Neha Dutta: 0:00

So I think why we still struggle is at the pace the pace at which the organizations are thinking about CX and the pace at which the customers are demanding about CX. The only place you see it's meeting are organizations who are step to step with the customers expectation.

Rick Denton: 0:22

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. tangible business results, not fluffernutter real sustainable results. That's the objective right? Even those of us in the customer experience world. Ultimately we should be doing this to achieve a business result or for not, might be a pretty short live role for us. Today, we're joined by Neha Dutta, the Vice President of client success at EXL, She has over 15 years of experience in the customer experience industry in her current role, and he is responsible for leading a team of customer success professionals who helped their clients achieve their business goals through customer experience transformation. Note that last sentence, achieve business goals. I like to focus on that quite a bit and six passport in my own consulting business business goals. Yes, it's great to improve customer experience and we should. But aside from nonprofits, businesses are there to make and grow revenue, income profit. How do businesses get from customer experience aspirations to tangible business results? We're going to learn more from Neha about that today. And while he joins us today from Jersey City, New Jersey, and he has spent a great portion of her life outside of the US as a passport holder with empty pages that need new stamps. I'm eager to hear stories from her time outside of the US. Neha, welcome to CX Passport.

Neha Dutta: 2:14

Thank you, Rick, I'm very happy to be on this. Thank you so much.

Rick Denton: 2:18

Let's, let's have a good ride here. I'm really glad that you're here and spending some time with me today it let's talk about that path of yours in the customers experience. You've got one that's really steeped in process. And in that way, you and I are very similar with a deep process background. How did you navigate through that evolution? What was that evolution like from process into customer experience?

Neha Dutta: 2:40

So that's, that's very interesting. And it actually it was not, it was not a transition. It was like an evolution. Because I think when you're looking at process, then you look at the user lens, and you look at the customer lens, right? When you do that you do the exact same thing when you're working on CX, you don't only transform the end customer journey, but you also keep in mind, the user journey. We don't want to make that process so cumbersome, that my end customer feels very happy. But my user who's taking the call feels absolutely, you know, I think I think it's impossible to have that. So I think it's I was very fortunate to come through the process transformation landscape, where I did my Lean Six Sigma and black belt and master black belt we were supposed to, we were trained to look at the remake methodology and look at the whole process in length, and then identify non value words and then work on them and then look for channels and levers, which we could deploy to work on them. And in the same way I use that landscape and I am solving a CX problem. Because when we are looking at journeys, we don't look at those journeys. journeys are processes, right journeys are processes structured or unstructured. So we look at them in totality to understand what works, what does not work. The only iota of difference is that when we're looking at CX journeys, we keep only the user experience or the customer experience in play. Right. But we look at the whole process to understand what's working, what's not working. And then we look at some other finer nuances like sentiments and quality and compliance and what other things can be, you know, absolutely afford to bring into this totality. So I think it does not it's not a transition, but I think it's an evolution. And it definitely helped me so people who come to me and say that I'm new in this role, and I want to understand the CX journey, I absolutely encourage them to look at it from a process landscape.

Rick Denton: 4:40

And you and I are very similar in that regard. In that I see it almost as an evolution as well. In fact, there's a lot of times that I look back on my process experience when I was doing the we branded as Op X but it was Lean Six Sigma type work, right? And I look back and it was for the benefit of the customer. We just didn't have that as our primary focus. If your listeners has heard this example before, but if we're improving appraisal cycle times for a home equity or mortgage product, that does make things cheaper, faster, better for the company, we put more volume through a company. But it's the customer that benefits that they get to closing that much faster. And so just flipping that lens enables that evolution into customer experience. And truly, you can't deliver a great customer experience if you don't have a solid process under that. So you might be able to delight one customer with a lot of Herculean effort. But how are you going to delight or even forget delight, just sustain 100 customers if you don't have an underlying process? So Nia, you and I, like we're talking about, hey, back in my past, I was processed, even though we still bring it into today, but companies have been at this, this being process improvement for years, decades, right? This is not a new thing. And so with all of that focus from the past, and then we'll all have the current focus around customer experience. Why do you think customer experience customer service? Why is it so bad right now?

Neha Dutta: 6:05

I would not say it's bad. I would say it still needs a lot of improvement. Right? Like, if leaders like you and I, and a lot of you know, Voice of CX if we've been working on this for 25 years, why does it still need improvement? Right? There are a lot of things that I will attribute to it. One is, again, how the pace at which things work. Right? Because people are with the advent of AI with the advent of hyper personalization, I think people have become far more demanding of the kind of service that they need, right. So the standards are really, really getting higher with that. So what you do is you have a mold set, and you continue to operate like, you know, version 2.3. But the customers are using who are who are very, very used to using the Amazon and the Tesla kind of experience. When they buy a Tesla and they buy something from Amazon, on their next call, they expect the exact same experience to be replicated. Right. So not all organizations will work like that. So all 2.1 version organizations need to transcend and look at what is their user personas, what do their users want right now, I don't think all organizations are able to do that, of course, they have an intent to do that, but they are not. That's the reason I think we are always one step behind what our customers are wanting to see. And we are in our old mix of figuring out our processes, our golden process getting our technology put together, but the customers have gone to another level. Right? They are not happy with the even if you give them conversational IVR. And only three choices, they are not happy, then they would want to speak to an agent. If you've not made their journey very, very holistic, then they would not want to go with it. So I think why we still struggle is at the pace, the pace at which the organization's are thinking about CX and the pace at which the customers are demanding about CX, the only place you see it's meeting are organizations who are stepped to step with the customer's expectation. So I am not shy of giving an example of American Express contact center. I've always been an Amex customer, right and 20 years, I have not seeing that dip at all. Every time I call an Amex contact center, I know that my problem will get solved, no matter where my gets, you know, my call gets picked up. Because I am from CX, I always make an effort to understand, has my car landed in Manila or has my car landed in India. But they know that they know their customer, they know what you're calling from, they will ensure your problem gets solved. And it's consistency. And now with the advent of AI and everything, I even see them, you know, they're adopters of that as well. So this is the right, you know, the kind of experience that people expect. And in industries, it varies in hospitality and other travel tourism industry, people would expect it even more. So I think we've been spoiled. Our users and customers are spoiled with, you know, a five level benchmark that they see and they expect to see it everywhere. And the only difference? I think it was a necessity, Rick if I would say or it was essential. Now it's a differentiator. Let me tell you, and I've read a blog about this a couple of weeks back, if I were to, as a consumer, I would change my brand if I'm not treated well even if I have to pay $10 extra. So money is different, definitely not a differentiator. Customer service is a differentiator. So people who are thinking about this journey they definitely need to make that switch.

Your CX Passport Captain: 9:38

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Rick Denton: 10:05

Absolutely. And of course, around the extremes, there's a reality, right, everyone has a price point that they would take a lesser experience. And then that experience is designed for a lower price consumer. Right. So that exists. But you're right. It was just in a conversation today around a rest stop chain in Texas called buches. And it's expanded beyond Texas. And at its fundamental, it's just a place to get gas and to get snacks and to go to the restroom. And yet it has this phenomenal following because the experience and we can't go into the depth of the buches experience. But it is so true. And companies that are I think some of it is choice, right? You talked about keeping up with the pace. And I think that pace is an important distinction that we don't talk about a lot that yeah, it's a really hard and fast pace for companies to keep up with. And it's a choice to keep up with that pace. And it requires investment. And it requires understanding your customer. And it requires investment in processes and understanding the customer and all that just like we talked about the discipline process earlier. Yeah, I want to ask you about something else in your background. And I know you're a member of Chief. And for those that don't know, Chief, this is a private network that is designed for the most powerful women in executive leadership. And it's intended to strengthen the leadership, magnify the influence, pave the way for others, for them to bring others with them, really. And so I'm curious, through your network in chief, and really in your own individual weigh, what are some stories on how you're helping to elevate the representation of women in customer experience leadership,

Neha Dutta: 11:38

that's an interesting touch to it. Because generally, when women when women or anybody becomes a part of these memberships, right, it's more about self learning. And it's more about networking, right. But I am a big big propeller of how women need to step up their game into from, you know, if women are from stem, or if women are from CX, right. So the way I look at it is there are I use this rich community to be able to pick up mentees that I can work along with, right, because a lot of them are C suite women and a lot of them are budding individuals who are going and starting their career in all of this right. And the great part about chief is that when we meet in clubhouses or events and everything, it's really sometimes get open to the extended network. And we are able to make, you know, sessions or panels and stuff like that where people can get inspired and people can become a part of our membership. I think that's how it's like a one to many. If I were to host something, I would host it to a larger audience. But I want larger audience of mine to get impacted by it. So with the help of Chief, I was able to get almost 10 mentees into my network. And I'm helping them improve their journeys on process mapping, project management, CX driving business outcomes and generative AI. So this is the way I look at it. And when we are sitting in panels, and that panel recordings gets out on LinkedIn, then people are able to look at our stories, like you said, I came from India, so I just completed my one year in the US. So people are able to, you know, listen to our stories and understand and inspire that, you know, it's it's never too late to open a new chapter in your life. So I think the events and plus through these events, how we are able to impact so many mentees. I think that's how I'm using this for myself, and people like you who offer me to come on a podcast, and then that gets, you know, out in the open and people are able to reach out and then they DM and they say we want to learn about your journey. So this helps me at all, as well.

Rick Denton: 13:45

That's awesome. I'm glad that I'm glad that this is a benefit to you. But what I love what you said there about chief right at the very beginning, you said it was a chance now is a chance for you to learn but also a chance for you to have a forum by which you could start to expand your ability to pour into the next generation to help the next generation find their pas in the context of chi specifically for women advancing into executive leadership for customer experience. But that idea of how can you pour out into others? And it certainly is something that has intrigued me is when I've become aware of that organization. And in your story when you and I have been talking another part of your story you alluded to as well. And that was you've been in the US now for a year which Hey, happy anniversary, right? I'm not sure the exact date but happy anniversary on your time here in the US specifically in Jersey. But you had told me you came from and spent a good portion of your life in Gurgaon, India. And I've actually had the chance to visit there a decade or so ago. Maybe it was two decades ago. Now at this point each I don't want to admit that. And even then I was impressed by the tech hub it was and what was being created from a business and technology perspective. However, beyond that business sense. What was it like to live and work there? What would you tell a traveler who wanted experience to life in Gurgaon and the surrounding area.

Neha Dutta: 15:03

So I would say, I've all my life I've lived in India, right? So I came and this was the first time I visited us. So this is people don't believe it, because I've been in the industry for about 22 years, but it's true. And you know, sometimes it drinks so we would have a lot of, you know, quarterly business reviews and client meetings, but for me somehow with it kind of, you know, got drinks, and I never got to visit us. So I came to us on a one way ticket is how I like to explain my journey. Living in India, I think it teaches you it teaches you a lot of self reliance, it teaches you a lot of you always amid something which is budding, something happens in the US and we get the aftermath of that in happening in India is like, okay, jobs are going to increase jobs are going to decrease, we're gonna start, you know, working on this aspect, because this is getting momentum. So I think we always get the farther end of what's happening in the business, and we are always adapting. So I think what we got to learn was how quickly we can adapt to change, and how quickly we can be flexible and fluid. So working in India, I can speak for most of the executives, we are very, very trained to work on a multifaceted skill of, you know, things that we will be doing, and not necessarily we would have had formal education on that. But because of our experience, and the varied experience that we get, we would be very, very attuned to working on that. So that's on the working side of you know, how adaptable and flexible we get. It's a fun place to be in culturally right. food and shopping. And you know, visiting a lot of places is what comes to my mind is when I used to host people from Europe and US to India, so that was there. So culturally, it was very, very different. And third, India spoils you for choice, right? Because I think you have help for a help for a help, right? So you don't necessarily need to move in finger and you can get everything done. And I think the last thing I would say is, and this is not comparatively but India has really been a good adapt, you know, adopter of technology, the way we have embraced technology, right? I think it's, it's amazing. When you talk about, you know, payments, even if I were to have a tea from a local vendor, right, whose monthly earning is like maybe in dollars, maybe like $50, right? Even he would take automated payments. Even he would not take cash. Right? You can think about getting stuff delivered to your house within like eight minutes. Right? So I think the way we've embraced technology and the way that you know, this is the whole thing has got, you know, monitor nice, it's absolutely great.

Rick Denton: 17:56

Oh, yeah, that's awesome. You may have seen my eyes light up when you said the eight minute delivery, right? I'm sitting here going. And actually today, I was expecting a delivery of coffee to have arrived yesterday that didn't arrive. It made my morning a little bit sketchy, but I solved for it. So yeah, I would have liked that eight minute delivery option and just the brilliance of what you're describing the food, the culture, the embracing of technology. That's awesome. Now, you know where I live, I live in Texas, you're in Jersey. And we know that India, anywhere in India is a long trip from where you and I are today. And it can be nice when you're taking a journey like that to stop down in the lounge, specifically the first class lounges then there's some nice ones out there as well. So hopefully this one will be a nice one and a nice experience for you today. We're going to move quickly here and hopefully have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Neha Dutta: 18:48

A dream travel location will be Switzerland,

Rick Denton: 18:50

Switzerland. Okay. Tell me a little bit about that. Because beautiful.

Neha Dutta: 18:55

Yes, it's it's, it's beautiful. And you know, coming back to going back to the India point. We shoot a lot of movies in Switzerland when I was growing up, you know, and coincidentally a lot of romantic movies were shooted there. One of our very, very famous director has his portrait in Switzerland. So we always dreamt of that. And we saw that you know, this is like the romance capital of India. So it was it was very, very nostalgic for me to go and visit and see like you know, Shahrukh Khan was like the you know, greatest celebrity we've ever had. And you know him and a lot of our directors so it had it had like you know, presence of India there that you know, the mark that we had made by making our movies and it was very proud for me that we had made that country so so popular amongst every other thing that it's pop up popular about so it was very nice visiting there. And we had a good time and it was the first trip of my my daughter was only two and a half years old and so it was our first trip there. So it is special in a lot of

Rick Denton: 19:56

what a great memory that is. And one of the I didn't know that part of the cultural linkage there. So that's kind of neat. I love learning on this show that, too I do it right, I get to learn and selfishly, I learn it. And then I just share with the listeners going towards the future. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet. So I

Neha Dutta: 20:11

would love to go to Greece, and other parts of Europe. But that's definitely on my agenda. And it is very, very, you know, quirky that when I was in India, I used to think about a lot of states in the US, I want to finish all my 48 or whatever, but in my GK, but I would want to finish all of the states first, and then I would want to take a trip to Greece.

Rick Denton: 20:34

Well, I liked that knock out your 50 states, then head on over to Greece. And certainly when you're in Texas, and North Texas, say hi to me, after making your journey, what is a favorite thing of yours to eat? Oh,

Neha Dutta: 20:47

my God, you're asking this to a foodie. And you can imagine how difficult can that be? It will be I'll have to think about my last 72 hours meal. I love Mexican food. It's a lot like Indian food. And it's filled with spices. And I also like it because I'm able to replicate that and I'm able to make that at home. So it's not something that I only can enjoy in you know, like French cuisines, which I can only enjoy in our in our restaurants. So I love Mexican.

Rick Denton: 21:12

What is the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you hate it as a kid? Fruits, fruits in general, just all of it? Yes,

Neha Dutta: 21:18

yes, fruits in general. I didn't grow up having a lot of fruits. And that was very tough. So I made it a personal decision and a motto of mine, to be able to force this habit to my to my kid. So I make her eat a lot of fruits. I'm so happy she does that.

Rick Denton: 21:36

It's amazing what we are the baggage we take from our childhood and we forced upon our children. Absolutely. Going back to travel what is one travel item not including your phone on including your passport, of course, that you will not leave home without,

Neha Dutta: 21:48

I usually carry like a box like like a small pack of you know, some of the gods that I believed in, that I believe in. And I take a small, you know, like a package of that. And I carry on and I carry them around with me taking care of me everywhere I go. And I put them into my hotel room with a nice picture of my daughter and I treat it as my home even if I'm there for four hours. It just gives me that kind of comfort

Rick Denton: 22:22

Neha, the comforts the spirits of home. Absolutely, I can see why that would be the item that you would or items that you would want to be. I also like how you mentioned, the bringing the faith based items and a picture of your daughter as well. Right? The the family and the divine top of mind as well. And the the topic du jour now is AI. All right. I mean, you simply cannot turn on any media, even like casual media. I like my little sports talk radio station that I listened to here in the Dallas area, that ticket talks about AI all the time. And we know that we know that it's going to either solve all of our customer experience challenges, or it's going to destroy the world. Right? So of course I imagine the answer is somewhere in between that. So even before all of us were talking about AI, it seemed that all we heard about was digital solutions. That was the focus the last few years, especially pandemic initiated, but certainly before and even continuing on digital solutions for customer challenges. So thinking of digital thinking of AI, how do we keep the humanity in our customer solutions?

Neha Dutta: 23:30

I would say one sentence, and then I will elaborate on it. It's always going to be human in the loop. Right? We not going to get as a human, we will always feel the need to talk to a human for at some point in time for some things in mind for some things that we need. So I don't think it's going to be a human absent environment, even the next 10 years. However, we need digital and we need AI. Right? And it's not that it wasn't before. Even before we know about it, there were choices or there were decisions being taken by systems even that was automation right now it's just becoming front ending where my front end agents are capable where I can Vicky and answer where I can figure out what to say next where they're not just telling me what's the next best thing to say. So I think these are all enablers and these are all enablers that we have to embrace we cannot run from it. Like I said we have to we have to pace ourselves right? However, we have to work with caution. Because if you put pardon my language, a crappy process into a technology, you are going to get crappy technology you are going to get crappy output, right? So you need to have your journeys and your user personas and everything in a good place and then embrace digital solutions and automation and AI so that your customers are able to get the full outcome of it. And on this rake of Earth today in the morning only I was reading a post from Ikea from their CX, that they have, they have introduced AI into their front end communications. And of course, this would have helped them release a lot of their agents. And now those agents are getting trained for interior designing. Oh, so now people don't need to get worried about what am I going to do about these 5000 people a, I'm very happy that they were able to get that kind of respite which, you know, further instill belief that AI works. And secondly, that's exactly you know, people like us always say that it's not going to make jobs redundant, it's going to make jobs enhanced, people are going to get better and bigger things to work on. I think it's a great example, we need to get the mundane, standardized, structured stuff done by AI so that the humans can step can spend more time in meaningful conversations, complex scenarios, and can get better value of what their knowledge should be used for.

Rick Denton: 26:00

Boy truth, truth Truth, like I, there's something else I want to ask you. But I almost want to end the show right here so that we'd have it there. But no, there's something in that IKEA story that really hit me. One is, it took a company that made a choice to do something. And it's not the the obvious is of key employees, it actually was a company that made a choice that they were going to do AI for the benefit of the customer. What do I mean by that? The customer got the simplified, easy questions knocked out by AI great. But by realizing that there's a gap that the customer would want, i By the way, would be one of them. I would love to have somebody helped me do some IKEA interior decorator of this office here, right? And so recognizing that if I can unleash my labor, and unlock them from the mundane into the design, I'm doing it on the behalf of the customer. Why do I do this rambly thing? Too many companies are going into the AI conversation around how can I cut costs? Your story is the one that I think how companies that are going to win in the future should approach it. And that is, what does my customer want out of AI? I will get off my soapbox now. Brilliant, brilliant story. I'm glad you brought that into NEA. I did mention I'd want to end there. But there's something that I wanted to ask you about. And that is we started this show talking about process and execution getting results, right? All of this conversation, if you're a business for profit doesn't matter, unless you're actually getting results. companies buy these tools, they buy CRM systems, or hey, they might buy the next fanciest AI tool that they think is going to solve everything. And yet they're not seeing the ROI behind it. How are you helping companies go beyond just the technology solution into actually getting value getting to the specifics of execution.

Neha Dutta: 27:42

So the way that we the way that we work and the way everybody should work in order to get the most out of their value is if we want cx to be an agenda and not a thought leader topic, right? Then we need to have some quantitative tangible metrics assigned to it. These metrics could be operational metrics, like turnaround time, cost to serve, these could be digital matrix like digital adoption, containment, these could be engagement metrics, right? How many abandoned journeys, how fast am I responding? And these could be business outcome metrics, like, you know, engagement, incremental revenue that I'm able to generate, the way that you can become a differentiator in this is, wherever you start a CX initiative, you should always have an end in mind of what you want to achieve. And that should not be I want my customers to feel happy, because believe me, you can gauge that. But you need to have a tangible business metric. And then you need to work backwards, what it will, what will it help you do it will help you get investments, it will help you put the right kind of team and it will help you socialize and roadmap so that it does not become a five mile non agile plan, it will become a plan with Sprint's because you know that at the end of eight week or a 12 week engagement, you are supposed to deliver that. Yeah, the next thing I'll throw in there is that there is no way that anybody on AI on CX on the digital can do anything big bang, it is incremental. So always start with a use case where you can where you can try and do something in quick bites, right? Like a proof of value. And if you see great journey, then you can always land and expand. So I think those are the two things which will help you achieve your tangible matrix and get you more bucks for your money because your board or your leadership will definitely see and seeing is believing and that's how they'll lend you up with those extra initiative.

Rick Denton: 29:45

Oh, I'm glad I didn't end on the IKEA story because customer experience professionals and I pointed myself in this as well. What Nia just said is the the the core nugget the epicenter of getting towards business results. I love every bit of that in the end If folks wanted to get to know you a little bit better, know a little bit more about who you are and where you work and your approach to customer experience, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Neha Dutta: 30:09

I would say I spend 40% of my time on LinkedIn. I love networking and meeting people. That's how I met Rick. So please message me on LinkedIn, I can leave my email address as well on there so that you can reach out to me, I'm always happy to share my story, learn about your story. And if there is anything that we can help you, I'll be happy to work you with that.

Rick Denton: 30:33

Awesome. Well, that's fantastic. Thank you for today's conversation. I certainly did learn a ton as I've expressed throughout the episode. Absolutely loved hearing the Gurgaon elements of it loved getting your approach to AI and the brilliance of that and the IKEA story. And certainly as we close there, with how do you get to the tangible business results all just incredibly valuable, meaty stuff today, Nia, thank you so much, Neha. It's been a delight. Thank you for being on CX path. Same here.

Neha Dutta: 31:01

Same here. This was a good use of my 45 minutes. And I wish you all the best Rick with all the great work that you're doing. I hope all your stories and podcasts including mine become viral and more and more people reach out to your network.

Rick Denton: 31:22

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.