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261: Who Really Owns Customer Experience? · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:45
  Hello, revolutionaries, and welcome to another episode of the Customer Service Revolution.
• 0:52
  And today I have the pleasure of turning the tables on Dave Murray, who hosts this podcast a lot and interviews other people, but I get to interview him.
• 1:05
  Dave Murray is The DiJulius Group's vice president of consulting and
• 1:11
  Co-author the best-selling book, The Employee Experience Revolution.
• 1:16
  Dave has been working with the DiJulius Group for over 13 years now.
• 1:21
  Has consulted with some of the top companies in the world, all over the globe.
• 1:27
  Before that, Dave was a client of Diddy Julius Group.
• 1:32
  and he hired the DiJulius Group to help.
• 1:35
  him build a world-class customer experience at his past company.
• 1:40
  And I was able to see firsthand for I don't know four or five years how well they've got it, got our methodology, and just built an incredible business.
• 1:51
  So when The DiJulius Group was taking off
• 1:54
  And it was time for a change.
• 1:57
  It was a no brainer of bringing Dave on and I hit the lottery ticket.
• 2:02
  We hit the lottery ticket with Dave.
• 2:04
  Welcome, Dave.
• 2:04
  D Mur Murray.
• 2:06
  Thank you, John.
• 2:07
  I that's a very nice introduction.
• 2:08
  I really appreciate that.
• 2:10
  isn't that what you sent me?
• 2:11
  Did I miss anything?
• 2:12
  He and he did it word for word.
• 2:13
  I wasn't expecting that.
• 2:14
  All right, good, good, good.
• 2:16
  so welcome Dave.
• 2:17
  and today we want I I I wanna drill you about one of the I think one of the hardest things for companies is that that, you know, every company says they wanna be better at customer
• 2:31
  experience.
• 2:32
  but in order to do that, I I so so I and Dave, this is me, you know
• 2:38
  Correct me.
• 2:39
  But what I say, and you do more consulting than I, you do way more consulting than me.
• 2:44
  you are ninety-nine percent consulting.
• 2:46
  You are on the road working with all our clients, have been.
• 2:50
  So that's why if anyone's confused, why I'm asking Dave.
• 2:54
  Dave knows consulting and the ins and outs and what works and what doesn't, and why, you know, a project may not be I I assume Dave, with your experience, you could almost tell.
• 3:05
  from the beginning, if a project's gonna be successful.
• 3:09
  Is it is that safe to say?
• 3:10
  Yeah, that's very safe to say.
• 3:12
  And so the one nice thing is that we do know that.
• 3:15
  So we are able to course correct as we go.
• 3:18
  And a couple of things that we sometimes see, John, is you know, kind of a gray area of who owns what, right?
• 3:23
  Who who's actually gonna own, making sure that what we what we are creating is actually gonna get not only rolled out because that's an important piece of it, but then also be
• 3:32
  maintained and be a focus and be talked about and become really be part of the culture.
• 3:38
  And so what we find is we need a person, or as we'll talk about today, people on your team that own that, right?
• 3:45
  And it's not always a full time job.
• 3:47
  We'll talk about this too, right?
• 3:48
  It's not that you are now promoted to the overseer of this project.
• 3:52
  Very often it's a it's part of my job.
• 3:55
  It's maybe a a a third or fourth of my job, and I'm still doing my other my other role and as a
• 4:00
  Dave, just to be clear, when you say my job, we're not talking about Dave Murray here.
• 4:04
  We're talking about the what do we call Project Lead Champion?
• 4:08
  What do we call it?
• 4:09
  usually a project lead.
• 4:10
  The project champion is typically maybe someone more senior that is reporting up to the C suite on how things are going, but the project lead is kind of that more day-to-day
• 4:21
  oversight person that's doing things like logistically scheduling what we're doing, but also then the real important work happens once we get that content created, rolled out,
• 4:31
  and making sure that it is becoming part of the organization going forward.
• 4:36
  Okay.
• 4:37
  So let's talk about what w the De Julius Group Consulting Avatars.
• 4:42
  You've you've actually helped us create this.
• 4:44
  Let's talk about what that looks like.
• 4:46
  Well a and and let's talk about a company that may be looking at investing in
• 4:50
  customer experience.
• 4:52
  Whether it's consulting or they're gonna do it on their own, I still think they need these primary ingredients.
• 4:58
  so what what what do they need?
• 5:00
  I know a lot has to do with the size of company, because but go ahead.
• 5:04
  You you you you you you explained what you think the the two or three ingredients a company needs from a a resource standpoint if that's the best word.
• 5:13
  Sure.
• 5:13
  So our our avatars are pretty simple.
• 5:16
  It's only they represent three people tipping an organization.
• 5:19
  And that first person is the CEO or the owner of the business who realizes, hey, we we've done great things, we're growing, but we can't maintain the experience that we used to
• 5:29
  provide as we were smaller.
• 5:30
  Now that we're getting bigger and adding locations, adding people, whatever it is.
• 5:34
  So it's usually that CEO or company owner that reaches out to us first.
• 5:39
  so if it's a huge company, it might not be the CEO, right?
• 5:43
  Like like when we've worked with Starbucks of the world or key banks of the world and a lot of big companies, yeah, we're not getting to this CEO directly.
• 5:52
  So who who is that person maybe in place of this CEO?
• 5:57
  So you're right.
• 5:58
  It's so sometimes it might be a senior VP of sales, a senior VP of support.
• 6:04
  So sometimes it it's usually someone that's pretty high up, if it's not the CEO themselves, they're on the C suite somewhere very close to it, and they have seen some
• 6:12
  pain points, right?
• 6:12
  Maybe maybe they're the amount of complaints reaching up to them has grown.
• 6:16
  we're losing some good customers because of some holes in our service.
• 6:20
  So they're starting to see they're starting to see a need.
• 6:23
  Yep.
• 6:23
  want to change pri ch chase price.
• 6:26
  Yeah.
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  usually seeing the pain point start to arise and that's why they call us.
• 6:31
  So that's the first avatar, the person who really initiates calling us and the need to start this project.
• 6:37
  The second person on that list is is also right up there identifying the pain points and sometimes brings it to the the owner or the senior VP, whoever it is.
• 6:46
  And that's more of a project champion.
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  So when we say the project champion, that's someone who is still relatively senior.
• 6:55
  But more day-to-day in the weeds on what's happening, right?
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  So they may be the person that actually the complaints go up to from the front line, or maybe the person that, you know, is is s see the sales team struggling with renewals and
• 7:07
  and knows that we have to do something about it.
• 7:09
  So we usually have the owner, CEO, or the person who made the call.
• 7:14
  Then we have more of that senior level champion who's overseeing this, reporting up the chain to the C suite.
• 7:21
  Um
• 7:22
  your in your experience, what type of titles, corporate titles, are are these people who are the project lead that you're talking about?
• 7:31
  Well we're not to the project lead yet.
• 7:33
  We're still on the project champion.
• 7:36
  We're we're on person number two, and that's the project champion, who is is usually still more of a senior role, but and feeling those pain points, but maybe more involved with the
• 7:45
  teams, right?
• 7:46
  And so they they're really pushing it, they see the need for this.
• 7:49
  And then we'll go to the project lead, John.
• 7:51
  The third person is the project lead, and that is someone who is typically a day to day manager that's that's working with our clients, maybe a a supervisor of a frontline team.
• 8:01
  And and they're the one person, or in some cases it's a team of people, and we'll talk about that in a little bit as well.
• 8:07
  But they're the one person who really owns the project.
• 8:10
  And when I say owns the project, they're focused on on scheduling, who's involved, getting other other managers involved and and being a part of this, kind of rallying the troops,
• 8:21
  if you will.
• 8:22
  And so just to break it down again, John, I would say that of our three avatars, the first one is usually the owner CEO.
• 8:28
  The second one is the project champion.
• 8:30
  So
• 8:31
  They're kind of the higher level person that was assigned this and is on the hook to make sure it happens, although they're not in the day to day weeds.
• 8:37
  And then the project lead is the person who is in the day to day weeds, but also someone who's on that level, right?
• 8:43
  They're they're working regularly with the frontline teams.
• 8:46
  Okay.
• 8:46
  And so from a project lead standpoint, if I'm a a a CEO and looking for the right project lead, what where where where have you the people you that that's who you're working with
• 8:57
  on a daily, regular basis, weekly basis.
• 9:01
  who who what what titles have they come, HR, training, chief experience officer, w what what what have you seen?
• 9:09
  So they can come from just about anywhere.
• 9:11
  They can be a a sales manager, they can be a customer service manager.
• 9:16
  You're right, John.
• 9:17
  A lot of times, and I what I see to be very successful is someone that has some sort of training in their background, whether they are the trainer themselves or they they have to
• 9:26
  do some ongoing training in their role.
• 9:28
  That's always really, really helpful for a project lead.
• 9:31
  But the but it really runs the gamut, typically a a manager or maybe a director of a department that is front facing.
• 9:38
  and and so they're they're heavily involved in in hitting those goals, what they need to do.
• 9:43
  but then also they have to have a little bandwidth 'cause we are gonna be putting a little more work on their plates and that's where it can get a little tricky.
• 9:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 9:49
  and I want to come back to that choosing the right project lead.
• 9:53
  But I believe that we kind of have a fourth avatar, and and we're not dealing directly with them as much, but I believe that's what you know we call the the customer experience
• 10:06
  steering committee or ambassadors.
• 10:08
  Um tell us a little bit about that, why that's so important.
• 10:13
  So absolutely.
• 10:14
  So once you have a project lead or leads, and and w we're we always recommend that it's okay to have a project lead by committee.
• 10:24
  So let's start there.
• 10:25
  Sometimes you may have the perfect person, but they just don't have the bandwidth, right?
• 10:29
  You still want them to be involved in this, but they don't have the time to put towards that you need.
• 10:34
  So I've seen it work really, really well where maybe you have a committee of three or a committee of of four that are
• 10:40
  project leads and they're they're kind of running the show but we then expand it whether you have one project leader or three we then expand it to a steering committee as well the
• 10:50
  steering committee is not as heavily involved in the day to day but they typically are involved in all of the workshops that we conduct right so they're they're in there they're
• 10:58
  part of the creation process and we have them on phone calls zoom calls about once a month checking in monitoring progress
• 11:07
  But then they also have some important responsibilities to do as well.
• 11:09
  So this group, the steering committee, is typically made up of leaders, so managers or directors from some other important customer facing departments, whether they're frontline
• 11:20
  or maybe back of house, right?
• 11:21
  So a lot of times we might have, say, a manager or director of the customer support team as the project lead, but we might have a director of sales on the steering committee or
• 11:32
  director of finance or you know the some IT people.
• 11:36
  So
• 11:36
  So sometimes they're front of house, back of house, but it's other leaders within the organization.
• 11:41
  Sure, contact centers is in there a lot.
• 11:44
  Yeah.
• 11:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:46
  regional managers would they would they okay, okay.
• 11:50
  managers managers can be very important in this because we need them to go and carry the message, right?
• 11:54
  So if they're not part if there's too many regional managers and they're not part of the steering committee per se, then we might want them to be part of that ambassador program
• 12:02
  that you brought up as well.
• 12:03
  So so they're they're understanding this, they're they're trained on it, and they can really go talk the talk when they're out there in their regions.
• 12:11
  Alright, so a a a CEO is listening, or I guess it could be any level, and they want to truly make customer experience their key differentiator and not just do lip service, not
• 12:26
  just have everyone read a book, not just have
• 12:31
  Bring in a speaker one time.
• 12:33
  they they wanna they wanna build a culture around this or or evolve a culture.
• 12:40
  so tracking four things.
• 12:43
  We need C-suite executive sponsorship, right?
• 12:48
  what does that look like, Dave?
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  And how do you know it if
• 12:52
  When you're on a you know, y you and Claudia are on a lot of Claudia's our our business development director and you're on a lot of calls leading up to just if they're even
• 13:02
  gonna, you know, work with us, um, what's a red flag or a green flag to know, all right, we th they do have because as you know, just writing a check for a budget isn't executive
• 13:18
  sponsorship.
• 13:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:20
  'cause if they're chasing the new shiny object, but then they're on to something next week and they pull the project lead away from you like we've had happen before because they
• 13:30
  have to put her or him on an you know, another fire and then you're starting w it's not gonna work.
• 13:35
  We're gonna look bad.
• 13:37
  Yada So what is something we'll go do this wall for c thing.
• 13:41
  What is something that either a green flag or a red flag, and maybe I just described the red flag that you need to hear or this CEO who's listening needs to realize what
• 13:52
  commitment they they have to have at that level.
• 13:55
  Well, I think the first thing, especially at the CEO level, is they have to understand that this is an organizational-wide initiative, right?
• 14:03
  Every every team member needs to understand their role when it comes to the customer experience and how we can all be focused and moving in the right direction with that
• 14:11
  experience.
• 14:11
  So what I mean by that is a red flag would be a CEO calling up and saying, Hey, I don't know what's wrong with our customer service team.
• 14:18
  Complaints are through the roof.
• 14:19
  Can you come fix them?
• 14:21
  Right.
• 14:21
  So if it's if if the CEO is just saying it's a department problem, go fix that department.
• 14:25
  Then may we could probably help fix that team a little bit, but it's not going to get to the level of buy-in across the entire organization to really, really make it a successful
• 14:35
  project or as successful as we'd like it to be.
• 14:37
  Because really what we're talking about at the end of the day very often is some some culture change, right?
• 14:41
  That we're looking at things a little differently.
• 14:43
  We're understanding how important our customers are, that we're all involved in the customer experience.
• 14:47
  So a definite red flag, John, would be, you know, go fix them because something's wrong, as opposed to.
• 14:53
  a CEO understanding that we are trying to change the culture.
• 14:56
  And that's important because we know there's going to be some some things that come out of a project like this that are that are real cost savings, some real dollars and cents, but
• 15:05
  aren't just customer experience.
• 15:07
  Like when we work with a company, typically their team member retention increases, right?
• 15:11
  So they're keeping their people longer because they have more of that sense of purpose.
• 15:15
  So there's a lot of things that happen to an organization in a positive way once we start doing this work.
• 15:20
  And so
• 15:21
  A CEO that can really kind of see the future understands that and and make sure that they're they're helping support this, but working towards that organizational buy-in
• 15:31
  because it is for everybody at the end of the day.
• 15:33
  And CEOs really can can drive that.
• 15:36
  Yeah.
• 15:37
  you know, one of my red flags, is if we're not even speaking ever in the in in in the pre planning or pe p pre signing, if you will, to the to the senior level.
• 15:49
  Like if they're just having someone go out and and and look for RFPs and all that
• 15:55
  But then when it gets, you know, close, you know, I if if we can't if the CEO or whoever the the the executive sponsor is, isn't getting on calls and wants to tell us our vision
• 16:05
  and weeding us out as much as, you know, then that that concerns me, that that that you know, they don't want their fingerprint on it.
• 16:13
  do you agree with that?
• 16:15
  I agree with that totally.
• 16:15
  And and a lot of times what you just described also kind of falls into that same scenario that I mentioned where the CEO just sees it as a departmental problem, go fix that
• 16:23
  department and off we go, as opposed to we need to re-look at this as an as an organization and understand who owns what and how we all have to be a part of this.
• 16:34
  anything different about the the champion?
• 16:37
  kinda the same?
• 16:39
  or d ne different nuances, red and and and green flags there?
• 16:43
  If and and again, c let me c clarify for our listeners and ask you a question.
• 16:49
  In a smaller company, the those first two avatars might be one and the same, correct?
• 16:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:58
  But in in
• 16:59
  a in larger companies they're they're they're they're gonna be totally different.
• 17:03
  But even in a smaller company, we've had all three, right?
• 17:06
  Even with a company, say the size of 250 people, we've had the owner reach out to us and kind of want this project.
• 17:14
  We've had the project champion who's, you know, typically like maybe the VP of sales who has to drive results.
• 17:21
  They're not gonna be your my primary contact.
• 17:23
  I'm gonna be talking to them weekly necessarily, but they're charged with driving some results.
• 17:28
  And then the project lead is is the day-to-day liaison.
• 17:31
  But getting back to your point of the question.
• 17:33
  So for the project champion, what are some green flags?
• 17:36
  What are some red flags?
• 17:37
  Well, same one, right?
• 17:39
  If if if they're high enough up in leadership, they may still see this as more of a departmental problem and go fix that department as opposed to we all need to be working on
• 17:48
  this together.
• 17:48
  So that that holds true for both of those typical types of positions.
• 17:53
  But you know, typically what we see is the project champion is way more involved, right?
• 17:59
  And in the weeds because
• 18:00
  They they've been assigned this task, right?
• 18:02
  That the the CEO asked them to be the project champion.
• 18:05
  They need to make sure that it works.
• 18:07
  They need to they need to drive some results.
• 18:09
  So typically the project champion is more involved, is part of calls.
• 18:13
  We do, you know, they are on the phone with us on that monthly basis when we do steering committee calls because they want to be in the know.
• 18:20
  They want to be able to report back up and understand what's happening.
• 18:23
  So usually there is some pretty good communication.
• 18:25
  with the project champion because they've been assigned this and, you know, they have some ownership of the project.
• 18:31
  Okay, good.
• 18:32
  Now you know, and it's funny, whenever I'm describing the four avatars, the fourth being the the committee, the the CX committee that we talked about, I always say this is most
• 18:46
  important.
• 18:47
  But I say it about all four, right?
• 18:49
  But it kinda is.
• 18:50
  Like if if if you don't have one, if you don't have senior buy-in, if you don't have Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Howard Schultz, t Tony Shea, you know, so obsessed with creating a
• 19:02
  culture, not a department, on customer experience, no one's gonna follow.
• 19:07
  You know, and and and that so but but you know, now we're gonna get to the project lead, which aka but could be the chief customer officer, it could be the chief experience
• 19:16
  officer, it could be any of those things.
• 19:18
  This person is so critical, i for so many reasons, but like you said, they have to have the bandwidth and and I wanna make sure we describe what that is because I don't want
• 19:28
  someone thinking they have to go out and hire someone full time for this job.
• 19:32
  you know.
• 19:33
  But the other key thing well, they have to get it, right?
• 19:38
  And and and we've been thrown people that had the bandwidth but didn't necessarily get it or didn't you know or or
• 19:46
  didn't model the behavior and and you know you're you're telling me you know you the project lead that we need to be better and you know you're a hypocrite, you know, you
• 19:56
  don't treat people well, blah blah blah.
• 19:57
  but the other one that's really you know, get it is is elusive and you know it's hard, but the gravitas.
• 20:05
  If they don't have the gravitas, right?
• 20:07
  Because they have to go and demand to the people, CEO and and and project lead champion, hey, hey.
• 20:15
  You're not giving us the attention it deserves.
• 20:18
  You're not getting back to me.
• 20:19
  You're not signing off.
• 20:20
  You're not doing that.
• 20:21
  But also with the steering committee and all the department heads in the company, they have to have that like, you know, gravitas.
• 20:30
  Otherwise, I'm not gonna, you know, get back to him, listen to him, believe anything he or she says.
• 20:34
  So help help me, you know, clarify or or correct what I'm saying there.
• 20:40
  No, a hundred percent.
• 20:41
  And so that's why very often the the project lead themselves is usually already a manager or maybe even a director, right?
• 20:49
  So they have that experience of of leading others, seeing things through, maybe overseeing a project or two.
• 20:56
  Right.
• 20:56
  But but to your point, John, they they need to be able to have maybe a more difficult conversation with someone above them, right?
• 21:02
  Someone who's a director or or a VP in a meeting or
• 21:06
  go back and really push for things and be vocal and make sure that it's staying on on the front burner.
• 21:12
  And so they they do have to be a really strong communicator.
• 21:15
  That's why, as you know and and people that are listening today probably know when we do CXEA, our executive academy, speaking is a big part of that because we know you have to
• 21:25
  take the message back and deliver it well, whether it's a one on one with your CEO or maybe you know, giving an update to the the board, whatever that is.
• 21:34
  Right.
• 21:34
  So that's why it's an important piece of that.
• 21:36
  So communication is really, really important.
• 21:37
  They have to have that.
• 21:39
  They have to have that kind of comfort of of having those conversations and and driving results.
• 21:45
  Right.
• 21:45
  So so you know, someone who has overseen a project before and had some success could be a really good fit.
• 21:51
  it it doesn't always have to be, you know, the manager of the contact center or the manager of customer service.
• 21:57
  It could be, but it doesn't have to be.
• 21:59
  That might not always be the right person.
• 22:01
  for this role.
• 22:02
  And so very often when we're talking about project leads, we're seeing someone that is coming from the marketing team, someone that is coming from customer service, some sales,
• 22:11
  could be really anywhere in the organization, but typically it's someone who has had some leadership experience.
• 22:17
  So they've overseen a team or overseen others.
• 22:20
  And very often they are also seen by the organization as maybe an emerging leader, someone that you've already pinpointed that's gonna
• 22:26
  gonna grow and so maybe they're a manager, but we would like to make them director of of experience or, you know, we ha we have that kind of future view that this may become its
• 22:36
  own full time position or its own department down the road.
• 22:39
  And we'd like you to start shaping it now with knowing that you're gonna oversee this down the road.
• 22:46
  So we get this a lot, Dave, and what's your thoughts?
• 22:49
  you know, I we can't start yet because we don't have that person and we need to hire that person.
• 22:55
  Um, or we hired a person we think is gonna be perfect for this.
• 23:00
  That makes me a little scary, because you know, you don't have a track record, you don't have the know if the person's gonna be around in six months.
• 23:07
  You don't know if the person truly gets it outside the interview, you know, which everyone's gonna, you know, appear that they get it.
• 23:15
  what what do you recommend if that's the case where they're saying, you know, we're we're hiring for that person.
• 23:20
  Well, the the first thing I would mention to them is very typically, especially in the early goings, this is not a full time job yet.
• 23:29
  It it could grow into one and for a lot of organizations we we work with, it does grow into full time responsibilities of managing this project and keeping it going.
• 23:38
  But usually in the early going, it is not a a full time position.
• 23:42
  So that is why we often see someone from the marketing team or someone from, you know, another team.
• 23:47
  That has some bandwidth where they can spend some time on this, but it's not their only responsibility.
• 23:53
  So that would be my first concern that you're hiring someone at a salary, and you know, there's only maybe about you know 30 to 40% workload right now, unless you are hiring them
• 24:03
  in a job share where they are going to work on this and also work for the marketing team or whatever else, or be a trainer, whatever that may look like.
• 24:08
  And that that could work out really, really well.
• 24:11
  So that's why very often.
• 24:13
  And you you brought up, you know, maybe the person doesn't have the gravitas or or kind of that that track record.
• 24:19
  That's why so many organizations we work with do go by project lead by committee, where it might be two departments that work really closely together that are front facing and two
• 24:29
  directors are working together on this project.
• 24:31
  One has maybe a little more bandwidth than the other, one might be a little little better communicating internally.
• 24:36
  So they kind of use advantages or strengths from each one to create a a team.
• 24:41
  That's going to be a project lead.
• 24:42
  And as I mentioned before, we've had some organizations have as many as four project leads on that team.
• 24:47
  And it's it's gone very, very well.
• 24:49
  Usually there's one or two that kind of emerge as the leader of that small group and and do a little more of the work.
• 24:55
  But so to answer your original question, the first thing I would warn them is early going, it's probably not a full time position.
• 25:02
  Yeah.
• 25:03
  Well and so that that's a important question.
• 25:06
  you know, I'm I'm a CEO from a different company thinking about committing to really getting aggressive with our customer experience.
• 25:13
  And and whether they're hiring a a a consulting company to help or they're not, I I still think all these things that w you're outlining are critical, right?
• 25:25
  what am I looking for?
• 25:28
  in a project lead as far as time.
• 25:30
  Like, you know, so I understand if they have the bandwidth.
• 25:33
  Is it five hours a week?
• 25:35
  Is it, you know, more?
• 25:36
  W w what what what's you what's your experience?
• 25:40
  Yeah, I would say it's probably out of a 40 hour week, it's probably averaging about eight to ten hours when you count everything, right?
• 25:49
  So you'll have so let's say you're working with us at the Julius Group.
• 25:52
  You're gonna have an hour phone call with us every week.
• 25:55
  There's gonna be some projects or things to work on that come out of those calls, like you know, scheduling scheduling a workshop and getting the room and and invitations for who we
• 26:05
  want.
• 26:06
  maybe meeting with the steering committee to decide who we want in that room.
• 26:09
  So there are some other conversations, other meetings that have to take place.
• 26:13
  So I would say it's roughly eight to ten hours a a week, knowing that some weeks that might be four, some weeks it might be ten the full ten, depending on what we have going on
• 26:21
  and what work has to take place.
• 26:24
  And do you think that's a is that temporary?
• 26:26
  Is that only during the duration of working with a consultant or working on the project yourself?
• 26:33
  And does that go away after that work is done or do they always have some responsibility post I don't know, launch?
• 26:43
  Yeah, to be successful, they always have to have some responsibility, right?
• 26:48
  And so they always need to make sure that let's say the organization wanted to have daily or weekly huddles, right?
• 26:55
  So they have to they're the ones that are really holding other departments, other department heads accountable and making sure that what we've created and what we rolled
• 27:03
  out is really out there happening in the trenches and it's a focus and we're seeing the results.
• 27:08
  So it it is ongoing, right?
• 27:10
  This isn't
• 27:11
  This isn't a project where like, good, that's done.
• 27:13
  Now I'm gonna go back to the marketing team full-time.
• 27:15
  There's always gonna be some work for that project lead.
• 27:18
  And again, some organizations we work with have actually turned this into, it does become a full-time role because they add some other experience.
• 27:25
  Maybe, maybe they start doing more more metrics, right?
• 27:28
  So maybe they're doing surveys or doing some other things, and that would fall in into this role as well.
• 27:33
  So it can definitely evolve into a full-time position, sometimes even a small team that is focused on it.
• 27:39
  but if it doesn't evolve to that for your organization, chances are you're still gonna need that ownership and need that project lead to oversee things on an ongoing basis.
• 27:48
  And so I got a lot of things going on through my head that that that that is go so so with the project lead and we've worked with huge Fortune 100 companies that do have a dedicated
• 28:01
  chief experience officer, customer experience officer, chief customer officer, all all different titles but same same type of position.
• 28:10
  And we've really seen
• 28:13
  the ch CXO, if you will, evolve over the years.
• 28:17
  I you know, for the longest time, I wanna say maybe from, you know, the end of the nineties, early two thousands up until I don't know, maybe the pandemic, that was that was
• 28:28
  the fastest growing C suite position in corporate America.
• 28:33
  but as we know, it's also the first one that gets cut.
• 28:36
  When shit hits a fan, they don't see the results, a recession, a pandemic, all those things.
• 28:42
  And and I'm always you know, my thing on it is it's usually not the person's fault.
• 28:48
  a lot of times people rush
• 28:50
  to promote them or hire them, but they didn't really have a good job description.
• 28:55
  They didn't have, you know, the KPIs, which we like to call ROX return on experience dashboard.
• 29:01
  The things that we can say, you know, is this a a a a a worthwhile investment financially or not, versus we need to cut some payroll and, you know, that
• 29:14
  You know, that's a warm and fuzzy job.
• 29:16
  What's w so so so where are we at with the chief experience officer position?
• 29:21
  Are you dealing with more or less of them in your job?
• 29:26
  And what do you think makes it successful today?
• 29:29
  If you have one.
• 29:30
  yeah, so I feel as though the there's still the same amount of people doing that job, John, but I feel like maybe the title isn't there anymore, right?
• 29:40
  So there's still there's still people doing those responsibilities, but they may not be called the CXO right now or the experience officer.
• 29:48
  I feel that also a lot of times that whoever is overseeing it right now in an organization is more as a director role.
• 29:55
  So or or maybe even a VP, but not quite.
• 29:57
  C suite level.
• 29:59
  So that's that's a little bit of a shift.
• 30:00
  I see a lot of organizations still have that focus, still have that role, but it's not it's not a C suite role as much as it was before the pandemic.
• 30:08
  And you're right, that's where we kind of saw that shift take place.
• 30:11
  But in order to be successful in that role and on an ongoing manner, for me, one of the most important things is that that person or that department, if it is a department, their
• 30:25
  biggest focus needs to be
• 30:27
  Holding managers accountable to doing what they are supposed to be doing when it comes to this initiative.
• 30:33
  And here's what I mean by that.
• 30:35
  Managers, as as we know, John, we talk about this all the time in our world-class leadership focus and internal culture focus.
• 30:43
  Managers, especially middle managers, are so important to any project success.
• 30:47
  Right?
• 30:48
  They can they can make or break a project if they care about it, if they're supporting it, if they're recognizing team members for a great job, coaching in the moment.
• 30:56
  So
• 30:56
  They're so important in that.
• 30:58
  And so one of the things that I see a great project lead do is they maintain that focus even after we're done working with them, right?
• 31:05
  We have the content created, it's rolled out, we started huddles or whatever it is we're gonna do to reinforce, and they're off and running, and the the project lead is still
• 31:14
  reinforcing and holding managers accountable to doing their jobs.
• 31:17
  And what I mean by that is because the other thing that can happen and is not as successful is when that
• 31:24
  customer experience officer or that that customer service department, whatever it's called, if they all of a sudden become the owners of this initiative, right?
• 31:32
  And what I mean by that is the managers don't handle things themselves.
• 31:36
  They say, go call that team or go call that person, right?
• 31:39
  And all of a sudden complaints start going over there.
• 31:41
  And if we're celebrating milestones like an anniversary for a team member, the card's not coming from the manager, it's coming from the customer service team.
• 31:49
  Right.
• 31:49
  So it becomes a a watered down version
• 31:52
  of what we would like it to be.
• 31:55
  So again, in my view, a really successful project, project leader is going to make sure that managers, directors, whomever, are doing the things that we've asked them to do and
• 32:08
  it doesn't fall back to to somebody else.
• 32:10
  Yeah, yeah.
• 32:12
  the other thing I really like about how the successful CXO position has evolved is i and this justifies the salary if it's done right.
• 32:24
  It's no longer
• 32:27
  the customer experience officer, you know, it it's the chief experience officer, or director of experience, whatever level you want to give it.
• 32:35
  But now it oversees not only the external customer, but the internal.
• 32:42
  And and now it's it's it's because it's an it's an ecosystem of experience.
• 32:48
  Everything
• 32:49
  Yeah, you know, and so w we we call it three th you know, three things, you know.
• 32:53
  Yes, we have to provide a phenomenal experience to our external customer, but we aren't gonna do that if we don't achieve that with the internal.
• 33:03
  And so
• 33:04
  HR, I've seen you know the most successful chief experience officers where HR and marketing report to them.
• 33:12
  you know, and and and and they're right up there with the CFO, COO, you know, you know, in that C suite position.
• 33:19
  but making sure we're hiring the correct way, making sure we're onboarding the correct way, making sure we're ever boarding the correct way.
• 33:26
  and then, you know, even the vendor relationships, too many times companies forget that that.
• 33:32
  an experience and those relationships are so key and it's not just about squeezing them.
• 33:39
  for, you know, every discount you can get out of and and and stringing out sixty, ninety days because you're gonna need your vendors to step up for you when times get hard or
• 33:50
  you're in a pickle or all those things.
• 33:52
  So I really like I think that's much more successful.
• 33:55
  But it does take a higher caliber a person to be able to do that.
• 33:59
  you know, the the entire ecosystem of experience.
• 34:03
  Yeah, and I'll tell you something else that we see that happens sometimes and can derail a project like this is that person has to realize, or or people, if it's a department, that
• 34:14
  they are not the gotcha police, right?
• 34:16
  They can't spend all their time catching people doing something wrong or not living up to the expectation.
• 34:22
  They need to support them, right?
• 34:24
  So they need to support the manager so they can go be successful, so the managers can then go and support their team members so they can be successful.
• 34:30
  But a lot of times
• 34:31
  Especially depending on the company culture.
• 34:33
  Sometimes people are in that role, whether they're part of the steering committee, project lead, or maybe even an ambassador team, and we'll talk about this a little more in in
• 34:42
  detail in just a second, where they feel that my job is to go out there and catch people doing something wrong and and make sure they know that's not how we do it and we gotta fix
• 34:50
  it and I'm tired of this, right?
• 34:51
  And so that's just kind of the wrong mentality.
• 34:53
  And so a great project lead and a great project lead team.
• 34:58
  really sees themselves as as a support function at the end of the day and making sure that all their team members, all their leaders have what they need to be successful.
• 35:07
  Yeah, I love that.
• 35:08
  I love that.
• 35:08
  And and you know, we're gonna make this a two part podcast series because I haven't got to the questions I wanted to ask you yet, but I really think this is important for our
• 35:20
  listeners.
• 35:22
  and I I also I feel like we're may we may be making it sound really hard.
• 35:27
  Well it is, it is.
• 35:28
  but
• 35:29
  Today on this podcast part one I wanna end on in the next one we're gonna talk about, you know, s selecting each one of these, you know, c you know, and and w what what
• 35:39
  characteristics you know, they should have and what
• 35:43
  does a for all of well for p project leads and and the CX steering committee, what what are their what are their responsibilities, blah blah blah.
• 35:53
  But actually Dave, now as I think about and I and and you you probably call it different things, but I thought I I I I thought of a fifth avatar
• 36:04
  In this business model that I always tell people they need, I don't know what we call it, and that's frontline buy-in, right?
• 36:13
  Because we can create, I could have the the commitment to be the next Chick-fil-A of whatever industry we're speaking.
• 36:22
  I can have a really, really good project lead, he or she could have a really good customer experience steering committee, but if it's only built
• 36:33
  In the Ivory Tower by corporate and maybe a third party consultant, you'll never get the buy-in at the frontline level.
• 36:43
  And there's many, as you know.
• 36:45
  complexities of that.
• 36:46
  And I think that's where we, you know, that's what do we call the people that attend our workshops?
• 36:51
  I should know this.
• 36:52
  besides it there it it's a a an add on to this CX steering committee in that room.
• 36:58
  The frontline people, do do we have a name for them?
• 37:01
  Typically, we just call them attendees, but sometimes they become ambassadors.
• 37:04
  Like I when anyone ever sits through one of my workshops, I always close it and remind them that they're an ambassador now of this project, right?
• 37:11
  Because they were part of the creation committee, right?
• 37:13
  They because when we do a workshop with a client, we want to have some frontline folks in there, we want to have some mid-level management, we want a great representation of the
• 37:22
  entire organization and multiple departments, whether they're front of house or back of house.
• 37:27
  But
• 37:28
  They are truly helping us create the experience of the future.
• 37:31
  They are helping us create the content that we then want to roll out and train all of our team members on.
• 37:37
  Right.
• 37:37
  So I always remind them that hey, you you're you're here from the beginning.
• 37:40
  You were picked to be here for a reason because either you're a leader or a leader by example or whatever those reasons are, you know, people specifically ask for you to be
• 37:49
  here today.
• 37:50
  And that's the steering committee going through and saying, who do we want on this in this session?
• 37:54
  So you were specifically asked to be here today to help us create this.
• 37:57
  And now I'm asking you to go and be an ambassador of this when you hear people talking about it or when it's rolled out, right?
• 38:03
  That you're you're talking about this positively and making sure that your fellow team members know this is important, right?
• 38:09
  This isn't just, you know, the flavor of the month or some other initiative that if we avoid it long enough, maybe it'll go away.
• 38:15
  No, this is important.
• 38:16
  I I was there.
• 38:17
  I helped put this together and this is really gonna help us be better as an organization.
• 38:21
  And you know, a A, they have great feedback.
• 38:25
  Um, because all the other levels, C-suite, executive champion, project lead, and steering committee, which correct me if I'm wrong, is made up of leaders of different departments.
• 38:40
  Okay, none of them in most cases are currently in a customer-facing position.
• 38:47
  They're they're leading a customer.
• 38:48
  They
• 38:49
  Maybe haven't in years.
• 38:51
  So, Dave, how are you gonna tell me what I should be doing when you haven't done this in five, ten years and things are totally different now than when you were in my position?
• 39:01
  So w the the the frontline customer-facing people in that room have brilliance, you know, to tell us that we don't get enough from them.
• 39:13
  But they're representing their teams.
• 39:15
  And like you said, they help create the systems materials training.
• 39:20
  And then they go back a and they're the they're they're they're saying, guys, we got something really cool coming out next month and you know, I help create it.
• 39:29
  I being your coworker, not your boss.
• 39:32
  And the other thing that's really important about that frontline group is we need them because we need them to tell us what is actually happening out there.
• 39:40
  Right.
• 39:40
  So if we have a group together that's mostly managers and they haven't done the job the job itself in a while, they may, they may know and they do know what should be happening,
• 39:50
  but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is happening, right?
• 39:53
  And so, you know, and we also need that group to be like, hey, you know what, this is a great idea, but this this we don't have the time for this right now because of X, Y, and
• 40:00
  Z, right?
• 40:00
  So they they really give us
• 40:03
  Some great guidance of you know what what's a great idea versus what's truly gonna work in the trenches in the moment when I'm on that phone call about to answer.
• 40:12
  And so that's also what helps it be more successful because we're we're creating some things that aren't pie in the sky, that aren't, we hope we can try and do this.
• 40:20
  They're gonna help us make sure that we can do it.
• 40:22
  And if we can't do it yet for whatever reason, we don't have the right software or whatever, then we put it in the parking lot and we say, okay, this is a great idea.
• 40:29
  That we can't do yet in 2026, but it's it's top of the list for 2027 because we like to work this in.
• 40:35
  So usually when we come out of any one of our workshops, we're we're ready to implement some great ideas, some great focuses, but then also have a pretty decent parking lot of
• 40:43
  some things we want to continue to work on down the road, which also would typically fall under the the management of that project lead.
• 40:54
  Yeah.
• 40:54
  Yeah.
• 40:54
  All right.
• 40:55
  This is great, Dave.
• 40:56
  you and like you always do, you teach me a lot.
• 41:00
  And I appreciate there's so many more things I want to talk about episode two.
• 41:04
  again, I I want to wrap this up around if I'm thinking about doing this, if a company's thinking about doing this.
• 41:10
  I don't want them to just, you know, jump in without knowing what it's gonna take and the commitment it's gonna take, not to scare them, but to prepare them.
• 41:18
  but also, you know, we get a lot of questions who should be on that steering committee, who should be the f customer facing
• 41:26
  people in that workshop room that are ambassadors at the front line.
• 41:32
  How do we prepare them?
• 41:33
  How do we keep them engaged?
• 41:35
  The question, you know, I I we always get is all right, what if we have a I don't know what's the the nice way of putting it, an antagonist or or or lack of a better word, you
• 41:47
  know
• 41:47
  Do they need to be on it?
• 41:49
  And I think people will be surprised with our answer, at least what what I'm leaning towards.
• 41:54
  because if they're not part of it, they're gonna be against it, right?
• 41:57
  And and and and things like that.
• 41:59
  Also, what else do we need do do companies need to be prepared to do this in our next episode?
• 42:05
  like
• 42:06
  the return on experience dashboard, the KPIs.
• 42:09
  Because if we don't have that, we don't know if we're, you know, if we're moving the ball, you know, gaining yards, gaining enough yards, justifying the the the return on
• 42:19
  experience.
• 42:20
  And something that we have in our proposal that we open with, Claudia opens with this and we take very seriously, but we say we will only take you on
• 42:31
  As a client of the DeJulius Group, if we both agree that the value you receive from our consulting agreement is far greater than the fees you pay us.
• 42:43
  And that's huge.
• 42:43
  And again, this doesn't even it doesn't it doesn't matter if you're hiring the D Julius group or consulting or doing it yourself, it's still an investment of time, people's
• 42:52
  hours, and and if you're not creating those.
• 42:56
  KPIs return our experience, you know, that directly relate to the success of this project, you won't know.
• 43:03
  And and, you know, there's gonna be finger pointing and all that.
• 43:07
  What else am I missing for our next episode, Dave?
• 43:09
  'Cause you have there's so much here.
• 43:12
  and I love it.
• 43:13
  Yeah.
• 43:13
  one one thing I just want to mention is while we're gonna talk about so much in the next one, and we talked a a lot today, right?
• 43:20
  There's a lot of things to be focused on.
• 43:22
  And you brought this up, John.
• 43:23
  I think it's a great point.
• 43:24
  We don't want to scare people away, but we want you to be prepared, right?
• 43:27
  We want you to know what you're getting into.
• 43:29
  And so I'll just I'll just finish on this.
• 43:32
  To that point, we want you to be prepared, but you also have to keep in mind that there probably is no perfect time, right?
• 43:38
  There there is no time to say, okay.
• 43:40
  I I like this.
• 43:41
  The best time was ten years ago.
• 43:45
  The second best time is today.
• 43:48
  Yeah.
• 43:49
  there's always gonna be that fire that pops up that someone has to put out and they're gonna have to learn to deal with those things that are part of their job, part of the part
• 43:58
  of things that happen in businesses and still manage and maintain this project, right?
• 44:02
  So you can't wait where they have this clear runway and nothing else happening because chances are that's not gonna happen and you're just gonna keep keep pushing it off.
• 44:10
  So I would say you know, our message is be as prepared as you can.
• 44:13
  Here's what you need, the project lead or leads.
• 44:16
  Pick your steering committee and, you know, commit to this and then let's just dive in and start doing the work.
• 44:22
  Dave, I appreciate you.
• 44:24
  thank you for thirteen plus years of leading and championing the customer service revolution.
• 44:30
  How can if people have questions for you, Dave, or they wanna pick your brain, what's the best way to get a hold of you?
• 44:36
  Yeah, just shoot me an email.
• 44:37
  I'm at Dave at thedijuliusgroup.com and I'll get back to you as quickly as I can.
• 44:42
  I'd love to talk about this stuff, so I'm always up for talking through a a problem, a question, so we can either have a discussion on email or schedule a quick zoom and talk
• 44:51
  through it.
• 44:52
  Where you headed this week, Dave?
• 44:54
  boy, this week's a doozy.
• 44:55
  I'm going to Portland, Maine, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, New York City.
• 45:00
  Wow.
• 45:01
  Good.
• 45:02
  Good.
• 45:02
  All right.
• 45:02
  Well, I hope we can get back at this for to to follow up with next week's I appreciate you.
• 45:08
  D Mur Murray.
• 45:10
  thank you, Revolutionaries, and we will see you next week.
• 45:15
  Bye everybody.