Customer Experience Superheroes - Series 7 Episode 1 - Make People Matter with Victoria Taylor

Christopher Brooks' Customer Experience Superheroes starts its 7th season with a very important message in the world of accelerated digital dominance - people matter in CX. The message is shared loud and clear by Victoria Taylor of VictoriaTayluk, our first guest of this latest series.  Victoria, a CX consultant is in conversation with host, Christopher Brooks on this critical topic. 

2020 has seen the demise of the face to to face experience interaction, and a replacement with digital engagements. But this is not through choice its through circumstance. 
In discussion, Victoria explains why now its more important than ever to be 'upping our game' and delivering a quality human experience when the chance allows us.

Victoria also shares details of her latest mini-book, which is available via her website. https://www.victoriatayl.uk. You can reach Victoria on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriatayluk/. You can connect with hist Christopher Brooks at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-brooks-1425b7a/.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to Clientships Customer Experience Superheroes Podcast Series. My name is Christopher Brooks and I'm your host. In this series, we interview individuals from organizations and customer experience related practices helping to understand just what superpowers you need to make an impact in today's world of customer centricity. In this episode, we meet up with Victoria Taylor. Victoria runs her own customer experience practice, and her primary focus is helping organizers understand the value and importance of people. As she coins it, make people matter. 2020, we saw a drop in human contact with organizations and a detrimental impact to customer experience performance. We caught up with Victoria to understand is this a blip or has the power of the person become more important than ever before? I'm really delighted to have Victoria Taylor with us. Now I came across Victoria on uh live LinkedIn, was compelled. Um she talks a lot of sense when it comes to the classroom experience. She's got a particular area that I find quite interesting and looking forward to diving into that. So, first of all, Victoria, welcome to the CX of Heroes podcast series.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

It it is a it is a delight, and you've got such an upbeat bounce. I think you're in it, you know, you're the sort of fresh and vibrant voice we need for 2021. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. Now, if people like me have come across you on LinkedIn and other areas or worked with you, they'll know who you are. But I'm I'm guessing there's a portion of the world out there that's yet to get to know you. So would you mind giving us a quick appreciation of who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Okay, so thank you very much for that very kind introduction. So I'm Victoria Taylor and I have my own consultancy and I've been doing this for nearly 10 years now. So I'm getting a little bit older in the game, but yeah, 10 years, and I I've always had a career around customers. Everything that I've ever done has been around customers, it's been around people. So prior to starting my own business, I've worked for different media outlets and various different areas which were really heavily customer focused. Um and I think that that is what inspired me really to deal with my own thing from working in companies that didn't necessarily treat customers how I wanted to treat customers, which is definitely something that inspired me to start my own business. Um but going back even further than that, um, and something I know we're gonna, you know, talk around a topic today, a teacher of mine, when I was back in school when I was very young, she was um a fantastic, fantastic teacher. And I was one of those kind of kids in school that was the outspoken child, the one that always did things differently to the other kids, and the one that didn't really, I didn't really conform. I had my own voice. And while all the other kids and were, you know, conforming, and all the other teachers saying, Victoria, can you not just do the same as everybody else? I just remember hearing that all the time. She was the one that really encouraged me to do my own thing, which was which was amazing. And then sadly, one Christmas, we were, she was the music teacher as well. So I played the piano and she really encouraged me around playing the piano. And one Christmas we were in a school concert and she collapsed at the piano, and a couple of days later she passed away. And I will never forget like how it made me feel, even at such a young age, to lose somebody that had made me feel like I mattered when the other teachers didn't. And I think about it now, and I talk about this teacher, Miss Evans, to clients today. And I say, you know, if she had a business today, I'd still be buying products from her three decades after her passing because of the impact she made on me as a person, how she made me feel. So that really inspired me to kind of take along on my journey, really. Everything is about how we make people feel, which brought me into the customer experience arena, really, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So, yeah, that's that's really that's a compelling, compelling story, and I can understand how that would have made some deep-rooted kind of associations with your purpose going forward. And a few years later on, you're in the world of customer experience. Arguably, probably from that day onwards, you probably were, but you know, become more knowingly and more conscious. Along the journey, I mean, what one of the lessons you've learned? I mean, you and I have been running consultancy practice for about the same time. What we have now is a much more mature version of what was around back then. So, kind of what are the lessons you've learned on that journey?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

That everything changes. Um, and you know, we we take last year as an example of this, everything changes. And we have to be adaptable, we have to be agile, and no matter what happens and how much the world changes, you know, for every business to thrive, we all need customers. And, you know, if we don't put people at the heart of things, then we're not gonna have businesses. So it doesn't matter how much the world changes around you, if you can really put people at the center of it and put your focus on people and making people feel good, um, that's that's what builds businesses that are significant.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

So and that leads me on to sort of what would you say if I was to kind of bump into you in a at an event as you're coming off stage, and I just want to grab, you know, what's your philosophy on on customer experience or customer centricity? What would you your kind of your line be back to me?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

You have to make people matter. That's it. You have to make matter that underline, and it might sound so simplistic, but everything stems from that. So, you know, you know, very often we can get tied up in um jargon and lingo, can't we? Around no matter what industry we're in, and we there is a lot of log jargon and lingo around multiple industries. But I think we can bring it back to the simplicity that people have to lie at the core of everything that we do and then build out from there rather than thinking about terms and ticking boxes that we have to have to put people at the centre of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Excellent. Well, this is where I uh first the attraction to to the rhetoric you have on customer experience, and it was this expression make people matter. Now, we've run a number of um podcasts on employee engagement, uh, employee experience, and make people matter potentially sends me down that avenue, which is not a bad path, and I'm sure we'll kind of come back to this. But what was really interesting about your take on make people matter is not boxing it in that area that actually is to think about it in a much broader context. So I'll let you expand upon your thinking on this, and then we'll we'll we'll dive into some of those areas.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Okay, yeah. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. And make people matter is about employees. Um, it's about you, it's about me, it's about the accountant, it's about the supply chain, it's about every single person that comes into contact with your brand, whether they're a customer or not. It's about making all of those people matter all of the time, which is no easy feat because you have to be continuously switched on. You know, customer experience is it fascinates me because people think it's just for the customer experience department, but it's not. You know, it's in everything you do, it underlies everything you do. It's in it's in this conversation here today, it's in a phone call, it's in a message, it's in an email, and it really is being on your game continuously to make sure that you are providing a good people experience, whether that's on the telephone or on email or when you talk to somebody at the golf course when we're allowed to do that again, um, or when you're you know in the pub having a conversation, you know, every every single person that you meet or you converse with or your employees meet or converse with have the impact to have an impact on your brand. So if that's not filtering through and you're not creating a good experience, then you're not going to create a good impression with your brand. You're not gonna, you're not gonna create that good experience. So, and also I say good experience, I actually think it needs to now be great experience because you know, I think I don't know about you, but I think that the pandemic has shone a light on experience, and I don't think there's any room to hide from bad experience anymore either, um, because we are so digital facing and we are all, you know, we're you know, we can jump on here today. We we wouldn't have done this 12 months ago, you know, it might have taken us two meetings, you know, two months to arrange a meeting, but we're very quickly jumping on here, and and everybody's doing that all around the world, and there isn't any place to hide from it because we are we're all doing this now as part of our daily lives. So we we have to be continuously creating a great experience because everybody remembers a bad experience, everybody remembers a great experience, but nobody really remembers a mediocre one. So you need to you need to be delivering great, or you might as well not really be delivering at all, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Excellent. I well, I I I totally understand that, and I've seen some lots of research, and there's some of the organizations and they are creating some decent um advice and recommendation guides, but but things like the Edelman Trust Barometer, which highlighted that we won't give companies a second chance if they've okay, we might give them a second chance if they fail to deliver my parcel, but actually, if they weren't looking after their staff, we're not going to give them a second chance. And I think probably what 2020 did for us is to see organizations, what they're like when you remove the transaction. So if I've not got a sale going on with you and I'm talking to you, how much do you care about me? Are you thinking about me in terms of the sal or are you thinking about me in terms of a customer? And I think you're absolutely right there. What it's highlighted is that every interaction is either increasing or decreasing the confidence. Uh I always use the kind of expression, am I enjoying or enduring it? It's just binary. Am I enjoying or enduring it? And and and and you're right. So therefore, you've got to think, you know, even in the my wife's um doing uh the passport reapplication for our son. Uh passport off is actually very good at customer experience. And and you can how can you enjoy that? Boy, you you can make that, you know, you can make that not so that you have to endure it. You can kind of make sure that you remove the anxiety, so therefore, you can get on and enjoy other things. So I think you're absolutely spot on there. And I think you're you are right as well. I think great is probably you know the the the new permission to trade.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

It's the new standard, isn't it? And I mean, I think I think throughout the pandemic as well, you know, I've certainly dealt with brands that I haven't dealt with before from a consumer point of view. And I always think it's a really good idea to put a consumer hat on as a customer experienced professional, um, to actually, because it's hard, isn't it? Very often you come in from the customer experience side, but actually to to be that consumer and just absorb yourself as a consumer, um, to know what impacts you. Because, you know, I had a clothing brand reach out to me on Instagram, um, not to sell me anything. They just sent me a message to say, hi Victoria. We just wanted to say we know times are really tough right now. They commented on a particular picture of mine on Instagram to say we really like this image that you you you know created here. We just wanted to let you know that our inbox is open if you ever need to talk. I mean, yeah, what a different level. Sure. Um, a completely different level. And how many brands are proactive in doing something like that? Because I tell you something, I hadn't bought anything from that company. I have now, but I had it at that point. But it was that wasn't just reactive, that was proactive. That was going, let's look at context and let's make this person matter. And that's what they did. And I just think that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

You're talking about an organization there who I don't know whether they were an online retailer, but they've started to connect different channels on retail to be able to reconnect with you in a way that maybe they could only do previously when you went into the store. Are you finding this the thing about moving from good to great? Are you finding with the organizations you're talking to, their capability has gone up significantly and actually it's it's going to be a new playing field?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Oh, 100%. I think I think that this whole digital transformation that we're seeing now and how how people are being there, obviously people are upping their skills across the board. You know, there's there's people and companies coming out of the air, literally putting themselves out there in completely different ways than what they have before. And I think they're really adapting, developing, um, developing their staff and investing time and developing their staff. So they are creating good experiences. And I think actually the fact that there are a whole ton of companies doing that now, that's shining a light further on the ones that aren't, because people have really taken this pandemic and accelerated and gone, we've got to nail this, we've got to nail this experience. And then the guys that just go, oh, just doing the regular stuff, there's a massive contrast. Sure. There's a huge contrast. So yeah, I think I think it's really sped things up and made a divide even bigger.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

So these are skill sets that need to be improved, these are capabilities that need to be given to staff so that they can feel more confident with stuff, which I guess brings it back to this make people make you've got to make the people matter. So let's have a have a go at this from a couple of different angles then. So, as I say, when we talk about make people matter, they're me talking about it, train them, get the skill sets, give them the technical capability. That's an area you you typically go to. Let's talk the other end of the scale. Let's talk about CX strategy. How do you make people matter through that process of CX strategy, for instance?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, so I've I've recently written an e-book actually about this that taps into what I call the pre-experience. So before somebody is a customer, because at that point they're not a customer having a customer experience, they're a person having people experience. Um, and what this what this entry point strategy does is it looks at every potential point that somebody can come into contact with your brand to make an impression of your brand. And I split those areas into three areas, and they are people, platform, and places. So you've got entry point to your business through people that you know or people that you don't know, through platforms, which would cover email, telephone, social media, um, website, all there's all kinds of different electronic entry points into your into your business and then places. So, for example, um have you been at a networking event or it could be on a train journey or it could have been on an aeroplane previously, every point where somebody has the potential to meet you. And if you're not, then you need to strategize each one of them. And the first way you can do that is by acknowledging and knowing what they are. You know, I actually wrote mine down last year at the beginning of the year, and there were 72 entry points into my business. Yeah, 72 different entry points.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

What would you have what would you have guessed, you know, Victor, if I just said you have any entry points into your business before you did that audit? What would you have, you know, thought was a realistic estimate?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

12, 10, 12, something like that. 10, 12, maybe 15. And this is something that, like, I mean, I'm I'm quite granular on my different entry points into my business. So I was like, right, I'm gonna write all these down. And then that led to me talking about this at a number of events last year, virtually, of course, um, which actually developed into a you know an online service. It's something that I've always done with my clients in in real life, but it's something that I'm able to do online now as well. But it's so important because we always talk about the experience when someone's a customer, but actually we need to get them to become a customer, right? So until they become a customer, we need to make sure that that pre-strategy is there. So I couldn't possibly tell you today how you can strategize every entry point because anybody listening to this, they'll all have different entry points. But what I can say is that the book will help. So I, you know, I am plugging the book here because it will it will give you a an actual layout as to how you can start approaching that. It's quite granular, it looks like platforms. So yeah, that could help, I think.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I mean, when you say plugging it, it's a freebie. So, you know, it's it's not as so it's there for people, it's there, you know, they get your this this thought process you've been through, understanding how to apply it, it's there available for people. So if it's okay with you, we'll put a link on the description afterwards, and obviously any listeners can go and take advantage of that. So thank you for putting that out there to the community.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Thank you, and I think in the book as well, you know, we talk about um moments. There's a study done, you know, we we all have over 20,000 moments a day where we have the potential to have an experience. Over 20,000. And we are inundated with content and messages that are coming at us from digital, from our real lives. How do we become those brands that tap into those moments and tap into how the human brain works? I have to look at how we operate as human beings and how we've operated since we were born. And the book delves into that as well. So hopefully it will help people to think about how that how they can really do that and be proactive.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Excellent, excellent. I think you've made a compelling case there for strategy. So thank you for that. What about uh when it gets into things like experience design, when you've kind of, you know, you've identified the root cause, you've you've engaged the customer, you've you've mapped out where the challenge lies, and you're starting to think about designing a better outcome. I mean, how how do you make people matter during that process?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, I'm actually going to use um an experience that I've I've seen over the last couple of days actually just to illustrate an idea. So I think I don't know whether you've seen Coca-Cola have been very clever where they've looked at context, they've looked at the time of year, the pandemic, and they've looked at people. So they've brought all those areas together, right, in this experience that they've designed. And it's something so simple that they've released their new Coke cans, they've removed the logo, and what they've done is they've put this year, I will, blank, and then a line underneath it. And that is so the consumer can fill in those new year's resolutions on the can as to what they're going to do. And it's about inspiring hope for the future and allowing people to be positive and optimistic as we go into a new year. And I think, you know, very often we talk about processes, but actually some of the best ideas around designing experiences is in thinking about exactly where we are. And when creativity meets context and people, fascinating things can be developed. So I think if you're thinking, you know, how can we design great experiences? The best thing to do is take off your experience hat and put on your consumer hat and think, what compels me? What do I need right now? You know, I think you can't go far wrong by flip reversing the process.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Excellent. And and obviously, we're working in a in a remote world at the moment. We we found consumers in research and collaboration sessions are actually more open. Uh, what we found are that the voices that are lost in focus groups are refound. And and this may be we've been dealing with uh recently with a student population, they're very, very comfortable with interactive whiteboards and putting information down in boxes because they text and they WhatsApp far more often than you know the older generation. So, so what we've actually found is there's no excuse to actually engage your customer as part of that experience design at the moment. It's it's actually you know we've we've been testing them on things like confirmation bias. Are you are you kind of reviewing other people's comments and they're saying no? So you're still even getting independent of thought. So are you finding that you know that there is no excuse that you can still include the customer and understand what matters to them in this?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

A hundred percent. More than I think more than ever. And you know, the fact that we are on digital more, we're able to be, we're open to seeing so much more information about people as well. You know, there is no excuse. We can see so much information about people and what we can understand how people are feeling. There is no excuse for us to not be tapping into customer right now at all. No excuse.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

And then let's bring it back down to sort of you know, rec make make people. I mean, it may you make a very compelling argument for it, and it makes perfect sense. But I guess if I'm the the chief financial officer and I'm sitting there saying everything in business is a is a strategy, it's got to deliver competitive advantage. How do you account for the advantage that focusing on making people matter brings? Where do you see the return for the organization? And and is it just a commercial return or is it actually much broader than that?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I think it's I think it's much broader than that. And that's and I think that's a difficult thing as well, because you know, very often, you know, when we're you know you're talking with organizations and they very much focus the results on financials, um, which is you know, it's a bit and of course it's there, but but it does go much further than this. And if we're looking at generating long-term relationships, we can't just be concerned with short-term transactions, be thinking about building for longevity and not just for the immediate future. So I think we always have to be um mindful and building with the you know the sales strategy in mind. But if you want to be a brand that is significant and not just survive through this, you have to make people a priority. You know, we look at some of the Biggest brands in the world that have really fallen from grace this year, you know, they're very, you know, catch cash rich in their pockets, they've treated people terribly, they've bled money out left, right, and center. Some of the biggest CEOs have taken huge chunks of money and they've got rid of staff. And you just think, well, you know, we we have to take care of people, and the world is watching. And I think, you know, if we aren't, if we're not doing that now, then what potential are we? It's very easy to be blindsided by just the what's it bringing now? Yeah. And I think it's important to have a what's it bringing now with a what's it generating long term as well. And it's it's having that balance between the two.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Excellent. And and you said there, I mean, we won't name names of of some of these organizations, but I think you know, history will deal with them in its own way. Flip it over. There are some organizations out there that I'm sure you've you've been inspired by. I mean, are there are there a couple of case studies or brands that you can mention that you know you think are worth us tracking and keeping an eye on for good reasons?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, do you know, and this is gonna seem like the most probably bizarre example, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say Timpson's. Yes, have you yeah, like James, James Timpson is a fantastic guy. Um, I think he's always been very um involved with employee experience, like way, way before the pandemic, anyway. You know, he's he's got an excellent system um within his company where they take care of employees and you know, he's he's paid for court fees, he's sent people on honeymoons, he's sent sick children away on holidays, he's got a company house overseas that he sends people to for holidays when they they haven't been able to afford them themselves. So he's really invested in his employees' experience with the company. Um, he also rehabilitates people that have been in prison. You know, the guy is a very culture-driven person, dry cleaning suits for people that haven't been able to pay for them to go for interviews for them throughout the pandemic. He's really embodied what it means to put people first, and that is people in every aspect. So with in-brand, out-of-brand, people that aren't even customers, that just need their suits cleaning. You know, he's he's been a real champion, I think, throughout this pandemic of taking care of people. I watched a video just before Christmas, I think it was, of employees that had obviously he he kept people's jobs going, so he he kept them all on, kept paying them all as well. And this video was of the staff and their kids saying, Thank you, James, thank you, James. And it honestly gave me a real lump in my throat because I was like, these kids are having Christmas because he's taken care of them, and these families are surviving and being able to eat food and not have to worry about their jobs because he's taking care of them. And I think he's been a real shining example through the pandemic, actually, of you know how how we can really take care of people. Another recent one I would say is um actually brewdog, and I know it's divided opinion. Um, and some people think, you know, it's make potentially a marketing side to it, which yes, there will be a marketing side to it, but they are closed, they're not able to trade in their establishments right now, but they've got a ton of fridges in all of their establishments, and you know, they've said to the government, we're offering these up so you can vaccinate more people. So they're looking at a collective experience. What can they do for the community? People, it's not it's not selling anything with their brand, it's not selling a thing, but what they're doing is saying, let's offer up our premises and do something for the greater good. So they've put people first.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Well, I I very much like um uh you know the fact that you can connect the concept to some some real life examples. And I know of Simpsons, and I've often used the example of the free dry clean if you can't, you know, and work. What I didn't know was what went on below the surface. And I think what what you've done there is to highlight the balance, is actually what I've seen is uh an example of what is clearly a cultural piece that runs to the core of the values and the purpose of the organization, and actually what he's got there is a balance where you know 80% of that is going on for his employees, so therefore, when I walk into a Timpson's, that sentiment that I see on the board is runs through every one of those engagement points because it's just it's why would I do it any differently? You know, the leader does it for me like this, so therefore I'm going to do it for you, like the customer. So I think that's a really good connected piece. It is excellent when you find leaders like that out there keeping their staff, keeping their customers, and keeping their communities involved by delivering better experiences. So, no, thank you very much for sharing that. Well, Victoria, this this has been a brilliant discussion. If people want to continue the discussion with you, how can they reach you? We've got the ebook. What's the name of the ebook?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Um, it's called Points of Entry Strategy, Unlocking People Experience.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Awesome. So we'll put the link in on this description. But how else can they get hold of you if they want to talk to you?

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, they can connect with me all over social media um at VictoriaTale UK, which is T-A-Y-L-U-K. Um, I'm on LinkedIn there, Victoria Tale UK as well on there. So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

You're there for uh keynote speaking if people would like to have you um inspire their audiences as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

I am indeed, yeah. I'm doing um I'm doing a few virtual, I've actually got one tomorrow. Yeah, I'm doing a few virtual talks at the moment, which is which is nice because you know, experience experience never sleeps. We might be in a different world, but experience doesn't sleep. So we've got to keep flying the flag and helping people to raise the bar.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

That feels like a nice t-shirt. Experience never sleeps. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Excellent. Well maybe we'll get that.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah, maybe maybe that will be us pivoting our businesses into t-shirts, customer experience, uh merchandise. So I have seen a few hats and t-shirts out there. I I'm not sure it's a sustainable future if I wanted to give it Victoria. I think you should stick with helping companies and inspiring leaders if that's okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time and uh I wish you well in 2021. More of the same, help others and and keep the message uh that you're presenting flowing out there amongst the community. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Thanks so much for having me. Thank you.