Customer Experience Superheroes - Series 8 Episode 3 - From Impressed to Obsessed with Jon Picoult

Welcome to the CX Superheroes podcast. Now in series 8, we bring commentary from some of the world's most impressive CX practitioners as they help us to discover the CX Superpowers needed to be a leader. Hosted by global CX expert Christopher Brooks each episode explores a different aspect of CX, from a new perspective, 

In this episode I speak with Jon Picoult who has been at the forefront of proving the ROI case on CX for the past decade. Through this work with Watermark he has bee recognised across the globe. And now he shares his stories from his travels in a structured book focussing on how to evolve impressive CX to an obsessive culture driven by great customer experiences. In conversation with Christopher Jon unpacks several of the 'Principles' and shares exceptional examples to make real what is often deemed too theoretical. It is a great framework and a must have for anyone pursuing better outcomes for their customers. Available via Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Impressed-Obsessed-Principles-Customers-Employees/dp/126425878X, it is a must have inclusion on the CX book shelf for the self taught and for those experienced practitioners seeking fresh examples of excellence. 

Jon's easy style of story telling explains why he is a firm favourite on the CX event circuit. Tune in here and get a front row seat to a wealth of learning with Jon at the CX Superheroes podcast. Jon Picoult ca be found on LinkedIn if you wish to connect with the author. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello and 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 exceptional individuals from the world of customer experience to ask them to share their philosophies, their practices, and what they believe are the customer experience superpowers needed to be a leader in the world of customer experience. In today's episode, we meet up with John Pico. John is an individual I've admired for many years for his tireless work to bring ROI to the boardroom and by doing so increase the credibility and the sustainability of customer experience as a business practice. He has decided to share with us what he knows to date and produce an exceptional book called From Impressed to Obsessed, in which he runs through a number of principles which anyone can take on board and apply. I called up with John to find out more about the book and really delve into some of the topics to understand his motivation for including them as the key principles in his book. We are here today with the incredible John Pico. John is someone who you probably know is behind the incredible Waltermark CXROI studies that we're all very familiar with and no doubt have referenced in boardrooms many, many times. I wonder if you've come across what has become John's new world, the world of publishing. John has written this incredible book called Impress to Obsess. John, welcome to the CX Superheroes Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Hi, Chris. I'm really happy to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I've given people a bit of an appreciation of what you do, and they're probably all the pennies dropping or the dollars dropping, kind of going, oh, that's where I know the man from. But you've been in this business for a long time. There's a lot of organizations out there that are very grateful to the way that you think in as much as helping them transform themselves into being customer-centric and customer-led. So would you mind just giving us kind of a bit of a canter through your journey to where you are now?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, sure. I uh got into business selling radio advertisements, if you can believe it, back in college. I walked into the college radio station. I wanted to get a radio show, and they said, Well, yeah, sure, but if you want anything other than what's in the graveyard shift, you got to bring money into the station because it was actually it was a um university station that wasn't supported by the university. It was all commercially supported through ad revenue. Uh, and so that was my entree to business, and that was actually my entree to customer experience, even though it wasn't a term uh that really, you know, people knew back then. The reason I say that is what became apparent to me through that was uh how subtle aspects of the interactions that you have with people, prospects or customers, can have a very meaningful influence on their likelihood to buy, to be engaged, to recommend you to others. Uh, you know, even something as simple as the visual appeal of a price list. That's kind of what gave me the business bug. And eventually I became sales director at that radio station and had a fun time doing it. And I got a great radio show time. And then uh I uh headed off to uh business school and then worked in the financial services industry in senior executive roles for uh a little over 15 years, um, always knowing that I wanted to put out my own shingle eventually. And in 2009, I launched Watermark uh as a customer experience consultancy. And uh, you know, Watermark essentially helps companies to impress their customers and inspire their employees, uh, creating the raving fans that uh really are at the heart of uh of business growth.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Excellent. Knowing some of the work that you've done, there's some pretty impressive brands you've worked with. I would imagine they weren't all believers when you arrived. I mean, how how do you how do you assist you only work with enlightened leaders, or do you like the challenge as someone says, prove it to me?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

I would say that there is some joy in in both of those. You know, let's talk about the ones who are resistant or skeptical, because you mentioned up front that many people in your audience probably know of me or Watermark from the customer experience ROI study, uh, which we first put out, gosh, over a decade ago now, and have periodically updated every few years. You know, the genesis of the Watermark study really was born out of my frustration with exactly what you're talking about. You know, the frustration that there's a whole cadre of executives that just seemed resistant to the idea that it is worth investing in creating a great customer experience. It was uh actually uh during the over the holidays around Christmas time one year, I guess it was back in 2009, I think. And I was just racking my brain. I was saying, you know, how do you overcome that? And and what it dawned on me is if you want to persuade those people, you need to speak to them in a language they understand. And I thought to myself, well, you know, what language is it that top executives at these Fortune 500 companies understand? And I realized it was really the universal language of shareholder value. Um, and you know, that was the genesis of the Watermark ROI study because I said, Hey, you know, let's just take a look at the shareholder returns of companies that lead in customer experience versus those that lag and see what the data looks like. And indeed, the first year that we did it, I think that you know, there was a few years of data at that point. It was the difference between the leaders and the laggards was quite pronounced. Uh, in the new book that I have out, there's actually a refreshed version of the study which um covers 13 years now of data. You know, the leaders outperform the laggards uh by a over three to one ratio. It's pretty crucial, isn't it? You know, when you put that in front of executives, no matter how skeptical they are, it is always a conversation starter. You know, it starts to lower their defenses just a little bit and at least entertain the idea that this isn't just sort of a good thing to do. It's not, you know, like there are fluffy and tangible benefits. There are real hard dollar benefits. And so, uh, you know, in answer to your question, I think it's more challenging in those situations, but I guess it is maybe a little more fun because you know, you have the opportunity to really get people to look at the world through a different lens using that study's data.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Well, look, I want to get onto something specific in the book, um, which relates to that particular point. So I'll come back to it. But let's just talk about the book in the first place because this feels like it is a life's work here. This feels like you've been collecting in your notepad as you've gone through every single commission, every single workshop, you've just jotted down some reference. Either you have kind of an incredible memory for retention, or you have been doing that. Because in this, but the way you've packaged it and you've presented it, there's no way you could kid anyone with this stuff. Do you know what I mean? I mean, it it's just so round, it's so wholesome, it's got everything in it. Not only you structured it around kind of digestible principles that you look at and you say, Well, there isn't another one, and there isn't one missing, you know, it couldn't be any less. But actually, everyone, and the way you've structured it, you give us a summary of what the principle stands about, you give us an example, and you tell us how to do it. You know, kind of you're bringing us into the uh the workshop and saying, come and look at the tools. This is how it all works. It feels it's very, very generous. Did it feel cathartic writing it, or did you feel you were you were giving away stuff, or is this not yours to give away? You've been fortunate enough to mass this and it's time to share it. What was the originating thought behind writing the book?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

I I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It I mean, this is a book that I have had bubbling up in me for well over a decade. And so it's great to hear your feedback about it and that you found it so comprehensive and actionable and whatnot. Yeah, I mean, this is this is a life's work. Uh, you know, this is a collection of everything that I have learned over my 30 years of working with companies and helping them to impress their customers. And, you know, the reason that I wrote the book is I really wanted to share all of that information, not just to be generous, but because one of the things that frustrates me is I think that many companies just don't understand that there are so many simple and straightforward things that they could do that will fundamentally improve the quality of the experience they deliver. And in many cases, these are things that cost nothing. And that's, you know, the book is a lot about the psychology of customer experience, um, the cognitive science behind it, the notion of how to get people to feel better about the experience you're already delivering, even if you don't do anything to change the experience, because that's how these legendary companies work, that's how they do it effectively. So I really wanted to write the book to just get everything that I learned on paper, but to try to arm people with these techniques that I think can be employed so easily in any industry, in any business, and can fundamentally change the tenor of the experience that that firms uh are offering to their customers. And, you know, let's face it, there is a lot of runway for improvement out there, you know, particularly in some industries. It's just uh it's just not a good scene in terms of the experience that's being delivered to customers.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

But that's what I really like about it is you can flick through the book and you can take out the practical ideas that you can put into place and demonstrate a change. So if you're looking, you know, if you're there as a senior leader and you're thinking, I'm just not getting the cut through to see in the data, but it doesn't make sense to them. I think you give people the opportunity to say, forget that, just experiment with some of these, just have a go. As you know, in particular, I think one of my favorite one, and of course it would have to be the end, is recover with style. I love that expression, recover with style. We hear about, you know, kind of heroic recovery or flip the turtle, but this is just feels fun buoyant. It feels like, you know, do something really extra special. And you know, that sense of just adding another high point onto the end. Of course, it's no, it's not difficult to do, but you don't. You tend to go, oh, we've dealt with that complaint, resolved. Let's move on to the next complaint. And the last thing you said to the customer was, you know, sort of, we're really sorry, um, it won't happen again, or here's your reimbursement, or you know, sorry you disagree, whatever it is, you've left it in a uncomfortable position. But you say, no, no, don't go yet, don't go yet, come back. Just finish it as if I think the way you explain it is uh it's not the end, it's the start of the next beginning. And that's such a wonderful way of just looking at it, but so practical for someone to pick up and say, oh, actually, who's the next point of engagement? Let me go and tell what's happened here, and let's just make sure we start on a high point. Oh, it's it's lovely. That's what I mean about generous. It's just some really easy practical stuff in there.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, no, thank you. That's that's great to hear. Uh, you know, on the point with recovery, I think that uh, you know, it actually ties in with one of the other principles in the book, which is about finishing strong.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Uh, you know, which gets to this the cognitive science uh around customer experience because this the last thing that happens to people exerts a disproportionate influence on their overall impression of the experience. Um, and so the thing about recoveries is recoveries typically come at the very end of an experience because something's gone wrong and needs to be resolved. And and and what I think many companies don't understand is that there's so much riding on that recovery interaction because it is the last thing that people are going to hear from you. And as a result, you have the opportunity, a very unique opportunity, to really eclipse the negativity of the failure that occurred in the first place by really recovering in style, going above and beyond and creating that peak in the experience that people are going to remember because it's the last thing that happened. Um, so yeah, you know, recover nobody hates, I mean, no, nobody likes it when something goes wrong in the experience, things go south. It's never, you know, it's never pleasant to have to deal with those situations. But if you don't view those interactions mechanically in terms of, you know, how do I fix the problem? Uh, how do I, you know, get this person a replacement product, whatever. If you think of it in terms of how are you making the customer feel during that recovery, that makes all the difference. And it allows you to deliver that final recovery, that final touch point that's going to make it much more likely people are going to walk away with a positive recollection, even though there was something that went wrong.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

And just dwelling on this topic for a moment. I mean, you're you're very kind. You share kind of some of your personal experiences. I mean, you've had the highs and the lows. I mean, you really have, haven't you, in terms of where you've been. But you know, if I if I mention maggots and cocktail dresses, uh, hopefully, you know, kind of recognize both of those. We won't share both of them because I think people should go and read. But you know, if you could pick one of those, just give us, if you don't mind, just explaining that that example there.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, sure. So um, I'll save the maggots.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, well, I think so because I don't want to gross them out on your uh podcast.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

But you know, the cocktail dress is a story about something that happened to me and my wife years ago when I was an executive at a Fortune 100 financial services company. You know, those companies they each year have annual recognition events for their top performing salespeople. Uh, you know, that particular year it was being held at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Florida. The details, of course, of the whole story are in the book, but essentially what happened is we had a black tie uh dinner at this event, and my wife had purchased a you know beautiful formal evening gown uh before we we flew down to Florida for the event. And she sent it out to be pressed at the Ritz-Carlton dry cleaning service, and it came back the next day and they had shrunk it to like the size of a Barbie doll. And you know, my wife was freaking out because she had absolutely nothing to wear. Uh, and the event was just a few days away. I remember calling up the front desk and asking to speak to the Ritz-Carlton hotel manager. I will never forget what he said in response when I explained to him what was going on. He simply said in a confident, calm voice, he said, Mr. Pico, I am going to take care of this for you. And, you know, that's an example of just what I mean about these simple things. You know, this the the the demonstration of ownership like that, somebody confidently stepping forward, whether it's a recovery situation or not, and just saying, I can help you with that. I mean, that makes a world of difference because customers don't hear that all the time from the companies that they patronize. And so, you know, the the this hotel manager certainly delivered on his promise because he actually arranged for a limo to take my wife to a local high-end shopping mall where he had a you know personal attendant, fashion consultant there to meet her and help her find a new dress and accessories to go with it. And Ritz Carlton paid uh for the whole thing. Uh a couple of days later, when we discovered that there was a uh one of those anti-shoplifting ink cartridges that was still left on the dress a mere you know half hour before we were ready to go down to the black tie event. He actually summoned someone from the store to come to the hotel and clip off uh the ink cartridge. And then amazingly, he and his staff came down uh to the event and actually gave my wife a standing ovation when she sat down at her table, you know. And it was like the movie Pretty Woman, uh, for for your uh listeners who remember that movie. And it was just a it was the perfect, the perfect example of a classic recovery and style. And it it's just you know, I tell that story wherever I go, wherever I give speeches. Uh, people always always remember it as I do.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

I mean, when when I read it, I kind of a bit of a lump in my throat, and it just helps because we all know how brilliant Miss Carson are at this. But then when you when you can feel the example, you just go, Oh man, that's how you do it. That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Unlike the maggots, which you know, people should read that to kind of get a lesson on how not to do it, how to make a bad thing really worse, even when it wasn't your fault in the first place, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, when you read the book, start with the maggots. The maggots come first because then you need the palate cleanser, which is the Ritz Carlin dress story.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, you said earlier about you know going into a ballroom and talking to executives and uh seeing the difference between the the vagards and the leaders, and it's like it's compelling. But actually, then what I really like, you you get to something which is really important in the book, which is that thing you're talking about, there customer experience. Everyone in that room, and many people in our industry will pen down a very different thing in terms of what that means to them, which is debilitating for employees when when you were asking what you want me to do. But you de you deconstruct it, and I really like the way you deconstruct it. Would you mind just explaining a little what why that why you felt that's important to do rather than just skip past well, we all know what customer experience is, isn't we?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that question because I think you're right. It's a critically important point, and I think it's actually the place where a lot of companies go wrong from just square one in terms of their customer experience transformations. And you know, I think that the best way to describe it is uh customer experience is a term that means many different things to different people. For example, you know, I've worked with organizations where anyone in sales, the minute they hear the term customer experience, they tune out. They don't think that relates to them. They think customer experience is the thing that the one a you know, the uh toll-free call center does. And then similarly, you might have product designers and engineers, and they hear the term customer experience, and uh, you know, they might think that it refers to user experience if they if it's a company that's in the digital realm, uh, or they might think it doesn't relate to them because, again, customer experience to them is synonymous with customer service. I use a number of examples to really try to highlight for people how broad customer experience is and the notion that the customer experience begins before someone's even a customer. Uh, you know, the prospect experience uh is part of the customer experience. Heck, the customer experience even includes when people defect from your business. You know, you hope they never do, but if they do, that point of defection is part of the customer experience and deserves to be managed as intentionally and deliberately as any other part of your customer life cycle. And so I think that is a really important point for people to walk away with the notion that there is this universe of touch points and interactions that shape people's perceptions about a brand. Those encounters really span the live digital and print modes of communication and interaction. You know, I see lots of examples of companies that completely overlook the fact that there are written documents that are exchanged with customers that they view to almost be administrative in nature, yet they really constitute a very significant part of the experience in the customer's eyes. They're not administrative at all. And uh that's why I think it's so important for people to start by really getting their arms around a solid definition of customer experience, uh, not one that is academic or ethereal, and also one where they can see the relevance to their particular role, no matter where they sit within the organization.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah, that's that's so key, isn't it? You say about there's a lot, there's a lot of runway to go yet. You you reference that you know, when you're dealing with uh B2B organizations, there is no longer the distinction. Whereas before we used to be able to say, well, that's business to business, that's different to consumer. Actually, business to business professionals reference consumer experience now in terms of their expectations as suppliers and partners that they work with. But also you talk about the fact that the divide between those who are really good and those who are just kind of failing everyone is get is getting bigger. I mean, do you do you do you see actually you'll have organizations who exist are those who actually recognize the importance of customer experience, and then the others who don't exist are those who basically run out of you know customers to to mistreat or bad profit schemes to actually survive on.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah, uh, you know, I I think that might be a fair way to characterize it. You know, I I sort of feel like there are companies that get it, and as a result, they they try to shape a customer experience to uh sort of maximize loyalty. But then the companies that don't get it, they really try to uh minimize the level of customer experience that's delivered in order to moderate defections. You know, it's the difference between thinking about building loyalty versus avoiding defections. Um, and uh, you know, you're right that the the chasm of performance between the companies that do this well versus the ones that don't has it's widening. You know, you see that even with this the uh customer experience ROI study. If you look at the results that are included in the book and compare it to prior years, the the disparity between those uh those those two types of firms is only increasing. Um, and I think that should be a real red flag and a real alarm for those companies that either consciously are not focusing on customer experience or are doing it in a way that amounts to corporate window dressing, you know, doing it in a way that makes for good annual report copy, but not for tangible action on the ground. Um, you know, the uh customer experience ROI study, a lot of people, when they talk about it, they talk about wow, look at those companies that excel in customer experience and look how they blow the market away and they blow the the customer experience laggards away. And that's all true and accurate. But I also encourage people to look at the other side of the spectrum. Look at the companies that are delivering a poor experience, because what you see there is it's not about the reward for delivering a great experience, it's about the penalty that is exacted on companies for delivering a poor one. Because what the CXROI study shows is that if you're delivering a poor one, I mean, forget it, you're not only going to underperform the the leaders, the customer experienced leaders, you're gonna underperform the average market. You know, you're just gonna bring Up the rear. And I think that's an important thing for executives that are skeptical to understand that this isn't just about what there is to gain by investing in customer experience. It's also about what do you have to lose if you don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

And I think that's what I mean. You know, reflect on as you're your organization, how are you shaping up against that that section you write there? Because I think it's really compelling. And I think it's worth going back and just auditing yourself. And then think actually, there's a lot more we could do and move into the 12 principles. So the way you've laid the 12 principles out. I mean, because of the Watermark stuff, I've always kind of considered you a bit of a scientist. But actually, when I when I read the book, you're you're an artist, John. You know, you use the language of the artist.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

I appreciate the cards.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

The story, you know, the storytelling, the story, she can't, I can understand what someone said, but you can't put it down because you want to get to the end of the stories. You know, the stories are really interesting. But the language you use, kind of, you know, staging a great experience, choreographing it. I think that's just that's where the emotional engagement and the enjoyment comes when you're in customer experience. That's why you want to, that's why I love it, the fact that it's better outcomes, because it means the work is is never done. Are you conscious of this blend that you have?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, absolutely. It is very deliberate. You know, as a matter of fact, the uh uh the most popular uh keynote program that I offer is called the art and science of a great customer experience, because I think it is equal parts art and science. And uh, you know, it's great that you picked up on that from the book. You know, the stories that you mention that they're central to the book because the book is not kind of an academic conveyance of you know these customer experience design techniques. It's really about showing people through storytelling how these techniques can be used to such great effect, you know, in addition to what the nuts and bolts of the technique are. And you know, people remember stories a lot better than they remember bullet points. And that's why the book is constructed that way. But you know, you're absolutely right that uh just as the stories, I would hope, are emotionally resonant for the readers of the book, it's critical to have emotional resonance uh in the experience itself uh that a company is delivering. And as you know, that's one of the 12 principles, the idea of stirring emotion. And uh, you know, it goes back to that definition of customer experience. Um, you know, the definition that I propose in the book of customer experience is how customers feel about their interactions with you. And and I spend some time talking about that one-word feel, because it's not just about the mechanics of the experience. You know, you could answer my phone call, you could pick up my call in 10 seconds every time I try to reach you. But if after I am done with that call, if the service representative that I spoke with made me to feel inferior or embarrassed or intimidated in some way, then it doesn't matter how fast you picked up my call. I'm still going to walk away with a negative impression. And so, yeah, I think that the emotional pieces is just critical. Uh, and and the book certainly talks a lot about how to stir that kind of emotion in people's minds. And again, getting to the cognitive science here around customer experience, let's make sure everybody understands experiences that are laced with emotion are far more memorable than those that are not. And if you want to derive competitive advantage from the experience that you're delivering, you want people to remember it when they're ready to do to repurchase or when they're ready to refer someone else. Using emotion is uh it not only creates a good experience in in the moment, it actually creates a strong experience in recollection as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

I like in this section in Stir Stir Emotion, you you help people understand there's two two sides to the coin here. You got you got the the positive, but also there's a mitigating kind of the negative. And this is challenging. I mean, dealing with emotions is not a natural state for a lot of people, it's quite awkward, and they need to get comfortable with it. And actually evoking an emotional response in a customer can can actually be embarrassing for an individual, you know. So so getting used to the fact that's a good thing, what you've left behind there, that memory is a good thing. And actually, I mean I was just staggered that you'd included it because um it's something I love, I absolutely love, but it's so simple, and that is we have we use Mailchin and we use campaign launching, and you get that silly little hand that goes up that goes, hi five, you've launched a campaign, but it's I don't have a marketing department around me going, Woohoo! We got it out, we delivered it. But I used to work in marketing, and I know that's what it felt like. So to actually have this screen with just a little animated hand come up and and it's basically what about very, very simple, very small stuff. It doesn't need to be massive, but isn't that clever? Isn't that just so clever?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a great example. I love it, you know. And and for your listeners who aren't MailChimp users, you know, basically what this is about is anybody who's been in this who leads a small business knows that when you're about to hit the send button on some mass mailing that's going out to customers or prospects, I mean, it is an anxiety-ridden experience, right? Because the hesitation, the hesitation.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

You know, I mean, it's like, is there something, you know, are the links going to work? Did I, is there a misspelling? Did I say something wrong? And so, you know, the folks at MailChimp, they kind of understood that. And what they realized is that, you know, when people hit that send button, you want to give them a pat on the back. You know, you want to sort of like say, Hey, you did it, great job. And and so they've got their their mascot, uh, a chimp uh by the name of Freddie comes up on the screen and you know gives a high five. This is what again, what I mean about these subtle things. Um, presuming you're nailing the basics, that's just a subtle way that they're kind of giving a nod to the emotional resonance of the experience. This idea that you just went through something that was kind of you know nerve-wracking, and we're gonna pat you on the back and make you feel good about it. And there again, is that word feel. It costs nothing for them to do that, but it makes their users feel a sense of accomplishment. And that's the emotional resonance at that part of the experience.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Absolutely. And I think what what you get in this section is an appreciation that your motive is not a single size because you use on the negative as well, you use a very emotional situation, one which has deep anxiety. Someone who's in this situation, the implications and the significance are large. You're at the point where you are petrified. You know, as an adult, you're petrified. As a child, God, fortunately, I've never been through that, but I can only imagine how scary it must be. And proportionate to that, you've got the great example there from GE Healthcare. So I'd be really interested if you could just share a bit more about that in terms of how that's kind of stirring the emotion, but you know, minimizing this negativity and helping the situation.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Sure. You know, uh, in the customer experience realm, there are many people that talk about emotion. What I find is that there are a lot of businesses that struggle with that because they say, well, I'm not Disney World. You know, it's not like people are excited to come to me. I mean, they could be, it could be a dentist, it could be a lawyer. People aren't excited to come to me like they're going on vacation. You know, how do I stir positive emotion in those folks in order to cement the memory of the interaction with them in a positive way? And as the book explains, that's actually not necessary because the key to stirring emotion is really twofold. It's about accentuating positive emotion where the opportunity exists to do that. But then secondarily, it's about mitigating negative emotion. And if you are in a business, such as a dentist or a lawyer or a financial advisor or anything like that, or a healthcare professional, such as one who's conducting MRIs or CAT scans on a sick patient, you know, these are situations where there might not be an opportunity to accentuate positive emotion because people don't have positive emotion going in, but they certainly do have a lot of negative emotions that they go into those situations with concerns, worries, anxieties. And if you structure the experience in a way that helps to take some of those negative emotions off the table, what you essentially end up doing is stirring overall compelling emotion that helps to cement the memory of the interaction in people's minds in a favorable way. And the example that you're referring to with GE Healthcare, the story in the book is about a gentleman who designed uh CAT scans and MRI uh machines. And he had just finished designing a new MRI. He'd actually won a design award for it from the sort of international design community that rates these things. And he went to a hospital where it'd just been installed to actually see it in action. And so he's there and he's watching this young girl come into this MRI suite with her parents. And she's, you know, grasping their hands, she's on the verge of tears, she's obviously really worried and upset and scared. And so she walks into the MRI suite, and this designer, a guy by the name of Doug Dietz, he sees the room through her eyes, and he sees that this piece of equipment that he just spent years building looks incredibly scary. There are these, you know, large exclamation points that are all over the room, talking about the radiation and whatnot. The machine itself just looks like a brick in the wall with a hole in it. Everything is antiseptic from the fluorescent lighting and whatnot. And it was very jarring for him. And so he went back to his team and basically said, there is a better way. And what they came up with was uh GE's adventure series of MRIs and CAT scans. And it's designed to make children feel more comfortable in that setting. They actually shroud the room and the machinery itself in a theme, whether it's sort of like a submarine theme, a camping theme, whatever it is, the you know, the MRI machine becomes a submarine, it becomes uh a pirate ship, um, all sorts of different things. And talk about creating experiences. They create an experience for these young patients where instead of people being hesitant to jump up on that table and to get the scan, in many cases, actually, and the majority, they have to be sedated in order to get them to do that. But with the adventure series, kids are much more willing to hop onto that table because the technician is sort of giving them the whole experience. They're embarking on this journey on a pirate ship and they hop on the table, they need to be sedated much less often. It's a much better experience for them. And you know, it actually has a dollars and cents impact for the hospital. The hospitals that use these uh this type of equipment find that because they don't need to sedate children, they actually have greater throughput in these machines.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

They can schedule more people because they they don't need to take time to uh administer sedation to folks, which is also for me, customer experience is is greatest potential is improvement to society. And that is if you're reducing waiting times, you're getting patients in sooner, you're diagnosing, identifying problems, and you're saving more lives. And that's because someone's wrapped a machine with a pirate ship. I mean, isn't that just so cool? Yeah, that's just so cool, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, it is. I think it really fits the ultimate definition of a great customer experience, which is that it enriches lives. You know, it doesn't exploit lives, it enriches it. And and he certainly did that with that new MRI design.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

And and importantly, it's not compromising the product, but it's actually enhancing the product. So it's it's it ticks so many boxes, it's really good, isn't it? And and this is the beauty, I think, of the way you've written the book, John, is that every single topic you can get into and you can spend a lot of time in there because you give us your ideas on what you could do, but you give this really rich examples that you kind of go, wow, yeah, let me just unpack that, unpack that, unpack that. So I can see myself having a very doggie copy in my back pocket, you know, and kind of adding my, you know, and almost at some point sending you a whole host of oh, I found examples that fit into what you're talking about here. We've got examples in here, which no organization could say we can't do that. Most of the approaches that you suggest, most organizations could take on, you know. Then then they're not the sort of you just say they're not the Disney Institute scale escapades that you know are there for the few and the far between. They are nothing wrong with those. And but what I'm saying is that sometimes the people picking your book up, and I'll be interested to see who you've written it for, but I I could see small business owners picking this up and saying, I can do this now. I've been hearing about this customer experience. It felt like it was for others, but I think I could do this. I mean, is who is it? Who are you aiming it at?

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah, so you know, you're exactly right. I think the small business owner, the self-employed individual, the home contractor, the plumber, the electrician, but all the way through to the Fortune 100 chief executive. You know, the book really was written for that entire spectrum because while those Fortune 100 companies might have more resources, I mean, let's face it, even they are resource constrained. And so they're looking for ways to deliver a better experience in a simple, straightforward way that maybe doesn't cost millions, uh tens of millions of dollars. It is directed to all those people. And I think they can all find relevance in it. You know, whether you are a one-person organization, a realtor, for example, uh, you know, a medical practitioner, or you're leading an organization of tens of thousands, I think that you're absolutely right that the book outlines not only things at a strategic level, but I was really intent on making sure that nobody walked away from the book and said, Well, you know, that was nice, but it was a lot of platitudes. I'm not quite sure what exactly John is telling me to do next. I didn't want anybody to walk away from the book with that, which is why, as you say, you know, in the back of every chapter, there are just these really tangible tactical examples of how people can apply each principle. And I love the word that you use, achievable. I think that is exactly the right word. No matter what your resources are, uh how big or small your organization, I think that it is achievable.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

There's three words I put for your book, which is authoritative. You can't have written this book unless you've had your sleeves rolled up and you've been in the engine room, which you clearly have. The authenticity of it, you know, you bring your own examples in there, you really make them connect with the points that you're making and actionable. I really think that you'll find the sort of testimonials and the uh feedback you get from people, is they will feed you examples of how they've applied what you've told them. Because I'm gonna still with pride, you're gonna see in in my work some of your some of your ideas here, because I think it's just brilliant. If there's another book to follow on from this, which is sort of the how to guide to customer experience, it's gonna have to go some, John, because I found it really complete and wholesome.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Genuinely, you know, it really I would love nothing more than for you and others to send me all of those examples and I can make sure to include them in the second edition. Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

There we go. I I see the plan now. I see the plan. But honestly, it's it's been a delight, and you know, it's really good to meet you and hear you bring it to life. I can hear you now when I read the book again, which would be wonderful. But uh that consistency in how you've always presented yourself, the way you've kept true to the focus on the leaders in terms of the customer experience ROI. It's all such a wonderfully complete compendulum now. So this is a I don't know if this is a bookend, you know, kind of for the work you've done so far, and whether it is the closure or the start of the next chapter, I'm not sure. But I'm so grateful that you've written it. And I know a lot of people are going to be grateful for this because when you're sitting there thinking, where do I go next? The answer is just to reach out, pick up impress to obsessed, and then you find yourself with the next chapter in your customer experience journey. So honestly, thank you for writing it, John. It's been a delight talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Thank you. I appreciate the kind words and I really enjoyed speaking with you as well.