The one with the profitable rule breaker - Zoe Kahn Manager CX & Retention at Chomps E143

🎤🎞️Breaking rules…creating customer loyalty “The one with the profitable rule breaker” Zoe Kahn Manager of CX & Retention at Chomps in CX Passport Episode 143🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

2:40 CX & retention role at Chomps

7:10 Planet Fitness Front desk job influencing CX today

10:32 Breaking CX rules. Creating customer empathy

13:45 CX & Retention…simliar and different

17:30 Fitness competitions inspiring customer empathy today

20:38 1st Class Lounge

24:30 Zoe’s “Let’s Laugh About It” Podcast

28:45 Gaining buy in for CX ideas

34:30 Contact info and closing

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I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport

Episode resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-kahn-5b61aa129/

Twitter @_zoekahn_

Chomps on How I Built This with Guy Raz: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chomps-pete-maldonado-and-rashid-ali/id1150510297?i=1000595782640

Rick & Clancy's podcast The Loud Quiet: youtube.com/@theloudquiet

Transcript

Zoe Kahn: 0:00

I always say a good CX agent is actually a profitable rule breaker a profitable, profitable policy breaker.

Rick Denton: 0:14

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. CX passport travelers you are in for a high energy treat today. Or perhaps I should say protein packed source of quality tastes just the right level of saltiness driven by an insightful ingredients with powerful insights treats today. Am I talking about a person or a snack? Not only do we get to talk to someone responsible for driving customer experience and retention for her company. Today's guest is the host of a popular podcast getting people to open up about business laughable moments. Oops. There give it away. Well now you should be incredibly excited to know that today's guest is Zoe Kahn, manager of CX and retention for chomps. Remember that protein packed reference and the host of the podcast? Let's laugh about it podcast, a show with a central hook of discussing laughable business happenings and what we can learn from them with a career heavily based on the frontline customer facing brands and roles, so he continues to make the customer the center of her approach. These are not easy places to be retail is a highly competitive space, especially when you're talking about D to C and retail food space. Zoe's no stranger to goal setting and competition though given her fitness focus, including the highly competitive world of fitness competitions. I'll be curious to learn how that drive feeds her work. Today was Zoe's tagline of spread happiness forever. I also mentioned just the right level of saltiness. I have a sneaking suspicion today's episode might get that E flag. I know for certain it's going to be a fun ride Zoey. Welcome to CX passport.

Zoe Kahn: 2:17

Thank you so much. I enjoyed that intro. probably way too much. It was amazing. So thank you for having me. I'm excited to dive into all the sweetness and the saltiness and the protein and the nonprotein. So excited to dive in.

Rick Denton: 2:31

Look at that carrying the reference forward even when you didn't know how this was gonna go. I love it. I absolutely love it. So I'm gonna say right up front viewers, listeners, we're definitely going to hear more about Zoe's podcast later, I am fascinated by this concept, but I want to set the stage a little bit before we get there. Zoa, your LinkedIn tagline I mentioned it is spreading happiness forever. And you're the manager of CX and retention. For chumps. Tell me a little bit about your role at chomps. And how you're spreading happiness forever there.

Zoe Kahn: 3:00

Yeah, actually talking about the spread happiness forever. tagline. I've always had it in my LinkedIn. Like, I can't even remember when I first put it in. But it always felt wrong when I was like changing my careers to take it out. Because it's relevant to just my ethos and like what I believe no matter where I am in business, or where I am in my career, so it's kind of just like stuck. And it is something where people will look me up, I'm, I'm at a networking event, and they look me up and they say, spread happiness forever. Is this you? I'm like, Yep, that's me. You know, I

Rick Denton: 3:34

just love that. And I love the idea that you're not going to change because it's not like okay, well, this job I really want to piss people off. So I'm exactly, I can see why it would stick. Well, that's great. I love that. Yeah.

Zoe Kahn: 3:44

And just to relay it back to my career today with at Thomson doing customer experience and retention. It is very relatable if with customer experience anywhere you go you are just making the customer happy or making your fellow employees happier making the founders happy in it, you're literally just spreading happiness. Because that's kind of like a happy customer is a happy business. So it sticks here too.

Rick Denton: 4:14

I can absolutely see that. So how other than than just generally right so I think it would help folks to hear what does a head of experience what does that look like? What are you doing for chumps today? Yeah,

Zoe Kahn: 4:27

and we can this could be you'll have to cut me off if I'm telling too much about it because there is there's a lot that goes into retention and beauty the edit button. Yeah, so just cut me off if you need to, but my day to day so I actually got hired at Champs to focus on just the customer experience. And that goes into being proactive reactive. Looking at the customer journey, the touchpoints the support the communication between the customers, whether it's whether it is answering tickets, but or whether it's site experience and everything, all the touch points of the entire experience from before, even before your customers really know the brand to after they've purchased. And after they've the communication they're getting after they've had an experience with your brand. So that's kind of where I adopted the retention part of the business. Because when you're not looking at customer experiences, just like the support tickets, you're actually looking at the retention of the customer. So I now also lead, email, SMS, loyalty, and subscription, those are kind of like the four pillars on top of the customer experience. And when I'm doing all those things, and managing that that part of the business, I always keep the customer experience in mind. And I actually encourage everyone across the company to do the same thing, whether it's in operations, whether it's other parts of marketing, because the experience of the customer is should be forefront because that's what makes your business and makes you have a great business. That's a long term business spreading happiness.

Your CX Passport Captain: 6:10

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 episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX 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: 6:36

Yeah. And I could actually just let you run the whole episode with that because it gets it so many of the principles that I I care about. And I think those of us that are in the CX versus face care about and that is this idea of it is important to solve that immediate issue that ticket, if you will, how you solve that, though? Have you actually restored a relationship? Or have you fixed an issue? And that's where you get into that retention? Right is it's not just how did we save someone? But how do we then create them to be a customer for life, I've, I've got to imagine that a lot of that influenced it. As we think back to kind of your early career probably started in early career, I noticed that you started as a front desk associated at Planet Fitness. And longtime listeners know that I am a huge fan of the front line it whether it's on a contact center, whether it's retail, whatever that looks like, when you are on the front lines, you are the epicenter of experience for that brand for that location. What are some stories that you have from that time being there at the epicenter of creation of customer experience? And how does that influence you even today at shops?

Zoe Kahn: 7:46

Yeah, I have stories from Planet Fitness being on the front line. And then also being at GNC in retail, like you mentioned. So I can share a couple of those but the planet fitness that was like a job that I was like, I never wanted to, I didn't like grow up saying I wanted to be a front desk associate of Planet Fitness, you know, so it was kind of a job that fell in my lap just because I needed it and I learned so much from it is like you You are the frontline of signing guests up for the membership. You're one of my jobs, I when I had free time, I had to call every single customer who had a declining payment. And that was horrible. But I learned so much. They gave me a script and I was supposed to read a line for line. It didn't matter what that customer said. And even they had even people like trying to trick us not trick us. But kind of like employees of Planet Fitness calling to like make sure you're got following say but that was like a very interesting, kind of where I started this I always say policies as a good CX agent is actually a profitable rule breaker a profitable, profitable policy breaker. And that's kind of where I learned that. Because I noticed that if I followed the script that I'm calling these angry people who have declined payments for so many reasons, there's there could be like their cart expired, or maybe they actually couldn't afford it. And that's where I wanted to, like express that empathy. But if I was following the policy, and following the script, it's i It wasn't allowing me to have empathy for these customers. Who are these clients are what would you call them? Those guests at Planet Fitness? They couldn't afford the membership. And then it's like, whoa, but I have to say these things because it's policy. So that was actually where I was like, wow, customer experience isn't just following these policy. It's actually showing empathy and you actually can have a big impact on whether these these guests come back every day. Because if you're if you're a pleasant face and you're saying like hey, when they come Man, you're greeting them, they're more likely to come back if you they if you make these relationships with even the guests if they wanted to compare it to you, if you walk into a gym and someone just checks you and doesn't ask you how you are, doesn't have a smile on your face. And like I learned all those things from like, just that positive experience of it even goes into retention of, of having guests come back every day and having a good fitness plan. Because the more they come, the better their results are. And the less likely they are to go to another gym. Right?

Rick Denton: 10:32

And how reinforcing that is. And I didn't let you get to the point of telling me how that influences your chomps that I do want to hear how that happens. You You may have seen and viewers, you may see me in the picture in picture there with my my jaw dropping on the script part of it. Zoe, I want to go a little deeper into that kind of how did you feel? And not just because you talked about the effectiveness of it, but you as the employee, and you're told read this script, you know that there may be people watching you, I feel like I'm leading the witness, Your Honor, here with this question. How did you feel? And how does that influence how you want customer success, customer service, customer frontline agents that you are responsible for? How does that affect how you work with them today?

Zoe Kahn: 11:18

Yeah, it actually affects everything? Well, first of all, I think it's really important that I went through these experiences of being the frontline in being a leader of people who are still more on the frontline of their interactions with the customers. Because I was able to go these through these experiences. So I actually remember, parts of I, when I was being watched, and like a, a member from corporate would call the store. And they would they would use these scenarios of them being like, Oh, well, I can't afford it. And I would kind of change the script and like, tell them like I am so sorry. Like, let's figure out how we can close this out. And, and I would go off script, and then I would get in trouble. And I thought that was like such a horrible like it felt it was like against my human nature to have to like, have this like angry script of like, that doesn't matter, you still we still have this payment do, there's no payment plans, there's nothing like, it was horrible for me to have to like, follow these rules that were like going against my human nature of like being empathetic. And it did show me that like rules are there for a reason. But it's they they're just there for an outline like they should be, you should be able to bend them depending on the situation. And if it's one helping humans and like being a good person, but also like profitable, like you if I learned that if I follow this script, like they're gonna go and tell all their friends not to, yeah, join Planet Fitness, like, that's what I realized is like, you're not giving a good reputation to your brand, by following this rule. Like you might lose that customer, but you might lose them and lose all their friends. Like it's just it, I learned that and I do take that into my leadership of like, okay, we're, we're setting this policy, but take it with a grain of salt, and always listen to the customer and listen to their exact situation. If you need to bend the rules a little bit, and you need to run it by me, you can do that. But it's the policy is there for the standard, but we can break it if needed. Gosh,

Rick Denton: 13:34

well, I want to work for your company now. Now granted, any policy, I'm at a company of one, so any policy complaint, I just take it up with myself. But I can see how somebody in an agent would want to be there. And we talked at length about it better employee experience creates better customer experience. And so if you provide that ability for an agent to have the freedom, you know, to use, not only their their brain, their intelligence, but their human heart, and how that's going to create a better experience in the end. Zoe, I think that's where I'd want to take this a little bit. And it is, it may even take a little bit of that into the chomp story in that your role is customer experience and retention. Now, you use mentioned it a little bit earlier, but go a little deeper with me as those two areas because they frequently can be viewed as independent. you've woven them together. But they were slightly different at times. How do you decide where to put your focus on a given day? Yes. So

Zoe Kahn: 14:29

my role right now looks like a lot of managing the retention parts and the retention is being is that email, SMS, loyalty and subscription and all of the things that go behind the scenes of that but I always include the CX, like support the agents who are answering the tickets and include them in the changes going on because when I was answering tickets myself in previous jobs, I always was getting frustrated with our marketing and our app. operations teams for not keeping us in the loop. And that they learned like, everything, every change that happens has to have a good feedback loop between the people who are actually dealing with the customers who are going through these changes. So a lot of times my my day looks like making sure that all of our marketing for the retention side is going out. But I have the ability to be able to drop what I'm doing or shift of marketing schedule, based on what's going on on the customer front. So let's say like we had a big fire that's going on, and maybe not the best thing right now for the customer experience isn't to send out a huge discount code that's going to react, like if maybe something's broken on the site, I can go, I have the ability to be like, let's pause this campaign. It's not the most important thing for our customers right now. And let's focus on fixing this experience I can I can, I have the ability to do that, and like focus really, truly on the customer, and then have all of the retention efforts kind of play into what's most important for the customer. And I love I almost I've, I've talked to lots of different brands before, I almost think that like moving forward, there has to be a special exception where these things aren't, I talked about like, I don't think I ever want to do another CX job that isn't tied to retention, or is it tied to marketing so closely, or even operations because it all affects each other. And if there's not this good feedback loop of communication, and even just like talking to the CX team, and being in the know of like, all the things that affect each other, I just think that it's really important to have them all connected. And if they're not like connected under one roof, there better be a really good feedback loop of everyone talking about what

Rick Denton: 16:55

you have, you have no idea how aligned we are on that one that has been a key part of even keynotes that I've given this, it's one stop treating the frontline or your customer experience or your customer contact agents or whatever role it is, as a cost center, they're actually customer insight center, think of all you gain from them. And then the flip side the flip, I guess not really just the closure, that loop is Yeah, but then also include them in what you're changing, include them in the solution design, don't just throw stuff at them and surprise them in that. So we are very, very aligned in that. So I want to I want to do a very strong pivot here because I think a key part of your background that you've shared with me is you have this deep enthusiasm for fitness it comes through in the LinkedIn profile and other conversations that we've had. I know that if we aren't finding you in the office or in the podcast studio, we are likely to find you in the gym or on a hike and so with that that background and fitness including that incredibly challenging bikini and fitness competition space I'm blown away by how competitive that is and how the work ethic associated with it. It's obviously an important focus for you. So tell me a little bit more what what drives that focus for you and fitness. And does that bleed into your work world as all or is that your nice wonderful separation? I've got my fitness and my work world how does it influence you?

Zoe Kahn: 18:15

Yeah, yeah, fitness used to be my entire personality and I always it's always important for me to work for a brand who either like it goes along with that so like Trump's for example like it's very clean grass fed zero sugar their whole like Pete and machine made the business like based on like getting healthy snacks for providing healthy snacks for people who are in who need that convenience and like are able to grab and go so even with champs I'm still like it's part of my value and the morale behind like the companies that I work for. And even like part of our benefits is we get like a stipend to spend on our fitness and our wellness and everything but I've noticed that it doesn't need to be my whole personality anymore I've learned that but it's so important for like to be active and be healthy even to the point of just like making sure I drink enough water and making sure I prioritize movement because if I asked there go cheers got where water is next to us. But if I if I don't prioritize that on my and my personal level it affects my my professional because especially with in customer experience there's you could there's always something to do always something to dig into always customers to help and if you get too focused on like the customers you forget about yourself. And I've noticed that like I if I don't block out that time to fit fitness in and fit like all the health and feed myself nutritious meals. It affects my mindset with my professional life. It's really hard to because it's Actually a lot of customer experience people were empaths and we feel the pain of like what our customers are going through and if you don't if you don't have an outlet for that and I guess it doesn't have to be fitness but it's some type of outlet to take time for yourself and unplugged from the your professional life, it really can take a toll and I've noticed that when I fall off my my fitness routine, it does affect my mental state and like even the way I'm able to show up for my job and for the customers

Rick Denton: 20:38

Zoey that is so true, I find that I like how you brought that in of even just the the helping you be more available for your customers. Yeah, I think of it as just in kind of health and longetivity and being my own mental state when it comes to fitness. I know that's true too in the travel world, and you've done a lot of traveling for your job for the for podcast work and travel is a part of who you are as well. And while fitness is one way to self care if you will, so our lounges and I have come to love the first class lounge and I hope you have enjoyed a first class lounge as well and so I want to invite you to stop here in the CX passport first class lounge for a bit and hopefully we'll move quickly and have a little bit of fun here what is a dream travel location from your past

Zoe Kahn: 21:26

I loved visiting Israel it was beautiful the beaches that Israel beaches are like on unlike any other but I love that country.

Rick Denton: 21:37

I have had the opportunity to do a holylands tour a decade maybe two decades ago and it was in March February so we didn't get to really experience the beaches it even snowed to it's unknown Jerusalem I think was in Jerusalem we actually had snow so I hope to go back and see those beautiful beaches that you were describing. I saw them but they just weren't exactly as inviting and February's what you're describing it as a beautiful country Absolutely. Other direction what is the dream travel vacation you've not been to yet

Zoe Kahn: 22:07

I really want to go to Bali I've heard only good things and I love the nomadic like people run away go to Bali and just work and that just seems like on my on my realm so I really would like to visit Bali. So

Rick Denton: 22:22

I'm hearing a couple of themes here I'm hearing digital nomad, and then I'm also hearing Beach has come through loud and clear so we know what your love language is. And it is a sand beneath your toes. I love it. Yeah, what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Zoe Kahn: 22:37

I kind of this isn't not typical, but that this has been ever since I was little I've loved mashed potatoes. That's like my favorite food mashed potatoes is the best thing ever. It's just like feels like home.

Rick Denton: 22:51

Yeah,like that. I like that. Quite a bit. Good mashed it now I kind of like my mashed potatoes to be beside a steak or something like that. But like my bed potatoes do. Ah, what is something that you were forced to eat growing up, but you hate it as a kid?

Zoe Kahn: 23:08

My mom used to make the salmon patties. They were like breaded salmon patties and growing up were kids I think it's hard to eat fish. I just I would just scarf it down like pretend like I don't know I just did not like I love salmon now but I remember as a kid I was like tortured eating these stupid salmon patties.

Rick Denton: 23:27

Sorry mom if you're listening Zoey

Zoe Kahn: 23:29

She's in the other room I'll have to apologize to her after

Rick Denton: 23:34

I get people in trouble with this question quite a bit. Going back to travel what is one travel item not including your phone not including your passport that you will not leave home without

Zoe Kahn: 23:44

it's actually equipment to do things like this. Because I refuse to like stop my kind of like content creation as I travel and content creation always like changes I used to stream video games actually on Twitch. And so I brought all my streaming equipment, whether it's like podcast mics, anything, I bring it all with me

Rick Denton: 24:12

Zoe, I'm laughing about your answer to that because my wife and I have just started a personal podcast on the side called the loud quiet which is about our journey into becoming empty nesters. And two of our and we've just gotten started we've got 13-14 episodes under our belt. Some of our most popular episodes are the ones that we actually filmed when we were on location. So we too are bringing our equipment along now. I shouldn't air quote my equipment here when I say that, you would we should have taken pictures of how rigged up things were like when we're recording in the cards leaning up against a book. It's kind of clipped to something and the Grand Canyon we clipped the camera to a bush so that we can film there. And we travel with our wireless labs as well. So you've again you found a kindred spirit not just in CX but in what we travel with for sure. Let's stay in that vein. Let's talk About Your pat your podcast. "Let's laugh about it". And first of all, I just love the idea that we're way too serious in business. And it's nice to actually have something that's fun in business. You've chosen to have fun with that. And you're centering on mistakes as a learning theme. What drew you to those ideas? And what are some of the stories that have really stuck with you?

Zoe Kahn: 25:19

Yeah, early on in my career, in the E commerce world, I mean, everyone makes mistakes no matter where you are. And I think that's should be kind of just exemplified and talked about more, because when especially early on in your career, or if, depending on your leadership, you feel like such a bad employee, or like you've made this horrible mistake that you can't make up for. And it just happens that it's just inevitable to happen. And I love listening to self help. And like learning more through podcasts and everything. And I've, I noticed that there are so many podcasts that focus on like, everything you're doing, right. And whenever I talk to people about their, like, there's so many just like what I'm doing, right, and here's how I did it. But I actually learn more from people when they talk about their journey and their failures that brought them to where they are now. And like it's brought so much peace and like, comfort to me that these people who might look perfect, actually aren't. And even businesses, like I saw, when you're behind the scenes of a business, when, when you're not behind the scenes, you're like, Wow, this is a perfect business, they've got everything under control. Everything's operating smoothly when you see it as a consumer. But then once you go behind the scenes, you're like, Whoa, this is kind of a s**t show like, this is insane. But they're so successful. And I've actually been so motivated by like, the things that go on behind the scenes that nobody knows what they're doing. They're just figuring it out, they're failing through it, they're making mistakes. And I just love to look, go back and like look at those things and laugh about them. The Let's laugh about it. podcast is there I say now laughable moments, because a lot of times you were not laughing about these mistakes, or these things that happen or maybe scary things that might have happened in your career or something someone else had done. And it's just worth talking about. And you learn way more from failing through and making these mistakes. And now you can look back and laugh about him. And so I just like to talk about him. And it's fun to talk about.

Rick Denton: 27:29

I have to there has to have been a ha some some incredible laughs that it comes to the reality of what you're describing is so true. I of course, as you were talking about it, then was going through the movie reel of all of my mistakes in my mini multi decade career. And I'm thinking yeah, I could I could consume several episodes of the things. And most of them are ones to laugh about now. And I'm trying to think are there any that wouldn't be either way? And you're absolutely right, that we learn. And actually, I think there's an authenticity that comes from that. Yes, there's something helpful about all the books that sit on our shelves or whatever of the here's how to do it. There's an authenticity that comes from someone being willing to say, yeah, here's how not to do it. And let me tell you why. And here's how jacked up. But even like we've seen, I think there's different social media threads that can be out there like, Yeah, I know that I'm an influencer. And I look this perfect, but let me show you what it actually looks like when I'm sitting in my chair, or whatever. And so that authenticity starts to come through. And is it enjoyable? Or maybe it's just a place to really learn. And so, listeners, the link to, let's laugh about, it will certainly be in the show notes. And so head over there and consume those episodes and enjoy realizing that you can learn a lot from the mistakes and have some fun with it as well. Zoey, I hope there weren't a whole lot of adds to your podcast with the question that I'm about to ask you here. You had mentioned that when we were talking earlier that you had a chance to really shape or even reshape the customer experience approach at shops? And what was it that you noticed when you arrived? And then how did you go about making those changes? Because changes like that take getting buy in? And so how did you get that buy in to start at bring the organization through those changes?

Zoe Kahn: 29:18

i Oh, before we get into like the changes, I actually owe a lot of credit of being able to make these changes from having trust from the founders. I think it's really hard to make changes when you don't have the say or maybe I've I've been in positions where I know what's right. And I'm trying to explain it to someone but if they're in I'm making slide decks of like, this is how much money you're losing or this is how much money you make you and then it's still like they're like, I don't think we need to focus on that right now. And I'm like, what, that's crazy. So I've been on the other side where like it's very hard to make decisions if or make changes. If you don't have the say or if you You don't have someone that who believes in you, right? It's it's rare. So I owe a lot of, of my like changes that we've been able to make at Trump's like to just being trusted and like Pete murshid are such great leaders, they really trust their employees like they hire you for a reason you're an expert in that field. So go ahead and like, make the changes you need. If you need funding, like, let me know why you need it. And I'll trust you to use that money. And then even if you if you do make mistakes there, they've made plenty of mistakes. They have not to plug another podcast, but they were on guys. How I built this podcast. Yeah, guy. Yeah, yeah, it's such a good podcast. But like they told like the story of like, how champs wasn't even champs in the beginning. And like how they adapted and made changes made money lost money almost went bankrupt. So like, they understand that like, yeah, it's so

Rick Denton: 30:57

Not good that they went bankrupt. Oh, good that they shared that on the podcast to clarify that Oh, good. Yay.

Zoe Kahn: 31:03

Yeah, no, but they, they, I've been able to make changes because I've had their their support. And some of the changes we've made have just been come from like efficiencies, and being able to have the right people behind the desk and answering the tickets and having remembering that like, these are the most important customers or these are the most important part of your business is the customers and the communication between them. And just some of the things that we've talked about before of just like understanding that like, you're the goal isn't to close a ticket in a certain amount of time and have like the fastest resolution time, the goal is to help the customer and take what's happening with the customer. And reflecting on it and changing using that insights. Like you said, Rick of like, it's just a insights, like funnel of like, use that information and use it to for product development. What products should we have next, let's listen to the customers who reach out and say like, I want more Chaplin's half size champs I want this, I want this, like, listen to them. And the biggest changes I actually think that have made the most impact is looking at the complaints. Because in my I've talked about a lot about this a lot in my content recently of taking returns and turning them into returning customers. Looking at all of those complaints, or maybe like any business will have like manufacturer issues or things that happen that just you don't expect them. You don't want them to happen. But they're going to It's inevitable in business, but like not ignoring those and just helping that customer they're like digging into every single issue. And this could be overwhelming for like in customer experience, because there are a lot of little things that happen. But being able to compile all that data and look at like, first the things that are causing the most complaints or in losing the most money or losing the most customers and really digging into those and figuring out what the solution is at the root so that you are proactively fixing those issues. So it doesn't continue to happen. Because it can I'm sure you've seen wreck like it could spiral so quickly of like, here's this little issue, this little issue, this little issue. And then that's why how you have a full inbox of maybe not so happy customers so readily. Being able to have the tools to track those complaints. And having the time actually to dig into them. I again to Pete and Rasheed of understanding that like you need a team, because if you just have like one person answering the tickets, trying to report us make these feedbacks report these issues log these issues, you need someone who's who's dedicated to fixing those problems, or else you'll just spiral into just a, if you want to call it that's where it really makes it a cost center of just like, you've got all these issues that aren't getting solutions. So

Rick Denton: 34:13

you once again, Zoe, I have found myself in incredible alignment with the title, this episode might be the one where Rick agrees with Zoe, right? Which may not be the best title, so I need to work on it. There's that actually is the epicenter of the the consulting that I do for companies and that is helping them extract value from their voice of the customer and do something with it too many companies just get, you know, oh, okay, we fix that one issue, we fix that one issue or they just capture a score. You're describing that total approach that allows that is okay, yeah, we'll fix that issue. We'll restore that relationship. But then let's learn from these themes. Let's set up the systems, the processes, the tools to learn from these themes. And I certainly I love that you started the answer that question of you know why I was able to be successful because I had buy in from the beginning there was there was a group that believed in me and experience their own experiences, and allowed me to have my own experiences taking that forward. So I want to end there. I do want to ask folks, if they want to get to know a little bit more about you a little bit more about chumps. Finding the podcast, I also want to get from you the link of the guy rezaul episode for frm your founders as well. But how can they get in touch to learn a little bit more about you your approach to customer experience, retention, chumps, or your podcast?

Zoe Kahn: 35:30

Yeah, I think the best place to find me for those things is LinkedIn, and Twitter, because I share all those things. And I share a lot about champs to on my LinkedIn of successes we have or maybe it's mistakes we've made on my LinkedIn. So it's just Zoe Khan on LinkedIn, ZOE Kahn and my Twitter is underscore, Zoe Kahn underscore so you can find me by looking at my name. But I do have a newsletter, too, that I am sometimes consistent with, it's kind of one of those things you just like, I like being able to have an audience and communicate with them. And I've been building a newsletter. So it's been fun to put content out there too. And always, I love making connections to other people in customer experience. So please don't hesitate to add me on any of those platforms and reach out and happy to connect to

Rick Denton: 36:25

Awesome, well, I will get all of that into the show notes. No one has to hit pause, just scroll down hit click, though it was a lot of fun today. A lot of smiles a lot of laughs Maybe not as many as are on your great product podcast. I have definitely found that you are finding a way to spread happiness forever. Indeed. The how you've taken me through that concept of how you're bringing that to chumps how even the focus on being a frontline associate and how that has influenced you today that the fitness influence all of that. I see how that has taken you today into this customer experience and retention leader that you are for chumps today. And I've truly enjoyed getting a chance to learn from you today. Zoe, thanks for being on CX passport.

Zoe Kahn: 37:10

Thank you, Rick. I had such a good time. Thank you for having me.

Rick Denton: 37:19

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.