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. Today we have a treat with two guests on the episode Jared Gebers head of digital product and experience. And Audrey Anderson, user experience researcher, both from Republic finance. I know Jared for years, having worked with him at a former company, with Audrey had the opportunity to meet someone new, which is always a treat for me. And talking with Jared and Audrey, I got this great sense of how user experience and product and customer experience. It's all tied together in their minds. These aren't silos for them. It's all interwoven, you know, the way it should be. What's going to be fun to hear is that they've been a part of the journey to create customer insights at Republic finance from the beginning. If you're listening and wanting to grow your customer insights, strength, they're gonna have some great wisdom nuggets for you. And as I say in the intro, how the best journeys take us to places we never expected. I can assure you, I never thought that parking and potties would lead me to wisdom in the user experience space. And I bet you didn't either. More on that later. It's going to be a fun ride, Jared, and Audrey. Welcome to CX passport.

Audrey Anderson: 1:39

Thank you.

Jared Gebers: 1:40

Thank you. Great to be here.

Rick Denton: 1:41

Awesome. Well, let's let's start with just a little context, saying customer experience is like saying design, right, this wide spectrum, you've got graphic designers, industrial designers, creative designers, same thing and customer experience. So for the listeners help set the context of where you are in the customer experience universe. Jared, let's start with you.

Jared Gebers: 2:01

Sure, right. So my background is in product management. And as you mentioned, my role here is the head of digital product and experience. And that means, for the most part, that I'm accountable for all of our digital experiences, anything that a customer would see on our website, or a mobile app, for example. But what that actually means there's a lot of freedom to define that. And to me, it doesn't mean like just create nice looking websites, you know, maybe are easy to use, you to us. And as I formed the group, it really means understanding who our customers are, and what they care about the things that they are looking for in a lender, particularly for in our case, and then trying to deliver on that and every opportunity that extends beyond digital only. So we have a bunch of touch points with our branches are over the phone. If we have a deeper insight into our customers, we can meet their needs, in digital and those same insights are often going to apply elsewhere, we're going to learn things that are going to apply outside of digital as well. So like the whole sense of how we win in the marketplace, for me is really how well we understand our customers and how well we can deliver on that.

Rick Denton: 3:23

So I really, really liked that that's something that's near and dear to anybody that wants to talk about customer experience in general, but product specifically what you're describing, and that is, understand the customer Loving You talking about the touch points and that aspect. We may get into that a little bit later. But Audrey, I want a chance to hear from you as well. So as a UX researcher, how do you see your role in the customer experience world?

Audrey Anderson: 3:43

I, I, I always think of like, okay, my job is to tell a story like to really like, if I'm talking to 15 customers, how do I then go into a room where I'm trying to, you know, relay a message from a customer and tell it like a story like take, take people behind the scenes into like a little glimpse into a customer's life and what it's like to live their life, and then how that translates into some experience they had with us whether it's online, you know, in the digital space, or in a branch or, you know, the customer service rep. And just, like help bring people along with like a, hopefully a really compelling story about what they experienced and how they how they really felt about it.

Rick Denton: 4:28

That that approach of bringing story into it. And I'm thinking about what Jared just said, and that was the you know, how are we getting out there into the front lines and beyond the front lines, but just getting deep into the customer, and then translating that into stories? I'm thinking about as as this whole evolution and I want to hear more about the evolution but I've got to imagine that as the company evolved going through its customer insights journey. There had to have been some aha moments. There had to have been some of those. Huh, that story told me something I wasn't expecting. What was what was that journey to create that customer insights team like? And what were some of those aha moments as you went through that journey to create that team?

Audrey Anderson: 5:09

Creating part, I mean, the team is, is just me. So when one man team,

Rick Denton: 5:15

so as you went through your own journey of exploring,

Audrey Anderson: 5:20

yeah, so, I mean, honestly, it's one of the things that really excited me the most about coming to Republic finance was just complete whitespace. Like, I wasn't, I didn't start here. And as a widget, basically, like fitting in an existing process. It you know, as I talked to Jared, the very first time, like, you know, over a year ago, at this point, it was like, Wait, there's like, I literally get to take this entire white piece of paper, and put a process on it and see how it could actually fit and work and, and deliver on, like, what the actual goals are. And then I get to talk to all the customers all the time, like that was my dream job right there. And so that, like, that part was, I mean, a lot of it was really hard, because when you're creating something from nothing, it is like, Hey, how about this? I don't know how that's gonna really gonna fit. So Jerry and I worked through that. And then from there, it was a matter of like, Hey, here's the plan. Here's the process to with marketing with legal with customer service with branches, and just seeing if everybody, you know, when they experienced, like, here's how we're going to start gathering insights said, Yeah, that makes sense to me like that. I can get behind that. How you know, and even how can I benefit from it later?

Rick Denton: 6:39

You know, I think that one thing you said, there's got to be encouraging to a lot of listeners that they may have thought, oh, just like I did, I mean, we already had a pre call, and even I missed out on the team of one aspect of it. And it doesn't take this massive team, this massive universe of people to create these great customer insights to create this approach. But it is a discipline journey that you take along the way to get there, Jared, I'm thinking about as that team evolved. And now I say that team, right, that team of one, even I'm having troubles tripping over my words, going back to the team, but this concept of customer insights as it evolved, there's got to be some times where the company leaders, people assumed something about the customer. But when you actually listen to the customer, it was something completely different. Anybody really have their mind kind of changed on something as you went through this customer insights journey.

Jared Gebers: 7:29

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, it's funny, because it's been over a year now, since Audrey joined, but I was here for almost two years before she joined. And, you know, looking back, it's almost impossible for me to imagine how I live without having this function. But as I was, like, you know, early 2021, when we were preparing to pitch, you know, our executives, for creating customer insights, we spoke a lot about it being a process. Like, we actually use the analogy of like a factory, right, we do a bunch of research, and on the other end of the assembly line, you get a bunch of insights out of it, and those are going to be valuable for you. And I don't know if you know, Audrey would agree that it's so stiff, it's like a factory.

Audrey Anderson: 8:22

Nothing. Nothing I do is factory-like

Rick Denton: 8:24

like I was gonna say I don't know many customer insights processes that are that formulaic, right?

Jared Gebers: 8:29

Like the process of view, or setting up the processes of being able to easily reach out to customers and get various information or do different kinds of studies, that was easy to think of as a process because we knew we needed to have all like set of approvals or like a pocket of customers that we can tap into easily, things like that would need to be set up in advance. And so that's what Audrey really did a great job of coming in, when she says a whitespace we didn't have any of that at the beginning. We didn't have any vendors or anything we were using. But I think back in terms of like, Aha moments or surprises, you know, when we first we rolled out our very first journey map, there was a kind of a surprise moment for folks, first of all, that a lot of them probably have never seen a journey map before. Right. But, you know, we we focused on one part of our our marketing experience, and like when people chose to take up the offer, and you know, you know, take out a loan, and a big portion of that. journey map was like, Hey, that's not like the first step in the process, right? There's a whole lot that happens before that, in terms of someone like receives our marketing and they maybe don't know about us, they need to investigate. And they may not actually respond to the first one, but they're still thinking about it. So the whole like, I think people knew intrinsically that timing matters. But it's maybe not even the first time you hit them matters. Yeah, it's you kind of build towards something. And in the back of their minds, they may have kind of built a knowledge base about Republic finance, and then suddenly, they get the offer at the exact right time. And okay, then it clicks. Okay, I already have some level of trust, let's do this. But the first time they receive one of our marketing messages, like our primary marketing campaign, like the very first step in the journey map, is this kind of like, legitimacy question. Yeah, they receive a mail piece. They've maybe never ever heard of us, or they've never seen a marketing piece like this. You know, we actually created a website to actually address this concern afterwards. So this is the result of the of the learning. We created a separate web page, and literally at the top of the page says, yes, it's real. Because we found that people were not always sure or so they were calling us when a Google search and there wasn't anything on our website for it. So that was one of the kind of really big insights that kind of surprised us. This is your captain speaking.

Your CX Passport Captain: 11:06

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 11:32

I think that's one of the things that journey mapping specifically, but customer insights in general can really bring to a company think about someone that's not sitting in a customer facing role. So a finance Andrew, you mentioned this, how do we interact with legal? How do we interact with finance? How do we interact with all that, and helping them understand that they may be thinking so transactionally customer contacts me that is the beginning of a customer signs, customer makes payment, customer processes, whatever that looks like closes the relationship all of that, that is, but this idea of that customers journey extends well beyond that, even before they're even thinking the words Republic finance or even finance in general, right? Just they have this knee, this is something that is existing in their life. And that that approach to their I can see how that would have opened the eyes of the company and the team in general, specifically those that weren't necessarily as customer facing. I, Audrey, I want to ask you about how you interacted with all those teams and all of that. So maybe we'll get to that later. But there's something you said to me in the pre called as always sort of sat with me and it was that UX and product often? Well, they're just they're very, especially with technical and often cut, sometimes analytical. And yeah, there's a creative element to it as well. But you talked about how you love talking about feelings. We even joked about you being the UX therapist. So as you've gotten the customer on the couch, and you're talking to them and getting their feelings out, why are feeling so important to getting that customer experience, right?

Audrey Anderson: 12:59

I...I just always feel like feelings really stick with people, you know, like they that's the thing that sticks with them the longest. It's not I mean, the button color is important, and how they got to us is important. But if they come to us, and they experience something really delightful, then it sticks. But the same is totally true. Like if they come to us and they experience something that's really upsetting or frustrating, or, I don't know, challenging or, or I don't know, for our customers to I feel like so often they're coming to us because they genuinely need help. Right then. And, and there's a lot of feelings associated just with that, like coming to someone for help. That if they experienced something that's negative or frustrating, that's gonna stick even more, you know,

Rick Denton: 13:46

there was yeah, like, I'm sorry to interrupt, but there was a former podcast guest and I think I think it was Gus, who said that guest emhoff. And please forgive me, maybe I'll even edit it later. If I get the name wrong. But he's the one who said experience doesn't matter. It's like, wait, what we're talking about a Customer Experience podcast, what you mean experience doesn't matter. He said, the experience itself doesn't matter. It's what the memory of the experience was. So to your point about the color of the button is irrelevant. It was the feeling that they had associated the color of the button or the operation of the website.

Audrey Anderson: 14:17

And Jared story before this, like that was one of the I think not only one of the first aha moments like for myself, but also like everyone we shared it with was, you know, when people first received that thing from us, their first exposure, I mean, it, I can't tell you, I would talk to person after person after person. It didn't matter if it was a year ago that they had that experience or five years ago or last week. It was always to feelings. Oh my gosh, I this is I feel so lucky and blessed that I have this in my hand. Is it real? You know, like it was the two really strong feelings. And it was it was so consistent. And that was that part of the feeling story was really cool to relate to people who You know, needed and wanted to hear it in Republic finance because it was it's like it made it actionable.

Rick Denton: 15:05

Yeah.

Unknown: 15:06

You know,

Rick Denton: 15:06

ooh. And oh my gosh, we're definitely going to talk about that later. But I want to ask you something, it, the idea of feelings can be hard for people to talk about. Right? So I'm kind of curious. And Audrey, start with you, Jared, if you got something to throw in as well, but how do you do this? It's hard enough for people to eat for companies, for people to get an authentic voice of the customer in general. But how are you getting down to that feeling level? How do you go about that with customers?

Audrey Anderson: 15:34

I, whenever I'm talking about a customer, I always try my very best to use their names. So like if I'm, if I'm saying, Well, I spoke I spoke to this woman, Annika, I'm just making the you know what I mean? Like I would I say the name. It's not like, oh, well, customers often say they're frustrated when blahdy blah, like, I don't say that. I'm like, when I talked to Annika last week, she she specifically brought up what we're talking about right now. And that was hard for her. And so I definitely try to use names, I always try to use quotes. And this, this might sound silly, but like I tried it, I try to even like use the tone of voice that the customer like, I'm pretty expressive, I'm sure you can tell. And like I try to use like, their the way that they set it like because I feel like the way that they set it their tone and their emotion and their pace. And those things. If I change the way I normally talk into, you know, the way that they tried to convey a message, I think it's it's more compelling.

Jared Gebers: 16:32

And that's when you're and that's when you're summarizing Audrey because like you also like use actual recordings.

Audrey Anderson: 16:38

Right? Totally. Yes. Yeah, video and audio recordings, depending on you know, what my methodology is? For sure.

Rick Denton: 16:45

Well, let's actually talk about that. So the idea of that customer's voice, and I still want to ask you, because you didn't reveal your secrets. So it could be that you're hiding your trade secrets there, Audrey. So I'm not gonna let you have to, like we're gonna go back to it. But knowing that the company needs you as that source of customer insight, you've already established that right? The Journey got you to that point that they know you're the source of input, but making sure that they're not hearing Adrien Jarrods opinions, it sounds like you're giving me some insight into how you're already doing that. But how do you bring that customer's voice into the company? Beyond what you're describing? They're saying that the name Audrey, but rather, you know, these videos, these recordings? How are you getting that customer to where they are living and breathing inside the company and ensuring the company listens to the customer's voice? Not Audrey & Jared?

Audrey Anderson: 17:29

Yep. and, tell me if this is. So I'm doing my best. And that this part for me is still a process in development. But once a month, we have check ins with executives, and we're able to I put together summaries of whatever I've, you know, gathered up in the last month, or, you know, however long things took together. And so I always do sort of like, here's what we went after. Here's what we learned and show them actual things, whether it's charts from surveys, or video or audio quotes, or written quotes, you know, where I read them. And then the last thing that I always do is a, what we should do slide. So it's like, I'm not just like, hey, here's some super interesting information. It's always what do we do now? Like, what do and some of it is my opinion, so we sort of as a team, then go back and assess like, what we what we decide to take action on. But I never leave it at, here's some super interesting information. It's always what we should do. And and then we've done other things, too, like there's a bi weekly, all company communication. And there's a quarterly, you know, all company communication, where we're working to include not only what we've learned, but also what we've done, and that what we plan to do as time goes forward. So it's, there's still, I still feel like, there's more like to really get it in like every single part. One cool thing. So not to get too deep into this, but for the very first time, I had someone reach out to me in June and say, Hey, I think it would be really helpful if I knew what customers thought about this thing. And it was it was it was something about her job. And I was like, yes, it would be like, let's figure out how we work. So it was like the first time somebody came to me and said, I think I could benefit from customer insights in what I'm doing. And then a similar thing happened with someone who's reading blogs for our website. And he's like, you're always collecting interesting stuff, like anything that our customers might want, you know, to read about on the website. So that I think that, my hope is that that continues to grow.

Rick Denton: 19:38

That had to be completely validating, like just on that level of just the validation to have suddenly instead of trying to push you're actually being pulled. Yeah. And having that going forward. I love the idea of bringing that customer's voice in their chair. I want to ask you this. So you were at Republic finance in a world before Adrienne before customer insights. How have you seen what she's describing there? This idea Bringing that customer voice in how have you seen that change things? How have you seen people react differently? How have you seen them craving these customer insights or other areas? What does that look like? How have you seen it changed?

Jared Gebers: 20:14

I think just introducing people to the idea of what's possible here was a real game changer for us once the first few presentations or insights rolled in. I honestly think, like when our CEO attends our monthly catch up, I think this is the part he really wants to hear. Right? He he's, he just craves those insights, because they're not coming from anywhere else. And, you know, sometimes it'll line up with, you know, what the sales team is saying about, you know, trends. Sometimes it won't line up exactly right. And we've got to try to connect the dots between what we're hearing and what they're saying. So I think he loves making connections and all of our executives do but like, for me, that's a, that's a really big, like, Aha, for us is like, Okay, we have to make this front and center and what we're talking about even just a regular digital update, right, we can talk about all the pages we're building, but we also need to talk about the insights we've gathered. And so that's become a regular feature, as Audrey mentioned, and probably the one that honestly our executives get the most excited about.

Rick Denton: 21:33

Let's do a little change of pace here. Join me in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly here and hopefully have some fun. What is a dream travel location from your past? I'm gonna go top of screen Audrey, let's start with you.

Audrey Anderson: 21:43

Ireland. Definitely Ireland. Tell me why. Loosely, and hopefully, I'm a big nerd. I got to see the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride.

Rick Denton: 21:56

Oh, that's awesome.

Audrey Anderson: 21:58

And I know every single line to that movie from my childhood, so that was yeah,

Rick Denton: 22:03

do we have an episode title now? The one with the Princess Bride. Maybe we'll go with that. That's awesome. Audrey. Jared, what's a dream travel vacation from your past?

Jared Gebers: 22:13

From my past? So the like the cop out answer is just like, anywhere where family is. But I think the real answer for me will always be somewhere where I go someplace and maybe didn't get to see something I was intending to. So I think I would say Iceland. Because a few years ago I went to and the entire idea for me of the trip was hey, this is the warmest place on earth where you can see the northern lights. And it was rainy and cloudy. I did not get to see them. So that would be the place I would want to go back.

Rick Denton: 22:46

Well, let's I hope it's not the same answer. Jared will still stay with you dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Jared Gebers: 22:53

For me, that's Rome. I'm a big history person. I took multiple courses in college not related to my degree on Roman history. So I have to get to Rome.

Rick Denton: 23:06

Gotta get to Rome. I think that's a great idea. Now I would also tell you get the heck out of Rome and go see the rest of Italy because I know that I love the other parts of it as well. But Rome is fascinating. I thought you were gonna say a sunny or a cloudless version of Iceland so I'm glad to hear that it's Rome. Audrey What is your dream travel vacation you've not been to yet?

Audrey Anderson: 23:25

Definitely midnight sun in Norway. I want to stay in like one of those little lodges where it's like windows all around and you just like oh, it looks so amazing. That's that is that's my dream.

Rick Denton: 23:37

One of the things I love about doing the first class Lounge is the different answers that I get from folks I've not heard the the the midnight sun option I've not heard the the all glass Norway's so I love it. I love this. I'm just gonna bounce back and forth. So Audrey, what's a favorite thing to eat?

Audrey Anderson: 23:54

I'm going to share it and laugh me I'm going to say chips but only because that means it can be both french fries and potato chips. Every time we talk, I'm like ooh, have you had the fries there? Or are you going where have you had the fries? They're like,

Rick Denton: 24:11

what a sneaky global answer. I like that Audrey very fitting with cx passport. Well done. Jared what is a favorite thing for you to eat?

Jared Gebers: 24:19

That was awesome. So my team always makes fun of me that I basically eat anything that a 12 year old would love. So I'm honestly going to say a grilled cheese sandwich because for me that is like real comfort food and it's also probably the most advanced thing I can cook myself

Rick Denton: 24:40

oh my gosh, that is fantastic. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep the food order the same Audrey what is the thing your favorite parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid.

Audrey Anderson: 24:51

So it is stuffed bell peppers, and it's because my sisters would scrape theirs onto my plate when my parents weren't live. Getting and then I'll get in trouble and have to go to bed because I didn't finish my dinner and they will get to go outside and eat their popsicle. And oh, there's a lot of not only did it taste nasty, there's a lot of like emotion wrapped up in that.

Rick Denton: 25:14

Oh, holy cow boy, there's a whole nother podcast we can do the UX therapist and her. Oh, my. I don't think I can touch that any further. But that's fascinating. Jared, what about you think your parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid?

Jared Gebers: 25:30

Yeah, God bless my parents that was a super picky eater when I was a kid. I mean, they'll tell stories that I used to hate hamburgers, because I had hot dogs, that sort of thing. That thankfully, I've grown out of that. But the one thing that really really, I hated most of all, and I still hate is green beans. I can't stand.

Rick Denton: 25:53

The vegetable raises its head once again in this section. Absolutely. Jared, what is one travel item not including your phone, you will not leave home without

Jared Gebers: 26:06

not including my phone. Probably phone chargers included in that too?

Audrey Anderson: 26:11

Yeah You can't say that. Come on...

Jared Gebers: 26:13

I've certainly done it before. And it was a disaster. You know, I actually am a big fan of like old fashioned travel guides. So actually, we'll bring up like a paper one, like an actual book. Along with me. I realized I can get a lot of that on my phone. But still, I still like doing that.

Rick Denton: 26:36

I like that I like I've had actually other guests say the same thing. Jared, you are not alone in that. Audrey, what about you a travel, I'm not including your phone that you will not leave home without

Audrey Anderson: 26:46

moisturizing eye patches and bonus if they have collagen in them.

Rick Denton: 26:57

Then I'm playing moisturizer matters. Yes, Jared. I promised this in the intro. I promised we would talk about parking and potties and somehow tie that to user experience. How on earth do parking and potties provide a model for UX?

Jared Gebers: 27:14

So I'll set this up a little bit because this is related to of course, the last time we chatted. And I mentioned it actually was talking about the trip to Iceland, that I had been on recently. And I remember very distinctly seeing a bunch of places, particularly around the airport where they had these like frowny and smiley face buttons right outside of the bat. And, you know, this also ties into the perception thing that we were talking about earlier. Right? The the execution and the perception of follow through on these really makes all the difference. Right? So I've seen these other places. But if you see that, if I see that anyway, at DFW airport, not knocking DFW, it's probably one of the most efficient airports, yes, big fan of it. But if I see a kiosk like that there are, you know, probably going to think, oh, great, somebody will get a daily or weekly report with these results. And, you know, they're gonna look at that, and they're gonna say, Oh, great, like 65% of people said frowny face. And that's down from 68%. Last time we're doing well.

Rick Denton: 28:30

Right? And so what? Yeah,

Jared Gebers: 28:33

exactly. And my thinking there is probably based on my other experiences with DFW, and particularly the bathroom has been kind of hit or miss there. But in Iceland, at least the one experience I had the bathroom was absolutely spotless, which really reinforced the data collection for me, because now I think my expectation is going to be met. Yeah, right. I'm, I'm thinking, you know, somewhere in the airport, if I hit that frowny face, there's gonna be a bad signal. And somebody's gonna come to investigate this situation. And like I said, it's perception. It doesn't even matter if that's true, I'm comforted by that. And so therefore, those buttons impressed me, whereas they would not have a DFW.

Rick Denton: 29:15

I think that's important that what you're saying is, I hadn't ever really thought of it at least in one sentence together, but how the results of the experience helped inform the user experience and so the result of the hit or miss bathroom makes you think I'm not touching that button. First of all, I wouldn't touch the button anyway. But I've heard that there's some hands free versions of that and bathrooms these days. But if it's a clean potty then then that makes sense. But what about so that's the potty one. parking?

Jared Gebers: 29:41

So here's the tie into parking. And this is something that I actually literally just experienced. In the past week when I flew to DFW, they've actually started putting these red and green LED lights above the bathroom stalls and some of the Like newly remodeled terminals, yeah. Okay, you signal whether the stall is occupied or if it's free, just kind of like they've had in the parking lot, or parking garages for a few years now. And I thought that was fantastic, because, well, first of all, I know exactly which one is open and not to go fumble around. But it also requires absolutely zero explanation for somebody who can see those. Right, I immediately know what a red light and a green light mean. And you know where I can and can't go, you know, so to speak.

Rick Denton: 30:37

Well played, sir. You know, and that I like that it's the simplicity of that is something that we've talked about when it comes to user experience that it doesn't have to always be this incredibly complex thing. It is a red or a green line above a parking space, or a potty space, or whatever it is, and helping that make the customers experience so much simpler. And the design is simple. The experience is simple. And I now know why parking, and potties will help inform me when it comes to user experience. Thank you, Jared, if I get nothing else out of this? Now, I'm cheating. I'm looking at the clock. And I'm shocked. But we are actually out of time. But I don't want to end without asking this. And I think Audrey, I'll start with you. But I would love both of your perspective on this. And it's we've talked about how you both have been a part of creating this customer insights journey at the company that the team of one Audrey, if you will, but the overall concept and culture of customer insights. So you've done this, have you arrived? Are you done with the journey?

Audrey Anderson: 31:35

I, I think there's so much more to do. I don't I mean, we we literally, we have a couple of journey maps, we have a couple of I don't know, like, maybe we have 200 customer interviews, but there are a million customers you want. I mean, like, it's just like the tiniest little fraction of learning has happened. And I think there's so much more to do. And I'm excited to do

Rick Denton: 32:03

that sounds good. Jared, Jared, your perspective.

Jared Gebers: 32:06

I agree completely. There's, there's really no such thing as done when it comes to insights. Not only like, Are there always more customers to talk to, like the customers we have talked to may have new experiences that change their thoughts or their feelings. So I think we need to be in a state of perpetual learning. And really, I think the better goal around or like how to define whether we've arrived or not, it's not whether the work is done. It's whether we've built up enough momentum, so that others really come to us for insights. So the story that Audrey shared earlier, I love hearing that. Yeah, I love hearing that people want to know about the parts of the business they're close to, and what our customers are interacting with that that, that tells me that people are paying attention to what we're doing. And they see the value and it kind of becomes self reinforcing a little bit. That's, to me, that's the closest thing to arriving. But the work is never done. That's awesome.

Rick Denton: 33:05

I love it. And I love I am so glad Audrey that you did share that aspect of the fact that you're now being asked to share these insights. And it's such a softball question. I know, of course, who feels like they've arrived. But it's it's interesting to hear that even with the successes that y'all have had in place, there's so much so much more to do. And I think those listening can be encouraged by that, that just get started on your journey, right? Just start somewhere and look how much value you can create with the beginning of your customer insights or your voice of the customer, whatever that might look like. If folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about either of you, or about Republic finance. How would they do so?

Jared Gebers: 33:44

Well, they're not gonna find me too many places other than LinkedIn. So they can certainly find me on LinkedIn, Republic finance is Republicfinance.com.

Rick Denton: 33:56

Okay. I'll have a I'll have all that in the show notes. Audrey.

Audrey Anderson: 33:59

I'm also on LinkedIn, along with various other social platforms. But LinkedIn is probably the best.

Rick Denton: 34:06

Great if so if folks want to know about that customer insights journey and get some insights from y'all, that's the best way yeah. Thanks so much for talking with me today. I the time actually disappeared. There's so much more that I would want to ask you. I'm shocked to see how quickly this went. But thank you for sharing those insights, ha, those insights about customer insights during the journey and especially kind of getting us into the some of the emotional spaces and that sort of aspect of it really appreciated that. So thank you, Audrey. Thank you, Jared. It's been a wonderful time today.

Audrey Anderson: 34:35

Thank you.

Jared Gebers: 34:36

Thank you. It's always great catching up.

Rick Denton: 34:41

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.