How to Get Out of Our Own Way to Create Customer and Company Success

Transcript

[00:02] Steve MacDonald: Welcome to the Contact Center Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host, and today we had a super interesting conversation with Ash Rhodes. Now, Ash, you are a longtime consultant for remote CX teams and that’s your passion. That’s your love—and part of your passion and love is travel and living abroad.

[00:21] Steve MacDonald: You’ve lived in so many different places. You actually even—I think you’ve got your master’s in Scotland—and while you were doing that, you told me a story at one point about how you were a bouncer for a bar in Scotland and how it taught you about customer support. With that, I’m going to turn it over to you to expand a little bit on your background before we get started.

[00:41] Ash Rhodes: Well, with that kind of introduction, yes, that is indeed the case. I worked for an Irish bar in the middle of Glasgow, Scotland, where nobody likes to be told what to do by an American—especially in an Irish hooligan bar. So, for one, I learned how to soften my accent and not sound quite so American. Additionally, you learn very quickly to speak calmly at all times, ensuring everyone that we’re all friends here and that you definitely do not want to hit anybody with that pint glass—instead, you just make sure they get outside.

[01:28] Ash Rhodes: I am reminded every time I go into a bar or think about my time there. I might be showing my age as the original roadhouse. There was a scene that Patrick Swayze had where he talked about being nice—always being nice—and if somebody is not letting you be nice, you find someone else and both of you be nice. That applied to me then, and it applies to customer service as well. And when do you not be nice? I’ll let you know, because I’ll be taking over as the boss.

[02:08] Steve MacDonald: Well, with that, here’s what I’d love to do. The analogy is not lost on us that in customer success, we’ve got to be nice. We’re the ones that have to keep level heads, but there’s something else that we talked about—and it’s the topic we’re going to explore big time here today—about how to get out of our own way to create customer and company success. Where are some of the biggest problems? I’m going to just leave it at that and turn it over to you: Why are we the biggest problems in creating success for our customers and our companies?

[02:41] Ash Rhodes: Oh my goodness. So, you’re right. That is a pet topic, and I am sorry for just waxing on and on about bouncer stuff. When we talk about what it is that we do in CX—whether as individual contributors or brand-new baby leads, all the way up to seasoned graybeards like myself—we have a lot of responsibilities.

[03:08] Ash Rhodes: As an organization, we’ve got the immediate, obvious part: to ensure that our customers are happy, taken care of, and ideally not churning, while expanding their accounts. We have upsell and cross-sell, and so on, when we’re talking about customer success. But there’s so much more to that. We have to demonstrate our value and our raison d’être—our reason for existing—to the rest of the organization and beyond. That is where we get in our own way, because we all know why we exist, and it’s not just because this is our job and we like getting paid; it’s because we see that even if we didn’t, if our organization is not a cross-sell, upsell, customer success organization, we all know that doing a very good job in customer support prevents churn.

[04:08] Ash Rhodes: We know that it involves bug finding and assisting with engineering efforts, among other things. Does everybody else understand that? Is it quantified in the way I like to describe it to other people who maybe haven’t quite understood it yet or are not in leadership or customer support? Have you ever been an individual contributor? Most people in leadership have at some point.

[04:36] Ash Rhodes: When you’re on the phones, answering tickets, or whatever, we’ve all had to go and meet the customer where they live. We’ve had to speak their language. If they’re not very technical, we reduce our explanations to a much lower level; if they’re more technical, we can speak more technically to them. But we have to meet them where they live.

[05:03] Ash Rhodes: When you start moving up—getting those promotions, becoming a lead, supervisor, director, and so on—it’s not that you stop having customers. Your customers become internal. You have to meet your customers where they are—your stakeholders, whether they are other heads of departments or upper management. And if you’re not speaking their language, you’re failing. You’re not being a good customer support person—a good customer, anything.

[05:37] Steve MacDonald: Let me ask you something here because you just unpacked a lot. The major takeaway is that if we are misunderstood as a department—whether we call ourselves customer success, customer support, or a contact center—in terms of the value we provide (since we’re talking to the highest authority in the entire company, the customer, and having more of those conversations than anyone else)…

[06:11] Steve MacDonald: …we have the ability to be internal consultants to the rest of the company. But we’re not being seen that way. We’re being seen as a cost center that needs to be minimized, with budgets reduced, because it’s something we just have to have since customers are going to have questions.

[06:31] Steve MacDonald: So, the number one takeaway I took from what you said is that if there is a misperception about what we do, it is our responsibility to realign those expectations. If we just continue to play the role in the box we’ve been put in, then who’s ever going to get us out of that?

[06:51] Steve MacDonald: We have to be advocates for what we know—the value that we provide and can provide. Is that a good way to rearticulate what you were saying?

[07:01] Ash Rhodes: In much fewer words, yes, it is. Sales—I’m never going to say sales has it easy. I hate sales; I’m really, really bad at it. But it’s very easy to draw a line: sales does their job, and the line goes up.

[07:15] Ash Rhodes: Customer success usually falls under our purview, but sometimes it’s in the revenue department because it’s revenue. They do their job with expansion and reducing churn for their book of business, so their line goes up.

[07:31] Ash Rhodes: Unless you are doing your job, nobody is going to say, “Oh, I see that we still have customers,” or automatically understand what your job is and how it links to anything. It is our job to figure out—for whatever your company is and whatever personality type your CEO, CTO, or their parent company has (because sometimes you’re dealing with a parent company or a board of directors)—what fills their cup, whatever hits their dopamine, and provide that. And if they don’t understand—like, I get it—a lot of times it’s a bad metric. It could be CSAT scores. Dumb. We don’t want CSAT scores; we don’t want raw numbers of tickets handled per rep. No.

[08:22] Ash Rhodes: So, it becomes our job to educate them on basic customer service, customer support, and customer experience efforts. Unfortunately, we never get away from that. That’s our job.

[08:33] Steve MacDonald: What you’re saying here, in a number of ways, is that we need to speak the language of our internal customers. We spend so much time focused on the external customers contacting the contact center and learning everything we can about them and how to serve them. But if we don’t translate everything we’re learning to our internal customers and set expectations for why they should even be talking to us in the first place, then a CEO is going to be looking at cost reduction as a KPI.

[09:09] Steve MacDonald: It was like, “You know what? We should be thinking about how to operate more efficiently and do a better job at managing the budgets you’ve given us.” Absolutely—I just addressed their needs. Do you also want higher NRR scores (net recurring revenue)? Oh, you do? Let me tell you how I can help.

[09:28] Steve MacDonald: But you’ve now translated it through the lens of how they’re going to receive it and say, “Ah, I understand now. What you’re saying is going to impact our overall business growth through a key KPI that I measure.”

[09:43] Ash Rhodes: Right—whether it’s KPIs or OKRs (objectives and key results), whatever. OKR is not my favorite way of doing things—but all that matters is that you figure out what matters to them and what you’re able to provide. And I don’t want to get into it too deeply, but you have to consider what you can provide that will not negatively impact your customers and your team, because you don’t want to set something up that is going to cause misery. Like, are you going to implement metrics that will only ruin the team you have built? That’s always a possibility if you’re not careful.

[10:26] Ash Rhodes: So, it’s a sensitive thing. But to something else you said—we’ve got all of this data from the customers, all this information, and the needs of upper management. When we talk about getting out of our own way, this is literally what we’re talking about.

[10:41] Ash Rhodes: It’s the translation from the customers to them. We must not be the communication barrier, and sometimes it’s just about letting the data flow—because if you’re just sitting on it, that’s not helpful.

[10:57] Ash Rhodes: But then, if it’s coming to them as just raw data or data they don’t need, that’s also not helpful. So, it’s, as you said, about finding the right KPI so they understand it.

[11:10] Steve MacDonald: What that means is we have to be really good at understanding a number of different internal customers—because the product team is going to want different kinds of information from us, and marketing is going to want different information than sales. So, if we want to get out of the box of being perceived as a cost center and want to advocate for ourselves to grow our presence and impact on the business, then we better not get in the way.

[11:38] Steve MacDonald: I love that. It reminds me of the movie from 20 years ago called Lost in Translation, because you just said that it can’t be lost in translation. We have to be good communicators and then deliver on that.

[11:49] Ash Rhodes: I’ve told the CEO many times, but in practice, what I like to do even more than that is—well, we’re talking politics here.

[12:01] Ash Rhodes: You can hate politics all you want, but this is politics in its purest form: ensuring that you are so invaluable. Personally, it doesn’t matter—you are expendable. I hate to say this, but I take the point of view that, if nothing else, I’m a consultant.

[12:18] Ash Rhodes: I frequently come in and build teams—usually as the head of that team—but then I train somebody to come in after me. So, I am expendable, and that’s the way it should be. I also think that leaders should set things up so that the team is the most important thing, not you. But that’s beside the point.

[12:37] Ash Rhodes: You should be arranging things with all of these other teams, as you mentioned—other departments. The very thought of losing customer support, all the data they provide, or minimizing it in any way sets off warning bells, not just in customer support but everywhere else. If it is announced or brought up by anyone—”Oh, we should probably cut 20 percent off of customer support”—people will be like, “What are you talking about? Do you have any idea how badly that will mess up our Q3 deliverables?” Because the best fight you have a chance of winning is the one you don’t have to fight.

[13:25] Steve MacDonald: We need to be indispensable. We need to be at the point where I’m not going through a product launch without first having a conversation with customer success or the contact center and saying, “These are the five main things that are germane to this launch,” and making sure that they understand, know, and can reflect on it so that we can learn.

[13:45] Steve MacDonald: It’s very simple. If we can tell other departments how we can help them and give them tangible examples and ways to work together, nobody’s ever going to say, “Oh, I don’t want your help. I don’t need additional help understanding my product, the customer, selling to the customer, or marketing to the customer.” But you’ve got to deliver the goods.

[14:13] Ash Rhodes: You have to deliver the goods. That is exactly one of two things I was going to say: one, under-promise and over-deliver always; and two, in my grand theme of taking care of your team, try to position it as, “Look at all of this information we already have. Look at all of this stuff we would love to provide to you. Let us just open up the information floodgates. How can we help you with what we already have?”

[14:46] Ash Rhodes: And this is a topic I’m sure everybody can relate to: How many times have we, as a department, ended up being the dumping ground for tasks that other departments just didn’t want to do? You always want to avoid that. Don’t become indispensable for that reason, because that’s going to mess everything up.

[15:07] Steve MacDonald: In order to accomplish this, we’ve talked about what we need to do. But I’m sure you’ve run into all kinds of times where there’s internal politics. You brought up politics before, but tell us a little bit about the internal politics of taking that rightful seat at the table and what you do about that.

[15:29] Ash Rhodes: There’s no one single thing that anyone can do because every company and every set of personalities is different. Additionally, you can finally reach exactly where you want to be—and then a new head of marketing comes on and everything just gets thrown into chaos.

[15:47] Ash Rhodes: That said, it’s so ironic that we started talking about my experience as a bouncer. It’s not entirely dissimilar. You go in and be nice. It can’t have escaped people’s notice, if they’re watching, that I look like a hooligan myself.

[16:01] Ash Rhodes: I am in my forties, and I have a Mohawk, tattoos, and so on, and people think I’m going to be some kind of hooligan. But I smile a lot, crack jokes, and genuinely care about whether people had a good weekend and if I can help them with anything.

[16:21] Ash Rhodes: I genuinely care about people and try to help them. If you can make friends with folks and be their ally—be everyone’s ally—it will make your life easier and make the politics of everything much simpler in the long term.

[16:41] Ash Rhodes: All of that is just the background. When it really comes to politics, my best advice—and the way I’ve usually handled it—is to just stay out of it. Be honest and transparent: share what you’ve done (with Silly Mac giving thumbs up for things), what you’ve done well, and how you’ve messed up.

[17:02] Ash Rhodes: Always be transparent about how you’ve messed up and how you’re going to fix it in the future. But otherwise, don’t engage in backstabbing games or anything along those lines, and you’ll come off as the stand-up person—and that’s where you want to be, in my opinion.

[17:21] Steve MacDonald: There’s a lot that happens inside companies where there’s misalignment and everyone has their own perspective on what it takes to be successful. If they haven’t relied on you in the past, then why should they rely on you in the future—unless you give them a reason?

[17:37] Steve MacDonald: Those politics of “don’t play in my sandbox over here” really break down. There isn’t a company on the face of the earth that doesn’t say, “Yeah, no, we want to be customer focused. We want to be customer obsessed.”

[17:54] Steve MacDonald: Everybody says that—and if they don’t, find a different company to work for—because that’s the very basis of what we do. So, if you can approach them and just say, “Hey, we’re all about serving the customer. I talk to a ton of customers about a whole bunch of what you’re doing and planning—would you like to hear a little bit more about what I’m hearing?”

[18:16] Steve MacDonald: You can break down barriers. You can break down politics. It takes internal fortitude to do that. I’m going to liken it back to your days as a bouncer: keep calm, but be confident. I’ve never been a bouncer, but if I were someone you were trying to bounce and sensed you lacked confidence—if I was getting under your skin—then, man, that’s it: Go in. You are the customer expert. Have that confidence with you.

[18:49] Steve MacDonald: People follow confidence, and none of those departments are as in touch or in tune with a customer as you are. So, if you hold your shoulders high and go in and say, “Here’s what I can share,” would that be worthy of their time?

[19:09] Ash Rhodes: That is absolutely accurate. One, have confidence—and if you, for some reason, feel like an imposter today, remember that everyone does. Fake it until you make it. That’s okay.

[19:28] Ash Rhodes: But then also, as you were saying with the “here’s how we can help you” approach—especially if you’re new to a department, role, or company—even if you’re not, ask someone for half an hour of their time. And if they’re asking why, say, “I’m trying this new thing where I’m exploring how we, as a department, can do more with what we’ve got—the resources we have available.”

[19:57] Ash Rhodes: I’d love to hear about where we might meet in the middle, because you’re right—nobody is just going to automatically come to you. They’re not going to throw it in your lap and say, “Yeah, this is the exact data I need—I think you have it.” You have to go look for it and ask for that trust.

[20:17] Steve MacDonald: What I’m going to ask you in a minute is for your single takeaway that you want the audience to have. We’ve talked about a lot here. My single takeaway from everything you’ve said is that, as contact centers, customer support, and CX people, we have to be our own salespeople.

[20:39] Steve MacDonald: If we’re not going to sell what we do, we’ve got to be good at selling it. We have to become our own advocates to create the kind of success for the company, for the customer we care about and are passionate about, and for our own success at the same time.

[20:58] Steve MacDonald: So, if you adopt the mentality of “I’m a salesperson” right away, you’ve got to know who you’re selling to. You’ve got to understand them—the head of operations, the head of marketing, the head of sales, the CEO. My main takeaway is: How do we become good salespeople for what we do and stand up to take our rightful seat at the table?

[21:20] Ash Rhodes: I think mine kind of builds on yours: No matter how much you might want to be free of it, none of us are ever done being an individual contributor. Our audience changes, our key accounts change. But we will always need to focus on ensuring that our customers are communicated with, are happy, and have all of the information they need—that we’re being good customer support account managers, however you want to look at it.

[21:58] Ash Rhodes: And while it flows in with the sales aspect, we also have to fully care for them at every level. It’s one of the reasons why I really love working with leaders who have spent a lot of time as ICs—because they understand that approach. So, yeah, that’s my takeaway.

[22:23] Steve MacDonald: That makes perfect sense. One thing I know is that people are going to have questions about how to take this on in their own company—how to address those internal politics, what quick and easy wins we can present to different departments, and all that. But is it okay if we provide a link to your LinkedIn profile so people can reach out with questions?

[22:44] Ash Rhodes: Absolutely. No question whatsoever. Also, side note: I feel that I’ve done extremely well not swearing throughout all of this, but anyone who has spent any time in Glasgow knows that every other word is usually a swear. So, yay me. But yes—LinkedIn, a hundred percent.

[23:03] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Well, Ash, thank you so much for shedding light on such an important subject in terms of doing what we know is right. It’s a really good way to put a ribbon on at the end. So, thank you—thank you very much.

[23:16] Ash Rhodes: Thank you for having me, Steve. It was a pleasure, and anytime you want to chat about something again, my door is always open.