Why Customer Service Fails: Call Analysis, AI & Retention Strategies with Tom Vander Well

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Amazing Authorities Podcast

Episode: Why Customer Service Fails: Call Analysis, AI & Retention Strategies
Host: Mitch Carson
Guest: Tom Vander Well (Founder, Intelligentics; Author, “This Call May Be Monitored”)
Date: August 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

The episode explores the evolution of customer service call monitoring, the real causes of service failures, and why technology alone is not the answer. Mitch Carson interviews Tom Vander Well, a pioneer in call analysis, who shares insights from listening to over 100,000 business calls across three decades. The discussion covers practical strategies for handling angry customers, generational divides in communication, the limits of AI in customer service, and why investing in human connection is vital for customer retention and business success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Evolution of Call Monitoring

[02:25–04:45]

• Tom reflects on starting his career in the early days of call monitoring, recording on cassette tapes and manually tracking customer interactions.
• Intelligentics began as a customer research firm but developed a three-step approach:
  • Research: Discover customer expectations.
  • Analysis: Listen to and analyze actual calls to identify the gaps between expectation and delivery.
  • Coaching: Provide targeted training and coaching to bridge those gaps.
• Over 32 years, Tom has analyzed more than 100,000 calls in various industries, uncovering recurring issues and solutions.

2. The "Holy Trinity" of Customer Satisfaction

[05:25–07:57]

• Tom details the three universal factors that drive satisfaction:
  1. Resolution of the Issue: Customers want their problems solved or questions answered.
  2. Empathy and Courtesy: Customers want to feel heard and cared for.
  3. Respect for Time: Efficiency has become crucial, especially post-smartphone/Amazon era.
• Quote:

  "If I'm calling customer service, I want my issue resolved... Number two is always the soft skills... Number three, especially since the iPhone and Amazon, is: respect my time." (Tom Vander Well, [06:20])

3. Handling Angry or Escalated Customers

[07:57–09:57]

• The main reason customers escalate is repeated failure to resolve their issue.
• Tom advocates for the "Empathy Resolution Statement":
  • Start by validating the customer’s frustration.
  • Make a clear commitment to resolve their issue.
• Quote:

  "When customers feel like I’ve got somebody who cares and is taking ownership, oftentimes that anger and escalation goes down." (Tom Vander Well, [09:33])

4. Offshoring, Accents, and Cultural Disconnects

[09:57–13:54]

• Host Mitch shares personal frustrations with offshore call centers, especially issues with communication style and perceived lack of understanding.
• Tom explains how technology has automated simple queries, increasing the complexity—and stakes—of calls that do reach human agents.
• Discussion of trends toward offshoring (Philippines, India), near-shoring (Mexico, Colombia), and the need to reconsider the true value of customer retention.

5. Customer Churn vs. Retention: A False Economy

[15:12–16:46]

• Tom laments that many businesses today view customer churn as inevitable, often influenced by a “growth at all costs” and short-term trend-chasing mindset.
• Emphasizes that retaining customers is more cost-effective than constantly acquiring new ones.
• Quote:

  "Take care of your customers, and a little bit of investment in human capital... you’re saving money in the long run." (Tom Vander Well, [16:29])

6. Communication Breakdown is at the Heart of Service Failures

[17:54–20:09]

• The vast majority of customer service failures stem from poor communication: unfulfilled promises, lack of follow-through, or basic courtesy (like returning messages).
• Tom tells a story of a manager who personally calls rejected job candidates and the surprising gratitude that gesture generates.

7. Generational Differences in Communication Preferences

[20:09–27:58]

• Gen Z’s aversion to phone calls and preference for text is rooted in anxiety and different upbringing.
• Businesses must adapt service and marketing approaches based on generational expectations.
• Tom observes Gen Z is driving nostalgia-based consumption (vinyl, VHS) and increasingly values in-person experiences—despite growing up in a digital world.
• Quote:

  "You almost have to have a separate marketing plan and customer service plan for how you’re going to communicate with each of these generations." (Tom Vander Well, [21:30])

8. The Limits and Current Role of AI in Call Analysis

[27:58–31:32]

• AI is a useful tool but is not yet able to accurately assess everything that matters in a customer call:
  • AI can only analyze transcriptions, not voice tone or context.
  • Even top AI models misclassify actions about 15–20% of the time.
  • AI struggles with multi-party conversations and detecting nuances.
• Quote:

  "Currently AI cannot listen to a recorded phone call and tell you what happened and what didn’t happen." (Tom Vander Well, [28:28])
  "There are things you can’t analyze from a transcript... The tone of voice, are they screaming or not?" (Tom Vander Well, [30:07])

9. The Value of Independent Call Analysis: Beyond Internal QA

[32:33–35:42]

• In-house quality assurance (QA) is often biased and focuses narrowly on agent behavior rather than systemic problems or root causes.
• Tom’s team acts as an objective outsider and looks at the full customer journey, highlighting both frontline behavior and policy/procedure flaws.
• Case Example: A company’s failure to inform customers about payment issues through effective channels (only via mailed letters) led to service interruptions and frustration—a “system fail” missed by internal teams.

10. Takeaway: Why Listening and Continuous Improvement Matter

[35:42–37:41]

• Caring for current customers isn't just a “nice to have”—it’s vital to long-term profitability and brand loyalty.
• Companies should address friction points systematically, not just train frontline staff.
• Intelligentics offers actionable recommendations and independent analysis to help organizations improve.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Every customer service problem I’ve heard in 30-plus years and 100,000 phone calls boils down to a breakdown in communication."
  — Tom Vander Well [17:54]

• "Short-sighted, reckless, and ignorant"
  — Mitch Carson on the attitude that customer churn is inevitable [16:11–16:29]

• "Take care of your customers... You’re saving money in the long run."
  — Tom Vander Well [16:29]

• "When customers feel like I’ve got somebody who cares and I’ve got somebody who’s taking responsibility, oftentimes that anger goes down."
  — Tom Vander Well [09:57]

• "Currently AI cannot listen to a recorded phone call and tell you what happened and what didn’t happen."
  — Tom Vander Well [28:28]

• "QA is when you do it right—you’re listening at every level, not just what the CSR said, but what the operations, systems, and procedures are doing to the customer."
  — Tom Vander Well [35:25–35:42]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:25–04:45] — How call monitoring began & the Intelligentics process
• [06:20–07:57] — The "Holy Trinity" of customer satisfaction
• [09:33–09:57] — Empathy Resolution Statement for angry customers
• [15:12–16:46] — Value of customer retention vs. constant acquisition
• [21:30–21:39] — Need for differentiated generational service approaches
• [28:28–30:07] — AI’s limitations in analyzing customer service calls
• [32:33–34:54] — Why independent, objective call analysis matters

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Resources Mentioned

• Book:
  This Call May Be Monitored: What Eavesdropping on Corporate America Taught Me About Business and Life by Tom Vander Well
  [Available on Amazon]

• Guest's Site:
  TomVanderWell.com — free book excerpt and blog

• Podcast:
  The Wayfarer Podcast — Tom’s personal, faith-based short-form podcast featuring daily insights from reading a chapter of the Bible ([37:44–38:57])

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Closing Thoughts

Tom Vander Well highlights that human connection, empathy, and active listening remain irreplaceable in customer service, even as AI and automation proliferate. Businesses who treat customer care as a strategic investment—not merely a cost—gain the loyalty and lifetime value that technology alone cannot ensure.

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For more insights and to connect with Tom, visit TomVanderWell.com

Transcript

[Mitch Carson]

Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast, where game changers, visionaries, and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms, and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist, and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place.

This call may be monitored. How many times have we heard that in our lives? There are a couple images that come to mind for me. I don't know about you, but when you hear this call is being recorded, takes you to prison, or you're maybe in the movies, you've heard this, or maybe you've had somebody that's. That's there that's called you and said, hey, man, can you, you bail me out? Or you might say, this call is being monitored and it's a call center or it's a bank or it's a business. Who analyzes that data. Well, our guest today, Tom Vander, well, he's not sick. He's. Well, he is going to share with us how to dissect what's gone on with literally thousands of calls. He's a data guy, hence his company name, Intelligence. And he's. His ear is just blocking the part of the sign over there a little bit. It's Intelligentics. Oh, there we go. Intelligentics. And, Tom, welcome to the show. I'm. I'm actually very eager. I've done hundreds of podcast interviews now, almost the 300 mark in my life, and I'm usually excited. I'm super excited about you being here today because I, I appreciate your topic so much. I'm probably a little bit older than you, but I can appreciate cold calling because I grew up as a stockbroker early on in my career for Merrill lynch, and we were recorded. We were recorded. And that was part of the data compilation, what we said, how we said, so we could improve. Walk us through what intelligentics does.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Mitch, thank you so much, and thanks for having me. I'm honored to be on the show.

[Mitch Carson]

Yes.

[Tom Vanderwell]

So, Intelligence. So I started my career in 1994 when, when the whole call monitoring thing was. I mean, it was, it was like, it was new. My first client, I walked into the, you know, the, like, the contact center had this mechanical closet. Nobody knows what's in there. It's just this locked door, and there's a bank of analog phone switches on the wall. And every little input went to a different person's desk. And so we literally took this analog Cord and stuck it into somebody's desk. And then we stuck it into a cassette recorder and waited for them to answer the phone and then we'd hit record. And that's, that's where it began. My, in the early years of my career, my desk was stacked with cassette tapes and my Walkman was my friend.

[Mitch Carson]

Thank you for bringing me back to my earlier years. I love a little nostalgia. That's awesome, Tom.

[Tom Vanderwell]

So, but, but Intelligentics started like we started as a classic, you know, customer research firm where we would measure, do a survey of customers. What do you expect? What drives your satisfaction? And then the founder of our company, gentleman by the name of Chuck Winger, said, you know what, we want to go beyond just talking to the customer and saying, you know, figuring out what they desire, what they expect. We want to, we want to take it to the next step. And the next step was like going, okay, well the research said, here's what your customers are expect when they call. Now we're going to listen to the calls and figure out, well, what are you delivering? And when you kind of go, well, here's what the customer expects and we listen to the phone calls and analyze them, here's what you're delivering. We know where the gaps are and that allows the third piece of what intelligentix does, and that is custom coaching and training solutions to fill the gap. And hey, your salespeople, your service people, this is what you need to do to better satisfy your customers and keep them coming back. And it kind of works in this cycle of continuous improvement. And but I started the career to like they said, like, no, we're, you're going to do this call monitoring thing, which was brand new. I was like a pioneer. I mean I'm, nobody was doing it. We're figuring it out as we go along. And yeah. And so over 32 years, I've listened to over a hundred thousand business phone calls, all shaped sizes, different industries, and it's just been an, it's this quirky, weird. Yeah. Career that everyone's like, does anybody listen to those calls? Well, yeah, I do.

[Mitch Carson]

And you know, I would imagine you've been able because you've worked in a variety of sectors, I presume, and have you found some best practices? How, how does somebody break the ice or how does somebody shift an angry caller?

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yep, yep, that's a great. And, and you know what, Mitch? That is the number one request that I got from like, like, like escalated angry callers. What do you do? How do you do it? And the reality, the first thing that I always teach and coach people is. I'm sorry, there is no magic pill. There is no magic bullet. But there certainly are things that I've learned over time that do make a difference. So in my book, I talk about the holy trinity of customer satisfaction.

[Mitch Carson]

Let's take a quick look at your book because we'll bring it up again. So here's the book. This Call May Be Monitored. What Eavesdropping on Corporate America Taught Me About Business and Life, Authored by Tom Vander. Second word.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Well, got it. It's a good Dutch name we read with last names. And so there are nuances, you know, whether you're. You talked. Merrill Lynch. Okay, so the, the Merrill lynch customers that you're cold calling have, have there's nuances about different expectations than the catalog customer calling in because their towel set didn't arrive. You know, every client and customer base has some nuances. But I've just. Our research has discovered there really are three universals. I call it the holy Trinity, number one. And it's always number one. If I'm calling customer service, I want my issue resolved, my question answered. That's always number one. That's why I'm calling. So take care of it. Number two is always the soft skills, the courtesy, the friendliness. I want to know that you care about me as a person. I want to know that you, you care that my expectations have not been met. And something. And I had to call you in the first place. And then number three, and it was really fascinating, Mitch, is that in the first decade or so of my career, it was a binary. But then in 2007, this thing called the iPhone was introduced and starting in 2008 and growing since then and especially, and it even grew more once Amazon, Amazon got into the picture. Time related dimensions of service. Respect my time. Be quick and efficient. Don't waste.

[Mitch Carson]

Bravo.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Bravo. So those are the three things. So when you talk about an angry escalated customer, what I've learned is that most of the time a customer is angry because there have been a series of failures to resolve their issue. And by the time they get escalated, this might be the fourth or fifth or sixth contact they've made. Nothing has happened or things have been promised that didn't. Didn't come to fruition. And with every one of those contacts, they get angrier and angry and angrier. So and, and typically they don't feel like at this point anybody cares. So to answer your question, one of the most effective strategies that I've learned is when you recognize I Got an angry customer is to. It's what I call an empathy resolution statement. Hey, Mitch, look, dude, I am so sorry that this. It's obvious that this has been a multi point fail. I get that you're angry and I get why what I am going to do. So there's the resolution. Now. I started with the empathy. Hey, I care. I hear you. Now shift the whole focus to what I can and will do to resolve this issue. I love assurance is like, dude, I am going to. You know what? I'm. I'm going to take this and I'm going to make sure that we get this thing resolved. When customers feel like I've got somebody who cares and I've got somebody who's taking ownership and responsibility to resolve the issue, oftentimes that anger and escalation goes down.

[Mitch Carson]

Gosh, this brings up so many memories. I, as a consumer have been quite upset in situations. I know I'm going to bring up possibly a politically sensitive topic, but I don't care. It's my podcast and I'm going to bring it up. If I call a customer service line and I get flipped to either the Philippines or worse, it was India. India drove me bonkers because their accent is so thick, they speak so quickly and are not articulate. They may write well. And it's British English, it's not American. And there are differences way beyond nuances. They're just different, especially in pronunciation. Then you throw an Indian on top of it, they're doing their job, bless them. However, if I'm calling a bank and I need to find out where my missing money is or why my credit card got on hold and I'm overseas and this has happened more than once, and I get somebody calling me sir every two seconds with no answers. Excuse me, sir. Let me look into that. Sir. I said, would you stop calling me sir? I'm not British, number one. And number two, I'm not. And I'm not a knight. Okay? So you know, and my dad's not in the room, number three, so you don't need to call me sir. My name is Mr. Carson until I tell you it's Mitch. And please proceed, but do not call me sir again. Americans don't like it. We're not part of a royal family, all right? We have no kings, no queens, none of that. So just plain Mitch is fine. Get me the answer. Okay, sir. And then it goes right back to sir again. Oh, my gosh, that inflames it. So this is my personal experience. And then what's happened in that whole call center arena because I know you're smiling ear to ear. For those of you who are not seeing Tom, he's smiling because he knows exactly what, what I'm talking about. It drives me bonkers. Or if I can't get somebody on the phone, what is happening? Or I get an AI robot who gives me incomplete information, give me a satisfaction. And you can't write in a satisfaction because you're, you're prohibited. And that happened recently with my Expedia Travel. It's like I couldn't get anybody on the phone. Drives me bonkers. So what the hey is happening tomorrow?

[Tom Vanderwell]

Well, so what has happened over, especially over the last 15 to 20 years? Technology, which is a wonderful thing, but it has allowed companies to take the low hanging fruit the most common simple questions and handle them. My example is especially early in the year we did a lot of work with financial institutions, banks, financial services company. So like early in my career, like the number one reason that customers call this bank, our client was to get the balance of their, of their account. Number one by far. Okay, that's a simple one that has gone away. Technology has taken care of that in a great way.

[Mitch Carson]

Your balance is bang. Yeah.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yes. It's available million different ways from technology across the board. Businesses have been able to take those simple questions and, and answer them effectively by technology. Totally agree then. So by if a customer is actually calling you, you can know that this is already a complex, not easily handled. I wasn't able to get this answered through the easy technology options. So the customer's already frustrated.

[Mitch Carson]

Right.

[Tom Vanderwell]

They've already got an issue that's complex. And so the stakes for business have gone up that when I am taking a customer service call, it's already, I mean a real serious customer service issue. So with technology you talk about Expedia, certain companies are like going, well, we just want technology to take care of everything easily. And so there are the companies that are like going, we're going to let technology and AI do everything because humans are expensive. The other side of business says well okay, I guess we're going to need some humans, but we need cheap humans. So we're going to go to India or the Philippines or there's a whole industry around near shoring, that's another industry term where Mexico or Colombia are near shoring, where the promise proposition is it's going to be better than offshoring. And so companies are going that direction. But the reality is like you start thinking about, start thinking about the lifetime value of Your customer.

[Mitch Carson]

Oh, gosh. Oh, I'll get into the numbers part. That's like utterly destructive if you deflect this.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Oh, so, and Mitch, you. I mean, we're both of the age where we like when I got into my career, everyone talked about it. Look, it cost five times more money to get a new customer through the door than it does to keep an existing one somewhere along the line. And I think that there are two things. Number one, I think there is, I think it's also technology. We live what the Internet does. What social media has done is when things are trending, different things are trending every five minutes. When we have a 24, 7 news cycle in which the, you know, the latest news is changing every five minutes and the things we're supposed to worry about every five minutes. What I've observed is somewhere along the line business has just sort of like gone, well, you're going to have customer churn. It's just, it's going to happen.

[Mitch Carson]

Well, that's so reckless.

Thank you.

[Tom Vanderwell]

And, and especially the younger generations, and especially the younger startups are just like going, well, it's just what we have to deal with in business. And I'm like going, no, that's so short sighted.

[Mitch Carson]

It's ignorant is what it is.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Take care of your customers and a little bit of investment in human capital to take really good care of your customers when they have these complex issues and keep them loyal, keep them in the fold. You're saving money in the long run.

[Mitch Carson]

Oh, I'm a, I'm a big fan. I, I go crazy. Even for people, you have to meet a certain level. They have a criterion of revenue in order to have a rep. For Facebook ads, for example, I've used a lot of Facebook ads in my career to fill events and so forth. You can't get an employee of Facebook on the phone. Good luck. And where do they make their money? Selling ads. That's their platform. But can you imagine going back to our youth and hearing about your dad trying to get in with the ad agency and for them not to take their call. I'm giving you money. Or we both had a background in radio to call the radio show and talk to the radio show rep. He'll call you back in two seconds because he's commissioned to sell a radio spot. Now you, how do you find somebody? It's almost like you have to crawl across glass and beg to get somebody on the phone to give them money.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yes.

[Mitch Carson]

It's absurd. I just don't get it.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yeah, there so Every, virtually every customer service problem I've heard in 30 plus years and 100,000 phone calls boils down to a breakdown in communication.

[Mitch Carson]

I believe it.

[Tom Vanderwell]

I can trace it. Communication that was supposed to happen, that didn't, or communication that was poor and miscommunicated, promises that were made that never came to fruition. But it comes down to a problem with communication. And what's happening right now, and I've seen it even as of today, is people just aren't communicating the basic courtesy of replying to an email or a text or a phone call, people just start doing it, they just don't reply. I had a guy I was talking to this morning who is about our age and he's in a job where he got a team and he's hiring. And he said, I always make a point. If I interview somebody and I'm not going to hire them, I give them a call of regret. Hey, sorry, thanks for the interview. You weren't chosen, but I just wanted to let you know. And he told me, he's like, tom, when I call, make those calls, people are going, oh my God, thank you. Like, nobody calls me. Like, nobody calls me to tell me I didn't get the job. Like, you're the only person who's ever given me that courtesy.

[Mitch Carson]

How old is he?

[Tom Vanderwell]

He is, yeah, he's 50, 54, 55.

[Mitch Carson]

Okay, so he's leaning more towards the more mature area. And that's just a, that's a mature. Hey, I'm not afraid of rejection. It's the right ethical move. It's a nice move to let somebody know so they're not sitting in wonder. It's like, okay, it goes back to, does Susie like me? Is she gonna ever go out with me again? You know, you leave them in hanging. It's not nice to do that to humans. It's, it's better to get stung once than waiting for the world to collapse behind you.

[Tom Vanderwell]

And there's been studies done that show, I mean, literally, there are studies that show that Gen Z don't answer the phone. They don't. And, and the studies show that the thing is, they're anxious about it. I don't, I don't.

[Mitch Carson]

What is this anxiety about answering the phone?

[Tom Vanderwell]

I don't know what to expect. I don't know if I'm going to be able to answer the question. I don't know what this is going to do. I don't. And so they just don't. So, like in the research business, where, you know, you, you make Phone calls to ask people questions. Gen Z won't answer the phone. Does that mean it'd be stupid to do a phone survey and try and expect Gen Z to answer? But there's also a reciprocal thing. They don't want to communicate by phone.

[Mitch Carson]

They want to text.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Sure. Yeah. And so that's one of the things we've seen in my career, like, now. There's always been generational differences, but they've never been mispronounced. And so we'll see when we do the research. Okay, look, your customer base is X percent boomers and X percent X and Y and Z. And based on that breakdown, look, you almost have a half a. You almost have to have a separate marketing plan and customer service plan for how you're going to communicate with each of these generations because their expectations are so different.

[Mitch Carson]

Tom, you just made my day by sharing with me. And I'll say why I'm flustered dealing with certain people, certain ages who won't, who are put off by this. But now you're giving me the data to back it. They just don't. It's a cultural phenomena of that age group, of that age cohort. And you've broken it down into segments. I'm a baby boomer. I was born in 1960.

Okay.

And 64 cuts off for baby boomer. And then it spills over into the next generation of people. But we picked up the phone. I cold called every day, at least a hundred times when I worked for Merrill Lynch. Prior to that, I used to cold call and say, who's this? My. My line for selling investments at Merrill lynch because directed by my resident manager was Mr. Mr. Vanderwell, my name is Mitch Carson from Merrill Lynch. I'm calling to earn your investment business. Straight to the point right there. And today we've got an offering that is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right to the point. How many can you handle? How many shares can you handle? Right. Boom. Here's the offer.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Direct.

[Mitch Carson]

And it's either, how did you get my number? You know, And I would use those bold techniques. I did very well because I was direct. I can't imagine if I had to do that today, I'd probably fall on my face, wouldn't I?

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yeah. And one of the. One of the techniques that I've taught the whole time, and one of the most common things, this happens all the time. You call in and I say, hey, Acme Anvils, this is Wiley. How can I help you today? And you say, hey, my Anvil didn't arrive and on time. I'm checking to see where it is. Okay, Could I have your account number, please? Yeah, it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

[Mitch Carson]

Crickets. Crickets.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Dead air.

[Mitch Carson]

Oh, my gosh.

[Tom Vanderwell]

And. And the simple fact it's like going, hey, my Anvil didn't arrive. I'm checking on the status. Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. I'll be happy to take care of that for you. One moment, please. You know, can I have your account number? Here's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Awesome. Give me just one moment, Mitch, while I pull up your account and we're going to find out where that anvil is and if it's lost, we're going to get you a new one. You know, just taking the time to say to fill that and communicate to your point. Directly. I'm just telling you directly, here's what I'm going to do. Here's. Here's what we're going to do to take care of you and customers. Just go, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Instead of the crickets and. Hello, is anybody there? Hello? Yeah, it makes all the difference in the world.

[Mitch Carson]

And it's a generational thing. So the Z's, what age group is. It comprises the Z's who won't.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Oh, gosh, now I got to remember.

[Mitch Carson]

Sorry to press you. I know you didn't expect.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yeah, yeah, yep. But Z's. Right now, the oldest Z's are getting right into about 30.

[Mitch Carson]

Okay, so that's all right. That answers the question.

[Tom Vanderwell]

What we've seen in the last, especially five, six years is Z's have graduated from college, they're beginning to enter the workforce, get married, buy homes.

[Mitch Carson]

And

[Tom Vanderwell]

so they're having a bigger and bigger effect on just everything in life they're purchasing. Yeah, absolutely.

[Mitch Carson]

They're part of the system. But they are.

Well.

[Tom Vanderwell]

And what's fascinating about Z's is that they don't want to answer the phone. But it's Generation Z that's driving all the nostalgia. They. They're the ones buying record players in vinyl records. They're the ones, oh, my God, are buying VHS players. And because. And what the research shows is this. They've never known a life without technology. They have never known a childhood where, like, you and me, we got to go out. Our parents basically kicked us out in the morning in the summer with our bike and told us, yeah, when the street lights come on.

[Mitch Carson]

Yeah.

[Tom Vanderwell]

And we went to the rock quarry and went swimming and Lord knows what kind of trouble we were getting into, but nobody knew where we were. There were no phones, nobody worried. And so they've been grown up, they've grown up with helicopter parents that have a wifi enabled app that tells them how much water they've drank and you know, whether, where they are at all times. And so what's happened is Gen Z is they want the childhood they never had. They look at the childhood we had and go, I want that. So the nostalgia for all things old and part of that is also they want personal, interpersonal, one to one contact more and more Gen Z. They want to go to the store, they want to feel it, they want to touch it, they want to have the experience.

[Mitch Carson]

As opposed to E commerce.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yes. So the pendulum is they know E commerce. I can order it on Amazon and have it here tomorrow. I know that. But you know what, I've never been to this local store where I walk in and there's this ambiance and there's this environment and it's unique. So they're starting and again, it's not across the board, but it's growing in them. Yes. I want the experience. And so businesses that don't keep their finger on the pulse of all this stuff risk losing the boat.

[Mitch Carson]

They're going to miss the mark. I love this now, the last three years, the world has changed and has been. It's major, major shift. Two letters. AI, Artificial intelligence. Are you going to be eliminated or does it need somebody to analyze the data beyond what chat GPT or Claude or one of the other Gemini can come up?

[Tom Vanderwell]

The answer is no. And you know, we've just been so we do use AI for a piece of what we do and we're constantly monitoring what AI does. And I also have colleagues who do the whole Kyle monitoring thing with their own business and we confer, we talk about it. We talk about what's working for you, what's not working for you, uh, what's really fascinating. So it, you know. Yeah, all the hyperbole. Yes. AI can do anything. AI can do anything. Well, no, it can't. For example, currently AI cannot listen to a recorded phone call and tell you what happened and what didn't happen. So Claude chatgpt. I don't care what it is. You have to transcribe the audio recording.

[Mitch Carson]

Yes.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Feed the transcription to Claude and then Claude can take the transcription and, and do a 80 to 85% accurate job of saying that he said their name they use, please, they gave the right answer, blah, blah, blah. But it's only 85 to 90%. I regularly find 15 to 20% of the answers are just wrong. You know, Did. Did the CSR use the customer's name? Yes, it did. No, it didn't. Or vice versa. It just gets it wrong. Also, there are things that you can't analyze from a transcript. The tone of voice. Oh, major.

[Mitch Carson]

Are they screaming or not?

[Tom Vanderwell]

Yes, yes, exactly. All of these things.

[Mitch Carson]

Did they pronounce the name correctly?

Right.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Then you throw in a wrinkle. Like, Bob called in and said, yeah, I have a question. I'm here calling for my elderly mother. She has a question. Well, can you put her on the phone? Yeah. All right. Now we're talking to Edith. And AI can't. AI assumes that there's only two people talking. And so when you enter, like a third person into the equation, it completely misses it. Just little things like this that you're, like, going. It will continue to get better. I'm assuming also it can listen to this one conversation and tell you what happened in this isolated conversation. But so much of the business. Yeah, the things that are important is what's happening over 100 calls, 200 calls. What are the trends? What is the things that customers are experiencing across the plethora of 50 CSRs, over 200 calls today. AI can just listen to this one call and say, what happened in this one interaction? Now, again, I think it will continue to grow and develop, but it is so far, so far from being able to do what it needs to do.

[Mitch Carson]

You still have a job in the foreseeable future. You're not being

[Tom Vanderwell]

the biggest challenge, Mitch, is convincing clients and potential clients of that. Well, there's AI. Why can't you just have AI do it? And cut my prices in half?

[Mitch Carson]

Right.

[Tom Vanderwell]

That's the expectation. And then when you kind of go, all right, look, let me explain to you why this isn't as easy as you think it is. They don't care. They just want what they want

[Mitch Carson]

until it bites them in the rump.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Right, Exactly.

[Mitch Carson]

And so I would imagine, based on your data and your analysis, you assist companies and help them guide their technology with FAQs based on what people are constantly calling about. Like, they can assume the frequently asked questions are 1 through 10, but it could be 15 and save them money. Do you help lay that out for people to understand? I mean.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Mitch Carson]

And when it's a deliverable.

[Tom Vanderwell]

When we listen to a phone call, and it's a little bit different, like most companies, especially the large ones, they do QA themselves. So they do it in the vacuum of the internal organization. So when you do that, number one, you, you immediately introduce bias because the people who are analyzing the calls are part of the team. And so, you know, if I'm, if I'm analyzing my friend Susie and she doesn't do what she's supposed to do, it's like, oh, I know Susie.

[Mitch Carson]

She.

[Tom Vanderwell]

She's a good person. I don't want her to get. So I'll just give her credit.

[Mitch Carson]

No objectivity. No objectivity.

[Tom Vanderwell]

So no objectivity. But they're also just, they, they limit it to. How did Susie do in this phone call? Well, there is so much more to it. Why did this customer need to call in the first place? What was broken in the system that this customer had a fail that they had to pick up the phone and call. That's an issue. And the QA people usually don't listen for that. They're simply listening to how Susie did. Well, when we listen to the call, I'm like, when I'm putting myself in the customer's shoes. So let me give you an example. We have a client who really old family owned company. They're still struggling to kind of get the company into the 21st century. So they do this, this ongoing monthly subscription service for, for people. And customer called in and said, well, you know, I need to. My service got shut off. Oh, well, let me check on that. Yeah, well, the card you had on file, it expired, so your automatic payment didn't go through. Well, why didn't anybody tell me? Oh, well, we mailed you a letter via the US Postal Service. Well, by the time I didn't receive it or I received it, thought it was junk mail and threw it in the trash. And the customers are going, could you just like text me or email me if my payment doesn't go through? Oh, no, we just, we send out a letter.

[Mitch Carson]

That's. That's our. Yeah, that's our.

[Tom Vanderwell]

That's a system fail big time. But the people on the front lines, they just do what they do. They're doing what they're told. And I'm. So when we do our report, it's sort of like, no, no, no, no. Management. Here are all the issues, systemic issues, policy issues, procedural issues that we heard that you may not even know exist because you're not listening to the phone calls. You've got to fix this if you want your customer to have a better experience. QA is when you do it right. You're listening at every level, not just what the csr said, but what the operations and systems and procedures, what they're doing to the customer, very important.

[Mitch Carson]

So let's take a look at your book one more time because I think this has been filled with gems. This call may be monitored and intelligentics is finding this out because this is where you stated in the beginning and so important to understand the cost of not taking action is so much greater than going out and finding a new customer, somebody to replace because all you're doing is putting more water in the boat because it's seeping out. You have to. Yes, you need customers. There's natural attrition. But if you take care of, of your passengers, they're not going to find another airline to fly if you take good care of them. And that's what you provide. That's what intelligentics does. And that's what I would imagine you have case studies in your book covering exactly, you know, here's what happened, maybe changing the names to protect the innocent. But Tom, you've been a fantastic guest and what do you have to offer for our guests? Because we always like to give away free gifts.

[Tom Vanderwell]

I really appreciate that. You can contact me at my, my personal website is tombanderwell.com and you can contact me there tombanderwellmail.com and you know, yes, be happy to get use a free portion of my book and give that away for free. Give you a taste for what it's like before you buy it yourself. It's available on Amazon, of course, the book's available on Amazon. And I also have a podcast called the Wayfarer. Oh, podcast. And it's really not associated. It's more of a personal podcast and, and blog. But it's available. So when you go to tomvanderworld.com you can find my blog pocket. I've been doing it for 20 years. Not the podcast, but the blog. And I started doing the podcast a few years ago during COVID So all the resources are right [e-mail] well, tell

[Mitch Carson]

us quickly about your podcast because I had no idea until now.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Oh yes.

[Mitch Carson]

So.

[Tom Vanderwell]

So I am, it's actually a personal love of mine. I'm a person of faith and that also interested in my book. So I did this really, it's really simple. I read one chapter of the Bible every weekday and then I simply blog and then record it as a podcast. Here's what it made me think about and here's how I'm going to try and apply what I've learned today. It averages six minutes. It's a Simple, quick hit. I don't preach to anybody. I just say, here's what I read, here's what it made me think about, and here's how I'm going to apply it. And if it can help anybody else, I could do it. But I started doing that as a blog in 2006. I just passed 20 years and one chapter every weekday. I blogged my way through the entire bible twice and I don't know. Wow.

[Mitch Carson]

So you. It's a solo podcast, so it's short nuggets.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Short nuggets, six minutes. And then on occasion I'll do a longer form weekend. I call it the Wayfarer Weekend podcast where I may interview somebody or get something off my chest and talk about, but the bottom line is just short little nuggets every weekday.

[Mitch Carson]

I love it.

[Tom Vanderwell]

I love it.

[Mitch Carson]

Tom, you've been a great guest. Thank you so much for your time.

[Tom Vanderwell]

Mitch, thank you for having me on the show.

[Mitch Carson]

Yeah, and I love the topic because my gosh, I could go on and on and on talking about is I go bonkers when people don't take my call or they deflect me. Oh my gosh. Fantastic Intelligenics Tom Vander well, for those that are listening, Tom Vander V A N D R E R well w e l l.com that's where you find Tom so you can look at your calls intelligently to make corrections, improvements and more problems.

Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.