The one where emotions drive experiences - Ariana Bucio COO at BP Gurus E183

🎤🎞️Emotions are the heartbeat of every experience “The one where emotions drive experiences” with Ariana Bucio Chief Operating Officer at BP Gurus in CX Passport Episode 183🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

2:15 Injecting humanity into IT Services

5:45 The human approach to the service desk

9:04 XLAs instead of SLAs (What are XLAs?)

15:45 The Mexican approach to Customer Experience

18:13 1st Class Lounge

22:52 Airbnb’s customer journey mapping lessons

27:28 How customer experience influences rest of business

30:36 Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

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I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport

Episode resources:

Ariana LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aribucio/

“Reflections on XLAs” - Mark Smiley: https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-XLA-service-experience-management/dp/B0CK45BHDY

Transcript

Ariana Bucio: 0:00

experience should be decided is no an overnight task you do need to design and take time to understand what customers want.

Rick Denton: 0:09

Customer Experience wisdom, a dash of travel talk. We've been cleared for takeoff. The best meals are served outside and require passport. Okay, y'all know how excited I get when we get a guest on CX passport from a country we've never had before. What amazes me a little bit about this though is how long it has taken me to get a guest from this country as it is right next door to me. I'm even traveling there next week. So that is why I am excited to introduce our first guests from Mexico Ariana Bucio. Sadly, hablo solo un poco Espanol. But Mexico is a country I love and is a key cultural and business partner to my state in Texas. That's what has me so excited to talk with Arianna today to get her wisdom and perspective on customer experience. Ariana is the CEO at BP gurus and the SDI representative for Latin America. She comes to us with deep experience and advanced technologies IT service management, customer experience and service desks, folks. Ariana puts my poli sci major and puts me to shame as she holds a degree in cybernetics and computer systems engineering, along with a Master's and PhD in advanced technology. I really should call her Dr. Bucha. Today. She has contributed as an author, reviewer and official translator to some of the best global practices including the SPI standards, and the experience optimization framework. Thank goodness because y'all heard how bad my Spanish was earlier CX passport travelers. Vamos! Ariana, welcome to CX passport.

Ariana Bucio: 1:50

Thank you so much, Rick, for for this invitation. Not at all. Just tell me Arianna another simple model as any other.

Rick Denton: 1:58

Well, I will stick with Arianna then we will go that route for sure. So many listeners and viewers may not have immediately thought we'd be talking about customer experience today when they heard the incredible technology education and experience you have yet IT services absolutely touch customers? How are you helping companies open their eyes to the reality that they're engaging with humans, even if it's through an IT service?

Ariana Bucio: 2:24

Well, I think that the primary strategic objective across the globe in any organization is to promote an outstanding customer experience. But what is it where is experience, I think that the most important aspect is to understand what is experienced experience and customer experience is inherently human experiences are how we feel and what we remember that key moments in our lives, the basis of the stories we share, and the experiences we have shaped our attitudes, the way we think our behaviors. And we think that we interact every single day with several brands, products or services in our lives. And this customer experience is impacting how we feel, and how we can have a positive, neutral or negative impact in our lives. So I think that as a customer, we are extremely sensitive about what we hate or love about our product or service. And maybe Kate is synonymous of friction, and it is directly related to the perception of quality. But we need to press a reset button and start talking about a holistic view of the customer journey. In this digital era. I think that we really demonstrate that customer experience should be an innovative disciplines that every interaction can promote to have a several new opportunity to have an exceed customer expectations. But first of all, we need to understand this human aspect of the services, jazz, we're talking about emotions, perception, maybe memories, but it also address a challenge for the organization that face this new era of evolving digital age to help we deliver services and experiences. These will catalyst all the business outcomes. So I think that we need to find this emotional connection in something that companies are recently prioritizing in their strategies. This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 4:51

Arianna in bedded in that answer gets it exactly that that we can call it an IT service. We can call it a technology but it It's what we experience as humans and and we can let the philosopher's tell us whether machines actually will have experiences in the future. But right now, it's humans that are having those experiences. And so I can, I can certainly see how a deep technology background can bring someone to have a good insight into what customer experience is all about. Now, I know that I'm going to get to what is absolutely my favorite question when I talk to folks from new countries. But But first, I want to talk to you about your experience with the service desk. When you and I were talking earlier, you mentioned there were nine key themes for success on a service desk. Customer Experience, thankfully, was one of those themes. Tell me more about your approach to the service desk, especially when we're thinking about customer experience.

Ariana Bucio: 5:46

Perfectly this, let's see our service desk as the front line for contacting it in our companies. This will be the single point of contact for interacting with customers and the organization that services agents will be the voice of the company for the customer, and the voice of the company for the customer. So our customers need to remark that the main idea of the Service Desk should be helped people make their lives easy, enjoyable as possible not to have extra warriors threads, wasting time, or energy rather than performing their daily activities. Maybe watching Netflix or having a work or a conversation as we are having right now. We need to increase humanity and this will seems that we need to have the illusion of efficiency. And the reality is that we need to invest time on designing this customer experience. So they are several frameworks and standards that will help us to define these best practices and define this operating model considering that people in the very middle of their of their framework. So I will go deeper in the SBIR standard. As you mentioned, we can apply any other frameworks such as I feel the experience optimization from Facebook, but SEIU standard will be the base because it is defined considering the European Foundation quality model. These considers nine concepts with a holistic approach, we need to start with their leadership and the strategy in order to define that connection with that we have with the business outcomes, the values, the culture of the organization, Mission ambition, and these should be cascaded to the agents that are operating and interacting with our customers, people management, as we shared many, many times, if we have a happy workforce, we will also have a happy customers. So people who should be a happy motivated, having that complete talent management cycle develop such a career plan and having a performance development. So we need to take care about people. Also we focus on the resources that are enabling the services, the processes and procedures to have a consistent approach to the services and of course customer experience focusing on this customer centric approach as part of the service desk. So the organizational strategy should be surrounded with this customer focus their CX program or strategy, we'll take the time to listen their feedback of our customers know our customers and define this customer journey considering the needs the expectations and reducing the friction with our customers. Also do not forget to meet and measure because if we do not measure, we cannot control and compare the way we need to improve the services, the quality the experiences. And remember that experience is not one size fits all with developing the strategy to deliver amazing experience. Use

Rick Denton: 9:05

the couple of things in there that you said one listeners and viewers will viewers would have seen me start to grin when you talked about the processes and that is something I talked about a lot that making customer experience successful requires a discipline around process. Closing there with the measurement part. It reminds me of something else that you had talked about with me you'd mentioned a book reflections on XBLA by Mark smiley SLAs are go beyond this concept of SLA is especially as we're talking about in the Service Desk world. Tell me why you're focusing on X LA's now and how can companies best use that approach?

Ariana Bucio: 9:43

Yes, I highly recommend this book of Mark smiley, as the title of the book says it is a reflection because these make us think when we talk about this digital era in products and services, we are very used to hear that services are and measure to say certain service level agreements or targets. But the question right here is, do those levels reflect what the customer needs are, or what customer cares about, we solve the issues that customers have. I think that this was a milestone for many global leaders to identify the need. And they this connection of these operational metrics, and the emotional and the sentiment, and this human connection with the services. So we need to evolve in order to deliver not only services we should deliver right now, experiences in this digital era, an example is, when we receive a package in our in our houses, we do not want to receive the package as in, I don't know, 10 years ago, right now, if the package exceeds the time, that was a promise in our order, we will be angry. So we need to exceed customer satisfaction. And if this is a highly significant aspect that we shipped in this, IT Service Management, we should focus on the users emotions, and also the experience that we have in the in the introduction that we are moving in these IP services. So the technical metrics should not be enough, the trend should be in emphasizing maybe the experiences, the importance of understanding how IT services impact the end user experience. And the movement is say that it's saying that by adopting excellence, your organization's cannot align the IP experience management, the IP objectives, with the customer expectations, not only having these technical aspects on it saying that, yes, that server our their email is up. But if we have the service up, and maybe we have a way of perceiving that the time of the connection is is low, we are not going to be satisfied, even though the service is up.

Rick Denton: 12:06

Okay, so it makes sense to me, because what you're describing is a model of designing, defining your metrics, with the customers lens, which is what we talked about in customer segments all the time, what does the customer want, especially in an IT world, and I've got some memories of when I was working in a highly operational company. And so the metrics were very operational based. How can you help a company change their mindset, so not so much about the specifics, but change that mindset to be focused on the customer, the X LA's as opposed the SLA?

Ariana Bucio: 12:42

I previously talk about the experience optimization framework, there are right now several frameworks that are moving to have this experience management trend. And I think that it's really important to start with a movement. We need to evangelize all our customers, our users, and of course, our workforce. Because if we as leaders do not start promoting these aspects of understanding what customer needs, what are what are the issues that our customers are living in every single day. So we need to take this as part to define our experience ambition, what we are going to deliver to our customers, and these should be aligned with what customers want and how we are going to like this, we should start asking, ask what your customers want to have. Are you happy with the service we are providing? Just know, from one to 10? I do, what weight? Or what points do you are going to give to our service? Maybe 10? Because we I'm really happy with the service we are providing and to have empathy, service attitude. But what about if every single time I come back to the service desk or the IT operations, we have a long time for waiting? Or maybe the resources that technology have friction? They are complex. So we need to evaluate and to ask, What do you want? Yeah, that communication channels are enough for you? Or are the correct for you? What are your preferences?

Rick Denton: 14:19

Yeah, you see me smiling for the very beginning when you said you ask the customer. Yes, sometimes a lot of companies assume we'll just go and ask them what they want to do. And as I also smiled around, it's great if you're empathetic to me, but if you don't pick up the phone quickly enough or if you don't solve my issue, I don't really care how nice you are, I want you to be nice, but it solved this for me. And that approach is

Ariana Bucio: 14:44

dissatisfaction in the global is that is because there is no full resolution rate. And because of the time of contacts and the waiting time, so it may be due as a customer is starting the call or in the chat very Happy on July dance, I need to go to a service desk. But if you pass a lot of time wearing someone to take your phone call or the chat as you will start getting desperate. Yeah, angry. And this is dissatisfaction for you. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 15:16

Yeah, absolutely. So understand exactly. Just ask the customer and they'll let us know, really well.

Ariana Bucio: 15:23

It's only a question just get to them, ask them and you will get ready to explore what they want. And these will help you to define the strategy experience should be decided it is no one overnight. That's good. You need to design and take time to understand what customers want.

Rick Denton: 15:43

Oh, man, if I didn't have a whole bunch of other questions that I want to ask you today, I would end the episode right there. That was a fantastic. Yes. That was absolutely everything you just said there. But there's no way I'm going to let you get out of here with that a couple more questions. And I'm going to ask you one of my favorite when it's getting the chance to talk to someone from a new region as far as the US passport is concerned. And that is I know you're there. You're in Mexico City, you've got a good pulse on the Mexican view to customer experience. How would you describe the Mexican approach to CX How is it similar? And how is it different to other regions of the world?

Ariana Bucio: 16:17

Well, let me tell you that sadly, in Latin America, we have their words to customer experience in the world. Okay, yeah, the ndc is not something that I'm saying right now in only for saying this is based on the audits that we promote along the globe, and Bs with the ASD is standard. So it is really interesting that we can say that this maturity model is ranking, since reactive to business lead from one star to four stars. And in CSGO, for example, in Latin America, and Mexico, is the lowest one and is in the reactive level. But if we compare maybe to Mirrlees is the highest concept and is customer led maturity level three stars. In Asia, we have a proactive level. That is to start what means that Latin America, we have to come aware of the power of emotions and start understanding maybe the impacts that our products or services having in our customers, we are providing services for humans. And sometimes we forget that we should have this human connection and for leadership roles should be designing this strategy for driving the force of the organization and understanding that customers want to have quality of the services that we are providing. But also we have to face the day to day life's challenges. And addressing the challenges in the strategy will help us to have a biggest results in the customer experience and not only in the experiences that our customers are providing also in the business outcomes, so leaders should be focusing in the customer strategy.

Rick Denton: 18:13

Ariana, I can 100% tell you I did not expect you to answer that question the way you answered it. But I love the transparency of the honesty and it provides just a pathway to great opportunity to continue to improve Now I will tell you I've had some pretty good customer service when I've been in certain places I mentioned going to Puerto Vallarta next week and so I look forward to some good service as well regardless of what the experience is going to be on my trip coming up you have certainly traveled in many places. And you know what it's like when travel can sometimes go awry and it's nice to take a break and stop off in the first class lounge so I'm going to invite you to do that with me today. We'll move quickly here have a little bit of fun what is the dream travel location from your past?

Ariana Bucio: 18:58

Well Rick, it looks like we like we are starting to the confessions. Well, I'm assuming they're so since my very drunk age, I love any destination that included the beach. So I will say any of our Mexican beaches and if you do not know them, write them in their in their chat link so you can visit them.

Rick Denton: 19:20

I am certainly a fan of many of the Mexican beaches having let's see, certainly the Cancun region Cosabella all the way down down the peninsula not just Cancun, but down the peninsula. Koza mill Mazel Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, I still haven't made it over to Cabo, and there's so many other beaches that I still haven't experienced in many probably that I wouldn't even know about. So off air, you may have to tell me some of your favorite ones that we just won't let everybody else know so it won't get so crowded.

Ariana Bucio: 19:45

Actually, yeah, so let's see. La Paz, Baja California. It's a great one. I like to be their customer. You have mentioned it as a plan for Toyota. They are great where to go. We have The World wishes to live the experience we are talking about experience so we need to be living this experience of living in our Mexican beaches I

Rick Denton: 20:10

love it well I love that your dream travel location from your past is your your your your home country right it's you don't have to go somewhere to have a dream travel location right there. What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Ariana Bucio: 20:24

Well I don't see and we continue with Latin America. I will say that the henna in Colombia yeah that Caribbean see us I guess a lot of scholars culture and I don't know I need to be there it's on my top of my list.

Rick Denton: 20:42

I have never been there either. And I really want to get there so you your excitement is helping to inspire that that needs to be more important list on my to do travel list. Ariana, what is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Ariana Bucio: 20:58

I will say maybe a seafood because I will not eat meat. So I will choose seafood and you should also try Latin America gastronomic part because we have really good desserts and dishes. So would you need to taste our flavors in Latin America? Yeah,

Rick Denton: 21:22

I'll I'll second that is not a resident but someone who's been there. One of the some of the best food that I've had was in Mexico City. And both restaurants I went to several really nice restaurants can tell you which ones they were too long ago. But then the street vendors and some of the street vendor food that you can get there was just spectacular. Now I'm going to challenge you with the other direction. What is something you were forced to eat when you were growing up but you hated as a kid? Well,

Ariana Bucio: 21:50

meat. I know it's strange, but I never liked the smell and the texture. So meat was terrible. And up to now I really hate meat.

Rick Denton: 22:01

But there we go. Okay. You may be the first to tell me that answer. But that's what I love about this

Ariana Bucio: 22:06

is the uniqueness. I'm in strange boss. I hate me. I

Rick Denton: 22:10

love it. No, no, I won't let you say that you're not stranger who you are. And everyone has different tastes. So it's all good. And it just means more meat for me. So it all works out. It's it makes things happy for everybody. So we got to we got to get back on the road here what is one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport that you will not leave home without

Ariana Bucio: 22:31

I will say a selfie stick life is a collection of micro moments. So we need to capture them. And what better than images that can stay maybe on your Instagram feed or your camera roll.

Rick Denton: 22:52

I love that I love the idea of the memories, the the images and sticking that in the head. Not just your memory, but also having that as a representation that you can enjoy for the future going forward. You had shared with me a story about how Airbnb we're talking about travel here. It actually kind of works, where Airbnb actually embarked on a journey mapping exercise that completely reshaped their approach to the customer. Would you tell me more about that? Sure.

Ariana Bucio: 23:21

I'll tell you that summary of the story because it's a long, long story. Airbnb Rebbi revolutionize the customer journey. By using there is no white framework, which in both mapping every step of the user experience with the detail and creativity of a storyboard. This is inspired in these new narrative techniques. So Airbnb designers created these series of visual storyboards. And they were illustrating that customer journey or the user journey, and is starting to have these initial research to have a positive state experience. So these methods allow them to identify pain points, opportunities of improvement of the services that they are delivering, maybe ensuring also that seamless and delightful experiences for our users. And they visualize the customer journey searching a retail well, they can engage with the alignment with their business expectations, and also the guests expectations so they learn that this activity and there is not only enough to work out that the journey they started providing actions action plan to provide the seamless experience. Another example of these Airbnb techniques that they are implementing was long time ago when the company started. The founders realized that that guests were not having this booking because that pictures and with an analysis they realized that their pictures of the of the house offices, departments were not a really nice to the eyes of their guests. So the maybe because of the bad angles, but resolution, and this was impacting the business outcomes, and they guessed not to book. So the founders started an initiative to go personally and taking the pictures by themselves. So having the guest perspective, and with this analysis, they started making suggestions to the host. So they can take the best pictures in order to us as guests getting in love with the places that we weren't going to stay.

Rick Denton: 25:39

That it there's a couple of things woven in there in the story, when I'm kind of imagining them actually going to the places I can see why that became a service. There's, there's a couple directions, I could go with that. But I'm gonna go one specific one. And that is, this is an example of by understanding a customer pain point and improving the experience, a company can increase their revenue, because this, this photography service, I imagine is not a free service. And so is it something that's offered to I'm not sure what the Airbnb term is, but owners of the homes that are offering them to their guests. Is that a revenue increase for Airbnb? Is that something that they can use to improve their margins?

Ariana Bucio: 26:22

Yes, of course, because they were here at the very beginning of their company, they were having good results, because they were controlling all that all the aspects of the guest. So when they let them go free, there may be this aspects of the resolution of the images. Also, they care about the application on their website, their website, if you go into Airbnb site, you are going to see a clean website with margins and the design really control. So we can see the main aspects that are important for us as guests. So this is also decision making for us in order to book and of course, if we go to the other side, the revenue will go up in the pandemics. They had a problem speakers, we as guests were not a having this working. So they change their policies and the way they were providing the services. So they can maybe get better numbers in this. But a Yeah, times that we were having.

Rick Denton: 27:28

Yeah, it's exactly even the customer experience helps pull you through even the bad times. Arianna, we're coming to the end of our time here. There's a question though, that I wanted to ask you. And it's back to the themes for the service desk. There are a lot that were mentioned there, I want to focus on so customer experience, where you and I we we were kind of biased we buy in the customer experience, we believe it's a core one, how, though does that customer experience improvement then influence the success of the other themes that are inside that path to success for the service desk,

Ariana Bucio: 28:06

desk, first of all, we think we should think that they should be a holistic view, it is not going to work if we work in silos. So, everyone is part of this value chain, every one of us will be responsible of providing one maybe one task or maybe many tasks for giving this value to the customer at the end of this value chain in their means of services or products. So, we should start working with our develop developing the sub skills of that teams also understanding the customer, the customer experience terms, what is experienced for us experiences what we what we perceive of the product or service and what we make feel to the other persons when they interact with our products or service. These will be part of the strategy and also the automation will be part of this success in the strategy. But let's see if we were talking since the very beginning about emotions. Remember that emotions drive experiences, we should understand an average customer emotions in order to have this cornerstone in creating these exceptional experiences. In the Service Desk. Empathy is a superpower. Empathy is a bridge with the customer hearts by actively listening, acknowledging, being empathetic with the customer emotions. So we can build trust is a way that I think that should work in the strategy also taking care about the digital touch points because will help us to understand and personalize the services. It is not enough to provide services that are one size fits all. We need to start understanding customer needs expectations, preferences. So as an example if you go to To the Netflix a starting page in your application, you have a personalized suggestions of their of their preferences. So services in it should be the same. The emotional intelligence also should be a continuous learning and adaptation. So we need to develop these skills and train our staff, our workforce. And remember that emotions are the heartbeat of every experience, and maybe in every motion will lie an opportunity to create an extraordinary experience.

Rick Denton: 30:36

I just want to let that sit for a second. I like the emotions or the heartbeat of experiences. That is That is fantastic. Arianna, Arianna, it's been a fun journey with you today, the conversation both exploring the travel aspects of it, understanding customer experience in Mexico, and the approach to how technology and the IT service desk and all of that these are still human experiences and what drives human and customer experiences. If folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you and your approach to customer experience, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Ariana Bucio: 31:10

You can ask in social media. We do have my LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook and social media is the main contact for for having been in touch.

Rick Denton: 31:22

Awesome. Well, I will get certainly we'll get the LinkedIn one down there in the show notes and folks can reach out to you. That's how Arianna and I came to know each other is through LinkedIn as well. It has been a delightful ride today, Arianna, thank you for sharing your insight with us. And thank you for allowing me to be able to now say that I have had a guest from Mexico. Ariana, thank you for being on CX passport.

Ariana Bucio: 31:46

Thank you so much, Rick, and really happy to be here with you and

Rick Denton: 31:55

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.