← James Reed: all about business
James Reed: all about business
8. The 10 second customer journey: stop friction and increase growth
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- [00:00]
James Reed
Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business management and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrapped companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. When it comes to marketing your business online, having a seamless customer experience is an essential part of the process. But with so much competition and so many moving parts, how can you build a system that creates loyalty and drives growth? Joining me today on All About Business is Todd Unger from Chicago, Illinois. Todd is the Chief Experience Officer at the American Medical association and has worked in marketing and customer experience for over 30 years. In 2024, Todd published the 10 Second Customer Journey, where he revealed how business owners and marketers can attract and retain customers in the fast paced digital landscape. So today I'm really delighted to welcome Todd Unger to All About Business. And I should begin, I think, with a disclaimer. Todd and I have known each other for many years and we were actually business students together once. So I'm very keen to hear what Todd has to say today to us about the incredibly important subject of customer experience. Because Todd has had a career in marketing and customer experience that is second to none, I can't think of a better person Todd to talk to than you about this subject. And Todd has also written a book that I can recommend to you called the 10 second customer journey, which is excellent and I think many of the points that you make on our podcast and in our discussion today, Todd, will be contained in the book. But I recommend that to anyone listening who wants to find out more. So, Todd, could we begin with you explaining a little bit about where customer experience as a business idea comes from and what a cxo, which is what you are actually is.
- [02:27]
Todd Unger
And that's a great question, James, and it's one that I dealt with immediately upon arrival because that word customer experience or that phrase means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. If you were to mention that, ask people like off the top of your head what it means to them, they're likely to talk about a live or a retail experience where there's a lot of human interaction and maybe potential for kind of service failures. They might mention big brands like retail department store McDonald's or something like that, but that term customer experience was actually invented by a person, Lou carbone, in the 1990s. And since then, obviously, the things changed with the advent of the Internet and retail moving so much online that the concept of customer experience really has to evolve. I'd say like you can't smell a hamburger on a website. So how are you going to impart customer experience to people who have moved to a more digital experience? And so that was a big challenge for me. When I started as Chief Experience Officer, I had to define that term, customer experience for myself. That was not just about kind of feelings and perceptions of kind of service interactions, but really was about bringing together marketing and product and commerce and service in a really fluid way to help grow and keep your customers.
- [03:59]
James Reed
So, Todd, this is Chief Experience Officer. The title's called cxo. You say in your book that you didn't actually, you know, you took a job as cxo, but you didn't fully know what that was. What did you do? How did you set about this? Because you were literally pioneering this role at the time when you took the job.
- [04:18]
Todd Unger
I was tasked with building membership for the American Medical Association. It's really about growth. And so as I worked my way through that, what really became apparent was how much the prior roles that I had before I arrived here added up to what turned out to be kind of a title, by accident, of cxo. But, you know, as you said before, I had a pretty extensive background in marketing and advertising. And then I moved into the digital world kind of at the beginning of that and worked in a number of different kind of digital operations and media operations, then in the E commerce and then here, where I also manage a customer service operation. And to me, that forms, you know, the X in cxo, marketing, product, commerce and service. And it sits between the customer on one side and the organization. And so that's how I kind of came up with that term, putting the X in cxo. That's what it's all about.
- [05:14]
James Reed
So that's so interesting. So you're working at the American Medical association, and I should say to our listeners that you're based in Chicago and the American Medical association is a huge organization, is it not? I mean, how many members do you have and what were you tasked to achieve when you started there?
- [05:32]
Todd Unger
So we are the largest physician organization or association in the United States, representing physicians, residents and medical students. And they need a lot of representation because I'm sure, just like, you know, in the uk, lots of challenges in health care everywhere. And so my role really is to grow and retain our membership. And really an important part of that was the transition from, you know, how we thought about engagement and what the model was going to be where, you know, there's a small percentage of people that are, you know, are coming to our annual and interim meetings and having kind of live interactions with the organization. But what I realized pretty quickly was that the engagement and the relationship that people were going to have with this organization was going to be largely digital. And that required a really different outlook, a very different digital platform than we'd ever created to kind of reach the audience that we needed and then to convince them essentially that this is the right place to represent them and how important membership would be with us.
- [06:40]
James Reed
So you, you mentioned a minute ago you put the X into cxo and, and there were, there were, you know, next has four points. Could you take us through those four points? Because you, you, you summarize them. But I'd like to understand a bit more about what you mean under each of those headings.
- [06:56]
Todd Unger
Yeah, and I think it's a really important point because again, when people think about customer experience, they tend to think about the end, when somebody's got a problem and they're trying to get it fixed. And whether or not that that went well, that's service. That element is one thing. And really, the important point of my book is if you're waiting till the end to provide customer experience, well, then you really already missed it because there are so many other steps that sit before that point that are going to get your customer, you know, in that 10 seconds. It starts with marketing. And so really understanding who your target audience is, building a really compelling brand proposition and then translating that into the myriad options of storytelling that you have available to you today in the digital marketplace, that's a very tough thing. And if you think about your own behavior, anybody you know, how long do you spend when you're going through your social feeds or looking at Facebook or whatever before you decide to learn more or buy now or whatever that is? Any point of friction along the way is going to be a huge issue and kind of cause people to abandon. The research says that 70% of people abandon their shopping cart. That's a lot of wasted energy. So it starts with marketing that gets translated into your product idea. There are a lot of steps to make sure you have a strong product idea before you actually build one. And that rests upon a clear understanding of who the audience is. Then comes commerce. And so the key today, with so many people either buying digitally or researching digitally and going to pick up in the store, there's got to Be a frictionless experience there before people decide to abandon. And again, so much effort needs to go into making that process smooth and effortless for the customer before you even get to the service part. And I think service is. It's not just the thing that happens at the end. We think of service as integrated throughout the journey so that you're answering questions and issues that people have along the way, so you don't really need to deal with them at the end. And if there is a problem, you do need to be prepared for that. And it's not just human interactions anymore. It's technology driven by AI that helps you detect those service problems.
- [09:29]
James Reed
Yeah, well, we'll come on to that because I think that's so interesting what's happening with AI and how that might change things. And you use the word friction and frictionless, those words. I mean, that's a key thought of yours. Is there friction?
- [09:42]
Todd Unger
It is. It absolutely is.
- [09:44]
James Reed
And it comes in all different ways. Does that. What should we be trying to do when we encounter friction as business people?
- [09:57]
Todd Unger
Well, I joke that there is an actual theme song for customer experience written by Ariana Grande in seven rings. I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it. And that's the job of business and a chief experience officer.
- [10:12]
James Reed
Can you sing that? I think that's very good. Say it again. I like that.
- [10:18]
Todd Unger
She had no. She had no idea when she wrote it.
- [10:20]
James Reed
I see it, I like it.
- [10:22]
Todd Unger
I wanted. I got it, I got it. She's talking about.
- [10:24]
James Reed
Very good summary.
- [10:26]
Todd Unger
Yeah, she's talking about getting bling for herself and her friends. And I think it's a perfect description of what people want from you when they're trying to buy something. I mean, have you ever been trying to do something online and you're like, I just want to give you my money and buy this thing. Why are you making it so hard for me? Go back to your own experience. Like, you might be scrolling through something, you might see an ad that you think, I wasn't even in the market for that. But, oh, of course, through targeting and through algorithms, those platforms know you're interested in that. Then you see in like three seconds, basically whether or not they've captured a message that is going to get you to click to learn more. And if you're lucky, you're going to hit buy now. You're going to, you know, auto pay through Apple Pay or Google Pay or whatever, and you can literally be in and out of the door in 10 seconds. That's the objective of the 10 second customer journey.
- [11:23]
James Reed
We're delighted that you're listening to this episode. Hit the follow button so that we can continue to bring you the best business insight and actionable advice to help your business and or career. Right, so I'm involved with a charity. We have a platform, it's called the Big Give. And I'm thinking about this when you're describing what the ideal is because, you know, it's a website, people come to it, they find charities they want to support, they make donations. So are you saying that we should be able to complete that journey within 10 seconds? I think you are, because that's a good challenge. And what should we be looking for top three things when we revisit that website with that challenge in mind to actually achieve that?
- [12:09]
Todd Unger
Yeah. And I think your point is really important. It can be something like the Big Give. It could be a department store, it can be a fast food restaurant, it doesn't matter. It could be an entrepreneur with a small business. The principles of the 10 second customer journey apply everywhere. And it really is about following those steps in order. And so what I would always suggest for you and for anybody else out there, think about who the target audience is. A lot of people are apt to say that it's everybody and it isn't. And so make sure you have a clear understanding of who that target audience is, how they think, what they do and why they would want to give to you or some other entity out there. And make sure, because that part is going to lead to the promotion part which is you need to reach qualified audience. And so the inputs from your target audience are going to get put right in to your digital marketing platform to reach the people most likely to want to give. And then just make sure that when they click to learn more and they go to your landing page that describes what the Big Give is, that it's super crystal clear what they need to do next, very clear message about why they do it and very clear calls to action. And then your commerce engine, whatever you're using behind to collect that pledge, make sure it's frictionless. Make sure you've got as much possible in there that's auto filled and that it works and that if anything is not working properly in terms of that, that you know, as fast as possible to fix it.
- [13:46]
James Reed
So simplicity is really important. I mean not a, not a crowded screen, but keeping it very light.
- [13:52]
Todd Unger
And this is, yeah, this is the thing that people just don't understand. Here's a very simple rule. No one reads anything. They scan and they will determine whether or not it's of interest to them in a mo, in a matter of seconds. And if it's not, they're gone. And so I say for every landing page, that is the page that somebody's going to come from, your ad or social media post or whatever it is, you get one line and three bullet points to explain the premise of this and to get people to click to, to donate or buy or whatever that is. I call that thinking like a landing page. That's all the words you get.
- [14:34]
James Reed
Well, that's very reassuring to me because I thought this was a problem of mine, this sort of level of impatience where people don't read anything. I've been, I've been guilty of that for far too long. But so I think that's, that's very reassuring. But I mean an important challenge to anyone designing a digital first service because, you know, we don't want words to get in the way, do we?
- [14:58]
Todd Unger
Now words matter and the fewer the better. I, this is where I thank my training at Procter and Gamble so many years ago because literally you could only use one page to write a memo. And in those days it was typewritten. And so you literally had to cut out every word that didn't matter and to make sure that what you were saying was incredibly persuasive. And so a lot of the principles of that kind of communication have, have carried with me into the digital world where the choice of words matter so much and that proposition and the way you express what it is that you stand for and then you literally, the economy of words matters so much because people can't absorb anything and the kind of time that they're spending with you.
- [15:44]
James Reed
Now I remember learning years ago that communication occurred in the mind of the listener and whatever we might be saying, we whether what's getting through. So your message here is really important. And I remember reading, I think Winston Churchill, you know, he would only read one page memos and people were forced to do the same. So this is a, this is a long tradition of simplicity around communications that is, has become sort of epitomized really digitally because you really only have a few seconds and it's really very obvious. It's there because you can see the people. You said 70% didn't complete their shopping. I mean that's a staggering number and that's a lot of wasted marketing that's taken those people to those sites.
- [16:34]
Todd Unger
Absolutely.
- [16:35]
James Reed
And I know we, we, we've had the same experience when we have people coming to our site. Reid.co.uk you're looking to post jobs, you know, unless it's really straightforward, they won't complete the, the posting. And that's a, that's a business loss to us as well. So if you're, if you're designing a service like this, if you're starting out, clearly you need to understand who your audience is and you need to have a good product in mind. How do you advise people build out the service from there? Because, you know, is it something that they should typically do in house or is it something that's good? I mean, is it better to go to a third party who really understands this stuff? What's, what's your advice?
- [17:20]
Todd Unger
So I think that's going to really depend on who you are. But the principle here is you don't need a billion dollars to follow the process. The playbook lays out the rules. I've been at different points in my career with different sets of resources and different tools. I've done target segmentation studies that I did by survey monkey on my own and did my own analysis all the way up through having a professional firm do them. It's not about being perfect, it's about using the resources that you have, but following the steps to do that. A lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, like, you know, you'll be at a party and they'll like, start to give you the pitch and they'll go like, I've got this product. And they'll go right into the productia. And you ask them, well, who's the audience? And they haven't thought about it. And that's typically what I find with a lot of people. Follow those steps through there. And it's funny, when I first started here, I found somebody online, an individual who I thought was doing a really good job at this. It was something in like, you know, physical therapy or something like that. And I looked at the platform that he had built, how to, how I found him. I found him because I entered a search term that led to a video that led to his Instagram feed that led to, you know, for me, taking, you know, a video class with him. And I told my team, this is one person who's got 200,000 followers on Instagram, now, an entire library of videos on YouTube, and a clear commerce strategy for doing what he needs to do. If this one individual can do this on his own personal budget, I am certain that this group with more resources can do the same. And it goes for anybody out there sometimes, James, I find, like, the more money, the more resources the more people out there, the harder it can be. But for especially when you do get outside agencies involved and the agencies can be really big, you don't have the nimbleness sometimes for doing what you need to do in the digital space. So I think that are, there are hybrid models that are out there. We happen to have our creative team and marketing team in house and then we leverage select partners on the outside to help us do the things that we're not staffed to do. But having that internal expertise in, in digital and digital marketing, which wasn't here seven years ago but now is, has been a critical part of our success. And I don't think you can outsource it. So you've got to have some of that in house and then work. Especially for organizations that are at a much bigger scale, it's not possible to have everything in house. But leverage those resources carefully and be careful what and how much you're outsourcing. Because this world requires real involvement and a roll up your sleeves attitude.
- [20:26]
James Reed
That's so interesting because it's so core in a way to the future of the organization, its prospects. You're saying keep, keep it close. That's what I'm hearing, is that it absolutely is.
- [20:40]
Todd Unger
And the other thing that I would advise organizations, sometimes they think they can solve the problem by hiring external partners. But look at your own organizational structure and the way that things are set up. When this term customer experience was invented in the 90s, you know, organizations were set up in certain ways. They have their silos, marketing, product, commerce, service, they're all in separate places, sales, you name it, they're everywhere. The thing that changed with the Internet is it required just a substantial integration of those elements in a way that we've never seen before. And so think about, you talked about being seeing the eyes through your target audience, your customer out there. They don't care what part of the organization is at fault for the website not working. They don't care about your departments. So you on the organization side make sure that the levers of your digital operation are working together. Most of those things report to different people. So think about how do you group the levers of your digital operation together. When I started here, our website, content, operation, membership, operation, email, they all were in separate places. And it was very hard to get traction and a unified approach to what we were doing when that was working that way. You know, fast forward a few years when those all got brought together, then you see growth, then you see retention, improvements, then you see experience improvement. So that's my counsel to senior leaders out there is unify your growth levers before you start farming this out to somebody else.
- [22:16]
James Reed
Right, right. Well, that's very clear. So in your, in your book, you talk about a B testing. I like that section because one of the other benefits of the web is it gives us the opportunity to try stuff and see what works in real time, doesn't it? And you've become. You mentioned in a previous job that you there were so many a B tests running, but only you and a colleague do what the actual website looked like, which I thought was very interesting. So talk me through that because it's something we do, but I'm sure we could do it better and I'd like to understand your philosophy on that.
- [22:54]
Todd Unger
I think that building a culture of testing and experimentation is a foundational part of the 10 second customer journey. And to a large extent, you should be testing everything across the board. In the old world of customer experience, you think about when, you know, back when I first started creative decisions, business decisions were made by somebody based on opinions and it took forever to figure out whether they were working or not. We don't have to do that anymore. This is a world that loves new ideas because we can put them in the test and figure out in a very quick time frame whether they actually work or not. And maybe a subject line in an email or the content in an email or the way that you target a certain kind of communication, the ad that you're running, the color of the button on the page, all of these things are mysteries. And you can never assume that your opinion, your idea is going to work or not. And there's no reason to do that because it's very simple to put it into a test. And so that kind of culture is something you have to build and you have to empower people to do that and reassure them that not it's not only expected, but you know, part of testing is that things don't work. And so it's okay. That just prevents you from doing things that don't work in the future, spending money that's wasted. And so I work with every part of my team to build in tests. Whether, you know, it's a direct mail or creative production or any kind of messaging or website design, how we get people to sign up through the process. All of those things are, you know, outcomes of extensive testing.
- [24:41]
James Reed
So you test everything, then it sounds like and you do abcd or is it always AB or is it always done in a particular way?
- [24:49]
Todd Unger
So part of, you know, Testing traditionally has always been, you know, one variable tested at a time so that you know that nothing else is being affected by what you're doing. But I will tell you that I think the most exciting developments in the world of testing right now are driven by AI and they allow you to do more multivariable testing simultaneously. And that's going to be a rapid improvement in testing. I don't know how many variables we'll be able to tolerate. It won't be A through Z, but it'll certainly be more than a B.
- [25:26]
James Reed
Yeah, so that's coming soon. So you mentioned AI and I mean, this is going to change, I think a lot, if not everything. What's it going to do to your 10 second journey? I mean, it might make it much faster.
- [25:42]
Todd Unger
It absolutely is. And the thing about AI is it's already happening. And one of the things I talk about in the book is this doesn't require you to have a legion of PhDs and AI working on your team because your partners are already doing that. So our marketing automation platform is already utilizing AI and we can now predict in a much better fashion when to send something out, who to send something out to, how engagement in those things translates into membership. These kinds of skills are already being put to task. Essentially, we talked about at the beginning about why it's so important to have a great target description. It's even more important because the algorithms that are AI driven on all of those digital storytelling platforms that you're going to use to get your message out are using AI to target people better. So the better input that you have, the better the output they're going to have. And so my first advice to everybody is use the partners that you've got that are much better equipped, have way more resources and are much more focused on the kinds of metrics you are versus trying to build anything from scratch.
- [27:02]
James Reed
When you say use the partners, you mean technology partners, marketing partners, sort of other companies. Is that we are just so. I understand. Just checking my.
- [27:12]
Todd Unger
Yeah, so you know, in my world that might mean salesforce. On the marketing automation side, we have got a new partner called Quantum Metric that we've outfitted the site that using AI machine learning techniques can identify when there are points of friction, somebody clicking repeatedly on a button like an elevator that won't come, and where nothing is happening on the site. Those kinds of broken things that keep someone like me up at night instead of taking weeks to diagnose or figure out that they're there can now be flagged for you and Give you hints as to what's going wrong.
- [27:49]
James Reed
So you've got a sort of AI quality check on all the time of you.
- [27:54]
Todd Unger
Yeah. Instead of waiting for someone to call in and say, I want to complain, you can do that.
- [28:00]
James Reed
Alec Reed for me, tell me this button's not working. You know who he is. So, yeah. So that's incredible. So you have an AI sort of watch guard, keeping an eye on everything.
- [28:14]
Todd Unger
It's really important. And that as you think about how to measure customer experience, I think a lot of people have different measures here. We in the States, a lot of people using that promoter score find they call it customer satisfaction scores or csat, but we use something that's much more simple, which is how many problems are people experiencing divided by the number of sessions that are happening on the site? And you can, you can see when that goes out of whack. And so if you're kind of observing, just like, you know, a good digital person is always looking at their metrics every day, every moment of the day, like ringing up on a cash register.
- [28:57]
James Reed
But new technologies, has AI improved that score? Have you got a better result since you've introduced this watch service?
- [29:05]
Todd Unger
So that, here's, here's the funny, the mixed thing is like before, if you were only relying on problems that were reported through your customer service operation, that was one number. Now you've got an automated system out there looking for this and that number goes up dramatically. So it's a little depressing at the start to see the score.
- [29:23]
James Reed
You're actually seeing for real how many problems there are, rather than a sort of filter that comes in.
- [29:28]
Todd Unger
Absolutely. And while that can be shocking, at the same time, it does give you the kind of insight that you need to go in and get things fixed and fix them for good.
- [29:37]
James Reed
Yeah, that's so interesting. So you suddenly, you're suddenly aware of a whole lot of issues that you weren't aware of before you put that in place. I mean, but you can do something about it. I mean, that's, that's, that's good because other people would have been aware of even if you weren't probably in terms of their experience. What else? I mean, has AI surprised you in other ways? Is it in terms of your usage of it good or bad? You know, have you found in customer experience terms that it's being helpful, perhaps a hindrance?
- [30:09]
Todd Unger
One thing that I talk a little bit about in the book is how many waves of technology and improvements in the digital space I've experienced just in the, you know, duration of my career. I mean I, I saw that advent of the Internet and the, the hype and the fear and the actuality of it, how it played out, the advent of mobile, the advent of social media platforms and now AI and inevitably and all of those things, there is this kind of major hype wave and that generates both fear and concern and keeps people kind of standing can, standing still. My counsel in that is, you know, keep your head down and employ the technology resources to keep growing your business and don't get wrapped up in big terms like digital transformation and AI. Use the tools to grow your business and face it that way as opposed to getting too tied up and too afraid of things. Obviously there's a lot of focus right now on large language models and chatgpt things of that there are a lot of benefits to where that can come, especially if you have a lot of writing and other things that can benefit and it can give you a big shortcut. In my particular world, I don't know if you're familiar with the term in AI called hallucinations, where answers come back wrong. I'm in life and death business and so for doctors out there, there's a no hallucination benchmark. And so we're very, very careful, particularly in that realm. And then you do need to be careful in so many other ways. So we're proceeding very cautiously with our customer at the center of every decision that we make.
- [32:00]
James Reed
I was at an event at Microsoft and someone said we don't like the word hallucination because it's actually just an error, I think, you know, so AI makes mistakes like us, which is in some ways reassuring. But as you say, depending on what you're doing, it can be quite dangerous, I think. I mean, where do you think we are in this hype wave? Because you know, we're a similar vintage. I shared that journey through the web, mobile, social media, now AI, I mean, and I would agree with your observation that they have something in common and how they've been received. But where do you think we are now with AI? Do you think people are getting quite familiar with it, it's settling in and. Or do you think they're still overhyping it?
- [32:45]
Todd Unger
I think we're pretty early in the process and I think the initial wave of the dramatic hype, I think we kind of passed by that. I'm just reading a lot about kind of where this technology can go and its own kind of self awareness. I think that remains to be seen about what impact that might have. And it's a lot bigger than my marketing problems. So that's just. I'm not dealing with that mentally right now. What I do see is, you know, I just spent a weekend at a conference. You know, everything is AI powered out there, and you really just kind of need to get to, like, what does that actually allow to do? Instead of being fascinated with the technology, how do I put it to work in my business that will actually demonstrate growth.
- [33:35]
James Reed
There was quite an interesting story that came out of Ireland a couple of weeks ago where AI apparently told people that there was going to be a Halloween parade in Parnell street, to which a lot of people turned up, but there was no parade. So this was an extreme hallucination, I think. But where it came from is still something of a. Of a mystery. And, you know, where it, where it might be headed. I also heard someone saying that, you know, if the technology is so intelligent, why would it be happy doing the boring jobs, you know, that maybe it's doing at the moment? Why would it tolerate that? I mean, these are big questions. I don't know where it'll go. But your advice that I'm hearing, Todd, is that we should focus on using it practically to improve the experience of our customers, because there are so many ways we can do that right now.
- [34:25]
Todd Unger
Yeah, there are. There's a lot of room here in the space. You know, at the ama, we use a term called augmentation. And not. It's not about replacement. We're not there. But there are so many things. I mean, there are a lot of boring and manual tasks that are not worth spend. You know, human beings spending a lot of time on. There are a million other things to do that can benefit from our human training and perceptions. And so putting AI in a place where it can augment the capabilities, whether you're talking about a physician or you're talking about a marketer, it's really, it's really the same thing.
- [35:06]
James Reed
So I like that term, augmentation. But how do you, how do you decide what you're going to augment first? How do you decide what to prioritize? If you're making investments in AI, where do you begin?
- [35:19]
Todd Unger
So I think just like marketing, you look for the biggest pain points and the places where you're going to get the biggest improvements and outcomes. And so for, for me in marketing, I think about what am I going to get the biggest bang for the buck in terms of, of driving growth? For a physician, it would be how do I improve the ability to diagnose and treat patients? How do I use that tool to eliminate these kind of rote tasks that really lead to physician burnout, like note taking, things like that. So there are just a lot of pain points and they need to be prioritized based on the level of outcome that you can expect expect from doing it.
- [36:02]
James Reed
I mean, two things you just said are clearly huge for physicians. I mean, the diagnostic side of it and the administrative side. So I mean, those are huge benefits.
- [36:13]
Todd Unger
Absolutely.
- [36:15]
James Reed
The diagnostic, I mean, in theory, I imagine it could be very helpful. Is that already the case?
- [36:21]
Todd Unger
I think there's a lot of exploration going on right now in that space on both sides. We do a lot of work on the physician well being front and we're seeing a lot of movement there toward using AI to help eliminate some of the administrative and bureaucracy problems that drive physicians sometimes to despair. Whether that can be staying up and answering emails or taking notes in your pajamas when you should be with your kids or answering insurance company queries, you name it. These are places that are going to have huge benefits. And the more time that they can absorb that more time physicians spend with actual people. So that's what we want to do.
- [37:09]
James Reed
I really like that, the sort of use of AI to help with administration in the interests of well being. Because when people overworked in that way, the effects can be quite serious or very serious. And so I think that the example you just gave is really very exciting actually, because it makes it possible for people to do the parts of the job that they really trained to do and would hopefully be best at. So that should make your physicians much more productive, shouldn't it? I mean, they'll be able to see more patients in the end, I think.
- [37:48]
Todd Unger
Yeah, in the end there, I'd say we're early in that exploration as an industry and the objective is going to be patient health and physician well being. And I think there's so much improvement to be made on both fronts.
- [38:04]
James Reed
Yeah. What's your experience of the direct interaction between people and AI? Are people happy, do you think, to talk to robots or not? Would they rather talk to a person or maybe the other way around or some people are different? What's your experience been of that? I think we're all customers in the end. I mean, what do people like in the end?
- [38:28]
Todd Unger
People just want to get done what they want to get done. And if that is through an AI driven operation and that can fix my problem, well, fantastic. I don't have to call somebody or spend a lot of time doing that. But I will tell you, we are very early in that process. And if my experience or experience of my family is anything, there is a long way to go in terms of getting the kind of service level that you expect from a human being, those problems resolved through an AI driven interface. It just currently cannot handle the kind of intricacies that I see on a daily basis that, that people have. And, and that experience, it's kind of like the old experience is like I just want an agent when you're on the phone. The new one is like you're talking to a chatbot and you realize like a little thing goes on in your head. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm not talking to a human being that understands what I said. And if you can't get your problem resolved, it's extremely frustrating.
- [39:33]
James Reed
So there's a lot of friction, to use your term there, that will need to be removed before this really works as a comparator.
- [39:43]
Todd Unger
Absolutely.
- [39:44]
James Reed
So you're not doing an A B test where you have a call center with people in it and a call center with AI in it and see how they score relatively.
- [39:52]
Todd Unger
I think this is the place, James, that I don't think that's necessarily happening out there. I think that a lot of people are treating it as a cost savings measure and they're not looking at it as a. Does this translate to growth or not? So I know people are under a lot of pressure on both the revenue and the cost side. But just replacing human beings with technology doesn't always get the job done. And you need to make a business decision that may be outside of just the parameters of that particular interaction.
- [40:27]
James Reed
No, I agree. And that's. Sometimes people are too quick to do that. So you would be focusing on applying these technologies to grow your operation or business first and foremost, by the sound of things.
- [40:45]
Todd Unger
That's where I think opportunity is, at least on my end. And just to do things in a smarter and more efficient way. I think that's where the tool set is kind of largely in place right now already. And more to come.
- [41:04]
James Reed
When you say more to come, what are you looking forward to?
- [41:08]
Todd Unger
I think the biggest thing that is on the horizon is more of a unification of all the different platforms that people use. Like let's just say in the world of marketing, we have marketing automation systems that say, let's that handle our email. That's just to be simplistic about it. Then you have other kind of data analytics platforms that are feeding into that and then you have maybe your own database that you use that has Customer information, but they're all largely kind of separate right now. And so I think in the future those things are going to be knitted together in a more uniform, cohesive fashion. And so you're not relying on different apartments or different systems necessarily, kind of the sequential feeding of each other. There are going to be more toward one system than many.
- [42:06]
James Reed
And that will be very helpful for you in terms of achieving your goals.
- [42:12]
Todd Unger
In the old days you used to create a spreadsheet and put the spreadsheet into something else. And I mean, these are very manual processes. And so we've already kind of, you know, you've moved past that and a lot of benefits to doing that, not the least of which is security. But in the future it's going to go another step.
- [42:33]
James Reed
Well, you mentioned security. What are your concerns around that or how would you advise people to make sure there's well protected as they could be in this space?
- [42:43]
Todd Unger
Well, I don't know about what the situation is like over in the uk, but I'll tell you, my personal information appears to have been, you know, shared in multiple places. Whether it's AT and T getting hacked or a medical provider getting hacked. You know, that is just an enormous problem and getting a free subscription to a credit bureau is just not going to really do the trick for me. And so it's evident that security is going to be an ongoing challenge as players get more sophisticated out there. And that larger and larger amounts of your organization's IT budgets are going to have to be devoted toward securing the operations that's first and foremost in our customers minds. And so that'll be just. It already is an enormous part. And we'll continue and we'll look for hopefully innovation on that front as well.
- [43:39]
James Reed
I mean, because data is key to AI is that. But it's also a vulnerability when it's key to getting the best out of AI in your organization. It's also holding a lot of data is also a vulnerability.
- [43:50]
Todd Unger
Yeah. And it's not just you, it's everybody else out there. So we've had.
- [43:56]
James Reed
If someone else gets hacked, your data is out there somewhere as well. Yeah, so, and so if you, if you're starting out in business, you would put customer experience right at the front, I'm sure of how people should approach their new idea or new venture. You mentioned those entrepreneurs that are kind of missed out on the very first part. What advice do you give them? I remember that some people become a bit, it sounds to me a bit product obsessed, seeking to identify problems to be Solved. Is that, is that what you.
- [44:35]
Todd Unger
I would say that. Just keep in mind that that word customer experience means a lot of things to a lot of different people. But if you look at the way that I've explained it in the book, it, it starts with the definition of the customer and goes all the way to quote CX or Customer Experience Initiatives. But if you're an entrepreneur, you're starting any kind of business, the first thing you should think of is not, I've got this great product idea. It's not I want to start an Instagram, you know, feed or a podcast or whatever it is. It's who am I trying to serve, really understanding the levers in terms of appealing to that person, establishing a great product proposition and making sure that that holds appeal. Before you get any farther into the process. One of the things I learned a long time ago in my Leo Burnett Agency days was if you're, if you can't convince 60, 70% of people to say that they will definitely or probably buy your product or service just by reading a paragraph about it, and you should not spend any money on that because they're not going to buy it. And there are so many challenges. Even when you have a strong product proposition about getting the word out and getting people through that commerce process, really focus in on the upfront part and make sure you understand that target audience. Don't assume it. You've got a strong brand proposition and you've got a great product proposition that's going to sell if people find out about it.
- [46:10]
James Reed
Todd, I wish we'd had this conversation many years ago because I'd have sold a lot of, I'd have saved a lot of money. 1 paragraph 60, 70% going to want to buy. I think that's brilliant and I think that's very good advice. And I wish I'd known it before because we've probably gone down a few rabbit holes that we should not have done because of my enthusiasm, lack of a B testing, not paying attention to many of the good ideas in this book. So I think that's been incredibly helpful. Thank you. And I'm sure our listeners will find it very interesting and useful because there are so many ways you can apply this knowledge in, as you said, every activity. You know, whether you're running a public service or a charity or a business or a business service or selling products, it makes sense in all of those activities. And thinking it through clearly and taking those steps that you've described is an excellent way to start. So, Todd, I like to ask this question of all my guests, what gets you up on a Monday morning?
- [47:23]
Todd Unger
So the most important thing I think is I love my job. And I know a lot of people are surprised to hear other people say that, but I really do. I've been here at the AMA for seven and a half years. Every year has been great. It's a great team. I love being here. I've been away for a week at a meeting and I just got back today. I'm like, it just feels so good to be back with the people here. And I love serving positions. It's a lot of fun and really meaningful for me.
- [47:53]
James Reed
Well, that's music to my head because our message is Love Mondays and we try and help people find jobs that they love. I can't pretend that we found you yours, but I'm very pleased to hear that because I think that's possible for everybody to find a job that they love. And my second question, Todd, and he may have answered it, is a question that's in my interview book and is often asked in interviews. And you've probably been asked it before, but where do you see yourself in five years time?
- [48:24]
Todd Unger
I think the, the correct answer and the one that's actually true is doing what I'm doing right now. I, I love it here. And you know, everybody has different parts of their career and I've had many phases of mine. This is the one that, where all the, that I love have kind of come together. And so this is kind of, I may be here in five years.
- [48:49]
James Reed
Well, I can certainly hear in your voice your affection and commitment for the American Medical association. And I very much hope that's the case. Thanks, Todd, for talking to me today. That was fantastic.
- [49:02]
Todd Unger
Thanks, James.
- [49:05]
James Reed
Thank you to Todd for joining me on All About Business. If you'd like to find out more about Todd and the 10 Second Customer Journey, follow him on LinkedIn. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reed, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at Reed, Visit our website, reed.com all links are in the show notes. See you next.