The Experience Strategy Podcast: Human + Digital Support = Magic

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There’s nothing better than a human to understand other humans. In today’s episode, we’re joined by Jess Lynch, Founder and CEO of Wishroute, to discuss the #1 thing most digital wellness companies are missing: human-powered accountability supported by technology. If it’s your job to help people achieve their goals, don’t miss this episode.

Voiceover: [00:00:00] This is the experience strategy podcast, where we look at the best and the worst customer experiences and ask what were they thinking? And now here are your hosts experience, nerds, Dave Norton and Aransas Savvis.

Aransas: Welcome to the experience strategy podcast. I'm Miranda. And I'm Dave Martin. We are always joke that we're going into the nerd verse it, do the topics that really excite us about experience strategy.

It's maybe fair to say that this is the deepest we've gone into my personal nerd verse because we're going to be talking today about accountability and why human powered accountability that is supported by technology. It can be so powerful and guiding your customers on any sort of transformational or aspirational journey.

And when we say that, I think it's so [00:01:00] important, Dave, to make sure that people understand, we're not just talking about what people eat or changing their behaviors related to smoking and drinking. We're talking about how they manage their money, how they manage their health, how they manage their travel plans.

Yes. Yes. So this is a super relevant conversation for anyone who is helping people achieve their goals. We are joined by the founder of wish, route Jess Lynch. She's a prior PWC, forensic consultant and a Babson MBA who turned her investigative talents and passions to figuring out how to help people achieve their goals when they.

Sign up for lifestyle products and transformational journeys. She's created this amazing company called wish route that was born from her family's experience with lifestyle change. Let's get [00:02:00] started. Jess, thank you so much for joining us here today. I'm so excited to talk to you about these topics that you and Dave and I have all individually been so passionate about for so long.

Yay me to start things off by telling us a little about who you are and what you do.

Jess: Absolutely. So I'm the CEO and founder of wish route, which I'll tell you a bit more about as we go, but my background's in business and helping people live better lives. Uh, I had a career in consulting prior to starting this entrepreneurial journey and it was also very inspired by my family's experience with.

Lifestyle change. When my brother was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and my mom actually wrote a book about how our family slowly changed the way we ate and moved one little habit at a time and how we rallied around [00:03:00] the disease and that experience seeing the power of incremental lifestyle change and how little steps add up to big improvements and the experience seeing that when people have the support they need in their life, that anything's possible.

Really inspired me to start a company of my own focused on helping people adopt products that improve the way they live and stay healthy. So I can tell you a little bit about what Strout and what, what we do, please. So where are unique human powered platform that uses strategic text messaging, essentially coaching designed specifically to nudge customers forward along the desired customer journey.

Uh, unlike, you know, a bot driven engagement sequence, which gives customers the illusion of communication. Our human based platform provides really authentic two way conversations. So you can text back and you're actually texting with a real person. And so we [00:04:00] partner with companies that have life-changing products and services like meditation apps and fitness apps and, um, nutrition meal, kit subscriptions, and we text their customers and their voice, listening to what they have to say and responding.

Positive motivating messages and showing customers how they can succeed with the product or service, which leads to more engaged and successful customers and more revenue for our customers, which ultimately is what makes the world go round.

Dave: That's amazing. That's a fantastic thing that you've developed it.

Uh, so many of the bots that are out there, the chat bots and so forth, there's not that seamless transition between. The digital experience and the person behind it, uh, or there may not be a person behind it at all. Right,

Jess: right. There's nothing more frustrating than [00:05:00] trying to get an answer to something or trying to communicate with something that you realize can't absorb what you're saying.

Dave: Yeah, exactly. And at a time where most companies are including chat of some form, you've taken it a step further and really focused on positivity and coaching. Which further differentiates you from even some of the companies that provide that chat component, that human check component. Can you talk a little bit about the role that positivity and coaching has played in and why that's important to you?

Jess: Yeah, definitely. I mean, the thing is these days we have so many resources and products to choose from when we want to start something new or create a new habit. Let's just use meditation, for example. Um, and so you can, you decide or I'm [00:06:00] stressed and I really should get into this meditation thing. You go to the app store and there's literally hundreds of thousands of choices and you pick one get started.

Um, but companies right now, Providing the support. People need to actually change their habit and adopt the product. And that's evidenced by the drop-off rates. Um, most wellness apps in general lose 70% of engagement in the first three days. So people are signing up and not getting what they need and, you know, life gets busy and they never really come back to the app after one or two sessions.

And. Money on the table for companies who paid a lot of money to attract you, to pick their app. And it leaves a lot to be wanted as an on the individual side who is feeling stressed and trying to change their life. Adopting a product actually means tangibly setting time aside and your routine. That's already busy and already is a bit of a [00:07:00] routine, uh, to, to start sitting down and doing a five minute session or, um, going for a run or taking time to read or learn a new language, you know, whatever you're trying to, um, adopt.

And so when you have that, that human touch, that's proactive. So rather than, you know, right now, companies. Provide this type of support when there's a problem. And someone's reaching out to customer service, wanting to cancel or having trouble navigating something and has a question this flips it on its head and makes it proactive so that companies can check in with people on how, how it's working, how they're doing, what else do they need?

Do they need any suggestions on how to use, you know, XYZ? Um, how are they feeling? Are they having any challenges? Adopting this new routine, uh, how it's fitting into their life and that type of support and care, that goes a long way.

Dave: So, part of what I hear you saying is that w w w [00:08:00] I should ask first, um, Jess, do you, do you see your primary target audience as companies that are offering stress release or, or meditation, or is your service focused on.

Any company that might need the ability to kind of trend transition from AI to human support. How do you see the difference between your customer?

Jess: Yeah, definitely. We've we focus on working with customers that are providing a product or service that is about lifestyle change in some degree, or about a new habit.

So certainly wellness from meditation to physical fitness, to, um, mental health or nutrition tracking or. Delivery, et cetera, but then also financial planning and wellness and learning a different language or taking a new course or getting a different degree of [00:09:00] school-wise, um, anything that is sort of self-improvement, but is going to require someone to take time out of their day on a consistent basis to be successful with this product, because that's where behavior change becomes.

So.

Dave: Um, and I guess part of the reason I asked that question is because that category is growing dramatically and you just use it a perfect example. When we're talking about finances, you start talking about finance, financial literacy. You start talking about financial health and wellbeing. Your category includes all of the banks.

It includes pretty much any company that really wants to engage their customer in an aspirational, kind of. It's kind of what, what

Jess: I hear, we do draw the lines. We're not going to help people drink more or smoke [00:10:00] kind of things. Okay. Can you talk

Aransas: about those transformational, transformational and aspirational, or sort of how we categorize those?

Yeah, it's about, and for us, so much of our work. I don't think there are people out there. I haven't run across a big market share of folks who are like, help me drink more, help me smoke more. Right. And so if we're keeping at the center, Hey, help me achieve the goals that matter to me. Then I think those, those answers become very easy to distinguish.

One of the things I keep thinking about as I'm listening to you, Jess, is. You a lot of the work Dave and I have been doing is, is to help companies collect meaningful data. So to ask customers what matters to them and input that data. And I, I hear so clearly how you're using coaching and these, these chat [00:11:00] conversations to access that meaningful data.

What are you doing with it to serve the customer and help ensure that their needs are better responded to as a result of the data that's been cool.

Jess: Definitely first it's understanding where some of that and what their challenges are. And once we. Get a picture for where they are, maybe that, uh, their children take the priority in their life.

Um, or they're going through a major life transition. Um, normally it comes down to how what's the shortest amount of time they can spend to still be successful because everyone has other priorities in their life, um, to the thing that we're chatting with them about. Um, but once we understand some. Uh, persona for lack of better words, um, kind of the key context in their life.

Then we can start to give them, um, better suggestions of how the product can support them and their goals in the [00:12:00] context of their life. And that gets better and better as we. I understand, you know, more people like them and what sessions from the app or what tools from the app that they're using in what way?

Uh, so that then the next person that comes along that's most similar to them will be able to benefit from our learnings and more quickly find value in what they're and what they're using and, and feel more encouraged and motivated.

Aransas: I love that. So you're, you're essentially refining your targeting. With each customer so that as you have more and more profiles built out, each one is better at responding to the individual needs of.

Closer while scaling gets closer to an individualized response with both content tools, actions, et cetera.

Jess: And ultimately it's about listening to the individual and hearing from them. They need in that [00:13:00] moment. And that's the most important part of having a human in the loop on this because it's so nuanced and contextual.

So are our data and predictive analytics will get better and better about what's going to be useful to them. But no one wants to feel like this is a bot or this is a cookie cutter response. Everyone wants to feel important and. And that's why we think having a human in the loop is so important so that if they mentioned, um, struggling with sticking to their nutrition tracking, because there's an ice cream cake in the freezer, um, our guide can specifically mention the ice cream cake and how they appreciate how difficult and attempting that.

And offer suggestions in relation to that.

Aransas: I love that. Yeah. I wrote an article yesterday specifically about acknowledging and validating the language and emotions that customers are using. If you want them to feel heard, [00:14:00] you have to show them they've been heard and

Jess: exactly.

Aransas: And it really isn't simple stuff, right.

That we can use to do this, but I think what's so many companies have done is they've gotten so excited about the scaling capacity of, of technology and this sexy idea that I can come up with four personas and I can just path you down. The, the trail of one of those and everything was Dory and you'll keep paying me.

Dave: Yeah, no, that's exactly what it was. Right. That that's exactly what was striking me about. This is I love the word way you use the word profile in. And most of the time, I don't like the way that the people use the word profile, but what you're trying to do. Yeah. What you're trying, it's a trigger for me.

Yeah. I get really upset. Um, what you're trying to do is to help [00:15:00] the human and the technology at the same time, understand better. That particular person's need. So that the next time that the same human and the same technology is working with them, that they can do an even better job for that individual.

And the reason why that's important to a ransom at this point is, uh, we're so used to thinking about a profile as being a marketing. Uh, a technique or a persona as this aggregate of everybody's experiences, which means it's no, one's actually actual experience. Uh, you're doing exactly what you're doing is an example of what I like to call data experience design, where you really know what the customer is trying to get done right there in the moment, because you've got a human that's talking to them.

Soliciting information from [00:16:00] them that helps them to want to share more information with them. You're using that information at their point of views, not at your sales point of views or some, some other. Uh, point, uh, completely different and that helps you to anticipate what it is that they're going to need going forward.

Wow. That's fantastic that you're doing those things. Uh, it creates that loop for you, right? That continuous loop. We love it. We love it. Yes.

Aransas: How does the technology come into this?

Jess: There's two pieces to it first. We believe there are key moments in the user journey where this higher touch support really matters and pays off for the individual and the company.

So we do a lot of work with companies on free trials. You know, if someone signs up to trial a product, they maybe have seven to 30 days and then need to decide [00:17:00] by the end of whether there's enough value and it fits into their life. And so a time like that, or any kind of onboarding phase is so important to capture people's attention and keep it and make sure they feel supported and are actually, you know, changing their behavior around to fit in this product, into that.

So part of how we handle the scale of what our customers need is by targeting certain segments of their customers during times that are going to matter most. And then the other element is obviously how we blend the digital and human support. So we think of. Digital or automation side, really enabling a high quality and consistent messaging.

So we rely on that to automate, um, educational, educational, and inspirational messages to customers, uh, help them understand the product, find value and those messages get. [00:18:00] Personalized with someone's engagement level and based on kind of what we know about their goals. And then we view the critical role of our human support staff is to use.

When someone texts back to one of our planned messages to encourage support. And like we talked about make you feel cared for. So there's that feel of, uh, accountability. And so we augment our human support staff with all the information they need on the individual, on the prior conversation, uh, on past conversations that have been successful, what they might consider when I'm talking to this person.

So it's about augmenting our human support staff so that they can respond in the highest quality efficient way. Um, but never losing that. There's a really a real human in the loop. So mixing automation for, and humans for consistency, scalability, and quality [00:19:00] while not losing. The fact that we want a real person to respond to the end customer.

Aransas: What data are you looking at to understand moments of highest fragility for our customer when they are most at risk of.

Jess: Oh most at risk. Uh, well usually comes down to product usage. So if someone's not using the product or service and maybe the few prior interactions, uh, the sentiment was negative or short, um, that's an indicator that that person really needs extra support.

Is that what you mean?

Aransas: Yeah, exactly. This idea of understanding where, where people are most likely to fall off. And I think what you're saying is when their engagements become lower quality and less frequent, they're, they're beginning to disengage from the product, but also from their own goals, perhaps.

And so in those moments, [00:20:00] how are you, how are you using your humans and. Interventions and supports to keep them

Jess: engaged. Yeah. So important. And one other, I guess you could say trigger that I would mention is when we are chatting with someone about a big life transition, that's going on. So maybe they're going on like a two week vacation and we know that's going to throw off their routine and their goals.

So that's just another, uh, so it's the quality of engagement, the life transitions and the frequency of the engagement as. And now once a week, that

Aransas: coaching perspective, because I mean, the nature of a transformational journey is that it is transitional. So these people all signed up with you or your customers in a moment of some transition.

And, and I, I joke all the time that I'm the founder of the transition appreciation society. Um, Because I think it comes so [00:21:00] under appreciated in our lives. Right? How the vacation at the. The new desk chair, right? Like how old are you, how these things that have a substantial effect on our environments or our day to day habits, as you mentioned, ripple out and affect everything else that we're doing.

So the. New sneakers can have a really positive effect on my social relationships. Um, it's not just on my running, which would be the expected impact, but it can be both helpful and unhelpful. So think you're really, really smart to draw in data on. Peripheral transitions, things that are not necessarily directly associated with the goal in mind, but that may have an impact on it.

I, I think most of these examples are not counseling people on their travel goals and yet. Can I have a big effect, right?

Jess: Well, [00:22:00] and being able to get ahead of that, because right now, if you're relying on purely the engagement in your app, you don't know that someone's about to go on vacation. Like that's, that's something outside of the app that's being thought about.

And so. When you're having these two way conversations, it just gives you such a richer layer of information from the person on how you can help them be successful. So then in terms of what we do about it, it is very data-driven, you know, we, we strategize. On how to set up, uh, the following interactions in a way that's going to be motivating and supportive for the individual.

And then we see what works best and then continue to prioritize the things we're seeing work best. And we define work best by the level and quality of the engagement after that type of nudge or interaction. Yeah. That we prompt. Um, and really [00:23:00] it's about staying extremely close to, to that quality and frequency and figuring out the messaging.

That's going to meet people where they're at, uh, and an important part of dealing with those life transition. Uh, Triggers is setting expectations in a way that leaves room for the person to be successful. So if you are going on vacation, the definition of success for what you're doing with this product, like meditating, it might be, oh, if you meditate twice while you're away, that would be so fantastic.

Versus. On a normal day, they might be trying to meditate daily, but if they're worried about being able to do it, try to lower the bar for them to feel successful, actually leads to more success because when people feel successful, they keep at it and we'll keep going. Um, so when they get back, they'll up their goal again, versus just ignore it altogether and drop off.

Aransas: Man that is so important. And I'm so happy to hear that you're putting that front and [00:24:00] center. I, uh, I worked in the weight loss category as you know, for a long time. And. One of the hardest things for people who had not had an experience of their own to sort of reflect back on related to weight loss was to appreciate that sometimes a weight gain is fabulous, right?

Yes. You're coming to this product to lose weight overall, but there's so many scenarios in which say two or three pound gain is a huge one. Fabulous surprise. And so to assume any sort of judgment or interpretation on that person's experience sets you up to just feel completely out of touch with what matters to them.

And so I think you're right. It is again, it's about collecting the right data from people. And what I'm hearing you do probably is asked. What is your goal? What does success look like in this particular experience? How will you know you've been [00:25:00] successful? And then with those two pieces of data in hand, you have the information to respond empathically, to acknowledge and to validate meaningfully without those questions, you're just making it up and you're hoping you're right, because it was what was right for a lot of.

But it may not be right. Yeah.

Jess: Right. And there's so much you can glean from someone's own tone of what they're reporting to you. Whether they're proud of themselves or being hard on themselves, now people can be mysteries, but also people can be pretty transparent when they want to be as well. And it's about meeting people and listening and acknowledging cause you were saying, yeah, I

Dave: love that.

One of the questions that I have for you is, and maybe you can answer this. Maybe you can't, but. We've noticed in the research that we've been conducting on motivation for a number of years, that there's been a shift in the language, the way that, uh, uh, people talk about goals, [00:26:00] instead of saying, I want to lose X amount of weight, they're starting to say more.

I want to be. More balanced in the way that I manage food and stress and other things. So that the word balance is showing up a lot more. Are you seeing that as well? Um, do people describe their goals in terms of trying to be more balanced? W what are you seeing or around that aspect?

Jess: Yeah, no, I, I completely agree.

Um, balance, um, talking about intentions rather than goals, um, trying to feel more energized. That's our most popular response, actually, that people want to feel more energized kind of across the board on

Aransas: the holistic view of wellbeing. Doesn't surprise me at all.

Jess: Yeah. And less transactional, no one wants to be put into a bucket.

What's your goal? I want to exercise [00:27:00] 30 minutes, five days a week. Like no one wants to be put into a bucket and people want the rum to still be successful if they don't hit that. And so it's about integrating the steps throughout your day, taking a walk at lunch rather than needing to be confined to a drop down or a one.

Definitely.

Aransas: It great. There's something Dave and I did some art a couple of years ago to try to measure meaning, as you can imagine, that is a tricky prospect, but what I hear you doing is where we eventually landed on so much of that work. It was to measure the felt experience instead of the data points.

Um, and yes, is it, do people want to know if they have slept more? If they're. Had fewer calories, fewer drinks, fewer cigarettes, whatever. Yes. Yes. It's great to be able to show people the [00:28:00] truth of those changes, but it's just as important and yes, and honestly, just as easy to show them a shift in their felt sense.

Do you feel more energized? Do you feel more satisfied? Do you feel better? Right? Vague. Perhaps can't put a fine point on I'm 1% better necessarily, but I can tell you if I feel better and the more you have them reflect on those transformations, the more deeply they believe. But those changes are happening, right?

What are you doing in terms of reflection based in your design?

Jess: We prompt for reflection about once or twice a week. It depends on our playbook. And if we're working for instance, on a free trial visit, a seven day free trial is a 30 day free trial. Are we working over the course of a few months with the [00:29:00] individuals?

Um, but we've. Those types of reflections, how's it going? How can we better support you? Um, how are you feeling with your intention? What's working? What isn't those types of reflective prompts. Um, but while framing it in a way that's easy to text back. You know, a quick, a way that allows them to have a moment of reflection, but feel easy to respond.

Because if you, since we are corresponding with people over texts, you know, if it's too lengthy of a prompt or too, too deep, um, then you know, people think, oh, I'll do this later. And don't do it then, and then probably don't do it at all and

Aransas: feel like a failure reflect. Right. I have

Jess: reflection prompts,

Aransas: right?

I mean, I think that's one of the big things is coming through. Just helping people feel successful. Yes.

Jess: Stereo. Yes. And it doesn't minimize the impact. The [00:30:00] thing is how the stats tell us products are working now, is there, they're not really working to a large degree. I mean, to lose 70% of people by day three, uh, is just that that's not successful.

And so those people are not doing anything with the intention that brought them to the product. So even if you're lowering the standard to success, it's a lot higher than. And leads to more

Aransas: success. Well, success is sticking with it, whatever it is. And we, I think got conditioned for a century or so, um, faster was better and that it was all a race.

And I think we've really, we really lost over time, the importance of sticking with this and whether you go back to. All the work Angela Duckworth was doing on grid. It really is. It's about continuing on the journey and that's not going to [00:31:00] happen. If you feel like a failure, it's not going to happen. If it feels really freaking hard, it's not going to happen.

If it doesn't feel like it can fit with your life. And so I hear you so smartly finding ways to allow people to believe in their potential for transformation.

Jess: In your work on motivation. Have you studied Gretchen Rubin's four tendencies.

Aransas: Yeah. That's funny. I was just talking about it. Yeah, I think, um, I think that work has really relevant to all of this.

How are you using it? So

Jess: we've done some different, uh, I guess AB tests where we get the, uh, Users to do the four tendencies assessment and then compare, um, based on what of the four tendencies that they come back with, how they interact with our type of support versus those we didn't ask. And didn't, uh, and weren't in the same, uh, of the [00:32:00] four tendencies.

So the. For Gretchen Rubin's work. I view it focused on internal and external motivation and specifically for health and wellness topics, just the, what you need around you in your life to be successful. And so the majority of people are obligers, right? That's the externally motivated bucket. And, uh, it makes it hard with health and wellness schools when no one else needs.

Action from you. It's, it's easier to prioritize the boss, asking for it for a deliverable or a spouse or kid asking for help than something that is only benefiting you. And so that's part of what we've seen, be so powerful about having the Westworld guides checking in because it turns an internal expectation into an external line.

It makes it easier to be externally motive.

Aransas: Yeah, I imagine too also helping them appreciate how what's what's good for mom [00:33:00] is good for everyone. Uh, and I think that extends well beyond moms too, though. And there's a lot of excellent research that shows that pew, that many people, not all, but many even most people are.

More activated by a sense of service and a sense of self. And I think tapping into that and getting people to reflect on and conceive of the impact their choices are making to support those that they care about is, is, um, infinitely more powerful and more sustainable, right? That you kind of get a better buy-in once people appreciate that.

I can talk about this. Um, not even just all day, but forever.

We could do like a 20 hour, um, marathon on this jazz next time. Um, but for now, um, I wanna, I wanna try to [00:34:00] recap some of the. So from this conversation that I hope our friends and listeners, the folks who are running businesses, who are delivering experiences, who are making decisions in service of their customers, the thoughts that they might want to consider as they listen to this conversation.

And to me, I'm at a very high level, first and foremost, it bears repeating that. Transformational and aspirational journeys of all sorts are going to rely on some sort of behavior change so that it's going to demand that your customer makes a change in their day to day life. It's really unlikely.

They're going to do that on their own. And if you can offer some sort of support, I deal with. Using a human to help guide [00:35:00] them to help them reflect, to help them appreciate the progress they're making, especially. And I think you're so smart to really invest most heavily in these key moments of transition, onboarding, being the biggest and best of those you're setting your yourselves and your customers up to.

Help them form good habits at the outset. I always say, well, what got me here will keep me here. And so really helping to, to guide people through those moments of change, um, in terms of digital and human support, I'm taking away from the. There's nothing better than a human to understand other humans and wherever companies can prioritize that they should, but be careful with what they're doing with that data.

I think there's a huge risk and that we see with so many companies, they ask for data and then they don't do anything with it. And then they, they. And I trust that's been built, so use it [00:36:00] wisely. And technology's a great partner in that to ensure that your data gets used meaningfully. And then the third one, I guess, if I had to pick out of the 50, I want to choose, I would say, meet your customer where you are.

And help them feel successful in what they're doing. How about you, Dave?

Dave: I love all of that. And I'm excited about your solution and the way that it empowers accountability and. Drives customer engagement for the types of programs that I think more and more companies are going to really need. If they're going to help people accomplish those aspirational jobs, they want to get done those transformations that they're hoping they'll get along the way.

Great.

Aransas: How about you, Jess? Any last words, last thoughts, anything you hope people will hear that we didn't touch?

Jess: I was a beautiful summary and just to tie it all together, [00:37:00] that the most impactful solutions are digital plus human finding the mix so that you can have the scale and consistency and quality, but also handled the context and nuance and make people feel important and carry.

So it's about the blend.

Aransas: Yes. Yes. So for more from you, people can check out wish route or follow you in all the places as Jess Lynch. Thank you so much for being here, Jess. Thank you for the work you're doing as somebody who loves people, it's really, it means so much to me to know that. People like you are out there helping people achieve the goals that matter to them.

So thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for joining us on the show today. Thank you for sharing what you're learning and, uh, we look forward to hearing more and more about you and wish rude to our [00:38:00] listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in again. Let us know. Is working for you and where you are by visiting us@stonemanzel.co clicking podcast and sharing your thoughts.

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