CXChronicles Podcast 185 with Celia Fleischaker, CMO at Verint

Hey CX Nation,

In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #185  we welcomed Celia Fleischaker, Chief Marketing Officer at Verint based in New York.

Verint® helps the world’s most iconic brands build enduring customer relationships by connecting work, data, and experiences across the enterprise.

Verint helps its customers navigate and thrive as they adapt to the future of work, eliminate the inefficiencies created by organizational and data silos, and consistently deliver differentiated experiences at scale across every interaction.
 
In this episode, Celia and Adrian chat through how she has tackled The Four CX Pillars: Team,  Tools, Process & Feedback throughout her career + shares some of the tips & tricks that have worked for her across her own customer focused business leader journey.

**Episode #185 Highlight Reel:**

1. The role that marketing plays in building your customer experiences
2. Finding time to meet in person with your customers & team (outside of remote)
3. Understanding what content & campaigns your customers engage with
4. Leveraging community to empower users + share tribal knowledge 
5.  Why feedback is a gift that helps to drive growth & innovation
 
Huge thanks to Celia for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring her work and efforts in pushing the customer communication and success optimization space into the future.

Click here to learn more about Celia Fleischaker

Click here to learn more about Verint

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

The CXChronicles Podcast #185 with Celia Fleischaker, Chief Marketing Officer at Verint  

Adrian (00:00:11) - All right guys. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the CX Chronicles podcast. Super, super excited for today's show, guys. We have an awesome guest, Celia Fly Shaker, CMO at Vern is joining the show. Celia, why don't you say hello to the CX Nation, 

Celia (00:00:24) - Sir. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here. 

Adrian (00:00:28) - A hundred percent. So guys, I'm pumped for today's show. We have all these different types of customer focused business leaders that are coming on and they're talking about the ways that they, um, really kind of build and, and, and lead and, and push through, uh, what we call the four CX pillars, right? Team tools, process, and feedback. And Celia is gonna be here today, kinda sharing a different lens, right, as a chief marketing officer, Celia. Um, I'm really excited to kind of hear number one just starting off the show as we start off all these episodes with your own background. But I'm definitely interested in hearing how a chief marketer thinks about the four pillars. Cause I think it's gonna give a whole different type of lens to some of the stuff that we talk about every single week. So why don't you set the stage for us for, for Alia? Give us a sense for how you got into the position that you're at today, leading marketing at an awesome company like Vern. 

Celia (00:01:10) - Yeah, I'm thrilled to be a ver in this role and, you know, a long time coming, right? I've been in a number of companies. I, I kind of grew up in my career at Epicor. It's an enterprise resource planning or e r p company. I spent 20 or so years there. Um, it's fun. I joined there as part of a startup and, um, then just really worked through by the time I became cmo. Um, we were about a billion in revenue, so it's a nice long journey and just really exciting. Got to work in a lot of different areas of marketing as part of that. Started the career in product marketing, worked in field in, in corporate. Uh, and then I, I spent some time as CMO at a public company called pros. They're a configure price quote, a C P Q vendor and really had, had a great time there and then just got the opportunity to come to Baron. And what I love about Baron is it's this cool combination where I get to do marketing for customer engagement. And I think customer engagement is such a crossover with marketing in general. Absolutely. And so it's a nice way to kind of get to focus on things I love about marketing. 

Adrian (00:02:24) - That's super cool. So number one, you've had, um, some pretty incredible experiences and you're right, I'm glad that you just called this right outta the gates, which is like, for so many marketers, these folks are constantly thinking about not only, um, the customer journey, but you're thinking about how do people become aware of a, of a business or a product or a service. How do people even think about considering whether it's something they wanna learn about? How do people even know that it's that it exists in the first place, right? So it's like literally like, like, like some of the, some of the type of work that you have done in your career, it is literally starting off that customer journey, right? It's literally getting it started. So it's gonna be fun to kind of hear, um, some of the different things that you've kind of seen in your, in your own, uh, career For sure. 

Celia (00:03:07) - Sounds good. 

Adrian (00:03:09) - So I, I, I so see, I'd love to just learn a little bit more about the actual team at Veron. Um, spend some time talking about, um, not only, not only your team specifically, but give us a sense for some of the different types of roles and some of the different types of teams and departments that are building the variant team today. 

Celia (00:03:26) - Yeah, and I love this, my favorite part of the four pillars, right? The team. It's definitely a key ingredient there. Um, and we've, we've got a great one here, um, from a a team perspective and the roles that we think about. You've got your corporate organization that's focused on communications and brands. You've got operations in there, which is, is such a cool field that's evolved over the last decade. Um, content digital, which is, you know, a really key channel for us. And then you've got our field organization that's really aligned with those regions, how we're gonna build that pipeline out to support those sales objectives. And then we have what we call our good market team, which is really, I like to describe it as product marketing on steroids. This is the group that's really leading the charge about where we're gonna go with our solutions, how we're gonna take them to market, and how we're gonna be competitive. 

Adrian (00:04:25) - I love it. I mean, so number one, you've got a nice full, uh, slate of different, uh, subject matter expertise areas, but also you guys have a big team at fair, right? Si. So, um, you have folks I imagine all spread all over the, all over the world. I know that there's almost 40 offices. Um, what is the team or what's the, the group that you're spending the, the most of your time with today? Which, which of some of the different departments or the faces are you really kind of leading the charge on the day-to-day with Fair? 

Celia (00:04:52) - Yeah, so it's, it's kind of fun and you know, marketing's changed a lot. We're spending a lot of time with the product groups defining, cuz it's, it.

Celia (00:05:01) - The, the product and how that's differentiated, how it competes in the market is so important. So we spend a lot of time with them, a lot of time with the sales organization. And I'd say one of the newer groups that we're spending a lot of time with is hr. Cuz we spend a lot of time, especially recently on our employer brand and how we're, you know, driving a better experience for our own employees. And so there's a lot of partnership there with the HR team on that front. 

Adrian (00:05:28) - But I love that. I think it's funny, like one of the things that I've been noticing more and more and more, Celia, some of the folks that are coming on the show, there is just such, uh, an effort or so much energy spent around thinking about product market fit. But also, uh, it's, it's how are you going to build a, a best in class product or a best in class service that not only does, uh, a a tremendous amount of good for whatever ICP you're teeing up your business, Right? All of us have different ideal customer profiles that we're going after, but we're, we're, we're living in a world where there's just so much constant distraction and there's so many different pieces of information coming at us and there's so many different shiny things that we can chase. Um, you've got our job, right? I think what, what a lot of people don't realize is for senior marketers, a big companies, it's hard to think about a way that you can capture attention, find that product market fit, and then constantly be delivering a message to kind of get more folks to put into the top of the funnel to keep having the conversation about Barrett. 

Adrian (00:06:28) - So I, I just wanted to call that out, but I guess there's 

Celia (00:06:31) - A, a reason that the CMO is the shortest tenure and the C-suite <laugh>. 

Adrian (00:06:36) - I like that. Wait a minute. I like that you call this up cause that's what I'm getting at. This is a hard job and stuff changes every single day. So how, how have you sort of managed, you've spent, you've had several CMO rows, how have you sort of managed that or what's your, what's been some of your, your playbook tricks to kind of think about the way that you can kind of remain focused or find your major objectives or key results that you're kind of focused on with your marketing team? 

Celia (00:06:58) - I think you balance the pressure with the passion, right? Like, I love it. Like I've grown up in it. It's always what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. And I think the people that are in leadership roles, whether you're a director or a CMO, whatever you're doing- if you're passionate about it, you deal with that pressure because you kind of thrive on it. You're right, it's constantly changing. You're trying to stay up with the evolving market, what your customers need,  stay differentiated  and so I think you just- I think the people that are in marketing in general must be pretty passionate about it and like it, and it's one of those things- I think the reason I like it, it is constantly evolving and changing. And to me is I wanna be in a field like that. It's different year to year. Yeah, 

Adrian (00:07:52) - A hundred percent. And you're right, things are changing so quickly in, in today's world and today's business climate that you're right. Staying ahead, staying in front of some of the things that are capturing people's attention, staying in front of some of the ways that some companies are doing a phenomenal job of telling stories or, or, or actually giving people an idea of why they need to be drawn in. That's fun. That's some of the fun part of like the creative side of business and, uh, it must be a lot of fun for you and your, your, your team at Faron to really kind be leading the charge in that every single day. 

Celia (00:08:19) - I know, and I'm seeing my team this week, I'm so excited they're gonna be in town in person. We're still working right? In a hybrid fashion and we're, we're pretty decentralized. I think a lot of people became that way over the last couple years. And I think to get in the room and still have that opportunity debate and challenge about what we wanna do next year is, is fun. 

Adrian (00:08:38) - It's good. That's awesome. I guys, I told, I told, see when we were getting ready for today's show, I was like, call that out because there's so many people that I talk to who are still living in the new norm of the remote world, right? And that's awesome. That's great. So many of us love this and so many of us loves the flexibility that comes with it, or even just the ability to really, truly have focus times where we can get our jobs done, deal, deal with whatever we need to do with our customers. But man, I've had more and more conversations, uh, with folks that, that kind of called out with CEL just said, which is, I wish I had more time with my team, or I wish I had more in-person time with my customers. And guys, I think we're, we're definitely getting to a place and a space in the world where that's becoming more of a normal feeling. So it's awesome that you guys finally get to some team time and I'm sure that some of that collaborative energy plus just general fun of hanging out with other humans and not just being on like the, the boxes, not 

Celia (00:09:25) - Just with 

Adrian (00:09:26) - My dog again, it's gonna be good for you guys. Celia. 

Celia (00:09:29) - Awesome. 

Adrian (00:09:30) - So, um, Celia, I'd love before we, before we move forward, um, you know, as, as you know, every single week we're trying to get ideas from, from, from customer focused business leaders that are coming on the show about things that in their own journey they've really kind of taken with them and they've sort of added into their playbook. If there was like one or two things that you've picked up along your own journey when it comes to team building, it's because you've built a bunch of different marketing teams and you've worked at a bunch of different types of companies. Some really big ones too,

Adrian (00:09:56) - What would be like the one or, or, or, or two calls to action that you'd want our listeners to be thinking about for how, how you, as you built your team out of Barrett, what were some things that you had to remain focused on, or what was like one or two key activities or key actions that really helped you build the type of team that you wanted to build and scale into the future as you help to grow Barrett? 

Celia (00:10:16) - I think one of the things that there's, uh, I've learned as, and I've been so fortunate to have these amazing teams that each company that I've been with, and in, in some cases it's, you know, it was a team I grew up with and spent 15 years with, and then I would go to pros or come to Vert and, and it, all of a sudden you're with this new team and you recognize, you find great talent. Like there is great talent in every organization. And, and, and typically to build that team, there's this great, I call it a blending. So you take the talent that's there and, and figure out what you need from that talent and then what you may need from the outside. But I, I think people like never underestimate what's in place, uh, when you walk into an organization and take the time to really understand the talent that exists, the challenge that you have ahead of you, and then, and then matching that up. And it, it's, it's usually a combination that you need some talent from the outside and then you can blend it with the talent you have already existing at that organization. But I've just been amazed, like I'll be at a company and be like, this is the best team ever. And then you go to the next company like, Man, these people are great too. And you, you, you find the right mix of talent in each organization and it's, it's typically not gonna be what you had before and it works out really well. 

Adrian (00:11:39) - I love that. I think number one, you, you're spot on where just the ability to create a, an environment where incredible employees and incredible, uh, folks in your staff are able to learn from each other, teach each other, uh, rub off some of the good and the bad, and sometimes even stuff that needs to be improved to public. You, you, you now that it's really, really important to find, uh, a place where you can build that type of environment. I think the other thing too is this, with all of the stuff that's going on in the world right now, right? We've, we've, we've, we've all read every single article about the great resignation. We've all saw all of these different bits of information around people moving from one employer to the next. But there's gonna be a huge focus from, from, from tomorrow's leading companies on employee experience and employee engagement. And the, the part that you just said there, Sierra, that I, I, i, I am so, so much aligned with, is like, people are gonna wanna work with other awesome, smart A players. That's what's gonna wanna happen. And companies that can foster that type of a, uh, of a space or that type of a culture or, or almost demand it, they're gonna kill it. They're gonna go way, way above and way beyond. And they're really gonna find it as, as unique competitive advantage to scale into the future with. 

Celia (00:12:49) - Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. I mean that, yeah, you wanna, that raises your game, right? The more talent you're working alongside, the better you become as a person. And thats how you measure that talent, I think is important. Cuz it's definitely ability to do the work, but how they get the job  done and how fun- you know, I wanna- I spend a lot of time at work. You do too, right? I wanna work with a team that likes what they do and they like each other. 

Adrian (00:13:16) - Yep. A hundred percent agree. Couldn't, couldn't agree anymore. Um, Celia, I'd love to dive into the second CX pillar of tools. And I know we could talk, we could talk, we could go on and on and on about this cuz this is a big part of what Variant does and you guys have built some incredible products and some incredible solutions. But I'd love for you to spend a couple minutes talking about tools, um, and let's break this up into two camps, uh, number one, cause I do want you to highlight, talk about some of the things that you and your team are building at Vera and some of the tools that you guys are, are really kind of putting into the hands of your customers. And then I definitely wanna save a couple minutes at the end for, I'd love to hear some of the tools that your team has been leveraging to build your operation, to build your department, and just to build all of the capabilities that you have. Spend a few minutes talking about Jules. 

Celia (00:13:58) - Yeah, so I mean, from a tools perspective at State, like we are in that unique situation where some of what we deliver as a company to our customers is also what we use to help drive marketing and customer experience. Um, and so we've, we've got, you know, the full stack that, that we're working on and, and really our focus over the last year has been looking at that stack and understanding what it's delivering for us. So we put a ton of work into analytics and seeing what's performing, how it's performing, what we need to shift and make changes to, to drive a better impact, whether it's with the pipeline or it could be with customer experience as a whole. And, um, and technology is really the key driver for us there. I mean is everyone's being asked to do more and be more effective with the same number of resources. And, and so we're finding that the technology is the key to making that happen and, and making sure we're running, um, the right programs, the right, um, initiatives. And it, it's been, it's been fun to, to focus in on visibility that we have to what we're doing and making, being a lot more transparent about how things are performing, giving people access to that across marketing, but in other areas too. And then driving improvement. 

Adrian (00:15:30) - I, I mean the, the, the piece that you mentioned about visibility and transparency, it almost feels like one of the things that co did for so many entrepreneurs and so many business leaders and so many executive teams is it almost forced that Celia, right? It almost like forced the need for increasing visibility and making sure that everyone, both, both, I think customers and employees had like a view on stuff they had like, um, visibility and they sort of had a sense for what, not only what the overall mission is, but like what's the general direction where different companies are, are, are really kind of moving. And I think, um, we live in an interesting world now where customers, um, they want to have some form of a purpose to what type of companies they're supporting. And then they also, they want to know that there's sort of some alignment with some of the brands and the logos and the businesses that they do business with. 

Adrian (00:16:17) - And I, and I think that that, that you're right where, uh, technology and tools is the easiest place to give us some of that. Um, before we jump off this, I want to get in, you guys have some super cool products that you guys are building. So there's, there's forecasting scheduling, there's realtime work, there's engagement, orchestration, experience management. We could, like, there's a laundry list. I'd love for you to spend a few minutes just talking about some of the major tools that, um, the Vern, um, team is really seeing its customers engage the most with. 

Celia (00:16:46) - Yeah. So I'll talk at a high level about what we do and then I'll talk specifically at the marketing end of it for, for your audience too, um, and customer experience. But Mar in general, Vern, if you think about a company and how you engage with your customers. So how do I, um, I might talk with them through a contact center. I might have an IVA or a chat bot on my website. I, you know, I've got messaging channels that, that they might be going through. All of those levels of engagement, all those different channels. Vern is working those. So we're, um, behind that whole workforce that might be in that contact center, helping them do that job efficiently. We're delivering them the knowledge and helping them interact, coaching that agent as they talk with you on the call about why you're trying to return this, you know, pair of pants. It didn't work out. 

Adrian (00:17:39) - Wait, that happens. <laugh> obviously a lot of the listeners listening to this show, they've got all sorts of fun conversations that every single solitary day that they're driving, it 

Celia (00:17:49) - Gives me such a new perspective when I call into the company and I'm talking to them and I'm like, I know what tools you have available, <laugh>, you can help me here. Um, and then, but digital channels, you've seen them skyrocket. So like customers like a GNC who saw, um, all their, you know, traffic shift outta stores into these digital channels and how they managed that flow and improved it throughout the pandemic that if we're engaging with a customer, that's where variant can help you. And it's not just on the actual engagement, it's on measuring that engagement. So what is the customer experience? Did they think it was good? How did they feel about it? We, we do that measurement and feedback as well. 

Adrian (00:18:30) - That's awesome. And that's one of the, and this is hard, this is one of the hardest parts too with the business is growing, is having some type of technology or having some type of solution that allows for that for not only just that comprehension and the visibility that we talked about, but just tracking the stuff or having somebody that's measuring it or managing it so that you can actually go back and draw from it in the future. 

Celia (00:18:51) - And I think it's a business of any size. If you're a startup, if you're multiple millions public, whatever you are, this is an area where there's so much richness in figuring out how you get that feedback. And there are so many ways to do it today, whether it a simple survey or it could be an automated solution. It could be listening and using analytics. It just depends on what's right for your business. But the amount that that gives you back in terms of where you can improve and how you're doing product direction as you're tr you know, there, there's so much richness in that data. 

Adrian (00:19:30) - I, I couldn't agree more. And it's, it's, it's funny when you think about, um, smaller emerging companies that are just mm-hmm <affirmative> just starting to find their niche. They're just starting to find their product market fit. They're just starting to maybe get their first swath of customers. Some of that, that, that um, that, that detail that you just talked about, that is literally where you're going to be able to find areas that are right for innovation, right for optimization. Maybe you start to hear, this is where you start to get some of your first sets of feedback around the things that customers love or the things.

Adrian (00:20:00) - Or even just things that our customers are like, Hey, when are you guys gonna build this? Or when are you gonna start to offer that? Those are the types of pieces of information that, like, this is why CX and Cs or customer experience, customer success, even even marketing experience. This is why this stuff is so related to modern selling, right, Celia? This is exactly why. It helps span the fla, the flames of, of growth and of innovation and of really growing the business and the bottom line. 

Celia (00:20:24) - And it's where you started developing those advocates, right? From a brand perspective, more and more today, the advocacy that what your customers think is intertwined with your brand. So not only are you getting that feedback to know where I need to improve or where I need to maybe mature my product, you also might uncover people that are really happy or really like what you're doing and, and you start building those advocates. And that, that's, that's gold, right? 

Adrian (00:20:50) - I, I say it all the time. It's, it's the power of the promoters. And once you start to get into the world of having like an army of promoters that are going out and telling not only the rest of the market or the rest of your potential ICPs who are probably right for whatever your product or your service is, but like, nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna push back when you have a thousand people that are giving you five star reviews. You're talking about how fantastic your business is or your product line is, or your solutions are, or your service team, right? And so it's like that's one of the, the biggest ways that you really can try to leverage CX and Cs to help fuel growth, right? 

Celia (00:21:23) - When you said reviews, and I, I love that, and we, we focused a lot on reviews, so it's not just about the feedback that they're giving you directly and privately, but there's a lot of interesting information that comes through public review sites that are available today. And, um, and it's such a great source of creating awareness and, and, and getting your, your brand a little more known, whether it's through your trust radius or D two, you know, there are a lot of opportunities out there. 

Adrian (00:21:54) - I see. I'm so glad that you brought this up because like, you're right, even if you just take a hand, like, and then the other way is you can slice and dice it, slice and dice this if you're, um, a SaaS executive team, right? Yeah. Thinking about leveraging G2 Capra, Gartner, putting in color and sentiment and details and examples of things that people, that are already your customers love about you. That's easy. And then guys, for some of our listeners that maybe, maybe, maybe you're not in a SaaS space, maybe you're building, um, maybe you're building a product or you're building some type of specific service when people can go through your Google reviews or some of your, some of your like, industry based reviews and literally see what existing customers who've already spent money and have already worked with. You are saying that's, it's literally fuel for growth. And there's so many companies tell you that don't, it's almost like they don't take time to try to curate more of that from their existing customers. And it's funny, customers are always, typically, they're way down to help with this. They want to give feedback. They'd love to do a video or do like a, some type of a short clip where you call out how they're, how they're leveraging your product and service. So such an awesome cpa right there. 

Celia (00:22:57) - There you go. Yeah. 

Adrian (00:22:59) - Um, see, I'd love to, I'd love to move forward into the, so all of these idea awesome ideas here and, and, and, and great, great, great nuggets of wisdom here. I'd love to dive into the, the third seeks pillar of process. And this is an interesting one because I think, um, you know, I, I, I know every, every business leader's got a slightly different way of kind of bringing their playbook into, into their given business or into their given team. But I'd love to kind of hear, hear you talk about how the vert team and how, how your team at Veron has really kind of managed processes. The business has grown as the team has evolved, um, whether it's ways that you guys kind of develop your living playbooks or ways that you continue to expand and adapt your knowledge base or maybe your FAQs. But I'd love to hear you spend a few minutes talking about how you guys sort of manage process inside of the variant team. 

Celia (00:23:46) - Yeah. Process is so, you know, you, I'm everyone's, I'm a process person and, and I, I think process is so important, and I think for growth companies, as you grow, it can get outta hand without that baseline process in place. And, um, and it's such a great place that people start early with process. It's so much easier down the road. Um, 

Adrian (00:24:09) - Agree, agree entirely 

Celia (00:24:11) - <laugh>, we've got, and I'm, we're not perfect, right? We've got a lot of great processes in place. We use Reich, um, to drive a lot of the big projects that we have. Um, and it's, it, it's just, it gives, it's back to that visibility and transparency, you know, the right tool. And there are a number of tools out there like that that can help you drive alignment and give people an understanding of what's happening and whether it's a simple piece of content that's getting developed, but it ends up touching five different groups before it's done to, to, we're already have the project management going on our, our user conference, it's next June, right? Like, so it's, um,

Celia (00:24:55) - I think having tools that'll enable you to create baseline and foundational processes, but then just manage those bigger projects as you go along. Cuz with marketing, nothing is typically like an overnight thing, a task one and done. It's, it's, it's so interconnected to the rest of either other parts of marketing or to the rest of the business. And so you have to have those processes locked. And you think about a product launch is probably the, just a great example of where it's so key, knowing what makes up a launch, how important a launch is, all the different facets of what goes into a, a successful product launch is where I think 

Adrian (00:25:42) - Yep. Go ahead and keep going, Celia. 

Celia (00:25:45) - Yeah. Um, I mean, I don't know what else you wanna cover here, but I, I definitely think, you know, product launch content development campaigns and, and, and certainly, I mean, we run the team here, they have a, it's defined globally what we're doing, how we're going about it, and, and that, you know, campaign plan is just locked down to that each individual task. But it's, it's great and you have to allow for flexibility, but, um, getting that process to find is so important and it, it's just, um, there's always more to do, but you can start somewhere, right? Choose, choose the area that you wanna find that process for something that you're repeating over and over, and then get, get that template ready to go. 

Adrian (00:26:34) - I, I love that. I think what, what you make me think about with that Celia too is like if you're, if you're a large company like Vern, you have thousands of people, um, you're probably gonna have multiple different types of cuts and multiple different types of sections or overview areas where a, a large business just needs to understand how other teams or other departments or other players, how do they even think about the, the, the world that's directly in front of them. That's number once. So just like chronically or documenting or just being able to, to, to, to, um, curate a, a, a bunch of content about all the things that are going on in our business. That's a huge, huge value add right there, right? Number one, right? Um, number two is so many, so many of us, right? I think it's like a natural human need or a, a natural human response. 

Adrian (00:27:19) - People like to have information that they can refer to about, about a certain area of the business. Or maybe to your point, it's a new product feature. Or especially once you start getting into like, like, like product use cases, people like having lists, checklists, They like having things that they can refer back to. Um, not just sales assets, sales, marketing assets, oper operative assets where they can literally go in and look at PDF's, living playbooks that show you like all of the different people. Like again, it comes from this world of like, we have so much stuff getting thrown at us this day and age. Yeah. That anything that we can, that we can like have to, that just helps to make a simple story. Let me reread the, the, the top things that I need to know. And then again, I think going back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier in the episode, like that is also tribal knowledge sharing right there. 

Adrian (00:28:06) - It's the easiest way that you can get people across your business to understand the different facets of what's going on. And then customers, I'm thinking about, not that we could go on and on about all the internal benefits of this, but customers need the same thing guys, right? So like if you're, if you're building a technology company or a SaaS company, or if you have some specific type of, um, uh, products that you're selling, customers like being informed and they like being educated and they, like before they make a buying decision and they pony of the buck, they wanna learn about something before they buy into it. And I think that, you know, what's so interesting about process is like every company, Celia, to your point, they're gonna capture process differently. They're gonna capture the way that you structure it, right? Some people like putting the stuff into big expansive knowledge bases. 

Adrian (00:28:49) - That's great. Some people like almost making it part of the storytelling. Maybe it's the e the way that they kind of leverage their email marketing schemes and the way that they tell stories. They'll, they'll show some of the cool stuff that they're working on or new products or new services or new features. Um, but, but this is important guys. Again, I think every company and every business. To your point, Celia, you could start simple. It could be like a one page type of checklist around the different things to know for this month. Or it could be, you know, a 50 page PDF infographic document that you share with all of your customers that gives them all the answers they need. But this, this process, um, idea is really something that I always like, kind of hearing how different people sort of think about it and, and maybe even how they have to sort of, as the business evolves, how do they constantly change and evolve the way that they're messaging some of the different process changes that are coming down the pipe, right? Internally and externally. 

Celia (00:29:37) - I like that cuz it's totally a spectrum, right? For where you are in the journey as an organization, what you need. And if, like you said, if it's a checklist all the way up to maybe you need a full community and knowledge base in front of your employees or your customers, that that's possible too. But.

Celia (00:29:53) - It's matching it up and then evolving it as you grow. 

Adrian (00:29:57) - And, and I'm glad you brought the community part up. This is gonna be something that I think like, so Celia, for our listeners, a lot of folks are, you know, they're maybe in the beginning part of building out a community or they're, they're in the very beginning part of thinking about, Okay, wait a minute, now we've got our first couple hundred or first thousand users or customers. How can we leverage these people to answer some of the common questions or to, um, share some of the common, some of the common, um, interest points so that we can get like a whole community of people talking about it. Is, is there, is there some ideas that you have around some of the work that you and the team have done at Vara around this piece that you'd like to dive into? 

Celia (00:30:33) - I won't sell a lot, but we do have an awesome community solution. So, um, <laugh> I 

Adrian (00:30:38) - Love Good talk about 

Celia (00:30:39) - It. Yeah. So we use it in two ways. Um, we use it internally with our employees to share and create the, the knowledge across the different employee pieces that we have. But then we, we have a customer and a partner community that we use at where you've got your knowledge base, you've got the information you're sharing, you've got your support plugged in there, but it is, um, people that build communities. Well, it is a way to harness the power of your, of your customers and in a good way and, and start having them peer to peer communication, right? It's not all about vendor to customer. How did those communities of customers work together to, to drive, um, ideas and information sharing and solving each other's, um, challenges is, is pretty cool cause your, your customers already have a lot in common. And so that community I think is always a really powerful aspect of how, how you can not only work directly with customers, but allow them, enable them to work together. 

Adrian (00:31:48) - I agree. It's almost like this community has become this extra layer or this extra piece of value added for a given business, right? If you can somehow, not only do you have this great product, this great service, you have this great support team, you've got all of these different folks that are thinking about how they can help your business every day, plus you add a community on the top of it. People love that stuff. And then you, and I think you're right, Celia, where it's like, um, there's something about almost like the democratization of feedback or the democratization of information. People love that stuff. People want to go, if they can go and they see in the community, there's a hundred other people talking about, you know, how feature XYZ is fantastic. You're not hearing that necessarily from a vendor sales rep or from a vendor customer success rep. 

Adrian (00:32:31) - Somebody that's, you're hearing it from other people that are using it. And honestly, some of the best communities, they give people ideas for what they can kind of bring back into their own, um, their own day to day that might make things better for, for, for their own business. And I think it's gonna be interesting to see the future of communities too. Cause I think communities, the bar keeps getting pushed up. So like I, there's some companies out there that are doing incredible things with their, with their video and community or with the forum based communication and that stuff's gold. Celia, that's gonna be like a whole other tranche of, uh, interesting data and feedback for people to kind of crack into and make sense of how they can, you know, come up with the next quarters OKRs or next quarters goals based on what the community is saying. 

Celia (00:33:11) - I think so I, I always look at it like when you would go to like this great conference and you'd come back with a million things that you wanna implement, do <laugh> your community should work that way, right? Like, you should feel that way when you leave. The community should be able to get in there, have those rich conversations and be able to bring it back. It, it should give back a lot. 

Adrian (00:33:31) - A hundred percent. Absolutely. Um, so I'd love to dive into the fourth, the fourth CX pillar of feedback. Um, and I, I say this all the time in the show guys, but like, this is one I I love hearing how different people answer this, but, so I want, I wanna hear two different parts. We'll break this question up. Uh, I'd love to kind of get some ideas and some, some stories from, from you around how you and your team have managed customer feedback at Vern. And then I'd love to, I'd love to hear you talk about some of the ways that you've been able to leverage your employee feedback, especially with the big business. Spend a few minutes talking about, about feedback. 

Celia (00:34:06) - Yeah, so one of, if we we're thinking about customer feedback and we do, um, employee surveys where we're getting that feedback, we're looking at um, how they feel about their interactions with us and the relationship with us, how easy it's to do business. And then we have this, we've created this kind of matrix team from across the business of, we call 'em CX catalyst. 

Adrian (00:34:27) - Love it. Nice. 

Celia (00:34:28) - Yeah. They come from every area and they come together and they get this feedback that we've collected from customers and then they go back cuz it, because it some is about support, some's about the product, some's about sales, some's about, Yeah. Yeah. They take those.

Celia (00:34:46) - Responses back and we follow up, right? We, we, we, we understand what they are and, and the relevant feedback goes into these groups and they're following up with those customers so that you, cuz that's the worst, right? You fill out that survey and nothing happened. 

Adrian (00:34:59) - <laugh>, <laugh>, wait, does that happen in the CX world a lot? Cause I feel like something that, like you think in 2022, Celia, we would finally be like over asking for it if we're not gonna at least like thank somebody for it or at least tell that we're working on it. But like 

Celia (00:35:15) - It's an automated email, right? 

Celia (00:35:19) - Yeah. But that so that, that we, we like that and so we're using that a lot. And then I'd say on the employees side we're, we're, we're using feedback as well. We've, we've done, I can't believe we did this, one of the, we did a pretty major employee survey during the pandemic cuz we really wanted to hear so much change, right? And how people are feeling and the amount of change that has been driven off that one survey in terms of how we work, how we approach the workplace, what we're doing with communications. It's just, um, it's been really cool to see cuz you always wanna, you know, you giving feedback. I say I had a boss, feedback is a gift. I didn't always feel that way during cycle. 

Adrian (00:36:05) - Its, Yeah, no, I like that. It is, it's true. 

Celia (00:36:08) - It, yeah. Given in the right way, it's, it, you know, constructive feedback is, is really good. And that goes for the customers as they give it employees who give it back. And then just using that information to drive improvement is, is so critical. 

Adrian (00:36:24) - I, it's, it's so, so critical. And then again, I think it's like there's just, we're in this super interesting time where, um, just, and guys, it can be so, so simple, but taking like the drumbeat or the pulse of your voice of customer and lining it right up to the drumbeat or the pulse of your voice of employee. Yeah. It's just such an easy way to see which areas are probably most right for optimization innovation. And then obviously like people don't tell you that some of these orders have changed or some of these potential focus areas that are ripe for, for, for improvement if they don't mean it. Right. So like it's coming from somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other thing too is just like, it's, it's incredible how many companies, Celia still missed the opportunity of taking maybe the top five things or the top 10 things that your customer's saying about your product and your service and your pricing and, and all the different things that they might give feedback on. And then bringing it straight to the guys and gals that have to talk to those customers and work with those customers every day. And you can very quickly slim a list of 10 things, maybe not under the two or three things that it could give you your biggest bang for your buck or your highest return on investment. And then more importantly, you're, you're literally making the li like the lives easier for your customers and your place at the exact same time. And that just feels like a win-win for everybody. 

Celia (00:37:39) - They're so interconnected, Employee and customer experience. And, uh, yeah, Right? You fix it for one and how much better the life gets <laugh> of that agent or the person on the other end. It's, it's so important. 

Adrian (00:37:52) - It's absolutely truth. Um, Celia, this has been fantastic. Before, before, uh, we let you go, I want, I would love to, um, give you a minute to talk about what are some of the awesome things that you want the CX Nation to know about for the things that you and your team are working on at Barrett. Any upcoming events or any, any, any, any cool new products or, or, or, or service al that you wanna talk about? Um, and then lastly, where could people find out more about you and where could people get in touch with you if they wanna learn more about all the great things you guys are doing at Barrett? 

Celia (00:38:21) - All right. Um, a lot there. So mid-November there is a virtual event that we're doing all things CX and talking about the platform and what's going on in customer engagement in general, some of the trends and people can hear from our product experts and leaders about that. So that's available on our website and that I, I'd recommend that to anybody is just a good way to get in there and learn more about what's happening with customer engagement. Um, and then for me personally, I mean, LinkedIn is my channel that I, they spend a lot of time on and, um, learning from other people and reading about what's happening. So absolutely connect with me that way. 

Adrian (00:39:02) - I love it. Well Celia, thank you so much for, uh, taking the time to come on the Stage Chronicles podcast and share your story and share all the incredible things you and the team at Veron are working on. It's been our absolute pleasure and uh, we will look forward to chatting with you again in, in the future. 

Celia (00:39:15) - Thanks Adriannene, Appreciate it.