The CX Files #13 - Chris Murray

In this episode, Chris reveals creative ways to boost customer advocacy and its importance for your team. You also learn:
- How to shift the perception of support from a cost center to a revenue driver.
- Best practices for implementing AI in customer service without losing the human touch.
- Real-world examples of empathy-driven support that can redefine customer loyalty.

Chris Murray is an industry leader in customer support strategy and innovation. As the former Head of Support at BabyList and moving into a new role as the first ever Customer Experience Architect at Intercom, Chris is at the forefront of transforming how companies view and implement customer support initiatives.

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Check out our other CX Files episodes to learn the art and craft of CX from leaders driving the space forward.

Transcript

The CX Files #13 - Chris Murray
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[00:00:00] Chris Murray: Most of the world sees support as a cost, right? And CS as a cost. And it's always been documented that way. And so to change that is to like undo years of that thought process. And it is difficult to convince other people, like whether that's internal or [00:00:15] wider of you know, support is actually a big part of retention, right?

[00:00:19] Chris Murray: It's a big part of enabling sales and all of those things. And it's often just really hard to show the data that indicates that right? That said, I feel like [00:00:30] in recent years, Even executives are seeing like, you know what, if we do support really well, it can be a differentiator. Right? Or if we do it really wrong, there are some really bad repercussions, right? Social media has given customers like a [00:00:45] really big megaphone. 

[00:00:52] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Today's guest is Chris Murray

[00:00:54] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: he just

[00:00:54] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: wrapped up his role as the head of support at BabyList,

[00:00:58] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: a universal

[00:00:58] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: registry and e [00:01:00] commerce platform for expecting parents,

[00:01:02] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: where he

[00:01:02] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: was responsible for creating and executing the CS strategy and scaling the customer support team.


[00:01:07] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Prior to that, he was senior manager enterprise technical support at Samsara, where he also launched a technical account manager program.


[00:01:13] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: He started his career [00:01:15] as a customer success intern at a startup in San Francisco and has enjoyed developing people and successful support orgs ever since. Next month, Chris will be starting a new role at Intercom as their first customer experience architect. Chris, thanks for joining today.

[00:01:29] Chris Murray: Yeah, Ben, [00:01:30] thanks for having me excited to be here.

[00:01:32] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: So one question I always like to ask is about the beginning of people's careers. So when you first started in customer experience, what was one of the, one of the first things that stood out to you, good or [00:01:45] bad?

[00:01:45] Chris Murray: Yeah. Um, you know, it's, it's interesting. I started, uh, my journey in the customer experience world was, is pretty, it's been pretty fun and not exactly what I expected. Um, I started off as, as an intern, um, for a customer success team and I got to do lots of different [00:02:00] things. And. Eventually ended, landed in support then grew through there. Um, and I think one of the most surprising things that I found was, um, creative you have to get in order to push like positive [00:02:15] customer experience improvements, um, across other teams. You would think like, Hey, we're, we're a company, we want to take care of our customers because happy customers equals good sales retention and all those things. but after that, those goals, we all have different priorities, [00:02:30] right?

[00:02:30] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm hmm.

[00:02:30] Chris Murray: I get really creative on how you reach other teams and how you push, how you advocate for the customer. And so I think the importance of customer advocacy and like how well you need to get good at advocating for your customers was actually kind of surprising.

[00:02:44] Chris Murray: I thought that'd be [00:02:45] like, people were just like, Oh yeah, I'm going to do the right thing for the customer. It makes sense.

[00:02:49] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Yeah, I mean, I think for people who are inside of it, it's so obvious, um, but for some reason, you know, there's this, this kind of inertia [00:03:00] that, that, you know, customer support is a cost. Customer success is a cost. It's something that has to be shrunk as much as possible. And there's no upside that people seem to have in mind.[00:03:15] 

[00:03:15] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Um, you know, the, like, challenging this notion, I think there's more and more people who are challenging it. Um, not only inside of the function, but, but in, you know, in C [00:03:30] level and C suite. The idea that the customer support, service, success, whatever you want to, whatever it is for that business, um, the idea that you can, you can attribute revenue, the idea that you can, you know, you can [00:03:45] boost retention.

[00:03:46] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Um, what are, what are some of the things that you're seeing around, you know, the, uh, the attribution and the upside?

[00:03:54] Chris Murray: Yeah, I mean, you hit it on the head that like most of the [00:04:00] world sees support as a cost, right? And CS as a cost. And it's, you know, it's, it's always been documented that way. And so to change that is, is to like undo years of that thought process. Um, and it is, it is difficult to convince other people, [00:04:15] like whether that's internal or wider of like, you know, support is actually a big part of, uh, retention, right?

[00:04:21] Chris Murray: It's a big part of enabling sales and all of those things. Um, and it's often just really hard to. Show the data that [00:04:30] indicates that right? Um, that said, I feel like in recent years, um, Even executives are seeing like, you know what, if we do support really well, it can be a differentiator. Right? Or if we do it [00:04:45] really wrong, there are some really bad repercussions, right? Um, social media has given customers like a really big megaphone. Um, and so if you those situations, the sensitive ones at the wrong time, everybody can hear about it. [00:05:00] Right? And so. There's a little bit more sensitivity to making sure that you do it right.

[00:05:04] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, it's been said that everyone should work in frontline customer support at some point in their [00:05:15] career just to understand. Um, do you agree with that? Yes or no? And why?

[00:05:19] Chris Murray: Um, conceptually, yes, I love the idea. I think it's an amazing idea. Um, but I've typically seen it less impactful in practice,

[00:05:29] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: [00:05:30] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:05:41] Chris Murray: Um, and it comes from a good place of like, let's make sure our, our whole [00:05:45] team understands customers and their, and their experience is both good and bad, right? Where I've seen it fall short is often the product, at least with all the teams I've worked for, the product that we've supported is, is. technical or too [00:06:00] complex for them to be able to actually do any of the sports themselves, right?

[00:06:03] Chris Murray: So it usually turns into like, Oh, well, the shadow support for like an hour, right? And it's better than nothing. Don't get me wrong. Um, but it's really hard to grasp your customer's problems with [00:06:15] only an hour of Over like looking over someone's shoulder while they, you know, help customers. The other, the other part of it is, um, often companies will have people go through that during their onboarding and they're still trying to learn the company, right?

[00:06:27] Chris Murray: And so they don't have like a lot of context [00:06:30] to the things that the problems that they're seeing, right? And so. You know, CS reps will try to explain like, Oh, the customer, the customer is trying to do X and they're hitting this problem. And so we're going to suggest Y, right. Um,

[00:06:40] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: [00:06:45] Yeah,

[00:06:47] Chris Murray: be more practical. Um, so the way I've probably the most valuable way I've seen it done, um, is actually, so at BabyList, one of the cool things that we did was, um, [00:07:00] We, we, um, we created like a recurring, uh, shadow session for certain departments. So like our product engineering teams, like. We're like every six months, we're supposed to come and shadow us. Um, and so the people who are working directly on the product and fixing [00:07:15] things, they, they could, they could really help there as well as look for like, Oh, why are you guys having to click like all these different places? Right. And it helps put those pain points in front of them. that was really good for those teams and our relationship. Um, but the other thing that was really quite, um, neat was we [00:07:30] also had a customer user panel that we did and a company all hands. Once a quarter. So we bring real customers in over zoom and in front of the whole company, ask them like, tell us about your experience.

[00:07:41] Chris Murray: What was good. What was bad. and so it, it kept [00:07:45] real customers front of mind for the entire company on a regular cadence. So I love the idea of everybody having to do frontline support for some amount of time. Um, but logistically it's, it's [00:08:00] hard to get, make sure that's valuable. So that's the way that we've seen it be most effective.

[00:08:04] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: that's a really, um, it's a really good point about, you know, normally the, you know, the product team, um, you know, if it's a [00:08:15] software company, um, you know, engineering. You know, there's the image of them being, you know, in the basement, you know, uh, far away from, uh, from end users, far away from customers, you know, in their own little world.

[00:08:29] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Um, [00:08:30] but. Um, you know, as soon as, as soon as the, uh, as soon as the fight begins, so to speak, you know, what is the quote? It's like everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

[00:08:40] Chris Murray: Right. That's right.

[00:08:43] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: yeah, but [00:08:45] I think that that's important for people, um, you know, to really understand how, you know, this thing that they've created is being used.

[00:08:52] Chris Murray: Yeah. Yeah. It really is. And you know, it varies by organization and it varies by how fast the company is going [00:09:00] and how product teams prioritize their work. Um, but you'll have some that are super interested in like, Hey, I want to come back and see how people are doing and others who are like, my boss is telling me I have to push out five new features every month or every quarter.

[00:09:11] Chris Murray: And so like, I don't have time to go back and check how this went. And so it can [00:09:15] vary a lot. Um, I think, I think I genuinely think that most product and engineering team members really do want to create the best work. and often they either don't get the feedback they need because the loop doesn't exist or. Their priorities don't allow them to take [00:09:30] the time to go back and like deduct learnings from that, from whatever they launched.

[00:09:36] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's always this, this stack of priorities, right? And. Especially if you're not in the support function, and if you're not, [00:09:45] uh, blessed with, uh, you know, kind of, uh, inspired leadership,

[00:09:50] Chris Murray: Yeah.

[00:09:51] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: savvy, you know, the, uh, the savvy executive that understands the importance of this, then, um, you know, you're not going to have that [00:10:00] opportunity, right?

[00:10:01] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Um, next question here. How do you think employee experience leads to a good customer experience?

[00:10:09] Chris Murray: Ooh, I love that question. Um, I, I, when I think about like, what [00:10:15] are the things that make a, a really great customer support team, and maybe that's unique about running teams is the fact that you need to invest in the, the team morale maybe more than any other organization, Um, I mean that [00:10:30] because not only are these, are these team members, uh, talking to people who yell at them half the day, right, right.

[00:10:35] Chris Murray: People don't call support to say like, Hey, I just want to say your product is wonderful, right? That's not why they call. Um, and usually they're upset. And so, uh, a lot [00:10:45] of difficulty there. And like helping people stay upbeat and stay positive, right? But if, if you, if you don't invest in the morale of your team, if you don't invest in the culture of your support organization, uh, business speaking, like you're going to [00:11:00] have a lot of turnover and which means you're going to have a lot of retraining and it's going to be very expensive.

[00:11:03] Chris Murray: And ultimately that leads to your, your customer, your customer base suffering, right? You're going to have longer response times. And that means people are going to be more mad. And by the time you get them on the phone, they're more upset, right? Like. [00:11:15] It's the, you take care of your people is at the root of how good your team is, right? And so if you don't take care of this team, your customers are going to feel it. Um, and so prioritizing, you know, [00:11:30] like recognition where you can and creating a fun environment and, um, you know, giving them good resources and clarity. Like those things really make a big difference because customers here, if you're, if your customer support reps are happy or not, they really can. [00:11:45] Um, and so if you take care of them, they take care of your customers.

[00:11:48] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Absolutely. Um, so you, you just finished up a stint at baby list. Um, could you share a really memorable story or maybe a big lesson from your time [00:12:00] there? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:02] Chris Murray: Um, I think, I think on a, like a customer facing perspective, one of the things that I really liked is the company truly did. They have a core value of, um, [00:12:15] or they have a core value of we love our users. Um, and they really mean it like from the CEO to the newest CS rep, like we, they genuinely care about the customers, which is really cool. Um, and it leads to making good business decisions. And I thought that was really [00:12:30] great. one example of like the company's willingness to take care of customers was, um, uh, there were, there were fires in LA recently that were pretty, pretty massive. If you haven't heard, um, and, uh, One of our customers had lost their home [00:12:45] and everything in it, um, and all the things that they were, they had prepped for their, their, their, um, arriving child

[00:12:53] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Oh, no.

[00:12:54] Chris Murray: and, uh, they had also had a bunch of gift cards, um, built up at somebody when they [00:13:00] lost their home, somebody had donated everything they needed for their kid, but

[00:13:03] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm

[00:13:03] Chris Murray: any funds to like for their essentials, right?

[00:13:06] Chris Murray: Like food and things that the whole family needed. And so they're now in this place where they had the new, um, Um, you know, baby products they needed, but they didn't have [00:13:15] for some of their immediate needs.  📍 📍 📍 Yeah, Ben, thanks for having me excited to be here.

[00:13:22] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Hmm.

[00:13:22] Chris Murray: so we got together for finance team and we made this decision of like, Hey, like let's cash out their gift card so they can take care of their family, [00:13:30] right? Um, super out of policy, right? Not,

[00:13:33] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm hmm.

[00:13:33] Chris Murray: companies will do that, but because they really cared about their customers, um, and their people and like knowing what they're going through is like, Hey, this is the right thing to do. So we're going to do this. Um, and you know, it [00:13:45] makes sense. Makes a big difference for those, for those people.

[00:13:47] Chris Murray: Mm hmm.

[00:13:49] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Definitely. I think that there's always an opportunity, like you said, to kind of go outside of policy. Um, and, you know, to show, [00:14:00] um, Not only empathy, but just understanding, um, you know, the cost to the business is the same as, you know, as, you know, uh, exchanging the gift card to centrally. Right. [00:14:15] Uh, but the impact for that person was, was large.

[00:14:18] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: I'm sure.

[00:14:18] Chris Murray: Yeah.

[00:14:20] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: so the next question here that I like to ask this is, uh, leading into, um, in every [00:14:30] business, you know. It comes up again and again. Every time you have a new initiative, you have a new goal. It's, you know, what is the data, right? What is the data telling us? What is the data demand of us? Right? Um, [00:14:45] but the story you just told is one of emotion and empathy.

[00:14:50] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: And there's always, I think, a tension of some kind between, you know, the kind of logical data driven side and the human intuition side. [00:15:00] Um, how do you think about that balance? Um,

[00:15:04] Chris Murray: Um, you know, it, I think, maybe, maybe I'll share this from my, from my CX perspective, right? In, in the support world, you are the advocate for the customer, [00:15:15] right? And as a leader, you're, you're responsible for balancing like what's best for the business and what's best for the customer, right? Um, and I, I think you actually kind of talked about this is like, you have to paint the emotional picture, right?

[00:15:28] Chris Murray: Of the situation. [00:15:30] Um, and whoever you need to convince of the importance of that, like initiative that you're suggesting, you might have to alter your communication, right? Um, so, uh, you know, I, I think, I think the example we just gave is a good one, but like, [00:15:45] you need humans to be able to intuit. Um, like when it makes sense to, to change a policy or, or make an exception to a policy, right?

[00:15:53] Chris Murray: Because policies are in place to protect the company, right? You don't want lots of customers taking advantage of a specific thing. But like, [00:16:00] if, if, if I'm a customer support rep and I hear about a customer who's going through something that's really hard, not their fault, and we have a chance to make a difference, uh, like we need to have a way to enable them to do that.

[00:16:10] Chris Murray: Right. Um, and so, [00:16:15] I can, I can give some examples of that, um, or we, I can, I can kind of share another perspective on that if you'd like.

[00:16:21] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: yeah, either way.

[00:16:23] Chris Murray: Um, well, so maybe one example might help, right? So, so again, at my last [00:16:30] company, um, we'd have a customer who buy things and, and maybe experience something right? Like, like child loss. And so they have these, these items that they've even opened or, or they've bought and they can't, they technically can't be returned, right? [00:16:45] But the human side of this is to see the customer, right? Going through something that's incredibly traumatic. Uh, and like seeing those items in their house will remind them of that constantly, right?

[00:16:54] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Right, right.

[00:16:55] Chris Murray: finding a way to make that right for them is important. So

[00:16:58] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Yeah,

[00:16:58] Chris Murray: very outside of [00:17:00] policy, uh, to take back something that's open, right?

[00:17:02] Chris Murray: Like we can't, we can't resell that, right? But like taking care of that person is more important, right? And, um, you know, being able to align your, your, You [00:17:15] know, executive decisions on how we support customers to that human interaction is, is really important because that's where you, you get the permission to do those things and take care of people,

[00:17:23] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: absolutely, absolutely. I think, um, you know, it feels right [00:17:30] to do that. It feels good. And I think any, you know, any sane person would strive to do that kind of thing.

[00:17:40] Chris Murray: right?

[00:17:41] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: and I think, you know, [00:17:45] from a, from a ruthless, you know, imagine the most ruthless, profit driven business in the world.

[00:17:51] Chris Murray: Yeah.

[00:17:51] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: you know, this is just, just to make an extreme point, but, um, even that business should make the same decision, [00:18:00] I think,

[00:18:00] Chris Murray: Yeah,

[00:18:01] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: ultimately, you know, we understand that a happy customer, um, even if the business loses some money short term, um, you know, that person will, you know, be more likely to tell a positive story to [00:18:15] somebody they know, right.

[00:18:16] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Or, you know, maybe they have another child in the future. Right? Um, and that all comes back to the business. Um, but I think that the challenge traditionally and again, you know, kind of moving into the next [00:18:30] question here, but challenge traditionally has been attributing these things. Right? So how do you think about, um, measuring the impact of support, maybe on retention or measuring the impact of support on revenue potentially?

[00:18:44] Chris Murray: [00:18:45] Yeah. It's, it can be, it can be a tough one. Uh, the actual how is highly dependent on how the company is tracking things, right?

[00:18:52] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:18:56] Chris Murray: data lives in a very different system [00:19:00] than like revenue data, right? Yeah. And so being able to show that correlation with data, it can be really tricky. Um, uh, and so that's, that can be really hard. Um, um, [00:19:15] you know, I, I, there's, there's maybe I'll share an example. Uh, so one of the, one of the things that we were doing at baby list is those, those is trying to prove that exact thing, right? Which is support actually has a very positive impact on the [00:19:30] customer experience. not just from like a people have a high CSAT score when they leave, right? That's important. Like it's an important metric. It's important to measure directionally. Um, but we know, like, we, we feel like we're adding more value than that. We feel like we're unblocking [00:19:45] order issues. Right. And we're, we're making the, we're creating a positive experience.

[00:19:48] Chris Murray: So customers come back. Right. And so what we, what we did is we, we had a long. Push for this, but eventually got our, our, our, our CS data [00:20:00] connected to our revenue data. And when we did that, we can see actually a direct correlation that, um, customers that interacted with support where they spent twice as much or their, their registry value was double that of those who didn't. [00:20:15] And so, you know, you, you can make, there's, there's a very real argument for both of that being a causation and a correlation, right? It's like, well, if

[00:20:21] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm hmm.

[00:20:22] Chris Murray: the system a lot more, they're going to probably run into problems and need support, right? There's

[00:20:26] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Right. Right.

[00:20:27] Chris Murray: part of this, like, but if people are reaching [00:20:30] out to support and support is unblocking their issues so they can complete an order. And so you can dig in and get more granular on like, okay, what are the types of things reaching out for when it, when they're at, when their value goes up or, or goes down? Right? [00:20:45] said, um, it's actually what those details might not be super relevant if the first part is true, like, you know, that your most valuable customers are reaching support. means you should invest in support. [00:21:00] Um, because if you're, if your best customers are most valuable customers or however you want to talk about it. are reaching out to support and they have a bad experience that can be terrible, right?

[00:21:09] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Right.

[00:21:10] Chris Murray: who like is struggling and like would spend a lot of money on your product or feature or [00:21:15] program, but they have a bad experience and they don't, you just lost revenue, right? And so, uh, being able to show somehow like correlating data somehow to show like the impact your team is having on those things, whether it's direct or like correlation is, is [00:21:30] really critical to like opening people's eyes to see like, oh, we do need to invest in this more.

[00:21:34] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Right. And I think, um, my sense is that most leaders, once they see that you are capable of [00:21:45] connecting the dots of of data and action, um, they tend to give you a little bit more leeway when you make an emotional call as well.

[00:21:55] Chris Murray: Yeah, I would say that's true. Yeah, I would agree with that.

[00:21:59] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: [00:22:00] Um, one of the topics here I have in mind, and I know you worked a little bit on implementing AI at BabyList. Um, what are some of the best and worst uses of AI in [00:22:15] CX?

[00:22:23] Chris Murray: scenarios, cases, um, I think best case scenarios where AI is really great [00:22:30] is knowledge sharing, right? Is like, hey, how do I use this thing? Or, hey, where is my order? Or, you know, like, more basic questions, right? Um, most people look at it as like, it probably can handle a decent percentage of your, like, front line [00:22:45] type tickets, right? dependent on how technical your product is and a number of other things, but, um, it, it is really, the current AI models are really good at like scraping your, your knowledge base and like [00:23:00] out answers in a really coat, like a coherent way for customers to read. Um, and we saw, we saw a lot of success with that, um, with AI that we implemented. Um, and so that part's really great. where [00:23:15] AI, where I see AI. Failing a little more often. And this isn't this isn't just from my experience. It's it's from talking to other people who have been inventing it is like when things get more complicated or there's multiple of a problem or it's an emotional problem.

[00:23:29] Chris Murray: [00:23:30] Right? Uh, I just makes people more irritated sometimes. Right? Um, but you can, you can, you can train it so it recognizes that frustration and then quickly get it to an agent. Right? And I think the best world is where we're using AI [00:23:45] to help people get answers quickly. Okay. But, but not create a big friction point between them and a human, right? And so, perfect world is, AI can handle a lot of the easy things, and then when something is complicated, it can quickly route, that person to a human who knows [00:24:00] how to handle multi faceted emotional

[00:24:04] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Definitely. Yeah, I think, um, I think there's definitely potential there. Um, to improve, [00:24:15] but I think it's also an opportunity. Um, and you know, I think that the, uh, even the most, um, even, even the companies that prioritize the customer support as their differentiator [00:24:30] and really invest heavily in it. I think they still want to give their customers a self service option

[00:24:36] Chris Murray: Yeah.

[00:24:37] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: and, and that making it available, but not requiring it.

[00:24:42] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Right. Like you said, kind of. Making it possible [00:24:45] to get through that to the human as quickly as, as the customer wants, basically. But, but still having it available for people who want to end up there also.

[00:24:52] Chris Murray: Yeah. Uh, agreed. And, and that was, that was our approach. That was a very intentional approach of like, look, we wanna make sure people have the opportunity. They know it's there. We [00:25:00] can save them tons of time. Right? You don't have to wait,

[00:25:02] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm

[00:25:03] Chris Murray: if, if you end up emailing, you don't have to wait a couple hours for an email back.

[00:25:05] Chris Murray: You could just know now. Right? So we wanna make sure people have that option, but we, we made a very conscious effort of like, Hey, the first time they ask for a human, we, we get them one. Right? And so, [00:25:15] um, it really does, it really, it does provide a better experience that way. And, and I think that is an important way to look at it, is. Not these different pieces of the, like, they're not different experiences. They're one experience to the customer,

[00:25:26] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:25:28] Chris Murray: sure that they're cohesive and they're [00:25:30] solving, know, that customer's experience problem like is, is important.

[00:25:35] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Definitely. Um, I want to ask you a little bit of a challenging question here. Um, but, but basically, there's this idea that, um, [00:25:45] ideally, you give customers the type of support that they want to get, right? The, whatever the avenue, whatever the channel is. Um, you make that available to them, but sometimes that conflicts with the business's priorities and initiatives.[00:26:00] 

[00:26:00] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Um, you, you can't do, you know, an extended phone call with every customer if you have a high volume, low margin business, right.

[00:26:07] Chris Murray: Right. Right.

[00:26:09] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: and so what, what is the right way to think about [00:26:15] this when, you know, when a customers, when what customers want is not necessarily what the business wants.

[00:26:21] Chris Murray: Yeah, it is kind of a constant wrestle, I'd say, back and forth, right, of how you provide that. [00:26:30] I think one of the neat things, like, as we look ahead, is hopefully AI will enable us to do that better, right?

[00:26:36] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:26:37] Chris Murray: customers, right? So, like, if we can or help customers self serve, you know, on a higher percentage of things, we [00:26:45] technically could take more time with each customer, right?

[00:26:48] Chris Murray: Um, and also, there are also great AI tools out there that will, you know, like, surface relevant customer information so that they're more effective on those calls. I, I think that's a, it's a wonderful idea. And I [00:27:00] think people will use that to some degree. I think there will be a point where, like you said, the business will still look at it.

[00:27:05] Chris Murray: It's like, but why is this rep spending 30 minutes with a customer, right? Like

[00:27:09] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: hmm. Mm

[00:27:10] Chris Murray: we now have more time, but you shouldn't be using it that way. Like you should just help more people, right? That will always [00:27:15] be a balance. Um, I, I think it comes back to, to your previous question of like, how do you show that support is actually adding value?

[00:27:24] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: hmm. [00:27:30] Mhm.

[00:27:34] Chris Murray: have to try, it's hard, it's hard to get there, but you have to show that your team is adding value. Um, very common question that I, that I like to pose is like, well, what happens if we stop [00:27:45] doing this?

[00:27:45] Chris Murray: Right. Or like what could happen? And sometimes painting that picture is, is helpful for getting other people on board of like, look, I understand like you, we don't want every rep to spend 30 minutes with every customer, right? Like we shouldn't do that, [00:28:00] but like it's valuable occasionally for them to do that.

[00:28:04] Chris Murray: Like it makes a huge difference for that person who then can go on and share positive word of mouth. you can take the more. Scary approach of like, if we don't spend that time with certain people, [00:28:15] they end up with a lot of time on their hands and they can go all over social media and, and, your app reviews and things like that until you're not doing a good job, right?

[00:28:22] Chris Murray: Which then they, which then prevents sales, right? Um,

[00:28:26] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Absolutely. Yeah. Mhm.

[00:28:29] Chris Murray: like [00:28:30] more specific tactical piece of advice there, it would be know what your execs care about and what your decision makers care about. Right. Because some will be like, I don't care. Like, I just want to see the dollar sign go, like this cost sign go down. but if you also know that they care about [00:28:45] their, their social media image, like you should lean into that,

[00:28:49] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Mhm. Mhm.

[00:28:50] Chris Murray: knowing what they care about and then speaking to those, those concerns or those focuses or priorities is, is pretty critical.

[00:28:57] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Definitely. [00:29:00] Um, kind of in a similar thread here. Um, You know, I think we all understand, I think you and I and everybody in the audience intuitively understand that that VOC data is just so, [00:29:15] so valuable to, to like, not only to support for improvement, but also across the business. Um, but maybe, maybe other departments or the leadership don't, you know, they don't really quite appreciate.

[00:29:28] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Like, how much value is, [00:29:30] is there kind of an untapped resource.

[00:29:32] Chris Murray: Yeah.

[00:29:33] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: What are some of the best ways to champion VOC for other leaders and departments? [00:29:45] Silence.

[00:29:55] Chris Murray: focused on that, that latter part of like, how do you get other people to hear it, [00:30:00] pay attention to it, value it. Um, it might sound a little silly, but like, it starts with building relationships with those people. Um, and it starts with understanding like who they are, what they care about, how they think about problem solving and maybe more tactically, like, what [00:30:15] are, what's on their roadmap? Like, what are the things that they have planned for the next six to 12 months? and then you can go back and show like, Hey, we, we see this complaint about this project you're working on, or you have planned to fix like many times per month or this many [00:30:30] times a year, or, and like, we see the CSAT for this specific case issue that you're hoping to improve the experience on is like really low. These are some of the things, the verbatims that customers are sharing. So like the best, the way I've seen this work the best is you form relationships, you [00:30:45] understand their timelines, uh, and then you, you stay close to them as they are, like, process for those things, right? And say like, hey, like if you want more information on this, like we have tons of that, right? Um, or you can even say like, oh, that's really exciting. You're working on that. We've hear [00:31:00] this all the time. We're like, we've heard that like X amount of times last month, right? Um, and so it really is. It really is understanding what they're trying to solve and then showing how the data that we have helps inform that [00:31:15] solution.

[00:31:15] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Definitely, Chris, I really appreciate your, uh, Your point of view on this, um, uh, closing out the episode here. Um, do you have one piece of advice or a tip for people looking to improve their skills in their CX [00:31:30] career?

[00:31:30] Chris Murray: Um, yeah, let me, I have, I have a few things that I think are, are helpful. Um, but I think if I had to pick one, I would say, remember that communication is king. if you can't communicate [00:31:45] effectively, matter if you're right or wrong, your influence will be limited. You know, if, if you worked on a CS team long enough, I'm sure you've had this experience where you're, you, you come across a bug. you send it to product or engineering and [00:32:00] what's the first question they ask you, how often is it happening? Right. And to which, like the first time most of us CST members get that response, we're like, uh, I don't know, but it feels like a lot, right? second you hear the PM hears that, or the engineer hears that they heard what they actually heard you say is, I [00:32:15] don't know what I'm talking about.

[00:32:15] Chris Murray: Right. and so, you know, I, I'm being a little facetious, but that's a real problem that I've, I've seen happen everywhere I work. And

[00:32:23] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Absolutely.

[00:32:24] Chris Murray: really good at and I think it's a really important and this communication piece is really important because [00:32:30] people who are really good in CS are typically like highly empathetic and really care about customers and very about that. not always, and we, I'll let myself into this group, we're not always super analytical or data driven. Right. It's those are skills that we have to [00:32:45] learn and then we have to learn how to talk to people who are naturally more than right. Often what happens is we, we, we see the issue. We know it's a big deal, but we have a hard time quantifying and we have a hard time explaining like why it should matter to other teams who have the power to fix it. [00:33:00] And so the, the, the number one thing I would say is, uh, understand what type of communicator you are and then learn how to. Adapt your communication to the, to the other stakeholders that you're going to need to influence, um, because in this role, [00:33:15] it's, it's a lot of influencing and that's, that's how you make a difference across, across the company.

[00:33:20] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Well, um, thank you for sharing, Chris. I think, uh, based on my experience today, I think you are [00:33:30] quite a savvy communicator and, um, I'm wishing you all the best in your, your next steps and, um, Yeah, thanks for joining today.

[00:33:39] Chris Murray: Yeah. Ben, thank you for having me. Uh, always a pleasure, uh, chat. And, uh, yeah, the CS world is, is, [00:33:45] is a really fun one and it can have its challenges. Um, but at the end of the day, we, we get to, uh, make our companies a better place. And so, and hopefully that makes. Uh, the world a little bit better place.

[00:33:55] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Absolutely, you know, transforming those, those problems that people have into, [00:34:00] uh, into joy hopefully.

[00:34:01] Chris Murray: Yep, that's the goal.

[00:34:02] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: All right, that's all for today on the CX files. Um, tune in next time and have a good one. 

[00:34:08] Ben Foden, Helpfeel: Bye. Alright,[00:34:15]