Growth Requires an Experience Mindset

Jim Marous (00:00):

Companies with engaged employees experience lower turnover, higher productivity, improved communication and collaboration, enhanced customer service, and increased sales. According to research, an increased focus on employee experience can increase revenue profits by more than 50%.

Jim Marous (00:30):

This is why 84% of executives rate employee experience as important to delivering better customer experiences according to Deloitte. Unfortunately, less than 10% of firms say they are ready to actively improve employee experiences.

Jim Marous (00:46):

I'm excited to have Tiffani Bova, the Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, and the Wall Street Journal best line officer of the new book, The Experience Mindset on the Banking Transformed Podcast.

Jim Marous (00:58):

We discuss why organizations need a new operating mentality that takes into account the needs and preferences of both customers and employees with every decision made.

Jim Marous (01:09):

Whether a customer receives positive or negative experiences with your business is almost always based on the perceived quality of the interaction they had, either directly or indirectly with one of your employees. Bottom line of a banker, credit union cares for its people, they feel engaged and empowered. In turn, they will care for your customers.

Jim Marous (01:33):

So, welcome to the show, Tiffani. First of all, congratulations on your new book and being a top five bestseller after only a few weeks in the marketplace, that's pretty amazing.

Tiffani Bova (01:42):

Oh, thank you, Jim.

Jim Marous (01:43):

Before we begin, can you share a little bit of your background with our audience and why you decided to write another book, The Experience Mindset?

Tiffani Bova (01:53):

Well, I've been in and around tech now for 30 years, which is shocking to actually say out loud for so many reasons. But I started my career as an individual "carrying sales rep" selling technology, software, hardware, then services, then sort of everything.

Tiffani Bova (02:08):

And then I was really early in this thing called the Worldwide Web all the way in 2000. The first domain name I ever sold to someone was 1996, literally. And the first time I ever bought a domain name was a year later in 1997.

Tiffani Bova (02:25):

So, I was very early in the cloud and really trying to push businesses to understand the value of this off premise kind of solution that would democratize access to technology. And we use these terms now - trust me, back then it was not these terms. It was sort of like don't put your ad in the Yellow Pages or your business name in the Yellow Pages, put it on this thing up in the internet, what's that?

Tiffani Bova (02:49):

So, did that for a couple of years, and then I ended my leading divisions in companies at Gateway Computers, which was a Fortune 500 company at the time. And then I spent a decade at Gartner advising customers and technology companies on how to improve going to market, the impact of digital on the way they engage with brands, sales transformation as well as indirect strategies.

Tiffani Bova (03:17):

And that was really at a time where we were promoting this concept of all companies were going to become tech companies, whether it was a bank or whether it was a retailer, whether it was a car manufacturer. People didn't really understand maybe what that meant.

Tiffani Bova (03:33):

They said, "Oh, we're going to be using more technology," but it wasn't that. It was really this shift to saying, "No, we're actually going to develop our own technology and have our own proprietary solutions so that we can differentiate in the marketplace."

Tiffani Bova (03:45):

And then about seven years ago Salesforce knocked on the door and said, "Hey, continue doing what you're doing today, but do it for us and for our clients, and help us really transform externally the narrative on how and where technology can improve the lives of not only our customers, but our customers' customers, and helping them be successful."

Tiffani Bova (04:05):

And then somewhere in between there I wrote two books. First one, Growth IQ that came out in 2018, and then this one, The Experience Mindset that came out in June of 2023.

Jim Marous (04:17):

And it's a great book that's very timely today as we talk about the importance of better customer experiences, but just as importantly, especially since COVID, the importance of good employee experiences.

Jim Marous (04:28):

So, you recently did an interview with Seth Godin on your own podcast discussing the state of work. A lot has changed since the pandemic with remote work environments and people asking for and demanding different things. How do you view the existing state of the workforce as well as the impact on customer experiences?

Tiffani Bova (04:48):

It's a great question because look, I didn't land on The Experience Mindset one day because I was like, "I think I want to ..." - well, first of all, I had no plan of writing a second book, let me start there. But Growth IQ was 10 paths to growth.

Tiffani Bova (05:04):

And it was really this culmination of my practitioning days, leading sales marketing and customer service organizations, and then my kind of, if you will "academic days," being an analyst at Gartner. And having sort of 4,000, 4,500 customer conversations.

Tiffani Bova (05:21):

And I sort of broke down how companies grow across 10 growth paths. And I thought I'd nailed it. I was like, "I have nailed it." Like it's these 10, I can bolt anything in there. And lo and behold, customer experience was my first path, but I missed employee altogether.

Tiffani Bova (05:39):

I did not give it its due in Growth IQ. I mentioned it a couple of times in the customer experience chapter, but I did not give it the weight that it needed.

Tiffani Bova (05:49):

Fast forward, pandemic hits, great resignations happening, quiet quitting, all of a sudden, employees become the number one stakeholder to long-term company growth according to the Edelman Group, to their trust barometer is actually where it was. It was the first time in a decade, customer was displaced as number one, by employees.

Tiffani Bova (06:09):

So, I was like, "Hold on a second, let me understand what's happening." And I had been at Salesforce for a couple of years, so I was standing on stage right before the pandemic, and I said, "I didn't think it was a coincidence, Salesforce is a great place to work." It's one of the most innovative companies in the world, and it was the fastest growing enterprise software company. And now, I think it's the third or fourth largest software company in the world.

Tiffani Bova (06:29):

I didn't think that was a coincidence. And working here, I realized the power of culture, people just trust and all the inner workings of how we've been able to be so successful. And I wanted to prove the statement that everyone has said for a very long time, "Happy employees, happy customers," get those two things right, greater growth rate. And that was kind of in my wheelhouse.

Tiffani Bova (06:55):

Jim, listen, I am not an HR expert, I'm not a people expert. Like that is not where I have sort of grown up from an expertise standpoint. So, I very much focused on the moment that matters; when an employee touches a customer in some way.

Tiffani Bova (07:12):

Products they develop, the UI they develop, the FAQs they write, the sales process, the marketing, all of those things, or the service that a teller gives - all of that kind of employee engagement with a customer, that really fascinated me and that led me to writing The Experience Mindset.

Jim Marous (07:33):

How do you define employee experience and the dynamics as it relates to employee engagement, which are very similar terms, but they aren't the same.

Tiffani Bova (07:42):

Look, I didn't know the answer to that question. I mean, I just said, I wrote an entire book that was translated in 12 languages, became a Wall Street Journal bestseller, et cetera, et cetera, and I missed employee. I did not know the answer to that question.

Tiffani Bova (07:56):

So, I went to our CMO at the time at Salesforce, and I said, "I'd like to prove this out." So, we did one study, U.S-only, and it was publicly traded companies. We went and looked at publicly available information, net promoter scores, retention rates, growth rates, et cetera. And what we found was companies that were really good in customer experience saw a lift in employee satisfaction KPIs.

Tiffani Bova (08:21):

When we looked at those that were really good on the employee side, we saw a lift on customer experience or customer satisfaction KPIs. But when those two things were working in harmony, we saw a 1.8 times faster growth rate than those that only got one of those right. And so, for a billion-dollar brand, it could be a $40 million impact.

Tiffani Bova (08:43):

So, we knew we were on to something, but that kind of back of the envelope math, if you will, was not going to hold the test of time to someone who's going like, "I'm going to make a strategic move here, I need to understand it better."

Tiffani Bova (08:56):

So, we did a second one, and that was a global study we did with Edelman, where we looked at both the C-suite and employee, cross industries, different sizes globally in six countries. And so, what we found was we were able to identify what parts of the employee engagement had the greatest impact on customers.

Tiffani Bova (09:22):

So, it was things like technology, processes, training, career development. Do I feel that the company backs me up and invests in me? Do I trust my C-suite executives? Are they accountable for what they say and what they do? It was very much around those kinds of attributes, if you will.

Tiffani Bova (09:45):

And you could see a direct correlation then to their ability, their willingness, the opportunity for them to go that extra mile to do what was necessary and do it with a smile on their face. I mean, at the end of the day, like, "Am I happy at what I do? And if I am, customers will feel it. If I'm miserable in my job, customers will also feel it."

Tiffani Bova (10:07):

And so, those are really the areas, and I categorize that into people, process, tech, which should be no surprise, but I added the fourth one of culture, and it was really across those four aspects, we were able to identify that had the greatest impact on customer experience.

Jim Marous (10:28):

So, it's interesting, we talk about these terms as if they're easy to implement, easy to make work, and the reality is they aren't. I mean, culture is a nebulous term out there, it's one of those things, you either have it or you don't, and it's either positive or negative.

Jim Marous (10:44):

What do you see as the biggest challenge to creating an environment for a great employee experience? How do you consult organizations to actually walk the walk as opposed to simply talking the talk?

Tiffani Bova (11:00):

Oh, such a great question. So, I'm going to hone in on one part of the research we found. So, the C-suite, 52% of them agree that the technology that they use is working effectively. So, 52% agree, it's working effectively, which then says, quick math, 48%, no, it isn't. So, put that aside for a second.

Tiffani Bova (11:23):

Then we said, "Alright, employees, what do you think?" 32% of employees agreed the technology that they were using was working effectively and helping them be more productive.

Tiffani Bova (11:37):

So, we already had a gap, 52, 32. So, a 20-point spread already, but the killer was only 20%. Only 20% of customer facing employees agreed. The technology they were using allowed them to collaborate easily, was seamless, was effective and efficient to allow them to do their job.

Tiffani Bova (12:02):

Outdated tech was the largest gap between what the C-suite thought was happening in the organization and what employees actually said was happening.

Tiffani Bova (12:13):

Now, remember, this is not comprehensive, it's not all things HR, it's not comp, it's not DE&I efforts all very important, not part of this study. It was really at that moment that matters when an employee was touching a customer. So, that outdated technology was a huge component of it.

Tiffani Bova (12:30):

And so, if you think back and go, "Wow, I mean, that should stop anyone who's listening to this in their tracks." But the second side of that was, and this was separate research we had done with MuleSoft, which is a company that Salesforce acquired. The average enterprise has a little more than a thousand applications in it, a thousand individual applications.

Tiffani Bova (12:51):

Now, some of those are HR and Finance and should be carved away. Obviously, not everyone should have access to it. But only 26 or 27% of those thousand applications are actually integrated.

Tiffani Bova (13:05):

So, now, let's go back to the stat. Only 20% of customer facing employees agree the tech they're using, and only 27% of the thousand applications that an average enterprise has is integrated. Who bears the brunt of that lack of integration? Employees.

Jim Marous (13:19):

No doubt.

Tiffani Bova (13:20):

And so, as a customer, you call into a call center and you need help, and you get frustrated because it takes 20 minutes to do something, or an employee has to pass you around to three people, or they give you the wrong information, or they don't even know who you are.

Tiffani Bova (13:35):

It's not like the employee wakes up every day and goes, "You know what, today is the day I'm just going to really off all the customers. I'm just going to be a jerk on the phone."

Jim Marous (13:44):

What's interesting is, in the old days, when the expectations were lower, the reality was those customer service reps killed them with kindness. I mean, they did the best they could with what they had. But on the other side, the customers weren't necessarily expecting much more than that. They wanted more than that, but they understood that the dynamics weren't there.

Jim Marous (14:05):

Today, consumers know that you should know them. They know that you have the ability to understand them better, and they don't get it when you don't, and that makes it really difficult.

Tiffani Bova (14:19):

But the point underneath that, Jim, is the fact that you are correct, customer expectations are at an all time high. 88% of customers say the experience they have with a brand is as important as the products and services that that brand is selling to them.

Tiffani Bova (14:34):

So, experience is critical, but the keepers of those brand promises, the keepers of delivering on that client expectation is not the C-suite, it is the employees.

Jim Marous (14:49):

By the way, it's not the IT area either.

Tiffani Bova (14:53):

Absolutely, so we have to just do a better job. And I think during the pandemic, back to one of your original questions, during the pandemic, it shined a spotlight on the lack of investments we've actually made for employees over the last couple of decades as we have raced to satisfy the increasing expectations of customers.

Tiffani Bova (15:14):

As customer experience increased, we, the collective we companies reduced the effort a customer would have to put forth to do something with a company, one click buy. I used to have to drive to a store park, take three hours.

Tiffani Bova (15:29):

Now, on my phone or with my voice, I can order something and it shows up at the house same day or within two hours. I mean, that is exceedingly incredible bar to have to jump over for companies to keep up pace. So, we've been racing towards that.

Tiffani Bova (15:45):

And unfortunately, the research showed we left our employees behind. We've actually increased the effort for employees to have to be able to deliver on these expectations. And sometimes they're unrealistic, but let's just call them customer expectations. And during that effort increasing for the employee, their experience has gone down, their satisfaction has gone down, or it's remained constant if not flat.

Jim Marous (16:11):

Well, it's interesting because it really gets down to democratization of data and insights as well. It used to be, still is at many financial institutions I know that I know that if I went to that financial institution and got behind the doors and said, "Tell me everything you know about me," it would blow my mind in a positive and maybe a negative way.

Jim Marous (16:31):

On the other hand, there's no employee and no area of the bank that is empowered to take data and insights and deploy them against the customer experience.

Jim Marous (16:42):

So, again, your gap becomes even more broad because the employee or the divisions of the financial institution want to do better, but they're not given the tools, as you said, the technology, but even more so the information that's behind that technology to deploy their insights better. I mean, and what happens is you almost count the employee out.

Jim Marous (17:06):

I look at things like Hulu and Netflix where major decisions are made behind the scenes to make my viewing experience better, but that same knowledge of what I want is not known by the customer experience people, by the people trying to sell me, by the people trying to serve me.

Jim Marous (17:24):

And I ran into this with Delta Air Lines recently where I had an uncomfortable, let's say, flight back from Amsterdam. And while every employee tried to help, when I told them ... I spent this whole time in a nice class of service and not able to take advantage of that nice class of service to be able to actually sleep.

Jim Marous (17:44):

And they offered me all they had to offer. And you go, "Wait, that's worth a hundred dollars, that's not acceptable." I'm not hard to please, but the reality is, don't insult me by your lack of knowledge of what my status is and all the other things because there's a lot of money spent here.

Jim Marous (18:02):

It didn't get any better as I reached out to behind the scenes, and now, I'm on the third level. But again, it's the democratization of data and insights to say, "Can you come to a equitable relationship decision on an ongoing basis?" And if you can't, the employees are the ones who take all the heat.

Tiffani Bova (18:21):

Yeah, and so, let's double click on banking as an example. And you just said, have the data, analyze that data, know more about me, make it more personalized, all of those things. I still get solicitations for credit cards I already have.

Tiffani Bova (18:40):

And I'm going to guess I'm not the only person. So, do they send a million out a day like that? How much money does that cost them? How many millions are spent sending a solicitation for a credit card for one people already have.

Tiffani Bova (18:55):

And so, that tells me you don't know who I am. I mean, mostly I know the reason. It's tends to be, if it's a branded credit card, they're not actually the financial institution - the financial institution is sending it, but it's a branded credit card, so they're not sharing data. Well, at least at a minimum, share my name so that you can remove some of this superfluous and unnecessary spend.

Tiffani Bova (19:16):

But then let's go just to the financial institution, and I'm not tossing anybody under the bus. But I get called every once in a while from somebody in the bank saying, "We'd like to give you some advice on ... We've got wealth management advisors, we've got this, we've got that, we've got these things for you," but it's not personalized at all.

Tiffani Bova (19:38):

I'm your personal banking contact or advisor, but then you don't say anything that makes me go, "You just dialed a hundred people today and checked the box." Mind you, this bank, uses Salesforce technology. So, I know they can do better.

Jim Marous (19:56):

They have the capability.

Tiffani Bova (19:58):

They have the capability to do better. So, where is the gap? So, that goes back to the, I could check the box, yap. We've digitally transformed, we've made this acquisition of the industry leading technology as it relates to CRM in the financial services market, whatever.

Tiffani Bova (20:14):

We've got Marketing Cloud, we've got Service Cloud, we've got Sales Cloud, we've got all that we need, and yet that's the experience that I still have. So, that's why I said it's people, process, tech. Let's just focus on process and tech because that's where it's falling apart.

Tiffani Bova (20:32):

And people usually ask, when I share that stat about the C-suite and the customer facing, why do I think that is? Well, has the C-suite at the bank-

Jim Marous (20:41):

That's what I was going to ask.

Tiffani Bova (20:42):

Has the C-suite at the bank gone and been a teller a day, a month? Have they worked in the call center a day a month? Have they made those wealth calls or advisor calls a day, a month? Have they done things that's gotten them more connected, or do they manage the business off the fantastic spreadsheet roll up presentation that is very sterilized from the meat and potatoes of what's happening.

Tiffani Bova (21:12):

And if you think that that's not what's going on, Undercover Boss is a perfect masterclass in how many leaders go, "I did not know this was going on."

Tiffani Bova (21:22):

And in my mind when I watch that show, I'm like, "I don't know how you don't know that's going on." But now, you'll hear, the Uber CEOs driving in the back, he is driving for a day and he learned all these things, or the Starbucks CEO is spending one hour as a barista.

Tiffani Bova (21:39):

You're like, why not just spend a full day, open the store, work the shift, close the store, order the stuff, stock the room, work the drive-through, actually do it, and you'll start to see what's going on.

Tiffani Bova (21:52):

Or from a very large online retailer, who pretty much sells everything to everybody all the time, go work in the warehouse, be a driver without air conditioning in 105 degree heat, and have the requirement of a two-hour delivery that the customer expectation has increased.

Tiffani Bova (22:12):

I mean, you intuitively understand we need to do it, but actually living it gives executives a very different perspective on what the teller needs, what the wealth manager needs, what the mortgage broker needs, what the financial advisor needs. It's very different than what you are getting as you get higher in the organization. It becomes further and further disconnected from the reality of your people.

Jim Marous (22:41):

It's interesting, Tiffani, that so many organizations believe that they can write a cheque to make it go away or make something happen, it still gets down to leadership.

Jim Marous (22:50):

And we're seeing it in every podcast we do, we can tell the successful from the less successful based on top leadership.

Jim Marous (22:58):

Because again, to your point, just being out there for a moment and saying, "Oh, this is what it is, or I bought this technology to make it better for employees and make a better customer experience without seeing it through," and saying, are we implementing that technology correctly? Are we using Salesforce in your example correctly to actually deploy that final mile?

Jim Marous (23:20):

Because just simply buying the tech doesn't do it. You have to again, walk the walk rather than talk the talk. And tech is not as important as people when it comes to the implementation phase. Yes, you need the technology, but you can't simply make a better customer experience by writing a cheque.

Tiffani Bova (23:40):

Well, what has happened is we've spent billions of dollars on improving customer experience. Reducing that effort, improving the customer experience, billions. We're going to journey map, we're automating, we're using AI, we're going to video or omnichannel, customers can contact us in 10 different places, et cetera, et cetera.

Tiffani Bova (23:59):

But we haven't made the same effort for employees that you would never make a customer ever, jump through eight applications, open eight different tabs on their desktop to place an order with you. You would never do that to a customer, ever.

Tiffani Bova (24:21):

But we do it to employees every single day. So, quiet quitting and some of the other things we found in the research. And you've said it, it is the people and process side of this conversation has huge implications to culture, because culture is, do they care about me?

Tiffani Bova (24:43):

Like, "Oh, here's another tool they've tossed over the fence that's going to make my life easier." And lo and behold, it helps the customer, but I have to work twice as hard because I have to hop between two things. So, really understanding that disconnect and I'm about to make a statement that I don't want everyone freaking out and sending me a note.

Tiffani Bova (25:03):

But I don't believe Salesforce sells technology. I know we sell tech, but just stay with me for a second. I believe we sell change - change on how companies engage with customers, change how employees actually do their job, change how companies approach digital data, trust, personalization, all the things we've just talked about, it's change.

Tiffani Bova (25:27):

And change for humans individually is difficult. Imagine being a leader and you have 10,000 people that have to get on board and change. And that's where communication and transparency and culture and psychological safety, and trust and all those words we throw around that make many executives feel it's too squishy and soft. If I can't track it and I can't measure it, I can't manage it.

Tiffani Bova (25:52):

Those are the things that employees are desperately looking for. And if you're not doing them, there should be no surprise that you have quiet quitting going on.

Jim Marous (26:04):

Well, it's interesting, we have 80,000 ways to measure how well we're doing on the customer experience. How do organizations establish a robust measurement system for employee experience?

Tiffani Bova (26:17):

Yeah, so I ask this question when I meet with executives. I say, "Tell me your top five KPIs for customer experience?" And they usually can rattle them off fairly quickly, usually because their comp is impacted by those performance metrics.

Tiffani Bova (26:34):

If your NPS score dips, it impacts you. If your churn rates go up for customers, like it impacts you. I mean, it has not only, from a KPI standpoint, from a compensation standpoint, it has impact. Then I'll say, "Tell me your top five employee KPIs."

Tiffani Bova (26:54):

And it tends to be like turnover, retention, and then they might go, "I'll have to ask HR. Let me pull my HR, chief human resource officer, or my HR lead. Let me ask them what are the metrics."

Tiffani Bova (27:10):

So, right away, that tells me comp isn't impacted as it is on the CX side, that they're not as in tune to what it is. And so, for example, if net promoter score is one that's on the customer experience side, are they doing ENPS or employee net promoter score?

Tiffani Bova (27:27):

If it's a customer effort score, are they doing an employee effort score? If they're doing employee or customer satisfaction, are they doing employee satisfaction which they tend to usually do. If they're doing customer churn rate, are they doing employee churn rates ... They are usually doing those.

Tiffani Bova (27:44):

But you very quickly start to see that the metrics are very robust, well-understood have some length in them, where they're learning, they're spending, they're testing, they're piloting, but we don't see that on the experience for the employee side. So, I just asked that one question; map me out, one for one, do you have like KPIs for C as you do for E and vice versa?

Jim Marous (28:12):

So, let's take a short break here and recognize the sponsors of this podcast.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (28:18):

Welcome back to Banking Transformed. So, I'm joined today by Tiffani Bova, Growth Innovation Evangelist for Salesforce and publisher of the new book, The Experience Mindset. We've been discussing the importance of creating exceptional employee experiences that provide better customer experiences.

Jim Marous (28:35):

So, Tiffani, you mentioned before our break that you had something, maybe an epiphany or something that is being said or misunderstood about what Salesforce is with regard to what their role really is.

Jim Marous (28:49):

When you look at a tech company, one of the challenges that I come across, not at Salesforce specifically, but most tech companies; that they sell great tech, they sell great solutions. The buyer knows why they're buying it, they know that they need it, but we don't help the buyer with that final mile. We don't help the buyer understand how to implement it in a way that can make a difference.

Jim Marous (29:15):

What is getting in the way of tech companies to actually making sure that their solutions are used the way they're meant to be?

Tiffani Bova (29:25):

When I first got here, so now it's a little more than seven years, I got here in March of '16. The first six months I really spent time with customers. Having conversations and listening and learning, because I hadn't been on the vendor side now for a decade.

Tiffani Bova (29:40):

So, coming from Gartner, it was lots of vendors, but being on one vendor and also having to learn the technology because I didn't cover technology in that way.

Tiffani Bova (29:51):

And one of the very first things I heard fairly consistently during that six months was, we deployed Salesforce (and I'm just going to focus on Sales Cloud or Sales Reps for a second) and our sellers aren't logging in, they're not using it. We're not getting the return on that investment, what can you help us do to make that happen?

Tiffani Bova (30:15):

And initially, I was very confused. I'd be like, "Well, I don't know how ... We don't control your people, we don't train them, we don't inspire them, we have no ability to influence your employees willingness to use the technology." So, after I'd heard it, about a dozen times, I went back to our customer success organization to our leader at the time.

Tiffani Bova (30:42):

And Maria Martinez, who is now the COO, Chief Customer Officer at Cisco, but she was our customer success lead at Salesforce. And she had been a client of mine when she was at Microsoft when I was at Gartner, so we knew each other.

Tiffani Bova (30:59):

So, I went back to Maria and I was just like, "Hey, I'm a little perplexed, what do we do in this situation?" I mean, Jim, to your point, how do we help our customers take advantage (and once again, I'm just talking about salespeople in this particular example) not use it as a very expensive Rolodex which for those of you listening, who don't know what that is.

Jim Marous (31:23):

Or simply do nothing with it. I mean, we see so many firms that buy something, maybe it creates great reports. I mean, Salesforce creates great reports. So, you get great reports and that doesn't move the needle, it simply gives you more information.

Jim Marous (31:36):

Plus, at most tech companies, including in Salesforce, it puts every sale at risk on an annual basis when that bill comes, because you go, "Well, what's the revenue? This is supposed to be a revenue generator, not a report generator."

Tiffani Bova (31:50):

And so, we had this really interesting and illuminating and eye-opening conversation because I hadn't looked at it this way because I just was not this, I was not in the last mile. I'd spent a decade at 35,000 feet, I was not at the last mile by any stretch.

Tiffani Bova (32:08):

So, now, I'm in the thick of the last mile, and I used to be a single user version of act, a single user version of goldmine, I ran 130.

Jim Marous (32:19):

Oh my gosh.

Tiffani Bova (32:20):

Yes, I ran in Word perfect. I ran $130 million recurring revenue business out of an Excel spreadsheet, pretty much, because of the fact that technology wasn't there yet. Now, fast forward, that is not the situation we're in now. So, this is why I said Salesforce doesn't sell tech, it sells change.

Tiffani Bova (32:38):

So, I start asking questions and in the room of people telling me that it wasn't working, lo and behold, it was sales ops or revenue ops. It was IT, no leaders, no sales leader, no marketing leader, no customer success leader. So, they were trying to push the rock uphill from an IT point of view. Like we've deployed it, we've trained, go be free.

Tiffani Bova (33:02):

But there was no real change management, process assessment for them to say, "Hold on, why is this happening?" And lo and behold, for sellers specifically, like if they're just data entering all day long and they see no value back out of the technology, unfortunately what happens is they just stop using it.

Tiffani Bova (33:20):

So, it cannot be just an input mechanism, it has to add value in the output. How does it make me smarter, more productive, more informed? How does it help me become a trusted advisor? Sort of all the things salespeople aspire to do; is the technology helping me do that?

Tiffani Bova (33:37):

So, a teller or a mortgage broker or a financial services advisor, whatever it is, when I sit on the other side of the table, but if I'm that person who works for that bank, I want to be like, "Tiffani. I see that you get these two things twice a year." Like my bank knows I get a bonus twice a year, and if they don't, they're not paying attention."

Tiffani Bova (33:57):

So, then you should say, reach out. "Hey Tiffany, we know it's probably getting close to bonus time, would you like to invest in this or that, or do this or that." "Oh, they know me, they care about me." And in many ways they're a salesperson, but they're called a financial advisor, or whatever they are, terminology. But at the end of the day, they're in sales.

Tiffani Bova (34:17):

So, the more personal you could be, the more you know about me. Now, mind you, heavily regulated industries like banking and financial services, there's lots of things you can't do. So, if I'm saying something that is illegal, take it for how I'm saying it. I'm just giving an example of what you can do if you are willing to change the behavior of the person, but they have to b e willing to do that.

Tiffani Bova (34:43):

And that's why I say it has to start at the top, it has to be reinforced. People have to understand why they're doing it. Even if they don't like it, the more they understand why, they want to feel like they know how to use it. I can't count on two hands or two feet how many times I'd sell million-dollar technology projects in the day I was selling.

Tiffani Bova (35:07):

And at the last minute, what would get cut? Training. What would get cut? Sort of the change management. What would get cut? Any customization. And all of a sudden, then they'd be like, why isn't it working the way we thought?

Tiffani Bova (35:19):

So, it is just shortsightedness, they check the box, it's a lot of money, they don't get the value. And then they blame the technology provider instead of saying, "Let me look internally at our internal inertia or internal processes or our unwillingness to actually have a beginner's mind and change some of the things we've done that by the way, may have been successful for the last three decades, but are no longer working." So, it may even require different leaders.

Jim Marous (35:49):

It's interesting, we've been talking about the benefits of technology, but digital transformation really impacts the internal soul of every employee. I think it can be safely said that most employees look over their shoulder daily to say, "Is this new technology going to disrupt my job? Is it going to take my place at my role that I've done for years?"

Jim Marous (36:13):

How do you think organizations have to do better at integrating digital transformation, digital technology within an employee's job to make it so they're not threatened daily? I mean, in the banking industry, tellers are every day worried, "Oh my gosh, digital banking is going to take over my role as a teller and put me out of work."

Jim Marous (36:33):

A back office employee who's always done credit adjudication says, "There's new technology coming out that can do that, I'm worried about my job." And when it comes to it, those are going to be roadblocks, you're going to have to deal with sooner or later because employees will find a way to protect themselves in a way that's not vicious, but it certainly lacks effectiveness within the organization, it's going to break the process.

Tiffani Bova (36:58):

Well, weren't ATMs going to replace banks? That didn't happen.

Jim Marous (37:03):

Yeah, good point.

Tiffani Bova (37:04):

That didn't happen. The thing is, is that customers want and use certain channels for certain things. I go physically into a bank for very specific and limited reasons. I do 90% of my banking online, I still go to an ATM because like you, I travel a lot, I actually need cash, because sometimes you find yourself in a situation where credit cards are not an option and I think that that will continue.

Tiffani Bova (37:32):

You have a generation who's never stepped foot in a bank, they've done everything online, they may never write a cheque.

Tiffani Bova (37:38):

I had this conversation with someone the other day, like, "I still write checks." People are like, "No, wire me the money or and Venmo me or Zelle me or PayPal me or whatever." And I'm like, "I'm going to write you a check." And some of that is generational.

Tiffani Bova (37:52):

But I think that it's about customer choice, and it's about making sure that in certain situations you are available for your customers to want to do something for you and with you.

Tiffani Bova (38:05):

Now, I was reading a study and I forget who it's with and you're probably going to ask me and I'll have to find it for you, but I think you may have even commented on it when I posted it online. And it was about why digital transformations fail, and their success rates have declined, and they dug into why they think that's happening.

Tiffani Bova (38:24):

And one of the top reasons, it was either one of the top reasons, or the top reason was the willingness of employees to actually embrace what that transformation was. Like I used to do it paper and now, I have to do it online.

Tiffani Bova (38:38):

I used to be able to see my client face-to-face, now it's a video call, or I used to have to go into these three applications, now I can only go into this one, the other three are gone. I'm not willing to do whatever that digital transformation is that has (go back to that word "changed" what I do every day, how I do it, and even potentially where I do it.

Tiffani Bova (39:04):

And so, that's why the people side of this conversation, of employee is, the net of it is when you make a decision for customer going forward, wherever you are in the organization, first-time manager, all the way up to a C-suite listening to this, I want you to just take a pause, take a beat and say, "Hold on, what is the implication to our employees for this change I'm about to make?" One.

Tiffani Bova (39:34):

Two, "How much are we investing into taking them along in this journey to help them be more willing to do the things we need them to do?" And then say, "Okay, if they're not, what are we doing to close that gap?"

Tiffani Bova (39:54):

Because if you don't make those investments and your people aren't willing to do what you now have enabled them to do, or they don't know how to do what you've just enabled them to do, or they think what you've done makes no sense. So, they're not again, willing to do it, those millions of dollars of spend will be for naught.

Tiffani Bova (40:17):

And the smaller you are of an organization, the more risk that brings you in your ability to remain relevant and to stay being a company if your people aren't willing to do what you want them to do. So, you have to inspire people to want to change, they have to understand how it impacts their job. They want to see their role and what they do every day, and the success of the company.

Tiffani Bova (40:39):

I mean, it's really basics, but we've moved so far away from it because digital was going to save the world and create world peace, which we know that that's just not possible. We have to have the human element equally engaged to make those things come to fruition.

Jim Marous (40:56):

As anybody who listens to the podcast regularly knows, I'm a huge fan of Liz Wolverton at Synovus Bank in Georgia.

Jim Marous (41:02):

One of the conversations we had with her was, how do you close branches? And she says, "The first way we work towards closing branches is to sit down with our employees and let them know, number one, what's our why? Number two, how will that affect them? And number three, how is this going to move the customer forward in the future?"

Jim Marous (41:24):

She goes, "If we do that and we do it well, and employees buy in, we aren't going to have the situation where the employee's badmouthing our company. Or when the customer comes in and says, what's going to happen to you? And the person just says, I don't have a clue, they haven't told me yet. Those kind of things are a big deal, that's culture."

Jim Marous (41:40):

The culture of communication to employees and valuing your employees as an increasingly important part of the customer experience. Now, this could be an employee that never really directly talks to a customer, but if they don't understand the why and the understanding of where their role's going to transform with this new technology, they'll put a wrinkle into the mix, and it's extraordinarily important.

Jim Marous (42:08):

And that's what was interesting about your book. You give so many case studies, so many examples of why the employee experience, number one, is many times taken as an afterthought. And number two, how important it is as a driver of a better customer experience.

Jim Marous (42:26):

And when you're looking at this overall, we also have to look at the fact that the unemployment rate is very low right now. There's an increasing need for new talent and new experiences. At the same time, we need to find people that are going to buy into the fact that they're going to have an impact on customer experience. How do you find the right people?

Tiffani Bova (42:48):

Yeah, and I worry that the low unemployment rate is a false positive. Is it low because people are quiet quitting, and they're just collecting a paycheck and there's not a lot of open jobs? Or they just don't have the willingness to go and get a new job and relearn something and the rift that has to happen there.

Tiffani Bova (43:11):

So, that now all of a sudden, people are so engaged at work and fulfilled and find joy and love what they do? Is that what's happening, and why the unemployment rate is so low?

Tiffani Bova (43:26):

Or is it the latter? Because if you look at Gallup's Poll and others, employee satisfaction has remained fairly flat or constant and is actually a little bit down. So, if satisfaction is down and unemployment rates is at an all time low, those two things don't reconcile.

Jim Marous (43:46):

There's something wrong with that, exactly.

Tiffani Bova (43:47):

They don't reconcile. So, that bank leader that you were just mentioning, I would've loved to have double clicked on that and said, "When you're going to close that branch, did you offer your employees to be re-skilled and maybe they could work remotely in a call center because they worked here? And offer them other positions or opportunities?" Or was it just, "We're closing and thank you for working here."

Tiffani Bova (44:10):

And so, I think that re-skilling and understanding that disconnection between satisfaction and low unemployment is, do you survey your employees? And don't ask them 92 questions or even 50 - ask them one. "Like What could bring you more joy in your job every day?" Ask that one question.

Tiffani Bova (44:32):

And if you're a very small business listening to this, it's manageable, do it in an email box. If you get to a middle-sized company, you're 250 employees sort of above, that probably won't work, you have to use a survey tool, let's say.

Tiffani Bova (44:44):

If you're above a thousand employees, it may be a more regular survey. But now, if you're above a thousand employees, let's survey each department and division and region and location because they are different.

Tiffani Bova (44:57):

A manager in one location may be knocking it out of the park doing a great job. A manager in another location, not doing a great job, but if you look at them collectively, it peanut putters it and it looks like everything is going along fine. And you don't have the ability to find hotspots or opportunities for improvement.

Tiffani Bova (45:14):

So, the second question I get all the time is, "If this is so obvious, why isn't everyone doing it?" The KPI one, you asked is second. Third is who owns it? And that's sort of a land grab, asset allocation, budget, headcount, power, control question versus that's why I called it The Experience Mindset. But the third is literally where to start. And it is really here, sit in the call center.

Jim Marous (45:46):

That's my next question. So, where do you start?

Tiffani Bova (45:48):

Yeah, sit in the call center, go out with your employees while they're with customers, hear them in their conversations, find ways in which you can manage by wandering around — very Tom Peters, which I know we both love a lot of Tom.

Jim Marous (46:04):

You know, as you were saying that, I'm going, "Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm listening to Tom Peters again."

Tiffani Bova (46:08):

Yeah, management by wandering around. And it's no surprise, or it should be no surprise that Tom wrote the forward to my book because a lot of this is from, In Search of Excellence and really kicked off my career understanding the power of that.

Tiffani Bova (46:22):

And the power of this simple word of you have to care. And the way to care is to ask your employees. And not just ask them, but then capture the information, action it. And if you action it and fix it, great. If you action and you say, "We're not going to fix it," to your point, Jim, tell them why not.

Tiffani Bova (46:44):

So, they may not agree with it, but now at least they go, "I understand." Your parents say get home by midnight, and you're like, I don't really understand why; it's just some arbitrary time or 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock or whatever it is. And then they sit you down and explain why you might not like it, but now at least they've explained why.

Tiffani Bova (47:05):

And maybe even you might get lucky as they're explaining, they might go, "Well, that's kind of a stupid reason, go ahead, you can come home at 11, whatever."

Tiffani Bova (47:12):

But those are the very simple things, and I think as I've shared more and more of The Experience Mindset over the last couple weeks, what I hear pretty consistently back is, "This is really basic stuff." These are things that leaders should be doing without it being called out or lead from the heart, or be more empathetic or listen more.

Tiffani Bova (47:37):

I mean, we are having these conversations because it's not happening. So, I think that it's not a multi-million-dollar, multi-year project, bring in 10 consultants to fix your employee experience. This is, ask your employees what's not working, then start working hard to fix it just like you do for customers.

Jim Marous (47:57):

Tiffani, great place to end. And it's interesting because I was thinking about how I wrapped it up, and you said so many things that were in my mind as far as wrapping up. And the one I'd say to all my listeners is, what we're talking about here is not something you don't already know. It is not something you probably don't know how to already fix.

Jim Marous (48:19):

I highly suggest reading Tiffani's book, The Experience Mindset, because if nothing else, it will remind you, are we really doing it? Are we simply giving it a, “Yeah, but we're doing that.” Do you really know if you're doing it? Have you set up measurement tools to say you can measure it against it?

Jim Marous (48:36):

And are you doing what Liz Wolverton does at Synovus around making sure their employees are well aware of the why and how it affects them before any major customer service impact that's going to take place? Because if they don't get it, your customers are going to feel it.

Jim Marous (48:55):

And the takeaway from Tiffani's book is really, if you drive a great customer employee experience, it will impact a great customer experience and make for an overarching total experience that is really going to make a difference in the marketplace.

Jim Marous (49:12):

It's easy to work the way everybody else is working and be middle of the road. It's really hard to do the tough stuff, and to embrace change, as we say often on this podcast.

Jim Marous (49:24):

So, Tiffani, thank you so much. I know that people can pick up your book on Amazon and any other place they buy books. And again, congratulations on making it to top of the bestseller list for a book that's still relatively new. And you certainly hit a hot button, I think a lot of organizations need to at least brush themselves up on.

Jim Marous (49:43):

I said the same thing to Tom Peters said if people could dig the book out from 1982 and reread it, they would learn as much as they did back in the ‘80s around what Tom Peters has said — the same goes with your book. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Tiffani Bova (49:58):

Thank you for having me, Jim, and as always, I so appreciate your continued support of my work. So, thank you so much for having me.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (50:05):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy what we're doing, please take 30 to 45 seconds to show some love in the form of a review. It helps us to continue to get great guests.

Jim Marous (50:18):

Finally, be sure to catch my recent articles on The Financial Brand, and take advantage of the recent research we're doing on the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (50:26):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our senior producer, Leah Haslage; audio engineer, Sean Rule-Hoffman, and video producer, Will Pritts, I'm your host, Jim Marous.

Jim Marous (50:37):

Remember, investing in people is no longer a nice-to-have, it's a must-have.