253: The Difference Between What Customers Say And What Customers Do; with Ryan Klausner

Charlotte Ward: 0:12

Hello and welcome to episode 253 of the Customer Support Leaders podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward Today. Welcome back Ryan Clausner, talking about the difference between what customers say and what customers do. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Ryan Clausner. Ryan, lovely to have you back so soon after joining me for a panel not so long ago.

Ryan Klausner: 0:43

I know it's great to see you virtually, Charlotte, it was. I had a lot of fun on that panel. It was great to finally meet you.

Charlotte Ward: 0:50

That was a lot of fun at this support-driven leadership it was, and yeah, I mean it was quite memorable for a number of reasons. So the panel, the topic of the panel was demonstrating the ROI of key initiatives, particularly inside support, obviously. But didn't we have a lot of fun? That was quite a group of people. I distinctly remember who I was sat between. I was sat between you and Heather's support from what I think was kind of a partnership made in heaven at some point, I hope.

Ryan Klausner: 1:22

Oh right, with Hinge we were talking about, and then we were talking about how who gives a crap and Hinge have a natural alignment there, of course. Our Sully eco-friendly tissues and Hinge doing what they do perfect potential partnership. I recall a lot of laughter, though, as well. That was a lot of fun, that panel.

Charlotte Ward: 1:39

That was a lot of fun. It was all quite so fun. Yeah, and ROI is not a topic that you think you'd have so much fun with, but that was great and but really insightful. Everybody has such good opinions on that panel, I recall, and, yeah, what a great experience.

Ryan Klausner: 1:54

So, thank you, I love it when people can bring a bit of their own personality to what is otherwise a very dry topic, especially in a two-day conference when there's so many intensive ideas and thoughts going on. So to be able to go deep in something while also being able to laugh at ourselves, I think, is always a wonderful thing.

Charlotte Ward: 2:13

Yeah, it's crucial, actually, isn't it? It's crucial, yeah. So we are sort of exploring something different today, though, aren't we? I guess? We had a little chat a couple of minutes ago about what we were going to talk about, and I think we've summed it up to well. I summed it up as something in the ballpark of the difference between what customers say and what customers do, particularly in the context of feedback, so this was a really interesting topic. I thought, and I've been thinking a lot about CSAT and surveys and feedback generally recently, and I gather you have too, so what are your first thoughts? What brought you to bring this topic up?

Ryan Klausner: 3:00

Yeah, it's a very interesting topic. It's one that I've been thinking about a lot myself, especially in the last several months, really since last August, when I was initially implementing the Voice of the Customer program at who Gives a Crap and we started really looking at really deep analysis of customer feedback and customer feedback, of course, is critical for any organization. We do a really incredible job, especially compared to some of the organizations that I've been with previously, in terms of sharing that feedback across the organization, making it relevant to different functions and, most importantly, making it actionable. But when you only look at feedback, especially in the context of when we were designing this program, it's literally looking at only one side of the equation, and feedback is important. It's critical to what we do and how we operate.

Ryan Klausner: 3:57

But what customers say, in my experience, is very different than the actions or behavior they take, and we don't want to look at either of those in the silo, certainly only analyzing customer feedback or only analyzing the customer actions or behavior that they take. But combined, I find that there's a much more complex narrative that is providing a much broader depth of insight that we can apply, as CX leaders, to our vision, our strategy and also contextualizing a lot of our work for other functions. So bring both to the table, because it's shocking how often they actually are in conflict with each other. That was one of the big sort of aha moments for me is, I'm going, oh interesting, what they do and what they say isn't always aligned. How true to the human experience, right.

Charlotte Ward: 4:48

Very true, very true. Unfortunately, we all are human. I think yeah. So I want to first of all clarify something. When you say feedback, are we specifically and exclusively talking about that survey question, or are you gathering feedback from across social channels etc? Are there other opportunities to hear the voice of the customer or are you specifically dialing into the survey feedback?

Ryan Klausner: 5:16

Yeah, great question and, I think, an important piece of clarity. So certainly we look at customer surveys, CSAT, NPS, all of these more traditional legacy CX metrics. I'm not a huge proponent of any of them. Independent of each other, I think they're all just one piece of the puzzle.

Ryan Klausner: 5:38

A lot of people really like to go deeper on three or four of them. But, just like when we look at behavior and feedback, that's just a small equation. So certainly surveys is a part of that, but we also use a lot of customer sentiment measuring tools like ChatterMill, and ChatterMill has been really helpful for us to extract all the conversations we have across our ticketing system to better understand what customers are saying, understand trends and understand drivers of customer feedback and drivers of tickets themselves looking at what are the points of friction, so we can make recommendations across the organization to reduce those pieces. So we don't have to even have those tickets, because those are often what I refer to as low value interactions. They don't really serve the customer but they have no better way of solving for it. But it's really about the entire piece. So when we talk about what customers say, I think it's at every point in the customer journey. Surveys are more conversational based pieces of feedback that we can contextualize as part of larger trends within the customer role.

Charlotte Ward: 6:46

So let's dive right in then with an example. What have customers told you that has been diametrically opposite to a behavior that you've seen?

Ryan Klausner: 6:57

Yeah, that's great. So often we find customers have this assumption. So I work. Of course, who gives a crap? Makes eco-friendly paper products. That's our core offering. So we make eco-friendly toilet paper, tissues, kitchen towels and we donate 50% of our profits to help build toilets and provide clean water to the billions of people worldwide without access Awesome.

Ryan Klausner: 7:22

But we often hear from customers that they want especially in a differs in each market. Of course, we have a large, our largest customer bases in Australia, we have a very emerging market in the UK and we're here in the US, of course, as well. But looking at that, across all of those markets in the EU, different customer expectations vary across all of these markets. Sometimes we produce domestically to meet those unique demands or expectations of our customers in each market. So it's not all produced centrally. Sometimes we do it for supply chain reasons, sometimes it's to meet that localized customer expectation.

Ryan Klausner: 8:00

But what we often hear, for example in the US, is people expect this very three, four, five ply toilet paper. That isn't as common in other countries such as Australia, where two ply might be more common, or in the UK, for example and I would never buy a product that has less than X supplies Yet they're purchasing it from us, often the people that are providing that we're changing their behaviors because, turns out, the ply doesn't actually have anything to do with the experience. Sure, I think a single ply that you get at a gas station or somewhere you know, just school public school.

Charlotte Ward: 8:40

That's a different experience.

Ryan Klausner: 8:42

But in terms of the home, the assumption of what a product is versus what it really is isn't necessarily aligned with the behavior. When we also look at the types of feedback that customers are providing in terms of how they want to order their products, is sometimes very different than the behavior that they actually exhibit in terms of either the frequency, the purchase rate or even the reasons of purchasing, you'll see is very different than their feedback. Obviously, at the end of the day, most of our customers have a very strong connection to our brand and our values as a business, and that's enough to bring people in and it's enough to keep them around. But if we're failing to meet their baseline expectations around the product, the convenience, the element of delight, the aspect of fun we say that we like to make it fun, to do good All of that is out the window if we're not meeting their baseline expectations. So, when it comes down to what customers say versus what they do, often that is best highlighted by the actions they take on a website, for example, and that's why metrics like customer effort score are arguably one of our most critical metrics in CX, because it really is looking at customer behavior and not just the feedback itself so we can highlight areas of focus.

Ryan Klausner: 10:05

But in terms of product offerings, everyone has a credible idea of the next thing we should do or we should make and we're really, as we continue to expand, looking at how we can get more regional in how we operate to meet the customer's expectations and meet them exactly where they are in that market. So in the UK we're currently exploring unique channels for customer engagement and customer support that would best meet the unique expectations of that market versus the US or Australia. But this isn't something we can necessarily capture in a survey because a lot of people their assumption is, oh, it's email or a phone call is definitely the best way. But we know that a phone calls might not be the best way to reach a company that makes toilet paper. There's very few. We often joke we have emergency rolls in all of our boxes, but there's very few true TP emergencies, unless you actually do run out, in which case there's an opportunity there and we're always looking at how we can explore that further to create those moments.

Charlotte Ward: 11:06

I think what's super interesting about much of what you said there is that. I don't want to diminish any of what you said, but it's not really surprising either, to be honest. I think that what strikes me as well is that these ideas that just asking your customers what they want and then giving them what they tell you it has long been established to be like the most imperfect way to develop product and to create services. That because, exactly as you said right at the top, what customers say and what they actually really will respond to in product or in service is so often different because they're human or anything. I think it was Henry Ford who said if he'd asked customers what they wanted, they'd have said faster horses right.

Ryan Klausner: 12:03

Yes, exactly.

Charlotte Ward: 12:03

And actually it's about delivering outcomes, isn't it? And I think that that's really. You don't establish what the right outcomes are for a customer by asking them, or at least you don't solely rely on that. That's just one to your point. It's like one data point of many, including and you should include customer behaviors, and I think that's something and how do we challenge those assumptions.

Ryan Klausner: 12:26

Yeah, because customers come in, they don't have that feedback. Those are their own bias that they're bringing to the table. They're sharing it with us. We want to make sure that they feel heard. We do want to take that back and view it, but we want to contextualize it along with behavior, actions, trends of customer sentiment across the board.

Ryan Klausner: 12:46

Of course, 100 customers, 100 unique pieces of feedback, but there might be a correlation between all of them that's not immediately visible when you're looking at it on first glance. So that's where I think going deeper and looking at the behavior along with the feedback, because, yes, there might be this invisible line of connection between all of them, but being able to go deeper, to contextualize it with the behavior and then being able to implement whatever that might be, whether that's a new product offering a new communication channel to engage with your customers, but being able to do it in a very subtle way of challenging that bias, educating, without it being in a condescending or expert view, but coming at them in the way that they've come to love the brand and the team behind the brand, to delight them in new ways. It's often sort of an exciting and very creative opportunity. I always enjoy those challenges.

Charlotte Ward: 13:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually something customers will never tell you they want. They will never be so overt as to say I want to be delighted, they want five ply or they want whatever. Totally yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan Klausner: 13:54

And often too many companies, I think, focus on the delight you often hear about, like in customer success and customer happiness teams. How do we delight our customers and the biggest one I think about when we look at feedback and we're trying to implement new programs within an organization to engage customers and create those moments? If you're not meeting their baseline expectations, which we often aren't as organizations, your North Star shouldn't be finding opportunities to delight. It should be how do we meet their expectations with the least amount of friction possible and then, once you've done that, you can then build on the delight. But instead we're always my view, and with many startups in particular, we're always trying to jump ahead to that. How do we delight? Yeah, but delight is that add-on? No customers coming in, going. I hope they delight me, they're just going. I hope they deliver and ship and it is as promised.

Charlotte Ward: 14:45

Exactly, it's the hierarchy. It's the hierarchy of needs, isn't it? It's absolutely. You can't build the delight at the top of that pyramid with shifting sands at the bottom. It just won't hold stable at all. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. So what is the? I mean, you gave a few examples early on of adjustments you'd made in how you deliver service or product. How do you I guess it's my final question really when you're talking about behaviors and looking for patterns, are you looking at purchasing patterns and things like that propensity to churn and things like that? I guess what's been a surprising behavior that you've either found or have dug into a little bit that has really kind of made you go oh, I did not expect that.

Ryan Klausner: 15:46

Yeah, it's that's a great question. So when we look at our customers across all of our markets, the unique expectations and cadence and repurchase rate is very different across the board, in different countries, in different markets, and we have been very flexible in meeting those demands across different markets. What's often, I think, most surprising is when we look at all of these different markets and we look at customer feedback, we often think that our values around donating 50% of our profits, which we do with full transparency, is one of the strongest drivers that brings people into the business, and it's actually how fun we make things that bring people into the business. What's interesting is once they're in the door and they've engaged the brand, they've received the product. It's this delightful experience, from purchasing through to delivery into their bathrooms, that they start to go great, it was delightful, it was convenient. Those are the reasons that met their baseline expectations. But once you have been around for a while, that's, is that enough to keep people especially?

Charlotte Ward: 16:57

In a table space right.

Ryan Klausner: 16:59

That has emerging competitors coming in every direction. What we find keeps people is our transparency and our openness to discuss where our 50% of our profits go. Who are the partners that we work with? And that is again going back to our mission. We make it fun to do good. We do make it fun to do good, but it also is something you can feel good about in terms of who you're buying from. It's contributions to the world, and that is often a reason that keeps people sticking around. It's not necessarily one of the drivers or one of the biggest drivers of why people come into the business in the first place and then purchase.

Ryan Klausner: 17:37

Yeah, so that's often surprising because for me when I first discovered who gives a crap, it was very much. That was the one for me that aligned most with my values. But consumers can be very different and of course that's great, but at the end of the day, convenience, the value, the element of delight once you've met that has to be there and ultimately that's how we're maximizing the customer lifetime value.

Charlotte Ward: 18:01

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Ryan. What an interesting conversation. I do hope you'll come back for another chat sometime. Maybe we can revisit that panel and make the ROI on key initiatives fun all over again another time.

Ryan Klausner: 18:20

I love to yeah, this has been super interesting.

Charlotte Ward: 18:22

And and thank you so much for spending time with me today.

Ryan Klausner: 18:30

Thanks so much, Charlotte. Always great to chat.

Charlotte Ward: 18:35

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash two five three for the show notes and I'll see you next time.