Ty (00:00:02) - We treat the root of the problem. So we always say when a client starts a project, I'm like, “if you want me to spend time fixing small one-off things, we're going to be working together for so long, it's going to drive me nuts. But if you like, step back and just let us do our thing, I'll have you flowing in 2 to 4 weeks.”

Ariana (00:00:29) - Welcome to Secret Ops, the podcast uncovering the world of operations one episode at a time. I'm your host, Arianna Cofone. And today's guest is Ty Givens, founder and CEO of CX Collective, which is a group of experts that focus on improving and scaling customer service experience for their clients. Now, I was really pumped to talk about customer service because the first three years of my career were all about customer service and man, it is a crazy specialization. Not only do you have to have people patience and incredible communication skills, but you also have to have process skills, technology skills. It really runs the gamut. So Ty and I dive into all of that. And the beautiful part about how she shared her experience was she has lived it. She's been there. She's done it for a lot of clients and figuring out how to solution their customer service experience. And so I think you're going to get a lot of wisdom from this one. All right. Let's jump in. Ty, thank you so much for coming on. Secret Ops. I'm really pumped to talk about customer service experience also, because that's the world that I come from before my operations days and think that people would love to learn about it. The most important thing, though, is to get to know you and your journey. So talk to us about where you've been and where you are today.

Ty (00:01:57) - Yeah, So way back in the golden days, I started out with Fortune 500 companies. Actually, let me take a step back before that because I like to tell this story. And I'm still in touch with her. That's why I like to tell this story so much. I used to work for a bookstore called Walden Books. It doesn't exist anymore. My boss there was going to a job fair, and she said, “you should come with me”. And I thought, like “my boss is telling me I should look for another job. Like, is that a bad thing?” And she told me, “you have way too much potential to be here. Let's just go and see, like, what's out there.” I'm grateful to her for that because I don't think you know, I was 18 years old. I didn't see that in myself. So anyway, we go to the job, fair. And I get my first job with Office Depot and customer service. And I felt like such a grown up because it was an office job. I had a desk, you know, a nice little cubicle, and I had nearly doubled my salary from Waldenbooks. So I thought I was rich and everything was great.

Ariana (00:03:09): I had the same exact experience

Ty (00:03:10): You know what I mean? Right? Oh, my gosh. I can totally play my whole car note now. I was in wealth. And so when I went there, I was on the phone for six months. I was a terrible customer service rep. And that's because I didn't have patience and I didn't really understand what my job was or where I fit into the scheme of things. You know, I was very young and I took things personally, but about six months in, there was a new position that they offered. Funny thing is, I did not really understand what the job description said, but what it did say is that you didn't need any experience. I was like, “Oh, I don't have that. Okay, great. So let me try and apply” and I apply. Take a math test, I get hired. So it was my first job in Support Operations and it was a Workforce Management role. And so I was not on the planning side, but more so on like real time, like “what's happening right now? Are you doing what you're supposed to be doing at this moment?” Again, another job I didn't fully understand, but I was in that space. I stayed with that company four years. When I left and I was looking for another job, I didn't realize that I had embarked on a career because I just was doing my thing. So I was like, “Oh, wait a second. Like, other companies have this role too. Oh, this is interesting.” So that was like the start of my workforce management career. And I did that for…I think my first job running a contact center was 2013. So I did it from 2000 to 2013 on the back-end of Ops, just planning and basically making at that time “call centers” work, right? How many people do you need? What kind of work are they going to be doing? Are we going to meet our service levels, meaning respond to customers timely? At that time it was phone calls, stuff like that.

Ariana (00:05:17) - Can I ask you because in my head, because we all have dealt with call centers, that seems like just so much chaos to think through because first of all, you've got a team that has to get trained on what to say, how to say, how to escalate. They are probably in different locations servicing different parts of the business. I don't know if I honestly would even have the patience to begin to deal with all of the complexities. Is that assumption warranted? Was it as crazy as it seems in my head?

Ty (00:05:52) - Well, what's funny is that at that time, the role that I did, I didn't have to be concerned with those facets, but that is literally what me and my team do every single day. Listen, I say we're a special brand of crazy because we like this stuff, right? So it's like, “Oh, you mean you don't have, like, you know, nothing's documented. You don't you don't have organization to how you're delivering your customer service. You don't know what success looks like.” I'm like, “Oh, yeah, I want to help.” And we do all the work for them. So at that time it was all numbers.

Ty (00:06:33) - And I'm not a…I don't love managing people, right? And so–

Ariana (00:06:41) - So funny because you immediately think customer service, you're sort of like reinventing it.

Ty (00:06:46) - It is just not my, it's not my thing. Let me say this. When I was newer in my career, you know, the next step that they show you in almost every role is managerial and some capacity. So you think that that is the next best thing. But then once you start managing people, you realize how uncommon common sense is and how all of our experiences shape us. And I got tired of translating my soul. And sometimes I can be a little stoic and have trouble processing emotions. So that's not good in a people leader, you know, someone is like breaking down and I'm kind of looking at them like, I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I really need you to come on time.

Ty (00:07:44) - Like, you know, I lack that empathy that's necessary and I'm aware of that. So I wanted to stay in the numbers and I want to stay on the Ops side and the process side and the tech side.

Ariana (00:07:57) - I also have to say, though, like I really do appreciate that ability emotionally to be able to disconnect because I think that being a manager is one of the hardest things to do. Like and then many times I, I naturally am inclined to do it because I like solving problems and people are problem-causes and solvers, right? So like I'm naturally inclined to do it. But sometimes in the past I used to get really emotionally wrapped up and I was just burdened by the emotion of it. So there is something in that approach that I do think as I've grown in my career, being able to detach the emotions from the thing is incredibly valuable. Time and place, of course, but like there is that balance you need to have.

Ariana (00:08:41) - Otherwise it'll just, oh my gosh.

Ty (00:08:44) - It’ll consume it really will consume you because, you know, as a as a, you know, being in middle management because like I worked for Intuit as well. So I have some really nice companies on my resume, but at my time Intuit I was true mid-management. I was just really carrying out orders. I didn't have to set the orders. I just had to make sure that what someone else said got done. And I didn't realize how much comfort there was in that space because I could be authentic in how I felt about things, how I receive things, how I share things. When you start managing at a different level and you are in conflict with the strategic vision or goal of the company, but yet you have dozens of people that you have to convince it's okay and they see what you see, but you can't say that you see it to? I'm not really good at that. I've never been like a good corporate soldier. So I'm glad that now I don't have to be. I can say, yeah, we don't agree with that. That doesn't align with our values, so we can't help you with that. And it's okay.

Ariana (00:09:56) - That is so empowering. Oh, my God. It's the most empowering thing. Like, I can't I can't jump on board with that strategy that you're going with. It's just backwards.

Ty (00:10:06) - I once told a client who because…I understand every company is around to make money, Right? But I don't believe in anything deceitful. I don't believe in being dishonest or, you know, not leading people down the right path. So I can't really even remember what the scenario was. But I know that the client made mention of, “Oh, and then we can just do–” whatever this thing was that felt wrong to me. And I said, “Well, obviously I can't stop you from doing that, but I, my team and I won't be able to help you with that.” So I was like, it's for us, it's about the customer, like truly about the customer. And I wouldn't do that to you.

Ariana (00:10:48) - So totally. There is a lot of integrity there that is important. Also, you can sleep better at night knowing that you've made the right decision. You don't have to like that's also why you make something of your own, which I think gets to CX collective and starting your own place to develop customer service and so talk to us about how that came to be.

Ty (00:11:09) - Yeah. So moving from Fortune 500 to startups is really the catalyst for why CX Collective exists. I would be hired in for startups to really mature the organization. So you imagine early on the people that you're…not you, but the people that are being hired.

Ariana (00:11:29) - It's okay.

Ty (00:11:31) - You're like, “I don't work there! ”.They have like an innate passion, usually around whatever the product or services that's being offered and they're really brought in for their passion. Now, they may not be very strong operationally. They may not have very much experience, but they believe in this service or product, whatever it is. But there is a point in time where that breaks down and the company then has to level up and you start to need people who are focused on business acumen and operations over a specific type of culture, right? And so when that would happen, I would get called in. And that caused me to leave a few jobs after six months, which is not popular on your resume. But I like to create and build. I do not want to manage and maintain.

Ariana (00:12:33) - Me too! It took me a long time to figure that out. I would get so unhappy when I was at places for a long time because I had solved the problems and I was like, “Ugh, I don't want to maintain. I want to go to the next icky problem.”

Ty (00:12:47) - Give me something else! Like, Come on you guys, I need new gray hairs. Like, I don't want to just sit here and do the same thing, right? That's my world. Like, “Oh, you have this problem. Let me help you put together a solution for this and execute it. And here you go. Now it's yours”, right? And knowing that that was my gift and I’d started working for a startup around 2015, 2014, maybe, but I got recruited away from a larger company. Then, you know, they are like actually starting out, they were smart. They were like, “We're going to get someone who knows how to build for scale out of the gate”. But at that time, I also learned a lot of what I thought I knew that I didn't know. But that's, you know, par for the course, right? So I joined and I never worked harder in my life. And startup culture can be great, but it also can come with a certain cost. So, for example, the company wants you to put that company above all things, right? Because whoever's founding this thing, they got everything riding on it. So they're like, you know, “we've got to do this, we've got to do this”. And it got to the point where I was like, I'm shouldering the responsibility of feeling like I need to carry this company in a way that doesn't feel natural or real for what I'm trying to do. And I shouldn't have this level of responsibility because I am not a co-founder, I am not part owner, but I want to do a good job, right? So there was a part of me that was trying so hard to do all of these unrealistic things. If you can imagine the dangling carrot, like I know what it takes to build a set of CX, but it didn't matter how well I did those operational things, there would be that one thing that was like, “But I really want to do this, or I really want you to do that”. And it would usually be something that really wasn't in my zone of genius. Shout out to my friend Sacheen. That's her. That's her thing she taught me.

Ty (00:15:04) - But yeah, so it's not in my zone, but I would still kind of be responsible. So it wasn't until I started to develop cystic acne and started to lose my hair that I realized this is probably not good.

Ariana (00:15:20) - Your body tells you before you really know what's going on. I felt the same thing. Like I was really depressed and feeling just gross and unhappy with my life. I couldn't really understand it intellectually. My body was saying, like, something's wrong. Something's off here.

Ty (00:15:36) - It's not right. And one of my colleagues actually came to me and then she was like, “I mean this with love, but you don't look good”. And she's like, “You come in here and I can see, I can see the weight on you”. And part of it was because they wanted to hire over me. But again, it was my ethics, right? That was the reason why they wanted to hire over me. And I got tired of feeling like, “Oh, because I'm a good and honest person, you know, I'm not a good fit for this”, right? So anyway, I leave there, I take a leave to evaluate, and then I end up leaving and I'm like, “What am I going to do?” And I decided that I was going to go out on my own. And I also thought that like when you put up a website that everyone just found you magically and you know, all you need is a website, and then here they come. So I started my company and I called it the Workforce Pro then, and that was because of my workforce management background. Nobody got it. It made no sense. But anyway, I stayed with that name for six years and we actually started to build for the right type of clients in a very unconventional way because the way that I was trying to get them wasn't working. And then after year six, I decided we needed a new name.

Ty (00:17:12) - It's no longer just me. CX Collective was born. And yeah, I mean, that's kind of like how I ended up in this seat. We've been in business now seven years as well. Seven years? Wow.

Ariana (00:17:29) - Wow. I'm impressed. I lasted three and then I was like, I'm tired, I'm tired. It's exhausting with the customer service. And actually, let's kind of break this down for the audience here, because I think the terminology that most of our audience members are used to is customer service. But there's also a term now, you know, customer experience. Can you unpack? Are they the same? What's different? Why the revamp? Like give us the details.

Ty (00:17:58) - So I'm going to just kind of see how it compared in my mind, customer experience, think of that as your foundation, because within customer experience are a lot of things. Service is one component of that, right? But what happens on your website as part of the customer experience? If you are a SaaS company and you bring people through a sales funnel and there are things that are happening, you know, with that initial sales rep to bring them in the door, that's part of your experience, right? Once you get them in the door and they're now a customer, then you have the service aspect.

Ty (00:18:39) - That's part of your experience if you have to offboard them, that's also part of your experience. So, in that, the part that we focus on mostly is the service aspect, which has its own, you know, complicated mix of things. And so sometimes what I'll tell clients when they're struggling with understanding is most people are aware of NPS “Net Promoter Score”. So basically the question is, you know, how well or how likely are you to recommend this company to friends or family? You rank the company on a scale of 1 to 10. And what people don't really know is that nines and tens matter and anything I think below six matters might be a little bit wrong on that, but I don't think so. And nothing else matters, right? And so it's because it's free marketing pretty much if you trust me and I tell you, “Hey, you should try CX Collective, they're great” and we have a good friendship, you're going to believe my word over any marketing dollar that we could put out there, right? So that's the customer experience part. Would you recommend this company? Because the whys or why not to that have a lot of different levels you could be service, could be not. Now on the service side, what you will send out to measure that experience is CSAT, customer satisfaction. How was your interaction with Ty?

Ariana (00:20:19) - Got it. So when we're at the airport or when we have to hit the like, happy face, medium face, low face, that's what we're talking about here.

Ty (00:20:27) - Exactly, Exactly. And so a lot of times CSAT doesn't always deliver because the customer will be frustrated with the process or the policy of the company has. The person delivering the word could be lovely, but that person could still end up getting marked down because the customer didn't get what they wanted. That's the service aspect, right? So where my team and I focus is on the customer service experience, so we do a little bit proactive. We actually try to spend more time on proactive than not, but usually when we're optimizing CX, you are already dealing with the reactive right? There's already a problem identified and then now we're going to help you guys get better at communicating around that problem and we're going to help you to set up some things to be more proactive to avoid this in the future. Whereas if we're implementing CX for companies, which we often do, we can be extremely proactive. So we found out the companies that we work with before they take their first contact, their inbound volume is far less than that of one that we optimize because we get to set them up for success at the onset.

Ariana (00:21:46) - That makes sense. It's when I'm talking about operations and people are talking about issues, I'm like, Those are symptoms. Most of those are symptoms and the root cause is somewhere way down deep that we've got to kind of figure out what that is. And you're essentially saying, hey, we build it from the ground up. So we've figured out how to prevent those issues at the root instead of getting to that point where now you've got these headaches and you don't know where to solve them.

Ty (00:22:10) - Exactly. So we're coming up on holidays. A lot of people will think about the holidays. Oh, let's get ready. They probably aren't going to start until October-ish and then they're going to scramble. You do all you can. Lights are on, everything flows January hits, and you're looking at, you know, more contacts than you can handle because the holidays are over. But that's when the fun began. That's when the returns start. That's when this is broken. That's when “Hey, you didn't deliver on time”.

Ariana (00:22:45) - The fun.

Ty (00:22:46) - Here's the party. It's like everybody's ready to put their pin down because, like, “ooh, we made it through”. It's like, no, it's just now. It's just now about to start for you. So when we get to that point where we're looking at preventative things, we're like, how do you get ahead of the backlog of work to do. How do you get ahead of that? And a lot of times the way that you get ahead of it is by measuring, right? Because a CX Collective potential client will see a backlog as “our customers are waiting to get a reply from us for three days”. They're not going to call it a backlog. They're going to say our wait times are really long. Why are your wait times long? Right. So to your point, we treat the root of the problem. So we always say when a client starts a project, I'm like, “if you want me to spend time fixing small one off things, we're going to be working together for so long, it's going to drive me nuts. But if you like, step back and just let us do our thing, I'll have you flowing in 2 to 4 weeks because I'm not going to give you, you know, a stick of bubble gum to heal your congestion”. You know, I'm going to go in there and get you a humidifier and some Vicks Vapor Rub and get you feeling good. So we are definitely about what is driving the issue, because as crazy as it sounds, I'd rather clients start new projects with us than have to come back to us for the same problem.

Ariana (00:24:37) - Oh, totally. And it's hard to explain that because it usually feels worse before it feels better. It’s a couple of weeks and they're like, “Why Ariana? Why?” And I'm like, “Just… We're getting there. It's happening. It's really. We're almost there”. And then the part I love is when they don't even notice the problem anymore. That's what you want, right? Like the thing that was annoying when we first talked six months ago is not even on the radar at all. When we're thinking about future things and like three years down the line, like, that's the exciting part. That means that we've done our job. Yes, I maybe could use a little bit more credit, you know.

Ty (00:25:21) - I was going to say, you sound like we're so similar. So you're also a Nanny McPhee. This is a friend of mine, referred to me as Nanny McPhee. She said “when you go in to the call centers or to the support teams, you know, you start off and he's like, You're making all these changes and people are like, ugh, like, I hate this. This is terrible. It's so different. I don't like it”. And he's like, “but then by then we're like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe we ever got along without her. Please stay.” You’ve got to take them through the ugly. Some warts on the face first.

Ariana (00:25:56) - Oh, my God. Well, and even now. Now I just. I think in the past, I used to couch it, but now I'm just like, it's going to suck everybody. But I promise it's not going to suck forever, we seem to get through this and I think that people echo with it also because I have to remember that a lot of people maybe haven't worked with an operator before, right? People might not have worked with the customer experience person before. They don't even have any of the tool set and the toolbox that we have in our minds. Like they have no idea what we're talking about. So we can see the path forward. But that's a big piece, I guess, for me, you know, getting to the trifecta, people process technology. The people piece. Everybody I've talked to that is the tangliest piece. And I guess for you, what are some things that you've learned in your experience that help make building the operations around customer experience stickier and more enjoyable?

Ty (00:26:51) - I'd take the people who are going to be the most impacted by the change on the journey with my team and I.

Ariana (00:27:01) - Lovely.

Ty (00:27:02) - Yeah. And we leave the door open for them to not like it because what happens is…especially like younger leaders and myself included when I was a younger leader, I'm a little bit longer in the tooth now, but back then, you know, I would go in and, you know, you have these preconceived notions of what good is what success looks like, what a successful company should be doing. And so what I challenge my team to do is to be like, “yeah, you can have your opinion, but throw all of that out of the window”. You don't have to work here. If this company wants to continue to paint pink bunnies on their blue walls, what's it to us if that makes their customer happy? Right? So at the end of the day, I make sure that any client that we're working with, especially if there's a team in place, I'm honest about where I see opportunity, but I don't hide that and I make sure that they don't feel bad about it because I was in that position where I had 3000 things going on. So a lot of times I couldn't see the forest through the trees. I was just focusing on the one thing that was in front of me. And the other part is that people tend to forget that you can't set a strategy on something that you've never experienced. So when you're a newer leader and you get critiqued for not being strategic, well, duh, I've never done this before, right? Strategy comes from experience. So, I bumped my head a few times, maybe not making some friends or–

Ariana (00:28:47) - It’s how you learn. It's how you learn. And I look back at myself and I think, “Oh, my God, you thought you were so right”.

Ty (00:28:53) - Loud and wrong is what I say. Like, I was just. I was firm in wrongness, but now I'm just kind of like, help me understand your company culture. So we really start with that. Like, “what are some of your norms there? What do you guys like to do? What don't you like to do? How do you guys view the customer experience?” We just went through a round of helping a client of ours choose a new help desk and we made sure that the vendors heard very clearly this is not the company that's going to be like, “Oh, automation, I don't have to talk to anyone, Wonderful.” They're not going to like that. And I said, “So I'm going to challenge you to think more customer centric. They want their customers to have a great experience, whatever that means, and it may not mean what you think it means. So unlearn everything you thought you knew and let's actually do for them what they need”.

Ariana (00:29:54) - Well, this flows nicely into the process because we're sort of dipping our toe into it anyway. So when you are building a CX process in a business and you're bringing in their team into that process, is there a mold of how to roll it out? I'm sure there kind of is. And then it all goes rogue depending on the business.

Ty (00:30:16) - Yeah. So all of our services are bespoke, but at the end of the day, there are certain things that they all have to go through. So let's say that we are…let's say optimizing because optimizing has more steps than an implementation, believe it or not, because you're trying to reteach. Okay. So when we're optimizing, the first thing we do is we start with the policies, the policies that are published to the customer. And we look at those and we poke holes in them. We try to find all the problems with the policies and then once we find the problems with the policies, then we want to understand what you do when this situation occurs? What we find is that in most cases they'll say, “well, that doesn't happen very often, so we just escalate.”

Ty (00:31:08) - Okay, but if we can put a process around this and you don't have to escalate it wouldn’t that make things better. “Oh, yeah.” Okay. So then we propose something. What if we do it this way? So as we're doing, we're taking that policy, poking the holes in it. We are also creating a process and a workflow. And so we'll look at how they're working today. So we'll start with what we know because we have to go in with our own assumptions. If we don't, we will lose sight of where their opportunities are because a lot of times the client will see their opportunities totally different than we do, and ours are typically more root cause problems. Theirs are symptoms.

Ariana (00:31:53) - Interesting. Both have to get addressed.

Ariana (00:31:58) - And you’ve got all of this experience of working with all of these clients, right? So you have this whole pool of knowledge as well, so you can see things on a deeper level than people who don't even, again, like have that toolbox to be able to play in. They just see what it feels like or what their days, their days are sucking because of this thing, you know? Yeah, that's what it feels like..

Ty (00:32:21) - Yeah. So I have a great team that helps me out. I will get the process docs and I go, “okay, I need. Yes. No answers to everything”. And that's because, you know, when this happens, you know, we do this. Anything that's a gray area. I want to know, what do they do today? Do we have that? If we don't have it, we go and get it. If they don't have an answer, we propose an answer. And then the next thing we're doing is taking those processes, getting that back into the hands of the clients and helping them to understand where we see the opportunities. We'll make the recommendations around that too. So we'll go, “You're doing it like this. We think if you do it this way, you'll see X result. We like to make that change. How do you feel about it?” We're not going to win every battle. Sometimes they're going to be like, “I know it's cumbersome, but this is just how we're comfortable doing it”. No problem. Our job is to help you do better, but not to, you know, completely put you out. So we go through that process and then as we're doing that, a lot of that process includes looking for ways to automate. And this is not automating in a way that's not customer centric. Unless they want to use bots, that's fine. And I'm not saying all bots are not customer centric. Some bots are customer centric and they're just fine. But we're really looking for like, how do we want to actually introduce these ways to be more efficient, right? So as we do that process, again, the client has to weigh in. So we're like and we have demo environments a lot of times for the systems that we implement. And what I'm giving you is full scale, right? I'm giving you a client who comes in and says, “We want you to optimize CX” because if a client comes in and is not totally sure…which is fair because it's like, “Hey, I don't know you from a can of paint, I don't want to hand everything over to you”. We would stop at the recommendations for improvements and let them decide if they want to carry that out with or without us so they can end with a plan and never need us again.

Ariana (00:34:40) - I do the same thing with operations because I think, maybe this is what you've learned is that if there isn't an appetite for change, then actioning any of that doesn't really make sense. So like it just won't stick. It's honestly a waste of money for the company. So sometimes I'll sort of give them this plan of like, “Here's where I think you need to build your operations, here's all the components for your business”. And then I'll say, “you can choose to action this with me. I'm definitely here for you or your team might be capable of doing it. Or maybe you want to wait a little bit. That's entirely up to you”. Without that buy in, though, it's just you're pushing a boulder uphill the whole time and it's not good for them or for us.

Ty (00:35:24) - You know, one of the biggest challenges that we have with clients is that we say “we're probably not a good fit for you. We're probably not a good fit for you”, but they really want to push. And in the end, we really were not a good fit for them. And sometimes it comes down to…we're very, I wonder if my team would agree with this. I feel like they might say we're very efficient internally. We are to a degree, right? Because there are some opportunities. Like I feel like I do way better for our clients than I do internally, which I'm not proud of but it is my reality.

Ariana (00:36:03) - Same here. It's so hard to do it for yourself. It's so much easier to do for others.. Why? Why is that?

Ty (00:36:10) - Yes. I struggled so much. But you know, when it comes down to it, like the way that we structure our services is kind of like a retainer, but it's by the hour. So we won't actually just allow a client to run up a bill. At any rate, we actually will cap the number of hours that we give to them on a monthly basis, which is not normal.

Ty (00:36:40) - So if a client is not also participating in the project, meaning, “Hey, we've created this workflow, we want to spend some time with you going over it, or you can go over it and give us your notes, whichever one you want, but we want to make sure you're on board. We'll need this information by, you know, seven days from now”. If that client does not deliver in seven days, that client is now looking at scope creep.

Ariana (00:37:07) - Nobody likes that.

Ty (00:37:08) - Nobody likes it. But, you know, if we leave projects open ended forevermore, then they will be that way. If we don't close things off, we'll get random one off questions. And so we don't take on a lot of clients at once. We are very boutique and specific and focused, so I actually don't have the infrastructure to support a one off question. So I don't. I try not to. I'm like, “oh, we're not working together. We'll give you the highest level answer we can. Let us know if you want to get together on something a little bit later. But I can't actually pivot from my clients who've retained us to help solve a problem that we shouldn't be focused on right now.”

Ariana (00:37:55) - Well, it's kind of then I feel like it's almost unethical because I'm like giving opinions on things that I really have no context on that could affect people or the business. And there's just a domino effect there that, especially with the work that we do, again, it's always a Pandora's box, right? So it's never a simple just flip the switch on and off. It's, it's a whole thing, I want to touch on technology because I feel like people like when I think about customer experience and my experience with customer service was actually not technology driven, really. It was more human to human, but I feel like more so now. We as consumers are more familiar with the technology sort of front of customer experience. So having implemented a lot of different solutions, what are some considerations that you're thinking about trying to find the right technology pieces for the customer experience pie?

Ty (00:38:55) - Yeah, Tech stacks. So, so first of all, we try to remain Switzerland and that doesn't always work because I can hear what a client is dealing with and know which solution is best, but I feel it's better for the client to come to that agreement with me because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm leading them in either direction. Right? The way that we approach that is just by setting up requirements and saying these are the things that we need a system to do. These are the things that it would be nice if the system did. And then we actually use a numbering method to determine zero, meaning they don't have it. Five means they kind of have it, but not ideally ten means they definitely have it. And we use that methodology and then we actually add to that, we sum up all of the, the need-to-haves and the vendors who have the top rankings on need-to-haves are the ones that we will actually like do a deep dive demo on and we start to peel back layers. We're also very transparent with our clients because just being honest and believe you me, we partner with dozens of technology companies, but when you're in the process of choosing a tool, the sales person is incentivized to sell to you. They’re gonna tell you whatever they need to tell you to get that sale. Me, on the other hand, I'm working with you so I'm not going to tell you anything because at the end of the day I got to stand in it and it's against who I am to tell you something that's untrue. So we will be upfront like, “Oh, this integration doesn't work the way that you want it to. You're not going to be able to see this information. Is that a deal breaker? You're not going to be able to automate this process. Is that okay with you? You will still need to have access to this other tool. Do you want that?” Because at the end of the day, all they can say is no and no doesn't change anything.

Ariana (00:41:11) - Yep.

Ty (00:41:11) - So when it comes to the tools, which is actually one of the reasons why I like being in this space is I get to touch and try so many technologies. Whereas when I was with any specific company, whatever your tool stack is, is your tool stack, you don't get to learn the new stuff.

Ariana (00:41:30) - Oh yeah.

Ty (00:41:31) - Now, all I do is I'm like, “Oh, they have that now. Wow. Oh, we can do this now.” I mean, they now have, you know, generated phone training where you can actually talk to a bot essentially who pretends to be the customer and will guide you through, you know, AI quality assurance, all these things that I would have known if I was just with one company.

Ariana (00:41:55) - Well, because it's impossible to keep up. It is impossible. I'll be on a call and I work with a ton of tools just like you. Some people mention a tool as if I should know it.

Ariana (00:42:05) - And I'm like, “What? What is that? What is this thing like? I've never heard of this thing”, but that's because we have a lot at our disposal and that's the challenge. And that's also the blessing, right? For example, transcripts of meetings, right? You've got it everywhere now, but then you've got to figure out which ones do you want? Do you want the bot in the call? Do you want just then there's all these things that you've got to kind of figure out. And that research phase, although I think people get annoyed. By that phase of like doing the analysis of the platforms. It is so vital because the amount of money and time you're going to spend doing another solution that ultimately is just based on your gut, not on research that just sends you down the wrong, wrong path. Yeah, it's a hard conversation, though. You're right. It's like you have to be respectful of what the client wants. You've got to, you know, be open to things. You know what works, you know what doesn't. It's like balancing all those plates at once for sure.

Ty (00:43:05) - So true.

Ariana (00:43:06) - So many plates. Well, let's go into the behind-the-scenes. So this is like the skinny behind like all of the customer experience world things that we might not know. So what do you think people get wrong about customer experience? If somebody is not in the field. What do you think they get wrong?

Ty (00:43:27) - They think it's easy. And what's funny to me is a lot of times it's more like, “oh, you know, those are just the people who reply to customers. Those are just the people who answer the phones”. But God forbid, let you know there be some sort of a glitch in the matrix and we need more hands on deck and we need to pull people from marketing or ops or whatever…not ops, ops will help, but marketing, you know, finance, whatever. And to jump in to talk to customers, you'll see people appear like deer in headlights. They get terrified. And it's like it's just another human being. And not only that, but like you do realize that, you know, when marketing sent out the wrong coupon code, that's what boosted the volume. Talk to the people that you impacted. See how it feels. Nobody wants to do that. So they think they think it's easy and a lot of times it's because there are so many people who are in that role a lot of the time. So when you're teaching a lot of people how to do one thing, it becomes devalued, right? Because obviously the higher you go, you know, the more focused the skill set. But at the end of the day, the people who were talking to your customer, they know the most about what's happening with your brand and they know it in a qualitative way, not a quantitative way. So yes, when you look at the metrics, it may seem like, you know, for the most part people are happy with your product, but customer service is the people who actually hear the pain and the voice when it doesn't work the way that it needs to work. They're impacted differently. You know, they're impacted differently. So I think people think it's simple work. I think that they don't value it a lot. And I think that hurts a lot of organizations because the people who actually communicate with your customers, they know a ton about how you move and how you operate in ways that the KPIs directly will not show you.

Ariana (00:45:42) - That is such a good point. It makes me think about a story. My husband…I was craving ice cream and I was like, “Oh, this shop always has a line out the thing. It's got to be, I got to go check this shop out.” You know why it had a line out the door? Because the customer experience was not good. It was not a good customer experience. And it's a very popular brand. I'm not going to put them on blast. But I was like, I tried twice and eventually…and just having been in customer service, I try to be really patient to a point.

Ariana (00:46:18) - And then I'm just like, You're losing so many customers. Like you're not seeing it in the numbers, right? Because you're probably hitting your revenue goals, you're hitting your marks. But I'm in the store. I am seeing your customers and everybody's pissed. Everybody's pissed. Yeah. So that's the thing that you cannot replace is that human-to-human contact and what you learn about that and the feeling and honestly how scary it can be sometimes when you haven't done that, right? Like when I was out of practice and I jumped into customer service for a little bit and I got the Monday scaries a little bit because I was like, “Oh my God, am I writing this right? Is this the right sentiment? Is it too many exclamation points?” That is something that everybody should feel and experience because you have to be vulnerable because you have to be able to listen. But then you also have to get the job done and figure out why USPS hasn't shipped the thing or it's stuck in the facility and you're out of control.You know, like all of those pieces. It's such a good point. My husband and I talk about that all the time. Good customer service is make or break for most businesses. They just don't know it.

Ty (00:47:23) - It's true. I know we had two instances when my boyfriend and I joined a new gym in late spring. And it's a well known gym. It's not cheap. And there was an instance where he loves to go to the sauna. The men's sauna was out, but he had gone three days and it was out three times. And I was like, “they didn't communicate anything”. He's like, “No”. So of course, here I go, CX Collectively. And they're like, “Um, excuse me”. Right. Like I literally told the lady “I expect more from you guys. This experience is very ghetto.” And she looked so taken aback and I was like, it's true. Like, I expect more from you. We shouldn't have to come here to ask you about what's happening with the sauna.

Ty (00:48:18) - You should have communicated that there was a problem with the sauna so that we could decide if we wanted to come here or go to another place. You guys failed. And I said Also, the smoothies here are nearly $20. If you would have given away one free smoothie to say “I'm sorry for the inconvenience that you experienced”, it would have gone a long way. It would have cost you very little. Right. And so she goes, “Oh, well, that's a separate company”. I actually don't care that it's a separate company because they're attached to your brand. So that's not my problem.

Ariana (00:48:50) - It’s in your facility. Yes, totally. I agree.

Ty (00:48:54) - Yeah. Buy some gift certificates. I don't know. But you guys need to do better. This is not what we expect, right? But what it's coming down to. Like, in today's world, everything costs more, but you're going to get a lot less quality. So you're going to be able to easily sign up for something and have a terrible time trying to get out of it. And then once you cross that line to being a paid customer, you have a terrible time trying to get support. And I think that for me and my team, where we stand, where we want to stand in, is “no, actually we want you to have a great experience with the support after you've paid your money. We want you to feel valued as a customer after you've trusted this brand, you know, to provide this product or service for you”. And so that means that when we work with our clients, we've got to make sure that the client wants that too. Otherwise, the things that we recommend for them, they won't like it.

Ariana (00:49:50) - Yeah. Are your values aligned or are they not? Because we're going to build based on the values that we know work for this thing? If we’re not aligned. We're just always going to be like oil and water. Which, if we think on the flip side. Right, Because as much as I have so many stories from my time in customer service, there's also a lot of amazing things that happen like give me the warm and fuzzies.

Ariana (00:50:12) - So what are some of the best things about working in customer experience? Like why do you get up in the morning and do what you do?

Ty (00:50:19) - You know 2017, 18-ish, somewhere around there, when I went in they were actually looking for a customer service supervisor. I think that is what they called it. They interviewed a former colleague. Ironically, the one who told me, “Hey, you don't look good. You need to take a break”. I love her. But they interviewed her and she's like, “they actually need you.” And I was like, oh, but at that time I had started my company and I was not available for hire as an employee. So anyway, we get the contract and it was just me at the time. I say we, but I'm used to saying we. It was me. Starting with them, when I walked in, they had a ten day wait time for their customers so you can put in a request. It would take ten days for someone to reply back to you.

Ariana (00:51:06) - That's an eternity.

Ty (00:51:08) - And you can imagine the number of messages you get from the same person and things like that. They went from ten days. I took them down to four hours in two weeks.

Ariana (00:51:20) - Wow.

Ty (00:51:21) - So that's why I get up in the morning is because I'm like, “Oh, you have a backlog. Like, Oh yeah, no, we got this.” Like, one thing I can fix is the backlog. As long as the CSAT is bad for something that has to do with CX, that I can control then it's going to get handled. Now if your experience is bad because there's a problem with your production workflow. I'm not a magician, so you have to fix production. That's going to be the win. But what I can do is help you be more transparent and proactive in your communication. And that will make the customer experience better.

Ariana (00:52:00) - Okay, so someone is listening to you and they're like, Ty, I want to be a part of that crazy, awesome madness of CX.

Ariana (00:52:08) - Where would you recommend people start their journey to get into that world?

Ty (00:52:12) - Okay, it's going to go against what most people believe, which is, “Oh, go to a startup. That's the place to be.” Some startups maybe, but a fast growing startup is not the place to get your chops. The reason is that they need experienced people driving in order to achieve what they're trying to get. So you're going to stay on a hamster wheel. But if you go to a startup where they're growing but not like crazy, but it's pretty steady, you're going to have a lot of opportunities to do stretch projects and assignments that are going to take you outside of what you normally do. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a startup, but I would say a smaller company where it's not so structured at first, right? So like I worked with one client and one of the ladies on the team had a knack for knowledge management. She loved to document and she was good at it.

Ariana (00:53:08) - Oh, man, I love those people. Those people are little angels. They're little documentation angels.

Ty (00:53:14) - We do documentation. Those systems…once you put them in place, you got to, like, make sure the admin knows how to run it. You have to make sure that the people know how to use it. We do training programs. I mean, we really are the cuckoo customer service people probably need to say that like, no, we're the crazy.

Ariana (00:53:33) - Doing Business As the Cuckoo Customer Service People

Ty (00:53:35) - At the end of the day, it does come down to caring so much about the outcome, right? Because one of the reasons why I'm not good at just managing and maintaining is because I never get to see something get completed. One of the reasons why I love–

Ariana (00:54:07) - That's a bittersweet thing. There's never a period at the end of our work, nope.

Ty (00:54:13) - We have clients who have repeated it with us 3 or 4 projects because they're trying to do something. They've leveled up a little bit, they're growing, they're changing. And every time we end the project like, “Oh, I'm going to miss you” because I really will. But I also know that if they need me, they'll call back or if if I put something up on LinkedIn and then get a reply from someone who was a previous client and they're like, “Oh, this is great.” I'm like, “Oh, we miss our calls.” You know, I love that kind of stuff. Yeah, but I want to solve new problems. That's, that's what the reality is.

Ariana (00:54:49) - Yeah. So if you are hungry for new problems and you are result driven for the customer experience, this is the path to jump into and give it a try. Let's get to know you a little bit. I mean, I feel like I already got to know you a ton. And thank you so much for your honesty. It's very rare that I think with customer service, we get to talk about the mechanisms and what's underneath the hood and really talk about someone that's so seasoned like you are. So I'm just really grateful for your brain. And now I want to get to know you as a human. So rapid fire questions. I'll say a question. You just go with your gut. So the first one is what is your favorite part of the day?

Ty (00:55:31) - Evening.

Ariana (00:55:33) - Night owl?

Ty (00:55:34) - You know what? Not really. I can go to bed pretty early, but it's because in the evening I finished everything that I need to do. And now I can do what I want to do. So sometimes that's snacking. It might be watching TV. It could be literally doing nothing. But it's my time and I feel the most accomplished in the evening because mornings, for me, I'm most productive. You know, midday I hit a slump. The evening time I'm like, all done. I've done all I'm going to do…rest.

Ariana (00:56:11) - What book are you currently reading or what audiobook are you listening to?

Ty (00:56:16) - Okay, I'm really embarrassed to say nothing at the moment.

Ariana (00:56:19) - No need to be embarrassed at all. It could also be what documentary are you watching? What show? Like is there anything that you're sort of like noshing on and enjoy?

Ty (00:56:26) - You're going to love this. It's going to make you laugh so hard. Oh my gosh. I am currently binge watching for the second time. Do not judge me. The Golden Girls.

Ariana (00:56:39) - Oh, my God. So good. Is it so good? Are you having a great time?

Ty (00:56:44) - It’s the best thing like, literally, it's on my iPad and my boyfriend will come and he's like, “What are you doing? Golden Girls?” Yes, because it's just such a feel good. I get to laugh. I know that it's from, what, almost 40 years ago.

Ty (00:57:02) - But the jokes are still good, the camaraderie that they have. It just feel-good. And you know what? We've dealt with a lot of things in the last few years. I just want to be happy.

Ariana (00:57:16) - And that's oh, man, I'm putting that on my list now. That just took me there. Yeah. Um, what is the best purchase you've made under $50?

Ty (00:57:26) - Oh. Let me think. Let me think under 50. I think that might be the catch. What's the best thing I bought for under 50 bucks? You know what? My CXC notebook. It costs $11. It was branded, though for CX collective. And the reason why that's the best purchase there's like. A lot of my tasks, a lot of my thoughts. And when I see it, I'm like, “wow, look at look at what we've done.” You know what I mean? Like, I get this sense of accomplishment. So I think that was probably the best thing I bought.

Ariana (00:58:09) - It's true in the digital space, things just kind of go away. But in paper and black and white on a page, that doesn't go away. You can. It's there. It's there. What is your favorite quote?

Ty (00:58:22) - Oh. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. Warren Buffett.

Ariana (00:58:28) - Mm. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Ty (00:58:32) - That one helped me a lot when I was trying to figure out pricing because knowing that customer service is undervalued. If I got someone that’s like. “Oh, the rate, you know, is this.” And I'm like, “Well, your ROI is 100% all the time because my team and I come in and we fill four key roles for you and we do in those four roles, what would take you a year to do we do in months. So I think it's worth it. And it's not about the price, it's about the value”. And that's also helped me to shift how I look at things. I don't look at the price. I'm like, “What's the value of this? Like, you know, how long am I going to have it?” Or, you know, buying a refrigerator, right? You have one for more than ten years typically. So if you spend a little bit of change on it, it's okay. You know, you're going to have it for ten years.

Ariana (00:59:31) - So that's I'm going to take that and actually really implement that in my buying. That's a really good approach. And just in general, what is something that makes you little-kid-happy?

Ty (00:59:45) - Getting my nails done. I love a good manicure pedicure. I have a standing appointment every two weeks and it's on, you know, on Fridays. Like, I'm going to go, She knows I'm coming. I'll get my coffee. And it's just my time and I'm there for a few hours. It's not a fast service, but it makes me so happy. And you know, I'm not very social, so that's like my outing. I enjoy my time there. When it was time to get my nails done, like, I don't care what color they are, I don't care about any of that. I just like the experience. I love it

Ariana (01:00:27) - Yeah. I mean, listen, a pedicure and massage to your feet and your legs, you will see. God, it is amazing.

Ty (01:00:34) - Exactly. Exactly. I'm like, this is why I work so hard. For this very moment right here. Yes.

Ariana (01:00:43) - Okay, two more questions. What is the most important lesson you've learned so far?

Ty (01:00:50) - I have learned…and this is sort of a past tense, but it's kind of a full circle thing. Any company that I've worked for got far more of me than they deserved. But they got it because I was on a journey to building my resume to be in the seat that I'm in right now. So I would say to anyone who is at a job where they feel like they're undervalued or “they don't see the good in me or they don't recognize the things I do”, and you feel like you're going to pull back. You can. That's your choice. But I use that as fuel instead, because what I was trying to do was accomplish certain things so that I could be in the seat that I'm in now. So sometimes you have to kind of let them get over a little bit because at the end of the day, you have goals and no one's going to be working anywhere forever. So show up as your best self, do the work the way that you know how to do, deliver like nobody's business. Let them have their little moment in the sun. But in reality, you're now ready for the next level because you put in that work.

Ariana (01:02:11) - I feel like you're talking to me. Alright, get out of my brain, please.

Ariana (01:02:13) - Last one is what do you want to be when you grow up?

Ty (01:02:18) - Oh, you know what I always say? I just want to be happy because I used to be successful, to be honest with you, when I was younger. Let's go back. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer because I love The Cosby Show. And I just, you know, it was like doctor or a lawyer. And then as I got older, it was successful. “I want to be successful”. But then what I've learned is like when you start to check things off your list, at the end of the day, what it is, is “I just want to be happy”. And I don't know that that comes with a specific job title, a specific status. I don't think it does. I think it's just a choice, but it's also a state of mind. So at the end of everything, I'm like, “but am I happy? Okay, I might be stressed because, you know, running your own thing is stressful. I might be tired because I am that, a lot. I might be hungry, I might be all of these other things. But at my core, am I happy? Yes.” Okay, I'll take it.

Ariana (01:03:29) - Love that. Ty, You are just a pleasure. I just love talking about this. And I so appreciate you giving your brain and your knowledge. If someone wants to find you in the work that you're doing with CX Collective, where should they look for you?

Ty (01:03:42) - So we're online, cxcollective.com on Instagram, @CX.Collective because someone got to it first. On LinkedIn, you can find us at The CX Collective. But literally like everywhere, if you, if you look for me, you'll find Ty Givens. You're going to find my old website because I haven't had time to update it. But the contact info works. So like, you know, reach out. If you email Hello@cxollective.com, everybody, everybody's there, somebody will get back to you because we're a customer service company, so we have to deliver a good experience for you. We're never going to leave you hanging so you can find us in so many places.

Ariana (01:04:27) - Great. We'll make sure to link that in the episode description. Again, really appreciate your time and your brain. Listeners, thank you so much for listening to Secret Ops. It means the world. Remember to please subscribe wherever you find your podcast and check us out at secret-ops.com. We'll see you next time.