The One Where Chatbots Aren't Enough - Lisa Eyer Head of Client Experience and Business Insights E171

🎤🎞️Don’t rely on them alone “The One Where Chatbots Aren't Enough” with Lisa Eyer Head of Client Experience and Business Insights in CX Passport Episode 171🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

2:24 Individuals or Personas?

5:30 Using contact center as customer insights center

9:45 CHIEF and the impact on women’s careers

13:14 1st Class Lounge

17:34 Getting closer to customers in economic downturn

21:00 Starting a career as front line agent

26:24 Contact info and closing

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I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport

Episode resources:

Lisa LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaeyer/

Transcript

Lisa Eyer: 0:00

There are many businesses that have one away from personal conversations with clients and you talk to a lot of chat bots, there is no personalization and a chat bot other than maybe your name,

Rick Denton: 0:11

Customer Experience wisdom. A dash of travel talk. We’ve been cleared for take off! The best meals are served outside and require a passport. CX passport travelers. Today we get to meet with a seasoned professional and client management and strategic leadership. With over 20 years of experience across the financial services industry. Our next guest has been key and optimizing customer experiences. This is the real hands on work we're talking about. When you start your career as a Senior Service Specialist for Cardmember services, you know the customer, you know the front line, and you know what it takes to get the experience right. That's where our guest Lisa is our head of client experience and Business Insights got her start. Today she leads a dedicated team focused on ensuring clients achieve their desired outcomes through innovative solutions and strategic partnerships. In between senior service specialist and head of client experience and business insights, Lisa certifi, serve and First Data Corporation where she drove client management strategies and facilitated revenue growth, developing a wealth of customer experience wisdom. Beyond the corporate world, Lisa is a member alum of chief, an organization designed for women executives to strengthen their leadership, magnify their influence and pave the way to bring others with them. There is much to be learned from Lisa and I'm glad she's in the departure lounge with us for today's episode. Lisa. Welcome to CX passport.

Lisa Eyer: 1:36

Thanks, Rick. I'm happy to be here.

Rick Denton: 1:38

Gonna be a good one here. Yeah. Let's talk about that kind of you've had so many customer oriented roles, both currently. And throughout your your career, you've seen firsthand what customers really want. You'd mentioned to me earlier that they want to be seen individually, not as categories. Tell me more about that? Yes, I

Lisa Eyer: 1:57

think the thing they want most is to be heard, right. It's why they call it's why they chat. It's why they send emails. And being segmented or being known that they're in a segment or a group or a numbering system really takes away the personalization of being heard and being heard as an independent independent business person. And

Rick Denton: 2:24

and as I think about that, it reminds me of something that I had mentioned, even on LinkedIn, I was talking about personas versus personalization. And so in that sort of vein of where you're describing that it's the customer wants to be known as an individual, not as a category. What is it about that? Why do you think companies focus so heavily on say, the persona and the categorization of customers when customers are saying no, no, I'm an individual?

Lisa Eyer: 2:49

I think it's it's operationalizing 80% of the processes, you know, where possible, right? There are personas, there are customer profiles, and you can be in an industry, right as a classification, maybe you're, you know, in the retail industry. So 80% of the things that need to be operationalized are accurate. But each one of those customers is still going to have something that's very unique and very personal to them about what they do that they also want brought into that standard servicing model.

Rick Denton: 3:25

Okay, so let's let's talk about let's go a little bit more tactical in that one, because what you're describing is going to have some scalability challenges. That it you and I right here, we would be very capable of personalizing this conversation, I'd get to know you, Lisa, the individual, you'd get to know me, Rick, the individual, and we'd be able to tailor our conversation our if we were in a business to business relationship, tailor that individually. Well, that doesn't work quite the same way. When you're talking about scalability. How have you seen that work really, really well, to be able to be both personalized? And operationally, as you mentioned, scalable?

Lisa Eyer: 4:02

I think that depends on the business, right? There are many businesses that have run away from personal conversations with clients, and you talk to a lot of chat bots, there is no personalization and a chat bot other than maybe your name. But when you get into more niche businesses, more large scale companies that want long term relationships, and that's really the defining moment. Is it a relationship business? Or is it a just very high volume business? Are you going through a drive thru or you're going to have a sit down meal at a restaurant, right? That's, that's kind of the way to think about the different service models. And there, there are different things that you know, the same customer will want based on what service they're looking for. The scalability is that 80% That that classification of your this type of business, and that other 20% That's so valuable is really about learning. Rick, I, you know, how how's the weather? Where you live, right? How's your cat doing? I don't even know if you have a cat wreck. But, you know, it's it's those moments that, you know, create the laugh creates the connection. And, you know, maybe it only happens, you know, a few minutes at a time, you know, on a monthly basis, but it builds over time. And that's that's the scalability part.

Your CX Passport Captain: 5:29

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 5:55

I chuckled that while I have declared that I do not own a cat, there's actually my daughter's cat that lives in my home rent free, somehow said cat seems to think that it's got more of a relationship with me than I at least intended as a dog guy going into this relationship. But I'm slowly being converted. So you guessed well, we say your your your insights were or your predictive insights were working pretty well there. I liked the idea of the the drive thru versus the sit down. And I could see that there. That those little nuggets of individual conversation that you're describing, can be such a rich source of how a company understands its its customer. And that's where I frequently talk about this need for companies to view the contact center. And now we're talking, you know, just the contact center specifically, but view them not as a cost center. But as a customer insight center. And I think that gets at what you're describing there that as we have this knowledge of the customer and it's building up, there's so such a richness there. What have you seen work really well, in the context Center as a customer insights center? What does it look like? What stories do you have with those companies that have really used their customer contact areas to learn about the customer. So

Lisa Eyer: 7:14

prior work experience being in large contact centers of hundreds to 1000s of Contact Center team members all over the world servicing clients, I think the use of technology really becomes the the key player in that scenario. Because without that technology and that ability to mine pieces of data from that customer's experience with your company, you're not able to create those insights in a meaningful way. Right. So it goes all the way from designing your IVR and your voice response systems that most large companies use to have the customer engage with first and then define what path that customer is going down to recorded calls and mining, the speech analytics, and many great tools on the market for that down to the conversations that are having, how many times they're contacting you, all of those pieces of data, all play together to tell the story of how you can and should better define your experience.

Rick Denton: 8:20

Let's Okay, good. And that that makes sense that we were even talking sort of the scalability aspect of this, that you are going to if you're at that high volume, the technology that's required to make it scalable and personal, personally scalable, I'm not sure I'll figure out my adjectives later. But the ability to to give the customer the feeling that this is a one on one relationship wouldn't have the company, it's certainly a one to many. One of the things though about technology. And I'm curious how you've seen this play out is it can actually create some anxiety in the employee base, especially right now as we're talking about generative AI. And the fear that a great this technology makes you wonderfully scalable. You don't need me anymore. How are you addressing? Or how have you addressed those employee concerns around technology? Knowing that well, there's also the the business reality that technology is needed?

Lisa Eyer: 9:11

It is a great question. It creates quite a bit of anxiety, regardless of what business you're in. And I would say the way I talk to that is we're going to take away the things that you really don't want to do. And we're going to let you do the things that you're really great at and are more complex requires more thinking requires that engagement level, and we're going to get rid of all of the noise.

Rick Denton: 9:38

I can see why that might be appealing. There's a lot of things. I'd realized that generative AI wasn't around in the 90s when or actually the 80s and 90s when I was doing some of my earlier jobs. But yeah, I would have I would have welcomed the conversation of the manager saying, Hey, we're not getting rid of your job. We're just getting rid of the crap parts of your job that you don't want to do and I would welcome that. I needed folding technology when I was working at the mall retail store, that's the one that I wish had been implemented. Sadly, it was still my hands that did it. Just need a robot now, I'm sure it can be done now. But for some reason, in 1986, it wasn't quite, quite ready back there. I want to take a total change here, because your experience in chief really intrigued me, I think that was something that really drew me to want to have a conversation with even we were first getting to know each other. I'd love you to talk to me about your time in chief, how has it supported both the growth of your career and then the careers of other women? So

Lisa Eyer: 10:35

I joined chief and I was just attracted to the whole idea that it was a, you know, a strong network of women from everywhere, all all walks of life, all levels, and it became a movement, right. And everyone I think, saw that occur. You know, anytime you looked on LinkedIn, right, there was something going on with Chief. And so becoming a part of that network. And that movement was important to me, because what I felt I was lacking was just being able to build a network around yourself, the longer you're in business, and in a career, and I'd say this is probably true now for early entry career, women or men. We work from home, potentially, right, so you're not out and sitting next to your co workers, or you just don't have that same social aspect. Post COVID, things still really aren't quite where they were pre COVID, I think. And so that networking allowed me to engage with women, not only regionally but everywhere. And what I will say is, you know, I spent my first year in chief, kind of learning about how that enterprise was growing. As I exited that first year in chief, what I realized is, it was still a lot of business networking. So I met a lot of great talented women, but it still didn't forge like long lasting relationships. And so you may have seen, you know, recently, within the last year, I joined crew, and that particular network is not, you know, just just one gender. It's you know, men and women and being a founding member being one of the first you know, 100 in the in the door for that network, I would say change the way I think about business networking in general, because crew were Chief was very focused on empowering women, all aspects of of women, crew is more based on holistically your relationship, and making sure you're creating meaningful connections. And so that was kind of the way I felt I needed to go from a, you know, a networking and a business relationship perspective.

Rick Denton: 13:14

Lisa, thank you, I'm glad that you kind of spoke of both of those, because I can see a need for for kind of both and you know, someone who's not, in neither of those organizations, I can see though, at least from the outside how there's a real value in them, and I can see the differing value between the two. So I'm glad that you, you brought that up. Now I'm gonna be a little cheeky with a shift here. And it is you mentioned the word connections. And travel has a lot of connections and those can be remarkably disrupted. And it'd be nice to stop down in a lounge when your connection has been disrupted. So how about that? How's that for a segue there viewers and listeners of getting us into the first class lounge Lisa today? I'd like to stop down here have a little fun move a little bit quickly. But we're gonna have some fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Lisa Eyer: 14:00

My dream location would have to be I'm gonna go Europe, I think on this one. So recently went France, Amsterdam, just the whole British Isles location, loved it. Spent just a little bit of time in each location. And I would definitely go back and spend more time I think just going through the British Isles and traveling country to country spending a little more time.

Rick Denton: 14:34

You know, that's something that I hear a lot when I hear it in my own head. But you're it feels like a place that would be yes, a lot of us go there and we hit the highlights. We take our train from Big City to big city and we get those and it's important to do that. Then it feels like that second trip, don't you want to just go back and just slow travel, rent or rent a villa in Tuscany or get some sort of cottage in Scotland or something where you're just sit there for a couple of months and just absorbing it or longer I don't know. So I can appreciate that desire for that longer experience that you're describing. What about going forward? What's a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Lisa Eyer: 15:13

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share that I'm a little bit jealous of my youngest daughter who is about to go to Germany, Switzerland. So, I would say, I'm gonna see how it goes for her. And if she really does love it, and then that'll probably be on my list of next places to go.

Rick Denton: 15:33

Okay, so now now I got it. So you're going to actually get your your place in Germany and slow travel the rest of Europe as you're using that as the base. I like that approach. There we go. Well, when you've been to countries like that, there's a wide variety of food and life has given us a lot of wide variety of food. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Lisa Eyer: 15:52

I just love to eat. Italian, I would say Italian probably ranks pretty high for me.

Rick Denton: 15:58

I like that. I think you were about to answer that with I like food.

Lisa Eyer: 16:01

I just like to Yeah.

Rick Denton: 16:03

You and I are very unified spirits. And that that is a challenging question for me as well. What is a thing growing up? You were forced to eat as a kid, but you hate it.

Lisa Eyer: 16:15

This one is so easy for me because I still hate it. You know, some people grow into loving things, and some do not. Liver is one of those things I never grew into loving.

Rick Denton: 16:27

I am gonna go on record and say that I think liver is starting to outpace vegetables. And the answer to this question. I don't know what it was about. Either our parents or our caretakers, you know, however we were raised that thought that liver was a good idea. None of us loved it. And very few of us have chosen to, to learn to love it. So I'm with you least I've got one that's worse that for me, but liver would be a pretty close second in like, it's worse. You have to tell me Oh brussel sprouts. For me. It's brussel sprouts, I can't stand them. And I know it's trendy that everybody likes them now. You're all wrong, they suck. So but liver would come in very, very close. We're going to have to exit the lounge here, Lisa, get back to customer experience talk. But I do want to know what is one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport that you will not leave home without

Lisa Eyer: 17:17

a book. An actual paperback book. Technology can fail. And I just love turning the pages.

Rick Denton: 17:34

Lisa, once again, I have a very symbiotic spirit with you on that one because I do love turning my pages. If it weren't for the Frisco library and Half Price Books, I probably would be bankrupt because of loving the the the tangible paper that that you get from a book. There's just something about immersing that way. You had said something earlier that stuck with me. And it is and it's it's really timely right now. Because whether we're actually in a recession or a downturn, there is at the very least a perception of it. And I'm not here to debate whether we are or not. But there's certainly a perception. Financial downturns always require getting close to the customer. I found that to be an interesting phrase, because I'm not sure that I see that in most companies that they're getting closer to the company's how customers how have you seen that work? Well, at a company getting closer to a customer during a financial downturn.

Lisa Eyer: 18:28

So I would say serving businesses, and those businesses being impacted by whatever the economic conditions are right, you know, one downturn may be another company's upswing. And it's it's being knowledgeable about how that company is going to be affected. And then making sure you're having the right conversations at the right time. Budget Planning can be very stressful, for example, if budgets are starting to get squeezed, and money is, you know, harder to come by or you're you're just being more diligent about protecting your revenues. And so I think those conversations are timely and necessary. And again, they create that connection that really shows that the personal engagement,

Rick Denton: 19:14

okay, so I'm building that connection. I'm getting that that that deeper connection and deeper understanding, especially because hey, even my customer might not be in a b2b scenario. One one's down might be another up like you point I think that's an important thing. Let's get tactical. What about companies that aren't doing this? Well, now? How would you advise them? How could they get better at being closer to the customer? What should they be doing?

Lisa Eyer: 19:38

So companies that are, let's say, high volume, right, where it's more transactional in nature, unless people are human centered? I would say they can still, you know, find ways to even deliver digital content that is personalized and meaningful to that particular business at a at any given time. So

Rick Denton: 19:58

can I explore that a little Bit more digital content. So this is you're suggesting publishing, you're suggesting kind of a content marketing approach as early engagement? Yeah.

Lisa Eyer: 20:08

It could be content marketing. Do you have a website that, you know, that's where you're heavily engaging with your clients? Right? They maybe they have a self service portal that they're coming through or checking into, much like we do with our banking or, you know, other financial items? It's a great way to deliver information, if that's convenient for your client. Some customers love text messages, some do not. Right. So I think it's about what's your preference to be communicated to? And how do I deliver that extra something through that communication vehicle?

Rick Denton: 20:44

And I'm glad you bring that up. Because you're absolutely right, there are certain businesses that I have a relationship that I highly value the text, if my flight is delayed, I highly value the text as opposed to an email or any other sort of way of finding me, because I need to know that information right away. I really don't need my, this is a current frustration of mine. I really don't need my doctor's office texting me three times over the last week to provide feedback on a visit that I did a week ago. And I'm not having, I don't intend to offer the feedback because there was no need for it. So understanding your customer and the way that they want to communicate, I can see that and some of that I feel like that's not just a financial downturn, it's anytime. And I think the message that I could extract from this or maybe add to in a yes and sort of way is don't let a financial downturn be an excuse to no longer be close to your customer and continue doing well, what you were doing before. You, Lisa, you had I mentioned that you started your career at that sort of frontline role. That is something that is I mean, the lessons learned there I know are applying being applied today. So you've been there you've been that frontline, customer contact, who's gotten right there in the thick of it with a customer could be a customer service need a customer success relationship call right there in the midst of that. Well, at that point, I imagine you are focused on the one on one, I'm here to restore this relationship, understand the challenge or just answer the question, whatever that is. A company also has a need for that overall, how are we doing in regards to just overall customer experience? How are you seeing companies get that balance? Right, focused on the one but focused on the overall? And how have you done that successfully in the past or even now in the present? So

Lisa Eyer: 22:33

I think the way I started my career, and maybe it didn't feel that way in the very beginning, right? When you're taking hundreds of calls from usually very angry customers. It was an issue in business, credit card holders, were calling in for service, and I happened to be one of those service people, I would say that experience and learning how to deal with all the emotion that comes across the phone line. And resolving the conflict, looking for the solution. Learning all types of different communication approaches, I think was a great foundation for progression through my career to how do we do better training? How do we do better engagement tactics? How do we manage teams now that are doing this all the way through my career to now when you think about, you know, part of my role is Business Insights. That means that career journey, and that map of everyone who touches the customer, everyone who is performing a service that affects the customer, all of that journey gives us pieces of information about how to go do things better or different, what to stop what to start, and how to deliver it in the way that it's going to create loyalty and long term relationships with your customer.

Rick Denton: 23:59

You know, I've said this too many times. And I need to come in another phrase, but I'm very aligned with the habit that I'll use a generic business phrase, I'm very aligned with you on that one, because I talk a lot about the frontline being that just gold. Let's talk about how for a second because too many companies and I talked about the cost center aspect of it right. But too many companies just I don't know that it's necessarily with malice. They just overlook that role. They overlook the insights there. And I'm not even talking about the technology associated with just appreciating what's there. How have you like when you were part of it? Were companies asking you individually for information, you know, hey, what was that experience? Like? How can a company really tangibly tactically get that insight from what's being shared there at the Customer Contact Center? I'm

Lisa Eyer: 24:49

gonna give you a great example from a prior role that I had. So you know, big customer contact centers, right? You try to do a lot of team build And you try to give the team members a little bit of a break from, you know, sometimes those difficult conversations, right? So we used to do this activity, you know, where we said, we're going to eat our own cooking today, right? So okay, randomly select folks from our operational center that, you know, had been servicing customers, put them in a room and start listening to some of the calls. So they could hear themselves potentially, because the calls were random, they could hear some of their co workers. But what they had the ability to do in that room was truly say, how would I have done this different? Was this great, and we need to recognize and reward. But it was an opportunity to really kind of like pick out the nuggets. And they would self critique in a way that I might not right there. They're listening to that call, and they're saying, oh, Sammy is trying to find that procedure right now. That's why Yeah, hear all of this silence. Like if we could get to that faster, we could, you know, not have that. And so like, you pick up these little nuggets in those conversations, and you're like, why didn't we think of that? Because we didn't ask the person who's doing it every single minute of every day. So this,

Rick Denton: 26:24

we're ending? That's it, I'm not asking you any more questions, because that is such a valuable, valuable tactic into getting to that spirit inside a contact center, where we're not blaming the agent necessarily, for what happened on a call, we're understanding how we the business, didn't equip them with the process systems, tools, training, whatever that looks like to be able to deliver the experience. Yes, there are times where the agent themselves has improvement opportunities. But understanding how we as a company have created the environment where the agent may not be equipped to be as successful as they need to be a former guest. And it's come up in conversation to is talked about, we listen to calls, but we turn the agents voice off. So we just hear the customers element of that. And it takes some of the agent emotion out of it. And it gets more of a business sense there. It is interesting. I like what you're saying, now we're letting the front line tell us what is messed up or could be improved and using them in that room to be able to do so Lisa, I'm glad that we ended on that. Absolutely. If folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you your approach to customer experience, and just get to know a little bit more about your story. Where should they look?

Lisa Eyer: 27:37

I think start started on LinkedIn. You know, you'll see my career path and a little bit of information about me. You know, like I'd love to create connections, mentor. So if you know if you're out there and you want to connect, look me up on LinkedIn.

Rick Denton: 27:54

Excellent. As always, listeners viewers, it's down there in the show notes and you'll have a link to Lisa's LinkedIn profile. Lisa, thanks for taking me on this conversation today. It was great to get to know certainly the the approach to customer experience. And I love that we ended right there in the front line being the the absolute focus of it. And I'm glad that we now know what will not be served for you for dinner. There will be no liver what so ever. Lisa, it was a delightful conversation. Thank you for being on CX password.

Lisa Eyer: 28:24

Thank you, Rick.

Rick Denton: 28:30

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.