Implement AI in Customer Service Without Losing the Human Touch with Ty Givens

Speaker A: Welcome to the Fast Leader show hosted by Jim Rembach, President of Execution Architects

Speaker B: and executive Director of the Leadership Execution Institute.

Speaker A: Join in as we go beyond generic

Speaker B: management advice and examine the true physics

Speaker A: of strategic execution in our post AI world. Let's explore upgrading the operating system your people run on so they can move

Speaker B: onward and upward faster. Okay, fast Lear Legion, we're going to be in for a great conversation today. Uh, and we actually did something that maybe we'll share with you and then again, maybe we won't. Maybe that'll be something we'll talk about, uh, in another episode. But today I am actually having a conversation with Ty Givens, who's the founder and CEO of the CX Collective, where CX strategy meets real world execution. And it's relatable, clear and immediately useful. Ty actually brings 25 years of hands on customer experience leadership across major brands and high growth companies. And we're going to talk a little bit about some of those experiences, uh, and you know, things that you can actually take and hopefully like she said or has said, apply today. And she'll say again, uh, all right, so Ty is known for that relatable style, clear explanations, uh, and practical frameworks. And she is the founder of the CX Collective. She helps organizations build support organizations that scale, communicate better and drive real business outcomes. Ty Givens, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Speaker A: I'm ready. Let's do it.

Speaker B: Okay, Ty. All right, so I've actually, you know, put together, uh, several, uh, questions for us and, but this is, you know, for us. We're just going to have a real good conversation. Okay, so now AI, lot of noise, lot of misinformation, disinformation. Yeah, lot of things that are going on in regards to pressure, fear, reputations. I mean, the noise. I think even as we're doing this recording, yet another major company, uh, said that they were actually cutting 30,000 jobs. Um, and so when we keep hearing these things, it will just take us in a path in a direction that is not going to impact the customer experience positively. Um, and we have to be really careful. So how do you actually implement AI in customer service without losing the human touch?

Speaker A: Well, the reality is that at least at this stage, and I'm no, no, um, fortune teller, but at least at this stage, the only way that AI will be able to do anything successfully is if we as humans set it up properly. So I think one of the misconceptions that I see a lot is teams, uh, believing that once they roll out AI, they can cut staff um, significantly because they won't need them. But the reality is that if your infrastructure isn't set up properly, so if you don't have your knowledge base articles written in a way that AI can easily interpret them if they're disorganized, if you have contradicting information, what you're going to find is that AI is going to read that and regurgitate it. It's only going to do what you tell it to do. And so um, the best way to have a great setup is to have the people uh, kind of shift from being like in front of uh, the customer for low hanging fruit to behind the scenes for low hanging fruit, managing AI agents and then handling anything that's in that gray area.

Speaker B: Okay. So you hit on several different things and probably it's a good think grounding point to say when you're having conversations with a particular organization and you go into the uh, path or start to engage and do work for this organization, what does that look like?

Speaker A: Well it typically starts with an assessment. Want to understand where they are and what they need, um, and then from there we determine if it makes sense to move to the next step, uh, which would be taking the outcome of that um, assessment and applying it to whatever their goals are. So for example most companies especially at this stage are trying to figure out how they can leverage and implement AI services and products in order to become more efficient. So out of the assessment they may take that, they may take the outcome of that assessment and decide this is enough for us to start. You know, we don't, we're not ready to do an engagement. We want to kind of figure out where we want to go from here. They have a couple of options if they do that. So CX Collective is in two parts. There's CX Collective and there's CX Collective Advantage. CX Collective Advantage is where a company, uh, user person, whomever will find a lot of like self service tools. You'll find playbooks there, you'll find um, different hands on resources that you can take to kind of help you kind of decide what you want to do. And then you also may decide that you want to run what we call a reality check, which is our decision agent that helps uh, support leaders to make better decisions. Because we're finding that no, like literally of the people who are using it now, no one is 100% confident in their decisions. Everybody's unsure. Most people are rarely sure. So it kind of helps to get them along there. Now if you want to work with us, then the next step is to do the diagnosis where we're going to go in and we're going to look at what you actually have, compare that to where you want to be, and tell you what you need to do again. At that point, you can drop off and say, we got it. We're going to handle it. And then if you want us to continue, then we'll go all the way through implementation, including training the agents on how to use the new systems to maintenance.

Speaker B: You know, as you were talking, I started thinking about a conversation a few years back that I had with a really good friend of mine, Lori Bocklin, who's been in the industry for, uh, as long as I have. And she's one of those people, first, uh, of all, great human being, incredible human being, and she has the depth and understanding of technology like nobody else I've ever come across yet. Um, or actually, in all fairness, I've met a lot of people, so maybe she's a top five. Okay, fantastic person. And she had said that a lot of times organizations come to her because of her reputation and experience and network and everything else. And she says to me, she goes, I can't help 95% of the people who come to me. I'm like, really? And I was like, why is that? And she said, because oftentimes they already come to me and they're in a situation where time is important, and they're like, I got to do something yesterday, last month.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then she'll also say that I have these constraints, I have these. These, um, challenges I need. I need to overcome. And then based on that, talking about not even getting to the point of assessment, she. She assesses right then and there and qualifies and pre. Qualifies and says, uh, no, I can't help you. I just can't help you. So when I start thinking about some of the conversations that I've seen and things that people have shared in regards to AI pressure of AI executives, of AI, this whole cutting thing, cost control, and like you were saying, how many organizations are really putting themselves in a dire strait to where even you are, you know, could potentially get to the point, or maybe you do and say, you know what? I. I just can't help you.

Speaker A: It happens far often than I'm proud to admit. Um, the. The reality is that I. So I'm a terrible marketer, right? Like, I'm not. That's just not my gift. Um, I tend to talk about how things work, not the benefits of them or the value of them. So that's my opportunity, and I'm transparent about that. When it comes to, um, the way that AI is positioned in the market, it's done in a way that talks about the values and outcomes, which is really strong and attractive and pulls people in. But once you open up that lid, there's the how. And that how is very murky. And so most of the people that we talk to are not ready for what they think they're ready for. For example, we had assist, um, um, a client, um, who came through the door and we were going to be redoing their help desk. They were using a specific help desk and a part of any help desk, um, implementation or optimization. We're always looking at processes because that's what feeds them. Now people seem to think that you just throw a help desk on top of whatever you're doing and it's going to fix it, but we have to go through your processes and get you set up so that it can function properly. Um, and they were saying that they wanted to roll out AI agents and they had tried, but it didn't work out. And I'm like, okay, so is your, like, how's your knowledge base? Oh, we didn't set it up. And that was the most interesting thing for me, where I was like, oh, so where did you think the answers were coming from? And they had no inclination about how it works because the values and the outcomes are communicated so clearly. So I think that because of that, when you're in the space of understanding how things work, you're not as dazzled and excited by, um, what people are saying about it because you understand, uh, what could go well and what could not go well. Um, unfortunately, there are plenty of companies that are not quite ready yet, um, which is why we start with that assessment, so that they can kind of venture off and understand, like, hey, I'm not ready, but maybe I can start here. Because they may not want to pay us to rebuild their knowledge base. And I understand that, but if they, and if they don't want to, then there's a resource for how to do it themselves.

Speaker B: You know, Um, I had the opportunity, uh, to moderate, um, a panel, uh, where we were talking about AI and conversational AI, and for me, I observed and I shared openly. I said, you know, we're sitting here and we're chatting about AI, conversational AI agents, I mean, and we're talking about this technology. But to me, I think 80% of our conversation dominates the whole human element inside of all of this, and you're hitting on this a little bit. And um, when I start, when I start looking at operations and it's a little bit different when we start talking about being in a contact center versus being remote. So I mean, there's some, some things associated with being remote that almost make you a little bit more ready for AI, you know, because of just that remote nature. Right. I, um, have to be able to operate autonomously remote. Well, in order for you to be effective at that, you need to have that set of knowledge base available, uh, and cleaned and updated. I mean, otherwise remote's just not going to work either. Right. So it's kind of like a progression. So for me, if you think about going from, hey, I actually am, you know, a brick and mortar operation and most of my people are inside and now I want to do this AI thing, uh, you probably have more tribal knowledge then you do organizational knowledge. And your organizational knowledge, if you look at it, you're probably like, well, man, this was actually done in like 2006.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Oh boy. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker B: Uh, and then you start getting into like, you were talking about that whole, well, heck, I'm managing a P and L and I'm looking at head count, but now I need like 10 heads in order to be able to fix our knowledge issue. I'm not going to get that approved.

Speaker A: Uh, no, you're not.

Speaker B: So what do we do? What does an organization do?

Speaker A: Well, I mean, there's like, like I said, we try to provide resources because, you know, obviously I used to run teams and I understand the budget, budgetary constraints, and so there's a part of me that wants to try to help as many people as I can. So with that are the resources. Now can I give away, you know, man or lady power? No, not exactly, but we can kind of get you started. Um, but if you are in that space, I would just start with the top maybe five drivers. Don't worry about trying to do it all, but start with the most impactful ones and put some, you know, some gusto behind that. Because if, at least, if you can work on those first five, then you can potentially cut down volume to some degree to free up maybe a resource to work on it maybe two or three hours a day. I come from workforce management, so I think in fractions of employees. But, um, you could free up someone for two to three hours data, maybe work on that process, um, a little more, um, to help you get to where you need to be. But it definitely is, I actually feel for, um, my colleagues, for my support people in that space, because I know what that's like. Um, and sometimes you want to take the time to do it all, but the reality is you're going to be limited to doing what you can do. And I would start with the things that have the most impact, you know,

Speaker B: and as you're talking, and one of the questions I had available to me, uh, is that, you know, I wanted to ask, how do you measure roi, improve ROI of the customer experience of the C suite? So let's actually take that a little bit, um, uh, through a little bit different lens. I'm sitting here, and I'm having C Suite people sit there. Uh, um, even if. So if you're a private organization, okay, let's just say, you know, people who are up in the ivory tower, it doesn't matter. People are at the highest part of the organization. They're getting all this marketing push, all this glamour and glitz, you know, that says, hey, you know, this is what can happen. And so now with that limited knowledge and understanding, they're coming and saying, okay, my direct reports, and you need to get this in the business. Right. And I, you know, yesterday. Right. The Lori Bocklin, I can't help you thing. Um, yeah, yesterday. And so I often find, to me, it's very connected in. In regards to our ability to communicate ROI about the customer experience and all that to that level. And now us having, you know, this. This pressure and this mandate put on us, you know, that we have to effectively basically give them the, uh. I. From my perspective, it's like I need to give them the information in order for them to be able to make the decision based on what the reality is, not what the marketing glitz and glamour says. So if you could help us understand when we're talking about ROI and measuring that customer experience and having that communication, how that piece could potentially fit in, Because I think it would help a lot of people.

Speaker A: Yeah. So the. The first thing you do to start that. That proof, um, of concept, if you will get your ROI, you start with the KPIs that are going to be most heavily impacted by the changes that you want to make. So I am someone who is guilty of reporting KPIs and hard metrics to the board when I was first had the opportunity to speak to them. Don't do that. I'll tell you that to start. But you start with, uh, with your KPIs, and then the next thing you want to do is you want to write a narrative or a quick story around how moving those KPIs is going to impact the bottom line or what, what it is that you're trying to do. And you're going to have to do some math, right? So if I can, uh, you know, eliminate. I got to use round numbers because it's a little early in the morning here, but if I can eliminate, you know, a thousand contacts and it costs us, you know, um, you know, $2 per contact, that's $2,000 of savings. And I can put that $2,000 into this, and then at the end of that process, I'm going to get X number of contacts reduced. So that's, that's one way. Um, but you want to use VOC to back up whatever your narrative is. So here's the opportunity, you're showing it in the KPI, here's the story around it, here's what customers are saying about it. And if you were to fund this investment, this is the return that you're going to get. And I also think that going through that process will help you as a leader to identify whether or not you actually should be doing that. Because sometimes we, we have these, um, and you've been around a long time, so you, you may, uh, you may have experiences, I'm sure, as well. But as support people, I'll speak for myself. Um, I would feel very passionately about something because I'm a very empathetic person. So sometimes I would hear things and I would be like, well, we need to do this. But, you know, this is early in my career. I didn't sit down and do the math around it because there's a, there's a split between how you feel about something and what actually is. So I think that doing the exercise of going through the process to understand if that, uh, move is viable and makes sense is really key and critical.

Speaker B: You know, as you're talking, I started thinking about, for me, uh, much like we actually look at customer profiles and we talk about the customer experience, we talk about customer Personas. Yeah, the actual. The same thing applies to our decision makers. So give you an example. If I have a CEO who is extremely passionate about the customer experience, my messaging should be, uh, just a little bit of financial metrics and a lot of that passion. Yeah, if I have a, I'm going to be meeting with a CFO or something, someone who's actually going to deal with the financials, I'm going to have more metrics and a little bit of passion. And if I have somebody who Is, you know, on my, you know, CIO or cto, you know, know somebody who was handling all the technology piece, you know, I'm going to talk about, you know, the functionality and the capacities and all of those types of things and uh, I'm gonna have a little bit of passion. So it's. Yeah, I think for me I found I have learned hard knocks is what is our culture, what do we preach? You know, is that spine and information throughout all of the information that were that I need to present and then it's based on the Persona. So this is the information that I actually share and speak to the cfo. This is the information that I share and speak to our um, non financial background type of person who's the CEO. Uh, and I find while it takes more time to create five different messages, um, it seems like your understanding or their understanding increases and my time that I have to recover and repeat and do all of that actually reduces significantly. So I'm um, front loading it by taking more time because I know it's going to be a better transition and a better transformation process. Yeah, I mean, I don't. I mean I think a lot of times, like you were saying is. And it's. This is a maturity thing. It absolutely is. I even double major in finance and real estate, but yet I still, you know, found myself talking about the passionate side because I was in customer care and cared about people. Wait a minute, I forgot what I was trained, you know, what I went to school for. Um, so I had to learn how to do a little bit of both and make sure the shift, shift is. And so when I start thinking, you know, you talked about Playbooks, right. And how we actually help people to, you know, impact the customer and impact their employees. Um, how much are you finding that that has changed in what you've had to update and what you've had to refine, you know, just from pre Covid.

Speaker A: Oh, wow. Can we go back a little further?

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker A: Okay. So, um, I like working well when I, when I was working inside of companies, I found that I really liked, uh, startups. And the reason why I like startups is because you could build. And I'd learned over time that I'm more of an architect than I am a showrunner, if you will. Um, so if we go back to when I started, you know, M. In 2000, I started at Office Depot, um, in their call center or contact center, which it would be called today, where, you know, my supervisor, my team lead did not have experience because we all got Pulled from the floor. Team leads did, but supervisors had experience. We had a manager layer, a senior manager layer, a director layer. So I understood and learned the structure of a contact center when I was 18 years old. And going from that to working in a place where you don't have training, you don't have quality, you don't have workforce management, you don't have all of these things that shape a contact center, it's pretty jarring. So what I found when I, from where I started to, you know, some of the companies that I worked at was I was the person coming in with that experience. So I ended up having to wear that hat. So I was no longer just, you know, responsible for managing the, the team and the floor and the customer service aspect. I had to make sure that I was looking at the experience end to end because there was no one to tap on the shoulder and say, hey, I need a quality report. I need to build the quality scorecard. I need to teach the leadership how to go in and actually score contacts. And with workforce management, that's my background. But I had to, uh, build spreadsheets and teach people how to use these spreadsheets and things like that. So the job for me in the 2010s was different than the job in the 2000s. And then I started to see leaders that I worked with who were in those managerial roles. And larger companies have to go to market because around, you know, 2000, call it 2005, 2000ish, somewhere in there, um, same way that we're seeing the AI boom, we saw the, the uh, movement with BPOs, and a lot of the jobs were going offshore. So a lot of those folks had to kind of like find other places to be because their roles were no longer needed and they could not adjust to being responsible for that full ecosystem. Right. So then you, you had that and then we go from, um. And then that brought in a lot of new leaders who didn't have the foundation that I had. So they, a lot of new leaders who came in who are great on the phones or great with emails, talking to customers, who got promoted into managerial roles with no operational experience, hired people under them who had no operational experience, and then you just kind of see things start to break down. So when we get to Covid, the next shift that we saw was, um, people who were used to being in office all the time kind of like had that dynamic of being able to go and talk to so and so and tell them this, or, um, to be able to have team meetings where you're looking people in the eye to have conversations, suddenly have to move to this remote experience. And there was a huge lack of trust that we saw where the leadership had no idea if the team was working. Because when they're physically in the office, you can see them. Now you still have people physical in the office who are not as productive, but you can see them when they're not physically in the office. And the next question is, are they really working? We had these concerns around whether or not people were taking on uh, multiple jobs. Right. And then we now move into the space where there's been some adjustment with the, the um, ability to work remote where people have been able to put some metrics and processes in place that make them feel more comfortable. But now we're going back to the office and you're finding that um, employees don't want to work in the office anymore. And so I always said, and I think that you, you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier with your background and experience that running a contact center or a support team is really, you know, part time therapist because you're managing people's feelings, you're managing emotions more so than you're worried about, um, just getting the work done. It's really about keeping people engaged and motivated and things like that. And I feel like the, the role of the support leader has gone through so much up and down to the point where in, in the 2000 and twenties or pre Covid, I mean post Covid, 2020, so you know, call it 2024 and beyond. You now have to not just be a therapist, you don't have to just be a jack of all trades as it comes to operations. But now you have to be a technical expert. You got to understand how to leverage all these systems and implement them. Because most companies don't have another person who's going to administer your help desk or make sure that it's functioning, it's you. And I don't know if that is something that anyone thinks of who doesn't sit in the seat that makes sense.

Speaker B: Uh, you're dead on. I mean, so you know, to help everybody who's watching or listening. I had a conversation, was mentioning to Ty that I became a certified baseball pitching coach, um, because my son started showing some skills and abilities. And so for me I, and I didn't share this with Ty. I've actually had six shoulder surgeries. I um, used to play ball. I've oddly enough, I've had three on the left and three on the right. And I'M left handed, so I don't. It's, it's amazing when you start talking about body movements, how your non dominant side can be impacted and affected by your dominant side movements. That's a whole other conversation. Uh, but what I found is as I was working with a lot of these young men is. And oddly enough, here's the irony. Uh, a lot of people will say that 90% of the game of baseball is mental. But nobody trains it, nobody teaches it, nobody helps people work through it. And this links directly to what you're talking about now. You have to be a therapist. Well, what they're finding is that applications, uh, and I became a mental performance certified mental performance coach because I needed to learn how to be able to help them to perform because of m. The mess and mire that was happening between their ears and taking their abilities and knocking them down because they had so much mental load that was going on for a multitude of different reasons. Um, and so, uh, you're right. The same thing is happening with managing people within an organization. We have to understand that there are a lot of things that are swirling around in their head. And like we even talked about with AI, you know, am I gonna lose my job? Oh my gosh.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so there was a part of, I had mentioned something about moderating a session. One of the, uh, um, practitioners talked about that they had implemented something that was about knowledge and improving knowledge and stuff and that agents were intentionally sabotaging it and saying that that was the wrong answer when it was right. And I said, look, that is a very normal response. I said, I wouldn't fire anybody for that. I would recognize the fact that my system ain't working right. Meaning my system, I didn't communicate and convey that this is the expectation. I didn't trust them. But then verify, right? Trust and verify. Uh, and so my system was wrong when I was trying to put in AI and build my knowledge base. Well, guess what? That has to be part of our planning and understanding. And um, we even wrote a report called the Phone Report. Now, yes, it's a pun, but it's F O N E. And it's about fear, overconfidence, negative impressions and execution blindness. And you even talked about it when we weren't remote. It's like, oh my gosh, what are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? Um, and so even if people were wanting to do the right thing, they didn't have the ability to go to, you know, a peer or somebody say, hey, tell me about this because I'm not quite sure that went away. Right. So guess what? I got to move forward. And so I may think I'm doing the right thing, but I'm actually, you know, but I'm not. Uh, and that's where execution blindness comes into play. So if this is not part of our decision making, consideration, our coaching, development, training, transformation process, guess what? It'll fail because we're in the people business.

Speaker A: Yeah. Bottom line, you're right. You're right. I know, um, when I was an agent, I spent six months on the phones and something that I talk about often is the fact that I didn't understand my role because, um, I didn't understand the impact that uh, we had on the customers experience, you know, um, how we impacted their ability to do the things that they needed to do. And I, you know, I take it all the way back to not just being on the phones, but in retail. I used to work for Express and my job at the time was to. Which I hated because I felt like I could just do so much more, but I wouldn't roll. But that's a story for another day. But, uh, you know, part of it was, um, to stand in front of the store and greet customers and, and I was 12 to 6, just keep shirts folded and greet the customers in the front section of the store. I hated it. But at the same time, when I was working at Express, I was making $6.50 an hour and a pair of jeans was $48. So I had to do, you know, two, uh, part time shifts roughly in order to be able to afford a pair of jeans. So I wasn't their customer. Right. So I didn't understand the value of being friendly, you know, and saying hello. I didn't see, I didn't think that mattered. Now you fast, uh, forward. If I go into Express today and no one greets me, I will not buy. Right. So I, I just, I think about how there's that opportunity. Like I've always had this, this thought that, you know, when you have the, these teams, these large teams, like a lot of the job is mental and you hit that on the head with your training and your background. And I actually found that that wasn't a fit for me because I am so heavily operational. And so I have a mindset of like, let's keep going, let's keep going, let's keep going. And that can lack empathy and that's not good. So I was in the wrong space, um, like leading the teams because of the people aspect. But I was in the right space of getting results because of my operational capacity.

Speaker B: I mean, that's a, you know, that self discovery is crucial for all of us. And, you know, like, kind of like you were hitting on. And I was like, how come we're not teaching our people that? Um, and meaning, even in the education processes, kids are coming up to help them understand. Now, granted, their brain isn't fully developed to fully understand it, you know, and because that's a different issue when you start talking about the way we, God built us. However, however, we can still be planting the seed. So when that starts kicking in and like, oh, now I can draw the connections and see how all this fits. And to me, I think if we start, you know, this is again, another show. Um, if we start looking at all of these factors that go into play, it essentially results into kind of what we were talking about a moment ago. Now I have to be a therapist. Yes. Because we're not doing some of these fundamental cornerstone and pillar things that are helping us to have, um, a workforce that's ready, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Ready is defined in a lot of different ways. Um, but they're just not ready. Wow, this is awesome. Um, okay, so. All right, Ty, now here's a moment we're gonna take for our speed round and we're gonna do the hump day.

Speaker A: Ho down.

Speaker B: Another hump day. Ho down. As a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I'm going to ask you a few questions and your job is to give us brief responses, uh, to help us move onward and upward faster. Ty, are you ready to hoe down?

Speaker A: I'm ready. Let's go.

Speaker B: Okay, so what is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Speaker A: My people capacity. Um, sometimes I like empathy, and that's my truth.

Speaker B: And what is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Speaker A: Inquiry versus advocacy.

Speaker B: Okay, this is my. This is my last hump day. Hold on. Question. Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25, and you've been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you. But you can't take it all. You can only take one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Speaker A: I'm taking my tenacity and my grit and my ability to keep persevering because I doubted myself so much at 25. I became a manager at 25 and I had complete imposter syndrome. But I would go back and I would, I would show up in every room. Totally different and who knows where I would be today.

Speaker B: Given thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. How does the Fast Leader Legion get in touch with you?

Speaker A: Cxcollective.com TY if you want to just kind of get an idea of where you can go from there, that's the best place to go.

Speaker B: Ty Givens thank you for helping us all get over the hump.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Execution is an outcome of system architecture, not human willpower. To build alignment with a post AI operating system, visit executionarchitects.com and thank you for joining me on the Fast Leaders Show. Please subscribe, comment, share and keep listening.