Clare Muscutt talks with Melissa Moore about frontline customer service and dealing with bullying in the workplace.
Episode #504 Show Notes:
Clare:
Welcome to the fourth episode of the fifth 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 a truly remarkable community member from Ireland. Let me introduce you to today's inspiring guest. She's an award-winning retail consultant, mentor, trainer, and lecturer. Through her business, The Retail Advisor, she empowers retailers to reach their potential through sales, growth and excellence in customer experience. And she's the host of the Retail Tea Break podcast, where she brings together industry experts to decode myths, share knowledge, and give her audience an insight into the retail industry. Please welcome to the show CX sister, Melissa Moore.
Clare:
Hey, Melissa.
Melissa:
Hi, Clare.
Clare:
How are you doing?
Melissa:
I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.
Clare:
Yeah, so honestly, I just can't believe we're here, on the Women in CX podcast after spending the best part of a year and a half collaborating together in the community and we're making an episode together.
Melissa:
I know, and I'm delighted. I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I've listened to this in my car, in airport lounges, so I'm absolutely thrilled to bits to finally be on it with you.
Clare:
Well, welcome. And welcome to everybody who is listening along as well. You're in for a real treat today. So, just to kind of, I guess set the scene really of, you know, this journey that we've been on together. We met through Instagram, didn't we initially, because...
Melissa:
You know, it's really funny. I don't remember the exact moment we met, but it was either Instagram or it was LinkedIn and it just seemed to happen and my goodness, look where it has snowballed to since.
Clare:
Yeah, I just remember that. I remember your Instagram specifically because I was just like, I just love this girl's content, because your branding was all beautiful. It was super consistent. I was a little bit jealous, so I was like, I wish I could, have, yeah, my, I wish my Instagram, what do you call it? The grid?
Melissa:
Grid, Yeah.
Clare:
Your grid. I was jealous of your grid. But in a good way. Like a little bit of grid envy. But yeah, we connected. I'm pretty sure it was through Instagram, I'm pretty sure I was like, hey, I like your grid!
Melissa:
Do you know what? I must give a shout out then. I have an amazing graphic designer, Paula, and she really helped me focus and rebrand. And that's something actually, you know, as you know yourself, it's quite important. It doesn't matter about what is in your head or your knowledge, but you know, in this day and age there has to be a visual impact as well for people to notice you.
Clare:
Well, I still haven't cracked that. And then, yeah, and then you came on board, joined as one of our beta founding members. We had our initial interview together. Just gelled didn't we, just got on like a house on fire. Yeah. And you were there right from the start helping us to build the community. And you've gone on to do some pretty amazing things yourself, right? So, what's your journey been like since you joined the community?
Melissa:
The journey's been incredible. So not only have I met all these incredible women, and I really mean that from the bottom of my heart. Like I've made lifelong friends and just like you over the last kind of few months, the meeting people in person and it's been quite emotional. So not only have I met all these incredible women, I've learnt so much. You know, I came to you at the beginning, and I remember saying, you know, oh, I'm new to CX. And then of course a few weeks later the penny dropped. No, I wasn't.
Melissa:
I just had looked at it in a very different way. So, you know, this community has been incredible for making me stand back and look at myself and my career and my profession. I've learnt loads, I've made all these friends. It's just been really powerful. And as you say, as I've grown and I've been encouraged to grow from the community, the business has taken off like a rocket. So, those two things are not separate. They can't be. So, I think I've flourished. My business has flourished and that is down to the support of the community. Like, it's been incredible.
Clare:
Ah, you're absolutely smashing it and I love your Retail Tea Break podcast as well, which was a big step into the brave pants world, wasn't it? I remember...
Melissa:
Absolutely. And again, that only happened because of the support of the people around me in the community. You know, some of them have been on as guests. There's been huge support though. Everything from where on earth am I going to start this? Am I going to start it? I remember being in a mastermind session and going, do I do this? Should I just sit in my little box and not think about it and be scared of it? So, so many kind of steps I've taken over the last 18 months has been down to the support that I've had from the community. So, I am truly grateful and as I've said to you, you know an awful lot. You're never getting rid of me at this stage.
Clare:
Oh, definitely not. Well, you're now the chair of the UK and Ireland chapter...
Melissa:
Which is lovely, you know, and you've been over here to see us. So, in Ireland, in the Women in CX chapter, we go for afternoon tea. It's just, you know, a little tradition. We started last year, so Clare was obviously over with us. We had afternoon tea one in of the beautiful hotels in Dublin. And like that, I've been able to see you in London. I've been abroad now to Barcelona to see the girls over there. So, it's been brilliant to be able to get out and about and meet loads of the community.
Clare:
I was just laughing, remembering... this afternoon tea was so posh, and I was just a bit overwhelmed with how amazing the food looked that I massively overate, and I had ordered that extra plate of sandwiches, and regretted it afterwards didn't I, because I just so full and we were trying to walk around Dublin afterwards. I had to take my belt off, it was that delicious. But yeah. Yeah. What a great experience and yeah, getting to go to Barcelona, see Adri and all the girls that flew out. I missed that one. I went to the last Barcelona one.
Melissa:
I'm sure there are going to be many more. And I think this is something that we obviously want to try and keep up now. You know, I could fly into any city in the world realistically and meet up with one of the community and that's, that's really special. But also know that I could sit there and chat to them, like we did in Barcelona, with people that I'd never really met before but had these amazing, really heartfelt conversations and great chats about CX that stretch me, that I learn things from, that educate me as well. So it is, it is an incredible community and I'm always going to be so grateful for you, for allowing me to kind of come on board at such an early stage.
Clare:
Shush, allowing you, there's no way you weren't going to come in. I was like, I want this girl with her grid in my community, one of the first, and now we're organising our first annual conference together.
Melissa:
London, watch out, is all I'm going to say. I cannot wait for this to all happen. And so excited again to bring together so many members of our community. And again, like that, to meet the people, to learn loads, to hear from lots of expertise around the room. It's, it's going to be amazing.
Clare:
Yeah. And by the time this podcast airs, we'll have already done it, so yeah.
Melissa:
Watch this space then, watch out for all the stories and the pictures that we've shared, because no doubt there's going to be plenty of selfies when Clare's involved!
Clare:
Oh, and we just talked about obviously how you found your way to the community, but let's talk about how you found your way into CX. Do you want to share a little bit more, with the audience, about that story of how you didn't think you were doing it, but then you figured out you were?
Melissa:
This is the odd thing. So, I suppose for everyone listening at home, my background is retail. I've been in the industry I suppose since I was 16. Like a lot of people, I started my career doing that Saturday job as many people do, making a little bit of money. But actually, that's really when this customer centricity started. I loved having the chats. I loved supporting customers, I loved figuring out what they wanted, what they needed, and then matching it to whatever we were selling. And all the way through my degree. And then through my masters, I kept coming back to retail. I wasn't meant to be a retailer. I was at university originally to go into theatre, you know, as a producer or a stage manager. But I stayed in retail, I had this calling and, and I love it.
Melissa:
So,it was really interesting, even for my masters, for my thesis, I remember thinking about this the other day. My thesis was based on customer centricity, but yet I didn't call it that. So, for me, having looked back now I've always been in CX. I didn't know it as that, and I didn't call it that. And I suppose I don't have a professional background in CX. I haven't studied it per se, but the customer's always been at the heart of the decisions I've made. Whether that's planning a range, whether that's moving stuff around on the, you know, on a shop floor, whether it's coming to sales or whoever I've recruited, I've always thought about the customer first. So, I suppose that's how I found my way into CX. I think it's always been there, which is really interesting. I just never realised.
Clare:
Yeah. And as someone who started out on the shop floor herself, obviously I was in hospitality, not obviously, I started out as a waitress and discovered that passion in that experience of serving customers at the frontline. I think so many of us did begin there. And those of us who did, certainly have a greater operational grounding in the realities of what it's like as an employee at various stages of our career. Whether, you know, frontline on the lowest wage with the most customer facing roles, through the ranks of supervisory, management, general management, being able to, you know, kind of see from that perspective of what it takes as a leader to support employees to deliver the best service possible. And we're going to come back to this shortly because I think this whole concept of head offices that designing and delivering experiences for the frontline to deliver themselves, and that kind of gap between the ivory tower and the frontline sometimes is one of the biggest problems that needs to be addressed in order to deliver great CX. We'll go back to that shortly. So, what was one of the biggest challenges you had to overcome to become the woman you are today?
Melissa:
This is really interesting, and I know we've spoken about it and I probably, I definitely haven't spoken about it publicly, but do you ever recall as a kid, like people in the playground calling you names or even in school, you know, just been cool things or someone constantly just kind of at you?
Clare:
Yes, I've got red hair. So, it didn't really start until I was in, I think infant school was fine and then all of a sudden, in junior school, having red hair was a horrible thing. So yeah. I got it a lot.
Melissa:
Absolutely. So, now take that and think about that. When you've landed your dream job, when you are really good at what you do, when you love what you do, when you've built this really solid team around you who are good at what they do and that's happening to you in a professional workplace, like it really literally starts to pull you apart at the seams. You find yourself questioning your judgment. You find yourself questioning your skills. You know, you start to think, am I any good at this? Am I a good retailer? Am I a good manager? Am I a good leader? And that's detrimental. So, it literally starts to pick apart everything you knew, or you thought you knew until you get to the stage going, I'm not a good retailer, I'm not good at what I do, I'm not a good manager, I'm not a good leader.
Melissa:
But yet the results are saying otherwise. That by far has been the biggest challenge to me personally, professionally, and I suppose without dwelling on negative. And I'm in a really lucky position now a few years on that I don't dwell on the negative. I took that awful experience and channelled it into creating this most amazing, I suppose, brand, business, something I'm so proud of. And out of this awful experience came The Retail Advisor. I kind of decided that I was going to go out on my own. I knew there was a need there, but in hindsight, maybe this awful, nasty experience was the catalyst into creating this business. And look, I'm not saying that The Retail Advisor is perfect, I'm not saying that I absolutely know what I'm doing every day of the week, but I think that was how I overcame it, is to really look, it takes a while.
Melissa:
Everyone listening knows that whether it's, you know, something physical that happens at work, you fall over, you hurt yourself, whether it is the name calling or something that gets, you know, much more nasty and sinister. You have to take from it. You have to learn from it, and you have to try and move on. And that's not easy. And I'm not saying it happened overnight, but I'm so grateful at this stage to have created The Retail Advisor out of something that could have turned really ugly and really nasty and could've seen me leave the industry altogether in an industry that I'm so passionate about. But now I have this incredible business where I get to choose who I work with. I work with the most amazing retailers and makers and I'm so proud of what I do. So, I almost feel, throughout my career, especially the kind of the second half of my career, if you want to call it that, I've come 360 from being, you know, super confident about what I did to having the rug pulled out from under me to actually being back, being really proud and really confident about what I'm doing and what I'm delivering again, which is, which is fantastic.
Melissa:
And I'm really grateful now to have had this little hiccup or this little challenge as I now call it.
Clare:
Wow, yeah. And your brand is you, the Retail Advisor, Melissa Moore, having the pride and the joy in actually, this growing business that is all about the woman that you are today and the skills and experience and expertise that you bring to the industry. I'm sure whoever it was that was bullying you will probably be very jealous and probably gutted that you managed to turn that pain into power and do what you've done with it. But workplace bullying is a problem. And I think we talked about this in a round table discussion in the community and everybody who came and showed up to this had all had an experience of somebody in the workplace literally victimising them. People were saying about these narcissistic bosses...
Melissa:
And isn't that shocking? That's not okay. Every single person in the room that day had an experience and you're like, well, hang on. We don't talk about it. And actually, everyone felt the same. We'd all been through a similar situation, but also, my goodness, it's not okay that everyone in that room that day had been through this. So, there's a lot to be fixed out there. I'm very grateful that I've taken the positive. Look, it wasn't easy. An awful lot of people don't find it that easy and an awful lot of people don't get over it. So, are we losing people out of our workforce because this is happening, it's not being dealt with, it's not being dealt with in the correct way. And like we're losing really good, solid people out of all sorts of industries. Cause this still goes on and it goes unchallenged.
Clare:
Yeah, I'm just kind of reflecting on my own experience. So, for me it was only ever women that I experienced this with and there was two, what I would call... definitely bullied me. And they just hate, they seemed to just hate me. They were more senior than me and one of them was my boss and she seemed to take great joy in the fact that she could tell me what to do and I'd have to do it. But she would focus entirely on conversations with me around, well I'm the Line Manager and she would take things away from me. So, we had a restructure and one minute I was like talking to all these senior leaders and I was the face of what I did and then ended up reporting in turn. She's like, you're not going to be doing any of that anymore. You're going to do what I tell you to do. You're going to do the work and I'm going to take it to the bosses. Honestly, literally sat me in a room and said that.
Melissa:
It's wrong. And you know, so is it like power struggle? Is it because you, as you say, you were young, you were amazing at what you did, you were going places and you do kind of wonder sometimes, you know, and then at this stage, and I'm really lucky and I hope you're the same, I kind of feel sorry for these people at this stage looking back because it's not the way to treat people. And also, you're never going to get anywhere or grow yourself if you're constantly belittling people and putting them down.
Clare:
Yeah. And then there's this other woman who used to take great joy in after meetings, she worked on a completely different team, I was bringing in all this new customer experience thinking that I wasn't meaning to highlight where they were going wrong, as in it was personal to her. But she seemed to just take all of the things that I was putting forward as opportunities, as personal. She would literally get me in a room, one of the ones that didn't have glass in and just keep going at me. Saying things like, why are you trying to show me up in meetings with senior people until I cried. And she'd do it repeatedly. And it got to the point were I dreaded going to any meetings with her particular division because she would be sat there looking at me from across the room like she was challenging me to keep my mouth shut.
Clare:
And that was just so difficult to deal with and yeah, like you said, you know, people like that don't tend to end up getting on for very long. And eventually both of them were out of the company and I was still there. But I just don't know how people like that get into such senior positions in the first place because that is not leadership, and it is not anything that anyone would ever want to work with. But I hear the same stories for women joining the community, especially around like narcissistic bosses, people who literally victimise them and have driven them out of the company. And that resulting impact that you talked about, you know, where you start to believe it's you and this reinforcement of what can be internalised is these...
Melissa:
And you know what, talking of internal, I'm actually starting to feel sick. No joke. As you started to describe crying. I start to feel really funny because, been there and I'm sure there's plenty of people listening going, yeah, I've been there, it's been me. It's horrific and it has to stop. Who on earth out there learns by being made cry at work, being made a fool of? Nobody, nobody learns in this, you know, as you say, narcissistic way, it's not normal, it's not nurturing and it's not okay nowadays. So, I'm almost glad in an awful way that we have this conversation in the community, and I hope kind of more people out there can have it too because it's so wrong that both of us have been able, you know, we've been made to feel like this. Look, we've come out the other side, thank goodness. And I really hope that there's lots of people listening that feel that way as well or know how to get out of the situation or make it positive.
Clare:
Yeah. And just thinking about what you're saying there, these negative experiences of me running into these senior women who would either try and block me from getting further on, not support me seemingly, intentionally through to bullying me and even when I left and tried to set up my own business, didn't want to help me with how they did it, they didn't want to share, that experience of the negative aspect of female competition was part of the reason that I wanted to build a community in the first place and create a culture where it was all about collaboration. Because I'd experienced such infrequent examples of what... I had some really amazing examples, but it was so infrequent in comparison to the competitive aspect that I just knew that we could do better if we created a safe space where we could be vulnerable with one another.
Clare:
Where we could have chats about being bullied in the workplace and find solidarity in sharing and yeah, screw you to anyone who ever did that to me because we are, I love it. Living our best lives over here in Women in CX. But anyway, moving on from there and from that very difficult aspect of our histories that we turned into power. I think we need to come back to this kind of frontline versus HQ issue that I guess is consultants or people that go in and help other people with their businesses often get to see in the cold light of day when the organisations don't recognise it themselves. What do you think, you know, causes that kind of distance between the two and, you know, how are decisions that are being made around perhaps board rooms or meeting rooms, to varying levels of seniority. How do they actually impact employees on the frontline?
Melissa:
It's massive. And I don't know whether I've noticed it more since Covid, with this whole look I work in retail, retail predominantly stayed open, an awful lot of frontline, whether it was grocery or chemists, but the boards met remotely, or the senior management were sat at home and it very much to me started to speak to this them and us situation. That meant the frontline kind of workers, teams felt almost alienated. And then I started to see this trickle on when you look into CX a bit more that not necessarily always done on purpose, but a board meet or a CX team meet or CX as part of marketing or sales meet, but actually they've had no correspondence with the shop floor. They've had no correspondence with the people that genuinely meet the customer every day. So, whether that's retail or hospitality or a call centre, there's a real fractious kind of, I suppose growth starting to happen that here I am sitting in my boardroom making this decision because I know best, and this is not dissing anyone out there who is sitting at C-suite or at a, you know, at a senior level who does strategise and who is brilliant at it.
Melissa:
But it's like about saying, well hang on, what about the people that actually have to physically deliver this for you? So, whether that's physically meet the customer on a daily basis in a shop, you know, is what you are actually saying at board level going to translate? Have you spoken to them? Do you actually understand what they're going through on a daily basis? But also, do they understand your long-term strategy that by doing this today and then that next week it equates to whatever you want to kind of develop. I just think, and again, don't know whether it's covid or whether I've noticed it more, there's just a real break between what's happening at one level and actually what the reality is on the shop floor and the other,
Clare:
It's a bit of a two-way street as you said, isn't it? So, the employees feeling the impact of boardroom decisions that they don't understand, and the frontline employees not being sufficiently engaged in what the company's trying to deliver in order to support them to drive it. So, it's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it, of declining return on investment or profitability through doing that at home. I was just thinking about a couple of examples of, you know, like when boards have to make really difficult decisions that result in labour cuts for example. In order to be able to keep the lights on longer term or job losses, redundancies, that kind of thing is obviously awful for the frontline to have to be the ones that suffer. And you know, how we communicate and engage with teams through those difficult decisions and engage them, you know, being part of that through consultations is super important.
Clare:
But I also see a lot of, you know, digital transformation technology being thrust upon employees in a way that's supposed to make their lives easier. And on a spreadsheet when the requirements have been gathered and they identify we replace this person doing this thing manually with an algorithm to do it for them. It makes total sense, doesn't it? But a lot of the time when I talk to employees who've gone through an unsuccessful digital transformation, the system or the new processes that have arisen through the technology have taken the hours away that they had but not actually fixed the problem or made it any easier because they weren't again involved in creation of either the requirements or the design for how it should work and be integrated. And I think the ultimate frustration being that, you know, time, money, effort, getting spent on things like customer experience when it doesn't actually challenge the day-to-day problems that they see people facing into every day. That if they had been involved, you know, as part of a discovery, having listening groups, that they would've been able to say, hey, here's like 20 quick wins that could save us a load of time, effort, and energy at the front end dealing with the staff. But we need, I always remember some frontline team members call them the higher-ups, the people who make those decisions.
Melissa:
And I think that's exactly it in a nutshell, this terminology for you at this higher level because there's no connection. And I think I'm a little worried we might be coming into a recession, things might be getting a bit heavy, you know, cuts might be coming, whether it's in your hours or productivity needs to go through the roof because there's still loads of work to be done and it's not quite happening. So, there is this gulf developing and as you say, tech, tech is just seen as a quick win by the higher-ups as we call them. But actually, does it work? Is it serving a purpose, a chat bot winding the customer up so much that actually by the time they get through to a human, they're so angry with that human, the human's then spending an extra 20 minutes on the phone trying to figure out the issue.
Melissa:
Because the customer's so angry trying to resolve the issue, trying to sort the customer out and calm them down enough to retain them as a customer and not lose them that allow everyone's just waste a time and money. So, this is where I think there needs to be more joined up thinking. And as you said, it is as simple as talking to the people on the frontline. You know, getting a pool of people together, questioning them. We talk about voice of customer, what about the voice of the employee? Like why aren't we utilising our best people more to solve these problems, as you say? Or at the end of the day, if you have this amazing strategy for five or 10 years' time, tell them like the best companies I've worked for, the ones that communicate up and down, side to side, whatever way you want to do it, but there is an honest communication there and it, it's win-win for everyone.
Clare:
I think you picked out some super important points there. So, what can we actually do about this? How can we get better? So, one of them being listening to employees and when we say listening, it isn't just doing an employee engagement survey once a year and looking at whether or not they, it's the same problem with Customer Experience though, right? Isn't it? Like metrics focused, measurement focused as opposed to insight focused use of measurement tools, is definitely part of the problem there and I think the thing with that is creating safe environments to do more qualitative stuff where people feel safe to actually share what's going on. I know as an external person, you quite often walked into an organisation tasked with customer experience as a project, ending up having to totally help them see the light of what was really going on and the more fundamental problems were happening for their employees because of processes and leadership that they weren't feeling comfortable to share with line management in the past. What do you think about that?
Melissa:
I completely agree, and I think I see it more and more so since kind of the world has opened back up again, I'm training in-person a lot more. So, I'm like you, I'm meeting all these people and groups, massive groups of employees and that's where half the issue is. We talk about this amazing customer experience, but what about our employee experience? Have we forgotten the fact that actually if we, if we have this fabulous internal culture, if we deliver excellence inside our organisation, we are much more likely then to deliver excellence on the outside to the outside world to our public. And I think it's really fractured. Like we've all heard of the MIT study that was brought out at the beginning of the year about this toxic, great resignation that's not about money or pay, that's about the lack of communication. It's the lack of engagement.
Melissa:
It's not having the safe space like we've talked about. So, I almost think if companies just stopped a sec, and looked internally first, try to pull together or have the right ideas you say about talking to our own people first. We'd fix an awful lot of, you know, the issues that there are. We'd probably solve an awful lot of the customers problems as well, just talking to our own people. And I think this is where I see this an awful lot through the training I deliver. There are so many incredible people within our organisations, on our shop floor, at our frontline, but we just don't, we don't utilise them to the best of our abilities and it's really frustrating and it's costing us money.
Clare:
Yeah. And that helps me pull into focus I think another point which is around data-led decision-making or quant-led decision-making because the data can definitely send you in a direction to know where to focus but doesn't ever tell you why. So, I suppose it's reinforcing the point about qualitative and quantitative needing balance, but it's just so much easier to do the quant stuff, isn't it?
Melissa:
But it's lazy and it is short-term focused. So again, if we can talk to our own people, there's your long-term strategy, that's where you're making money in the long term. And I do just want to shake businesses sometimes and say, do you realise what's happening? You know, if you want that long-term success, talk internally to your own people before you talk to the customer. You've got the solutions.
Clare:
Yeah. And I guess it's just a case of value rather than cost because you can get so much more value out of spending a bit of money on doing qualitative listening than spending a lot of money still, but on just the data analytics alone, I think both sides are important. And then a third one, which kind of links these three things together is the operational KPIs that the frontline is tasked to deliver, which so frequently are around call handling times, around processing speed at checkouts. Like the things that the employee at the frontline tends to get tasked on and measured on are actually productivity measures as opposed to service measures. And the people that are bonused in the management team and the supervisory team are bonused more around operational productivity measures than they are around service. And then therefore, you know, this thing that joins it all together, we talked about culture, you know, having a culture and an environment that's a great place to work, where people feel empowered to do great things for customers. They end up being hamstrung by policy, watching the clock to make sure they're doing things in a timeframe that means that they're not...
Melissa:
And this is it. And this is why people are leaving the frontline. And we hear so much at the moment that nobody can get staff. Like, would you want to work for a company where, as you say that your hands are tied and everyone's sitting in a boardroom. And of course, we always think of these people in the boardroom like they're, you know, silhouettes sitting there who make all the decisions who have nothing to do with us. And it's just the wrong way to look at it. And I think CX is so important, and our customers are so important at every level that yeah, a little bit of joined up thinking would really go a long way here.
Clare:
Yeah. And I loved one company that I worked for, big retailer, everyone probably knows which one it is by now, but they used to make everybody do Easter and Christmas store work, in every head office. It wasn't negotiable. It was "our teams need us now; we're going to go and help them". And the stores would always put us in the most difficult of departments. So, BWS, like if you were going in store working, you'd probably be on fresh or on boost and literally spend all day just trying to keep up with the stuff flying off the shelf.
Melissa:
Welcome to pain.
Clare:
Welcome to the real world though, right? And obviously, I'd spent a lot of time in operations, you know, spending 12-hour shifts on my feet. So, it'd been a long time, but I knew that that was what the work was going be like. And you see these shell-shocked people who normally wear suits and sit in an air-conditioned office all day like trying to just cope with the noise and the pressure and what was going on. And it was a real, you know, baptism of fire that if they could integrate that experience into some of the awesome stuff which would be, you know, going back into a meeting and being like, when I was store working, I saw this problem or when I saw, when I was store working, I saw these colleagues were telling me about these issues that they were experiencing in store. I'm going to take that back and I'm going to see if I can do something about it. You know, it was super valuable to have the two and a half thousand people that worked in head office out in amongst the 190,000 people at the frontline and being able to integrate that back. And it was every level of the organisation. It was the senior managers, the heads of department, the directors, the CEO even went and did store working.
Melissa:
But I think frontline staff really appreciate that because they feel seen, heard and understood then. And also, they just feel supported. We all know how crazy these busy times are, you know, as retailers and you know what, the organisations I've worked in where that happens there is that camaraderie. Internal customer service is incredible because you feel that you are all in it together. You know, when you're having a bad day, everyone in the company's having a bad day. It's not just you on the shop floor. There's a lot to be said for that. But then I've worked for the companies that have never done that, wouldn't dream of it. I've worked for companies where the board or the C-suite had never even spoken to a customer. So again, what's that about? That's not okay either. So, I do, I think a meeting of minds is definitely the way forward and I think it's the only way to really excel in customer experience, you know, throughout, especially with a frontline-facing industry like retail or hospitality. It's the only way to do it.
Clare:
I like it. I like it. Yeah, so it's all about really effectively closing the gap, isn't it? Listening to one another and the more connected you are to the frontline, the more easily you can connect the frontline to things like business outcomes and strategies. But what frontline people typically want is, you know, fair pay, good conditions, a nice place to work, good culture, opportunities, progression, can see themselves being around because they can see where they can get to, being able to look up and see people who look like them in managing positions and leadership positions. And yeah, I was talking to Crystal D'Cunha, who is also a podcast guest this month, that, you know, wait, in fact she's next month. So, podcast coming up next month. Sorry, we're batch recorded at the moment you won't be able to tell was, you know, talking about investing in employee experience because actually, you know, you can attract and retain the best talent if you really think about recruitment and onboarding.
Melissa:
Oh, hundred percent!
Clare:
Fine tune ensuring that the purpose and the values of all the organisation are aligned with that individual. Because if they are, the cultural fit is likely to be more successful that that needs to translate through every touchpoint in induction and training and onboarding in the first 90 days. But then in the rhythms, the routines, the rituals of the culture is experienced by employees, whatever level of the organisation you're on. And again, it's the same as customer experience in terms of the problematic aspects. It's just so often the outcome of a load of processes, that's what the experience of being recruited into a company is. But you can hear more about that on next week's podcast. So, yeah, so, kind of just focusing on this, what are we missing, what should we be focusing on? We talked about kind of some of the most common mistakes or areas that typically drive this division, but also then therefore the erosion of service levels potentially or not having the optimal service levels. Is there anything else that you know, you would say that the listeners should be focusing on when it comes to delivering great customer experience slash customer service?
Melissa:
I think, and actually, that's really funny. The reason I always fall back into the customer service line is because in retail that's what it tends to be called. It's that little desk at the back of the store where customer service, so again, I don't get hung up any more about talking about customer service or customer experience, explain them. But you know what, at the end of the day, once the frontline person is putting the customer at the centre of everything they do, whether they're tasking, you know, whether they're serving them, that to me is the most important thing. And again, I think that has to be fed back to the boardroom that you are all on, you know, that same line. It is the same want and need that the company has, that the frontliners have. And I, again, I think sometimes that gets a bit kind of lost.
Melissa:
That message does, especially in retail, but it isn't just about selling stuff, it's not about the goods. It's about actually, you know, ensuring that the customer needs and wants are met so that they keep coming back. Like it is as simple as that at the end of the day. And I think sometimes for all the negative and for all the gaps that might be there between the C-suite and those on the frontline, there is one goal in mind. There is always one goal in mind that we keep that customer happy and that they keep coming back. So, whatever the amazing the design has been, the incredible journey they've had, whether that's been online, whether that's been in store, it's always the goal. And I think once that main goal is talked about and it's focused on, then everyone can achieve the same thing. And again, I think whether it's covid, whether it's just these kind of little crazy times we're living in, the message is lost sometimes. So, I think that repeated nature of just keeping that customer at the heart of everything we do, then it is okay.
Clare:
Easier said than done though, right. I was just telling, I was just thinking literally my mind just clicked into a question then of like, did I think the company cared about me when I was working on the frontline? I don't think it ever occurred to me what the company thought of me. I didn't really know much about the values other than what I've learned in the induction, but I sure knew my managers and my team cared about me. So, the culture that's created at a local level is a reflection of what is, you know, trying to be organised at the central and support centre part, but the role of in store or shop floor or contact centre leadership and management in actually creating that environment where you feel camaraderie, I think was the word that you used, that we're all in this together when the sh*t hits the fan, you know, we're going to pull together, we're going to fix it.
Clare:
On the really difficult days, because there are so many moments where everything goes to, I can't remember another word, then it goes to sh*t. And you know, being able to pull together, and I remember working in restaurants, there were times where literally your section will just get so, when it was a busy period, and I'm talking like it doesn't stop all day on a Sunday, it gets so out of hand that it could bring you to tears and someone in the team recognising that, there being a signal that says I'm screwed here, that it got you five minutes to go and stand in the fridge, that someone else will just take over your tables and sometimes the three or four of them will just go and clear your whole section for you. And so, you could come back out of the fridge after having a like five-minute cry and be able to cope with it again. And it's stuff like that.
Melissa:
That's it. And the show goes on and the customer doesn't realise, the customer's happy, they've had an incredible meal, they've paid their bill, you know, and this is actually, that's the reality of the frontline that all hell breaks out. I can't tell you the amount of times that fire alarms have gone off. You know, ambulances have been called, chaos, absolute chaos on bank holiday weekends or the heat is so unbearable when the weather is this warm, you know, when we're not sat in air-conditioned offices. But you know what, you suck it up because the team are there to support you. Which is why for me, it always comes back to the frontline having a support network, really good strong internal customer experience to be able to just put their happy face on, it is show at the end of the day, it is a bit of theatre, whether it's retail or hospitality, it is a little bit of theatre and you do just get on with it. But if the customer's happy because they're at the heart of everything you are doing, everyone's happy.
Clare:
And again, you just triggered a memory for me, which was there being a mirror on the door of the swinging doors that came out of the kitchen, and it was, remember you're going on stage.
Melissa:
Smile. That's why I always, it's just that big smile. It is at the end of the day, whatever is going on behind the scenes, whatever's going on in that boardroom, the customer doesn't need to know about it, care about it, they just want their needs to be met and they want to go home happy.
Clare:
Right. Totally right. So, Melissa, what's your kind of one piece of advice that you'd like to leave our listeners at Women in CX with today?
Melissa:
I think the one big takeaway or what I've learned from starting The Retail Advisor is to work on your business, not just in it. And actually, even though I'm a solopreneur, I don't think it's just about for someone that runs their own business, like if you are an employee, you could do this as well. You have to stand back sometimes. So, for me, and I tell all my clients this, what are you going to stop doing? What are you going to start doing and what are you going to continue doing? So, it really is looking in on your business as well as just being in it. Because if you're constantly in your business, you're constantly slogging away, the world just runs by you, and you're never going to stand back and learn or change things. So, that's definitely my one piece of advice
Clare:
I could do with taking that at the moment. But I'm about to take four weeks off to travel the world and take that big step back. So, I'm sure my reflection will come as a result of that. So, thank you so much for joining us on the Women in CX podcast, Melissa.
Melissa:
Thanks, Clare. I've thoroughly enjoyed it and enjoy the holiday, which will be over by the time this goes out. So, I hope you had a brilliant time.
Clare:
Thank you and thank you to everybody listening along as well. We'll see you all next time. Bye for now!
Melissa:
Bye.
Clare:
Thanks for listening to the Women in CX podcast with me, Clare Muscutt. If you enjoyed the show, 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 and follow the Women in CX page on LinkedIn. Join us again next time when I'll be talking to one of our community members from Thailand about employee experience and the power of accountability. See you all next time.
