Episode released on: April 25th 2022
The Role of CX Professionals with Alex Mead – Customer Experience Goals with the CX Goalkeeper
The CX Goalkeeper had the great opportunity to interview Alex Mead
LinkedIn Headline: Chief Customer Service Experience Officer – Transforming omnichannel CX across contact centre, digital, social & physical channels – Leading teams which innovate across all customer activities – CRM, AI, Data, Analytics
Highlights:
0:00 Game Start
1:41 Alex’s introduction
3:08 Alex’s view on the CX landscape
6:20 Alex’s two bad experiences
10:18 Definition of service excellence – the definition of EPIC service
13:10 The Role of CX Professional
17:15 The missing skills in the CX community
26:25 In 10 years time what we are speaking about in relation to Customer Experience and Customer Service Experience?
29:30 Alex’s book suggestion
31:12 Alex contact details
31:30 Alex’s Golden Nugget
32:39 Game End
and much more…
Selected quotes:
- EPIC means E = EASY P = PERSONALIZED I = INTUITIVE C = CONTEXTUAL
Guest’s Contact Details:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmead/
- alexmead (at) sky (dot) com
His book suggestion:
- The Stand, written by Stephen King
Guest’s Golden Nuggets:
- If a call center agent or delivery driver is telling you that something is really bad and frustrating for them, it’s bad and frustrating for customers and it’s costing the business money.
If a call center agent or delivery driver is telling you that something is really bad and frustrating for them, it’s bad and frustrating for customers and it’s costing the business money. Alex Mead on the CX Goalkeeper Podcast
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Transcription:
Gregorio Uglioni 0:01
Ladies and gentlemen, today it is really a big big pleasure. I have Alex Mead with me. Thank you very much for accepting my invite Alex, how are you?
Alex Mead 0:10
I’m good. Thank you. And as we’ve explained, my monitor is over there, my laptop is there, my iPad and my tablet over there. So to look at you, I can’t see myself. So if anyone thinks is weird guys, and looking at Gregorio because he hates him. It’s not it’s the camera setup. So, Hello!!!
Gregorio Uglioni 0:27
Alex, we are pleased that you’re here and that you are sharing your thoughts on customer experience and non leadership and the technical setup. To be honest, we don’t care about we care. And we care about what you are saying and who you are. And I’m really pleased that you accepted my invite, because it’s always easy to invite guests on a podcast on a show, and always compliment and sell and say you’re doing a great job. It’s outstanding, your book is great, and so on. It’s something that I am doing, and I liked it. I liked it seeks community. However, I really wanted to have you on my show, because I think it’s also important to get an overview and not somebody that is always following the same flow as all the others. And therefore we will have a discussion outside of customer experience to try to really understand what Alex is thinking about the customer experience landscape.
Alex Mead 1:21
And I respect that a lot. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me, because I know my opinion is slightly different to others. So I appreciate the offer very much. Thank you.
Gregorio Uglioni 1:29
Yes, but we cannot preach that we like diversity without not really leaving that and therefore I invited to you. But before we start discussing Alex, could you please introduce yourself?
Alex Mead 1:40
Okay, so I’m Alex Mead. I’m getting far too old or the untold, a lot younger than my actual age. So I won’t reveal that. I used to play football, I wanted to play for Southampton. I sang in a band, I still sing in a band, I thought I was born oh, I want to be in YouTube. Somehow I ended up being doing custom experience. So many years ago, I was a contact center agent with a headset on I’ve done all the jobs from the lower level to the mid middle level to the senior level. And now I am I work in CX but I’m not a practitioner or consultant, I literally am hired by companies to be in charge of all the people that handle CX and we’ll obviously discuss what CX means. Typically the the board, the CEO would say like, you’re in charge of our customer, whatever, please make it better. You know, it’s so badly broken, or we just want to make more money. And that’s what I do. So clearly, we all have theory, but I have to deliver on the theory. So that’s what I do. And I find myself. People say, Alex, God, your energy Jesus, and I can’t turn it off. It’s like there’s an inbuilt thing in me that just wants to constantly give every customer the best possible experience, which means I’m forever going to be frustrated because that’s not possible. Of course.
Gregorio Uglioni 2:57
That’s a great introduction. I hope that it will not be frustrated by this discussion. But let’s the game start. Welcome to my pitch. And the first question I would ask you is, what’s your view on the actual customer experience landscape?
Alex Mead 3:12
Okay, so yeah, that’s a simple question, but quite a complicated one. So first of all, what is customer experience, and I won’t give along, to me, it’s two very separate things. And I’ve made a lot of noise about this, I think maybe five, even 10 years ago, the customer experience movement really grew. And customer experience before that, before that term came about there was customer service that was brand and marketing those operations logistics are the usual aspects of a company operations, just to meet customer experience is made up of two very distinctly different things. And one of them I think, is going really well the other is going really badly. So the one that’s going really well is the brand and marketing aspects of customer experience. Now you can sign in, you can see augmented reality that personalization of offers, and clearly with Coronavirus, you don’t physically see things. There’s a lot of digital interactions. And if you have questions about buying something or personalizing offers that really is getting very good you sign in now the offers are really slick and easy. But the other aspect, but customer service experience is a lot of people think customer service experiences only I’ve got a complaint no to me customer service experience is still every part of the customer lifecycle. So hey, you’ve sent me this lovely personalized offer for these Adidas trainers. I like the fact you knew I’d like those. But I want to know, do you have them in a different color or a different size? Or if I ordered them now can you guarantee delivery in three days? You really cannot ask that question and then you’ve ordered them. That’s so it has to Newsela they’re stuck in the world of logistics. I can’t see the tracking hasn’t updated or they arrive and they don’t fit or there’s something wrong with the packaging. That word of customer service experience is not improving at all from what I’m seeing And the reason it’s not improving is it’s still got old school mentality. It’s, we have call center cues. We have web chat, we have even speech recognition or customers just want to go to their mobile device, scan the QR code of the box, they’ve just received, press a button that says, hey, I want to return it. That’s so far away from where we are now. Or hey, guys, it’s come in blue, I thought it was purple, can you send me purple, they don’t want to sit in an IVR queue, they don’t want to spend 10 minutes on the chat, they want to go down, you deal with it. So customer service experience is bad because it’s even in its current guys, it’s tough. We see in call center queues, the chat agent asks us for our order number when he should already know it. But so that’s bad, but where we should be we’re nowhere near that. That’s my view on it. So great for brand and marketing experience. And one of the contentious points is a lot of CX people talk about journey mapping voice of the customer, I get all that completely. But it’s really in the the brand and marketing side of things, their thinking journey map the voice of the customer, so you can give them the best offers at the best time. It’s not looking at their customer journey when they want they have an issue or concern. And that to me is the bit that is the most broken part.
Gregorio Uglioni 6:11
Thank you honest, I think we could have a podcast only on this question. But as a matter of fact that if you on this show, I think you are also sharing with me in the pre discussion, a short example where you were that you were discussing with a big, big company, perhaps do you want to share it with us?
Alex Mead 6:29
Absolutely. Well, the planet’s most customer centric company, according to their blurb, and there’s a river in South America with their name on it. So there’s a clue there. But um, yeah, I’ve always had issues with Amazon and domestically, when I lived in the UK, I’ve been in Middle East for two and a half years now. Your order is wrong, it’s damaged, you can return it in a day, you get a refund, which was kind of that get out close. But I always sometimes felt okay, a refund alone. That’s not actually solving the emotional side of things. And they may even give you a five to pack 10 pound credit. But if I’ve ordered something, it’s either first specific personal need, and sometimes I need that to make this thing work. So yeah, you give me a refund. That’s three more days. I can’t get my big 75 inch TV to work now because the adapter hasn’t arrived or it’s damaged. But also what the story I shared with you is now I’m overseas I still order from Amazon, there’s not an Amazon in Bahrain. So it’s either Amazon, Dubai, UK or US typically I order and UK is still the easiest and the best price. But I’ve ordered from Amazon warehouse twice in the last two weeks, and I’ve never I don’t think I’ll use Amazon warehouse again. So Amazon warehouse is like the eBay version of Amazon is returned items that are refurbished and re sent out. But the description just says this is a brand new item the packaging may be opened. Well, like two weeks ago I ordered a replacement shaver head for Philips shaver. It’s the wrong shaver head doesn’t even fit, but it’s in the right box. So clearly, some customer has switched it and returned it. And it was used it had hairs in it My God. So that’s not very nice. And then this weekend, I ordered a an apple original leather watch strap to go on my Apple Watch seven, and I opened the box I could see straight away that doesn’t look like an original. It’s a copy strap. And I’ve had that confirmed by an Apple Store. So in two weeks, I’ve received a shaved head. That is not the way shaved head has been used. It’s not it’s in the wrong box, and a fake Apple watch strap. This is from Amazon, we can say their name. So we all appreciate things go wrong. But after the chat session, all they’ve said is we’re really sorry about that we can arrange a return or replacement for you. Well, that’s that was your default position that made you amazing. But what about the fact I now have a raise that I can’t use for two weeks. And I’ve got a watch strap that I actually ordered for a gift for someone for today that I can’t give to them. And they don’t ever even think about that. And you you sort of Intuit Well, I’m really sorry. Yeah, sure, I’m happy, you’re going to help me with a return and the refund. But this has happened twice. And what they always say is, I’m sorry, we will pass that to the appropriate department to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I know of course, is nothing going to happen to prevent it ever happening again. But also the culture of your company now is clearly stuck in the way that made Amazon big and actually think if they don’t start adapting and changing the way that they help customers out. Other companies will catch them up a bit in fact I hope at least so yeah, it’s it’s the emotional side of it that that really emotional intelligence aspect there. There’s literally agents have scripts to say I’m really sorry, we’ll pass it to the appropriate department rather than Alex Carter. I’m really sorry. That must be so bad. We’ve let you down. Here’s some money gone by some in a store around the corner. Wow, wouldn’t that be cool? But they don’t think like that clearly.
Gregorio Uglioni 9:48
I think what you’re saying it makes totally sense and allow myself to make a short example or comparison. You are spreading a lot of energy about customer experience and we relieve feel that you are emotionally involved, you are a fan of customer experience. This is my definition of yourself after this five or 10 minutes that discussing, you are really completely emotionally involved. And therefore, it’s really important to understand also also reward you. And now you spoke about bad service or broken service independent from which company, but do you have a definition of service excellence?
Alex Mead 10:27
Absolutely, yes. So I came up with the framework. I joined up parcel logistics company over a decade ago now. 11 years ago, actually, they were delivering half a million parcels a day. And we had 100,000 phone calls in a day to say, Where’s my parcel? Something’s gone wrong. So when in fact, we knew something was patently broken. And my original remit was fixed the call centers, Alex? Well, the call centers are clearly not the problem. There’s something before that. So we spent a year and a half doing so many things. We were the first company, actually to allow you to track your parcel and be told your paths will be there between one and 2pm. And it always kind of driven by by my customer service, strategy. But we came up with a very simple mechanism. We want every customer’s question to be epic, easy, personalized, intuitive, and contextual. So easy when I joined, and it is an off the shelf thing that actually applies to every company, I’ll see that there’s, you put your own flavor on it, but easy basically means, okay, let me talk to you on the channel, I want to talk to you so I’m in an app, let me talk on the app or actually want to phone you make that easy, or web child’s social media, whatever. Personalized is. Okay, as I start to talk to you, Hey, Alex, good to see you. Again. We can see last week, we delivered a password for you, we can see you have a parcel due for delivery today. So that personalized, and an intuitive is app, we can see your contacting us. And we can see we told you we deliver your parcel by 11am is now 3pm. So we can probably Intuit that’s probably why you’re contacting us. And then contextual is the most, the biggest failure in all of this. Oh, Alex, I can actually see you’ve ordered an anniversary gift. So the context for that being late is probably much stronger than the context of a pair of socks, you know, so. So we came up with this vision we want everything to everything needs to be at least examined against those four pillars easy, personalized, intuitive, and contextual. And when we are assessed every process, they all failed on all four customers were sitting in call center queues for two hours, they couldn’t contact us online. There was no personalization, we had no idea where they’re likely to be contacting us. We didn’t look at their parcel delivery status. We just said, Hey, why are you calling or getting in touch? And there was no context whatsoever? So yeah, and that I apply now on airlines in bottles of whiskey in banking. Every time I think, okay, you can’t always deliver epic, but you least have to consider it. And if you say okay, we can’t personalize it in that situation. Here’s why we’ve made a conscious decision. That’s fine. So epic estimate is my tick list.
Gregorio Uglioni 13:03
That’s, that’s really interesting and easy to remember, epic. It’s Is this the role of customer experience professionals to design create and deliver epic experience? Or what’s the role of six professional from your point of view?
Alex Mead 13:17
Yeah, again, it goes back to my earlier point is what is a CX professional. So I would love that, actually. And I’m often seen as critical, or most of the CX influences, I actually just think they’re talking about different things. So I look at their background or a lot of great people. And I think when they as I said, they don’t really think about the contact center, the web chat, the the parcel delivery situation, the integration of social media, they think about other things, journey mapping voice of a customer analytics insight, which I’ll just as important for CX. So I think it’s the role of whoever is in charge of customer service experience in the organization. And one of the failures is, they used to be 10 years ago, a role of VP of customer service customer service director, it was clear they were responsible for talking to customers and dealing with the issues. As I said earlier, the customer experience role has kind of diluted down, take an eye off the ball of that. And now we have chief customer officers. And in theory, that should be their purpose, but the majority like 95% Plus, they have marketing backgrounds. So they’re not going to be the ones driving epic customer service experience. They’re going to be driving their equivalent of epic marketing experiences. So yeah, but in every role, I do the firt. The toughest part is establishing the landscape. What am I looking after? What is in my mandate, and what isn’t, and often will end up changing very much the role they thought they were home beforehand. So whoever is in charge of the contact center should also be the chart person in charge of the digital interaction channels, the app design, whatever and also in charge of the CRM strategy, and then they can basically have the insight to say right, these are why customers have issues. This is why it’s not easy, personalized, intuitively textual, here’s how we can do move to improve it. But actually, a lot of customer service experience people, they don’t understand the tech, or the or that digital. So that’s when they would use the rest of the peers. But I seriously think that the starting point should be right. If I was a customer, that’s what Amazings would look like to me. And you don’t need to be a McKinsey Harvard expert, you just need to think like a customer. And as you say, some of us have it as a natural inbuilt thing. And I think that’s what needs to happen. And actually, just to be just to clarify, if you want to use journey mapping to do that, that’s fine. Actually, no, I haven’t this journey mapping, but journey map, the customer service experience, not the customer experience, because that gets confused, I think,
Gregorio Uglioni 15:45
I think on customer journeys, there are also two levels of different discussion. One level is what you put on, let’s say PowerPoint, and what you really deliver to the customer. And I think the big difference that I am seeing in the market, it’s on the on the paper, every journey is is perfect in its working, and then the customer start going through this journey, and the first issues start popping up. And therefore I fully understand what you’re saying. And I can and I want also to confirm what you’re saying, I think people need to work and to see our Customer Service is working is leaving that people are there. And they’re trying to do their best every day, over the phone or over other channels. And it’s not from my point of view, you don’t need to be a call center agent or call center employees. But you need to take your time sit next to a call center agent and understand what their issues. I for a long time. I didn’t do that. I was not there. And when I started doing that, I learned what what are the issues. And were really to focus on first because we always pick and you mentioned that to create a new and new digital channel. It’s a chatbot. It’s, it’s an app or something like that. But let’s fix first really the issues that people that customer and employees eff with the existing technology, and then focus on the next one. I really like your way of speaking about customer service and starting from the service of the customer. And perhaps from your point of view, or to be a bit critic in the discussion. What skills are missing to the customer experience professional? Or to the customer experience? Community?
Alex Mead 17:30
Yeah, so for me, it’s frustrating because I have to me, it’s so obvious. And I went on when I look at these executive assessments, Alex, you always think further ahead than other people. So you just got to take people on the journey. But I look at something and I straightaway thing. Let’s work on the premise 95%, probably more of customers, they have an issue, they want to help themselves. That’s the first thing and there’s a lot of people say oh, now they’d like to talk to agents, maybe in a very few rare cases they want to. So I’m on the Amazon App. Oh, look, it’s been it’s been an issue, let me press a button and tell you why it is you deal with it, I don’t want to be in a web chat queue. And if you give me a bit of money on top, that’s great. But at least I’ve now arranged the return. So the skill is missing is literally let’s start with the start of the journey. And often you’ll find in a company, there’s a CX practitioner, or whatever, there’s a different digital team has a different app team. So the skill I think you need is just someone who starts with okay. 99% or 95% plus of customer journeys start with going to a customer service style solution channel. And that should be app. So you’re on Twitter, you’re on Facebook, you’re on Instagram, how can you give an answer there, or you’ve got an app or website and literally starts with okay, and I’ve got a very simple framework that starts with I don’t think in any company, don’t ever more than six to eight primary reasons why customer want to get in touch. So what I would do, and this is a skill that you don’t, I don’t think you get trained in CCSP all these things is something that just think, in a much simpler way. So the first thing is what is your question? Take a generic example. Is your question about a brand new order, an order you’ve already made or an order you’ve received and you want to return w the three examples, okay? It’s about a brand new audit. Click on that. These are the last five orders. You’ve been browsing Alex is about one of those. Yes, this one Ching. Okay, what is it about that audit? I want to order it but I want to know if it will definitely be here by four o’clock tomorrow. So think like that. And then you think about okay, is it about an order you’ve already made? You haven’t yet received as this one? Okay. You don’t have to type in your order number it shows you the orders you made. Click on that one. Alex, we can see there’s been a carrier delay, which is that awful. There’s been a carrier delay. That’s what they used to say to customers. So here’s a different message. There’s been an issue with that delivery. We can’t now guarantee it for tomorrow. So here are the options cancel it or we’ll give you some money gone by in a physical store. And then the third one is okay, here’s an item you’ve all already ordered. And you say you’ve received it, and there’s an issue with it. You click on that, what is your issue? And let’s think of that there will be no more than four or five issues. Don’t like it, it’s broken. It’s not as described, it doesn’t fit on either color, you know. And so just think in terms of very simple icons, and you don’t need to have chat channels designed, okay, you’re in a chat session, if you just do it in a very simple, modern thinking way. So okay, your question about a new order an order, you’ve already made an order you’ve made it you’re not happy with. So the order, so the part of the journey, and then show the customer the ability to do something with that. And then at any stage, if self help doesn’t work out, okay, you want to talk to an agent now or talk to a human being, first is button. Now choose your channel, we’re not going to force you down a channel. And you know what that can include, request a callback, because what you’ve done when you’ve gotten to these, okay, it’s about this order, it’s about this thing, behind the scenes, you need to use all the data. So I know this Gregorio. He’s a high value customer. And actually, he’s a very big social influencer. So we better check carefully. Nothing is just ordered, we can see it’s high value. So actually, he can request a callback right now he doesn’t even need to go to AI. But if it’s if it’s Alex, and Alex is one of those pain in the ass customers, he’s got no social presence. He’s ordered a pair of socks, just pushing down the Self Help channel. And it actually has to start with how should the window dressing appear? But then the biggest part of the skill is, okay, how do we do that? Because you get so many colder sets. So you need to understand how we can deliver a multi channel routing engine where we can integrate twitter, facebook, whatsapp into our CRM strategy, how do we understand CRM workflow? How do we link that to an ERP system that can tell us that parcels there with that carrier, and literally, it’s, I know it because because I’ve only ever done it for far too many years now. But I think I would love that to be a separate bunch of skills taught in themselves. And I’ve seen some of the CCSP classes and courses and they don’t really talk about any of that stuff at all they allude to it. So I think that’s a skill, almost like go back to customer service experience, and take that as a separate skill set in its entirety. because not a lot of what I’ve just described, I don’t hear in any of the customer experience stuff.
Gregorio Uglioni 22:14
I understand what what you’re saying, but I’m allowing myself from coming from another point of view, you mentioned this twice or three times the 6pm versus six, but I think the six payer is giving a framework that that offer five pillars Now, earlier was where six pillars and explain our big ol complex customer experience, it is I am seeing this, these pillars from another point of view, it means test that helps people that are not in customer service or not in customer experience since year like you are like older people and grief and give a broader view because for some sea levels, customer experience is only voice of the customer because as a company, they speak only about voice of the customer, or in other companies, they speak only about branding, and therefore for them customer experiences, we have good brands. And therefore I think they give at least a simple framework that you can remember also as a C level that customer experience is a bit more. On the other side, I found a way you cannot stop at this super high level, let’s say the helicopter helicopter view, but you need to deep dive and then find out really what cost what are the customer experience expectation, customer dreams, customer customer needs, but at least it gives this overarching overview.
Unknown Speaker 23:38
And you know why? So again, Colin Shaw did a cheeky debate, Alex says we should ban all CCXP I didn’t say that until we did it just to get an argument going. We’re actually taking the football analogy. I think it would be wonderful if so I used to play football a good standard and I want to be a football manager. Right first Alex you need to do some courses. So that’s the first CCXP today, but one day workshop, you pass the theory. So you’ve got now the learner badge. In fact, you’re now accredited just to do more. You now need to spend one year with a league to football club, working in their changing minds working with a nutritionist working with their physicals, you know the tacticians and then you come back and then you do another set of accreditations and then you go to Ligue one and you go on and and finally, when you get to stage seven, you’re now a Premier League manager. Wow. And who wants to well, people feel sorry for them they get paid 10 million pounds a year they get fired, who cares? Don’t feel bad for them. But anyway, to get to that level, you have to have done the theory of practical the theory the practical across all the aspects and all these coaching badges. And I think the worry is and I’ve seen most literally advertised for customer experience directors here in the Middle East and it’s not just the Middle East in Asia to applicants must have CCXP only they will be considered on like, what you’re saying some guy who’s got not me personally, but I know people fit seniors rarely proven great customer experience credibility, who are told they have to get a CCXP? So, absolutely, if you’re taking someone new or really ambitious, who wants to be in a leadership position, and sometimes it’s an absolutely great starting position, and I don’t dispute that, but sometimes it’s seen as a badge of something is not it doesn’t make you a CX expert in any shape or form. And that’s my concern.
Gregorio Uglioni 25:23
Now, and and I really understand that it’s important to have the practical side because it’s really doing stuff. But you can also get get some theory. And it totally makes sense. I was reading this morning in the newspaper that Mr. Carlo Ancelotti perhaps you know him. He won more than 21 trophy, three Champions League now he needs to do a course to keep the capability to be a trainer.
Alex Mead 25:52
That’s exactly right. And actually another point and we all know that big CX influence the name just five or six or, and sometimes it’s still turning out stories about the Ritz Carlton and the Hyatt and Disney. I’m like, that was 20 years ago, dude. You know, I don’t hear you talking about I’m on Twitter, I want to get my customer service question answered on Twitter, Twitter, you know that I don’t hear them thinking anything more modern. But hey, these guys, I respect them completely. But you’ve got to keep relevant. That’s the thing.
Gregorio Uglioni 26:21
You spoke about the past. And I think I would like to go in the future together with you. Let’s quickly close the eyes for one second, and we are in 2030. It means 10 years. And we’re what we are speaking about customer experience and customer service experience?
Unknown Speaker 26:36
yet, I don’t think there’ll be a word service or experience, they’ll just be customer be a new word that we haven’t thought of yet. customer, customer. If Customer Access, they’ll go back to simple word, customer solutioning. That’s it customer solution. I like that a customer will need a solution. So as I said earlier, I’ve been in China when I saw WeChat. And the whole world of WeChat is amazing. And I was working for a whiskey company and we created packaging on the whiskey bottles with QR codes. People walking along the airport, if they see a bottle they’re interested in, they scan the QR code, it pops up in the app in an app, hey, we can see you’re an existing customer. Did you know this whiskey will go perfectly with a bottle you ordered two years ago, and you said you’d like that based on our feedback. Or the customers don’t scan a QR code. They haven’t had to go into a chat or even a social media app session or call center and say, Hey, I saw some whiskey in the airport. You know, it’s so it’s gonna be so much. It shouldn’t even have to type where and the thing that actually I’m trying to pioneer my current role is natural language interfaces. So clearly, they’ve been around a long while they’re still still not not great. But in 8-10 years time, you should be able to go, Hey, Company X, that thing I ordered? I don’t like the color of it. Can you tell me how it can get picked up in half and half of my office, that’s going to be the future. You’re not going to be sitting in queues, you’re not going to be in chat sessions. Even in the last 10 years, you know, a minute, I think when I was younger, I’d be happy to wait two minutes, I wasn’t stressed. Now if I’m waiting 20 seconds on it. Imagine our kids, oh my god, two seconds, forget it. I’m out of here. So everything will be instant. And the instant will be based on AI data analytics. So Gregorio, we can see you’re here, here’s, here’s what we think you need blam. But if we want tell us and it’ll be Yeah, I won’t want it. I want a blue one to go with the red one, please done. So it’s going to be so far advanced in where we are now. But I do remember talking about that eight years ago, so maybe it still won’t be here in 2030. But that’s what I think we need to get to
Gregorio Uglioni 28:43
know about what you’re saying. And to support what you’re saying is my son is four years old, and the is able to speak with Alexa, but it’s not yet able to use iPad and iPhones. These days, this will be the interface they will they will use because now I can make light in the in the dining room, he can stop and start radio and all this stuff. And therefore it totally makes sense.
Alex Mead 29:07
Hey, Alexa, order me a new iPad and the CoreOS account.
Gregorio Uglioni 29:12
But Alex will pay for that.
Alex Mead 29:15
Yeah, if you had great I would authenticate and Alex would approve done.
Gregorio Uglioni 29:21
Thank you very much for the present joke by side. We are going to the last part of our discussion the last part of our match, of our game. Alex, my question is, I know that you are really an expert. Is there a book that you would like to suggest to the audience that helped during your career or helped as a human being?
Unknown Speaker 29:44
You know I’ve read so many CX books I can’t think of one stands out here’s a different answer I love because I don’t like to think about CX or practice. I like to think about human beings. So I love I love “The Stand” by Stephen King an amazing book. It’s a fiction book is about a virus. It’s like people should read the stand now it’s a global pandemic that suddenly started the killed it killed 90% of the world 90 So it’s not as bad as Coronavirus, but as a fight against good and evil and I love I love you can picture the characters is so well written it’s 1000 Plus pages. It’s a some amazing book. It’s got global pandemic, it’s got good and evil a guy who’s a demon, God at the end saves the only won’t give you the ending. So yeah. But you know, there’s not but but I’ve met people I’ve met CEOs who have mentored me really well. There’s a guy Adam Brown, who was the CEO of Bellrock Technology was amazing. I literally, when he asked me to help with the logistics issue that I spoke about, he backed me fully, but he mentored me, Alex, you can’t tell our CFO, there’s bad morale, and we have too many unhappy customers, you need to tell him how much you can save him by improving morale, and how much you can retain customer acquisition by doing this stuff. So really, I when I have these late night glasses of brandy in rooms after conferences, that’s when you get the biggest nuggets. And there’s many, many great people I can name.
Gregorio Uglioni 31:10
Sure. Thank you very much, Alex. And if somebody would speak to you, because you are also great name customer experience. What’s the best way to contact you?
Unknown Speaker 31:20
Our LinkedIn I’m there but my email address, it’s no secret. It’s on LinkedIn. Is Alex Mead A L E X M E A D @sky.com.
Gregorio Uglioni 31:28
Thank you very much. And they’re real last question. It’s Alex’s golden nugget. It’s something that we discussed or something new, that you would like to leave to the audience.
Alex Mead 31:39
Yeah. I think I think you touched on it earlier, just think like a customer. So go through all the stages, but then stand alongside the people, they have to interact with those customers. So call center agent, you get in a room of 20 call center agents or customer service people, anyone who are even delivery drivers, Hey, what are the issues? They will give you so many nuggets? And they will say, Yeah, I raised it three years ago and never happened? That’s the most common thing and you’ll find out okay. It’s not just the idea of just finding out what had didn’t happen last time. And that’s something that often you see, every call center agent will tell you 50 Things that are terrible. And then you say okay, did you hear about it before? Yeah, we tried it three years ago, nobody did anything about it. You didn’t have to follow that Why didn’t get fixed before and they’ll always be a blocker. That’s a nonsensical blocker. Because if a call center agent or delivery driver is telling you something is really bad and frustrating for them. It’s bad and frustrating for customers and it’s costing the business money.
Gregorio Uglioni 32:38
Thank you very much. I’m not commenting that because that was Alex golden nugget. It was a great pleasure. I think Alex score at least a great a great, Patrick, thank you very much for your time, Alex back. Here we go. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And also to the audience. I hope that you enjoyed the discussion as much as I did. We spoke together with Alex Smith. It was really a great, great pleasure. Thank you very much. Speak to you soon. Bye. Bye.
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