The one with the rapid recovery - Celia Fleischaker, CMO & Amberly Dressler, VP Corporate Marketing isolved E187

🎤🎞️What does service recovery look like even with an approaching hurricane? “The one with the rapid recovery” with Celia Fleischaker, CMO & Amberly Dressler, VP Corporate Marketing for episode sponsor isolved in CX Passport Episode 187🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

4:00 Pre-Event Planning for Contingencies

6:20 Making the Decision to Cancel

9:00 On-Site Discussions and Team Coordination

11:00 Emotional Impact and Execution

13:30 Hurricane Markers: Disney World and Airport Closure

15:30 Post-Cancellation Logistics

17:45 Moving Forward with Virtual Events

19:55 First Class Lounge: Amberly's Favorite Travel Destinations

24:00 Emotional Reflection: Grief After the Cancelation

27:00 Communication Strategy During the Crisis

30:00 Customer Reactions to Service Recovery

34:00 Conclusion: Lessons Learned from the Event

35:33 Contact info and closing

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

Thank you to isolved for your sponsorship of this episode.  

Episode resources:

isolved: www.isolvedhcm.com

Isolved Connect: www.isolvedconnect.com

Amberly LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberlydressler/

Celia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/celiafleischaker/

Center The Pendulum by Amberly Dressler & Geoffrey Webb

CX Passport Show Sponsorship Philosophy: https://bit.ly/cxpassportsponsorship

Transcript

Amberly Dressler: 0:00

Of three main markers that the hotel told us that they used that were good guideposts for us. So first the hurricane gets named, and it got named a hurricane that was a key marker of a severity. And then the next one was that Disney World closes, and this is the airport closes. And all three of those events happened in pretty quick succession of

Rick Denton: 0:21

customer experience wisdom, a dash of travel talk. We've been cleared for takeoff. The best meals are served outside and require passport. Unexpected, impromptu, emotionally raw. Those are three phrases that I anticipate will describe today's episode. This is not the episode we thought we'd be recording last Saturday, as I was putting the final touches on packing my equipment to create CX passport live at I solves connect 2024 in Orlando, I received an email that the event would need to be canceled due to the likely track of hurricane Milton. The Hurricane's track then forecasted between a category three and five predicted passing directly over Orlando. The event location simply was no longer safe for attendees. What I sold as the sponsor for CX passport live and the sponsor for today's episode as well. I was impressed with the event planning leading up to the event. I became even more impressed when I saw the sincere concern for attendees and the expressions of disappointment from the I solve leadership team. Then only 25 hours and 45 minutes later, I actually went back and calculated it all attendees received an email announcing a new virtual expression of the event that would occur in a few weeks. That's service recovery at warp speed under intense literal life and death decision making. Today, we get the chance to hear directly from isolve leaders. Amberly Dressler, VP corporate marketing, along with earlier CX passport guest, Celia Fleischer, CMO, when we think of service recovery and customer experience, it's often in the mindset of an individual's experience. Well, what happens when something truly in the act of God category creates the need for service recovery on an event wide scale, six passport travelers. This will be a semi impromptu episode. We're recording this just days after this occurred, expect a freewheeling, emotional behind the scenes look at how a company, how a group of humans handled decision making they'd never hope they'd have to make, and fear not y'all while Celia's hit the first class lounge before we'll still get a chance to bring Amberly into the lounge and hearing about her great travel experiences as well. Amberly, welcome and Celia, welcome back to CX passport.

Celia Fleischaker: 2:46

Thanks, Rick, good to be here.

Rick Denton: 2:48

I am. I'm glad to have you both here. Celia, you're coming to us today from New York,

Celia Fleischaker: 2:55

bright and sunny. New York.

Rick Denton: 2:57

Love it bright and sunny, right? Yeah, we're gonna have a lot of weather talk today, I bet. And Amberly, where do I get you today?

Amberly Dressler: 3:04

I'm about an hour inland of San Diego in Temecula, California, also bright and sunny. Yeah,

Rick Denton: 3:10

I was gonna say, whenever you hear the word San Diego, great weather automatically tends to go with that. I'm not as familiar with Temecula, but I imagine that there's some just glorious days there as well. I'm coming, as you all know, from the Dallas, Texas area. So we've got the country, at least the US country, covered today. Y'all, I want to talk a little bit about, I certainly want to know, and kind of reveal the curtain, pull it back, of what happened in those moments. But there's a lot that happens before those moments, especially if you see service recovery happen and be delivered as well as I experienced it happening with I solved, talk to me about what was it like the pre planning, the thought of, okay, well, if there is a disruption, what sort of plans were in place already, I would imagine with the full hope that you never had to execute them. But what did that look like? What was pre planning like when thinking I solved connect 2024

Celia Fleischaker: 4:05

a couple of things. One, if you've been in events or marketing over the last five years, you knew you needed a plan for every contingency with covid and everything else. So there was always discussion about the what ifs, I think, for us in particular, close to the event we had Helene just a couple weeks before we're headquartered in North Carolina, so we had a lot of people and their families impacted, and that's fresh in our minds. It's probably impacted how quickly we responded and made decisions here. But just going in, do I have a line by line? Here's what's going to happen if we cancel because of a hurricane? No, but there you definitely know what has to be done to pivot. Everyone is steeped in experience of virtual events, and I think, and then and Amber Lee's really involved in, like, business continuity planning. We. We do inside the organization and building those plans up. So you're always thinking about the what ifs and what we could do, and am ready to go with it. It's certainly not as baked as our execution plan for going forward with that live event. But yeah, it was good.

Rick Denton: 5:18

Amberly, did you experience anything like, was there any sort of feeling of, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've had co like, See, I love that. You mentioned that we've had covid, we've had a hurricane. But was there any sort of feeling when you were doing sort of the pre planning, yeah, we've already had that. We've had the hurricane. There's no we don't have to worry nearly as much about this. We're doing this as an exercise. But was there the feeling of, maybe we won't need to pull the trigger on this on site, I

Amberly Dressler: 5:45

would say, once we made the decision, which I know we'll get into a little bit more. I think we all had feelings of the covid era and having to move quickly and be agile and pivot overnight. We started using words like unprecedented again, and we went back to the covid vocabulary, for sure. I would say, prior to that, though, you know, we wanted some level of Virtual Viewing. And so for the first time, we were going to plan on recording our general sessions to make them available after the fact. And so some of that mindset of the more hybrid approach was definitely already in in our minds and in our plans.

Rick Denton: 6:23

Hey there, CX passport, travelers. I want to let you know about CX passport live. Cx passport live helps brands amplify their events impact with the power of live in person podcasting. Brands partner with CX passport live at their on site event to help excite attendees, reward high value customers, and convert potential customers. Bring a new level of energy and excitement to your event and amplify your brand's impact with CX passport. Live, learn more at cxpassport, live.com, now, back to the show. So that's good that like that it already was sort of moving that direction that, imagine, made some of the execution elements of it later. And I think that's probably true of anything, right? Planning makes execution better is there, is there a challenge in determining how deep to go with your planning? Silly, you mentioned the phrase, hey, we didn't do it as much as the details when it came to the event itself. How do you balance that tension? How would you advise any other company walking into a future event? Of you've got a plan, but, you know, don't overdo it. What does that balance look like?

Celia Fleischaker: 7:35

I think it's like a skeleton, right? You know what the possibilities are, whether it's something like a health crisis with covid or a weather event, which seems to be more common these days, like, what are the possibilities that could throw a wrench into those well thought out plans, and then getting that skeleton? Here are the things we need to consider and the audiences we're working with and then how would we take it forward again? It can't take away from all the event planning, but it was important to at least, like, I think it really like that. The second that decision went made, we just went into execution, right? Like, okay, here's what we've got to do. And and the team, I can't say enough about the team, just didn't miss a beat on it, and I was so impressed. And, um, yeah, it was hard. I mean, you talked about rob my shazka. I was talking this morning my husband like not gonna cry. It was a hard week, but people just eyes on what we had to do and keeping people safe, and we knew it was there wasn't a choice necessarily. This was the right thing to do. Let's,

Rick Denton: 8:43

let's get right into that decision making. I would love for y'all to treat it almost like, tell me the story set the stage. Because I, actually, I'm walking on this. I don't know, where were you? Who was there? How are decisions made? Talk me through. You know that the the the tell that story, because I can't imagine this is pretty intense,

Celia Fleischaker: 9:04

and I know Amberly will chime in, like we we were on site. We had five of our team on site already. We were in Orlando, at the palms, at the hotel, um, our production crew was on site as well, and it was on Saturday. We got in Friday, Saturday morning, we were going through run a show, I mean, and we were psyched. We had a great run a show ready to go. And we were going through that, and we had seen out in the Gulf, there was a tropical storm, but it was a week away almost from, you know, so you just, you don't know what's going to happen, but our CEO called and he said, Hey, I'm seeing this thing out here in the Gulf. And how worried are you all? And at that point, we were like, well, we're not, you know, it's saying, next week, um. Let's, let's look at this. And then we, we sat down with hotel. They have an amazing security and safety team that is in touch with the Coast Guard and other people, and so we were getting briefings from them, and, um, lots of conversations that day kept going with run of show and all the prep, like none of that could stop, signage is going up. It looks phenomenal. We've got great pictures of it being ready for people. But then we also started looking at people's arrivals, and we realized that half of our event, half the people, were going to be on site by Sunday evening. Okay, and so the conference doesn't start till Monday night, so, but there's that balance. And when you make that call, you don't want to, how much do you disrupt people? Yeah,

Amberly Dressler: 10:51

experience the same thing in that we wanted to make it a decisive decision, whatever which way we went. And just, I wanted to go back to a bit about the pre planning, because Celia mentioned the team, and it wasn't, you know something, when we're building our teams going, they must be agile, they must be resilient, and they must work quickly under pressure. But it was like the team that we built were part of that pre planning too, right? Because they were the team that was going to carry us through that everything that needed to be done. And like Celia said, in terms of the decision, a lot of times, you get these comms, and I've written them several times over the years, right? Of we're in touch with local officials, and I can't express how true that was, right? Like the folks in the room were talking to us about spaghetti models, which we googled quickly. Wait,

Rick Denton: 11:43

what's a spaghetti model? We've got to take it. It's

Celia Fleischaker: 11:46

a crazy graphic about all the different ways this could go.

Rick Denton: 11:51

Oh my gosh. Well, I've just learned something new. Today. They were

Amberly Dressler: 11:54

in touch with the Coast Guard. We were getting, like, you know, first and secondhand information about this. But then where does the disruption live? Like, how much do you want folks to travel in only have to have to cancel? Or, how much do you want folks to travel in only to have an abbreviated agenda and everybody has to rebook flights? You know, our team, as Celia mentioned, we had five on site, and when we were looking to get out Monday and Tuesday, it was very expensive. It was very stressful just for the five of us. And we couldn't imagine almost 950 people going through the same exercise

Rick Denton: 12:30

that, okay, I definitely want to get to there, because even you, you almost buried the lead a little bit there, which I love. It actually kind of gives me a sense of the kind of the spirit that I saw to approach that it was, oh wait, this would be a negative impact for them. It wasn't, oh no, our event is canceled. Woe is us. But rather, look at the impact of the folks. I want to go back to that. I really, really do, but I also want to explore there had to have been sort of a, not a cone of uncertainty, because I think that is sort of the term of hurricane world. But there had to be sort of a progression of, oh yeah, it's out there. To, holy crap. This is really happening. Can you walk me through the feelings you were feeling as it was, okay? Yeah. It's hanging out over in Quintana Roo down in Mexico, we don't have to worry about it. To, oh crap. This is real,

Celia Fleischaker: 13:19

yeah. And it progressed quickly over that, like, literally, it was a few hours. It's like, Mark called him, like, I think it's fine. We're days away, you know, and then, and then you talk more. And again, our leadership have been impacted some by Helene. And it was a very raw like that was very fresh still, and everyone had set, you know, the devastation that, like people did not realize it ahead of time and so and then you you just get in your mindset, oh my gosh. What if we brought 1000 of our best friend, you know, our customers, who are so important, and we've really built our brand on customer intimacy and customer experience, and like this is not us. We set aside financials, set aside what this conference mean from that perspective, and just look at the experience we'd be delivering and potentially the situation we might put them in. And then at that decision became pretty easy, and we knew that there is a chance, right there is that uncertainty that it just kind of, I don't know, unfold, you know, like it's not the hurricane they expected. It just is a tropical storm. It goes and turns a different way and hits a different coast. But that was okay. We're okay with that, because we knew we made the right decision for where it was producted to be, yeah,

Amberly Dressler: 14:44

there were kind of three main markers that the hotel told us that they used that were good guideposts for us, of like, how it was escalating. They said, first the hurricane gets named, right and it got named a tropical storm, but then when it got named a hurricane, that was like a. Marker of, like, the severity, and then the next one was that Disney World closes and the airport closes, and all three of those events happened, like, in pretty quick succession over the next couple days, reinforcing the decision. But we didn't have that information at the time, of course, yeah,

Rick Denton: 15:17

because y'all actually made your call before Disney, right? You were you, you Disney's call was after yours? Yes, by

Celia Fleischaker: 15:24

a couple days, we made a Saturday, late Saturday, and for the reason I talked about there were hundreds of people getting on flights, yeah, on Sunday, and we just didn't want that to happen. I

Rick Denton: 15:35

like that Lodge, like we're still we kind of and listeners, right? Viewers, we knew we were going to be kind of wide ranging and back and forth here, almost like a cone of uncertainty, the hurricane itself, the the touching, back to the pre planning. Hey, Amberly, you're mentioning these three markers. And there were, it wasn't just an impulsive there were decisions based off of these markers. Now, one you didn't mention was the Waffle House index. I don't know if they had closed yet or not, but that's the other one. It's that's another one. If the spaghetti model, and those that aren't familiar with the Waffle House index around hurricanes or natural disasters go Google, that it's actually something that FEMA pays attention to. So talk to me about the emotions we've got, the logics. The decision was there. I think there's some emotion around your concern and care for your customers. Actually, I'm not going to leave the witness your honor. Tell me what it was like in that room. You're a circle of five. You got folks on virtual conferences and the like as well. What were you feeling?

Celia Fleischaker: 16:34

Avoid eye contact so we don't cry. Now, it's a hard call, because the group in the room, the five that were on site for us, at least, they've spent a year planning this event, and it's a labor of love to build these conferences. And I think, you know, it's just you're because it was like, No, this can't happen. Okay. This is happening now. We've got to go and, like I said earlier, the emotion, like, I think inside all of us, and we'll get to this, the hardest thing for me was flying out of Orlando knowing we didn't do the like, it was the weirdest feeling. But just in the room, people pivoted so quickly to okay, how do we make this right? How do we get a conference off the ground? How do we still deliver on what we like, continuing egg credits that we promised all these HR people that they still need to earn

Amberly Dressler: 17:32

same I thought about the loss for the people in the room. A lot of them had, like, expanded roles, like it was maybe their baby for the first year, and so I thought about the loss of everyone around the room who had different, you know, content tracks and just emotional investment in it and everything. But we really just as soon as the decision was made, it was like a snap, and we just executed and moved forward. It wasn't like Celia said, for me, until we got on the plane. I was looking out going, oh my goodness, we, we didn't deliver this. But you know, now we're, I'm not sure if we mentioned to you we were flying to Chicago to then pivot and record everything in a virtual studio. And earlier you had mentioned, you know, within I don't want to get the time wrong, I think you said 25 hours. We had announced the virtual offering, so we will have the full two day virtual connect conference at the end of October, but the week after so just within 2448 hours, we delivered 30 live virtual trainings where folks joined, and so we had hundreds and hundreds of customers and partners still join the week of connect so they could get their SHRM credits, ACA, APA credits, rather HRCI. So that was a huge, huge pivot, to still deliver on those the week of and then pull on the virtual content connect at the end of the month. Just

Celia Fleischaker: 18:53

on that, what was crazy Rick is they showed up like, I wasn't sure, like, we're like, we're like, we're going, we're going to get these things done. And our attendance was over, like 100 per session. It was, oh, wow, easily what it would have been on site. We were, we were thrilled. Like, awesome. Yeah, it was really good to see.

Amberly Dressler: 19:13

The silver lining is now those 30 trainings can be accessible for those who weren't going to attend connect in the first place, right? So we can open it up to our customers and partners, so all of their peers can learn as well. And just Yeah, we were blown away. We were crossing our fingers for a couple dozen to be quite honest, and then so to get hundreds and hundreds of really good feedback was just absolutely incredible.

Rick Denton: 19:42

You want to go back to that execution, because we've talked about the results of it, but those results don't just happen. You almost kind of made it happen. I know there's a ton of work there, but we got to stop down. You already mentioned a flight to Chicago and sprinting out of an airport that is closing. I. I don't know how many first class lounges you had had access to, but you got access to one today. Now, listeners and viewers, Celia already went through the first class lounge, so we unless she's got a little surprise for sneaking in here, I want to focus on Amberly today. So if you want to hear Celia's answers, go back to Episode 160 and you'll get to hear how she treated the first class lounge. But Amberly join us here in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly and have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Amberly Dressler: 20:26

So I don't need a passport to get there, and if I hop in the car now, I could probably be there in eight to nine hours, if I don't make too many stops. But Lake Tahoe is my favorite place on earth. I spent my summers there with my grandparents. And if I want to get away. Want to be rooted and just like connect with myself and my family, it's Lake Tahoe, and it always will be. I think I compare every place on earth to Lake Tahoe.

Rick Denton: 20:50

I can believe that in a heartbeat, I've only been there in winter and seen the pictures of summer. And my experience in winter is gorgeous. And I can imagine the non winter time to be just spectacular, in a way I like he said, to be rooted. There's a lot of truth in just getting out into nature. What about going forward? What is a dream travel location you've not been to yet? I have not

Amberly Dressler: 21:11

been to Italy yet. I don't even have a particular city in mind. You can send me anywhere there, and I'd be happy to go. I

Rick Denton: 21:19

think that's very true. Celia, have you been to Italy? I forget I have Yeah. And both, both celi and I are getting a little sore in the neck from nodding when you said. It's like, yes, go, go in a heartbeat. Well, one of the things that I love about Italy, and I'm sure Celia, you feel the same way, it's the food. So what is your favorite food?

Amberly Dressler: 21:39

It has to be Mexican food. Just across the board, it can be at a taco shop, an ice restaurant, even at home. This weekend, my kids had a bunch of friends over, made a taco bar, and it was a lot of fun, and it was really good, and it's it's got to be Mexican food.

Rick Denton: 21:55

Amberly, I believe there's been a screw up here, because I don't recall getting my invitation to that taco bar that was at your house, and I'm feeling very sad, because I am a fan of the taco bar for sure. Let's go the other direction, though. What is something you were forced to eat growing up, but you hated as a kid, meatloaf.

Amberly Dressler: 22:16

I was raised by my grandma and my mom in the same household, and my grandma was of the generation that you had to have a clean plate. And when my mom was at work, grandma was in charge, and I can still kind of like taste it and imagine myself sitting at that kitchen table, not able to move until I eat all my meatloaf.

Rick Denton: 22:38

Now, seela Isn't this kind of delightful to watch others go through that experience. I get it every episode. Sorry for bringing that torture back to mine. Amberly, but hopefully you've recovered and focus on your Mexican food love, and that can be the way that you can recover from the meatloaf we're gonna have to leave the first class lounge now and curious, what is one travel item, not including your phone, not including your passport, that you will not leave home without.

Amberly Dressler: 23:05

This might be cheating, because I have this emergency kit that always goes into the bag that I'm bringing on the airplane, and it has everything I could possibly need, like a tide pen chargers, my air pods, band aids, like a medicine cabinet. So I feel like I might be cheating, but it is one item that just always goes with me.

Celia Fleischaker: 23:25

It has calming tea, because I had some last week from the emergency pack.

Amberly Dressler: 23:31

Whenever I need to calm my CMO, I have a special packet

Celia Fleischaker: 23:35

peppermint, and she did. It was great.

Amberly Dressler: 23:39

I do travel with a travel kettle, though, too, and that was going to be my maybe number two, because it's so nice to have

Rick Denton: 23:53

Amberly, I don't know if y'all caught it there, but you actually caused me to snort laugh. So it was, I'm not going to isolate that audio. No one needs to hear it, but that's awesome. I too have a little travel bed. That's my just automatic grab, but I don't include calming tea for my colleagues and for my CMOS that I'm around. And so I think you've, you've won upped the travel item, and I think that's absolutely brilliant. I do, I promise that I have said I want to get to the execution of this, but the calming team makes me want to go back to that for just a second. I want to Baha steep in the emotional aspect of this. You mentioned getting on the plane, and there is something true about once a decision is made, it's go mode. What was it like that? And I'm going to start with you, Amberly, I want to both y'all to answer this, but Amberly, what was it like that first solo, quiet moment, that first the evening, the time that you went back to a hotel room or something? What was that like?

Amberly Dressler: 24:50

I would say that the plane was honestly the first time, I think we had some time to ourselves, aside from sleep, you know. But in that moment. It just felt like a sense of loss and grief that we weren't able to execute for our people, heroes and our partners and our peers too, right? Like we're so emotionally invested in everybody's experience, and then kind of the sense of loss that you weren't able to execute on things as well. But I really think we were just in such execution mode and that we didn't really get that alone time until we sat on the plane, and then Celia was also in my same row,

Rick Denton: 25:27

so not really alone. Don't look, don't look, don't look. Yeah,

Amberly Dressler: 25:31

I wanted to make sure she heard the flight attendant say, ma'am, you have to put your laptop away. I was like, can you say that louder? My boss is

Rick Denton: 25:41

the joys. Well, Celia was that a similar experience? Or did you have that quite what was that like? That kind of first moment where you could really feel what this was? Yeah,

Celia Fleischaker: 25:49

I think that I'm really right. It was, there was so much adrenaline Once that decision was made. And the lists are flowing, the project plans are being built, all these shared docs flying around, I'll say we had amazing partners in the hotel and our production team that were right in there with us to help, and the broader team at I saw like we never felt like we were on our own to make this happen, which was really nice as well. But it was like, it's, I don't know, I get on a plane and I snuggle in and then, and I'm kind of by myself. I'm not gonna I'm not the one like gabbing to my neighbor quick to put my headphones in and, um, but it was that you just, it's quiet, obviously, the weather, it's very dreary out. It's pouring rain already, and it's just like, I mean, fairly long career, a lot of events, and I never just walked away from a site having not had the event? And it does you feel, it's a weird feeling. I think grief is a good way to describe it. Like you just feel like you failed in some ways, but you let people down at the same time you had to do it. It's just depressing.

Rick Denton: 26:59

Well, and I don't want, certainly we're not going to end there. I just sometimes those come, those words don't get expressed enough that there actually is that feeling in business. Sometimes we don't allow feelings. It's just execution, right? And there's a there's a reality of execution, but the reality is we're humans, and humans are the ones making the decisions, humans are the ones having to go through, and humans are the ones that have put everything into it, and then suddenly humans are the ones that are experiencing that sense of loss. And I like that. Y'all both brought the word grief into this, so let's do that, though, but I just talked about emotion, but let's talk about that execution, because there was very clearly a go action, so the decisions made, boom. What happens next? How does it go from that to the execution that I've experienced on the customer, the media, the analyst side?

Celia Fleischaker: 27:48

Well, Amberly, as a comms machine, she could do so much, but I've never seen anyone I said this to someone else, like someone who can think about our audience and write with feeling and the authenticity about what we need to communicate was amazing. On top of just everything else she was managing last week, I think first for us, it was like, Okay, who, who do we need to talk to? Like our employees, our customers, our analysts, our employees, like, who are all those people that need to be communicated with? And then it just anyone that knows events teams knows they're amazing when it comes to project management, like, that's what they do. And so the second like, Okay, this is the mission. Now it's different, but this is our new mission. Let's go. And we just barricaded in a conference room at the hotel, you know, all day, every day, for that weekend and and built it out, and at the same time you had to execute as the plan was built. And it went pretty well. There were missteps, but not many, not many. I didn't feel like I

Amberly Dressler: 28:54

agree. It was comms first, and then we wanted to figure out the content delivery. What were we going to deliver this week? What we can deliver in the virtual effect. And, you know, I have to say, like, the contract side of it, if I'm going to do three C's, like the actual logistics, like, did come last, right? It's, how do we communicate with everyone? How do we deliver what we promised as best as possible? And then let's deal with contracts and, you know, legal issues and everything as a as a third one, because we wanted to make sure we could still deliver. And people knew what was happening.

Rick Denton: 29:27

Can you, yeah, wow. My brain just froze there for a second. But it's because there's so much goodness that I'm hearing here. Let me, let me ask about the communications part of it. Amberly, you you heard Celia say, you know, you're amazing at it. There's an actual kind of from brain to fingers on keyboard moment, how? How does that work for you? In the sense of, how are you trying to communicate a message that is factual, that is clear, that is logical, but has that appropriate balance of emotion that the customers will resonate with? What? Does that look like for you when you're going through the actual crafting of a message

Amberly Dressler: 30:04

the intended audience, right? And just going through the emotions that they're going to have and empathizing with that? You know, I started my career in journalism, so kind of the who, what, where, why, how is it's always top of mind for me, and so, you know, that helps, but I think we also just have a really key understanding of our audiences. We know our people heroes. We you know, they're not just nameless, faceless people. We actually, you know, know them. We see them on the road at our people heroes tour locations, there are friends and our people heroes and our partners too, and so communicating rather to hundreds and hundreds of customers and partners is a lot different than communicating to someone you know and a name, and so understanding their perspective is what makes it a lot easier.

Rick Denton: 30:53

You know that I'm kind of recalling something that I said in the intro, where service recovery is usually about individuals. And then I say, but this is an act of God on a mass Event Scale. No, you just flipped it on its you said, that's fine, that it's a mass but it's the individuals that I'm trying to write for. I'm visualizing an individual, and I'm writing for that individual. So you absolutely flipped that. So yeah, mass event act of God scale type thing. Yet it's for that individual that is getting that impact. Let's let's actually go there. Let's close with that that your customers now have had, what is this now a week and a few days to react to this. You mentioned that there's been hundreds that have already joined the virtual What are you hearing from your customers? As far as feedback from the events departure, how it was handled, all of that, what's been the customer reaction to this event?

Celia Fleischaker: 31:47

It's mostly Thank you, right? Like we weren't sure what it would be, but most when they heard the news, and also, certainly when they saw what actually happened with the hurricane, when it hit, most, even before. It was even before that, it was Thank you. Thank you for having our safety in mind. I was worried about packing, I was worried about traveling there, but I was still going to go. And they're like, you kind of took that decision away, made it easier on me. I don't know that we had anybody come back and say, I can't believe you're not like, people were very nice about the message and appreciative.

Rick Denton: 32:24

Did you really have you had any one on one conversations with the customer coming out of this?

Amberly Dressler: 32:32

Yeah, one of our customers, hope she doesn't mind me naming her with pals, jaylene Owen, she was actually traveling, traveling from Sitka, Alaska to Orlando. And so she had been texting, you know, leading up to the event, and we had sent out a comms to saying, you know, we're watching the weather. We'll be sure to notify you. And so she was beyond thankful to not have to make that really long journey from Alaska to Orlando. And she just sent really, really nice words of appreciation and how this was the overwhelming like response from everyone, how can I help? And that was really, really great to see, like from our customers, from our partners, from our analyst and influencer community, from our sidekicks, as we call our fellow I solved peers. It was just, how can I help? And that was really, really kind. I'm

Rick Denton: 33:23

glad that you brought in the, well, the individual story there, and in Celia, hearing the story, just the spirit of thanks. I think that's a lesson for companies in general, right? We're talking about an event. We're talking about what we hope the three of us, and I'm sure all of I solved, hopes this is a once in a lifetime event, but there's a lesson here in that handled correctly, service recovery is going to generate greater thanks than perhaps the disappointment that would was offered. And in this case, it's not, you know, quote, isolves fault, or anything like that, when we talk about service recovery, right, there wasn't a mistake that was made there that had to be overcome, but just the disappointment being met of not having the event that was expected, the social the interactions, the bringing people together, all of that that handled correctly will result in things like you're describing, of the thanks and Amberly, the story of jaylene just being so incredibly appreciative. And actually, I kind of, I still hope to have jaylene on CX passport too. She was one of the stories that I can't wait to hear.

Amberly Dressler: 34:22

I know we didn't cover it, but we were able to go to Sitka and film her story, and so that was a great travel destination. Highly recommend it. Although jaylene gave us like a VIP tour, maybe she'll offer that to you.

Rick Denton: 34:35

Little shout out for jaylene, little shout out for Sitka. Here we go. Well, Amberly, Celia, this has been eye opening for me. It's been a different way of doing the episodes. I've certainly appreciated your willingness to be raw, your willingness to be open about not just what you did, but what you felt, the actual the tears and the delight and the thanks and the joy and all that is there. How can folks who. Listening now or watching now, learn a little bit more of both about you or I solved and also specifically these events that are now being put in place. What's the right place for folks to go find more as they're hearing this episode, my

Amberly Dressler: 35:13

team would find me on teams and in person, if I didn't mention actually two websites. I solved hcm.com, and I solved connect.com

Rick Denton: 35:22

Okay, great, and that's where folks can find that information. Now, what about the two of y'all Seeley, we certainly had your LinkedIn before, and I will do that again. But how can folks find out a little bit more about you, your approach to customers, your approach to HR, your approach to customer experience in general. Yeah. Rick, I

Celia Fleischaker: 35:36

mean, there's a lot going on, and we're certainly very active. Amberly and I are on LinkedIn and sharing a lot of the research that we do, but one of the I'll say fun things that happened recently, we launched a new book center the pendulum. Amberly is a co author of this book, and it's all about the trials and tribulations of an HR leader, and it really does a nice job showcasing one, what are people heroes go through in their organizations, and also how to approach making their lives better with technology and solutions. So I would say that's a fun way to learn more about what we do for people that's

Rick Denton: 36:17

awesome. And Amberly, yes, I failed to say it. Congratulations on the release of the book, which is, let's see if I can do my weatherman stuff. I'm trying to point backwards, but it's back there. I promise. I just can't get my finger right. I've mentioned one thing that's kind of different about it. Y'all, listeners and viewers. Here it's, it's this mix of fiction and fictional storytelling and real storytelling that actually, this isn't your traditional business book. I've had some fun flipping through this. So this is one that I would say, yeah, have a look. Celia, I'm glad you brought that into this, because that is an intriguing book that there's a lot of great lessons in there. Amberly, Celia, I've really enjoyed having y'all on the show. This is not, as I said in the beginning, not the episode we wanted to record, but I think it's the episode that needed to be recorded. And I'm glad that y'all were able to share your story, share your feelings, and share some lessons for folks who, God forbid, may have to experience something like this in the future. So Amberly Celia, thank you for being on CX passport.

Celia Fleischaker: 37:13

Thank you.

Rick Denton: 37:21

Thanks for joining us this week on CX passport. If you liked today's episode, I have three 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 enjoy CX passport too. Then head over to cxpassport.com, 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.