The one with the shepherds of CX - Rachel Sheriff Chief Customer Officer at Recurly E199

🎤🎞️Guidance. Influence. Results.  “The one with the shepherds of CX” with Rachel Sheriff Chief Customer Officer for episode sponsor Recurly in CX Passport Episode 199🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction to Rachel Sheriff 

1:46 Rachel's role as Chief Customer Officer

3:27 Rachel's journey from agency to customer success

6:27 Aligning different teams to deliver customer value

9:45 The unique challenges of subscription-based models

12:09 Building trust and understanding with customers

15:27 Balancing cost of goods sold and business results

18:34 1st Class Lounge

24:30 Defining and delivering customer value

33:46 Trends in customer experience and partnerships

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

Thank you to Recurly for your sponsorship of this episode.  

Episode resources:

Rachel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelsheriff/

Recurly: https://recurly.com/

CX Passport Show Sponsorship Philosophy: https://www.ex4cx.com/blog/2023/3/3/sponsorship

Transcript

Rachel Sheriff: 0:00

Always reiterate to my team is making sure that you understand how your customer defines value, because how we may define value as the service provider may not necessarily be what your customer really needs from you at that point in time,

Rick Denton: 0:16

customer experience wisdom, a dash of travel talk, we've been cleared for takeoff. The best meals are served outside and require passport. Welcome back everyone to a new episode of CX. Passport. Joining us today is Rachel, Sheriff, Chief Customer Officer at Recurly the sponsor for today's episode, Rachel has driven impactful change across global customer success, professional services, renewals, teams. Her expertise lies in building those partnerships that enhance adoption growth and realized value throughout the customer life cycle. All right, that was a lot of words, so many words there, but I want you to stop down on a few themes. Note the multiple roles. This isn't just pure play CX experience, and that's intriguing to me. Also, I want you to note the adoption and growth leading to value. Value sounds pretty good, right? With experience spanning companies like Bizarre Voice logic monitor and accruent, Rachel consistently delivers those results that value by aligning customer needs with business goals. Once again, there it is, another favorite phrase of mine, business goals now at Rick early Rachel continues to ensure meaningful outcomes for clients. Now, y'all, if you hear a twinge of jealousy in my voice, it's because Rachel is coming to us from the Austin, Texas area, long time CX passport travelers will know that's where I grew up, and it's where my heart remains. Rachel, welcome to CX passport. Thank

Rachel Sheriff: 1:46

you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. I appreciate the warm welcome, and yes, Austin is a pretty incredible place to live. I wish I could say I was from Austin. You are. You don't meet too many people who are born and bred in Austin, but I call it home. I've been here for about 16 years, and in that journey, been really focused on customer experience and growing whole career into being this three headed monster of support. PS, CS,

Rick Denton: 2:16

well, three headed monster, or three headed delight, we'll find, we'll find our own, you know, animal that we've got there. And yes, I could make an entire episode with you about Austin. What were we talking about before we even hit record here, Anderson coffee and talking about coffee unique roasters, but we won't go there. I do want to start off with kind of what you were starting to describe there. I'd like Rick early is probably not a brand that all of our listeners know. Tell me a little bit about recurrell and your role there. Sure.

Rachel Sheriff: 2:44

So Recurly is a subscription management and billing platform, and we help our customers or merchants really grow and optimize their recurring revenue. So think about content providers, software companies like recurrell, anyone that has a subscription model, you know, with with their customers, and really look to grow that customer base, repeat that business. That's what we help our customers do

Rick Denton: 3:12

nice and your role there. So I certainly see that, and I actually want to get into that the subscription and supporting the subscription based companies, there's something very interesting. There you specifically, there you mentioned the three headed monster, those three roles. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah.

Rachel Sheriff: 3:27

So I am Chief Customer Officer, and I really oversee the customer experience after they have purchased a contract with Rick early. So onboarding, technical support, customer success, all of those roles that really help our customers get implemented onto our software and then understand and be able to articulate the value. You said, value is one of my favorite words as well. They get from our partnership.

Rick Denton: 3:55

Okay, good. And I know we're going to explore that a little bit more as we just have this conversation today, I want to talk about that interesting background, right? Because you, I mentioned it in the intro you and I had talked about it before, but you came up with agency experience, moving then into customer success experience, and now this Chief Customer Officer role there, Rick early, you've got that full suite of CX that you're describing. I'm curious how that that experience, that that variety of experience that you had in the past allows you to date a segment and blend those various functions that Rick early,

Rachel Sheriff: 4:29

sure, sure. So yes, I did my time on Madison Avenue, actually, in New

Rick Denton: 4:32

York, did my time, yeah,

Rachel Sheriff: 4:35

11 years in the ad agency business, and I do believe it really set me up for success as someone focused on on customer experience, and the reason why is in my role, while I was at these agencies, I was an account supervisor, so making sure that our accounts were getting the services they needed, and that those services were aligned to their business. Strategy. And when I talk about services, oftentimes, we were collaborating and partnering with other types of agencies to help provide whether it was digital content online ad spending strategy, I was the one making sure that all of those different partners were delivering on what they said that they would do to do, and that the deliverables were all aligned to the customer strategy, which I worked really closely with, with our customers at the beginning of each year. And so I was making, you know, it was almost like puppeteering, if you will, these different these different groups. And what's interesting in software, customer success and cost. Software customer experience is I am dealing with various groups within our business. We're under one umbrella, but in any software company, we've got product, we've got engineering, we've got sales, we have our finance teams, and all of those different teams, in some way or another, interacting with the customer and delivering on our value, on our platform, on our services. And you know, we are, we are really shepherds of making sure that they get a really great experience and that they want to continue that partnership. And so I was able to take what I learned in that agency model and bring it into software and apply having those different hats, having to work with various different teams who do very different things to deliver on a singular, singular, great, great experience.

Rick Denton: 6:28

You one, I love that, right? And I can see why that experience brings it in, the shepherds that part is is hit my ears in a way that I wasn't expecting. And this idea you said that all of these roles have, you know, a customer responsibility, and forgive me, I forget the exact words, but they're not all necessarily customer facing, or may not feel that they are customer facing, in that position of having to shepherd some of this awareness of their impact on the customer. Have you found that or let me ask it differently. How have you been able to help all of those disparate groups understand their role to play and how they impact the customer, even if they might not perceive themselves as directly customer facing?

Rachel Sheriff: 7:16

I think it's those three magical words that it's voice of customer and making sure that they understand that when the customers have a great experience, they are very willing to share their feedback, even when they've had a bad experience, too. But that feedback is really, really valuable in helping these other organizations within our company deliver a better product, or to deliver a better service, or to understand more what our industry or what our customers need from our product. And so, you know, I believe that customer success, and you see this, you know, quite often from other thought leaders, that customer success is a company responsibility, and it's a company mantra, and the journey doesn't start and begin post sale with the customer experience organization. It actually starts the minute a customer interacts with our with with our brand, everything from, you know, coming into a site to talking to an inside sales person to getting a bill from our our invoicing team, like that, all is part of a customer experience and part of that journey, and we're all accountable to

Your CX Passport Captain: 8:24

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: 8:50

like I could stop the episode now, except there's, there's too many things that I want to still ask you, but you're right that idea of and to those of us that live and breathe this world. We know that. But for those that don't necessarily have that label of customer on their title, or whatever their function is, that the experience starts when they're even just pondering, what is my need before even interacting with a brand, and how you guide them and well shepherd them through that. There's something about Rick early when I when I was first getting introduced to you and to your brand that it, I had this meta vibe around it that you you are a subscription based company right the Period End of sentence, where currently is a subscription based company that provides a service to subscriber based companies. So how does what you do your role help those merchants that you're describing help create their experiences for their customers in this very meta sort of way. It

Rachel Sheriff: 9:46

is very meta, and I think it actually helps me build a close relationship with our customers, because I'm trying to do the same thing that they're trying to do, which is prevent churn grow our customers provide a great. Experience, develop advocacy within our customer base. And when I speak to my customers, I'm off often telling them, You and I have the same goals, you know, in the same objectives. And let me tell you a little bit about what we try to do as a subscription based model company to prevent these churn from happening, to understanding what our customers are looking for, to growing those customers, cross, sell, up, sell, all of those things are actually shared goals between ourselves and our customers. Now, B to B is a little bit different than B to C, but I think at the end of the day, when you talk about churn, when you're talking about having to get more creative in acquiring customers, we're all speaking the same language. And so it's actually been, you know, very helpful for me and my role in getting up to speed with what are the things that that our customers and our merchants care about most, whereas at other and, you know, in other industries that I've worked in, I haven't walked in their shoes, and, you know, I've had to really learn and ramp up into that customer base, you know, goals and objectives. We're here. It's shared. I really feel like it's, it's helped me a lot in this role as being Chief Customer Officer. Yeah,

Rick Denton: 11:16

have you had that experience with one of your merchants? And I'm using, I'm using the right term merchants, is that

Rachel Sheriff: 11:23

merchants is what we call our customers who are more kind of on the B to C side. Oh, okay, got it. Because we have a lot of other software companies that are our customers, are of ours as well. And so okay to call, you know, our customers on the B to C side are merchant customers. Okay,

Rick Denton: 11:38

so we've got merchants, we've got that on the B to C side, then we've got the software side. Regardless, though, right? These are the these categories that you're describing of Well, you certainly feel like you're living the same experience that they are. Have you ever had to kind of almost convince your customer, or is it the other way around, that your merchants, your customers, that they are instead saying, No, I get it, and because you live my world. Here is the feedback, the voice of the customer. I guess, really, what I'm asking Rachel is, do you find it harder because you live in that world, or easier to understand and get that voice, the customer, from work?

Rachel Sheriff: 12:10

I find it easier because, you know, I was actually recently in London, and I was in a round table with with folks that weren't even they weren't customers of ours. It was leaders who are responsible for customer experience, for retention, and I believe it actually creates a level of trust. And when I'm providing recommendations to others in similar roles, it feels very genuine, because I want to listen to what they're doing, you know, I feel like there's a reciprocity, like, learn from us, and I'd like to learn from you, right? And what you're doing to combat these challenges that I have, you know, in my own business. So I think it's, it's created a level playing field, and trust that, that, you know, we truly are making recommendations that we believe are going to help serve your business?

Rick Denton: 13:02

What about the reverse? And

Rachel Sheriff: 13:06

you know, like, I know what tricks you're working on me. Well,

Rick Denton: 13:10

yes, and the idea of you're suggesting them, hey, because I live and breathe your world, I know what you merchant. And you know other customer suites, what you could be doing better. Are there times that your merchants, your customers, say to you, hey, guess what? Because we live in the same world. Hey, Rick curly, you could be doing this better. Do you get sort of that back and forth, sort of feedback?

Rachel Sheriff: 13:34

I love that. Yeah. I mean, I'm a big believer in look, tell it to me straight, because you can only get better. No, no. Service Provider is perfect, right? Especially when we work with so many different diverse industries, we're going to be areas that we can really understand that industry better than we do today. And so I'm always a big believer in and I spend a lot of time reaching out to our customers and asking for that, that really clear and that really transparent feedback, I think it's I think it's really important, and I think that those conversations, while they can be really hard, they're the ones that I believe help us the most, yeah, than the ones that are just raving about how, you know, this is so perfect. I'm always very thankful for that. But I think where we can make the most improvements is when I hear the hard stuff. The

Rick Denton: 14:26

gold is found there in the complaints, absolutely. Although as much as we the CX professionals that we are say that we it is nice to hear that things are going well also. So while the complaints may be the gold, the praise is the I don't know the spa visit. I'm not. My analogies are completely falling apart here, but forgive me for that we're tracking. I think I'm due for a spa visit. So maybe that it's top of mind right now. So that's right, Hey, Santa, here's what's on my list. You and. I had talked earlier, right? And we had shared, you had shared this philosophy with me that surprised me, and it said that you, and not theoretically that, but you are willing to take a hit on cost of goods sold in order to deliver business results. That is very counter cultural, especially right now, it seems like contact and customer areas are the absolute first to get cut. How did you get to that view on cost of goods sold?

Rachel Sheriff: 15:28

Well, I think, you know, in this market, especially, yes, all companies are really trying to get efficient with their dollars. But I think what I've seen, and what I've also seen just again, from other thought leaders and from just the industry as a whole, is it is a lot harder right now to acquire a new customer. You really have to get very creative with your offers and make those those costs, you know, acquisition dollars, really work hard, whereas when you have a really healthy current customer base, you want to do everything you can to make sure that that customer base is not only thriving, but growing. And so to do that, you have to ensure that you're delivering an exceptional experience. Now I'm also within reason, and I know that there's a reason why, you know, gross margin is a very important metric for businesses, but I believe that a in, you know, depending on where your business is, and that how healthy your your customer base is, there's an argument to be made that let's really double down on, on What we have from a, you know, recurring revenue. What's predictable is the revenue that we have in house. And let's ensure that that revenue continues, and then also selling to a current customer, as you know, is a lot less expensive than acquiring a net, you know, a completely new logo. There's also some creative things to do as well. So, you know, I've been managing customer success and technical and account management teams for quite a while, and I've always really oriented those teams to revenue. We are all in the business of sales as a phrase that a lot of my team members know is going to come out of my mouth at some point. And I do believe that customer success managers and Tams can really partner closely with with our sales org and find leads and create new revenue streams within the customer base. And so there's ways that you can, and I've seen allocate some of those, traditionally, cogs expenses to cost of acquisition to cost of sales. Now that's all kind of back in the napkin work, but that, you know, different organizations have more of a tolerance for, but I do you know, I think that aligning the right teams to revenues is really important, but also making sure that you're not skimping on your customer experience, especially in an environment where net new logos and new bookings is getting harder and harder to get. So that's the long and the short of it. Rachel,

Rick Denton: 18:17

let me come back to that value. I really did like that sentence. I want to come back to that, but we need to take a little break here. We break here. We need to enjoy some of the finer things in life, and so I'd like for you to join me here in the first class lounge. We'll move quickly here and have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past? Mykonos.

Rachel Sheriff: 18:36

Now you have to go before the high season, because then you're going to feel like you're in a nightclub. But there is a lovely little bar, I believe it's still around, called Caprice. It's in Little Venice, which is a small area, small little little town in Mykonos, and there's a sea wall, and you can go out to the sea wall, look out into the sunset, have a cocktail with the water lapping on your feet, and it's a dream.

Rick Denton: 19:04

Oh my gosh. Now, Rachel, I'm going to be really tempted to delete this from the episode, because I don't want anybody to know what you just said, so that when I go to Greece, I can go there and it not be like a nightclub, because absolutely that pre or post season definitely is key, given what I've seen from some of the pictures. But it's that's what a great, great little tip there. I really am, I really am going to be able to use that. So that's for me, looking forward. What about you a dream travel location you've not been to yet?

Rachel Sheriff: 19:30

So I have recently developed an obsession with at some at some point, going to Japan, going to Japan, to ski with my family. We're a family of skiers. We really enjoy nice skiing, you know, we go out west. I used to ski on the East Coast when I lived out there, and I've had a lot of friends that have gone to Japan, and I would just That's a dream, to be able to go there and Oh, that's awesome.

Rick Denton: 19:56

Long time sales passport listeners are going to know what I'm about to say. But we had the opportunity as a family to be in Japan in that winter season for about a week and a half. But my son was studying abroad there, and he had the chance to go up. It was in the Sapporo region. I don't know if it was exactly Sapporo, but there's an ice sculpture festival taking place. So when you go there and go ski, make sure that you take time, because some of the things that he showed were spectacular, like the size of houses, type sculptures that he saw. So it is, what a dream, what a brilliant dream location. And I hope that happens for you very, very soon. Thank you. One of the things we loved about Japan was the food in general. For you, what is a favorite thing of yours to eat? I

Rachel Sheriff: 20:38

love so I'm from Louisiana, and I love Louisiana food, so anything from crawfish auffa to jambalaya gumbo. And unfortunately, I don't know how to cook it very well. There's like, a, you know, you've got to have a Mac, yeah, there is price level. A roux is really difficult to perfect, so I usually only get that home cooking whenever I'm with my mom or, I think down to Louisiana. I'm very weary of Louisiana Cajun food restaurants and any place other than Louisiana, so I try to save it for when I go home.

Rick Denton: 21:15

You know, there is a huge difference, and I didn't know or appreciate it. My wife and I just went to New Orleans about a month ago, and what we experienced there was ungodly as compared No, the most obvious sentence, of course, to say, but as compared to what we're experiencing outside of there, even with a huge Louisiana expat population like yourself, still hasn't created the same level of restauranting that you can get When you're inside the

Rachel Sheriff: 21:41

state, about being in the state lines, and, yeah, there's something. There's just,

Rick Denton: 21:45

there's a magic. There's something in the vibes there, for sure. Well, you mentioned your mom. What about growing up? Was there something growing up that you were forced to eat but you hated as a kid? So

Rachel Sheriff: 21:56

anyone who knows me knows that I have this really weird quirk and that I can't stand any type of white condiment, so Mayon, butter, sour cream, cream cheese. Okay. Dressing like, wow, people, normal people, like, I have like, a to this day as an adult woman, I have a aversion, to that's awesome. It would drive my parents bananas because that doesn't have butter in it, right?

Rick Denton: 22:28

Well, that's I'm sitting here going, I'm with you on mayonnaise. Not a big mayonnaise fan, but butter, I can't live without butter. Wow, the devil's condiment, yeah? Well, no, I'm with you there. Well, we won't, I won't offer you any mayonnaise or any white condiment here in the first class lounge, but I we are, unfortunately going to have to exit the first class lounge. So I am curious. You mentioned London. I'm sure you've done quite a bit of travel. What is one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport, that you will not leave home without?

Rachel Sheriff: 22:56

So do earbuds count? Can I say earbuds? You absolutely can that's a consumer of content, whether it is books on I still call them books on tape. Hello, books on tape, or podcasts or watching shows I just really enjoy, just sometimes going back to my hotel room, of course, on the plane, but just being able to escape from day to day business life and either a really interesting podcast or really interesting book or a show. And yes, that's my my buffer from the real world, so probably my earbuds. And then second close, maybe this should be my first close as a two, okay, a toothbrush, right? Like everybody needs to have one of those, but not my earbuds, for sure. I Yeah,

Rick Denton: 23:46

Rachel, I'm with you on both of those, the earbuds or some sort of blocking out the noise, and absolutely, the toothbrush. Oh boy, you don't bring that good gravy. I want to go back to that value thing that you were talking about that that is an area that we have talked about a lot in the world of customer experience over the last really, over now extending almost into two years, because so much of customer experience had not focused on tying it to business value, since that's a phrase that your team knows that you utter, that it's such a key part of it, what are some Wisdom? What are some tips that you can share insights around effectively tying some of the things that you're describing in the world of customer to that tangible business value,

Rachel Sheriff: 24:31

right? So I talk about value all of the time, and it has become a little, you know, it's a little bit of a buzzword, and it's an easy word to latch on to what you're focused on and then leave it behind without actually delivering. And so one of the first things that I always reiterate to my team is making sure that you understand how your customer defines value, because how we may define value. You as the service provider, as a software vendor, may not necessarily be what your customer really needs from you at that point in time, right? So making sure that somewhere you are understanding, clarifying and documenting what exactly is it that your customer needs your software or your services to do for them, to say, yes, I've received value from your services. And then aligning the rest of your programs and the rest of those touch bases to checking in and saying, you know, this is what we agreed to at the beginning of the contract, or the year, or whatever that moment is, and how are we doing? And having almost like a mutual score card. Because, again, I think sometimes we can become very one sided, and value means delivering X dollars in ROI. Well, that's not, that's not necessarily depending on who you're talking to and your customer organization, what their performance is tied to. And to really make sure you understand that the second thing that I always tried to make sure that we're able to do is for our value to be able to be delivered somewhat in a self help way. And when you and I talked about, you know this earlier, I talked about how ease of doing business is almost becoming more important than having these moments of WoW and surprise light right ease can mean for a customer, making it really easy for a customer to understand the value they're getting from your partnership or your software, whether that's through insights like making it very easy for customers to glean insights from Your tool, from being able to demonstrate that ROI very easily, or for just the way that you interact with your customer, that you're not having to, like constantly convince as a CSM, as a CX professional, that it's not a human led effort all of the time, right? It's not everybody has time to have those deep conversations or those ebrs. And so I do think, you know, one really important aspect of value is that it's very easy to understand it and get it as a customer.

Rick Denton: 27:08

That, yeah, what I like, you have a little bit of a twist there on the value aspect of it, and it's almost going back to that outside in view of value that a lot of us have started to go inside out with our assumptions of value around ROI, and there's still a requirement, right? If the business is not profitable, well, then it doesn't matter, right? The business no longer exists. But I like that outside approach of what is the customer value, and therefore that's the that's where value is is created. And then this idea of going upstream of the surprise and delight movement, I imagine that there you found times that that has put you at, perhaps at opposition to folks that wanted to really know, how can we really delight the customer where, as opposed to, actually, if we can just be consistently good, we've got them locked in. How have you had those kind of conversations where it's, I'd rather invest my efforts in being consistently good than wowing the few?

Rachel Sheriff: 28:01

Well, I just think about my own experience in working with vendors as a customer, right? Like, I have a lot of vendors that I work with who service my business, and I think about at the end of the day, like, what would I want as as a customer? And you know, what is work for me, right? And I don't want to do a whole lot of work to get what I need out of, you know, out of your services. And so I often just put myself and, you know, I ask this of everyone, like, put yourself in your customers shoes, and think about what is the experience that you would want. And I think occasionally those surprise and delight is is really important. And so, yeah, something that you just shove to the side. But I think sometimes that surprise and delight might be how you're interpreting what surprise and delight is, and it can be actually extra work for the customer. So an example is, I'm really busy. I have three kids at home. I travel a lot for my job. It is really hard for me during the week to go have a fancy dinner in downtown Austin late at night. And so while that might feel like a really special thing to do, for me, it's actually work for me to have to go and do that. So think about other ways outside for a busy professional to deliver, you know, a really great experience is what I'm always, you know, talking to my teams about thinking outside of the box to do it.

Rick Denton: 29:23

That is so true. And I think back to the difference I'm now solidly in my 50s, and I think back to when I was in my 20s in my career, and I'm like, Yeah, I'll go, I'll do all those corporate dinners. Heck yeah. And now, like, the last thing I want to do is go out to a happy hour or a dinner if I don't have to, and so I can. And that's exactly it is. You even said it without saying it is the surprise and delight is understanding what would be surprise and delight to Yeah, heck for you and I sort of being somewhat facetious, but surprise and delight might be, Hey, have somebody pick my kids up for a week. That'd be awesome. It

Rachel Sheriff: 29:57

needs some really, like, I have one vendor. Who? One of the things I love about what they do is they very seldom are asking me for time, for my time. They send me amazing thought leadership, because they have purview of a lot of different businesses. Oh yeah, and actually outside of the industry, and they send this incredible content that I don't have to put my email address, and to get or I don't have to commit to X, Y and Z, they just were very thoughtful about here's something that's going to help educate Rachel, as you know, in her role. And I read that content, and I appreciate that content, and generally, when you know my account manager calls or my CSM calls, I'm willing to take the call because they've actually provided me with great value. And I'm surprised and delighted that I get these white papers for free, without having to do anything. I just think that that's a just an example of something that I've been really impressed with, and

Rick Denton: 30:57

understanding who you are, what you need, what you want and delivering on that. And that's I'm looking at the clock. I realize we're out of time. But there's something you had said earlier in the episode that maybe we can close out with this, because I it is that tension between new customer and cementing loyalty and existing customer, right? You just described how someone is helping to cement loyalty with you as an existing customer. Yet in a lot of companies, it's that new customer that is. The more interesting, the more exciting, the more discussed part of the business. How many new customers have we brought? As opposed to, what is our retention? What is it? Why do you think that customers focus on that new versus securing that value from their existing customer base?

Rachel Sheriff: 31:37

I think that they're, you know, an important metric in the marketplace today is new logo acquisition. And there is something very sexy about, you know, acquiring a global brand, a well known brand that you may not have had in your customer base before. And so I don't want to, you know, you don't want to take away from that. But I found, you know, even within my own company, and talking to others that I do think it's shifting a bit. I think that I'm seeing a lot more focus and rigor on expansion and making sure that you have additional things to sell, frankly, to your customers, and additional value that they can get out of ancillary products or services. And so I do, I do think that there is a bit of a mindset shift with really making sure that you've got the right resources, sellers, CSMs, etc, focused in on current customers. I'm seeing the account manager role come up more and more as an important role. It used to be that you just had kind of your AES who had to focus on everything Hunter and farmer led your CSMs. But I'm seeing that the account manager role, which is a commercially oriented role, but with existing business, pop up more and more in kind of my network and other companies I engage with. So I do think that there's, there's becoming a mindset shift.

Rick Denton: 33:05

Yeah, you know, that's I like that you're calling it out as a mindset shift because, and I realize what you're describing is a little more in that B to B, like account manager sort of space, but I'm even feeling it as a consumer. In some industries where you wouldn't necessarily feel it that sometimes when you're signed up and you're in, they're like, Yeah, I don't care about you anymore, and we'll give all the new deals to the new and try to source the new and so there may be that mindset, I'm going to be paying more attention to that, because I've started to feel it in what you're describing, and certainly now what you're amplifying is something that, hopefully is a movement that is taking place. Because, let's be honest, the customer's there. If you can expand them and you've got them, it's like you said, it's a lot cheaper to to maintain and grow than it is to secure the new one

Rachel Sheriff: 33:46

quick trend before we end that, I think would be interesting for those who are not in B to B, that more of the B to C realm that we're seeing is partnerships, so different businesses who offer complimentary services coming in and bundling their Two offerings to the current customer base as a way to sell in and to get really creative with that current customer base. And I'm seeing it more and more from our customers. I'm seeing it in the industry, and I think it'll be interesting to see if B to B follows suit. But what could have been traditionally competitors right together under this this mindset shift of, hey, let's we need to get creative and offer something really of value to our current customers to keep them on board with us.

Rick Denton: 34:28

We're gonna end right there. That's fantastic. Rachel, I like that idea, and now you're gonna have me keeping an eye out for that. Who knows? Maybe we'll talk again in the future, and we'll see how that prediction went. Rachel, if folks want to get to know a little bit more about you, your experience, your approach to customer experience, and a little bit more about Recurly and the services that recur Lee offers. What's the best way for folks to get to learn more? Well,

Rachel Sheriff: 34:50

obviously, find me on LinkedIn, if anything, it's interesting. I love you know, learning and sharing with others. But obviously, come to our website, read some of our. Content. We have a ton of thought leadership white papers, videos on our site that are free, just like the vendor that I told you about, that you can learn a lot about what we do and some of the successes we've had with our with our merchants and our customers. That's awesome. I

Rick Denton: 35:16

will get all of that in the show notes, LinkedIn, the website, all of that will be there. Folks. You don't even have to leave this episode. Just click the link. It'll open up your browser. Open up your browser for you, and off you go. You get to learn more about Rachel and learn more about Rick early. Rachel, I did enjoy this conversation, even though my jealousy is off the charts with you being in Austin, it is I've learned a lot today, and that's what I really like, is getting the chance to learn a little bit more about that subscription base, the cementing, the loyalty, the B to B, that aspect of it, and what I really like is you sharing these. Hey, you know, keep an eye on this. We're seeing a mindset shift, and we're seeing that shift towards partnership as well. Rachel, it was an absolute delight. Rachel, thank you for being on CX passport.

Rachel Sheriff: 35:54

Thank you. I had a lot of fun.

Rick Denton: 36:01

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.