Rick Denton (00:16)
CX Passport listeners, we are heading back to the Gulf region today, specifically to Bahrain. Mohamed Issa joins us, a former chief financial officer and author of, get this, 20 books, including Travel, Enjoy, Repeat, and the creator of the Chai Khadak Manifesto. His experience stretches well beyond Bahrain, from earning a CPA in the US, to traveling extensively across global regions, to climbing Everest,

Basecamp y'all. From financial discipline to global exploration, he brings a thoughtful and research-backed perspective to customer experience. There's depth there, rigor, curiosity, and a strong point of view on how organizations serve people. Mohamed welcome to CX Passport.

Mohamed Isa (01:05)
Well, thank you so much, Rick, for having me. It's an absolute pleasure being with you today.

Rick Denton (01:11)
The pleasure is mine as well. I am very, very pleased that we are able to do this today. You know, there is something we often say in the customer experience world that CX leaders need to convince the CFO to invest in customer experience. Well, you've actually been the CFO. What changes when the finance leader understands customer experience from the inside?

Mohamed Isa (01:35)
It changes a lot. It changes a lot. I was very lucky to join Unilever, the multinational company. And during my second stint within the company, I was placed in what we called the commercial marketing department. So commercial marketing sits between sales, supply chain, and marketing. So we are embedded in the business. We're not the accountants issuing the invoices or doing the analysis. We are living.

what they are living. So I learned early on from my immediate manager. He's another Bahraini. His name is Abdul Majeed. I've seen how does he interact with the sales supply chain and marketing and how he thinks beyond the numbers. And that's very important for CFOs. Don't just think about the numbers. Think about the consumer, the customer. And in Unilever, regardless of your function, you have to have

Rick Denton (02:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (02:32)
focus on customers whether you're the T-boy or the CFO or the IT or the researcher you need to be in touch with the consumers and let me give you one example we had something called feet on the street feet on the street and this is something I will never forget on this day everyone will be out so you will check out from your office

Rick Denton (02:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (03:02)
and you will be placed in a supermarket, a hypermarket, and you'll be interacting with the consumers directly. So I remember having the responsibility of selling Loks shower gel, and it was something new. So I was placed next to the gondola where we place all the shower gels, and I was selling like hot cake. And...

Rick Denton (03:19)
Okay, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (03:28)
Later in the evening, we were all gathered in the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah, and we were assigned in teams. And I remember having the debrief where I said, I sold the most shower gels because of one sentence. And the marketing director, his name is GLD, he's from the US. He said, Mohamed, tell me about that. I said, the secret was to tell the consumers with this shower gel bottle.

you can get 50 showers. That's it. And he said, is that something you made up? I said, no, no, it's on the bottom. So he looked at someone else. His name is Dave from India. He was responsible for the development of the products. And he said, Dave enlarged the font. So that's what you get when you get closer to the customer. You understand how they think? And then.

Rick Denton (04:17)
You

Yeah.

Mohamed Isa (04:26)
CFOs don't worry about the numbers the numbers will come when you understand this the consumer

Rick Denton (04:31)
And what I love about that is by being on the inside, you know that, right? You knew that by hearing the customer, you sold the most possible, and then how it affected all of the other departments. There's a lot of folks that might not think that the copy on the shower gel bottle really affects the customer. I I'll admit, I probably don't read it that often as well, but a big font that said what mattered to the customer, because the customer told you it mattered, makes a lot of sense. You're gonna get a lot more sales out of that.

Mohamed Isa (04:57)
Yeah, yeah, just listen to the customers.

Rick Denton (05:01)
Yeah, huh, that sounds kind of simple, doesn't it? Why do you think, okay, well, why do you think that isn't the case with a lot of, and I don't want to blame the CFOs, they're often our target, but let's be honest, there's a lot of roles that aren't pure play CX that don't, when it seems so obvious to us. Why do you think that is?

Mohamed Isa (05:04)
Absolutely.

I think being focused on your technical side and leaving everything else, I think that's the problem. Some people say we should be generalists. And I believe in that. You should not be a specialist. Yes, you could be technically very, very strong, solid, but at least know what others are doing. Know what's market reset, know what supply chain does.

Rick Denton (05:43)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (05:50)
know how IT works because let's face it, even IT, they are dealing with customers internally inside the company or the ministry or the university. So if you don't listen to what are the challenges the users are facing, how can you improve the products, the service?

Rick Denton (06:08)
I

1000 % agree. And I think that message continues to get out there and that message of how it ties to dollars. I want to, mentioned this in the introduction and I just can't wait to get to this, that book, travel, enjoy, repeat. Long time listeners know how much I love travel and it shows up prominently in your writing. What has seen the world taught you about notice I'm not using the word customer here about human expectations.

and how those expectations shape then customer experience.

Mohamed Isa (06:43)
Expectations are the trail, if you like. Expectations will lead to the experience. So when you travel, you want to see... You go to these advanced countries, ⁓ Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Your expectations are very high of these countries. And naturally, when you go there, the expectations are met with real performance. And I remember now just talking to you.

Rick Denton (07:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (07:13)
going to Lausanne in Switzerland a few times. And it was the first time that I came to know this city. They have more than 500 water fountains for residents and visitors to drink fresh water. And that's CX.

Rick Denton (07:28)
Okay.

⁓

Mohamed Isa (07:36)
⁓ And this is not from today. This has been there for hundreds of years. And sometimes we talk about customer experience, CX. Sometimes I call it citizens experience. And I have seen the same thing in Nepal. have visited Nepal around nine times. And believe it or not, in their cities, they have places where people can sit and just have a chat. It should be shaded. If you are tired, you can sit over there.

Rick Denton (07:41)
Right?

Mohamed Isa (08:06)
If you want to play cards, you can play there. If you want to just have a chat, you can sit there. And again, that's CX.

Rick Denton (08:49)
Okay, so let's, because that's a human expectation, I want to have a human conversation with another human in a shaded spot because the weather is such that I need some shade there. Okay, well let's go back to tying that almost to the revenue conversation that we did with the CFO. Why would a city do that? Why does a city need to do what you're describing there of creating the water fountains, of creating the shaded spaces? What would motivate a government to do that?

Mohamed Isa (09:18)
Simply said, simply said, if they didn't do that, we would not be having this conversation. So this will intrigue other people to go and visit these countries. And that's revenue. From the visa, from the hotel, from the time you spend in restaurants, to the sightseeing trips, all of this is revenues.

Rick Denton (09:42)
That makes sense. Okay, so making it convenient for the citizens makes it convenient for the travelers, makes it more attractive for me as a dude sitting in North Texas USA to say, know what? I've heard that ⁓ it is a reasonably comfortable experience to go to Nepal. I want to go see what Nepal is all about. And I'm going to go spend some revenue there. I could see that. Well, that's the positive side.

Mohamed Isa (10:05)
Absolutely.

Rick Denton (10:08)
but I know that you've designed something based out of a deeply frustrating service experience. ChiCodec was born out of, well, something that didn't quite go so well. What is it about, and specifically, because we all have bad things that happen in life, some great, some small, but what is it about customer service failures that just dig up that strong emotion in people compared to just other kind of business disappointments?

Mohamed Isa (10:20)
have civetly.

You

I'm not sure about that, but I think having a bad experience will always make you talk to other people about it. And that's how I was done. And they tell you, I think there is a statistics that says for each one that complains, 27 will remain silent. But I refused to be silent when I had that bad experience with the bank because I was sitting in the same spot where I'm talking to you today. And it's been six months.

Rick Denton (10:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (11:04)
since I'm having this bad experience with the bank. And it was the time to go to pray. So I went upstairs to my room while I was taking the flight upstairs. I was having this idea. Why don't I write a book about this bank? Not a tweet, not a Facebook post, not a LinkedIn post. How about a book? So I went upstairs and finished my prayers and I came back and I was sitting.

Rick Denton (11:21)
Hahaha.

Mohamed Isa (11:34)
over here using the same laptop I'm speaking from today And believe it or not, within one hour and a half, I had 20 chapters ready.

I was so happy that night. And this was in December 2017. And I remember finishing the first copy of the book within six or seven days. I was just downloading, yeah, downloading. I'll tell you something, because this story came deep and from the heart.

Rick Denton (11:56)
my gosh!

Mohamed Isa (12:06)
and from frustration.

case with the bank prolonged for a very long time. I didn't want to wait and see what happens at the end. So I ended the book, the Tchaik Hrach book, with a chapter called...

a happy ending. And in my mind, I could only see one sentence to begin the chapter.

If you thought you would read a happy ending, you were mistaken. This is a real story, not a fairy tale. A frog remains a frog, no matter how many times a princess kisses the frog. here is the deal. That bank lost so much because of this incident.

I was a priority client. My facilities with the bank were large, and the millions of dollars. And if you lose a customer like me, I will be talking about you for the rest of my life. And CFOs, going back to the CFOs, that's how you lose

Rick Denton (12:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, just like we're doing right here. Yeah.

So you, was so stirring for you and, listeners, there'll be a link to, get your own copy And it's one of those that when you read the story, you think, duh, they should have done what you were asking them to do. Like this wasn't.

You weren't asking something in my uninformed opinion, something particularly crazy, something really wild and out there. felt relatively normal for a high profile, high value client. What about your experience there? And I know you may not know behind the walls. So some of what I'm asking you, I may ask you to assume, but why do you think they didn't offer what you were asking for?

Mohamed Isa (13:40)
Absolutely.

Yeah, it's okay.

I think the main reason was that they'd had incompetent employees. That's the main reason. And if you look at their literature, if you look at how their CEO at that time talked about CX, you will think this is a bank that landed from heaven. but when it comes to reality, it's totally off. And I had a full chapter about that in the book. What they say?

Rick Denton (14:00)
okay.

haha

Mohamed Isa (14:23)
and what they do not do in reality. So I think incompetence, that's why in my Chai Carrack manifesto, I have the letter A, attract passionate employees. Because if you attract passionate employees, they will take care of your customers.

Rick Denton (14:50)
Mohamed I want to get back to the Chai Karak, the overall sort of methodology with that, but I want to take a little break here. You've traveled to the US, you studied there, you've been to Nepal, you've been to places around the globe. Well, you know, it can be nice to stop down in the first class lounge. Well, I want to invite you to stop down in the first class lounge with me today. We'll move quickly and have a little bit of fun here. What is a dream travel location from your

Mohamed Isa (15:10)
Thank you.

Rick Denton (15:15)
past.

Mohamed Isa (15:17)
Engelberg, Switzerland.

Rick Denton (15:20)
⁓ I don't think I know that one. Tell me more about that.

Mohamed Isa (15:23)
They have lakes, have streams, they have green meadows as far as the eye can see. They have the Alps, they have so many things that you can do in this one little village. So I would stay there for two weeks without being bored at all. And I'll tell you, based on my insights, they have now more restaurants in the area and they have more hotels in the areas. So you can have more.

Rick Denton (15:39)
wow.

Alright.

Mohamed Isa (15:51)
experiences as well.

Rick Denton (15:52)
good.

Well good, that means there's more space for people like me and all the listeners here just went, wait, what's that town? And writing it down and immediately booking flights there. Love it.

Mohamed Isa (15:58)
Engelberg. And by the way,

Engelberg comes from the... It's an angel. Engel-bird. So it's an angel city. And they have a large cathedral over there. And that's why it was called Engelberg. Because they believe the angels were descending in the area.

Rick Denton (16:08)
huh. I like that.

Well, it sounds like you have experienced that angel descent experience in that city and it sounds very lovely. Now, what about the other way? What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Mohamed Isa (16:27)
I have to sit.

Mod Fuji Japan

Rick Denton (16:36)
Yeah. What about Mount Fuji intrigues you so much?

Mohamed Isa (16:41)
It's an iconic mountain. It's an iconic mountain. And I want to do it. I want to experience it. I want to climb it. I I studied Japanese in 1998, so maybe I can practice my Japanese again.

Rick Denton (16:43)
Mm-hmm.

Whoa.

Well, as someone who, and listeners know this, that I had the chance to go there when my son studied abroad in Japan, it was very helpful to have him who spoke rudimentary Japanese with us. So your skills will come in very handy, especially when we were ordering food, which was such a key part of the Japanese experience. In that vein, what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Mohamed Isa (17:18)
I love this Indian or Pakistani dish, it's called lamb karahi. So it's lamb in a little stew and the lamb would be very tender, very juicy. And if you add to it a freshly baked naan or a bread, that's it.

Rick Denton (17:37)
yeah.

You're making me hungry right now. It's almost kind of our midday meal time here while we're recording this in the U.S. You're making me hungry and I think you're giving me some choices of where I might go grab something for lunch. All right, now what about growing up? What was something you were forced to eat when you were growing up that you hated as a kid?

Mohamed Isa (17:48)
Why not? Go for it.

I can't remember anything like that. I can't remember anything like that. No. ⁓

Rick Denton (18:00)
Wow. Look at you, very open as a child. Well, I'm glad to hear

that probably explains your global approach to not just food, but also just life and travel in general. Time for us to leave the first class lounge. Unfortunately, what is one travel item, not including your phone and not including your passport that you will not leave home without.

Mohamed Isa (18:22)
I think a pen and an orth pad, just to write my thoughts.

Rick Denton (18:34)
Mohamed, given the fact that you have written 20 books, I can see why a pen and a notepad might be that thing that you're always carrying with you to see how you're going to get the next 20 books out. Well, let's talk about that book. The one we're talking about here, the Chicotic MetaFesto. You outline these core customer service principles. You alluded to some of them earlier. Which one of those do you think organizations most underestimate? And then what happens when they do underestimate it?

Mohamed Isa (19:05)
I think under-communicating, because we are very good when we are trying to get the customers to buy from us. And once they buy, we forget about them. And I have now an experience where I have a cooker in a rental property. And I have been waiting for this supplier to fix that cooker for two weeks. So I understand you have different places where you can cook. There is only one that's not working.

Rick Denton (19:09)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (19:35)
The burner, one of the burners are not working and the tenant is nagging me for that and I'm nagging the supplier but I'm not getting any results. Now, this is not good because I'm chasing the supplier. It should be the other way around. I have very good brokers in my life. They will always keep me in the loop of what's happening in the market, in the real estate market. They will always send WhatsApp messages.

Rick Denton (20:04)
⁓ yeah, very true.

Mohamed Isa (20:05)
Every week they

send us a message. We have this master plan. We have this property. Even if I don't have anything or any requirements, I would always think of them for my next purchase. And that's how that's what you lose. If you lose touch with the customers, you lose the money they have. You lose the share of money from their pocket. That's one thing you lose when you under communicate.

Rick Denton (20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So in that communication vein, and I love that you brought the real estate broker into it because there's a balance to be struck there. I have experienced, you mentioned WhatsApp messages and I find it that when I get a text from a realtor that said, Hey, we are interested in selling your home. And I have no relationship with this person. I find that intrusive. Send me a mail, send me something that goes my mailbox that I'll just throw away and ignore.

But the ones that I have a relationship with, okay, that's reasonable. Where's that balance for a company between communicating and annoying the crap out of me?

Mohamed Isa (21:11)
I'll tell you something since you mentioned this example. It's just like going on LinkedIn. How many requests do you get every day? The moment you accept, you think this is a legible connection, the moment you accept, you get hit with a message saying, we have this company and we are doing this and that. How about first understand me as a customer?

Rick Denton (21:18)
Yeah.

Right.

Amen.

Mohamed Isa (21:37)
understand me, then start selling. And sometimes I try to teach them. Did we meet before? Did I ask for this before? So you should have, yeah, yeah. So I want to teach them that you cannot sell this way, especially if you're talking about high ticket items. And as you said, we need to strike a balance. It shouldn't be too much. And that should be directed to our needs. It should not be.

Rick Denton (21:47)
Oh really? You get into it with him? Oh yeah!

Mohamed Isa (22:07)
sending me everyday, buy this and buy that. No, that, you know, there is something called the block. You can block someone.

Rick Denton (22:17)
Well, that's when you were telling your story there and I'm sitting there going,

man, Mohamed's one of the kindest guys that I've met because I get that message and I'm not so sure that the speed of light is faster than my hand going to the block button when I get that message. So you are kind in how you're instructing these people to behave and engage better.

Mohamed Isa (22:42)
Remember the incompetent employee I talked about in the back. I blocked him on my WhatsApp.

Rick Denton (22:42)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sure, I would do the same given what you're saying there.

Mohamed Isa (22:51)
Yeah.

So if you don't communicate strategically, you get the block. And if you get the block, you don't get the money in the bank. And that's a tweetable, If you don't get a few.

Rick Denton (23:05)
We could actually end that right there, but we're not going to because

I love travel too much to just drop this here. And one of the things that I wanted to ask you about is that climb to Everest Base Camp. It actually has become an inspiration for you for your business model. On the climb towards customer loyalty. Talk to me about where most organizations lose momentum on.

Mohamed Isa (23:20)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think one of the major areas that companies need to work on is the service culture. The service culture is key. I remember talking to a family business. They had their annual staff day or employees day and there were 300 people of them sitting in the venue. And I had this simple question. I said, if you are responsible for customer,

service, please raise your hand. And guess how many out of the 300 raised their hands? Only seven. Only seven people raised their hands, and they were, of course, the customer service department. And I thought, no, no, no, no. This is not possible. This is not correct. This is something that you need to change. Everyone in the company is responsible for customers.

Rick Denton (24:08)
Wow.

Right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (24:30)
And if you don't have that in the DNA of the organization, you're losing so much because everyone will say, it's not my problem, it's the customer service department. So no, it's a supply chain. It's a value chain that runs throughout the organization. And if you don't have that, it's a big problem. You will be losing a lot.

Rick Denton (24:51)
Well,

when you think about it using your climb to Everest Base Camp as kind of inspiration, there are certain things that are foundational in that climb that if you don't have, I'll just use safety. And I realize that's a wide ranging when you're talking about Everest, but whether there's someone who is officially the safety officer on your climb team, that doesn't matter.

Every single person is responsible for clipping in correctly, making sure that the right gear is in place, that the tents aren't flying around, that all of that is in place. And if any one person skips their responsibility for safety, it impacts the entire trek. And that's not gonna, well, that's not gonna fly, if you will.

Mohamed Isa (25:20)
There you go. There you go.

Absolutely.

And you just nailed it on the head. You just nailed it on the head because safety is everyone's responsibility. And not only that, I think organizations should consider what we applied in reaching the Everest Base Camp. We had what we called accountability bodies. So I'll be responsible for you. You'll be responsible for me. And this cross check

on customers should happen all the time. Let's say I sent you a customer who had a problem. If I told you about the problem, I should follow up with you to make sure the resolution happened.

Rick Denton (26:19)
yeah, whereas

frequently it's more, I just handed it off. I have passed the ball to you and I no longer, yeah, I'm done. So, my goodness.

Mohamed Isa (26:26)
Yes. I sent an email.

Yeah,

that's a very low level of work ethic. It should be more than that.

Rick Denton (26:34)
Yeah,

I like that accountability buddy concept. And there's much more about the, Everest Base Camp approach that intrigued me as I was learning more about it from you. We're, running out of time here, but there's one more thing that I wanted to ask you about. I've always been intrigued when I talked to folks from your region of the world, the GCC region, that that area seems to have such a focus on customer experience.

And recently you experienced the launch of the Customer Experience Association of Bahrain, which really cements that signal of momentum in the region. Why was this the right time? And what does the GCC in general bring to the global customer experience conversation?

Mohamed Isa (27:18)
You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised, if you come to the GCC, you'd be surprised with what we have in terms of CX across the GCC, especially in Saudi. In Saudi, they were far ahead from us. They started the CX Association a few years ago. And believe it or not, when they have their annual conference, they would have around 4,000, 6,000 people attending the conference.

Rick Denton (27:26)
Yeah.

Whoa!

Mohamed Isa (27:48)
Now, talk about CX ambassadors, taking the best in a class of practices and going back to their organizations and implementing that. So that's how you get the ripple effects. And in Bahrain, we have been working on the CX Association for more than a year. And I'll tell you, we are 11 board members, the founding board members, and we are all excited about taking Bahrain much, much further than where we are today.

Rick Denton (27:50)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mohamed Isa (28:17)
We have a very decent CX environment, culture, and not only in the private sector, even in the governmental sector. Let me surprise you with this. We have an app. We have an app, and it's a governmental app. It's called Tawassil, which means communication. Now, where I live here, where I live here, I had one road because someone was constructing a house, and they were throwing all the rubbish.

Rick Denton (28:29)
Okay.

Mohamed Isa (28:47)
next to the house, so they blocked one street. So I took a picture with my phone, and I went on Tawassil. And I sent them the Google map location. And I told them about this problem we're having. And the road was cleared within two or three days.

Rick Denton (29:08)
Goodness, two or three days?

Mohamed Isa (29:09)
Yes,

yes, yes. So this is what I'm talking about, is the private sector and the ⁓ governmental sector. We're doing this in a big way and the best is yet to come.

Rick Denton (29:21)
Yeah.

think that if there's a lesson that I've heard that would be the most exportable or let me say it this way, the lesson that needs to be the most exportable, especially into like the Western hemisphere, specifically the U S would be that aspect. And that is the government linkage to customer experience. That's something that we see little pockets of it, but we don't always, I'm being kind here. We rarely,

see it expressed in how we interact with some of our government services. And I think that'd be a great expert.

Mohamed Isa (29:58)
I think

before we end, I want you to invite you and the listeners, because I'm talking about this, but I want you to experience this. I want you to go to bahrain.bh, and you will see as a citizen or as a resident how many transactions I can accomplish while sitting in my house. Yeah, bahrain.bh, yeah.

Rick Denton (30:06)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay, I will get that link into the show note. Yeah, I'm gonna

get that link in the show notes folks. can click that and just see what, ⁓ well, see what an ideal customer experience through government might be. That actually gives me the perfect segue, Mohamed. If folks wanted to get to

Learn a little bit more about your book, your methodologies. What is the best way for them to learn more or get a copy of that book?

Mohamed Isa (30:44)
I think the best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn or go to my website everestspeech.com, one of those two. And I'm looking forward to connecting with all the listeners.

Rick Denton (30:56)
Awesome. will get those links in the show notes as well. Mohamed, it has been a great conversation. I've enjoyed both mixing kind of travel conversation along with your real pure play business methodologies around customer experience and the Chikotic ⁓ model and the book makes a lot of sense. And it's a shame that you had such a frustrating experience, but let's be honest. If you can document that experience by the time you've walked up upstairs for prayer time,

Mohamed Isa (31:17)
It's a blessing for me.

Rick Denton (31:25)
That sounds like it was a good air quotes here experience for you. Mom, and I did enjoy today's conversation. It was a delight for me. Thank you for being on CX Passport.

Mohamed Isa (31:29)
Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

It was my delight. And as we say in Nepal, dandibat. That's thank you.