Clare Muscutt hosts Amanda Riches as she shares her inspiring story from inside and outside CX.
Episode #210 Show Notes
Clare Muscutt – host:
Hi, Amanda!
Amanda Riches:
Hi, Clare!
Clare Muscutt – host:
How are you doing today?
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, good actually. Very well, thank you. How are you?
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, I’m great. I’m great. Welcome to everybody listening at home, as well. So, just for the listeners’ benefit, I think I should probably point out that you and I have known each other rather a long time, haven’t we?
Amanda Riches:
We have indeed, yeah.
Clare Muscutt – host:
So, Amanda and I worked together back in the Whitbread days. And for those of you that have been following the podcast, I quite often make references to the time that I ran pubs or my first job in the office… Mandy was my head of department.
Amanda Riches:
Absolutely, yeah. No, it’s great, yeah.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I just called you Mandy again. Amanda!
Amanda Riches:
It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.
Clare Muscutt – host:
So, shall we just jump right in, then, and talk about that backstory of how you got into CX and the pub days? Because obviously, we both worked in the same kind of industry at a similar age, being young women in pub companies. I just wondered what was that experience like for you, and especially being a gay woman in a male-dominated environment?
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I forget we both started in the pub operations – so, prior to Whitbread, this was for me – I mean, I joined an area manager graduate training scheme at a pub and leisure company when I left university. And actually, when you think about CX, it’s not a bad grounding, and also for life in general, and how to survive in that challenging environment. I was 23, and I was managing sort of pub managers who were 40 to 50-year-old, as you say, a very male-dominated industry… gay when it wasn’t always okay to be gay. And I think probably in some of their eyes, I was a graduate trainee, so some kind of young upstart just out of uni.
But I mean, pub operations was a great place to be. It was a bit of a boys’ club – so jobs for the boys – but it was fantastic that in our intake, they were actively recruiting to take women into that industry, particularly because they were trying to make pubs more female-friendly, so you need some people in leadership positions who could drive that forward. But it was a tough environment. You probably experienced it, as well, Clare. It was quite laddish behaviour…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, yeah.
Amanda Riches:
… and some behaviour that was quite borderline, I think, towards women, but obviously only from a few people.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, yeah. Well, you were, obviously, an area manager whereas I was a general manager. So, you were managing pub managers, right, whereas I was in the thick of it being a pub manager alongside a load of other pub managers, and 90 per cent of my colleagues were all white middle-aged men, and I was also 23 running my first hotel and restaurant. And it was a similar experience, I guess, of no matter what I did, I still had to work that bit harder just to prove that I could do it, or in team management meetings, having the confidence to speak up when everybody around me had literally 10, 20 years of experience in the job and I’d just come out of university. I’d worked in pubs all my life in terms of – well, the five years before – I’d worked my way up to assistant and general manager, but it felt very intimidating as a young woman.
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it is. I guess probably the being young piece was more of a challenge actually than the being gay part. I think maybe a gay man might have experienced more challenges than my partner and I did, but when we came out at work, we were actually met with more curiosity and you know the kind of ‘Wahey, girls!’ type of thing from the lads.
Clare Muscutt – host:
The sexualisation of…
Amanda Riches:
Exactly. But interestingly, the main negativity that I remember was from the HR leadership. And I think these days, people in people and culture functions and HR, they’re the leading the way in that diversity and inclusion, but at that point, we were seen a bit of a problem – only by a small minority in the HR leadership – but still a problem. And there was actually kind of sentiments of how would female colleagues feel working with us, being in the same room as us? You know, those sorts of things… and that sort of stereotype that if you’re gay, you’re a predator or whatever.
So, I’m really glad that things have moved over time and we don’t really experience that so much anymore.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, and I didn’t realise that you’d been with your partner from like right at the very start of your…
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, long time now.
Clare Muscutt – host:
… career. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Amanda Riches:
Old and married.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Proper old married couple now. That’s cute.
So, how did you get from operations into customer experience? And what were the biggest challenges you faced along the way?
Amanda Riches:
Well, I think multi-site operations is a great grounding in all areas of business – and running pubs, as well, you would have seen that and known that – and I naturally moved from that into more business development type of roles and then customer experience roles, both in corporates like Whitbread but also through my own consulting company on interim contracts – like at Fidelity – and a variety of different sectors.
I just always loved understanding what customers really wanted, how we could do things better. And then as I got more of the higher-up corporate positions, it was more about, you know, you see the frontline sometimes struggling – they’re trying to do their best – and actually, we’ve got business processes and things like that that are in place and a huge amount of administrative tasks that get in the way really – maybe you experienced that being on the other end of it – but I certainly think it was natural for me to start thinking about how can we cut the crap, really, of what was out there and stopped people delivering what they needed to do for their customers?
Clare Muscutt – host:
I remember those days very much as kind of trying to operationalise the brand, so very much thinking about standards, and quality, and measures and metrics that drove the right behaviours, and I think again that gave me a really good grounding in CX.
Amanda Riches:
It does, and you don’t realise it necessarily at the time. And I do think… I suppose over the years, it must be – I mean, it’s probably 20-odd years now, Clare, which I know you’ve called me old once today, and now you’re probably going to do it again, but…
Clare Muscutt – host:
No, 2006, 2007… so, 14 years, 13 years ago.
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, so it’s been a long time for you now, as well.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yes.
Amanda Riches:
I sometimes think about why do I continue doing what I do? And of course, I think business results and the ROI of customer experience is, of course, key. Absolutely. But it is more than that. The return on investment piece is so critical. I think it used to be seen as a bit of a fluffy thing, customer experience, but now you have to be focusing on what the business outcomes are; you have to be focusing on ‘What are the barriers to purchase?’ All those sorts of things.
But I think I may have said to you before, Clare, that for me, it’s – god, this is going to sound really corny now…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Go on, say it!
Amanda Riches:
… but better experiences, for me, ultimately make customers and employees happier, and when I think about why else I do this, it is about making people’s lives better. I think despite our focus on CX in recent years, there’s way too many experiences that still suck the life out of people.
You talked about one of my biggest challenges, Clare, and you know that I’ve been through health concerns and had cancer – what I say is three-and-a-half times, but what is essentially three big times and one small – and life is short and time is precious. I really find it incredible that we’re still asking those same questions day in to day out about why are some simple tasks so hard to do? Why are we still waiting on hold on a call to a call centre because the website doesn’t do what you want it to do? All those sorts of things. And I definitely think that, you know, as CX professionals and leaders, we have a responsibility to make lives better and get rid of those energy-sapping experiences.
Clare Muscutt – host:
That’s so interesting. You’ve kind of like tied together your experience of how short life is to how many days we waste or time we waste for customers in their experience waiting on things like phonelines. I just have to ask, though, how do you get cancer three-and-a-half times?
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, so, it’s one of those weird ones where I suppose I’ve had three major ones over the years, but actually that’s over 25 years now, so it’s a long time that I’ve had those. And I’m very lucky – I know I am very lucky – and there will be people potentially listening who unfortunately their loved ones are not here now. The half is because it was kind of a small skin cancer, and I feel like it was so small when compared to the others that I count it as my kind of ‘half’.
Clare Muscutt – host:
‘Just brush that one off!’
Amanda Riches:
Brush that one off!
Clare Muscutt – host:
‘Oh, that was easier to deal with.’
And how was it trying to maintain, I guess, your career and your health simultaneously?
Amanda Riches:
Well, it’s always a struggle, and I think for anyone in this industry, and generally in work, keeping that balance is hard. But I always found that almost keeping life – not making cancer your whole life but making it part of your life was better for me. And I think it’s very individual, but for me, it was about still keeping some element of normality, so still trying to work through parts – probably too much so at times – but continuing to keep that work going gave me a sense of ‘Life hasn’t just stopped’ because everything else when you’re with cancer, you lose that control. So, yeah, I tended to keep moving along. But looking after yourself and being good at your job is hard sometimes.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, it is. It is generally. In the face of, I suppose, such serious illness, were you ever worried that you might not make it, or did you always have a positive kind of outlook from the doctors?
Amanda Riches:
It really does shake your mortality, and your view on mortality, and I think Covid has done that to an extent to a number of people now, as well. The first couple of times – I don’t know whether it was the optimism of youth – but I didn’t get that same sense, and I always thought I would come through it, but then it really hit me hard on the third one, really did. That’s where I was sort of, ‘I don’t know whether I can do this again.’ You can’t necessarily call it positive thinking or anything – I don’t think that’s the right thing – but it’s just, you know, I’m really lucky to have lots of loving family and friends and, as I say, a good view on trying to still be productive in the world, so it just kept me going, really.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I think to some extent, though, they do call it a ‘fight’, don’t they? So, having to – it’s not thinking positive because that doesn’t make sense – but like you said, having the attitude of ‘I want to beat this.’ I know I experienced it in my family, like my grandma and grandfather both had cancer multiple times. But yeah, the kind of sense of ‘I can and I will beat this’ was something very powerful that I felt around them, that they had that kind of belief that it would be okay. I just hope…
Amanda Riches:
But even the fighting angle is a difficult one because I know some people who have… that almost makes it then feel like from a cancer patient’s perspective, ‘Oh, did I not try hard enough?’
Clare Muscutt – host:
Right.
Amanda Riches:
So, it can – that has a double-edged sword. I think it is about trying to really focus on what you can do. But I’ve known some really, really strong people who did everything they possibly could and are still not with us today. I don’t want to be flippant because, as I say, I acknowledge people have had different experiences. For me, I’ve also had some real positives about it, and I certainly think that my partner Fiona and myself, we have always really just appreciated each other probably more…
Clare Muscutt – host:
More.
Amanda Riches:
… because you don’t know that it’s always going to be there.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah. I can kind of understand that from the perspective of Covid just with how much everybody has lost that we all took for granted, right, not like living per se, but travel, being able to go on holidays, being able to meet up with people, being able to hug people. That appreciation when we can go back to doing it, I’m sure a lot of us will treat life with much more gratefulness for the fact that we can do the simple things.
Amanda Riches:
I think that’s right. And also, although we’ve got a world of technology, I think the human interactions during this period – you know, thinking about from a customer experience perspective – has been really, really important. We saw – with the clients that I work with now, we’ve seen employees in stores and that, their customers being so concerned that actually your employer is treating you well, and it’s coming through in the feedback, and things like that that you see, that that human connection has become even more important.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, yeah. I suppose that’s a good place to jump back off from in terms of thinking about the future. So, yes, technology is increasing, the human factor – everybody agrees we want to maintain this, but it seems to be getting further and further apart. What is it exactly that you’re doing at Medallia that helps companies with CX and helps with the human side?
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, so for those that – I know a lot of people do know Medallia, but many people may not – so, we’re the market leader in experience management, and that’s both on the sides of really helping to understand and manage the experience of customers or employees, but also citizens, so we work with some government bodies, as well. And that’s through two things, as you say. Firstly, is technology, and the second bit is about advising our clients, so that’s more the side that I sit on.
So, from a technology perspective, it’s really around capturing feedback and other data from the experience itself, or if you’re unable to complete a task on a website, that kind of thing, or maybe operational data that really helps businesses understand what’s happening holistically about that experience, and then really using the technology for machine learning to detect patterns of behaviour, predict risks and opportunities.
But actually, as you say, that human element is – at the end of the day, whilst clients who work with Medallia are embarking on a technology implementation, actually it’s more of an effort in change management, and it’s about… central, as you know, Clare, to driving CX is really about changing the behaviour of people within that organisation. So, me and my team will work with our clients to really say, ‘Let’s help you to drive that change in behaviour,’ whether that’s – I mean, you know so much, Clare, and I’m sure our listeners will, as well – but it’s engaging the people; it’s that visible executive leadership; the training and the communication; have you got the structures in place to design a great experience? All those sort of things that come around it, which are so important.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I agree. So, where do you think CX is heading, then, given all that? What should we be watching out for?
Amanda Riches:
It’s a tough one, isn’t it, really? But, as I say, I still think that the human element is still a critical part, even though technology facilitates that.
I guess a big challenge is that customer journeys and customer experience, which used to be more straightforward, are really quite complex now, and particularly with Covid, you’ve got customers interacting in different ways, you’ve got employees trying to navigate new ways of working. And therefore, I think there’s so many areas – if I go back to the experiences that time-waste and suck the life out of people – there’s actually a lot of areas now that we might not meet expectations.
So, I think for me, there’s two key things: one is around getting that complete picture; and the second one is acting with speed and adapting as quickly as possible. When I say, ‘Getting that complete picture,’ essentially, Clare, what I’m talking about there is that there’s many brands and organisations who are still reliant on direct feedback in the form of surveys, and that’s absolutely a foundation, but I do think it’s really also about how do you get the rest of that information that’s out there? Whether that’s social media, or harnessing employee feedback to get their insights into what their customers are saying, or analysing chat logs or visit patterns on websites, returns behaviour. Do you know what I mean? All those sorts of things… the call handling time. That gives you such a much more holistic picture of what’s actually going on. And I worry that where people only rely on one form, they’re not really seeing all of that that’s there and useful to really help improve customer experience. But I guess the kind of capturing it is one part – and I know you’re big on this, as well – it’s what you do with it…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yes!
Amanda Riches:
… and what you…
Clare Muscutt – host:
That’s far more important.
Amanda Riches:
It’s so much more important. I feel like – and I don’t know whether it’s because we’re so in this Covid piece at the moment – but I really think that we’ve got to set ourselves up better to adapt and act quickly. Some large companies, particularly larger ones, lose that start-up way of adapting and generating new ideas, and we almost spend time and money researching so much, and then bet on these huge strategies that go right across the entire company, and instead of helping them learn and adapt faster, it just sort of slows people down because you’ve got to get so many people involved and that sort of thing.
So, I was thinking about this when you posed the question to me the other day, and I guess two things probably is how do we keep our organisations nimble? And maybe that’s around certainly fostering the culture of ideation, and I don’t know whether I see many people do that, those deliberate processes to get new ideas from your frontline, from the rest of your people.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yep. Agreed.
Amanda Riches:
And then, rather than betting on these huge, big strategies, I kind of like to call them micro-innovations. So, it’s not just… you’re breaking a little continuous improvement of a process. It’s not these major, big breakthroughs like Uber, and disrupting, and industry, but how do you get those micro-innovations and really test then learn and adapt and those sorts of things? But I don’t know. You’ve also talked about this sort of ability to adapt previously, as well.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah. Well, I say I come from a customer experience design angle in how I approach CX, which is basically, how do you inform a set of ideas that you can trial and test rapidly in order to get feedback before placing your bets on something that’s potentially going to be a massive investment? I also wrote a paper calling out that when it comes to customer experience, transformation is the problem not the solution. Again, agreeing with you that when things become so big and unwieldy and are still kind of managed in a command and control format, and everything’s done by data and metrics and not by actually asking your frontline teams, ‘Where are the customer problems?’ or focusing on solutions rather than the problems to address, we end up with the kinds of programmes that take such a long time, and so much resource, and such strong leadership that by the time they actually land the thing that they were trying to land, it might be four or five years, and actually the goalposts have changed, or customers want something else, and it’s a massive waste of energy. So, yeah. So, I think Agile CX, for me, definitely is a way forward.
Amanda Riches:
Really critical. Absolutely.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, but I think the practices already exist in some departments, like IT for example: you probably wouldn’t build a digital product without going through a design–discovery–development–delivery kind of iterative approach. But when companies get bigger, it seems to be that the departments find it harder to work together and to work in that kind of way. So, you might have like Waterfall-style projects happening in Operations and HR, and Agile projects happening in D&T and Technology, but what you end up with is an even more disjointed experience, in my experience…
Amanda Riches:
Yeah, absolutely.
Clare Muscutt – host:
… which is challenging. I’m just conscious of your time. My final question, really, is just to kind of summarise all of that: what would your three biggest takeaways be for women in CX?
Amanda Riches:
Ooh!
Clare Muscutt – host:
Put you on the spot.
Amanda Riches:
I know. I’m just thinking. What have I taken away over the years? I think… trusting your judgement, definitely, and your intuition – I know they always laugh about women’s intuition – but I remember in the early days of my career being told by a senior executive that he wished I’d just trust my judgement more and not have every single fact and figure analysed to the Nth degree. You know, clearly, I’m a big believer in data-driven decisions; I wouldn’t be doing what I do otherwise. But I guess we probably shouldn’t overanalyse things. Sometimes you just have to take action, and test it, and learn it, and change it. Women in particular, I think, need to trust their gut because I don’t know whether we always do; we kind of want to make sure that it’s all there first. I don’t know whether that’s your experience but…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah.
Amanda Riches:
… maybe I’m talking from my point of view, but…
Clare Muscutt – host:
No, no, it is. I think trusting your instinct comes from a place of reassurance, that you can reassure yourself that you’ll be right.
So, I know I had a lot of experiences in my early days of my career – and even like high school and uni and stuff – where I really doubted myself. So, sometimes I look for reassurance when I don’t really need it, but just to make myself feel better. I don’t know how you build that other than just saying in the five seconds between thinking about something and deciding what you’re going to do about it, just doing it, or just saying it, or just taking that action, and not overthinking too much. But I think, you know, it’s a very female thing to do, it appears, overthinking.
Amanda Riches:
It is. I think so, definitely. Maybe – I mean, part of what you’re doing here is about that, is around building that resilience that we have, so actually not being concerned about it, building that support community around you of good women, but also men, you know. One of my…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yep. Our allies.
Amanda Riches:
I’d say one of the guys that I work with, Matt Churchill, he’s very – he’s been my partner in crime alongside, and makes me better at what I am, and maybe helps me to almost just jump in a bit more. And I think, you know, you need those people around you. So, I really love what you’re trying to do here, Clare, definitely, and building that community of people. I don’t know whether I’ve given you three…
Clare Muscutt – host:
You’ve given one.
Amanda Riches:
… the one other one that I would say is just being bold, and I think it’s linking to that piece there that – I can’t remember what that TED talk is, and you’ll probably know it, that talks about how women need to be 100 per cent perfect almost, and we’re almost kind of socialised to be perfect, and therefore we’re overly cautious sometimes.
Clare Muscutt – host:
And men have to be 0 per cent emotional, isn’t it, that one?
Amanda Riches:
Well, I’m trying to remember. I knew it wouldn’t come to me. It’s that bit where I remember her talking about where if a man looks at a job on LinkedIn, if they’ve got 60 per cent of the qualifications, they’ll go for it – that one – whereas 100 per cent… we kind of go, ‘Oh, we’ve got to have it all.’ And I think we have to be bold. And if you think about it in CX, we are catalysts for change, and not everybody likes change. So, you’ve got to be bold, you’ve got to be resilient, and I think you’ve got to trust your judgement, and just go for it. I don’t see that there any failures as long as you learn from them.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, yeah. That’s definitely a theme that I’m sensing throughout these podcast episodes is everybody reflecting on the fear of failure, but actually the failures, or the difficult times, or the challenges actually being the biggest place of growth. When we’re sailing along and everything’s fine, it’s nice, but we don’t really get that much out of it other than enjoyment, but the times where we’ve struggled, or we’ve been flat-broke, or lost our jobs, or whatever, that’s when our character really does get built. So, yeah, not being quite so afraid of failure. And if it feels uncomfortable and you’re not sure, trust your judgement, but recognise that if you’re feeling unsure, and you’re in unchartered waters, it’s probably a good thing because it means you’re growing.
Amanda Riches:
It is. Yeah, you’re right. Learning from those setbacks, as you just say, and having that – I love at Medallia, we embrace growth mindset, and I think that’s such an important thing, definitely. You can learn and grow…
Clare Muscutt – host:
It’s all about growth mindset.
Amanda Riches:
… and move forward.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah. It’s interesting, I think, hearing you talk, as well, like when you encounter companies with fixed mindsets – so whether or not you’re a growth mindset individual – or there are teams that have got very much a growth mindset as an organisation as a whole. If they’re not willing to try and change, and try to do things differently, or are not up for changing in response to consumer needs – because they want to maintain something like the brand that they used to have – it’s a one-way trip, isn’t it, really, to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution? You’re not going to make it if you’re not open and willing to adapt, but you need to have that growth mindset in order to do it.
Well, it’s been really cool catching up with you today. So nice.
Amanda Riches:
You too!
Clare Muscutt – host:
And thanks to everyone that listened at home. And we’ll see you all next week. Thanks, Amanda! Bye!
Amanda Riches:
Bye, Clare. Bye!