Blake Morgan  0:00  
companies do not organize themselves around the customer. They organize themselves on how to be most profitable for the next quarter. And they're not willing to make these bets make the investments be misunderstood for long periods of time, like the Amazons of the world like Netflix. And that's a shame because the companies that do it well, they are reaping all the profits and the others are getting left behind.

kevin edwards  0:26  
You are listening to the really this podcast where leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. And that was the voice of customer experience keynote speaker, Blake Morgan, who joins the show to remind you that you are in business to serve your customers. So on today's episode, Morgan breaks down three questions really this should be asking themselves and that is what would make your clients life easier and better. Do you jump out of bed excited to serve your customers and what technologies GE is out there to improve the customer experience. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, let's give it up for the real Blake Morgan. Enjoy. Or three, two and one and welcome everyone to this episode of the real leaders podcast. I'm your host Kevin Edwards. Joining us today is customer experience futurists author and top 40 female keynote speakers of realtors magazine. It's Mrs. Blair. Blake Morgan, simply thanks for being with us today.

Blake Morgan  1:36  
Hey, nice to be here. You know, this past week I had somebody called me Brooke and not gotten Blair. I think it's related to COVID and what's happening. But that's alright.

kevin edwards  1:47  
Yeah, Mind's a little fuzzy right now. I apologize for that. Blake Morgan is here and Blake you're a futurist. But before we jump into the future, we want to hear about your previous experiences. How does your story go?

Blake Morgan  2:00  
Yeah, so when I left college, I knew that I had big goals for myself and I went to New York City where all people with big goals go. And I thought I would be a big publisher working in magazine. I think I saw the movie, The Devil Wears Prada. And I soon realized that the magazine and print industry was dying. And I was recruited to work at an events company where they hired people with journalism skills, spent five years there ended up building an online community there and having my own podcast back in 2008/2009. And that's where I started focusing on this wonderful topic of customer experience. And since then, I met my super hunky husband moved to San Francisco to be with him and had some fumbled a little bit along the way worked at a couple startups it worked out worked out a fortune 100 software company b2b as customer service executive didn't love that did that for two years, realize that what did I love most? I loved writing, speaking, talking with people like you. And so I did. I started doing thought leadership full time writing for Forbes six years ago, I started to do speaking workshops, keynote speaking. And now, five years later, I have my own business. I've been speaking all over the world about the topic of customer experience. I've written two books, and I love what I do. And actually with COVID, I had a baby just three months ago. And so as a professional speaker, I thought that my business would basically shut down for almost six to eight months of the year. And with COVID, all the events were canceled, and I actually have a ton of business on the topic of digital customer experience. So I've been really busy. I'm grateful these times are really challenging. But if there's one common thread through what when I took you back to New York City, and I learned how to be tough up to today, living in San Francisco Bay area with my family dealing with what's happening here, which are terrible fires all around us. These are hard times, but I tap into my resilience resource and things are good for us. And we're grateful even though times right now, they're a little tricky and complicated.

kevin edwards  4:32  
Well, congratulations on the newborns. I know you run a podcast as well as its Jacob, your husband.

Blake Morgan  4:39  
I have two podcasts, actually. Yes, I have a podcast called The Be Your Own Boss Podcast. And that's what Jacob Morgan and Jacob and we actually met at a conference and how many years ago now in 2010, so 10 years ago, and we he works for himself. He's a speaker too, and actually what happened I was I was working in corporate America, and I was miserable. And I saw this guy doing so well speaking all over the world, charging good money. And I thought, Gosh, having a front row ticket to that experience of his career, I thought I want to do that too. And I'm really an introvert. So speaking was a bit of a leap for me. But eventually it got easier and easier. And now I'm doing the same as him. And we're collaborating on this awesome new project called the beer on boss podcast, and head over to BYOB podcast.com. To learn more.

kevin edwards  5:33  
That's right, folks. Now, where have where the speaking tours taking? Yeah. Give us some insights to kind of how you prepare for something like this and maybe the message to some of your audiences.

Blake Morgan  5:47  
So the message is always that if we treat people well, if we make people's lives easier and better, they'll come back. And from a business perspective, it seems like a really simple message, but most businesses don't get it. They don't do customer experience well. And so what I do is I bring a really human message to business audiences all over the world. Simply if we make people's lives easier and better, if we reduce stress, if we build and curate experiences for other people that we personally would want to have, we will always have a customer. And I've been everywhere from Melbourne a few times to Sydney to I was in Norway in January, February of this year, when people were just starting to wear masks on airplanes and pregnant so that was interesting. I've been all over the US. And it's it's really an interesting time I keep telling my husband I don't think that the event industry will go back to the way it was for maybe even up to five years. But when we do meet in person, it will be ultra special. But I think that the virtual event industry, like podcasts, videos, webinars, this is growing by leaps and bounds and I think it's a good thing I think this is the silver lining in COVID is that we're making it easier for people to get access to information, knowledge, thought leadership, without traveling without flying. It's actually better for the environment. If we don't post these huge conferences, that creates so much trash and flying. Obviously, it's not great for the environment. So there's some good, good things coming out of what can be seen as a really difficult situation with COVID.

kevin edwards  7:29  
Absolutely. Now, Blake, let's stick to digital customer experience for those listening to this for the first time. What does that mean to you? What is the difference between a digital customer experience and customer support? tell our audience what you have found throughout your years of research.

Blake Morgan  7:46  
Yeah, so customer experience is simply how we make people feel when we engage with the customer and the digital customer today, she's getting these seamless, zero friction customer experiences from her iPhone, from Spotify from Netflix from Apple products, as I mentioned from Amazon, and then she interacts with her insurance provider, DMV, healthcare, and she's getting a really disjointed, unpleasant customer experience. So you know, in your own life everybody listening to this podcast may be watching from your computer at home. There's a real variety of customer experiences from absolutely terrible to so seamless and wonderful that we want to come back. And so the goal of what I do is to teach companies how to be customer centric over being product centric. So what does that mean? That means that most companies run their business according to what would make their own business more profitable. What would make their own legacy operation run more smoothly? They're not thinking well, how can we go the extra mile for the customer. They are product centric, focusing on themselves over Being customer centric. And I saw this firsthand when I worked at a fortune 100 company, we literally had our own secret language that we use to talk about our products and services. If a customer came and sat in on our meetings, their eyes would cross because anyone outside of the company wouldn't have any idea what we were talking about. So it's really a simple message. It's how do we meet the customer where they are and right now, where is that that's on their phone? That's their digital, and we're still making experiences so difficult for customers, making them come into stores. Even when you get takeout now, they still have you sign a receipt with a pen who wants to touch a pen in the age of COVID. When you get your takeout? It's it's the little things that add up to the totality of a company's customer experience.

kevin edwards  9:48  
So what are the companies are you working with and could you provide our audience with an example of how, or a successful example of how a company has integrated some type of digital experience?

Blake Morgan  10:01  
The best example you won't be surprised, but it's Amazon. I have been studying this stuff for over 12 years. And I had the chance to go up to Amazon a little while ago. And when I went there with Jacob, my husband, I thought that I would see a magic show that I would find bunnies being pulled out of hats. Because what where they were as a company, from a customer experience perspective was so far ahead of everybody else. So I flew up to Seattle, and I peek behind the curtain of this magic show, but I was really disappointed. Because I didn't find any magic show. There were no bunnies being pulled out of hats no magicians. I simply found an extremely customer focused company, no matter who I met, no matter who I met with, whether it was a manager in the shipping department or even met the head of logistics, who goes on 2am drives with his truck delivery people to see how he can create operational efficiencies in the process for employees, no matter who I met met with. Everyone had one focus and that was to make the customers life easier and better.

This is very rare for a company where being customer focused is simply in the culture of the company. It's in the fabric. And when I sat in meetings with senior executives at Amazon, we have the chance to do this. I asked that her head of service I said, Hey, who's in charge of customer experience here like often accompanies you'll have a chief experience officer or chief customer officer. Amazon doesn't even have a chief marketing officer. The experience speaks for itself. Everyone at the company owns customer experience, and they have made the experience so beautiful that you often don't need to call the contact center, that their DIY service is so good. That saves them millions, probably billions of dollars in costs and My belief is that you should never, ever, under any circumstances have to call a company unless you want to. And they really understand that and they've taken it to such an extreme level that this company has put a stake in the ground on customer experience. And they've got billions of dollars in profits to prove it.

kevin edwards  12:20  
Absolutely. And I think its Bezos, right, that was says, "Let's leave a chair open for the customer at all the meetings."

Blake Morgan  12:25  
Yes. Yeah. He is a customer experience fanatic. This guy jumps out of bed in the morning, excited to serve somebody. And he'll hold executives feet to the fire, like there is a rumor of a story around the holidays, where he was sitting in a room with 30 of his executives, and he wanted to know how long it took for a customer to contact the call center. And because we all hate waiting on the phone for customer service, it's not a pleasant experience. So he asks us head of service, he says, Hey, john, how long does it take for a customer to reach An agent in a call center. And Jon's had that look on his face. Like when your boss is asking you for something you don't really know the answer, but you can't tell them that you don't know. So he says, oh, Jeff, I think it's a minute or less. Jeff says, really All right, thanks, john. Let's see, takes out his phone thousand number for one 100 customer service, puts the phone on speaker and sits it on the table. And 30 executives sit around and they wait. But one minute passes by. And that music for the call center still playing but no person. Two minutes passed by and nobody picks up the phone. Three minutes passed by and john the head of service, His face is turning a dark shade of beet red and he's perspiring, and everyone in the room is pretty uncomfortable at this point. It takes four and a half minutes for a contact center agent to pick up the phone and say hello, this is Amazon Customer Service, how can I help you? Jeff hangs up the phone. He looks furious. Not long after this meeting the head of service, john, resigns from his post. I don't think any of us are surprised by that. My question is on what planet does the richest man in the world, the most recognizable CEO in the world, care that much about customer service and the customer's experience? It's very rare. But that is the secret sauce. It's simply that commitment to customer experience.

kevin edwards  14:36  
So you're suggesting that organization that products everything that is in the company should be built around the customer experience?

Blake Morgan  14:44  
It should be built around what would make the customer's life easier and better. And companies that do that well do very well. And it's not It sounds very easy, but what does that mean today that means having gone through some type of digital transformation And the companies that have been through a digital transformation in the last five years are shouldering this COVID thing very, very well. And I did a I did a research report on seven companies that had been through a digital transformation and if the digital transformation had any financial ROI for them, so I looked at companies like Microsoft Best Buy Home Depot, Target, Nike, Hasbro, all these companies did very, very well when it came to stock price share price growth rate, Microsoft has grown in the last five years their stock has gone up 211% Home Depot and Best Buy fared very well target very, very strong numbers. Because target was if you think about it, already doing these things that lends itself to a touchless customer like curbside pickup like delivery. And now companies where it would have taken them a year to go through a digital transformation. They need to do it in a month, and they're scrambling. So it's interesting to see 2020 unfold, because we're all forced to go through a digital transformation of some kind. And some companies are doing it elegantly and others very awkwardly from remote employees to dealing with a customer that doesn't want to touch you or see you in person. So like,

kevin edwards  16:23  
do you work with these organizations? Do you have like a playbook or strategy that one can follow, or one that's listening to this that they can take from your playbook and use tomorrow to improve their digital customer experience?

Blake Morgan  16:39  
Most of what I do is speaking, and what I advise companies to do is follow my three areas of the customer of the future and actually have a course coming out on the customer of the future. Very, very shortly, launching in just a few days, and I'm happy to share that with people who are watching listening, but it's based on the book I wrote The customer of the future. And the three areas are psychological, technical and experiential. So the psychological piece of an experience framework is stuff that's invisible almost. And it's free. It's mindset. So Amazon, they jump out of bed excited to serve the customer. It's culture, because how we treat employees really has a significant impact on customer experience in our bottom line. And also Thirdly, leadership development. So how do we make training our leaders operationalizing leadership development into our company strategy? Do we do that? Well, do we simply hire people from the top companies and hope they can replicate that great work at our company? Well, it turns out that great companies don't leave it to chance. And that training and onboarding is truly a part of their leadership development strategy. So that's a psychological piece. The second piece is the technical piece. So technology isn't everything. But for today's most beloved customer experiences, technology is a big piece of it in the age of COVID. It's probably 80% of what you do is just simply the technology experience. And so in this piece, you got to have your digital transformation setup, we've got to think about how we can start using big data, analytics, AI and machine learning all these things that have become the best friends of the world's most customer centric companies talking about personalization. So how do we know our customer? Many customers today expect you to know past purchases expect you to anticipate their needs. And those are some of the big pieces of the technology strategy. So we've got the psychological piece, invisible stuff, culture, mindset, leadership development, we've got technology, digital transformation, big data, putting machine learning and AI to use to get to know the customer better. The third piece, so psychological, technical, third Piece is experiential. And in this bucket, we have areas like marketing and customer communication, and having a data and ethics mission statement. So how do we protect customers from themselves? How do we go above and beyond not just with serving a customer who expects a zero friction, customer experience, but taking care of a customer that is not reading the terms and conditions. And I've actually heard there's been more hackers and more data breaches in the age of COVID, than before, because all of us are sitting online putting information on the internet. And so we're a target. So again, these three areas are what I recommend psychological, technical and experiential. And if you do these three things, well, you got a definite leg up on customer experience.

kevin edwards  19:49  
So Blake I'll give you an example. I've got this nice Hawaiian spot just right down the street, and they do a great job. When I come in, they know me, my name is Give me

Blake Morgan  20:00  
Is it a restaurant? 

kevin edwards  20:01  
It's a restaurant. Oh yeah, it's okay. It's some of the best homestyle Hawaiian best Hawaiian food and in San Diego, okay, so I come there and you know, they'll they'll hit me with a couple things to meet with a couple emails. But I'm sold basically because I come in there and they know me by name, you know me my name, I'm probably going to come back. So there's a threshold that they reached. That got to me that said, okay, we remember Kevin's name, he's gonna come back to us. Is there a threshold in that three piece, digital customer experience formula that one has to reach where you've seen that is definitely going to get a customer to come back.

Blake Morgan  20:39  
I think knowing the customer's name is table stakes, but I'm happy that San Diego Hawaiian eatery knows your name. I mean, that the fact that you think that's special really shows how low our expectations are, when it comes to how we're treated. I mean at this point with technology and the things we have access to As a business, we can do much more than simply know your name. And so I think at a minimum, we need to know who our customer is what they bought in the past what their favorite Hawaiian. What is it like fried chicken or pokey?

kevin edwards  21:15  
Yes, a big brother combo.

Blake Morgan  21:17  
Yes. So, right so knowing your favorite food, but but this is like the table stakes is simply knowing who the customer is, what their preferences are going, taking that a step further is, well we know that he bought some fish, some raw fish, maybe he wants a nice rice with that, and, or maybe once a cold beer, because that makes sense with that product that he already bought. So it's taken a step further. We use technology in order to do this because it's very hard to scale this level of personalization. But if we can use technology to create these delicious, personalized experiences, then customers will come back because they're not getting them. Companies do not organize themselves around the customer. They organize themselves on how to be most profitable for the next quarter. And they're not willing to make these bets, make the investments be misunderstood for long periods of time, like the Amazons of the world like Netflix. And that's a shame because the companies that do it well, they are reaping all the profits and the others are getting left behind.

kevin edwards  22:25  
So what's next that you're excited about? You mentioned you throw around some automation threw out some AI? What technology sticks out to you that's out there right now, that's going to be adopted soon, that's really going to have this transformational shift.

Blake Morgan  22:42  
Yeah, I would say that AI and machine learning are already being used in exciting new ways to like, for example, Spotify, where most of us are miserable teenagers, Spotify knows your preferences and uses machine learning to dig into what your preferences are, and they'll create These Time Capsule playlists based on your age and your preferences to serve up something that's really nostalgic like for me was born in 84. So around 2000 I was 16 years old. So all what Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer, like all this music when I was 16 in the world, it was 2000 New Years you could imagine. So when I hear that music, it takes me back and I love it. And every time they release these time capsule playlists on Spotify, their acquisition and retention numbers go way up. So again, it's just applying applying this innovation to serve a customer that is hungry for a personal experience. When we think about in store retail experiences. Wow. COVID certainly turn those on their head. On the idea of the touch list customer a customer doesn't want to touch cash doesn't even want to sign for the takeout food like I mentioned. And when I went to Amazon, I did shop at their Amazon go store So now this type of automated technology is taking off all over the world. And I don't necessarily think it means that humans will be out of the equation.

I think that there's still a role for humans to make people's lives easier and better, because the truth is, according to research from Ernst and Young, in the future, customers want more human interaction, not less. And so how do we use these technologies in thoughtful ethical ways to make customers lives easier and better, without disqualifying the human element? Because I've seen all the shows, none of us want this dystopian view of the future well, where robots end up killing us. Like, there's a lot of shows like this. So I think that's not the case. But we need more thoughtful leaders and your magazine is all about strong leadership. For me, strong leadership is all about that thoughtfulness factor, knowing who our constituents are, who our customers are, and the future that we want for the planet. And we're fully in charge of that. But there are some key things we need to start doing now to ensure that we do have a good planet for our kids.

kevin edwards  25:14  
Definitely now that we're thoughtful and ethical, for me being in marketing, I don't know if it goes that well with marketing itself and data collection, predictive algorithms. We are spending more and being marketed. We don't have any free will anymore. Like we have free won't marketers are getting so good at this stuff. Is it ethical to incorporate and integrate AI and predictive technologies to get and squeeze as much money out of one customer alone?

Blake Morgan  25:46  
I don't agree. I think that marketers are not I told you I warned you I wasn't sweet. This is an example. I I don't think marketers are good at their jobs. I every day and coffee. spammed with images, messages, text calls that are not relevant for me that I just delete and block unsubscribe, subscribe to content where I don't have to even deal with ads like Hulu and Netflix pay for premium content. I don't watch ads. So I don't think they're good. I think there will work in our jobs towards certain metrics and the metrics they're holding themselves to or being held to make zero sense. For example, when you search for something on the internet, that through cookies, they follow you everywhere you go. Like if you want to buy something, after you buy it, you're going to like for example, I just bought a swimsuit. And for miraclesuit, that's what it's called. And miraclesuit followed me everywhere I went after I bought the swimsuits already bought them. Bad marketing, marketers don't listen. And so there's really a market and a need for a new era of marketing marketing innovation, where the marketer is listening is participating in a cultural discussion is engaging, not just spamming or blasting. And I've heard CMOS, like the CMO of Citi, I interviewed on my podcast, the modern customer. And she talked about today, they had a painful look in the mirror, they splashed some cold water on their face saying, Wow, like, as a brand, we did some market research and feedback, like our customers hate us. They don't feel emotionally connected with us. They say we don't listen. And so I think that again, marketers might be patting themselves on the back saying, Look, what a good job we're doing. But if you actually ask your customers, they would be they would say, Yeah, like, I hate you. Like you're not adding value. You're annoying. You're interruptive and the minute that I get the opportunity to delete you from my world, I absolutely will. And so I think that marketing is going to face a huge reckoning in the next few years where they're going to be obsolete unless they start changing the conversation.

kevin edwards  27:59  
Absolutely. I mean, I guess you do agree that is it at the coal was the question. Do you believe that marketing is ethical or unethical in that sense?

Blake Morgan  28:07  
Yeah, that's it? That's a great question. I actually don't think it matters because I think that right now, the cream rises to the top. So it doesn't matter if you're ethical or not unethical if you're not adding value out, so customers will decide and vote with their wallets. So, again, we're in this darwinistic phase where innovation wins, and ethical, unethical if you're not adding value if you're not making customers lives easier and better. And I think that's the ethical thing to do. You're out. But hopefully that answers your question in a roundabout way.

kevin edwards  28:41  
Definitely. Definitely. Well, okay, so Blake, you mentioned Citi group. They say your customers hate us. They don't like us. We lost their trust. How do you build something like that back?

Blake Morgan  28:54  
What they did was they did a whole one ad on their brand. They started paying more attention to where their money was going. They started this whole marketing program to support actually women musicians, because they found that there was a real disparity or gap in women that have a voice in music, and the industry is really run by men like most industries. And and so they started investing huge dollars backing artists that no one had heard of, and giving a voice to the voiceless. And so really investing in good causes. I know you came out, you found me You put me on your women's list. So clearly, like you guys are looking into this topic. Well, women are underrepresented across the board. So how can we give them a platform? So city actually did that? They said, well, there's clearly a need to do that. We have money, we're a bank. These women are suffering because they're not being given the microphone or the opportunity or the stage. And so it's about, again, being ethical and thinking how are we serving The community and if they really started doing that serving the community,

kevin edwards  30:05  
how is gender balance playing a role in marketing nowadays and customer experience? Your quote, you know, most executives are males, male dominant boards, male dominant marketers, what is something like bringing a female's perspective do for the company and their customers as a whole?

Blake Morgan  30:25  
Yeah, I would say that the research shows in my book, I highlight this that women are prone to empathy. I mean, we bear children. I had a baby three months ago, there's nothing that makes you more empathetic then raising little babies. And I mean, not all women choose to have children. But I do think women not to gender this to death, but are in a unique position to have empathy and what is empathy. It's listening. It's understanding how the other person feels. Well, that's customer experience. In a nutshell, it's like how does the person on the receiving end feel and if I know how they feel, what is What experience can i craft or build, considering how they feel. And so I think women are uniquely positioned to do well, in customer experience, customer service jobs you can actually do from home. So I think the industry will start to see a shift as moms, especially in California, I read recently a CNN article are quitting their jobs because kids are not in school kids are doing zoom school, all my neighbors and their friends, my friends are launching their kids on zoom courses this week for their schools and like pulling their hair out. It's a nightmare. It's really disorganized. And so again, so moms are having to think about their careers. Customer service is a great career because you can do it from home. And customer experience is a hugely growing field that's going to grow leaps and bounds, billion dollar predictions for the next two years. So I always encourage people, young people, they email me, how can I do what you do? How can I be a speaker? I think customer experience is a really interesting new endeavor. And you do, you can start by starting from the bottom I did, I actually did customer service on Twitter for Fortune 100 company. And that gives you invaluable insights into how the sausage is made, so to speak to how customer service works, and actually all that experience in the trenches, doing the grimy stuff, doing stuff nobody else wanted to do. Nobody wanted to do customer service. It's not exciting. It's not glamorous, marketing is glamorous. And that's how I got to do this job. So I feel like your willingness to get your hands dirty for mean women, they get their hands dirty. I mean, being a woman is a very tough job today, especially in age of COVID with kids at home and we're the emotional sponges so often for the family. But I encourage women to get into this field customer experience, get on the stage, start speaking start having a voice and I would say customer experience. I mean there are a lot of women in My industry like Jeanne bliss and Anette Franz and Sheila McGee Smith, a lot of people have been doing this a lot longer than me. And in fact, when I started doing this in 2008, I can remember interviewing the women that now I see on the same list as me, but they really paved the way having this voice for this topic of customer experience.

kevin edwards  33:23  
And boy, I just have a personal question, because like, I've been doing this podcast a lot, and we're all about gender balance. And recently, I've just been getting guests from a lot of connections and those happen to be male. And I look back at my list and I go, oh my gosh, my, my audiences is unbalanced. Now it's about 60, male 40 female or used to be 5545 around there. Like when you see that when you see that I have more guests, male guests like what would be your advice to me to improve that? And do you hold a grudge against Because because I don't have as many female guests on my show.

Blake Morgan  34:04  
No, I don't hold a grudge against you. In fact, I looked at my own podcast recently. And I thought, wow, like, I don't have women of color. I don't have black women on my show. I'm not sure honestly, if I've ever had an African American woman on my show, and it's upsetting, but I think if we're aware of it, we can start to change the ratio. So I mean, my husband is the same in the same boat, he realized, like, like, I often point out to him, like, wow, like, it's all white men on your website endorsing you like Jacob, that doesn't look like he is just pointing it out, and then working to fix it. And so also, like, I'm happy to get you like 10 to 20 guests, I can refer people over to you really easily. So get recommendations from people and yeah, I think it's just about awareness. I mean, none of us are perfect. Recently, I've been called out for things on the internet like, I mean, you just got to be self aware, I think and apologize when you've messed up and And try and fix it. But we're all awkwardly trying to be human trying to be empathetic right now. So I think this is a really human moment in the world that we need to just lead with empathy, where How does it feel to be the other person and try to see from their perspective,

kevin edwards  35:16  
I like that stick on this customer pressure, stakeholder pressure. For instance, United Airlines has a video of some guy refusing to get up a plane. It goes viral on Twitter, yes, causes a lot of social pressures and customers saying I don't want to fly united. How important is it to one listen to that customer, but to also like he just said, apologize and rethink a strategy to move forward. What's your advice?

Blake Morgan  35:44  
Yeah, that's a great example that guy he he got hit on the head. He was bleeding. He walked off the flight bleeding. airlines are a disaster with customer service and customer experience. And I think the right thing to do is apologize. Right away like, Hey, we messed up and that's what united got wrong like Oscar Munoz did not apologize right away. He says since left united not a surprise. But yeah, airlines are I mean, they're really being they're in trouble right now forget customer service like they don't even have customers. So it's a reckoning point for the airline industry, I would say that they are one of the most hated industries because they're all about profit. And until they change, and they stopped being all about quarterly profits, you know, it's gonna be tough for them, but it's a tough road for them now. And so they're gonna have to start to look toward innovation. And I think I got so caught up. You mentioned united, that I didn't answer your question. Tell me if I answered your question. If not, which part did I not answer?

kevin edwards  36:49  
I think you answered it great in terms of social pressures, what about how would you fix something like that? You said apologize. How do you use a digital experience for instance, the reason that had happened was because an algorithm had said you're a low budget flier, we're going to single you out and strategically do this. There are algorithm system and basically just take you off versus the first class flyers. And nothing. They said it was random. This is all throughout algorithm folks. So that's a type of digital integration that they used, what is something that they could do? Or a plan or I guess, just what's your, your feedback on something like that?

Blake Morgan  37:26  
Yeah, you know, airlines, I know people I know, I'm not I don't want to seem like a bragger. But because I'm in the press. I do know people at United, I've talked to them. I've removed them personally for experiences. And what you learn is like it's a really the airline industry. It's a tough business to run. It's very expensive to operate and fly a plane, and they make all their profits off of business class, those people are spending 1020 to 30 grand on a flight. So that's where they make their money is off the business class they're their top customers so they're not they don't care about when they say they care about coach but they don't I'm not saying unite and I'm saying most of these airlines I mean they have to make a profit I understand is we live in a capitalist world they have to make a profit. But how low Are you going to go to make the profit off of that coach customer that's already being squeezed. And we're talking about non COVID times. That doesn't fit in the seat that the internet doesn't work. They don't get snacks anymore. This airline Stewart's and stewardess are grumpy frankly, they're not happy at work, they're not treated well, and you get kicked off of flights. So they have a long way to go to rebuild. And it's tough like I understand like for a business class traveler like united does a pretty good job. They fly globally. They treat you well. The food is good, the seats are nice. They've done this pilaris really branding, and that customer is probably happy. But what are you going to do you either I think you have to own that you only cater to this business class customer or you need to get to work to talk to your customers and find out what do they hate about the coach experience? Because I'm not sure if these airlines would have a business without coach and there are other travelers that might not be that top well, traveler.

kevin edwards  39:27  
Love it. Love it. Like you mentioned example, Bezos being a great leader, someone who is customer centric, and Munoz who did not apologize for something like that and your perspective, maybe bad leadership. What does it mean to be a great leader in today's digital age?

Blake Morgan  39:47  
I think it starts with being a great listener. And most executives are not listening is hard. It can be scary. The other person might say something that frankly you don't want to hear. But from the most innovative companies in my research, that's what I come across again and again, when I met with the CTO of Sephora, who goes on listening tours, who in his first six months on the job, didn't talk hardly at all. I just listened to the the new chief customer Officer of Cisco, Rhea Martinez came from Salesforce, she talked about a listening tour. So I think that it starts with just being a really good listener. I always say this phrase, read the room, because most people don't they only care or care are capable of caring about what they can see in front of them and what is interesting for them, and increasingly, we need leaders that have empathy that listen that really care CEOs that go into the call center that want to know how the sausage is made in the factory, that spend time with customers. And that's what it takes today to be a strong leader. I think too many executives are still in the ivory towers. They don't want to get in the dirt. They don't want to go into the context center. They don't want to find out what's happening in the factory. But that is how you gain an advantage today, you can do that through even finding a chance for an operational efficiency, like the head of logistics and Amazon who goes on to and drives to figure out how can we make deliveries more efficient, because a small improvement in efficiency can actually translate into huge profits for the company. And they do that through huge improvements to the employee and the customer experience. So again, it's about listening. And it's about actually being in a factory understanding what's happening on the ground floor.

kevin edwards  41:41  
listening, being in the dirt, understanding your customers important traits of a good leader Blake, the last question to you today is What is your definition of a real leader?

Blake Morgan  41:52  
My definition of a real leader is a brave leader because bravery today is so critical. Whether you are you And just the leader in your home for your family. Showing bravery is hard. And you have to be an optimist optimist to show bravery because you believe that the world is going to get better that every day you do best with what you have. And to me bravery is such a beautiful thing that we need to instill in all people, especially women, especially young girls to give them a voice because I think that if we have a more balanced society, it's better for society. We're building a more inclusive society. So again, bravery to me, is the most beautiful trait. And everyone is capable of bravery if they just dig deep. Take a deep breath and tell themselves I can do this.

kevin edwards  42:43  
Well from firsthand experience. Blake Morgan, we appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your experience today over this year's podcast with Mike Morgan. I'm Kevin our is asking you to go out there be brave folks and always keep it real Blake. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you Good people for hanging on to this episode of the real leaders podcast with Blake Morgan. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And if you didn't know Blake hung on for another 10 to 15 minutes after this episode to answer our fans questions. If you have questions that you want to ask real leaders, make sure to go online to our website real dash leaders calm that's real hyphen leaders.com. And be sure to RSVP for one of our many upcoming events on crowdcast. Also, if you have any questions, you have any concerns, anything that you want to talk about, email us be at real deciliters calm that's b e at real dash leaders.com All right, folks, thanks for listening to this episode, and stay tuned for the next one.

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