Customer Support Leaders
Customer Support Leaders
263: Connecting Actions to Customer Outcomes; with Sarah Caminiti
Connecting Actions to Customer Outcomes; with Sarah Caminiti
Unlock the secrets of truly impactful leadership and customer support with our special guest, Sarah Caminiti, a seasoned expert in the field. Together, we dissect the profound implications of aligning our deeds with our pledges, both in steering teams and nurturing customer relationships. Discover how the subtleties of what isn't done can be as telling as the actions we take, casting long shadows on how customers and colleagues perceive their value within an organization.
Venture into the realm of strategic communication, where Sarah and I examine the delicate art of sharing key information without inundating our teams. Our conversation reveals how a well-honed communication strategy within a company serves as the cornerstone for trust, transparency, and loyalty—qualities that not only elevate employee morale but also resonate deeply with customers, cementing a brand's promise and integrity. Join us for an enlightening journey through the dynamics of words, actions, and the silent echoes that shape the heart of a business.
Hello and welcome to Episode 263 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward Today. Welcome Sarah Caminiti, talking about how actions speak louder than words.
Charlotte Ward:I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today Sarah Kameniti. Sarah, lovely to have you back again. So much to talk about this time, and I'm really looking forward to this conversation Our third now on the podcast. We've had two enjoyable chats already. I know this is going to be another good one, so how about a quick hello and then you can lead us into what we're going to talk about today?
Sarah Caminiti:Yes, thank you so much, charlotte. I'm so excited to be here. I can't believe that we've already had two under our belt and this is number three, and I just want to quick introduce myself again. I'm Sarah Caminiti. I have been in the customer world for about 20 years and I love helping leaders navigate all of the different obstacles that they face along the way and building operational systems in the CX industry that really enhance efficiency and value everybody's time. So I am super pumped for today's topic. We're going to be diving into actions and how they really mean a lot and they speak louder than words and the consequences that come along with not connecting what you're saying to what you're actually doing, how that impacts customers, teams, entire organizations, and what you can do to make sure you're connecting those dots.
Charlotte Ward:Wow, thank you so much. 20 years, that's some experience to draw on. I'm looking forward to this one.
Sarah Caminiti:I aged myself there for a second, but it's fine, take it.
Charlotte Ward:I've. I've got a few more years under my belt, don't you worry, so, which is why I'm confident that we've got a lot to talk about here, so?
Charlotte Ward:so, actions speaking louder than words, then. Because, because actions you know, when you're working inside a team, or inside a project, or inside an environment and organization, it's easy to forget, I think, that the things you do carry outside of the walls of that bubble that you're working in. I guess, yeah right, it's easy to assume the thing you know, this thing I do today, is only affects me or only affects my immediate teammates, or whatever, right? So so where where are we going with this conversation then?
Sarah Caminiti:well, yeah, I think I think it has two sides too. It's what you do, but more so it's what you don't do. And when you choose, either consciously or unconsciously, to complete something or to follow a process, or to include someone, or to ask that extra question, what that tells the other person and when you're looking at this from the other person's perspective, really what it boils down to, regardless of intention of the other part of the person that's not doing something or doing something is they don't value me, they don't value me enough to do this.
Sarah Caminiti:They don't value me enough to ask this question. If you're a customer, they don't value me enough to understand my problem, and the impact that that has is something that 12 other positive interactions is not going to erase interactions is not going to erase it's. You've already created your, your foundation of of what's actually going on behind the surface. So what can you do to make sure that you don't let that happen? Um, and just being aware of the, the power that every human has in each interaction, that they have to impact the other side in ways that they didn't anticipate, I think the inclusion one is a big one for me, because I think that you know it's something that is particularly prevalent asynchronously, isn't it Like?
Charlotte Ward:you have to be really intentional about who you bring into what project, what, what slack channel, what conversation? Um, you get that wrong and and the dysfunction that builds from that is not just the, it doesn't just impact that one project or that one you know customer situation or whatever. It can it have a real cultural impact over time if people it's not just one person, right necessarily, like if people persistently feel excluded from decision making, from transparency around reasoning or from knowledge? I know we talked about this, I think, on our last podcast where we talked about you know how we don't have conversations in DMs. We don't have conversations. Someone is at the side, it's alexa. Sorry, one second, alexa, stop, I'll pick that up.
Charlotte Ward:That's rare for a podcast um, I think we had that conversation last time, right, um, about how we don't uh, we try and shy away from dms. We try, try not to carry out business in private channels, that kind of thing, because you miss an opportunity to learn and to include the people who need to be included. And I think that is really important for me, that inclusion angle.
Sarah Caminiti:Definitely, and in so many situations, it's not only the person who's choosing not to include the people, but then it's also their leadership of not giving them any sort of direction of hey, why didn't you do this? And taking that time to ask the question, because most of the time, these sort of things that you do or do not do, especially inclusion related, is not a slight it's. It's it's you didn't realize something, or it wasn't obvious, or you know it's you didn't make that connection. And if the leadership is not taking the time to to ask the question of why did you do this? And not in any way other than a sincere curious, I just want to understand how I can clarify things for you and make it so that we don't get into the situation next time. Have a conversation about it.
Sarah Caminiti:Then maybe you can shed some light of there could be improvements to a process, or maybe something needs to happen sooner in order to make sure somebody is involved, instead of halfway through and you're already scrambling to get to the deadline, because the leaders at the policy by ethics, by just interpersonal connection, of how to create those cross-functional relationships that really drive the customer's voice across the entire company, and if they're not holding anybody accountable, then they're telling the other teams on top of it. We don't value you enough to make sure that we are doing what we have to do or understand why we're not doing what we need to do, and those things have such a huge ripple effect.
Charlotte Ward:They really do, culturally and personally, absolutely. And let's not forget, you know, in terms of efficacy as well. I think that we're talking a lot here about kind of the ethics and feelings side of you know, particularly inclusion. That seems to be the kind of strand we'd end up on, but it's an important one. But it also deeply impacts your efficacy if you don't pull the right people in, or if you don't make the right people aware, or if you don't align on a particular series of actions that has an outcome, that is, that aligns with company strategy or your next quarter plans or whatever. Right, you have to ensure that everyone's rowing in the same direction. They can all see the direction they're rowing in.
Sarah Caminiti:Well, that's the thing right there, charlotte. It's being able to see the direction and you touched upon that when you were introducing this of the transparency side of things. And transparency has such value to a company in order to be successful. Because if you do not understand the why behind it, even if the why behind it isn't great, even if the why behind it is not the answer that you want, it doesn't matter, because when you explain the why, you are telling your team and your company I respect you enough and I want you to feel as included in this journey as possible, want to hear, because you do want to hear it.
Sarah Caminiti:Because if you didn't, then you're going to start making assumptions or you're going to start with those gross feelings inside of why aren't they asking these questions? Why aren't we going in this direction anymore? We know this is a problem. Why are we not really spending time on this? And if you're not transparent, then that's just going to keep building and building and they're going to start questioning more things that don't need to be questioned. It's usually such a simple act to just say I'm going to take five minutes today and I'm just going to be honest about where we're going with this. We know that this is an issue. We want to dedicate the time we need to dedicate it to it, but we've got to hit this, and so, right now, I need everybody on deck to hit this so that we can work together to problem solve what's going on with this. And if you start dropping that ball, then you are missing out on the reason why you hired all of these people in the first place.
Charlotte Ward:I think that's really important. You hire smart people. You hire them on the premise that they will understand and be able to work with information that you give them and be effective in the role that you're hiring into them, engaging fully with a process or an initiative or a project, or you know, a reorg or whatever it might be, or you know that it's very disengaging, intentionally or not, you know it just sets them on the wrong path. You set people up for failure. I think doing that, and you know you touched several times there on the wrong path. You set people up for failure. I think doing that, and you touched several times there. On the assumptions word, which I know we've talked about as well, and that's part of the danger as well, isn't it that if you take a slice of that pie away, they're going to fill it with assumptions, right, I mean because we need a whole operating model to begin the working day and the stuff you don't know you fill in because we're human beings. So your brain will just say I'm going to assume this, this and this. I'm going to assume that the company isn't interested in the thing I'm working on, or my leadership aren't telling me something crucial because they don't trust me, or this really important thing that I know is important is just completely devalued by the company for reasons I don't understand, and all these assumptions fill the gaps if you don't build that kind of transparent culture. I think there is. I mean, we're talking a lot more here about communications than necessarily actions.
Charlotte Ward:But I think also the thing that I think is dangerous if that's the right word about that level of transparency is noise.
Charlotte Ward:It's how you actually filter it and I think that it's right and it demonstrates respect and knowledge and an understanding of impact. If you do bring the people that you are aware and expect to need to know something or need to be a part of something, if you intentionally bring them into the loop, um, but you can go. You can't go too far by just those. You know, those people who just put every person in the company on a group dm just to say, hey guys, I'll just let you all know, like, and you know, half the people don't actually need to know that today. I think there is a certain amount of kind of management of the noise and putting things, not hiding them, but putting them in the right places at the right time, and so I think that is kind of an intentionality, that, to go back to where we started. It's particularly critical for when you're working asynchronously, because you don't just hear this stuff hanging around, that goddamn water cooler, right, I mean yeah, it's, uh it's.
Sarah Caminiti:I think that's a fantastic point, because so many arguments about not being transparent with the company is from, like, all of these not necessary bits that, uh, that create that noise. But if you are being effective and intentional I love that you said that word and purposeful, thoughtful of how you choose to share information, then you won't have those group DMs where you're just telling somebody, that group DMs where you're just telling somebody that you're telling 20 people that you are going to be moving the screenshot folder next to next to blogs in the drive instead of in the S section of the drive Like it's, it's no. When it's time for us to have a conversation that impacts you and your job and, in a larger sense, because we need to fill in the blanks.
Sarah Caminiti:We're going to tell you and even just taking that out of the scope of a company as a whole, that also translates over to the customer, because if you are vague for no reason, if you are, uh, dismissive or quick, uh and don't spend the time to to talk to them, and it's the exact same thing it's, you're going to start making those assumptions as a customer. You're going to start the second those assumptions happen. You're going to start looking elsewhere because, hey, I wonder if this other place has customer support that is a little bit more involved.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, a bit more personal, a bit more, you know, concerned with me getting my problems solved, because all of the things that you just talk about, I think, quickly translate into a customer's mind of we're not very important to them.
Sarah Caminiti:Exactly yeah. And in today's market, where there are so many products that do almost the exact same thing and there's slight differentiations.
Sarah Caminiti:There's slight differentiations, but the only real control that a company has is how they present themselves to be different. I mean, choosing to go with a blue color scheme versus a red color scheme isn't necessarily going to be the driver in the customer's choice, but, especially for longevity, but if the customer feels like they're a part of the journey and they feel like you want to get to know them and help them because you are choosing to spend that time to look at things from a complete, whole picture, that's somebody that's going to stay. That's somebody that's going to tell their friends about it. That's somebody that's going to go on social media about it. And it is a choice, it is an action that connects to the values of the company that you're probably sending out and you're creating that line of yes, we say these things. You're creating that line of yes, we say these things, but it's not lip service, because we're proving ourself in our actions.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, that's really important because I think, all of all of those outward projections that you're talking about, the only thing that a company can really control is the way it presents itself. They're your brand promise, they're the things that you're telling the marketplace and your customers that you are. This is what we're about, this is how we act, this is what our product will deliver, this is what our service looks like. That frontage, that kind of shop front, is your brand promise, isn't it? And if you fail on any of those promises, then it can easily devalue the whole perception, I think, in the marketplace and certainly with your customers 100%, 100%, because nowadays, too, there is a sense of pride in choosing a company that has similar values.
Sarah Caminiti:This company treats their employees very well.
Sarah Caminiti:This company creates an inclusive culture and it's felt with the customers, because it is felt with the customers. All of that culture, all of those foundations that you have within your company. Tell the story to the customer in every single interaction that you have. If they're just sent a canned reply that doesn't have any connection to what they're actually asking, that's saying that their team isn't supported enough to be able to be thoughtful. Their team probably is feeling stressed and they're trying to rush through things. They're understaffed, maybe they're feeling undervalued. Again, you're making these assumptions because you're creating a space to make assumptions. Um and it, uh, that carries weight it really does.
Charlotte Ward:It really does. Thank you so much for this uh conversation, sarah. It's uh, it's super thought-provoking. Um, just so many takeaways, but I think you know the last sentence you said there. Basically, what you do, the way you act on the inside, it absolutely carries weight across the organization, but definitely to your customers, and I think, build an environment where you do the right thing in all ways and you can't go far wrong. Thank you so much.
Sarah Caminiti:Thank you for having me. It's such a joy to be able to talk about this and I can't wait to come back and talk to you again soon.
Charlotte Ward:Please do, please do. I look forward to it.
Charlotte Ward:That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaderscom. Forward. Slash 263 for the show notes and I'll see you next time.