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. Can a Liverpool supporter and a Chelsea supporter successfully record a podcast episode together? Knowing what I know about today's guest Ryan Noakes, customer success manager for Sai 360 Who talks with us from Manchester England. I'm fully confident we can make it work. Even if he does like read. A self described future winner of Master Chef Ryan bakes up a pastry case. I'm a dad, I'm allowed a required to make bad jokes and puns. A pastry case of great customer experience insight. Talking to Ryan reveals a heart for the customer and a heart for the front line, the actual end users that helps him be a success at customer success. You might think that came from a career centered on the customer from the beginning true, but it wasn't what you think we'll learn more about that in the show. Would you expect a compliance role to become a customer role? Nope, me neither. But it happened with Ryan. Empathy, relationship building hospitality words that are thrown all over the customer experience world. Ryan embodies those words well beyond just words and into action. Ryan, welcome to CX passport.

Ryan Noakes: 1:44

Thanks so much, Rick, what a wonderful introduction. It's always quite strange actually hearing other people say so many complimentary stuff about yourself. But I mean, I do quite like it.

Rick Denton: 1:55

Well, good. Copy it, use it, enjoy it, because it's all true. From what I've come to know about you. Let's get started right there, though, at the beginning, customer success was not stop one for you in your career. What was your career journey? Like? And how did that help you get into customer success, not only into customer success, but really thrive in it?

Ryan Noakes: 2:14

Yeah, yeah, you're right. No, no, I'm not kind of fell into customer success. From the start. It's something that I've transitioned into. And I think one of the key things and I tell this to everybody that I make, when I connect with them is is transferable skills, and about having a certain set of skills that allow you to quite easily transition into a CS wrong. So for me, that was a little bit about self reflection. And it's about understanding your skill set, but also understanding the responsibilities that you're currently undertaking in your role. And actually, when you look into that, if you are in any way customer facing, you will find that if you if you're kind of centered around the customer, and you're you're putting the customer first in any particular role, whether it be retail, or hospitality, or compliance or administration, actually, you could probably break into customer success. So 567 years ago, when I kind of moved out of hospitality, and I got into kind of the working world as such, and my career started. Even at that point, I remembered all of the skills that I took from my early life, because of course in hospitality, you're working with customers. Yeah, you understand pressures. And I was one sous chef. So of course, all about you really understand pressure. Yeah, time management, prioritization. I've been a bomb and I've been a cleaner. I was an ice cream man for half the season. What's that?

Rick Denton: 3:55

We don't know about that. We may talk about that later, ice cream man. You've had quite the customer facing focus. It's very

Ryan Noakes: 4:03

thing, everything you can name, I'm a trained barista, I could go on I could go on. But all of that is, as we said, centered around the customer understanding how to give that customer really good experience. So when I started my career, as you said, I started off in compliance. I worked for a food fire and health and safety compliance and consultancy company. For that's a mouthful.

Rick Denton: 4:28

Boy, that really is I'm glad you said that me.

Ryan Noakes: 4:31

And I, I worked within the compliance records team, and I was a compliance records adviser. So we dealt with the hospitality industry, which is perfect because that was my background. And a lot of hospitality industry have to record certain records for legislation. So things like cooking temperatures, frigid temperatures, cleaning records, essentially to prove that they're safe. And we produced those papers. colds. And what became apparent in the two years I had that role, I emerged and molded and manipulated and created all of these wonderful buzzwords that roll into something that was completely different when I started. By the end, I was doing face to face meetings with my customers, because they were local. And it was easy to say, what is your operation? Okay, great, you've got 20 fridges, perfect, I'll put 20 in the diary, you've got this, you've got two floors, we're going to need a diary on each floor because you can't pass them between the chef's etc, etc. Now, what's key for your listeners to remember is, I am in no way environmentally health qualified, I have no degree legislation, I have no background in the specifics around what the industry require. I have the customer element to be able to build them what they need to build based on their feedback when a customer success type role became available internally. And I say type because the first role I actually did was an onboarding specialist, when I saw that role became available. And this is what my top tip to anybody that's listening is I looked within my skill set and I looked, I kind of looked at what I'm currently doing. And I thought, I'm doing everything that CSM does, just in a different role. I'm meeting with the customers, I'm understanding their requirements, I'm ensuring that they have a great experience that they get a good end product. I'm listening to concerns when listening to feedback, all of that sort of core element of a CSM I was doing. And going back to the compliance days, I obviously needed to understand that about the restaurant at the hotel or the cafe that was doing the records for so that was easily a transferable skill for me to get to know them. And I kind of started my customer success journey there. But it's those core skills that I picked up really early on in my career. And even last year, I was lucky enough to speak for a local college in the UK, to their business students. And I actually spoke about transferable skills in general, not just customer success. And I remember saying to them that when I was 17 or 18, working at a fish and chips restaurant as a waiter. At the time, I didn't realize that actually there was skills that I picked up there that I still relevant now to my customer success days.

Your CX Passport Captain: 7:34

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 episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX 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: 8:00

What an intriguing journey. What a varied journey. The transferable skills absolutely comes through. There's there was something you said in there back when you were talking about the compliance role that caught my ears. And it was this idea of okay, compliance and no, the restaurant would typically be very combative, like against each other. But somehow you move more of that into this partnership. And while customer success isn't always dealing with combative relationships and combative customers, but what about that making your customer your partner all the way back in compliance? Have you carried forward into customer success?

Ryan Noakes: 8:41

Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean, in customer success, collaboration is key. And I think one of the things that I certainly do and and I do well is is to be able to become my customers, trusted advisor. So they actually understand that when I'm producing information for him, or I'm kind of attending our regular health checks, I'm suggesting stuff because I know what works for them. And actually at kickoff, what I say to all my customers is that the strapline first slide is I am your champion. Yeah, within sei 360. And I'm here to help you kind of get the best experience out of the products and service. But it's that kind of champion thing. And it's like what you said, Yeah, back in the compliance days, I really needed to actually build a relationship with these customers. So that when I was dealing with these customers, if they said to me, Ah, I don't think I can remove that page. For example, I could say I think you might want to keep that in or let's maybe think about a kind of alternative solution. But look either way, you're gonna have to record that in some way shape or form that true partnership

Rick Denton: 9:58

there that that was what I heard coming through and can totally see that coming forward in the customer success. Now, you refer to a team. And the team part comes to mind here, because you've been frontline focus from the very beginning everything you said, ice cream person, barista, bartender, whatever that was right. But too many, too many times, people, companies, they fail to really appreciate that customer insight that comes from the frontline. I talk about it a lot on the show. And I could also see even a customer success team focusing on the purchaser of whatever the product is, or the primary contact but not really thinking of the frontline user. But that's got to be top of mind for you given all of your back. And how, how then do you help your teams be so customer focused that they're thinking not just of the initial purchaser, or the initial contact, but that frontline user of what you're providing?

Ryan Noakes: 10:50

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I completely agree. I mean, there's a couple of things that are really key to achieving success in that space. First of all, you need empathy, above all, and I know that's a kind of a skill that we throw out really often in customer success. And with that comes an extra level, you need to really be able to picture that scenario so that when you're dealing with your primary contact, I want to know, but how is this application deployed within your business? How is it being adopted? And what are the challenges? The person on the front line? Pick? Tell me that situation? One of my customers share the story with me. And he did what I wish everybody would do. He said to me, Okay, Ryan, so mobile application for logging incidents, were a construction company, we've got a brand new building that we're that we're kind of contracted to do. We're on the 60th floor, open to the elements, no ceiling or walls, because obviously still laying the concrete cash. I'm getting nervous already. Deep, deep winter, it's freezing cold. And we're there you've got contracts. I want to lay some concrete, there's an issue, I spot on observation, I get my mobile application out. It takes 10 seconds to load. I've given up I put it back in my pocket. I've got concrete. Yeah. Now, he could have just said to me, there's a lag time, or what's the loading time for this page or I'm having a bad response time. He He pictured a scenario that he made irrelevant to me whether that was real or not, I don't know. But my point is, I actually got to struggles. And I think empathy is key. And I think having that voice of the customer. When you've got that at the forefront of your mind. And when you when you start to collaborate with your colleagues at such a level where they know that you're the voice of the customer,

Rick Denton: 12:55

the the background of your frontline, and how that then has expanded into taking you to where you are today. across that that element really understanding. Getting those stories, those actual stories. And like I said, even if they made it up, but it gave you, you were able to take in that story from the customer. And even retelling it to me now I can visualize being on the 60th floor, it's 10 seconds to load an app, I don't care anymore, I'm not logging this issue I got I got concrete to get poured. So then get the 61st and the 62nd, the 63rd floor that I gotta get done. It makes complete sense. And then being able to bring that in I talk a lot about that in my business, this total Voice of the Customer approach, the idea of getting that voice of the customer and and then doing something with it. So what have you got a survey, but it's that listen and act aspect of it. That is so vital. And what you're describing there is taking that in. And I think having been a part of the frontline, you have a particular awareness of what it means to be there to offer up that input and expect that something is done with that input.

Ryan Noakes: 13:58

Definitely. Because I can imagine when I was in that situation myself, yeah. And I can I can kind of really put myself in the customer shoes. And I think that is the key takeaway from from that is that everybody that's working in customer success and ces leaders and departments. Yeah, might think that you're you're kind of going about things the right way in terms of the way that you approach as you said, surveys and feedback. But if your team really aren't putting themselves in the customers shoes, you're going to struggle to be able to communicate internally, because all you're going to be doing is passing facts between facts. And what you need to do is you need to say look, this isn't just verbatim. This is a struggle for my customer because of ABC. And when you do that, you've you've kind of you're on you're on an upward trajectory, and I think that's the difference between average CSMs and really good. So your sense.

Rick Denton: 14:54

I like that. I like that a lot. Now. I'm going to take you out of the CSM world for a bit because when I see some Ladies profile talk about Master Chef. One of the things that does make me recall a former guest. It was Katie Stabler way back in episode 25. She was actually in season 12 of Master Chef UK. So it was kind of cool to talk about that. But I'm starting to see a trend in the show when I talked to my folks from the UK that there's some master chef interest here. And so if you're going to be the future winner, what is it about cooking that you enjoy to the point that you would want to endure that competition?

Ryan Noakes: 15:28

Well, yeah, future winner might be backing myself too much. I'm very jealous of your former guests that she actually managed to get on and I will certainly trawl through the archives to see that. But for me, cooking has always been a passion, I think then I ended up living temporarily with my with my auntie who's a wonderful woman and my uncle. And when I was kind of 1314 15 he was a huge cook. He would he would kind of nail birds to the back door when I came home from school that were fatiguing. And I just observed what he was doing. And I was really interesting. And I was really fascinated. Kind of my early career. I was around food. And then how I actually got into cooking. So me and my well now wife. Eight years ago when we first got together, we were living in this seaside town, Whitby in North Yorkshire. We were working in hospitality, as we said, we were kind of running this cafe down down at the pier, and my brother lived in Australia, in Sydney, Australia. He queued already out there. And he said, Do you fancy coming out for a year? Perfect time. You've got no commitments, no ties, no mortgage kids, and not really a career. And I said, Great. Yep, go out there. So we went out there. And the plan was never to travel. The plan was to live with Adam, because that's what we wanted to do. So we lived and worked almost became part of society. So in Australia, it's either alcohol or coffee, really, if you want to work if you want to work in bars and restaurants and anywhere that serves alcohol, which is 99.9% of the places you need, you need a responsible service of alcohol, which is training and certificate short. Or you will become the barista like I did. So I went on a one day course, got my gold star. And I learned how to make proper coffee. So there was this little place restaurant down at the wharf. And I went and he said, yep, yep. Okay, great. We need to we need coffee dinner today. And then a couple of days in he said, Do you fancy learning the menu? Do you fancy being at the back? Because we've got Elon, who's the front, who's the coffee? And I went, Yeah, of course, show me it within a couple of weeks alone at the menu. And he threw me the keys. And he said, You and Alan go, I've got my other businesses, you open up, you shut up. And that was me for six months cooking away. I've got so many cookbooks and I watch. I mean, I could just watch the cooking shows all day on repeat. So I would like one day to apply because I think I do enjoy competition. I do thrive under competition like that. And ultimately, I think if you're doing something you're passionate about, which actually is a quite a good sentiment for for professional life as well. If you're doing something you enjoy and stuff, then the competition element is only a bonus. So who knows one day you might see me lifting the trophy

Rick Denton: 18:43

so now I'm thinking about that trip to Australia. And that's a long flight, any kind of flight like that it can be nice to take a little break. And I often bring folks actually every episode we take a little break and we jump into the first class lounge and so imagining long travel like that, but join me here in the first class lounge here on CX password. We'll move quickly here and hopefully have a little bit of fun what is a dream travel location from your past?

Ryan Noakes: 19:08

Ah, from my past, I would say that there's been so many we holiday a lot. I would say Venice in Italy was a standout because that was one of my first birthday trips with my wife. I love Spain. I love Greece. But there's something about Italy

Rick Denton: 19:28

now thinking going forward. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet. Oh, okay, so I've never been to America. And that's something I really want to do. There's so many let's get ya over here.

Ryan Noakes: 19:42

Hi, that's it.

Rick Denton: 19:43

Well, I welcome you over here. Look me up if you're in the North Texas, the Dallas area. Anytime that you're over here, it'd be great to meet a guest in person

Ryan Noakes: 19:52

What a shock like,

Rick Denton: 19:53

what is a favorite thing to eat?

Ryan Noakes: 19:56

Oh foodwise these Questions are always difficult, aren't they? Because there's so many things. So what I mean, if I was thinking about my last meal, I would say there's a couple. So filling lists Breakfast has to be out there it is just Yeah, I mean, there's something about it. It's just great. But I think for me, my my last meal, my favorite would be probably a lamb shank. And the reason being is because the memories and and that's what food does. It provokes memories. And I remember being even as a young child, going to visit my my Nan, my dad's mom who's sadly no longer with us. And she used to always on a Sunday, do the best man Chang. She was a classic grandmother so she would be really like butchers me, like slaving over the stove for hours. So it absolutely fall apart. And yeah, I think in some way, shape or form, I would need a lamb shank. If I had to eat to last thing on this earth.

Rick Denton: 21:05

I love I love how you tie that to memories to and now I would I would have never heard like lamb shank is an answer before. But now I see the beauty of it. And I don't know that I'd qualify this as my favorite thing to eat. But you brought back a very very rich memory for me of my mom making fried chicken Sunday dinner. And so now I'm sitting here thinking about that she would call it fried chicken mess because it was just as wonderful miss. Oh, gosh, now you've given me these memories. And it's almost noon here. And now I'm hungry. So I almost want to end the episode here. But we're gonna keep going we're gonna kick in you online. I want to I want it all. What is this the opposite side? What's the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you're hated as a kid?

Ryan Noakes: 21:42

Oh, so yeah, this is an easy one for me. Mashed potato. But I'm actually quite funny with textures. So that was why so I'm I'm really, I'm really difficult to please in terms of textures. So for me interesting. I struggled with mashed potato because a lot of people do it really lump creamy and blooping.

Rick Denton: 22:04

Listen to you. That's one of my favorite things to eat. What is will close out the lounge here what is one travel item not including your phone that you will not leave home without

Ryan Noakes: 22:15

travel item not including my phone. So I always like to take some sort of games. So it's nice to actually go out on the balcony with your loved one and play some cards or some beanbags throwing or whatever it may be or a Frisbee on the beach.

Rick Denton: 22:38

Ryan, there's something that I want to get back to that you mentioned earlier. And let's close the episode with this. And he talked about active listening as a way of building relationships. He talked about kind of the surface. But I'm curious, how have you really demonstrated and how do you use active listening? We all know the word but for you. How have you used that in your customer success and really deepen those relationships with your customers?

Ryan Noakes: 23:02

Well, wonderful place to end because I think is such a poignant and interesting topic. And again, this is gonna make you stand out as a CSM, because it shows that you care and it shows that you listen. So for me, there's a couple of things I do. And one of them is not necessarily listening. But understanding. So I like to research my companies, I follow them on LinkedIn. So I get their news and announcements. And what I mean by that is because then on my next health check, if it's something significant, I can say, Hey, guys, well done on that award. You won. Or I've just seen that MFAT switching it to a business commercial aspect. Oh, hey, Mister account manager, you know, our customer that we deal with? Did you see they've just signed a new deal in India? Great. Yeah. So learning about them and and kind of picking up on all that information from different sources, YouTube, and if they've got a podcast, listening to their industry of experts, but the actual kind of actively listening to conversations, it's about when you are presenting. It's about learning to obviously, listen more than you talk. But it's about actually commanding the conversation so that you're not just saying, what's working well, what isn't? What are your challenges? What are your goals? It's actually about adding that personal element. And it's about talking. So across like the last couple of months, the amount of conversations I've had with my customers, where they've mentioned just in passing, ah, I'm really sorry. The doorbells just gone. It's just I've got a load of new stuff because we're moving. We're moving apartments next week. A month later, I get on the health check and I say How's your new apartment? Are you a nice? Yeah, and they go wow. Oh, he remembered or, and your listeners can't see these but I've got some pop dolls. In the back, yeah, so I'm I'm a collector of WWE specifically Funko Pop dolls, and the amount of people that have noticed them, and obviously bring them up in conversation. And I remember once. And this is obviously a kind of actively listening but reciprocated a customer of mine in a in a previous role. He chatted about the potholes. And then it was about, it must have been three or four months because they got quarterly meetings and we missed one. So it's about four months past we got on a meeting and the first thing he said was, I thought you when I was in Walmart, and I said, Okay, did you and he saw a big WWE funko pop. And he said, I turned to my wife and said, I wonder how much this would cost to ship to Ryan. And the fact that he could Yeah, in Walmart, looked at a pop Darwin and remembered me as his. And that's the relationship we have, you'll hear a lot of speakers speak. One of the things I always say is use people's names, right? Which sounds obvious, but it is actually it's really key. But one of the things I do is I go one step further. I've got a lot of customers in the US. Now it's it's morning to them. If it's my afternoon, I always say good morning. And that actually makes a huge difference to them. Because they realize that it's not morning for me, but I'm acknowledging that where they are. So it's going one step further. Don't just listen to what they're saying, Yeah, listen to the stuff that sits behind it, pick up on those little bits of kind of nuggets of information that you can then jot down or mentally remember, or if you don't just write it down, I've got a profile card. I just jot everything down, when I research the business, and then I just keep as a rolling document. And people really, really will appreciate the fact that you listen.

Rick Denton: 26:57

And that's that's what I am capturing out of that act of listening, right. The phrase is not a new one. It's a common phrase. But it is that conscious choice to pay attention to not just what is being said, but what is happening around you. And then I think an important point here to to note is, it's okay to write it down. It's not yes, there are things that even you know, maybe I write down about my spouse that I know is coming up and I don't rely just on memory or those sorts of things. And it's okay to do that.

Ryan Noakes: 27:27

Exactly. And you're not gonna remember everything, but it's a fact that, like you said, you've you've, you've taken the effort.

Rick Denton: 27:36

It's been brilliant talking with you, Ryan, I've enjoyed the heck out of today's conversation. I do want to give you an opportunity to tell me how if people want to learn more about you and your perspectives on your journey to customer success, or even about Sai 360? How can they learn more?

Ryan Noakes: 27:51

LinkedIn would definitely be the place I'm always always happy to have a virtual coffee with anybody. I'm always up for expanding my network inbox is always open. And I actually, again, am interested in what everybody else does and and if any listeners are thinking they would like to know more, or they want to ask me any questions. Nothing is too silly. And I'm always kind of up for helping the next kind of generation and such.

Rick Denton: 28:19

Excellent. I will get all of that into the show notes. So listeners, you can scroll right down and have a look and get straight to Ryan's LinkedIn. Ryan, thank you again for the conversation today. Thank you for joining me on CX passport. Great to know your path into customer success management and great tips to offer those that are on their way there. Best of luck in that Master Chef. Vision. I wish you the best of luck getting there Someday Someday soon. Ryan, thank you so much.

Ryan Noakes: 28:46

Thanks so much. You're a wonderful host and you do some really great stuff. So I'm privileged to be one of your guests and I think anybody's listening is delighted to have you in their ears

Rick Denton: 29:02

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.