Human Centered

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Human Centered. I'm Nick Brunker, a group director of experience strategy at DML and your host for the show. Thanks for giving us a listen. Forrester's CX index scores this year were at their lowest point since their measurement began. Even the elite brands have been struggling.

In today's harsh business climate, CX is coming out of its honeymoon period, and it's expected to drive real business outcomes. This evolution raises critical questions. What does modern CX even look like? Can it be owned by a single department? And if not, what should CX teams be focused on?

And how can they be held accountable? We'll dive into these questions and a whole lot more with our guests today as we talk about what we might consider a new dawn of customer experience. Excited to welcome back to the show VML's global chief experience strategy officer, Ben Gayhab. Ben, thanks for being here. How are you?

Hi, Nick. Thanks for having me again. Appreciate it.

Yes. It's good to be back with you. I know we've we've talked several times about Forrester in the past. You've been a a regular attendee to the CX summits over the years. And, before we dive into all the specifics that we just teed up, I mentioned the CX index scores for 2024 off the top and the the significant dips we're seeing.

How do you read into this and to the why behind what we're seeing there?

Yeah. There's a lot happening in the, in the world right now. It's kind of a chaotic chaotic place. So, you know, one aspect is one could look at is the environment just more challenging than it's ever been, and and maybe. But I think, you know, I think on the other side of that is, there's probably a couple different forces.

1, companies have frankly, done the low hanging fruit.

They they they did they did what should have been done

a long time ago, and and so the the gains to be had now and really increase the experience is really hard to nail down. It's, you know, it takes more scrutiny in terms of where the opportunities are. It takes a better understanding of people and and, and, you know, what type of optimizations and enhancements should be done to really drive, that experience. And when you look at the Forrester index, it is kind of that expectations treadmill. You're supposed to get better.

If you stay the same, you actually get a drop because it's relative to the expectations that caught up to you. So, you know, under that, it's harder to find areas to, optimize and enhance now than it probably was before because there was a a, you know, widespread, set of opportunities. But the other side of that, I think, is the reality is that a lot of those investments take further funding, further effort. And and I think right now, there's a lot of demands on the on the funds of companies. And so I don't think the investment levels are probably where they totally need to go.

And that's not a critique at all of organizations. There's a lot of pressures on them. But to really drive, you take those two forces together. Chances are the bigger, newer opportunities take more investment than the low hanging fruit.

Mhmm.

And we're at a place where, you know, those coming together really starts to bring a drag. You know, the sea of sameness is too strong right now, and it's hard to differentiate, and the cost to go differentiate costs a lot. And so it's, I think that shows up as as, you know, in this new dawn that you let us into at the beginning of this. It probably takes a different approach, you know, to unlock value than than what we did at the beginning.

And for a long time, we've been talking not just internally, but I think with with clients too about how do you actually measure CX? What does it what does it look like? And, you know, for a long time, there were beacon metrics you would kind of, you know, try to, use as indicators of where where we're going. And, hopefully, those end up tying back to business results versus the business results themselves. And we think about the ROI story, that you need to build when you're trying to maybe have those conversations with executives to say, you guys need to invest in this, and they ask, well, what's the return gonna be?

How has that conversation shifted away from, hey. Let's think about MPS or even CX index scores, like, to more maybe I don't wanna use tangible broadly, but more of a tangible business outcome like you might see if you're in marketing or you're in engineering or in other areas of the business.

Yeah. Each each organization is a little different, but one thing I do find that's common is that when you're gonna go make budgetary requests, you need to prove an ROI. Speaking simple math and in terms that has a more direct relationship between items that people can tangibly understand. Even if it's not direct attribution to revenue or cost savings, but it can be engagement, or it can be someone, you know, coming into the into the brand or business more. I think, executives, it's easier to wrap your mind intangibly understand that.

It's harder when you go toward more sentiment only metrics. When you say, well, we're doing this because there's frustrations, and you'd say, well, that's great. So one of the discussions we've had a few times is whether it be an index increase, NPS increase, another kind of more sentiment based increase. They say, but how do I contextualize one point x increase in sentiment Yeah. Into dollars when I'm I need to calculate an ROI.

And you're like, you get it because, you know, as an organization where you don't have infinite money, you've got $1 to place. You know, even if the promise of something isn't as big, if it's more tangible and understandable, it's probably a safer bet than one that's that's less tangible about it. And so, you know, I think what we're seeing now and I think what we're advising a lot of our, client partners about is that balance. Doesn't mean that something that's more sentiment based is not appropriate, but we need to also understand the business impact and what's I think the or I think organizations are kept catching up to is having both of those. What they haven't often done then is the complex analytics that correlate those better.

How does understanding the key enterprise value drivers relate to increases or decreases in some type of sentiment, whether that be CSAT or NPS or something? And how do we begin to understand the relationships between those drivers that we can balance the 2? And that is not an easy thing to do, but I think first aid is making sure you've got the right structure to do both both of those and then have the right data systems to be able to assess between them.

And I think back to when CX was really starting to, for lack of a better word, catch on and and really become a regular conversation in executive board rooms and with with clients that we serve too. There was this idea, and I don't think this is a broad brush necessarily, but CX was kind of the department. It was a practice, and it is a practice still in a lot of ways. But you you started hearing things, across, you know, different industries where that the experience is actually owned. The end to end experience is owned by a a pillar, much like marketing would be or IT or tech.

And what's really interesting that I love your perspective on it is how the experience in totality doesn't ever really get owned anymore or can't be owned by a single department, or or the question is, can it and should it? And it feels like the answer, and I'd love your perspective, is it's it's no longer a, quote, department or even a practice that lives in in its own world. There has to be collaboration across multiple, areas of the business in order for an experience to actually work between marketing, IT, wherever. Talk about that balance and maybe that that evolution from, yeah, the the experience is owned by the CX team versus it's owned by a lot of teams that have to be working kind of in tandem. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. I would say I believe that's probably one of the biggest challenges at the at the current state for how to systematically operationalize CX. You know, and in that is because if you are a CX department

Mhmm.

But yet you don't actually own any of the channels that the experience manifests in, then you have high accountability, but you have no ability to execute. So it's a really hard place because eventually, you're just under scrutiny.

Yeah.

And chances are we're not able to evolve as fast. Because those channels have their priorities and objectives that they're optimizing towards. And those may not be the same just because of just organizational dynamics. Yet expecting one overlord of all channels is also

I mean, that's a big joke.

When you look at, you know, global enterprises, that is, like, a lot for many. And in many regards, it's almost impossible because the relationship between not only Yeah. The experience, but the content, the messaging, but then also the IT and the tech and the product infrastructure. So it's hard to see all those go together. So what we're seeing more than is a couple areas, which would be 1, you know, organizations do need tighter objectives to what we're talking about earlier.

If I can align the objectives, then I can more seamlessly drive collaboration against groups that will inherently in departments that'll inherently own different pieces. So whether they're in product, whether in digital product, or they own one of the products that have kind of different components of play retail or, you know, in in store or point is it, whatever it might be Mhmm. As well as then all the other channels. If we can kind of go around the same executive level objectives and have an aim for the contribution against them, then we can more unite the ways in which we work. And that I think adds power because it helps add scalability in a common structure so that everybody's contributing to a set.

If we don't have that because they're split executives or we just don't have that, then it's confusing how the experience gets optimized, you know, optimized together. And I think out of what you led is, I just think the realities and the the speed, pace, and scale that ecosystems are growing is really hard for one person to kinda oversee it. So you you need almost an enterprise level center of gravity. Yeah. You know?

Often, business objectives can align that. Maybe that connects to a vision or something. But that will help bridge these gaps where I don't think it is reasonable to assume that that whole ecosystem from digital product to IT to marketing to CX all goes under one umbrella in one organization at that point. And for many, that is the whole organization. So you're just like, it doesn't Right.

You know, that doesn't make any sense. So it's, you know, really setting up the right governance model, the structure, the measurement, the collaboration, and aligning that around a portfolio that that kinda works together. But way easier said than done for sure.

Yeah. And I was gonna ask about about the accountability aspect because, obviously, there are there are like objects today even if you take CS completely out of the mix and you look at, I'm just gonna pick on IT and marketing because it comes to mind. But there there has always been kind of a collaboration between different departments to make sure that we're all moving in the same direction. There will always be competing priorities at times that you have to wrestle with. But if we go down the path of what we've been just talking about, what does accountability for a CX team look like, and how do these teams work together?

You were touching on it with, like, a shared objective set, but then when you're saying end of a quarter, end of a year, I'm saying, we we performed really well, and here's why. And, we're accountable to x, y, and z. What is that x, y, and z in the new world or the, you know, the new dawn, if you will, to borrow that analogy again, that CX pros can start to say, yeah. This is account that we're gonna be accountable to this. What does that look like?

Oh, you know, it's a good question in that regard. There's there's a few ways in which I think about it. One is the team has to be accountable to something that can be managed and optimized towards. I think the challenge toward a lot of the indexes that we have today and others is it's hard to see how you could manage towards CXI. As, you know, mainly, you can identify those key levers, but it's hard to kinda overall manage to it and optimize it in the same way that you might optimize, say, like a conversion or something like that.

And I think a lot of the CX groups say, you know, I'm responsible for the overall experience, and I'm gonna provide, say, feedback into other channels. Yet they're not really accountable to the point that people's bonuses depend on it. Yeah. They they divorce themselves from the true accountability. It's that, hey, let's measure it.

I'm gonna be the steward of insights, but I'm really gonna provide that information to the channels. Challenges, the channels then get that information, and they are accountable to very direct, you know, objectives. And so unfortunately, a lot of those CX feedback are are noise in the system rather than there. So what I usually say is that, you know, how and where does the integrated view of the experience own some level of accountability? I think naturally, if it's if it's a totally separate group, it's hard to define, you know, exactly what that is.

And so, therefore, you need a stakeholder who either helps oversee a lot of the channels and the manifestation of it, and maybe they have a little bit more organizationally are responsible for that, plus maybe an overall strategy for how the ecosystem is orchestrated. Or they are the owners of dominant channels. And and they're in there. And and, you know, I think granted there are other views, maybe they sit in strategy. I think, you know, oftentimes we're seeing CMOs or other marketing, you know, executives step more into this role.

There's some around technology and product. I think the sum is each have a pathway where they own the manifestation of the experience, and they probably have to influence others, but they are accountable directly to how things are showing up. And in my mind, it's awkward because you'd say, hey. Wouldn't you want your CX executives and and team to be a little bit more channel agnostic? And I think in theory, yes.

But in practice, you have to have a tighter relationship

with accountability. Even mapping that out has has become a bit of a challenge. How do you wrangle all that when there are gonna be so many journeys, so many different experiences that cross so many channels and still finding a way to make sense of it all in a shared viewpoint, a shared journey. Talk about how how that might need to change or how our approach to journey mapping needs to change in this this new climate that we're in.

Yeah. I mean, I've always been a believer that an organization is best served when there's a line language. And particularly around the journey, I don't think anybody owns the macro journey. It is the natural life cycle for which an organization plays in. And so, you know, I I would say it has fallen to some of the CX entities to define, but I don't think it's theirs to own.

I think that really drives much more of an aligned language. The next year so what you were saying is there's infinite number of micro journeys, and you can kinda go deeper and deeper to find, you know, define journey as you think, appropriate. Yet I think the challenge is ever needs to understand how does that ladder up to the objectives of that kinda call it journey stage, the moments that are within there. And then you're really driving out what are those kinda you know, there's a lot of different terms that you use, like, different value trees, different streams, the, you know, different journeys. Within those, they all map into that macro journey if we have an aligned language.

If we don't have the same breadth of that macro journey, then we don't have an aligned language. And then it's harder for the system to orchestrate as a complete portfolio of activity between where and how we're messaging. What is the role of dotcom in different areas? What's the role of apps in different areas? But then also, what is the role of key experiences that may be extending and complementing the existing one?

So in automotive, that might be a service experience. If it's about and, you know, if you're in consumer electronics, maybe that's about customer support or maybe it's about the education experience or some like, you know, different groups own that that experience. They are the orchestrators of that. But yet those all fall in because we know the jobs to be done at a different level and have an aligned language around, you know, the different different areas of kind of that overall life cycle.

So shifting a bit to the implications of all this, and if if you're listening to the podcast and thinking, man, I gotta have some of those conversations with my senior leaders, and and I've gotta have maybe it is just aligning on language, or it is understanding how all of our, potentially disparate or even just separate organizations, maybe then they're intentionally disconnected, but different organizations need to get together and work more collaboratively. What's a good place that a CX pro listening to this or a marketer can start to try and bridge some of those conversations to, address what we've been talking about.

I think a couple ones. I would ask maybe these are more questions to yourself in this regard, which is 1, truly, what are you accountable for in driving kind of contribution back to the organization? I hate to keep only bringing back up, but I think that that is the difference between something being noise in the system versus being part of the system exactly. So what are you truly accountable for? And if that's not easily definable, then I recommend looking at the mission that you have and say not that the mission's wrong.

Maybe it's just not plugged into the natural DNA and processes of the system, and we need to get in there. The other side, which we didn't go in a lot of this is, you know, maybe as a CX entity, maybe we should own specific experiences. So what you know, a lot of experiences need to go manifest in app and website and other things. Maybe as a CX entity, maybe the role should pivot to say rather than owning the full ecosystem of everything and the summation of it because it's really hard to own that. Maybe take a beat and say, actually, there are very definable moments that we have minimal action on, and it's my job to start to drive action in those.

That in some regards could be incubate and then get that experience into the channels and let those just mature and manage in those. But for other organizations, you might mature that over time. And so, you know, that is, to me, a couple areas where I would start, which is saying, what are you accountable for and and what do you own? The other side would go probably toward a little bit more of the soft side of things, which is just, do we understand what the overall objectives and role of CX is in my organization relative to all the other departments that are around, which is, you know, changes by department? And the second, how do I feel about some of the languages being used not only around CX, but frankly, just the experience that may exist?

And is there a more uniting framework? And if there's not, there may be an opportunity to drive that because without it, it's gonna be hard to galvanize everybody in a singular kind of direction or in a common direction.

It really could be its own podcast in itself, but how much do you see the overlap of both CX and AI as practices coming together in the years ahead?

That is a whole another podcast. But I I mean, it has to come together.

I don't think that

they'll they'd necessarily have to be the same thing, but there's no doubt that AI is a transformative enabler for experiences into the future, not only to bring greater intelligence into our, you know, overall decision making in the creation of the experience to speed up. But I think equally so is, you know, in a world of generative AI and, you know, let's just call it smart assist. I was talking with a a different client partner about this a week or 2 ago. And, you know, if you have a really intelligent smart assistant that's with you that can help populate super relevant content and information at your fingertips at any time. So let's just say we're successful in getting that in our cell phones of any time.

Why would I search? Why would I go to a web you know, a lot of companies' websites are built on the premise that we're gonna build relevant content and I'm gonna personalize a website. But if I can get all that in an assistant that's with me 247 learning, why would I go to a brand's website when I can kind of get this intelligent view? Huge impact. Right?

Because now I'm now I cannot assume that if I have great content, people engage, I have to raise the value proposition of my site, of my app, of the of the network to really have what would be a compelling value proposition for engagement because I have to pull people away rather than right now, people are coming to to us for information. Information's readily available, and it synthesized at a speed and with kind of content that outpaces any single dealer brand's ability to deliver. So I think under that regard, it says, well, gosh. Now I gotta go design in the realities of that future. And I think those companies have to go fight with that battle, and then therefore, it's a battle of relevance.

It's a battle of speed and intelligence and personalization and scale and execution. And AI is the most transformative engine I think we've had in our in that, and we'll just see more of it. So I think I think the considerations have to come. There's probably a whole podcast about

Yes.

You know, how you think about prioritizing need states and the application of AI both for employee experience, but also into the customer experience. But inevitably, I mean, the short shorter answer to your question is, like, yeah, they gotta tango. They gotta dance.

Yeah. And talk about big bets. Like, even within that, well, which which big bet are you making with AI? Because there are a lot of ways you could bet the farm on how it's gonna work. I think it's to your point on on the future of web, man, that what is the role of a website anymore if you have the smart assistant in your pocket?

It would be fascinating for sure to to see. I mean, and and some of that is I just think too, you can't fast follow either. Right? The speed change in this regard. I think we always talk about the speed of change every year is, more and more.

But in this regard, you know, it's a hard it's hard because it's moving so fast that unless you're willing to go make a make some mistakes and try your best and get in and lower maturity such that you can catch it in mid maturity, it's gonna be really hard to catch on, you know, just because the rate of change is so so quick and the impact there.

And not to mention the risk involved when some of the AI experiments you're gonna run have, potentially dangerous legal implications too. So as much as there's, you know, back end stuff you can test for efficiency sake, anytime you're involving stuff that's customer facing, boy, you know, you hear stories about the hallucinations that happen and, you know, legal implications coming out of that. It's not as easy to just say, yeah. Why not? Let's go test something.

That'll be fun. Like, sure. You can do that, but genie's out of the bottle in a lot of ways. When you you put something in front of the customer, they can screenshot or they can share, and all of a sudden, the the risk profile gets way more challenging.

And and I think that a little bit correlated to the start for where we were, you know, in this discussion is, you know, I think correct inappropriate implementation, even testing of AI, requires some really good collaboration across the organization Totally. In terms of how it's embedded and how we think about, you know, not only the content and the messaging and and what we're trying to train to make sure, you know, as and experience is anchored towards. But that also goes toward the experience owners, the channel owners, but then implications on technology and the team. And if you're not connected, you likely have some subject matter expert that's in IT that's really dreaming about how AI can be implemented in a safe way. Yet the path to implement, for some, you could always get kind of a quick turn solution, but then they go, you said there's some weird experiences out there right now.

And, and so it could be you to trouble. So, you know, I think the other side is, you know, it's a world where I just think the complexities of kind of an experience ecosystem is only gonna go up and require more collaboration to both do it at speed, but do it responsibly.

It's a great time to be to be in our field. We're really we're living in such fun, fascinating, and always fast paced times. So plenty more to discuss on this topic and more. We'll have you back and and do more more conversation around this, and get get deeper on some of these topics as we go forward, because I'm sure there'll be be no shortage of news, in this space as we as we move down the pike. Before we wrap, though, there are 2 things we need to chat about.

Number 1, we're recording this podcast in early August, which can only mean one thing. We're we're staring down the barrel of another NFL season. And for those that have been listening to the podcast for a long time, even dating back to the very first episode we ever did with John Cook and your brother, Jeff Gayhab, who are all, yourself included, mega Kansas City fans. For those that know me, I am in Cincinnati, Ohio, huge Bengals fan. I wanna talk to you real quick about the upcoming season between your boys, look into 3 Pete, and my boys, the Bengals.

How are you feeling about the year, the NFL season? Do we think that this is another championship season for the Chiefs, or are they gonna get dethroned?

I think it's promising. I you know, from the radio this morning, it was, the team is epically fast. The speed on the Chiefs is is out of this world. And, you know, if I compare the Chiefs to the Bengals, and I'm sure I'll get yelled at by a bunch of Bengals fans for the statement, but, you know, I think we're focused on winning. I think the Bengals are focused on not getting hurt, which I think are different priorities.

Alright. I'm I'm my connection's getting really shoddy here, and we may have to end this this conversation now. No. I think I think we have to offline figure out what is gonna be our wager between the 2 of us because, you know, you're a huge fan of your team. I'm a huge fan of ours.

I I think mutual respect, but I I think we gotta put some money on this. So more to come on that. But the other thing I wanted to talk to you about because we've done fun facts with you in the past, but one thing that I know you've done in in a relatively recent time, at least since the last time you we we've had a chance to get on the podcast together, is you ran the Boston Marathon. Tell me about that experience, a, doing it, b, training for it, and then, c, give us a a bit of, your yeah. The inside look at the causes you were running for.

It wasn't this past year. Year before, I I ran ran Boston. I I'm from Boston originally, so it was kind of a childhood dream and a bucket list item to go do. So it was, it was amazing. It it is was my 5th marathon I run, and the training in this one I think was unique because it was in the winter.

So it's, you know, Boston is run-in April. So here in Kansas City, even if it gets a little warmer a little earlier, you still in January February, we're running some pretty cold weather. So, you know, it how's it draining? I don't know. Grueling and long.

Is there funny things? Yeah. The water bottle gets frozen shut while you're running, and there's kinda some laughing things you gotta go around. You know, but most importantly, it it's such an amazing event. The town rallies behind it for me.

You know, it hit a lot of emotional reasons of of going to it since I was a child, and and I just had a lot of, personal ties to it. I, you know, fortunately, had the opportunity to run, in support of Dana Farber, which is a big research facility and care center, you know, and, for cancer. And my mom had had cancer a while back, and, obviously, cancer has impacted a, she had breast cancer. It's great. You know, it's it's recovered now, just fine.

And, so we're fortunate in that regard, but I think my like myself and many others, they're impacted on the hard side of of cancer having just, you know, horrific challenges to many of us. So I was fortunate that I got to do that, and I was insanely taken back by the support and contributions not only of colleagues and friends, but I'll say the people that come out of nowhere from childhood friends to people I've never met before who who supported in the fundraising and the effort. So it was great. I hope to do it again someday. We'll wait a little bit and, you know, still kinda run and help slow life down a little bit.

There's not much to do if you're going on a multi hour run. So it's it's a nice break, but running Boston was was certainly special.

Probably an obvious question, but was it as as grueling as a layperson would expect, or was it just kind of another another run for you? I know it's a marathon's a marathon for a reason, but how did the, scale of it compare to what your expectations were gonna be?

It's pretty grueling. You know? I don't think my body's really built for those those miles, but, you know, I think always by the end, you know, you you when you train, at least for me, there's others that can train. They get a lot of time, and they can run 100 of miles a week, whatever. I can't do that.

So, you know, I only get so many miles on the legs, and I would say, you know, by the time that you have trained up to 20 some odd miles and you're good to go, no matter what, those last 3 miles are punishing on on your legs. And, you know, it's a balance of really enjoying the environment and the people around you at the same time hoping you don't go down on a full body cramp and and embarrass yourself.

So it's yeah. Well, congratulations belatedly, mega belatedly, but huge accomplishment, and thanks for sharing your story on it. And certainly, more importantly, and probably as importantly, I should say, thank you for taking the time. I know you're swamped. Means a lot.

You took the hour or so to chat, and a great conversation as always. Looking forward to doing it again.

Absolutely. Thanks, Nick. Thanks for having me.

And thanks to you all for listening to Human Centered as well. To learn more about VML CX practice and our approach to the work, you can check us out online, vml.com. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the show. Give us a rating and offer up your thoughts wherever you listen to your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, and more. Have a topic idea or wanna drop us a line?

You can connect with me on x@nickbroker, or just shoot us an email. The address is humancentered@vml.com. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.