Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Table Service podcast where we'll dish on all things support, success and beyond with the people and companies building the future of customer experience.
Table Service is presented by Tavolo Consulting and I'm your host, Jordan Hooker.
Ian Storm brings a unique CX perspective shaped by his journey from debt collector to strategic leader in Contact Center Solutions. As the director of Strategic Solutions at Aspect, he he helps clients foster a discovery driven culture, turning curiosity into actionable insights and solutions. With experience spanning from project manager to integration architect, Ian's passion for connecting people and ideas across teams remains a constant, driving exceptional outcomes. Outside of work, Ian is a proud dad, dog owner and lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, patiently awaiting their first super bowl win. In his downtime, he enjoys psychology, podcasts and great TV shows.
Ian, welcome to the table, Jordan.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: I'm so excited to talk to you about what we got set up for today.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Indeed. Yeah, we've got a great conversation here that I think is an important piece that we often miss in these types of conversations around CX and so thrilled for us to jump into that. Before we do that though, for our listeners who may not be familiar with you, I'd love if you could tell us a little bit more about yourself. Listen, hear the story.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, so it was really, I fell into it backwards sort of this strategic leader moniker for Contact Center. Really it was through and I'd recommend this for anyone's career growth. I just jumped from hat to hat, tried it on, right. It's like, eh, it doesn't fit. Doesn't fit. You go to sales, product marketing, and now what I love about it is I can have this holistic perspective when I'm talking to folks like you, where it's like, you know, what's practical, what's maybe a little unrealistic because you lived it. So I just, I can nerd out about talking about this stuff all day, every day. I love CX and today, you know, talking about ex, the employee experience.
And I'm excited for your reaction because I, I see it go one of two ways usually.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Customer success, folks.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Either they get really excited, the eyes open and they're like, that's how it can come together.
Or it's more like, no, that's, that's a different, you know, not my circus, not my monkeys. Why are we talking about this?
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: So yeah, yeah. Be interested to get your genuine reaction on this.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, let's hop right in there. So talk with me a little bit about what employee Experience is. And how does it impact customer experience? Which this, this podcast is talking to the people building the future of customer experience. This is a very, very large tent that, that we live in in this customer experience tent. So this is a critical part. So let's talk about employee experience and how does that affect our overall customer experience?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll, you know, I'll break it down in two ways. Right. So usually when folks are talking about it, they're trying to push a product on you, to be honest. Right. They're talking about workforce management, where you're gonna do some forecasting, scheduling, and intraday adjustments based on analytics and reporting. And, you know, there's the, the quality feedback loop to coach performance and analyze those metrics. Right. But if you don't mind going a little fluffy with me, this might be me justifying a very expensive psychology degree, but I like to think about it in terms of psychological motivation.
And have you ever heard of self determination theory?
[00:03:34] Speaker A: I have.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: All right, so you're going to. All right, you're talking my language already, so I'll get into the nuts and bolts of it for a second. But the reason I really like to focus on the employee experience in terms of the actual person, your customer feels it. That's the real primer here, right? Because we've all been on those calls where maybe you actually got exactly what you needed, but for some weird reason, you don't really feel great about it. Like, you got what you were aiming for, but you don't feel heard. Right. You didn't get that vibe.
So the way I like to frame it is three big basic human needs. Right?
Autonomy. I need to feel like I'm in control of my life.
And I'm going to spare you the. The quizzing, but normally I like to turn it over just to make sure that we're talking the same language. But I'll spare you this time. It's Friday that we're recording this.
You know, I know you're. You have vacation coming up, so we'll. We'll spare the quiz time.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Sounds great.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: So autonomy in terms of your employees experience as they handle the customer experience, it's. Do you really have to script it verbatim? Right. On a particular topic, like as a very bad debt collector, there was a thing called the Mini Miranda. I had to say that verbatim legally. Right. Recording disclosure. Legally. Have to say it that way.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: But, you know, if I'm located, you know, in the south of the U.S. versus the north of the U.S. there can be some Charm and just the different way you meet and greet people.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: It's an authentic experience. Right.
Actually, I'm going to pause there. Do you ever encounter that when you're consulting, you know, with different companies and organizations?
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. As a true Southerner, I've been in the south my entire life. It's been a stint in Texas, which I.
Is the Southwest. It's not truly the South. It's a whole different thing. I love them both. But. But having grown up truly in the South, I've had more than one experience where being on a phone call with somebody as a support agent from up north or somewhere else and saying, yes, sir, no, ma' am, that are things that I grew up going. I actually had someone say to me, hey, I understand you're probably just coming from wherever you grew up. That actually comes across a bit patronizing where I'm from.
And so you got to think about that now. The reality is it's not reasonable to train all of our agents to think, like, how do we decide that? Because if I don't say that to somebody from the south, they're probably going to be offended if I do say that to somebody from the. So you have that struggle. So I've encountered that multiple times as an agent and as a manager of trying to think, like, how do we develop this kind of cosmopolitan, like, thing? And sometimes, honestly, it's just. It's just such a challenge. And so, yeah, I counter it, I think. And I think it's a hard thing to deal with.
And I also think sometimes we maybe put just a little too much emphasis on. On that. But I think there's. There's value in thinking through those things. Obviously, you'll hear my Southern accent come out every once in a while. Having worked in radio, I got that beat out of me and learned how to have a little bit more of the straight and narrow on my. On my tone and my accent. But it's still. Still there. And if it comes out, people should probably just be okay with that.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: It's interesting that in our industry, it's almost. It almost feels like we make it a challenge because, you know, it's true that there's some folks that it'll turn them off and maybe they won't enjoy it. But overwhelmingly, even just you walking me through an example, I love the way you said, yes, sir, yes, ma' am. You know, like, because it's authentic to you.
I did not pick up. There was no. I. I didn't think of it as condescending. And you Know, as you can tell by my bill sign, I'm in western New York. So, like, you know, I am north.
And if anything, you brought my guard down. Just walk me through an example. I was like, yeah, I get that. I love that. Absolutely.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: You know, yeah, yeah, very true.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Why is that? Why do we make that a challenge? Is it just nitpicking? Is it genuinely impacting the business?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I think that we are as humans. Let's dig into the psychology degree that you've actually gotten that I took, you know, two. Two psychology classes on. We are so conflict avoidant at all times, even in our work, that we are always trying to look around every single corner and think, how can I prevent what happens next from creating discomfort or conflict?
So we create it for ourselves for situations that likely will never occur, likely won't be a problem, or might be a very small percentage. I mean, like I said, I had that. That lady say that to me. I have never had someone else say that to me. That was that one time. I could build my entire method of managing and coaching a customer support team based on that one experience. And I think we often do that. Instead of realizing for the majority of people, as you mentioned, if the experience is authentic, if they can hear in my voice that I'm not being rude.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Click.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Clearly that woman heard that in my voice. She goes, I know you're probably just from the south and you're just used to using this language. Well, then it was just an authentic way for me to speak, which should just be perfectly fine.
So I think that conflict avoidance is the key thing, but the reality is sometimes we're going to have conflict, and that's just okay.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Shoot, I should have saved some money. Apparently two psychology courses would have been more than enough to reach some great conclusions. Shooting.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: I get that. I get that my music history degree does very similar things for me, you.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Know, but no, you raised such a great point too, where, you know, it's. It's almost like a little bit of sports psychology or even parental or teacher.
Just when you're in the position of being a coach, you know, if you give up, you know, let's say it's baseball. If you gave up one home run, but you had so many strikeouts before that, why would I even talk to you about that? You know, like, home runs are going to happen. It's. It's not really within your control. No one can throw a perfect game ever. Or even if they do, it's super rare.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Right. Right. Yep.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: So, you know, I'm Getting way ahead of myself, but it's so relevant. So. All right, just join me on the derail train here. There's so much opportunity for positive reinforcement.
So concept number two. So we talked about autonomy, which is I feel in control. So in this example, if I want to say, yes, sir, am I really hurting anyone? Because that's authentic to me. So there's autonomy.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Competency.
Right. So this is that coaching piece.
And you know, I don't know if it's like cultural thing. I don't know if it's. Because operating a contact center is almost like manufacturing. Right. Like, got to keep things moving and running.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: All about efficiency.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Right.
Whatever that thread is positive reinforcement. Like, so going back to that example, she pointed out that one thing that was wrong. You know, what's that ratio look like to the thing? The positive compliments she gave you for what she was doing. Right.
And then on top of that ratio, you know, getting way ahead of myself because this is like a tangible recommendation. But yeah, we're flowing.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Not only should your supervisor, your mentor, your boss give you that positive reinforcement, two things share the responsibility of that positive reinforcement. Cultivate a culture where.
So as you guys, as you can tell, I'm a big sports guy when you're, you know, watch the film as a team, so to speak, you know, send out a short example of in football, like, look at this great touchdown catch that Jordan had.
Or look at this great way that Jordan deescalated a high emotional situation. Right, Right. So not only is it positive reinforcement, but have other people on the team, peers recognize each other for great work they're doing and just focus on that positive reinforcement so that they focus on what they're doing. Right. Where you're building a culture of, hey, we're all here to get better, we're going to get better together, there's no shame. And, you know, giving up that interception, that home run.
Let's focus on what you're doing. Good. And then, you know, I have a data geek background and I've noticed that in a data driven culture, especially when it's enterprise, there's good focus on outliers, but it's the bottom 5 to 10% instead of the top 25%. Great at improving what's wrong and focusing on it.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: But what about that trickle down of what's going so. Right.
Where not only do people see, this is what I should do? Right. But maybe you retain your employees because they feel good. They feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I think that is so key because I know as a sport leader, metrics, week in and week out, you know, within the last month, our metrics have been very, very stable. But more than a month, let's say, for this year now, so we're kind of heading towards the end of February here. My team's metrics have been consistent. They've been where I want them. They're well within our SLAs. Quality is really good. No issues there. We had one week where our resolution times shot up by, I don't know, four hours. There were some very particular issues that happened. Some tickets that have been long standing that closed. And it would have been very possible for me as a sport leader to go into our operational meetings for the week and just talk about, yeah, we just had such a bad week. It was just, you know, sorry, guys, we'll do better next week, I promise.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Instead, the conversation I came in and had was, this is why this happened. Here's the key elements of this. These are the parts that my team owned. These are the parts that actually some other team teams owned that drove that result for my team. We own that resolution metric, but the impact of it comes from multiple aspects of the company behind my team.
So I was able to tell that story. So, one, we figured out where there were some inefficiencies, and we were able to resolve those things. And then, two, as a leader, I protected my team from being the scapegoat of the support team. Was just really bad last week. And instead it was, you know what? As a company, we missed the mark. It wasn't just this team. And so we shared that failure.
It's not really a failure. We shared that together as an organization.
And by the next week, things were running smoothly again. We were back where we needed to be. Two weeks later, even better. And it was because we created, as you talked about that, that kind of psychological safety of being able to say, hey, we are in this together.
I'm not just focused on where we maybe didn't do this thing. Well, it made a huge difference in the work that we were doing.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like that example. Right. Protecting your team.
You know, a lot of the talks that I get into, it's how do I use technology to protect against, like, employee attrition.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: And there are ways to do that and, you know, not here to pitch products. And there's always gonna be a tool for the job, right?
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: But it's always gonna come back to the person.
Right. Like, if I had you spend Lord knows how much money on how to drive that.
It would all go to waste if you'd handle that differently. He said, like, well, you know, the west coast team, they took over at this time, and that's when we saw the drop. And, you know, that team, they just really. Who we. We were doing great on the east coast until we got to the West Coast. Those guys, you know, you create that fracture within the team. Then everyone shocked, well, why didn't they want to stay?
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Yeah. We've clearly seen those moments. And so many companies where you see who is the scapegoat for the issues. And, I mean, sometimes somebody really was the one that was not performing well, and it's reasonable. But I tend to see a lot of companies focus in on those pieces and so being able to focus then instead on the. Yes, there's areas for improvement, there's things we can work on together. We own these results together. Therefore, when something goes wrong, we don't point to one person. We point to ourselves and say, how do we do this? And as a leader, this is my responsibility to guide that.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Right. And I love the way you handled it, too, because it reminds me of, like, in football, the kicker misses the game winning field goal.
Yes, it's true. That was the last thing that happened. And in customer support. Yeah. You are typically the last line of defense to getting something resolved.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: So the analogy is great, where it's like, sure, blame the kicker all you want, but the game's been played for several hours before, you know, the kicker even lined up to take that kick. Like, yeah, it all ties together. You know, there's somebody who snaps it, somebody who holds it.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: He. Yeah. I would say as a. As a diehard University of Alabama football fan, I experienced that so much this year of, yes, we could blame the refs for a couple of really bad calls, but we should have never been in the position for those calls to have been made in the first place. So I digress, but I feel that very, very deeply from you there.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Well, it's so true, though, because, like, part of, you know, a lot of organizations are worried about culture, and that's great, and that's progress.
That's a great example. Like, so I volunteer coached football, and the only time, you know, I'm hoping I'm coming across that I'm not this kind of guy, but the one time I did snap, I felt like it was merited because it was, you know, it was 8th graders, 7th graders complaining about the referee, and I just lost my mind. Where it was, basically the message was, if you're waiting for things to be fair, it's never going to happen. You will always have something to point at. But what's your mindset? Right? Are you going to worry about the cards in your hand or are you just going to play the cards?
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Like, you can't do both. Right. You can't be the person who just, you know, protects the ego and points blame while also being the person who's solution oriented and says, all right, when I'm up against this again, this is what I'm gonna do differently. Right. It's that growth mindset. So as soon as you enable people to, you know, we all need to vent and, you know, get things out in an ugly way sometimes, but you really gotta tie it back to some sort of actionable thing that's within your control, you know, like it?
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Man, it really grinds my gears. And people like my fellow Bills fans, they're gonna roast me for saying this. I don't care if the Chiefs say seemingly got more calls. That is a loser mindset.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: You know, winners are going to win no matter what's on the field. You know, and that's what I care about.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And I think too, then another layer of that is with, with that team. Let's say, for instance, yeah, maybe the refs were making some really bad calls.
Your job then as the leader is to go deal with that problem as a support leader.
When things are happening inside of our organization that are not right, that are not fair, that are placing blame, I need to go deal with those things. But I still need to then empower my team to say, you know what, we're still going to go out on the field. We're going to leave it all there. We're going to do the things we need to do, and then as a leader, I'll go deal with those things. But you're right, if we focus as leaders and keep going to our teams and saying, you know what, it's all engineering's fault. It is just, it's always engineering and product, product. They're killing me. You know what, maybe I go have that conversation with my boss. Because our one on one meeting is a safe space where both of us can bang our heads on our desk and say, yeah, that, that probably was true this week, but that's not how I should be leading my team and helping them think in, in those ways. So let's, let's dig a little bit deeper than thinking about, like employee experience and this Thing that we, we know, if we go do that. Well, that old thing about, you know, if we take care of our employees first, they're gonna take care of our customers. It's the how. How can companies start thinking about this and drive to a deeper understanding to improve their employee experience, particularly in service settings?
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great point you raise. And actually we really did touch on it. So just before I forget, the third need is relatedness. It's all the teamwork dynamics we just spoke about. Right. So autonomy, competency, relatedness, and the way that looks more tangibly so. I work at Aspect, so my background is workforce management. Right.
So understaffing. Right. When you're stretching your people thin if you maybe didn't build in enough breaks, enough learning and coaching opportunities.
And that's the fascinating thing where again, this probably just me justifying a very expensive degree, but I find it fascinating how different organizations, whether they're both enterprise, both mid market, both small, they all approach staffing differently. Right. Where some are so focused on the metrics that, hey, whatever got us the most cost effective way to staff support, that's a win.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Yes, Right.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: But you know, the law of unintended consequences. If you, you know, if you keep beating up your car without ever changing the oil and rotating the tires, that car is just going to, it's just going to die on you, you know, and that's your employee. Right.
So in terms of employee experience, driving customer experience, that's the first thing that comes to mind for me where it's, you know, there's the risk of understaffing and pushing your people too hard for pursuing the wrong metrics.
Another example, metrics, Hot Topic always gets me going. Popular example, average handle time.
If somebody spends an extra minute or two, or that yes, ma' am is maybe just kind of politely wrapping up the call so they don't feel rushed and dismissed.
Do you honestly care?
Do you know how expensive it is to like, acquire new customers? Like, it is so much cheaper to have Jordan's talented staff spend an extra couple minutes, you know, where if somebody wants to recap, you know, what went wrong and oh, golly, I just can't believe we're, you know, you know, we were on the phone for 10 minutes to fix that.
All right, right. Let. Let them do it.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: All right.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: I think there's an element there too, of, let's say, for instance, I just, I do discover that I've got a team member that does that on every single call.
There's likely a Coaching opportunity there.
There's likely an opportunity to help them learn how to better wrap up a call. But do it in a quality manner. Do it in a way that leaves the customer going, that was a great experience. I'm so thankful. You know, I had a problem, I picked up the phone and I got the help I needed. And the person who helped me with that was incredibly kind, understood my problem, didn't feel rushed. And so there's coaching opportunity in those cases. But there's the same time, gosh, you're right. Like let's, let's let our, let's let our human support agents be humans and build relationships and develop that rapport with customers in a way that will ultimately drive so much more retention. Because you're right, let's retain instead of just having to go get new because boy, it's so much more expensive to go get the new.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: And I like that you framed it too as a pattern of behavior. Right. Like going back to your earlier example, you know, it was one time that it bothered one person.
But what happens in terms of coaching? Right. Because it's always that fine line between, you know, sports psychology, a little too much awareness where they're two in their head versus like, oh, wow, I had no idea I was doing that. Right. And the way you laid it out, it's the latter of the two where it's, oh my gosh, I did not realize that all week I've been tacking on an extra five minutes because I feel awkward and uncomfortable cutting someone off.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Right? Yep. Yeah, yeah. Looking at that holistically, you're right. How do, how do we look at that and go, gosh, it was two phone calls last week where it took a little extra time. Maybe that person was just really challenging getting off the phone with could happen.
Maybe they weren't. But in that way, we leave our team some autonomy to, to decide what is best. We didn't hire them to tell them what's best. We hired them to go do the job and help us know what's best. And so giving that autonomy, I think is a critical piece of that.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: It's near and dear to my heart where actually I wrote a little blog about it where the pursuit of perfection actually kills innovation because it is that self awareness where a lot of us when we're in the state of flow. So for example, you know, a little exposure behind the scenes. Yes, we, you know, I did a quick run of show here, but I didn't script anything because if I script it, I'll be aware That I missed a word. I'm gonna lose my train of thought.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: I'm gonna get flush red in the face. I'm gonna start talking really fast. No one's gonna understand what I'm saying. Right. Like, there's all these things where if I had somebody over my shoulder, I mean, sure, I probably said but and did some, you know, bad things on this conversation we're having.
But overall, if people learn some things and they know we're having a good time, does it really matter that I wasn't the most polished? You know, like.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: You got to see the forest for the trees on that sort of thing.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: When you have that perfection, focus on metrics. Like, you know, there were two times that your average handle time skewed the whole team's metrics.
I mean, good luck reeling that person back in. You know, like that's performance anxiety for the a good long time.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yes. They're going to start shutting those calls off five minutes earlier than they should have instead of five minutes later than they should have. And then you're going to start to see that in the CSAT results. So then that becomes another coaching opportunity. And it is a vicious cycle that results in a terrible employee experience, a terrible customer experience, and quite likely a really terrible glass door review from a previous employee who left.
Which we all know in this world now we all go look there when we're interviewing with a company and read those reviews and sometimes we dismiss them and then sometimes we see eight of them and we go, that's probably not something to dismiss. That probably tells me there's actually a problem here. So I think it's really critical we do that. I think that ties into the really kind of good, like, way to wrap a bow on this in this conversation of like psychological safety for our teams, like how we go about doing that. Can you talk a little bit about that as a concept inside of our, our business, inside of our teams?
Yeah.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: So definitely not a new theory for me. It's been out there. The famous one, I believe it's Google had Project Oxygen and they were comparing which teams performed better and building that psychological safety that's the key to the high performers. Right.
So what that looks like in tangible terms. So we talked about how do you deliver feedback.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Micromanaging and striving for perfection. You're probably going to mess with someone's what's in their head.
But also, you know, so few things come to mind.
I could probably ramble about this for a while. So jump in anytime.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah, go for it.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: So I'm thinking back on your example where, let's see, you were helping your team and you were protecting them. Right.
And it's things like that where they see if things go wrong that, you know, it's not the end of the world.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Calm is contagious.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: So you calmly handling it and handling it appropriately in a different room with different leaders.
It sounds so simple, but very few people do it. And it makes a real impact. Right. And this is what drives me nuts about psychological safety, is generally it's an aspect of. No pun intended aspect. It's an aspect of soft culture. Right.
Hate that term, soft culture. Right, Right. Maybe it's the sports background, but, you know, somebody calling you soft, not a compliment.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: There is nothing easy about being soft culture. So, like, in your example, you know, you talk about, like the kick the dog syndrome, where everybody's kicking down, punching down on something to, like, feel better.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: So sitting in your shoes, you're protecting your team from the ugly reality of it. That people are gonna see this stat and they're not gonna like it.
And, you know, it's hunky dory if nobody points fingers. But the reality of the world we work in is. Yeah, people are going to point fingers.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: So you have to. You're like a sandwich generation as a leader in customer support, customer experience, where you have to protect your team from that harsh, harsh, unfiltered feedback that could really mess up how they perform in the future, while at the same time, you have to be direct and, and clear with other teams and able to receive what is probably going to be some unfair feedback.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: It's just the nature of the beast. People don't know what they don't know.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: So it's not that they think Jordan's, you know, evil and he was, you know, intentionally trying to mess us up.
They have not worked in support.
They don't know what it means to be in the trenches of that customer experience.
It's pretty easy to coach from the sidelines and say, well, when the customer said that you should have done that, like, that's a no brainer. Obviously. It's like, well, yeah, you were in the audience.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: I bet you would have handled it differently.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: Yeah. You, you weren't necessarily on the 35 minutes of that call before that five minutes in the call that you were specifically focused on that would have made. Made a real difference. And I think that element that you talked about there is so clear as a leader of being willing to stand in between your team. I know. I know my team. I know their personalities. I know the way they work. I know how to deliver feedback to each of them in a positive way. The reality is my, you know, leaders and other parts of the organization don't know that they. They know that with their employees. They don't know that with mine. So allowing them to give me that kind of harsh element, and then I can take that. That sharpness out of it and turn around and deliver it in a way that's productive and constructive, and then ultimately, those results still come, but they come in a. In a much more effective way where the team is happy with what has happened, and they don't feel like they were forced into a corner and forced into some change.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the chef's kiss. Beautiful moment of it. All right, so we had talked about it earlier how your employee experience, your customers can feel the vibe that improves their customer experience.
Your support teams have to mirror. They will intuitively mirror that behavior. We all do it. We're humans. It's how we learn and grow. Like, whatever the cultural norm is, we're going to follow it, and then it's going to trickle down.
So now your employees, they're handled. They're now equipped to absorb what can be some emotional feedback from a customer.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Like, basically, if they see. All right, well, if Jordan can do it, then I should. Like, they won't even, like. It won't be a conscious thing.
They'll be able to ride out the emotional roller coaster that is being in the trenches, you know, face to face, so to speak, sometimes literally, with a customer.
And how to see the forest for the trees, where it's like, all right, this is part of the journey. If I can allow them, my customer, to feel safe, maybe they drop a couple cuss words. It happens. If they feel safe getting that out, Law of odds. They're probably gonna, you know, take a breath and be like, I don't even know Jordan. I just called him a very colorful word.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: They're hearing back your emotions. Then they soften. They're over it, and they'll probably even apologize. Like. Yeah, just so you know, that's. That's not me. Like, Ian doesn't normally call you, you know, bleepity bleep, Right?
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yes. I don't. I don't normally call people I don't know these things or people I do know, but definitely not people I don't know. You know, And I think that that's an important point. Too. Because I think that also then helps the team grow in that aspect of, yes, I'm absorbing some of these blows that I could then turn around and throw at engineering, at product, at account management, at sales.
And instead I absorb those blows, I filter those blows and I make them constructive. So then when I go back to sales and I say, hey, you sold this this way to this customer, that created confusion.
Here's what we're seeing. And then sales goes and does it, does it better the next time and more effectively the next time. Marketing does it better. Account management does it better. Product builds the next thing better. Because instead of me just coming hysterically to them and going, oh my gosh, you're killing me, I come to them and go, hey, we've seen a few customers that this has been their experience, or a lot of customers, this has been their experience.
Here's where there's positive, here's where there's a need for change.
And there we go. And the next product comes down the line and it's a better experience for everybody.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: So big reason that folks focus on employee experience usually is attrition.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: It's understandably a big worry because the longer you retain an employee, especially depending on how technical your product is, that's normally how people look at it.
Take a step back, they think about it in terms of product knowledge and the expertise of finding ways through.
But really what you want to do when you retain an employee.
You know, normally a Ponzi scheme is a bad thing. Right. But you're creating like this career progression is basically a psychological safety growth of a Ponzi scheme. Right. Where you can, someone sees you doing it and you know, you're, you know, director, manager, vp, whatever that title is, then you can actually have those quarterly annual career conversations because that's the big thing. People need to see a path to growth. Like it's great if they can just, you know, for the sake of a thumbs up, be, you know, psychologically healthy, great. But you can tie that to an actual career progression and outcome where it's like, hey, so right now you're doing it with customers. And I just gotta let you know that like someday when you're backfilling me in my shoes, this skill, it applies everywhere. This is how you're going to handle those talks. Product, sales, marketing, like this is the better you get at that skill, the more your career will grow. Right. So that's like another benefit of protecting against that employee attrition and building that psychological safety net.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Where it's Just, you know, it's all different ways of just paying it forward where it just grows and grows and grows and it's very hard to get started. If it was easy, everyone would do it.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: But at some point it will pay dividends. It's worth the short term loss.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, as we wrap up this conversation, any, any closing thoughts you'd like to share on any of these topics we talked about or anything else that maybe we missed that you think our listeners should hear?
[00:35:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
So this is me probably venting out loud about my own worries and experiences. There's never going to be one answer, a one size fits all method, right?
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Like, I won't go into it deeply, but just like one quick thing is we've all heard of like snowball versus Avalanche.
You can't snowball everything where it's taking on the easiest problems for every dynamic. You can't tackle the hardest stuff first through an avalanche. Right.
So I guess my message in closing would be, no matter what it is, your initiative is you want to be flexible, dynamic and understand that, yeah, maybe you can't always do the soft culture stuff. Maybe sometimes you do have to do the hard stuff. Right. Because the hard culture is the accountability.
But that's the real takeaway that I hope people get, is that just flexible dynamic and just be open. That's all you got to do. Like it's never going to be. This is the way let's always do. Positive reinforcement, like none of that's reality. It's just something to strive for.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Yeah, very true, very true. Well, Ian, thanks for sharing these thoughts with us. I think this is a really critical conversation that in the day to day of being a support leader and experience leader, we've got a lot on our plates. It can be really hard to set aside this time to focus on these pieces of our employee experience, but clearly it is so very critical. Now if our listeners wanted to get in touch with you, hear more from you, learn more about aspects where, where would be best for them to, to connect with you.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Find me on LinkedIn. Ian Storm and I, you know, there's, there's no fee, there's no gotchas.
I'm a total nerd about this stuff. You just want to talk about it. Yeah, happy to talk. Like it's, it's just a very cool world that we have the opportunity to work in and there's so many different ways to go about doing it. Just love finding out about it.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Well, I'll make sure to include a link to your LinkedIn profile down in the show notes so that our listeners will be able to reach it. Pretty easy there. But again, thanks for joining us here at the Table today and really appreciate the thoughts and the insight.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: Jordan, you've been listening to the Table Service podcast. You can find out more about today's guest in the Show Notes below.
The Table Service podcast is presented by Tavolo Consulting, hosted by Jordan Hooker, music by Epidemic Sound.
