Andy Polaine: Hello.
Welcome to Power 10, a show about design operating at many levels
of zoom from thoughtful detail through to transformation in
organizations, society, and the world.
My name is Andy Pauline.
I'm a design leadership coach designer.
Educator and writer.
My guest today is Lisa
D Dance, an experienced
Andy Polaine: UX
researcher whose 10 plus years
Andy Polaine: of work has spanned.
UX research and strategy to interactive prototyping and usability testing.
She has created award-winning work for enterprise organizations and also
helps small to mid-size businesses improve their websites and apps, so
they do not frustrate or harm customers.
She's a contributor to CMS Wire and frequent public speaker on topics
related to user experience, customer experiences, ethical research and design
and technologies impact on people, which also have written a book called
Today is the Perfect Day to Improve.
Customer experience.
Lisa, welcome to Power of 10.
Lisa Dance: Thank you, Andy.
Andy Polaine: Oh, I think I found you via Indie Young, actually, who mentioned
you, uh, on the podcast I did with her.
Um, so tell us a little bit, uh, about yourself and your
journey to where you are now.
Lisa Dance: Certainly.
So, uh, you gave me such a great intro.
But, um, my path to user experience started when I was nine years old
and I told my mom I wouldn't shop at a particular store anymore because
of how they treated their customers.
And so ever since that time, I was always studying.
Um, now that I know.
Uh, customer interactions, but I was studying what was going on and I was
trying to strategize ways to improve it for both the customer and for the
business, because even at nine, I knew both of them needed to get what they, uh.
What they wanted to achieve.
Um, and so, um, I was always just studying that.
And, um, when I graduated from college, like user experience wasn't
a thing, or at least it wasn't any a thing that I knew about.
And, um, I. So I went out in the world, you know, um, at first
I was supposed to be a lawyer.
I went to law school orientation, uh, for a week and said, I
do not wanna be a lawyer.
And so I'm out here in the world now trying to figure out, okay, so
what career I'm going to, you know, I. What's my career gonna be like?
And so I did struggle with that a bit, but I started getting in roles where
I was sort of managing like programs.
So I mortgaged like a customer retention program for a mortgage company.
Mm-hmm.
And I worked in like HR on the side of like administering.
Pension benefits, but in those roles, I was always trying to advocate for the
customer, but also finding ways that would, that would be, that would be a,
a, a benefit to the business, right.
And then parts of those roles also then brought in some, a technology piece to it.
And so I was still kind of in this path of trying to, you know, prove things
for both businesses and customers.
Uh, but.
On my second layoff, I, I said, I wanna do something in that area, you
know, and I thought it was customer experience at the time, but, um, in
researching about customer experiences and trying to get more education, I found
user experience research and design.
And that was like, I took a course and it was like, ding, ding, ding.
I'm home.
Right?
'cause not only was I able to do what I had was doing when I was nine, which was
like sort of identifying these problems, but also like strategizing how to.
You know, resolve them.
Right?
And so that was kinda like a full circle moment, uh, for me with that.
And so that's sort of like my path.
Andy Polaine: So you found your, you found your people and your in that world.
Yes.
Yeah.
It helps quite a lot of people actually.
I've, I've noticed, you know, and I mean, people know me for service design though.
I've got a sort of background in, uh, interaction design and, and digital
from, from before they had names.
Um.
And, you know, there's often that thing where people say, and then I discovered
this thing and just the light bulbs went off and, and here I, I realized
there's this, the way I think around about the world, other people do, and
there's a whole methodology about it and there's stuff I can learn about it.
Um, and, and it's a, it's always a nice moment when people
have that, and particularly if they've turned it into their.
Career.
Um, there's a very cute picture of you in the introduction actually
of, of you when you're nine years old in, in the book, right?
Yes.
Looking, not unhappy with customer service, but, but that is the, uh,
the, the introduction to the book.
So, um, tell me, tell us a little about the book and, and, you know, I always
think people write a book because there's a, a niche they want to scratch, uh, of
their own, um, as well as maybe seeing there's nothing out there like this.
So, uh, why the book in the first place?
I.
Lisa Dance: Well, certainly it, uh, I guess about six or seven years ago
I started seeing that, in my opinion, customer experiences were just
getting, uh, increasingly worse, right?
Mm-hmm.
And how I showed up in my life was that I would have my to-do list of things
that I needed to accomplish, but.
All of a sudden it would be like I couldn't get things off my
list no matter how hard I tried.
And it was always something related to my interaction with like a company or some
other organization, and I couldn't get the issue resolved, at least not quickly.
Right.
It was either, you know, like there's some information that's wrong, I
need to get a question answered.
Um, there's, you know, something hasn't been delivered.
This website's not working.
It was always.
Something.
Right?
And it was, it's getting to be really frustrating, especially
when they started to overlap.
So it wasn't just like one issue on the list.
You know, you'd have two or three.
And so imagine how frustrated it is when you're just trying to move
on with your life and you can't.
And so as I started talking to first like family and friends and they
started, they were having their own stories as well, and I'm like, it's
something here to this, you know?
And the stories started getting increasingly worse and I felt like out
in the marketplace, maybe people were talking, okay, people would complain
about a, you know, a particular, you know, issue or story they had,
but like, is there this underlying pattern of what's going on with this?
And, um.
And as I, I started collecting more stories and I said, I started seeing,
okay, there is a pattern and it's, and it's a bit nuanced and it's related to
technology too, or at least the piece that I wanted to sort of hone in on, you know,
with my user experience, um, background.
Um, I. And it was that piece of like that sometimes technology is really
wonderful and great, but sometime it actually just exacerbates problems, you
know, of trying to get things resolved.
And so that's sort of like the itch that I wanted to scratch is
to like really hone in on that because I also truly believe that.
I don't think that a lot of leaders in organizations understand how bad
their worst customer experience is.
Like that it is so bad that they would not want their names associated with it.
And I don't think that they, you know, they get that, that, um, that site into
that, you know, to really understand like, we have to make better decisions.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, there's an old, um, video, a guy called
Dave McQuillen is giving
Andy Polaine: a presentation.
He used to around customer experience for Credit Suisse
and uh, there's a bit anywhere.
He talks about the fact he had five PhDs in the room and he handed them
their credit card application form.
So can fill this in and none of them could do it.
And you know, because obviously they get it just given to
them automatically, right.
For about being employees at the place and, and it was kind of one of those,
those mismatches between, um, you know, what people think, you know, the
organization is actually doing and, and what the actual experience of it is.
Right.
So the structure of the book is kind of, um, well it's kind of
case study after case study of.
Like, just really, really face palming, um, customer exper,
bad customer experiences mostly.
Um, would you say there is a kind of, uh, any sort of patterns to the
structure or, or kind of, uh, flow through it that you started to put
together as you, as you did the book?
Lisa Dance: Well, certainly, so one big piece of the book is
that the stories are illustrated.
So I got this wonderful illustrator, Antonio Meza, and so he was able to
illustrate this, you know, ridiculous story that took me maybe six pages to
write into like a one page illustration so you could, one, understand the
customer's context, what happened, the emotions that were, that were going on
with it, and the, and sort of the start to see the impact as well as the, um.
What resolution or if there was a resolution, right?
So I'm introducing the, uh, what happened in an illustrated story.
Then I'm breaking down, um, within, uh, the book, uh, talking
about unpaid customer labor and actually talking about what
characteristics and organizations, uh.
Force customers to pay unpaid customer labor.
So unpaid customer labor's that, uh, amount unwilling amount of time, money
and stress that you have to put in to try to get, you know, the pro product that
you purchased or, uh, get it delivered or get a issued resolved around it.
Right?
And so I'm outlining like.
What characteristics of organizations require you to
put in unpaid customer labor?
Um, so like, examples of that are organizations that have limited
customer ser service hours, right?
They're selling to you 24 hours a day, but then you can't talk to them, but
at really narrow times to get, uh.
A really serious issue, invol, um, resolved.
So I'm outlining those types of issues for each story, but then I'm also, um, having
a breakdown of the cost, both for the, both for the customer and for the, um.
The company.
And I think that's a really important piece because often the reframe is
when you talk about customer, um, experience issues, people will say,
well, you know, they're making a business decision to, uh, protect
shareholder value and reduce costs.
And what I really believe is.
That I don't think that, uh, some of these companies are actually counting
all the cost of bad customer experiences.
And if they really counted all of those costs, they might, would make
different decisions, uh, within that.
And so that, I wanted to break that down, um, as well, because, you know,
in some of these situations where, um.
The story is in the book where a customer talked with six employees.
Well, how much lost productivity is that?
You know?
Yeah.
And then, um, there are other issues, you know, uh, around customer
rage and anger that you know.
Make it, um, so that far as employees that this makes their job satisfaction
much less and there's a lot of turnover within front facing, um, companies.
So then are you adding up all the cost of having to so much
turnover and having to try to.
You know, increased, um, satisfaction to the employees that are there.
Like there's a cascading cost to this that I just don't feel like that all
organizations are calculating around.
Uh, customer experience being, uh, bad.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, there's a very big number.
I'm looking at it now.
I'm trying to work out is, is this trillions then that we're talking
here, that you have in the revenue loss under the counting of the costs?
Uh,
Lisa Dance: um, trillions?
Yes.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, it's like 887 trillion.
I mean, it's a lot.
It goes on into the billions right, of a revenue loss.
Where did that number come from?
Lisa Dance: That came from this, this great survey called What?
Survey and study called, uh, the National Customer Rage, uh, survey
and actually has its origins from a study done by the White House in 1976.
Wow.
And so the White House did this study in 1976 on customer complaints and
then, uh, as company, uh, in 2003, uh.
We, uh, started the survey and, you know, used, um, some of the questions.
And so since then they've done, um, 10 iterations of it and in
my book, and that number is from the 2023, uh, version of it.
So they can say, when they say that customer experiences, um.
Problems are at an all time high and that they more than doubled in 1976.
You know, they have that, you know, they have the data.
Andy Polaine: I love, well, I love, and I don't love that there's a
customer rage index, uh, survey.
Lisa Dance: Yeah.
It's not just complaints,
Andy Polaine: but rage.
I think a lot of people kind of, uh, can relate to that.
Lisa Dance: Yes.
And it's, um.
It's awful for the customers involved.
It's awful for the employees that are experiencing it.
And oftentimes the employees who are expen experiencing it have absolutely
nothing to do with the decisions that the customer is angry about.
But they are the ones that get, um, uh, unfortunately the, the,
um, the rage and the anger.
Andy Polaine: Tell us about Peggy.
You have this figure, you have this figure, Peggy, in your, in your book.
Lisa Dance: Yes.
Um, so Peggy is this bright light within organizations that like if a customer
is trying to get a problem resolved, if you are lucky enough to stumble on and.
Talk to Peggy.
She's that one or two, uh, one or two in, uh, employees who either have been there
that long, that they just have all of the, you know, the in institutional knowledge,
they know all the, the mergers, the, uh, system changes, all the different policies
and able to actually help you, right?
That you're not talking to someone who don't, who doesn't even.
A lot of times you talk to employees and they might not even
recognize that it is an issue.
You have to like prove to them that it's an issue.
Peggy actually understands that and, and knows how to solve it, right?
Um, and so Peggy can be that.
You know that one long-term employee, but also Peggy sometimes is a newer employee,
but just have taken so much initiative beyond the training and the process
and procedures to really understand, uh, what problems are and to collect
knowledge and re and have relationships throughout the company to actually
be able to solve customers problems.
So if you are lucky enough to get a. You are very lucky 'cause your, you know,
your problem's going to be solved, but a lot of times there isn't a Peggy and
you are struggling with employees who.
Who can't explain, uh, what the problem is.
They can't explain what caused it.
Uh, they don't know how to solve it.
And it's like I was mentioning before, sometimes you have to convince them
that there is actually a problem, right?
Yeah.
Because they'll say things like, well, my system says.
But your system is not the golden rule to everything.
Yeah.
Your system gets, gets is no is made by people and that people, you
know, don't always get it right.
Andy Polaine: There's a thing I do in, um, you know, when I'm teaching service
design or teaching that, that kind of journey flow thing and saying, you know,
there's, there's often a flow chart and it's kinda boxes and arrows, right?
And it says something like, you know, um, Jeff uh, pays his bill.
Arrow, uh, membership details are updated.
And I'm like, yeah, but what happens when Jeff pays his bill
and his membership details and what happens when the arrow breaks?
'cause the arrow on those diagrams is very innocuous, you know, but
there's this assumption that this whole kind of infrastructure is
actually working to enable that.
And then Jeff rings up and.
You know, and says, uh, to, I dunno, the sports club and says,
um, you know, but I paid my bill.
And they say, yeah, but we haven't seen it.
And so it's gone outta my bank account.
You know, we, it's not updated in our system.
And then all of a sudden you have this thing, I call it the sort of, we, we,
you talk about gaps, actually we talk about in a minute, but the, this sort
of experience crevasse, it's like it's quite narrow and you, you could jump
over it to a customer and frequently do, but once you've fallen down into
it, you're in this kind of deep, uh.
Asse that no one can, you know, no one can even hear you.
Right.
Uh, at end you're sort of shouting up, saying, help, help, help on hard.
And that's when you
Lisa Dance: start the unpaid customer labor of your time, money climbing back,
stress, trying to crawl, and then you, you scrape your, your know, your knuckles
and you fall down and you try, you know?
Yeah.
So, absolutely.
So we, we,
Andy Polaine: we kind of laugh about this stuff, talking about it, and you
know, like you probably, when I tell people what I do and it takes a little
while to explain the service design thing, they go, oh, oh, the other
day, you know, I was trying to get my broadband installed or whatever it is,
you know, and I, I get like loads and loads and loads of these stories, which,
you know, you've collected many of, I think it was Lou down, said in a, um.
Lou down wrote a book, um, called Good Services, and they said, you know, if
these things were physical products, they, they would be recalled, right?
Because they're, uh, and in some cases they, you know, are actually dangerous,
um, as digital services, but often just as, um, you know, just deeply frustrating.
Um, but for some reason, um, services do not get.
The same kind of scrutiny as as physical things.
Um, why do you think, so, you know, you are in, in the book you've
gone through and you've kinda analyzed a lot of these things.
Um, why do you think this is happening so often?
Um, maybe more often than having, you know, if, if a company brought
out a. Uh, a car or something.
It occasionally happens and the might like to test the thing, right?
The gas pedal is not working properly.
Then all of a sudden it's kind of big panic.
Why, why is this not happening in, in these kind of service
customer experiences?
Lisa Dance: Well, I, I think, you know, sometimes it's about that they have just
haven't done any research or they haven't done enough research on what the customer.
Wants and needs and their context.
Right?
And so they're just not even designing anything that meets that need.
Right.
Uh, a lot of times I think people assume that they know,
okay, well I pay my payment.
So yeah.
I. I, you know, I know I, I can design this, right?
Um, versus say you're trying to, you know, uh, create a physical product
like a television, well, you don't, you don't know how all of those
things have to go together, right?
Um, so I think that that is that as well.
Um, but I think that there's also been some philosophies about,
uh, product design that have, um.
Not, not always been the best, um, like, um, the, uh, minimum,
you know, valuable product.
Viable product.
Yeah.
Yes.
Because you know, on the bad side of that, you know, you're
just experimenting with, uh.
With customers, uh, you know, on something that can be really, you know, really
quite flawed, you know, and so then they put that out there and it's always a
backlog, which they never get to, right.
Um, because the priority, at least in a lot of companies, they're
being incentivized to create more features instead of actually
resolving the backlog and actually making, uh, um, their core product.
Like a really good experience.
Um, they're looking to say, oh, we have a new feature and let's bring
in, um, you know, sell that and bring in new revenue that away.
Yes.
I think that those are some of the, the reasons.
Yeah.
Andy Polaine: I hear this quite often, um, from design folks actually,
where they say, oh, you know, they keep saying, yeah, we'll fix it in
the next release, but they never do.
You know, my, my sort of mental metaphor of this is, um,
it's like people kind of, uh.
Racing along on a speedboat and things fall overboard.
And they say, well, we'll go back and get that later on.
And then when they look back and go, someone says, well, you
said we'll go back and get that.
And they look back and it's so far away, they go, oh, you know, we
can't, we don't have time to turn around and go get back, get that now.
And, and so it just speeds on and there's this, this kind of litter of broken
stuff, uh, floating around behind.
Lisa Dance: Right.
Yeah.
It's a ocean of it at this point.
Yeah, absolutely.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
And there's a, actually, to extend this metaphor slightly, I, um, when I moved,
I, I lived in Australia, um, twice.
And when I've, I've moved with a container, you know, across the,
the ocean and they, you know, you have to have it insured.
Uh, when I was, I. He said, yeah, well, you know, obviously
in case it goes overboard.
And I, and I said, really?
And he said, yeah, no, it's about what kind of 400 containers go overboard?
It might be more actually every year.
And I thought, really?
He said, yeah.
And then they sit in the shipping lane and because the, it, it kinda
gets an air pocket in one corner, so it's like an iceberg, right?
You just have this little corner of, its sticking out the water, but the
rest of the container is underwater, you know, with all my furniture in it.
Um.
And it just reminds me of that.
'cause those things then come and really scupper people's customer journeys.
Look at that, that my metaphor completely worked.
Yeah,
Lisa Dance: absolutely.
Andy Polaine: Um, there's another kind of time cost though, or time theft.
Um, you know, we, you talked about this, so that sort of unpaid, um, labor.
Is, um, there, well actually maybe those two are different concepts really, but the
unpaid labor of just making it difficult for customers or, or not making it easy.
And maybe it's, um, it depends.
Some, some organizations it definitely feels like you've made this difficult,
like it is, you know, there's no phone number for Facebook, right.
Anywhere.
Um, other organizations I think just accidentally.
Have that problem.
And so there's this sort of invisible labor, uh, of those
things, of that unpaid labor.
And it's often falls on other members of the family too.
You've got, uh, an example of, uh, I think, uh, someone's grandson
or something like that, helping them, um, fit in something.
So there's, there's that, that goes on.
There's also a whole thing.
You know, build as convenience around self service.
Right.
Uh, of self check in.
Um, and, uh, whether that's at a kiosk at the airport, or whether that's doing that
on your phone or, um, you know, my mom, my mom's 84 now, so there's a lot of stuff
there where she's like, oh, I suppose it's all on the phone, isn't it now?
But I'd really much prefer to have something printed
out and all of that stuff.
I'm going to a concert on Friday.
I'm gonna see Adele actually.
And, um.
Wow, there's no way of actually having a printed ticket, right?
You app, it has to be on a smartphone.
So there's all those kinds of things.
Um, but even, you know, I don't, I don't eat at McDonald's, but, you know,
go to McDonald's and, and there's, you know, clearing your tray, you know, or,
or punching in the order these days.
I think that, I dunno when that came in, uh, like I said, don't release
at McDonald's, but I've seen people, then they go in as a screen, you
put in your order and basically the staff are just there to kind of.
You can see how they'd be replaced by a robot.
'cause they're just there to kind of deliver the order on
the thing and, and that's it.
Um, there's an awful lot of unpaid labor that's crept into services.
Some of it's useful, but a lot of it is more, more like, um, this is a way
of us to present, uh, uh, a service.
Convenience, but in fact, you're working for the company.
Have you come across that quite a lot in your, in your travels?
Lisa Dance: Yeah, absolutely.
'cause thinking about, um, self-service, yeah.
When it's, when it works, it's wonderful and it's convenient.
But if it doesn't work, like especially think we're thinking about like online
things, there isn't an employee there if there's an issue to resolve it.
Right.
And so then not only like I'm stuck in this, now I have to go and go
through their, you know, customer, um.
Customer service or customer support, um, whatever mechanisms they have
to try to get someone to resolve it.
So a lot of times I feel like, you know, companies have championed these
digital transformations and, um, self-service and, and things like that.
They're really giving you the work.
Right.
Yeah.
Um, and saying, you know, hell, this is more convenient.
And sometimes it is, but a lot of times it's not convenient
because it's very difficult.
And if it's not designed well, you can't get past it.
Right?
Yeah.
And so you are.
You are trying to do the work, you can't do the work, then you're
doing more work to let them know you can't do the work, and then you
still have to pay your money for it.
And, and it's just a vicious cycle.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, it, that is that dark side, I would say of, uh.
Digital transformations and self service that nobody sort of talks about, you know?
Yeah.
It's in the store or in McDonald's if you hit the button and something doesn't
work, and then you can call somebody over and potentially they can resolve it.
But then, like, it's a story in my book where I had a, went to a self-service, uh,
um, kiosk, and as I was put in, I had put in, just put in my payment and the, uh.
The screen said order terminated.
Well, that didn't sound right and um, and so I looked at the, um, they have a board
up there, which your, which your orders are coming in and it wasn't on there.
I told the employee, they looked them on the board, didn't see it, so they,
what they didn't know how to do anything with the computer part of it, the kiosk.
So they ring, rung up my order again, and then two weeks later I get.
Duplicate charges.
And so then I have to go back and do my unpaid customer labor
to get my money back with it.
So, um, so all that to say is that like sometimes in person, they, there's
a person there who can resolve the issue in a self-service environment,
sometimes they still can, and definitely online, most of them, there is not
an employee there to, uh, resolve the issue right in that moment.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
Well, and soon it's replaced by an AI chat bot who, um, just invents stuff anyway.
Lisa Dance: Right.
That's very ineffective.
And, uh.
It's interesting you brought that up, is that, uh, the White House
last week and, um, announced an initiative called Time Is Money.
That's talking exactly about the things that I was talking about in my book
about these companies and the everyday hassles that they are, uh, false upon.
Um.
Customers, um, and taking their time and money.
And they were, they're announcing this government wide, um, effort, uh, through
different agencies to crack down on that.
And one of the things that they were talking about was, um, AI
chat bots that actually don't, uh, can't actually resolve an issue.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, and how, um, they were through different agencies, they were going
crack, they were, um, going to have.
Rules and regulations to try to crack down on that for companies.
Uh, um, so I think they mentioned in the initiative, like, especially like for
banks, that banks can't, you know, like have this AI chat bot and that doesn't
actually resolve, help resolve your issue.
Yeah.
So yeah,
Andy Polaine: talk to the bot.
The organization isn't listening.
It, it's a very asymmetric relationship.
Right.
Too.
I think that's, that's one of the things we talked about in our book actually
on service design where, you know, uh, if I. If I don't have a ticket on a
train, you know, I, I can get fined on the spot and the, and the, the ticket
inspector's going to take my credit card and, and make me buy the ticket
plus the fine and all that immediately.
Uh, whereas if the train is canceled or, um, delayed and I can claim
my money back, it can take months sometimes for that to happen.
And it does feel like.
Well, it's, it's a bit like in the uk I dunno if you know, but there, there was
this thing called the hostile environment, kind of, um, foreign policy for, for,
um, asylum seekers in particular.
Um, which was just to make it really difficult, right?
It difficult and expensive to apply for asylum and get citizenship and all the
rest, or residency and all the rest of it.
Um, you know, and.
If you've ever tried to get citizenship in, in another place in the world, you'll
find out how hostile that is or not.
And you, you realize, okay, this is actually set up for just to put so many
hurdles in the way that people will give up, um, rather than, um, rather than
actually kind of chase it up, you know?
And, and it's, it's often known until they, they write to the newspaper.
It becomes a kind of meme online, and then all of a sudden, you know,
the, it becomes a PR disaster.
But that stuff for that stuff to kick in.
But it is a, I think for a, from a. So my, my theory about this is that
I think humans, you know, humans anthropomorphize everything, right?
We, we talk about our cars and our animals as if they're humans.
And I think we do this with companies or organizations too.
And so we relate to them as if we were, it was just another human
being and they just, but they obviously don't act like that.
They act in this completely different and unreasonable way.
And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so jarring all the
time, uh, to have that experience.
Lisa Dance: Well, definitely.
And then in the US there's.
Like a doctrine.
Something that, you know, a corporation actually, you know, ha it is like, it's
like the status of a person, but they don't have the consequences of a person.
Right.
And so, you know, very nice put So, uh, you know, and, and you are, um,
in these circumstances, you know, you have all of the, you know, the, the,
the pain and the suffering of this.
And I talk about in my book that, you know, people who
have the least resources, this.
Is, you know, even worse for them because if your money is held in limbo and you
don't have any money, then you, you know, you are, that's the money that you want
to use to, to feed yourself or to pay your rent or take care of your children.
And then you are in such a deficit in a vulnerable position when you get in.
Uh.
A situation like that where your money's held in limbo and you don't, and then
oftentimes it's, you know, you know, some people, they don't have the time, they
don't have a, you know, a nice office job where they can stay on the phone and
um, and call for hours and wait on hold and to try to get something resolved.
And so sometimes they just have to give up, but they really can't
even afford to give up either.
And so that's the really, um.
That's, that's the part in a lot of this that bothers me the most mm-hmm.
Is that, uh, you are really doing harm to people like above and
beyond what they lost far as in the money and the transaction, right?
Mm-hmm.
Um, a cascading cost of it.
And it's interesting that you were mentioning about the media because
one of the stories in the book.
Is about my three over three year struggle to get unemployment, uh,
benefits, um, that were from the pandemic.
And, um,
I. I wrote the story in the book.
Um, all the other stories are private.
Um, you know, were private companies, but I also wanted to put far as,
um, example of government as well, because there's expectation around,
um, customer service and, and customer experience for, uh, government as well.
And actually.
The only reason I actually finally got my money after over three years
is because I contacted a reporter, and a reporter did a, contacted the, um,
the Virginia Employment Commission, and then suddenly they were calling me
to see if they had the right address.
And in two days of them calling, I had my money that I had been waiting
three years, uh, to get That's
yeah.
Lisa Dance: Yes.
And so that's oftentimes is what's happening as well.
And so that circles back to, I wanted to say for two points.
One is that in that situation with the unemployment, the part that bothered
me and worried me the whole time is that I knew that there were people.
There were hundreds of thousands of people who were in the same situation.
Mm.
Lisa Dance: As me, uh, with the Virginia Unemployment Commission and the, the,
I definitely know that there were people who were in much more precarious
situations than I. And if you don't have a job and then you're getting
your unemployment and you still have to eat and live there and, and take
care of your kids, what do you do?
And so that's just like bothered me to accord, uh, with that.
Then also it circles back to like if companies are waiting until the media
contacts them to, you know, do the right thing, and that's the only way that
you can get them to do the right thing.
Um, you know, that's a, um, you know, that's a cost to that too, because then
you're having to make sure you are, um.
Monitoring, you know, all kinds of platforms and things like that for
your, for you know, reputation, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And now with online platforms.
You know, there are just numerous ways of people to like event their, um,
uh, displeasure or just share their story of how something has gone wrong.
And I think of an example is that Vanguard just got a new CEO and there
was an article about a month or so, um, in the Wall Street Journal, um, talking
about that longtime customers were.
Imploring the new, new CEO to improve, uh, is that customer service, right?
And like, you know, is that really what you want?
Is that like you get a story in the Wall Street Journal that your, you
know, your customer experiences are?
That bad.
And some people in, in the, in one of the articles I read, they said, well,
maybe one of their strategists, it's that they wanna get rid of sort of
these customers because they don't, I.
They don't make, they don't make them as much money and they wanted to put them
in this sort of, I think like personal advising service or something like that.
But I'm thinking to myself, well, how many people are you losing when
you've gotten, you have a story in the Wall Street Journal about
how bad your customer experience
Yeah.
Are,
Lisa Dance: you know, so.
That's like, I think people need to think through, like, there are lots of
other cascading cost of consequences.
Andy Polaine: Well, that's an invisible one as well.
'cause you don't know, you don't know how many customers you,
you, you didn't get because they didn't even start the process.
Right.
My favorite story, uh, of this is there was a, a story that hit the papers in,
in Australia, um, it's quite a few years ago now, where a guy, um, went into the.
Optus, uh, store Optus is like the second largest telco in, in Australia.
Uh, and chained himself to the reception desk.
Um, because he had spent so many hours trying to get the ownership of
his iPad's business account number or, you know, data account changed.
Uh, and in the end, you know, this, they had to call the police and stuff
and, you know, it was, it was resolved kinda peacefully, but, and it's a
kind of funny story and obviously.
You're in a shop, shop for the smartphones, right?
So of course what happens is pictures that everywhere, uh,
and it hit the, hit the media.
Um, and it, so it sounds funny on the one hand, but you also have to kinda think
that guy who's a small business owner is so frustrated that he's gone into, he's
bought a length of chain and gone into a shop and chained himself to it and risked
being arrested because of his frustration.
And it always, always kind of show that story quite often because.
You know, the initial thing is, haha, that's really funny.
And then actually, when you think about it, it's actually
not, it's not funny at all.
It's really tragic.
Lisa Dance: Very tragic.
And, and, and, and disturbing.
And to think about how the, the mental frustrations that he has had to go
through to get him to that point.
Exactly.
You know, and they don't e and even though he got the issue resolved,
like, you know, having to go to that extreme of a, uh, step.
That stress sort of still kinda, you still have a flashback of
this really negative emotion.
Yeah.
'cause as I was, uh, collecting these stories, uh, you know, like
one person's like, you know, they had to take a, a moment because.
Talking about it was very stressful.
Yeah.
And I put like a caution, you know, in my, on my, uh, table of contents, like
if you feel stressed about this and it's like tricking you on some situation
that you have, then, you know, take a moment and, and, and de stress from that.
Because what I've found is I've talked, when I talk to people
and mention about my book.
Everybody has one, two, or nine stories.
And, and the story, the companies have a, they still have a. A lingering
really negative, um, uh, feelings about it, you know what I mean?
So it's, it doesn't just sort of dissipate just 'cause you've gotten it resolved,
not when they, these issues have gone to the extent that, like the ones examples in
the book or, or this gentleman, you know.
Andy Polaine: No, it can leave definitely a real trace.
It can leave kind of fear as well of doing things and all sorts, I think too.
Lisa Dance: Yeah.
Well, you know what I, I also mentioned in the book, it's like
customers, when you run into an.
Issue.
You get that familiar sense of dread of is this going to be something that actually
I can resolve really quickly, you know?
Or is this gonna be, am I gonna go into, you know, this abyss and you know, I. Who
knows when it's going to get resolved.
And so you do feel that because you, you've gotten it enough that that's
what the experience of things are now.
So
Andy Polaine: occasionally get the opposite.
Where, where they go, they result, you ring up and thinking with that dread
and say, okay, I've sorted out for you.
Is there anything else I can do?
And you're like, oh.
Oh, I was expecting that's be so much harder than it was.
Um, no, that's it.
Thanks.
It's too, right,
Lisa Dance: Peggy?
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
You've got, I've got a Peggy.
Um, listen, we are coming up to time.
Um, it's been great chatting to you.
The, the show is named after this, um, Ray Charles EAMS film.
It's all about kind of the size of relative powers of 10 all throughout the
relative size of things in the universe.
Um, so the final question is always what one small thing is either overlooked
or could be redesigned that would have an outsized effect on the world.
Lisa Dance: I, I think that when you're designing a particle service technology,
it's taking that step to really think through what could go wrong and actually
resolving it early on, or actually putting in a step if something goes wrong,
where, where's that, uh, really quick and, and easy way to get it resolved.
I think, uh, people.
Designed for the happy path as as if everything's happy and
nothing ever will go wrong.
But if you actually just took a little bit of time to think
about how something may go wrong.
You can avoid just so much, uh, pain on the backside.
So that would be it.
Okay.
Andy Polaine: Very good.
For me, I think, and it adds to this if I may, which is, you know, empowering
those frontline staff, I think quite often they are treated as kind of very in
mean menial roles and not very trusted.
And, and if they're able to, they're given the power to, to
credit some, a certain amount back.
Without question or without having to go to a supervisor.
Sometimes I kind of think, you know, why are you even having
to ask someone about that?
The time it takes you to do that, it's gonna cost you more, or the
organization more than just saying, yeah, okay, we'll refund that.
So, uh, where can people find you online?
Lisa Dance: Certainly.
So you can, uh, find me, uh, on LinkedIn.
Uh.
Lisa D Dance or you can, uh, find me on my website, which
is serviceease.net.
Lisa Dance: Um, and if you wanna sign up, I have a newsletter, it's
called Tell A Friend, um, you can sign up for that on my website as well.
And that comes out monthly.
Andy Polaine: Correct.
And the, the book
is, todayistheperfectday.com?
Lisa Dance: Yes.
And that's the website for the book.
Andy Polaine: Definitely.
Cool.
I'll, I'll put all the links in the show notes.
Lisa, thank you so much for being my guest on Power of 10.
Lisa Dance: Thank you.
I've enjoyed it so much.
Andy Polaine: You've been watching and listening to Power of 10.
You can find more about the show on pauline.com where you can also
check out my leadership coaching practice on my courses, as well as
sign up for my my regular newsletter.
Doctor's Note, if you have any thoughts, please put them in
the comments or get in touch.
You can share your horrific customer experience, uh, there too.
Uh, you'll
find me as apolaine on PKM social
Andy Polaine: on Mastodon.
Uh, you'll find me on LinkedIn or my website.
All the links are in the show notes too.
Thanks for listening and watching, and I'll see you next time.