Emily Stubbs: 0:00

You need to have phrases in your tool belt that you care and that you're listening and that you empathize with them. But let's also get to the root cause of why we're here, right? I totally hear where you're coming from, I get that this is such a problem. This is what I'm going to do for you. This is how I'm going to solve this problem for you.

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. CX passport travelers. I want to thank you again for the support the energy that you provided Adam Haesler, our first CX job seeker guests for CX Passport . If you haven't had a chance, be sure and have a listen and give thought to how your network might help accelerate Adams customer experience job hunt. Today we returned to what is quickly becoming a favorite episode style for me as we get the chance to help accelerate another CX job seeker. I'm excited today to talk with Emily Stubbs most recently the associate director of customer service for pair eyewear in New York. Their career with increasing impact on CX Emily has cultivated expertise in various domains, shaping the contours of customer experience with this dash of finesse and innovation, not content to grow just her own career. However, Emily currently serves as a volunteer CX coach for zindex startups, mentoring and coaching professionals on how to grow their customer career. Talk about paying it forward. During her tenure as the associate director of customer service repair eyewear, Emily sculpted a customer service apparatus, steering the onboarding and management of over 130 agents in three countries. Through key initiatives. She propelled a staggering 62% reduction in cost per order over an eight month period highlighting her commitment to efficiency and excellence. Six passport travelers. You know how important those two words are to me. And the the vital results of tangible business results. This is real here. Emily's journeys, a fascinating one with experiences at Billy great Ulta Beauty and applause theater and entertainment services. That diversity of industry experience serves Emily well as she builds out her next great customer experience. Similar to how you surrounded Adam with your energy and networking support. I invite you to watch Emily's episode today and encourage you to consider how you can help accelerate her move to the next great customer experience. Roll Emily, welcome to CX passport.

Emily Stubbs: 2:55

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Rick Denton: 2:58

Yeah. Like I said, maybe gush a little bit here. But I'm really enjoying these because I just find such energy in talking to folks who are going through that next great search. Let me let's start with a question that I ask everyone. What what has drawn you to customer experience? Why is this particular field so important to you?

Emily Stubbs: 3:19

Definitely. So my background, my degree is actually in journalism. So for me, it's all about stories. I love listening to people's stories. I mean, I know in call centers, they want the shortest phone calls possible. That's something I've always been yelled at, for because I would just be chatting away with people listening to their life stories. So that was something I was always keen to QA it against. But I think it it went in my favor, honestly. Because it was it was always about the connections with people. And I think, you know, listening to people really hearing them out. That's how you do get to know people. And I think people know when they're having a very genuine experience with somebody. And I wanted to give every single person in customer service or experience, the kind of experience I would want when I'm talking to somebody or when I'm calling somebody on the phone. There's

Rick Denton: 4:13

that there's so many things that I just heard you say and there's the humanity aspect, I definitely hearing that. What does Emily love Emily loves humans, which can be harder and harder to do in certain cases. So I admire you for that. I also hear kind of a golden rule style there. Why am I drawn to customer experience or customer service? Because well, that's how I want people to deliver that for me as well. You you talked about something that is interesting there and that is that, you know, hey, I got kind of QA and for my length of call. You know that's something that Zappos has been legendary for that they don't have an average call time or anything like that. How How have you balanced that though, knowing that there is an efficiency like if you're a contact center, and if you are a BPO or anything like that, you have to balance those two worlds, that building the connection with the customer and resolving that customer concern is quickly as possible, how do you help balance that? Yeah,

Emily Stubbs: 5:03

definitely. I even had one of the most recent agents at pear asked me about this, like, I'm really struggling, I don't know how to solve this problem. And then like, keep going, because I know we have so many calls we have to get to. And something I told her as you need to just have some tools or phrases in your tool belt, that can help kind of speed this along, show that you care and that you're listening, and that you empathize with them. But let's also you know, let's get to the root cause of why we're here, right? So something that I always say to people is, you know, I, I totally hear where you're coming from, I get that this is such a problem. This is what I'm going to do for you. This is how I'm going to solve this problem for you. And I think that just kind of gives the customer a sense of who, okay, they got it. I don't have to worry about this anymore. They know what to do. And it gives them a sense of relief. I think

Your CX Passport Captain: 5:59

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.

Emily Stubbs: 6:25

so one of my favorite experiences I love to talk about it was that my very first job in New York City, which was with applause, and applause was actually a private ticket broker for Broadway shows. And I remember I was on the phone with somebody who was a little bit older, and she was so nervous to come to the city by herself. She was a little bit older, like first solo trip ever, but she was like, I'm gonna come into the city, I'm gonna see four or five shows, I'm gonna do it. And she was so nervous about it. And I just, I was so happy for her and so excited. So something I actually did, of course, you can't always do this. This is a very unique experience. But Sure. Our office was based in Times Square. And I actually walked over to the theater with her. She was an art. She came into our office, and she was just so nervous. So I walked her over to the theater directly, I made sure she got in, okay. And I remember she like called me the next week and was just like, I just had the best time. And that was just so nice of you. And I just think it was just such a unique experience. It was so cool to be able to do that for somebody. And again, I just I would want to do something that somebody would do for me, right? Or somebody would do for my mom or my grandma, right? treat everybody like you would want your grandma to be treated honestly.

Rick Denton: 8:32

Is that the LinkedIn is that what I'm now going to see as your headline treat everybody like you treat?

Emily Stubbs: 8:39

I might have to like coined that phrase. So

Rick Denton: 8:43

that may be the title of this episode. Emily, we don't know where that's gonna go. We'll see what that's like. Okay, so certainly that surprise and delight there. And then imagine that that that that patron that guests, that customer, have a view of your company there is telling others and so there's definitely that sort of the NPS is sort of tell friends and family and that aspect of it. That can be hard, though, to actually tie to business results for you. And I believe it but it can be hard to tie it. So how do you see that delivery of customer experience actually affecting those tangible business results?

Emily Stubbs: 9:20

Yeah, I think it's so much more important than maybe companies expect, right? A really great example of stellar customer experiences I want to say is Irma's actually and I say that because I know that they seem like a little elite. Personally I cannot afford an aroma or anything but but I definitely admire their CX tactics actually. So when you actually go into earn as you are basically assigned gifted I'm not sure the correct phrase here. A sales associate and so they get you know In birth, they get the kind of bags you want the color, the style, everything. And then that is who you actually interact with when you put in, like a request for a bag. And so you have this really direct, personalized experience that I think just elevates it to the next level. But I think a lot of smaller companies can actually really take note of that and bring that in helps, right? We have so many incredible routing tools that could route a positive customer experience to the same person. And then they know they're going to have a consistent stellar customer experience with that same rep. It's something that I've talked to at a couple of companies that I've worked at before, and you know, what the bandwidth is there, that's great. But again, we want to bring customers back, we want them to keep coming back to us. And if they're like, I remember the name of the associate that I talked to you at that company. It's just so much more memorable, and I think special and unique. And I think it can make companies stand out, you know, they can keep bringing those customers back and repeatedly for either glasses or shoes or handbags.

Rick Denton: 11:12

How are ya? I'm imagining that that scenario, actually, my brain was going back to a conversation that I had with a fellow CX person, online recently about a at least a reasonably luxury brand, perhaps maybe not, or maybe or, or, you know, Louis, or something like that. But it was in the audio space. And while the product was a spectacular experience, the customer service was not a spectacular experience. And the brand has never made a promise around its customer service. It doesn't. And yet there was that idea of unintentional brand promise. So I'm thinking about a company, maybe not one that's so luxury, but one that is kind of one that a more general population would interact with? How can a company make sure that they don't offer some sort of unintentional brand promise, because we as customers are comparing the mainline to perhaps the luxury that you're describing. So what can a company do to avoid that unintended brand promise, or that unintended expectation and deliver on what a customer is expecting?

Emily Stubbs: 12:17

I think there's definitely always some sort of expectation of any customer service team, right. And people will always compare one customer service experience to another. I think that's sort of always going to happen in a way, right. But I do think what companies in general can probably do is making sure that either self service options are up and running, there is a solid knowledge base on the site. You know, people as much as possible can seek out that information themselves. You know, if they need help with something, setting their customers up for success themselves. I think a lot of companies want to set up the companies for success. But sometimes they're not thinking about the customer, they're not thinking about the customer experience, they're not thinking about how is this customer actually going to navigate this site or anticipating their needs, right. So I think making sure that companies are actually setting their customers up for success, it's going to be really key in the future. Again, those self service chatbots, or knowledge bases, making sure that returns on exchanges are automated, which I know that there's so many wonderful systems out there like Luke and return the things that make lives so much easier. And can also take away some of those contacts from your customer service team. So I think that's definitely a couple of ways that companies can lean into it.

Rick Denton: 13:57

Emily, there's so much of what you said there, that one I just love and I'm delighted in. And a lot of it is in that vision of process and tools and execution, we talked so much about kind of the fluffy part of and there is a need for that soft part of it. There is that emotional that empathy, and yet the delivery of it comes down not and yet sorry. And the delivery of it comes through that Do you have your knowledge base? Do you have your process? Do you do you have that, that in place? Do you have a well equipped agent or pick role here to be able to do that so that the agent isn't in put in a situation that makes the customer frustrated? You know, travel has a lot of opportunities for that kind of frustration and one of the delights that comes with traveling and who knows maybe maybe the story of the customer that you described was coming to New York, maybe she had a long flight or something like that, and hopefully she had a chance to go to that first class lounge and that's what I'd like to invite you to do today is join me here in the first class lounge. Well, we'll have a little bit of fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past? asked who

Emily Stubbs: 15:01

from my past so I actually went there twice last year. I went to Seoul, South Korea, and it was alright to really amazing. Tell

Rick Denton: 15:12

me a little bit more about that my son got to. I won't get into details as to why but he had to spend a weekend there when he was studying abroad in Japan. What did you enjoy about Seoul? What drew drew you there so much that you went twice?

Emily Stubbs: 15:25

Yeah. So I'm actually a massive foodie, I love food. And during the pandemic, I actually found I really loved watching cooking videos. And somehow I ended up on Japanese and Korean cooking, like YouTube.

Rick Denton: 15:45

Talking about the rabbit hole.

Emily Stubbs: 15:49

They were just so calming. And there's just so many foods on there that I had never heard of before. And I wanted to try and leave a great Korea Town here in New York City. So I started going down to Cape Town trying out goods that I wanted to try things like that. And then actually, I'm also a really massive BTS fan.

Rick Denton: 16:13

Later if you want me to edit that out of the show

Emily Stubbs: 16:19

but very Yeah, yeah, so it was it was so fun. pootie wise, cultural UI saw so many amazing, amazing things.

Rick Denton: 16:29

That's awesome. Oh, that's good. And if there's any, any of your faves, we'll get those into the show notes. We can add that after the show and put that down. If at listeners you want to find out where Emily enjoyed some of the treats have sold or even the ones in Cape Town right, you know, a little bit closer for those in the US going forward. That's pretty, pretty nice trip of the past what's a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Emily Stubbs: 16:49

Well, one I'm going to in about two weeks, so I'm very excited about it, which is Japan. So I asked to Japan for about two weeks actually in two weeks and I am so excited about it. So that'll be a really fun time. First ever international solo trip. And then actually Italy I would love to go to Italy and just eat an insane amount of pasta.

Rick Denton: 17:16

Oh you are gonna love or hate the next question. I do when when we are in the episode let me tell you about if you're a cocktail person there's a wonderful tiny six seat cocktail bar pretty close to the Shinjuku station there in Tokyo that I want to let you know about spectacular bartender but you gotta get there because it's six seats but he does a phenomenal job in his cocktail crafting. All right, what is a favorite thing of yours to eat? Good luck with this question.

Emily Stubbs: 17:43

I know the stress is really on with this Can we talk about KPIs can I say sweets? Why is just a classic chocolate chip cookie I am so warm what what a great time and then I would say savory honestly french fries I could eat a good fry any day of the week

Rick Denton: 18:08

that first of all I love how you're answering all these with to write you're you're cheating and giving me too but that's exactly how I want to live life to is like I'm not sticking with one yeah it's amazing how I've come to appreciate like you that the fridge fried does not belong just at the fast food yeah there's a good place for in and out french fries I'm not opposed to them. However probably a good a steak fried or something like that. Yeah

Emily Stubbs: 18:32

with you there. Yeah. All right, you get to your bedroom. Yes,

Rick Denton: 18:35

I do. All right. Now what's something growing up that you were forced to eat but you hated as a kid?

Emily Stubbs: 18:43

Green beans and that's my favorite vegetable.

Rick Denton: 18:47

I hear that a lot. The hatred becomes the loved I never had a problem with green beans I've always liked them. However the fact that you've converted to enjoying them welcome to the good side.

Emily Stubbs: 18:59

Glad to be here. Thank you

Rick Denton: 19:02

all right, Emily, we're gonna have to exit the lounge and so what is one travel item not including your phone not including your passport that you will not leave home without

Emily Stubbs: 19:14

I would say probably a power bank. Just to make sure that my phone doesn't die. Yeah, because you are looking at every year that you're going comfort level. I have a turtle travel pillow. And it is the best like trapped long haul travel thing that I've ever bought. And it's basically a travel pillow that has some like wiring in it and it looks like a neck brace when you put it on and but like propped your head up so nicely. So you're not doing like the weird head drop thing the whole plate when you're trying to sleep

Rick Denton: 19:54

oh gosh, I'm gonna have to get that that turtle pillow. While there's plenty of opportunity to fly in business class at times, not always. And so yeah, I can see how the turtle pal, especially for heading over to Japan, you need that power bank and you need that turtle pillow to get yourself on that 14 to 16 hour flight. Let's get back into customer experience. What are companies missing today in customer experience? And what are your thoughts on how they can improve on that?

Emily Stubbs: 20:22

You know, I think that this can change depending on the, the team, right, depending on the company, I can probably name off things at all of the companies that I've worked at that like, oh, they need to improve here. But they do this really well, or they need to improve here, or they do this very well. I would say just in general putting more depth and more meaning into the customer experience, I think we really have such a plethora of customer data that we can actually pull from those experiences that we're already getting people. So we need to bring that back into health, we need to analyze that data. We need to look at what customers are talking about. And then how do we fix it? I think that is just such a big one for me is can we look at tags, can we look at customer sentiment? Can we look at the negative NPS scores and say, Okay, what are we not giving to our customers. And there's so many again, amazing tools out there that can like assist you in doing this. But it could just be a simple, I've set up some automated tagging and your macros and look at the results from there. You know, it doesn't have to be something big and fancy, especially if you're a small startup. But again, look at it, is it a product issue? Is it a knowledge issue? Because of your agents? Is it? Hey, I don't like any of the colors that you offer? Whatever, use that customer data to actually improve the experience and and see how you can really use that in every sector of your company, not only customer service, right? How can that be? How can that improve product? How can I improve marketing? How can that improve socials? What do our customers want more of? And how can we get it to them? And I think a lot of companies can pull that from CX data, actually. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 22:20

Something that I like that you said in there. And I think it's important for all to hear certainly the listeners and viewers of CX password. And that is it doesn't have to be the big fancy tool, right? If you are a startup and you can't afford big fancy tool, understandably. So there are ways to do this. And there's ways to even maybe you don't do it completely. But you at least do it partially, it gets started almost kind of like if you go to the gym. It's January, right? There are a lot of folks that just showed up at the gym for the first time. And they went in gung ho and just destroyed themselves that first week and barely could move the next day. Right. And so there's also that path of Now get yourself do a little bit here, do a little bit there start to build that customer experience muscle, let's let's call it that. And then and then get yourself to something greater later. And I liked that you brought that smaller that it doesn't have to be the big the fancy, the expensive. There's a way to do it. How? How can you like us specifically, Emily, how are you looking to help companies? Do some of the improvements that you're describing? How can you help improve customer experience and customer service for customers? For companies, to many sees their company sees?

Emily Stubbs: 23:37

So I think personally, I started off at my last job so early on, it's so bare bones, I can share my experience, right? So I started off at, you know, pair, and I was hired number like four or five. I was super early on there. I was super early. I mean, we didn't have anything done there. We didn't have a single macro written no tagging system. Really nothing was in place. So and then of course, it's a startup, right? Like we were so so baby ish. Back in 2020 that we didn't have a big budget for creating a crazy tech stack to build up. Right. So it was just sort of like okay, how can I run this on like, Google Sheets, Zendesk and like a lot of coffee. Like just so interesting, like, how capable some of these systems are that we do work with. But again, I think I can bring you experience I can I can bring what I learned and the mistakes that I made. I'm quite proud of every mistake that I made because oh my gosh, was that a learning experience for me? And I only could get better right? So yeah, I would say probably experience about like, what did I go through? How did I manage this, you know, still bare bones. So just like is nothing really in place except for like a CRM tool. So it's kind of amazing, like, the kind of things you can put into place just with, you know, G Suite, and certain things like that, that you probably have just sitting around.

Rick Denton: 25:20

You know, that's really important, especially for a lot of that startup space, right in the smaller company to hear that. Well, it because I imagine a lot of I forget about, we don't have a chance, you're just saying no, no, I actually, I will come in and I will show you exactly how to do this, because I've done it. You don't need to make the mistakes I made. I've made them. Let's not make them going forward. So let's let's pivot there. And Emily, let's kind of close that out. What is next for you with customer experience?

Emily Stubbs: 25:48

Yeah, I'm looking at a couple of different paths, right, I been associate director of customer service. So of course, I feel like most people might be like, okay, so she's going to pivot into like a CX, Director, role head of CX, which I'm so open to, I would love to do. And even building out another team, like out of Scratch, I think would be so stinking fun for me. But I also really love working with BPOS, which I found over the last four years. So something having to do with BPO management or like a client relations role. Because I think videos are actually a really underutilized tool for a lot of companies. And you know, so many companies utilize BPOS, whether that's like, the big wigs at Samsung, and companies like that, or whether it's really small companies that might have a single internal hire it like it was with me, right, right. But you can you can train people at BPOS to either the frontline agents or do quality for you go through CSAT help you build they all kinds of wonderful things. So I think BPOS are really wonderful and a very underutilized, actual customer service tool than people realize.

Rick Denton: 27:04

Well, I like your advocacy for it right and your energy for it. And not just the energy for the industry. But why it is valuable to the brands and then ultimately the the customer experience that those brands deliver through the execution of the BPOS. So hey, all my BPO listeners and viewers get to get in touch with Emily, I think you've got someone's high energy here, Emily, if folks did want to get in touch with you to learn more about you and your approach to customer experience, and or reach out to you about hey, I think we kind of want to work with you, Emily, let's, uh, let's, let's talk, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Emily Stubbs: 27:40

Absolutely. So please add me on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you there. Other than that, I believe actually, all my contact info is on there. So please email me, we'd love to hear from you please.

Rick Denton: 27:56

I will drop Emily's LinkedIn URL into the shownotes. As always, and so listeners viewers, you can go click there, Emily. fun ride today. Lots of laughs lots of lots of smiles as well. I admire your desire to design an experience that we know that our grandmothers would want. And so with that in mind, I think that could be the mantra for all of us in this customer experience space is how do we do that? And then how do we do that in such a way that creates tangible business value, and certainly the energy that you've got around BPOS and how those can be a way to really amplify a brand's ability to deliver customer experience was enlightening, and I appreciated hearing that Emily. It was fun today. Thank you for being on CX passport.

Emily Stubbs: 28:42

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Rick Denton: 28:50

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.