Have you ever been promoted because you were so great at your job, only to realize that senior leadership requires a completely different skill set?
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
And by the end of today's conversation with customer experience expert Ty Gibbons, you will know not one, but two proven communication frameworks that translate your work into real business value.
How is this free?
I don't know.
You'll also learn how introverts can build executive presence without performing or dominating meetings, and the hidden leadership gap that causes promotions to backfire, and how to avoid that.
All right everybody, today i have someone that has an area of expertise that probably most of us don't know about.
We have a customer customer experience.
Sorry cx, everything is experience these days, so it's cx.
So ty is going to give us some interesting insight into how we can communicate better, be better leaders and get that next promotion or project, or just start getting everybody to do what we want them to do.
But let's learn something first from Ty.
What is it that companies are getting wrong about customer service?
Why is there a need for a customer experience consultant?
Because everyone thinks customer service is easy.
Before you go on, so all of you notice that.
And so people may think that your job's easy too.
Okay, lay it on us.
Yeah, so let's take a startup.
I love working with startups.
Company comes on board, proof of concept is great.
Marketing goes out, they acquire all these customers.
Then someone says, oh, wait a minute, people need help.
So let's help them.
And they pull the most friendly lovely wonderful, warm-hearted person they can find to retain these customers.
And that works for a minute, but then the company starts to grow.
And that person, they say, hey, you know what?
So-and-so is great with customers and we need a manager.
Let's have that person run the department.
And then that person becomes the manager, the head of support.
No training, no insights, no guidance, just a ton of expectation.
And then customer service starts to suffer.
Why?
Because scaling and running customer service is less about being really nice and friendly and wonderful and mostly about operations.
But you don't know that until you bump your head.
Most of the time, people just think I need someone to answer the phone or I need someone to reply to emails.
Oh, that's so interesting.
It just reminds me of...
Making the top sales person the sales manager and then just throwing them into that.
And actually I think a lot of people listening have been promoted to manager, to maybe senior manager, maybe even director, with an area of expertise like finance or business, something softer like marketing.
But doing the craft, the thing like being nice to people, is not the same as managing a total experience, right?
And so what are you looking for and looking at?
Well, first I want to get a feel for who you are, because if the company is yours then, as far as I'm concerned, everyone who is reaching out to your business should hear some reflection of your voice, your tone, your personality.
So I'm trying to understand for you.
What does it mean to deliver a great experience for your clientele?
And I throw out of the window everything that I think is good.
Now, does that mean that I won't answer for you if you're like, what do you recommend?
Sure, I've got thousands of recommendations.
But the reality is that, at the end of the day, the customer experience is extremely personal and it is specifically tied to what you want to deliver.
So I want to understand what challenges are you facing today?
What feedback, if any, have you already received from your customer?
What systems and tools are you using?
Do you have your processes documented?
What's the size of your team?
I ask all of those questions because it starts to help me.
Now if you say hey, I have a head of support in-house, then I'm gonna ask about that person's background because that's gonna tell me if you have promoted the nicest person in the company to run the team, because they were really great with the clientele.
And it'll help me to understand where our skill sets as a company will come together.
What about the experience of us as leaders?
I think that is like a great way to think about yourself, especially the people that want to grow in their careers.
What would be a question we could ask ourselves or what could we look at to see how others experience us versus how we think we're coming across?
So I'm going to take this back to my days as a middle manager.
I started managing a team when I was 24 years old.
I was the highest performer, right?
But it wasn't a customer experience role.
It was actually a workforce management, which is heavy on the operation side.
At the company that I was at at the time, they did a lot of training for us as middle managers.
So 40 hours a year we had to put in which I actually ended up learning later was all a part of an MBA program, because I did an MBA program.
And I'm like, oh, I remember doing that at work, which that was nice, right?
Yeah.
But it's about managing your personal brand.
And so one of the things that stuck with me is what do you want people to say about you when you're not in the room?
That's also about building character and integrity without compromise and things like that.
So I had to take a moment and take inventory of what people might have said about me when I wasn't there.
The good, the bad. and decide how I wanted to show up.
And so those are the areas that I focused on.
I know that as a support leader, which I can only speak for customer service and customer experience, because that's been my career for 25 years.
I haven't worked in another area.
So that's all I know.
So this might translate across the board.
But when you get that role, you get that title, and then now you have your seat at the table, so to speak.
You may not know what to say to add value in those rooms.
So I came up with a framework.
There's two, actually.
One is the impact framework.
So I'll give you one of my faux pas.
Because I came from workforce management and with a lot of numbers, I had always struggled with tying the number to a business goal.
So I would just focus on the fact that, oh, like, you know, we...
We're answering 80% of our calls in 20 seconds.
And, you know, and the powers that be were like, cool.
So what, like, what does that mean, right?
What does that mean?
Exactly.
So what I did is I came up with this framework.
So impact is identify, measure, position, articulate, connect, tie back.
Okay.
So if we're answering 80% of the calls within 20 seconds, that's wonderful, right?
That I've identified, I've measured.
But what does that mean?
It means our customers are waiting less and that impacts other metrics.
For example, abandonment rate, right?
So less calls are being abandoned.
Customers are more patient.
We're getting fewer repeat callers, right?
So helping them to understand.
So now I'm articulating, right?
And if we're able to answer calls in a timely manner and support customers, that's going to drive down our cost per contact, because we're going to get less and we're going to need less people.
Right.
So we're operating around $10 because this was 1000 years ago and $10 was good.
Now I can tie it back and say our cost per contact is 10, or cost per contact went down to 975 because we're answering calls faster, or whatever that metric looks like.
So that's one of the ones that I use.
The other is especially for my fellow introverts.
I know that I can go into a meeting and sit all the way in the back and never say a word, unless someone specifically says hey, you right.
Right.
Yeah.
So RISE framework is another one.
So this is the R stands for repeat.
So you need to share updates regularly.
Inform, educate on what's happening and why.
S is spotlight, so highlight wins and learnings.
And E is engage, invite feedback.
Now, RISE works really, really well for cross-functional communication.
Yes.
Working with developers and product leaders and marketing experts on.
Hey, you're killing our call volume or our contact volume because of this thing, right?
And so you think about, for each of those functional areas, What part of the customer experience do they actually own at the end of the day?
And you put together your RISE framework for them and you just send a weekly update and you tell them what's happening.
And especially if you're an introvert, putting it in writing is so much easier that way.
You send it out, invite them to give you feedback or to ask you questions.
And you've just established a relationship that's not invasive or intrusive.
It's one where you're going to be building that trust with them.
They're going to know that you know what you're talking about.
And you're speaking to them in a way that they understand.
And that's what's critical at the end of the day.
Well, let's talk about rise first and then impact.
But the rise I see as a great way.
Oh, I don't know.
Can you use it in an email?
Is there email?
Like, hey, this...
This thing happened.
I'm informing you that this thing happened.
And I want to spotlight that, you know, Ty helped a lot.
And it seems to be better if anybody has... Then the E, the engage, would be like if you...
Know of any other factors or if you have any questions, let me know.
Yeah, like let's use e-comm.
Even if no one listening to this is from customer experience.
If you work at a company, you have customers.
So you do understand on some level.
That's right.
Stakeholders.
We call them stakeholders, but they're really customers.
They're customers.
So on some level, we're all customer service people.
Yes.
Okay, I'm going to go back to a startup I worked at.
We used to do gifts with purchase.
I had a really close relationship with the head of product, which helped a lot because she and I could work together to avoid overselling or overcommitting product right.
On a weekly basis, we touch base.
So that's the repeat part.
What are we going to cover?
What gifts with purchase are coming up?
How many units do we have?
How many orders are projected that day?
A back and forth conversation around what we think is going to happen.
I'll highlight or spotlight.
Here's what went well last time.
Here were the opportunities.
Because you know customers are demanding.
If you're offering a gift with purchase and they don't get it, they still expect some sort of value, you know, until supplies run out and even still then you've got stuff right.
And so last time we had, you know, a thousand units, hypothetically are way more than that.
And we actually took the gift with purchase off the site at 900.
So 100 people got a special surprise.
Nobody else expected it.
That came from our working together and understanding how the decisions that she made as the head of product impacted the customer, who my team spoke to day in and day out.
And there was always room for feedback.
There was always room for open engagement and communication that went both ways.
That was in person.
But if I were to send a message, it may not be in the exact rise order, but it will cover all of those bases.
Yes, I love that.
So it's repeat that inform, spotlight and engage.
I think that i love that.
So now back to the m.
So so that's good for getting visibility into the work that you're doing.
Number one, number two overcoming the silo effect.
Silos, it seems like they're inevitable because everybody complains about them everywhere.
But it's because we're all busy and nobody can deny that people complain about silos.
Yeah, but if you are a leader, you might consider you might even have been told that oh, you should send out a newsletter once a month to let everybody know what you're doing.
You could use that framework and then The impact is for your metric in a slide, folks.
Yes, like Ty said, I have helped so many people with presentations.
And I know you all know your metrics upside down, backwards and forwards.
And you create these amazing slides and tell me, you know, this is up 10%, this is down 20%.
But then you don't say what it means.
So the impact is for your metric.
And so I is for identify the metric, right?
And M is the thing that you're measuring.
And the position, the P for position.
Does that mean like whether it's normal or not normal, or maybe compared to your competitors?
Yeah, because the point that you made, a really good point, that it's.
I give you a number and say we're up 10 in this area.
I don't know if that's good or bad.
You know, I have to give you some sort of positioning so that you can understand whether or not that's a good or bad thing in comparison.
To fill in the blanks, right?
I know that T is to tie it back to the business goal.
What is the A and the C?
To articulate, make sure that they understand.
Yes.
And the language of the customer, by the way, your customer.
Yes.
And an impact can be used for dashboards, but it can also be used to manage up.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And the C is connect.
Right.
So connected to something that they will understand that really is a part of their world.
Now, if you're talking executives, they're always going to understand dollars and cents.
Yeah.
They get it.
But if you're talking to someone in marketing, depending on how your company is structured, it might impact the ability to sell right.
So if you're putting misinformation in and I can't save that customer, we just lost that sale.
The marketing person will get that.
A product person will understand.
This customer can't use that feature.
Or you thought the feature was going to do this, but it does that.
They're not happy, right?
So you have to give it to them.
Like as CX people, we sit in the middle of the company and we have to speak everybody's language.
So we have to be able to translate the customer experience to said department in a way that they'll get it.
And that's what the frameworks help with.
So Ty, you seem very likable.
How do you handle someone in a company that seems not to like you?
I would imagine that would bother you.
Usually, okay, so here's one.
We end up finding out where corners are being cut in our work.
So working with a company, one of the guys who was a part of the sales team was actually not really doing much.
So he did not like me or my team because we were exposing it.
So I just stick to the facts.
At the end of the day, you don't have to like me personally.
We just have to reach this goal.
Even when working with one of my colleagues, which I'm going to send this to him.
He referred to me as Nanny McPhee, which I still haven't seen the movie.
I need to see it.
I haven't seen it either.
So this is the premise.
Nanny McPhee goes in and is providing structure to a group of kids.
Not sure what the story is there, but a group of children.
And not calling my clients children, but this is just the analogy.
And she goes in and she's ugly at first because she's making all these changes and putting in this structure and everyone just kind of hates it.
And then eventually what happens is things start to come together and it starts to look nice.
And then you realize she's actually not ugly at all.
And everything that she did was here to help.
So he would call me Nanny McPhee.
And he's like, I didn't see it at first.
He's like, but now I get it.
I get it.
I'm so glad that we had you here.
It's just because it's uncomfortable at first.
I'm not a tattletale, but, you know, I have to be honest with my clients.
So if I see an opportunity, I'm going to point it out.
It's up to them what they do with it.
I'll help them do whatever it is that they need to do ethically.
Do you have any tips for people to speak up effectively in meetings?
Thinking about people who want to speak up but they're questioning whether what they have to say has enough value.
Wanting to sound good, but with some insecurity.
How would you address that?
I would say prepare.
I think back to my days working at a company where the president of our division he didn't say much.
He listened a lot.
But when he spoke, it was like, oh, yeah.
Like, how did all how did we all miss that?
So what I would say is prepare and use the frameworks to put your thoughts together.
If you are going to present your ideas to the VP, maybe take the first thought to the director to see hey, am I on the right page?
Will this resonate?
What changes do I need to make?
And be open to feedback because it can only help.
I value negative feedback as much as I value positive feedback, because all of it is a learning right.
I'll learn what to do better if someone tells me that they didn't like some action or activity.
Just like I'll continue to do something if people really love that thing.
So I would say remain open.
And test it on a smaller audience and then use the framework so that you don't go all over the place.
Because I think for some of us getting in front of executives and trying to find our voice, we think that we need to say a lot.
But really what they're looking for is the most impactful thing in the most succinct way.
And that's where I think that a lot of novice people will fail is that they're trying to show up grandly.
And it's like, no, actually just be really impactful.
And that's what they're going to remember.
Take something off their plate.
Yes, I love it.
Take something off their plate and be a filter.
Use that expertise not to expand and to explain and to elaborate, but rather put yourself in the position of trusted advisor, customer experience consultant, since that's your customer, in a way.
Yep.
Well, this has been so good, Ty.
Before we go, I want you to talk a little bit about building trust and connection and how you do that as an introvert, when you're selling your services or building the relationship with new clients.
And tell us about trust and connection, because that is important, of people's experience of us and of our stakeholder experience, customer experience.
Trust and connection is indispensable.
Yeah, I consider myself a terrible salesperson.
Let's start there.
Not my thing, but I'm a service person and I might not be the best at convincing anyone to do anything.
But if there's a challenge that they have, I can help them, right?
So no one does like my sales calls or initial kickoff calls.
If someone books time on the website to talk to someone, they talk to me.
And when I'm talking with them, I'm really just trying to understand what the issue is.
And it's not an opportunity for itself for me.
It's more of an opportunity for a relationship.
Because at the end of the day, if they don't buy a service, they'll remember me.
And then down the line, maybe someone else needs a service.
And they're like hey, I spoke to this person and she can do X, Y and Z, So I really just use any opportunity to seek to understand more than I do anything else.
How can I help you solve the problem that you're facing?
Or make sure that they understand that I can help with the problem that they're facing.
And if I cannot, be honest about that too.
Yes.
And that's how we sell our ideas, our solutions, our proposals.
It's understanding what going on with everybody else.
And is there anything else you want to say in closing to our audience that you know you think that that would help them in there to be more effective and to have that executive presence?
You know, the best executives that I've worked with, they have no ego.
They're super approachable and they're open and they're honest.
And I think if we all just lead with like from a good place, lead from your heart, Your passion will show.
And even if you, if you mess up on the mistake, because the only problem is in making the same mistake.
New mistakes are wonderful.
So don't be afraid to fall in a new place tomorrow, because then the next time you'll, you will have learned something.
That's right.
I can't say it better than that.
Keep going.
This has been awesome.
Thank you so much, Ty.
Thank you.
Ty was so good.
I loved her frameworks.
I think the impact one is the one I'm going to stick with.
Really, she was such a kind and helpful guest.
And if you're constantly being told that you're doing a great job but you're still getting passed up for those senior promotions and you're feeling invisible.
You may want to check out the Executive Presence Scorecard, which will help you identify how others experience you.
You can check out your performance along the four domains of content in the Executive Presence Mastery System.
Simply email me at hello at speakupwithlaura.com.
Put SCORE in the subject line and I will get that to you personally.
Have a fantastic day and I will catch you in the next episode.
