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looking at technology as an enabler as opposed to a um necessity I guess. Hey everyone, this is Stu, you’re listening to the Flow State podcast and we are back for our third and final episode with Jennifer Arnold on the voice of the customer. We’re getting stuck straight into our obsession with tools and data so sit back and enjoy the show. But you know your point around like that sort of um very sort of human experience of like feeling crap, feeling vulnerable, needing assistance, like that’s the bit that I think causes a lot of the frustration when you’re trying to deal with those bad customer experiences from you know the business world because you don’t you don’t get treated like that. You get treated like you know a you know whatever like a number or a ticket, piggy bank, you know, yeah, oh yeah, well exactly yeah, like a wallet basically, yeah. Um and it it’s just yeah surprising to me that like I saw a lot of this commentary around like when we were doing the the AI Series last year that you know the amount of technology we now have ironically was supposed to you know help us spend more time being people but it feels like you sort of spend most of your time actually trying to service tools and technology which sort of continues to chip away at the actual human side of interacting with each other.
And I think this quest for data, you know, I I do some work in the sales operations space and marketing operations space and this quest for data as well is like everything needs to be documented. Every call, every email, you know, every outcome, and so that um it puts a lot of pressure on the sales and marketing teams. They could spend half their day just reporting on the activities that they’ve done. You know, so I think again here is looking at technology as an enabler as opposed to a um necessity I guess is you know how again back to automation there are a lot of ways that you can do that. You know, you were talking about um uh using intercom, you know, there’s lots again these things are being built into these tools that if you’re running a sequence it will actually you know track that for you and you don’t it will record calls, it’ll take transcripts of calls, et cetera. You as a salesperson don’t have to enter all of that information um and which should free up time for you ideally, yeah. But manually it’s one getting people to use the technology that’s there. You know, I found salespeople particularly are very good at finding workarounds for those things and not in because I don’t want to have the oversight and scrutiny, right. Um very surprising then, yeah.
Whereas the marketers are the ones that are like, “No, we need to know exactly what happened, we need to hit these KPIs”. Um, you know, but I think there are a lot more tools, again, AI. Um, one of my friends is is working in the space, she’s starting up a consultancy and a and an organization that looks at how do what are the AI tools that you can use to support the sales process, just that, just primarily focus on on that. And there’s a lot coming out to market. Again, the major platforms, the Salesforces, the the Microsoft CSAPS are building those tools into their platforms um so that it’s just putting at the hands of of everybody and it’s not just down to the sales operations people to do all of that tracking. So hopefully it’ll make it easier and and it will free up time for salespeople and marketers to actually spend more time in person in front of a customer and thinking about the strategy behind what they’re doing um and not just pumping through the process, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think look that’s like the the key thing, right? Like it’s because I’ve been the same, obviously work with a lot of sales people um through the course of our programs and and in previous roles and like I do as much as it’s fun to uh you know take the pit of it like I do feel for them because they like you know the core skill set of most salespeople who are good at their jobs is you know being good at building relationships with people and understanding what they need and you know whether you can actually you know usefully sell them something based on their current role. Whereas half the time now you know they’re getting forced to like learn tools and technology that are not perceived to be particularly valuable. And where I’ve got a lot of sympathy for them is like particularly with the CRM debate. Like, you know, they spend half their lives updating CRMs and recording stuff, the information never gets used by anyone. Like it just you know sits it like you say it’s that whole like poor mentality of like, “Oh, we’re recording everything so that’s that’s useful for for somebody”. But you’re like, “For who? Who’s looking at that? Who’s looking at these notes? What are you doing with them? Is anyone looking at them?” Probably not.
Which I um I definitely feel like people in you know these devil sales roles just get that immediately, you know. They’re like, “Well, no, it’s not just Sal customer” customer support gets the same thing, right? Record all the customer support calls, they do surveys, you know, hang on the end of the phone and answer some questions about the service you got today, right? Where does that information go? Who is looking at that and using it to make improvements? And you know, it’s it’s data, it’s overwhelming data and it’s capturing data for data’s sake unless you actually do something with it and risking damaging the customer relationship because again they’re like, “I don’t want to answer another survey, right? How many of these surveys do I need to do every time I talk to you?” Exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it so there needs to be thought behind it and and I guess bringing it back around to you asked a question before about strategy. Like, you know, so is is some of this disconnected from the company strategy? And I think yes, overall. Like if if you’re not collecting information that’s going to give you insight into is your strategy working or not then why are you collecting it? It doesn’t make sense.
And and I find this um so the work I do around customer and partner advisory boards one of the big things that I focus on is that feedback cycle big because I’ve seen a lot of those advisory boards just be talkfest. You know, they’re great conversations, everybody has a good time or they become bitchfest and people just complain about everything. But either way, you’re capturing useful information, but is it information that you needed to know? Is it information that is actually going to make help you make improvements and is that information getting back to the people, the teams in your organization who can actually do something with it and make those improvements? Um quite often I see that’s broken in in a lot of organizations. They’re putting a lot of effort into doing, you know, these advisory boards and a lot of time goes into it and if you look at the dollar amount of brain power in the room and some of these things it’s just astounding. Um and then it ends up for nothing, right? You maybe you’re left with a good impression but that’s not translating into but that’s kind of it, right? Actual business benefit.
Yeah, I think um that you know I think you’ve hit on the crook of the frustration for like myself at many people is exactly that. It’s like what is the what is the point of doing this stuff? Like for my, you know, my brief time working client side in big businesses it was exactly the same. There was always I did a lot of like, you know, Frontline stuff like worked in call centers and worked on um you know kind of customer facing roles and it was there was a constant array of stuff like that. It’s like surveys, capturing data, you know, like note making but like who’s who’s using it? You can tell that people aren’t using it because of the experience you’re delivering like on on the calls, like it doesn’t get used. I’m like, you know, when I was I used to work for uh Bank West years ago in the UK. Um and they uh they were a classic for like there was like stuff you had to capture but then you were like it’s not kind of coming back to me to more usefully inform like my my job so where where is it going? Like I’m the one that’s talking to people who at the time like had lost their cards and needed them to be reissued.
But like yeah it was pretty fascinating because it’s I feel like the data, the amount of data and the amount of tools now is kind of making people scared that if you don’t have that you can’t make any useful decisions or like you know do anything. Um it’s like almost a bit of a comfort blanket to be like, “We need to look at look at the data. Someone needs to send me a report first”. It’s like, “Well, do you need that though?” Or it can mask over things again where you’re looking at just like a basic NPS score. An NPS score says everything’s hunky dory but you’re having all this massive customer turn, right? It doesn’t it doesn’t match up because you’re not asking the right questions, right? Or you know going back to like you know is the feedback I’m giving you being heard? Employee experience is another classic area for that, right? You do regular employee surveys, people are doing exit interviews, you’ve got you know feedback that your manager asked for you know during your your performance reviews. Where does that information go and and is that making any benefits to what the employee experiences?
Because we know there’s a direct correlation between having kind of engaged um understanding happy employees and the service that they give to customers and how motivated they are you know to better serve customers and make improvements. And I think it’s exactly the same thing. I think customer look at it in the broad lens and see your employees are also your customers and and understand that it’s that you have to apply the same thing. Stop surveying them if you’re not actually going to do anything with the information that you’re Gathering exactly yeah yeah. It just comes back to the point you made I I think you’re the very start, right? It’s just to treat people like you know like actual people, not like numbers on a on a spreadsheet that you’re just people, right? That’s at the end of the day, particularly if you are if you’re making—I mean put yourself in the the shoes of a you know a CFO or a CIO who’s out making a multi-million dollar investment for their company and like their reputation’s on the line. People are looking to them to do the right thing by the company, by the shareholders, by et cetera et cetera.
Like that again that’s a different kind of heightened emotional experience but it’s an emotional experience nonetheless. They’re worried, they’re concerned, there’s a bit of pride in it and you know so you got to treat it again it’s it’s a it’s a human experience that they’re having and they want to be educated and handheld and and be given some comfort that they’re making the right decision. And that’s not going to come from being sent automated emails or something like that, that’s going to come from personal conversations. Yes, I totally agree with that and I think you know that’s one of the things that people get so wrong I think is um yeah just uh not not reading the room basically, right? Where you’re like sort of uh you know like imagine you’re on a you kind of on a first date and just make some incredibly horrible faux par comment, like that’s kind of what the experience is like a lot of the time, right, when you’re like dealing with dealing with companies. Like, “Oh great, you know, you’ve signed up, wonderful”.
And leading into um your other point about sort of expanding relationships, you know, like um there’s a there’s a lot of received wisdom about that, right? Where you’re like, “Oh, if someone’s just bought something that’s the ideal time to try and sell them something else,” which I don’t necessarily subscribe to universally. Or you know, do you need to prove some value first and let them settle in and then do it? Like that, you know, that’s that’s delicate depending on what you’re trying to actually sell to people. Um so I mean from your point of view is there a is there a right or a wrong way to do that Jen? Like is there a great way that you’ve seen people kind of look to expand upon relationships that they’ve started already or is it a a real case-by-case thing based on your industry and product and you know the sort of nature of your business? I mean, I think the fundamentals are consistent across all of those areas. Is like one, we’ve sold them the product, are they actually using it? Because the likelihood they’re going to use more of it or use something else from you if they’re not actually using the product you’ve sold them in the first place is pretty slim.
Um that’s a fair point. You know, and again particularly in the SAS environment we see that. Like, you know, you said with your your Miro licenses you had one user who wasn’t even using the license, right? So why would they sell you any more licenses if you have ones that aren’t already being used? So you know very particular again in that subscription model area. Um and then knowing the customer needs, I guess. You know, there’s an expectation that you know once I’m your customer you should start building an understanding of what I’m going to need next. And so if you start throwing a lot of things at me that have no relation to what I need at all or no relation to the type of business I am or or you know type of user I am or anything like that then kind of like, “Well, you know, you you should get to know me, we now have established some level of relationship”. So I think it’s um you know putting the effort into understanding the customer, understanding what they need, understanding the experience that they’re having and and waiting again back to that point like don’t try to sell more to a customer that’s in escalation.
Um you know look at it and and say uh you know is this the right timing because they’re using the product, they seem happy with the product, they don’t seem to be having too many issues with the product, we know that they have a need for it. And then you know understanding who actually makes that decision and engaging them in a conversation. You know, and there might might be multiple thems in complex sales engagements. You know, you’re going to have it’s it’s no longer often a single purchaser, it’s a team of purchasers and they’re all going to have different motivations for and in needs for what they’re looking for. You know, a procurement person’s looking at one thing, a finance person’s looking at another, a business user is looking at one thing, an IT person, a security person. They all have different requirements and and you have to show that you understand that and tailor the information accordingly.
Yeah, look, I think that that makes a lot of sense and um the I mean I suppose this is one of the areas where there’s an extra layer of complexity, right? Where if you’re in as you’ve noted like if you draw a sort of pretty crude line between um your standard usually B2C products that’s like a you know one person decision maker, they just buy it, they don’t buy it. Typically you’ll have one person who’s in charge of it and they’re like they’re the person you engage, that’s pretty pretty straightforward, right? Um well, I mean not based on what we just said but it should be, it should be straightforward, let’s say that. Um but then if you’re selling to a group as you’ve noted and this is like obviously like territory that we we’re um very familiar with um that that becomes exponentially more challenging where you’re trying to engage sometimes people who are just there to say no for example which is obviously um a challenge to work around.
But what um you know if you’re looking at that kind of buying group type scenario is there a is there a way you’ve seen people approach that really well and say look like is there sort of information that you can collectively present back to those people? I know the traditional received wisdom is always you know get your champion and your sort of influencers together and your key decision makers and like they’re the ones that you sort of support and spearhead but are there other ways that you’ve seen people approach that and what what would you say from the information that we’ve we’ve talked about is really essential to sort of support those conversations if you’re gonna go into them like what do you need to be looking at before you before you start them I guess? Yeah, um sorry that was quite a lot of questions at the same time. That’s okay, yeah, I mean work through in whatever order. I think you know my my thought process goes to one, you know, first get an understanding of who is in that buying committee so that you you know how to you know who you’re engaging with and and what you need to do.
I I’m not a a massive fan of of personas from the traditional sense of personas. I think they’re generally too high level and you know like, “you know here’s Bob, Bob’s an IT manager, you know Bob is married with three kids and has a golden retriever,” like that’s not a great persona. But um I learned many years ago from a group I worked with that that one of the best ways to build personas is to to put effort in to understand what are the questions they’re asking themselves at each step of that buying journey. And then it allows you to preempt those with information. To basically be able to go to a CFO and say when we get to an evaluation stage in the buying journey a CFO is looking for these key pieces of information to put their mind at ease and and make it easy for them to say yes and move to the next stage. Um if you know those you can build content in presentations and pieces of material et cetera that you can put in front of that CFO ahead of time to say, “I know you’re going to be looking for this, let me make it easy for you,” right? And doing that with the procurement, doing that, et cetera.
And again they’re going to have different information so building almost like a little content map around what they’re going to need at at what stage and and being able to you know replicate that and and tailor it accordingly I think is important. Um yeah, I think that’s one thing. I think the other thing is looking at peer-to-peer conversations. So get your technical architects involved early in a sales process talking to their you know Architects and developers and and do that. Get your finance team talking to their finance team, get your legal teams talking early, right? So don’t don’t put it all if you know again it’s smaller organizations may not be able to do that at scale but certainly on their must-win accounts, you know, put the effort into to match your team with their team so that you can have peer-to-peer conversations. Because again there’s going to be that greater level of empathy and understanding for what they’re looking for, what they’re going through, um feeling like they have a trusted partner on the other side of the table.
Yeah, that that’s a really interesting point actually because I um one of our clients is is big on um partner sales as well because they’re not they’re a a technology business like a data technology business but it’s very much behind the scenes infrastructure type stuff. So they can’t directly—well they can directly sell but there you need a lot of people who know a lot of things on the other side to be able to actually deploy the solution. And he’s very very specific to like very case-by-case. They do a lot in like healthcare and finance um but they spend a lot of time doing that. It’s like, you know, they have partners per market that they operate in across um Asia Pacific and the partners often specialize in a specific area. That there might be data Vis, there might be like infrastructure, there might be like database people. Um so you know that’s the exact approach. It’s like it’s really complicated because it’s them, their partner, um and the client and then often other you know solution teams in in the mix.
Um but that you know that’s their sort of their headline is is that it’s like a trusted partner. We know what we’re doing, we’ll come in, we’ll you know, we’ll engage and consult with everyone. Um and you know it’s your classic like long long sales funnel for them because it can take 12 to 18 months to work through requirements, you know, understand what’s happening, is it even feasible, you know, like how does it all work, prove prove the concept, all that stuff. But um you know back to what you were saying uh earlier that approach then builds very long-lasting relationships with them. Because they’re a they’re a sticky technology anyway because they’re like you know they’re in there in the actual the guts of the business on they’re in but um you know proving that trust upfront is what wins them long range long-term, you know, very valuable relationship so it’s it definitely works. I just um I don’t see as many people sort of putting the kind of effort that they doing um across the the board from other people we’ve worked with um which is surprising.
It is hard because people are you know resource constrained when it comes to technical resource, pre-sales, you know, sales, et cetera. So you might not be able to do it on every single piece of business but certainly the the big one know where it’s it’s worth. Usually get a much better from what I’ve seen in my experience you get a much better result by putting that peer-to-peer effort in. Totally, I look at a lot of it comes back to my old business partner was very fond of saying like, “you know it’s like dating dating before you marry,” right? Where like you don’t you know you don’t if you were single run into a room full of who whomever you’re interested in and start like throwing engagement rings that everyone who’s available to see to see if one lands on a finger. Like you you know you get to know people and you make sure that you’re compatible in some way, right? And there’s some level of interest in each other and then things progress from there. So yeah, well I always say to to clients I’m working with just because you’re ready to sell does not mean they’re ready to buy.
So you know you need to be continually getting in front of them and again working a lot in the the kind of B2B Enterprise in government space. Government particularly have protracted sales processes and you know long you know multi-year contracts and and things like that. You just need to consistency, you just need to consistently be in front of them and building up your brand and building up the awareness. And and not try to jump straight into that leaden discussion where like, “Hey, I’ve got this, do you want to buy it?” Yeah, look look at my look at this stuff, you want it right now, quick run to the next person, they weren’t interested. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a long game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And like it’s something I found quite fascinating having because I’ve done a lot of work on B2C as well. Um and the you know obviously the ability to identify a sales need is much easier there because often you just selling something that people either want or need or both. But the people who built like really good brands also combine that with that long range view of like, you know, you need to also stand for something because otherwise you’re just one thing among many things and it becomes very hard to then you know differentiate and stand out.
Um but um yeah, like it just I think that’s it, right? Like I think um again you mentioned this earlier that one of the big problems that I think everyone has right now is like just real short termism everywhere on you know the strategy allegedly or lack of strategy in businesses all ends up being pulled right back to like how we do next quarter, how we do for the rest of this year. Which is not obviously is a consideration because that’s what your strategy should deliver but it shouldn’t like drive the strategy itself. Um you know performing against your short-term targets should be a function of a good strategy not like you know the thing that’s controlling what you’re what you’re thinking is. Yeah, I see that a lot in the market space. The the CMO group um meetups that I that I coordinate we had a whole conversation around kind of brand versus lead gen. And we finding particularly um you know here in in Asia Pac we’ve got a lot of field services teams, right? So they’re not necessarily setting the strategy or or doing the work. They’re mostly being asked to do execution pieces of of global campaigns and rely on on budgets coming down from Global to and but also dictating what those budgets can be used for and there’s a huge sense of frustration.
Again, this is more in the kind of Enterprise B2B or medium-sized business up B2B space but basically every dollar they spend has to generate a lead within a short period of time. And you know they’re pushing backing again particularly in some markets. You know Japan as a good example, Korea is a good example where relationships are so critical in those markets or you know if you’re working in the government space again relationships are so critical and trust is so critical and you can’t build that overnight. And so to expect you know to spend a dollar get a dollar back from a lead immediately is unrealistic. When you know you’re you’re you know looking working having worked for an ERP vendor like people replace those things every 15 to 20 years, right? You have to be you can’t expect like you know, “I’m going to go out and have an event and have 30 people there and 30 people are going to want to buy an ERP tomorrow”. It’s just not going to happen and you know that’s what they’re take contract with you exactly. But but their KPIs are pushing them in that direction and and they’re not having a lot of luck pushing back.
Um you know because again there you know there’s the we’ve got to meet this quarter, we’ve got to meet that next quarter, we have a you need to have a pipeline that looks this way. Um and yeah, so it’s actually to the long-term detriment um because again they’re building short-term like small deals as opposed to building long-term consistent pipelines that you know have good rolling revenue. I think that’s a really interesting point actually because you know without without getting too um too sort of off off piece like the the rest of the team and I talk a lot about sort of sustainable growth and like do you think that’s driven by the fact that um there’s a lot of pressure for businesses to be like constantly growing at a certain rate? Because that that seems to be a factor in a lot of the conversations that we have and seems relatively arbitrary, you know, depending on whether they’re privately owned or or are publicly traded. Um but you know the assumption that your targets for next year are going to be this year plus 10 to 20% like that regardless of what what has happened in the market, regardless of losing resources, regardless of you know demand gen budgets being cut.
It it always seems like I very rarely see a reduction in budgets. It’s yeah, you know, the targets are always go—sorry reduction in targets—the targets are always going up regardless of of what’s happening. And you know again lot of these are publicly listed companies there’s shareholder expectations, you know, ’cause that’s where you would assume there’s you know based on everything we’ve been saying there’s kind of a ceiling, right? Like logically there has to be a ceiling of how much a business can grow assuming that you’ve you know you’re owning your market, you know you have a product that does certain things. Like, you know, I mean obviously we’re going we’re going through this at the moment this is very top of mind putting together like our uh you know kind of figures for growth markets for for next year. But you’re like look the market’s already so big there’s only so many people that are going to want what you’re selling and if you’ve already sold to X percentage of those people like the actual growth opportunity is not going to be probably anywhere near as the one that you’re setting.
But I think to your point earlier this is where there’s a lot of like not a lot of actual signs applied, right? It’s people just being like as you said just add 10% next year to the sales budget. And well, I mean it’s simple sales strategy isn’t it? You either create new products to sell, you find a new segment of the market to go into, you acquire a competitor to pick up their market share, right? There there are a couple of levers you can pull there to be able to do that. But you know you you can’t rely on selling the same thing over and over with no change. Um yeah, because again unless you’ve got expect massive customer turn and people are coming in and using it once and then done with it and that could be fine. Um or using it once or twice a year and then you know fine. You know like I, you know, my accountant does my same tax once a year, I don’t need anything from in between, you know, get it done exactly. You know, he doesn’t need to offer new solutions every year, he just needs to do my tax every year, so you know unless you’re that sort of business.
Um but again this you know coming back to this customer retention perspective like this is why you need to be constantly looking at that either improving the product you have, adding new features and benefits, looking for that cross sell upsell, right? Um you know or at least doing enough to retain that customer. Yeah, yeah, look I I definitely agree with that and I think the um you know to your point like a lot of a lot of the challenge around this stuff is like the thinking’s often done kind of in a vacuum, right? Where you’re like look the the state of the world is like this right now and you obviously naturally have to do a bit of a freeze frame on that to be like how’s everything working, like where are we at? But obviously the nature of real life is that it’s not like that at all and things are changing all the time. Um and as a sales manager, I mean I’ve gone through this process and I’ve worked with sales teams where it’s just you know you just have to build your business case for what realistically you can achieve and you get you know see I think I can do this because of what I see in the market.
Do the market research, understand what opportunities are out there, say, “Okay, realistically this is what I can achieve, this is a stretch Target for me, like this I know I can commit to”. And then know the constant reviewing of it. But very rarely do I see again you you push back on you know the global team that set your target and reduce it for you, yeah, significantly, you know. It’s it definitely a 10% increase uplift, we’ll make it a 9% uplift, right? Yeah, they’ll be like, “Look, if we hit nine that’s fine, but you know the target’s 10,” so you go, “Yeah, and your stretch target is 15”. Yeah, that’s it’s very familiar territory as well that way. I I think um look we covered a lot of ground there, that was super interesting. Um what should you be trying to find out from your customers that’s going to be really valuable um for a business?
Yeah, I think it I think it again comes down to business need. They obviously have certain pressures on them. They’re they’re having the same pressures on on their budgets that we’d be having, same in terms of you know finding the skills that they need to do the jobs that they need to do. So I think it’s it’s understanding the pressures that they’re under. Um and then being clear on your value prop of how you can help address those particular issues, right? And being flexible in terms of your commercials too. That’s the other thing I’d say again because those budgets are going to be tight. Um you know how can you work with them so that you know there’s a big risk one of the biggest risks you have is they’re just going to defer decisions. So how can you work with them to get a decision across the line that’s going to help see them them through this period?
I like that, I think flexibility on commercials is a big one. I know there’s I’m seeing both ends of the spectrum there, so it’s definitely a good uh a good point to end on I think. Um but look that was super interesting, thanks for joining Jen. That was um a much broader ranging discussion than I was anticipating but there’s some super interesting stuff in there. So look thanks again for coming on, it was awesome to chat to you. My pleasure, really enjoyed it. That friends is a wrap on our time with Jennifer Arnold discussing the voice of the customer. Thank you once again for listening. I hope you learned some things as I did on that journey through uh customer relationships. If you haven’t checked out the first two episodes please go back and have a listen to those, there’s some great stuff in there and I will catch you again in a couple of weeks.