Unresolved.cx - The customer who reaches out when they have to

Brett Rush: M welcome to Unresolved, the podcast for customer experience Leaders by customer experience Leaders. Here we discuss how different companies view and measure their customer experiences, how they handle churn, and then we dive deeper into the unresolved issues that they're facing today. We're specifically calling this podcast Unresolved because so many CX leaders are testing with AI. They're rebuilding with AI as their foundation. And every one of us have to reinvent everything we've ever known about customer experience, systems and processes. You're not alone. So let's do this journey together. Today we have Shmuel Sackla, the senior manager of, uh, enterprise accounts and B2B contact center operations for B and H photo, video. And for those listening, if you've never visited New York City, then you don't know about B&H's beautiful multi floor showroom and that has the latest and greatest photo, video and audio equipment. It's a toy store, the comic shop for creatives. And honestly, I wish I had an unlimited budget while I was walking through there. Well, I mean I'd settle for a $1 million budget, but you know, it'd be great to be able to just walk through there and just take whatever I want off the, off the shelf and be creative with it. Shmuel, welcome to the John Resolve.

Shmuel Sackla: Hey, thank you, Brad. There's really, really a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's um, love going to the store whenever I get a chance as well. Like you literally just walk around, you feel. Yeah. Like a kid candy shop or a toy store and you just want to, uh. Yeah, you just want to be able to play with everything, touch everything. Like that's kind of like also the, like how the store is designed where everything is accessible to the customer. Whereas like, you know, general like big box retailers, it's everything's behind the counter, everything's in boxes. You may have a floor model maybe not. Everything in our store is designed that you should be able to touch, feel, experience it, um, and what it feels like for you as the user.

Brett Rush: Love that. And also like another thing that I, that blew me away walking into the store is whenever you buy something, you don't take it.

Shmuel Sackla: You don't load up a shopping cart.

Brett Rush: That's not a thing. You tell somebody what you want and then it actually like the order goes through different, uh, different way. Like, and then you just say, here's my order. And you could have gone all throughout this multi floor store and say like, these are all the different things that I want. And then you get there and it all comes in, dropped right down right as you're checking out.

Shmuel Sackla: Yeah, it's exactly right. Exactly like when, you know, when you're walking around a store and you have to carry your stuff, you're pushing a car, it's like uncomfortable. So we're really all about that user experience of we want you just to focus on product and that's what you're here for and let us take care of everything else.

Brett Rush: Yeah. So I've only experienced B and H as a consumer B2C. And you've been on the B2B side, the enterprise B2B side for quite some time. You're actually coming up on your 12 year anniversary, which is such an accomplishment.

Shmuel Sackla: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. It's um, wild that it's been 12 years. And you know, I started as a agent on the phone, right? Working, working the queue, answering the calls, working the emails, you know, interacting with our, with our B2B customers. Um, you know, and I had that contact center journey, you know, working my way through and working up to team leader manager and now uh, senior manager. So just a little frame of reference of, of how we're, how we look. Um, we have, so we're an inbound B2B contact center. So customers are emailing or calling us with whatever they need. So that's, you know, and we're really helping them through their entire life cycle of the transaction journey. So whether that is pre order, they need information, um, they're looking to make a quote, you know, before the order, they need to, you know, make the actual purchase and obviously post order, um, status, customer service, really, you name it, I might have seen it in 12 years. Um, so we're kind of like a mix between sales and support because we do both of it. So it's kind of also a little bit unique where a lot of companies might have a sales team, they may have a support team, customer service. So we're really all of the above. Um, so I work with the government and education clients. So you know, local, state, Federal government, um, K12, higher ed, mostly domestic. But we, we definitely, we work international as well. And you know what's also fascinating is um, the range of customer and interactions that you may have. You know, I may be uh, working with a broadcast operator for, you know, getting ready for college football season. Right. Like I got to get my, my cameras, I need my equipment, I need all this. Or what do you have in stock? What are the pricing and let's say something happens in the shipment. What are you going to do? How are you going to help me? And then the next call will be a five person local township that uh, needs a single computer to support their office. So it's really like you got to know your customer, but all customers matter and they're all important to us and we serve them just the same, no matter who they are.

Brett Rush: Are you handling like account management? Uh, let's just say that high school that uh, you were talking about, does that become an account that uh, let's just say you manage or it's only whenever they're inbound. You're only handling inbound. You're not saying, hey, uh, last year you did this, do you need another one? Kind of a thing.

Shmuel Sackla: Right? Yeah, yeah, so it's a good point. Yeah, we're only inbound. We do have, there is another part of the company that does that outbound, you know, reach of following up, going to visit media shows and all that. Um, but we're fully just supporting the inbound, the inbound work. Um, but you know what's interesting is you definitely, we definitely have customers that call us every single day, where you really do get to know them on an individual basis. Um, but then there's ones, yeah, that call us once a year, you know, maybe their yearly purchase or their quarterly purchase. Um, so we, we are split up that each team has a set of customers, but it's a pretty large set. Um, so I have four teams that I oversee. They're each run by an account manager and they each have somewhere eight and nine people on the team besides the manager. So it's a decent sized operation.

Brett Rush: So thinking about you're taking phone calls, you're taking emails, uh, are you doing like a chat? Like what's the tech stack look like?

Shmuel Sackla: Yeah, um, so we have, so we use Salesforce for email communication with customers. In consumer, we do have chat, but in B2B, we don't have chat. Um, we use Genesis for our telephony and we have a homegrown transactional system that we do a lot of our transactional work.

Brett Rush: How are you getting feedback back to the product team?

Shmuel Sackla: So we use survey. Um, we have a survey platform that we use where we send out surveys to customers. So that's definitely our main, um, area where we get the feedback from. Um, but as you know, the feedback lives everywhere and it's, it lives in um, all of your calls, all of your emails. It's, it's everywhere. And I think that's the challenge today from, for everybody is how do you connect that Data to say where, where a customer may speak to one department and then they, they may end up in a different department. And those two people may not know that that customer spoke to two areas, but our system does. And it's. How do you now connect those data points so that you don't have those examples where customers, like, I have now told my story five times. I had enough today. Nowadays, we got to do better than that. Um, and I think that's. And I'll probably get more into that, but that's definitely, I think, the challenge today of making that happen. There's a whole team that goes through all of our surveys, they tag them, categorize them. We get, uh, quarter, monthly, and quarterly, you know, reports based on, based on that feedback. Um, so that's. Yeah, just some of, some of those inner workings. That's awesome.

Brett Rush: So, okay, what does a good customer experience look like in your world and how close are you to achieving that good customer experience?

Shmuel Sackla: So for. To me, good looks like a team that knows exactly what they need to do every single day. Right. And think about what makes a great sports team. Right? Like, who's. It's not the talent alone. Like, we've seen, you know, we've all seen teams that had the number one draft pick, the number two, three draft picks. They were terrible, right? Like, what makes that super bowl worthy team? It's the ones that know exactly what the plays are. They know where they need to be, when they need to be there. They know when to move up, when to move back. They've practiced, they've taken the coaching, they've the feedback, and they've operationalized that feedback. Um, that's what good customer experience looks like. Because you have clear expectations, clear roles, honest feedback when it is, and especially when it's not working, and a culture that's trying to get better every day. So you take all of that. That translates to your customer walking out the door with that feeling of, wow, uh, they got me, they understood what I needed to do. Um, and they helped me get over that finish line. We as consumers all know the companies that we interact with, that we dread calling, chatting with. And we have the ones that you, you think of them and you get like, that, what a great company. And that the goal is to get to that feeling. And in order to do that, your operations gotta be a tight ship.

Brett Rush: Definitely. And so that is a hard thing to do. And you can't do it with AI, that's for sure.

Shmuel Sackla: So, yeah, to your point of how close are we? Um, you Know, some days we crush it and we score the touchdown, and some days we fumble. You know, um, honest. The honest gap, I'll say for. For me is between knowing and doing. Like you can know what good looks like. Um, but it's doing good every single day and making sure that. That the, uh, doing and the knowledge survives those. Those hard days.

Brett Rush: That's great. I love that. That it survives the hard days. It's like, okay, today was rough, or this week is rough, or it's a, Ah, um, um, it's Black Friday or. Yeah, I mean, I can't even imagine what that looks like for. For you all, especially if, uh, if you have B and H coupons, uh, going on or anything like that. Or even right before school.

Shmuel Sackla: Especially right before school. Yeah. Right.

Brett Rush: Like, hey, I need this by August 1st. Well, it's July 31st. You couldn't have waited to the last second?

Shmuel Sackla: Yeah, well, that's. That's the job, right? You're there, we're there to jump in, and no problem. Let me. Let me take the stress. Let me worry about it, and I will. We will make sure you get what you need.

Brett Rush: So you were talking about surveys. Uh, yeah. You're relying on surveys for customer feedback. So, like, what are these surveys telling you?

Shmuel Sackla: Um. Um, so surveys, I'll say are definitely important. Right? It gives you especially, you know, and it's. And it's nice when you look at the surveys and you get the positive comments. And it's not just about the. It's not just about the comments. It's about, you know, we make it a point to share them. Especially. Especially when customer calls out an employee by name. It's like, hey, I spoke to Brett. He was amazing. He took care of me. He knew what I need, what I needed. He got it. Got it done for me. And, like, that's just so nice because I think recognition is one of the most underused tools that leaders have. And it's free. Right. It doesn't cost you anything to say something to someone. Um, but, you know, we also obviously get the constructive feedback, the missed handoffs, the response that took too long, um, you know, the policies that didn't age well, and we definitely take it seriously. And I think that's one of the challenges of surveys, is that they're great in that they give you signals and they give you feedback, but they are not everything. There's such a large percentage of customers that don't give you that feedback. Um, and what are you doing for those customers? They're most at Risk. Because you just, you just don't know. They just may, they just may buy less next time. I think one of the worst lines I've heard from a customer was, I only come to you when I have to. And that, like, hurts. It's like a punch to the gut. Right. But for the person on the other end of the line, this may be the most emotionally complicated tasking challenge that they have today. And our goal is to make them feel like they were the most important customer today or the only customer today. So good. Yeah. And how do you operationalize that feeling is a huge. It's such a challenge. Right. Because it's so easy to get stuck in the. Oh, um, I'm just, you know, another call, another call. Right. In the context. It's just what it is. But we have to find those ways and those moments to, you know, stop, reset, take a moment, um, and just think about who's on the other line. It's a human. At least for now. Right. We're not talking to AI agents yet, but it's a person and we're here to support them. And especially as we think about how we move forward in the larger industry of AI, taking a lot of this easier work, what's left is the emotionally complex, the things that use your brain, the emotionally challenging issues that a customer may call you for. And when you had that password reset, it gave you your brain that, oh, hey, I got a reset. Right. Like those were your moments where you took for yourself. And now I don't have that anymore.

Brett Rush: Yeah.

Shmuel Sackla: And as a leader, what am I doing to support my people, um, so that they don't burn out from that and that they are getting their breaks and their emotional recharges and you know, it changes how we look at our, our, uh, operations. Right. Like, how many breaks am I going to give during the day? I now may need to change my schedules. I may need to think about what metrics I'm looking at. Um, handle time is going to go up. Right. Like, just because a customer was emotionally challenged doesn't mean it was an upset customer may just, you know, the sentiment may have been something difficult and uh, maybe dealing with no life changing diagnosis or, you know, a, uh, car accident, things that are really just difficult. And we have to, we have to think about the larger picture of. Yes, AI is changing the work, but it's, the change is so much more than that that I think is getting it somewhat lost in the, in the, in the larger discussion.

Brett Rush: Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. I think that uh, people not in the customer experience world don't understand the shift of it. They just think it's getting easier. I think so many people that aren't talking to customers think that support's just getting easier because we're just reducing numbers. But to your point, it's not about the numbers, it's about the complexity and uh, the emotionally draining aspect of it. Earlier you said that, uh, you want to collect that positive feedback, which I loved doing. So something that I did with my team@FRAMEIO is I would put the either the best or the funniest or the most random positive support on a coffee cup and then uh, and a memoji on the other side like their memoji. And so that's. That was uh, something how I like that kind of supported my team. I put like the most random positive support comment and it's like that was the five stars kind of.

Shmuel Sackla: I love that.

Brett Rush: But so how do you share with the greater company or at least within your organization?

Shmuel Sackla: So some of the things like I've, I've been doing, um, with my team is I started what's called what we're calling Feel Good Fridays, where we have a, like, large team chat with everyone in my department, everyone in my division, um, where I was going through either some feedback I found in an email or from a survey comment. And, and I would just, you know, shout out individuals that were being tagged and I was trying to be methodical of like I wanted everybody to get something. So I was, let me find, you know, uh, pick one person per team each week and I'll find something that they did that was great. It's the small moments that actually matter more. Right. Like, so we're so good in CX at like, wow, this, this company went above and beyond and did this amazing thing and flew me across the country so I was able to be at this event. And, and those are great. But, but that's the 2% or the 1%. And, and what are you doing? The 99% of the time is, is I think what's more important and valuable. But yeah, it's less exciting. So I also try to find ways of telling them, hey, you processed this order exactly as they wanted. You got it to them when they needed it. Amazing job. Right. Like, so it's, it's the regular that I'm trying to elevate and say, this is great, this is perfect. I open up the floor. Let's say for everybody to be able to shout out a coworker that made their week easier.

Brett Rush: That's cool.

Shmuel Sackla: And, uh, so, hey, you know, Brett helped me. He put in some really good notes on this, on this order. And I spoke, started with the customer and then he finished it or whatever, vice versa or whatever it is. Or, you know, you know, in contact centers when, you know, lunch schedules get, get thrown off and somebody is stuck on a call for an extra 10 minutes. And now my lunch is. I'm going to run over and, you know, you saw that this, you know, the person in front of you waited till the other person, you know, was back. It doesn't have to be anything extraordinary and it shouldn't. It's just about how did somebody make your day or week easier?

Brett Rush: All right, I have one last question for you. What's one thing in your CX operation that's still unresolved that you haven't been able to fix yet or discover yet or to move forward with yet?

Shmuel Sackla: Yeah, I, um, think this is such a fascinating spin you're putting on it. So for me, is detecting that customer disengagement before it shows up in churn or lost business. It's, um, that silent customer, the one whose volume slowly drops, the one who comes to us. So we said only when they have to, um, you know, the signals are, are in the data. It's across the order history, the contact patterns. They, you know, instead of contacting us every day, it's now once a week. Um, it's the email volume. And really the question for, for me, I think, you know, many people is how do you read that signal early enough, reliably enough to actually do something about it? Um, you know, yes, we have surveys, but surveys are a moment in time. And it's post, it's after something happened. It's after the customer was upset. And we now have the opportunity today, or we're getting there, where you can really think about that or detect it earlier enough where, okay, something's. Now we're starting to go on that bumpy road, but we haven't hit that big speed bump yet. So we can jump in and say, oh, by the way, no, here's a detour. We got it. Um, and so that's, I think what's. To me, like I'm looking at it as unresolved is there's so much that you can do.

Brett Rush: Now the thought about it is, does a product team have it defined as to what this would look like? So somebody. Let's just say I'm, um. The fifth time I've purchased something, I don't contact support. So this is a silent churn, potentially. Yeah. I've purchased something five times. First time, it took me a while. Second time, shorter time. So now you're looking at duration on checkout or something along those lines. And then third time, same. Fourth time, all of a sudden it took me twice as long, and I abandoned checkout. So it's those kinds of signals that would be ideal to say, like, obviously, by the fourth time, shouldn't be abandoning checkout.

Shmuel Sackla: Yeah.

Brett Rush: And then the question is like, I wonder if they found it for cheaper somewhere else.

Shmuel Sackla: Right.

Brett Rush: I wonder if they ran into an issue. Can we replay that?

Shmuel Sackla: And I think also now is that you have the opportunity to use, like, some of these AI, uh, tools to model behavior. Right. And you can, uh, you can test and test instead of test in production, you know, where it's like, okay, if we tweak this, what are the likely outcomes of user behavior? Um, and I think that's. That's, like, an interesting way to think about, you know, where we're going also is how else can we. Can we, you know, use these tools to really help us get that feedback? Every department has their own feedback of the customer's experience, and it's like, you know, okay, returns has theirs, and product has theirs, and, um, logistics has theirs. And it's like, we're all speak. We talk about this all the time. We're all speaking to the same customer, and it's like, who owns the customer? Like, we all own the customer. Right? Yeah, but who owns that feedback element is, I think, um, important to start thinking about, and how do you collect it all to make it operational?

Brett Rush: Thanks so much. That wraps this episode of unresolved. You can connect with Shamil on LinkedIn, and that link is in the description. Shmuel, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, and again, thank you for sharing your amazing customer experience story with us.

Shmuel Sackla: Thank you, Brad. This has really been a pleasure. Awesome.

Brett Rush: Uh, cool. Have a great day and a productive week.

Shmuel Sackla: Sam.