Lauren Gold: Hey everyone, welcome to CX Now. I'm Lauren Gold, Chief Customer Officer of Customer. Today we're here with Victoria Weiss, Senior Director of CX at Smalls, and we are gonna focus today on voice of the customer. Always an important topic and as fast as our space is changing, we all always come back to the voice of the customer. It is the most important. So Victoria, welcome. We're so happy to have you today.
Victoria Weiss: Thank you! Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Lauren Gold: Amazing. So let's dive right in. So many organizations collect customer feedback, but fewer successfully operationalize it and actually do something with it. So how do you think about ensuring the Voice of the Customer actually influences operational and strategic decisions across the business? And it could be specific to smalls or other organizations you've led previously.
Victoria Weiss: So I think what's really interesting about Voice of the Customer is, our CX teams know everything there is to know about customers. we're chatting with them every day. We know their pain points. We know where they're struggling or what's going really well. We're collecting that data, but it kind of sits, in a data warehouse somewhere and there's not much that's being done with it. And I think that part of the reason that happens is other teams don't necessarily know how to view that. And CX doesn't really have the bandwidth sometimes to be sharing that information or to be telling the story. And so what I think has really worked for me is building relationships cross-functionally. in my time at Daily Harvest years ago, I was kind of that annoying CX person that was like, hey, guys, there's this consistent issue that I see. I think we need to do something to, you know, this will help us retain customers. And I kind of like forced my way into rooms and started to build out decks. And I think that the key piece there was learning how to speak languages of other teams and other departments. And so when I say, five customers were annoyed by this in the last week, that might not necessarily raise any like alarm bells or say anything to other teams. need to figure out, you know, what are they prioritizing on their teams? Which metrics are going to really stand out to them? And how can I make sure I'm telling the story in a way where it's not just a handful of customers, but it really is a big chunk of a customer base or a customer segment that is being impacted by a specific issue or a specific trend. And so for me, we have this data. What CX leaders need to do is translate that data into something that makes sense to other teams and then make it really easy to kind of say yes to try out new things, new experiences. I love making a mock-up. I love saying, this digital experience is not great. Here is how we can make it better. Here is kind of an easy way to do that where we can change language. And here is a more complex way to do that where we can build out a brand new feature. But yeah, make it easy for other teams, really.
Lauren Gold: I like that. sounds like making sure you're customizing your approach and talk track and narrative to the different personas cross-functionally. Obviously starting with having some foundational relationship there too, always helps. That's where we're best at, we're CX people. But then also like making sure that you're already armed with some solutions. here's the problem I'm facing. This is why you should pay attention to it. And here's some ideas on how we can do better.
Victoria Weiss: Exactly. that. Exactly.
Lauren Gold: And can you think of a specific change maybe that you implemented, with a cross functional partner or maybe a specific change that you feel really proud of that based on customer feedback and like maybe how it, how it benefited your team.
Victoria Weiss: So at my last company, we noticed that there was a trend with items arriving damaged and it was a consistent trend and something customers were complaining about. the worst part about it was that customers were receiving back to back orders. I've always worked in subscription companies. And so we see, recurring incidents and how can we kind of raise the flag and make sure that we're improving every single order. And so we really wanted to do something to fix this. We noticed that it was leading to high return rate when customers had back-to-back order incidents. And so what I did was I kind of like put together this package for the exec team where I said, you know, we're losing X number of customers because of damages and the brand is degrading because of this. And so I was able to come to the table with several solutions. the obvious solution is let's create better packaging that is more sustainable. the other... proposal that I came with was like, hey, what if we just get pieces of cardboard and we kind of put them in between layers of the packages that we're putting in the box and then we see how that goes. So we have kind of this like in between solution. We're able to like see how that performs and we save money. We're not like investing a ton and we're giving ourselves the room to build out the right solution down the line. And that actually worked and it led to a 50 % decrease in damage. It was actually really, really exciting. Yeah, it was really cool. And I think the other thing that's really special about this,
Lauren Gold: yeah?
Victoria Weiss: there's nothing worse than telling a customer, we're working on this, we hear your feedback, and then nothing is happening behind the scenes. But if you can say we're working on this and we're actually working on it and we have the proof and we're able to tell customers what we're doing actively, like that is huge and is really good for team retention and team morale.
Lauren Gold: Hmm. Yeah, I love it. I also just love the scrappiness around it too. So cool to you and the small team just being open to like, listen, this is something we can try starting tomorrow to get better. So think big and move fast. I love that.
Victoria Weiss: Yeah! yeah. Yeah, I think that's huge. You have to be like okay with being scrappy. You have to like be creative. I think a lot of CX people are very creative and like we, think big, think, small, think in all different ways and find a solution that works for customers.
Lauren Gold: I love it. Okay. So this is a juicy one because voice of the customer for a new CX leader can sometimes feel daunting. Like one, either if there's no program, where do you begin? Or on the flip side, it's like, we're getting data from so many sources. Like how do I create a feedback loop and actually do something meaningful with it? So advice for a CX leader starting a VOC program from scratch, what is maybe one of the first steps you would recommend they take?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. So I have this like playbook that I do when I joined a new company and voice of customers always one of the first things that I'm like, let's figure this out. So the very first thing that I think you should do is interview your team. So your CX agents interview stakeholders. So leaders across the business and then talk to customers. So what you're getting with that is your understanding. What are the biggest pain points? What are the biggest trends that pop up? And you're kind of building a foundation of of what your customers need. I think that when it comes to stakeholders and other teams, it's really great to understand what their goals are in the immediate term, but also the long term. So what are they trying to accomplish? And then tell them, CX could help you with this. We can be here to support you when it comes to understanding trends, when it comes to if you have a gut feeling, use the CX team to either validate that or say maybe that's not the right path forward.
Lauren Gold: Mm.
Victoria Weiss: But I think you kind of need to start with that as a foundation. And then from there, really understand how you on the CX side are collecting data and how you're tagging conversations, how maybe you're leveraging AI to kind of pull out insights and trends. when I joined Smalls, one of the first things I did was rebuild the taxonomy structure and make sure that there's consistency in how we are tagging our conversations. The team feels supported and understands how to tag conversations and that that is feeding directly into our data warehouse so that we can start to track trends over time. And then I think that from there, understanding, just the roadmap, because you're gonna find things immediately that you wanna fix, whether it is the ordering process or maybe the cancellation process. I think understanding where the company sits and has their perspective on all of those areas so that you can nicely fit in your feedback at the right moments and be pulled into conversations at the right moments. So yeah, I think it's really about like structure, organization, and like building relationships. It is so huge to put yourself out there, to meet leaders across the business, and to say like, am here to support you. I am excited to work with you. Let's do this.
Lauren Gold: gosh, you're going to get so much feedback as soon as you kind of open up those gates and being thoughtful about how you're packaging that up. And as you mentioned earlier, like coming to the table with some solutions, like, hey, this is actually great for us to have this feedback. And now we can actually act on it and do something.
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I think that the last thing is probably like you need to get into a rhythm where you're feeling like you're able to consistently give feedback and share customer insights because like this is hard. You need to maintain that and you need to be reliable when it comes to it. So that the team starts to know OK, this is when I'm going to start to get trends. This is what I'm to start to get insights. And they can start to lean on that and pull it into their work stream as well. making sure that you can build a sustainable structure when it comes to sharing insights proactively and then also kind of closing feedback loops. You know, if you're launching a new product, what is your game plan? How are you going to make sure you're collecting information so that you can share it with the right teams? So thinking about that as well.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's great. OK, what are some of the most important things customers maybe don't explicitly tell you in reviews or surveys or whatnot? And how do you uncover those insights? How do you dig out those juicy themes that are really important but maybe are not blatantly exposed?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, customers are really good at telling you how they feel, but they aren't necessarily good at telling you why they feel that way or what went wrong in a way that like you can actually take and diagnose and fix. a good example, like your website sucks and I want you to cancel me like, OK, cool. thank you for telling me that our website sucks. And I'm not expecting you to tell me why. Like that's not your job. But as a CX leader, it is your job to figure out what went wrong. where did we lose that customer and how can we improve the experience so that other customers don't hit that same friction point. a lot of it is like.
Lauren Gold: with.
Victoria Weiss: the tools that you have available to you and kind of what you can use. I've used Full Story in the past. I don't know if you're familiar with Full Story, a really creepy website that kind of records all user sessions. And so if a customer reaches out and they're saying, this is really frustrating. I'll like sit in Full Story and I'll just watch sessions and understand at what point did that customer rage click a bunch or where did they get kind of frustrated or where did they drop off? I'll also look into segment and see kind of like what events occurred and where customers are like specifically dropping off. across the board in every way, like it is the CX leader's job to figure out why is the customer feeling this way and how can we make sure that no other customers feel that way.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's a great, a great call. Have you ever followed up with a customer and asked for more specifics like,
Victoria Weiss: Yeah Yeah. Yeah, I have. There's actually just one customer from my daily harvest days who like I love her. Her name is Jill. She's great. We're friends on Instagram. But she just had like consistently really terrible experiences with deliveries. And it was just like really bad luck and like where she was located and a few things like that. But I like hopped on a few calls with her and asked her questions and learned more about her experience and was able to find a solution that worked for her. And she remained a customer for years. But I am 100 percent like on board with O is just reaching out to customers and asking for their feedback explicitly. I think it's a great way to learn.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's great. me this, how central is VOC to the role of a CX leader today? And how should it influence day to day decision making? Like, where do you draw the line as to, I love your feedback, but I need to keep kind of moving forward with our strategy? Or where is the balance that blends there?
Victoria Weiss: Mm-hmm. I think voice of customer is everything right now. I think it is like incredibly exciting. I've been in this industry for a decade and when I started, it was like straight up, we are answering questions. We are solving problems. We are a cost center. That is all we are. And now it's like, we're finally getting this attention where it's like, wait, hold on. There's an entire team of people who it's literally talking to our customers and like, why aren't we using that as a resource? And all CX people are like, yeah, why? Why aren't you using us as a resource? And so I think that in order to continue that momentum, it is crucial for CX leaders to start to kind of leverage our data and to tell the stories and to paint the pictures of like, these are the ways that we need to improve the experience in order to be the best in the space, right? CX is a differentiator in the ways that we can show up for customers by building relationships by, anticipating needs, but we're also a differentiator in the way that we know our customers better than anybody. And we can help you build roadmaps, we can help you build the customer journey, we can tell you where people are falling off or where we're winning customers. And so a voice of customer is like fundamental to that.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, I love that. What is an underrated piece of feedback? Like one, maybe that people tend to overlook either the actual criticality of the feedback or maybe an input source that isn't as apparent to others. Like why is it so underutilized and what are some of those little gotchas that we can look at for?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting is I've been kind of elevating CSAT as like a business metric instead of just a CX metric, which I know everybody talks about CSAT, but I think that like the feedback that we're getting in CSAT in a lot of ways is feedback for the business and for other teams. And so like what I've been doing is kind of circulating quotes and using that as data points that we need to improve experiences. like the customer rates us negatively in CSAT because we can't deliver an order sooner than we actually can, right? Like they want the order expedited. Like that is a data point that we should be using to prioritize expedited shipments. And we should be sharing that in company-wide meetings to the exec team. CSAT is not just an indicator of how the CX team is performing, it is an indicator of how the business is performing. So that's one that I've been really excited about and I know that it's probably like a cliche or everyone's like, duh, CSAT, but I'm pumped about that one.
Lauren Gold: Yeah. And I imagine your team feels really empowered or, really supported that you're sharing that metric more broadly and that it feels like a team goal because I know that also like for an agent to receive a negative CSAT for something that they perceive or feel is out of their control is just like takes the wind right out of your sails too. And so like it drives that whole company accountability. And I'm sure the team feels like you have their backs too in sharing it more broadly.
Victoria Weiss: Totally. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that's like the other area where voice of customer is great too. Like I mentioned before, like just taking care of team members. I think that being an agent is the hardest job. You're doing the same thing every day. You're taking care of customers. You're expected to be like on your game for every conversation. you need to know that you have leaders who have your backs and that your feedback is being listened to and shared and you're making a difference. So, yeah.
Lauren Gold: Absolutely. So important. Okay. Let's shift to AI a little bit. So how do you see the voice of the customer evolving as companies gain access to just more data, more insights? mean, really you're limited only by your creativity as to like the different insights you can now pull or themes you can like associate with one another that we've never been able to do before. So how do you, how do you think about that?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's so cool. It's like, mean, I remember I used to spend like hours and hours looking through conversations, trying to find trends, I would read so many conversations and come away with nothing. So now being able to like prompt AI and say like, hey, what were the top five trends from last week across all conversations? It's like the coolest thing. It's amazing. It has been really helpful in starting conversations with other teams. And then it frees up my bandwidth to instead of like through every conversation. I'm looking through this report and then I'm able to like make my decisions or my judgment calls based off of that report. Obviously do some spot checking and making sure that the data is correct but it's like unlocking so many doors for me to be able to like creatively solve problems and come up with solutions that other teams can really use. the thing that I'm a little bit worried about and I think most people are probably worried about is like everyone can prompt differently and so like if I prompt a certain way and ask a question. And then a leader on the operations team prompts a different way. Our numbers might look different or our data might look different. And so it's something that I'm looking into and working with other teams on is how do we make sure that we're talking to AI the same way and that we're getting the same results or we're leveraging it the same way.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's a really good call. OK, so our last question, this is super insightful and energizing too. I mean, it feels like there's just so many possibilities in taking that feedback and driving great outcomes for our companies and our customers. If you could give one piece of advice, only one, what would you recommend for CX leaders who want to improve their VOC programs today?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Okay, my advice is like be persistent. It's really hard to get this off the ground. It's really hard to get support and to like, you know, kind of like make your way into these conversations, but like. Don't be afraid to feel like you are annoying because nobody sees you as annoying because you are an amazing CX leader. And you're really showing up for customers. so continue to be persistent, be scrappy, ask questions. I used to be quiet and timid in meetings, but I started to get this feeling in my gut where I'd be like, no, I know what to say and I know that this is a problem. So listen to your gut and speak up in meetings. I think that's my biggest piece of advice. You might get pushed to the side sometimes, but just keep going back and being persistent and advocating for your team and your customers.
Lauren Gold: I love it. Be persistent, be scrappy, be curious, and represent your team and your customers. I'm going to leave it right there, Victoria. Those are such words to live by for us CX leaders. Thank you so much. It was so great to spend time with you today.
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, thank you.
Victoria Weiss: Thank you! Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Lauren Gold: Amazing. So let's dive right in. So many organizations collect customer feedback, but fewer successfully operationalize it and actually do something with it. So how do you think about ensuring the Voice of the Customer actually influences operational and strategic decisions across the business? And it could be specific to smalls or other organizations you've led previously.
Victoria Weiss: So I think what's really interesting about Voice of the Customer is, our CX teams know everything there is to know about customers. we're chatting with them every day. We know their pain points. We know where they're struggling or what's going really well. We're collecting that data, but it kind of sits, in a data warehouse somewhere and there's not much that's being done with it. And I think that part of the reason that happens is other teams don't necessarily know how to view that. And CX doesn't really have the bandwidth sometimes to be sharing that information or to be telling the story. And so what I think has really worked for me is building relationships cross-functionally. in my time at Daily Harvest years ago, I was kind of that annoying CX person that was like, hey, guys, there's this consistent issue that I see. I think we need to do something to, you know, this will help us retain customers. And I kind of like forced my way into rooms and started to build out decks. And I think that the key piece there was learning how to speak languages of other teams and other departments. And so when I say, five customers were annoyed by this in the last week, that might not necessarily raise any like alarm bells or say anything to other teams. need to figure out, you know, what are they prioritizing on their teams? Which metrics are going to really stand out to them? And how can I make sure I'm telling the story in a way where it's not just a handful of customers, but it really is a big chunk of a customer base or a customer segment that is being impacted by a specific issue or a specific trend. And so for me, we have this data. What CX leaders need to do is translate that data into something that makes sense to other teams and then make it really easy to kind of say yes to try out new things, new experiences. I love making a mock-up. I love saying, this digital experience is not great. Here is how we can make it better. Here is kind of an easy way to do that where we can change language. And here is a more complex way to do that where we can build out a brand new feature. But yeah, make it easy for other teams, really.
Lauren Gold: I like that. sounds like making sure you're customizing your approach and talk track and narrative to the different personas cross-functionally. Obviously starting with having some foundational relationship there too, always helps. That's where we're best at, we're CX people. But then also like making sure that you're already armed with some solutions. here's the problem I'm facing. This is why you should pay attention to it. And here's some ideas on how we can do better.
Victoria Weiss: Exactly. that. Exactly.
Lauren Gold: And can you think of a specific change maybe that you implemented, with a cross functional partner or maybe a specific change that you feel really proud of that based on customer feedback and like maybe how it, how it benefited your team.
Victoria Weiss: So at my last company, we noticed that there was a trend with items arriving damaged and it was a consistent trend and something customers were complaining about. the worst part about it was that customers were receiving back to back orders. I've always worked in subscription companies. And so we see, recurring incidents and how can we kind of raise the flag and make sure that we're improving every single order. And so we really wanted to do something to fix this. We noticed that it was leading to high return rate when customers had back-to-back order incidents. And so what I did was I kind of like put together this package for the exec team where I said, you know, we're losing X number of customers because of damages and the brand is degrading because of this. And so I was able to come to the table with several solutions. the obvious solution is let's create better packaging that is more sustainable. the other... proposal that I came with was like, hey, what if we just get pieces of cardboard and we kind of put them in between layers of the packages that we're putting in the box and then we see how that goes. So we have kind of this like in between solution. We're able to like see how that performs and we save money. We're not like investing a ton and we're giving ourselves the room to build out the right solution down the line. And that actually worked and it led to a 50 % decrease in damage. It was actually really, really exciting. Yeah, it was really cool. And I think the other thing that's really special about this,
Lauren Gold: yeah?
Victoria Weiss: there's nothing worse than telling a customer, we're working on this, we hear your feedback, and then nothing is happening behind the scenes. But if you can say we're working on this and we're actually working on it and we have the proof and we're able to tell customers what we're doing actively, like that is huge and is really good for team retention and team morale.
Lauren Gold: Hmm. Yeah, I love it. I also just love the scrappiness around it too. So cool to you and the small team just being open to like, listen, this is something we can try starting tomorrow to get better. So think big and move fast. I love that.
Victoria Weiss: Yeah! yeah. Yeah, I think that's huge. You have to be like okay with being scrappy. You have to like be creative. I think a lot of CX people are very creative and like we, think big, think, small, think in all different ways and find a solution that works for customers.
Lauren Gold: I love it. Okay. So this is a juicy one because voice of the customer for a new CX leader can sometimes feel daunting. Like one, either if there's no program, where do you begin? Or on the flip side, it's like, we're getting data from so many sources. Like how do I create a feedback loop and actually do something meaningful with it? So advice for a CX leader starting a VOC program from scratch, what is maybe one of the first steps you would recommend they take?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. So I have this like playbook that I do when I joined a new company and voice of customers always one of the first things that I'm like, let's figure this out. So the very first thing that I think you should do is interview your team. So your CX agents interview stakeholders. So leaders across the business and then talk to customers. So what you're getting with that is your understanding. What are the biggest pain points? What are the biggest trends that pop up? And you're kind of building a foundation of of what your customers need. I think that when it comes to stakeholders and other teams, it's really great to understand what their goals are in the immediate term, but also the long term. So what are they trying to accomplish? And then tell them, CX could help you with this. We can be here to support you when it comes to understanding trends, when it comes to if you have a gut feeling, use the CX team to either validate that or say maybe that's not the right path forward.
Lauren Gold: Mm.
Victoria Weiss: But I think you kind of need to start with that as a foundation. And then from there, really understand how you on the CX side are collecting data and how you're tagging conversations, how maybe you're leveraging AI to kind of pull out insights and trends. when I joined Smalls, one of the first things I did was rebuild the taxonomy structure and make sure that there's consistency in how we are tagging our conversations. The team feels supported and understands how to tag conversations and that that is feeding directly into our data warehouse so that we can start to track trends over time. And then I think that from there, understanding, just the roadmap, because you're gonna find things immediately that you wanna fix, whether it is the ordering process or maybe the cancellation process. I think understanding where the company sits and has their perspective on all of those areas so that you can nicely fit in your feedback at the right moments and be pulled into conversations at the right moments. So yeah, I think it's really about like structure, organization, and like building relationships. It is so huge to put yourself out there, to meet leaders across the business, and to say like, am here to support you. I am excited to work with you. Let's do this.
Lauren Gold: gosh, you're going to get so much feedback as soon as you kind of open up those gates and being thoughtful about how you're packaging that up. And as you mentioned earlier, like coming to the table with some solutions, like, hey, this is actually great for us to have this feedback. And now we can actually act on it and do something.
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I think that the last thing is probably like you need to get into a rhythm where you're feeling like you're able to consistently give feedback and share customer insights because like this is hard. You need to maintain that and you need to be reliable when it comes to it. So that the team starts to know OK, this is when I'm going to start to get trends. This is what I'm to start to get insights. And they can start to lean on that and pull it into their work stream as well. making sure that you can build a sustainable structure when it comes to sharing insights proactively and then also kind of closing feedback loops. You know, if you're launching a new product, what is your game plan? How are you going to make sure you're collecting information so that you can share it with the right teams? So thinking about that as well.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's great. OK, what are some of the most important things customers maybe don't explicitly tell you in reviews or surveys or whatnot? And how do you uncover those insights? How do you dig out those juicy themes that are really important but maybe are not blatantly exposed?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, customers are really good at telling you how they feel, but they aren't necessarily good at telling you why they feel that way or what went wrong in a way that like you can actually take and diagnose and fix. a good example, like your website sucks and I want you to cancel me like, OK, cool. thank you for telling me that our website sucks. And I'm not expecting you to tell me why. Like that's not your job. But as a CX leader, it is your job to figure out what went wrong. where did we lose that customer and how can we improve the experience so that other customers don't hit that same friction point. a lot of it is like.
Lauren Gold: with.
Victoria Weiss: the tools that you have available to you and kind of what you can use. I've used Full Story in the past. I don't know if you're familiar with Full Story, a really creepy website that kind of records all user sessions. And so if a customer reaches out and they're saying, this is really frustrating. I'll like sit in Full Story and I'll just watch sessions and understand at what point did that customer rage click a bunch or where did they get kind of frustrated or where did they drop off? I'll also look into segment and see kind of like what events occurred and where customers are like specifically dropping off. across the board in every way, like it is the CX leader's job to figure out why is the customer feeling this way and how can we make sure that no other customers feel that way.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's a great, a great call. Have you ever followed up with a customer and asked for more specifics like,
Victoria Weiss: Yeah Yeah. Yeah, I have. There's actually just one customer from my daily harvest days who like I love her. Her name is Jill. She's great. We're friends on Instagram. But she just had like consistently really terrible experiences with deliveries. And it was just like really bad luck and like where she was located and a few things like that. But I like hopped on a few calls with her and asked her questions and learned more about her experience and was able to find a solution that worked for her. And she remained a customer for years. But I am 100 percent like on board with O is just reaching out to customers and asking for their feedback explicitly. I think it's a great way to learn.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's great. me this, how central is VOC to the role of a CX leader today? And how should it influence day to day decision making? Like, where do you draw the line as to, I love your feedback, but I need to keep kind of moving forward with our strategy? Or where is the balance that blends there?
Victoria Weiss: Mm-hmm. I think voice of customer is everything right now. I think it is like incredibly exciting. I've been in this industry for a decade and when I started, it was like straight up, we are answering questions. We are solving problems. We are a cost center. That is all we are. And now it's like, we're finally getting this attention where it's like, wait, hold on. There's an entire team of people who it's literally talking to our customers and like, why aren't we using that as a resource? And all CX people are like, yeah, why? Why aren't you using us as a resource? And so I think that in order to continue that momentum, it is crucial for CX leaders to start to kind of leverage our data and to tell the stories and to paint the pictures of like, these are the ways that we need to improve the experience in order to be the best in the space, right? CX is a differentiator in the ways that we can show up for customers by building relationships by, anticipating needs, but we're also a differentiator in the way that we know our customers better than anybody. And we can help you build roadmaps, we can help you build the customer journey, we can tell you where people are falling off or where we're winning customers. And so a voice of customer is like fundamental to that.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, I love that. What is an underrated piece of feedback? Like one, maybe that people tend to overlook either the actual criticality of the feedback or maybe an input source that isn't as apparent to others. Like why is it so underutilized and what are some of those little gotchas that we can look at for?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting is I've been kind of elevating CSAT as like a business metric instead of just a CX metric, which I know everybody talks about CSAT, but I think that like the feedback that we're getting in CSAT in a lot of ways is feedback for the business and for other teams. And so like what I've been doing is kind of circulating quotes and using that as data points that we need to improve experiences. like the customer rates us negatively in CSAT because we can't deliver an order sooner than we actually can, right? Like they want the order expedited. Like that is a data point that we should be using to prioritize expedited shipments. And we should be sharing that in company-wide meetings to the exec team. CSAT is not just an indicator of how the CX team is performing, it is an indicator of how the business is performing. So that's one that I've been really excited about and I know that it's probably like a cliche or everyone's like, duh, CSAT, but I'm pumped about that one.
Lauren Gold: Yeah. And I imagine your team feels really empowered or, really supported that you're sharing that metric more broadly and that it feels like a team goal because I know that also like for an agent to receive a negative CSAT for something that they perceive or feel is out of their control is just like takes the wind right out of your sails too. And so like it drives that whole company accountability. And I'm sure the team feels like you have their backs too in sharing it more broadly.
Victoria Weiss: Totally. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that's like the other area where voice of customer is great too. Like I mentioned before, like just taking care of team members. I think that being an agent is the hardest job. You're doing the same thing every day. You're taking care of customers. You're expected to be like on your game for every conversation. you need to know that you have leaders who have your backs and that your feedback is being listened to and shared and you're making a difference. So, yeah.
Lauren Gold: Absolutely. So important. Okay. Let's shift to AI a little bit. So how do you see the voice of the customer evolving as companies gain access to just more data, more insights? mean, really you're limited only by your creativity as to like the different insights you can now pull or themes you can like associate with one another that we've never been able to do before. So how do you, how do you think about that?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's so cool. It's like, mean, I remember I used to spend like hours and hours looking through conversations, trying to find trends, I would read so many conversations and come away with nothing. So now being able to like prompt AI and say like, hey, what were the top five trends from last week across all conversations? It's like the coolest thing. It's amazing. It has been really helpful in starting conversations with other teams. And then it frees up my bandwidth to instead of like through every conversation. I'm looking through this report and then I'm able to like make my decisions or my judgment calls based off of that report. Obviously do some spot checking and making sure that the data is correct but it's like unlocking so many doors for me to be able to like creatively solve problems and come up with solutions that other teams can really use. the thing that I'm a little bit worried about and I think most people are probably worried about is like everyone can prompt differently and so like if I prompt a certain way and ask a question. And then a leader on the operations team prompts a different way. Our numbers might look different or our data might look different. And so it's something that I'm looking into and working with other teams on is how do we make sure that we're talking to AI the same way and that we're getting the same results or we're leveraging it the same way.
Lauren Gold: Yeah, that's a really good call. OK, so our last question, this is super insightful and energizing too. I mean, it feels like there's just so many possibilities in taking that feedback and driving great outcomes for our companies and our customers. If you could give one piece of advice, only one, what would you recommend for CX leaders who want to improve their VOC programs today?
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Okay, my advice is like be persistent. It's really hard to get this off the ground. It's really hard to get support and to like, you know, kind of like make your way into these conversations, but like. Don't be afraid to feel like you are annoying because nobody sees you as annoying because you are an amazing CX leader. And you're really showing up for customers. so continue to be persistent, be scrappy, ask questions. I used to be quiet and timid in meetings, but I started to get this feeling in my gut where I'd be like, no, I know what to say and I know that this is a problem. So listen to your gut and speak up in meetings. I think that's my biggest piece of advice. You might get pushed to the side sometimes, but just keep going back and being persistent and advocating for your team and your customers.
Lauren Gold: I love it. Be persistent, be scrappy, be curious, and represent your team and your customers. I'm going to leave it right there, Victoria. Those are such words to live by for us CX leaders. Thank you so much. It was so great to spend time with you today.
Victoria Weiss: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, thank you.
