Speaker 1 0:00 Thanks for calling ABC Credit Union. I just want to talk to a person for customer service. Please press one to a person for locations and hours. Please press to talk to a person to an agent at any time during this call, please press zero. Unknown Speaker 0:14 Welcome to CX without the BS. Now here are your hosts Tom Milligan and Brian Nichols. Brian Nichols 0:21 Welcome to CX without the BS. I am one of your hosts, Brian Nichols. Tom Milligan 0:26 And I am Tom Milligan. Brian Nichols 0:28 Thanks for joining us. We are looking forward to our conversation today. And Tom, it's gonna be a good one. But first, how you doing what's new, Tom Milligan 0:38 you know, I went up to Nashville over the weekend with my sister in law, and we drove up to Nashville and saw my second favorite podcast alive. My first favorite, of course, is Cx without the BS. My second favorite is called Small Town murder. So if you're not listening to small town murder, here's my plug for my second favorite podcasts go to shut up and give me murder.com and subscribe. And it's a comedy show, but it's also true crime. And it's amazing what those guys have done. And anyway, but yeah, I had a great time. We drove up Saturday and drove back Sunday. And Nashville is a great town. So what about you? Oh, you Brian Nichols 1:15 know, just odds and ends and also trying to recover from whatever it is my daughter found at the playground when she was playing with a bunch of other 15 month olds. So yeah, it's been. It's been a little bit of a week and a weekend of trying to get back into the swing of things. But we're getting there, Tom, we're getting there. Tom Milligan 1:32 Awesome. And you told me you got up early this morning and worked out and you're a little bit sore? Oh, Brian Nichols 1:36 yeah. Did shoulders today still inspired from our first conversation with Michael Nelson? You're I'm trying. I'm trying to get up to his Max bench. We said it like what? 430 something. So it's gonna take a little time, but we're gonna get there. Tom Milligan 1:48 Yeah, a lot more than me. That's all I know about his bench. So Brian Nichols 1:52 Tom, what do you think? Should we dig into today's episode? I know it's gonna be a good one. Tom Milligan 1:56 Yeah, it is. So let me tell you, we've got a guest today I have known Andy for. So Andy bird, CX, VP of CX. At avant. He's only been there for a few months. But he has been in this industry forever. So he's got 25 years. In the CX space, he casts CX bass, and I guess they've kind of become synonymous. He has He's like one of these unicorns because he not only is fun and engaging, but he's also a really highly technical guy. Yeah. He's run a lot of teams, a lot of development teams, a lot of product teams. Now the thing is, Andy, was born and raised in Salt Lake City, he and I worked together for years back in the olden contact days before nice modise he lives in Dallas now with his wife and kids. I know he's an avid off rotor. I think. I mean, I think he's going to tell us a little bit about that. We'll see how that goes. But we'll see where the conversation takes us. But anyway, yes. So with that, let's bring Andy on. Brian Nichols 3:01 Let's do it. All right onto the show. Andy bird here on CX without the BS. Tom Milligan 3:08 All right, Andy bird. It is so good to see you again. My old friend. How are you today? Andy Bird 3:13 I'm doing fantastic. Thanks, Tom. Tom Milligan 3:18 Yes, you know, just so you guys know, I didn't mention this in the intro. But Andy and I have known each other now for at least 16 years, I think 1516 years. worked together the old in contact, and have stayed in touch over the years. And we reconnected just a few months ago, a channel connect our channel partners. Excuse me. Sorry, bad, bad, bad word. channel partners in Vegas, we had a we had a great time. And it's been really fun working with Andy again. So with that, again, thank you for being here. Andy Bird 3:56 Yeah, cheers to that. Thanks, Tom. Glad to be here. Brian Nichols 3:59 And Andy, I know, we we'd like to just, you know, jump into things. But I think you know, just let's, before we get into the meat and potatoes, I would love to Tom, I'm sorry. I'm gonna put him on the spot to make fun of you. Tell me a fun story about Tom from 10 years ago? Andy Bird 4:14 Oh, no, let's not do that. The only reason I remember will probably have to be done over a cup of coffee somewhere else. Brian? Brian Nichols 4:23 Understood. Okay. Or you know, it was worth a shot. So how about this? I'll ask this question instead, then. So, Andy, let's just kind of look back and you can go back five years, 10 years, however far back you want to go? How have you seen the CX industry change? Like, what are some of the just we'll call them like the pillars right? The main foundational infrastructure, if you will, of CX and how has that changed over the past 510 years? Well, CX Andy Bird 4:53 has just transformed I mean, and it's transformed over the last decade. And what I mean by that is, there used to be, for example, a chief customer officer. So you had this chief customer officer, which was really set, and their goals were CSAT and NPS right. That's what they were looking for. They were looking for satisfaction for resolving their customers problems. So you had that it CX has really taken over what that the intention of some of what that was about, and transformed it into something else? How do we drive ROI and increased interactions? How do we drive increased engagement with our customers? And how do we drive that revenue that we're looking to get that is really where the transformation has gone. The six years is kind of in the last six years, as exemplified that a great deal, where the pandemic kind of shook us all up, and people were going, okay, you know, just so you know, I did spend 20 hours on hold, I won't mention the company's name, but I literally put the phone down, went to sleep woke up, and I was still in queue, waiting for an agent during the pandemic, in a very, very critical company to So nonetheless, that stuff happened. And so people have been trying to augment, react, and incorrect some of those things that went on during that time. And so there's been this emphasis not placed not just on the people, but on the technology that they're using. In order to get that return. Brian Nichols 6:26 I'm going to ask a quick follow up, Tom, Andy, what do you think? What do you think it was during the pandemic? That really, it really put a spotlight on those warts, right, like you mentioned being on hold for 20 hours? God bless you. But like, what, what do you think it was during the pandemic that really made all of these? Either, you know, these these flaws? Or these just these completely lack of foresight, like, what was it that led to the really big change? We've seen the CX industry reasonably? Well, I Andy Bird 6:58 think it was everybody had to be remote, they were forced into a remote situation. We all knew that work from home was a real thing. Many of us who had worked from home already for a decade or more. And that became a real thing. So that changed. I mean, that changed the nature of everything changed the nature of real estate, consumption of power, you know, transport and internet connectivity, it changed that. But then it also changed. How do customers want to engage? Do they want to engage, necessarily real time face to face over the phone, SMS chat, so the omni channel that we'd always, you know, there's, there's two, there's two things that we've always done in the CX industry, right? Especially from a C cast perspective is we've always breathed out the words conversational AI, we've always breathed out the words omni channel, neither of those two things are accurate by ation. I mean, you want to talk about vs. nuance, you know, stuff from the past, it was not conversational AI, it was me yelling into the phone customer service. So so we, our eyes got open. I mean, we were forced into the situation where we still take care of customers. We don't want people coming into the office, by the way, did we need that office anymore? Right. And we're gonna force them to work from home. And so there became this like, interaction there. And then the EQ rose, right? The the emotional quotient for how we wanted to interact with people that rose during that time. So voice while we've always said is a dying medium, actually went through the roof. Right, but other people still want you know, the Gen Zers. I don't know what gender what are we on generation eight yet? Tom Milligan 8:38 I'm not sure. Yeah, actually, Brian Nichols 8:40 next year, I think is generation beta. Officially. Tom Milligan 8:43 It's Alpha. Is that what we're doing now? Alpha Beta. Yeah, that's what's next to homos. Andy Bird 8:50 I don't even know what generation I am in. I was so confused. I just know my parents were the boomers. That's it. Full stop. Tom Milligan 8:57 So yeah, so are we Xers? Brian Nichols 9:00 I think so. Andy Bird 9:01 I think so. I think we're xers Tom. Okay. Tom Milligan 9:03 All right. Well, apparently, that's not a big part of our identity. So now we know. Andy Bird 9:11 But, but that transformed everything, right? I mean, that whole idea of how do we interact with people and we're seeing residuals of that today. But we are seeing the increased capacity and need, by the way, the hyperscalers took advantage of this, right? So they went to everybody and said, Oh, you're not gonna do real estate. You don't even want to host there anymore. They don't have people to staff, staff with our put all your stuff with us buy some cloud services and do a big commit do big five year commit because this has never gone away. And they took advantage of that really, really well. By the way I don't think I should say that out loud on the podcast, but we're no BS. So Tom Milligan 9:50 what that yeah, no BS here. Exactly. Well, so that I think that's fantastic. So Andy, let's let's come back up a little bit. Talk a little bit about, I mean, you work for a bunt. Yeah. What is your title? Basically? Andy Bird 10:07 Yeah, VP of CX. What Tom Milligan 10:09 does that mean? I mean, we all know what VP means we all know what CX means, but put them together. What does that mean for what would Brian Nichols 10:15 you say you do here? Yeah, Tom Milligan 10:17 what is it that you do? Andy Bird 10:23 So I get the privilege of managing a team of vendor Engagement Manager. So we're at TSD. So we're a technology solutions distributor. And so we work with vendors such as sharpen CX, right and others, in order to enable what we call trusted advisors. The old term for trusted advisors was they used to be called Master agents. But you know, back in the day, when you had long distance companies and T ones and all that stuff going on, you're trying to get bandwidth and lower costs, and 23 plus one, right, 23 b plus d, if you guys know what I'm talking about there, you're trying to do all that. It was, it would behoove you to get a master agent, because they can negotiate between quest and pacbell, and at&t, and get you the best rates. Well, those, all those folks grew up and they all not only do transport still, but they also do technology. So 1000s of these trusted advisors out there, they don't have the wherewithal to go to all the vendors, and align all those vendors up so they can resell. So if they want to sell all your competitors, and all anybody else's competitors, all the AI competitors out there, they have to sign these one off reseller agreements, which stink doesn't guarantee them anything, and is troublesome across the board. So they work with a TSDS, where we manage all those vendors, all those vendor relationships, and ensure their success and their ability to resell those products. My job within that is to manage all the UCaaS si CAS CX and collaboration vendors in my group. And so I have filled sales engineers and vendor engagement managers that do that. Fantastic, Tom Milligan 11:59 long answer to a really short question. Well, but it's a complex I mean, the channel people talk about, hey, do you work in the channel? Well, that is a that's a loaded question. But But with that, and I'm going to do a follow up so now you so you've got all these people that work for you at the TST or work with you tell me about those trusted advisors, because their world has been changed. I mean, like and you and I worked at in contact and before it was in contact, it was UCN and before that it was buyers online. And we sold exclusively through these sub agents or these agents that you talked about that are now advisors or trusted advisors. And they were only selling telecom back then. And I contact in the early early days 2000 to 2003 we started introducing them to sell technology, something other than long distance. And so, for better for worse, we were involved in the the bastardization of the of the channel as it as it used to be. I call it the glorification. Okay, the glorification. Yeah. Okay, that's a better way to put it. But the I guess the bottom line is, we had a pretty big hand in making that happen. So, but, so that kind of was the first evolution. But the next evolution happened over these last five or six years that you were just talking about AI, all the technologies, the pandemic, security, all of these things came together in a pretty tight timeframe. So talk to me about the partners, the advisors, I, they're generically partners in my world, because everybody calls them something different. Which, by the way, is bullshit. You guys should all get together and decide what you're calling your people, your partners, your employees, they should all have a similar org charts. But anyway, tell me about those successful trusted advisors, which which what are the characteristics that are making them successful today, they're Andy Bird 13:54 the ones that that want to learn and dig in to solve whatever the customer's problem might be. They're the ones that develop relationships long term, a TA was just telling me what he called it. But anyway, it had the the insinuation of this long term relationship with the customer where they literally operate not only as advisors, but friends, consultants, with everything that goes on, and a lot of these trusted advisors have those relationships. So that's key. But second to that, and maybe almost equally important is getting educated on the newer technologies or what's come about or bringing the right people in, and that's where my team comes in, as you can bring my team in plus will educate you. And that those are key. Those are differentiators. I mean, we have 1000s of trusted advisors out there, and they were wonderful. I mean, they really are but the ones who are like I mean it's it's there's a success ratio, that trumps everything else when they've they're educated and they have those good weather Relationships. Tom Milligan 15:00 Makes perfect sense. Brian Nichols 15:02 So I want to piggyback on that question that Tom asked. Because on the one side, it's important to bring the new technology to the table. But on the flip side, there's also the danger of implementing too much technology too fast, and not having it work well together. So what are some of those common issues you see when companies are trying to bring, whether it's their CX or their technology to the next level, when maybe they go a little too fast? What are some of those red flags, but Andy Bird 15:30 I don't know that. So. So if you if you don't mind, I'm going to correct you on that because I can go too fast. Here's, here's where I see the biggest problem. They're doing extensive roadmaps. And so it's no longer that I'm getting involved with the CIO or the CTO, the CMO is now in the room, the CEO is now in the room, the CRO is in the room. So I've got multiple people, because the business objectives are now driving a lot of the behavior you got, you got to think about it from a CIO or a CTO perspective. They have a they have a legacy Avaya, they it was a capital expense, they've amortize that over, let's say, the last seven years. So on their p&l, that they report back to the CEO or to the board or to the CFO, right, that that's a line item that's done that's done line item, now they have resources that are supporting that. And now you got somebody that's coming in, and they're introducing C cast to them. That's a change model for them, it not only changes, the technology is going on, but changes the books, because now I got a different p&l expense that I have to deal with. Well, with AI, now I've got the CMO coming in because they're going hey, you can get customer acquisition. Now you got the CRO coming in going, Oh, by the way, we're gonna get customer acquisition now. And maybe even the operating model is changed. So that changes that entire conversation. So what ends up happening is they over develop a roadmap, especially with generative AI and what I mean by that is, they're starting to look 1824 months out, and you got to stop. You cannot look that far out. Generative AI look at look at chat GBT for chat TV 4440 Sorry, if I say it, right? Less than 82 days between those two versions, and the versions are significant. Three to five to 490 some odd days, that's moving so fast, you can't do a roadmap beyond three month period. Because you don't know what's going to change and you don't know where in the business you want. The other thing that's changing is the conversations are no longer CCAFs first, right? I want to change my writing, I want to do a lift and shift and go into the cloud. It they're starting to become and it's not all of them yet. We're seeing this it's slowly happening, where they're going, Hey, tell me how I can get the benefit out first, do we need to talk AI first, and then we can talk to see Cass later. So that's been another part that has changed. And that again, that's just in the last six months, that's changed dramatically. Well, I get your question enough, Brian. Yeah, I Brian Nichols 17:53 know you did. And I'll give the context behind my question, because I used to work in one of those Affer mentioned partners on the East Coast. And we would go in and I guess, you know, one of the main objections we would hear is, you know, we're going too fast. We, I have so many stakeholders here at the company that I need to get on board with these certain solutions before we implement it. Because you know, you still got Beverly at the front desk, who wants to use the good old, you know, classic telephone, and maybe she's not into all the AI stuff. So that was more, I guess, behind my question, but to your point, it's not so much just the technology and the users, but also the way that now it's customer facing and revenue generating, which is opening the doors to have more of a change agent, but also at the same point in time, we got to keep the context of the technology where it is today, versus what was inevitably coming down the road and three months, six months or faster is that vary? Andy Bird 18:44 Yeah. And I would add one other component, start small, start small, you know, I have a very large customer I was chatting with not too long ago, and they had this big roadmap for what they wanted to do with AI. I said, Let's just find one area where your biggest problem is, and let's go solve that first. Let's do that first. And then we'll figure out how we land and expand from there. And by the way, that's been immensely successful. And it's not the only one. So starting a small area where you know where your problems are. And if your problem is your existing contact center, then then that's the place to start. And it might not if it's especially if it's more than one issue if you have an issue with your reporting, as well as your agent assist as well as your IVR Sheesh, or shit. I guess I can see that. Yes, you can see Cass and then we'll implement the AI again, it's all about starting in the most problematic areas start small and then grow from there. You Tom Milligan 19:42 know, I'm going to throw out onto that as well a years ago this how old I am. When I was about 25 Maybe closer to 30 years ago, I was at a conference when CRM was the new thing. And and no one quite understood what it was and what it was going to do to our industry. And I remember this lady, her name was Maggie clanky. She was a big deal at some point in what is now the CX space. And she everyone was saying, what is the first step to implementing CRM. And she said, don't implement CRM. That's the first step, even though she was there, advocating for it, but she said, the first thing you need to do is looking at all of your processes and make sure they're working really well. Because what CRM is going to do is going to speed up your processes. So if your processes are bad, all you're going to do is piss off your customers faster. And and I see that same thing. In fact, if you listen to last week's episode, Pam told us a story where AI really was very successful at pissing her off. Yep. And, and so just incorporating or adding AI to whatever you're doing is probably not the right solution. So like you were just saying, Take it slow. Bite off the piece that you need to chew right now what's gonna have the biggest impact, and then just fix that, and then move on to the next one. Andy Bird 20:56 Yep, you got to pick an area, you got to focus on that area, make that area work. Try not to get pissed off. You can try that. You can try that. But I mean, look at look at the way back in the day, Tom, I mean, you know, again, not to do the historical narrative all the time. But back in the day, that number one, a number two things people cared about in a contact center was average handle time and first call resolution. I don't, I can't say that those are the number one number two things anymore. When I talk to customers, some of them give a shit about average handle time. And first call resolution. Yeah, maybe. But again, going back to the whole original premise, what we're talking about is AI as a revenue generator. So you may not want first call resolution, you may not want one call resolution. And by the way, if if you're a four wheel parts seller, and I won't mention their names, and you're selling Bronco parts, not that I've ever bought from them. Tom Milligan 21:58 And not that you like Broncos, Broncos, Andy Bird 22:00 but let's just say you are and you know that you have a 42% close rate on the second third call my golly, you don't want first call resolution. And by the way, you know that you have a better close rate after five minutes. I'm not saying they do. But they do. And you want to keep them on the phone longer. So you want the average handle time to be increased. So you're no longer looking at reducing those two items. And again, that's just one story one snippet, but there's we see that repeated over and over and over again, with customers, even in healthcare and in finance, that the after selling facts matter now and using AI at the beginning to get the preliminary information so you can focus your time on doing those upsells is tremendous. Brian Nichols 22:42 So really containing containing the the non agent necessary stuff in the and let's just use the the IVR the IBA AI tools ever maybe virtual assistant, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, bingo. Yeah. So like using that to contain, let's say 80% of the calls. And then when they escalate to that that agent, then using the agent to humanize the experience, and then look for that revenue generation opportunity. Andy Bird 23:08 Absolutely. Now, you should be looking for ROI in your three different do this three mainstay areas, the beginning of the interaction during the interaction, or post interaction, always be looking for your opportunities to solve a problem or drive revenue from one of those three areas. Now there's, there's two other areas, I probably don't have time to talk about them on this podcast, but they get their ancillary or secondary, I guess, is the best way to put it. But I'm always focused on those first three, and then we'll look at the others later. And that's just the mainstay CX journey. We're not even talking about parallel paths, which is a whole nother conversation as well. Tom Milligan 23:47 Wow, I want to know what those other two are. I'm Brian Nichols 23:49 curious. Yeah, I might, I might be okay with diverting the show towards that conversation. But that's just me, Tom. Yeah, what, Tom Milligan 23:56 what are the other two? Andy Bird 23:57 So the other two are pre the acquisition of a customer. So there's a whole implementation of AI of almost like the marketing. Next Steps type mentality, right? If I send them out a flyer, if I send them an email, something like that, there's pre AI or pre interaction AI, which is done there. And then there is I've always called a post post, but somebody else could probably come up with a better name for it, where you're sending out a survey, you're using AI to actually send out a survey and do some recouping all the while on the parallel paths. You got AI that works in WFM, W E M across the board that can sit on top as well. So those are those other areas and they get a little bit outside of what we would traditionally call the CX world. That's why I said it's almost a whole nother show. Because if I'm, if I'm in a Ford dealership, again, picking on Ford, but if I'm a Ford dealership, and I want to acquire a customer, the first thing you're gonna get is that crappy junk mail that says hey, your warranties going to expire, you know, call us here and get this, that today is done through a pseudo automated process, there's AI now that can do all that to send that crappy junk mail to you, so that you do initiate the call. Because from their perspective, that point 5% hit rate they get on that junk mail ends up being that much to them. So they want it, they want those. And then those post surveys, I mean, you have what was it called the name of the company that started up while we were there, Tom Qualtrics. And we're making all their money on frickin surveys, Survey Monkey, all that can be done AI now outside of those companies, and so you can get your survey, get your stats that way, and go report to your board appropriately or report back to your customers. Tom Milligan 25:45 Yeah, well, okay, you're right, those are outside of what we do, because that's what it takes people with, with brains. And that's not me. Andy Bird 25:56 I doubt. I've known you too long to say that. That's true. Tom Milligan 26:01 Well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to take us a different direction here for a few minutes if we can. You know, we've talked a little bit about what's making, you know, what makes partner successful. We've talked a little bit about what customers are experiencing, and how they might experience AI and some of what we're doing. I'm interested to know why. I mean, this is a chance for you to say why avant, so if I'm a partner out there, and you've said that you educate partners and all that, but why is a bond better than your competitors? Just, you know, we don't have to bash your competitors. But you know, why Yvonne? Yeah, Andy Bird 26:35 I mean, it plain and simple. I love one of our founders where he uses we're classy. So overall, we are a classy organization. Some of the other organizations out there, I don't know, operate under the same class that we do. And what does class mean, you gotta you gotta break that down to a couple of different levels. One, we got the knowledge, the capability. There's us, let me expand on that a little further. We filter. So I've got 19 vendors in kill. I don't know that I need all 19 vendors that are in queue, and I have 30 more that are waiting in the wings to be in queue. So I have a pre queue queue that's going on right now. And so I got to evaluate those vendors and go, What is the benefit because it costs me to sign up a vendor, right? So every time I sign up a vendor cost me so I'm not just going out and grabbing. And having this big plethora, a smaller smorgasbord. Think of me as a restaurant, the meats that I get are quality, local farm raised beef, right, that type of a thing. I bring those to the table. So I know you're giving quality to your customers. And then second is our knowledge and education across the three areas, the three core years, which are CX security, and connectivity or transport are second to none. That that is huge. Not to mention, the reason that I work here is a lot to deal with. It's the same reason why you work for your boss today. I love my boss, I love my culture in the organization, and that is huge. I have worked for organizations that don't have that. But that that translates to our TAs and to our vendors that culture emanates. And so that's when I say classy, all those things emanates out where you have got good culture, good education, and a chosen vendor selection, not just a random, oh, you got a deal. And they like this name. And it's a name you've never heard of. Let's go sign them up. I don't want to do that. I want to give you the best. That farm raised beef, right, that's locally grown. Tom Milligan 28:35 I like it. I like it. And by the way, just real quick, Brian, do you love Brad? Brian Nichols 28:40 Do I love Brad? Of course. I love Brad. Tom Milligan 28:42 Okay. Just wanted to make sure because Andy said that we weren't answered. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Andy Bird 28:48 Especially if he's gonna watch this. Exactly. Tom Milligan 28:50 I don't know if he does. Andy Bird 28:53 That our founders are I mean, you've met them Tom. They're They're, they're, they're phenomenal. Tom Milligan 28:58 They're good people, good people. And I trust Andy Bird 29:00 him. And that's, that's huge. And a lot of corporations you get into you're just there to say yes to whoever's ideas that is above you. You can't be contrarian here. You can break glass and make things happen for the DBAs. Tom Milligan 29:14 Yeah, Brian Nichols 29:15 I love that. By the way, in time, I'll just say one of the things before I joined strap or sharp and I worked at a company called Stratus ip based in the northeast, I will say their name because I love the company. Like still some of the best people I've ever met in my life. And one of the mottos that they have at the company is good people bring out the good and people and that I cannot emphasize enough like in our industry to your point like it's just so full of people who are just pushing product and pushing the word yes. Versus genuinely just being good people focusing on trying to help the customer and not in it for nefarious purposes. Right like actually trying to do good. I just, I want to re emphasize how crucial that is in our world, and how rare it is. Andy Bird 29:58 And you're right is rare. I mean, we can talk about other industries. But we have other industries that don't operate under this same hospice. And not necessarily CX, we have an incestuous group, right? Our market our whole entire thing. I mean, Tom and I have crossed paths multiple times, we could name probably 15 names right here. Well, we've crossed paths with those individuals multiple times. It just happens. And so the whole idea of people who like bridges on fire or do the wrong thing for a customer that ways it stays with you for a long period of time, and bite you too. And that's the only thing I love about a lot. I don't have to worry about anything on my conscience in that regard. We're doing something wrong for some malicious intent, or some corporation that wants to, you know, raise their stock price a little bit. Tom Milligan 30:49 Yeah, I have one final question doesn't mean we have to end the button in the show. But I have one only one more question on my list. For you, Andy. And it's a tough one. Because you have to decide how politically correct you want to be. Oh, what do you think of new Co? New Co? Yeah, then tell us this is new agency. Andy Bird 31:11 New Co. was wasn't sure which way you're referring. So again, this goes back to the class thing. And trust, and this is the new guy's perspective. So take it for what for what it's worth, I work for an organization that wouldn't do that. And the reason that we wouldn't do it is twofold. One, there's no reason for us to compete against the TAs that we're trying to serve. We serve our TAs, I have three customers, vendors, TAs and their customers, right. And so those are all three, one of our customers. And so for me to represent any one of those, for me to be a vendor, for me to be a TA would go contrarian to our ethical framework of how we operate as a business, even if you split it out and divided it this way, and divided by 12 and did some machinations with some back end legal paperwork and call it a different company, it doesn't matter. Because how might my business operates on trust? Tom knows that when he texts me, I'm gonna text him back. Now, I might be on a plane, but sooner or later, I'm gonna get back to him. Trust with my vendors and trust with my TAs is key. And I don't think that that's worth I don't think that's worth the additional revenue any anyway. And again, that's my perspective, the company's perspective has been done on a podcast from ION Andrew. And so you're welcome to see that, but I listened to him. That's definitely mine. And so I'm, I would be, I'd be remiss if I worked for an organization that did that. I mean, that's kind of like Oregon for a while. I can't say that either. But the but, you know, it'd be you're, you're, you're messing you're messing up the dog food. Tom Milligan 32:56 I agree. And, by the way, for anyone out there that is fortunate enough to work with Andy and his team. The other night, I was sitting here watching Game of Thrones, and my phone rings. And it was it was pretty late at night, if I remember, it was about eight 830 my time, and I'm in the East Coast. And, and it was Andy bird. You know, like, he's a friend, of course, I'm going to pick up the phone. So I pick up the phone. And his question was, Hey, Tom, just checking in, is there anything you need from me? And that has literally never happened to me from from a TST, or a vendor perspective. And so I and little did he know that I was gonna ask him to come on a podcast. Andy Bird 33:37 I did not know that. You know, it was I had had some vacations, some travel, I always seem to have travel and I don't I don't ever want to miss people. And again, my team represents that really, really well. I inherited a great team. So I'm very, very fortunate in that regard. Brian, I don't know how long we can go. But man, as you can tell, I can motor it. Brian Nichols 34:01 Well, unfortunately, Andy, we are at the last question I came in as far man it went fast. Yeah, I looked at the clock. We're at the 30 minute mark. So Tom, is it okay, if I asked the last question today, you go for it, man. This question is the essence of our show. And that is Andy bird. In your career. Up to today. What is the biggest piece of BS that you have heard in the CX industry? Andy Bird 34:28 Wow. Wow, that see I was they didn't even prepare me for this. Brian Nichols 34:35 We gotta get our Booker's doing something different to make sure you're prepped. Come on. Yep. Andy Bird 34:39 I think the biggest piece of Bs is that all see casts are the same. And there is a there is an ongoing belief that all ce cas are equal. And they're just comparing feature functionality and they're not comparing architectural design instance base versus clustering versus where it's hosted all those things There is a common belief out there. And there's common, I would say even some vendors perpetuate it that they're seeking that all see gases are alike in that regard. And it's the feature functionality may be similar at the desktop agent, desktop, maybe even at the supervisor, maybe even a reporting. But core architecture matters a great deal. Let me add one more to that. five nines of reliability. There's no C CAS on the planet. I mean, it just doesn't happen quite like that. There is a level of five nines reliability to a lot of them out there, including sharpen. But we equate five nights to reliability, that's eight minutes of downtime per year. So if you just do the mathematical equations on some of this stuff, sorry, for Yeah, that's five nines of reliability is eight minutes of downtime, you add or you lose one of those nines, you're up to a day and a half plus, right. So that that whole perception on some of that stuff, I think is I think both those things are BS, which is why I continue to work with sharp and on a regular basis. Tom Milligan 36:03 Awesome, great plug. Thank you. Brian Nichols 36:06 Andy, thank you so much for hopping on. We really appreciate your insight. And frankly, this is why we have these conversations, because there is so much BS in our industry. So it's important for us to to get the BS out of the way surround ourselves with good people. And frankly, good people like you from a good company like Yvonne. So thank you for joining us. And we really, really appreciate your time today, man. Andy Bird 36:30 Glad to be here. I'll do it anytime. So let me know. And as long as I'm in town, we'll have you back, man, for sure. It was a good chat. So thanks for having me, guys. Brian Nichols 36:38 Tom. Just what an awesome conversation with Andy, truly such Tom Milligan 36:42 a great guy. I'm proud to call him a friend. And Brian Nichols 36:47 by the way, like, I cannot reiterate enough, the importance of good people bring out the good and people and he's just a good guy. And like, I know we talked about this in the episode, but like, that is seriously one of the biggest value adds when you go into any buying cycle is just having good people as a part of that process. Because you know that you're going to be having someone actually looking out for your best interests. And that is so crucial in our world. So yeah, and he's just he top of the top of the list, man top of the list. Absolutely. Tom Milligan 37:17 I when I told that story just a minute ago about him texting me or calling me the other night. I mean, that was seriously just four days ago, five days ago. Yeah. And it was just out of the blue. There wasn't there was nothing. I didn't call him first. And who does that? Right. And I seriously, I was blown away by it. And I will tell you, the people that work for him, are like he said he inherited an amazing team. But I think they've become more amazing since Andy started there a couple of months back. Brian Nichols 37:45 That's pretty darn cool. Well, I know I enjoyed the conversation. And by the way, folks, if this is the first episode, you're catching of CX without the BS, this is episode three for us. So if you want to go back in the archives, episode one, we had our good buddy Michael Delson, you're right here on the show. And then last episode, we had Pam O'Leary here on the show, and she told us a story about some CX nightmares that she was going through. So please go check out those past episodes here of CX without the Bs, and we want to hear your thoughts. If you are a customer. What is the worst CX experience you had? We want to hear it down below. So if you're watching us on YouTube, please head below into the comments. Let us know what your experience was. Or if you're on LinkedIn. Likewise, head down below into the comments. We want to hear what you have to say and hey, maybe if it's enough of a horror story, we might want to have you on the show. So pay attention to your messages. We might shoot you a, a DM or how's that sound? Tom? Tom Milligan 38:39 I love that. Yeah. Or you know, if you don't want to come on the show, we might read your you know, the reader mailbag. Oh, Brian Nichols 38:45 I like that reader mailbag. Alright, so now Tom and I are our group group thinking here are some different opportunities we can go through. So I like this. Tom, is there any final words you want to leave with the audience today as we kind of wrap up our conversation with Andy? Again, Tom Milligan 39:00 the only thing I would ask is if you like what we're doing here, be sure to rate and review what we're doing here because the podcast Gods tell everybody about this based on ratings and reviews and please share it with your friends. Brian Nichols 39:12 Every Friday, you will have a brand new episode of CX without the BS, hitting your RSS feed if you're subscribing on the podcast, or Yes, over on YouTube and LinkedIn. So we really appreciate all the fans we've been able to already have joined the show over the past three weeks. We're looking forward to the next three weeks and beyond. So with that being said it's Brian Nichols signing off here for Tom Milligan on CX without the BS. See you next Bye, everybody. Transcribed by https://otter.ai