Jennifer Meunier: 0:00

thing for me that is everything that we do and create a request, it must be done by the eyes of the students. So from the journey that we mapped to everything that we deliver, it is always from the customer's point of view.

Rick Denton: 0:19

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. I am absolutely delighted to make a return to Brazil to talk with today's guest. Not only do I love the country for its beauty, its food, its culture. I am truly fascinated by the focus on customer experience there. That's why it's a treat for me today. And I know it's going to be a treat for CX passport travelers today when we get to talk with Jennifer moon a head of customer experience and product for G4 Educação. So it's not a company I knew of until earlier this year when they won best customer experience team at the 2023 Arquette global customer centricity World Series. And they were amongst some really stiff competition and still came out with a victory. This is an amazing story of this company. It's a great story about G4 and I know that I'm eager for Jennifer to share that story. Jennifer came to G4 when it was a startup, just just a startup brought in to build the customer experience team and establish a customer focused culture within that company. Clearly the results as evidenced by the victory say she has been successful there. Indeed. Prior to G4 in Brazil, Jennifer spent her early career in the core group, a Global Hospitality Group based in France. This came after graduating and Hospitality Management in France as well. You know that hospitality experience influences her approach to customer experience today. When Jennifer and I were talking about her being on CX Passport, where she had just returned from a two week trip to another one of my favorite countries in the world, Thailand. I know some of those stories are going to make their way in today's episode as well. Jennifer, welcome to CX Passport.

Jennifer Meunier: 2:29

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me today. I am thrilled to be here.

Rick Denton: 2:34

And I'm thrilled to have you there listeners who well I guess I should say viewers who are seeing this on YouTube or on any of the other video sites. That view that you see behind Jennifer is the glorious view of Sao Paulo. So we're talking to Jennifer today on a glorious Sao Paulo afternoon evening. And I am excited to get into that and talk to you in Brazil. Now, I know that six passport listeners are a global bunch indeed they are travelers around the world as well. I do suspect that aside from my Brazilian listeners, many may not know about G4 Educação would you share a little bit about what G4 does.

Jennifer Meunier: 3:12

Oh, of course, that would be my pleasure actually to share a little bit about the company and also me and my team. And G4 Educação is actually a business school for entrepreneurs and owners. And our purpose is to support managers in their journeys, so that they develop companies and transform the economic and social reality of Brazil. And we do that actually through education with our in person courses. And our students learned concepts, practices and tools, from the fastest growing companies in the world that we translated into the reality of their business. So we actually prize for applicable contents and mentors, not professors, very different from traditional academic institutions. And what motivates us is to work ethic what is our behavior, you know, our big, hairy, audacious goal, which is to generate a million jobs for our student by 2030. And we have already passed the mark of 350,000 this year. So it is a huge achievement for us. And it also, I think validates everything that we have been doing so far for our students. So we are also known as an edtech. You know, and it is the combination of education and technology, which the goal is to improve actually student outcomes and increase individualized education. And actually, the simpler way, we offer solutions for enterpreneurs that wouldn't have the time today to do an MBA over a year or two, and stay away for so long of their operations. So I think that's it an overview of the company.

Rick Denton: 4:52

I liked the overview of even though I knew your company, coming to awareness through the awards, there were some things that you said in there that really caught my ears. I want to talk about it later. I'm gonna ask you something before this. The fact that you talked about, it wasn't how many students did we have come in the door, that wasn't the goal. It was the jobs that the students obtained, you talked about, it's the end result. And that's something that is a very strong or needs to be a very strong customer experience principle. It's great if we have a good customer experience, but what's the end result. And I loved hearing that I want to learn a little bit more about how y'all are kind of approaching even your own customer experience. Before we get there, though, I want to talk about I mentioned that you joined G4, when it was a startup, and it's a much different environment than what you described with millions of, of opportunities created as a result of the work that y'all are doing. I'm curious, though, what stories do you have from that early startup time? What was it like building a team and establishing that customer that customer centric, that customer oriented culture all the way back from the beginning?

Jennifer Meunier: 5:59

Yeah, that's interesting, because it's such a different scenario. And for me, it looks like it has been years, but I'm actually required for two years and a half. And one,

Rick Denton: 6:10

two years. Yeah, it's only two, I didn't even know that, oh, my gosh,

Jennifer Meunier: 6:13

everything is so fast. And when I entered Jakarta do custom, you know, we had approximately 70 people. And it was such a smaller environment, a smaller office also, and everybody was responsible for doing everything. But also everybody knew everybody. So when we had a project to be done, it was like, Okay, get together a little squared. And in one, two weeks, everything was done. But I think startups are characterized by rapid growth, you know, and a focus on innovation and speed. And in this type of environment, employees, and I need to be able to work quickly and effectively to help the company succeed. And for me, agility is one of the key aspects of working in a fast paced startup. And I was first very, very surprised of how everything was last minute demand, you know, and we used to work on short term movies most of the time. So yeah, a little bit time to adapt. But I mean, that was the first impression the first period that we have. And

Rick Denton: 7:20

as you said, yeah, no, keep going, no, keep going.

Jennifer Meunier: 7:23

I was going to the second phase, actually, because as I said, I'm only here two years and a half. And now we have 380 employees. So we have grown exponentially, and also has a revenues. And so we enter in a second phase, you know, and we we took the decision last year to divide our company into business units. Are you familiar with the with the model, it is used in Amazon by Jeff Bezos, and we use it to separate business units in our company.

Rick Denton: 7:57

And we worry about how y'all have separated because certainly companies are broken into business units. But how have y'all done that? I know, with the customer in mind, the the end student, if you will,

Jennifer Meunier: 8:08

yes, yes, actually, the business units can operate independently, and making decisions quickly and adapting to market changes more effectively. So here comes the customer part, you know, so we divided ours into in person merchants, this is the one that I'm responsible for, we have the online one. So all of our courses online, we have a b2b platform. And the last one is our community programs. So when you have clear separations between these units, each one is responsible for its own performance and outcomes. And this accountability, I think, can drive better decision making. And besides the business units separate we also have chapters. So as a company, you have to maintain a certain level of pattern, you know, and identity as a brand. So we have product chapter, marketing chapter design chapter and they are the ones that actually maintain the sync button between all of the business units.

Your CX Passport Captain: 9:06

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an 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: 9:33

That's, I mean, it's certainly a very brilliant setup, right? I really love the idea. And yes, inspired by Amazon many of many companies have adopted that approach of it's this independent ecosystem, this independent group that is going to have their own objectives. I'm curious though, Jennifer, when I think about that, and I think about from a customer lens. The customer only knows the brand. JG4 Educação listeners, I know Yeah, I'm trying my best to Portuguese just suffer with me, but I'm doing my best that that's the customer thinks that brand. And so if you're broken into those groups, how do you help make sure that the groups are both independent and learning from each other and delivering towards an experience for the customer that allows the customer to see just one brand?

Jennifer Meunier: 10:25

Nice, actually, this is one of the challenges that we may face when you divide into business units. Also with effective communication? Well, I think the challenges are more from inside out, you know, we suffered a little bit more than our clients, because everything that we that we talk about to our clients is a boundary courtroom. And for each and every one of these business units, we actually have a real defined ICP, you know, ideal customer profile. So we have a profile of of customer that is different from one another. But usually, the immersion the in person business units, it's actually the one that gets the clients to the company, and then we send them to the other ones, because they complements our products.

Rick Denton: 11:17

Okay, so it kind of builds on each other. And I imagine there's there you spoke of communication, there has to be that internal, okay, this and not necessarily literally individual customers, but an understanding of the customer as it flows through. Yeah, there's another so you have that experience at a core the hospitality brand that IT folks in the US may not know it as well, but it is a well known global hospitality brand. And I imagine that there's a wealth of hospitality experiences that you gained there, and you learn there heck as your hospitality that you studied in university as well. I'm curious, what have you taken from that hospitality industry experience? And then brought it into your current role?

Jennifer Meunier: 12:01

Well, I love that question. Because I love both of the worlds, you know, I'm passionate about hospitality industry. And but being in a startup has been very refreshing for me, especially after pandemic, because hospital just suffered a lot. And for me, hospitality industry is a real school for a career. And the hospitality segment may seem like a traditional industry. But for me, there is actually a lot in common with the startup model. And I think it not only helped me with the CX concepts, but it also helped me with the startup model and environment. I mean, a hotel is 24/7, so it never stops. And when you're a manager, like I was, you're almost always on duty, you know, so the hospitality industry is also high pressure environments. And you're kind of forced to become a problem solver, and dynamic manager and making quick decisions all the time. And that's really helped me and about the CX insights. I mean, there's so much that I've put into practices into G4. And that can be applied actually, to various customer experience will across different domains, I think, such as paying attention to details, be a problem solver, active listeners, to our customers. And I mean, we can break down each of them, you know, because there is like personalization and individualization. You know, in hospitality creating personalized experience for each guest is actually very helpful. Anticipating needs, which is something that I love to do with my, with my team in hospitality staff often anticipate these needs before they even expressed it, I think, and they demonstrate to have such a high level of attentiveness. And there's also hard warm and welcome there are you know, yeah, how they create such a positive first and last impression. I mean, they should do at least it's an every time you have an interaction during the hotel, but the one thing that for me, is it is the the most important thing that I brought to the quad is attention to detail, I mean, hospitality industry is known for his attention to small details that enhance the overall experience. And similarly, I mean, focusing on the finer points of customer interactions, from communication to service delivery, I think you can make a significant difference in customer satisfaction.

Rick Denton: 14:36

That's, that is such a key part of hospitality and yeah, I'm as I'm listening to you, I know that you know that anybody who's traveled know that that little touch that that flower or that scent that is in the hallway and the Intercontinental or whatever that is, those little touches matter. You know, a lot of times we talk about hospitality we talk about the heart and the warmth. We talked about the humanity of it, the listening the into spading needs that little detail touch that you're describing. That's, that's something we don't talk about enough, even though we know it, we experience it. And it's an absolute part. And it's interesting to hear that you brought that into the G4 universe and how that applies, what would that look like? So I'm a, I'm a student, what would a little touch look like for me as a student?

Jennifer Meunier: 15:25

Well, we have, we pay attention to all the details from the beginning that we start speaking to the our student, because for you to purchase our in person course, you have to pass through an interview. So from that moment, I already capture all of your informations. And so we understand, wow, his company is that big, he is at that moment of maturity of the company. So we took a lot of insights. And once you purchase it, like we, we have a huge responsibility with you. So we try to make everything in the journey as easier as possible for you, for the students to focus 100% on the contents, and how to grow his company. You know,

Rick Denton: 16:10

I love it. I love it. Jennifer, you just said you told me when we talked earlier, I know some time has spanned since we talked the first time Yes, you had just gotten back from Thailand. And you want to talk about a country, a culture a people that are about the fine details. My gosh, I experienced that when I was in Thailand. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Now, I know I'm a little biased because I have a sister in law whose tie I think even without the family relations, it would be one of my favorite places in the world. I love it. So I want to know, tell me about your trip. Tell me about the trip? And are there any stories that you can share that you know, that you've actually brought back as a source of CX inspiration for your work there G4.

Jennifer Meunier: 16:52

Oh, yeah, for sure. I was such an amazing trip, I would stay there a lot more. And it was it was everything I was hoping for and more actually, because it is such a rich culture. And there is a lot of history. And I love the fact that there is so much contrast, you know, between chaotic city like Bangkok. And on the other hand, like the calm in the temples, the Buddhism and meditation, it is so contrasting, and it's beautiful. And there are two things that actually got my attention the most as a source of inspiration, you know, that I would like to share. When I travel, I like to have the full experience on the country. So from the simplest thing to the luxuries, one I guess. Yeah. And I am a very curious person. So I love to be immersed in the culture of the country to speak to locals, I mean, everything. And I'm the kind of girl that I will be eating food from the street, and then going to a Michelin star well after you know, yes. And then the first thing that got my attention is the high level of customer service they have there. I mean, from the simpler place to the most luxurious one, we spent the first days into what they called postale. It's like a hotel in Bangkok. And I had left the last night in Bangkok to stay at the so Bangkok, which is a one of the most luxurious hotel there. And I was actually surprised because at both places, they just received this in the same level, with a ritual with the same welcome. They were so concerned about us about our well being if you were happy about our trip, if you were enjoying it, but it was actually pretty much the same in both places, very clean, very attention. I mean, that surprises me because they are very welcoming people and the high quality of service from a luggage to a hotel to a luxury one was actually pretty much the same. And in all of our interactions actually during the trip. So that was beautiful. The second one is the part of the culture, you know that they have a lot of respect. They're always bending over. I mean, they truly respect your personal space. And, you know, I come from I'm here in Brazil, so we are Latinos. So we are, we like to be close to each other to embracing

Rick Denton: 19:20

it's an affectionate culture. It's a very, you know, that collective,

Jennifer Meunier: 19:24

we are huggers we like to each other, I mean, you had the experience here. And most of the work that we do here at dickwad doing most of the time with our students is actually touchless. So our pre class and our post class is all done remotely, and we have a lot of communication with them. But they're all almost all tech touch, you know? And so it got me thinking how do we get to keep ourselves close and attentive even when being distant with them? And I think that's a little bit of what I got there. You know, they were always smiling, always concerned about waters always finding with the eyes so happy. They showered so much gratitude. So I think this is something that we can you know, use in our day by day.

Rick Denton: 20:15

Oh, Jennifer, I mean, everything you just said is what I love about Thailand. It is. That is an interesting perspective that you brought there, I hadn't really thought of the fact that, you know, coming from a very touch oriented culture to one that is not so touch oriented, and yet you still feel warmth there. That's a point that I had never thought of before and haven't heard before. So I'm glad you shared that I have now learned something even about a culture that I thought I knew pretty well and love deeply. One thing I do know. And it's true of where I'm coming from out of Texas, USA, true of you coming out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thailand's a long way away from where we live. And that travel can wear you down and it can be nice to stop off in the lounge, especially the first class lounge. So today, I'm going to invite you to stop off here with me in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly here and have a little bit of fun. Now, this may be the answer. You've already told us. But I'm curious what is a dream travel location from your past?

Jennifer Meunier: 21:13

Well, no surprises here. Actually, Thailand? Yeah. I've always dreamed to go there. And it was everything I was expecting for. And I highly recommend to everyone actually.

Rick Denton: 21:26

Well, I highly recommend it as well, just not too many of you, because I don't want everybody there. But it is a wonderful place. Absolutely. Okay, let's go the other direction. Jennifer, what is a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Jennifer Meunier: 21:37

Actually, there's so much location I want to go and to the most exotic one. And also a lot of here in Brazil, because it's a huge country. And you'll have more every time something new to know about. But the one place that I've always dreamed about is actually New York because I'm a huge fan of the TV show Friends. So I'm a friend's generation. And I always loved it. So I think I even postpone always district because I want it to be so perfect that I can't decide to go

Rick Denton: 22:12

well, that's awesome. Jennifer, I know that when we my family when we went to New we've been there several times now it's a little easier for me to get to certain and when we did go there we did do some friends elements like we of course went to the corner where their apartment was even though of course it has nothing to do with their apartment and all of those things so I definitely hope that you go there. It makes warms this hosts heart since I try to make every title of CX passport a friend's like title the one with or the one where they so you are in good company here as someone else who loves the TV show Friends and I there's so much more than New York as well. So I hope that you get there someday. One thing about Brazil one thing about Thailand one thing about Brazil, New York. Phenomenal food, right? These are all great places. So what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Jennifer Meunier: 23:01

Well, that's actually the complicated question for me because everything every but you know, thinks I'm French. I'm a cheese girl. So yeah, I can't live without cheese first.

Rick Denton: 23:15

Oh my gosh, I love cheese. You make me so happy. Friends and cheese. I've got everything that I need. You gotta go the other direction. Yeah, we'll go the other direction. Jennifer, what is something your parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid?

Jennifer Meunier: 23:29

Well, I think my mom is gonna kill me when she hears this because she's an incredible chef, and everything that she cooks is absolutely a magazine. But I mean, when you think as a kid, there are centered things that sometimes we don't eat, you know? And she used to make us liver and me and my brother were like, Oh my God. I mean, the texture. You know, it's Yep. It was something that was very hard for us.

Rick Denton: 23:55

Oh my gosh,I have it's interesting. Jennifer liver has come up a couple times as that question. I think it's a generational thing that the generation prior was a little more liver oriented than perhaps the current one after that a couple of times and I agree with you I remember some really bad liver and onion meals that I had to eat as a kid so I'm with you. Let's close out the lounge here we gotta go back and travel again. So what is one travel item not including your phone not including your passport that you will not leave home without

Jennifer Meunier: 24:24

well you know I live in Brazil so there is one item that is in dispensary here it's Havaianas you know the flip flop resilient. Ah. So I mean even in winter we use it them all the time inside the house outside so we never live without actually I also definitely that would be something that would be on my backpack

Rick Denton: 24:54

Jennifer that fits everything that I would feel and know about the Brazilian culture that it would be the flip flop I thought you might say swimsuit flip flops fits even better, because walking around the streets and Sao Paulo, this the flip flops make more sense. What a culture wouldn't What an absolute? What a great choice. That was. I want to talk about evac again to G4. And as I mentioned, the reason that I came to know your company and came to know you as an individual was that victory at the it was the best customer team at the 2023 arcade global awards. Right. So I'm curious, what was it about G4. And the business itself that inspired you focus on customer experience? Why even focus on customer experience, even to the level that you were able to win that award?

Jennifer Meunier: 25:43

Yeah, so I mean, without a doubt, because of its purpose, I mean, being in a company that truly cares about his customer success, and that is actually what really got to me. Because how can I make a real impact into our students, businesses, you know, by creating the best program with my team, and delivering it in the best way, I came to Brazil when I was 12. And it changed in my life and my parents lives. So I think also the importance of education and making it accessible to owners and entrepreneurs, by sharing the best practices and delivering applicable contents. And the thing is, our customers that don't buy a product brick, they actually buy an outcome, you know, they came to us because they want us to grow their company. So when we talk about owners and enterpreneurs, we talk about people's dream. And this is very sensitive, because they usually have all the monies into their dreams. And so we have a huge responsibility. So first, we must guarantee that we sell the right product to the right person. And getting the wrong ICP into one of our programs only to sell is not the way that we operate. So this is something that I really like. And my team's Well, I mean, they engage with the students right after they purchase our course. And we interact with them all along the journey, as I was telling you, and we truly care about their challenges and making them feel comfortable through the process. So yeah, I think we are very caring with them.

Rick Denton: 27:19

The Caring part of it, it comes through the interest in the in the the student comes through the idea that you're selling in a not a product, but an objective comes through. I'm curious, how did you go about? And not not so much the culture aspect of it? But kind of what was it about your desire to create a great customer experience? What does that look like when you're listening to a student? And then acting on what you hear with the student? How are you? If you're teaching them about customer experience? How are you living, great principles of customer experience in G4?

Jennifer Meunier: 27:56

Well, I've always believed that it starts from inside out. So I've always invested myself into trading my team, just like we would treat our students and that for me is priority. So yeah, I invested all my time into training my team empowering them. And we have created actually a great culture of empathy, of having the highest standards, which is one of our values at your party, the castle. And yeah, paying attention to every little detail. And the thing is, we listen to our students and sometimes we take something that is very personal from its life, and we transformed it into experience. But when you arrive at the in person course, you know, everything is is prepared. Everything is there. It doesn't have to be preoccupied with nothing else but content. So you know, he has his name on the on the table, his places is separated. He has all the materials. We take some questions about what you like to eat, what he doesn't eat, if you have allergies, I mean, everything, everything you can imagine we actually try to to help him with

Rick Denton: 29:12

like that. And we're back to food that didn't take long for you and me to get back to food we're talking about on your list. We've got Yes, cheese, no liver. Got it. We'll do that. Jennifer, I'm taking a cheatin and took a little look at the clock here. And we're we're running out of time, which kills me because there's a lot more that I want to ask you if there was something though, that I want to make sure that we talk about. You had mentioned to me a phrase that stuck with me and it was this phrase, the process of experience. And it resonated with me because it's a key part of my belief about customer experience. It's actually the root of the name of my own company EX4CX - execution for customer experience. It's this discipline of the process of delivering experience. So I'm curious, tell me share with the listeners the viewers what you mean. I mean by the process of experience, and then how have you applied that at G4?

Jennifer Meunier: 30:07

Yes. Well, I like that you mentioned that it's needed discipline, you know, to deliver the best UX because this is something that I truly believe. And the thing is, as much as I built an amazing team two years ago, and won the price this year, the challenge is always to maintain the same level of delivery, even with all the changes in the company, in the team with new entries, and also to Nervo, of course, but most importantly, because of our growing path, which is always, you know, very chaotic magic, Rob, right. And I think the process of experiences like having a systematic way of doing things and repeating it over and over. But I think we have to just take a step back, because for me the real process, start even at the hiring process, so onboarding them the right way, and let them ramp at the right moment. And the thing for me, that is everything that we do and create a joke was it must be done by the eyes of the students. So from the journey that we mapped to everything that we deliver, it is always from the customer's point of view. And that is very important for me. So yeah, during all the process of how we deliver CX, we have to do repeat training and follow the team, see if everything we're doing is actually making sense to the to the students because everything moves so quickly. Everything changes so quickly. Yeah. And also clients expectations. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 31:40

Client expectation changes. I can't imagine what you're doing. What it what's great about that is talking about you, you use the phrase inside out? Absolutely. You're talking about taking it from the inside. I'm hearing though, so much of that inside out, is intended to then support the outside in because you said at the end, what are we doing? What are we changing? And does it benefit the customer, the student and all of that, Jennifer, great conversation that I'm sure that others might want to learn a little bit more about G4 and learn more about you and your approach to customer experience? How can they learn more?

Jennifer Meunier: 32:13

Well, we are all over Instagram, of course, Instagram, LinkedIn, 3g, aquatic, G4 Educação, and also we have the site g4educacao.com/. So everyone can learn a little bit more, but also through me, I mean, I'm always thrilled to share a little bit of our story. So yeah, everyone that wants to learn a little bit more, I'm totally available.

Rick Denton: 32:36

Awesome. Well, I will get that in the show notes. I'll get the Instagram tag and your LinkedIn URL there. So it's down there in the show notes folks to to have a click and you can connect and learn more about Jennifer and about G4 Educação, and, and hopefully listen to people who can pronounce it so much better than I can Jennifer, great conversation that I really enjoyed hearing about kind of the evolution from being a startup and how do you create a customer experience culture? And how do you then do it and when it's in the maintenance mode? I love that we ended with the process of experience, because that's such a key element of going from that startup to mature company as well. And hey, I love talking about Thailand. Let's be honest. That's that's such an enjoyable country. It's such an enjoyable country. Jennifer, it was a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you for being on CX Passport

Jennifer Meunier: 33:24

Well, thank you so much. It was such a delight to be here with you and sharing my stories it didn't even like You're like a bunch because we're like a really good conversation.

Rick Denton: 33:38

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.