Customer Experience Superheroes - Series 14 - Episode 1 - Eric Vermillion - How technology can enable better customer outcomes

In the first of the 14th series of CX Superheroes podcasts, we welcome CEO of Helpshift, Eric Vermillion. In conversation with series host, Christopher Brooks from Lexden, the focus is on how effective tech can improve customer outcomes. Eric's experience goes back to the start of the modern CX movement, having worked with vendors who pioneered the landscape we know today. 

From working with everyone from local retailers to global enterprises, Eric has one of the most informed perspectives on how to optimise technology to both improve the experiences customers encounter, but also the outcomes they are left with. 

We deep dive into the advancement of the gaming sector when it comes to CX, and Eric showcases some great examples others can learn from. Here's a link to their case studies on their website too. https://www.helpshift.com/customers/. Both Christopher and Eric have worked with gaming companies and share their hands on experiences of how different the 'player' is when it comes to dealing with companies. 

And he explains how AI isn't a magic wand, it's about creating the best outcomes and then employing the tech to achieve this, rather than the other way around. And leaving the humans to deepen the relationship - a perfect mix. 

A really insightful podcast rich with ideas and tips for those looking to create better outcomes. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Customer Experience Superheroes Podcast Series. My name is Christopher Brooks and I am your host and your guide throughout this series. A series in which we meet up with some of the more incredible individuals in this broadening category of customer experience. Today's guest is someone who has really been there from the start. Him and I were talking about the fact that we're probably doing this before we even realized it had been coined as customer experience. And that is the CEO of HelpShift, Eric Vermilion. Now, Eric will be familiar to many of you through whose work that he's done in many organizations that have progressed and become the staple diet of the CX industry. Working with HelpShift, Eric is really on the forefront of technology. And I wanted to find out just how well that technology is serving customers and just how much more we've got to go. So without further ado, let's go and meet up with Eric. So here we are. Hello, Eric. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'm very well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Now we shouldn't have a time delay on the on the call today because as we found out, you're you're actually in England at the moment. So you're not home stateside, you're you're over here. So this works well.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

It works great, yeah. I'm I'm helping my daughter with a move. She's a university student here in London, so it worked out perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

And how are you finding? I mean, you you can give us first hand uh approval. US customer experience versus UK customer experience. I mean, is there a difference? Do we do we treat things differently here to how we do in the US?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I I would say I I probably prefer the UK customer experience. As a tourist, you go out to a lot of restaurants and coffee shops and pubs, and it's very nice to not have machines shoved in your face being asked for a 30% gratuity on every single project that you make.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

I was in Canary Wolf actually last weekend for my son's 18th, and we went to a restaurant. And the waitress actually said, There has been a 12.5% service charge added, but can I just let you know you don't have to pay that? And she made a really clear point of telling me you didn't need to pay it. So that you'd have probably fallen off your chair if somebody had said that to you, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to provide a tip. I just don't typically show up in my crazy sort of a mandate at the end of the you know, end of the meal, but yeah, so it's uh but no, it's a it's a lovely city.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

And and you can give us a comparison, understand you're off to Germany next. I'm part of uh something called the European Customer Experience Organization. It was set up because you know, different parts of Europe, Scandinavia, Iberia, um, Eastern Europe. There are different approaches to customer experience, and I think probably the misconception is that Europe is just one experience. But I I know you're you're well traveled. Have you found different parts of the world in different parts of Europe? The experience changes where you go.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, I think there's there's some places I think we've all seen and and heard about some of the changing dynamics in some of the Mediterranean locations that have to all these Airbnbs and short-term rentals that have taken over. And I think there's been a little bit of pushback from some of the locals there um to you know to all the tourists. I think it's starting to normalize a little bit. There was, I guess it's often been referred to as revenge travel that happened after COVID uh started to wane, and the world has kind of started to equalize a little bit. So I think you're seeing more interesting customers. I was I traveled through Germany, France, uh, Belgium, and and the Netherlands right as Europe was opening up, and I've never experienced such spectacular customer service upgrades in every hotel, you know, impeccable service at every restaurant because they were just starting to come back. Yeah. Yeah, then it shifted to this just mass of people that showed up and hard to find the right staffing and balance the staffing needs with the demands of all those people that were doing the COVID revenge travel.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, I think you're right. That's in we've not we've missed you, but we we really have missed you. Honestly, we've really, really missed you. So I take what you say there. I mean, we are finding certainly um I was talking to my son who's just come back from a trip to Croatia and Czech Republic, and his expectation of the holiday experience is very different to you know my generation, a very, very different experience expectation that he had. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, is that a consequence of uh the change following COVID? Or or is it actually just an improvement to provide a good attraction and to get customers to come there? The expectation and standards you have to provide are are much higher. Let's talk about your world, help shift and within customer service. Have you found over the years the expectation and the needs of customers has changed? Or are we you know principally is it still the same questions and the same queries?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

I I think a lot of the questions are the same, but the expectations of the consumer are very different in that yeah, they're it used to be very transactional. If you think, you know, if I asked somebody to describe their experience calling their cable company or their bank in 1985 or in 2020, that would not be a terribly different experience than the one you have today. But I I mean I'd have a messaging exchange with a with a credit card company in the last week or two. And I literally asked if this was a real person that I was talking to because I couldn't tell the difference. And the credit card company's responses and their refusal to answer the question left me wondering if it really was a real person. I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, my problem was solved, and so I think that's I I would say there's been a big shift to resolution and the focus on resolution. I mean, that's what a that's what a consumer wants is resolution, and then a much more relational approach to customer service versus the transactional one that that I would say I grew up with.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Would you subscribe to this kind of shift from customer service to customer care? Is it become like that where you're kind of resolving and focusing on the relationship or yeah, I or is now that not kind of the right language?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

No, I think it I think it is. If you if you think about what um you know what a relationship looks like, I mean, mine are all on this thing, right? Somewhere, yeah, somewhere or another. So you know, kind of that messaging, your mobile device is right at the center of it, and you have um you've got a lot of relationships. And sometimes I go two or three months without engaging someone that I have a relationship with. Usually I do it through this thing, and yeah, you pick right up where you left off. I think that's one of the things that's really changing in customer service is that customers are kind of expecting that sort of relationship or relational kind of engagement uh with the brands that they do business with. And the smart brands are figuring out how to leverage that to create more opportunity for themselves uh as well, because that's it's harder to leave a relationship than it is, you know, a vendor, you know, somebody that you just have a transactional with.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

It's a very interesting point you made there. Cause I know I've definitely got friends like that that will just pick up the conversation as if one of us just popped out the room, you know, it would just be a case of, oh, you know, my dad's still doing this, it's like, you know, we haven't spoken for five years, and that's the open, my dad's still doing this, and all of a sudden I've got this, yeah, I know exactly what they're talking about. But actually, with a with a business when you're dealing with them, if you've got to go back and say, I bought this from you and that was on Tuesday, and then this happened before that, you know, very difficult. And I think if you did that in a human relationship where you have to kind of go, oh, I've forgotten who's your dad, what did he do? You know, it doesn't break the relationship, doesn't it? So we expect the organization to pick up with the okay, you've called about the delivery that didn't arrive on Tuesday already. So is this what this is of oh yeah, brilliant. You know, there's that expectation that you can just click in and go forward.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, yeah, no, it absolutely is the case. Well, and I think the good customer experience leaders and organizations are figuring that out and they're leveraging all this technology that's that's coming to make that experience more of a reality for their customers.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

And and let's let's just go back there, because obviously, I mean, technology's been a part of your your life and customer experience has been a part of your life, not just now, but for for many years. And and probably like me, it was before it was even coined as customer experience. So so give us an appreciation of Erica kind of where you got into customer experience and and the journey you've taken to where you are now with uh with Help Shift.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, I spent about eight years at Nice. That was really my first experience in in customer experience. And when I started at NICE, it was uh it was really a call recording vendor. And uh a lot of the a lot of the calls were recorded for compliance reasons, you know, there were banks, financial institutions that were recording recording stock trades and things like that, that you know, today we wouldn't even think about having you know floors and floors of buildings dedicated to these machines that recorded stuff. But it as it became more possible to use technology to really accelerate your understanding of what your customers are asking for, I think it was called interaction analytics that NICE released into the marketing in the late 2000s, and that really changed started to change companies' views of the contact center as a necessary expense to something that could actually provide some organizational value. And a lot of those technology investments were funded on the basis that it could help do that, it could help make you grow, it could help you retain customers in a way that you couldn't before because you gained some sort of insight into what they actually wanted. And so I see a lot of parallels in the world today with AI, but I spent eight years at NICE, and that kind of transformation helped propel NICE from 200 million to over a billion and held a bunch of different leadership roles there. I've spent really my entire career in software and technology, moved to a little different space for a few years and then joined Helpshift in 2019. And I was I was really enamored with I spoke to uh Abhinash Trapathy, the founder of the company, and he shared this vision of how the mobile device really can be at the center of all of the engagement that brands have with their customers. And that was really one of the principles that that helpship was founded on around the time that smartphones became so prevalent, and just loved, absolutely love that idea. And the things that that unlocked, not only for consumers to really be able to have access to customer service quickly, anytime, anywhere in the world, but also for brands to be able to provide it in a way that they really couldn't before. So that was you know the attraction to help shift. And I I I still you know love the way that you know I'm seeing our customers help to drive that again, kind of that shift from a transactional to more of a relationship or relational kind of engagement model with their customers.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

And is the is the purpose when you when you joined in in 2019, the purpose of Help Shift, has it remained the same? It's just the technology that's evolved, or have you had to look at the business and think, well, actually, what market are we in?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, we we've we've certainly made some changes. I mean, we didn't you know when the when the business started, we didn't intentionally set out to be focused on the gaming industry.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

But the gaming industry, because of its nature of not having these brick and mortar contact centers and this legacy approach to customer service or to CX, it really loved the idea of leveraging mobile and you know being able to kind of use that as the platform to engage with their their customers, and so a lot of our um, you know, a large percentage of our customers just became concentrated in gaming. We still we have others in you know financial services and retail and other industries as well that um you know get tremendous value out of our product, but that is what attracted uh keyword studios to acquire shifts um at the end of 2022. So we've been you know uh a little over a year and a half uh under the keywords flag, and keywords is very much uh kind of the leader in providing services to the gaming industry. And so um, you know, while we have still continued to develop products for other industries, our messaging has certainly pivoted to be more focused on on gaming. And we've kind of you know had to think through how do we combine the story of how our technology fits with you know kind of the human element uh as well, because we provide the human element as well as the technology now. And I think it's been kind of a perfect um uh it's been a perfect opportunity to marry the some of the trends that are going on in the industry as well with AI to say, hey, not only can we provide this technology that is you know that is fueled by AI, but also the people you know that know how to use it and and manage it, because that's a big part of it uh as well. So it has evolved, but fundamentally leveraging the mobile you know device to create that um you know kind of real-time any any anywhere-anyplace engagement with consumers is absolutely still kind of you know at the central core of what we do.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

And I mean, you you mentioned gaming, and obviously um uh the thing that's interesting, I think, about gaming, and um there are other sectors that you could put in parallel, but they haven't got that kind of supply chain to worry about so much when it comes between them and the consumer. And also you you you you said to yourself, they haven't got that that kind of bricks and mortar retail infrastructure, so they've not like to not need to migrate to digital, and actually that that whole space is what their consumers consume already. So there's a few advantages. I mean, I know we had a quick discussion before, Han, but it I I agree with you. Gaming is one of those sectors where there's a lot of lessons that other sectors can learn from. I mean, they they just go so fast. I mean, of how how have you found, are you keeping, you know, do you find you have to keep up or do they come to you for inspiration, or is it more of a kind of a collaborative approach?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

No, it's it's absolutely collaborate collaborative. They're very open though to technology. And you know, a lot of the things that I think the rest of the CX world is starting to see as novel and unique and interesting, many of our customers have been doing for many years. And you know, and and leveraging automation uh in you know, in kind of that that whole CX process. If you think about you know, like a legacy industry, like a financial services industry, uh, they may have no problem with a cost per contact of you know 12, 15 dollars a contact because their customers spend a lot of money with them. In the gaming industry, we have we have a lot of you know customers that um have a huge amount of players that don't pay them anything. But when there's a problem, they still need help. And so, you know, you might have a large bank that's trying to figure out how do we, you know, how do we shrink our cost per contact from$20 to$15. We're talking about pennies, you know. You they've got to be able to serve these customers because if they don't, then they'll go play a different game and they'll never spend any money with them, or you know, the the game won't become popular and generate, you know, the revenue in that way. So they have to take customer service very seriously. They have to answer even the players who aren't spending money with them. So they're you know, oftentimes trying to figure out how to do that for pennies instead of dollars and deliver it in a very, you know, in a in a in a still in an exceptional way. And so many of them have found that you know, doing that through the app. I mean, they they were, I would say, some of the earliest adopters of providing support from directly within the app, leveraging messaging, you know, to provide that support so that it is um either real time with you know a live person on the other side, or just um, you know, it just it just happens in a um serial way where the the answer is delivered, you know, and whenever the customer responds and you respond back, very similar to the you know the relationship we talked about that you might have with you know friends that you message with uh regularly. And and we've seen um you know some of our I'd say most well, there's actually we just we recently published a case study with Saibo. It's on our website. Um Saibo's the maker of subway servers, which is one of the most popular games out there, one of the most downloaded games of of all time, about four billion downloads, I think, and and an active player base of 150 million monthly. 150 million, you know, like when you think about the businesses in the world that have two and a half topics. Well, it's you know, it's it's huge. But and historically they approached CX in, I would say more a more traditional way with you know more email focused support. And they only got they were only able to achieve about a 10% deflection when they you know started to leverage you know tools like automated translation so that you can do this you know on a global basis, in-game, you know, FAQs, built-in messaging, you know, within the within the platform and bots for automated you know workflows, they were able to get a 95% deflection rate in a matter of three months. And here's the here's the really important part: they did it while improving CSAT. So CSAT actually went up. So customers were frustrated, they were actually excited that they could get you know a resolution in a much faster way. And I think this is, and I love the beauty of their story as well, because this was not a cost savings effort, this was an opportunity to grow their business. They were launching a new game, and so they they were able to you know create some more automation, create some more uh efficiency in how they were doing things, and they were able to leverage that to grow their business. And that's you know, another thing that I think gaming does a really good job of that, of kind of shifting and pivoting, you know, when as as those uh improvements are seen in terms of their ability to scale or automate uh resolution of you know of tickets.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

I think, I mean, I think there's an attitude there, isn't it, as a mindset? Because you know, we've worked with organizations where they're making a transition, but then there'll be a new product or it'll be the height of the season, and everything goes on hold because that's the thing that's got to be done. And what you're saying is actually, you know, they just work through it. It's just you know the mind the mindset is let's just get this get this done, it makes sense. Yeah, and to go from 10% to 95%, as you say to the the case studies on the website. We'll put a link into your description if you're yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

It's a it's a great it, but it's also not this is not an abnormal thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

I was gonna say they're probably just taking it in their stride. It's what what we why are we capturing this? Just crack on to the next thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, they're probably realize amazing. Sorry, yeah, I would say, you know, for the traditional CX operators, my advice is if you want to learn a little bit more about what the future looks like, go go check out a gaming company's support organization because they really are uh, I think, sort of ahead of you know the curve on what the future of support looks like. And it's not, it's it's much more relational. Um, it's not so you know tethered to kind of brick and mortar, it's not restricted by hours, it's not restricted by languages, it's very global in nature and it's it's it's always on.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, which is kind of the wish list the uh customer service director has, isn't it? Kind of when they list down what do you really want from your service function? That's that's the list that kind of comes with it. So give me give me an appreciation then then Eric. I mean, of the stuff that you know you've done most recently with with Help Shift, what are the things that really stand out to you as kind of, you know, this is I'm really proud of this that we've we've we've produced or um endeavors that you've been focusing on. What what what what stands out for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Um yeah, I think you know, I mean I could give you more examples, but we have we have uh a large percentage of our customers have been able to automate, you know, in excess of 50 or 60 percent of their support. Uh and they've done that for years. And so I see a lot of these case studies that you know that are are launched by you know the latest AI vendor who's you know talking about how they can help you know reduce this and deflect that and save you all this money. I think you know, our our customers have been doing that for years, and this is not um so it's not a uh I'd say it's a more pragmatic approach. It's not there's this magic um wand called AI that you can sprinkle on your yeah, your your CX operations and magically save you know 30 or 50 of your costs. It is how do we take the or how do we create the greatest outcomes for our players, you know, in the gaming industry? I mean, it's the their customers are players. How do we create you know the ability for them to achieve the outcome that they're trying to, get back to playing the game, never leave the game, you know, if they need support you know while they're in the game. And so, you know, leveraging not only you know the ability to really provide that support experience in any language anywhere in the world 24-7 but using the you know using the insights that you're gaining um from ai to deliver you know to have your humans deliver a much better experience for that consumer that makes them never want to leave uh the game and so when I say automate you know 95% um of of the tickets those are really kind of low value things that um you know many it's in many instances would cause the player to just say you know what I'm just gonna move on to the next game. Yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's not you know it's not that we've taken anyone's job or you know anything like that by by automating it we've actually unlocked a much more powerful experience and in turn made it a whole lot more fun for the agents themselves because they're not frantically just trying to do you know those those tasks that they they don't enjoy having to do anymore that the the players in it you know enjoy well and I've sat I mean I've I've sat and listened to calls from from players before and um that they're never because they're typically playing you you you at best get kind of 75% of what's going on don't you it's really difficult for an agent to actually interpret and you almost have to work within the rhythm of their playing because you know if it's a they'd rather wait 30 seconds if they just need to get through this stage than have it immediately and affect that stage and that's you know you can't and you can't see that.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

So it's very difficult. That's why the automation is just so much more advantageous to them. And then if it's something that I guess the 5% is look I've got a real problem here. I need to sit down and talk to someone then they can dedicate time and the agent can get into proper resolution mode.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah and I think that's where you know some of the technology that that we've developed really makes that experience for the agent a lot easier as well because we're also providing the tools to them that give them the indicator of we're we're detecting that this person is getting upset. We're detecting that this person is you know getting getting anxious um you know we're detecting this person is very satisfied with the experience right now um but also allows you to create you know to to see kind of the summaries of some of the past transactions as well so you know we talked about kind of that relational thing like I don't I I do remember what we talked about two to three months ago. I mean I I don't as an agent because I've had you know 4,000 additional conversations since then but all that information is there to make me you know to refresh my memory and allow me to have kind of that relationship uh type of engagement with you that leaves me feeling like this is a company that really cares about me.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

And it's not just the the content is it it's also the um uh the the tonality and the personality of of the player because I I remember seeing before like on a call log and you know this particular player never said thank you at the end of you know the the transaction they never said thank you so when it was resolved they just went off and played and without seeing that the agent would have felt like that's rude but it's just who they are you know it's nothing personal they just want to get back on with their game and maybe you know they say that thank you when they put put the phone down. I don't know but you know understanding what's gone on before helps really appreciate just kind of a player players are not necessarily the same people they are when they walk down the street they you go into into your zone and become a player so I think um you know all the sectors automation lends itself really well to that doesn't it I feel yeah yeah I remember talking to it's a really good chap David Wells who works in crisis management and he said um it's a bit like playing you know it's kind of that that kind of the senses are heightened and actually everything is really really really important and he said you can put parallels between crisis management and gaming. I thought it was really interesting observation at the time.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah it would be probably within the games as well I mean maybe that's just an inherent trait to people who like to like the game.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Yeah maybe maybe and and you know with with I mean we as you say you you if you're working and collaborating with your your your gaming organizations um what what do you collectively see as the the future then because I think you know we've started to realize um at different paces of adoption just how technology can help the customer experience. I think we've spoken about it for a long time but a lot of the kind of stars are aligning now on better integrations of systems and um more case studies of how you can do it. So what do you see kind of coming next?

SPEAKER_00 26:43

What's going to be the next paradigm for automation in in in customer experience well I I think that the having the ability to tie all those systems together in a way that we've never had before is incredibly powerful. And there are you know there are tools out there that I think are others are developing that we're developing as well that um really you know I I I think of 10 years ago what it might have taken to find out that there was a serious you know bug in your game or your product whatever this isn't just for gaming and you know maybe you'd have call center agents you know manually creating tick sheets about something that they noticed or you'd you'd ask them or you know maybe somebody from the product team would ask them about what they're hearing. And you know maybe at some point after it got loud enough somebody would react and respond and make a change to where I think you know the future and and really it's kind of the now it's I think people are trying to figure out how to operationally use it more than the technology limitations is you can identify that very quickly because you know that constant listening is is uh you know is there right now and you know create Jura tickets for your development team or you know create Jura tickets for you know automation sequences that are going on in your QA group to you know verify and test it and then kick something off to the development team. So you know resolution to operational issues like that for companies now are I mean just the the speed at which that can happen and companies can capitalize that on on that you know opportunity is is huge. And I think that's true for you know some of the you know marketing aspects of it as well because you can learn things very very fast and you're able to react and respond you know in in virtually in real time to things in a way that you just couldn't before. And I think that's very exciting for the brands themselves but also exciting you know for consumers because you know how how you know how many times do you know so do support tickets come in for problems that haven't been fixed for weeks or months and you you've got you've got you know support agents that are are there saying I don't understand why they don't fix this problem. Well they don't know now they know in five minutes and and know how to fix it. So that's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

I was um talking to uh one of my colleagues uh Rodrigo who's our kind of uh customer experience technology officer and he and he made a good point that um whereas before it it took a while to identify these things you your project manager could then jump in and identify the impact the productivity gains you'll get from it the amount you can invest in it and what he was observing is is the speed at which resolution happens that this governance isn't happening so much more so therefore you're not able to realize how much of a gain you you're getting and therefore when they when the FD looks at the end of the year and kind of says how much have we spent how much have we gained the not to get true picture and I I just wonder if that that desire to get things resolved is is not allowing the scale of the the improvement to be appreciated by those who are going to make a decision on it in in the future. You know they'll just go well we don't need anyone to do this stuff anymore because I can't see any gain for it. I don't see any value coming in. But it's just we're not capturing it as we go. Do you see where I'm going with that just kind of you know it's moving so fast we can't realize just how much we're saving the organization or gaining the organization.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

It's I I mean what I've seen is it's easier to measure. You know it's easier to measure now the kind of financial gains of it. The thing that I worry about is um you know sort of the finance people saying we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna just take that gain and you know turn it into kind of shareholder stakeholder profit whereas the opportunity that it creates to leverage um you know to leverage those those humans you know that are driving those real the real meaningful engagements with consumers to build brand loyalty and to become brand ambassadors for you higher than it's ever been before and you know as a consumer where you have that kind of engagement with a brand you you love them you want to give them all your business you want to spend money with them you're loyal you talk about it you share it you promote what they're doing and if you don't see past kind of that last mile you know of of the of the journey you know I'm not talking specifically about AI but I think this is a core argument for why CX uses AI is is to generate those kind of cost savings. You're missing the point if if you let it be about that you have an opportunity to really make uh you know to make to make your your contact center a revenue generator for you. And I think the smart brands are figuring out that you know my goodness this is not a cost center for us. This is an opportunity center for us and this is unlocking an opportunity it's I mean you think about the number of brands that have physical storefronts anymore. It used to be you know 30 40 years ago like a lot of those face-to-face relationships happened there now they don't they happen in your CX operations and you've got an opportunity to really you know leverage that you know leverage the gains that technology allows you to make to really amp up the type of engagement that you have uh you know with your consumers and I think that's what's really going to separate a lot of I mean even in kind of legacy industries that have been around for a long time I think the ones that recognize that and do a better job of that are are they're gonna be the winners uh you know in the next 10 years and and CX is going to help you know help drive some of that and so that's I think something that we should all be excited about you know in the in the CX industry.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

I think they're probably placed the needing and there's a certain skill set needed we talk about super powers and interesting superheroes and you know that that ability to demonstrate to the the board of the senior leaders that actually this this gain is worth so much more if we put it back into the business than if you take it out of the business. And in the same respect having that finance director that says tell me more I'm curious which is what I'm about rather than actually my conventional you know finance degree from Harvard or Kings or Yellow City or wherever I got it tells me you know I give shareholder value at the cost of customer of the environment and the employee that mindset shift needs to be there to say show me how I can do more with it if I give it back to you then isn't it and that's that's about the relationship because I think if you position the CX as transactional that's where it goes. But as you're saying sort of the gaming industry are really looking at how you build relationships and you do need your FD and your finance team on board to say here you go go and deepen that relationship for me and you know make the revenues more sustainable more reliable over the long term so as much as the automation is there it does require the the human to play their part in presenting it in the right way. Because I think there's a danger sometimes it can be presented as efficiency cost saving reduction as opposed to better opportunity relationship development and growth.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

I mean you you must have seen that and I'm sure you can see the wheat from the chaff the good from the bad who who do that as well yeah absolutely I I see a parallel in the software industry where I've spent yeah my career when I started my career we didn't have this thing called customer success we we we had support but uh the the software industry developed this entire you know role called customer success that's focused on continuous engagement with your best customers and making sure that they're utilizing you know as many of your capabilities as they possibly can and that they're doing it well and they're getting value from that. And you know we typically pay these customer success operations very well to do to do that role.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

And so I I don't know maybe we should rebrand CX customer success because that's really what you're unlocking here now with the technology and that's I mean that's a dream for brands right is that we've got the biggest possible share of your wallet and you're you know very happy and and want to want to promote what we do and and tell all your friends about what we do and and you know that's I think that is something that CX like we talked about it earlier that it's it's always been historically viewed as transactional and the better brands get at viewing it as relational and leveraging these tools to unlock those you know that kind of relationship uh with consumers it's it's a bright future for those brands and and talking of bright futures I mean it seems as if you know it's been a it's I'm sure there's been a lot of experimenting I'm sure there's been a lot of learning through failures and a lot of successes but it seems like it's been quite an exhilarating ride for you so far and and and the future will continue to be that way I mean you're very happy being connected to the uh automation um uh torpedoes it fires off and and and don't see any need to go anywhere else it feels like this is your space see would that be true I think that's true I I think I'm probably the most uh difficult consumer that I know or most demanding consumer that I know so it's easy for me to translate it you know when we think about technology and the way technology can help it's easy to translate it to yeah the experiences that I have yeah like I message you must be a bit of nightmare because you must just constantly be going no it doesn't have to work that way and no it can work differently you can't tell me that you can't tell me that well look you've you've you're here in England I know you you're heading off to Germany so I I won't keep you much longer but just to say Eric thank you so much for giving us an insight into how you think um and also in terms of the world of of help shift and uh I think people like you in the the world of CX automation is going to continue to have a a healthy relationship with the customer as opposed to the transactional approach as we said and hopefully there are there'll be fewer of those and more who are investing relational type approach which uh I appreciate is where you come from so thank you very much for your time and enjoy having your guests on the CX podcast and my closet