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, I once again get the opportunity to be made jealous, as I speak with another guest from the gorgeous islands of Hawaii, Ken Peterson, president of QuestionPro. I don't normally see the phrase, "a background in mathematical operations research" and think customer experience. But that's exactly what Ken brings to the table. Beyond that mathematical analytic prowess, though, after talking with Ken I understood his focus on getting to action, using all that research to enable a company to actually do something with what they've learned. With an experience set that spans multiple industries such as retail, hospitality, technology, travel, and many others. Kin knows how to guide companies through vast troves of data into understanding through action, and ultimately, into improving customer experience. Action. It's a key theme for Ken. And it'll be a key theme for us today, Ken, welcome to CX passport. Thank you. Gonna have a lot of fun here today. Now, for those I know, it's an audio only podcast. But Ken has decided to make sure that there is a beach setting in the background behind him just to make me that much more jealous about having a Hawaiian guest. Can You're not my first Hawaiian guest. But I sense a recurring theme that you do like to make those of us not on the island somewhat jealous.

Ken Peterson: 1:49

We'd like to make people aware of our surroundings.

Rick Denton: 1:54

Look at your word choice. I love it already. Well, longtime listeners know that I care a lot about action. That's, it doesn't matter if you got the fluffernutter of theory if you're not doing something with it. So that actual getting fingers on your keyboards and doing something that drives customer experience. So let's start right there. How do you help companies move to action?

Ken Peterson: 2:15

Well, and you know, we're so familiar with these hierarchies, the pyramids that say, oh, data, information, insights, and you know, all of that is great, you have to build one to get to the other, and I completely agree with him. But from that insights, you need to start generating ideas where you can take action. And I think that's where the disconnect comes, we get caught up in a world of well, is this statistically significant? You know, if we moved by this much, you know, it's great to know that you if you move a rep knowledge score by 5%, your NPS scores goes up by one. But how are you going to move rep knowledge? I mean, it's it's generating ideas, targeted training, new products, you know, like putting together a Frequently Asked Questions document or, you know, Forbid, enabling Google on their browsers, so they can actually look up an answer, while they're talking to a customer and being able to, you know, generating those ideas that can actually help them and support them. And I think it's a struggle for a lot of people to go from, hey, I have all this data, I've turned it into insights. Now what?

Rick Denton: 3:19

Yeah, I see that a lot, too. When I'm working with companies working with clients, that idea of how do we get from those insights into data? I'm going to ask you about tools here in a sec, because I think tools are a pretty important part of making that happen. But I gotta go back to something you said that those don't sound like hypothetical examples. Have you been faced with a client or an opportunity? Like, guys, you just gotta at least put Google in their browser so they can answer the dumb questions, the the insightful questions that a customer provides to them.

Ken Peterson: 3:45

I have and sometimes it's as simple as if you're, you're speaking someone about finding a location where you can get the servicing done on whatever product or whatever you need. The fact that they can't say, oh, well, this location is x miles away from you, because they can't look it up. You know, that would be so simple. And it's such an effective customer experience, as well. I mean, to say, Hey, I found this location, it's 2.5 miles away from me, all you have to do is hop on the 10 bus if you want to, and get there and you know, like these little things, you know, it's always little things that we you know, we talk about that make a difference. But yeah, you know, we sometimes put the handcuffs on people. And we start when we start talking about insights, because we put handcuffs on everyone, by starts talking about, well, how much does it move? What would this do? And it's like, at some point, you have to take that leap and saying, we're going to do something about it.

Rick Denton: 4:42

Boy, that and we could do an entire podcast about what you just said there and I may still carve out some time talking about it. Because the idea of these little things. I think that's so much of what I've seen is the drive to action. A lot of times it's okay, well, what's the big thing that's going to be revolution, let's put in a tool that It identifies where the customer is because the GPS on their phone while they're using the app, and they tie it to the service. And can you're suggesting, just give your rep the opportunity to put a mapping tool in place and see which bus to take? Simple, right?

Ken Peterson: 5:13

Yeah, exactly.

Rick Denton: 5:14

I think there's a trust element there as well. And I think we've seen companies struggle with some of the trust with agents and being able to allow them to do things like that. And I wonder if some of the insights that we'll talk about may help companies start to unlock some of that trust with their agents. So that you know, okay, here's some of the themes, let's enable our agents to solve those themes. But you're not going to get to that with outgoing from insights to action. I know that tool selection is such a vital part of that. And I've told clients, just get started. If it's scrappy, that's fine. But eventually, it is tools that are going to help a company move up that that customer experience maturity curve. So in that same vein of action, what do you see? What do you recommend that a company need to consider when they're moving from selecting a tool to the actions that actually impact customer experience?

Ken Peterson: 6:07

Yeah, I mean, tool selection is a huge start. Not every tool is right, for every circumstance. And hallelujah. I mean, I've worked with all I mean, I've worked with all of them in the space, I won't name the names, but my prior role I was partner lead, and, you know, we picked and chose which tool was right, for which client? And, you know, no, no one's gonna say, I mean, I'm not gonna walk forward and say, Oh, my tool isn't perfect for you know, I'm gonna walk forward and say, of course, we're in sales,

Rick Denton: 6:39

Let me tell you all the flaws that I have,

Ken Peterson: 6:41

we, we've got to get beyond sort of that, you know, falling for the gimmicky, cool things. And, you know, we fall for it, too, when they say, Oh, look at this Insights tool that we have. And it's like, no, yeah, that's a priority matrix. That's not an insights. It's something that you can take in, take your information and turn it into knowledge. Okay, that's great. But really, it's, you know, it's understanding the business needs. I mean, there are platforms out there that are all about closing the loop. If that's where your business is, it's probably the appropriate tool. And then, you know, it's, it's then taking and finding, like one, you can get a mobile app that does deep dive analytics for your store managers, like, who needs that, who needs a store manager, doing deep dive analytics on their mobile app, you know, it looks really cool. But you know, ultimately, it you've got to get the right tool, once you get that right tool in place and set up it should be easy to run should be easy to set up. And then allows you to get to that point where you're, you know, you're actually doing the operational things that need to be done instead of worrying about is the data Correct? Did we get enough representation from this customer or things like that?

Your CX Passport Captain: 7:58

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Rick Denton: 8:24

Your your deep dive analytics tool for the store manager intrigues me. And the idea not because I think that's a great idea, right? But instead, what is the deep dive analytics that takes place that is then presented to the store manager in their hands so that they can do something that's particularly relevant? And it seems like that's a big part of getting to action is taking those insights, but then moving them into something that's usable, doable. Here's the action that needs to be taken here are the things that customers in a particular store that day, if you've got that kind of volume coming in your customers are upset about this, or your customers aren't finding this item over here. What are the I'm a little out of my lane here a little bit predicting what that idea might be. But so how do you see that? How do you help companies or just even kind of what have you seen be successful going from that insight to here's the action, the the the decision that can be made based off of those insights?

Ken Peterson: 9:20

Well, it's important to think about it at two levels, too. I mean, a store manager is going to have a certain level of expertise, knowledge, they're not going to have a degree in statistics. Most likely. I'm making a broad assumption there. But you know, they're not going to be

Rick Denton: 9:35

sorry for the store listeners out there with PhDs.

Ken Peterson: 9:39

But they're not going to be able to go in and create their own priority matrix and then know exactly what to read from it on a screen that's, you know, what do they know 6.2 inches wide. I mean, they're, that's just not their base. So what you need to get in their hands is you need to get, you know, what are customers talking about? Good and bad? And what actions do you need to take with specific customers, and then you got to take that step that level up and be able to say to, you know, a district manager, regional manager, even coming from corporate saying, here's some initiatives that we're going to roll out, that are important to you, and be able to communicate it through a similar channel. So they're not going to the desktop computer to get the initiatives, they're not getting a memo to say, Okay, here's how we're going to change these processes. And then oh, by the way, your scores are on your phone. So being able to look at it all in one place, being able to understand those goals. It's really, you know, it's still steps that just take it okay, here's all the insights you need, here's everything you need. Now just take the action. And that's what's missing most of the time.

Rick Denton: 10:47

Exactly. So presented in a way. And I like how we didn't really intend to get there. But we're talking about the frontline, how do we enable the frontline to do what they need to do right, what you're saying. And those listeners that are out there, we've been in conversation with people who have not worked in the frontline being on the phones or be in the store at my part time job when I was growing up was first in the grocery store, and then then ultimately into retail. And so I get it. And those of us that sit at a desk, think about the desktop, and we're sitting there faced with information that's easily available to it an email, and I've been at clients that talked about, you know, well, we sent out that information via email, why is no one in the store understanding what we said, because they don't ever look at a computer monitor, we've got to find a better way to communicate. And I think what you said there about the another way to get to actions, make sure that those that are doing the action are presented it in a mechanism in a mode in a tool that they can actually use and have readily accessible. You talked about the customer's voice. And we you and I have talked about surveys before and I can't open up LinkedIn without seeing another bad survey example. It's become kind of trendy to show look at this crappy survey. And it's been kind of fun. I even did it a few months ago, when I was requested to fill out this short survey. And this was the quote in there, which should only take you 15 minutes, like 15 minutes is not short. Have you lost your mind. So beyond link, there are so many factors around survey design. So to you, what does a good survey look like? And why is that good?

Ken Peterson: 12:17

It is a good survey is respectful of your customers time. Yeah. I mean, let's start there and that that encompass? I mean, I'll say that's it. That's the whole answer. But the answer encompasses a lot. It needs to be short and concise. It needs to be honest, upfront, if you I mean, if you took that 15 minutes survey, was it 15 minutes? Or was it closer to 30?

Rick Denton: 12:41

Oh, there's no way to open that bleepin thing. once I saw 15 minutes, I launched a particular finger at the screen and moved on. So ,

Ken Peterson: 12:50

you know, so it's got to be short and concise. And I think the one thing we just get in this habit because we have so many data silos and organizations, we ask customers questions that we should already know the answer to. And it's like, Stop doing that. I mean, it's it's, you know, give them the opportunity to have their say, and I'm not, you know, I won't say oh, one KPI is better than the other, they all have their qualities, they all have their reasons. I mean, I would I always find it odd that someone asks a net promoter score on your operating system. It seems you know, like another, you know, are you walking around talking about your? How would you recommend MacOS versus

Rick Denton: 13:35

I frequently over Thanksgiving, you know, if you want to talk about sports or politics, now we talk about operating systems across the table. Yes.

Ken Peterson: 13:43

So, you know, picking the right KPI is important, but it's not going to be the thing I dwell on, but it's like, get the KPI, get their feedback, get their comments, and then find out a root cause I mean, just find out just one that one little additional thing, Quit hitting them with battery of attributes, Quit hitting them. Are you a registered owner, when you already know you have that information. But you're going to ask it again, because you can't get you know, the team that owns the marketing registration list to come back and say, Okay, here's, you know, here's all the registered and non registered owners know that information. I think the other thing is, I mean, and it comes back to the length, give them the motivation. Yeah, you don't, you know, be honest about it. But then it takes time to gain their trust that you're actually going to do something with it. Don't keep asking questions. And not be prepared to handle that feedback. I mean, that's probably one of those things that I've said many times to prospective clients that probably results in us not getting the business because I set you're not ready. You know you're not, you're not set up for this, you're going to ask 50 questions, because you know nothing about your customers? Well, why don't you have your sales reps, go back out and talk to your customers? And then come back and find out, you know, what are they actually looking for? You know, ultimately, you know, again, not against nothing against statisticians, I'm a mathematician, so, you know, I have a love for them, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't take a statistician on a, you know, a post hotel survey, you know, to figure out what needs to be improved. The customer say it, I mean, they say it over and over again and have sentiment analysis, you if you have, you know, a simple root cause facilitation question in there, you can get to it, yeah, you know, you're gonna get the insights, you know, say the statisticians for combining your x and your CX, your operational data and all that. But you know, within the customer experience realm, you know, your customers are giving you the insights, if you make it concise and make it important to them

Rick Denton: 15:53

And that that gets back to even what we were saying earlier around to action is it you don't have to go through all these different layers to know what the right thing is. So to your your point there, you don't need all these layers to understand what your customers telling you, as long as you've designed a respectful survey, and that you've given them the trust that you're going to do something about it. I never really had tied in my own mind, I see it now. But I hadn't tied in my own mind, the length of survey diminishing my trust that they would do anything with it. I just sort of kind of scoffed at the link. But you're right. As you're going through that you're like, really, are you going to? Are you going to do anything with questions? 17 branched off of the last four questions based off of my response? No, of course you're not

Ken Peterson: 16:34

on it's it's amazing how often the longer the survey, the less likely they are to do anything with it. And the less likely they are to get the data that they need to get the survey informed. And if you take a really long survey, and you're walking in front of the stakeholders, sometimes and I've done this before, 50 Something questions and we say, all right, who owns this question, and what do you do with them? And suddenly, everyone's quiet, and you start going and suddenly, it's 40 questions, 45 questions out of 50 that no one knows who gets the report, no one knows why it was in there. Initially, someone needed it for something and oh, that person is not here anymore. And well, that initiative. I mean, we're not even doing that anymore. But we're still asking the question.

Rick Denton: 17:19

That's so true. And I think that I don't think that a lot of times here in the podcast, we tell stories about things. And I don't think there's any company or individual when I shouldn't say any, but most aren't doing this maliciously, no one has said I sat at their desk and said, I want to design a crappy survey. No, it just builds incrementally over time that someone from some Department says, Hey, we started this thing we want to, you know, we just implemented blue lighting in the lobby, and we really want to see what people thought about the blue lighting. Okay, we'll add that question, then it just ticks down? And what do you think about the roles at the dinner service? And on it goes, and suddenly, you're at that 15 minute survey? So I love your approach. They're kind of going back and saying, hey, who owns this crickets? Who's going to do anything with this crickets? So that is strike. All right, we're down to two questions, which is, I believe the perfect survey is three questions. But we'll see where that goes. Now, I want to switch here. And even though I'm looking at the beaches behind you, and enjoying that, you had told me that you just got back from a European vacation. And I'm curious, what are some of those experiences that you had, that you're gonna take forward as these great memories from that trip?

Ken Peterson: 18:27

Well, I it was a very meaningful trip. For me, my oldest had been to Europe on a school trip. And so this was the first time my two younger ones had ever been to Europe. And so, I mean, they've seen a lot of countries around the Caribbean, or, you know, close to North America, that kind of thing. But this was truly an experience for them, just, you know, seeing that, you know, some of the things that they get to see the buildings, the history, we were in the UK, we were in Sweden, they had a connection in Iceland, where they got to spend 12 hours there cool, being able to see the differences in the cultures, feelings. And it just, you know, I always tell people, and, you know, I live in a little corner of a wahoo. As, as I drive around the corner, you're going from the city, and suddenly you see this ocean side. And I tell people, no matter how many times I take a picture of it, it's not what it feels like. And that's what it was for them. So it was very exciting to have. Some of those things happen. We also had some bad things happen. I mean, never know. They're there. I don't call them great memories, but we look back and laugh, but they'll always remember going through immigration in the UK, because it took three hours. My daughter lost her they lost her luggage. And it wasn't the great Heathrow luggage debacle that actually happened in Iceland where they transferred it to the wrong plane.

Rick Denton: 19:52

Oh, no.

Ken Peterson: 19:53

Oh, so a lot of these things happen but there's still memories. Now we look back and laugh at them. I mean, my my daughter was really, ultimately, because she got to replace her entire wardrobe that she was going to use for the vacation and still got her luggage back at the end of vacation. So she saw it as like this huge benefit after the fact. Now, of course, when you're walking around in two day old contacts, no one wants to feel good about it, try to try to sort of spend that first day but I mean, they really, you know, they really enjoyed some of those things that were just unique to the space. And I think probably, I always say, you know, I don't have I always have a working vacation. So I sort of knew that it was going to be this, you know, I'm going to vacation during the day do some work at the night when the US is open. The thing I didn't anticipate was the Stanley Cup Finals was on at the Oh yeah. And my son is a an avid avalanche fan. So we were basically from 1am to 5am watching hockey, so I got no sleep during the vacation, and I usually come back from vacation is pretty well relaxed and distressed. But after that vacation, I was like, wow, I need a break.

Rick Denton: 21:06

You know, normally at this part of the show, I mentioned, you know, travel causes exhaustion, it's nice to take a little break. But rarely is it so self imposed as you're describing of being the traveller during the day, the worker in the evening, and then the sports fan. In the early morning. I'm not even sure what to call that the late night, the early morning, but you clearly needed the first class lounge at some point in that trip. And you may still need it today to finally recover. So join me here in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly here and have a little bit of fun. But what is a dream travel location from your past?

Ken Peterson: 21:38

Oh, that's an easy one New Zealand. And it was work related, but it was awesome.

Rick Denton: 21:43

Oh, really? Well, you don't I've had New Zealand Shep a couple times either is past or dream for the future. You're the first that tells me it was a work destination. How lucky were you for that? That's awesome.

Ken Peterson: 21:53

Well, it was a unique circumstance. We were actually going to be in Australia. And my, my coworker and I were looking at flights we were allowed to book business class. And the seats were$18,000 a piece Holy crap. She's like, I can't purchase it. I can't even say even if I'm allowed and I'm like alright, let's you know like see if there's a connection and she came back and she said I found a connection. And I'm thinking Honolulu that would make a lot of sense. Nope, she says but it's a five day layover in Auckland. I'm like sold

Rick Denton: 22:28

yes that's fantastic!

Ken Peterson: 22:30

and we ended up we ended up going to the client and saying you're not going to have a problem with this when we bill this back to you? She goes no charges for your hotel. You're saving us a lot so I'm like all right

Rick Denton: 22:39

Awesome. That's fantastic. Oh, I love that story. I love the magic that the came from having that connection getting to see New Zealand now. On the flip side what is a dream travel location you've not been to yet

Ken Peterson: 22:52

that's a harder one because there's you know, I've been to a lot of places but Utqiagvik, if you know where that

Rick Denton: 23:00

I do not okay, Oooh, you got a new one for me

Ken Peterson: 23:03

former it was formerly called Point Barrow, Alaska.

Rick Denton: 23:06

Okay. And it is the northernmost city in the northernmost city in North America. And it's right up there at the very tip of Alaska very top, top and of Alaska. I want to go there are two different times I want to go there when there's 24 hours of daylight. Yeah. And hopefully catch a football game of the local high school team there who has been featured on like, sports programs. And then I also want to be up there for 24 hours of darkness. And just to see how that you know how that feels. Boy, that would be what now I'm gonna tell you that I would prefer Yeah, it's gonna be freezing. You're talking to a Texan right here. I don't do cold. But I would love that 24 hour daylight I've had close to it and Sweden and St. Petersburg Russia at times, but never the full 24. But then the idea of the darkness. Give me one, maybe two days and then I think you're crazy. I'm not sure how they do that up there. But for listeners, I'm gonna get that name of that city in the show notes because even I'm having trouble capturing it in my mind. But I have it in the show notes and you can scroll down and see what that city is. That sounds awesome. What is a favorite thing to eat? Ken?

Ken Peterson: 24:12

Oh, with so many varieties out there, it's tough. But I'm gonna offend about half the country here. I like thin crust, New York style pizza. I mean, it is it's something that, you know, if someone offers it to me, it's hard for me to pass up.

Rick Denton: 24:26

Hey, it's good stuff. And if you've offended half the country, then you deleted the other half. So just focus on the positive nothing negative here. What's on the other side? Now I'm focusing on the negative what is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hate it as a kid?

Ken Peterson: 24:41

I think my sister and myself unanimously agree it would be lima beans.

Rick Denton: 24:46

Yeah,

Ken Peterson: 24:48

they have consistency that's very dry and mushy.

Rick Denton: 24:55

Man can that's a you're bringing back some memories because my answer to that question is Brussel sprout I just like immediately that's the one that I remember my parents forced me but lima beans I forgot about those. Yeah, no good. No bueno. What is one travel item not including your phone that you will not leave home without?

Ken Peterson: 25:14

Oh, and I'm assuming we wouldn't include phone accessories either.

Rick Denton: 25:17

Yeah, okay, not your charger.

Ken Peterson: 25:20

Don't take the phone without the charger. Um, I would, there's two things that I always have. And it's always in my hand carry bag that I just I can't leave without them. And it seems weird. But the first one is batteries. And the number of times I've just needed, you know, it's to double A to triple A, I keep them everywhere I end up throwing them out after like 12 months and replacing them. But the number of times I've been somewhere and I'm like, I just need a double A battery. Maybe the remote control in the room isn't working, whatever it is. A couple of times, I've helped out flight attendants who were like, I can't find a bad. The second thing I mean, very operationally minded dental floss. If you're on an airplane and you chew into something, there is nothing worse than spending the next four hours uncomfortable because something stuck between your teeth.

Rick Denton: 26:16

Oh, can I love asking that question when someone hits me with something new. You're my first dental floss, I love it. And I'm sitting here thinking I've got dental floss on my desk back there, I've got it in other places, I need to add it to my everyday carry bag for my travels to because you're right, that is a nightmare experience. If you're flying from LA to Hong Kong, and you got some apple between your teeth. So floss is going to get added to I liked that one. Now, we were talking a little bit about surveys earlier, and surveys are still relevant. I'm not here to say that the survey is dead. You'll hear that you know customers don't respond to surveys, it's not dead, it's still a very rich source of customer insight. But customers do provide their voice in ways well beyond the survey. So how do you listen beyond the survey? What does that look like for you?

Ken Peterson: 27:07

I think for me beyond the surveys, two of the real key listening posts, I mean, obviously, customers are going to call in usually when they're calling in. It's a complaint, let's face it. So it's one slanted side. But I love being able to watch social media and review sites. And I think we all do it. And I think we can all relate to it. And you mentioned before surveys being like, it should be one question and one open end, like what is the review? It's one question and one open it You're right. I mean, it really is that. And so I mean, in some ways, it's sort of cheating, because it's like a survey, but it's such a rich source of feedback, because it's how people would talk to their friends. Yeah. You know, the circumstances, the they, some of them really feel like they're going to be getting in contact with the company by doing so. So they'll give the rich details. So say I walked in, there was no one at the desk, I waited for 30 minutes, and I had to call someone just to get service to get checked into the hotel. And they were rude. And they were short with me. And I felt like I disturbed them. And I gave you a two star and you know, so you get this richness of details as if I was telling you the story about how my baggage got lost in London, right? You're gonna feel like you're part of it. When we take them through surveys, we're guiding them. And so we almost tell them what to answer, especially with the really long surveys, you ask, okay, here's this attribute, here's that attribute and that attribute. Now tell us what you think. But don't be limited by those three attributes we already named, which are A, B, and C. But you don't have to limited to A, B and C. All right, like we do guide them unintentionally. But we do but with the reviews. It's just it's so much, you know, it's so much depth that you can get from there. And a lot of volume because people are doing it willingly. Yeah, we talked about the motivation, and they're motivated to do it. And some are motivated to write great reviews. And some are motivated to write poor reviews. And yeah, but they ultimately think they'll be heard,

Rick Denton: 29:04

and you tend to find the extremes, right? People tend to write a review, if they're extremely unhappy, or if they're extremely delighted. There's not a lot of things that are right, you know, three out of five, but it's even that is even there. It's still there. And it is such a rich set of data. What's interesting to hear you say that Ken is, you know, I bet there's a lot of folks that think Well, yeah, that's basic blocking and tackling. Of course, you're out there listening to social media, and of course, you're looking ruse, but they're not. It is amazing how many companies are either turning a blind eye, or just aren't aware, there's no way they can't be aware of it. Let me not say that, but just simply choosing that's not where I'm going to put my attention. And It shocks me, It shocks me to when going back to the actual thing we talked about earlier where I'll see a review. And you can tell like go to TripAdvisor and you just go through a particular properties reviews. And you see that anything that was marked a one or a two gets the exact same stock answer experience. So we've translated it to our team, yada yada yada. And you can see that the same issue occurred a year ago and has been continue to occur. So nobody's paying attention to it, the inability, or the choice not to act on it. So disappointing. So for you to call those out, I absolutely love that. And the chance to be able to say, you know, hey, company, if you're not paying attention to this, start paying attention to now.

Ken Peterson: 30:15

And I will say, a process is not a response. So every time you get that automated answer, that's a process that is not a response. And everyone talks about them as responses. You got to go in there, you've got to read it. Yeah. And, you know, be authentic in your response. It's like you and global warming are my two top issues when I run for Senate next.

Rick Denton: 30:37

Exact Exactly. And, you know, I'm not here to say like some ivory tower, not like mythical, every brand can read every review and respond to every customer. That's not the intent. But the intent is to say, at least be absorbent. Use those tools that we talked about earlier, use analytics. And actually, I want to ask you about that were very much in that world of analytics, you were talking about the insights and statistician and all of that, right, big data, AI. And you would think that it would make it easier for companies to create these great or heck, even just moderately good experiences for customers. So with all of these tools, with all of these places, to listen to customers today that you didn't have before, with all these ways to capture that information, all of these great customer experience, folks, why are companies still falling short on the basics?

Ken Peterson: 31:23

I I'll say it over and over again, can no offense to statisticians, we ended up we ended up in analysis paralysis. We I mean, I always tell people, as soon as you start talking about is this statistically significant, you're already losing the argument, whoever is on the other side of that, is not looking at it as can we take action with it. You know, let's worry about making decisions. And part of that comes with, you know, even CX practitioners need to come back and not just say, hey, we found that you can drive, drive our scores up by taking action on this attribute, come back with three or four ideas on how you can do it, let them shoot down the ideas. Don't let them shoot down the data or the information you're presenting. I'd rather come back and say here's idea A, B, C and D, to improve our out of stock rates. And let them shoot down those ideas and saying, Are you sure you're measuring the out of stock rates correctly?

Rick Denton: 32:21

I love it. Ken, I'm going to I'm going to stop there. I want to let that be the thought that just seasons in our minds as we wrap this this episode up. Great insights there. Ken, how can folks get in touch with you if they want to learn more about you your thoughts about customer experience? Or even about question ProHD and learn a little bit more about QuestionPro?

Ken Peterson: 32:40

Well, they can always go to questionpro.com/ken they can meet with me directly right there. And of course I'm on LinkedIn and I share my my blogs every Tuesday. We have a CX thoughts blog that go out and it's all the stories that I love to talk about. All right, experience my everyday life as a practitioner, viewing it. As both a consumer and practitioner.

Rick Denton: 33:02

I'll get all that in the shownotes to be able to get in touch and learn more. Ken, thank you so much for today. Thank you for making me jealous with a white background. But even still, thank you for the insights. Thank you for talking to me about action. Thank you for talking to me about what it is that companies need to do to actually create better customer experiences and move to action. Brilliant conversation. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Ken, thanks so much.

Ken Peterson: 33:26

Thank you.

Rick Denton: 33:30

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.