Rick Denton (00:21)
Hey there, CX Passport listeners. Today's guest is Cami Faheda. Proving that the best guests come from CX Passport alums, Cami and I have a mutual connection in Dennis Wakabayashi. And he's a former CX Passport guest way back in episode 68, all the way in 2022. Cami hails from Brazil and now is based in the Miami area, speaking as one of the trusted global voices of CX.

She stands out with this blend of strategy and culture. leads Rise Up, helping companies turn theory into action and good intentions into measurable results. measurable, tangible results. My business love language. She's worked across finance, contact centers and global CX programs and brings this perspective that's grounded, practical and shaped by international experience. Cami, welcome to CX Passport.

Camila Ferreira (01:20)
⁓ my goodness, it's such a pleasure being here and I was listening to you with the introduction. Yes, there is so much for us to unpack today and to share how to transform experience into business growth.

Rick Denton (01:32)
What a treat it is for me today and what a treat it will be for the listeners and viewers of CX Passport. I want to start your background, right? You have the Brazilian background in the Miami area. I always love talking about the Brazilian culture because there's something unique about it and customer experience. What is it about the Brazilian culture that influences the way people engage with customer experience? And then why does that actually matter on the global stage?

Camila Ferreira (01:59)
Yeah, it's very interesting, Rick, because of course it's completely different the way I see Brazil today than what I used to see Brazil 10 years ago before I left. When you were part of the culture, when you have no other external reference, you just take things for granted. But now, after having lived so many years internationally and having had the chance to deal with so many cultures, I look back to Brazil and I can see what are the main differentiators. ⁓

Rick Denton (02:06)
Mmm.

Camila Ferreira (02:28)
In the field of CX, I believe that Brazil is very much emotional and relationship driven. So just to give you an example, here in the US, people are more pragmatic. So when we talk about CX, we used to talk about efficiency and speed. That's not the case in Brazil. So in Brazil, it's about talking, it's about empathy, it's about emotion that, at the end of the day, drives trust.

Rick Denton (02:36)
Okay.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Camila Ferreira (02:56)
I was in Brazil two months ago. And on average, for example, in Europe, people take about from eight to 10 referrals to make a shopping decision. So for example, let's suppose you want to buy a pair of sneakers. Then you're going to ask maybe your wife, your friends, your coworkers, and so on and so forth. And for you to make your mind, it takes on average from eight to 10.

opinions or referrals. In Brazil, it's 2.5.

Rick Denton (03:27)
Really?

Camila Ferreira (03:28)
Yes, that's the power of relationship in Brazil and trust. yes, I know. trust in Brazil is definitely a competitive advantage that if well used can drive a lot more and faster sales. But the opposite is also true because if you come to me and say, what about this pair of sneakers? And say, no, don't go for it. It won't take much.

Rick Denton (03:35)
Huh.

Yeah.

Camila Ferreira (03:56)
for you to decide not to buy it.

Rick Denton (03:59)
So can I, I want to pull at that a little bit and go at the why, right? What is it about the Brazilian shopping experience? And I realized it's the overall kind of customer perception that is willing to make those kind of, and I realize sneakers are one thing, but it could be a dramatic decision that you're describing. And it is such this view of I trust the two and a half that I know, and I'm going with the two and a half that I know.

Camila Ferreira (04:23)
Yeah, when I compare, for example, Brazil in the US, I can see that here we are way more data-driven than in Brazil. So this can be one of the reasons why the trust has a bigger weight in Brazil than in the US. I think that here before you shopping, what do you do? What are the reviews? At the of the day, it's a referral, but in a second or third level.

Rick Denton (04:42)
Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (04:46)
What are the reviews? What are the complaints? And I think that in Brazil, this is a culture that is still being developed when compared to the US. And it's more about the community that you were part of. Hypothesis, okay? This is Cami's hypothesis, okay?

Rick Denton (04:57)
Interesting. Well, well, you

certainly have a better source for your hypothesis than I do. ⁓ my extent in Brazil is six weeks on a project down there back in 1998. So I, trust your hypothesis more than anything that I would come up. You said the word complaint in there. And you had told me when we were first meeting, ⁓ several weeks ago that there's this Brazil's complain here system where complaints go after direct escalation.

Camila Ferreira (05:26)
Yes.

Rick Denton (05:27)
As someone outside of Brazil, I was shocked that this kind of even exists. So can you walk me and the listeners through this again? How does it work? How does it shape accountability and then overall service improvement?

Camila Ferreira (05:39)
Yes, absolutely. It's called Hiklomi Aki, which is the open translation of complain here. So let's get back to my example of buying a pair of sneakers. Let's suppose you bought it and for some reason you have an issue with the product. What is the first thing you're going to do? Get in contact with the supplier.

with the vendor and through contact support. But if things get sorted out, good, you're in a good shape, it's kind of how life goes on. What if not?

Rick Denton (05:58)
Right.

Camila Ferreira (06:12)
What do do?

Rick Denton (06:13)
Let's see, do I complain on social media? Do I tell all of my friends and family? Do I give up? Do I try to escalate? It's a mess.

Camila Ferreira (06:21)
But none of this will guarantee or will give you a path for resolution. It's more of you venting out that frustration, right? Heklonikki, or complain here, is a private company, but an open platform. It's a website where you go and say, hey, I bought this pair of sneakers. This is the problem that I faced. I got in contact with the company and no resolution or very... ⁓

Rick Denton (06:25)
No, absolutely not.

Yeah, it's more therapeutic than productive. Yeah.

Camila Ferreira (06:48)
unsatisfied ⁓ resolution. Boom. Then everybody knows what happened with your shopping experience. And because it became so popular and quite quickly, and why? Because before Reclo-Me-Aqui, there was only one ⁓ government institution called Procon that used to manage this, but with a lack of transparency, ⁓ long waiting times.

no visibility on the process. So you could go there and complain and wait your entire life for no answer. And that's when Hekelemiaki started, just to start giving visibility of those unsatisfactory resolutions. So in that particular example that I gave you, you go, you got your pair of sneakers, you did not get

get the support of the problem resolved, then you go to this platform, Reclame Aqui, and what happens is, Reclame Aqui, contact the company and say, hey, we have a customer here saying that he or she bought a pair of sneakers and they faced this problem and it was not resolved. The company has, if I'm not mistaken, up to 90 days to get back to you. And once they do,

Rick Denton (07:54)
Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (08:03)
That's the other important thing. You have the chance to reply back and say, yes, the problem was resolved, satisfactory or not, or not. And based on this, they start ranking the companies. And now they have also extended to awards. So it became a kind of a big and real business. Because now before buying a pair of sneakers, what are you going to do? You're going to go to Heklo Meike and see what is the reputation of the company.

Rick Denton (08:12)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, okay, so I'm hearing you say that and I imagine other listeners are doing the same thing. They're thinking, well, we have something like that in the U S we've got the trust pilot or better business bureau or those kinds of things. The reality is people don't really trust those organizations. They feel like they're skewed towards the business or there's something shady going on or something like that. As I'm hearing that, I'm thinking,

What you're describing sounds like it would be somewhat specifically uniquely Brazilian going back to the first question that you were talking about. And that is that idea of trust, that there is this trust that if I see these comments and these reviews, I trust that this is one of my two and a half people that I'm checking with.

Camila Ferreira (09:41)
Yes, and I think two things here, Rick. One is, is that independent institution? Remember what I said before, we do have a government-based institution called Procon. And it has never worked. Lack of transparency, lack of trust, but this one is very independent and people know it. And second is, in the early days of Heklamia Key, they chased a lot the companies to get back to clients.

Rick Denton (09:46)
Yeah.

Hmm. Right.

⁓

Camila Ferreira (10:07)
That's what actually helped build trust. And because it became so popular so quickly, the reputation of the brands in that particular website or with that particular company, which is Heiklo Miki, is very relevant. So they either sell more or less depending on their reputation. And who gives them the reputation? Their clients.

Rick Denton (10:21)
Yeah. Okay. Okay.

this is exactly

all of these experiences for a business are in the hopes of selling more shoes. Like you said, that the reason they're doing this is not because they have the warmth in their heart for the customer and hope that the shoes work. They're hoping that they can make more sales.

what is it about a financial mindset that traditional customer experience leaders often underestimate?

Camila Ferreira (10:54)
Yeah, and here I'm going to give you another example. I love examples. I think it helps people understand, imagine a toddler that is starting to talk and the toddler wants something from the fridge, but he doesn't know the words. He knows what he wants, but he doesn't know the words. And he tries to express him or herself, but what is missing is a clear communication.

Rick Denton (10:57)
Ha, hey, give them to me.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Camila Ferreira (11:21)
That's what lacks. And that's why coming from a finance background helps me very much. And I'm going to explain to why. In the first 10 years of my professional life, I worked in different finance departments, accounting, reporting, investor relations, ⁓ right hand of CEO, of CFOs. So I learned in my early days, in my early professional days, what matters most to investors. And what is the language?

Rick Denton (11:27)
Mm-hmm.

Got it.

Camila Ferreira (11:50)
they speak. And this is key because once I transitioned to operations and differently than the majority of the CX leaders, my career did not start in support. My career started in finance. And when I was in finance, I was constantly looking for opportunities to either drive more sales or more efficiency or more profitability, whatever it is, more return to the investment because I worked for multinational companies.

Rick Denton (11:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (12:20)
and public companies. So once I transitioned to operations, like, ⁓ my goodness, I have a diamond in front of me. Because with all those insights and all of these opportunities, that's exactly what I was kind of craving for, like the toddler when I was in finance. What was missing? Translate that into finance language. And that was my expertise. So I could translate absolutely everything.

Rick Denton (12:36)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (12:50)
⁓ turn reduction, ⁓ increase in customer lifetime or the cost of not doing something, whatever. I used to do that on my daily basis. What I did not have was the input, was the insight that I found when I transitioned into operations. So when I look at the opportunities for CX leaders is definitely understanding and talking the boardroom language.

So I see them as the toddler I told you in front of the fridge, craving for something, they know what it is, they just don't know how to express themselves.

Rick Denton (13:19)
Okay.

What I'm laughing about is there's some CX leaders right now, if they're on their run, you know, while they're listening to this or if they're driving, they're pounding their dash going, I'm not a toddler, but I get that. certainly get, well, let me, yeah, they totally will. Let's stick with that for a second. you can just, you've got the communication. Let's say the toddler grows up and they learn the communication and now they're the teenager. let's take it to the teenager.

Camila Ferreira (13:36)
But they remembered the toddler example and that's what matters.

Rick Denton (13:53)
If the teenager is CX and the parent in this situation is finance, there's a relationship that they're supposed to sort of play nicely together, but often there's a butting heads, especially in those teenage years. They're viewing life through different, very different lenses, stepping out of the analogy, customer experience, people think one way, finance people think one way. How did you manage that resistance from CX teams that you were a part of when you're bringing in your finance perspective? And then the reverse.

How did finance teams push back on you as well when your CX ideas came into play?

Camila Ferreira (14:28)
Yeah, so my kid is only six years old, so I haven't stepped or experienced myself what it means to have a teenager at home, but ⁓ I know. my goodness, my gray hair here. I need to buy some.

Rick Denton (14:36)
It's coming!

Hey, I'm an

empty nester. There's a reason why it's almost all gray.

Camila Ferreira (14:49)
⁓ yeah. So the other, the other mistake I see leaders making, asking for something before giving something else.

So let's go to the teenager example. If they come to you and say, hey, daddy, hey, mom, ⁓ I have already kind of done my homework. I have done all the duties, all the chores and so on. Can I do something else?

is one situation. The other situation is, I wanna go out with my friends and play kind of a video game and then the next they're gonna ask, have you done your duties? Are you done with your home?

you first give to get something in exchange. What if finance, and that's why it's so important, Rick, to understand the culture and the language of your audience? That is truly important. And this is something that I learned throughout my international career. For the good and for the bad, I have lived in five different countries within eight years.

Rick Denton (15:30)
Okay, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Goodness.

Camila Ferreira (15:55)
So I had to adapt quickly enough to understand the culture, to understand the language. And I used to say that I have to read what's not written. I have to listen what is not said and I have to understand what is not expressed. This is when you understand culture. So if you go to finance, what is finance looking for?

They are very sharp, they are precise, and they are constantly looking for ways

have better financial performance of their metrics. So if you go to finance looking for something, this is what you need to give in advance. Let me give you a real example in CX. People go to finance, CX leaders go to finance asking for money.

Rick Denton (16:28)
Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (16:41)
They need budget for a new platform. Now we are in the hype of artificial intelligence. I need a new software. I need artificial intelligence and so on and so forth. So they are going to compete with thousands of other opportunities across the organization because in the same way that CX is going there, HR is going there, sales is going there, and everyone else is going to finance to ask for money. And finance will reply back and say, give me 10 % more efficiency. Right? So we start this conversation.

Rick Denton (16:46)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm hmm. Just automatic. Yeah,

right.

Camila Ferreira (17:12)
If you go to finance and say, hey, I have identified here that ⁓ by automating our support or some of the most frequent interactions, we can not only reduce costs because we're going to have a more automated ⁓ solution for the organization, but

I also foresee an increase in sales because with the same human resources that I currently have, I will be able to cross-sell and upsell. This is the Roy of this investment.

Rick Denton (17:46)
see.

Camila Ferreira (17:48)
And then the trick question is, how does it compete with the ROI of the other opportunities that you have? Let's discuss ROI. You moved away from being the spoiled child asking for money. Completely. And then you start talking what? Boardroom language.

Because then you, as a finance guy, you have to prove me, or at least to show me, that you have other initiatives with better broil or higher broil than

Rick Denton (18:25)
did I hear that right? Let's see, lived in five countries in eight years and I know that you've traveled in all sorts of places. You've been on a lot of planes and you know this, that when you're doing that kind of flying, it can be nice to stop off in the lounge, especially the first class lounge. And that's what I invite you to do today. Join me here in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly and have a little bit of fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Camila Ferreira (18:48)
I think the most impressive one was Atacama Desert in Chile. Yes, I started my trip in Bolivia, which is the biggest solar desert that we have on Earth. And then I crossed the borders to Chile to visit Atacama Desert. And there was one particular experience that stuck with me. One night in the middle of the desert, no lights.

just the headlights of the cars, we went to a hot spring at night and everything was completely dark except for the headlights that guided us to the path to the hot springs. And once they turned off the headlights of the car and I looked up, Rick, the sky was white of stars. That was such a view that I will never, ever forget.

Rick Denton (19:25)
Mm-hmm.

that's nice.

Camila Ferreira (19:41)
I have never seen so many stars. Literally a sky full of stars.

Rick Denton (19:42)
man.

All right, well then I want to know after when we want to know where this was because I want to check that out for a future trip for me because I've not been, I've not actually not been to Bolivia. I've not been to Chile yet. So someday I'll get there. What about you? What's a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Camila Ferreira (20:01)
A couple. But I think the top of the list is Alaska. I want to do a cruise in Alaska for different reasons. One, I think that the environment, the life in such a cold place is completely different than what I'm used to. I used to say that I have two seasons here in the US. The first one was in Chicago that I almost got frozen and the second one was in Florida.

Rick Denton (20:03)
Huh, yeah.

Mmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (20:28)
So I definitely like, I prefer warmer places, but cold and the icebergs and the life, this is something that really gets my attention. So top of the list, would say it's a cruise in Alaska.

Rick Denton (20:41)
Yeah, I love, I love that. Chicago, yeah, that's it. He chased you all the way to Miami. You didn't pick it. You went straight down to Miami after Chicago. So I mentioned that I'd been in Brazil and one of my fondest memories of being in Brazil is just the phenomenal food. And I don't want to bias you towards an answer here. I just know that I loved it there. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Camila Ferreira (20:48)
Ha ha ha!

my goodness. You know, you're not alone in that preference for Brazil. Speaking of Danny's, time he went to Brazil, I introduced him to coxinha, which is a kind of a chicken, kind of a fried chicken that is very good recipe. And he literally loved it. But speaking of me, there is another Brazilian sweet called brigadeiro, which I'm not sure if you have ever heard about it.

Rick Denton (21:30)
I did.

Camila Ferreira (21:31)
Brigadeiro is amazing, which is nothing but condensed milk with chocolate that you cook. That's it. But yeah, it sounds kind of fun. But at the end, the taste is just amazing. And in every single kid's birthday party, they have a Brigadeiro in Brazil. What they do is that they cook the condensed milk with chocolate and they do kind of little balls covered with chocolate sprinkles.

Rick Denton (21:41)
Okay.

Camila Ferreira (22:00)
And this is just delicious. this is yes. So if you haven't tried this, don't do it because the only thing I know is that you're going to get addicted.

Rick Denton (22:02)
my gosh, that sounds so good. ⁓

Yeah.

Well, you know what? I'm not afraid of being addicted to food. There's a lot of favorites that I have out there. I also know that there's certain foods that I won't touch and I'm curious, what is something growing up that you were forced to eat, but you hated as a kid?

Camila Ferreira (22:24)
Mmm, salad.

Rick Denton (22:26)
just salad in general, okay.

Camila Ferreira (22:28)
Well, yeah, no, used to have my nanny used to force me to eat lettuce, cucumber, I don't know, all sorts and types of salad and then hate it. And I got so traumatized that until today, I don't eat salad.

Rick Denton (22:41)
I like that it's the whole category. It's like, nope, it's salad in general.

Camila Ferreira (22:42)
Yes.

You

know how funny is that? So he stayed with me until I was, I don't know, around seven, eight years old. And then she left and through social media, we reconnected. We reconnected. Yeah. I found her on Facebook recently. And then I let her know, say, Hey, you used to kind of force me to eat salad until nowadays I don't. was like, Oh my goodness. was your mommy pushing me to do. Just from that.

Rick Denton (22:57)
how nice.

That's so funny.

I love that. And that's what I love about the First Class Lounge is getting

stories that are just from places you wouldn't expect. Sadly though, it is time for us to leave the lounge. What is one travel item, not including your phone, not including your passport, that you will not leave home without?

Camila Ferreira (23:25)
Oof, phone and passport, definitely. ⁓ What else? Now you got me. Maybe they're my sneakers, then I can go wherever I want because without my pair of shoes, it's gonna be

Rick Denton (23:47)
absolutely. You gotta have those shoes. I have found that other guests have said the same thing that walking a city, especially one that you're not familiar with, really gets you that ground level exposure and a deeper understanding than public transportation or other ways that you might get around. So those shoes, it's a smart choice there. I'm going to go back to talking about your growth into the customer experience and the business leader that you are. You have often, and many do, talk about people learn more from their failures than their successes.

How do you specifically bring that mindset into a customer experience, team culture and decision making?

Camila Ferreira (24:24)
There is a post of mine that states exactly this. Success without failure is a myth.

Rick Denton (24:31)
Love it. I like, almost want to just end there, but keep going. want you to, I want you to explain that, but yes, absolutely. It doesn't exist.

Camila Ferreira (24:39)
Why do we have failures, first of all? It's a different expectations. Coming back to my sneakers example, you were expecting something and you received something different, expectations, right? It's almost impossible to map every single person's expectations, especially because you may expect something today and different something different tomorrow. So that's where AI comes into place. And that's why it's so important and relevant. But let's kind of keep the AI aside for now.

Rick Denton (24:49)
Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (25:07)
If we did something wrong, if we did something that did not meet your expectation, we got to learn from that. So translating this into CX, one of the initiatives I did in my last employer was that every time that we received a one or two CSAT, there was a specific squad team in charge of reverting and understanding and learning from that situation within an hour frame. An hour.

It has to be timely. It cannot take a week for me to get back to you. So in that example of sneakers, kind of contact support. We did not resolve. You respond the C-SAT and you gave us one or two stars. Immediately, I would have someone on the phone with you say, Hey Nick, Hey Rick, what happened? Let me understand. Where did we fail? How can we do things? How can we do things differently and better? That's it.

Rick Denton (25:52)
Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (26:06)
And these would drive process improvement. These would drive product insights. And these would kind of drive so many insightful conversations across the organization and not limited to support. Because maybe your satisfaction was not related to support, but I don't know, with a product or a fabric of the sneakers. I don't know.

Rick Denton (26:09)
Yeah.

You, you said something there that I think that's actually what I want to close out with today. And that is the idea of think of all those insights that are being gathered there. It's not just, can I appease the customer? Here's a 10 % coupon, pat them on the back of the head and go on their merry way. You're describing this. How can I get better at my product? How can I get better at my process? And you have transformed contact centers in the past. You, you they've gone from these challenged operations to global models that are focused on

revenue impact. And I think that's a lot of what you're talking about there. How have you guided that journey? What defines success in that journey? And ultimately, how are you elevating a contact center from being just a place for a customer to dump complaints into, into a profit center?

Camila Ferreira (27:16)
To me, it's a combination of three pillars, leadership, experience, and technology. And let me kind of break it down for you. Leadership, why? Because you need to set the vision. In my last employer that we went from being one of the worst support across the industry to be awarded as the best one, the very first thing that I did was set the mission of aspiring to be the best of the industry. So every single person in my 300 people team knew

that we were moving towards that direction. And every single action would contribute to that or not, depending on what they decide to do. That's why leadership is so important. Second is experience. And people think about experience, a client experience, a customer experience, is the experience towards your ⁓ external client. Your very first client is your employee. How do you treat them? What is the experience? Are you developing them? Are you training them? Are you giving them the tools that will actually set them up for success?

Rick Denton (27:46)
Mm-hmm.

Camila Ferreira (28:14)
Yes or no, because remember what I said about going to finance and negotiating. You first, you give for them to ask. I cannot ask my employee to deliver a good customer experience if they are not having a good experience themselves. So that's why experience matters. And three is technology. So why would I ask my team or someone in my team to...

invest or waste time on something that can be automated. I would rather get that talent and invest in something that will bring a better or higher return. And then we are talking about what? Finance, return on investment. The combination of those three will give you the best output, the best outcome possible.

Rick Denton (28:57)
And that's the way that you're getting to ultimately it's not just a phone bank, but actually that profit, that customer insights center, all the value that you're describing. Cami, enjoyed that today. Thank you for sharing your insights, both on the specific kind of Brazilian culture element of that idea of trust and two and a half relationships that you check in with. That's just shocking to most of us. Heck, I spent a week.

felt like reviewing reviews just to try to book a place to go stay on vacation, right? So that concept and the, yeah, well, trust me, I'm incredibly tempted, especially after that dessert that you described there. And then on into how can we make these customer experiences and customer experience teams something that's tangible and relevant? If folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you and your approach to customer experience, your approach to actually creating tangible business insights, what's the best way for them to get to know more?

Camila Ferreira (29:28)
I'm Brazilian!

Yeah, absolutely. I would recommend, I would suggest them to follow me on LinkedIn. It's camilaferreraglobal. You're going to see many flags. By the way, people ask me, why do I have so many flags on my LinkedIn? Those are the countries that I have lived in. Yes, so that's the best way. I also have my book available on Amazon. It's called Long Live CX. By the way, co-authored with Dennis Baccabaiaxi. You're going to find lots of insights on how...

Rick Denton (30:07)
Nice.

OK.

Camila Ferreira (30:21)
to deal with CX in this newest version where it's not a department, this is the ecosystem that drives business growth.

Rick Denton (30:29)
Okay. And drives business growth. That's key folks. You know, the drill, all of that's going to be in the show notes. There'll be a link there that you can check out. Cammie's LinkedIn profile and an affiliate link that takes you straight into buying her book there on ⁓ Amazon as well. Cammie certainly enjoyed it today. Obrigado. Thank you for being on CX Passport.

Camila Ferreira (30:50)
No, thank you for having me and happy to share all the links with the trip for to Chile, the Brigadero and everything else that you need. Thank you so much for having me.