Customer Experience Superheroes - Series 8 Episode 1 - Humanised Customer Experience with expert Miles C. Thomas

The Customer Experience Superheroes podcast is back for series 8. So we are delighted to kick the series off with someone who those in the know of CX, know as an expert in customer service; Miles C. Thomas. As someone who has an enviable career in leading customer service functions, Miles shares his views with host, Christopher Brooks, on the importance of human experience in business today. 

Miles explains the secret of the untapped value customer service agents can bring to accelerate change and improvements on behalf of customers.  Also up for discussion is how customers expectations have changed since the pandemic leading to the acceleration of 'CX for Good'. 

Miles is co-author of the latest Customer Experience Book 3, a series pulled together by Naeem Arif.  To connect with Miles on LinkedIn click https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesct/.

 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to another episode of Customer Experience Superheroes. My name is Christopher Brooks and I'm your host for this series. A series in which we meet up with some incredible individuals associated with the world of customer experience. They share their insights, their ideas, and their inspirations to help us understand what it really means to be customer centric and a leader in customer centricity in the modern day. I'm really pleased to be inviting Miles Thomas to the podcast. And he has contributed significantly, bringing a very specific background which shapes how he thinks and creates a perspective on customer service, the contact center and human engagements in customer experience. Hello, Miles. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Great. Thank you for having me, Christopher. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Oh well, it's been we've we promised we'd do this for a while. I'm very excited. We we came across each other at the World Games. You are a very familiar uh name, face, and contributor in the world of customer experience and customer service. So I can't wait to hear what gems you're gonna impart upon us. So, but look, I mean, there will be a few people who have been living under rocks out there who may not know who you are. So, so over to you. Please introduce yourself to the audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Sure. Thank you, Christopher. Um, yeah, so um I've been working in customer service and experience for over 15 years now. And and I think what's important to mention is that this is uh really working at the front line. So working directly with staff, taking queries from our customers, building out the process, the procedure, making sure that we always try to reinforce uh that we care about our customers, and that's a really important thing to do. Um, not only that we care about them, but we care about the staff. So um very much so working at the front line for 15 years, bringing customer service excellence to our customers on a worldwide stage.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

And and what what attracts you to this space? Because obviously, I mean, I've I've got the opinion that there are it takes a certain kind of type of person to be attracted to be in service of other people. So, so what was it that drew you to to this space?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, well, I think this probably started off with my degree in psychology many years ago now, and that really gave me a better appreciation of trying to understand um how other people think and why that's important and why empathy is so important at all. So I did that at university, graduated many, many years ago. I actually then moved into HR for a small stint, which uh had some correlations there to thinking about uh organizational psychology, if you like. Um, from that point on, my uh career diverged a little bit into IT. So I did a lot of work in software development. I actually came out of that work because it was very siloed in thinking you don't really meet other people, you don't talk to them, you don't try to understand what their needs are, so you lose that human connection. Beyond that point, I moved to Prague in the Czech Republic, working for uh Teloy Kentouche. Um so I was running the customer service team out there. Um, and that's really where the interest started to understand that this is much more than transactional. Every decision we make, every response we make will have an emotional response to the person receiving it. Uh, and that's where I started looking at customer experience as a concept and how that can help augment better customer service experiences. And I think that in the very early days, it was Bruce Tempkin who I followed uh avidly for many, many years before he moved on to other things. So, from uh working in uh the Czech Republic, where I learned how to order beer very effectively, I uh I moved back to the UK and started working for a company called Subhub, who um where I led on customer service and technical services. They provided um a SaaS platform to build websites really, really quickly. And while I was there, my role evolved into you know helping out, getting involved with technical queries, talking to customers to understand what their frustrations were, which enabled me to be a big part of a project completely with redesign the user interface. And the redesign of that user interface was very much around trying to empower the customer so that they don't need to contact us. There's far too much reactive contact in customer services. So it that was an early stage of saying, right, we've got data, let's try to find out why people are contacting us, what their frustrations are, and let's just make it really easy for them to build a website without any need to contact us. And then, of course, I moved on to the IV, where I've been for 10 years providing support to schools in 150 countries in three languages.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Well, but it's a really interesting pathway you've taken. I mean, I think quite often you find people who have moved into customer experience, they have a marketing background, and actually you've had a very different pathway to get there. So I'd imagine it's probably helped shape a different perspective on things. So let's talk contact centres then for us. Talk about customer service. Customer service is quite often the kind of the last line of engagement or the first line of engagement. But I was talking to somebody the other day who kind of said, you know, well, it's a cost, isn't it? It's just a cost to manage, manage a contract, just kind of what you've got to have in place. I mean, it didn't sit very well with me. I mean, I mean, what's your take on it?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

I couldn't disagree more strongly with that sentiment. When we think about customer service, it is a critical thing, critical function within any business. It's not simply a team of automatons sat there providing uh regurgitated canned responses to questions coming in. These people have to deal with things when they go wrong, when the experience breaks down. They are there at the front line, they hear the frustration, they hear the emotion, and with their insights, the insight that the data gives us through categorization of tickets or whatever that might be, that is golden information. Every CEO of every organization should be looking directly at their customer service team and saying, What can you tell me? How can we improve? They need to be empowered at the front line to enable big change to happen within an organization. And that doesn't just help reduce reactive queries coming through, it actually shows that employee that they are valued. I think you do see in many big organizations that um there's a lesser value sometimes on people working at the front line. But you know, I would turn that pyramid upside down and say these are the people we need to listen to.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So I think that's a really interesting perspective. I mean, what we're saying here is they're the people who pick up the pieces when the experience goes wrong. But you'd say, actually, once in a while, get them away from the desk, get them into the design rooms, let them feed the insights. And I imagine they must have great ideas in terms of how you can fix things. They must be dealing with workarounds on the phone with customers all the time. I mean, you have you found that?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

I have. And you know, when you do get frontline employees involved in making a change, you can see the joy on their face that they they feel a part of the organization, they feel that they've helped reduce um friction for customers at the same time. That builds engagement, it builds trust, it builds the right relationships. And if they've had a positive experience of raising a problem, being involved in correcting that problem, they're going to do it again. They're not going to sit and hide problems from you, they're going to bring them to you. It's it's in their best interest. I mean, what it what this really talks about is taking the old-fashioned view of customer service as reactive into these people at the frontline working in a proactive sense too. That shows that we value their opinion.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Obviously, I think what that requires, though, is enlightened leaders, doesn't it? I mean, you can't just pull people off the desk, let the phones ring, and stick them in a room designing solutions. But you you need enlightened leaders to say these frontline agents are more than just interacting with the customer at the point of distress or the point of failure. You need a leader who's actually going to see the value of bringing them out and actually getting them involved in the design process, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 8:17

You you too. And um, there are a couple of elements to think about there. Um, one, there is an amazing return on investment from allowing your frontline staff to get involved in this sort of work because they can detract from hundreds of queries coming in for a particular issue. So you don't think about um we're taking them away from the front line. What we're talking about is a longer-term solution where gradually they're being taken away from autonomous tasks that provide no value and don't make them feel valued, such as a password reset, for example, giving them more time to be able to build the relationship with customers rather than having to say, right, I've got to deal with 20 calls an hour because of the volume. So there's that part. The leadership part as well needs to be there. And um I've always uh stalled an approach of uh servant leadership. Now, the the role of a leader for me personally, it's not right for everyone, it's not right for every organization, is to clearly communicate with staff, but uh create a vision, an exciting vision, and a direction for where we want to go. For example, talking to the group, saying, okay, how do we want people to feel about the organization? What are the attributes that we want them to feel? When you form a relationship with an organization, it's very similar to the way that you formulate a relationship with a person. Um you meet them for the first time, they will tell you something about themselves, but it's the cumulative effect of future interactions with that person that will form a more solidified view of the truth. Now, if those interactions support what they told you, that is a promoter, if you like, and if they act and behave in a way that's different to what they've said they are, it's a detractor and that creates mistrust. So, as a servant leader, it's about providing a clear vision that's exciting, that people can get involved in and behind, but then enabling staff through the right training, the right leadership, and the right tools to be successful in what they do. And that's where the link comes between EX and CX to some extent, because I think the rules are the same. You've got, I need to be able to achieve my goals, right? Meets needs, if you like. That exists for both customers and employees. Um, making things easy or reducing frictions. So you don't want uh humans who are amazing, amazing things, humans, they can achieve so much. You don't want them sat there filling in spreadsheets. Um, you want to enable them to be able to provide great experiences. And then finally, uh it's around a positive experience overall. So leadership does come into that. I, as a leader, need to show my team that I trust them. That means I don't micromanage them. I know what their skills are, I know what their strengths are, and they need to be left to achieve their own goals, but come to their leader if they need support in any other way. So they need more training or they need something else to help them be successful. It's about employee success as well as customer success.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Brilliant. I think that's a really um powerful statement there. I think it's so important that we connect the two and help employees understand the contribution they make. Now, you you tapped into something there, which I want to just explore a bit further, around the idea that amazing humans should not be given mundane tasks. Now, I mean, technology was meant to help in this respect. You know, technology is meant to come in play and we'd have chat and we'd have text and we'd have different social media ways of engaging. How well has that landed? Kind of this this notion of an omni-channel experience, in your perspective, having you know worked in an environment where it is alive, is it working?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Uh no. So I think my perspective on this is that at some point in the past, I remember when we went from single channel to multi-channel to omni-channel. So these are these are just words really, and and words aren't important uh essentially. But omnichannel was uh sold uh as a buzzword to say we're gonna give customers the opportunity to contact us via whatever medium they want, whether it's WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, or or by email. And and I think the big problem here is that whilst that idea sounds good, the reality out there today for many who are dealing with companies across the globe is that it doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't work is because they thought about the um the visible layer of omnichannel, but they didn't think about what's sat behind that. So you've got all of these data silos that aren't talking to each other. Now, of course, that's not true of all providers. Some do a very good job of bringing all this together, but you will find in many companies that they'll say, right, this is our this is our chatbot, and it's by this company. We've got this ticketing system over here, got Twitter and LinkedIn. Now, the the problem for the customer is that they may choose, rightly so, that they want to go from one channel to another. They may be forced in some ways to go from one channel to another. So if you go onto a chat bot, you're talking to an agent, and they say, Oh no, we can't deal with that because that's billing, we'll pass you over to them. Billing know nothing about the previous conversation. So essentially what I'm saying here is that omnichannel has uh was a great idea in many respects. In reality, the the data and the technology link ups are not there behind the scenes, and that has created greater friction from customers. I mean, I see it every day. You'll phone up an organization saying, I've got a question with this, but I've also got another problem, and they will need to hand you over and say, No, uh, we can't pass you over. You're going to need to ring a different number because it's a different department. How is that improving the experience? It's not. And companies need to understand that this is holistic for a person or a customer. They they don't want to know about any internal complexities or anything that's not working behind the scenes, they just want to get their questions answered quickly, easily, professionally, and in a friendly way. So omnichannel is not there yet.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Okay, previously you said it had tried. So you've not given up on it. You you believe it could actually get to a point where it's got the integration so that the customer can use any channel and have confidence that the organization can connect it up to create a single story for the customer. You you feel it could go there in the future, or do you think it's such a big ask?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

No, I don't think it's a big ask. And I think some companies that provide these solutions are already very close to doing it. I mean, you've got to think there are there are multiple channels here. Um it's voice, it's email, it's web chat, it's um knowledge base websites, all of those factors. And not only that, but there are things that need to sit around it, such as surveys, quality assurance, uh AI automation, all of that stuff too. But I think today we're we're in a we're in a sort of uh lull in a sense that you've had we've had this great idea, everyone's jumped on the bandwagon, and now companies are starting to realize that it hasn't worked. They're trying to dig down deeper to understand why it hasn't worked. I think the answer is relatively clear. Data silos not connecting together to the customer. So this is the CRM bit. Any one of those interactions throughout any channel it might be must be feeding back to one central source of information.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Where does something like Clubhouse sit in? So, you know, Clubhouse is a platform where people just go and chat. I could go onto Twitter and I would just chat, but it's recorded text. So therefore, it's you know, it sits there, it's it's legacy, it sits there. Clubhouse is a conversation. Now I might vent and rant and rave during that about a particular brand, and actually, this is me getting it off my chest. Where do we sit on these sorts of things? Because from a customer's perspective, whilst I'm not using that as a channel to feed back my discomfort or my my praise, it's just the same thing. It's just audio versus text, isn't it? I mean, it's that's why I ask about, you know, will we ever get there with Omnichannel? Because it feels as if the channels available for us to communicate through just seem to be accelerating at such a pace.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Well, that's right. And I think the pandemic has certainly sped up, certainly sped up some of these things. And hey, I mean, if we take it back just a little step and we we think about CX as a concept, um, you know, go back 10, 15 years, customer experience was really just customer service. Since then, it's moved on to include service design, user experience, many, many different things. And I think what's happening is that CX has found itself in a place that's really complex. And I believe that at some point in the future there's going to be a great rationalization of what companies need to be focusing on. And it's similar to what you've discussed there, because there are new tools coming out every single day. And if I could probably predict the future, I would say that it doesn't matter how many different types of technologies there are, because what I think could happen, and I'm not laying down any money on this whatsoever, but I see that in many ways the future of customer service and experience is around personal AIs. So a personal AI is one that might sit on your phone, you can log into it, it's got access maybe, and this might be scary for some people, your bank account, your cards, whatever, like your iPhone does today. But what this AI does is it links to company AIs. So it's these AIs talking to each other. Now I'll give you an example because I mean that that sounds very complex, you know, it's like blockchain stuff and everything else. But um, to be able to talk to my phone and say, I've got a flight coming up later today, I'm not gonna be able to make it. Um, could you contact BA for me and see if I can get an alternative? And then my personal customer service experience AI has my details, can reach out to the BA AI, they can see if there's anything else available, it'll come back and see and ask me if I'm happy with the results. So we found another flight for you, it's at this time, it's gonna cost an extra $20. Can I um authorize that extra $20 on your card? And I'll say yes. Now that might sound like pie in the sky, it may well be, but I get a sense that things could start to head in that way where we all have our own personal customer service AI, if you want to call it that, or life AI.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Very exciting. That's yeah, it's a brilliant, interesting, intriguing idea. So um want to talk a bit about the value of customer experience to organizations because you know we're in a time at the moment where supply chain is a big discussion. Now, if I'm in an organization where I have a product that is is needed, and the need for it is greater than I can actually produce. So therefore, it's a seller's market. What need is there for me to invest in customer experience? Because at the end of the day, you need the products from me, and we're gonna find this if you know if if the stories are correct, we're gonna find this going into the Christmas build-up in the UK, and I'm sure in some other European countries. You want the stuff from me, the chances are you can't get it. So, what is the value in putting a layer of customer experience around it? Surely that's just excess. Uh it's an in it's an investment into my oh, not an investment, it's a cost to the profit. I want to get your opinion on that.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

It's a really good uh situation because I had a conversation with a friend earlier today who was explaining a similar situation in relation to buying a house. But he's phoning up uh estate agents and they've got houses for sale, they're gonna go really quickly. And, you know, they they weren't interested in talking to him or or or working to what his needs were for a viewing because they know it's gonna sell anyway. Now, that there is a problem with that approach. You know, the world has changed. Okay, there's a big demand for a particular product at this time, and we're gonna throw customer service out the window. The thing is that people remember these interactions, and this is about building relationships and trust with customers because that's where repeat business comes from. I mean, we we see Ryanair coming up a lot about this area, you know, they're basically just cost, and that's fine if you know what you're getting into and you're prepared to accept it. But for a company that's looking to sell goods to consumers, if they have bad experiences, they are going to remember that and they're going to think twice about doing it in the future. I had a similar scenario buying an iPad just two years ago, and I got the iPad in the end, but the experience was absolutely awful. Now I wouldn't go with them even if they were 10% cheaper than their rivals because of that experience. And this becomes a very personal thing because it's an internal calculation, if you like, of value to cost and everything else that sits with it. But I think it would be short-sighted for an organization to throw out any uh ideas about customer service experience based on what might be a short-term impact in the economy.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

No, it's a very fair point. Uh, I think you know, if you if you're focusing on return on relationship, that's where you're putting your energy and effort to your point. You know, we've got deep memories sales and we we won't forget that sort of thing. I always find it quite interesting around um, you know, the Christmas sales, where it seems to be business rules are thrown out the window, and you can come and pillage through our store, and we'll treat you like rubbish, but kind of that's just the way it is. And just think that that's a that's still an experience I'm having. I'm having this experience, I'm going through it. I can't just forget that experience next time come in and go, let's reset things, it's all good, isn't it? So I'm absolutely with you on your point.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

I think uh an interesting point there is it's about the the level of pain sometimes we're prepared to go through as customers to get the value that we perceive out of the end of it. And for certain types of products and services, we're willing to accept a little bit of pain if the payoff at the end or the value is worth it. Although I have problems with companies using that approach systematically, um creating competitiveness between other customers. And I think uh today um customers or it's not about customers, it's about society, really. Um, they want to feel that organizations uh have beliefs and values uh ultimately. And I think we'll probably see that. Coming through more as well, um, that companies stand up for things that are right.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

So that's a uh topic I'm very passionate about. So let's explore this a bit. So this is the concept of you know, kind of CX for good or kind of beyond business. And I think it's something I saw evidence of a lot during the pandemic of organizations who who did things, uh Urbadrola, which is a Spanish uh utility company, they paid their suppliers within four chair hours because they knew that their suppliers would be feeling the pinch. But at the same time, what it meant was that their suppliers were invariably more committed to them than they were others. So actually it had a payoff for their customers. So, you know, actually thinking about how you create a better outcome for others is not just your customers or your employees or your shareholders, it is your community, it is society, it's even your competitors because if you raise the bar, then actually what it means is that the competitors have to raise the bar if they want to compete. And that's better for everyone. How much do you believe in that sort of philosophy that you know, sort of CX is a is a is a cause for good?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I I yeah, I completely agree. I think um when it comes to companies, I think for too long uh they've regarded themselves as somewhat separate to society. Um, but I think that's shifted now that we expect organizations to be getting involved in causes or doing the right thing. I mean, CX is a force for good, but there is uh also risk that uh if you think about a greater understanding of psychological heuristics, um, whether that be the peak end rule or or anything else that sits within that, there is always the chance that that could be used in the wrong way. Snake oiler marketing, for example, not saying marketers do that, but there is uh there is a potential there. And CX must be and needs to be a force for good because we've all got so much going on in our lives today uh that is impacting us, and the less um stress, the less friction, the easier things are for us um to interact with companies to get uh the services we need to achieve our goals, the better for society as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

I completely agree. Do you think it's something that we will start to make choices about brands on? Or do you think we're already doing that based on organizations who are committed to to create a better society for us? Are they the ones that we we tend to turn towards, or or this point about extracting the value? Are we still sucked back to the old business models of uh supply and demand?

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah, and I think this all really started off with the body shop, uh, at least from what I can remember from from my working life, where you know they came with a very solid promise about animal testing and um the products that they produce. I think uh at the moment there's an undercurrent of it's not it's not subconscious, it's it's right on the borderline of conscious decision and subconscious decision for companies at the moment. The fact is that you know society has been pressed quite hard in the last uh 18 months, and there may have been a slight sway towards I need to get the best product for the cheapest price that I possibly can. But I think what people want is they want to be able to choose the companies that have the right principles set behind them, but they recognize that that's not always possible. If it was possible, I think we'd see much more in that area.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Brilliant. Now, Mars, we can't we can't ignore the fact before we go that you're uh a co-author. Um you had a book published, was it this year?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

It was this year, uh around June time, I think. Uh customer experience three.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Customer experience three, excellent. So so tell us more. I mean, this is a book I've been uh fortunate enough to contribute in a previous uh edition. But uh so you number of customer experience um professionals and those who have an interest in the topic come together and uh you produce a chapter on a specialist topic. That's correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah, that that's that's right. What did you choose? Or what was your focus? So I looked at the eclectic customer uh or the humanized experience. My chapter is very much trying to say that you know what companies uh are not doing quite right today is um really thinking about the customer in a more human sense or an eclectic sense. Uh really they've got the blinkers on um to look purely at the the services and interactions directly between the customer and the product, if you like. Um but by building up a uh a broader understanding of the customer within that concept, um there's a good chance of uh agility and innovation in creating ancillary services. So one of the I used a couple of examples in there. So one was for a car rental firm, and they realized when the pandemic hit that you know that they were probably likely to suffer uh fewer sales. What they did is they understood that the reason uh that they might get fewer sales is because people are worried about where the next paycheck's coming from. So once they understood that anxiety on behalf of the customer, they came up with the idea of offering free income protection insurance with every rental. Now, people still needed the cars, even despite the uncertainty that sat around them. And what they then found is a huge return on investment. They outperformed the sales projections they had in place before they knew about COVID. So that says a great deal about understanding. The other example I used was really around um housing associations. And what we're really talking about here is understanding the benefit you're providing to your customer, but then also trying to understand if there are ancillary services that you can bring to the fore. So if you think about uh housing providers, um, it's not just about providing a house for an individual to live in, but they understand that um people might need help with their budgeting, or they might need help getting the right benefits that they're entitled to, or dealing with antisocial behavior. So it's that eclectic or holistic view of a customer that can actually help breed innovation and agility um within an organization.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Brilliant. I mean, I think they're just really powerful examples. I mean, it's a it's a great concept, but you know, it it you do need to make it tangible, don't you, for people to kind of really, really understand. But I think there's a lot of value in that and it's something that organizations need to spend more time understanding kind of the the human side of the customers that they're they're dealing with. It always uh amazes me there's a really simple story. Um, one of the big insurance providers, and they found a dramatic change in satisfaction of their claims process when they just changed what they asked first of all. So they used to ask if you had a problem with your house, it was burnt down or burgled or floods or something. The first thing would say is, you know, let's get you to a hotel uh overnight, which you'd think that's a very sensible thing to kind of say. Yeah, but what they realized to get to the end of the process, and people were not giving them particularly high satisfaction scores for the service. And when they kind of got into it and understood, they realized it because it wasn't the thing that really mattered to the customers. So when they changed that to what can we do for you first, it changed dramatically. So the example they used was um uh uh an elderly couple who said, We need an iPad because we call our son uh every Sunday night. He lives in Australia with his kids, and we promised the kids, you know, don't have to worry about Nanny and Grandad because they're fine. And we said to our son, you can go to Australia, you don't have to worry about us, we'll only be a phone call away. And if we're not there for a Sunday night, then we're actually letting him down. Now that meant that was so more important for the hit them than it was actually the hotel. And you can see there's nothing wrong with offering the hotel, it's part of the contract, but it's just that humanizing, isn't it? Really understanding the context that people are in, and you can just get so much more from that. So it's uh it's an it's an area that I I really hope, Mars. I mean, you articulate it well in the book, but I really hope people do read that and kind of think we can do this, it's just about allowing yourself permission to do it, isn't it? Really? It's not it's not that difficult to do, it's just allowing it to be a thing that you a process, listening is a process, allow it to be something you do.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah, no, I completely agree. That was a powerful story as well. I mean, it's uh similarly to you know, if you're in a bank and you've had your cards stolen, you know, the first question should be, you know, how are you? Uh, and you know, do you need some cash or or whatever that might be? And the only other thing for insurance companies is if there's obviously a death in the family, the rules are out at that point. It's you know, we we need to treat this differently and empathetically.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

So empathy is one of those areas that I think is really important. And I'm realizing it's it's one thing to empathize with your customers, but empathizing with your colleagues, you know, if you want to make a change on behalf of the customer, really understanding where your colleagues are coming from, the kind of you know, the KPIs, the SLAs, the the challenges they're facing, is something that we seem to be getting more and more conscious of and uh able to support better. I mean, have you have you seen that change over time? Whereas rather than just a case of just get on and do it, we're actually having real empathy with our colleagues in terms of what we're trying to achieve and what they're trying to achieve.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, again, I think that the pandemic has accelerated thinking in this area. You've seen organizations coming out with uh uh you know wellness support, whether that be uh, you know, meditation or whatever it might be. But for me personally, um, what I've seen is that uh, you know, staff have struggled with this change to suddenly be from an office environment where they're interacting with you every day to having to work remotely. And they they've got their own challenges in their own personal lives as well. So as a leader, you you're not only supporting them in terms of getting the job done, you you've become a counselor to some extent as well, because you know, you need to provide emotional support. You need to say to people, okay, this thing has happened in your life, I understand it. Take some time, work through this. Um, and I'm not going to worry about your KPIs for for right now. It's not important. What's important is that you deal with this situation you've got. And that that's just being human, nothing more to it than that.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Oh, that's a lovely point to finish on just being human. Just kind of what customer experience should be focused on. It's about doing better outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

I have a quote at the end of my chapter that I always use. And if you Google it, I'm the only one that will come up. Um intelligence without empathy is an empty path.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Love it. Intelligence without empathy is an empty path. And I think so, so oh wow, that is that's a strong message, a very strong message. Excellent. Well, Miles, it's been an absolute delight. No doubt you're going to be on on stage or in a webinar or somewhere else soon, so people can catch you there. But if people want to connect with you, what's the best way to do it?

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Definitely LinkedIn, I would say. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Miles and Thomas. Great, it's been a true and honorable pleasure, Christopher. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

No, no, thank you. I've really, really enjoyed it. It's always good to get your perspective. I love your comments that you make, uh, the contribution that you share in the community. So it's just have the time to the dedicated time just to get some more a layer down to understand how you think and uh how that affects what you do is really exciting for me. So I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

No problem. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Thank you.