04 - Why Creativity Still Matters in Customer Service - With Joey Willoughby-Rainsford

In this festive episode, Karen Levett chats with Joey Willoughby-Rainsford, a digital content specialist at Ofcom, about the evolution of customer service and the ever-growing need for a human touch in a tech-driven world. From their shared beginnings at Which? to Joey’s innovative role at Ofcom, they dive into how creativity, empathy, and simplicity can transform customer interactions and content creation.

Plus, Joey spills the beans on what it’s like hosting "Traitors" evenings, why building trust online is more crucial than ever, and how to create content that’s as impactful as it is engaging. It's a mix of nostalgia, insights, and a dash of Christmas cheer.

Let’s make your customer experience sparkle this holiday season! ✨

Introduction by the LiveChat Factory Podcast Editor, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

For more information on what we do, please visit https://www.livechatfactory.live/

The Live Chat Factory Podcast is edited with finesse by Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real 🎙️

Transcript

Mike Roberts  0:00  
Mike, hey, live chat factory, podcast fans, it's Mike Roberts here from making digital real. I am the editor of this incredible podcast series. Check mine out, also making digital real, where I talk about leveraging the power of audio, using digital marketing skills such as LinkedIn, video audio, video messaging and everything in between. On how to leverage your public and private podcast feeds. Anyway, this is the Christmas special of the live chat factory podcast. So let's get straight into it. Here is your wonderful host, Karen Levett, 

Karen Levett  0:37  
so hi everybody, and a big welcome to this Christmas special. So I have a guest here today who's very special to me, and his name is Joey Willoughby-Rainsford, and he's from Ofcom. So I met Joey around eight years ago and but he's before that. He had started his Korean customer service. So he's worked his way up in the witch legal service, launching and helping introduce live chat. He has been a journalist. He's moved into digital content creation, at which and I know he produced some awesome, relevant, topical content, but now, guess what? He's a digital content producer at Ofcom. So I know Joey, and I know he's always pushing boundaries in digital communication, so I'm just going to say hello to him, and it's a big live chat factory, hello to the fabulous Joey. Willoughby Rainsford, so hi, Joey. 

Joey Willoughby-Rainsford  1:38  
Hi Karen. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. It's not too early, is it? We can say that to each other. 

Karen Levett  1:44  
No, it's December now. Yeah, absolutely. I've got the tree up, I've got everything going on. Might even buy a bottle of Baileys. I'm that excited. Joey, it's lovely to have you here. And as I mentioned, we've known each other eight years, and we've had some great times together, and as we go through, we'll talk about our experiences together. But for now, I just want to talk a little bit about your career journey and your experiences, if that's okay. Oh yeah, yeah, happy to let's start with which, because that's where we met, and I know you now are Ofcom, but in all of that time, so in your experiences in which and now with Ofcom, how do you think digital content and customer service has evolved? 

Joey Willoughby-Rainsford  2:31  
So I feel like customer service has changed a lot in a very short period of time, prior to which I was in call centers jobs and I even started at which, only for a few months before you hired me in the in the which call center, and then I got the chance to move into live chat, which I was very excited about, because at the time, it was such a new thing and and which was one of the pioneers that was moving to this new approach of communicating with customers, and it was what people wanted. And I think it kind of moved to a stage where people wanted fast resolutions. They wanted a human touch, but not to be overly personable and but more about that kind of rapid but also, like the least inconvenient, when you're on live chat, you can be doing other things as a customer. So it made sure that you would get you and also, like as a live chat operator, you could speak to more customers, more than one customer at a time. So it just made everything a little bit faster for everyone. And kind of worked really well for those people who were, like pressed for time, or had your multitasking as they were dealing with their customer queries or issues. I then think it got less and less personal as people wanted it faster and faster, which was kind of natural. But I think COVID changed that as it changed many things. But I think then people wanted suddenly that human connection again, especially as like AI, got more involved and kind of chat bots, I've noticed now a kind of shift back towards that human, personal touch that was beginning to go away, and like the formulaic approach, whilst I think it's still prevalent in the customer service world, is less popular, less favorably viewed by actual customers. So I think, yeah, we are shifting back towards a more personal approach, which I'm in favor of personally. Yeah, me too, Joey, all the way I wouldn't have it any other way. I love using the digital tools, the software, the tech, the AI, but it's always got to be with a human and I think a lot of that now, what's evolving is around emotional intelligence. How are we using those tools? We've got the tools, great, but how are we actually using them and engaging? So I think spot on. That's exactly what you know. That's a really good answer. I think when you were at which How important was creativity in connecting?

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Customers, because I feel you're quite a creative person. And, you know, did you feel you had to be quite creative? I mean, particularly in live chat, because, you know, we were building that team together, weren't we, really and, you know, start, we were a carte blanche to do a lot. So did you feel creativity had a part to play in that, Oh, definitely. And especially in those really early days when, like, there wasn't a rule book, because, you know, everyone who was doing live chat was doing it at the same time, and we're all like, learning. And so I think it was as new to the customers as it was to us. And that was kind of like, I remember the amount of times that you'd get, like, people would ask you, are you a bot? Or are you, are you a human? And you would, kind of like, I don't that was one I'd always play with. So someone sent me a message and it was like, Oh, are you actually human? And I'd rather apply something like, last time I checked yes, or Are any of us real? Stuff like that? And you kind of like, you would, it would be a quick way of building rapport with most people, because they'd find it funny. And then, okay, haha, yeah, you're definitely a human and then you just kind of go from there.

Unknown Speaker  6:10  
And then, as well, with the way we worked with which, particularly because we were the legal life chat service, we were triaging legal issues and finding the most appropriate solution to them, whether that's sending them to a particular lawyer, giving them advice via the content on the website,

Unknown Speaker  6:31  
or in some cases, when it's issues that we don't cover, we would always point them to what we thought was the best one. And so there was like, kind of correct creativity in that in terms of, like, how do you

Unknown Speaker  6:44  
get the person to tell you enough information for you to triage without them giving you too much information? And then also the fact that live chats were recorded, and this was like before gdrp, and gdrp came in while we were doing this, but like, you had to be careful, because people would tell you too much, the amount of times people would type their credit card number into the chat, and you were like, no stop, because you could see they were doing it before they sent it because and that was it. We moved live chat systems, and the second one we had was much more advanced, and it was like in a tool that really enabled us to push boundaries. But one of the best things about it that helped with that speed, that at the time was so crucial, or still is crucial, but at the time, particularly, people wanted speed more than anything else. About six years ago, I'd say, and that so at the time, we had this system which would show us what they were typing as they were typing it, which meant that you could start prayering You, yeah, yeah, that was it, and you could prepare your reply mentally, although I remember more than once sending a response before they'd actually sent their message, as we were getting used to the technology. But, yeah, so, but yeah, no, it was finding kind of the creative, yeah, it was finding the, you know, the creative solutions, and also to try and like

Unknown Speaker  8:08  
and just just, I think creativity mainly came into that, that building rapport and being personable,

Unknown Speaker  8:15  
which for, especially for which customers and, well, for most COVID people, but the witch clientele especially, really liked that from people they were really worried about. They weren't, you know, not speak speaking to someone who either wasn't real or didn't care they they needed that kind of almost reassurance, which you would have by just having that personal approach. And there was no one size fits all. So you had to be creative with each individual person and treat them as an individual, because everyone was different. No, I remember those days. Joe well, great days, but back to today. So digital content and how you create it. Now, can I ask, do you use video as a creative tool? Joey, is that something you you might use at Ofcom, the team definitely does. We've got a brilliant Tiktok manager who is, she's a team of one, but uses a lot of volunteers. And I've appeared on a Tiktok now, where we were talking about radio wave spectrum. And yeah, so video is, used a lot. I love to embed video into my digital contents of that being web pages, I feel like a very well crafted

Unknown Speaker  9:29  
piece of media, like a video with the right animation voiceover, and then the accessibility features, like the subtitles, and also having it be able to be in different languages really can help explain complex issues in a way that doesn't feel patronizing, but also is really rapid as well. And so yeah, so I think video is, is, is crucial, and there are so many like Tik Tok is a brilliant platform to get messages.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Across to different demographics, particularly for Ofcom, who wouldn't normally, kind of

Unknown Speaker  10:06  
seek out the content from a regulator. But

Unknown Speaker  10:11  
what Ofcom does affects anyone online so crucially, and it's so important, I would you know that the amount of work that that these massive and teams of brilliant people are doing to regulate the various different communication systems we're using in the UK. So yeah, it's it's it. Video is definitely a very good way of us explaining what we do, and it is something I'm hoping to see more of. But for the majority of of my role it is getting very complex pieces of policy which I don't even understand. And if I don't understand it, the you know, anyone on the street is not going to understand it, because I'm not. I'm not saying,

Unknown Speaker  10:54  
you know, I've got the about average intelligence. So if you know, if I then need to make it make sense to me, and which had a really good way of saying this is jumping back to old roles at which there was always this policy, which I'm trying to bring forward softcom as well, which is, you say it as you would say it to your mate at the pub. How would you explain it to them in that way? Use relatable language and so, yeah. So I'm taking really confusing, complex policy language, which has its place. It's needed for the industry experts, but I also sometimes need to make it more user friendly or accessible to everyone, especially when it's advice for consumers or customers or just well general public or just everyone at UK, citizens or residents, I definitely, I live my life by that joy. Keep it simple everything. It just makes everything,

Unknown Speaker  11:49  
everybody happier. You know, we're all on this. You know, we all understand what we're saying. Certainly in live chat, people still think we're bots. How does it work? We're what it's about. Keeping it nice and simple, makes it accessible for everyone.

Unknown Speaker  12:05  
You mentioned Tiktok. So have you noticed shifts in our customers behave? So I know you're putting the content out there, and I know you're trying to get this important message across. So have you noticed, you know, platforms like Tiktok and YouTube, how customers are influenced, or does it influence your business approach? Is there anything you can, sort of any inspire in that? I would say that there are two main types of customers. Now, if we were to really drill it down to step like core stereotypes. Obviously, there's much more that goes into this, and there are more differences.

Unknown Speaker  12:47  
There's as many differences as there are people. But the core

Unknown Speaker  12:51  
thing that I've noticed is you have some people who don't have a very long attention span anymore, which I would call the Tik Tok or the Tiktok viewers

Unknown Speaker  13:01  
who just want it quick. They want the answer now. They don't want to go through ridiculous interfaces. They don't want to

Unknown Speaker  13:08  
give you their address or confirm security or like they don't want to answer your questions. They want you to answer theirs, which for certain lines of work, is actually very difficult, because the questions you ask as a customer service relation person is important, you're triaging. You're trying to identify what they need. Obviously, it depends on what they want, but it depends on the kind of the the industry. And then you've got the other lot, which I think skews to the slightly older generation. But I'm saying very slightly, because I think it is literally like younger than younger than 30 and older than 30, I think that's the difference, and it's those who are still a little bit traumatized. Maybe that's not the right word, but they're a little bit they need something a little bit more comforting and human. And I think it very much comes down to COVID and lockdowns and kind of that feeling of isolation. And at the same time as that feeling of isolation, you're cut off from the world, and then you couldn't even speak to someone about any customer service thing, because you're just being put through to bots. And there's also this apprehension about AI coming in and taking jobs,

Unknown Speaker  14:17  
and I feel like, therefore, so you've got this too. You've got, I would say you've got the people who want it fast and will embrace AI, but also probably get very frustrated with it because it won't do what they want fast enough. A human will always be a slightly better. And you've also got those who want to have the human touch, and they want to have the warm and personal approach. Yeah, I think absolutely the personable and we touched on that before, but I think that's still so very important. But also I think people want to be reassured we're all very concerned about our data, and you mentioned Ofcom are looking after everyone's data, making sure things are processes, systems, compliance. Everything is in place as it should.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Would be, and I think that's a part of it as well, because if you feel you're talking to something in person, but you don't want to give anything away, you you know it's like if it was asking for your address. What do you want my address for people do get a little bit nervous about it. They can either, as you said, there's, there's two trains of thought here. They can overshare, or they can be very cautious and think it's a scam. So you do have to pitch it right, and you do have to have that personalization. I think, Well, you said it's triggered a memory. And I do. I did find that those who are most nervous about scams, once reassured, gave you all their information. And it was a bit like, no, don't give me too much. Like, just give me what I ask for. I'm like, I'm only asking enough so that I can actually do my job making sure that you're the right you're actually are who you say you are. I don't need any more than that. And giving me more than that is, is why you're at risk of scams. And I think the amount of times I ended up having

Unknown Speaker  16:01  
conversations with people that was like, Hey, okay, here's what you've needed. I've done that now, but before you go, please, can I just give you some advice about how to be safe online, because you're your own worst enemy. Obviously didn't say it like that, but like, you know, and that, I think, and we all kind of did it because, I think it's partly because we worked for which, and that's what, which does, it helps people. And you, you kind of, you're in that you're in that environment, and you just kind of want to do it too. But also it's just like, I think every time I was speaking to someone, I was like, this could be my mom or dad. I need to, need to get them to understand, don't tell me these things. You're looking after them. And that's kind of when you're in that environment. I think that's great, isn't it? When you're in an environment, where the values, and, you know, everybody's thinking the same way, and it's coming from the top, is that we are caring about these members, our members. We do it at live chat factory. It's about, we care about our clients, customers. And it's, it's almost like, as you say, you think, what if it was my mom? What if it was my dad? My auntie, my brother, my sister, and looking after them, especially in this environment that we're in now, this digital environment, I think, is really important. So that's lovely that that you brought that up, Joey, it came from the top as well, in a sense. So it is where I'm biting you up carefully, in all honesty, because you were a people manager, first and foremost, like you loved the tech and you knew the tech, and you were innovating all time. But ahead of that, I think you cared about us as a team. You carefully selected us as team members, and you were always checking in, looking after us, helping us advance in our careers. And I think everyone who worked for you has now has like had, have had their career dreams come true, if you think about it, us as a small team, we've all, all of us have gone really far, but part of that, I was because you cared about us. We cared about doing a good job in return, which was caring for the customers. And it was just kind of like that environment, and it wasn't, it wasn't just you, it was that whole legal team, the managers, were people managers. And I think as things have moved on in, certainly in when I've actually just been dealing with

Unknown Speaker  18:18  
customer service stuff in my own life, I feel like the pressure has come up more, and it's become less about the people and more about targets, and that's now beginning to come across. And I think I actually think generally, customer service in the UK has got worse, and not in every case, but I think on a whole, it's trending downwards, and I think everyone has noticed that. And I think a large part of that is we have become less human, and that's in the job, that's as we're being treated by like I said, Never happened at which that I ever saw, but like I see it now in other places. And

Unknown Speaker  18:57  
I think that, you know, that has a huge effect. Oh, it's got to, hasn't it? And firstly, oh, let me say thank you, Jerry. How kind of you to say those nice words? No, I loved managing the witch legal live chat team. It was amazing. And you were specially chosen and because of your creativity. And look at you now, you know digital, digital content producer, but it is great, isn't it, to sort of connect when you're in a when you're in a role where you're, you know, with customer service, it can be hell on earth. Customers can be really hard work. But if you're, if you've got kind of a vocation, if you feel you really want to go in each day and do a good job, look after those people and be innovative, be a little bit creative. Have, you know, have carte blanche to do some good things. Perhaps, you know, where you have a manager who goes, Yeah, do you think that's the right thing to do? You go and do it. I think that's great. And I think we all add that. I add it from my, you know, from the above for me, and I.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
I you know, I hope I passed it on to you guys, because, you know, but we were a success anyway. So now social media. I mean, honestly, Joe, we get bombarded so much now, don't we with images, text, people wanting our attention. How do you grab attention? What do you think as a digital content producer is the best way to grab attention? Or is it not as easy as that? There definitely isn't a one size fits all, because I think

Unknown Speaker  20:30  
there's kind of like you have different strategies for the different platforms and different strategies for the different mediums, but for my line of work, I suppose that's knowing your customer, isn't it knowing your customer exactly. It's knowing your customer. It's knowing your platform. But for my line of work, it is. It's kind of like there are some true, tried and tested methods that worked in print journalism have been adapted for digital journalism and digital web pages, and that is really the headline that catches you the stand first, that gives you enough to whet your appetite, and the intro that gives you as much as you actually need from it, and then anything else is extra, but it all kind of broadens the scope of it. So like you know, whether, if it's policy stuff, it's a very concise and well written

Unknown Speaker  21:18  
executive summary, if it's a news story that's more customer facing is about having that intro. But in the digital world, is particularly it's now considering SEO, which is where you have to start almost, kind of getting your Sherlock Holmes psychological hat on. In terms of like, you have to think, what do actually people who want to see this content, what do they type into Google or Bing or whichever search engine they're using, and then you have to try and get those words and put them in your headline, in your stand first, in your intro copy, and in the alt text for your images, and all the things like

Unknown Speaker  21:52  
that. And

Unknown Speaker  21:55  
I think, as well, the people now, as

Unknown Speaker  21:59  
I think a lot of a lot of visitors or audience members are beginning to get to the point where they're like becoming detectives to try and find AI generated content. And if they assume it's an ai ni, AI generated content, they switch off because, oh, this wasn't actually written by a person. It doesn't matter.

Unknown Speaker  22:18  
And as I think there is a lot more. I'm gonna call it slop. There's a lot of slop being generated and and put out in there. People are getting more sensitive to it. We haven't really, I don't think anyone, at least, I definitely haven't figured out how to kind of solve that. I have an inkling that not perfect spelling and grammar is slightly something to do with it. And I'm not saying therefore, just don't bother spell checking or having a sub editor, but tactically leaving in certain things that just show that a human was there, and then also using human language more. There has been a trend of moving from because there was a point where, specifically in journalism, it was you wouldn't say there, you'd say they are, or you wouldn't say I'd I did. We're now moving more to the the I did, the CANS instead of cannot. And that is, I think, because it sounds all human, it sounds more conversational, and it also adds that warmth, I think, once again, is what people want, is, is that warmth, that conversational feeling, as well. So that's kind of like some of the some of the methods that we're using. But also, I think it is still simplicity and rapidness. So it's getting to the point quickly, which I'm clearly not doing at the moment. And it's, yes, it's getting to the point quickly, and it's giving people what they've clicked on. And people also are have click bait fatigue. I definitely do the amount of times I'm like, I see a headline, I think, oh, that's what I want go on to it, and it's not till the end of the page. I was like, I know that we care about how much they scrolled, and that definitely helps. But really, just put it at the top, because you put it at the top, you'll be a trusted source. It's basically a lot of people are using

Unknown Speaker  24:10  
short term thinking to create content that grabs attention, but it does not build trust in your brand. And I think we need to go back from that and be like, we're not about the short term wins. We are about long term investment in our brand and long term investment in our business, and and doing that is by treating your customers with respect. If you're telling them that this article has that answer put out the goddamn top like,

Unknown Speaker  24:35  
and I think that is, I think that

Unknown Speaker  24:38  
exactly give them the answer really quickly, or as quickly as possible. I definitely know that there was content like which where you couldn't give it in a paragraph, because it's so damn complicated, but then find a way of displaying that, and that might be a three minute video, I found actually, particularly going back to video and stuff, you could do a three minute video that explains an entire topic that that takes, like war and.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Piece to say in written word.

Unknown Speaker  25:02  
And I think part of that is you're not just hearing it. You're seeing something that explains it. The visual cues are doing a lot of the work for you as well. So yeah, it's finding the fastest solution to give people that answer so that they trust you and come back to you that will be much more effective than any strong SEO that brings people in who then like, because now when I like Google search something, I remember the names of the websites where I'm like, well, actually, that was a waste of time going on that one, and I don't click on them anymore. Yeah. And that's no good, is it? Yeah, that's not good for any business. And I think because I know it's also it's something that I was taught back in my John Lewis days,

Unknown Speaker  25:45  
you give someone a bad customer experience, they're going to tell three to five people. If you give someone a good customer experience, they're probably not going to tell anyone, but they will remember it, and they'll come back to you. And that rings true in face to face, sales, conversations, to on the phone, to live chat and to digital content. Yeah, yeah. Well, do you know what Joey, you've just you've just answered that. My next question was going to be, what advice would you give businesses looking to combine video content with outstanding customer service? So you've just answered that question. So it's spooky. We've gone back to our witch days, where you can read my thoughts. This is amazing. So,

Unknown Speaker  26:28  
so we're coming up to, we are, we are intuitive into it in tune. So I'm coming back now to, we're sort of near the end. So I'm just last few questions that I just really want to ask you, because I think you know really want to hear what you've got to say about this. So what has been your proudest moment in creating content that really impacted customers? Where do you think you really made a difference? One thing that I did at one of the last things I did at which was create a petition page for the right to connect campaign, which the purpose of was to get the law to be changed so that you couldn't have inflation based mid contract price rises. Now, inflation based mid contract price rises is a bit of a mouthful, and it's quite hard to explain. So we needed to get across in the petition page quite early on why someone needs to sign up to this petition. Why affects them and why, if this, what we're proposing, is done, is a good thing for them and everyone else. And that campaign was a huge success

Unknown Speaker  27:40  
at the time I was there, I think it was the second or third most successful first seven days of a campaign, which is history that may have changed since then, but there was, it was the case at the time, and yeah, I was so proud of that being part of that campaign, and then when it got picked up by regulators, and there was this, it's now changing. It's going to come into effect, hopefully within the next couple of years, which means that when you're when you're taking out a contract on a mobile device, you or broadband, you can be confident that the price that you're advertised, that is the price that you're going to be paying continuously, or if it's not, they have to advertise the future prices, so at least then you can make an informed decision and not just hope for the best. And also, as inflation has become so all over the place, it's not, it's not a great thing to base price rises on. Obviously, it is what price rises are based on. But you know, on your contract on top of it is a it is ridiculous, because the prices are not going up that much for them. You know, air time has, yes, it has a high overhead, but this does not have anywhere near as high overhead as how much money they're making on it. So, yeah, so it's, you know, it's a great thing to be a part of, and it's one of my proudest things to date. Oh, fantastic, Joe. I love your journey. I love it. I feel so proud of your journey and well done. You. So great, great news and onwards and upwards with that. Joey, so last couple of questions, what's one key lesson you've learned from working in customer service? That is, you know, that relates to now producing digital content? So this kind of you know, is there something you can remember from working in customer service that's helping you now with your digital content? I think it wants it comes back to the simplicity and giving people the answer that they're seeking as quickly as you can. It's definitely something I have tried to implement in in my roles, it's putting the most important bit at the top and all the bits that support it underneath, because people are busy and, you know, they don't have time to read all it is kind of depressing. Sometimes you look at the heat map, which is a thing that shows you the part of the website that actually gets viewed. Most people do not scroll further than 25

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Percent of the page down. If that is overwhelmingly a fact, I think it's been the case everywhere I've worked, and probably I put money that it's the case for the majority of websites, maybe not fan based Wikipedia, but that's a very different audience. The majority of, I think the majority of people just are so busy they need their answer now and then they need to move on and implement what they've learned, or, you know, use it so you put that there, and then they know about they and they trust it and and I definitely was doing that when I was working at

Unknown Speaker  30:38  
at which on the policy and insight. Also, this wasn't, this wasn't customer facing, whatever it was you could access it, but it was aimed at experts, but experts who are very busy. So you would often get a load of people who would they want

Unknown Speaker  30:57  
to read the executive summary, download the rest of the thing, and then take it away and

Unknown Speaker  31:02  
over the course of my tenure of looking after I managed to see a 70% increase in in monthly traffic, which was great news, and also probably as high as was ever gonna get, because I'd estimated there's probably only about 10,000 people in the UK that actually cared about was on this website. And if it went higher than that, then we're probably getting people who are lost.

Unknown Speaker  31:22  
And yeah, we saw that by by showing that we were a useful source of information, they would still understand it, but they definitely weren't in the right place. And we did have, I was looking at a report once during what people were typing into our particular search bar. So it's not the search bar of all of which it was specifically the search bar for the policy stuff. And now people typed in microwave and it's like, yep, they've they're lost. So Joey, if you could give your younger self advice about working in the fast paced environment you're working in now the digital content, what would it be? It would definitely be the advice that you gave me on more than one occasion, which is, walk before you can run. That is something I remind myself of quite frequently. I'm definitely the kind of person who gets excited about an idea, plans half of it, and then tries to implement the whole thing, although in that, I mean, I still think like that. I don't actually act like that anymore, but it was really good advice to have, and it's definitely something that I think of you. Whenever I think of it, I'm like, Okay, I'm very excited. Let's not send that email today. We'll sit on it. We'll read it again tomorrow, and then, you know, see if it, see how, how that,

Unknown Speaker  32:35  
how that reads with a clear with a less excitable mind. So that's, there's definitely one of them, and then another one. And this was from someone else, as my editor, at which when I was very nervous about moving from journalism into web design, which was much more techie than I'd ever been,

Unknown Speaker  32:57  
even though, you know, live chat was somewhat techie. But this was, this was another level, and I wasn't sure. I also wasn't, you know, completely new team, and I was really worried. And she said to me, just trust your personality and be yourself. And it couldn't be any more important than that, Joey, because your personality and being yourself is more than enough for any situation, any area, any role that you're in.

Unknown Speaker  33:25  
So yes, I think that's excellent advice from that editor. Yeah, no, definitely. So yeah, two very influential women in my life who I still think of regularly,

Unknown Speaker  33:35  
especially if I helped my career, I think as well, it kind of like

Unknown Speaker  33:40  
having you as a manager has did really help my career, because I think if we'd not worked together, I probably would still be doing customer service stuff, which wasn't where I wanted to end up, and you giving me the space to grow professionally. And I've kind of, I have lucked out with managers. Each one has been as good as or better than the last, and you kind of started that trend. So thank you. You're just looking for that. You see, you know what I mean. You know what to look for. Now, when you're looking for a manager, you know, you're like, Yes, I need somebody who's going to support me. But it's not that, Joey, you've got, you've got such a lot of talent yourself. And even though I wouldn't like to say, oh, you know, you more than customer service, because customer service is a great role, and I love it, you know, that's, that's what I do. But

Unknown Speaker  34:31  
I think you you've got so much to offer in other ways that support customer service and help customer service, because, you know, like you said, as we've gone through here, you know, you sort of said, you know, you're, you're making things simple for people to understand. I mean, that's a service that's brilliant, and that's supporting and helping, and I think so it's all encompassing to me. You know, it's all about support, it's all about help, and it's all about being creative and, you know, you're.

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
All of those things rolled into one. Oh, I just want to add. I think the way I view it coming from a customer service background, is kind of viewing it as a whole ecosystem. When you have better web pages, you have less confused people going to your customer service agents, which is clogging up the line, which means you can treat you can you can help people faster who actually need it, because those that just need their answer have gotten it. And that's having

Unknown Speaker  35:36  
better systems in place for like FAQs, better information in place, like the mountain times where I'm like, about to buy something, and I'm like, actually, who's delivering it and where? Like, it's just like, really simple bits of information, not where. When there's really simple bits of information that people just don't publish, and it's just like, you're all customers yourself. Think about what you would want to know if you're in that situation. But and think of it in a way, because it does make everyone's lives better if less people need to be because you get those people who think that should be really easy. I should have had that. I shouldn't have to now be on the phone or on live chat with with a customer service rep, and now the fact that I have them has made me annoyed, which means it's going to be a less pleasant conversation for everyone involved. And so like just just doing these things, just improves everything, and also it builds up that trust and rapport business to customer before it even gets to an agent, if that makes sense, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's, um, it just makes the brand feel more trustworthy, more transparent, you know, just, just make it as you say it's simple, back to simple. Here we are back again. But Joey, okay, so you are very much bringing people together and groups. So what are some of the groups that you're running now? Because I know you did talk to me a little bit about and this is for your colleagues. This is for support with your colleagues. What are you up to at the moment? So yeah, outside of my main role, I do volunteers. On the right, I do extra stuff, or extracurriculars, as I like to call them. So for Ofcom, I am a co chair of the affinity network, which is the LGBT plus network for for Ofcom employees, and that as a larger as part of a larger organization, which is Rainbow regulators, which is similar networks in each of that. And there's also, like, there are in Ofcom, a lot of different networks, and we also all work together. So there's like, one for faith, there's one for Neuro diversity and disabilities, there's one for race, and there's others as well. So we all kind of like work together. But what one thing that I have kind of been working on, and I was working on this at which before I left and I'm now working on of Comm, is I'm very much a believer in that we work better when we are physically together in the same building and getting people back into the office. I think hybrid working definitely has its advantages, and I definitely love it. And and do do the three days at home, two days in the office, but I think when you come into the office, let's make it more engaging. Let's make it more fun. So I do a lot of event organization for social events that don't cost the business any money, but are a lot of fun. And that is basically like creating, having a space where people can bring in their own board games and their own snacks. And we all, we all just play board games together in the evening after work, to kind of let off steam and and that's been great fun. I've done that a few times. I've done that in other people's places of employment as well. And then I've also been putting on what I call traitors evenings, which is based on the TV show, which in itself, is based on a board game. So, and it's basically taking that to TV show Which, admittedly, I've never watched. But when the concept was explained to me, I was like, Oh, I've played that before. I could, I could make that an evening. So we make it into a two hour interactive evening. And I'm actually hosting one in in a few weeks. And then I'll be hosting them for offices of Comm officers regionally, of course, of Comm has officers across, uh, across the UK, so I'll be going on tour to take it around to different different employees. And that's, it's one of my big passions. I really like to

Unknown Speaker  39:25  
make because

Unknown Speaker  39:26  
you spend so much time, so much of your time at work, it should be more than just work, in my opinion. I think there is, obviously, there is a time and a place. But you know, after hours, before you go home, let's do something together. We are a team. We have to spend all our time together. So let's, let's have fun as well. Yeah, I love that. And what I can't believe is, you've never seen traitors. I can't believe that. And you're going on tour with it, the way my husband, like would tell me about everything that happened there. So they feel like I saw traitors, but I never did. So you could have bails more. So.

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
Yes,

Unknown Speaker  40:01  
yeah, exactly. Absorb the knowledge, yeah, and yeah. And I think that was something I used to do, like, back in the in the early live chat days, was create team incentives. Do you remember my Galaxy game where we had that big map and we were moving our ships around as we were, like, completing work tasks? It gave us points to spend in this game. And so I think it's just always about just kind of bringing fun to work and just enjoying it. And you do bring that, Joey, and thank you for bringing joy and a lot of good advice to this podcast. Today it is the Christmas podcast, so we will be saying Merry Christmas to everybody. Do you know how to say it in French? Giulia noello or something? I think is a right there phrase. But I wish you Merry Christmas. Joey, thank you for being my guest today,

Unknown Speaker  40:55  
and I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you for having me, and I very much enjoyed it. Yes, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your family. And maybe I'll come along to one of those traitors evenings. I do hope that one day I can host it to more than just employees. But at the moment, the amount of paperwork I'd have to get you to sign to get you into the building told us, No, we can't be doing that. You can't sneak me and you've got, I've got to be like the traitor. You get me in somewhere. Joey, I can do this. We can do that. I'll be the hosts are dressed in cloaks. We might be able to get it. We might be. We can do it. Figure out. But if not, the thirsty scholar will meet. Will definitely meet up at the thirsty scholar, oh, yes, yeah, no, I still spend far too much time there, even though I don't work that near there anymore. Yeah, but I'm sure we could, we can meet there. Definitely

Unknown Speaker  41:44  
listen. Thank you so much, Joey and you take care. Have a good evening. Bye, everybody, and thank you for listening and take care and have a fabulous Christmas. Bye. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai