S4e5 The Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With Edition with David Avrin
James chats with David Avrin one of the most in-demand Customer Experience speakers and consultants in the world today.
David Avrin, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow, has shared his content-rich, entertaining and actionable presentations with enthusiastic audiences across North America and in 24 countries around the world. David helps organizations better understand and connect with their changing customers and clients to help future-proof their businesses.
David’s insights have been featured on thousands of media outlets around the world. He is also the author of five books including the acclaimed: It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You!, Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back) and his newest book: The Morning Huddle — Powerful Customer Experience Conversations to Wake You Up, Shake You Up, and Win More Business.
They talk about the future of business, terrible zoom backgrounds, working with different age groups, hatred of chatbots, service empathy, companies collecting data, inundating customers and being easy to do business with.
Contact David:
www.davidavrin.com
www.linkedin.com/in/davidavrin
www.twitter.com/DavidAvrin
www.facebook.com/therealdavidavrin
www.instagram.com/therealdavidavrin
Morning Huddle: morninghuddlemembership.com
James Nathan 00:54
Hello, and welcome to the Only One Business Show with me your host, James Nathan and I have got a fabulous guest for you today. And I think you’re gonna really enjoy this conversation. He’s one of the most in demand customer experience speakers and consultants in the world today and to share this content rich, entertaining and actionable presentations with enthusiastic audiences right across North America and in 24 countries around the world. He helps organisations better understand and connect with their changing customers and their clients to help them future proof their business. His insights have been featured on thousands of media outlets around the world. And he’s also the author of five books, including the acclaimed It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You, Why Customers Leave, And How To Win Them Back and his newest book, The Morning Huddle – Powerful Customer Experience Conversations To Wake You Up, Shake You Up and Win More Business. Please welcome David Avrin. David, how are you?
David Avrin 01:52
I am, I am great, my friend. Thank you so much for having me on the show. You know, we’re all colleagues from probably 15 years back, I think the first time that we had met and worked together we were at a conference together in in Brighton
James Nathan 02:07
that long ago. Wow okay
David Avrin 02:10
It might have been maybe maybe 10. All I know is we were great. Don’t I mean? Who would have known? I mean, what?
James Nathan 02:20
No, well, aged very well, indeed.
David Avrin 02:22
It’s like we’ve been sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber
James Nathan 02:26
How are things over in Denver today.
David Avrin 02:29
Things are great, hot day here. But you know, here we are post COVID. And I know that these podcasts are a bit evergreen, so they can people can listen to them all the time. But the world is opening up. And it’s pretty exciting after you know, a couple of tough years, talking to a webcam in my basement and all of us doing zoom calls. It’s great to be connecting again, nationally, internationally. And organisations need to meet, they need to have hard conversations about what’s changed in the world. Nobody wants to talk about COVID anymore. But we have to talk about a post COVID world, what did we learn during that time? What sort of advancements were accelerated? Because they had to be and we’ve we’ve really emerged into a new world and it’s pretty exciting.
James Nathan 03:19
Well, I mean, I know you were talking about the kind of the future of the business pre prior COVID and kicking and screaming, we’ve been kicked into this world, but I find it really exciting. What do you what do you think of that…. I was talking to someone the other day and saying, I love my life. I’m now half zoom half face to face. Thank you COVID. And they looked at me as if I was absolutely mad. But what are the benefits of come out of this pandemic? Do you think?
David Avrin 03:47
Wait, I think there’s a lot of benefits. I mean, let’s first of all, to be fair, let’s acknowledge the tragedy that it was for so many families and those who lost their lives, and those who lost businesses. But out of every tragedy, out of every war comes some advantages and some learning and profound learning. And I think it comes in in a couple of ways. One is certainly that the increase in services and amenities and accommodations and conveniences have been profound, right? I mean, I have my groceries delivered. I would never have even considered that before, but it doesn’t cost any more. You can sit on the couch, my wife and I we can choose all the items we want. And within an hour it shows up on our front doorstep. We had there’s this new conditioning everybody talks about COVID There’s a new one called prime. Nisha, have you ever heard of this? It’s sweeping the planet. It’s when you order something from Amazon. And you can’t remember what it was? Because it’s called prime Misha. And so we had this we had my my wife was shaking the other day and I thought she had some sort of allergic reaction. No, she had gone an entire day without something being delivered from Amazon’s warehouse. But so we see all these But but then the other part, which is this, this ability to communicate and connect more often, I’ll tell you in the early days, it was a real, it was a real challenge and was a real stress for a lot of people in sales. Because there used to be able to be there face to face in person, connecting, having a conversation, building those relationships that we know is so important in business and sales. And they were really disconcerted by zoom, which wasn’t new, by the way, Zoom isn’t new. Prior to COVID, I had maybe one out of every five conversations was over zoom. Today, it’s 19 out of 20. What we’ve learned with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, or any of those, is that we can actually increase the amount of touches that we have with our customers and clients distance isn’t isn’t an issue anymore. Now, that said, my own personal opinion, virtual conferences are horrible. I mean, they’re just horrible. I mean, it can be it’s a reasonable accommodation during a challenging time. But nobody wants to sit in front of the computer for three days listening to speakers, oh, my God, we can do that for free on YouTube. Right. But in terms of individual conversations, and this is an audio podcast, but a lot of what I do in my podcast is video and audio. I have conversations every day with people around the world, even during COVID. I had, I did 87 virtual presentations, and seven of those I did between one and 4am with international clients, right, a reasonable accommodation. But I think what what we’ve really learned coming out of this is that we’ve become very used to conveniences and that’s not going away. And those who are smart and who are good at this and took it seriously are very good on the Zoom calls as well that that face to face conversation. I’ll tell you what’s frustrating, though, James is being on a zoom call, and with four or five people for a meeting or conversation, and one or two of them have their webcam off. Oh, sorry. I just got back from the gym. Really. So really, we’re here. We’re professional. Turn the camera on. And here’s the other part. That makes me crazy. It’s like oh, look at Timmy. Look at Tim Tim. Tim. He’s got he’s on a tropical island with the palm trees. So honey can guess what? It’s not funny, Tim? It’s not two years. It’s not funny anymore. If I see one more Golden Gate Bridge, or or palm tree, I am going to slash my wrist.
James Nathan 07:30
I saw that the other week I saw someone had the Simpsons room background, you know, the couch from that. I mean, I It’s interesting, isn’t it because the the access to people it used to be I was talking about this with a client yesterday, it used to be that, you know, I would get in touch with someone would start to build a relationship maybe on the phone, then I’d win the opportunity to meet them, you know, win a meeting, and that will be amazing. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve jumped past that we go straight to or send me an invite. And we’re into meetings. And but the beauty of that one thing I love about it is I get to see into that person’s world. I don’t want a blurred background. I want to see their room honestly, their cat, you know, walk across the sky. I want that. Because it’s human, isn’t it? It’s great.
David Avrin 08:15
Well, I think it’s a great way to put it James I think this time in many ways has humanised us. And I think that’s a good thing. When we talk about building relationships, which is really important. Unless your business model is purely transactional. Nothing wrong with that. But for those of us who are looking to build those authentic relationships, when you see the weather caster, you know, doing the weather on the news, and their kid walks in and hugs their leg as they’re drinking from their bottle. Is that not wonderful? It’s not perfect and human or as you said somebody’s cat. Now, you know, loud noises and you know, or somebody’s doing inappropriate things because they don’t know that their camera is on is a whole different issue. Yeah, but I think and I think, I think you pointed out something really important. I think this time, in many ways has humanised us. And for those who are unapologetic. There was a wonderful gentleman in the UK who was talking and remember and then the kid came in. Right and his wife comes in on her hands and knees and grabs the kid and drags him out. Yeah. It’s very, it’s wonderful. And so I think that’s another offshoot of this challenging time that we had is, is I think we’ve learned to be a little more real, because we had to be, but don’t take that for granted. Don’t take for granted the fact that you don’t need to dress and treat work like work. Yes, we’ve have advantages of working from home in many cases. But it doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to respect somebody else’s time. It is great that we don’t have to worry about putting something on the calendar where we can drive to a meeting or meet for coffee or tea that we can do it over zoom. That’s a positive thing for those who say being professional is no longer important because we’re not wearing pants. I think I think takes it too far.
James Nathan 10:07
I think we should always wear pants David. It just should be a rule.
David Avrin 10:11
I mean, there will be there are rare individuals who are so attractive that they can get away with it. But it’s not us. I think we’re, we’re on the periphery.
James Nathan 10:21
And it certainly I mean, I know from my own business experience, and I’m sure it’s the same with you. It’s opened up opportunities to different marketplaces, which we wouldn’t necessarily been able to. Well, I was having a meeting yesterday with with a team in Honduras, the opportunity for me to work with someone in Honduras based in rural Oxfordshire, previously would have been very slim, but with the opportunity to work in different ways, you know, these these things are incredible. What are we taking though into the future house is going to house it kind of, you know, change? Or is it going to? Are we are we in the hybrid now? Or are we going to move on into something different? What do you think?
David Avrin 10:59
You know, I think it’s really interesting how…. the thing you’ve put up there and talking about, you know, providing what the person wants, regardless of who that is. I mean, for me, I want a phone number I like to get stuff done. I like to ring up, sort of problem, get it over with. I don’t want to wait. I don’t I mean, just drives me insane.
David Avrin 10:59
I think they’ve been, they’ve been predicting for a long time that the world would either be virtual or hybrid. I think one of the big learnings coming out of this challenging time, is that we’ve also learned what doesn’t work. We’ve also learned that that when the pendulum swings too far, one way, we come to recognise what was lost. And I think in many cases, because you and I both speak and we work with audiences in the front of the room, and in addition to our consulting, is that organisations have learned that what’s been lost is the serendipity of the unexpected conversation, a chance meeting in the hallways, somebody stopping in office, and saying, Nigel, you got you, got two minutes, I want to pick your brain, a quick conversation. We’ve learned that we can do it. But there’s been a cost. I don’t believe the prognosticators are talking about a full virtual future. Most of the people who are selling virtual conferences, are people who make money on virtual conferences. I’ve had three invites this week to attend somebody’s virtual meeting, virtual conference. And I wrote him back and I said, thanks for the invitation. Let me know when you’re going to meet in person again, because I’m done. I just burned out, I sit back and I throw my tennis ball against the wall. Because it’s killing me. So to answer your question, where is it going? I think there’s constant learning, we have technology that oftentimes is a solution looking for a problem. And I think those technologies won’t survive. I think the things that we’ve seen this in disruption across a variety of industries, those that truly improve the situation make our life better, easier, makes transactions simplified, makes connecting, more facilitated and more expedited, those will do well. But the ones that extract people from, from the conversation or as an option for our customers and clients merely because it saves money for the company, companies will suffer because of that. The bean counters, love, love cutting costs. But there is…. we’ve all grown up understanding the law of diminishing return. At some point, you’re going to cut so much that the experience the customers experience with you the simplicity of the process, and how fast we can get in and out, that’s going to suffer at some point. And at some point, they’ll have cut so far, that they’re no longer preferable from the customer’s perspective. It’s no longer easy to do business is become frustrating in a marketplace where we have so many different choices, and those companies will struggle. So I think it’s the companies that are, I think, blind to the changes that are happening and just have gone back to the way they used to do things before regardless of how much we’ve changed, they will suffer. And then the other ones who over adopt technology; chatbots, Do It Yourself self checkout. I’m not naive that those things are not going away. Right. They’re a reality in the future. But I’m also in support of my message when I speak and I consult with clients and my books and all as well, is that we have to be… we have to look for omni channel opportunities. No matter how somebody wants to communicate with you, or buy from you or interact with you. We have to give them the option of doing that. I don’t expect that I can get my hair cut at four o’clock in the morning but I certainly expect I can make an appointment to do so. I understand chat bots. I hate them. I hate them. It’s just more of an electronic FAQ, but I understand them and I’m not naive to the fact that that is an option for many. My kids love chat bots. I hate them because bot of course stands for robot. Give us an off ramp. Give us an off ramp to a real person. I’m the one that gets on the phone. And I get this endless menu going real person real person a real person I think you said accounting. No. Right?
David Avrin 15:28
But many companies are dealing with one age group at a time. We’re all serving people from 18 to 80 or more. I was at a conference and there was this panel of millennials. And they had this entire panel, and they were all people it probably from 22 to 29. And they were all entrepreneurs. And they were I don’t know how I put this because I have I have sired many of those kids in their 20s that to my kids as well. But they were up there just you know, with a swagger saying, you got to do it virtual, nobody wants to talk on the phone, nobody, whatever. And I just sat there smiling and shaking my head going – You’re not our only customers. You know, I do deal with audiences in meeting planners and others in their 20s. And I love them, right? I’ve got I got five kids all from 18 to 28. But many of my clients are in their 60s or 70s or more. And so I think it’s a good lesson for us in business is be careful of the trends. Be careful of we’re not just serving millennials. And that’s unless that’s all you’re serving, right unless you serve, you sell graduation gowns from university. But then again, you’re also probably still dealing with their parents, right?
James Nathan 16:43
Yeah. Parents are probably paying aren’t they.
David Avrin 16:46
Yeah. So as you were saying, I mean, I want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to somebody, right? Even when I’m on hold, they say, please go to our website or app and you can chat for I don’t want to chat for 45 minutes when I can talk to somebody and get it done in five. And so it’s a real challenge for businesses recognising that they have to provide all of the mechanisms and means to communicate and buy.
James Nathan 17:10
I have seen no. And recently, I’ve noticed that some of the chat, customer stuff is actually getting better. So I wanted to return a book to Audible, it wouldn’t let me do it online, because probably returned too many. I didn’t want to phone up and wait and speak to someone on the other side of the world or went on the chat thing. Within two minutes. It was done. I could get on with that while I was doing something else. That’s great. That’s really great. But one thing you mentioned there, and that just got me thinking a little bit was, you know, you’ve got that panel of millennials. And you know, and there is there is a lot of thought, which is we have to work for those people. I spend a lot of my time training those people to sell to people our age, and older. And so it’s all well and good what you want, but you know, the people you’re pitching to, the people you want to work with. They’re not your age, they’re mine. And so you need to think about how we want to work and how you adjust your process. Because it’s not all me, me me, Mr. Millennial I’m sorry.
David Avrin 18:07
And that’s what we call service empathy. Right? It’s literally putting yourself in the place of your customers now most in business. James, you and I both know this, they believe they’re doing it well. And they believe they understand it. But what they’re really good at is what they do, right? That’s we call product centric, right? Where it’s how business has been done for 1000 years, we’re really, really good at what we do. We know everything about it. We know who it helps, and we sell it to as many people as we can. And that creates market share, right? That’s how business is done. But the challenge we have today in business is that really for the arguably for the first time ever, everybody’s good. I mean, if you weren’t good, you would be outed very quickly on social media, right? Or TripAdvisor or Yelp, or Rotten Tomatoes or Glass Door. I mean, the mechanisms we have to complain and communicate are profound, right? And so the challenge today is everybody’s good or at least good enough, and sometimes good enough at a better price point is a better choice. But where we’re seeing an opportunity now is the companies that are transitioning from a mindset of, of product centric, to customer centric. And to be clear, customer centric doesn’t mean customer focused. We’re all customer focused. I get clients all the time. Well, for us, it’s all about the customer. Well, of course it is you’re in business, the customer centric is different. It means first and foremost, right? And you know this, that we’re all good at what we do, we don’t take our eye off the ball quality is really important. But our differentiator is that we understand our customers better than our competitors. We take the time to do a deeper dive, not just what are they likely to buy, but what happened to them in the last 24 hours or the last month or the last year. As you talked about millennials really understanding older people. They think it’s the golden rule. Just treat ’em like you want to be treated, but somebody my age, I’ll be 59 years old this year, I don’t want to be treated like a 22 year old wants to be treated, you know, my life is different, my pressures are different. I just got off, you know, three aeroplanes, 32 hours from Abu Dhabi, I’m exhausted, I’ve got digestive issues, I have daddy guilt, I have right… and want to be treated like a 22 year old wants to be treated, they have to look at where I’m coming from my perspective. And then there’s an opportunity to really tailor what they’re selling and how they’re selling it and how they’re communicating. And there’s some very smart companies, we’re getting good at that, understanding that it’s not just what we want to sell. It’s why does someone else want to buy and as my book, my second to last book called Why Customers Leave? What is it That’s frustrating them? Right? And so that’s, that’s it about really understanding those other generations. So I understand I agree with you, 100%.
David Avrin 18:14
Who’s doing it well, which companies that you’ve worked with, or companies that you just come in contact with? David, which ones are the ones you think, you know, you guys are nailing this
James Nathan 21:07
How lovely, and so she should. I do find you know, the conversation around that kind of data gathering is interesting because I’m the same as you. I don’t mind it. I like having stuff tailored to me. What I don’t like is when I end up down some tunnel where you know, everything I open up has a picture of…. I’ve just bought some luggage right so I wanted…. I’m flying again. I wanted a new bag. So you know, every everything I look at open Instagram luggage, you know, Facebook, there’s a way you know, it’s that starts to get a bit tedious.
David Avrin 21:07
Right. Well, I mean, there’s some obvious choices. Everybody always talks about, you know, Zappos or Apple or things like that. But the companies that are researching data, data, data. Amazon, of course, is one of those. But what’s interesting about Amazon, is there’s very little customer service involved in Amazon, almost every transaction we do with Amazon doesn’t involve a person, it rarely involves a person. Right? But Amazon is constantly, constantly, constantly collecting data. Your ever look at a page, where there’s an item that you’re looking at on Amazon, and you see rows of of similar items, right, but you see the item that you were looking at, like two or three different times on the page, on different roads, there’s the same item you’re looking at. But if you look closely, it’s a different deal for each one of them. So and I’m gonna get this this statistic wrong, but there’s something like, like somebody is willing to pay 13%, 18% more to get the same item one day earlier. Right? You look at a different…. if even if they don’t need it one day earlier, right? And so what you get is, people are so bothered, they’re tracking my information. I love it, that they’re tracking my information. Because then they’re not, I’m not getting ads for feminine hygiene products, because it doesn’t apply to me. And so people think it’s creepy. And I’m one that doesn’t think it’s creepy when I see stuff. Because they’re tailoring the experience to me. What it is that I’m more likely to buy and isn’t manipulative. I don’t know, I have control over my own wallet. I buy what I want. But I love it. It’s the same thing you said about chatbots. They are getting better. Why? Because they’re learning. People don’t realise that every time there’s a CAPTCHA, and they have to like click on the square that has the bicycle. You’re feeding their AI. It’s just helping their AI get smarter when we have to click on every time you see an aeroplane click on the squares that have an aeroplane. That’s just their machine learning. That’s what an aeroplane looks like. That’s all the variations of an aeroplane. So when I think ahead and you had asked us before about what’s the future look like, those chatbots, those conversations when you call to make and you’re not sure if you’re talking to a real person, they’re absolutely going to get better. Because they’re, they’re continually, continuing and continually learning. What is sometimes we’ll say did you know when you asked Alexa, a question, of course, she comes alive here in my on my desk when I said that, you know will ask you questions to answer. Did that answer your question? What is she doing? She’s learning. Yes, it’s a she, because that’s what I chose and for stations. I’ll tell you, I’ll even say it like like this. I’ll say Alexa. I like you. Oh, come on answer. She’s right there. I like you. Thanks. I like you too. See isn’t that wonderful?
David Avrin 24:51
It’s tedious, especially if you click on something that you didn’t intend to, right? And then it’s you know, and then it’s like every time you turn Round you’re getting, you know, another ad for for. I don’t know, I was gonna say something inappropriate but I won’t. Yeah, but something that you inadvertently clicked on and they’ll think, oh, James really is interested in, you know
James Nathan 25:15
Whatever that is. I imagined I’d look at that and I think I wonder if I was looking for, say, it’s my wife, Mandy’s birthday, I’m looking at different things for her. All of a sudden, all this stuff keeps popping up and the secrets given away, you know that. But there used to be years and years ago, I remember buying some jewellery for Mandy when our kids were born and and with Tiffany and Tiffany allowed you to set up and you could subscribe your better half. And they would send a reminder to them or start seeing them advertising around significant moments. So it might be an anniversary, or a birthday or whatever. And I thought that’s clever. This is just taking that another step beyond saying, right, well, let’s just start making this sensible, if I was running a business like that, I want all this tech, I’d want it going hell for leather at my customer base, and I’d want them seeing my stuff. But actually, that’s cool. That’s cool to do that what I don’t want is the inappropriate stuff.
David Avrin 26:15
You also don’t want to be inundated. It’s part of the challenge when you when you have to give them your information. And I understand why companies want your information. There used to be, you know, a comment card on the restaurant table. And what was that? They were really just adding you to their mailing list, right, you know, comment or the birthday club or something like that. The challenge is, and it’s one of the chapters in my book, Why Customers Leave is that we take that person, right, but what do they say the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, right? If somebody buys from your, they’re more likely to buy from you again. So we take those people, and then we inundate them. Right with email, with pitches with with ads with everything. It’s so counterintuitive, because these are your best customers. And these are the ones that we’re going to annoy these the ones that we’re going to send this onslaught of daily advertising to. I unsubscribe to so many things. I like the company. But now I’m frustrated or the worst thing is when they you get an immediate survey or request for a survey, please take our survey, how was your transaction today and what they’re trying to do, of course, two things one is, is stay in contact with you. But most of what they’re trying to do is find out if there was a problem, right? So they completely address it. So you don’t go online and complain about them. But if you don’t fill out that survey, and then two days later, you get a reminder to fill out their survey. And then two days after that, you please fill out our survey you forgot to…. your experience might have been fine. But now you’re pissed off. Right? Now they frustrated you, and you were fine before you like them. But because you were relentless, because you were, you know, you’re offensive. Now, they don’t like you. And so it’s a mistake that people make, and they think oh, look with one click, I can email 200,000 people the coefficient that was Yeah, but was it effective? And so, there, there are new capabilities, but I think they’re being abused, left and right.
James Nathan 28:21
And they they will they will improve and change. I mean, I know when using years ago, I was at a sales conference in the states working with a group here we were we were working with Mars Corporation, you know, and they spend their entire life looking at what does the data telling me? You know, how do I get, how do I sell one more chocolate bar every day? You know, that kind of thing? And its always been about insight. And it frustrates me when when people use huge amounts of data, but don’t use that data or look at what it tells them. They just use it willy nilly like that. And, you know, Amazon are great for that, aren’t they? How was your delivery? And I got terrible, right? Because they left on the top of my drive, it should have been at my door. No one ever contacts me to say why was it terrible? You know, and that’s the thing. That’s the missing detail, isn’t it? So tell me about the morning huddle.
David Avrin 29:11
You know, this came out of…. it’s kind of funny, because I do speak for a living. I speak on customer experience, and I help clients become remarkably easy to do business with. And we get done with the presentation. And people go oh, that was great. You know? How do we keep the conversation going? How, how do we I don’t want to lose momentum. And I always had books in the back of the room. And so this was prior to COVID But I thought what if there was a way to to have a voice and continue that impact all year long. And so I started creating a weekly video of not motivation but asking hard questions, sort of a conversation starter. I don’t know that anybody’s life is changed by a keynote speech. I think we can provide some great insight, I don’t know if my, my bottom line is going to prove my business because I saw someone talking that they were able to climb Everest, you know, and God bless people who climb Everest because I haven’t. But I really wanted to have more effective, more lasting effect on the organisations that I worked with and that I presented for and that I consulted with. And so I started creating a weekly video that was asking some hard questions, sort of a conversation starter for their team, and I called it the Morning Huddle. And it was strictly and specifically about customer experience. Do you recognise how often do you see this? What do you do when a customer does this? How often are we throwing each other under the bus, because we want to look good to our clients, sorry, shipping, screw that up. Let me take care of that for you. Right. And, and it grew into something really powerful. And we’re in multiple languages, we’ve got organisations around the world who, who subscribe, and every Monday morning, they get a new video, and they share it with their team at some point during the week. Well, after a year of doing this, and it was really hard work. I think it’s the best work I’ve ever done. But you know, when you create this monster that you have to feed every week, you really pushes you to create content. And at the end of the year, I realised I had about 55,000 words. And I’m like, that’s a book. So I went back through all of it, and I tweaked every one of them. So I wrote it for the page instead of for the ear. And the idea is that each one of them is something to spark a conversation. So real challenge to your your way of thinking and the business model that you might have created 10 or 20 years ago and what’s changed. And the purpose of it is to really challenge your thinking. I think in most cases people go I never thought about that. That makes a lot of sense. But the idea is to spark conversation because everybody’s responsibility within your organisation is to deliver that great experience, and to be able to respond and simplify process and respond to challenges that might happen. And so the book came out this last year, it’s called the Morning Huddle, Powerful Customer Experience Conversations to Wake You Up and Shake You Up and Win More Business. And there’s also a video series as well at morninghuddlemembership.com. But I think it’s the best work I’ve done. I’m really proud of it. And getting ready for season two to start working on that soon.
James Nathan 32:20
Fantastic. Well I’ll pop a link on this on the podcast for people to look appreciate, really encourage them to do that. Because it’s fabulous stuff. David, this has been a fabulous chat. I’m really enjoying it. Can I just need you one more thing from I’d that’s okay. I would love it. If you could give our listeners your one golden nugget, your one big thing, the thing that they could do today to make their business better for today and better for the years to come. What would that be?
David Avrin 32:50
Absolutely. I think if I was gonna give you one thing, it’s walk your customers journey with fresh eyes. Start at the beginning from when you have an idea that you have a need. Go on to the website, your website, try and call in. What is it like to order something? Are you put on hold? Are things delayed? Look at every point of contact and ask the question. Could that be done faster? Or better or smarter or more simplified? Listen, you know your business because you created it. Your customers have never read your employee manual. They just know how they want to do it. So I think the one piece of advice is walk your customers journey. See if there are ways that you can optimise it for speed and simplicity and make it…. and become ridiculously easy to do business with. I guarantee you do this every few months. Ask some some basic questions. Is that the way it should be done? Could we do it better, faster, smarter, simpler, and you will future proof your business.
James Nathan 33:55
What fantastic advice. David, thank you so much it’s been lovely chatting with you.
David Avrin 33:57
Thank you my friend.