The Golden Triangle of Data, Technology, and BPO Partnerships

Transcript

[00:00:01] Steve MacDonald: Welcome everyone to the Contact Center Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host, and today we have a very special guest on, Filip Popovic. And Filip, you are not only the Head of the Relationship Centre for Avon Worldwide, and that is a massive job. But in that, in your experiences, and you talk at a lot of conferences, it is the way that we first met.

[00:00:22] Steve MacDonald: But you actually, when we first started talking, you said one of your proudest accomplishments in life was the fact that you were a CDO, a Chief Dad Officer. And so you have a beautiful family and children. You are at home right now in Montenegro, and I think you said it is something like 40 plus Celsius right now.

[00:00:43] Steve MacDonald: So thank you for bearing the heat and coming on today. Before we get started, and we are going to be talking about how do we embrace a new vision and an evolution in customer experience. And it is what you are doing and what you are implementing every day here at Avon. So we have a great opportunity, but I am going to allow you to maybe expand on your background a little bit and then we will dig right in.

[00:01:10] Filip Popovic: Yeah, thanks a lot Steve. So from all of the things you call out, the most important, like Chief Dad Officer, and I keep being that one since I got kids, and I am very proud of that job obviously. But then, in addition, I really have to highlight it is 43 plus today actually. Oh, wow.

[00:01:26] Filip Popovic: At this moment, and I am having some kind of a health issue if I am under air conditioning. So you can imagine me, lovely life, sitting outside terrace, looking on a seaside, but also having a heat of 43 plus. Oh. That is my current environment, which is amazing. I mean, I got used to that environment.

[00:01:47] Filip Popovic: I encourage everyone coming to Montenegro to check if they can survive our reality. So let us start. Yeah, thanks a lot.

[00:01:55] Steve MacDonald: Okay, fantastic. So I am going to jump right in and, you know, you have three pillars of transformation when we are thinking about customer experience, and if you would not mind taking us through those three pillars and just your thinking about that.

[00:02:10] Filip Popovic: Yeah, thanks a lot Steve. So basically, it shortly starting with kind of how we evolve our Relationship Centre into the Experience Centre. When saying that, basically at the moment, as we are part of a social selling company, Avon is well known as a social selling company, we do care a lot about the relation in between us and our consumers.

[00:02:30] Filip Popovic: But there is a clear space to evolve that place into one Experience Centre that actually is going to help us to address the customer need real time, basically beyond just answering on the call or writing an email reply or basically doing some system set up for our consumers.

[00:02:49] Filip Popovic: And representatives that we work with, it is more about actually how we can make sure that from the moment they join us until the moment they place an order or receive the order, they have this great experience with us. And that is a very important pillar, I would say. And we look after that one. But then, to combine this experience setting, we also would like to make sure that we have a clear understanding of what are the real needs of our consumers, of our representatives that we work with. So basically, that is why we set up a forum that we called Consumer Experience Board. And what we are doing there, we are actually setting up a live connection.

[00:03:29] Filip Popovic: With people that we work with. So not only waiting for them to call us when they have trouble, which is one pillar, but then basically also setting up a clear and open communication with them also in the time when actually there is no trouble, but they might give us certain feedbacks about what we can improve, how we can improve.

[00:03:50] Filip Popovic: So basically, as a clear space to hear them, their needs. And then actually, obviously, like every other company, we have to sit back and understand what are the areas we can actually further improve and work on. And then, last but not least, as every other call center within the company, we are treated as a spend department. You are just spending money, to us a lot of colleagues would say that. But what we are now heavily working on, and actually having, I can probably share that we already have few millions sales results, is actually, we are working on the revenue generator area as well.

[00:04:28] Filip Popovic: We call it Value Creation Centre, which actually is a clear part of the call center or actually this care activity where, on the spot when reps call us to sort out some issues or being interested about certain problems, we can still offer them some special offers or some products that we do believe are in focus that they might not have seen, or also offer some special discounts to them.

[00:04:52] Filip Popovic: So I can say, actually, this initiative started very carefully because, again, we are part of a sales organization and we do not want to take anyone’s job from their own hands. But still, while we are talking with our reps and our consumers, our goal was how we can make sure that we convert maybe a call that they made to us for some trouble.

[00:05:12] Filip Popovic: We converted it into some positive discussions and more meaningful to both of the parties, to them picking up on the best products with a good price, and us also picking up on some additional revenue in this case. So those are three pillars basically we are constantly and continuously working on.

[00:05:29] Steve MacDonald: You know what is absolutely amazing, and you said it right, is that we are looked upon as cost centers, we are looked upon as a support center, we often have to kind of scratch and claw to earn the seat at the table, right, in terms of impacting the bottom-line growth and revenue of the business.

[00:05:50] Steve MacDonald: But you are just talking about it. The contact center is a sales center, right? We are cross-selling, we are upselling, we are keeping people happy, we are keeping them loyal, right? There is a tremendous impact that we have on the bottom line, but we do not always have the tools to advocate, you know, upwards to C-suite and management about not putting us into the box of a cost center, right.

[00:06:14] Steve MacDonald: With KPIs that contain us, the more that you allow us to have room and rope to grow, the more we can do tremendous things for the business. And there are so many executives that are going to be listening to this podcast that would benefit from your advice on how to advocate, right? How to get the seat at the table, how to get the right resources, to have the right team, to do the kind of things to create a customer experience center overall that provides tremendous value.

[00:06:50] Steve MacDonald: How would you help us understand the best way to advocate internally to accomplish this?

[00:06:57] Filip Popovic: It is a very interesting challenge, by the way, because the key challenge is there is a sales stream in the company and, on one side, this might be completely wrongly understood.

[00:07:06] Filip Popovic: No, we are not trying to handle that part of the job, neither to maybe work on any new business, at least at this point of time. But we are trying actually to somehow fill the gap that is existing when reps are calling and then being maybe angry at us even, or dissatisfied about something.

[00:07:26] Filip Popovic: We simply can offer them something more. It is going in line with our needs to improve their experience. So how better than actually, to the people that are there to buy something, you promote certain special offers and something that might be exciting. But again, as you mentioned, there is a very important balance.

[00:07:46] Filip Popovic: We have to make sure that it is happening, and on the other side, proving that we deserve this role even within the organization. But then, on the other side, I truly believe that there is no company that is not looking for additional sales. I mean, that company is not existing, obviously.

[00:08:03] Filip Popovic: Most probably. I would love to learn if there is such. Someone can call out if they belong to this company. Obviously not sales by all means, but this might be very healthy sales because discussion is happening when actually they call us. I am not saying it is on their cost, but when they are available, they call us so we do not bother them, basically. That is very important. It is not an aggressive campaign of bothering someone and doing sales. When we find some time to call them, it is a moment where actually they already dedicate time to us, and we would like actually to make sure that these discussions are happening in good will.

[00:08:38] Filip Popovic: And then with some positive results obviously. Like, our goal is, okay, if we have a hundred percent, like a hundred people calling us, let us have 10 or 15 of them selling something to them, or at least additionally promoting the offers to them, because sales might not happen on the spot, but if you attract them with some offer, they might think about it and come with some sales later.

[00:08:59] Filip Popovic: So this is really not the purpose to rush deliver some additional sales, but rather to somehow complimentarily close the call in a better way and somehow with positive energy around. And, you know, like we were trying for years to do this, I would say that in only the last couple of, not years, but couple of quarters, we managed to do this properly.

[00:09:21] Filip Popovic: So I would say that, first of all, why not try? I mean, it is almost cost-neutral because, yes, you are spending a bit of time while talking with the rep and the vendor will charge us a bit more because we are talking to them, but then also, if you do not try, we do not know whether we are capable of doing that or not.

[00:09:39] Filip Popovic: But then when you try, then you start proving that you are capable of doing it. But let me just share a simple thing: whenever you reply to an email to your consumer, why not attach the special offer or actually the most exciting offer of the month?

[00:09:54] Filip Popovic: In that reply to the email, we were not having this type of addition. It was more about some other disclaimers and thank-you letter link for the survey and all these things, but rarely or almost never an offer. Now we know our replies will definitely include the most attractive offer of the brochure or a campaign or something that might be very meaningful for our reps. And yes, we are tracking 10 to 20%, depending on the market. Ten to twenty percent of our consumers we are tracking to that. But guess what, we started with one or two percent and then we learn by doing. So, I mean, how to convince?

[00:10:31] Filip Popovic: What’s the challenge, what’s the issue of not working there? And then when you start working on that, the results are definitely there. I mean, it’s about every person at the table actually sorting out how this is to happen, rather than saying, “Okay, this is not a successful initiative.”

[00:10:48] Filip Popovic: Because a lot of companies are in this area. You cannot talk to the bank without them offering you additional credit. You cannot talk to some additional services. You cannot talk to the mobile operator without them also offering you something. They are bombarding us with additional SMS campaigns, email campaigns, and all these things.

[00:11:08] Filip Popovic: So why not use this opportunity? And when you talk to your consumers, also offer them in a very polite and human way. I do believe in this, and again, Avon is a social selling business, so we do believe in this way of connections and interactions. And it is working at Avon, it is working. So I challenge everyone else to at least try as an answer to how to convince everyone to do this.

[00:11:32] Steve MacDonald: You know, it’s interesting because what you’re talking about here makes so much sense, but it’s a mentality shift. Most contact centers do not think of themselves first and foremost as a sales opportunity. But if you start to try, and you track, and you refine, and you show performance, now all of a sudden you have a different language that you can talk to your upper management about, right?

[00:11:57] Steve MacDonald: To the C-suite. You know, they live in the world of KPIs that travel to revenue, that reduce costs, and increase revenue. And so, if you can perform, and you have the data, and you can tell the story, then all of a sudden you can start to, in your list of, you know, experience center, value center…

[00:12:18] Steve MacDonald: Why not, you mentioned the word revenue, right? A value center is producing revenue. It’s a revenue center. But if we do not think of ourselves that way, then nobody from above is going to ask us for that information, right? It is incumbent upon us to put that story together and tell that story.

[00:12:36] Filip Popovic: Exactly, exactly. And then, another point is, I do not hear any of my peers out there saying that companies are not looking for savings, especially nowadays. Everyone is looking for every additional euro of saving. But what about actually when you touch zero, that you give zero money, correct? So what about actually trying to utilize your current resources and then…

[00:12:59] Filip Popovic: You see, if we are selling a couple of millions as additional sales, that would mean that we get rid of some hundreds of thousands of euros as a pure add to our profit. Mm-hmm. So that means we also neutralize our costs. It is not only getting rid of costs as the only way to lower your costs, it is also bringing a bit more sales and being ready to prove that sales is coming through your work.

[00:13:24] Filip Popovic: Basically, that key focus is there, being sure that these sales come because of your activity. And then everyone is easily convinced about working in this area.

[00:13:34] Steve MacDonald: Well, I want to ask something more about something you said earlier, because you talked about customer advisory boards, and I am sure the whole reason why you are doing that is because you want to learn from your customers, right?

[00:13:47] Steve MacDonald: The customers are the highest voice of authority in the business. You have to learn the language to talk to them. So I want to get into that, but everything, this is akin to an analogy to learning to talk in the language of your internal customers, your upper management, that has control over your budgets and resources, and your ability to do the job that you want to do and be proactive and contribute to the company.

[00:14:12] Steve MacDonald: So everything that you just said, everything, as I was hearing it, was you have learned very well how to speak the language of the internal customer, in terms of revenue, and how to produce that. So now, if we kind of switch and go over 90 degrees here and say, okay, but the voice of the actual end customer that you are selling to, most contact centers would say, I have…

[00:14:38] Steve MacDonald: Calls, and I have conversations with customers every single day as part of a contact center. Why do I need to do something else? But you put together these customer advisory boards. So why did you do that? Why did you take a whole other step and say, I am not getting everything that I want just from tickets and interactions through the contact center?

[00:15:03] Steve MacDonald: I want to learn more. Why did you make that decision?

[00:15:07] Filip Popovic: And thanks for asking that. You know, even a certain leadership style basically, because you might become a part of nonsense and spend 80% of your time with 20% of the people, but guess which one? The most problematic one.

[00:15:26] Filip Popovic: Yes. And then there is no growth. I mean, when you have to manage someone instead of working… So I would rather work with the ones who are really bringing an added value. In a call center, when you convert this, in a call center, you are working only with the ones who are having an issue, and they are not guilty of having an issue, but they have an issue with us.

[00:15:50] Filip Popovic: And you have like 10% of consumers calling you because they have a continuous issue with us. And what about 90% of them? Silent does not mean that you are great.

[00:16:02] Steve MacDonald: Right? Right.

[00:16:03] Filip Popovic: Why wait for them to be annoyed by us or to be completely treated with disrespect if we can, from time to time, reach out to them and ask them about their opinion?

[00:16:17] Filip Popovic: It is similar to a post-call survey. If someone calls you for some issue to be sorted out, the post-call is clearly related to that discussion. But that does not mean that your call center strategy should be looking only for this, what the ones with trouble told us.

[00:16:35] Steve MacDonald: Right?

[00:16:35] Filip Popovic: Because troubles are not new to us. We know that you are having a delivery issue. There is a program understanding issue. There is a line setup issue. There is a system issue. As long as the company exists, this is going to exist. But what about those reps who work with us without issue?

[00:17:00] Filip Popovic: They know how to deliver their own and our sales results, because those are common results. And we do not hear them. We do not know what they need. So it is kind of future thinking. It is not ongoing and firefighting. It is about future thinking and what their needs are, because let me bring in AI or a bot here. What else might be better if we do not bring self-service, at least to please those ones who do not have an issue? They still have needs, so at least in the self-service area, you can help them by bringing some materials and some quality answers. Maybe they just do not want to talk to us, they might rather search or look for other opportunities. So why not use their knowledge and how they work with us, and fill the knowledge base with exactly those not-happening interactions?

[00:17:58] Filip Popovic: As an example, it is an investment in the future. You are hearing me in an era of making a lot of savings. The compromise would be: let us bring some revenue so we get rid of some pressure of saving, and then this pressure you reinvest into the future, because you know what? Next year comes very quickly.

[00:18:22] Filip Popovic: And then our bosses again ask for a new wave of savings, correct? Like you ride until zero, no happiness. It is kind of that. So that is the balance we are trying to look for. Basically hearing the ones who do not have an issue with us, and really bringing a healthy business and healthy relationship, let us hear them.

[00:18:45] Filip Popovic: That is the purpose. That is the key purpose. And somehow in a few years, we used to miss them. That is why we have them back.

[00:18:52] Steve MacDonald: I have to tell you, I hope people are taking notes here because you have laid out how to create an experience, a value, a revenue center, but also ground what you are doing.

[00:19:06] Steve MacDonald: In not just the disgruntled customers, but the ones that are, lots of times, the loyal customers, the ones that love you the most are the ones that never call in, right? And you have to learn from them. I cannot tell you how many times on this podcast and others I have talked to C-suite executives that say the number one thing that we need to do is build trust and understanding amongst our customers.

[00:19:33] Steve MacDonald: If we do that well, we will succeed. And that is what you are doing. That is being proactive. It is very easy to sit back and say, “We have so many conversations, we do not even know what to do with the data. We are trying to get AI to wrangle it because we have so much data, we do not even know how to make sense of it. Why should we bring in more?”

[00:19:50] Steve MacDonald: But those one-on-one conversations that you are talking about are so important. The voice of the customer is the highest voice of authority in every business. And if you are not setting yourself up to listen to them, then you are setting yourself up to make your own decisions.

[00:20:11] Steve MacDonald: Because guess what? We are all smart. We know how to make decisions, right? We do not have a lack of ability to do that. But that is where we start to go wrong if we are not being directed by the voice of our own customers. That is my takeaway from what you are doing here.

[00:20:26] Filip Popovic: Thanks a lot, Steve. And just a few days ago, I was observing a discussion my mom had with one mobile operator here.

[00:20:34] Filip Popovic: She has been with them for 15 years. It was her first call to the call center. I do not know, they put some additional charges, not a big amount, but she called them to ask, “Okay, what is going on?” And the level of her dissatisfaction over just a few euros… It was not about the money; it was about the treatment of someone who has been with you for 15 years.

[00:21:04] Filip Popovic: And it was her first time calling. I mean, she is an older lady, not the type who is constantly looking for a better deal or a cheaper bill. She belongs to a generation that values trust, and once it is built, it is set. When you ruin that connection, she was immediately after the call saying to me, “Did you hear what I was talking about?” And I told her, “Yes, I was next to you, obviously.” For me, it was interesting because it is my job as well. So it was interesting to listen, and she was saying to me:

[00:21:34] Filip Popovic: “Please find another company for me. I want to stop this contract.”

[00:21:40] Steve MacDonald: Yeah.

[00:21:41] Filip Popovic: I think they put one or two euros of additional charges. But you know when they informed her? They sent her an SMS on the 23rd, so just a few days ago, saying that in the next month she would have a two-euro increase.

[00:22:00] Filip Popovic: And they said, “By the contract, we have this right. Prices went up.” That is their excuse, right? But when you have a 15-year customer, you treat them the same as someone who joined half a year ago. That new customer will most likely leave for another company once they have paid off their phone, because that is what happens every 12 or 24 months — they switch to a new operator when they buy a new phone.

[00:22:31] Filip Popovic: For me, this was confirmation that, in this case, they do not understand what loyalty means, or how to treat different customer segments. There are people you should approach more carefully, not that you cannot touch them, obviously, but at least be smart about how you handle them. For example, offer them something else, invite them to call, or use any other approach than just sending a cold SMS saying, “Guess what? Your contract allows us to charge you two more euros.” I mean, it is two euros, it is nothing.

[00:23:14] Steve MacDonald: So this gets into the next line of conversation we want to have here: how does leveraging technology impact the customer experience? Smart technology means even if something like that happens and a call comes in, the agent should be empowered to say, “Hey, this is a customer we have had a 15-year relationship with. I am going to do whatever I can to make them happy.” They should have the authority to say, “Let me just get rid of that couple of euros. You have been with us a long time, and we love having you here.”

[00:23:46] Steve MacDonald: How do technology and agent empowerment, human in the loop as they say, come together to solve issues like the one you just described?

[00:24:08] Filip Popovic: That is such an important point, by the way, because everyone gets scared of AI, thinking it is going to steal our jobs. Maybe one day AI will become like a human, I do not know, I am not an expert in that area. But I still have never experienced, either as a consumer or when talking to companies that have these tools, AI showing the same empathy a human can.

[00:24:39] Filip Popovic: As consumers, we are more demanding than ever. For the same thousand customers or the same thousand transactions, you start receiving more and more calls, emails, short messages, and so on. So we need to at least use AI to sort out those transactional, emotionless queries like “Where is my balance?” “Where is my order?” and then let the knowledgeable, experienced human team handle situations like the one you are talking about.

[00:25:00] Filip Popovic: You empower them to do exactly what you are saying: give them the credit and the ability to make things right.

[00:25:24] Filip Popovic: No. But then you are 15 years with us, as an anniversary gift, I am ready to get rid of it next year. Next year it is already a present, so you already communicate from now, we come to this point. We might get rid of it again, but in a year from now, we come to this point, it is communicated. However, we give you a new gift. And this, I am not so confident that AI can handle that quickly.

[00:25:55] Filip Popovic: In the near future, I mean, I would love to see that, but I am not sure if that would be handled. But what AI can help us with is quickly bringing this data, like she has been with us 15 years, and then even sending a notification: the tone of voice of this consumer is not the most positive one.

[00:26:18] Filip Popovic: What can you do to help her or him become more positive? So if it gives you that note, your agent is immediately pushed to become more polite, because sometimes in a discussion you cannot clearly understand as much as tools can. Yes, right? If this is a very polite discussion or a positive or negative one, or where it is heading, not to mention that our calls must be recorded.

[00:26:46] Filip Popovic: So you can even realize, you can have a recorded voice of that thread, and from that, understand whether they are excited or angry. As an example, I have seen a lot of tools already being developed where the agent is immediately getting a signal if this is a cold conversation, a positive one, an exciting one, or one to be worried about, so they can switch.

[00:27:11] Filip Popovic: But I have also seen some bots with a bit of opportunity where you put them in the profile of the conversation, and they can do so. Even bots can do some voiceover, being more positive, being natural, being cold. You can order this. You can even order, like, “Okay, for a box, you do not need to be too excited about where my box is.” You cannot start being excited, “Oh, you know, we lost your box.” That would be horrible. You should be colder there. But if there are different types of questions, you might be more excited, even announcing, “Okay, I am not ready to sort this out, can I forward you to our agent Emma?” And then that might be with empowerment and with some excitement, because we give them another level of service.

[00:27:56] Filip Popovic: So AI is, from my perspective, here to help us be much smarter. Because in the market, there are a lot of companies competing, and we must be much smarter than we used to be every day. Yeah, every day you are competing against your service from the last day, or the month before, or the year before.

[00:28:18] Filip Popovic: Because if you are not giving better services and not getting smarter in a conversation, basically it is just becoming a boring conversation, a boring call center, and a boring company as well, because the call center is the front face of the company.

[00:28:33] Steve MacDonald: Absolutely. And you know, we all train our agents to take a negative situation, which typically most are when they call in, and turn it into a positive.

[00:28:44] Steve MacDonald: Going back to the 15 years, like, very negative situation with that call, right? But if you just recognized, “Wow, you have been with us, I just want to recognize you have been with us for 15 years, thank you. I do not know if anybody has said that to you lately, thank you.” Right? All of a sudden you have diffused the situation. And just give a couple euros back, you have turned, boom, negative to positive and maintained loyalty. Right? That is a KPI. AI can track the sentiment of how it started and how it ended, right?

[00:29:02] Steve MacDonald: We can create KPIs that we track, how many conversations went from negative to positive. And so there is so much, the point here that I think you were making is leveraging technology to create an experience center and not just a contact center is at the crux of what kind of strategy the folks that are listening today have to employ. But there is so much out there, right?

[00:29:30] Steve MacDonald: It is hard, like, we know we need to embrace AI, but how? And I would love to just ask you, as you are looking at all these technologies and you are able on, right? You have got people clamoring to help you, I am sure, and you have looked at tons and tons of technologies. How do you think about it?

[00:29:51] Steve MacDonald: Or a suggestion to the audience that is listening here today, what are the two or three things that you could suggest to say: “If you are starting down this path, here is a couple of tips I have for you.” What would those be?

[00:30:08] Filip Popovic: First of all, we must be sure what we are looking for. Yeah, because if you do not, there are various technologies. There are amazing companies out there, but not every one of these technology companies fits your need, basically. So you have to be sure what you are looking for. That is why, even in our tendering process, we have a step before observing the market where we invite providers and give them a chance to present themselves, like what they believe they can do for us.

[00:30:41] Filip Popovic: Yeah, and for me, this is an enabler for any company to understand what they need. So instead of jumping immediately on what I need, we do this pre-step of understanding what is out there. They are very smart companies. They are in a sales pitch. They will propose to you what they believe will work for you, and then your combined knowledge, your thinking of what you need and those discussions, that is when you really know what you need.

[00:31:00] Filip Popovic: But that is not the end of the story because when you are sure what you need, then you need to choose the company. Because when you are clear on what you need, there will be at least five companies that could help you in that. At least five. There are plenty of amazing companies working in this area, so you have to select one of the five. From my perspective, then you should be selecting a partner, whom you will partner with, rather than who just presents to you well. So I would even count a bit on trust, on synergies, on the vibe happening between the two companies.

[00:31:49] Steve MacDonald: Yeah.

[00:31:49] Filip Popovic: Because they might be an amazing technology company, but at the end, they cannot convert on what we were thinking, or vice versa, we might be just boring to them. “Oh, we have this solution and that is it. We do not produce anything else for you.” So actually, in step two, you choose the partner. And when you choose the partner to work with, you have to let them know your priorities.

[00:32:17] Filip Popovic: It is their area. It is us approving spend, timeframe, and all other things, but it is their area of expertise. It is them knowing better. We have to trust them. They know better, they are in this field. We ask them for help. They cannot design for us something that, actually, I mean, they can, but it might be three times more expensive just because of our imagination of how the process should look versus an off-the-shelf ready solution or adjustable solution for us.

[00:32:53] Filip Popovic: So we have to let them do their job, which means proposing the right fit of tools for us, even the steps. You might tell them, “My biggest issue is, I am making it up, delivery. What can I do to automate those calls?” but not how. Yeah, it is them deciding what should be connected with what, how the knowledge base should look like. Is it bots answering? Is it only chatting? Is it voice, or what? Because we have to trust those partners in their own field and their own experience. And let me put a challenge on the table: if we know how, we will not need them, right, for example?

[00:33:47] Filip Popovic: It is them, yes. And instead of us putting in additional effort for discovering what, we anyway pay them to deliver for us something. So give them that task to deliver for you what they were actually selling to us through the sales pitch.

[00:33:57] Steve MacDonald: In other words, do not treat them like a vendor. Treat them as a partner.

[00:34:01] Filip Popovic: Exactly.

[00:34:01] Steve MacDonald: That is a great takeaway. You know, I actually have one last question, and it is a question that I hope has a 30- to 45-second answer, but it is going to be the hardest question I have asked yet.

[00:34:15] Steve MacDonald: So here is the question. We have covered so much territory here. If there was one takeaway that you wanted your peer community that is watching this podcast today to take away, what would that one thing be?

[00:34:32] Filip Popovic: You just mentioned that vendors are partners.

[00:34:35] Steve MacDonald: Yep.

[00:34:36] Filip Popovic: And they are. If you have just a vendor, you better look for a partner the next day. If you feel, because again, amazing companies, you just do not match at one moment and that is completely fine.

[00:34:50] Filip Popovic: We are professionals. We have to close the doors properly because in the upcoming period, those might be open again. Yeah. But the key point is, if you are working with your partner, it is a partner. It is your team. Yeah. So what I believe is actually we have to treat each other as the same thing, because sales pitch, revenue deals, who earns what from whom…

[00:35:00] Filip Popovic: That is done the moment we sign a contract. That is done. There is no more competing from that moment. You are one team, and you should take care of them equally as anyone within your organization.

[00:35:41] Filip Popovic: Treat them with respect, as a real partner. From my perspective, and I really make an effort for this, I do know our partners. I know all the colleagues we work with, and from my perspective, I am free to ask my team member or a partner’s team member almost the same question the same day, no hidden agenda, because the contract was signed long ago. No competing.

[00:36:01] Filip Popovic: It is not an invoicing moment, it is nothing like that. We have to work for the upcoming few years to make that partnership better. From my perspective, if I feel treated like that, that is my signal it is the right partner. If I feel treated just as a revenue generator for someone else, it is not my partner.

[00:36:23] Filip Popovic: And that is completely fine because companies have different approaches. I just do not become a loyal customer, and that is completely fair. They choose that strategy, and I have my choices. For me, it is fair play, honestly speaking.

[00:36:39] Steve MacDonald: Well, I have to tell you, this has been so full of fresh perspectives, on how we should rethink from our partnership, to how we generate revenue, how we advocate for ourselves, how we put the voice of the customer at the forefront, and not just rely on the tickets, talking to the 90% instead of the 10%.

[00:37:00] Steve MacDonald: The mission of this podcast is to bring different perspectives and insights together. If we can do that, that is the rising tide that lifts all boats and helps the entire industry. I think you were an incredibly important part of that rising tide today, so I just wanted to say thank you for coming on.

[00:37:18] Filip Popovic: That is amazing. Thanks a lot, Steve. Thanks for the invitation. I am so empowered by being your guest again. I am looking forward to peer connections and any other forum or discussion where we can exchange ideas, because there is no 100% right opinion.

[00:37:41] Filip Popovic: It is just like when we keep challenging each other and stretching ourselves to be better, if we are moving in the right direction. Some of us might be too fast, which is not good. Some of us might be too slow, which is also not good. But when we start discussing with each other, it gives balance, because the right thing at the right time is the best decision at that moment.

[00:37:58] Filip Popovic: So I really enjoy listening to other podcasts, and I look forward to being connected with peers on these topics.