Mike Kendall: 0:00

We talk about getting empathy for our customers, we also need to do that with our internal partners and say, what are their goals? What are they doing? How do they do their work?

Rick Denton: 0:10

Customer Experience wisdom, a dash of travel talk. We've been cleared for takeoff. The best

Unknown: 0:15

meals are served outside and require passport.

Rick Denton: 0:20

Hey, CX passport listeners, today's guest is Mike Kendall, and this one's a bit of a reunion. Mike and I go way back to our days driving customer experience at Capital One in Plano. We've stayed in touch ever since, and it's been kind of fun to watch his path wind through both CX and product strategy. Mike's got this unique perspective. He doesn't just sit in one camp. He understands how CX and product both shape customer experience, and how those two worlds don't always talk to each other the way they should. Now we could talk shop all day, but I want to touch on something else. Mike's a drummer, and he recently got the kind of invitation most of us only dream about traveling to Spain to play with a band. Y'all know, I'm going to ask about that. Mike. Welcome to CX passport.

Mike Kendall: 1:15

Pleasure to be here, Rick and as always, good. Good to chat with you, whether it's over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, it's good to do it a little more publicly

Rick Denton: 1:27

today. That's right, I would imagine if some of our past conversations had had the record button hit on them, we would have had some interesting things to share. So hopefully today, and not even just hopefully, I know today, it will be exactly the same. Let's talk about that, because we kind of talked about, or I mentioned the intro, the different teams, the different roles. The reality is, customers just don't care about internal labels, internal roles to the customer, experience is experience. Product plays a role. Cx plays a role. All right, so why do those teams so often act like they're on separate planets.

Mike Kendall: 2:03

Yeah, I've been kind of noticing this more recently, because I've been helping out organize a couple meetups here locally, and one's a product management group, and the other is a customer experience group. And the energy and the vibe is just so different between those two camps, and it got me thinking about kind of my days in corporate and I'm not sure it's just unique to those two functions, right? I think the idea of cross functional collaboration, really managing an end to end experience, or a journey across multiple silos, if you will, is pretty rare. There's not a lot of companies that have really mastered that. And there's a lot going on in product right now with AI, with the focus on product management as a discipline, and CX has been through a bit of a roller coaster. Yeah, I think, personally, I was kind of there at the dawning beginning of it. Date myself a little bit, but it's changed a lot, and I think there's more despair, maybe from the CX folks than the product folks, even though there's still a lot of turmoil in both.

Rick Denton: 3:14

Can we I actually want to go back to that. I want to ask about that. Why one side? Because it's all experienced to the customer. Why one side so high? One one side so low? I want to get a little deeper into just the why. Why are these worlds so separate?

Mike Kendall: 3:32

Yeah, yeah. You know, often they're reporting up through different groups, right? I think there's a there's been a lot of technology emerging. I remember back at Capital One years ago, when we were there, one of the things I got asked in the interview process was kind of what my thought was on technology and at that time, and it's even more true now, I felt like every company is a software company, and Capital One should be a software company that happens to be a bank, or you could be a frequently say that, wouldn't they? Yeah, and you could be a software company that happens to build planes or you name it, or sells pizzas, and I'm not sure you know, this is my opinion, that the CX profession came out of a native technology sort of mindset or skill capability, whereas a lot of the product managers I interact with, they came up as coders or software engineers, or they have a sort of a deep passion and skill set there. And so I think that could be a struggle if you're not comfortable with the technology. CX, more than ever now, whether it's chat bots or, you know, just using data analytics to figure out what's going on with vast amounts of customer interactions has become a technology function. And so I think there's a, maybe a, just a distinctive there who's in those functions where they report up to I always saw it more. As an air traffic controller, like, my role is to go bring those silos together, yeah, to not be the one that waits until product comes to me and says, Hey, can you help us fix something we missed? And product design,

Rick Denton: 5:14

you know, Mike, some of what you're describing, I almost have this sort of cool kids vibe when I'm listening to what you're saying, of like, you know, products, the cool kids, the CX guys are not the cool kids. One knows the technology, the other one's still dealing with flip charts and number two pencils. And I realized that's a gross exaggeration. It really is. Let's talk about just the reality, though, right now what you said, and that is, one side is feeling all high. Product is on a high that when you talk to those groups, when you're sitting in those networking groups, there's a buzz there, and every group is going to have its problems and its challenges. It's just when you speak inside of the CX community, you hear a lot more doom and gloom. Why do you think those perspectives when it's ultimately about the the experience the customer receives. Why do you think there's such a difference in perspectives between those

Mike Kendall: 6:04

groups right now? Yeah, you know, it's funny, because I when I back way back in my career as Citigroup, before CX was even a thing, we were doing it, and it was kind of me just getting frustrated that, hey, we were rolling out all these new processes and products, and we're not talking to customers about it, why don't we go listen to customers and just start doing it? And I think over that timeframe till now, the definition of CX has radically shifted and is even different between companies. And so sure, there's maybe a bit of an identity crisis that the CX profession has suffered over the last few years. And I think there's also maybe a role definition. I've never felt like it was something that, well, here's a job description. Go do it. Like most jobs, it was more about, hey, I need to go build relationships across multiple parts, multiple disciplines in the company, so that there's some trust and respect there. I need to try to come up with shared goals, even though that may be difficult because I'm not able to enforce it with the club. But can say, hey, can we all agree based on data, based on our mission, we're all going to work towards the same thing and be accountable to each other for that, and then what I would call maybe repeatable operating mechanisms, and this may not be functional, we did this at Intuit and say, Hey, I'm just going to go try to get one person from each discipline and say, Could we get together every week or every month and say, let's set some goals together. And maybe we go to the senior leaders and say, here's the budget we need together, here's the outcomes we need, and here are the goals we want to set and really see them more as our investors and our board of directors, and we're really running this horizontal kind of company.

Unknown: 7:56

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 seat belt sign off while you're getting comfortable. Hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss an episode. Love if you'd tell a friend about CX passport, leave a review so others can discover the show as well. Now sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 8:22

We've got these two groups, and they are somewhat different, with different missions at times, but really ultimately focused on the customer, one's high, one's low, all the things we just said, You alluded to it a bit of Well, I went out and built the relationships. What would you say to someone who's in a customer experience role? Let's say that they're in that side of the camp. And longtime listeners know I hate these labels, but let's just say that the CX side of the house. What do you say to them about how they can bridge that gap between product and CX? What needs to happen?

Mike Kendall: 8:54

Yeah, I mean, if you're not comfortable with the I remember, gosh, back in the day, you know, my first job out of college, I was like, I don't know. I don't understand any of this stuff, the technical jargon. What are they doing? Like, Hey, can I just spend two, two weeks in the call center listening to calls? Or can I hang out with you as you go call on customers and do sales pitches, or you're coding something today? Can I sit there and watch you and ask you questions, and just really getting deep into the technical side of it, so that they don't feel like you're sort of coming in and trying to, you know, change change up their sandbox, you know, just got to get my my hands dirty, and go out there and learn what's going on. How do we make money? How do we build things and become a part of it. So you're not just, you know, really narrow in your scope. Yeah,

Rick Denton: 9:46

is there something unique to the CX world that? And I'll say we, because I've been in that world, that we historically have felt somewhat aloof or separate or away from some of that, that, Oh, I don't need to know. All that, because what you're suggesting is no, you need to. So I would imagine that there's been a history of, nah, it's not important to me. Why

Mike Kendall: 10:07

that? It's unique to CX, right? I started my career in HR, and most of us in HR didn't really know a lot about what was going on in the groups or recruit, recruiting for or doing Employee Relations for, right? You know, if I'm in marketing, I may not understand how, how people are coding software. So I think that's just kind of human nature that you you stay in your comfort zone, and it's a little, you know, you just kind of have to challenge yourself or your team to say, how are we going to stay? You know, we talk about a lot, getting empathy for our customers and trying to understand their unmet needs as a CX person, but we also need to do that with our internal partners in other functions, and say, what are their goals? What are they doing? How do they do their work? And that helps us, if we're going to be the air traffic controller, it kind of helps to understand aviation and what pilots are doing and what the ground crews are doing. So, so yeah, I would say, so yeah,

Rick Denton: 11:07

it's not a secret. And clearly I don't know if maybe something was just put my coffee this morning that there's been some challenges with CX proving its value. I think some of why product has had its highs, and CX has perhaps kind of some doldrums. Right now is the product ships product, right there's a result boom. Now we can discuss the value of that product. But regardless, there is product that is being shipped when it comes to CX, though a lot of times, a lot of us have gone into it with this approach of, Oh, please, let me do x, y and z versus, here's what I did, yeah, how can CX professionals really step into more confident results, focused positions?

Mike Kendall: 11:51

Yeah, I think back to what I just said about, how do we make money first, right? Yeah, really getting under the hood and saying, what drives this? I, you know, I now in the consulting world, you know, sometimes it's like unwrapping an onion, of like, why is this organization behaving the way they are? And why aren't they doing this? Or, why are they doing this? And the more you ask, why? And dig deeper, you start to realize, you know, I remember working for a startup, and they brought me in to kind of improve quality. You know, we had a lot of issues in the call center and with consistent service, and so I'm going about it, and we're doing great. And then pretty soon, you realize, oh, the C suite is trying to clean this thing up because they want to do an IPO, or they want to do a an equity right transaction, like, that's a different thing than just, let's make this good for the long term. They wanted to have an exit within four years. So knowing that makes it a bit makes a big difference in how you approach your work. So I think really trying to understand what the what's most important to the senior leaders, to the extent you can figure that out, right? And then, what are you uniquely as a CX leader, what are you uniquely qualified to bring to the table that can meet those needs, and then finding a way to work cross functionally towards that aim, and really seeing that your benefactors, if you will, are the C suite. They've brought CX in or created it, or budgeted for it for a specific purpose, and they don't always articulate that. So, right? You have to get out the Ouija board sometimes and try to figure out what is the purpose. There's a reference. You can put a crawler below that for people.

Rick Denton: 13:36

So there'll be a link in the show notes to where one can buy their devil game. But, sure, I

Mike Kendall: 13:43

haven't worked for a company that literally had a Ouija board, but there were some meetings that could have been seances, I suppose.

Rick Denton: 13:50

Light a candle, drop the blinds. Let's hold some hands and figure out what to do. Yeah, you're reminding me of something that bill steco said in his episode, and he talked about one of the first documents that any new to role, any role, and particularly CX people, is the business strategy document. I realize there can be some marketing element in that as well, but really the point is getting into what is the business's strategy. Because your point of IPO has a much different need for quality cleanup than we need to build a sustainable not just put some not just exit our apartment with some spackle in the holes on the wall kind of thing.

Mike Kendall: 14:31

Yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes there's not only a business strategy, but there's personal strategies. Remember working at one company. We had 18 C suite members, and they, yeah, it was a big company, but as a big C suite, maybe too big, but there was a bell curve of objectives, if you will, that were not stated in any documents, and you had to kind of get to know them, or know people that knew them. And figure that out and say, Okay, I have my sort of people that are passionate about what I'm doing and what CX is doing. I have my resistors, constant complainers and sort of the malleable middle. And I've got to create, maybe my, you know, stealthy supporter board of people that I know are on board with this, and then go there. And Humana, for example, when I was there, we didn't have a goal anywhere to say, Let's build a CX Innovation Lab. But within six months, we had millions of dollars of funding, and I think 80 people in that function, mainly because we figured out what was the most important to them at that time, we put together one small, scrappy team to work in this new way that delivered on something and that got the attention of the senior leaders. They're like, hey, we want more of that. So it may not always be kind of linear top down. It may have to be a little bit of judoing your way through the organization. I like that,

Rick Denton: 16:02

and I think that's an important, you know, guide story inspiration for those in the CX world is, don't necessarily assume it's in your remit. Just create the value, and suddenly it will

Mike Kendall: 16:14

be sudden, you'll get all right, yeah, you'll get promoted, or you'll get fired. Yeah, this is not a job for the weak of heart, right? Boy,

Rick Denton: 16:22

it's not all right, enough business talk, because I can't wait any longer. When you told I knew you were a drummer, but then when you told me, Oh yeah, I was in Spain touring with a band that is ridiculously cool. Tell me about that. What are some Tales from the role?

Mike Kendall: 16:39

Yeah, I'd never been to Spain, and it's kind of always been on my list. And so when this opportunity came up, I was like, Wow, this sounds amazing. And so it's a it's a group of professional musicians that gets together every other year and does this trip. And so they, they had a need, and plugged me in, fortunately. And so we were over there for a couple weeks. We played seven shows, all outside during an epic heat wave, which was interesting. And you thought Texas was hot. We'll try playing a three hour show,

Rick Denton: 17:14

no kidding. And we have air conditioning right when you get done with your hotel. You probably didn't have that

Mike Kendall: 17:19

as often busses, hotel, yeah, forget about it. It's and, you know, typical American I'm like, why isn't the air conditioning here? But I'm the only, I'm the only one sweating, right? But the venues were insane, right? So, we played at a 2000 year old castle overlooking the Mediterranean. Wow. We played in a hill town that, I think it dated back to 500 BC. That was at one time. It was ruled by a lot of different people, but it was, what caught my eye was it was the capital of the Visigoth empire, wow, at one point. And then another place was a UNESCO World Heritage site that was the largest collection of palm trees, I think 200,000 palm trees, and so we're outside just surrounded at sunset by palm trees. It was really amazing.

Rick Denton: 18:18

Mike, that sounds absolutely delightful. You mentioned the road trips and the air conditioning and all that. Well, just even getting to Spain can be a bit of a haul for those of us from the US, right? So it can be nice to stop down in the lounge, and that's what we're going to do here. A little change of pace. We'll stop down here in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly and have a little bit of fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Mike Kendall: 18:40

Gosh, we try to go pretty regularly to this place called the Kohala coast, which is on Hawaii Island, the Big Island, okay? And it's not Honolulu or Maui. I always call Maui Plano on the Pacific, because I see the same people I see here and one of the same restaurants. But this is pretty raw. It's lava fields and desert. And then if you drive over to the other side of the island, and you've got the typical waterfalls and jungles and all that, but just really good place to get away. And, you know, enjoy, enjoy being remote,

Rick Denton: 19:13

well, and actually, to get the true sense of being remote, as opposed, as you say, the plane of Hawaii. What about the other way? What's a dream travel location you've not been to

Mike Kendall: 19:22

yet? We really were trying to get to Japan for the Olympics, and not been to Japan, not been to the Olympics, so we're definitely still trying to get back to Japan at some point. We haven't, haven't really done that yet.

Rick Denton: 19:35

Forgive my interruption of just expression. It is stunning. Listeners, regular listeners, you know how often Japan comes up, and every time I say this, go get there quickly, because it is an amazing place. I can see why it would be on your list. One of the things that I loved about Japan is the phenomenal food and range of food, right? We may think it's narrow, but it's range in that vein. What's a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Mike Kendall: 19:59

Oh, my God. Should what's, what's, I guess, fresh on my mind right from the Spain trip we, we were entertained by our hosts. This was a one thing I didn't mention is this trip was sponsored by a local group that dates itself back to 1914, they were like, wow, original, first Protestant organization in Spain. So there was a lot of spiritual, missional component to this thing. But one of the groups, after one of our shows, we walked about a mile, and we ended up in the edge of town, in the backyard of a house with two long tables. It looked just like you'd see on the Food Network. And these these guys with T shirts on come running out with the most large paella pan you've ever seen. Oh yeah, and they had three different varieties of paella, and it was just amazing. So sign me up for paella. And when it's hot, which it was when we were there a good glass of Sangria with some ice, American style ice. Set that up too.

Rick Denton: 21:02

That sounds absolutely delight. And I love I love me some paella. So I'm definitely with you. What on the other side of this is something you were forced to eat growing up, but you hated as a kid?

Mike Kendall: 21:14

Yeah, I had a standoff. I still remember it clearly. It must have been four or five when I was in the kitchen, and my mom says, Eat your brussels sprouts. And I'm like, not eating my brussels sprouts. And that was in the day when you didn't put sugar and bacon and all that. They were just plain brussels sprouts. And so it's like, eight o'clock, she's turning the light off, and I'm sitting there, you know? And maybe that's the resolve you need to be a CX leader, right? You're like, I'm not gonna take it anymore. I'm not eating my brussels sprouts.

Rick Denton: 21:43

Oh my gosh. I can assure you, one I agree with you on the brussels sprouts. And I can assure you, I've never heard anyone equate Brussels sprout resistance to customer experience skill set. I always get something

Mike Kendall: 21:54

new right there. I'm not right. I'm not

Rick Denton: 21:56

amplifying brussels sprouts. No, that book is all yours. Sadly, it's time for us to leave the lounge. Mike, what is one travel item, not including your phone, not including your passport, that you will not leave home

Mike Kendall: 22:07

without? Yeah, I had to pivot on this one because I'm going to give you two, because they go together. But there's a little doodad I bought last year called iFLY, which you plug into the headphone jack on the plane, and it broadcasts Wi Fi to your Bluetooth, to your air pods, so you can watch the TV on the plane, on these long flights, without having to wear headphones. Or, you know, you've got some freedom. And so that's, that's kind of one of my go to travel tech. I

Rick Denton: 22:45

Mike, I could have used that on our family just took a trip to Iceland, and I was surprised that Iceland air did not have the Bring Your Own Device option, and it was hardwired headphone option for all of their in flight entertainment. So if you didn't have wired headphones, which most of us don't, you either had to buy theirs or just go without. And your iFLY suggestion is one that I'm going to put in my list going forward.

Mike Kendall: 23:09

Don't forget to charge it, though, or you will

Rick Denton: 23:12

be eight hours on the planet. Let me tell you what my number one item is, and that's the power pack. I have found myself never leaving home without the power pack. I want to go back to CX. And folks listening to this may think, good gravy. Rick, really what happened you? Did you not get sleep last night? Are you crabby? It's just there's so much negativity that surrounds customer experience that I'm trying to understand it to some degree and and I've even heard people saying that the brand CX customer experience, the brand is dead. What's your perspective? Is it? Is it just evolving, or are we actually watching the end of something?

Mike Kendall: 23:50

You know, back in the day when we sort of started first coining the term CX, I remember, at least, we always used to say, hey, if we do our jobs, well, there won't be a need for our department, and it'll go away, and everything will be glorious. And I think that's was a little bit naive, because I'm not sure we did our jobs well and the department ever did go away, but it's a bit of a pendulum, right? You know, you're going to have companies that swing to shareholder value focus, to customer focus, to employee focus. And ideally, you've got some kind of balance, but usually there's a skew there. So I think that it's, it's the whole idea of identifying it for your own company, for yourself, and making it what it needs to be in that moment, and not letting somebody else define it. You know, work with the most senior leaders you can to say, Hey, what are we trying to solve for here? What's important? How are we doing? What are the priorities for improvement? And let's get clear on that and make sure that, you know, I remember how I had a boss at city that said 80% of your job is doing your job, and 20% is telling people. What you're doing, and so you had to be your own PR team, right? And say, people need to know who you are, why you're there, and how you're there to help them, and then earn that right? So they're coming to you and asking for help, as opposed to you having to knock on their door.

Rick Denton: 25:16

You said something about it, the company can have the pendulum shift to shareholder value, to customer to employee. I think there's an element of the CX ers role is to help bridge that to where it's not so much of a swing in the pendulum, but actually that those are kind of coming together. How can a CX or do that? How can a CX or make it where it's not a distinction between the three, but actually it's something that delivers on all three

Mike Kendall: 25:41

Yeah, I led strategic planning years ago at a big bank, and we literally had like, a day and a half argument with the C suite over why our company existed, and we'd been around, like, 100 years. But I think it's clear mission, you know what? What is the purpose of the company? And a lot of companies don't get that right. And we've seen some of our own companies. One local airline, I won't mention the name of lost the mission, right? They lost the plot. I've mentioned them. Yeah, right. And so, you know, why do you exist? Is it to enrich the hedge fund owners, or is it to deliver, you know, solve a problem in society, or create a, you know, a new technology that transforms the world. What is that? And can you get some alignment on that? And that's a hard job to put on a CX leader, but it really, it helps bridge that gap, if you have it, or if you can clarify it to say, hey, we're here for this purpose, and in the short term, we're going to do this. The long term, we're going to do that. But what are those methods, mindsets and structures you can put in place to reinforce that mission?

Rick Denton: 26:50

Yeah, yeah, I like that. Well, let's take that and let's almost pivot that to the next generation, if you will. So you and I, God willing. I like the way prof G says it. We're on the back nine of our careers, right? You know, we see the end closer than we see the beginning. The way I play golf, I'll never get off the bat. Yeah, and I like his analogy, but I don't live his analogy. Given how like you, how poorly I play golf as well. What would you say to someone, let's say it's a younger family member, just someone you're mentoring early in their career that they want to do something in customer experience. What do you say to them? To say, here's what you need to equip yourself with to make sure you have a successful career in this

Mike Kendall: 27:33

space. Yeah, yeah. I have a 20 she's 25 now, year old niece. You know, we've kind of taken a vested interest in her career, and she, wisely, or not, chose not to go down the CX path. She's a PhD student in neuroscience, if you could imagine. Yeah, there's

Rick Denton: 27:51

a little bit of linkage neuroscience. Yes, much, much, much different.

Mike Kendall: 27:56

Yeah, having a psychology background might not be a bad idea for a CX person, but, but I think I would what I would mentor a young person saying, hey, I want to get into this. Is why, you know, ask the why question, and if they respond with a lot of passion and gusto and say, Hey, here's why I want to do this. I think we should deliver value for customers. We should help grow the business. We should help create shareholder value. And I'm on fire to do that. And I said, go boldly and do it. Find your passion, you know, your coalition of the passionate, and make it happen. Yeah, if I hear Hey, I just need a job and need to pay my rent, then no disparaging another profession, but maybe accounting or finance or something a little more stable might be, might be a good idea for

Rick Denton: 28:41

you. Some darts being thrown at some other industries. I like, we

Mike Kendall: 28:44

need those folks, but it's a different it's a different animal, right? It's your risk tolerance of you know, I'm going to get bloodied along the way and be the pioneer, if I'm in CX versus, yeah, hey, I double entry accounting has been around for 4000 years. CX is not even in its adolescence yet.

Rick Denton: 29:02

No one, no one says to the C the C suite, hey, we're really not sure the value of accounting, right? So this established. I get the point, yeah. And I like that. I like that. Just focus on the why, right? Yeah. And that's something we hear almost as a cliche at this point, but it's an important reminder that if you're doing this and you intend to be successful in that career. Well, understanding why you're doing it is so valuable. Mike, this has been a nice conversation. I've enjoyed one just catching up with you. It's always good, and I'm glad we got to hit record while we were doing that. If folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you, your approach to customer experience, your approach to product, your approach to strategy, what's the best way for them to get to know more?

Mike Kendall: 29:39

Absolutely, yeah, check out my website, the customer lab.com or send me an email at Mike, at the customer lab.com

Rick Denton: 29:47

All right, I will get all of that into the show notes. Yeah, Mike, it was a delightful treat today, along with learning all sorts of great things about product and CX and how we can actually get these groups to work together, I. That's that drumming trip in Spain still just knocks me off my my seat when I think about how cool that is. So I'm glad

Mike Kendall: 30:06

to send you a video if you really want to go deep on it. Hey,

Rick Denton: 30:10

I'm intrigued. This has been the kind of conversation that I love to have on CX password. I know the the audience loved it as well. Mike, thank you for being on CX passport. My

Mike Kendall: 30:21

pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Rick Denton: 30:28

Thanks for joining us this week on CX passport. If you liked today's episode, I have three 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 enjoy CX passport too. Then head over to CX passport.com 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. You.