Return to Sender featuring Nathan Muniz

Transcript

Rob Dwyer (00:02.286)
Okay, folks, get ready. This episode of Next in Queue is going to be wild ride because I have joining me today, Nathan Muniz. Nathan, you are a man of many talents, businesses. You operate a couple of different outsourcing outfits and, and you own

a bus company and a taxi company. You have operations in the US and the Philippines from a BPO standpoint. There's a lot going on with you and yeah, you happen to be from Saint Louis, which is something that while I'm not from Saint Louis that we have a little bit in common. So welcome to the show. How are you?

Nathan Muniz (00:54.17)
Thanks, Rob. I'm doing great and I can't complain. It's Florida, it's winter and it is quite chilly. It got down to 40s last night. other than that, I'm doing fine.

Rob Dwyer (01:05.87)
Oh, rough, I don't want to hear. I don't want to hear about the weather in Florida. We are still trying to thaw here in the Midwest and it's, you know, it's January and January in the Midwest is cold, but January for business owners becomes something else. Right. Let's talk about.

What happens in January when you own a business? What's happening?

Nathan Muniz (01:41.744)
January is an interesting month because it depends on what kind of business you're in. mean, if you're in retail, it slows way up. Restaurants slow way down. mean, it depends on what you know. But I have learned from my business experience in America, there's a common phenomenon that occurs usually not every January, but it can occur. And when it does, it is in January, February ish.

Rob Dwyer (02:11.448)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (02:11.542)
And when you're a business owner in America, you have to send out your W2s every January. A lot of companies that are big and bad, they do an automated system or it's emailed nowadays, but I still mail mine with a stamp on it. there's actually the, what we're about to talk about is usually a pattern that begins with a bright and shiny rock star.

and then ends with a certain type of letter in the mail. And I mean, I can just go down the pattern if you want. OK. All right.

Rob Dwyer (02:44.952)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (02:49.484)
Yeah, let's start with this pattern that you've identified. I'm sure many other people will go, yeah, I recognize this.

Nathan Muniz (02:53.475)
Well

Maybe. Maybe, if they're lucky and they've had this occur. OK, so I've been transportation. I operate a taxi cab company. And we have a lot of different characters coming in to drive taxi. it's always been interesting. So you just don't know who's going to walk in the door. And this starts off with.

Well, normally what happens is somebody comes in and they start driving. maybe their first time driving a cab and they love it. They're making money and people are tipping them. Wow, I just sit here and drive all day. I love this job. I'm going to work here forever. I love this job. It's the greatest ever. And you're like, wow, I'm really glad you like it. Great. Yeah, see you tomorrow. And every day for a solid two or three months.

They tell you how much they love working for you and they love the job and you know, it's great.

know what happens. Seasons change, moods change, passengers change, I don't know.

Nathan Muniz (04:09.678)
All of sudden that rock star, the classic no call and no show.

Rob Dwyer (04:17.698)
Mmm, mm-hmm.

Nathan Muniz (04:20.09)
Dude we're talking never ever showing again and never answering. Now just they're gone off the face of the planet. And this happened quite a few times. That's it seems to be a common thing in certain American positions. So normally, you know, this happens. Okay. You know, you end up hearing about the person or someone. I saw, I saw what's his name at the, at the mall the other day. He's doing fine. I'm like, okay.

But what happens sometimes, yeah, mean, you know, what happens sometimes is a phenomenon that continues. this is a reoccurring pattern. This is not like a one-time thing. I'll send a W2 out in January. I'll have their address on file, which was what was on their driver's license. I'll send a W2, and it will be returned to sender. And it's like,

Rob Dwyer (04:51.694)
That's good.

Nathan Muniz (05:20.484)
Hmm. I wonder what happened to this individual. And almost every time that has happened, it has got to the point where I will receive a phone call. And I'll finally get to hear some sort of excuse of why they absolutely no-call, no-showed and fell off. And these stories are

Unbelievable. So now that you have the basis of the No Call No Show Return to Sender, I'll tell you a story of a specific episode.

Rob Dwyer (05:56.8)
Is this going to be unbelievable? Because I want the unbelievable.

Nathan Muniz (05:59.908)
Let's just say it starts and ends the same way. I'm sitting in a parking lot eating ice cream with my children. And I'm driving a taxicab. We're having ice cream. It's summer. We got the windows down. It wasn't quite Ted Drewes, but I would say it was Krekel's-ish. And we're enjoying great ice

Rob Dwyer (06:17.262)
This is a conversation that other people are not going to understand, but you and I have a disagreement.

best summertime treat. maintain that it's Ted Drewes, a St. Louis tradition and you, you have a different opinion, although you appreciate Ted Drewes.

Nathan Muniz (06:41.22)
I waited in the line.

Rob Dwyer (06:42.894)
Continue. just had to provide some context for some of the listeners.

Nathan Muniz (06:50.096)
Krekel's is better, it's in Illinois. Okay, so we're sitting in the car in the taxi cab, windows are down, we're having ice cream and just enjoying the day and this gentleman comes up to the car and he's like, hey man, you think I can get like $25? And I'm like, $25? How about 25 cents? And I gave him a quarter. And he's like, gee, that's a great start.

And my kids just laughed and it was the funniest thing ever. And he was like, we actually, we started talking. He's like, Hey, I've been driving, riding with you guys for like 10 years. I'm like, Oh, okay. He rattled off a couple of drivers names and I'm like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Why don't. Do you have a driver's license? Yeah. Why don't you come down to the shop, you know, next week. Well, we're on your, we're on your license and you know, okay. Yeah. It'd be great. He comes down.

Run his license, clean background, clean everything. Insurance accepted him. Hey man, you got a job. Wow, awesome. And he loved it. He was showing up an hour early, washing the car, washing other people's cars, clean, cut everything. And I'm like, hey, wow, this is great. And about three months later, saw him, I mean, I would see him walking to work and I didn't really know where he lived, but I was like, okay, well, he really wants to come to work. That's great. And he...

very strong work ethic. And I was like, hey, man, you want to take a taxi cab home so you don't have to walk to work? know, the blistering winter was coming in Florida, and that's pretty bad. And he's like, sure. And I quickly learned where he was living after he took the car home. The car ended up in the most interesting motel in town, front and center.

Everyone was like, man, one of your cabs is permanently at this motel. I'm like, yeah, I know that's, you know, that's, that's our employee of the month, you know, whatever. And okay. So that's, you know, that's where he's staying. And, um, all of a sudden he got the phobia of. I'm not going to show up to work an hour early every day. Then that turned into, I'm just not going to come to work every day.

Nathan Muniz (09:19.002)
And then that turned to, hey, I'm not going to give your taxi cab back to you either. And then that turned to absolutely, you know, that turned to no call, no show. And I mean, I knew where the cab was. So we eventually went back and confiscated it. We had an extra key and I'm just, what happened to this guy? You know, where did he go? And then once again, I had his W2 and I mailed it to his driver's license address, which was not the motel, but by law, I have to do that.

Rob Dwyer (09:25.966)
Hmm.

Rob Dwyer (09:48.536)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan Muniz (09:49.68)
And I would, you know, so I got the return to sender. I'm like, okay. Obviously then I got the phone call.

February,

You have an incoming call from an inmate at Marion County Correctional Institute. I'm like, I'm gonna take this. mean.

Except hey man remember me I used to drive for you. I'm like yeah, that's right What happened?

You can only imagine he got thrown in jail and he's not getting out anytime soon. And he's like, Hey, you think you could like put $50 on my canteen? And I was like, $50?

Rob Dwyer (10:45.506)
Ha

Nathan Muniz (10:46.372)
How about I go down to the jail and throw a quarter over the wall? And I swear, he said, well, that's a good start.

Rob Dwyer (10:58.474)
Okay, this is a wild story. I told people to buckle up because I knew you were gonna be filled with wild stories, but it is a very real situation that occurs in all kinds of businesses where you have someone who was in your employee and then they are not for whatever reason.

Nathan Muniz (11:09.36)
And then.

Nathan Muniz (11:25.04)
You could treat people like gold and be as nice to them as and give them all these things. It's almost like the more you give, the harder they disappear or the more dramatic they disappear.

Rob Dwyer (11:37.432)
Well, I'm wondering, right, in this particular situation, you illustrate a challenge for businesses and that is when you provide equipment, right? You provided a cab in this case, which is a pretty large piece of equipment. But there are businesses that will provide, let's say a laptop, for instance, is very common to be issued a laptop.

Nathan Muniz (11:49.518)
Rob Dwyer (12:06.872)
Can you talk about like what your experience is with? Recovery of property like obviously a cab is a little bit different than the laptop in that number one. It's going to be out in the open for the most part, and it's got your name on it. The company name and if you have a key, it makes it a little bit easier to get back, but that's not always the case, right? So.

How do you as a business owner navigate that? I issue some kind of equipment or not? Tell me about that.

Nathan Muniz (12:45.264)
Well was the third CAD that had been stolen actually by employees, so I mean... Wasn't my first rodeo of repossessing my own cards.

Rob Dwyer (12:58.765)
Okay then.

Nathan Muniz (13:00.154)
Cab industry is very interesting. you know, disruption needed to occur. I'll be the first to admit it. So that's just kind of how things go. when just the nature of the business is just wild. That's all there is to say. And then I, and, know, I take cabs in other countries and it's just a much different culture, you know, and much different operation, you know, like in the Philippines, taxi cab is not the same as in America.

Rob Dwyer (13:23.362)
Hmm. Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (13:30.915)
It's just a different deal.

Rob Dwyer (13:31.936)
I mean, it's not the only thing that's not the same as America for, I mean, you have this vast business experience that encompasses multiple countries. Tell me about what you see as the difference between, let's take the Philippines and the U.S. and just running businesses there. Like, what are some of the things that are really strikingly different for you?

Nathan Muniz (13:59.396)
The workforce is so much younger in the Philippines. It's, it's almost as if when people turn a certain age, they just will not or are not going to work. I don't know really, you know, which one it is, but you know, 60 years old is not very much in the workforce in the Philippines. And I don't know if that's good or bad. I would say probably good, but that's definitely a striking difference. The youthful workforce is ever present.

Rob Dwyer (14:04.142)
Hmm.

Nathan Muniz (14:31.48)
And

Rob Dwyer (14:32.398)
Do think that's just because people retire earlier in the Philippines or?

Nathan Muniz (14:37.38)
family support is different. Many households have multiple generations and homes are just treated differently. They're not just temporarily lived in until the next best bigger and better house can be built and moved into. They're kind of more generationally kept than we have here. You don't see a lot of for sale signs in the Philippines for property. Property kind of gets sold by word of mouth. So

think it all kind of stems around that. The support system is different.

Rob Dwyer (15:06.296)
Interesting. Interesting.

So aside from youth, mean, what else have you noticed? Because I know you travel there regularly as well because of your business operations.

Nathan Muniz (15:21.616)
I live there also. Road infrastructure is not, we spend so much money on road work here. It's definitely road infrastructure is definitely different. It's, I wouldn't even say apples and oranges. It's more like apples and freaking paper clips. The roads there, when I am in the Philippines for a long period of time.

Rob Dwyer (15:24.141)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (15:50.382)
And then I come back here and I go like 60 miles an hour. I'm like holding on to something like, whoa, we're going way too fast because you don't go much more than 30 or 40. If that even snails pace in the Philippines. So road infrastructure is definitely. Different.

Rob Dwyer (16:10.114)
Yeah. From a hiring perspective, mean, obviously a couple of very different businesses and probably different profiles, but like, what do you go through that's different from a hiring perspective? And maybe what's the same that you go, well, you you think this would be different, but it's not.

Nathan Muniz (16:35.898)
There still seems to be the very, younger employees definitely are different than maybe a generation ahead of them. That's similar as far as, and everyone always complains about the younger generation here, but you see some of those similar traits with the younger generation, the fresh workforce that's out right now.

Rob Dwyer (16:52.151)
Mm.

Nathan Muniz (17:04.62)
It is a bit different and it is different meaning.

Ghosting on interviews. We don't see that with with the older generation. I think there's actually more opportunity gig work and in different formats that Wasn't there in the Philippines ten years ago? So There is a I don't know if there's like a it's not it's not as prevalent as it is here with this younger generations ruin and everything But there is a difference

Rob Dwyer (17:25.912)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (17:37.773)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (17:39.076)
So a different interview ghosting is more common than it used to be.

Agents with deep skill set is definitely present in the Philippines. I'll have agents that worked 18, or maybe I shouldn't say any brands, but they've worked for big companies. And it's like, wow, you have been around. And that's definitely a difference than here. And they will still be rather young, but just, and you kind of wonder like, well, why have you worked at so many different places?

Rob Dwyer (18:08.396)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (18:16.696)
And after they've been in our center for a while, you notice, hey, these centers were not taking care of these people. So when I see a hefty resume like that and a ton of experience, it's great. But you also end up saying, well, why have you worked at all these places? And that's the BPO and contact center culture that's in the Philippines. Vast amounts of experience for many different companies.

Rob Dwyer (18:36.854)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (18:41.866)
Yeah, it is certainly, I think for most Americans, their exposure to the Philippines is in call centers, right? And it is a huge industry there and it has been for a long, long time. And there's a reason for it, right? You can get highly educated people there who speak English and, you know, from a company standpoint, the wages that you have to pay out.

Nathan Muniz (19:01.988)
Yes.

Rob Dwyer (19:10.062)
customer service or tech support or whatever are significantly different than what you would pay for an American. But I don't think that Americans, by and large, understands the difference in how that role is viewed in the Philippines versus how it's viewed in the US. In the US, most people think of contact center work as kind of entry level.

Nathan Muniz (19:33.808)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (19:39.412)
It's generally speaking, lower end of the pay range. And that's not typically how it's viewed in the Philippines. Can you talk about that?

Nathan Muniz (19:50.864)
Sure. First of all, tough job in the Philippines is way different than a tough job in United States. mean, manual labor, things are being, a lot of things are done manually in the Philippines. Like, you know, where there should be a machine that they just don't have it. Cement pouring is a very interesting phenomenon in the Philippines. We're used to a cement truck rolling up and barreling out.

tons and tons of cement that gets poured in the street and mixed with a hose and shoveled and put into a bucket. And there's a bucket brigade that goes to where the cement needs to be poured. that's, mean, that's a tough job in the Philippines. A garbage sorter who comes to your house, throws the garbage in the back of a truck and then sorts it in the truck to find valuable items. That's a tough job in the Philippines. I mean, we couldn't, who would do that here? You know.

Rob Dwyer (20:47.478)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan Muniz (20:48.686)
So a contact center worker usually is educated in some private school or their parents taught them well, or maybe they're really big in the church and they learned how to speak very well at church. Church speaking is a big thing and that creates a good speaker. lot of contact center workers are college educated, so they've got that desire to speak well and they've learned.

So that is a good job, wage wise. It's a much more solid career versus just an entry level job. And another thing about the Philippines people don't realize is a lot of unskilled labor quickly get skilled and then leave the country. So young women become nannies or entry level nurses.

and then they'll go off to the Middle East. That's very, very common. And you know what? The culture doesn't mind that. It's OK. Our daughter is 20 years old, and she became a living nanny in Dubai. That's not unheard of. That's extremely common. So a lot of your unskilled workforce disappears. mean, family members who work on oil rigs in the Middle East, they work on ships.

delivering diesel, delivering oil. And that's a great job for an unskilled man because they can become skilled quickly and then provide for that multi-generational family that's living in their home. that's a whole element of the workforce that we don't really understand. mean, imagine if your able-bodied workforce just magically disappears.

That's the Philippines. That's the reality. know, families still stick together even though somebody might be missing. I see it all the time. So a contact center worker.

Nathan Muniz (22:55.234)
It's an interesting thing because if you're in the high density areas where there's a lot of contact centers, these agents know their value. And when they're good, they jump around. They'll go from one center to the next easily. We're about two hours away from the very condensed high dense area. There's not a lot of contact centers around where we're located. So we end up pulling a lot of talent.

that used to commute that's tired of that two hour commute. And that's how we're able to have successful agents long-term. if there was a contact center right next door, I'm sure, some people would jump ship. That's just how things go. But for the most part, a lot of our original employees are still with us. If they have a good solid contract and a great client, they're sticking around because they don't

Rob Dwyer (23:26.678)
Hmm.

Nathan Muniz (23:52.698)
They want to live in our area. And it isn't a job that a lot of people, once they're good at working at a contact center, they don't normally go do something else. They're sticking in that field, at least. I think here, somebody might, I used to do that. And yeah, not anymore. I'm doing this now. You hear that a lot with American contact center.

Rob Dwyer (23:54.646)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (24:18.05)
Yeah, it certainly seems like it is just viewed very differently, both by the society and by the people in the job. so there, I think a lot of people struggle, Americans struggle in when they call a contact center and they get someone overseas, there's often frustration.

But at the end of the day, I don't think a lot of them realize that it's hard sometimes to staff, particularly when you need a lot of agents to staff in the United States and make it cost effective, not just because of the wage issues, because there's a difference in wages, but also there's a difference in turnover often. And that increases costs significantly.

Nathan Muniz (25:07.49)
yeah.

Rob Dwyer (25:18.964)
I do want to talk a little bit about, you kind of touched on this, about the cab business needing to be disrupted. And then you mentioned gig work. And I think a lot of people will think of Uber and Lyft. And I'd just love to hear kind of your thoughts on those models and what do you think about them and how does that impact the way that you move forward?

Nathan Muniz (25:48.89)
You know, I'm actually, strangely fortunate to have been in the industry that I was in because we were, we were, we were pretty, pretty big in the taxi cab industry. I mean, we had a lot of cabs. We were buying cars left and right. were buying old, old, we've talked about this for old Crown Victorias. We were buying everyone we could find. And when the disruption occurs.

The way it happened was so fascinating and how

Underhand-

broken promises on a political level. Politicians, city officials, in multiple jurisdictions, states telling us, we're not going to let these companies come in here without getting permits and insurance and inspections. So you're going to be just fine. Don't worry about it. Every one of those municipalities.

was lying. And there's no repercussion on those broken promises whatsoever. So I mean, you're talking a total disruption from the business owner up to the municipality to the legislature to state leadership. Just a company saying, screw you. We're going to come in here and do what we want. And the only thing I can compare it to is when you have that magnitude of a movement, it's like the ocean.

Nathan Muniz (27:28.162)
If a tidal wave is coming, no one's going to stop it. And that is exactly how the Uber and Lyft situation came in. And it started in Gainesville for us. That was like the epicenter of the earthquake of change, if you want to call it that. A bunch of college kids with fresh debit cards and cell phones.

Rob Dwyer (27:33.752)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (27:47.672)
Bunch of college kids with cards.

Rob Dwyer (27:55.512)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (27:56.888)
We jumped in. But here's the other part about it too. When we got big in the tax cap industry.

It was because of one change.

Yellow pages, going to Yahoo Search and Google. So we wrote technology to get to where we were at. And I recognize that. These mom and pop taxicab operations weren't on Google. They weren't on Yahoo. Yelp wasn't there yet, which I never really liked Yelp. It's kind of a weird deal. we were.

Rob Dwyer (28:13.134)
Mmm.

Rob Dwyer (28:22.606)
Mm.

Rob Dwyer (28:31.406)
You're not the first person to mention that.

Nathan Muniz (28:34.038)
Well, we were on Yahoo and Google. I remember the BlackBerry came up. We were the only companies from here to Atlanta that was on Yahoo and Google. And that was a wide, big area. So that was our entry into the business and just sweepingly taking over. So I kind of understood, hey, this is how we entered the business through technology.

wasn't near as advanced as Uber and Lyft. But when it started in Gainesville, and Gainesville was so strict with regulation, they would press charges if you, oh yeah. And when that turned over there, I was like, I don't know. This doesn't look good. And the action really hit the drivers the hardest because I had guys that were, most of the guys, I guys and women.

who were really doing well driving taxi. And I saw people's lives change. I saw people buy real estate. I saw people advance their lives here through driving taxi. And it all just was one, it was just turned into an outr- a downward spiral, total disruption. We ended up with a bunch of taxis not being used.

Rob Dwyer (29:57.239)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan Muniz (30:03.344)
it just, just happened, you know, and the promises of the municipalities and the, politicians that to me was just that that shows that some companies and some people will do whatever they want.

Rob Dwyer (30:23.438)
Part of it strikes me, I think people who have used those services are seeing very much that the early promises of the service have not endured, right? Taking an Uber back in the day was really inexpensive and just the general like, I'm here and I'm gonna ride share.

Nathan Muniz (30:45.583)
Yes.

Rob Dwyer (30:51.17)
That sounds great, but really what it became was the de facto taxi service in any city that they entered into, but it was super inexpensive compared to the taxis. And that's changed. That's changed.

Nathan Muniz (31:05.594)
Hold on, Rob. It's not a taxi cab service. It's a technology company.

Rob Dwyer (31:11.072)
Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. I think we've seen that both riders and drivers have seen changes in that, right? The cost has gone up for the riders and the pay has gone down for the drivers significantly.

Nathan Muniz (31:23.758)
Yes! Yes!

Well, when did that really start changing? Ask yourself that question.

Rob Dwyer (31:31.278)
I mean, once you don't have any competition left is when it starts changing, right? No?

Nathan Muniz (31:36.45)
No. No.

when they were publicly traded and they had to answer to their financial statements, then things started changing a little bit for both parties because both those companies are publicly traded. So I'm surprised there isn't a third and fourth party that's came out and made it more of a driver's first approach. You know, like, why isn't there a Craigslist version of Uber and Lyft?

Rob Dwyer (31:42.99)
you

Rob Dwyer (31:47.554)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (31:55.48)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (32:11.172)
where it's just whatever comes and gets you, and hopefully it makes it. I'm very surprised that hasn't happened yet. I actually thought of it as www.gasmoney.com. mean, you know. But OK, so back to the disruption part. When that happened, that's what

Rob Dwyer (32:17.678)
Hey, maybe this is your next venture, right? The next evolution of your.

So.

Nathan Muniz (32:37.122)
led us into the BPO and contact center industry because we had already offshored our dispatch center because we could not keep American contact center workers. So the disruption to us created a strange opportunity. And honestly, the taxicab ministry is very difficult to keep up with. There's a lot of risk. Pretty much any business you're in where you can kill somebody or have an accident.

Rob Dwyer (33:06.52)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (33:08.336)
It's always there in the taxi cab and charter bus industry. So I mean, the disruption occurring and kind of, was, was the way we pivoted and went into the context in the industry. was the best resource to, to, to, do, to go into something else with. So we looked at it as, we don't want to fire all of our dispatchers. They're doing a great job.

We didn't even really fire any drivers, they just quit, we didn't replace them.

I mean, it was interesting how it happened, but there is a silver lining at the end of the, mean, it provided us the insight to do something else that wasn't quite as dangerous and risky.

Rob Dwyer (33:59.704)
Yeah. I want to talk about technology waves and changing business a little bit with you because I know that this is like you've pivoted because of technology disrupting an industry. And I think you can't go anywhere without people talking about AI. And I wonder what your thoughts are on AI disrupting the contact center space.

And what do you do you think that that will do something similar or do you think it's overblown? What are your thoughts?

Nathan Muniz (34:37.625)
Well, back to the, was, you we were fortunate to be a part of this disruption because you realize that whatever you have going on, that's good. Enjoy it while it lasts, no matter what, no matter what kind of business you're in, because don't, don't think that it's going to be there. Any kind of business. Don't think it's going to be there tomorrow because it might not be. So with AI.

I haven't seen the title wave that we spoke of with Uber and Lyft. I haven't seen the AI proof is in the pudding title wave where, this is it. Maybe you can say that with ChatGPT, but I haven't necessarily seen a game changing product that's just wiping out floors and floors of contact centers. And you know what? Just like the Task Ad Ministry.

We might witness that in the Philippines because there are some massive BPOs. They're literally skyscrapers. So I don't think that that's occurring right now on a massive level. But I think we will all know when that product has hit the market and it's actually doing. Yeah, there's so many promises out there.

Rob Dwyer (36:00.718)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (36:01.314)
And going to a of conferences, I heard a very interesting term that we all know, and we heard it a long time ago, that's ever-present with AI, snake oil.

Rob Dwyer (36:13.912)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nathan Muniz (36:15.228)
So much snake oil out there. Where's the real deal? And I think a lot of AI companies have something, but they don't have the whole package. Because I just, you know.

Rob Dwyer (36:28.578)
Yeah, it's interesting being involved in a little bit different space with AI, but working with AI regularly, we see the challenges and the limitations. And what we do is not customer facing. And so you naturally have some guardrails on it. I have yet to see, like you,

widespread adoption where we just say, OK, we're just going to get rid of our contact center and it's going to be handled by AI. There are some companies that have made some major moves, but

They're few and far between. I think we have, like I have seen technology that I thought, well, that's really cool. If that really works the way it says it works.

Contact centers, like they shouldn't even exist today, today in 2025, January. But they do. And you and I both know that contact centers are still a sought after commodity from a BPO standpoint. They're still in-sourced in companies. They're outsourced. Like they are not going away. So clearly either the technology's just not there or it's not.

going to be there. don't know which is the case. But I know that contact centers are, they're still going to be around for a while.

Nathan Muniz (38:07.703)
Here's a way to think about it.

They could have automated hotel front desks a long time ago to where you swipe your credit card, you swipe your ID, here's your paperwork, here's your room key, see you later. That's a big expense for a hotel. I some of these hotels have seven or eight front desk workers. Why weren't those automated? Because people like to deal with people.

Rob Dwyer (38:34.83)
People like to deal with people. actually know a hotel that has done that. Yeah, there are few in far between. I'm not going to name names, but I do know a hotel that basically has eliminated the whole front desk function. But it does create challenges, right? The challenges come from you and I have both stayed in hotels, right? Sometimes.

Nathan Muniz (38:39.84)
really?

Rob Dwyer (39:04.596)
at weird odd hours, you have a question, you need something, you forgot the toothpaste and you want to see if they've got something. You just want to ask like, what's, what's the best restaurant around because I want to get that local recommendation from somewhere that's in the area. Like those are the kinds of things that when you talk about people like to work with people like

Nathan Muniz (39:18.052)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (39:31.45)
I want to go to the front desk person and have those kinds of questions or maybe, you know what, I need a new towel or there are just all kinds of things that can happen. Can you automate them? Yes, you can.

Nathan Muniz (39:42.992)
Or maybe you need to be kicked out of the hotel.

Rob Dwyer (39:51.916)
Maybe. I mean, it's me we're talking about.

Nathan Muniz (39:53.21)
You gotta have a person that does, I mean, and generally speaking, mean, maybe an individual needs to be kicked out. You gotta have a person that knows how to make that call too. You just can't automatically call the cops.

Rob Dwyer (39:59.351)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (40:02.764)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it is absolutely particularly. You're down in Florida. I there there are some wild stories of happenings in hotels in Florida, particularly when it comes to spring break, right? And. It's it's not just that right, but. There.

Nathan Muniz (40:20.216)
yeah, well, yeah.

Nathan Muniz (40:24.528)
Florida man. I mean Florida. There's gotta be some Florida man hotel stories.

Rob Dwyer (40:29.39)
Yes, there are times like I want to call because something is happening either above me or next to me or whatever. Like there's something crazy going out in the hallway, right? What do you do when there's no one to call?

Nathan Muniz (40:39.972)
Yeah.

yeah.

Nathan Muniz (40:48.08)
You just go straight to the cops? mean, that's what... Then of course, if you did call the cops, when they arrived, there would be zero noise whatsoever. And you would be like, oh, that's... Then you gotta expose yourself as the one who called and let them in. And then, you know, you're the evil cop caller and the whole hotel hates you.

Rob Dwyer (40:57.742)
Right. Or they can't get in because they don't have a key.

Rob Dwyer (41:07.575)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (41:14.104)
Yeah, it's just wild to think about and wild, not necessarily in a great way to think about a world in which we are interacting with AI and machines when that has always been a person and we move there, right? I mean, I use Google Maps, for instance, for navigation on a regular basis, right?

And we trust machines to do a lot of things for us. But there is going to come, I think, a point where we're just going to say, that's a bridge too far. I can't do that.

Nathan Muniz (41:55.856)
Think about the medical field and how that's going to be automated slash, are doctors going to be dumber or are they going to be smarter with AI tools? And then what if the tool is not available in the future? So.

Rob Dwyer (42:18.07)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the tool not being available is a really important question and the cost associated with these tools, which I think is something that we don't talk about enough. Like AI has been brought to the public for next to nothing, but it's not really next to nothing. That's not the cost. When you look at these companies that are generating

Nathan Muniz (42:44.752)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (42:46.99)
particularly these generative AI solutions. They are in so much debt that it's like most people can't conceive of the amount of money that has been pumped into them for the prospect of future returns. Like that money is, it doesn't even seem real to the normal person because there are so many zeros.

Nathan Muniz (42:54.916)
Yes.

Rob Dwyer (43:13.196)
And the reason that it's so expensive is because the compute power that it takes to do some of these things is astronomical. Yeah. And I think there's a very real concern about does it really make sense to automate some of these things when you don't really need that? Right. I mean, are we, are we using a chainsaw to cut a piece of paper?

Nathan Muniz (43:21.584)
They have to be in the mountains in a data center.

Rob Dwyer (43:41.422)
Is that what we're doing with AI sometimes? I think so. And there are perfectly good scissors that we can pick up and use.

Nathan Muniz (43:49.764)
Yes. And then you could, you know, always lick the paper and tear it if both are not available.

Rob Dwyer (43:56.519)
That's right.

Nathan Muniz (43:59.662)
was at the I took my children to get their haircut before school started and you want to see a total meltdown of services relying on one simple tool

The internet went out at the, I don't want to mention it, was a national chain barbers. And this is why you got to go to the thing with the blue and white spinny thing, you know, if you're to go to the barber shop. But I had my daughter and she had to get her hair cut at a fancy place. Place went completely haywire. No one was, I mean, the place totally shut down for a good 30 minutes. No one was getting their hair cut any longer because they had people that were done with their hair cut.

Rob Dwyer (44:21.678)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (44:45.87)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan Muniz (44:47.512)
And they're like, well, you can go get cash at the eight. No, no, we're not doing that. I have my credit card. No one was budging. And everyone in the back of their mind, I know what they were thinking. I'm going to get a free sucker and a free haircut. No one was budging, and the place just went to a standstill. And more people were coming in. Hey, I have an appointment. I signed up on the internet. well, internet?

Rob Dwyer (45:00.428)
Hahaha!

Nathan Muniz (45:16.464)
That's a luxury anymore. I saw the entire place crumble within, I mean, this went on for 30, but it crumbled within five minutes, if that. Three minutes.

Rob Dwyer (45:18.382)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (45:28.002)
And this is a business that involves a chair, scissors, and maybe some clippers, right?

Nathan Muniz (45:33.188)
I mean, an $80 coloring treatment. Yeah, but yeah, you got it.

Rob Dwyer (45:38.318)
Sure, sure like but you're right. This is a this is a very not tech reliant type of business and because we have invested so much in Hey, well, it's just electronic payments. Like what happens when the electronic payments don't work?

Nathan Muniz (45:54.894)
The consumer is also on board with this dependence. I don't want to size people up, but I could just tell no one had cash. You know what I mean?

Rob Dwyer (46:02.158)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (46:10.958)
I mean, I'm that guy. It's rare that I have cash. I can tell you right now in my money clip, I have $3. That's it.

Nathan Muniz (46:17.764)
What if... Alright.

Rob Dwyer (46:23.054)
I have $3 and credit cards. My wife is usually the one that carries cash and she does keep cash on hand. And I'm just bad about it. I am that guy that, in fact, when I was Christmas shopping, I was at the mall and there's a local winery and I wanted to buy three bottles of wine for Christmas.

And they were just getting set up. It wasn't even like a booth or anything. It was a very temporary display. And. They were getting their stripe POS up and running and I went to pay with my credit card and for whatever reason it was getting rejected right? She she could tell there was some error with the system. And I had to go to an ATM. To get cash so that I could buy these.

Nathan Muniz (47:11.279)
Wow.

Rob Dwyer (47:15.502)
three bottles of wine because I didn't have any cash on me and that Luckily, there was an ATM in the mall Unfortunately, I had to pay an extra, you know $3.50 for for a surcharge because it was a mall ATM and not my bank ATM so it really is a Reliance on technology and sometimes that technology just isn't available to us

Nathan Muniz (47:22.991)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (47:42.392)
And when everyone's on board, consumer and business, you've got a problem when something doesn't work. And it was actually an interesting thing to I don't know what would have, I I guess they would have just closed the place down.

Rob Dwyer (47:50.029)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (48:08.236)
crazy to think about like, well, we're just out of business right now because we.

Nathan Muniz (48:12.72)
mean, are they gonna do haircut vouchers? Like, hey, you pay tomorrow, man. I mean, no. And within 30 minutes, there was a crowd of people done with their haircuts and hair treatments and people coming in that had appointments online. I mean, there was a group. All the seats were taken. 30 minutes. And this is not even...

a busy, it's just a regular corporate hair place. Imagine if that was like a, I don't know, a grocery store or just anything that was substantial. I mean, it was interesting.

Rob Dwyer (48:59.31)
Yeah. Well, if people need to get a cab in Florida or they want to maybe talk to you about some services in the Philippines, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Nathan Muniz (49:14.232)
Wub Wub

Nathan Muniz (49:18.64)
247secretary.com. Let's stick to the Philippine outsourcing part, because that's what we're really moving forward. The cab company, you know, I got W2s being returned to sender, and I got guys going to the can.

Rob Dwyer (49:34.914)
Hey, maybe I want to charter a bus. What about that? Can I do that?

Nathan Muniz (49:38.032)
I mean that's honestly that's that's pretty old as well So if you're a church or a school and you're going, you know a short distance will do it the military calls were bending over backwards, but you You're kind and you're your type of people. We don't want you on them. You're gonna make you're Make too much. You're gonna be definitely using all the Just

Rob Dwyer (49:59.04)
I'd type the people.

Rob Dwyer (50:08.238)
I'm gonna be putting crumbs in the seat and all down the aisle. I'm gonna eat a candy bar with just pieces falling off all over the place. gonna be the worst passenger you ever.

Nathan Muniz (50:08.272)
You

Nathan Muniz (50:22.448)
I mean, I could talk about the worst passenger I've ever had, if you want.

Rob Dwyer (50:29.079)
Okay, let's end this show. We've got about five minutes left in this show. Let's hear about the worst passenger you ever had.

Nathan Muniz (50:34.191)
Aw man.

Halloween night. The best stories always begin with, was Halloween night, nine years ago. I picked up this guy at a closed down gas station. I mean, it was like three in the morning and gas stations closed.

Rob Dwyer (50:55.392)
Okay, because it was after hours, not just like a burnout shell of a gas station in the desert.

Nathan Muniz (50:57.956)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (51:03.266)
No, but the burnout shell of a gas station does make the story sound a whole lot better, but it was a legit gas station. They were just closed. And this is actually the best slash worst part of the story is the guy was wearing nice clothes, like church looking clothes, you know, like he was at some sort of function.

And he has he had a backpack. He gets in and this is just, you know, all this all helps the storyline. He gets in and I'm like, where are you going?

I'm just gonna go to the next town.

I'm like, dude, this isn't like 1920s at the freaking New York City bus or a rail station. Can I get a ticket to the next town? Where will this take me? You know, he just broke up with his girlfriend, you know? Can I go to the next? And we're like, next? Miami? mean, what do mean next town? And so I just rattled off 10 towns. I'm like, Wearsdale, the villages, Wearsdale.

There's nothing in Wearsdale but Orange Grove's. So I knew right where I was taking them. I'm taking you the middle of an Orange Grove. There's a orange place that has like knickknacks and orangey stuff. I'm taking them there. You know what I'm talking about. Okay. Orangey stuff. but right when I took off, I got just railroaded.

Nathan Muniz (52:40.94)
is a great word with some sort of stench that

I don't know where it was coming from. I don't know what it was. But it definitely didn't match the clothing. Because the clothing was crisp. mean, this was like freshly. He might as well have the XXL sticker on his shirt still from Walmart. Because he was like, he didn't look, you know, and I'm like, It had to have been in the backpack. And you know.

Rob Dwyer (53:05.315)
Hmm?

Nathan Muniz (53:15.46)
thought man you know this is a decent run weirsdale was like an hour away I'm like so I tried to like ace Ventura it if you know what I mean

Nathan Muniz (53:29.173)
You know what I mean? Do you know what I mean by that?

Rob Dwyer (53:30.762)
Rob Dwyer (53:34.04)
I know what you mean.

Nathan Muniz (53:35.248)
I had to head out of window and... Nah. Couldn't do it. That made it worse because then the river of stench was coming out of the window like... Just... Just... Just... No. So I just did a U-turn and I was like, dude, you're gonna have to get out. And he was raging mad and I'm like, I don't want to even touch this guy because whatever that smell is...

I do not want it on my hands. So luckily, he got out of the vehicle. And I looked all over. I didn't see anything dripping, but that was the worst package.

Rob Dwyer (54:16.376)
You know what? I'm surprised that that's the worst ever. I think you got off easy. Like, I really... Like, this person smelled horrible and I didn't even take them the whole way and I asked them to get out. Like, that seems like...

Nathan Muniz (54:19.248)
No

Rob Dwyer (54:34.838)
seems like first world problems. That's what it seems like.

Nathan Muniz (54:35.344)
Rob, me just tell you something.

Rob Dwyer (54:41.464)
First World Taxi Problems.

Nathan Muniz (54:46.266)
scent memory when it's that vile and that violent, it comes back to haunt you. So I mean, we're talking full on can't handle it. Eyes watering everything you can humanly possible to not get overtaken by this power of whatever it was in that backpack.

You can almost see the stench floating in the car. It was like a Scooby-Doo cartoon where the power of scent memory comes back to haunt you and that's why it's the worst ever. I'll never forget.

Rob Dwyer (55:23.832)
mystery will endure.

Nathan Muniz (55:27.321)
And remember...

Rob Dwyer (55:28.302)
or no.

Nathan Muniz (55:31.673)
It was a hollow

a gas station that was

Rob Dwyer (55:37.294)
Nathan, thank you. Thanks for joining. It's always great to talk to you.

I you know.

that I know that you know.

where the best frozen treats in the country are.

Nathan Muniz (56:00.312)
I mean, that was a lot of nos leading up to this, Man, I I almost think we need to end this.

Rob Dwyer (56:06.318)
This episode brought to you by Ted Drewes. It's not brought to you by Ted Drewes, but if you are in and around the St. Louis area, go stop by Ted Drewes on Chippewa. Have yourself a delicious treat. I highly recommend the apple pie concrete. One of my favorites. Big chunks of apple pie inside the concrete.

Nathan Muniz (56:26.191)
BWAH!

Nathan Muniz (56:31.354)
See, I didn't know the secret menu information when I went. The line is so long, you get up there, it's like the soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld. You do not want to take more than a Ted Drewes minute to order your meal because you're going to get freaking booted out of line very quickly. Especially on a July night.

Rob Dwyer (56:35.213)
Mmm. Mmm.

Rob Dwyer (56:52.27)
It is true. I will also say the pumpkin pie concrete when you get into pumpkin pie season in the fall, it's really, really, really amazing.

Nathan Muniz (57:00.996)
Alright.

Nathan Muniz (57:05.696)
Is there, there's remnants of pumpkin pie in the deal.

Rob Dwyer (57:10.016)
It's not remnants like their chunks like it's it's like they they literally have these pies back there. They're just throwing chunks in there mixing it up. It's and then whipped cream on top. It's just amazing.

Nathan Muniz (57:26.384)
I went for the quick menu look and gave me a concrete. I didn't know this, see?

Rob Dwyer (57:34.731)
You gotta get the good stuff get the good stuff. All right Nathan good to talk to you again, brother. Thank you

Nathan Muniz (57:36.442)
Yeah.

Nathan Muniz (57:40.89)
You too. Rob, I enjoyed it. Thank you.