Tshili Khupe: 0:00

A great example is we started working with, it's an adult toy company. And they were experienced extra products, products. And they will experiencing some higher levels of returns. And they actually engaged us to actually help them deal with all the returns.

Rick Denton: 0:25

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. Back across the pond, you'll see CX Passport goes through these phases where there's a particular part of the world that just seems to be heavily emphasized that just the schedule works out that way in some parts of the world show up more often than others. And recently, the show has been in a very heavy USA face. So it's nice, just like a good holiday trip, to get out of my own borders and get a different perspective on customer experience and unlife. In general, today, we get the chance to do exactly that. What would it be like if to be exposed to a wide variety of industries and your day to day role. Think about what you'd be able to learn, and also what you'd be able to leverage when working with others. Today, we're going to hear from Tshili Khupe, head of strategic partnerships and growth at LTV plus coming to death coming to us today, from London, England, I'm very excited to have a chance to talk with someone in one of my favorite cities in the world. He works in exactly that space where he gets the opportunity to help clients across the globe through an outsourcing relationship. Imagine to the wealth of customer insight that's available when you're there at the frontline of customer experience creation. How can a company do this right? We'll hear about Tshili's experiences and learn the right way to do this. And folks come and of course, we're going to have some travel talk as well fear not. Tshili, welcome to CX Passport

Tshili Khupe: 2:16

Thanks for taking, it's great to be here.

Rick Denton: 2:19

I am. As mentioned, I just love getting to talk with folks. Isn't that great? That's just one of the things that's so fascinating about this. And it's become so normal that having a conversation while I sit here in North Texas and you and London, England, you'd be anywhere in the globe. And yeah, I realized that it we're kind of numb to it at this point. But I still find myself finding it fascinating. Great. So I'm glad that we're having this chance to have this conversation today. You know, surely I talk a ton and listeners already are probably saying these words before I've even said them yet. But it's my mantra, this total Voice of the Customer approach is stopped serve and score, start, listen and act will listen is where that starts. Right? So what does listen to the customer mean to you?

Tshili Khupe: 3:03

Great question, Rick. So I've been thinking about this quite a lot. And in my role, of course, we talk about, you know, listening to the voice of the customer. Now, a lot of brands, actually mistake listening to the voice of the customer as being you know, I'm gonna send out the CSAT scores, or survey that Yes. And you're like, Well, okay, so they may ask questions like, you know, how long did it take for your call to be answered? But that's not really listening to the voice of the customer. I'll speak to someone about this the other day, actually. And one of the analogies that I use to explain it, because he asked me, What's the perfect CX strategy? And I said,

Rick Denton: 3:45

that's a pretty big question. And I was like, Well, you know, there's

Tshili Khupe: 3:49

no such thing as a perfect CX strategy. The analogy I used to him was like, looking at it this way, think about it this way. If you're a brand, you are like a bartender, right? So imagine you're walking into a bar. So the brand is a bartender, and then you what customers are walking into your bar. Now, you could be the best bartender in the world. But if you served everyone on Mojito, I guarantee you could be the best Mojito in the world. But I guarantee you, some people would not be happy, right? Because hey, perhaps I don't drink alcohol, or perhaps I prefer a beer. So what what does that look like when so like, say, you could be served really quickly. So I'd put five stars I got served really quickly. I could, you know, the bartender could be polite. So as far as they're concerned, they've got the sex strategy, right. But no, you haven't listened to me. You haven't asked me what I actually want to drink. You give me the best heater you can make but hey, I want a beer. Right? So yeah. So listening to the customer who's not just about you know, hey, you I've got a perfect this and perfect, but it's about actually listening to them and saying, What is it you want?

Rick Denton: 5:06

And do I like that? I like that a lot. And I love the the analogy of the CX bartender that you realize that after the show, I'm gonna go over and look to see if CX bartenders already taken as a URL, because that may be the next great brand of customer experience consulting out there. This is bartender, chili. That makes a lot of sense, too. Because I think there's so many companies that do that, right? That they just think, well, I sent my my score out there, or I was kind and I do believe that there's a lot of just hire happy people, and you teach them the skills, right? The the empathy, the the humanity, that aspect is so vital. It doesn't matter though, if the customer themselves needs something that's beyond what that you know, that peanut butter spread of a Mojito, even in what I described, they're the nicest, I was talking to a group of people once and they were I was saying, you know, Hey, there's this great story of somebody was really nice to me at the counter. And oh, we had this good conversation, and a dude from New York. And I don't mean to generalize, it just so happened to be a dude from New York. And he said, Rick, that's the last thing I'd want. Give me my freakin hamburger. Let me get the bleep out of there. And I don't want to have any conversation with someone. So exactly that understand your customer. And listening to them is such a key part of that. And so let's talk about that that frontline, because you're talking about exactly that the person that's doing that listening the person that's the front line, companies are cutting customer service, we see it left and right right now. And I know you and I already know that we see that as a huge mistake, but we live in this world. How can you help companies realize that the contact center isn't this cost center, it's a customer insight center back to that listening, that listening of the customers insight centers, and ultimately can become a revenue source?

Tshili Khupe: 6:46

That's another great question, Rick. And interestingly enough, we one of our mantras, and it's our website, right, we say, turn your customer service center into a profit center. So from a cost center to a profit center. Coincidentally, so it is very, very important for brands to think about this, right. So let me give you another analogy. And I keep telling this to all the customers and our clients that we speak to, when you're especially online and the online world. And what you're looking at is your online shop is like a bricks and mortar store. So you mustn't treat it differently. Or walk walked into your bricks and mortar store. And there was no one there. How are you going to sell anything to me? Right? Right. So you got to believe exactly the same with online, right? So you got to have people, and you've got to be able to serve people where they are. And when they walk into your store technically. And a great example, this is we worked with a pet food company. We started working with them early last year. And what they did was they had a customer service team in place already. But they came to us and we're like, hey, look, you know, what can you guys do for us? So we sat down with him, we had a chat. And we looked at what they were doing. Within a year of working with them from like, January 2022, to January 23, we had increased them and they were doing about 100k through their customer service team. They had about three or four agents with us. But by the time by the end of that year, they were up to 300k on the customer service team. Right? Holy cow. And as you can imagine, they were very, very pleased. And they were just like ringing me up almost every week saying hey, can we get more agents. And I was like, hey, you need to call that you need to give us a lot more notice than this. Because what they did is they expanded their operation, right? They started looking at all the channels that their customers are coming through. So we have to do that we say well, you know, it's not just phone calls and emails, it's things like live chat on your site, you know, speaking to the customers, meeting them where they are, and when they are is really important. So be able to look at, you know, if you're speaking to your customers, what time do they like to be to be spoken to when? Yes, you know, and all those sorts of elements. And with that, I mean, like I said they the return on investment that was was easily 12 to 15x

Your CX Passport Captain: 9:17

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 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: 9:43

I'm actually curious. So they started at that point, they got the 12 15x on the end. What was the trigger? So how did you convince them of the fact that the contact center was this profit opportunity? How did you And it wasn't literally you. But how did how did this come about? What was the the the idea, the trigger that motivated them to go in? What is sort of the opposite direction of what we see sort of conventional wisdom approach its contact center today?

Tshili Khupe: 10:15

Well, so it's quite tricky. I mean, in today's environment, people know, and that the there is an economic decline, and you have people talking about recession and things like that. But what happens then is, you do one or two things, you either panic, or you actually hit take a very real hard look at your business and say, Okay, where are the opportunities for people to invest in look at the opportunities are the ones that do better in the long run? Now, for them, it was a case of, they're doing pretty well. But how could they be better? And that's how they actually came and spoke to us and said, What can we do that better? So knowing that all the channels are that we're using and everything else, and again, live chat is something that is just so crucial, especially to e commerce, businesses, travel businesses, whatever you're in, if you're speaking to someone, as a when they're on your website, ready to talk ready to, they've got questions about your product or your service. If you can answer those questions immediately. They that drives conversions, right. And that is where you will start to see real returns on investment, because you actually speak to someone as they're there with their intention to buy. But if you bet on them, they're gonna go to your competitor.

Rick Denton: 11:30

So you and I can continue to convince each other this right, we are absolutely the believers there. But I love that story, that it's a company that was already growing already knew it, but knew that they had aspirations beyond the short term, they had aspirations into the long term and recognize that that's where by focusing on this particular aspect of the overall customer experience, will net them a longer term results. Let's let's talk about that frontline, you're talking about the conversation that's there, the people that are sitting at the the phones, they the chat lines, the emails, that frontline is at the front of capturing all the customer insights that can exist in a customer experience in a contact center. They're the ones that are delivering, and really co creating an experience with the customer. So what are some examples that you've seen of companies do a really good job of capturing that insight? So not just letting it lie there in the front line, but capturing it, especially those unstructured elements of customer insight that flow through a particular conversation or customer contact?

Tshili Khupe: 12:35

Yeah. Another great question, what we tend to see is that usually, you've got someone at the very top of the business, whether it's the owner or the founder, or, you know, head of CX Head of Customer Support, etc, etc. Now, they're not on the front line, as you say. And it's very, very important for any business that you will speaking to people on the front line. In fact, you don't want to spend a day or two working on the frontline. So you get to one, amen. Exactly what is happening on the frontline, right. So a great example is we started working with, it's an adult toy company, and they were experienced extra products. And they were experiencing some higher levels of returns. And they actually engaged us to actually help them deal with all the returns, and then and then cam and lots of things. So we were like, Okay, great. So we'll help you with that. That's not a problem. So that's your immediate problem, right? But what else can we be doing? So part of the work that we do is we're not just there to field calls and answer calls and cetera, et cetera, what we're there to do is to do some analysis behind what's actually happening with your business and give you good business insights that you can actually action and work on. And one of the things that we found and our frontline staff found was that there were faulty products, and there was issues with a number of products, they knew that was the wishes or the number of products, but they couldn't quite figure out what. So when we did the analysis, and we we got our staff speaking to people, and we actually proactively went out and reached out to the customers and spoke to them say, hey, look, I was saying you return this product, what was the issue, and it turned out that the manufacturer that we're using, had a faulty battery element they were using across all their products. And by feeding this back to them, we've had to pay for it back to the product team put it back up. And not only that, we then proactively reached out to people that bought these products and said, hey, there may be an issue with this, you know, do you want to return it etc, etc. And that people were very positive about that. They were pretty happy that they found out what the underlying cause was. So that's, that's a

Rick Denton: 14:53

great I like that. I love that and I can assure you that I'm pretty sure you're gonna be episode 125 I've Forget exactly your number chili. Out of that many episodes, adult toys have not come into the podcast yet. So you when you get to be the first well I don't use the word I was thinking of you get to be the first to bring that topic in. But a product is a product and insight as an insight. I'm curious. So more very specifically, you said the frontline knew about this and how was that elevated? How did that get known? Because you had to then engage the frontline? How did you know to engage the frontline? And how did you extract her they really worked with them to understand what the problem was.

Tshili Khupe: 15:38

So what we do, and this is just what we do, right? So we basically have business analysts that are looking at all the data that's coming through. If we see a spike in, you know, whether it's returned products, or whether it's, you know, complaints about a particular service, we flag that to our teams and say, right, okay, so next time you get a call, or an email, or text or SMS, or whatever it may be about these issues, or someone wanting to return a product. Let's find out why. Let's speak to you, as we're having a conversation of like, Hey, Rick. So what was wrong with this? And getting that feedback is a core part of what we're doing. Because that feedback then allows businesses to get the insight and understand what's going wrong. And also, additionally, it's not just about what's going wrong, right? It's also about what's going really well. So you can invest in that and say, well, actually, people really love this, let's keep pushing. And we then compile reports on that and say, well, actually, these are the common themes that are coming out of this. And from those common themes, you can then start to understand, you know, the real data, the real pain points that people are having. I'm sorry to use word pain points about adult toys, but

Rick Denton: 16:54

oh, my gosh, we get to have a whole side series of jokes here.

Tshili Khupe: 16:59

Yeah, so you also want to say so we just were talking to people having conversations. And again, it goes back to the original topic, right, listening to the voice of the customer, and understanding what they want and what they don't want.

Rick Denton: 17:19

Well, chili, as I mentioned, that would be the first time that that topic has come into the show. It shows though regardless of product regardless, it really does show that element of listen is not just collecting the information. There's that analyze part of it as well that you talked about with the business analysts. But we're going to stop all business talk here for a little because it can be a little exhausting to be in the business world. You've got clients all over the globe, perhaps you've done some traveling to make sure and see them and help them advance in their business. And so I want to have you join me here in the first class lounge we'll take a little break here move quickly and have some fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past? Oh, well

Tshili Khupe: 18:01

past that would be Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. It's on the border of Serbians. Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. It's one of the seven wonders of the world and it's just honestly you have to be there and you'll see it on pictures and things like that but being there and just looking at it looking there's wonder it's incredible. Really is

Rick Denton: 18:20

I've really really want to get to that the pictures do look beautiful. I've done Niagra Okay, that's for us in the Western Hemisphere. I want to see wuzhou falls down in the southern hemisphere and then Victoria Falls Holy Cow I've heard just spectacular to hear you say it just makes me want to get there even more so thinking of travel that I want to get to now it's your turn. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet

Tshili Khupe: 18:44

I'd love to go to Australia I'd love to go I haven't been there yet because it's such a long trip and pretty expensive as well but it's on my bucket list. I don't want to go to Australia I want to visit honestly Sydney obviously the Harbour Bridge Charles does not want to visit I've got friends who live out Melbourne so I want to go out there and Melbourne see that and just immerse myself because apparently the Australian culture and the British culture are pretty similar but it's like moving Britain and then putting in a hot country with dangerous animals

Rick Denton: 19:19

Yes, yes. So it certainly want to get there as well. It's far trip for me as well. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Tshili Khupe: 19:31

Um, I love a bobble sausage. And it's spelled Bo ERWO Rs. Yeah, it's a beef sausage with like mix spices a bit is absolutely incredible. If you've never tried it, you have to have to have to look it up. I want to try it.

Rick Denton: 19:50

I will. I will. And you're the second guest to bring that up. I had a guest from South Africa. And he mentioned that specific role and that's like the not the number one reason I Wanna get to South Africa, but it certainly has bumped up in the list because he spoke of it so highly. So I understand your excitement around it, I can't wait to have it. Let's go the other direction, what is the thing you hated, and your parents forced you to eat it as a kid.

Tshili Khupe: 20:15

So there is so well, I'm originally from Zimbabwe, my parents are from Zimbabwe. And when we visited there, there is a word that grows on these trees and is called them a Pawnee worm. And they basically use basically pick it and you grab what's happening, you get all the green stuff out, there's dried, and then you fry it with salt and an oil. And it was a worm to me, right? I was like, that's disgusting. But they were like, you've got to try it. So I've tried a lot of foods, and I think them are actually forcing me to eat that. And try that meant that I've just managed to try loads of different delicacies from all around the world. And it's got to open your mind up to try things.

Rick Denton: 20:58

You and I so chilly. That is not my item of things that my parents forced me to eat. But similarly, I'm willing to at least try something once. And you're right, let's go around the globe. Try some things, that's okay, then I'm gonna have to like it again. But that openness to try it at least once. So speaking of your travels, let's go back to travel what is one travel item, not including your phone, not including your passport that you will not leave home without.

Tshili Khupe: 21:22

It's got to be my pillow, my travel pillow? Oh, I love that.

Rick Denton: 21:32

Absolutely chilly, gotta get that sleep in 100%, not chilly, I mentioned act at the beginning, listen and act. And you've told stories of companies that have done that sort of act, but a lot of that choice to act as cultural. You know, some companies are just very satisfied to listen to the satisfaction scores, but not really do anything about it. So when you've worked with companies in the past, how do you get them to want to act on what they have learned from customer service? So maybe there's some examples of stories that you've experienced of companies wanting to do this, or the other side? Two companies that have failed to take that opportunity to act?

Tshili Khupe: 22:15

Yeah, we've, we've spoken to a number of companies. And again, it comes down to the What what are you really engaging as for? Right? So if you're engaging us because you've got an issue, let us help you with that. Right. So typically, people come to us when their customer service is kind of just falling apart. They're inundated with requests from here, left, right and center. And they don't know how to deal with that, right. But what we do is we like I said to you, before we analyze it, we start working with you, we help alleviate that pain, we get through the backlog for you. And then we start looking at it and say, well, actually, why is that happening? Right? And then advise you say, well, actually, you know what, your busiest periods are x ones. So at this point, you need to have X number of staff, etc, etc. And the reason or it could be a case of the reason you're busy is because something's gone wrong, your delivery partner has completely failed. And there certainly delays people are getting in contact with you. It could be that the airline that you booked through has gone bust, you know. So there are all sorts of different reasons why you can suddenly get busy. But the number one thing that I always say to companies is, don't ignore it. If you ignore that, the first thing that happens is people start to get really mad. And when they get really mad, they leave really bad reviews. Yeah. So the first convinced of anything is just like, hey, go look at your reviews online, go look at Trustpilot go look at your Google reviews, etc. And then when you start looking at those, you will start to see a pattern forming where people are complaining about x or complaining about y. Now, what does that do? You can ruin your brand reputation in seconds. But it takes an if you think about how long it takes you to build up that brand reputation to have it ruined in seconds because you're acting is insanity. Right? So you got to surely after that. So when we speak to people we're saying to them, and we're very frank and transparent, and everything we do is they look. So sometimes we have very frank conversations to say, look, look at your reviews right now. They're talking about x y Zed. If you don't act on that, all their people do the first thing that person does before they book a service or buy a product from you is they look at your reviews. Are you trustworthy company? Or what happens when things go wrong? You know, right? And it's so important to ensure that even if things do go wrong, that you actually respond to them and show the public and the brand and say the public at White and your customers that hey, yes, something's gone wrong. hear that this is how we have remedied it. And when you do that, then you restore competence in them. So, act act act. And if they don't want to act, show them what the public is saying and their customers are saying about them.

Rick Denton: 25:15

Joan, I guess you can, you can at least encourage them to act, you can't just say force. And I think that's one of the things that's particularly unique about a BPO is that the customer and I'm talking about the end, not your customer, but rather the end customer, the one that's buying the product, the one that's buying the service, the one that's buying the the the the experience, they see the BPO is the brand, alright, so they don't see they don't know necessarily, they're talking to someone other than the brand. And you're then also, when you think of the brand, the brand is your customer. So you have these customers on both sides. And you've given me those examples already of how you're helping those brands get better at customer experience by helping them go through those elements of a total voice, the customer approach, how they can listen how they can act. I'm curious, and we may need to close out with this question. You know, you've worked with a lot of clients. And they've been across all types of businesses, as we've heard different points in their business growth journey startups to big companies. At some point, they had to make this choice, this choice to turn to the outside for help. What have you seen? What are some of those stories, you've seen of companies that recognize they have that need, so critical that they turn to the outside for help?

Tshili Khupe: 26:34

Great question. And one immediately springs springs to mind. We worked with a company that was selling Christmas trees, right. And what they were doing is though, all through the year, they start to get orders, and they work with companies, other businesses as well as the public. So orders start coming through. from way back, when like July time, people started ordering their huge Christmas tree for their office, and that sort of thing. And then what they were trying to do, and then they'll try to be a little bit, well, I guess, savvy with it to say, well, actually, we won't increase our customer support yet until right until maybe November, December time. And then obviously, what happens is when people start ordering the Christmas trees, all of a sudden, you get this incredible spike like goes out and all of a sudden it's panic. Now, we always say people contact us, if you know you're going to have a seasonality or spike, contact us at least 30 days before, so we can get the right people in place for you. So that's a great example, businesses that have seasonality, or where someone's actually done a campaign, or some sort. So, you know, maybe you know, the launch the new product, that offering 50% off, it's a great product. And then all of a sudden, everyone thinks that's amazing, I gotta get me one of those. And then all of a sudden, their phones are ringing their emails going off, and they're like, Oh, God really help. So that's where we kind of step in. So it tends to be that people haven't basically looked at the future and thought up, if we do this, we're gonna see an influx and people contacting us. So, in that respect, I think the one tip I have is, think about your marketing, think about everything that you're doing, think about anything that could cause a spike in people contacting you to be traveled. So if you want to get into travel specifics, if you know that, yeah, there's gonna be visa rule changes, like, you know, in the UK, we have Brexit effect, you know, traveling to Europe and that sort of thing, as a travel company. You know, when you're thinking about that, what are your customers gonna be thinking, you're gonna get a lot of inquiries from people who've already booked their holiday. So prepare for that.

Rick Denton: 28:52

That makes that makes a ton of sense to me. And I can see it would require a company to have that Forward Look, and I can see why that would be the case, chili, if there's a company out there or person listening that wants to know more about your approach to customer experience, because even outside of the BPO world, this idea of focusing on the front line, listen and act and everything else, your approach, how would they get in touch with you to learn more? And then also, if there's that company that sees that seasonality that sees that visa rule change or something along those lines as they're looking forward? How would they get to know more about LTV plus.

Tshili Khupe: 29:27

So you can go to a website which is LTV plus.com, you can contact me personally on LinkedIn on there. My name is spelt a bit like a Wi Fi password. So I must spell it out for you. So it is surely T S H I L i and as coupe K h up E or just email chili at LTV plus.com. And you can even put chili pepper and we'll get through today.

Rick Denton: 29:53

Oh even even even more so well. I'm gonna get all of that in the show notes. So for those of you that didn't have your notepad ready as you're on your run listening to this episode And in full energize mode, scroll down, you can see all that information there in the show notes. Chili, thank you so much for visiting me with me today, I loved. First of all, I loved getting to hear about a product space that I don't normally get to talk about on the show and learning the business lessons from that as a result. I did love also hearing about some of those foods that were particularly challenging to you growing up. But overall, just this ability to understand how a BPO can really be that guide towards a brand to help them be able to listen and act and then do better by their customer in the way of customer experience. Chili. Thank you so much for talking with me today. Chilly. Thank you for being on CX password.

Tshili Khupe: 30:41

Thank you, Rick. It's been a pleasure.

Rick Denton: 30:48

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.