CX Leader Podcast: "Round and Round We Go": Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Download the “CX Leader Podcast: "Round and Round We Go" audio file directly.

CX Leader Podcast: "Round and Round We Go": this wav audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
Expanding your customer experience program is not easy, but it turns out that successful programs seem to follow a similar life cycle.

Ben:
Every organization is on some sort of journey when it comes to the customer experience. We're constantly on a journey toward measuring, managing and designing better experiences and CX. Those are some of the most important catalysts for that change in that growth.

Steve:
Exploring the XM diffusion cycle on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at Walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone. I'm Steve Walker, host of The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. On The CX Leader Podcast we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you leverage all the benefits of your customer experience and help your customers and prospects want to do more business with you. CX pros understand the difficulties in expanding existing programs. We've covered many of these obstacles in past episodes: organizational silos, buy-in from leadership, sunsetting older programs… it's just a stressful task. Turns out, however, the program's successful at expanding throughout their company have a common cycle to how they operate and our friends at the Qualtrics XM Institute have recently published their research on this practice. XM Institute execs are no stranger to the The CX Leader Podcast, but my guest on this episode is actually a new guest on the program. Ben Granger is the principal XM catalyst at the Qualtrics XM Institute, and he's going to tell us more about the XM diffusion cycle, which are a set of techniques that allow organizations to strategically expand experience management. Ben, welcome to The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for being on.

Ben:
Yeah, Steve, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on.

Steve:
Obviously, we've had many of your colleagues on the podcast, but just for the benefit of our listeners, love to hear you just give a brief overview of your journey to become a CX pro, how you get to the XM Institute and just kind of set the context for our discussion today.

Ben:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, my background is actually as an employee experience pro. And so I was academically trained as an organizational psychologist, spent about 12 years and in basically in H.R. doing what we now call experience management. So designing, measuring employee-candidate experiences. And through my journey, I've been with Qualtrics for about five and a half years, and through my journey I've taken a number of different roles. And when I had an opportunity to join the XM Institute with Bruce Temkin and Amy Lucas' and all the brilliant minds there Moire Dorsey, it was a good opportunity to kind of expand my knowledge base, my skill set outside of just HR. And it's always intrigued me to kind of understand how CX pros measure managed design, consumer great experiences. And it's always dawned on me that we do it quite differently. And HR, what could we learn? What could the field of HR learn from CX pros? And then so that's what originally attracted to me to to the XM Institute and to CX. But but now I'm finding that there's a lot of learning that can go both ways. And so I would truly consider myself an XM professional today.

Steve:
So you were Qualtrics prior to Qualtrics acquiring the Temkin group, which became the XM Institute, right?

Ben:
That's right. That's right. Many years.

Steve:
So was that designed to get that kind of that expertise into the institute?

Ben:
That was one of the ideas. The Temkin group had done some work around employee experience, but that was the idea is to take somebody who is natively an EX professional and fuse them right into to the XM Institute, start getting that going. And as you know, Steve, at Qualtrics, in general, we're very much focused on pan XM. So how do we how do we manage experiences across our products, our brands, our potential customers, our existing customers and our employees?

Steve:
It's just really interesting to me that because of your background, that I think that's a great move. Brilliant move really to to start to put that into the XM Institute, because as I think many of us who've been around the business for a long time, and particularly in service type businesses, there's such a strong link between CX and EX. And I think that really is for many of our listeners, you know, the broadening their horizons into what their role is. And really we're inventing this category called XM.

Ben:
I love it. Completely agree.

Steve:
Well, I know you guys have released this new report on on the XM diffusion cycle. And, you know, we did a little bit in the intro, but you could probably do a much better job of describing at a high level what the XM diffusion cycle is and why that would be important to our CX pros.

Ben:
The simplest way I describe it is really a change management framework, but it's a change management framework specific to XM professionals and certainly inclusive of CX for pros. And like you teed up, Steve, every organization is on some sort of journey when it comes to the customer experience. We saw the disruption that happened in 2020, we're going to see changes in the future, we're going to see customer expectations change. And so we're constantly on a journey toward measuring, managing and designing better experiences and CX pros are some of the most important catalysts for that change in that growth within the organizations they work with. And so that's what the diffusion cycle is about, is how can we help customer experience pros, employee experience pros manage that change process and that growth. And so in the research, we pulled out three stages of what we're calling the XM diffusion cycle: infusion being the first stage, absorption the second stage, and then the third stage, recalibration. And that sounds fancy, right? We like our fancy terminology that that sticks with you, but it's actually a pretty simple idea when you really boil it down. So let's say one of the common goals we heard in our research is that CX pros really want their business leaders to start owning customer experience. They want them to consume those customer insights directly. They want them to use that data to make decisions just like they use they manage their own P&L. And let's say historically, and this is also true of many companies that we study those insights were historically just kind of force fed to those leaders. Maybe it's through a static dashboard on a quarterly basis. Here's how you're NPS is tracking your CSAT tracking. Well, to propel that change, just use the common example, CX professional and say, hey, we want you to start owning this. We're going to introduce or infuse self guided dashboards for the first time. We want you as a leader to own this data. We want you to configure it to the way that you consume data and you make decisions. The next stage, absorption, is where those CX professionals take a step back. And that's really hard to do. But we take a step back and we measure and observe. How are those leaders using that data? How are they using those new self guided dashboards? Who's using them, who's not? What aspects of it do they find valuable? What aspects do they not find valuable? And what we found I thought this was really interesting in our research, not something I would have predicted is that that absorption stage, that second stage was quite possibly the most important, but also the most underutilized. After… and after we do that measurement and observation of that infusion, we then take a step back and we say, OK, based on what we saw, based on what we observed from those leaders, what's the next logical step? Do we not see the absorption, that we wanted, did we see people rejecting it at a high rate and therefore we need to go and maybe make some tweaks and try this again? Or was it successful? And now it's time to build on that step.

Steve:
So it's kind of counterintuitive that this absorption phase would be the most critical.

Ben:
It is. And you know what I found? I didn't expect it. I didn't expect to find that. And we really didn't see it a lot in the interviews, but we saw it among the very successful CX pros.

Steve:
Yeah, it just kind of in my own management experience, I think that in change management, you know, we talk about top down support and people that are decisive and people who can drive, but sometimes you speed up by slowing down. And particularly, I think in today's world, you have to create the situation where other people think it's their idea or at least give them the opportunity to warm up to a new concept kind of on their own terms. I love your guys framework's. I think, you know, as change managers frameworks are very helpful to change in your habits in kind of making sure that you're doing the right thing. So I, I think this is a really a great tool for CX pros. And you use the example of of one, I guess you could probably apply it to other cases as well, right?

Ben:
Oh, absolutely. That was the example of trying to get leaders to consume their own data was one very common one.

Steve:
What are some of the other common ones that you talk about?

Ben:
Some of the the other tactics, I would say that we saw consistently come up among the successful CX pros were we want to get full insight or visibility into the tangential areas that we know are important for customer experience. And Steve, you use the big one, activating our employees. Most CX professionals don't have direct insider access to training the employees. Toward incentivizing them, toward even having access to that data. And that's another big area that we saw of trying to get the organization to buy into the idea or the mindset and the behavior pattern that we shouldn't be managing employee experiences in the silo from our customers. There's so many similarities here and there's so many dependencies that we need to start working more together. That was another major category of activity that we saw among our CX professionals is how do we go build the bridge with our H.R. professionals? With our HR peers and then vice versa, how do we offer them and support them and what they're trying to do and accomplish?

Steve:
Take me through it quickly. Like if you're trying to get your leaders to activate their employees, just give me an example of infusion absorption recalibration. Again, there.

Ben:
A good example would be and this is when I heard a lot was CX professionals know that we have to activate our front line. But there's there's a natural roadblock there, right? We're not we don't have visibility. We don't have insight into the training that happens. All right. First step, we know we need to work with our HR partners. First good step is to go and offer something to the HR partners. Don't ask them for something. Don't ask them for support. Let's find some data that we're collecting today. Let's find some insights, find some principle or practice. Maybe it's how we design consumer experiences and let's go meet with that person we want to work with in H.R., maybe even the product team and say, here's something we thought you might find interesting. So instead of asking, your offering. That is an infusion tactic. What that often led to right when we go to the next stage of absorption. But that often leads to is reciprocity. And as a psychologist, I know very well, and just as a human being, we all know very well how powerful reciprocity is. So more often than not, that free gift of insight that starts the relationship leads to the absorption of, hey, that was useful. What about this? And I always use the example of my favorite stories when I was a kid. If you give a mouse a cookie. So if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk and is going to want a napkin and he's going to need a story time before bed. Right. And it goes on and on. Well, that's what that's what happens. You offer that free gift of the insight, you offer the help, then you start getting questions. Hey, what about this? Do you have that? Do you have that? Now you established a partnership. That's the absorption we like to see. The recalibration is endless at that point. Now, there's so many different ways that we can go attack the problem of, hey, how are you incentivizing employees? What are the incentive programs that exist today are ready for rewards of recognition? How can we plug into that? Can we use transactional CX outcomes and use that same system you're already using within HR?

Steve:
I wanted to take a break here and tell you about Walker's newest report, "Deliver More Value with X- and O-Data," which provides a practical framework for integrating experience data and operational data to drive better decisions. You can download the report for free at cxleaderpodcast.com\xoreport.

Steve:
My guest on the podcast this week is Ben Granger. He is a principal XM Catalyst at the Qualtrics XM Institute. Ben's a first-time guest on the podcast, but obviously our friends at the XM Institute have been on many programs and Ben's here helping us understand the XM diffusion cycle. Fascinating discussion and I think a really good way for our XM pros to think about how they make an impact, broader impact in their organization. You know, this is fascinating and really, again, from my own journey of, you know, watching CX mature as a profession and as a discipline within many organizations, I'm just sort of reminded of times in the past where people said, you know, nobody uses the information or and then eventually somebody in the organization would get it. And then it was sort of like, man, you know, these people are just always asking me for more insight and more stuff. And I don't have… So if I'm kind of an old line CX pro and, you know, maybe I've got a pretty good program, but I'm still mostly pumping out insights and I'm not as engaged with the business leaders. Do you have some tricks that you could say, like how they can change that cadence so that it's more about taking action, more about showing business impact?

Ben:
Yeah, that's such a good one. And there's so much there. What immediately comes to mind, Steve, is an example that I got from a number of very successful CX and EX pros which was put your marketing and your sales hat on. If you're in that state, go and source opportunities. And what that means is look around the business at functional partners or business partners that you know you want to build a relationship or you know you want them to start acting more in the data. Try to identify a group with a particular problem that you can help solve through something you're doing on the customer experience side. Maybe it's the data that you're getting from your existing measures. Maybe it's the tactics that you use in the design of experiences doesn't matter, but something that you, again, can offer them to help them solve the problem. Now, you're not force feeding data and say act on it, act on it. Now you're going find a problem that they know they have to act on. And you're giving them something that can help them solve that problem. That flips the paradigm and again leads toward that usually leads toward the absorption of them asking you for more. And what we found is really some of the very successful companies we highlight at one in particular, which was Goldman Sachs. And their people analytics team was working very closely with their customer insights team. But that team that people analytics team started out as a group of people that was really trying to scrap and figure out how can we solve problems. They were the ones having to go and sell the business that we can help. Now, that's flip for a few years later. They have totally outstripped the need from the business, has totally outstripped their capacity, and that's what you want to see. That's the natural progression of what you want to see. But it started with what business problem can I help you solve with what we do?

Steve:
And yet and still way too much of our work is around survey execution and scorecards and putting out the metrics. And this is a common theme that we have on the podcast, is they just and particularly and I'm I'm sort of guilty of this, too, because I came up kind of from the traditional market research side where we were so fascinated with the data and the analytics. But to really make these programs live in an organization, you have to be able to prove that there's ROI and that there's business impact. And so, you know, I guess one of the things that kind of occurs to me is this is, again, you know, you don't you don't take out the huge deck of data and dump it on the manager's desk. You you go out and you talk to him about what they're trying to accomplish and ask them a few questions about how they might use sort of customer and employee insights into that. And then, you know, maybe you pick out a couple snippets out of the big deck and see if you can get them engaged, so…

Ben:
That's a great way to put it. And you use the terminology earlier, sometimes you have to slow down to go faster. And I think that's exactly right. Right. You don't have to solve everything. Overnight, we saw much more success with the CX folks who would do that small iterative changes over time. Don't let perfection get in the way of progress.

Steve:
Then in kind of another kind of common theme around this topic, I think, is that sometimes the operating managers, they can view this is as one more thing on their plate, because if it comes is like just this unintegrated new initiative like customer focus or employee engagement, when really it needs to be very tightly integrated with everything that they're doing. Because, you know, particularly in businesses like, you know, most of us are working in today, you know, without good loyal customers and without engaged employees, you won't have a very good business. So we have to do the work to make sure that this is not viewed as something extra for them to do. But we have to integrate it into kind of what they're already trying to do.

Ben:
100 percent agree. And there are a little tactics to do that. Right. Which which you all know, but not introducing a new system that they have to go to are using the regular cadence of how do they usually consume operational data within the business to make decisions. And then we just piggyback onto that.

Steve:
Well, Ben, we have reached that point of the podcast where I ask all the guests to give their take home value. This is one tip from you which a CX pro or an XM pro can take back to what they're doing after they finish, listen to podcast and very quickly improve what they're doing for their organization's experience management. So, Ben, what is your take home value today?

Ben:
Give the free gift of insights. Find somebody in your organization that you want to partner with that maybe you're not. Find out a problem that they have. And offer some insight to help them toward that problem, and you'll be amazed what happens in reaction to that.

Steve:
That was perfect. That may be what we'll have to go back and look, but that might be the most concise, impactful take home value I've ever gotten. So very easy to remember. Give the free gift of insights. Beautiful. Ben, if people want to continue the dialog or connect with you, can we just get your contact information. And then also, if you could reference more information on the XM diffusion cycle, if it's out there on your website or whatever.

Ben:
Absolutely. So xminstitute.com is pretty easy to search for the research report here. We also have some accompanying shorter videos. If you don't want to read the, you know, the 30 minute report, some easier ways to consume that that are also and you can search for it. I just searching diffusion on xminstitute.com and you could certainly look me up on LinkedIn. It'll be under Benjamin Granger or are phonetically pronounced Granger, if that's easier. And then you can also reach out to me via email. benjaming@qualtrics.com.

Steve:
Been really great guest on the podcast. Thanks so much for coming on today. Really enjoyed our conversation and learning more about all the good work that you're doing there.

Ben:
Likewise. Thoroughly enjoyed it, Steve.

Steve:
If you want to talk about anything else you heard on the podcast or about how Walker can help your business's customer experience, feel free to email me here at a podcast@walkerinfo.com. Be sure to check out our website, cxleaderpodcast.com, to subscribe to the show and find all of our previous episodes. They're organized by series and we have our contact information. There's even a place where you can drop us a note about how we're doing our ideas for a future podcast. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at Walkerinfo.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next time.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your wav files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you’d love including automated subtitles, collaboration tools, enterprise-grade admin tools, automated translation, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.