Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode will 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 very excited to talk today with Santhakumaran Atmalingam we've known each other for a few years now. And I feel like every single time we have a conversation, I come away with some new nugget of wisdom that I hadn't thought of before. Santa comes to us today from Malaysia, which brings great delight to my global heart. I love talking with people from around the globe. Over 13 years ago, Santha created cx expert Asia, recognizing the urgent need for customer experience insight. And this was before many in his region, even were considering customer experience as a discipline or even just as a thought. Santha has a deep heart for the customer, and guides teams and companies to find that same sense of customer centricity. Santha. Good evening to you and welcome to CX Passport.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 1:22

Good evening to you. And thank you for reaching out to me and inviting me for this session. I'm really absolutely delighted with our invitation. Thank you.

Rick Denton: 1:32

Well, happy to do it. Santha, you are certainly a great conversation. I always enjoy talking with you, as I said before, and hey, there's just something incredibly delightful about the fact that I'm sitting here in Texas, USA and you're sitting in Malaysia and we're having a conversation like we're sitting at a coffee or tea shop, so I love it. Well, you know that I have this catchphrase about the best meals are served outside and require a passport. But sadly, the passport is catching dust now. And I have to live vicariously through others Soon. Soon. I'll be back on the road. We'll all be traveling again. But allow me to live vicariously through you what what was dinner at your household tonight.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 2:13

I had it's Indian bread is called Chowpatty. So that will keep your Carbo low and at this age is good to take care of the health. So that's my dinner is always Indian. We have this term called pasta. Chowpatty, which is healthy food and we look up. That was my dinner. And that was early dinner. I had my dinner at six and I am in an intermittent fasting at the mall. Right? Okay. And today's my first day.

Rick Denton: 2:44

Okay, so I did not realize I was going to be having a health conversation today. But that's that's actually quite good. So as you know, I'm from Texas and our health, our food choices ranged from the you know, healthy, to the extremely not healthy. But thankfully, it's the beginning of my day. So I don't have those challenges just yet. But we'll see if I can follow through with as healthy as you did throughout my day. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, we'll see. But thank you, I have seen your mention of a favorite quote. And it is customer experience is the gap between your vision and the customer's emotion. I gotta tell you, there is such depth and richness to that thought that I feel like I should be sitting with my eyes closed upon it. So I'm going to just ask, let me sit here. And just, I'm going to ask you take me through your thoughts on that, quote,

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 3:37

yeah, customer experience about bridging the gap between any organization's vision and their customers emotion, because why? When companies, normally their vision is set by the top management, their marketing department, they do research, they engage some external consultant gave me a nice vision for my company. And the external consultant will come with premium vision and the best vision for the company, which nobody in the company is connected with that is there for display purposes. And that is what they're communicating throughout the mahkum ANP in everything. And do they live by when customers are receiving the experience from your product and services that they are delivering the what they receive is the values and the culture of that organization, but not the vision. So there will be always a gap between the vision and customers take away customers emotion. So what we do in customer experience is find that gap and bridge that gap. So this is the irony of this work that we do.

Rick Denton: 4:45

Yeah, think about that companies spending a lot of time and energy to develop that vision. And yet the customer either one doesn't know it, or feels completely disconnected from that. How does that so when you think about that How, how have you seen that impact sort of the actual customer experience? So the customer is disconnected. But what does that look like then for the customer?

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 5:09

Oh for the customer is they always get excited about the brand promises, what they see in the media in social media is everything, they get very excited. And they go into a business dealing with this organization, but when they the perceived value from that organization is always lesser than what they promise in the media. Right. So that's the gap here to find out, this is the gap that the unheard voices to the organization, customers are trying to communicate with them, customers are trying to give them feedbacks. And normally, the final stage customers will go to their Facebook page and voice it out. And then it will be a firefighting situation where they'll try to do damage control, they hire the best consultant to hand handed that damage. But why this is happening? What's the root cause of it go to the root cause. And so

Rick Denton: 6:00

I'm sitting here smiling, for those that might be listening to just the audio. It is amazing how many companies say you know, we're not going to invest in that upfront, or we don't mind that it's disconnected. But they'll spend a ton of energy and effort in what you describe as the firefighting because the customer's voice is going to be heard. It's just a matter of whether the company is listening to that, and what are they doing about that? So yeah, we're talking a lot about disconnect here. And I know when you and I have talked before, you've talked specifically about a disconnect between customer experience, and marketing. Now, I've always found that interesting, because I think there's many out there that confuse marketing and cx thinking of them as the same thing are interwoven. you're describing this disconnect, tell me more what you mean by that disconnect, and how you've seen that manifest.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 6:48

There's a fine line between marketing sales and also operation in any organization. So we call it the broken links the silos in between departments. So marketing is very well trained to look into how to market the product. Their sales is how to sell the product, what the actual delivery is from the deliveries team. It could be from your operation team or the product or services that they are delivering. The gap is they don't communicate after sales service. Yes, marketing have done their part sales have done their part operations or deliver the product. They don't sit together and discuss how was it How was the delivery went How was the How was the feedback from the customer was the customer's feedback. And when come to the feedback, it will go to the marketing the operation, the delivery side will be completely clueless on what the feedback is like. And that is marketing's job you handle the situation all marketing will pass it on to customer service. When Lindsay sigma Customer service is a call center is a wastage if your system process is so good, you shouldn't have a customer service department. So you're paying people to handle your problem. So there is customer service problem as far as icon service operation or delivery. I just deliver the service I'm done, I get my paycheck, I'm happy with it. And as a department, they all function well, that KPIs are met. They perform at 100% 98%. In terms of KPI, when come to as a company, they will fail at certain areas. So these are the areas that we find the pain points that causing the pain cost to customer and fill the gap.

Rick Denton: 8:28

We talked about disconnect, right. We mentioned disconnect that may be the theme, right? Just disconnect here. And how have you helped guide companies? How have you seen companies be successful? bridging that disconnect? So we're describing where it's not working? Well? What is it that you've seen that helps you bridge that gap? Bring that connection? bring everyone focused on the customer? What works for you What have you seen,

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 8:55

the first thing that I will do is I will train them now take a lot of time to train them. To understand who are your customers build personas. I mean, of course the design by building personas. And I will take some time to train my clients to empathize your customers. Put yourself in your customers who if you're running a restaurant, you're your fault. I'll use a very classic example I used this ice cream parlor, very famous is a global company. I don't mention the name.

Rick Denton: 9:24

Now we're good here.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 9:26

Good cheddar and mention the name but they are all over in any shopping malls. And I've done a lot of work research on them. Normally inside the shopping malls they will operate in the kiosk mode, few tables to save and so on. And normally they won't have a sink to wash hand. A place to wash hand right after eating the ice cream. So how I am hi I take my participants to this particular place the ice cream parlor. Take them out. Let's eat ice cream together and now Wash your hands. So they have to walk all the way to the public toilet to wash their hand and come back. So how does that feel? That's not good.

Rick Denton: 10:11

You've done an exercise that I love. And that is taking, whether it's executives or team members or taking people actually into the field and making them live that yes, I love your example of pulling them into the ice cream shop and making them figure out how to get the sticky off their hand. Although actually in today's world, we need the sink before the the ice cream as well. So I think you probably got a lot of eyes open there is. So you're you've talked, you know, this idea of customer experience and increasing its the awareness in Asia, you and I have talked about customer experience in Asia before. And I do recall you saying at that time now this was a few years ago, when we first were getting to know each other, but that it was a relatively new discipline. So customers expect but we've had customers for, you know, millennium. So what do you mean by customer experience in Asia, being a relatively new discipline.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 11:07

People in Asia have very much operational, very process oriented. So of course, when come to see x is outside in, we had to put the customers in the center of the design, then we going to design the processes around it. So it's something new for them like, okay, now I see from the other side of the coin, how my customers are feeling. So I will go back to the ice cream parlor example, I'll come back to the classroom, I'll tell them, put yourself imagine yourself as a single mom with two kids three year old and one year old one is in the prime. And she took the kids out to eat ice cream in this particular just after that she has to take them all the way to the washroom. wash their hands and continue her journey. Can you imagine how annoying is that? So this is where this is where how to see from the customer's perspective. And in Asia, you're picking up we are picking out Asian market, of course the services is their service level is already there. But the terminology of customer experience is still new, relatively new in this part of the world.

Rick Denton: 12:15

Okay, that's starting to make some sense to me. Because when I've traveled there, I felt such a warmth of culture, I've not felt the coldness, you know, that it's just pure process that it is we don't care about other humans, but rather the warmth of culture is there. I think what I'm hearing you say is that it's it's, it's how helping helping companies link that inherent culture that warms that, that sense of humanity to the actual discipline of running a business and, and being able to tie that into understanding what it's like to live in the customer shoes. Love it. Yeah, that, uh, that has certainly proven true. And I will tell you, and as you well know, this, that may not be just uniquely Asian, I think that's quite global, I have seen incredible insight or awareness, or more just the scales falling off of people's eyes, when they actually listen to what their customers are experiencing. Or I've frequently put a team or an executive team on a call and had them listen to calls. And it is amazing how their eyes just gets just wider and wider and wider when they realize oh, my gosh, this is what's going on. So I love your approach your ice cream approach. And as soon as I can actually interact with humans again, I intend to do the same thing and take them to ice cream shops because, well, let's be honest, I like ice cream too.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 13:34

Yeah, it that one exercise always will open their eyes. Okay, I get it. It's very hard to explain. Let's eat the ice cream. Come back to the gentlemen, we'll just

Rick Denton: 13:46

do you find that your audience actually wants to then go back to the ice cream truck. Santa, we didn't quite get all the research. Let's go back. I need another flavor. I need another

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 13:54

second round. You're paying for it. I'm not. I assume it's a bit expensive.

Rick Denton: 14:01

I like it. I like it a lot. So here now it I was joking a little bit about needing the sink beforehand, not just after hand, but it's related. I noticed I was going through your LinkedIn profile. And I noticed a post from about 11 months ago kinda in that, you know, one year ago timeframe. And you'd shared slides that linked business continuity plans to customer experience plans. And that was I mean, the timing was right when the world slipped into a pandemic companies worldwide. Suddenly were digging out their continuity plans, right probably in a dusty shelf somewhere. How did you realize that those two disciplines needed to be unified that it wasn't just a sterile business continuity plan and a human customer experience but rather these two worlds need to come together? How How did you see that?

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 14:48

Oh, what happened 11 months ago is we went into a complete lockdown invasion. First first thing of lockdown then, of course. We are trainers. We are consultants. We have to be Classroom face to face. So sitting at home for a week and Okay, what is I'm going to do, let's do some research, then what will be important for timing for at the moment because we are in the middle of a pandemic situation, I will classify that as a war zone. So, any organization with jumping into digitalization, yes, this is the way forward. I agree with that. But where does customer experience play a role in this this context. So I brought cx and also business continuity plan together, while you're planning your business continuity, don't forget, don't let go the customer experience is equally essential. And today with the industry 4.0 is the tools out there. A lot of it vendors can create a very seamless experience to take you to the pandemic situation. So, and I will tell my clients don't rush, don't rush into long term solution, just handle the current situation, plan for a year. And you have three years planning as well. So you can migrate completely into that because once the pandemic is over the vaccine is out there, people will want to go back to conventional view still want to go and eat ice cream out there, we can be expected someone to deliver a stream to our house, right? So let's come to a balance right after the pandemic, then your design the long term solution for now and do what you need to know or need to handle for us.

Rick Denton: 16:25

I really liked that. And I wish that your message had gotten even wider out there. Because you and I both know examples of companies that are hiding behind COVID, even to this day, a year after the pandemic really became a global real estate started before that. But too many companies are still saying, you know, due to COVID, our hold times are long or our processes are broken. Or we can't ship this or there's there's still a lot out there that I love what you've done. I really did. Because if you think of it just on stereotype, the business continuity plan folks that tend to create that are tend to be more disciplined and analytical and thoughtful and process and how do we make sure that the system doesn't break. And then customer experiences about delighting and helping customers have the most engaging experience possible those two worlds rarely collide. And I thought it was fascinating to see you bring those together. So over the last 11 months, so now you posted that about a year ago, have you seen things that have reinforced your view? Or? Or even maybe alternate? What have you seen over the last 11 months?

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 17:30

I've seen a lot of companies adopted that they've incorporated incorporated business continuity plan, together with their customer experience. I mean, for my clients, I've done that. And they're progressing pretty well.

Rick Denton: 17:43

That's fantastic Santha. So taking away some of the things that I'm hearing you talk about certainly the idea one thing I heard, we started with disconnect and I'm hearing a bridging of that is through empathy. How do you bring that empathy empathy for the customer bring that into the center so that that bridges the disconnect, love it fantastic.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 18:03

Customers want to be heard. They want the product owners, the brand owners listen to us we have a lot of things to tell. So ultimately listen to your customers I would say that's an important

Rick Denton: 18:24

so a little change of pace here. I want you to join me in the first class lounge we're travelers we're customer experience people but we're in the first class lounge so we're going to move quickly here this is just a chance to have a little bit of fun so I want to know what was a dream travel location from your past the place you've been that was one of your dream travel locations. I want to go back to India. India is your dream travel location from your past where specifically India is too big to just say India

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 18:49

Turchi

Rick Denton: 18:50

okay

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 18:51

Turchi India.

Rick Denton: 18:52

Sounds interesting. Tell me a little bit more.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 18:55

My last trip to India was one year ago okay right before the first lockdown and I missed two very major temples so I just okay

Rick Denton: 19:04

awesome to go go back go to see the temples Great. So a dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 19:13

Greece.

Rick Denton: 19:14

Whoo. I like Greece. I would like to get there as some the food the beaches, the the sights. Yes, absolutely. What is your favorite thing to eat?

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 19:25

fried noodles,

Rick Denton: 19:27

fried noodles. I like that. On the other side. What is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 19:35

Okay, I will share this. Indians we eat neem leaf, okay named leaf which is bitter to hell. They will force you to eat whenever you have chickenpox, so I hated that maybe

Rick Denton: 19:49

neatly. Interesting. It is funny the things that we're forced to eat brussel sprouts are on my list. Not not a favorite at all. So one travel item. You will not leave home without,

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 20:02

I'll take my torchlight alone,

Rick Denton: 20:04

okay, got to make sure you have that. You seem very practical, I love that. I want to change things up a bit. You've worked with people, companies and places all over the world. So just thinking about the experiences that you've had doesn't have to be business could be anything. But what's a particularly interesting experience you've had as a traveler,

Unknown: 20:29

I like Indonesia. When I travel in Indonesia, the population is big, it's about 200 million population. When you check in, in any hotel, you will feel that the waiter waitresses, the employees of that hotel, they want to connect with you, genuinely, ah, you can feel that sincerity. There. They're not asking your names or anything for the sake of building a relationship. But they are very genuine that they want to know you. Where are you from? Which country are you from? Do you want to click a conversation? And I like that one was in Indonesia, that was very nice. And that kind of goes back to when I was talking earlier about just the warmth throughout Southeast Asia, but I've not had the chance to go to Indonesia yet. Look forward to that. And you certainly are doing a good advertising for it. So Alright, that was travel. Now I want you to bring the two worlds together, right? We're talking about customer experience at the beginning here. You just talked about travel. In all of your travels, what do you take back from travel that helps inspire your work in customer experience? The different culture? Okay, the different culture, the service level? How people engage us as a foreigner. Some countries, like I went to France, my tour guide told told me don't speak in English, you just speak in Tamil, I am a native languages Tamil. Yeah. And they will speak with you in English, then you speak in English. I tried that. It was

Rick Denton: 22:00

interesting.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 22:01

So the understanding of different cultures very important. For instance, like when you're in Brunei, when you're Brunei, if somebody's offering you food to eat, you have to touch the plate and say thank you. Okay, if you just reject it, like, No, no, it's okay, I already had my dinner, they're going to be very offended. So these are the fine culture that I learned along the way from my childhood. So I incorporate this when I'm in Brunei doing my consulting work. I know how to behave.

Rick Denton: 22:33

So I've heard two things in there that are interesting. Well actually heard a lot in there. But there are two nuggets that I want to take away from there. And how do you pivot that into how you're helping other companies create great customer experience? And I heard understanding the culture. And I also heard, appreciating and absorbing the wealth of diversity that the globe provides us. How does that pivot directly into how you advise companies around delivery of customer experience?

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 23:02

Here's how I bring back this. My knowledge and skills. My experience in traveling back to CX is, I will strive to understand your customers profile, clearly define who are your customers, you come up with a beautiful persona, give a life to your customers, and your entire solution prepare for these personas. You can't go wrong. So you empathize them, you know, who are they? What are their challenges? And which of your customers specific problem are you trying to solve? Based on that? design your journey, and then you roll out your solutions and is iterated by trial and error. There's no one final solution that said, we are done no. Your customers will change along the way their preferences will change along the way. And you have to be ready to change at any point of time.

Rick Denton: 23:56

I like that and I think it sounds what I'm hearing out of there is definitely the better you know your customers the easier it is for you to change with them. And you had said something earlier when we were talking here and that is you talked about listening to your customers and I hear you talk about you know hey I'm I'm listening as I travel I'm listening my customers. How does a company listen to their customers? What what are they're gaining by listening to their customers? What What have you kind of advised in that space when it comes to listening to your customers?

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 24:28

That is the most important part of customer experience which is listening to your customers because they are teaching you how to manage your business, how to run your business by knowing them. They are training you they are giving you a lot of feedback directly or indirectly. All you need to do is continuously listen to that. You can become like Amazon, one of the richest men in the world. Built on CXO just listen to them.

Rick Denton: 24:55

So if I were to take away one thing from today's conversation, it would be if I listened to my gut customer, I will be as rich as Amazon got it. Okay, duly noted. I may not be rich in my wallet, but I can certainly be rich in my heart as I get to experience those customers will santha this has been absolutely delightful. I love how you have brought us this idea of empathy, right? Not a new concept. But the idea of how do you get empathy into the hearts and minds of the employees and I love? Well, you know what, put them directly in the customer shoes, I'll just talk about it, but put them directly in the customer shoes. I love how you brought us into the idea of, you know, we've got this disconnect between all these corporate silos, but through empathy and through customer, we weave those together. And then, you know, certainly absolutely the idea of the diversity of our globe or the diversity of our customer base understanding that and then I think I want to cap what I learned from you was the voice of the customer, listening to the customer, becomes the epicenter of it all. So I love it. I thank you so much for talking. I know it's late there. And I really appreciate having this conversation, Santa. I've walked away with nuggets of wisdom again. I look forward to having you on again soon sometime.

Santhakumaran Atmalingam: 26:12

Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. And thank you for inviting me for this session.

Unknown: 26:16

You bet. Have a great evening. You too. Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.