🎤A return to the Middle East with fascinating stories “The one with #SheDrives, Chip Shortages and STUNNING Personalization” in CX Passport E56 with Hussein Dajani 🎧
🏃♀️From royal decree to #SheDrives in 39 minutes!
🤗Call it HUMAN Experience
🙋♀️#SheDrives...the car, the family, the business...
💻How the chip shortage affects CX
🍕A pizza tracker for your car order!
✨AMAZING personalization at the Ritz Carlton Abu Dhabi. Stunning! I'm floored!!!
👉Want great CX...involve your Front Line!
💭“We're not just after just a financial transaction...we're after winning the hearts and the minds of people rather than just winning a share of their pockets” - Hussein
Episode resources:
Hussein Dajanii: www.linkedin.com/in/hdajani/
Hussein’s Channel: www.youtube.com/husseinmdajani
TRANSCRIPT
Rick Denton: 0:05
You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode well talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. The opportunity to talk with guests from around the globe. The chance to learn about experiences from voices locations, cultures that aren't like mine. These are the reasons I started CX passport. And it's why I'm so excited today to return to the Middle East and talk with Hussein Dajani coming to us today from Dubai. Hussein is the general manager of digital and CX transformation for Nissan Motor Company for regions as geographically diverse as Africa, Middle East, India, Turkey, and Oceania. What a great opportunity to learn about customer experiences across the globe. In addition to his role in Nissan Hussein is a voice for customer experience across the region, serving as an advisory director with the customer Institute. He's also on the advisory board of cmo Council Middle East. And you know, along with even just that busy serving schedule, Hussein will also be on the cxpa Regional Leadership Council in 2022. a busy man indeed we are in for a treat today. Hussein, welcome to CX passport.
Hussein Dajani: 1:35
Hi, Rick, very good being here with you. Thank you for the intro.
Rick Denton: 1:39
And thank you for taking up some of your evening, right. It's the morning for me, but the evening for you. So I really appreciate you carving out some time to talk to CX passport today. But let's let's get started by just hearing more of your journey into your role today in customer experience. How did you become to be this voice of CX for Nissan but for the region as a whole?
Hussein Dajani: 1:57
Very interesting question. So Rick, it all starts with I believe somebody to work and customer experience, they got to own something called passion. It's everybody that owns that discipline, you got to be super curious. And you got to be super passionate about what you're doing. See, I started my career in advertising. So really very much working on TV commercials, radio ads, print ads, but really needed to discover very much customer insights while doing all of that. Yeah. So why working in advertising, I worked as a planner, when you're working as a planner, you got to really try to understand why would the customer choose that product versus that product? What makes them what makes them happy. And even though customer experience back then, and I'm talking about 20 years ago, I'm not that old, but it was 20 years ago. Customer Experience did not exist as a term back then. But we all were interacting with it. We were all using it. We were all you know, engaging with it. So throughout the years, as I said, I started in advertising, then I moved towards client side and working very much on the digital side of things. So I worked with Virgin Mobile, while I worked with Red Bull. Okay, Red Bull is all about customer experience, Red Bull. It's all about creating those amazing moments and experiences that want to woo you and keep you so much attached to
Rick Denton: 3:22
Boy it sure seems like the brand does that, doesn't it? Yeah, you're right.
Hussein Dajani: 3:25
Absolutely. Yeah. Following that I ventured was two other partners. And we opened a digital agency. And this is where we started venturing more and more into what back then was the buzzword, the customer experience. And, and and then it was when I joined Nissan, and funnily enough, when I joined Nissan, I was responsible to head the digital marketing and the company. Alright, three months down the line, we had a global restructure, and where HR came to me and they said, Hey, listen, you can either escape in digital marketing, or you can jump the leap and start building the customer experience department. That was a no brainer. Yeah, I'm somebody who likes to build things. And and customer experience was becoming the hot thing in the industry. And I jumped on it and did it. And when you're creating something in a multinational company on a big scale, this is a big thing. But when you are Yeah, when you are discovering the pain points of customers and turning those into positive points, this again gives you super happiness and super pleasure. I think what led me to really become the voice of customer experience in the region. And in the organization itself. I believe it was covered. Covered. Oh, yeah. So 2020 Many people call it the year of COVID. I call it the year of the customer, because this is when everything got disrupted, right, you know, customer behavior, customer attention, customer demands customer needs customer expectations, everything. And when COVID took place, this is when the spotlight became on customer experience in the organization. You know, how can you turn things around? Yeah. How can the organization start showing empathy and compassion towards existing and potential customers?
Rick Denton: 5:21
That is so true. And one of the things that I talk about a lot brought into companies to do this sort of public speaking thing. 2020, the year that not everything changed, and it talks about the fundamentals of customer experience did not change. And but I think what I like about what you're saying there is, it's actually maybe it didn't change, certain plenty change. But so many things have been amplified. Empathy was always important. But it became even more important. Having a simple way of interacting with a company was important before, but it became even more important when certain avenues of interacting with the company were completely gone. I really like what you had said at the beginning that to get into customers, there's two things that caught me already in that first question, one to get into that space, you have to have passion, right? And I think that's because so much of what we do as CX people is, is heart based and right. It's, it's there's plenty of logic, there's plenty of analytics around CX, but there's so much of it that is tied to the heart. And if you don't care about the customer, then you're probably not going to be particularly successful in that space. But then the second thing you said, and it was this idea of hey, I was doing this before it became a buzzword. And that's so true. Because if you think about it, we've they've been customers for millennia. And they've been having experiences, but it's only in the last couple decades that we've really understood it as a discipline. And those that have been doing it for a while, almost look back and go, Hey, wait, I actually was doing CX two decades ago, I just didn't call it that.
Hussein Dajani: 6:42
So absolutely. And this is why something which is very interesting, I stopped calling it customer experience. And I started calling it human experience, because at the end of the day, because when you call it customer experience, it kind of puts the human as an object rather than an actual human. Yes. When you say human experience, you will always remind everybody in the organization that we as humans are actually dealing with other humans. And this is where it's extremely important.
Rick Denton: 7:13
100% agree. Now, I'm probably not going to change my podcast name to h x passport, kind of agree with you. But CX rolls off the tongue a little bit better. Let's go into that human space, though. Because one of the things that I've seen is customer experience can dive into really impactful areas. And I saw something in your LinkedIn background, and it's hashtag she drives. Tell me about that program.
Hussein Dajani: 7:35
So that's something very dear to me. Because in the year 2017, just for you to know I lived six years in Saudi back when I was working in advertising, and the Saudi I lived in is nothing like the Saudi you witness today.
Rick Denton: 7:50
I know. Yeah. It seems like that, right? Wow.
Hussein Dajani: 7:52
Yeah. When I lived in Saudi women were not allowed to drive. So for women to go when women wanted to buy cars, they used to go to the showroom. But instead of sitting behind the steering wheel, they used to sit in the backseat and see how comfortable it is, and how easy it is to connect to the infotainment system and so on and so forth. Fast forward 2017 A many decrees came out a royal decree came out in 2017 saying that any woman living in the kingdom is not allowed to drive. Okay. And I was in. I was in Europe, when the decision came
out, it was 10: 8:34
30pm. I got an SMS from my whatsapp, sorry, message from my colleagues telling me you will not believe what happened. The royal decree came out. We jumped on a brainstorming, meeting with my colleagues and the agencies. And this is when we came up with the hashtag cheap drives. Brilliant, why we came up with this hashtag. And it came out just for you to know we communicated it on social media after 39 minutes from the Royal Decree coming out. We were all amazing yet, we appeared on CNN on BBC on every single news channel out there, Nissan and communicating she drives. And but it's very interesting. And this is where you go to the human insight why she drives she drives isn't about just that she's driving the car. If you look at all these statistics in Saudi, the woman in Saudi is driving things in her family. She's the one who's keeping everything together. So she's driving the family life. 60% of businesses in Saudi are owned by females. So she's driving think, oh, yeah, she's driving things in her society. Most of MBA students and PhD holders are females. So she's driving this. She's starting things from an education perspective. So she drives has so many meanings behind it. This is why we decided to take out that hash tag. And what was really interesting the play number of the cars in Saudi are usually they put the flag of the country. And next to it, they put, they put four numbers, and then they put three letters. So what we did is we wrote 2017. And then we wrote, G. R L. Girl.
Rick Denton: 10:25
Nice.
Hussein Dajani: 10:27
Yes.
Rick Denton: 10:28
All, right. What a program. And it amazes me that y'all were able to pivot that quickly. It did have something coming out 39 minutes after a decree it What that tells me is that, even before that you are already plugged into that human experience, already had some sense some of what you're describing there that she drives that goes well beyond just being in a vehicle and driving that vehicle, shows me that you already had that sense of empathy, you already had that understanding of the voice of the customer, and what that customer experiences in their life, and then being able to draw that into a campaign and create that overall customer experience. Brilliant!
Hussein Dajani: 11:07
Well, well, you said something interesting here, you said you drew it into a campaign. So even though this she drives started as a real timer marketing effort, she drives evolved into something bigger than this, if you go right now to the San Saudis website, you will find a section over there for she drives, we turn G drives from a campaign concept into a full customer promise from our side. And by that as we created that section on the website, the only automotive that created that, and the only market in Nissan global, because if you take a look at all automakers, they all their communication is targeted towards males, nothing is about females, we were the first ones to actually go and communicate to females, you know, offering to women who actually want to go and drive, we created a tool called Modern matchmaker, which is supported through machine learning, which will be able to help a woman identify which is the right car for her.
Rick Denton: 12:08
What I certainly hearing out of you, Hussein here is the idea of being attuned to what that customer needs, whatever that customer needs. So in this case, if it had been a generation of women who had not had the opportunity had not been granted the opportunity to drive and learn the things that others might just take for granted. Well, then let's in a supportive way, in an empathetic way, help bring them into that. And, you know, there's obviously kind of a benefit to to Nissan, right, everything we're saying sounds very good and from the heart, and it's the right thing to do as humans. But it clearly helped the business as well, because now there is an entire population that is now a potential consumer. And that consumer will migrate to a brand that honors them and migrates to a brand that understands their experience, their needs, their desires, and treating that human experience that voice of the customer in a way that brings them to the realization that oh, this brand cares about me. They care about my experience, I want to shop at that brand.
Hussein Dajani: 13:02
And what's really interesting is that when we talk about customer experience, people immediately think it's digital customer experience. When you take a look at G drive, the interesting thing about it is we had to go all the way to the nitty gritty details. And by that is when a woman walks inside the showroom, we created a section for her inside the showroom, which is tailored to where she drives. Even more interesting. We had to debate and to research whether do we put female sales consultants or we put male sales consultant who would a female be more comfortable with right and interesting, out of the insights of the surveys, we discovered that they actually would rather talk to a main sales consultant. Okay. You see, we went down all the way to the nitty gritty details.
Rick Denton: 13:50
I think what will be interesting to watch in that evolution, because everything you're saying, I guarantee there could be listeners here going No, that's wrong. What do you mean, of course, that's, but what I see here is sort of an evolution. And it'll be interesting to talk to you two years from now, five years, a decade from now. And if that same insight is the same, or if there's a journey that takes place, and that perhaps we evolved to a scenario where there is no need for the she drives section, because it is just a customer who is coming in and shopping. And I can't predict that. But it will be interesting to watch that and what I sense from you and from Nissan is the idea of but we're going to continue to listen to the customer so that we can keep evolving that direction. Let me let me take on a different tack here. And it is the chip shortage. It's coming to mind and it's it clearly has impacted customer experience from an automobile purchase perspective. I know here in the US I keep hearing all sorts of ads of please let us buy your car so that we can have a car to sale to sell. Now, I know that it's affected beyond the auto industry, but let's obviously talk about the auto industry. How does that impact your responsibility for customer experience?
Hussein Dajani: 14:58
This is super interesting. What you're just stopped on because the semiconductor issue has affected, and it's actually going to affect everything that requires a chip inside of it right? Mobile phones, TVs, fridges, everything microwave.
Rick Denton: 15:13
I even saw that the credit card industry is in exactly the production of a credit card that is chip based may be impacted by the chip shortage. I never would have thought. Right?
Hussein Dajani: 15:24
Absolutely. So when you come and think about it, a D supply of vehicles is gonna get less and less, which means that when you walk inside the showroom, you want to buy a vehicle, we're going to have to tell you that Yeah, we were able to sell it to you, but the waiting time is going to be six months. Now. Yes, exactly. You as a customer, you know, I want to buy a car six months? No way, I'm not going to be waiting for it. I'm paying for a huge sum of money. You know, I want it right now. So how do you manage that? How do you ensure that you actually don't, you don't lose that lead? You keep him interested in your brand, and you keep them enticed to wait till they actually get the car? Because at the end of the day, we're not after just a financial transaction. We're after winning the hearts and the minds of people rather than winning just the share of their pockets. And this is where it becomes
Rick Denton: 16:19
Yeah, is that I'm kind of curious. Okay, so in the US, and this is where I actually do not know, the rest of the world. But in the US there is a stereotype and it is not 100% True. But it is true in some segments, that the car dealership experience is a negative one that it is usually not about that relationship. It may be foe relationship, but it really is, once I extract the sale from you, I'm out of there. Now, I don't know if that holds true for the rest of the globe. Maybe you can kind of enlighten me there. But you're saying something different to my mind. And that is the idea of the relationship. So with the chip shortage, heightening that for you and your customers of Nissan, how have you gone about building that relationship so that it is in an authentic way? And not just this perception of the customer? Yeah, okay, they're stringing me along because they want to make sure I give them the final payment.
Hussein Dajani: 17:05
Look, the Middle East region is built very much on human relationship, okay. Really a lot on the human relationship, even though and regardless of the digital adoption, growing massively in the region. Still people like the human relationship very much. So when you call it bank, and you get the the IVR answering you your request to speak to a call center agent, you want to have that human touch. And this is where it plays a very important role. Thankfully, we have a very strong relationship between us and our dealers. And once the semiconductor issue started rising, we needed to manage that issue very well. And this is where CRM plays a very important role. How do we go about the communication with our customers, be it on emails, be it on WhatsApp, which is the new channel of communication, or be it through SMS? This is extremely important. But the other important thing is, you know, you've got new cards and you've got used cars. This is where you need to very much play the role of understanding if the need is super high for the customer. Let's start looking at our inventory. Do we have anything in the use cart that might appeal to the customer or not? So you gotta you got to come to the customer with options rather than just throw to them. The idea of it's a waiting time of six months. Yeah, we've we've developed a tool called track my car. So from the minute you book the car, or you put your interest in it, you will be able to track online, where exactly the vehicle is
Rick Denton: 18:40
Oh I like that. Yeah, yes. Now in the US . We don't do I would say that most of the customers are buying inventory off the line. Now this is pre chip shortage, just normal buy off the lot. But I've actually had once in my life extra is the last vehicle that my wife and I bought. She gets the beneficiary driving it. We bought we ordered one and it was going to be made and delivered and the like and I think that tracker would have been it was not Nissan, but I won't name the brand. But it was it that tracker would be really interesting that visibility, it comes up in so many industries in an insurance industry. Where's my claim? Where's my pizza? Right all over?
Hussein Dajani: 19:14
Why can Amazon do it and you can't do it? See, that's the thing.
Rick Denton: 19:18
I'm going to completely switch topics on here for a second because I cannot wait another moment talking to somebody from your beautiful region and not ask you about travel. You have mentioned to me before a trip to Abu Dhabi. That included a stay at the beautiful Ritz Carlton, I just want to hear about that trip. Tell me about that trip.
Hussein Dajani: 19:36
It's absolutely beautiful. See, we are living in the age of personalization. And what do we mean by that is every single organization is trying to capture your data. And many people are very reluctant about revealing their data or getting access to their data, except if they're getting something in return for that right So customers are ready to give you all their data as long as they know know what's in it for them. And this is what happened with the Ritz Carlton. I was I it was a Formula One in Abu Dhabi. No, yeah, you will. Yeah. And I went there, I was staying in the Ritz Carlton, I will mention the name because I'm very proud of that brand. As soon as I arrived there, so prior to going there, when I reserve, they asked me a set of questions. So very basic ones, but they asked me questions, and I was more than happy to give it to them. Because I was eager to see as a customer experience.
Rick Denton: 20:31
You're testing them aren't you
Hussein Dajani: 20:33
Exactly. And...
Rick Denton: 20:34
I'm guilty of doing that do too. I bet they hate customer experience people, right?
Hussein Dajani: 20:38
Oh, big time. So I reached the hotel and, and it was amazing. From the minute I arrived. Hello, they identified me through my face. So they had my image. And they Hello, Mr. Shiny, you know, I was was was waiting for me. And then they took me up to the room. And as soon as you arrive to the room, we put for you your Nespresso brand that you like. So they were able to discover which Nespresso brand I like, we know you like music. So for you that that that speaker, which has awesome sound that you get to enjoy. And this is the Wi Fi internet, you don't need to ask, because we know you'd like to be on the internet, we've arranged for you, a guy to take you in those golf carts. We know you like Instagram a lot says he's going to take you to the best stock spots in Ritz Carlton, where they're known to be Instagram spots, so that you can take pictures of them. Oh, my God, it was really amazing. Oh, Mr. Johnny, we know that you you'd like to drink water a lot to put for you extra bottles in the fridge. If you need more, please do let us know. So it was, you know, it was like one thing after other building building the anticipation more and more and more and more to an extent where you're like, wow, how did you? How did you know all of that?
Rick Denton: 22:06
So I'm curious. How did they know? So let me ask this question. How did this made you feel special? And I can tell in your eyes, I can see how you're telling it. It made you feel special? How did they balance that? Finding that information about you making you feel special? Without making it feel creepy? How did they balance it?
Hussein Dajani: 22:25
Ah, thank you very much for using the word 3d. If they had said all those things to me without me seeing them, this is where I would have felt creepy. Okay. But but but the fact that I was I saw them. So when I walked in the room, and I saw the speaker, I sold the Nespresso machine, I sold the water, all of that. And I could see how, thank God tomorrow, I don't need to call them and tell them Can you bring me an espresso? Or do you have this? So I started seeing the end result of everything that they've done. This is where all of it became became to me like this is magical. And and how did they find all of that? Is they actually they actually browse my social platforms. They did their own research about it. And after I talked to some people at Ritz Carlton, apparently they have a team that does that. That is amazing. Oh my gosh. And I kid you not that I felt the same experience as if I was in Disneyland. It was so beautiful. I didn't want to leave the hotel. And I'll tell you what made it even the cherry on the top. The last day when I was leaving, I went to the checkout. And they were asking me how it might stay. I told them it's awesome. Not only that, I asked them to thank personally, four of their employees who I knew their names because they were so great. And I told them I just loved the speaker in the room. The the audio is brilliant. So I check out I finish I go and sit with my wife waiting for my car to arrive and suddenly a guy comes to me from the hotel carrying a bag with him. And he's like Sir, we heard that you liked your music a lot inside the room. So this is a gift from us to you. It's the speaker that you enjoyed listening to. Yes!
Rick Denton: 24:19
Hussein that is amazing. What a what a phenomenal story. I am going to invite you into the first class lounge here but I kind of think the first class lounge might feel kind of downgrade for what you're experiencing there. I need to go check out this Ritz Carlton it sounds spectacular but even still join me here in the first class lounge. Let's have a little fun here. What is a dream travel location from your past?
Hussein Dajani: 24:43
Well, very interesting. I would say you're gonna laugh about it. But Cairo. I don't know if you've ever been to Cairo
Rick Denton: 24:52
I've been to Cairo I would never laugh! That's a fantastic place to go.
Hussein Dajani: 24:56
It is and the reason why it's so interesting. is so many people told me prior to my first visit there is please don't get shocked. And just take everything with a humor and keep laughing. And I'll tell you from the minute I love that till the minute I left, it's like I'm inside a scene of a comedy movie. That's not ending. You know that in Cairo, when they parked the cars, they don't put, they don't put the gear on Park. Now, I did not know that. So they keep it on neutral. And they don't bring out the hand gear the handbrake because it's congested. So everybody parks the car anywhere, and then get down from the car. And in case they close their car on yours. All you have to do is just push their car with your hands.
Rick Denton: 25:45
No, I did not know that. Can you imagine doing that in some cities in the world like London or New York and you're just putting exotic car out of the way. Oh my gosh, let's go forward. What's a dream travel vacation? You've not been to yet.
Hussein Dajani: 25:57
I'm dying to go to Iceland. I'm dying to go there. I'm a person who likes cold weather. I'm a person who wants to see the northern lights. And I'm a person who likes tough challenges. So Iceland really tough terrain. You know? Yeah, very harsh weather. I want to experience this I want to be able to experience that
Rick Denton: 26:22
there's a beauty and a grittiness to Iceland that I think is very attractive. What is now travel and food go very much hand to hand what is a favorite thing to eat?
Hussein Dajani: 26:33
I'm not into spicy food at all. Okay, I can I become very much a kind of a veggie and fruits kind of a person. So any place that has a tropical fruits, any place that has really yummy vegetables is a place that that really attracts me a lot.
Rick Denton: 26:55
Boy I have not had a guest tell me fruits and vegetables. So that's you get to be the first for that. That's awesome. It's usually you know, something unhealthy and it'll like but you are
Hussein Dajani: 27:04
that was transformation. I I'm an ex cancer survivor. And since I had the cancer, I did a 360 transition in my life. I have cut on or off fast food. I do sports I do yoga, I do gym I do wake surfing, I do tennis, I do swimming, and I do her horseback riding so I've turned into a very much a health freak
Rick Denton: 27:29
boy yeah and something as impactful as that I can imagine how that would change you in such a way Let's go the other direction what is the thing your parents forced you to eat but you hate it as a kid?
Hussein Dajani: 27:41
Oh, it's something called Pay me it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a an Arab Arab kind of food it's a veggie but it looks the the shape of the veggie looks like a bullet and I actually call it a bullet the bullet and whenever and whenever oh my god whenever my mom used to do it when I was a kid it was either I eat it or no lunch for me and I can count the days where I opted for no no lunch. I just couldn't I just couldn't the feeling of it on my tongue. just mentioning it now I still I still get that feeling.
Rick Denton: 28:17
It is amazing to me how that that question elicits such an emotional response from my guests and how they are vividly brought back to childhood and some of the tortures that they went through. Let's close out the first class lounge with a travel question that is when you're traveling what is one travel item not including your phone that you will not leave home without.
Hussein Dajani: 28:37
Okay awesome. So I have this small bag that I bought from Amazon so it's a small bag that's empty but you open it and it's a wonder inside every single cable you ever think of using since is inside of it every single memory stick his inside of it every single plug into the electricity that you need because I traveled to markets were three plug others that are two earphones are inside of it that Jack thing that you put it in the plane so that you can use your bluetooth earphones everything and I've got inside of it the world's smallest mobile phone so that when I go to markets where I just want to use a prepaid SIM card and I don't want to take it off for my mobile so I use the small mobile phone which is just basically a yes and a no and the battery lasts for two weeks. And that is something I can't I will never travel without
Rick Denton: 29:39
Hussein, I am sad by about what I'm about to say. And we are out of time I am shocked this conversation I want to continue on but there's a question that I don't want to leave so we're gonna go a little bit longer here. But I know that you're responsible for digital and CX transformation but we've talked about human heck you even said we should rename it to H CX right human CX but I know that that the pandemic has made the CX world focus on digital solutions for the last few years. And that's good. That's not a bad thing. But I fear and I've asked this a lot of guests, I fear that the pendulum swung too far. So how do you keep humanity in your approach to digital and customer experience?
Hussein Dajani: 30:17
Such a great question, because this is where when launching any solution via digital, physical or anything, you're going to make sure that that solution is not about just ticking the box and I launched that solution. Is it really adding value to customers lives or not? Is it customer centric or not? And more important is actually working. And how do you find all of that is through data, the power of data, you see, you will never be able to launch something without doing first of all, an A B test, or it could be ABC tests to really identify whether it fits with the personas that are your customers. Number two is look at the data, digest the data if it's actually working or not. And third, and which is the most important one, when launching a solution. If your employees or the front liners are not convinced of that solution, you will never be able to let customers so you got to make sure that you get the buy in of everybody in the organization into it and that's super key.
Rick Denton: 31:21
That last one speaks to my heart. And using the frontline or leveraging or involving let's use that word involving the frontline is so important to the delivery of great customer experience. And too many companies too many divisions, too many teams, just don't think about the frontline. And actually I mentioned that that talk that I do that 2021 of the key points that I mentioned is your frontline knows your customer better than you do. And it is amazing how. And so for you to say that Hussein, I think it's a great way to close out this this episode is the idea of that. If you want to keep the humanity in your customer experience, leverage use involve, realize that your frontline are the ones that know it best.
Hussein Dajani: 32:01
If we were ending, I want to end it with one question to you and to our listeners. Oh, and this question. Exactly. And that's what makes it interesting, because that question is an exercise that we that we that we do at Nissan. So we we are on a mission to transform the organization into becoming a customer centric one. Now, if I came and asked you, Rick, can you please tell me about bad experiences you've had with organizations, you can sit for 24 hours naming them one after the other? Sure, if I came and told you, Rick, can you please name for me the last best experience that you've had with an organization, you will need to think about it. And you will most probably be able just to count to three, maybe four, the last best experience. So what we do on a quarterly basis in the company is we gather the employees, we get posted notes, and we ask them to write down the last desk experience that they've had during that quarter. And we put them on the wall. And we let each employee talk about them. The reason for that is we want to be able to beat the last best experience that every customer has gone through. This is where we know that we've actually reached the ideal level of customer centricity.
Rick Denton: 33:17
That is, that is brilliant. It supports everything that I've had. So if you'd asked me that question, that is exactly how I would want to go about doing it. It is so true that the frontline the employees can guide you to that. And even if their answer to that question is not something from your own industry, it still provides that information on how you do that, how you're doing that with the frontline, you and I almost could have a whole separate episode about a frontline conversation. Maybe we will in several months. But the idea of that is so central to the delivery of great customer experience who's saying you've you've left me with wonderful thoughts you've you've amplified my my thinking around customer or human experience. How can others if they want to learn more about your approach, understand or even just get in touch with you what's the best way for folks to get in touch with you.
Hussein Dajani: 34:02
LinkedIn is the the platform that I use the most. It's the one that I've been spending so much time on over the last couple of years. And then I upload as well on YouTube, all the conferences or events I've spoken in. So you'll be able to understand a little bit more about about the topics I talk about.
Rick Denton: 34:21
Awesome. I'll get all that in the show notes. I can definitely tell that there needs to be some companies that are reaching out to you for some speaking so that they can improve their experiences. It has been a brilliant conversation from the beginning. I've enjoyed everything I'm talking about. She drives how you got into customer experience that ship shortage. We were all over the place and my goodness, that experience in Abu Dhabi beautiful, but closing out with how the frontline is so central to the delivery of great customer experience. I love landing there Hussein, thanks so much for being on CX passport. I enjoyed it very much.
Hussein Dajani: 34:50
Thank you so much, Rick.
Rick Denton: 34:55
Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside a
Host - Rick Denton
Rick believes the best meals are served outside and require a passport.
A sought after keynote speaker and CX leader, Rick transforms CX and VOC programs from Survey & Score to Listen and Act.
After a successful corporate career, Rick launched EX4CX - Execution for Customer Experience to bring CX victories to a wide client base.
Rick combines these loves by hosting the CX Passport podcast, a weekly talk with guests about customer experience and travel.