Speaking the Customer’s Language

Speaking the Customer's Language
The Jasons Take On...
The Jasons Take On...
Speaking the Customer's Language
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Episode Description

In this episode, we examine the critical need for customer success professionals to learn to “Speak your customer’s language.”

Customer Success professionals need to establish strong, trusted relationships where we can truly influence our customers to take actions that can increase their success. To do this, you need to learn to engage with them and use language that resonates with them.  Yet, sadly this is not often done

Check out this episode to learn more about why and how you can learn to speak your customer’s language!

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Success Chain provides the tools, services, and support you need to build your change management, user adoption, and customer success capacity. You achieve greater results faster, more effectively, and cheaper than you can working on your own. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason Whitehead: Hi everyone. And welcome to another episode of the Jason’s take on in this podcast. We look at customer success and issues related to it, and how to be bold and growing your customer success program and practices. My name is Jason Whitehead. I’m one of your co-hosts coming to you.

Live from Washington. Great place to be these days. And I’m here with my other co-host Jason Noble.

[00:00:20] Jason Noble: Hello, Jason. Good evening. Good afternoon, everybody. I’m Jason or we’ll hear in. In the UK. So welcome everybody really excited about this.

[00:00:27] Jason Whitehead: Absolutely. So today we’re going to be talking about how to speak your customer’s language.

And this is a topic that, that I think doesn’t get enough attention and people seem to think that either they instinctively do it or they come to us and. We just can’t get our teams to speak to our customers in a way that’s resonating the way that’s working. How do we do this? So we’re gonna dig in a little bit and see what’s behind this topic and how we go.

But before we jump in, we always like to start with a bold challenge question. So the question we’re going to lead with, say to free to be thinking about is what bold actions can you take to change the way you engage your customers to ensure you’re speaking their lines. So let’s get started with that.

Okay. So let’s jump in. Jason, why are we

[00:01:07] Jason Noble: talking about this? I think this is such a key question. I really love it because the thing is, all of our, it’s different elements to this. Our customers are each individuals. They’ve got their own way that they speak and they look after their specific areas of a business, but they’ve also got their own industries.

They’ve got their own challenges. So it becomes a really big challenge for us to speak to all of the different customers. You almost have to change it. Every time you speak to them. I think it’s a really difficult thing to do. And I think what we’re ultimately trying to do is establish strong, trusted relationships where we can really be effective in influencing our customers to take actions that can increase their own success.

And it’s those relationships that is critical to make sure you are speaking to them in their language for, and this is, I think a really key component of this is being able to reach them where they are, how do you know the challenges your customers have got? How do you know what they’re doing there?

And then you need to learn to quickly learn how to engage with them in a way that earns trust, and you can influence them to make them successful, to make them help them make the right decisions. And I think many people and this isn’t. Customer success or CSMs struggled to have effective conversations with customers, with prospects, the key stakeholders with internal staff or with partners.

And we all need to learn the skills. How we can listen and learn better to understand the customer’s language. And then you use this language to engage with them and help them get what they need and want. And I think it is something that’s often overlooked. It’s people don’t put any thought into it.

It really can be. I think that,

[00:02:46] Jason Whitehead: and I remember early in my career, I’d come in and, just out of graduate school and trying to figure out what I was doing and where I was going. I could just watch some of the other people, cause I was in consulting organization and watch them engage with customers and wow, this person’s really good.

And you just watch the way the customer would react. And they were the pied Piper. They bring them along and then I’d go into other meetings and you can just read the body language. You could just read the tone in the room. This person just needs to shut the hell up. What are they doing here?

I

[00:03:13] Jason Noble: think a lot of it’s listening as well. Isn’t it? And I think that’s a skill that’s often overlooked, but it’s by us listening that you can pay more attention can actually speak better to your customers.

[00:03:24] Jason Whitehead: Absolutely. And I find a lot of people like me go in and do a coaching or training sessions, especially the junior people early in their career.

They were like, okay, I get that. I need to do this, but I’m not sure how to do that. What is, what are these effective conversations look like? And then when you modeled that for you oh, wow. I’m like, yeah, you’re just picking right up on

[00:03:41] Jason Noble: it. It’s definitely it is difficult to get. And I think people don’t spend the time focusing on it or say, how do we do this?

Let me ask the next question back to you, Jason. How do we talk about the why, but what do we mean by it? What is the customer’s language? How do you relate and connect with the individual versus, and I mentioned this, the individual versus their own language, their own tones versus industry versus domain versus technology.

What do we mean by customer?

[00:04:07] Jason Whitehead: Yeah. This is one of those I think applies on multiple levels. So there’s no one single answer. So I think it does, there is the whole piece of how do you come in and connect with the individual or that group of people and, as a consultant or a salesperson or CSM, you’re often called upon to work with people in all different industries.

So it’s not just about the industry. But you really need to be able to get to feel where, what language is going to resonate with these people. Am I using the right words and phrases? Are they listening to me or are they shutting down? This person doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about?

And I think there’s also the other side is since you do have to quickly go into an industry, you, as an outsider will never be an expert in someone else’s industry, in 10 minutes or even a week, know, if someone’s been there 30 years, you’re just not gonna. But there was a lot that you can do to learn the basics of the industry and show that you’ve done enough research to understand the major issues or the complexities, and even just being able to go through and parrot back some other words to them in the right context to show your listening and your understanding that goes with.

I think also looking at how do you build trust and rapport and with an individual or with a small team. That’s pretty huge too.

[00:05:14] Jason Noble: I think that’s really challenging. Isn’t it? Cause it’s, you’ve got to build that trust and rapport and individual level, a team level, but also a business level. You want to be that trusted advisor.

We all do. We want customers to see us as the thought leaders, they near the need, and it’s doing it at different levels and doing it as effectively as you can at different.

[00:05:33] Jason Whitehead: And I think it is a skill or there’s techniques. You can learn around that as well, too. For example in some of my educational books, Learned a lot about Myers-Briggs and group dynamics and conflict management and those things, but really looking at, even just from a very simple personality perspective, listening to how someone talks when they’re speaking to you, are they using hard facts and numbers and science?

Are they looking at visuals and show me the numbers behind this? Or are they talking more than, we want our customer to feel happy. We want them to feel they had a great experience to be excited when they come and see us. But they’re talking more of those feelings, things, even just those basic level.

You can calibrate against that. And you can even tweak up in the same conversation in a group work in both language when you’re addressing the right person, just to make sure you’re covering the basis there. And I think so few people, they get into the piece of speaking their language, that they’re not really being conscious about that.

And I think that’s a big challenge for a lot of folks.

[00:06:26] Jason Noble: There is so much you can learn from this. I It is, it’s the art of speaking in public, isn’t it. And having challenging conversations, but there are, there’s so many things you can learn just seeing other people doing. Observing other people observing your colleagues, kind of other peers in your organization.

Yeah.

[00:06:43] Jason Whitehead: So let me ask you, from your perspective then as customer success professionals, where especially if you’re working in a software company that sells into all sorts of industries, like a CRM company, they’re all over the place, do you think that you need to be an industry expert for our customers or that your customers want you to be one?

And how do you handle this?

[00:07:01] Jason Noble: This is such a great question. I know a lot of job seekers when they’re looking for Organo for new roles in customer success is a question that comes up, where do you put the balance between industry expertise versus domain expertise as a customer success professional?

I think it’s, if you’re an organization that’s. Relatively small number of customers across specific industries. You could learn that industry quite well, but to your point, you’re never going to be the same as someone that’s got 30 years experience, unless that’s your own background. I think the big challenge comes when you do.

Multiple customers across different industries or even across the same industry, but they’ve got subtle differences and it then becomes really difficult to do. I’d almost say it’s almost impossible to be an industry expert across every industry that your customers deal with, but what you do need to.

You show that you’ve got a basic understanding of the challenges of the what’s happening in there, or the opportunities of what makes that industry successful. And really that you’ve done the basic research at the very least to understand the key issues in the industry. But I think you do need to be an expert in your own domain.

And for us, the domain is customer success. And change management, user adoption. These are all things that part of it. And you need to be an expert in that and help your customer understand that. And you really need to be able to prove your expertise quickly there and then demonstrate to the customer that you’re going to work with them.

To help them learn how you can apply that specific domain industry expertise to their expertise in the hair industry, to help them get the outcomes they want and overcome the challenges. And I think that’s the balance that’s actually hard to get, right? It’s that balance between how much do I need to understand the industry versus what I’m doing and what value it for our customers?

And I think the balance really needs to be more for. Tuan domain, to be able to advise customers how we can help add value for them and automate them successful. But any other thoughts you have.

[00:09:00] Jason Whitehead: Yeah. I agree a hundred percent, especially with the own, your domain, knowledge and expertise, having worked in a consulting background on multiple occasions, you’re thrown into the wild where you get the concepts.

Oh, you need to be the new client site tomorrow and you’ll know nothing about them. They’ll know nothing about you, but you were told to show up. So you roll in. And one of the things that I learned is that if you can go with. And CA confidently present your expertise and you can really build your credibility even without their industry knowledge.

And you say, look, I’m new to this industry, but I’ve worked in these other places that are related. So I have a sense of it, but here’s where I’m strong, where you need my help and together, we’re going to figure this out how to make it right for you. And I’m not only am I an expert in my.

But I’m really good at helping you figure out how we tweak this for your industry. So I’m going to pull out from you, what’s relevant to make you successful applying what I know. And when you do that, people that it’ll resonate with them, it’s okay, this person brings in something I don’t have. And that’s what they want.

Otherwise you’re wasting their time. So

[00:09:56] Jason Noble: I think you’re exactly right, is this is what our customers want from us. Let me ask the next question back to you then. Jason, this is one I think is very related to that. How do we. No, what we need to know about our customers in order to speak so that in a way that really resonates with them.

So how do we take that domain expertise and what we do know about the industry to really start adding value for them to help drive outcomes for them?

[00:10:21] Jason Whitehead: I think one of the most important things. Really cultivate the skill to know what’s important for them, and I see a lot of people roll in and they want to just garbage dump around the, this is what I know, and this is how great I know it and where you want to be.

But if you completely missed the mark, you’ve wasted their time and you’re not speaking their language and you’ve flown a great chance to really have that trust and credibility. So I think part of that is really laying out. What’s going to resonate with them. How do I speak in a way that they listen.

But also what’s really driving their behaviors are concerned. What’s behind it so many times with customers or even working internally. So what’s behind this issue. So asking them they’ll say here’s an issue and here’s what we need to do. I’m like, okay, help me understand. What’s the driver behind this what’s why is this an issue?

Why is this so important? What happens if we don’t get this resolved? What happens if we do get resolved? What are the other factors we need to consider? And then. What’s success look like from you when we get it done, fixing this problem, where does that need to look like? And also, as we mentioned above, what are the facts, do they want facts and figures?

Do they want an experienced, do they care more about people and then tie in both what’s important to them understand what’s going on behind them so you can really get to the heart of it. And so I think. Demonstrating that, what they’re driving about, what they’re concerned about, and what’s gonna make them successful.

And then using the words and actual language and expressions and, visuals, if they’re visual learners or whatever it needs to be to connect that message through. I think that’s pretty key. What about you? What else would you add to this?

[00:11:47] Jason Noble: I think you’ve hit on some really key points there, and I think the thing.

You’ve really, as you said, we don’t have to be an industry expert, but you’ve got to understand what their challenges are and what they’re looking for from you and how you can add value. And I think a lot of it actually comes from that very first engagement that we’ve had with our customers. Why have they come to us as a provider?

What are the challenges we’re solving for them? And I think that really helps improve those relationships if really what makes them successful. How can we help them? What value do we add for them? What are they trying to do? You’re already being empathetic to them. You’re already understanding their situation.

I think that really is critical. So for me, it’s about understanding your customers from the very first engagement with you, through the whole customer journey. So not just as in customer success, dealing with the post-sales, if you want to call it that, but that, that first engagement, when we first speak to them as a prospect, How we make sure that we’re understanding those problems and challenges and the outcomes they’re looking for and how do we make sure the restaurant business understand that as well?

[00:12:48] Jason Whitehead: Yeah. And I think that’s really important too, because especially when you get folks who might not be intuitive or naturally empathetic and not too fond of the stereotype too much, there is the perception of hardcore coders or techie folks that really are excited about the technology itself.

When you help train them to learn, to listen, to speak to their customers and start to understand it from the customer’s point of view, it’s almost like a light bulb goes on and I’ve worked closely with a lot of it teams and it’s always great when we ask the right question to have them say, whoa, you just blew my mind.

I’d never thought to ask that question, or I’ve never looked at it this way. This makes so much more sense. It’s such a great thing. But with that as a backdrop, let me ask you, Jason, how do you go about learning more about your customers? And in their industry and trying to figure out what’s going to resonate with them.

[00:13:32] Jason Noble: I think one of the key things here is you’ve got to, you’ve got to be able and want to do research. You’ve got to fight and have that excitement to understand what’s going on. You’ve got to listen a lot to conversations that your customer, I probably spend more time listening than to. But learn from your customers.

Your customers are the industry experts and learn from them, ask them the right questions so they can teach you how to talk to them. They can teach you some of the challenges, but I think the way you question as well, ask open-ended even ambiguous questions and listen beyond what they actually say.

How are they interpreting the question? What language and what. Pronunciation, what tones they’re using when answering it, you can really understand what, what excites them, what really annoys them, what really, what, what’s the essence of what they’re trying to do. And I think if they ask for clarification on ambitious ambiguous question that you asked them, try to get them to interpret it.

However they want. Now think about a question which is. Tell you a lot about what’s going on about how you reach them go forward and really watch and observe. I think, we can do this with teams, with zoom. You can see the tones, the intonation your customers have got, and you can learn so much about them.

And I think that’s really the important thing to do. And I think what you really want to do though, is it’s that it’s those open-ended questions. And I think there is so much, it’s not just asking customer, do you want this? There’s always a lot of discussions about customers don’t want features or pushing back on a feature, but try and understand the why behind it.

And, keep asking the why do you want this? What is this trying to do? What’s the value this is bringing. And I think that’s really important. So don’t be afraid to go really deep with some of these conversations, anything.

[00:15:13] Jason Whitehead: Yeah. A couple of things come to mind. I remember off topic, but years ago when I was back in the college days and beyond, and you’d meet someone and inevitably you’d find someone who is winching on about, they were looking to date a certain type of person, way before all of us would get married.

So one of the questions I used to ask people is what’s your ideal partner look like? Or what’s your ideal partner? Just. And I didn’t really care what the answer was, but I was always interested to see if they talked about, funny, smart, this, that whatever, or successful or professional or whatever, or.

Physical traits, what they look like and how they carry themselves, just to get a sense of where is this person on their path and what is it that they’re really looking for? Because that really taught me how to engage with them on a level. That’d be meaningful that when they could ask appropriate follow-up questions, but it’s always just fascinating to see.

People would usually fall into one bucket of the personality type traits and where the physical type tracing. And I found that fascinating. So I try to find ways. A similar type question in the business environment, what is that question that people could interpret any different direction.

That’s going to give you insight to them. And I don’t know if you’ve ever saw one of, one of them, of a movie it’s a long time ago. I really enjoyed was movie Maverick and it had Mel Gibson as a, in the great bustard and I love there was one scene in there early on where, he’s in a saloon and he’s going.

Getting into a a poker game with some guys who are all bunch of roughnecks. And he said, look, I promise to lose for the first hour. So he did. And he went and he lost all kinds of stuff and he played all the way through and then the hour was up and he looks at his pocket watch and then he goes, and then suddenly he starts winning.

He cleans their clock and they got all kinds of upset, but he’s like for the first time, You were teaching me how to play you. You were giving me all of your tells. And I think there’s so much about asking these questions in a way where I’ve, and I’ve talked with customers about this and train them, like you asked the question, so your customer will train you on how to engage with them.

And they’re giving you their tells. They’re telling you what’s important to teaching you how to engage with them. You just have to ask the right questions and listen. And I think that’s such an important thing for people to be doing that. Sometimes people get so excited about I’ve got 30 minutes on the clock and I’ve got to get all this information out that they forget to.

[00:17:13] Jason Noble: I think that’s such an important thing. And it is that listening really allows our customers to, to open up and to really understand, what’s the essence of what they’re doing. And I think the other key thing here is that this takes time. You, this is all about building these relationships.

You can’t do this in five minutes. I got to want to invest that time in it as well. And Jason, so there’s a lot of talk. And we said earlier on about the idea of a trusted advisor in customer success what does this really mean? And how does the way we communicate impact this?

[00:17:44] Jason Whitehead: Wow. It, and I love the trusted advisor term and I hate the trusted advisor because it gets around.

So mostly, I think. For me, when you talk about trusted advisor, you want that customer to value your input. And to think that what you’re bringing in is so new and significant and have so much value to them that they’re going to take a leap of faith and do what you ask and say, because they believe that, more than they do about this and that you have something to offer.

That’s going to make them more successful than they can be on their own. So they follow you. And I think. Trust is all about relationships. And when you speak the customer’s language, whether it’s the industry piece to a degree or your domain knowledge, whatever it needs to be, but you also speak in the words and in symbolism and imagery, that’s going to resonate with them that builds trust and then getting them to feel that you’ve heard them and that you understand where they’re coming from and where they’re trying to go.

And what’s getting in their way when they believe that you understand. That builds trust. And I think when we use the customer’s language, we’re constantly feeding that and it grows. And if we’re not using language, they feel misunderstood or they feel unheard or they get frustrated. Or what I’ve also seen a lot is, this person may be perfectly nice, but I don’t believe a word they say, or.

I don’t have faith that their advice is going to make me better off than me doing my own thing, because they just don’t get it. The whole don’t get the thing. So then they stopped showing up to meetings where they don’t take the actions that they agree to, where they don’t agree to it. And that’s a real sign that either they don’t trust you, you don’t have the expertise or you’re not building trust in a way that’s going to make the difference.

That’s my take. What about you? What do you see as the connection between, I,

[00:19:21] Jason Noble: I agree with you in the initial way you described that, this is a term I think can be used. Wrong. I think it has a lot of value in it, but, does it mean anything to our customers? Cause what are we advising them on?

And that goes back to this, industry expert versus domain expert. And ultimately what we’re trying to do is help them be successful. So as long as we can advise them on that part of it and how we can help them be more successful, I think that’s where the essence of this is it’s about how do we help them?

Successful. And if they can look to trust what we’re saying and how to use our services, our tools, our technology, then I think it really works, but I think you’ve got to get it right. I think we’re not, it can be used the wrong way then you’ve really got to find out what it means for you and your customers.

And I think that’s the challenge, right?

[00:20:09] Jason Whitehead: So let me ask you this too. When you’re engaging with a customer and you’re trying to speak their language and get them to trust you, and then you’re trying to listen actively and do all this great. How do you recognize when you’re actually speaking their language and that you’re on track or how do you, or how do you recognize that?

Oh, I’m missing the boat here. I’ve got to recalibrate in real time. And frankly, as the CSM, it is your job to meet them where they are. It’s not their job to meet you. So you’ve gotta be the one to adjust if you’re missing

[00:20:32] Jason Noble: them. Great. Great question. And again, I think this is something that’s quite hard to do, but I think what you’ve got to do to that example you gave about the movie and Mel Gibson, it’s that watch and learn, listen, and learn, spend the time upfront doing that.

And this is why, I said about using teams and zoom. You can understand people lot better. You can see their body language, you can see what they’re doing, what they’re looking at, and you can understand people from that. And I think you’ve also got to really spend that time. Showing these customers that you’re listening, that you understand their concerns, but also that you’re going to do something with it.

We’re not just there listening. It’s going in one ear and out the other. They want you to either take it and come back to them with what they’ve asked for or push back at the right point. I think it’s important to get that balance, but you’ve got. Be able to show that you’re listening and understand where they’re coming from, what their challenges are and acknowledge this replay back.

What they’ve heard you say or what, you’ve sorry, what you’ve heard them say. I think that the key is as well. If we use language where the customer is constantly feeling. Unheard misunderstood. Or if we’re pushing back all the time, we’re saying no at the wrong points all the time they will get frustrated.

And I think they’ll feel that ultimately we don’t truly understand their needs, their challenges, what they’re looking for. And the knock on effect of that is that they then don’t follow our advice. They don’t take the actions we’re looking to take to help them be successful. And if they believe that we’re not credible in what we’re talking about, it causes a real problem.

They want us to understand the problem. Two, we can understand what they’re saying. That they’re really that trust isn’t there. And I think for me, it is that you’ve got to spend the time listening to your customers, listening to multiple stakeholders. Taking notes, make sure you’re keeping records of what goes on, what do people, what are they like?

What don’t they like? I think these are really important things to do. And so often people don’t know. And people just forget about it. I think it’s really important to make sure you’re investing that time. Anything that you’d add on top?

[00:22:30] Jason Whitehead: No, I think you’ve covered it all. I just, I remember remembering a couple of experiences where I’ve been facilitating some client groups and one of my favorite things, I love to go in with a small group of clients and you do a half day full day facilitation because you really get to know.

The group in the organization and their needs. It’s really just a rush for me. But I remember about partway through, they would actually verbally just say, wow, you really get us. Wow. You really understand our business, which was great to hear. I had never worked in that industry before in my life, but I was asking the questions and parroting back their terminology and their words at the right time to show that I was listening and that’s all it took.

So I thought that was. Another thing that has been helpful, which is the two for is the asking those open-ended questions. But as you’re asking the follow-up questions, doing two things, one is using their language and asking questions that incorporate their language work pretty well.

And then praising the questions in a way that gets them to a new aha moment where you haven’t said anything. You haven’t told them, but you’ve asked them a question where they get it. And they’re just like, that’s a really good question. Or I’ve, hadn’t thought of that before. That’s usually a good sign that, that.

They’re believing what you’re saying. They’re giving you credibility for what you’re saying. So when you get those really good questions, good aha. Moments that’s a great

[00:23:41] Jason Noble: one for me. I like the heart moment is so important as well. And that, that is I think when you get that and it’s challenging to get there, but it really does have a big impact, I think, on your customer, on you.

And it lets you know, that you’ve done the right thing, what’s what you see when your customers get to that point, as well as a really powerful statement, then that will then go and tell all the people, this is when advocacy really kicks. Oh

[00:24:02] Jason Whitehead: yeah. And I think that those aha moments like a PO questions are so powerful.

And I think the right question phrased the right way at the right time, the right person they’ll nom that for days or weeks or sometimes years afterwards, like someone asked me this question once I’ve heard it too. I’m sure we’ve all been to like a conference. Presenting like I was in a meeting one time and sharing their story.

And someone asks me this question and because of this blah, blah, blah, being the person who asked the question the first time, it was immensely powerful and great. And I’ve yet to see any PowerPoint slide deck in the world that has changed my life or that I’ve remembered beyond anything else. There may be the occasional meme image, or something like that.

That those go so far, but a question will stick with you for years. So I encourage. But then to round us out though. So we’ve talked about the need to build trust, and speak their language and to, to really, be with the customer present in a way that’s meaningful to them.

How do you scale this? And you don’t always have customers in one industry and you might be all over, really, how do you bring this out to the masses?

[00:25:01] Jason Noble: This is so important as well. And we did an episode on scaling not too long ago. And how do you scale what you’re doing in customer success?

And it. There, isn’t an easy answer to this, but I think it’s something that every business needs to go through. You go from that kind of a small startup stage. You got to scale up, you get more customers. I think what you’ve got to do is get that balance between domain expertise and industry expertise, and as we said earlier on focus on the domain expertise, your domain expertise and how you can deliver that value for the customer. I think that is so important to do that. By talking to different stakeholders at your customer, you’ll get a better understanding of processes. What pieces of your engagement can you automate working?

You bring in technology to help you there. They don’t all have to be conversations. And I think the other thing you can start doing is put together some case studies. For how you’ve been successful with customers, get your customers to help with these, this advocacy get them to work on advocacy for you, but put together examples then of how these same concepts can apply in other industries for other customers.

And I think having your customers tell the story, your customers want to tell the story. They want to take part in white papers in interviews, but when you hear it from their point of view, That really resonates both with our teams. It resonates with the market with other customers. And I think what you can also start doing is, if you grow to a certain point, do you actually bring around a different structure on your team where you introduce an organizational structure where some of your team do focus on key industry verticals.

If you’ve got enough people, if you’ve got the scale, you can do that. So there may be a need to offer some level of specialism. And then what you can do is you could have. Subject matter expert and industry expert in your team there either on the customer success team or from elsewhere in the business, but you could have someone that comes and helps there.

And you can also rotate people out those teams. So I think to continue to help build up your customer’s knowledge or your knowledge of your customer story and your knowledge of the different industries is rotate around the different virtual. Any other things that you’ve seen that can help with the scaling Jessie?

[00:27:07] Jason Whitehead: I like that everything is said, especially the balance of domain thing. I think the other piece too, and this sort of leads to you saying rotate people through is depending on the customer size and engagement and where. How do you bring in people who have the domain expertise, plus maybe someone else has the industry expertise and how do you pair that up a little bit?

And how do you come in and say, this is why we brought this in as a team. And here’s how we’re going to help you as a team. Now that’s not always appropriate, but I’ve been on the buyer side. Like sales would do that quite a bit. When I was at Texas instruments or other large companies where someone was coming in to sell to us, they would bring in someone who was the product expert.

They’d bring someone who was the implementation expert. They would bring in the. Domain expert or has worked in that industry to show their credibility. And it worked, it was very effective to show I’m I, as an individual may not have everything you need, but I can bring in access to those resources or I can learn what I need to do pretty quickly.

I do think to your point though, if you’re in a digital touch engagement situation, cause I don’t look at moving off of the low touch, more of a digital engagement strategy. It is hard to show that you’re speaking their language when you only have one in. But trying to figure out what that needs to look like and maybe changing some of your digital touch based on industry specific pieces.

That’s possible, in front of the credible. I

[00:28:17] Jason Noble: think this is such an important topic. And I think you’ve got to look at how you do this as you’re onboarding new customers, onboarding new team members, how do you get this right? You mean you’ve got a new customers in a different industry. How do you speak to them and know set up the fraud for it takes investment upfront to take that time, to speak to them.

How do you make sure you’re training your own team to do this? And it’s such an important topic. Yeah. Sorry

[00:28:43] Jason Whitehead: about in a couple of other episodes too. Oh, we had some guests on. If part of making your customer successful is building out their domain expertise. So for example, if there’s, if they’re implementing technology around privacy or digital security or things like that, many of the people who may be your customers, this may be their first time working in those realms.

They may not have the in-depth expertise. So you’ve got to figure out how to speak both their industry language, but also teach them a new language that they need to learn going forward. I think that’s another wrinkle that we can explore another time, but it is something that. How’d you meet your customer where they are established cross and try to credibility, but then also develop their language skills and they need deep domain.

Yeah.

[00:29:21] Jason Noble: I think that meet your customer where they are is the key thing, what we’re trying to do here. And this is how do we provide what our customers need and what they come to us for. Let me just, this is such a cool topic, this, and I think we’ve already caught some ideas about future conversations and with smarter guests and things.

But let me guys thank you for listening. I, as Jason said, at the beginning, we like to leave you with a kind of a bold challenge question I wanted. Is what bold actions can you take to change the way that you engage with your customers to ensure that you’re speaking their language to have? I think we’d love to know your thoughts on this.

But as usual, thank you very much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this session and we look forward to doing another one, at least a couple of weeks for some really cool guests coming up.

[00:30:02] Jason Whitehead: Absolutely. Take care everyone. Bye now. Bye.

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