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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 563 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Nick Glimstall, author of the Heart of Service. Ready?
- [00:14]
Molina
Let's get started.
- [00:20]
Podcast Announcer
You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [00:36]
Molina
Hello. Hello everyone.
- [00:37]
Melina Palmer
My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. We all know that AI is something that can help us in business when implemented correctly. But how do you know if you're doing it right? How can you choose the right place to create a project so you can get buy in from team members and customers and see all those important savings.
- [00:58]
Molina
In time, money and more?
- [01:00]
Melina Palmer
Between all the new tools and bold claims, it can feel a bit overwhelming. Should you be automating more, personalizing faster? Are bots helpful or just more frustrating Noise. That's what my guest Nick Glimsdahl and I are discussing in today's episode. Specifically how AI is changing the customer experience with some stats putting failed initiatives as high as 95%. Yikes. It's definitely worth investing in rolling out.
- [01:28]
Molina
The right projects and in the right.
- [01:30]
Melina Palmer
Way instead of rushing into something just to be part of the herd. What does work? Research shows it's the projects that ask better questions upfront and keep the human element front and center.
- [01:42]
Molina
And you know, that's what we are.
- [01:44]
Melina Palmer
All about here at the Brainy Business.
- [01:46]
Molina
And that's why I was so excited.
- [01:47]
Melina Palmer
To have this conversation with Nick today. So whether you're leading a team, shaping strategy, or just trying to keep up with what feels like a never ending wave of tech changes, you'll leave this.
- [01:59]
Molina
Conversation with ideas to help you make.
- [02:01]
Melina Palmer
Smarter, more brain friendly decisions with AI really quickly.
- [02:05]
Molina
Before we get into the conversation, I.
- [02:08]
Melina Palmer
Want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch and more.
- [02:14]
Molina
It's all within the app you're listening.
- [02:16]
Melina Palmer
To and at the brainy business.com563.
- [02:22]
Molina
Now.
- [02:23]
Melina Palmer
Let'S jump right in. Nick Glimsdahl, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.
- [02:28]
Nick Glimsdahl
Hey, thanks so much. It's a pleasure being on here.
- [02:30]
Molina
Yeah, super excited to chat with you. You know we of course have known each other for many years and keep up that network I guess on LinkedIn more than anything. Shout out to Mutual Friend Brian Ahern, who's a guest, a friend of the show and has been on a few times. This is your first time here though, so for everyone who doesn't yet know you, can you share a bit about yourself and the work that you do?
- [02:53]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, so. So I guess where do I start? Right? We don't want to spend 30 minutes just talking about me. I just get uncomfortable. Right. It's like the keynotes that you show up and they talk about me. And about halfway up I just am like, yeah, we're good to go. Let's get to the meat of it. But so I got a book, it's called the Heart of Service and I'm excited to talk about that a little bit today. I also got a podcast called Press One for Nick where I interview boatload of people, 300 plus people, anywhere from, you know, CEOs, the Starbucks people who led Magic Kingdom at Disney to, you know, the Chris Voss's of the world, the international hostage negotiator, and obviously Molina Palmer who is one of the great guests there as well. And then I help organizations across the US help deliver on contact center experiences. So it's a little bit about me.
- [03:45]
Molina
Yeah. So how did you work in a call center at one point I did not know.
- [03:51]
Nick Glimsdahl
So it's interesting. I kind of grew up in. On the sales side, we focused more on. At one time I was selling cookies, pastries and pizzas. Then I got into selling websites and IT support transitioned to another company that did IT support actually in Ohio, where I'm at today. And then an organization approached me, which is the one I'm at today, about eight years ago, and said, hey, I do like your resume and how you're actually, you're consistently writing about the customer. You're consistently writing about just delivering on. I didn't have experiences or customer service in the title, but they kind of lean into that. And then from customer service, I kind of got more into that customer experience side, employee experience side. And then obviously the last three or four years more focused on. On AI. It's. It's a word that we haven't talked about at all here in the last couple of years. So I figured, let's talk about it here today.
- [04:48]
Molina
No, nobody's even thinking about AI by any means. Yeah, well, I do feel the need to share. I have worked in a call center. Um, and that was, you know, at. Actually at 18, I got a job in an airlines call center. And by 19 I was in there. Like, what became customer care, like those customer relations Those that person, when you're angry that your flight was delayed, you call and yell at that person.
- [05:14]
Melina Palmer
That was me.
- [05:15]
Molina
You were yelling at 19 year old me.
- [05:18]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, that's. And that's one thing that's frustrating for the consumer, but also more the agent is people bring their entire life to that issue. They don't just bring, I have to reschedule my flight. But you know, my kid got a D in Spanish and I'm struggling with this at work and you know, I haven't bought, you know, we're less than a week away from Christmas and I haven't bought those out yet. So they take all of that out on Molina right at that time and you're like, wait, what, what did I do? Like what happened?
- [05:52]
Molina
Right? Yeah, all the stress that builds up often when you have to like and then I have to call and deal with this. Right. This thing. And you person, even though it's not your fault that this thing happened, it's like the person you can vent to. And so, you know, the thing about, you know, working in a call center.
- [06:11]
Melina Palmer
Is, you know, some of those calls.
- [06:13]
Molina
Are quick and easy and there's this balance between efficiency and, and doing the right thing and having a good conversation. Like for someone to feel like they're getting that customer service, right. That you understand them and remember them. And maybe it's like a detail from a CRM and making it feel authentic, but not like I'm reading it out of a CRM, but how am I going to find all these different screens.
- [06:37]
Melina Palmer
And pieces of data?
- [06:39]
Molina
And also I get, you know, mark down whatever you would say about that if I don't hit a certain number of calls per hour. And so that balance, there's like people do not respect enough what it takes to work in a call center. For one, there is a lot of work to be able to balance all of that and be really skilled at it. So that the other side, you know, the person who's calling in feels that that's the face of the company though. And as you said with AI being a big factor here.
- [07:08]
Melina Palmer
Right.
- [07:08]
Molina
So people want more efficiency, but we want that customer service element.
- [07:13]
Melina Palmer
Like how, you know, can talk about.
- [07:16]
Molina
Kind of the history of it before jumping into the AI aspect if you want. But like what are your thoughts on that and where, you know, some companies either get it right or wrong, like what does that kind of look like?
- [07:26]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, I think it's interesting with some organizations earlier on you think of the chatbot and the chatbot was typically just a bad Experience, you know, you wouldn't have. You. You would chat and this pop up would come back and they'd say, hey, how can I help you? You're like, okay, cool. Hey, this chatbot. And then you start messaging it and it doesn't get what you want and it's not configured the right way. And honestly, it's just poor. And then you have to get to an agent and that agent is saying, hey, Molina, how are you? What can I help you with? What's last for your social street? Grew up on mom's maiden name. You're like, listen, I already got, you know, authenticated through the chatbot. And they're like, yeah, but we're not connected, so can we please just start over? Right. The more channels that you are switching from one to the next without context, that agent is beyond pissed off, let alone are they bringing their entire life to that moment. You know, I think when it comes to AI, there's a few different ways to think about it. Some organizations are just saying, you know, this is going to save me so much money. Yes, I'm going to spend this upfront and I'm going to pay this X amount over this time, but I'm going to be able to lay off so many people and it's going to look good for me at the bottom of the line on Q4 when I have this great number of the amount that I saved for the year. However, it's, it's going to create more strain and potentially, if you're not configuring it right, or you're not focused on actually the outcomes and the consumers, if it's not designed the right way and you're not actually listening to the consumer and, or the front line to ask what they actually care about, what's working for them. You touched on it earlier. How many applications are open? How can we collapse and consolidate a lot of that? What does our data look like and should we be cleaning that up? You know, what, what is the outcome you're hoping to achieve? What are the jobs to be done and then work backwards to that? Don't just. If the C Suite's saying, you know, we need AI, and you're like, great, what does AI mean? We need AI, right? And they come back to you and you don't have a clear plan or clear objectives or what hope, what you're hoping to solve for and you're not asking the right questions, you're going to get blindsided. A lot of the manufacturers are going to marketeer the heck out of you, they're going to provide you with the sweet proof of concept and then they're going to let you go live in the wild. And you know, if there's no ongoing support to maximize that investment, you're kind of stuck in the wild figuring out, waiting for the black panther to show up and, and eat you alive. So I don't know where that went. I kind of, I kind of went off on a little curve there, but I hope that helped.
- [10:13]
Molina
Yeah, no, definitely. I was also having the visions of every single person that has, you know, you think about how the technology has evolved over time, right. And that everyone has dealt with like. Representative. Representative. Yeah, Please, please, please put somebody on here for me. I just need to talk to a human person. And if you don't set up the technology properly, then it's never, you will have that problem. And people are frustrated because especially when it's how many clicks or buttons you have to press to get to a person. And if you've set this expectation that it's going to be that bad experience, it's really hard to break free from that. And it just reflects badly across your entire organization. So good news is it doesn't have to be this way. Like there are some places where you can actually have a good experience when you call in or chat with a team. And so if we think about how AI can come into that, you know, so some research is saying that as many as 95% of AI initiatives are failing. And that's, you know, here in 2025 that research was done so pretty current.
- [11:32]
Melina Palmer
And it's almost as bad as it can get.
- [11:35]
Molina
Right. That's effectively the worst that you can have results wise.
- [11:41]
Melina Palmer
How do people avoid being in that.
- [11:43]
Molina
Space being the 5% and hopefully growing that so that's not so terrible.
- [11:49]
Nick Glimsdahl
Well, what are the incentives of to get it right and who is incentivized to get it right? And if it's the manufacturer, in most cases, we should let the, the little secret out that the sales rep will get paid on that one time of average contract value. They will not get paid on that ongoing success or the customer lifetime value. And did they upsell or cross the sell them after go live? There's just no incentive. And so their goal is to get this over the finish line as quick as possible. In my book the Heart of Service, I think there was a chapter, I don't remember if it's chapter 12, I might have just made that. But there's a section where you are, they're actually interviewing the vendors and they were just not just asking the surface level questions, but they're asking deeper questions. Well what, what happens after that? Or what happens if this breaks? Or what's the model that you use for that? And I would challenge leaders to not just look at, not ask ChatGPT GPT to say, hey, give me the top five questions I should be asking to making sure this, this is a great success. But actually bring in subject matter experts and dig into the outcomes that you're hoping to achieve. Kind of going back to that. Don't just take their what they're saying from the manufacturing side and saying, you know what, this is 100% true. You need to trust but verify what they're saying. You need to test this out in a pilot or proof of concept before it actually goes live. And I would recommend, you know, thinking that an organization, maybe a small queue or a small organ or part of the organization that is going to have the, the least amount of impact if it doesn't go well, but also the, the ability for it to, to test effectively. And if you can do that and figure out what's working, what's not working, or can I tweak this or calibrate it in the right way to make it a better experience and then start rolling it out across the organization, you're going to have a lot more success. And I think organizations tend to focus on the big bang than focusing on the small incremental. Go slow to go fast is kind of what I would start off with.
- [14:20]
Molina
Yeah, I fully agree. And we're all about being thoughtful and asking those questions up front to save you time down the line. Line. Right. Like with any sort of software and whatever they talk about the, like at the early on we're having the conversation this is a $10 problem. If we shift and adjust then very quickly it becomes a $10,000 problem. A hundred thousand, ten million dollar problem if you, depending on the size of your organization. Right. If you have to try to, you know, turn that titanic sort of problem. And so if you can be thoughtful to why you're doing this right. What, why would we even lean into this here? And like, yeah, maybe we don't need quite as many people but like if hopefully we're thinking about that customer experience as well as the, you know, the balance for employees not being totally overwhelmed and stressed and having to just be, have that inefficient experience like we're talking about, you know, clicking into a bunch of systems and researching the same stuff over and over and being thoughtful to the common questions that are asked and the context behind them that hopefully, you know, that AI can help it so that like you're talking about the chatbot that just can't pick up on the nuance in the way that you. Someone is going to ask the question back in the day. Right. Especially with how they were programmed. But potentially they can be better now, right. Of being able to answer those quick questions and in a way that someone feels like, oh, good, I accomplished that. And I would say for like, I don't want to go so far as to say 99% of people, but it does feel like 99% of people don't want to have to call your call center. Right. Like, I don't want to talk to you. And so if you can help me accomplish that, then that. That's great. Right. Sometimes I need to talk to a person and then I really, really want you there. So Maybe it's like 95 and like 5% of the time I have to call and. And I want you to be able to pick up quickly and understand and empathize with me and to be able to get it and to care and help me fix that and feel like I matter to the organization and you solve my problem. Right. So what about that balance there, I guess between that like efficiency and empathy and that like whether it's 80, 20, 95, 5, like that sort of split.
- [16:35]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah. I think anytime that it doesn't matter if you're a consumer or if it's an acquaintance, if there is a gray area in communication, that person on the other end of the line that's not receiving the communication typically goes to the worst case scenario. And nobody's saying in similar to what you were saying earlier that nobody just calls into a contact center and just saying, hey, hope you have a great day, your product's working, the service is great, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Right. Air high five. They say like stops going down and I'm on fire and I need to stop, drop and roll. And you need to figure out how to make this, you know, a better experience. And I think there's some things that you can do on the. With AI in the front end, you know, if it's inside the ivr, if they know, if you see that they have an order for resupply for a CPAP machine, you basically, you can authenticate them inside the IVR and you could, once you authenticate them, you can say, hey, it looks like you're scheduled for a resupply on December 19th. Would you like to go ahead and get that started? You could say that your delivery is on the way. You know, your tracking number shows that it's, you know, we're three days out. Is there anything else I can help you with? So you're kind of. Or you can provide them with proactive notifications. You could send them an email, you could send them a text, you could send them an automated voicemail if you really wanted to. Like, there's ways to create a better experience. And somebody once said this, and I always forget who it is, but they said a human is the heart and machine is the mastery. Like, you think of a lot of those mundane tasks that you as a customer service rep that was interacting, let's say, 50 interactions a day. And you just kept saying the same answer over and over and over and over again. And you're almost, in some instances, and I'm not going to blame everybody, but you are basically, you're trying to shut them up so that you can get that answered quickly. Because you said you are measured on the, the amount of interactions you take or the length that they are. You know, how much time is my after work. And so you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand what you got. Here's the answer. And you're like, listen, that empathy sucked, right? As a consumer, can you please just. Maybe there's a way that you can't be super empathetic quite yet with AI. You can. There's some organizations that, you know, it seems like, it sounds like it feels like you're doing the Chris Voss method there by labeling their emotion, but some organizations get that wrong as well. So there's a. There's a balance between the human in expectations and having the importance of that. So there are needs there, but you also need that. That speed of the consumer as well.
- [19:32]
Molina
So if we think about trying to find the test right? So we don't want to rush into something. We're going to be thoughtful about this and we're going to start with a test. What recommendation would you have for, like, questions people can ask to help pick. You know, if I was going to attack this, right, I would think, okay, what's. There's a segment that we want to deal with. Like, we can maybe go ask the team if there are com. If what's like a common question or where. What takes you the most time to do the same thing over and over again. And maybe there are some metrics they have and we can see where this translates into. You know, doesn't just have to be a call center, right. It could be in the marketing department or in AI and finance or something. But if we're able to say like what's the thing that you hate doing that's super, you know, mundane and you're doing over and over again or you know, what is super cumbersome that doesn't have to be, where are you wasting time researching? And then you can find like one kind of thing that has a quick fix and kind of that low hanging fruit. But what would your approach be? What do you recommend people ask and and do to find that fitness first test case for the AI?
- [20:48]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, I think you nailed it. When it comes to the low hanging fruit, like what are you should be interviewing a handful or a decent amount of the frontline employees, especially the ones you know, the median is always going to be there, right? There's the people that have 20 years experience and there's the median and then there's the people that have been there for three months and they're still trying to figure stuff out. So I would ask each segment there, what are the biggest, what do you wish that you would have experienced, you know, a year ago or five years ago or today to create a better experience for you? And what are the consumers asking? Because they are like you said, the front line. They're the front door to the organization. They are the voice of the customer. What do they continue to be frustrated about? And yes, you can go inside the contact center and look at your speech and text analytics. You can look at your topic spotting and what are people are saying. You can set, you can see when people are dropping four letter words or raising their customer sentiment level, but hearing it straight form from the organization or the front line, I think those are important to address. Then there is what are the mundane, what are the emails that I always have to send or the follow ups if I'm on, you know, in most cases you're on one email as a cons, as an agent, you're on one phone call and then you could be on multiple texts and multiple chats at a time. And some people are. If you can get people, one person on multiple voicemails and our voice calls and multiple emails, then you know, duplicate them and, and send them over as, as many as possible. Not possible that I know of, but you can do it. But there are different strengths in these organizations. Like is the data correct? What knowledge in an ideal state would you like for it to populate in real time? And then on the supervisor side, if they're listening to the interactions. You can score now 100% of all interactions and they could answer either yes or no questions or even questions that are not yes or no are more like did they were, did they greet the person by their first name? Did they go through this? You can go through a checklist and it'll like checkbox sections around. Did they verify who they were? If they didn't get verification on the front end they could say, did they mention this specific special. Like there's all sorts of things you can do. But on the, on the knowledge surfacing side, what would be ideal and questions that you answer all the time that you would just wish inside a chat or an SMS where you could just drag and drop or push over to get the answer and then tweak it as needed. Like there's all sorts of, there's probably another hundred questions I'm not thinking about on the spot but those are kind of the high level ones that the low hanging fruit. And then from there once you lay all those out and you're looking at the journey of the customer and the journey of the agent and you're like, you know, what could I solve with this? And then what's the outcome that I'm hoping for on the reduction level? Is it 5% reduction on after call work or is it, you know, 45 seconds and the average is two minutes today? Well, if you save 45 seconds over two minutes instead of two minutes, you know, that's a significant drop depending on how many calls you make. So there's all sorts of stuff that you can do to create the best experience possible.
- [24:32]
Molina
Yeah, and I really like, you know, it was something that I think in many ways you kind of said offhanded but like I think gets into something that people might not have necessarily been thinking about and why it's so important for whether it's like, you know, executives going to set this up or you know, looking for where they're going to invest, like for the supervisor to get a report of information like and not having to sit and live list it to calls so intently. Like I know I, you know, like.
- [25:03]
Melina Palmer
A certain number of calls that are.
- [25:04]
Molina
Monitored, you know, and recorded and somebody.
- [25:07]
Melina Palmer
Has to sit and listen to those.
- [25:09]
Molina
To you know, two per person at least for the month. And then you sit down and talk to the person about it. And so if you think about like the time that's most valuable. Right. And of course everyone's time is valuable but for a company they tend to pay the supervisors more or managers more than what the person who's actually taking those calls. And so if you can have less of them having to do those audits and listen live into those, maybe they just get clips instead of having to listen to a full call and they get reports and something to listen to, like flagged. If there's a problem and you don't have to go through everything, then you just also are able to save money there. That can help, you know, overall within their investing that time in coaching people instead of listening to calls and making notes about, you know, what they might need to do differently.
- [26:01]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, you can also inside the speech and text analytics and most contact centers, you can get a summary of that interaction. You can look at the sentiment of that interaction, you can look at the next steps of that interaction. You could translate it. So let's say you have people that are also speaking Spanish and I speak Spanish and maybe that supervisor doesn't as well, but you could translate that interaction in real time or after that interaction say, oh, this is what happened and then you can communicate back to the agent. There's all sorts of crazy technology and obviously there's voice bots, there's virtual agents, and now there's agentic agents that are coming out.
- [26:44]
Molina
So we want to be more thoughtful about what we want the thing to do, how it's going to help us both for the bottom line people that work for us and the, you know, customers on the other side of those interactions. So we want to balance all of that and then, you know, even the best laid plans.
- [27:01]
Melina Palmer
Right.
- [27:02]
Molina
Status quo bias is a real thing. Familiarity bias. And you know, if you just like drop a new system on people, they.
- [27:10]
Melina Palmer
Don'T always adopt it.
- [27:12]
Molina
Uh, and so especially if you weren't thoughtful in how you roll it out. But what tips do you have for people to make sure that they don't have this issue where, you know, you go live and the team never improves and doesn't do it and it was just a big waste of time and money.
- [27:26]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, well, I think that is a huge risk. What would you say, 80, 90% of it implementations, maybe even general just stall or they're not what your expectations are. I would spend a considerable amount through that implementation on user acceptance training. And that's train the trainer, that is train the supervisor and making sure that what was promised is delivered. Because I think that can get gray if you're signing something quick or you're signing somebody. You know, I've seen cheap implementations, I've even seen free implementations on both AI and the contact center and it was more vague on the implementations and then they ended up paying almost the same amount, if not more on job change orders because of the, the expectation wasn't set from the beginning. So they, What I think is very important though, is that user acceptance training so that at Go Live, people are not saying you didn't, you didn't set expectations, you didn't help deliver this, you didn't give me any training. What you should be doing is bringing, once you get this thing set up and, and, and getting ready to deliver to the consumer, you're making sure that they're equipped with the right resources and now the right tools to deliver on, on this outcome. You know, the, the Chloe Chen character in the book, she, she goes out, she doesn't know a whole lot about AI. She just knows she, she needs to change this. She goes and actually asks the front line about what their pain points are and what's working and they're all like, why are you here? And why, why is why. I don't, I don't understand, like, are you just trying to take my job because you're pushing AI? What's the goal? And throughout the whole process, she brought in the, the consumer, the front line as part of the journey. It wasn't always that case. But I think if you bring him through part of the journey, you explain what the WHY is on the mission and what they're hoping to achieve and there's no confusion, and then you train them up prior to Go Live, there's going to be a lot higher chance of success, definitely.
- [29:37]
Molina
And I think with any of these types of projects, one of my favorite questions to ask people, whether it's like we're redoing a website or there's a new system like this, right. Is like, what would make you love this? Right? And so typically, the system that we're talking about, people have nothing but gripes about it, right? But it's like, let's forget what it is now. Like, just don't think about how terrible things are going for you in this moment. Like, if you are going to have just like the best day. And like the system does everything you could possibly imagine, like, what does that look like? And what I found the thing that would change their life and be like, oh my gosh, I love it, is.
- [30:20]
Melina Palmer
Super easy to accomplish.
- [30:23]
Molina
It's like built into a lot of systems based on, you know, something you're revamping that you haven't done in 10 years or whatever. Like, technology has come along in such a way that it's actually very doable most of the time. And that like, IKEA effect process of being part of, like, I like and I came up with something that was.
- [30:40]
Melina Palmer
Like shooting for the moon.
- [30:42]
Molina
I thought no way it would be possible. And you did it. Like people then are much more bought in because they got to be a part of that process. So that's one of my favorite questions and ways to approach it. Do you have any other, like, favorites.
- [30:56]
Melina Palmer
From you that you've seen either that.
- [30:58]
Molina
You'Ve asked or that, you know, others have asked to help kind of just get people out of the, like focusing on what they don't like and being more bought in in a process?
- [31:10]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, I've, I've seen people say, if you had the magic wand, right, like what. How would you make this a better experience? I do love your question more. So I'm going to start stealing that one and I'll put the, the, the MP next to it as a copyright. But I think when it comes to consumers, what I don't want to do is just say I don't want to be the yes guy. Where somebody says, I want it designed this way. And I'm like, okay, cool, like we can do that. Instead of saying, hey, this is interesting. Like, thanks for sharing. What would make this a better experience? Like, how could I. Is there a way that I could integrate this into something else? Or could I not have three applications open at the same time? Or if I could make this either simpler or a better experience for the agent or the consumer, what would that look like? Or what would that do for you? And so then you're just having different conversations instead of saying, yeah, we can do that. And you're writing it down now in the statement of work. It's not being consultative, it's not being an advisor or a guide at all. You are basically taking notes. And at the end of the day, AI should be able to do that. That's going to be the differentiator, I think, on the sales side of whether you are just the order taker to going through that process or are actually, are you a consultative seller who's going to deliver outcomes and focus on what's best for the organization? Because, you know, AI can now search the websites that you're on, understand the architecture, probably design it better than some of your organizations, but they can't be human and deliver on those additional questions.
- [32:57]
Molina
Yeah, and I think there's so much of people don't even know, like you can get so stuck in the mud of. Or like the muck of what's there. Right. Of like it just especially when it's like call after call and long hold times and like stressful situation. Like then asking someone like so how could we improve? Like I don't know, like just fix it. But then they don't like the thing that you gave them because they said that in a moment it's you know, hot cold empathy gap, all sorts of.
- [33:24]
Melina Palmer
Fun things happening there.
- [33:26]
Molina
And so there's also like just observing like where you say like well that's interesting, why'd you click over here instead of doing that? Or like you answered this way like I haven't seen someone do that, like tell me more about this. Right, whatever. Right. You can gain knowledge by observing too. So a whole balance of investing upfront to help create that positive example to which I would love to ask, you know, we've talked a lot about when it goes wrong. Let's end on a positive note. Do you have an example of ideally, you know, a real life one but like when like anybody that's gotten this really right, like what are the benefits that come from just like really like nailing that balance of efficiency, empathy, bringing in AI and real human interaction. What's a great example of that?
- [34:11]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, I think there's so many examples of organizations that are trying to, to do it better. You know the, the, the length of time for like a sales cycle. So let's say I got one of them that I was just thinking of off the top of my head and there's many more we can talk about too. But like with sales it's typically your focus on the speed to lead. If somebody, let's say you're an insurance company and you're also selling, you know, one train insurance company to the next insurance company. It's hard to tell the difference. What would differentiate you is the length of time it'll actually take to get in front of you, get a meeting scheduled and then it's ultimately up to the salesperson to deliver on that result. And you know we, we helped an organization not just it was. They were On I think six different applications they had. It took I think 26 minutes to, to deliver on getting somebody to a human as quick as possible. That was their quickness calculator and with the integrations with setting it up with inside their salesforce putting in an always running outbound campaign. And then we kind of asked some automated questions on the front end. We had the conversation started within about a minute and a half and then from there there was work, workflows There was that next best action in real time. There was the agent summarization of that interaction. And then you can also do using agentic AI or like agent to agent integrations. There's all sorts of stuff where you can kind of do the summary of the interaction. It'll recommend an email. But there's so many ways to just be different but still be authentic when using AI. And so that was just like one, I thought at the top of my head. There's also, there's so many more around just the burnout of the agent, I think. I don't know if we talked about it on my podcast. I always use the internal. You want to focus on AI internally before you focus on AI externally. And I use the analogy as a married guy. Right. If mommy ain't happy, nobody happy. And the same is true with your consumers. If the agents are not, you're not setting them up for success. You're not equipping them with the right tools and the process and the right data and the right knowledge. Your consumers will feel it. And so I would continue to reiterate and calibrate what's going on and don't just like set it and forget it. This isn't an easy bake oven. Like, this is something you should be consistently looking at to making sure that it's delivering on the results. As you know, as a consumer, we're just never settled and our expectations are higher than they've ever been, but also lower than they will be next year. And so how are we focusing on always meeting the expectations? It's not like we have to be the Amazon or the Zappos or the Disney of our industry. Sometimes we just somebody, one of my friends, Nick also, he once said that sometimes you just have to beat the dmv. Like you have to beat the experience that you're having today. And that could be a horrible experience because going to that next product or solution or service is easier than it's ever been. Switching from that next one, we used to go and get Tide or Hanes or fill in the blank because our relatives did. Right. And now we're just saying, okay, well, looks like on Amazon this one's a better experience. I'm going to return this one because it's the 30 day easy returns. I'm going to buy the next one because I had a scratch and this agent ticked me off. Like, whatever it is, there's all sorts of ways that you can improve it.
- [38:11]
Molina
Yeah, yeah. We definitely have so much feedback and opportunity and in that way, a really great rep can help build that loyalty to where I don't feel like I want to return the item or even if something goes a little bit awry with that delivery or whatnot. And so we obviously want everything to go perfect every single time. But if you have those rushed agents who feel really stressed and are kind of short with people and can't invest in the interaction, it's definitely not doing you any favors with returns. And then, you know, people end up cycling through jobs and leaving and customers aren't happy just so much. So focusing on those people in that team environment. I know in the book you give, I really appreciated the examples of, you know, one of the metrics they were looking at being that, you know, the agents were laughing and smiling in a way that they hadn't in months and saying like, that is a good metric that you have happy people on the floor. And knowing that that's going to ripple out in a positive way is, I mean, that is as important a metric as any. And sure, it's, you know, more subjective, so you have some of those objective ones too. But, you know, paying attention to things like that can really make a difference and being thoughtful to those people matters as well. So as we go to close, I do have one last question for you that hopefully we can get a quick answer on this. Being that, you know, what's the biggest gap that you see between what customers want and what companies are building with AI and kind of how do we get around it? We talked about it a little bit, but I feel like it's kind of a direct sort of answer thing for people to avoid.
- [39:49]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, I mean, as a consumer, I always try to think of it put the consumer hat on. Like as a consumer, I want. And you even touched on this earlier and in the episode is you basically you wanted to meet them on the channel of their choice. You want to feel known and valued and don't. And don't waste my time. And sometimes organizations don't talk to the front line. They don't talk to the consumer and they build out this whiz bang technology that is just not, not the right fit or the consumers never asked for it. And so be clear on what you're delivering. Ask the front line, but also get uncomfortable because it might be uncomfortable at first, but ask the consumer what they actually want. Hey, with this, I'd love to bring you in, you know, even if it's a virtual zoom call schedule, 30 minutes and I'd love to buy you, you know, a $50, $100 DoorDash to just get your perspective on that, you know, that I, I get Kroger delivered. Kroger grocery store. I had a delivery about a month ago, and the HQ is in Cincinnati. I'm probably about, I don't know, 50 minutes from there. And there was an executive. I don't know what the title was, but that person was doing a ride along at. With this delivery person. And, you know, typically I just see that the, the main person who's delivering and it's, it's always the same person, but this new person was showing up and they had a vest on. So I knew they're official, but they, they were just saying, I'm here to listen. I'm not here to do anything else. I'm not here to, like, sell you anything. I'm just here to listen. Here's my business card. If I can help in any way or deliver on an experience, let me know. And I was like, I don't know if he's actually gonna do anything with this information, but it's a great first step. Right. And sometimes, as Amazon, all executives have to sit in the contact center at least one day a month or maybe one day a quarter, one of those two, to hear the voice of the customer. And I would recommend every executive in every organization do that.
- [42:01]
Melina Palmer
Absolutely.
- [42:02]
Molina
That airline I mentioned working at back in the day, the CEO at that time at least would go be a baggage handler and in that sort of like undercover boss. But it's like the people on the team knew that that was the CEO, but the customers did not.
- [42:17]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah.
- [42:17]
Molina
And so having to see what it's like when bags are late and the people are mad at the gate or whatever else are in the call center. There's a lot that gets uncovered in that, you know, ethnographic research that helps those executives be able to empathize with the customers and the team members and really not get too distanced from that. So, so really great advice. Thank you. Along with everything we've talked about here today. So for everyone who is now so excited to learn more and follow you and get the book and, you know, all those things, where should they go? What's their best path to do that?
- [42:52]
Nick Glimsdahl
Yeah, well, you can find me on LinkedIn. Just search for Nick Glimsdahl. It can be in the show notes. I'm sure you can search for the book. Either put it on Amazon, the heart of service. That's where you can find it. Or you can just type in the heartofservice.com and it'll actually push you directly into the Amazon book. But yeah, if you find me in one of those two spots, you can also go to YouTube, search for press one for Nick and that's where you can find all the videos of the of the podcast.
- [43:22]
Molina
Awesome. Well, as you said, we will definitely have links in the show notes to make it easy for everyone to do that. So thank you again for joining me on the show. It was delightful to chat with you today.
- [43:33]
Nick Glimsdahl
Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
- [43:35]
Melina Palmer
Thank you again to Nick Glimsdahl for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, it might not be surprising to learn that I love the reminder that AI, like so many things in life and business, is only as good as the intention behind it.
- [43:52]
Molina
We talked a lot about the gap.
- [43:54]
Melina Palmer
Between what businesses think customers want and what actually makes their lives easier, and how that disconnect can grow even wider when automation enters the mix. And that's really the key here, isn't it? AI itself isn't a strategy, it's a tool. And like any tool, it only creates value when you use it with clarity and purpose. And what works for you, your company, your team, your customers. And that's why understanding your customer's actual journey, their motivations, friction points and moments of truth is non negotiable. If you skip it, the most advanced AI in the world is not going.
- [44:28]
Molina
To help you connect.
- [44:29]
Melina Palmer
It's just going to make the disconnect more efficient. And of course you have to consider your team members as well, their journey, their workloads, what they're working on, motivations.
- [44:38]
Molina
Friction points, all of that.
- [44:40]
Melina Palmer
It's dual sided and you have to work on both of them. And if you do that thoughtfully, it can make it much, much, much more likely that your initiatives will succeed in a way that helps your business to thrive. So that has me curious. Where are you hoping that AI is going to help your team or customers to have a better experience? Come share what resonated for you on social you'll find the brainy biz just about everywhere and I'm Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, along with links to my top related past episodes and books including the Heart of Service and Ways to Connect, including. If you would like help in asking those brainy questions that can improve your customer experience with behavioral science, send me an email to melinathebrainybusiness.com I love training teams to learn how to ask better questions.
- [45:33]
Molina
It's all waiting for you inside the.
- [45:35]
Melina Palmer
App you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 563 and thank you again to Nick Glimsdahl for joining me on the show today.
- [45:45]
Molina
It was a delight to chat with.
- [45:46]
Melina Palmer
And learn from you. Join me next time for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast.
- [45:52]
Molina
It's going to be a lot of fun.
- [45:53]
Melina Palmer
You don't want to miss it.
- [45:55]
Molina
Until then, thanks again for listening and.
- [45:57]
Melina Palmer
Learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
- [46:06]
Podcast Announcer
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.