Janne Ohtonen - The 1 Reason Your Business Exists (C0118)

Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for. Their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And don't miss our one minute exit coach tip of the day on exitcoachradio.com. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us today. My next guest is Janni Otinen and um Janni is from Add Value to me, and we're going to talk about uh the customer experiences, uh, strategies you can have. We talked about this earlier in the show, how important it is to have positive customer experiences these days because. Uh, if you don't, everybody finds out. And so it's important to make sure that you're working on customer experiences. So, Janni, welcome to the show and thanks for joining us. Uh, thank you, Bill, and thanks for having me in your great show. Well, you know, before we get started, tell us a little bit about add value to me and your background and uh what types of customers you uh do you work for? Yeah, definitely. Uh, let me ask you for something. Uh, if you think about anything, uh, that you have been doing this week and it has been immediately or just OK, so what, what does it make you feel like? Well, probably it could have been better. I maybe I feel like I, I wasted my time. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't make you feel anything great. It's just OK, or it's just something that happens. And that's basically what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you, feeds you. So that's what your clients are. And that's what I'm, I'm focusing on. I started consulting companies, uh, over 13 years ago in Finland regarding customer experiences and as you can imagine, it's quite, uh, quite a small country. So in, in the past 3 years, I've been working out from London. And I've been involved in multiple million dollar IT projects and they have they actually failed to create enough value for the clients if you ask me, you know, you can imagine these companies investing 10s and 10s, even tens of millions or hundreds of millions in IT projects, and you get something out of it that feels just. OK. Oh, it does the trick that we asked you to do, but it's not really anything fancy. And that was something that really started bothering me and, and that was the time that I started looking for people and companies that who want to take, take those extra steps, who want to serve their clients to be something much more better than just OK. And that's how I started looking into the customer experience management and, and then I found this huge secret that actually helps companies to define the customer experience strategies so that they can serve their clients better and that really turned turned around the projects that I've been doing. So that's the kind of companies that I like to work with. That's a great thought because I, you know, I can think of when you, you asked that question a little bit earlier, I could think of a restaurant I went into where the I thought the experience would be fantastic and the food was just so so and I was really kind of disappointed. I went in to buy some, some clothing in a new men's clothing store. I thought I would really enjoy and they asked me at the end, do you want us to to perma press your pants? And then I said, yeah, that sounds great. I thought, I thought I was getting an incredible experience and I look at my bill and they charged me $45 without even asking me. And I thought, well, I'm not going back there again because they, they're not honest with me. And then online experiences which so many consumers are gravitating towards these days and something like an Amazon that just never seems to disappoint versus another site I went to where I I bought something. I was excited about it and I couldn't get out of the checkout page, it just wouldn't let me buy it. Yeah, so I can imagine that they lost your business there. Yeah, they're all all customer experiences so, so, uh, what makes customer experiences so important these days? Well, it, it's a, it's a really good question. If you think about it from the company perspective, like uh Peter Trucker already 1954 said that there's only one reason uh for companies to exist, and that is to create a customer. So basically, that's why they're in business. Of course, if you are in the public sector or government funded or something like that, then that's a bit different game. Then the question is that, uh, how do you spend your budget in the best possible way. But then the companies actually can only spend and use money that they have earned. And the only way to learn that is through the customer value. And like we discussed those, your, your experiences with the rest. Restaurants and all that, and you said you're not going back there again. So for that business, it's gonna mean that the customer experience they provided for you, created you to think that OK, they are not worth my money and potentially you even tell your friends and colleagues and other people that, OK, there's this restaurant that you shouldn't go and there's this other one where I think you should go because they offer, offer you much better service. So if you think about the reason behind it, it comes down to these customer emotions and how we as people uh just do things and like, like things. If they are not emotionally engaging, then you basically, you're not going to engage with the business in the future either. So that, that's why you have to create different kinds of customer experiences that are somehow above the media or uh above the average that the other businesses are doing. And if you think about nowadays, how the business works, it used to be about logistics. If you have great logistic chain, then you basically could move stuff around faster and that was your competitive advantage. Then we talked about the information age for about 10 years, but if you have the information, then you are the king and you know enough or you know more than the others, and then you can sell better. But nowadays, all that kind of thing, logistics and and marketing, sales information, it's all, all commodized. Everybody has it. So it only leaves you the customer experiences that can differentiate you from the other businesses if it makes any sense. It makes a tremendous amount of sense because what a lot of businesses fail to fail to recognize is that there is a long term value of a customer and if you don't know what that long term value is then you don't really understand uh why you should spend so much to to to make sure that you have a positive experience with your customer that they become a raving uh. You know, proponent of uh um a cheerleader about your services is that, is that what it boils down to? Yeah, you're right, Bill. And I mean, even if you think about the short term value, it's even already challenging enough for the companies because if you think about your restaurant with it, it wouldn't take more than maybe 2 hours of performance from the, from the restaurant to serve you well, give you great food, and And all that stuff and invoice you properly and you know, and make you feel that the value for the money is is enough in there. It's not even long term, but what about if you actually think about the long term and if you think about your value as a customer for that restaurant in the next 5 to 10 years, how many times would you eat eat in that restaurant? It will probably amount thousands of dollars, wouldn't it? Oh, absolutely, yes. Yeah, so in business terms, it means money, and they lost money because they didn't give you the customer experiences you deserve as a client, or they could actually earn the money if you, if they give you remarkable customer experiences and they would earn you a custom for the next 10 years or 10 months and you would go there again and maybe even bring your friends, so. It is money what we talk about here. So do you help business owners to uh start I mean is there a process by which you start thinking, OK, let's let's think about your customer and what it what it means potentially for them to have a a great versus a lackluster performance and let let's list out all the things that we can do how do you help your your uh your clients? You're right on the spot, Bill, because you cannot serve your clients well unless you understand them. You need to know who your target customer is and what kind of people are they. So one size does not fit all. That's very common saying, isn't it? But it, it really is true because something that would be amazing customer experience for one target client group. It's not something like that for another one. So that's why you need to understand that who are the customers that you serve, what, what they like, how they think, what motivates them, all that kind of thing. And that was one of those big secrets that I came up with. And that's why I started developing a method called customer experience blueprint. Well, it's called Blueprint because I don't know how to say it properly, the word, the word strategy, so. I just rename it's a blueprint, but basically you need to have a strategy for customer experiences that will define that who is the client and how we as a business are going to respond to that client so that we do it in the way that the client wants to do it. If you think about the traditional businesses, what they do is they come up with a product or service, whatever that is, and then they go out and they start asking that, hey, look at this thing. I have it here who wants to buy it. And they, that's what their marketing efforts are. It's, it's basically asking that who wants to buy this fancy thing. But if you would be an outside in company, some a customer centric company who goes out and asks from the client that, OK, what is your problem? What, what kind of things are you trying to solve? How can I help you? And then they really. And the client and then they go, go back to their companies or offices and start thinking about solutions for the client. It would really change the game. And there are companies like that. I mean, from US, if you think about companies like Amazon and, well, Sapos being really famous for it. So, so there are companies like that, but they are definitely still a minority at the moment. Which, which is good because there's opportunity if they if they're a minority but. Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean, that's where the opportunities like I, like I said earlier, that those leaders who understand that this is the modern, you know, the, the biggest thing they can do as the CEOs or or senior executives for the company to actually say that, OK, we're gonna turn our company around 180 degrees. We're not gonna be looking up into our own bellies anymore. We're gonna be starting looking into the clients and asking them, OK, what is it that they want. And when they do that, the clients will know this. They will say that what happened here? I mean, from US, there's a great story about Office Depot. It, it was so that the CEO, uh, went out and did sort of mystery shopping, and maybe you have seen the TV show called Undercover Boss. So he went out there and, and started looking at how, how their employees were serving the client and it was, it wasn't very good. So, It went back to the headquarters and changed the whole culture, how people are trained, how the stores are arranged, and rest of that uh business uh is history. They have done really well after that. So it really shows how it can turn around companies. So is that a good starting point for a lot of business owners is to actually figure out what is, what is it like to be a customer experience that, and that's that can create a revelation right there as far as uh how was I treated um. Uh, so, so, so to speak, taste your own cooking. Yeah, basically, yeah, I mean, how many um employees or even the leaders know how the company is actually serving their clients. Do they actually know it because this, you know, this voice of customer programs and customer feedback systems. But it's all, it's all um solicited feedback. So you ask your clients what do you think, and the clients will always give you some random answer. It's not necessarily random, but it's not something that is very deep. It's very superficial feedback on your business. But what if you actually did some sort of undercover posting and you actually went out into your business and, and saw it from the eyes of the employees and from the eyes of the um Customers, how it really works at the end of the day, and most people are not ready to do that because they already know when they start thinking about it that that's gonna be quite a horrible view they can see it. And that's why improving customer experiences and really turning into customer centric requires a little bit of. You have, you know, you have to be willing to be criticized and and willing to change things. Now these days business owners don't have to look very far to find comments about their businesses on, on social media sites like Yelp and Glassdoor. Even there's one out here called Glassdoor about how employees are treated at a company. So should should business owners be uh looking at those types of things to, to find out, you know, and believing the feedback from, from customers. Um, and beyond that, what else should they be doing to solicit the information and feedback from customers? Yeah, I mean, they definitely need to tap into listening all, all the stuff that is going online. And the thing is that, do you remember how many uh surveys do you get in a week or in a month? Is it like a few or do you get 10 or even more? Oh, more, more than just a few, yeah, quite a, quite a few. Yeah, I, at least I get something like even up to 55 to 10 per week. And it's just too many surveys. So something that companies really need to start looking into is that how can you get unsolicited feedback? How can you understand what the clients say and think about you without actually bothering them? And that, that information is already available in the interactions and in the touch points of the company, between the company and, and the customer. So what you need to do is then find, find some ways to understand that what, what happens in those touch points and how those interactions go. And it's not really that difficult. If you talk about call centers, there's all kinds of ways to to actually record the calls and then ultimately to turn them into text and then. Into analysis and you can get automated, uh, insights from that, for example. Or if you are in the store nowadays, it's very easy to track people in the store. So you can see that which are the products and the shelves and areas in the store that people go to and which are the areas they are not going into. You can also see that how, how sales people are performing. So there's A lot of information, but there hasn't been enough will to put all that unsolicited information together so that you create a single view of the customer, which includes those online online feedback. It includes customers uh feedback surveys, but it also includes the operational data. And the employee view. So if you could put all those things together and create a single view of the customer, then you would see that what's going on internally and externally. And I think that's the biggest game changer uh regarding the customers inside that is coming up this year and next year. Now, what do you think happens to uh organizations that don't do this kind of thing, that don't put proper effort into their customer experiences? What do they, what is their future look like? Well, I think it looks a little bit grim because if you, for example, look, um, the SFP 500 list and how long the companies have been on the list. So 40 years ago those companies had stayed on the list average 60 years. So today, if you start looking at how long companies staying on that list, it's, it's coming down to 15 to 18 years. So basically what it says is that companies are coming and going so much faster than what they used to be, and I believe that the very big reason behind that is that the people have so much choice. There's so much competition that these traditional big companies haven't been able to cope up cope with it. So basically. If you are not serving your clients well, they are not departing their money for your benefit, and that's going to mean that you're not in the business anymore. So customer experience is at the end of the day equal to money and money always equals to how long you're going to be in the business overall. Now Janni, you have a uh online video training series to help people create their own customer experience blueprint available um tell us a little bit about what what is what's that all about? What would somebody find out about that? Definitely though. I mean, first of all, I'm from Finland so as you can hear, I'm, I'm not Native American, so, so you have to excuse my accent on the videos, but. The information in that video series, I give, I give for you, I give 3 videos for free. The information in it has actually saved my clients, uh, over every year over $1 million US dollars. So it's solid and it works and it generates value if you do what I teach in there. So if you get past the past the video itself and you look into the content and then you use the. Templates and the free tools I'm giving on the same page with the videos, then you can go into your business, you can have a workshop with your colleagues. You can generate a customer experience to which will show if you do it properly, that what is it that your customers are after and why are they after that. And that's when you can start aligning your own company's value into the client value and basically generate more money. Well it sounds like a fantastic watch. How long does the video um last? There are 3 videos which of each are between 15 to 20 minutes. So in total it's about 60 minutes, and I know today it's a lot to ask from people to watch videos for 60 minutes, but, but at the end of the day, if that's gonna generate you minimum 5 figure. Uh, cost savings and new revenue opportunities, I think it's worth it anyway. So, because you know, you can always get the good things uh in a quick and uh fast way. So sometimes you, you need to do a little bit of effort, but at the end of the day, it's all about ROI investing, investing time and returning it back to you, so. Well, it's a tremendous value and, and you know, this is a way again to, to kind of test out and get some information on on the things that we've been talking about. Um, the, the, the very notion of, of not working on your customers is, is a bad idea. You're gonna, we've already talked earlier today with guests that said you drive up value by having positive feedback from customers. That's one way to increase the value of your business. So let me give our listeners the the URL is HTTP colon. Do the forward slash thing twice and then you have bitli BIT. L. And another forward slash and then CEB, which stands for customer experience blueprint I guess C E B dash my name Bill Black, B I L L B L A C K. And we'll put this on our show notes when your interview is loaded up on our website, but this has been tremendous information and very helpful, and I want to thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Bill. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I'm sure I'm gonna dig into this stuff myself and I'm sure we'll want to have you back on and talk in more depth about a few different uh of the facets of this. So again, uh, Janni Otinen, thank you so much for joining us and uh have a great day. Thank you, Bill, likewise. We're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back after this, so please stay tuned. You're listening to one of many shows on Exitcoachradio.com. We're interviewing advisors, authors, and thought leaders for their best tips, ideas, and precautions so you can be well planned. If you'd like to be a guest on any of our shows, go to guest.exitcoachradio.com. Exitcoachradio.com. Come listen for a minute. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio.