Brian Nichols  0:03  
Brian. Well, hey there folks. Welcome to today's episode of CX without the BS. I am your host Brian Nichols in on today's show. We're gonna be digging through all the BS that we've been seeing in the CX industry, specifically what frontline workers are seeing, and also what are some of the tech that we're seeing right now, coming into the CX space that is full of BS, I can't do today's conversation alone, so joining me on today's episode is Kate Nelson and Vicky Brackett. Ladies, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Speaker 1  0:32  
Doing great. Thanks. Thanks for having us. We're super excited.

Brian Nichols  0:36  
I'm super excited to have you guys on the show now, before we jump in right behind the curtain, the three of us, we're gonna be doing some fun stuff out in in Salt Lake here, in a couple couple of weeks, I say a couple of weeks, end of September, the living CX and transformation networking events could be happening out in Salt Lake City, Utah, September, 25 and 26th keep me honest. Just the 25th 25th that's all. Fifth, I'm thinking of my flight. That's what I was thinking of my flight back. That's right. So yeah, the 25th of September. There. If you guys are out in the Salt Lake area, please go ahead and check out. You know, we'll talk about more of this later into the conversation today. But very excited to be out there with you ladies, as we're helping, do a great networking event, but also raising some money. So we'll talk about that in a second. But first, let's just round the table. Kate, I'll jump over to you first, and then Vicki, we'll have you come in, just introduce yourself here to the CX without the BS audience, and tell us a little bit more about your organization and what you focus on.

Speaker 1  1:37  
Yeah. So I'm Kate. I have a background in customer experience technology and also just solutions. Right now, I'm working with the cloud links Family of Brands, so CX consulting partners is my practice area, and we help businesses to roadmap things, find the right technologies for them, and improve the customer journey. So just making sure that people know what they're looking for. They're not getting lied to. It's implemented the right way. And ultimately they have, you know, a partner in crime, to do the the heavy lifting with them.

Brian Nichols  2:12  
Oh man, yeah, no, the the making sure that it's being done the right way. I've seen a lot of a lot of snake oil. Cx out there. Kate, we'll talk more about what you're seeing as well. Vicki, talk to us about what you're doing over at knowledgely.

Speaker 2  2:24  
Well, thanks again for having us. So at knowledge Lee, we help organizations mitigate risk, reduce costs and increase their productivity by helping them with their knowledge management strategy that also enhances, of course, the customer and the employee experience. How I got into this was I've been a customer service leader for over 20 years, leading large and mid size organizations, and we all have knowledge management but do we really and so I stumbled into some software a few years back, and really got excited About this, this knowledge management software and strategy. We're technology agnostic at knowledge Lee, but we help organizations with their strategy, and if they need Todd software, we'll help them with that. And we also have a team of fractional knowledge managers which will come into an organization and meet them where they're at to help them with their overall strategy, regardless where they're at in their journey. So

Brian Nichols  3:19  
let's stick with you for a second. Vicky, because I want to learn a little bit more about more about like knowledge Lee, and frankly, knowledge management, because in the CX space, this is an area that is, unfortunately, it's under discussed, but it's absolutely imperative to the success of these organizations, right? If you don't have the right data, if you don't have the right inputs, it doesn't matter what fancy tool you get, right? It doesn't matter what you know the new buzzword for everybody's favorite buzzword bingo, AI, right? It doesn't matter how great the AI is if it's feeding off bad information. So Vicki, tell us more about like, what good, I guess, knowledge management hygiene looks like, and tell us some of the parameters that when you're working with folks, like, what are the things you're looking for to create that that true, like solid knowledge, knowledge database, I guess. Okay,

Speaker 2  4:07  
great question. Well, I'll start sort of on the opposite end. I have a client right now in Texas with 950 agents, and they have a great SharePoint site. It's beautiful. They have four people managing it, which is a little over the top in my, my opinion, but they have 85 SMEs, four team leaders, three quality people in an operations manager to the tune of over $4.2 million in labor costs to support the agents when they can't find the answer in the SharePoint. And so I've done this for years as well. Built virtual command centers, me, teams, tier two. Everyone's in the chat trying to help agents. A knowledge base is different than a knowledge management system. A system is a piece of technology, and a lot of them utilize AI and basically just it's popping the answer at conversational speed, no reading of the articles. It has decision trees. It integrates with talk tracks. It'll integrate. Able to CRMs, but basically it will have reporting, business intelligence, employee feedback loops. It's truly automated. And what's the great thing about, if I could just zero it down, is that the knowledge management systems sit behind the chat bot, the agents in their omnichannel. They're the company app, the website, the marketing website. So really, it's one engine, and I don't know of a I don't know of one piece of technology that will literally touch every customer service and employee engagement KPI. It truly does impact the KPIs inside of a contact center, and people are confused about what a base is for knowledge versus a knowledge management system. Does that make sense? Very

Brian Nichols  5:44  
interesting. Yeah, no, for sure, you know, yeah, go to

Speaker 1  5:48  
Kate. Oh, I was just gonna say, speaking of subject matter experts, Vicki is the X consulting partners knowledge management strategy subject matter expert, so we work closely with her. And you know, it reminded me that a big kind of challenge, or I guess, trend that people, you know, really need to pay attention to when it comes to knowledge management, is a lot of people look at AI and technology and they're like, Ooh, this is fun and exciting. Let's get a chat bot, or let's, let's use AI to do XYZ. But then, you know, they get AI, and it's not working the way that they want. It to what they didn't realize, or what the vendor was never going to tell them, because then they wouldn't buy their solution is that, hey, without a strong knowledge management solution, one single source of truth, if you want to call it that, the AI chat bot is, is chaotic, just like, you know, the Knowledge Library, the share points. And so instead of just getting a tool and trying to fit it in wherever you think it should be, what is actually working. And you know, a strategic advantage is mapping out the full customer journey, what you want it to look like, current state, future state, and then layering in technology on top where it makes sense. So it needs to be building blocks, or else you're just spending a lot of money on AI that's going to blow up, and then, you know, it has a reverse effect. And so we really appreciate Vicki when it comes to that, because a lot of times Vicki's knowledge management solution or strategy is one of the first steps that people need to take. So I just wanted to add that in there. Thanks,

Speaker 2  7:20  
Kate. I would also say that any kind of technology acquisition can be a deal breaker for an executive's career. If they're not really implementing the right solution and getting the right results, you've got to be able to measure it so that you can go back to the executive team and say, Hey, this is what we've accomplished, but if they don't look at the problem first and decide where to input that AI, then they're going to not get the the outputs, and that could cost them their job. I think we're seeing some immobilization as well with CX leaders as well, because they're not they're afraid to make those decisions because there's so much noise out there.

Brian Nichols  8:00  
Yeah, yeah. Well, and by the way, I just wanted to go back to where we started here, with the actual customers who are out there, right? Because for some folks, I'm sure that, you know, starting this whole true CX journey, they don't know where to start, right? Like, what? What pieces do I need to put in place first? What are the, you know, the KPIs I should be focusing on? So and jump ball here, Kate or Vicki, I'll defer to you guys. But like, what's like for a brand new prospect in this case, right? Like, what are some of the things you would say from starting out point right? Like, ground zero, what do you need in order to build a successful CX practice, really taking into consideration that customer journey?

Speaker 1  8:42  
Yeah, I mean, I would say kind of similar to the point I was making before, is mapping out what you want that journey to look like, instead of starting with tools. So what do we want our customers to feel? How do we want their pre purchase interaction in purchase interaction and post, you know, purchase or whatever you're selling or providing. How do we want that to feel and how? What do we want to measure? One of the big shifts that I've seen, and I'm very grateful for it, is a key KPI being shifted from average talk time, so trying to get it to be the shortest, quickest call. You know, is there anything else I can help you with? Anything else I can help you with? Okay, bye, and then, you know, your problem wasn't solved. You call back multiple times, and now you're angrier than than you were the first time. So a lot of brands are realizing, okay, first call resolution is better and more important than, you know, average handling time, right? I'd rather have a 20 minute call and not have the customer have to call back, versus having a customer call three times. They get angrier each time. But, oh, at least it was a one and a half minute call. And so, you know, kind of figuring out how that customer journey aligns with your brand values. Listen to the agent feedback. Hey, here's, you know, kind of, here's the problem areas, friction areas, and so really, just looking at it from a holistic approach, like Vicky said, and then looking at technology, because, you know, there is so much noise, you really have to be clear about what you're trying to accomplish. And then go from there,

Speaker 2  10:19  
I would say I agree 100% with what Kate said, but ask the employees, the frontline folks that are interacting with customers, ask the customers, there's so much friction as a consumer. Every time you try to get through an IVR or try to get an answer or try to get the chat bot to work, you're met with resistance constantly. And I think it's important that we ask our customers and ask our employees, where's the friction? What do we need to fix, and then prioritize that it's

Brian Nichols  10:48  
just not happening. And by the way, like, I see this a lot, yeah, and as I say, I see this a lot where, like, you'll have of these CX advisors who kind of come in with a playbook, right? This, this is what they say is the right answer, but it doesn't take into consideration all the things that the frontline workers are experiencing on a day to day basis. So like, if you go in with your playbook, I mean, I'm an NFL fan, right? So I always think about this way, if you hire a brand new coach and they say, Hey, I'm the best offensive coordinator in the NFL, I have the playbook, I have the plays. I know exactly how to carve up a defense. And they go to this team, they start putting the playbook in place, and they crash and burn. Why? Nine times out of 10? Because they didn't have the right players to actually leverage in order to have a successful play. So like, oh, I had this one play where the wide receiver just runs down the field. Me throw a deep bomb. He gets a touchdown. Well, what if you don't have a wide receiver who's fast? Who's fast, right? That's the kind of stuff where, when you go to the CX world, if you're not taking into consideration what the actual boots on the ground are seeing, what types of employees you already have at your disposal, the technology you have your disposal, doesn't matter how great your playbook is, how great your you know your idea as a consultant is, unless you truly understand how they operate on a day to day basis, and that piece is is missing, unfortunately, from a lot of advisors out there. So Kate, I mean, you're actually out there having these conversations with folks on a day to day basis, like, what are some of the areas that you hear from a pain point that they're leading with, especially those like boots on the ground workers? Is it support? Is it technology, or is it something else?

Speaker 1  12:22  
Ah, something else you know, kind of all of the above. So when it comes to tech having, like, disparate, disparate systems, or systems that don't talk to each other, maybe you bought one system 10 years ago, you bought another system three years ago, and then they changed, or somebody bought them, and then some new executive came in and said, This my favorite tool. Let's use this. And then, you know, they're switching between screens. They're having to Oh, hey, let me put you on hold. And also, I also don't have a knowledge based solution, so I'm going to go search in SharePoint. So figuring out how to streamline that, what are the necessary tools? What's going to make your agent's life easier? There's so many plugins and integrations nowadays that you can easily have one screen with everything on it, and so that makes the agents, like easier, happier, they feel more prepared, makes the customer happier. And as far as what friction we're seeing with the agents is, you know, a lot of times we're kind of, they're stuck in this I'm still handling like FAQs, very baseline, you know, tier one stuff, where's my order? Anything that could be answered by self service. So then, you know, the higher tier calls either have to wait in line or, you know, they're, they're whatever the case may be. And so they are really agents, frontline agents, are really benefiting from some of the self service tools so that, you know, the lower hanging fruit can be taken care of. They can upskill if needed to handle higher, you know, intent or more complex activities. And so just really empowering them to make their job easier. They want to feel knowledgeable, they want to feel prepared, they want to feel like they're doing a great job. So having the tools that assess their performance, having the tools that say, Hey, you're doing this great but here's some other things that you can do better. And just having, I mean, technology is here to support us, not replace us. And anybody who says differently, maybe you saw into the future something we don't, but humans are never gonna lose their place. And so really, just looking at it from an empowerment perspective, is what's what they're asking for, and also what's working?

Brian Nichols  14:30  
Yep, well, and by the way, like I'm not gonna, I will pick on a past guest here, sorry. J Lo so Jason low, he was formerly of tolerance. He's out doing some bigger and better things on his end right now, but he had actually used a use case back when we interviewed him, Tom Elgin and I last year, and he used the example of Karna, the Buy Now pay later organization who was going out of their way to replace over 700 of their agents with AI. And you fast forward to where we are today, and what's Karna doing. They're doing the exact opposite. Said they're bringing back almost all 700 folks. And what they've come to the conclusion is, it's not AI that's replacing people, it's going to be people who are leveraging AI, right, that are going to be replacing the folks who aren't. And this has been something like, I've been promoting for a long time now, like, especially when I was over at sharpen, is, is, it's not the AI that's replacing people. It's, again, it's gonna be those agents who have access to these AI tools are gonna make them more efficient, more effective, more empowered, and help them actually do their jobs. So, you know, that's one thing I do want to call out, because there I've been hearing a lot of this, this doom and gloom, or just like, you know, on the other side, like the folks who are like, Finally, we're getting rid of real people with AI. Like, that's not gonna be the case. It is going to be this messy middle, somewhere in between.

Speaker 2  15:46  
I think organizations are trying to figure that out. Brian, right now, and what we're seeing is friction inside organizations. As customer service leaders are trying to drive initiatives that will help the customer and their employees. You've got it with their own directives, right? We got finance involved, logistics, warehouse, all. Everybody's got their hand in the middle trying to figure it out, and they're not communicating for a more holistic approach, because they'll, they're going to get farther together than they are with their silos.

Speaker 1  16:16  
Yeah, and, you know, that reminded me so one of my, you know, first corporate jobs, I was doing sales enablement, sales support, helping with the down selected clients to close the deal. And I remember my boss at the time had referenced, you know, our external customers and internal customers. And I was like, What do you mean internal customers? And at the time, it was the people I was supporting. So the sales people were my internal customers. So when you think of agents, they're technically internal customers that need to be supported and also kept happy, and, you know, empowered and doing a great job, because they tie into the customer journey. I always say that, you know CX equals ex. Whatever your ex is, that's what your customers are going to feel. If your employees are miserable, that's going to bleed over and vice versa. I can honestly feel when I'm talking to a happy, satisfied, empowered agent, versus somebody who's reading a script, they know that there's so many blockers they can only do so much, and so really making sure that you don't burn out your agents you know in the pursuit of making your your customers happier.

Brian Nichols  17:24  
Vicki, tell us more, because going back to the self service stuff, right? I've seen this a lot like I hear, Oh, we have the best self service tool in the world. But again, it goes back to the data. Actually has to be, I don't know, clean, right? It has to be updated. So how does knowledgeably help pay attention like, Hey, you're, you're, you know, you're one pager. It's changed three times in the past year. So how do we make sure that the self service tool or the resources that the agents are leveraging is actually up to date, and they're not conveying, like, the unintentionally, right? The the bad old, outdated information to the customer,

Speaker 2  17:59  
right? So it has to be part of your culture, that you have to have be a knowledge type of organization that everybody's involved. And the real foundation is called governance. So it's, you know, legal sometimes, if you're in a highly regulated industry, needs to be involved in the in the governance. Are we doing? What the marketing team? What does that brand looks like as we're answering questions inside the contact center, you know, do we have the latest information? So we need to be able to pull together and have some type of process where someone owns the knowledge, different people can author it, but that it goes through a governance type of committee so that legal, marketing, HR, whoever, whatever it's for, needs to be able to look at it before we go live. The second piece is employee feedback loop. So there's a typo. You forgot a step. Something doesn't line up right. It's the wrong information. You need to be able to have a button where the employees can just click it, put in the change, and it goes automated to a particular group or person, and that agent gets back notification that, yes, somebody got it. Yeah, they're working on it. Oh, and it's been republished with the change. So those employee feedback loops are really, really important, and that helps build the engagement. So these are pieces of systems that you need to be able to have. It's always better have multiple eyes when you're authoring and using icons colors and positioning on the screen trains the human brain of that agent to go to that same spot. So it doesn't matter what the return policy is, one day, five days or 14 days. It doesn't matter. It's always in the left hand side of the screen. It's always an orange, whatever color, but they know where to go. And then you also want to have automated updates. So when agents bookmark things, and they all do that, when you change that knowledge, and it's authored, after it goes through the Governance Committee that it automatically updates that bookmark, so the agent clicks it, it's the latest and greatest information. You've got to have a process. The technology is no good process, right?

Brian Nichols  19:59  
And you just hit on something Vicky that, like, I'm Is there a solution out there? I don't know. But, like, one of the things I've heard from technology advisors, you know, when they're working with these deals, you know, boots on the ground, is that as things change, folks just get overwhelmed with the confirmation emails like, Hey, did you get that updated proposal? Hey, did you see the updated, you know, the updated self service docs? Hey, did you and like, having all that back and forth, it makes things super messy. So, like, is there a tool, or is this, I guess, what knowledge, knowledge does is help make sure that, like, the agents feel confident when they're sharing information, saying, Oh yeah, I see the green check mark. This was updated last Thursday. Like, is that something that you guys are offering, or is there another tool that's out there to help do this?

Speaker 2  20:45  
Well, knowledge Lee is technology agnostic, right? So it doesn't matter to us what what somebody has. We can help them get it. But a lot of the knowledge management systems out there absolutely have that feature. See, if the agents aren't confident in the information, they're not going to use it. They're going to be either talking to someone on their left or chatting someone in the chat room, or going to tier two or the SME team, which costs money for the organization. So yes, these systems do have these types of features. Because what happens is, sure The announcement comes through, and then it's like, make sure you click the box so that the manager knows that you saw it, but you're running so fast, you click the box and the report says you understand it, but then you make the mistake when you're talking to a customer. So really, I mean, we developed systems because we're not leading properly, and we're trying to push agents into a into a hole or into a box, and it just doesn't work. So you have to have a system that works in your organization. They're not all created equal.

Brian Nichols  21:43  
Kate, when you're out there talking to actual like, end customers, right? What are some of the main issues that you're hearing from a CX conversation right now? Like, what are those blinking red lights? Because, I mean, elephant the room, right? If it's impacting a majority of the folks you're talking to, there's probably a lot of folks who are listening to this today, they're like, Yep, that's me. So what are those usually look like?

Unknown Speaker  22:09  
That's a good question. You know, I would say that we're talking about challenges for the the

Brian Nichols  22:22  
like brands, right? Like, end customers, yeah, like, and customers, like, who actually are going to be buying the stuff that we're selling? I guess?

Speaker 1  22:30  
Yeah, well, you know, identifying which tools are legit, which tools are, you know, can actually, or are actually AI or are, maybe they're an advanced form of, you know, voice recognition, so being able to sort through that while also doing their day to day job and road mapping. So a lot of times I'm hearing, hey, I I want to learn about to AI. I want to learn about technology. I've heard of this brand or this vendor, this vendor, but I don't know where to start. And, you know, my company wants me to make a roadmap. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. Do I look at the technology and try to fit it in. Or, you know, how do I prove ROI on this and those type of things? And so I think differentiating between what is just really cool and flashy and, you know, latest and greatest, at least looks wise versus what's actually functional and going to serve the processes. And, you know, like, like VI was mentioning, so how to take a step back, and how to really be able to identify which tools make sense for them and which tools are just in the gardener quadrant, or whatever it is like who, you know, who are the top 10 people that, like Google and Amazon and stuff are using, but that's not a great fit for everybody. And so understanding how to approach the road mapping, and then also the, you know, tech procurement and tech identification. How many vendors do I talk to? How many demos do I need to do? How do I do a structured use case demo? Yeah, this looks really cool. And they said that they can do everything, but can they do it in my environment? I hope so. They're telling me that they can. I they don't. You know, a lot of people AI is like the Wild West. You know, that's the buzzword right now. They can. They can charge in different ways. There's tokens, there's per interaction charges. There's charges based on minutes, whatever. And people don't really have a baseline or anything to compare it to, so you kind of just got to take the vendor's word for it. So having, you know, an agnostic, vendor neutral approach, whether it's, you know, Vicky's, you know, knowledge, Lee or us at CX consulting partners being able to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's slow this down. Stop talking to every single vendor that tries to pitch you. I mean, it's great, and I'm sure a lot of these vendors have great tools, but let's actually see what you need. What are the top 10 to 20 things that are absolutely critical, that you cannot have or live without? And then. Let's go source a tool, versus trying to, you know, fit it into your existing environment, and being like, Oh crap, it doesn't have these two top features that I really, really needed, but we already bought it. Now we're in a two year contract, and the implementation isn't going to work. Now we got to buy another tool and try to integrate that so just being able to know what good looks like, and starting from internal needs, and then mapping that out, and making sure, you know, everybody's being honest about their capabilities, and they're seeing that demonstration in real time, or, you know, a structured, specific use case. So I think that there's just a lot of hesitation, confusion. There's pressure to, you know, adopt technology. But the people that are wanting the CX leaders to do this don't understand that, like most CX leaders have probably been asking for XYZ, hey, we need a better knowledge base. We need a better, you know, Agent assist. Oh, and now you want me to get AI, but we have to solve all of these things first and make sure that what we have is tight, and you know, tied up really well, and then go out and figure out what we need. So it's like starting with what you have, figuring out a baseline and being really confident about what it is you're looking for.

Brian Nichols  26:14  
Vicki, I saw you getting ready to jump in there. What would you add?

Speaker 2  26:17  
I as a as a leader for many, many years. A lot of times our days are just filled with putting out fires, right? You're running from one fire to the next, and so you need to be able to sort of pull up and look at the organization from a strategic perspective. And sometimes you can't even catch your breath. So having someone like Kate come in that isn't in your organization, that isn't sort of skewed by what they see, right? Just come in with a fresh set of eyes to be able to look at your organization so that you can take a breath. Also, I don't think we as CX leaders might not even know what questions to ask. So having somebody like Kate come in what literally will say, Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? And be able to walk you through a list where maybe, as a CX leader, we hadn't thought about that?

Brian Nichols  27:03  
Yeah, no. And by the way, like speaking of things that people don't really think of, right? Because we talked about CX, we talked about the customer journey, right? We're talking about things coming together, self service tools. But the one area, especially if we're talking to it, is security and compliance, right? And these are two areas I've been hearing a lot of folks getting a little weary when it comes to some of these CX AI tools. They're thinking like, hey, a customer unintentionally is providing that PII, that personally identifiable information. Like, we don't want to accidentally get in trouble trouble with HIPAA, you know, stuff. We don't want to get in trouble with PCI stuff. So what have you guys found is some of the best ways for these vendors, and frankly, the advisors who are helping bring solutions to the table to not just check the boxes like, yeah, we're HIPAA compliant, yeah, we're SOC, two compliant like, not that, but truly making sure that we're paying attention to the data that the customers are providing, and making sure that not only is it safe and secure, but it's compliant.

Speaker 2  28:02  
Well, from a knowledge management perspective, that's why having a true system is important, because it helps mitigate the risk. So for example, you ingest something, you call the company and say, G, I a, x, y, z, and I got sick. So think about what happens the agents like looking around saying, Oh, I don't know anything, and they're putting someone on hold. If they're virtual, they're virtual, they're chatting, or if they're brick and mortar, raising their hand. No one's heard of that. But now all of a sudden, we got to get legal. We got to get the doctor, the medical team, so they're trying to pull all this information. How do you spread and assimilate all that information across an organization and mitigate the risk? Because now we got second caller, then a third caller, then a fourth. Now we're on the news. We have to be saying the same thing. Having a system with a governance process literally will help mitigate that risk, and legal can get involved with that as well. That way everyone's on the same page. And so these systems are critical to making sure that a company can mitigate risk, especially in a highly either regulated industry like financial services or insurance those types, or health care, or even consumer products, right? When someone ingest something,

Speaker 1  29:07  
yeah, and so, you know, that's another nice thing about having, like, a a cheat sheet or an or an expert to go, Hey, these guys say that they're compliant, or, you know, whatever, HIPPA compliant. Yeah, that that's great and all. But you know, do they have experience in this? Do they have they ever, you know, had an error happen that we don't know about? Or, you know, are is there? You know, a common thing with AI is you can have, like, the language, large language model, or you can have, like, an open source when it comes to platforms. So you could have like, AI knowledge or AI bases that pull from everything, and that's dangerous, because if you're putting, you know, private information in there, then. So there's a chance that it could bleed into other, you know, other sources. But if you have something that's individual, that's specific to that company, and it stays within that company, that's really the best way to go. And I think right now, just to be safe, a lot of people are using AI and that type of information for non personal, non, you know, high compliance or security interactions, because it's just, it's not worth the risk. Like I said, you know, AI is the Wild West. The last thing you want to do is, you know, be on the news or have a lawsuit. Of, hey, all these customers up. You know, financial data was leaked, and it's like, okay, well, I guess we should have waited on that and had human agents handle that until we figured it out. So just knowing a what, what the development and infrastructure of the actual AI product looks like, what it looks like on the back end, and where that data is being stored or pulling from, and then also just kind of easing into it and making sure that AI works for the non, you know, high privacy activities, and then kind of easing that in,

Brian Nichols  31:10  
Yep, yeah. Well, and by the way, I know everybody who's listening today, they're like, jeez, oh, some of the stuff is dense. I think I need to actually, like, discuss this with folks in person, maybe a networking event or something. That's what we call a transition or a segue in our industry. Talk to us about the living CX and transformation networking event we're doing out in Salt Lake. I know we're gonna be out there from a level 365 which, by the way, folks, is my day job company. I guess we're representing CX without the BS too. So I'll wear that with a, you know, nice pride on my on my chest there, but talk to us about this event that's that's taking place. You know, we're excited to be a sponsor out there, but just give us the lay of the land. What does it look like? What should people expect? And all that and more.

Unknown Speaker  31:54  
Okay, Kate,

Speaker 1  31:56  
well, you know, I mean, I even made a post about this today on LinkedIn, one of the things that Vicki and I are huge on, and kind of how we came up with this idea, and why we asked people like you, Brian and other friends of ours, you know, confidants, people that we trust, is that we want this to be people, first connection first. It's not there's no vendor booth. There's no pitching, selling. Yes, our sponsors, are going to talk about how they help people and, you know, their their product and what's so amazing about it, but they're not going to come up, hey, let me give you a demo. Let me give you a demo. Oh, here's my card. Hey, I'm going to reach out with some marketing campaign. So that was our biggest thing, and we wanted it to be somewhere that also was people first. So we, I reached out to a bunch of my contacts in Salt Lake City and Young Living Essential Oils is really known for their their customer relationship first, to the point where they will always prioritize, you know, voice, they still have chat and other things available, but choosing a place that reflected what we were trying to do. And, you know, they were totally on board. We said, here's the type of event we're trying to hold. We want it to be different. Would you let us use your venue? And they said, Absolutely, we would love to be involved. And so, you know, we wanted something that was educational, that was networking based, because, you know, it is going to be local. So these people, after the event is done, can meet up for coffee, can stay connected, whatever the case may be, and also just be open and and vulnerable, I guess, with challenges, and really feel like they're an environment where people are going to be honest and not just go, Oh, my product fixes your exact problem. Let's, you know, let's talk about that instead of, you know. We want it to be collaborative. And also we added in some fun things, like refreshments. And I'll let Vicky kind of jump in here and talk about some of our other things, but I'm excited, as you can tell,

Speaker 2  33:49  
yeah, it's going to be fun. We wanted it to be different, and we wanted it to not be 1000s of dollars for people to come right? So we can talk about that in a second. But they came over talking to with you, with Young Living, and they came up with a suggestion of having an aroma therapy sound bath experience. So one of their senior managers is, who's a certified Reiki instructor, is going to literally have this experience. We're doing in the atrium. I guess there's a waterfall coming down the wall and flowers everywhere, and we're going to have this experience. And then, you know, Young Living doesn't open up their doors for just anybody, and so, you know, we're not paying for this venue. They offered it to us because they believe in what we're doing. We're going to have a contact center tour of their of their facility as well. And then brunch is a big deal in Salt Lake. And we're having these custom Italian sodas, I guess dirty sodas, cake is what they're calling them. We just wanted it to be fun and different. We're having continental breakfast. We just, we wanted it to be different. And the cost is only $25 and they can pick a one of three charities. Kate worked on that, so I'll let her talk about the charities. But when you, when you register with your $25 we want people to bring their teams, their supervisors. What a great way to to um. Expose them to different trains of thought and what's going on in the industry, and have an outing. It builds that engagement, and they can pick one of three charities that Kate's lined up to have their $25 donated to in their in their name. So Kate, why don't you tell them about the charity? Kate,

Brian Nichols  35:16  
what are those charities? Yeah, hit us with

Speaker 1  35:17  
that. Yeah. So I mean, again, this this event is about helping people, and we want it to be localized. So we thought, okay, first of all, we're not in this to make revenue or monetization, you know, we're very connection focused. So we were like, well, then why don't we make it a low cost to come? First of all, second of all, we have sponsors to pay for, you know, the brunch and the, you know, the bare minimum of what we need to create an amazing event. And then the registration costs were like, Well, why don't we just choose some local charities that people are passionate about? So we chose the best friends, animal society. So for animal lovers like me, that helps. You know, animals in no kill shelters. And so there's that one. And then also the Salt Lake City Ronald McDonald House, which, you know, of course, helps families with medical needs or housing and things like that. And then, of course, Young Living has their very own, the Young Living Foundation. And so we're actually going to have the head of the Young Living Foundation talk a little bit about why they formed it, what they are working towards. And, you know, it's involved, or it's centered around Community Give Back community impact, and, you know, helping the next generation of professionals and just humans in general, talking about human connection. So we're really excited about that, and we set it up so that, you know, it's an easy you do the $25 donation, there's a box to choose. Hey, which of these three would you like to donate to? And then we'll cut a check to those charities. We've already confirmed it with all three of them. They're all very excited. And, you know, I'm, I'm thrilled that we're able to support people in Salt Lake, but especially people who really need it, or animals who really need it.

Brian Nichols  37:05  
Here, here, now, now. Kate, oh, go ahead. Vicky,

Speaker 2  37:08  
we, we really wanted something that was low cost for the participants to come and encouraging them to bring their teams with them, to just sort of have a field trip right, to be exposed to something new and and so that's why we decided to do the $25

Unknown Speaker  37:23  
Yeah, it's a great you just Yeah,

Brian Nichols  37:27  
and then right there, right? How can folks who are listening actually sign up, right? Because that's that's important. And by the way, number two to my question is, what if folks are listening and they're like, Well, I live out in Denver or I live down in Tampa, like, are they allowed to fly out to Salt Lake if they wanted to take part?

Speaker 1  37:45  
Absolutely, yeah. I mean things for that. First of all, hell yeah. Come join us if you want. It's a one day thing. So we kept that in mind. So it's not really the thing where, you know, you come out for multiple days. It's going to be intensive sessions. And all of those we wanted our this is our first one in Salt Lake City, so we kind of wanted to test run it people from the mountain regions and surrounding states. More than welcome to come anybody in Utah. My second point to that is this will be a series, The CX and transformation. So we're going to do it in different regions, different places. Vicki lives in Arizona, I'm in Colorado, and so, you know, we've, we've had people go, Oh, I'm in Florida. Are you going to do one here? So, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if people want to come to this one, no one's going to say no to you. But also keep, you know, keep your ears open for when we come to your area and how to register. We'll, we'll have the link, you know, Vicky and I built a beautiful canvas site with the help of my marketing head, Devin helber, and yeah, so it's going to be great, but definitely you can reach out to either one of us for information or see the link in the description or the post.

Brian Nichols  38:57  
And by the way, I'll be out there too. So we'll all get together. We'll have a nice little bash. I'll have to make sure we take a group photo between Yours truly, Vicky and Kate. All right, I'm looking forward to this even more than I was already. So I know we're excited at level 365, to be a part of it. I'm personally excited as the, I guess, the sole representative today from CX without the BS. So we'll be talking about the BS that we see in the CX world, which, how about that for, you know, as we go towards the end of the show, ladies, I asked this question of all my guests at the end of every episode. And you know, how about this? We'll start with you, Vicki, and then I will turn it over to Kate. What is thus far in 2025 we're recording here in August of 2025 so hey, there's another four some odd months left of the year, we might see some more BS come out there. But what has been the biggest pile of BS that you've seen in the CX industry? Vicki, I'll let you take it away, and then Kate will bring you in. Oh, wait, Kate's got something say it

Speaker 1  39:50  
first, real quick. I wanted to. I'd be remiss to not mention that our our speakers and panelists that we have these are some stellar. CX leaders, we have people from Gab, wireless, Sutter, health, Young Living and brewmate. And so we're also going to have a special welcome by Prasad gonconda, who is the Chief Sales and Operations Officer at Young Living. His story is phenomenal. You know, really sort of defied the odds. And you know, it's a classic tale of following your dreams. And so those are things. And in addition to that, you know, you get to see this gorgeous, iconic building that everybody in Salt Lake City drives by. They all know the building when we talk about it. But anyway, I just wanted to make sure I I put that in there. So, Vicky, tell us about the BS, yeah, tell

Brian Nichols  40:39  
us about that. Bs, Vicky,

Speaker 2  40:41  
yes, well, you know, I gotta go back here just for a second. Four sponsors, level, 365, is one, but 1021, Spark CX and powerline CX, those are our four sponsors. So thank you, and thank you Brian for being one of our sponsors. I have seen. This happened me three weeks ago, trying to get through to a live human being. Okay, I'm 45 minutes into this. I've done the chat bot. I finally they give me the number, because it's nowhere on the site. I get into the IVR, and it's an agent assist, and I'm telling them the same problem, and that agent assist. The chat bot basically says to me, if I transfer you to a human, they're going to tell you exactly what I've just been telling you. That's what it actually said to me, screaming and asking, oh my gosh, when I got a hold of somebody literally offshore, very thick accent. This is a well known company that's doing this. I'm shocked. It was a 25 second fix, a 25 second upload my driver's license into their website. And she said, Let me send you the link, upload it. And I went, click, click, click. And that was done. And I was on the phone with the chat bot on the phone in the chat room for over an hour. That's the biggest technology. Use it to enhance the customer experience and get rid of us, because this isn't costing a whole them a whole boatload of money because the agent was actually arguing with me. That's BS, in my my opinion,

Brian Nichols  42:21  
I wonder if that AI was powered by Elon Musk's grok AI, because I think the grok AI is the one that's really, really sassy, right? Good grief, Vicki, you don't need to talk to a person. It's gonna tell you the same thing I am That's

Speaker 2  42:32  
wild. Wow. People are gonna believe this. They're just not gonna believe that the jet blast

Speaker 1  42:39  
insane. That's enough to leave a brand. That's the type where I'm like, All right, this was great. I'm going to take my business and go elsewhere that isn't going to talk back to me. It's like they took, like, the worst parts of a an unhelpful, sassy agent, and put it into a bot. They're like, let's scale this. Let's make sure everyone gets to deal with this. Oh, my

Brian Nichols  43:00  
scale our sassiest agent that we that was the approach they took. Must be, all right, Kate, what's been the, the biggest piece of BS that you've seen?

Speaker 1  43:12  
Well, you know this, this goes back to plenty of points we've talked about, and I hear it all the time, and I just heard it again this last week, people are making, organizations are making technology decisions, technology purchases, without involving customer experience, without involving their customer experience group, not just not involving the frontline agents, and you know, the people actually doing the work, but even the leaders, the People who are actually responsible for using this tech, helping their agents use it. They're being left out of the conversation and it, or operations, or, you know, business strategist, transformation, whatever, are making these choices? Hey, yeah, this is cool. This is what you're going to use. You're gonna have to deal with change management. You're gonna have to help your agents struggle and work through this. And we're just going to sit back and we're glad that you're using the tech that we want you to use. But if they're not involved in the conversation from the beginning, how do you even know that the tech you're getting is a going to help B is going to work? And see, is there a change management plan in place, or are you about to lose a bunch of agents and have a bunch of angry customers, so they need a seat at the table. CX is now a revenue driver. People are CX is expected. It's table stakes. Good CX, but looking at it from a perspective of this is going to help our company grow and, you know, make more money. Isn't that what every business wants when it comes to the bottom line, CX can hope that so let them have a voice, keep them, you know, empowered and part of the conversation, and you will make a lot better decisions, and, you know, reduce a lot of future headaches if you do that,

Brian Nichols  44:53  
there we go. I love it. And by the way, folks, if you're listening today, and you're a technology advisor and you're trying to, you know. Learn this whole CX world, because elephant in the room. Not all of us grew up in the world of CX. Some of us grew up just circuit slingers selling bandwidth or selling just voice lines. I have a book I wrote called The CX compass. You can find it over on Amazon. It's a very short read, like, I think, less than 60 some odd pages, and it's actionable. Kate, I shot over a copy to you. Did you get a chance to check that out

Unknown Speaker  45:19  
yet? Yes, absolutely

Unknown Speaker  45:24  
ringing endorsement,

Speaker 1  45:26  
yeah. I mean, I would talk both of you guys have amazing books, and so Vicky sent me hers. Brian sent me his. Send me more, and I will give them to everybody that I I'm like, Hey, I paid for this. Take it, use it, and never look back. So I definitely would recommend, and like you said, it's actionable, and it's, you know, bite size. You're not committing to reading this whole, you know, biography or autobiography. It's actually a playbook, things that you've experienced and worked through. And again, it's definitely something worth checking out.

Brian Nichols  46:01  
Oh, thanks, Kate. Well, how about this? Well, we'll leave the show right there on the warm and fuzzies. Any final words, Vicki, and then Kate, any final words to the audience today as we say goodbye,

Speaker 2  46:13  
just thanks for having us, and let's get a CX seat at the table. That's where, that's where we need CX at the table.

Speaker 1  46:20  
Yes. Thank you so much for having us. Brian, you two are some of my favorite people, so being able to do something like this is so special and magical. And, you know, I look forward to doing more, and just

Speaker 2  46:32  
let's meet in person. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well,

Speaker 1  46:37  
absolutely, we've all met in person, and now we're about to be together again. And so if you're in Utah, if you know anybody in Utah, seriously, it's 25 bucks. You're helping charities, and you get to see a really cool place and listen to amazing people. So

Brian Nichols  46:53  
there you go. Good stuff, all right. Well, with that being said, we're gonna go ahead and put a pin in today's conversation for this week's episode of CX without the BS. I'm your host. Brian Nichols, signing off. Nichols, signing off for Vicky Brackett and Kate Nelson. We'll see you next time bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai