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258: When Service Innovation Makes Customer Experience Worse · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:48
  Welcome back to the Customer Service Revolution Podcast.
• 0:51
  I'm Denise Thompson and today John DiJulius and I are talking about service innovation.
• 0:57
  Every company seems to be investing in AI right now.
• 1:00
  Automation, self-service, digital platforms, and faster ways to serve their customers.
• 1:05
  And on paper, it all sounds like progress.
• 1:08
  But if service is becoming more advanced, then why are customers becoming more frustrated?
• 1:13
  Customers are still fighting to reach a real person.
• 1:16
  They're stuck in chatbot loops.
• 1:18
  They're being asked to do more of the work themselves.
• 1:20
  And in many cases, what companies call innovation feels more like deflection.
• 1:25
  John, you recently wrote about this in an article.
• 1:28
  Your industry is innovating service delivery, so why are your customers more frustrated than ever?
• 1:33
  And the big idea is this: customers are not rejecting innovation.
• 1:37
  They're rejecting bad customer service disguised as innovation.
• 1:41
  So today we're going to challenge the assumption that modernizing service delivery automatically improves customer experience.
• 1:48
  Let's get into it.
• 1:49
  How are you doing, John?
• 1:51
  I'm fantastic.
• 1:52
  How are you?
• 1:53
  I'm great.
• 1:54
  I'm great.
• 1:54
  What good news do you have for us this week?
• 1:56
  just great.
• 1:57
  Best time of the year in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1:59
  It's been, you know, seventies, no rain.
• 2:03
  it's beautiful.
• 2:03
  Best time of year.
• 2:05
  You?
• 2:07
  I haven't been to one yet.
• 2:08
  I can't believe it.
• 2:09
  Yeah.
• 2:11
  I know, I know.
• 2:12
  how w tell me something good.
• 2:14
  well I'm in Pittsburgh still this week and it's been great here.
• 2:19
  The weather's great.
• 2:20
  they actually ball game here, they played the Dodgers.
• 2:22
  So I don't know if you saw that game.
• 2:25
  Great game.
• 2:26
  I unfortunately I unfortunately did not go, but Ken I did not make the cut for tickets.
• 2:31
  Did you see the phenom on the Pirates, Paul Skeens?
• 2:36
  he's like one of the top two pitchers in baseball.
• 2:39
  he did a great customer service.
• 2:41
  he was driving home from a game, I think they lost, and he wa ye I the the way it went is you know, he was pretty frustrated.
• 2:48
  He saw a Lily game pulled over.
• 2:50
  tried to just sit in and blend in and the whole game stopped.
• 2:54
  'cause he was there and he went out there and played catch with the kids, which is something they'll never forget.
• 3:00
  Yeah.
• 3:01
  Yeah.
• 3:03
  Do you ever do that, the superstar that you are?
• 3:05
  Yeah, no.
• 3:06
  Yeah, I stopped at plenty of games and no one notices.
• 3:09
  all right, let's get into the topic today.
• 3:11
  John, companies are investing heavily in service technology, but there's a difference between a service model that's more efficient and a service experience that's actually
• 3:21
  better.
• 3:22
  How should leaders define that difference?
• 3:26
  Yeah, you know, it it's just really looking at from the lens of the customer and what they're going through.
• 3:33
  I think AI is awesome.
• 3:35
  It I heard of all places comedian Jimmy Carr.
• 3:40
  Do you know who Jimmy Carr is?
• 3:42
  He's one of the top, you know, probably five comedians today.
• 3:47
  I actually just listened to his biography, autobiography.
• 3:50
  He's just so brilliant and he's so funny.
• 3:53
  But
• 3:53
  You know, so so it's it it's funny to be quoting him, but you know, someone asked him he t he takes this the QA, you could ask him anything during his speech, and they asked him
• 4:02
  about AI and he said, you know, there's there's the left brain and the right brain and the left brain is AI.
• 4:08
  It's it's you know, how to you know, the steps, the processes, and the right brain is creativity, it's music, it's art, it's you know, all all the things that we talk about,
• 4:19
  the service aptitude skills.
• 4:22
  So
• 4:23
  you know, AI is great for taking mundane tasks should be off both frontline employees
• 4:31
  changing your password.
• 4:32
  You know, you don't have to wait online for what could be three to twelve minutes to have a a a a an agent change your password.
• 4:40
  That takes two seconds online.
• 4:42
  but you need access to a human being when it's it it gets more complicated than that and it's it's more serious than that or when there needs to be troubleshooting or you can't
• 4:53
  find your answers.
• 4:53
  So I I just think the rush to using AI sometimes
• 4:58
  is mistaken to reduce payroll, reduce the mundane tasks from employees but are they always constantly looking at it from is it helping the customer or is it only making the the
• 5:09
  business side easier
• 5:13
  So from a customer lens, what would a customer say or feel that tells us the experience got better, not just faster?
• 5:21
  yeah, just I guess that.
• 5:23
  You know, there there's a a KPI ease of doing business or I think it's a customer effort score.
• 5:29
  a lot of people have used those in the past, but just that, you know, the customer can get to it.
• 5:34
  I I always use the example of, you know, I like all the self-service options with Apple.
• 5:41
  you know, get on there,
• 5:43
  order a a a product, even schedule a repair for my laptop or iPhone.
• 5:51
  that all I don't need to speak to a human being for.
• 5:54
  And that literally takes
• 5:56
  Way ninety seconds to three minutes that takes, which it doesn't seem like that would take if I had to call a human being.
• 6:02
  But then when I want to bring my computer in, I want to speak to someone, I wanna troubleshoot it, I wanna, you know, pass my burden over to them on why this is important
• 6:10
  to me.
• 6:11
  Even though it really doesn't matter to them to fix it, that's the exchange of you know, passing the burden on to an expert and feeling like you're being heard and seen and they
• 6:23
  are gonna, you they
• 6:23
  Got ya.
• 6:24
  Are there early warning signs that a company can look at to tell them if they've improved the process but the relationship got weaker?
• 6:33
  Yeah, yeah, I I just believe
• 6:36
  If they're able to track right how how long it is for the customer, not just that it was removed from the employee agent's plate and that frees them up or frees it freezes them up
• 6:47
  to hopefully do stuff that that's more important that you know is you know with the customer for the customer, not just reduce headcount in the call center, contact center,
• 6:59
  wh whatever that may be, or at the store or whatever business model we're talking.
• 7:04
  about.
• 7:04
  But if there's a way to track if the customer got their answer quicker than they would have, you know, via the old model.
• 7:13
  You know, we we can't only look at it from ease of business from our side.
• 7:18
  And too often we do that.
• 7:19
  It goes back to the old age of, you know, before all this, but when you'd call in and give your 16 digit account number and then they transfer you to the right department and they'd
• 7:30
  ask you your 16 digit account number.
• 7:32
  That was obviously not easier for the customer and frustrating, but at the time it was easier for the business.
• 7:39
  But that's that's being selfish, right?
• 7:41
  They needed to be able to transfer that 16-digit account number to the department that was going to help you.
• 7:48
  So it, you know, we we've all been through that.
• 7:50
  and hopefully that's going away or has has has left.
• 7:55
  I want to tie this to something in the news because obviously this is not just theory.
• 8:00
  there was a recent report that more than 20,000 Instagram accounts were likely hijacked through an exploit in Meta's AI support chatbot.
• 8:09
  The system reportedly failed to properly verify password reset requests, and Meta later disabled the tool.
• 8:17
  But that system was likely built to make support faster and more scalable, but in a sensitive
• 8:22
  service moment, speed without judgment creates a much bigger problem.
• 8:26
  So here's my question.
• 8:28
  How should leaders identify which service moments require human judgment before they automate them?
• 8:36
  Well, e everything a this shocks me.
• 8:39
  We you know, we've been doing this and and this has nothing to do with AI.
• 8:44
  We've been in business, I guess as a world for hundreds of thousands of years and or tens of thousands of years.
• 8:52
  and no matter what you you new system, experience, whatever you want to call it, you roll out,
• 8:59
  always should go through the the beta phase and you know even when we do that with our clients we say you know let's first roll this out to a few of your locations a few of your
• 9:10
  departments to beta test it and then work out the kinks before we take it company wide you know and and and and so it it doesn't matter if it's a greeting you know a a a new phone
• 9:22
  system i and so i'm I'm surprised yeah a company like
• 9:26
  Like Instagram wouldn't have first tested that with a small piece of customers.
• 9:31
  And maybe they they're knowing, maybe they're they're part of their customer advisory board.
• 9:36
  A lot of companies have customer advisory boards, which is great.
• 9:40
  and you get benefits for it, and you're you you know you're the guinea pig and you're there to give feedback.
• 9:46
  and then a lot of times it's it's not that this wasn't the
• 9:51
  best idea or or the the right way to go, but it's the way you're doing it.
• 9:55
  Or or or again, work out the kinks or never launch this at the same time you're launching this.
• 10:01
  That's too much, you know, load on one area of the business.
• 10:05
  So yeah, it it just sounds like you know a a a company like Instagram didn't crawl walk and run and and work out the kinks.
• 10:12
  Everyone's in such a hurry.
• 10:13
  but
• 10:14
  The example you just gave, you now you have more egg on your face.
• 10:18
  And you have egg on your face in two places.
• 10:20
  You have you've lost trust with your customers.
• 10:23
  So the next time they see a software update or a new thing that they're they're you're recommending to do, they don't trust you.
• 10:30
  But you also have egg on your face with your employees.
• 10:33
  Employees don't trust it and they're not bought in.
• 10:36
  And because what we've talked about in past podcasts, they're embarrassed getting beat.
• 10:42
  up, they're the punching bag, they're the ones that are are having to you know take the brunt of the burden of the the customer's frustration on and no one likes that and that's
• 10:51
  not fair.
• 10:53
  And I think you bring up a good point with trust.
• 10:56
  I mean trust and AI there's a there's a bit of a misconception in some of it, you know, that you can trust some of the things that AI does and I don't think I've experienced that
• 11:06
  I don't think you can.
• 11:08
  What makes a certain well just things that you ask it to do and it gives you information that's that's not true.
• 11:16
  That
• 11:17
  I've had it when I've asked it to do some things.
• 11:20
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:23
  Chat GP I think predominantly for some reason.
• 11:27
  I find that Claude and per p perplexity, I get better answers.
• 11:32
  and that may be the way I've trained it.
• 11:33
  I don't know.
• 11:34
  But I have
• 11:35
  I have experience it, you know, it it gives me things and I'm like, what what is this?
• 11:39
  I wanna say like WTF.
• 11:41
  Why why did you why did you come up with that?
• 11:43
  Where did you pull that from?
• 11:44
  Well, I I don't know if the ev the evolution of AI and clo chat and ch chat box and claude and all the other options, but if they've improved this and I love them, I absolutely love
• 11:58
  them, but you know, hi how they initially were built is you ask a question and it just goes on
• 12:05
  every website and then kind of compiles the answer.
• 12:09
  But what it can't do or it hasn't been able to do yet is verify that that website is a legit source.
• 12:15
  So you can go and you know create some cockamaney idea that has no truth or it might just be your conspiracy theory or whatever that you know we found Martians in you know
• 12:30
  Mississippi, right?
• 12:31
  And it would it would pull
• 12:34
  and I don't know how it it it it verifies, you know, how the accuracy, right, of that.
• 12:41
  And so it it can pull easily pull, you know.
• 12:45
  inaccurate information.
• 12:47
  It's that's all it's doing is it's just doing the what w the research for you that Google would just give you those different websites that you would have to do.
• 12:55
  So it's great and it's convenient because it's doing that work, but you don't know if if like you just said all the information you're getting is truthful, accurate, or it's just,
• 13:04
  you know, some people out there, you know, throwing shit up there.
• 13:10
  Yeah.
• 13:10
  I would think if you're developing an LLM for your business, you would have you know, you would be putting the information in and it would be sourcing just from what you put in.
• 13:20
  But what makes what makes a service moment too sensitive or too high stakes to leave entirely to automation?
• 13:27
  So, you know, it's i i i it there's there's industries, right?
• 13:32
  And so finance, health, those the first two easy, easy ones because those are are high stress, high anxiety, and and anytime you're dealing with, you know, health.
• 13:44
  or finance.
• 13:45
  That could be ca and then there's a million spin off industries of that.
• 13:48
  That could be mortgage, that could be your your your investments, that could be, you know, you know, just you know, so many things spin off that.
• 13:56
  And
• 13:57
  That's you know the the the biggest cause for uncertainty is or anxiety is uncertainty and people want to speak to a professional, they want to know, and sometimes the the answer
• 14:08
  they're getting, and you can try as a first line of here's your answer.
• 14:12
  and if that doesn't, you have to have the opportunity to speak to a human being because that causes a lot of stress.
• 14:18
  And then there's there's industries we've talked about which are grudge bys, and grudge bys are things you don't want to spend the money on.
• 14:25
  or your time on.
• 14:26
  So the simple one is a flat tire or a a throbbing toothache or that you do have to, you know, you know, a grudge by is getting your car repaired or you're in an accident.
• 14:37
  You have to call the insur all those things are not things we wanna be doing with our time or money.
• 14:42
  But
• 14:43
  we all are faced in those situations.
• 14:45
  So that's, you know, a another type of I I guess if you want to call it red flag that I probably want to speak to a human being because I, you know, I I'm not used to being in
• 14:55
  this situation.
• 14:56
  I don't get into car accidents, hopefully, that often, you know, maybe once every 10 years, hopefully, maybe once in my life.
• 15:04
  And this is so strange and foreign to me that I I need I need to speak to a human being that's going to calm me down and
• 15:11
  assure me.
• 15:12
  And then something I just realized, which I'm kind of embarrassed about, that it hit me.
• 15:18
  So I always talk about or or or when I work with grudge by companies, right?
• 15:23
  And it's the, you know, repair, it's it's the you know you know insurance i it's the dentist throbbing a toothache it's the airplane maintenance you know no one again you if
• 15:35
  you have your own airplane and you know that's all
• 15:37
  thing you want is your airplane out of service.
• 15:40
  you know the same thing with your car.
• 15:41
  You know, you have your car, you don't want a a car out of service.
• 15:45
  But I realized that almost every business has a grudge by component, even a salon.
• 15:52
  Right?
• 15:52
  And typically a salon or a Starbucks or a weekend at the Ritz-Carlton or Sandals.
• 15:59
  You know, I at first, you know, I never, you know, no, those aren't grudge buys, those are pleasure buys.
• 16:05
  Where they all are in the grudge by business is when the customer has a complaint.
• 16:09
  Right?
• 16:10
  now you go back to you don't like the hair color, haircut, pedicure you got.
• 16:16
  And you need to call up and want it fixed or a refund or you know, you don't like the dinner at the fancy restaurant or your Starbucks order was screwed up that you brought
• 16:25
  back to the office.
• 16:26
  Now that turns into a grudge by experience for the customer.
• 16:30
  And so those need, you know, the service recovery opportunities need to be escalated, and we want more of a human being option.
• 16:41
  Now if it's just you know, Walmart, Amazon sent didn't send me the right order, that's fine.
• 16:46
  We can we can, you know, tweak it and, you know, real quickly.
• 16:50
  But if that isn't, you know, if that doesn't take care of me, I need it it it should be an option where I can speak to someone 'cause I'm probably mad.
• 16:57
  So service recovery, I don't care what business you're in, is a grudge by.
• 17:01
  And I I that ju I don't know why, that just I think it was working with Sandals.
• 17:06
  You know, I'm like, well, they're not a grudge by, they're a pleasure by.
• 17:09
  Like we're we look forward to going to a Caribbean island all inclusive for seven days, but they have a grudge by component in there that I feel embarrassed that it's taken me
• 17:23
  twenty plus years to realize every company has a grudge by experience under their roof.
• 17:31
  So anytime, I guess a long answer is anytime a customer has anxiety, is frustrated, is uneasy, that that that needs to have the human interaction option that can have empathy,
• 17:45
  that can make a brilliant comeback, that it could listen and make it right.
• 17:51
  I like that.
• 17:51
  in your blog article that you did recently, you make the point that the problem is almost never the technology itself.
• 17:59
  The real issue is whether the organization is ready to use that technology in a way that actually does serve the customer.
• 18:07
  What does a company need to have in place before a new service tool can actually improve the experience?
• 18:14
  Well, I I I think the the two major things is the the training of the technology if employees are using it and it's not automated.
• 18:24
  And then the second thing is crawl walk and run with it, which we kind of opened up with, is let's test this on 1% of our customers to make sure both that the the technology is
• 18:36
  performing and used right and and that our employees understand how to use it and and and and do it.
• 18:42
  And then you you know work out those kinks.
• 18:45
  And then we can take it to the the the larger masses of our customer base and our employees to to use and utilize.
• 18:55
  So if a company if a company spends a lot on technology and they have a strong a strong grip on that, but maybe they don't spend it on the culture, how does a weak culture show
• 19:05
  up through strong technology?
• 19:07
  Yeah, I mean that's in anything.
• 19:08
  you know, you just feel it, you hear it.
• 19:10
  I always say a culture isn't something it's good to do, but you know, y I I feel like you I feel like if you do c employee satisfaction engagement surveys, and you're a leader and
• 19:26
  your leaders are in touch.
• 19:29
  and and and and you'd be good at a at answering this question.
• 19:34
  I would be shocked
• 19:35
  That you, the leader, would be shocked at the survey results.
• 19:39
  Like I i if you're in touch with your employees and the front line and all that, I think culture is you feel it.
• 19:47
  And I don't think, you know, I mean, unless your head is in a sand, I don't think if you got survey, employee satisfaction, engagement surveys back and they were really bad, I'd
• 19:58
  be shocked that you're you would be shocked.
• 20:01
  Like that you are blindsided by that.
• 20:03
  Unless your head's in the sand and you're you're so high above.
• 20:06
  Maybe the CEO, maybe the CO is like, What?
• 20:10
  We have you know, w people aren't happy here?
• 20:13
  Yeah, I it may be them, but but you know, I I I just I've always said,
• 20:18
  You could ju just be able to walk in.
• 20:20
  Now, it's a little different because of work from home and virtual work.
• 20:24
  It's not like you're walking through management by walking around and and feeling the you know stress and angst and that people aren't happy.
• 20:34
  So that does add a different dimension to it.
• 20:37
  But if you're checking in on your employees regularly, you're having team meetings, not just, you know, with an agenda that doesn't allow for any of those
• 20:47
  innocuous conversations and check-ins.
• 20:50
  culture's something you feel.
• 20:51
  It's either thick and you don't want to walk in or or, you know, you know, I I I've been like that, where like, my God, I do not want to go to that location or department because
• 21:01
  I know they're unhappy.
• 21:03
  you know, that that that I I the if you're shocked by how happy your your employees are, you're you're in the wrong line of work.
• 21:14
  Well
• 21:14
  But it does happen right now.
• 21:16
  I think there's a lot of companies that have big budgets for AI, big budgets for the technology side of the business, but they're not investing in the culture.
• 21:25
  So you have companies that are creating these pieces of technology, ways to use AI within their business, and probably low adoption rates, partially because of the culture.
• 21:37
  I mean, and imagine this, you have a culture that's not great to start with.
• 21:41
  And now we're bringing in what they may even fear is something that's gonna take their job.
• 21:47
  Yeah, yeah.
• 21:48
  That that a and and and that's that's going to down a completely different animal.
• 21:54
  But everyone's reading headline news and you know, i it seems like every day two or three big pig well known CEOs, you know, Chase CEO, God, I'm forgetting his name.
• 22:09
  the C James God I forget his name, but whoever are all laying off or or predicting that in the next six months they're gonna be laying off thirty thousand people because of AI and I
• 22:21
  don't care if you're a mom and pop.
• 22:22
  and and and they say the highest anxiety for the graduating, you know, college seniors are you know, about their future.
• 22:31
  And so I think you gotta be transparent.
• 22:34
  as a a as a leader from the top down, and constantly be transparent to your team, where you're going with this, you know, and and what you see.
• 22:43
  And do you see this eliminating jobs or shuffling jobs or whatever?
• 22:49
  And because the unknown is worse than the known.
• 22:52
  Right?
• 22:53
  You'd rather have bad news than no news.
• 22:55
  And people just it just what what's out there is just freaking people out.
• 23:00
  And they're they're looking for jobs and are looking to change careers because they think it AI's coming for them.
• 23:08
  I honestly believe that it's it's overhyped.
• 23:11
  I don't think in five or ten years it's gonna do the Armageddon that it's predicting.
• 23:17
  I think it it will reduce and eliminate
• 23:19
  but I think it's also going to create more.
• 23:22
  and so a a as a as a good company, I think you need to be helping your employees get certified for what is going to be next.
• 23:32
  is you know, it's it makes no sense to lay off thirty thousand people who are unqualified for what's coming next to then go hire thirty thousand.
• 23:41
  Now, if that's a you know means years and years of of education, yeah, y you probably need to do that.
• 23:48
  But I don't think that's the case in AI.
• 23:50
  It's not like we're we're laying off I don't know, frontline people because we need doctors.
• 23:56
  and and we can't convert those frontline people to doctors in the next six months.
• 24:00
  I don't think that's what we're looking at.
• 24:02
  I think we need to, you know, help good employees in in advance their careers and prepare them for so the old adage that we've heard a ha a thousand times in the past three years
• 24:14
  is AI won't replace you it'll replace someone you know that doesn't know how to use AI.
• 24:20
  I I find it interesting that the generation who has really moved away from the human touch more to being efficient and looking for things online are the same ones now that are
• 24:33
  affected by this quite a bit.
• 24:35
  Right.
• 24:36
  Yeah.
• 24:37
  How we
• 24:38
  move away or or they were
• 24:41
  Well maybe when you live your life on your phone, when you're you know, there's less human contact and you know, they really are about make it efficient and which is which is great.
• 24:50
  I mean a lot.
• 24:52
  Mhm.
• 24:52
  just how they were brought up.
• 24:53
  does it make sense does this make sense that the the experience should be more human or should you go for efficiency?
• 25:01
  It depends.
• 25:01
  It depends.
• 25:02
  Like I said, I I don't want human if I'm changing my password.
• 25:05
  If I you know, whatever the the you know, the settings or you know, we always talk about you know, how do I get this from not doing or like like you know, zoom, that one thing I
• 25:17
  I've asked you guys about where it moves, right?
• 25:20
  F you know, and and there's a setting to stop it from moving, right?
• 25:24
  I don't have to call Zoom
• 25:26
  and wait online for somebody right I'm gonna call Lindsay who works for us.
• 25:32
  you know yeah those silly settings we don't need a human being for.
• 25:38
  But if we had a zoom call with a a major potential client and we couldn't display our presentation and it was just a debacle
• 25:51
  Which is all our fault, right?
• 25:53
  you know, and maybe that costs us a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar, you know, contract.
• 26:01
  That that we need to get on the phone with Zoom to make sure that never happens again.
• 26:05
  I don't wanna trust that, you know, clicking, turning on or turning off some, you know, settings is gonna fix it the next time.
• 26:13
  Obviously there's a lot of layers to that, you know, we should be testing that out ourselves.
• 26:17
  But we can't, you know, that needs a human experience.
• 26:22
  You know, that's really why, you know, people are using Zoom for all sorts of reasons, but you know, some expensive fragile things are in there.
• 26:31
  and that you can't have happen again.
• 26:33
  for the CEO, COO or customer experience leader who's listening to this, and they're in the middle of a service transformation and the results aren't matching the investment, where
• 26:43
  should they start?
• 26:44
  Well, I yeah, again, looking at I think the our our our journey mapping, our customer experience cycle, which is all one and the same, your signature parents is looking at each
• 26:53
  touch point that the customer uses it from the customer and you look at, you know, what are the service defects that causes frustrations with the customers here.
• 27:02
  What is the best way to reduce or eliminate those?
• 27:05
  And a lot of that can be through technology and systems.
• 27:08
  and then, you know, what's what what should happen every time and and
• 27:12
  again there has to be you know an A B and C you know i i if it can't if it's an easy low-hanging fruit that can be handled by your AI automation, great.
• 27:23
  but you you can't make the the human option go away when it's not obvious, it's not easy, or it gets to a stressful point or or a topic, you know, your your your test results.
• 27:39
  on anything that shouldn't be delivered, you know, via automation.
• 27:44
  AI automation and digital first service isn't going away.
• 27:48
  Mm-mm.
• 27:49
  human need to feel valued, heard, and genuinely helped isn't going away either.
• 27:54
  companies that win are not going to be the ones who simply automate the most.
• 27:58
  They'll be the ones that use innovation to create better, more human experiences for customers and a better, more empowered experience for the employees, too.
• 28:07
  True service innovation should not make customers feel ignored, trapped, or less human.
• 28:13
  It should help them feel known, valued, and helped.
• 28:16
  John, if you have any final words for leaders who are listening to this, what would you advise when thinking about all of this?
• 28:24
  No, I mean you just really said it best.
• 28:26
  Just make sure, you know, that
• 28:29
  the quickest there isn't the winner.
• 28:32
  It's the one that gets there correctly and and and doesn't rush it and and does the beta testing to make sure you work out the there's always gonna be kinks.
• 28:41
  That's why what is it?
• 28:42
  Restaurants and most retailers do a soft opening with family and friends to realize all the little kinks before they open the door to the public and have that you know
• 28:54
  egg on their face of you know you you can never change that first impression of something and again I can't stress enough that's internal and external.
• 29:03
  No employee likes to be caught off guard and be in the brunt of frustration from the customer and not being able to resolve that.
• 29:11
  So you want to make sure the employees are trained and you're crawl walking and running with this until you're a hundred percent positive it is in the best interest of the
• 29:20
  company.
• 29:21
  Which means it's in the best interest of the customer.
• 29:24
  So if you're listening to this episode and thinking about your own service transformation, visit thedijuliusgroup.com to learn more about our consulting work or the Customer
• 29:34
  Experience Executive Academy, or schedule a free advisory call at tdg.clik forward slash call.
• 29:43
  Thanks for listening to the Customer Service Revolution podcast, and we'll see you next time.
• 29:47
  Thanks, John.
• 29:48
  Thank you.