How to Take Advantage of Customer Programs and Make them Work for You

If you were really happy with the product or service you received recently, how willing would you be to support that business? How many people would you tell? The truth is that people will trust what other people say about your business, whether that is the good, the bad, or the ugly. So, how can you control that narrative? That's what my guest and I will be discussing today. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experiences that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. I so appreciate you taking time out to be with us here today. Thank you, Marc. My guest for this episode is Customer Marketer Therapist Dana Alvarenga. Today, we will talk about how to create a customer program powered by the voice of your customers. When I first got into business in the early, and I mean super early '80s, becoming known for what we do was relatively easy Because people figured out what we do and how we do it. It was pretty— it was much easier I think than it is today. Ultimately, we marketed to our local consumers. Customers back then would actually write us letters if they were blown away by our products or services. Letters that we could then put up on the wall in our shop to prove that we were the business to do business with. Back then, it was all relationships in our small little communities. Then, we got to the point where we needed to create loyalty programs. And loyalty programs was all about how do we create this closer tie to the customers? How do we make doing business with us matter? And today, it is imperative to have— well, why don't I just ask you? Our Question of the Day. I started out today's show about talking about the power of word of mouth to support your business. And what are you doing to create the relationships that you need to create with your customers? What are you doing to curate The word of mouth about your business today? Why don't you go ahead and put your comments in the comment box? Tell us a little bit about what you're doing to make sure that you're doing that, curating those stories from your customers. And at the same token, hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership because that way, you can become part of this conversation. My guest today is Dana Alvarenga. Dana is the VP of Customer Experience at SlapFi. And she leads the customer success function along with education and advocacy within SlapFive. With over 15 years of experience in the technology industry within sales, sales training, management, customer education success, her role is to deliver an amazing customer experience by constantly improving and building customer-focused programs and processes. Dana, welcome to the show! It's so exciting to have somebody who plays in my realm on the show.

Yes, yes. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah.

Before we get into today's topic, could you just tell us a little bit more about SlapFive?

Yes, yes. So, SlapFive is a customer marketing platform. And we actually look to help our customers combine customer content, customer advocacy, customer references, customer campaigns into a single solution and give them and their company visibility into the engagement of their customers and the influence on revenue that these engagements have.

So, why is now— I mean, I talked about how life was in the early '80s. I mean, really, if you wanted business, you put ads in local newspapers. You did kind of that whole push marketing where you're just telling people what you're all about. And really, at the end of the day, we knew that if somebody had a really bad experience, I think the The adage back then was, if somebody has a bad experience with you, they're going to tell 10 people. And so, if you serve somebody who worked at the bank, oh my goodness, did it get around the bank. Why now is this kind of new way of marketing to customers, why is this so important today?

It's so important because you're meeting your customers where they're at. And it's about them. So, it's asking what opportunities would they like to participate in. Would they like to provide a testimonial? Would they like to do a video? Would they like to be on a webinar? You're asking them upfront what they would like. So then, when the opportunities come up, you then know who already raised their hand and is interested instead of going out and begging for favors from your customers or bribing them with points or gift cards. It's not about that. That was a fad for a while coming from the B2C space, I think, that bled into B2B. And it's more about what's in it for them and what do they want to do and knowing that.

Yeah, it's interesting because one of the things that happened in the B2B space way back when was it was all about— you mentioned the favors thing. It was all about those relationships. And because I knew John, I had to do business with John because if John found out I went to Steve, oh my goodness, I could kill that relationship. And now, it just seems entirely different. Before we get too, too deep into it, can we talk a little bit and define for people who might not know what customer programs are? Because we're not calling them loyalty programs. This is something entirely different, isn't it?

Yes, yes. So, the customer program is more about what you're defining your customers to participate in, a 2-way exchange of value. So, it's a branded program. Like mine is actually called the Slap 5 Rockstars where when they come on board and they're a partner with us, I invite them into this branded program where they can elect what they'd like to do as being a part of our program. And part of that involves advocacy. Part of that includes Their customer voice. But also, part of it is giving product feedback, or being part of a user group, or peer-to-peer networking. So, it's the overarching of what forms advocates and advocacy. But it's a program and it's a differentiator for a lot of SaaS companies too to offer this. And it's customer success. Customer support can lead and guide customers to be a part of a customer program because it helps Helps them build that sense of community with the product they're working on. But also, can help them become thought leaders in their own industry, in their own space by networking with their peers.

And it also, the implementation and scaling all happen because they're actually getting the voice of the customer. Could you just define SaaS? You use the terminology SaaS. And so, for our audience—

Yes. So, software as a service.

Yes.

So, in the B2B space, the SaaS products where customers are purchasing and typically buy for a year or 2 years. And then, at the end of that 1 year, we want to get them to renew, making sure they're expanding the use on the product that they're using.

Yeah. And I can also imagine the whole software aspect as well as you want to make sure that when you're selling a platform, you're also making sure that people are taking full advantage of all the features of the platform as opposed to just using one or two. So based on this definition then of this idea with the customer program, what are you seeing organizations doing that is really challenging right now?

What ends up being really challenging is either building a customer program is done in a silo for one part. I mean, that's a big challenge where I've seen them fail. And personally, I've had a program that's failed as it was just created in a silo. So, learning from that mistake. And then also, challenges of just not going to your customers and still thinking in the world of the old-school way of marketing of you want to have happy quotes out there and you talk about yourself and your bells and whistles and products and features. But it needs to be about the customer and talking to the customers. What do they want? Do they want a customer program? Do they want to become advocates and talk about what great successes they're having and how they're exceeding in their own company and how they're elevating their own brand and their own level of their role? And just making sure you're doing your homework and The challenges come when you're not doing that. You're not talking to your customers and it's being created in a silo. And then third, you don't have the executive or leadership sponsoring it. It needs to be something that the company as a whole from leadership all the way down believes that having a customer program, having something where your customers are involved in interacting and providing insights for you and feedback as well as you give them opportunities 2-way exchange of value. It's a 2-way street. You give to get.

Yeah, it's amazing because as you're saying that, I'm just thinking to my— the word that just kept percolating in my brain is the word corporate culture. Like, you cannot have a customer-centric corporate culture while you're trying to do this. You cannot not have a customer-centric corporate culture when you're putting these programs together.

Exactly, exactly. It needs to be customer-first. And a lot of— I see, I feel like a lot of companies that maybe were product-led or product-first are shifting to being customer-centric or customer-led because they're incorporating the product aspect into a customer program, for example, of making sure customers are design partners or they're product part of product feedback sessions because we're realizing you're creating a product for your customers to use. It's great that products can be created. But once again, if it's in a silo and it's a feature you think is cool or that they'll use, it doesn't matter if the customers don't see value in it or it's not going to help them. So, you need to shift from that product focus to customer focus.

It's so amazing. I just had this conversation with one of my speaking coaching clients. Because the client has this presentation they want to do. And I said, but what are you trying to solve? Well, no, it's just really important information. I go, yeah, but why should the customer care? Well, because it's really good information. Yeah, I know. They're looking at it. This is what I have to sell. But I don't have clarity on how it's going to serve the customers or how the customers are going to benefit. I just know it will.

Exactly. And that's a pitfall. And that's the old way of thinking. I mean, that's the old way of the B2B business-to-business space.

Yeah, for sure. The whole build it and they will come.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah. When it comes to customer programs, when people think about this stuff, I mean, again, I'm still dealing with people who are still just striving to get really good loyalty programs. But I think we've gone beyond that now. The whole counting points and creating values by visits and purchase value. I think now, it's We've gone far beyond that. What myths are there about customer programs for the uninitiated?

I mean, I think the myths of one, like you mentioned, are it is begging for favors and bribing the customer. So, it's not about that. It's defining once again, getting that, defining that what's in it for them and what value do they get out of it. And that it's not always— another myth is that it's not always top-performing customers that are highly involved or highly engaged, or the most revenue-spending customers that are the most highly engaged or spend. Sometimes, it's the small ones that are maybe just using one part of your product or they're on a pilot. But they're super engaged and really want to do a peer-to-peer call, or they want to lead a webinar. They want to speak on a podcast. They want to talk about the successes that they had, even if they're very small. So, it doesn't have to be just for your big enterprise-level large revenue-spending customers. It's for everyone and at every stage. That's the other myth that for a while, people thought customer programs or advocacy programs, however you're calling it, were only once customers reached a certain milestone. Either they are done being onboarded or they've used enough of the product from a usage perspective. It's not about that. It should be right when they sign on that they're invited to it because that's when they're most excited. They know what they want to achieve out of it. But then, go back and evaluate with that customer. When you signed up with us, you joined this customer program and you raised your hand to be a peer-to-peer reference call. You raised your hand to speak at an event. Is this still eligible? Are there more things you want to do now or are there less? And usually, they open up because they're more experienced and they offer more activities that they're willing to do with you.

So that's how I would start. I think it's so amazing. In one of the presentations I do, I talk about the customer journey and how you would never, for instance, you would never talk to an employee the same way 2 years in as you would do on their first day, right? So, we know that people come through a path. with us. And what I love about your approach is this thing about you go back and you poll them on, okay, well, this was true when you first started with us. And 6 months in, a year in now, is it still true? Are you still getting the end result? Are you still being able to participate? Are you still doing the same passion projects that you set out to when you first joined us?

Exactly.

And I kind of really appreciate that as well because ultimately, what you're talking about is really turning the customer into like A great ambassador to your brand.

Yes. And you say ambassador too. That's a huge name that a lot of even customers that I work with, they call their customer program the ambassador program. Instead of like my Slap 5 Rockstars ambassadors. And that's truly what they become. They become rock stars. They become ambassadors. They become thought leaders. And that in turn, is them advocating for your brand and doing a testimonial by talking about it. And it's indirectly saying they were influenced by and got to where they are today because of working and partnering with your product.

So yeah, it's so amazing. The whole word-of-mouth thing. And we know the people are out there. And I know that there's some people who would maybe be watching this and go, oh no, my customers don't talk to each other. And it's like, that's again, that's one of those myths that people don't talk to. And it's, I think, people do. I mean, I can't tell you in a span of a month how many people I'll go through on what applications am I using. How somebody will watch my podcast and go, oh, how do you do the pop-ups on the screen? And so then, I go through and recommend the software and show them how I do it and all this sort of. And like, those voices actually really matter when you want to push your business forward. When it comes to that, You have SlapFive to help make this happen. When it comes down to this, what do you think people's barrier is when it comes to adopting some of this technology?

So, I mean, people can power a customer program without SlapFive. Obviously, it makes it easier because it puts everything in one place. I mean, when small companies or teams are just starting off, you're doing it with a spreadsheet. You still can do all of these things with Yeah. A spreadsheet, a Google Form. Some of the barriers are not offering a variety of different what I call micro programs that sit under your main customer program. So, that's those different activities that some customers do not like public speaking. Some aren't interested in really doing a peer-to-peer reference call. They'd rather be on stage and main speaking events. They'd rather do kind of those large things. So, it's It's boxing it in and only the barriers would be only having certain activities that either you need to be super experienced in the role or you need to have moved further along that customer journey to be able to give any value for that opportunity. So, it's making sure you have a variety for where they are in their customer journey, where they are in their own personal leadership of their own career. And That's a big barrier. And that's where I try to always offer and recommend having what I call micro programs. So, various programs underneath your main branded customer program.

Sure, yeah. Well, and you bring up a really interesting point because I think your advocacy hat tells you you can't treat everybody the same way. Not everybody's going to want to do the same thing, which I think is And again, anybody watching this, you know perfectly well you can't treat every single customer exactly the same way even though it would make life easier.

But you just can't.

You just can't. Yeah.

And when we're— oh, go ahead.

No, please go ahead.

And when we're saying one thing too that I mentioned earlier, when we're saying powering your customer program with customer voice and I don't think I mentioned this too. It's Their authentic voice like this right here. If I was on a YouTube Live or a podcast with my customer, this would be their authentic voice talking with me. And I could then go back and edit that out, edit myself out and just have my customer saying a short 1-minute spiel that talks about what value they're doing or what exciting thing they're doing. And there's the customer voice versus putting on your website or sharing on social somewhere. This is what we can do. It's much better when a customer is saying what they're doing and how they're doing it with your tool. And it's unprompted. It's authentic.

You mean, there's no more value in 9 out of 10 dentists say?

It's funny you say dentists too because when you said the printing out of happy letters, that's the only place I think I've seen still today cards on the wall or thank yous is at my dentist's office. There's a whole bulletin board of them thanking at my dentist's office. And it's the only place I see it.

So, funny you say that.

That's so funny.

Yeah, it's time they come back from the '80s. Hey, I'd like to talk a little bit about— I'd like to delve a little bit deeper into this whole thought of customer experience and delve into some strategies for putting together customer programs. And we'll do that right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with customer experience expert Dana Alvarenga. Dana, over the last 15 years, we've actually really been hearing a lot about customer experience. It was all about customer service, customer service, customer service. But it's shifted now. And customer experience is really kind of like customer service is part of the customer experience but not the whole thing. Where are we headed with customer experience?

So, I would say that the future of customer experience and Not to keep saying the same thing, is going to go back to that customer program that's powered with that true authentic voice of your customers. So, it's having your customer program be that 2-way exchange of value where the customers are expecting to be asked to share their advice, their experience, their knowledge, and they're doing it willingly and they want to. So, I definitely see the future be about meeting your customers where they're at for your customer experience. And then, really focused on peer-to-peer engagement as well. Customers, one, that if you're selling a product, they buy from people they like. And they also buy from people that are just like them or are doing the same thing as them. So, building a culture and building a company or a customer program that allows for Peer-to-peer engagement allows for a way for them to talk. It's in a Slack channel or chat on Zoom meetups or cohort meetups where they can just talk about their problems. I host a group therapy webinar series. So, it's group therapy for customer marketers where they can talk about a challenge. So, it's just coming to them and it's a topic that everyone's talking about. So, bring them together. Think of ideas. Think of ways to overcome these challenges. So, The future is really going to be about that 2-way exchange of value, focus on authentic voice, and a lot of peer-to-peer engagement for sure.

And it sounds like the other aspect is community. I mean, when you're bringing everybody together, it ends up building a community. Yeah, I love that quote. Seth Godin, people like us do what people like us do.

Yes, yes. I like that.

I've always loved that quote. And I always thought it was so timely. You know, you're talking a lot about giving your customers a voice. One of the things that keep popping into my mind is how many organizations aren't listening to the voice. They're going through the mechanics of doing it. So, pretending to do it but they're not implementing. I mean, can you talk a little bit about the importance of building trust in actionable items?

Yeah, and that's it right there. The actionable item. It's great to listen. Even getting survey results if it's in text format. But follow up. Why did they respond in that way? Or why did they give the NPS score? It's closing the loop. But close the loop with capturing the customer voice. Have that authentic voice captured of why. And then, putting it to use. So, that's a big, big thing that I strongly always recommend and try to get all of what I do and even my customers to follow is making sure you're showing how the customer voice is getting put to use. If it's a product feedback session, come back with, here's the feedback of what we have. Build a user group meeting. This is what you guys gave us in this design feedback. Here's what's happening in the product roadmap and when to expect this and why this is put into place. And highlight what customer was using this and why and give them the credit. And then, the other aspect is If you are doing an interview, a recorded interview, or a testimonial video, show them the end result. Show them where it's being used or allow them to have that asset of that testimonial or that what we call a Case Study 2.0 storyboard. It's a storyboard. Let them use it internally at their own organization. Look what I've done with X product and let them showcase. And then that becomes reference calls that are deflected down there. But showing how the customer voice gets put to use is key. Not just recording it and saying, thank you. We got your voice. Show it how it's being put to work.

And I like that because you close the loop when you give them something that they could brag about as well, that they could turn around and talk about. Like, I'm proud that I sit on a post-secondary board. For the industry as an industry representative. So, they have an advisory board. And so, I'm proud that I can lend my voice to what the future of that post-secondary is going to be when it comes to hospitality and culinary art programs because of my background. And so, when something happens and I mention something that I'm seeing in the marketplace and then they're able to implement it in their curriculum, I could turn around with a little bit level of pride that says, you know what? I helped make that happen. And so, I can also see it in the context of not only for the business consumer or business-to-business but also internally, which is the business to the employees themselves and helping give them the voices as well.

Exactly, yep.

Yeah, I imagine that from everything that you've talked about that this is not a case of you put the program in place and you set it and forget it.

Yeah, no. That's funny.

Yeah, no. So, talk a little bit about that. Like, when people put these programs in place, how often should they be revisited? How often should they be tested for relevancy?

I would say, I mean, at a minimum yearly, annually, the program should be almost like a program audit. What You're able to, if you're tracking correct what engagements your customers are doing with you, you can see where there's a low number of engagements. Why is that? No one wanted that opportunity or it's not really valid. You don't really need to be offering that. Or what you can look on a scale of what customers have engaged a lot and who hasn't. How is that influencing revenue? Which customers purchased another year? Which renewed? So, making sure that you're tracking and looking at that aspect is definitely important.

Would you, part of it, the content like I like that you would define your customer groups into their points of interest. Would you suggest that as one of the best practices that those lists should be kind of tested constantly so that you see if there's a lot of drop-off? If you turn around and you say, we want to test something with this group and only 20% of the people step up and say, yeah, I'll do it. Do you have a problem?

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something you'd want to evaluate and look if that's more probably a quarterly thing of this many people didn't want to raise their hand. I did this. I pivoted myself on doing something. I would try to do full-blown onboarding interviews. And it was a lot during onboarding and implementation. It was a lot of asks. So, I pivoted and did, let's do 10-15 minute short calls. I asked 4 questions and we get what we need. And I get 4 assets out of that versus booking. It's still, I was saying it's one time. You have to do it once. But just during onboarding, it was a lot.

Sure.

So, I've recently changed that. And that did take 2 years to change. Probably should have changed it sooner. But stuff like that of the time commitments, that's also a part of it of looking back and the ask is good. But maybe you're asking for too much time commitment for what the opportunity is.

And too much time commitment, too much detail in the initial steps or in the subsequent steps. This is really interesting. For the people watching this, if they want to get a hold of you, if they want to pick your brain about learning more about customer programs, how can they get a hold of you?

You can find me on LinkedIn. Just search Dana Alvarenga. Happy to Connect and always open to meeting new people, meeting connections. That's how I met yourself.

So yeah, that's awesome.

That's the easiest.

Terrific! You mentioned earlier about micro programs. Now, from what you were saying, it's like micro programs are an extension of kind of the main program. Could you delve a little bit deeper into maybe give us some examples of what a customer program would be? But then, What would be the subsequent micro programs you might be having in place?

Yeah, so some of these micro programs. So, the overarching customer program is your main program. For example, like I mentioned, Slap 5 Rockstars. And that's where the customers elect. What do you want to do? Do you want a peer-to-peer network? Do you want to be a reference call? Speak at an event? And then, these micro programs are actually the programs that give the opportunities to do that. Like different virtual cohort meetups. I do those once or twice a month that are on certain topics where it's an expert exchange of people join. There's no session leader. There's no agenda. Just join and talk about this topic and learn something new, meet someone new, open discussion. So, that's one aspect. Another would be product roadmap or user group sessions, which That's more of we're getting more. So, a lot of these are giving to our opportunities. This is where the get comes into place, where we get the info we want about where the product should go and make the design partners of our customers. And another unique one that I've branded to go along with my theme of rock stars is the Backstage Pass microprogram. And that's where I have a customer that's exceeding at something just really awesome. They're doing something great. And It's a great use case for our product. So instead of me saying, so-and-so is doing this and here's another use case, and just keep shoving use cases down my customers' throats, it's a customer showcasing what use case they're doing. It's probably exactly what I would have said, but it's coming from the customer who's just like them in the weeds, just like them doing something just like them. A short 30-minute backstage pass where their peers go behind the curtains of what they're doing with their customer program or their advocacy process in general. And that's worked really well. And it's just fun to continue the theme of Slap 5 Rockstars to the Backstage Pass.

Yeah, it's almost like you need to get that branded and turn into like the Van Halen Backstage Pass or—

Yes.

I know that when it came to Loyalty programs. I worked with a lot of organizations. They jumped on the bandwagon for loyalty programs. Many operators got them basically to say that they had them. It's like, oh, why'd you get the— well, because everybody else has it. So, I just needed to get one. It seems like we were more about the operator than we were about the customer back then. Now, it seems to be shifting. Is that a fair statement?

Oh yes, 100%. It's shifting because that model was about more about the leaderboards and points or gift cards that would be achieved. And that's okay for some industries and in some roles. But it's not going to apply to a CIO, for example, a Chief Information Officer at a technology company that they want to have more of that influence on a product roadmap, for example, or they want to tell you what opportunities they want to be given. And when that time comes, they raise their hand that they could speak at a conference for you versus when you had kind of the old way of putting out fires. It's chasing customers to— you'd have to search for weeks for someone to speak at an event. It's chasing them all over the place. So, it's avoiding those fires because that's not reusable. It's not scalable. It's not measurable. When you have a formal program where you know who wants to do what, when they've done it, how many times they've done it, and you can measure it, report on it, all of that fun stuff.

Yeah. So, I mean, when it comes down to this idea of implementation, when it comes down to implementation, there must be some steps that people need to be able to cover. Could you just briefly give an overview of kind of Anybody who is thinking about, I'm thinking that a customer program might be worthwhile. But they don't know what those steps might look like.

Yeah, so the steps that you would want to go through would be do your homework. Research what you have internally, who you have internally of customers who've done things. Talk to them. Talk internally and talk to your customers. Then, look to build the program, formalize the program, define what's in it for them, define the activity types, define what it's branded by, and then launch it and make fanfare about it. Make sure that everybody knows about it and have almost like a content calendar ready of opportunities that you can serve up to customers. So, it's not a, yay, we launched it, and 3 months go down before you talk to anyone to say, join a webinar, be on a peer-to-peer call. And then comes the measure phase of measuring and evaluate and tweak the program where you need to based on what we talked about earlier. If there needs to be any changes of description or just take something off of the program or add something new, those would be kind of the 4 main steps I'd say.

Yeah, very good. I'd like to get into some cautionaries about it because I have a sneaking suspicion there's some people who jump onto this not quite ready thinking that this might solve their problem. And so, I'd like to get into cautionaries right after this.

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Welcome back! I'm speaking with Customer Marketer Therapist Dana Alvarenga. I love that whole theme about getting people together and being their marketing therapist. As the audience can tell, we're super passionate about helping business owners and Teams Excel. If you're watching this and you belong to an association or an organization that is planning a leadership retreat, a conference, or some way of being able to implement some new ideas into your businesses, feel free to connect with us. All our details are in the show notes attached to this podcast. So, feel free to reach out. So, Dana, cautionaries. Quick tip. Like, I get really nervous when new ideas are coming through the podcast that some people would be watching this going, this sounds exactly like what we need. And it kind of becomes the fanfare of the month. When it comes down to customer programs, what cautionaries do we have for the audience?

Cautionaries would be don't get bogged down in the tactical work. For sure. Just find ways to make it strategic, which will come down from involving your key leadership within your organization because it's going to need that support. And just make sure that you do your homework. I've said this again. This is a huge part. Do your homework internally of what— because there might be another department that's doing, calling customers and doing testimonials. Or there might be another department that's sending out surveys if you're in a pretty siloed organization that isn't all communicating. So, be that person that brings these departments together with the customer program. It's going to help your product team. It's going to help customer support, help sales, help customer success. And make sure that you have everyone's buy-in to support it. It's going to be huge for it to be successful.

The more that we've talked about this today, the more I'm realizing that this really does have to become part of the organization's strategic planning. This idea of if you're in your business and you have to be asking the questions, what are we doing to tap into our customers? And to your point, if you're siloed, going to all the various different departments to find out what everybody needs in order to get feedback from customers and what are they doing presently needs to happen. But we need to have a really strong why to doing it, don't we?

Yes, yeah. The why should be, I mean, it should be part of your go-to-market initiative. So, or the strategic growth of the organization. That the why is we want the customers to renew another year, keep the product another year, or we want customers to expand or cross-sell to another product by chance, which a customer program can help achieve if done right. So, it's making sure it's tied back to the top strategic growth goal from the top down.

I love that it all supports this, my idea of this journey that people are on, right? That they can literally have— you can have a new And you can put them into this customer program and then take them along to the various different milestones that they're going to hit as they go forward, which I just think is just brilliant. This has been such a great topic, Dana. Do you have any last thoughts of what we've been talking about today?

I don't think so. Just really make sure that if you start to think about a customer program, that you're making sure you have that give to get. So, make sure it's a 2-way exchange of value. It's not just something that's going to benefit you or customers will see right through that and see it as another, here's a program that's all about the company again. And I'm not going to get anything out of this nor do I have the time to participate. So, make sure it's that 2-way exchange of value and talk to your customers. You'll be surprised. You'll learn a lot when you ask what they want from you.

It does take a lot of humility though, doesn't it?

Yes, it does. Yeah, yeah. And don't be worried if you have something in place already that maybe you have to rip and replace. I mean, it is a new way. I strongly believe it's the future of customer experience. It's just meeting your customers where they're at, having that 2-way exchange of value. And And no more, I'll say it again, no more happy quotes. Get the true authentic voice. You want your customers on your website or out on social. You don't want to have a logo or a big bold quote.

Yeah, yeah. You want people to be talking about you, right? And that's the important thing. Dana, this has been fantastic. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Yes, thanks. Yeah, if you'd like to get a hold of me, feel free to connect and reach out to me on LinkedIn. That's the easiest way. Dana Alvarenga. You can find me there and love to connect and meet with new people.

Thank you so much for doing this today. It's been great, great conversation. Thank you, Dana.

Thank you.

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