Experience Strategy Podcast: How to Evolve Your CX Strategies for 2024

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In this episode, we’re joined by Will Kingston, Customer Strategy Consultant at Acquis Cortico-X and Podcast Host for The Spectator Australia. Together, we explore Will’s CX Manifesto and global CX trends, and make predictions on what’s coming in the upcoming 2024 CX landscape. Throughout our discussion, we emphasize how vital it is to set clear expectations, deliver on promises, and enhance customer performance – to build the foundation of a successful experience, trust.

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome to the experience strategy podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent. And now here are your hosts, experienced nerds, Dave Norton and Aransas Savas.

Aransas: Welcome to the experience strategy podcast. I'm your host, Aransas Savas.

Dave: And I'm Dave Norton.

Aransas: And Dave, today we are joined by Will Kingston. So Will's a customer strategy consultant in Australia, but he's also the host of the Spectator Australia podcast. And Will, like us, has done some deep analysis on customer trends. both past and emerging. And so today we're gonna do a bit of comparison to see what he's seeing from the perspective of global trends in customer experience and what we're seeing in in more U.S. focused work, uh, [00:01:00] comparing maybe what we've seen in 2023 and hopefully forecasting what we believe is to come for not just really 2024, but So, if we're honest, what we're talking about right now, I know it's painful to say on the early part of October of 23, but what we need to be paying attention to is 2025.

Dave: Exactly.

Aransas: So, let's get into it. Will, thank you so much for joining us

Will: Pleasure to be with you.

Aransas: So, part of this conversation started really, Will, because we saw your CX manifesto and what you predictions for 2023 and get really excited about what you were seeing and the work that you were doing. So tell us a little about the methodology, how you came to that place of making those predictions and feeling so confident about them that you Why did you put them out in the world so boldly?

Will: Uh, [00:02:00] feeling so confident, maybe, maybe a bit of a stretch, but, uh, but I, I think they were, um, so I did those when I was working in Australia at the time. So that was closer to the start of this year. And I'm now based in the US. I think there are nuances that may be different UK and Australia, which is where I've worked for the majority of my career.

But, but generally with the Western countries, I think you're seeing similar ish trends. In terms of methodology, it was, uh, it was less a formal research piece and more, I guess I use the word manifesto quite deliberately because it was, I guess what I believed in, in, in CX and, and I boiled them down to 10 principles and their principles, which I think are timeless in some respects.

But at the same time as well that their principles, which, um, which, which I think, uh, certainly do hold true, true today as well. Um, so yeah, it'll be interesting. I think, you know, the, the, probably there's more qual and [00:03:00] quant insights that would sit behind the work that you guys have done. I'd be interested to, to compare what that may, may look like.

But for me, it was, it was, uh, as much about kind of my, my belief system for CX as, as anything else. And that’s fascinating.

Dave: So can you walk us through some of those so that for our audience, what is your manifesto?

Will: Yeah, sure. There were 10 principles that I put forward at the time. And if I go through a few ones, which I think maybe are my favorites, the first was around CX ownership.

So one thing which I've observed, one thing which I think is interesting is that There is a wide array of different approaches to who should own the customer experience function within the organization. And I think that's part of the beauty of this job, right, is you can come at it from an ops perspective and focus on customer operations.

You can come at it from a [00:04:00] marketing and brand perspective and say that my role is to try and connect the experience with the brand promise of an organization. You can even come at it from more of a corporate strategy perspective and say that, that we're going to try and align it more closely with that part of the world.

The one thing which I do get a bit frustrated by though, is when there isn't a really clear thought process as to what is the best fit for your organization. It just seems to get lumped in with marketing. I don't think that the marketing function should own CX by default. I think if I was being cheeky, there have been some CMOs that may have hoodwinked naive CEOs into thinking that CX...

Is just a marketing capability for no other reason than that they gather customer insights effectively. Yeah my my view is is That whilst there is potentially an argument in some organizations for the marketing team to own cx A lot of the time I actually think that that can be counterproductive Because I think that the cx function needs to have operational teeth to try and drive the experience [00:05:00] strategy through to execution And a lot of the time with marketing functions, they actually don't have those skills around execution and operational execution.

Um, so, so in a past role where I was head of customer experience for Close Brothers, which was a British Merchant Bank, we actually sat within the operations practice and I reported through to the Chief Operating Officer. Uh, and, and that's been the most effective framework for me to be able to drive change in any organization I've been in, because I actually had more of the levers to be able to pull to drive that change as opposed to just being stuck in the world of of customer insights exclusively.

Aransas: Same. I do think I will make a case for marketers that I think when they transition into CX roles properly and they get the tools, they can make excellent experience strategist because they have a history of working in data and reward and. Lots of levers that I think lots of experienced strategists actually don't [00:06:00] have access to so I think they can be converted But I agree we experience shouldn't sit within marketing because they're just the tools aren't available Such a good point

Will: I think so so I think this actually goes to another principle that I put forward in in that paper at the time, which is that the biggest constraint on customer experience improvement Is the org chart of the organization.

Uh, we, we would see every day that large organizations really struggle to embed experience change, and it's not for lack of effort. Most of the time now it's not because they don't think it's important. Customer experience has been a strategic priority for businesses for years now. It's because they've grown in a way that makes large scale cooperation almost impossible across the organization.

Uh, you see day in day out resources and time that is controlled [00:07:00] by product and service aligned fiefdoms that don't actually consider the end to end. Customer journey. So wherever you, you position customer experience as a function, and it could be marketing, it could be ops, it could be wherever. I think the role needs to be, how are you going about pulling those different silos together around a customer journey?

Now, the ideal is actually if you can get to a stage where you can blow up your org chart and, and actually have journey aligned structure. I've seen that very rarely. Um, it's kind of one of those kind of unicorn. Concepts that you dream of, but for me, the ideal org structure is one that is aligned around a customer journey is a lot posed to align around products and services.

Aransas: I interestingly wrote a blog yesterday that was titled The Biggest Problem for CX Strategies.

Dave: I knew you were going to say that, Aransas, because this is something that you've been focused on quite a [00:08:00] bit, is when you talk to experienced strategists, one of the biggest issues that you, you find is that, um, the silos are killing, uh, killing off innovation, execution, everything.

Aransas: Yep, reward. And that's why I think that managing silos, very much to your point, Will, is the biggest risk and reward for any organization.

And so the, the risk to, as Dave said, innovation, to employee experience, right? If we, if we feel like, what is it? Sharing is not caring, right? Right, and I've seen a lot of evidence and some deep study into the role of shared ownership and how ultimately everyone just feels sort of defeated and feels as though they have no potential for real impact and I think we see a ton of that when it comes to customers because marketing and ops and CX and [00:09:00] every team feels like they own that experience and yet nobody feels like they have the authority or the ability to truly impact it because of that shared ownership and so I think it is a And the biggest risk on all of those factors, but it also learning how to create an integrated and unified customer view that Um, gives people a sense of confidence and ability to create impact on their most important and valuable resource in an organization has the greatest potential for reward.

Um, and I think you are 100 percent right and you just nailed it there. It starts with org structure and it starts with a clarity of direction about who the customer is and then empowering teams to act on a clear set of insights.

Will: That word authority, Aransas, that you used, I think is really important. Um, this may be a tad cynical, but I, I don't see how you can solve this [00:10:00] problem without having the authority given to you from the very top.

And by that I mean the, the C suite and the CEO. Uh, I, I was thinking through as you were speaking, kind of some of the most common reasons why silos endure, some of the most common reasons why CX functions struggle to bring the different function, uh, parts of the business together. And it's because most of the time they haven't been empowered by a CEO who fully buys into to a customer centric view of his or her organization.

So, um, I can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is to have basically a C suite that buys into breaking down these silos. I think it's very, very difficult if you're a head of customer experience or a chief customer officer to be able to do so if you don't have that support.

Aransas: I agree. We've talked to so many experienced strategists on this podcast and in our work and.

It comes up every single time. If they're telling a story about a big win or a, [00:11:00] an organizational transformation, they start with, well, I had a really great top down leadership. And if they're telling a story about a failure or a frustration, it starts with, well, we just didn't have the top down leadership.

Of course, people don't say that on the podcast, they don't want to make that guy mad, so hire them again. But it's always the same story. You're absolutely right. And so that, though, puts the onus on the experienced strategist to get that buy in because those C suite leaders, they have a lot vying for their attention.

If they don't understand that that's what needs to happen, then that's on the experienced strategist. That's not on the C suite leader.

Will: Well, I think that leads to another principle that I put forward in this paper, which is in order to get that buy in, you have to be good at modeling the ROI of CX initiatives.

Now, uh, I, so many times, particularly early on in my [00:12:00] career, I don't think I was particularly good at this and, and, and I would sell the dream of, of a great customer experience, but I'd be rebuffed from, from hard nosed executives who would say, you know, this warm and fluffy CX stuff sounds lovely. But when I've got competing priorities over the next 12 to 24 months, and you can't show me ROI, I'm just not going to support your transformation agenda, or your series of initiatives, or whatever it may be.

I think now, if I was to look at a trend over the next... Year, two years, five years, take your pick being able to effectively model ROI of CX is the single most important thing in my mind to be able to drive CX change in organizations. It's something which I think is done inconsistently. I think the best CX teams I've seen now do it very, very well.

And they would treat it like, you know, a corporate strategy function would treat kind of modeling and they do it very, very scientifically. There are some, unfortunately, customer experience functions that are [00:13:00] still stuck in the kind of the stage of, of painting lovely customer journeys, putting them on a wall and then leaving it there.

Um, this needs to be a really practical, hard nosed exercise of saying, how can we drive to, to, to an ROI number or else you're not going to get by. Marketers

Aransas: make great experienced strategists because they have that data discipline. And I think you're right. I mean, story is powerful. And we as experienced strategists and marketers, frankly, use story to create buy in and understanding.

But ultimately, investment comes from data. And I think you're right. Lots of us are using it inconsistently or ineffectively.

Dave: You know, um, one of the things that I wonder about, Will, is, as you describe this, you know, the, the growth of NPS as a score to create that ROI, um, argument [00:14:00] has been going now for 20 years.

And what are your thoughts on... Using NPS because I, I don't know what other companies, what people are doing to develop ROI outside of NPS. Well, what actually I do know, but, but I wonder what your thoughts are on it.

Will: Yeah, it's interesting. I was reading an article, oh geez, this would have been years ago now, um, and it told the story of Fred Reichelt, the initial creator, the, the founding father of MPS.

Uh, and he, he was in a hotel, and he went up to the, to the concierge, and he saw a sign behind the concierge that said, you know, something along the lines of, you know, we run MPS, please give us a 10. If you don't give us a 10, You know, tell us why and we will find a way to make it worth your while. And he thought to himself, I've, I've.

Created a monster here because [00:15:00] we've gone beyond what the initial purpose of NPS was, which I think was a really noble purpose to something which has maybe potentially been bastardized by a lot of companies. And I think that goes for the ROI conversation as well in that you can tie a dollar value to an increase or decrease in NPS and I've seen it done and, but, but I actually don't think a lot of the time that is.

As powerful as looking at what the lead indicators of a particular moment or a particular experience are and then focusing on those. So, for example, uh, if. You, one of your experience principles is speed of service. So I would be saying, well, what, what are the lead indicators for speed of service across the key moments of your say servicing journey?

And it could be, you know, uh, how long it takes to pick up a phone in the contact center. And then I'd be looking at, well, what is the both kind of revenue and cost implications of getting those lead metrics, right? And suddenly that's [00:16:00] something which I think more people in the organization can actually get their head around.

Whereas if you're just saying. We have calculated nebulously that a certain percentage point increase in NPS can lead to this. increase in ROI, it's valuable, but I think it is potentially less valuable than tying it to return to operational metrics or to other metrics, which may be more easy to understand for different people within the business.

Dave: Perfect. I think that's an excellent example of kind of what we Have felt as well. And we would often talk about that is if speed to access is kind of a key driver, we would argue that that's kind of a functional job to be done, that the customer wants that speed. They want time well saved. And what you're What you're saying is that you can turn that objective, that purpose, that job that the customer is trying [00:17:00] to get done into, um, a value proposition, um, and show the value that can be created for the customer as well as the value that can be created for the company because it will lead to additional revenue.

And that to me is kind of. It's, it's classic. It's the way things should be done. We don't need necessarily something incredibly novel to create these ROI approaches. I think we can use some of the tools that already exist. So love it.

Will: Yeah, I agree.

Aransas: So walk us through a couple more of your manifesto points.

This is really, uh, really fun.

Will: Yeah, sure. So, uh, and this, this may be, maybe one we can, we can debate. I've got this in front of me and I'd forgotten actually that I'd put this in at the time, but I'm going to stand by it. It says here, customer surveys are prehistoric. Ditch them. And I will, [00:18:00] uh, I'll read this out.

This year, NASA blew up an asteroid, scientists grew brain cells in a lab that have learned to play video games, and Domino's delivered me a pizza in under eight minutes, and yet we still rely on customers giving us an arbitrary score out of 10 to understand CX performance. Now we are, this is, this is a, a call or a, a, a podcast interview.

Full of customer strategy consultants and some of the money that we would make would be on implementing customer survey programs. I get that. So look, I was being intentionally provocative when I said this. I still think that surveys may have a place as part of a broader customer experience understanding program.

But I think I was being provocative because I still think we are at a point where we're relying too much on survey data and not enough on platforms that can synthesize real time data from a range of channels. And use it to actually understand what customers are doing, not just what they're saying. I think that's, that should be the North Star we [00:19:00] should all be trying to work towards in my opinion.

I agree.

Aransas: I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. I think behavioral metrics are so much more informative. They can be difficult to interpret. And I think both Quan and Qual can be useful in understanding what those behavioral metrics are telling us. Uh, and, and helping us sort of. Get past our own biases to understand what they mean for the customer, but Yes.

Dave: You know, I still, maybe this sounds a little old school, but I still believe that in order to understand the customer, you need to be able to listen to them, hear them. You need to be able to observe them and you need to be able to analyze the things that they do. Those are kind of the three things. So.

Surveying, honestly, is a fairly rudimentary but highly quantitative way of doing it. [00:20:00] I still think that there's room for just getting out and talking to people doing ethnographic research. Not all the time. But when necessary, doing co creation research to really, uh, understand, uh, their point of view, why and the why associated with it.

But we can observe them in so many more ways than we used to be able to observe them. And we should be using those, um, those tools. In fact, they hope in some cases that we are actually observing them and see patterns so that they can be better at what it is that they're doing. So if we can use those observations to actually help them on an individual basis, that's even better.

And then we need to be able to analyze all of the different types of data that we're receiving. Now, I think that one of the biggest problems with The analysis today is that we just collect data. We don't, [00:21:00] for intents and purposes that the data wasn't necessarily created for. So we get lots of web data, we get lots of social data, and then we try to say, Oh, this is what the customer is feeling right now, when in fact, you know, may or may not be why they wrote what it is that they wrote or they did what they did. So I think it's important for the company to know the job that the customer is trying to get done, not have that as the North star and then analyze the data against that job to be done. Um, cause I think that makes all the difference.

Will: Yeah, Dave, I, I agree entirely and that's real, like the way that you've just explained that requires a multidisciplinary approach. So you've, you've mentioned data, you've mentioned ethnography, you've mentioned survey design. [00:22:00] There's a social component there. I have a lot of sympathy for head of customer experience or a chief customer officer today because a lot of the time they don't have particularly big teams and yet if you want to be able to have that multidisciplinary approach.

You're not going to be able to, to have every capability within your team that you need to get that job done. It's really difficult. I'd throw it back to you guys. I'd be curious to get your thoughts on how you think about the makeup of effective customer experience teams. What are the capabilities that they should be looking as a leader to, to include there, and how do you go about making tough decisions as to.

What capabilities you include in your team and then potentially what you may Outsource or find from from other parts of the business. What do you think your answers?

Aransas: Yeah Uh, it's a big question and I think it does so much depend on the organization's size You know, if you have a team of one Right you need some you need across [00:23:00] the entire organization to support this work because no one person can hear a customer's needs and implement a customer's needs.

As teams grow, I think so much of it is really about having the right tools for listening and then for communicate, listening to the customer and then communicating that to the other teams because ultimately. It's not CX's responsibility to fix customers problems. It's CX's responsibility to share customer needs and to enable and empower the entire organization to meet those needs.

Dave: You know, I like this idea of enabling and empowering the whole organization to meet needs. And I think that one of the problems that we have in an experience. design today is that the tools that we use to enable them, uh, we're also, we're, we're created for a different [00:24:00] time period. So journey maps haven't really changed all that much in the last 20 years.

Um, persona work hasn't really changed all that much in the last 20 years. NPS has kind of dominated the way that we think about measurement. Uh, and that's why we need more. Your, your chief experience officer or your lead over experience needs to be thinking strategically about new tools that can be used to help the organization really get.

Where the future where we need to be headed, and that's what I think experience strategy is all about. It's about helping the organization to understand not what the customer feels right now, but what the customer will need to fill in. Uh, the next two to three years or will want to fill what new [00:25:00] technologies are going to have to, um, be incorporated.

What, um, new attitudes and direction and beliefs need to be incorporated into the overall experience. I think oftentimes the CX function is. Is looking backwards at what people said in the past, rather than looking forward to where, um, people need to be in the future.

Aransas: I think what you're describing is a much more empowering function, too, and a much more valuable function in an organization.

It's so defeating to be the voice of blame, and it really does not inspire organizational support.

Will: Yeah, there's, there's a soft skill which underpins everything you've just said. And that is the importance of, of persuasion and influence to be a really great CX practitioner. This, I think was one of the first things that one of my first bosses told me [00:26:00] is when I was asking, well, how do I get good at this job?

And they said, You need to be a really powerful influencer. You need to be, I think Rancis, you said earlier, a really powerful storyteller. There was a, uh, uh, head of customer experience at IAG when I did a project there, IAG is Australia's largest insurance group, and I'll never forget. We did a customer journey piece with him.

And from the day that we completed our customer journey map. He basically got printouts and he stuffed one printout into his right jacket pocket, one into his left, one into his, kind of, his suit pants. And whenever he would walk past someone in the organization, he would pull it out and he'd say, Hey, have you seen my customer journey?

And he'd start talking them through it. And I tell you what, he did this every day, day after day. Um, and I went, mate, that's extraordinary how you have the energy to do this. He said, that's my job. You know, I am, I cannot, Dave, to your point, If you're trying to sell people on the future as opposed to looking backwards, you need to basically be stomping the pavement and [00:27:00] selling that story day in, day out.

Um, and, and if, if I was to, to offer the same advice to a young customer experience practitioner, it would be, how do you get good at that art of persuasion?

Dave: What a great story. I hope you've written that up somewhere because I'd love to quote that. That's a great story.

Will: I'll be honest. I've not even thought of that in years and it just kind of came to me, but you're right.

I will try and write that up because it's, it says so much about, I think, the art and the science of customer experience. And it says so much as well that you can't fake passion or enthusiasm in this job. I think this is something which I love about customer experience strategies, that there is community around it that are so passionate about this work. And it just shows through in, in how you approach your job in a way, which if I was to be again, a bit, bit cynical, you may not find in a procurement function or a finance function. Uh, and I, for me, that's, that's what kind of gets me up in the morning. Is that, is that, that passion that so many people have for this work?[00:28:00]

Aransas: Yes, yes, it is. It is a passion for people and, and understanding that. But we see directly the human impact of the work that we do in most cases. And oftentimes we have a closer eye on what that is than any other part of the organization.

Will: But one thing I would maybe just suggest though, as a corollary of this, uh, and this was another principle that I had in that paper, and that is that, that unlike say, procurement or finance, the role of the CX professional, I think is still woefully undefined.

Uh, and I think that's, that can make it really difficult for particularly people at the start of their careers. Uh, go onto LinkedIn and search customer experience jobs. Every single JD will give you a dramatically different list of required skills. It'll give you different words that they use to describe different things.

Now again, this is a very broad discipline, so I can somewhat understand it, but I think we do as professionals need to probably work towards a more consistent taxonomy of skills [00:29:00] for CX professionals. And people like Gene Bliss, uh, and the, the CXPA, Customer Experience Professional Association, and, and doing it well.

That would be something as well, I think, as a, as a professional group, we need to be thinking about is how do we, how do we start speaking the same language around CX so you can make it a bit easier for particularly younger experienced strategists to, to understand what they need to be working on, what they need to be good at, how do they go about improving.

Dave: It's interesting you say that because I think today, when you use the term CX, people just assume that you're talking about managing a Qualtrics platform or something like that. You know, so that term, or a call center, yeah. That's a good point. So that term has become very narrow, actually, um, and part of the reason that we always talk about experienced strategists is because we're trying to help people to think more broadly beyond [00:30:00] just the, um, the metrics, uh, that, that might be developed.

And there's great, there's great things you can do with metrics. Absolutely. But it really is about setting that vision. For the organization and helping that vision to come to life and to execute it. And I do think that, that, that has to become. Even more important because you can, it's not hard to see why certain, um, chief experience officer roles have disappeared.

Um, if you've defined the term as principally being about the management of an analytics service, you don't have to have a CXO to do that. So. Yeah, I couldn't couldn't couldn't agree more. It's interesting your focus and what you're describing because I think it's really really important and really powerful and I like the fact that you called it [00:31:00] a Manifesto, I think that's the right term, you know, some of the things that We've been talking about from a trends standpoint, include things like, um, changes that we're seeing in, in consumer behavior.

So in 2023, we were, um, talking about wellbeing, being everywhere, being powered by customer purpose, thinking about context and the importance of context, the role of uncertainty. We talked, we talked about. You know uncertainty is certain at least in the near future. These are some of the topic areas and and what I like about this work that That, uh, we've been doing is that we're trying to help the companies out there to see the customer in a different way to see that the customer is evolving and [00:32:00] changing.

And, um, so I wonder what your thoughts are, Will, when you hear some of these trends that we're, that we're, uh, describing.

Will: Yeah, I look, I think that they're fantastic and the thing which came to mind for me with some of the trends you described is how you can link them back to some of the broader things that we're seeing in politics, in culture, in society, and then say, well, how does that impact customers?

Take purpose, for example, I think this is a challenge for a lot of young people in Western countries is that, that they are potentially feeling like they have a lack of purpose compared to say, maybe what they did. You know, in years gone by, I think you saw kind of the, the, what was the term for, for basically people.

Quite quitting, um, as one example of people kind of going, you know what, I don't really have a connection to what I'm doing. Um, you, you know, if you go up a level again in pretty much every Western country, uh, organized religion is declining and that potentially has [00:33:00] left a vacuum for people with a purpose in their lives.

What I'm really interested in is thinking about some of those trends, but then saying, well. These, you know, you can see that in customer experience, but really a lot of them map back to broad mega trends that we're seeing across our culture. In, in the us, in Australia, in the UK purposes is, is just one of them.

But, um, there, there are several there where, which came to mind for me as being, this is beyond customer experience, but customer experience is one emanation of, of, of, of, of,

Aransas: of it. So interesting that you pulled that out, because that's exactly the approach that we're taking for our 2024 report. It's really focused on getting companies prepared for 25.

And we looked holistically at how people are changing, and how their mindsets are shifting, and what that will ultimately mean for experience strategies. And I think... Taking that approach gave us so much more insight into these [00:34:00] expectations because people do live a more, everything in their life has a more systemic impact than ever before, thanks to technology and what we value has really shifted and we've, we talked about time early in this, but that was.

In truth, at the true heart of the analysis that we did this year, we just could not escape the fact that everything was about time. Everything is about time.

Dave: Yeah, because time is so essential. It's the limiting factor that most customers have. They

Aransas: have an abundance. The richest man in the world can't get more time.

Dave: Right. Right. It's an equalizer that way. I'm sure Elon Musk tries to figure it out on a regular basis. I don't know how that man lives with everything that he's got going on, right? Right. But, um, when [00:35:00] you think about. Experiences, they're all about the time that people value that they have to use and to apply to different situations.

And if you as a company can't figure out how to make your solution worth their time, then nothing else is really going to matter. And, and ironically, I think most companies have figured out how to make, to compete fairly well for people's time. And therefore they create almost a burden on the customer because there's so many competing things that are trying to hit them for their time.

So, so it may sound like a simple type of thing, but there's a lot that you have to really think about it. Like What are we doing? Should we be trying [00:36:00] to save them time? Should we be trying to make them spend more time with us? How do we go about doing that in an effective way? So I, I think that I agree it's, it's really about getting a real understanding of the customer's time.

Will: The other thing which is interesting about this time conversation is that people's expectations of. Time are no longer defined by competitors in the same industry. They're defined by businesses all over the place. And it You know, if you were, if you were a mortgage broker or a mortgage provider in the 1980s, uh, and it took you a month to provide someone with a mortgage, that was absolutely fine.

So long as. The competitor that was closest to you took five weeks. Now you're thinking about Uber, you're thinking about, you know, being able to get a movie on [00:37:00] demand in two seconds flat. Um, and so no longer can a company get away with just being a bit quicker or a bit easier than the nearest competitor in their industry because our whole concept of time is now fundamentally.

Uh, defined by, by companies across industries, across cultures, across, you know, you, you name the variable and that makes it incredibly difficult for, for, for a business, but they don't, they don't have a choice.

Dave: Absolutely, absolutely.

Aransas: It also, it makes us more interdependent than ever before, and it's part of our mission is to raise the tide of experience strategy so that more of us have access to the tools and the resources that we need to be better for customers, so that we can foster more customer trust. Oh.

Use data better to make more impact.

Will: Let's, let's talk trust [00:38:00] because I, I, this, this one for me, I think is really interesting and I'm glad you opened the door for that around us. And this again goes to, I think a broader trend that we're seeing in, I would say, particularly in the U S that. People are just so much less trusting of institutions generally now.

Look, I'm apprehensive about the upcoming election in the U. S. It may not be a particularly inspiring choice. And people, as a result of that, trust in politics is low. Trust in, you name the institution, it's gone through the floor. And I think that then has an impact on... companies as well. And a lot of people are just less trusting of companies because they're less trusting of any institution now.

And so I'd be interested to get your guys thoughts on how do you go about building trust in a world which is less trusting?

Aransas: Yeah. I mean, there's how to, um, is a, is a really big conversation. Um, there is certainly a lot of evidence to corroborate what you're saying globally. [00:39:00] Uh, so this isn't a U. S. problem, it's not even a Western problem. The Edelman Trust Barometer has been measuring this for decades, and we are at an all time low on trust, um, and no surprise, loneliness is at an all time high. Uh, we've ended up in these echo chambers, where we only hear people who reaffirm what we already believe, and often, that can be really distancing.

So, especially with the rise of AI, I think more and more we're going to see people continue back into further isolation and distancing from others who are different and trust will ultimately be built. I don't think this is the healthiest way or the best for society, but it is my belief based on all the data we've looked at that.

People will turn further inward and will create more echo chambers and there will be more division and that is how it will be narrow [00:40:00] trust and not broad trust. I have trouble seeing a pathway for broad trust to rise again in the near term.

Dave: I think you're right. If there's any. Possibility whatsoever, it might be around performance.

Like if you can improve the performance of your customer, they value that. They, they want that. If you can make them more effective at things that they want. to accomplish, then you can be successful. I don't know if government has the capability to do that, to improve people's performance. Maybe somebody should try to figure that out.

But companies should really be thinking about, Hey, here's an, here's an individual that we work with. How can we make their lives, uh, improve their performance in some way, shape or form? And I think they'd [00:41:00] be, that would lead to. Trust because they, because consumers do seem to trust Apple, you know, they do seem to, they do seem to trust Tesla to some degree.

I mean, they may not agree with all of the values or whatever, but they trust brands. They are Tesla users.

Dave: Yes. Yes. Right. If they are Tesla users, they trust certain things about it. And I think it's because it has improved their performance dramatically.

Aransas: Well, and I think that goes back to what you were saying about having a strong point of view for the future.

So if an experienced strategist can develop a strong point of view on what their customer will want in one year, two years, three years down the road and prepare an organization for that, then they prepare themselves to create that trust and to meet a need valuably.

Will: I, uh, I will never forget my piece of advice my dad gave me on, on public speaking.

He basically said, public speaking isn't that complicated, [00:42:00] you just need to tell them what you're going to say, say it. Tell them what you've said and I think the same principle can be applied to performance in this this context and it's the old Do what you say you're gonna do on the tin I think a lot of the customer experience problems are with respect to performance are not setting appropriate Expectations and then inevitably not not not meeting them and I think we can fall into the trap is in customer experience of You know Saying that, that our product or our service or the experience we're offering is going to change the world or be revolutionary.

I think so much of this comes down to the outset of designing a custom strategy. What is that? Tell them what you're going to say, peace, and then how do you let set those expectations? So you may not be as sexy as Apple or Tesla, you know, you may be selling stationary equipment But if you set the right expectation to the outset and then you meet them you ultimately I think going to be able to build Trust in a way, which you wouldn't if you don't It actually goes through that, that expectation piece at the [00:43:00] outset.

That's right.

Aransas: Yeah. It's interesting too. And it brings us full circle. We often talk about the relationship between marketing and experience as being promises made, promises kept, and it is that failure and promises kept that ultimately leads to deeper distrust, but it's also the fault of the promises made.

To your point, if the promise made is not one that the experience can keep, then you have an unfulfilled and unsatisfied customer. And so maybe if we, if we try to wrap up in a bow some of the key points of this conversation, I think that idea right there, that value and impact for experience is ultimately the responsibility of the entire organization.

And the CX or experienced strategists and leaders are in a uniquely powerful position. To share the data, to tell the stories that matter, to advocate for the customer so that [00:44:00] entire organizations can create trust and value for the customer. I'm not sure I can follow that.

Will: Beautifully said.

Dave: Ditto.

Aransas: This was so much fun to talk to you.

Thank you, Will, for joining us. Are you feeling pressure to write another manifesto for next year?

Will: I'm just looking forward to reading what you guys come up with. It sounds like you've done some fantastic research. So I'm, uh, I can't wait to, uh, to see, to see when it comes out.

Aransas: Well, we will be keeping our eyes peeled for more from you.

Really excited to hear more about what you're learning and what you're seeing change, uh, to all of you listening. I hope this to you feels like a call to action to be your most impactful self in your organization for the good of your customer and your company. And that if you don't have the tools and the support that you need in order to be that, [00:45:00] That maybe just maybe this conversation fires you up to get them Head on over to stonemantle.co for lots more blogs resources and tools from Dave and I and the rest of the stonemantle team Thank you so much for listening and thank you So much for all you do for the good of your customer.

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