speaker-0: There's just too many companies that don't even care. Most businesses don't take the time to to really do that. There are three things that we really want as human beings. The reward for that that soft skill is never gonna live up to the penalty of not doing the thing that I care about most.

speaker-1: How can a company turn these what customers are saying in real conversations into smarter decisions and meaningful changes inside the business?

speaker-0: Customer service in that contact center has almost become more important because the stakes are higher. If you can keep a customer loyal and keep them coming back, the ROI on that is ridiculous.

speaker-1: A lot of businesses say they care about their customers. They look at reviews, support tickets, surveys, and maybe a few complaints that make their way up to leadership. But the clearest signal about what your customers are saying and how they're feeling about their experience with your company may be sitting inside the conversation customers are already having with the company every single day. What would a business hear if it paid closer attention to the moments where customers feel helped, ignored, rushed, or understood? To help answer that question, I'm excited to be joined today by somebody who knows more about that subject than anyone, Tom Vanderwell. Tom is the CEO of Intelligence, and for more than 30 years, he has listened to over 100,000 customer calls to understand how companies build trust, lose trust, and miss the signals that their customers are giving them. In our conversation, we discuss the three things every customer wants: why speed has become a bigger part of building trust in a relationship with your customer, how small service moments shape loyalty. And how customer calls can reveal management problems, training gaps, and system failures inside the business. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now here is my conversation with Tom Vanderwell. Tom, thank you so much for being here.

speaker-0: It is so good to be with you Ian. Thanks for having me on the show.

speaker-1: Absolutely. So Tom, you have listened to more than a hundred thousand customer calls over the last thirty years. So what has that experience taught you about how trust actually works between a company and their customer?

speaker-0: You know, the the trust factor is really in any business, the customer comes to you that you have a product or a service to sell. They purchase that product or service and and and there's a level of trust that this is going to be what I expect it to be. And so in any customer service conversation, something has not met that expectation, or there's tip to simply, you know, already trust is broken. Like something has not met the what I expected. One of the things that I love about my job is over thirty years is I've listened to like like every conceivable kind of company. I've listened to like manufacturers and supply chains and retail and hospitality and you name it, insurance. And there are different nuances that come with different types of customer bases. But by and large, there are just three things. And I in my book I call it the Holy Trinity of Customer Satisfaction. There are three things that we really want as human beings. And what's really cool, and I get into it in the book, is this is not just true in business, true in in life and relationships as well. Number one, I need my issue resolved. There's a problem, there's a question, there's an issue. I want it resolved. That's number one. Number two, I do want to feel like I I am cared for as a human being. So that courtesy and friendliness, the soft skills, like we care about you and that your expectations have not been that. And then number three, and what's fascinating about this, Ian, is like in the first ten to fifteen years, that resolution And the courtesy and friendliness of Sosco piece were it was really sort of a binary. Those two things were the universals. But then in 2007, Apple introduced this thing called the iPhone, and the smartphone revolution took over. And immediately, starting about 2008, our research began showing that time-related dimensions of service began growing. Exponentially as as another key driver. And Amazon only magnified that effect. And now we're at a point where respect my time. We are so time sensitive. So, yeah. So resolve my issue, care about me, and respect my time. Those are the three universals.

speaker-1: How do you feel like that third dimension being added changed the expectation of the customers about what they expect from the businesses that they're working with?

speaker-0: It highlighted and magnified several things. Number one being I satisfaction with like in the way customers perceive it, Ian, is that like with every contact that I have to make to try and get my question answered and my issue resolved, we have data and the research to prove it. With every contact, my satisfaction drops. overall with you as a company. And I would say before the smartphone, before the the iPhone, there were a lot of times where we would see, okay, well, one or two contacts, there wasn't really statistically a significant drop in overall satisfaction with the company. Then you have to get into three or four contacts before the customer's like going, yeah, I'm really not happy with the company. After the advent the smartphone and the introduction of Amazon, we call it the Amazon effect. Like, no, it is it is one contact. If I have to make a second contact, satisfaction significantly drops. So part of this conversation is that when you talk about dimensions of service, some things are some things are what we call penalty variables. And some things are what we're called reward bills. So a penalty variable is if you do this, I'm not gonna reward you for doing it. It's just what I expect. If you don't do it, I'm definitely gonna penalize you. And the the example I use is this is from real life. My job in my household here at Vanderwell Manor is one of my jobs is to get the bins out on the curb. By 7 30 a.m. on Monday morning, because that's when the garbage trucks come on Monday. I'm terrible at doing this because it's it's Monday, man. In the weekend. I'm not thinking about garbage. I'm not thinking about other things to do. And so inevitably, Monday morning, my wife hears the garbage trucks coming down the street and she's like, Tom, did you get the bins on the cab? And I'm like, no. penalty gribble. Now I'm in the doghouse because I didn't do my job. If I had set my timer and on Sunday afternoon I'd gone out and gotten the bins on the curd, my wife would not be waiting inside the mud room going, Tom, I love you so much. I love you. You're the greatest husband in the world. It's not a reward variable. It's a penalty variable. If I don't do it, I'm penalized, and I do it, I'm not going to be rewarded. That's what resolution. And time-related dimensions of service are their penalty variables. If you waste my time, if you don't resolve my issue, I'm gonna penalize you, I'm not gonna be satisfied. But if you do it, I'm not necessarily gonna have big warm fuzzy feelings about you as a company. It's that soft skills, the courtesy and the friendliness. where the reward variable comes in. So if you meet my expectations in time related dimension service and in resolution, and you also give me a service experience where I really feel cared for and I feel like I've got a personal relationship. with your company, that's where the reward comes in and you begin driving us or kind of raving fans, if that makes sense.

speaker-1: That is such a nuanced and educated insight into these kinds of conversations that just literally can only you can only get that kind of insight and that level of articulation, like being able to articulate and explain that if you've listened to as many calls as you have and if you've written a book on the subject. Or like you sat down, did the hard work of sitting down having to really figure out how to articulate this. So just a testament to to your experience. That's amazing. So if I could repeat it back to you just to make sure that I have it understood. The time And the resolution of the problem are kind of like permission to play, right? Those are the expectations, those are the standards. You have to make it fast. You have to actually solve the issue. You have to fix it. Right. If you don't do those things, then you're gonna start getting nasty comments, people you know leaving negative reviews, right? That's where you're gonna be penalized if you don't, but you're not necessarily gonna be rewarded if you do, right? It's just the permission to play, it's the expectation, it's the standard. And then the middle exact the middle dimension, right? The actual service.

speaker-0: I guess

speaker-1: Is where you can start to differentiate yourself and create an experience that people are going to talk about. Right. And this kind of brings me back here, reminds me about something that I learned at the end of last year, which is I went to this marketing workshop and this guy was like a marketing wizard, whatever, and he kind of broke down marketing in ways like you're breaking down customer service and and service in ways that it's just like you can only explain it that way if you've been in the game for a long time and you really know your stuff. But he broke down marketing as like, okay. But like he told one story that in marketing, basically you want to create a product or service that people are going to talk about. People talk about the things that they didn't expect, right? As a part of your service experience, right? They will talk about and mention the things that they didn't expect. So one example is like, okay, if you're staying at a hotel, nobody's gonna talk about how nice the sheets are, the room was super clean, the the staff was very friendly. But if you leave like a note on the on the table when they walk in, it's like a personalized handwritten note. with some comment or little thing like factoid that you could find about them, that is something that people don't expect about their experience in staying at a nice hotel that they will talk about with others. People will talk about the things that they don't expect. So when you look at these three dimensions, the expectation is that it's going to be fast, it's going to be convenient, it's going be easy and you're going to solve my problem. But you can get people talking about you if you really focus on that second dimension of providing a real like service experience. So how could you as a business owner really attack that second dimension? And make it something that people will talk about.

speaker-0: Let me give you a real world example. So when I do customer service training and I start working with a client, one of the things I'll do when I do my first sort of training experience is I will say, give me an example of a company that provides a great service experience. And that's the question. And sometimes we'll do it in small groups or whatever. The number one answer for the last 20 years, bar none by far. It is always do you know what it is?

speaker-1: gonna say Amazon 'cause that's where my mind went. Big filet. yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. And when I ask, well, what is it that Chick-fil-A does that makes it a great service experience? It's always two words. My pleasure. When you say thank you at Chick-fil-A, they respond with, My pleasure. And I talk about that in the book. I mean, you think about a fast food experience, which Chick-fil-A is. Every fast food experience is basically the same. You want to go in, you want it to be fast, you wanna get your order quickly for it to be right. And what Chick-fil-A did is they leveraged two words, two courteous words that people don't expect. And all of a sudden, wherever I go, you know, who gives a great service experience? Chick-fil-A. What? They say. And I'm like, how easy is that? And that's just a great example. And when I listen to calls, when I'm working with our clients to say, how do you how do you deliver that experience that people would expect? It's not rocket science. You use the customer's name conversationally. You make it feel like hey, we've got a relationship. You're a real person. You use please and thank you. If something hasn't gone right, hey, you apologize. Hey, this didn't meet your expectations. You make a very clear ownership statement that I'm going to take responsibility and and resolve this for you. There's just a handful of very simple things that you do. And also think about 100,000 phone calls. So companies, like you know, most major companies, you've got hundreds, thousands of people, even a small business. Like an insurance agent and right here in my little town of Pella, Iowa, you know, you're gonna you're probably taking 80, 100 calls a day. That's 80 or 100 impressions that you are making, in which that customer is either gonna have an enhanced or diminished perception of you and your business based on how that interaction went. So, dude, leverage it. make every touch count. And so I always go back to Chick-fil-A. If if they can leverage my pleasure into having a reputation and one of the best customer service experiences, any business can do the same thing.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And it really is just those simple things. Like in my mind, it's worrying with all these complicated ideas of like, okay, so maybe Chick-fil-A saw this experience in the fast food industry where all the employees, like everybody seems super disengaged, right? They didn't really care. So they were like, Okay, our main differentiator is that we are going to create a staff that genuinely cares and says something like my pleasure. But it really doesn't have to be that complicated. Maybe there is something to that. But you really could just copy and just boil it down to, okay. The people who are handling these issues, who are responsible for customer service and resolving these problems that your customers are having, you just have to take them through the right training, right? They just have to be people who sincerely care. Right. Cause everything that taught that we're talking about, like using their name, making it like we're really building a relationship, saying things like my pleasure, it just all boils down to people who really just give a sh who are on the phone solving the problem that just care about this person. And then also recognizing the importance of this interaction with the customer is an opportunity. Right, this is an opportunity for us to just increase our relate like grow our relationship, build our relationship, increase our perception that they have of our business, or decrease it. Right. Every interaction you have with a customer is an opportunity to go the right way or the wrong way. So yeah, it's like you could

speaker-0: Now let's go back to the let's go back to the Holy Trinity customer shot and the penalty barrels. The nuance here, Ian, is that you can be as nice and courteous and say my pleasure all you want. But if you don't resolve my issue and I feel like you're wasting my time, the reward for that that soft skill is never gonna live up to the penalty of not doing. the thing that I care about most, which is resolve my issue. And so one of the things that I've learned a lot of my probably the most misunderstood server skill is apologies. Apologies are really, really powerful because it's like one, hey, we care. Hey, I'm sorry we didn't get your order to you one time. Let me let me see what we can do to take care of that. And I'll have I always have customer service reps that I'm training like going, yeah, yeah, but Tom. I had this customer who said they didn't want my apology. So I think you're wrong. I don't think customers want an apology. And I'm like going, okay, 100,000 phone calls. I have heard customers say, I don't want your apology. I've heard it. Every time I've heard it, one of two things has been true. One, you're over apologizing. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. I really should. We're sorry we're probably talking about. And customers are fully like, shut up! Because that's not okay, you apologize, but that's not what I want. What I want is resolution. Our number two, you're really not resolving my issue. And so it's sort of like the the apology and the care is hollow, so it's the same thing. The reward for caring about the fact that you haven't met my expectation will never overcome the fact that the penalty of you're not resolving it. And that's when customers say, I don't want your body.

speaker-1: Yeah. Right. Because the first two things, the first two boxes need to be checked first before you can make any difference in your candor is you're solving the problem and you're doing it quickly, conveniently for the customer. So like the whole process needs to start with those two boxes being checked, double checked, triple checked, underlined, bolded, right, italicized, right? Like those are the two main pillars. But then the opportunity for differentiation and the opportunity to turn this customer service experience that your customers are going to into something that they're going to talk about in a positive light and build the relationship is that candor, right? Is that apology, right? Is the my pleasure. That is the cherry on the top of those first two boxes need to be checked in order for a functional customer service experience. And then you can turn your customer service experience and your customer service function into an asset that helps grow your business with that cherry on the top.

speaker-0: Absolutely. And here's where the complexity comes. So you've got this person that you're paying to answer the phone and be your representative. And so everyone thinks of quality assessment and call monitoring as well, it's really about just holding that person accountable to what they say and how they say it. But if that's the only reason you're doing quality assessment, you're missing the boat. Because there's so much more complexity to it. That CSR answers the phone and says, Well, I need this. Well, you know, we only have one person on our team that handles that particular issue. And they happen to be at lunch right now. So what am I going to do? So now we've got single point failure. The poor CSR answered the phone. They're just dealing with what they've been given, and they're doing the best they can. That's a management issue. That's a policy issue. That's a procedural issue. And what that points out is why in the world do you only have one person that handles this particular region or item or issue? Why don't you have redundancy? That's just ridiculous. So when when Intelligents does QA, we're not just listening for what the CSR says and how they set it. We're looking for pain paths. We're looking for system failures that the CSR did everything they could. They did the best they could with what they have, but they've been set up for failure. And if if the C-suite and and management aren't willing to listen to the calls from that perspective and deal with the things that they need to deal with, then it doesn't matter how great of a customer service rep you have on the phone. It's still going to fail in the customer.

speaker-1: Yep. And you know, those system failures can be something that exists within an organization for a long time without any major issues coming up. But eventually there's some law that I'm just not remembering right now. But like if there's a failure in the system, eventually it will inevitably be revealed and create an explosion, right? Because you know, you could have fifty thousand great customer service experiences with your customers, but one bad one will just just really defames the reputation or whatever I'm trying to say, right? Like you read, you read if I'm reading about a product, right? And I see 10 five star reviews and I see one one star review, like that one star review is probably gonna be weighted more heavily. Like the example for me is like when I'm trying to figure out what book to get next, I go down and look at the reviews. If I see like a one star review, I'm like, I probably don't want this, right? And everybody again another am another thing that Amazon did, right? So if you have those system failures within your customer service system, the way you've designed your system, not having redundancy, not having those fail-safes, eventually they will be exposed and will create a really bad problem for your organization. Absolutely. Yeah. I love it. So you talked about how the smartphone really changed the game, right? It added that third dimension of service, right? It added the speed and convenience, the expectation in the customer's mind that everything needed to be fast and needed to be easy. Right. So that was a smartphone and Amazon that kind of created that. Is there anything that you're seeing out there, obviously we're going through another kind of revolution that like we did with the internet with artificial intelligence today? Is there any new dimension that you see arising through AI or is it just gonna be kind of the same three dimensions, but AI just plays a new role in it?

speaker-0: You know, I think AI is going to it's gonna add nuances to especially customer searches and what they're looking for. From a customer service perspective. What we have been seeing, and it's not just AI, but it's technology in general. Technology has allowed certain low level customer issues to be handled quickly and efficiently without the human touch. And the the classic examples I had, you know, early on in my career, we did a lot of business with banks and financial institutions. And the number one it was amazing. You it's funny to think about now. But the number one reason people called was to get their bank balanced. Hey, what's my balance? Which is shelly today. Because you can get your balance anywhere. For a you know, through the app, through the website, whatever. And that's just a classic example, but it it's across the board where simple questions like where's my order? Amazon has done that. Where's my order? They'll tell me if it's out for delivery, or you know, which step in the process it's at. So, what has happened is if a customer is calling you, you can be almost assured that this is already a complex, out of the ordinary, one-off situation that really needs human intervention and a human being to figure out what the heck is going on here. And so the bottom line is. Customer service in that contact center has almost become more important because the stakes are higher. Now all of a sudden, I'm already not expecting I'm already technology has already failed me and not given me what I needed. I'm already upset. So you better pay attention and and take really good care of me in this moment because I'm already on the edge.

speaker-1: Yeah. I like that. That's a that's definitely a schema change where I feel like a lot of the narrative is that customer service is gonna be one of those things, like those call centers are just gonna be one of those things that's just completely delegated to AI. Whereas you're saying that okay, the demand for higher quality CSRs is going to only increase because if a person, if a customer is getting to the point where they're making a call, they want to talk to somebody and it's like I'm starting it's I'm starting to get old. Like I I call customers or or companies when I like need help and I'm like, God, I just want to talk to a human like enough with these robots, right? Like so more and more people are gonna get to that, right? Yeah. So CSRs are gonna be dealing with much more complicated and nuanced issues, so they need to be more talented and more trained and and more skilled.

speaker-0: Absolutely. And one of the other interesting things that we're seeing is over the years, and I'd my career has just been a really fascinating period of time, you know, with the advent of technology, but also generational differences. What we're seeing right now in our research is there have always been generational differences, but they are more pronounced right now than maybe ever been before. And the differences between Gen Z And millennials is incredible. The difference between millennials and boomers is incredible. And what that creates for customer service are really interesting nuances. And we've even been, you know, we've even talked to clients about like who is your customer base. Because if your customer base is primarily boomers, and we have some of those clients, like 80% of the customers are older Americans, like healthcare and different things. There are different expectations than there are for Gen Z or for millennials. And one of the nuances that we're finding really interesting with Gen Z is Gen Z is so used to dealing with technology. I mean, they love the technology. They're really good at it. They've grown up with it. They've had it their whole lives. But when things get complicated, Gen Z really does move the human connection. They really want to talk to a human being. And that's different than really millennials and some yeah, some of you in a Gen X. And so it's fascinating to watch this pendulum pivot and and where that's going.

speaker-1: Yeah. So how do you take into account? So if you're working with a client, they they have a s a customer service element to their business, but it's not very professionalized. Like they bring you in, they're like, All right, we need to professionalize our customer service, how we're handling our customer service. How do you take into account like who their customer base is? Like, is who the customer is going to impact how you design this customer service system for them? Like what options you have available, like maybe if their primary customer is that younger crowd who is more proficient with technology, maybe you can incorporate more technological options or technology driven options. So like how do you use who the target customer is to kind of influence the or I guess maybe the better question is how do you like what do you take into account when you are designing the customer service system within an organization, obviously with the customer base being one.

speaker-0: Yeah. So we always start I mean, we always start with a customer, a really good, rigid customer satisfaction, voice of the customer survey, where we really dig in and we talk to the customers, either qualitative or quantitative defense on the size and customer base. But from that, we literally test, okay, here are the key touch points in the customer journey. What is the customer's level of satisfaction with each? And how does that correlate to their overall satisfaction from your company? And from that, we can sort of determine all right, these are the th these are the things that your customers care about the most, or these are the things that are they're penalizing the most right now. we just I'm like I'm working on a report right now for a client. And the key test points are very, very obvious. Customers You know, it's a retail environment, they have a loyalty program. And customers are like going, and what's funny is across the generations, they're like going, Look, I just I want to know what are my rewards. What what can I get with them? And when do they expire? Can you just please you know give that to me in a simple place to find it? And the nuances come whereas Like boomers, they don't really care how you deliver it. They just want it to be easy. So when I get the thermal paper receipt, if you had my like here's your reward points, here's what you can get, like lovely, wonderful. I want to be able to log into the website and it's right there for me. The younger generations are like, No, no, no, no, give me an app. I want an app. So that I can go in and you scan my app and Even if I didn't know how to reward, the app will say, you want to use your rewards today. So the younger generations are more savvy as to what the options and abilities are. But the issue is the same. I just want to know. And so as we go in, we can also then when we do the survey and we do the we do the data, we can also segment and kind of go, okay, well, your boomer customers. Think this, and here's where their satisfaction is with these dimensions. Your Gen Z customers think this. And sometimes there are differences where you're like, and we've even had situations where we've had to say, look, you may need to split up your marketing, your service delivery system, and figure out ways to let go in. If I know. that this customer that's crawling in, here's their phone number, I know this customer, they're Gen Z. All right, your your service rep is gonna have to deal with them differently than they would if they were a beamer. And it's getting in some cases it's getting really, really nuanced.

speaker-1: Yeah. And that's just another testament to the value of focus, right? Like when you're obviously when you get to be a very large company, you're going to naturally be adding new ICP profiles or or customers. But the more focused you are in serving a very specific type of customer, the easier everything becomes because that informs the design of the entire organization, everything from your marketing to your sales to your service delivery process to your customer service process, because you can just focus on building it for one customer in mind and their preferences and their expectations. But the moment you add a second type of customer is the moment that you need to make these changes if you want to still provide the level of service that you should want to, which is the best you possibly can.

speaker-0: So we had a you know, and and then you get clients like we had client that they're basically doing, you know, they've got a whole army of field people that are working with customers in their home, like home services. And in that case, what you have to do is begin is begin training on. You gotta pull them in and go, look, you guys, you walk into the home of an 80-year-old, here's Here's what that 80 year old is thinking and what they expect from service. You walk into the home of, you know, a young couple that just bought their new their first home and they're twenty eight years old, they have completely different expectations. And so they have to learn and understand, and that's on the company to to be willing to kind of go, all right, we need to train our people at this level.

speaker-1: Absolutely. and you mentioned and you started to hint at the value of this insight, right? The value of intentionally capturing the insights that are there and available through the customer service conversations that are happening goes well beyond just optimizing and making the customer service experience better. Right. Those conversations that your customers are having in the customer service experience through the research and the audit that your that your company would do for an organization. What your customers are saying about your product and service and about their experience, especially in the moments where they're frustrated, can inform so much more than just the customer service, like improving the customer service experience. So when you are getting these insights, like how can a company turn these what customers are saying in real conversations into smarter decisions and meaningful changes inside the business?

speaker-0: So when we do kind of a what we call our ongoing service quality assessment, where we're listening to a customer service team on an ongoing basis and providing ongoing feedback, we are always analyzing it from the customer's perspective. And we're always listening for those those opportunities where customers are saying, This isn't working for me. So with every one of our reports, there is a, yeah. Here's how your CSRs are doing and their opportunities to improve. But then there's a whole list of no, no, no. Here are opportunities for improvement that are literally for management to consider. just delivered a report yesterday, a couple of the examples, customers calling in and kind of going, okay. And in this case, it's a it's kind of a monthly service that they're providing for customers ongoing, and customers are saying, Well, Look. I don't want my service shut off. If my payment doesn't go through, my automatic payment doesn't go through. Will you email me? Will you text me and let me know that there's a problem? And the company doesn't have the technology to do that right now. But it's sort of like, no, no, no, no. This is what your customers are expecting. Like, I expect you to have the technology. To inform me before my service gets cut off so that I can deal with it. And in this particular case, believe it or not, the technology is still, if your payment doesn't go through, we send you a letter by the United States Postal Service. And we all know how long that can take. And and so in our report, like going, come on, 21st century. Yeah. This is ridiculous. So that's a just a great example of where the pain points are obvious when you listen and when you hear them. But most businesses don't take the time to to really do that. And they're just missing obvious examples of like, no, this is this is the strategic this has to be on the the priority list for our next system conversion that we do these things.

speaker-1: Hundred percent. Like these are your customers, the people that you have built this entire business around serving, telling you exactly what they're looking for. That is such a golden opportunity to just elevate the quality of your service, elevate the quality of your product and provide a better experience for your customers, which is the objective of any business is to just create happy customers. So everything that they're saying, every pain point that they're dealing with is an opportunity for you to come in and solve something, solve this pain, solve this problem, and provide a better product or service for your customers. So Yeah, I think that these insights, this kind of data and information is some of the most valuable information that any business can have. It's the most valuable information that anybody can have, right? Like I understand that probably a lot of your clients are far from the days, the early days of starting the business off. But like whenever you're starting a business, right, the first thing that you're encouraged to go do is just talk to potential customers and figure out what they would want. Right. Just ask them questions about hey, How are you feeling about like what are you struggling with this with this problem? Like what would you be looking for in a solution? What your customers are looking for, what they are saying, the way they are describing the pain that they're experiencing is the most valuable information that you can have that will help you inform how you market to them, how you advertise, how you attract them, how you convert them in s in your sales conversations, your sales scripts. Then it should tweak and inform the client journey that they go through, right? The service that you provide and what you provide at each stage of the service delivery process. Like That insight is the most valuable insight that any business can have, I believe. Like the conversation that their customers are having related to the work that they're doing for them.

speaker-0: Absolutely right. And one of the paradigm shifts I've seen in my career is I felt like really early in my career, and there was it was just understood. It was an understood business principle. It costs far more money to get a new customer through the door than it does to keep an existing customer. And I feel like one of the consequences of our technology, there's a trend every five minutes, there's a new news cycle every 10 minutes, there's this burn and churn kind of mentality in life where everything changes so quickly. What I've noticed is that many businesses seem to have adopted like, well, there's just going to be customer churn and you just have to live with it. It's just part of of the way it's going to be. And I'm just like going, no, it doesn't have to be that way. If you can, if you can, if you can keep a customer loyal and keep them coming back and be like, Well, I'm always gonna go do business with you because I know it's I'm gonna get the I'm gonna get my product, you're gonna be nice, it's gonna be a good experience and do it in a timely way. And I can trust you to do that. The ROI on that is ridiculous.

speaker-1: Ridiculous. If you could like increase your average, you know, like if you can add another month to the average time that your clients stay on your like the math is ridiculous. Like if you ever sat down and did retention math, it's like, okay, if we add our average retention from five months to six months, like if you make that shift, it's bonkers. It's bananas. Not to mention also if you provide a better experience to your customers, they're gonna be more likely to leave a testimonial, refer others to everything. So It goes far beyond just retention. Yep.

speaker-0: Yeah, I so this is funny. So this is just the economics of of a business. I was talking to a technology company and they're thinking about doing their first ever voice of the customer. They've never talked to their customers ever. Now they have a small customer base and their customers are clients, like big companies. They're a technology firm and they have these subscription based monthly, you know, technology services. And so I was digging into it. And I'm like going, their average customer is paying them ten thousand dollars a month. And you know, we're talking about doing a voice of the customer survey that's gonna be like, I don't know, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars. And I'm like going, dude, if if we equip you with something that helps you keep one client for one extra month, you paid. You paid for the study. This is a known brain. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. And it's like that's just again one dimension. Like I just don't think that this can be said enough. And it's also it's just one of those things that I'm really excited about. it's just like how valuable that information is and how dynamic that insight is and how applicable it is to other domains. But like you can use that voice of the customer research that what your customers are saying about their experience with your product or their experience, most importantly, their experience with the problem that you're solving and their desires for the solution to solve that problem. If you get that insight, it not only informs how you can design your service or your product better to keep them staying longer, but it should also, it's the also the most valuable information you can have to inform your marketing. Right. Any marketer will know that you are trying to get as close as you can to using the language that your customers use to attract them to your product or service. So if you do that kind of voice of the customer, if you have a thousand customer service calls, right, if you have that data, that should be informing. how you communicate to your customers in advertising than the messaging that you use on your sales pages and your sales calls and your sales scripts. Right. So not only will that voice of the customer research help them to make a better product or service that keeps people staying longer, it will also help them get more customers by having more effective marketing, more effective sales conversion messaging. yeah. And it's just like, and then now you have more happy customers that are staying longer who are going to refer more, provide better testimonials. Like I truly believe that it is the most important insight that any company can have. Or do you feel like there are when you do that kind of voice of the customer research or when you across the you know hundred thousand calls that you have listened to, where you talked about the the dimensions of the service experience? Are there any things that you're seeing companies like very frequently kind of just like missing? Like what are some of those other common patterns that you're noticing? Like before you come in and work with a client, they're typically missing these things as a part of their customer service. Experience that it's like you feel like you're kind of fixing in every client that you're working with.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think that the biggest thing, Ian, that I've seen is that there's just too many companies that don't even care. They don't even care to define what we want that experience to be, to say, all right, you know, people always ask me, like, a hundred thousand times you must have heard some really, really interesting things. And the reality is that I have. I've l I've heard some I've heard some doozies in my career. But But those are the exceptions. The reality is that 98% of what I heard are mundane. They are routine. They are transactional. Because that's that's what business is. But there are so many companies that haven't defined, okay, when the customer calls in and we know that they're typically calling in for this, this is what we how we want the flow to be. Here's how we want to optimize their experience. Here's what we want to say and how to do that. And then train the people to do that. So what happens most often is the owner or the C suite will kind of go, we got good people. We got great people. We trust them. We believe in them. They're good people and which is true. I'm sure that they're really good people, but that doesn't mean that they get a great service experience on the phone. And so when we come in and do an initial assessment, here's usually what we find. It's a bell curve. You've got a couple people who are just naturally customer service rock stars. They get it intuitively. It's how they're built and wired. And then you have a couple of people, a percentage on the other end of the bell curve, they're like, well, and they should not even be in this job. Like they're in the wrong position and they They're angry, whatever they're they yeah. They they should not be handling customer service calls. And then in between, you just have a lot of mediocre and

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: It's really easy to move the bell curve from mediocre towards the excellent. It's really easy. There's a real system to it, and I talk about it in my book. You define what it looks like, you train people what to do, you hold them accountable to do it, you coach them and encourage them, you incent them, and you move the needle in that direction. But what happens most often is companies just don't do anything. So then what happens is if I'm a customer If I have the really good experience, I I call and I happen to get the really good CSI, okay, great, more likely to be loyal. I get the bad person, no way, I'm gonna go somewhere else. I get the mediocre, and it's sort of like, well, I can get this anywhere else. So if company down the street has the same product or service for the little bit less money, there's no reason for me to stay. And

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: And so companies just put up with the churn.

speaker-1: Yeah. Well, you know, I was gonna say it's sad, but at the end of the day, it's an opportunity, right? For the people who are gonna take this seriously. And yeah, it's an opportunity for the people who are gonna take this seriously, who do wanna turn this into an asset for their business that not only keeps their current customers more loyal, deepens the relationship that they have with them, but then it can also have a system where their customer service, the insights that are coming from that division of the business are informing the other elements to help grow the business. But at the end of the day, If other people are not taking it seriously, it's an opportunity for you to do so and beat

speaker-0: And that's where I've seen it time and time again. That's where it it all depends on who's at the top of the food chain. If there's a leader at the top of the food chain who guess exactly what you're talking about and is like going, look, yes, this is going to be an investment to do this, but the ROI in the long term is astronomical, then it works. There are too many companies, and especially in our private equity, let's just build a business and sell it for a lot of money. Culture that's just like, customer service is just a cost center. Let's just keep the cost down as much as we can and not worry about about the long road. And that's really sad. But I get it.

speaker-1: I get it too, right? It's very short term thinking. And again, it just creates an opportunity for the rest of us who are going to take this seriously. And I can't help but just keep coming back to Amazon. I know they've kind of been like the gold standard in customer service now for a long time. They kind of change the game. And it just brings me back to I read this book called The Letters from Bezos, I think, or the shareholder letters from Bezos. Something like that. But you learn, you get insight into Jeff Bezos and what he built Amazon around. And he built Amazon to be the most customer centric company on the planet, right? That is his words. His goal was to build the most customer centric company on the planet. And a huge part of that is, I mean, it's like the whole part of that is the service you provide to the customer. You're building everything for the convenience and for them. And a big part of that is the the customer service, right? Like helping them when they're having a problem. Right. And then turning that into an opportunity to create an amazing experience that they're gonna talk about and keep them more loyal. Yeah.

speaker-0: we're seeing right now, which is fascinating, is and we again we call it the Amazon effect. Is now this is trickling down. We do a lot of work with companies in manufacturing, distribution, components, circuit boards, you know, you name it, all these little widgets. And for years it's sort of like, well, it's just a different game and it's industry and you you know, and no no no no. Now customers in the B2B world are going like, no no no I this was wrong. I want it return and I want an instant replacement because Amazon is driving expectations to the B to B world in ways that the B to B world is not ready to deal with. And it's it's a game server. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. But hey, get in touch with the people over at Intelgentics to create a customer service experience that that will bring you to the level of Amazon, right? In your B to B space. But yeah, I love it. So that's a good segue. So Tom, thank you again so much for the time today. I have one final question for you, but before we get to that, how can people get get connected with you?

speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. you can find our website intelligentics.com. You can you can connect with me at Tom at Intelligentics dot com. You can also find my book on Amazon. Speaking of Amazon, this call may be monitored what eavesdropping on corporate America taught me about business and life. And yeah, I'm also doing a lot of speaking. And so if you got an event or an industry event or whatever, that you're like, Well, hey, we're looking for a good speaker on all of these topics would love would love to address your team.

speaker-1: Amazing. We'll have the links to all of that in the description. and by the way, I love the title of your book. That's compelling, for sure. I love it. So, Tom, my final question for you is a recurring question that I ask all of my guests. If you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds, what would it say and why?

speaker-0: Who you are at work is who you are in life. And and the reason being, the one of the things that I've learned and as I've coached people in customer service over the years in sales and and things like And I and I address it in my book. Like who I am at home is who I am in my business. And and vice versa. And so many people try and they're like wanted to be two different people. And I just always feel like the greatest businesses, the greatest clients I've ever worked with were the most genuine people. And there was no difference between who they were. at work and who they were out of work, who they were on the phone, and who they were in a in a committee meeting. And and so, yeah, be the best version of yourself wherever you are.

speaker-1: Love that. Yeah, I feel like it would be exhausting to be any other way. If you're trying to put on a face, pretend to be something y you're not, you're gonna burn out. Like you can't play that act forever and it's just it's not gonna fill you up, right? If you're acting pretending to be somebody else, it's just you're not being genuine, you're not being authentic to yourself, which is you know, you're robbing yourself and you're robbing the world of that genuine contribution that you could be making. But well said, Tom. Thanks for the time. Absolutely.

speaker-0: Thanks so much, Ian.

speaker-1: Thank you for listening to my conversation with Tom. The main thing I'm taking away from this conversation is that customer conversations can tell a business where their systems are failing, which identify the opportunities and how they can improve the customer relationship and experience. Tom made the point that call monitoring is often treated just as a way to judge the person on the phone, but that misses 90% of the value. Obviously, it's important to monitor calls to give that person feedback to make them a better representative. But if you actually listen to what the customers are saying, It can identify the gaps and the opportunities and how you can make your product or service better, which is where growth happens, right? Like what are your customers saying? What are they asking for? How can we make our thing better? Which by improving your product, improving your service, is the most powerful lever to growing your business and making a better business. If you want to get connected with Tom Vanderwell, you can find the link to his website, book, and contact information in the description of this episode. And if you're an author and you want to make your book more effective, meaning your readers get more value and it's more likely that they get a transformation by reading your book, and you also convert more of your readers into paying customers for your other services. Download the program execution system toolkit in the description of this episode. It'll show you how to build what I call execution infrastructure, which helps your clients do the work, get results, and convert into paying customers for your other services. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one.