CX Superheroes podcast - Series 14 Episode 2 - The Power of Personal Connection in Business - Patrick McCullough

In this episode, Christopher Brooks, CX Influencer of the Year 2024, and CX Superheroes podcast host, speaks with Patrick McCullough, President of Hallmark Business Connections. In an enlightening exchange, they talk about the role of human connection in business today. While digital communication is efficient, does it create real emotional engagement? Patrick shares insights on balancing digital and personal touch points, the impact of recognition on employees, and why a simple greeting card can make all the difference. Discover how businesses can build stronger relationship experiences with customers and employees through authentic, thoughtful communication.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Customer Experience Superheroes Podcast Series. My name is Christopher Brooks, and along with being the principal consultant for Lexan CX, I am your host for this series. A series in which we introduce you to individuals who are trailblazers in the world of CX. Some are academics, some are professionals, some are practitioners, we have entrepreneurs, we have thought leaders, we have many individuals who are doing many things in the world of CX. What we do like to try to do is bring you some interesting topics and stories that perhaps wouldn't necessarily always see the light. And I think with today's guest, we're doing exactly that. I'm going to introduce you to Patrick McCullough from Hallmark Business Connections or H B C. When I say Hallmark, I assume you're thinking greeting cards. Well you would be right to think so. And what we're going to hear from Patrick is a very interesting journey from greeting cards to a business consultancy service that is really creating great waves in terms of experience improvements in the B2B world. We are absolutely delighted to have Patrick McClure here today. Hi Patrick, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Doing great, CRISPR. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I'm really well, thank you. Yeah, I'm having a good week. Um the weather is changing, it's getting warmer here in uh in Europe, so I'm very, very pleased. Uh, what time of day do we have you?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Uh it's early in the morning here in Kansas City, right around 8 a.m., and we're we've we're on the tail end of a blizzard. So I'm happy to be inside talking with you.

unknown 1:48

Fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

So, Patrick, you have a really interesting role and a really interesting uh business you're a part of which I know you've been at for some time, which is Hallmark Business Connections. Um, HBC, okay? Is that a right? Yeah, HBC, exactly, yeah. Oh, okay, wonderful. So, Patrick, as a way of introduction, we're getting to a few topics here and people will understand. I'm sure some will obviously know HBC, but obviously to many it's going to be an interesting business to learn about. You've been there for about a decade now, I think. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, right about a decade, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Wonderful. So if you could give us an appreciation when you got involved with the business and what your your current role is, that would be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I've been with the business for about 10 years. Um, currently the president of Hallmark Business Connections across my 10 years. I've had a bunch of different roles, uh, client roles, leading our e-commerce and digital teams, etc., and then leading the business now for the last couple of years. And actually, funny enough, uh HBC is celebrating its 30th birthday this year, 30 years within the broader Hallmark family.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Take me back to Hallmark's been going longer than that, much much longer. How long's Hallmark been around for?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Since about 1910, yeah. So well over 100 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So 70 years into its existence, it decides we need a specialist business consultancy within the organization. How did that conversation come about?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Well, as is often the case when you're working through innovation, innovation can find you. And that's essentially what happened with what is now known as Hallmark Business Connections. Hallmark had a number of different business units that it was operating in a traditional business, the one that most folks listening to this will understand, you know, greeting cards, products, et cetera. Uh, and they had businesses coming to Hallmark saying, hey, we would love for you to make some of those custom products for us. Uh so think insurance companies, think uh retailers who want to send uh products to their customers as a thank you gift, those kinds of things. And Hallmark started doing this for a few businesses, and after a while kind of realized, hey, this is actually a business we should be in. This is a sector that is emerging. Um at the time I would say it was in its relative infancy, the idea of using, you know, greeting cards for businesses and different types of thank you products for businesses. There were a few players in the market, but Hallmark certainly wasn't there. Um, so uh, and funny enough, you know, it's it's one of those things where all of these little pockets existed around Hallmark and all these little projects were happening, none of them were organized, and and uh Hallmark just decided to kind of pile them together. And at the time, the business was known as Hallmark Business Expressions, and it was founded right about uh 1995 or so, and bloomed from there. The business over its 30 years has had a lot of different lives. At times, it has been more of an agency or loyalty marketing group kind of focus, uh, to your point, a more of a consultancy. Um, at times it's been entirely focused on business products. It has sold software, it has sold gift cards and in and incentive products, right? It's had lots of different things that have been appended onto it. But today we find ourselves very much in the thick in the heart of what the business was that it's founding, which is helping businesses figure out how to build better relationships with their customers and their employees and using those types of products and services that you would expect Hallmark to sell, right? The things that make the most sense for our brand and and our value proposition.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Great. And it's very interesting that you led with helping our customers to achieve this. And secondly, using our products and services. I would imagine when it started, the emphasis was probably the other way. Was it about how do we use our products and services to help the customers? But you you have you expanded that now to actually recognize it is about helping our customers build relationships, retain relationships. And secondary, we have this wonderful suite of products that naturally lends itself to that.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, I think most of the time when we're when we're meeting with folks in the marketplace, they're expecting us to do both, right? And yes, that's effectively what the business is. The the products and services span a wide uh number of different things of software, physical products. And yes, obviously we do quite a bit of consulting. Folks come to us all the time asking us for feedback on creative ideas, right? Can Hallmark obviously is an incredible creative company and has made beautiful products for many, many, many decades. Help us think about this project, right? Those kinds of things. So all of this exists. But like I said, it uh at the end of the day, now where we find ourselves is back at the heart of what is probably the perfect fit for Hallmark and the perfect fit for our customers, which is trying to design those product suites that help customers do what they need to do. I often say Homework at this point is a tool within our customers' toolkits, right? No one hires us to do everything. That that did exist at a time in our business where we literally did everything for a few companies, but you know, we are that perfect tool for them to use in all of these right places. Um we're we're happy with where we've landed on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So I'm interested to understand how the process works. Let's say I'm an insurer, I've got a large database, and what I like to do is to recognize my customers' birthdays, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Yeah, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

So this would be, I guess, a classic case that you would have someone would come to you and say, look, we're looking for this opportunity to recognize our customers' birthdays. You guys are world-class at celebrating people's birthdays. How do we do this? Is that kind of the starting point, or are they a lot more advanced in their here's the design, here's the word, and how do you print it? Or do you do you have to try and move them back up to say, what are you trying to achieve, first of all?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, it's a good question. And I think it is true that some do different companies come to this table in different ways. But it's funny that you mention an insurance company. I actually just was meeting yesterday with a small to medium-sized insurance company here in the United States who has several thousand non-captive agents. And they came to the table to meet to work with us actually about a year ago in a in a very non-sophisticated way, right? They didn't necessarily have any idea what they wanted to do. They didn't have any creative or products or executions. Frankly, even their access and organization of data, something as simple as a customer's birthday and birth month, was a little bit challenging. And so that exists certainly within our portfolio. And we have customers that we help who are at that level of maturity. But we've had a very public partnership with State Farm dating back practically to the origination of our business, the largest property casualty insurer in the United States. They come to the table with Hallmark in a very sophisticated way. They have very clear points of view on their brand positioning. They have a very tight grasp on their data and how they want to use it. Their agents have a very clear and informed point of view about how they want to communicate with their customers. Um, and so then at that point, Hallmark, thankfully for us, we don't have to think about solving 19 problems. I can just think on solving some of the more creative problems, right? What is the right message at the right time? How do we make sure it's personalized in a way that's authentic for the customer, but still feels um like it's not overly burdensome? And how can we make sure we get it into our customers' hands, or in this case, State Farm's customers' hands and their policyholders' hands at the right time, depending on whatever the sending occasion might be to your point on birthday. And that's been an evolution, right? I mean, at this point in working with State Farm, we probably have sent many hundreds of millions of cards to customers for their birthdays and for holidays over the many decades that we worked with them. And it's been an evolution uh between the partnership between the two firms. But you know, that's the fun part of working in this industry, right? And working with our clients and our customers is uh it things are always changing.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Hey, well, if it's been going for that long, what it shows is it, and we'll come on to this in a bit, B2B a lot of the time is about the personalities involved, but you're demonstrating that transcends that it's actually about the relationship between the two organizations. So correct me if I've got this wrong, but it feels to me as if, and I'm gonna really oversimplify it, so so feel free to virtually slap me for this one. But you have three phases you have planning, you have execution, and you have measurement question mark. So you've spoken about kind of the planning, and it sounds as if you get involved in data services and a really broad range, which uh you may not necessarily initially think of when you think of hallmark and greeting cards, and actually, of course, all that needs to be set up. We can't send we can't have our customers sending the cards to the wrong the wrong people, our names at the bottom of it at the end of the day. But then you've got the execution, which is like State Farms, where it's actually a more advanced relationship and you're you're fine-tuning and making sure it's the best execution. And then I'm interested in measurement because obviously it's slightly different to if we talk about the insurance company, if they're sending a mail pack out or an email, they're looking to see how many new customers they get. From your perspective, there isn't an automatic recognition that comes back, is there? Or or is there? Do you do you have mechanics around this to say we know X amount of open these, we know the sentiment um in terms of how well it's been received has been Y or Z? Or how how does that work in terms of acknowledging and recognition? Because I guess that's how you get repeat business yourself. Is this has made an improvement to the experience overall? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

It's rare that we have a customer who says, I want to do this and I don't care if I get any return on my investment. Fair enough, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Um, you know, actually, Patrick, you'd probably walk away from that as well because it's not really good business, is it?

SPEAKER_00 10:50

You know it's going to end eventually, right? So it's a matter of time. Uh, I think that there's a couple of things there that you mentioned. The one that I did just want to make sure I I pulled out that you that you did note that I think is important. And it's a nuance for Hallmark, but um everything we do, I mean, it's probably 99.9%. I'm probably forgetting about something, but practically everything we do is co-branded, right? So we're doing it for our customers, but our brand is going to ride along right in it right with them at the end of the day, which adds a level of pressure, um, uh specificity and focus for us and all the work that we do at the end of the day, not bemoaning the broader agency world. I I came from an advertising and digital marketing agency background prior to Homework. Um, but when your own brand is on every single thing that leaves your door, there's a different kind of focus on it. And and obviously with the Homework brand, um, we also carry a legacy uh and a quality standard along the way that that is is tied into Hallmark, which is a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I'd imagine that must be obviously it's a very senior strategic decision to make because there will be times you're sitting down with partners who will go, like, what is it bringing to you? But obviously, there is a hundred-year association with quality in this particular product that that comes with it. So whilst you have a you know a reputation responsibility, does that question come up sometimes with with clients? Why do we need this on here? Or do people accept, as I would accept, hang on, this is going to be better with a Hallmark brand on it than not?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

You know, almost always, if we're talking with someone who's interested in working with us, they have already made that acceptance of it would make sense for for me to ride along. There are some the different industries and certainly different companies where their brand is also uh very well thought of, right? You think of like Tiffany's as an example, right? Where do I need Hallmark to ride alongside Tiffany's? Um, then maybe not, right? At the end of the day, or Rolex and these these kinds of brands that are that are iconic and and already stand for extreme quality. Um but what's interesting is even in those spaces, in those times, what we do is find ways so that the two brands can uplift each other, right? And they can stand for different things and they can communicate different things. You know, if if uh just to continue on my Rolex analogy, you know, if Rolex stands for quality, craftsmanship, um, and maybe some level of a uh kind of a high value and high class statement uh for whoever might be wearing their underlying products, um, you know, Hallmark might stand for thoughtfulness and warmth and caring. And so these most of the time, even in those cases, the values can live next to each other, right? And and that's and that's a little bit of the magic of the co-brand execution and why we bring it to bear. Um, but you had you had asked about analytics and measurement, right? As being that final pillar within all of our processes at the end of the day, no matter what we might be selling. Um, and you know, it's an interesting thing. When I first came to Hallmark Business Connections and I joined the sales team, I was coming from the digital marketing world where we measure everything, right? And and it your scorecard is so easy to develop and it's so clear what your underlying metrics might be, and your customer can judge you quite easily and all these kinds of things, which is a good thing for the industry. I had made a presumption that that was not going to be true for Hallmark, that people must just be doing this because it's nice. You know, like it's it feels nice to send my customer a card, so I'm gonna do it. Um, I do think as an aside that there is some truth to people like to send Hallmark cards to their customers and to their employees, and thus they do it. But um, as we said earlier, there none of our customers work with Hallmark business connections because uh they don't know that the product works. They do it because they know it works. And there's there's primarily two ways that we we're able to ascertain that for our clients. On the qualitative side, it's consumer feedback. So I'll give you an example. We have a software solution that we call care, care by Hallmark, and it's meant for uh frontline associates or call center associates especially to be able to very easily on a computer, a tablet, a phone, log in when they're having an interaction or just after an interaction with a customer, select a card, either choose a pre-written message or write their own, and then effectively hit send, think 20 to 30 seconds. Um, back in the day, in the old retail world, we might call this clienteling, right? You know, it's a bit of a higher class standard within the retail space. But we we thought of this idea many years ago and tried to bring the software solution to market. And it's been interesting. The the folks who have bought it have been a little bit different than we than we might have otherwise thought. The industry that has really bought into it has been the uh utility industry, electric, water, gas, et cetera. And what they have told us is that um there's nothing they've ever been able to do to drive a positive conversation with their customers more effectively than this. And the way they know that is that they will get uh in return from their customers handwritten notes all the time. So, as an example, uh a veteran here in the United States will get a Veterans Day card after having an interaction with an associate at the local utility company and will write back a thoughtful note, including why it mattered to him or her and you know all the different components of it that uh were important at that moment in their life. And uh, I remember talking with the CFO once of a major utility company who had purchased our care platform. And it's not a terribly expensive product, but it's a meaningful line item in the budget that the CFO is aware of, right? To give you a perspective. And we were asking him all sorts of questions about ROI and these kinds of things, right? But uh he came, he came back and said, to be honest with you, I'd pay you a multiple of what we're paying you now because I get to go in front of the board every three months and I get to show letters and handwritten notes saying that our utility company is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I've never heard of that in this industry before, right? No customers ever say that to their electric company or to their water company, right? Um, and he's like the fact that you can generate this for us is everything. It means everything to our company to be able to have those interactions. So there's a qualitative piece to it, but on the quantitative side, it, you know, it matters. There's a number of different ways that we look at it. Some of it's direct response kind of marketing things, right? If I send a coupon to a customer, they're gonna redeem it a certain number of times. And you know, you're all familiar with that kind of return on ad spend and ROI metrics. But to go back to our insurance company example, we've done some long-term studies with several major insurance companies who've used our products over the long term. And it is interesting, one of the things that we have found is we've been able to isolate attrition rates for agents who do and don't use our products, right? So you can look at global attrition rates for the companies, you can look at attrition rates for users and non-users. And generally speaking, in one we it was about a seven-year study, we found that the underlying attrition rate over those seven years for those agents who used the Hallmark product was roughly 15 to 20% lower. And if you do the math on premium value across seven years at a major insurance company, 15 to 20% lower attrition rate is billions of dollars of premium saved. And of course, how much are they spending on those Hallmark cards? You know, a tiny, tiny, tiny little fraction of that, right? So um there's it there's a number of different ways that these things come together, but we and we've we've had to be a little bit innovative at times over the years. But you know, it's like you said, it's it's at the end of the day, our customers are going to measure us, right? And it's it we don't have a choice, and thankfully the product works at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

I love the idea of sitting around that desk having that trading discussion where you've got pricing there and you've got risk there, and everyone else, and there's you guys there with the cards saying, Well, I think I could probably help you with your attrition. Here's like what how's how's I spent a lot of time doing this underwriting? Please tell me how. Now that's fabulous. I think one of the things that we find constantly, and I I can imagine the world you're in must be a wonderful world, Patrick, because as you say, the organizations you work with are enlightened, they recognize the importance of recognition and celebration. And we found it to be the seventh point on a customer-centric operating model. And if you can imagine it's a seventh stage you've got to go through, most CXs get worn out. You know, they get as far as measurement, and that's kind of where it ends. But to actually complete it and go back and say thank you, or I'm acknowledging is sort of what we have the third tier after essentials and expectations is the empathy piece. And we saw directly, not using the same format, but we saw directly with a client we work with in Argentina that when we went back and acknowledged the feedback they'd given and shared with them the things that we had uh done with it and thanked them for giving the time to help them. The second uh set of survey data was a 70% response rate in B2B, which is pretty good. We're happy with that. That was because of the mechanic you're uh specializing in, which is that recognition piece. It's so important. I think if people are inviting you in, it's uh incredible because it gets so often as an afterthought. It's like, okay, we're we're just too tired to do this piece. Or as you say, the CFO goes, where is that? I need a return on this. And first time around, I guess it's got to be a case of it's the right thing to do. And then when you look at the numbers, you go, well, do you know what's interesting, right? Is actually attrition rates go down because it's pretty difficult when you're an insurer or a utility company to try and have a message beyond the price or the break in service or justifying the investments you're making. So to have something that is able to pull apart from that and just say thank you or to recognize is is incredible. Like for us, it's an essential part of the customer-centric operating model. Do you have companies who fall into those two camps? For us, it's essential. We've got to recognize, and for others, it's a case of this is something we'd like to get into, but I don't know if we've got the bandwidth or the resources to do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Well, you know, it's interesting. This is the discussion we have all the time internally. First off, you you mentioned earlier having a great job. I agree. I've got the best job in the world. And and Hallmark and Hallmark Business Connections in many ways is a magical place to work because of the work we get to do. Um, yeah, that this discussion is interesting because I think I probably even coming into this company had a notion that, well, Hallmark and the types of products they sell, they must be working with people and brands where they're CX naturals, right? That they know that this stuff works and that's why they're willing to spend money on it because there's a one-to-one correlation. To be honest, it's somewhat been the opposite, right? We we have the CX laggards, right? Or if you will, the burning house, right? You know, who needs who needs the fire brigade has actually been a better fit for our products and services in the long run. And and we, from a buying perception, if you think about our our clients making purchasing decisions, those customers are often the ones more willing to spend money. And I think, you know, to get back to my CFO story, and then that CFO that I referenced earlier specifically mentioned this, once you realize the monetary value of attrition or of a lost customer, or of a customer who's going to not just attrit, if you will, and walk away from your business, but it's going to become more detrimental and poisonous and post a bad review. When you when you finally get to a point as a business where you can see that that underlying value floating away, it's a lot easier to start reinvesting in these important tactics, right? Because that math gets a whole lot more uh clear. Whereas we we have found over the years, we've worked with Apple back in the day and Amazon and some major brands that are very well thought of from a consumer. Customer lens, they often have a tough internal debate about it, right? It's like, why are we spending money on this? Customers already like us, right? Why don't we just focus on other things? And they do sometimes still. And again, again, top-level leaders in the in the industry are there for a reason. But um, you know, it has been interesting for us. And we we do find often, especially for our products and services and the way that Hallmark is perceived, that it's it's kind of better to run towards industries and companies that need help, right? And who are looking to really improve their underlying standing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

I can actually see the logic of that. And actually, you become a really useful opportunity for them to start to move into a better relationship. If every single touch point is working swimmingly well to the point where this is an amazing brand, what it does is it just it layers on another 0.5% of value to me as a customer. Whereas if actually you know there's a lot of challenges we have across managing this relationship, but you have this standout moment. You use the word care. I think it's a really interesting word to use there because whenever you get a card come through, uh it shows that somebody has cared about you and and you mentioned one-to-one. It is very personalized. I can just imagine the software that you you put in in the contact center to send these cards out. But tell me about personalization because you must be constantly worried that actually it is commoditized. You know, every we we we're doing this to all of the customers. How do you retain that personalization so that every time someone opens the card, it is a surprise and it feels like care has been delivered here?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

You know, it's an incredibly delicate balance, and it's a discussion that I think unfortunately in both direct marketing and direct mail um we lose track of what matters. Uh and I'll, you know, I'll I'll walk through some of the different examples of what I mean here. Admittedly, some of this gets into the secret sauce, but the um so often now the discussion around personalization starts with data, starts with data elements, starts with enabling uh variation, and all those things are important. I would not ever argue that they aren't important to have, at least to as a part of your calculus. But when we think about personalization, we think about it purely from a recipient lens, right? And and it starts with to take a card example, or if you if you want to think of a digital example in your inbox, um, from the minute it gets received by the customer, the interaction should feel natural. Some people like to say, well, it should be personalized. Well, it maybe it should be personalized, but at the end of the day, it should feel natural. It should feel like a dialogue, it should feel like a conversation, it should feel warm. Um, and so we think about envelopes just as much as we do cards. We think about the back of the envelope just as much as we do the inside of the greeting card. Um, we think about font uh far more than probably anybody else. Uh you mentioned innovation. Um, one of the things that we've actually we had uh we've had as a part of our business, it was patented over 20 years ago. I think the patent has expired now, but um had originally come up with some ways to digitize handwriting um in a way that created not just a script font or a font that had interesting ligatures, if you will, but actually had real variation where when you're reading it, every single T is gonna look a little different, every R is gonna look a little different, but it's still gonna look familiar to whoever the sender is. Those little things matter. Um, we were working with a uh a nonprofit recently, and the CEO wanted to send an appeal out to uh their donors, and it was gonna be signed by her with her signature, and we we used our technology to go ahead and put it in her handwriting, or as she said, the nicest version of her handwriting she'd ever seen, but it was clearly hers. And her mom happened to be on her on her donor list and received this card, and and the CEO hadn't reached out ahead of time to say anything about it. And her mom calls her and says, This card you sent me is beautiful, and and you hand wrote it. Did you do this for all of your customers? Like, how long did this take? She had no idea, right? And to be fair, we don't, there's a little bit of a it's a delicate balance. You don't want to bait and switch, right? You don't want someone to think it's truly one-to-one and it's actually not, right? That you've got to find that middle line where you may know it's not, but it still feels like it is, which is which is usually where we're going, going for. But you know, that to be able to get that response, we have to think about every single part of the entire experience and package at the end of the day. And every single part of it is kind of fine-tuned for the customer. Um, and you know, from a homework lens, as you might imagine too, we're thinking about not just making it marketing, not just making it a brand forward as an example. Some of our customers uh will start off our partnerships by saying, well, where are we going to put our logo? And uh, and we remind them, like, probably on the back somewhere, right? Like we'll find a place for it. But you know, your customers are not looking for your logo first and foremost, right? They're looking for a different interaction. Um, so there's a lot of little nuance in how we find these things. Um, but data matters, right? Let me just circle back to where we started in my conversation yesterday with this kind of small to medium-sized property casualty insurer. We have so much data, all of all of our businesses, our customers, a tremendous amount of data, more data inputs than we have ever had in any period in the past. What I continue to find time and time again is no one has figured out how to organize their data in such a way that it's really and truly usable. Um, even the most advanced firms who think they've got their data science down pat, you'll ask them to think about pulling some type of propensity report or model. And the data team will all kind of look at each other and think, what do you hear? Right? You hear, well, we've got to connect this database to that database, and we've got to figure out how to pull, extract this from that. And where's the it's complicated, it's hard. Um, and it's it's a challenge across the industry, right? To figure out all these different right data elements and put them together in a way that uh will work, right? And actually uh serves the needs that we we have in all the different marketing and customer experience you know activities that we're trying to pursue.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Well, I mean, I wish that other organizations would apply that level of kind of forensic detail because this is this is the challenge with customer experience. It's such a broad church, and there are so many generalist approaches that you forget the subtle nuances. Your description there of you want to get an authentic message across, which means making it look and feel like it's one-to-one, but actually the recipient knows it's not. It's just it's getting to that sort of balance, isn't it? So the content in there reflects the conversation we had, the tonality is consistent with what you would expect, and and the and the delivery looks cared for. But at the same time, you know that the organization is tending this rather than, as you say, one individual kind of sitting there and writing out. It is really and I've had a few conversations with um organisations uh uh who are renowned for that individuality in their brand, talking about how challenging it is for them to remain authentic in an AI industry where they're having to make things efficient. So fair play to you, and I'd imagine that must chime in the ears of the the clients that you you talk to, which is great. But just thinking through kind of the fulfillment of this piece, because we look we look down one way. I I'd imagine there's depending on the organization you're working with, a large amount of the fulfillment, the data management, the dispatching is coming from your end. What I'm interested in looking back up the other way, down the up the up the supply chain, because uh the way that you conduct yourselves and what you do for your customers is uh is a large part of your success. But clearly, and anyone who's listening to this will recognise it's how you do it that gives you the difference. It's how you do it that do and probably in a hundred years' time I could learn how you do what you do. Maybe I'd never understand kind of how you do it. So let's not talk about clients and when you're working with them, but let's look internally here. How do you keep alive an appreciation of how important it is to celebrate and recognize internally? And also, does that work with the pulp and the paper providers and those you're working who are providing the machines for you? How do you keep those relationships to a level where they go, isn't Hallmark just an amazing company to do business with?

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Well, you know, there's a couple different angles to that. You know, first off, in terms of how we do it internally at Hallmark and how we maintain this ethos, there's a couple of different things to it. One I can explain and one I can't.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

The one I can explain secret source to yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Well, no, it's not even secret. It's more a matter of uh how can I explain human nature, right? You can't fair enough, though. The the funny the the piece that I can't explain is that um Hallmark from its founding has been family-owned, family-owned and closely held. Actually, that the family is the Hall family. That's the origination. The original version of the company was the Hall brothers greeting cards, and there's two different brothers who founded the company, JC and Raleigh. And later they had come up with this idea of a Hallmark being a token of quality within the industry, and so on and so forth. And um, and that's we're that's been the case for for generations now. We're coming up on one, two, three, fourth generation of the Hall family working through the business and and up into senior leadership, and and as part of its core values, that's going to maintain private ownership. And you know, it may sound trite or just one of those things, oh, it's privately held. Okay, I get it. In our world today of private equity being the primary ownership on the private side and publicly traded companies having a bit of a different, what's the right way to say it, cultural ethos. The thing that is maintained consistent at Hallmark has been the underlying values of the business, right? You can chart back to practically the founding of the company, a core set of values that have not just been stated on a piece of paper, but have been enforced. And that ethos gets passed from corporate generation to corporate generation and the different workforce participants that come on board as an expectation, um, which has maintained that kind of uh uh CX vitality, if you will. Um, the other piece of it though, that's a little bit hard to um put your hand on or put your finger on is that you know, the homework brand stands for many things. Um, anyone who's had an interaction with the brand, uh, no matter where they are kind of around the world, has a memory usually of what that was, right? Whether it's the product they received or had given and, you know, the different uh experiences they've had. Um, all of those memories and values and feelings and perceptions end up getting invested back into the business and are carried with it over time as like a almost a responsibility, right? That all of us carry as hallmarkers to make sure that we continue to uplift and provide that same underlying promise out into the world for the next generation, if you will. And uh it's hard to put your finger on that, right? I I think again, back to some other companies like Rolex and uh Tiffany's and multi-generational companies where you know you you've got some history of being passed down. It's it's there's something about um maybe it's in the water effectively, right? That we have to continue this because we don't want to let someone down. Um, and that's a part of why we're doing this. So you but it's funny you mentioned suppliers too. I, you know, I have found over the years the truth is, you know, Homework is a large corporation. It's a multi-billion dollar international company. But there are little things that um that are funny about, you know, we talked earlier, we Homework and Homework Business Connections, we do attract certain companies, companies that want to do business with us. That's true on the supply chain too, right? Our suppliers, by and large, are work with us because they want to work with Hallmark. They know our reputation for being fair and you know, paying our bills on time, but also they can see that there's cultural alignment. Um, you know, we've we've worked with Walmart here in the, you know, obviously a massive retailer around the world for many, many decades. Walmart, by and large, has been headed up by the Walton family. Uh that there's a reason for that. The two businesses talk and think a lot alike from their cultural ethos uh and value standpoint. And uh, and so you know, it's it's been interesting over the years kind of watching this evolve as Homework's business has changed and as the market has changed. There are some things that have stayed the same. And that big family, if you will, suppliers, employees, partners, clients, right? That there's linkages all throughout. And the and you you can practically tell and universally why someone comes to work for Hallmark or why a vendor wants to work for Hallmark or why a client calls me and says, I need help with this. There's that thin thread somewhere tying all those things together.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

It feels as if from what you say, if it's baked in so deeply that when it comes to recruitment, then you're recruiting you know pre-baked Hallmark people. They don't know they're Hallmark people yet, but they sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it isn't, to be fair. But I I think what you have is the gift you have, which if you think about it, you think about many other organizations, in their actual being or their name, is not a standard that they must uphold. And you've got that as kind of a core part. And when we look at organizations, international and enterprise organizations, the one thing they will say is the most challenging thing they have is consistency because obviously it's it's something they have to work on all the time. It's in your name. You know, there's a standard that we have to uphold here. If you're part of the hallmark, you have to fulfill that. And therefore, customers expect it, clients expect it, but also employees and colleagues expect it. So it's not something you have to challenge yourself on in terms of can we or should we? It's like it's there. And after a hundred years, you're probably now not not the field to land on, but exactly the target spot you should be landing on with that. So that is a gift, I guess, that you say where you previously came from. If it's not there, how difficult it is. When someone else has a good idea about this is what we should be doing, you get pulled in different directions. But when you've got a standard, this is what it's about, this is what the brothers said we would be about, you've got that as your touchstone, or you say that that silver thread that runs every through everything that you can reach back to and go, this feels good. This feels like the standard we should be delivering, or this isn't, and therefore we don't do it because there's too much at stake. Would that be fair?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

It is. There's an expression I heard long ago that's always stuck with me on this topic, which is that Hallmark, if you will, has the blessing of burden. Um, this is common if you think of it.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Well, a lovely expression. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Yeah, yeah. It's in the athlet in the athletic world, right? So the different sports that we love, you know, football, baseball, basketball, et cetera. This this is something that's somewhat obvious when you think about it, right? You know, the the top athletes in the world are expected to look a certain way, show up a certain way, play a certain way. And when they do not meet that expectation, you suddenly realize how big that burden is in many different ways and shapes and forms, right? And that's true to some degree for celebrities. I remember when I first came to Hallmark, um, I was probably, I think I'd say I was generally aware of this, but I maybe hadn't fully internalized it yet. And we were going to meet with a major customer as a bank in New York City. And I'd say the meeting went okay, but was a little contentious at times. And uh, you know, I think our team tried to do as good a job as they could for standing up for ourselves. But afterwards, that at the time my boss, um, who was a wonderful gentleman, you know, kind of sat me down, pulled me aside, and said, you've got to remember when you're in that room, you're not just representing even our team or Hallmark Business Connections or Hallmark. You're in effect a representation of the brand, and someone is going to hold on to that memory, right? They're going to, this is going to now be a part of their Hallmark story for better or for worse. And if we don't show up like Hallmark, that is going to have some type of negative effect down the line. You have to think about it that way. And it always stuck with me. And it's true, it's true. And we we think a lot about, it may seem somewhat um uh excessive, but when we even when we have calls like this and you know, have discussions with you and your team, and how do we show up here, right? Are we showing up like Hallmark and are we being warm and thoughtful and inviting? Same thing is true for customers. Um, we have had times where we have clients who've come to us and asked us um to do certain things, nothing you know, uh untoward or inappropriate, but just things that we think is that to an end customer again, right? Thinking about their perception, is that going to be the way they would expect the Hallmark brand to show up? Right. And there are certain industries, certainly, that we will not work in because I can't quite think of a way to make sure we would show up in the right way. Um, and uh, and it's it's it had it's like I said, it it is that wonderful blessing of burden. It is the thing that enables our business in so many ways. Um, I don't think we would have this business if we did not have the burden of the brand and the promise that goes along with it. But it means that we have to carry it every single day and we have to make sure we're upholding it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

It's I mean, it it as you say, it just gives you that clarity. I remember we first, when I first set up, the first engagement we had, which was a nice engagement for a brand in Italy, was to do something that actually really wasn't in the long-term interest of customers. And uh my wife and I just had our first child, and I turned down our first piece of business, and she was like, You've gone out on your own. And the very first thing you do is say no. And I said, Because blessed with that burden, it's a case of this is not going to create a better outcome in the long run for the customer, and therefore it won't in the long run benefit the business. So I have to respectfully decline. And it did make me question what we were doing, but actually, it then really galvanized what we were doing as we went forward. So uh I completely resonate with your point. And actually, you know, and with your colleagues and the way it's been conducted up to this point, it just echoes that. It does just echo that, you know. So it's fabulous, it's really,

Extra

SPEAKER_01 39:27

really good. So consistency is core to what you do and it's part of the organization. You're blessed with that in the name. Now, consistency can fall down easily when it comes to process. So give me an appreciation of how you you ensure you have a consistent process in what you do.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, it's a wonderful question. And it's something that our clients really struggle with as well, right? Trying to continue to remember to do the right things. Everyone has the right intent, but we're all busy people. There's a couple different things that that I point to. Number one, internally, we have tried to spend a ton of time and money investing in tools that help our team work really thoroughly and efficiently, make sure we're not missing anything. As you can imagine, over 30 years of iteration, those tools have gotten better and better, and those processes are not perfect. Uh, we still make mistakes like everybody else, but we do our best job.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

So your ways are working. Do you have like a continuous improvement uh mindset?

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Yeah, Homework has been a believer in lean for those who are familiar with the lean process for many years. Um, and but yeah, it's a continuous improvement mindset, right? That we we can find ways to get better, uh, and that the cultural component of the company helps as well, right? Because you have folks who are all trying to focus on the same things and help each other out and make sure that we're learning from our mistakes and passing those memories down generation to generation. Um, on the customer side, though, this is it's been something that we have had to work on for many years. Because it's one thing to find the client, it's it's another thing to get them to start doing the things that we know will help them in building their customer experience program and practice, but keeping it consistent and especially when you have a distributed workforce as an example is really, really tough. What we have found over the years is this is where technology is significantly important, right? It's where we can bring innovation uh to bear to try to help our customers stay on top of things. You know, one feature that we launched actually within the last uh the relatively recent history is this uh something that we call automatic mailings. We had heard from years, for many years, that our customers um were, they like to send birthday cards, they like to send anniversary cards, they like to send new customers, new welcome cards, right? Those kinds of things, but they would forget it, right? They would start doing it and then they would forget it and they'd miss a month or two. Um, and they just said, why couldn't you just handle this for me? Can I go click, click, click, and you just do it for me? Um, and we you know thought, hey, that seems like a pretty good idea. I think I think we can figure that out. Um, and so we've added some of these new features, you know, for our direct-to-consumer business, we call it automated mailings. For some of our customers on the client or the enterprise side, we'll often call it campaigns, right? The idea that you're gonna build an automated campaign. But the functionality is at the end of the day, somewhat the same, right? You're gonna collect and enable data. Uh, you're gonna you're gonna choose your underlying creative package at the end of the day, and then Hallmark's gonna take care of the rest. And that helps for our customers to take away from this idea of having a perfect process. They can just have the right intent, maybe work with us to make sure things are set up correctly, and then Hallmark can make sure that the process uh goes really smoothly. And we we don't we don't forget the March birthdays at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

You know what? I've never thought about this, but actually that ended up causing quite a bit of upset in our household. So my birthday is in February, my wife's birthday is in April, and I remember a couple of years on the trot, I received a birthday card from a supermarket, a UK supermarket. It was really nice. April it didn't come. And my wife actually got upset about it. Like I equally shopped there and I I held the loyalty card with them as well. Why did I not get it? And I was just like, Well, I don't know. And she did say it to me at the time, find out why I didn't get it. I said, it's a bit awkward, isn't it? Going back and saying, Why didn't my wife get a birthday card? But it probably was something as simple as the automation. They just hadn't had the automators set up and other things kind of happen. So I can end this long saga, this long-running unsaid issue in our household now, Patrick. So I thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

I appreciate it. You know, it is funny. When it when you start doing the right things with your customers, they do tend to notice when you stop.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

You know, you know, we for years we've made these uh beautiful custom calendars for some of our corporate clients, right? And they give them out to their customers as gifts. And we we had a partnership with uh a bank, a financial services company for many, many years. They would send out hundreds of thousands of these. Customers were very used to getting them every single year. And then one year, some executive somewhere, you know, decided, I want to cut that budget. We don't need to do that anymore. No one cares about calendars. Who has a wall calendar anymore, right? Um, I think by the end of January, that we we heard from their customer experience team, they had gotten dozens and dozens and dozens of calls from customers saying, surely the post. Office must have lost my calendar because I didn't get one this year. And so could you could you send me one, please? And the the stories of their disappointment on the phone with the rep hearing that no, no, no, we just decided we're not sending you one anymore, right? Was was pretty profound, right? You're making a two-dollar decision right there on that for that customer when having a massive impact on their perception of your brand.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

We we had one client we work with who uh we've tried to encourage most to do this, but it's difficult to do, to actually have a currency value on their customer and then see what happens to it at different touch points. And it's incredible there are some touch points you go through, like that one clearly, that the commercial value of the customers drops significantly because at some point they're gonna leave now, even though they weren't going to. And you go, Well, hang on, we're in the business of selling automotives, and you're leaving because you didn't get a calendar? You know, yes, that is the case, you know. It really mattered to me. It really mattered to me. Wonderful. That's uh that's a brilliant demonstration of the uh the value of uh automation.

Back to original

SPEAKER_01 44:58

So you mentioned about 30 years ago innovation. So we're gonna end on this point. So innovation was kind of the reason, the opportunity. And what I love about that as well, Patrick, it wasn't you guys going out looking for it, it was fulfilling the needs of a client, which obviously in customer experience, it's what we're trying to do is to create better outcomes for the needs of our customers. So, with innovation in mind, where do you go next? I mean, obviously, we're living in a very different world from a paper-based world. I don't want to focus just on that. Your background is digital, but that was probably a big reason why you were brought in. But just give us an appreciation, more in the sense of recognition and celebration. How is this going to evolve for organizations to benefit from HPC going forward?

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Well, you know, I'll give you a two-part answer. One is that it's surprising to me, uh, even to this day, our pro our core products, think, you know, to your point, the paper products, right? Greeting cards and related products, uh, gift products, are more uh relevant to our customers today than they were 10 years ago. As the world has gone more digital, more SMS, more, wouldn't they? Or more personalized. Yeah, exactly. In the wrong way, this underlying kind of product has become more and more valuable to our customers, which has been a funny thing, and but it's obviously a wonderful thing to see. The way that we think about innovation is kind of there's there's two pieces to it. One is how can I use the broadening world of software and technology to improve my ability to serve the customer? The end product will also evolve, but still maybe within the same kind of format or structure. But um, you know, I mentioned our care software. That's a wonderful example, right? Back in the day, in the call center environment or at the retail register, you might just write out a card. That takes five minutes, you've got to remember to have a stamp, you got to remember to take it to the post office, right? This software enables it in 30 seconds. Okay, so that's a wonderful innovation that still gets to the same product execution at the end of the day. That's that's how we think about it. How can we build uh incredible technology that's gonna benefit our customers and their ability to use our products and work with us and serve their customers, um, uh, even if it's still using an old school technology, right, at the end of the day in terms of how the delivery might happen. Um the other piece of it, though, that we think a lot about is the nuance of content, right? And taking the mind away from uh, you know, greeting cards or art and editorial, and more thinking about content in an abstract way, right? And that content is something that someone perceives, engages with, it makes them feel a certain way, it makes them think a certain thing. Um, how can we develop content and deploy it in ways that are meet the customer where they are at at the end of the day, right? Um, you know, I think to me, our our perception and belief is that greeting cards are still gonna be here five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. Will they be as relevant or as prominent? Maybe, maybe not. But content will be, right? That that is so clear that we are still gonna be interacting with each other, we're still gonna be experiencing things. So we think a lot about that and we think about how to make content omni-applicable, right? How can it exist in physical and digital spaces dynamically? How can we make that really native for our customers or our clients at the end of the day? And they can use that with their customers and then um make those kinds of products really available, right? At the end of the day, we're right now in the midst of building out some uh technology and some new products in the employer recognition and employee engagement space. And this is such a critical thing because our workforces do not just sit in an office anymore, right? They're not coming to work five days a week. They're everywhere, right? They're hybrid, they're in the office, they're at home, they're traveling. I think you said you're spending some time out of the country right now. Those this is exactly what we hear from our customers all the time, right? That they've just got people everywhere. So this idea of content matters, right? And how can we make sure we put it in different spaces and places? Um, and and obviously things like AI, right, and our ability to generate content dynamically and do so in a really cost-efficient way is going to matter. Um, and uh it's it's a it's it's a wonderful new frontier that we're pretty excited about.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Wonderful. It's lovely to hear that. I mean, it just feels as if there's so much opportunity. And I guess also there are many, many organizations out there that really could do with folks in more on recognition and and having that personal interaction from your from your core services as well. Well, Patrick, it's been an absolute delight. It's really rewarding to hear that underneath the offering is such a foundation, you know, born from origination that that ekes through everything that you do, the services you provide, the experience you provide, and also the way that you treat your colleagues and suppliers, because obviously having that consistency through has meant that you've got this uh almost halo position in i in the industry. And I would imagine if I was a competitor, I would look at you in just admiration and saying, how could we be a little bit more hallmark in our business? So uh that's something we can all learn from. How can we be a little bit more hallmark in our business? It's been an absolute delight. I wish you all the best with continued success. I will be looking out for things that you're doing, and every time, and and sadly, probably in the UK, and here's a market to capture, I don't see it enough. But when I do get a card, I'll look on the back and I'll think of you.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

I appreciate that very much, Christopher. Thank you for your fact that it's been a treat.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

You're welcome. Goodbye.