Stacy Sherman
Appearances
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Everybody listening, stop measuring satisfaction. Satisfaction is mediocre.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
I love that you said that because let's face it, acquisition sales is sexy. Retention, you know, staying in the relationship, it takes work. And it's not an overnight thing. And it's that consistency and that intentionality. And that's where transformation happens. And so what I help leaders understand is, let me give you a good example to demonstrate what I'm trying to say.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
company I was working for, we would do re-outreach to clients, to customers who had long-term contracts. We would reach out to them a year before the contract would end and gauge how's the relationship going. This was not, oh, you just bought something, the transaction. No, this was relationship. And what we do is we gauged how well are we delivering on the promise?
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
How much more than satisfaction? Because satisfaction is mediocre. And so we were striving not for mediocre. So the value is that we would gauge where are we falling short and they would tell us. And therefore we had a year to really fix their pain point that we would know about or not know about. Now, when I say we collectively, I would take that feedback.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
I'd give it to the right sales team across the globe. It was a global company and follow up and, and ask, what did you do with this information? And then actually go back to the customer and tell them, we heard you.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And what that created was not only again, feel good for the customer, but we retained billions of dollars because of that relationship and caring and not just giving lip service, but really acting upon the feedback. So people miss that opportunity to say, how are we doing? And not just when the contract's going to end. That's too late.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yes. I mean, look, I'm going on 30 years of marriage this year. And that did not happen because just one-offs, you know, through the years. This is intentionality. It is everything that we're talking about in CX. It applies to business. If you want people to love you and your brand, it is not a one-night stand. Yeah. Completely.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
You said it better than me.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah, people have too many choices now. And the competitors know it. And a lot of times people leave and they don't even tell you. So you do have a chance to get ahead of it. And one of the other things I would say that is a common miss is Is if you just take NPS, I have many other metrics that I promote champion, but let's just take the basics of NPS net promoter score.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So many companies focus on the green, the nines and tens, the people that love you. And they also focus on the detractors, the people that are not happy. But what a missed opportunity. They missed the passives who haven't made a decision yet, who you can bring to the promoter side. But so many ignore them. What a mistake that is. Mm-hmm.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Approach them without selling. So what I mean by that is... This happened to be during COVID, but it doesn't have to apply just to a pandemic. We would call our customers and literally stop all surveys that we were doing and literally ask them, are you okay? How are you? And that they remembered that after the pandemic was over. You're the company that actually cared.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
You weren't just trying to push a sale, a product, but you were really genuinely, authentically caring. And people notice that you can't fake that.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It is truly a passion. It's a lifestyle. When I was working in corporate for the past 25 years, I was continuing to breathe and think and do CX right. because I care both from a consumer perspective, frustrated by bad experiences that don't have to happen, but then also from within certain companies and departments that were frustrating that didn't have to happen.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It's tremendous. It's part of the equation. And I'll give you an example. My best leaders' bosses had high EQ. I really have honed in on that skill myself. and people see it, you can't fake it. It's like a singer has a great voice, you're born with it. But I do think you can nurture that skill.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So when we talk about EQ, one of the things I tell leaders today is that AI is our reality, it's a tool, it's valuable if you use it in the responsible way. Here's the reality, though, for people, customers and your workforce. There's fear. It's there's real fear. And so the smart high EQ leader is acknowledging that, not ignoring it.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So they're helping their team understand this is why we're deploying this particular technology. This is how it's going to help save you time and give you more time to really spend with the customer instead of some of that administrative things. This is how we're going to use it so that you can better train without risk.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And talking to a live customer, you can practice with the simulation and get the confidence and readiness. And acknowledge that people have fear and help them get comfortable so that they can be and show up their best. And so that's where I say that... A lot of people ignore the reality and just try to shove the new technology because they have to. They have to claim what they are.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And high EQ really is looking at the reality and helping each individual, not in a cookie cutter approach. It's connecting human to human.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So some people play golf at night and weekends. For me, I found myself blogging and podcasting and educating people. Whoever would listen to me, I was standing on the mountain, any mountain, just to help people understand that doing CX Right is in their control and make people care because it really impacts lives.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Mm-hmm. And I believe that both the brands need to purposely create the connection with the humans that are interacting with the brand, internal and external. I also deeply feel and wrote about in Psychology Today magazine that we have to own our experiences too. So when I call customer service, That agent is a human and oftentimes just the messenger, right? They didn't make the decision.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And so having listened to thousands and thousands of calls within brands and listened to the tone of a customer, it's heartbreaking, right? Right. For the agent. And so obviously there's training and how you handle those irate customers. And that's a different topic, a different day. But we do need to own the experience, how we show up for others. It's a two way street.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah, very easily. Within the company, all the different departments, you share the customer calls that the agents go through. You share those calls. You invite them to those calls. You have them be an agent for a day from the inside, from the CEO to the intern. Mm-hmm. Right. They need to actually shadow each other for the appreciation and understanding of the of what it's like.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
At the same time, it's the conversations like this and that I'm doing on all my social platforms to help people understand this same concept that even if you're not in a customer service role. This is what it's like. And so if you're a customer or if you're a leader, heads up. This is what great looks like. And it goes full circle.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Absolutely many examples. As I alluded to before, I think AI is fabulous to save people time. I believe AI, even if you think about training, I've seen a platform that allows the agent and salespeople to practice AI. And the AI really feels like a customer, a human being. And you can set up like an irate customer. You can set up a funny customer.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And so the person who's in charge of serving that individual can practice. And the beautiful part is... is that there's multiple platforms, but the one that I love most actually allows the salesperson, the agent, whoever's front facing to be able to practice and not have their boss hear it until they're ready for their manager to hear the dialogue. Because you get graded and you know what?
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
You need a psychologically safe place to practice. Yeah. And so some platforms are created for the boss to hear every practice session. And I think that's not a good idea. So that's an example where AI can really boost someone's confidence to train at scale and be able to make mistakes comfortably. And then you bring in
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
the others who are going to grade you and say, you're ready for that first call. You're ready for the promotion. You're ready for whatever it is. So that's a great example. Can you share that company with us? I'm going to stay agnostic, but anyone wants to call me, I'm happy to share. I've been evaluating a bunch of different AI technologies. I'm going to be agnostic.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yes. And likewise, having... done a lot of customer feedback sessions and aggregating feedback. So there's the structured data from the surveys, but there's the unstructured from social media and rating review sites and customer service calls. And so aggregating all that, there's no way a human could read all that and prioritize it, right? So AI is a wonderful tool to help people
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Understand the conversations to make decisions from and risk mitigation. Because if you hear someone say lawsuit, you want to know that right away, right? So that is another great use case of AI application, right? Now, if you're not doing CX right with AI intentionally responsibly deployed, then the reverse happens. You actually can push customers away.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And what that looks like is, let's say I want to find something online. I go to the company website. I deploy the AI chat. I'm asking a question. And... If it's not high risk, it's okay to keep talking to a bot. But if there's something that's like a lot of money, if it's something that I'm frustrated with and it was, there's certain criteria.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So I get passed on to a human after I interact with the bot. But now I just went through this whole conversation with the bot and now the human comes on and makes me repeat everything all over again. right? Like there's a problem with that.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It is such a solvable problem. It is. And it's not just the bot. It's even the traditional IVRs where you call the 800 number and then you give your credit card and then the rep comes on and says, can I have your credit card? So it's all automation that... that is serving the internal needs and disregarding the time and the energy of the caller, the customer, the prospect.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And so if you're not making it easy, They'll leave, they'll hang up, they'll disconnect.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Thank you. And it's more than fluff. Like I want people to understand that, yes, enjoyable and joy are important outcomes, but it's so much more like there is a business outcome beyond just a feel good outcome, which I would hope people would want to. But business is in business for a reason. So those listening, this is not fluff.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yes. And the most common challenge across all the different industries I've worked for and worked with comes down to one image. And that image is this. Pointing fingers everywhere, but instead of here at yourself, everybody is passing the buck. And that's why silos break relationships. They create customer churn. They create employee turnover, and that is the biggest opportunity to change.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So that little sigh you heard from me when you said accountability, that was an unexpected noise from my mouth. Because most companies, most teams and individuals are really good at being responsible, right? They're responsible for their job, their tasks. They're getting it done the way that is on that piece of paper and job description. Accountability takes it a step further.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Accountability is saying, I not only took care of your problem on this call or interaction, but I went up and beyond to make sure that you're delighted. And it was exceptional. Accountability is going way beyond. Responsibility is doing what you have to do. And that comes back to leadership. That comes back to a unified vision and mission and values and shared goals.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Because I remember being in an organization where I had a set of goals that were customer-centric and other people did not. They had other metrics. And so no one would listen to me when I brought them some very important customer data and they would say, yes, I'll add it to my list. I said, no, no, no, right now. And they said, sorry, that's not my, that's not my top three goals.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And I'm like, what? Like, no, you, no. You can see I'm very passionate about this.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah. I'm very big on satisfaction. No, that is. I love what you said.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah. Everybody listening, stop measuring satisfaction. It's so much bigger than that. To your question, the way you measure and drive that customer-centric mission at all roles in all departments is making everybody have the same goal around this. From the C-suite to your admin, your interns, your contractors, your every department. And that way everybody's working together.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
At the same time, you also need to train that there's not gaming of the system. I remember... we had deployed certain metrics to the sales team and they would be paid their bonuses and comp had many metrics, but this was one of them. And I remember they would call me and say, please give me that one extra little point because it affects my pay. And no, that's not what this is about.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
I'm not your report card, the customer is. So people really have to not only create the metrics,
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
But really live by what it means and use it not for punishment, but for how do we make it better so that people aren't detractors, people aren't sitting in the passives waiting to make a decision, but they're promoters, they're advocates, they're champions, and they actually take the action to go recommend. Mm-hmm.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Wait, so bring the men don't care about onboarding?
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah, I think it's the number that's shared and both ends. And when you're bringing people together to design the customer experience from the employee perspective who knows the customer while also validating it with real customers, when they understand That how their role affects how the sales team affects the next one in line and vice versa. There can be empathy for each other. Yeah.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
right, and friendship and bond. And therefore, what do you do when that happens? You're generous and caring and look at it as we, not my bonus, our bonus. Yes, totally.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Well, I would say it's a brand, but also... other humans in the story that give me a new love for humankind, because there's so much bad news out there. And what I mean by is I left my tablet, my remarkable tablet, somewhere in Colorado at my last trip there. I'm guessing it was on the airplane or in the airport. I don't know.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
They are intentionally designing experiences across an entire journey, how a customer learns and buys things. gets, uses, pays, get help, as we know, customer service, which is not the same thing as customer experience, but an important part. And so they intentionally design the experiences based on real customer needs, not based on what the internal teams think it could be or may be.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And I ended up getting a FedEx box, opened the box, actually made a TikTok on this, unveiling the box, taking the tablet out. There was no note. Nobody put a note to say, I found your tablet, you know, hope this reached you. Like nothing, no nothing. I know that the airline was the one that the person turned it into. So there is an airline in this story.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And, but there were many human people who touched my tablet to get it into the box, into FedEx to me and didn't need the recognition, didn't look for the pat on the back, which I would have done. And so I made a TikTok to say, you know, thank you, whoever's out there, that there's really good people in the world. And this was an experience that the airline did, the human did, FedEx did.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It was this... multi-touch that did really good. So that stands out to me in this very moment. How did they know to send it to you? How did they know it was yours? My tablet, when you opened it, has my contact information. I didn't even remember doing that, but that was the only one.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Exactly. It is a remarkable experience. So it makes sense to be a remarkable product. Completely. I hope remarkable is hearing this. Yeah.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Own it. Don't pass it on to someone else. It's someone else's job, that department. Own it. It starts with you. You have a customer experience role regardless of job title. Every leader is a customer experience leader. And you don't need leader in your title to be one.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yes, I welcome it. So one is my website, doingcxright.com. And my newsletter, I'm giving tons of free wisdom and advice. I also have a free audit tool that I can give to you for the show notes. Amazing. People can take this and it'll give you a score of how... much you're doing right and where are some of the gaps and happy to discuss it.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So between my website, I'm on all the social channels, predominantly on LinkedIn, giving tips and tactics every day. Stacey Sherman. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Stacey. And I hope you have a wonderful day.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And they validate it with real customers. And then they fix the gaps where the needs are not addressed. They measure along those micro moments. And When they do it right, the people that have bought from them come back again and again. And the internal teams who are championing the brand, they stay and they keep championing the brand because they love it so much.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It's not an overnight thing. It's that consistency and that intentionality. That's where transformation happens. Own it. Don't pass it on to someone else. It's someone else's job, that department. Own it. It starts with you. You have a customer experience role, regardless of job title.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah, I was going to say my book coming out next month is literally the transformational journey management and the impact of that. It's not just the customer journey and it's not just journey map. It's really the holistic ecosystem of the journey from all the different stakeholders and partners and employees and the customers. It's an ecosystem.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And I think that's important for people to realize.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah, it's taking what I think has become a cliche word of journey map. We do journey mapping. Mm-hmm. That's kind of just a little bit of checking the box and not really understanding what it is and how you go deep and how does it actually design the experience that meets the customer needs. And it's an opportunity to learn.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
not only just walk in your customer's shoes every micro moment and know that you're doing it right from each doorway of the learn awareness, as we call the marketing department might handle that, down the journey line. And And it's breaking the silos.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It's showing the domino effect so that every team understands where they begin and end, but the effect, because what happens is a lot of times people focus on their role, their goals, and then they're just like done. And you can't be that way because it becomes so disjointed. A great example is, And by the way, I say ecosystem because it's your vendors, your partners, your interns.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It's everybody that's involved in this experience. So here's an example. Recently, I was on United Airlines and we were sitting on the runway. And it was about an hour waiting and not really knowing why. So there was a flight attendant that walked down the aisle and I said, do you know what's happening? When are we taking off or what's going on? And she said, I really don't know.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
I'm kind of learning the way you are when the pilot gets on and tells us. I said, okay. So then I go onto the app, United app, and I see an explanation that they're working There's baggage that is like kind of in backlog trying to get onto the plane. So I'm like, oh, it's a baggage problem. Then I happen to go onto the website, not the app, and there's another reason.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
So you have inconsistent reasons. For me, the customer sitting there frustrated, and I'm the lucky one because my neighbor next to me had to catch another flight, right? From when we land. So that inconsistency is not okay. And that's because the experience is disjointed. The communication is disjointed. The teams are working in silos and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And that's not okay. That doesn't work.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah. So when I was working in all different companies, I remember going to different departments and asking them, what does doing CX right mean to you? And a very common answer was, well, I don't touch the customer. I'm back office, so it's not my job. And I would say, well, actually, let's sit down.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Let me explain to you how much you impact their experience because the sales team and customer service and the frontline teams can't do their job without you in the puzzle. And so that's what I mean by bringing people to the table and I'll often facilitate that and literally help each person understand the roles of the individual departments across that journey.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And it's cross education, but also awareness and appreciation for let's just take communication as a topic, right? Who is designing, who's deciding what we tell the customer? If it's a promotion, an offer, let's say for some upcoming holiday, great. This team comes up with it, marketing, communications. Then it goes to the website where people can buy. Let's say it's an e-commerce.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Well, that team has to know what's going to be on the website and implement it on the website. And it has to go all the way down the line. Because what happens often is the front end doesn't reach like customer service where someone will call and say, hey, I got an email about this great promotion. Can you apply it? I have some questions.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
And the service team says, I don't know what you're talking about.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
They intentionally design the experiences based on real customer needs, not based on what the internal teams think. There's generosity. There's the desire to give more. And it's because you love the brand and the brand loves you back in action, not just words. So what's the cost of doing CX wrong? Acquisition sales is sexy. Retention, staying in the relationship, it takes work.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
No, that is doing CX wrong. And here's the thing, though. While people listening might realize, okay, that's intuitive, right? But also the reality is when I've been in certain companies and I said, let's do this, let's bring the different stakeholders to the table who are in charge of those departments and go through the journey and see the gaps.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
A lot of times I would get pushback and say, you know what? We don't have budget for that right now. And I would say, how do you not have budget? How do you, first of all, it doesn't take, this isn't sophisticated technology. This is bringing humans to a room and really solid communication. But time, okay, it takes time to bring people out of their roles. and their day-to-day. And it's a cost.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
It's a cost to actually not do this exercise and this practice because you're losing customers and then you're losing your team who are frustrated and not empowered.
Experts of Experience
Stop Guessing! Win Customers Through Data AND Emotion
Yeah. And it's a sense of what I would call in terms of doing CX right. There's generosity. There's the desire to give more. Yeah. And it's because you are you love the brand and the brand loves you back in action, not just words.