The CX Files #5 - Drew Schafer

Discover the most effective ways to use AI, and how it's best used to deliver a great CX. Also learn how a human touch can build customer relationships that drive growth efficiently. This episode is full of useful insights and stories🔥

Drew Schafer is currently the Senior Global Manager of Support Operations at Webflow, a visual website builder. He has been at Webflow for the past four years as the company has seen amazing growth. He has a technical IT support background at a range of companies and recently led the launch of Webflow's new Help center. 

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Transcript

The CX Files #5 - Drew Schafer
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Drew Schafer: [00:00:00] it's still work to categorize things. And AI is really good at understanding what the, uh, the issue is and then putting it into a bucket that you give it. Um, and so, um, having it do that has definitely, I think, uh, lighten the load a bit, but then also with that, even adding a layer on top is that it can identify those things that maybe could be automated or have a solution. 



Ben Foden: Welcome to the CX files. Today's guest is Drew Schafer. He is currently the senior global manager of support operations at Webflow, a visual website builder. He has been at Webflow the past four years as the company has seen amazing growth. has a technical IT support background at a range of companies and recently led the launch of Webflow's new help center. So Drew, in the past four years, you've leveled up and been promoted several [00:01:00] times while working remotely. Um, how do you think about remote work and the challenge that can happen there around being, being visible inside of the company?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, no, I think it's, uh, it's been an interesting journey. That's for sure. I think, uh, looking back on it for me, the big thing, uh, that I've always kind of had a focus on throughout my entire career, uh, is the idea of continuous improvement, uh, and now I'm taking it away from yourself. So obviously, you know, it's always good.

Drew Schafer: You know, learn more, improve your, your skill set, but continuous improvement for essentially the organization you're at. And for me, that's, I think, been kind of the key of my growth within Webflow and my growth in my career as a whole, um, has been, you know, As you said, it can be maybe hard, especially remotely, to get recognized, to get noticed.

Drew Schafer: Um, but if you have that growth mindset, um, I think it really does make a difference. Um, you know, early on, I saw opportunities, and I would [00:02:00] take them. Or I found an area that needed improvement, and I would propose something, sometimes even build it out. You know, without even really, uh, getting the approval first, and then, you know, demoing it and say, Hey, this is what we could do.

Drew Schafer: This is, this is a solution. This is an option. Um, and, uh, I think I've always kind of lived by the mentality of, you know, yeah, ask for forgiveness and set permission, uh, go for it. Uh, it may not always work out, but, uh, it definitely gets you noticed and it gets, um, you know, uh, you working possibly, you know, in the job or the career that you really want.

Ben Foden: Yeah, definitely. I can relate to that too. I think, um, You know, I would much prefer to jump in, you know, build a mock up, you know, even if it's pencil and paper, whatever it takes to kind of show something, beyond just your words. And then, you know, suddenly it's, it's an object that people can, can riff off of.

Ben Foden: It's, people can share their feedback on. Um, and I think people always appreciate, you know, all the leaders I've ever worked with have always appreciated [00:03:00] that initiative. Um, yeah, so I think it's, it's interesting to, um, you know, you, you've seen, um, some different organizations in your work experience.

Ben Foden: You've, you've worked on some different teams, always with a bit of a technical focus, I. T. background. Um, can you tell us a story today about one really memorable experience, a customer experience, either that you had or that you were, you were helping with, um, in your journey so far?

Drew Schafer: Oh, yeah, thank you. Uh, so, yeah, customer experience. That's kind of like really, um, stood out to me. I think it would probably be, you know, obviously, I think here, here at Webflow, um, early on, actually. Um, Yeah, the support team was pretty small at this stage. Um, and, uh, we had a customer reaching out [00:04:00] and, um, they were actually reaching out specifically for a billing issue.

Drew Schafer: Usually I didn't help with billing things, but yeah, just kind of took the took the tickets that were there. And, um, they were essentially Hey. I guess, yeah, just misalignments of dates and things like this. They were having a baby and all this. And, uh, in the end we got it all squared away. Uh, they somehow, yeah, missed the baby.

Drew Schafer: I can't remember all the details, but, uh, it was really just the, the being there and helping them every step of the way took us a few times to go back and forth. Uh, and in the end, the person actually, you know, basically said, Hey, if I'm ever in Greece, you know, I'm over there. Uh, they're where they live on some island or something, and it's kind of stuff that stood out to me of the just taking the time to hear them out to work with them, even if it was something I wasn't overly comfortable with or knew everything about, we got through it.

Drew Schafer: We figured it out. And in the end, uh, you know, kind of built this relationship with this person [00:05:00] that even when they reached back out in the future, they Always, you know, they, Hey, is Drew available? They kind of remembered, remembered me, uh, throughout, you know, their experience, uh, with support. Yeah.

Ben Foden: for whatever reason, that person, um, you know, maybe they, they have a need that's ongoing. Like they keep contacting you multiple times. You know, inevitably, um, you know, one conversation leads to another, and sometimes you end up learning a little bit about their life, and they live on an island in Greece or something like that, right? Um, but I think when you have those experiences to kind of build a relationship, you know, um, you know, from a pure efficiency mindset, it's maybe not the most efficient thing, you know, air quotes efficient here, right? Um, but we understand that, you know, not only does it feel good for the customer and for us. [00:06:00] but there's, there's a, there's a longer term benefit for the business there as well, right? If a customer has a great experience and builds a connection with you, you know, that's going to pay dividends over time. Um, I'd like to ask you a little bit about this, this kind of tension that I feel is really common between like building a human connection, going the extra mile for people, you know, adding a personal touch, and then this drive for efficiency, which is kind of never ending, right? How do you think about that, that tension?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. I think even like tying back to this is like, know, the, The issue was solved. Um, and it could have been solved with like zero emotion or connection. Um, but at the end of the day, a lot of times it's not even solved any faster if you I think if you exclude that connection.

Drew Schafer: Um, I think. There is a level, I think, depending on, I mean, you could go full in and [00:07:00] tell people about your lives and then, you know, skip the issue completely and you're really losing your efficiency at that point. But if you do actually look at it from the point of really understanding who they are, why they're asking the things they are, um, you actually can, in my opinion, be more efficient.

Drew Schafer: Um, then less efficient when you actually, uh, do connect with them on this personal level and understand just who they are in that moment. There may be someone who for them, they don't want to connect. They need the quick in and out and trying to connect will be inefficient. It will cause, uh, delays and more problems.

Drew Schafer: But then for those who you kind of get that sense where they want some sort of connection with the person, they want to know there's a real person on the other end. Uh, There's even a hint that there's AI. They're going to be, you know, a bit frustrating because they thrive on that emotional connection.

Drew Schafer: And so I think it's kind of a balance that needs to be played and looked at at each individual interaction. [00:08:00] So, you know, coming at it from everyone's the same is not really the right approach. Um, You know, I heard a while back an experience or an idea of, of having like persona cards, you know, kind of on your desk of like different types of personalities really strict, you know, squished down from, I mean, as much as you can take into someone when they write, yeah, three lines of text and an email, uh, but being able to try to put them into one of these categories essentially, and then help let that determine how essentially you interact with them.

Ben Foden: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, the idea of customer personas is, um, know, I know it's used in design. It's used in marketing. It's used in in some kinds of sales, I believe. Um, but I haven't heard of that used before and support. Um, you know, is that something, um, you could tell us a little bit more about, like, have you thought about doing this?

Ben Foden: Is this something you're doing right [00:09:00] now?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, it's not something like I guess we're doing at a grand scale. It's something probably just more, uh, something that I, I've always kind of mentally thought about. Um, and, and, uh, something I've talked to some of my team about as well, about, Hey, let's, let's, you know, just an idea to try to go down. But it isn't something I think that, I've completely ignored in support, especially in operations.

Drew Schafer: Um, I guess, uh, a project that I've worked on, uh, here at Webflow in the past is our, our customer support portal. Um, and, uh, we've kind of actually. Use this concept of personas, uh, when we've developed it a bit, uh, to help us to try to solve people's problems the way that they want them solved.

Ben Foden: Yeah, I think that and that's really a, um, a good way to say it. And I've, I've heard some similar kinds of voices echoing that same sentiment, which is like. Okay. You know, give the customer what they want, obviously, [00:10:00] but the way that they want it, right? Um, and I think you kind of touched on this before, but, you know, maybe somebody, maybe somebody, uh, the example I always like to give is like resetting a password, right?

Ben Foden: People want, you know, for that. It's yeah. Give me the answer. Give me the in and out self service, right? I'll be on my way. Everybody's happier, right? It's efficient for the business. It's efficient for the customer. I'm not looking for, you know, a chance to build a relationship over resetting my password most likely. Um, but then sometimes you have an edge case, you have a really technical problem, you have, you know, multiple variables in play and you really want to talk to a human and kind of, you know, you have to dig in a little bit more. Um, absolutely. I think, um, You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that, um, you know, that we learn in CX over, over time, some things are a little bit more obvious, and some things are kind of, you know, surprises along the way. Um, could you share like a surprise, something that you learned in your personal CX [00:11:00] journey? Hmm.

Drew Schafer: for me has been, um, The, I guess, as like a team, um, about, the effort that maybe, uh, as a whole team, you put into supporting customers. Um, I think working probably more so than like an I. T. Uh, in the past, um, Which is a bit different than, I guess, maybe broader support.

Drew Schafer: Um, you know, tickets would come in and you'd solve it. And if you need help, you know, you're off in an office. Usually, you know, the guy next to you hops on and you just kind of work through it together. And you're very rarely, you know, on the phone with a customer. In that case, you're trying to solve it to get out and you work it out pretty quickly.

Drew Schafer: Uh, but I think what's really come to me [00:12:00] as a surprise now is like being remote with Customer, uh, support and being such a wide variety of skill sets that can kind of come in and, and situations that you may need different ones, um, has been an interesting kind of way to look at it. And, and I think historically.

Drew Schafer: My mindset was always like, you want to do an issue, just escalate it, just move it up. Uh, we're remote. We can't lean over. Uh, but yeah, obviously with, um, even with just escalating it in that group, there's going to be only one person maybe that can take it. And, and if, um, just constantly like moving it up.

Drew Schafer: I think that you lose that connection that was once in an office and I've kind of started leaning more towards like, obviously if there, you know, you can't figure out there's a time [00:13:00] crunch, let's, let's move it up, let's escalate it. Keep going. But, uh, build those connections still. But in a. In a way that I guess is comfortable for you and for others to learn.

Drew Schafer: So, um, you know, if it's just a DM with someone asked to hop on a call and figure it out together, uh, or if you like even think like just. Hey, I don't know this, and I, I don't know who does, uh, post out a, a, a message as then if you don't get an answer in 5, 10, 15 minutes, then escalate it. Uh, and, and who knows in that moment, that post may be referenced by people way down the line, uh, by seeing that answer, that question answered.

Drew Schafer: And so I think. Yeah, I think I just kind of maybe have all, you know, taking the logical thought early on of just just escalated moving on. We're remote. There's, you know, we want to keep things moving. Be efficient. Uh, it comes back into that idea of efficiency. [00:14:00] Um, but I think with remote, there's actually some other opportunities there to to build a relationship with someone not next to you and then support your wider team over time.

Ben Foden: Absolutely, yeah, I think this this, uh, thing that happens where, you know, There's there's priority number one, which is serving the customer inside of support teams, right? Tickets are coming in. Contacts are coming in. You got to get back to people. The queue keeps building up, right? It's and you know, maybe there's gonna be a big wave of them around a product launch or some seasonal things that are happening. But you have that second priority, which is, kind of reporting on what you've learned. Maybe building up the knowledge base, right? Um, there's all those other kinds of things, and those can kind of fall by the wayside as the, as the contact volume gets bigger and bigger,

Drew Schafer: So the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to go from your [00:15:00] first sentence, which is you're a a you're a a a a You

Ben Foden: about knowledge management a little bit. How do you, how do you kind of approach that? And when do you make the call to say, Hey, um, this is something that we should log. This is something we should document. Um, yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, no, I think, um, one thing we've started doing that I think is, is, I mean, a really great use of it is, is AI, uh, but even outside of AI before you even get into that is, um, just quantity. Um, you know, if a question is out there, I mean, it's, you know, I guess you have, for instance, like resetting a password, as you mentioned before, that could be a very common maybe request for a team, and there is probably documentation on it.

Drew Schafer: There's a process to do it. There's not much more that can actually be done to, uh, to document this possibly, um, and [00:16:00] it's going to be a top thing. But, you know, looking through those kind of top ticket categories. And trying to understand, like, well, why, why is this one showing up? You know, sometimes it's a very obvious reset password and it's just people for some reason aren't clicking the link.

Drew Schafer: But if there's one that you can pull out and you're like, that's unusual. Like we have it documented. Well, why isn't it answering the questions? And so maybe it's then, um, and that's where AI I find is really useful. So, you know, take, um, out of those conversations, take a thousand of them and run it through AI to say.

Drew Schafer: You know, is there anything in here and compare it to our knowledge base answer that? Can you answer it? Can you answer these questions with the with the knowledge that we have and if AI can't answer it

Ben Foden: those.

Drew Schafer: can't either and so

Ben Foden: questions

Drew Schafer: we don't have accurate knowledge in the knowledge base and the AI can't solve it Our customers are experiencing the same problem or if it's getting confused by our wording or by the way, it's structured [00:17:00] The customers are too.

Drew Schafer: And so that's kind of how I've been going about like finding those, uh, things that need to be documented that just historically haven't been is, uh, you know, yeah, put it through an AI test. If it gets confused, then we obviously need some information.

Ben Foden: That's a really interesting way to think about it. Um, like the AI is the proxy for the customer, right? If AI can't solve it in the customer, certainly, you know, almost certainly cannot. Um, that's an interesting test. Maybe that's something that will be helpful for our audience as well. I think, um, you AI tools out there. so the AI topic, right? There's these different options. Um, there's all these different places that you can apply AI inside of a business, inside of support. Um, and I think a lot of people are still in this learning phase. You know, as much as they're, you know, maybe in the middle of adopting it or they've already adopted, there's also a lot of learning going on. There's a lot of, a lot of [00:18:00] noise, obviously, a lot of buzz, a lot of marketing going on around AI. Um, But I think it tends, people tend to think of AI as this kind of this devil or this angel. I like to say this because I, I think like people tend to extremes and really, you know, of course it's not so black and white. Um, so when you think about like the applications of AI, what are some of the things that you think it's really the most helpful? And maybe some things where you think it's, it's overrated or, or even, you know, detrimental potentially.

Drew Schafer: I think in my opinion, like the most helpful area for AI is is triage or categorization. You know, we obviously have, depending on the size of your team, you may have specialties, you may have, uh, you know, people who are better at one thing or teams even of, of people working on different things and, you know, you could send it all to one and then have that person move it to another, uh, group if [00:19:00] needed, another team, um, even if you had one team doing everything, if needed.

Drew Schafer: It's still like, it's still work to categorize things. And AI is really good at understanding what the, uh, the issue is and then putting it into a bucket that you give it. Um, and so, um, having it do that has definitely, I think, uh, lighten the load a bit, but then also with that, even adding a layer on top is that it can identify those things that may be.

Drew Schafer: Could be automated or have a solution. Um, and so even still taking a not even a chat yet, but just, you know, it reads the message and, uh, customers. I want to delete my account or I want to reset my password. I want to do the X action. Um. You know, the agent doesn't have to do anything. We could, you could just give them a pre written snippet.

Drew Schafer: It could just, you know, it's categorize it [00:20:00] as X send this and and the customer's problem is actually solved faster. Uh, it's very, you know, you could really pull that theme out very clearly. Um, so I think that's really where I think I, in my opinion, shines with the highest customer satisfaction. Um, because it doesn't even the customer really doesn't know that A.

Drew Schafer: I. Is involved. Um, they're just getting their, their things solved faster. Um, I wouldn't say it's overrated, but I do think it does kind of ups and downs is a I chat. Um, I think there's a place for it. And. Uh, customer for it. I think some customers love the idea of it because they can get their answer fast.

Drew Schafer: Um, while others would, you know, rather any other method of communication. And so I think it's a, you know, an interesting one. Um, and I think like, I mean, I like the approach of give them the [00:21:00] option one or the other, like, you don't, you know, rather than forcing everyone down it, they may not like it. And in the end, forcing everyone into it is going to hurt.

Drew Schafer: You later, because, you know, that whole interaction, uh, their effort has just gone up. If, if you're forcing it, they don't want it. Eventually, they get to a real person. The amount of effort they've had to go through is, is, you know, uh, is going to result in a negative CSAT, a negative score, or a negative feedback to the company.

Drew Schafer: But, um, you know, give them the option. And then I think you, uh, are able to take the benefits of the AI chat, which really does have great benefits in certain circumstances, it's extremely good. Uh, and others though, if you, if you give someone who even in the circumstances, good, they're just not going to be happy.

Ben Foden: Right, right. And I think knowing the customer, um, to your point earlier, you know, um, helping them in the way they want to be helped. you know, one of the things [00:22:00] around A. I. Is the need for clean and organized data, right? So it doesn't matter how great your A. I. Tool is, whatever, you know, model your A. I.

Ben Foden: Is using. Um, if you don't have clean, organized data, um, that's up to date and relevant, the AI is not going to be able to deliver any useful answers. and, you know, even if you're doing it for summary, like you're saying, like one of the really superpowers of AI, and I totally agree, is like summarization, categorization, right?

Ben Foden: It does this very efficiently, very effectively. Um, But it has to have some kind of structure for inputs and outputs that makes sense, right? It's organized. Um, and so I think, you know, what I've been feeling a lot is that rise of AI, um, as much as AI becomes important and becomes integrated in all different aspects of business, Um, knowledge management becomes more and more important in parallel you have to have that structured, organized information, right?

Ben Foden: The data, and, [00:23:00] um, you know, one of the things that I know that you were a part of recently, um, is setting up the help center at Webflow. Um, and so can you talk a little bit about your approach to knowledge management and kind of, uh, setting up that, um, you know, to take advantage of AI? Hmm.

Drew Schafer: Yeah, no, definitely. I think, taking on knowledge is something relatively new to me and to my team. Um, uh, so it says relatively new thing that we've kind of taken on. Um, and, you know, really relying on, I guess, for me, the decisions we made was a lot of the existing team. Um, and. Running it basically through, um, for me, like, I guess he said, it's as only as good as the, you know, the AI can only be as good as the knowledge you give it.

Drew Schafer: And, um, I often would run it past basically kind of going in reverse about my other one is if the AI [00:24:00] is confused, the customer is confused is let's present this to a potential customer. And are they confused that the AI is going to be confused? And so, um, you know, as we were building it, looking at, um, you know, the structure of our content, we already had a lot of content.

Drew Schafer: Most of it is essentially, uh, has, hasn't changed over the years outside of new, new additions. Uh, but just the structure of it, and does it make sense to the person landing on it, you know, asking them, Hey, I want you Define the article about this without search, you know, can you, can you just look for it and, and help to, you know, running that through just different, you know, uh, internal teammates who, and, and thinking about it then from their perspective, well, if they, as a human can understand it, AI has been trained, uh, to think like a human we've then achieved, uh, essentially the, the layout of the structure that we want.

Drew Schafer: Um, but then we also looked at taking it a step further, not just [00:25:00] like, I guess. Um, how something works, but troubleshooting. Um, so I also think I works really well with question answer. So, um, you know, it, it thrives off of that because it's getting fed a question from a user. And so if you have a similar question, uh, already in the, this knowledge management.

Drew Schafer: Uh, it's gonna know the answer. It doesn't need to try to think about piecing together these pieces. You've already given it very clear instructions. And so that was kind of the next step. We took up approach of writing what we're calling troubleshooting documents. So, looking at those top kind of questions that we get, or, you know, and writing articles specifically.

Drew Schafer: Answering that question. So yes, we haven't documented. Uh, you know, this is, you know, if you want to do this in the product, follow these steps. Uh, that's how the feature works. But, uh, customers still ask. So writing a very similar article in that question and [00:26:00] answer format, uh, helps, uh, you know, help basically reduce the tickets, but then also at the same time helps train the AI.

Ben Foden: Got it. Yeah, I think there's so many, um, there's so many applications of AI. There's so many possible ways that it can be used. And you've talked about a few cases already. Um, one of the ones that you touched on is this idea of summarization, categorization. it was obviously the, uh, the classic, you know, kind of chatbot use case, um, question and answer. Um, But when you, when you think about the, um, analysis side of it, the summarization side of it, have you seen, like, the, the ability to build reports? Have you seen, uh, have you started to think about a process around reporting? And the other big keyword here that everybody loves is V. O. C. Right. And and bringing [00:27:00] that to the front, bringing that into conversations in the business. How do you think about the role of A. I. And V. O. C.

Drew Schafer: Yeah, I think it's, uh, definitely there. And I think it's an essential part of it. Um, I think with the VOC side of things, um, you know, I guess the CX, you know, the customer support team, that information is only part of the story. Um, there is things on social media, on, uh, forums, other platforms. And, and so I think, um, while I think, you know, The support teams data is valuable here and that summarization side of it.

Drew Schafer: Um, I think really pulling it all together from other locations is also, um, you know, definitely essential and then kind of pulling out the themes all there. Um. I think what's probably more interesting to me with the reporting, and this is something we've [00:28:00] done a bit ad hoc at times with AI, is, uh, is keywords.

Drew Schafer: Um, so, you know, a summarization based on an entire interaction, um, is going to give you a sentence, a paragraph,

Ben Foden: Okay.

Drew Schafer: uh, themes to read through.

Drew Schafer: Um, but kind of custom prompts on those, I find quite beneficial,

Ben Foden: have

Drew Schafer: really honing in into that, uh, area of the product that, you know, you kind of are pulling that thread on. Um, there's a program I ran for a while here, we call the voice of CST.

Ben Foden: uh, I

Drew Schafer: So a voice of

Ben Foden: have

Drew Schafer: support team. And it was, uh, essentially, we just found that that thread, because it was only our day that we were really looking at only our, our area.

Ben Foden: sure

Drew Schafer: um,

Ben Foden: married.

Drew Schafer: you know, uh, you know, customers asking about, you know, how do I, you know, design something [00:29:00] or, uh, and, and, or builds a certain feature or look style, and, and we get a lot of those types of questions, but then, um, really trying to understand, well, what part of the product In that question, are they running into?

Drew Schafer: We, you know, we're not necessarily categorizing what specific area or component or, or, or issue is where it's being, uh, really the frustrations coming from and so using AI to kind of keyword, um, tag, uh, these tickets, we can then group together and see, well, Hey, this is the, the, the highest issue out of all those, you know, uh, You know, 1000 tickets of customers saying they are having trouble using the product in this situation.

Drew Schafer: Uh, they only, you know, 50 percent of them use this keyword. So that's really where we need to dive in and then kind of taking that and doing more of a deep dive. So, so I think, you know, at this stage, You know, [00:30:00] it's not something I've been overly involved in. It's like actually providing, you know, the VOC reports for, you know, generic data.

Drew Schafer: But I like the idea of actually using it to do a deep dive into something that you think will make a great impact, um, and, and write reports specifically on that thing, uh, from that information.

Ben Foden: On it. Yeah, I think that it's really common to take a kind of, uh, an overall approach. Okay, we have this firehose, you know, this, this stream of VOC data coming in, and we're just going to summarize that and make that a generalized report. But what you're saying is, is finding a specific thing and then kind of collecting around that topic to, to. To kind of hit it like very strongly. Um,

Drew Schafer: and it's kind of working through them over time, you know, um, and, and yeah, really more, I guess, actionable maybe than just the overall report.

Ben Foden: Yeah, I like that. I'm thinking of like, I could imagine a conversation where you go [00:31:00] to maybe one of the other leaders of a different department, one of the leaders of another team, and you say, Hey, what would you like to hear the customer's voice about? Right. What have you got going on that you'd like to get feedback on?

Ben Foden: We'll collect that for you. Right. That kind of thing.

Drew Schafer: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Ben Foden: I want to switch gears a little bit and ask you about, internationalization and serving customers around the world. So I know that you're originally from America, and you're based in New Zealand now. Um, and both those countries obviously, uh, you know, primarily speak English. But I think, um, there's, obviously there's people all around the world, I believe, that use Webflow.

Ben Foden: You mentioned somebody who's living in Greece. Um, you know, the, When you think about internationalization, um, you know, obviously knowledge management, but also support, you know, what are your thoughts around kind of handling that, uh, you know, [00:32:00] the, the, the common cases, I think that could come up, you know, duplication of content, maybe automatic translation.

Ben Foden: Can you touch on some of these topics?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, I know. Um, it isn't something I haven't personally too much into. Uh, but I do think there's a really good place for AI there as well. Um, because, uh, it can do a really good job at translating, um, you know, concepts, uh, rather than word for word, um, and really simplify that. And, um, you And, you know, even regionally, you know, uh, As we have people, you know, around the world working in different countries, um, you know, even helping training them to use the AI specifically for the languages that they may see in that region in that area, uh, and to kind of fine tune it specifically for them.

Drew Schafer: I think there's some cool opportunities there. [00:33:00] Um, and then even within the knowledge management, um, you know, uh, obviously we'll be. Wouldn't be good to probably just press the button and hope for the best that translates everything perfect, but there are some opportunities to move quickly, essentially, to get that information in a different language, um, that, you know, you know, your customers are, you know, are using, um, with that with minimal effort compared to, I guess, yeah, either doing a manual translation or, you know, yeah, just, uh, word for word one.

Drew Schafer: Okay.

Ben Foden: you said, if you just push the button and say, Hey, we're done. Um, but, um, You know, I think there's also, um, there's an opportunity there and, um, you know, maybe if you put a disclaimer, say, hey, this is automatically translated, but we're doing this as a first step, you know, just to have something to show you, um, I think there's, there's some kind of, there's some first steps there that could be, [00:34:00] uh, pretty quick. So, want to say, uh, there's a lot of things that have changed in CX, right, uh, over the years, and even in the last few years, especially with, with the, you know, this massive wave of AI tools coming out. and there's, you know, like most, most disciplines, like most industries, things are changing rapidly. Is there one thing that you think always stays the same, that will always be consistent in the future as well, will always be important?

Drew Schafer: Sure.

Drew Schafer: Might be controversial, but I think, um, I think email support will always be here. Um, you know, email has been around for a long time. It's part of everyone's lives. Uh, we use it every day. Um, and I think, um, as people also get busier, Or even maybe even work more remotely or travel [00:35:00] more or move more. Uh, I think email support is something that I believe will always be around.

Drew Schafer: And I think is even in some ways, I'd say making more of a comeback, uh, because. Um, you know, I think there was a wave of where everything went to chat, and then everything went to kind of a sync chat, which is essentially just email. Um, and so I just kind of can foresee that maybe coming back as being something that's getting strong, uh, like grows in popularity, uh, more so, but, but I think the key with the email chat or the email support is that it is, um, It's not a black hole.

Drew Schafer: Uh, I think that's where maybe improvements will be made over time, uh, to be able to actively always see your conversation, your tickets that it's not just in your inbox, but there is somewhere you can see it as well. Um, and, you know, see that whole history of the conversation, maybe even do it in some sort of portal or some sort of Web page, [00:36:00] similar to some sort of a sync chat, but it being primarily still focused on the email side.

Ben Foden: Yeah, I think email is here to stay. I would definitely agree with you. Um, you know, I like to have different options depending on what I need when I'm a customer, right? Um, but I think if I didn't have the email option, there's definitely some times I'd be frustrated. yeah. And, you know, we've been talking about AI.

Ben Foden: We've been talking about VOC. I just asked you about things that don't change, um, but with AI, with, uh, changing landscape of technology and, and self service and all these different pieces, you know, it feels like there's an opportunity around the support role, kind of shifting away from the, like, you know, responding to a, how do I reset my password email, for example, um, to, you know, obviously to, to those edge cases to more technical needs. But also, [00:37:00] um, kind of raising the priority or raising the focus on the knowledge management, raising the priority of the reporting side of it, right? Kind of powering up the rest of the business with VOCs, for example. Um, how do you think about the role's future and, and the shift, uh, that's coming?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, I think, as you know, I think there will always be a place for, for the responding to the, you know, to situations where they maybe are resetting a password. Still, I think, obviously, that will be possibly a decrease over time. Um, but I do see. More of a world where I guess, you know, support agents specifically are more involved with the AI, uh, and with the knowledge management, um, and with the actual, I guess, you could say, not just reactive support of a customer, but proactive.

Drew Schafer: And so. [00:38:00] Um, kind of a few different aspects, depending on the maybe the organization, depending on the skill sets that that may come into play there. Um, you know, yeah, maybe it is more of a shift of, um, you know, you know, reaching out proactively when an alert goes off, uh, rather than waiting for them to get in touch, even if maybe there isn't a problem reaching out, trying to be more of an activation lever.

Drew Schafer: Um, rather than, uh, that kind of reactive support lever. So I definitely see activation, um, and and kind of, uh, being an adoption being more of a focus over time. Uh, I think there is still that place for the responding and then finding those knowledge gaps helping the A. I, uh, but, you know, kind of more, I guess, probably into the focus of, I guess, so much like yeah, like a C.

Drew Schafer: S. M. Type role. Bye. Um, but more, I guess, embedded within the [00:39:00] product.

Ben Foden: An interesting idea. I think, you know, in, in the world of customer success, customer success CSM, there's There's this idea of, um, you know, for example, like, let's say you have a big contract with a business customer and there's a renewal that's about to come up, you know, you don't wait for that timeline, that, that milestone to come, you, you reach out a month early and you say, Hey, You know, is there anything else we can do for you?

Ben Foden: Right? Proactive. but, but taking that approach and making it more, I want to say scalable and more embedded in the product, right? Um, maybe you can have, like you're saying, some kind of triggers or some kind of flags that are saying, you know, customer a has done this. They touched the screen. They clicked this button. our flag, right? This is a, this is a great opportunity to be proactive and say, Hey, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah. Can I help you with this? That here's a recommendation for you. That kind of thing. That sounds really great. I think, um, I could definitely imagine [00:40:00] that coming, you know, over the horizon, if it's not here already. and one of the things that I love to ask about, and this is reminding me of it now, is, um, You know, this idea that, um, you know, support is viewed as a cost center, right? And it's a viewed as, you know, how do we drive efficiency? How do we reduce cost? we serve as many customers for as few, you know, as little money as possible. Um, but obviously we understand that, you know, support has an impact beyond cost and it actually drives revenue as well. and historically that's been very hard to measure that impact. so maybe that, you know, this last example you gave is one case where that could be connected. But how do you think about this, you know, this idea of support driving revenue and kind of measuring that impact?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, I think, I mean, guess on a large scale, you know, an organization that, you know, maybe has [00:41:00] some sort of sales motion going on. Um, that's, that's pretty clear. Uh, essentially, you know, they signed the contract. Uh, you have the value. Um, I think. Okay. With, uh, this, you know, I guess probably what you could call it, like a softer approach, um, would be, um, you know, you would still have to base things on essentially that that turnaround that that monetary side of someone activating of someone, um, you know, uh, Signing up for something.

Drew Schafer: Um, and, and being, and I think even not just signing up, but being successful, I think is kind of the key there. Um, because you know, someone may purchase the product because you messaged them. Uh, let's say we set you to set up something that, Oh, cool. Okay. I need that to perp, you don't have to move forward.

Drew Schafer: So you unblock them. They purchased. But after a few months, they, they cancel because maybe it's too complex or they didn't get the goals that they wanted. Um, and,

Ben Foden: we

Drew Schafer: [00:42:00] um,

Ben Foden: Um,

Drew Schafer: you know, there's a lot of little things that, you know, I think the support team especially is, is fluent and is, is experienced in

Ben Foden: not

Drew Schafer: can help these people to, uh, adopt the product in

Ben Foden: this.

Drew Schafer: a way that will continue, help them to continue to grow and, and be successful using the product.

Drew Schafer: Um, I mean, just thinking about it, maybe from. You know, a web design type tool like Webflow or any anything like that, that maybe, uh, you know, a success of someone with a website is often related to like search engine optimization, you know, them having a website that is found on on search engines. And, um, you know, it's not very difficult to come to see who has, you know, not done a very good job at that.

Drew Schafer: Uh, you know, you run some reports internally and see who maybe, uh, needs help. And there's so much data out there. You can compile these lists, uh, you know, merge some queries together [00:43:00] and get a list of these are the customers that, uh, are essentially on the edge of, of really converting and being successful using our product.

Drew Schafer: And if they are, uh, it's going to continue, uh, to benefit, it's going to continue to help them grow. Um, and, and possibly be, you know, a customer that later on goes through a sales motion. Uh, so I think, you know, uh, active, I guess there's, yeah, two sides of it is he had the Signing up, but staying signed up and being successful, um, will be, in my opinion, kind of the way to measure if that type of, you know, uh, motion is, is, is working.

Ben Foden: Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm, I'm reminded of what you, you mentioned before about customer personas as well. And I think of like connecting these two in my mind is, you know, if you have a customer persona and you know, that this person kind of fits roughly into that persona, you know, that you've defined goals that that persona has, you know, their intent, [00:44:00] what they're trying to get done, what success looks like for them. Then you can kind of connect that and say, Hey, you know, this person is about to, To reach their success milestone. They're about to, you know, unlock a certain level of traffic, for example, on their website through better SEO or something, right. Whatever it is for, you know, the, the different businesses out there.

Ben Foden: But I think, um, you know, having that success criteria in mind, even measurable, and then, know, being able to, uh, to cue that in and say, Hey, um, if we give this person a little proactive message right now, we can help them reach that success criteria.

Drew Schafer: Exactly. I think there's even a place for AI and all of that, too, you know, whether AI is the one crafting the message, uh, or even AI is helping to determine data points that you may not have. Um, and so, um, You know, really being able to, I guess, uh, look at things in a broader perspective of maybe just the data you have, [00:45:00] but, uh, look at.

Drew Schafer: You know, depending on, you know, your solution, you know, what, what are the users, uh, how, what, you know, if they're typing something or saving some sort of data in your platform, what are they putting in there? Analyze that to understand who they are and what kind of person they are assigned in that persona.

Drew Schafer: And then you can kind of go from there. So I think there's a lot of opportunities, uh, still AI even in these cases.

Ben Foden: Awesome. Well, Drew, um, thank you. It's been a great call so far. A great podcast. Um, we're here at about 45 minutes, so we've gone a little bit long. I appreciate your time today. Um, before we close off, I want to ask you, is there anything that you want to say to other people out there who are trying to practice their craft, trying to hone their skills, um, in the area of CX, do you have any advice or, or anything you'd like to say?

Drew Schafer: Yeah, I think, um, I think coming back to maybe what I said earlier, um, early on about just [00:46:00] growth, uh, within the CX, uh, uh, world, um, you know, I'm up with solutions. I think that's just my, my biggest advice. That was, I got an advice from my, uh, previous, uh, uh, manager a while back where he said, yeah, he doesn't want me to come to him with problems.

Drew Schafer: He wants me to come to him with solutions and that's always stuck with me. You know, um, you know, you're going to find something that can be improved, plan it out and bring it up. And I think it'll like, it's, it's exciting. It's different. And it helps you to, to grow and be seen within an organization.

Ben Foden: 100%. Absolutely agree. Um, thank you so much. Uh, this has been the CX Files with Drew Schafer. And, uh, please tune in next time. Thank you. Bye.