0:05

Welcome back to This is Product Management. I'm your host, Rodney

0:07

Knowles. In this episode, I'll be talking with Tricia

0:09

Houston, founder and COO of the Experience

0:11

Build Group. It's her job to help companies improve

0:13

customer and employee experiences. We'll

0:15

dive into some of the secrets on how she does it. Let's

0:18

jump right in.

0:25

Well, Tricia, I appreciate you joining me today to talk

0:27

about a whole bunch of things, all related

0:30

to experience in one way or another. But

0:32

before we get into that, I'd

0:34

love for you to tell me a little bit about yourself

0:37

outside of work. What do you do from front when you're

0:39

not running a company?

0:41

Happy to be here, Rodney. So thanks for having me on.

0:44

Outside of work, a lot of it is my kiddos.

0:46

I have a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old.

0:48

So we got a lot going on. It's about to be summer

0:51

break.

0:51

But when we're not taking them to soccer

0:54

or doing things like that, there's a lot of video games

0:56

in our house. And it's some with the

0:58

kids, a lot of Minecraft. And I

1:00

play Disney Dreamlight Valley with my 6-year-old.

1:03

She loves it. It's like

1:04

Stardew Valley and other

1:06

Disney games combined into a mashup.

1:09

Myself, I'm playing Hogwarts Legacy right now. So

1:12

loving it. It's pretty cool. You could fly around in a broom,

1:14

make potions.

1:14

It's really neat. Nice.

1:17

Well, tell me a little bit about your role

1:19

at Experience Build Group, Tricia. I

1:22

lead our practice. So we are

1:24

the Experience Design Practice sitting

1:26

within MMR Research Associates

1:29

based out of the US,

1:31

which is a custom full-service firm.

1:33

So our Experience Design Group, we're

1:35

focused exclusively on anything to do with

1:38

experience. Shocker, is why we're talking

1:40

today. We're method agnostic

1:42

and industry agnostic. So we're really just a

1:44

specialty group focused on that topic.

1:47

But we have designers, we have

1:49

researchers, we have former marketers,

1:52

consultants, strategy folks, folks

1:54

with IT background. So the diversity

1:57

within the team is what makes it really

1:59

kind of cool.

1:59

to be able to think about experiences

2:02

from a 360 view. That's

2:04

really interesting. Let me have you unpack

2:06

that a little bit more. When you're thinking about putting

2:09

together the company and having all these perspectives,

2:11

like how does that work when you have people coming

2:14

from all these different angles and different lenses

2:16

on what you're doing?

2:18

Yeah, it's really important to kind of to the

2:20

DNA of what we're trying to do, which is not

2:22

create more of the same.

2:24

So it's those different perspectives, partially

2:27

their career background, but we also try to make sure

2:29

that on projects, maybe somebody's

2:31

really familiar with financial services, for example,

2:34

we're

2:34

gonna have somebody who knows a lot and also somebody

2:36

who could bring a beginner's mindset.

2:38

So it helps us just

2:40

think of problems differently and think

2:42

of creative solutions.

2:44

So I mean, from a business standpoint, which I think you're kind

2:46

of getting at, Roddy, yeah. I mean, we have to have

2:48

a lot of documented processes and

2:51

systems, we've got to make those methodologies

2:54

that are underneath what we do consistent

2:57

and done the EDG way.

2:59

And I mean, that's just on us internally. So our team is six

3:01

now, so it's manageable, but that's gonna be very interesting

3:04

and sweet grow.

3:05

I know Trisha that you spent a lot of time and

3:07

as everyone at your company does thinking a lot about experiences

3:10

being built into the name and you're constantly

3:12

working with your customers, trying to figure out how do you

3:15

create better experiences? So that's

3:17

also a topic that is oftentimes

3:19

top of mind for people in product and you

3:22

listen to this podcast and I'd argue if it's not top

3:24

of mind, it probably should be.

3:25

We can start in a number of different places, but

3:28

let's start here at thank you. How do you personally think about providing

3:31

a starting place for people to understand

3:33

their customers?

3:35

Great question and totally agree with you. I think

3:38

experience is everyone's

3:40

job. It's really a mindset.

3:42

I mean, you can't really think of it as a department.

3:44

I think companies that do that and you just have

3:46

your customer success or customer experience

3:49

department, that's

3:50

not gonna get it done. You have to have everyone

3:52

in the company kind of rowing in the same direction, which of course

3:54

is harder. So that's kind of the view

3:57

we take,

3:58

especially when we're looking at.

3:59

kind of the end user or the customer

4:02

experience is all the different ways

4:04

that it's influenced by the folks internally

4:07

at the company.

4:08

So it's not just that very end

4:10

interaction,

4:12

but it's what all led up to that interaction.

4:14

What business systems, what business strategy,

4:17

what business vision, I mean, it kind of really starts

4:19

at the beginning from the inside.

4:21

Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And I love what you said about

4:23

it's not a department, it's more of a mindset.

4:26

That means everyone has to be approaching things,

4:28

thinking about things in a customer-centric or

4:30

a customer-first way. If

4:32

we can sort of agree on that, how do you

4:34

actually make this work in practice?

4:37

Start small. I mean, to be real,

4:40

it's wonderful if we go into a company and

4:42

we get C-suite level buy-in,

4:45

and that's a much longer transformation

4:48

project.

4:48

But even though it's a mindset, you

4:51

can still build that from the ground up.

4:53

So honestly, it's funny,

4:55

most of our projects, while they have big impact,

4:57

the scope of them in

5:00

terms of what they touch is generally pretty

5:02

limited. It might just be a new

5:04

set of signs or one

5:07

new feature in an app, and it's

5:09

looking at the domino effect of

5:12

how that cascades. An

5:14

example, so much of our work is

5:16

connecting digital

5:18

to physical, so connecting what

5:20

digital products have you do, say buy online,

5:23

pick up in store, or

5:24

order your food and then go pick it up for

5:26

carry out.

5:27

How do those two worlds connect?

5:30

So it's like following those breadcrumbs just

5:32

off one small change.

5:34

I know this is a challenge that a lot of companies

5:36

go through, and this is really just that.

5:38

It's a challenge. So I'd love to unpack

5:41

this a little bit more with you. Based

5:43

on your experience working with a lot of different companies

5:45

on how to maybe bridge this divide or make sure there's

5:47

not a divide there, do you think first

5:50

about some examples of when this hasn't

5:52

gone well and bridging digital

5:54

and physical, and then maybe

5:56

some examples of how it has?

5:59

Yeah, absolutely.

5:59

some personal examples of

6:02

what I've seen of how it hasn't gone great. So

6:04

I mean, the classic one is you order with

6:06

your app, you go through a drive-through, you get home,

6:08

you don't have what you need, and you can't

6:11

tell the store you don't have it through the app.

6:13

You call the store

6:15

and they tell you that they're going to put a coupon behind

6:17

the counter for you the next time you come in

6:19

on a sticky note.

6:20

That's a huge disconnect for me, right? I

6:23

just ordered through your app and that's how you're going to do

6:25

recovery.

6:26

That one that was actually like I

6:28

didn't think about it was during COVID, like many

6:30

of us, all the grocery shopping

6:32

was online, right? And then we

6:35

found some products at our grocery

6:37

store that we liked that we weren't buying previously because

6:40

you know, you just search differently when you shop

6:42

online. And then I started to go back

6:44

to the store and I

6:45

couldn't find them. I didn't know where

6:47

they were. And so it took me

6:49

a minute, though, to realize all I had to

6:51

do, pick up my phone, look

6:53

in the app, and it told me exactly

6:56

where it was in the grocery store.

6:58

And so you talk about how it goes right. It's

7:00

like, yeah, that went right, but also I didn't

7:02

even remember I could do it because it's not habitual

7:04

yet. So sometimes even when it does go

7:07

right, it might get missed. So it's

7:09

about how to communicate that to customers

7:11

as well.

7:12

Totally. And it's really, yeah, it's interesting

7:15

you mentioned, I'm going to put it in my terms. You have

7:17

sort of, you know, what decade are we in? You

7:19

know, a 2020s way of doing things where,

7:21

you know, you have like an app and like

7:23

a 1990s way of doing something where

7:25

you call someone on the phone and they resolve

7:27

it in some analog way. So

7:29

that disconnect in terms of like approach

7:32

and mentality and everything else is definitely challenging

7:34

from a customer perspective, for sure.

7:36

Agree. And if I start something digitally,

7:39

I expect to be able to take it all the way through digitally.

7:42

Going back to what you said about how to think about things in a customer

7:45

first way, you said to start small

7:47

and go from there. How do you decide where to start?

7:50

You know, it really depends on the team. So some teams

7:52

we work with, they're pushing the envelope. So

7:55

they're pushing new things out into the world. And

7:57

so they're making sure that those aren't causing ripples.

8:00

Whereas other teams, it's

8:02

like a continuum. Then you've got folks

8:04

in the middle who are like, we've got some

8:06

inkling that something might be wrong in our

8:09

process, maybe from our VOC

8:11

surveys or hearing

8:13

it from the field, or hearing it

8:16

just for customers directly. Okay, well, let's go look

8:18

there first. If we don't

8:20

have that, we're going to go help them do that. So

8:23

that's folks who are just like, we don't know

8:25

where to start. Well, let's take

8:27

a full view, look

8:29

across

8:30

the landscape. We do a lot of mapping. So

8:32

activity mapping, journey mapping, I mean, call it what you

8:35

want, but the end result is a

8:37

map that shows all the touch points and all the

8:39

systems.

8:40

To be able to use that as a starting

8:42

point to say, okay, where are we seeing

8:44

places we need to dig in deeper?

8:46

That's great. You hit on something that near and dear

8:48

to my heart too, is like start where the customers

8:51

tell you to start too. Where are you getting that feedback

8:53

and where is that pointing you? You mentioned VOC

8:55

programs and other things, just feedback you're getting. So

8:57

letting that really guide you on where to go,

9:00

oftentimes points you in the right direction.

9:02

Yeah, that's right. We actually just started working

9:05

with a client who, the first

9:07

place we told them to look was, pull out all the open

9:09

ends from your VOC survey. So not even the quantitative

9:11

stuff. It's like, have you all been reading

9:14

all the responses, not just coding them, which is

9:16

also important for different reason,

9:18

but actually going through and looking for those single responses

9:21

that might be an indicator of a place to go look.

9:24

This may serve as a PSA for everyone

9:26

listening to the podcast. For those of you are collecting

9:29

VOC work or you're doing an NPS

9:31

survey with an open end or stuff like that, don't let those

9:33

go into the graveyard. You're asking people

9:35

a question, hopefully, because you actually care.

9:38

So definitely use that data and let that drive

9:40

where you're going for sure.

9:42

As you're thinking Tricia about how

9:44

to actually do research, we

9:46

can call it another things that can make it sound section

9:48

of that, but a lot of times it's just doing research. It's actually

9:50

going out and understanding your customers

9:52

in a number of different ways and going

9:55

through some sort of analytical process to think

9:57

about that. What does it mean?

9:58

What guidance would you...

9:59

give someone who is thinking about

10:02

doing customer research.

10:04

Don't overcomplicate it, at least to

10:06

start.

10:07

I like to talk about it in terms of being

10:09

like two categories. So when you're doing

10:11

research, you're either in the mode

10:14

of understanding, just

10:16

getting the lay of the land, right? That

10:19

is less risky.

10:21

We can all go be detectives in

10:23

some way. But then when you cross that line

10:25

into you're trying to predict behavior

10:28

or you're trying to project opinions at scale,

10:30

that's when the rigor needs to come in,

10:32

right? And that's not applicable in all

10:35

research cases. And

10:36

especially at the beginning, like when we're talking about

10:38

starting small to kind of go big, when I'm

10:40

looking for these hiccups or gaps,

10:43

I don't need a hundred people to

10:45

tell me that something is broken. One is

10:48

enough to let me know that I need to dig further.

10:51

I wonder if this is something that you can dig

10:54

into a little bit more about

10:56

like the type of gaps that you see. Are

10:58

these always a bad thing?

11:01

Well, at first we actually thought they were. So, Spirit

11:04

Spilt Group's about five years old. So when we started

11:06

looking at gaps, it was like, gotta

11:08

find them, gotta close them all, gotta close them all. And

11:10

what we've learned throughout our work

11:13

is

11:13

they're not all necessarily bad

11:16

or need to be closed in

11:19

the same way. So what I mean by that is we

11:22

found they kind of fall into two groups. So

11:25

experience gaps are either unintentional,

11:28

and those are the ones that do need to be closed. So maybe you

11:30

have this gap between your app and your physical

11:32

location and people are lost. Okay, we don't

11:34

want them to be lost. Let's fix that.

11:36

But maybe you're making a business

11:39

choice

11:40

based on your strategy to

11:41

have your business run a certain way, but

11:44

you're not communicating that. So

11:46

for example, I like to talk about Aldi

11:49

here. I think they do this well,

11:51

but I think it's a good example for people to understand

11:53

is Aldi

11:54

has a lot of intentional gaps

11:57

that you would think about in the traditional grocery

11:59

store experience. You have to put a quarter

12:01

in the cart. They don't give you bags. They

12:03

usually only have one checkout person when

12:06

you go there.

12:07

And that's all so you can

12:09

save money. And they're very clear about that.

12:11

So I'm fine with that. Like, I don't mind having

12:14

some sacrifice. Like, experience

12:15

gaps aren't about eliminating all

12:17

sacrifice.

12:18

Because then everybody would make the same thing, have

12:21

the same service, do the same. We still

12:23

need to retain our uniqueness. And that's where those

12:25

intentional gaps come in.

12:28

I like that. And I like that framing. And I

12:30

could be wrong, but I think Aldi

12:32

does that intentionally too. Cause like it's sort

12:34

of their ethos, right? They're reminding you at these

12:36

different points too. Like it is cheap because

12:38

of these things and their trade-offs. We're all

12:41

in this together, right?

12:42

Yeah, agree. Totally agree.

12:48

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12:50

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12:52

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12:54

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12:56

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12:59

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13:01

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13:03

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13:06

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13:09

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13:17

Something else, Trisha, that I know you've talked

13:20

a lot about, which is really interesting, is

13:22

like being your own customer

13:24

and thinking about things through that lens. So

13:26

could you say a little bit more about what that means to you?

13:30

I think it's a practice that I just started

13:32

doing, maybe not intentionally.

13:34

You know, I was a very early adopter of kind

13:37

of buying online and doing commerce

13:40

in different ways. And at the

13:42

time, so before, where I was here

13:44

at MMR, I worked at Home Depot for a few

13:47

years. And I remember going into

13:49

that job and one of the first studies we

13:51

did, and this was 12 years ago

13:53

now, but like a big category study for

13:55

a certain category.

13:57

And I'm looking at this questionnaire and it's like, it's written

13:59

all as if.

13:59

you're going into the store to buy.

14:02

I'm going to research online and I might even buy

14:04

online because it was an appropriate category for

14:06

that.

14:07

And just the changing that mentality

14:09

to actually include that in the survey

14:12

was like natural for me, but a shift for

14:14

other folks because I

14:15

am such a student of commerce.

14:18

And so it's funny to me sometimes how

14:20

we don't even realize how much we can absorb on

14:22

our own just by paying attention to

14:25

how we buy. And if you actually internalize

14:28

those models, you'll

14:29

start to see patterns. And some of the best

14:31

commerce experiences

14:33

might not be in your own industry. So I

14:35

would encourage you to go out and shop

14:37

outside your industry and see what you

14:40

could apply to the products that you're

14:42

creating in your day-to-day. I think

14:44

there's just invaluable things you can learn.

14:47

I totally agree with you. And I've fallen into

14:49

this trap personally. Sometimes you get

14:51

so in the weeds on what you're building or what you're

14:53

selling that the obvious

14:55

things, you're not seeing them. But when you

14:57

step out a little bit, then you can try to

14:59

apply things that are maybe not exactly

15:02

what you're doing that are relevant to what you

15:04

do. Just give a personal example. I'm

15:06

thinking about how do I build a platform

15:09

or selling a software platform?

15:11

Well, then I gotta think about myself when I'm buying software,

15:14

what do I think of? What do I think about? What

15:16

does that process look like? What are some of the pain points I

15:18

have? What's the buying process? What does that actually

15:20

look like? How does that impact

15:22

the product that I build and the marketing

15:24

campaign and all of that stuff? So looking

15:26

at analogs, even if they're not perfect,

15:29

I think is really powerful. So I like that a lot.

15:32

I am fortunate to be able to talk to a good bit of students.

15:34

And whenever we talk about your own experience,

15:37

they rightfully so, ask about

15:40

bias, right? And bringing up kind of bias

15:42

in the research you do. And they're not wrong

15:44

to bring that up. But then I remind them, I say, okay,

15:47

based on what you find out that

15:49

doesn't give you permission to then go spend

15:52

tens of thousands of the company's money, it's just

15:54

a first initial step. You don't need to worry

15:56

about the bias just yet. You just got

15:58

to use that information.

15:59

in the right way. It's all about

16:02

what you're gonna do with what you learn.

16:04

I wanna shift gears a little bit Tricia and

16:06

talk about employee experience

16:08

because as you said from the onset, you're thinking

16:11

about experience in a really holistic

16:13

way. It's not just, you know, experience with

16:15

a product and using a product. It, you know, goes

16:17

really across a number of facets and it's more of a mindset.

16:20

So how do you think about the connection

16:22

between customer experience and employee

16:24

experience? You could tell me if those distinctions even make

16:26

sense but I'll leave them there for now. How do you think

16:28

about the connection between the two?

16:31

And I think his terms, they do make sense. We

16:33

think of them that way too but

16:35

we think is everything starting from the inside

16:37

out.

16:38

So the customer experience is a byproduct

16:41

of the employee experience. So it all

16:43

starts internally. And

16:45

so while I talked earlier about starting small,

16:48

I can start small and fix those signs

16:51

that I talked about that I was testing earlier.

16:53

But if there's a part that's team

16:55

dependent, staff dependent, human dependent,

16:58

I don't have all those things in place, even

17:01

if it's support, right? If

17:03

it's software based,

17:04

then the whole thing might fall apart despite my best

17:07

laid plans. So

17:08

employee experience is really about preparation

17:11

is how we talk about it because that's where

17:13

you're thinking about

17:14

the systems, the details, the what

17:16

ifs and trying to identify as many

17:19

gaps as you can

17:21

and those come in a couple of flavors,

17:23

the gaps too but it's not about

17:26

persuading, right? It's not about

17:28

marketing. It's not about getting people to

17:30

do things they wouldn't do otherwise.

17:33

It's just about being really well prepared

17:36

and making sure everybody's rowing in the same direction.

17:39

How do you go about getting everyone

17:41

to row in the same direction?

17:43

While the vision is like everybody in the same

17:45

direction, again, you might have to start really small

17:48

and then grow it unless you're doing top down.

17:50

It's really about a vision

17:53

that is around what I call

17:55

the other business you're in.

17:57

Your business produces something, right?

17:59

produce products, you produce a service, a software,

18:02

a something,

18:03

but what other business are you in?

18:05

So, for example, Pickfil-A talks about

18:07

we don't just sell chicken, we're in the leadership

18:11

business. Or Zappos, we don't just sell shoes,

18:13

we're in the customer service business. And

18:15

they reward on the longest call, customer

18:18

service for anything.

18:19

So what actions are you doing? What

18:22

actions are you setting up for your employees,

18:24

training them to do that support your other

18:28

business? That's really the foundation of getting everybody

18:30

rowing in the right direction, is

18:32

values, admission, and

18:34

all that stuff is important. But unless they're linked to

18:36

activities, it's hard for the

18:38

employees to know what to do.

18:40

Southwest is a great example, right? I know things are

18:42

a little different after COVID, but all their

18:44

activities are mapped to

18:47

reinforce their positioning

18:49

as the love

18:50

airline, right?

18:52

I think that's a really interesting way to think about things.

18:54

I think oftentimes there's so much focus on the

18:56

business you're actually in.

18:58

What other business are we in? I honestly never really think

19:00

about things that way. So I think it's an

19:02

interesting frame to get people

19:04

to rally behind what you're actually doing and

19:07

to all be moving in the same direction.

19:09

You know, lots of interviews. I mean, most of our employee work

19:11

revolves around training, a lot of persona

19:14

development, qualitative, figuring

19:16

out how to close learning gaps, that

19:18

sort of thing.

19:20

Give me a little bit of a peek behind the curtain there in terms

19:22

of, I don't want all your secrets, just a few of them, in

19:24

terms of training. Maybe how does understanding

19:27

of the customer and the customer experience

19:29

feed into that employee training?

19:32

It's like setting the stage. So if you buy into,

19:34

which we do, not the metaphor that

19:37

work is theater, but that work is

19:39

theater, it's essentially like creating

19:41

the script, creating, setting

19:44

the stage

19:45

for how you want this interaction to go. And

19:48

if you have a group of employees that's remote

19:51

or a team that's distributed, I mean,

19:53

it's even more important to have

19:55

that, especially with frontline folks, customer

19:58

service or retail.

19:59

you're essentially writing the script.

20:02

And I mean, some companies actually do that. They like

20:05

do true like service standards. That

20:07

might to me is a little bit stepped too far, I

20:09

think, you know, but it's more about the general rules

20:12

and filters because that's what creates

20:14

the experience. And I mean, in software,

20:16

you can program a bunch of it. You can make the

20:19

systems do a lot of things, but

20:21

this is about the human touch points, which we know differentiate.

20:25

Totally. And those human touch points, especially

20:27

I'm thinking about them like a software lens,

20:29

those human touch points can be, it's

20:31

not just like, hey, I'm trying to execute the task,

20:33

but it's like something went wrong. I need help getting

20:35

over a certain pump or there's an obstacle or

20:38

a challenge and that requires a different

20:40

approach for sure.

20:42

Yes, absolutely. One thing we advise

20:44

clients to ask, like if they're doing surveys

20:46

out to their customer, you know, ask if doing

20:49

business with us is a chore,

20:51

or if you look forward to it, kind of like on a polar

20:53

scale with each at the end and see what they

20:56

say.

20:56

Did they actually look forward to it? Or is

20:59

it just like, I have to fall in or

21:01

what they just avoided if they could? Trisha,

21:04

there's a question I was going to ask you. I like to sort of ask people

21:06

on the way out usually, has nothing

21:08

to do with anything we talked about so far. Asking

21:11

for a recommendation for something for our audience

21:13

that's been entertaining you lately or something you've

21:15

been into, could be a video game,

21:17

could be a movie, could be a podcast, if annual

21:19

listen to, whatever. What have you been up to lately?

21:22

Yeah, so reading more

21:24

here lately, my friend turned me on, I think I was

21:27

late to the game with Libby, like

21:29

where you can get the library books on your Kindle. If you don't have Libby, it's

21:31

amazing.

21:32

I was today resolved when I heard this word, so now

21:34

I do not know this. Through the app, you can

21:37

get eBooks from your local library for free

21:39

and read them on your Kindle. So anyway, so

21:41

my favorite one lately, which I would recommend highly

21:44

is, 4,000 Weeks

21:46

Time Management for Mortals by

21:48

Oliver Berkman. And it

21:50

challenges this whole idea of like,

21:53

we have to be so productive with our time,

21:56

and really starting to think of like our time as finite,

21:58

which forces you to make it. make choices. So,

22:01

highly recommended.

22:03

Thanks

22:03

Trisha. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to

22:05

chat me today.

22:06

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on Roddy. This is

22:08

great.

22:14

Now we know how to mind the gaps between customer and

22:16

employee, as well as between digital and physical

22:19

experiences to get everyone in a company

22:21

rowing in the same direction. I

22:23

especially love Trisha's take on always being mindful

22:25

of the other business you're in. That's

22:28

our show for today. You connect with Trisha on LinkedIn.

22:30

You can learn more about the Experience Belt Group at ebg.live.

22:33

This is Roddy from Disco. I'll catch y'all next time.