Breaking the Retail Disconnect with Relevancy I Ted Rubin

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Customer Data Perspectives. I am your host, Isaac Sokolk, the president of Star cio, and I have a super guest today here with me. Welcome Ted Rubin. He's the author of Retail Relevancy, a social media strategist, and a CMO advisor. Welcome, Ted, to the show.

Speaker A: Isaac. Thanks so much for having me. I've been excited about this since we chatted a few weeks back.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you've been on the road and I've been on the road, and here we are back in our, in our respective areas to be able to have a really intense conversation around what retailers should be doing and maybe what they shouldn't be doing. Um, but you wear a lot of different hats. I went to your website. I've looked over your book a little bit. I've read your blog. Um, you've written a few books. You have several focus areas. Tell everybody who you are so that we get a bearing on your opinions.

Speaker A: Well, let's see who I am. That's really a good question. I guess I'm still trying to figure that out. I've reinvented myself quite a few times throughout my career, but at the heart of it has always been that, um, I'm all about relationships. I have been for as long as I can remember. I learned that from my dad, and I made it my own. Um, that belief has kind of guided everything as I've matured and evolved. So I've also taken it beyond what you think of as the basic relationships. Your family, your friends, your colleagues, um, maybe even in sales. I've taken it to the consumer because I just think that the relationship with your customer, your consumer, is really what will drive things going forward, especially as things have become so commoditized, you know, in recent times.

Speaker B: Yeah, Ted, I mean, I completely understand two aspects of this. First, uh, the aspect of being. The aspect of being able to reinvent yourself. And, you know, so much of what's been happening, whether we call it when Web 1.0, Web 2.0. Now coming into Web 3.0. So much of the world of technology and marketing is changing, but I think you're getting back to basics when you say, look, you know, you're not going to get people just to listen, uh, to you or buy from you or be loyal to you. If you're just throwing messaging out there and you're throwing things out there and hoping that it all sticks. Um, I picked out a quote from your new book, Retail Relevancy, that I think really speaks to me. Um, and I was hoping you would talk more about it. Retail relevance exists in the mind of the shopper and unfortunately for many brands, relevancy will vanish as their ability to connect with the shopper is diminished. That's surprising to me. Can you elaborate on this? What should really tailors do differently?

Speaker A: No, I'm going to, but first I just want to make a comment about something you just said.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Back to basics is a really good comment. And something I've talked about for a long time is that we got so wrapped up in all of our abilities to make things mechanical and send things out on mass and do mass marketing and we forgot what it means to develop the relationship with the customer. And I think we're really going back there because we have the tools to do it. And it's becoming more like that local merchant that knew you and knew your family and always good recommendations because they knew if they didn't you'd be back the next week to say hey, this wasn't good for me. So I just wanted to jump in with that because I thought it was important with what you said. You know, getting back to what you talked about, that quote, you know, it simply goes back to the fact that your, your brand is not how you view it as a marketer or as a brand. It's about how your customer and potential customers view it. And so many brands forget that I can't how many don't have customers either as part of that learning process or in the room. I can't tell you how many agencies or brand meetings I've been at where a 45 year old guy is talking about what 22 year old women like. And uh, I'm like well where are the women in the room? And then again maybe you have a few women in the room, but they're all sophisticated and well educated, not necessarily the exact market that you're trying to sell. So you know, your relevancy as a retail brand is about your customers needs and how you fulfill them. And it's becoming more and more like that every day. You know the problem I see most often now, and this goes way deeper than how you deliver your product and service is the impression you are making on your consumers with your marketing. Now here's the disconnect. I'm not referring to how you present your product or service that gained you customers. I'm not talking about the marketing that gets their attention or that makes them think oh my God, Mercedes or oh wow, Nike, but how your marketing drives customers away not to creative or the ads themselves, but how you deliver it. You know, it's the customer experience. With your marketing, we are banging people over the head. Consumers don't owe you their attention, and they certainly don't owe you their permission. I was with Seth Godin when he wrote the original article about permission marketing. I was sitting across the table from him at yo yodai 1998 and that became an article and Fast Company, which then became his really famous book, Permission Marketing. You know, permission is something you earn and it's earned through quality content and offers genuine interest and a deep understanding of consumer preferences and needs. And then, you know, a constant track record that builds trust. Uh, you know, keep the trust, keep the permission, you keep the customer. It's. It's not just the volume or brilliance of your content that matters. So many people think that they, yes, they hire great content, you know, people, they create great content. But if it's not relevant to the consumer, if it doesn't relate to them, if it's nothing more than a waste of your time and a reason for the consumer to take away permission for an ongoing interaction with you, then you're wasting your time and we bang our customers over the head. How many emails? How many times just bought a product, you sign up for an email, Mark M. You know, and they ask you for your email.

Speaker B: Of course, of course.

Speaker A: And by the way, there's supposed to be this box and there usually is, and it says, do you want to receive any emails with us about blah, blah, blah. And most often you most. I shouldn't say that. A lot of people don't check it. And you still get the emails and then you unsubscribe and you still get the emails and then you buy. You buy. I mean, I bought a car from Acura and literally three months ago, and I get seven to 10 emails a month asking me about buying a new car. You know, to me, people must come first, you know, in your growth strategies, in your marketing plans, and in every interaction you have. You know, brands seem to me, and I see it every day, they're running headlong into brand equity destruction through this incessant overuse of their email list and permission and incessant digital spamming. I mean, do you like retargeting? I mean, retargeting sounds great. I don't know how much you know about it, but the concept behind it sounds great.

Speaker B: Why don't you explain it for everybody? Because, you know, it's a pretty wide audience on the customer data perspectives. We have marketers we have data specialists, we have technologists. Uh, why don't you explain that to folks?

Speaker A: Well, just to get to the simplicity of retargeting, is that somebody, you write about something, you talk about something, you buy something, they try to sell you something else that's related or something that's related to your conversation.

Speaker B: Uh, ah.

Speaker A: And what happens is the way these products are sold or presented is they look at lift, meaning if X amount of customers buy and then X amount of customers buy an additional product or come back quickly and buy again, you have numbers related to that. We all have that kind of data. So you use a retargeting technique which sends out an email or another ad or something to them very quickly. And I'm really simplifying this. And now you look at your numbers and you go, oh, wow, you know, now we've got, you know, instead of 3% of customers buying an additional product or buying again in a week, we've got 8%. And most of these, most of these retargeting techniques will do a test. Like, let's do an a B test. Makes a lot of sense, right? With the retargeting technique. Wow, we raised our, we lifted our sales by X percent. We have to pay for this service. X percent. We made a difference. Wow, we made more money. That's great. Let's keep doing it. What they don't look at is how it pisses off the customer. Okay? They don't look at how annoyed you and I get that we just bought something and now you come and offer me 10% off. I just bought the damn thing. Why didn't you offer it to me when I was buying it? Now you want me to buy a second one that I don't even need. It makes me wonder every day how many brand managers, and more importantly, CMOs, bother signing up for their own email distribution lists.

Speaker B: Ted, I totally hear what you're saying. I mean, I remember a blog post I wrote, I don't know if it was 10 years ago, and I was getting frustrated by all the emails and I was getting from marketers, and I said, how good can I make my email filter, uh, appear? So I stopped getting some of these emails. And 10 years ago, you didn't have to be very sophisticated. You know, you look for a few keywords that everybody was using, like unsubscribe, and you would start filtering, filtering some of these things out. And then, you know, then you had to get a little bit more sophisticated. And then the email providers got even more sophisticated to helping you weed out spam and weed out repeat messaging. And so what are the marketers are doing? Well, they have to beat through that, right? They have to find the right combination because they know I get 30 to 300 emails a day. I'm opening maybe 10 to 20% on them. I'm, um, maybe clicking 1 to 3% of it. And they have 10 different things they can put in front of me. So you know what, instead of trying to figure out who I am a little bit, they're going to send me 10 messages over three months and hope that one of them clicks. And you know, and that's, you see a lot of that happening. And that's why I said, you know, uh, I think, you know, going back to fundamentals, going back to basics, I'm feeling that right now. I have a book that just came out a couple months ago. You know the feeling when you put a book out, you know, you want to see it do well, you want to get it into the right people's hands. And how are you going to do that? Well, you're going to go back to market your book. And now I'm a technologist by trade. Now I'm learning the ins and outs of how to market a book, market a brand. And it really isn't easy, you know.

Speaker A: And you know, this is a very challenging job. And not only is it a challenging job, CMOs tend to take the most heat for how sales and how the business is doing when they only have control over a certain part of the business. They don't have control on product delivery. They don't have usually. Here's one of the saddest things, and I know I'm going a little bit off topic here, but most CMOs don't have control over customer service. I mean, how ridiculous is that? Uh, I have to tell you that when I was running, uh, a CMO for certain brands or VP of marketing, the first people I made friends with when I joined an organization was the head of customer service. Because I'm out there saying, we love you and we want to do anything for you. And they're like working in the queues and just dropping people off and they have different KPIs that they have to realize versus what we're trying to do with building relationship with the customer.

Speaker B: Um, look, I think you're dead spot on around that. If you want clues over what's in the mindset of a customer, why don't you talk to the people are always talking to customers at their lowest points and get their feedback and see what pain points are reporting and seeing how they're behaving with that. You even have a blog post around this. I'm going to pull another quote around this. You say customer service is marketing. When else do you have the customer service full attention? They're in time of need. In many organizations, customer service is siloed and focused on operational KPIs. How quickly do you pick up the call? How quickly do you close the ticket? How uh, fast do you resolve issues? Uh, what are companies really getting wrong around this, around customer support and who's doing it?

Speaker A: Well, well the way I like to express it specifically is I like to say that customer service is the only time you have one 100% of your customers attention. Don't waste that opportunity to build your brand now. Why? Why do you have 100%? Because they're looking for resolution. I mean I like to talk about. So, uh, probably a lot of uh, parents out there. You know, I had two daughters that grew up and you know, as they become teens, it's kind of hard to get their attention. Uh, like to say the only time I really had 100% of my daughter's attention is when their hand was out asking for money. So you know, they put their hand out, they'd say they want something. And now I know they are listening to every word that comes out of my mouth, waiting to find out whether they're getting the money and if so, how much. This is my chance as a dad to market to them. Please drive safely. Don't get in the car with someone that's been drinking. Call me anytime and I'll come to get you. Most other times, uh, it goes in one ear or at the other, but now they're paying attention because I might slip in there how much I'm giving them. And I kind of liken that to when your customers call you for customer service, they're listening to every word. So not only are you building, building your brand, and I like to say a brand is what you do. A reputation is what people remember and share, not you building that reputation, but you also have a chance to talk to them about your service, to show them how important things are, uh, to talk about things while you're on the phone with them. So you know, getting to your point of who does it? Well, so you know, Zappos has always gotten this right and I think they were probably one of the first major online companies to really grasp this. And I believe they brought that mindset to Amazon when they require now Amazon doesn't quite go to the extent that Zappos did. But you know, Zappos had a policy that if somebody calls in and I've seen this in action, I've been to their offices, I've watched their customer service teams and this was not a setup. This is when nobody knows you're there and they have like a uh, they will stay on as long as it takes for someone to feel that they've gotten what they need. They even have like a record on the walls like of the, the hours that customer service people have been on with someone just because they needed someone to talk to. And, and again Amazon's not quite the same way. But I am a dedicated Amazon customer for many reasons. But one of them is when I do have a problem, they listen and they resolve it. And yes, like anybody else, you got to go through the process. You start out with a, with a, with a, something uh, online and a text conversation, but you always have the option to move it to a call. And I just find that they are to me the gold standard as far as it goes because they are a huge company. They're working with so many people uh, and they're public, they need to be profitable and they get this right. Some DTC companies are getting it right as well. Unfortunately as they grow, what it seems to me IS consultants, their VCs insist they hire often move them away, um, from this great customer service they're giving, you know, for short term and short lived financial gains. You know, I believe they have other structural problems that are causing them problems, which is probably for another interview, um, but it's not the customer experience. There are a couple smaller companies out there like uh, Vstro, ah, which makes uh, vegan meals and Eat Brave. And I've had some really good experiences with these companies that really do it right. They, they make their, their, their, their um, website totally accessible, um, their subscription services. But anytime you want to pause or cancel, you're able to do it really easily. They alert you before your next order goes out with plenty of time to go in and put it on pause. Especially when it's like food delivery services where you might get something that you just don't need. And then there's bigger companies that are dtc, like Warby Parker, that have done a remarkable job. Warby Parker's product is not great. I mean I'm wearing them, I wear, why do I, why do I wear them? Because they're good enough. They're good, they're stylish. But more importantly I Get what I need, I get it in the mail, I go in a store, they fix them. They do a really good job with me as a customer. And to me that's really what they did. That was groundbreaking. Um, the attitude. Now you mentioned airlines and airlines, for the most part get it wrong. But let's also face it and realize how difficult that business is. And I think a lot of companies don't do a good job letting customers understand that because on the one hand, you obviously don't want people to be uncomfortable flying, saying, oh my God, this

Speaker B: is a really hard business.

Speaker A: Yeah, I made people nervous. But on the other hand, there's so many moving parts. There's people who are traveling, people have families. You know, it's a really hard business. But I appreciate, um, how JetBlue used to handle customer service. They're still pretty good, but they had a, ah, head of comms for many, many years named Morgan John, who just did an amazing job connecting with people. He was one of the first guys to connect with people on social media. I have a great 2009 JetBlue story that again, save for another time because it's like it takes a while to get through. I tell it on stage a lot. Um, you know, and Delta does a pretty decent job too. Again, you know, as a customer, you also have to realize there's only so much certain types of companies can do for you at certain times. No plane is taking off because you're annoyed or you're late. Okay. What they can do well, and I find Delta does, and Jepan, who does really well, is keep you informed. And if you reach out via social media, they reach back. If you ask a question, you get an answer. You know, when you do that for customers, it makes them feel recognized. And to me that's really important. And then I want to just mention hospitality, um, and I want to mention one particular brand that probably many of your customers are not that aware of because, ah, it's kind of, I don't know if you know, the resorts that have water parks in them, they're called Great Wolf resorts and they get something right that most hospitality companies drop the ball on dramatically. And it's an amazing opportunity to shine. And I'm sure you'll relate to this when you hear it. But if you leave something behind at a Great Wolf resort, you will get a call telling you left it behind and asking how you'd like it gotten back to you. Now, the vast majority of hospitality companies, and I'm talking about the biggest and the best okay, The Marriotts, uh, Hiltons, they don't say a word. You leave something. It gets put in a box, by the way. They don't get rid of it most of the time, unless sometimes they do. Most often, it goes in a box. It goes into. Into a room. It gets stored away with a room number on it, and nothing happens unless you call to ask about it. And then 99% of the time, you can wait 20 minutes on hold. You finally get somebody, they have to call you back. And then when you find out that they have it, there's like, no process to get it back to you. And to me, this is the best way to differentiate yourself. Imagine you get a call sign. You left your. You left your cord here in the room. You know, and remember, so many of these customers are business customers. They're spending a fortune in these hotels. It's so easy to do. They have all of our information. They have our email addresses, our text, our social media profiles.

Speaker B: I mean, you know what? You know what bothers me about those examples? Because I am a business traveler, and I have left things behind. And I can totally get why Great Wolf does this. Well, I mean, they got a lot of parents there. With young kids, it happens a lot that something gets left behind. I mean, a kid leaves their teddy bear behind, you know, fell behind the bed or something like that parent doesn't know about, now they're freaking out. Um, and so what's interesting about that story is it's obviously a big problem. They've heard about it, and they found a scalable way to do this in such a way that you're telling their story here about it.

Speaker A: And imagine, every other chain could be doing this.

Speaker B: Every other chain. I think the message is, are you looking for these pain points?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Right. Uh, because they'll be different. I mean, Zappos and Warby. Um, they're similar to my stories with L.L. bean. You know, they sell a differentiating product on the margin, but they're highly personalized. And I know if I go to an L.L. bean and the zipper broke on a knapsack that I bought 20 years ago, they'll either fix it or they'll give me a new one. Right. And same thing with the shoelaces. I mean, they do a lot of things like that. They understand lifelong customer value where we have choices. Right.

Speaker A: I love your point. I love pain points, Isaac. That's perfect, because those are the things where you can really make a difference for people and truly stand out and not be just the commodity provider that so many have become.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, so you're using the word commodity and we're talking about, you know, how do we look at the vast series of issues, um, that, you know, the majority of your customers are facing and then potentially turn it around. Not only resolve the issue for them, but potentially, you know, make them happy about the service that they got. Potentially even upsell them so much. I think that goes behind figuring out how to do this well is around data. But you said something interesting to me a few weeks ago. You said, you know, companies can't just rely on data. They're losing touch with customers. You know, what should customers do and maybe not do with data? You know, how do you not lose touch with customers, but then also get closer to customer when I need it, uh, when I'm doing it at scale to figure out what problems to really focus on.

Speaker A: Well, my business partner, My business partner, his name is John Andrews and by the way, he was the co author of Retail Relevancy and he's actually the retail geek. I'm kind of a relationship guy. Um, but we like to say that marketing will truly win when humans control the machines instead of machines controlling the units. And you know, we say that because it makes an impression and it sounds good, but it really means something, is that too many of these machines, you set them and forget them, you personalize something by it automatically drops in somebody's name. There's nothing else personalized about it. I mean, it's clear that most of these are the same for everything. You're using the data, but you're using it on mass M A S s or you're looking at numbers you're steering towards, like the percentages that are more, you know, too many. Make it all about the numbers and conversions that there's so much info out there about how customers really think that's being ignored. A perfect example is your last question about customer service. Why aren't more customer service teams. And I think you mentioned this in one of your. Are more of them sharing feedback with marketing and operations. I mean, again, I mentioned that I not only made friends with that, uh, and marketing, but I also opened up the avenue communication. I wanted to know what their people were hearing. I mean, they're hearing back to your term. They're hearing the pain points of customers. And so few customer service teams really share that information with marketing. And I say operations too, because I know we hear talking about marketing, but operations is important because. And it's important to marketing because if your product isn't getting delivered Correctly, if it's not being manufactured correctly, if the problems aren't being fixed. You know, marketing can't sell a crappy product. So much they can do and they also, they can sell the product. That's good. But if customer service isn't good, what's going to happen to resale? What's going to happen?

Speaker B: Or field operations or an outbound sales group? I mean, there anybody who's in that role talking to a prospect or turking to an existing customer, I mean, we talk about customer service. Part of the issue is used to be technology, right? You know, it's a customer service had its technology and Marketing had its 9,700 technologies, if we believe Scott Brinker or at least 120 of them. And operations had a whole new set of technologies. And I was the CIO and I had a minuscule budget to, uh, bring all this data together and bring workflow together. You know, part of it used to be a technology issue, right? But now, you know, there's technologies like CDP technologies like integration technologies like workflow technologies and collaboration. They'll bring the data together if there's a will. But we still need to get people interested in having that conversation, right? I'm not going to go talk to customer service about shaving a minute off their call time or about, um, you know, how to increase their call volumes or how to just improve customer satisfaction rates, which will all be really good things. I'm saying, which of the, you know, 900,000 customers that are going through our system every day, which 1% should I really be paying attention to? And that's a really different question, right?

Speaker A: It is. And you know, you mentioned the technologies here today, but I find it's not being used in so many places. I mean, and I'm talking, I'm not just talking about small companies. I'm talking about very sophisticated companies with huge money and budgets. How many times do you call up and you give your account number and they transfer the company m give you account number Again, what is that all about? It's 20, 22.

Speaker B: Every.

Speaker A: Every bank, every bank, American Express, we're talking about companies that are showing record profits. Again, we're not showing companies that are struggling or having a hard time. There's just, look, it's a bit, don't get me wrong, I don't do technology. It's a big job. And I'm not saying it's easy, but it's all there. And it's so frustrating to a customer when you've got to do this again. And again and again. Even when you know what happens, you keep thinking, okay, they must have fixed this by now. I'm not going to have to give that account number to them again. And you didn't. And to me that's also part of the customer experience. And I also like your point about field operations people. Those are also people. It's so easy. They're all carrying devices now. There's no reason that they can't be given feedback about their service calls about all the different things they're doing and then again have the mechanisms and the data people who can bring that together and make it valuable to marketing and operations.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's uh, uh, a trickiness. Like you said, the biggest companies have the budgets to do all this. And like I said, the technology has improved significantly. I could put a CDP in that's going to bring all my data together. I could put machine learning in that's going to give me some way to analyze the data. I'm one of, in the camp, just to be clear, I'm in the camp that machine learning is going to augment humans. I don't believe it's going to take over and we're going to see things like instantly figure out how to do, uh, all the marketing campaigns, all the language around it, who to reach with, what. You want an example of that? Let's go look at the hype that was put around chatbots and how often do you really want to go to talk to a chatbot when you're really having a problem? Right. That chatbot does not have enough context that a good customer service rep with a good screen, with a lot of good data, with good intuition is going to ask a question about, you know, where are you, what kind of problem you're having today? Right. Knowing that a lot of context in that question, you know, uh, what part of the world you're in, what's the weather look like, what kind of crisis is going on, Machine isn't ready to handle all that crisis. And you know, um, we're talking about getting back to basics. Right. Things that good companies are doing and have been doing for the last decade. I also want to think and project out a few years ahead. Right. We went from print and retail to web all uh, right. And maybe web analog to mobile experiences. And now we're starting to talk about web3 and metaverse, and that's going to come down the road and create a whole nother line of disruption. And you know, I have some opinions around that. But you, you uh, know, you shared A post that was intriguing to me. You said brands don't have a clue where the metaverse is or, uh, how they're actually going to be part of it. So let's talk the next two year horizon. Let's not talk about when like VR is mainstream and the cloud handles, you know, thousands of people talking about a metaverse. Let's talk about what should brands be thinking about in the next few years with all this hype around. Metaverse, Web3, augmented virtual reality. Are there things they can do now to improve what they're doing with customers?

Speaker A: Well, look, I stand by that. You know, uh, that, that, that quote that you gave. They're waiting for someone to tell them and they're talking about it and they're investing in it. But that's the same as what they did in the 90s and in the Internet in 2007, 2010 with social media. Each time the players came along and took the reins, leading us by the news. And hopefully this time we're actually going to become part of the solution and say, this would, whether it's a brand or it's a consumer, it's a brand saying, you know, this is what we need and this is what would really make us relate better to our customers. And the customer saying, this is really what I want. I'm tired of, uh, you know, algorithms and things following me around the web. You know, I think what brands really need to do is they need to investigate, they need to learn, they need to test, and they're doing it. I mean, there's a lot of companies out there doing it. But more most importantly, they've got to educate themselves. Uh, and look, I, I'm learning about this and I spent a lot of time, I've really gotten into audiobooks because like all of us, it helps me multitask, you know, and, and when I'm working out or riding my bike or walking or whatever, I can get so much more done than sitting down and reading a book. But I'm trying to learn about this. I'm trying to understand, you know, all these new technologies. And I think that the brands need to start integrating themselves into the conversation, not just waiting for someone to develop something and say, here it is and here's our universe or here's what you can get into. You know, it's not rocket science, the learning part. And I got to tell you, and you said something about two years and be prepared because when it happens, it will be faster than the last transition. Um, things are happening a lot faster than they did in the past. And I think The Metaverse and Web3 is going to be upon us before you know it. I, um, think that they're a combination of the two. Again, please. I am far from an expert. I'm a relationship guy and a marketing guy kind of looking at what's happening here and I'm trying to understand it myself. But I think web3 and the metaverse kind of come together and, and, and integrate. Metaverse is kind of a place that, that things happen, that's, that that's can be all that are augmented or have to do with different types of, of uh, environments. Whereas web3 is our ability to control our own data, bringing things together, not being bombarded with the marketing that we were talking about before and being banged over our heads, having more control about how companies reach out and connect with us. But I think most importantly, back to what I said, we gotta, companies gotta test, they gotta learn, they gotta try things, they've gotta not jump in with both feet because right now I don't think you really know where those two feet should go. But I love seeing some of the companies that are trying things. I love seeing, you know, things that like some of these companies are doing with NFTs or you know, they're buying land or they're doing advertising in certain metaverses. Is it going to be multiple? Is it going to be one? Is it going to be all different places? Is one company going to control it? Are individuals going to control it? I don't know. But I think companies got to start learning about it and I think they need to encourage their employees M to learn about these things on their own.

Speaker B: Now I think you're giving you the perfect answer, right? Get involved and get learning on it. You know, the same thing happened every time. In the early stages, this new media came out and what do we do? We took what worked in the old media and dumped it in the new media. So we took print and threw it up on webpages, we took web pages, we try to squeeze it into our mobile device. And what's going to happen? You know, the technology's still fairly primitive, right? It's still fairly primitive. When you put up the VRs on, you're walking into one of these shopping experiences and you're seeing these avatars bouncing around like, like, you know, I think I'd rather just go to the website or I think I'd rather just go into the store to go see all this. But you know, we don't know if it's two years or five or 10 years. We know there's going to be a tipping point in there where the technology is going to be accessible, where consumers are going to start making their choices around things. And the one thing that the Metaverse is going to have to do differently and better, it's going to be around data. Right. If we take the same universe, single experience or fractional experiences that work in web and mobile and just kind of throw it up there on Metaverse, well, you know, it's too slow and too cumbersome for me to do all this work to see the same thing that you're saying. You know, you and I have different tastes, we probably both like books, we probably both like retail. I'm just looking around your uh, surrounding over there. I love judging the customer service and the customer experience, but I'm going to do it very differently from a technology lens than from, from your marketer and relationship building lens. And that's what makes it all great. But when you put up that experience, you're going to need to know something about me, maybe something about what I'm trying to uh, learn and accomplish. And if not, you want to use these experiences to learn a little bit about me at the same time.

Speaker A: A hundred percent. Now truth be told, I'm a bit of a cynic. So I think in the end it's going to be the, it's just going to be, you know, um, different environment, same people running it, same kind of thing. Uh, I really like, you know, a of the so called experts are up on stage now talking about how you can control your own data. We can't control our own data and we don't have that ability yet. And I'm not sure we ever will because I don't think the powers that be or the companies that are running these things and investing in it really want to let us control our data.

Speaker B: I agree with that. I mean we've lumped Together Metaverse and Web3. We talk about them in the same sort of angle, but they're really two different things. We're just hoping Metaverse becomes what we aspire Web3 to be. But there's no incentives for big companies to really push for web 3. There's actually a lot of incentives for the big tech companies to push Metaverse. Right. They're going to go sell a whole bunch of new Roundup platforms.

Speaker A: It's another place to sell advertising. You know, truth be told, things are going to come together. Web3, uh, metaverse, the Realverse, uh, you know, I don't think we're going to be in one place, it's going to be things combining and coming together. Again. I'm not, not technologically skilled enough to really explain that or understand it myself. But again look, in the end that data is so important to companies and them running, I just don't see them giving up access to it. But on the other side, if we as consumers, if we as the people, if people starting the new companies. I've been doing some work with a company called Peer and a guy by the name of Tony Tran who's the founder. And you know their goal, whether they'll end up getting, you know, uh, changing as they grow, but their goal is to make this run by the people and to bring a web three and a metaverse experience that allows us to say what we want, to be involved in, what we want, to give up, what we don't. Whether that'll happen or not, I guess it remains to be seen.

Speaker B: So Ted, that's a great entry into my final question for you. You and I have some common agreement about how far data can go and I'm trying to stretch it one way and say let's make it work better for us. And you're saying let's get back to basics and make sure that we can really service customers well with or without the data. Right. Go back to intuitions, go back to working with direct one on one interactions and make sure you take advantage of every customer touch point that you can create for yourself. What's the easier button? Right. How do we bring these two worlds together where I can use my data to customer to competitive advantage but still have this great relationship with the customer?

Speaker A: Look, I don't know if there's an easy button, but the button I would like is that I can merge human and machine, is that I can as a human, as a customer service person can jump into some kind of an app or a technology that allows me to quickly view things about the person that I'm talking to and trying to help and know things about them and have a quick view of it right in front of my screen so that I know them, I know that they have three kids, I know the things they bought and I just don't think that's really available. Or uh, more importantly, look, I know all companies right now are having trouble hiring. We have this whole challenge of ah, ah. I ah, think part of it is that we don't train people enough. We look to, the companies look to get by quicker, they look to pay less money. I think our customer service to be a key part of our organization. And I would love the tools at my fingertips to do it, or at least to train somebody to do that when they're, when they're able. I'd love it for myself. I mean, before I get in a call now, I got to go to LinkedIn, I got to go to Facebook. I want to know. I like to say, look people in the eye digitally. I want to know something about them. I want to know. I wish there was one place that I could pull it all up and there still isn't.

Speaker B: Uh, I just got my catchphrase for this episode. Look into the, uh, look into the what people need. Thank you. Look people in the eye digitally. And I love that because when I call my customer support rep or I email them in, I won't use a chatbot. And I'm a technologist, I'm a cio, I'm an influencer and I'm asking them a problem about their SaaS product. The first thing that rep should be able to see is my LinkedIn profile, that I'm an ex CIO, that I write for a bunch of magazines and have the intuition maybe we should get somebody in level two support who's very technical to talk to this person. Because asking them to reset their browser or reset their computer, they probably have done that already.

Speaker A: I was looking behind, I wrote a book called how to look people in the Eye Digitally.

Speaker B: Oh, look at that.

Speaker A: And for me it goes back to what we learned as kids. I mean, like my dad would say, if you're with somebody, look at them. My mom would say, going on one of my first dates, make sure you look at her. Don't look at everybody walking in the room. Pay attention. And for me, digitally people just don't take advantage of that because there's so much information that you can learn about somebody just by your finger. I mean by going to different apps and looking at different places and using Google. But that should be at the fingertips, especially if customer service people. I'd like it easily at mine.

Speaker B: Ted. Uh, fascinating conversation about how to get in touch with your customer, becoming super relevant to them, using data where possible, but not letting it overwhelm the conversation and believing that machine learning and data can take over what you need to provide a great experience, be good to people and look at them, um, through a digital eye. Great conversation today with you, Ted, on the customer data perspectives. Thank you everybody for joining us and I look forward to seeing you at future episodes. Have a great day.

Speaker A: Mhm. Sam.