CX Diaries - with Keith Gait

For the first of our brand new CX Diaries podcasts, we were delighted to be joined by former CX Leader of Year James Scutt, who chatted to us about his new role at Qualtrics XM after 17 years at the Post Office. We hear about what Experience Management is, what an XM Catalyst is and does, and about the work of the XM Institute.

James talks to us about how he led the award-winning CX and VoC programme at the Post Office, the importance of people, community and customer intimacy, empowerment, and how to transform from service to experience, and how this drives loyalty. 

We hear James’s view on where CX sits currently in the boardroom, aligns with marketing, deployment with frontline teams, the importance of EX, and the future of VoC and CX programmes and platforms.

James also chatted to us about how he started his career as a chef, how this still shapes his approach to work, the importance of being able to influence, and his love of travel.

“Your home is your castle”

Sarah talks to us about her move into social housing 3 years ago, having worked her way up through the ranks leading large, multi-site, multi-national contact centres, the motivation behind this, and the operational and cultural differences and challenges.

We hear how the cost-of-living crisis is affecting both their customers, and the ability of the sector to build, develop, and improve, and the challenges of investing and delivering customer service in the sector. 

Sarah gives us her take on the balance between automation and personal service, her early background in telephone market research, and like many in our industry, her grounding from working at GE and how the toolkit has stayed with her through her career, and other big career highlights, achievements and learnings.

We also hear about her alternative career as a travel agent, and her new found zest for gardening!

We hear Steve’s view of how well organisations generally poorly managed their contact centre platforms and customer service delivery through the pandemic, the learnings that can be taken from this into the new world, and the importance of the human element still in the contact centre.

Steve talks to us about the importance of investing in technology, how it does have a part to play, but how it must be done to enhance, not distract from the customer experience, and shouldn’t be bought to just reduce costs.

We hear about his career evolving through contact centres and technology across a few decades, the importance of taking a break from work and traveling abroad, and his love of dog breeding and puppies!

In this episode, as we occasionally do, we step into the world of Mental Wellbeing, and support in the workplace

Kathy was had a hugely successful corporate career in change delivery for 35 years. In the last 4 years she has run her own coaching business working with senior leaders and with women who want to transform their experience of work.

Kathy talks about something which might not be immediately obvious as being about wellbeing but which is having a huge influence on our own mental and physical health and that of the people who work for us…The subject of masculine versus feminine energy.  

We learn how this is not gender specific (we all have both), and how it can provoke a lot of emotion and pushback from both men and women. 

We hear about how after many years of operating in an aggressive environment, a heart attack made her realise that an imbalance of energy can ultimately lead to burnout, and mental and physical illness.

 Katy shares with how being able to use both energies gives you: 

   ·  A much broader spectrum of approaches, behaviours, ways of being which complement each other (feminine creativity with masculine ability to implement them)

   ·  It enables you to connect with a much wider circle of people rather than those who respond to one type of energy

   ·  It makes life less stressful: often when we are struggling with something its because we are in the wrong energy

We learn about the pros and cons of each, the facts and myths surrounding each, that there is no right and wrong, good or bad, and how each can and should have its place.

Kathy shares with us five specific business areas  where we can start introducing more masculine/feminine energy balance.

We learn about when we care and nurture ourselves and those around us then we actually produce better work. We are more creative and innovative, more efficient and productive and the research that backs this up. 

And we discuss what is stopping businesses and ourselves believing it.

We had a chat with Iain just a couple of months into his new role as CEO at leading BPO and CX outsourcer Ventrica. Iain speaks to us about the background and early weeks in the role, and their positioning in the market, both UK and offshore.  

We hear about growing businesses in an experience economy and becoming an employer of choice, the importance of environment, support and benefits in the people strategy post pandemic, where people feel valued. He also speaks about the balance between cost and quality as economic pressures increase, whilst still delivering quality service that clients expect as an extension of their business. 

Iain talks about the importance as a leader of winning hearts and minds, the impact poor leaders can have, and the importance of learning from different cultures. We also hear about a charity he supports that has raised over £1.7m, his 96 mile trek along the West Highland way, and his upcoming climb up Mount Kilimanjaro!

In our latest episode of The Big Interview, we caught up with Katie Stabler.

She chats to us about ‘Journey Mapping’ –  why we should be doing more of it, its reality vs the perception, and what makes a good CX programme, including how it should be part of a bigger strategy, and not siloed.

She also talks about where companies get CX wrong, especially in terms of commitment (or failure to do so), and how it has to be widespread throughout the organisation.

Plus, she gives us her views on the state of the VOC market and her take on the future, including how she doesn’t necessarily agree with ‘survey fatigue’.

On a personal note, she tells us about the key people who made the biggest impact on her career, and her incredible experience on Masterchef!

In this week’s podcast we had the pleasure of speaking to Justin Custer, CEO of one of our Foundation Partners – ChatLingual.

Justin tells us all about ChatLingual and the major challenges he sees in the CX industry when it comes to language and multilingual support for customers.

He talks about the issues when it comes to multilingual speaking agents due to hiring, training and retention of staff, how multilingual support can help the experience for both customers and businesses, and solutions for seamless language support across 100 languages.

Justin gives us some great stats about the importance of having CX in a native language, and how this drives brand loyalty and ROI. He also talks about the key metrics and KPIs which are most important for contact centres, how to measure accuracy and what your customers care most about.

He talks about some of the translation options available in the market and how they are not always accurate? And if customers are always able to understand the conversation well enough to have their problem resolved.

Additionally, Justin shares how the ChatLingual platform works on top of the client's existing technology. Even if enterprises use 18 different applications, multilingual support is still possible and easily implemented.

He also talks about some of the challenges he found when he first founded the business and how they have overcome these, and what is next and the future when it comes to multilingual customer service support.

On a personal note, Justin tells us about his love of mountain biking skiing, and also flying (as a pilot)!!!

In this week’s episode of ‘The Big Interview’ we speak to Beverley  Hughes, who tells us about the importance of the ‘people’ element of contact centres and ‘empathy’ and how this needs to be looked at in organisations as much as technology, as well as who is doing it well.

She also talks about the benefits of Cloud technology, especially during the pandemic, and about the new buzzword ‘Customer Success’ and how that sits in a CCaaS world.

We discuss if there is still a place for more traditional Account Management, or if it is just a case of just churning out renewals each year.

She also talks about how she got into the industry in the first place, her career, the big changes she has seen throughout the decades, and the fundamentals that some companies are still doing wrong.

In addition, she goes through her greatest successes during her career and her proudest moments, and modern day CX challenges  and how there is a lot of conversation about automation and not to do automation for ‘automation’s sake’, and that not all customers are the same.

This week we chat to John O’Melia from Contentsquare.

 We chat about the ‘disruptive’ CX trends (good and bad) as the world navigates its way out of pandemic, and how quickly the space is evolving. John gives us his personal experiences of disruptive CX since he has started travelling again, especially with regards to an increase in SMS outbound communication from organisations to update customers.

He tells us all about the personalised experience and communicating with customers in the right way and the right time, and how sometimes the ‘disruption’ of communication can be a good thing, depending on the messaging and what is ‘in it’ for the customer.

He also explains what ‘digital humanism’ is and how companies can bring back in the ‘human’ aspect more via technology and respecting people’s time, and how far away some organisations are from this.

On a personal note, John tells us how, even though he lives in San Francisco, he is still an avid Liverpool FC fan, and his love of golf.

As part of our Mental Health Awareness Week campaign, we had a chat with Claire Bennett about the importance of Mental Wellbeing in the workplace. 

Claire talks about the myth around the assumption that mental health being just about ‘poor’ mental health, the cost to organisations with regards to mental health, how presenteeism is a huge issue with regards to productivity, and how to spot this quickly and try to understand what is happening with individuals.

Claire also talks in depth about how organisations can support their line managers with regards to the initial recruitment process, training and equipping them with the skills to have emotive discussions with their teams, and how to make the workplace a healthy environment in terms of mental health, making small changes for a big impact, and the need for ‘safe spaces’.

We hear about the four pillars, how it isn’t just about policies and a piece of paper on the wall – it has to be a living and breathing element in the workplace, and how it has to start ‘at the top’, not just with HR. She also brings to our attention the legal obligations which can be overlooked by organisations and how employees can help to manage and look after their own mental health with support both inside and outside of the organisation they work for.

Claire also talks about the link with physical health and the ‘health triangle’, how these impact our self esteem and how we should be looking after all three.