Jeannie Walters: 0:09

Hello everyone. It is another edition of the CX Pulse Check here at Experience Action Podcast. I'm Jeannie Walters. As always, I am interested in hearing from you, so don't forget. You can leave me a voicemail. Just go to askjeannie. vip and I will answer your question on a future episode. But today's our special monthly episode where we dive into what's happening in the world in real time around customer experience, and I'm delighted to have a special co-host with me Today we have David Avrin. David, welcome to Experience Action and the CX Pulse Check. So good to see you.

David Avrin: 0:48

Good to see you as well, looking forward to a great conversation. We'll roll up our sleeves, talk about the issues of the day, and I'm ready.

Jeannie Walters: 0:57

Excellent. Well, David and I know each other through speaking and the National Speakers Association. You're the author of several books about customer experience and marketing and some other things Anything else that people should know about you before we dive in.

David Avrin: 1:13

Nothing that they need to know but, like you, I speak and I consult. I have a new book called Ridiculously Easy to Do Business with. We can talk about that later, but always eager to have a conversation about current events and how it pertains to our industry and how do we help business owners, leaders and others create a dynamic, memorable, preferable customer experience.

Jeannie Walters: 1:37

Yep, yep. And you know the world is changing so fast these days, right? Customer expectations change, the way we do business change, the way that our customers want us to do business change. So we have to constantly keep our finger on the pulse of not just what's happening in kind of the customer experience business, but in all businesses and then how people are living their real lives. So I love these episodes because we get to jump into not only what's happening where we live in the United States, but also around the world. And so the first article that I pulled out for us to discuss is from the New York Times and it's called In Japan, turning the Tables on Rude Customers. And really this is about a shift that's happening in Japan which, it's noted, is famous, comes to even I hate to use this word but kind of abuse of service workers. So you know, I think this is a moment in time where this might be a cultural shift there. So I'm just curious what were your takes on this?

David Avrin: 3:00

Well, part of the take was that we're seeing this trend of abuse towards service workers, call center employees, service workers. We're seeing that globally. It's a bigger issue in Asian cultures because there's such humility and there's such an emphasis on service, and so when service isn't doing well or doesn't go well, the servers themselves feel obligated to humble themselves and ask for forgiveness. But what's interesting and you sort of alluded to it at the beginning was that our expectations and we're all customers right of somebody, or clients for speed and flexibility and convenience and simplicity of process that's shifting dramatically, and it's shifting because of what other industries are doing and it's training us to be.

David Avrin: 3:46

Some people call it spoiled. I don't. I just say we have an expectation of greater access or greater speed or whatever that might be, and so there's a clash there when you look at cultures like Japan, where people are very humble and of service at the same time, that some of those expectations might be unreasonable, and so when they're not met and what the article certainly highlighted was that they're hurtling a great deal of abuse towards employees as a result, and for the first time ever, they're having to, as companies, protect their workers and make some blanket statements and signage and others that says you cannot abuse our employees and here's a standard. And the standard had always been internal, but now they're exhibiting a standard externally, which is really new.

Jeannie Walters: 4:38

And I thought this was interesting because my minor in college years and years ago was sociology and there is a sociological perspective to this where some of the workers were saying, well, we were told to kind of let them take it out on us because they've had a bad day or because their boss was mean to them and they have to give that to someone. So we'd rather have it give them, give it to us than their families. And then it started escalating. Where you think about that bigger discussion of is there a sociological thing happen where you know, if we are in a culture where bosses are told that it's okay to treat workers a certain way, how does that trickle down? And you know, the mission of my company from the beginning has been to create fewer ruined days for customers.

David Avrin: 5:31

Nice.

Jeannie Walters: 5:31

And that's thank you, and that's really because I believe that makes a better world, because if we can really connect with people in that moment where they need something or we need to provide them something, then that means that they can really carry that with them instead of kind of piling on the negativity. But the other thing that struck me as I was reading this was a few weeks ago. Everything's fine, but I ended up in the ER with my teenage son and he has a tree nut allergy and it was one of those unfortunate times, very scary. But he was fine and they a lot of. It is just observation, right, they take care of him and then you've got to just make sure everything's fine for the next few hours. So we were just kind of hanging out in the ER in one of their bays for several hours. Of course it happened at 10, 30 at night, of course, because that's the only time.

David Avrin: 6:21

That's the only time our kids need to go to the ER.

Jeannie Walters: 6:25

Yeah, we've been there. And so we were there 2, 3 in the morning and we were finally getting discharged and the nurse came in and looked at my son, who's 17, and said I just want to thank you for being so polite. I deal with a lot of kids here who are not as polite and of course I'm thinking, wow, that's so nice and I feel so proud of him. And then she left and my son turned to me and said I literally did the bare minimum. I said please, and thank you.

David Avrin: 6:53

Yeah, it's crazy. That's where our standard, but you know what. Going back to the article, here's what's interesting. And you and I both consult for CX and when one of the things that I talk to organizations is that you know what we do everything we can to make sure that our customers don't leave unhappy Because, unlike 20 years ago, they have a bullhorn today that can reach around the world. The ramifications of underperformance can be pretty profound because they've got access to Yelp and TripAdvisor and Rotten Tomatoes and Glassdoor and social media. But there is a line, and the line is abuse of our employees, verbal threats and others.

David Avrin: 7:27

That's the non-negotiable, and I talk at when I train teams and others as well. As we do everything we can, even when we know we're we're right, we fall on our sword. I mean why? Why have an argument over something we're not going to win? Find a middle ground. What's it going to take? We try and resolve the issues. The only non-negotiable is when abuse is hurled at our team. The conversation's over and at that point we can only take the side of our employees. That cannot happen, it cannot be allowed to happen, and so it's an interesting cultural thing in Japan, but I think in America. I think it's not that that difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to have employees that don't have attitudes, but but we do everything we can to make it right, even if it's something you know we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll eat the cost just to make sure they don't walk away unhappy. But that line is is abuse or threats can't cross it.

Jeannie Walters: 8:23

And I think a key part of that in preparing our employees for that is understanding what that looks like, understanding that there are times where they could be frustrated and upset with the situation and that can feel like they're attacking us personally. But really that's about kind of de-escalating that situation, helping them feel heard, all those things, because you know it's not fun when somebody is taking it out on you as the person. So that's why, yeah, I'm going to be very curious and be watching what happens in Japan, because they have such a long history of this and now they're kind of shifting into this world where they might have to put different lines in the sand than they have in the past.

David Avrin: 9:08

So that was-. We're also cognizant globally of what conveniences and what products are available, so there's a global aspect to all of it. There's a cultural thing there, but they're conscious of what we're doing as well, and I also talk to teams. I understand that impatience is not abuse, frustration is not abuse, abuse is abuse.

Jeannie Walters: 9:33

And so part of it is just having those conversations. But employees need to know that the employers have their backs in those situations, absolutely. And you know there are real physiological responses to that too, and so even frustration and irritation, all those things. We still have to focus on the wellness of the people and give them breaks, and give them coping mechanisms and all those things when they need them, because that's a real reaction that we can't always control as well.

David Avrin: 9:53

And probably manifest, no more so than what's happening with call centers right now. We're in a pandemic of abuse. We know that attrition in call centers 40% and more, and part of the problem is that organizations and I don't want to go too much on a tangent, but they make it so difficult to talk to a real person we're dealing with chatbots and AI that by the time somebody can actually navigate that and get to a person, they're already at a 12 in terms of frustration and I think it's cruel what we're often doing to call center employees. But you're right, their wellness, giving them breaks, rotating off, difficult kinds of things. There's a lot of new strategies because being a call center employee is very different than it was even five, 10 years ago.

Jeannie Walters: 10:36

It sure is, and I think, making sure that the technology and the data is visible in the right places so that we can acknowledge oh, I see you talked to a chatbot. I see where you are in the journey. That can make a huge difference.

David Avrin: 10:48

I know right, Absolutely yeah.

Jeannie Walters: 10:50

Yeah, all right, let's move on to our next one, where we are going to talk about something that I actually heard about this kind of through the grapevine. First, and this is about Chipotle and the fact that they had a little bit of a rumor happening and then it picked up on social media where customers were complaining that their portions were not what they used to be.

Jeannie Walters: 11:14

And so what happened was there was this kind of rumor that swept through social media that said if you pull out your phone and film, you'll get higher, you'll get more portions. And so people were doing this all over and finally Chipotle actually went and investigated. So this is from CBS News, Money Watch, and the headline is Chipotle customers were right, Some restaurants were skimping.

Jeannie Walters: 11:41

Ceo says and I thought the whole evolution of this was pretty fascinating because it really did come from social media. And then when you start hearing what both Chipotle did and they even had some outside firms actually look into this and there was a lot of news around this and the flip side is the CEO came out and talked about it, which I thought was great. They talked about the fact that one in 10, they averaged one in 10 of their stores was not providing the appropriate portions, and the CEO really embraced this idea that part of their values as a brand is sizable portions. That's what people go there for, so they want to make sure that they are delivering on that throughout, but they're still. They noted the inconsistency and so I thought it was interesting that it was born from social media. But the other thing that I liked about it was the CEO kind of coming out and being a little authentic. Exactly, Exactly. So what'd you think about that?

David Avrin: 12:43

Well, I think it's part of a trend. I mean, the most obvious thing on the front end is that inconsistency kills brands. Inconsistency kills franchises even more, because part of the promise of a franchise is that you have a consistent experience across it. So it's good. Skimflation and shrinkflation right, and shrinkflation, of course, is less product in the same packaging, and we've been seeing that for years. You want to go into a real basic level.

David Avrin: 13:17

Do you remember when we were kids and we would get that bazooka gum with a little comic inside, the little pink? Well, that used to be a solid cube. And now if you get a bazooka, there's like these big ridges, because they're just putting, found a way to do less product within the same thing. But of course, skimflation is something different which is making us well from their perspective, food costs are high. So if we just give them a little bit less, we take that scoop and we shake it a little bit so it's not overflowing and it's just down to the line and it's just perfect. Well, it's not what we're used to, and so when they're skimping because of food costs, I get all that.

David Avrin: 13:53

I think the calculus is wrong and the calculus is that we can save money by using less product. But the reality is, as customers, if we feel like we're getting cheated or we're getting skimped on, they've done everything they need. They brought us in. We went to their location, especially this retailer restaurant, right, we paid money and then we had a disappointing experience. It's like the antithesis of what we try to do. They're much better off raising their prices by 20 cents than giving us a less than experience, because that carries forward and we're not making decisions in a vacuum. We're not. Should we go to Chipotle?

David Avrin: 14:29

No, we're like we're hungry and you go to wherever they are, and within the same parking lot there's six other restaurant choices. So I think, from a management perspective, I think it's a very, very poor strategy of skimping. They're better off being transparent. But we're also saying I saw an article the other day there was a story on the TV news of not only expecting a 20% tip, but then they were doing a 10% surcharge for increased labor costs and another fit. And you realize next thing you know you're at 35, 40% on top of it, and then we feel like we're being nickel and dimed. You're better off rolling it into the price. So it wasn't surprising. Once again, good on the CEO for responding, but it's a trend we're seeing everywhere.

Jeannie Walters: 15:15

Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the shrinkflation and also the tipping, because these are kind of becoming ubiquitous. And when we are, I mean the thing that always strikes me is you, you call around, you get you know rates for hotels, or you look at the site that tells you all the different rates and then you actually go to book the room and it's like you know 25 to 30% more because of the fees and this and that, and it's like, oh, you didn't want that room anyway. Right, like that room's bad room. How about this room? It just gets crazy.

David Avrin: 15:47

Resort fee and then the hotel and then whatever tax and all those things, and some of them it's just the processing fee. I mean it's all nonsense. Yeah, exactly, but I think we're getting wise to that and I think we're losing patience with that. There's been a lot of conversation lately. You do counter service and they flip the little white screen over and they're asking for a tip and like it's not our job to pay their, their team. But if we got service, but if we're buying at the counter, it's like really.

David Avrin: 16:18

And then I saw one the other day. It started at 25, so 25, 30 and 35, and then of course you feel bad if you put in a custom amount. It's a broad dynamic of nickel and diming. And I do a lot of international travel as well. I'm in Europe in several cities in November and you go over there and you don't tip because they pay their people and so that's a bigger issue long-term. But back to the article itself. I think they create a very bad taste in our mouth all pun intended when we feel like we got cheated.

Jeannie Walters: 17:00

Yep, yep. And I think the other thing that struck me about how the CEO handled it was that really, he was basically saying you know what we're going to retrain and recoach these stores, which is great, but there were all sorts of questions about how? About you use like a measuring cup?

David Avrin: 17:21

How about you?

Jeannie Walters: 17:22

create standards that people can follow, because I think sometimes this happens in customer experience land too, where people say just deliver a great customer experience to every customer every time. What's the big deal? And we don't go into the idea that the way we approach it with our clients, it's a mindset, strategy and discipline. You need to put some rigor to what is the experience that you want to deliver and how do you get there. And I think that that still is a little questionable to me with how they're handling it. But I am encouraged that they embraced it, they reacted to it and they're being visible and authentic, which people want to.

David Avrin: 17:57

So part of the challenge real quickly I'll just throw the last thing before we do the last article is that if there's a dichotomy between what we have traditionally experienced and sort of the new policy, so they can roll this off and here's our, our new policy and here's the new measure. And if that's less than what we're used to, oh yeah. What you can't do is you can't stop the conversation and it can grow very, very quickly online.

Jeannie Walters: 18:22

So I think we've seen that yeah for sure yeah. That's not something you want. But so, David, we are in the summer of 2024. It is an Olympic season. Have you been watching the?

David Avrin: 18:35

Olympics. Love the. I love the heart of of of these young people. And as a father, we've got five kids who are no longer kids. Doesn't mean they're off the payroll, but at least they're out of the house. But yeah, I, I, I love watching it and the agony of defeat and somebody works their whole life and then, by a 100th of a second, they got the bronze instead of the gold and it's just anyway. Love every minute of it.

Jeannie Walters: 19:12

We've really been enjoying it too and I love it. I love it. Every time it comes up I think, oh yeah, it's the Olympics. And then suddenly I'm like USA, I'm chanting in my living room and it's just a fun, I think, universal feeling. But I thought this was interesting. This is a little different. It's not quite CX for us, but the article is actually off of Medium and by Paul Segreto I hope I'm saying that right Parallels Between Olympians and Entrepreneurs and I just thought this was a fun topic because it's some of the things that you might consider, like you know, working hard, training, all those things. But I just thought it opened up like this way of thinking for me about you know, we we are celebrating our 15th anniversary here at Experience Investigators this year and I know you've been in business quite a long time, thank you, and you know to think about the journey of an entrepreneur and how we get here and how that does compare.

Jeannie Walters: 20:13

Of course, we're not, you know, training in a gym with different coaches for six hours a day, or whatever they all do, but I just thought the parallels were interesting. So I'd love your take on this because you've been an entrepreneur for a long time.

David Avrin: 20:28

There are tremendous parallels, but there's also a deviation. I look at. I look at these races that may come and they're training for their, their whole lives. You know, for this one moment I the parallel I do is sometimes like like spelling bees right, you have all these things, all this stress. They work for years and this one moment and one person wins. Where we deviate is as entrepreneurs. We're having to, we're working, you know, nobody's working 40 hours. We're working 60, 80, whatever that might be. We're not our own boss. Every client is a boss and it's not about that one moment. We're having that one moment all day, every day, and so preparation is so important.

David Avrin: 21:14

Competing against others who are very, very, very good at what they do is a significant parallel. The difference is our race happens all day, every day, and we get up the next morning and we do it again all day, every day. And for those of us who love what we do, it's awesome. But it's not about one moment. It's about a series of moments and, of course, here's the parallel with the customer experience. As you know, it's that series of moments that lead up to up and including, and through the purchase and the delivery and the review and the final. Every one of those moments matter and we're being evaluated at every one of those.

David Avrin: 21:58

We're competing against others who are very good at what they do in those moments again and again, and that's why it's a different breed for those of us who are entrepreneurs than those who get a paycheck, and there's benefits to both there are. There's benefits to knowing what your next paycheck is going to be, but I think there's tremendous. But not everybody can be an Olympian. Not everybody is going to be able to, is willing to put in the time and the effort to compete and to run that race. And for those of us who are entrepreneurs, we're running our race every day.

Jeannie Walters: 22:33

Yep, well said, yes, I like that a lot.

Jeannie Walters: 22:36

And you know, the other thing that kind of struck me as I was watching the Olympics this week was they mentioned how many of these competitors in the Olympics actually train together right, like they have the same coaches.

Jeannie Walters: 22:49

Or a lot of the international players come over and play college in the United States so that they can get that exposure, so they become teammates literally with these people who they are competing against in the Olympics. And that kind of struck me too, because there are so many moments in entrepreneurship where maybe you can't do it alone, maybe you need that boost from somebody else, maybe you can't be in two places at once. So we refer things to each other, we bring people in as we need them, and I think that takes such a high level of trust and just like trust of the person that you're of course bringing in, but also trust of yourself that you know what I can't do it this day, but you know what. I know this client is going to come back to me or whatever that is. And that all comes back to the experience that we provide people too, and so this whole idea of kind of coopetition, you know, I think that's very much part of the world we live in now.

David Avrin: 23:51

So I look at it also from another perspective, which is, and I and I talk to audiences about this all the time and I talk about the competitors and I and I ask leaders and I said why you, what's that? And there's this, this pervasive belief that you know our businesses, we've created the cure for cancer that tastes like chocolate, right, and the? And business and customers have but to you know, know that we exist and know, and the reality is I tell them, I said, your competitors. Here's the worst part about your competitors. They're all very, very good and they're all, by and large, they're very, very nice people. They're just trying to feed their families, just like we are. They're not the enemy. And I think we see the same thing in sports and we see that camaraderie afterwards and the coming together and the hugs because we respect each other. We are competitors.

David Avrin: 24:40

But then much of my business is I speak a lot to associations, and so these are industries who are competitors. Some are vendors and others but they come together, just as we will this weekend as an industry for the National Speakers Association. But every industry comes together and they learn and they share and they grow together and then they go back to their markets and they compete. But there is there is something about, about others who who get us because they're also in whatever crazy industry you're in. That's why it's so important. I talked to business leaders and those who are watching and listening. You need to attend your industry events. You need to know what's coming down the pike. You need to collaborate with others because maybe someday they'll get a referral, someday they'll handle some overflow, but they're not enemies, they're competitors and they're colleagues and we come together professionally. And athletes have that great esprit de corps as well that I really respect.

Jeannie Walters: 25:32

Yep, I totally agree. One of the things I talked about in kind of my retrospective about the 15 years, was when you come together with the people who are in your industry, you're both able to learn and teach, and sometimes teaching is the best way to learn. So it's like this wonderful virtuous cycle. I think when we surround ourselves with people who we can learn from constantly we can, you know, experiment with, we can, we can get those gut checks, all of those things it's so, so important, so well. I so appreciate you doing this with me, david.

David Avrin: 26:09

Thank you for having me on. This is great.

Jeannie Walters: 26:11

And I you know, I know you just came out with a new book, so can you tell us about your new book?

David Avrin: 26:16

Why? Sure, my new book is very much my mantra, it's my message. You and I are customer experience colleagues, but my whole thing today is about being ridiculously easy to do business with. I think we're in a time of pervasive quality. Everybody's good and it always hasn't been that Everybody's good or good enough. There's a great equalizer when you look at Yelp and TripAdvisor and Rotten Tomatoes. If you were a poor player in a marketplace you'd be discovered and outed pretty quickly. And so my new book I'm very excited it's been doing very well. We just sold the rights in India. I'm doing a big European tour coming up in November, but it's on Amazon and audiobook and well, it's coming out in audiobook and hardback and everything else. But it's conversational and good stories and new statistics and there's a lot of new learning in recent years and much of it from our colleagues who I've quoted, many as well in our industry. So pick it up Ridiculously easy to do business with. By David Averin.

Jeannie Walters: 27:13

Excellent, and that will, of course, be in the show notes and available too, so highly recommend. Yes, everything that we talk about is really for the betterment of everybody, and that's what excites me about the work that we do. It makes people's jobs easier, it makes being a customer easier and it just makes like walking through life easier, and I think we could all use that so well. This was super fun. Thank you for being here with me at CX Pulse Check, and I can't wait to see you IRL, as they say, pretty soon too. So, and thank you everybody for being here with me at Experience Action. As always, I'm here to answer your questions on customer experience or anything that you want to throw at me, so check that out at askjeannie. vip and I will talk to you next week.