Experience MythBusters Pt 2 w/ Trishaala Chengappa, VP of Product @ CustomerGauge

If the choice is about understanding what your customers think of you versus something else, for me, knowing what your customers think of what you offer is the most important thing. That's what makes them log in every day. That's what makes the usage, that's what makes the engagement, and that's what helps us improve.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Account Experience podcast. And today we have part two, Two of what we're calling Experience Mythbusters. In this episode, we're tearing down the remaining two experience myths, specifically the perceived effort needed to stand up a software investment for your experience program and prioritizing other programs ahead of your customer program. We're again lucky enough to be joined by Trishala Chengapa, our very own VP of Product at CustomerGage, to help us bust these myths. Let's dive right in. The next myth that we run into a lot is an interesting one, because I think when we're talking to prospects, this all seems very. It can seem very overwhelming, like, oh, my God, we have to do all these different things. There's, like, all of these different departments. We have to get up and up to speed. And the perceived effort needed to stand a program up or stand a software up seems very high. But. And we keep saying, like, in a perfect world, you could do all this, but we really recommend you start with this one small piece. So, Trish, maybe take a crack at busting this myth. Is it this monumental task to get a program up and running with, like, for example, Customer Gauge or some other software? Like, is it really, really hard? Maybe speak to your side of that?

So what we typically recommend customers to do is start small. If you want to get started but you don't have the resources or you don't want to make a big project out of it, start small, start with the top revenue customers, start collecting feedback. Don't let that portion get stalled, because you're here planning a big, perfect program that needs all of these resources to be bought in as well. It's important to have the C suite buy in, your CEO, the coo, the cfo. It's important to have C Suite buy in because that really resonates across the organization and makes it relevant to everybody across. But once you've got that, we can get customer gauge up and running for any customer within 24 hours. It comes out of the box with all of the settings that you would need to get going. But internally, we typically tell them, just start small, get your top revenue customers, start surveying, integrate with your CRM system and get going because once you start seeing that feedback come in, what customers are saying, the program will also organically start to take shape. In terms of now, let's expand it to this part of the business. Let's get customer success in, let's get support in, let's get product in. You don't need to have everything kind of ironed out and perfect. As Carey says right up in the beginning. It's important to also give some room for tweaks and changes based on what your customers are saying. You also need to kind of adapt to that process, also see how the organization kind of needs that cultural change that you're going to see when you get customer feedback in. Beaming all the time, real time. So for me, start small and grow from there.

Kerry, thoughts on that?

I was going to ask Trish.

So.

What do you see as some of the obstacles or the things that stalls out the effort at the beginning? If I'm putting you on the spot, I'm sorry, but I think off the top of your head, what do you think the theme is? Let's really bust this myth then because we get started with these programs and you and I both know because we're both heavily involved in this, in our current instance, I was a champion on the other side. And I'll tell you, as a customer gauge customer, you guys had me up and running pretty damn quick for a very what I would say complicated solution. Trish still tells stories about an all hands people rolling up their sleeves. So I mean that's where the people rally around the product and make it happen. And we've come light years since that. You know, my launch would have been much quicker if it was today and not, you know, three, four years ago. But I guess my question is, Trish, what are some of those obstacles or those things that are causing customers or our clients or people with programs to stall a little bit? What are they scared of? What are they? What's causing them to stumble a bit?

From what we've seen, sometimes something as simple as data can cause an obstacle. We don't have. Our data is not clean enough. The quality of data that you typically have against your customer is something that we've seen. Integrations, we need it. Teams buy in to integrate with the system. So you start to see some of these things around data and getting all connected up as being a part that people need to a hurdle. People need to kind of cross culture sometimes can become also an area that people need to work on. If teams are not geared or not looking towards, hey, this is an extra thing that I now need to do in my day to day part. I have enough on my plate already that mindset set change is really, really crucial. Like you said Kerry, it's not an extra thing you need to do. Customers and customer feedback is part and parcel of everyday kind of operation. So kind of taking away that kind of a mindset might be a challenge depending upon the organization. But once you've got that those two things sorted out, whether it's sending out the first emails and then tweaking it to make sure your email content gets better, or you've got your CEO writing a personalized message, these are things that you can build on top of the program, things that you can do to boost response rate to get visibility. You don't need to have everything perfect in the first go. If you're just looking to understand the health of your customer base, which is also something we tell our customers, just gauge the health of your customer base. If you've never done this before, then send out those surveys. We've got templates and recommended best practices that you can get started with. The drivers, the emails, the survey formats. You don't need to reinvent the wheel in that it's about just bringing simple data. Even if you don't have everything you might eventually want to look at to report on, that's okay because we can take on historical data afterwards. Just get started with things like accounts, account names, contacts at the different levels. Bring your top hundred customers and start understanding what that health is, which, which of your customers are safe or which ones are at risk and then close the loop there. And then you can use that as a base to also improve. And you can do that in, if you're a single implementation, like in one country, do it in one country. But if you want to start with five countries, that's also fine. But start standardize your program and then you can always tweak and change. And that's the great part. We are agile so we of course can add smaller improvements as you see. I think Ian also can talk to this with a B testing and things like that. So it's all about just making sure you can get to your end goal.

Well, the really thing, that thing that really stood out to me was and what you guys really helped me out with and it's why I became a fan and joined and wanted to be part of the team. But it's ironic, it's this chicken and egg situation, what comes first and you can't stall out or say we're not going to start until we're perfect. Because the whole purpose of this is to get closer to perfect. So you got to go through the motions to get better, but you can't be better to start the program. And it's, it's. I think it's. I hate to use the word again, but it's that fear. Like, wait, but if you said something at the beginning that I'm sure everyone cringe when they heard data. Don't let data stop you. And, you know, that's always the first argument I hear out of everyone's mouth. It's like, well, wait a minute. The data is dirty data. It's not clean. It's what? So, so let's clean it.

Let's.

Let's get it going and see what needs to be cleaned up. Maybe we're, we're worrying about something that's not even an issue at this point.

Yeah, I love that argument. I really. Especially as a marketer. Right, so, like, dirty data. Okay, so what you're telling me is that your marketing department is sending emails out every single day, every single week, but all of a sudden you can't send an email to a customer? If you have email addresses, that's really all you need to start. I mean, come on, if your marketing team is sending emails, you have what you need to start a program. I just, I get it. It's. It's. I think it's fear. Carrie. I think you nailed it. It's really just a fear of the unknown. Like, what happens once we send this. It's not really the root cause of what they're avoiding. It's. It's really what happens when we get this feedback and it's bad. I think that's a lot of people struggle with.

And Trish isn't even bragging what she's developed in the system. I mean, if we send out a batch of emails, we know if they've been delivered, we know if they've been open, we know what the engagement looks like. So your first send will clean up data out of the gate. You know, if you truly want this to be successful, a couple of bad emails or bad contacts is not going to stop you. It shouldn't. So, yeah, startup is really, I hate to say this, this sounds horrible. Unless it's a very, very, like, dynamic solution, which it's not. You can do some very, very easy things at the beginning. Most of it falls on a little bit of fear or, you know, there's a lack of whatever it is to get started. And Just go jump in.

Yeah, I think a great.

I think Gary actually called out a really great example of data. And something that's sprung to my mind is even when you put in data into Customer Gauge, we're able to tell, understand just from your revenue whether you've got enough contacts, which then means account managers can go away and also build those business relationships if they don't have enough contacts with that organization. This also helps you build out clean data. So if you've got not the right data, you're not talking to the right people. There's an exercise there as well. So part of the program helps you do that. So waiting to have perfect everything in order to get started is not necessary. We're kind of here to help also make sure that we can guide you through those steps and ultimately you can add any kind of additional information that you need to run phenomenal reports of it slicing and dicing. But to get customer feedback in, you just need the account name and the email address.

It really reminds me of the, the rollout Anheuser busch had. So AB&BEV, um, and our, our champion AB&BEV @ the time, Luis. I think he did what Trish, one. One country test, something like that. He started with one one country and did a, a small pocket of testing of getting feedback, talking to him. I think he. He did one small test and then basically took that data and brought it around the organization. So he made trips to the HQ in New York City and pitched the executive team. He did almost like it seemed like it was a world tour, if I remember talking to him about it, where he went to all of these different divisions and said, this is the feedback we got from this one thing. And he started small, but he did the rounds in the organization to sell everybody on. Look at the power that we have here, that if we did it across every division, every country, every touch point, look how this could transform our business. And ultimately, I think that's really what ended up happening is they rolled it out across multiple different countries, multiple different divisions. But it does really. I guess my point in telling this story is like start small because that is a really good place to start having the conversation internally. Right. So you have to get people bought in if you want to change that culture. Starting small, getting a little bit of feedback in and kind of putting it in everybody's face is a really great way to accomplish that, I think pretty quickly. Yeah. Kerry's nodding in agreement. I think he's probably done that too from the sounds of it.

Well, yeah, it was exactly what we did too. I mean, you have thousands of people you want to impact. You start with a small group, usually a group that's a little more prepared for it. But I think we can go down the list if I were to pull up our top big accounts. Like you went with one of the big ones too. But that was a big solution. But it's the same for if you're big or small. If we looked at the top 10, 20 of our of our current clients, I think all of them took a very similar approach. Let's start with this region, this section. Let's, let's just get started. It's kind of our philosophy. It's like, let's get that first survey out, then we can start building, then we can start continuing to integrate, whatever it might be. Let's get your activity timeline up, let's just see what's going on, and let's start punching things in after that. But yeah, I think it's safe, without a doubt. But it also gets you a way to get buy in from all those different departments and all those different people that are invested in this.

This episode of the Account Experience podcast is sponsored by CustomerGage, the leading B2B account experience software that ties 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 built from the ground up to maximize and track the revenue contribution from from your experience program in real time. Companies like dhl, Anheuser Busch, Heineken, uh, yeah, we get a good amount of FreeBear1 login. Iron Mountain, HR Block, SuperOffice and SugarCRM 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 in 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 easily help you not only measure the feedback from multiple stakeholders in an account, but 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, 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. So, okay, I think we've busted that myth too. So perceived effort, not that much. Get started, send a couple surveys, get that feedback in, kick it around. Trish, you said it yourself, 24 hours to basically four weeks, depending on complexity. And if anybody's onboarded software, four weeks really isn't that much time either. So pretty quick, low effort. But really the ultimate focus should be on getting that feedback in the business as quickly as possible. So our last point or our last myth to bust is prioritizing other projects over this project, which should be an experience project. And I think we all have very passionate answers about this one. So we've run into a couple different companies that are like, oh yeah, well, we got to get this other random social media monitoring thing up and running first or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And obviously we're an experienced company, so we feel very strongly that this is probably the most important thing any company can do. So Kerry, what are your thoughts on prioritizing other projects over getting feedback from customers?

I think this goes back to what I keep saying over and over again. Are you customer centric? Are you product centric? Are you. You know, at the end of the day, you can accelerate all your other projects and use. You can have as many arguments or as many reports as you want, but if the customer is attached to that, there's no argument. You win every argument in every debate or discussion. If you can simply say, yeah, but customers are saying this. And I've seen other projects stop in their tracks because of customer feedback and vice versa. I've seen projects take off or get extra Investment based on good sentiment and feedback and data. So yeah, prioritizing other. Again, I don't know what the other project is. Unless the building's on fire. Your priority is to put that out and get out of the building. But that's not a project. Right? That's reaction. And there are times where the building's on fire. I get it. But beyond that, if you're looking at growing, enhancing, you know, retaining customers, I couldn't see anything being more important or priority wise than a program, an account experience program that brings you their voice and their usage and their data to your fingertips.

Trish, what about your perspective on this one?

It's a tough one. It really depends on the two projects that you're comparing. But I'm with Kerry on this. If the choice is about understanding what your customers think of you versus something else, for me, as a product person, knowing what your customers think of what you offer is the most important thing. That's what makes them log in every day. That's what makes the usage, that's what makes the engagement, and that's what helps us improve. So with that many benefits, for me, understanding my customer experience is always more important than anything else.

So you would choose customer feedback over product analytics, like usage and all that stuff? As the VP of product.

I would. If you're a small company getting started, I would say your customer feedback is, is so vital and customers really help you shape and grow in areas that sometimes product analytics is really great to see it in terms of numbers, but that comment from a customer, that's like gold dust because sometimes you look at it and you're like, oh yeah, but in a product analytics it gives you a lot of important data, but this is very different. And putting yourself in front of your customer understanding, talking to them, it opens doors to have conversations with them. I think customer experience, understanding customer feedback, and using that to improve your business is crucial. And for me that's first. And that's what we did at Customer Gauge as well. We went customer experience first, drinking our own champagne, as we say, and product analytics next.

Yeah, and I think it goes back to our previous point too, is that it doesn't have to be that complex. Right. So it can be within 24 hours. You can give us a list or we could connect to your system, pull in the data, send a survey out. We don't even actually even have to send surveys out. Right. We can literally pull in the account data with the revenue. You can slice and dice using our crazy reporting. Again, we're speaking from our lens of customer gauge guys. So apologize if this seems like an ad. But I think it's, it's important to mention that, you know, it doesn't have to be. You don't necessarily have to decide. You should be able to do both. And we would almost even recommend that. To Kerry's point, if you're not focused on the customer, what are you doing? Like, if you're onboarding a CRM instead? I mean, is it really more important than understanding the frustrations of your customers or maybe finding those customers that are willing to shout your name at the top of a mountain somewhere? I'm not so sure. Carrie, what do you think?

Yeah, and I think, you know, I think it's what I was trying to say earlier is if there's these other projects that are this important, more important than the customer, you're maybe in reactive mode. You're maybe fixing something that's clearly broken or is causing you not to offer the best solution. And I think that falls into a different bucket that's like, okay, wait a minute, we might have to prioritize fixing a few things. Like right now, if I were to ask Trish, hey, Trish, none of our customers could log in versus sending a survey, she's going to say, wait a minute, Kerry, I need to let people log in. That's a much more important. But that's reactive. That's, you know, that, that has nothing to do with, am I listening to my customers? Am I, am I taking their information and making decisions on it? You know, everyone's. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't. And again, that's maybe why this is what I've done my whole life and why I'm so passionate about it. That's maybe it's why customer is in our company name. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's what we're attached to, but it's got to be at the center, at the core of the decision making process.

I said a little bit to what you said earlier as well. It also depends on what kind of project it is because sometimes getting your customer feedback in and using drivers can also help you steer in which projects to prioritize next. Should I be prioritizing fixing my support or my training material or adding more videos? So depending on the type of project you're putting against customer experience, sometimes this can clearly help you strategize which areas your customers are telling you you should focus on internally as well. And that's what Sometimes this can do for an organization and when you monetize it, you can also see from a revenue standpoint what's important for your high value customers, your entire customer base, and again prioritize the project based on which one's going to really make a difference to your customers. So depending on the project, there's really value in using your customer experience and feedback to help guide that internal strategy as well.

So Trish, what I'm hearing from you is, you know, in launching a program like this, getting it up and running as quick as you can and you used the word drivers, what is driving that sentiment from the customer? What's the reason they are loving us or hating us? And if you could categorize those into departments or touch points or the things that we do as a company that could start to guide us on where we spend our time with what we call projects. I guess we have to bust the myth that maybe customer experience, account experience is not a project, it's a necessity. It's at the core of what we do and what it will do. It will give you focus and direction on what product projects we should be working on. But, and I think that is so important, Trish, I love that you say it that way because knowing what drives that sentiment. And then the last thing you said we've been talking about and I think this is a miss too monetize it, take money and attach it to those things. If you are not adding a revenue metric or some type of currency to these drivers into these projects, you're not running a business. The business is running you and you. But you know, we run, we spend so much time on something that produces no return on investment and then we spend very little time on the thing that's driving the most investment return on that investment. So I think that's so important.

Yeah, completely agree with you, Kerry.

Same here, Same here. It's such a strong way to end. So I think maybe closing thoughts from Trish and we'll wrap this thing up. So Trish, thanks for being here. Anything to leave the audience with today.

Focus on customers. Really try it out. Just get started. Don't let the fear of feedback stop you because I know it does in many cases. I think we were scared at the beginning as well. Will customers love this? I think that's very common but I think you will quickly overcome it and just the feedback will help you really empower your teams to improve and you'll see that reaction back with your customers because when you listen to your customers you improve and then you feed that back to your customers about what you've done. You will see them recognize that. And that circle is really empowering across the board.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that's really what it's all about at the end of the day, is acting on that feedback and communicating it back and acting change for sure. So, Trish, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a blast. Thank you, Carrie, my co host, as always. And please guys like share with your friends, subscribe to the podcast and we'll see you all next time. Thank you again.

Thank you.

Sam.