WEBVTT - Enhancing Customer and Employee Experiences Simultaneously

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<v Speaker 1>You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

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<v Speaker 1>Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.

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<v Speaker 2>Now, I have been promising you an innovation evangelist, and

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<v Speaker 2>I've got one.

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<v Speaker 1>Tiffany Bova joins us.

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<v Speaker 2>She is the global customer growth and innovation evangelist over

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<v Speaker 2>at sales Force. She joins us on zoom from Los Angeles,

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<v Speaker 2>and we're not going to talk specifically, I guess about

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<v Speaker 2>Salesforce and their product, but about her new book, The

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<v Speaker 2>Experience Mindset, Changing the way you think about growth. Tiffany,

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<v Speaker 2>thanks so much for joining us. It's great to have

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<v Speaker 2>you on the program. Tell us first, how you got

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<v Speaker 2>the idea to write this book.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, I'll tell you the pandemic was an amazing opportunity

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<v Speaker 3>to really look deep within organizations to figure out where

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<v Speaker 3>is there a disconnect between what they were doing for

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<v Speaker 3>customers and what they were doing for employees. And when

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<v Speaker 3>we started to come out the other side of it,

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<v Speaker 3>sure enough, we saw through our research that there was

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<v Speaker 3>a big disc connect between what the C suite thought

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<v Speaker 3>was happening in the organization and what employees actually thought

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<v Speaker 3>was happening. And I think that was a big part

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<v Speaker 3>of the great resignation as well as what we're still

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<v Speaker 3>seeing a little bit of that quiet quitting.

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<v Speaker 2>It's kind of a theme, actually, I keep hearing this

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<v Speaker 2>today about executives who.

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<v Speaker 1>Think one thing and their employees.

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<v Speaker 4>Who think they reports are just not on the same page. Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 4>So I think this is a little bit controversial. Tiffany,

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<v Speaker 4>you write that there's an over emphasis on the customer

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<v Speaker 4>experience today that came the expense of the employee experience.

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<v Speaker 4>Tell us about that over emphasis on the customer experience

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<v Speaker 4>and how they came to be.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, when we made the sort of shift to digital

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<v Speaker 3>back in the early two thousands, a lot of that

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<v Speaker 3>was oriented around how do we make it easier for

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<v Speaker 3>customers to buy something from US, engage with us either

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<v Speaker 3>from a support standpoint, or buy products and services from US.

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<v Speaker 3>And over the last twenty twenty five years, we've continued

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<v Speaker 3>to work tirelessly and spend billions of dollars on reducing

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<v Speaker 3>effort for customers. But unfortunately, the unintended consequence of that

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<v Speaker 3>was the effort for employees actually went up. I'll give

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<v Speaker 3>you one statistic. The average enterprise has a little more

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<v Speaker 3>than eleven hundred unique applications in their environment, yet only

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<v Speaker 3>twenty six percent of them are integrated. Now, who bears

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<v Speaker 3>the brunt of that lack of integration employees, So.

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<v Speaker 4>It sounds like it's just a recipe for employee burnout.

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<v Speaker 3>Then it's burnout its lack of ability and access to

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<v Speaker 3>the right sets of data and tools and how AI

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<v Speaker 3>is the hot topic of the day. But AI is

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<v Speaker 3>only as good as the data it's looking at and analyzing.

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<v Speaker 3>And so if you've got data and disparate systems, the

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<v Speaker 3>challenge there is you really need that single source of truth.

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<v Speaker 3>Where is it sitting, is it accurate? And can your

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<v Speaker 3>employees action it quickly when they're doing something.

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<v Speaker 2>For or with a customer well, and also, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>at a basic level, the customer experience can only be

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<v Speaker 2>so good if the employee experience is not right. I mean,

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<v Speaker 2>the employee experience has to be strong for a customer

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<v Speaker 2>to benefit.

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<v Speaker 1>Absolutely.

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<v Speaker 3>Look, I say the fastest way to get customers to

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<v Speaker 3>love your brand is to get employees to love their job. So,

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<v Speaker 3>if you are a customer and you complain quite often

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<v Speaker 3>about the length of hold times when you're calling in

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<v Speaker 3>a customer service, you know, department or how long it

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<v Speaker 3>is it takes for you to get replacement of some

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<v Speaker 3>product or to get the shipping label to send something back.

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<v Speaker 3>A lot of that has to do with the fact

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<v Speaker 3>that employees have to jump through so many hoops to

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<v Speaker 3>make that happen. They don't show up every day and

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<v Speaker 3>go I can't wait to just upset all of our customers.

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<v Speaker 3>I mean, that's not what they plan on doing. They

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<v Speaker 3>show up to do their best work, and we as

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<v Speaker 3>companies and as leaders, especially those making decisions around technology,

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<v Speaker 3>have to keep in mind what do employees need to

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<v Speaker 3>do in order to be scessful, especially for organizations that

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<v Speaker 3>are looking to grow.

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<v Speaker 2>So what do you do to improve the what what

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<v Speaker 2>can you sort of generalize in terms of actionable employee

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<v Speaker 2>experience improvement?

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<v Speaker 3>Well, I'd say start with what are the things you're

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<v Speaker 3>currently doing for your customers as it relates to customer

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<v Speaker 3>experience or CX. Do you have a matching effort on

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<v Speaker 3>the employee side? Many use things like Net Promoter Score

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<v Speaker 3>NPS to track improvement on customer experience for brands and organizations.

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<v Speaker 3>Do you do e NPS on the employee side? And

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<v Speaker 3>so you could do a quick analysis of what are

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<v Speaker 3>you tracking. And you know the comment earlier made by Katie, right,

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<v Speaker 3>this over pivot to customer has a lot to do

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<v Speaker 3>with where the metrics are, Where are executives compensated and

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<v Speaker 3>measured and managed, and what are people focused on? And

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<v Speaker 3>if they're just overwhelmingly focused on the customer, the employee

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<v Speaker 3>will suffer because of it.

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<v Speaker 4>And I'm curious what role the pandemic played in all

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<v Speaker 4>the this and sort of accelerating this dynamic, if at all,

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<v Speaker 4>because you were talking about it was this shift to

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<v Speaker 4>digital that really caused this over focus on the customer experience.

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<v Speaker 4>Of course, everyone went online, almost all aspects of life

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<v Speaker 4>went online in twenty twenty, and the lines between work

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<v Speaker 4>and your personal life obviously became very blurred. I mean,

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<v Speaker 4>I feel like I never truly logged off of my

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<v Speaker 4>Bloomberg terminal for about two years. Tell us about how

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<v Speaker 4>the pandemic sort of impacted some of the trends we're

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<v Speaker 4>talking about.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, I'll tell you it's shined a light on the

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<v Speaker 3>lack of investments that were made for employees. And what

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<v Speaker 3>I mean by that is all of a sudden, as

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<v Speaker 3>you just mentioned right, overnight, people who used to work

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<v Speaker 3>in the office or work in a call center in

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<v Speaker 3>a building. Were moved home, but maybe they only had

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<v Speaker 3>desktop terminals and they didn't have laptops. Maybe they didn't

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<v Speaker 3>have access to high speed internet at home. Now, all

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<v Speaker 3>of a sudden, there may be flexible working environments. What

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<v Speaker 3>are organizations and companies doing to make sure there are

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<v Speaker 3>people who may be working remote we have what they

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<v Speaker 3>need in order to be successful. Edelman did a research

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<v Speaker 3>study kind of in the middle of the pandemic and

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<v Speaker 3>found that it was the first time employees outranked customer

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<v Speaker 3>as the number one stakeholder in a business for long

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<v Speaker 3>term success after a decade being customer employee, popping to

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<v Speaker 3>number one showed that this lack of investment I'm on

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<v Speaker 3>the employee base around training, capabilities, tools, systems, processes, et cetera.

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<v Speaker 3>Those kinds of operational mechanics were just ignored, especially around

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<v Speaker 3>things like systems and tools and processes, which has just

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<v Speaker 3>created this spider's web right that employees have to navigate

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<v Speaker 3>every single day.

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<v Speaker 2>By the way, isn't it expensive to invest that much

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<v Speaker 2>in employees? I mean, you work at a company that

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<v Speaker 2>I assume wants to keep costs in check, right, so

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<v Speaker 2>of course you can make your employees very happy, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>with with a lot of outlay, But how do you

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<v Speaker 2>do it with how you know rise and costs.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, when we did the research, that was really the

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<v Speaker 3>foundation for the experienced mindset. It wasn't necessarily about all

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<v Speaker 3>things wrapped around human resources or HR. It was really

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<v Speaker 3>focused on the moment that matters when an employee does

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<v Speaker 3>something that touches a customer, develop a product, answer a phone,

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<v Speaker 3>go on a sales call, create a marketing brochure or

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<v Speaker 3>anything like that. And so, you know, I often say

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<v Speaker 3>back because that's really a solid question. And one I

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<v Speaker 3>get often is that you know, many will come back

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<v Speaker 3>and say what about investing in the talent right or

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<v Speaker 3>reskilling as an example to answer your question, And the

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<v Speaker 3>CFO says, look, what if we make all these investments

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<v Speaker 3>in our people and they walk out the door. And

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<v Speaker 3>I say back, like, what if you don't invest in them?

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<v Speaker 3>And they stay?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah?

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<v Speaker 3>Which is which is worse?

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<v Speaker 4>I want to talk about what sort of happens to

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<v Speaker 4>this push to focus more on employees again, if we

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<v Speaker 4>do actually enter the recession that people have been saying

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<v Speaker 4>or is going to come for at least a year now,

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<v Speaker 4>does this sort of focus go away if companies are

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<v Speaker 4>worrying about, you know, their bottom line, the economic contraction,

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<v Speaker 4>things along those lines.

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<v Speaker 1>This is the risk.

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<v Speaker 3>You know, we did so much very quickly. As you mentioned,

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<v Speaker 3>when the pandemic first happened and everything shifted to online,

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<v Speaker 3>there was still a majority of small businesses across the

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<v Speaker 3>US specifically that had gotten online for the very first

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<v Speaker 3>time in the first six months of the pandemic. So

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<v Speaker 3>there is also it is not even right everything that

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<v Speaker 3>people are either realizing or missing out on when it

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<v Speaker 3>comes to technology. But I will say to you that

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<v Speaker 3>we can't just think about tech and investing in employees

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<v Speaker 3>as a way to become more productive and do more

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<v Speaker 3>with less. We have to make sure that the things

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<v Speaker 3>we learned and did for our employees during the first

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<v Speaker 3>sort of two years March twenty twenty to kind of

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<v Speaker 3>the beginning of twenty twenty three, that we don't snap

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<v Speaker 3>back to those old habits that got us in the

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<v Speaker 3>position of the great resignation in quiet quitting. And so

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<v Speaker 3>does it need to be everything that we might have

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<v Speaker 3>been doing, like allowing people to continue to work from

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<v Speaker 3>home versus having some kind of flexible work arrangement and

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<v Speaker 3>going in the office a couple of days a week

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<v Speaker 3>or a week a month or something like that. I

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<v Speaker 3>think that's where leaders, especially at the c suite, especially

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<v Speaker 3>in large organizations, has to ask the employees what is

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<v Speaker 3>the best way forward for us? Take that information and

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<v Speaker 3>then do something with it, versus creating that disconnect where

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<v Speaker 3>the employees think this is what they want and the

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<v Speaker 3>executives are doing something completely different.

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<v Speaker 2>All right, Tiffany, thanks so much for joining us. Fascinating story,

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<v Speaker 2>fascinating book. Tiffany Bova is the Global customer Growth and

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<v Speaker 2>Innovation evangelist at Salesforce.

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<v Speaker 1>Talking about the experience mindset