Redefining customer experience with Raymond Otero, Microsoft

Speaker A: Foreign. And M. Welcome back to the CS School Podcast brought to you by Customer Success Collective. Now this is the podcast where we get CS professionals from all over the world on this podcast to really discuss what's going on, customer success today, what you want to hear and really try to break down these concepts into digestible bite sized pieces. So on the podcast today I'm delighted to be joined by Ray Otero, who is the Director of Global Customer Experience Strategic Programs at Microsoft. Ray, thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Speaker A: How's it going today?

Speaker B: Uh, it's going, I mean there's a lot of moving parts. New fiscal year in July so you know we're just getting up to speed and just ramping up for this fiscal year and uh, it's exciting times.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Oh well I can't wait, can't wait for you to be the episode today because we've got really, really, really exciting topic all about customer experience and I can't think of anyone better to talk to me about this than you. Um, so yeah, and as you're a CSC ambassador as well, so it's really, really excited to get this recording done because yeah, you're gonna have so much. I know you've got so many insights to share with the uh, with the community. So yeah, really excited. So, so for this episode, yeah we're going to look at really kind of the, the evolution, the intersection of really what customer experience experience is all about really. So for our listeners, actually before we even get started, I've got ahead of myself. Would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about your role at uh, Microsoft? What kind of, what do you do really in your role as a Director of Strategic Programs?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And uh, again thanks for having me. I hope everybody's doing well over there in csc, but I think uh, so in Microsoft I've been here for about three years and uh, I had a couple of different roles and that's why this topic is very near and dear to my heart because I started out as what is called a um, a Customer Success Director or a Senior Principal. C SAM is what we call it internally at Microsoft. And what that was is literally um, field engagement, essentially being that journey coach for the customer. Now move fast forward to where I'm at today is working in our Global Customer Experience group within cens which is Customer Experience and Success, which is a global group with probably several thousand um, employees, um, working across all different types of uh, customers. And my role is to help in specific Strategic programs to pinpoint areas that, you know, we can assist with the customer experience journey for customers at scale. Um, you know, that being, you know, working from across the entire engagement methodology from point A to point B. What does the experience look like for the customer? How are we interacting with the customer? What's the quality of our interactions? All of those awesome insights are part of what my team helps, you know, shape for the organization. Um, so that's where I'm at today.

Speaker A: Oh, brilliant. Out of curiosity, how long has that kind of role. I get this, this kind of ties into my sort of first real question really, like, how long has that role been about at Microsoft? Because. And then that kind of leans into the distinction between CX and cs. You know, have you noticed that that's, it's a new, a newer role that we've seen in the last few years? Uh, talk to me about that a little bit, if that's all right.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So it's. So, you know, we, the field of CX has been, you know, it's evolved over the past several years. I'd say, you know, um, it's, you know, that and then customer success have both evolved significantly. Right. That evolution is driven by, you know, the technological advancements, changing customer expectations. It's been probably the last several years, I'd say we've, they've been hitting the ground running with that. And I'd say with our CEO at the helm since 2014, Satya Nadella, who's phenomenal and probably one of the best CEOs I've ever worked with, um, he, he helped set the stage for CX Journey and what that means to a customer and what to do to help bring, um, bring forth what uh, that evolution looks like, albeit with technological advancements changing customer expectations and increasing the importance of that personalized interactions. Right. So in customer experience there's like a significant blend of tech and human elements. Right. So automated systems providing that speedy reply, humans tackling the tricky problems and all those things, but the customer. The company operates across various channels nowadays, so it really evol. And it changed over time. Um, but it's more of a, again, I'd have to say it's more of a, it's a newer role, right. A newer type of, um, you know, initiative across the globe. Right. Because a lot of the different companies are more omnichannel these days and with data and AI and communications and all these different things that are coming at play here, I mean it's, it's just going to keep evolving. So you know, that's where that is. Brilliant.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, absolutely, I guess. So when you're looking at um, source of the customer experience, are you looking at it holistically? You're not just looking at it in a post sales way. You're kind of looking at it from way back at the very beginning of the customer journey. Is that, is that right?

Speaker B: Correct. So, so what we do is so, you know, in like, let's say in the world of customer success, right, it's all about being proactive rather than just reacting when something goes wrong. Right. It's more about making sure the customer gets the most out of what they bough. Um, in our case, Microsoft products or in anybody else's case, whatever industry they're in. Um, so, you know, digging into the data really helps. And that's where the CX piece comes in. Um, that coupled with AI and machine learning, um, we essentially focus on the entire journey, right? We talk about the journey not just from when the product has, was completed and we had made a deal with the customer. They're working on top of our cloud solutions and all of those things, or for any other product for that matter, we are there from the beginning to the end of that entire cycle with the customer, right? And then we pinpoint on specific areas within that cycle that will essentially help improve that and make the customer, make the customer love the brand or not m. Essentially make them, but essentially help them to see what the value is of what they have outside of just being proactive and, you know, you know, all of those things that come with customer success and what they need to do to keep, keep the lights on, right? So it's all about, you know, it's all about talking, you know, we talk about that with modern trends where we're starting to integrate with AI and machine learning. It's a total game changer. Um, what we do is intertwine all of that with our solution set to then get a better handle on all of the small stuff, all of the things that, you know, get the load down on the customer's whole journey, right? Because it really matters a lot to us as far as what that experience looks like and how smooth it is, right. So we're really digging into the business in a variety of different levels and also helping with the cultural changes, right, that we might ensue with that the customer needs to also come with us in this journey as well as a partner. So we then launch ourselves into more of a strategic platform with the customer.

Speaker A: That's really interesting. Thank you. So Much for sharing that. What you just touched on the cultural shift. I'd love to speak about that because I guess, I guess there's so many companies that I've speak to or people work at are very product led and there's obviously a definite shift going, moving towards customer centricity. Um, which I feel like definitely just lends itself to the SaaS sort of recurring model. Like I feel like you need to be kind of thinking position, you know, making sure every customer interaction is customer centric. You know you're thinking about what they want. So I guess how, how have companies kind of overall cultural shifts towards that, that, that kind of customer uh, centricity. How has that impacted CX and cs? Because obviously you can have CS in a product led company or, or even a sales led company. Um, but how, how do you think changing attitudes, attitudes that have evolved, how have they kind of improved these kind of functions, you know when it, when it comes to satisfaction, retention, you know those big kind of key things kind of CSMs and professionals are working towards.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good uh, question. It's a real long journey too. Um, I guess you know companies cultural shifts towards customer centricity have significantly impacted both. Right. And we, we're, we're always striving to improve customer satisfaction and retention. All that's at the end of the day, right? That's what we're trying to do. So what we do is by prioritizing the customer at the core of their operations. The business is fostered environments where every decision and action is aligned with customers needs and expectations. We work backwards from the customer. Right. We're not just you know creating a product and you know uh, within a bubble. Right. Um, so this shift resulted in more of that kind of like personalized and meaningful interactions. So that in turn enhances the customer's journey. But this customer centric approach not only increase customer satisfaction for us but for a lot of people that are doing this type of thing but also foster more loyalty. So the businesses that actively assimilate customer feedback and adapt their services are rewarded with significant improvements in C. Sending your. So consider the case of like various like Top Cloud and SaaS organizations, not mentioning names, these tech giants like harness the power of user suggestion to steer progress. The inventive strides in product development ensuring their offerings resonate and evolve the needs of the clientele. Right. That shift, that's part of that cultural shift where we're prioritizing customer experience which in turn is like a catalyst at a, in like a virtuous circle. Right. It's a, like a constant circle where we give customers in turn are uh, naturally become loyal advocates and then they endorse the company and contribute to the overall success. Right. So there's a lot of things like to enhance that experience as well, um, that we do with the customers to kind of help them along with that journey to make it more, you know, more seamless. Right. Because it involves a lot of things. It involves executive sponsorship, it involves um, you know a top down effect where you know we, we have with our CEO saying hey, this is a journey that we are investing in. This is something that we are mandating as far as a go forward plan. And that's something that culturally needs to be done internal to other organizations as well to help, you know, with that customer experience. Mhm.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Because I guess, I guess really in customer success if you, I don't, I don't really like to talk in terms of departments but if we're going to talk in terms of departments, customer success obviously are inherently customer centric. Whereas with other departments, which is where you kind of, I guess you need that kind of leadership buy in, it's a harder kind of thing to navigate where it might, you know, they have different, different mindsets, different kind of work, ways of working. So in terms of, in your experience, um, you know, for example, like Mark, you know, working with marketing, like customer marketing or uh, you know, with, with your sales. How um, how hard or, or maybe not hard in your experience has it been to try and get them thinking more about the holistic customer experience? Because obviously CSMs, they know, they know that that's in, you know, I know they're kind of often siloed post, post sales in that kind of. Which is why I didn't really want to think about it in terms of departments because it you know, customer success should be a whole, you know, a business wide kind of attitude. Right. But for other departments, thinking about the customer experience in the whole, in the, you um, know, you know, holistically, how hard is that kind of have you. Well in your experience, not even just at Microsoft, but generic, you know, in your career, is that something quite tricky to get on, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So we're talking more on like operationalizing the, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Speaker B: More like uh, day to day stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: I mean that, that lends to that cultural shift right. Where we're trying to like if we want to integrate like the CX and you know, with let's say Customer success methodologies that are across all different operations across the business. There's several strategies we can use that for that. And like, you know, first, it's super important to make sure that the whole company is all about the customer. I know there's some departments that are and customer success already is like wound that way. That's um, goes without saying. But there's an, like an always a, a, a evolving kind of like a feedback chain between us and the different departments to teach those team members to always think about what the customer wants and keep them happy in whatever they do. So there's a lot of things that, there's a lot of back and forth those other departments that are not as keen on those types, things like, you know, product engineering, development and those types of groups, right. They, they are working backwards from a lot of their features and the things that they're trying to release. But it getting them to start thinking more in a customer centric manner, say, okay, should we be releasing this feature at this given time? Right. Is this something that will benefit the customer in a more of the short term or in the long term? Right. So we got to keep tabs also on that data and also that this is a big initiative. This is something where every department needs to learn and it takes time. Right. It took us several years to do this and Satya came at the helm, uh, for my company. So I mean this is something that we keep tabs on the data and what the customer tells us. And that's the type of thing that we in customer experience evangelize across all of the, I guess, interdepartmental interactions that we have within Microsoft. And then this happens with other companies as well. Where I've been in prior firms as well, my prior life, um, we keep tabs on that data and what the customer tells us. And we use different mechanisms. The stuff's like gold for understanding what folks want and what their gripes are. So it helps to make like, it helps us to make smart moves and give them exactly what they're after. Right. Then when you get customer experience and customer service teams join forces. So when we're working very closely with our customer success side of the group or our csu, we then take that and everyone's on the same page. And then what we do is work with our executive sponsors across the different business units to then get them to understand what that experience looks like. Right. Utilizing a lot of the tech magic, I say the tools and the things that we have at our disposal that we create like our AI tools and CRM M software and those types of things, we utilize the tools to make our job simple internally because then that helps also those different interdepartmental groups and um, executive stakeholders that we work with understand, hey, this is the great experience. This is what we need to be doing for the customer as well. And then us going across the different groups and providing them those different data and insights, right, that show them, hey, this is what's going on in your patch. The sales folks are a prime example. Our account team units, they're the ones that are out there in the field and they're having discussions with the customer every day. So by us making this customer experiences, CX data and insights and those awesome things that we're doing with the customer and the stuff, the stuff that may not be so awesome, um, making them understand that data and providing it to them and briefing it to them will help also adjust that culture and change it around and say, all right, we have immediate opportunities to do things better, or we have immediate opportunities that maybe internally we could be, do things better to help with that customer interaction, with that customer experience. Right? So, I mean, really it's, it's all about, you know, um, evangelization, enabling our teams to get them to start thinking that way.

Speaker A: You mentioned, um, thank you for that. You mentioned, you know, using new technologies and stuff. So when you're actually sharing this, so I'm being a layperson here. When you're actually sharing this, the, these insights and this analysis, like, how are you doing that? Is that way the new tech comes in or, you know, how are you making, you know, is it a case of, are there, is it that, is there routine data sharing? Do you have that set up like on a regular cadence or is it kind of like, you know, when there's like an immediate, like, you know, you've identified like an incredible opportunity for like maybe an upsell or cross sell, is that, you know, how does that kind of work on a sort of daily, you know, a daily basis for anyone that might be listening and thinking they might maybe wanting to get into this sphere or perhaps establish something similar in their own organization. What does that kind of look like at Microsoft? Ah, yeah.

Speaker B: You're talking about internally or to the customer?

Speaker A: Well, or both, actually. Internally, I was thinking. Uh, but also. Yeah, externally as well.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, um, internally we have, we do various, um, you know, rhythms of business and certain things that we put in place as form of like a joint operating model with, with our different, um, internal stakeholders. Right. Because again in customer um, experience and customer success we not only have our customer, but we also work on at the behest of the account teams and we work at the behest of our executive stakeholders that are internal to the business because they need to see the data for how they're going to grow. So we um, institutionalize different rhythms of business, albeit monthly, quarterly, weekly and work very closely with our internal executive stakeholders. And I mean that by you know, leaders that are, let's say that have different territories, for example, or different um, um, corporate uh, VPs or executives that have uh, touch points across the business. Right. That they're the ones that are responsible and accountable for growing that business. We have these rhythms of business and these different types of data and insights that we're responsible for that we collect and create through our customer surveys, through our customer interactions and then utilize those in those rhythms of business to help those leaders understand what that is. And we provide in like, in particular in our group we provide those insights and we put a, um, essentially package that up in a way that it's understandable that in a way that they'll understand and see. All right, this is an opportunity where we can generate M X amount of revenue or this is an opportunity where we can um, increase our C set by X fold by doing certain simple things that they then will be responsible for providing to their field as part of their go forward motion. We work closely with sales excellence, we work closely with those types of groups in business development and marketing to also kind of weave in what those insights look like to then provide that, to um, something that, that you know, would be some, maybe a feature or certain things that the customer would like to see. We then provide that in a different form for the customer as well. Well, um, to do that. But it's operationalizing is where really first and foremost is the most important thing. So they can actually see that this is something that's important that we're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, I think. Absolutely. Right. Uh, um, when you were talking before about, you know, you were talking about the certain, the AI platforms that you use at Microsoft, um, I'm just thinking more in terms of like, you know, what kind of CX platforms and sort of data analytics do you have, you found that you know, has really sort of changed the game in, in kind of your role in helping understand and basically obviously what we're trying to do, what CSMS and CSX professionals are trying to improve the customer journey. Right. So are there any kind of tools that you've kind of found that uh, I don't know, even in the like, even you know, in the last few months or last year or so, that's really kind of taken it to the next level.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, not to be. Well, we have a variety of different cx, uh related platforms of data analytics. I mean we, we eat our own dog food. Um, of course, ah, for instance if I'm talking, I'm a Microsoft, um, being a proponent of them obviously. Um, there are tools and platforms that we leverage that are internal to us. Our own CRM, we have our own data analytics. We leverage our power bi. We leverage our tooling to the best of its ability to then help us manipulate what that data should look, what it looks like, productize it, make it look like visuals, the dashboards, all of those things are what we use to be successful. That coupled with our AI solutions that have been, you know, the, the latest hype, um, especially even with the Olympics going on, seeing Microsoft co pilot for M365 out there on one of the commercials was phenomenal. But um, you know, not to throw that out there, but that's, that's a tool that we use internally, like religiously. Uh, we are using that to help improve what we're doing, how we can formulate uh, the data, how can we utilize our, our, our different AI solutions to then make that easier for us to get our job done more quickly. And um, you know, it also helps us provide deeper insights into the customer behavior. Right. Um, the pain points, what the preferences are. Um, we could utilize this AI in machine learning to then uh, even with natural language processing, just talking like I'm talking to you, uh, and say hey, take this data and then tell me what it looked like over the last three to five years. How can we, how can we improve things? What do the insights look like? And it'll give me the insights based on those numbers and that data points. Right. So I could still look at the content and I could still look at it, but we still need person to person interaction. But it really saves us hours and hours of time from having to crunch the data and look through it and parse through it and then make our own assumptions when we can have a good starting point and then make our own assumptions after the tooling we have in place is, has, has, you know, done its job.

Speaker A: Oh, brilliant. Oh, it's always great to hear when people like, yeah, actually, uh, using the products they, their companies are actually. Yeah, yeah. Especially with someone like Microsoft though as well, like yeah, it's a no brainer, isn't it really? Um, I guess I think if we've been talking a lot about this episode about trying to make, establish like, you know, regular cadences for sharing information. Making, making it, making it kind of a cultural, making customer experience more of like a. Well, I'm trying to, I've lost my words here, but basically trying to make it, ingrain it into a business and make, make other departments, make other state internal stakeholders realize the insignificance of it. And um, you know, to best use this data, how, um, how would you say organizations could effect effectively track and, and measure the success of their customer experience and success initiatives? You know, we're talking, if we talk of metrics, you know, how can companies align their metrics for, you know, making sure they're sort of, you know, tracking things comprehensively, um, and making sure everything's lined up.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's. Well, there's two pieces to it. Right. It's a combination, I would say of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Right.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: You know, like we call it, I guess we call it the X and O data. The X data, you know, being the uh, you know, there's behavioral data and then there's the data that goes with the behavioral data. Right. Um, so KPI is one of them that has like a metric within it that's called like a Net Promoter score and NPS score. We have the CSET scores, um, which essentially would uh, be the data points that would tell us, okay, what's that customer satisfaction look like? Based on a certain type of questioning that we provide to the customer and give them in surveys, whether it be monthly, quarterly, semiannual, however the organization wants to cut it. Right. Um, customer effort scores provide valuable insights into customer perception. Right. Additionally, if you want to track customer retention rates, churn rates, lifetime value, there is a clv, helps in understanding long term impacts for the CX and CS efforts. I'll refer to them as both of those. Yes. Um, and, and those metrics are really important. And one other one that I would say is um, that can prove quite beneficial is um, some sort of a, a data point that based on the line of questioning will get you to a more successful outcome on you know, who the, the account team is that's working with that customer. We need to understand what the quality and level of EFF from the teams that are interacting with the customers as well. We're not just doing performance tracking. You need to understand what the teams that are actually having those conversations with the Customer daily, weekly, monthly, hourly, all those emails, everything. We need to be able to understand what that looks like too. Um, if the product is great, but we need again that's part of the CX journey, that people, interaction, focus, um, that part of the CX journey where we're guiding them along as a cloud journey coach and we're helping them understand the product, we're enabling them, the trainers, the uh, salespeople, the specialists, the cloud architects, whatever you want to call it, even the customer success folks that are managing the CSMs that are managing those accounts, um, understanding what that level of quality is and how they are working with the customer is another metric um, that we use and I know a lot of other organizations use as well. Um, the customers really need to create a, the end of it, a consistent framework that combines that data across different touch points and the departments can then track that performance more effectively. So again set clear goals, clear lines of questioning and frequently evaluate that performance and encourage collaboration for those results.

Speaker A: Oh, phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think thinking about and I think for the sake of this ah, episode I think our listeners would love to hear a kind of like a case study really of, of how you've, you know, and it's a time where you've, you know, you integrated CS&CX, um, has led to, you know, I don't know, either at Microsoft or in a previous role, you know, you know, significant like achievement, you know what just so people can understand, you know, I think it's, I think it's just helpful so they can understand like best practices to learn, you know, to learn from or that uh, you know, that kind of thing.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's one notable case, it's a public case study that anybody can look this one up. It's, we integrated our customer experience and our customer success in our journey on our platform and everything with um, with folks like Adobe. Everybody is familiar with Adobe, um, and how they implemented their unified approach to enhance their C set and retention while migrating folks over to our product and platform set. Right. It was a cultural change. They literally shifted did to our products that are cloud solutions that highlight benefits of both customer success and customer experience. Right. That gave them very notable results. So they were moving essentially their cloud based setup, their, their uh, to Azure. They cut operational costs. So this is a whole journey, right? They cut operation costs by 50%, they improved app performance by 30% and they increased CSAT by 20%. Right. And this was over a multitude of, of of uh, phases. Right. Or you know, rings as we call them, the strategy included. And this is where is a good common practice for CX and CS leaders alike, uh, is customer journey mapping. Right. This is, this is first and foremost one of the most important things that we need to do to help understand, you know, and pinpoint on areas for enhancement that pave the way for a more personalized engagement. Right, right. And, and that personalized engagement is, is not just business, but it's also technical. Um, it's also how we deliver. It's also what that product set looks like on top of our platform. Right. And this goes for other customers. And um, there's a multitude of organizations that have worked with us in the CX journey that, that also have very, very similar results, um, that gave them service efficiency and greater customer loyalty for their own product sets. We have integrators that have their own product sets that go through the CIGS journey with us, us, um, and adjust their cultures and create that kind of, you know, that fully instantiated journey mapping with the analytics with the data to back it up. Right. So that's something that, you know, really stuck out at me as a case study is, you know, it's one of the most successful ones that there is. Right. That's out there. And you know, it shows the, it reflects how our business worked and with their business as far as partners. Right. And we're partners in this journey and not just, you know, accounts and customers. We're partners. Right. They need to understand what it takes to get them from point A to point B, migrate their platform. Great, we got them to do that. But now there's this ongoing effort. There's this ongoing effort that even now, to this day is still ongoing, um, to help improve certain things behind the scenes for both of us.

Speaker A: Us. Wow. Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive stuff there. And like, yeah, I mean, I, I had no idea about that. I mean, definitely we'll be looking that up a bit more. It's so interesting. Um, are there any, I guess just thinking as we're coming to the end of this episode, I'm thinking, so I'll be completely honest. I'm aware of customer experience. I work, you know, I write and talk to a lot of customer success professionals. So I think I probably came to this episode with a few probably misconceptions in my head about cx, um, what it is, what it isn't. Are there any kind of big kind of misconceptions that you, I don't know, you read about or you hear about whether that's Internally, whether that's on LinkedIn or whatever, you know, any misconceptions of CX and CS, uh, that you kind of, I don't know, really kind of grind your gears a bit and you kind of can, you hope companies can kind of of, you know, overcome these kind of misunderstandings because it's such an important function and it's something I don't think maybe is as. Is as people talk about the customer experience, but they don't necessarily talk about it in the same way that you are doing customer experience at Microsoft. Um, you know, obviously customer success, you know, has been around for the last 15, 20 years or has at least it's been, you know, consistency and considerable growth since then and people are more kind of aware of it. But. Yeah. Are there any kind of big misconceptions that you'd like to address on this podcast now about cx?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's, there's quite a few common misconceptions about, you know, CX and customer success in general. I mean, it hinders companies. I mean it's, it's a fact from, you know, fully leveraging our, uh, functionalities of whatever the product is or whatever the solution is that company is providing. But I'd say one major misconception is that CX is, is, is just customer service. Um, I'd say in general, even customer success. Right. It's all intertwines. It's like, you know, they're the ones that are helping with just support. Right. And we're the ones that are just on the back end trying to help improve that support. And that's where the customer satisfaction relies in just customer service? No, it actually encompasses what we do, encompasses that entire journey right from the initial post purchase interactions. Similarly, customer success is often mistaken for customer support as well. But while supports reactive, CCX is pro. CS and CX are more proactive. We're even more proactive on our side because we're analyzing data before things happen. Right. So we're. They. That's the misconception. We need to. People need to change that misconception. We help customers achieve their goals and derive maximum value from that product or service, whatever it is that we're. We're. That we're supporting. Right. Another misunderstanding is that CX and CS are solely the responsibility of their respective teams. Right. And then. Yeah. Whereas every department from marketing to product development, we talked about it earlier. As far as culture change.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Another tip there, by the way, is if other organizations would like to help adjust that culture a little bit more and help them be more data driven and be more focused on the customer. Then there are certain internal incentives that could be provided to folks that are more M. CX prone. Um, you know, like awards and recognitions perhaps that people could start leveraging like is a CX award. You are a CX leader for us. Here's a, here's something or here's your, this is your core priority. So there's a, there's something that helps you with your, you know, performance incentives or whatever that may be. Right. However the company cuts it. But I know from product marketing and all that they, they play a crucial role in shaping and delivery these experiences too. So you know, we need to be able to help them be more data driven and drive that. So that's one of the other misconceptions. That was just us in a bubble, in an island. We're doing it, but everybody else needs to be doing this journey as well. So again, additionally, I'd say some believe that, that certain aspects of CX can't be measured, but it can be tracked. Using what I talked about earlier. There's a things and it just matters, you know, what, what we're asking the customer for. Right. What are those realistic expectations, what are those questions that we're giving them? Right. That they can respond to and how do we, how do we parse those responses and create those metrics? Right. That's really where we need to make sure that everybody understands. Right. Um, whereas, yeah, there's always some type of a data point. There's always, you know, there's always something that will help us with longer term success with that customer. Customer, you know, it doesn't have to be just reactive. And you know, again, I'll equate to one other thing too. One, if a customer has one issue that no matter how many awesome things that has happened with that customer, um, if there's that one issue or that one thing with a product that's just, that's just a nail under a thorn in their side or it's just something that's just an annoyance, they're always going to remember that more. Right. That's always going to stick out at them. That product, that thing, it's like, oh, I, I've been working on this, I need something, a feature or something released or there's something that I've asked for, you know, from an experience perspective and it's been months and months. They're always going to have that in their head. Right. But it's that aspect again it uh, relates to the culture. It's the aspect of everybody coalesces behind that and then shows the progression to the customer, shows them that journey and shows them, you know, that transparency that again is something that will help with that longer term success. And that's where CX shines and customer success shines as well. Right. In general. Right. They need to, we also need to teach the teams on what we're about. Right. And keep as part of that culture. One thing I failed to mention was the user stories, the real life examples, the things that we can provide not just externally but to internal departments say look, we've done this, this in other areas. This is something that we need to be more keen on in this area. Right. So everyone kind of knows that deal. And then if custom and if companies sort out these kind of misunderstandings and try out these tips, uh, the proof will be in the pudding. Right. They'll be able to, they'll be able to see what the fruit is of their labor there. Um, they'll be able to grow and their customers will then be happier because now they have one asset aspect that they were able to resolve. Right. And we're not talking about escalations and, and, and cases and all of that because that goes with the territory, but it's them knowing that we're with them along that journey the whole way will make them, will, will make them feel like they should stay with us, not that they have to because support is a common place.

Speaker A: Right, Yeah, I know. Oh absolutely. It feels like companies are literally just sitting on um, like a gold mine of insights, but they don't know how to necessarily best utilize them or they don't have the uh, manpower behind it. Like for example, obviously you're at Microsoft and obviously Microsoft is just like possibly the biggest, you know, one of the biggest companies in the world. What would you say though for. And so lots of people, I think lots of people feel like they have to try and they need to get buy in for customer success. So in like a sort of, you know, sort of small to medium business customer experience just. It won't be, they won't be at that kind of, of stage yet for that. So would you say customer experience is more necessarily geared towards your enterprise big companies and less so for, you know, I feel like that's something we haven't really spoken about but I feel like maybe some people might be listening who maybe are from smaller organizations, but kind of do want to kind of start thinking a little bit more about using these kind of data Points and making sure we're feeding back to, to other departments.

Speaker B: Absolutely no customer success customer experience can be done in any different size of organization, right? No matter your small to medium, you know, non profit, it doesn't matter like you, it, you don't have to boil the ocean when it in regards to this, right? If you're able to just start those motions and then uh, you know, if we're talking about customer success, the buy in is, is to me is what is that, that that long term relationship and, and what has that adoption been over time of whatever that product is, whatever that solution is, whatever that small to medium business is providing. That customer could be a small msp, it could be a, doesn't have to be a Microsoft, doesn't have to be uh, any of our, any of the other companies out there, but you know it as long as they start somewhere and if they can show that return, that return on investment over time by showing that loyalty for the long haul, right? The CSET customer satisfaction, how that correlates with, with how much that you know, if that company is doing um, recurring revenue or monthly recurring MRR or if they're, you know, if they, if they can correlate the, the data with what they're making and, and show those numbers as it correlates with customer satisfaction, just a starting point point, then that's a good area even for a smaller business to then look at and say all right, I can do this, right? They don't need to have an entire team, you know to you know, or uh, boil the ocean with this, right? We could, all we need to do is start with something simple, right? Do one thing, that one metric. Start with one metric and say to yourself, all right, if you're, if you're trying to build out a customer experience or customer success organization, right, and have both of them, right? Or if you want to combine them because smaller companies maybe do both. Um, we have the pleasure of having multiple roles and different things that we feed into this funnel. But if you have to do it all in yourself as an organization and I'm talking more to the small and medium businesses and organizations MSPs, you could start with that one metric. Start thinking internally and saying all right, what does that look like? And start doing your own research and then figuring out where the lowest hanging fruit are for your customer base, right? And then, and then build that, right? And then start creating that business plan around. Okay, this is really a thing because if we utilize this based on the, the, you know, the, the, you know that maybe Put in place like six months to a year or even more of like a track record or do type of, you know, an analysis of saying, all right, I'm going to work backwards from where our current customer basis, the 80:20 rule say, where are our current customers at now, now? And when they have a person like me on an account or on, on that with that customer or they're being supported by us, how much more are they improving? Right. Provide. Start creating those, those initial surveys and those types of things and touch points to then create that data and then those metrics and then create that plan. Right. If there's someone who doesn't even have this in place and then start to formulate that rhythm of business based, based on that and then make your case internally to leadership and say, you know, we're seeing X amount of, uh, improvement in our monthly recurring or we see a lot, a 20 increase in revenue by having folks on these, on these types of customers. Right. Um, if you show the data and if you show it in the right way, it'll make that case a lot easier for them.

Speaker A: Perfect, thank you. Now that was just something I was thinking about. Just thinking, thinking is, can it be, can, can experience be done on the way you're doing it in other companies? You know, is it, is it, you know, perfect. That's brilliant.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Oh, well, thank you so much, Marie. I think we come to come to the end of this podcast, but thank you so much for joining me. This has been eye opening for me and um, yeah, we haven't spoken about customer experience properly on this, on this podcast before, so I'm really grateful that you've taken the time and I certainly feel more educated about it and I think listeners as well, and if anybody wants to reach out to you and they want to learn, know a bit more about how, you know, if they're quite keen to set up a customer experience role in their company or wanting to learn a little bit more, where's the best place for them to reach out to you and carry on the conversation?

Speaker B: Sure. I mean we can actually obviously reach out through the Being an ambassador to customer success collective. I'd say, you know, we can, you can reach out to me through those channels as well as LinkedIn. Um, and my information is on this, the collective as well. So, you know, I'm happy to work with, you know, anybody or everybody, give some of my thoughts and tutelage or things that we could do to, you know, make that journey simpler.

Speaker A: Perfect, thank you very much. And I'll leave your details. Um, your LinkedIn in the show notes, but thank you very much Ray. Um, and yeah, been absolute pleasure chatting with you.

Speaker B: Wow. Likewise, pleasure chatting with you too.

Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to check out our other episodes and go to customersuccesscollective.com for even more customer success related content. You can also join our global community on Slack and can find the link to that on the CSC website. But until then, see you next time.