The Future of Customer Experience with International Best-Selling Author, Steven Van Belleghem

On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, Jenn sat down with Steven Van Belleghem. Steven believes in a bright future where companies play the long-term game with their customers. His passion is spreading ideas about the future of customer experience. Steven believes in the combination of common sense, new technologies, an empathic human touch, playing the long-term game, and taking your social responsibility seriously to win the hearts and business of customers over and over again. Who doesn’t want to hear from someone talking about customer service in terms of social responsibility and empathy? Steven is the author of multiple international best-selling books, including The Conversation Manager, When Digital Becomes Human, Customers the Day After Tomorrow, The Offer You Can’t Refuse, and a technology thriller, Eternal. Join us for this exciting episode about how you can enhance your customer experience and avoid some common mistakes you might be making while serving your customer.

Meet Steven Van Belleghem

Jenn DeWall:

Hi everyone, it’s Jenn DeWall. And on this episode of The Leadership Habit podcast, I am sitting down with Steven Van Belleghem. He is here to talk all about customer service technology and how they can come together to create the customer experience. This is something that I think many people need to pay attention to and is maybe what Steven would say. Some people don’t necessarily realize it, but Steven, I want you to go ahead and just introduce yourself, say where you’re from. I know we had a great conversation talking about Bruges, but please go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience.

Steven Van Belleghem:

All right. Thank you, Jenn, for the wonderful introduction. Yeah, my, my passion is to create and share ideas about the future of customer experience. That’s what I’ve been doing my entire career for the last 20 years. I do a lot of research about that. I publish books. I’ve written five books on this topic. I shared a lot of content on social media, on my YouTube, on Instagram. And I give a lot of keynote presentations about that. I’m also an entrepreneur. I started two companies also in the field of customer experience. One is more like it’s called next works. And it’s an inspiration company where we take mainly European executives to an awful lot of places around the world. We take them to Silicon Valley like New York, Boston, Dubai, Singapore, China and do a little mind stretch with their look on innovation. Another company is snack bites. It’s a social media agency. But everything I do is focused on that one thing, trying to inspire companies to become more customer-centric and using all the latest tools that are available for that.

Jenn DeWall:

Steven, did you get inspired to pursue a career in customer service?

Steven Van Belleghem:

I think that it all started thanks to my parents, to be honest. My parents had a small photography store. I didn’t mention it in the introduction, but I’m from Belgium. You already know that I live close to Bruges and my parents had a, had a photography store in a small town near Bruges. And at that moment, I didn’t realize it, but today I understand, and I can see that my dad was extremely customer-centric. And, and he was always looking for innovative ways, how to, how to talk with his customers and to make sure that if there was an issue that it was solved in a proper way, but he was also the first one who had like a CRM database. And I’m talking about 1982 or something like that.

Jenn DeWall:

What does a CRM database look like in 1982?

Steven Van Belleghem:

Actually, I had to make it! So together. We were working in Microsoft Access, and then he had all these paper files with all the data from customers. And my job was to put all the data in that database. And I hated that! But he said, no, no, no, this is crucial for the future and the success of our company, because I will send out personal emails, snail mail back then. And because of that, people will come to our stores, and we’re going to make more money. And it’s going to be very important. You’re doing an important job here. So I was typing, typing, typing, and, but it was an extremely important asset that he created back in the eighties. He was already working with data and, and, and being very customer-centric. And I think that it, it started there for me. And that, that’s one side of the story.

I think another side is that I’m very fortunate. I live in Belgium, but I have relatives in California. My dad’s sister, she married an American guy from close to San Francisco, and they’re still married. And I used to go there a lot when I was a teenager. I could spend my summers in California when I was studying here in Belgium. I came to California during the summer, and I took marketing classes at UC Berkeley. And by being so often in California, I think I got. I got injected there by the, you know, the innovative spirit of Silicon Valley and the optimism and the drive. And I think that combination of, of looking how my parents run their business in combination with, you know, having the opportunity as a Belgian guy to go to Silicon Valley. So often, I think that combination has actually led to the kind of job that I do today.

A New Perspective on Customer Experience

Jenn DeWall:

I love that combination of knowing that you had these strong examples of what customer service could look like, how your parents delivered by supporting their shop, working on creating a CRM with them, using snail mail things that people don’t even really use that much today. And then going over to Silicon Valley, which we know has such a strong presence. Notability all on the edge of innovation and tech. So I love that you have both of those. And I just want to give one plug because you are from outside of Bruges. And if you have never been there, it is a beautiful place. That is my plug, but I don’t want to go too much into that, but let’s go ahead and talk a little bit more about your perspective in customer service. So I know that you have a little bit of a different perspective than some. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and how that came to be?

Steven Van Belleghem:

Yeah. I think that most organizations are too focused on the transactional kind and the transactional relationship with their customers. Of course, you need a good product. You need a good service. You need digital convenience today. People think that’s the most normal thing in the world. It’s if you have it fine, but if you don’t have it, you, you, you’re not successful anymore, but there’s still a lot of focus there. And, and a lot of companies try to, you know, be the best in that transactional part. I see that more as a minimum, and I think what the market really needs now is that organizations don’t just focus on the customer journey, but that they focus on the life journey where you try to help people to achieve their goals. It’s not about the goals of your company. It’s not about your sales objectives.

It’s about asking yourself the question, how can we add value to the day-to-day life of our potential customers? How can we help them to, you know, have a life with less worries and a life where they can achieve their dreams and, and make it more concrete. You know, maybe it’s not about selling cars. Maybe it’s about bringing a mobility solution. Maybe it’s not about having a gym, but it’s about helping people to get a healthier lifestyle. And if you look at it from that perspective, you will do more than just try to sell your product. You will come up with services that go beyond the product. Your communication will be completely different. And if you succeed in that, now you have a more emotional relationship with your customers. And I think today that is exactly what you need to differentiate yourself from others because all the other elements like a good product, good price, digital convenience are just a commodity right now. So I always invite companies to look more or to invest more in that emotional relationship than just being stuck in the transactional relationship.

Jenn DeWall:

Gosh, I, I would love if every brand or organization that I worked with, invested in, bought services from, really focused on how could they serve, because it sounds like you’re putting the “serve” back in service, really thinking about how can I, how can we, how can this organization truly serve? And I can tell you that rarely have I heard someone in the customer service field talk about, I want to help my customers achieve their dreams. What you just said is also not common. I’m sure that there are some people that might be like, I’ve never heard the company that I invest in say that they cared about my dreams, unless it was something that maybe they did for more promotion, but it didn’t necessarily show up in their day-to-day. And that transactional feeling doesn’t feel great but can give me an example of what a transaction would look like for an organization. If you’re really looking at customer service, truly in that wrong way, through the lens of just transactional, what does that is that just here’s the product I’ll take your money we’re done, or what are examples of that and how that can come across to some?

Moving Beyond Transactional Customer Relations

Steven Van Belleghem:

Yeah. And, and don’t get me wrong. That’s not bad. I think those are essential elements that you need to be successful today. Let, let’s take one of the most successful companies in the world right now is Amazon.com, and they are so successful because they are the experts in the world and saving the time of their customers. It’s the most efficient platform that there is in the world to buy stuff from. And they, you know, they deliver what they promise that they will do. And because of that, they’re extremely successful. But I hope that people from Amazon won’t be angry with me when I shared this, but it’s just a transactional relationship. I push a button, and they deliver. I don’t know anyone from Amazon. I don’t know what happens behind the scenes. There is they don’t add more value for me. I don’t know how that is happening for them, but they are the Kings of the world in the best possible transactional relationship.

And the truth is the reason why no one is challenging them is that the other retailers, for instance, are just trying to copy/paste Amazon. They’re trying to do the same thing. They’re also trying to make a website where with one click, you can order. They’re also working together with Google home to have a voice assistant involved so that they can have an alternative for Alexa. They are running behind Amazon, and they will never catch them. I think the challenge for other retailers is to do something different and ask yourself, for instance, how can I be the most trustworthy partner in making sure that people have a healthy lifestyle? How can you do that as a retailer? Of course, you still need the transactional part, but you can put something on top of that. That can make a difference.

Social Responsibility as Customer Service

Steven Van Belleghem:

And if you really want to push it to the next level, it’s not about becoming a partner in life for your customers. It’s also about how can I use that strength? How can I use the power that my organization has to maybe, you know, add value to society and be part of the solution to some of the global challenges that we have in the world? I’m not just talking about sustainability. I’m also talking about the social part of the world. They take Warby Parker. For instance, I love the idea and the concept that they have, where they say you buy a pair of glasses, we give a pair of glasses, because there’s still a lot of people out there that cannot afford a good pair of glasses. And if you’re a child and you cannot get good glasses, that just lowers your chances for a successful life because you cannot follow in, in school. So they try to solve that from, from within. And if you can combine that, being a partner in life for customers, with adding value to society, you create a unique kind of customer relationship where people don’t just want your product, but they, they to be part of the community and they want to be part of the story that you’re trying to sell. And then that, that bond between you, your organization, and the customer is so much stronger than when you just focus on being excellent in a convenient transaction.

Jenn DeWall:

I think that’s a really powerful example of, well, first and foremost, the distinction that don’t copy and paste Amazon. And I’m guessing that when needed when Bezos sat down and thought about Amazon, it wasn’t thinking, how can I be the next retailer like them? It was, how could I be something different? And so thinking about it in a different way, but I also really appreciate the social responsibility. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I still shop at Amazon, but sometimes hate hitting it from a packaging and that sustainability perspective, but shifting into what I see within my generation as a millennial, what I see in with gen Z is that I want to invest in organizations that give back. I want to invest in organizations that that care they’re an active partner in their community in the world. They understand that no one is independent. We all need someone. And if we want to have a stable or successful economy, if we want to have a great quality of life, we’ve got to all pitch in and do that to help everyone else rise. I think that’s so important. I’m curious from your perspective— do you feel like the younger generations wanting to invest in companies that are more socially responsible are kind of pushing companies to have to do that? Even if maybe they’re a little resistant, do you see that?

Steven Van Belleghem:

I see that. Absolutely. It’s very often the younger you are, the more important you value those, those qualities and, and not just from a customer point of view, it’s maybe even more important from a, a talent point of view. If you want to, you know, if you’re young and you’re ambitious, and you want to, you want to do something with your life and your professional life, young, talented people, they want to work for a company that makes a difference. They don’t just want to work for a company that has a certain revenue goal or a certain profit goal. Of course, that’s, that’s good to have, I’m not against that on the contrary, but you want to be part of something that adds value. You want to have an impact on something, and maybe some of the listeners are thinking, yeah, but my customers, they don’t really care. I would argue that I would like to challenge that. But when you think about your future employees, when you’re trying to attract talent, then it’s crucial to have that, you know, impact on society part in your story, because that’s the only way that you will attract the right talent these days.

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. The, Oh, I love that. It absolutely comes back to not only whether or not they’ll want to invest in buy your products, but whether or not they’ll actually want to work for you and how hard they’ll work for you. If they know your mission, if they know what you’re doing, and they can buy in or see that impact, who wouldn’t want to work to make that impact come to the realization of, I just love loving this conversation, Steven, how’s it going for you? One of the things that you talked about is that companies sometimes get brand in customer experience mixed up. Tell me about that. Yeah.

Don’t Confuse Your Brand with Customer Experience

Steven Van Belleghem:

A couple of things. You know, one of the problems in an organization is that very often, the people who are really the frontline customer-facing people are people who have limited influence on the senior leadership and organization. Very often, the people that actually deal with your customers every single day are at the bottom of the hierarchy very often. And I don’t mean this disrespectful. That’s very often how it is. They’re often the lowest paid people, even in the organization. And we, we, we, they have a great responsibility, and that’s what some organizations call customer experience. And in those same organizations, you have a couple of people that are highly educated, very well paid, and they are responsible for the brand experience. So they’re working on advertising and brands and logos and all those kinds of things. And, for many senior leaders, it feels like brand experience and customer experience are two different things.

And I think that’s, that’s completely wrong at the end of the day. For me, as a customer for you as a customer, there’s only one experience everything an organization does or says, or what, when we see that they are, you know, ruining the planet or when they’re, when they’re not treating their staff, right. Or when I have a fantastic phone call with someone from their call center, all of these elements are part of our customer experience and are part of our brand experience. It defines how we look at that organization, and it’s one experience. So, in my opinion, organizations should try to look at things from a customer point of view, and don’t split it up into different responsibilities because then you create a very complex disconnected kind of experience for an, for a customer. So the closer you can bring that all together to create that one experience for a customer in terms of activities, in terms of product, in terms of story, the better you will be.

Like when I talk about the different components that in that a customer values, these days, I work with the four that I described earlier, good product price, digital convenience, the partner in life, and social responsibility. Those are four components that are being valued today by a customer. All four of them are customer experience and brand experience combined. And when I talk to big organizations, what I noticed is that usually, they are working on all four of those elements. They have someone responsible for the product. They have someone with digital working on a digital app, someone that tries to deepen the customer relation, and they have someone that works on sustainability and CSR, but they’re disconnected. There are different departments in an organization with different agendas, different KPIs. They don’t even talk with each other, which is crazy because, for a customer, they need to be connected. So the better you connect those four components that bring value to the customer, the more clear it becomes for the customer, and the more successful an organization can be.

Jenn DeWall:

You said a few things in there that really stuck out for you. You said a lot, but like a few things that stuck up for me in one being the disconnect, you know, that they see that even though all of them are working to serve the same goal that they aren’t connecting to actually make sure and holding themselves accountable to delivering on that goal, they’re doing it in a vacuum. And so the product might be great, but then the customer experience may not add up. So you might spend, you know, invest in something and then have a horrible experience. And the other thing I liked is that thinking about your brand that, you know, at Crestcom, one of the classes that we teach about talent management is that your company is your brand. And so when you think about the brand, if you think about word of mouth, the referrals, how people talk about that.

If I hear a negative experience about someone working in an environment, I am less likely to actually want to buy and support that organization. And so I absolutely agree with you. I think that’s a really great distinction to make that your brand can be, I guess, created through other ways, even outside of that direct customer experience. And then that will impact your customer experience. How can you tell if your company has that mixed up? What are some indicators? So maybe they’re not making decisions together. They don’t have aligned KPIs. What are other ways that you can tell that they have it mixed up?

Steven Van Belleghem:

If, if the responsibilities are shared, you know, at a certain moment, you, you have people in the branding and marketing department that look at their communication and are over-focused on communication. So what they look at is we’re campaigning. What is the impact on sales? Because that’s their responsibility. They have to push sales through communication, and they’ll think about brand awareness and those kinds of things, but they don’t combine that with the data of the contact center, for instance. And I think those do need to be, need to be linked. At the contact center, very often, there’s a lot of information there of people who know what the worries are in the market and what the frequently asked questions are, but they don’t, they don’t send them through the marketing team so that those guys are missing out on the information to improve products. So if it’s really disconnected, if you have the feeling that there are two different worlds within your organization, then that’s something to look into.

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh. And that one is so- I’m sure every frontline employee right now is probably cheering as they listen to this to say, yes, we have exposure and access to such valuable information and data, but how can we get it up the chain? How can you get it up the chain? Do you have any advice for your clients or even, I know you work a lot with CEOs. Do you have any advice for them on how they can incorporate and get those viewpoints into the conversation?

Everyone Needs Customer Feedback

Steven Van Belleghem:

Yeah. I think it’s crucial that you make sure that as many employees as possible have direct access to customer feedback. So to make it very pragmatic, everyone in an organization at a certain moment should be customer-facing. Not just contact centers, but if you have stores, just put everyone in the store now and then, and I felt that if you tell someone from the accounting team that they have to go to a store to help customers out, that they become a little bit worried. Like, will I be able to do that? What, you know, am I going to do a good job? So suddenly they feel how difficult it is, how much energy it requires to do a good job towards customers. And you cannot hide behind the computer anymore; you’re out there. So making sure that everyone is, is getting exposed to the direct feedback of customers is crucial.

The comparison that I use is with soccer teams here in Europe, I don’t know how it is in, in Colorado, in the US right now, but we’re still not allowed to go to soccer games out here. So they’re still playing, and it’s being broadcasted on TV, but there are no fans in the stadium. And you can see that. You can see that when you look at the game, because those soccer players, they, you know, it’s a different kind of game these days. And I can understand that because they don’t have their direct customer feedback anymore. The audience used to bring direct customer feedback. If they did something great, they were like, woo. And great, fantastic. If they do something bad, they get booed up. And when they score a goal, it’s like an explosion of emotions. So they get instant feedback from the market.

Now they don’t have that anymore. And you see that in their play. The same is true. In organizations, you have a number of people who get the oohs and aahs directly from the market. The others get them in PowerPoint sheets and graphs or from storytelling. But it’s not the same. It’s like when I would go to a soccer game, and I would come home and tell my wife, Oh, it was a great game. And you should’ve heard the atmosphere. It was amazing. It’s never the same as when you’ve been there. And this is how many organizations work; there’s a filter between the market and the management. And I think you need to remove that filter by bringing the people who make the decisions closer to the market.

Jenn DeWall:

Oh, again, they, this is where the frontline workers are cheering for you right now. They’re like, yes, yes, yes. Because this is such a great way to engage, to make sure that everyone feels involved in the success, execution, implementation, strategy, whatever you want to call it, that you have. And these people care. They’re your frontline employees. They’re the ones that are delivering. They want to do a good job. And who wouldn’t, as a frontline employee, want to say, if I have this reoccurring customer pain point, Oh my gosh, I would love to give that to someone and say, please fix this because I’m so sick of having customers yell at me or get frustrated with me. But then you feel like you don’t have anywhere to go with it. You just have to sit there and hope that they figure it out. Oh my gosh, that’s so valuable.

And yeah, feedback is essential. How can we get that feedback? What a great example of, and you can call it football too. I know that it’s, it’s soccer for us, but it’s football for you. But to know that, yes, that think about that for everyone that’s sitting there, you just gave a beautiful way to understand customer service and feedback. If you were at a game, you would see that you would connect with it. You would know it, but if you’re just watching it on TV, you do not have that same experience. And it’s the same as a PowerPoint. I think that’s, you know, hopefully, people, especially in this digital age, think about more creative ways to bring that data to life. So they can experience that pain-point. And, you know, maybe not through yelling at them the way that a customer might yell at someone else, but just a way that brings it to light to say, this is the urgency of why we need to adapt or why we need to change.

So the next question is, how can you make adding value for society part of your CX strategy? And I should back up and say this for those that are unfamiliar with the term “CX,” when did the term CX come about? Because it used to just be customer service. And then, all of a sudden, it went to CX, but I’m not an expert in that. I’m just an outsider saying, okay, it’s CX now. So CX is just customer experience for those that may not be familiar with that. And we’re just still talking about customer service and how we can craft that. But we want to, you know, Steven had brought up a great way to think about how we can enhance or add value for society as part of our CX or customer experience strategy. How can you do that, Steven? How can you make adding value to society? A part of that strategy

Look for the Trade-Off and Solve It

Steven Van Belleghem:

Many organizations just don’t really know where to start. And then they do something that is, that is good for the climate, which is wonderful. But I think that everything that is related to sustainability will pretty soon become a minimum demand as well. If, if you don’t do, you know, the world expects from you, and you’re going to go out of business, and if you do, what’s needed to be done for the planet. We’re just going to see that as the most normal thing in the world. So I would invite the companies to, to start somewhere else. And I would invite them to look for the trade-off in their industry. Very often. As a customer, if you buy something, there’s a trade-off we, we, every day we make a trade-off between privacy and convenience, for instance, or when you,

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh, wait. Yes, we do. Every time I order something, I’m like, I’m just throwing my data at them. You can know everything about me. Yes, we do.

Steven Van Belleghem:

Or you buy, or you see a t-shirt, and it’s extremely cheap. You want to get it, but you know, secretly back in your mind, you’re little voice is telling you. It’s probably not produced in an ethical way as someone has to suffer from it. But Hey, I want to have this cheap T-Shirt, that’s a trade-off. And in many industries, there’s a trade-off, I like to travel, but it’s bad for the planet. I like to eat meat, but it’s not good for my personal health. And it’s not good for the planet. I like fireworks, but it makes animals aggressive. So you see there, in most industries, there’s a trade-off. And once you can identify that trade-off, you can start to look for ways how to reduce it and eventually eliminate it. And if you eliminate a trade-off in a certain industry, by definition, you have added value to society in a way that it’s close to your own industry. And that’s a methodology that I just love to use because it just gives you a different perspective on your market by doing that exercise.

Jenn DeWall:

If they want to, if someone wants to think about adding value, they’ve got to start with what’s the trade-off that maybe they’re making right now and how can they begin to minimize it and hopefully reduce it. So would an example be maybe what would be an example of that? I’m trying to think of one off the top of my head, but would it go back to Warby Parker and say, I don’t know what the trade-off for the customer would be because this isn’t my expertise, but the trade-off being, you know, that I then can share. I can then make sure that I’m giving back, or is that from Warby Parker’s perspective, we may be producing this, but if we produce more than our, I don’t know, where do I go with this?

Steven Van Belleghem:

I will take another example. I will take another example, Jenn, to make it clear. Let’s take the vegetarian example. Like I’m not a vegetarian, I like to eat meat. Even though I know it’s bad for my personal health and bad for the planet, I still eat it. That’s a trade-off. That is a situation that will be solved in the next couple of years because we have companies like beyond meat and impossible food, which make plant-based meat. They tried its synthetic meat made in a lab. They try to mimic the meat experience, and the audience that they want to reach are not vegetarians. They want to reach people like me that like to have meat. And for me, that’s a perfect alternative. Eventually, the taste will be pretty close to the meat experience today, and I can eat it, but I will not have the negative impact on my personal health and the negative impact on the planet.

That’s an example, or take the fireworks that I mentioned. We love fireworks when we go to Disneyland at the end, over the castle, or on New Year’s Eve, you know how it goes. But the animals become aggressive by it. You can solve that now because we have these miniature drones that we can send up in the sky, thousands of them, and they can create this spectacle of light and sound that maybe even is better and more impressive than fireworks. And on top of that animals, don’t, don’t mind that we use drones. They’re not becoming aggressive, or they’re not afraid of that. So you solve that trade-off

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh. Okay. Thank you so much for giving it deeper detail of the trade-offs. And I had no idea that drones were replicating the fireworks experience. I had no idea.

Steven Van Belleghem:

They’ve been doing it in Disney World. And then we had it here in Bruges on New Year’s Eve, the drones instead of fireworks. And you should check that out on YouTube when you have the chance, but on New Year’s Eve, I don’t think this year, but the year before that in Shanghai, they had an amazing show with thousands and thousands of drones with music underneath it. It was just mind-blowing.

Jenn DeWall:

All right. When we talked about a lot today, we talked about our social responsibility, how we can add that really how companies can get brand and that customer experience mixed up, but they really need to be together. And that we really want to think that if we want to serve our customers, how can we make their life better? Which I just, I love that. Like, and again, it’s not, it’s not saying transactional natures of customer experiences are wrong, but it also thinks maybe there’s an opportunity to expand on that customer experience. What would be, you know, what are your greatest tips or advice that you give maybe leaders as they’re starting to approach- How can I make my customer experience better? So one of the ways they can start is with their trade-off. If they’re talking about social responsibility, but how do they begin to maybe turn the corner and change the culture of their customer service?

Empathy is the Secret to a Great Customer Experience

Steven Van Belleghem:

I think the quality that they need to boost in the organization is empathy. Looking at things from a customer point of view, I recently heard an example that I really loved. It was from a pharmaceutical company that has medication for people that have trouble breathing, that have asthma. And a lot of people said, okay, we know what patients with asthma, what, what their worries are. And then someone said, I, I have it. I’m suffering; I’m a patient. I don’t think you understand. And they did this crazy exercise. Everyone in the organization had to jump up and down for like one minute jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. And then they had to breathe through a straw because that is exactly the experience that patients who suffer from asthma half when they have an attack or an asthma attack.

And at that moment, everyone in the organization truly understood what it meant to be a patient. So you have to figure out, and I, that was extremely powerful at that example. So, you have to figure out ways to boost empathy, to put yourself really in the shoes of the customer, go through the process that customers go through. Like when someone is listening here, that is in a leadership function, in a, in a big bank, for instance, if you lose your credit card, ask yourself, how do I get a new one? Do I call one of my colleagues to get a new credit card? Or do I follow the process of the customer? And in many cases, you have your internal routes to get your own problem solved, so you don’t follow the customer’s process anymore. So my advice is to boost empathy by becoming what I call friction hunters. Look for friction that people have when they’re doing business with you, look for frictions that people have in their life, and list them. Just make a list. Very pragmatically, just make a list of frictions that people have, and then try to solve them one by one. And involve as many employees as possible in that process make as many people as possible friction hunters, and it will completely shift the culture and the mindset in an organization.

Jenn DeWall:

I love that phrase of friction hunters. I feel like I want to write to companies and say, this is my pain point with you. Please do something about it, especially when it feels like low-hanging fruit or an obvious solution. That’s even more frustrating as a customer when, or if you have, like, there are some banks that I bank with that I can do so much online. And then there’s another bank that I still have back home. And I can’t do anything online. And it drives me bananas, especially in the pandemic, because I can’t travel there. And so if I can’t use it online, it’s very difficult to get anything done or to be able to do the transactions I need to do. And I don’t understand why they can’t if every other bank can. So it’s those things too that are just frustrating, but yeah, become a friction hunter, but you also said it really, really powerful word, which I don’t know.

Again, if I’ve heard people talk about it with customer service, we hear empathy talked about a lot within leadership. How can we be more empathetic leaders, listeners caring. And I think it is really important to think about how we can practice empathy with our customers. Our customers likely don’t want to be mad at you. They likely don’t want to change services because it’s more painful for them. But if you don’t have empathy with that, then you don’t see that friction that you’re creating that you could solve. Steven, how can our audience connect with you? Where can they reach you? I know that you do workshops. You have two businesses tell, like, tell our audience how they can connect with you after this podcast.

Steven Van Belleghem:

All right. I would invite them through to check out my social media. I share a lot of videos about these topics on my YouTube channel. It’s youtube.com/stevenvanbellingham. So my name, my Instagram accounts, I share a lot of content there as well. Linkedin people are more than welcome to follow. If they need my books or some background, they can go through Amazon or come to my own website. And if they are interested in joining me on a trip to an exact place, somewhere around the world, they can go to nextworks.com and see if there’s anything that, that they like.

Jenn DeWall:

Fantastic. I mean, I feel like I want to come on a little vacation to go to these innovative areas. Now, Steven, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for just sharing your insights and your point of view. I learned a lot today. I mean, one of the fun things was about the drum, but I really, I just loved the way that you approach customer service of looking at it as truly an opportunity to serve, to make life better. Not only for the customer but for the planet. Thank you so much, Steven.

Steven Van Belleghem:

Thanks for having me, Jenn. It was a real pleasure. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun.

Jenn DeWall:

Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Steven. If you want to connect with them, you can find his books on Amazon. You can go to his website, StevenVanBelleghem.com.  Or you can find that information in our show notes or feel free to connect with them on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed today’s episode or if you know someone that would really benefit from a different perspective on customer service, send this to them. And of course, if you enjoyed it, don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service.

 

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