Creating Superfans Podcast Episode 209: Scott Harris

Creating Superfans Podcast - How to use data to power business outcomes with Scott Harris - Brittany Hodak

Scott Harris is a Founder, CEO, and author. He’s the CEO of Experience.com, a company he founded in 2015 to redefine the way the world thinks about Customer Experience, Employee Experience, and the all-important interplay between the two.

Scott and I had the pleasure of working at Experience.com together, and he might just be the only person that’s more passionate about experience than me. In today’s episode, we discuss the ever-changing rules for success in the digital landscape and the importance of understanding the new algorithms that shape consumer behavior. After listening to our conversation, you’ll be better prepared to win online and transform your organization into an experience-led enterprise.

listen to the Episode

show notes

3:28 – Scott tells us about Experience.com

5:50 – Hows silos are ruining businesses today

9:40 – Covid impacted the way people buy and refer businesses

11:35 – Brittany shares her theory for why our buying processes have changed, and it’s not what you think it is!

15:03 – Scott cites the blue dot on Maps as an example of how algorithms are shaping our behaviors

17:18 – How technology drives our behavior 

18:06 – How Google has turned our habits into math and how companies can use the strategy to win online

19:16 – Scott breaks down the three components that Google looks for when serving you with search options

20:28 – Too many businesses are misallocating their time because they don’t realize the rules have changed

22:11 – You are what the Internet says you are

23:01 – How a loan officer might try to optimize their online presence

26:55 – The conclusion a prospect might jump to if your online presence isn’t updated or accurate

27:07 – If you have your location and product information on your profiles, what’s the last step that you need to beat out your competitors?

30:05 – A recent AI interaction that blew Scott away

35:09 – Why an experience management platform is so crucial for your organization

37:08 – “You put data in motion to power your business. If you’re not doing that, you’re behind.”

transcription

Brittany Hodak [00:00:02]:

Hello, and welcome to the Creating Superfans podcast where you learn how to turn your customers and employees into superfans. I’m your host, Brittany Hodak, and I’m a speaker, author, and entrepreneur obsessed with all things customer experience. Here’s the thing. We’re living in an experienced economy right now, and regardless of the size or age of your company or even the products or services you’re selling, one thing’s for sure. If your customers aren’t telling their friends about you, you’re in trouble. If you wanna create super fans, being great is no longer good enough. You’ve got to be super. This is the show that teaches you how.

Brittany Hodak [00:00:48]:

Today’s guest is my friend and maybe the 1 person on the planet I would not want to go toe to toe with in a game of who cares the most about experience because this guy just might win. He is the founder and CEO of experience.com. He’s on a mission to redefine the way the world thinks about customer experience, employee experience, and the all important interplay between the 2. And it’s not just talk. He has helped design and build the platform that’s making it all possible. In today’s episode, he’s going to talk about what every company large and small can do to transform into an experience led enterprise and inspire every employee to become an experienced architect. My conversation with Scott Harris right after a word from today’s sponsor. If you’re looking for a proven system To make more impact and income, I wanna highly recommend that you talk to my friends at Brand Builders Group.

Brittany Hodak [00:01:47]:

Brand Builders Group are the best in the world at helping people find their uniqueness and building on it to monetize their personal brands. Right now, Brand Builders Group is offering free brand strategy calls to everyone serious about taking their personal brands to the next level. Just visit free brand call.com/brittneyhodak to request your call. I’ve been a customer for 5 years, and I can tell you the team is absolutely incredible. You may have even heard cofounder Rory Vaden on a past episode of this podcast. They’ve created a system that really will help you get clear on the shortest path to grow your impact, your influence, and your income. So go to free brand call.com/brittanyhodak today to schedule your free strategy session. Scott Harris, thank you for coming on the show today.

Brittany Hodak [00:02:39]:

It is so great to have you here.

Scott Harris [00:02:41]:

Hey, Britney. How are you? I miss I gotta tell you. I miss Nashville. Used to come all the time. Haven’t been a minute. And every time I talk to you, I think about 5 daughters and Hattie B’s.

Brittany Hodak [00:02:51]:

Well, thank you for coming on the show. I always love when we get a chance to talk because I feel like There aren’t that many people who love experience in the way that I do and can give you a little bit of

Scott Harris [00:03:06]:

a filter.

Brittany Hodak [00:03:07]:

You did. You you own you literally own experience at experience.com. So, yeah, let’s let’s Kick things off by talking about, like, what is Experience .com? As the man who could have done anything in the world with the domain Experience .com. Tell me about what you did and why.

Scott Harris [00:03:28]:

What is Experience .com? Experience .com is an experience management platform. It’s really what it is. If you’re building an EX platform where you wanna connect to every moment in your employee journey and then map it into, into, you know, 3 a life three sixty, view of every employee. If you wanna connect that to Glassdoor or Indeed, empower your Recruiting reputation. Right? We’re an EX platform. We’re a CX platform in the same way, connecting to any moment, empowering, powering customer experience feedback, but we do it very differently. Right? We have behavioral and and, stuff and secondary workflows and, like, you can it’s for us, it’s a system of voice, whether it’s EX, Whether it’s CX or its online reputation, it’s the same customer. Right? And so asking the customer To do like, Legacy Tag has 1 system for reviews, 1 systems for, your reputation, your listings, another system, for social connectivity, another system for collecting CX surveys, another system for EX surveys.

Scott Harris [00:04:33]:

And we go into these companies, and they don’t have an experience practice. So and so everyone’s making decisions in silos. I know that I’m just sorta talking too much here.

Brittany Hodak [00:04:44]:

But No. Well, I think Let’s style it back a little bit Okay. And talk about for, you know, millennia, There were businesses that existed with very few data points because unless someone was, like, Taking that chisel to that tablet or taking a pen to paper, information existed only in the the memories of the people that were driving that experience.

Scott Harris [00:05:15]:

Yeah. Competitive business drivers were very different.

Brittany Hodak [00:05:19]:

Yes.

Scott Harris [00:05:20]:

Right? The things that caused me to beat my competition were product and price.

Brittany Hodak [00:05:24]:

Yes. Product and price. Very much commodity driven. And over the past Right. Say 60 years as things began began Began becoming digitized. It was about, oh, we’ve gotta find a way to take something that is happening in the offline world and turn it into ones and zeros to record it. And I think that

Scott Harris [00:05:48]:

I like that. Good way to put that.

Brittany Hodak [00:05:50]:

And that’s real that’s really what it was. Right? It was, like, how do we figure out how to tell a computer what is happening? How are we creating a virtual representation of a feeling or an experience that is happening in the real world. And I think over the past 20 years, as everything has, you know, gone first to Internet and then to mobile, What we have seen is a proliferation of tech products that narrowly focus on one part of a bigger picture. So whether you’re talking about a customer experience, whether you’re talking about an employee experience, there are a lot of tools that have been developed to focus, like, with laser intensity on one little thing. And what I believe has been, detrimental about that Is over the past 15 or 20 years, what we have seen is the over siloification, I think, is the, like, correct technical word to use. The over siloification of decision makers within businesses because they are looking very closely and yet very narrowly in scope at one part of a customer’s journey or an employee’s journey because they have truth. They have data points that speak to that one thing, but they’re missing the forest for the trees. They’re not seeing the larger picture.

Brittany Hodak [00:07:16]:

And as someone who is leading a business, particularly somebody who is leading a multilocation business with many, many employees. Your challenge in 2023, 2024 becomes not, How do I get data? It’s how do I make sense of all of the different data that I have? What matters? What doesn’t? You know? I think it was, Albert Einstein or Ben Franklin, one of those, like, smart dead guys from the past who said not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. So, like, how can you make sense of all of that? And what I love about experience.com and what I love about your practice of experience management is saying the world has changed, business has changed, we have to figure out how to create the digitization not only of reputation but also of business and experience management. How do we create signal in the noise. How do we create calm in the chaos? So With that, I would love for you to talk a little bit about how the sort of still emerging field of experience management matters and why regardless of the size of your business, whether you’ve got one in 20 employees or a 1,000 location in 200,000 employees. Why this matters for what your business is in a world that we live in, where you are essentially what the Internet says you are. How can people running businesses of all sizes get smarter about Not just capturing clues and signals about the experience their customers are having, but then using those to continue to refine, and evolve the experience of those customers, and generate that as social and experiential capital to drive more business.

Scott Harris [00:09:17]:

So interesting. Let’s Let’s focus a little bit on some data, that I think does matter in the conversation. So what we believe is that people buy differently today. We know this. Right? We know this.

Brittany Hodak [00:09:36]:

Buy differently. I would say people buy differently than they did 3 years ago.

Scott Harris [00:09:41]:

That’s right. COVID COVID really impacted the way people buy. So I’ve been in real estate and mortgage and, and professional serve financial services professional services for for years. And, and Prior to COVID, if Britney Hodak called me and referred me to an insurance agent, I mean, I bet if you did it, I would just do it now anyway. I wouldn’t even but but let’s just say prior to COVID, if you if I said to you, do you know an insurance agent? Your mind would say, where? And I would say, I’m moving to Nashville, and you need a homeowners insurance agent in Nashville. And so your mind would do, like, a1000000 process a 1000000 pieces of information. Your mind would say, do I know Any insurance agents local, do they do I know insurance that have the product, and do I know insurance agents that, that are good at it, gonna deliver a great experience. So if I’m gonna trust them with this referral, you know 9 or 10, let’s say.

Scott Harris [00:10:46]:

And so you’re processing through 9 or 10. It’s still very complex thing that’s going on in your brain. It’s very simple to us. Right? Now what’s happened is Is that’s the way, like, 60 to 70% of the business a real estate agent get and a loan officer get. That’s just be the way it used to happen. Right? We would we’d we’d run the numbers and and and I tell you between 60 and 70% was referral based every time. It was all that mattered was building realtor relationships if you were a loan officer. Right? That’s all that matters.

Scott Harris [00:11:16]:

Now I will tell you this, that much fewer people, buy that way. Like, I still ask you for a referral, But if you gave me a referral to an insurance agent, the first thing I’m gonna do I don’t know why. It’s just my nature is now to look that insurance agent up. I’m not even sure.

Brittany Hodak [00:11:35]:

Think it is. Do you know? I was thinking about this the other day. I I well, so an earlier episode of, this podcast is an interview with, gentleman named Andy Cockburn, who’s the CEO of a company called Mention Me that Yeah. Built in peer to peer to peer referrals. And I was thinking about the behavioral change of everyone, after my conversation with him. And you know what I think was the beginning of the end? Dating apps. Dating apps have to bring us from and I say us. I’ve never been on a dating app.

Brittany Hodak [00:12:09]:

I’m very Fortunate that Jeff and I got together, like, before that was a thing. We’ve been married 15 years, so I never had to, like, do any of that. But the idea That you can see everything you need about a person to make a decision about whether you want to talk to them and swipe right or swipe left Has, I think, trained people to think very transactionally about others before they meet them. Give me everything I need to know instantly so that I can make a decision of whether or not I wanna, like, make the next move or not. And I think With referrals, it is very much that because people who depend on referrals and professional services environments don’t know how many people Swipe left. You don’t know how many people landed on your Facebook page, your Instagram profile, your website, and thought, meh. And likes

Scott Harris [00:13:03]:

That was a hell of a transition. You just it’s you just use swipe I think we should slow down and make sure that everyone that listened into it heard what you just said. It’s basically you’re saying you don’t know how many people are swiping left on you. You do

Brittany Hodak [00:13:17]:

have no idea how many people Took one look at your profile online for 2 seconds, 20 seconds, 3 minutes, whatever. Producer over Skype. Nope. Not for me. You didn’t capture their email. You have no idea who they are. You’re not gonna be able to follow-up with them. They are not in your funnel.

Brittany Hodak [00:13:36]:

You are not in their consideration set, but they are not even in your cognitive awareness.

Scott Harris [00:13:41]:

But even if if you told me about the an insurance agent I looked up your insurance agent. It’s gonna show me the 3 competitors. And if your insurance agent doesn’t look as good as those other 2, Google’s driving my behavior there.

Brittany Hodak [00:13:55]:

Oh, absolutely. The I think, like, the one of the most savage things that, like, I used to be, like, I can’t believe This is a thing now. It’s like 15 years ago, 10 years ago when you would type the name of anything and then just put versus, and Google would give you the drop down with, like, the 5 competitors. And you’re like, thanks, Google. Like, you don’t even have to do your homework now to, like, find other competitors. And now I don’t know about you, but my behavior with Chat GPT is, like, it has replaced all of my research.

Scott Harris [00:14:24]:

Oh, I I don’t write an email anymore without Chat GPT.

Brittany Hodak [00:14:26]:

Give me 5 give me five Companies who did do this. Tell me 3 things that do this. Yeah. Right. So, yes, I think behavior has changed greatly. And my little, You know, hot take on dating apps aside, I think the outcome is that people are expecting things with more immediacy, and they know that there are so many other options for everything that exists That in a way, we’ve commoditized people. Right? It’s like, well, if this one’s not right, there’s a bunch of others. So you I actually option for somebody.

Scott Harris [00:15:03]:

The dating app is 1% of a drive towards, behavioral reliance on algorithms Mhmm. Rather than, than ourselves. I’ll give you one other example. The blue dot, The maps. Yep. The blue dot. You know, I don’t know if you guys would remember the eighties, but we used to have to remember how to get Right. I can go somewhere now 7, 8 times, not tell you how to get there.

Brittany Hodak [00:15:35]:

Yeah.

Scott Harris [00:15:35]:

Right? But we used to have to remember How to get there. We used to have to think about directions. We used to have to say remember the conversations? No. No. Turn left there. When you run up to here, turn left, go up a mile into. When’s the last time you had that conversation? Yeah.

Brittany Hodak [00:15:51]:

Yep. I I one time did not know I was driving the wrong direction Trying to get back home to Oklahoma from a concert in Kansas until I saw a sign that said welcome to Nebraska. And I was like, yeah. Nebraska is not on the way.

Scott Harris [00:16:08]:

On the way.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:09]:

And it was because when I had, like, pulled off to get gas, I’d got on an interstate going north instead of south and didn’t realize it because interstates look like interstates, and so I drove for however many miles. But yeah. And and now think about, like, when’s the last time you went anywhere without Google Maps on? My mother-in-law was just teasing my husband.

Scott Harris [00:16:28]:

I’m a Waze guy.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:29]:

Well, you’re, Yeah. You’re a Waze guy. Like my mother-in-law

Scott Harris [00:16:33]:

got me. I played the game on Waze all the way up from driving. Yep.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:37]:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And she like, my mother-in-law, we we were all out For dinner on, Sunday, and she had said to my husband, like, why are you using Google Maps? Like, you know how to get to my house from here. And he’s like, yeah. But I don’t know which way is gonna be fastest. Into That’s right.

Scott Harris [00:16:50]:

That’s right.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:50]:

You mattered. He’s like, well, why would I wanna take 17 minutes to get to your house if I could get there in 13 minutes?

Scott Harris [00:16:55]:

Yeah. They’re still telling me if there’s traffic on the that way. Right? Yeah.

Brittany Hodak [00:16:58]:

Like, Like, I’m gonna I’m not gonna miss 4 minutes when technology has created a solution for me to, like, get there in 13 minutes.

Scott Harris [00:17:06]:

So let’s arrive at a point here that I think is really important, and it is that the rules have changed. Right. That’s really what we’re saying is

Brittany Hodak [00:17:17]:

that the rules have changed.

Scott Harris [00:17:18]:

Everywhere you turn, they’re replacing the way we think with algorithms. They’re replacing and making it more effective, and then they’re doing different things to drive our behavior. So just like you described with the map, if it was just the same direction every time and it was the closest, you wouldn’t pull the map out. Right? That’s not a driver of the behavior that Waze wants. So Waze came up with a way to say, we can save you 2 minutes if you go a different way because there’s traffic. Now they’ve driven the behavior they want, and they’ve given us a little bit of value that causes us to give them the behaviors. Now that’s what’s happening everywhere. Wherever you turn, people the the game has changed, and it’s all about your behavior.

Scott Harris [00:18:06]:

I mean, We created a game to help people win online so that when they come in, it pops up, points Fly off and fly onto their score, and they can see themselves jump the competition on search because we want we know what it takes to win online, And we wanna drive the behaviors, that that power our users to win online and empower them to do the activities that cause them to win online. Right? Its value to power outcomes. And I’m just telling you, the point is The rules have changed. And if you know that, then you have to say, how do you win based on today’s rules? Right. When I said to you, the way you think about giving me an insurance referral, It’s literally Google’s turned that into math. Google has said, do I know somebody that has that product? That’s a relevance factor. Do I know somebody who is local to the searcher? That’s a proximity factor. Do I and then then they say, do I know somebody’s gonna deliver the customer great experience? That’s a prominence factor.

Scott Harris [00:19:16]:

So you have 3 factors, Thousands of components that Google puts into it, and it’s and, yes, if you deliver great experiences and do a high volume of transactions, You’re still gonna lose unless you use the math to your in your favor. Because people are gonna look you up, And the rules have changed, and so you gotta play by different rules, and the winners find a way to win. And so I see Every day, I was on a webinar 2 days ago with the top performers. We had 350 people show up to a webinar. They were all the top 1%. If I asked the top if I asked the people below 10% to show up to a webinar, to help their business, much fewer percentage of people. When I ask the rock stars to show up to help their business, they all show up. Right? And that’s what we mean

Brittany Hodak [00:20:07]:

what’s What’s ironic about that is and I see this across all, you know, all all types of business, all industries. When you ask below the 10%, they don’t show up because they tell you they don’t have time. They can’t make the time to do it People

Scott Harris [00:20:26]:

people do 50 loads busy.

Brittany Hodak [00:20:28]:

Big time. Right. They’re so busy running their business when in reality, They’re misallocating their time because they don’t understand the rules of change. And you can spin your wheels and Spend a lot of energy focusing on the wrong things when you don’t understand that winning in 2023 Does not look like winning in 1993, does not look like winning in 2003, does not look like winning 3 years ago. Because in an experience economy, the rules are constantly changing, and you are constantly being compared not just to your direct competitors, but to the types of experiences that are being created by totally different professionals, totally different industries. Freeze. Like, nobody now says, oh, you can’t tell me where where we’re at with this process? That’s cool. I’ll wait.

Brittany Hodak [00:21:24]:

People are like, wait. Lyft can tell me how many wrong turns away from me Patrick is from picking me up, and Yeah. Domino’s just told me who put mushrooms on my pizza. What do you mean you don’t know what’s going on with this project? Yeah.

Scott Harris [00:21:36]:

I just Janet just put mushrooms on my pizza, and I know that.

Brittany Hodak [00:21:40]:

I know Janet put mushrooms. What do you mean you you don’t know

Scott Harris [00:21:42]:

I’ll give you another one. To 1% reply to reviews at a 45% rate. Every but everyone under that replies to reviews at an 8% rate right now.

Brittany Hodak [00:21:53]:

Wow.

Scott Harris [00:21:53]:

Look. It’s all math. The problem is it’s complex. Winning isn’t easy. Right. So let’s just focus on this one problem. How will people look their best and win their local market when someone finds them online. I love your comment.

Scott Harris [00:22:11]:

You are what the Internet says you are.

Brittany Hodak [00:22:13]:

I remember people used to do this, like, weird thing, Like, when you were like, oh, when’s the last time you Google Googled yourself? People were, like, embarrassed or, like, I never Googled myself.

Scott Harris [00:22:22]:

Everybody Googles themselves.

Brittany Hodak [00:22:23]:

It’s like, why not? Like, It’s not a question of do you have a personal brand or not. It is a question of are you driving it, or is someone else driving it? So to anyone who says, I have no idea, you know, what shows up, my question is, do you just not care enough about your customers to know? Like, do you not care enough about your prospects to understand what the beginning of their journey to get to you looks like? Scott, hopefully, everybody listening is on the same page that you are what the Internet says you are. What do you do to help influence what the Internet says about you?

Scott Harris [00:23:01]:

Okay. So So let’s say you’re 1 loan officer trying to win at Google’s math. Right. Let’s just take 1. It’s very complex, but let’s just take 1 now. And and we’ve automated it, but I’ll give you the problem statement at the beginning. So 1 loan officer that’s trying to win would need to claim and update with the exact information. Their name, address, phone number, title, category, hours of operation, products and services, You would have to have, let’s say, 40.50.

Scott Harris [00:23:39]:

I mean, there’s 300, but 40.50 profile Angie’s List, and and Google and and Yelp and Bing and and Alexa and you you wanna be you wanna be found So you have to make sure that Google knows that you have a location where you have a location. You see, and it can’t just be on Google because, because because people spam Google. And so Google looks at 3 tiers of citations. They look at Tier one, which is those primaries that you heard me say, like the really important ones like Google and Yelp. They look at tier 2. Those are your industry specific and and those others like Thumbtack and and Angie’s. I’m not even sure if Thumbtack Indexes, but you get the point. There’s A lot of where where play yp.com and these others.

Scott Harris [00:24:27]:

And then there’s tertiary citation is like your your blogs and your posts and those other things. And all of these things, Google searches and looks for signals that you exist in a location. So remember it’s math we’re all competitive right we we are sort of autonomous routes market employees right we we’re out there Getting our own business, building realtor relationship, whatever it is. And so and so you wanna make sure that you get Found and that when the search engines, when someone searches you, or searches for a loan officer in your market, Let’s pretend there’s 400. Okay. There’s 400 loan officers in that market. Okay. How do you make sure that you’re in the top 3? So you gotta beat 398 people.

Scott Harris [00:25:18]:

K? You gotta be 1, 2, or 3. So you gotta be you gotta beat 398 people. So you gotta get your profile everywhere. And then the second thing they do is they look at, do you have the product that the customer’s searching for? VA home loan. The they’re gonna look at your Google and all those other places to see if you say you have VA home loan. Then they’re gonna go to your primary citation. Do you know how many people Do not have their products on their own website?

Brittany Hodak [00:25:43]:

A lot of people.

Scott Harris [00:25:44]:

Most of our customers if Google search if somebody searching for a VA home loan And they went to their primary website, their primary Amber Ernst page, whatever it is, or, you know, Giuseppe’s page, You would find that most of them do not have hours of operation, so Google doesn’t even know if they’re open, if they go to their own site. They do not have products and services that they offer, so Google’s not gonna give you that result because you don’t even have it on your website saying we offer it. It’s like If you are Best Buy and you don’t say you have cameras, they’re gonna send the camera shoppers somewhere else.

Brittany Hodak [00:26:20]:

Yeah. And the person looking it up is gonna be like, oh, well, alright. Let me Let me if they haven’t updated this, that tells me either, a, maybe they’re not still in business, or, b, they lack attention to detail. And as a prospective customer, what we’re really doing when we’re trying to make a decision is looking for reasons to say no, looking for things that Make us eliminate someone from our consideration with that. So somebody like me, I don’t think it’s, like, super judgy to say, like, Oh, well, this person is not likely to have a high level of attention to detail to my needs.

Scott Harris [00:26:55]:

Mhmm.

Brittany Hodak [00:26:55]:

They can’t even get their own stuff together. Right? That is the conclusion I jumped to very quickly in my mind, and I think a lot of other people do as well.

Scott Harris [00:27:02]:

Yep. I think so.

Brittany Hodak [00:27:03]:

We’re just looking for reasons to exclude people.

Scott Harris [00:27:07]:

So and then the last factor is are you any good at it? Mhmm. You see? So so think about the math. You gotta share your name, address, phone number, hours of operation to hundreds of websites in order to actually, get points. Let’s say they’re worth points to in the Google algorithm we got to look at it ones ones and zeros right yeses and no’s are you there is an exact match do you have do you have the same title do you have the products And then are you any good at it? So that’s I would say that’s the tie breaker. So now let’s say you have 400, and they’ve whittled it down to a 100 people in your area that Have the products and are close enough to their searcher. So how do you win? It’s gotta be Google has to know that you’re great at it. So it’s how many recent reviews, and are you responding to those reviews? Google actually reads the reviews. Google and all the search engines do.

Scott Harris [00:27:58]:

Read them, looking for keywords, looking for for products and services, and that’s that’s it. It’s it’s now Math that’s been turned into used to be like backlink farms and all all to to try to trick the The, the algorithm, but they released Panda. They released Hummingbird. They released Penguin. They released all these core updates, and all these updates Are getting closer and closer to what Britney Hodak did when she referred me to an insurance agent. Do I know somebody close? Do I know somebody that has a product? And do I know somebody that would deliver a great experience? And that’s what the math is doing. Doing that for 1 person? Really hard. Doing it for a 1,000? Impossible without a platform like like ours.

Brittany Hodak [00:28:45]:

Amazing. So let’s talk about the human side of it for a minute. We know that somebody is more likely to leave a review, when they’ve had an exceptional experience or a terrible experience. Right? Like, there are very few 3 star reviews in general across the Internet. Like, Not a lot of people are like that. Let me take time to tell you about this forgettable experience I had. Something that was totally adequate happened, and I wanna tell you about it.

Scott Harris [00:29:12]:

Right I don’t I don’t review myself when I brush my teeth every morning. Right? Exactly.

Brittany Hodak [00:29:16]:

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So It’s about the human drivers to create an exceptional experience, to exceed someone’s expectation, and then make it very easy and automatic for them to leave that review. You guys have the tech totally covered. Let’s talk about the human side of for a minute because I really do believe when it comes to experience management, a lot of it is about that balance of high-tech and high touch. So high-tech covered in spades. Let’s talk about the high touch. Let’s talk about the last time you, Scott Harris, had an experience that turned you into a super fan or made you say, Wow.

Brittany Hodak [00:29:53]:

I’ve got to tell someone about this. What’s the last thing that sort of stopped you in your tracks and made you think This is worth telling the world about.

Scott Harris [00:30:01]:

I really, really dig AI.

Brittany Hodak [00:30:04]:

K.

Scott Harris [00:30:05]:

And I use it. We use it everywhere. We have a the perfect responses to surveys, built into our automation so that people can suggest get suggestions from the AI. We have the AI PII redaction. We have AI analytics on their website. We love AI. And so many people are charging away from it saying, oh, it’s wrong and it’s doing this. It’s doing it.

Scott Harris [00:30:30]:

Yeah. If you’re running away from it, you’re running in the wrong direction. Right. The other day, I got an email from somebody trying to sell me something. And it had a video snippet, And it had me and my, my screenshots and a lot of and and the little snippet. And so I was like, alright. And it was like one line, hey, I know you’re busy. I created a video.

Scott Harris [00:30:56]:

I’d love to see if this is a good fit for us to partner together to help grow your organization. So I clicked on the video and that pops up a video and a guy’s talking to me and talking to my name and going through screenshots and going through my website and going through His website, and he’s just saying that and then then, Scott, we would do this and and and this and then he gets to the end, and he said, oh, by the way, This is a sales pitch for an AI video generation company. I didn’t I didn’t do this video. His mouth is moving. His faces on the screen. They’re my screenshots. And he said, I could we do we do a 1,000 of these a night, and a 1,000 of these create 25 Demos for us. And I know it must be true because I booked a demo because of this he didn’t shoot this video.

Scott Harris [00:31:48]:

Blew my mind that that and I know you said the human side of it, and I’ve totally botched that, but I love

Brittany Hodak [00:31:55]:

because a human Had the idea to create that and built that tool.

Scott Harris [00:32:00]:

I remember when you did it one time for me, and that’s what really blew me away, Is that you sent me a box, and I opened this box, and it had a book in it, and it had a a screen, Like an iPad. I know it was not an iPad. And when I opened it, it started playing a video from you. And I I and I thought to myself, That video can be done at scale now with AI. Because, I mean, I’ve never gotten in I’ve never had that experience Before. I’ve never had that experience after. You should tell that story. But but it was such a great experience.

Scott Harris [00:32:34]:

I got this box from you. I opened it. The screen started playing. There was a gift in it. And I just as when I saw that AI sales video, I thought they’ve found a way to automate that at scale. We’re gonna do that now. We wanna get out ahead of it. So for our company, because it allows me to share this awesome tech with a lot more people And allows me to sorta get in there, get in their offices, getting it in their living rooms in a way that’s highly personal.

Brittany Hodak [00:33:00]:

Yeah.

Scott Harris [00:33:01]:

And I think it’s the future. I really do. We’re we’re leaning into it hard and fast.

Brittany Hodak [00:33:05]:

I love that example, and I think you crushed it even though it’s not human in a way we would traditionally think about it. And I think a lot of people are evolving their thoughts. Another guest that I had on, the show this year is, my friend David, who is the CEO of a company called Handwritten, and he does handwritten notes at scale. And I think several years ago, people We’re quick to dismiss it as, like, you know, almost deceptive, right, when something looked appeared to be handwritten, but it’s not. But I am of the belief that if you use the technology correctly, as long as the that you’re still sending comes from a place of good intent and you’re not spamming people, then this is just the evolution of what has happened for years. Right? It’s like people made a big deal when, like, People stopped writing in cursive and wrote in print. Like, there were the people who were like, how dare you? And then when people started typing instead of writing in print, it was like, oh my gosh. And, like, Now people clutch their pearls that, like, somebody is using a robot to, you know, type a handwritten mailed note from your phone.

Brittany Hodak [00:34:06]:

But, like, The world changes, and the people who adapt most quickly are the ones who enable experience management at scale. How can people how can people get in touch with you, Scott?

Scott Harris [00:34:17]:

Look. We work for HR teams, for sales teams, for, we connect Marketing workflows, we’re literally, an ex a a system of voice, right, where if you’re Where if you’re, if you’re looking for CX, EX, or Reputation, we’re the place that companies go To build a use this super advanced AI based tech to, to manage experience across every group, every department, every customer journey, and you can stand it up very quickly. So I’d love to love to talk to customers if they’re looking at Stepping up their experience game, and, and you can just come to experience.com. You can click Create a demo, or you can just email me if you want to, scott@experience.com, and I’ll get you the right people.

Brittany Hodak [00:35:09]:

And I think A note that I wanna kinda end on is if you don’t have one definitive source of truth For everyone at your business to refer to about your experience management, are you really managing experiences at all? If every executive is looking somewhere else to glean and gather information, You’re Yeah. It’s putting out lots of little fires and not realizing that, you know, there’s, like, sparklers coming from the sky. So if you aren’t if you don’t have 1 holistic source of truth, location, dashboards that are shared across Your business, then you may be trying to win the wrong game.

Scott Harris [00:35:58]:

If you’re not using voice to power behavior. If you haven’t created your own blue dot internally, right, if you’re not driving behavior internally that powers the outcomes. Right? If you’re not changing the way your counter agent interacts with the customer through a seamless CX lever, the powers behavior, the powers, that that drives the outcomes, Then you’re you’re behind. If you’re not using voice of customer to then those indexes to pay your people, to drive behavior of your people, to To to if you’re not if you don’t have a CX component going into your payroll system, right, you’re already behind. If you’re not using voice of employee with automation every quarter, every week, every other week, Here’s a training. Here’s a I mean, everything you do should be connected to voice empowering behavior and driving and driving business outcomes. It’s not just collect data anymore. It’s not just collect data and stare at data anymore.

Scott Harris [00:37:08]:

You put data in motion to power your business. If you’re not doing that, you’re behind.

Brittany Hodak [00:37:14]:

Amen. Well, if you’re not putting data in motion to power your business, make sure You reach out to Scott. He’s gonna help you win not just today, but as the world and the rules continue to change. Scott, thank you so much For coming on the podcast.

Scott Harris [00:37:27]:

Thank you so much. Britney, it’s always great to connect with you.

Brittany Hodak [00:37:31]:

Alright. That’s all the time we have for today’s episode of the Creating Super Fans podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Now remember, if you’re a super fan of today’s episode, you can Help us out in a big way by leaving a review and a rating wherever you get your podcast. It may seem like a little thing, but it can make a huge difference in helping others discover the show. Now until next time, remember, super fandom is a two way street. Show your love for your customers and your employees, and they’ll love you right back. We’ve got an exciting show lined up for next week, so I hope we’ll see you right back here.

Brittany Hodak [00:38:06]:

Bye bye.

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