Experts of Experience
#56 Why Emotional Intelligence is the Key to Customer Experience Success
Wed, 13 Nov 2024
What does it take to truly win over customers in today's fast-paced digital landscape? Join us as Danny Pozo, Cisco’s VP of U.S. Commercial Customer Experience, shares his unique perspective on customer experience at Cisco. From the importance of emotional intelligence to the role of AI in CX, this episode dives deep into the strategies that can make or break customer relationships. Are you ready to rethink your approach?Tune in to learn:Why customer experience is about winning a customer, not just a transactionThe importance of emotional intelligence and why it will never be replaced by AIHow to effectively engage with customersWhy you need to build a strong internal culture in order to succeed in customer successHow AI can help predict customer behavior and improve serviceWhy personalization in customer service enhances loyaltyHow taking risks can lead to innovation in customer experience.–How can you bring all your disconnected, enterprise data into Salesforce to deliver a 360-degree view of your customer? The answer is Data Cloud. With more than 200 implementations completed globally, the leading Salesforce experts from Professional Services can help you realize value quickly with Data Cloud. To learn more, visit salesforce.com/products/data to learn more. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. –Are your teams facing growing demands? Join CX leaders transforming their AI strategy with Agentforce. Start achieving your ambitious goals. Visit salesforce.com/agentforce Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org
Chapter 1: What is emotional intelligence and why is it important for customer experience?
One thing that I think that's never going to be replaced by AI or by any automation, it's EQ. It's the emotional intelligence that we can actually bring to our customers. How you make people feel is what actually matters at the end of the day.
AI is changing a lot. But when it comes to listening, what is underneath someone's words, listening to the nonverbal cues, listening to someone's tone of voice and pairing that with the context that you have about them historically over time, that is something that I just don't think that AI will ever be able to solve for. And I don't think we need it to either.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Experts of Experience. I'm your host, Lauren Wood. Today, I am thrilled to have Danny Pozo with us. He is the vice president of the U.S. commercial market at Cisco. So we are going to explore how he is leading transformative customer experience strategies, driving value through lifecycle management, and leveraging global talent to meet the evolving customer needs.
Danny, so wonderful to have you on the show.
Lauren, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you and share some of the experiences we had at Cisco and elsewhere. I'm really excited to have this opportunity to have this fun conversation.
Yeah, we're going to make it fun. I already just in the little bit of conversation I've had with Danny, he is full of life. So we're in for a good one.
Something to laugh about. I can guarantee you.
Guaranteed. So Danny, you have been at Cisco per your LinkedIn for 24 years. And you began your career at Cisco in sales and then transitioned to customer experience, which I love a sales to CX transition personally. I'd love to kick it off by asking you, what do you believe about the customer experience space that few people would agree with you on?
So, yeah, I think, um, thank you so much for, uh, kind of putting my age out there. And so Cisco, I like to say that I started really early, so it doesn't show how old I really am, but in all seriousness, I think that, uh, It's an evolution, right?
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Chapter 2: How does AI affect customer engagement and emotional connections?
So it's an interesting thing about how Cisco built our customer experience blueprint. When you talk about customer experience in general, you talk about adoption, right? It's about software adoption and realization and utilization of those licenses or software that the customer purchased.
Because we are a hardware company mainly, and we are transforming into more of a software recurring business company, what we did at Customer Experience is we put a number of teams together to make sure that we look at the lifecycle throughout. So the first team that I have, it's a business development organization. It's more of a consultative approach.
So when you have a new customer, it's like, okay, what is the problem that you're trying to solve? So I have a team that is dedicated to listen to our customers to see what is the problem they're trying to solve and how is our technology matching to the problem they're solving, right?
So once we get that blueprint, which is a long process to understand that, what we do have is I have an engineer in our organization that says, okay, so how do we make sure that what you have We got to make it work, right? Implementation, typical advanced services, implementation, optimization of infrastructure, putting everything together so it works.
And then we start building our adoption model, right? It's like, okay, we have three layers in our teams. One of them is more of a... High customers, big customers that we have, or we have experience with executives that are dedicated to the specific customers, where they walk them throughout, where they are the face of Cisco after the purchase. But then, as you know, we have just in U.S.
commercial, we have about 25,000 customers. So when we look at programs and people that are dedicated to programs, so we can go to many customers with the same approach and processes. The last thing, but not less important than any, is how do we work with our partners and the people that work with us so they can build similar practices. They can take that process to the rest of our customers.
So we have four teams that are dedicated just to one mission. It's making sure that the customer falls in love with Cisco.
I love it. And I've heard you speak about your life cycle model for customer experience. Obviously, when you're bringing customers on board or you're selling a Cisco service to a customer, you're expecting to be with them for a long time. This is a system that is going to be integrated into their work deeply.
And you need to really be thinking about not only what does sales and onboarding look like, but really what is this going to look like for many years to come. And so I'd love to understand a little bit about your approach to customer lifecycle management. And then I have a whole bunch of questions about what it actually looks like.
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Chapter 3: What is Cisco's approach to customer lifecycle management?
It's making sure that you use the tools based on the AI infrastructure that you can build and also the automation that is just seamless that continues to happen. And you'd be able to correct that quickly because when you automate something, if you find a problem, you can fix it in one place and automatically goes into the rest of the infrastructure to make sure that it fixes the next one.
I mean, the data conversation when it comes to AI is... When I think about a company like Cisco, it must be mind boggling because in order for AI to work correctly, it all depends on the data that we give it. And I'm curious to know, have you had to do any data overhauls in terms like to make sure that you had the right data to be able to predict, to be able to automate?
What was that process like? Or did you have all the right data in all the right places?
Well, I mean, I couldn't say for myself because I wish I was one of those guys that actually the data and obviously be smart enough to actually look at that. But what I can tell you is that, you know, the data that goes in is as good as the data that comes out, right? You got to make sure that you have the right data and to make sure we get the right solutions.
In Cisco, what we do is to make sure that we're consistently looking our data mining to make sure that the data that we have is the one that's going to be able to solve our problems. So our tag, for example, right? So we have tag and a number of issues that we have been able to fix throughout so many years.
Everything has been obviously put into a repository where we can actually go back and say, how do we do that? And how can we do it better? And we're constantly looking at that and making sure that it's as healthy as possible to make sure that now we can solve some of those problems by automation.
But yes, I mean, we have teams in Cisco that are dedicated to make sure that we have the right data in place and that we make sure that our customers get the right decision based on the insights that we have.
Mm-hmm. I want to talk a little bit about customer engagement, just switching gears a little bit, although it's probably quite connected. I just hear this from so many leaders, like how do we keep our customers engaged over time? How do we engage our customers in new things that we're rolling out that we think might be valuable for them?
But I don't know, we're not the hot new thing anymore because we've been working with this customer for a long time. So how do we get in front of them? And how do you approach customer engagement? and get your team to approach it effectively as well.
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Chapter 4: How can companies effectively listen to customer needs?
My job is to make sure that I talk to the CX level that says, what's the value that Cisco is actually bringing to your company? And guess what? To you personally, right? Because you are the one who's driving your company. How is that actually building that for you as well? So it's a combination of those two things. And then you look at alliances, right?
So if Cisco is not the one that is actually leading that technology, what is that company that is leading technology? In the past, we have announced alliances with Apple, Nvidia, with other companies that are building other things that complement what Cisco is doing so they can give a holistic solution to their customers.
This relationship piece is just so incredibly important. And having been in customer facing roles my entire career, I know that deeply. And I feel like as we're talking about AI more and more, I've been to quite a few conferences lately, and it's the topic of conversation is AI, AI, AI. And that is great. And that is awesome.
And there are efficiencies to be had and predictive actions that we can take. Great. But at the end of the day, if we don't have a relationship with our customers, you don't have business to do with your customers. It's just so essential. And I'm curious, how have you, with your client facing teams, how do you instill that mentality of relationship development? What types of
skills do you help your team learn? Or how do you make sure that it's not just you who's holding the relationship? Because that's a lot of relationships, too many relationships. How do you make sure that your team is also able to hold those relationships in an expert fashion?
I tell you, first of all, I'm extremely lucky person to have the team that I have. I mean, it's just like incredible the people that level professionals that work for our organization. I always say that Cisco's asset, it's not so much their hardware, their software, their services, because they are great.
I mean, I work for the company and I think they're wonderful, but it's the people, how smart they are. It's the one that actually building that value to customers. One thing that I think that's never going to be replaced by AI or by any automation, it's EQ. It's the emotional intelligence that we can actually bring to our customers. And I read that the other day.
It says everything can happen, but EQ will never be replaced by anything. Because we're still our beings of feelings. Why are customers loyal to you? It's because how you make them feel, right? They'll always remember when you're there and they're in the place where you need them.
They're not going to remember usually when you're making a sale, you know, because there's always negotiations that go back and forth. But they will remember the moment that their infrastructure is not working properly and you're there at the moment that they needed you and you'll be able to resolve the problems. And you call them back and say, are you okay? Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What role does company culture play in customer experience?
Nothing is going to replace a nice coffee or a nice drink. And I tell you what, I'll be a little bit sentimental here. Nothing will replace a big hug.
I totally agree. And even if it's an emotional hug, you know, like not physical, but just like knowing that someone is there for you, that feeling, like you said, is the thing that goes the furthest. I want to talk a little bit about culture and team, which I think kind of pairs with everything that we're talking about here. You speak a lot.
I've just, you know, been creeping on your LinkedIn and I can really tell that you care about the people that you work with. And I'd love to understand a little bit of your approach to how do you develop a strong culture and also a culture that is customer centric?
Well, if you ask me, that's probably the number one thing that a leader has to do.
Yeah.
Right. There is nothing more important than building a winning and inclusive culture in my mind. Right. That's where everything starts, especially when you work in a company that people have different jobs and different KPIs and different ways to be to be rewarded. The first thing you got to do is listen to people.
I have a practice in my team that I try to meet everyone at least once a year, everyone in my organization to have a five to 10 minute conversation.
How many people is that?
Well, about 200 plus, like something right now. So what I try to do is, and there's no agenda. I don't want to talk about, you know, how are you doing a new job? I want to talk about you as an individual, as a person. What is it you're thinking about? How can I be useful for you? Because what happens is that when people have a title,
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Chapter 6: How does data influence customer experience strategies?
So it's about the culture of becoming one team with one mission and that makes you people with the opportunity to have one result.
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I think this goes back to the relationship conversation as well. When you have relationships internally within your organization, people do better work. They're more excited to come to work every day. They are more engaged in the work that they're doing. They feel like they have community there and they're actually more efficient as well. Like the studies show, if we have trust,
within an organization and between our clients, we're able to move faster because we don't have to do as many checks and balances and questions if this is the right thing or not. If we trust someone, we can take what they say at face value and move on instead of
you know double check everything and talk about relationships uh last last thing about this is um it's how do you as an organization be able to provide back to others right to people who are less fortunate than you are we have some of those chapters as well to make sure that we as a team come together and that becomes fun because every time you do something for something else guess what follows one or two things or a nice lunch or a good happy hour
So every time you do something and then you go on and get together with the team and then you become more of a friendly organization rather than just an organization that's actually building something. And it works both ways. And it works really good at both ways.
What are some of your favorite ways to connect your teams? Human to human.
I'll tell you one of the things I fail. Is that fair? Can I tell you one of the things I fail? Of course. We love that. Here we go. I try to start a reading club. Boy, that didn't go well.
No one's got time for that these days.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can enhance customer loyalty?
I totally agree. Well, you're, you're full of the laughs too. So, and I also think that's such a great skill to have is, I mean, for any leader, for anyone, just like, how can we have conversations that we can also make lighthearted? How can we bring the positivity even into difficult conversations?
We never want to put lipstick on a pig and pretend that it's something that it's not, but you know, it's supposed to be fun, this life thing at the end of the day. So how can we make it that way?
And we always going to have that problem to solve. We all understand that there's a problem we need to resolve because that's the reason we're here, right? The reason we're here is because an opportunity to resolve a problem. Solution technology is built because of that.
Most technology is built because there's a problem that we want to resolve because we want to do A, create more revenue or B, create more efficiencies. So that's always going to be there. As long as you do it in a way that you're excited about it, it makes your life a lot easier.
And it makes you, people want to work with you more. It's just how it goes. So let's talk a little bit about value. I know we touched on this earlier, but as you're really looking for those opportunities to provide value, tell us a little bit about your approach to do that with your clients and then how you bring it back into the organization.
So to me, value, it's a very simple word. It's something that you actually understand that is going to do something for you, right? That's what value is, right? So if it's doing something for you that is going to benefit you in some way, you obviously can see that as something that you want to continue doing.
Having those conversations with our customers as migration and transition happens, as a transformation, the digital transformation is always going to be there. Transformation is not about a day that starts and a day that it ends. It's a constant thing. It's a constant change that's going to happen. So your value is going to change as the transformation changes.
So what you have to make sure is like, how do I listen to the customer's problem is? How do I bring that into the company to make sure the company understand how the market is actually reacting to the problems we're having? How are the companies building things to resolve those issues and create value? So now it's about speed, right? You want to be first.
If you're in a company, any company, you want to be the first one to be there. You want to have the first opportunity to grab that market, whatever you want, whatever you're doing. So technology allows you to do that. So the faster you can actually bring those solutions, the more valuable you become.
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Chapter 8: How to build strong relationships with customers?
So that's one of the things that we measure very carefully is to make sure that our renewal rate is as high as it can be. And yes, if they are renewing, guess what? They are making money or creating efficiencies with our software.
Mm-hmm. I wanted to talk a little bit more about KPIs. You said renewal is your core KPI, which I think is a great KPI because that is the ultimate proof that your customers found value in what it is that you're providing. What other KPIs are you tracking to make sure that your team is both providing a great customer experience as well as being efficient in doing so?
the first thing we got to measure even before renewals is NPS. What's the, what's the score, right? It's how our customer's perception is, is we'll ask as a company overall, not just as a service company, but also as a product company, as a software company and everything else. So that's the first thing we always got to make sure. The second thing is customer satisfaction, right? It's,
And they're different, right? Because one of them is more, you know, holistic. The other one was more specific to some things. And those are the two that we really make sure that we'll look into. And like any company, we want to make sure that we continue to grow. We continue to make sure that we bring the best solutions in place. We want to make sure that we react to things that we didn't build
The way that our customers are looking at it. And I think it's making sure that we pivot very quickly to make sure that the value is always there. So those are some of the KPIs we have. And, you know, I'm not going to lie to you. We want to make sure that we have a healthy business, right?
We want to make sure that our business investments are there from the company and our, you know, and our business is always as healthy as it can be. So those are some of the things that we measure.
Myself, I mean, I give myself some specific APIs of having conversations with our customers at an executive level to make sure that as we talked earlier, we listen to them and we say, okay, are we doing the right thing? Are we going the right path? Is Cisco the company that's going to help you achieve what you want to achieve? If the answer is yes, how do we do it better?
If the answer is no, how are we going to be the ones that we can do it? So that's an API that I try to actually maintain on my own and my team as well.
Has efficiency been a big topic of conversation for you? I feel like as I speak to CX leaders, many people just with the economic climate of today, we're thinking about how do we make our teams more productive? How do we do more with less time? Is that something that you've been focused on?
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