Turning Customers into Superfans with Brittany Hodak

How do you turn everyday customers into passionate advocates for your brand?

Brittany Hodak breaks down her SUPER Model for customer experience, shares her famous 5 A’s of an effective apology, and explains why apathy is the biggest threat to your business.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why you want customers to become superfans
• How customer apathy is the real risk to your business
• One bad touchpoint can cost years of revenue
• Brittany's SUPER Model CX playbook
• Why the Platinum Rule is much better than the Golden Rule
• How to craft a great apology

Be sure to check out Brittany's book, Creating Superfans, and her Six Weeks to Superfans Masterclass!

We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at happytohelp@buzzsprout.com!

To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com.

Thanks for listening!

Chapters

• 0:00 Turning Customers into Superfans
• 0:23 Guest Introduction: Brittany Hodak
• 3:58 Brittany's Experience From Music Industry To Customer Service
• 7:05 Defining A Superfan And Why It Counts
• 9:15 Why “Mediocre Is Free” Changes CX
• 13:04 The Real Risk of Customer Apathy
• 16:42 One Bad Experience Can Make or Break a Customer
• 22:15 The SUPER Model Overview
• 25:53 Why Stories Create Superfans
• 33:12 The Platinum Rule: Treat Others How They Want to Be Treated
• 35:16 Taking Initiative and Exceeding Expectations
• 45:44 How to Craft a Great Apology
• 54:48 The Importance of Consistency and Repetition
• 58:39 Final Thoughts: Create Superfans Today
• 1:03:00 Support in Real Life: Landing CX Roles

Transcript

Priscilla: 0:00

Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about customer support from the people at Buzzsprout. I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke. Today we're talking about creating superfans. We'll discuss why superfans are essential to your business and how you can offer super customer experiences and turn loyal customers into lifelong advocates. Thanks for joining us. Let's get into it. Today is going to be a really fun episode. I'm really excited. We have an incredible guest today. Joining us is Brittany Hodak. She is a keynote speaker, a business leader, and the author of Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers into Lifelong Advocates. She has published more than 350 articles for a variety of national media, including she has columns in Forbes and AdWeek. For the last two decades, she has studied, researched, and written about the phenomenon of fandom. And today she's joining us to talk about how fandom can impact your brand and how we as customer support specialists can focus on creating super fans in order to set our brands apart. So I'm really excited. Thank you for joining us, Britney. This is gonna be a lot of fun.

Brittany: 1:10

Yeah, thanks for having me, Priscilla. This is gonna be great.

Priscilla: 1:12

Yeah. So we in customer support roles have the opportunity every day to positively impact our customers. That's one of the cool things about this job, we have hundreds of people at our disposal to make their days better. And so one thing we like to start off with on this podcast is sharing a story about how someone has positively impacted our day. So, Brittany, do you have a story of someone who has made your day recently?

Brittany: 1:38

Yeah, you know, just it's been about a week ago now. I was flying. So I fly all the time for my job. I'm a keynote speaker. I travel multiple times most weeks, and I was renting a car so that I could drive from one event to another event. And it was my first time using a new service called Avis First. Okay. Where it's basically like concierge's car rental, where someone meets you at the curb, gives you the keys, says, have a great day. And then when you're done, meet you curbside again to take your car back from you, like go fill it up, return it. So you never like you just walk out of the airport. There is no like going to the rental car center. It was so delightful. Like, when is the last time you rented a car and said, that was amazing? Yeah. The agent's name was Hannah. She was texting with me before I dropped the car off. Fun fact, I made the reservation like normal. And then it was asking for the return flight. And I put like the same day instead of the next day. And so Hannah was like, Hey, do you actually just want the car for like two hours? Or did you mean to get it for 26 hours? I was like, definitely the second. Um, but she was delightful. Like it was such a great experience. I never want to go back to what is now in mind, the like archaic old way to rent a car ever again.

Priscilla: 2:47

That's such a good experience, such a good story. Yeah. I love the fact that you were texting with her, that like ease of communication, because I'm like, oh man, how are you gonna meet up with that person? You're like trying to send emails, but having like a quick text conversation back and forth with the agent, that's awesome.

Brittany: 3:01

Yep. She texted me right before my flight took off. She was like, Hey, I see you're gonna be landing in like 90 minutes. Once you get there, like walk just to the arrivals, send us a text when you're getting off the airplane because it's gonna take us like 10 minutes to drive over. So if you text us when you're walking off your airplane, we should be getting to arrivals around the same time as you do. Wow.

Jordan: 3:20

And it was perfect. That's the kind of communication I get when like my friends text me that they're gonna pick me up from the airport.

Brittany: 3:26

It was legit better than when I try to coordinate with my husband because we live like half an hour from the airport and he'll he'll be like, okay, I'm watching your flight and only, but he like never leaves on time. So I'm always sort of just like waiting for a while. No, Avis, both times they were there waiting on me.

Priscilla: 3:40

Like it was it was great. So props to Avis first. Yeah, I was gonna say, last time I went to the airport to pick someone up, I had to circle like 15 times. So I totally get what you mean. It's like sometimes it's harder for us to communicate, but it's that sounds great that she was able to do it and she had it down 10 minutes and she knew she'd be there. That's awesome. That's so cool. So before we get into discussing super fans specifically, I'd love for our listeners to just get to know you a little bit more, Brittany, and a little bit more about your background. So can you share a little bit about your career experience and how you kind of found yourself interested in exploring fandom and what that looks like? Yeah, of course.

Brittany: 4:15

So I always wanted to work in the music industry. Like from the time I was a little girl, that's what I wanted to do. And when I was 16, I went on what they called a job shadow day, which was basically like a go spend a day somewhere, see if you like it at the radio station. And I said, please hire me. I will do absolutely anything. I just want to work here. And they said, Well, you look like you're about the right size for the mascot suit. And I said, Great, I'll do it. Like, I'll take it. And so as a, I think it was a junior, I don't know, sophomore junior in high school, whatever it was, it became my job to like dress up as sting the bee and go to all of the radio station events. I loved it. I thought it was the best job, the coolest job, not just because I got free CDs and concert tickets, but because I had this like front row view of fandom and people who were obsessed with the station or the DJs or the artists that we played. And I really started thinking about like, why do some artists become the biggest bands in the world and others go away? Like they're one hit wonders, or they never have a hit because it doesn't seem like it's directly in correlation to the talent or the marketing budget or the effort that's put in by the label, like it felt like there was something else because when all of those variables were the same, there was still this like dramatic difference in the success ratio. And what I started to see again and again and again, and I went on to intern at several labels and then work for several record companies. But after I graduated college, I moved to New York. I worked for Sony, I worked for Warner Brothers. And what I saw again and again and again was the artists who had the most success, not just initially but long term, were the ones who had the best connections with their fans. They cared about their fans. They weren't like, I'm just here to make art and I don't care about anything else. They legitimately connected to their fans. And I started thinking about the fact that super fandom is a two-way street. And if you want people to care about you, you have to care about them. And it's true in the music industry, but it's also obviously true in every other industry. And so I became sort of obsessed with proving this theory and showing that if you treat customer service and customer care not as a cost center, but as an opportunity to have brand advocates out there interacting one-to-one with the people who know your brand, you're going to have them not just come back, but tell their friends as well.

Priscilla: 6:34

Yeah. Yeah. Your history, your experience sounds like a dream to me. When I was in high school or when I was a kid, I always wanted to work in the music industry. I thought it was just the coolest. And I loved music and live music. So reading through the book and hearing your experience and your stories from the music industry was really fun and engaging. And I loved seeing how you took that knowledge and you turned it into this thing so much bigger than just music and connecting with fans into so many different industries. So before we get into the strategies about how to create super fans, I'd love for you to give us your definition of a super fan.

Brittany: 7:13

Yeah. So, you know, it's so fun. When I'm on stage, I always ask people, what do you think of when you think of superfans? And the responses are all over the place. Like you have people saying things like, uh, people who are obsessed, or people I don't want to hang out with, or people who are super loyal. Like, I mean, just like all over the place. People talk about sports and music and like the old S and L skit, just so many things. But I define a super fan as a customer or stakeholder who is so delighted in the experience they have with a brand, product, or service that they become an enthusiastic advocate. And I know that's a mouthful, but there's three important parts. So number one, customer stakeholder. I'm talking about people who actually know what it's like to work with you. So this could be a customer, this could be a vendor, a supplier, a partner, it could be an employee, but it's somebody who has firsthand knowledge of what you are like. And the reason that matters is because we all know when we want to get a referral, like we want it from somebody who has real experience. So that's the first part. We're not talking about people who are like, oh, I know who they are. Maybe one day I'll work with them. No, these are like people who have a financial experience history with your company. Number two, they're delighted by their experience. So we'll talk a little bit later about what I think is the biggest threat to every single business, which is this idea of apathy and people who become apathetic because they have lots of neutral experiences. So these are people who are delighted by their experience, and we can talk about how to ensure that happens. And then finally, number three, they become an enthusiastic advocate, which means when they have the opportunity to advocate on your behalf, they do so. So if they are in a WhatsApp group and somebody says, Does anybody know how to handle this? Or they see a post in a forum online, or they hear someone at an event that they're at say something, they speak up. It's easier for them to refer you in that moment than to forget you in that moment. And so that's that third part. So, in other words, super fans are customers who create more customers.

Priscilla: 9:13

Oh, I love that. That's so great. I saw something in a newsletter. It was focusing on this idea of you're not going to be able to wow everyone. You're not going to be able to give everyone amazing experiences all the time. So, really, what you want to focus on is being a steady, solid thing for your customers. And I could see that argument, right? Like, hey, you can't blow everyone away. So make sure you're steady and consistent for the customers you have there. But after reading your book, I feel like you would probably disagree with that, especially with this idea of super fans and wanting to create these people who are advocates, like you were saying, for your brand. So why do you think now, especially in the world of advertising, and we have so much at our fingertips when it comes to like targeted ads and getting new customers and all of that? Why do you think it's so important for brands to invest in making super fans?

Brittany: 10:06

Well, I think it's because technology is moving so quickly that I heard an executive at Microsoft say on a podcast recently, like, mediocre is now free. Anyone on the planet can have like a pretty good mediocre experience right now, instantly for free. And the fact that that was sort of the bar, like you said, like so many people are like, oh, just like do pretty good most of the time and you'll be better than the rest. Like, maybe that was true 10 years ago when a lot of customer service was awful. But now, because of how quickly tools are changing, that is no longer the case. And I don't know about you guys, but I don't leave a lot of three-star reviews. I don't talk to my friends about a lot of things that are just okay. It becomes instantly forgotten. It's like, okay, it's like a nothing burger and you move on with your life. Versus when something does exceed your expectations, when something is great, you're gonna remember and you're gonna tell people about it. And so I think that saying just be good most of the time is a vestige of a bygone era when the truth is a lot of things were harder than they needed to be, took longer than they needed to be, and kind of sucked. And people had to put up with it because there weren't a lot of choices. But that is not the world we live in anymore. And in the world that we live in, people very quickly can decide, you know what? I don't ever want to do business with you again. And they can very quickly tell everyone around them that that's how they feel, whether it's online or in real life. And every single customer today is an influencer. We all have people in our lives who all they need is for us to say, like, this happened, this didn't happen. And then that is their opinion from now on. They're like, cool, thanks for saving me the trouble. I'll never work with this company again. And that's why customer support is so critical in this moment, because you have what I like to call acting chiefs of experience. So many people who engage with your brand, they're not engaging with the CMO, the CEO, the CTO, the CIO. They're talking to somebody on the front lines, whether that's at a retail location, whether that's answering the phone. But guess what? To them, that person is the entire company, the whole organization. Yes. So I call those people acting chiefs of experience. And they have to, in that moment, ace that interaction. They have to be comfortable representing being the face, the voice, the name of the entire company. And like that's just the reality now moving forward. And so mediocre, I don't think is okay. And just sort of like doing the bare minimum to get people to come back, I think is like not a very inspired way to look at your business. I don't think good employees get excited about just doing the bare minimum. And I don't think good customers get excited about continuing to give their money to someone who's doing just the bare minimum for them.

Priscilla: 13:02

Absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree. I think one of my favorite things about the book, which you already touched on, is how much you focus on apathy in the beginning and how big of a role that plays in so much of what you're talking about and creating super fans. You said in the book that apathy is one of the most underrated problems in business today. You said companies of all sizes allocate nearly immeasurable resources, dollars, time, energy, and ideas to chasing new customers. Then when they've got those customers, they do an okay job of taking care of their needs, which naturally leaves customers apathetic. So I kind of want to break down apathy with you a little bit and hear more from you about why that's such a big risk and why apathy is something we really want to be careful to not get comfortable in with our customers and accept as being kind of what we are okay with.

Brittany: 13:53

Well, I think it's because when customers become apathetic, they see you as a commodity provider, not a category of one. And when they look at you as a commodity provider, then it becomes very natural to make decisions based on commodity factors. Who can give me this the cheapest? Who can do this for me the fastest? Not this is why I should be choosing this brand. You cease to be a brand and you become like a means to an end. And so when that happens, you're constantly losing customers because somebody else is offering something just a little bit better, a little bit faster, a little bit cheaper. And so what happens is these companies spend, like I said in the book, immeasurable resources on customer acquisition because their retention engine is broke. And in reality, it is so much easier and cheaper to just keep a customer than it is to replace that customer who leaves with another customer. And support plays such a huge role, and I think oftentimes underappreciated role in that happening, right? Like if you look at the incentive structures, the pay structures for people working on acquisition versus retention, it's oftentimes very lopsided, which is funny in a way, because the retained revenue is worth so much more than the revenue that you're constantly having to pay to replace with new revenue.

Priscilla: 15:12

Yeah. And you think about the people in customer support, I feel like there's such a high turnover a lot of times in the customer support departments. It does such a disservice to your customers when you're constantly having to hire and train new people because people are leaving instead of treating those people that you have, those employees, really well so that they're able to level up their service and then provide this incredible experience to your customers.

Brittany: 15:36

You know, I've been reading a lot of like Sam Altman's quotes recently around AI and customer service. And, you know, Gartner has said that about 80% of common customer inquiries will be able to hand be handled totally autonomously by agents in the next five years. And, you know, it's a double-edged sword. And while some people are saying, you know, it's this is so terrible, it's going to replace um so many workers. I think kind of the opposite is true of it's going to empower so many people to be able to be great at their job because they no longer have to handle the like, I forgot my password. How much is my bill? What does this happen? Like inquiries, like those go away. And so now all of a sudden you don't have the turnover, you don't have the constant retraining, you don't have the people who are like, this job sucks and I hate it and I would rather do anything else. So you can actually focus on having people who are higher trained, higher skilled, and you know, better equipped to be that acting chief of experience for your brand.

Priscilla: 16:33

Yeah. I want to start using that with my team because it really shows, like you were saying, the weight that a customer service representative carries. Like you have a story in the book where you talk about Costco and how you had a bad experience with signing up for a membership and decided not to use Costco. And I thought when I was reading it, I don't think I've ever heard a negative story about Costco, but you had a negative experience with Costco. And I think it really made the point to me that the individual that we're working with on the customer support situation can make or break the experience of that product. Oh, yeah. So, in so many experiences, you know, you hear that Costco is a great place to work and that people love it and that, you know, it's always good experiences. And then you hear one where maybe it's that the employee had a bad day, or maybe they were not trained well for that specific experience. But either way, you as the customer walked away without having a bad experience and then became, you know, the opposite of a super fan to the people in your circles. And so it just really goes to show you that each individual employee carries a ton of weight. And so I like that term as a way to remind the people on your team, your job is really important and you giving each customer an incredible experience is really necessary for this brand to continue to thrive.

Brittany: 17:52

I have to tell you, Priscilla, I get more feedback about that Costco story than just about anything else, my book. I have like literal strangers who will buy my book and then email me and say, listen, you don't know me, but I just need you to give Costco another chance because I love Costco. I've had people send me Costco gift cards and I need to. I like I just travel all the time. So I haven't, but in the book, I tell the story about, you know, I'd never been in a Costco. Like we didn't have them when I was growing up. I never lived in a city where we had Costco. We moved to Franklin, Tennessee, and we're like, okay, we got to join one of the big box places. Our Sam's and our Costco are across the street from each other, like they are in many cities. Ours too, yeah. Yeah. So we went to Costco first because I was like, I want to try it out. And I went and I said, you know, hey, I'm thinking about signing up for a membership. Can I look around? And I was told very grumpily by the person at the door that they don't allow window shopping and I need to buy a membership if I want to come in the store. I was like, okay, that's fine. Like, whatever. Everybody says Costco is great. So I waited in line for a really long time. Like I, it was 20 minutes, but it felt like hours because I was pregnant and I had to pee. And so I finally get to the front and the person keeps trying to upsell me. They're like, Well, you need the like, you know, whatever executive membership and all this. And I'm like, no, I like I've never even been in a store. Like, I just want the basic membership. And like six times he was like, Well, do you want to buy new tires? Do you want to buy a Disney cruise? Do you want to whatever? And I'm like, no, I just want a card. Like, I want to go pee and I want to like buy paper towels. And so it took so long. And then I go to pay and he says, Oh, you can only pay with, I think it was a Visa. There's like some card that it was like, it had to be that card. And I was like, oh, hold on. Like my credit card wasn't that. So I check my debit card and my debit card was again, I think it was Visa, whatever. And so I'm like, here you go. And as I give him the card to pay, he goes, Well, if you signed up for the Costco MasterCard or Visa or whatever, like you would have the card. Like you should just get the membership that comes with the credit card. And that's the point where I was like, Get me my card back. I do not want to shop here. I'm gonna go pee in your bathroom and then I'm gonna go across the street and I'm gonna get a membership to Sam's Club. And so I did. And like the point of the story was not just like how frustrating that experience was and how long that it took, but the fact that two people made me feel like, you're not welcome here. We don't care if you're here. We ultimately do not care if you like become a member of this club or not. And these are the people like guarding the doors. Right. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, you're like you're literally making me feel like you don't want me here. And the point of that story in my book, although, like I said, it's I I love how many people have said, like, no, Costco's awesome. You got to give it another try. And one of these days I will. But the point in the book of the story was like, when you are very easy to replace with what in somebody's mind is an acceptable solution, they will be very quick to be like, no skin off my back, see you never, which is what I did. Like I went across the street, I got my membership to Sam's Club, and I was like, cool, I'm golden. And it's been eight years, nine years. I don't even know. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars at Sam's Club and have never once been like, maybe I should rethink that Costco membership because in my mind, like I it's all the things that I would probably be getting there. Like my bulk, you know, I like I think about how much money I spent just on like diapers and baby wipes. Yeah. That all was spent at Sam's, not Costco, because of a grumpy person at the door and then somebody who maybe had been trained to say, like, you don't let somebody join up and get their membership card until they answer 87 questions. But to me, just felt very, very uh unnecessary. And that's part of where the like emotional intelligence comes in of the like empathy and the understanding of yes, you have to be effective, but you also have to pay attention to like the cues that you're getting.

Priscilla: 21:39

Yes, you have to read the room. And if someone is clearly trying to try it out and has told you they don't want to upsell, then you need to read that and stop upselling. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was a great story. And I also was surprised, but I just think it's so important to remind people that really there's so much power there in that customer service experience when it comes to getting new customers and then retaining existing customers. Yeah. So superfans are clearly important to your brand. They, like you said, set you apart from the competition. They advocate for you in their circles of influence, but creating superfans is not always so easy. So can you kind of break down your supermodel for us about how to create superfans out of your customers?

Brittany: 22:21

Of course. So it's called the supermodel. And I wanted to create something that would be simple to remember, simple to share with your team, but most importantly, simple to like keep each other accountable for to say, like, are we doing the standard thing or are we doing the super thing? Because every day, everyone on your team faces that choice again and again and again. Am I gonna do the standard thing? Am I gonna do the super thing? So super is an acronym. It stands for start with your story, understand your customer story, personalize, exceed expectations, and repeat. And just very quickly, I'll kind of go through them all and then we can, you know, take the conversation wherever you want. But so start with your story is all about like, why do you deserve super fans? Why should I care about your company? What is it that you do that's distinct and different and valuable that makes me need to care? And then all of the ways that that comes to life. So whether it's verbally, nonverbally, like all of the cues that are basically telling somebody like this is what they're all about. They are not a commodity provider, they are a category of one, and this is why I should care. Second, understand your customer story is all about truly making them feel important. The empathy that goes alongside the authority of truly making those customers feel like they matter because a lot of times we don't feel like we matter as customers. We feel like just another number, just another support ticket, just another call, just another person trying to get a Costco card, right? Like we are made to feel like, yo, this is an operation and you're a cog. So how do we truly, in meaningful moments, even in those very quick interactions, make someone feel like we see them as a person? The third pillar, P stands for personalized. That's all about both the high tech and the high touch things that we can do to make those customers feel like, yeah, this is awesome. Like, why would I ever want to go anywhere else? They care about me. E stands for exceed expectations. That's all about using the principles of what I call in the book intentional experience design, meaning how do we take some of those neutral moments and elevate them to positive ones? How do we operationalize that across our organization? So it doesn't matter the day of the week, the time of the day, the time of the month, whatever somebody is coming, even though there's variations in our business, there's consistency to the model. And then finally, R stands for repeat. And that's about the systems and processes. That's about how we design something. One of the things that I always love to say is repetition isn't boring. It's branding. Like the way you do things again and again is what becomes your brand. And we have to get to a point to where we recognize that doing something the 87th time of the day is just as important as you did it the first time of the day. Cause that 87th customer is just as important as that first customer.

Priscilla: 25:04

Absolutely. I love that. I'm a checklist person. I'm a like to-do list person. So this is like right up my alley. Yeah. I love how simple you laid it out and just how powerful it really can be when you're going through these interactions and saying, Have I hit these things? Like, are these things happening here? So, first I want to talk about the power of storytelling because really both of the first two, the S and the U, are both focused on storytelling and the power of our story and the power of our customer's story and how we can connect with customers in that way through story. So you wrote in the book, superfans are created at the intersection of your story and every customer's story, which I just think is so powerful. You know, we were both working in podcasting. Jordan and I both work in podcasting, and podcasting is all about stories and all about how we are connected through stories. Can you explain a little bit more about why stories are so integral to creating superfans and how that's really something we can use when we want to create these superfans out of our customers?

Brittany: 26:05

Yeah, it's because when you can connect your story to the needs, the wants, the desires of a customer, that is where they stop being apathetic. Yeah. Because all of a sudden, you are that solution. They have a proof point, a story about it. Now, we all like to think we're rational people and we make these like well-reasoned, well-researched decisions, but research again and again and again proves that we're not. We're emotional beings. We make decisions based on our gut, how we feel, what we think. And stories do a much better way of activating those circuits in br in our brains and making us pay attention because that's how we've evolved, right? For tens of thousands of years, humans have evolved to put an importance on storytelling because that is how information was passed along and recorded long before there was like written language. And so being able to have a story that people will remember and share. It's funny. A girlfriend of mine, her name is Neen James, and she has a book that's coming out October 14th called Exceptional Experiences, which is like a brilliant book, plug for Neen. It's really great. Um, but I'm looking at right now, she sent these like MMs uh as part of this book launch kit that she sent me. And just like 30 seconds ago, I looked down at these like colorful MMs, and they're really cute. She made the like little there's like champagne on them. Um but I remembered that when I was like 15 or 16, Mr. Rory, my history teacher, told us the story about the time he was on a vacation and I think he was in Guatemala. He was somewhere in like Central America, I think. And he lost his passport. And this was back in like the 1980s and maybe the 70s. And he went to, I don't know, the consulate, the embassy, wherever you go, and was like, I'm an American citizen, I lost my passport, what do I do? And this is before, you know, like any like they had fax machines, but probably nothing else. And he's like, What like what do I do? How do I get home? And so, in order to prove to the embassy or consulate, whatever it was, that he was an American citizen, there were all these questions that he was asked. And it was stuff that an American would know, but like somebody not from America wouldn't know. And so he gave him all this information. And I, the only question I remember him telling me, and maybe he told us more, but he was asked, what do MMs do? And of course, the answer was they melt in your mouth, not in your hands. And the reason that was the question was because like anyone living in America in that time period would know the answer to that question because the ads were so pervasive. But if you did not live in America, you were very unlikely to know the answer to that question because Mars, the company that owns MMs, wasn't advertising outside of the United States. And that story has stuck with me. I don't know why. I will randomly like once a decade think about it. But anyway, so my friend Neen, who just sent these like cute custom MMs, yeah, triggered my mind to think about Mr. Rory and telling us that cool story decades ago. And that's one of the cool things about storytelling is that it just lights up your brain. It activates uh your neurons in a way that like facts and figures and proof points and case studies just aren't going to do. And so the more stories you can tell, the more things that you can do to connect something about what you do to something that's interesting or fascinating or important to your audience, the more likely they are to remember and retell those stories. Like, I do not know where Mr. Rory is. Um, it has been years and years and years and years and years since I even saw him. Um, but like, how cool that in my brain I'm now thinking, like, oh man, he was such a nice guy and he used to talk about this and that and whatever. And he was like such a fan of, you know, the Constitution, like all the other things that come back. And so for brands, the key is you don't only want your customers or Your prospects to think of you when they need your solution. You want to be top of mind more than that, more often than that. And with storytelling, you can increase the likelihood that you will.

Priscilla: 30:11

Yeah. I think it's so powerful. I think stories are really so powerful. How would you recommend that support teams specifically use storytelling in our day-to-day conversations with customers? How can we weave stories in in a way to build that relationship and find that connection?

Brittany: 30:30

Yeah. So it's a great question. In the book, I talk about this idea of building a story set list, which are quick, punchy go-to stories that you can tell again and again based on context cues. So if for instance, you hear somebody like a kid crying in the background of the call and you say, like, oh, like how old's your little one? And then based on what they say, whether it's you telling the story or you saying, like, oh man, well, I know bath time is probably coming up soon. Don't worry, like, I'm gonna get this taken care of as soon as I can. Cause I know she needs you more than I need you right now, or like whatever. So just paying attention to those cues. If you're working as a support team member in person, you get cues visually, right? So like maybe the hat somebody is wearing, the shirt they're wearing, um, who they have with them, what they have with them. And if you have a go-to list of stories that you know work, and when I say story, it can be super quick anecdote. It doesn't have to be something that's gonna take the time to resolve the matter, you know, much longer. It's just how can I make them walk away feeling like I dealt with a person who made this better? Yes.

Priscilla: 31:35

Like keep that humanity in it. Yes. It makes the interaction so much more enjoyable, but you're right, it leaves this lasting impression. One thing we do, you know, for Buzzsprout, most of our support is done via email. And one thing that we've kind of done is started putting in our signatures, instead of putting our job title, we put some kind of a personalization or some kind of a connection piece. And so for some people on the team, it's like a sports-related thing. So mine is I'm a big Yankee fan. And so mine is currently obsessing over the New York Yankees. And it's so cool because it starts these conversations with people who like the team that I like when I wouldn't have even known because we're not talking about sports, but it allows those stories to connect us. And then sometimes I will have someone reach out on a random Sunday and say, Did you watch the game yesterday? How cool that and I'm like, they don't need anything from me in this email. They just want to reach out and follow up on a game because they thought of the fact that that support person for Buzz Sprout loves the Yankees. And so I think that's exactly yeah.

Brittany: 32:39

Like they wouldn't have been thinking about Buzz Sprout in the eighth inning, but all of a sudden they're like, Oh, Priscilla, I wonder what she's up to. Is she watching the game? Exactly. So you have that halo effect of all of the positive emotions that come from human connectivity.

Priscilla: 32:54

Yeah, yeah. Well, and this leads right into the next piece of this puzzle, which is personalization, which is so similar in some ways. And I think it's the easiest way for us to strengthen our customer experiences. It's so easy to make things personal and to bring in that humanity, like we were talking about. You talk about Dr. Tony Alessandra's platinum rule, which I had never heard of. You talk about that in the book. Can you explain what the platinum rule is and how it's different from the golden rule, which we so often refer to in customer support?

Brittany: 33:24

Well, we, you know, we all grew up with the golden rule, right? Treat others the way you want to be treated. And what Dr. Alessandra said that I wholeheartedly believe in is that that is outdated advice. You should not treat others the way you want to be treated. You should treat them the way they want to be treated. And the reason that matters is because if you think about it, there are so many people who do not want to be treated the same way as you. They may want you to contact them a different way at a different time to resolve their problem in a different way. And it is incumbent upon us in support roles to figure out what the right answer looks like to them, what the best support looks like to them and flex the way we do things. And is that harder? Sometimes does that mean getting good at five different ways to solve a similar problem for five different groups of people? Yeah, but it's worth it because you want to be just as helpful to a 17-year-old as an 87-year-old. You want to be just as helpful to somebody like on one side as somebody on the total polar opposite side of whatever it is that you're trying to resolve. So being flexible there is a really great way of saying, I care about you. Not like we have one way we do this, and if you don't like it, go somewhere else. But how can I help you solve this problem in a way that's gonna feel good for you?

Priscilla: 34:45

Yeah. No, I think that's so great. I had never heard of that rule before. And I think it it goes way beyond support because it's like every relationship. I'm like, oh, I know how I'd want to be treated, but maybe it's really important for me to figure out how they want to be treated because that's just a better relationship all the way around. So I think it applies so well in customer support, but so much beyond that. So I'm gonna make a note and be doing some more research on that in the future because I thought that was just great. Okay, so E, the next one is exceeding expectations. You know, there's a quote that you have here that I really loved. You said, in today's competitive environment, customers aren't just comparing you to the best product and service that they've received from your competitors, but they're comparing you to the best product or service they've received anywhere. This idea that you're not just being compared to the people in your industry, you're getting compared to any customer support experience or any experience with a product they've ever received. And so I wanted to ask you do you have any stories of brands that have done this really well, this like exceeding expectations, this going above and beyond and having those wow experiences.

Brittany: 35:53

Yeah. Well, it's I think the one I just shared about the car rental at the top of the episode is true. Like that has spoiled me now. It's it's only been a week, but I'm like, I don't want to rent a car from anywhere else ever again. Like, why would I do anything else? Yeah. Um, and my husband, we're we're going on a trip this weekend with our kids, and there's no Avis first there. And I was like, should we just Uber? Like, because it was basically that was the experience, right? Like somebody just like, I was like, I don't want to have to like wait and even like the the fast, you know, the faster experiences that you have with like President's Club. I'm like, I don't know. Um, a great experience that we had just a couple of days ago. My oldest son turned eight, and we were at Universal Studios, and the boys, so I've got an eight-year-old and a five-year-old, they were watching some kids do a Harry Potter like singing, it's like a little sage play thing. It's the toad choir. Yeah. It is, it's a toad choir. Yes, it's a toad choir. And so sometimes the toad choir will do like a meet and greet, but if it's like hot or they're crowded, or I don't know, for any of another however many reasons, like they don't. So my kids who had been there several months ago and got their pictures and were like excited to meet the kids and see the toads. Um, you could tell they're like they were really sad when the kids were like, Oh, we don't have time for um uh individual pictures, but we're gonna like smile. So everybody get out your muggle devices and take your photos. And an attendant with the kids saw my eight-year-old like look disappointed and said, Hey, follow me. And so the four of us followed them to the point that I'm like, where are we going? Because they took us like all the way back behind Hugwards Castle to like a little private area and said, We wanted you guys to get a special meet and greet. And so for like five minutes, my kids are talking about butterbeer and talking about the frogs and their house points and like all the things with these kids. And it was so sweet and so special. And they didn't have to do that. And somebody just like saw the disappointment register on my son's face. It's funny, he had said, like, Oh, I bet they did it because it's my birthday, but they had no idea. Yeah, he had a birthday button that he was wearing, but because we were in the Harry Potter part of the park, he had his like, you know, Griffindor robe on and you couldn't see it at all. But it was so sweet, and they didn't rush us at all. Like my husband and I were very like, cool, thank you. We really appreciate it because we didn't want to keep them. And the woman was like, as long as they're having fun, like we're we're here. And that was so cool and like such a special moment. And it was again because one person saw the disappointment register on my son's face. And instead of being like, whatever, he's a kid at an amusement park, he'll have something else, took the initiative to say, I'm in a creative moment. And like my kids are gonna remember that forever.

Priscilla: 38:35

They weren't worried, oh, am I not gonna be able to do this? For am I gonna get in trouble if I don't go on to the next thing that I have on my list of things to do? They were empowered to make that call when they saw your son's face. And then they felt freedom to sit there in the moment and not rush on to the next thing. So that's so great. What advice would you have for people who might be customer support representatives who are feeling like they aren't empowered? They don't have the freedom to kind of spend time on those over-the-top experiences. I think of like you gave a Chewy example in the book. Everyone has heard stories from Chewy, you know, every time customer support comes up, Chewy is in the conversation when it's these great experiences. But not everyone works in a situation where they have freedom to do that. So, what would you say? What strategies or advice would you give to someone who's working kind of in a situation where they don't have a ton of freedom?

Brittany: 39:28

I think number one, it's like having an honest conversation with your supervisor, saying, like, what can I do and what are the expectations? Because a lot of times if you ask, you're gonna find out from your supervisor, like, well, the expectation is that we just like do okay most of the time, like that email that you said. And then it becomes like, okay, am I cool with that? Like, do I want to spend eight hours of my day every day that I'm working being mediocre? And for some people, probably sure. But for others, the answer is gonna be no. So I would say that's the first part is asking yourself, like, am I being valued for the contributions that I can make and the creativity that I can provide? Or is this a role where that's like not a thing? Assuming that there are tight parameters, but you like the company, you like the role, you want to stay there, it's getting clarity from your boss on like how flexible can I be. And oftentimes it's not because it wouldn't be welcomed, it's that no one has thought of it. Yes. And so if you have the creativity to say, what if we did it this way, or what if we introduced this? Um, I I heard um, again, I think this was like a Sam Altman quote. He was saying that legacy customer service is people who are being forced to like pay the price of bad decisions that were made like several levels above them. Like they're sort of told, like, go do this. So, okay, probably this has been, I don't know, six or eight months ago. I was at an aquarium. I'm with my at the time seven-year-old, and my at the time four-year-old is on the other side of this like stingray tank with my husband. And my I'm with my seven-year-old because he's got the phone, and I'm afraid he's gonna like drop the phone in the stingray tank. And all of a sudden I hear this like really loud noise, and I look over and my four-year-old is just like gone. And then there's just like guttural crying, and I'm like, what happened? And I like rush across the tank, and he has like fallen. I pick him up. What had happened was there was a, this was like a stone, like natural stone aquarium, and there was a ledge around almost all of the aquarium, but then like a gap, like a two-foot gap. And he had been walking around this ledge with the stingrays and like took a step and there wasn't a step. So he fell and he hit the stone on the way down. And that's scary. And yeah, he was scared. He was fine. He had a big nod on his head, but he was totally fine. But he's like terrified. So I'm trying to console him. I'm holding him. And a woman comes over and she says, How old is he? And I was like, Did I mishear her? Like he's, you know, kind of screaming in my head. I said, What did you say? And she said, How old is your son? And I said, He's four. Why? And she said, Because I'm keeping track of all the kids that get hurt at this exhibit. And I was like, What how many kids get hurt at this exhibit? And she flips around this clipboard. And I am not kidding. There's like 20 rows of like names and ages. And I said, What how long is that from? And she said, This is today. And I was like, Oh my god, it's like 1 p.m. There's dozens of kids getting hurt here. Like, why don't you fix this gap? You could like put a trash can in this gap and then kids won't fall. And she shrugged and she said, That's management's call. I'm just here to keep track. Like, I was just told to keep track of how many people get hurt. They're trying to decide if they want to redo the exhibit or not. And in that moment, beyond being just like so infuriated, because now I'm like, this this is like true negligence, right? This is not just like my kid wasn't paying attention and slipped. It was dozens of kids a day apparently are like getting hurt and nobody cares. But in that moment, too, I felt so bad for her because I was like, how much it must suck to have her job where she feels like she has no authority, no power to do anything other than literally record kids getting hurt. And so it was raining this day. And like 15 minutes later, we're at another part of the aquarium and they had like all these trash cans that were there because there was like water dripping through the ceiling. And I grabbed one because I looked at it and I was like, this looks like it's about the right size of the gap. And so I walked back over to the shark tank and I put it there. And she's like, What are you doing? And I was like, I'm fixing the gap. And she's like, You can't do that. And I said, Yeah, I can. I talked to management, they're cool with it. And I just like put it there and walked away. Um, but I was like, she legit was like, it is my job to keep track of kids that get hurt rather than saying, A, how do I solve this problem? Or B, like, yo, this is a huge liability. Like, thinking about that from like a like a financial standpoint, what a crazy liability that is. Yes. And then you have an employee who's like, oh yeah, this is happening like every five minutes. Kids are just like falling and getting hurt. Yeah.

Jordan: 44:06

Yeah. And kids break ankles and wrists and stuff all the time from lesser falls.

Brittany: 44:13

So not to mention you have like stingrays. Like I'm like, how like my kid did not fall, like he fell on the ground, which I assume is how most kids are falling. But it also would not have been much of a stretch for a kid to lose their balance and like go into the tank.

Priscilla: 44:26

Right. That's wild. And like you said, how much it must be terrible to be that person with that job of like, I have to get the age of your child and add it to a list of children that have been hurt, but I can't actually provide you a solution because I'm in this very tight parameters. And and I loved, you know, if she had been thinking about it in a way that was like, how can I stop this from happening? Maybe she would have been able to put the trash can in there, or maybe she'd tried something and someone had reprimanded her for it. And so she really felt like she couldn't do anything. But either way, like being stuck in this situation of, man, I know this is wrong. I know that this is not the way we want to be doing things. And I feel so restricted that I can't solve it or I can't be creative. And so I think it's really good advice to talk to your supervisor and see how much can I actually do? Can I put a trash can in the hole? And if I can't, if that's something I'm not allowed to do and that's something I care about and want to do a better job at, then maybe looking for a team that's gonna allow me to take ownership and do that is the way to go, which is a hard thing, but ultimately it's where you're spending all your time when you're working. So do you wanna work somewhere that's not gonna let you do those things, or do you want to work somewhere where you're gonna have ownership of that and actually make a difference in that way? Okay, so one thing that you talked about that I really loved, and I actually was like, this could be an entire episode on its own, was your strategy for apologizing. Right out of college, I got a job at a car dealership. And one of my roles, I was in social media, but one of my roles was kind of to read the Google reviews and be aware of what people were saying online. And there were a lot of negative reviews and they would go unanswered. And I remember talking to someone, one of my supervisors, and saying, we really shouldn't leave those unanswered. It can do us a huge benefit if we fix those issues in a public way, can sometimes really build our trust up even more with our customers than if they had just a good experience in the first time, if we take care of them when they've had a bad experience. And so I've always been fascinated with this idea that our humanity and making mistakes can actually work for our benefit when it comes to building relationships with customers. And so I really liked your formula for effectively apologizing. And so I wanted to see if you could talk about that.

Brittany: 46:43

Yeah, of course. And you know, I'm 100% team Priscilla on this argument between you and your old boss because one of the things I always say is when you reply to a negative review, comment, response, whatever, you're not doing it just for that person who complained. You're doing it for the next 10,000 people that are gonna see that. Yes. So that is the frame of reference of like where you need to be when you're replying, and not in a like, I'm gonna one up them kind of way, but like a, I'm gonna take ownership. I'm gonna apologize. I'm gonna, you know, if you need to like state your case, you can kind of sort of do that. But like you're doing it not just for that person, but for everybody else. But the formula that I talk about in the book is what I call the the five A's. And I actually have um a program called the Six Weeks to Superfans Masterclass, which is a training program that sort of operationalizes CX to get everybody on your team to take ownership to be that acting chief of experience. And this is this is one of the things. And in there, it's I like I have like a version of this that you can print out and put by your desk with these five. So there's five parts in a proper apology. Number one is you acknowledge the problem and how it affected the customer. Because oftentimes I'm not mad about like the thing that went wrong. It's the dominoes that followed that thing that went wrong. Because you sent the wrong size shirt, now I don't have a gift to give my daughter on her birthday. Or now, like I don't have this thing for my best friend's wedding. Like that's usually where the frustration is stemming. Yeah. Not the fact that it was like a problem, but like all of these dominoes. So number one is acknowledge that. Like I understand that because you know, this was supposed to arrive in 24 hours, but took 72, all of the food that you ordered is unedible now and that ruins your dinner. Like you're acknowledging the thing that happened because of your thing. Number two, apologize. I think it was Ben Franklin who said never ruin an apology with an excuse. Yes. But like, I'm sorry, full stop, complete sentence. No qualifiers, no buts, like I am sorry. I understand that because X happened, Y has happened, that sucks. I'm so sorry, right? Like whatever, whatever it is. So that's the the second A is apologize. The third A, which this is the one that I think most people probably skip, is ask. And it's ask how you can repair this relationship, right? So that could be if you're somebody in customer support and you know that you only have like one of three things that you can do, then you're gonna handle this one a little differently. Actually, the fourth A is a tone, and a tone is like doing the thing, like doing the thing you said you did and like letting them know that you did the thing. So if you're somebody in a support role, sometimes you have to combine number three and number four, um, ask in a tone. So that might sound like all right, there are two ways that we typically um can resolve an issue like this on the rare occasion that it happens. Number one looks like this, number two looks like this. Which of those sounds like it's gonna be the better option for you? So, what you're doing is you're inviting them to participate in the remediation. Yeah. So you're gonna acknowledge, you're gonna apologize, you're gonna ask, you're gonna atone. And then finally, the fifth step, and this is another one that a lot of people overlook, is you're gonna adjust. How can you fix it? Like put the trash can in the gap so nobody other kids get hurt. Like make the adjustment. And sometimes that means reviewing a standard operating procedure you have. Sometimes that means alerting somebody in a totally different department, like, hey, I've gotten three calls about XYZ. This is a problem. We need to get somebody on this right now because three people in a row have bought this thing that was wrong here, or three people in a row had this tech failure. So, what needs to adjust or happen differently to try to improve the experiences of future customers?

Priscilla: 50:26

Yeah. I just think it's such a great formula for an apology. Apologizing in customer support a lot of times becomes, you know, the same thing as empathy. You know, when people think of empathy, they think, oh, well, that's apologizing when you've screwed up. But apologizing can have many different effects, and a bad apology can be really detrimental. Yeah. Like we've all been in situations where someone apologizes and you're like, this is not an apology. You're saying the words, but you're not apologizing to me. And so I like that you've taken this and broken it down in a way that support professionals can follow to accurately communicate that they are apologetic for the situation and then give ownership to the customer and ways to solve it. And there's something so special about having that humility to say, I screwed up, whether it was something small that, you know, I misxplained or something bigger, but I screwed up and I want to make this better. And I'm sorry that this has been bad. And here's, you know, I'm acknowledging your story and how this has affected you, but I want you to help me make it better. And then not losing that last piece of fixing it so it doesn't happen again for the next person. I think if you're listening to this and you work in customer support, this is something really, really strong that can set you apart from other people that you work with or other people at other companies is being able to apologize well is so vital to doing this work. Yeah.

Brittany: 51:48

And I would say too, for people working in support, it's also being able to separate the fact that you are apologizing in that moment from feeling like you personally failed or did something wrong. So, like going back to this idea of you are the acting chief of experience. You are functionally the face of the company, the person that they think the company is, whether it's a hundred or a thousand or a hundred thousand people that are just like you. Like, I'm talking to Tony, everybody at the company is like Tony. Yeah. That ability to step in and apologize is something that does not diminish you in any way. And even if it you had nothing to do with what went wrong, you're not saying, I'm sorry, I personally failed you. You're saying, like, I'm sorry that happened. I understand how frustrating that is. And on behalf of the company, like, we want to make it better. And this is something that I've seen a lot of people who work in support and service kind of struggle with is they're like, well, I don't want to feel like I'm just apologizing all day. And at the end of the day, I go home and I'm like, I suck, everything's wrong, like the world is on fire. It's having the emotional intelligence to be able to like separate the role from you as an individual. And the fact that you're having to apologize for a hundred things a day that you did not do, you had no part of, that in no way diminishes your skills, your talent, your ability. That is just the role that you are being asked to play right now. You are the acting chief of experience. You are the one who's going to try to diffuse the situation and get them to a better place with the brand. It is in no way like an indictment on your ability to do things. And when you hopefully have a boss who has the emotional intelligence to like know that and understand and give you a safe place to like rant when you need to or talk about something that was difficult. But I've heard people say, like, well, I don't want to just be apologizing all day. Like, none of this was my fault. Somebody else did it. Right. But to the customer on the phone, like it is your fault because you are the company. And even though it was somebody that you have never met whose name you don't even know that made that mistake, in that moment, it is your role to own it and to fix it.

Priscilla: 53:49

Yeah. And I also think there's something very powerful about knowing when to apologize and when you don't have to apologize. I think a lot of support professionals are people pleasers and feel the need to apologize more than maybe they actually should be. And I find that the more you apologize, especially when you are really not needing to apologize, the less water it holds. And so when you need to apologize, focus on it and hold it with the weight it needs, but you don't have to apologize for things that aren't issues. I do think sometimes we want to apologize for everything, but sometimes that is how the product works. And sometimes instead of apologizing, you really want to say, hey, this is how it works. And if this doesn't work for you, then that's okay. And I can help you move somewhere else, but this is how the product works because this is how we've designed it to be. And so sometimes it's hard to figure out when to apologize and when it's actually not an apology situation. It's more of a not a great fit situation. Exactly.

Jordan: 54:47

Yeah.

Priscilla: 54:48

The last step in your supermodel is R, is repeat, which can be difficult. And we were talking about that consistency a little bit in a mediocre service way, but how important that is for your customers to know what they're getting when they reach out to you. And I it made me think of uh something that happened like last week. I read your book and then that night went to dinner with my aunt who was in town. And she wanted to go to a specific restaurant that she loves when she's in town. She always wants to go there because of one meal that she loves. And so we went to that restaurant and she got the meal. She was so excited about it, and it did not hit the way that it usually does. She was pretty disappointed by it. And we left there. And I thought, I wonder if we'll come back here next time she's in town. Like I wonder if that one inconsistent experience has kind of gone, well, now the next time we go, and is it going to be good or is it going to be bad? And now there's enough question there that I'm not sure if I want to continue going to this restaurant when I have such a limited amount of food options when I'm in town. So that really goes back to that repeat. Like, how do you keep these kind of experiences up? So, what would you say to, you know, people in customer support who are like hearing this and going, okay, but this is like something we have to be able to keep doing? What would you say to them? What strategies would you give them?

Brittany: 56:02

Well, I would say number one, help is coming. And one of the really promising things about AI and technology is that a lot of the like things that are not inspiring to you or exciting to you will not be on your plate soon, regardless of the tech stack that your company uses, like a lot of that is going away, which will give you some space and freedom to be able to bring more energy and attention to the calls that you're handling or the emails that you're handling, whatever, whatever that support looks like for you. That's number one. Number two, I would say that if you can find a way to like make it a game of how you personally feel like you've like made an impact, made things better, improved the role. Like when I had a sales-facing role, I had something I called my no chart because I got told so many times no. Like I might get 30 no's for a yes. But I had said to myself, like, every no gets me closer to a yes because maybe in the future they'll want to work with me. Maybe they know somebody who's a better fit. And I don't want to just be like bummed out by all these no's. I want to celebrate the fact that like all these no's get me closer to a yes. So I made a no chart and it was like tally marks. Like every time somebody told me no, I was like, make the tally mark, make the tally mark. And I would count the tally marks. And every time I got to a predetermined number of tally marks, I would do something nice for myself, whether it was like ice cream for lunch that day or a new pair of shoes or whatever. I was like, I am celebrating these no's. Now, well, I mean, I was gonna say if I got into my boss, I didn't actually have a boss, I was the CEO of the company at the time, but there were similar things that I did in other instances where I'm like, I would not tell my supervisor I'm doing this because they are gonna think that I'm crazy. But for me, it works. For me, it's something that's gonna keep me engaged, keep me excited, and help me perform better. So thinking about what you need because you know yourself from a human performance standpoint better than anybody else. What's gonna motivate you? What's gonna help you? And there's is there a simple thing that you can do to augment that? Like, I hope nobody listening to this is in a position where they get like insulted at their jobs. But I know oftentimes like that is the case when you're working customer service because you have mean people, like let's not pretend all customers are perfect. A lot of them are jerks, a lot of them are, you know, hurt people that are like, you know, not very nice. So um, you know, if there's something like that, that you're like, okay, every time this happens, I'm gonna count it, I'm gonna make a mark, I'm gonna do something, and then I'm gonna like counteract that from an energy standpoint, from a personal, like emotional management standpoint, what can you do?

Priscilla: 58:31

Yeah. I really appreciate you coming on. This has been a really fun conversation. I've learned a lot from your book. I've learned a lot from this conversation. Before we wrap up, for anyone who's listening who wants to kind of take that first step today, creating super fans, what is one step that you would give to them to start right now?

Brittany: 58:50

I love this question. I would say ask yourself, what's the most common interaction that you have? How can you make it like a little bit better, even if it's 1% better? Is it with a joke? Is it with a smile? I was at the airport yesterday and the waiter was like telling these corny, like terrible, bad dad jokes. But he was so committed to the bit that it was so funny, it was so charming and engaging. And like all the customers were like, Oh, do you have another one? You have another one. I mean, he like literally walked when he brought me my check, he walked over and he had a banana and he was holding it like he was talking on the phone. Oh my gosh. He was like, Oh yeah, I don't know why, like her card's not going through. I don't know what the problem is. I mean, just like so corny, but like he committed to the bit, he loved it. So ask yourself, is there something that you encounter again and again and again that you can tweak just a little bit to enhance the energy, change the vibe, make the ordeal better, more enjoyable. Not just for them, but for you too.

Priscilla: 59:44

Yeah, that is so fun. There's such a conversation that can be had about how you want to make super fans out of your employees, too, which we don't have time to get into. You talk about it in your book, though. And so, you know, it's a good segue into plugging the book. Anyone who is listening to this who wants Wants to learn more about this because there's so much more that we didn't get into that is so valuable. Can you tell us a little bit about how people can find you, how they can get the book and learn more about Superfans?

Brittany: 1:00:12

Of course. Well, the book is called Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers into Lifelong Advocates. You can find it everywhere books are sold. Uh, there's an audiobook that I narrate, an ebook, and then of course the standard hardcover edition. You can find out more about me and my Six Weeks to Superfans masterclass, which is an all-in-one CX training program designed for everybody in your support department and the rest of the members on your team. Um, you can find all of that information at Britneyhodak.com.

Priscilla: 1:00:38

Which we will link in the show notes. So if you're listening to this, you can quickly get to that. I really can't recommend this book enough. Like I said, I read it in a day. It was so engaging, so easy to read. There's so much. One of the things that I love that you do about this in this book is that all of the chapter titles are song titles. And it took me like two chapters. And then I was sitting with someone at the time and I went, no, I don't know if she did this on purpose, but that's a Taylor Swift song title. So I don't know if I am reading Taylor Swift into everything, or if she's reading Taylor Swift into things, or if Taylor Swift just is everywhere. And then turns out, as I kept reading that all the chapters are song titles, and I just loved it. I think it's so great how you weave that music in through the book. It's really fantastic.

Jordan: 1:01:24

I also noticed it during this interview as well. I heard a lot of like cues and set list, like including things in your set list. I was like, okay, yeah, this is coming through now.

Priscilla: 1:01:34

It's a lot of fun. And I will say I'm pretty proud of myself. We've gotten to the end of the recording here, and I have not mentioned Taylor Swift yet. I am a huge Taylor Swift fan and gasped out loud when I read that you have met her and was like, all right, I'm gonna have to figure out how to do this interview without bringing up Taylor Swift in the first 10 seconds. But if you are a Taylor Swift fan, you should read this book because there's some little anecdotes in there about her, but about so much in the music industry. So I really, really recommend it. It's fantastic.

Brittany: 1:02:04

Well, thank you so much, Priscilla. I am so glad that you love the book. And yeah, you know, I really I wanted to write a book that was fun that like I would want to read, that my friends would want to read. The biggest compliment is that I sell so many copies of this book, like 50 at a time, 100 at a time, because somebody reads it and says, I bought this for my whole team. So I have like book club guides and team discussion guides. And every week I record videos for teams, and every single week it's like, we're this team, we bought 58 copies. We're this team, we have 75 copies. We're this team, we bought 35 copies. Like I wanted to write a book that would give people a sense of shared language, shared tools to be able to say, like, this is how we do it, to use another song title.

Priscilla: 1:02:45

Yes. When I finished reading it, I thought, oh, we got to read this as a team and we have to do a book club about this book. So I think you were successful in that. It's so great. So thank you so much. It's time for support in real life, our segment where we discuss a real life support experience. So, Jordan, what question do we have today?

Jordan: 1:03:08

All right, so this is a question from an online community. It says, I would still like to break into customer experience, but I'm having trouble landing gigs. I have nine years of social media experience, and many of those years I've been a community manager managing everything from strategy to content ideation to creation to managing DMs and messages, et cetera. I have the experience, but maybe I'm not translating it well in my resume. Any tips for social media specialists interested in landing a CX role?

Brittany: 1:03:37

Love this question. Okay, so here's what I would say. If you are a social media strategist expert, you have so much amazing experience that is instantly transferable. So this is what I would do. I would instead of applying for jobs, I would ask yourself, what is your dream job? Like, where do you want to work? What are the brands that you love? And then I would go check out their socials and I would reach out to somebody on LinkedIn or any forum that you want to say, Hey, I have almost a decade experience in social media, but I really want to make the move to customer experience. And what I know about social media is that it is the front lines of customer experience because it's where people go to vent their frustrations, their wins, everything in between. I would be such a great person to join your brand because I love it and because I have these insights that I want to share right away. And then share those insights. Like, what is it that you love about that brand? What is it that you love about the brand, but you think this thing sucks and they need to change and they need to be doing it differently? Like, what does your dream role look like? Where would that be? And then ask yourself, how do I reverse engineer the conversations to like get that dream role with that person? So it is very likely that your resume may not be written highlighting the right things. Obviously, you can use AI now. It's like so easy to do that. Write a prompt saying this is the dream role that I want. How do I shape the experience that I have through a lens that's gonna matter the most to this hiring manager or executive? And you will probably find ways to like reshape what you did through a lens of customer centricity. Because again, if you're on socials, literally everything you're doing is about customer experience. So whether it's on the acquisition side or the retention side, the service side, like it's all serving customers. So I would say anybody working in customer support or customer experience would be lucky to hire someone with nearly a decade of experience in social. And it's just a matter of designing like the dream job that you want and then making a plan to go get that. But don't limit yourself to jobs that you see posted or listed somewhere. Ask yourself, what are the brands that I would love to go work at? And how do I need to get in front of the people who make those hiring decisions?

Priscilla: 1:05:49

Yeah, I think that's so good. I think going through social media to get in touch with people, you think about this person has been working in social media for nine years. So they know what kind of messages they would get that would make them want to pass it along to the people in the decision making. And so I think you can use that to your benefit. You can say, this is how I would have, as a social media manager who's reviewing DMs, this is what would have got me to pass this along. So I'm gonna use that and write it in a way because I know how to get to the person who can make the call. So I think that's a great piece of advice. So thank you so much for sharing that. If you have a question, a support story, or a support situation that you would like us to discuss or shout out, you can text the show by using the send us a text link in the episode description. As always, if you like this episode, please share it with someone who works in customer support and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I want to give a huge thanks again to Brittany Hodak for joining us today, and thank you all for listening. Now go and make someone's day.