🎤Get amazingly emotional in “The one where Pest Control Saves Lives” with Matt Beckwith in CX Passport episode 48🎧
🥰You MUST listen to the last story. Amazingly emotional story of impact
🤗Contact centers going beyond just call deflection
🏡Why Home Services is one of the most intimate CX industries
📚Be the chief storyteller
🧙♂️Don't be limited by (aka fooled by) generational stereotypes & urban legends
🤔Do customers prefer digital or did we make it too hard for them to call a human?
🔎Travel teaches you to look beyond what's in the foreground and observe the full local experience
😲Knowing your customer saved a life!
Hosted by Rick Denton, CX Passport guides you through a conversation on customer experience and travel.
Episode resources:
Website: www.contactcentergeek.com and www.mattbeckwith.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/matthewbeckwith/
Twitter: @mattbikewith
TRANSCRIPT
Rick Denton: 0:05
You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. When you speak with a self declared customer experience and contact center geek, you know you're in for a treat. That's exactly how today's guest Matt Beckwith, director of customer experience for Clark pest control shows his LinkedIn headline, what's that? You say? He didn't realize that the pest control industry focused on customer experience. While the good ones do. It'd be good to hear more about that from Matt in the episode. Matt has this this real heart for CX this isn't just transactional analytics. It's getting at the emotions and the why behind what makes a great experience something special. If I asked you can pest control saves lives. What would you think? I think we'll all be intrigued when Matt shares that story, Matt, welcome to CX passport.
Matt Beckwith: 1:18
Right on Rick. So happy to be here. Thank you.
Rick Denton: 1:20
Right on indeed. And just so that y'all know Matt is sitting in California, I am sitting in Texas and the right on gets us absolutely in the right vibe taking us forward here. Matt, in that intro, I mentioned your customer experience leadership for a large pest control provider, right. I think our listeners don't traditionally think of that area, or even other home services as the real drivers of CX yet I know you've helped raise my awareness on how it can be one of the most focused in that area. Let's just start by telling me a little bit about how you got into the space. And it helped me understand your approach to CX there.
Matt Beckwith: 1:56
Yeah, absolutely. This is one of the things I love talking about because you're right, most people will look twice when you talk about customer experience in the pest control business, right, because it seems to be one of those things that people don't like to talk about, or it seems like a dirty job, or those kinds of things, thanks to micro Dirty Jobs are a cool thing. But you know, my background, I've been in call centers, I think I was born into a call center. But I've been working in call centers for many, many years in telecommunications and banking, and in healthcare and in all these different industries. And I thought that in some of the industries are not known for their customer experience. But obviously, our job was to was to change that. And when I had the opportunity, just about eight years ago, to come to Clark press Control, which I didn't know much about and only as a as a consumer of pest control services. It wasn't until after that I realized pest control and Home Services has a completely different vantage point when it relates to connecting with customers. Because in all my years in banking, and healthcare and telecommunications, we didn't, we didn't send people to people's homes and pest control. And certainly an In Home Services, we're sending these men and women out in the field to proudly wear a uniform, they're going to your home, and oftentimes, for some for some inspections, they're going to parts of your home, you've never been to or underneath your home. Right. So that requires a whole different level of customer empathy, customer understanding customer engagement, and, and, you know, trying to support that from the contact center perspective, and then also using that to develop a customer experience program. But yeah, it's, it's completely different than banking. Because in banking, I always say that, you know, the worst thing you could do is take away somebody's money, which is not really money. It's, it's it's numbers on the screen, right? And that's about as it's pretty important numbers, let's, let's, let's get sorry about that. But...
Rick Denton: 3:47
The worst that you can do is take their money? Hmmm...
Matt Beckwith: 3:49
just give it right back,
Rick Denton: 3:51
right.
Matt Beckwith: 3:51
Unless you wire it to the wrong place.
Rick Denton: 3:53
That's right
Matt Beckwith: 3:53
I've been involved in those a couple times. But the you know, in our industry, we send people to your home. And that's just requires a complete different level of knowing a customer and and making improvements based on their feedback.
Rick Denton: 4:05
Boy, you know, I hadn't even really thought about that until you and I'd get into talking to the fact that it's the it's the physical presence and one of the most personal spaces that a customer has in their home, we talked about the human interaction that exists in a retail store, it's human to human that there's that interpersonal contact, there's a contact center if somebody calls in or emails and that's human, but that idea of being there in the home. Um, here's how this may be a larger, maybe this is a podcast in and of itself. But if you're talking about an army of men and women going out into these homes, how are you ensuring that they're equipped to be exactly what you just described? Not only technically proficient at pest control, but also empathetically proficient in engaging with the customer?
Matt Beckwith: 4:44
Well, I'll tell you, our organization but also our industry, is it you know, we recognize like in any other field, it's it's about hiring the right people and hiring for the right, the right skills, right, you're hiring. You're hiring people that want to they want to work out there in the field at want to drive a truck, they also want to get get in front of customers sometimes. And that's very, that's a different skill set than just somebody that has a technical proficiency to apply a material to a property right. And so, starting from that, and in my several years here, I've seen, we've had technicians in the field who have done incredibly well with a whole host of backgrounds that come to us from completely different fields than you would ever imagine. In fact, most of our technicians that start with us have never worked in the pest control space, which is great, because then we can teach them the way that we want it done and how our customers demand it. But but they come to us with not always even customer facing stuff. But if they come to us with that desire to, to want to serve a customer in the field out in the real world, then that that's that's the first step.
Rick Denton: 5:48
That makes a lot of sense. And actually, I've got an it's old at this point, I wrote this article four years ago, and I am sure at this point, just called hire happy people. And it is exactly that sort of perspective of you know, hiring for heart teaching for skills. And there's an extreme to that, right. I do not want my vaccine scientist to be hired for heart, I want them to be hired for skills. So there are extremes, the designer of the polling wing, yes, please hire them for skill. I don't care if they're a jerk. Just make sure they're great at the wing. You did, we did kind of allude to the contact center side of it, right? No, we're talking about being in the home aspect of it. But that's another human to human interaction. And I know as a contact center geek, I love that I think that maybe how we originally kind of came to know each other is triggering off of that. But I know you clearly have to spend a lot of time thinking about a contact center. And what goes on in that space. And all I hear about right now is call reduction, deflection, digitization, those aren't bad things. But there's a humanity element about it. And I'm curious, how do you think that just focus on digitization call reduction deflection influences customer experience?
Matt Beckwith: 6:50
Well, I'm glad you brought that up, right? Because it this is one of those things that in all of my years of running contact centers, it was all about call deflection call deflection call deflection, and that that happens in the context interspace. I remember years and years ago, I've been in this industry long enough to remember when it said, we're going to put in an IVR, this new thing called IVR. And it's going to reduce your volume, and you're going to save a ton of money, because it's going to take care of easy stuff. And sure, 25 years ago, when I was a credit card company, we didn't have an IVR and we stood went up. And once you identify to gain your balance, and 20% of our calls went away, that's a no brainer. But I think there's a there's a, at least in the last 10 or so years, it seems to be that the focus is so much on that, quote unquote, optimization, that we're not asking the customers what they want, right, they want there's this there's this, you know, I, I feel pretty strongly that we should ignore generational cohorts. I think I'm Gen X, I think I think I'm Gen X. And my children are our late Mulero, the oldest of the millennials. And and I think, you know, any one individual customer is not is not the proxy for all your customers. I had a conversation with one of your recent guests. Yes. Elena very recently about this, about this topic and how we need to look at our customers as individuals, I mean, sure, it's important to look at the aggregate, but we cannot paint with these broad, broad brushstrokes. And and if we look at forcing people into channels, the question that always comes up is if you could, if you could you ask any contact center leader, mostly, most of them, you ask, what channel would your customers prefer, they're going to tell you what they would prefer, they'd say, Oh, let's push it to self service. But right, if you actually gave them, if you actually gave every customer the ability to pick the channel that they that they want, and then that would be customer focused decisioning, as opposed to what oftentimes happens is, the organization says, Well, we're going to, we're going to lead from the perspective of we want to reduce calls, we want to we want to increase self service and obviously increase the digital contact rate. But they don't ask the customer what they want. And, and that's, that's I think, unfortunate. Whereas our approach in my organization is let's, let's do what the customer wants, if the customer wants to call and voice volumes have continued to go up. Now, voice volumes are as a percentage lower than all contacts than they were last year of the previous year. But still, we give it to him, give it give customers every option, let them pick. And doing that from the customer perspective first, as opposed to the company has proven that people still like to pick up the phone, if there's somebody there that they'll will answer it.
Rick Denton: 9:29
Well, and that's what you're seeing in there is really the theme that certainly speaks to my heart, and that is provide the channel that the customer wants, and it is not and there's a business reality of this. Yes, a phone call is more expensive than somebody is self helping through a digital aspect of it. So there is a cost component and I get that. So it's not because sometimes those of us in the CX space, we speak in these idyllic terms of we should just do whatever the customer wants, and sometimes there's a cost component. But I sincerely believe that it's about understanding what the customers ideal path is and the customer will deflect, if you will, in their own mode in their own ways, if you've provided them the way to obtain the information that they need in that that path. And the example that came up in one of my earlier podcasts was and I think it was Ito Bornstein a Cohen, I think that's who brought this up. But he said, when's the last time you called to book a restaurant reservation? Right, none of us purposely choose to pick up the phone and call a human to make a restaurant reservation, we tend to like our apps for doing that, or the restaurants website for doing that. And so we've preferred digital, that immediately reduced the calls that are going into that restaurant allowing the host or hostess to be able to focus on the customers there in that moment. But then when it comes to by the time that I've picked up the phone, and I'm calling a business, do not put on your hold recording. Hey, did you know you could access our website for all sorts of information? Yeah, I already tried your website, I went there, I couldn't find the information I needed. So that's why I'm calling you. And being aware of why the customer is calling and what the reason why they're reaching out to a human can help you sure develop a a better deflection in the future. But it's really about understanding what that customer needs and allowing that not to be, how can I push the customer away? But rather, how can I embrace what the customer needs provided for them in the mode that they want? It's not deflection, it's customer experience at its core? Yeah, exactly. I know, we talked a little bit about the millennials and the seasoned approach, I guess, you know, that some of us that have a more seasoned generation that we want to call, but you're saying that you don't see that as a generation thing. And I agree, Elaine talked about that from there is no such thing as one ideal customer. But have you seen that to be the case, you've been closer to the contact center? Are you seeing these kind of generational divides? Or is it is that something that we've kind of given a little bit too much urban legend to?
Matt Beckwith: 11:50
Well, I definitely think it's urban legend. And and I sit on the steering committee for the Northern California Contact Center Association, which gives me great access to some some fantastic contact center leaders here in Northern California. And one of the things in this subject comes up from time to time, and when people say, you know, their, their voice, voice volume is completely, you know, way down this year. And it's all digital, we always ask the question is that because you force people down that path, right, and time and time and time again, it doesn't matter if we're, if I'm talking with a if, if you know, in my case, a private business, or a public agency, because in our area, there's a lot of state of California and federal government, city and county call centers. And, and all of those if there's an easy way to call, there is no clean way of saying that, you know, that you can just say if the customer is under a certain age, they're not going to call if you make it easy for them to call. If that is a channel, then some people will and, and look clearly. And I have, you know, my daughters and and at some point, my young grandchildren, they will go to their phone first they will go their phone first and say is there an app or is there a service that can do this? But I don't know that? That's because I don't think that it's simply because they don't want to call because that generation has been taught to never make a phone call. I think we as people that are providing customer service, especially that we have created that path, we have said to millennials and millennials, parents don't call us it's too hard to call. And if but if in a in if you're going to actually test this that if you actually if every company had an actual phone number that somebody answered as soon as you called it, then my suspicion is obviously it would cost more and more of investment. But if you did that if every company out there had a phone number and some you called it and somebody actually answered when you called it within 10 seconds or so. I think ever I think more people would call but it's the chicken and egg right? I think we we are seeing people not wanting to call as much because we've made it so darn hard for people to
Rick Denton: 13:58
your right. And there's so much truth and it's like everything. There's no real binary answer to this. It's not all call or no call. It's it's that middle solution that we were going to what is the customer's preferred channel providing them? Because I mean, heck I'm in I don't know what I guess I'm Gen X, I am Gen X. Give me some Pearl Jam, give me some 80s music, you know, give me some grunge. So I'm definitely Gen X. But I still you know, I do enjoy the call. But I think my first go to is always digital, I would rather solve in a digital way. But if it's complex or if there's something beyond that mode, or what if I'm particularly concerned about the issue, well then I want a human there to help me resolve that. We're talking about kids. And I'm going to go for just completely turn the corner here a little bit, but we are a travel podcast as well talking about your experience and travel. You and I have talked about traveling with kids and there's something unique about their perspective when it comes to travel. What's that? What's that been like for you? And has that had any sort of influence on even your approach to customer experience?
Matt Beckwith: 14:55
Oh, certainly. And my kids are both both of them are grown. Our oldest kids He has blessed us with two wonderful grandchildren. Hey, all right, our youngest daughter just graduated from college, she's actually did they did our ceremony. Just the other night. Oh, congratulations, I'm from San Jose State Go Spartans. But because of the pandemic, they they delayed it. But so our kids have, you know, been out of the house for a number of years. But we we look back at all the trips that we took with them, and even we with our grandchildren, and, you know, we'd love to be a little bit off the beaten path and go, go not not necessarily just down the path of you know, where the tourists go. And we've always encouraged our kids to look at the local community and look at the people that are there. And I and I don't remember where exactly I learned it. But but when I was very young, as a young parent, I think my wife and I might have went somewhere. And then somebody said, oh, did you see this? And did you see this thing in this place there? And I said, No, we just, this was before we had air and access, I said, No, we went to this book said to go, these are the must choose places to visit when you're there. And I realized there's this place where people live. And if I go visit somewhere, I want to see where people live, because that's often where I found as I've gotten older, the best bars, the best restaurants, the best karaoke joints are in the places where people live. And so we've always, you know, taken our kids to see that, but we've also, you know, my kids, I always said, My kids know more about contact center, neither one of them have ever worked in one, but they have heard me talking about it their entire lives, but they can equate when they visit a place. And they think, you know, they think about where the local shop and where the locals Dine or where the locals go for fun that they can they can see the distinction between between the experience that they get as a as a tourist and no spots versus the touristy spots. And just being able to appreciate where people actually live and work in those communities, I think has helped me understand you know, one of the things that I often remind folks in my organization is we're not the typical customer, no one employee is a typical customer of your business. So we should never make decisions based on how we interact with our business, we should interact with our business, walk a mile in a customer's shoes, but we're not a typical customer. And same thing when I'm traveling with the kids, that we're we're a guest to these people's homes. And, you know, the arts, you know, are one singular experience isn't that experience for everybody that visits there and understand that their their experience there is, is you know, through the eyes of a local not just as a tourist
Rick Denton: 17:34
man that traveling with kids is so nice, Matt. Now, there are times though, that it can be exhausting to travel with kids. And that is where the first class lounge can come in a little bit handy. So how about a little bit of change of pace here? Join me in that first class lounge and let's have a little fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past? Oh,
Matt Beckwith: 17:53
absolutely. My wife and I's favorite place in the entire world is is on Maui. Specifically the little town of Kihei with a storms recently that just blew through all the Hawaiian Islands. Maui took a pretty big punch and that part of Kihei did as well but there's no place in the world like and again that's a in there's lots of wonderful places to stay in Maui I love on Nepali but the the little town of Kihei is just it's just my that is my paradise
Rick Denton: 18:26
and it doesn't surprise me to hear you describe it as a the little town it's not the main towns these aren't the big names that we're used to hearing but the little town is a delight for you. I can I can totally see that. So going towards the future what is a dream travel location you've not been to yet?
Matt Beckwith: 18:40
Well my wife and I have already been talking because we've been cooped up for the last couple of years. But we are our next big trip we want to go to London and over the last probably decade decade and a half I have been collecting reasons to go to London and they just keep stacking up and um you might if I trace my family back just a few generations I am 50% English and so I've always wanted to go there and you know maybe spend you know not just London but to go throughout all of the all the UK and that's probably going to be our our next biggest trip
Rick Denton: 19:19
that's going to be so much fun i i do love London I've had the opportunity to be there a couple times some for work some for just a for not for work for play, what is a favorite thing to eat?
Matt Beckwith: 19:30
Well, you know, I I never ate sushi for many years, much of my wife's chagrin But several years ago on a work trip with a coworker. I finally got turned on to sushi so now my wife loves the fact that anywhere we go I want sushi and you know the sushi here in California is amazing. I have had sushi in the Midwest and other parts that is good but nothing like here and all of that doesn't compare to the sushi at I'm anywhere on Maui. But generally if I'm if I'm traveling somewhere I want to find the best sushi place.
Rick Denton: 20:08
Nice. Sounds great. Well, I want to ask you the other question though what is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid.
Matt Beckwith: 20:17
Man liver and onions. Oh, I can still I can still snap my finger and go back to being I must have been nine or 10 and I have an identical twin brother. And we both remember this very well sitting at a table and not being allowed to excuse ourselves until we made it through that liver and onions one time and I promised that I would never never make my never make my children and never forced them to eat anything. Now ironically, both of my children and my wife are they're all vegetarians. So I tell them the story and they are aghast but yeah, even just the the hearing the word liver scares me.
Rick Denton: 20:52
I'm a I'm a solid carnivore. I guess omnivore but I like my meat. Liver and onions?! No, I just don't understand how this a dish. For those of my listeners that are from Texas, they'll know this chain, Luby's cafeteria. And it seemed like my mom would always get the liver and onions at Luby's and I just had no idea why that was even an entree. Just. I'm with you, Matt. What is one travel item not including your phone? That you will not leave home without?
Matt Beckwith: 21:20
Not my phone? Yeah. And then vacation is many people say where do you leave your phone? Yeah, that's your vacation. Yeah, I'm an I'm an analog guy. Um, I do have a phone and I I'm not a Luddite. I like technology. But I don't go anywhere without a paper notebook. So my one thing would be be a two thing it'd be I if I travel, I have a notebook and a pen.
Rick Denton: 21:46
Man, I've known people that are, there are doodlers, like that. And it just amazes me. In fact, there was one guy that I worked with a capital one that years ago, he when he took notes, he never wrote any letters, it was always through pictures. And it was the most creative and almost inspiring. He was very much on the design side of spectrum of thinking. And so those of you that walk around with a notepad and a pen, I admire what you're doing. I've waited long enough. You told me that pest control saves lives. How does pest control save lives?
Matt Beckwith: 22:19
Well, I can tell you that, you know, in my experience working in this industry, I have come across some of the greatest customer stories that I've ever heard of or experienced in my entire life. And I could we could spend hours and hours and hours and not even scratched the surface. But not that long ago, I think in the beginning of 2021, we heard about a customer wrote in to tell us that one of our field supervisors went to a woman's home to do a quality assurance inspection. So after some number of inspections, you know, or treatments, a supervisor will go out and just make sure that the service was done, okay. And he knocked on the door and there was no answer. But he thought something just didn't seem didn't seem right. And there was a dog was out in the back. And he'd been there a couple times to know the dog is usually out in the back. And so he knocked again, put his ear to the door. And he could hear think voice and he suspected something might be wrong. So he tried to open the door, the door was locked. He went in got a neighbor, the neighbor knew the phone number of I think that woman's adult children, and they called an a live nearby and came by and they you know, were able to get in the door really quick. And the woman our customer had suffered a stroke, just maybe, you know, several hours before and she was halfway between where it happened and the door and she couldn't get to a phone. And so they had emergency personnel called and showed up and took a hospital and she you know, recovered, recovered fine and is and, and that those kinds of stories that we come across because we are are out in the field, we are at people's homes, we are in people's property and we we see things and we don't just you know, we don't we don't incentivize just you know, doing a quick service and leaving we we incentivize and build an experience where they should they should get to know their customers and those kinds of things leads to these and there's been so many of these but that one recently really just touched me that was able to help that customer
Rick Denton: 24:26
and I've got to imagine one that story just catches me because there's so many elements of just you know classic customer experience in there that are what Hey, you this person actually did save a life awesome. I mean, that's just amazing in and of itself. We could end right there. But the the fact that you said Hey, he heard the dog in the backyard and realize that's something that's odd. That's something that's not going out there and doing just the job I'm here to lay down some pest control and leave but rather is understanding their customer understanding their customers environment and understanding that I've got imagine that story has some particular impact. Inside Inside of the company and, you know, I think about that when I think about hearts and minds and that sort of thing, how are you, especially in a contact center, sometimes that can get pretty sterile or even transactional? How do you keep that story alive and that heart of the customer alive in the hearts and minds of your contact center of your company and as a whole?
Matt Beckwith: 25:21
Yeah, I mean, one of the, one of my favorite parts of my job is, I have a, I have an unofficial title, meaning nobody's ever going to call me this except for me. But it's, it reminds me of the importance of it is that I am the chief storyteller. And I love being the chief storyteller. Because my partner organization is responsible for managing our voice of the customer programs, as well as the customer experience and the contact centers. We hear a lot of this, but we also are the ones that share it. And we have a lot of stories like this, where when we hear about it, the technician in the field says I don't wanna make a big deal. But I was just, I was just doing my job, we hear that all the time, I was just doing my job. And then I, I'm the one that says, we're going to share this. And we've, we've, I've shared so many stories, usually every couple years, I go out and do a roadshow with a bunch of other leaders from our corporate office. And we visit every branch we get in front of every single employee. And I do that, because I want to tell stories, but also I want to hear stories, and we share these stories. I mean, there isn't a, I can't imagine that we would go an entire week without me sending something to, to the contact center, or to the senior leadership team about some story we heard and that, that that's those stories. And these stories are not the most amazing thing, right? Because they're not specific to my company. They are specific to my industry, the pest control industry is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Every single person I've ever met in this industry, anywhere in North America shares these exact same kinds of stories. And they're just there. It's the maybe it's the reason I've been here longer than any other job. But it is, it is heartwarming that we have created an environment where we can connect with customers as a as a, you know, human to human, as Jenny Dempsey likes to say, people helping people. And that's, you know, that that gives me great pleasure to continue to move these stories throughout the organization.
Rick Denton: 27:11
Like that. It's I was just doing my job. I didn't even think much of the story. Those are the phrases that we've heard I, I still remember really impactful stories being told at Capital One's home equity division, home equity, it's a it's a financial transaction. But when you see and we would send out film crews and interview a customer when it was a particularly special story. When you hear a parent say I was able to adopt a 14 year old girl into our family. When you hear someone say, I was able to get this experimental cancer treatment because of this product. You think of a sterile home equity product, it's financial. But that storytelling and being able to provide those stories connected me I was an employee, so I'm not speaking here hypothetically connected me to the brand made me feel special about what I was doing. And and as the tears roll down my face realizing I'm at the right place doing the right thing. Matt, I'd love it. If you would close out, there's another story that you've shared with me. And it's that same kind of who would have thought that a company could have this kind of an impact on customers. And there's a and this will dated a little bit but you've told me from something from your pager world. And I'd like just to close out with this story because this one warms my heart and I'd like our listeners to hear it.
Matt Beckwith: 28:29
Yeah, great. Thanks, Rick. It's many, many years ago, I used to tell people my first my first contact center Job was a 411 operator. But after I left the phone company I went to work for quote unquote, wireless but wireless didn't mean cell phones back then they made pagers, you know, beepers, and many, many years ago. So this was going back to the mid 90s, I worked for a company in the contact center for a paging company, local paging company. And a woman came to the lobby and had an interaction with our lobby representative. And then come to find out that she wanted to let us know that her husband, our customer had passed away suddenly, just a little time before that, and, of course, you know, everybody, you know, in this, I think, was a customer with maybe one pagers not a not, not on, like a big corporate account just to a consumer. And we everybody offered condolences, and that's if there's anything we could do. And she said that, yeah, there was something that she was really hoping that we could get the recording of his voicemail greeting and some of his voicemails because she knew that he would sometimes leave himself voicemails of like reminders of things. And she knew that and it had been a week or maybe a couple of weeks after he had passed and she asked you know, is there any way we can get this and we didn't have the technology but this was mid 90s. We did we call recording was not working it what it is today. And so I remember, you know, asking her to leave her name and number and I would find out that became our priority that day. And I remember going to our, our head of technology and said, I don't know how to do this as a new supervisor in the contact center. I don't know how to do this, but we have got to do something. And he brought me into the switcher. And we were also in a local telephone company. So he brought me to the switcher, and he showed me, I'll never forget, because showed me what voicemail looks like and like the actual server rack box of voicemail. And then he logged into this, this terminal there. And he took out an old school tape recorder and an actual cassette tape. And he he recorded a tape that had her husband's late husband's greeting and all of his voicemail messages. And we didn't go through, you know, the privacy thing to make sure that this woman gave us all the information, we needed to be able to look it up. And we just recorded it in a couple of hours. Time called her she came back. And we made that Woman's Day because or probably more than that, because she was able to get this recording of his greeting. And I remember listening to the greeting as we were recording it. And I remember being struck fit that that person was no longer with us that customer had had passed on. And this I just remember, I didn't know that customer but his voice. His voice was real. His voice was human, his voice was fun. And I kept thinking of that life and thinking she's now going to have this recording. And I can't believe this has been that many years. Um, but that that sort of thing. And we, you know, we were all speechless. But after I think several months, we started telling everybody in the company at halftime and everybody was like, oh, same thing you said about a boring sterile, you know, home equity product that people realize we had, we had more than just a beeper and a phone number.
Rick Denton: 31:51
Man, what a great story to end with it. I know that that that person clearly was warmed by it, and what all of us all of those of us that have lost someone in our lives, know what it would how meaningful that would be, and for you and the team and the contact center and everyone else to just be able to surround that customer with the care and feeding to be able to provide that for her. So beautiful. Let's let's just close with that. I will say you know, Matt, beautiful story. I've enjoyed hearing your stories, the storytelling, your insights as the contact center geek. How can people if they want to learn a little bit more about you and a contact center geek? How should people get in touch with you?
Matt Beckwith: 32:29
All the best, probably the easiest way to find me if you can't remember is Contactcentergeek.com Okay, that's, that's that's the easiest way or MattBeckwith.com But either one of those will get you to me. I'm on LinkedIn. And I love connecting with people and learning about new industries and new things on LinkedIn. And on Twitter as well. Mike, Matt, I can't even get my name @MattBikeWith. But yeah, if you go to contactcentergeek.com, all of the links, all the links are there.
Rick Denton: 32:57
Great. And I'll make sure all of that gets into the show notes. So nobody, unless you've got your notepad in your pen like Matt does in his a first class lounge, you can go to the show notes, and you'll have that information there. Matt, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for sharing those stories. Thank you for sharing your insight. I came away not only with having learned something but my heart a little warmer as a result. Thank you so much.
Matt Beckwith: 33:17
Awesome. Thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate it.
Rick Denton: 33:22
Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.
Host - Rick Denton
Rick believes the best meals are served outside and require a passport.
A sought after keynote speaker and CX leader, Rick transforms CX and VOC programs from Survey & Score to Listen and Act.
After a successful corporate career, Rick launched EX4CX - Execution for Customer Experience to bring CX victories to a wide client base.
Rick combines these loves by hosting the CX Passport podcast, a weekly talk with guests about customer experience and travel.