👉Love customer experience and love travel? You’ve found the right podcast, a show about creating great customer experience, with a dash of travel talk. 🎤Each episode, we’ll talk with our guests about customer experience, travel, and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. Listen here or watch on YouTube youtube.com/@cxpassport 🗺️CX Passport is a podcast that purposely seeks out global Customer Experience voices to hear what's working well in CX, what are their challenges and to hear their Customer Experience stories. In addition, there's always a dash (or more!) of travel talk in each episode.🧳Hosted by Rick Denton, CX Passport will bring Customer Experience and industry leaders to get their best customer experience insights, stories and hear their tales from the road...whether it’s the one less traveled or the one on everyone’s summer trip list.
I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport
Music: Funk In The Trunk by Shane Ivers
CX Passport is a podcast for customer experience professionals that focuses on the stories, strategies, and solutions needed to create and deliver meaningful customer experiences. It features guests from the world of CX, including executives, consultants, and authors, who discuss their own experiences, tips, and insights. The podcast is designed to help CX professionals learn from each other, stay on top of the latest trends, and develop their own strategies for success.
📖 Our book is here! Get your copy of The Loud Quiet – Love, Laughter and Life in the Empty Nest, here: https://amzn.to/4sC0EV7
According to CX Passport E1 S15 guest, Kate Brouse of NTI, the world’s largest minority community isn’t what you’d expect. Expand your understanding of the disability community with a fascinating discussion with Kate. We learn about invisible disabilities and come to the realization that ALL of us are just one bad bike ride away from joining this community.
Through her work with NTI www.ntiathome.org, Kate helps companies match with the disability community, providing opportunities for the employee...and the opportunity to create a much better customer experience for the company.
Kate also explores which travel experiences are doing well supporting this community...and which are falling way short. We also get insight into how fascinating Turkey is as a place to travel...and live!
Hosted by Rick Denton, CX Passport guides you through a conversation on customer experience and travel.
Rick Denton:
You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well 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. A recurring theme of cx passport, be it customer experience or travel is exploring the wide spectrum of experiences that we all bring to the tapestry of life. Today, I'm very excited to expand that spectrum through a conversation with Kate brouse. Kate advocates for disability rights and can often be found driving for inclusion, accessibility and diversity for the disability community. To her work at nti, Kate helps contact centers hire Americans and veterans with disabilities to be remote agents. I am really looking forward to learning so much in today's conversation and can't wait to get started. Kate, welcome to cx passport.
Kate Brouse:
Thank you, Rick, I think I match your level of enthusiasm and excitement for this.
Rick Denton:
Great, I love it when the excitement is on both sides. So speaking of that kind of excitement now, it's a special situation where you can combine your passion with your actual job. Tell me how that comes together for you at nti.
Kate Brouse:
I am so lucky to have a job that I love. From a very early age, I was very passionate about inclusion. I think the first time I remember really being aware of it was when I was in second grade, there was a girl who moved to our area she was in my class, she was from Germany and didn't speak a word of English. And I wanted her to be able to be included. And so I loaned her my popular toy back then called speak and spell. I said if any of your listeners will remember that well true. But um, so I loaned her my speaking spell because I wanted her to feel included. And I wanted her to be able to have something that she could do to help learn English more quickly. And I remember feeling really awkward that my teacher in the effort to help her understand was just speaking very slowly and very loudly to her. And I remember thinking that's not a very good way to do that. So for some reason, even in an early age, I was passionate about inclusion, and making sure that the needs of others were recognized and met. And that's something that I am able to bring to my job at nti. As you mentioned, we are a US nonprofit. And our mission is to help disabled Americans trained for and find jobs with our contact center partners that they can simply do at home. That's the accommodation that they need with their disability. And so I love working for nti
Rick Denton:
What a great, what a great story to know that all the way back from speaking spell days, this was something that was at your heart, and then to be able to manifest that in your professional capacity has got to be an incredible delight. Now in that in that space, I know you and I have talked a little bit about sort of, quote, invisible disabilities. Now that was a new term for me when you introduced it to me. So what do you mean by that?
Kate Brouse:
I love that I got to introduce that term to you. invisible disability is exactly what it sounds like. And like many people, you probably had the vision in your head. And when you heard of somebody that had a disability, you probably thought of somebody who used some sort of assisted device for mobility or a cane to help them see someone who was in a wheelchair or a scooter or a walker. And the reality is, is while those are disabilities, and they are very visible to us, there are even more disabilities that are invisible to us. And so when you think of things like PTSD, anxiety, or depression, all of those are disabilities that right now are occurring more than any other at any than any time in recent history because of the frustrations and trauma that comes from this pandemic. And those are all invisible disabilities, but they can be very real disabilities. And at nti. Part of what I advocate for is our inclusion not only of those with quote unquote, severe disabilities, the kind that you may think when you see Oh yes, I see a person in a wheelchair, that person is disabled, but also the kind that you may not see from somebody walking down the street.
Rick Denton:
I've got to imagine that that not to sort rank disabilities or anything like that. But that's got to present a particularly unique challenge for those with invisible disabilities as they look to one just live life but then also secure employment and go through that. How does your work at nti help those with invisible disabilities? How does that come together?
Kate Brouse:
We never ask what your disability is. And so unless you want to share with us, we don't know because we are helping you get a job at home. That being said, we have a deep knowledge of all the different types of disabilities that are out there, and the different unique accommodations that may be necessary with those disabilities. But the wonderful thing about it is when you have a remote job, and your employer is remote, should you not want to reveal your disability, you don't have to that being said, at nti, we work really hard to have a an inclusive workplace where we all can feel comfortable bringing our whole selves to work. And we encourage our employer partners to do the same so that those people who do want to bring their whole selves to work and share the fact that they do have some kind of disability, whether that's cerebral palsy or depression, we support and encourage workplaces that allow people to share that at work without the judgment that so often comes with it.
Rick Denton:
That's got to be one just obviously an incredible help to the disability community. But I've got imagine it's a help to the employers themselves in that even if an employer wanted to be welcoming, and wanted to be inclusive, they may not know the best way to go about that. We've talked a little bit about how nti is helping support the the employee or potential employee. What about the places in which you place them? How do you help the employer, I guess I'd say, understand that community and support that community?
Kate Brouse:
Well, one of the things that I get to do in my job is talk to our potential employer partners. And what I love to share with them, there's actually a report that was put out in 2018 by Accenture called Getting to equal and for anyone who hasn't yet looked that up, I encourage you to do so because it's all about the benefits that come from inclusion, specifically, of people with disabilities in your workforce. Most tech companies that haven't leveraged the talents of those people with disabilities just don't understand the number of people that have disabilities. And when you open your doors up to them what that does to your talent pool. So most people don't realize the largest minority of people in this country and even in the world is actually people with disabilities. And I love what Josh blue says about it. Josh blue is a comedian with cerebral palsy. He's been a spokesperson in the past for nti. And he has a quip that, you know, we're all just one bad bike ride away from joining the disability community. And that's really true. There aren't many minority communities that you can say, Hey, I could be a member of that community tomorrow, my skin color isn't going to change by tomorrow, my religion or lack thereof probably isn't going to change by tomorrow. But I could be in the disability community tomorrow.
Rick Denton:
Boy, that is that that is incredibly insightful, that my brain is already kind of opening up here. Even though you had talked before I'm still learning stuff, even on this conversation. So I think this is in that same vein. So taking it kind of in a customer experience space, you had mentioned to hashtag to me before that was hashtag Nothing about us, without us before. How does inclusion of the disability community improve customer experience?
Kate Brouse:
Really quickly, let me just share about that hashtag, because that's a really important hashtag within the disability community. But that actually was a hashtag that was started in Eastern European countries back in the early 1900s. It was in the 1990s, that the disability community said, hey, let's do this. But it's really no different than no taxation without representation. Right? Right. It means don't make decisions that are about us without asking us what we want. And so if you're looking at this from the customer service, or customer experience, vantage point, you are going to be serving customers who have disabilities, but you may not know it. And so if you have agents that are have those disabilities, they are going to be sensitive to things that other agents might miss. Or if you have someone who is sharing the fact that they are going through some sort of disability or depression, or anxiety or PTSD, and you have those kinds of people on your staff, you can create a support system that uniquely meets the needs of those individuals, because you have those people on your staff. And because you've asked them, you know, we know that we don't want to do things about you without you. And we have clients or customers that are going to be in the same situation. So what can we do? So when you bring that to the table, it opens up the space of customer experience in a beautiful way.
Rick Denton:
Boy, it really does. We talk a lot about empathy and trying to have empathy for those that are different than us. But one of the greatest ways to have empathy is when you're a part of the community that you're you're interacting with. And so to design that customer experience and that full spectrum of customer experience to have that full spectrum of well, experiences inside your company has got to be such a, an asset to those companies. And I can absolutely see how you and the work of nti help bridge that and help companies really get that. That inclusion mindset to deliver great customer experience.
Kate Brouse:
Yeah, and that that's great. And what I what I want to do, again, is encourage people to go look at that report getting to equal because it shows the benefits on the bottom line, that companies who are inclusive of people with disabilities actually make more money. And that's not the reason that we should be doing it. Right, right, certainly is a good reason, right? Your company's gonna make more money. That's right.
Rick Denton:
So everyone, what I want you to do is hit pause on this episode, go to the show notes, and in the show notes, there'll be a URL that will take you to that report, download it, scan it, enjoy it, and then come back and hear the rest of this episode, because I guarantee your mind is going to continue to be blown. Kate, thinking about travel and disability, right, we talked about travel here on this podcast, how have you seen the travel and hospitality industry evolve to deliver great cx for those with disabilities?
Kate Brouse:
You know, we just celebrated 30 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act, when it became a government law that places had to be accessible. And as a rule, places that are destinations have made improvements, some of them a lot, some of them a little, the sad thing, Rick is that the travel industry, if we're talking about the transportation that takes you from one place to another, they've kind of remained stuck, okay with you live in a major metropolitan city and you have to take the train to work that's going to usually cause some, you know, major disabilities, problems for the disability community, where if you think about flying on an airplane, it's it's ridiculously hard for people who have mobility issues and need to be traveling with a wheelchair or a motorized scooter, there is a shameful amount of mobility devices that are damaged or broken, when people are traveling, and that device is outside of their control. So if you're flying on an airplane, people with disabilities that have to use specialized wheelchairs, or, or motorized wheelchairs, and they often choose not to fly, just because they know that there is an incredibly high likelihood that when that device that they count on to be their legs, if you will hit the damage, then they're going to be in trouble when they are on the other side. Now, you know, counter that, if you were I who can walk onto an airplane, what if we got onto an airplane, and we knew when we got off, we'd have a sprained ankle and wouldn't be able to walk once we got to our destination, we would not fly. And that's the way many people in the disability community feel who rely on those assistive devices. So the The reality is, is we have a long way to go. Although we have made improvements, we've done a little bit moving the needle in the right direction, we need to do a lot more. And as people age, and they tend to age into disability, that inclusion will increase because an increasing number of our population will demand it. But we need to do that now we shouldn't be waiting.
Rick Denton:
We shouldn't be waiting. And what's interesting about that is it typically in an industry, just industry, in general, when there is an opportunity that is not being met a pain point that is not being met, there will be a disruptor that comes in to fill that gap. And so I'm hopeful with folks like you and the passion that is around that and others that are supportive of the disability community that will start to see disruption in that space. And that can, it'll be interesting to see what happens there. Companies that recognize this opportunity might find a way to leverage that into some incredible success.
Kate Brouse:
Well, you're right, there is an opportunity because people with disabilities have money to spend, and they spend it when they find companies who open their doors and are inclusive of the disability community and make their products or their locations accessible. And so when you think about those challenges from the very beginning, and when you do so because you've included people on your team, you're going to save yourself headache, and you're going to make more money.
Rick Denton:
Little change of pace here. Join me in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly here and hopefully have some fun, Dream travel location from your past.
Kate Brouse:
I had the wonderful opportunity a few years ago to go to Thailand. They spent two weeks on the Andaman coast and rec it was just a dream vacation. It was absolutely perfect.
Rick Denton:
What a what a delightful place as I sit here in a very non Thailand space right now. I would love to go back there someday. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet.
Kate Brouse:
Okay, so I have some Swedish heritage. Okay. Don't speak a single word of Swedish. I've never been to Sweden. But I'm desperate to go visit the Icehotel and Yuka CRV north of the Arctic Circle, so that is definitely on my bucket list going to Sweden and staying Icehotel?
Rick Denton:
Excellent. I like that idea. I've seen it. But I think that would be fascinating to stay there. What is a favorite thing to eat?
Kate Brouse:
I love salad. And I love ice cream. And the thing that's fun about salad and ice cream is there are so many variations all over the world. Surprisingly, even ice cream tastes very different depending upon the country that you're eating it in. And I'm always kind of, I love to share that my favorite ice cream is here's the plug for Ben and Jerry's. But I actually did not discover Ben and Jerry's ice cream in America, I discovered Ben and Jerry's ice cream in Jerusalem of all places. And I was so excited when I came back to the US and realized that I could get it here in my very own local grocery store.
Rick Denton:
How funny is that? That is funny. I've heard stories of that, where there's a brand that is widely known in the US, but we find it somewhere overseas. And it is something that we found is a delight. I love that. On that flip side, what is the thing your parents forced you to eat, but you hated as a kid
Kate Brouse:
brussel sprouts and cooked spinach. Now I love spinach if I cook it myself, or if it's raw, but as a child, I could spend hours sitting at the table trying desperately to swallow that stringy spinach and just not being successful.
Rick Denton:
Love it. What is one travel item you will not leave home with,
Kate Brouse:
you know, I'm really a minimalist, I like that I don't need to require very much. So the thing that I just won't leave home without is my sense of adventure and including
Rick Denton:
I can't let the travel go just yet. You've talked about a time in Turkey and even plans to live there. That is fascinating. What's drawing you to Turkey.
Kate Brouse:
I lived in Turkey as during some of my formative years when I was 1011 and 12 years old. And you know, I think when you experience something at that age, when you are forming who you are as a person, it makes a difference. And so I've always wanted to go back, I did go back when I graduated from high school, but it's on my short term list of things that I want to do, I want to be living in Turkey within the next five to seven years. And I'm actually practicing Turkish right now. But it's such a unique country, it is full of so much history, whether we're talking about early Christian history, or the Ottoman Empire, I'm passionate about science, and the Arabs, advanced science and numbers and math and algebra in a way that just is mind blowing. And when you're over there living in Turkey, you are touching all of that history very literally on a daily basis.
Rick Denton:
And there's something about living in a place now I've I've only had very short moments of getting to be in a place longer than a typical tourist. But I've got to imagine that part of the appeal of what you're describing going to Turkey is not just being the tourist area for an extended but to truly immerse and be a part of that culture
Kate Brouse:
there. Yes, and I love the Turkish culture and the food and the language. And I've never met a Turkish person who wasn't open and welcoming. And
Rick Denton:
you know, one of the problems about doing this podcast is I get to hear all these great travel ambitious and great travel desires. And all that means is that my list just gets longer and longer and longer. places that I cannot wait now to go to Turkey hearing the way you're describing it. We have talked about how the disability community represents an expansion of the understanding of the spectrum of customers and employees. But you've talked to me about how there's this wide spectrum, even inside just a particular disability category. Tell me more about that.
Kate Brouse:
Well, it's really kind of like common sense, as far as I'm concerned. Like, if you hear from a friend that they have cancer, you don't automatically assume that it's like the kind of cancer that another friend had, because there's lots of different kinds of cancer, it's a whole different spectrum. And someone with breast cancer is going to have a very different experience than someone with skin skin cancer. The same thing with disability. Someone who has cerebral palsy is going to have a very different experience than another person who also has cerebral palsy. Even asthma, asthma can be very life threatening for some people. And for others, it can be incredibly mild and only a problem if they're going to go out and try and run a marathon or there's a lot of allergens in the air on a given day. And so it's like anything else and that comes back to that hashtag that we talked about. rexha nothing about us without us. Don't just assume that because you knew somebody who had a particular disability and now you meet somebody else who has that same disability. That you know what they're life experiences like or what their needs are going to be as far as accommodations, just ask each individual person. And that's part of that inclusion that I am so passionate about.
Rick Denton:
I think he said a couple things in there that really resonate with it. One is, I guarantee I'm guilty of what you just described, right, that if disability statement A, then that means that, you know, everybody fits inside that category, that mental box that I have created, you're helping me break that box. But I wonder too, about employers that are thinking about that? And how can they really get at what is the best accommodation? What is the best? You know, let's call it just employee experience for a second, what is the best employee experience for that individual? And you said something that I think is uncomfortable for a lot of us that may fall outside of the disability community. And that is, just ask, Is that something you help kind of guide and coach people on? How do you help encourage people to just ask
Kate Brouse:
absolutely, that's something that at nti, our HR department is very familiar with, for our employer partners who who are having trouble navigating that or if an employee has asked for an accommodation that they're like, scratching their head going, is this a reasonable accommodation? Or is it not? our HR department is always comfortable answering those questions. But you know, I I'm really lucky because as an individual, I am not hesitant to engage with other people. And I'm not hesitant to have other people engage with me. So there have been different periods of my life where I have used a walker or been in a wheelchair or used a cane. And when people ask questions, I have never felt awkward about answering them. And sometimes when I've been in the grocery store, and I've been in a wheelchair, you know, you'll have a child, Mom, Mom, look at that. Why is that person and the parent will say, Oh, don't don't do that. And I try to help them when I see that happening. And if that's me, and I can respond to that. I like to say, Oh, it's okay, let's not make it taboo to talk about, because we are all individuals and all of us need to be included. And part of that is not feeling like you can't be talked about or people don't want to talk to you. So that's again, something when people have a disability, don't automatically assume that they don't want to talk about it, some won't. But it's always okay to ask. And that's something really important that you need to ask, don't assume that they need help, either. So if you feel like you want to hold the door for someone, you can ask, Hey, would you like me to hold the door for you? Because some people will want that, and some people won't. It's no different than any other human. We all have our different preferences. It's just easy to ask, Hey, are you comfortable? If I asked you about your disability? If they say no, then you don't ask if they say yes. And you can have a beautiful dialogue potentially with them.
Rick Denton:
Boy, Kate, you really are opening my mind because I guarantee I was that kid, right that I had a parent and you know, imagine the 70s or the time that we might not have been as enlightened, that said, you know, don't call attention Don't Don't, don't embarrass them or whatever, which is such a wrong attitude. And I, I thank you for planting those two words in my head. Right, I will walk away from here thinking just ask. definitely appreciate that. So I think a lot of that is going back to nti. And I think about how nti serves such an important and specific need. How did nti come to exist?
Kate Brouse:
I love this story. I'll share it very briefly. The the founder of nti. Her name is MJ Willard. And at one point she was a research assistant for the famed psychologist BF Skinner. Any of your listeners who ever took a class in psychology in high school or college will definitely recognize that name. He was one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. But at the time that she was helping him it was her job to train capuchin monkeys. How fun is that? And she realized that they bond very quickly and easily with humans, and that they are very dexterous, they can easily be trained. And so she had the idea of training monkeys to help people within the disability community. And then monkeys could be trained to do simple things like put a record on a turntable, or turn the pages of a book, get a drink from a refrigerator, turn the light on or off all of those types of things. So she founded a nonprofit that existed up until just a couple of months ago, because of COVID, monkey placements had been on indefinite hold, and now they're on permanent hold. That nonprofit existed for a long time. 30 plus years, helping disabled Americans with literally Helping Hands of monkeys. And that was her first foray into the disability community. And she kept hearing us refrain from person after person is that, hey, we want to work. We just need the accommodation of a job that we can do at home. And that led to her directly founding nti in 1995, with that express mission of helping Disabled American Veterans find work that they could do at home last year as part of our 20 fifth year in existence, we opened up our doors not only to the disability community, but also to their family caretakers. So that now we can help people who might be a parent of a disabled child or caring for a disabled aging parent or an uncle or an aunt who is a disabled veteran, etc. And so we continue to serve the disability community in new and unique ways.
Rick Denton:
What a what a brilliant origin story, right. But then also what a beautiful mission and what an vitally important mission and even you know, a mission that before you and I had come to know each other that I wasn't as aware of and certainly, Richard today because I have learned about this, Kate, it has been wonderful talking with you today I've had a either both that kind of you know, hand on chin learning pose or the the smile from ear to ear. As I've I've talked with you. I've learned a lot today, I think it's been helpful to understand how nti helps those in the disability community, I think it's important to understand the invisible disabilities. I do want to say once again, for everyone go out there and check that getting to equal report. Again, link in the show notes. There'll also be a link to nti as website and get to learn a little bit more about who they are, what their mission is. and Kate, I do hope that you get to Turkey sometime soon and get to experience life in Turkey for sure. It has been a brilliant conversation. Thank you so much. I have learned a ton. I really appreciate it. And thank you for your time today. Kate.
Kate Brouse:
Thank you, Rick, I've had a wonderful time speaking with you.
Rick Denton:
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.
