This episode features an interview with Toby Thorne, Head of Customer Care at bp pulse. In this episode, Toby talks about how social media has put the pressure on to create a flawless customer experience, translating feedback into insights and action items, and managing customer hesitancy on adopting new technologies.
This episode features an interview with Toby Thorne, Head of Customer Care at bp pulse. In this episode, Toby talks about how social media has put the pressure on to create a flawless customer experience, translating feedback into insights and action items, and managing customer hesitancy on adopting new technologies.
Quotes
*“I think customer service is quite an old fashioned term these days. It's got connotations of being very reactive, and really acting or servicing customers when they contact you. And customers generally contact business when something goes wrong. I think customer experience is more focused on that whole end-to-end customer journey. So every touch point with the customer needs to be slick. It needs to be easy, enjoyable where possible. And I think that's the key difference. It's not just waiting for customers to contact you. It's focusing on every customer interaction.”
Time Stamps
*[6:55] The difference between customer service and customer experience
*[15:33] Tracking changes in customer needs
*[16:03] Helping build customer confidence in new tech
*[22:46] Finding the customer-centric data after a digital transformation
*[24:46] How to turn data into action items
*[26:12] Streamline CX through data
*[31:50] The effect of social media on consumer expectations
*[37:22] Automation and the future of CX
Bio
Toby Thorne is a customer care professional with years of experience within the automotive and retail industry, including managerial roles in financial services, customer care and head office. He has extensive experience within various brand/managing director’s executive teams. He is a natural leader with a customer centric approach, skilled in operational management, process optimisation and stakeholder management.
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Links:
Check out bp pulse on their website
Toby Thorne: I think customer service is quite an old fashioned term these days. It's got connotations of being very reactive, and really acting or servicing customers when they contact you. And customers generally contact business when something goes wrong. I think customer experience is more focused on that whole end-to-end customer journey. So every touch point with the customer needs to be slick. It needs to be easy, enjoyable where possible. And I think that's the key difference. It's not just waiting for customers to contact you. It's focusing on every customer interaction.
Narrator: Hello and welcome to The Customer Experience Show! Today we’re talking with Toby Thorne, Head of Customer Care at bp pulse, a UK company specialising in electric vehicle charging solutions for at-home, work and on the road. Toby has extensive experience in the automotive industry, having previously worked for Volkswagen Group UK.
In this episode, Toby talks about how social media has increased the pressure to create a flawless customer experience, translating feedback into insights and action, and managing customer hesitancy on adopting new technologies. But first, a word from our sponsor.
Phil Dillard: Let’s say a customer is weighing whether to try a big new tech product. What they’re really doing is deciding how it’ll affect their day-to-day life. When that new thing is an electric car, it’s an adjustment, to be sure. The customer might worry about running low on power. It means they have to stop and re-charge for...an hour? Two hours? More? So the payoff for making the change has to be worth it. Today we’re talking about helping customers build confidence in new technology and encouraging them to take the plunge.
Welcome everybody to another episode of The Customer Experience Show. I'm your host, Phil Dillard here today with Toby Thorne, Head of Customer Care with bp pulse. How are you doing today?
Toby Thorne: Very well, thank you, Phil. Great to be here.
Phil Dillard: Great. Great. Thanks for thanks for making the time to talk with us today. Very curious to learn a lot about your experience and your world of customer experience. So can you talk to me a little bit about your role? How do you describe your role and what your company does?
Toby Thorne: So I'll start with the company. So BP pulse we offer sort of EV infrastructure solutions in the UK and branching out further. And that can be anything from on-the-go charging solutions for customers. It can be home charging and also. Charging at work as well as the workplace and destinations as well. So we build machines, we, we install them and then we run the network. And any after aftercare for customers using our products and services. And my role as head of customer, care I basically manage our inbound contact center. So try to make sure that when customers do need us and they can get through to someone who knows how to help them and then how to guide them.
Phil Dillard: Okay. And can you talk a little bit about the different types of customers that you serve?
Toby Thorne: Yes, we serve all customers. You know, B2C B2B. It can be, you know, big organizations and fleets and it can be, you know, just individual people who drive an EV who might have a home charger, might not make purely use our public network. All sorts of customers.
Phil Dillard: And w how would you describe the relationship with those customers or how do you, how are they now and how do you inspire them to be?
Toby Thorne: I think we have a good relationship with our customers. It's, you know, the EV market and the EV industry is growing rapidly and changing and evolving. So there's a, there's an element that we're trying as best we can to keep up with that evolution and that growth which is always a challenge, right? Because things come from left field, that you have to often. react to especially in my work, within operations, we spend a lot of time reacting to stuff, but we're really trying to focus on using data and using what we know about the industry and our customers to try and be more proactive because you know, if we can nail that then, customers won't need to contact us because things will just work for them. So, I think w we have a good relationship, but there's always things that we can improve on and make the customer experience better.
Phil Dillard: And when you talk about the market for the EVs in the UK, can you talk a little bit for those who are not so familiar with with BP pulse where you stand in the market, how competitive the market is and and that sort of thing, like, you know, I live in San Francisco. You know, I see. I don't drive an EV but I see Tesla chargers around and I see a couple of other players out there, but, you know, I'm curious if people have might be helpful for the audience to have a feel for what the market is like in the UK and this sort of relationship or loyalty or connection that people have with their, with the folks who keep them going in their EVs when they're away from home.
Toby Thorne: Yeah. I mean, it's you know, like I mentioned, the EV industry is growing more and more people are making the switch from, you know, internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. So with that, we need to make sure that the network's fit for purpose. So, you know, we have the largest network of over 7,000 charges out in the public. We have probably at this stage, well, over 40,000 home charge customers. And, you know, every week, or month that goes by we're securing new partnerships and deals with B2B companies and fleets and all sorts. You know, we are market leaders in that sense, it is getting more competitive, again, like any industry that's growing, more people are going to come to the table. And you know, our job is to make sure that we try and stay ahead of the curve, understand our customers as well as we can and keep delivering. So, it's getting more and more competitive, but we're up for the challenge
Phil Dillard: Super. Yeah. It sounds like a great space to be in. How did you get the first started in customer? experience Yeah.
Toby Thorne: So I started firstly customer experience around 18 years old as an advisor you know, taking calls vending retail in a traditional sort of contact center environment. And I suppose did it the hard way Worked worked in lots of different contact centers with different businesses and just worked my way up through the ranks, you know, understanding customer service back then more customer care now and customer experience more, more recently and just sort of worked my way up through advisers. And I became a senior advisor, started managing teams, studied managing operations up to sort of customer service manager level, and now I'm heading up a contact center for BP pulse So, it's been a really interesting road to travel it's it's incredibly different now than it was when I first started out. But yeah, it's still a very exciting industry to be a part of.
Phil Dillard: Yeah. I every company really needs to know how to connect with their customers and understand their needs. And I think you said an interesting thing there in saying how it's very different than when you first started out. How do you differentiate between customer service, customer care and customer experience
Toby Thorne: I think customer service is quite an old fashioned term. These days, you know, back in the day it was a, it was, it's got sort of connotations of being very reactive, you know, any really. acting or servicing customers when they contact you and customers generally contact business when something that goes wrong. Primarily, I think customer experience is more focused on that whole end-to-end customer journey. So every touch point with the customer needs to be slick. It needs to be easy enjoyable where possible. And I think that's the key difference. It's not just waiting for customers to contact you. It's focusing on every customer, interaction so that, that's the key difference and the key evolution I think from customer service towards customer experience,
Phil Dillard: And just to continue to pull on that thread. Can you think about, or share an example of something where you see a customer experience from BP pulse differentiates from other competitors who are out there in the marketplace?
Toby Thorne: I think. One thing that probably sets us apart. We moved into a new office space in Milton Keynes around sort of April last year a purpose-built office to house our company it's it's something I was really impressed with at the time we have a huge production area. Basically in the same building as we have our front and back office functions as well. Which is quite rare, I think to have the full end to end. Piece in, in one building. So, you know, the charges get built and created and made in the back and with, you know, managing customers and, you know, making sales in the front. So, I think that in itself is quite unique and and and is quite a cool thing to shout about
Phil Dillard: and so, when you're working then with customers in this environment, in this purpose-built environment I'm visualizing what that would experience would be. would be like and what's the objective is it, is that a place where you're building information and awareness where you're really getting to know people, customers directly are there, I'm assuming that there are multiples but what really drove that decision?
Toby Thorne: I'm not sure what drove the decision. I think it's, you know, it's a massive benefit to have the whole business in one place. You know, it, that freedom of being able to communicate in between departments is really important. And again, it relates to customer experience because customer experience, doesn't just sit in my world, right. In operations and talking to customers on the phone. It's. You know, through marketing, through sales, through production, there's so many touch points and having, you know, all of your colleagues in the same places is really key to make sure that everyone's talking and everyone's keeping the customer at the heart of what we do. And that's so much easier, right? When you're all in the same place. We've also got a number of our own charges all around our office, loads of different sites. and models which customers can use as well. You know, we quite often have customers turn up to our office and use our 150 charging posts right outside our front door. Quite often go outside and have a chat with those guys when they, when their charging. So it's yeah it's, it is, it does feel unique and it's it's a really great way to connect, you know, directly face-to-face with customers that come on site to use our charges and carry on that communication throughout the business
Phil Dillard: Got it. So I'm here to, I heard a couple of things and, you know, one is this a common theme that we hear about employee experience, being a big part of the customer experience and the fact that if the employees are connected and able to share information and insights and really be there with each other, there it's much easier for people to have a same vision and understanding of customer experience. The other thing I heard is. If you're, if you make yourself available to the customers to come in and interact with you and charge, right at your facility more people have the ability to interact with customers than might have otherwise. Is there any way that is, is there an intentional interaction that's there or an accidental interaction that happens with customers who come to charge? Or is it a little bit of both?
Toby Thorne: I guess it's a little bit of both that would have been taken into consideration, you know, when this office was being, you know, designed and built I think it was always the plan to have a number of these charges available to the public. So it was the expectation. We'd be meeting customers face to face. Maybe accidental, you know, sometimes if customers are having issues or they're struggling to get charging, you know, we can pop out and go and help them. And it's really nice to have that face-to-face human interaction. It's quite rare as well. I think in a normal sort of business or contact center environment, you very rarely get that opportunity to see your customers face-to-face So that's that's pretty cool
Phil Dillard: And the people who come to the location to charge, versus you said there were a significant number of chargers in homes. Is it my assumption then there is that your field reps are going out to connect with the people in their homes that they're going to going to install these these devices at peoples homes. And there is a different potentially a different engagement experience. In the home then when people are out in the field when people are out either whether at your facility or others, could you share anything about how you capture and integrate the experience or the learning about customers at these different touch points?
Toby Thorne: Yeah. So we we're very close to our social media channels review sites. You know, we tried to gain we tried to gather customer feedback from public forums to see how we're doing and see what we can improve, you know, see what we're doing. Well, And you're right. Yeah. you know, w we, we have a mixture of our own field service engineers and home charge electricians that go out and install install units in peoples homes. But we also have subcontractors that we use as part of that piece as well. So yeah, it's good to get that feedback and that feedback can be fed back into the business. And we use that as sort of insight that we can build action items from as well. But generally we, you know, we get really great feedback from our guys out in the field, They do they do an amazing. job and, and leave people really happy with the work that they've done. So, yeah, I think it's just sort of about making sure we capture that feedback in the right way and once we've got it, you know, using it and creating those insights.
Phil Dillard: Sure cause capturing feedback from the visit to the home is a critical opportunity to see how people interact with the service, but also how they. Also how they use it and how they think about it. So, but there is a couple of their touch points, right? There, there are opportunities for things to go well or things to go. Not so well sometimes I would expect that things that there are challenges or there are risks to at the installations, or there are opportunities where I should say there are times where people would voice concerns. So. It seems to me that one big area of making of making the transition to EV and making a successful installation and relationship with the customer is building that trust. So how do you build trust with customers? How do you restore trust? If something goes wrong or if someone is concerned? I, you know, I read it. I read an article just this morning about people being concerned about EV electric vehicles being stored inside garages and fear of risk of fire or other challenges. And surely you see people who are at different levels of trust and confidence with what's going on. Can you talk a little bit about how you tackle that, that challenge for the industry
Toby Thorne: Yeah, there definitely is a challenge. And again, because it is evolving and growing, like I mentioned before, that's the same with regulations and sort of regulatory control over over. the area So, you the changes will be made by government or you know, regulatory bodies like that, that we then have to sort of switch, switch to make sure that we're compliant. You know, safety is a massive a massive focus for us. Safety always comes before absolutely everything. So, you know, before we fit any sort of post install, any sort of post or install a home, charger at someone's house you know, we're very clear on the measures we're taking to make sure that's safe. And if there's any sort of remedial work that needs to take place before that installation, we're very clear on what that is, why we're doing it, how much it costs when we can get it done. But we're also very reliant on other, you know, it's not everything's within our control, you know, we're relying on inaudible for example you know, the network operators and the energy companies who we work very closely with, you know, it's not just. A one-stop shop with us we're we're involved with lots of other sort of parties as well.
Phil Dillard: And, you that relationship is probably very good information for the rest of the business. I remember when BP, at least in the U.S was started being branded as beyond petroleum. And it seemed to signal this shift in thinking that the, of bp as really as an energy company, as opposed to oil or gasoline company, or at least in this market. I'm curious how your work currently Helps people with the decision to switch from gas-fueled to electric. vehicles can you talk a little bit about the information that you might gather and share that can go go forward in the business, you talked about being proactive again and I'm curious how that might be helpful to the sales cycle, helpful to the product development cycle or other things that maybe we don't even know about.
Toby Thorne: Yeah. I think, you know, the needs of the customer in, in the EV space is ever changing. There's always great discussions around what's more important having reliable charging at home or having reliable charging on the, go at your office. And I think, you know, that there's varying opinions on that. I think it's just making sure that, you know, we gather huge amount of data through our customer interactions, through our charging activity. And we closely monitor that and bring all of that together as a sort of, you know, high level view of what our customer needs are. And then we tried to build our strategies now and any sort of tactical changes around that. So, I mean, I guess we just try and give people the confidence that if they, if I think most of the fear of making that switch. From an internal combustion engine vehicle to an electric vehicle is the, I mean, they call it range, anxiety. That's one, you know, if your car starting to run out of petrol, you know, there's thousands of petrol stations everywhere you can go and you can fill up. It's a fairly straightforward process. It's fairly quick in an electric car, you are going to have to rely on the charger of being there. It's a more complicated process than just sticking a nozzle in and filling it with fuel. So I think there's a bit of nervousness. around the Convenience, I guess, charging a car as opposed to refueling it. So I guess we're, you know, we want to show that we're investing heavily and you know, our old fast charging hubs, which are coming later this year, you know, dedicated high powered charges that are going to be at various locations where you can turn up and charge your car really quickly and effortlessly to get you on your journey. So I think just being really open about our plans for the future and fulfilling the needs of current and future EV drivers is really important.
Phil Dillard: You know, it's interesting that you say that, cause it was one of the things, the thing I was thinking about next, thinking about the ultra fast charging hub. And if you think, cause you said, you know, people the needs are ever changing and people are considering where is it more important to have great charging? Is it at home? Is it at the office? Is it on. the go Right. Can you talk a little bit about the differences or the trade-offs that people have around? Well that the consumer has around the different types of charging options and how the business responds to it.
Toby Thorne: Yeah, I mean, different EV customers will have different charging needs. Right. You know, there's people that live in flats. There's people that live in certain locations of certain areas where it's not safe or not possible to have a home charger. So, you know, what do we do with those customers? They still want to become an EV driver and do their bit for the environment or whatever the, you know, whether it's a cost thing or they might. get a you know electric vehicle through their company lease scheme you know, there's lots of reasons to want to switch to EV but if you live in a flat or in a property where you can't physically have your own home charger, you're solely relying on the public network or workplace charging. So it's really important that there's the right level of focus on all of those solutions to make sure that no one's exempt from being able to join the EV revolution and drive an electric vehicle So, yeah. It's really important to understand that and understand different individual circumstances, not everyone's the same. And we have to make sure that's the right solution for each of those types of individuals
Phil Dillard: And does that lead you into building more in, into it? Like, I haven't studied this really closely, but I would, I imagine that if I go to a traditional, if I'm taking a long trip And I'm going to a traditional post charger along the highway, for example my trip experience might change. If I know I'm going to have to stop for half an hour or an hour to, to charge a vehicle. So I might stop and eat, or I might stop and have a different experience, but it also might be an opportunity to engage on. I don't know new opportunities about the vehicles or more learning that, that more engagement that's different than if I was just stopping for gas or lunch. If I was in a internal combustion vehicle, for example can you share as any sort of anecdotes that you've learned or things that you're thinking about because of the changes or the behavior of different types of EV drivers that, that changed their experience for travel in unexpected ways?
Toby Thorne: Yeah, I think again, it's a it's a journey that early adopters, especially in the EV have been on, you know, in the early days you were looking at sort of 722 kilowatt charges that would deliver charge. You know, it w it wouldn't be fit for purpose in the public realm, because, you know, you've got something to be, you don't particularly want to stop for hours on end to, to charge your car and there's been some incredible advancements in the technology, in charging, you know, in the industry. You've got, you know, we have a number of our sort of flagship, 150 kilowatt charges, which can charge your car to 80% in about 20 minutes. Which is, you know, compared to what it used to be like no time at all. And you know, it gives people a break to go and get some food or to have a coffee. And just to sort of, you know, get out of the car, especially on these long journeys that's a safe thing to do, you know, in the old days people would probably You know, drive from one end of the country to other, in some cases without stopping or without taking breaks and stuff. So it's a sort of positive side effect, I guess, of needing to stop and charge your car for 20 minutes at one of these places. It's it can only be a good thing I think, and you know, there's a lot of plans and effort going into, especially our BP retail sites, for example, to make sure that there's the right amenities there and the right shops and the right areas where you can relax and have some food and you know, Refresh yourself before you get back in your car and finish your journey.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, that sounds really interesting how people think through that and how people how people you know, how you and your organization would grow that. So, When you, when I think about the structure that you describe the organization being in all in one place and thinking, thinking about those sorts of business extensions, are they an extension of your customer experience, arm and reach or is it partnership with the retail sites. I'm not sure how they operate. It seems like understanding of that might be a little instructive on how one could think about leveraging experience in such a fast growing and dynamic environment. Can you comment on that a little bit?
Toby Thorne: Yeah. So we obviously work, you know, BP bought what was formerly BP sorry. Chargemaster back in 2018. So we became BP Chargemaster and then we rebranded towards the end of last year to become BP pulse. So, you know, we've not wasted those three years. We've really tapped into those resources and that experience and wealth of knowledge and resource within BP, and obviously worked very close with our retail colleagues on our BP sites. And there's lots of exciting plans in the future to start really scaling up our charging solutions in BP retail sites and petrol stations. And you know, like the ultra fast charging hubs that we've mentioned before. So, you know, it's really interesting because. bp As it has been an oil and gas company. And as you mentioned earlier, it's now, you know, and then reinventing itself as an energy company and, you know, the electric vehicle market for solar wind you know all of the sustainable energy solutions for the future or becoming more and more relevant. And as it becomes more relevant, we're working closer with BP to, you know, to reach that net zero ambition. So it is really interesting to sort of meet new colleagues. and share Insights and learnings from both sides. So, you know, we have a great relationship with them and you know, currently working on some really interesting projects across both BP pulse and sort of bp's head office
Phil Dillard: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Do you have an idea of something that you got you have done, or your team has done that has significantly positively impacted customer experience in the organization?
Toby Thorne: Yeah, I think something recently we've done. We've again, we've been on a massive journey in terms of Digitizing our service offerings So not just sort of customer facing digital tools, like web chat and the work with our apps and our websites and those sorts of things. Also internally, you know, we're building a better digital infrastructure internally. So we've got that solid foundation in terms of it and tech and systems to build from, as we grow, which we're, which we know we're already doing, and we'll continue to through all of those systems, we get data, right. And data is king and. Even in the last 12 months, we just had this huge amount of data that we've never had before as a business. What we've done recently is start to bring all of that together with a sort of customer lens. So what data is relevant to the customer experience all of the customer touch points, you know, why do customers contact us? Is it something that we can proactively work into our strategy and our tactical plans to try and avoid the need for customers to have to reach us and things that we can look to automate or simplify. So I guess building all of that data together into one sort of voice of the customer, because I think as a customer facing team, one of your main roles is to be that voice of the customer, because not all departments in your business are going to have that same level of focus on what the customer's feedback is, what they want needs for the future and that sort of stuff. So, you know, we've put a lot of work into building the right reporting, analyzing the data in the right way to create insights for the rest of the business to say, look, this is really important. To our customers and therefore it's important to us. So, I think that's probably one of the best steps we've taken recently is understanding all of the different data streams that we've got coming to the business and using that in the right way with the right people to deliver those insights
Phil Dillard: And a lot of times people get the data and they get the insights. But they have some challenges in getting the. The people, some of their colleagues or their partners to to understand it or to use it. Do you find, how are you getting the information and the insights to be actionable and helpful to other parts of the business?
Toby Thorne: I think you've got to understand what you're talking about to begin with, you know, you're right. Just delivering statistics and graphs and numbers to people. Isn't going to tell the whole story. You need to think about who your audience is, why, what are you trying to get from it? And again, it's through a customer lens. You know, the ultimate goal is we want to make charging for customers as effortless, as seamless and as easy as, and as quick as possible that's really the goal. But we can't do that on our own. We have to, you know, lean on our colleagues in sales and in production and in R&D and all these other places. And, you know, just shoving numbers under peoples noses. Isn't going to do a lot. We have to think who's the audience, you know, what angle are we going to come to them from to make it relevant and to make it interesting and exciting for them to get their buy-in because the only way you're going to make, you know, sustainable and relevant changes by bringing everyone on that journey with you. So it's of a mix of. having that Packaged in the right way for the right audience. And then using your powers of persuasion to bring people on that journey with you.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, sure. And that makes makes a really good a really good point about how you. get How you how you achieve that, right? How do you make the charging as effortless as possible? And has that led to something about to understanding more about different reasons why people decide to switch to EVs or decide not to switch to EVs?
Toby Thorne: I think so. I know we touched on it earlier. Some of the nervousness about making the switch, you know, I think the perception from a lot of drivers in the UK is that charging would be more inconvenient than filling your car up with fuel and maybe they're right. And, you know, we are in a journey. Yeah. I think our responsibility is to like, like you said, make sure that the infrastructure is as reliable and it's accessible and available to everyone. So we're not excluding anyone. And the way we do that is, is again, back to data, we need to use the data that we're amassing within the business and understanding that to, to make that happen. So why do customers call us, you know, what are they unhappy about? Why do they complain? No technical data. Are there firmware updates that we need to implement to stop customers needing to contact us about this? Or, you know, all of these sorts of considerations to continuously improve our service offering and make customers lives easier.
Phil Dillard: Right. And I also speculating that there are times when you're talking with other departments in other departments or leaders in the organization who had some assumptions about why people chose to, to EV or to not EV And what that means for the, before the business. And that the that in the growth environment, some of the data or insights that you're providing help sway help sway those folks in it. And I'm, I'm curious, like, is it how far it goes, does it go to distribution of petrol based products or selection of new stations or or is it. I guess the better question is that where you are now in that interaction with other parts, or is it the vision that you have for CX for your company? Can you talk a little bit about the difference between where you are and maybe where you want to go in that regard?
Toby Thorne: Yeah, I think, you know, our vision from a customer standpoint, we want to be renowned for providing best in class service for exceptional people. And I think that the key thing there is. people you we need to have the right culture. You talked about it earlier, colleague satisfaction, as well as customer satisfaction is really important. You know, if you've got the right culture, you've got people that really love their jobs and love to come to work and love the people they work with and, you know, the vision of the company then that is gonna, that's gonna come through when you're managing customers and, you know, interacting with them. So I think that's really key. There's a long way to go. You know, this is still a, an arguably an emerging market. I don't think we've quite reached that mass adoption stage of electric vehicles in the UK. So there's still a lot of teething issues. There's obstacles to overcome, but, you know, w we're tackling those as, as quickly as we can. There's new charging infrastructure coming out, you know, every month at the moment, we're starting to look at, you know, 300, 350 kilowatt chargers which is just. you know Huge potential for making that journey easier for customers. And it's yeah, it's a very exciting time to be involved.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, for sure. You know, it makes me wonder how then do you know. I think you would describe how, what a good employee experience looks like a vision of a company where you know, you have these exceptional people who are connecting with each other who are sharing information and learning and rapidly growing in with a rapidly changing environment. And if that's what a good colleague or employee experience looks like, what does a good customer experience look like? And how do folks then how are folks communicating? I mean, there are assumptions that there is there's and by that, I mean, the differences between maybe inbound and outbound or The things that people offer versus the things that you asked for, are you using standard approaches to customer experience that some might use across industries? Or do you feel like it's really new and that you're using some new tools for capturing feedback on experience? Partly because of the digitization or partly because of the type of interaction that somebody has with EV owner
Toby Thorne: I think, you know, like I mentioned earlier we've been on a very, we've been on a fast journey in terms of digitizing the business through. Again, our customer facing digital tools through apps and websites, but also our internal systems. You know, it was a very different landscape, even 18 months ago. You know, a lot of the key systems you'd expect to see in a business weren't there. And we've been bringing those in at pace. And seeing a lot of value from that. I think, you know, if we're talking about sort of bleeding edge tools, which are. you know Ahead of the rest of the market. There's probably other businesses and other markets that are a lot further along that digitization journey than we are. So, I don't think there's anything particularly, you know, cutting edge in terms of systems or anything like that, that we're using at the moment. But, you know, we are making sure that we're getting the right tech in the right places for our colleagues and our customers. So, you know, using Salesforce as our CRM platform, Amazon connect as our telephony platform, making sure You know, these things are modular. They can be easily integrated with other systems they're cloud-based. So we can use them anywhere is really important. And, you know, again, the whole point of that is being able to manage customers as efficiently and as quickly as possible and having that tracking but also having that data after those interactions and being able to use that, to create those insights that we talked about earlier.
Phil Dillard: You know, that, that leads me to another thought about comparing the experience before from the petroleum internal combustion engine to the EV if you didn't have the, if no one had the digital data before, right. If this is new data how do we have an idea about what the expectations, how the expectations are different from one to the other. And I'm trying to get at something a little different than the range The range, anxiety that we talked about before, but what really is convenience or what really is the experience that people are having? Are you seeing any indications of how that is, how that relationship has actually might actually be different than it had been in the past.
Toby Thorne: Yeah, I think in general, consumers expectations are a lot higher. You know, social media has massively changed how consumers interact with businesses. E-commerce you know, the competitiveness of, or the competitiveness is that's driven through public forums like Facebook and Twitter. And, you know, it's a lot more open. Those experiences, consumer experiences are a lot more interchangeable and shareable and viewable. So I think through that, you know, it drives competition in all industries because everyone's now very public. So you need to be the best and you can't, you know, the only way to be the best is to have the best services, the best products, the best aftercare, the best, you know, the best customer experience really. And I think what's that what that has driven is high expectation because everyone is now so competitive. The expectation is everything should be perfect every time. And this is what we see, which I think is quite different. Maybe to 20 years ago, 20 years ago something went wrong. It wouldn't be the end of the world because you wouldn't be seeing thousands of other people having the same problem as you on Facebook. So you think, oh, it's okay. It's a, one-off, you know, we'll let them off whereas now you know, the expectation is everything should work Every time, and that's not necessarily the wrong expectation to have, but it is challenging to keep up with that expectation when you're you know, you're running a massive network with lots of moving parts and lots of mechanical components, and that sort of thing so yeah, I think that's probably the biggest change I would say is in, in consumer behavior.
Phil Dillard: Yeah. And that sounds like something that could be really tricky, right. Because you're serving. a broad Set of consumers who have different needs and expectations, but their expectation needs to be met, needs to be met every time. Because if it's not one bad instance could have. Serious negative repercussions for the brand. So you have a very critical space that you're holding for the brand reputation, for the brand experience. And if I'm hearing you, right, I think you, you want people to say, I'm going to go. Drive an extra couple of blocks or an extra couple of miles to use the BP pulse service, because I know it's going to deliver over, over someone else who may not deliver to the level of expectation that I've got and it's, it sounds like a difficult. Oh, difficult segmentation exercise, because you have a rapidly changing consumer. You have rapidly changing technology and you have to be on top of all that. Does that then lead you to be almost sounds like it would lead you to be driving the organization to be ever more nimble and that you need more and more gosh, you need more and more skills. You need more and more partners. You need more, you need to be a bigger part of the business as it as It really grows. Are you seeing that in terms of Growth at the building or growth in your, or your organizational connections or, I mean, how are you seeing that? The evidence of the significance of that growing with the business itself? I guess what I'm getting at is customer experience in this, in, in this environment is increasingly important and thus becomes a bigger part. Not only just of the BP pulse the BP pulse mandate, but of the brand and of the organization itself. And I'm curious if you see if you could share like how you see ripple effects of the significance of the charging experience to the brand in other parts of the organization.
Toby Thorne: Yeah, so, I mean, you know, like I mentioned earlier, businesses like ours, you know, that, that weren't around 30 years ago are now becoming more and more important, you know, it's and not just BP or energy companies, you know, sustainable renewable energy is going to be. You know, the only energy at one point in time. So on that journey, we're going to become more and more prevalent and more and more key to, you know, these big, previously oil and gas companies reaching their net zero goals and their sustainability goals. So, you know, what we do will really affect the brand image of the wider BP organization as we become bigger. And as we become more well known and more public. so you know, that's a really key consideration to take and we don't, you know, underestimate the importance of that and make sure that, you know, we always act with integrity with customers at the heart of everything we do, because, you know, again, going back to things like social media and public perception of a business is incredibly important. And when you're tied you know, we are now a BP business. We understand that has far reaching implications, not just to our own business, but all BP businesses across the globe
Phil Dillard: Sure. And was there any sort of substantive move in the organizational structure in the company or the leadership of the company that gave EV EV the EV business a bigger seat at the table in a, as it's going to be a bigger and bigger part of the future of the company.
Toby Thorne: Probably a question for, well, above my pay grade, but you know, all I can say is we are becoming bigger. We're becoming, you know, a much more important part of BP's future strategy, I think as are all of the sustainable businesses within, under the BP umbrella. So I'm sure there would have been lots of moves and changes to, to accommodate for that and move away from older ways of working in certain to new. So, yeah. Yeah, probably ultimately questions above my pay grade, I think, but yeah, definitely becoming more and more.
Phil Dillard: Sure. Yeah, no worries. You never know when sometimes a merger integration is something that, that that makes is intended to make a subtle shift, but then ends up making a big one. And sometimes at senior levels, people realize it and it's it shifts power significantly. But I appreciate your feedback on that. Last question, before we go into the lightning round, cause we only have a few minutes left and we want to be respectful of your time. Is there a trend or technology that you think will be most important to the future of customer experience in this business?
Toby Thorne: Yeah, I think automation and then, you know, there's loads of that's quite a broad topic automation, but I think from, you know, anything that a customer interacts with, you know, that we want to look at that. I call it the sort of high value sorry, high volume, low value interactions. We want to automate those where possible, because we don't want to have a customer to whip their phone out and phone a number or go onto a website or write an email to get assistance with something we want to again, use data to recognize those areas and automate them where possible. And there's such a, you know, again the automation industry in digital technologies is incredible to keep up with there's so many ways to do that through chat bots. Through, you know, even our own equipment, understanding if there is a fault with it flagging that up automatically which we do already, but you know, further improving that. So, you know, we can get ahead of problems that might affect our customers before they find them before they need to tell us about them. So I think, you know, using automation, using artificial intelligence to understand our our our you know, our products and our network. But also using customer facing tools like web chat and automation and bots to answer simple questions, fix things on their accounts, whatever it might be because there's loads of different things. But I think taking full advantage of what's available out there is probably the biggest thing because all of that will lead to customers, having a slicker faster, more efficient experience. And you know, that will in itself create a more positive view of our business
Phil Dillard: Yeah, that sounds great. Right. Getting ahead of customer problems before they find them. So you can have a slicker, frictionless experience. That's super, that's a super way to close out that section. So, I'll move on to the lightning round three questions that we ask of every guest who comes with us and just want to have a little fun with it, but also get the little, know a little more about you before we before we wrap up. So the first question is as a customer can you share an example of one of your favorite experiences?
Toby Thorne: Yeah. So one that's to be honest, this was fairly recently as well. And I'll explain the background of it. You know, throughout lockdown, a lot of people got quite bored. I decided I was going to do my garden because my garden was a mess. It was. Depressing to look at. So we did, we decided to do that and we wanted to get some artificial turf down, right. Because it was very difficult to get the grass going in a new build. So I found a company that was local online quite small company called Oakley landscapes. And literally from the first moment I reached out to them, every single touch point that I had was just perfect. The way they handled it was perfect. Dealt primarily through WhatsApp to a business WhatsApp account. The language used when I was talking to them. it wasn't Really corporate and businessy It was, you laughy, jokey emojis but you know, to the point and, you know, fulfilled the need in terms of communication with the business the installation was booked at a certain time. I rang them a few weeks later and said, look, we're really keen to get moving on this. And there's other parts of the project that are relying on, on this artificial turf going down, could you move it forward? And they said, yeah, no problem. moved it forward a month. Nearly before about a week before I think that the date so that we're really sorry. We're going to have to do it a week earlier because we've got a conflict with another job. But you know, in case this is inconvenient for you, we're going to upgrade the type of grass that you've brought to this luxury type grass. And I thought, hang on, you know, you're doing the job a week earlier than I expected, and I'm getting a Goodwill gesture for that. I didn't ask for anything. And it was just such a thoughtful forward-thinking thing to. do the guys on site were great, really friendly. They did an awesome job. They did it all in the day left. And you know, even though even the message afterwards to say, how did it all go? Are You happy? You know, just, I can't fault them at all. If they ask me for my feedback and what they could do better, I would, I'd be stumped. I wouldn't go to think of anything. You know, again, we talked about customer service versus customer experience. They made sure every single time they interacted with me as a customer, it was as good as it could be. And I think that's just, it will always stick in my mind as an incredible experience,
Phil Dillard: That's awesome. That sounds incredible. I'm not in the, in your market, but what'd you say the name of the company?
Toby Thorne: Oakley landscapes.
Phil Dillard: Oh, clean landscapes. Okay. Right. Great dude. Shout out for Oakley. Thanks. Yeah. Maximizing the customer experience. Sounds awesome. Okay. Question number two. If there's one thing you could change about people's perception of the role of customer experience at a company what would it be?
Toby Thorne: I guess the, as we talked about before, the fundamental differentiation between customer service and customer experience, you know, it's not the reactive Sorting out problems as, and when they're brought to you, it's about looking at, from the very first interaction with a customer through that whole journey, making sure that every single touch point in every interaction along that customer journey is as valuable as, as great as it can be. And with that, there needs to be the understanding that doesn't just sit with your customer care team or your customer frontline team. It's the responsibility of everyone in the organization to live and breathe customer and understand the importance of, of. having Customers at the heart of everything you do. I'm not going to say anything cliche, like without customers, you don't have a business, but I think sometimes the expectation is that your customer facing teams and this isn't, you know, BP pulse it's lots of organizations I've worked for in the past. The expectation is your customer facing team will take care of the customer. Your job is You know, sales, production, marketing, whatever. I think there needs to be that understanding that everyone has a, has an input into that. Because customer experiences, like I said, it's, there's lots of touch points throughout the whole journey. Pre-sale and after sale
Phil Dillard: Yeah. Yeah. That's a common Theme or message that people have to say. And it's a tall order for organizations to deliver last but not least for our listeners, what lesson would you want them to take away from your experience as a CX leader
Toby Thorne: Because customer experience, like we said, it's not just all within your control. There's, you know, you have to get that buy in from every part of the organization. And you could easily get frustrated sometimes when you recognize something that could be improved to improve the experience for your customers, but ultimately you don't have control over that. So I think. It's Lessons learned would be focus on what you do have influence over and what you do have control over whether that's delivering insights and delivering rationale and recommendations to the rest of the business to improve something. But understanding, you know, do that to the best of your ability. But after that point, it's out of your control. So really spend your time focusing on the things that you can control it and you can improve. And you'll be a lot less stressed, a lot happier.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, that's great. Those are great words of wisdom, right? Cause you cannot, you can only control so much but you may be able to influence more. And you can't, but you can't worry about everything that you can't, that you can't influence or that you can't you can't control. So, Well, thanks so much Toby for your for your time and for the conversation. It was really great speaking with you.
Toby Thorne: No absolute pleasure, Phil. Thank you. Thanks for your time.
Phil Dillard: Yup. And thanks everybody, everyone for joining us again on another episode of the customer experience show, and we'll see you next time.
We hear often that customer experience is the responsibility of everyone at the company. But what Toby says that stands out most, is that you can only control your part of that experience. When each person does their part exceptionally well, the customer feels the difference across their entire experience.