Transcript of Interview With Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

Interview With Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

This interview features Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, chief executive officer at Competitive Consulting Advantage. You can watch it on Natalie’s profile page.

Transcript

– Hello, I’m Joe Welinske and I’m the conference director for Convey ux. And we’re going into our 12th annual year. We’re back in Seattle, but still continuing on with our online events as well. And I have the great job of talking to our many speakers. Today I’m pleased to be speaking with Natalie Petouhoff. Hello Natalie. How are you today?

– Great, Joe, thank you for having me.

– Well, we’re certainly happy to have you as part of the program. You’re gonna be our feature speaker on the first day. So a good place to start is if you could talk a little bit about the, your background and the types of things that you’re involved in today.

– So I grew up, I went to engineering school and I started my career as an engineer and worked for some big engineering firms. And then I found that throughout my career, one of the most important things was to really understand who and why we were developing these products for, and eventually I went into software and then to to user experience design. And I think at the end of the day, it’s really about the, the person you’re designing for. And my work has taken me all the way from the engineering world where you don’t necessarily, like in, in the beginning days, I think of you as or experience we weren’t really thinking about. That was more about like building stuff and trying to come up with the coolest product. And what I learned was that the way that you come up with the coolest product is understand who you’re designing for. So whether it’s for employees or for customers, at the end of the day, if you create something that they want and love and need, then you have a winner.

– And what types of things are you involved in now?

– So we talked a little bit about my book and we can talk about that more later. But really my focus, so my focus after my kind of my engineering career was really looking at the employee and the customer experience. So, and in particular in customer service, so often what’s hap what happens is, you know, you create a product, it goes through marketing, people sell it or it’s, you know, a consumer product. And then where the brand really gets accelerated or decelerated is when you look at what happens in customer service. So all the places where that customer or user experience seems to be really important. If you think about it, think about your own experiences, right? You buy something, you use it, it breaks or doesn’t quite do what you wanted it to do, you call customer service. And then that experience with that particular person, whether or maybe it’s self-service, that starts to tend to make you think about, am I gonna buy from this company again? Is this product easy to use? And so part of what you’re really doing as you’re designing for those particular, you know, two groups is really determining the future of the company. And I think a lot of people don’t really understand how important customer services, but those customer service reps are really the brand advocates for the brand. And at the end of the day, we form our opinions and our, you know, the word of mouth, what we tell our friends and family about something that we bought or used. And so I, I turned my focus there because I think at the end of the day, it creates or doesn’t create a great experience. And that in the long run adds a lot of value to a company.

– Well, customer experience is one of the major themes of our upcoming event. And I’ll just announce your topic, overcoming the CXCX blind spot. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you came around to developing this topic and what we can expect to learn from it?

– So I, one of the interesting things is that, I’ll give you a story from my engineering days. We were looking at the corrosion of car doors and they executives came to me and they said, Hey Nat, we we do two sided galvanizing right now. And so we really wanna see if we can cut costs. So can we change, you know, how we, how we coat the galvanizing is the coating that goes on before the paint. And I said, well, you know, I, my gut is it’s gonna corrode. So, and, and what a horrible user experience it would be if the doors of the car have holes in the sides, right? So I did the experiments, I came back and I, I presented my information and the, the result was that they would have bigger holes in the sides of their cars. And they said, okay, thank you very much. And I was a young engineer and I, I was curious about what they were gonna do. So they said, oh, we’re gonna do one side of galvanizing. And I’m like, but that means that the car doors are gonna corrode. And they said, well, you know, we understand that, but, and I said, well, I’m really concerned that, you know, the information I gave you is gonna negatively impact the brand. And they said, well, aren’t you an engineer? Why are you so concerned about the customer experience? And I’m thinking in my head, you’re the freaking executives, why aren’t you concerned? Right? And so that was like a early experience as an engineer thinking, okay, do we as executives really think about that end user? And so whether you know, it’s building software or it’s a product that people are using, that experience really does determine how people feel about it. So my, my work lately has been with DoorDash and they’re a food delivery service. And we were looking at how do we really create a great experience. So one of the things, you know, like if you call customer service and you say, Hey, you forgot my fries, what you’re really saying is, Hey, my house is on fire. And so the question becomes, do you wanna hear, oh, I’m so sorry that happened to you. That must be really frustrating. I would be frustrated too. Or do you wanna hear? Got it, I’ll get the hose. And so I came up with this kind of like new way to approach customer service, which not only helps to meet the business objectives, which is a lower hand, average handle time, but it also gives customers what they’re looking for, which is help, right? Why do we call customer service? We want help and we don’t wanna listen to a lot of blah blah, blah, blah, blah. So that’s what I’ve been currently working on with the DoorDash team is, is helping create better experiences for customers. And what’s interesting is that it also creates better experiences for the employees. ’cause they’re not saying things in a customer service call that they don’t really sincerely mean, but that’s kind of been the protocol in customer service, as you say, a whole bunch of things that seem like they would be good and polite. But in our research what we found is customers really don’t want to hear that. And it, it was really dove this process of empathy, right? So empathy is putting yourself in the seat of the other person, really understanding what they would like as an experience and then redesigning the experience from that point of view. And so when we ask customers, what do you wanna hear? They’re like, house is on fire. Give me the fries, give me the hose. And then we ask the employees, what do you want? And what they said was, we don’t really wanna say a bunch of insincere things. We don’t wanna deliver that message. And so not only did we make that customer experience better, but we also made the employee experience better. And at the end of the day, that’s a pretty terrific result.

– Well, I think I first became familiar with you and your work through the book you wrote. I, I think I see it there in the corner of the orange cover empathy and action. So, so that was my first introduction and a lot of great, you know, learnings and stories from that. But, you know, maybe tell me a little bit about what that experience was like in terms of the genesis of that book and, and how you’re moving forward with it.

– Yeah, so it was kind of a labor of love. I took, you know, many, many years of working in the customer and employee experience, looking at that end user, looking at their experience, how did that really affect the brand? And then kind of dissecting why do we do the things that we do right? It, a lot of the things that happen in companies don’t really make sense. And then kind of the book is really about here’s kind of how things are, here’s the impact, right, that it has. And a lot of it, because the way we do it, we’re not really sitting in the seat of the customer or the employee. So the result is that we make decisions in management or as designers or engineers that we don’t really understand the full impact of that, that experience that we’re designing. And as a result, it has a negative impact. So I looked at here’s the current state, here’s the impact, and then the rest of the book is really a guide to developing great experiences. And yeah, I’m I’m really glad that you liked it.

– Well, you cover a lot of different aspects in there of customer experience, but in, in that realm, do you have a thought about what might be the, the biggest challenge kind of facing industry broadly when you’re talking about customer experience? Is there anything that tends to come up a lot in your consultancy and, and workshops and things that everybody seems to be concerned with?

– So what’s fascinating is that people think that they’re really sitting in the seat of the customer and or the employee, but they’re not. And so I I, it’s a kind of a paradigm shift because in, for instance, customer service, the way that we deliver it through with technology, it’s been that industry contact centers has been around it for about 70 years. And so the way that we design software, the way that we deliver it, the way that we train our people, and I, and I’m surprised to say this, is that people aren’t really sitting in the seat. And so I just had a, a client that designed training and they thought, oh, this will be really great and it’ll be really easy for everybody to follow and it’ll create a great experience. And it wasn’t until, and I could kind of see that it was going to, but, but I didn’t, I don’t know, I kind of said something, they’re like, no, no, it’ll be fine. So it wasn’t until we actually sat down with the customer service agents and we got their feedback and they told us this doesn’t work at all, that the executives went, oh, this doesn’t work. So what’s fascinating to me is that so many times we still approach business thinking that we know. And instead of sitting down with the people that are, you’re trying to get to have them understand something or do something, asking for their feedback and their comments as you’re developing it makes all the differences less rework. You’re really getting to the point. And I think a lot of times that doesn’t happen. In some cases you might have a not invented here culture where if you do make suggestions, they’re not really heard or so, or maybe it’s psych psychologically unsafe. And in other cases, I think that most people come from a, I am an expert, a domain expert. I know. And until you kind of get in the habit of really looking at the experience and garnishing lots and lots of feedback, we, what I realize is we really don’t know that we don’t know. And so we go forward in a way that doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense until we have a crash and burn. So, and sometimes it’s not a full crash and burn, so it’s not catastrophic. But I think in today’s world where customers are really expecting great experiences in a world where people are quiet, quitting, they don’t really like their jobs and they have one foot out the door, I think there’s never been a more important time in terms of looking at human capital and customers and their value and looking at them as an asset to really, I think this is gonna be a really, really hot topic in the coming years.

– Yeah, I I, I agree there’s a lot to unpack there in what you just presented, and I think it’ll foster a lot of great discussions at the conference. In addition to cx ai, artificial intelligence is another major theme at the event. I know that’s not, you know, specific to what you’re gonna be talking about, but do you have any thoughts yourself as you, you know, keep up with the things going on in technology, any, any thoughts you have about what it means to your work or, or more generally?

– AI is often used in customer and employee experience. So whether you’re automating a job, you’re using AI to, I don’t know, give information to an employee so they can be, you know, just exactly like one of the top salespeople or if you’re doing agent assist, so you’re helping the customer service agent get information about the customer next best action. I think that if we really, so I remember back in the day when CRM and ERP systems were first being implemented and we didn’t have a whole lot of customer feedback and we really didn’t look at the processes and we made a lot of mistakes, right? And back then, Hershey, Nike, waste Management, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on these projects. And so I kind of see AI going in the same direction in that we’re, it, it’s the same kind of huge change to how we do business. And so part of the questions that I have for leadership is, have you really prepared your organization to take on a whole new way of doing business? What’s your organizational change plan? And how would, like, let’s say, I mean, AI could impact every one of our jobs, right? And so have you really thought about the roles and responsibilities on the job descriptions and how that technology is gonna impact that role? Because if you change the employee experience and that changes the customer experience, so how are we really integrating all of that together? Because the technology in itself can do a lot, but unless it’s applied and unless you’re actually structuring how you’re going to use it, then it could be like a, a really great thing or it could be a crash and burn.

– Well, and another thing at, at the conference is that people are thinking about their careers and, and career growth, you know, how they’re gonna move forward, what time of of skills that they need to acquire. You have, you know, a lot of experience in this area. Do you have a, a tip or a thought, you know, maybe related to your work or otherwise that could help somebody, you know, maybe make a little move a little bit forward in their career? I

– Would say one of the things that has really helped me a lot is to have mentorship and to ask for that feedback so you could, you know, if you’re going to a new job, make sure that when you get there, that you start to search for people that you think could mentor you and give you feedback. If you’re currently in a job, look around and look for people that are maybe lower level than you and higher level than you because you really want that diversity of opinion. And even people, let’s say you’re in engineering, ask somebody in marketing, if you’re in, you know, customer service, ask somebody in engineering, like getting that diversity of thought and experience and really saying, you know, here’s my goals, here’s what I really wanna do. And you know, I, I’d love feedback and you can even, you know, ask, I, I love companies that do a 360 analysis, although I don’t know if, I don’t know if people are ever really honest. I, but I think if you can have a small kind of your own little board of directors to get that feedback, I think it’s really priceless and really important to constantly do that self-reflection, to constantly kind of evaluate where I am and how I could get better and invest in yourself. Read lots of books, take seminars, develop. And I think part of, part of what we all need to do is, you know, I’m a huge empathy practitioner. I, I, I wrote the book and then as I wrote the book and started to apply it with a lot of my consulting clients, really taking the time to slow down and sit in the seat of the other person. So before you prepare for a meeting, think about who you’re meeting with, what’s important to them, why are you doing this project and how do they perceive it versus here’s how, what I want from the project, but what is that other person? And I think whether it’s a work relationship or a friendship or a personal relationship, always thinking about how you can impact that other person and what’s important to them, then you’re really coming from a place of collaborating because it’s not just about your agenda, it’s about a collective collaboration. And I think that that really makes, makes a, a really big difference in how people perceive you and whether they wanna work with you. I mean, we like people who are fun to work with and easy to work with. And I think those are, those are key things that sometimes I think as engineers and designers, we think about the work that we’re doing, like the things we’re doing versus who we’re being. And I think it’s really important to think about who you’re being and what, what you’re bringing to the table on an emotional intelligence level.

– Well thanks for sharing that. There’s a lot of great advice in there. And the last thing I wanted to Bri bring up is to go back to books. We, we do have a conference bookstore, a local book shop, ADA’s bookstore in the Seattle area is going to be there with choice selections and then they also do an online version of that. And we’re certainly gonna have your empathy and action book there. But beyond that, do you have any other recommendations that, that you might wanna make?

– If there is the experience economy and that’s Joe Pine’s book and Joe is one of my mentors and I respect him a lot and the things that he’s created. And so I think that’s a really good precursor. The other book that I would highly recommend is Bold Peter’s book is really fascinating in terms of looking at the advancements in technology. And if you’re an AI person or you’re looking at ai, if you start to look at exponential change and disruptive technology, I think that’s a really good primer to looking at how do we digest all of this fast paced change and how we can we really contribute from that place.

– Well Natalie, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. We covered quite a lot of areas, but this will be very helpful to people interested in attending the event. So thanks for your time and we’ll look forward to seeing you in a few months in Seattle.

– Thank you Joe, very much. I look forward.

– Bye-Bye

– Bye.