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. I love talking to people across the globe. One of my favorite aspects of hosting CX passport is the conversation I've had with people from regions and cultures around the world. I try to imagine talking to let's say high school age, Rick, which was back in the late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, it's been a while that he would be talking to people across the globe easier than sending a secret note across a classroom in Austin, Texas, that Rick would have thought you were insane. Then tell that Rick that he didn't have the chance to talk with Seta Abkhazia from Turkey. Now living in the UK about customer experience. While he sits in Texas, USA, he probably just hit play on his new order cassette and walk away. But it's true. Today I get the significant pleasure of talking with Seda Alpkaya. Today Seda comes with a wealth of customer experience exposure both in the corporate world. And now as the founder of voxel consulting, her experiences Pan European stretching from deep Turkish experience to successful and growing CX practice in the UK. I am super excited to talk with se today Seda Welcome to CX passport.

Seda Alpkaya: 1:39

Thank you very much for this lovely introduction, Rick, thank you,

Rick Denton: 1:42

well deserved indeed. I've enjoyed getting to know you over the last several months over LinkedIn. And I'm so glad we're finally getting a chance to have this conversation on CX Passport. But let's just start right at the beginning. Let's talk about that geographic range of customer experience. What are some of the similarities and some differences you've seen between the CX approach in Turkey versus the UK?

Seda Alpkaya: 2:05

I try to just keep a close eye on customer experience developments both in Turkey in the UK, also in the global markets. So I am acting as a jury or cheer of judges in international platforms, like customer experience awards, UK customer experience, hours, Turkey customer experience awards, and so on. So I have the chance to see different companies different different stakes approaches all over the globe. So it's a good thing for me. So the first thing I see, when I have the chance to see these companies is the increase in interest in customer experience. That's the first thing I observed in the you know, not only also not only customer experience, but also in employee experience.

Rick Denton: 2:49

Oh, right. Sure. Yeah,

Seda Alpkaya: 2:51

exactly. So I can see that from the increasing participation of these global competitions to for example, from Turkey, there are big companies like the Istanbul grande airports, maybe you have heard that yes, like Turkish Turkish Airlines get such a big food delivery company now expanding to the globe to us as well. So, the pika electric sank also these companies are really delivering outstanding results in terms of customer experience, what they focus on is IC they focus on accessibility, sustainability, human centric customer experience design. So, these companies kind of have purpose. So the customers understand that too. These are good examples from Turkey that I encountered during these competitions. Also. There are also very, very strong companies from the UK to like, for example, octopus energy, maybe you have heard of that.

Rick Denton: 3:45

Yes,

Seda Alpkaya: 3:45

we switch fiber. Exactly. So John Lewis, all companies like Pedro's like Sainsbury's, who have been delivering good customer experiences for many, many years. Also, the second thing that I see is that the investments are growing in that area. For example, we just see a lot of customer experience officers, chief customer officers generating in companies exactly the customer experience teams are growing also in Turkey, in some of the universities customer experience have started to be thought as I was channeling Okay, so the area is enlarging the area is growing as well. Yeah. And a difference that I observe when I just look at Turkish markets and you came up with is that the sense of urgency of the projects in Turkey it's maybe because of the you know, the geography that we are living in. So, people are very agile, they like very rapid solutions. For example, they when you have a project next day, you are you know, they waited to deliver some results of that project, but that is not the same in the UK countryside in UK customers understand that CX is a transformative process. It's not something that's just used And then you start to deliver results.

Rick Denton: 5:14

That does really actually kind of surprises me, I would not have thought it would be that way. I would have thought that maybe, you know, with a more, CX discipline that may have been around for longer or those sorts of things, there might be more of that nimbleness in the UK. It's really interesting to hear me hear you say that in Turkey. It's it is that, hey, look, let's let's come up with an idea that boom, let's get that idea out the next day test and iterate, which is what a lot of us aspire to do. I know we talked about agile, right? It's an overused word, we all aspire to do that, and and create those customer facing solutions. So quickly. It's fascinating to hear that that's taking place there for you there in Turkey. You know, I'm imagining, you mentioned this, as you were describing some of that you talked about design thinking. And I've got to imagine that elements of that speed that you're talking about in Turkey, but also how it's applied anywhere across the globe. That design thinking comes to bear right, and I know you go deep in that helping advance customer experience and employee experience. So can you help me understand how design thinking discipline really works in the experience space?

Seda Alpkaya: 6:23

Sure, sure. So let me just start with what design thinking is first, great, the definition that I like most is that design thinking is a creative problem solving techniques, you know, so, but think that it focuses on iteration, collaboration, and also human centricity, it always puts human in the center, it has some phases, it has five, five phases, starting from the entities, and then continuing with, define ideate, prototype, and test, these are the five phases. And during all those five phases, which are all iterative, you always need to, you know, challenge your assumptions. You never think that your assumption is right, you always go back, if you're not striking about something, you go back to, for example, the second step and talk with your customers again, in order to understand, you know, the core, the root cause or everything, you learn everything from your customer, from the human, I think what I see during all those years is design thinking, really unlocks the creativity in people because of the tools and approaches that that it uses. So when I think about customer experience, or employee experience, I can say that I cannot separate them from each other. Because in customer experience space, in employee experience space, what we are talking about is put the human in the center, put your customer at the center, try to understand the thing, the soul, try to learn from them. So I think it is not easy to separate those. And also also, another thing is that design thinking to value use design thinking tools and techniques in customer experience area, you see that you find you flourish, more ideas than you, you know, than you will do by yourself. So you just gather teams from different disciplines, you think about solutions, you create solutions, and it is always more, it's richer.

Rick Denton: 8:18

Yeah,

Seda Alpkaya: 8:19

Richer

Rick Denton: 8:20

Well, and then design thinking that unlocks a little bit of my understanding as well in that, you know, design thing. And yes, there's a principle there's a design, there's an approach to it as well. But the fact that it is a way to amplify the creativity, so that you can use that to work on customer experience, you could use it to work on designing a particular piece of manufacturing materials. It's a way of thinking and the collaboration element that you alluded to, as well. I know that when I've been a part of companies or consulting companies that really have that mindset, it is amazing how much quicker the creative ideas getting locked, as opposed to being stuck in the ways of the past. So using that, though, let's get super, super tactical, I would love to know, if somebody's listening to this. And they're like, Okay, great. I've heard design thinking it's, it's everybody's talked about it for years. Now. It's old hat, but it's not. What are some of the tool sets a person or a company can use to advance their design thinking approach? You know, how do you help equip people to become more skilled at design thinking?

Seda Alpkaya: 9:20

Okay. So now here, what I have to say is that design thinking is not a magic formula, because the companies that we are working with, sometimes they expect very, very quick results, because they think that they get some trainings, then they you know, start to use design thinking tools and techniques, and immediately, they will find innovations, but this is not something like that, right? We always say that this is a mindset shift. So you need to be patient. So there are lots of tools and techniques that we use in design thinking and how we do that how we you know, how we teach these or how we try to help other companies using these tools and Technics is through design thinking workshops, innovation workshops, sometimes crash courses, two days three days that we just where we work with the companies together. There. But before that before just doing those kinds of workshops, we just try to understand the maturity of the company, the people, the capabilities of the people that we are going to work with, because the tools and techniques differ. There are more than 100 tools that design thinking to use us, you know, just affinity maps, customer journey maps, or ecosystem maps feature commerce, and you need to use the ones that just fits your customers needs. So in order to understand that you need to see the maturity for more mature companies, we use other, you know, set of tools, or for the beginners to use other set of tools. So how we do is that tell them what design thinking is, introduce them, the tool sets that they can use, and then just we let them proceed from there.

Rick Denton: 11:01

When you say, okay, that's so that's interesting, when you say we let them proceed from there, you've worked with a lot of companies, are you at that stage? So we've introduced this, maybe we've had a workshop? Do you find the companies quickly, you know, absorb it, and they're off to the races, they're running with this ideas? Or there's some facilitation that you need to do from an ongoing perspective to help them make that mindset shift? Because I know you're right. It's not just tools and techniques, it's a mindset shift. So when you've done this initial work, what do you see is kind of the natural evolution then from a company from the initial introduction to what's next.

Seda Alpkaya: 11:34

so what we try to do while we are just making these kind of trainings with the companies is that we do not make it three days training and stop from there, right has it you know, it has a roadmap, he starts with understanding the needs of the company that we are going to work with, then we define the use cases, but we will work during the workshops during the crash course or whatsoever. And then we give them some projects, from their learnings that they should be applying what they learned from two days, three days that they spent with us. And then we give them some projects to proceed from there it is like, sometimes two months sprints, it's maybe or sometimes we give them all the amount and then we make them make just they presented to their management teams, and there is kind of a pitching there. But they have to walk through the steps that we walk them through during those stages. And then after that, they make that management presentation. Some ideas sometimes are selected, and they really, you know, they become tangible after that, and that of some companies see that this turns out to be something tangible, that they decide to proceed from there, we also tell them, the tools are good, there are a lot of you know, tools and tools, free of charge that you can find on that the things for example, the most uses ideas to set the design kits for examples. These are this is design, thinking dotnet tools, these are very simple, easy to use tools anybody can use. So we introduce them with those tools, we make them, we make them some to some practices, and then they make teachings for their, you know, management teams. And then from there, if they see the tangible outcomes of the process, it becomes too, you know, it becomes like, Yeah, I think for them, but also for some companies, the companies, which are a bit, you know, on patients who wants to get results, immediately, who doesn't, for example, who stick to their way of thinking or doesn't want to change or doesn't want to embrace the new way of doing. It doesn't work. It's all vector.

Rick Denton: 13:40

Now, that doesn't surprise me right? That there's going to be some that take that reverse turn there. But what I like about what you said, there is this idea of okay, we've equipped you to understand it is but now you do it, you present to your leadership, not we the the voxel consulting who's guided you through this, but rather you and it's it's sort of similar when you ask when you teach somebody a concept. And then you one of the best ways to know if they've learned it is ask them to teach someone else. And using that that downstream presentation makes a lot of sense. So want to pivot, I always do pivot around this time I get that itch to talk about travel. And I know you're from a country that's on a bucket list for many of us, right? I'm actually really excited that Turkish airways is going to have a nonstop flight from my home airport starting in 2022. So hopefully, I'll be seeing seeing Turkey at some point. But I know that recently you got back from Albania. And that's not a name or a country that I speak to very often or hear very often. So it just sounds so incredibly exotic to me. Sitting here in Texas, USA, right. So tell me about that trip to Albania.

Seda Alpkaya: 14:44

Yeah, it was kind of a compulsory trip by the way, in so much. We came to Turkey to see family and friends but Turkey was one of the richest countries of UK so we knew that our coming back to not be so easy, right? So, so in order to get back to the UK, way after Turkey, we went to Albania, this fan base there. But even though it was a compulsory trip, it turned out to be a very exotic one for us because we really know the country. It was like, yeah, no timetable for us back tonight. Since it's a Balkan country. It has a lot of Mediterranean impacts on it, you know. So it is just on the other side of Italy. So it has a lot of impacts from Italy to the seafoods the sea, the people value for money, we really didn't want to leave it leave the country. After 10 days it was it was really nice. I didn't know it was like the 90s Is she the close of Turkey? I was like, returning back to my childhood, you know, so. It was really good. I liked it. I loved it

Rick Denton: 15:57

What a brilliant trip, said I, I'd love to spend so much more time talking about it. Who knows maybe I'm gonna just sneak in more talk Albania talk here at the end. But right now I want to take us into the first class lounge when you've had a compulsory trip no matter how delightful it is. Sometimes it's nice to just take a little break in the first class lounge. So join me here. Let's move quickly and we'll have a little bit of fun what is a dream travel location from your past?

Seda Alpkaya: 16:22

You know, it's was London. So

Rick Denton: 16:26

where you live now today?

Seda Alpkaya: 16:27

Exactly. Right. So dream big. I think I believe in the you know, strength of dreaming dreaming big. So in all my vacations, I used to go to London because it's really my you know, my last city so now I started living there. So I wouldn't say any, you know, city more other than London Istanbul. Maybe.

Rick Denton: 16:51

Oh, you can't count your home home city. Although counted your new home city, but yes, I love London. I absolutely. I think I find something different every time I go there. And so it can be a dream travel location from the past and yet, the next time I go I'm going to experience something totally different. So no set. I'm not going to allow you to say London on this answer. But what's a dream travel location? You've not been to yet somewhere you want to go to

Seda Alpkaya: 17:16

Cuba. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 17:18

Tell me why? it fascinates me 90 miles from the US and yet I can't go. tell me why you want to go to Cuba.

Seda Alpkaya: 17:25

I think the colors, the colors. I see they're the big cigars that they're the one making the cigars. I would love to see that cultish. I really want to go there.

Rick Denton: 17:35

I know that I want to go there. I know that obviously is it a US citizen there are complications for me to do so and I'm going to extract the political element from this. I would just love to experience the culture to what you're saying the food, the the colors, the people the vibrancy that I believe is there. I'm jealous of my Canadian friends when I've talked to my Canadian friends and they've had just returned from a Cuba trip so hopefully you'll get to Cuba someday. Thank you. I'll speak of food when it comes to Cuba and I love the Cuban food that I have access to but what for you is it what's a favorite thing for you to eat?

Seda Alpkaya: 18:07

Seafood. I love seafood. grilled Fish I love I can't find it in Turkey in Istanbul also, but in the UK. It's not you know you have fish and chips. I love I love this fish. I want to fish.

Rick Denton: 18:25

Yeah, I'm gonna go and say that fish and chips is definitely not grilled fish it is. Opposite of that had some pretty greasy although I've had some really good fish a little greasy. But yes, the grilled fish nice. So on the opposite side. What is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid?

Seda Alpkaya: 18:43

It's something that I still hate. I guess it's Okra. Okra. Yeah, my father loves it. I hate it. I even cannot see it. You know the thing. I don't like to say that all

Rick Denton: 18:59

you're hurting my heart Seda

Seda Alpkaya: 19:02

you love it?

Rick Denton: 19:03

One of my favorite food items is fried okra. It's a very southern US type food. So imagine the southern part of the United States where you've got good fried okra you've got all sorts of foods. It's not healthy. But I've had okra gumbo. I love okra So you're hurting my heart.

Seda Alpkaya: 19:21

I haven't even heard of fried okra by the way.

Rick Denton: 19:24

Okay

Seda Alpkaya: 19:24

hear we do it. You know we don't fry it maybe I love it. I don't know.

Rick Denton: 19:29

Well, you know, I mean just about anything fried is good anyway, so yes, when I come over to the US and if we happen to be in the same place I will make sure now if we're in a place that does I will get you some good fried okra and we're gonna change your mind about that but I understand it can be a an unapproachable item for kids slimy the seeds all of that no one What is one travel item you will not leave home without?

Seda Alpkaya: 19:55

it's my toothbrush. I don't it's always in my bag. Not only in travel, I can never leave my toothbrush. It's like my teddy bear

Rick Denton: 20:09

oh my gosh, I'm laughing about that say that that's awesome. So your your tooth bear your to your tooth BEAR Oh my gosh, look, listen to what I just said your tooth bear your teddy bear your toothbrush combined. I'm not gonna edit that out, we're gonna keep to spare in there. So let's go. I've enjoyed the visit the first class lunch. But I really want to go back to more talking about design thinking because I think you've got so much insight there. Especially because it has been around for a while. It's not this new concept it we're not talking about the metaverse here, right? How does it How does design thinking though, help companies who are stuck in their ways. So I can't seem to change? How can I use design thinking to get me unstuck?

Seda Alpkaya: 20:46

Yeah, so as we talked about, design thinking, is something that fosters creativity, yeah, increases the creative potential in the people. So instead of, you know, making decisions, just relying on the data that you have in your hands or your instincts, you understand the customer better. So you design the right products or services, or whatever you are designing for them with creativity that unlock sinew. So I think what I would say is that the creativity part, so what I think traditional companies losing time is this, they lose creativity. And they lose also the collaboration sites, because the silos start to, you know, grow bigger in the companies or different teams to not find chances to come together to just ideate to make ideation sessions. So I think creative thinking and collaboration diminishes in traditional companies. And what he's thinking does is to foster these two in the company, so I don't know if you know, this man, you try a circle, and you just draw a circle around the insects, they think that it is a trap, they cannot go out of the circle. interest. So it is it is it is what I sometimes think is that this is something similar for traditional companies, because they are so stuck in their way of thinking in their, you know, organization charts and everything, they forget that they can be creative, they can change the way that they are working. So I think these two things are, really are what design thinking will bring to big companies. So the companies that are stuck in their sphere of thing also, to emphasize your design, thinking sure is not something limitless, it also has its own limits you to focus on the creativity part, you will at first diverge into many, many ideas, you come together with different teams with different disciplines, and they're in the ideation sessions, you just think that sky's the limit, you can just put up push up all kinds of ideas, but then you need to convert your ideas because you know, you cannot prototype or you cannot launch all the ideas that you do. So it has two phases starting with diverging, ideations, a lot of ideas, but then you converge your ideas to find the things that people want, but that are also financially and also technologically feasible. You need to find that way. The tricky thing shows that.

Rick Denton: 23:26

Yeah, that's very true, right? You can come up with something that, uh, well, it's a great idea, but it would cost us you know, $10 billion to execute and get a return of 100,000. So yeah, I can see that there'd be some limits there. That the the story of the insect and drawing the circle around. And that's interesting to me, and it does remind me, you know, I think we've all been totally thinking about when we were kids, and how creative we might have been as kids and then over time, either school structures or peer pressure, or whatever it is, has, for many of us, constrained our creativity. And it feels like what you're describing is design thinking helps sort of re unlock that creativity that's in all of us originally, as in our childhood, and then it brings it back. It gives a structure to those of us that are don't feel the most creative as adults, and provides a way to do that. Now. Yeah, I'm, I this is coming to mind a little bit because we're talking about design thinking. And I know it's been around so to call it trendy isn't really the right term anymore, but it is still it's a phrase, it's a trend, it's a thing. And I know a lot of companies sometimes might say that they're doing something that's trendy, that's cool. Hey, we do Agile, we do design thinking, but they're really doing something else. I'm kind of curious, how is design thinking different than just regular old brainstorming? Yeah,

Seda Alpkaya: 24:39

it's really a very good question. And also, coming back to what you said. The thing that you said about, you know, unlocking the creativity of our childhood is what all design thinkers talk about, you know, exactly. You

Rick Denton: 24:54

Hey I just got a new career.

Seda Alpkaya: 24:55

Right? Exactly, exactly. It's, we always talk about that. For example, David Kelly He always says that you have to unlock the creativity of your childhood, you need to go back there. Exactly. So I appreciate that. I appreciate your first saying that

Rick Denton: 25:10

even though it was unintended

Seda Alpkaya: 25:14

it was very nice. And yes, by the way, coming back to your question design thinking is really something trendy, something popular these days, everybody's talking about everybody's getting trainings on design thinking and so on. But I believe that it is not something temporary. Product Design, by the way, dates back to mid 80s. So it is product design parts is not something new, but the methodology of design thinking is new, it had its like 20 or so years of its widespread adoption. But why I believe it is not temporary, is that because of its focus on concentrating on the human, you know, there are understand understanding of human there are a lot of process improvement methodologies, like you said that there is agile, there is six sigma, there is lean, but difference of design thinking when you compare it with these other process improvement methods is the importance it puts in understanding, understanding the human. The first part, exactly, you need to understand the human, you need to define the problem, right, and then you find your ways to solve it. So, this is why I think design thinking will never be temporary, and it will always stay with us. And you can see big companies all around the world. Like, for example, Netflix, like Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, getting it from Turkey, there are a lot of companies that are using design thinking approach in their customer experiences, employee experiences for these because they see that, you know, by focusing on the needs, by focusing on the customers, employees, they can deliver products or services faster, better for the customers. So this is I think, why it will stick.

Rick Denton: 27:01

I like that. And that that certainly crystallizes it for me, in using the human centric element of it is what makes it design thinking versus just, hey, let's let's just throw some posters on the wall. And hey, sometimes regular ol brainstorming is fine. But how this approach of design thinking is really taking the human to put them in the center?

Seda Alpkaya: 27:19

Exactly. Coming back to your question, sorry, the brainstorming particles, I forgot to just answer that part. There are a lot of tools and techniques, as I said that design thinking uses its five phases. And brainstorming is one of the tools that it uses. It uses brain writing, brainstorming, as I said, affinity mapping and all kinds of tools. It's only a tool that design thinking users because it's also, you know, made to create this.

Rick Denton: 27:46

Okay, so it's it's a tool inside the tool. Exactly. That makes sense. Okay, so if you were just brainstorming, you haven't gone all the way to design thing make sense, man say to what I'm starting to say is, we're almost out of time. But there's something I really want to ask you here as we're coming close to the end of time. But we talked about techniques, we talked about tactics, but a lot of design thinking is simply mindset. And so you've worked with a lot of companies, how do you know if they're culturally ready, if they've got the right mindset, to get into a design thinking mode.

Seda Alpkaya: 28:19

I just experienced some companies where design thinking doesn't work.

Rick Denton: 28:23

Okay, apart from that, let's go the other way.

Seda Alpkaya: 28:27

For example, I saw that design thinking approach doesn't work in companies where mistakes are not tolerated. Mistakes are punished, you know, or companies that are very impatient, who want to get the results immediately, because these kinds of companies think that talking with the customer spending time on the emphasize pace, which is the most important part is kind of, you know, time stands for nothing. So they don't believe that, but Design Thinking believes it. So also companies who stick to their current way of thinking, who doesn't want to change these kinds of companies, even though they try design thinking, they always come back to their traditional solutions, they cannot use it. So this is what I experienced from the companies that I am working with, it doesn't work but when the company is ready to embrace then the company embraces the idea that it needs to change, that they are open to different ideas to different thinking way of thinking also, because not only become the manager, you know, the mid level managers also need to be believing in this too. So when there is a kind of a change moment in the company, or they're okay with changing that design thinking approach fits very well there because they are open. They're open. In other kinds of companies. We see for example, in ideation workshops, they say we tried this but didn't work. No, he said this cause you cannot say this. It may be, you know, many years ago, maybe it was a failure. But now it's a work because we are working on something different. So those kind of, you know, sticking on ideas not wanting to change doesn't work in design thinking. So the company is worried before that you'll be successful.

Rick Denton: 30:20

That makes so much sense to me. So if I can kind of crystallize what I heard you the ones that are not going to succeed are the ones that have said, No, one you can't make any mistakes, no mistakes, you can't do it. So well, then that doesn't work for design thinking and I, I there's sort of almost not a crisis moment. But that that willingness to accept that whatever is current needs to change. And that desire to change is the seed that is planted to allow a company to truly have that design thinking mindset that they are open to that sense of change, say to thank you for opening my eyes to design thinking and how it applies to customer experience and employee experience. It is a term that is thrown about so widely, but it helps to talk to someone like you who really knows it is steeped in it, and can help really align that to customer experience. I also really enjoyed hearing about Albania and some of the other travels that you've got. It is it's been a it's always fun talking with you say it I'm glad that we had this opportunity to put it put it on tape, if you will, and allow listeners to hear the great wisdom that you have to share. I've enjoyed it Seta I wish you the best of your time here in Turkey. I wish you safe travels when it is time to return back to the UK and that everything goes well. Thank you for being on CX passport today. I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

Seda Alpkaya: 31:40

Thank you very much Rick, it was very nice talking with you.

Rick Denton: 31:47

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.