Committing to CX at All Levels of the Organization with H&R Block

So here you have this program where you've heard sentiment, people are giving you feedback you've put out. This email says, we heard you. Thank you, or this is what we're working on. Reach out to me if you want. Then how do you bring that back into those offices to that person who's sitting there filing my taxes tonight when.

I sit down with you.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Account Experience podcast. And today we welcome a great customer of ours, HR Block Canada. In this episode, Kerry and I talked to Hilary Zaharco. She's the Vice President of marketing, as well as Carla Listino. She's the Client Experience Manager at H and R Block Canada.

In this episode, we dive deep into.

H and R Block's commitment to the client experience and how this has impacted their business. They even have an experience council, which is a really cool concept you won't want to miss. So get ready for a great conversation with loads of tactical takeaways.

Without further ado, let's dive on in. Welcome, ladies.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Glad to be here.

So we're really excited to have you on. You guys have been a client full disclosure of customer gauge for a couple years now, and you guys are doing some amazing things in your program. And Kerry, I know you're a huge fan of H and R Block, so we're excited about this one.

Yeah. Every time I hear these two speak and the story and what they're doing get really excited. So having both of you on today, I think we've all been looking forward to this.

And look, I want to cut to.

The chase real faster and get it out of the way, because I think it's the obvious question that everyone's going to be thinking in their head. Taxes, Really? I mean, I think that ranks in the list of not so exciting things that we do. But, you know, I wanted to raise the question when he and I were preparing for this, and it was the first question that came to us. What are you guys doing with your Experience program that is making this more enjoyable or better for your clients? What's the differentiator with your program?

Well, I don't know if enjoyable is a great association of taxes, but I will tell you that we certainly try to make our client Experiences customers comfortable as possible for our clients. So one of the incentives we offer our clients during this time is cash back. So we think that's that brings our clients in through our doors, and it's an incentive to get them to do taxes. And of course, our staff is a Huge. Our tax associates and experts are a huge part of this. They offer a positive experience and empathetic one to our clients, and I think that plays a huge role in our. In our client journey.

As someone who's had to do this process multiple times in my life, I'll tell you. Yeah, you always thought you didn't have options, and I think we're all starting to realize there's a lot more competition.

And options out there.

And the differentiator is how I feel when I'm in the middle of it and when I'm done with it. And again, I'm excited about spending some time with you guys today and digging.

Into that a little deeper.

Yeah, same with us, Kerry. Thank you.

I'm actually a H and R Block customer, so I can definitely attest to getting my taxes done in the H and R Block franchise or the actual locations. And it is as painless as possible for getting your taxes done. So I do want to give you guys props and taking a step back. So, Hillary, let's start with you. So you're VP of marketing at H and R Block. I'm a marketer. So how does the experience program land in the marketing department? So this is one thing that we've always discussed in the show. Where should it live? Who owns it? And you own it as a marketer. So I'm really curious, how do you come in the experience program?

Well, I think it is a great question, because where should it go? I don't have oversight or I don't oversee the front line in our company. That belongs to operations. So does client experience belong in the operations? We've talked about that. I don't oversee finance, thank God. But they oversee all of our pricing, which is a big part of our client experience. I don't oversee products and services, but the products and services that we offer play a big role in client experience. So what I do play a large role in, though, is our brand and brand management and making sure that that experience is cohesive from the ads you see to the experience you have when you walk through the door. So I believe that's why a lot of people have it aligned under marketing. The other thing is that operations will tell you that they're client focused, and they are, but they are really focused on the tax associates and the associate experience. And clients are sort of secondary, which makes sense. They have thousands of employees, so marketing is a bit more removed from that and can be a bit more objective about the client experience. Say, you know, this is what we're Seeing this is what needs to be worked on and you know, let's, let's not worry about somebody who's working too long or too many hours to deliver that. Then operations comes in with that perspective and you sort of battle it out and come to probably the right conclusion.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, so you're working hand in hand with operations. It sounds like to implement the program in certain areas. Areas of the business.

Yeah, you have to.

Yeah, yeah. Are there any other departments that kind of the experience program does kind of spill into? Obviously the front line, but anything else that kind of comes to mind as far as you guys running this experience program?

Well, yeah, like I mentioned, finance runs pricing, which is a big, big part of client experience. Products and services have their various products and how they client experiences through those. Our DIY team has a lot of ux, so how the user experiences through that. So it almost touches every single department. And that's something that Carla and I are very aware of and think is important. We don't actually want to control everything. It doesn't make sense for us to control everything. We just want to make sure that we're responsible for reporting results and helping create a master plan to sort of guide those different departments and what they should be focusing in on.

Yeah, I love that perspective of it too. And the fact that it touches all departments, that's something that, you know, again, a lot of companies struggle with that. They think it should be put into one or two and stay there, stay in your lane. I've heard recently it's like no, all lanes, which, which is great. So Carla, in the spirit of the same question, then, as you know, being that client experience manager and being a little bit closer to the day to day operations, what does your role look like? What does that mean to do that day to day?

Well, I'm definitely the voice of the customer for the organization. I know. Kerry, you and I have had conversations where I think you know the passion that I have, and Hillary knows this too. I bring passion and empathy and I've been a client of H and R block for over 23 years. So I get it. I know what it's like to be a customer and be on the other side, but I'm really the bridge, I bridge that gap between the customer and the brand. And a lot of my job is really collecting data. So by collecting that data I can then share the trends and insights and also working with cross sections of the business, as Hillary was just saying. So it's my job to really, whether it's product or services or learning or training, it's my role to really take that data and find those trends and contentious points that our clients share with us and really deliver it to our operational units or our business units to see where we can improve, where we can improve there. So it's really making recommendations back to the business to say, hey, our clients are saying this, maybe we can do this, you know, And I don't tell them how to do it. I just share the insights and the leaders will run with the execution of it. But really my job is really just bridging that gap client to business. And I have a lot of fun with it. Actually.

I'm glad you brought up the passion part. As somebody who's had the same role and knows it, sometimes passion is what gets you to the next day. You know, you gotta, you gotta lock onto what's important and share that. So it's interesting. I know we're dive into a little bit deeper and talk about your program, but you know, what vehicles are you using? You're talking about that voice of the customer and collecting that data and getting that information back. But I'm curious, is there any vehicles or is there any ways you're delivering this message back to the front line, to the offices that they can help their clients out with?

So when we talk about how do we fulfill that strategy to our business? So what I've done is I collect by collecting that data. I create weekly scorecards for our leaders. So that's from Customer Gauge primarily because that's where we get the majority of our insights from. I also do a scorecard with Google Insights and with our call center. So I take a collection of all that data and I show year to year trends. I show week over week trends as well. And with that program that's offered by Customer Gauge, I've also developed an email campaign to our clients. So we've taken the promoters, the passives and the detractors and we hear what they're saying. We want them to know that we're listening to them. And by doing that, I've developed this email campaign where we send a blast of emails to our promoters to say, hey, thanks, we appreciate this and this is what we're doing. I do the same with our passives and our detractors. So this is something new that we've done with the drivers or the opportunity drivers we see from Customer Gauge and where we can take that to another level. Another thing I really want to mention is we have a client experience Council within H and R block. And within the council, we have tax associates, we have tax pros, we have, you know, the customer service leads. Who are the receptionists at. Which is I call it. And I know, Kerry, you and I have had this discussion, but they're the face of our brand, you know, so we have frontline workers, we have leaders, we have regional directors, we have vice presidents like Hillary on the board and. Or on the council. And what we do is we share best practice. But it's my role to go into that client experience meeting that I lead with all of the opportunities that we have within our business to make improvements. So that's really what I do, is I capitalize on that data that I get, and those are vehicles that take us to the place we're trying to get.

And I think just you mentioned you sent out an email, which is actually coincidentally the thing that we saw, Customer Gauge. And we're like, oh, my God, this is so well done. It had a picture of you, had the logo. It was really tastefully done. And it put a human face to the mechanism of feedback from your clients. And I think that was just such a good example of giving your customers an update on the feedback that they gave, which was really cool.

And actually, just to add to that further, this email comes directly from myself, so the clients have the opportunity to reach right back out. And I've had a few responses come through. It's not outrageous, the amount of responses, but we started small because we didn't want to send this email out to thousands and thousands of customers. And then that would be. My entire role is responding back to these clients. So we started small. We started with a couple hundred for each sentiment, and the open rate was well over 65%. So we know the clients are opening the emails.

Yeah, that's crazy. And Hilary, just taking a step back here, what kind of impact has this had on H and R Block? I mean, it sounds like you guys are doing some amazing things. You're collecting feedback, you're monitoring the brand. What's been the impact?

Well, I think from a culture point of view, the impact has been that it's actually on the forefront of a lot of people's minds. So now that it's being measured that there's a plan for it, that we have somebody in the role of client experience, that we have a client experience council, which almost every department at our head office, as well as all the field members that Carla mentioned sit on. There's a real awareness and passion for it. Excuse me. So as part of our culture, I feel like it's moved much more top of mind. People ask the question now or don't feel threatened when the question is asked, well, how is this going to impact the client? I know this benefits our bottom line, but how is it going to impact the client? And then, you know, we have to sort of rethink about it from, well, this won't actually be a good client experience. Maybe we need to do some more work on this. So I would say that's been the biggest impact. I will say, though, is definitely still a journey. And it is not like everyone comes to the table and they're like, how are we going to make our clients lives better every single day? You know, there still is a little bit of tension there and a little bit of puts and takes, but it is much, much better than it ever has been.

Wait a minute. Everyone's not bought in? Come on now.

No, no, it's not that everyone's not bought in. It's just, you know, when the rubber hits the road, they get a little more bought out.

Sometimes even our own organization, this is what we talk about. And yeah, there's just. I liked what you said also about just taking the focus off the bottom line and giving it back to the client. And that's really hard for a lot of organizations, especially when you have shareholders or you have investors or you have. You're so worried about the appearance and the profitability of an organization. Everyone's always looking at that, did we make money? And I think people forget where that money is coming from and who we should be serving. And I just find this fascinating because it's. Again, I'll go back to my first question. Like, taxes, we gotta do them. It's like, you know, let's just hope someone does a good job. And, you know, I'm not in trouble six months down and get a letter from the government. But you guys have taken it a step further. You truly said, you know, like, how do you want this to look? And we hear you and we want to respond. I mean, and Ian's right. That email that came through and we saw Carla's example, we were all kind of like, that's brave. That's not even a good idea. That's just brave to go back and do that. And I think that's kind of one of those operational things that you put in place that we just don't. We're still buzzing and talking about that. We're showing that to other, like, hey, this. Let me just tell you what one of our customers is doing, you should do something like that. And it's like, you really are out there. And it sounds simple in theory, but, you know, I think it's a very brave thing that you guys have done with that. And, you know, so let me ask this question for me. How do you then bring that back to. So here you have this program where you've heard sentiment, people are giving you feedback, you've put out. This email says, we heard you, thank you, or this is what we're working on. Reach out to me if you want. Then how do you bring that back into those offices to that person who's sitting there filing my taxes tonight when I sit down with them?

So I want to start off to say we have thousands of Frontline employees, thousands across the country, and this is during tax season, because we are a seasonal business. We are open year round, and we do have a lot of regular tax associates, but we also have a surge in our. In our volumes, obviously, and we need to staff up accordingly. So it's not always easy to deliver a message to our associates when they're starting tax season. So tax season is from February to April in a normal tax season. So when these frontline, these poor associates start, they're being fed information through a fire hose, and we don't want to choke them with all this information. And so what we do is we start preseason. So before that surge or that rush, we already start to deliver what those trends were, what they are, what our clients have been saying about the previous tax season, and we collect all that information beforehand. One of the great things we did with some of the client information we received or client insights we received last season, I went through all the great text analytics that customer gauge offers. I used that platform, but I also used manual search of client comments, and the drivers also helped support this. But what I did is I identified the 12 areas of improvement where our clients were saying almost the exact same thing. So I took what those 12, what those 12 items were. So what I did is I created videos. So I created 12 tip videos that we call them client experience videos. And they're 90 to two minutes long. And it's just me talking like this as you see me on the screen. And I'm talking about, this is what our clients are telling us, and this is what we can do to improve the experience. So we're delivering one tax tip video per week. Every Monday morning. The associates get it. Our open rate for that has been extraordinary. It's been impressive to see how the engagement thus far. This Monday I delivered the second video, but we also created a PDF version of that tip so if someone isn't able to listen to it, at least they can print it off and put it on their desk and basically they're very soft skills. You know, how do we communicate with our clients? You know, the welcoming into into our business. So we really took those opportunities and we turned them into something engaging for associates out in the field. And we feel that it's not always easy to force change, but we can certainly influence it and encourage it. I decided to use my charisma and do these videos to influence what the associates how they feel about that experience and just turn it around a little bit. We don't know what the results of those videos are just yet, but we hope to see a trend in our drivers, our contribution to the NPS score, and obviously in the comments we see from the field.

So I'm glad you brought that up.

Because we're going to play that clip now. No, I'm kidding.

No.

This episode of the Account Experience Podcast is sponsored by CustomerGage, the leading B2B account experience software that has revenue to your experience data in real time to help you make better account centric decisions that drive revenue growth. Quick question. What do you guys think is the number one reason B2B experience programs fail? Believe it or not, it's lack of C suite buy. In CustomerGage's research with MIT, they've found the quickest way to align yourselves with the C suite is to actually align with what they care about most, which is revenue. That's why Customer Gauge is literally building built from the ground up to maximize and track the revenue contribution from your experience program in real time. Companies like dhl, Anheuser Busch, Heineken, uh, yeah, we get a good amount of free bear1login. Iron Mountain, H&R Block, SuperOffice and Sugar CRM are already using Customer Gauge to maximize their growth by tying their programs to revenue. And with over $10 billion worth of account revenue actively being managed and Customer Gauge, yeah, that's billion with a B, they're the leader in the space. But maybe even more interesting, they found that once you get alignment with that C suite, the needs of these B2B practitioners or the program champions are evolving too. In such a complex account environment, it can be really tough to measure and act on feedback quickly across multiple departments, divisions or even locations. Luckily, Customer Gauge has you covered there as well with account native features that help you not only measure the feedback from multiple stakeholders in an account, but act on that feedback in real time. Because at the end of the day, if you're not empowering your frontline staff with the right insights to address customer issues, you're going to be dealing with the churn issue. It's not a matter of if. It's really a matter of when. Customer Gauge helps you distribute this experience data across your entire organization, regardless of department or regardless of location, regardless of division, all in real time. No manual spreadsheets or a team of analysts are needed. Customer Gauge's mission is to help B2B companies harness the power of account centric growth to drive meaningful change in their businesses. And that's a powerful thing. If you want to see Customer Gauge in action, go ahead and check out CustomerGage.com and get a demo of account experience today. You won't regret it.

I do think a good thing that Carla does is, you know, for instance, if it's around pricing like, you know, we have training that says make sure you always quote the client upfront. And I think that's a good piece of training. But let's get into the nuances of how. How do you deliver that in a way that's a much better client experience. So she has an analogy that she uses about when you go to the mechanic and the mechanic says, okay, it's going to cost you, you know, 60 bucks for your oil change. And then they go into your car and they say, do you want me to check your air filter? Do you want me to do this? Do you want me to top up your windshield wiper fluid? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? And so you say, yes. And you're feeling like you're getting all these additional things that they're doing because they're telling you what they're doing. And at the end, they go over everything that they did. Here's what I did for you. I've improved your car XYZ, and now your bill is $120, which is not the 60 you were quoted, but you were upsold the whole way, and you feel really good about how much care you had put into it. So really kind of breaking it down and using analogies that some of our tax associates understand and then how they can deliver the same type of price quote. That's just one example, but I think that that's what she's done a really good job of.

This reminds me of we just talked to Zoom Info a couple weeks ago, and the episode name was Training to Retaining. And I Love your example because it takes feedback directly from customers and you guys are forming a training program around that feedback to hopefully impact the drivers, which is, it's just so well done. Again, I want to compliment you guys that, that is hard to do, especially for a company of H and R block candidate size. But it's. I know it's gonna have an impact because training. And I'm sure Kerry's gonna pipe in here. Training is one of the most impactful things you can do at an organization, especially when you have a ton of frontline employees. Kerry, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, and I have actually seen a couple of these. I did get a little peek and it's just so inspirational because as someone who's A, done it, but B, trying to help other companies find channels and I think we always think we have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to impact change. And really what Carla's done so beautifully here is she's put herself on a two minute video. And I know I made that sound a lot easier than it was, Carlos, So I don't want to understand how hard work it was. But she took real feedback from real drivers. She ranked them and said, these are the things that can make enough of a difference that could help our business. And it might not make the difference the first time they come, and maybe it will, maybe it won't, but they'll leave with that in their mind. They'll know there's no other place to go next year. Or let's say I do get. I run into an issue in September and I need extra help. I remembered the help I got there and I'll come back to that. And it's the things that I think a lot of companies just assume we're just hiring good people. They should know how to do this already. They should know how to do this. They should know how to do this. And your customers are screaming, they're not doing this. They're not doing this. And it's just really refreshing to have someone who gets on, who's excited and passionate about it and delivers real advice that I can apply immediately to. Yeah, it's not this vision, no offense, marketers on this, on this podcast, but it's not this long term mission or goal. It's right now I can wrap my head around it and do something with it. That's why I love it so much.

Starbucks does a great job of that. They really train down to the nuances of the customer experience and how to do that. They do a wonderful job with that. Anyone who going to get a vanilla latte in the morning, you feel you're greeted. It's enthusiastic. I worked at Starbucks when I was much younger, and, you know, that was drilled into. You didn't feel like reading. You were still like, hi, how's it going?

There's a. There's a joke in the Northeast about, like, the difference between going to a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts, where literally Starbucks is like, hey, good morning. Here's your coffee. And Dunkin Donuts is like, what do you want again?

Like, why are you here?

It's like the complete opposite. But it makes a difference. It really, really does. And, you know, when you take that seriously, people remember the feeling you gave them when they enter your store or. You know what I mean? It's.

That's so much about client experience. There are, you know, I think we try from our perspective, to take things that are tangible, but, you know, you're really trying to teach and train on intangible things. And so how you make those, you know, actionable is where the work is, and it doesn't work for everyone. And it's not a perfect system. But I think at least you can say, well, you know, we got 80% of people improving. The other 20% are just grumpy.

And one of the things that I do want to all those 12 tips are soft skills. And we don't talk about, you know, selling products or we don't talk about a process in itself. We talk about the human soft skills. I think the experience is so emotional for a lot of people, especially with taxes. They could owe a lot of money, they could get a lot of money back, and it's how we make them feel. I think we really wanted to communicate the importance of the human feeling of it. Unfortunately for me, by fault, empathy is strong for me, and I'm sensitive to that. But I think just infusing a little bit of that into the client experience, and that's what those tips are about, is, you know, how do we make someone feel important and taken care of? And it's not just about a transaction. And this is where Hillary's grand, You know, she says it's not about the transaction. We need to transform that experience. And that's part of our strategy is to actually transform it. And I think it's so important to say, you know, first, for all of the years I've been in client experiences, we need to infuse that soft skill and that empathy and that passion in our experience, in our journey with our client. And I think if we remove that empathy out, we see terrible results. And it's about, you know, taking the kindness and the humane side of things back into that experience. And that's what excites me, is trying to infuse that within the business recommendations that we do have. And that's what the 12 tips are. It's very much the soft skills of it.

I know you guys said you just started. I did want to bring this up because I do have a little bit of inside information here, but you might not have been able to see the impact yet on, let's say surveys or sales or statistics, but you have started to get some feedback. Is that right, Carla? Like, you've got some responses from what you sent out already?

From what I heard, yeah.

So I've received associates, I've had several associates respond to me. I've had some leaders out in the field, good or bad. They're sharing some information, more good than bad. But I'm getting some great feedback. And these tax experts, they're saying, hey, I watched your video. This is great. Can you add this tip in for the next round of tips? Right? And it's like, and they're great ideas. Like, it's, it's generating a lot of conversation. I think it's something new for the organization. And I love the engagement, good or bad. Like, I do like it. Like, I think it's, it's a good place to start. And I, I think if we can make that part of the culture where we can share these great ideas and then share them abroad, you know, like, it's, it's a great idea, I think.

Visibility wise too, in the organization. So creating buy in for the program internally and just going back to the marketing piece and having the experience program live under marketing. Usually marketers, not to toot our own horns, but are some of the better ones at internal marketing. Because we have to do that. We have to spread the, you know, what we're sending out for campaigns and what we're doing and all that stuff. So, I mean, it is really interesting that we have both of you on the call because I feel like between Hillary as the VP of marketing and Carla, you're the experienced manager running the day to day, you can spread your reach of that program pretty far. And that tip example you just gave is a great way of kind of making sure everybody knows these are the tips that we get. Do you call out the fact that it's directly from customer feedback? Because that's really interesting too, or is it?

Yeah, we do yeah, it's really cool. Yeah. No, and I think it's important for tax associates to know that, you know, it's just not us sitting in an ivory tower coming up with them. This is really the voice of the client and what they are saying about us. And it's not all bad. In fact, our top four drivers that we are seeking to improve are also the ones that, when we do well, are the ones that we just excel at. So sometimes it's doing just more of what we're good at. You know, it's not always correcting behavior. Sometimes it's just doubling down on what's working.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I think, where you see the real impacts in the business, too. If you double down on what you're good at, you usually do see a big jump in your bottom line because that's what you're strong, and that has a huge impact. So, Kerry, just back to the video tip. This is, I would say, one of the better best practices we've seen from podcast guests. Would you not agree with that?

Yeah, no.

Again, I don't want to undersell the.

Work that went into it, but the simplicity of saying, we're getting this feedback here. Here's a tip around that. It kind of is full circle. It's literally dropping that voice of that customer into someone's lap where they can make a change to bedrooms or to celebrate something they're already good at. I think some of these people read this and go, well, I'm already doing that. And it works. Carla's talking about it, and I think it's that double down. But I think it's practical. It's something that anyone could do. Listen, four of us are on cameras right now. It's something that's very real time that we can do. It doesn't have to have a super high production quality, although Carla's dead. But, you know, we can deliver these.

We're also stuck at home, so this is the only way we can get it done.

Exactly.

But they connected, and I think, yeah, for sure it works. And I think people get frozen in their traps. Cause they think it's either a lot of money, a lot of effort, or people won't receive it. And I think it's the opposite. I think you have an army of people out there who believe in that vision and what you guys are working on. So I think the frontline's the easiest group to actually impact and buy into. I think it's the department sometimes that we work horizontally from our peers. We're getting buy in from them sometimes a little. Cause they're on their track and we're on our tracks. And I guess that's a transition. That's the question I would really love to ask. I don't want to throw any departments under the bus or anything, but I mean, how are you using your program to impact sideways into these other departments? Is there some things, Hillary, that you're doing to say, look, I want to share this with you, share this with you. Here's some insights. What does that look like at your level?

So I think one of the things that helps with understanding right from the beginning is there is someone, as I mentioned, from almost each department on our client Experience Council. So then they, they're playing, you know, an important role in the company. It's, you know, part of their sort of job description for that, those couple of years that they're on it and they're, you know, coming to meetings and seeing firsthand, you know, what are we talking about, why is this important and getting that feedback. They're also listening then to tax associates, to the front desk workers, to the franchisees and they're hearing directly from them about well that's not going to work because of this. So I think that that awareness building helps right away. The second thing is that Carla and I wrote a three year strategic plan of how we want to help transform client experience in our organization. And we shared that with the executive team and then we built it in step with operations and then so making sure they were on board before we started sharing it around. And then we shared it with the executive team as I mentioned. And then Carla did what we call block talks. So they're about an hour every six weeks that a different person from different departments goes on and talks about to a wide audience about what they're working on. And so she shared her strategy on that as well. And it's not a one and done. And I wish I could tell you we shared that last year. You don't remember? It's not, it's an ongoing education with various departments as to what we're doing and the impact that it is having. And then Carla really mentioned, she does the scorecard and she shares that out with various departments who are impacted, maybe less regularly with some of the programs that we have because we might take three months till we get enough feedback that warrants a scorecard on some of those programs. But with the operations team that goes out every single week, it goes president just cc'd on it. So he sees that. So it's really those three areas kind of help just create a normalcy around client experience to have those conversations.

I think, you know, Ian brought up the tips being a really great piece of feedback for people to take and use. But this council idea, and it's even, it even gives us more vocabulary. We're constantly saying, now what are you gonna do with all that feedback? How are you gonna get it to everyone in the organization? And when I heard you guys talk about this last year and the council and just who's representative of it, what a way to bring everybody literally together, share that message and then talk about things. So let me ask this, is this like a guiding council? Do they make big business decisions? Do they go back to your departments, say you're trying to roll something out? Are they like your.

Yeah, they're a guiding council for sure.

Okay.

And it is funny because, you know, sometimes we've had a couple people have been on the council, been around for about three years, so we thought sometimes there's a little bit of apathy and we thought, you know what, we're going to shake it up. We've had some of these people for a while and we need some fresh blood on this council to make sure that A, people have an opportunity to rotate through sort of a prestigious council in our company and B, we get fresh ideas. And so Carla sent out like, hey, guys, you know, a couple of you, you know, individually, she did it very, in a very lovely Carla way and let them know that, you know, did they want to kind of stay on because they've been on for quite a while and maybe it was time for something new. And again, she said it much nicer than I just did there. And people were really upset. They were like, I need at least a year's notice before I can leave this council. Like, I love this. It's great. So we're like, okay. People really love it. All right. We just, you know, we are going to set some terms, but we'll do it more efficiently and we'll give you a 12 month notice that this is your last term.

Yeah.

I mean, paint this picture because, you.

Know, you go to ask anyone for.

Extra time or extra effort, they're resistant totally. And then on top of that, it's like, I've already got my own job and whatever the case may be, it's like. And you have the complete opposite happening here. It's just kind of like, no, I don't want to give this up. Are you kidding me?

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah.

It's a Soup. It's really engaging and it's a great meeting. Like, I feel a lot of energy in there and there's one thing we all have in common and that's the passion for the client's journey. There isn't anybody on that council. I think we're up to 18 people, Hillary.

Wow.

I think it's about 18. And each one of them represents a different business unit and level. So we get everyone's insight and we cannot make decisions without those key players. And I think everyone, everyone just loves the energy of it and they can actually be part of making a decision or running a pilot or a market test. We need everybody's insights or it's not going to work.

Yeah. What a great way to get buy in. I mean, that's genius. Definitely. You could see how you can get that feedback in, go to the council and kind of impact the overall departments. I think that's, that's a great way to do it, for sure.

Yeah, it's working so far, so.

So let's look to the future. Right, so you guys have been doing this program for a couple years now. You're getting amazing feedback. You're taking that feedback, creating the training videos, doing a bunch of different things to not only impact the frontline, but the business itself. Where do you guys want to go with this in the next couple years?

So we, and Carrie already knows this because we've already started conversations about the benefits of closing the loop. And we all know being in client experience, the number one or the golden rule, they say, if you're going to ask the client, you better be prepared to do something about it, you know, and I just feel the volume of responses that we do get from our clients. It's what we really struggle with right now is closing the loop with every single client at the volumes that we do see. And we just really want to understand what that benefit looks like. You know, if we do close the loop, how is that going to affect our top, you know, our profits, our retention, our loyalty? There's so many things we really want to look at and that's, that's part of it. So I will say this on this podcast, if anyone who's listening can tell me their success stories on closing the loop, please reach out. Please reach out. But I really. We already do close the loop with Google, so all of those reviews are responded to. We're starting to see our peak. I personally respond to those Google reviews and we have some method to the madness on how we manage it, but we have seen an increase in our Google ratings as well. We want to see where that takes us. Our NPS is on the up as well. I think we already had a really good NPS to start with. There's some really good things. We also want to create a client experience playbook. And that's one of the things we're working on. And it's part of our strategy, but it's really a tool we need to have for our field leaders to say, hey, if you see this in the field or you see these trends or the client is saying this, or your results are this, here's the next step, here's what we're going to do to help you. We want to offer all these resources and tools to our frontline associates, leaders and our district managers to be able to have the tools at their fingertips to be able to support some of the decisions they make out there and just to handle some performance management or whatever that looks like. But it's a tool we feel is going to empower the field as well. So really two things is closing the loop and the client experience playbook. Those are the two things we really want to work on moving forward.

And Carla's right, you know, looking at closing the loop, which from a theoretical point of view is an absolutely wonderful thing to do. But if we ask our district managers to go in and close thousands and thousands of tickets, what, what is the benefit? So does that mean that they spent all that time and energy and so their retention went up? Well, wonderful. That makes sense. What happens if they went in and did all of that? Nothing happened. Clients didn't care, Clients never saw the feedback. So that's what we're wrestling with is, you know, what is a theoretically an excellent idea? How is that, what is the practical application of that? You know, before we go and ask people to undertake a lot of work because we have our NPS's, like our Google reviews are much more manageable. Our NPS, we have hundreds of thousands.

Well, I'm saying this from a genuine place though. There's two people who can figure that.

Out and show the value.

I think it's you too. And think about what you've already done in three years. I mean, the build out of, you know, getting that counsel in place, tips to the field. You already have a semi closed loop in the email that you're putting out there. So I mean, you're already starting to take some of those steps and you're seeing some of those results. And I think continuing to make those connections, I think you guys know what you need to do now, it's waiting for tax season to end, so you can start doing them, but getting over that little hump. But again, I just love hearing your story. And it's because it's one of these industries where we think, why is service important and why is the experience important? How does it impact the bottom line? And I think you guys are connecting those dots with some really great ideas, too.

Yeah. And I think closing the loop is one of those things. You're right. You guys are dealing with a large volume.

Right.

Hundreds of thousands of responses. But I think if, like, we've always told our clients that if you close the loop and you tie it to, like, a referral activity of some kind, you will get additional business out of it. Customers will remember it. I know it's. We've done some research with MIT that ties it to retention gains, but I get it. It's a big commitment on your side, but we're not gonna jump in.

We'll probably do like a proof of concept, and we'll take a smaller segment and try it that way first before we go guns a blazing with everything.

Exactly. Yeah. I'd be really curious. What about you, Hilary? Anything big on your horizon for the experience program in 2021 and beyond?

Yeah, we have some internal digital transformation that we're doing that I really want client Experience. Experience to play a larger role in as we think towards the future. And, you know, I know that digital transformation is what every company is going through, but making sure that that client experience doesn't get lost in the voice of the client, doesn't get lost in that. And it's not all. You know, I think it's really important that our associates benefit from it. But, you know, there also needs to be a customer benefit from that as well. And what does that look like and how is that being considered as they develop it?

Yeah, I think a lot of our clients are wrapping the experience into a digital transformation as well. So that's definitely very, very popular. But it's also for good reason because you don't want to shift a lot of your business processes without losing sight of the customer. So I think that's definitely a smart way to go. Kerry, any closing thoughts?

No.

Again, I'm so happy they have two hearts above them because. Because I crush on you guys all the time and how you're doing it. So if anyone's listening and not watching, look for a clip. You'll see the heart, what I'm talking about. But, yeah, I think you guys hit A couple of things. I mean, the passion. I mean, at the end of the day, are you passionate about the client, the person that you're doing this all for? And what you guys have not lost sight of is who's doing it. And you guys are really empowering that Frontline. And it's just. It really is inspirational. I think if you guys have a day where you're just feeling down or a little beat up or is this having an impact, know that it is. It really. It really is making a difference, and.

We just need to come on this show and feel good about it. You're doing a great job.

Every week at this time.

It's definitely those days. We get down on it.

Standing meeting, but we're a fan for.

A reason, and we don't. We don't just invite anybody on here, you know, so we love these things, stories. And look, we all learn from it. Carla's screaming for help, so call to action, guys. You know, let's.

Let's. Let's.

Let's rally together and create this community and get some help. But in the same token, in the same breath, you guys have a lot of inspiration for us, too, and we're going to carry that forward also.

I definitely echo that. We're super impressed by everything we see from you guys. Again, that email kicked off this whole conversation because we're just blown away by that. So we're glad we got you guys on this thing. Carla and Hillary, thank you so much for joining us in the Account Experience podcast. Thank you to everybody for listening, and we'll. We'll talk to you soon.

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thanks, guys.