MICHELLE HUFF:
When we work as a marketing organization with products, there's a little bit of… you know, you're trying to build excitement internally and externally for what you’re building. What, you know, a better way to do it is actually hearing directly from customers.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Welcome to another episode of CX Confessions. I am Staci Satterwhite, and I am excited to be joined today by guest host Dillon Nugent. Welcome, Dillon.
DILLON NUGENT:
Thank you.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Dillon is currently our Chief Marketing Officer here at Khoros. I have worked with her for several years, and as the CMO of Khoros, she's responsible for developing and executing, obviously, our global marketing strategy. Dillon has over 20 years experience with a start in the advertising industry and then branched into B2B and tech, where she's focused on product innovation and transforming teams to find growth opportunities. Today, Dillon uses her passion for growth to develop her team and find new opportunities for Khoros through programmatic and account-based strategies. And Dillon, since I know you, all of those things are true. Again, excited to have you as co-host of CX Confessions today.
DILLON NUGENT:
I am thrilled to be here.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
So, tell me a little about what's going on in your world, anything interesting, from an industry, standpoint or what's going on in the life of Dillon in CX?
DILLON NUGENT:
Well, I think there's so much about the uncertainty right now and the economy and everybody looking for growth and how do you drive growth. And I find that it's so important to remember that we have to go back to like really fundamental foundation things that help fuel what we do. I think it's very easy to go to “how do we fix this quick?” And “how do we do what's most known to us in this unknown time?” But I think there's so much during these times that rely on us digging deeper and understanding things even further. So that's been something that's been really on my mind and today's conversation is, I think, plays right into that is like, don't cut the stuff that's really going to give you the fuel during these times when things feel like they're a little scarce or a little bit unknown. That's when you need this introspection and reflection and information and data the most.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Yeah absolutely, both professionally and personally. Happy to have Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer, as our guest today on CX Confessions. Michelle is the CMO at UserTesting who brings over 20 years of experience leading marketing and go-to-market strategies at hi-tech companies, such as Act-On Software, Salesforce, and Oracle. Gaining insights directly from customers and prospects has always been essential in Michelle's past roles—from leading product marketing and management teams to launching websites and marketing campaigns. Today at UserTesting, she's responsible for driving the go-to-market strategy, building the UserTesting brand, generating demand, and strengthening customer engagement and advocacy. Welcome, Michelle, to the show. Dillon and I are very happy to have you here today.
MICHELLE HUFF:
I am very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
You have a really incredible background, and I am excited to dig into it more. Our first question is a little bit more about the current state of things. So your marketing leadership roles have had such big Brands as Oracle and Salesforce, obviously very well-known names to folks in the industry, and during the 2008 financial crisis, you were a product manager or product management director at Oracle. But now, as we're going into a potentially tightening economic situation—I’m sure it's on everyone's mind—and you're in the big chair so to speak, right? The leader of it all from a marketing standpoint, there at UserTesting. I expect that means you will have some different and maybe incremental challenges ahead, depending of course on how this plays out for all of us, a lot of unknown. I’m curious for your opinion of kind of the differences there and maybe more specifically, why is it important for marketers to have an understanding of the customer's situation and feeling especially during difficult economic times?
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah, no, that's a great setup. Yeah, it's been interesting kind of looking back at my career. So I think my very first job, I started right at that whole boom at the beginning of late 90s, and then you know, at the end of the day, you know, I love Peter Drucker, his quote, where he says, you know, what's the purpose of a business? And it’s really to create and keep a customer. And so, you know, when you ask the question of, “why do you think it’s important to really understand them,” it's essentially the reason why we're in business and so, you know, it, depending on if you are in a more of a B2C environment or, you know, in our world, it's, you know, I have always kind of been more of a B2B stance, it's understanding, right, that whole dynamic of not just the end users who might use your applications but also the buyers.
Now, there's a lot of things that, you know, pivots that I made in the middle of this year versus what I set out to do at the beginning of the year and you hear a lot of—you know, Dillon, I don’t know if you see a lot of it—but you know so much of it is, “how do we think about making the most of these investments” you know, versus maybe a grow at all costs. Because there's this moment of time when you're just like in this high-growth mode versus alright. Now, you know, in some sense, it can be a nice refreshing pace and you look at things it's still a crazy pace, but it's a different way of looking at it all. It’s like, okay, we're going to try to make sure that we're making the most of these investments.
DILLON NUGENT:
As a follow-up to that, Michelle, how do you find—I mean, I face this as a marketer too—how do you find in these times when you are looking at squeezing every little last little drop of juice out of what you have that, you know, talking to your customers and getting these insights is critical and not a nice-to-have.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah. Well you know, so for UserTesting, if people haven't heard of what it is, it really helps people understand what it's like to be a customer. You really get to step into their shoes and, you know, as a marketer, oftentimes you're faced with a lot of data and you don't understand why things are, you know, why is that pattern existing? Why is that trend happening? And you make a lot of assumptions, you have to and to keep kind of going. And so a big thing that you're really trying to do is create messaging, create campaigns, create experiences that resonate. It’s really hard to tell what resonates with data, truly, right? Like sometimes you're like, okay, this is getting traction but like, but what about it made it resonate, right? I think that's what we always crave, and, you know, you see it happening all the time.
Before I learned about UserTesting, firstly, I was like, I didn't realize this existed! And you ask your spouse, other marketers get into a room, you ask other people like, what do you think? Does this make sense? And you're constantly asking these questions. But if you could really ask that to users and your buyers, right? And really actually understand what resonates, what doesn't.
And so, you know, I think when you are trying to optimize and get the most out of things, there's kind of three ways. This, you know, sometimes I feel like marketing, you can get so trapped in the execution of the tactics. And it can all lead up to this like this amazing machine, but the message that you're the offer the message, I mean, it's kind of pointless if it doesn’t actually move the needle. If it doesn't actually prevent them, like why they have a problem, why you, why now, right? So it's a part of the journey, you're trying to help them answer questions, help overcome objections and kind of get to becoming a customer get to continuing because, you know, adoption of it and become an advocate. So if you aren't having messaging and offers that moves that, at the end of the day, it becomes kind of pointless.
So UserTesting helps with that, but then on the other side, we often see, you know especially in the digital world, we're constantly testing and iterating. And you know if you think about just simple A/B test that you might be doing on your site, at the end of the day, it takes, you know, every test we might run it for two weeks, sometimes a month, and you're really putting, if it's an A/B, you know, potentially half of your traffic, you're putting at risk to go with one of these different options. And/or you have campaigns and you're like, “hey, I will just run this in the market for real.” These are actual campaign dollars to see what works. And so we have been seeing, you know, not that that goes away, but we have been seeing a lot of more advanced marketers and mature organizations start saying, you know, why don't I get some of that feedback before I spend campaign dollars, before I actually put on these at-risk. You know, instead of having an A and B where the end of the four weeks, you realize B wins by 0.23%...
DILLON NUGENT:
It's, yeah. It’s, you’re right, it’s that refined…
MICHELLE HUFF:
Does that move the needle? Right? So maybe like, you can propose, you know what should the two options kind of be and get some feedback on that before you kind of get further.
DILLON NUGENT:
Talk to us about… I love that you guys describe yourself as a human insights platform. I mean, it's so much richer and reminds you what you're really there to do with that rather than calling it customer research. But talk to us about the real-time aspect. I know that is like a big factor in your platform, the ability to get that in real time. What do you think that does to impact? Obviously, speed to market. Sure, you get the insights sooner, and then you can start integrating them into what you do. But talk to us a little bit more about that, and what the big advantage of that is.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah. So you know, it's interesting when you talk to people about getting feedback and you should really talk to customers. I don't think I have ever met a marketer that said, “No, that’s not interesting or important or why would anyone do that.” Right? But normally most marketers, you're just under crunch time, and people don't feel like they have the time to get the feedback, right? Or they don't have the people, they can bounce it off of or it costs a lot of money, you know, when you use the words “research,” you know, and I still do that. I do competitive research, I send someone off, hey, can you go look into this, and they come back, you know, later, doing a lot of thoughtful research or I, you know, I have done brand-checking research, and it takes a few months and you pay thousands of dollars and you get it and it's insightful. But like, I feel like that's the mindset. And with UserTesting, I almost feel like there's these three a-ha moments.
The first one is you're trying to describe what we do and maybe people are like, “are they a survey?” Or like what, what is this? And so, we normally show these little videos. And, it could be, basically as a marketer you could ask them questions but also give them tasks to do. So I want you to show me when you start research or are looking for these types of solutions, go to Google, and tell me what you look for. And then when you find it, like, explain to me what you think that process looks like. Or go to the site and tell me how you would find request trial or, you know, whatever the task is, you pick an audience, you give them those questions, you give them those tasks, and then you start to literally see people going through it. And they think their thoughts out loud, they tell you why they're doing what they're doing, and you see what they're seeing on your side, or different places. And so suddenly there's this like, oh shoot, I can really start getting like, oh, like I’m literally in their shoes and watching them. It's a whole different way of looking at it and the speed… So over 80% of in our customer experience narratives, we call it, and they come back and just a few hours.
And so the second a-ha moment is normally you have got these crazy questions, things that you're trying to understand and, literally, usually the first few start coming in in 30 minutes. And I think that's a moment where suddenly it changes this dynamic where that's sometimes quicker than trying to schedule a meeting with the co-worker to see like, “hey I’m going to run this through with you. What do you think, right?” And so suddenly when the access and the ability to have it work within your workflows and timelines, it kind of changes how people start thinking about getting customer feedback.
And usually the third a-ha moment is when I tell people, it doesn't even have to be your experience. You could literally like, let us say you're trying to rebuild a certain, you know, like if your e-commerce or something or like, you know, show me what your top three best shopping cart experiences are like, show me and why. And so people can go, and go to different sites, or they can go to your competitors versus you and tell you what you think. And so suddenly, it really can be any experience that you can get insight into.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
You talked about some of the benefits of UserTesting, and maybe it's about getting those three a-ha moments in real time. But tie for me, some of the main benefits of UserTesting when it comes to the customer journey. And you kind of laid it out there, but maybe there's a little more to it than that?
MICHELLE HUFF:
Typically, the main benefits that our customers see about getting human insight it's, you know, at the end of the day, we're trying to drive revenue, but it comes in a few different camps. So, some of it is literally, you know, a lot of times innovation comes from talking to customers. It's about observing others hearing connecting ideas and so, you know, one of them is just thinking out of the box, having innovative ideas, you know, driving something that's new.
Another one is really around saving costs, right? So, if you're, you know, there are definitely companies who have crazy processes internally of how they're trying to get feedback from, you know, potential customers, from existing customers, and so there's definitely reasons why people use this to save costs. But there's also just with managing risk that I talked a little bit about. If you're building something—campaigns, sites, applications—there's usually a whole set of resources that are invested in building it. And if you work but say, in a sprint cycle of your building things every two weeks, you're really putting that amount of investment at risk towards what you want them to do—what you're building, the message, the feature, the, you know, experience that you're creating. And so, you know, and then you launch it at the end. There’s huge amount of investment and cost that you put at risk for something that might not actually even work or resonate with customers. And so, you know, that's a huge benefit.
And then really around, you know, all of that helps drive revenue. But there's just really specific ones that we talked about around, you know, there's so many examples in use cases where people have had insights that have increased conversion rate let’s say, you know, 13%, 50% where it's gone through, and we’ve seen adoption of new applications, loyalty programs. And so, there's a lot of ones that you can kind of pull out of what marketing is trying to do where talking to customers, getting this human insight, pairing it with the data that you have has had such a huge impact on revenue.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
It almost sounds like the ultimate in quick feedback, right? Well, I want to do this, I am going to get the feedback, I am going to see how it goes, and I am gonna adjust. Almost the agile, if you will, of your world.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah, no, 100%. I mean really it spawned from, you know, the name UserTesting, where our heritage really came from was in this user research, UX kind of space, and it grew from agile development. So, it was this whole like trying to get feedback really quick. You're trying to release things quickly, and how do you get, how do you make sure it makes sense to another? Does it actually seem usable? Does it make sense? And then over time, we built it because there's so many reasons why, you know, anyone who's building and creating things for other people care what it's like for their users and if it actually works for them.
DILLON NUGENT:
So, Michelle, you talk about, you know, getting that feedback when you're building the products, which is critical. What do you think is the value with marketers then really understanding how products are built? Really interesting that process and how a product team and a marketing team can come together and maximize the kind of insights that your platform offers. Where have you seen that work really well? And what's, what are the ingredients there?
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah, so it comes in a few different ways. So like, just even internally at UserTesting there's alot that the product team and marketing team work together. So, you know, we do for one, I call them empathy hours. So for every single one of my all-hands, we, you know, I think it's important for my team to actually understand our buyers and our users. And so, we always go through and show video clips so that we have a chance to hear about their needs, their problems, what's kind of situations that they're dealing with, and we share those with the product organization as well because it's really important that they understand the same thing, that we're speaking the same language. So there's a lot of shared understanding that you get from doing these things. It's not like we're all having separate ad hoc conversations.
We also do that with users. And so there's this kind of just broader understanding. You know, what's interesting is when we work as a marketing organization with products, there's a little bit of you're trying to build excitement internally and externally for what you’re building and what, you know, a better way to do it is actually hearing directly from customers. So we will have an all-hands where we have, you know, whether it be something, you know, that might seemingly feel small like specific features versus some major kind of capabilities. And so we will play a little highlight reels so you can watch people the first time that they're experiencing it—what they think, or why did we build it in the first place? And you can hear it directly from the end users or the customer. So it really just helps get more buy-in, apply more context between the product and engineering organization, the marketing, kind of the rest of the company.
Maybe on the other side… So that's, I think, especially in my more B2B world of working in marketing and product. But, you know, if you kind of look at what marketers are doing today, and digital worlds, I mean we're responsible oftentimes for the websites, for all these digital experiences in these large organizations. If you're dealing more in a B2C environment, these huge kind of mandates and infrastructure and tech resources that the CMOs are in charge of are very much like a tech company, heads of product and CTOs. And so, you know, you see a big trend of having people within marketing also be, right, like product managers. But, the product might be, you know, the homepage. The product might be a certain part of the customer journey. And so, in that regard, I think it's really important for marketers to understand this world of products, and how it works, and how to actually be in these agile, you know, sprints, and how to incorporate feedback, and how to build prototypes and get features because all of that is really helping you, at the end of the day, drive revenue. And all of these, you know, experiences you’re building across the customer journey, and you see it applied not just for the first-time customer revenue, but a lot of teams are really starting to use that to the same sets of premises, the same sets of data sets to drive adoption and renewals or expansion within customers. So, in that regard, I think it's really important for CMOs to better understand what that world looks like.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
What a great answer spoken from the customer-facing person. Thank you, I really appreciate that. In fact, I think I might even steal empathy hour at a future all-hands. What a great concept.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Actually, we just kicked off internally. I was hosting our company all-hands because our CEO was out today, and we have a Chief Insights Officer and her team is kicking off an empathy feed. And so, we have been experimenting internally, with marketing, some of the team, we’re making it all enterprise-wide, so that we can really have a destination for, if you're just, you know, five minutes, ten minutes out of your day that you can just go and start listening, you know, it's like instead of just going on TikTok or whatever like why not use the opportunity to hear from different customers? And they're just like these great little moments of insight to hear about their needs, problems, feedback, you know, experiences. So I think that will be pretty cool.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Cool. I like the empathy feed. That’s awesome. Yeah, Dillon. We should think about that. Okay, one of my favorite questions that we ask on all CX Confessions episodes is what is a commonly held belief or industry practice that you passionately disagree with?
MICHELLE HUFF:
I think there's a lot of people who believe that if you are a business leader, that you have to have this, a certain kind of persona, and you have to be kind of cut-throat and business-like. And there’s this whole person of what people have expectations around and you know, a lot of people don't feel like you can be kind and also, be an executive. And I just feel like, you know, early in my career, you know, there's definitely leaders I have, you know, experienced in my past that are the pound the fist on the table and swearing and just be like, and sometimes people are like well that’s what it takes. And, you know, one of our things at UserTesting, one of our culture, you know, elements is be kind. And, you know, I feel like that it's interesting because some people will say well, you know, like maybe that's when you're a small company, it's not something that scales, and I just wholeheartedly believe you can be kind, you can still be direct, you can still have honest conversations, but you can do it in a kind way, right? And I think we talked a lot about assuming positive intent and sometimes people, it's interesting, they believe when they hear positive intent it needs to be nice and that you shouldn't say anything because you should assume they meant to do the right thing and you should kind of give them a pass, right? Like they were meaning well, and then therefore, you're supposed to suck it up. And I feel like that's not at all what assuming positive intent means. I mean obviously if you like, there’s some moments where you just suck it up. But really I feel like what it is, you know, something happens, something is said, and you are kind of fired up, right? Like it triggers something in you’re like, “argh!” And, you know, one thing about assuming a positive intent is in a company, one thing you can think through first is you know what, we're all here because we're trying to do our best and drive this company forward. So their intention is similar to what I want. We're going about it very different tactics, but at least we both want the same things.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Find the common alignment.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah, right? And if you can kind of hear it and they’re not staying it against you or trying to, right? They're not trying to make you mad, they're not trying to do this to you. Right? Suddenly, it can just change your response. You should still, right, have a conversation, you can still say, hey, when you said this, it made me feel this way. Kind of pissed me off and this is why, you know, and but you can have the conversation. But again, you're not like fired up and sending off Slacks and having a response that assumes they had it out for you because that changes the whole dynamic of the conversation. And at the end of the day, we're all like people working together and communication skills are so important. And I feel like being kind, assuming positive intent, just helps and goes such a long way, and I think it can be incredibly effective in business leadership.
DILLON NUGENT:
It reminds me, Michelle, of the other saying that you were always told to remember is don't take it personally. And it's not about you, right?
MICHELLE HUFF:
It’s not about you.
DILLON NUGENT:
But it's I mean it's such good advice too. It reminds me a lot of like what your product does, which is really understanding the why behind what you may assume or you hear. And what's really behind that, like, what's the motivation? What's the, discover the why part, you guys always talk about, too, is like that's the underbelly of whether it's, you know, how do you interact with somebody and what they're really trying to get across or what's really behind that rough exterior, or really why someone buys your product, or what they're looking for, what they value.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Totally, because I think, once you do that, you know, maybe it's also my marketing like, problem-solving brain, but like, when you, when you kind of understand where they're coming from, you know, you’re like oh that makes a ton of sense, right? And you can like, say okay, well now I can frame things in a different way better, you know, like knowing where they're coming from or I can realize that this is their perspective and maybe that shapes how I now phrase it or change it or do it. But like it's all, you know, it all goes in helping you understand what next steps you can take. And I just, I think it's so important to do that, you know, I totally agree. It's, you know, I think one of my, my big things, I always, you know, I think I even sent it to my niece when she was graduating, but I wholeheartedly believe that the only thing you have complete control over is how you choose to respond to something. And people get really upset when they feel out of control, powerless, right? There's all these things where it starts kind of messing with your head on these situations, but I think if you just, at the end of the day, there's a lot of things that happen. What you have control over is how you choose to respond. And so, whatever you need to do to change that like mindset of yours to help you walk away later on and reflect back on that situation and say, you know, how I chose to handle that situation changed the whole kind of dynamic, personally, I think that's empowering, right. And you can always tell people how you expect to be treated. You can always coach people on how like… You know, again, it doesn't have to be about you but like, you know, like don’t assume that everyone's had your background and your experience and your same, you know, because they come at it, from a different situation. So just tell them how you want to be treated, tell them what you like, and don't like.
DILLON NUGENT:
Well, especially today, where, you know, every company is trying to get more diverse because we see the value in all these different perspectives, but with that comes this strong need to understand each other, right? We're not all homogeneous, nor do we want to be, and that's not where the value is. But we have to remember to bring that aspect of really, how you understand other people at the table. So…
STACI SATTERWHITE:
There's a lot to unpack there. We could almost do an entire episode on that part, right? As you were talking, there were things flying through my mind. Like stress isn't actually anything but a reaction to an event itself, it's not the event itself. So many things to think about there. Michelle, thank you for that. Thank you for the be kind.
DILLON NUGENT:
And before we sign off, Michelle, we want to take the final minutes to let the world know a little bit more about you. So we have something we call quickfire confessions and these are questions that we use to get a really, really different glimpse of you outside of what we have talked about. So Staci and I are going to rapid fire a few questions at you and just answer the first thing that comes to your mind or the most honest answer. So Michelle, what was your first concert?
MICHELLE HUFF:
I’m based in Seattle. And I was a grunge girl. So, my first concert was, I think, an outdoor one with Candlebox and Tool. I don't know if you remember them.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Yes, alright, love it. Okay, grunge girl at heart.
MICHELLE HUFF:
I did the crowd surfing thing.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Wow, the whole crowd surfing thing. Wow, that's awesome. Getting to know you already. Okay next, what profession other than your own would you attempt if you could? Maybe it's a grunge singer.
MICHELLE HUFF:
I know. Actually, I mean, I really love what I do. I feel like, I don't know, maybe it would be like the complete opposite like I love doing hot yoga, maybe I would own a yoga studio and I would have some job that, like, forces me to exercise on a daily basis? Think that might be actually really hard.
DILLON NUGENT:
Alright, what’s your biggest indulgence? And it cannot be hot yoga.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Well, my biggest indulgence, which actually pre-pandemic, I was on a weekly massage, which was pretty amazing. Yeah, I took a little hiatus from that frequency, but I am mentally, I am raring up to start doing that one again.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Very medicinally beneficial too, right? Not just relaxation.
DILLON NUGENT:
Why stop that?
MICHELLE HUFF:
I know, right?
STACI SATTERWHITE:
I know, exactly. Okay, alright, what is your favorite movie quote?
MICHELLE HUFF:
Princess Bride. It's this funny little scene. I am forgetting the guys name. He keeps saying the wor inconceivable, right? So like they look and they see someone coming after them, and so they keep setting all these little traps and there's this huge cliff, and the guy keeps coming up and the guy keeps saying, “inconceivable.” And the other guy’s like you keep using that word… he goes, I don't think it means what you think it means. And I feel like there's all these moments in my head where people say things—maybe it's my marketer where I’m always, like, so focused on words—but in my head, he pops in. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Love it.
DILLON NUGENT:
Alright, Michelle, and lastly, we know you're based in Seattle, but if you were not based in Seattle, and you had to move somewhere other than there, where would it be?
MICHELLE HUFF:
My sister moved down to San Diego. So maybe I would kind of join her in some sunshine, dancing, and..
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Family is good, sunshine is good. You just got to deal with the cost of living. Not that Seattle's that much different at this point, probably.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Yeah, I know, I know. But I like my four seasons so still staying up here. But It's a good, second choice.
DILLON NUGENT:
And your grunge.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
And your grunge. Yeah, exactly. Well, Michelle, this has been absolutely lovely. What a really, really cool introduction we got to you and to UserTesting. Thank you very, very much for all of your time today. I have thoroughly enjoyed it, and I wish you the best of luck.
MICHELLE HUFF:
Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation.
DILLON NUGENT:
Thank you, Michelle.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Wow, Dillon! What a great conversation with Michelle. So many key takeaways, but I love, loved her concept of empathy hour and really, really using, obviously, UserTesting but also just their overall concept of really putting themselves in their customers’ shoes with the whole empathy concept. What about you? What do you take away from it?
DILLON NUGENT:
Yeah, I just love that notion of reminding people that empathy is important. But, you know, Staci, I thought it was so interesting how I come from a marketing world, you come from, you know, customer and operations, and it's, it's really the intersection of like you think about these companies. The companies that are most well-known and most successful really have a clear understanding of their customer. Like from the top to the very bottom of any company, like they know who their customer is, they’re customer-centric. And so many things she talked about, about their platform but also just how they run that company is really focused on that. Like bringing the customer to what you do.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Yeah, it's interesting to see. And you're right, the two of our perspectives—mine operational, yours marketing—that they like, they really bring it all together. And I loved her, I think she even used a Peter Drucker quote, right? Like the point of every company is to acquire and keep customers. Like it's just so refreshing to have a head of marketing, allthough you're the same, really think about that is the ultimate objective.
DILLON NUGENT:
Don't forget about your customer. It is so easy to get into the walls of your company and what you do, drink your Kool-Aid and think that everybody understands it like you. You have got to peek your head out. You have got to peek your head out, and make sure you really understand your customer and your customer really understands you. And if there's a disconnect, that's where these like rich insights that she really is helping to drive I think shed the light on that.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Yeah, lots of great stuff there and then capped off with her overall be kind. A good takeaway for all of us, especially in these challenging times.
DILLON NUGENT:
Absolutely. That's, I think that's what leaders in the have been needing to understand the past couple of years is that idea of empathy and that idea of like caring about your customer, your customers, and your employees and how you lead. It also reminded me a bit of that whole idea of like, being an introvert and being quiet is okay. And that not everybody needs to talk all the time. And I feel like really good leaders, they listened a lot, right? I think there's always this, like, flip side of what you think a leader needs to be powerful, and all knowing, and what not? And then what you can actually practice and how effective that can be.
STACI SATTERWHITE:
Yeah, absolutely. For sure leaning into the empathy, the being kind and the listening is something that we all can remind ourselves to do.
Well, Dillon, it's been great having you here as my guest host here, on CX Confessions. Thank you so much. It's been great, you're a natural, and I look forward to potentially doing this again with you.
DILLON NUGENT:
I loved it. Please have me back. Thank you.
