Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. So, if I asked you where you think a career in customer experience with start, how far down the list would the answer trading grain be for you? Weren't expecting that. Neither was I. When I met today's guest, Michael Hinshaw, introduced to me by one of my favorite CX people, Diane majors, who also has appeared on CX passport way back in episode nine, she's got single digit OG status. I know that Michael would be a fount of customer experience wisdom, as the President of M Corp. Cx Michael designs and implements technology solutions for customer centric companies. These solutions can create real tangible business value for m Corp. Cx clients. When someone writes a book titled smart customers, stupid companies, you know, you're gonna get some unvarnished customer experience discussion, Michael, welcome to CX passport.

Michael Hinshaw: 1:27

Thanks so much, Rick. It's great to be here.

Rick Denton: 1:29

So I gotta start with right at the beginning. How on earth do you go from trading grain to driving customer experience across a multitude of companies?

Michael Hinshaw: 1:38

Well, as you might expect, it's somewhat of an interesting story, but not horribly original. I had built a brand strategy firm and sold it in 1997. And was approached by one of my ex clients at that point, who was a private equity, head of a private equity group out of Canada. And they asked me if I'd be interested in starting an internet company at that point in time. Yeah. So we spent a lot of time talking about ideas settled conception on the idea of a marketplace, essentially bringing buyers and sellers together on a on a single platform, and then narrowed that down to oil, and essentially equipment for drilling and exploration and grain. And we decided to go for grain, primarily because it was in there Canada that get the grain market to a degree, but I knew nothing whatsoever about it. So I went from zero understanding of grain, much less trading grain, much less farming, and a little understanding of Canada to being the largest independent grain trader in the country. And about two years, goodness, we also managed crops have had over 100,000 acres of farmland under management, and then began trading for freight essentially arbitrage freight. Because our grain needed to get to market and trucks going across the country, it was more expensive to have them turned around with an empty load. So our marketplace expanded to include things like fertilizer, seed inputs, and freight. But the reason that ended up being a customer experience training ground is because I knew nothing about the market. So I went into the ecosystem of grain trading with an entirely open mind, I started asking questions. And I started asking questions with an eye towards understanding where the pain points in the market were, where the gaps are, where there was friction in the process. What the lifecycle at that point, I was calling it a relationship lifecycle with the relationship lifecycle look like recent major players, for brokers, for farmers, for the large suppliers of inputs, that cargo and ADM and found some pretty significant need and built a business to fill those needs. After the internet crash of late 2001, early 2002, we sold the assets that we built the technology assets, I took a year off and then started uncork CX used the framework, the customer relationship likes customer relationship lifecycle, as our foundation for starting a customer experience consultant firm. So early day dream mapping, you could call it. We call it a touch point mapping when I went when I went to commercialize it and trademark that phrase in 2002. And have been doing that kind of work ever since for corporations of all sizes, types and kinds around the world.

Rick Denton: 4:38

Yeah, who who would have ever thought, right? Going from trading great, but that makes complete sense. If you don't know something about something, what better way to understand it and that is to get insights from the ones that are either doing it or a part of it or getting that customer insight for lack of a better term. And I think it's funny hearing the evolution and of the phrase that we all know, as a journey mapping today, it's a shame that you didn't get a chance to trademark journey mapping, right?

Michael Hinshaw: 5:07

Well, I did try and patent touch point mapping, which is essentially the exact same concept is during that, however, I made the mistake of publishing a white paper, and was told by lawyers that you learn every day, which is a wonderful thing, that if I had published a white paper in the public domain, I could no longer patent it.

Rick Denton: 5:29

Oh,well, my goodness listeners, hey, you just had a little bit of free trademark insight that I didn't even know. Gosh, I would have thought that that would almost lay more ground for you to have the the right for the the trademark of the patent for that. Wow. Okay.

Michael Hinshaw: 5:43

Interesting. So any case learning experience? Yeah, well,

Rick Denton: 5:46

so let's take that into kind of current day, I love the fact that it's trading green, but it is fundamentally it's all getting that insight from the customers understanding the customer. And when I think of that total voice, the customer approach, it involves the technology as you're describing that idea of getting a voice of the customer tool integrated with the company, along with the human the processes, the culture of voice of the customer. How have you seen companies successfully do both?

Michael Hinshaw: 6:11

Well, the biggest challenge which which you've hinted at, is the reality that technology won't fix it. Right? And in many organizations are investing a lot of money in particularly enterprise level voice of the customer or customer listening, enterprise feedback management, pick your phrase to describe it, but it's all the same thing. It's how do you listen to your customers, understand what they're thinking, feeling and doing and take the appropriate actions to improve their experiences and your business results. And everything except for the listening analysis part, has well, actually, even those have a lot of human component as well. But you need to clearly define roles and responsibilities, which helped to drive alignment and accountability for individuals across the organization. So the companies that do this really well, they know that technology won't fix it alone. And they work hard to cascade BOC insights down and across the organization. Yeah, that combined with clearly defined roles and responsibilities in relation to customer insights. And a culture of alignment accountability to make that happen, is what companies do to succeed.

Rick Denton: 7:21

That that idea of cascading voc voice, the customer insights throughout the organization, it was, gosh, I think it was today I was on a LinkedIn conversation with someone saying almost that exact same thing. That that was one of her most exciting things is getting getting voice of the customer and sharing those insights across the organization. But I gotta imagine, it's easy for you and me to sit on a call here and say that, but it's got to be a little bit challenging for companies how, when it's not a part of their initial DNA, we bought a tool, but it's not necessarily part of their DNA sharing. How do you help them get to that? How do you get them into that sharing concept of the customer needs to be it's not just oh, those customer experience people, but rather across the whole org.

Michael Hinshaw: 8:01

And that that does require as you might expect some leadership Wait, find it more often than not. But at the same time, even organizations where Leadership isn't completely bought into the idea of customer centricity as a business model. There are people in the organization interested in what customers think. And so beginning to So ideally, top down, reality is oftentimes it's middle out, middle up, middle down. And in those situations, it's finding champions inside the organization who are passionate about the customer and take that voice back into other parts of the organization. It's also incumbent on the VOC pros, to ensure that you're not just handing out data. Yes, because we see that all the time. It's like gee, great, nice PowerPoint presentation. Nice dashboard, zero relevance to me. Yeah. So that goes back to making sure that when you share insights, they actually are insights, it's not just the insights label on a packet data.

Rick Denton: 9:05

We're almost getting, it's almost layering upon layers here. So we're asking a group when you're trying to share your insights about the customer to know your internal customer well enough to provide the insights that would matter to them, the internal customer, about the external customer, oh, my goodness, I'm getting myself all tied up here with all sorts of meta layers associated with this.

Michael Hinshaw: 9:26

That's also the job or a big part of the job for customer experience. Yeah, rarely, other than when the CX slash voc teams have budget for the technology and for the analysis and the creation distribution of insights. More often than not, the budget stops there, meaning there they don't have p&l responsibility. They don't have the ability in most cases to actually go and quote unquote, do stuff in the orc. They can make anyone do anything, right. And the only way that we've seen CX groups again invalid disposition really succeed is when they understand what it takes to socialize and lead by influencing, guiding and coaching, rather than by dictate budget and command structure.

Rick Denton: 10:12

That's so, so true. And sure they might get, let's say that it was their ability to dictate it, you might get some compliance, but you wouldn't get your commitment, right, that classic phrase, so yeah, it is. It is so important.

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Rick Denton: 10:51

I imagine you've walked into some messy situation. So I would love to ask you and certainly no names. We're not talking about names. But what's one of the messiest customer experience situations you've walked into? And how did you help turn that around?

Michael Hinshaw: 11:05

Well, interesting way. And again, unsurprisingly, customer experience is messy in most organizations. And it's messy because of the nature of the way that businesses are traditionally structured. They look at the world from the inside out, they design processes to suit the way that they do business rather than the ways their customers want business to be done. They're siloed, they've got different business and command structures, they don't talk back and forth across parts of the organization, different divisions, different responsibilities, the companies that call us tend to be more self aware, organizationally, they also tend to be a little better shape. Because by the time you reach out to a firm like mine, where we're expert helping companies really improve their capabilities, you know, all up around customer experience, Customer Experience Management. They've made some decisions internally, they've almost always had some sort of test case pilot scenarios, team members internally who done some dirty mapping work or voice of the customer, and they see the value in it. So all that being said, it may not be that everyone in the organization is as self aware, or that everyone the organization is interested in moving towards customer centricity. Right. So I'll give you one example of that. And this is really illustrative. This is many years ago, but it's still a good example. We were hired by a company that was headquartered in New York financial services firm, and part of our job. Shortly thereafter, the discovery process is going around and meeting with every one of the eight or so presidents of different operating divisions in this group, okay to understand their view. And I was in believe was Miami. Elevator flight up 50 stories, beautiful views. I'm sitting across the desk, this guy's got an amazing office corner, view the ocean

Rick Denton: 12:59

Oh, man, I'm just visualizing it. Oh, my gosh , that that was really, really nice.

Michael Hinshaw: 13:03

It was pretty impressive. And of course, you know, desk a particular position our desk right up against the windows. Light behind him. Standard, right. But when I asked him about his customers, he laughed. He says, I don't have customers. I've got I've got a portfolio. What? Like, what do you mean? He said, Well, let's be real. You're down here from New York. They want to do this customer centricity thing, I get it. But the reality is I make my money. When my files don't pay. Because I go out and I dig them. I get late fees. I am paid based on how much money I generate from my file. He said until the guys up in New York turned to me and say, Bob, and his name is Bob. Not Bob, by the way. Yeah. Okay, so the guys up in New York turned to me and say, Bob, we're gonna pay you based on how happy the customers you have in your file. Are says, I don't care about it. Wow. So very self aware guy. Very. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 14:07

I love the honesty. I mean,

Michael Hinshaw: 14:09

and he's just like, you know, what, changed my comp structure? I'll change my behavior. I mean, that was essentially the bottom line. And looked at it that way. When you when you recognize the importance of aligning rewards and compensation to desired outcomes. You know, I'm sure you've seen this many times as well, where you've got sales forces in organizations that are pivoting towards customer centricity. And, you know, the, the mandate for sales is you got a $20 million quarter. Right, right. I don't care who you sell to or what you sell them, but you better sell or you're out of here, right? Well, you know, until you at least have a percentage of that call. Because obviously salespeople need to sell but until you have the percentage that comp lined up against the ways that customers feel about the services that they've purchased, you're going to have continued disconnects.

Rick Denton: 14:59

Oh, boy, that what a great story. And I really do I mean, I actually admire the the salty honesty of the person that you met there in Miami, but it makes sense. And we, I've talked a lot about, in other conversations, the incentives when it comes to voice, the customer and just customer experience in general. There's capital I incentives, that's the dollars. That's the bonuses. That's the Commission's, but there's also lowercase i incentives, celebrations, motivation, praise, those kind of things. Those are part of it, too. But I love that story there it because a lot of times companies will say, Look, we don't have anything for the capital I incentives. You know what, sometimes you really need to look at that and actually consider it.

Michael Hinshaw: 15:36

And also when you think about levels of an organization, yeah. In my experience, when you get deeper into the organization, those lowercase high incentives have greater impact. Absolutely. That was the top. Yeah, can capitalize on always, and they're happy to get perks provided capitalize well accounted for. Yeah, right. ,

Rick Denton: 16:01

I first will talk about that lowercase letter, you know, and one of the things that you said to in I forget exactly the phrasing that you had there. But the sales organizations that are customer centric, one of the dangers with capitalized incentives, and I've seen it at companies where they will tie it to like an NPS score or something like that. And then suddenly gaming comes into play and how that can manifest, right, and so you have to put guardrails around that, but one of the things that I also saw in an organization is the sale, the company made its revenue off of the longitude at of a customer's relationship with the company was to call it subscription base as the wrong term. But for the sake of discussion, let's just call it subscription based. And so the sales team, all they cared about was making that sale, they were compensated on number of deals that were made. And that was their compensation. But it didn't matter if it was a crappy deal. And the person left two weeks later, they still got compensated for it. And so the company realized, and it was actually a voice of the customer engagement that was a part of was okay, we got to find a way to improve the overall experience. Oh my gosh, a lot of that ties way back at the beginning of making sure that the salespeople are selling deals that are for the best benefit of the customer. How can we do that? Ooh, let's fix capital I incentives to make sure that the longevity of the relationship actually has some some skin in the game for that salesperson fluid. Yeah, oh my gosh, I'm gonna I'm sitting, I'm actually still sitting here visualizing the Miami store, which makes me want to pivot a little bit away from someone who doesn't want to care about customer experience, understandably so. But let's talk about travel. When you and I talked before, you'd mentioned some interesting travel places South Africa, Austria. But you mentioned Kuwait, that one really stood out to me too. I've never had the opportunity to go there. Tell me about traveling there. What was that Like

Michael Hinshaw: 17:42

It was, it was really interesting. And I was there on business. That's not necessarily a place that I would have selected as a vacation spot. But I always enjoy going new places almost regardless of what their life because the experience is pretty remarkable, no matter where you go. And one of the things that really struck me about Kuwait is the is a country of extremes. And, and so what an absolute a lot of wealth. But I, as I understand it, it's really the Kuwaiti citizens who are the wealthiest because they minimum payments from the government. But there's also a huge population there that are not citizens, including some, as I understand it, that were born there may have been their multi generational multi generationally, but they are not afforded citizenship. And so you see these extremes and in fairness, it's not radically different extremes that I see in my hometown of San Francisco, I was gonna say, across the bay of Oakland, right, so extremes are everyplace. But it was a little more obvious to me there because it wasn't, the wealth wasn't something I expected to see as obviously. The story we were there doing a project for a multinational company that owned lots of businesses, and their CX pilot project was their auto distribution group. And so they're the largest distributor of own name the brand, but it's because everyone knows who they are. But it was a Japanese automatic auto and truck manufacturer was one of their like, four or five brands that was their their biggest, and they're telling stories about people who would, you know, buy the car, like buy a large world drive SUV, take it out in the desert, get it stuffed full of sand and abandoned it in the desert. Oh my gosh, come back and buy another one.

Rick Denton: 19:41

Oh, my gosh.

Michael Hinshaw: 19:43

Not horribly uncommon, apparently.

Rick Denton: 19:45

That seems like there'd be a wonderful secondary market than a pilot just got to salvage those vehicles repair and then sure there is

Michael Hinshaw: 19:53

also also reason why test drives are not encouraged.

Rick Denton: 20:03

When we're talking about this kind of travel, it can be a little disoriented it disorienting, it's time, it's nice to take a little break from time to time. So I'd like for you to join me here in the first class lounge, we'll move quickly here and hopefully have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Michael Hinshaw: 20:18

There are many I have to say in the immediate the period of time immediately preceding the pandemic. Yeah, I have three. So probably in the in the 18 months, or maybe the 12 months before that. And I went to Slovenia, Edinburgh, and South Africa. And each of those locations just struck me I could live in Slovenia, Ambra, South Africa, I'd love to go back and visit again. But

Rick Denton: 20:43

that those those those, those do sound really neat. I would like to, I'd like to join you on those go back trips at some point. Looking forward, what is a dream travel location? You've not been to yet? Morocco? Oh, tell me why that was a very quick answer. Morocco is first on your list. Why is that?

Michael Hinshaw: 21:00

Yeah, well, it's not really first on my list. But it's definitely top of mind. I have a number of friends who've spent time mountain biking and trekking and hiking in Morocco. And they've just made it sound so incredible that I was like I really want to go do that is

Rick Denton: 21:14

that's That does sound neat. One of the things about Morocco I've heard is is the food. And so that inspires me to ask this this question often. And that is what is a favorite thing to eat.

Michael Hinshaw: 21:24

Oh, I like like all food, which was wonderful. There's really nothing that I don't like, which is also good. But I think Asian, Asian cuisine in general is probably my favorite. And of that. I don't know if there's one particular thing I love, you know, rice bowls, spicy curries, things that nature. But

Rick Denton: 21:50

I'm getting a little hungry here.

Michael Hinshaw: 21:54

My wife is an exceptionally good chef. And in one of those enlightened self interest giving situations I gave her lessons to Asian cooking school and over here.

Rick Denton: 22:08

The gift that keeps giving Well played, well played. On the other side, what is the thing your parents forced you to eat, but you hated as a kid?

Michael Hinshaw: 22:17

You know what, my parents didn't force me to do anything, which was great. But the other side of it is that I liked almost everything. I'd say the thing that I like, least of the things that we eat regularly was eggplant.

Rick Denton: 22:27

Oh, yeah, you've got me with that one. I still can't touch the stuff. Not a fan at all.

Michael Hinshaw: 22:31

I can eat it, but I'm not gonna order it.

Rick Denton: 22:34

You'll tolerate it. I just it'll sit on the plate. Well, I'm not that picky. But you're right. It's certainly nothing that I would order. What is when you're in your travels one travel item that you will not leave home without not including your phone, of course, but you will not leave home without

Michael Hinshaw: 22:48

a drawing pen. So photographs are great. And like you write, I've got zillions of photographs stuck in a digital drive someplace. And the ones that I tend to remember the ones that I actually print out are the ones that I've printed out before. They're all in a digital drive someplace. But drawing something, I tend to draw scenes in nature, like rivers and mountains and stuff like that. And buildings. Occasionally, I met very good people, but it really cements the place in my mind in a way that taking pictures doesn't.

Rick Denton: 23:25

You might have a side business of showing that to folks some time. We're not a video here. So I'm not going to ask you to pull that out. But it would be interesting to see that

Michael Hinshaw: 23:33

I do have my pad with me. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 23:36

So thinking back to our conversations around customer experience. Imagine too, as you're going into companies, and they're evaluating you, how do I bring you in? How can I justify this? There's all sorts of conversation around what is the ROI of customer experience, I get into these debates with folks from time to time. You know, on one hand, you hear you've got to have the ROI. We may hear no CFO will let a customer experience project go forward without ROI. But I've also heard a nice counter argument for another CX passport guests and Zeidler back in episode 19, where he talks about that. Nobody asked for the ROI of HR, nobody asked for the ROI of the finance group. So why should customer experience be any different is his perspective? So I'm curious, how do you approach that balance between the need to quote, you know, prove CX and the ambition, that customer experience should be as fundamental as those other organizations?

Michael Hinshaw: 24:24

So that was really interesting. Comment, and, and I applaud that perspective, I think it's a really interesting way to position that to executives. But the reality is that customer experience is new. Yeah, yeah. The organizations that are successful and have been successful without customer experience. Don't want to see a need for it. Not always. Right, but in many cases, and we've worked with organizations that have, you know, pulled their customer experience They stood it up, instead of doing work yanked it out. No impact on the business good or bad, right? Yeah, of course, they think later, our competition is doing this, we need to really get our act together. So they call us I can go, which is fine, there's standing it up, but it standing up in a way that the organization can see the value of it. And so I think that many organizations are and when the ROI conversation comes up, and it's an easy one, because everyone likes ROI, right? What's wrong bad about ROI. But it's really a catch fraud catchphrase for value. So if you can prove the value of cx to the business, then your significant more likely to get that project funded or agreement to promote it, or to do the roadshow or that might be. And going back to the argument that you were noting, Nick made, if you're successful business, and you strip out all your people functions, you're gonna fail, right? If you're in a successful business, strip out all your finance functions, you're gonna fail, if you strip out all your CX functions, so what, right, unless the organization has implemented CX in a way that it's driving, measurable value that executives, shareholders and other stakeholders look at and say, We need to keep doing this. And that value is oftentimes measured in goes what dollars?

Rick Denton: 26:23

Yeah. And then oh, that that's, I like that perspec, because it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. And that is, it's one thing to sort of say that you're doing CX, but it's another to actually get in there and really implement from a technology perspective implemented, not just from the technology, but the processes, the culture, all of that, all of that are the building blocks around that value CX

Michael Hinshaw: 26:45

a couple of years ago, I think it was Forrester, you know, pointed out that the the life of a CFO was exceedingly short, compared to other C suite executives, and the the number of organizations that were actually, you know, putting new CXOs in place was, was dropping. And their position was because not in this wasn't their language, as I recall, it wasn't because of lack of ROI, necessarily, it was because that lack of value. And if you come in and just do the VOC stuff, and just you know, turn the crank, provide insights and information, but don't help the organization, change how they work as a result of that, then change the way that people think, act and operate in your organization and useful in ways that drive value, then you're gonna have a very, very difficult time getting the investment dollars upfront to make that happen.

Rick Denton: 27:42

How I'm looking at the clock, then actually, I kind of want to close out with this is that value statement that you're describing? I didn't anticipate going this direction. But I really liked that that idea of its ROI to value. And I'm thinking about InCorp CX going in and having those conversations with a client? How are you helping them get through that journey from, you know, ROI into the value of it? What where do you start with them? What does that look like?

Michael Hinshaw: 28:09

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, value comes from three primary areas in our experience, and there's many sub areas. So don't don't hold me too tight with that. It's, you can decrease operating costs, you can increase top bottom line revenue, and you can increase the value of your customers. And increasing the customers sharing wallet, retention, etc. And these aren't mutually exclusive, the Venn diagram, they all overlay each other. Right? If you serve your customers well, and you do don't do the things they don't value, then you can reduce your operating costs. You do those two things? Well, you increase your top line and your bottom line. But when we talk about value, those are the kinds of things that we look at helping organizations do. And it's rarely is it CX for CX sake. Right is it's CX for a business purpose. And that value can measure, for example, and ability to differentiate from the competition. There's dollars attached to that if you can acquire customers more easily, increasing your customer value, get more and more quickly, accelerate their movement through your, through your lifecycle, get them out of consideration, and to close, quickly. All those things are measurable value areas for an organization. And the reality is there's a lot of different ways to track and trace that that aren't complex. But getting the underlying information to do it correctly, is Yeah.

Rick Denton: 29:34

Well, I, I love that approach. I love the three I'm actually was typing those notes down. And one of the beauties of being a host of CX passport is I get to learn and I get to learn even before the listeners because I get to hear at first. But Michael, that was really helpful to hear that how if folks want to know more about your approach, or the approach of M corpse CX and see how that could be of value to them. What's the best way to get in touch

Michael Hinshaw: 30:00

Yeah, you can visit our website, mcorp.cx. Or you can drop me a note M Hinshaw at m corp.cx. And I'd be happy to happy to take any questions or comments I enjoy chatting with folks about this is one of the reasons I'm enjoying chat with you so much. It's always nice to talk about things that you know, with somebody who's passionate about the subject you're also passionate about. And so

Rick Denton: 30:24

that's awesome. Well, thank you for that. And I will get all that into the show notes. So you didn't have to write that down. Just scroll down. You'll see this in the show notes how best to get in touch with Michael and M Corp. CX. Michael, thanks so much for today. I seriously, I was I was taking notes and learned some significant little nuggets there today. And I appreciate that. I certainly appreciated also hearing about Kuwait and the travels there and you made me really jealous with some of the places you've been as well. A lot of fun today, Michael, thank you so much for being here on CX passport,

Michael Hinshaw: 30:53

right, my absolute pleasure. Have a great rest of your day. And thanks for having me.

Rick Denton: 31:00

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.