Customers’ Behaviours with Mary Drumond – E52 – First Half

Release Date: 13. December 2021

The CX Goalkeeper had a smart discussion with Mary Drumond

LinkedIn Headliner: CMO | Customer Experience and Insights | Podcast Host

I split the discussion in 2 episodes, stay tuned also for the second part next week!

Link to the second episode: www.cxgoalkeeper.com/Mary-Drumond-2

In this episode:

Asking customers for feedback means asking for their time
Feedback is a gift
“Closing the loop” was developed because customers were feeling ignored
Common mistakes related to surveys
Big companies need tech solutions to elaborate the feedback

… and much more

How to contact Mary:

– https://worthix.com/

– https://www.linkedin.com/in/marydrumond/

Mary’s podcast:

– https://blog.worthix.com/category/voices-of-cx-podcast/

Thank you, Mary!

#customerexperience #leadership #cxgoalkeeper #cxtransformation #podcast

Mentioned in the discussion with Mary: Colin Shaw, Shep Hyken, James Dodkins, GaryVee, Ian Golding

And the book: Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini

“People follow People” @drumondmary on the CX Goalkeeper Podcast
Tweet

Transcription:

Gregorio Uglioni 0:01
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CX goalkeeper podcast. Your host, Gregorio Uglioni, will have small discussion with expert, thought leaders, and friends on customer experience, transformation, innovation and leadership. I hope you will enjoy the next episode.

Ladies and gentlemen, today’s really a big, big pleasure to have Mary Graham on with me. Hi Mary, how are you?

Mary Drumond 0:32
Hi, Gregorio, thank you so much for having me on. It’s such a pleasure to be on your podcast.

Gregorio Uglioni 0:37
Thank you very much. It’s The pleasure is all on my side to every see is totally a podcast or a great host of podcasts. Since yours. I’m following you. Since season number two, we are now it’s season number eight. And therefore it’s long time you are on the market. Everybody knows you. But for the people in Europe that don’t know what takes and No, no, don’t do. Could you please introduce yourself?

Mary Drumond 1:05
Absolutely. My name is Mary Drumond, I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Worthix. Worthix is a company that specializes in explaining customer decisions. So aside from all of the regular emotional issues that we monitor in customer experience, where we’re checking satisfaction and recommendation potential, what Worthix does is we zoom in on what’s causing customers to buy from you or not. And we reveal in a really clear blueprint, what you should keep doing in order to keep your customers coming back. And what you should stop doing if you don’t want to lose them. So that’s what Worthix does. We’re a tech company, actually. So we work. We have a SaaS product is a platform, it’s essentially an AI survey that’s able to have conversations with clients instead of having people just answer boring questionnaires. So it’s a really exciting product. I am a huge fan. I’ve been a huge fan since day one. So everything I say about Worthix is superduper. biased, but it’s also very correct. So if you have to fact check me, I promise, my word is good for it. But I love working here. It’s such an exciting market to be in. And it gave me the opportunity to start working in customer experience and get to know the market and consolidate myself as a person that people actually listen to and look up to in this industry. And I’m so grateful for that opportunity. So and I’m so happy to be here.

Gregorio Uglioni 2:35
Thank you very much Mary, and we are already feeling your passion for your job and what you’re going to doing. But before we deep dive into what we would like to learn a bit more about Mary, because you are always you have also family, you are a speaker, you are doing your podcast, what are your values?

Mary Drumond 2:56
I think that one of my main values that most closely aligns with the work that I do is empathy. I am an empathetic person by nature. A fun fact I was recently, I’m gonna say diagnosed because it’s just a great term for this as a highly sensitive person. And highly sensitive people are really in tune with other people’s emotions, we’ve got really big emotions ourselves. And we have the tendency to put ourselves in other people’s shoes all of the time. So I think that in customer success, I really found a calling because it does align so much with my personality and who I am intrinsically. And that desire to understand people understand their motivations, and be able to connect with them on a deep level. So that empathy is definitely a part of me. And it’s definitely fulfilling to to work at a place and a job that requires empathy so much. And another value that I hold very dear, that I’m lucky to be able to uphold in my job is authenticity. So, Gregory, if you’ve been listening to my podcast since the second season, you know that I say everything, and I try to keep things as real and as authentic as possible. My point of view is very specifically that once you have something that’s real, and comes from within, that translates to listeners and to viewers, and like you said, you can sense that passion. And the reason you can sense it is because it’s truly there. It’s it’s authentically how I feel. And by putting that out there and showing people this authenticity. It creates a connection with individuals because I’m able to connect with people on an emotional level and that’s what truly creates memories. So when people hear me speaking they’re able to To understand certain concepts because it becomes interesting because authenticity is interesting, listening to someone speak their mind without restraints and, and have that the general point of view without necessarily trying to fit it into a corporate agenda, if I may say, is something that people really value. And I think that that’s one of the main reasons that the podcast became so successful because people know that when they tune in, they’re going to hear a very authentic point of view on customer success, on customer experience on behavior, economics, on psychology on everything that kind of overlaps the universe, that is the customer.

Gregorio Uglioni 5:48
And I can confirm that as a follower of your podcast. And we can name it no problem at all, is the voices of CX. It’s really a great podcast, and they will share with you the link, but I feel that I know you pretty well. And don’t be scared. I’m not. You know, how do you decide to buy your car? Where did you bought your last pair of glasses? Often you are cutting your airs, because that you are sharing in the podcast? And for sure, you’re cutting was that one of your last episodes together? But it’s really, as you said, so authentic? And therefore also the feeling disgusting? We do. And I really need to pay attention. Because my feeling is I know, we were well, this is the first time we really met in a personal way. And it’s really interesting. But I think this this make also your podcast. And also not only the podcast, but the webinars the speaking engagement that you have, because it’s authentic, it’s about you. And you are also leaving this customer experience. Discipline from a customer point of view. But yes, from a business point of view.

Mary Drumond 7:00
Yes. You know, one thing that I always say is that people don’t follow companies, it doesn’t happen, people follow people. So if they are able to identify with an individual inside of an organization, and you know, this is where the marketer in me really comes out if, if they can identify and connect with a face that represents a brand, that’s how you can get customers to create brand identification with a company by putting a face by putting a person behind it. And then a person that is able to express values that align with customers, and make them feel like they are seen and heard and valued. And all of these things, you know. So that’s what I try to do in my job. I of course, I’m always keeping the company’s best interest in mind. But I do believe that the best interest of the company is to have a face that’s out there that people connect with. And that’s what I try to do every day.

Gregorio Uglioni 7:58
And that’s good, because at the end, I know vortex thanks to your thanks to your podcast. And thanks to your passion, you are creating business for wattics Exactly what you are saying it’s it’s my example. I am a Swiss citizen, and therefore I know well, Roger Federer, the tennis player, oh, yeah, if he’s advertising something, then I automatically trust this company, because it’s represented by him. And I’m quite sure that he did his due diligence to ensure that it’s aligned with his values. And therefore exactly what what what are what you are saying, Yeah, coming back to empathy, and linking that also to war ticks. You have an artificial intelligence solution, not going to the technicalities of the solution. But it’s sorry if I’m pronouncing that wrong. Lucy, could you say? Could you please elaborate a bit on that? Because I think it’s really, really interesting. Also, for the audience in Europe, we discussed also in the previous question, more pics is not so known. And I think it would be really great if you could share a bit about Lucy.

Mary Drumond 9:08
Well, I think that the main thing to focus on to kick off is that the way that the industry of surveys and talking to customers is right now it’s really boring. And people don’t want to do it. And I don’t know how it is in Europe, but in the US, customers are bombarded by companies and request for feedback. And I mean, we can consider that an improvement from the days when the customer wasn’t consulted at all. But at some point, it just became overwhelming. So I’m of the belief that if we’re going to tap into our customers, and ask them for feedback, we’re not only asking them for feedback, we’re asking them for their time. We’re asking them to stop and share their pains their needs, their wants their desires. tires in exchange for nothing really, in exchange for the company profiting more to a certain degree. So when customers do share feedback, they’re giving us a gift. And that gift needs to be respected and needs to be valued. And there’s no better way of respecting and valuing that effort on behalf of our customers. And then truly being able to apply that feedback into the experiences so that they do profit from it, so that their experience with the organization becomes better. So a little bit of a controversy for the customer experience industry, a lot of people focus very strongly on closing the loop, and on the need to follow up with customers after customers have given feedback. And well, this is great, it’s also not possible for a lot of organizations. And the only reason that we’ve had to add that element and close the loop is because customers feel ignored, ignored and overlooked, and they feel disrespected. So if we take away that pain point, and we actually apply the feedback into an improvement of our processes, is known as no longer necessary to have a bandaid solution to try to fix the pain. So customers don’t necessarily need you to close the loop. If from that moment on, you solve their problem. Now, of course, I’m not talking about customer service, customer service or customer care is when the customer has a true problem, and the company gets in touch with the customer. To solve that issue. That’s a very specific thing. And there are departments in companies that the sole mission is to try to fix the mistake when it happens. I’m speaking on a much more macro level, let’s say I’m speaking from a strategic standpoint, where if you receive feedback, it’s a lot more important to be able to first of all, understand how much that element is truly affecting the customers decision to stay with you or not. And secondly, how you can work internally to make sure that no longer happens. So let’s say you identify through customer feedback, an element of your processes that’s broken, that really needs to be looked at and really needs to be solved. If you solve that,

I can guarantee that complaints on that issue will disappear. So instead of trying to call up each of your customers and say, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we promise we’re gonna fix it, just fix it. And once you fix it, the complaint will go away, because that’s all customers really want. They don’t, they don’t require you to call them and make promises that you may or may not fulfill. What they need is for you to give them a solution so that they can stay with you. You know, like, lots of times, we talk about how customers, once they make a decision to purchase from a brand. They want to do business with that brand. They don’t want you to screw up, they want to have a successful relationship with you. So the good intention is already there. If there is a breakdown in the process that somehow ruins the entire experience, all they’re expecting is that they can move forward without that obstacle now having a pleasant experience. So I believe that if companies were to focus more on and solving the problem to begin with, as opposed to slapping a bandaid on it, customer experience in general, and surveys in general would be more positive. I don’t think that customers would have a problem answering surveys, if they knew that that feedback was going to be applied into an improvement of processes. Right. So I really, really went on on that one. But all of that to explain that the kind of the essence of the way companies relate to their customers is broken. And lots of companies are under the impression that simply by reaching out to customers and ask them for feedback, they’re doing their part, when it’s only the first step. And in many cases, it’s not even the first step because if you’re putting out a survey, and you’re asking customers to tell you about their pains and their needs, but in the survey itself, you limit the answers that they can give you either by asking questions that are only important to you as a company and not really regarding the pain points the customer may have that you never thought of, or in doing extremely long surveys that are never ending because you want to tick off every single possible aspect of your process throughout the entire customer journey. And nobody, nobody has the patience or the time To answer that many questions until you finally come around to the topic that they want to talk about, if they’re lucky, right? So long surveys, which are totally focused on a company’s agenda and not on the customer. So you know, you’re trying to be customer centric, but not even your surveys customer centric, because your survey has been designed, executed and put to field with the company’s interest in mind. And then ultimately, when it comes time to collect the feedback, the feedback that you’re collecting gives you absolutely no idea whatsoever of how strongly this feedback is affecting the experience. So even if you were to do everything, right, have a short survey, send it out correctly, close the loop. At the end of the day, the data that you’re left with from surveys, is a needle in a haystack, especially for large organizations that have hundreds of 1000s or even millions of customers. Can you imagine the struggles of the customer experience team trying to read feedback from 50,000 customers?

Gregorio Uglioni 16:13
I totally agree with you and what I can follow perfectly also from my European point of view, or we do focus on on Europe, let’s say the last 100 surveys that I filled in, I never received the feedback. Or if I was a detector that got a call , and they told us yes, we will solve your your issue in this case. And by the way, we’ll give you $10 bonus for the next time that you can buy, and then it’s exactly what you’re saying is extremely important. And also linking the last part of what you were saying is our common friend James Dodkins say so So let’s focus on the successful customer outcome what our customers wants to achieve, and not on the successful business outcome. business outcome, follow the customer outcomes. If customer are repeat customer loyal customer buying from us, then you have your business you can achieve your business targets, and exactly what you are saying. And I think this is also the let’s say advertising that you have in in your podcast. Small business knows their customer personally. And therefore they can offer direct feedback. I know you marry you like this and bet you buy your cars when you have your advocates and stuff like that. But if I would have let’s say 15k, 20k or 40,000 customer is not possible anymore. And therefore technologies like worthix, which Create and help achieving this solution.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please share the word of mouth. Subscribe it, share it until the next episode. Please don’t forget, we are not in b2b or b2c business. You are in a human to human environment. Thank you!

⚽️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The CX Goalkeeper Podcast ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚽️

Did you like it? Please tell to 2 friends, colleagues or family members about the CX Goalkeeper Podcast.

Only with your support I can continue share amazing discussions!

🎙you can find it on your preferred podcasting platform here:

http://www.cxgoalkeeper.com/podcast

Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3qYr4nh

PLEASE 🙏 don’t forget to ✅ subscribe it

… if you are an Apple User please rate it & review it!

Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/3rxRm0aCXGK

Spotify: https://bit.ly/3GhCGXeCXGK

Amazon Podcast: https://bit.ly/3xYYDaECXGK

Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3pws7ISCXGK