This episode features an interview with Scott Finlow, CMO for the PepsiCo Foodservice Division. In this episode, Scott talks about creating centers of excellence within a large company, operating with a digital-first mindset, and catering to experiential consumers.
This episode features an interview with Scott Finlow, CMO for the PepsiCo Foodservice Division. In this episode, Scott talks about creating centers of excellence within a large company, operating with a digital-first mindset, and catering to experiential consumers.
Quotes
*”What’s important is to build a comprehensive and dynamic understanding of people, not just as consumers, nor just as shoppers, but in a more holistic way. To understand them as people, what their motivations are, what their behaviors are, not just in a moment, but over the course of a day or a week or a lifetime. And that becomes a more important way to understand people as you seek to build brands authentically and genuinely to help meet their needs, whether it's an individual brand or a portfolio of brands. That's different in different markets and in different contexts. And it's an incredibly dynamic space now more than ever.”
*”You may go to Starbucks in the morning. You may be at 7 Eleven. You may be ordering from from B-Dubs for lunch. You're living in an omni-channel world today. The construct of retail to some degree in food service doesn't really present itself clearly to a consumer or to people. And that's increasingly what we need to contextualize and understand when we do our work, when we understand people, when we build our brands, when we build the experiences. We want to create. ”
*”Retail is looking to create a more experiential environment. And I think the world that you live in in terms of being focused on customer experience and guest experience is incredibly relevant across both. And everyone needs to work hard to understand that guest, and or consumer, and create a better experience for them. What's important is understanding what the nature of a better experience is, right? And there are probably some common underpinnings. Things like convenience, things like depending on the context, something that's maybe unique and special, certainly relevant, is going to be incredibly important. Value is always a constant at a high level and is also dynamic, and very much unique and dynamic across the different contexts as well.”
“In every role I've ever had, CX has been at the root of it. One thing that I think is really important is for everyone in the company to think that way about it no matter what your role is, whether you're in sales or finance. How are you just thinking about the consumer, the user, the customer, and how you build a better brand experience and a better business as part of that? That should be at the heart of every CPG organization. That's for sure.”
“Act like an owner. No matter where you are in the business, be an owner of the brands. Be an owner as it relates to understanding your customers, helping your customers and supporting that business. Don't don't have it be someone else's job. Make it your job. Make it everyone on your team's job to think about that experience and organize at least a part of your work and your mindset to be hyper-conscious about how you can make that a better experience.”
Time Stamps
*[3:36] Making sense of consumer insights
*[9:30] Building a unique brand experience in foodservice
*[12:20] Creating the experiential environment
*[14:12] Understanding the consumer across silos
*[17:13] Taking ownership of your CX
*[18:38] Future-proofing by shaping your brand in context
*[21:09] Adapting CX to COVID
*[23:39] Driving innovation at PepsiCo through IT
*[28:46] The future of PepsiCo and sustainability initiatives
*[33:09] Advice for CX leaders
Bio
Scott Finlow is the Chief Marketing Officer for the PepsiCo Foodservice Division. Scott and his team are responsible for translating deep consumer and customer insights into innovation and experiences that accelerate growth, build brands with purpose and transform the business for the future. Scott has been with PepsiCo for 25 years in a variety of Marketing roles in the US and Asia.
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Check out the PepsiCo Foodservice Digital Labs
Scott Finlow: Act like an owner. Uh, one of our behaviors, I mentioned it earlier and I think, don't don't have it be someone else's job. Make it your job. Make it everyone on your team's job to think about that experience and organize at least a part of your work and your mindset, um, to be hyper-conscious about how you can make that a better experience.
Producer: Hello and welcome to The Customer Experience Show! Today we’re talking with Scott Finlow, the Chief Marketing Officer for the PepsiCo Foodservice Division. Scott has been with PepsiCo for 25 years serving in a variety of Marketing roles in the US and Asia. Scott and his team are responsible for translating deep consumer and customer insights into innovation and experiences that accelerate growth, build brands with purpose and transform the business for the future.
In this episode, Scott talks about creating centers of excellence in a large company, operating with a digital-first mindset, and catering to experiential consumers.
Host: Have you ever felt that your customer experience was getting a little stale? It can happen fast. But there are ways to stay relevant, there are ways to increase your sustainability, and there’s no better time to start than now. Today we’re talking about refreshing your customer experience with Scott Finlow. He’s CMO for the PepsiCo Foodservice Division. And He knows
how a digital-first mindset can make your CX pop.
Phil Dillard: Hello everyone, and welcome again to another episode of The Customer Experience Show. I'm Phil Dillard, your host, here today with Scott Finlow, Chief Marketing Officer for the PepsiCo Food Service Division. How are you today, Scott?
Scott Finlow: I'm doing great, Phil. How you doin?
Phil Dillard: I'm doing doing pretty well. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, just getting started here our first episode of 2022. So super excited to have you with us. I was reading your bio and the background you know, everybody on the planet knows who PepsiCo is, but they probably don't know a lot about the different divisions, especially the $5 billion food service division. You've been with PepsiCo for over 22 years. Can you tell us a little bit about how your role has evolved since your early days at the company?
Scott Finlow: Yeah, I won't take it personally if everyone doesn't know about my background in addition to PepsiCo. So I'll spend a minute on that. Yeah. A number of years with the company in a variety of different roles they've been both marketing roles as well as insights roles, and I've had the fortune to work in the North America business, as well as our Asia Pacific business. I went over to Asia Pac to lead our beverage business in Japan and create a marketing on our beverage business, then all our foods marketing across our Asia Pacific markets. Been back in the U S for the last 13 years, doing a variety of insights shopper insights, as well as marketing roles. And I've been in the food service business for about six years and in the marketing leadership role for the last three.
Phil Dillard: Can you talk a little bit about the difference or what's unique about the insights business and the sort of things you see in an international role versus a domestic one?
Scott Finlow: Sure. You know, insights is a fascinating part of the business to work in. And I think whether you're a marketer or really anywhere in a business like PepsiCo or in CPG in general, I think what insights you know, does is provides a perspective and a deep understanding on the consumer or the shopper, as we like to say, people more broadly. And, you know, increasingly I think that's incredibly important for all of us in business or in marketing and certainly you know, underpins anything as it relates to customer experience or user experience. You know, as it relates to the way insights works across markets, I think you know, the approach is pretty similar. I think what you know, what's interesting about it is how unique in many ways the consumer is, sometimes our operators are, the operating landscape. You know, local norms, behaviors you know, customs there, you know, Japan is different from Korea and nevermind from the U S or the Philippines.
Phil Dillard: Sure, absolutely spend a little time in all of those countries, right? Beyond the obvious, there are cultural differences. There consumption differences in behavior patterns and that sort of thing that probably teach you a lot about how to tease out nuances of insights and make sense of them in really interesting ways, which is probably helpful in the current role. I understand that internally, you talk about the difference between a customer or an operator and the consumer. Does insights look at both of those groups, in doing analytics around both of those groups? Or is it focused more on more on one versus the other?
Scott Finlow: You know, it's really got to be both. There are groups across the organization that may focus on one versus the other. You know, certainly it's a big company. But you know, if I look at our overall insights organization, it encompasses consumer insights and shopper insights and, you know, in data analytics and data scientists, I think at this point what's important is to build a comprehensive and dynamic understanding of people, not just as consumers, nor just as shoppers, but in a more holistic way to understand them as people what their motivations are. You know, broadly what their behaviors are, not just in a moment, but over the course of a day or a week or a lifetime. And you know, that becomes a more important way to understand people as Seek to build brands authentically and genuinely to help meet their needs whether it's individual brand or a portfolio of brands. And to your point, that's different in different markets and in different contexts. And it's an incredibly dynamic space now I would argue more than ever. It's never been a more interesting time to be in insights or analytics nor uh, marketer because of the dynamism of the world we're all living in as well as working in.
Phil Dillard: Sure. I I would even I would even argue in CPG and food and beverage and that sort of thing. I'd read just the other day about a company marketing water, having an insane evaluation for for a new company, when there seems like it's really a crowded marketplace, but consumers, people, are relating to brands in certain ways, and there's a lot of opportunity to create value. So, can we extend this a little bit and talk a little bit about then your current role and responsibilities and where you play in this mix?
Scott Finlow: Yeah. So as the marketing lead in food service, the food service business, the way to think about it for your audience is, you know, food service is where people eat, oh, or dine it's where they, it's where they play. It's where they travel. It's often where they work or go to school. So, you know, those are customers like Marriott or Regal or Caesar's and MGM or Buffalo Wild Wings and Applebee's or Taco Bell. You know, those are the types of customers and contexts that the food service business really is responsible for.
Phil Dillard: And is it, how is it like fundamentally different than the other departments of the company?
Scott Finlow: Well, it's definitely part of PepsiCo. And in some ways it is you very much a kind of a business within a business at PepsiCo when you talked about the size of it earlier. In terms of some of the organizations that, you know, I would compare it to, you have some organizations that are more focused on what we call our retail customers, whether it's Walmart and 7 Eleven and Dollar General or Target. Whereas our focus is on on these customers, these food service customers I've talked about.
Phil Dillard: And does it give you it seems to me that it would give your organization another layer of metrics that you're thinking about, another layer of experience, right? As a retail consumer, I might go places that I know, but I might just go to some other place. That just happens to be convenient because I'm walking down the street pop into seven 11, just as much as I would to CVS if I'm just thirsty at that moment. It's different if I'm Marriott and trying to generate an experience inside of a high-end high-end hotel or a taco bell, if I'm trying to activate something, for example that's highly related to the brand. So is that a fair assessment to say that there are the experiential or differences that you're getting after? Because a lot of the folks we speak with a lot of them are CMOs, but a lot of folks come from either in an operational or a data background, or they come from a marketing and a branding background and it kind of taints the way people think about the customer experience.
But it actually seems like in this role, you might have a decent amount of both that you're considering. Can you speak to that?
Scott Finlow: Yeah, sure. I think you're hitting on something really unique and important about food service. And something that I, in my role am really responsible for both understanding. And I would say evangelizing across the PepsiCo business. The biggest part of our business runs through some of those retail customers to your point that is maybe more transactional to oversimplify. Whereas the experience you get in food service, whether it's in a Marriott or in a Taco Bell is more experiential, right. It's typically, or oftentimes more social. To your point, it often is over a much more extended period of time. And it's also often with high frequency. Whether that's an experience you're having call it on-premise or in person, or it's a delivered and more digitally driven or started experience. So I think what you're getting at is very much the unique context and experience that food service presents for people. And by the way, the people in food. All have experiences in retail. You know, this is something that you and I both recognize. We probably, Amazon comes in your door at the end of the day. You may go to Starbucks, you know, in the morning you may be at 7 Eleven. You may be ordering from from B dubs, you know, for lunch, you're living in an omni-channel world today, the construct of retail to some degree in food service doesn't really present itself clearly to a consumer or to people. And that's increasingly what we need to contextualize and understand when we when we do our work, when we understand people, when we build our brands, you know, when we build the experiences, we, you know, we want to create. But absolutely, I think the heart of your first comment is the unique experiences that you get in food service, which is so exciting about this space.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, it does sound really interesting. It sounds like an opportunity for great opportunity and value in brand creation, but also a potential for some conflict, right? If the, if retail thinks in a more transactional way, and you're thinking about an experience there, it just seems like there is a potential for fundamentally different points of view about some important things that could be confusing, not only to the consumer, but to the customer, to the operator that you're trying to actually serve. That, is that fair?
Scott Finlow: I wouldn't, I don't know that is something that is at play to a high degree. The way I would think about that. And I think what even a lot of our retail customers are very focused on is how they can create better guest experiences for, you know, for those people as well. So I'd probably look at it as retail is looking to create a more experiential environment. And I think the world that you live in with this podcast in terms of being focused on customer experience and guest experience is incredibly relevant across both. And everyone needs to work hard to understand that guest and or consumer and create a better experience for them. What's important is understanding what the nature of a better experience is. Right? And they're probably some common underpinnings, things like convenience, you know, things like, you know, depending on the context, something that's maybe unique and special, certainly relevant is going to be incredibly important. Value is always a constant at a high level and is also dynamic, and and very much unique and dynamic across the different context as well. So I think it's less attention than a common goal that we all acknowledge. We may pursue it in different ways and learn from one another as you know, as we pursue it.
Phil Dillard: Got it. That makes sense. I like what you say, less attention and more, a common goal to get that nature of a better experience. Does the organization then allow, or is it just something you do from leadership, the ability to share information, insights, cross pollinates, sort of best practices against other folks inside the organization or with other operators who are also concerned about experience? How do you share that across what appear to be from the outside potential silos?
Scott Finlow: You know, We've got different groups that you know, our global insights team spans and supports all the different functions across the business across all our different sectors around the world. So that's an example of creating centers of excellence or capabilities that, you know, that help lift and shift and build capability and share best practices. So, you know, I think that's one example of how we do it in a big organization. You can ensure that you've got horizontal learnings you know, when we do that across all kinds of different horizontals.
Phil Dillard: Okay. Sure. Super. How did you first get involved in CX? You know, the way I think about that is I've from day one, you know, that's been really at the heart of what you know, my work and my roles have been. I think it may not always have been called CX or UX, but you know, my first job at PepsiCo was, I was in a category management role in the beverage business in California. And that's fundamentally about presenting the right portfolio in context to a shopper, whether they're at Albertsons or Safeway. And you know, to my mind, that's about optimizing the experience, understanding a consumer's needs in the context of a store, not just in a store, but where you are in that store. And, and how you're moving through that store from entrance all the way to check out. And, you know, that's an ongoing capability and I think that's really all about CX in a lot of ways. It's always been a a capability that's been done together with the customer and focused on people and how they move through that environment. So I think from that starting point in every role I've ever had, you know, CX has been at the root of it. And, you know, one thing that I think is really important is in some ways, for everyone in the company to think that way about no matter what your role is, whether you're in sales or finance, what's the, you know, how are you just thinking about the consumer or the user and the customer and how you build a better brand experience and a better business, you know, as part of that? You know, that should be at the heart of every CPG organization. That's for sure.
Yeah, I would totally agree. What we've heard in practice is that sometimes that's not really the case. And that organizations somehow survive survive and, or thrive even in spite of that. But that a lot of times, especially in the environment that we're in right now such gains can be short-lived if you're not thinking about the consumer. So do you think if the, that your CX essence CX in your bones is that, you know, you, something that, that, you know, you have that drove you into certain positions that always allowed you to exude that, or is it something that's. already kind of written into the fabric of Pepsi-Co writ large?
Scott Finlow: I'd say both. You know, I think for me, it's maybe in my DNA in terms of being curious about people and curious about behavior and curious about brands and how they're built. And I think if you have that, then, you know, within that again is a CX mindset. I think at PepsiCo, if you look at the first principle behaviors of PepsiCo you know, the first one is start with the consumer. And, that is critically important, no matter what function you're in. The second one, by the way, is act like an owner. And I think that speaks to, you know, what I was suggesting a minute ago, which is no matter where you are in the business you know, be an owner of the brands, be an owner as it relates to understanding your customers and helping your customers and supporting that business.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it seems like it gives people the such guidance so that they know how to engage, they know what to do and what to think in and how to respond in certain vague and uncertain situations. Which, which sounds pretty cool. So if we shift gears a little bit and talk about the vision for PepsiCo Food Service, it it seems like you guys have come a long way, but there's obviously always things that people want to do to improve. Can you talk about your CX vision for the organization for the future?
Scott Finlow: The way I think about our CX vision is, you know, how do we best build our business and our brands in context? And that context is the context of consumers and customers and where those consumers and customers are at this moment. And it's a dynamic constantly shifting world that we have to do that. But as long as we continue to focus on building our brands in context and the business behind it, then I think that muscle and we have models underneath it to help us do that and do it with discipline and build the practice. Then I think, you know, we're going to be consistently strong and I think advantaged in the way that we work as a partner with our customers in that regard as well. We have a simple model. We call it the five E's. And we'd love alliteration at PepsiCo. It's a big organization. You've got to keep things simple. And the five E's is a really simple way for us to understand the consumer journey through whatever that context is, whether it's on an airline or through an airport or through a hotel. The first one is Entice. The second is Enter, then Engage then Enjoy or Excite and then Echo. And, you know, those are not brilliant per se, but what it is, it's each stage of the journey. And then what we do is we build insight underneath each one of those, and then try to pick either some or all of those moments and to connect with those people with our brands in a relevant way, and do it together with our customers. And. You know, as simple as that may sound, if I looked back a couple of years and I looked at the work we did as a marketing organization, we would not have consistently delivered work that reflected that. And I don't want to sit here and say that all the work we do delivers on all those five E's with excellence in every example. But what I do feel good about is that we're making progress in that regard and building that capability. So that we're more consistent, we're more effective. And our customers, I think, are are benefiting from that.
Phil Dillard: I could see that. And I love the five E's literation things that help people remember. They're always good. Does anything stand out from the five E's that's kind of recently highlighted some shifts or trends that you're paying attention to now?
Scott Finlow: Yeah. I mean, a couple of things I'd say, if you think about some of the challenges of COVID you know, if you think about, you know, the enjoy component of it you know, that's been impacted. You know, now you have concerns about safety or hygiene that impact that. So, you know, as we think about the work we do, one of the things, one example of what we've done is we've invested in a lot of our equipment in order to create a a safer experience. And also as we've done that, a more personalized experience in many cases in that moment. So we've done that through things like utilizing some of those technologies you're talking about to create contactless pouring. We've created the ability to authenticate as a user and connect to equipment so that you can create a personalized beverage experience that's tailored to your unique preferences. You know, if I think about eco, increasingly important as we talk about moving from transactional to longitudinal, you know, partnering up with customers who are trying to drive greater loyalty, obviously in a, an incredibly fragmented world as we're creating authentication you know, what we're able to do is then connect with some of these consumers and help give them a reason to come back and visit again, whether it's a piece of equipment or a customer. You know, to some degree, the answer to that question to my mind depends on what's the problem to solve that a customer has? Entices a challenge because a lot of customers are really challenged with driving traffic, right? You think about needing to get people back into, you know, fill in the blank, their restaurants, you know, their hotels, on their planes. You know, that becomes increasingly a unique problem to solve for you know, for some of our customers. So I think the short answer is it depends. Each of them can be incredibly important and there is work. And just like any marketing work to find the insight, the tension, create a great brief and try to focus the work against, you know, whatever the most relevant problem to solve is. And, you know, I think those kinds of disciplines are always critical to uphold in you know, this work and any work.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, those are really great examples to help contextualize the five E's in a current visceral way. So Are there other channels that you have as a CX team for driving innovation?
Scott Finlow: Yeah. I'd say for argument's sake, we used to spend a lot of time doing our innovation work together with our R and D organization, product innovation, package innovation. When you think about the Pepsi business and the PepsiCo business, that's what you think about. IT is increasingly important for us. And you know, think about what you know, what trend or technology has, you know, has impacted our lives that's going to be, maybe, most sustained. You talked about it earlier is what I might call digital first. So what that requires us to do whether it's our vending machines or our fountain equipment, we have to bring a really digital first mindset to the development of that equipment. And that entire experience. Most marketers, when they think about digital first, they're talking about media buys, right? And they're talking about content creation and talking about creating digitally native content that works for mobile, or maybe they're talking about TikTok. What we in food service have to think about is how do we you know, how do you have an experience between the device that's probably in your hand and the way that you're connecting to you know, a brand or a product experience in that context, right? So you're familiar with Amazon Go as a store, for example, right? We've created a cooler called PepsiCo Quick Pick, which is essentially a smaller version of that. And it leverages AI and computer vision. It allows you to essentially open a cooler, a glass front cooler door with a variety of different products in it authenticate via credit card, choose, whatever variety of products you want take those out the moment you close the door, the transaction is closed, right? What that's led to is first of all, it's 99% effective in terms of the technology, and it's driving north of 50% increases in revenue because people are finding what they want. They're having a great experience with the cooler itself. And in many cases, they're buying more than one unit, which you think about a vending experience, that's typically not easy to do. So it's a really, in some ways, simple. Execution that leverages technology, digital payments, existing capabilities that folks have on a phone or an a card, and it's creating a better experience. So we've seen great success and we're going to be, you know, really scaling that through the course of the next one to two years. And that's the kind of thing that we're doing that I might call digitally first. What it also does is, labor is a huge challenge for a lot of our customers and a lot of our businesses. That enables a unattended or more lightly attended retail environment for a customer, right? Imagine where else we'll be able to take that where we can create more lightly attended or unattended environments. We've got another test going with Kansas University and a partner of ours called Newsstand, which is the entire campus store, which we've really re-imagined, redesigned. You can order in advance, you can essentially transact unattended. There's a media component to it, different ways to engage, create loyalty and engagement with the students at K U. So that's an exciting test for us as well. And I think again, another example of how we're understanding what consumers are looking for, creating, I think new unique experiences for them that are enhancing their experiences with our brands, and as a result in most cases, leading to, call it a higher revenue moment in context, which is obviously a good thing. And one of the one of the objectives we have.
Phil Dillard: Oh, abs absolutely, right? I mean, you want to, do you want to implement these changes for the, for great experience for you know, for all of the ease, I guess you would say, right? But you also want to see the returns, right? You want to see the financial returns and the thing that says people consume are consuming, are purchasing, are more loyal, and you seem to have the knowledge of actually what sort of responses happen in a very micro way, which is pretty, pretty exciting. You also alluded to something else, which is the last thing we'll have time to talk to you before we go to the lightning round. You alluded to the ability to address some sort of sustainability initiatives, to address, you know, plastic and waste and that sort of thing. And those are increasingly things that we're hearing are that are important to consumers of all generations, but particularly younger ones like you, as you alluded to at the universities and such. Can you talk a little bit about how that comprehensive picture of increasing the experience and listening to what people have said, but also addressing sustainability has become part of your CX?
Scott Finlow: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll set a little bit of context for PepsiCo here. You know, PepsiCo is is very committed to this from Ramon, our global CEO, on down. And our mission is what we call Winning with Purpose. And the purpose component is I think increasingly important and we're looking to transform our business from end to end with that in mind. And there are a range of different commitments that we've made, where I'm proud to say we're leading the way, and actions we're beginning to take, to uphold those commitments. And a lot of those are captured under an initiative we call PepsiCo positive. So that's high level where the company is. And again, I, I say I'm proud of it because I think that's important for me and tens of thousands of other employees as well. It's also important for our customers and for our consumers. One of the things we know is that in the pandemic, sustainability actually became more important. And I think that's because people became more conscious of the world they live in and it's arguably vulnerability and they became more conscious of their own actions and choices. So that didn't, you know, diminish in importance, it increased in importance. We're also looking to innovate in in other packaging in order to create more sustainable packaging from a material point of view. You know, we've made commitments and in certainly a hundred percent recyclable and then getting to more reusable packaging. We're also looking to test reusable environments in context. Imagine, you know, going to a quick serve restaurant and having it be a a no-single-use-packaging environment. So reusable cups, there's look, there's a cost to that. And there's certainly a complexity to that. But I believe if you can create a an experience and a value through that, then that there's a way forward there together with customers. And we have a number of customers that we're working with in that regard. I'll call out Veil Properties as one of our best partners in this regard and a partner that really pushes us hard to make us better. And if you think about the experience of going to Veil you're outdoors, you're in the environment. You're in that context. They've made a commitment to be net zero by 2030 across their resorts. And as one of their primary partners, we have to get there too. So we're going to work together and that's going to build capability and learning in our own organization as to then how we can help other customers do that as well. So those are some great examples of, I think, areas we're focused on. It's early days, we got a lot more work to do, but food service is a fantastically unique environment, I think where consumers are really conscious of their behaviors, and we have the opportunity to lead the way and help change some of those behaviors.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, it it sounds great. And it also sounds like there are the complimentary nature of the desire of a customer like Veil Properties and the company, like in PepsiCo positive, that can create a a flywheel effect, right? That could probably extend to other parts of the business and the organization, and really create interesting opportunities. That sounds very exciting.
So, we'll pop into the lightning round for real quick answers questions that we ask every guest, and I'm sure you might've already heard this. So three quick questions. First one. As a consumer, what's an example of one of your favorite experiences?
Scott Finlow: I'm a big fan of Warby Parker. I'm wearing their glasses. I think they've done a really great job of reinventing the, you know, the experience through bricks and mortar and as well as creating a really integrated you know, online, offline experience for their guests of which I count myself as one.
Phil Dillard: Awesome. item number two. If there's one thing you could change about people's perception of the role of CX at a company, what would it be? Act like an owner. One of our behaviors, I mentioned it earlier and I think, don't don't have it be someone else's job. Make it your job. Make it everyone on your team's job to think about that experience and organize at least a part of your work and your mindset to be hyper-conscious about how you can make that a better experience.
Sure. Yeah, that's a great one. I might have to, I might have to borrow that, right? And I think the more people have equity in a company and the more people think that they are actually part of an owner or see themselves as part of it, might even be easier for them to do so. That should be, it should be interesting. Last question for our listeners, what one lesson would you want someone to take away from your experience as a CX leader?
Scott Finlow: I think empathy is at the heart of it. It's about understanding people. You have to literally walk that experience in their shoes and put yourself in that context and feel it. And you know, that allows you to really internalize it and then play from there.
Phil Dillard: Empathy often comes up as one of those, one of those things, right? And then I'm starting to be curious about what makes someone a great CXO or a great CX team person. Like how would you identify or screen or self-select people or select people I should say, who have the capacity for such empathy? Does anything come to mind for you? If you were to give people a tip?
Scott Finlow: Well, I think I'm not sure there's a silver bullet there. I do think that there are some people who are naturally more curious and have energy to understand other people. And, you know, that's probably a great place to start. There are experiences that you can have. We've talked about insights as being one that will help build more of a, I call it a functional muscle, and the language, I think. Behavioral economics as a discipline is I think a capability to infuse into a great CX organization. And, you know, customer empathy and understanding as well, because if you can't connect it to a customer's problems to solve business, organization, culture, et cetera, then chances are, you're going to be challenged to action it and drive commercial change because it's, the insight is one thing. The empathy is one thing. But the commercial action that going to change a behavior and create a better experience for that user and a better business for you and your customer is that's the outcome metric.
Phil Dillard: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. There's so much to it. So much to learn and so much to apply to an industry that you know, people, you see it all the time. You see it every day, but I wonder how many people really think about the level of care and thought and insight that goes into making something that's a cool experience, a really cool experience. So I appreciate you and thank you, for sharing all this with us. I learned a lot and feel like I respect, a lot of those things, and evaluate them a lot more with the lens of all the care that went into it. So, thanks so much, Scott.
Scott Finlow: Thank you, Phil, it was a pleasure.
Phil Dillard: Yeah, really great. Really great speaking with you. And that's it for now. We've got to let Scott go, but thank you all for joining us again and we'll see you next time on the next episode of The Customer Experience Show. Take care.
Host:
It always comes back to empathy. But it’s brilliant how Scott ties empathy to commercial action. Insight, empathy and commercial action are all needed to drive better business and a refreshing customer experience.