Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How We Can Truly Take Care of Our Customers with Scott Romesser, Chief Customer Officer, GoTo

Transcript

How We Can Truly Take Care of Our Customers with Scott Romesser, Chief Customer Officer, GoTo · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  Three, two, one, zero.
• 0:04
  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the SmallBizChat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
• 0:17
  Emerson.
• 0:18
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the SmallBizLady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the SmallBizChat podcast?
• 0:37
  Well, it's time.
• 0:38
  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite-sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:46
  In just 20 minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel your
• 0:52
  business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the SmallBizChat podcast today.
• 0:58
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the SmallBizChat podcast.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the SmallBizLady, America's number one small business expert, and
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  I'm so excited to be your host.
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  You know, the mission of the SmallBizChat podcast is to end small business failure and
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  help you build a business that actually works for you.
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  Today, we're talking about one of the biggest drivers of business growth, and that is taking
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  care of your customers.
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  You all know for years and years and years, I have said it's cheaper to keep a customer than
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  it is to go out and get a new one.
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  And so what we're gonna be talking about today is getting customers is hard, keeping customers
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  has to be the goal.
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  But great customer service is more than just being friendly or fixing problems when they
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  come up.
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  You actually have to be intentional about that.
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  And today's guest, his name is Scott Romesser, and he is the Chief Customer Officer at GoTo,
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  where he leads their company's customer experience strategy.
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  He also oversees the implementation of all of their service, training, customer success,
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  customer support.
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  So he is somebody who is uniquely qualified to talk to all of us as small business owners
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  about how to keep the voice of your customer at the center of your business.
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  Now, he's gonna help us understand what it truly means to take care of customers.
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  But before we jump in, if you are a fan of The SmallBizChat podcast, please share the link to
• 2:34
  this episode with a fellow business owner who could really use this information.
• 2:40
  And please don't forget to leave us a helpful review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
• 2:46
  to your favorite podcast.
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  Now as always, please no hate mail.
• 2:50
  Please leave us a helpful, good review because we want more people to discover us.
• 2:56
  And, you know, we are a top 10 small business podcast online, but I wanna be number one.
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  So we really need your reviews.
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  With that, I want to ask Scott to join me here and we are gonna start talking about, you know,
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  what does it take to truly take care of your customers in today's economy?
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  Hi, Melinda.
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  How are you?
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  Hi, Scott.
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  So tell me a little bit about your business background.
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  Certainly.
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  So I've had an interesting kind of career arc to where I am today.
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  I started my career out focused on finance.
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  Joined a dot-com company early on, and I was the second employee in the finance
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  organization, which gave me a very unique perspective around how all the departments
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  worked, what were the metrics driving the performance of the business, how we generated
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  money to pay our bills back then.
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  Obviously, you're running on a very tight budget, you're working on getting funding, and
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  I did that for about five years.
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  Everything from the cost side of the equation all the way through to the forward-looking
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  planning, looking out 12, 24, 36 months around business planning.
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  And over time I found my way towards what we call the front of the house, working more with
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  the customer-facing organizations.
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  Everything from sales to the customer service organization to customer support and
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  implementation.
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  And that's really where you know, you begin to learn how you treat your customers unlocks so
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  much growth potential for your business.
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  And I've been in that customer experience role for a number of years now, really focusing on
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  delighting our customers and ensuring our customers are getting value from the services
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  that we provide them.
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  Today where I sit at GoTo, we have about 550,000 customers.
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  A very large part of them are small business customers.
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  We build services for small businesses to help them communicate and provide services down to
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  their end customers as well.
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  So we are supporting small businesses, you know, every day in what we do.
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  All right, well, that's a very good place for us to start.
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  So if you serve small business customers, I serve small business customers.
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  And so let's talk about what does it take to truly take care of your customers?
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  Like, what does that look like today?
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  Because there's so many, you got an omnichannel, everything, right?
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  So how do you truly take care of your customers other than when there's a problem?
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  Other than when you initially engage with them, how do you take care of them before they even
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  become a customer?
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  Yeah, I think the way we work to delight our customers is it starts with their first
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  interaction with the business.
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  You have to make sure you know who that customer is and why they or prospect are
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  contacting you.
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  And there are a number of tools out there that you can use to do that, but if you can
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  understand what is driving their outreach to you, why they are looking for the services or
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  solution that you provide, you can provide that level of personalization.
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  And you want to be able to speak their language and make sure and connect, make sure that
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  they're aware that you can solve their unique problem.
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  So that's the first thing you need to do is you need to understand why they're connecting with
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  you so you can create that personalized experience back to them.
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  The other thing that we really try to do, you know, we talk a lot about how you support your
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  customers.
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  And sometimes support means troubleshooting.
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  Hey, they're having a problem down the street.
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  How do you support them?
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  The truth is, when I think about customer experience, I think about everything ahead of
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  that support experience.
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  We want to avoid it.
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  So if you can understand why a customer is reaching out and contacting you and then you
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  can support them in their initial onboarding or deployment of whatever you're selling to them
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  or you're delivering your products to them and you can help them understand how to get the
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  most out of that service, you can actually avoid common downstream issues that you've seen
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  your past customers make.
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  From where I sit, we spend a lot of time understanding the customer while they're still
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  a prospect, and then we spend even more time focusing on getting them set up and using our
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  products out of the gate the right way.
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  That sets the tone for the entire relationship with our business.
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  I think that's interesting.
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  So what would you say are some of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make when trying
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  to serve customers?
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  That's a great question.
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  Yeah, there's a few.
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  First, I think there's this perception that fast responses equal great service or support.
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  And speed does matter.
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  Don't get me wrong.
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  But it's not enough.
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  Your customers need to feel understood.
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  They need to know you're just not answering their question kind of off of a, you know, a
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  sheet of paper.
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  They want to know that you truly understand the issue.
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  The other thing you need to do is you need to make it really effortless for customers.
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  If you are working with small business owners like we do, every minute they're on the phone
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  with you is a minute that they are not supporting their end customers driving their
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  business.
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  So, so much of what we try to do is while speed matters, we need to make sure we understand
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  what their issue is.
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  We want it to be an effortless engagement for them so they can get back to focusing on their
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  business.
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  And that's true for even your end customers as well.
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  They really want stuff just to work, and so there's this kind of speed element that really
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  matters and effortless.
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  The other thing I would say is, and you said this in the past, keeping a customer on board
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  and growing them is a lot more cost-effective than going out and acquiring a new customer.
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  So when you think about how you support your customers and how you service them, you really
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  want to have that mindset of understanding that you can't think of how you, once you land a
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  customer, how you support them is just a cost.
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  You need to look at it actually as a growth lever for your business.
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  The idea is that you can drive more value to your customers.
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  You can drive word-of-mouth.
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  Your customers are likely, I'm going to guess if you're a small business owner, your existing
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  customers are likely your most important marketing channel that you have.
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  And every touchpoint you have with them is an opportunity to amplify them being
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  Absolutely, absolutely.
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  And it's funny because I talk a lot about existing customers because what I know for a
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  fact is that a new customer will only close 5 to 20% of the time.
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  But an existing customer, if they're as timely and nicely, will close 60 to 65% of the time.
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  But yet, everybody focuses all their time on, I got leads, I need qualified leads, I need new
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  leads.
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  No, you need to nurture the people that already love you, right?
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  You need to treat them well so they will never leave you.
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  I talk a lot about this, but I see very few big and small companies focus enough on existing
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  customers.
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  And I think it's such a missed opportunity that I see, you know, we do is a lot of sales
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  consulting and acquisition and retention strategy work for large brands and some for
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  small.
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  And so this is one of the things I jump up and down about is existing customers, the gold you
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  already have, right?
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  The email list you already have of people that have already paid you money.
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  Please talk to them.
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  Please talk to them on a regular basis.
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  I couldn't agree more.
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  I could share metrics from our business around how important our customer base is from a
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  word-of-mouth, from the cost of expanding and driving new revenue from them.
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  It's a far more efficient channel than any other channel in our business and I would guess
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  most businesses out there.
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  If I could jump on one more thing that I think is really important for companies and small
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  business owners to avoid is there's this idea of you try to do everything really good.
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  And I believe in a sea of other small businesses you need to compete with is that's
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  probably a failed strategy.
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  You are better off finding the one thing that you can really differentiate yourself by.
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  Something that will help you stand out that provides a unique value to your customers.
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  That could be a hyper-responsive kind of communication back to them.
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  It could be an overly invested in onboarding and early life experience.
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  I referenced that earlier.
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  It could be that you're actually checking with them two weeks, three weeks, you know, a month
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  down the road to see how they're doing and how else you might help.
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  Those are things that can set your business apart from a lot of other your competitive and
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  small business and other small businesses out there as well.
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  So think about that one thing that you can really do to differentiate yourself versus
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  trying to do too many things that just makes you suboptimal in what you're trying to
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  deliver.
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  Well, that's like anything else, right?
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  If everybody's your customer, nobody's your customer, right?
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  So if you're trying to do five things well, that doesn't work.
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  You gotta focus on the one thing, right?
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  And I also think when you think about this from a strategy perspective, you have to think about
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  it from the fact of like, you have to create something about your business that's not easily
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  duplicatable by your competitors because nobody's looking for, okay, business.
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  Like nobody's looking for a brand that's, you know, skating by, not special in any real way.
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  But you know, you work for a company that develops software.
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  Is that a hard thing to do when everybody's developing software?
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  Now people are vibe coding software, right?
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  So, you know, has that become even harder and harder for like your space of business, people
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  in the software business?
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  Absolutely.
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  It is remarkable how powerful AI is in transforming what people can vibe, code and
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  build today.
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  You know, a year ago, two years ago, we had a set number of competitors.
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  You can count them on one hand.
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  Today, you know, that's probably hundreds.
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  People can buy and code a solution.
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  But you hit on a really important thing is what is that special thing that you have that can
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  protect your business?
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  What is that moat that you have that you've built around?
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  For us, it is really thinking about the customer experience that we are willing to
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  overinvest in because we know that that pays dividends down the road.
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  And it is hard for people to make that decision because it does cost money, effort, and focus.
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  And usually they're too busy focused on acquiring the next new customer and missing the
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  gold that's sitting right in front of them.
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  So one of the things that I want to point out though around customer service is small
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  business owners are incredibly busy, right?
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  You gotta do 12 jobs that look like you're doing one job well.
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  But what is the best way for a small business, somebody with zero to five employees, to
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  provide customer support that really is helpful to the customer?
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  Yeah.
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  That's another great question.
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  As I think about your small company, you want to provide support, great support to your
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  customers.
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  The first thing I would do is I would be very clear in articulating how they can get a hold
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  of you and how you can help them.
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  A lot of times, it's the unknown that really kind of starts to set the relationship in the
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  wrong direction.
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  So if you're a small business owner, I would really encourage you to be very clear on, Hey,
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  Mr.
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  or Mrs.
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  Customer.
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  Here's how I can help you.
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  Don't hesitate to reach out.
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  This is the best way to get a hold of me.
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  I will share from personal experience and what we do.
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  We very purposely direct customers, depending upon the type of issue that we know they have,
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  to either engage in a digital experience using AI, which by the way everyone can take
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  advantage of today, or picking up the phone and calling in.
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  What I didn't say was email us.
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  What I didn't say was text us.
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  Right?
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  Because I know in some of those mediums you have to clarify some questions.
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  And when you start to go back and forth with the customer, ping-ponging back and forth,
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  every ping-pong back and forth, you're just chipping away at the customer experience.
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  So, we purposely guide customers to a live interaction very clearly on where to get a hold
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  of us.
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  We also guide them to a digital interaction, AI-driven interaction, where we know the type
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  of issue they have could be solved by that.
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  And I think we're purposeful in that.
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  And I would encourage every small business leader to be very purposeful in how customers
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  can best engage with them.
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  And I would also encourage them to focus on how do you do it just in a one-and-done first call
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  resolution, first interaction resolution?
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  Because your customers are busy, you're busy as a small business owner, and you want to make
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  sure that that experience is as efficient as possible.
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  So let's talk about that.
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  How do you get that problem solved on the first call?
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  Because I know for me, if I call a business and because I've had some issue and they gotta go
• 17:56
  check with somebody before they can, like, resolve my issue, I'm done.
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  I'm drafting my Trustpilot review to ruin their whole week.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Like and so how do we empower our frontline folks to solve problems?
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  Like, you know, like I always tell my team, it better not get to mama because if it gets to
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  me, you know, I'm gonna solve the problem, but somebody else is gonna be in big trouble.
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  Right?
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  So, how do we do that?
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  I mean, obviously you don't want people just run amok giving away free fries everywhere,
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  right?
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  But how do we do that in a way that is constructive for the employee and you and the
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  customer and you as the business owner?
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  There's a lot in that question, Melinda.
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  I'm gonna kind of tease apart a lot of things.
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  One, we have this concept here of a one-way or a two-way door.
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  Right?
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  And what I mean by that is we really focus on empowering people on the front lines.
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  Whether you're a thousand-person organization or a three- to five-person organization,
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  empower your employees to do the right thing all of the time.
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  And let me get back to this one-way to two-way door example in a minute.
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  You've interviewed them.
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  You've chosen to bring them into your business.
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  You clearly saw something in them that you liked or you wouldn't be putting them on your
• 19:31
  payroll.
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  Trust them to do the right thing.
• 19:33
  I have found almost 100% of the time when you give people space to do great work and you give
• 19:40
  them the right guidelines and the right guardrails to make decisions, that they will
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  almost always make the right decision.
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  And more often than not, the types of decisions we're enabling them to make are not one-way
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  decisions.
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  They're not one-way doors.
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  If they happen to get it wrong, we can bring it back around.
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  And so, I would really simply say in this one, empower them to do the right thing.
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  You brought them into your business because you trust them, right?
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  And let them do amazing things.
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  People are way more resilient than I think sometimes we give them credit for.
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  You've got to monitor them.
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  You want to be there to coach and mentor them as well.
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  But I think if you set them up the right way, I think you'll be surprised at how much they care
• 20:30
  about your business as well.
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  All right.
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  So let's switch gears a little bit.
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  I want to talk to you about AI and customer service.
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  AI has really changed a lot of stuff.
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  There's a bot for this.
• 20:44
  There's a bot for that.
• 20:46
  Even when you call, you can't even get an agent because they make you talk to their AI.
• 20:54
  Is that a good thing?
• 20:55
  Is that eroding customer relationships?
• 20:57
  Or is that solving the problem in a more economical way?
• 21:03
  I think there's a lot of benefits to it.
• 21:05
  I think, one, it's solving the problem in a much more economical way.
• 21:09
  So if you are—and by the way, small business owners can take advantage of AI today.
• 21:14
  I think all of them should explore and figure out how they can.
• 21:18
  Overnight, it can make you seem like two to three times the size you are today if you can
• 21:23
  implement AI.
• 21:24
  But it does take a little focus and effort to do that.
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  But I think it's a good thing.
• 21:29
  I think it's a good thing if used the right way.
• 21:31
  I should quantify that.
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  AI is very powerful to answer simple questions, to provide guidance.
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  It is available 24/7 as well where you may not be available 24/7.
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  And what you want to do is you want to use your resources where it's a more complex
• 21:53
  interaction.
• 21:54
  It might require empathy in the case of a customer service issue or something like that.
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  So, there are ways you want to use your various support avenues.
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  I think AI can be very powerful, broad and weak, available all the time, very good for
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  repetitive things, and then leverage your people where you can take advantage of their
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  emotional IQ and all of that.
• 22:18
  Alright.
• 22:19
  Now, Scott, you answered that like a corporate guy that uses AI in your customer service.
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  Now let's talk like it's you calling, you know, because I know, listen.
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  I'm a small business owner.
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  I use AI every day.
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  I teach AI around the country, right, to small business owners.
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  But sometimes I just wanna hit zero and say agent.
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  I mean, so I wanna push back and say, I like AI being the first line of defense, but sometimes
• 22:51
  the AI doesn't understand what I need, and I need a human.
• 22:57
  And more and more and more, there's no human.
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  There's nobody to message for, there's no way to hit 0 and talk to an agent, and I think
• 23:07
  that's dangerous.
• 23:09
  And I think that we erode trust with those kinds of things, and it looks like you're not
• 23:14
  really trying to solve people's problems, or you know, it's like a business that makes it so
• 23:18
  difficult to return something that it's like, okay, I get it.
• 23:22
  You designed this so that I would just give up because you're gonna exercise frustration with
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  me.
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  You know, so I think that there's a thin line between AI's handling our customer service, and
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  there's still gotta be some people involved in this thing.
• 23:38
  I agree 100%.
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  I think the important thing is AI cannot be a dead end.
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  It needs to complement your human support as well.
• 23:49
  I think that's the important thing.
• 23:50
  I really think that's what you're pushing on, Melinda, is it can't be AI only.
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  And you need to make it so you can determine what easy means for your business.
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  Not all businesses are created the same.
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  But you need to have a pathway from AI into a live person because context matters.
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  We also have to recognize people have been embracing AI in different ways as well.
• 24:15
  I know there are people that we interact with that jump over AI immediately.
• 24:19
  They know how to get through our AI agent.
• 24:22
  We make it easy to get through our agent.
• 24:24
  There are others that are willing to give AI a try because they're calling at 9:00 at night
• 24:30
  when it's available for them to interact.
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  So I think the important thing is AI cannot be a dead end, and you do want to make it easy to
• 24:37
  move from AI into a live interaction if you really care about your customers.
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  And I think that's the way I would—that's the way we build our AI experiences.
• 24:49
  It's not one channel only.
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  It's really omnichannel.
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  You can move between the channels as you see fit.
• 24:57
  And you also have to be smart and know what type of issue.
• 25:01
  We're fortunate enough where we have a lot of customer feedback, and we capture a lot of
• 25:07
  feedback around their interactions.
• 25:09
  Again, I referenced that we have more than 550,000 customers.
• 25:15
  We get about 5 million surveys a year back from our support interactions.
• 25:20
  I use that data to evaluate how well is our AI performing.
• 25:24
  I use that data to evaluate how well our support teams are performing.
• 25:29
  And it's really important that you're getting that customer feedback to understand what's
• 25:32
  working and not as well.
• 25:34
  You shouldn't use AI and then accept a lower customer experience score.
• 25:40
  AI should deliver as good, if not a better experience.
• 25:43
  And you have to monitor.
• 25:46
  What would you say that excellent customer support looks like?
• 25:52
  Alright.
• 25:52
  Excellent customer support.
• 25:54
  I think it is I would start with frictionless.
• 26:02
  One, customers, it needs to be easy for them to get support.
• 26:09
  And it needs to be and it needs to solve their problem.
• 26:15
  I think speed, we talked about speed being people think speed is one.
• 26:22
  I think speed is important, but I would put frictionless and solving their issue is more
• 26:29
  important than speed.
• 26:32
  And I think the way we simplify it is that when a customer can get back to focusing on their
• 26:43
  business, that is success for us.
• 26:47
  I like it.
• 26:49
  So if you were going to give small business owners three things they can do to better care
• 26:56
  for their customers today, what would they be?
• 26:58
  Only three?
• 27:01
  You're gonna limit me to three?
• 27:03
  I mean, we only have so much time for this interview, Scott.
• 27:07
  Give me three.
• 27:08
  Yeah, okay.
• 27:09
  I think I've referenced it a few times earlier.
• 27:13
  Invest in the early success of your customer.
• 27:18
  I think if there's any one thing you do that ensures you get the revenue that you just sold
• 27:25
  and it unlocks word-of-mouth referrals and you got a customer that may come back and buy more
• 27:30
  from you.
• 27:31
  And those last few things that I referenced under that investment in early life experience
• 27:34
  cost you next to nothing once you acquire a customer.
• 27:38
  The second part of feedback, I would say is and this is not just for great customer experience.
• 27:46
  This is just building your small business overall.
• 27:51
  Ask for feedback and do something with it.
• 27:55
  Your customers will tell you what's great, what's not great.
• 27:58
  They're invested in you.
• 28:01
  They will give you answers that you're looking for.
• 28:03
  Ask and listen and then do something with it.
• 28:07
  Same way as well as ask other small business leaders how they're solving challenges as well.
• 28:11
  Everyone likes to talk about their business and you can always learn something from either your
• 28:16
  customers or other small business leaders.
• 28:19
  So ask for feedback.
• 28:20
  And the third thing I would say and we did hit on this a little bit earlier which is find the
• 28:27
  thing that makes you special and unique and make sure your customers recognize that as
• 28:33
  well.
• 28:34
  I love it.
• 28:35
  I love it.
• 28:36
  Alright Scott last question.
• 28:37
  What is the best business advice anyone's given you?
• 28:42
  Oh.
• 28:46
  Trust your people.
• 28:48
  I have you so much of your so very rarely does a business rely on the shoulders of one person.
• 28:56
  It's a team effort.
• 28:58
  And I believe when you think about the amount of time you invest in bringing the right talent
• 29:03
  in, training them on your business and how you would like them to kind of support and run your
• 29:09
  business.
• 29:10
  I think that you invest a ton there.
• 29:13
  They're an extension of you and your brand.
• 29:17
  I think I would say, and I was early on in my career, I had my leader tell me, trust the
• 29:24
  people around you, Scott.
• 29:26
  They are going to be a multiplier for you.
• 29:28
  It took me a while to understand what he was saying, but I'm so glad that I did because now
• 29:36
  I'm surrounded by amazing people that do amazing things, and it helps me think about new
• 29:41
  and unique ways to grow my business.
• 29:43
  So I think for every leader, small, medium, or large, trust the people around you because
• 29:49
  they're gonna help you grow your business one way or another.
• 29:53
  I love it.
• 29:54
  Scott, thank you so much for being here for this episode of The SmallBizChat Podcast.
• 29:59
  I think you left us with some real gems, especially around taking care of the customer
• 30:05
  early before they even become a customer.
• 30:08
  I think that was extremely powerful advice.
• 30:10
  And thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode of The SmallBizChat Podcast.
• 30:16
  Please, as always, share this link with a small business owner who you know could benefit from
• 30:21
  this valuable advice.
• 30:23
  And don't forget, if you have a need in your business, please reach out to me, the
• 30:28
  SmallBizLady.
• 30:30
  We supply lots of tools and information over at smallbizladyuniversity.com.
• 30:36
  So check us out, especially if you need sales and customer service support.
• 30:42
  And as always, please leave us a helpful review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to
• 30:47
  your favorite podcast.
• 30:49
  It really helps people find us and increase the SEO of our podcast.
• 30:54
  Until next time, I will leave you with this: You never lose in business.
• 30:58
  Either you win or you learn.
• 31:00
  I'm Melinda Emerson, the SmallBizLady.
• 31:02
  God bless everybody.
• 31:06
  Thanks for listening to The SmallBizChat Podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 31:10
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 31:16
  more fantastic information and interviews.
• 31:18
  You can find more resources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 31:23
  website, SucceedAsYourOwnBoss.com.
• 31:27
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.