Stop Losing Customers! Secrets to Effective Customer Support with Charlotte Ward

Here's a question for you. How much is bad customer support really costing your business? Not just in refunds or returns but in lost trust, damaged reputation, and those silent customers who never complain. They just disappear. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast That challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine. Hello, Marc.

Welcome to this episode! I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. I'm so glad that you're here today along for the ride because my guest today is Customer Experience Leader Charlotte Ward. And today, we are talking about the side of the business that can really make or break your brand, where a single mishandled interaction could undo months of hard-won Loyalty and trust. So, what's the secret to turning support from your necessary costs into your best tool for customer retention? Stick around because this is the one episode that you will get tons of value from. My one request is to please make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. And please make sure that you share it with your circle. I would really love to see the business community really supporting the work that I've been doing over the last 215 episodes. I'd like you to put on your thinking cap for a second. You're running a tight ship. Your marketing is on point and your customers seem to be rolling in. But then something goes wrong. A product issue, a billing error, or just a simple question that leads to a complex maze of support calls and emails. The customer, once loyal, now feels overlooked or even frustrated. And slowly but surely, they drift away. We often focus on how to get customers in the door in the first place. But what about keeping the ones that we already have? And that brings me to our Question of the Day. So, when customers reach out for support, are you confident that your team is making their day, turning the tides, helping them be satisfied with whatever they're doing? Or could you be losing them without even knowing it? I'd love to get your impression and get your ideas on this. Go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and please be part of this conversation. I'd love to have an interaction with you. As I mentioned today, I am absolutely thrilled to welcome somebody who spent nearly 30 years transforming the world of customer support from the ground up. Charlotte Ward is a true expert who's seen it all from the front lines of high-pressure call centers to leading remote highly technical support teams. Currently, she's the Director of Support at Snowplow and the host of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast where she shares her deep insights into building customer relationships that last so hard. Charlotte's passion? Helping businesses just like yours understand that exceptional customer support isn't just a nice-to-have. It's a powerful driver of loyalty, reputation, and growth. And today, she's here to share the real measurable impact of support done right. And I think we're all in for some eye-opening moments. Charlotte, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you so much for having me, Marc. Lovely to be on the show. Thank you.

Thank you for making time. Hey, could you maybe talk a little bit about how you serve your customers? Who are your customers and how do you help them?

Yeah, so Snowplow is a very, very technical platform. We're essentially a customer data infrastructure at heart, so we take behavioral data from our customers tracked across multiple different technologies, video, you know, in-product, mobile, web, all of those interactions with customers. We get the data from those, all of that behavioral data, we enrich it, we ensure its quality, and we land it in the data warehouse in a timely manner. And we do that across a number of different technologies, a number of different cloud infrastructures, and we interface, you know, downstream to multiple technologies as well, multiple platforms where we can land data, data warehouses, data lakes, real-time streams, et cetera. So, deeply, deeply technical support. And that's kind of the landscape my team operates in. So, you know, this isn't a high-volume type of support. This is really consultative where we build relationships with customers and we get an understanding of how they're using the product and what we can do to help them on that journey.

I love that. And so, just before the call, we were talking about the use of AI and how, you know, your team, it really brings a kind of personal touch to that because it's not AI-based.

Yeah, exactly. In this kind of environment where it's a highly novel experience, like every ticket is different almost. We have very low repeatability on our questions. Also, you know, the discovery for each, for solving each of those questions and those problems and challenges is pretty high, and you can't rely on AI At this stage in the lifecycle of AI. Ask me that question in another 5 years, you'll get a different answer.

I think in another 5 years, AI will be on the call saying, oh, well, Charlotte could probably answer that. Let me connect you.

The question I have for you is, AI gonna be you or me on this call?

Right? Yeah, I know. It's so true. I think that, you know, when we think about this idea of customer support, I think that we can all agree that customer support and recovery can play such a pivotal role in our businesses. Why does it seem like it's such an afterthought in most businesses?

I think in early-stage business, the belief is that anyone can provide that support. So, particularly when you're thinking about technology founders, you know, you've often got the founders or the engineers answering the questions. They know the product, they built it, they can answer the questions. What they generally aren't very good at is support. It's the business of being in support, the business of being a support human.

Right.

You know, they can answer the the tech, but as you grow, you need to be able to do that in a scalable way, in a human way, particularly at this end of the market, where it's very, very conversational. The conversations run long, and they run deep. You know, I think that it's an afterthought often because you can get away with it for a little while. I think that's ultimately where I've landed. You can just about get away with it, and then there comes a point where they realize they can't.

Right.

And that's when it feels, And I genuinely think that that's where it feels like you're spending money. And that's why it feels— nobody would question that you need people to build a product or to run the business, but it's because it comes further down the natural lifecycle of most products, I think it then feels like a cost.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting because I read an article once about Microsoft, about when they were first coming out with Windows. And they made this intuitive interface, but then people were so confused by it and all the programmers would sit there and go, why are people so stupid? And it wasn't until they brought users into the room to actually witness how people were using it that the, the actual developers were like, oh, oh, I didn't know they perceived it that way. And so do you find that that's a lot of the kind of missteps or mishaps that are happening in businesses when it comes to customer support?

I think it's the ambition of most engineering and product leaders to do away with support by making the product so self-serve, so intuitive that you'll never ever need anyone in the business to talk to a customer again, right? Because the product will just do it all. But in that sense, the product is always in debt, I think. Like, you're always playing catch-up. I think it's very, very few products on the market, and I think they're probably not very complex products on the market, that don't need any support at all. I mean, I can think of some very small footprint apps and things like that, where it's so intuitive. And we all know there are companies out there who You almost never need to contact support for, you know, like they design from the beginning to like make it as intuitive as possible, but they get it wrong. You know, that's why they need support people. That's why Apple and Microsoft and everyone else needs a support team.

Right. So when you talk about when they do it wrong, can, do you have any examples of how failing to prioritize the customer support can really end up costing the businesses more in the long run than in, you know, oh, we don't need this. At this stage kind of mindset?

I think you used the right word early on. You know, it's that recovery, right? No customer ever contacts your support team just because they're happy. Every time a customer calls the support team, they're already at a point of difficulty. They've already got a question that they can't answer themselves, or they're hitting some sort of challenge with the business, or with the product, or the technology. And so, for me, the recovery is what you need to really design for. In the support experience. And the recovery is the way in which your support team, your support function, and how you design for that recovery is going to essentially prevent those customers walking away, silently or otherwise, you know, silently or very shouty. Customers will walk away one way or another from a really poor support experience. And that can be one interaction, or it can be a series of interactions, but— I think we've all had them, right? We all know those companies that have got us so wound up, so angry, we just never, ever want to have anything to do with them again. That's from restaurants, banks, technology companies. We all have those experiences because we're all customers somewhere.

You know, it's interesting, the idea around wrapping one's head around this is, to your point, you have somebody who knows the product and services that you're doing, but they think then it's just Common sense, but I can imagine that many customers, like I alluded to at the opening, many customers just disappear. So how can managers identify when customers are becoming frustrated with the experience, whether that's the support or the delivery experience, even though they're not directly complaining to the people who could make a difference?

I think this is where data has to be where you begin. And, you know, I think a lot of support leaders will worry about what data they should collect. How are they collecting the right data? Is this the data that will help them? connect those dots, you know, and business leaders too. What can I get out of my customer interactions anywhere across the business? My response to that is just start collecting data. It doesn't matter what it is at this point, right? It's important that you begin to understand how your customers are interacting with your business, and then you can begin to find correlations. And I know correlation isn't always causation, just to, you know, make that clear. But if you're not collecting any data, you're completely uninformed. You could, if you Start with what you can capture and look for stories, look for places you can influence, places that might give you clues to any frictions. And that's through, you know, all customer interactions, but it's very specifically, I know, as a support leader, there's a ton of data in support. All is a hyper-operational space in the business. Our tools capture all of that data for us most of the time. And so, you just have to start digging into it. I wouldn't worry about it being too systematic or expecting to make that data or like live forever. Just get a dashboard together from your, you know, your CRM or start writing, start a Google Sheet with some key things that you're observing and begin to dig into it. And that's going to evolve over time significantly. But until you start, you're really just shooting in the dark.

Yeah. And I probably figure that people who are tuning into this, some of them have small mom-and-pop operations or small brick-and-mortar operations. And they're looking, oh, I know my customers. But, you know, part of the challenge whenever I've come across these kinds of entrepreneurs who are, I know my customers, when they're off in the back doing their thing and their customer service is happening front of house, whether that's retail, hospitality, whatever, they're making a lot of assumptions on how happy people are.

I think that's true. You have to spend time with the data. And if you haven't got a system, you know, if you're not providing email support or whatever, if you are a A restaurant, you have to observe it and capture it. And I think that, that, that, you know, and find those moments where this is happening X number of times, or I spotted this, then this, you know, and you have to look for those moments and start beginning to analyze them. You can only analyze if you have data to analyze in the first place. So, again, it's a matter of like just capturing what you can to start.

So, aside from not capturing data, are there some common mistakes that you see companies making when it comes to handling customer inquiries?

I mean, I speak from bitter experience recently, but—

Tell us a little bit about that. Why don't you tell us about your experience?

All right. I've got a really awful example of actually my bank. I was on vacation recently. And again, we've all got these stories, right? But for me, this was just about customer conversations not carrying pretty much from one phone call to the next. So, I'm based in the UK. I don't know if the accent gives that away at all, but I was in the US traveling, and I Didn't think that in the modern era we had to tell our banks that we were traveling abroad anymore. I, I just— I've been to the US multiple times without ever having informed my bank I was leaving the UK. And then my card started getting declined and Apple Pay started getting declined repeatedly. And I was 8 hours west from where I'm sat today. And so— and they closed at a particular time, and I basically had a 1-hour window in the morning really after waking up where I could phone them live and try and get problem solved, of my payments always being declined. And for a start, I think if you are expecting your customers to call you while they are traveling to a local line in the UK, be open when they're traveling, be available when they're awake. Don't force them to contact you at particularly odd hours of day. And I had a series of frustrating conversations with my bank where I phoned on the first day and said, look, I'm traveling, there's a problem, can you please just assume that for the next 11 days I'm in the US. I'm going to be traveling in the US. There's going to be payments being made from the US. And they, they said on day 1, absolutely not a problem. You should have told us. But so I got a little bit of a telling off on the first, on the first call. But here we are. We'll set the holiday flag on your account until such a date and it'll all be fine from now on. The second day I hit all the same problems. I phoned them again. They gave me the same spiel. The third day I think I was okay. The fourth day I had all the same problems. By about day 7, somebody told me that the date had been set incorrectly, and he also told me off again for not informing them that I was on holiday, even though by this point I'd phoned them about 5 times from my holiday to tell them I was on holiday. And essentially, the disconnection— I was getting a different person every time, it was difficult to get in touch, they weren't very available. And the disconnection, because there was a clear, like, the systems weren't supporting them. The information I was providing wasn't sticking, and so I was hitting the same problem over and over again from several thousand miles away, in a different time zone, in a different country, when I actually just wanted to be enjoying myself and not speaking to my bank every day, frankly. I felt like there were some, for me, some clear moments which could have just been improved. There was the tone of some of the people I spoke to. There was the fact that they weren't very available, like having really UK-centric office hours for essentially a travel team. Is a bit strange, I think. And then the fact that the information I was providing wasn't sticking. Each one of these interactions was treated like a separate interaction. So I wasn't able to have a whole conversation that lasted and stuck. I think if they'd fixed any one of those things, I would have had a much happier holiday. But the fact that I kept bumping into all 3 of those things ultimately leads me to question whether I want to stay with my bank.

Right.

The bank that I've been with for 20 years. And I will probably, to your point earlier, I probably will never phone up a kind of customer feedback or complaints line and give them all that feedback. I'll just leave.

Yes. And because it becomes a question of what is my time value to this problem, right? It's so much easier to find out, you know, oh, well, this other bank has so much better service. It's never happened, or it's very rare and they're very kind. And so, to make the change becomes So much easier just to turn around and say, you know what, why don't I just open up a new bank? I'll transfer everything over. I'll just deal with that. And then you have CEOs somewhere going, I don't understand why our customers are dropping off. What's going on out there?

Exactly. And to your point, from the point of view of that other bank, they make it so easy. They help you switch all of your account, your payments and everything. It's going to be one phone call to set up an account with them. And they want my business. They're going to incentivize me to join them in every way possible. And My bank should be incentivizing me to stay rather than making it difficult, rather than building in all of those frictions. And I think that's a lack of design. For instance, just the opening hours of that call center, right? Who designed UK very specifically, like short UK opening hours for a travel team? Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, you're mentioning a bank, but I can apply that to an experience I had with a telecom company, right? I mean, just that one example. We've had that where we've had to go on call number 4. And then, by the time you get onto call number 4, you're frustrated. Your frustration level is up. And it's not the person on the other end of the phone. But it's like, how many times do I have to repeat this problem? It's like, can't you look at my file and see what was written before? And it's like, oh, I'm sorry. That was under customer care. We are loyalty. And it's like, what?

Why are those 2 things different? Like, why are they different?

And it's just one of those things that makes you shake your head and just go, really? How easy would it be to just figure out how to connect all this information with the same kind of being able just to tap into and say, hey, we care about our customers because you got it on hold. Thank you very much for calling. You're caller number 23. We care very much about your call. It'll be another 22 callers.

And you know, there is nothing more disingenuous, like to your very point there, than a recorded message that says we care about you. There was a British comedian many years ago who, uh, drew an analogy which I really loved, which was that, you know, you can buy, um, certain types of, say, consumable, like a, a cookie or something. It would come in a, come in a pack, or, you know, almost anything. Like, you can buy the kind of supermarket's own version of it, and then there's like the well-known brand, and then in the corner there's some kind of thing that is neither of those two, and it's unfamiliar, but it's got the word luxury on it.

Yes.

And his point was, have you ever noticed how anything that says luxury on the packet isn't?

And they use a special luxury font as well. Like, it's probably in gold.

Exactly so.

It's made by some sweatshop overseas or something. I'd love to dig into some strategies on how leaders can start evaluating and fine-tuning their customer support processes. And we'll get to that. Right after this.

When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget. Buy Lights! Get Lights! Camera! Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com.

Welcome back! I am speaking with the fabulous Charlotte Ward and we are having some head shake moments, I tell you. We're just coming up with stories and it's like, ah. You know, we were talking just before going live about the fact that every one of us have had these really bad experiences. How come it's so prevalent in people's businesses? How come when they're, you know, they go out A businessman goes out and goes to the airport and has a terrible experience with the airline and is shaking his head. But then, customers are complaining about his business not giving really great service. How come there's this disconnect?

I think that's the biggest head-scratcher of all, Marc, to be honest.

Head-shaker.

Head-shaker, right? Yeah. I don't know if I have a straight answer to that one. I think if I had the answer to that question, I'd be making much more money out of CX than I currently am. But, you know, I think some of it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is that you need to spend time with the experience yourself and observe what's going on. And that observation can take so many forms. It can be standing in line with your customers. You know, we know business leaders that have done that and do that, and they're very successful businesses, right? Or it can be looking at the data, or it's both. It should really be both, ultimately, in the long term. But unless you actually get some view on it, you're Any kind of assumptions that you make about your own customer experience, the experience of your customers, are exactly that. They're assumptions. And who doesn't want to assume the thing they've built, the thing they're doing, is all nice and fine and dandy, right?

Yeah. Well, you know, and to your point, I did a study 15 years ago now, but I did a study and I polled through different businesses and we asked the managers or the leaders of the business what they felt their customer satisfaction level was at. And they were like, oh, it's like 98%. And then, when we talked to the staff, the staff were like, oh, it's like 72%. When we talked to the customers, it was like 16%. So, there's this whole waft of kind of blinders on that we really don't know. And so, the big question then becomes is how do we properly assess this? And I love what you said about stand in line, get on the service call, and experience it as a client. One of the things that I do is I do secret shoppers. I'm always fascinated That when I do a secret shopper report, the person who's leading that team or that department or that business gets their heckles all riled up about silly things like, what do you mean there's fingerprints on the door? Why the heck should I care if there's fingerprints on the door? And it's like, why are you getting upset over it? It's an observation. And so, how do we remove this ego from the process so that we are able to then look at the challenge? In a light that we can put on this hat that we're here to serve, and here's some really good feedback, as opposed to, I don't know why they're picking on me. Don't they know how busy we are? And look how many customers we have to serve.

Yeah, it's the inside-out view, isn't it? And really, we need to be looking outside in. And I think that that's— I think it takes resilience for support teams, for customer experience teams, for business leaders to get used to the outside-in view.

And so, what does that resilience look like?

Part of it is built by standing in line and just listening to the people around you, you know? And I think also doing the observations, whatever form that takes, enough so that you can begin to correlate. Again, there's that word, correlate certain things you are noticing, data points you have, with the outcome of that customer experience, which will be a negative CSAT return or a customer leaving your business and never coming back. If you manage to like notice that customers aren't coming back, it's a great data point to collect. But I think that builds up, that should be the process that you go through. And I hope that if you go through that process, it begins to open your mind and ears to some of the feedback that you're talking about. Because the feedback, whether it's given by a secret shopper or by a real customer, is far more like— the verbatim feedback is far more valuable actually than any CSAT survey return where you give a 1 to 5 or a smiley face or not.

The comments are more important than the star rating for sure. It's interesting. One of the things I have on my website is I have a customer touchpoint assessment that I developed it because I got tired of kind of people coming in. We can't see the label from inside the jar. And I think a lot of people get so surrounded by their operations, by their processes that they're actually getting blinded by everything. And so, the customer touchpoint was designed that you can actually put on the lens of your client. Do a walkthrough and actually go through a checklist of touchpoints that the customers are experiencing so that we could tweak it. Do you think something like that's a good start if somebody wanted to kick this off?

Absolutely. Any tools that you've got, and yours especially, Marc, to get out there. Oh, why, thank you so much. And give you that perspective, right? Because perspective is what it's about. And I think this perspective, this perception that we have from the inside, fuels a different measure of what I would call the expectation gap. You know, we think we know what our customers want, and we think we're delivering it from the inside. And maybe we've got an idea of where there are gaps, because if you're really honest, you'll at least admit some gaps in your business. But, so we can try to fill them, right? But the gaps look so much wider from the outside, and that's because our customers don't have the same expectations and the same perspective that we have.

Right.

And that's why, to your point, You have business leaders who say, I've got CSAT of 95%, and customers who are saying 16%.

Yeah, it's terrible. I'm a big fan that we should always be looking forward with our businesses. Like, I'm all about failing forward. So, being able to recognize where we're lacking, but then being able to kind of use that failure to generate excellence. Can you share this idea of retrospecting customer service experiences? What does that mean? To you, how do we initiate something that we're able to look back but do it in a way that is structured, it's productive, and it's evaluative, as opposed to, you know, again, the whole ego trip thing of, oh, customers, my customers, they don't know what they're talking about.

This is the technologist in me coming out. This is the, you know, the DevOps kind of retrospective process that we live and breathe at Snowplow, and we live and breathe it through You know, perceived operational difficulties, as well as obviously product issues, and it's a managed service. So anything in terms of the availability of our service too. We take that through the experience. So if we have one perception, one idea where there might be a gap, we will look to run, you know, it's essentially a meeting. Like, it begins with a meeting. Let's get together and look at all of the internal stakeholders and the customer too, if they're willing. Let's talk to them about what they felt here, about what they saw here. When we run those internal meetings, you know, from the DevOps world, these are truly blameless. And like, we live and breathe the word blameless when it comes to those kinds of retrospectives. So, we don't point to people, we just point to systems. We don't ask, why didn't you? We ask, why didn't the system support you to? You know? And 5 Whys is a critical part of a good retrospective. And so, we ask why questions rather than point fingers to. But it's crucial that you can go deep, and the easy way to go deep is to keep it blameless, because that stops everyone being defensive. They know we're trying to get to the system answer and not the people answer, as far as possible.

I love that. And I think that right there, if somebody gets their knickers in a twist because they're getting a certain amount of feedback, this is a perfect way of being able to look at it and saying, oh, how can we do this in a blameless way? Why can't we just Look at the situation. Let's define the situation without saying the customer's wrong or we're wrong or the staff were wrong or whatever. I do truly believe that when you are pointing a finger at somebody, you're pointing 3 fingers at yourself. So, I think—

You're not wrong. You're not wrong.

I think that's a brilliant metaphor.

And I think, for me, the phrase that we should all be on the alert for in any of those discussions is, why didn't you? Why didn't you pay more attention? Why didn't you remember that? Why didn't you do that thing? Because I would have done that thing, is really the inference of what we're saying there. And the question to ask is really, the customer didn't get this. Let's say it's a missing email or something, right? Like, customer didn't get this email. Why didn't the customer get this email? And okay, somebody might initially admit to, well, I just forgot to send it. Okay, you don't say then, why didn't you send it?

It's like—

How did we miss it?

Yeah, why didn't we put you in a position to be able to send it at the right time? Or, you know, You talk about the systems, not the people. And that's the way to do it.

What needs to happen to be able to do it properly the next time?

Exactly. And that's how you build process. That's how you build operations that make these— and like, this is in technology, it's a huge concern of mine constantly, is how we make these repeatable. And that's a customer experience desire as well, is making those repeatable, consistent experiences. But the same is doubly true in terms of like delivering technical support. You know, it's a It's important that we do the same thing every time and that we're always trying to do better, that sort of constant quest for improvement.

This is absolutely fascinating. Could you let everybody know how they can get in touch with you if this is resonating with them and they need your help?

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. That's the simplest way to get in touch with me. Find me on LinkedIn. So, I'm Charlotte Ward. You can find me through Snowplow. I also have— I'm host of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast, as you kindly mentioned at the start. So, if you head over to customersupportleaders.com, you'll also find me there.

And we will put the link to that podcast in the show notes as well, because if you're this brilliant on my podcast, I can't imagine how brilliant you are on yours.

You're very kind. You're very kind.

I can imagine that people tuning in might be rolling their eyes and thinking, this whole thing about support, this is going to cost me a ton of money if I have to start spending money on this cost. In your experience, how can a company shift from seeing this customer support angle from being an expense to viewing it as being a part of their investment structure?

I'd love to say that one of my favorite sayings of all time, but it's a saying that I really only invented a couple of weeks ago.

So, you had a moment of genius 2 weeks ago. Who's gonna hold that against you?

Who's counting? Just one of many, Marc, just one of many. But I hit on this kind of notion that customer support is going to cost you money, or it's going to cost you money. And, you know, ultimately, we do have to accept that there is a cost to providing excellent service, excellent experience excellent engagement with our product or business, there is a cost to that. Otherwise, if businesses could do this for free, we'd all be making a lot more money and we'd all be entrepreneurs. So call it what you want, whether it's support or experience or success, where you are providing a service and engaging with your customers is going to cost you money. And support is just one of those because customers, as we established at the start, customers are always going to have problems and questions. They always need someone to talk to. Now, there are obviously ways you can reduce that cost, but ultimately your aim should be to stop the leaky bucket, to retain those customers, the customers that are costing you money in a different way by leaving your business.

Yeah. And I think that's the equation that people have to figure out is if you lose a customer who, let's say yourself with your bank example, if that bank loses you as a customer, we have The lifetime spend of a particular customer, what will they lose for the next 15 years because you were unhappy with how they treated you while you were traveling? What does that cost them, right? And so, what will it cost them then to have a good process in place to be able to save that relationship and keep you as a loyal customer going forward?

And we've talked about operations and process quite heftily because I'm in technical support. It's very technical. We apply a lot of process and procedure to making it scalable and making it repeatable. But the fact is that you'll always need people to do that. So, the process isn't going to answer every single, you know, question around scalability for you, because some things just don't scale. You know, you're going to have to apply some people to it. That dynamic, that rate of spend, if you like, changes depending on the business significantly, obviously. But the people are always going to be really your biggest cost.

Yeah.

And you have to set up an environment where they can succeed. So, you have to put those operations in place, you have to invest in tools. And retrospectives, and process, and data, and all of that is an investment, as well as your people. But really what you're doing is you're setting your people up to succeed. Because if you can automate away anything, if you can make your customers self-serve, that's great. It means that those customers aren't really engaging with your business, which is great for the customers in many ways. But the ones who do come to you, you want to build an environment where they can really build relationships with the people that they're talking to. And so, it's important that any operations or any tooling you put in place, your people can kind of zigzag around as well, and that they're allowed to be people. I think that's really critical, and that does cost money.

Yep. You know, when, in my example with the telecom companies, my experience was that I had warned them that I had a better offer from somebody else, and they said, oh, there's nothing we can do. And so, then I switched, and then For weeks afterwards, I would get somebody calling me up and saying, oh, I want to give you a special offer. And it's like, but I gave you the opportunity. I gave you 2 weeks' notice that I was looking at switching over and gave you the opportunity. Oh well, we can't give everybody the power to make the offers. And it's like—

Right.

So, when it comes down to this idea of kind of investing in our people, when these are the people on the front line talking to a customer that is dissatisfied, Why aren't we empowering them to do what's necessary within the scope of our business, overall business? Why do we have to say, okay, then I want to talk to your manager, and then you talk to the manager. I want to talk to your loyalty department, and then you talk to the loyalty department. I want to talk to your supervisor. Why does it have to be so hard?

It is hard and it shouldn't be. But there are businesses out there who get it right. And I'm going to tell you another story now, actually, while we're here, if that's all right, Marc.

Sure, please. Let's hear about somebody who does it really well. That was my next question, was what does success look like when we do this right?

Right. And when you empower your people to make those kinds of decisions in the moment and not bounce you around the business to try and get, you know, to try and retain the business. For me, a company that does this really well is Airbnb. Believe it or not, same holiday, just a few weeks ago, I booked an Airbnb for the second half of my stay. I was, it was a 2-city break. And for the second half, I'd booked an Airbnb. Now, Airbnb is obviously a 2-sided marketplace effectively, and they're not in control, unlike a hotel chain, of the experience you have when you walk into any one of their hosts' homes, right? Any one of their host properties. And that's fine, I get that. I'm buying into that. I'm buying into the service as I expect it to be because I know what Airbnb's service is as an offering. I know what I'm buying. I know it's not their responsibility to ensure you know, the, the floors have been cleaned or whatever. Um, they can only guarantee what they can guarantee, and they can't guarantee for any of their properties, whether they're a Superhost or anything, what you see when you open the door. What I saw when I opened the door late in the afternoon of my second city on my trip to the US was a property that hadn't been cleaned. There were still wet towels everywhere, the beds hadn't been made, the floor was dirty. It was a, you know, it's a lovely apartment, but the kitchen was pretty filthy. I just didn't want to stay there. It's like, you might call me fussy maybe, but I didn't really want to sleep in the sheets that somebody else had slept in for a start and used the wet towels. So I, I did what every good guest should do under these circumstances. I took a completely in-the-moment video walkthrough on my phone, so I had the evidence. So I'm being a good customer at this point. I'm providing all of the evidence. I'm not going to make it hard for them. And I, you know, on the app, very easy, get hold of support. I got a lovely response. You know, we're so sorry that you've had this I'm lucky enough to have a friend in that city, and I went and hung out at their house for an hour while I had this kind of chat with Airbnb. And it was all done in the app, so there was no voice, but it was a live, you know, personable interaction. I said, I can't stay there. They entered into a long, very open chat about what I would like to do. Would I like to engage like another property on the platform that they could They would do all the searches for me. They didn't make me do any of the legwork. They said, here are some that are available today. We can get you booked in. Not only that, we'll give you a voucher for it so you don't have to spend money on it. So they refunded my experience and they gave me a voucher for another property. Now, as it happens, because I was visiting that friend who doesn't have a spare room, I wanted to be quite close. So I didn't want to be on the other side of the city. And so I said, unfortunately, none of those properties that you're You know, thank you very much. And they kept— they gave me about 8 properties that were as close as they could manage that were available that day, but none of them were suitable. They were just too far away. You know, this was San Francisco, it's Fleet Week, so, you know, all of the armed services are in. Every property in the city is practically taken. They were doing their best. I said, I'm gonna phone around some hotels and see what I can find. And actually, a couple of streets away, there was a tiny hotel that had a spare room that night, but only for one night of my 5 nights in the city. Airbnb said, absolutely fine, we will give you a contribution to the cost of that hotel because you're leaving the platform. You're not like taking— you're not going into another Airbnb property. We can't reimburse— I think this is reasonable— the whole hotel stay, but we'll give you a contribution towards it. And they gave me enough for a couple of nights of the 5 nights that I'd intended to stay in the city, which I thought was great. However, the hotel— and I, I chatting to them, the hotel that I booked into only had one night. I had to go and find another hotel for 2 nights, and then come back to this hotel for 2 nights more. So I was moving around. So bear in mind, at this point, they've refunded my original experience. They've offered and done all of the legwork for me in terms of finding an alternative on their platform. I refused. I went and found my own accommodation, which they've contributed significantly towards. It's already a pretty damn good experience, right?

Yeah.

Given that I was Lugging my suitcases around San Francisco for 5 days. Every day of that holiday, they checked in on the app to ask if I was safe and how I was doing and did I need any more help. And for me, that's just, that's a whole other level.

So to those people tuning in right now, I think this is probably the most value you're gonna get out of this episode is this idea that once you solve somebody's problem, There are steps you can take to make it magical so that you get the same feeling that— I mean, to understand that they actually— it actually felt like they cared about you. It wasn't just another transaction.

It wasn't. And, you know, I was speaking to a real person the whole time. This was a highly novel problem, not unlike the kind I see at work every day, right? You know, this isn't an AI kind of, can I check in early question, which I know they've got a bot and I could probably get some of those questions answered myself. But this was a really, really personal problem. The people I was in touch with through the app, and I spoke to 2 or 3 customer support providers at Airbnb, I had their name every single time. They told me what time their shift ended and when they would call me or when they would be back on that chain with, you know, a check-in. And they handed over, and this is like where the bank failed me by contrast, the handover between supporting reps And support shifts was basically seamless. It was one conversation. I was obviously aware of speaking to different people, actually, which is also a nice touch because it didn't look like I was speaking to some avatar all the time.

Right.

But, but also they maintained that level of care beyond the life of the, of the issue, effectively, to your point. And for me, yes, it's magical. You know, these kind of support experiences can make or ruin a customer's day. In the mornings, I was having the bank ruining my day, and every evening Airbnb were making it wonderful. Um, so, and for me, that was the contrast, you know, it was literally night and day in terms of support experiences.

And it would be so easy for you to lose trust in the brand because you walked into this apartment that was filthy and you were let down. And had they just shrugged and said, oh, there's nothing we can do, you know, you would really think twice about booking Airbnb. In fact, if you told us that was the end result, We'd be looking at it and going, well, I know this lady Charlotte who had a really bad experience. Do I really want to take a chance on my trip to book something and not be right? But instead now, not only have they ensured that you will be calling them again and using their service again, but now you've just communicated it out to the world that this was a pretty darn good experience and that if we're traveling, we should maybe consider Airbnb.

Definitely. And I would have no qualms of using them again. I mean, you know, As I said, I know they're not in control of every minute of the experience when you're there. That's their value prop, right? They aren't a hotel chain. But they made it feel like they were.

Yeah. Ultimately, I think that's a lesson that we can learn from in every facet of what we do. When we talk about this idea that we have these organizations that have the ability to create this, can we talk about the value that training plays in making something like this happen? Because I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and training again is just another expense. And there's that funny little cliché about what happens if I train them and they leave? And then the response is, well, what happens if you don't train them and they stay? Right? Which is— so, can we talk a little bit about how we should be looking at this and quantifying the value of training?

I sadly think that that is just it, right? I think it's the value of training is in the risk of not doing it. And the value of almost anything, when you're talking about return on investment, you're talking really about, it either makes you money, or it stops money walking out the door. And ultimately, ultimately, that's how you justify the cost, is applying the return that you'll get on that cost. And the return in this kind of case is not losing customers, or it's in customers that stick with you for longer. And all of that goes back to the data point, right? You know, you have to begin watching how your customers are behaving in the business, how they're interacting with your support reps, looking for those moments of friction where you need a, I'll call it a quality adjustment in your support experience one way or another.

I like that, quality adjustment.

Whether it's operational, you know, or whether, or whether it's that like going up, going beyond, going above and beyond. And, uh, I haven't spoken to anyone, any of the leaders in Airbnb support for a very long time. But I know they didn't arrive at that service on day one.

Right.

They iterated. And we all have to do that. We all have to watch our customers and iterate. And, you know, training is just a part of that. Like, the way that your reps treat your customers in terms of, you know, guiding them through the business, or talking to them, or solving their problems, so much of that, at a people level, is trained. Whatever that training looks like, then, We have to be able to understand why we're doing anything.

Putting on my leadership hat, I would say, yes, it's trained. But then, it's also modeled by the leaders because how leaders treat their staff is going to be directly proportional to how the staff will treat your customers, right? So, I think it's 2 sides of the same coin. For the people who are tuning into this and kind of nodding along with what we're saying, if somebody knows that they need to do quality adjustments to their support, what cautionaries and pitfalls should they be aware of as they try to make this change?

I think this comes back to a little of what we were saying earlier, but, you know, don't develop an echo chamber. I think talking about quality in your support experience is critical, but it has to account for all perspectives. So if you're only just really measuring your quality from the inside and actually not tying it to any of the experiences and Only measuring it according to your own expectations and building that echo chamber where everything sounds great, aren't we doing very well? It's next to useless as a quality program at that point.

Yes.

Yeah, the whole celebratory thing because you get one thing right and then you think, oh, well, look how great we are, is wonderful.

Yeah.

Charlotte, this has been really fantastic. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get ahold of you?

Sure. You can find me on LinkedIn or more directly through Customer Support Leaders.

Lovely.

And as we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we're talking about? Have we missed anything, Charlotte?

Oh, I think I would just really encourage our listeners to get started because I think, as I said right at the top, we can easily get caught in the trap of thinking too much about it. And while design is important, and while applying the right data is important, getting started is even more important than either of those things.

Yeah.

And would it be fair to say, get started even though you're going to make mistakes? Just get started? Because I think if the intent is there—

Absolutely.

I think even customers will figure out If you're sincere about the intent to want to create great service, that they will be forgiving in a lot of different realms, even if you trip and fall.

Absolutely. And to your point, this is part of the modeling. As leaders, if we're beginning to look how our customers are behaving in the business, you're signaling to your team that we're looking at how customers behave around the business and how we can do better for them. And if you start signaling and modeling that for your team because you're talking about it, Because you're collecting data, because you're standing in line, your team are going to be very motivated to make the customer's life just happier every day too.

Yeah. Charlotte, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here. Obviously, you know, your passion shows through and your expertise shows through. It's just been a brilliant conversation. Thank you for making time today.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.

It has been brilliant. If you have any If you have any questions about today's episode, or maybe you're thinking, hey, we could really use a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with Marc or Charlotte. Well, good news. You can snag a spot on my calendar. Just hit the link that is in the show notes, the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. If you'd like to connect with Charlotte, her contact information is also in the show notes. You know, we are dedicated to supporting businesses just like yours. So, if you are thinking about supporting a leadership retreat or doing a convention or conference and you think you need a couple of experts to help you along the way, please feel free to reach out to us. Charlotte and I are available to serve you, make sure that your audience is fulfilled, and make sure that we live and breathe and model the very best practices. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you make sure that you subscribe to this feed and follow me on social media. And please be sure to tune in next week when my guest will be Shawn Grace talking about the power of really great questions. So, join me, won't you? Thank you for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure Be sure you visit marchaine.com for a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found today's content valuable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Marc says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe.

Stay safe.

Stay healthy and— Dare to be the exception.