LFG with JJ, E10 - Ted Stodolka

Episode transcription

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[00:00:00] Juan: Welcome to LFG with JJ, the podcast that helps you level up your CX game by navigating CX and AI technologies. I'm Juan Jaysingh, the CEO of Zingtree, the AI-powered customer experience platform, providing solutions that turn every human into an expert. 700 plus companies across 54 countries trust our solutions to boost their contact center proficiency, enable their customers to self-help improve their internal processes and more with Zingtree.

[00:00:30] Ted, great to have you here. thanks for taking time. today is, President's day. I, I don't know if it's an official holiday for you, but it's an important day and you're here with me. So thank you for joining the LFG with JJ podcast. Excited to have you here. Ted, you've been in the customer experience space for over 30 years, almost close to 40 years.

[00:00:56] I believe you've got a ton of great experiences. So excited to have you here. welcome to the show. Thanks,

[00:01:02] Ted: Juan. It's scary to hear 40 years of doing anything. It makes me sound really old, but it's true. Yeah, a lot, of time in the CX space.

[00:01:13] Juan: Great. you're officially the Head of Global Consumer Experience and SVP of SharkNinja now.

[00:01:22] you've had a ton of other experiences as well, which we'll get into today. Let's jump right into it for today's agenda. We'll talk about your background, even your personal professional background, what you're comfortable sharing, how you got to where you are now.

[00:01:36] and then second, we'll talk about, your experience in the CX space, what's happening in the industry, you've seen it over multiple decades, and a lot of things have changed. I was seeing a post today about how Air Canada got in trouble for their chatbot not working. And, the court ruled against them.

[00:01:56] It was a funny post on LinkedIn about it, where the consumer won on, in, in the Canadian court. so I'm sure you have a lot of views on, everything that's been going on in technology over the last few decades. and then also You know, spend some time, talking about, what you're seeing, in your job, everything that's going on with AI, next gen tech, and then we can wrap up with, some of the fun stuff you do outside of job.

[00:02:23] So that's the plan. let's jump right into it, Ted. Who is Ted? I would love to learn a little bit about you where did you start your, career or how did you get into, this type of career that you started at Marriott in the customer service organization. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your personal Professional background.

[00:02:43] let's jump right into it.

[00:02:46] Ted: Sure. Oh my gosh. The Ted story really is what you're asking for. Yeah. so I was in, the kind of that transition from high school to college and, needed to make some money and, didn't want to work in a carwash anymore. I've been working in carwash for Four years, like part-time, was that

[00:03:05] Juan: your first job, first paying job when you were

[00:03:08] Ted: Yeah.

[00:03:09] Yeah. it was a car wash and then I did like outbound telemarketing, as well. Where did you grow up? Where,

[00:03:16] Juan: was this

[00:03:17] Ted: in? That was in Omaha, Nebraska. But, the up on telemarketing was something I was unfortunately really, good at and I hated every second of it and I wanted out of that as well.

[00:03:29] So I got, somebody told me about this job at Marriott and I went out to the call center and I got a job and started working there. It was. I think initially it wasn't even full time because I think it was still doing one of the other jobs But it just became a full time gig and like then it lasted 30 years So this is

[00:03:48] Juan: what when you are like 18 when you're trans?

[00:03:50] 18. Yeah Is it common for having like customer service entry level people who are mostly I've seen them mostly being around 22 When they're just getting out of college. This is what kind of like their first job But is it common, to have 18 year olds getting into this field?

[00:04:06] Ted: No, I think I was one of the exception.

[00:04:08] And I think the, reason that, Mary, I don't think I was some amazing, human, they were like, oh my god, hire this really young guy. I think it was they were Primarily trying to hire people to work nights and weekends and you only can find so many of those people and Like 18 year olds are willing to do that.

[00:04:24] So I think it just you know, it worked out really well

[00:04:27] Juan: That's awesome. That's awesome. That's great And then and then you were so you were doing this because I remember I did some cold calling When I was in college when you were, you know bugging your alumni to donate back to your school Doing that's more common where folks are between the age of 18 to 22.

[00:04:46] So you were in a real, and you were doing schooling around this time. so you had your regular school hours and then you were any free time you had, you were working in the Marriott call center.

[00:04:56] Ted: Yeah, indeed. And, like you, I did the cold calling thing before that, and I hated that. it just that works for some people.

[00:05:04] It's a great fit for me. It was, again, it was not a horrible, it was not a good fit for me. But it was a great fit for the company because I was really good at doing that work. I just hated it. Hated every minute of it. Yeah.

[00:05:20] Juan: it's the tough, that's a tough job as well. it is jobs are really hard as and then outbound telemarketing is extremely hard.

[00:05:29] A lot of no's, a lot of hangups. you've been in, you, you've, grinded your teeth in different, jobs that have a high pressure and a low satisfaction. Indeed. Yeah,

[00:05:43] Ted: indeed.

[00:05:45] Juan: that's great. So then how did you evolve? I, from, I, it's just really interesting because, I've spoke to a lot of CX leaders like yourself, and it is amazing to see how pretty much most of those folks I've talked to started their careers, not as young as you did, but started their careers in call center, they were taking calls themselves.

[00:06:06] Ted: I was working nights and weekends, primarily, and then that kind of shifted into day work and a couple of like movements, but really it was all in this frontline entry level reservations work and.

[00:06:21] I actually enjoyed it. It was nice, like, when you were done helping a customer, you were done. There wasn't any follow up headaches, you didn't have to like, 50 things, it was like, you were done, and you just took the next thing, right? It was a really nice setting, and then, I don't even remember how this happens, You usually have somebody tap you on the shoulder because you're a subject matter expert, and they're like, I need you to be like the quote unquote supervisor on Saturday. And then by the way, babysit these other six humans and we're not going to train you or help you with that. It was one of those scenarios, right?

[00:06:54] just help. And I thought, okay, I'll give it a try. And it was, it worked out really well. And I, it wasn't that long before it was like a permanent promotion into this supervisory role. and then all of these other things just kept happening at work. At that time, Marriott was growing really quickly.

[00:07:12] And so it just provided these endless opportunities that would just present themselves with people. And somehow, I think I did a pretty good job of creating a good brand for myself within the contact center. So folks were like, Hey, that Ted guy, you can count on him. So all of a sudden one day they were like, we want to create this kind of, today we would call it like tier two or tier three group, for problem resolution and, for a select group of Marriott brands.

[00:07:42] So the Marriott brand itself already had a group, but they wanted to, and so they just asked me to do it. And I was like, yeah, sure. I'll do that. and then all of a sudden that business was just growing exponentially and then my team was growing quickly. And then I actually. Grew into kind of like this Uber role with all the brands underneath my portfolio and all the issues and even issues for, Marriott executives.

[00:08:04] So we were handling issues for Mr. Marriott and his behalf, which was really a cool part of the job. And, from that, I just kept promoting within Marriott and I did some site selection work for years and opening up contact centers and closing them. And then, had this really cool role for, gosh, I don't know, like seven or eight years, Juan of, opening closing and running contact centers all over the world. It was just like the best job ever. 1 minute you're in Mexico City and then you're in London and then you're in Cape Town and then you'll do a stop off in Kuala Lumpur and, it was great. And, you couldn't do it for a better company than Marriott.

[00:08:45] Marriott's a great group to work with, number one, but they have really good travel benefits for employees.

[00:08:50] Juan: So you travel well. Do you get free rooms or do you have to pay like a very discounted rate? How does that work? when you

[00:08:57] Ted: travel on business, obviously, they're just expense, but as, an employee, you get discounted rooms.

[00:09:03] And then, for folks who work for the company for 25 years or more, there's a special program, where you get benefits for the rest of your life. so that's a, nice thing. Yeah.

[00:09:14] Juan: Working for the government and, but it's still private sector and you get, great benefits. Sounds Yeah,

[00:09:21] Ted: it really is. It's great stuff.

[00:09:24] Juan: That's awesome. Was there a moment in time, so that's amazing that you were able to, you started out with someone that's asking you to help and you took on, took upon yourself. Yeah. And then it just evolved into you managing more people and running call centers.

[00:09:38] transforming call centers and, setting up and opening call centers and all that great stuff. So was there like a aha moment for you where you felt at there's, whether it could be the early start of your career or doing the middle of your career at Marriott that you felt like, wow, okay, I've got my path here.

[00:09:57] I'm becoming an expert. I love what I'm doing and this is how I'm going to continue to evolve. Yeah, I maybe a mentor or someone who know who you know, something that made you feel like okay Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna make it here.

[00:10:12] Ted: I had a lot of really amazing bosses, so I couldn't even Like point at one, I think some of us are just lucky in life, where you go from one great boss to the other, who help promote you, develop your skills, maybe have a little bit of fun as well.

[00:10:31] And, but I had one boss, Very specifically had this conversation with me in my career of, cause I'd also done some software development and I really needed to make a decision, was I going to go down this kind of IT ish software development kind of road, or was it going to stick with the kind of contact center customer service person?

[00:10:53] And I made that decision. I'm like, I don't want to write, I don't, want to write code. That's not going to be my thing. And the interesting part was so much of that work from so many years were. really contact center leader roles, but really the part of the job that always energized me was being the consumer advocate.

[00:11:13] So always being that guy talking about, no, this process in the company is horrible, or wait a minute, this system is Dinks, because they create really bad consumer experiences, right? And so that's always been the piece that drove me, even when I was in software development, I started doing nighttime courses and got certified to develop because I was trying to just solve some consumer issues that consumers were already having really bad experiences.

[00:11:41] And I was like, I'm just going to go find a way to fix them. and so I think that's always been the driver, Juan. I think some people enter this field kind of processing. and I, for me, it's more of almost like a, it's almost like a religious calling, it's like a doing the right thing, doing what people should do.

[00:12:00] It's what companies should do. The value proposition of. you take really good care of your consumers and they'll take really good care of you by buying. So that's what a secondary in my mind. It's there. The primary driver is doing the right thing.

[00:12:14] Juan: That's awesome I'm, glad you said that, that's so hard to do.

[00:12:17] there's a Another, funny post i've seen recently where it said hey customer service is a number one priority for our company That's what most companies say. I unless when it gets really hard, really expensive. So it's like a funny thing because it is hard to do the right thing over and over again.

[00:12:38] And, that's a great mindset to have. Hey, let's do the right thing. And, maybe it may not sometimes show up short term, but long term that's always a. it's always been a winner, so when you do the right thing over and over

[00:12:52] Ted: again, it's very cool. Yeah, and I don't think, I don't, oh, I don't think the right thing is always spending money, or vast amounts of it, or being crazy with it.

[00:13:01] And I'll, I'm going to use an example if I can. Of course. In a past role, I was doing work with our marketing team about, these loyalty points that are earned in the company. And this was not at Marriott. and, the confusion is, everything they put on paper and kind of the guiding rules of the program.

[00:13:22] And then what actually happened if a consumer contacted the CX organization and said, I lost my points last month because they expired and I demand them back. and the CX organization just had this policy. They just gave people back their points anytime they called. So we had this like constantly reoccurring program, process where huge volumes of consumers were writing and calling and just saying, I want my points back.

[00:13:46] And I approached the marketing team in this work that we were doing and said. this is stupid. And they're like, your team wanted to do it. And I'm like, I don't know what happened in the past, but I don't think it's a really good consumer experience to have this huge disparity between what you state and then what you do.

[00:14:05] Because it's just confusing. So if your points expire, they should expire. And if they don't expire, they should, they don't, have them expire. And that if they expire, that you have some reasonable, fair way to deal with consumers. And so we put together a different program. We said, we're not going to give you your points back anymore.

[00:14:23] Because that defeats the purpose of the program. But what we will do is we will make one exception for you one time every year. And we were very open about that with our consumers. We're happy to make one exception for you one time every year. And it was very reasonable. And then we had these kind of Extenuating circumstances exceptions, Juan, so literally we had consumers who were like, had been hospitalized for a year, and for those cases, like those extreme, notable things, we had a process by where we dealt with them. And the thing was, initially some folks were really mad with that change, and they're like, no, I want you to owe it, and we're like, but that's not the program.

[00:15:00] so no. And so even, and by the way, after, a good 60 days, nobody complained about it anymore. It wasn't an issue anymore. And it's stopped all this crazy confusion with consumers. So I don't think that there's this belief where there shouldn't be that. Good service has to cost a lot of money, or you have to be crazy and stupid with things.

[00:15:22] I think sometimes those great examples are wonderful to excite the troops, or to tell a story, or to demonstrate a commitment the company has. Those are amazing. And at Marriott, we had so many of them, and they're needed. But I think on a day to day practical basis, you really need, just a reasonableness with consumers, and generally that works, I have found.

[00:15:43] So that fairness, that great service, is just reasonableness.

[00:15:47] Juan: Yeah, listen, you and I are consumers all the time, so we get to experience this every day. You're a hundred percent right? yes. Can I, would I love if my points didn't expire, if I, got some free service, I'm sure I would at the same time, having clarity, simplicity, directness and, knowledge that is shared with me, there's something that I would appreciate and respect even if I didn't get what I wanted.

[00:16:15] I, and that's happened to me multiple times where, and a lot more, being in the CX space, I see that and I recognize that, and I wasn't in the CX space, I'd be very upset on the phone. I, Hey, this person is not giving me the right information. This person is not, is making me run around in circles.

[00:16:34] but now I understand the work that they were in. the challenges that they face and maybe they don't have the right tools in front of them. So I always tell them, Hey, I'm not upset at you you as an individual trying to do your right job, but I'm really, trying to get to the finish line.

[00:16:49] And, I think your company's not empowered you with all the right, right things to help you do your job well, but that's okay. I'm still frustrated.

[00:16:57] Ted: Yeah. I think I honed some of those skills at Marriott though at Marriott, it was great having. All these opportunities to go into positions and try things and experiment.

[00:17:06] And one of them was again, consumers and their requests for exceptions. And we had this very nice, simple process that again, I think most reasonable people would say, okay, that's fair. You'll do something for me once a year, but we also had a policy for. People like yourself who travel a lot, Platinum members, where we had a different policy.

[00:17:26] I'm an ambassador. I'm an ambassador. There you go, you're an ambassador. I'm at the highest level now. So there's things that happen to you that are taken care of that you don't ever need to know about, and that's beautiful, that's part of the secret. but there's also things they're quite candid about, if you need exceptions to the cancel policy made that they're like, Juan, we'll do so many a year for you, right?

[00:17:49] that's reasonable. And even a standard traveler who isn't the status you have, if you, if they learned about that. They would go, yeah, that's reasonable. Juan travels a lot. You should get more exceptions to it. So I think that to me is what great service is. It's this reasonableness and the expectation where, when you're on an airplane, you don't have to pay to use the toilet when you're on an airplane.

[00:18:09] You get some standard things, right? They're still going to give you a water, but you may not get a free cocktail. It depends on the

[00:18:15] Juan: airline. It depends on the

[00:18:16] Ted: airline. Indeed, And so I think these are some of the things of great service doesn't have to be, somebody carrying you onto the airplane.

[00:18:24] It could be this. Great. This experience that the standard things were delivered over and over really well. Yeah. And, that means a lot to people because most, particularly travelers, most days in their life, most things don't go as expected. Most things don't work as they should. And so just having things work with a company the way that they should is really

[00:18:44] Juan: powerful.

[00:18:44] That's great. we're getting into the CX space here. from the conversation I've had with you and, and your team as well, they respect some of the, things that you say is around, frictionless experience, seamless experience, and, that is also important and I think that's something that you harp on a lot.

[00:19:08] I've heard you say that in various different meetings, we want to make this, seamless. We want to make this frictionless, for the consumer. we'd love to just, Peel back a little bit and talk about the CX industry, right? Like the state of the union, you've been a leader in the CX space for a while.

[00:19:26] What is your view on where our industry is, now where it's heading? we'd love to get your thoughts around that and maybe some of that will be around this, frictionless experience that you talk about a lot.

[00:19:39] Ted: Yeah. I, I'm always blown away when I talk to either someone in my organization, I'm on a couple of advisory boards with CX organizations. If I just talked to a colleague in this space, when they start to create processes or they approach a problem from the company's needs perspective. And I even have this in my role today where I'm encountering it, where we make like a frontline CX advocate jump through all these hoops so they can.

[00:20:10] Inform some backend process that nobody's paying attention to anymore. Or they ask the customer six questions. I recently came across an example where we had a, in a particular market, we were asking consumers these kind of, filtering questions before we even got to really what the consumer was calling about all effort filled.

[00:20:34] crazy amounts of effort. And again, I think it's because I spent so much time in the hospitality space, where the question my team and I had to answer is, what do people really want? And it's funny, because it's not complicated, Juan. Like, when we, kicked it around, it's they really want you to say hi.

[00:20:52] Thank you for calling Bill in the company. My name is Ted. Oh, may I help you? And then to just shut up. And that's really powerful. When was the last time a company just said, Hey, Juan, thanks for calling, Marriott, oh, may I help you? And then just listening to you. That's really powerful.

[00:21:10] Juan: That's really powerful. You're saying that because, what is unique is you work for a global consumer product brand now, SharkNinja, but that is really unique because you come from a hospitality background, service oriented. It's a service oriented background, and you're always serving in that hospitality industry, and that view, I can see that being very powerful in any role that you take.

[00:21:33] And definitely powerful in a, consumer product role and, like being service minded when a call comes in and like you said, Hey, my name is Ted. I see you're a VIP customer at SharkNinja. Thanks for purchasing this, Ninja smoothie machine last week. How can I help you?

[00:21:52] Ted: We just rolled it out at SharkNinja. So we've had this kind of part of who we are, but again, as you grow and we've grown so quickly as a company, things start deviating from that standard and we've had this real big push and we've been really successful when we check in on it and see how we're doing, we get really good scores where our frontline CX advocates literally say that thank you for calling Shark.

[00:22:15] My name is Ted. How may I help you? And then just listening. And then we did the same thing at the end. So all we want to do is make sure when we're done with this conversation that you think Oh, that was nice. And we just say, thank you for calling Shark. We don't ask you six times. Is there anything else?

[00:22:33] Is there anything else? Can I help you with anything else? Can I help you with anything else? This kind of craziness, or I'm going to do a survey, make sure you give me a nod, and all of these odd things, when really, all I wanted to do was say thank you for calling. And that's a really powerful statement, so I think these two things, we start that conversation by introducing ourselves and listening, and then we end the conversation by wishing you a good day, or the rest of the day, or just thank you for calling.

[00:23:00] I hope other companies pick up on these things when they shop the competition or they shop other industries and see What are folks doing out there and I'd love us to be setting the standard of this really Simple delivery of these basic things are very powerful and that we do them very well

[00:23:19] Juan: it's just amazing, like, all the stuff you learn and you hear, it's all basic, simple things, but they're hard to execute. And I feel like I'm hearing the same thing here. these are like basic, simple things, but they're really hard to execute. And that's, it's, kudos to you, and your team to executing and it shows in the growth of SharkNinja, right?

[00:23:39] You guys have been crushing it in the numbers, huge growth, both in the US and, internationally, globally. congrats to you guys on that. so how do you see, you're talking about growth, but growth that comes, sometimes there are some challenges, good challenges, right?

[00:23:57] with growth. So the fast paced growth that you guys all have, how do you see, let's say maybe AI or next gen tech, supporting your, initiatives, there's a lot going on with, obviously we all know a lot going on with AI, but that said a lot going on in AI, in the customer experience, customer support spaces, a lot of people think it's the low hanging fruit, what is your view on that?

[00:24:24] How are you guys thinking about that? whatever you can share would be helpful.

[00:24:29] Ted: Are you thinking, Juan, just like technology in total and how it's being applied or anything

[00:24:34] Juan: in particular? I think technology in total, maybe, some examples within, your work, whatever you're comfortable sharing.

[00:24:42] Ted: I started playing in this realm about five, six years ago now.

[00:24:50] So I think when it was earlier in its development, from what most people can trace this back in probably the last 12 months, a lot of talk about it. But it's been. A topic for a while, and I talked with some of the, most amazing engineers at, I won't, it's a large software company.

[00:25:09] I won't say their name, but amazing engineers when I was trying to learn about it and, they shared something really powerful to me that's applies still now as it did then is they said. Don't try to solve everything with technology, one, but two, with AI. As you approach this, have really, simple, clear use cases that you're gonna attack, and then just evolve that over time as the marketplace changes, as technology changes.

[00:25:37] Because what they had learned from their own experimentation, as well as working with some companies, was where this worked, both for the company and the consumer, was when things were clear. So in my last role, we did work underneath that guidance and we said, how can we just give order status, shipping status updates really easily to a consumer when they call in using AI?

[00:26:05] And the results were phenomenal. Now, some people may go, yeah, But you'd be amazed at the number of companies that, don't deliver that today or struggling to deliver that today, or it's a very structured conversation versus using AI. So we were really successful at saying, Hey, Juan, is that you calling from this number?

[00:26:22] And you're like, yeah. And then we're like, Hey, we see you put an order in, the past, seven days. Are you calling about the order status? And just going through this, very proactive recognition and providing you with what seems to be the most reasonable reason that you're calling and give you an answer for that.

[00:26:39] And then we, started doing some, we did some dabbling with returns as well. And I don't know if they're using that right now, but we had a great. user journey for doing a return on the telephone with AI. And I'm sure there's somebody out there doing it, but at the time we were doing it, we couldn't find anybody doing it.

[00:26:57] And so I think those were really, successful. In my current role, we're looking at similar use cases, as well as some incremental ones. And I, think what we're learning is, in some ways, AI technology would, has blown us away with what it can do. So as you start, Outlining a journey, instead of programming and code and all, we literally used a paragraph of just text that said.

[00:27:23] Create a consumer journey for me, that XYZ, we outlined it and we hit enter. And it actually created a user experience visually in front of us about how the different pieces would interconnect, where there were decision points, like we were blown away. And then the consumer experience in some cases, particularly as you're playing around with.

[00:27:43] order status, those seem to be working really well. And other things were like, maybe you're trying to, work on a product with a consumer and you're like, Hey, can I use AI to do that? The answer is, I think you can, I think in the marketplace, people are telling you like, yeah, you can use AI and solve with self service, maybe a troubleshooting type of case, but I think again, you have to be really thoughtful about.

[00:28:07] Okay, if the consumer has a problem, let's just say with a blinking light on a product and the solution is like a 16 step process, you can't really do that really well over the phone. Maybe you need to text them a link to that knowledge article or so. I think that it's, we're still learning a lot when you get into the more complicated ones, but I think my experience with AI is really Yeah.

[00:28:27] Simple, clear use cases, and don't try to solve everything with AI. I think there's still a deep need for people to talk to people about what they need.

[00:28:39] Juan: I think that's great advice you got from, this large software company. we, see that, we work with hundreds of customers. And, unfortunately some of them have had battle scars.

[00:28:50] I, with, trying to flip the switch overnight to say, Hey, maybe even 10 years ago when chatbots came out, or maybe even longer than 10 years ago. Hey, CEOs and boards saying, use a chatbot, it'll save us a ton of money. Go do it. And then you tried implementing it overnight and, there was a lot of battle scars from that.

[00:29:10] So this time around, you can see from, as we talked to large enterprise customers and who have complex processes, it's almost like what we call a crawl, walk, run kind of game plan that they have. in implementing AI, and, and like you just said, exactly, hey, let's pick one or two use cases, let's get some success there, then let's build on that, and that's how we go from a crawl, walk, run, approach that can, implement AI successfully for our organization.

[00:29:39] we're definitely seeing that, so that's great, that, advice that you got and you're, seems like you're executing towards that, so that's great. If

[00:29:47] Ted: I could add one thing, I think you've seen this in your work as well. I forgot the kind of the foundation. Always allow the consumer to get to a human easily, basically one step, like representative or whatever it is to get out of these kind of structured experiences.

[00:30:04] I think the most successful companies are the one that solve for all the unknown by just saying, Hey, just say human and I'll connect you to a human. I think the ones who really get into trouble are the ones that don't provide you those

[00:30:15] Juan: Actually, you know what, that's a great, it's great you said that, but I've always thought about this, why, because even me, and I know why I do it, but I'm curious what you think, when I get on the phone, I just say human, zero, I put zero, human, but, I do, humans really want to just talk to a human or is it more like a lack of the right solution?

[00:30:38] because you also hear the other side of the story, but hey, no one wants to talk to anyone. They just want their issue resolved. but to your point, I do exactly what you just said. When I call a number, I just press zero. I just press zero because it's ingrained in my mind that, hey, if I go through something else, I'm going to be running around in circles.

[00:30:57] Ted: This is like a weird topic for me because the minute I think I know, I find out I don't know what I'm talking about. I've always worked with the understanding that the reason people want to talk to a human is Look, humans generally rarely say what they actually mean. So there's like the words you use and then what the intention and there's always this difference between the two.

[00:31:20] And so I think it's that is the fundamental of why people say, Oh, just give me a human. They know what I mean versus what I'm saying. And so I think that's the, I think there's that still there. And I think to the other point is sometimes you're just not. These self service solutions, whether they're a voice bot or a chat bot or like a guide somebody can follow that sometimes those are just so poorly executed.

[00:31:42] People are just like, oh, that's just too frustrated. Give me a human. And I think that when I looked at when I look at a lot of data, at least. In my current role at SharkNinja, we really try to make data driven decisions. And so we have a ton of info that we'll sift through before we try to make key big decisions.

[00:32:02] and one of them is this topic of do people really want to self serve? And I have to tell you all the data I have, and we have a lot of it tells me they do, and even in areas where I don't as a team, like my CX team. So when I say CX for SharkNinja, even where we don't maybe have the best.

[00:32:22] Self service solutions. One of the things we hear about the most in our surveying is why did I need to talk to a human? Could I have just done this myself? And so I really do think And this isn't true globally in every marketplace because my experiences, particularly at Marriott, indicate different markets do have different expectations, but particularly I'll just say in Western Europe, the US, Australia, Canada, that generally people really do want to self service.

[00:32:50] They're happy to self service, just like in the travel industry, they're all happy to carry their bags, right? I don't know why, but they do.

[00:32:58] Juan: Yeah, you're exactly on point. We see that all the time. Yeah, so I think that's an area that is we're seeing, changing dynamically, in real time where the consumers want to self service, but then being able to implement the right self service solution is being adopted more and more, and, it doesn't mean you replace a human.

[00:33:19] You still have those humans. and they do maybe different types of complex use cases, but definitely more self services being adopted. We're seeing that. that's, that's great in your, role, Ted, how is. Like, how do you stay relevant? You've been a leader for a long, time.

[00:33:38] What do you do to, help you continue evolving? I, what is work for you? It's

[00:33:48] Ted: connections to professional organizations, whether I'm just a participant, like CX, Leaders in the Know. it's a couple of, Advisory groups that I'm on as well for CX organizations. So Kinsera does great work.

[00:34:06] Frost and Sullivan does great work. and I think just being connected to them really keeps me always in the know. And I think particularly with. The CX world, it's always being connected with technology because again, as you have to, the days of you can do everything over the phone are long gone.

[00:34:25] We all know that, but the solution isn't a single solution. So whether you're talking AI technology, case management, telephony, it's just always being connected to that technology piece has been huge for me. but it's, interesting. Juan, because I think the biggest thing for staying connected is just listening to our frontline CX advocates.

[00:34:46] They will tell you more in a two hour session than you're going to gain from everything I just went through. They're going to tell you what consumers are saying. They're going to tell you where your, systems and your processes stink. They're going to tell you what they read about for some new technology.

[00:35:01] CX advocate and they start talking to you about like things you've not heard. You go to the

[00:35:06] Juan: call center and talk to different people. Yeah. Sit with them. Yeah. I saw you. A post, some time ago about culture creep that gets into that as well. that's a very powerful, post. I think every CX leader or everyone in CX should read that.

[00:35:22] it makes sense and, very well written. So yeah. So tell us about that. so are you learning about like culture creep when you're sitting down in these meetings with, your frontline folks at these different call centers or, and then how you're addressing them?

[00:35:39] Ted: Yeah. in our current world, we have round table discussions at SharkNinja with our frontline and tier two leaders once a week. So there's always a sampling from different groups that we're getting feedback on. And that feeds into these kind of ongoing conversations. And then my Ops team have, I think they're doing it right now, once a month, these kind of more formal sessions as well.

[00:36:02] But again, all of those are through Teams. We're scattered all over the globe and you get great insights. But when you visit, you get the best insights and there's kind of two ways, you pull frontline and tier two and tier three and managers into a room and quality people and training people. And you talk to them, you learn a lot, you learn all the things you probably didn't want to know plus, but where you get the most phenomenal is when you're just sitting there quietly next to a frontline CX advocate.

[00:36:28] And listening to their calls with them and then just chatting with them in between calls and the most amazing things become crystal clear to you. And that to me is where you learn about culture creep, where there's a QA person who was maybe a bad hire, who's been really influential at changing the dynamics of the organization.

[00:36:47] And all of a sudden your people are. Rushing consumers off the phone and all of these things that you're like, wait a minute I've been working for three months trying to figure out why my CSAT went down and my NPS went down And you find out it's like a QA guy At an office in Spain and you're just like how did that happen?

[00:37:03] That's the creep That's the thing where all of a sudden you're like these day to day things start influencing your business And unless you're out there touching it, you have no idea what's driving it. And so Hiring the right leaders, I know we all know this, I'm just emphasizing, is like so paramount because that QA person, in my example, or that trainer, or that frontline supervisor, is really influencing the service that frontline person is giving to consumers.

[00:37:30] Juan: That's awesome to hear. it's awesome to hear that, you've got those leadership views, but also you're ready to get in the weeds and, sit down and listen to your folks and you're 100 percent right. you can collect some information through these weekly meetings, but when you sit in front of them, eye to eye, you gain that trust, you gain that respect where they feel more comfortable to sharing information they otherwise would not have shared, in a survey or in a anonymous, form field, document they filled out.

[00:37:57] I think there's been

[00:37:58] Ted: about, I think there's been four of us, Juan, who visited the contact centers regularly in the past six months, and we pulled all of our lists together. The list of all the things you learn and you find out it's process and policy and all of these things and systems.

[00:38:10] We have a hundred entries. On our list of things that we were following up on. It was that powerful. And they weren't all problems. Some of them were like, give great recognition to Juan for doing it. but there were a hundred different things that were follow up worthy. And I think that is the, the, proof here of like how powerful it is to listen to your frontline

[00:38:30] Juan: people.

[00:38:30] And, it's probably, one is that is great, Ted, because you guys have a caring team, right? So you have people who are willing to give you that feedback. When people stop giving you feedback, then you're like, what's going on? So that's great. And number two is you've got it documented and now you're reviewing it and, some you're taking action, some you may not, but now at least it shows your frontline team that you guys care, they care, you care.

[00:38:53] That's a great setup. That's a great setup to make magic happen. so that's awesome. I know we're coming up on time here, Ted. I appreciate all the time you've given us today. Tell us a little bit about what you do outside of work. I know you're a busy man, even on your day off here. You're, catching up on sales.

[00:39:09] I know we were chatting about that before we got started. what, what, do you do? are you into pickleball yet? What's the deal? What's going on? And what do you do as a hobby outside of work?

[00:39:21] Ted: Pickleball's a big deal in Kansas City. it's a big deal, and I stink at it, and I've played twice.

[00:39:29] And I needed to take the day off the next day. I really realized

[00:39:34] Juan: You know a lot of people who don't play much pickleball they bend their back instead of bending their knees And your back is sore the next day

[00:39:41] Ted: It was a little bit it was bizarre. It was my legs. My legs were like killing me the next day It was like what on earth?

[00:39:48] but so I don't look to pickleball as like my main outlet travel is probably the big thing again I it's why I got into the travel industry when I was young but I love to travel and, we have our trip to

[00:39:58] Juan: Have you been to big places? Or in the U. S. or international? What are your, favorite spots?

[00:40:04] Ted: Yes and yes. But, favorite spot is Italy. I, we go again in April. I think that's our third trip in two years. And I would say that we both are Happy to say we're stuck on Italy right now. We've had the opportunity to see a lot of the world and a lot of the U. S., inclusive, right? And we have lots of great places we want to go, but for some reason, I don't know, Italy's our thing.

[00:40:25] Yeah. Really?

[00:40:26] Juan: Okay, so I gotta, so I'm a big fan of gelato. I love gelato. You've been telling me that you gotta go to Italy, so I haven't been there yet. I've been to other parts of, Europe, but I gotta, get into Italy. I'll keep you posted.

[00:40:39] Ted: Yeah. You've got to do gelato in Italy. You're right, Juan.

[00:40:45] Juan: That's great. you got any big trips coming up this year?

[00:40:48] Ted: Yeah. April. Italy. And then that's probably the only other big one I've got.

[00:40:54] Juan: Great. Great. excited. I, to share this, podcast with you. Appreciate you taking the time. Amazing insight, your experience. that's really interesting to hear you talk about, hey, coming from the hospitality service oriented world and how that influences you and how you think about customer exper customer experience, it makes a ton of sense.

[00:41:16] It's, a huge benefit for consumers that use your product. and, so thanks for sharing your knowledge, before we wrap up. Any advice that you would give to a younger Ted, or someone who is just getting their career started now? and they're thinking about CX, they're thinking about consumers, I, leave us, with something that, gets us fired up.

[00:41:38] I

[00:41:39] Ted: think if you're passionate about the consumer It will serve you well regardless if you stay in the CX realm, if you work in a contact center, if you're at a corporate job, or even if you want to go into marketing or work in social media or revenue, like I think if you're passionate about the consumer, you cannot go wrong.

[00:42:00] Juan: Well said. This is great. Ted, thank you. Thank you so much for, being with me today, and I look forward to catching up offline.

[00:42:09] Ted: Thanks, Juan. Appreciate it. Take care. Okay.

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