CX Passport

The one with mean girls - Beth Karawan CoFounder / EVP at Imprint CX E216

• Rick Denton • Season 4 • Episode 216

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🎤🎞️“The one with mean girls” with Beth Karawan CoFounder / EVP at
Imprint CX in CX Passport Episode 216🎧 What’s in the episode?...


CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction: Welcoming Beth Karawan

1:26 Why Beth felt like the “new girl” in CX

3:16 How customer experience redefined her work

5:25 Challenging the CX status quo

8:10 Questioning NPS and traditional VOC programs

12:33 Why CX must change employee behavior too

15:36 Remembering the real purpose of business

17:50 First Class Lounge

20:29 Finding purpose in customer experience work

23:09 Helping employees actually live brand values

24:50 The origin of Donut Friday and lessons from donuts

27:52 Where to connect with Beth



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


Episode resources:

Beth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethkarawan/

It’s Donut Friday!: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7222683112294522880/



Beth Karawan:

What is this about? NPS, how in the world can one number indicate loyalty, customer

Rick Denton:

experience, wisdom, a dash of travel talk. We've been cleared for takeoff.

CX Passport Band:

The best meals are served outside and require passport.

Rick Denton:

On Wednesdays, we wear pink. That was the headline for the CX passport newsletter back in August of 2024 with Mean Girls as my muse. It was a little discussion around the problem of tribalism in customer experience. Today's guest, Beth carowan, sent me a wonderful reply. She said, It's like I'm the Katie Stanton in a world of established CX clicks. I was immediately hooked when I saw that. While it's clearly taken us way too long to get Beth on the show, I wanted to learn more about her Katie Stanton experience. Today, we finally get that chance. You may know Beth from her brilliant LinkedIn newsletter. It's donut Friday if you don't, hit pause, scroll down to the show notes. Follow Beth and subscribe to it. It is filled with tasty CX wisdom treats each week. Along with her publishing, Beth is the co founder of imprint CX, a marketing and customer experiences services company. So we have Mean Girls, we have donuts, we have customer insights, and we have CX. This is going to be great. Beth, welcome to CX passport.

Beth Karawan:

Hey Rick, thanks for having me. This is good.

Rick Denton:

Beth, where'd I find you today? Where are you coming to us today? I'm

Beth Karawan:

in Goldens bridge New York, which is about 50 miles northwest of New York City. All

Rick Denton:

right, I'd love to say the Katie Stanton question, but I simply cannot wait. Why are you the Katie Stanton, in a world of established CX clicks, mostly

Beth Karawan:

because I'm and I say this still, after three years, I'm new to CX. Okay, so professionally, for the past 25 plus years, I've been in marketing strategy, brand insights, consumer insights, shopper insights, but I haven't strictly done what people call customer experience. And so I say that I'm new, so I'm like the new girl in school. I haven't been here. I haven't been here the entire time, right? Um, but what I realized was, I've, I've been in and around CX, it was just called something else, yeah, right, um, and so, but I still very much felt not, and to a certain degree, do feel like I'm still a little bit of an outsider?

Rick Denton:

Okay, so you've been at this for three years, and I think all any of us that have switched, let's say schools, as we've grown up, or even just stepped into a new situation where there was an established group, can understand that, that discomfort of stepping into that group, but even before I talk about sort of the group dynamics. How did you even become aware that there was sort of a different label, and I'm air quoting, for those of you that aren't watching this, but a different label associated with customer experience, as opposed to what you'd been doing all along.

Beth Karawan:

So it was really coming together with my business partner, who has been doing again, using air quotes customer experience for the past 10 to 15 years, and when we decided to join forces, what we realized was we had very complimentary skill sets which made for A very powerful dynamic in the world of customer experience. And the other reason why I thought it was very interesting was because it felt a much more purposeful way to use my skill set in that the customer was the end beneficiary of my work, rather than where it has been, which has been the company. So my job was always to help them sell something, right, right? That's what. How do you get people to buy another bag of candy? How do you get people to buy more beer at a sea or sea store, right? That's not necessarily about the customer, right and so, but putting the customer at the forefront and thinking about what their experience was going to be like, felt like an interesting challenge and a different way to use the skill set that I already had.

Rick Denton:

Yeah, it's almost as if the customer was just a character, if we can stay in the entertainment space, a character in a media production that the business had created, as opposed to this thing exists for the customer, rather than just being a character when you showed up. And we use that term so like it. As if there was some room that you walked into, right? Hello. Welcome to the customer experience room. You had to be speaking in a certain way about the opinions that you had, the views that you had. What was that reaction of the existing CX tribe to your alt approach to customer experience? How did Regina George, and for those that don't know, Katie Stanton's foil, if you're not mean, girl aware handle your views. So

Beth Karawan:

interestingly, I didn't get a lot of interaction at first, so it kind of felt like I was just sort of speaking into the void. Nobody was challenging me, but nobody was interacting with me either at first, which I thought was really kind of interesting, yeah. And then if people did interact with me, it was to tell me, basically why I was wrong. Okay, so, um, and I, and I was still, when I started down this road, I like you do when you're in a new situation, you tread very lightly. You try to be respectful of the people that are already there. The reality is, is there are people who have been doing this a lot longer than I have, but intuitively, there were things about it that just didn't make sense, and that's what I was questioning, right? And so the pushback that I did get was a lot of well, this is the way that it's always been done. Oh, that's always a good phrase, right? This is the way that it is. Trust me, I've been doing this longer. I know how to do this, but as I got more comfortable and like, No, you know, still this doesn't feel right intuitively, in terms of what I know how to do, what I know about data and metrics, it still doesn't feel right, and so I kept leaning into it, and I kept leaning more and more into my real voice, so truly being the person the conversation that you and I are having now, where I can be somewhat snarky and sarcastic, bringing that to LinkedIn, which was also sort of a little buttoned up, yeah, it's a little a little buttoned up and really pushing the envelope. What was interesting about that was then people started to come out of the woodwork and say, Well, I agree with you, yeah. Why is it that way? Why are we still doing things this way? I don't understand either. And slowly but surely, I found my tribe, as it were, of people who were also questioning the status quo. And I think that's where we are with CX in terms of an inflection point right now.

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Rick Denton:

let's, let's stop in to that area. What were your views? What was it that was so different about what you were bringing to this discussion that caught the mean girls off guard? So

Beth Karawan:

the very first one was, what is this about? NPS, like, what? How in the world can one number indicate loyalty? My foundation is in market research, so I understand the statistics behind it. I did. I read all the research. I've done, all the historical reading about how Fred developed MPs and how they got to this one question versus all of the other questions. I understand it from an intellectual point of view, but it just seems so odd, and what and when that occurred to me was because I started getting NPS surveys from a retailer that I shop at frequently, saying, how likely would you be to shop at This specific retailer? And I'd be like zero, because I shop at this retailer, because it's the closest one to my house, right?

Rick Denton:

You're not recommending it. It's It's

Beth Karawan:

here, it's where I get my prescriptions, right? There's no and I'm not having a conversation with my friends and family about where we get our prescriptions filled,

Rick Denton:

and you're really missing out on some rich friend and family discussions, right? Not going there.

Beth Karawan:

And so that was the first time where I was like, this feels just again, intuitively wrong. So first I questioned NPS, then I questioned the efficacy of voice of consumer research, which is, if you're going to collect it but not do anything with it, what's the point in doing it? Preach,

Rick Denton:

yeah. Say your dog agrees too. She

Beth Karawan:

does. Yeah. So it that all? Seemed to me like there were a lot of people talking about doing voice of customer and having these very fancy dashboards and sharing customer quotes in meetings at the same meetings that they were sharing their NPS score, but it was like, Well, what are you actually doing with the information, or are you actually making any changes? And there wasn't, I wasn't getting a lot of again, feedback or answers. And then the last thing that I came out against was it seemed to me like a lot of people were either in one of two camps. It was use this new tool, this new system, this new product, what my business partner and I call like the bright, shiny object, like new, new new this is going to change the way that you do things, and it's going to make things better immediately, and it's going to solve all of your problems. Okay, great. Or it was. I've been doing this for a really long time. So if you just follow my five steps to better CX, you too will have better outcomes when it comes to CX. And it's not that simple. Changing human behavior is hard, right? As somebody who's been on the marketing side, getting people to buy a new thing or change their behavior is a really hard thing to do, and I felt like that was being lost in the conversation. Boy, one,

Rick Denton:

I love all of the three rebuttals, and some of the listeners may be listening to this going, Well, wait, the culture's kind of shifted. Yeah, what Beth is talking about here was your entry into this, not last month, but in the past, I think you and others have had an influence in shifting that discussion to where some of the things you're describing are no longer the rebellious voices, but actually kind of the normal. This is how it is, that idea of it was not actually changing customer behavior. I'd like to go a little deeper on that, because over the last year or so, and really now kind of extending into two years, we've seen the CX discipline industry be decimated, and a lot of it is because I think companies are saying, Look, I don't see any value out of this. Do you see a connection between that lack of connection to changing customer behavior with the lack of belief that customer experience actually does anything, and if so, how would you change that?

Beth Karawan:

So there's absolutely a connection, but there's also another part of this equation, which is, in order to change customer experience, you need to change employee experience?

Rick Denton:

Oh, certainly, yes.

Beth Karawan:

Okay, keep going. So which again, if we agree that changing human behavior is hard, that includes your employees, and a lot of times, CX or historically again, things are changing, but historically, it has been seen as a one off. This is a project, a new initiative. Everybody comes out, they talk about it. This is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to change. This is our North Star. This is how we're going to make things better for people, and then it and none of the employees really understand what their job is or how they're supposed to support it. There's no reinforcement. There's no ongoing education. And so it eventually withers away and people go back and default to their old behaviors and their old way of doing things because it's easier. And so if your employees aren't engaged and involved in changing, then your customer experience isn't going to change. And I think the other thing too is making changes just for the sake of making changes because it is more economical for your organization, or it makes things easier for your organization, that might be great for you, but if it's not great for the customer, in the end, what's the point in doing it? They're not going to care that you've removed a step in an internal process if they still have to navigate some hard chat bot tree to get to a real person to solve their problem.

Rick Denton:

Would your customer pay for the change that you made? Right? There's elements of that that go all the way back to like this, Six Sigma and lean worlds where that idea of in Vietnam value add, and it comes to, would the customer be willing to pay more for that change that you offer, is there such a benefit that removal the step if it didn't help them? I don't care. I think

Beth Karawan:

sort of what had gotten lost in the conversation was, who are we changing these things for? And the reality is this, Neil Woodson wrote a book called giving a and the premise is. Businesses exist to provide a service to customers. That is the sole reason for businesses to exist, and we have forgotten that that we were we are in the job of providing services to customers either because they can't do something, they don't know how to do something, they don't want to do something. So we're supposed to be in service at its most basic work. We're humans creating experiences for other humans. The reality is this, when you make customers lives better, that improves your bottom line. I

Rick Denton:

love that fact of look, we've got to tie it to actual results. It's a it's a theme woven through so many of the conversations that we have here in CX passport, or just conversations out in the wild. If, why are you doing it? If you aren't getting a business result, there Beth, if I may, I do want to take us back to mean girls, because if you believe this, I was actually preparing for our show, and I found an article in bustle, which I got to admit, I don't know this publication. I'm not overly familiar with it, but the title caught me why Katie from Mean Girls was actually the worst sort of a counter view on it that we all root for Katie against the plastics. And I'm curious, if you were the Katie in your approach to challenging the plastics, how do you make sure you don't discard what is good about those long term pillars of CX as you look to revolutionize and move customer experience forward. So

Beth Karawan:

I think as a pursuit, or as an objective, improving customer experience or being customer centric, is it's purposeful. It's per it can be purposefully human, and so I think that's a good thing for companies and employees to want to do. But if, as you're trying to do that, you've logged on things that don't make the experience better, or if you're not going to use things information in a way that is really useful, then don't do it. Just because you can measure something doesn't mean you should. If you're going to take the time to ask your customers to provide you with feedback, then do something with it. Don't just collect it and have it sit on a database somewhere, or communicate back to your customers. And I don't mean you have to reach out to every single customer, one on one, right, right, but give them some sort of an indication that you've done something about the feedback that they've given you. Yeah. So if it doesn't have a practical application, just stop doing it.

Rick Denton:

Beth, I think those are fine words and probably applicable. Forget customer experience. Just fine words to say with anything if it's not adding value, just stop. Just stop. Let's take a break here. Total pivot. Want to bring you into the first class line. Class lounge here. We'll move quickly here in the first class lounge and have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past? Paris never gets old. Paris never gets old. That feels like that's the Paris tourism boards. Quote, what about Paris is so special for you. Um,

Beth Karawan:

there is something about the environment, the architecture, the food, the art, the neighborhoods. I've been five times in my lifetime, and I could go back to the same neighborhood every single time. It's a very happy place for me

Rick Denton:

to be. Oh, I like that. What a kind of warm feeling. Because not often, Paris sometimes doesn't get described that way. And for you to describe as that warm that I want to go back there, what about a place you haven't been to yet? What's a dream travel location that you have not been to yet? Spain

Beth Karawan:

or Portugal? I've heard wonderful things about both countries. Again, the food, food is fantastic, and so those are definitely on my to do list.

Rick Denton:

Food came out twice there, so we're gonna stay there. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Beth Karawan:

So it's not anything that I bake, and it's not donuts, which probably surprises people. So since my son was in high school, he's graduating college now, every single Sunday that he's home, we have homemade ramen for dinner. Oh, yeah. And so that's my I would say that's my favorite thing to eat homemade

Rick Denton:

ramen. Beth you win for unique there. I've not that's a new one for me. Oh, and I love a good bowl of ramen. What about the other direction? What is something you were forced to eat growing up, but you hated as a kid?

Beth Karawan:

I still cannot stomach applesauce to this day, interesting. I had it. I had a traumatic experience. When I was four years old and I cannot eat applesauce to this day.

Rick Denton:

Oh, I'm so tempted to ask about that traumatic experience, but we will let that one sit in the mystery of of of your memory. Beth, sadly, we have to leave the first class lounge. What is one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport, that you will not leave home without

Beth Karawan:

a book.

Rick Denton:

Beth, I love the simplicity of that answer. A book just something that gives you an adventure and a distraction. As you're going on those travel ways, I want to take a break from Mean Girls. We're going to let Katie and her friends and the plastics fade away here for a little bit, you've talked about that background of a world of customer insights and brand strategy. How did you come to realize that while that world was interesting and valuable, you wanted to migrate into the customer experience world? What about customer experience attracted you? It

Beth Karawan:

felt much a much more purposeful way to use the skills that I already had. There was something very intriguing and interesting about making customers the beneficiary of my efforts. You know, I was doing the same thing over and over and over again, and it didn't really matter what the category was at the end of the day, the objective was to sell more stuff. And honestly, that gets boring. And so doing something new and different that I didn't really know how to do that. There were these experts out there that I had a lot to learn from. I didn't know what a journey map was. I hadn't really thought about an organization's north star or a brand purpose or brand values, other than being the recipient of them at companies that I had worked for, and not really understanding why we were talking about these things, and not making that connection, and thinking about it from the opposite side of why these things are important and why they take constant education, constant reinforcement, so you don't end up like somebody like me, of like, Oh Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are our brand values, and these are the four pillars, and this is what we stand for as a company. And you roll your eyes, and you go about your day because you don't really know how that impacts the job that you're supposed to be doing. Now I have a better understanding I

Rick Denton:

love that. That's the reason why you want to get into this is, look, I'm tired of selling just doing it to sell stuff. Great. I imagine that as you're saying that you were that person doing the eye roll about the brand values. Now, when you're on the other side, you can do a better job of, well, let's use the off. Use word here. Empathize with that person and understand, and then tailor your message to be able to speak to them. Have you felt yourself doing that? And if so, how

Beth Karawan:

empathy is another very tricky word, and I could go off on my soapbox about, you know, do employees really want their organizations to be empathetic or not? Ooh, episode two with Beth. Okay, that's a different conversation. But so I don't know if empathy is the right word, but certainly I've sat in I've sat in that seat so I know what it feels like. It's not just for the employees benefit, but also teaching companies why senior management needs to be in support of this, and they can't just be words on a wall or things that you say in a quarterly meeting, the tools that middle managers need, talking points, presentations, huddle exercises, actual practical things that are going to make these things stick, so that you don't have employees rolling their eyes at the quarterly meeting and going well, I never interact with customers, so why is my job important? Why do why should I? Why should I care?

Rick Denton:

You know, I think I'm going to replace and I'm glad you called me out. I'm going to replace the empathy e word with a different one, and that's experience you've had, the experience of being in that chair, and can therefore understand what messages land and what messages don't. It's time, unfortunately, Beth for us to end today's CX passport. But I don't want to close out without having a little dessert. We talked about food earlier, and I want to have a little dessert treat here. Donuts. Why? Donuts? Why? How did that become the brand even said in the first class lounge, it's not your favorite food, but how did donuts become a key element of your customer experience message?

Beth Karawan:

So one of my pandemic induced sabbatical Jobs was.

Rick Denton:

That a band name pandemic induced sabbatical job tonight on Whiskey a Go, go.

Beth Karawan:

There you go. Um, so at the beginning of pandemic, I was let go from the last corporate job that I had, and in order to fill my time, I took the opportunity to try out a lot of different stuff. And one of those was I went back into the restaurant industry, and the restaurant that I was working at, they were reopening their Cafe down the street, and they said, we want to do something different. We want to make donuts on the weekends. And I was like, All right, cool. And they're like, We want you to make them. And I was like, I've never made a donut before in my life. And they said, That's okay. You'll you'll figure it out. We we trust you, right? And they literally gave me the keys. And 6am the next morning, I was in the kitchen, downstairs in the basement, figuring out how to make donuts. Wow, um, and I wrote about it because it was a Friday afternoon. I had terrible writer's block. I hadn't posted in a while. I wanted to say something interesting, and what I realized was, is that this job in particular was one of the best employee experiences I had ever had, because I was given something to do that was interesting to me, and I was given full freedom and authority and trust, which I don't think happens often in companies where, as an employee, you feel like I may not know exactly what it is that I'm doing, But my boss trusts me to figure it out. And I realized that that was such a remarkable thing, but just sort of like threw it out there right as a random like, I made donuts this one time, and it was the best employee experience I ever had. And to my shock, people were like, what you did, what what you make donuts? What are you? What are you talking about? And so the more I thought about it, the more I leaned into it, and I used making donuts as a metaphor to talk about customer experience, employee experience. And now it's a thing that's

Rick Denton:

awesome. Oh, I love that story, and I love that it was a, I mean, I get this right post pandemic sabbatical job that drove you into this. And yes, some of us that are dated and age like I might be, remember the gotta make the donuts guy. And so I'm visualizing you coming in at 6am being the guy to make the donuts. Person Beth, if, if folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you, your thoughts around customer experience, your thoughts around donuts, any of that? What's the best way for folks to get in

Beth Karawan:

touch with you? You can subscribe to my newsletter, which is on LinkedIn. As you mentioned. It's called it's donut Friday. It comes out weekly, or you can reach out to me and we can have a conversation beth@imprints.com

Rick Denton:

Awesome. All of that will get in the show notes. Y'all, you'll see that and be able to connect with Beth and learn more about how she thinks of customer experience. Well, Beth, it's not Wednesday, so I'm not wearing pink today, and yet I still think it was a wonderful conversation. I appreciate that what you have shared with me on customer experience. Beth, it was wonderful having you on CX passport today. Thank you for being on CX passport.

Beth Karawan:

Thanks, Rick. I appreciate the time.

Rick Denton:

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.

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