Episode 64: “Create Customer Experiences that Matter” with Joan Smith, Managing Director and Global Solutions Lead at Protiviti Digital

Matt: I'm Matt Swain. You are listening to the "Reimagining Communications" podcast, where we discuss the opportunities and challenges facing companies on the road to optimizing their communications for the future. Today, I'm so excited to be joined by Joan Smith, managing director and global solutions lead at Protiviti Digital. Joan, thanks for joining.

Joan: Hey, Matt. Nice to see you, and thanks for having me. Looking forward to our conversation today.

Matt: I am as well. And I actually want to start with your background because you have this really nice mix of media, entertainment, technology, and marketing experience, and now you are in consulting. So, I would love to hear a little bit about your background and your path to this leadership role at Protiviti Digital, but maybe also along the way discuss the perspective that you've gained from these various roles.

Joan: Yeah. Sure. I like to say that my career is a bit of a meandering river. It was definitely not a racetrack. I made a lot of moves along the way and it was always for experience. So, it is no surprise that that is where I spend most of my time, in experience. I started my career in technology, worked in insurance, believe it or not, and spent some time in the media and entertainment world in both technology and moved into this intersection of data-driven marketing, which is really data and technology coming together with the marketing function.

And I had a great opportunity to work at Warner Brothers, spent a lot of time with some really great brands, and at one point decided that I really wanted to figure out how to solve challenges more. So ready for my next challenge and off I went into professional services. I spent some time in professional services, also in marketing, also in the entertainment industry, jumped back and forth a little bit, and really landed on this idea that really what I love is this solving problems and this intersection of where technology was taking the marketing function. And so, then I stumbled upon Protiviti. They found me actually, and I was ready for a new challenge. And they were looking to really start to help their clients figure out how to connect them better to their customers. And so, I undertook the challenge, joined them three years ago, and Protiviti Digital was born out of it.

Matt: I love it. And on that note, you mentioned connecting to customers that the stated mission, I believe, is innovating human connections to build a better-connected future, which is just a wonderful mission. I would love to have you expand a bit on that and give an example of an engagement that embraces that mission.

Joan: Sure. So, when we came up with that, we really thought about again, it was this idea of the world is changing, evolving so quickly. If anybody was not awake, the last three years we figured it out. And so, with everything changing, you are constantly having to think about how to communicate and connect. As humans, we have options. There is lots of noise. We are all super busy as, I mean, we just look at our own lives, right? And how do brands cut through that noise to introduce you to a product or service that really you may want, but how do you get that in front of me so that I get the two seconds of attention to pay attention to it? And that has always intrigued me. And that is really where we spend our mission, is this idea of using technology and always that human element of how do you cut through? And I will give you a good example. I worked with an environmental company in the environmental space, and they are on fire. They are growing so fast that they were growing faster than their organization could keep up. And they were making a lot of sales, but they were having a problem with sales were dropping off. Customers were leaving before they received their product.

And so, one of the things we did was we took a look at the fact that what they were missing were some key elements in the consumer's process or, it was a B2B, in the business process around communicating when they had delays getting product out or communicating when something was going to be delivered. And as soon as we all figured that out together, then we could solve the problem of actually putting communications and moments in that journey that allowed for them to still grow and have their scalability challenges that we could not solve overnight.

But it stopped the fall off of sales. Sales did not fall off anymore. People were not the happiest that they had to wait, but at least they knew they had to wait. They were not just, "I was supposed to get it two weeks ago and it hasn't shown up," which was what was happening before. And so, that is that whole innovating. And then we were able to work with them to go all the way through the life cycle. All the teams that had to touch that product to get it out to the customer and make sure that we were communicating between each other as well as out to the customer in all of those angles. And then you expedite and then you use technology and then you try to improve on that supply chain, right?

Matt: It is a great example, Joan. And I think about our latest annual CX and communications consumer insights research, and we have been doing this for six years now. And one of the interesting takeaways from that was each year, we have asked consumers to state their level of agreement with the statement that most of the companies I do business with need to improve the customer experience they provide. This year, 70% of consumers agreed with that statement. So, 70% think that most companies need to improve their customer experience and that has doubled since 2019. It was just 35% then.

And I think about the drivers for this. It is partially driven by those CX leaders, the companies that provide those wonderful experiences that we all have come to love. And then when we think about how we interact with all other companies we do business, they have now set the bar, and we're looking for similar levels of experience. So, when you think about that from a marketer's perspective and how to cut through the clutter and how to deliver on great experiences, I'd be really curious to hear your feedback on winning and keeping an audience, where the greatest opportunities for companies to improve are on this front?

Joan: Yes. And I will back up your stat, Matt, because it is really powerful. There is a stat we've been using for years. And I think a bunch of different outlets have produced something similar now. But the stat is like, what is the percentage of people who will switch after a bad experience or after a poor experience? And I think, you know, four or five years ago, it was 60%-ish, and it's well up over in the 90s now across industries, across everything, is that because we have options, right, as customers and let's not forget business to business. Those are humans on the other end of that transaction, right?

For brands where experience is the business, they have orchestrated and engineered the whole company around experience. Those are some of the ones you were referring to Matt. We all know those. Those are setting the bar. Most other companies have that lighthouse. They all want to be there. But they may not be structured that way. They may have other priorities. They may have legacy tech, lots of debt in tech, and other things that really get in the way of them really redoing the whole company around that.

So, as a marketer, one of the things to look at is, how can you identify the moments in that experience that are the ones that matter, the ones that have the emotional connection to the end receiver. And can you make those better? Because if you don't make the one that no one really cares about anyway, and they just are like, "The brand's not the greatest, it's not the best," but you get the one right that is the one that I'm emotionally, like, you've got my product on time or whatever it is for your industry, those are the places I would say focus on, figure those out and focus there and make those as best you can, and then start to tackle some of the other ones.

Matt: I think it is an interesting take because one of the other points that we found in the research was that when a problem arises, so talking about the most important parts of the experience, I want to talk to a human being. And we think about all the technology and how tech can play a role in increasing self-service. But when a problem arises, 82% of our respondents said, "I want to be able to talk to a human."

Joan: For sure. And that is one of those things that connects the dots, right? It goes outside of marketing now. Now we are in customer support or customer service, or even client service if it's a B2B organization.

There was another example, I will give you, and this was back in 2020 during the time when the world shut down and a lot of industries had issues, and cost-cutting became really key. So, this was for the field sales reps who needed to drive the revenue. Some of their call center was replaced with a chat-type function, except the chat was thrown up quickly. It was not 100% trained with the verbiage of everything they would be asking.

And so, they ended up not being able to get their questions answered, which meant they could not sell the products, which meant the revenue slowed down even further. Those are the moments that you want to look at because that was a key employee moment that mattered.

Matt: And also, different people inside an organization are incentivized on different goals. And at times when you pull too hard on one lever, like an operational savings lever, you might not realize the impact that has on growth, or, you know, customer sat or other things like that.

Joan: You have hit my favorite topic. And that is, I have been working with clients in my professional services world when I was back at Accenture Interactive, also when I'm at Protiviti. I have been working with clients for years on this topic and helping them think about how to orchestrate and operate to be able to produce experiences or to create them seamlessly.

And that is one of the biggest things that I always focus on, is if you can fix or find, it’s not even fix, maybe it's find, the right incentives that aligns everybody to the outcome you want, it's amazing how that orchestration happens. Even in a company where there might be process issues or tech issues, you just line everybody up with the outcome that you are looking for. And those misaligned incentives a lot of people have them because different organizations are measured different ways.

Matt: We talk a lot about customer experience in what we do, but then also one of the things that we find really interesting in our research is that communications actually play a central role in defining a great experience similar to some of the things we talked about.

And when we asked consumers what their priorities were relative to great customer experience, they also talked about communicating clearly, making it easier to navigate online accounts, being proactive in sending notifications. And also, let me select how I want to be communicated with and please honor my preferences. And we also then ask consumers about ways companies could improve their customer experience. And some of the most selected options were actually tied to relevance in communication. So, improving the timing and relevance, sending personalized and relevant communications.

Joan: Yes. That cannot be understated again, is like the noise and the busyness in our lives gets in the way. So, relevance, when I am looking for it, when you expect I would be expecting that calm is so important because you will catch the attention of a very busy mind or a very busy life, right? And so, what companies have always wanted to do, the holy grail is within our reach, is we've always wanted the technology to be able to look at and say, "How do I know when you, Matt, are looking for a particular thing or it's the right time in your life cycle?"

And so, I can communicate at that moment as close as possible to your moment. And we have the technology to enable it now. There is still some thought in the marketplace around, if I just send you volumes, you will pay attention. Or it is the legalese communication, right, that is so complicated that you just cannot understand it. There is an element thereof, like, we are in a world that's more complex and things. We do have to try to cross that because the legalese does not always make it easy to understand. But we all understand it has to be there, right? As clear as possible is probably the best way to go. It is hard to get there in some cases though.

Matt: So, you mentioned it's hard to get there. What are some of the specific barriers that you are seeing relative to companies delivering on these various customer experience demands?

Joan: Yes. I think if I gel it down to just some key topics, right? One, is data. Data is not always in the right place for the person and the team or the system that is sending the communication. The right data is not there. There’s disconnected systems throughout the journey where that right piece of data isn't making all the way through to the signal, either for the communication to go out or to make it relevant.

The second big barrier would be the fact that you have disparate teams or disparate systems, sometimes, sending communications. So, Team X might be sending something because something triggered, a payment did not go through, or something like that. But Team Y might know that there was a call into the customer support desk about a problem or whatever, something like that. And those two things might not be connected and so you are getting disconnected communications.

The third is if you really look at the AI and sort of the automation and those things as they start to come in and really start to take over, you're starting to see where automation might be triggering something, but it might not be fully trained or fully hitting on the right signal.

And then the fourth one I'm going to go to is in a world that is ever increasingly more litigious and complex and security and control and regulation, especially if we're in a regulated industry or sector, that becomes huge in terms of the number of people that want to think about how to make that calm. So, making sure that no one is going to get any wrong ideas, that it is secure, that it's saying the right things. But sometimes in doing that, we lose the simplicity that a person would understand, and we overcomplicate it.

Matt: Those are great. I think our clients on one hand feel better to know that they are not alone on a lot of these things because we will often say, "We hear that a lot," or you know, "That challenge is not unique to you." But then on the other hand, when they want to improve or they're trying to improve on that just because you're not alone doesn't mean you should keep doing it the same way, they get overwhelmed with defining the vision, figuring out where to start. Is it a tech issue? Is it an experience issue? I would be curious how you help clients navigate through that process.

Joan: So, it's really taking a look at is it an issue around the experience? What is the North Star that the brand wants? And do you know what your end customers want? Again, B2B or B2C. But are you clear on what they would like? And if not, let us go figure that part out. And then from the perspective of the brand or the company, what's the company's goals? Because you always have to factor that in as well, but we should not be focused on that alone. And then marry that to what are our customer's goals. Again, we have to operate a company, so you cannot only be on that side.

And then look at the two together and say, "What is the best way to go after that experience that's going to be the best? And then what are the things that are our limiters that we can or cannot do? Can we move a mountain to put something together?" Or is that just not possible in that organization? Some mountains are too large for today. Maybe they are a tomorrow mountain. Other mountains, we can move them. Depending on where the organization feels and who the stakeholder is. It is always worth asking. So that is one of the things I always do, is we always go in with, "Here's what your North star is telling us. Here is what we think you should do. Now, let us look at the mountains that cannot be moved. And can we make the very best experience out of what we can work with?"

Matt: Right. I am thinking of other analogies in there like if the mountain cannot be moved, is there a tunnel, like an API? You know, if you are summiting the mountain, can you get from base camp to camp one and then to camp two and work your way? So, I think there are a couple different ways you could take that, but ultimately, I think one of the biggest challenges are that people within these companies get overwhelmed because this is another task in a mountain of tasks that they are already facing.

Joan: I have made a career out of trying to tunnel my way through mountains for clients. I am pretty big on that. It is one of the things I have always looked at. It is like, there is a way to solve every problem. Let us just try to find it. As people in companies though, you are right, they get tired. And if you look at what they're doing all the time, a lot of times they're spending a lot of their time not having the bandwidth to be able to solve some of these bigger problems because they've got lots of other things on their plates that are, I like to call them the swivel chair, right? Like, I am manually doing class between systems. I am having to do a lot of stakeholder management.

And so, with the advent of automation and things, those are things where I think as we can improve the employee experience, take some of those repetitive tasks, make some of those easier to allow people to be able to have a little more bandwidth and power or brain power to be innovative about how can we solve those ones that are giant mountains that we have to try to make our way around.

Matt: I love the focus on improving employee experience to free up their time for those other items because we talk so often about the customer as the end recipient, the client, the consumer. But your internal customers, the employee can also benefit from these improvements as well.

Joan: And if you think about the internal employee, they are the best brand advocate you have for any customer. So, if you are tired or you are grumpy because going to work is such a chore because doing your job is horrible on that particular day, we all have parts of our job that are horrible. But that does not put you in the right mindset to be thinking about, "How can I make the customer's experience better," or your interactions with the customers, right? It flows through, and my particular perspective it is short-sighted to not think about the employee experience as well.

Matt: I think there is also an aspect where companies or stakeholders within companies get complacent in saying, "Well, we had a project to improve our CX x number of years ago, and now we've moved on to the next project," where they need to be thinking instead about continuous innovation.

Joan: I was just going to say that CX is not a moment in time. I think there is a lot of companies that wish it were. And in some respects, I wish it were. But the world is so adapting and so moving forward at an incredible rate, right? And AI and generative AI, that is just emerging for us in terms of what that's going to do globally to various different companies and what's going to come out.

And so, when we think about that, you have to think that CX is always something you have to be looking around and saying, "How do I continue to make it better for my customers? And how do I make it better just so that we can operate with more agility and with the best cost structure as well?" Because in the end, if you have a good experience, people are coming back, they are staying, you're not having to spend a lot of money to continue to find more unless that's your growth, right? But you are not doing that to just keep the lights on anymore.

So, as we think about innovation, innovation is not a moment in time either. It is something that becomes the fabric of how you operate because the technology's innovating. The way you can do things, it was too hard to do something before. It will be easier to do something next month, two months from now because there is a piece of technology that you could plug in that is simpler, cheaper, easier. Those kinds of things really mean, as an organization, you need to set up a way of somehow always having that eye on what is happening from a tech, from a process, and from an experience perspective.

Matt: You mentioned AI. We have talked about technology. You are starting to get a little futuristic, near future, but futuristic. I would be really interested in your thoughts on the role that you expect AI and other technologies to play in the future of customer experience and the communications experience that consumers will come to expect.

Joan: I can't predict the future, but what I can say is you're seeing a lot of brands trying to figure it out, and a lot of them are starting in a very smart place. They know they want to be in it. They know they cannot be left behind. They are thinking about standing up some centers of excellence. They are thinking about, like, doing some experimentation, all great ways to start. I think in the content space, as you look at your major platforms, you are seeing AI built in. I think you are starting to see where they can make a lot of improvements and there is a lot of places to start playing.

So, from a perspective of writing some copy, using a prompt, and using an AI generator to help you with a first step there. But then you run into, and what a lot of people have run into, is I have industry language. I may have need to cite sources. I may have some sort of integral thing that I need to make sure I know where my content came from. So, there's thoughts that every brand has to make there. And of course, anything AI gives you is only as good as the prompt it has given.

The easier use cases are the ones that are less client-facing, where it is more behind the scenes, right? It is recording your notes. It is making sure it's doing checking for tagging, where its making sure content has the right compliance checks and things. Those are all things that can be running on the inside in a company, and those are easier and really will save time for employees. I think that is where we're going to see things start.

You will see the pioneer brands starting to play with generated content on the visual side and the copy side. And we are also seeing a few brands making public statements saying that they are not ready yet or that that does not align to their brand. So, I think the jury is still out. I am hopeful that we will find our lane, and I think every brand is going to find it in their own way.

Matt: Joan, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Joan: Great experience, Matt. Great to talk with you.

Matt: Thank you. I am Matt Swain. You have been listening to the "Reimagining Communications" podcast. If you like this episode and think someone else would too, please share it, leave a review, and do not forget to subscribe. And if you are ready to reimagine your communications experiences, consider the Broadridge Communications Cloud, an end-to-end platform for creating, delivering, and managing omnichannel communications and customer engagement.

And lastly, to learn more about Broadridge, our insights, and our innovations, visit broadridge.com or find us on LinkedIn.