welcome to another episode of Glide chat my name is Michael Lombardo CEO of Glide fast Consulting sitting across the table from me is Josh brostoff AVP at Glide fast Josh what up brother how's it going Mike thanks for having me on today looking forward to talking with you a little bit more about um you know customer service some of the work that we've done the experiences that we've had and uh and yeah it's great to be here absolutely and uh for those who don't know Josh what should be very far and few between there's another Glide chat we did we kind of talked about your background so check that out if you don't know Josh but Josh yeah let's talk about customer service I know that's something you're really passionate about you've taken over uh customer service management implementations here at Glide fast and it all comes back to customer service I mean that's something I've always been passionate about um ever since my first job you know I was always taught to put the customer first right customer's always right go above and beyond provide that great experience and it's funny how that's transitioned now to more you know more professional um and it's such an important part of every day but yeah tell me uh tell me a little bit about where what you're thinking yeah absolutely and you know I think definitely my experiences right and you know where I've been and really how I started my career the experiences that I've had have really kind of you know I've wanted to really go down this path of more focusing on customer service management right so yeah with servicenow obviously it started off right it was an itsm tool yeah very focused on things like Incident Management change management uh requests you know all those pieces right and then CSM came out and it was something that I really just gravitated towards because I think one of the things for me as the years have gone on is really my experience dealing with customer service uh at different organizations right and I think everyone as a customer exactly not only as a customer right um but it you know in what we do day to day as well yeah and you know as the technology has improved right there are things that are that are good with it and there are things that are not so good with yeah uh with customer service but I really think the thing for me is I wanted to be able to use a tool to help improve that experience yeah right and I think that's where I saw that opportunity with CSM to to take that and capitalize on it yeah the biggest thing for me right is I think we've all had those experiences where you go in you know you call into a customer service line and you have to press 30 different buttons to get like how painful is that it's brutal it's yeah I mean the the robots they don't they're they don't work exactly I'm sorry they don't like I don't want to have to call and and just say represented try everything I used to have like every back door there's actually a website I forget what it is where you can actually get the back doors to speak to somebody yeah you know and I there's definitely some psychology around that of like just give me somebody I just want to solve my problem you know like I don't want to say I'm calling about you know uh getting my cable fixed you know exactly and it's I understand the routing especially us doing what we do with servicenow and you know CSM and The Incident Management we understand routing and we understand we want to get to the right person um but I can I can go on and on you know it's yeah 100 yeah I think the biggest thing for me is what I've really noticed is when you look at the businesses you know in this country in the world that have great customer service and you realize how far they've gone right and part of it is because they do such a good job with their customers being able to not only give them that great experience not only when they're buying the product but after the fact as well right and I think the biggest thing for me in realizing that is I want to enable our customers to have that same experience um you know for example right you call in you get routed to 20 different people exactly like you were saying and I think the biggest thing is you really just want to get your your issue resolved thank you that's what you want you want that's all you want you're a jerk no I was gonna ask you before you go on right because now you're gonna before you steal any more words for me yeah what do you I was gonna say what do you think is more important to a customer getting the hey how you doing Josh how's everything going today buddy or is it the just hey here's your problem solved right we don't we don't need this our customers don't need this overwhelming experience where you know there was magic and flowers and we just when we call our cable company to fix our our internet we just want it fixed right we don't need it we don't need this like extravagant experience like we just want the problem solved just give it just solve it quickly and I think one of I think part of the the problem that I've seen right is I think a lot of people if uh you know whether you're an executive um at a company leading customer support the whole thing is how can we cut down on costs because I think a lot of companies yeah view it as overhead right yeah yeah they don't they don't and it's the same thing as servicenow has been viewed as right um where it's overhead but in the in reality it's actually revenue generated right if you provide a good customer experience you provide good customer support loyalty it's it's Revenue generating and it's loyalty right you want to do business with that same brand and I think that's that's really where this all comes down to because I think the the the thought behind this whole thing right is if you can route people to 20 different you can have them push 20 different buttons yeah you know they're saying oh well you know we're going to get you to the right person we're gonna get you we're going to help you your issues yeah it's all faster but the fact is it actually makes the customer more upset yeah it's more right and it's it's not going to do you any good and I think that's really where building experiences like some of the stuff that I love and I try and you know rebuild right I try and build these experiences with servicenow is if you go into to Uber right if you go into Lyft or you go into Amazon and you have a problem you say hey my product didn't get delivered just like that they reimburse the whole thing well because that that's it's it's it's actually saves them more money by just giving you the 10 bucks back exactly and having you talk to somebody and then they got to figure out what happened yeah and the volume of that it would be too much and I think we need to have a fundamental shift of the train of thought being okay we're gonna try and Route you all over the place we're gonna have only hire no service agents right to let's just simplify this whole thing let's identify what the issue is and let's get the issue resolved listen that's it and the other thing is like why can't we enable people to do more this was my this was this was a frustration I had back when I was in healthcare too like where they wouldn't you know we had to escalate things at tier two they wouldn't give us access or something right like just give us access let me why do I have to make put my user on hold tell or take down their information tell them we'll call him back just let me reset their password why are we going to tier two or whatever right give us access give us enable and give us training and some of that's around politics uh at an organization where they don't want to give it up but like you know for example I I'm a loyal member to a hotel chain right I won't say who and I'm an Elite member or whatever and I have a different phone number and I never knew what I have like three different phone numbers I never know which one I always call the wrong one and they say like oh sorry I can't help you let me transfer you right the the worst thing in the world is transfers but and then I have to go wait on hold again it's like why is that person not qualified to take my hotel reservation or like what I understand the white glove service and that's a premium that's great but if I have someone on the phone that person should be able to solve my problem so that's where knowledge things like knowledge base right and some of the checklists that come in CSM is so crucial right if we can enable more of our staff to handle more issues then they the whole times are going to go down right um so that's always been a frustration I mean that's one of them and I definitely think um you know some of the stuff that I've seen that we've just had huge success in some of the projects I've Done Right is um I think when we think about things like virtual agent chat Bots right as it relates to CSM and I definitely think there's good things that that experience that has provided right but and there's also things that have also taken away from the customer experience right but I think some of it is finding that in between for okay if someone asked a question a couple of times right when does it make sense to transfer them into a live agent and building that experience or servicenow of hey let's let's build these type of topics through virtual Asian where someone can type something in and it resolves it automatically for them right yeah how can we start to automate those there's the automation like you've talked about where hey I have a problem right I need to change my password yeah how can I go in and just do it myself to pick up the phone and you know press 30 different buttons right and instead of trying to solve every problem because we're never gonna be able to do that yeah let's focus on making the one funds that automation can solve like virtual agent yeah let's let's just make that really good exactly and then like let's just focus let's not try to have press one for this you know try to get every issue it just right you know and then give them the out like if they're a customer who doesn't want to talk to a robot a virtual agent yeah give them the out that's why I love service not out of the box it's just like representative right and I know a lot of people cut that out sometimes but you know give that I I always say give them the out right no you give them a huge if they want a human give them a human and I think the other thing too is I mean how many times have you got on a call with someone who's and I think this is kind of known about the industry is there's a lot of turnover and call centers right it's hard to train people but how many times have you got on a call with a customer service agent they haven't you know they don't know what you're talking about or the type of issue that they're having and yeah they kind of don't know what needs to be done I think one of the the best things I've seen is one of the relatively new features around customers service playbooks where you can actually identify the type of issue that someone's having and it guides the agency yeah here's what you need to do right here's what you need you need to go to to here right and then you need to send them a password reset link and then confirm everything's all set and once that's complete right but guiding those people through how to be able to do these things that's a better example of hey let's provide the best possible customer experience we can let's Empower this agents we need to enable them right not only do we need to enable people to be able to actually automate and self-resolve their issues so they don't have to press 30 buttons but let's actually improve our agent's experience too so they're empowered to actually deliver better customer service right yeah I think that those are the really the two big things when you think about providing that good experience of a how can we build a better brand for ourselves how can we make sure that our customers want to come back and do business with us again yeah first drinks from Champagne cheers cheers I'm drinking it all by myself here all right so I was just thinking about as you're talking right and we think about service now why is it again back to this psychology of it I don't wanna like when I'm having a like issue with my phone provider or my cable provider whatever my first instinct isn't to go to their portal yep right exactly I agree like I just I'm like I gotta call them yep and I'm trying to think is that gonna get easy is that because their their portals are just not there they're like their website their portal their service there it's not up to paria I mean like I'm starting to see more servicenow customers some of the bigger ones too like start putting virtual agent like in front of them on the website yep yep why is it not fully there yet though it you know it's interesting it just takes time right gateway drug I think some I think a lot of businesses when you think about you know what are you doing what's on your priority list right yeah a lot of them are just looking at everything as hey we need to you know make our product the best that it can be we need to build our brand up you know we do we need to invest in research and development right but it's kind of the last thing that a lot of businesses tend to look at I think so and I think that's where your priorities are but I think you know I was alluding to this earlier I think there needs to be that fundamental shift of putting customer service at the Forefront yeah because that's really how you're if you have if you get a customer right and let's think about how much it costs to you know get one of your get a new customer right let's say it costs 300 right yeah or whatever it may be and then they go through their their first experience with your business this they have a terrible you know Journey with customer support they're gone right and you and you've lost that money and you're never going to get them back so really having that first experience be the good one whether it's purchasing the product or after the fact where they need something the whole life cycle of that customer journey is is really comes into play yeah so and so I I read a book a while back about customer service is it something I I'm really passionate about it they build Glide fast on it right like going above and beyond and like that white glove premium premium support like customers always write stuff and in in that in that book I remember reading it really stuck out to me is when you have people like tweet to Twitter's a great example right when people tweet about a company the customer service is it ever good or bad oh Jordan always bad always bad and you know why that is again back psychology people want you to feel bad for them like dude I called call this grocery chain I don't know whatever I call this uh movie rental place called Blockbuster yep and it was exactly because they're we went to a movie rental place remember that it was like one of the last ones in the world middle of Illinois yeah like that was a scary Town it wasn't like Chicago Decatur Illinois yeah three hours outside that was weird yeah but so call Blockbuster terrible experience it got hung up on me you'll see a tweet about that but you're never gonna see like call Blockbuster wow the woman on the phone was just so nice and she solved my problem because people want you to like feel bad for them like you know subconsciously like man sorry you had that experience that sucks me too they suck screw them right you want to break misery loves company right but isn't that funny like you never see positive like feedback really really of like wow I have this great experience you know with my cell phone provider they did this for me yeah so that's why and the the author was was like kind of coming back to like people just want their problem solved you know and I think I think people want to be heard right yeah you know if you have a problem and you call in you feel like you know hears you right you're talking to one person but it's suddenly with this whole piece of like social media right you have you have Twitter you have Instagram Facebook when you get put on blast millions of people are gonna see this right it's no longer a secret if you have a problem other people are going to see that be like wow you know maybe I don't want to do business with that company you notice how the brands now they respond mostly they do and they respond I actually think that's one of the best things though that's happened right because not only does it enable a consumer to be heard right and allow other people to see hey this is what's really going on about how they're treating customers right but it also gives the business an opportunity to respond and say Hey you know how how can I how can I improve your experience well sorry to hit most of the time it's we're sorry to hear about that shoot us a DM we'll give you and they end up giving them a coupon or something and one of the actually um it's a workflow by the way exactly is what I was about to get into is one of the things that I love that I've done with service now is I actually built a feature for a customer where when they mentioned a um the company through Twitter right yep it would actually auto-generate a case yeah and what you could do with that is then you could respond to the customer directly through servicenow and have them reply you could actually track that from start to finish right because yeah when you have things when you think about Twitter right millions of people may be tweeting at your company depending on who you are and you can't keep track well most of them are Bots now determined Elon healing yeah you even put them on blast yeah but it's actually a workflow I actually I don't know if I did this with surface now I don't know what it was but it was I was talking to somebody I saw a presentation and it's actually a workflow so it you know manual automated whatever but like let's say somebody tweets at you know McDonald's or something McDonald's would love to work with you by the way we're not um someone tweets at McDonald's big fan big family though it's a workflow right so it's like okay a tweet was happened at McDonald's right all right is it vulgar or is it like you know is it facetious tweet or is it like a legit tweet right right and then they okay if it's that way ignore it you know if it's this way okay was it a complaint or a compliment all right if it's a compliment this you know go this route if it's a complaint let's go this row right so if you think about it that's a that's a great use case for something for service now and especially with some of the automation oh yeah that's that's that's possible there you know so what's next for CSM what's next for CSM service now because it was a new product maybe six years ago Yep they're pretty good yeah I think maybe seven I want to say yeah like 20 yeah 2016 is when I really started hearing about it started you know customers I remember you were like I want this I'm gonna take this over here you said because it's just such a big Market opportunity I think that's why everybody was excited about it is because it was it's such a big Market opportunity that service now just wasn't playing in yet necessarily and it's textbook servicenow use cases right like we failed calls and we solved you know we solved the cases yeah but what's next for that yeah and I think right now right when you look at kind of the the customer experience I feel like they're just you know grazing the very tip of of what that whole customer experience and customer journey is right is like so I mean really what you have in servicenow you have a very a fairly robust customer support system where you have things like case management right you have live chat you know playbooks but when you think about everything from from start to finish of all the way from actually purchasing the product right um you know getting that whole piece of it and and then also after the fact as well right really building up like a customer profile yeah I'm starting to really start to track things like products and you know entitlements right we already have a lot of that in CSM but I think continuing to expand on really the whole customer Journey right now it's very focused on support but I feel like it's going to continue to to Branch out into other things as well right we've already seen things like field service management which is you know in my opinion still at the very early stages so it has a great product right think about how many other um you know massive companies they're doing field service Management Service now as they don't even know a very small piece of that right but if you pull that in I mean can you imagine if you're only doing FSM but also all the other things that you could start to integrate that with right so I feel like that's a big piece I think Telecom as it relates to CSM is is going to be a massive offering as well so I'm excited to see particularly around FSM and Telecom and how that integrates in and really the the bigger picture the customer Journey so 100 and I'd love to see some integration more into the marketing space and sales space of like okay this customer somehow correlate sales right right to the customer support experience and I think yeah when you think about CRM right that is something that servicenow is really not got into yet when is that gonna happen I I think it has that it has to have it has to happen like eventually they just kind of take up so much of the other markets they go hand in hand right I mean customer support and then also well you know why they don't do it right right should we say can we say that I think we can say that's a small Salesforce is that that's fine yeah yeah yeah well it's it's because if if they if Wall Street views them as a CRM right then they're like oh dude Salesforce is a CRM so that's why Sarah's not like we're not a CEO but they've got everything it's the perfect it's the perfect entry right it's the last it's the last big I mean there's there's a lot I mean yeah there's more but it's still like as far as like records right and you know like as far as like the record game right and I mean but can you imagine though like everything coming together like look look I mean we do it yeah we built our own and it's Silvers perfectly all the way from the start CRM Pro baby you can get it in the servers Now app store and yeah they just they I guess like for Wall Street they just like we can't we're not a CRM don't think of us as CRM we're not a but I think Salesforce is I guess competitive I mean we know it's not remedy we know it's not Avanti in my opinion though I mean the stars are aligned right you've got you've got everything you're sitting on a lottery ticket and you're just waiting I mean Salesforce has tried to play in everything service now dominates in right and I don't think they're doing a good job no I think yeah I mean servicenow literally has every big part of the Enterprise yeah except this last big piece does it Salesforce coding like we have glad record don't they have Apex right yeah that's very ironic dude I'm seeing Apex everywhere now yeah dude I see the word Apex everywhere it's funny I was on I was on a lake the other day the boat we were on apex yep it is fall off and up nice I see it everywhere it's weird um all right Josh I think that's a good little podcast there I can keep going I know all right everybody my name is Michael Lombardo I'm with Josh brostoff we're drinking a little Ace of Spades for our buddy little Jimmy Josh thanks for joining me today cheers great to be on thanks cheers [Music]