The one with a new CX Sheriff in town - Amanda Ono E89

🎤Change is a coming in “The one with a new CX Sheriff in town” with Amanda Ono of Resolver in CX Passport episode 89🎧 What’s in the episode?

👉It's not just steps and processes...change LEADERSHIP matters

🙋‍♀️Am I building this process for me/the business or for the customer?

❓What to do when a customer doesn't know what they want

📢Name the change. Don't hide from it

😊5 months backpacking in SE Asia...A smile and a laugh is universal

🌊How do service teams keep up with rapidly evolving products?

👩‍💼Customers still want a human!

💭“I think you can automate certain things, you can process certain things. But at the end of the day, humans still buy from humans, they still partner with humans.” - Amanda 

Hosted by Rick Denton “I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport”

Episode resources:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/amandaono

Web: resolver.com

Transcript

Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Today I head north to Toronto, Canada to talk with Amanda Ono, VP, customer experience and VP, people and culture at resolver, a Kroll business. With over 20 years of international experience in organizational development, HR consulting and change management, Amanda brings a well blended background into her leadership of customer experience, including a very global perspective. In fact, we're 25 countries under her belt, she said every continent except for Antarctica. As an aside, listeners, I've had guests from every continent except for Antarctica, so I haven't given up hope. So anyone out there knows a scientist or anyone else from Antarctica, send me an email, I want to get them on the show definitely want to hit all my continents. Now, Amanda didn't start her career intending to be in customer experience. Somehow those psychology classes she took fully with the intention of being a therapist, she's got this curiosity and organizational behavior and how psychology interacts with corporate decisions. Further in her career, there are moments of sales of marketing of learning and development. All of that brought her to the current role at resolver. Blending customer experience, people and culture. When we talked earlier, Amanda mentioned something to me, the idea of a new CX sheriff in town change leadership. I want to find out more about that. And what's this about a five month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia? Yeah, Amanda, welcome to CX passport.

Amanda Ono: 1:53

Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.

Rick Denton: 1:55

Let's have a little bit of fun today. Now, I want to start right off the bat with that CX Sheriff, that new CX sheriff in town, what do you mean by change leadership? And why? Why is that the new CX sheriff?

Amanda Ono: 2:06

Yes, I love this question. I mean, I think you have to start with the premise that generally people don't like change. And, you know, I know, it's socially acceptable to say you like change or roll with it, and you want to be agile, and you want to be all the things but do we really, you know, most of us, you know, we like to wake up, we like a routine, we like structure. And so, you know, at the end of the day, in my experience, you know, change management is, you know, builds off this great framework, you know, it really looks at, you know, what's the what's the change, you need to bring people through? What are the processes? What are the steps? What are the systems, so that's great and all, but it's actually the leadership, that becomes the thread that ties through the change, that becomes the thing that makes change happen. And so, you know, in my journey and my experience, and you know, I've I've, you know, had some exposure from a global perspective, also had exposure, you know, doing acquisitions, it's really the leadership, that's going to make the biggest difference for people to orient to change.

Rick Denton: 3:16

Tell me, though, that the leadership part, right, like I get that, right, it's not just steps and processes and checkboxes, because if that were the case, then well, you would just release a sheet of paper, and then every massive change initiative would take seven days, and you'd just be done with it. But how does that tie to customer experience? Why is that the new customer experience, Sheriff that this change leadership aspect of it?

Amanda Ono: 3:38

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, I think I think when you're going through a customer journey with folks, they're going through a change, it could be a change in the technology that they have the systems that they have any any range of things. And so you know, too often, and especially we see this in a software world is people think about it as implementing a software, but the software is probably 20% of the change, there's a wider change that's happening. There is, you know, first and foremost a shift in, you know, actual processes that are going to be running. There's a shift in team behaviors, and sometimes team dynamics, there's a shift in where people actually click from day to day. And I wouldn't under index on that. I've certainly done software implementations where just looking, you know, helping someone look at the right side of the screen versus the left side of the screen took, you know, a ton of coaching, and anyone that's done systems training, you know, it would know that that's true. And so, you know, I really think that, you know, sitting in the customer seat, and thinking about the change that they have to go through, and the deeper behaviors that are inherent in those change is truly what's going to make a change sticky, and you hit it spot on when you think about a big sheet of paper. I think a lot of people still still look at that. And, you know, I think you have to have a plan. Certainly I've been part of turnarounds where you know, you want to draw out a plan. But there does need to be that agility to say, you know, as we get going and as we get moved moving, the map that we laid out needs to take a different course, we need to take a detour. And I think, you know, the, the success of the change will be very predicated on people's ability to take a detour or not.

Rick Denton: 5:22

That is absolutely right. And it does make sense to me now that because we've heard how important change management is and how important that is. But it's making more sense to me now, why that is the customer experience, Sheriff, why that is driving that forward. And I think a lot of it comes down to what you're describing, having this understanding of the customer, or you know, it's the cliche word, but it's so true empathizing with those who are experiencing the change, it helps if you have that sense of empathy, for sure. But it really helps if you've done it before, you'd mentioned to me, when we were talking earlier that there was a mentor that told you hold off, don't get your master's right away so that you could experience the work world, you also have shared with me that you have installed software before, not just guided, but you've been the installer been there doing that. So you can really better understand your customers needs today. And those two are very related to me. So why is it so important to get into the real world? Why is it so important to get into your actual customers experience? When you're trying to create this great customer experience?

Amanda Ono: 6:24

Yeah, I think this is where again, you know, how we think about things practically versus a textbook is so important, and you can have the best laid, yeah, you can have the best laid plans. And when they get put into the wild, it becomes such a different reality. I think for me, you know, if you go back to using the example use before of what you draw out on a big piece of paper, I think when you're drawing processes for customers, you know, you often think about your organization's internal efficiency, which is right, you know, you definitely want to get that right. You don't want to do things that are inefficient. But you know, have you sat in the customer chair? And have you asked, Have you asked as you go through this process? am I building this process for me as the company or am I building it for the customer? And, you know, I've really leaned into the concept that Amazon made made famous talking about putting an empty chair, in, you know, customer process meetings, I think it's really important. And, you know, as we were building, as we were building new processes for scale, at resolver, that was a big part of what I did. I was, you know, taking over this, this team, I was engaged to be part of a turnaround, because our team was having issues with efficiency, we're having issues managing scope, we had consultant burnout, but all of this customers were still really happy. And so you know, the the question was, you know, how do we continue to make them happy and continue to serve them moving forward by creating processes both internally and for them, that will make a big difference.

Your CX Passport Captain: 7:49

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 8:15

The the idea of getting off that piece of paper and designing for your interviewer, outside in inside out. These are all phrases. But it is so true that we've seen experiences that are designed in the boardroom, in the conference room that just absolutely flop when they get out into the real world. And that's the point of testing. That's the point of user validation, all the different things that go into that. But it does surprise me how many companies don't have that as a part of their natural rhythm and that intranet via the chair, be playing calls from customers reviewing emails inside of meetings, that they don't bring that customer life into the company directly. And it shows it shows that it's designed without that customer in mind.

Amanda Ono: 9:00

Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, it's an agreement and a philosophical approach that you have to have as a company. And honestly, it can take more work, right and iterative cycle where you're continually changing, does take more work. And that's why some companies don't want to sign up for it, because they want to do the process. They want to run the process and then come back to the year for an hour from now and decide whether it worked or not, you know, at resolver, we've really focused on how do we build things iteratively? How do we, you know, test and put it out there? We've also found specifically within software implementations, that that is an approach that is, you know, better for the customers themselves. They get to be part of feedback. I think there's a lot of customers that like being part of beta groups that are testing and trialing things, you know, and certainly, you know, we lean into that pretty hard.

Rick Denton: 9:49

The, that brings up a question that I've always wanted to ask, and I just have never had the opportunity to ask someone about that. But you bring up these these user groups and it's a bit of a I wasn't thinking about this initially, but Those that are the most eager to be a part of that. Do you ever worry about? Is that the right input? Is it? I want to actually hear from those that couldn't care less about being a part of my user group? How do you balance that sort of tension between the eagerly engaged and those who really don't, they may love your product, but just don't want to sit in a focus group?

Amanda Ono: 10:18

For sure, I mean, you have to look at the end of one or the vocal minority that can work good or bad. You know, I think we've always just looked at it as it's a data point. And there has to be multiple data points. I think, you know, anytime you're in a software company, and you're building, it has to be multiple sources of truth, to get to the point where we're building something that we believe it's going to be great. So I think it's, I think it's easy to skew, I think, you know, you run into the you run the risk of being, you know, being like a soccer team of four year olds, where you're all running around the ball, no one's able to put it in the net. And so you know, I think at the end of the day, you know, you have to be you have to really balance it. And also acknowledge that, you know, sometimes the reality, especially in a software world is a customer might not know what they want yet. And part of our role is to have that market research that really gives them you know, the best deliverable possible.

Rick Denton: 11:15

I do like that. And now I'm going to have the image of four year old soccer teams, because having had a child who played soccer since he was three, he's now in his 20s. I do recall those days, and it is an apt description of what you're describing there. And we're talking about a front right, we're talking about the product understanding product, where do we want to take the product, the iterations, this is true of customer experience, on the other end to where we're getting customer complaints, and we're, that is gold, but it has to be balanced with is this just the loudest complaint? Or is this you know, systemic across all of our customers and making sure that we balance those data points? You did? You mentioned earlier talking about coming into a team and looking at as a way of transforming and improving and making better, more efficient? And just understanding all of that? How have you really helped transform that team? It really, you alluded to some initial challenges, but I'm curious, how did you advance this team towards that customer centricity journey?

Amanda Ono: 12:10

Yeah, this is been a big part of my journey over the past two and a half years. And, you know, it's so changes, you know, I think sometimes people think change can happen quickly, it can happen quickly. But you know, change that sticky takes a long time. And so, you know, I think when when I started, again, as I said, you know, there's a team that was having issues with efficiency, consultant burnout, you know, a lot of the things that happen in CX teams. And so, you know, when I was brought in, I think a big part of it was naming the change. This is where a little bit of my background and marketing comes in. But I think, you know, we named it we said, you know, this is this is, this is a lemon, we have a giant lemon in front of us, and what are we going to do with it. And, you know, I was super proactive about posts that we did town halls, I was doing Skype meetings to talk to people at all levels to understand what they're facing. And the thing I like about naming a change is that when the when you are able to move on from the change, you can talk about your next chapter. And so you know, a very distinctly named phases that we're going through as an organization, and, you know, So phase one was build and succeed. Phase two was, you know, learn and scale. And we kind of continued. And so as we moved through gateposts, I was helping psychologically move people also to say, okay, that chapter is done, we're kind of done the part that's really mucky. And we're going to move to the next thing. So that was, you know, internal communications, I think, for change, that's where leadership is so important, because I think really, so much of leadership is great communication and influencing people to want to buy in. I think a second thing we did was just get back to basics, you know, our operations were where we needed to be. And so, you know, how do you get your data, right? I think a lot of folks that sit in CX and who are leaders, across disciplines, you know, if you don't have your data, you don't have the insights. And I think that was a huge thing that we really had to focus early in our days, and then had to come back to it because honestly, you know, we sprint it to get our data in a good spot. And then a year later, you know, we thought things were still moving, but they weren't. And so, you know, I think it's also reminding yourself to not be complacent. I think a third thing we did, I can just, I'll just go over like kind of my top three or four things.

Rick Denton: 14:29

You probably have a list of a dozen. Yes,

Amanda Ono: 14:31

yeah, I do. But yeah, top three, four. We got, you know, when you endeavor within a to a change, especially with a turnaround on a team, I mean, there's so much to fix. And you know, one thing the CEO who's my coach was really vigorous about was making sure that I was very narrow focused in priorities. I think again, there's a lot you can do. But how do you make sure you're really focusing on the things that will move you You know the team really quickly. And then I think the fourth thing we really doubled down on was enablement. You know, we were scaling our team, we've scaled our team by about 30% in year. And, you know, we hire people that are very engaged and want to be successful. So you have to build onboarding programs internally, that allow your consultants to be successful. And, you know, this goes back to, you know, my belief that I think humans want to achieve great things. And so set them up to do that. We doubled down on a program that improve that efficiency. And you know, we improved ramp by 30%. And so that was a huge thing for us, that allowed us to move our other priorities, because consultants were in seat and they were able to be really effective quickly. So a lot of times people will focus on hiring people. That's great. Yeah. But you know, onboarding them better, is how you're really going to impact customers, because it means they're going to be in front of customers, you know, consulting with them, engaging them with expertise, and empathy and all the ways that you really want them to

Rick Denton: 16:00

what I like about that, you know, you're talking about transforming a team. And you're giving him some real practical elements there. Yeah, it's something we hear where it's like enablement and those kinds of But practically, okay, we hired wonderfully, but then how well did we onboard? What did that actually look like from onboarding? How can I stay narrow focus? How can I get back to the basics, it is so true that it feels like, oh, let's go off and do something nifty and novel and different? Well, you know, what, sometimes the basics, and this is true of what you're describing, it's true of customer support. It's true of just customer service overall. Heck, we live it as customers today that the Back to Basics are so missing, in many of our overall experiences that to hear you focusing on that when it comes to transformation makes a lot of sense.

Amanda Ono: 16:42

You know, I think that's one thing that Matt Dixon talks about an effortless experience where he basically just says, you know, customers just want what they want. And, you know, yes, you want to delight them. Yes, that's the end goal. But did you deliver on what you said, you're going to deliver on? And and I think, I think as I was, we're going through this, this turnaround with the team, you know, a big thing that I was focused on was, you know, are we delivering on what we believe are table stakes. And, you know, it's easy to take on a new project, I think a lot of times as, as leaders, you want a new feather in your cap of something that is, you know, really interesting and new and innovative. But that might not be the thing that moves, the change. Sometimes the change is actually, you know, doing doing the work and executing it, you know, at extremely high level,

Rick Denton: 17:31

that is so true. I could go, I could take what you just said and go off in an incredible tangent about a flight experience that I had this weekend, where the back to the basics is what delighted my wife and me so much more than they try to surprise and delight, but the flight was late. I don't care how much you surprise and delight me. The flight was not on time, get me there on time, and I'm happy and it was the flight coming back on time was great. Alright, I won't go down that path any further. Let's talk about a cooler flight and a cooler experience than just my weekend trip. This five month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. First of all blows my mind just thinking about that. I'd love to hear some stories from the trip. But I'd also be curious how did that trip influence sort of your perspective, your decisions even today?

Amanda Ono: 18:12

Yeah, I was really lucky to be in this position to take a trip like this. So I graduated from university. I took a year to work and saved up so I could take a trip. You know, lots of folks that I knew was going to Europe, were going to Europe, I think you said you did the same thing. Yeah, which is a great trip, I wanted to try something that was, you know, a little bit different. And so we took a trip where it was myself and a roommate from university. We did, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Laos, Taiwan, and Japan. So it was an incredible experience. You know, I think travel is so important. You know, that was the first really kind of global trip that I had taken when I was was 22. But you know, I think for me there is there's a couple things that were just so inspirational for me, I would say first and foremost, just, you know, I think travel fosters an enormous amount of empathy and perspective taking. And I think that's so key in any role you take, but specifically in customer roles. I think a big thing for me, too, was just, you know, I kind of think about it as human ingenuity. I'm a big sucker for archaeology. A bunch of the trips I've gone on in my life so far have been going to see things like Angkor Wat or Petra or Machu Picchu. And I was always wowed by what humans could build with, you know, with very little technology. But on the other end of it, it's also looking at human resource wholeness. You know, I've seen mattresses made of phone books, I've seen rafts propped up by water bottles. These are all people that you know, have lived bit of resources, and you know, they're focusing on utility and not constraints. And I think that was very formative for me to see that that, you know, I think sometimes, you know, if you, if you come from an environment where you have wealth and privilege, you focus on what you don't have. But I think there's so many places in the world where they focus on what they have, and they focus on the utility of it. And, you know, again, just that ingenuity, I think is, you know, you really see in travel, that has been very inspiring for me. Resilience and adaptability that comes time and time again, you know, if you've backpacked, you are taking detours, probably daily, you know,

Rick Denton: 20:41

Plans are just a joke.

Amanda Ono: 20:42

Yeah, totally. I mean, you can do bus schedules, or miss Reg, you know, you don't have you know, things get canceled, and it's not communicate it, and you just kind of have to roll with it. And I think, you know, one of the biggest things that that was really, you know, reinforced for me was, at the end of the day, you know, you really have control of your perspective, you can't control what's happening to you, but you can control Okay, that's, you know, my friend and I had the amusing to aggravating scale. And so in our heads, we're like, we'll just stick this on the abusing scale, because if we get aggravated, we're not much further, it doesn't mean we caught our bus, all of a sudden, we're still sitting here in this, like, you know, border town, and we don't have our visas. So, you know, that that is, that is the reality of it. But But I think, you know, the overall kind of came to this from some of our experiences where, again, we're on these detours, but But truly when you're traveling, was that, you know, kindness begets kindness. And, you know, in all the countries I've been to, I've just repeatedly seen the kindness of strangers. You know, specifically, you know, I can recall on that, that particular backpacking trip, but I have dozens of stories like this, but on that particular backpacking trip, we had, my friend and I had missed a bus. And the person who owned the dive shop said, you know, you're, you're not going to get a bus for a day. And you know, that obviously, when you're backpacking, really kind of, you know, puts it puts a kink in your plans. And so, you know, he offered, you know, he said, you know, we'll, I'll drive you, it's fine, it's, it is out of my way, but I'll take you there, you know, I'll just go a bit early, to do my drop off that I need to do. And he made sure that that we got there and we got there on time and, you know, made sure we understood where we were going. And so, you know, there's, there's so many stories of kindness I have. As a backpacker. I've also been a female solo backpacker, and I've seen the same thing. I think generally, if you if you, you know, the vast majority of humans are good. You put it out. And if you kind to people, you do get it back. And a smile and a laugh is universal.

Rick Denton: 23:00

With all of that five months of backpacking, yes, absolutely. We're talking about constraints and if you don't have but, you know, sometimes it's nice to be comfortable too. And so let's take a little break here. Let's go to the first class lounge which probably didn't exist for you during the backpacking trip it didn't during mine, but Oh, how I would have wanted it. So here you're in the first class lounge let's move quickly here and have a little fun. What is a dream travel location from your past

Amanda Ono: 23:26

dream travel location was definitely going to the Mount Fuji region of Japan.

Rick Denton: 23:35

Ooh, very nice. I'm actually going there in December January Tell me more.

Amanda Ono: 23:39

Oh, it's it's just it's incredible. It's very it's small. It's very quaint, but super accessible to get around by bus. Which is which is great transportation in Japan is just you know, blow blows your mind with how good it is, but they have this incredible bike trail that you can go around the lake that sits under Mount Fuji, which was just an incredible experience. So if you can do that if you can get your hands on some bikes highly recommend that

Rick Denton: 24:08

IT folks think that I do this podcast about customer experience and let my guests here there was no it's all selfish. I just want to get Travel Tips travel tip everything else is just fluffernutter around no of course I love all the other stuff too but thank you for that tip. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Amanda Ono: 24:23

I'd really like to go to kind of Argentina Chile way and you know I think there's this great opportunity to you know, hike to areas of Patagonia but I think there's also great culture in that region. You know, the trips I tend to pick usually have a combination of some sort of hike and outdoor but as well city and great wine and food so you know that's that's a region of the world. Further down in South America I have not yet been to and I would loved love to do that

Rick Denton: 24:56

and maybe get a little a hop over to Antarctica there. You could check that out. You're always there

Amanda Ono: 25:00

and then you've done it. We've We've played the travel bingo.

Rick Denton: 25:05

All right. Now you mentioned food and wine. Absolutely. And travel what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Amanda Ono: 25:11

I love exploring food in different regions probably. Okay, so I'll share Sarah favorite thing to eat. So most countries in the world have some combination of meat wrapped in some bread. So everywhere I go, I'm going to try whatever that combination is. So if it's an empanada, or you know what they have in Jordan, some sort of rap, I'm always going to try that because I love seeing what they've done, flub up from a flavor combination. But probably the most interesting thing I got to eat was when we were in Jordan, and the Bedouin community, they, they do a slow roast, and they dig a giant hole in the desert. And they put, you know, a full goat in it, and they roast it for a day. And then the next day, they come out and they skewer it off, and they put it into a very fresh pita. So that was my My best experience that way, and probably the most unique because most people aren't eating from holes in the desert. So that was that was pretty incredible.

Rick Denton: 26:15

Now I do have to tell you that that sounds incredibly unique. But you may need to go to the American south where they do some pig pickins where they do dig a hole in the ground and roast a pig. But yeah, you don't have having I bet that was some of the best meat that had to be incredible to me must have an awesome now, hate to ask this after that. But the flip side of that, what is the thing that your parents forced you to eat, but you hated as a kid.

Amanda Ono: 26:40

They used to do this on Fridays, like a frozen fish. And now Now I love fish. I eat it regularly. But I eat it when it's fresh and hasn't been, you know, frozen for a couple of years. But yeah, it didn't matter how much tartar sauce was on that it was just never going to taste.

Rick Denton: 26:58

No fish sticks for you anymore. No fish sticks back then and no fish sticks. Now I love it. What is with all your travels one travel item, not including your phone, that you will not leave home without

Amanda Ono: 27:09

comfortable shoes. My best shoes are on my feet when I when I travel.

Rick Denton: 27:20

You know going back to customer experience and inside of a company one of the challenges that any company but especially those that are focused on product and digital product, is that that product is always evolving how you talked about how it's intentionally iterative? And so how does a service team fill those gaps? While the product is still evolving? This evolution is going forward? How is the service team filling those gaps?

Amanda Ono: 27:45

Yeah, it's such a great question. I think you know, so much of what a services team does, but in a software company is really consult with a customer on on what are they trying to solve? And so I think, you know, it's going back to that change leadership is if you think about it, if you think about an implementation as checking a box, and configuring for a customer, you're maybe missing the bigger piece. And you know, there are times in all technologies where the technology can't solve everything that the customer wants, but can consulting on the overall change that you're trying to drive for the customer help fill in the gaps? And the answer is yes. And that's why I go back to you know, really, you know, I believe in when I've when I've been part when I've done software implementations internally, and when I've been a customer implementing software is that resolver you know, there's, there's always things internally where you are really trying to adjust a process, you're trying to adjust team behaviors and your outcome is to get insights. But that's, that's, that's the end game. And so I think, you know, really enabling our professional services organization to engage our customers by talking to them about what process are you trying to build? Where are you currently? And where would you like to go? Tell us about the teams that are engaging with this, you know, I think actually helping, you know, helping name that change for the customer is important. We spend time with our customers, especially on large scale enterprise implementations that are multiple months, multiple phases, multiple teams, all the multiples. We spend time, you know, canvassing what the change looks like. And it doesn't need to be overcomplicate it, but you know, I think just helping a customer at the beginning of any engagement, visualize the change that they're about to go through, and understanding that it's big, and there's lots of moving parts to it, you know, helps align the customer to a partnership.

Rick Denton: 29:39

Nice, nice. I liked that idea. That naming upfront, partnering, all of that goes into that brilliant, I love hearing that. I think that's a great approach there. Now, as I often do, I realize, Oh my gosh, I want to ask you so many more questions, and yet I'm very short on time and looking at the clock here. But I'm curious just as the head of CX as the head of cost From experience, what are you focusing on these days? What are some of the challenges you're seeing in CX? Or even some of the things that are kind of delighting you in customer experience?

Amanda Ono: 30:07

I think that's I think the thing, you know, the one of the biggest things that we're we're really starting to put our eyes on is, you know, how do you do customer enablement, so helping give tools and learning to customers in ways that still feel high touch, because, you know, it's very easy to say, Okay, here's your self directed learning, you don't need a human anymore. But, you know, from, from the way from what we hear from our customers, they still want a human. And so you know, they want something that will supplement their knowledge and enable them to learn faster and get it implemented in our software faster, but they still want a human. And so I think right now, the one of the things we're trying to solve is, how do we balance that in a way that is going to be really effective. So I think, you know, you can automate certain things, you can prophesy certain things, that's great. But at the end of the day, you know, humans still buy from humans, they still partner with humans. And so how do you continue to, you know, round out both of those. So we're working on that, that's, maybe you can invite me back. And I'll tell you, when we figure that out. You know, that's, that's the thing we're really trying to solve. And I think, you know, I think there's, there's, there's definitely companies out there that have swung really hard to self service, I think if you can do that model, and that serves your customer base, I think that's fantastic. It just so happens that our customer base, you know, really, really tells us that that blend of both is going to be important to them.

Rick Denton: 31:34

I really like that because having spent more time kind of down downstream in the customer service side and that aspect, I am fatigued with and frustrated by the hyper focus on digitalization and the deflection and all of that, as opposed to how can we do what the customers want digitally? Great. And how can we reserve what they want to be done by a human to be done by a human? Great, and man, it sounds like that's exactly the approach you're taking. And so I admire that and, and glad to see that now. If other folks admire that, want to learn more about you want to learn more about resolver? What's the best way to get in touch with you and learn more about resolver?

Amanda Ono: 32:08

Yeah, definitely. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm just Amanda Ono. there's not much not many of us in Toronto. So yeah, you can feel free to connect with me. And resolver the best way to find us is just resolver.com. You know, lots of great information on the things we're solving for customers to get over that risk divide and really have the data and intelligence they need to make great decisions for their organization. So yeah, we'd love to connect with folks.

Rick Denton: 32:33

That's awesome. I will get all that in the show notes. Just scroll down. You see the links right there, and you've got access to it. Amanda, thanks so much for the conversation. You've taken us all literally all over the globe. Well, I guess that literally note, let's back that up. Amanda, you've taken us all over the globe, metaphorically, and it has been wonderful to hear those stories, your experiences and how that has driven who you are as a customer experience leader, how you've gone through that transformation, how you're helping that human to human element of customers, stay real and stay relevant love hearing it. It was wonderful talking with Amanda today. Thank you very much.

Amanda Ono: 33:01

Thank you.

Rick Denton: 33:05

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.