#TDSU Episode 136:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:21 - Customer success vs. customer experience

00:02:33 - Do titles even matter at all?

00:03:32 - CX vs. CS: Is it just marketing hype?

00:04:46 - The blurred lines between CX and CS

00:06:30 - Responsibilities matter more than titles

00:07:53 - Why titles could harm industry clarity

00:08:14 - Explaining what you do at Thanksgiving

00:10:31 - Gamification and customer experience

00:11:15 - Escape rooms and grocery stores: The CX angle

00:12:12 - The Instacart joke and mozzarella cravings

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevalue.show

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🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

[Dillon] (0:00 - 0:12)

What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man Rob here. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:12 - 0:13)

How you doing?

[Dillon] (0:14 - 0:19)

Ooh, deep. And we got JP with us.

JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:21 - 0:24)

Mambo number six, baby. How you doing?

[Dillon] (0:26 - 0:37)

Just so everybody knows that is not an inside joke, that JP literally just made that up. So tell me you're unhinged without telling me you're unhinged. And I am your host.

[Rob] (0:42 - 0:44)

Little bit of product by my side.

[Dillon] (0:49 - 1:20)

Goodness gracious. And I am your host. My name is Lou Bega.

Boys, it's just the three of us. And Rob, right before we hit the record button, you posed an interesting question. You were having a discussion as you do.

Why don't you tell us what that was?

[Rob] (1:21 - 1:41)

Yeah, interesting thing came up this week. I was talking with the CEO who gave an offer to someone for a customer success position. And the response from the candidate was, can we title this a customer experience position instead?

And the CEO said to me, he was like, dude, what's the difference? Why does this matter?

[Dillon] (1:44 - 1:53)

Which I love that the CEO is going to Rob of like, is that okay? What does that mean? What am I agreeing to?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rob] (1:53 - 2:32)

So we had a conversation about what's the difference? Does it matter? What are the industry trends?

I think it brought up interesting conversations around roles and responsibilities. What are the differences in roles and responsibilities? What are the differences in comp banding?

That's another thing like, are CX roles comp differently than customer success roles? Is there a difference in like the variable component associated? Also, does it start to encroach on other domains like product versus sales when you start thinking about the differences?

So I'll hand it to you guys just to hear what's your like intuitive take on the difference. And then we can get into more of why it matters. But if you heard that, if you got that question from a CEO, how would you handle that?

[Dillon] (2:33 - 2:44)

If I got that question from a CEO, I'd say none of it matters. And we are all but specks of dust on this earth, my friend.

[JP] (2:44 - 2:46)

But specks of dust.

[Dillon] (2:47 - 3:14)

In that it means whatever you want it to mean, bro. It feels self-explanatory, but you write the job description. First of all, you're the CEO, you're the boss.

So you write the job description, you decide what it means. But I think they're, for my money, they're interchangeable. JP, what do you think?

[JP] (3:16 - 3:23)

If a CEO asked me that, I would be like, how'd you get my number?

[Dillon] (3:27 - 3:29)

I'm sorry, who's this?

[JP] (3:32 - 4:46)

Look, I think like, man, this is weird. So personally, whenever I see CX versus CS, I can't help, my mind just goes to wrestling, or this is just trying to be more extreme. You talk about CS, we're over here talking about CX, baby, like extreme CS.

I know that's not it. I know it's supposed to be more like customer experience. I've only had limited chats with people.

I think I literally have a book that actually talks about some of these differences that's buried somewhere. I had to find that book. It's a slim like orange book that someone recommended to me.

I should actually find that book. But someone had told me, you may want to learn about customer experience so that it could maybe help me actually in my CS career. So I've been posited this as, oh, it's something that could potentially help you.

But from my understanding, customer experience is like broader than customer success. And I think it's been around longer. Is that also true?

Has existed longer than?

[Rob] (4:46 - 6:27)

So this is what I've been arguing, well, not arguing, learning from people is some people perceive that CX has been around longer than customer success. And some people perceive that CX is the new trendy thing. And I actually don't know the truth of it.

Because it doesn't matter. I don't think it does matter. It's all words.

I guess where it starts to matter is when you start applying it to more critical, more real life things. When it starts affecting comp, then it starts to matter. Because if you're going to change my pay, how I get paid based on my title, that matters.

And it matters a little bit for organizational dynamics too. Because I was thinking about this. JP, I think my initial reaction was similar to yours.

CX is broader. It's about the experience of the customer, even as early as pre-sale. And even now with churn, like what is their relationship to the company post-churn?

Whereas customer success is very specifically focused post-sale to the point of termination or whatever, usually. On the other hand, I also thought about the opposite. I was like, well, maybe CX is a subdomain of customer success.

Because when you think about what it takes to make a customer successful, Diane Gordon, who was on the show, she has this great value framework that I really like. She's like, experience is part of what makes customers successful. This is her whole value framework that she uses, us and our frameworks.

But I don't know whether it's a subdomain or whether it's a bigger picture thing. I do think CX is probably a little bit closer to account management than CX, which is closer to product probably. But I don't know.

[Dillon] (6:30 - 7:52)

I think we're all just trying to catch the wind in that I think ultimately it's a jobs to be done thing. What are you trying to accomplish? And you want to bundle as many common pieces together as possible.

And you can title it whatever the hell you want. It doesn't matter. You could be the grandmaster experience wizard.

What is it? I did not. I made sure to separate those to your benefit, JP.

And I think there's a school of individuals or a cohort of individuals that think CX is more B2C than it is B2B. I think what's interesting about what you said, Rob, about pre-sales to post-sales like churn and you're trying to win them back. That's really like a marketing function to me.

And so does marketing start to live under CX at that point? Or is that sales motion to do win back exercises? It just all bleeds together in a way that I keep saying is it just doesn't matter.

It's more about what's your responsibility? What are you measured on? And then title it whatever the hell you want.

[Rob] (7:53 - 8:14)

Let me even take that a step further. Maybe we're doing ourselves a disservice by trying to create this distinction. Maybe we're trying too hard to create artificial little distinctions in our industry when you'd be better off as an industry to really hone in on like, all right, this is our title.

This is what we do. This is what the career path looks like. Yeah.

I don't think it's a title.

[Dillon] (8:14 - 9:15)

I don't think it's a title. Let's go back to our classic Thanksgiving dinner analogy of like your old aunt is trying to understand what it is that you do. I think you don't even say customer success.

I don't even know if you say account management. I think you say, I work with our, the customers my company already has, and I make sure that they stay with us as long as possible. Yeah.

Well said. And what the hell else? Then you can add or subtract as much as you'd like in terms of whether you deal with onboarding, because that has a piece to do with it.

Expansion we've learned is a big piece of retention. Do you do support tickets? Cause we know that has a piece of it too.

Are you somehow involved in product and making it stickier? Because that'll help retain them. I think it gets rid of this idea of, Oh, I'm customer success.

Like you could be a salesperson and still do that stuff. Like titles are immaterial. I like keeping it simple.

[Rob] (9:16 - 9:25)

I'm a guy. I'll do stuff. Keep them coming back.

That's what I do. That's the easiest way to phrase it. Over the Thanksgiving table.

Keep them coming back.

[Dillon] (9:25 - 10:31)

Just keep them coming back for more. And what's interesting is, okay, if you want to look at it from that perspective, then think about how that changes based on your product and your service offering. So every once in a while, I will have rarely some free time on my hands.

I'll download a game on my phone that I'll just play for like three hours straight. And then I'll be like, okay, I'm tired of this and I'll get rid of it. But in the process, what do all games on your phone do now?

They try to gamify. Gamify, duh. They try to monetize certain things and they want you to get frustrated so that you'll pay for stuff.

But they don't give you everything all at once because they want you to continue to stair-step your experiences. And there's always something else to achieve. And that's keeping them coming back.

So is that a customer experience function? Because that's really actually just a good game designer. See how it gets really difficult to pinpoint what a title is based on a product or an industry or an audience.

[Rob] (10:33 - 10:43)

Yeah, totally. I hadn't thought about that application. And the funny thing, too, is when you're talking about games, it's actually the customer not being successful that keeps them coming back.

[Dillon] (10:45 - 10:54)

Or just successful enough. They get just a little bit further each time and then they got to do it all over again. But they empower up to do it.

[Rob] (10:54 - 11:13)

A friend of mine used to run escape rooms. And I was like, that is a weird application of customer success. Because if you just succeed right away in an escape room, that's not success, actually.

And if you don't succeed, that's also not success. There's like an optimality to it, a struggle.

[Dillon] (11:15 - 11:40)

Not even an escape room, a grocery store is like that. How do they design to derive the maximum value from you as the shopper? Well, it's not putting all of the things you most commonly need in the same place.

It's actually making them as far away from one another as possible. Mm-hmm. And that's an expansion motion, right?

[Rob] (11:40 - 11:44)

Oh, I'm never gonna buy groceries the same.

[JP] (11:44 - 11:51)

Oh, the grocery store is an escape room, y'all. I know I'm always trying to get out of there.

[Rob] (11:53 - 11:56)

Instacart, man. Future sponsor, Instacart.

[JP] (11:56 - 12:11)

Yeah, Instacart. We love you, Instacart. Come on down.

Put in a code. The code is gonna be TDSU20. That's gonna give you $20 off your first Instacart order.

[Dillon] (12:12 - 12:24)

Let's just be clear, everybody, that's not true. This was not some subversive ad for Instacart. But look, Instacart, look at what we're capable of on the fly.

On the fly.

[Rob] (12:26 - 12:26)

Now I want some mozzarella.

[JP] (12:27 - 12:28)

Oh.

[Rob] (12:29 - 12:34)

That's what I need. I have an empty spot in my fridge for some mozzarella. Interesting.

[Dillon] (12:35 - 12:54)

Guys, you got anything else before we get out of here? Tortillas? No.

Did you get a new computer? Is it still overheating? She's doing okay.

Then we're lucky to have had you. Boys, that's our time. We'll catch you next time.

Love you, Instacart.

[Voiceover] (12:58 - 13:29)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at LifetimeValueMedia.com.

Find us on YouTube at Lifetime Value and find us on the socials at Lifetime Value Media. Until next time.

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