CXChronicles Podcast 186 with Jay Baer, Founder of Convince & Convert

Hey CX Nation,

In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #186  we welcomed Jay Baer, Founder of Convince and Convert based in Bloomington, IN.

Jay is a Marketing & CX expert + Hall of Fame Keynote speaker who has written countless books (including Hug Your Haters) & speaks all over the world about how business leaders can improve their customer experiences & success.

He also has an awesome twice monthly newsletter the Baer Facts: on marketing, CX, tequila and other life hacks. 

I had the privilege of spending time with Jay and several other CX/CS thought leaders in Philadelphia a few years ago at an event for Comcast and we've remained connected ever since, he's hands down one of the best in the business & we were thrilled to have him on the podcast.
 
In this episode, Jay and Adrian chat through how he has tackled The Four CX Pillars: Team,  Tools, Process & Feedback throughout his career + shares some of the tips & tricks that have worked for him across his own customer focused business leader journey.

**Episode #186 Highlight Reel:**

1. Learning from 8 generations of entrepreneurialism in the Baer family
2. Why modern consumers demand that the companies they support are fast
3. In down economies CX, Customer Success , & Retention becomes paramount 
4. Why most customers expect a response from a contact us form within a day
5. Leveraging your employee feedback to attract and retain world class talent
 
Huge thanks to Jay for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring his work and efforts in pushing the customer experience and marketing success space into the future.

Click here to learn more about Jay Baer

Click here to learn more about The Time To Win

If you enjoy The CXChronicles Podcast, please stop by your favorite podcast player and leave us a review today. This is the easiest way that we can find new listeners, guests and future business leaders to join our customer focused community!

And be sure to grab a copy of our book "The Four CX Pillars To Grow Your Business Now" available on Amazon +  check out the CXChronicles Youtube channel to see all of our customer focused business leader video content + our past podcast episodes!

Reach out to CXC at INFO@cxchronicles.com for more information about how we can help your business make customer happiness a habit!

Transcript

CXC 186 with Jay Baer, Founder of Convince & Convert.mp4

Speaker 1 (00:00:02) - All right guys. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the CX Chronicles podcast. Super excited today, guys. We have Jay Bayer joining the show. Jay, say hello to the CX Nation, my friend. 

Speaker 2 (00:00:11) - What is up nation? It is me, Jay Bayer. Fantastic to be back on the show, my friend. Let's do it. 

Speaker 1 (00:00:17) - All right. So guys, Jay has, uh, a wealth of experience. A wealth of knowledge. Um, many of you have probably seen him speak before, and Jay does some incredible things in the customer experience, customer success space. So, Jay, before we get into the, the pillars and all the fun stuff, why don't you take a couple minutes, set the stage for the CX Nation. How did you get into this space, man? How did you get to, to where you are today with the books and the content and the speaking and all the incredible work that you and your team did, um, at convincing how'd you get into this space? Man, 

Speaker 2 (00:00:47) - That's a tricky question. Uh, we could probably do a whole episode on that, but, you know, I got into, uh, marketing and CX and business, uh, really almost accidentally. I started off in politics, then went from politics to, uh, kind of public relations and comms. I was the spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. And I decided after a very short period of time of like four months that I did not wanna give anymore tours of prisons. And at that same time, some friends of mine from University, University of Arizona Gold Wildcat had started the very first internet company in the history of the state of Arizona. Now, this is back in 1993. This is way before Google. This is way before we even had a browser. This is long before there was a Yahoo. This was, you know, when, when the internet, as we know, is primarily text based. 

Speaker 2 (00:01:36) - But I was like, I don't even know what you're talking about when you say the word internet, but I'm not gonna give another tour of this prison. So I walked in and I quit my job and I literally, this is true, went to work for an internet company having never been on the internet, because in those days the internet was like AOL and Comper and Prodigy. This idea being on the open internet was, was a crazy scary place. So I was there at the very, very beginning and rode that train all the way and have started a series of global consulting firms to help, uh, businesses, uh, mostly, uh, large companies in both B2B and b2c, gain and keep more customers. So we started off really on the marketing side. And then for the last decade, uh, my team and I worked a lot in customer service and customer experience because ultimately as, uh, as we all know, especially the CX Nation customer experience is marketing, right? There's no point being good at marketing if you don't have the CX to back it up and vice versa. So it was a very natural move to, to get into cx. And now I'm fortunate enough to have written a lot of books about it and gave a lot of speeches about it, as you mentioned, and, and to have a brand new research report on the topic as well. 

Speaker 1 (00:02:45) - That's awesome, Jay. So first of all, thank you for sharing that. And I think, I mean, all the work you do is incredible, right? You, you, you shine all these different lights on the customer, you shine all these different lights on the journey, how people need to think about building an incredible customer experience. What was it in your early career that made you wanna like get laser focused on, on the CX and the CS piece? Cause you have this incredible, um, this area that you focus on. You mentioned some of the large companies you do work for. Yeah. What, what, what, what drew you to that? What there's all these different ways you can get into cx. What, what, what really drew you into it? 

Speaker 2 (00:03:18) - Two things. Ironically, while I've, I've worked as a consultant, as an advisor, mostly to large brands. My, my background is in, in small business. I am a seventh generation entrepreneur. My family has been self-employed since like the 1850s. That's awesome. And we were always in like the retail business. My son is now an eighth generation entrepreneur. And so this idea that like making sure that customers were, were satisfied beyond that delighted, beyond that engaging in proactive word of mouth, that that is the flywheel that that powers successful small businesses. Yep. Like that was just osmosis for me. Like I grew up in that world. Uh, my dad and my grandfather or even my great-grandfather. So, so it was just sort of to me my entire life. And then when I was, let's see, 15, my very first job ever, uh, was at a very successful McDonald's franchise in Lake Havasu City, Arizona where I grew up. 

Speaker 2 (00:04:10) - It's one of the busiest McDonald's in the country. And we had an amazing owner of that franchise who just taught me a lot, even at a very young age, about the power of customer service and customer satisfaction. And how even in a franchise environment where sometimes consumer expectations are not super high, you can still differentiate. Like people would literally say, Wow, this is the best McDonald's I've ever been to. Right? And, and in a business like that, where like the idea is that it's kind of interchangeable. Yep. To be noticeably better is, is a really high barta clear. And it just had a huge impact on me. And that was, you know, that was almost 40 years ago. 

Speaker 1 (00:04:42) - It's amazing how many people actually get into their CX and CS through food and beverage, right? Or through like some of these, some, some of these different walks. Um, Jay, I want to talk about some of the awesome work you've done with the time to win report and, and, and we'll lead that into some of the pillars, but.

Speaker 1 (00:04:57) - Sure. Talk about what you and your team just did. Cause I think number one, this is super cool in terms of just getting more information about what people want, what are consumers thinking about. Yeah. Lots of things have changed over the last few years. Right. Um, talk about how you started to put this report together, and definitely let's talk about some of the, some of the things that you guys found out. 

Speaker 2 (00:05:15) - Yeah. I'm a huge believer in first party research to begin with, right? I do a lot of research studies because if, if there's a question that I don't know the answer to, I wanna go find out and, and not just do a Google search. I wanna go find out, find out by doing custom comprehensive university level first party research. Because if I don't know the answer, then certainly my clients don't know the answer. Uh, and in this case, the, the question was this, we've all gone through this pandemic, right? Which had huge impacts on, on what we do, why we do it, how we do it, from where we do it. And so my, my question was what impact does that have on the elements of cx? Are, are some things more important than before? Other things less important than before? I think anecdotally they answer seem to be yes, but I wanted to put a fine point on it. 

Speaker 2 (00:06:01) - So what we discovered in this report, the time to win, is that time and how we use it is more important to consumers than ever before, certainly since before the pandemic. And here's why. We've all been confronted with a lot of drama. I think that's a, an understatement. And in a scenario like that where everything is hard, what we really cherish is, is easy. Yeah. One of the things the pandemic did for some more than others, I mean lots of people lost loved ones and, and, and friends, et cetera, is it really made us realize that, that each of us on this planet has 1,440 minutes a day. It doesn't matter if your Elon Musk or somebody experiencing homelessness, it doesn't matter if you're in the US or Venezuela, It doesn't matter if you're a grandfather or a grandson, it doesn't matter. We all have exactly this amount of time. 

Speaker 2 (00:06:49) - Truly time is the only resource on this planet that we share equally, and we always will. And, and we realize now that like, man, I can't waste that time. And, and all these trends like quiet, quitting and work from home and, um, the great resignation and, and leisure travel, which is that blending of business and leisure travel, all of those things are actually byproducts of the same macro trend, which is that we care about time and how we spend it more than ever. Yep. And this has massive implications for every business because today, if you interact with a business and it takes longer than you think it should, it feels like, and the study bears this out mathematically, it feels like somebody is stealing time from you. And if it takes less to interact with a business than you do expect, it feels like you've been given a gift, a gift of time. And so, while of course, speed has always been an important component of cx, what this research indicates is that it is now perhaps the most important element of cx. Like we've all heard the old saw, Right? Good, fast, cheap, picky too. 

Speaker 1 (00:07:58) - Yep. Yep. 

Speaker 2 (00:07:59) - I will tell you this fast needs to be one of them. And now you decide whether you wanna be fast and good or fast and cheap, but you damn well better be fast. 

Speaker 1 (00:08:09) - Yep. I think, I think, I mean, look, there's companies like Amazon and um, uh, Instacart and Uber, right? All these companies have changed the way people expect their time to be respected, number one. But also almost this easiness piece. Jay, people expect fast, easy right now, like on demand. And that's not gonna change. That's gonna, if anything, every company in the world has to figure out the speed part. Right. Um, how do you think the companies are gonna figure out how to kind of figure out which, which other pieces they prioritize though, if speed is number one, does it depend on industry? Does it depend on team? Does it depend on products or services? How do you think companies and future leaders are gonna figure out how they sort of prioritize what comes next? 

Speaker 2 (00:08:52) - Yeah, so I wanna make sure that I explain to CX Nation that my recommendation is not that you just be as fast as possible. Certainly I would suggest that you probably can and should be faster than you are. Definitely. And the research shows that that will benefit you from a customer attitude standpoint, a customer revenue standpoint, and a customer loyalty standpoint. There are manifest positive business outcomes when you get faster. However, you don't wanna just be as fast as possible because being fast at all costs actually costs. You don't want always to be. So like you ever go to a Mexican restaurant and you order enchiladas and then you turn around and like 90 seconds later they bring you the enchiladas and you're like, Bro, <laugh>, like, how, how is 

Speaker 1 (00:09:48) - This? Where did they come from? <laugh>, 

Speaker 2 (00:09:50) - Somebody send those back and you're just waiting for the next person to order them. Like, no way can you make enchiladas that fast. Yeah. So there are scenarios where you don't want, you don't want the fastest tattoo artist in town typically.

Speaker 2 (00:10:00) - Yeah, you don't want the fastest eye surgeon. Like there are scenarios where too much speed actually decays consumer confidence. So the real answer to the question is that every business needs to figure out what I call the right now. And the right now is the perfect amount of elapsed time. Yep. In every customer interaction throughout the customer journey. So it's, the right now is essentially, there's some more nuance to this, but for conversational purposes, the right now is slightly faster than your customers expect and anticipate. So that that amount of time the right now differs by, by industry, differs by business, even differs by market position. If you're a brand like Lemonade, right? Which built a whole company on approving insurance claims in three seconds, they're right now is like three seconds, right? Sure. Well, Allstate, Allstate needs to be fast, but they don't gotta be that fast, right? So the key is, is not just like, you know, put all your resources into being fast. The key is to do the kind of analysis to say, All right, what is the right now for our business that each step of the CX journey and then execute on that. 

Speaker 1 (00:11:16) - Yep. I mean, is so, so for our listeners to get started, you think it's a product of basically look at your industry, figure out the norms, figure out baselines, f figure out averages, and then make sure that you're, you're building to those sets, right? Like you have to, you have to figure out, 

Speaker 2 (00:11:32) - I don't even think about industry. I think about your own customers, even more so than industry. And, and I'll tell you this, start this way. It is shocking to me, and I'm sure you see this in your work as well, how many companies, including large companies that have the resources to solve for it, if you say, what's the average amount of time it takes a customer to do? Doesn't matter. Blank. Yep. They don't know. They don't know. They don't know. Um, or, or they may have some edge cases or some anecdotes or they say, Well, usually it takes this amount of time, but sometimes it takes this amount of, other amount of time it doesn't, Like they just don't know. So the first thing you gotta do is, well, how long does it actually take you? Yeah. To do all, all these things through the customer journey. And then I would say, All right, let's get faster at some of those and then do some pre and post research to see what the impact is on customer loyalty, nps, et cetera, etcetera. 

Speaker 1 (00:12:27) - Yep. I love that. Jay, I'd love to, I'd love to pick your brain on team. You've worked with all these different teams, all these different industries, all these different companies. Um, and then with this report, I'm thinking about this report too, this, cuz there's awesome stuff in here. What are some of the changes you've been seeing, uh, with, with, with the customers that you're working with on the team front? I, you see a lot of reports about teams possibly shrinking in size or, or, or normalizing. Um, and you see there's all these different changes with, with, with the news, right? We have all this different, uh, these views on what's gonna happen with our economy, what's gonna happen with the market. I'd love for you to spend a couple minutes talking about what are some of the, some of the teams that you work with right now. What are some of like the biggest things that you see them focusing on as they're moving into 2023? And what are some of the big areas that you're seeing really kind of be front and center as far as how companies are going to invest in teams in this new year? I'd love just to kind of hear some of the things that you're seeing with, uh, with the team front. 

Speaker 2 (00:13:24) - Yeah. Having, having been doing this so long, I've, I've operated as a consultant through multiple economic cycles. And one thing that is almost always true is that in a down economy, what happens is that most businesses, most of the time pull back on customer acquisition and they buttress customer retention, right? So obviously as CX professionals, everybody listening goes that it actually makes a lot more sense to focus on customer retention and, and churn reduction all the time. But as a practical matter, CMOs don't get promoted and don't get bonuses based on churn reduction. Right? They get bonus and promoted based on net new customers, Right? So in good economic times, the pendulum always swings towards sales, marketing, advertising, customer acquisition, and, and customer retention. While important becomes less important because you're like, Yeah, if those people leave, we'll just replace 'em with more customers. Everybody's got money to spend. 

Speaker 2 (00:14:24) - Yep. In a down economy, typically the pendulum swings back the other way. And marketing budgets are typically the first budget cut. Uh, and so those teams typically shrink. But the one thing you don't wanna do is, is anger or upset, uh, your existing customers because now you've got a a double problem, right? You've got people leaving and you don't have the budget to go replace them. So you have a huge problem. So generally speaking, what happens and, and we'll see, right? This, this, the current, you know, down economy is more rumored than actual at this juncture. Yeah. Um, but, you know, other than, other than public markets, we'll see. So I think it's actually a great time. I, if I was, if I was going to wager, uh, from a team standpoint, I think the next 24 months is gonna be great times for CX and CS professionals. Agreed. It's gonna be harder, harder times for marketing professionals. That's typically what I've seen in my career. 

Speaker 1 (00:15:13) - Yep. So I think you're absolutely right where retention is going to be, uh, key and profitability, right? So like, companies are gonna be focused on being profitable more than ever over the next few years. 

Speaker 2 (00:15:23) - Yeah. Especially in tech, right? SA because the next round, the retina amount of financing is probably not there. 

Speaker 1 (00:15:28) - Hundred percent. So I think that's gonna be huge. I also think product, right? So more, more companies realize that the sooner you get CX and CS in front of product or connected to it, you're going to be improving your product. You'll improve the things that you could automate, you'll improve feature sets, right? So I think that for cs, man, we're in a, we're in a very interesting time as far as what our value is to the, Well, 

Speaker 2 (00:15:50) - I think VOC too, right? Because I was talking to a buddy just last night who is a high level executive of a, of a tech SAS platform, and they're having a board meeting. And the board said, Look, the next year or two, our entire growth strategy is based on product led growth. It it's based on delivering a better product and, and upselling and cross-selling our current customers and, and acquiring new customers just by having a better mouth strap. Well, to me that's can, that can be a, a hard road, but it's an impossible road if you don't actually know what customers want, right? So the, the, the organizations and the teams that can actually gather really deep and rich and insightful customer intelligence through customer interactions, CXCs, and then feed that back into product marketing and product development, that's absolutely, uh, critical. So if, if you're looking for more resources for your team, uh, I would certainly think about, Hey, let's find a way to learn more from our current customers. 

Speaker 2 (00:16:50) - What, what do they want? What would they buy? What would they pay? Uh, and one thing they'll definitely pay for, as we found out in this research, is they will definitely pay for you to be faster. Uh, it's, it's like half of all of your customers would pay 50% more for no waiting. Wow. And it's one of these, one of the recommendations I have in this research is that every business should do like what Disney does with the fast Pass. So now I think they would call it Lightning Lane. Yeah. This lightning lane now. But this idea that, hey, pay us more and you don't have to wait. Like every business, like every business should do that. Um, and, and because the, the research is very clear that customers will pay for it. 

Speaker 1 (00:17:28) - That makes sense. Um, Jay, what about tools? So how does, how does technology play into this? I mean, do you see, uh, any trends or any themes around what companies are thinking about with their investment in software or their investment in industry based SAS solutions? How, how does tools roll up into all this? How, how will it kind of figure into the team part? 

Speaker 2 (00:17:47) - Yeah, I mean, certainly on the, on the speed side, tools are, are increasingly a big part of it, especially conversational commerce and chatbots and, and, you know, all of that kind of thing. Because, uh, if, if you can scrape off the easy questions, you know, through an intelligent chat bot that it makes it easier for the rest of the team. And, you know, we all, we all know how that works. So that's a big part of it. I I'm also really bullish on text messaging as a customer communication vehicle. I think we'll see a lot of growth there. I will say this though, um, as it relates to teams, what happens a lot of times, especially in an uncertain economy, is that leaders say, Well, geez, if we just get this platform, then maybe we could have three fewer people on our team and we've got a hiring freeze. Or maybe I've been instructed to reduce headcount or whatever. And, and that always seems to make sense on paper. But in practice, I find it doesn't usually make sense because typically you buy the package of software, but then somebody's gotta actually champion it, know it, implement it, support it. And, and I've said this for well over a decade, it's always about the wizard. It's never about the wand. 

Speaker 1 (00:19:01) - Yep. And 

Speaker 2 (00:19:02) - So often, whether it's marketing or ad tech or MarTech or CX or sales tech, so many leaders are seduced by a presentation or a demo, and then when they actually buy the thing and implement it, it doesn't necessarily do all the things they thought it would or you can't implement it how you wanted to. And, and so this like promised headcount saving sometimes doesn't materialize. So I, I just, I always caution leaders and clients like, Look, yes, technology can be a massive assistant to your organization, but you gotta have the right people, first and foremost. 

Speaker 1 (00:19:39) - A hundred percent agree. And most companies also, Jay, they, they go through that phase again and again and again. And now they have too big of a tech stack. Right. They have too many tools. There's too many solutions, also very expensive, very, very expensive. 

Speaker 2 (00:19:52) - They don't interoperate, they don't, 

Speaker 1 (00:19:54) - I was gonna say back to your voc point, then you have all this scattered data. It's all over the place. It's not central.

Speaker 1 (00:20:00) - Hard to see one picture. And honestly, that's a huge, huge opportunity for cost savings right there. Also, the ex side man being, being in a company where you have 15 tools and you, and you have to know all the tools, that can be hard for some people, right? That can be difficult. So I think you're right. Where it's like, um, optimization, utilization, ongoing training for, for your team and, and your staff is like imperative, uh, in the world that we're in today, plus these, these tools are as great as they are. A lot of them do the same things, right? They do the same types of things. So like taking a minute to understand which tools, which one or two tools can do 90% of the work that you need, that's a great place to start. Even if you're a huge company. Even, even if it's consolidating, aggregating down to, to one tool, that's a, a huge opportunity for people, uh, as we move into the new year. 

Speaker 2 (00:20:47) - No question. Hard to do, hard to do, and hard to do fast. 

Speaker 1 (00:20:51) - A lot. Hard to, Yeah. Uh, Jay, what about process? I'd love to love to pick your, your brain process. So every company has a different way of building playbooks, building SOPs. Um, what are some of the things that you've seen with, with, with your cu your customers over the years? Um, either areas where you've seen people really kind of do an incredible job of building their process or building their intelligence and knowledge. Um, I'd love to hear you kind of talk about some of the things that you've seen around, uh, the process Pillar. 

Speaker 2 (00:21:19) - It, it's interesting to me how much better companies have gotten in the last two or three years about when they're sort of doing customer journey mapping and, and those kind of process architectures about really understanding the A, that journey's not linear, and b, it it truly is coming from everywhere, right? It, it, it really is, uh, an omnichannel experience, and that's not news to anyone. But, but actually documenting that and showing all the nodes and saying, Look, we don't really know where these customers are coming from and, and we certainly can't say they're gonna come from this exact landing page or this Google search. It is a bunch of different things. And, and what I'd like about that though, from a process standpoint is that when you admit to yourself, and it does require that kinda admission, that you don't actually know where the customer's coming from and you cannot control the customer journey, right? 

Speaker 2 (00:22:08) - When you're like, Look, we can't control this. What that means, and this is what I think the best companies do from a process standpoint, when you admit that you can't control it, what it requires you to do is to be good everywhere, right? When you think you control the customer journey and you're like, Okay, we're gonna have this process where we kind of shunt people here, and then we kind of nudge 'em over there, and then we kinda lead 'em down here. What you're trying to do is optimize your preferred journey, the journey that the company prefers. Yep. 

Speaker 2 (00:22:42) - And that almost never works, right? And because the customer's free to do a bunch of other things that are not your preferred path. Yep. So the better approach is to say, Look, you know what? There's a bunch of different ways that they're gonna head and we can't force them in any direction. And so the solution is we've just gotta be good everywhere. And, and actually in this research, it's funny how, you know, even something as, as prosaic and old schools like a contact us form, what the data show is that, is that a preponderance of customers expect a reply from a contact us forum in less than a day. What most businesses don't respond to a contact us forum that fast. Why? Because they think only a customer that doesn't have an urgent issue would use one. They have engineered their process to be like, Well, look, if they're gonna use a contact us form, that's not that important to them. So it's not important to us. So we can go ahead and get back to them later. Yep. And the reality is, you, you've gotta be good everywhere and you certainly gotta be fast everywhere. 

Speaker 1 (00:23:43) - Yep. So, couple things. You mentioned the, the journey map. I think that many customer focused business leaders undervalue how it gives you a blueprint for number one, how expansive the journey is, and then number two, how many different teams and departments have have a responsibility to owning it, right? Like there is absolutely so many different places where people are interacting with customers, interacting with your, with your back office staff. Like you have to have the time to map this stuff, get the blueprint, and then start to start to tee up your CTAs from that, right? And then you can also see, um, how you're going to bridge some of these, these, uh, silos, right? Especially with bigger companies, people, it, it's very hard to know what, what, what teammates in other departments are doing. If you don't have a VOC task force or a group that's actually taking the time to break this stuff down, understand it, uh, figure out, uh, you know, the cost to action that can actually improve the business, improve the journey. And I think for smaller companies, that is one of their biggest advantages. And they're not all doing it. They're not, they're not taking the time to do this stuff. So I think that that's a huge opportunity for our listeners to, to take away on.

Speaker 2 (00:24:48) - Um, well one of the things you learn when you, when you do that kind of work is that everybody in the organization, and, and I don't say that, just throwing that word out, I mean, everybody has a role to play in the customer experience because the customer facing people who are literally interacting with customers are also interacting with 3, 6 3200 other colleagues in the organization who have to do their jobs well and fast so that the people who ultimately are interacting with customers can do their job well and fast. I mean, so much has to go right before the person who talks to the customer can talk to the customer. And I think that gets overlooked. I do so much speaking on, on CX and occasionally, not very often now, but occasionally someone in the kind of, in the prep call before I, uh, go on stage will say, Well, Jay, you know, a lot of people in the room don't work with customers directly. How does this speech apply to them? Like, well, cuz they work with the people who work with the customers directly. Right, Exactly. Uh, you know, it's the, it's the ex precedes cx uh, you know, scenario. But when you, when you, when you kind of create that very large amorphous journey, that starts to become more clear. Cause you're like, well, wait a second, this, this, this, this, this, and this. Have to go right internally before we even get to a working website or whatever the situation 

Speaker 1 (00:26:13) - Is. Yep. Yep. Uh, Jay, what about the fourth pillar feedback? So this one I'm, I'm excited to ask you about, you have spent a ton of time collecting feedback, uh, assessing feedback, learning from it. What, uh, what are some of the biggest thi two, two questions for you. Number one, what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned around the entire feedback management piece in your career? And then the, the second part is just, I'd love for you to share a story on some of the, some of the best, most helpful feedback that you've actually been a part of in terms of thinking about how to innovate, how to expand a business, how to improve a business, talk about feedback. 

Speaker 2 (00:26:50) - Well, I I will say this just in terms of our moment in time, customer attitudes and beliefs have changed a lot over the last two or three years. Certainly they want you to be faster, and we talk about that in the research, but there's a lot of other things that have changed as well. Um, for example, some Accenture, uh, research shows that some 50% of customers would change banks if they didn't feel like their bank was aligned with the same kind of social causes that the customer cared about. The last time you changed banks was, but it's a giant hassle, right? And half it's, it's bad news, right? So half of all customers would change banks based on social, um, alignment. That's not a, a thing that would've been true, you know, five years ago, right? So customer attitudes have changed a lot. And if you haven't done the kind of rich, detailed feedback, mining and even, you know, customer research to figure out what it is that your customers believe and want today, you don't have any customer research. You're literally flying blind. And I will say this categorically, I believe the businesses that will be the most successful over the next 12 to 18 months are the businesses that understand their customers the best. 

Speaker 1 (00:28:02) - Yep. Yep. I complet 

Speaker 2 (00:28:03) - Agree. And, and so, you know, you, you just have to be a part of that. Now from a, from a feedback standpoint, and I wrote a whole book called called Hug your Haters, which is all about negative feedback and, and how to handle it. And now that I'm doing a lot more consumer content, uh, as a tequila reviewer, a tequila educator, I've got hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram who are delighted to tell me how much they don't like my tequila reviews. From time to time, I've a lot more firsthand, a lot more firsthand, uh, uh, experience with, uh, with customer feedback on the consumer level. I gotta tell you some of those TikTok contents or, uh, comments or like the old YouTube comments, it's a little, um, it's a little bit of scary neighborhoods sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes a little bit of scary neighborhood. Wait, 

Speaker 1 (00:28:42) - Jay, what about, what about the employee feedback side? What, what are some of the things you're seeing some of the best companies do with with leveraging their actual employee feedback? 

Speaker 2 (00:28:50) - Well, I mean, what's so fascinating is, well, lemme say it this way. Companies have to change the way they value employee feedback because employee feedback is now increasingly public in a way that consumer feedback was becoming public when I wrote the hugger haters book. So the big lesson in that book is that customer service is a spectator sport. Now. Well now that's same also true for employee feedback. You're thinking about Glassdoor and, and that entire category of, um, of, of place, which really drives becoming an employer choice, drives your ability to acquire the labor that you need to run a successful business.

Speaker 2 (00:29:34) - And so you would think that companies would, would really spend more time, money, effort on gathering employee feedback and actually doing something about it. I mean, there's organizations like, like Comcast who you and I have worked with before who it's unbelievable the amount of of effort they put into employee feedback collection and then actually acting upon it. However, here's my concern, okay? If the economy does turn, we're already seeing a bunch of layoffs, uh, in in tech categories and other categories, presumably to come. If the economy does turn and it becomes a labor market that favors the employer, I wonder whether that trend towards really actively soliciting and acting upon employee feedback will continue. Because, because when you've got a lot more people, when employment, when unemployment goes up and you've got a lot more job seekers and you have jobs, it's no longer mathematically necessary for employers to care that much about employee sentiment, frankly. And that sounds probably draconian, but I'm just telling you other way it works, right? Yep. So we'll see what happens. Um, I'm a little concerned actually that this is gonna become a, a tough, tough market for, for job seekers. And then it's like, you want a job, take or leave it, man. Yep. 

Speaker 1 (00:30:54) - Yep. So I, so, great point. But I think, I think people will still care. I really do. I think even the people who are in the best position to get those jobs, they're going to care. They're gonna wanna know that they're working at a business that actually takes the time to think about that. They invest in that, they care about it, right? And I also do think that more, I know customer focused business leaders, they already know that the ex and the CX goes along together, right? So that, it's interesting to see how companies continue to invest in that space for, uh, in the future. Um, 

Speaker 2 (00:31:25) - We talking about, talk about technology and platform earlier, that's one area where I think we, we, we've still got some room to move. There's a lot of employee feedback, kind of collection mechanism, tech platforms. Yep. Uh, I think there's still some innovation to, to come in that regard and I'm excited to see where that heads 

Speaker 1 (00:31:41) - A hundred percent. So wait, Jay, you mentioned the tequila. Please tell, talk more about this. So where can people find out more about some of the content that you're doing recently? Oh, man. And talk about a curve ball for some of your, some of your past content. How did you pick the tequila part, man? 

Speaker 2 (00:31:55) - Well, so, so I'm, I spent 40 years in Arizona, went to school in Tucson, and you're the Mexican border. I've been to Mexico many, many, many times. And probably 25 years or so I started getting into mescal and, and tequila. Um, just cause I think it's a fascinating spirit that historically has been underappreciated and, um, unlike a lot of other spirits, you know, you can have a tequila that tastes this way or this other way, or this other way or this other way, which are not, don't taste really the same at all. Just the nature of aging, et cetera. Anyway, I've always been a fan, uh, and I decided, uh, uh, relatively recently to actually kind of put that into practice. And over the last few years, I've, I've, uh, studied a lot, um, and visited a lot of distilleries in Mexico, and I've been certified by the Mexican government in tequila Culture pass passed multiple other tequila Somalia, it's called Catora, uh, Tequila Somalia tests and certifications. 

Speaker 2 (00:32:44) - And so I, I actually know a lot about it, and so I'm like, right, let me teach people. So I started creating a series of videos on Instagram and TikTok, I'm Tequila J bearer in those places. Uh, and, and it ended up, uh, sort of taking off. So now I am, I am, uh, arguably depend on how you count, but arguably the, the number two non-celebrity, uh, tequila influencer in the world and, and have hundreds of thousands of followers. That's ironically, and this part is a little bit shameful. I have far more followers for my, you know, six month old tequila account than I do for my 10 year old customer experience account. But I think the lesson here, the lesson here is that people like to drink more than they like to learn about cx. 

Speaker 1 (00:33:22) - I agree with that. I agree with that. 

Speaker 2 (00:33:23) - Totally. Got it. Totally got it. But it's four videos a week, and I'm not kidding. You get a lot, I get a lot of, a lot of comments. People love it, right? I get, I get dms like literally on the hour people say, Oh, thanks for the recommendations. You really change the way I think about tequila, blah, blah, blah. It's very gratifying. But then you also get like, you know, a lot of other like, I disagree or you're dumb, or whatever. So it's just kinda fun, 

Speaker 1 (00:33:44) - <laugh>. I love it, man. Wait, so and then where can people find out about the, the time to win? 

Speaker 2 (00:33:49) - Um, so there's a whole website for which includes videos, infographics, key stats, and then obviously the whole report, which is 25 pages. There's it's Shockful of Greatness. Uh, huge lessons for, for all businesses. The time to win.com, the time to win.com. 

Speaker 1 (00:34:06) - I love it. Well, j ba thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your, uh, your story, your experiences. Pleasure is always my friend. I look forward to Thank you pattern what you said 

Speaker 2 (00:34:14) - Next time with tequila. Right? Let's just hundred 

Speaker 1 (00:34:16) - Percent with tequila next, Right? Let's do it. Thanks Jay.