Delivering Premium CX At Every Stage Of The Customer Journey | Michele Shane

Hey CX Nation,

In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #267, we welcomed Michele Shane, SVP Business Development at UJet.CX based in San Francisco, CA. 

UJET is a next-generation cloud contact center platform that leverages AI to modernize the customer experience. 

The UJet.CX platform & services embed intelligent automation at every touchpoint, empowering agents, optimizing customer journeys, and transforming operations into real-time insight engines.

In this episode, Michele and Adrian chat through the Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback. Plus share some of the ideas that Michele & her team think through on a daily basis to build world class customer experiences.

**Episode #267 Highlight Reel:**

1. Human-centric approach to CX & growing your business
2. Power of people over technology & building your vision
3. Slow is smooth & smooth is fast
4. Importance of constant feedback from customers, employees & builders
5. Taking action on the right bits of customer feedback

Click here to learn more about Michele Shane

Click here to learn more about UJet.CX

Huge thanks to Michele for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring her work and efforts in pushing the customer experience & contact center space into the future. 

For Apple & Spotify podcast listener friends, make sure you are following CXC & leave a 5 star review so we can find new members of the "CX Nation". 

You know what would be even better?

Go tell your friends or teammates about CXC's custom content, strategic partner solutions (Hubspot, Intercom, & Freshworks to name a few) & On-Demand services & invite them to join the CX Nation, a community of 15K+ customer focused business leaders!

Want to see how your customer experience compares to the world's top-performing customer focused companies? 

Be one of our Pioneer users of the recently launched CXC Healthzone, an intelligence platform that shares benchmarks & insights for how companies across the world are tackling The Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback & how they are building an AI-powered foundation for the future. 

Thanks to all of you for being apart of the "CX Nation" and helping customer focused business leaders across the world make happiness a habit!

Transcript

Summary

Journey into Customer Experience Leadership

Adrian Brady Cusana hosted Michelle Shane, SVP of Business Development at UJetCX, on the CX Chronicles Podcast. Michelle shared her journey into the customer experience space, starting 20 years ago at a small contact center startup that served well-known brands like Calvin Klein and Bacardi. She became involved in professional organizations like SOCAP, where she led the New York chapter, which helped her network and learn about different approaches to customer experience. Michelle joined UJet about 5 years ago after being recruited through her SOCAP network connections.

Startup Team Building Strategies

The discussion focused on Michelle's experience building teams in startup environments, with both participants sharing stories about the demanding nature of early-morning deliveries and round-the-clock operations at startup companies. Michelle explained how she built UJet's Strategic Alliances team from the ground up, initially focusing on CRM partnerships including Zendesk, Salesforce, HubSpot, and ServiceNow due to UJet's privacy-by-design approach and real-time CRM integration requirements. The conversation highlighted the challenges of building partnerships in a startup environment, noting that some partnerships worked well while others did not align as well as expected.

UJET's Partnership Success Philosophy

Michele discussed that successful partnerships at UJET have never been about technology but rather about the organization's people and their willingness to collaborate. She emphasized that having an engaged and excited partner organization is crucial for success, as technology implementation becomes straightforward once there's a clear vision and commitment. Michele also highlighted UJET's organizational philosophy of taking action and building momentum quickly, which has contributed to their success over the past five years.

Clear Vision, Bold Action

Michele emphasized the importance of defining a clear vision and end goal before taking action, drawing from the quote "if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." She highlighted that while technology and customer challenges evolve, maintaining focus on goals both personally and for the company remains crucial. Michele also stressed that the biggest hurdle is often taking the first step, as fear of failure or making mistakes can prevent progress. CXChronicles agreed, referencing a conversation with Adam Coffey about the importance of having a clear plan and target, comparing it to a pilot's approach of knowing the destination and flight plan before taking action.

UJET's Tech Stack Strategy

Michelle discussed UJET's approach to technology and tools, explaining that they have used a combination of OEM partnerships, in-house development, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships to build their tech stack. She noted that while UJET takes a forward-thinking approach, they balance this with customer readiness, particularly when implementing new features like skill-based routing. Michelle also mentioned that UJET is currently working on synthesizing their internal processes and tools as part of their growth initiative to ensure consistency across functional areas.

AI Tools for Enhanced Productivity

Michele discussed how UJet is leveraging AI tools, particularly Google and Notebook LM, to improve organization and productivity. She explained how she uses daily briefs generated by Gemini to stay organized and focused on priorities. Michele also shared how the company uses Google Meet transcriptions to track discussions and goals across functional areas, aiming to align teams on common objectives without excessive meeting time. CXChronicles shared similar practices at CXC, including using HubSpot and analyzing meeting transcriptions for sentiment and strategic alignment. Both discussed how these tools help uncover insights about customer needs, particularly around value rather than just price.

AI-Driven Partner Discovery Playbook

Michele discussed her approach to focusing on tasks she enjoys and is good at, delegating or automating others. She explained how she and her boss, Baker, developed an AI-powered playbook to streamline the partner discovery process, which provides detailed information about potential partners and helps with lead qualification and scoring. Michele emphasized the importance of focusing on quality over quantity in lead generation and shared her strategy for optimizing team processes and knowledge management.

Balancing Momentum and Thoroughness in Startups

Michele discussed the balance between initial momentum in startups and the importance of thoroughness as teams grow. She referenced a Navy SEAL's principle of "slow is smooth, and smooth is fast" to emphasize the value of going deep into processes and partnerships once a clear direction is established. The discussion then transitioned to exploring feedback mechanisms across clients, teams, and partners, though the specific feedback practices were not detailed in this segment.

Customer Feedback and Rewards Strategy

Michele discussed UJet's approach to gathering customer feedback through quarterly Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) and other channels, including sales calls and support tickets. She mentioned a new customer rewards program designed to help co-invest with customers in AI initiatives and agent assist features. Michele emphasized the importance of understanding a customer's end goals when implementing new solutions, noting that many customers need guidance in defining their objectives before selecting appropriate tools.