What Are the Systemic Cracks in Our CX Foundation?

Transcript

[00:00:01] Steve MacDonald: Welcome everyone to the contact center perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host today. I guarantee we will have a very enlightening, energetic conversation. We’re here with Sarah Caminiti. Now, Sarah, you’re the head of customer support and service for the whole U.S. for Abcam.

[00:00:17] Steve MacDonald: I will let you talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but we will be talking today about the systemic cracks in our CX foundation. What are those cracks? Why are they important? How do they impact growth? How do we solve these?

[00:00:43] Steve MacDonald: And so, I know—as a fellow podcaster to another—that we learn every single time we talk to somebody, don’t we? With that introduction, I’d love to have you explain a little bit more about your background before we get started.

[00:00:56] Sarah Caminiti: Yeah. Thank you so much; I’m so excited to be here. I have been in and around the CX space for close to 20 years—specifically building and scaling startups for their CX teams and in SaaS environments as well. My time at Abcam is a little bit of a break out of my norm. I moved into biotech, and that has been a wonderful, eye‑opening experience of how different types of companies and organizations approach the customer experience. But one thing remains the same, and that is the customer. It’s been great to be reminded that the people we interact with are the same, no matter what the product is on the other end.

[00:01:43] Steve MacDonald: It’s a good way to think about it. They’re not numbers. These people are just trying to get things done and need help—they just want to be treated as a person. I love that. Just to get us started here—the very first question: How do you identify these systemic cracks, as you’re calling them, in the CX foundation?

[00:01:59] Steve MacDonald: Like, if you could break that apart, the whole idea, I’d love just to say how important I think that you have this topic of our CX foundation and why we need this. I have always heard back to a McKinsey report in 2023, in which they looked at over 400 different, highly profitable companies across B2B and B2C that had the greatest return on shareholder value.

[00:02:22] Steve MacDonald: And they found that the biggest differentiator. All those companies with CX— that’s how important it is. So, I’m going to turn it over to you from there. And, like, the idea of these systemic cracks in this foundation: what are they?

[00:02:35] Sarah Caminiti: Yes. So, as consumers, we all understand the feelings we get when we interact with brands. When we use our money to support these brands, do we feel valued? Do we feel heard? Are our questions answered? Are we able to self‑service when we want to self‑service? All of these things matter.

[00:02:52] Sarah Caminiti: When you have that great experience, it ends up turning you into a brand loyalist. But as for the cracks, these cracks exist because, for so long, customer experience was considered to be something that anybody could do. It took no skill. There was no real data that you could pull from it.

[00:03:13] Sarah Caminiti: There was no value for the bottom line. There was no true connection between the quality of the experience and the return on investment, for you’ve got your investors and your VCs who are paying attention. It’s just that you pay attention to sales, you pay attention to marketing, you pay attention to product, but CX was always considered this—less than you don’t need to put money into it. You want to try and put as little money as you can into it, and it shows.

[00:03:47] Steve MacDonald: Yeah. The idea that you’re a cost center—and one of the biggest cost centers in the business. So, certainly, from the board level on down, we’re going to have our KPIs around cost and how we’re going to reduce those costs, and that’s going to drive the goals and the way that customer support is even thought about and implemented.

[00:04:02] Steve MacDonald: And it puts us down a rabbit hole that takes us so far away from what we know to be true, which is: we’re one of the biggest drivers of growth in the business. So, tell me a little bit—there are issues like lack of budget control, power dynamics, and more—that everyone on this podcast would agree with. But the thing is, what do we do about it? If we don’t understand those underlying factors, then we don’t even know where to start in terms of how to fix it. So, what are some of those underlying factors?

[00:04:33] Sarah Caminiti: How many hours do you have, Steve? We need to start at the very beginning—and that beginning is the foundation. One of the sad truths is that most companies do not begin with someone experienced in customer experience when they’re building their processes, strategies, and plans for the future. Usually, founders say, “I can do it,” meaning they want to connect with the customer. Still, they’re missing that critical piece: a founder having a conversation with a customer is very different from someone who is experienced in the nuances of customer experience and how they would approach that conversation. And so, from day one, you have leaders of companies saying not only that this is something that anyone can do—because they’ve never done customer experience and yet are going to go and do all of these things—but also that they can do it while they’re the CEO of a company, while they’re also building things with the developers, while they’re doing all of these things. It’s not something that requires time, effort, and skill. So, that’s day one, even if that’s something that no one acknowledges—because I really don’t think people do acknowledge it since it’s so normal—you’re basically saying that the customer is not valued enough for us to invest in how we treat them and how we communicate with them from the very beginning. And then that tells your staff, “Hey, we don’t really need somebody to do this. Somebody just hops in there. Anybody can do this. It’s fine.” And so, when they later hire that leader to clean up all of these messes and start to build what should have been built months, sometimes years ago, that person is already considered as someone who is not equal to other senior leaders because everybody’s already been doing this—and they’ve been fine.

[00:06:31] Sarah Caminiti: It’s fine. So, the power dynamic from day one is that you’re unimportant. We just hired you out of desperation. We’re going to give you a lot of KPIs you don’t have any control over, but it makes sense for you to own them, and then we’re going to continue on our way.

[00:06:58] Steve MacDonald: What a horrible way to build this ecosystem within your company, and how that impacts the customer.

[00:07:06] Steve MacDonald: So, I think to solve this, we have to start by connecting the dots—how does CX impact the growth of the business? Because all the perceptions, all the challenges—everything that you just said—would flip on a dime if people believed that it impacted the business’s long-term growth. So, what are your thoughts on this, and can you connect that to those dots for us here?

[00:07:34] Sarah Caminiti: Let’s connect a lot of dots here, Steve. So, from the beginning, if you hire someone who is a CX foundational architect, they are then put in a position where they connect the data from the customer to each piece of business decision. How many times have we all worked in companies where all of these product decisions and all these marketing decisions had zero to do with the feedback you were getting from customers? And each time you would bring them up, you’re met with, “Can we work on this? We’ve got too much tech debt. We can’t do that.” It’s an ongoing circle of no’s. So, you have to start connecting these dots from day one—or have a reset if you’re past day one—and say, “I’m going to be better, and I’m going to listen to the customer.”

[00:08:28] Sarah Caminiti: The only goal of this company is to listen to the customers and build and serve them to the best of our ability. That’s not saying, “Go build things that some Joe Schmo claimed were a pipe dream,” like when he went on a tangent about wanting all these refunds. No. Identify who your ICP is; lock that in, but allow it to evolve because sometimes your product will fit a niche market you never intended and that’s not a bad thing. Embrace that. See if this is something you want to explore; allow them to be in your space. Always be listening, and you do so by collecting data—which exists in these customer interactions. And yes, we want to make it so that people don’t have to reach out to support.

[00:09:22] Sarah Caminiti: Yes, you’re getting a particular situation when people reach out, but it is so much more telling and valuable than those folks who complete those NPS or CSAT surveys because you are touching actual customers in a moment when they’re struggling. How you choose to approach and help them is how they will feel about your company and your products. Over and over again, that connects to the bottom line because churn will happen every time someone has a bad interaction with support or their product—and they’re repeatedly saying, “Why isn’t this fixed?”

[00:10:10] Sarah Caminiti: Why isn’t this fixed? This is broken. And we keep saying, “I’m sorry. It’s not in the pipeline. It’s not in the pipeline. Look elsewhere.” If they’re going to tell their friends, “Don’t waste your time here,” it just grows and grows.

[00:10:24] Steve MacDonald: It’s interesting because a single bad customer experience can create churn. That’s all it takes. We all know that but especially in the SaaS world—where people ending their free trials, for example, are calling in and asking questions—this is one of their first real interactions with what the company will be like.

[00:10:39] Steve MacDonald: So, conversions are an important part of growth, and then, in the middle, there’s cross‑selling and upselling—and a very, very sales‑oriented function that the contact center, that customer support, has in the business and there’s not one company out there—and if you can find one, I’d love to interview them—that literally doesn’t say, “We don’t want to be a customer‑centric company. We don’t want to be a customer‑focused company. We want to make all the decisions on our own.” And, by the way, I’ve been a SaaS founder before, so I know what it’s like to make all those product and roadmap decisions.

[00:11:19] Steve MacDonald: This is what we want to do—“Oh, this is what we think is a good idea.” But the fact is if we can get our leaders to agree that being a customer‑centric, customer‑driven, customer‑obsessed company is our path to success and we say, “Would you want to know a little bit about all these thousands and thousands of interactions we’re having with our customers?” then there isn’t a leader out there who will say, “No, I don’t.” So, it’s incumbent upon us: how do we translate that? There is a story to be told from all those thousands of interactions that has to be said, prioritized, and summarized so that the different departments and leadership get it.

[00:12:06] Steve MacDonald: That is an art. So, once again, back to what you said about not just anybody can do this, how important is that translation of what we’re learning to the different departments and into leadership? And what’s your philosophy on how to get that done? How do you do that right?

[00:12:26] Sarah Caminiti: I think this is one of those times when saying “it takes two to tango” really is valuable to acknowledge because it’s been disappointing to see so many narratives in the CX world portraying it as the CX leader’s fault. Why is no one paying attention to the data they’re sharing? They’re doing it wrong. They’re approaching things wrong. The reality is that we have built our careers in a space where we never had a voice. And now we are taking control of that and being loud about it. But every company operates differently, and it is the responsibility of every other department—if they do not feel the information is presented in a way that makes sense to them to say, “This is a helpful way for me to absorb this information. Next time, let’s work together so that all the information that makes sense is there for us to move forward.”

[00:14:00] Sarah Caminiti: So much of the work involves the CX person pouring their heart and soul into figuring out what these people need. You do sessions with your mentor, read all these books, listen to podcasts that tell you what you need to do, and give it to them, and then they never invite you back. They don’t tell you why. They might say, “You’re just bringing us solutions. You need to come about this as a problem.” It is horrible to get feedback from someone who should technically be your peer in most situations, an on‑paper equal yet you are not treated with the same respect. Then it’s, “Oh, you just don’t get it. You don’t get it.” Then, the value of your input keeps getting lower and lower—not because you did anything wrong but because no one values you enough in your position to allow you to use this information well within the company.

[00:15:05] Steve MacDonald: I had an interview with a Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator advisor, and she said that one of the most powerful things inside any organization is the voice of the customer and as I’m listening to you talk, I’m taking this because customer support is the voice of the customer as a service to the rest of the company.

[00:15:37] Steve MacDonald: If you thought about it that way—as leaders—over our careers, we’ve all been in meetings where people look at their watches, not knowing why they’re there, doodling on their scratch pads. But if you talk about something that makes sense, something that will help them dramatically, all of a sudden, you get people’s attention. So, part of this is, I think, as I’m hearing you talk, that we have to take our rightful seat at the table. Yes, we have to earn it, but if we sit in that seat and have something important to say, and we tell the story well, then we’re going to get invited back.

[00:16:20] Steve MacDonald: And they’re going to make a seat at the table for us. So, one of the things, after talking to lots of leaders in the industry, is that we have to get better at having our bit of self‑confidence in who we are and what we’re doing.

[00:16:35] Sarah Caminiti: Yes. That’s it. That’s right there. I think one of the things is that I’ve had a very transformative year; 2024 was an incredible year for me, and one of the things I took away from it, which has just changed my life, is realizing that I have been entering jobs while “kissing the ring” every time. I’m so grateful that you took a chance on me.

[00:17:01] Sarah Caminiti: I’m so grateful for this opportunity, and by entering into a job, in a head‑of position, a VP position, with that kind of mentality, you have automatically cemented the power dynamic of “I am not worthy of this.” But you have given me this gift, and I owe my career to the gift you gave me and you’ve diminished all of your accomplishments by doing it that way.

[00:17:33] Sarah Caminiti: When I was interviewing at Abcam, I decided to own my worth. I figured out how to articulate my value and own my worth. Once I did that, I saw how different you are on your first day, in your first week, in your interactions with others because from the beginning, you have not been second‑guessing what you say nor downplaying your accomplishments.

[00:18:07] Sarah Caminiti: No, I went into my interviews and said, “These are the things that need to be fixed. This is how I would approach it. We will struggle with these things because this actually makes no sense.” And I was considered the authority I am, so I started having these great conversations from the beginning.

[00:18:25] Sarah Caminiti: You’re so right, Steve. We have been pushed down. Our career self-confidence and self-worth have been devalued because we are told that we’re replaceable—and yet we’re not. We are skilled. We have so much value. We prove that value daily, and we need to own it. And if we’re going to be in a place that won’t appreciate that, then we’re not in the right place—we need to find another space. That’s if we own our worth, advocate for the customer, and build a team we’re proud of—and that our customers feel, too—but are met with nothing on the other side: no opportunity to collaborate, slammed doors, no invites. You keep asking yourself, “Why?” over and over in circles, and the answer is always: they don’t value me enough, they don’t value my sufficient team, and they don’t value the customer enough to respect me and my position within this company or compensate me enough to be equal among my peers. You have to be empowered to get to that space.

[00:19:55] Steve MacDonald: So you mentioned something that is another incredible key. You mentioned creating the right team, and we spent a lot of time discussing what we, as customer leaders, need to do and the right place we need to take. But we all know as leaders that we’re only as good as the team around us. So, tell me a little about the kind of team you think is key to the solution for these systemic cracks in the CX foundation.

[00:20:26] Sarah Caminiti: I love that you asked this. I had a call yesterday with someone I adore, and she asked me about hiring. We discussed team building and the skills you must look for when building your teams. I think it plays a big role in the amount of money you have—what your budget is—for the type of professionals you can invite into your space. And if you can hire well, you will hire folks who have been around for a while and understand the nuances of the CX space. By that, I mean they know how to do the due diligence to verify all those random things you must ascertain before initiating a conversation with a customer. They understand how to structure their responses so that the customer feels safe to ask more questions—but you’ve already given them more than they realized they needed without being overwhelming. How you structure your conversation with the customer is a skill that takes so much practice and work.

[00:21:39] Sarah Caminiti: Sometimes, you just don’t have it—and that’s okay. That’s why this is such a specific career path for people. But you also need to have people who understand data and root cause analysis and who can spot things—and that comes with years of being in this space.

[00:22:04] Sarah Caminiti: I have a very large team now, and efficiency and optimization do make or break you. If you’ve got a team of 15 and half of them can do in two days what the other half take much longer to accomplish—and you’re trying so hard to make all of this work—you’re spending so much time away from the actual gold mine you’re sitting on. You could probably get the same result with seven very skilled professionals who can fly through tasks, analyze, pass the torch, do things async, build documentation, delegate, incorporate other business areas, and build relationships and bridges. You need team members who are an extension of you because you are not expected to know everything. So, hire people who fill the gaps and make you stronger.

[00:23:09] Steve MacDonald: You mentioned earlier that it’s hard to get the proper budget to build a team, but being an advocate for yourself is a big part of that. If you haven’t told the story of how important you are to the rest of the business—how you interact with and impact all departments and long‑term growth—why would you get more money?

[00:23:30] Steve MacDonald: So, a role and a responsibility must be part of every CX leader’s job description. I’ve got to be a good internal salesperson. I’ve got to be an outstanding internal advocate because of your perceptions; the money will not come flowing your way automatically. When sales ask for more money, everybody’s listening, everybody’s like, “Okay, come on.” But that team you’re talking about is so important, and not everyone has the luxury of having a team of 15. Some people have a lot more, but some are making do with a team of two or three—and you can do a lot with even a little. You don’t have to show massive support across all departments simultaneously. Pick a mountain to climb; pick an area where you and your team can make a big difference right now, demonstrate success, and say, “Wouldn’t it be great if we did that again and again and again—in this way, and in this way, and in this way?”

[00:24:31] Steve MacDonald: So, I mean, if you had to say, “Yes, I want to wear the advocate hat,” what are the things that an advocate—a salesperson—needs to think about? What is it that you’re selling? What are you supporting? You’re changing perceptions. You’ve been very articulate about what those perceptions are. What is it that you’re selling?

[00:24:50] Steve MacDonald: You’re a salesperson now.

[00:24:51] Sarah Caminiti: Yes, and I think it’s essential as an internal salesperson to remember that you must take all the feelings out of everything. You have to stick with the data, and you must learn to use that data in a way that makes sense in many different contexts. One key way I’ve seen a real impact from using data to advocate for growing a team or driving product changes is that I started tracking who helped the customer and who else was involved in resolving the interaction. Did they have to ask someone in engineering a question?

[00:25:35] Sarah Caminiti: Okay—how long did that take? Was there a lot of back and forth? Then, they had to update a document because they realized it wasn’t current, and they needed to make sure it was accurate moving forward. How much time was spent doing that? You start building real scenarios: for example, “Because I do not have the support I need from product, we spent 30,000 over the last year helping people solve this one issue.” It’s because I don’t have the staff I need, or the tools I need, that I have to manually do this myself as VP of something to solve the problem—and that equates to a certain amount of money and impact on the customer experience. Then you can prove it. Something wonderful that happened in one of my roles was that, over my tenure, CX was the number one reason why people renewed their subscriptions. They’d say over and over, “This was a premium product.” There were many other options out there. There were waves that crashed occasionally, but people stuck around because they knew that this was a space where we wanted them to be successful. That was because I built a team that understood how to make them successful—and then we built, manually, many tools to help us navigate that success. To be a good advocate, you have to be obsessed with data.

[00:27:25] Steve MacDonald: All those things, conversions on trials, upsells, cross‑sells, re‑signing up for subscriptions repeatedly, lifetime value, are all KPIs that leaders look at. So, as an advocate, you’ve got to know your audience.

[00:27:43] Steve MacDonald: If you’re selling to an audience, what do they care about? The number one rule in sales and marketing is knowing your audience, understanding what’s important to them, and speaking their language. They will say, “I had no idea Sarah was such an astute business person.”

[00:27:58] Sarah Caminiti: Yes, you have to make it count. I think that’s one of those things that goes back to empowerment, Steve —if this is something you’re going to commit to within your organization, you can’t go halfway and just dip your toes in, because it’s all about that first impression.

[00:28:14] Sarah Caminiti: So, even if you haven’t felt comfortable or confident enough to lean into and share your data, it’s essential to remember that when you do decide to do it, take your time. Check it out, make sure you’re presenting it in a way you’re proud of, and ensure you understand how people will absorb it and what questions they might ask. Because if you go into a room and present something you just threw together—because you were excited after listening to this podcast—and then you can’t answer the questions, that’s bad data. Suddenly, you’re no longer seen as an authority on the data, and they can’t really trust that what you’re sharing is accurate or valuable. So, understand the data before you take that leap. Once you do, you’ll fight a little bit harder because one of the key things about being an advocate for the customer, for your team, and for yourself is knowing that what you’re saying is valid. You have to know that this is the truth and that it’s worth fighting for. So, if you’re entering these spaces saying, “This bug we’ve had for so long is causing customers to churn. It’s forcing my team to spend this much time coming up with workarounds. This is nuts,” and they’re still saying, “We don’t have the time for it; it’s not in the pipeline; we don’t think it’s valuable enough,” then you need to go back and come up with a better way to present that data. You can’t just say, “Okay, I’ll move on to the next thing.” You’ve got to fight.

[00:30:10] Steve MacDonald: I love that. I can feel the fight in you.

[00:30:12] Steve MacDonald: So, we’ve talked about a lot—and our poor human brains can’t retain too much in one sitting. What would it be if there was one takeaway you wanted other CS and CX leaders to get from this podcast?

[00:30:29] Sarah Caminiti: You are much more valuable than you give yourself credit. Just be proud of what you’re doing because what you’re doing matters.

[00:30:39] Steve MacDonald: Oh, I love that. I love that. It’s such a great way to end this. I know people are going to have questions. Would it be appropriate to give out a link to your LinkedIn profile so that people could reach out and ask questions?

[00:30:48] Sarah Caminiti: Yes. Please find me on LinkedIn. And if you’re part of the CX community, join Elevate CX. It’s a Slack community, but we also do events on LinkedIn. We do a bunch of great things to empower leaders within CX. As Steve mentioned earlier, I also have a podcast. Season one was titled “Epical Growth,” where we celebrated great leaders doing great things in and around CX. Season two is in the same vein, but a little more focused—because I have a chance now to focus on it—and it’s going to be called “The Retention Strategist,” where we take all these great leaders and everything they’re doing and tie it to the bottom line. After all, that’s how we drive change.

[00:31:41] Steve MacDonald: I love it. Thank you, Sarah, for coming on, sharing, and making us feel good about who we are and what we’re doing. I love it.

[00:31:49] Sarah Caminiti: I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for not only inviting me but also for being open to this conversation. I know that some of this stuff is a little taboo, but if we’re quiet about it, nothing’s going to change. So, I really appreciate you.