Reversible CX: Delightful on the Inside & Outside

INTRO:

You're listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. In each episode, we’ll share the customer experience stories and insights you need — straight from the sharpest minds in CX — to better connect with your customers and create customers for life. Let's start the show.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Hello everybody and welcome back to CX Confessions. We are so happy to have you here. I'm Katherine Calvert, CMO of Khoros, joined as always by the incomparable Spike Jones, GM of our Strat Services business. How you doing, Spike?

SPIKE JONES:

I'm good, I'm still here you can't get rid of me. I mean I know you tried, but it's just, it's not going to happen. But it's, glad to be here, good to see you again, Katherine.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Aw man, I can't even imagine a conversation without Spike. But we've got a good one today. We sure do. We have a fantastic guest today. We are joined, Spike, let me introduce you and our listeners to Mr. Ken Ewell. So Ken recently joined a company called Momentive as the Chief Customer Officer. Momentive is the name of the company. It was recently, it's the recent rebranding of a company we all know and love and have used, I'm sure many, many times over the years: Survey Monkey. So Survey Monkey is now Momentive.

Ken was brought on to lead the company's customer operations, customer success, professional services, and CX. He has been a twenty-year-plus leader of CX, and former CCO, and he has been in the contact center and consulted. He was at IBM, AT&T. He was recently the VP of customer service and analytics at New Star. He's been at Aspect Software. So this guy knows what he's talking about. In fact, at Aspect, they were rated the best professional services organization globally, one of the top professional services teams around.

Ken has an MBA from Kellogg, BS in computer science from Hampton University. We have a serious expert on CX — joining CX Confessions today.

Welcome to the show, Ken!

KEN EWELL:

Thanks, Katherine, I don't know about expertise, but I certainly bear the scars and the successes of working with teams over the many years.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

And that's what the show’s all about.

SPIKE JONES:

Absolutely. So, last time we talked, Ken, as we were preparing for this — so, first of all, this is a new role, which is super exciting for a company like this to create this role. So, you know, and it's an established company, so for them to create this new role — can you tell us a little bit, I mean was that the lure? I mean why join Momentive now and in this iteration?

KEN EWELL:

Yes, Spike, you know the fact that the role was new was absolutely a part of the lure. You don't often get a chance to do something new at a company that's been around for twenty years, and the reason why we decided to make this move was because we wanted to get more deep in the way that we worked with our customers and in the way that we understood them, and so that's the second part that was really exciting.

I mean when you have a company that has this type of track record in the feedback space, right, so we've been working with customers for this entire twenty year run. Saying, hey, we want to know more. We want to get deeper. And in particular, with our enterprise customers, those business-to-business relationships that we had, that's really compelling, because you've got this great base to build from. You've got these incredible products. But a realization that we need to do more with customers in order to go to the next level. And so for me that was both an exciting platform and an exciting, you know, sort of transformation to be a part of. So the combination of the history with the opportunity to create new was really compelling.

SPIKE JONES:

Do you continue to see white space there? I mean is the sky the limit or are you scratching the surface, you know in this new role? Like what are you seeing so far?

KEN EWELL:

Serious white space. And so, I think, a way to understand the white space is actually to talk a little bit about what the Momentive impetus was because Survey Monkey is going to live on, so we will still have a product that is Survey Monkey. That's going to be our surveys tool, that self-service, really viral, easy-to-use product that you know that you can do everything from figure out what you're going to do for your family reunion to really deep sort of employee engagement surveys, and diversity, equity, and inclusion surveys. So that's going to live on.

But we have other products and other capabilities, specifically around NPS and around our market research solution set. And so that's where we really see this white space. We have white space with our existing surveys customers that will continue to be Survey Monkey users. We've got an incredible market research suite where we are doing a ton for financial services firms, CPG companies, and others, that's really all about quick responses to the specific questions that they are asking, and we're just scratching the surface there. It's a huge growth area for us.

And then our MPs and CX products are also just scratching the surface. We made some acquisitions over the past years. Those are really ramping within the business. So tons of white space. And primarily white space with our existing customers. We have thousands of enterprise customers today and we're not doing everything that we could for them and with them, so that's a tremendous place to be. We don't have to find all of our customers in the wild — they're with us today. We just need to do more to work closely with them.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I want to come back to CX and what that means, because it can mean so many different things to so many people, as you well know. But to come back to what drew you to the opportunity — it's a new role for you, but it's a new role at Momentive, as Spike said. Now, certainly there had to have been a support team and maybe a CSM team. So were they operating in silos? What is that, what did it mean to create a new role for you, Ken?

KEN EWELL:

So I think, Katherine, there's two elements of it. So, as you said, we did have a set of CSMs. They still are working with our customers every day and we had a great and really like highly performing support organization and we have the beginnings of our professional services capabilities, but we weren't applying those as deeply as we could with our customers, and I think, as importantly, we weren't thinking about like what this meant for the people that perform those jobs. How do we make their lives better and as a result, provide a different level of service and a different level of sort of integration with what our customers want to do?

And so for me, like this whole space that we're in and my role as a Chief Customer Officer is about customers. It's also about our people, and I think the sort of way that you grow a business like this has to have those two things moving forward and parallel with each other.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I think that's so interesting, and I think this — on this show we talk to C-suite leaders like yourself and one of the big questions is: everybody has a swim lane and yet customer experience crosses all of those swim lanes, and so it's a frequent subject that teams wrestle with — who owns what? What is the role? What is a Chief Customer Officer? Which gets to the next question, which is: CX, customer experience: what does that mean to you? You've been at this game for a long time.

KEN EWELL:

So I go back to this point of understanding your customers and understanding what your team needs, because for me, CX is how you bring those two things together. So I think this sort of traditional view around enterprise software is that it's features and functions that drive the day and that you win based on that. But when you get into theB2B space, there's a lot more complexity, because the organizations that you're integrating your products into are not simple places. They've all got processes, they've all got tools in place, and they've got existing customers that they're trying to work with, so you've got to really fit into their framework in order to be successful.

So this whole thing of moving forward with your customers and moving forward with your people at the same time is really critical. And I think there's a hierarchy that applies to the way that you do things that actually works across both of those pieces of the landscape, and it starts with humanity. So we talk about software as a tool that does something for an organization, but in reality, it is a tool that does something for a person in an organization that allows them to perform better.

And so you have to understand at some level what matters to them what's important and you have to touch them at a human level. And for your people that are doing the work to support that, whether it be engineering work or my CSM team or my professional services team, they've got to know that I care about their experience and that I'm helping to remove the roadblocks at a human level that are facing them.

And so, if we get that right, then we can go to the next level, which is: customers want to understand that you know something about them that is unique to their experience. And a software product by definition is not designed in the context of any specific customer. It's designed to run personas, right, you think about what the personas are and you build products to support those personas. But any individual working as a leader in an organization is a specific person, and so what is their usage of the product? And how do we connect to their usage as a product with our solutions and our people?

And again I go back to the linkage to the internal team, because you have to really understand what the experience of your people is as they're trying to deliver what you want to your customers. So if my CSMs don't have the training that they need, if they don't have the enablement that they need, then their ability to talk about advocacy and adoption is greatly reduced. And so I really spend a lot of time thinking about the customer and knowing them, and my team and knowing them.

And so if I get those two right, I've got some humanity there. I understand my customers, I understand my people, now I can start to get into the key question, which is how do I help you succeed at your job? So for our customers, if our products are doing things that help them succeed at their job, help them get that promotion, help them get a bigger bonus, help them move their organization forward, they will do more with us. They will grow with us. And our people have to have that enablement as well. They've got to be able to move forward in their job and they've got to grow as well. And if we can do those three things, that sort of hierarchy really then deepens the linkage that we have with our customers enabled by our people, and it allows our products to shine.

So that's what I really focus on and that's what I'm asking my team to focus on more is like, let's know our customers a little bit better as people. Let's know them in the context of what they need to succeed in their job and then let's deliver the outcomes that do that.

SPIKE JONES:

I love that. I mean empathy has entered the chat and that, I think that's where, that's where it starts, with this empathy. And I like to ask new customers like, what are we going to, what are we going to be celebrating nine months from now, a year from now? And sometimes it is: my promotion. It’s like, great. That is one of your goals. I love to know that, because we can help get you there through the use of our tool or the customer service that we give you as well. So beginning with empathy, which, you know, easier said than done, as you well know Ken, but that's a beautiful thing to have the mindset of that to lend to your team when they start there, and then the rest will follow, for sure. Love that.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I think the idea of that employee experience and the interconnectedness of the CX, right, of customer experience, especially on the support services side, is so interesting, right. There's probably CX, EX, is there a human experience category we're talking about? I just, I think that's really powerful. We see a lot of customers who wrestle with, particularly in the last year and a half, how do you support your team so that they feel empowered to help customers, right? Ultimately, that makes their day better, makes them feel stronger and more successful.

But that, I think, I'm gonna, you touched on the notion of knowing your customers, right, and the difference — I love that highlight of the difference between a persona and a person. That is hard to do at scale when you have so much data, so many customers. What's the data that matters to you when you think about getting to that next level of understanding?

KEN EWELL:

I actually think more about the information than the data and because I find that that is the larger gap, right. So we have a lot of data around, in our case, how many surveys you sent and how many responses came from those surveys and how many times you've done market research projects and what the subject of those market research project was. But if I also understand what business problems those solved and the information that you needed to solve those business problems, I have more context for why you did what you did. I have a greater ability to know that it succeeded, and I have a better sense of what I can do next to add more value.

So if I know that you did a survey on diversity, equity, and inclusion, there's going to be a lot of data that comes out of that. But the information around what that enabled you to do differently in your organization in terms of promotion, in terms of pay equity, in terms of realizing what underrepresented organizations were most significantly underrepresented in your organization, like that's information that we provided that really makes a difference in your business. And by the way, if I know that customers like you valued that information when I'm in new sales situation or when I'm in an expansion situation, I can bring those stories, anonymized of course, into the conversation and give you a much higher sense of the value that we will bring to the table.

So it's really that information around what you did with it and the outcomes that you helped, that we helped you create in your business that I'm looking for. And to your point, that is hard to get at scale. And so like, what you need to create among your employee population is a willingness to participate in that dialogue with the organization writ large. So if people are just sort of mailing it in, going through the QBR, handling things sort of according to the script, you know, you get a level of information, but it's not the information that really helps you move forward as a business.

If, on the other hand, they're willing to do that and come up with three to four creative ideas about how things could be made better, we can execute that across the overall population. And that is as important and, I would say, arguably more important for the future than the stats and the metrics and the measures. Because we're going to get those things, but those don't necessarily drive insight at the same level as the information does when combined with the data.

SPIKE JONES:

With a lot of companies, the transactions end at data. Oh yeah, okay, here it is. Here's a read out. But that's, I, this is the next step and you just took it even further — the insights based on the information, too. And you know some of my greatest successes have been built on that kernel of truth that comes from the insights. But you got to go digging for it sometimes, for sure, but those actionable items that come up out of it, that's a great way to think about data and continuing the life span of that data, for sure.

KEN EWELL:

We are in a heavily competitive space, right, and so it is harder to differentiate on things that everyone can do. And so those insights are unique to the creativity of your people and the conversations they have with your — remember — individual human customers. So, like that's where you can differentiate. And that's why I think, you know, the data is critical and important, but it's sort of table stakes, right? Because everybody can capture data given, you know, the efficacy of our solutions today. Can we go to the next level to differentiate ourselves? Can we go to the next level to make ourselves more relevant to customers and situations that matter to them? That's really where the sort of extra winds will come from. That's where the sort of next level relationship comes from. And that's got to be our north star. Hard to get to, but it's got to be our north star.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

It's so much more fun to compete and differentiate on insights and that creative value ad versus price. I mean getting into, everything can be commoditized, it's the insight and perspective and expertise that is the really fun way to differentiate. Speaking of differentiation, a question we always ask our guests, Ken: What is a commonly held belief or industry practice that you really strongly disagree with?

KEN EWELL:

Features and functions win the day. So features and functions are absolutely critical. Understanding the business situation allows you to figure out which of those features and functions are most important to emphasize — and by the way which of the features and functions that you don't have, you need to develop more rapidly in order to really win more, right. And so it ties back to that.

Now, I'm not confused. Like you have to build software with significant capabilities, and I know we do. But again many can, and so the question is: Can we apply those features and functions in a sort of hierarchy that really makes our customer feel like, man, I'm going to work with these guys, so we win the business. And then man, these guys are really helping me to excel in what I do. That's how we get deeper and that's how we grow and that's how you build champions. That's how you build people that are actually willing to go to bat for you when you go to that next new customer situation, because you made a difference in their lives.

You know that's where the features and functions do have a world in which they live. It's the world of having helped that customer to actually achieve a business outcome, and you know that's where we're going.

SPIKE JONES:

Yeah, Ken, I think you just won a life-long fan in Katherine with that answer for sure.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Right? And you said it so beautifully earlier as well, right, that software is the tool in service of humanity, or your human customers, versus starting with the software.

SPIKE JONES:

So it is called CX Confessions, and so this is a standard question we ask all of our illustrious guests: What is a hard lesson that you have learned along the way? Doesn't have to be here. It could be at some of your other, those small little start up companies like IBM and AT&T, that you know maybe they'll make it one day. We don't know. But what is a hard, maybe something that didn't go right that you built on the next time? I mean I know that's how I learned, is from my own mistakes going forward too.

KEN EWELL:

Well, relationships matter, and I think a little context applies to that and it really came to a head when I joined IBM. I joined IBM through the acquisition of a small strategy consulting firm and they bought us because you know IBM wanted to be able to do more sort of strategic, have more strategic dialogue with the customers, and we came into that thinking, hey we're really smart guys and gals, and we are going to bring this insight and perspective to the table at IBM. And I joined the AT&T Account. And some of the early calls that we went on really weren't about my view on how AT&T was going to do at executing a three-screen strategy, which we now know as the universe product that we currently use.

It was about understanding what the aspirations of those individuals were and where they were going in their career that gave us the opportunity to have deeper conversations with them about things before they even became RFP items or things that we needed to do in a competitive sense. And so that lesson for me was all about the value of those relationships and building them before you need them so that when the business opportunities get there there's context and they know who you are, what you bring to the table personally. That puts them in a different framework for listening to what you can talk about as an organization.

And I had to learn that, right. I had to really learn that it wasn't about my powerpoint or my point of view on the industry. It was about whether I could have some context for what was on the other side of the table and what was important to them and based on that have a context for our dialogue.

SPIKE JONES:

I'm sensing the theme of humanity throughout this, that's great.

KEN EWELL:

It's been a consistent theme.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Well, thank you for sharing these stories, and it's fascinating. We've talked to several leaders, so many leaders now, and this theme of differentiating on connection shows up in so many different ways, but very common. Who you are, you just said that's the piece of learning from your experience at IBM, and so we always like to end our podcast getting to know our guest a little bit more as a person. So it's time for a few quick-fire questions about who is Ken Ewell. Spike, you want to kick us off?

SPIKE JONES:

Of course. My favorite question: What's your first concert, Ken?

KEN EWELL:

So I went to see the Go Go’s at Merriweather Post Pavilion, which is in Maryland, when I was a freshman in college and like that might not have been my first concert, but it's the first time like I went by myself and I took my girlfriend and like it was my concert to go to and I loved and still love the Go Go’s, and so that will always stand out for me.

SPIKE JONES:

Fantastic answer. We have not heard the Go Go’s. That is a, that's a good one.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That's a good one! What was your very first job?

KEN EWELL:

I was a bag boy at a store called Publix, which is a Florida — started as a Florida chain. But now is, like you know, pretty significant and you know Publix, a long time ago, figured out like that customer service mattered, and so this is kind of hard to believe now but like we would bag the groceries for the customer and take it out to the car and put it in their car and not take tips for any of that, and that was part of the service ethos at Publix, and that was the first job that I ever had.

SPIKE JONES:

Huge fan. Lived in the south and, of course, if there was a Publix within twenty miles, that's where we’d be going because it was a, it still is a great, a great experience. Yeah for sure. If you weren't doing this, what other profession would you attempt?

KEN EWELL:

Well, I have two professions and I would do my second profession full time if I weren't doing this. And so in addition to being a software guy, I'm a professional soccer coach and I have been for many years, and so it has been just an incredible opportunity to work with a lot of really great kids and a lot of really great coaches and make really strong relationships on both of those levels because both are important, and so, if I wasn't doing this, I would do that full time and it would be incredibly fulfilling. I spend a lot of time on it now, but it's not the only thing I do and I'd love to do that full time.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That's amazing! How do you feel about Ted Lasso?

SPIKE JONES:

I knew that was coming. I knew that question was coming.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

There’s only one right answer, Ken, you have to love it, but no.

KEN EWELL:

Exactly, and so it's really like, it's been a wonderful journey to see how soccer has entered the consciousness, particularly of Americans, because I'm an American and I'm an American soccer player, an American soccer coach. So I know there's other people that play, but I'm an American, and so the consciousness that's come up around soccer is just amazing. And I have a confession, which is that I am saving Ted Lasso. And so I am amazed at like what has gone on around Ted Lasso and it is clearly something that is designed to watch, but I have a partner that I spend a lot of time watching Netflix with and so, or in this case I think it's HBO Max maybe or something like that, and so have not gotten to Ted Lasso.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Well, you're going to have to let us know what you think, so I will be following up.

SPIKE JONES:

I'm jealous you haven't seen any of them. I'm jealous you get to watch it for the first time.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I know, get to watch it again. So what about — clearly you're not watching this on your phone —so what is your favorite app on your phone?

KEN EWELL:

So this is like not going to be that compelling. But if I'm honest like the just regular messenger, iMessenger app. The regular Apple like is like really getting interesting in terms of the number of ways that you use it. So there's obviously the text back and forth, but it's becoming a part of the way that you perform customer service. It's becoming a part of the way that you advertise. It's really just sort of expanding, and I just think it's really cool what's going on with iMessenger and I use it a lot.

SPIKE JONES:

That's fantastic!

KATHERINE CALVERT:

I do too and so do my children. Got to manage that.

SPIKE JONES:

What would you say is your biggest indulgence?

KEN EWELL:

My biggest indulgence is thinking that I'm actually going to be able to do some of the sort of landscaping things that I see on like Pinterest and other places because like it doesn't work out that way. And so, like I indulge myself in this fantasy, this flight of fantasy, that I can make it look like that, and then I get out there and start digging and it's like no, you know what, I'm going to go back inside. Something just became much more important. And so that would be one that I'd put out there.

SPIKE JONES:

I feel you.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

That's a good one though. At least you're outside.

SPIKE JONES:

For sure.

KEN EWELL:

Absolutely.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Well, Ken, thank you so much for sharing your story, for being a guest on our show, and sharing your knowledge and some perspective on your experiences. Ken: if people want to learn more about you or Momentive, how can they, is there a way to follow you on social? What’s the best place to go?

KEN EWELL:

Sure. LinkedIn or www.Momentive.ai is the best way to see what we're up to.

KATHERINE CALVERT:

Momentive dot AI. Fantastic. All right. Well, thanks again for being here, it has been a pleasure. Spike, as always, thank you for being my partner in crime, and thanks everybody for tuning in. We'll see you next time on CX Confessions.

KHOROS:

Your customers expect to be understood — their likes and dislikes, their history with your brand, and their communication preferences. But so many companies struggle to connect the dots of the interaction across their own teams and channels and its creating customer experience challenges and disasters. That's where Khoros can help. Khoros is the award-winning customer engagement platform built to turn those siloed interactions with your customer into enterprise value. Khoros works with more than 2,000 of the world's leading brands and powers more than 500 million digital interactions every day. Khoros is the award-winning platform for digital-first customer engagement. Ready to create human connection across the digital customer experience to create customers for life? Learn more at Khoros.com.

Thanks for listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure the hit subscribe in your favorite podcast player and give us a rating. See you next time.