Info

Navigating the Customer Experience

Join host Yanique Grant as she takes you on a journey with global entrepreneurs and subject matter experts that can help you to navigate your customer experience. Learn what customers really want and how businesses can understand the psychology of each customer or business that they engage with. We will be looking at technology, leadership, customer service charters and strategies, training and development, complaint management, service recovery and so much more!
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
Navigating the Customer Experience
2024
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
January


2021
December
November
October
September
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
March
January


2019
December
November
October
August
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
October
September
June
March
February
January


2017
December
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May


All Episodes
Archives
Now displaying: December, 2022
Dec 20, 2022

Sarah Diegnan is ChartHop’s VP of Customer Experience, after leading implementations at Acuity Brands, Opower and Oracle, she brings operational excellence to creating and delivering a world class customer experience for all ChartHop’s customers. She is an expert in leading a customer journey, partnering with customers from the first moments of onboarding through successful execution of all account goals, making sure customers are getting the most out of CharterHop.

In addition to her SaaS experience, Sarah was a practicing structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and worked for the commercial real estate developer, Tishman Speyer.

 

Questions

 

  • Can you share a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are today? What catalyst got you into the customer experience journey? And just a little bit about who you are in your own words?
  • Could you tell us a little bit about your company ChartHop and what is the service or product that you provide?
  • What is your view on the customer journey through an HR lens. And how do you think EX impacts customer outcomes, the ins and outs of a customer health score?
  • Are there any emerging trends that you've seen in the CX space, in the employee experience space that you think organization should really be paying greater attention to or tapping into as we embark on our new year?
  • Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
  • Now could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had a great impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you read quite recently, but it surely has created an impact maybe had great value in your leadership delivery and you just really would love to share it with us.
  • Could you share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • In times of adversity or challenge, do you have a quote or saying that you tend to revert to, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you back refocused if for any reason you get derailed.

 

Highlights

 

Sarah’s Journey

 

Me: Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share with us in their own words, a little bit about their journey, how you got to where you are today? What catalyst got you into the customer experience journey? And just a little bit about who you are in your own words?

 

Sarah shared that sometimes she likes to say that she has a bit of a meandering path to where she is today. But she thinks that's actually something that is common amongst customer experience professionals is it takes a lot of different skill sets and she thinks you can build those at a lot of different areas. And so, she started her career as a structural engineer, was something that she always wanted to be when she was a little kid, people would ask, what do you want to do, and she wanted to design buildings, she wanted to design skyscrapers.

 

And so, that is what she did, she set out to do it, and she went to school, she went to engineering school, and she loved it, she really did. And she thinks architecture and buildings will always have a very, very special place in her heart. However, what she started realizing when she hit about year 4, year 5, being a structural engineer is that it's a very narrow piece of a we'll call it building lifecycle, very, very narrow.

 

And she had the fortune to work with a project manager who was representing the owner, and she really had purview of the whole project, sort of end and all the pieces coming together to build these amazing buildings. And she had lunch with her and said, “I would like to do your job, can you tell me how to do it?” And one of the first things she said was, “Well, I went to business school, because you need to learn the business side of the business or of buildings.” She was like, great. So, she did that, she went to business school and coming out of business school, she thought working in real estate development was the place for her.

 

She did that for a couple years, and again, realized it was still a little too narrow in a lot of ways. And living in the Bay Area, it's really easy to get the start-up itch, you sort of look around, and tech is everywhere. And she had the fortune of literally running into a friend, running in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. And she said, “You need to talk to my sister. She is at a start-up and they're selling commercial lighting controls and they need an engineer who understands buildings, building operators, engineers.” And she said, “You know what, I know that person, that person is me.” And that was her very first job. We called it project operations and this was a long time ago. But it was customer experience.

 

It was the start of customer experience, and it was sort of the start of her journey to where she is today. ChartHop is her fourth start-up and throughout her career, she’s sort of grown into taking on more and more teams and have gotten to a point today where she leads all of customer experience at ChartHop, and that includes professional services, their customer success team, their technical support team, and their account management slash renewals team.

 

So, sort of a crazy story how she got here, but the reality is, it's working with customers that she loves. It's the project management and the operational piece and she’s sort of grown that throughout the years as an engineer, as a real estate professional and now as a tech professional.

 

About ChartHop and What Service or Product Does ChartHop Provide?

 

Me: Amazing. So, Sarah, you are at a company called ChartHop and for those of our listeners that don't know what ChartHop does, could you tell us a little bit about your company and what is the service or product that you provide?

 

Sarah stated that it's a great question, she’s happy to talk a little bit about it. So, ChartHop is really transforming the way companies think about managing and supporting their people. So, what that means is, they can take people data from all your different systems, so your HR system, your talent acquisition, system equity, and put it all in one place.

 

And the thing that makes ChartHop really special is that it's not just for HR professionals, or it's not just for the CEO, it is truly for every single person at the company, your individual contributors, all the way through to your CEO. And the reason why that's so important is because what you're doing is you're creating a very transparent organization; you're creating a one stop shop for everybody in the organization to get all the information that they need.

 

If you're an individual contributor, it's really all the information that you need to understand and navigate the organization, or someone in her role, it gives her the ability to look in one place to understand everybody in her organization, where might they be on a vesting schedule?

How long have they been at ChartHop?

What has their performance look like over the years?

 

And so, it's, it's really designed to create a transparent organization. It's designed to make sure that leadership is making good decisions, especially when we start thinking about DEIB in the workplace. And one of the key attributes is really, it's for everyone at a company, not just the HR team.

 

Views on the Customer Journey – How Does EX Impact Customer Outcomes – Ins and Outs of a Customer Health Score

 

Me: So, HR plays a very important role in an organization. And I'd love for you to maybe take a few minutes and discuss with us your view on the customer journey through an HR lens. And how do you think EX impacts customer outcomes, the ins and outs of a customer health score?

 

Sarah shared thar those are all great questions. And she thinks part of what attracted her to ChartHop was this sort of, she’ll call it intersection of HR and or employee experience and customer experience. Like most people that are listening to this podcast, if you're managing and leading a customer experience team, it probably means that you are leading a pretty big team. When you're talking about services in an organization, it's human capital. If robots could do our jobs, if a health score, which she’ll get into in a minute, was just two plus two is four, we wouldn't be here.

 

And so, you have to take care of your people and she thinks that's first and foremost why EX and CX are in a lot of ways the same thing, and they influence each other. She thinks time and time again, we've learned that happy employees, employees that understand the mission, employees that are driven by that mission, are going to be your highest producers, and they're going to be the most productive.

 

And if you think about putting that motivated, high performer on a call with your customer, that's infectious, absolutely infectious. That motivation and that desire to drive value with the customer is going to translate every single time. And so, it is so important as CX leaders to really be thinking about that. And really thinking about how to engage your team, not just in, “Hey, these are the metrics, we need to hit as a company,” or “Hey, this is what you need to do with your customers.” But really investing time, investing professional development, and really thinking about the employee experience, because it is going to translate.

 

She also thinks one of the interesting things she’s been able to do at ChartHop is really work closely with head of HR and think about how the employee experience is truly also how we think about a customer journey. If you think about those magic moments for a customer journey, there's onboarding and implementation, you have to nail that, you have to have customers coming out of that phase of the journey, and just feeling so excited and so pumped that they bought ChartHop and that they're using ChartHop, that's the same thing you want your employees to feel when they're coming out of onboarding, internal onboarding, you want them to feel so excited, you want them to feel so empowered. You want them to understand what they’re doing at ChartHop.

 

And so, you can really see the overlap, and this is something she’s worked really closely with their head of HR at ChartHop to make sure that they are tracking together so to speak. When you start thinking about driving adoption for customer journey, that is the exact same as working with someone on your team on what their professional development is. You chart out someone's professional development the exact same way you're going to chart out a customer's objective planning with you.

 

And so, really thinking about all of those things and making sure that they’re aligned. And one of the questions asked also was to talk a little bit about health score. She thinks health scores are absolutely fascinating. And also, just really where you get to sort of like, leave your fingerprint, your true unique fingerprint on how you think about your customer base. She mentioned this before, two plus two is four, that's great and she’s sure all the professionals out there could put together a really, really smart mathematical equation to take you to the number of support tickets, bugs, time to launch, outcome of a use case and sort of put a number together and come out with a magic number at the other end.

 

But that doesn't really capture everything that goes into customer health. It is truly an art and a science. And she thinks science is really important, it is important to calculate that number, that magic number that says, “Hey, if they're above 80%, they're happy, below 80% they're yellow, below 30% they're red.”

 

Great, so we have a stoplight. But what is the customer saying to you on the phone? What is the customer bringing to you in your weekly calls?

What is the customer saying during quarterly business reviews?

 

That's going to be a different level of understanding of how happy that customer is.

 

And one example that she gives a lot to her team is just thinking through if you have a customer who is really excited about working with you on beta features, or alpha features, and it's like, “Hey, I want to be there, I want to test it with you.” Then if you're basing their health solely on sort of like number of bugs, it's not going to look pretty.

 

But if that customer is signing up for it, and excited about it, then there's a different overlay that you need to put on that customer. And so, she really truly thinks it's an art and a science of how you think about health score.

 

And again, just to sort of come full circle, it's the same exact thing with employees.

 

You can't just look at one dimension, humans are multi dimension, and you have to look at a lot of different factors to really assess. Is this person a flight risk or are you going to keep them for another couple of years. And so, it's really thinking about things both from just a pure human perspective and from a numbers.

 

Me: Brilliant, awesome, thank you for sharing all of that Sarah, great insights and nuggets as it relates to HR customer experience, the health score, integrating all of that looking at the human dimension is so, so important if you really want to create a strong culture.

 

Trends Emerging in 2023 as it Relates to Customer Experience and Employee Experience

 

Me: Now, you've been in the customer experience space for quite some time. And I just wanted to know, as we exit one calendar year and jump into another, are there any emerging trends that you've seen in the CX space, in the employee experience space that you think organizations should really be paying greater attention to or tapping into as we embark on our new year?

 

Sarah shared that this is such a great question. And something she’s been definitely thinking a lot about, especially as she’s sure most people are doing this too, going into planning, going into next year's fiscal planning. She thinks it's a couple of things. And she’s used this word before, and so she doesn't want to overuse it, but it's relevant, is transparency.

 

If she thinks about the CX organization and just employees in general, they're sort of demanding, she thinks that's the right word. They're demanding more transparency.

 

We've seen a lot about pay transparency and really posting pay scales. And that ripples through all parts of the organization, it's not just pay, it's truly transparency in who reports to who and what are people working on and what deals are closing. And so, she thinks that's a really big trend that folks need to take a step back and make sure that they're being as transparent as possible with their employees.

 

She thinks that also leads true because of the remote environment. She knows a lot of companies ChartHop is one of them, they’re still remote and so really focusing on transparency to her also means focusing on communication, sort of overly communicating with your employees, making sure they truly understand what we're all doing right, what direction are we pointed at, what is our mission? What should we be thinking about day in and day out.

 

And she thinks that that actually also is something that she’s thinking about with their customers. Transparency with their customers looks a little bit different but it's something that she’s continuing to see and think about.

 

Every one again, this goes back to sort of the human nature, like humans have different ways of learning and that is something that she’s hearing customers really sort of demand again, use that word demand from us right now, as customer success professionals is customers want to learn how they want to learn.

 

And what she means by that is she actually truly spoke to a customer this morning, that was like, “Hey, your CSMs are great. But I sort of want to figure some of the stuff out myself. I want to read a help article.” She has other customers say to her, “I want more videos. I want more in app communication.”

 

And she sort of feels like all of that is about communication, all of that is about transparency, all of that is about sort of meeting people where they are. And so, she thinks that's a big trend to be thinking about as you're thinking through your customer journey for your specific product is all the different ways to communicate with your customer. And a not be annoying.

 

So not to be annoying, but just sort of meet the customer where they're at, like, “Hey, if you want to read something, here's the link to the doc, if you want to see a step by step video, here's driving to you're learning centre.” And so, that's a big trend that she’s seeing right now is customers really wanting to choose their path and sort of choose how they want to learn about your product.

 

Me: It's interesting you said that because I actually attended a Customer Success Conference in Washington in October, and I sat in a session where they spoke about community and more organizations building out their community pages on their websites where if you do have an issue, you don't actually have to get in touch with the company because the community can help you because other people have had similar issues, and I thought that was so brilliant that if we could really get more of that.

 

When I think about my own devices, like even my Apple computer or my phone, if there's something wrong or something I'm not sure about, I automatically go to Google. And usually, Google populates based on the SEO, the Apple community comes up like in the first two or three resolution options that Google provides you with and 9 out of 10 times someone else has had that issue, and the answer is right there waiting for you. So, I totally get when they say they want to have the opportunity to be able to fix it on their own.

 

Sarah shared that she loves that. She thinks community is so important. She also thinks that that's where you get really cool thought Leadership. You get folks that are using your product in ways that you had no idea, you're like, wow, she would get on the phone with customers and be like, “Wow, that was super clever. I never thought about doing it that way.” And so, she loves the concept of a community, and we can all learn from our peers in so many ways. She loves that.

 

App, Website or Tool that Sarah Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Her Business

 

When asked about an online resource that she can’t live without in her business, Sarah stated that that's such a great question. So, first and foremost, she do have to say it is that again, she mentioned this a couple moments ago is that part of her job description is leading a large team, it's just always what it's like in a customer experience organization. So, to be totally true, ChartHop has really changed how she manage teams. And so, she'd say that's tool number one. Even at some point, if she were to leave, she would definitely advocate for that platform. It helps her navigate so many things with her team that it's so important.

 

She thinks number two, is video conferencing. She knows that there is Zoom fatigue in the world, she truly appreciates it, and she feels it. But being face to face with your customer is priceless. It is so hard to pick up on tone in an email, it's so hard to really convey what you're trying to say without having that face to face and with so much less travel, that is so critical. You have to put a face to a name, that's how you build relationships and build rapport.

 

And then the last one she’s going to say, which goes back to her very nerdy engineering days because she at her core, she is an engineer is really Excel or Google Sheets. She uses Excel all the time, it's what she needs to run her business.

 

Me: Brilliant, brilliant Excel is a very powerful tool.

 

Sarah agreed absolutely, people don't get as jazzed about it, but she does, it's truly her go to.

 

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Sarah

 

When asked about books that have had an impact, Sarah shared that she has one in mind that she read probably about 8 years ago, and she recently reread it, because their CEO loves it as well. And so, he had all the executive team read it, it's called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, the title of it is so great. It's by Patrick Lencioni. It's so great, because it's transferable both from a leadership team perspective, but also from a CX perspective.

 

And so, what she means by that is, the whole concept of the book is that there is a first team, and your first team is not who you think it is, a lot of people think that your first team are the people that report to you. And the concept is that that's not actually true. Your first team are your peers in the organization and the reason why it's your peers is because together you are a matrix. You're a matrix organization, and together, you all need to work to reach the ultimate company goal, not your own goal, it's not like “How does Sara reach her goals across customer experience?” No, no, no, it's how do we, as an executive team work together to reach our goals as a company?

 

And so, it's really this concept of you have to have a common goal number one, and like, your team goal can't outshine the common goal. And the reason why she likes it for customer experience, as well and it's something that she drives with her leadership team, is they are a matrix environment, they have four separate teams that report to her, but together, these four teams need to work together for the one common goal of creating the absolute best customer experience for their customers.

 

And so, if that is what we're keeping in mind, if truly every single day we show up and say our goal is to provide the best customer experience to our customers, then the right thing to do is very easy, or who does what becomes very clear. And so, it's a book that really resonates with her, and she recommends, it's a very quick read. And she recommends it as both a CX professional, but also just as you're continuing to sort of move up the ladder as you think about working across teams as well sort of cross functionally, it's an absolute great read.

 

Me: Very nice. So, we'll definitely have the link to that book in the show notes of this episode. While you were explaining what the book was about in summary, especially the example you gave off, one person's goal should not outshine the overall goal of the company. I thought of football, I guess because we're in World Cup season now. And I said to myself, one person's goal cannot outshine the overall team's goal, which is to win the game.

 

Sarah agreed, exactly. So, she coaches her two boys’ soccer team. They call it Soccer, Football. There are some really great football soccer commercials happening now by the way.

 

And it's so true, it's something that she really talks to the kids about from a young age, both when you score a goal and when the team scores against you, it’s not the goalie’s fault, it went through every single player before it got to the goalie. And same concept, the person who scores it touched a lot of feet before it got to that person that eventually put the ball on the back of the net. So, you are exactly right. She is a sports nerd. Same concept, so she loves it.

 

Me: That just popped in my mind a while ago, I was like wow, it's such a simple statement. But it's so profound and you everybody kind of has that mindset in an organization, I think the employee and the customer experience can be phenomenal.

 

What Sarah is Really Excited About Now!

 

When asked about something she’s really excited about, Sarah shared that that's a really great question. So, she’ll give two answers. Personally, what she’s working on, she’s a member of an organization, it's a women's networking organization. And they meet once a month with a peer group, is actually interesting, this is now becoming a theme, a peer group. So, other women who are at her same level and sort of going through sort of the same things and they’re all in the same macro environment.

 

And so, even if maybe some of them are not customer experience professionals, they're marketing professionals, most are in the start-up environment. But it's something that she’s really embracing. And each month they meet and we all bring to the table something that they’re facing or something that they’re thinking about or challenge that they’re going through with the company, and really working on being reflective, that is something that she’s working on is, when you are in it every day with customers, you sort of create this world where you're sort of go, go, go, go go.

 

And she thinks that a little bit more reflection is always really good. And so, that is something that professionally she’s working on is sort of taking those, it's only two hours once a month, but really taking the time to reflect like, sort of prepare for those meetings and sort of reflect on herself.

 

And then for her team, this might sound a little funny, but she’s actually right now, hiring a new leader for the for the customer success team. And she’s so excited to partner with this new leader because the customer success managers at ChartHop are absolutely phenomenal, truly phenomenal. And she’s excited to get a leader in seat that is really going to work with them, both from a professional development standpoint, and also just a process perspective but really dive in and take that team to the next level. And so, that's really her focus is just finding and hiring such an amazing leader for an amazing team.

 

Where Can We Find Sarah Online

 

LinkedIn – Sarah Diegnan

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Sarah Uses

 

When asked about a quote or saying that she tends to revert to, Sarah stated yes, that's a good one. One of the things she thinks about is, and the folks out there listening, and the customer experience org can sort of relate to this is that some days you show up and you have a list of things to do and none of those things get done. Because at the end of the day, we are going to follow the lead of our customers, and so, if a customer needs to talk to her, she’s going to drop everything to talk to that customer and she’s sure every single person that's listening does the same exact thing.

 

And so, in the moments when she’s thinking to herself, “Wow, I am buried. Like, how am I going to get all of this done?” She goes back to something that her mom would always say to her, “It'll all get done, Sarah, it will all get done.” And it's something that she thinks about a lot. How it all gets done is sort of in the background, it's truly just believing in yourself, and believing that you're going to figure it out and having that confidence that as her mom would say, “It's all going get done, Sarah, it's all going to get done.”

 

Me: Thank you so much for sharing Sarah, for taking time out of your very busy schedule to hop on this podcast, have this great conversation, give our listeners greater insights as to what they can do, what they can improve on, what are some of the emerging trends that you’ve seen, the fact that we need to be more transparent, we need to be more collaborative. Some of the different applications that you’ve used and are continuing to use to enhance your work that you do daily to improve your productivity as well as to get your job done. And of course, working towards the overall goal which is to create that magical experience for your customers at ChartHop.

 

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!

Dec 13, 2022

Rama Sreenivasan is a co-founder and CEO at Blitzz, a live remote video support and inspection platform. Rama has led the company through its initial inception launch and subsequent growth to several million video support minutes per month. Major customers include BMW, Sealy, FedEx, and Rogers Telecommunications.

Before founding Blitzz in 2017, Rama spent several years working as a Scientist and Educator. His biggest joy comes from helping others solve their problems and he is passionate about finding effective ways to disseminate knowledge. Rama has a PhD and MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park. He also did his Postdoctoral research at MIT in Cambridge, Boston.

 

Questions

  • We always like to give them an opportunity to share in your own words, how you got to where you are today and why you ended up on this journey that you are on?
  • So, could you share with our listeners a little bit about Blitzz? What does Blitzz do? Is Blitzz an acronym for something and may I ask? I'm not sure if you actually have a reason for it. But like, what inspired you to name the company Blitzz?
  • The whole method of augmented reality enabled Smart Glasses that your company is using to enable hands free support, making it even easier to fix a car stereo appliance and more. Could you share a little bit about how that works? And what the process is? And how easy has it been for customers to transition using this new method of resolution?
  • What are some trends that you see emerging in 2023 and beyond as it relates to technology, maybe one or two that you have observed, or you see that are emerging that you'd be willing to share with our audience?
  • Could you also share with our audience what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
  • Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read very recently, or even one you read a very long time ago, but it really has had a great impact on your life, and you just believe it would be a good value to share with our audience.
  • Could you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two things that you do personally to stay motivated every day, despite any challenges or adversities that you may face?
  • Could you also share with our audience, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people?
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you’ll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed.

 

Highlights

Rama’s Journey

 

Me: So, even though we read the bio of our guests, the formal constructed background of where our guests history is, and how they got to where they are today, we always like to give them an opportunity to share in your own words, how you got to where you are today and why you ended up on this journey that you are on?

 

Rama stated that that's a pretty deep question. Start with a little bit about his background, he grew up in India and Indonesia, so two countries far away from here. And always been guided by a lot of the values from his parents, his dad was an engineer. He's retired right now and back in India, and his mom was a teacher as well. So, a lot of great values growing up and the fundamental thing was always trying to care for people, to help them. And his strength in math and science naturally led him to be an engineer, just like his dad.

 

And he always looks for opportunities to help people out with technology. And that's been his journey so far. But one thing led to another and here he is, running a software company, although, all his education was in chemical engineering, he did my Master's, his PhD post-doc, worked for a couple of semiconductor companies. But it was during that journey that he saw the need to help people with technology, as they struggled to troubleshoot equipment.

 

And so, the equipment came in through his engineering, the desire to help came through his value system. And then he started looking for technologies, he stumbled across technologies and he puts all these together and that's how Blitzz was born when he met his co-founder, KR, who used to work at Google before he joined him in starting Blitzz.

 

What Does Blitzz Do?

 

Me: So, could you share with our listeners a little bit about Blitzz? What does Blitzz do? Is Blitzz an acronym for something and may I ask? I'm not sure if you actually have a reason for it. But like, what inspired you to name the company Blitzz?

 

Rama shared that he’ll start with the name Blitzz. Blitzz with one Z actually means getting something done fast and efficiently. There's also another meaning, which refers to the Blitzkrieg during World War. But the second meaning is what they’re referring to here. The reason why they went with two Z's was honestly because one Z the website was already taken, so they went with two Z, that it was also a little cooler with two Z's. So, that's what Blitzz means to get something done fast and efficiently.

 

And regarding what it does, so they provide a way to have an app free live video call with anyone on the planet. As most people know today, in the video calls are pretty rapid, especially the pandemic got people started on video calling, especially in not just personally but at work as well. But many people don't know that it can be done without an app download.

 

And there are specific reasons why you want to do it without an app download especially when you're helping out a customer who's calling in into a contact centre, as you very well know, in customer service, you get a call in from someone that you've hardly met, you probably talking for the first time, they're probably frustrated with a piece of equipment, or perhaps their internet router, right? And to get on a video call with that person by asking them to download an app only frustrates them even more. So, there's got to be an easier way and that's what Blitzz is. He hopes that explained clearly what Blitzz is.

 

Smart Glasses – How it Works and the Process

 

Me: So, what intrigued me Rama, about interviewing you was this whole method of augmented reality enabled Smart Glasses that your company is using to enable hands free support, making it even easier to fix a car stereo appliance and more. So, I am all into customer experience, as you know, because that's the podcast Navigating the Customer Experience.

 

But I thought this was so cool that you could literally work with a client to not physically be in the same space but be using that technology to help them get their issue resolved. Could you share a little bit about how that works? And what the process is? And how easy has it been for customers to transition using this new method of resolution?

 

Rama shared that let him clarify that the Smart Glass hands free use case is, it's a different use case when it comes to someone, a consumer calling a contact centre. So, the Smart Glasses doesn't apply to that. That applies to technicians out in the field who are probably climbing up a windmill or cell phone tower or need their hands free to hold them to the study as they climb a piece of equipment or hold tools in their hands to follow instructions from a remote expert. So, that's the Smart Glass site.

 

But with consumers calling and say, if you've got a problem with your charger, as you charge your car in your ED vehicle, and you're not able to charge it, and you call the one 1800 number in the US, for example, that’s what do you typically call for customer support. Somebody at a contact centre picks up the call and today they want to help you out, the whole idea is to get you going on your way.

 

But today, most of them operate blind meaning that they can't see your problem. And when they operate blind, they tend to ask a bunch of questions, which is typically aggravating because you're thinking to yourself in front of the car, if only you could see this. Well, that's what Blitzz is. At that point in time, the way it works is as a contact centre agent, you would simply send them a text link, they would get it on their phone.

 

So, while they had the phone to the air, now they will get a link to look at the phone take it away from their ear and look at the screen, they would click on the link, immediately the back camera turns on and within a few seconds without an app download, the contact centre agent is actually looking at the charging port of the car. So, just cuts down all those extra questions and they could point to things, they can mark images up, they can communicate very clearly as if they were standing right next to the person in front of the car just through remote video.

 

Me: All right, amazing. And how do you find technology helping customers because a lot of organizations are using technology and I do believe that it really should be used to enhance the experience to make things frictionless or effortless for the customer. But I also believe that the human element is still very critical to the experience that the customer has, because technology can fail. And so, how do you think as we transition and we move forward because I'm sure there's more opportunities for technology to be infusioned into the experience that we have, that we blended in such a way that they complement each other rather than create further frustration and pain and discomfort for customers.

 

Rama shared that he couldn't have said it any better. But right on point. The blending of technology and the human empathy is very important and that's what they focus on when they take Blitzz to the contact centres. So, the ability to get the customer agent eyes on the problem brings in that technology piece. And because of being able to see the problem and connect with the consumer who's calling in a pain free, frictionless manner, like you just mentioned, make sure that they're in sync, they understand each other. And then as they see the problem, now they can solve it better and perhaps, most of the cases, what happens is they're able to solve the problem and avoid sending out a technician or avoid sending the product back to the manufacturer and saving a ton of trouble by just being able to see it and solve it within a few minutes.

 

Trends Emerging in 2023 as it Relates to Technology

 

Me: Have you seen, you're in the whole technology space, I would say trends that you see emerging in 2023 and beyond as it relates to technology, maybe one or two that you have observed, or you see that are emerging that you'd be willing to share with our audience?

 

Rama shared that yes, absolutely. There are lots of tools that are AI related, even in the case of video, as video’s getting more rampant in businesses, not just in personal communication, technologies like Blitzz come in almost every other month and capture more data and that data is fed into machine learning. And you can use that data very effectively to make downstream processes more efficient.

 

For example, even during a Blitzz call, how do we empower the agent to provide the right solution to the caller? Imagine the agent is able to immediately get access to an instruction manual based on the make and model of the equipment that the agent is supporting to troubleshoot, being able to pull that resolution step or the answer to the problem and giving the agent immediate access so that they can help the customer and have them go about their day, very, very quickly, is very powerful.

 

So, AI, augmented reality video are all the tools that are coming out with great efficiencies, much like 10 years ago, chat came about for customer experience. So, he would like to say that video is like the new chat, because now your eyes are on the problem.

 

App, Website or Tool that Rama Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

 

When asked about an online resource that he can’t live without in his business, Rama shared that that's a good one. He’s been thinking about it for a bit. He would say, for him, the biggest value is just the cloud, even if he loses his laptop today, and there are lots of tools, but all those are cloud based tools. Even if his laptop is lost, he can go get another one and just seamlessly continue working as if nothing was missing. Because all the data, be it Gmail, be it tools, collaborative tools like Slack, or be it a CRM like HubSpot for his business. All these tools are on the cloud and he could just go get another laptop and continue working.

 

So, he would say, connectivity to the cloud is what he would need absolutely for the business. And they're all cloud-based tools important to migrate. It's really important to migrate to the cloud for businesses who are looking to the future because of the ease of working in the cloud is just incredible.

 

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Rama

 

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Rama shared that the book that comes to him was The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. That's more of a personal journey of being very mindfully aware of his strengths and weaknesses, it's kind of a metaphysical book, but it really made him aware of his own thinking process, and who he is as a person. And what does he want to do with his life.

 

There's also another book, he’s actually looking for around as he speaks. It’s a more recent book, it's by the author Dan Bapani and he has written a very good book on the ability to concentrate or the power of concentration. And he’s really enjoyed reading that book because it again, helps him be very mindfully aware of everything he does on a daily basis and be the best he can be. Both these things have really helped him be very present and live consciously.

 

How Rama Stay Motivated

 

When asked about how he stays motivated, Rama shared that he would say that would be definitely some yoga and meditation, that really puts him centre and it makes sure that things that really keep him keep me on track, he doesn't give up on those habits.

 

The funny thing about great habits is they get you to a spot where you're really enjoying life and that paradoxically also makes you not pursue those habits. So, you have to keep doing what you did to get there in order to be able to stay there. For him that is yoga and meditation.

 

What Rama is Really Excited About Now!

 

When asked about something that’s going on right now that he’s really excited about, Rama shared that he would say being a father of two small kids, 5 and 7. And running a company, trying to scale it. He’s always trying to find more balance and one of the other things he’s added in his life that he’s actually gotten back to because he couldn't do it when the kids were younger, was climbing. So, he loves climbing and what he’s really excited about is to get back to Yosemite, which is really close by in the valley and do some multi pitch climbing, which means climbing several pitches of rock. And that is pretty, pretty adventurous and exhilarating for him.

 

Me: Yes, that sounds very exciting and dangerous. But I suppose it depends on your perspective.

 

Rama shared that it's actually surprisingly, if you do it well, a joke to people, what typically is more dangerous is driving to Yosemite, rather than climbing because it's easier to get into trouble driving a car too fast than doing something very slow, like climbing, which is actually very controlled, provided you're very mindful.

 

Me: Yeah, and I do imagine there's some amount of skill involved in climbing as well.

 

Rama agreed, yes, there is but it does take some time and definitely getting trained with a good teacher is important, but again, what he’s realized is being very conscious about everything you do, being very hyper aware of what you do, really helps to be safe.

 

Where Can We Find Rama Online

 

LinkedIn – Rama Sreenivasan

Website – www.blitzz.com

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Rama Uses

 

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Rama shared that he thinks of Bill Watterson, he's the author of Calvin and Hobbes, and he tries and bring in a little bit of humour in the face of adversity, and he said it through Calvin, his quote was, “God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I’m so far behind that I am certain that I shall never die.”

 

Me: Okay. And would you like to expound on that for our audience and explain what that means?

 

Rama shared that he just thought it was really funny, he was kind of a self-deprecating humour. I'm here to accomplish a certain number of things. And we all get stuck in the rat race, right, trying to do so much but what when you stop back and think, right now, it's nice to laugh at yourself and say, “Hey, we're so far behind and all the list of things that I have to do that if I have to get all of them done, according to God, I should never die because I'm so far behind.”

 

Me: Oh, my goodness. Yes, it's quite comical. If only that were true, we all do have an expiry date, we just don't know when.

 

Rama agreed yes. But sometimes he feels at least his personality, he tends to take himself too seriously. So, he has to remind himself to also lighten up, let go and we're all here to help each other out and have a good time and take care of other people.

 

Me: Indeed. Well, thank you so much Rama for taking time out of your very busy schedule, to hop on our podcast, Navigating the Customer Experience and just share with us some of the trends that you see emerging in the technology space, why technology needs to still be fused in with the human interaction, the human experience, because at the end of the day, neither of them can function on their own and blended together that will definitely create a better experience for customers. And so, we appreciate you sharing all of the great nuggets and insights in our conversation today and so we just want to express our gratitude to you for that.

 

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!

Dec 6, 2022

Amanda Ono has spent her career learning to maximize a company's most valuable investment - it's people. Boasting over 20 years of international experience in organizational development, HR consulting, and change management, she has implemented successful talent and leadership initiatives in six countries across four continents. You can currently find her at Resolver, a Kroll business and worldwide leader in defining risk intelligence, making her mark as both VP Customer Experience and VP People & Culture.

For most of her professional life, Amanda has been on a mission to understand what makes highly effective organizations tick. As an undergraduate in psychology, she saw pioneering research on the effects of unconscious bias and racism in resume screening up close. After graduating, she honed her craft by tackling training and organizational development at talent management firms across Canada. Soon her skills were in such demand that invitations to implement leadership programmes across the globe started to roll in - first in South Africa, followed by Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Since joining the Resolver team in 2016, she's only expanded on her record of success. Implementing processes and strategies that have enabled Resolver to scale by over 120%, expand into four countries and acquire three companies. Amanda's efforts have led to being recognized as one of Canada's great places to work six years in a row. Despite her accolades, Amanda is determined to continue engaging, accelerating and giving her colleagues at Resolver to deliver on the company's motto: Aim big, Be Great, and Be Loved by Customers.

 

Questions

 

  • We've read, the formal background of who you are and where you are today. But we'd love for you to tell us the audience and myself, in your own words, a little bit about your journey and how it is that you got to where you work today.
  • Could share with us maybe three to five things that you think is critical for leaders to embrace and practice on a daily basis in order to really have successful teams in an organization?
  • Sometimes I find that HR in an organization, very few organizations where I've interacted with the team members of a company, and they feel so comfortable going to their Human Resource people, how could we change that, what are some ways that we could look for opportunities that HR can really play the role they're supposed to play?
  • Could you also share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
  • Could you also share with us what are some books that you have read that you believe have had the biggest impact with you? Maybe one or two you could share with us, could be that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you read recently, but it really has impacted you.
  • Could you also share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
  • Could you share with us one or two benefits of HR or the people arm of the business actually using it technology to enhance the experience that employees have in the organization? How can technology help that?
  • Where can they find you online?
  • Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, and the quote kind of helps to get you back on track and kind of refocus you on what you're trying to achieve?

 

Highlights

Amanda’s Journey

Amanda stated that as you can hear, she’s had a nonlinear career path and she truly thinks that a lot of the opportunities she’s had both to lead teams and grow processes have been a result of that. So, she started, as Yanique said, actually went into her undergrad wanting to be a clinician and wanted to be a psychologist. And then she took abnormal psychology and didn't really know if that aligned with her long term, but taking organizational psychology really clicked, how do people, leaders and organizations work together to achieve results.

So, she’s had jobs in sales and marketing early in her career, she’s worked in both the private as well as the not for profit sector.

But the common thread that she really had across was how do you get the most out of people?

How do you maximize people's potential?

And so, it's been a great journey for her, she also had an opportunity to oversee the customer experience side of their business for about two and a half years and that includes both professional services support and learning operations.

And so, she thinks from the range of opportunities she’s had, and just a little bit on her mindset, where she’s pretty open, she thinks you focus on the skills and the work you want to do versus the title, she’s had an incredible journey thus far and look forward to continuing.

 

Key Best Practices for Leaders to Embrace and Practice to Grow and Develop a Successful Team

Me: Now, people are so important in a business and of course, our podcast is focused on navigating the customer experience. And we're all customers in everything that we do, I live by the motto that we're all here on this earth to serve each other, in everything we do we serve each other, in our communities, in our schools, with our children, at church, just everything you do, you're offering some level of service to someone.

And so, could you maybe share with us being that you have so much experience, developing people skills and talents and working on teams, where you've really been able to hone the best out of people.

What do you think are maybe I would say, especially seeing that you have so much experience working with leadership teams across different continents and cultures. Maybe you could share with us maybe three to five things that you think is critical for leaders to embrace and practice on a daily basis in order to really have successful teams in an organization?

Amanda stated that this is a this is a great question. And so, she thinks when you start as a leader, there's a peace around what are your values?

What do you care about as you grow your business or your organization?

 

And she thinks that becomes the first foundation in terms of how you're going to grow the team. And so, she thinks there's been this great movement over the past few years where people have really said, bring your authentic leadership style to work, she thinks it's an incredible movement, because you can't be everything to everyone.

And, and at the end of the day, you are who you are, and your company or your business is who you are, you're able to serve a certain customer base, you’re able to engage with your employee base a certain way.

And so, you really want to be rooted in that. She thinks employees are smart, they know that if they've been sold something in a recruiting process that's different when they show up to work, they might decide that they want to work somewhere else. So, she thinks as leaders, it's very important to be really strong in what you believe in, because there's a role for everyone and a company for everyone but being authentic and honest about it is so important. So, she always says start from that.

 

And certainly, it Resolver and as they continue to expand with Kroll, they have a deep value in the fact that employees are their customers, they're one of the customers that they serve, and she couldn't agree with Yanique more. Service is a key part of how leaders become really successful. And she always says if people in culture teams, they exist to serve the employee base. And so, they have to understand and learn from them and listen, and that's really why one of her values is that continued curiosity to understand how people operate and understand how she can continue to serve them. So, that she believes is really fundamental.

She would say the second thing for leaders, just to give a couple is to really think about who are you going to recruit into your organization?

So, once you know what your values are, how do you attract people that are going to align to those values?

Again, there's a company for everyone and having people you can decide that you want to build a company that is extremely high performance, extremely metric driven.

Well, there's people that are going to suit that environment that are much more competitive and much more driven towards those metrics and goals. So, making sure you have that alignment in the recruitment process is really critical.

 

She would say the third thing that made them really successful is building good onboarding programmes. So, she’s always found it curious that companies invest a ton in recruiting great people, and then sit them in front of a workstation or at their home office, and hopefully they have a laptop, hopefully they have credentials, hopefully they know what they're doing.

But setting people up for success early is really, really important. One thing they did at Resolver, is they really looked at how do you build an onboarding programme for a professional services team that was servicing their customer base, and they were able to get people successful and fully utilized at around four to five months versus around eight to nine months.

So, when you're able to really drill in on those programmes, this is sometimes where people think that “Oh, it's just an HR programme, or it's just something HR is asking me to do.” But when you do it well, you can really start to generate revenue. And so, she would say to leaders, have your values aligned, attract the right people, and then make sure you're onboarding them extremely well. Not only does it help with engagement at the employee level, because she genuinely thinks people want to get up and be successful, they don't want to get up and do a bad job.

 

So, it helps them be successful. But there's also real monetary gain that you can have when you build those programmes well. But she would say those are the three right off the hop that she thinks if leaders do really well, they're going to create a really strong service culture within their organization.

 

Opportunities for Human Resource to Play Their Role

 

Me: Great. Now, apart from leaders, like the CEO and the CFO and the CMO, and all of the top-level leaders in an organization, HR plays a very integral role in an organization. And sometimes, the name HR stands for Human Resources, which is the human, as the name suggests, the resources of the business that are human. Sometimes I find that HR in an organization, very few organizations where I've interacted with the team members of a company, and they feel so comfortable going to their Human Resource people, how could we change that, what are some ways that we could look for opportunities that HR can really play the role they're supposed to play?

I mean, apart from the standard things like benefits and ensuring that the organization is providing the teams with all of the resources that they need to get the job done, I think there's more that HR can play in terms of really supporting the team members. And sometimes when you talk to employees, they feel like HR is not for them. Do you get that feeling sometimes when you work with organizations or your interactions?

 

Amanda shared absolutely. This is such a great question. So, one thing they were really thoughtful about because when she joined the organization, she was the first hire to be within the function and she was really specific, because as a software company, very small software company, 90 people at the time when she joined, they're really afraid that HR was going to be seen as the police, the people that drove compliance, and you have to do this and don't step out a line.

There was a philosophical alignment that was really important to have with the leadership team. And honestly, even for her as a professional, she wants to join an organization where HR is seen as strategic versus administrative. And so, they were very thoughtful, they’re an early maturity team. And so, they called themselves the Talent Team, because they want to sit where be thought of as holding talent in the organization and enabling them to be successful.

They've since broadened and evolved, and now we use the term people and culture, which she thinks is a bigger reflection. But she thinks there's a philosophical approach that if an organization, where do you sit on the spectrum as HR as administrative versus strategic, and so if you're part of an organization where HR is seen as strategic, you're probably really empowered to build programmes that think of employees through an employee lifecycle, much like we think of a customer lifecycle, you acquire, you onboard, you retain, you land and expand, same thing as you think about the employee journey.

And so, she thinks if you're part of the organization where you're a little bit more on the strategic side, she thinks you're able to build some of those programmes, it's a sliding scale, she doesn't think there's any organization where you necessarily are sitting at hard either ends of that spectrum. Because certainly, there's a bunch of stuff in HR that is administrative, you've got to administer benefits, and you've got to make sure paperwork is done, that's super critical to a well-run people and culture organization, but it's just making sure that you work with leadership that truly sees people as the most significant investment they're going to make.

 

Most companies, if you're a knowledge-based organization, you probably spend between 60% to 80% of your operating budget on people. So, if you don't view it as strategic, you're really going to miss out on the opportunity to grow your business. And so, she thinks it's just how the organization thinks about it, she’s always believed that change and success is rooted in results.

So, she doesn't think you can necessarily change everything all at once. But if you change a really small thing early and you get success, the rest of the leaders in the organization will say, “Hey, maybe HR isn't as administrative as I thought it was, maybe it could do more. And maybe I should be relying on them to consult with the business.” So, she thinks it's got to kind of work both ways. There's a philosophical piece where you want your leadership to buy into, but it's also build programmes that are successful, because then you're going to be able to do a lot more.

 

App, Website or Tool that Amanda Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Her Business

 

When asked about online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Amanda shared that for her personally, it's Asana, which is a task management and project management tool. They are a relatively flat organization and they do a lot of cross collaboration. And so, being able to have teams from product, people in culture, engineering, marketing, product marketing see one view of how they have to collaborate and work together and commit to timelines she thinks is a total game changer in terms of how they’re able to manage accountability and push things forward.

She thinks most organizations don't necessarily have a ton of maturity when it comes to project management or programme management, she knows certainly, that was a huge skill set she learned in her time at Resolver. And so, she thinks any tool that makes that faster, especially in a distributed world, where you can’t always just rock up to someone's desk and say, “Oh, hey, did you finish that for me?” She thinks having that tool has really allowed for them to still deliver results and manage accountability and have a shared collaboration space. So, they’re big Asana users, and she’s a huge fan.

 

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Amanda

 

When asked about books that have an impact, Amanda shared that she just reread John Kotter’s Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author, because change and change leadership is a huge part of how leaders have to continue to push their organizations to be innovative and to continuously improve. And so, he has a breadth of research and a ton of really good nuggets in there, which she’s really appreciate it and she thinks are great for her as a leader.

And then she’s just a huge Brene’ Brown fan, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transform the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, so that was a little bit more on a personal level. But she thinks it was really informative for her. And part of the hard work of being a leader is looking inside, it's not always pretty in there but it's what's going to make you better to serve your employees and your customers is looking inside and asking yourself the hard questions. And so, those are ones that she often recommends to people, they're very top of topical for her and have really helped her advance and continue to challenge herself in the way she leads.

 

Me: Amazing. I love Brene’ Brown, I think her content is truly amazing. And she actually has a video that I found a couple of years ago on the difference between empathy and sympathy that she did at a TED talk, that I thought was really, really good, because I think a lot of people just really mix up the difference between being empathetic versus being sympathetic. And sometimes even the words that we use sends a signal of sympathy rather than one of empathy.

 

Amanda stated that she totally agrees. She thinks the work she's (Brené Brown) done on empathy, especially as it relates to the workplace, she's done an incredible job with that. For them, as Amanda has built various programmes on the employee side and on the customer side, she always thinks about ensuring that they’re rooted in empathy. Because at the end of the day, understanding each other and supporting each other to achieve things is really how they’re going to get results. So, she would say it's extremely central to how she’s had an opportunity to build things. And for many companies, empathy is at the root of how you are going to be in service of both your employees and your customers.

 

What Amanda is Really Excited About Now!

 

When asked about something that’s going on right now she is excited about, Amanda stated that that's a great question. So, recently Resolver was acquired in the spring of this year by Kroll, which is professional services company. And Resolver as well as several other technology companies are going to be the digital arm of Kroll, so Kroll Digital Services.

So, she was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to step in as the Chief Human Resource Officer for that role, again, going back to her point about the HR title, but that's how they level them so that's fine. So, as a business unit that's emerging, that's going to be digital first inside a company, she’s been given the very tall order to work with the team on how do we form a great culture within a digital first business unit?

What does that look like? How do you integrate these companies that have slightly different cultures, but still want to achieve great things through technology for a vast array of customers around the world?

 

So, that's a very recent shift. So, it's really exciting, lots of work ahead. But she realized in her career, she likes building stuff, she has a value around getting to build stuff and getting to test and pilot things and so that's the next chapter for her. So, she’s really excited for that.

 

Benefits of HR Using Technology to Enhance the Experience that Employees Have in the Organization

 

Me: So, when you were talking just now in terms of your new role and using technology, it piqued my interest to ask another question as it relates to human resources and technology. Maybe could you share with us one or two benefits of HR or the people arm of the business actually using technology to enhance the experience that employees have in the organization? How can technology help that?

 

Amanda shared that employees, especially over the past 10 to 15 years were such a tech first society, especially in North America, but globally, and so employees look at how they engage with their employers like they would as consumers. And so, they are, again our internal customers or consumers of processes and programmes that any organization is going to run.

And so, being tech-enabled is super important, making it easy for people to update their employment records and it's not a piece of paper, but they can do it on their mobile, she thinks being able to do things like a performance review process through a technology that is fast and easy to do.

And, again, potentially mobile enabled, super important. She thinks technology can help enable most things. She always say that technology doesn't solve the process, it just makes the process faster. So, what some people try to do is they say, “Okay, finally, I've got some budget, I'm going to put in a technology.” Which is great, it's wonderful, certainly she’s worked with various organizations that were super paper based, which becomes a barrier for employees to engage with things like performance conversations.

And so, again, the more tech enabled, you can make it the better. But the hard work is actually to step back and say, “What do we want this to look like? What are we trying to drive as the result, and then let's make sure the technology makes that true for us.”

 

 So, she thinks technology has a wonderful capability to drive efficiency, specially drives reporting, because it makes it really easy for all information to be in one spot. But the hard work of the leadership team is to step back and to say, what do we actually want to achieve? Let's draw out a process that makes sense and then let's enable it through technology.

She thinks sometimes people go the other way and she’s seen it the other way and it ends up being a major challenge. Because at the end of the day, the process has to be good, it has to be simple for employees. To Yanique’s point earlier about employees being customers, we as a society now really have a high bar for things being easy, for it being a few clicks, for it being enabled by technology.

And so, if organizations are thinking about their employee base is not thinking differently when it comes to HR tech and how they interface with HR tech, they're probably going to have people that kind of moan and groan about the stuff they have to do on paper or an excel spreadsheet or anything like that. So, huge fan, think there's lots of work to be done to make it really effective. But she thinks certainly the reality of a pandemic and being most companies now having some form of distributed work team makes it doubly important to what it was three years ago. But that's definitely a frontier for people to make sure that they're crossing to ensure they're serving their employee base.

 

Me: Yeah. Wow. You know, you said three years ago, totally unrelated to what you're talking about and I just realized, wow, January, February makes it three years since we've been in this pandemic.

 

Amanda shared that it’s wild and honestly, she thinks she’s an optimist by design and one of the best outcomes from COVID for employees specifically and employers is twofold. One, it made us totally rethink if employees need to be in the office full time. And there's some jobs where that's still true. But there's many companies, Resolver, and Kroll Digital included, where you can be hybrid. And so, she thinks shifting that narrative was as true, we mark the three-year anniversary of that win for employees.

And the second thing is people became a lot more open about talking about mental health and the impacts of mental health because the wall between work and home was just shattered for most of us. And so, she’s certainly within their employee base notice a difference in the courage to have those conversations and to bring more vulnerability to work. She’s seen that shift and it's a positive one because it allows them to understand that what people are going through and how they might support them moving forward.

So, three years in, lots of stuff that she’s sure we'd like to go back in time on. We're here or what we have. And she certainly thinks from an employee perspective, there's been some great wins and she hopes now what most companies are able to do is to say, “Okay, let's take what we've learned, and let's make the offering and how we serve our customer or employee base even better.”

 

Where Can We Find Amanda Online

LinkedIn – Amanda Ono

 

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Amanda Uses

 

When asked about quote or saying that she tends to revert to, Amanda stated that she thinks this one needs to get printed on a T-shirt for her. Her granny told me when she was little, and it’s constant on repeat for her, especially during COVID. But she thinks as you continue to evolve, “It's just controls what you can control.”

There's so many things that are dependent and you can't really influence but if you really narrow focus on the things that you can move, even on days where you're not feeling the best, you have control to go out and get some fresh air and go for a walk and get some perspective, you have control of engaging with very kind relationships with people on your team, you have control to just kind of laugh off maybe that colleague that always is a little bit harsh on a call.

So, that's her t-shirt, stated that probably she should wear it daily, maybe actually next time she pops onto a Zoom call with her team, she should have it on a t-shirt, they’ll probably like that. But that's definitely hers, control what you can control.

 

Me: Control what you can control. Love it. Well, thank you so much, Amanda for hopping on to our podcast and Navigating the Customer Experience, sharing all of these great insights and nuggets as it relates to people and culture, building strong teams, the importance of leadership and some of the key things that leaders need to do in order to build successful teams and great cultures. And just sharing with us, based on your journey, your experiences that you've had, and allowing our listeners to really tap into what are some ways that they can explore to really navigate and create great success. We're embarking on a new calendar year, lots of great opportunities that we may not have been able to tap into in 2022 and those doors may still be open in 2023. So, we really appreciate you sharing this great content with us today.

 

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!

1