Embracing customer experience in small companies with Jason S Bradshaw

As I think about ways to improve businesses, customer experience keeps coming up. So I wanted to talk to somebody who's an expert here, the best selling author of It's all about the Essential Guide to Customer and Employee Experience. Jason S. Bradshaw joins us on this bonus episode of the Business of Tech. Jason, thanks for joining me today.

It's absolutely great to be with you, Dave.

Let's start with the easy baselining. You've got kind of an interesting path to get where you got now. And I think it's always interesting not just to read a resume or a bio, but to hear from the person. Tell me a little bit about your journey along the way and how you got into customer experience.

Well, at 14 years of age, I wanted the latest and greatest computer. Now anyone who understands computers in the 90s would understand they're not. They were great for their time, but they certainly wouldn't be considered great today. But they came with these big price tags. You know, we complain about, you know, the cost of the next iPhone going up, but the reality is it's still a lot more affordable than it was buying a computer in the, in the late 90s. And so I decided to start my own business selling the exact stuff that I wanted to buy. And so at 14 years of age I started my first business and I was influenced by, you know, my mum and dad who were entrepreneurs and my grandparents. But at the really young age of 13, in fact, I started reading books by people like Tom Peters and Zig Ziglar around how you can purposely create an organization that delivers a better experience for customers. Now we use different terms back in the 90s, but ultimately we're talking about customer experience. And then, you know, I was lucky enough to get some media attention and then I went off and become a kid again in university, in college. And from that moment though, from those early days of 14, every single job I've done, even if customer wasn't in the title, improving the outcomes for customers and employees were the number one or number two goal of the role. You know, I was director of procurement transformation for Australia's second largest government organization and my entire job was about putting in government talk the citizen back into procurement. So three decades, or coming up to three decades of working with companies like Volkswagen Group and Target, either with them as an employee or as a consultant, helping them transform the way they work from a customer and employee experience lens and that's, you know, enable me to do great projects like a $36 million in sales in a brand new E commerce platform in Less than nine months. So, you know, this customer and employee experience track that I've been on has enabled me to, like I said, everything from procurement to sales, operations and E commerce.

Now I have to follow up on the asking here because our listeners are people delivering IT services and in some of them they actually still sell hardware. But you were selling computers in the late 90s when you could actually make money on it because there was margin during that time frame. Can you give us just a little bit more insight into what that business looked like? Were you selling at a markup? How were you generating cash in that resale business?

Yeah, so I had a very large bedroom, literally a very large bedroom. One half of it was my bedroom, the other half of it was my so called office. I had, you know, all the basics that you needed, including a fax machine because that was what you needed. And I was buying the hardware from a wholesaler in the next biggest city, assembling the hardware in most cases myself. You know, if I'm talking about a PC and then selling it at 100% markup. Now I think most people listening today would love the days of getting 100% markup on a, on a desktop computer. But because I was bootstrapped, like, you know, Mum and dad were very supportive but they, you know, it all came because they just wouldn't give me the money to go and buy what I wanted. Right. And so I would sell to you, Dave, and say, yes, you can get this fantastic computer. It's going to be more expensive than, you know, my competitor down the street. But you'll get better experience, you'll get better service. You can call me anytime if something goes wrong. And by the way, you need to pay in advance. And people would on the promise of it being better than what my competitors were doing. Because a lot of my competitors, they didn't understand it. You know, you'd walk in, yes, they'd have stuff you could play with there, but they literally wanted to do a transaction where I was, I get that this is new. I know a little bit more than you because I've been playing with it a little bit longer. So I'm going to be with you on the journey as you set it up and how you get used to it.

Well, in our parlance that is a value added reseller. And the experience you were adding was that resale experience. So you know, it that still exists in the market today, just not quite with the same margins. Now I want to bring it around here. Let's actually dive into the area you've spent a lot of time on, and that is this customer experience. Let's start with the basics. Define it. What do you define the customer experience as?

Yeah, so the customer experience is every touch point and every transaction that a consumer or a potential customer has with your brand. So you know, it's the first TV ad or the first letter or email campaign, it's the, you know, picking up the phone and speaking to the service desk, it's speaking to the sales agent. You know, the, the customer experience isn't just one transaction. It's that combination of each of those touch points that ultimately creates a memory. And then what do people do with memories? They either tell, they tell a story, they, they tell a story that it was a great experience or they tell a different story. And that different story can be, oh, they are terrible, don't do business with them, or they're average. And average doesn't win today. So we need to always be a slightly better than average. So customer experience, very simply put, is every interaction or transaction that an individual has with a brand, with an organization.

Okay, now help me separate this out from some of the other buzzwords in this space because we always talk about customer journeys or the SAL process or multi customer touch points. Like isn't it all the same thing or is this something else?

Look, really simply put, most of that stuff, and a lot of it is just busy work, but most of that stuff rolls up to actually make the customer experience. So you know, there are consultants out there that will say, if you want to improve the customer experience, let's do a journey map, which is laying out in a map type way, you know, each time a person touches the organization. So a lot of people say doing a journey map will help, you know, those opportunities to improve the experience. The sales process means it can be repeated, consistent, which impacts the customer experience. So it all ultimately rolls up into the customer experience. And those buzzwords, those, those different tools are exactly that. Tools that different people employ to try and move the needle forward.

Okay, let's try and simplify this a little bit down to the very basics. Particularly if you're talking with a company that's on the smaller side. A couple of your experiences are big multinational companies. They can put lots of big resources on this. But let's try and break it down to its core. If we're thinking about a business that's say 1, 2, $3 million in revenue, it's a smaller organization, probably somewhere in between 15 and 30 people, how do they need to think about working in.

Customer experience, it's a really simple question, where are you causing your customers pain? And once you know the answer to that question, and look, most organizations are going to have multiple answers to that question, even if they're, you know, even if you're a solopreneur and you say, so how do you cause someone pain? You know, there could be a list, a very long list. So the problem is, ask the question, you know, how do you, how do you cause customers pain? And then which one of those things? And hopefully you don't have a long list, but you know, which one of those things on your list causes the most pain, causes the most friction? Because if you can reduce that pain, especially the big audacious one that, you know, really gets on people's nerves, if you can reduce it or eliminate it, you have done more for your customers experience more for building repeat and referral business than spending millions of dollars on a new IT system.

Now, I'm sure you've got a great example, so help me out with this with sort of that good example of something that you've seen in tons of businesses over and over again, that would be a good example of that pain.

So I am going to use a multinational example here, Volkswagen Group. But the principles apply to any organization. So like any business, you know, how do we get more leads? How do we talk to more prospects? And when we took a layer back in that new car buying experience and said, well, what are the pain points? What is the data saying to us? And the data said to us that it wasn't actually the signing of the contract, handing over the cash or picking up the car that was creating the pain. It was the fear of discussing what the trade in value of my old car was going to be. So of all the steps in the process, that was the part that most customers feared the most. So what we did at Volkswagen was we created an opportunity for a customer to put into the website information about their vehicle and in real time get a range of what that car would be worth. So they still had to ultimately have a conversation with the dealership around, you know what they're going to get. But they could go into that dealership informed that cars like mine were worth between X and Y. That one step increased leads that requested a callback by 300% and completely changed the conversation and the experience in dealerships. And that piece of it worked was essentially connecting two SaaS products on a subscription model together and putting a customer lens on it. That is what I mean by trying to find pain that you can remove from a customer. Now, that didn't mean that 300% increase in leads led to a 300% increase in sales. But if you don't have the increase in leads, you don't get an increase in sales. Each of your customers or each of the people listening to this podcast will have customers where there's either a pain that they're causing or a pain in the process that they might be able to influence that will lead to, you know, a deeper engagement, you know, a greater conversation. And that's what I mean about how can you find the pain and reduce it?

Well, we do not lack for pain points in it. Oftentimes our customers are entirely feeling painful. Is this personalization? Because as I have dug into thinking about this and prepping to talk to you, and as I research this, one of the big trends I keep seeing is everyone talking about personalizing the customer experience more and more. And they've seen you even posted recently some data on the uptake of that. Is that an example of personalization and how are we personalizing customer experiences now?

Yeah, look, personalization has been a buzzword in the industry for as long as I've been alive. I think, you know, it's. If we can. There's this perception that if I can send Dave an email that talks specifically to everything that Dave likes and doesn't like, that I'm going to have a deeper relationship with Dave and Dave's going to spend more money with me. The reality, though, is to get to that point where I know so much about you that I can send an email that feels like an automated email, I should say, that feels like I know you and I'm listening and I'm caring and I'm adding value. I haven't met a company that's got the money or the willingness to spend the money to achieve that. And the reality is that if you get an email from Target, if you get an email from AT&T, your filter isn't automatically, oh, these guys are my best friends. Right. You know that there's a commercial relationship there. So I think personalization has its place, but not hyper personalization where it's, you know, I know everything about you, Dave, so it's like, I know you better than your mother. That level of personalization, in most industries, the investment doesn't deliver a return. What I would say, though, is if I know that you're an Android fan, you carry around the latest Samsung product or the latest Google Pixel, and you geek out on every Android fan site, there is then I should know that so that I don't send you stuff about Apple products because in that environment, I'm not adding value, I'm adding pain and friction to you. And I would say that we do that for our clients too, especially in the IT space. You know, I, you, you have someone reach out to you thinking, you know, that they're doing a good thing. Here's the five things we've done to improve our on prem solution for X. But you're sending it to a customer that only uses SAS products. Like, it's great, fantastic that you've done good work. But personalization, how I define it, means that you wouldn't send them that email because you're actually just adding pain and friction. You're not adding to the relationship. But if you know about that customer only using SaaS products, then the email communication should be around what great work you've done to optimize, you know, a small business's SaaS operations so that it actually is relevant. So for me, personalization doesn't need to get down to Dave's favorite color is black and he's an Android fanboy. And, and, and it's. Well, Dave likes Android and he is, you know, in this tech space. So he's probably going to be a little bit more interested in detailed stuff versus, you know, Mary or Adam that just buys the new phone when their contract expires. Right. So you don't, don't spend your money personalizing to the level that doesn't add any return on investment.

Well, the pain reduction angle is really interesting, but I want to ask, because you brought it up in sort of the brand emotional value. And while I agree with you that somebody like a target or something like, you know what you're getting into, people do have emotional responses to brands. And for example, in your case, you tried to peg me as an Android. I'm actually an Apple guy and I'm actually something of an Apple fanboy.

Right.

So I have an emotional response with the company. I would note that I'm like a Sonos fanboy too. They're a product that I do get a lot of enjoyment. From that perspective, how much is that portion of that emotional relationship of a brand related to what happens with customer experience?

It is 85 to 95% of it, because the customer experience, that is what's initially creating that value connection for you. I was on a Disney cruise ship early in September when Apple held their annual iPhone announcement event. I made sure I had wi fi in my cabin room. So I could watch the announcement and so I spent money to spend money. I understand. But, you know, the very first time most people buy a product, whether it be Apple or Android, they're not. They might be enthused by what they're buying because of the promises. It sells, right? It's going to be the latest, it's going to make me look cool, it's going to do all these things that the advertising tells me about and the media hype tells me about. But it's only when the customer experience delivers on that hype and continues to deliver on that hype that we start to build this emotional connection. So I would argue that the very first time you had an Apple, you know, your very first Apple purchase, it may have been exciting, but that it was the start of you becoming a fanboy, when every time they made a promise to you, the promise was met or exceeded. And then, you know, you invested more of your time and energy with them and again, you had success. So, you know, we get these emotional connections to brands, to people, when we see that we first of all can trust them, which happens through being consistently delivering on our promises, and then that the way that they operate and act reflects our values. Our friends typically are not completely opposed to everything we believe in. There may be some differences, but they're never completely opposed to it. And it's the same with the brands that we absolutely fan on because we've built trust over time. And by being associated to that brand, we see it as an extension of our values because they represent, you know, what we believe in.

Now, the examples we just brought up were big companies. So I want to say, like, how is it different for what I might call boutique, you know, boutique engagements, boutique brands, smaller companies. Is that experience different or not, and how so?

No, I think that it's. The path is the same, the opportunity is much greater the smaller you are because you tend to have more real relationships. You know, Apple's communication strategy is one to millions now. They're not thinking about influencing people in Pasadena, they're thinking about, how do I influence a nation to buy my products? And so when we get really focused on the niche that we serve and have more meaningful conversations because we really understand that niche, then we can create raving fans in a much more organic way, but also in a much deeper way, because again, the sheer size of the relationship is much more intimate than what someone like an Amazon can do. It's why when you go back to visit Mum and Dad and you're like, oh, I've Got to go to that bakery. Now, that bakery, even if that bakery is part of a multi store franchise, it's something about that bakery, the memories you had at that bakery, the owner that was being there since you were a five year old and mum or dad used to take you there for the donut. Right. So it's the same opportunity for small businesses, no matter what you're selling, is to create that real personal relationship in the niche that you serve.

So let me ask then, what do you think the minimum standard is now for this? Because it feels like this space has been ratcheting up. Where do you draw the line of it can't go below this?

Well, for me, and this is going to seem odd, the minimum line is doing what you say you're going to do consistently. There are so many organizations out there that say that they're the fastest, the best or the whatever and that might be true 1 out of 10 times. But people buy consistency, people buy frictionless experiences. So you know, the table stakes if you like, is doing what you say consistently, getting it right. That is absolutely the way just to keep people in this average mindset, you know. Yes, they do what they say they're going to do. I'll keep doing business with them because I trust that they're going to do something with me. What we want to do though is to elevate people so that they not only trust us but they're willing to say this is the place to outsource your it to. This is the place to do business with because they understand me. They deliver what they say they're going to do and then they find ways to create value.

And so what's the biggest mistake they often make? They get excited, they think they're going to work on this. And what's that biggest mistake they always make? Getting started.

Most organizations think the pathway to delivering a raving fan is to under promise and over deliver. Now if you're five guys and you're giving people a few extra fries, then that probably is a good thing. You know, not too many people are going to argue about getting a few of their few extra favorite fries. But if you're selling a fire truck for example, and you tell someone that's going to arrive on July 1st, but it actually turns up on May 1st, well that can be disastrous because maybe the fire company had to build an extension to their building to be able to house the fire truck. Maybe they haven't hired the people to be able to, you know, the extra people to actually put that fire truck to use. Maybe they haven't disposed of the old one. You know, it's an extreme example, but by over delivering on our promise and not communicating, you know, shifts and things, that in itself can create pain. You know, if suddenly I've got this big truck that I have nowhere to park, that's a pain point that could have been avoided if I delivered on my promise that it was going to be delivered on the 1st of July. So don't look for ways to over deliver. Look for ways to deliver consistently first and then add value.

That's an interesting take because oftentimes you do hear that mantra of under deliver, over. Sorry, under promise, over deliver. And that's a way to do this. So how may I then tie this back to the business?

We were talking a little bit before.

We came on about financial incentives and tying execution of this to goals or bonuses. Is that the right strategy? How should they tie? Tie it to the metrics to make it happen?

Yeah. So Forrester did some great research a few years back that showed that those organizations that paid a bonus for achieving a particular customer experience score actually didn't improve the customer experience. Yes, they got the score, but they didn't improve the experience in a long term sustainable way. And, and in a way that was organic to the organization. So you'd say to hey Dave, I, you know, can you stay back five minutes to help me meet this customer need? No, that's your problem. I don't get a bonus. You get a bonus for it. So it's your problem. Or you know, I've already got my bonus because I've got my score. And so it wasn't creating the right culture the way that I would encourage organizations to look at it. And I'm not, you know, I've worked in organizations that have had large bonuses attached to customer scores and all sorts of scores. What I would encourage organizations to do is if you're going to bonus it, that you make it a long term bonus. So you know, it triggers after three consistent years because you don't want people to be able to game the system. You can fake a number in one year, but doing it three years in a row becomes harder. More importantly though, you know, I think it's about making it a standard, not walking past that standard and letting it not be delivered. If you go to Disney, I was at Disney a number of years ago looking to hold a major program there and I was with the sales consultant and we're walking along the boardwalk and there was some trash on the ground and Mid conversation, without stopping, she scoops down, picks up the trash, pops it in the trash can and keeps walking. All while trying to sell me on this notion that the Disney property was the right property for this event. And, you know, all the things a good salesperson would do. Now the reason she did that was not because her bonus is attached to cleanliness. It's not because that's going to get the sale, but because at Disney, one of their standards is that everybody is responsible for the cleanliness of the environment. Everybody is responsible for the experience or for, in Disney talk, for making the magic. Now, what's the outcome of everyone taking responsibility? And of course, you know, they have people responsible for sales, they have janitorial staff. But what is the person, what is the outcome of everyone being responsible for it? A, it's never someone else's job, it's our job. And B, it's considered one of the most profitable entertainment companies in the world. Now if a company with hundreds of thousands of employees can create a culture that is obsessed about the small things without attaching the small things to a bonus, then a company with 15 to 20 people can absolutely obsess about the small things and make it part of the culture as opposed to a way to trigger a bonus. Because the bonus will come when you get the sales, you get the profit, you get the repeat and referral business.

Now I gotta ask because one of the adages you hear all the time is that if everyone's responsible for something, no one's responsible for it. So what's the difference in execution here between that way of thinking versus what Disney is able to accomplish by making everyone responsible for something? What's the difference?

Yeah, so everyone can be responsible for something, but not everyone's accountable for something. Right? So what I would encourage is an organization to have a person accountable for customer outcomes and their team, which could be part time work, are responsible for delivering the processes, the policies, the ways of working that enables everyone to be responsible for delivering on it. So, you know, if a guest writes in to Disney about the park being dirty, they don't call a town hall and say, everyone, you should have cleaned the park. They contact the head of janitorial and say, how could this happen? Right, because the janitorial team are accountable for the outcome, but everyone contributes to the outcome or is responsible for the outcome. And so that's, you know, in an IT organization, you'd get, you know, in my example of making someone accountable for customer experience, you would go to that head of customer experience and say, what's happening here? What can we do to fix it? But at the senior management meeting you're going to talk about, you know, we have some alarming customer trends, right? And how can you improve within your department from your responsibility point of view, the salesperson is just as responsible for how they make someone feel, but the accountability sits with the person designing the programs.

Jason, you've given us a lot to think about here. If people are interested in learning more, what's a great place for them to get started with?

Look across all the socials and my website it's just Jason S. Bradshaw so Jason sbradshaw.com for the website I have an irregular newsletter because I don't like to spam you every week. I only sponsored I only send you something if I think it will be of value. I have a podcast as well and as I said all the socials Jason S. Bradshaw well thanks for joining me for today Dave. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

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