Clare Muscutt talks with Charlotte Kennett about leveraging the alignment between Marketing & Customer Experience in B2B.
Clare:
Welcome to the 2nd episode of the sixth series of the Women in CX podcast – a series dedicated to real-talk conversations between women in Customer Experience. Listen in as we share our career stories, relive the moments that shaped us and voice our opinions as loudly as we like about all manner of CX subjects.
I'll be your host, Clare Muscutt and in today's episode, I’ll be talking to an incredible community member from London. She’s a customer-obsessed leader for the world’s pioneer in intelligent automation, where she’s responsible for delivering a world-class customer experience globally. She’s also an accomplished expert in building and managing award-winning B2B community, customer marketing, and ideation programs that bring tangible and measurable value to businesses. In 2022, she was named one of the top B2B Marketing Innovators.
Let me introduce you to today's inspiring guest, CX sister, Charlotte Kennett.
Clare:
Hey, Charlotte!
Charlotte:
Hi, Clare.
Clare:
How are you doing today?
Charlotte:
Good, thank you. The sun is shining and it's put me in a really good mood, so all good. How about yourself?
Clare:
Yeah, I'm good too. With the sun coming out I'm starting to get a little bit of hay fever, so apologies for any sniffling to the listeners! But welcome to the Women in CX podcast and welcome to everybody who's listening or watching along. So Charlotte, let's just jump straight in there and ask the first question, which is to tell the audience how you found your way into the Women in CX community and the kind of things that you've been getting up to whilst you've been here?
Charlotte:
Definitely! And yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm really happy to be here today. Pretty simple actually, I got promoted from Customer Marketing Lead to Head of Customer Experience last year. And although Customer Experience has always been at the centre of everything that I've done in my career...from community management and customer marketing. I've never really sat under the Customer Experience umbrella and I felt a bit illegitimate! And I was like, "Oh, let me make sure that I ramp up and I am able to create the skills that make me a good CX leader, and really just make sure that I'm able to give this job justice and also fill in some of the professional and also personal gaps I might have becoming a leader."
Charlotte:
So, I was looking at various ways that I could do that. And actually, I can't remember how I came across the WiCX community. I just looked into it and really never looked back. Obviously, community management's a big part of my career and who I am as a professional, and the community is just so nurturing. And it's really just help about building connections, and addressing not only the job as a CX person, as a CX leader - but also the skills and the humans, and also the skillset of really ramping up as a leader! So, I've joined multiple activities from joining in on the actual community to some of the events online and offline. And just having a network, and people to bounce ideas off...it can sometimes feel a bit lonely. It's just been good to have this safe space, and this safe group of people, that you can be like, "Am I out of line here?" You know, or "How do I prepare for this really difficult conversation?” And it's just really good to have this as a resource to lean on!
Clare:
Oh, that's so good to hear! And thank you so much for also contributing to our resources. So, I know you came and did a masterclass a couple of weeks ago, to share your insights into community management and Customer Experience and how all that connects together as well. So yeah, I think the 360-degree experience of taking part, receiving value, and giving value back to your CX sisters, it's been wonderful to see your growth as well! And I'm just so glad you found us. So, and I guess, yeah ...because I built an online community, and never had any idea how to build an online community. I'd never managed a community before. So I remember when you were joining, I was thinking, "Oh God, I hope my Community Experience is good enough." But you've been so helpful to me as well.
Charlotte:
Thank you!
Clare:
In helping me understand, maybe, some of the nuances that I had missed. But yeah, I hope you're having a good community experience. It sounds like you are.
Charlotte:
Yeah, yeah, definitely! And that's the thing, it's interesting, I was at an event with a member of my team last year and it was a customer success event actually. And again, the topics around Customer Experience and community management and customer marketing and all of those customer-centric things. And she looked at me and she says, "But Charlotte, this is just common sense!" And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah. It's literally just common sense." And, you know, the reason why this community works is because it's people-centric. You know, you understand your people, you understand the needs, and you're building that engagement. You know, you didn't do it as a tick-box exercise, and you used your common sense, and that's why it works!
Clare:
Yeah. Well, thank you. Bestowing compliments on one another!
Clare:
So, yeah, I'm sure the audience would love to know more about your career journey and how you ended up where you are today. You mentioned quite a few different avenues, in terms of community and marketing and Customer Experience. Please unveil to our listeners how you got where you are.
Charlotte:
Definitely, yeah. So, it's really interesting, because I got into where I am today by being a bit of a weirdo and a bit of a nerd!
Clare:
Oh yeah, you were a gamer, weren't you?
Charlotte:
Yeah, well in my early twenties, I was at university and just didn't really know who I was and what I was doing. And I was just very involved in online communities. At the time it was for a music band, and I ended up becoming the President of a fan club of a heavy metal band.
Clare:
I love that.
Charlotte:
And I just spent all of my spare time, you know, building the fan base for this band. And I was going to all of their tours, and street teams and just doing a lot to build. And then we'd built this community of people around the band, and we created an official website. And, it was amazing. And they actually are pretty - very niche - but pretty well known within this niche. And when they changed labels, they asked us to start needing to pay to continue being an official fan club. And I'm like, "Well, I'm working for free for 35 hours a week, just because I have a passion...I'm not going to pay you." And that really soured my experience of the whole band, and the music industry and all of that.
Clare:
I was going to say...they should have been paying you to do that!
Charlotte:
Yeah, yeah! It was interesting. And actually when I needed to do my Master's dissertation - so I was doing a Master's in marketing - I actually ended up doing my Master's dissertation on how brands and marketing strategies can leverage online communities. And it's kind of from that experience of being that, you know, kid - I mean, in my twenties, just trying to figure out who I am and using my hobby and my passion. Seeing that there's actually an opportunity for brands to do this properly. And this was very much in the early days of social media. And I did my end-of-Master’s internship in the video games industry and worked in the games industry for some time. And really looking at building that relationship between the brand, the games, and for the games to understand more of what the players wanted, and just federating these communities.
Charlotte:
So, fun fact, actually! I created the Pac-Man Facebook fan page at the time.
Clare:
Claim to fame!
Charlotte:
Which is...yeah, but I mean Facebook fan pages aren't a thing anymore. But it would've probably been more 'wowy' a few years ago. And then from there I actually moved into the software industry, to become a consultant in community management. And my biggest frustration while working in software - I love being a consultant, and I got to travel around - is that marketing just didn't get it. You know, it's fluffy marketing and the white papers. All I could see was that there was so much potential if we educated people better and if we spoke to the end users more ...we would be able to sell much more. And again, I'd spent three and a half years doing that, and it was really great. I got to see so much more about how you do community management, but just that frustration with marketing about like...you need to talk to people, right? And this is the very early days of customer marketing. And I actually then moved into the marketing team of that organisation, and they gave me an opportunity to kind of work in the EMEA field marketing team. And I hated field marketing. And I mean - I love my old boss - and he… I remember him telling me, you know, in B2B marketing we're unlucky because 20 years ago it was easy! We just took people out for dinner and went to play golf with them. And now it's very different.
Clare:
Very connected to sales, isn't it? You might want to clarify for the listeners.
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Clare:
Customer Marketing and Field Marketing.
Charlotte:
Yeah! So field marketing, especially in B2B tech, is basically there to help build the demand, and help build the pipeline for sales. So here to kind of create hand raises. So it was...I had the region, which was Europe. And my role was to kind of take the central marketing message, bring it to the region, and making sure that I created hand raises for the sales team.
Clare:
When you say hand raises, does that mean lead gen?
Charlotte:
Yeah, lead generation! So it's like, "Oh, I'm interested in your platform." Which was, again, online communities. And I was...I mean I hated it and I loved it. In the sense that it was one of the best schools I ever went to. So, although my qualification was in marketing - field marketing, and because of the leadership I had in that company, it was just very well-orchestrated. We had a really strong operations team, and it just helped me understand the mechanics of lead generation, demand generation, and just the diligence and what it takes to build a pipeline.
Charlotte:
But I hated that I was measured on acquisition and I just wanted to work with customers. I just wanted to make our customers successful. I just wanted to tell their stories. I wanted to help them grow. I actually soloed one of the biggest deals, just because of me building a network of people that are passionate about what they're doing. And that's when I realised there has to be something, you know...there has to be something that is marketing and customers. And again, this was the very early days of customer marketing, where customer marketeers were basically the RO case studies. Anyway, fast-forward five years to where we are now. So, I joined this company called Blue Prism five years ago. And I was hired as, you know, the second person of the CX team, as a Customer Marketing Manager, to figure out 'what does post-sale marketing' look like for Blue Prism?
Charlotte:
And through that time we launched our online community. We launched obviously the case studies and use cases. But we've built a platform and a team that is inclusive of marketing to customers, and building that demand for growth and expansion. But really that is focused on relationship building, that is focused on community building. Leveraging that Voice of the Customer that goes beyond marketing messaging, but that really helps the company. So we are a CX team. I often feel illegitimate in calling us a CX team, because I report to the Chief Marketing Officer. But I do - the more I speak to people, the more I do think that there is some legitimacy to us being in marketing, because there are some skills that marketing offers, there's some resources that marketing offers. So anyway, that was a long way to talk about it all, Clare, I'm sorry!
Clare:
No, please do not apologise! That's super interesting, and we'll definitely come back to the link between Customer Experience and marketing shortly. I know for me personally, the most success I ever had in big corporate organisations, was when I was reporting to the Marketing Director. So, I think we're going to be on the same page about the value of bringing those two things together. But yeah, one thing that just reminded me of, and I never ever thought of this! Was when I was at uni, I built a community because I created the equestrian society at my uni. Which just happened to be an agricultural one and started the event team. But I've not really thought about this, but I literally had to start it from scratch...had to get a position on the Student Union board, had to recruit members, had to create merch. We all had our own t-shirts with our names on the back. I've never to this day thought that it is actually connected in any way to what I do now.
Charlotte:
Yeah! It's about building a sense of connection.
Clare:
Yeah, it's still going now! Almost 20 years on, which is cool. So yeah, you know, this amazing career journey. You sampled a lot of stuff. You found out what you wanted, what you liked, what you didn't like. You kind of created this vision for where you wanted to view some of the stuff that you love together. But what was one big barrier or challenge you had to overcome, to become the woman that you are today?
Charlotte:
Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think it's about the journey of accepting who I am, unconditionally. Sounds a bit weird!
Clare:
Does not sound weird at all. I totally get it!
Charlotte:
Okay. I've always been really quirky. I've always been a bit weird. I've always been just a bit different. And growing up I always had - I've always wanted to have a career. I've always wanted to have ambition. When I dropped out of uni and didn't know what to do, my Mum was like, "Well, what do you want to be?" And it's like...I just want to be the boss.
Clare:
Love it!
Charlotte:
Mum was like, "Oh, but you know, you're very good at telling people what to do, Charlotte." Which, you know, yeah. But again, my vision has always been women wearing business clothes, you know, like the business women! And it's like...but there's no room for me in business, being a bigger girl, just being a bit weird, liking nerdy things. And just haven't had - until recently - haven't had role models of... you can be who you are and still be successful. And I think it's really- and add to that wanting having kids. Because I've got a three-year-old, how dare you, you know, want to have a career and ambition and have kids, you know? And also be yourself, and be quirky, and play video games, you know?
Charlotte:
It's just, again, growing up, always having that vision of what a successful woman looks like. And I don't think I had a lot of that role models, or the opportunity to kind of see what that looked like. And again, working the video games, I was clearly told that as a woman, I would not have the same opportunities because I just happened to be a woman, right. And that was only 10, 15 years ago. That was 15 years ago. So, I think the biggest blocker was just what I had in my head, of like, "I can't do it because I'm just not the normal." Not, you know, your standard person you're going to see, and again the imposter syndrome. So, I think this has taken me a long time to get to that point of being comfortable of like, "Yeah, you know, my handbag is a handbag." And I've got it here...it has Pac-Man on it! And unapologetically going in to the office with it. And I'm presenting our awards next week with a Wonder Woman t-shirt. And that doesn't make me less of a professional, and that doesn't make me less good at my job. But I'm also unapologetic about who I am. But yeah, it's taken me a while to get to this point and stopping trying to fit in and just be myself really.
Clare:
Yeah. What kinds of things did you do to help you accept yourself?
Charlotte:
Um...
Clare:
Asking for a friend.
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Clare:
Because you used some really strong words there, didn't you? Like accepting yourself unconditionally. And I think you mentioned a few examples there, that there are a number of conditions placed on what makes somebody successful. I think the media had a lot to do with that.
Charlotte:
10 years ago, I was, you know...I actually had a salesperson tell me that I'd probably be more successful in my job if I lost weight.
Clare:
Oh my God.
Charlotte:
And when I went to HR and told them that, they were like, "Oh, but you know, he didn't mean bad." I'm like, "Just no." You know, now I'm in a manager/leader position, if somebody on my team would tell me that, I would get that person fired. I think it's the experiences, it's the fact that, I mean, I've had great mentors. I've had great people to look up to. My former boss, she had a great career. She's had kids and she's been herself and just being around people that you know, told me it's okay. Proving people that, you know, I'm really good at my job. A lot of therapy!
Clare:
Yeah!
Charlotte:
A lot of therapy. And that's one of the things as well, since I stepped up into this role, it was important for me to go back onto that...kind of therapy and that therapy train. And just understanding a bit more about myself. Obviously, I know that we spoke about it. I did get an ADHD diagnosis about a year ago as well, and being on medication has helped. You know, just accepting that my quirkiness is who I am. I think it's just been a lot of different things. Having a kid as well has helped me put some stuff into perspective of what really matters.
Clare:
You're not the first woman that said that. I don't have kids, so I don't know. But, yeah, a lot of people say that.
Charlotte:
And also because the team, I mean, a lot of my team are younger women. I want to be able to model stuff for them. I want them to be able to be like, "She was weird, but she, you know, she helped me." You know?
Clare:
Yeah.
Charlotte:
And she fought for me. Right. And that's, I'm here because some people fought for me, and I want to be that. And I want to fight for people in ways that people didn't fight for me as well. If that makes sense.
Clare:
It makes total sense to me. I think as a fellow ADHD woman, I think that feeling of not fitting in is because of how different you actually are in terms of the patterns that you have in your thinking and behaviour. That when you are little and as a girl with ADHD, you present so differently, and nobody picks it up in the same way. Because you're not being disruptive. But I think for me, that sense of not fitting in definitely came from knowing that I was different and feeling different, but not understanding why. I wish I had known there was a reason. And actually that neurodiversity - I don't want to age myself here - but 30 years ago, was not as well understood as it is today. Right. Or accepted. And now I think...the way that I think is a total superpower because I'm able to put things together and focus on things in a way that I know nobody else can. And do things like start something...
Charlotte:
Oh God...
Clare:
And bring it to fruition in months. But also similar to you, I think getting...having to get into therapy to really unpick all of that, to realize that it wasn't something missing in me or wrong with me. There was something missing in my environment, where I wasn't understood. But, you know, now being 40-ish, that's been a long time of trying to figure that out. So I'm really with you, and just all praise to people who reach out for help with therapy because that is the only place I think really you can heal some of these things that hold you back. And totally agree. Having role models that exemplify who you wish you had seen on the way up. And then becoming that, is such a powerful way to heal as well, I think. And I feel the same to an extent that, what I was missing, for my team and the community, I guess... being that authentic, real person, who isn't just on a pedestal perfectly posting things on Instagram all the time about how amazing everything is. Just being real and honest about...
Charlotte:
Oh God, yeah!
Clare:
...how hard it actually is to hold it all together, some days. We need more of that. I think we just need more realness.
Charlotte:
When I got my promotion, I didn't want to show the team weakness. So when I got my promotion last year, it was at the same time as a big reorganization. The whole team went through complete change, like everything. And it was for the best, right? But my guys didn't know what was next for them. They didn't...they needed the focus, they needed the strength and all that. But I was figuring that out too, right? And I was like, "I don't want to be too vulnerable because I want them to be able to trust me." And the mistake I made is I took on too much of that myself. And the WiCX event that you actually organized last October - I don't know if you remember this - but I was in tears at the end of the evening. Because I had spent the last four months leading to that event, just piling on, piling on, piling on, piling on, and taking on that mental load of being a new team leader. And just trying to shield my team from the struggles that it was, to be at this new level and figuring out and protecting them, that it was just too much.
Charlotte:
And I was scared of showing that side of vulnerability to them, and I ended up having to and they thanked me for it. So, you know...but the fact with the ADHD - the only reason I actually went and got an assessment is because I hired a girl who was during her interview, extremely open about it. She created a community for women. And I was like, "I'm going to look into it because I want to make sure that I can manage her adequately." Because I feel very strongly about having a diverse team. And it was like, "Oh, this is me!"
Charlotte:
I would've not gone down that diagnosis route, if she hadn't been so open about it. And she's in her twenties and I wish I had her strength when I was in my twenties, so...
Clare:
Yeah! She's empowered by knowledge, information and her own community of people around her, supporting her. That's amazing! Yeah, she's great. Alright, so, just conscious of time and I'm sure the listeners want to hear more about this perspective that you have on Customer Experience and marketing. And I know, you know, you mentioned at the start, feeling like...I think you said illegitimate?
Charlotte:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clare:
Reporting into marketing. But I think it'd be great for us to just dive in and have a little dig around into how marketing and Customer Experience being aligned, can create alignment in its own right. So in your experience, why is it so important that marketing and CX work closely together? Do you see marketing does one function, CX does the other, do you think they're integrated into one thing? How do you see it? I'm intrigued!
Charlotte:
Marketing, and again, as a caveat, I'm coming from a B2B lens because this is what I know and this is what I've spent most of my career in - in B2B tech. So please, you know, there might be a caveat from different experiences here. Marketing, when it comes to B2B marketing, is just very, very, very focused on that acquisition and that lead generation thing. And a lot of all the systems that everybody uses, and the operations and everything, is all built for the acquisition. And once the contract's signed, it's like "Now it's the salesperson's job, right?" And that is, you know, 15, 20 years of B2B marketing growing up. And it's fascinating; just understanding lead scoring and pipeline and all that. It is as a numbers person, it is actually fascinating! But the missed opportunity to just not take care of those people post-contract is missed.
Charlotte:
Again, you look at the data, opportunities from customers are twice more likely to sign and cost less...you know, the cost of acquisition is much smaller. Why people don't do it - I remember I was at a company meeting recently where, you know, "Oh, you know, 80% of revenue comes from upsell expansion." And I'm like, "But why is 98% of the budget spent on marketing?"
Clare:
On acquisition?
Charlotte:
Right. It just...I don't understand. Obviously, it's more expensive to acquire and again, it's just understanding. It's just encouraging the marketing to look at maturing, in terms of expanding the reach and the opportunity. And looking at really challenging the status quo. I mean, when we're looking at what analysts are saying...Forresters are saying in the predictions - the B2B marketing predictions for 2023 - they are saying that marketing functions that do not have a lens of the Customer's Experience, are teams that are going to fail.
Charlotte:
We are seeing more and more CMOs have Customer Experience metrics on their dashboards, on their KPIs. Especially looking at the current economic situation...people aren't going to be buying new stuff. They're going to be wanting to keep and make the most out of it. And companies that have got that lens of working on post-sale marketing, are teams that are doing better and more serene and better growth. But, B2B marketing is not as sexy as B2C marketing. You know, we go to B2B conferences and everybody talks about digital transformation. You're selling call-center software and you're doing this...it's all digital transformation. It's all very kind of the same. So there is a shift. And that's why I don't believe you can do good customer marketing if you don't have a Customer Experience lens because you don't sell to existing customers the same way as you would sell to acquisition, you know?
Clare:
And I don't 100% know, because I'm not a B2B marketer, but in B2C - it's about the laws of growth. Have you heard of Ehrenberg-Bass: The Institute of Marketing Science?
Charlotte:
I haven't.
Clare:
So, they basically revealed that, actually, customer loyalty is a pointless thing to chase. Retention is important, obviously, there's no point in losing customers. And to be able to convert existing customers to buy more is good. But actually true growth - the laws of growth - mean that it's actually encouraging passive users who don't purchase as frequently as new users. So I think that's the reason why so much is stacked into acquisition because growth, true growth, is about more newness.
Charlotte:
Yeah!
Clare:
Than just purely loyalty. But what you were just saying about the extension of the relationship management in B2B, I guess that is being called marketing then.
Clare:
But the relationship management beyond - and you're talking about much higher value, aren't you? In B2B, you're talking about big contracts rather than small purchases. So Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is much more focused on repeat purchases of FMCG-type stuff. My background's retail, so that's kind of where I come from. But you know, the loss of a 2 million pounds client, because you haven't really managed the relationship or a certain enterprise software user. Yeah, so I'm just genuinely interested in the similarities and differences!
Charlotte:
I think what's interesting as well, is a lot of that post-sale relationship is extremely focused on the people that sign the checks. And it tends to be we forget the end users. We forget the people that use the product day in, day out, because we're like, "Why should I talk with the developer? Why should I talk with the person who uses the products? I mean, he's not the one who signs the cheque." But research shows, I think, that when it comes to buying technology, the end-users influence...I think it's 77% of the purchase decision is based on the end users! And again, the sellers don't know that. And that's where the opportunity that marketing can come in - is help that building. Again, community is federating and accelerating that time to adoption.
Clare:
What do you mean by 'federating'?
Charlotte:
Federating community is actually making sure that they understand how they can be successful in using that product. It's about signposting, it's about onboarding them adequately. Ultimately it's about accelerating - accelerating time to value by making sure they get the best out of it. I was going to make a point and it's completely gone out of my brain.
Clare:
I was going to say, this is two women with ADHD doing a podcast.
Charlotte:
Oh, what was I going to say?
Clare:
I had one before, I couldn't remember either.
Charlotte:
I know.
Clare:
So this is interesting then. So just from what I'm hearing... this inter play between human B2B space. Thinking about the lead generation and sales pipeline, the amount of budget that's pumped into that. Then, once the customer is acquired, then investing more into building the relationship. Using tools like community to encourage removing barriers to adoption, encouraging increased use of features, potentially that's an upsell.
Charlotte:
And reduce cost to serve as well by improving self-service.
Clare:
Yeah, being able to stop issues with the products, being able to-, I'm thinking of the David Spinks model now, of why...
Charlotte:
Spaces, yeah!
Clare:
The Spaces Model, why communities make sense. But...
Charlotte:
And then it's just kind of adding on to that, it's a virtuous loop, because at the end of that loop is the advocacy.
Clare:
And do you work with referral and stuff for your products?
Charlotte:
We don't need referrals. I mean, we don't need referrals in the sense of we use a lot of social proof. And I have never been in a business, that has so many customers that are willing to share their stories about what they've achieved with the product. And, and that's again as a virtuous loop, is you have to bring the customers to a point where they are willing to be advocates. Where they're willing to endorse you and go on record. And I run - well, my team runs, they did the heavy lifting this year - but our awards program. And we got 200 entries this year, of people willing to tell how they've been able to be successful with our product.
Clare:
Oh, wow!
Charlotte:
All of that content is going to be fed into the marketing engine because did you know..."Jaguar Land Rover has done X, Y, and Z. Do you know why NHS has done X, Y, and Z?" Because we've been able to build that relationship with the customer and we've been able to accelerate time to value. And again, it's not just marketing, it's the whole customer-facing ecosystem. But because everybody's talking together and marketing is able to add the 'jazz hands', and add element of orchestration and the skillset that you have in marketing. We now have this pool of advocates that can create all of this goodness and content that can then go into the marketing campaigns. Literally, as we were going to come on this call, I was actually speaking to the campaigns team. And they want to build a guide of, you know...what's the reality? Let's just move away from the fluff and actually, what are the real tangible tips, Charlotte, can you help? It's like, "Well, why don't we just get the community to answer those questions?" User-generated content goes into the marketing content, makes the content more relevant, makes it better. But we can only do that if we have a good experience with the customers, by building a good community. And it just, yeah, it all ties in together really.
Clare:
And I think for me, that's why I was just visualizing there, that this is the Customer Experience. Because you are then being able to look from the point of being aware of the product through the entire sales cycle, to look at the moments that matter, that can drive action and therefore results. And just because they don't necessarily all sit in customer service or customer support - which is typically where Customer Experience is being driven towards - essentially you are building this ecosystem, and experientially for customer acquisition through retention. I was going to say referral, but advocacy in this case. And you can actually design for that, right? And align your metrics to...
Charlotte:
Yeah. And, and that's where I do see...
Clare:
And Voice of Customer!
Charlotte:
Exactly. And that's where I do see the...I'm talking about marketing skillset. This is where you can add intentional marketing programs, and using marketing tactics to enhance or orchestrate or accelerate certain things, right? And to just add a bit of gloss, or add a bit of structure, to just help tie it in together. And that's where I'd say that my field marketing years have been the most federating, because it's taught me that mindset of tracking things in that way and organising with that level of diligence and organising events and stuff like that. Again, it just helps tie it all together.
Charlotte:
I remember what I was going to say...in my previous job, you were able to prove that if a customer - and as in a previous industry - if a customer buys new licenses within the next six months, they were 15 times more likely to become an enterprise grade customer. So, what do we do? How do we accelerate that? And yes, there is the relationship, there's the sales, the commercials. But on a marketing perspective, maybe it's, you know, sending the right message at the right time. Maybe it's an email here and there, maybe it's some paid on LinkedIn, just, "Oh, by the way, did you know that you could do this with your products?" And again, those are marketing skill sets that are important to try and enhance what that experience and what that journey looks like.
Clare:
Yeah, totally agree and totally with you. Just thinking about how much of Customer Experience is actually driven by email marketing. Even though you are already a customer, but in helping you understand features and benefits and gamification. For example, that you take an action, rewarding and recognising for taking that action, encouraging people...you can create experiences differently, I think, when you've got community and products - as in digital products. But typically what I see, is this massive disconnect that you talked about earlier in this podcast, between - and these huge silos that sit in between - sales, product, customer support. So fair play to you, to be leading the way on figuring it out! So, I don't think you're, as you put it, um...
Charlotte:
Illegitimate?
Clare:
Illegitimate, yeah! I think you're just developing Customer Experience practice in a space, that there's just a bit of a vacuum and absence of it.
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Clare:
So, I would encourage you to keep going and keep documenting and talking about what you are doing, because I'm sure those learnings would be super valuable for other teams that are struggling with the same thing. This clash between sales, marketing, and customer success and support.
Charlotte:
I had a very similar conversation actually. I was invited to speak at a conference for a company called Gainsight that does customer success. And basically, my whole pitch was like, "You guys need to make friends with marketing guides." Again, customer success are my best friends because they extend the voice of what we're doing and all of that. But again because marketing has such a bad rep, and I know it's the case for B2B, I'm just really hoping that we're going to be able to turn things around as a function. That we're seen as more than the people that send swag pens, organize events and write emails, right? We're more than that.
Clare:
Yeah, well best of luck to you. It sounds like it's a very exciting time and you're getting the traction, aren't you? It's playing out in the metrics. And you know, to say "I don't even need referrals because we've got so much social proof of success", means it's working, right?
Charlotte:
Yeah, definitely!
Clare:
So is there anything you'd like to add around that topic?
Charlotte:
No, I think the only thing that I would say is, it is important to measure, and it is important to align the measurements with what the business is measuring. Obviously, I am in a marketing organization, reporting to the CMO, our north star is the pipeline. How do you translate the initiatives that you're doing, into what those metrics that matter? Obviously, we're seeing a lot of layoffs happen, sadly.
Clare:
Yeah, in tech.
Charlotte:
It's very important. Yes, measuring is good, but you need to make sure that those numbers align with what matters to the business. Because right now, I know that our top targets-, and this is, I'm a warm and fuzzies person and I love humans and I want, you know... I'm not going to say NPS could be mine because NPS is a whole other can of worms. But...
Clare:
We're not going there today.
Charlotte:
If customers being happy, you know if..."Charlotte, your job is to make customers happy", I would love that. But the reality is, if I can't prove to my management that what we're doing is tangibly impacting revenue and improving margin, then my team's going to be the first one to go. And because CX is often seen as the warm and fuzzies, it does put us more at risk. And that's why I've been very ruthless in making sure that everything that we do can be tied back into that influence on revenue. Which makes me feel a bit dirty sometimes because it's not all about money, but, you know, if we're not earning money then the team doesn't have a job and that's, at the end of the day, what counts.
Clare:
Yeah, no, with you! And I did say where my very successful time in big business was when I was reporting in to the Marketing Director - who, to be fair, acted much more like a Chief Customer Officer than just marketing focus. But everything I did therefore, was able to be so closely aligned to the brand strategy and what we were trying to achieve as a brand. As well as what we were trying to achieve as an organization. And being able to bring Customer Experience to things like activations at the time, and these huge, you know, multimillion pounds investments in advertising. That we'd then get to take those messages from above the line, and actually make them true in the experience. It was absolutely incredible. One of the best times of my life in Customer Experience.
Clare:
But just to bring us home...I just had the ADHD moment, I was going say something else and I can't remember what it was. Oh yeah, sorry, remember! It was that in relation to this Ehrenberg-Bass stuff, that I've noticed actually all massive ad agencies now have a Customer Experience function. And everything I read that's now related to growth, includes something in one of the big strategic points around now integrating Customer Experience. So from, you know, kind of segmentation of the market, running right through to delivering the truth of the promises that are being made in these emotional connections in advertising. I think actually we're at a point -where you include technology in this - that Customer Experience needs a 2.0 to be able to leverage the value that can come from alignment. And I just really, really hope - and I see it in the community all the time now because we've got such a diverse group of women from so many industries, backgrounds, cultures, business stages. We've got so many, you know-, we're about women in Customer Experience and technology now, aren't we?
Clare:
So I think we're seeing this emergence of, this old stuff that we've been told to do for years, just doesn't work anymore! And something I read this morning; big marketing agency, basically it was just like, "There's no point having personas anymore", because actually you need to be looking at market. And you know, that's one of the key things that we use in Customer Experience, isn't it? Personas rather than marketing segments. And if we're trying to create value propositions into narrower niche, when the direction that marketing is going in is actually to be more broad, then we're going to end up with this even further dis-alignment. Is that a word? Misalignment? Disconnect between what we think we're here to do. And, yeah, I'm really hopeful! We've got some amazing speakers coming into the community this year, from marketing and technology, to start to have some fireside chats to figure this out. But I'd just like to thank you so much, Charlotte! Is there one top take-away, or piece of advice, that you'd like to leave our listeners with today?
Charlotte:
Don't be scared.
Clare:
Don't be scared.
Charlotte:
Don't be scared. Don't be scared. You know, you're going to be in situations that are uncomfortable. You're going to be in meetings and talking to people where you are like, "What?!" Don't be scared to think differently, and don't be scared to fight for what you believe in. Yeah, I think that's it really. You know, we're not going to be able to make change where change needs to happen, if we just accept the status quo. And if you think differently, that's okay. Just try and understand why you're thinking differently.
Clare:
So, that's it, Women in CX audience - stay weird! It'll be your biggest asset in the long term, as long as you can accept and embrace it and not feel triggered or hampered by the fact that you are different. So yeah. And anyone who is different, we love diversity over in the Women in CX community. More than welcome to come and join us! You'll find friendship, home and support for authenticity in Women in CX. So that's it for this week. Thank you so much for coming, Charlotte.
Charlotte:
Thank you, Clare, for the opportunity. Thank you for letting me, you know, vent and talk a lot. I appreciate it!
Clare:
You're so welcome! And thank you to everybody who's listened, or watched along as well. We'll see you all next time. Bye for now!
Charlotte:
Thanks. Bye!
Clare:
Thanks for listening to the Inspiring Women in CX podcast with me, Clare Muscutt. If you enjoyed the episode, please drop us a like, subscribe and leave a review on whichever platform you're listening or watching on. And if you want to know more about becoming a member of the world's first online community for women in Customer Experience, please check out www.womenincx.community/membership.
Join us again next time when I’ll be talking to one of our community members from Trinidad and Tobago about how emerging technologies like ChatGPT will impact customer experience management. See you all soon!
