Without blank, my professional life would be in sham Mickey. Christie Falteruzzo. Waiting. Yeah. And once again, welcome to the Digital Customer Success podcast podcast. I'm Alex Turkovic. So glad you could join us here today and every week as I seek out and interview leaders and practitioners who are innovating and building great scale CS programs. My is to self educate and bring you along for the ride so that you get the insights that you need to evolve your own digital customer success program. If you want more info or you need to get in touch or sign up to get the latest updates from us, go to digital customer success.com. But for now, let's get started with today's show. Hello, and welcome to a special edition of the digital customer success podcast it is special for a couple of different reasons. The first is we usually release on Tuesdays, but it is Friday. So you're getting a bonus episode this week. And the reason for that bonus episode is because I've had a ton of great conversations one to one with with great people. as part of this show. all, you know, rock stars in their own right, but it is rare that you get to sit down with 4 of those amazing people in one go, which is exactly what happened, today, where I had the pleasure of meeting with the the the crew known as BSNCS, part of the unturned podcast, with Christie Faltorusso, John Johnson, Josh Schecter and Mickey Powell, all in one room. And if you know those guys and if you've heard the BSNCS podcast, it, it can get pretty lively. It can get pretty opinionated. And, our session was was no exception. We talked about serious topics such as digital customer success and and and really how to drive customer success digitally as a whole. but, you know, we veered off into all kinds of topics, including, P. W. Herman. x, formerly known as Twitter, bootleg cable from India, how IKEA Allen Wrenches somehow equate cross departmental coordination. just all kinds of things. It was a fun station. I surely enjoyed it, and I hope you do too. Well, I mean, the whole reason that the whole reason I invited all you guys on is because I just didn't I didn't wanna talk. So, take it away. You ordered a podcast where you didn't actually have to podcast. That's right. Exactly. Should we introduce ourselves? Yeah. Please, you know -- Wait. You don't have, like, this really cool intro music? No. I am not as fancy as you guys. I do everything in post because I'm lazy. I do everything in front of me. We're doing it live. That's right. That's right. Can we swear on this episode on this program? Oh, 1000%. Okay. Cool. I already did. So -- Yes. You already did. welcome to the show. I do wanna introduce you guys, but, you know, you you you you folks are, wonderfully notorious, I might say, on on your own podcast. So I don't know how much How do you know when I have tattooed on my bad. Wonderful. That's the sound clip. I knew Mickey. But, if If you guys wanna reintroduce yourself real quick, that would be awesome for those that don't know. We'll start with John since he's top left on my screen. Hey, guys. My name is John Johnson. I'm a principal customer success manager at user testing and one of the hosts on CS and BS. That sounded very official, John. You'd switched into a lower register for that. Yes. I did. Mr. Mickey Powell. Hello. I'm the head of go to market at UpdateAI. Been in CS for the last 10 years, and I I'm on the CS andBS podcast. but, like, not entirely sure of my purpose there. I'll figure it out at some point. You're you're you're you're the guy on the CS podcast that when you start speaking, everybody else kinda shuts up that because you're, you know, you're just freaking -- Are you are we listening to the same part? Nikki Nikki is just looking for pity followers on LinkedIn. right now. Yeah. Now that they left him back on LinkedIn. Yeah. That's right. She's purgatory. He's a stick. I'm Josh Schachter. founder and CEO of UpdateAI and the original host of the Unchurned podcast. which is a sub brand. c s and b s is a sub brand -- Sub brand. -- of unchurned. Yeah. That took me -- You know, where the -- Well, the popular spin off of it. The popular spin off. This is a sequel. Just let you know, we would have more popular spin off a friend. We're not even gonna make it through intros. What do your download comparisons look like? That's that's the real that's -- Alex, do you wanna place a bet that we could get through this entire podcast without talking about CS at all? Not at all. I put pretty good money on that. Can I introduce myself? Who are you, Christie? Christie? Come on, Christie. I'm Chrissy Peltkeruso. I am the chief customer officer at client success. We are a customer success management solution. I've spent in the past 12 years in customer success, building, scaling, and transforming customer success teams. And I get to spend my Monday afternoons with this clown show. Yeah. It's about right. That's about right. And and that was an awesome intro. It it was it was I think last week, you you mentioned on BS and CS that you that that was kind of like your go to intro. So -- Kinda like my little tagline. Yeah. Yeah. Kinda. I found something that works. makes interviewing super powerful. Have a tagline. Yeah. Your elevator pitch. Well, I am I'm chuffed to bits that you guys are on the show. Thank you. I'm sorry. What what was that word? All the bits. Don't worry about it. -- got all the bits? and we'll do that. Yep. Chuffed to bits. Chuffed to bits. Yep. As the Brits would say, I I wanna start off with How did y'all -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. -- come to be. Alex, we've never met. Who are you? It's not possible for everything. It's his podcast. We're on his podcast. I get it, but -- My name's Billy. My name's Billy, but, you know, I You can join the clown show. I can join the clown show temporarily. Alex Strickovich. I am. Oh, right. The host of the digital customer success podcast. The most aptly named podcast in this industry right now. I mean, it's to the point, right, I suppose? I'm just riding the wave. That's all I wanna do. I'm just riding the wave. That's all. That's all. That's all. That's all me. But, yeah, no. I, you know, I lead Digital CS at Snow software, which has been super fun because we're on prem, and that's all kinds of fun challenges. But, I'm not here to talk about me. I'm here to talk about you guys, which is to say, how did you guys hook up, link up, and start doing this this thing called b s n c s. Like, what what because you guys Josh, Chelsea's story. Mickey and Josh, you guys have the connection there. Chris Y'all over the place. John Y'all over the place. How did you guys kind of meet and and what was the genesis of that? Alright. So I was running this podcast. And, then completely separately, I was selling used bed pans on Craigslist. Mickey responded to this posting. Huge meat. Bullshit. Can you deliver ASAP? I okay. So so we've been doing the we've been doing the unturned podcast. as part of UpdateAI for a little over a year. It's been going really well. except I got bored with it because I didn't wanna continue to talk to, like, the standard CS leaders. there's only so many conversations you can have about QBR reviews and, like, whatever other topics. You know? And, so I started to mix it up a little bit. And then I guess, John, like, we were kind of like, we did we did something together. Right? We did a an office hours together, whatever. And and John's an awesome dude. and and I knew that, like, the energy was gonna work really well with him. So then I said, okay. Let's let's do something together. And then we threw Mickey into the fold because Mickey knows a shit ton, and he's become this thought leader on AI and everybody wants to you're about AI, and I love his curiosity. So then we had 3 amigos. And then he said, well, not doing this without a woman. 9-9-2023. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. supreme court -- I feel like that's devaluing Christie just a little bit. We needed we needed some honesty in strategy. They didn't have a female, so I'm here to ensure that they don't canceled. We just got the bad No. No. Really gosh. Like, how did you, guys? Wait. What how did choose me. Yeah. I'm telling you a true story. I am I am throwing myself out there vulnerable. Gonna get canceled for this probably, but the truth is We weren't gonna have, like, 3 or 4 do yeah. 3 or 4 white do. It's just talking about, like, CS. Like, Like, there's enough of that. And so we say, okay. Well, we need a woman. We need to balance this out. I I, by the way, believe in, like, having a very, like, diverse group. Right? And so we said who who to to John's point, who is the badass ass bitch out there? And and it's Christy. And and she totally carries the show. this is her show, and we're like the, like, the backup singers on, like, the the We're the daily sharks. Left and right sharks. She's the kind of -- She's she's Diana Ross, and we're the supremes. And so, like, yeah. Yeah. I I have visions of this stage production already. Like But so my favorite, Christy, do you remember how we met? I feel like it was so long ago. I can't recall. I just, like, probably, I only I think I -- -- Saster. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I do remember Saster, not last year. The year before, and he came up to the booth. And we had so many hugs right away. Yep. Yep. It was really good. But, no, that was that was a huge turning point for me was just, like, actually meeting you guys. Like, it'll it's been 2 years for Christy at just over a year for Josh, and and Mickey is just kind of the add on. but, yeah, that was good. Josh, didn't we do a happy hour? in -- We did. Yeah. My patio in New York. patio. It rained. and we did a happy hour in your honor, and I would like to do one again. And I've also attended some of your musical sessions. John is a fabulous, and I'm not being facetious here as an amazing, musician. And you? I concur. I concur. Yeah. So here we are. John, like your stuff. wow. That's I mean, it's it's cool how you know, and I find I think this the CS community in general is just like, made up of slightly crazy people that are all super friendly and, like, you know, like like to dish out the abuse a little bit. So There you go. Dude, you're gonna freeze again? Wait. If you we can take over. We can take over now. It's our podcast. He's just gonna have cleaned this up in post. Thanks. So we met him either. So P. D. Herman. I just got a notification that P. E. Herman died. He died. Yeah. I I saw something. I would say I thought it I thought it was on Twitter, but I think somebody exed something in it. So we can't we don't tweet anymore. So what is it? What do you do? What's the verb? We act. We act? It's just post. No. It's just post. We post. Yeah. But post the word. I don't know if that's helpful. posting x sounds like something that you do at a party or something. I asked you. I asked my I asked my -- I feel like I'll ask you to say something that make me cancel their mind. Okay. Anyway. I move on. You know, it was canceled in Indonesia, right, because it's now x.com? Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. Interesting. Yep. They had to actually give an exception in the app store as well because there's limitations. It had to have at least 2 characters to be listed in the app. somebody didn't think that through. I wonder who that would have been. I think this is a great segue into customer success? No. It isn't. What are you talking about? We're talking about x the whole time. Got them. Pick it up. well, hey, look, I mean, speaking of social, right, and ex, I suppose, which I don't know about. you know, digital CS obviously has been, like, the, the, the poster child of topics. The trigger word. The trigger word, if you will. Yeah. Been around for a long time. Seen lots of in, you know, iterations of it. started as a segment or whatever is now no longer considered a segment, which is healthy. A lot of talk about you know, what is the internal enablement aspect of Digital CS versus the customer side of it? And and I I wanted to start off with just like getting all of your opinions on, you know, what what what constitutes as overplayed today in all the stuff that you see about digital CS versus, like, you know, what is actually providing value? What is what is valid? Because there's just tons of regurgitation going on out there. I think Christy should go first. Yep. -- refers. I kinda like going last. Okay. my thoughts on this is that, like, Everyone keeps listing out the same top 10 probably programs because chat GPT will also reiterate that there's a good top 10 list if you type in, like, digital CS programs. Yep. My take on it is this. I think that it is helpful in some cases, but it's not for everybody. It's not for every organization. I think there's tons of people right now that are all feeling like this is the thing that they have to do because everyone's talking about it. And it seems like the future, but I need people to stop collaborate and listen. No. that would be the next thing that they do. Sorry. If I didn't use that, I would have let myself down. So the only think about their own customers and their own business and see what makes sense. I think everyone right now is just, like, panicking and thinks they have to jump on this bus and start doing a whole bunch of shit, and I don't know that any of it's working. So my thing is be more methodical and make sure it makes sense for your business, for your product, for your customers. You can find ways to introduce this, but you don't have to go full court press. because everyone seemingly doing this thing called digital CS. Yeah. Well, we all know doing a bunch of shit is a recipe for disaster. Everyone's lacking focus now anyway, everyone's programs are a shit storm, churn is through the roof. And so instead of just trying to figure out new programs to deploy, running code, figure out your business first. What's going on there? Get your house in order. Yeah. So I agree with you and Christy Christy on this one. I think, like, the genesis of where we should be taking this digital CS thing is, like, the purpose of it is to meet customers where they're at. It's not to force them to come to where we're at. Like, you can say we have this great community, but if it's not built around, where a large group of your your customers are, whether it's digital or in person, then it's not gonna matter. Whatever you do in a digital space is not gonna matter if it will not have the impact that you need. And I think a lot of times people start with the with the method and they don't focus on the measurement. and I think they say, well, we need the we need Pendo, and we need, automation, and we need X, y, and z. And it and they haven't actually said Well, our customers are doing x. So in order for us to meet them there, we're gonna do y. And I think that starting point is foundation of what we need to get back to. And I I really do think that we're lost in in the sauce of just solving everything with a tool or a process or whatever it is. We do incredible lunch and learns with our with our key customers, and it's because we know and we've spent years listening to our customers, and where they're where they're at, how they learn, how they interact with brands, and what they wanna gather from us. Right? And and we meet them there. we just kinda open the door, and it's a beautiful it's a beautiful relationship to have. But at the same time, we do not force every single customer into that same path. And that's where segmentation comes in. And I think there are there are things that you can learn from this digital, whatever we did, tech touch, however you wanna call it, that you can apply, that you should apply, and it really comes down to what what Christy said of saying. Like, what is the impact? If you're not if you do not understand the the purpose of these things. It is not to replace a human. It is not to do more with less. It is to make it easier for your customer to cut to get to their successful outcomes, as quickly as possible. Yeah. Don't do it because everybody else is doing it. Right? and and one of the common trend or or common themes on the episodes, you know, so far has really been around, especially don't do it if you don't have, like, your, your data house in order. If you don't know who your customers if you don't know what your actual objectives are. Like like, you know, don't throw a tool at it with ratty data because that tool is just gonna be ratty. Ready. Right. So I was talking with my Gmail customer success manager the other day. No. You weren't. Exactly. because they don't exist. They don't exist. So I I I see I see this whole shift as the natural evolution towards is the more friction you add and friction could be schedule a call with me to learn more about this product. It could be, hey. You chose option a when you should choose option b. That's my strategic recommendation as a customer success manager. We have to consistently design products and motions away from friction. Yeah. So that's why Instagram doesn't have customer success managers. You can use it very simply as a user They also have, you know, huge design development, UX teams because they have to design it for the average consumer. when they built it that way to begin with. Yeah. Exactly. Well, yeah, like, I won't get too much into the whole, like, your market and go to market and sales and product and all that stuff. But for too long, customer success has been trying to fill the gaps in what a user is trying to do and how your capabilities within your product match that. And digital is trying to automate a lot of that because humans are very expensive. So it's I hate to say it, but, like, this is just an evolution pushing more back towards product as much as humanly possible and that's really hard. Like, if anybody here has ever done any sort of product development, it's really hard to do well. So to think that you're just gonna buy a tool and it's gonna solve this problem for you is a complete fallacy. You do have to take on, like, a product manager style approach starting from the bottoms up, starting with, like, what are the jobs they're trying to accomplish? How can we do it? can we help them do it in as few and as easy steps as possible that are appropriate for that person? Yep. I love that. And it really I think I think, and, you know, this is probably something that you're hearing from from folks too is that I feel like people come at it with a really good intention, like, that intention comes into it. but I don't really see a lot of folks talking about how they're, like, mapping out where their customers are. Right? There's just a lot of assumptions. They're like, well, they don't like QBRs. And it's like, wow. Do they not like QBRs, or are you just not giving them the data that they need? Like, do they not like, you know, interacting with your emails or have you just not tested headlines? Like, are you, like, there re there is not like a secondary level of data analysis of of of experiential analysis to say. It takes a lot of time to go to your customer and be like, what the hell do you not like about me? Like, why don't you show up to our meetings? Why don't you renew outside of and and they don't push on, oh, it's too expensive. We cut our budget. Like, that's not true. Like, that's the worst, you know, answer that you can give to a churn event because it's not actually based in reality. Like, there's no value there, but why is there no value there? And we have it built in the motion to support a digital motion because we didn't do it when we had people, and they're just now swapping out these processes that don't have a human anymore but there's still no way to capture where the customer actually is. My my favorite digital CS tools are app queues, customer.io, gmail, and zoom. None of those are CS tools. Right. They're not. Because you know what? Like, I mean, app queues is all about, customer onboarding and tool tips. and pop ups and all that stuff. And we've put so much time into, like, in the product, in our product, in UpdateAI, like, figuring out, like, where to put the learn more button and what page that should go to and making sure the copy is clear and making sure that, like, customer.i0 sends out the right email to the person to explain stuff if they don't understand. and and it goes back to what Christy said in the last we recorded and what Mickey just said, like, you gotta focus on having a product that's really intuitive at making sure you're explaining stuff to people along the way. And then it goes back to what John said. Meet them where they are. So, well, they're an email. So every email that we send out and granted, we don't have a 1,000,000 use Right? So we can do this probably in ways that others can't, but, I mean, then again, there's Zendesk and all that stuff. Like, every life cycle email that we send out, you can just reply and it goes right back to us, and we can then have a, like, a Gmail thread with you. And it either goes there or it goes into intercom. And that's where customers are. and it makes it easy for them. And then, of course, like, we we schedule calls that we can have, like, we call them kick start sessions, but we can answer. We can help you troubleshoot right then there in lie live on on Zoom. And again, we're not, you know, 100 of 1000 of users, but, I don't know, man. Like, this digital CS stuff is for the birds. What I think but I think this is, like, to your point, I think it's because we are applying a solution Yeah. To a problem that did not dictate it. Right? So I'm gonna use Mickey's example, like, digital CS when it comes to an Instagram where it is built to be consumer friendly, easy acts. Everything is at at your thumbprint. Right? The last 10 years, what is what have VCs told every single startup to do in order to grow their business. Like, it's services, it's add ons, it's, like, all of these external growth factors that make things bloated and complicated. and software services now, there is no easy way to cancel. There is no ease like, because everything if you cancel, you need to have 6 meetings with your CSM to save it and then the executive team. And and it is purposely designed to be difficult. And the the basis is, like, the the the the ground floor of Digital CS has a presupposition that everything can be done digitally, but that's not the case. Most of the companies that we're talking about here, maybe updates a a little bit different because you guys are current generation. Right? Yeah. We're small. Founded within the last yeah. And you're small. But, like, our company, like, digital CS, like, as it's written on Wikipedia doesn't apply to us. It cannot apply to us. Yeah. Because you have to have, like, 15 touch points to buy or do anything with our software. Like, it is not product led. It is it is completely impossible for us because we don't have the measurements or the tools in place. Christie's working. I wanna know what she's thinking. Well, no. I I sit in a super similar challenge different, but with client success, our challenges in our software It's it's the people using it. They lacked strategy. They lacked direction. And so they use they used product based on features and functionality, but to drive no real outcome. Right? So when I think about digital CS, it's not going to help me educate and enable my customers on customer success. Not client success or product, but would they're needing help? is understanding what they should be focusing on, what strategies they should be deploying. Right? So I end up spending most of our time with our customers not talking about our product at all. but educating them on what they should be doing in their business, there's no digital CS program that scales that. Yeah. Like, why are, you know, why are you implementing this feature? Well, I haven't we don't even talk about people with functionality. I do not. I'm like, What are you trying to do? Yeah. And when that when the answer is reduce churn, I'm like, well, how are you intending to do that? me too. Yeah. I was like, tell me a CS team who isn't. you know, it's just that the lack of direction and clarity that folks have, and I and I do think it's because of things like this, right, you've got so much chatter in the community that no one knows which way is up anymore. And we've moved kinda like like sheep. just trying to do what everyone else is doing instead of really being thoughtful about the fact that our business, our product, everything is different. And instead of trying to do what everybody else is doing because you think the right thing to do, you really have to be in tune with what your customers need and how they need it. Yeah. What I think so oh, go ahead, Alex. I was just gonna say it gets confusing incredibly quickly because I think what a lot of people don't realize, I think this is the point you were making Christy is is that there really isn't a playbook per se for digital CS. You know, the playbook is what are your goals? The playbook is what do you have to feed those goals? Like, you know, is it is it humans? Is it data? Is it, you know, whatever platform it is? It doesn't really matter. Like, you know, what what what are you trying to achieve, where do your customers live, and how are you gonna meet them there? And that's not something that you can necessarily provide somebody in a webinar or or a book that that takes some actual thought in in design before you go and actually build it. Right? No. That's sad. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. Sorry, John Hall. Give me one second before I forget. one thought. So I don't disagree with that, and I actually think that -- John, you're not gonna get to talk. No. I I think that the challenge happens is because Listen. Everyone's trying to digitize the wrong things and scale the wrong things. Yeah. I I use automation when I'm doing email things that just need to happen in the customer journey. I am finding ways to synthesize things. I love UpdateAI's product to help my team when I think about internal workflows and driving efficiency, I I really don't think that people are focusing on the right things to help them. And so I think, but this goes back to, like, know your business, know your customers, know your product. Mhmm. Yeah. And, that's actually similar to what I what I wanted to point out is that I think I don't think digital customer success is the answer. I think it is it is the opening salvo of of a long form statement. And I think I think what we need to do is as practitioners, we need to make sure that we're we're coaching our ops folks and our and our tools providers to say we can use digital solutions and digital practices for marketing. I mean, the example that you gave Christie, actually, like, This is something that we do with our key accounts is you said we're we're spending all of our time teaching the CCOs how to capture their customer outcomes. Right? the the digital CS solution is to then build a program that you could scale around thought leadership for solving that problem. This is something that we do at user testing with methodologies. Right? So we do like UX research and design. So we take we hear from one customer that says, man, I I would use this if I knew how to do x and then we go and we find a hundred people that are doing x and then we talk about it. And then, like, it's not feature based. It's not software based. It is here's the methodology, and then we measure the outcomes based on everybody that attended and the, you know, the the Venn diagram of the folks, and we see, like, if behavior changed. And if it leads us to an outcome, which is increased usage and consumption. Right? So it's this idea that and I know that this isn't everybody, and I know I'm painting with a broad brush, but I I don't see a lot of the nuance I don't see a lot of I think the digital processes are. Let's automate outreach so that we understand who our people are if we're dealing 1000 of users. Right? Not not everybody's dealing with thousands of users, but it's a great opportunity to use some of the tools. Right? You're testing, headlines through marketing practices. You're testing webinars topics through, all of these things. It comes down to being able to measure it Sorry. I'm kind of, like I said, wandering a little bit, but, what digital allows you to do is it allows you to measure it. because it is it is tech. It is software, and you get to see how many people showed up and then those those equal users in the platform You can draw that line in a different way than a one to one approach, and I don't see that. I don't see the picture being painted to say I had a thousand people over the last year that joined our webinars. And of those a thousand people, I met with 10 of them, and it drove x outcome. Right? and and it's that blend of coming from this tech touch to what makes humans valuable in these roles, which is conversations that we have with our users to capture their -- Alex, I I think, you know, it's important to to to kinda know your audience here on this one. So so UpdateAI, we're helping, to save time so you can scale relationships and scale interactions with your customer direct real interactions. Yep. John and user testing are scaling understanding intimately what the customer wants, through interactions as well. And Christy and client success I believe their their kind of hypothesis is that the CSM, the actual human, knows best. And so to help equip them with tools to help that human engage their customer. So you're talking to a panel of folks here that are not necessarily, like, our DNA is not and and that's why we have a podcast because we like to talk to real people. Yeah. Exactly. And it and it's it's interesting too because, the, you know, the I think the the tendency for and this, you know, may transition into kind of my next question. But one of the boneheaded things I see a lot of people do when it comes to, like, getting into into digital CS is like, let's automate something that we've never done manually first. Yes. Yes. you know, and it happens all the time. And and you and you folks as kind of the practitioners behind the scenes and guiding some of these things from a platform perspective. Probably see that time and time again. Yeah. If you haven't done it poorly, you can't automate it correctly. Right. Can't wait to automate everything I do now? Yeah. Yeah. I can talk to, like, any software engineer, and they could probably tell you, like, a 1000 examples of, like, oh, we set this to, like, run this, you know, this script or this, you know, program, and it broke because we didn't consider 18 things that could break this. Right. Yep. And that's their job. Totally. Happens all the time. So what what are some of the other boneheaded things that you've seen out there? Like, you know, what, what, what are, what are some folks doing that you're just like, what the heck, or what, what have you done yourself? I could point to any number of things that I do because I'm Generally, I'm really excited. She's got a list. There's a whiteboard right behind her of all the things that she's done poorly. Okay. Take care wherever she is. My I think my my favorite one these days when it comes to digital CS is the the multichannel versus omnichannel approaches where people think that because they are everywhere that they have an omnichannel experience designed for their customers. But really, what you're getting is, like, the telecom experience, right, where, like, you're gonna tell somebody your story thirteen times just to cancel your cable. So, like, that that is what's actually happening out there, but I feel like people have this misconception like, no. But I have people on social, and I've got chat I've got this automation. I've got all these things, but none of these tools and systems speak to each other, and none of that data is integrated. So All these things are happening in their own little micro silos. That is not an omnichannel approach, and that is creating a horrible customer experience. So from a digital testing, I'm seeing that and feeling it all of the time in other technologies that I use, and it's like cringe worthy. Yeah. Yeah. No. I I think that's a big one. I think not understanding, the customer experience when it comes to whatever you wanna call multichannel or omnichannel. Like, if we give them 10 ways to communicate with us, but those internal ten ways are not communicating with itself, then we have now automated our customers into a living nightmare. And it it it isn't it may make it harder for them to cancel because they're not gonna churn, but they sure aren't gonna like us a a whole lot. Yeah. It's like there's a reason why people hate spectrum so much. You have to call out spectrum, but, like -- No. We should call out spectrum. They still deserve to be called that. -- everything. So I've been in customer for, like, 5 years. And I get almost, like, five times a week. I get, hey. We got this Oh, yeah. Hey. Hey. How many introductory? Here you go. So I I use bootleg cable from India. I pay$13 a month and I get, like, all the channels in the world. And -- Yeah. But you're not -- I'm not an open source. We've established this episodes ago. episodes ago, we established that job. -- one of those, like, black boxes that we used to have in the nineties. Yes. It is the equivalent to that. It is the equivalent to that. Yes. and I have, like, 50 chain. Josh has very particular test. Well -- Not not x.com time if that's weird. If that's -- Yeah. But, yeah, but but here, John, this is to your point. You know where you know where the customer serve you know, where I meet my customer service people to meet meet your customers where they are? on on WhatsApp. And we do a a WhatsApp video and I share the view of my television and they walk me through whatever needs to be fixed. And it's me, and and it's great. Now the flip side is that they spam me, every day with phone calls of, like, but, like, that's the sales side. On the CS side, meet me where I am. I have a what's I can immediately WhatsApp them within minutes. They WhatsApp me and we jump on a call together. And it's no spectrum go through, like, a Genesis tele telephony thing. Right? Like, you know, to get to a customer. Yeah. Well, To your point, I think one of the challenges is that we have CS teams that implement a digital customer success approach in their own silo. and they do not incorporate the importance of a digital outreach or inbound with sales, marketing, and product. And so our sales leaders are asking us for the same information in the same way when we are gathering information differently. And our marketing team is sending out comms and segmenting in the same way, but we're actually gathering information in a different way now. and like digital CS as a success multiplier should be, in it should be a group effort between the touch points with a cons with a customer, and I don't think that that's being done very well right now. So that that is a headache where they're like, well, we're gonna do digital. Right? And then the CCO signs the check and they get the tool and nobody else knows what's going on. And once a month, they talked about this outreach, but the the sales leader is still saying, hey, on your lead. Like, I'm gonna I'm gonna fire off a bunch of emails to these guys, but what they don't know is that me, the CSM, has just fired off a bunch fucking emails to these guys. And now it's noise. And now marketing is sending a bunch of other stuff, and there's pendo pop ups, and then there's my pendo pop ups. And then there's there's guides and it becomes noise -- Yeah. -- because we're not waiting and waiting as in, the weight of things, not w e i g h t. Not waiting in the water. Yeah. but is that we're not waiting the importance of outreach within the customer life cycle. When should marketing reach out to them? When should sales reach out to them? And I think this is something that a lot of people have a lot of opinions on is that as a CSM, one of our jobs should be to indicate when these other groups have the opportunity to communicate en masse to our customers because we own the customer relationship. Can I disagree? Can I disagree? No. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. Of course. You can. We need to bring back him. I'll disagree with him. Oh, god. That was Can that just oh, that poor guy. You should have him on it. Like, keep on it. -- reply back to my, I'm sorry, email. So I think that we are not Okay. Oh, he blocked you. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time. Well, real question. This is, like, he's blocked Josh. I forgot his name to disagree with. Oh, man. See, this is where the -- I think that I said that that I said I said that I think that, that not I guess I'll I'll soften a little bit, not as, like, a true gatekeeper, but the marketing and sales should be informed on the outreach and the customer to do it. CS isn't on the customer. The company owns the customer. Like, let's cut the shit. This is the problem. And this is why we don't play well with others is because customer success managers across the world or something like mine. Mine. These are my customers. Don't touch them. And this is why we take an orchestrated bullshit together because we can't do, like, as a company, we can't do our job because you got people saying like, no. You can't touch them. You can't do this. You can't do that. But if we all changed our mindset that the company owns the customer because it's actually who owns the customer. Because, John, if you left your company, right, Are your customers churning tomorrow? -- with me. They would leave it to you. I promise you. You're such a journeyman. Let me -- Just take the fish. You are -- Who's coming with me? You are making my point. Christy, you are making my point. I I think I use the wrong words when I say we own the customer. What I I think -- Go back back. You said something that No. No. No. I am backtracking because you actually said something that we are not orchestrated, and I think that is the problem. Yes. What I want is I want orchestrated outreach of all customer facing, outcomes so that CS has a seat at the table, not to own it, but to say, hey. It's really important that we get usage up. So we need to, like, chill out on the sales outreach and the marketing outreach for net new stuff. We need to focus on this for this life cycle. So I'm gonna handle this. And then there's the there's that opportunity at a stage to have marketing in in when there's growth or sales. Right? That's what I'm trying to say is that I think we're saying the same thing is that there isn't an orchestration of outreach and that we're all just doing it in silos, and it's actually causing one were causing a self inflicted, pain. Yeah. I agree. Like, I agree with that. The company owns -- I also wanna own the fucking Right. That's what I was told by job is. I used to think that I owned my customers. And then, like, 10 years later, I realized I don't own shit. so That's the reality, though. What happens is we ended up being we end up being our own worst nightmare because we're blockers to the against this orchestration with that mindset of we own the customer. And we think that we should have more of a say than marketing and sales. The reality of it is we have a say. Right? And we should all be working together, but the reality of it is if sales still has to find leads, and they need to be focusing on on growing these accounts and getting in there. And marketing has their shit to do. Right? They're running an event. They gotta find speakers. They gotta get content. They gotta get case studies. Whatever. it's okay that these things happen in parallel. Right? It's okay that there is a multi orchestrated, like, campaign, we'll call it for lack of better word, for these customers. And that that that approach is alright. What I think that we all lack though, but beyond this orchestration, though, is like, there's also lack of data and visibility around what's happening. Yeah. Right? Because and then I think this is where we all get emotional is because all of a sudden, CS didn't know that marketing was sending something out. And they find out from the customer or they found out from somebody else. It's like, well, this this customer is, like, in bad shape and they're about to churn and Why are we asking them to speak of this event? And that's not a, like, who owns what? Like, I also feel like lack of visibility and lack of, like, data democratization in the company causes a big rift there too. I love that. Yep. I have a good example of this. Double click. Of this, inaction. So at 5 stars, we served retail small businesses in the US, and we did we did a Kaizanovic, which for those that aren't familiar, it's like 2 4 hour meetings where, like, you go over the customer, like, the full customer journey and stakeholders from every department have to map out their process and their measurements. So, like, marketing was their sales was their product was their support was their, like, everybody. And it's it's a lot of work. And I was responsible for a lot of the analysis from, like, the operational side. And then we had to present that those findings to the C suite. And I pulled together all the touch points in the customer's 1st 60 days. These are retail small business owners who do way too much already. and combined between all of our different functions, all of our different outreach, all of our different, you know, text SMS, blah blah blah. It was a 100 touch points in the 1st 60 days. Oof. And it blew the mind of our head of marketing because he didn't know. And he was just like, holy shit. And it's just like, it was built up over time. Like, literally, you could say, like, We added this text in 2014, and then those set of emails and then that. And then and then all of a sudden, it's a 100. I'm like, they're not gonna pay -- -- back to It goes back to an earlier point that we were kinda getting at, which is to say, like, once you start doing this stuff, you start implementing all this stuff, it gets cloudy real quick. And all of a sudden, you're confused about who's doing what, you know, what it looks like? Does it is this, you know, is this heavily branded? Is this the look more like it came from a human? Like, you know, and what's the inter interplay with that. So, you know, just to put a bow in it, though, I think, Christy, you're spot on that, you know, the customer owns you know, the, the, the, the company owns the freaking customer, right? But what's missing is for practically everyone is that coordination that, that, that, togetherness where you go through and you you interface with, you know, marketing and sales and product and whoever else needs to communicate with the get a survey back from a customer and do all this kind of stuff. And so a lot of times, we as CSMs, we're at the middle of it. We get the brunt of it just because we're we're You know, we're the ones talking to these folks except for support sometimes. And it's like, you know, we get frustrated and and say, hey, look, I own the customer. When in reality, you know, you're you're you're trying to coordinate. You're just trying to not get yelled at the next day. Yeah. You know, then coordination, like, for anybody that likes to study strategy, the more I study strategy, people that research it and talk about it, coordination is such a huge theme. Yeah. Like, it it I cannot overstate that, like, that is so important, but none of us do it because we would have to stop. We would have to stop momentum. And humans, especially the type that work at startups, They're very good at at action. That's like simultaneously a weakness and a strength because it's like, no. We gotta go. We gotta go. We can't stop to do a 4 hour meeting to get on the same page because we need to do something. And I think that that is, like, one of the things. -- to action, and it's on every start up's about me page. Yeah. Josh, is that is the, yeah, Josh, is that one of our values? It is -- -- everyone's value. Yeah. No. It's true. Don't you dare sit still Yeah. It's it's like you have to be seen to be doing something. Uh-huh. Like, god forbid that you get on the same fucking page. because guess what? IKEA is on the same page. Like, IKEA knows exactly what they're doing and how they do it, and it probably took a ton Oh, they said -- On, of course. -- at some point, they said, everybody's gonna use Allen wrenches, and there's no option. -- so many fucking Allen wrenches in the house right now. Exactly. So no. No. -- knows what they're doing. No one has no one who's trying to build a furniture knows what they're doing. So, like, this is -- Yeah. No. But, like, let's use the Allen wrench as an exam because, yes, I've thrown away a 1,000,000 of those islander inches. And guess what? I bet you somewhere along the line. There was somebody in, like, purchasing logistics procurement that was, like, just gonna give this element so we know they're gonna throw away. We're gonna waste money. And then the company said, that's okay. Because, you know, by giving it to him, they don't have to go buy another tool. It's a better experience. Well, so, like, they made a decision to say, we're gonna build it this way. We're gonna provide these tools. And, yes, we know that it's going trade into the garbage. So we have to optimize in other places, and that takes a ton of coordination. Yep. Great. Yeah. The I had to, like, look up in Google, the difference between Allen Wrench and Allen Key because I've been calling them Allen Keys, and I had to see if it was different than Allen Wrench. Good story. I actually is it different? no. No. It's it's it's they're not. The Allen Wrench appears to be one unit where have different size Allen keys, whereas actually what IKEA is sending you is the Allen key. It's the individual based on the size of the things that you're working with. Mickey, you've been up to make sure you update your, your your verbiage next time that it's -- I'm just, like, I just wanted to make sure. I'll go I'll go into Descript and change change what you said. -- explaining if it's delivered I -- Oh, my god. It's risky. Blaine name. I want my own Blaine name. Christy's always right. You're right. You can have your own explaining men we do it enough. My dad gives me a lot of shit for mansplaining. So -- Oh my gosh. Unfortunately, you guys have men's planes. So that's actually like a plus for me. That's true. You do. I have this, like, I have this really fun. I have this really toxic urge to start doing it now, though. I'm not gonna go pick up my Mike Tyson. what? We got 10 minutes. What's the last topic, Alex? Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Here's my my my time. Do we have 10 minutes, or do we feel like we've gotten a full share of content in this episode? Alex, I'm a big fan of of less is more. Oh, yeah. Me and Christy will yeah. Oh, we wanted to currently have highest traction. He literally will just end it. The the last time he literally just ended it. It's like he just stops recording and he just leaves. And then we all just And it's a black screen for us. How was my most notable contribution to this conversation? I'll have I'll mind you. Yep. Well, I've enjoyed the conversation because I haven't had to contribute too much to it. So you know, Josh is-- So did we meet your success objectives, Alex? You met my criteria for sure. I mean, my bucket is my bucket is full. I do have some fill in the blanks for you guys that we can do a little bit of free for all of us to do so you could buy. Yeah. It's like Mad Libs for It is kind of like a press table. And at first, I went down the the rabbit hole of trying to tailor these to each of you, but then I was like, you know what? Ain't nobody got time for that. So it's gonna be is gonna be a bit of a free for all. And, the, the first one is fill in the blank. CS leaders should invest in blank to stay robust. opt in AI. I knew that was coming. This has been brought to you by UpdateAI. Give me your money, please. Digital CS. Intelligent Leaders. Intelligent Leaders. Experience. No. No. I wouldn't intelligent experience leaders. Maybe. Yeah. Competent leaders? No. I changed it. Competent leaders. Competence 3, like, experience versus competence. That's a whole new. Yeah. Because you could be you could have a lot of years of lack of confidence. Really shitty experience. Yeah. You've done something poorly for 10 years. So Here's here's another here's another one. 10 years, I still don't want you. Blank. is something every CSM should be doing consistently. Getting rid of process. Logging into UpdateAI. No. Yeah. -- word. One word. One word. Right? It's automatic. no. It could be it could be a diatribe. One more time. Say it again. I think refinement. I think refinement. I really do. I think I think a CSM should be focusing on refinement of all of process. Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo. Does this spark joy? Alex, one more time freezes so I could fill in my blank. What? You're trying to get us canceled. You're trying to get us canceled, Christie. What? What? Just give me I think I wanna say value, but I wanna make sure that it fits in the blank. What was the statement? Blank is something every CSM should be doing consistently. Oh, yeah. Focuses, like, value outcomes. Like, maybe you focus on value. It should never eat. It's on value. Focus on value. Get get you get you statins. k. How about how about this one? How about this one? Without blank, my professional life would be in sham -- Mickey. Christie Falteruzzo. and last one. Those are our real answer to that. I know. Or did you freeze again? Can I really? Gosh. without a strong internet connection. You know? You know who I have to blame for this? Wait. Oh, is he back? You know you know who I have to blame for this? Concast? No? The FTC. We already brought him up once today. Mister Elon Musk. I'm a Starlink customer. The Starlink customer. And I freaking hate it. Yeah. Is there a last bill in the blank? Yeah. Here's the here's here's the last one, which, we we kinda already talked about, but the future of the QBR looks like blank. desolate wasteland. I just I think it's a it's a content generating generating mechanism. Yep. I think in the future, we won't know what that acronym means anymore because it'll go away. Yeah. Yeah. What did 2 years ago, Christy? You had this thing. It was a -- Core. You came up with -- Oh, what? You came up with another VR. Yeah. Well, no, I came with a core meeting. So it's a customer objective review meeting. That's it. You wanna because everyone ruined the whole EBR QBR acronym. So, like, nobody wants to go to that. So I had to go through a whole rebranding exercise. because the the industry ruined it by doing shit EBRs and QBRs. So I rebranded and restructured and so, like, now people actually engage. But Now I actually don't even do it as a meeting. I think that it's the meeting is a mechanism to deliver the value of this thing, and you can find a ton of different mechanisms to share that same insight. So I'm more focused on members. -- customer objective. Review. So it's a core meeting, and it's core to our partnership. Oh, look at that. You're such a you're so good. Okay. That's so good. That's so good. Alex, I have a question for you. Uh-huh. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? on the scale of 1 to 10, I would say, 11. 11? Okay. That was the number I was hoping for. -- scale. I can see. But this top goes to 11. That's right. A little spin out to help reference to close this out. Guys, it's been a blast. I thank you so much for taking the time out of your Monday. Wow. And, I can't wait to publish this gun this, common. Heck yeah. Well, thank you so much for having us. We love what you're doing. Thanks for your, Alex. Thank you, guys. Bye bye. You, bye. Bye. Bye, guys. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the digital customer success podcast. If you like what we're doing or don't for that matter. Consider leaving this review on your podcast platform of choice. You can view the digital customer success definition word map and get more information about the show at digitalcustomersuccess.com. My name is Alex Trickovich. Thanks again for joining, and we see you next time.