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Experts of Experience
#53 How Generac is Taking a Proactive Approach to Customer Experience
00:43:13
On this episode, Amanda Teder, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Generac, discusses the company's evolution from a generator manufacturer to a total energy solutions provider and she highlights the importance of customer experience and how Generac is adapting to changing consumer needs. Amanda and Lauren also dive into the role of AI in customer service, the significance of sustainable energy solutions, and the strategies for gathering customer insights.
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- [00:01]
Amanda Teter
Where does the marketing stop and the customer experience begin? Definitely in our business there's a huge overlap and we're kind of like one team, if you will.
- [00:13]
Lauren Wood
Getting everyone to play a role in customer service, I don't know, every six months or something, is just so helpful for creating a customer centric culture. It allows employees to really understand the customer, to actually see what the customer service team is dealing with day in and day out. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Experts of Experience. I'm your host, Lauren Wood. Today I am joined by Amanda Teter, the executive vice president at Generac. Amanda also has a deep experience in the marketing and customer experience space, having led marketing functions at Michelin and Procter and Gamble. So today we are going to dive into driving marketing and customer experience innovation across industries and specifically diving into what they're up to today at Generac. Amanda, how are you?
- [01:03]
Amanda Teter
I'm doing great. Yeah, how are you doing?
- [01:05]
Lauren Wood
Very well. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
- [01:08]
Amanda Teter
Thanks for having me.
- [01:09]
Lauren Wood
Yeah. So just to give everyone a quick overview, tell us a little bit about what Generac does.
- [01:15]
Amanda Teter
For sure. Yep. So Generac is a company that's been around for about 65 years and has reinvented itself quite a few times, but really started as a, as a generator and manufacturer and now we've evolved to being a total energy solutions company and we're really focused on how do we help, like almost like free people to use energy on their own terms and that, you know, that goes all the way from like consumers and residential kind of situations to more industrial sort of contexts as. As well. So really excited about evolving from single product solutions to helping consumers, both on the residential and the industrial side, manage the energy within their, whether it's their home or the factory or a place of work, and really be able to sort of control how they're using energy and how they're consuming energy in that environment by bringing multiple hardware together, connected by software.
- [02:23]
Lauren Wood
Amazing. So it's kind of funny because I never thought I would be on the market for a backup generator, but I live in California and the power is not always consistent. Just the other day I had a big power outage because it was really hot. So they turned off the power in case of fires, which is happening more and more. And so it's something that I can imagine for you at Generac. You're facing very like rapidly changing customer needs and new customers coming on the market. And I'm curious to know, how are you approaching that? What are some of the trends that you're seeing in the energy space.
- [02:59]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, I'd say within the space, you know, coming out of COVID there was definitely a trend on the consumer side of, like, the home is a sanctuary. Right. And obviously we're way past Covid now, but that idea or the concept of your home being a sanctuary seems to have had some staying power, you know, within the culture. And people want to feel that they're comfortable and safe and secure in their home. So that's definitely been one of the dynamics we've seen. The other piece, too, is that there's just more power outages than there have been in the past. More frequency of outage, longer out. You know, there's a lot of different dimensions on which that sort of can be measured, and they have different impacts on people. Right. And so that's another dynamic. And then also people have. People want to have cleaner solutions. Right. And that's a kind of a third trend as well. And we're seeing that play out, like, in our business, and we're doing things to help support people in that. And then there's also, you know, people want to save money. Right. On their. On their energy. And the costs of energy are certainly going up. Right. So I'd say those are the sort of dynamics that we want to help people address.
- [04:10]
Lauren Wood
And I can imagine a lot of your products, specifically, like the backup generator is really something that people are using in cases of emergency or unexpected. They have an unexpected power outage that they need to use your product for. And how do you ensure that your customer experience is really able to support them through these moments of, at times, stress.
- [04:37]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, no, it's a great question. Almost every power outage is unexpected, right?
- [04:42]
Lauren Wood
Because. Exactly.
- [04:43]
Amanda Teter
And so I think there's a lot of different pieces there. I mean, sometimes there's clues that it. That it might take place because there's impending weather or maybe the local, you know, authorities issue some kind of warning. Right. Or things like that sort of take place. And so we're able to help customers through that. By. And there's. And that's seasonal. You know, there's definitely seasons of the year and different markets where things happen play out differently based on weather patterns and things. So we focus on, first of all, like, helping people with preparedness and providing a lot of content and information about how they can become better prepared ahead of those seasons and whatever, you know, whatever it may be in their region. So that's one piece. And then we. A lot of our products, you know, are online, so to speak. And so we're Able if there is an impending storm or something's coming that might cause a power outage, we're able to notify our customers, hey, like your product isn't online, like there's things you need. Here are the steps you should take so that they can avoid like a situation that isn't ideal. Right. And then when it gets into, when, you know, when outages do happen, the amount of engagement that we have with our customers increases exponentially. Right. Because people have the. Either they have questions or they have a problem or, you know, and we really want to make sure that we're there to support them through that and to help them solve that. And so it's a pretty volatile sort of business from a consumer experience standpoint. And so we have had for many years, like the capability to scale and expand as those moments take place. And I think the learning for us has been those moments are more frequent and there are more oftentimes like more consumers involved, um, and consumers expectations, like even over a short period of time, like evolve in terms of what they're looking for and what they consider success in terms of their customer experience. So we have, you know, a team of like a call center where we have people available 24 7, 365. And a lot of that we still do with, you know, human to human interaction because a lot of our customer base, like that's how they want to interact with us versus a chat or something that may be more AI or automated. And we're building in those capabilities, but also recognize that making that human connection is important.
- [07:15]
Lauren Wood
So there's a bunch of things I want to double click on there. The first is the proactivity. So getting ahead of the tickets, getting ahead of the inquiries that are coming from your clients and being able to see, okay, there's something coming, there's something happening, we're likely going to have a spike.
- [07:31]
Amanda Teter
Yeah.
- [07:32]
Lauren Wood
How do we get ahead of it? What are some of the indicators that you look at to take those proactive actions and to reach out to your, your clients to say you're not online, make sure you are, and help them avoid a disaster where they're not actually able to use their product?
- [07:46]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, I mean, I'd say the main one is we have a meteorologist. Yeah. Who works with us. And because there's a lot of different weather reports out there. Right. And so you can know, pick that up through the news. But when you have a company that needs to react to those kinds of impending conditions, it's helpful to have like one like single Source of truth. And so the meteorologist that we work with is kind of the person that we rely on for that. And so anytime there's any potential for outages, we get, like, direct communication there. And then that's kind of what we use as our. As our sort of marching orders to start to initiate conversations with customers and to start to think about how we'll potentially scale up our operations.
- [08:35]
Lauren Wood
And then when things do happen, how do you scale up on a dime, if there's a big power outage or a hurricane or something, and a lot of people are reaching out to you, how do you manage your team to be able to support all those customers and that increased volume very quickly?
- [08:54]
Amanda Teter
There's a lot of different pieces of that. You know, one of them is we work with external call centers that can. That are prepared to help us kind of scale up. And so that's a piece of it. We have traditionally used some employees as well, who have completely different jobs, who step into the customer experience space during those types of moments. We also have teams that will often dispatch to go to the impacted areas to provide, you know, whatever kind of support might be needed in those areas. Because it's typically not widespread. Right. It's a state or a couple of states or a region. The other thing is as well is that as we sort of engage, we have sort of an extension of our business, which is our dealers and installers who install our products for consumers. And so during those times, you know, we really ramp up our communication, our coordination with them as well, so that we can serve customers who are in need. And the interesting thing that happens is customers who need our support because there's an outage or something that is increasing. But at the same time, during those moments, that's when we also have the greatest demand, like new demand for our products as well. Whereas people are like, oh, I wish I had one. And so part of it is balancing, like making sure we're a hundred percent focused on those existing customers who need support, but also our balancing, like there's new customers who have decided, based on whatever is going on, that they. They want to have our products, you know, for the next time around, so to speak, when, you know, when there may be another outage.
- [10:36]
Lauren Wood
I mean, that's really where the marketing and the customer experience come together. Right, exactly. In really showing the value to consumers who are considering buying your product while also supporting the ones who already have. Yeah, you said something that's interesting in how you will pull team members in from other teams who are not Necessarily on the customer service team. And it's something I've done in the past as well. And I think there's two things that are interesting about this. One, because in my opinion, getting everyone to play a role in customer service, you know, every six months or something, is just so helpful for creating a customer centric culture.
- [11:14]
Amanda Teter
Yeah.
- [11:14]
Lauren Wood
It allows employees to really understand the customer, to actually see what the customer service team is dealing with day in and day out. And that's great. I think it's an awesome practice. But it also has this added benefit of when volume increases, you have more people who at least know the basics, who can help you with some of those easier tickets, who can jump in and just help you move the volume. And I found it to be kind of an added benefit of that practice of getting everyone into the customer service seat at some point so that you can also pull them in when the business really needs it.
- [11:47]
Amanda Teter
That's right. Yeah, we, we say that everybody's kind of part of the customer experience team because a lot of our products are, are. Have a long sort of sales cycle. Right. Where you might be in the consideration phase for a long time. So we actually think of that as it's kind of marketing, but it's also customer experience too, because. Right. You're not a customer yet, but you might be considering becoming a customer for a pretty long time. And so there is an experience that goes along with that as well. If it takes, you know, a month or, you know, or three years.
- [12:21]
Lauren Wood
Right.
- [12:21]
Amanda Teter
We, we want to be there while, while you're kind of going through that process. And so it's an interesting, like, overlap between marketing and customer experience. And like, that conversation on, like, where does the marketing stop and the customer experience begin? Right. And I'm not sure there's.
- [12:38]
Lauren Wood
There's a lot of overlap there. Yeah, I mean, I, in my opinion, just to answer that question.
- [12:44]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, tell me.
- [12:45]
Lauren Wood
I actually don't. I don't think it ever does. I think that they are one in this. Like, customer experience is every touch point a customer is having. And the experience that a customer has once they've purchased is the best marketing if it's done right.
- [13:02]
Amanda Teter
Totally.
- [13:03]
Lauren Wood
If someone is going to go and tell their friends, that's the ultimate marketing because it's coming from a trusted source, it's coming from their friend telling them, you need to buy this product. And so I feel like they're more layers than they are. They stop and then the other picks it up. And I think a lot of businesses actually see it more as, okay, marketing acquired new customers, and now customer experience deals with them. And I think that that in itself is a flawed view because they really go hand in hand. And if we look at them as such, we can actually reap the benefits of what both of these teams are experts in to create an ecosystem that customers can really thrive in.
- [13:43]
Amanda Teter
I totally agree. And I think when you have a business that has a long sales cycle, it just almost becomes obvious, right? But. But I think in some of those businesses where the sales cycle is shorter, it may not be as you like. You might be able to sort of distinguish the two more. But I think definitely in our business, like, there's a huge overlap. And. And they're, you know, both of those. We're kind of like one team, if you will. And. And there is a lot of back and forth. And I think it's not a straight line. Right. Or a funnel or anything like that. People, like, kind of come in and come out and start over. You know what I mean? Sort of in that consideration process, 100%.
- [14:23]
Lauren Wood
So the big topic of AI is coming to mind as we're talking about these spikes in service. And I know you were just at Dreamforce, I was at Dreamforce. Obviously, everyone's talking about AI, but we just spent three days, like, really talking about. Really talking, really talking about AI. Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, just in case you don't understand the reference, but I'd love to understand. How are you thinking about AI and where is it important for humans to be involved? Because when I think about what you are doing, and a lot of these cases where people are perhaps even in distress because they are dealing with a natural disaster, how do you parse between when. When AI is useful, when is it not? How are you thinking about it?
- [15:07]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, we're starting to play with that and starting to distinguish between, like, the low risk, low touch types of use cases and calls where we can help someone maybe more efficiently and more effectively using AI. And those are, like, pretty consistent, like, every day, you know, kind of things. But then as you start to think about those moments where there's a storm or there is an impending outage and there's more emotion, there's a lot more emotion actually involved in those moments and in those types of calls, and that's where we're really using. We're really continuing to use people. And I'd say the other thing to consider as well is like, who is your customer base?
- [15:51]
Lauren Wood
Right.
- [15:51]
Amanda Teter
And who are the people who have your product or are using your product? Our customer base tends to be a little bit older than average. And so a lot of them, they want to talk to a human, you know what I mean? That is, that builds confidence for them and they feel like that's part of the promise that we've made to them. And so we have to find that right balance and figuring out when are the risks, when are the emotions and the risk low, and then when do we really need to be there for them live.
- [16:24]
Lauren Wood
Yeah, you bring up such a great point. Because really, when we think about our customers, people want to be serviced differently.
- [16:31]
Amanda Teter
Yeah.
- [16:32]
Lauren Wood
Like I am a millennial. If I can just use a chat. Like I love how some brands are using literally my messages app in my iPhone. I can just chat with a representative and pick up a conversation where it was left off. I love that my mother, there's no way in hell she wants to do that.
- [16:51]
Amanda Teter
That's right.
- [16:51]
Lauren Wood
You know, and, and so it's, it's really different depending on the demographic and the preferences. And obviously age is pro. The best way for us to make those distinctions. But also it comes down to the person too. And it's, it's tricky when we start getting into complex customer experience systems and thinking about when is AI useful versus when is AI not. I do think it's something we really need to think about is how do we, how can we see what our customers preference is based on these factors, age being one of them, and really deliver to them in the way that they want to be delivered to.
- [17:27]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, definitely. And I think we don't always know how old our customers are, but we do know that our customer is older than the average customer. Right. And so totally, because they usually, a lot of times they, you know, they own a home. It's a lot of times it's a home they're going to stay in for a while, you know, before they invest in our product. And so, and so, yeah, we found that with those customers, like, providing that sort of human interaction is helpful. But on our end, we can use more AI to help inform our teams and help keep our teams moving forward and in our community and in our communications, you know, where we're communicating with consumers and we're crafting customized messages that go in emails and things to help consumers become more aware of what's happening in their region, to help them prepare. Those are all areas where we can use Genai to help speed up the process on our end, help us to provide more customized communications where different thing, you know, different messages may be needed or relevant in different Markets.
- [18:30]
Lauren Wood
Yeah, it's. It's really, it's really interesting and the possibilities are just even more than we can even imagine. Like this past week I was like, whoa, okay, I, I talk about AI a lot. I've been speaking to many leaders about AI for a long time now, but I feel like the threshold, I don't know, we're just turning this whole new corner again. Like this past year there's been so much happening, but now it's like there's a whole other swath of things that we can be doing with AI in terms of. Actually, one of the things I was really impressed with was internal team communication. How we can be collaborating and swarming with other team members to solve a problem more efficiently and then have AI actually record what happened so we can keep it on that customer record and make sure that we know what happened without anyone having to do the work. Really impressive.
- [19:21]
Amanda Teter
And it's interesting too to think about too, even within the workplace. I listened to a talk from a woman who does human centered AI and is really focused on like, as you look within the workplace and try to adopt AI within work processes, how does that work across different people at different levels and with different experiences within the workplace? And that's another kind of interesting vector as well. It's like, how comfortable are you with it individually and then how does that translate into how you use it at work and how comfortable you are using it at work? So another interesting kind of dynamic.
- [19:57]
Lauren Wood
Completely. I mean, I think that it's something that we need to really think about the humans that AI is helping and how can we look at it as like a bionic arm instead of like a total replacement? I mean, I think it's like, obviously there will be some jobs that are impacted by AI and like that is inevitable, just like any technological advancement that has happened in human history. But when we think about how we're bringing AI into our workplace, I really like to use the analogy of like a bionic arm or a team of interns who are like helping you to just like move things along in a much more efficient way. That's really tailored to you, I think.
- [20:35]
Amanda Teter
Yeah. And I think it'll create some jobs too and it'll like other sort of technologies. I think it also will just raise the bar on people's expectations around how much are you communicating the frequency. Right. And that will probably continue to go to go up as the barriers to communication get lower.
- [20:54]
Lauren Wood
An AI agent your customers actually enjoy talking to. Salesforce has you covered. Meet AgentForce Service Agent the AI agent that can resolve cases in conversational language anytime on any channel. To learn more, visit salesforce.com agentforce so I wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk about just the in, in your product, in your suite of products, you're addressing a lot of sustainable energy solutions. And I'm curious to know from a company standpoint, what are your ESG goals? And then I'd love to know how your marketing and customer experience strategy is really like playing into that.
- [21:38]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, yeah. So as we think about our company, like from an ESG perspective, environment, social, governance, we're trying to make progress in all three of those areas. And we've done a lot of work with our brand strategy overall to sort of synchronize with that. We make products that play in a lot of different segments and they have different impacts from a energy and an environment perspective. And so we really try to think of ourselves as total energy solutions company, which sort of broadens things a bit to where, you know, we play in some traditional fossil fuel based kind of products and solutions, but then we also sell, you know, battery storage and really like cleaner energy solutions. And, and there's a lot of different consumer needs out there. Right. And, and we don't want to sort of be so narrowly focused that we can only, you know, kind of compete in one space. We really want to be the solution provider for, you know, whole home energy solutions or whole solutions for your business. And so that involves like a range of products. And we want to be able to help consumers select the products or solutions that are right for them based on the problem that they're trying to solve. And there's usually more than one way to solve the problem functionally. Right. And then what other benefits does the consumer want along with that?
- [23:13]
Lauren Wood
Completely. I mean, I'm, I'm thinking about, you know, in some parts of the country having a. Solar, solar panels and a battery pack and then your backup generator would make a lot of sense. Where I live in California, it makes a ton of sense. Where I'm from in the Pacific Northwest, not as much. It's pretty cloudy. Right. You know, it might not, it might not kick in. Your, your generator might not kick in when you really need it because it hasn't been sunny in three months.
- [23:41]
Amanda Teter
I know, too bad, right? But ye. That. No, totally. I think those regional differences make a difference and then people just have, everybody's different. Like people have different needs, different things that they want. And I think some people are just, they want a backup solution and that's it. Other people are wanting to save money, you know, they're wanting just to have more control over their energy consumption. Right. You know, like we see some people who want to go off the grid, so to speak, but that's really, that's a very small group. I mean it's really people who want to have more like just the freedom to know that when they need power or electricity that it's going to be there for them versus you know, having to, to worry a little bit. We're, we're almost selling like peace of mind.
- [24:27]
Lauren Wood
I fully understand that. How do you go about gathering customer insights and feedback? Tell us a little bit about your approach.
- [24:35]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, it really depends on the situation. But we're constantly listen, you know, listening for those customer insights and things. I mean we have very sort of well developed CSA and NPS type scores that we're collecting and monitoring closely and then taking those kind of the next level to understand what are the drivers and then, you know, of those scores of changes and then, and once we understand that, then connecting back with the relevant teams within the company to figure out, you know, how do we start to address those on a short term or a long term basis. And there can be a lot of different ways to bring that to life. And then, so, and that, that a lot of that connects back to our products like when you're already using them and they're in your, and you're in your home or you're in your, your workplace. And then when it comes to that sort of earlier stage of the consumer experience, otherwise known as marketing, in that case we have, we have a funnel, you know, that, that's sort of real or, or not. Right. That sort of starts to think through like how to cons, where is a consumer in that space? And then how do we make sure that we're making improvements each and every day and helping people kind of progress through that. And so it's not each individual person, it's not a linear process, but it's more about like how do we do a better job of getting consumers from like point A to point B and really helping them solve their problems and being more in tune with like what they want and what they need. And so that's data that we're looking at every day as well to understand where can we make adjustments or where can we test along the way to improve how their, their experience with us and ultimately helping them meet their goals.
- [26:22]
Lauren Wood
Mm. Do you have any internal workflows or practices that your team follows to really make sure that you're looking at those points of friction and reducing that friction for your customers.
- [26:34]
Amanda Teter
There's many people who play a role, like, throughout that kind of, like, called the consumer journey. Right. And so it's really about making sure that each team member is really focused on their place in the journey and continuing to focus on optimizing in that space, but then stepping back and looking at the big picture, right. To say, okay, where can we optimize? Where can we continue to improve? And so we've done a lot of journey mapping and building to start to identify areas where we can optimize, where we can make improvements. And then we look at the data to see, like, has that helped or has it hurt? Right. And then continue to evolve and kind of improve from there. And I think it's been a really interesting journey of working on helping get consumers from point A to point B more quickly, so the speed on our end, but then also helping them understand what's happening in the journey, like, much more effectively as well. I think we haven't always done a good job of that, but we're really starting to try to build in communications that really help them understand where they are in their journey. Especially when you have such a long sales cycle type of product, and where they are in the journey can be maybe a little gray sometimes.
- [28:00]
Lauren Wood
Can you give us an example of that of, like, something that you've done to help a customer at a certain point of a journey of the journey?
- [28:06]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think one of the ways we've been doing is really through email where we can continue to stay engaged with those customers. I think in the past, you know, when a customer would interact with us, we'd say, okay, you know, yes, this just happened. Right. But now we're starting to pepper in more ways of engaging them with content, with what's specifically happening in their region that could be relevant to them to help them understand, like, on a much more local level, how, like, what their relationship with us and our products looks like. And so that's been important. And then we've also started to integrate some of our products. So we have the. The ecobee Smart thermostat. And so now if you have a generator, you can see the status of your generator on the ecobee Smart thermostat. And we're starting to really build that ecosystem of products that communicate with one another so that, you know, you always kind of know, like, where you stand with our product, particularly for those consumers who already have it installed. So that's been another evolution that we've made that I think people are excited about.
- [29:18]
Lauren Wood
That's great. You serve customers across very diverse markets, both on the consumer side, as we had mentioned, people have different needs and things that they're solving for. And then also there's the commercial side of things. And I'm curious to know how you balance and kind of work on changing your messaging and your approach depending on the customer type that you're serving.
- [29:42]
Amanda Teter
Yeah. So having our strategy in place is really helpful because. And we deliberately crafted a strategy that's fairly broad, but it is all about giving people, whether they're in a residential or industrial context, of freedom. Right. Of having the power that they need and that they want. And so we really don't launch products or provide services that don't fit under that umbrella. Right. So having that strategic framework helps keep us focused in that space. And then. And so then as we sort of customize and optimize specific communications around products, they all kind of like, fall under that umbrella. But what we found is that, you know, for. For any given product, the region that you live in, your financial situation, like all of those dynamics can wildly impact what might be the main reason that you're, you know, that you're looking for the product or kind of like the way in or the trigger point, right. For why you might make a purchase. And so what we've done is a lot of experimentation through media, through emails to help us to sort of optimize that, but. But not optimize it in like a one size fits all kind of way. Like, figure out, okay, how do we start to develop different segments from a customer standpoint and then optimize the messages for them based on where they are, but then also like, based on what's motivating them as well? Because we found there's people who, they just had their first child. Right. And so for them, like, energy security, if you will, is like really important. Right. Or maybe someone is like newly ill and so that kind of dynamic comes into play. Or maybe there's been just a series of outages in their area that's just gotten annoying. Right. They just don't want to deal with it anymore. So all those types of things are really kind of different ways in. And so it's up to us to figure out, like, who are, who are those kind of types of consumers and things that we can sort of adjust those message board to make it most relevant for them.
- [31:53]
Lauren Wood
And how do you go about finding that information to know this is where they're at personally, so that we can really deliver to those needs.
- [32:02]
Amanda Teter
Yeah. And it really depends on, again, where they are, like, in that journey. But if you start to think about the beginning of the journey, that's where kind of. It kind of matters the most, because then you can sort of tailor your message and just pull it through. Right. And so a lot of that we can do through testing and in media, thinking about, like, social media channels and even through emails of consumers that are already in our database who maybe, you know, considered the product in the past but didn't make a purchase. We can start to understand what are the types of messages that they resonate with. And then we can create lookalike models to say, okay, people who look like, you know, like this, have green eyes and, you know, I don't know, purple hair, they tend to find a certain message most relevant. And then we can start to target that set of consumers and provide them with a message along those lines. And then we'll usually see, you know, better engagement rates among consumers with that particular message than a more general message or maybe another message that we would use. So it's really. We've done that really through, like, testing and then building out those audiences over time.
- [33:10]
Lauren Wood
Yeah. Are there any tools that you use that you love that really help you to do all of this?
- [33:16]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, I mean, we do have an internal tool called Power Play where we've really built the capability to match our consumers with dealers in a local market. And that is something that helps us a lot because we have almost 9,000 dealers, we have some markets with many dealers, and we want to make sure that consumers are always getting the best experience. Right. And that's a point in our experience, if you will, where we. We sort of hand the consumer off for a little bit to a dealer or installer. And so figuring out how to connect that consumer with the right dealer, that they're going to have an optimal experience based on where they live and sort of who they are. And we, you know, we've developed algorithms to. To be able to do that most effectively. And I'd say that's one of the pieces that is maybe most unique about us, and that helps us to continue to give that consumer a great experience even when they're not directly dealing with us. Right. They're working with our dealer installer, who is independent.
- [34:20]
Lauren Wood
Yeah. Which is really tricky to keep the quality, to keep the message the same. How do you approach that dealer relationship so that you're really having a consistent experience across every stage?
- [34:35]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, we have. So we have like 9,000 wonderful dealers, so that helps. But what we've done is we've really tried to create content and approaches that dealers can adopt and can use in their local market. And so, you know, we make those sort of available on a national level and then dealers can take our content and customize it for their business, you know, their business pages on Google or whatever. We provide them with content for their social media accounts so that they can customize to show up, you know, more consistently with, with the brand, but also such that they don't have to do all that, you know, kind of on their own, take some of that work off their, off their plate. We're working on developing testing capability where we execute local digital media on their behalf. So that's something that we're, that we're testing now. And then we also do a ton of training of dealers that's, that's like we have a whole group that kind of focuses on doing that and bringing the training to life to help them understand not only our products, but how, you know, the service side of it and then, you know, how we want to treat customers. And I think that piece enables them to, to be an extension. Right. Of our business, while at the same time they add a ton of value and there's no way we could be successful without them. Right. So it's a little, it's a, it's a mutual relationship.
- [36:07]
Lauren Wood
Amazing. Do you have any types of processes or practices to gather insights from dealers? I mean, I'm assuming that since they are, yes, working with customers in a, like, at that very critical point in the journey, how do you bring it all back home to make sure that you're, you're getting those insights and so you can apply them.
- [36:30]
Amanda Teter
That's a great question. Yeah, we do a lot of surveys with our dealers to get insights from them, understand how they're feeling about the consumer, understand what they're seeing from the consumer. And then we also do qualitative research, honestly, like having conversations with them where you can really dive in deeper and pick up on the nuance, nuances of things that a quantitative survey might not necessarily always allow you to do can be really, really insightful. And so, and as we're developing plans, you know, we have a dealer council and we run like almost everything we do by that dealer council, which is a group that sort of represents, you know, represents those dealers. And so that also helps us to get a feel for, you know, what are issues or things we shouldn't be addressing. But then also, if we have plans to do something like how might they perceive that as.
- [37:23]
Lauren Wood
Well, I can imagine that's really valuable to have those dealers who are gathered and can expect to receive questions from you and to kind of get a preview of what's to come. I know I've done things like that in the past, and I've always just found that core customer group. I mean, dealers, in many ways, are your customer, I would assume.
- [37:46]
Amanda Teter
Totally. Yeah.
- [37:48]
Lauren Wood
Having them there, building a really strong relationship with them, can do so much in terms of informing you of if you're on the right track with something or not, and just getting that critical feedback at, you know, before you launch something, before you bring it out into the world.
- [38:03]
Amanda Teter
One of my favorite weeks of the year is our dealer conference, where we.
- [38:07]
Lauren Wood
Oh, amazing.
- [38:08]
Amanda Teter
Yeah. We have thousands of them actually come together, and we do a lot of training, and we talk about plans for the year ahead, and we share new products, but then we also get a lot of feedback on how we can do better, because at the end of the day, like, we can't be successful without them. You know, we need them. And so it's. It's great to have an opportunity to learn from them and to figure out how we can continue to support them. And we're also working on figuring out, like, how do we segment them so that we can help them to grow their business more effectively, like, meeting them where they are, because there's a lot of variety in that dealer base in terms of their customer experience capability and their customer experience expertise. Right. And so how can we learn from them, but then also help them to kind of meet their goals as well and do that in a way that is relevant, kind of where they are on their journey.
- [39:06]
Lauren Wood
Yeah, that's wonderful. So I have two last questions for you that we ask all of our guests. The first is I'd love to hear about a recent experience you had with a brand or a company that left you impressed.
- [39:19]
Amanda Teter
Well, you know, I was just at the Salesforce Dream Force this past week, and with my first time attending, and it really did leave me impressed. I mean, I felt like it was an awesome customer experience for me, as a customer, for me, totally. I really learned a lot about their products and their technologies, and that was my reason for going. And so I feel like that was really exciting. And there were so many ways that I could do that learning, you know, depending upon my personal needs and what type of learner I am. And I found that there were some roundtable discussions, you know, which no one recommended to me, but I found those to be just really insightful, like, just sitting, speaking with other users, just hearing their, you know, their dialogue and their stories, which was amazing. I think they do an awesome job of marketing as well. Like, really being awesome omnipresence, making sure that their brand is front and center. And this was another example of that. So I was impressed completely.
- [40:24]
Lauren Wood
I was super impressed. It was my first time attending as well.
- [40:27]
Amanda Teter
Okay.
- [40:27]
Lauren Wood
Yeah, I agree with you. I loved the different ways that you could engage. There was so much. I mean, there were so many things happening all at once. Like, my one piece of feedback was that there were some things where I had, like, three things that I really wanted to go to at the same time, and it was really difficult to do it all. But I loved the round table as well. I participated in some of their. Yeah, I participate in some of those as well. And I thought it was so cool to be able to connect with other, like, Salesforce customers. I'm not currently a Salesforce customer, but I have been in multiple different roles in the past. And so it was really fun and interesting to hear how are different people using this? And I also thought it was just so interesting at how. I mean, the technology that they are rolling out right now is very advanced, and allowing people to actually get into the tool and learn it by doing in that setting was actually really interesting. So. And it was fun. Like, the food was great. Yeah. Everything was, like, seamless. So, yeah, great job, Salesforce.
- [41:32]
Amanda Teter
We loved it. A plus.
- [41:34]
Lauren Wood
A plus. And then my last question for you is, what is one piece of advice that every customer experience leader should hear?
- [41:41]
Amanda Teter
Yeah, I think listen. I mean, I think listening is really important. Listening to your customers and finding more ways to listen to them, like, proactively trying to do that. You know, in our case, we have a lot of different types of customers.
- [41:59]
Lauren Wood
Right.
- [41:59]
Amanda Teter
Like you mentioned, the dealers, the consumers. Like, how can you really sort of walk a mile in their shoes, if you will, and find ways to find new ways to listen? I think that's one of the key pieces. And then really, as a leader, like, listening to your team and the ideas that the team has and supporting, like, the experimentation that helps them to uncover new insights and new ways of working. Right. And so I think it's simple, but I think that's maybe one of the most important pieces.
- [42:30]
Lauren Wood
I could not agree with you more. And especially the listening not only to your customers, but also your team and thinking about how can we continuously improve the way that we are listening, the channels that we are using, the questions that we're asking. There's always tweaks that we can make. And I think just making that a part of your company culture as well is so incredibly important so that everyone has their ears out for how can we improve the customer's experience and what information is at our fingertips to allow us to do that more effectively?
- [43:07]
Amanda Teter
I agree.
- [43:10]
Lauren Wood
Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Amanda, for joining us on the show today. It's been wonderful to have you, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
- [43:19]
Amanda Teter
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.