually come from that, simplifying things when it comes to designing interfaces, so on and so forth. And it's really just mind opening.
What Andrew is Really Excited About Now!
Andrew shared that right now he’s helping tech founders build amazing products. And he thinks just the whole idea of, he’s the kind of person where he really likes to improve things. So, when he’s working on these projects, he thinks about how much they can impact users in the world. And so, he’s also making it efficient for himself to help other tech founders do that. And that to him is really exciting to help a lot of tech founders build amazing products, and really seeing a lot of their ideas and then talking about ideas, working through them and then coming up with solutions that really help other people.
Where Can We Find Andrew Online
Website – www.andrewou.com
Andrew also shared that he has a gift for all the listeners here, it's an 8 page like super easy to read PDF that you can consume in 8 minutes or less. And it's about the 5 ways UX can help SaaS companies increase revenue and profitability. And that's on www.andrewou.com/guide
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Andrew Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Andrew shared that through his challenging times, there's one quote that keeps coming back to him and it's by Winston Churchill, and he thinks it goes something like this, it's like, “Out of immense complexities, immense simplicities emerge.” And for some reason, that just sticks with him, like if you're going through a really complicated process, or a part in your life, there's always going to be some light at the end of the tunnel and the answer to that is going to be fairly simple.
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!
We have a return guest Jason Ten-Pow. Jason was on our podcast last year September and he has returned. Jason is the son of immigrants, moved to Canada with his family when he was seven years old. His passion for customer experience was sparked as a teenager while working behind the meat counter of a carnival-themed grocery store in Toronto, Ontario. From there, Ten-Pow co-ran a niche computer technology company, Visionary Enterprises, that built and installed computers and networks.
This venture taught him the basics of running a business and his commitment to customer service sparked the confidence to found ONR, his CX consulting firm in 2001. As the founder and president of ONR, Ten-Pow has expanded his lifelong passion for creating unbreakable customer relationships into an organization with more than 20 years of experience helping renowned brands evolve their customer success stories.
Questions
Highlights
What is Blockchain?
Me: So, we're having Jason back on our podcast. As I mentioned, he was here with us last year September talking about his book Unbreakable: A proven process for building unbreakable relationships with customers. And today he's here to share with us a little bit about his release that was released earlier this month. The title of the article was Wider Blockchain Adoption Will Impact Customer Experience. And so, my question to you Jason is for those persons that are listening to me are probably saying to themselves, what is Blockchain? what are you talking about? So, could you share with us a little bit about what Blockchain is and how that even can impact customer experience?
Jason stated that Blockchain can be many things, but at its core, it's the ability of information to be transferred either by the customer or by a product. So, information is tagged and carried along a pathway that can be picked up and shared, but it's also a very secure way of sharing information. And at its core, the value or the benefit for businesses is that it allows them to acquire a lot more information about their customers and more holistic information about the customer. And for the customer, the benefit is they can have a much better understanding of the product itself, where it was created and where it was manufactured and how it ended up in their hands.
So, Blockchain is really about a safe way of transmitting information back and forth amongst various sources. And the benefit for CX is that it allows businesses to have to acquire much deeper knowledge about its customers. And for the customer, it allows the customer to understand the product they're purchasing, and where it came from in a much more deep and meaningful way.
And this is exceptionally important today because, well, you think of movements such as ESG, which is Environmental Impact, Social Responsibility and Governance, which is very important considerations for customers that are purchasing a product, it's good to have an understanding of who's manufacturing, where this product is from, and if it was manufactured in an environmentally, with minimally environmental impact, and in a socially responsible manner. And so, these are very important bits of information that are being transformed.
How Does Blockchain Affect a Retail Outlet Owner?
Me: All right, now, you kind of gave us the book definition just now of Blockchain. Could you give me in real life terms like, I'm a business; let's say, for example, I own a retail outlet, how does Blockchain affect me, I'm selling stuff online, I have a retail store where customers can come in face to face. What does that mean for my customers?
Jason stated that what that means for your customers is that you have a lot more information about your customers when they make a purchase. And you'd mean, not just simply their transaction information, but you can have depending on what's in that Blockchain, you can have much deeper information like their age, if they share that with you, like a whole host of very important demographic information that is now connected to the actual purchase of the product, which allows you to know the customer in a much deeper way, in a much easier manner than you've ever been able to before.
Me: Now, what are some of the industries that you see adopting this new method of payment?
Jason stated that it's funny, he thinks any industry that is transacting online, this will be huge for, financial institutions are going to be right on top of this, retailers are going to really care about this. Why? Because it's an easier way to acquire knowledge, and to know your customer. Now, for example, the types of customers that will care about this, especially customers that are trying to be socially responsible, making sure that their products that they’re purchasing are having minimal negative impact on the environment, or that the company that's building this product is being inclusive in their hiring practices, all this type of information can be shared across this Blockchain.
And so, at the end of the day, that's the overall sort of long-term benefit. Now, we're right in the infancy of this new technology so that's what's very exciting. But at the same time, we're seeing a lot of changes in how customers make decisions, where price used to be the primary drivers, and even for companies, revenue used to be their sort of main goal that they wanted to achieve. Now you're seeing much wider, sort of the range of metrics that companies measure themselves against for success, including things like environmental impact, social responsibility, and governance, which the short term for that is ESG, which is a really hot topic right now, because customers are very interested in understanding the impact their products are having, both socially and on the environment.
Customers Who Are Adopting Blockchain
Me: Now, in your release, you had mentioned that Blockchain Adoption has highlighted some customers, how some customers are looking for new different offerings, it's new, and you know for example, as it relates to the different types of buying personas, if that's the best way to describe it, you will have like the millennials, you have the Gen z's, who do you see adopting in terms of customer base because for example, I don't see my mom engaging in this.
Jason stated no, absolutely. This is definitely for the next generation. We know the up-and-coming generation, the young folks, they are much more cognizant of the environment, and of social justice and equality and those are the customers and the ability to have this information will really benefit, not only because they're more likely to purchase online, but also because they care about these things when they're making the purchase decision much more so than previous generations have.
Me: Okay, and when you say they care, is that kind of tying back into where you said, emotion will now take an even larger role in decision making all because of the fact that they're concerned about equality, justice, fairness, those are things that are high on reasons why they buy from a company?
Jason agreed. You better believe it. You're absolutely right. And what we're seeing more and more today is that it's not simply a price comparison, a lot of the products that the younger generation are purchasing, there's deep reasons behind why they're purchasing that's very different than previous generations. And so, absolutely, that's a huge selling point. And that's just literally where the marketplace is going in the future, because at the end of the day, why do companies care about ESG? It's because the customers are demanding that brands be socially responsible, take care of the environment and that has to be taken into account when you're looking at whether your brand is profitable or not.
Data Transparency and Consumer Loyalty
Me: Now, you also mentioned in your article that there in this whole process, it's important for the companies to adhere to industry regulation and improve supply chain management and there are three things that you touched on industry regulation, data transparency, and consumer loyalty. Could you expound for us as it relates to data transparency and consumer loyalty?
Jason shared that this is where you intersect a lot of different new trends that we're seeing. So for example, if you want to be considered environmentally friendly, the government has set up regulations and standards of which to measure your level of environmental impact the company's having, and in the USA, it's now starting to roll out and become more adhered to. However, other standards around for example, social responsibilities really haven't been set. So, how you measure a brand's level of social responsibility is really up in the air.
And so, right now you're having different ways of measuring it. But what is going to happen eventually, is that there's going to be a standardized way of measuring it and this is where it comes back to customer loyalty. Because if these customers care about these things, they'll be looking at these indicators to understand how the brand they want to purchase from measures up across these very important dimensions.
Me: I get you. So, it's all connected. And then the general supply chain, how does that tie back in?
Jason stated that supply chain exactly, where are your products coming from? Is it being manufactured in a place that is not setting socially responsible markers for how they treat employees, there's in terms of wages, in terms of environmental protection in all of these different areas. So in the past, a company could afford to just measure where they're going to manufacture a product simply on which is the cheapest location - that is going to change as well. Because if that information becomes freely available, customers will be thinking, “You know what, I don't want to purchase this shirt that's made in this part of the world where they're using child labour. I would prefer to pay a few dollars more to purchase it from a brand that's socially responsible.” Does that make sense?
Me: Yes, it does, it totally does. But it also, I think, will require a lot of research on the part of the consumer or the way how the Blockchain system is set up now, they will be able to delve and capture that information readily when they're making the purchase.
Jason stated that that's the future and that's the sort of Holy Grail is to be able to look at the product, scan this code, be able to understand exactly where all this information about the product and it's all at your fingertips. So, the customer can make a much more informed decision than they ever have been able to do before.
Me: Over the years I've definitely seen customer experience evolve, at one point, if you look back at how customers made decisions before, it was heavily driven by what the organization told them, especially before the age of the internet where you could do your own research. And it's like the tables have totally turned Jason where I mean, the ball is fully and even more so as you mentioned, this new technology, this new way of decision making, as we go forward, it's even more in the court of the customer, because the customers are given so much more ammunition now and they should be, because at the end of the day, they're the ones that are opening their wallets, and spending to create these astronomical profits for these organizations globally. So why not put the decision-making capability in their hands, so they can really make a choice for the product or service that they want to purchase holistically.
Jason agreed, absolutely. And what it's going to put a lot of pressure on companies to really deliver a bespoke customer experience that's unique to the needs of every customer, so it will be slightly different. Why? Because that's what customers are going to demand, “You're going to care about the things I care about, right? And you're going to tell me exactly how you are manufacturing these things, and you're going to deliver a shopping experience the way I want a shopping experience to be delivered.”
And what that allows companies is to actually be able to build a more customized experience, because they will have that information readily available. And so, the transparency that will be possible will benefit both the brands if they take advantage of it. But it's definitely going to put a lot more power in the hands of the customer especially because it's exactly you said, knowledge is power and the more knowledge the customer has, the more informed decision they can make.
CX Tips That Will Allow Businesses to Connect and Build Better and Deeper Relationships with Their Customers
Me: Now, Jason, I know the first quarter of the year has passed, but we're in the beginning of the second quarter. But could you give our listeners maybe one or two CX tips that you think, outside of this new technology, because as you mentioned, it's still in its infancy stages, but let's say where they are currently in their business, they're just not there yet clearly. But they're looking to ensure that they employ maybe the best, if you could give them maybe one or two tips that you think will allow them to really connect with their customers, build better and stronger and deeper relationships, what would those two tips be for 2022?
Jason stated that 2022 is the year of Listening and here's why, the marketplace has changed coming out of the pandemic, customers have different expectations for shopping and purchasing experiences and it's different than ever before. And the customers are really going to dictate how they want to shop and how they're going to purchase moving forward. There's a lot of companies out there that are just thinking to themselves, “Oh, I'm just going to hold out until we get back to how things were before.” And the truth of the matter is, things are not going to go back to how they were before, things have changed, and they are different.
And unless you start listening more closely to your customers in every interaction, whether you're a restaurant listening to your patrons and their feedback in terms of what they want, and how they want it delivered, to major brands who are selling investments in ESG, stocks and ETFs, all and everywhere in between.
If you're not listening to your customers and understanding how their wants, needs and desires have evolved, you are going to be left behind and that is really his encouragement to companies coming out at the pandemic to start listening to your customers more closely than you ever have before. Because their opinions and their values have changed.
Me: I've heard some organizations say that they think customers are way more sensitive, they complain about the least little thing since the pandemic, what are your thoughts on organizations that view their customer feedback as customers being too sensitive and it's almost like they're not open to being flexible or being adaptable to take the feedback that the customer is giving them.
Jason shared that it's funny, the brands that they work with that they hear this from are brands that are stuck in the past. And he often hears, “This is the way we've always done it.”
And so, those are the brands that that may have been the way you've done it in the past, but if you don't change your focus from short term financial, quarter over quarter goals, to a longer-term view of what success really means beyond just simply your short-term financial metrics, you're going to be in big trouble. And this is really the tug of war that's going on, it's the old sort of dynamic of, okay, near term profits at any cost versus taking a longer view of your brand, and your brand's health. And let's be honest, public corporations are the ones that have been most guilty of that and those are the ones that he believes are going to be at biggest risk if they don't adapt themselves to the evolving customer.
What Jason is Really Excited About Now!
Jason shared that they’re working to develop a better understanding of the impact ESG is going to have on decision making over the next 12 to 24 months. So, over that time, they'll be speaking to investors and customers, as well as business leaders to understand who is driving from an organizational point of view, interest in ESG. And what measures companies are taking to implement tactics that address customers ESG concerns? And how important is ESG becoming in the decision making of customers? So, those are the three angles they're looking at. And so, it's going to be quite interesting, because he thinks what we're talking about Blockchain is just one aspect of the bigger evolution that's taking place.
And so, it's going to be interesting to see how these things evolve together, because there's still many that think that this is a fad, it's going away. They're betting against that, they're saying no, these things are here to stay, and these are the changes in evolution and how business is being conducted. So, it'll be interesting to see what business leaders are thinking in terms of these new and various approaches to thinking about the company's success.
Where Can We Find Jason Online
LinkedIn – Jason Ten-Pow
Website – www.onrcx.com
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Jason Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Jason stated yes. First thing is, “Stop” whatever you're doing stop, take a deep breath. If you have a big problem, the first thing you want to do is you want to cut that problem into smaller chunks that are manageable, that are solvable, and then create a pathway ahead, don't just see a problem and dive in and try to solve it. Because that's the biggest issue that companies and that's why they hit the wall, “Oh, I want to improve customer experience. Great. I want this metric up 10%. Let's throw money at the wall and see what sticks.” No, that's never the right approach. You have to take a very strategic approach to these types of problems and these types of challenges, and you have to always have a plan. So, make sure you stop and take the time to plan.
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!
Matt Young is the CEO of UserVoice, the first (and we think best!) product feedback and research tool for software companies around the world. Matt started his professional career as a software developer, right when web browsers were released. He developed innovative solutions on the web well before SaaS and Product Management were the ubiquitous terms that they are today.
Over his career, he has pushed for better ways to build software. And through all the changes in development methodologies, he has put the customer at the centre of everything his teams have built. This is what attracted him to UserVoice - an opportunity to make sure that teams building complex software solutions have direct access to the intended users - to make sure that the problems any company or development team are solving are actually worth solving.
Questions
Highlights
Matt’s Journey
Matt shared that he had a pretty ordinary software development career starting off as an individual software developer, and then moving into management. The thing that he had experienced while doing all that was that he would notice that product teams would ask engineering teams, which are big and expensive and complicated to build things and didn't really have a good way to justify the reasoning behind that. He was really interested in hearing why customers thought what they were being asked to build was important, why it was an important problem to solve, why the solution they had in mind was a good one for them. And he just was really passionate about companies being connected to the users that they serve.
So, that's kind of what brought him to UserVoice. He started out as the VP of Engineering at UserVoice but over the years, they've spun out a couple of other products and other companies, so the original founder is now the CEO of a sister company of theirs, it's working on some parallel products, and UserVoice is his to run and build and all the responsibility and fun that comes with that.
What is UserVoice and What Does the Company Do?
Me: Could you tell us a little bit about UserVoice? To the average listener that's listening to this podcast, a little bit about the company, what does the company do? And what types of businesses do you primarily service?
Matt shared that UserVoice is a software as a service product and it's all oriented around making sure that you can gather any feedback that comes your way about your product, and that that feedback is available to the entire organization and can be analyzed and used to make products better. So, you guys have probably seen somewhere in your professional lives, a place where you had the opportunity to tell a team how they could make their product better, and that's evolved over the years and the way that that happens. There are annoying ways to do it, like with pop-up windows and there're really common ways to do it, like with surveys. But whether you've got a system in place or not, like people are providing feedback all the time, they're doing that in the middle of a sales demo, for example, they're saying what they do and don't like about the product, they're showing. They're doing that through support tickets, by asking about a thing they want to try to accomplish that may not be supported yet.
So, UserVoice the product makes it really easy for anyone who's in any position to hear customer feedback, either an employee of the company and support sales or success, or the customers themselves, have the ability to send whatever it is that's worrying them to the company and then gives the product team the ability to aggregate what is usually a pretty big mountain of data into something that helps them relate their product development plans to the goals that the company currently has. So, the short story is they're a software as a service product, but it's a business analysis tool that's built around product feedback.
Me: One of the things I was intrigued in getting your feedback on is, do you think customers should be driving the product roadmap?
Matt stated that that's a question that they get asked quite a bit and the funny thing about that is that a lot of the traditional like stereotypical personality type of a product manager is a very creative type person and he thinks they can feel a little bit threatened by saying, “Hey, your customers should drive your roadmap.”
And they think, “Well, what about me? What about the innovation and creativity that we have to bring to bear?”
He thinks it's a mistake to think of it as a black and white question like, should customers be driving a roadmap? “No.”
Should companies be creating a roadmap without customer input? “No, neither one is quite right.”
They need to use each other to really understand each other and meet to find common ground about the real problems that they're trying to solve. So, he basically views customer feedback as research inputs into a roadmap that's getting created. Not customers, like actually prioritizing things and steering the ship directly but they do have a lot of really valuable information for companies that can help them go to market with much greater success.
Tips for Improving Feature Request Responses
Matt stated that the typical product manager is getting asked to do a lot of things, they're getting asked by their co-workers to change the product to close a deal, for example, customers obviously have a lot of input. One thing that really makes a lot of product managers nervous is the fact that they know that they need to say no to a lot of these things just because of resource constraints, or that what they're being asked for doesn't necessarily fit the vision of the company. But getting comfortable saying no to people, he thinks it's just a matter of being more transparent with them. The customers of software, especially these days are getting more sophisticated and understanding how software is developed, how hard it is to make it perfect and do all the things that you want it to do.
So, he thinks transparency goes a really long way so when you do get feedback about your product, acknowledging the people that you're listening, making sure that they feel valued, and that the time they took to give you that feedback is something that you take seriously and find value in yourself, acknowledging that is important.
But then being very frank with what's the process, what's going to happen next. He doesn't think most customers would expect, “Okay, great, we're going to get to work on this right away.” That's not the way that software gets developed. But if you can explain to people like, “Hey, cool, thanks. I've made a note of this. We're going to talk about it with the team; we're going to keep our ears out for other customers like you who might need a similar kind of thing. And is it okay if we come back to you and have a conversation about this topic later when we decide to dig into it some more and get some more specific feedback from you about how your point of view has changed, about different solutions we're considering and all those things.” So, using customer feedback as an invitation to engage with a customer base, he thinks is a really good way to look at it.
Me: Now, as it relates to product development, a lot of a lot of customers I believe have challenges sometimes trying to identify what's the right type of product that they may need for their business. The customer feedback, it's definitely something you should get ongoing once you actually sold a product, or you've had an idea of what the design is going to look like and how it's going to affect the customer's life. But let's say you're at a developmental stage where you're not sure exactly what the market needs, how do you gather feedback at that point?
Matt stated that the best way to do that is through one on one interviews. And he thinks them being a one on one, he'd say in person, but more often than not, it's something like a Zoom call or a Skype call or something like that, where you're talking to people.
You want to get as high fidelity information as you possibly can from people and that usually requires a conversation, asking people to fill in a form, it's kind of a boring activity. You can't ask follow on questions, etc. And when you're just in that early stage of developing your product, you want to be able to interact with that customer and maybe observe how excited or indifferent they are about what you're building. Are they just eager and jumping out of their seat at the opportunity to use something like what you're describing to them? Or are they more middle of the road.
Most people are very polite, so they're not going to tell you that it's a bad idea or anything like that but they might not be excited about it and that's a pretty good sign that you might not be on to something that's truly differentiated in the market for you. So, they always say like, until you have 100 or so customers, doing interviews in person and not getting software systems in the middle of that connection between you and a customer is really important to do, where once you cross a threshold of a 100 or so customers, you need to have systems that can scale because your time is limited, and you couldn't possibly have conversations with every single one of them.
Me: Agreed. So feedback, your whole solution is built around feedback. And I think feedback is so important. How is it that you handle dealing with some of your clients? For example, here in Jamaica, I found that sometimes when organizations get feedback, whether it's in like in an electronic format, or it is submitted to them in a verbal conversation, sometimes the organizations get defensive and it comes over in their tone and their language.
Matt agreed and stated that if you think about feedback, when was the last time you went out of your way to go tell someone they were doing a great job? “Everything that you are doing, and your product is awesome, and I love it, don't change a thing.” That just doesn't happen. You might occasionally get a compliment about something they do like, but it's always going to come with something that people want to be different.
So, as a company who provides a product to people, get into the mindset that they're not judging you, they're not trying to tell you you've done a bad job, they're trying to express to you what problems they think you might be a partner to them and help solve are and if you view it that way, then it's a whole lot less threatening, you're less likely to get defensive.
It's never going to be all good news, it's mostly like, “Here are deficiencies that I think you have in your product and ways that it could be better.” But don't take it that way, take it to mean like, “Okay, these are opportunities that we have, that are potential improvements that could not only benefit our business, but really benefit these customers and what they're trying to do in their lives.”
They get a lot of people who come to them who are pretty nervous about opening up the door to get feedback about their products, because it does seem like a little bit of a bad news train that's going to come your way. But they always try to coach them that like, “Okay, well, would you feel better just doing this blind, fumbling around, building software hoping that you're right. Or would you rather have actionable real information from people, even if it is a little bit tough to take at times?” And inevitably, when you think about it like, “Yeah, I know need the information, it's just we've been working so hard, and everyone's poured their hearts into it and I don't know if I can take hearing all the ways that people don't like it.” But it's okay, you'll get through it, we're all tough human beings. So it'll serve you well in the long run.
Me: That's really, really good advice. And it's good to know that even though you're an organization that's focused on feedback, you do offer some form of coaching with your clients, to kind of get them in that mindset to change your perspective, because you are correct. If you change your perspective and look at it as an opportunity, which generally speaking, I don't think the customer would come back to give you feedback if they didn't want to continue using your product.
Matt agreed. They wouldn't bother, the fact that they spared some time for you is a really good sign. It shows a degree of passion. As he’s thinking about this, he’s thinking about the world's most successful companies and you might in your mind, say, “Well, they've got it made, they've got these huge customer bases that are rolling in money.” But if you think about their world, they have even more feedback coming their way that's even more critical coming from all different directions in the world, because they are so popular. So it never ends, you're always going to get advice either unsolicited or solicited about how it could be better. So use it, use it to your advantage, make it a tool, not a threat.
App, Website or Tool that Matt Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business
When asked about online resource that he cannot live without, Matt shared that the app for him, it's Superhuman, the email client. They, like a lot of companies when the pandemic started shifted to working remotely and so even more than ever, his world is driven by email. So having a very efficient system in place that drives the mountain of email that shows up in his inbox every day, you can pry Superhuman out of his cold dead hands. And one of the things he likes about Superhuman also is that they're very public about the way that they do assess its value and build it. And Rahul Vohra who runs Superhuman, is a really interesting resource to look at from a product management perspective. So on two fronts, it's a great product and the way that they work on it is really interesting.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Matt
When asked about books that have impacted him, Matt stated that he’ll share two because there’s just one very old one that he read a long time ago and there's one relatively newer one that he thinks is really important. The older one is an old favourite that he’s sure you've all heard of, How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And the reason he likes it so much is that he’s an introvert. And introverts are not shy, they're not afraid of social interactions or anything like that but it drains energy to have a lot of interactions with people.
And How to Win Friends & Influence People was really to him the beginning of understanding behavioral psychology and learning how to do that on a person to person basis really set the foundation for thinking about how to build software products that speak to the psychological motivations behind what people do and don't do. So to him, it was kind of like the impetus to get started with what turned into a much bigger thing so they study psychology to try to make sure that their products are really good too. And it's a very approachable thing, especially if you listen to the audio book, whoever they got to narrate; it just feels like a warm blanket on a cold day, that guy's voice is great.
The other one he'd recommend, it's along the same lines, there's a book by Yuval Noah Harari called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and it's this very interesting discussion about the evolution of mankind and the various phases that it's gone through, even going back to like cavemen. But looking at the Iron Age, the Stone Age, all the different ages that we've gone through, and even more recent history. It even looks at things like religion through the lens of all the different eras. There was a time in history where multiple Gods was the norm. And the days we live in today, one God is the norm. And by looking at things way zoomed out like this, and humankind, you start to see the patterns of what changes and what stays the same with all of us over time and it's just this fascinating, very unusual perspective on humankind that he thought was really interesting.
Important Customer Experience Tips for Business Owners to Ensure That Their Business is Successful
Me: Now, Matt, could you also share with us and this is a bonus question. It wasn't in the conversation flow, but I feel like you give us an amazing answer. So the question is, if you could choose the best customer service or customer experience tip to give to our listeners who are business owners, what would be the most important tip that you would give them to ensure that their business is successful?
Matt stated that he’s going to say something that is a variation of like, make sure people aren't just the numbers to you and to put that into very tactical terms, call people by their name, and view them as an actual human being. If you're answering a support ticket, it's very easy to view things as an email that's coming through without a person behind it, who's having an actual problem, or having a good day or a bad day or frustration or excitement about what you're doing.
But if you can always be visualizing the person behind it, and the fact that they go beyond this relationship that you have with them about your product, and they are a human being that is just like you in terms of their hopes and dreams and fears and the lives that they lead, it's going to make you a much more empathetic provider of services and that goes a really, really long way in the success of businesses.
What Matt is Really Excited About Now!
Matt stated that this is actually something he’s really, really excited about. They just switched to a four day workweek, UserVoice did. And he thinks it's common in some areas of Europe, Scandinavia, in particular is kind of leading the way on it. But not a lot of American companies have tried this out and he thinks that's born of a few things and it's conjecture on his part but he thinks it's just lack of trust that a lot of companies have in their workforce, which he thinks is a huge mistake. But they're a relatively small company, and they try to be very experimental in what they do. And in doing so, they started a four day workweek experiment about six weeks ago. And they laid out what their goals were, their goals were concrete, they wanted to make sure that their output was just as good as it is with a five day work week. But they wanted to make sure that people had more time to pursue their lives outside of work.
And it's been an epically good experience across the board, he’s sent out a survey every two weeks since they started asking people if they would continue if they had to decide today, and then asking about what some of the pros and cons have been. And people will tell you, like, “My days are busy, but they're very engaging. And I feel like this scarcity of time makes me choose my battles really carefully.”
And then, the one thing as an example, a guy named Tori, who's a product manager on their team, he has date morning with his wife every Friday morning, because the kids are at school, and his wife’s favourite thing to do is to go have breakfast at a restaurant. And so, they just do this every Friday, it's like, “My marriage is better, my connection to my wife is better, and I enjoy my job more.” So this is something he thinks more companies should look into. It's been great for them.
Me: I totally agree. Lovely, I love that. I really, really love that, I'm sure your employees must be totally excited that the organization is taking this leap forward. And you're doing it in a country or territory where it's not widely adopted as yet, hopefully, it will be eventually, as you had mentioned.
Matt shared that he has a hard time imagining going back to I five day workweek, it's only been a month and a half after working professionally for 35 years.
Me: I've spoken to so many people that said that they don't know what it would be like to go back into the office. And like here in Jamaica, we were kind of emerging out of the pandemic like a lot of other countries are, but there are a lot of organizations who they just can't see and I think it's because they don't have the systems and tools in place, really but they just can't see their business operating with their team members, majority of them operating from home, and some of them in all honesty, really don't need to be in a physical space, in a building, in a business district area to come and get the job done. I think if they had the right productivity tools to kind of measure and as you said, they were able to clearly identify what their goals are, and are still able to achieve those goals with their team members working from home, it's very doable.
Matt stated that it does take trust on the part of the leadership of the organization, that you've hired the right people and that a lot of companies say this, but he thinks a lot of companies, it's lip service that, “I don't care what you do, as long as you get your work done.” There are other companies that if they find out, “I took an hour long walk at lunch, because I wanted to, they might get judgy about that,” which is why if you're getting good stuff done, it doesn't make any sense. So, he agrees. It's very similar to the remote versus office problem, and he doesn't need to watch someone work to know that they're doing a good job; he wants to see the results of what they do.
Where Can We Find Matt Online
LinkedIn – Matt Young
Email – matt@uservoice.com
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Matt Uses
When asked about quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Matt stated that he doesn't have a quote; his mind just doesn't work that way. If people ask him about like people that he follows and all that stuff, he tends not to do that, he tends to just assimilate his worldview into something that is influenced in small and big ways by all the different things he’s read or all the different people that he interacts with. But he thinks that the most important thing that he tries to keep in mind, especially these days, it was highlighted by the pandemic happening is that your life is not your job.
To him, the most important thing is the positive impact that you have on the earth in the time that you're here. Most specifically, the people around you. He grew up outside New York City so sometimes his language can be colourful, so he won't say it; don't be a you know, what is, the thing that drives him all the time, other people are just as stressed as you are, they're less privileged than you are, just have a bit of empathy for them.
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The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience
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Dr. Anna Harrison is a top ranked Digital Technology Advisor, Product Expert and Author. Anna’s work has helped New Zealand's best exporting and emerging brands create strategic and measurable plans to accelerate growth in new markets. Supported by successes across Europe, Asia, and the USA, Anna's work will help you remove your reliance on luck in the future success of your brand.
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Highlights
Anna’s Journey
Anna stated that we are in for a treat. So, probably the best way to describe her journey is that it is non-standard and very nonlinear. She’s lived on four continents and done a whole bunch of different things. And probably if you look back across the last sort of two decades of work, the only common thread amongst it all is that she’s done interesting things and she’s worked with great people, and that really is something that drives her and motivates her to seek out new challenges and look for different things. So, loosely speaking, she’s worked in product design and product development, started in IT and so back in technology, work a lot with customer experience, and the drivers that help people to make choices and help brands to sell more stuff to loyal customers.
What is Your Book Digital Brand Romance About?
Me: So, our podcast is all about Navigating the Customer Experience. As you can imagine, when your email came across my attention, and I saw that you wrote this book called Digital Brand Romance: How to Create Lasting Relationships in a Digital World, I said to myself, this sounds very interesting and then I read a little bit more and it really got me intrigued. And so, I'm sure just as how I was intrigued, our listeners will be just as intrigued about your book. So, could you tell us a little bit about the book?
Anna stated that Navigating the Customer Experience just to sort of jump out and big picture, it's her passion, it's what she thinks about at 3:00 am in the mornings. So, lots of mutual interest and overlap and she’s excited to share some of the things she’s learned in her life with our audience today.
So, Digital Brand Romance, it's the combination of about a life's work so to say, and it looks at the factors that influence us as human beings and propel us to be loyal to a brand or not. And the cool thing about the book is that it breaks all of that down into really easy steps. And she thinks if we look at digital experiences and customer experience, and all of that, and it's all in a digital space, very often we get a little bit scared, and we think, “Oh my God, what do we know about this space?” And we kind of forget that always at the other end of the computer, the person buying your pair of shoes, or the person buying the handbag that you're selling, or the SaaS product that you're selling is a human.
And as humans, we form relationships, and we make decisions in really predictable ways. And so, we remember this when we have relationships with other people in real life but as soon as we go to digital, we just forget everything we learned and we make things very transactional in our digital spaces, and we just hard sell the consumers.
And then we wonder why things are not working and why most of our marketing budget is being spent on Google AdWords and our conversion rates are super low, like 1% or 2%.
So, the book really explores what are the levers that we can pull to help us understand how people make decisions. And then how do we apply that to our digital assets, like websites, like email marketing campaigns, like our sales process, to really build strong relationships and a loyal customer base.
What Customer Expectations Are Versus What Customer Satisfaction Is
Me: Now, one of the things that came across my attention when I was reviewing your book, I like the fact that you spoke about customer expectations, you spoke about customer satisfaction, and you spoke about why they were very different. Could you explain to our audience what customer expectations are versus what customer satisfaction is?
Anna stated that it's an interesting distinction here and when we think about customer experience, this is an interesting study that was done by Forbes a few years ago. So, Forbes interviewed a whole bunch of brands. And they said, “Hey, how would you rate your customer experiences?” And 80% of the brands said, “They're excellent, they're awesome, we're doing a great job, our customers are happy.” They interviewed those brands, customers, and only 8% of people said that they were really satisfied with the customer experience. And so, that's a really big kind of discrepancy there. Most brands think they're providing great experiences, and most customers think they are not getting a great experience.
And so, this is the difference between those two things is customer satisfaction, and satisfaction; it's a very personal and subjective thing, she may satisfied with something, whereas someone listening to this podcast might say, “No, that's terrible, I'm very dissatisfied with exactly the same thing.” And so, understanding customer satisfaction and how we can affect it is really the most powerful lever that we have in curating experiences for our customers.
So, to answer the question succinctly, satisfaction is the difference between what you expect and what you receive, or what you perceive of the experience. So, if you're expecting to wait in line for a meal for half an hour, and you get your table 15 minutes in, you're going to be delighted, you’re going to be like, “Wow, this is fantastic. I was expecting to wait half an hour, and we're in early.”
Whereas conversely, if you're expecting to get seated at a restaurant straight away, and they make you wait 15 minutes, you're going to be very, very dissatisfied. And so, the same exact experience is delivered by the provider, you get seated in 15 minutes. But in one case, you're satisfied, and you're delighted, because your expectations were that it could be longer. And then the other case, you really disappointed because your expectations were that it would be shorter.
And so, as a brand, and this is where all your energy can be very effective if focused right is, all you can do is set your customers’ expectations at the right level and through that you affect their satisfaction. That might be a bit too textbook nerdy, so she can give some examples if you prefer.
Me: Yeah, I think an example would be good to kind of just cement it for the audience so that they really understand. I got to reading the theory part of it totally and I thought it was a brilliant definition. I just really wanted you to share that, but if you could give us an example, that would be even greater.
Anna shared that there are tons of examples. So, let's say you buy something online. And she bought a bar fridge recently. So, she bought a bar fridge, and it said it will be delivered in two days and so, her expectations are that in two days’ time the bar fridge will arrive. And then she got a message saying, “Please schedule your delivery.” And the only dates available were next week. So, 7 days from when she bought it, not two days. So, straightaway, she’s like, “Hey, I'm not happy with this, because I was expecting, and you told me that the fridge would be delivered in two days.” So, the only change that needs to happen there is that the brand selling the fridge should just tell her that the fridge won't be available for a week or perhaps even 10 days. And then her expectations are set at the right place, and she’s delighted with the outcome.
Me: Yeah, I suppose it's kind of like when we train our employees in organizations, and we’ll say that we should under promise and over deliver. And one of the things that I think impacts customer expectations greatly is what we communicate. And sometimes what we communicate - it's not the truth, or I don't know. Sometimes I think organizations communicate information that is incorrect intentionally, like it is their intention to exceed the customers’ expectations. So, they give them a reasonable time in their mind but then, when the actual experience is realized, what was communicated and what actually occurred, they're not correlating.
Anna stated that that's an excellent example. And to dig a little bit deeper into that, she thinks setting your customers’ expectations that are realistic or perhaps a level under which you know you can over perform is a really good strategy, with a little asterix on that, as long as you're doing that in an authentic way. Because consumers are smart and as soon as your consumer feels that you're trying to deceive them, that opens another can of worms, they're going to run for the hills because no one likes the feeling that they're being lied to.
However, as a brand, you have the ability to authentically communicate and to deliver information and this is something that's super interesting that there was a lot of research done in the 80s by Don Norman, if you know him, he's like one of the godfathers of design and have written amazing books over the years. But what came out of his research was that people are really open to changing their expectations when you provide them with authentic information.
So, coming back to our restaurant example, if she’s waiting in line for a table, and she’s expecting it will take a couple of minutes, but it's going to be 15. If the restaurant gives her authentic and clear information as to why it will be 15 minutes, and then perhaps a gesture to compensate her for my trouble, that negative experience or what could have been a negative experience actually shifts to being a really positive experience.
So, with the fridge, if someone simply sends an email and says, “We're really sorry, we typically try to deliver things in two days. But you've had public holidays and long weekends in Australia and so that's pushed out delivery times out, and it'll be a week, very sorry.”
That information, when it's communicated authentically has the power to reset her expectations as a consumer. And so, it's not about getting it perfect every time as a brand, you don't have to get it right every time.
It's like parenting; we're often so hard on ourselves when we do something kind of not quite right by our kids. But you can make it right, you can have an authentic conversation and provide the information with clarity and with transparency and that will have a really powerful effect and reset your customers’ expectations so they can still have a really good experience, even when it falls short of what they originally expected.
What is a Promise?
Me: Another great insight that I took from reviewing your book was there's a point in the book where you say the only reason anyone buys anything is to make their life better, which I suppose is almost the equivalent of people go into businesses to solve a problem. Most businesses were created with the intention of solving somebody's problem, whatever it is that your business solves. But what really intrigued me further to what you said in terms of making their lives better, is that the challenge to sell more reduces it down to two things showing the buyer that you're going to make their life better and delivering on your promise.
Now, could you define for our listeners what a promise is because I've been through many different customer service trainings in different industries, and I find that people are not clear on what a promise is. And they don't realize that you don't actually have to say the word I promise for the customer to view it as a commitment that you're making to fulfill something that they're requesting.
Anna stated that is such a great question and such an interesting pathway to explore. So, a promise is certainly not a contract. So, without even whether you explicitly and overtly know that you're making a promise to a customer or not, you are even if they don't sign a contract with you.
So for example, things like if you think about someone coming to your website for the very first time, in the first 10 seconds, that site visitor gets a sense of what your brand promise is, and that's made up of a few ingredients, it's made up of the styling on your website, your choice of imagery, your choice of font, your choice of colour, your logo, your hero value proposition tagline, all of those things combined into effectively, very quickly delivering a snapshot of what your brand promise is.
So maybe to correlate this to an example we'll all be familiar with. When you meet someone in person for the very first time, your subconscious mind processes a whole vast range of variables and you make a snap judgement, you go, “Yeah, this person is the kind of person that I would like to have a conversation with and maybe if that goes well, we'll go out for a coffee and maybe we could be friends.” Or “This person is just creepy; I'm going to run the other way. You know what I'm not having that this, a cup of coffee is not in our future.” And so, your subconscious mind is really good at doing that when we meet people in real life. And whether we think about it or not, we do exactly the same thing when we see a brand in a digital space.
And so, the brand promise is really the combination of all of those things and when you start looking for it, you'll notice it. So, when you go to a brand like Porsche, the imagery on the site, the particular choice of fonts and colours and the logo design, all look like a very expensive and exclusive brand. When you go to something like Kia, it's a much more approachable brand and this is all done through very subtle things like fonts and colours and the brand promise.
She works with high growth brands in Australia and out of New Zealand, and where they often will spend a lot of time and it's an easy thing to talk about, and a hard thing to execute on, is refining the value proposition. And so, that value proposition is the explicit articulation of how you're going to make someone's life better. And she finds where brands often get stuck; they get stuck in two ways.
One is that they think about the features of their product and don't recognize that features don't make someone else's life better. No one has a pair of Jimmy Choo heels because they have a high heel stiletto on them, they buy those heels, because of how those heels will make them feel, and how they will be perceived when they own that particular item.
And so, we forget this when we design our websites, and when we design our electronic marketing campaigns, and social media campaigns and so on, and we talk about features instead of what is the feeling? How really do you make someone's life better? She doesn't choose Skype or Zoom because they have a particular telephonic service with some grade of how fast they transmit her voice. She doesn't even know the details. So, she doesn't know what the technical specs for Zoom.
She chooses Zoom because it's easy to use and she can click one button and connect with someone on the other side of the world. And so, Apple is probably an amazing example of at scale when we first stopped talking about features and started talking about how the product makes our life better. And so, to come back to the original question, what is the brand promise that we make? It's all the subconscious things that someone will experience in the first 10 seconds on your website and that's made up of fonts and styling and colours and imagery, and also your value proposition that you articulate in that hero part of your website.
What is the ADORE Process and the Milestones in the Journey of That Process?
Me: So, that dovetails us nicely into the core of your book is based on the ADORE Process. Could you take our listeners through what that process is and what are the milestones in the journey of that process?
Anna stated that the ADORE Process and a few people have asked her what does ADORE stand for. And again, she’s like; actually, it stands for nothing. But in technology, everyone needs an acronym and so here we go, we've got an acronym called ADORE.
So, the ADORE Process looks exactly at how we form relationships as humans. So, as soon as she walks you through it, she'll be able to map that to, “Oh, yeah, that's exactly how I form relationships with anyone I meet in real life.” And it translates it into milestones which we can affect and tune in digital, and also milestones where you can measure the performance for your particular brand against each of the milestones.
And the milestones and there is six of them. The very first one is zero seconds. So, zero seconds is simply the opportunity to have a site visitor come to your website. So loosely speaking, it's all of your marketing activities, all of your social media, everything that you do to drive a stranger to your website, the moment that they land on your website, that’s zero seconds.
Then that first impression moment is the first 10 seconds that they're on your site and this is where they make a snap judgement, whether you like the fact or not people make snap judgments and they'll decide whether they're going to spend more time exploring your brand and getting to know your brand, or whether they're going to go to the next tab, and your closest competitor is always only ever in the next tab and sort of say, “No thanks, this isn't the brand for me.” So, 10 seconds is that first impression sort of moment, first date, if you like.
And another thing which she often sees when she works with brands is that they want to tell you their entire life story on that first date. You're like, hang on, I'd never do that in real life. But how is it okay in digital, or they'll lead with something like a “Book a call right now,” and ideally one that pops up on the way upside the moment that you land there and you're like, hang on a second. If she was meeting someone for the very first time and they went on a first date, and she said to the person sitting across from her, “Hey, you seem kind of nice. Do you want to move in and have seven kids together?”
So again, in person, we know how to moderate this, we know that relationships take a certain cadence, and we don't violate those things in real life. But we do on a website, we're perfectly happy to put a pop up that says, book a call right now, the minute that she lands on a website she’s never been to, like, “Hang on a minute, let me get to know your brand first. And once I know your brand, a little bit better than ask me that question.”
So, zero seconds, the arrival, 10 seconds is your first date, then three minutes, is that moment where someone has taken the time to actually get to know your brand a little bit more. So again, in human terms, it's probably that three to six month mark, where you're like, “Yeah, we've got to know each other a little bit, it feels about right, maybe now we'll have a conversation about moving in together.” But don't do that on the first date. And so, that three minute mark is that moment where someone has explored your brand. At this point, maybe they've looked at your features. At this point, maybe they've looked at, can I make this work for me. And if you've positioned those first few elements on your website in the right order, and in the right way, and you're respecting how someone forms a relationship with your brand, the very natural next step is for them to want to sign up, they'll want to try your product or service, they'll want to perhaps buy the first T shirt that you're selling, they're ready for that next step.
And so, that sign up moment, it's like moving in together, it's a definite sign of commitment. And it's super, super important to take note of that, because your customer is now saying, “I am making an active commitment to your brand.” And so, when you've got that, you know for sure you've got someone who's interested, someone who's spent the time getting to know you, they're a captive audience. The rest is easy, assuming that you've got a really good product or service, which most brands she works with have amazing products and services, and they are just not sure how to develop that relationship with their customers.
And so, to give an example, she had a brand that she was working with, and they literally after the signup process, they were losing 95% of their people. So, they were spending all the money on marketing, all of their branding and their brand promise and the way they told their story was all done super well, they were getting a lot of customers to sign up each month. And then it was like a 95% drop off. And it was like, “Oh my God, what's happening here.” And they changed a couple of really small things. And so, if you look at this part in the book, it will actually give you tangible tips for what to look for when things are going wrong, and what you can change. And this particular brand, they increase their revenue by $50,000 a month by changing a couple of buttons. So, these things do make a difference. And whether consciously or subconsciously, we do respond to digital, and to the formation of relationships with brands and digital, much like we do in real life when it's a human and a human interacting.
But we've got zero seconds, the arrival, we've got 10 seconds, which is your first date, we've got three minutes, which is where you've told your brand story, sign up, which is your first moment of active kind of commitment. And then after that it's easy street, all you then need to do is build into your product the right levers to create an upgrade, to create a repeat buy, to get the customer to pull more money out of their wallet and experience more and more of your product over time and so that's upgrade. And then ultimately where you want to drive your customers to if your growth strategy is based on forming relationships, and that loyal customer base is to get referrals. And referrals are really important because a referral from someone that you trust shortcuts that whole customer journey by about 60%. And so, people will take shortcuts on the getting to know you part and go straight to sign up if the recommendation comes from a trusted party.
So, that's basically the steps and in the book, in the ADORE Process part, which is the middle part of the book, it shows you for each of those steps, how do you measure success? So which of your website metrics do you look at to see whether you're performing well or not performing well. And that's important because when you make a change to your website, or you hire an agency to make some changes, you want to have tangible and objective proof that whatever updates you made are actually creating a positive effect on your conversion rate so that you're getting a good return on the investment that you’re putting in to developing those digital assets that you own.
App, Website or Tool that Anna Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Her Business
When asked about an online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Anna stated that she was thinking about this the other day, and really, honestly, the thing she can't live without is probably email but that's not going to be much help because everybody uses email. So, something she’s gotten into recently is a product called Shortform. And Shortform gives you a summary of some of the best books on the planet and the summaries are just fantastic. So, if you're starting out and you haven't read any books at all, Shortform might not be for you but if you've read a bunch of books, and you've got an interest in business books, or how to grow businesses, and you've read a few things, Shortform is excellent because it fills in the blanks, and really tells you very quickly what the difference between this book is, and other things, which you may have read.
So that's something she enjoys and they're always adding new books into their library there. And so, in like 10 minutes, you can get the gist of someone's amazing new ideas without reading a whole book so it's a little bit of a hack and that's something she’s enjoying. Other than that, she listens to podcasts, typically podcasts that are recommended by other people. So again, showing that once we get a good recommendation from someone, we do shortcut that whole decision making process and just go straight to, “Yes, this is the thing for me.” Probably, that email and Shortform would be her indispensable tools at the moment.
Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Anna
When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Anna shared that she’s definitely been very impacted by books she read early in her career and these would be the classics, things like Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not by Robert T. Kiyosaki, the idea that things that you buy are either an asset or they're not an asset and the idea that you can actually design your life so that you're not dependent on a paycheck. So, that was super influential for her.
Other than that, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert Cialdini, she thinks if you're an entrepreneur, and you're designing product, and you're selling product, and you have an interest in understanding how do people make decisions and how do I, what levers do I have to influence them to make the decision that I want them to make? This is indispensable. And so, Robert Cialdini wrote the first edition of the book in the early 80s and it's still true today. And it's a fantastic book.
Other than that, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert is a really, really beautifully written book, and it personifies ideas and it talks about concept that as people, we inhabit these human forms, but ideas are these organisms that float around us, and an idea might come and tap you on the shoulder and if you're not ready for it, it's going to go ahead and find some other human hosts that's going to bring it to life. And so, when an idea pops into your head, it's really up to you to take that idea and nurture it and grow it into something that becomes a business. And if you're not prepared to do that, don't be surprised that someone else halfway across the world seemingly has the same idea and brings it to life. So, she just thought it was a beautifully written and lovely book. Heaps of others, but those are probably her top three picks for the moment.
What Anna is Really Excited About Now!
Anna stated that the biggest thing that's happening for them at the moment is that they're taking Digital Brand Romance and they're converting that into a SaaS product called Rammp. And so, people love reading books, and so on, but what she finds is that most people want a solution that is automated and that they can deploy to their business that will work for them when they're focusing on the other important things in their business.
And so, Rammp does that, it takes the principles that are outlined in the book, those six milestones and it connects to your website statistics and then it will show you each month what are the most impactful and lowest hanging fruit that you can address to improve the relationship with your customers, and thereby increase your conversion rates. So they're bringing that to life. If you look at the website today, it's still a landing page but they should be launching that at the end of June. So, that's definitely a very, very exciting thing that's happening.
The other very exciting thing, which is possibly only exciting to her is that she has finally found another gym that she’s excited to go to because she’s been in fitness limbo for the last couple of years, just kind of on maintenance and alive, she’s really looking for something that's going to be inspiring and she did that this morning. So, she’s super stoked about that.
Where Can We Find Anna Online
LinkedIn – Anna Harrison
Website – www.rammp.com
Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Anna Uses
When asked about a quote or saying that she tend to revert to, Anna stated a 100% and you could see her right now, you’ll see that it’s written on a card and stuck to her computer and the quote is, “Merely do the work.” Some days you’re super motivated and you’re excited and everything is going really well, on those days it’s easy to do the work.
But some days, whatever, the stars have not lined up and you might feel a bit naa and you’re like, “Why am I even doing this, there’s so many competitors that are better, etc, etc.” And on those days, just put your head down and do the work, you started the business that you’re doing for good reasons, there is no one else in the world who is more passionate and better position to be working on what you’re working right now. And on the tough days, just put your head down and merely do the work. Life and business and pretty much everything we do is a marathon, it’s just a marathon and you’re doing a marathon, it’s just put one foot in front of the other and eventually, things brighten up, you got your inspiration back and you finish the race, or the run, or whatever it is that you were working on. So merely do the work.
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