Barbacoa de Cabeza featuring Justin Robbins

Transcript

Rob Dwyer (00:01.944)
It is a special episode of Next in Queue, one that involves a cheers. Justin Robbins, welcome to the show and cheers.

Justin Robbins (00:11.824)
Rob Dwyer, cheers to you my friend.

Rob Dwyer (00:14.67)
So you and I have been talking about doing an episode and drinking bourbon on the episode for quite some time. And here we are. So before we get started, let me just ask, what are you drinking?

Justin Robbins (00:29.65)
Ooh, so I am drinking a Castle & Key Wheated Bourbon from 2023 release. How about yourself?

Rob Dwyer (00:38.338)
Hmm.

You know, we talked about this previously, but I decided to break out the Dragon's Milk beer barrel bourbon that one of my best friends in the world brought back from Michigan recently. If you're not familiar, they are known for making an amazing stout, and now they also have a really amazing bourbon. So that's what I...

Justin Robbins (01:10.284)
That is sitting in my cart. the thing is, and you know, I talked about this is actually very fairly priced. My problem is I'm looking at a shelf with probably 80 bottles of bourbon too many, and I feel like I need to work through some of those before adding another one.

Rob Dwyer (01:19.703)
Hmm, it is.

Rob Dwyer (01:33.176)
So I keep my bourbon in bourbon and scotch.

Rob Dwyer (01:42.092)
It's hard to say which I like more, but I have two cabinets that I keep them in and they runneth over. So it is one of these situations where I'm like, well, I need to figure out what I'm going to finish off and empty to make room for something new before I get something new. So I feel you.

Justin Robbins (02:00.592)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and there's a couple bottles that, you know, can be hard to come by. So I'm like, I have I have reserves in those. But I also look at how slow I'm to consume some of those. It's like, maybe I can just make someone's birthday extra special by gifting them a bottle. So just saying, Rob, I may I may have a thank you on its way to you depending. We'll see. I don't know.

Rob Dwyer (02:15.714)
Yeah.

Ooh, ooh, ho ho ho, ooh, ooh.

Justin Robbins (02:24.858)
Hopefully the US Postal Service isn't monitoring this. I don't know how those rules work. Maybe we should talk about this when it's not on a recorded line.

Rob Dwyer (02:31.36)
Right. Maybe, maybe you may change your mind as soon as I ask my first question, because here's the thing. You recently wrote an article for ICMI about change management about two months after I wrote an article for ICMI about change management. And I want to know what was wrong with what I put out there that you felt you just had to add onto it.

Justin Robbins (02:38.562)
okay.

Justin Robbins (03:01.802)
yes. Gosh, so many things, Rob. mean, where do I even start? You know, it's so so funny enough about that piece. So I don't I don't write about change management that often. I talk about it a fair bit in terms of like, where does it go wrong? And when I reached out to the fine folks at ICMI who shout out by the way, you know, big fans of what they're doing.

Rob Dwyer (03:05.666)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Justin Robbins (03:30.258)
they, had, a new member of their team come onto their editorial staff. And so I saw, shot them a note and I was like, Hey, I want to, I want to write something. what are some topics that you're looking for content and change was one of them. And now I'm gonna, you know, confess that I didn't even think twice about what my good friend Rob Dwyer had written a few months prior, but I was like, you know, I've got a few thoughts on change and, I'm going to let you have them.

Rob Dwyer (03:49.656)
Ha ha ha.

Rob Dwyer (03:58.2)
It was really good. I read it and I appreciated the angle that you took. is absolutely a critical piece to involve the people who are going to be most impacted by the change and get them on your side, make them your cheerleaders. It is way too often forgotten. So kudos to you for putting that out there. I know that there are readers who will get something out of it. And then

You know, maybe you can check out my article too. Maybe not. I don't it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's not not clicks for me.

Justin Robbins (04:38.706)
It's you know, you know what? Gosh, I can't believe I'm coming on the record with saying this but Rob the real the real reason that I wrote it is is frankly, I feel like I just need to change myself and yours your your piece spoke to me so much that I was like, this is like me confessing all of the things that I'm inflicting change on too many people. And no, it's it's it Rob. This is so funny. Like

change management to me, as are a lot of things. Like these are not, these are not new ideas. Like neither you or I have, you know, put anything out into the world that has not been thrown out before. but, but I think with some of these, I'm going to call them just fundamental practices for leaders to have in place. It just surprises me how often those are the things that we glance by. We assume that we already know them and we're doing them well.

And yet when you start to ask the questions and you start to look at people's realities, it's like, we're not, we're glancing over these things. We're assuming that we're doing it well. you know, crazy. I sometimes just like, am I really sounding like a broken record? But it's like those fundamental things, if we spent just an inkling more on really would be transformative for us as leaders, for us as organizations. So.

You know, even if it takes, you know, our combined efforts writing about change every other month, hopefully, you know, people start to recognize this stuff really does matter. We all do have something to learn from it. And that's that I think anytime I write something about change as I'm sure you're the same way, it's like, let's somebody recognizes we all have something to still learn.

Rob Dwyer (06:26.22)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we all can get good reminders about some of the things that maybe we already know we should be doing, but we forget or it gets lost and we just don't do it. And that reminder can make all the difference because then we go, yeah, I better do that.

Justin Robbins (06:51.536)
Rob, I call the, I don't think I've ever talked about this before. I call them "duh, now do that" moments." And you know, when I'm reading or when I hear somebody say something, it's like, yeah, duh, I knew that. Why am I not doing it? And like, if I probably picked out one of these books behind me, I will have plenty of done, now do it moments because it's not a matter of it being in my head.

Rob Dwyer (07:08.832)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Robbins (07:19.312)
It's like how do I actually internalize it and get it to show up in how I act.

Rob Dwyer (07:23.436)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I just put a post out on LinkedIn today that I feel like is a little bit relevant to something that you recently wrote about. So this is going to be really a question about an article that you've already written. The article was titled, The Biggest Lie We Tell Our Customers.

So Justin, I want to hear your thoughts on voice of customer surveys.

Justin Robbins (08:05.883)
How much time do we have?

Rob Dwyer (08:07.31)
We have 56 minutes.

Justin Robbins (08:11.984)
great. Perfect. Yeah, we've got plenty of time then. So so I'm going to start with my, my initial reaction to that question is actually my reaction to a lot of things, whether it's a methodology, whether it's a metric, it's whatever it's like, like, what are, what are we actually trying to accomplish? What are we trying to do here?

And then what's the right thing to help us help us achieve that. And what got me ticked off, candidly, Rob, and why I wrote that article was I was having a conversation with someone and they were just talking about an initiative inside of their organization and they were trying to imagine this drive real change. And they were running into some resistance from their executive team.

And the question they asked is like, like, what is, what is the goal that we're trying to accomplish with this particular thing that they were doing? And their executive team said, we want people to think that we're doing something about this.

Justin Robbins (09:27.26)
This is, this is a real conversation that I had less than two weeks ago. And I'm not, I don't even, I'm not even going to say the industry, but the person I was talking to, like they, this, think for them in a lot of ways was an aha moment of here I am a CX leader working for an organization that wants the illusion of concern. And really what they care about is status quo and a few niceties that they can like.

Rob Dwyer (09:28.706)
Yeah, okay.

Justin Robbins (09:56.796)
tout about in a press release or a board meeting or whatever, whatever the, you know, the avenue would be. And I am not saying that most organizations have the same malicious intent that this organization has. And, and I don't, I don't even say malicious intent lightly, but very clearly this organization, like they do not, they do not actually care. this I think was my frustration more than anything is, you know,

organizations have the best of intentions. And then so many things conflict with their ability to deliver on those intentions and whether it's conflicting objectives, whether it's shareholders, whether it's just competing priorities, right? So much gets in the way. And the result is this reflex that businesses have to pursue short term

gain short term reward and they're not willing to play the long game. That was kind of like the genesis of all of that. So to your question of what's my feeling on voice of customer surveys and voice of customer programs.

look the the insight into the number one barrier to your organization experiencing the success you hope and dream and want for it. The number one answer to what customers love most about your brand, what they wish would change most about your brand, you know what they want that you're not offering about your brand like

All of those things can exist inside a voice of customer programs. If we ask the right questions and we leverage the data in the right way, but for so many businesses, it just has become the checkbox of, we've got to ask the survey or we've got to pull our employees or we have to, we have to, we have to. We've totally just missed the point of why we did it in the first place. And that's that to me is, I think the burden that I feel for a lot of organizations is

Justin Robbins (12:06.034)
There's so much opportunity there that can drive tangible business value. We're talking about whatever the economic engine is for your organization. The key to revving it up another notch absolutely sits inside of VOC, but I think we're missing it.

Rob Dwyer (12:27.596)
So I put out a post about surveys because I saw this Reddit thread. Someone was filling out, I assume an MPS survey for Volvo. I have no idea if this was US or not US. And the eight had just kind of the face associated with it, right? They put emoji. On on the.

Justin Robbins (12:49.468)
I saw this, yes!

Rob Dwyer (12:52.834)
tied to the numbers and this person didn't understand like why is eight?

And one of the things that I talked about very specifically was exactly what you were writing about, which is we as customers have been giving feedback to companies. We've been answering surveys. We've been telling you what we love, what we hate, what you could do better. And I think often

We feel like you're not listening. Yes, you're giving us an opportunity to give you this information, but then you do nothing with it. And that is an incredible example of a company who very much does not want to do anything about it. I don't know that that's always the case. think sometimes companies

don't know what to do about it or their voice of customer program isn't providing them actionable insights and so they don't take action. But it very much ends up with the same feeling as a customer. Like, I don't even want to do surveys anymore because you don't listen. So why do I bother?

Justin Robbins (14:24.346)
Yeah. Yeah. So, so what's interesting about this to me, Rob is, it's, it's, believe to, I don't know if they're, they're principles, ideas, whatever at play. And the first is the law of diminishing returns, right? And for those listening that aren't familiar with the law of diminishing returns, it says that for us to get closer and closer to that idea of perfection, it requires significantly more.

effort, investment, energy, and the proportion of what it requires from us versus what it yields to us is less and less and less than right if we have massive errors and serious problems and grave concerns within our customer base or our user base or our whatever it is. It's very clear what a dollar spent yields, you get closer and closer to this idea of perfection or excellence or whatever. And it's

It starts to get marginalized. That's just happens everywhere. That's one. think the second piece and sorry, subjective excellence is talked about a lot or sorry. The diminishing returns is talked about a lot. What I feel is not talked about a lot is this idea of subjective excellence and subjective excellence is really this idea of what is a eight for me or a nine for me or even a whatever, right?

is very, very different from person to person. And even my interactions with different organizations, you know, the bar that I've got set for filing my taxes is very different than the bar I have set for the nicest vacation I've ever planned in my life. And that, that, that is very nuanced. It's very complicated and it's very unique to the individual and the experience.

And that to me is where, you know, don't think organizations spend enough time, energy, effort, focus on like, where do we actually stand? What's really meaningful for us? And so I think as a result, you know, you get a lot of interesting insight that just gets buried or it just gets tossed away as part of the, like investing in that is, you know, a very marginal impact on our organization. And so I don't.

Justin Robbins (16:50.918)
I don't know that there's a quick and easy answer to how do we change that. But what I think, you know, for, for us is I'm going to talk to us as consumers first, because we're all consumers first. think what we need to, I don't want to say accept, but recognize is that we don't know for an organization, what are the glaring errors and what are their, kind of diminishing return moments. And so I think every time we have an issue,

Justin Robbins (17:22.134)
I hear myself when I'm saying this, but recognize that like, don't, we don't know what we have to trust is that if it's a significant area of improvement for the organization, they are going to do something about it. But if you are one of 10,000 or 1 million or 10 million who that's your experience. Yeah. I mean, if any of us were in the same shoes of that executive.

There's a certain trade-off where it's like, do want great experiences for everyone, but depending on the nuances of your issue. Yeah. I don't want to say that, that you're like special in the worst of ways, but it's like, that's a special situation that we're just not going to, not going to be able to accommodate as an organization. So I think there's like that side we all have to recognize. But what I also want to say for organizations right now, all of us put on our.

Rob Dwyer (18:04.814)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Robbins (18:15.322)
CX leader or contact center leader or customer support leader, whatever you are, what I think we have to recognize is we need to be really, really good at addressing the glaring issues first and foremost. And there's still space for all of us there. But then once we get those right consistently and at scale, we should have initiatives in place to identify where are those incremental improvements and how do we, I think more than anything,

communicate to our customers, hey, we want you to keep sharing your feedback with us. Here are the places where we're focused first and foremost, and here's why we're focused there. Everything that doesn't fit into this, we want to get there, but I think we can all agree that these foundational things are really important. That level of transparency, of vulnerability, of honesty, I think scares organizations.

But I think it would go a long way in setting customer expectations. And to the point of the initial point that you made there is like, we're all going to be more willing to provide feedback to the organizations that are like, look, here's where we're at and here's where we're going.

Rob Dwyer (19:25.622)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You talked about a lot of things. So diminishing returns. think this is my background in the BPO world. You hear this a lot when you talk to potential customers and you talk about service level, right? We can just start with something simple like service level, which is usually a brand new concept unless they are coming from another outsourcer. And you talk about

You know, for those that don't know, if you listen to this show, you probably do. But if you don't, service level is expressed as two numbers. It's the percent of calls or emails or chats or whatever that are answered or responded to in X number of typically seconds, right? So I might have an 80-20 service level, which means 80 % of calls answered in 20 seconds, which means 20 % of calls wait in queue.

longer than 20 seconds. Right. And for someone who's never actually dealt with service level as a business owner perhaps, they're like, well, I don't want anyone to wait. Right. Let's just answer them all within like five seconds, like 100 percent within five seconds. And you go, OK, well, we can do that.

But when you start talking about the staffing required and the cost that it's going to take to get there, the curve is exponential. It's exactly what you were talking about. And so there's, that's why there is this balance that needs to be struck because you don't have infinite money to spend on customer service, customer experience. You don't have infinite money to spend on your product, quite honestly.

because you have to sell it and make a profit. So at some point you have to go, well, okay, this is good enough, which sounds, ehh, but there is a reality that, You can't just spend all the monies. That's not a thing, Justin. Right? For a period of time, might be very short period of time, but you can do that.

Justin Robbins (21:36.39)
I mean, look, you can for a period of time.

Rob Dwyer (21:48.332)
You talked also about the experience and I talked with Amas Tenumah on his show, Amas Talks, about this very thing and what we were talking about are, if you are interested in going to a hotel in somewhere, Justin, where are you right now? Where do you call home?

Justin Robbins (22:14.803)
I'm home, Wilmington, North Carolina.

Rob Dwyer (22:16.748)
Wilmington, North Carolina, right? You are close to what Wrightsville Beach? That's your neck of the woods, right? I've been there. If I want to stay on Wrightsville Beach, I'm probably going to get a vacation rental. I'm probably not going to stay in a hotel, although there are some hotels, but I'm probably going to get a vacation rental. I'm probably going to hop onto Airbnb or VRBO.

Justin Robbins (22:23.622)
That is right.

Rob Dwyer (22:47.022)
one of these platforms. And I'm going to rely very much on pictures and survey responses. But the expectations and how we meet expectations of different people with different experiences is very different. You see this very much in hotels because there is an official like star rating associated with hotels, right?

A five star hotel has very specific amenities. They have very specific things that you would expect going into a five star hotel at a particular price point. Whereas a three star hotel, it's probably like a middle of the road, like business travel type of hotel. It's going to be relatively nice, but it is not the same as a five star hotel, which probably has like a spa and these kinds of things, right?

But we go on Google and we rate hotels after we stay because they want us to, right? They give us a little card and it's got a QR code because they want us to rate them highly. And if I'm used to staying at, and I don't mean to pick on hotels, but let's say I'm used to staying at the Knights Inn. I had a really bad experience at the Knights Inn in Killeen, Texas when I was a very young man visiting my brother. Not picking on you Knights Inn, but.

I think you are a two star hotel chain. That is not the same as staying at the Ritz, right? But if if that's the bar where my experience is set and then I go to the Doubletree and they give me that chocolate chip cookie and it's warm and I'm like, there are no insects in this hotel at all. This is amazing. I love it here. Five stars.

Well, I've never stayed at the Ritz. Like, I don't know what five stars is, but to me, that's five stars. And so we've changed this meaning. So when you talk about, what was it, relative excellence, that's really a really good example of what that means. And if I've stayed at the Ritz, the Doubletree's not getting five stars from me. And it's not the Doubletree's fault. It's just that the bar is set different.

Justin Robbins (25:10.374)
Well, here's the interesting thing about this, Robin, and hospitality is a good example. And, so part of my background is hospitality. And I used to manage when I was running training and quality programs is we would get a checklist from Forbes and AAA. So, they're the star and diamond standards, right? AAA has the diamonds Forbes is the star ratings. And some of the things that from their point of view,

Rob Dwyer (25:30.068)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Justin Robbins (25:38.16)
would come into play about a five star or five diamond experience. Things I remember was when making the reservation that you used the guests surname at least three times that when dining at the restaurant, there were fresh flowers on the table that the hotel itself had a separate elevator for staff, right? These are the types of things that they said mattered most.

but what's interesting in what you call out is that the things that really matter to us as guests vary. And look as someone who has, re last week, last week, I stayed at a Ritz Carlton second time ever. I stayed at a Ritz Carlton. And I will be honest. I have had closer to five star experiences in my book at the Doubletree and they're, they're almost.

And look, Rob, here's the here's the here's to me the very interesting part about this is like, I I stay with Marriott pretty extensively, I have their highest level of status, you would expect from the Ritz Carlton, it's going to be incredible. And I would say that most of the staff I encountered had an attitude of indifference. And that to me didn't matter.

the bathroom amenities that the person who got me out of the car asked all sorts of wonderful questions. In general, it's like people made or broke the experience that I had there. And that, that to me is the fascinating part about this is, you know, there are all sorts of elements in terms of the property amenities and what's provided there, but humans have an incredible ability to influence and impact our perception.

of everything else there. So it's like fresh flowers or not. If my server is like, dude, the buffet is closed. I don't care. Get out of here. Those flowers did nothing for my desire to have an unlimited breakfast that morning. And again, that that actually didn't happen there. But on a hungry morning, it might Rob.

Rob Dwyer (27:54.168)
Yeah, absolutely, Mr. Robbins. It's been my pleasure to serve you today. You're absolutely right. Humans can make or break the experience. And I do think, too, that also, while that feedback is important, if I don't interact with that person, my perception may be very different. And so this is, again, things get relative. Yes, it's great.

We get averages and averages can help. They can help a lot. But I do think there is a challenge when it comes to understanding. Like we're not all speaking the same language when we're looking at surveys and what that means to our potential experience with a company that we haven't had an experience with yet.

But that's what we rely on outside of just general word of mouth from people we know.

Justin Robbins (28:58.962)
Yeah, it's so true.

Justin Robbins (29:04.03)
And I, gosh, there's so many places that we can go with this. you know, I think for me, like, as, as someone who travels frequently, I'll be honest with you, I even almost start to, ignore the star ratings. And for me, Rob, really does come down to the verbatims. and I often sit somewhere between the twos, the twos and the threes is where I try to.

Rob Dwyer (29:07.694)
you

Justin Robbins (29:33.548)
I believe and I've had this conversation with Jeff Toister as well, like totally irrational people, rate places a one. And, you know, all of the five stars, I think in a lot of cases are just people who like feel hard, like they're hard on themselves about telling people where they need to improve. So, hey, what the sweet spot, sit the twos to the fours. But I really do believe that

Like if we start to look at the verbatims on people who everything wasn't amazing and everything wasn't completely awful. Like it's really interesting insight that we can start to uncover again, both as consumers, but also as, as CX leaders in terms of like, what did the rational human beings think about our experience, both opportunities for us to do better and the stuff that really does start to differentiate us in, in, know, helping people.

do whatever they're doing with whatever we're offering as a brand.

Rob Dwyer (30:35.523)
I love that you and I are of the same mind because we dig into the same spots. Our company is often making a mistake in putting too much effort on the very, very negative end of the spectrum. Those surveys, those responses and focusing on those based off of what we just talked about. Is there a

A bigger opportunity looking at kind of the middle of the spectrum and those responses.

Justin Robbins (31:07.516)
I think it depends on the organization and you know, I will say in my experience, most, business leaders are fairly level headed and rational in terms of people that it's like, no, they're just, they're just, they're complaining to complain, or it really is an isolated incident in terms of what that is. And often, you know, some of the most glaring response, survey responses that I've seen you almost

know, like a manager was involved, it was brought to someone's attention. In fact, you know, I often look at on these survey sites or on these review sites, how does the brand engage? And, you know, you should go back, I would encourage everybody to look at how often brands are like, hey, as we discussed, you know, whether it was on property, or in the conversation, like brands have gotten really good about saying to customers, like, hey, we've

We are trying to make this better for you and now you're just, you're just resisting. so I don't think it's, I don't think that's, that's the, the, problem, that they're just like going after the squeaky wheel. it certainly can be a distraction. No, I think the bigger, the bigger challenge is that they're either customers are

acknowledging things that aren't new to the organization and the organization has still rationalized the way why it's worth or not worth, you know, resolving which

That to me, think is that actually is, I think the biggest problem. It's like an organization has rationalized, we're not going to improve this. And yet it is still the number one reason why customers complain. You've got to start to wonder like, what is really at play there? If it's the number one challenge that your customers experience and you're unwilling, unable, or unwanting to do something about it. Why is that really the case? Are you truly sure you understand?

Justin Robbins (33:15.908)
the negative consequence of you making the decision you're making.

Rob Dwyer (33:21.218)
Yeah, that's really good insight and.

We can all learn from just paying attention to what squeaks the most often. Like that's where you need to put some grease, right? There may be creaks and groans a little bit here and there, but if it's constantly squeaking, there's probably a good chance that it really needs some attention.

Justin Robbins (33:48.05)
Well, and I think, I think the constant squeaking needs to be across a group of people, not a single person. And I think as people leaders, we, sometimes make the mistake of we focus on the employees that are the squeakiest that, that kind of need the most level of, you know, attention or focus or development. Instead of looking at across our population, what are the problems that are most, most kind of frequent?

Rob Dwyer (33:53.954)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (34:15.566)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Robbins (34:17.706)
I think the same thing applies to our customer base. And you know, the people that are giving us feedback is it's not about one customer in isolation. And in fact, I've certainly been part of businesses that have had a breakup with customers because they they the customer was the squeaky wheel and it's clearly like misaligned between what they wanted and what we were able to provide to them. But I do think what is the stuff that squeaks the most across our

our customer base or across our organization. Yeah, those are real places of insight and, you know, opportunities for us to take action.

Rob Dwyer (34:55.682)
Yeah. I want to change gears just a little bit.

Today you run Metric Sherpa. It's consulting firm for all things CX and research. But you do something else that's very intriguing related to food. And I would like you to share that with the audience. And then I have a question for you. But first, why don't you tell us about, I don't even want to call it a hobby because I think that demeans it a little.

bit, but tell us about this extra activity.

Justin Robbins (35:35.526)
Well, Rob, a number of years ago, I learned that one could get certified as a competitive barbecue judge through the Kansas City Barbecue Society. And me being a lover of smoked, frankly, it doesn't have to be meat smoked anything. Cheeses, fruits, you could you can smoke fruits.

make wonderful spreads. I love barbecue. I love learning. So I decided to spend a weekend getting certified through KCBS as a barbecue judge as well as a table captain, which is really just the person who kind of presents and, you know, kind of makes the whole thing flow as as you're running a barbecue competition.

So now for the better part of 10 years, we'll hobby around both in cooking competitive barbecue, but also sitting on the other side of the judges table and yeah, judging barbecue competitively.

Rob Dwyer (36:53.902)
I am a big fan of barbecue myself. So my first question, which is not the question I was talking about, but for someone who maybe has only had kind of the general, like very popular things that get barbecued, what's a hidden gem? Whether that's a cut of meat or a type of meat, what's something that you've had barbecued that you're like,

More people should know about this because it's amazing.

Justin Robbins (37:28.21)
Okay, so.

this is Alan.

so many places I can go with this question. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the first two that came up because I probably could could go a lot of places. One of the foods that I love doing almost a bit of a reverse sear in that I'll smoke it and then kind of finish it off is tri tip. Love I mean tri tip sandwich that's been

smoked and then you kind of you know flash it off that's so tasty to me the the food I love the most that freaks people out is cow tongue and we'll do it in tacos

Rob Dwyer (38:30.254)
Hmm.

Justin Robbins (38:30.982)
but so, so amazing. And the same thing, like you smoke it and then do a bit of a saute with onions and peppers and all.

Justin Robbins (38:43.443)
So good, it's so good. I have two in my freezer right now that I'm like, I just need to get enough people together who are willing to try it for the because once you try it, it's so good.

Rob Dwyer (38:56.462)
Count me in. We'll just have to we'll have to make a date because I will try just about anything once. OK, so my real question on the heels of that can't be on the tongue of that. No, it's definitely on the heels on the heels of that. I know that you have called barbecue bragging food. I'd like you to dig into what we can learn.

Justin Robbins (39:08.068)
So good.

Rob Dwyer (39:26.478)
about customer experience from the barbecue world, from competitive cooking.

Justin Robbins (39:34.736)
Yeah. there's, there's probably three, three big lessons at least that I've taken away from, from barbecue and, kind of the say subculture that surrounds it. And, the, the first for me going, actually going back to the thing we talked about earlier in terms of subjective excellence is that there are many.

styles of barbecue, you and I Rob may not agree that there are many styles, there are some that are very questionable, there even some barbecue sauces that I don't think belong in the realm of sauces, not to call any of them out here. But what's really, but what's really cool about that is it's it's both a factor of regional influence, but also cultural influence. And

Because barbecue in a lot of places originates from, frankly, not the wealthy areas because it's using available resources and very cheap cuts often of meat to produce something amazing. I think it just has like colored the way that the food

kind of brings people together and also just like has special people have special feelings and thoughts associated with it. The first part that that's kind of, you know, to me, when I think about customer experience is to recognize that it doesn't matter how many books have been written, how many articles you and I have written about change management, or any of those things. What what matters is that

You know, for us as businesses, we are in a very unique place and that place could be, you know, how we were founded, what we're about, what we provide, and our customers are very unique. And, we're not, we're not going to be able to, you know, walk into, another person's business and immediately provide the way we do things for our customers and our, business.

Justin Robbins (41:56.134)
don't immediately translate to, you know, what we're doing somewhere else. And so the same way is like, my certification is through the Kansas city barbecue society. If I were to go to Texas, there are certain things that just don't translate. If I were to go to Eastern North Carolina, there are certain things that don't translate, in barbecue. And I think we need to recognize that for all of us and our products and our customers that we serve, like your style of doing

business of customer experience, like it's it's right for who you are and who you're serving. And so don't get distracted, like don't try to be a Texas barbecue when you're in Eastern North Carolina. And it's all about whole hog and vinegar based sauce, right? It's like, recognize how you can be uniquely you that that I think is the first lesson that I got out of it. Second, for me, really does have to come with the importance of

metrics and understanding what is actually predictive and what is reflective. And you know, the examples that I give when I talk about barbecue in this context is my reflective measures if I'm in a competition. Part of it's my score. And by the way, there are no 10s in KCBS because there's always opportunity to get better. So the highest you can get is a nine. But you've got verbatim

Rob Dwyer (43:15.402)
Don't tell Net Promoter System that.

Justin Robbins (43:19.044)
Right? Yeah. Well, don't don't get me going, Rob. You've got, you know, so the score could be the verbatims could be it. But for me, if like if I'm cooking for my friends and family, let's let's be honest. Most times that's that's where I'm when I'm cooking barbecues for friends and family. I have like are there leftovers? If there are no leftovers, I did a great job. How silent do things get once once the food is out? Like

These are the things that start to be the indicators for me of whether or not I cook good barbecue. They're reflective of good barbecue. Predictive, if I'm doing brisket, I know if I'm cooking brisket, the word I'm using is post oak. I know that my pit is set to 225 degrees. I know that the only thing I'm putting on that beef is a 50 50 blend of fresh crushed cracked pepper and salt.

Rob Dwyer (43:49.472)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Robbins (44:17.586)
Those are the things that I know. I know that I'm gonna start feeling it at 195 degrees and somewhere between 195 and 205, it's gonna be ready and the only indicator is that it jiggles like jello, right? These are the things that to me all become predictive of whether or not that brisket is going to be leftover and I'm gonna have to chop it and sauce it or throw it in mac and cheese or it's gonna be gone.

Rob Dwyer (44:42.37)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Robbins (44:46.918)
So that to me is, are we actually tuned in to, I think we're tuned into the reflective things, but are we really tuned in to what are the predictive things for our business that are going to get us to the outcome that we want? And again, in my observation for a lot of us, we're not just because we haven't spent the time to really understand to the way that that barbecue is in so many ways a science.

is this is this going to get us where we want to go? I think the third piece for me and probably the part I love most about barbecue is the power and the importance and the impact of community. And and you know, barbecue is not just a bragging food, but it's a thing that brings people together. It gets people talking. People, people like, look forward to that. And I think for all of us doesn't matter what you are doing as a business like

How are we effectively leveraging our communities? And, you know, this can be everything from, you know, you're helping people buy their home for the first time. can be, you know, people's end of life. And, know, you're, you're part of that process. Like there's so many, heavy or not things that, that we as organizations can do. And in every single one of those circumstances, like we are invited into the human experience and.

you know, how do we make the human experience better, more meaningful as a result of the role we play in that? That to me is the other lesson that I think it's really easy for us to like, hey, we're just like, helping people, you know, check the balance on their 401k, or we're just helping people, you know, plan business, like, there's all these things that we're just, and we don't recognize that.

there really is greater impact at play there. I think at a quick level, Rob, those are three things at least that I've learned a bit about barbecue that I've translated into my work in understanding and serving customers.

Rob Dwyer (46:59.278)
Cheers to that, Justin. Cheers to that.

Justin Robbins (47:01.254)
Yeah, I got a refill. All right, Rob, I'm gonna let you pick. gonna let you pick. mean, we're three quarters in here, so it's fair. All right, so I had Castle and Key. I actually pulled two of my favorite bottles that are getting sadly down there and they're much harder to find. All right, so it's gonna be your pick here. First is we've got a Weller full proof.

Rob Dwyer (47:09.826)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (47:25.678)
Okay.

Rob Dwyer (47:29.144)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Delicious. Every Weller, delicious.

Justin Robbins (47:32.824)
And then the.

This is my sleeper bourbon. This is the one that, if you can find it, is typically the best bang for your buck bourbon.

and it's Hancock's President's Reserve.

Rob Dwyer (47:49.194)
I have not had that, so I am going to suggest that you try the bang for your buck because I'm all about bang for the buck.

Justin Robbins (48:00.747)
Well, what's interesting, this is put out by Buffalo Trace Distillery, it is other than Blanton's, other than Blanton's, it's their only other single barrel bourbon that they produce. yeah, so anyway, now we can continue. Now that I can officially cheers you, we may, we may return.

Rob Dwyer (48:06.168)
Shock. Shock.

Rob Dwyer (48:12.312)
Hmm. All right.

I want to...

I love it.

Cheers. As you're talking about barbecue and experiences, there are things that are like you're just firing off different things in my brain as I'm thinking about what you're saying. And I want to go back to. We're not for everyone, right? Your your style is not for everyone. The actual product that you produce is going to be.

appealing to some people and not appealing to other people, right? Certainly regional choices come into play there. But if you are a barbecue restaurant, the experience that you provide in that restaurant is also potentially very unique and is going to appeal to your core customer base and possibly

Rob Dwyer (49:23.95)
put up a barrier to the people that you really don't want in there. So I'm going to give an example that not everyone is going to understand, but if you're ever in Kansas City and I'm really talking about for the experience, go check out Gates Barbecue. Now you may find that you don't like the experience of walking into a Gates Barbecue, or you're going to love the experience of walking into a Gates Barbecue, but I guarantee you'll remember

the experience of walking into a Gates barbecue. Pro tip, look at the menu outside before you walk in and decide what you want because as soon as you walk in, someone's gonna yell at you and ask what you want. They have their own catchphrase that they yell out. I'm not gonna spoil it for anyone, but I will just say like that is the kind of experience where it's not just about the food. The food is important.

But they have identified something about their in-person experience that they are going to make memorable and special. But it's not for everyone. And some people will be like, I don't like that experience and therefore I don't want to go to Gates and that's OK. Because Gates will do just fine without you. It's not for you and.

They don't make bones about that. I think more companies would do well to recognize who their ideal customers are and who their opposite of ideal customers are and be okay with saying, we're probably not a good fit for you. What's your reaction to that?

Justin Robbins (51:12.977)
Yeah.

Rob, my dream of all dreams is for organizations to deliver more unapologetic experiences. you know, underscoring what you just said there, I think part of the challenge that we're living in right now is there's been so, so much copycat in terms of how businesses are approaching

the way that they're thinking. And, you know, now we're, we're decade plus beyond it, but you start to think about, at least I think about when I started really becoming a researcher, you had a lot of these businesses coming to the mainstream in terms of how they were thinking about designing service in a different way. And Zappos was one of the first names and Amazon and Whole Foods. And like these, these were the, the, a while, like

they started to set these standards and expectations in terms of how brands delivered experiences. And there were even books written. It's like, hey, it's the X company way. And so you had all of this like, this is like, got it. These are certain things that we have to do. And, you know, very quickly you realize that when everybody's essentially running from the same playbook, nobody's differentiated this and,

you know, because the world I live in a lot personally right now is, is especially around like technology and how people are creating and talking about thinking about like there's so much, everything is the same. It's, just awful. And this I think is, it's like the place where organizations who, who want to be known for

Justin Robbins (53:09.498)
really delivering experiences that people love, that people have clear expectations on, and then therefore are more consistently met, it's the brands that are unapologetic. They do have that experience that isn't for everyone, and because it's not for everyone, the people that it's for are more satisfied, more consistently. And it comes down to me, about very clear expectations.

The more we try to generalize who we're for and what we're about, the harder it is to set and meet expectation. The more unapologetic we are in who we are and what we're about, the easier it is to set and then therefore meet expectation.

Rob Dwyer (53:51.63)
I can't agree with that more if I tried.

You brought up technology, and I would be remiss if we didn't talk about technology on this show. And so I'd like to just get high level kind of what your thoughts are on technology and how it relates to the current landscape of customer experience, customer support, and all of those functions, because there's a lot going on.

Justin Robbins (54:28.092)
Yeah, there's certainly a lot going on and that won't change anytime soon. To me, the problem right now, Rob, is not, I don't believe it's a technology problem. I think the bigger challenge for organizations is how they are owning and then I think therefore deploying.

their strategy around understanding and serving their customers. And what I mean by that is kind of two sided. One is that if you think about the true owner of any business's customer experience, you know, we can argue that it's the CEO, we can argue that it's the Chief Customer Officer, the Chief Customer Experience Officer, you know, we can...

all sorts of things. Doesn't matter who that person is. The minute it steps away from that person, it starts to evolve and not always in the best ways. I equate it to the game of telephone. None of us have ever successfully played the game of telephone, right? The message of what we want it to be and how we want it to show up. Doesn't matter if everybody

believes they're doing their job, the nature of it, just evolves, it just changes. And I think that natural complexity and just kind of disintegration of vision and desire makes it really, really hard for organizations to deliver on customer experience end to end.

that that to me is the first part of it. It's, it will always be fractured. Even I think as we get better and better and better and better, it will always be fractured. Just right now we're in a state where we're saying it's more important than ever, but all of the, you know, just baggage of the past and how businesses are built and, and operate create a really awkward tension point.

Justin Robbins (56:49.062)
The unintended byproduct of that, I believe is how, how technology companies have been designing and then therefore deploying their solutions because they recognize it's fragmented. So it's like, need to specialize in technology for marketers. We need to specialize in technology for salespeople. need to specialize in technology for the contact center or for internal business communications or whatever, or whatever, whatever. And historically that's great.

because like we are naturally put into silos teams do have kind of naturally unique needs and processes and terminologies and like whatever.

Justin Robbins (57:34.65)
Why that's a problem today. And frankly, it always has been a problem, but now we're just really recognizing that as a problem is like your customers don't give a hoot that you in marketing or you in sales or you in, in contact center or whatever, like have these special needs. They have an issue that wherever they were at in your organization, whoever they were entering acting with, like information has been provided and experience has, has occurred and

you as the business, your name as the business, like you should just know that because you own all of those systems, you've built all of those processes, you've hired all of those people. And the gap where we now see from a CX standpoint is we've got to do something to reconcile the...

natural dynamics of how businesses are structured from a teams and a process and experience, the reality of how technology has been built and deployed historically, and yet the very real need for customer interactions to be more cohesively designed and delivered. That's kind of the challenge today and what it creates for technology companies is if you've been sitting in any particular niche, you got to figure out how you

are going to play well with the other parts of the experience and the tools and the systems that have been created to serve that. But then there's also a real opportunity for the right players in the right way to say, doesn't matter what all of those existing things are, we've got to find a way to surface and act on insights across what's happening with our customers.

And that to me, think is the place where I am paying the most attention right now. It's not just what we do well in the silos that matters what we do in our customer interactions across teams and functions matters. The real question mark is what do organizations do next to best understand and act on across all of those interaction points, which PS isn't just UCaaS plus CCaaS like.

Rob Dwyer (59:55.598)
you

Justin Robbins (59:56.496)
You have missed the point. If that is what you believe today, it is so much more than that.

Rob Dwyer (01:00:04.47)
Yeah, for sure. Justin?

If I'm out there listening and I'm like, this guy is awesome. I'd like to do business with him. Like, what do you help organizations do today? What would they reach out to you for and how would they go about doing?

Justin Robbins (01:00:29.648)
Yeah, Rob, so Metric Sherpa sits at an interesting crossroad where most of my time and attention is spent. It's with people who are building solutions for customer experience leaders. Often these are technology companies, but in some cases, they are professional services teams. They're organizations who help people make the most of technology.

The other kind of group that I work with often are people who are trying to invest in or understand how is the industry maturing and evolving. And for those individuals, really what myself and my team do is just help them better understand the realities of what's holding customer experience teams back today. And it might be the realities of what they're not measuring, but should be. It might be the realities of where they're struggling to get stakeholder alignment.

Most often, it's just a pulse check on the thing you're talking about or building for actually isn't going to help them move the needle. So what will? So that's one of the things that we often do is both through research, but often it's just help in terms of go-to-market strategy and understanding a landscape. That's part of the business. The second part, which...

For me is the thing that I love and I don't get to spend certainly enough time on is us actually walking alongside people who are leading customer experience teams and customer experience initiatives. And in that case, what I'd say is, we try to be their advocate, but more than anything, we exist to help them prove the value that they can deliver to their business. Sometimes Rob, that's...

that's leadership coaching and development, somebody who's brand new to a customer experience team. And it's like, what do I measure? And how do I articulate this to my boss or my boss's boss? Increasingly, it's recognizing that the strategy for customer experience can't just come from marketing or the contact center. It's bringing the right group of people together in the right way. And so what we're working with them on is like, what is your strategy?

Justin Robbins (01:02:49.66)
to actually deliver the outcomes that you as an organization are saying are important to you. Who do you bring together? you know, technology, yeah, that's a piece of it, but what we find time and time again, strategy people and process win all day every day. Technology often comes down to then just checking off boxes in terms of once we figured out what we'd want to accomplish, we'll get to the features and functions. But if you have the right strategy and the right kind of

Rob Dwyer (01:03:14.251)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Robbins (01:03:18.458)
supporting processes and people in place, you can accomplish so many things. That's the space where we also live is just working alongside and assisting leaders in that way.

Rob Dwyer (01:03:32.728)
So you know how it rolls here. Go down to the show notes, find Justin's LinkedIn, find a link to the website, get in touch with him. If you are A, interested in getting some services, B, just need some barbecue advice or some bourbon advice, like reach out to the guy, say hi. I can vouch for the fact that Justin is the kind of generous person who will talk to you about these things.

No charge.

Justin Robbins (01:04:05.456)
Yes. And Rob, I'm gonna for your listeners only, I'm going to give you a secret that I have never disclosed before. I don't even know that I want to do this, but I'm going to do it because I have had so much fun on my first, my first podcast podcast that involved bourbon. And look, if there is one barbecue book that you go out and buy and own, this is the one it's called smoke and spice. I can guarantee you, you do this, you are going to be

Rob Dwyer (01:04:15.662)
Juicy.

Rob Dwyer (01:04:28.503)
Mmm.

Justin Robbins (01:04:35.108)
a hit at your next barbecue because you're going to make your own sauce, you're to make your own rub and it is way easier than you think. So go ahead and get yourself a coffee because this is really my secret weapon. Now you know, now you know Rob.

Rob Dwyer (01:04:47.254)
You can't get this kind of information on your average CX podcast. I just want to point that out to the people who hung around to the very end and only you special people who around to the very end got this. So Justin, thank you. Thank you for having a drink with me. Cheers. I appreciate it.

Justin Robbins (01:05:02.77)
There it is.

Bye.

Justin Robbins (01:05:10.693)
Thank you, Rob. Appreciate you, my friend.