Customer Experience Superheroes - Series 6 Episode 4 - Meet the CX goalkeeper, Gregorio Uglioni

Christopher Brooks' CX Superheroes explores the traits, techniques and tools the modern day CX professional needs in order to deliver meaningful value to their customers. In this episode we meet up with  Gregorio Uglioni, an emerging star of the European CX landscape. As a CX leader within a payments company, Gregorio has the advantage on most influencers in the sector - he's practicing what he's preaching. 

Known as the 'CX Goalkeeper' (we still dont know why), an active member of the CX community, he has carved a space of his own finding opportunity to contribute back where he can. Whether its with his new podcast series, content listings in the form of an advent calendar, a contributor to the forthcoming CX Book 3 or as a player in the customer experience world games, he gives back whenever he can. 

In this episode, Christopher Brooks, catches up with Gregorio to discuss the 'VIM' model for CX strategy activation, the importance of differentiated CX and how important it is to set up the purpose of the customer service proposition.   This is the final episode in series 6 and closes the series on a real high!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of My Chapter Customer Experience Superheroes. In this series, we explore the great techniques and tools needed to be a superhero in customer experience today. We look at the superpowers that organizations and individuals have mastered in order to provide better outcomes for their customers. In today's episode, we meet an emerging talent from the world of customer experience, Gregorio Uglioni. Originally an Italian, now based in Switzerland, Gregorio's become a popular podcaster and has also fashioned a fantastic career for a payments organization leading the customer experience. We recently caught up with Gregorio to talk about some common interests, the value of great customer service, the importance of storytelling, and understanding that there are many strategies that can be applied to customer-centric transformations. So here we are with Gregorio Blioni. Welcome to the ClientShare Customer Experience Superheroes Podcast. Hi Christopher, thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure, and it's good to actually have a fellow podcaster on with me. I know before we started, we're just talking about some of the great podcasts out there and uh kind of what you can learn from them. And already I feel like the uh student to the master, you've hit the ground running. So congratulations on your your new release.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

I started and I tried to learn from the best, and you are one of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

That's very kind. I I find there's so much good stuff out there, and it's just great, as we were saying, it's just great just to chat to people and kind of learn from them. And you you can never stop learning. I think in customer experience, you're always trying to raise the bar, which means it can always get better. And if you don't think that's the same for yourself, then you're probably in the wrong sector, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I fully agree with you. I am learning a lot. I am a learner, and I want to learn for my life.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Excellent. Well, look, I mean, you know, people may be forgiven for believing you are a full-time professional podcaster, but actually, you have a job. You have a you know you have a you have an organization you work for that you're helping, you know, develop the CX there. So would you mind, for the sake of listeners who wouldn't be familiar with you, just giving us an introduction to who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Sure. Thank you, Christopher, for this opportunity. And uh I am an obit podcaster, and what I'm really doing is I am head of uh business excellence and customer experience at SwissCard in Switzerland. Switskard is one of the leading credit card companies, and uh I am extremely happy to be here. Um, some words about me. First of all, I am an expert in uh business transformation and digital transformation. I love to speak and learn about customer experience, and I always striving to find innovative solutions which bring value added for the customer but also for the company because we are in the business. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

And and I guess we just want to clarify you're here representing yourself and your views.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yes, thank you, Christopher, for uh this note. For me, it's important, more than happy to discuss with you, to discuss with everybody and also with the audience. And what I'm sharing with you are my own views.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Well, look, I mean, in the content that I've seen uh that you share on LinkedIn, uh your trajectory is going in the right direction. So I'm very much looking forward to this conversation. Now, I mean, we've known each other since uh lockdown, the first lockdown in 2020. Uh when uh you were just a name on a list, I'll be honest then. And all of a sudden you become a person in in my life who I kind of you know have a great respect for. So uh thank you so much. That was the Customer Experience World Games. You came on board and certainly were in the leading pack of really grabbing the the games and helping us shape it. So thank you for that. Really do appreciate you participating and being so active.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I need to say thank you to you, Christopher, because it was a great experience. I think it was my best experience last year to be part of this customer experience war game. It was really great working in one team with the ambassadors, and really being there to try to find solutions for charity purposes or for small businesses that had some issues during COVID-19. And we, as customer experienced professionals, were there to help them, and I really saw that uh we were able to create a value added for them. Therefore, more than happy to participate. Thank you very much, and I can already confirm that I will participate also to the next session.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Oh, excellent, thank you very much. And you know, it was great for me to see some of the things I didn't expect to see was the continued learning and collaborations that went on. And I don't know why, but I just didn't think about that. So it was wonderful to see your Christmas card in December, which had the team all on there, you know. So it's great to hear you're sort of still in connection and and uh have managed to keep that connection going afterwards. So congratulations to you on that.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Thank you. We we like really to keep the disconnection, and we are trying to meet, let's say, each three to four months, and we can update each other, understand what they are doing, what are their challenges, what are the success, and we share them in a small call, like we would be in a pub drinking a beer or something like that. We do that on a on the digital way, and it's really great.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Right. Well, maybe one time, you know, in the in the not too distant future, you'll actually make that a reality and get together. I'd I'd imagine there's a few characters, characters in there. And and also um, I really liked you did uh uh a piece in December that was very innovative. You did uh an advent calendar of thought leadership and CX content, which I know when I was talking to other people, they were aware of this. So, congratulations on that. It was really, really useful. And there's a couple of books on there that I'd kind of dropped off my list. So thank you for reminding me of uh of them.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Thank you, and uh, I think it was really a great success. Uh, I had quite a lot of uh really good feedback, and it was really a pleasure. And somebody asked me to to do that again next year. Oh, thank you. I will see what I can prepare, but the feedback was really great, and that's why I really like this customer experience community because we are helping each other and we are referring to each other, and even if I'm not the most expert in customer experience, really thoughtfully they wrote me back. Thank you very much that you um discussed about my book or discussed about my my podcast, and uh, and it was really great. The feedback was really good, and I find that really I'm really happy.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

It's one of those very obvious traits uh when you're looking from the outside in into customer experience. Those who get it, you know they get it because all they do is give to help and make things better for other people. That's what customer experience is about, it's about betterment. I mean, hopefully you'd agree with that, but you see those in social communities like yourself giving and actually trying to make things better for other people. So there's a natural DNA in you. If all you're there to do is to take, then probably customer experience isn't for you. It's okay, do something else, but you're gonna you're gonna struggle with this concept. So it's a really good demonstration of your appropriateness and qualifications for being in this in this sector. So uh how how do you how do you define customer experience? Let's just do that one before we get into a bit more detail.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

For me, customer experience it's it's really a broader topic. If we speak about uh the six core competencies of customer experience defined by the CXPA, Customer Experience Professional Association, you have really all the points that you need to touch because quite a lot of people think that customer experience is user experience, or customer experience is digital journey, or creating journeys, or they think it's only about culture. And uh with customer experience, if we try to link all these topics, then you have really a good uh overview of all the topics that you need to touch and to look at. Quite quickly, it's about understanding the customer, it's about having a vision. If in your company vision you don't have the customer, I think nowadays you have an issue. It's about uh getting feedback from the customer, it's about account of accountability, it's about creating new experiences for the customer, defining the experiences, and it's it's about the governance and the accountability. And therefore, there are quite a lot of uh inputs that you need to have a look at to drive this customer, the customer experience forward.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Excellent. And then you see you sound like uh you're reading from a textbook there, so I guess you you've taken the qualification uh as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yes, two years ago I did that. It was a great experience. It was also the confirmation that I am part of the right community, that uh we are discussing the same, that we are thinking alike, and this is what what I really, really like.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

I think 2020 um has helped kind of refresh for a number of people what customer experience that the responsibility it has. I mean, I know we use that expression customer. What became very evident, I think, through 2020 was if you'd assumed that customer experience was in service of the customer, you were left short last year. And the and the reason I say that is because unless you complete that sentence, the business assumes you mean the customer's transaction. So the the in the sound that we have with each other. So everything, and we'll come on to this because I know we're gonna discuss service, but everything becomes in service of the customer's transaction. And in 2020, for many organizations, there were no transactions, companies were lost. How what do we do now? There's nothing, you know. I I was gonna have a call with the customer to talk to them about the next car they bought. I was gonna have a conversation with the customer about the purchase they just made. No purchase. Whereas actually, if you define the customer as the customer's world, then it allows you to stay relevant and stay engaged, helping that customer. And I think for me, that's the interesting thing that 2020 has really brought. I mean, it's I think it's Simon Sinek and a number of others talk about you know, the purpose of a business is not to make customers' transactions and get sales, it's to make a difference in the world. And actually, that's what customer experience has the potential to do. It can look at the challenges the customer has in their life and help solve them. And invariably, I'm gonna be more committed and con and contribute more to that organization. I think did you see Zappos uh did a very good piece in the summer, which was customer service for anything. So we don't care what you call us about because you're probably not buying shoes, you don't need shoes, but there's probably loads of other things that you need answers to, and we've got loads of people here who can answer them. That for me is an organization that therefore recognizes its potential to add value, whether there is a transaction or not. And so that's probably my only lookout on that. It's just we we need to be broad about you know, recognizing customer is not a transaction, it's the it's the entirety of that customer's world.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Sure. And if I can elaborate a bit on that, customers are not numbers, as employees are not numbers, and therefore it's extremely important to understand the experiences that the customer has with the company, with the product, with the service, and then work from there. And uh, perhaps to to challenge, but also to create a bit um to start a discussion. If we think about experiences and we look uh at each company, let's take the example, everybody from us would like to take a flight and flights somewhere to have again normal vacation, but we are not allowed to. However, let's take this example, but we could use also the example of uh buying something in uh at an online shop. But let's go back to the travel topic. If I think about the experience of going in to have vacation, then I have different contacts with different companies because I need to book the flight, I need to book the hotel, and I need to pay. I am a payment expert, therefore I use always use payment examples. But after a vacation, I am happy if every piece worked really well and I had really um a seamless experience. I booked my flight, uh the flight was not delayed, I booked my hotel, I go into the hotel, I get the room that I want, it's clean, I get the dishes, the lunch, the dinner that I want to have, and I use my cards to pay. If you looked at it from the company point of view, for the uh airline, for the hotel or for the credit card company, then uh the experience is only one small piece. And therefore, it's important to have a look at the complete experience because for the customer, it starts when I book the flight and the vacation, and it ends when I come back at home, and I have quite a lot of great experience during my vacation. And I think this is extremely important to have these views that customers are not only focused on one company, I want to buy from this or I want to get this service, but the experience are much more broader. And and I think now nowadays it's also important to understand that what you, Christopher, like for a vacation, perhaps is not exactly the same what as I like as uh as uh Gregorio. And uh, and therefore it's important to define for which persona I am defining which experience. Let's take, and you are hearing that from my accent, my mother tongue is Italian, then I want to take the the example of drinking a coffee. Let's take the example of drinking a coffee and two for two different personas. One persona is Marco, he loves quality, he loves to enjoy time. For him, it's drinking coffee, it's not uh to get an energy shot, but it's really to spend time and get the coffee. And he likes the small espresso and drink the small espresso for 90 cents in Italy somewhere. But if we took uh if we take another persona, uh let's say Elizabeth, she's extremely digital and uh she has no time, she rush from um work to the gym, then back at home, and she will she need this energy shot, and therefore she likes to go to Starbucks and through the digital app, create exactly the coffee that she wants with all the different flavors that she can have, and she gets that. At the end, it's always about drinking coffees. I have three two completely different experiences, in my case for Marco and uh and for Elizabeth. And therefore, as a company, we need really to think about the broader uh experience that the customer wants to have.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

That's so powerful, Gregoria. That's such a good example because what you're talking about there, principally, if you look at it, it's the same product, but the needs and expectations of those two individuals are very different. One's about luxury and indulgence, and the other's about convenience and energizing. And I think you're so right. What organizations do is they look at their area that they interact with and they say, Are we delivering to that particular requirement? But actually, the the customer wants convenience and energy through every part of that. If you look through their life, that's the common thread that runs through it. So, therefore, when it goes through not just drinking the coffee, it's the ordering the coffee, it's the way in which it's it's got to work for them in that way. Likewise, with Marco, he's looking for a bit of indulgence, a bit of luxury. He wants to savour this. So, therefore, he can't have the quick, quick, quick, get you on the app, get it pre-ordered, ready to go. He wants the opposite of that. And and I think I saw a piece earlier actually, um, I can't remember who it was by, but it was, you know, not every customer is your customer. And I think sometimes it's important to recognize if you're when you're positioning, so if you take the airlines you're talking about, you know, an Emirates versus Orionair, there's probably very little, very few people who go on both airlines, you know, who who actually travel on both, because actually their requirements are very, very different. So understanding those personas is so important. You talk so passionately about these. Um, is it an area you spent time on to really understand, you know, what matters most to customers? And and how and how important would you say that is in a in a customer transformation program? Really getting to understand the customers at the start.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I think this this is key. This is the key success factor and nowadays because um you can go online, you can compare everything. Let's take another example because it's it's easier, and perhaps if you can touch it and feel it, it's it's more understandable. But if you buy something something online, it's again if you buy something and then you want to pay, how often did you add the issue that then uh they didn't deliver, and then uh you call the online shop, and the online shop said, but you need to call the credit card company because they had the issue with the payment. Then you call the credit card company, the credit card company said, No, they didn't send us the transactions, and therefore we are not uh going to explain you why you had the problem. Or let's take uh another example. You buy everything in the online shop, great experience. Let's say, like one click buying, everything goes well, and then you need to wait two, three, four weeks because uh the the stuff is not delivered, because you have one piece that is this digital and one piece that is still physical. And this digital experience is a mix between digital and physical, and also there it needs to work, every piece needs need to really work well together in order to deliver the expected experience and to meet customer expectations. And what you mentioned earlier, um, one of my former boss said you cannot be everything for everybody, it means you need to focus on what are your core competences, it's a product, it's a it's a service, and for which customer you want to deliver them, because it's not possible to have a product that fits for everybody, and therefore you need to understand the customer needs from the beginning, and then you start creating the experience, the journeys, and so on.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

So, yeah, absolutely. This this point you make, which is really important, which is I think very often in uh customer centricity, um, when you're looking at what experiences you can improve, you focus in on the ones that you manage. Whereas the reality is you do need to look across the supply chain. Now, it might be that the customer experience team have no involvement with the partnership team who are creating those other relationships. So obviously, the world you're in, you're fulfilling a part of the broader journey and you recognize that. How do you go about ensuring that others in the customer's journey are also recognizing what is the customer's need? I mean, does someone start it, or is it actually just picking the right partners in the first place? So you all have the customer as the common currency. I mean, how do you go about it? I know this isn't an easy one, Gregorio, so not expecting the answer, but I'm just very interested to get your opinions on it.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I think there for me it's it's less about theory. What I'm saying, perhaps not everybody will support that, but that's my personal experience, and that's what I want to share. In a company, you have always some kind of silos and different targets that all the departments need to achieve. What I did, and for for me, what it's it's really working, it's start working with the supporters. It means people that have the same ideas, the same feelings. You create a small team of, let's say, passionate about customer experience or passionate about creating such experiences, and then you start doing what you're doing. And every if everybody's passionate, then you will get the results. And as soon as you get the first results and you start really communicating the results, there are great tools today with uh this uh storytelling, creating videos, creating different messages, then older people want to jump on this train because this training is going in the direction of success, and then you can get support also from the other people. That's clear. At the end, you need also top management support because if what you are doing is not supported at all from the top management, then uh then it's difficult. But at the end, also nowadays top management really understand that customer experience is important because of what we discussed earlier, and there are quite a lot of clear statistics and numbers that are showing that companies that are stealing their business based on customer experience, but based on customer needs are more successful. And now we have the numbers. You can take all the big four, all the consultancy companies, they have all different numbers, but at the end companies that are looking at the customer needs are more successful than the others.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah, it's a very interesting piece when you talk about personas, the the relative importance of experience will vary between the two personas you've mentioned. You know, one will be slightly more product, one will be slightly more price, the other one may be more location. Now you you could rack customer experience around all of that, but I guess the pricing guys would be that's a bit unfair. And and actually, you know, unless you've got the pricing right, you probably can't afford to provide uh an experience. So it's you know it's it these things are all really interdependent. But the one aspect of it that I think quite often gets uh crashed into customer experience and and and wrongly so is. The service that supports all of this. What's your opinion on this? Is service an experience? Is it necessary? Is service there because service is needed? What's your view on the role of service?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

I think this is, I can quote Bill Price. The best service is no service, but let's elaborate a bit on that. I think there are some statistics. And there I think we are not willing to discuss the next five hours. There, therefore, I am shortening a bit the discussion. For me, the first big topic is is a company able to be proactive instead of being reactive? Why is a company waiting that the customer call them if the company did something? Let's make it again with an example. We spoke about the online shopping, you buy something, and then the online shopping should shift to you the stuff that you buy. Perhaps they have an issue on the logistics side and then they are not shipping that. Why are they not proactively informing you, Christopher, and telling you, Christopher, sorry, we have an issue, we are sending to you the shoes or what you what you're willing in two weeks. Because if the company is not doing that, then in two days you would expect the shoes are here and you're looking outside of the door, they are not there, and then you would call them. And therefore, please, please, let's start thinking about being proactive. And nowadays it's really possible to do that. It's complex. There is relative, there are quite a lot of complexity in there, but there are technologies that help you to match the data and find out. I need to inform Christopher because of that, I need to inform Marco about this and that, and Elizabeth on this topic. And therefore, for me, the first topic is let's try to be proactive. Then it's not only about customer experience, but it's also about servicing cost. If you are proactive, then you are dramatically reducing cost of service because you don't need to have the call center agent answering the question or having the system in place, somebody that answered to this email. And it's clear it's not possible for for each and every use case. And there I would like to use the value irritant matrix. It's not invented by me, it's from Bill Price, it's a former executive of Amazon, and it's an extremely simple matrix, but which can have a great, great impact. If you think about a small matrix, on the horizontal side you have the customer, and on the vertical side, you have the company. And for the customer and for the company, an interaction can be irritating or can create value. And now let's to do quickly do the maths about the four different options. Options number one for the customer is irritating, for the company, create a value. Let's make it again an example to make that understandable. The example is, for example, for compliance reasons, I need to check on a yearly basis that you, Christopher, you are leaving at the same address. It's irritating for you because you need to confirm it. For the company, it's a must, it's creating a value. And there, if I have a process like that, I need to extremely simplify this process. Because I don't want to irritate you as a customer, because if I am irritating you, you are moving to the next company and I get the value. Therefore, there simplify the processes. If it's irritating for the company and it's irritating for the customer, then please perform root cause analysis and avoid these processes. Because if it's irritating you as a company and it's irritating the customer, we don't need these processes. And we can use this example of the delivery of the shoes. You don't want to speak with the company, the company don't want to speak with you. Therefore, make it simple, be proactive, send out this information. Then the next example is for the company is irritating, and for the customer, create a value, create a value. And there the big topic is automation. Create self-servicing in order to make you, as a customer, able to perform the processes you want. If we're speaking about uh banking, you want to have a look how much you have on your bank account, then you go in in the app, you have a look there, you you get the information that you want, therefore it's create a value for you, but it's not irritating the company because these are costs that you don't want to have. You don't want to have nowadays somebody calling you to understand how much is on the bank account. And if you take the the last example, it's uh if it's create a value added for them for the company and it's creating a value added for the customer, then you need to invest because these are the most important processes. And there, I think it's also the point in time where also employees can create a value added and can demonstrate that they are better than, let's say, automated bots or automated processes. For example, again, if you want to cancel your insurance policy, then you call uh you call the company. And then for the company, it's it's important to keep you as a customer, not to lose you, because it's always the same. It's uh cheaper to keep you as a customer than to find a new customer. And therefore, I want to understand your needs, Christopher, because you are, for example, uh canceling your um your insurance. I want to understand why uh you don't need that, but perhaps you need something different. You you need another product, and therefore, there invest time, use the manpower, the the all the information that you have in order to create uh a value added. And this is the the value irritant matrix. I hope that it was explained in an understandable way, but I think this is really one key in the service strategy of a company nowadays to really invest where you should invest and to decrease the cost where you can decrease the cost.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Thank you so much. I think you've explained that brilliantly, and um you know, I I suggest anyone who who hears this is interested in it, gets a copy of uh Bill Price's book and just understands it further because I think what it does really importantly is highlights that when you're undertaking a customer-centric transformation, there is not a single approach. In there, you've described four different strategies, four different sets of capability, different solutions, different returns on investment, different investment periods. There's a lot going on there, and I think quite often for ease, they're grouped together. There's one lot of improvements that we need to make. And maybe that's the mistake of something like journey mapping. It doesn't allow you to sort of break things down as effectively as you need to. But I think what you've done there's really helped crystallize the importance of looking at each of these. Uh, I I interviewed Deanny Waters and she's talking about micro interactions. And this is what it gets to. When you get to each one of those, you've got to apply different approach, the right resolution to them. And I think that I'd like to call it Vim, if I may, the VIM, the uh value irritant matrix, the Vim. If you apply a bit of Vim to it, then you get to a kind of a better better outcome. So, no, thank you for taking us through it. I think it's really important to recognise that. I get what you're saying there, that you know, if you're doing this well, you're smoothing it out, and therefore, actually, what you're providing is great experiences, not a service, you're providing a great experience. And I think that is important. I don't necessarily say, I really hope I get an opportunity to talk to the customer service department today. I don't wake up thinking if this goes wrong or actually maybe the information on the website won't be clear and I'll have to call them. Won't that be fun? I don't wish to do that. It's not why I had that engagement in the first place. And I think um recognizing the responsibility we have in customer experience is also to help the business understand what these certain functions are there to do and how they can help or can hinder, depending on the way in which you which you approach it. Much of this learning that you're gaining and clearly understanding and applying, are you seeing value in you know the work that you're doing within your organization?

SPEAKER_01 30:55

For sure. Perhaps one comment and one two one note on what we're discussed. This value-written matrix, it's it's only an example. I know, Christopher, that you are working with a similar matrix. It's also very well described in the customer experience tool book, where you wrote a really nice um chapter on that. It's only an example, but I think for me, I'm speaking about service, about experiences, and we can link that also what you what you said at the beginning. It's not about a transaction, but it's about uh an experience, in this case in the service area. And there it's really key to understand the customer and customer experience also in in the service, it's a growth strategy. It's because you can create value added, as we discussed, and you can decrease cost, and therefore, you're really quite a lot of opportunities to improve the service. If I'm speaking about my organization, but also about other organizations, I discussed this topic in in our customer experience community. That's the only way that we can go. Customers expect that, expect that from us, from the different companies. What we discussed also earlier about at the end it's personalization of the different experiences. That's the expectation because nowadays customers have so many opportunities to compare, to understand, to find out, and therefore you can compete only on the experience level and not on the price level. Because we are we all know if you are competing on the price, then uh prices are only going down, and at the end the companies lose, and the customer has expectation that everything is for free, and therefore you have no business.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

You've connected a few of my favorite topics together there brilliantly. Thank you for that. I think the first one that I get very excited about is when I hear people talk about customer centricity as a growth strategy. Speaking to someone who was head of customer experience for a very famous um UK uh restaurant chain, and when they started, there was lots of things to fix. So they went about fixing things and people were applauding them because they were finding issues and irritants and they were improving them. Then they got to a point one year where they were called in and said, Your work has been brilliant, but we don't need you anymore. And they went, Why? And they said, Well, the the amount of money you're saving now is less than the cost of the team to deliver it. And they said, Well, hang on, hang on, we haven't finished yet. And they they hadn't managed to help the business understand that customer experience was about growth, it was a growth opportunity and it had been seen as another way of cost efficiency. So it's so good when you kind of hear people talk. The first point is it's about growth. Yeah, really, really important. And then the second point, when you talk about personalization, for me, differentiated experience is where you have to be. Uh and you know, you have to be delivering that. And and organizations have perhaps focused too much on the marketing aspect of that as opposed to the experience itself. I I remember the the greatest uh example presented to me was uh in a bank, it was many years ago, and it was I was working there doing some um work with the bank on a on a bigger transformation. I was doing a few site visits, and uh one of the um people working in the bank, she put a uh on on on point to be there for me. The first she she said, I have to go whenever customers come in because I'm seeing them into the bank. And the first customer came in and he was like a businessman-looking person, and she stood there and her head fell to one side and she was listening intently, and uh she kind of then stood back and then she put her arm out and showed him over to where he needed to go. And she became like a business uh person in her posture and everything. The next person who came in was a mother with a small child, and as the mother walked in, she bent down to her knees and looked at the child and said, How can we help you? And that for me is differentiated experience, it's as simple as that. It's that's personalizations for you, it's recognizing who your customers are and reflecting the same brilliant bank, was offering the same service. It was about, you know, you're here and how can I help you? But she just took those visual clues and differentiated it so they felt special uh and felt unique. And I always talk about you know, if I go to see the Lion King or a or a big theatre production, that everyone from the lead actor to the person who's selling me ice creams needs to understand this is the only time I've been here. You can't have a bad day. It's the only time I'm gonna come here. This has to be the best possible performance it's ever going to be, and they have to be able to deliver that. And I think that's what differentiated and personalized experience is about. So thank you for kind of highlighting those topics. I love the fact that we we we chime on on a lot of the topics here, Gregorio. It's great. I really do see you as uh a kind of a kindred spirit in the world of customer centricity.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

It's a pleasure to have the discussion with you, and uh, and and it's really about uh about what what we are discussing. People expected, and it's really to understand what are the customer needs and try to find the best or better solution for them.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

And and you also uh are a brilliant uh storyteller, and I think that's so important in connecting. There is a danger, um, and I think probably it was largely driven by some of the tech vendors to kind of hide behind numbers and aim for targets and numbers, but actually you've not gone into that at all. I know you need to be accountable, of course you need to be accountable, demonstrate your contribution, but actually the way you need to get people you don't need to do that, you need to get people on your side, they will do that with you, and that's about storytelling and bringing it in. And I think the way that you've described things has been fabulous. So, so thank you very much in in terms of bringing them to life. I think uh a story always helps people understand.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Uh I I think that that's storytelling is extremely important. I don't want to be unpolite, but if we are speaking about customer experience being a growth strategy, then uh also the CFOs that are hearing this podcast and uh listening to this to this postcast can understand, then it's about creating a return on investment because at the end we are in the business, we need the return on investment to pay people, to pay um providers, and and to to have our products, our services uh in the market. But yes, um sometimes when uh I am uh having I'm I create customer experience presentation, then I have one slide with all the data, I explain all the data, and then people that are more based on facts, they can have a look at these slides, and then I start with the stories.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

That's so important. I mean, I think you you're right to draw to that point. I think the CFO though, what the CFO has never wanted is a satisfaction score, a measurement of recommendation. What they want is a confidence that the business model you're applying will reliably deliver sustainable competitive advantage. And that is what they need to present is the outcomes the business is working towards can be fulfilled better with a great customer experience applied to it. And those outcomes might be if it's a hotel, that might be RevPAR, revenue per room. If it's in terms of automotive, it might be repeat sales, whatever that metric is they're working towards. And I think this is the trap sometimes we fall into in in customer centricity, is we take those really important outcomes and we've replaced them with perceptive measures like satisfaction, which they are perceptions, they're not actuals, and therefore the CFO loses confidence. Because he take a really good example. Um we were chatting, I was chatting earlier with a client, and we were talking about an organization who have it's an energy company, had incredible profits and shocking satisfaction scores. If I'm the CFO, my worry is if we improve things from a satisfaction perspective, you're gonna impact my profit. And I think you know, you've got to kind of make sure that when you go in there as customer experience, you understand what drives profit. Um, satisfaction may not drive profit, often doesn't drive, it's very low accountability for profit. So you've got to be very careful there. But you're right, you can't go in and see this CFO and say, let me tell you a story here. You know, it's gonna go. I I didn't, I didn't I didn't train at Harvard, I didn't do my accountancy degree to listen to stories. So, but that's about knowing your audience, isn't it? It's the same as the personas, it's the same as differentiated experience. When you're working in an organization, you are always providing an experience to your colleagues. I know you spoke with Nate Brown earlier. Nate gets this point so much.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Uh we we spoke about quite a lot, uh, quite a lot of topics, but uh I think if you're mentioning Nate, uh it's great. It's it's it's really great to to have the opportunity to speak with him, to to listen what to what him is saying, because it's it's it is really the customer experience in person.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Yeah, he's a really great guy, isn't he? So I'm glad you had a good conversation with him. And I'm really glad we had this conversation as well, Gregorio. Um a lot from you, and I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot more in the future. But for now, um just like to say thank you. Thank you very much.

unknown 40:10

Um, I think that's a very good thing.