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 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. Usually, introductions from my guest on CX passport are easy to write. I started out with a goal for this podcast have interesting conversations with interesting people. When that's in place, the intro usually writes itself. So why did I struggle with the intro for today's guest? I simply didn't know where to start. Our guests today. Andre Ringu, founder of start, reverse has been an ongoing source of customer experience inspiration, and really just human inspiration for me since we met a few years ago. Where do I start? Want to learn more about experience design? Andre, want to learn more about using the customer's experience as the starting point for your company's blueprint? Andre want to know about a completely different way to source talent? Andre, want to walk a leadership team through an exercise unlike any other and helping them determine their mission, and sometimes on the side their personal mission. Andre? Oh, and you want to find out that your transportation for a dinner amongst business colleagues wouldn't be a van. But would be a beautiful 10 Kilometer evening bike ride in the Dutch countryside. Yeah, that's Andre. Andre educates and inspires me. And I know he will do the same for you on today's episode. Andre, welcome to CX passport.

Andre Wiringa: 1:49

Thank you so much for the invitation. And happy to be here. Super cool. I love the intro.

Rick Denton: 1:55

Brother, it is 100% sincere I those memories and those realities are so true. But in fact, let's kind of start with this. Let's start with the beginning or rather the end. Start reverse. It's an interesting company name indeed. tell me what you mean by start reverse.

Andre Wiringa: 2:10

What I really mean is, I mean, since 2000, will really convince you need to start with context, context is decisive for everything. So when I talk about context, I mean purpose, I mean, identity and intended experience. And I mean, many companies really think that transformation, for instance, is derived from getting the process, right, getting the content, right. But you really need to start with context first. Hence, reverse.

Rick Denton: 2:39

Yeah, and that context, that experience, one of the things that I've really valued, that you helped kind of shaped my thinking, and the thinking of the client that we worked together on a few years ago, was really thinking about the customer's experience and starting with what that experience looks like. So when you say context, how does that weave together with when you're thinking of what the customers experience looks like?

Andre Wiringa: 3:02

Yeah, I mean, starting reverse, again, is the opposite of traditional thinking. And traditional thinkers would start with getting the product, right, the services rights, like logistical process, optimizing, maybe the whole process part. And then through management, you get a certain working climates, the working climate leads to a certain staff behavior. And the end result would be customer experience. And we think that's the wrong way around. I mean, once you know what the purpose is of your company, you link it to how you want to be experienced. And that's where you should start. If that's the incentive experience, then what behavior what interaction, it's online, or offline doesn't really matter. So what interaction leads to those experiences? And once you nailed that, then you can say, so what culture and leadership would help shape that behavior to then look at so what do we need to change in our processes? So the whole process thinking and I heard you say it in the intro, again, is reverse. It's not processes leading Yes, process is foundational. The process design should be the result of thinking from context to delight, customer delight to competency, and only then Lancet. So what do we need to do in our processes to optimize? Let's say, the interactions we want to?

Rick Denton: 4:18

I like it well, and you know that I like that. That's why I wanted to have this conversation with you. I think that approach is so fundamental. And what's interesting I've had this conversation with guests before is that it's not necessarily hard. It's just it's not complex. It's just not easy is really what I want to say that starting from that direction, for some reason, that should be the way we've done it from the beginning. And yet, we started from process it, who knows maybe it's our industrial revolution background. But this idea of now thinking of the context and thinking of the customer driving our direction forward. Something that to me is a little is similar in that regard is we've spent a lot of time especially over the last couple years through the pandemic, talking about customer experience, and especially A lot of discussions centered around digital and and that's not bad. I think of some of the digital experiences that I have about booking a table at a restaurant, or some of the contactless ways that I'm able to engage with a hospitality brand. That's good. But and so digital is important, but I feel like we're often ignoring the human customer experience. So you with as the start reverse, and just in general, your approach to humanity? How do you bring the human back to CX?

Andre Wiringa: 5:25

Well, I think the human even if you talk about digitization, the human element is still important. And really, do you digitize everything? So you are more efficient? Or do you bring in digital transformations, so you can have more human interaction? And one example, I think we visited that citizen hotels in the Netherlands started about 10 years ago, with self checking, which was a fun concept. So you have the self checking kiosks. And then you could say, okay, then we don't need reception people anymore at all right? Or you could say, hey, but that takes away all the, let's say, the slack. the boring part, like this is your first visit to the hotel. And restaurants are open till 1030, would you like us to book a table? Breakfast is from six o'clock. I mean, it says, blah, blah, your rooms on the seventh floor. I mean, forget all that. But if you have, let's say those tasks replaced by digital, and you want more time to have the human interaction, I think that's where you you can have the cake and eat it too. You have both efficiency you forget about so you, you go beyond the boring parts that were just on, let's say, by the guest or by the customer themselves, and you win more time for what really matters. So find out who is your customer, really, and how can I really delight during the interaction that we have? And you know, Rick, we focus mainly on those clients that operate in an environment where production and consumption of experience are simultaneous. Okay, which is I think it's the cool part. If it's retail, if it's flying, like airlines, airports, in its automotive, if it's hospitality, the moment you consume your experience, it's being produced, which is, I mean, bloody hurts to make it consistently them. Yeah. But then yeah, that's what you can wake me up for them, then I get excited.

Rick Denton: 7:26

Well, and so that that triggers kind of the next thought. So I hadn't, I kind of liked the way you said that that the experience of, or the consumption of the experience happens at the exact moment that the experience is produced. It reminds me of something a former guest, Alec Dalton, of Marriott talked about that experience is almost co created between the brand the company and the customer. And thinking of it obviously, from a hospitality lens with the Marriot lens. And it is that idea of hey, I'm producing this experience and the customer, the guests the client is is consuming it at exactly that moment. Now, that takes a special kind of human to be able to produce that experience, live a special kind of human to say, to understand at a very quick way, be empathetic, to be understanding to be curious, to be fun to be engaging. And so you have taken I've experienced just a piece of it, a completely novel approach to talent acquisition. You call it casting, I would love for you to tell our audience more about this casting process fascinates the heck out of me. I want you to share why casting how casting, why does it matter? And how does it create great CX?

Andre Wiringa: 8:32

Yeah, I don't think it's casting on its own is really new. Disney already does it for decades, of course, and many other companies. But what we did is really let's start with the blueprint. First, you already mentioned it. If you have a one pager on which you summarize, what's your purpose? What's your identity? What in essence, do we deliver? How do you do it and sign a goals with the Golden Circle? We already applied that contextual approach to 1000s but expanded with how do you want to be experienced? And what interactions would lead to that experience? And then what culture and leadership would help build those stimulators those behaviors? Now, here's the thing, if you know what interactions you're looking for, for instance, if you want to be as a brand's, you want to be surprising, or you want to be stimulated, or energized or connected doesn't really matter. Then how about finding people who are naturally surprising or naturally stimulate more naturally connecting, and if you then have leadership that lets people be themselves, they will be surprised and stimulating and connected. It's really not rocket science. So when we do casting, we always start with blueprints. So essence of the brands, and then find people who represent who have the ultimate match with the blueprints with To behaviors that we actually want to see in reality, because they trigger the experiences we want customers to have. And then there are different ways to do the casting. We've done it online, we've done it offline, we've created some mass events. They're also all kinds of tests that you can apply. Now, but most important, is that you? Yeah, I think in many cases, you step away from let's hire for experience, or let's hire for CV or resume. Guys, let's hire for personality and for behavior. I mean, we we work with clients in, for instance, in hotel business that have one, maybe out of the entire hotel, one, maybe two, with the hotel backgrounds and all the others have a perfect match with the blueprints, but never worked in a hotel before.

Rick Denton: 10:50

It gets it that spirit of you know, higher happy people teach the skills, that aspect of it. It is it. What I like about what you've said there and introduced is the idea of starting with the experience blueprint it while it's harder for a company, and there's work to get to that experience, blueprint, and thank God for companies like your star reviews to start reverse to get the blueprint in place. But once you have that blueprint, then hiring becomes I'm going to be a little bit overstated here, right at the Texan and may exaggerate, but becomes easier. You're looking for that personality type, you're looking for that human skill, and then later teaching those hospitality, how to manage a check in how to manage a customer complaint, all those kinds of things can be taught. But to be surprising to be curious. Those are the things that get teased out really well in the casting process. I it was you do say that it's it's been done before? And yes, it Disney and others. But I gotta tell you, it's still very uncommon. It is. It's an approach that I'd love to see more companies do. And I imagine the reason they're not doing it is because they haven't gotten that blueprint. First. They don't know the experience and then trickling down backwards. So starting with that, that blueprint is important now. So we've got the right people on board, we've selected them, they've gone to the super cool casting process. How do we then build that level of engagement because they're in the door? But how do we keep them engaged? How do we continue that engagement to create that great human CX?

Andre Wiringa: 12:16

Yeah, wonderful question. We can we have a reverse people journey? Of course. So let's start of course, it's right. That's right, the right people, and then casts, so attract for the casting, you cast them. And the next step is really to immerse them, because it's unfair to expect if they haven't got the right retail background or automotive or hospitality background, you have a personality, I mean, they superstar during the casting, but they need to be set up for success. But a whole immersion is to false, it's first of all, really gets to brands and understand my role. Second is equip me with the skills and tools that I need to be successful. So the immersion really is about inverting the org charts and empowering the frontline to be in the leads, they are the number one, let's say employee of importance for customers. So they need to be empowered. So from attract, to cast to immerse, and then we go on to grow. So keep giving them impulses, ideally, more and more via mobile learning. So they like learning snacks, 30 seconds, 60 seconds per day. So they keep learning Yeah, on a very playful way. And then of course, the next step would be recognize and sustain. Yeah, there could be instead of hiring to firing, which is the traditional,

Rick Denton: 13:40

it's so dark. But yes,

Andre Wiringa: 13:43

we do it the other way.

Rick Denton: 13:44

I like that. And it's something that won't be caught on the audio aspect of this is the visual that you described as effectively the upside down word chart. And so listeners imagine that the V or the pyramid that you're used to seeing Andre with his hands was doing the reverse of that. So imagine upside down triangle. And that idea of the upside down org chart, I think visually is so impactful. I've used that at clients before putting the what is traditionally the quote leader at the bottom, and then amplifying the fact that it is your front line that is the most impactful to the customer. And so equipping, that it is not that they are being directed, or LED, of course, but directed or dictated to but rather supported by a leadership to help them deliver that top line delight for the customer.

Andre Wiringa: 14:31

Exactly. And you know what, Rick? If you look at reality, you see very often managers that are frustrated that their supervisors are not coaching enough. Yeah. And then I think well, if you call them supervisors, they will probably supervise right yeah. So why don't you put them on second so you put your your frontliners on one your your coaches on to and call them coaches? Yes, if you call them coaches, they will start coaching.

Rick Denton: 14:57

It is a you actually so I'll speak to a brain that I've consulted for and even talked to on this episode Hilton. In their reservations and contact center, they call their leaders at that level development coaches. And it is a purposeful choice that these are not team leads, yes, there's the team leads, as all of us want to think sort of universally across industries. But they're there to develop and coach, the agents. And I love that approach that so I love that you bringing that up. And it is, words have impact. I think that's something that brands and companies understate, or maybe those that live in the marketing, the creative spaces stayed at well, but those outside of it don't realize, words, titles, those choices have an impact. And if you designate someone as a supervisor, they'll behave that way. If you designate someone as a development coach, they are more inclined to develop or to be that way. And I am going to pivot us here, because one of the things that I admire about you is your approach to the globe. And it is a very true statement that when you and I were planning to talk about this, you were literally crossing borders, as we were talking, you were in a car and you were crossing across borders, even before we hit record here, you were talking about, hey, I may have to flip over to Switzerland to go visit a client. So you have a you have this incredible global approach, which obviously appeals to me. How has travelled, changed your approach to customer experience?

Andre Wiringa: 16:18

Hmm, interesting question. I think doing so much work across the globe and different continents taught me a very simple lesson. That is we're not as different as we tend to think we are. At the end of the day, we all like to have, let's say, almost all like to have attention. So as soon as you put somebody really onstage as a customer, and you give them your attention, and it shouldn't be flattering, but really have a deep interest, sincere interest, whether you're in India, in China, in Japan, South America, North America, Europe, Australia, you name it. I mean, South Africa, we've done projects in Ghana, I mean, Tanzania, Zanzibar. I'm not saying it's all the same. I mean, the queues are different. In essence, we're all human beings. And I mean, I'm not saying it's, it's super simple. But we very often tend to overcomplicate things. If I'm looking at, for instance, we get brands approaching a certain thing with a question, can you help us bring our brand to life? So what's wrong? Well, it's not life. And then I look at the guides. And I think yeah, but no wonder I mean, I don't understand this is corporate marketing, mumbo jumbo, Martini ugly. I studied economics. So if I, if I really read it, I get it. But I've also been a waiter, and the receptionist and I've been a general manager. And in none of those positions I read. So what do you want me to do? It's too complicated. And I very often referred to corporates, with all respect with the living the three C's, they'll always want to be completes. They always want to be correct. And as a result, make it complex. If you travel, and you see countries, for instance, Vietnam, which one of my favorites, environments, I mean, lovely people are so colorful in many ways. And their hospitality deliveries, it's still very simple. And then when I think back working, and you mentioned Hilton before working at Hilton in 19. Before World War Two,

Rick Denton: 18:39

now, come on.

Andre Wiringa: 18:42

Seriously, 1985. Yeah, a long time ago, but we had close to 1000 standards for just front office a lot. And then, in retrospect, of course, I'm thinking what a big word and thinking because you overcomplicate stuff, and that's why we're again, the beauty in the bowels of OpenShift step blueprint approach, Rick has worked in every continent.

Rick Denton: 19:12

Andre, you rattled off a list of countries that were fascinating. And to think that you've traveled there that you've been to those regions, clearly, you need a rest from time to time. So why don't you join me here in the first class lounge. Hopefully, we'll have a little bit of fun here and enjoy the relaxation of the lounge. So what is a dream travel location from your past?

Andre Wiringa: 19:33

Sydney, Australia

Rick Denton: 19:35

Sydney, tell me a little bit why.

Andre Wiringa: 19:38

I am a water man so I'm from the north of the Netherlands. There's a lot of water. Most of our country is still below sea level. Yeah, so maybe that explains it. I don't know. But Sydney with all the keys, all the water. I mean, we I remember my wife and I landed there the first time. We fell in love with the place and we rewrote it our vacation a month. really to make sure that we had another week at Sydney. Oh, wow. And my dream is to simply go back hospitality and when you have kids with like 80 to 100 restaurants in a row and one concert cooler after the other. Melbourne was fantastic. I mean, the whole ocean rides between Melbourne and Sydney was amazing. And of Brisbane, I mean, Australia, definitely. as a whole. Really fantastic we did that. I think we rented a Jets private jets and we landed on the beach. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's, that's

Rick Denton: 20:31

holy cow. That's awesome. I can see why that's a dream travel rotation. I talked to a lot of Australians and I'm very, I'm jealous of them. I'm jealous of their their culture of wanderlust. But I'm also jealous of the beauty of some of the things you're describing. I hope even though it's a well, at least pre pandemic was a nonstop flight from DFW to Sydney. I still have not made it there yet. I'm looking forward some time

Andre Wiringa: 20:52

If you do make sure let me know. Go to Whitsundays.

Rick Denton: 20:56

Okay,

Andre Wiringa: 20:56

we went to Paradise islands. And it's it's like, what the title says it's Paradise Island.

Rick Denton: 21:03

Okay, I'm gonna have to clearly I'm gonna have to dedicate you know, a month six months a year of my life to travel there with all the recommendations. It sounds like a wonderful place. So in so if that's a fantasy of mine, fantasy of yours. What's a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Andre Wiringa: 21:20

Oh, that's a good one. North Pole, I guess.

Rick Denton: 21:24

Oh, okay. That's a new one. You no one has said North Pole yet. Tell me why I like that.

Andre Wiringa: 21:30

Yeah, because it's it's so different than it's probably bloody cold. That's one of the reasons we've been there. So I've been to Iceland. I've been to Lapland all the way let's say very up north in both Norway and Finland. But hasn't been more north and I mean, if you go to my plans, it's not like minus 43 centigrade where the first session but then you already get a feel for for the poll, I guess. I don't know. But I thought it was amazing. And I mean going outside with the team and do a team building exercise and you see that the when people are bracing you see the ice crystals shaping in the doors. All the participants Yeah, I love that. Maybe I'm probably but

Rick Denton: 22:17

Andre you and I are very very similar. But very very different. You're talking to a Texan I grew up in Austin, Texas. I am much more I'll speak in Fahrenheit I'm poor at my centigrade conversions but I'm much more comfortable at 105 Fahrenheit than I am at 65 Fahrenheit, much less some of the numbers you're describing those I would just curl up and die I just couldn't handle it but it is it is the beauty of diversity even in our own desires of dream travel locations So thinking back to travel and food and all and how food is such a key part of travel what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Andre Wiringa: 22:52

That's very easy to associate you can wake me up for sushi sashimi. We had a month vacation in Japan and I have a number of business trips there you can let both of my daughters and myself you can wake us up for sushi my wife probably yeah she could handle once a week but not more but you could serve two meals per day sushi and sushi

Rick Denton: 23:17

love it big fan of sushi myself not sure I could do two eggs per day but you know, maybe give it a shot some time. So what's the opposite side? What is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hate it as a kid?

Andre Wiringa: 23:28

Oh, oatmeal.

Rick Denton: 23:30

Oatmeal Okay,

Andre Wiringa: 23:31

yeah, and I still do hate it

Rick Denton: 23:37

what about this is one of my favorite portions because the wide range oatmeal is a new one for me north poles a new one for me. I've heard the usuals vegetables brussel sprouts tomatoes, but oatmeal is a first so now you've traveled all over the world you've traveled a ton not including your phone not including your passport. What is one travel item you will not leave home without

Andre Wiringa: 23:58

hmm sounds not my phone you said yeah. An item so it's not like wives kids.

Rick Denton: 24:07

Yeah figure you'd like to travel with them? Yeah, no an item

Andre Wiringa: 24:11

ah, I pass. I mean I would I need my phone to make videos and pictures so it's not to call if that's what it is. I used to have like a Canon with massive lenses and now I have this new iPhone and the quality of camera is amazing. I mean in our hallway we have like a huge collage of pictures from our safari in Tanzania and Zanzibar all shots with the iPhone. So if I'd say I wouldn't seriously I wouldn't leave home with a camera on the iPhone then that's the item that I will choose

Rick Denton: 24:50

Andre will let that answer slide because it's not technically the phone. It's not researching data. It is in fact the phone the camera on there and it is stunning. Some of the pictures I do a Saturday nature posts When I can get around to it, and just a little quick snap of the iPhone, it's stunning what can be pulled off. Now, those who have real photography talents, you can see the difference between amateurs like me and the truth. But it is fascinating how beautiful that is. One of the things and actually, it reminds me of something some of the most beautiful experiences that I've had was on one of the most unique experiences that I've been a part of. And it was with your company, when we were outside in the countryside in the Netherlands. And I know we've all been a part of this kind of met business retreat, right, we go to a conference room or a hotel, we get a bunch of posts and markers. And then we think we're creative, we develop a new idea and then return back to our normal way of thinking right after this business retreat is over. But this experience that I had with you and your company, shows me that's not how you approach it. It is one of the most impactful business moments I've been a part of, I really want you to talk to us about compass. Tell me about the compass process.

Andre Wiringa: 26:00

So the compass or roadmap or blueprints? I mean, I don't really mind, we're not hung up to the name. What Okay, good for that. It's a one pager. KLM calls it a compass. Raddison coastal road map. Many conference calls the blueprints, but what is important is that it's a one page that is CO created. And we've done that together during the trip. And it's, it's containing two parts. One is purpose, identity, what allow of your essence of delivery? And the other part is the experience part. So how do you want to be experienced in four boxes? And then each box translated into what do we need to do in order to bring that behavior experience to life? So what are the four behaviors or interactions we need on, let's say, employee or challenge level, and then what culture and leadership drive such behaviors? Once you've got that compass, then then basically, everything else becomes more clear. Because then you can say, so if we talk about leadership, and that's what we do is if, for instance, leadership needs to be empowering, inspiring, energizing, and setting up for success, for instance, for coaching, then once we do a leadership intervention, we should make sure that every leader experiences those four behaviors themselves as well. Hence, we went into the dunes into the forests. We created remember, totem poles, you remember? Yeah, yeah. So we had a complete I mean, of course, yes, there are, let's say elements theory models, that we put those in. Remember, we put those on a cart that you can bring into, for instance, and nature trail. And by making sure that you keep moving from one scene to the other. And the movement is already instrumental. Because that's what we want. We want people to transform we want people to move and sitting in a room. I mean, it's not the same.

Rick Denton: 28:09

And that's I want to amplify that visually. So I just make sure that our listeners are hearing this. What we did is we left that room, and none of us knew this ahead of time. And to call it a nature hike would be grossly understating this we got out in a national forest, and wandered and and even that transition, and you had set it up in your team and set it up that there were various posts along the way where we stopped and had discussions or brainstorming those kinds of stuff. And The walk itself, the conversations that were happening on the walk are the thoughts that were being generated by the walk being out in nature, being mobile, those sorts of things. There were some real and raw stories that were shared, there were tears that were being shed, this was a near religious experience almost in a corporate environment. What is it about that experience? And how did you come about choosing that as a way to really unlock those business leadership moments in the compass development?

Andre Wiringa: 29:07

You know, some call it's the most impactful therapy they ever had? Yeah, I think, well, it's it's not really meant to be therapy. But of course, it's context. And if you rather than say, you talk about topics like strategy, you talk about action planning. I mean, you first need to really come together as a team, and you can only connect with the team if you first connect with yourself. So what we do is, make it a short, sort of a series of reflections. How did I become the leader that I currently am? So where do I come from? Where am I going? What's my what's my ambition, but more importantly, what's my destination? What do I want to leave behind? And you remember those were questions and then we have, let's say, the currents with a number of questions you may choose to answer you can also find your own answers. But during this deep, deep dive, during, let's say, two days, this was two days before we went into the planning part. So it's in two days time out. So connection itself connection with Team connection with strategy. It's a natural evolution into a sort of a next level orientation, rather than just looking at so where are we now? Where do we want to go? What's the gap? And how do we close that? That's, it's too simple. Because just like you said, if we don't do this deep dive this introspection, if we don't do it, then people after three days four, look back as well. fundation. I mean, we, probably within weeks or days, not forget about it, but we won't have any change. And then right, then it's a waste of time.

Rick Denton: 30:50

It would just a really expensive trip for leaders to get away. Andre, I'm talking about something that is lost track of the years, three or four years ago. And it still is that meaningful, impactful, and there are things that we talked about and changed and discussed, that are still actions that I do today. So absolutely deep truth in that approach. So for companies, for people that want to know more about this, how can they get in touch with you this Your world is intriguing. And I imagine there's listeners that are going to be saying, Yeah, I want to know more about this. How should people get in touch with you?

Andre Wiringa: 31:23

With me via Instagram, via the websites, LinkedIn, Facebook, or just call me I mean, feel free to share my details. Happy to listen, happy to learn, and happy to build where we can.

Rick Denton: 31:40

Brilliant. Well, I will get those details in the show notes. For sure. Andre, you have once again taken me on a journey that I didn't expect. There were things I thought we talked about. There are things that I didn't think we talked about, I certainly didn't expect that the North Pole would be your dream destination. And that will always now sit as a memory with me. It's been brilliant talking about start reverse talking about casting, talking about this great process that ultimately builds into a blueprint into a compass. It's meaningful. It's impactful, and I'm so glad that you've created this approach that we can talk about and that I've had the chance to experience Andre, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me on six passport today. I wish you the best man Safe travels.

Andre Wiringa: 32:21

Let's connect soon. And have fun on a very cool journey. Thank you for having me.

Rick Denton: 32:29

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.