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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#709: The state of CX and the value of hyperpersonalization with Adrian Swinscoe, Punk CX Podcast
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- [00:01]
Greg Kilstrom
The Agile Brand.
- [00:10]
Adrian Swinscoe
Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and martech platforms as we explore marketing, technology, AI, e commerce, and whatever's next for the omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. Now onto the show. Agility requires that brands have a fundamental understanding of why they're doing things and what customer expectations are, rather than chasing trends and implementing the latest tech. Without this, customer satisfaction will continue to slide and brands won't be any closer to knowing what to do to solve for that. This episode was recorded while I was visiting Edinburgh, Scotland recently and I met up with my guest today who has worked with some of the world's largest brands, written several books and hosts a great podcast of his own. To talk about a few things today, I'd like to welcome back to the show Adrian Swinscoe, host of the Punk CX podcast.
- [01:45]
Greg Kilstrom
Glad to be here in Edinburgh and.
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Adrian Swinscoe
You picked a great spot.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. At the. The top of the Glass House here.
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Adrian Swinscoe
So if people know Edinburgh Glass House is at the top of Leith Walk just before you get up onto sort of Princess Street. It sits nestled underneath Carlton Hill and we're set up on the roof garden of the Glass House. And you can. It's just like there's a oasis.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
It's very protective, very Zen, very. That's cool. I expect to see people doing yoga out on this kind of piece of grass over there. Right. But, well, you know, it's Scotland after all.
- [02:22]
Greg Kilstrom
Cool. So, yeah. So we're going to talk about a few things here. I know, you know, I brought a few questions. You brought a few questions. So, you know, before I flew out here to Edinburgh, I was at Forester's SEAC Summit in Nashville and you know, they announced a couple things. One of them was I think we're in year three of the index decline, if not four or something multi year decline at the very least, everybody's talking about customer experience. There's so much focus on cx. There's so many people, I think, doing some great work in cx. Why are we still on this decline?
- [03:00]
Adrian Swinscoe
I think there's a. That there's a perennial kind of problem there, which is that, and I think you alluded to it, there is that it's about expectations. And I think the reality is, I don't think, I don't think necessarily, because the way that it's measured, the way that these indexes are measured is like, it's not really an objective sort of measure. It's more about perceptions. Right. And so I don't think that necessarily the quality is going down, although that's kind of possibly arguable in of itself. But I think the thing is that what's happening is that the, the gap is widening. So as I kind of customer or consumer expectations. So let's make it as broader customer expectations are accelerating or increasing at a rate faster than brands can keep up. And I think that's been happening for the longest, for the number of kind of years. I think that if you look at it in historically, the index over time, I think we're down. It went up from about 2015, 2016 kind of levels up through 20, 20, 2021 in around the kind of pandemic. And we've just seen a sustained slide, but we've seen a sustained slide back down to 2015, 2016 levels. Right. So you got this kind of like thing. I think there was a lot of forgiveness in. Around the pandemic. So where people are like going, ah, it's off a bit massive shift to online and because you have to get stuff and you need stuff.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right, right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
You're like going, when stuff arrived, you're like, oh, yeah, you're like, that's amazing. Or somebody on the phone or somebody replied to your email. Because we're all in a different mindset. I think there was a lot of forgiveness in there where people were doing things and doing things because they had to do things, forced to do things in a way and operate in a different way than a way different to what they've ever offered, operated before. I think there's this big forgiveness and now we're starting to see this. Well, you need to get your together excuse my language. Right. And if you're not. And I think that's one of the things about that. So. But I do think there's that. And I think that we've got all these brands that are Struggling to keep up. But I think the brands don't help themselves because I always, I've got this kind of saying that I kind of like trot out probably more often than I should. And it says the future of customer experience is always built in the present. And I think what happens and this is becoming exacerbated. Ever since the kind of the post pandemic, we basically went straight into generative AI just explode into the world, right?
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And what we've got to is that everybody's rushing to do something with artificial intelligence. Everybody wants to be AI powered or AI enabled or AI first. Right. And fascinatingly I think we get, we get caught up in that because when I say the. The future of customer experience, what we've built at the present, people get too caught up in the technology and what they think is going to happen tomorrow and forget about what is happening today and fixing the problems that people have today. And when I say the future is always built in the present. And what I mean is that if you don't attend to the problems that people have today, you potentially forfeit your chance to build on that relationship tomorrow.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
So. But the leaders, the people that do succeed because there are people out there doing some great things, they manage these competing interests. Planning and building for tomorrow, but also attending to the problems that people have today. Whereas the people that are followers are more like, oh, we need to kind of plan for. We don't want to be disrupted tomorrow. The deal, all the focus goes on tomorrow and they forget about today.
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Greg Kilstrom
Well, and that's like priorities, right? Like, that's the whole thing of, you know, if everything's a priority, then nothing's a priority. But it's like you also have to. Able to hold two things in your, in your m. Corporate mind, whatever that is, at once. Right. Is the present and the future.
- [06:57]
Adrian Swinscoe
But I, I also wanted to. Because I know you were in Nashville.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And I've never been to Nashville and I wondered if you can, when you get to the doors of Nashville, the city gates and stuff, do they all give you kind of cowboy hats or something? And what's that? I mean, I just think that everyone's around in cowboy hats.
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Greg Kilstrom
They literally were handing out cowboy hats for the event that everybody. I. I had to work that night. But like that. So they did go. They literally had forester cowboy hats. So.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Yeah, yeah, brilliant. But you were there. I mean, kind of like. So another one of the big things that they announced this year was like that kind of Te. Did somebody do that on Stage?
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Greg Kilstrom
No, no, they should have.
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Adrian Swinscoe
They sort of, I mean what's that all about? Or is it just. And, and what's, what's your sense of it? Is it going to move the needle on some of these?
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, I mean I, I'm, I'm skeptical, I gotta say. Cu. I do think, I mean, I think, I think measurements serve a purpose in that they are, there's some relative way of gauging things over time. So you know, we can have this conversation about the CX index and where those gaps are and all that just because there isn't a relative objective index. I think adding the brand experience, you know, it's, it's. And that's really what it is. It's like adding brand experience and CX together to make total experience and you know, they put some numbers behind it. Like I said, I'm a bit skeptical about yet another, another index or do.
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Adrian Swinscoe
It about five years ago, so I've been told.
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Greg Kilstrom
So yeah, it's, I, I think it's, it's another way of trying to make sense of, you know, here's, here's what brands are, are saying, here's the expectation that they're setting and then here's what they're actually delivering. So I think in, in that way I'm, I find it interesting in that it puts a measurement towards, you know, I come more from the marketing and the branding world myself. So like it puts a measurement towards, you know, setting expectations and realizing expectations. So from that standpoint, like I find it interesting could, you know, I would.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Also argue though that you go like that possibly further entrenches some of the siloed behavior and the thinking and that sort of dominance sort of thinking around branding and da da da da and all these different sort of things. When actually if you think about customer experience in this holistic sort of like sense, all that stuff should have been folded in anyway.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, I mean it should be the experience that you have from the initial.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Because if we're all going to be customer centric then it should be all of those things should be kind of like part of it. We were talking about a customer's experience, not what we think what a brand thinks a customer's experience is, but actually what customers actual experience is.
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Greg Kilstrom
I wonder then if that's the CX industry too gets a bit siloed in 100%. So in other words it's a way of like reminding every. Sorry, now I feel like I'm defending the, the Forrester TX for some reason. So like I Mean, I, you know, but I do wonder that, you know, the CX folks are not thinking of as much about the branding part and the marketing part. And so TX is a way to do. Again, I'm putting.
- [10:09]
Adrian Swinscoe
No, no, I think, I think, I think you're absolutely right. And the thing is, I would say that the kind of customer. I mean, I'll say something slightly heretical is that I wish sometimes I wish that the whole customer experience, industry, profession, segment, call it what you will, domain.
- [10:24]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Sometimes wish it would go away because it's become this little cottage industry and it's only interested in itself sort of thing and kind of how it's its own sort of virtuosity and its old, you know, its capabilities and all these different sort of things are a bit like going, but ultimately you talk about. People talking about, I'm an expert at customer experience. You're like, no, you're not.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
You can't be. Break it down.
- [10:48]
Greg Kilstrom
If it's everything, you can't be an expert at everything.
- [10:50]
Adrian Swinscoe
But. No, but arrived first principles. You cannot be an expert in somebody else's experience. There's stuff that happens and then there's what we make it mean. So it's a bit like you're talking about how, you know, you're an expert in something, you're talking about being an expert in something. And people might say this is semantics, but it speaks to how we approach things. Thank God. Yeah, I'm an expert in customer space. Are you though, or are you just really an expert in reaching out to people to gain their perspective on what's going on and doing that at scale and analyzing it and then figuring out how do I take those insights and drive them into the business to the appropriate people so that we can take actions that we can then learn from it and then we can improve the service and then we go back to customers and go, we did this. That's great. Da, da. So are you just talking about being a voice of the customer?
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Greg Kilstrom
Right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Specialist?
- [11:45]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Or what are you talking about?
- [11:48]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, I mean, to me that's more like a horizontal thing than a vertical, you know, than trying to put everybody in a. And I mean, silo is the. Just because it's a cliche doesn't mean it's not real either. But like, you know, but putting everybody in their, in their silos. I mean, I look at, I look at AI that way as well, of being like a horizontal. Like when you try to think of when marketing tries to do AI or CX tries to do AI, it can't be as successful as it possibly could because it, it needs to go, it needs, in AI's case, it needs data from across the entire organization. And cx, I think it needs, it does need data too, but it needs that experience and the viewpoint of the entire journey. Right.
- [12:32]
Adrian Swinscoe
But I think that's the thing is also we end up getting to that kind of point where I think, because I think this is one of the biggest things I see is that people talk about wanting to be customer experience sort of leaders in this space or lead their market and customer experience, but yet you ask them kind of what's your vision of the experience you want their customers to have and it's a bit like, wow, it's like an assemblage, a random assemblage of the most recent buzzwords that means absolutely zero to your customer.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And so I think there's a real sort of gap, a deficiency in that sort of like vision and strategy kind of like kind of piece. And what you're seeing is like actually it's not tied to the business, it's not really relevant to the business. And because, and, and that. So then it also speaks to the whole, this per often perennial problem where that the CX space has, where it gets accused of not being able to prove its relevance or its ROI and things. And I think it's because we start from the perspective of here's some stuff that we'd like to do because that feels nice and fancy and kind of cool, or the latest thing, rather than saying actually go back to the brand position, here's where we are. This is our market positioning, this is our market reality. This is the promise that we are making. And this is how we deliver our promise best of us and our products and services and all these different sort of things. Bosh. Right, fine. How do we execute that in a way that makes sense for the business? Let's make commercial sense for the business. That allows us to then demonstrately prove the ROI of our initiatives. And particularly if you're in a big organization, if you do that first and get down to that very basic level, I think what you end up getting is you end up getting to this point where you end up creating this thing called organizational social capital. You make somebody else's job easier. They're like going, I love you. Right, right, I've got budget, come with me. What else can you do? Oh, there's this other nebulous thing which less easy to see how it tacks through to kind of commercial Objectives. But that's fine. I've got you this time because you've done something that's made my bottom line or my top line or my efficiency or kind of whatever it is better improved or easier. I can see this is the worth of the. The skills that you bring. You prove relevance. You prove commercial reality or like you've made things better.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And you've made yourself relevant. And then you end up getting this. People kind of then go. Because that's the way that it works in corporate. So. Right, right, right. You've got to understand, it's like it. Your virtuosity means zero until you improve that you. Until you prove your relevance to the core business. Yeah.
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Greg Kilstrom
And I mean it makes sense that way to. Yeah. To do that versus to be a thing to tack on to. Oh, we gotta do cx, you know, or again, whatever the buzzword of the. Of the day may be.
- [15:37]
Adrian Swinscoe
I would go back to kind of people if I would say to people that there's. I can't remember the gentleman's first name, but there's a. There's an old consulting type kind of book called by. Written by, I think an author's called. The author's name is Meister this or Meister M A I S T E R. And he's called. The book's called Trusted Advisor.
- [15:57]
Greg Kilstrom
Okay. Oh, right, yeah, right.
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Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
He's like, that's your job.
- [16:00]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Go in and figure out kind of like there's an old saying that comes from Zig Ziglar who's got the most rock star name of anybody I know.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right, right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Zig Ziglar. And he says like, you know, and it's from the book, see you at the top. And he's like, if you help enough people get what they want, then you'll get what you want.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Start there because you have skills if you're in that CX or even brand space, however you kind of describe yourself. If you take that mentality because everybody's your customer.
- [16:33]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
You help everybody get enough people get what they want, then you'll get what you want.
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- [17:30]
Greg Kilstrom
You know, I do wonder, this whole CX index thing, you know you mentioned the, it increased for a bit like that's consumer empathy. Right?
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Adrian Swinscoe
Yeah.
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Greg Kilstrom
Like we're, we're taught, you know, in CX and stuff to have empathy with the customer, but that was actually a bunch of consumers having empathy with brands. Right. And yeah, I think so probably more likely the people service, you know, the people direct the frontline employees and stuff that, that had to serve them. But I mean to me I look at that and it's a good, it's a good example of what you know, brands should be doing, you know, in, in the reverse.
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Adrian Swinscoe
So our ability to, to gather data from all parts of the business and, and across all parts of the, the, the, the, the customers kind of journeys it's, I mean quite literally, it's astounding. Kind of like right now and, and we talk about people. With the advent of the sort of latest iterations of artificial intelligence, what we can do with some of that data is mind blowing. Right, Right.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
But the problem is, is we end up with this sort of thing is that we end up, it's effectively sometimes. Well, sometimes it feels like we're like driving our cars. This is when we have manual driving sort of cars, but we're driving our cars as if we're via looking at the dashboard rather than looking at the windscreen. Right. And so we dive into the bell dials and all these different things. And I think this again, here's another thing that I keep kind of repeating probably too much, but we talk about wanting our organizations to be data driven or decision making machines and that's great. But I think there's different levers of understanding sort of thing because actually what we need to understand is if it's always all about the quantifiable data that, that can sometimes be very, can be very reductive.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And it loses sometimes the context.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And that emotional connection and empathy sort of as you mentioned. And so I think there's, for me, I think there's, there's almost like three kind of different, like behavioral levels, particularly at a leadership kind of level which says in very simple terms it says like data informs us. And that's your kind of like level one. Right. And then when people then take that quantifiable sort of stuff. But Then if you start enriching that with qualitative stuff, as Lynette says, and stories move us, so we bring that in, so we see the data and then we bring the stories, and people are like, all right, telling the story. That's great. And you see there's a lot of people trying to do that as much more. But then the third level, which then becomes an individual behavioral sort of thing as an individual leader, is that experiences compel us.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And what I mean by that is that you see the data and then you hear the stories and you're like, oh, I'm gonna go find out what's going on.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And I'm gonna see it in real life, or I'm gonna experience it, or I'm gonna do that ride along. It's like, do you know, I heard this the other day, and I was like, wow, that's wild. Uber CPO does drive alongs and actually does deliveries. And. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. He runs his own kind of, like, thing. I heard about it. So that it's called Session something. I can't remember. But he does his thing. He kind of like, for X number of hours every month sort of thing, he's out on the road doing deliveries, picking up people, doing all these different sort of things. Because he's like, going, we're a product. We're a product company. Right. I have to understand how all this kind of, like, stuff kind of works. And I see. That's what sometimes I see kind of when I hear stories about people doing that. Like, I know that Josema Ship Chandler, who was the CFO at Twilio but now became the CEO kind of just over a year ago. When he became that, that was the first thing he did. He was like, right, let's go find out what's going on.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Yeah. And it just went, I'm gonna go talk to customers. I'm gonna be out in the field talking and talking, talking, talking. And it was no coincidence. Over the next year, they grew by 10, 15%. And you're like, going, you're. All you're doing is you're. You're. You're connecting senior execs to the kind of the front line and what people are really experiencing. And I think for me, that's the thing. It's like the thirst or the hunger or the desire to understand and to go beyond the data and go beyond the stories, to actually kind of like to really feel and to connect with what people are actually saying on the street. And it Returns that empathy kind of bit.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, because to your point, I mean, you don't get that a dashboard is at best directional. Right. And you know, ideally it's. Sometimes it's useless, but like, ideally it's directional. Right. So. But yeah, getting that. Yeah. I mean, the, you know, I know like usaa, like the first week or two you're there, a big insurance company, you know, they're. You're doing customer service responses and stuff like, you know, Zappos, I think was. Was famous for that as well, you know. So, yeah, just that, that frontline experience.
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Adrian Swinscoe
But I do think something I wrote about the, like a while ago, and it's like we tell ourselves that we, we value it when it's important to us.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
But in reality we don't. And that's the ugly truth of it. Like in the pandemic, we're like going. We're like, yeah, we love all the kind of the healthcare workers, the delivery drivers, all these different. They're doing all this stuff that we kind of like need at the point. And like in the uk, people are out kind of like banging pans and stuff and kind of like three cheers for all these kind of people. But then after everything kind of changed and then they realized the people in these industries with the frontline delivery workers or postal workers or healthcare workers, they not had a raise for years. And then they started going on strike and people were like, oh, seriously, go on strike? You're like going.
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Greg Kilstrom
It quickly turns, right?
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Adrian Swinscoe
And so there's a difference between what we say that is important to us and what is actually important to us. And what is the thing that shows up is like, actually what you do.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And so whether you're a brand marketeer, whether you're a service professional, whether you're in leadership or ops or whatever, actually there's a difference between what you say you care about and what you actually do. And actually the difference, and this is what I mean about the data and the stories and the experience is actually going out as a leader. Going out and actually making time.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yes.
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Adrian Swinscoe
To go and speak to people and, and to understand their perspective and understand kind of how things kind of fit together and work and all that sort of like, stuff and what the real experience is, it goes back to that whole idea. It's like you got a. The old Toyota idea that going to the Gemba, you get that from being a, you know, lean, agile professional. It's like people talk about doing the Gemba walk. You're like, Going, yeah, but here's the thing is like doing that takes time.
- [24:29]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And effort, but it also takes a beginner's mind. Yeah, good point. It's just you don't go as if you're like going, oh, look at me, I've got my big title. You're like going, I'm just going to go.
- [24:38]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. I mean it gives you a whole. Yeah. Because I mean, I think, I think what you're also speaking to is like I think surveys have their place but to, you know, to what you're saying, people don't. I have, I am very suspect of, of survey results at large, you know, so I like any tool. I think they can be useful. Even the real time data. Like, I think that, I think the trick is all of it, right. Because you don't have time to do ride alongs with every, you know, with every single customer of Portal. And yet that gives you a depth that you would never have otherwise. And the real time data that we're able to capture so easily now gives us another view. The surveys give us another view. Tying all that together I think is the, that's the tr.
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Adrian Swinscoe
I think that's a rich stew. Right?
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
And that's what you're doing is you're, I think what you're not, what you're also doing is you're not abrogating responsibility for insight to a data set over here.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
What you're also, what you're also saying is like that's brilliant. I love that. I'm going to bring my own.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Adrian Swinscoe
Rich context over can here. Now that might be subjective but what it does do is allows you to question that kind of interrogate that larger data set based on kind of what you've seen and kind of like heard. Just in a way rather than going, I'm going to take that as just red as it's coming and you're like going, but I've got this thing over here and I don't see that. And if you do that, if it allows you to interrogate those sort of things then maybe you get to a point where you go, actually you make better decisions based on the data that's kind of there and these are rabbit holes.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right, Right.
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Adrian Swinscoe
But one question I want to ask you about because I know you're big on this because I know you mentioned before we started recording you talked about kind of personalization and this, you know, we've got this technological ability to deliver to, technically speaking, deliver one to one sort of like engagement. And I know you Mentioned also kind of like that you were an optimizely event. And I know that I actually had Chef Kat Islam on the, on the podcast a while ago, actually a wee while ago talking about very, very, very much this. I mean, the thing about personalization is like going, it's been around forever. People we talked about customers like, yeah, I love that. And brands were like, oh, yeah, I love that. And then, but then not producing the results that they expect. I mean, is it like, where are we at with that whole personalization sort of like, thing? Is that again, is that like one of those things? Because it seems like if you're a marketeer, particularly if you're a marketeer, that's, that's driving kind of like brand and you're, you know, you're designing and trying to execute kind of campaigns, whether that's in new customer acquisition, whether it's in brand, whether it's in kind of like retention and loyalty sort of things. Is people that, that whole personalization thing has been around for a long time, but I'm not sure it's driving the results for it. I mean, where we at, do people still want to do it?
- [27:43]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, I mean, I know there's, I swear there's some stat from like 2011 or something that said, like, personalization is the best thing ever. I'm a believer in it because I know it works on me anecdotally, I know it works on me. I've seen it work and you know, at some of the brands that I've worked with as well. I think the, the question, and I know we touched on this a little before we hit record as well. I think the question is when, where, how and why, right? It's, it's, it's the details, right? So, you know, like, it started with subject line personalization and emails, right? So it's like Greg Offer, blah, blah, blah. You know, back in, you know, 1999, that was like rock, you know, science fiction or whatever. But now, you know, it's kind of table stakes, if not off putting. I think that people want relevant things, but I don't think that they want like Minority Report, like creepy stuff, you know, popping out of nowhere. And again, anecdotally I can say that, you know, when, when a brand gets it, right, I buy stuff that I might not normally buy or I buy from a brand that I might not normally buy from. But I do think over indexing on, like, how can we get more and more and more data and how can we get more and more personalized I think there's a lot of things that brands should be doing better before they get the hyper personalization segment of one, you know, all that kind of stuff.
- [29:13]
Adrian Swinscoe
So, I mean, so is it because I know that because Shafkat from Optimizer kind of told me. Remember he told me on the podcast, he's just like going, we're talking about this one to one engagement.
- [29:24]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [29:26]
Adrian Swinscoe
Pursuit, as it were. And he was like, he said to me, he says, he says, I paraphrase him, he says, I'm not really sure it's worth it.
- [29:33]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [29:34]
Adrian Swinscoe
Economically sort of thing. He's like going, well, you go, technically we can probably do it if we have the right sort of data and we've got the right technology and all that sort of stuff set up. He says, but like, in the end you have to also ask yourself is like, just because you can doesn't mean you say you should. Yeah, yeah. This is, economically, we figured out that actually, it doesn't actually make sense. It makes sense to go up to a certain kind of point and then beyond a certain point the waters get a little bit kind of like muddy.
- [30:02]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [30:02]
Adrian Swinscoe
And also it's very contextual depending on where you are, where the customer's at and their kind of journey and stuff as well.
- [30:09]
Greg Kilstrom
Well, yeah, because I mean, they don't, they don't, I don't think they want a brand to know, but so much about them at certain point, like the, the fact that a brand would know so much about them at certain points is off putting. And you know, people call it creepy. Whatever. As a marketer, I tend to not call it creepy, but I, I, it was so forgiving. I know, I know.
- [30:30]
Adrian Swinscoe
You've got to, you know, I mean, I think, here's the thing that I kind of think that it's also the missing piece in all of this sort of like stuff. And again, you get back down to the kind of different types of data is that oftentimes people, customers give brands permission to use their data, sometimes not knowing what they're giving their permission to do the data or the data for. And then there's also things where customers will say, oh yeah, I want personalization. But then what they understand as being personalization and what brands understand as personalization can be two different things. And I don't think the two constituencies are really talking to each other and going, like, brands aren't going, here's what personalized service or personalized experience means to us. Do you agree? Do you like it? And so on and so forth. And I feel that that's a bit of a problem. And even though you can go to brands and go well, why don't you just talk to people, why don't you ask their permission and then augment kind of things that way and then you get into that sort of zero party data sort of thing. And I'm like again, you get into that economic argument. Is it economically worth it?
- [31:43]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [31:49]
I think generative AI helps with some of the like hyper customization of stuff if it's executed well, which that's a whole if. But it also is a matter of there still has to be intent behind and intent at the brand behind. Okay, we're going to personalize based on these X million factors that we're collecting about all our customers. So that to me that's a cost that has to be accounted for. Like okay, we're going to personalize based on their age. Whatever, whatever. Gen AI can customize based on age. That saves some time and effort and some designer or copywriter some time. But someone still has to think that they're going to do that and then tell the machine to do it. So like there's a cost do you think then.
- [32:35]
Adrian Swinscoe
Because it seems that there's. It feels like maybe this goes back way right to the very beginning. You talked about this experience index kind of going down. But how that's been influenced by waves of new technology particularly since 2022, generative AI and now onto sort of agentic AI which is generative AI cubed or something. But do you think that. Because I always thought that oftentimes kind of organizations get caught up in this idea where they buy technology feels like it seems like it looks like they buy technology and then try and figure out what to do with it. And actually rather than going actually we need to envisage or imagine the experience we want to deliver and then figure out okay, what data do we need to deliver that therefore what technology we need to use to power that? Is it that the pace of technological development and evolution is so fast that people are. Because it's so fast almost like buying things in order, trying to catch up.
- [33:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, it's the. You buy a Ferrari and you only need a whatever, you know. Yeah, I mean I do think it's that and I do think the pace of growth of all the AI stuff, I mean has been so quick in the last couple years that I think, I don't think a lot of people really understand what they have at their disposal. I don't think they even understood what they had at their disposal pre the AI boom or whatever. I mean I think they were using like 10% of their big systems or whatever. I think those in the like composable camps or whatever might, might argue that that's a, that's an argument for you know, just using like best of breed type tools and solutions and stuff like that. I could argue both sides of that of like, I think that's there's another can of worms there with, you know, integration and all that. And you still need to have a roadmap. I think to go back to your question, it's like you actually need a plan that's not a like, hey, let's use a bunch of technology plan. You need a plan of like this is what we want our experience to be and this is how we implement it. So it goes way back to what do we actually want to do for our customers. To whatever it is you can.
- [34:51]
Adrian Swinscoe
You said something which I think is really important and you talked about when I talked about sort of like using data to sort of like to drive our car and stuff and you like going. Yeah, but some, you know, as long as it's directionally correct. I think that's the point. Yeah, right. And it goes back to that sort of almost. It feels like it's a core of kind of things where people are talking about. I think in many cases people are still caught up in this idea. It's a behavioral thing. I think this is the thing that we, that the core of all of this sort of stuff is like all of the stuff around us moves at a faster pace than we do.
- [35:27]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:28]
Adrian Swinscoe
Kind of from a mindset and a behavioral sort of like set. And actually you still got many organizations that are still caught up in three or five year budget cycles or planning, business planning cycles going that world that was like oh, five, six years ago that you could probably still get away with that. And now it's so kind of changing. I think the reality is that we need to still set those visions. That envisioning kind of process is important. But the thing is we need to educate ourselves around what is the art of the possible, what is it and what is kind of the possible and probable. How does it all come together to build a picture that is directionally correct and then you work towards it because then you can figure out and be agile, nimble and things along the way and figure out how you can increase your iterative cycle rather than it being an annual planning sort of like kind of thing.
- [36:28]
Greg Kilstrom
Well, and then the tools make sense. Maybe 100% of the Adobe Suite doesn't make sense. But the 30%, 40% that does, like you, you actually have a plan for that versus you just wrote a big check for, for something and now your team is scrambling to use it.
- [36:47]
Adrian Swinscoe
But I think the other important point in that is because what's, what also can happen is if you look at all the research about how people have been successful or not successful in terms of trying to scale these, some of these initiatives and then generate kind of ROI on them, one is because I think they don't necessarily understand where the tools are at. And I wrote a piece about this talking about the. It's like the hammer and nail problem. Yeah. The law of the instrument is like if, if you've got a hammer, then everything look, if you only got a hammer there, everything looks like a nail. Right. And I queried about whether or not that was a thing that was happening in generative AI and how we, we should maybe be using, leveraging its strengths as a starting point actually to listen and to identify patterns and then go, this is the thing, this is the thing, this thing. Now what's the right sort of tool and solution to be able to solve that? And then that allows you to reverse into, oh, can we take an agentic approach to that? And what does that process look like to build all these different kind of things? Rather than going, generative AI is going to be the kind of the magic genie that solves everything. Right. And so I think it's a fascinating thing, but I think the thing I was about to say is I learned this kind of like this tool. I was at this course late last year, Copenhagen Institute for Foresight Studies. There was a two, three day course that I did as a bit of an indulgence to myself, which was brilliant. And they had this model about when you're using, thinking about the future and foresight sort of thing. And they said like, and it's a triangle called the futures triangle. And the two of the corners of the triangle, the one is that you've got these forces that are pulling you into the future, the promise of future technology and all these different things. And then you've got. On the other point is you've got this. The forces that are pushing into the future that might be your brand, strategy, competitive kind of nature. You want to expand, you want to grow, you want to do all these different sort of things. And that's those two things, the push and pull from the future. But the one thing that we don't necessarily pay enough attention to is our anchors in the present. I kind of like you have all these pushing and pull, but if you don't address your current reality and what are the anchors that you have to address and the challenge you have to address, then it limits your ability to kind of leverage, kind of like or exploit or capture and harness kind of the potential in the future. And it feels like to me that's, that's a sort of thing that then when you're talking to go back to that sort of idea about you, what you need to be directionally correct.
- [39:34]
Greg Kilstrom
Consumers are learning this stuff too. You know, I mean consumers are a lot more okay with using AI of their on their own or interacting with AI even than they were 5 years. I mean they still may not love the dumb chatbot thing that, you know, is the doom loop or whatever, like, but they're much more comfortable. So like we're all learning as we go, right?
- [39:58]
Adrian Swinscoe
No, indeed. And I think that's, I think that. But I do think that's. So those things about like you think about the chatbots and stuff, it's because that, that if you speak to anybody, any consumer or see any sort of research sort of thing, you look at it and go, why don't you just fix that?
- [40:16]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:17]
Adrian Swinscoe
Why don't you just make that better?
- [40:19]
Greg Kilstrom
Right, right.
- [40:20]
Adrian Swinscoe
Because if that's the first thing that people smash up against you now, whether you're, whether it's by they, by their choice or you try to drive them down that sort of thing for whatever kind of.
- [40:31]
Greg Kilstrom
I can name an airline that just forced me down that path, the best.
- [40:35]
Adrian Swinscoe
Thing you can do is I'll tell you what, make it not bad.
- [40:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, right, right, right, right.
- [40:41]
Adrian Swinscoe
She's going like going figure it out.
- [40:44]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, well, and that, that's where like instead of the one to one segment of wano, just like don't like force me to use your stupid chatbot that gets me nothing and ends up making me talk to somebody anyway.
- [40:57]
Adrian Swinscoe
Yeah, I mean it's like going if that's your, if that's your, if that's your front door, then make it a decent front door. Yeah, yeah. And make it easy that if I need to jump out of it, then that's kind of fine. But if it also needs. I have a, I've got a quick kind of answer about it, then I need to get access to certain things which might be access to my account or my records or may change things all day. Do that. If that's your front door, then do that. Here's the thing brands, the big chatbot wave. The big chatbot wave was in 2020.
- [41:29]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:30]
Adrian Swinscoe
The chatbots were going to save the world.
- [41:31]
Greg Kilstrom
Right, right, right, right.
- [41:34]
Adrian Swinscoe
That doesn't mean, say that kind of chatbots kind of disappeared in 2020. But the resistance was the big wave. And on the wave of the pandemic and that big shift to digital is that brands have had five years. Five years to do something. No, no. Five years of learning about customers experience via that sort of channel and what they need to do to get it kind of. Right.
- [42:00]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [42:02]
Adrian Swinscoe
And I mean, I'm sorry, but like five years, that's a significant amount of time.
- [42:07]
Greg Kilstrom
Right.
- [42:07]
That's forever in business world.
- [42:09]
Adrian Swinscoe
Yeah, yeah. And so you kind of go with generative AI and all these different things. Now we've moved on to generative AI because before it was logic and rules based and things. I don't give a fine crap. Right, right. It's like you still had five years to learn this stuff and to get this stuff right and to embed that learnings and consumers are rightfully frustrated at that. And it goes back to your kind of the point around the index and stuff. No wonder people are impatient.
- [42:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [42:39]
Adrian Swinscoe
Because if you zoom out and take that sort of picture, you're like going, and consumers know this stuff, they might not voice this stuff. They're like going, why is it always being cruddy?
- [42:48]
Greg Kilstrom
Right, right, right.
- [42:51]
Adrian Swinscoe
Surely if it was just less cruddy than it was, and now I remember, then that'd be an improvement. But now it still seems just for some reason it just doesn't.
- [43:02]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [43:02]
Adrian Swinscoe
Get better.
- [43:03]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [43:04]
Adrian Swinscoe
And so why, and so I think that's the, the thing is like. And it goes back to that, that, that thing I say at the beginning. It's like the future of customers is always built in the present. It's like if brands have been talking about chatbots for the longest time, but that the, the biggest wave of that started in 2020 where pretty much everybody started kind of embracing kind of chatbots because they had to as a way of trying to deal with that digital shift at a massive scale to be able to just deal with it. Right. And many of them were great and many of them can solve lots of kind of problems, but so many of them were also imperfect and didn't perform very well. And consumers were patient with that. But I think you've got like five years. That's a lot of patience.
- [43:53]
Right, right.
- [43:53]
Greg Kilstrom
And I mean the positive there is that for. Because I feel like consumers get a bad rap in A lot of these surveys and stuff as well. It does show that they can be patient, just not for five years to your point.
- [44:06]
Adrian Swinscoe
But it makes me think about the kind of loyalty sort of like side of things. It's like going, you know, but here's the thing is like research creates. People kind of have this kind of like, they're almost a bit like. I think sometimes marketeers are running around going, like, customers are kind of anxious.
- [44:24]
Greg Kilstrom
I've met that marketer. Yeah.
- [44:25]
Adrian Swinscoe
And if the customer twitches or we twitch and the customer's like, wow, running off down the street, you're like going. But actually the research suggests very different things that actually customers can be way more loyal and way more sticky than we understand, although we assume and almost we're embraced as kind of doom loop type of kind of research which goes like, oh, after only like one or two bad experiences that customers go, they're off. That might be true for your brand.
- [44:55]
Greg Kilstrom
Right?
- [44:56]
Adrian Swinscoe
That's true. But don't make them general assumptions because actually some consumers, they stick.
- [45:02]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [45:03]
Adrian Swinscoe
For reasons that you might not understand, that might be to do with who you are as a brand. How, what the first experience was like, you know, do you, do you fit with their, their value kind of profile, sets of preferences, all these different sort of things. And I think that's the thing is that they, the point about all of this sort of stuff is that it's hard. Yeah, yeah, it's hard. And it's like if you think about any decent relationship that you have in your life, it takes work, it takes conversation, it takes honesty, it takes openness, it takes some transparency. It takes all of those different things, but it takes work, constant attention. And to think about. If you think that you're going to be able to put somebody at arm's length, then all you're going to get is arm's length.
- [45:49]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [45:50]
I mean it's, it, it feels a little bit like, I mean, inside the corporate world, it's kind of, you know, marketing blame sales or sales blames marketing or whatever. But there's also a lot of blame put on the consumer. You know, to your point, it's like, oh, well, consumers run away after. And I, I've, I've stopped buying from a brand after one bad experience, but I've also stayed with a brand after 10 bad experience. You know, to your point, it's like we're all consumers as well, so like we aren't homogenous. You know, we're, there's, there's different reasons for all These things. But like, I, I feel like it's a bit of a, it's a blame game or it's asking for money for more toys or it's what maybe all of the above to say, oh, well, the consumers are, you know, they're, they're going to run away after this one thing or they really, really need this thing, even though they haven't talk to them or experienced it themselves and stuff like that.
- [46:44]
Adrian Swinscoe
To me, that feels like it's half the battle a bit. It's like if you don't want to be in that sort of blame game, if you want to be that sort of marketeer or the experience, sort of like that person, professional, the leader in the customer experience or customer service domain, then I think you have to take the responsibility of going further.
- [47:04]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [47:04]
Adrian Swinscoe
And I think that's the thing is a bit like going, I remember talking to somebody who told me a story about there was some product manager at a big publishing company and they took it upon themselves. They're like going, I'm going to go and talk to a different customer for like 20 minutes every week. And they just set up random kind of calls and they kept a spreadsheet, all these different things. And they kept going into meetings and they were like people talking about this data and they're like going, that's interesting. I spoke to a customer last week and here's what they said. And people were like, what?
- [47:36]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, what? Actual, actual conversation.
- [47:41]
Adrian Swinscoe
And the thing is. So you only need to do these little things because sometimes it's like the, some of this, these efforts and some people go fall into that trap, like, oh, do I ask for permission or ask for forgiveness? And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna let you figure that out. Right. But actually going a little bit further, which means that whether it's talking to somebody or going out and observing things or kind of what I'm going to deeper, go and talk to somebody else in another part of the organization to find out what their perspective is and all that sort of stuff, it's going that little bit further is going to make the difference. And I think that's the thing I would say is like, get out from behind your laptop.
- [48:17]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [48:19]
Adrian Swinscoe
Go and see the world.
- [48:20]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [48:21]
Adrian Swinscoe
See the world that you're trying to influence and the people that you're trying to influence or the people that are actors in that sort of influence. So to spear, because there is a scenario in the future where when you think about the vectors of technology, it's like we as Consumers have our own agents that go off and deal with brands who have their own agents and stuff. And you're a bit like going when do we actually experience anything?
- [48:44]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. So I mean, yeah, like that's what I've been thinking about a bit lately too is like what is that? Like in some ways we're still gonna, I mean unless we do, unless we just stay in a bubble and don't do anything, like we're still going to be the recipients of an experience. But I wonder how that really changes the, you know, if I guess you don't, you don't click the buy button or the, the add to cart button or you know, there's certain parts of that that you don't do anymore but you're still the recipient of the product and the service and you know, so I, I do wonder how much that's going to change CX and even marketing for that, you know, or even what a brand is.
- [49:26]
Adrian Swinscoe
I, well I, I, so I, I think they will, how it'll affect things is that. Because I think it's all going to be. A lot of it will splinter.
- [49:35]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [49:35]
Adrian Swinscoe
I think if you think about things that you split things up into almost like two axes. Kind of like it's like a two by two matrix and anyways, gotta love them. If you imagine on the kind of the, the X axis it's that you've got this continuum that goes from low tech to high tech and that can all be relative. Right. And then on the other kind of domain, the Y axis, you've got low touch to high touch. You end up with these four sort of segments. And if you haven't thought about where you're at because everybody's like going oh, we want to be here, we want to be here, we want to be here. You're like going above what really think about it and think about where you are and your relative positioning and how that might work differ from for different types of customers and where you are now and where you might want it to be and why and how that all plays and everything else because it goes back into that. So that idea like we need to think about the future.
- [50:28]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [50:29]
Adrian Swinscoe
Because I do think it will split up the split off and it'll be different even now. If you think about it, there are still valuable opportunities in that low touch, no, that kind of high touch, low tech sort of space. Like people will still pay a fortune for a handmade suit or a handmade pair of shoes or all these different sort of things because we appreciate the Time and the art and the craft and the individualism. The individuality of the thing.
- [51:02]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. I mean, so this is my second time at this hotel. We stayed here three years ago. There was a handwritten note saying, welcome back, Mr. Kilstrom. You know, like, silly thing, but that means something to me and I'm going to be loyal to this place.
- [51:17]
Adrian Swinscoe
Fantastic.
- [51:18]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [51:18]
Adrian Swinscoe
And I think there's are, those are the little things that kind of, they, they, you know, we can try and kind of do the human touch at scale.
- [51:24]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [51:25]
Adrian Swinscoe
But there's something about the human touch.
- [51:28]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah.
- [51:28]
Adrian Swinscoe
It's like why we're not in the Matrix.
- [51:31]
Greg Kilstrom
Right, Right.
- [51:32]
Adrian Swinscoe
Or are we?
- [51:34]
Greg Kilstrom
Right.
- [51:34]
Adrian Swinscoe
Well.
- [51:35]
Greg Kilstrom
And yet they. The reason they know that I was here three years ago was because of data.
- [51:40]
Adrian Swinscoe
Right.
- [51:40]
Greg Kilstrom
But it's like, to me that I, I like that. That part of it is like, that's actually using data in a way that's meaningful and empathetic to a customer. So thanks Marriott for. This isn't sponsored by them, but.
- [51:53]
Adrian Swinscoe
No, exactly. And I think that's. You're turning that data into insight, into action. Into action. Which kind of makes a lot of sense. And it makes sense because it has an impact on people and it understands their behavior and what's the thing that's going to move the needle. And so I think that's a great example. You come to the hotel and they remember and it's because they've got data and then they've actually been able to go, oh, Greg's been here. Let's write them a note. Welcome back. Great to see you again. Hope you have a great. And let us know if there's anything we can, we can do to make your stay right. More pleasure world. All these different things. And you're like going, you remembered. Wow, that's cool.
- [52:29]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, it's.
- [52:31]
Adrian Swinscoe
And you will remember that. And I guess. And I guarantee you one thing, you will tell that story probably more times than you should.
- [52:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [52:39]
Adrian Swinscoe
To explain kind of like the power of doing that and connecting all those kind of like dots. Because that stuff is meaningful to us as human beings.
- [52:46]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:48]
Adrian Swinscoe
Because it means that we are seen, we're heard, we're remembered. And that's the stuff that lasts in our minds.
- [52:55]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [52:56]
And if technology can allow that, that's a whole, you know.
- [53:00]
Adrian Swinscoe
Right.
- [53:00]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah.
- [53:01]
Adrian Swinscoe
And I think, you know, we see it on our phones and things every day where you kind of, you know, you get these memories and photographs, old photographs that gets churned up and go like, you remember this and you're like, oh, look. Because sometimes our memories are rubbish.
- [53:15]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:16]
Adrian Swinscoe
And. And the odd prompt here and there is confined. But I think there is this kind of like a vector where it's like everybody's got their own agents doing their own sort of thing, and then, you know, how do we experience things? And I think that's. That is a. Some people say that's brilliant. Kind of like this idealistic, utopian sort of kind of future. Some people will say it's a slightly dystopian sort of thing. But I think the thing is, if we don't decide what we want, then inevitably we'll get what we get given.
- [53:47]
Greg Kilstrom
Right, right.
- [53:48]
Yeah.
- [53:49]
Adrian Swinscoe
And I think that's the same for both customers, but also kind of brands and brands have to decide what it is that they kind of want, what sort of relationship they want to have with customers, because it's in your hands. That's the kind of. The point. But. And there is this big technological wave that's coming, but it's like you don't actually have to eat everything.
- [54:13]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:14]
Adrian Swinscoe
Don't actually have to jump on that bus. You can pick the things that you can want that make the sense for your brand and the experience that you want to. That you want to deliver. And I think that's the point is, like, you are actors that have agency in this sort of space. You have to exercise that agency. Anything else you want to add?
- [54:32]
Greg Kilstrom
I got a question for you. I ask everybody. So what do you do to stay agile in your role? And how do you find a way to do it consistently?
- [54:38]
Adrian Swinscoe
Oh, right. So I was thinking about this kind of question when I was traveling kind of up here, and I thought I'd do something slightly left field, as is my want, so stretching. And the reason I say that is, like, for the last kind of few months, this has been the first for me is the last kind of few months. Well, about three months ago, I had, for the first time ever, this sciatica flare up. And it was horrible, painful, kind of. I was kind of largely immobile for a wee while, or shuffling around, kind of like bent double like an old man. Much, much, much better right now. But a lot of that's been helped by physio and stretching and all these different. And also just the passage of time. But I think the point is relevant about stretching because stretching allows you to stay agile, to stay nimble, and it's a practice of doing things. And I thought about kind of, well, what does that mean? Physically, I'm stretching and doing those sort of things and paying attention to what's going. But the thing that from a mental perspective and sort of a practice is that I try and be curious about things and try not to make assumptions about sort of stuff and try and look at things from different angles. And I think that's the thing that allows me to stay agile. Because agile is not a practice, it's not a process, it's not a method. It could be all of those things, but actually starts with being as a mindset. And I would say that agility of the mind starts with being curious.
- [56:15]
Greg Kilstrom
Wonderful.
- [56:15]
Adrian Swinscoe
Love it.
- [56:18]
Thanks again to Adrian Swinscoe, host of the PunkCX podcast, for joining the show. It was great to meet up with him in person and hope you enjoyed the conversation. You can learn more about Adrian and the Punk CX podcast by following the links in the show. Notes Notes thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagilebrand.com that's theagile brand.com and contact me. If you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.greg kilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
- [57:27]
Greg Kilstrom
The Agile Brand.
- [57:32]
Adrian Swinscoe
Before we continue, I wanted to share a key strategic resource that a majority of the Fortune 500 are already aware of. Finding the best technology, business and talent solutions is not easy. With business demands and competitive pressures mounting, you need to be able to design, deploy and optimize your technology to provide leading customer experiences while driving business growth. Those of you that have been listening to the show for a while know that this podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, a global provider of technology, business and talent solutions for more than 80% of the Fortune 500, tech systems accelerates business transformation for their customers. Whether you're looking to maximize your technology roi, drive business growth, or elevate customer experiences, Tech Systems enables enterprises to capitalize on change. Learn more@techsystems.com that's teksystems.com now let's get back to the show.