thanks for joining us today on the fuel growth podcast what is the right growth equation for your company is it pipeline brand products customers employees join us as we interview ceos entrepreneurs and seasoned executives to explore what it takes to propel your business into growth welcome to the fuel growth podcast hi i'm clint orem and i'm lizzy overland and our guest today is rebecca wedeman ceo and principal analyst at valoir is an analyst and advisory firm focused on the value of technology in customer experience and employee experience welcome rebecca thanks clint great to be here so tell us a little bit more about yourself and valor give us a little little intro to you sure so belwar has been around for several years really focused on helping customers understand the value of technology particularly the employee experience and customer experience space and when you think about it you know customer experience and employee experience we often treat very very separately when we think about technology when we think about operations but more and more they are inextricably linked and so what we're looking at is helping customers understand both from an hr perspective and a crm perspective how i think about creating those engaging experiences taking advantage of the technology that's out there but really maximizing the value of technology which plays into the human factors all of us have acted at one point in our lives as employees and as customers so this podcast is all about growth our audience here today is to is here to listen about the key insights that can help them unlock growth for their company as you talk about technology and customer experience and employee experience connect that back to the growth topic for me sure you know clint i think what we're thinking about large organizations that we work with at valor or small startups there's often a real disconnect between how i think about employees and customers and training is a big part of that right so why do i have a sales kickoff and sales training that's completely separate from the way i train and then send other kinds of employees why am i looking at customer experience and the customer journey in a completely separate way than the employee journey there are lots of things that we can learn if we look at the history of crm to think about not how i just do a better cx strategy but do a better ex strategy that enables my employees being sales service marketing or operations to be that voice of the customer can you give us a a specific example of that employee experience and customer experience being aligned together and how that that helps the company grow well i think what we think about learning and training there's a key area where for a lot of companies it's really broken right learning and training is traditionally sat in hr it's disconnected from ongoing work onboarding may happen once a year and i don't provide that sort of professional personal development and ongoing coaching that i see for example with sales leadership with sales mentorship being able to extend those kind of capabilities through technology to coach not just the top performers not just the focusing club not the folks on the leadership path but everyone within an organization how do i think about building a next generation learning and training strategy that is for everyone in the organization that looks at mentoring and coaching which has often been a key part of the sales organization and extending that kind of capability to everyone in the organization okay so your experience shows that that um it's often the sales team that gets that extra training but the rest of the organization doesn't but but really in today's modern era of of communications and social uh media and and just being connected with your customers isn't it kind of true almost every employee is ends up being customer facing in some shapewear form they do and that's where training and employee engagement really falls short right i separate that whole employee story from the customer story i'm gonna date myself a little bit clint but if we think back in history uh one of my first jobs as an analyst was covering collaboration and knowledge management back in the late 90s right and knowledge management came out and it was really exciting you were going to map everyone within the organization's knowledge let them self-identify as experts enable people who had never met each other in different locations to connect and share skills experiences and that let everyone rate their experiences well why is that not available in every organization today what do they do if they're not using technology it's hard for me as a technologist to even imagine that kind of world what do they do they just kind of fumble their way along or is there's just ad hoc a lot of it is yeah a lot of it is fumbling the way along the short answer is uh most companies get a pretty poor grade when employees grade them on the ability to support mentorships employees create their known networks outside of the organization and that makes them more likely to extend those networks as they look for another job yeah right so there's a lot that we can think about bringing that technology in to enable technology enabled coaching and mentoring with our own organization that helps people chart a growth path learn and become engaged in and love the company culture and then go back and contribute as mentors and bringing other folks along in the organization well rebecca when you talk about technology across the company are we talking about one platform that everyone in the company is accessing to leverage mentors for example that's a really good question lizzie if we go back to my old school knowledge management example it was about putting in a platform that everyone would use didn't necessarily work very well because the top-down approach doesn't always work and i think what we've seen in the employee mentoring spaces if there's not a technology available there employees will find something something else and they will use it effectively but the real goal and focus of of hr and other folks who are thinking about enabling technology with the enterprises how do i make those tools available how do i create those opportunities so that employees can take the lead on more viral adoption of tools that make sense we've seen this in a lot of cases where technology low code is a fantastic example right where employees have said i'm going to look at what's available out there maybe i have to swipe my credit card or maybe i can try it for free but i can seek these opportunities to enable greater efficiency greater productivity less focus on manual work within my organization and low code obviously is a great example of where viral adoption has been a key part of momentum in that industry low code being a type of tools that allow people just to mere mortals just to map out process flows and do other thing right yeah i i exactly yeah okay good deal so my mind goes to uh community software forum software right so again at our own company we have we have sugar club which is that main hub for learning and for sharing and and so are you are you thinking that type of technology or even more than that i gotta believe that you know the idea of forums have been around for 20 years i'm sure there's there's even better and newer approaches uh to augment that yes absolutely there's a lot out there in the coaching space but you bring up a really important point clint which is we've looked at communities and forums as a way to enable customers for a long time right right not just in terms of reducing support costs but enabling enabling customer advocates enabling those community experts building up that that knowledge base there's a lot there that we can think about as we think about the employee experience how do we create those communities of employees who can learn from one another who can share skills yeah i definitely see this being a gap and if i think back on my my my career path and companies that i've been at i can see that being a problem particularly as as technologies um become more popular and we look at tools like instant messaging tools where you have access to a lot of information but it's hard to know where you can go to get that information you don't you don't know what you don't know you know lizzy i think it's critically important right now particularly as we think about the future of hybrid work right if people aren't in the office to be able to informally network and determine who those people are that may be helpful how are they going to find them there has to be better technology to support that and if we look at you know work from home we've done a lot of work kind of tracking the productivity from work from home and the engagement of employees but moving forward it's about operationalizing a hybrid environment that works for everyone right so if we look at our employee experience study that i mentioned employees who are not working in the office believing that believe that they're missing out on opportunities to network do you think that might be part of the great resignation as well right if they're not getting those those growth opportunities they're not getting those growth opportunities which is why enabling the technology to level the playing field not just in terms of collaboration in communities but in terms of enabling folks to identify what are those opportunities within the organization where i may still be able to stay and grow if i take certain training if i work on certain projects we have to create those networks supported by technology so that everyone has those opportunities to thrive and continue to be engaged in their organizations so when i hear about these different technology approaches to to training your own employees and training your customers and enabling them on on whatever products or services that you're selling my mind goes to that buzzword of digital transformation am i on the right path there are are we talking about you're you're opening up a big box they're clean okay it's a big box to open so so would would you align some of these initiatives that you've described back to digital transformation and would you say that digital transformation is is helping companies grow certainly digital transformation is helping companies grow in our global state of digital transformation study we did last year we found that companies with a eight or higher score in terms of adoption of digital transformation had 2x the revenue growth of those that were at the lower end of the scale and a pretty significant difference in terms of profit margin and growth as well so certainly advancing along digital transformation is a key factor in growth i think the interesting thing that we found though is that we often think about the hurdles to digital transformation being about resources or staff or skills right got to pay for stuff or budget yeah right what we found were the top hurdles were really around politics and leadership hmm why do you think that leaders would get in the way of digital transformation initiatives rebecca because digital transformation is hard right it's not just about digitizing existing processes it's about changing the way employees work it's now about new business models new revenue models and that is scary right it requires a different kind of leadership and not to beat a dead horse about learning and training but it means thinking about how i train skill network and upscale employees differently and it's not a surprise when we looked at digital transformation that hr is a real laggard compared to other areas in the organization around digital transformation so happy customers happy employees equal growth is it as simple as that or is there a playbook that you need to apply to all this to kind of unlock all the the pieces that that ultimately translate to to growth i think and also when i think growth maybe not just revenue growth but but you know brand growth and and everything else in there so is there is there a way of approaching this that that companies can think through and and wrap their heads around well i think that happy customers and happy employees are certainly important but that's not enough it's really about enabling those employees and enabling those customers to be brand advocates to be a chief morale officer for everyone in their company and enabling those employees as well so when we think about it we think about you know how do we empower how do we inspire how do we engage and ultimately how do we put the tools in the hands of those customers and those employees so that they can be an engine for growth and an engine to success you know you're making me think back to one of our other guests that we've had recently who talked about the power of the referral right the power of the referral as a way of growing your business and and i'm thinking about you know it's one thing to ask for the referral but what's the whole path that gets you to the point where the employee knows to ask for the referral and and the customer is excited and happy to give that referral it kind of i'm seeing all these pieces that you're talking about a customer experience and employee experience maybe coming down to that point of the referral which is you know when you've turned somebody into an advocate they bring you business by telling their friends that you're you're a great company to do business with am i kind of am i connecting the dots in the right way is this the path that you're thinking about it is but that inc requires advocates on both sides that means that service agent has to be trained and centered understand and want to cultivate cultivate that relationship and get that referral just as much as the customer may want to give a positive referral i think that's another area that we're looking at you know sort of the disconnect between how do we onboard and train service agents versus the rest of the organization how do we bring them into the fold when historically they've been separated if not by zip code at least by floor from the rest of the company and how do we think about enabling service agents service employees to have a growth path within the organization you know at the at the front end of my career in the crm industry there is a hot topic of turning your cost center into a profit center and and do you remember that term back uh maybe 20 years ago and and it was all about turning your call centers and your contact centers into into a point of growth for the company but you know the thing that everybody tripped over was um the person whose job it is to deliver great service may not have the skills or the training to ask for the referral to do to do that next step in there um you know what what's your thoughts on on a closer aligning the the the service end of the house with the sales end of the house and and aligning everybody towards uh towards revenue and towards those types of activities is is it really two different worlds still or or is there the opportunity to uh to bring them closer together i think we have a unique opportunity right now for those service managers out here there's a window right now that is open for you to experiment to do things differently to rethink how you operationalize the growth path for service agents it's not just about agent retention it's about what's their opportunity beyond the service organization and when you can put those pieces together that's where service agent engagement service agent training makes sense if we go back to the cost profit story clint why am i investing in creating advocates as service agents creating customer facing agents with a high degree of skill and knowledge if i know they're going to move on to the next job after a certain time period so i think we have a unique opportunity right now for service managers as we think about how do we engage agents moving forward in a hybrid contact center in a different environment an environment where customers are more used to doing this by a video and may want to engage that way with agents how do i think about providing those same kind of opportunities for culture and community but also for growth beyond the service organization so that our service agents aren't being trained to a dead end so rebecca what what tips have you seen that have been deployed well by companies in your past like or even suggested by valoir to help service managers up level the skills of their service agents you know lizzie we've seen some really interesting things happening just in the past few years as i think about engaging service agents one of the interesting trends has been around making agents have access to areas like employee resource groups where they can be involved as employee activists within their organization you know typically that sits in hr and may not be something that call center agents have access to but what we've seen with the rise of virtual volunteering and the rise of employee activism is it's a great way to not just engage agents more within their organization but expose them to other employees expose them to other roles that those employees are offering expose them to other opportunities for mentoring with different employees within the organization and exposing them to what other career paths and opportunities may be out there would you say that human resources typically would own initiatives like this where they're reminding their leaders to promote things like that and and allow their service their agents throughout the company not just service agents but any employee to feel comfortable participating in other groups or resource groups as you mentioned they have i think the challenge in the past has been with employee agents who are paid by the hour where does that hour come from right right so setting that aside and assenting agents providing them with that same kind of pto opportunities to contribute and participate in those employee activities can be a great way again not just to build community and engagement of those employees but help them to see the other connections to see the other opportunities within the business so as we go down this path of happy employees creating happy customers who become advocates who help drive growth what are some common traps what are some mistakes that companies make as they as they seek out new technology seek out new approaches to to creating that happy equation well the common one that we've seen since the invention of the wheel clint is assuming that if you give someone a technology or enabling capability that they're going to use it effectively yeah again i'm gonna date myself but if we go back to the goldmine days right goldmine and act were fantastic tools for productivity for salespeople adoption was incredible of those tools and what happened when those tools became networked and enabled folks to share information across their contact databases right so understanding when is the technology right when are the opportunities there for employees and how do we communicate that to employees in a way that they understand what's in it for them and not just what's in it for the company with that said i've always found that that any technology project needs that right impetus from top leadership needs to be if if they know it's important to the ceo of the company people are going to pay attention to it more so than anything else right right but i think too it's about thinking about how i train employees to use technology in a way that may change the way they work yeah today what's in it for me okay that's a great point for me what's in it for me um well i gotta tell you rebecca we've appreciated all of your insights around how companies can drive growth through investing in their customer experience investing in their employee experience again creating that happy cust happy employees equals happy customers equals advocacy equals growth equation there i'm i'm a nerd i like to turn everything into an equation in the end but uh well thank you for joining us today it's been great to have you here and this was the fuel growth podcast helping companies grow to the next level appreciate your time thank you both thanks rebecca [Music]
2022-06-28