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. You've heard this before. The best idea for creating a company is to find something that isn't working something that's a pain point, and then solve for it. When I met today's guest, Jose Herrera of Hire Horatio CX, that's exactly what he said he did. What I found interesting, or rather, one of the things that I found interesting was the pain point he said motivated him to start this company. I would have thought that it was solved already. But he saw a gap in what existed. Consider that a tease as I want to get into that in more depth with Jose on the show. Now, combine that desire to solve a particular pain point with a passion to build this endeavor in his home country of the Dominican Republic, creating new career opportunities in his homeland. In what is becoming a recurring theme and CX passport episodes Jose's path to CX, specifically, helping brands deliver great customer experience through great customer service wasn't a direct line in his career path. Quite a bit of that nonlinear experience. So Jose racking up the miles crossing borders on global flights. Yeah. And then we'll talk travel a bit. Jose, welcome to CX passport.

Jose Herrera: 1:39

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Rick Denton: 1:41

Yeah, let's, let's start right off the beginning. Let's start with that pain point you identified. It's actually one that I think many would say has been resolved. But you saw something different, often the sign of a disrupter. What are some of the stories the things that you saw that became the muse for your company idea?

Jose Herrera: 1:57

Yeah, so before starting Horatio, I worked in investment management, and Morgan Stanley for eight years. And as you mentioned, I did rack up quite a lot of miles in my travels throughout South America and Europe, and I was lucky enough to stay at some of the best properties in the world, you would say, and because they racked up so many miles, I was also very fortunate to travel in the elite way, I would say, getting status. And you know, sometimes like, I consider myself, George Clooney, and I'll be the air because I was traveling so much. So getting that amazing experience. And realizing that a lot of the brands that I love did not provide that five star experience is the root of why we decided to start Horatio, our motto is do what you do best and I operation to do the rest. And our mission is to become the go to partner for some of the fastest growing brands and companies around the world that care about their customers, not just say it in flashy advertising, but actually truly care about providing a human experience, and want to also develop a strong partnership and a strong bond with the team that is behind the CX organization, managing the customer inquiries and dealing with those difficult conversations.

Rick Denton: 3:28

You know, it is interesting how you're, a lot of us have had that experience, we'll stay will achieve top tier with an airline, I've experienced that with a certain level, I'm going to just keep our hands out of it. Or we'll achieve a top tier with a particular hotel chain. And so you would think that the experience when you're sitting at that top tier would be absolutely delightful. And it just surprises you how often the promise of experience is not what's delivered in the actual experience. I imagine you experience obviously some of that, as you're describing that. What were some of the things that you came across you don't have to name and shame brands. But what were some of the things that came that you were thinking yeah, that's just not the way and experience should be for a great customer.

Jose Herrera: 4:06

I think the biggest issue that I saw across you know, hotels and brands and Airlines was the lack of consistency across the organization when it comes to taking care of, of your of your customers. So that was one of the things that I wanted to really hone in on when we started the company is like making sure that we are consistent no matter who you have on the other on the other side of the communication. So I think consistency is key when when going above and beyond for all of your customers, and particularly for your loyal customers. And nowadays, we're seeing it with how expensive it is to advertise. I think you need to take care of your customers that you have already. Servicing and making sure that they come back for more.

Rick Denton: 4:51

Yeah, yeah, absolutely great. And the reason why I'm kind of smiling in and out it's an audio podcast people can see that is, I guess folks like us that sit in the customer experience. Space just know that to be true. And we know that there are business results that come around from treating customers that way and delivering these great experiences or even heck, use the word consistency, just normal experiences that are consistent across the brand as promised, and just befuddles me why brands don't do that. So talk to me, then because this is it's a kind of common pain point. And yet, there was something that you chose to disrupt around. So what's unique about Horatio BPO? Is this established industry, it's been around for decades, right? So how are you disrupting to solve for that pain point and solve that original pain point?

Jose Herrera: 5:36

Yeah, so as I mentioned, I think we strive to become a true extension of the companies that we work on behalf of. And it all starts with the people and for us, our people are at the heart of everything that we do. We match our your company style with a dedicated team of agents that are actually proud to represent your brand values and voice and really understand what your value proposition is, and go above and beyond on your behalf. And I think our biggest differentiator is providing dedicated teams that work exclusively for your company. And that is what really sets us apart from a lot of our peers. Because when we do that, you do build that out of loyalty towards the company, and the quality of the interaction in our experience increases dramatically. So I think that we focus first on wowing our employees. Yeah, because in our experience, making sure that our employees are happy, is also good for our customers. And it allows us to continue to increase satisfaction scores and boost conversion rates on behalf of our clients. And that is something that we see all the time in terms of regular checkups with our clients, we see, you know, one of the things that they say is, you know, it's it's very seamless, they do feel like an extension of my team. I love the fact that I can count on them. And I can and I also love the fact that they are always providing feedback, which is something that we typically used to lose when outsourcing to our traditional BPO partner,

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Rick Denton: 7:43

Oh my gosh, there's like four different things that I want to ask you about. And they're oh my gosh, I want to we'll get to employee experience a little bit later. But the thought of they become the people you're describing the dedicated teams become loyal to the brand? How are you helping sort of get them invested in the brand? It's probably the case that if a brand is somewhere not in the Dominican Republic, perhaps then they can't go visit the brand and immerse themselves in it. So how are you helping build that excitement around the brand that they're serving their knowledge around the brand that they're serving? How are you doing that for your employees,

Jose Herrera: 8:18

we first find a company that matches their values and their interests. So if we're, if we're working within with a dog food subscription company, obviously we like to find people that actually care about pets and dogs and or have dogs, right? If we're working for a health care company, you want to find people that have some sort of interest in healthcare. And so I think that what we do very well is making sure that we find that culture match between the company and the team member, and fully immerse them into that company's culture, which is a big reason why a lot of our client partners choose to work with us because they do feel as a true extension of the team. And they're super dedicated to making sure that there's they're involved not only from answering a simple ticket or a simple inquiry, but also by helping to provide valuable feedback to the company or brand that they're servicing. And those insights is what allows our clients to make the necessary changes internally to improve processes that ultimately benefit the customer.

Rick Denton: 9:34

That that last part is really interesting and I want to explore that right now. But I was I was thinking about that matching people with the brands that they're excited now that adds some complexity to you from a talent acquisition perspective and a hiring and matching and and making sure that all that balances out that you don't have too many dog food dog lovers, when there's not enough dog, food companies, that sort of thing. But it reminds me of brands that have their their customer con tact in house and how they go out of their way to hire people. They're passionate. So if you're a hospitality brand, you really care about hospitality. If you're in a travel company, you care about travel or cars or shoes or anything like that, or coffee, right. And finding people that have that passion, I have not talked to someone that has said, Yeah, we do that as the BPO extension that we're we're trying to make sure that that person on the other end of the phone, hears that same level of passion about the product that the customer is delivering. And we hear it as customers, we can tell we're talking to someone that's excited about what we're excited about. And you can also tell when somebody is flipping through their script, because they don't have a clue what would hotel what, so I like that match there. Now, the feedback part, that is is is certainly near and dear to my heart, Voice of the Customer and tone of voice the customer, something that I care a ton about and help companies really explore. But the the second kind of tear, right? The the the BPO is the closest to the customer when they're on the phone. But sometimes that doesn't get back into the company like you describe how have you made that something that Horatio does, and systematically and successfully getting that feedback from the frontline into the the source company?

Jose Herrera: 11:20

Yeah, so we built a very robust data platform that allows us to gather that feedback on a real time basis. And we scheduled weekly call with all our clients to go over KPIs metrics, and actually provide that feedback on a weekly basis. So that allows us to become an invaluable strategic partner to our clients, because they rely on our data and our analysis, to make sure that they are relaying that information back to HQ, and the different departments that need to make the necessary changes. So I think for us, we, we built a lot of automation when it comes to gathering that data. And we encourage our team members to escalate things that require immediate escalation that cannot wait a week, right? Yeah, and making sure that it goes through the necessary channels. So we're constantly looking at ways in which we can provide that valuable feedback that you tend to lose when outsourcing.

Rick Denton: 12:20

And I'm wondering, so you have a wide spectrum of clients, right. And some of them may be very adept at absorbing that customer feedback and others it may be a novel idea to them, or things that they've just discarded in the past, how are you helping the companies that have hired you to then be able to successfully take that feedback in and improve their companies?

Jose Herrera: 12:40

Yes, it's all about establishing a strong partnership with our clients and building out that trust over time so that they understand how we think and because we've done this for over 70 different clients across different industries. We know what to look out for. And we bring up great ideas and great insights, that even the largest clients that we service have never seen before have never thought before, because they just they've just done it in a particular way for so long. And you need some sort of like disrupter to come in, and provide these innovative ideas that really transform your, your CX and elevates your brand or your company, which ultimately creates a lot of happy customers. So it's all about establishing that partnership and that trust. And not all clients are a good fit for us. Right? Like we want to establish relationships and long term partnerships with people that actually value our feedback and actually want to work with us, right?

Rick Denton: 13:43

That's a i Here's some secret sauce. You may ask me later, you know, Hey, Rick, we got to delete that. I don't want to reveal our secret sauce there. But I like a lot of what I'm hearing there. Now. We're talking a lot about Horatio CX and you are living the customer experience world here. You talked about a world that was decidedly non CX before, what was your pre ratio career? Like? How did that take you to the CX world?

Jose Herrera: 14:06

Yeah, so pre Horatio, I was in business development and fundraising at Morgan Stanley for eight years. And I think that there are a lot of similarities between servicing clients in the financial services industry, which is also very demanding. So I think, you know, the three of us when we started the business, we had some experience with very difficult customers. And our funds. A fun fact is also the fact that I am originally from the Dominican Republic, which was where we have our entire operation of 900 employees at the moment. And I actually worked at one of the traditional BPOS when I was a young professional before moving me forward before moving to the US and pursuing my college degree. I worked at one of these BPOS and and Have you learned that the pros and cons of the industry? And what are some of the things that we wanted to do differently?

Rick Denton: 15:07

Who, when we I am, I'm going to ask you about employee experience later. But I gotta imagine that you having actually served inside of a BPO, that had to have created some incredible insights into what you want to do with your employee experience. But save that, we'll talk about that in a second. Because I can't wait any longer. You've got so many airline miles under your belt. And usually, this is the time in the show that I just get itchy to talk about travel. And so I am curious, you've traveled all over the world, you were that George Clooney up in the air? What are some of the differences you've seen in customer experience that you've observed around the world?

Jose Herrera: 15:42

I think two things I think, you know, from airline standpoint, obviously, the more status you have, the better treatment you get, in theory, in theory, but overall, yeah, so it's, it's something that you notice immediately, especially when I lost my status, traveling so much. It was a big adjustment. And the other thing that I would say is, there's a lot of differences. Culturally, when you when you travel, I just got back from Spain, for example, I love Spain, the food is amazing. They have probably the worst service. They compete with France for the worst service in the world. In my, in my opinion. It's just a different cultural approach. And when you go to Latin America, for example, you know, we are we tend to be warmer. In the same goes for the US, like, you know, here, we prioritize customers, and you know, we're a little bit nicer. So you definitely see those differences. And when you go to Asia, right, it's a different type of respect. And it's a different type of, of doing things. So super interesting. No, no, I would say, you know, we've gathered a lot of good ideas from everywhere we've been to around the world.

Rick Denton: 17:02

traveling all over the world, and yes, seeing all those different experiences. And yes, I've experienced that as well, the the different flavors of experience, although, as an aside, before we step into the first class lounge chair, I will say you mentioned the US is a friendly customer service culture, not always we have very strong regional differences, don't we? And how we tend to approach our customers.

Jose Herrera: 17:23

Yes, definitely. 100% I think, you know, overall, you know, overall friendly people I would say compared to some other countries have been.

Rick Denton: 17:32

Yeah, and it is it is true. There's some of this just culture was a there are many cases is not a right, it's not a wrong, it's just cultural, but it is entertaining as you travel the globe and see those differences. So, yes, traveling the globe, it is time to take a break. It is always nice. When you do have that status, or when you travel, somebody's got that card or has that access to the first class lounge. So join me here today 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?

Jose Herrera: 18:00

South Africa, i have to go back.

Rick Denton: 18:03

Okay. Tell me why I was, actually it's funny, I was just on a call this morning with a guy from South Africa that I know in your industry, actually. But tell me why South Africa.

Jose Herrera: 18:13

It's just an amazing country. I went when we were doing our MBA, we actually all went together. And you know, we did, uh, you know, the city is amazing. You have the wine country. And then you have Safari and beach. What else can you ask for? I mean, it has everything and it's pretty affordable in the city. So I remember, you know, drinking nice glasses of South African wine for two $3. So it was pretty, pretty nice. Yeah, I really enjoyed my time there. And I didn't know what to expect on a safari and it was an amazing experience. I can't wait to do it again.

Rick Denton: 18:50

I can you certainly had me at great wine but then when you told me two to $3 glasses of wine I'm really sad try to you're in New York right? Try to find a two or $3 Wine Good luck with that. You might not be alive the next day. Impossible. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Jose Herrera: 19:10

Australia, I'm going to Australia is so far that I've never made the leap but it's on my top list of places that I want to go.

Rick Denton: 19:20

And I'll always ask this tell me why why why Australia? It sounds wonderful. Right? I'd love to go there too. But why for you?

Jose Herrera: 19:28

It's just some you know, I just want to learn more about the culture and travel around the different cities and I think it's it's a it's a massive region that I would love to explore for a couple of weeks when when I get the chance I think you know we we are exposed to a lot of that culture here in the state but we haven't you know, haven't really experienced

Rick Denton: 19:50

Right. And we probably we get the the highlights or the very the cliffnotes if you will summary version of the Australian culture to really experience it would be absolutely delightful. You talked about food, it's near and dear to my heart to what is a favorite thing to eat.

Jose Herrera: 20:06

That's a challenging one because I love everything. But if I would have to choose I love Japanese food. And actually, Japan would be my second dream travel location from the past. I mean, I love that country.

Rick Denton: 20:20

This is this is actually one I love Japanese. My daughter and I actually just went to a Japanese ramen shop that's set up shop here in my hometown, and phenomenal, wonderful, all of that. But it's interesting. I've now had Japan come up several times in the podcast recently, there must be something kind of infusing the air that people are now wanting to trick me because I haven't been able to because of COVID Now, hopefully they'll start to open up Japan. What on the other side, though? What's the thing that your parents forced you to eat? But you hate it as a kid

Jose Herrera: 20:47

forced me to eat that I hated as a kid. I forgot there was something that they forced me read that I really hate it. Okay, now I love breaks.Oh! Avocados. I hated avocados. And now I love it. I think it's a trend.

Rick Denton: 21:03

Oh, that's funny. Yeah, if you were not the only person in my own family, I have family members that hated avocados, and now love them as they've grown. I'm not exaggerating. Jose, I actually use the word avocado in a text this morning talking about how good it was. So something you and I are aligned there with our avocado. Love now, I'm glad your parents forced you to eat it. Now you've uh, you've come to love them. What is one travel item not including your phone, you will not leave home without

Jose Herrera: 21:31

my airbuds

Rick Denton: 21:38

Jose, I am sure creating a company centered in your home really satisfies the business realities, but also as a creation of love for your heritage where you grew up your homeland, right? What about the Dominican Republic inspired you to create and grow your company there?

Jose Herrera: 21:57

Yeah, I always dreamed about becoming either a lawyer or a politician and finding ways to give back to the to the country that gave me so much. Life took me in a different direction. And I still wanted to find a way to give back and and, you know, providing all of these amazing job opportunities that we're doing really satisfies that. So I guess that is part of the reason why we decided to start the company in the Dominican Republic. And I think also, you know, if you get the chance to visit the country, you'll notice that the people of the Dr. Were very happy, positive, motivated and hardworking. And all of that resonated very well with the mission that we wanted to accomplish here at Horatio,

Rick Denton: 22:46

and we were talking before the show, my only exposure to Dominican Republic was as a tourist, I've been to the big resorts, I haven't even really spent time in the cities or anything. It's one of those sort of, I don't even know what to call it shadow tourism, bungee tourism, where it didn't really get to experience the Dominican Republic culture that you're describing. What about kind of from the talent perspective, and we'll talk about employee experience here in a little bit, keep teasing that we're going to talk about I want to I want to get there. But what about the talent base in the Dominican Republic that is so appealing to starting the company, they're growing the company there, and continuing to expand the the mission of your company there?

Jose Herrera: 23:26

Yes. And going back to my point about our people, I think our people are the backbone of our organization or not other people say that, but we our business is really a people business. And the people behind Horatio is what makes us who we are. And what makes Horatio Horatio. And we focus a lot on building out an amazing culture that is centered around the employee, because in our experience, when you provide amazing benefits and an inclusive culture to your team, they will also in turn provide an amazing experience to your clients. So we focus a lot on building out an amazing workspace for everyone to feel happy. And also pair that with amazing benefits, including working with very cool clients, as I mentioned, yeah, flexible work life balance, you know, providing daily catered meals to all of our employees, support for their education, and also providing full health care coverage as well, which is something that typically a lot of enterprises don't do. And the talent that we have, is amazing. Everyone is fully bilingual in English and Spanish. So that allows us to cater to a lot of clients that benefit from that bilingual talent. And building out that environment of excellence is what has allowed us to to be where we are today.

Rick Denton: 24:50

It does sound like and it is such a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true that you can't deliver a better customer experience than what you provide an employee experience and it does sound like that that's a lot of what you're doing there. And just even the style of the office that you're describing, along with all the benefits along with the education, all of that aspect of it. One of the things that I've seen, you talked about a lot of feedback going towards the company themselves. Your frontline are hearing a lot of customer stories and their experience a lot of really great and delightful customer stories. How do you go about making sure that those customer stories are sort of shared across a ratio and celebrated that employees are celebrated when they do a great customer? experience something great in a customer where there's just inspirational stories to share? How are you going about doing that?

Jose Herrera: 25:38

Yes, so we have a channel in Slack called Shadow channel where the team meets and find service managers, and basically anyone at the company can feel free to give a shout out to their employee for handling a situation or for taking care of something on behalf of a client. And this is something that is celebrated across the entire organization. And we all chime in, in celebrating those accomplishments. On a monthly basis, we also recognize the top performers. And it's something that goes a long way. Because as I mentioned, we're not in, you know, in a space where people are contacting us to compliment us on how great we're doing, everyone typically reaches out because they have a problem that they need solving. So when you solve that problem, it's all it always goes a long way when you are recognized for that amazing work. And that is something that we stress from the beginning when we are training our leaders and making sure they're taking care of their team members and recognizing the hard work that they're doing a day in and day out. I also host a monthly asked Me Anything session where the entire company can feel free to join and ask me literally anything they want about our plans, the company what we're doing, and answer any questions they have about the business or any anything that they would love to have, or any anything that they want to bring to the table. And it's a great time for for re to really understand what's going on. And for me to work with the rest of the team and making the necessary changes to continue to improve our employee experience.

Rick Denton: 27:16

I like that AMA and I've seen companies do an AMA and yeah, sometimes it's not quite but it sounds like you're actually I would imagine you're getting some hard hitting questions. You're getting some folks that are asking you the awkward questions, and it can take some strength to get up there and answer those questions. Any any that you want to share any any questions like oh, my gosh, that was I can't believe I got asked that. But here's how we addressed it.

Jose Herrera: 27:43

I think overall, I am very transparent. And I have no, I guess you know, what do you see what you see is what you get? So whenever I get a question I just address it head on? And if the answer is no, it's no. Right. And I explained to them, the reason why it's knowing why we're not doing it in this way, right. So it's all about being transparent with the team and making sure that they understand that you are listening to them, and you're trying to find a solution. But sometimes the answer is no. Right? Yeah. Because of XYZ,

Rick Denton: 28:14

I think and that transparency is so as having now I'm an independent consultant. But having been a part of companies in the past, the ones that were honest, even when the answers weren't good, were so much of a better culture than those that tended to shy away from truth along the way. Well, this has been a lot of fun, as I have really enjoyed talking with you. Tell me a little bit about if people wanted to get in touch with you to learn more about you learn more about Horatio tell me how they can get in touch with you.

Jose Herrera: 28:37

Yeah, so you can find us on LinkedIn or on our website or hirehoratio.com. And you can also reach out to me at Jose at hirehoratio.com. And I'm happy to connect with anyone that is interested in chatting more about CX.

Rick Denton: 28:53

That sounds great. Well, thank you again for today. It's a great conversation. As I mentioned, I'm looking forward to when I do finally get to go back to the Dominican in March of 2023. So still a ways out but I'm looking forward to it. Really enjoyed hearing your approach to that pain point that we thought was solved but still continue that the need to solve that personalization and standardization across an experience. And then that focus on employee experience is so delightful as I said Thank thank you again. It was great talking with you today.

Jose Herrera: 29:21

Thank you, Rick, it was amazing chatting with you and I look forward to hosting you in the DR next year.

Rick Denton: 29:29

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.