Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast. I'm Esther
and I'm still Melanie.
And today, we're joined by Victoria Taylor of Victoria Taylor, UK experience consultant who works with brands on their audience, customer, employee and brand experience. Welcomw, Vicky. Sorry.
Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.
That's quite an introduction there. Victoria, you've built up quite a reputation and a background. Now tell us, how did you start?
I started my own business, maybe like nearly nearly 10 years now, nearly 10 years in my own consultancy. And a lot of that then kind of relies around social media and marketing. But naturally, customer experience was something that always came into it. You know, it was very it was always about the person at the end of social media. And it develops. And it developed and it developed. I ended up working with lots of different brands around different areas of working around the customers and their employees and then as a brand, as a whole. So it really has developed over the last sort of 10 years. And, you know, naturally, we've got the digital world and we've got the physical world. And those two worlds very much collide and experience. The digital is still a very big element of it, but it is customer experience as a whole. That's a snapshot.
And that's it for today. No. So like you were saying, you know, at the end of the day, social media is all about the person at the other end. You know, these days we see so many people just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. What would be your advice to businesses just starting out? A lot of our audience are small businesses. A lot of them are, you know, maybe just starting out or
just early years.
Early years. What would be your advice? Because they're seeing all these big guys just sell, sell, sell. So give us some top tips.
We barely started the podcast and you're demanding Top Tips already.
I'm very demanding
Yeah, no. And so I would just say that, you know, people are like, first of all, remember that they are people. And everything that you do within business, you know, whether it's social media, digital marketing, PR or whatever you do in your business, relies on people. Ultimately, if you don't have people, you don't have a business. So we have to remember that the people are people first and foremost. They're not just customers. And if we treat them as customers, as in we're continuously selling to them, then we're not appealing to the person. So I think a really good thing is to remember that if you're a person and you have interests, your audiences have interests, too. They have things that they like, things that they dislike. So you really need to learn to understand your people under a lot of content is actually in conversation, not just the content that you produce, but the conversations that you have. So if you're a brand, you need to be a human brand, just be engaging converse and having conversations and really talking to people as human beings because that's what they are.
So, Victoria, when it comes to experience as you were explaining there, is it the same thing as customer service?
No, no. Customer service in general is reactive. Yeah. So it's it tends to be, you know when you're problem-solving or it can be proactive. But, you know, customer service does tend to be reactive. You're serving a customer needs customer experience is everything. So it's in the conversation that we're having now. You know, you might come off this podcast and think she was a bit of an idiot or you might come off it and think she was nice. Or so I'm creating an experience with you here in this conversation. And when you pick up the phone, you have a conversation on the phone with the client, that's experience, how you treat your suppliers, that's experience, how you smile at someone that's experience, how you engage it's experience. So it's much more all encompassing than just customer service.
Sounds exhausting.
It is something it is. But you know what? First and foremost, all of us are in the experience business. Second secondary comes what we do. And we all have to be stages of experience because that's what differentiates us from anybody else that, you know, that might offer the same services as if you have a good experience with Me. But there's another experience consultant that you don't you know, the likelihood is that you're going to choose me. So it really is time for us to be really human and show who we are. And if we're not very good humans, then we need to get better at being good humans, you know.
So point number one.
So this is yet another job that's a sole trader has to embrace and take on. Is it you know, do you need to have qualifications? Or, you know, sort of a download or something or is it just stuff you're just meant to know? I mean, how can we help the people who are listening to the podcast with this?
Yeah, I think you know what it is? It is complex and it is complicated. And as far as dollars go, I do have a free download. It's an e-book that will help people with that customer experience. It's like I'm just under 50 pages.
It's just a small one.
That's a bit of light reading it.
A little bit of light reading, but it will help people with sort of their initial experiences that they're creating when people don't know them. It's kind of a free experience. That's a good place to start. And you know what? Just going out there and having conversations and learning and listening, you know what better way to learn about people than to listen to people and to go into their worlds. You know, yes, we are business owners, but we have to be proactive and be people, people. And there is so much you can do a customer experience. Like I could delve into so many strategies. Well, I think if you're asking for the basics, you know, it is really going out there and spending time getting to know people. You know, people want to know that you care about them before they care about you. So it's really important to go out there and become that people person, you know, not a people person would probably not really in business, are you? So, um, yeah, I think that's probably a really good basic way to start.
And OK, so that sounds like something that would come more easily to extroverts than introverts. So what can introverts do to become more of a people person because they like people but in small doses.
Yeah, I think that's making it work for you and knowing like knowing what your limits are. So like I might come across as a complete extrovert and I actually think I do when I'm in this environment. But actually I think I'm an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert. I like I really value time on my own and I actually really need it because, you know, I am constantly in that environment where I'm talking to people. I, I need that alone time and that solace and quiet time. So I think it's knowing what your limits are. And then we don't have to be on video. We can engage through written content, through visual content, and we can still go out there and engage by talking to other people on their posts and going and engaging on their page. So, you know, even if you are an introvert, there's no reason why you can't strike up digital conversations. Digital gives us that beautiful ability to be able to not have to speak, but we can type and still be human when we do that.
It was fun. So I've got to say no. I think when it comes down to managing everything, I mean, look, I said that when you're managing all these different roles, is there a way of prioritising your customer experience? I mean, we've got to think of so many things. I mean, myself, when, in fact, all three of us here, we're all sole traders only. You know, we don't have people, well apart from you, Esther, an overseas ninja that you are. But, you know, so at the end of the day, we've got to prioritise where this goes with this. Be up in the top five or top 10, or would this be the most important thing in the world?
The most important thing, without customers, you have none of them. So, you know, to have a company that doesn't even think about that. The problem is probably actually even just thinking about it as the terms. And unfortunately, we think about it as the terms because we have to time it something. But we have to tell marketing, marketing, right? Experience is just everything about your business. So it's actually quite a natural thing when you're not kind of terming it as what we must do customer experience is a part of what you do daily, and there are lots of things you can do to design experiences specifically and lots of different strategies and all kinds of different things. But, you know, experiences, I think if you go out in the day and and imagine that on a daily basis as human beings, we have thousands of moments, right. On a daily basis, like we're having a moment now. My phone here is going with notifications. Those are moments that I'll have when I come off this podcast. I'll go out and I'll talk to my postman and I'll have a moment that we have twenty thousand of them on a daily basis. So we're continually having moments and experiences with people, right? And I think when you get your brain into that thinking to know that actually I need to really stand out amongst those twenty thousand moments, it puts you in a place where you're naturally delivering more positive, naturally. And that doesn't mean you have to be positive all the time. It just means that you. You go out there and you give your best self, you know, yeah.
yeah, to being positive, 20000 funny moments, that's it. No,
I didn't say that
I'm going to switch off now, hide myself in somewhere to escape the world and close the door behind me, you know, it's like, OK, so to avoid the overwhelm.
Yeah.
What can people do? I mean, like you say, just start by being more positive about it.
Yeah. You know what. And when I say about being positive and I also think there's a thing, I also think that's like toxic positive, like positivity where you can be overly positive all the time and that becomes toxic because it's not natural. So you've got to allow yourself to feel the emotions that you feel and actually have you not feeling the best that don't put yourself out there whilst you're feeling like that. You know, it's not something you need to do, take care of the customers that you're dealing with. And I think that, you know, we're always in this, oh, we need new customers. We need new customers. We need new customers while we're bleeding them out the bottom of the book at the other end. You know, if you're not feeling great, really take care of the customers that you've got. Don't worry about generating new customers all the time. Take care of your employees if you've got employees and give yourself the time for yourself. Like, you know, you have to give yourself a good experience to be able to create a good experience. So take the pressure off and take what you need, gin, whatever you need.
Now, in fairness to our fair listeners here, you do not need to resort to alcohol. But, you know, we spoke only a couple of weeks ago Victoria about customer experience, but we're doing it for the Irish Tech News podcast, which I say said,
Unplug
yes, sorry and
Unplug
But, you know, and you gave us a wonderful example of how the boss gave good experience to their staff. But there's a new one that's recently come up. Would you like to share it?
Yes, so this is a story about a guy who decided at the beginning of this week that he was going to give his staff a day off when everything opened back up, he gave his staff a day off so they could go and visit the pub. Let's not just talk about alcohol and visit the pub. They could go see their families. They could do everything that they've been deprived of doing for, you know, for all of these months. And he gave them the day off, which is amazing, isn't it? You know, what an amazing example and a great example to say that as well. You know, for somebody to say, take the day off and go and do that, that's someone that really cares about their employees. And ultimately, your employee experience is your customer experience, because those are the people that deal with your customers and your employees are happy they're going to take care of your customers and your employees are unhappy. They're not going to give their best experience to your customers. So employee like customer should always start with employee experience because ultimately they're like a customer of your brand as well, their experience and you as a brand. So you need to give them a good experience. And you can guarantee that those staff, you know, when they got over their hangovers the following day, probably felt great about going into work for a brilliant boss that has given them that time off, right? Yeah.
And I suppose I remember that particular article, the he encouraged him to go and spend money on the local economy as well, go shopping, go get some food and that sort of stuff, which is brilliant and supportive. But I don't know not everybody can afford to do that. You know, it's not easy doing that sort of thing. And I guess you've just got to work within your own boundaries, your own limits, you know.
Yeah, but it doesn't have to be a fully paid day off in the middle of the week or at the start of the week. It could be a nice little, you know, Christmas hamper or a bottle of gin. Everybody knows now that Vicky likes Gin.
It can be a wet Christmas and it can just be as simple as, you know, a smile.
Yes.
When they're coming in the door or coming onto Zoom call as we're all still online, you know, smiling at your customers, smiling at your employees, you know.
Yeah.
And to change somebody's day,
it 100 per cent can. And, you know, I work with a company, a brilliant company, and they have a Zoom well, throughout lockdown, they've had like a zoom bar on a Friday night where employees come to the bar on a Friday and the virtual bar and they just have a chinwag at the bar. They you know, they chat, they bring their drinks and they just spend that time together. You know, there's so many things that you can do that are either no cost or low cost, but it's just making people feel like they really matter to you because, you know, if you make them matter to you, then your brand will matter to them
Can you measure customer experience?
Do you have customers? Oh, yeah. You know, yes. I mean, there's so many variables in customer experience. And because it is so big and because it comes into so many different elements, you know, if you talking solar panel entrepreneur, then that's probably just, you know, monitoring it yourself based on the results you're getting. But as you get into larger enterprise, it depends on the elements. You know, are you working with a human resource department? Are you looking at creating experience through your digital marketing? Is it through some physical structure that you've created? Is a specific designed experience. It just depends on what you're measuring because it is so vast and it is measurable. But I think if you say your listeners are relatively small to medium businesses, you know, all people happy with you, are you creating a good experience? You know that, you know, if you're creating a good experience with somebody and, you know, ask people, I used to do that. I used to say, can you tell me what I'm really bad at.
Really?
Yeah because I want to know that. And I think I think we shy away from that. And I think we shy away from learning what are our faults are. You know, social media gives us a bit of that kind of ego world that we're so used to in that everything has to be so wonderful. But I shouldn't want to know what my best qualities are. I want to know what my worst ones are, because those are the ones that I can improve. So I think, like, you know, knowing what those qualities are and then doing something about them. So be open to asking for feedback, whether it's good, bad or indifferent, and then acting on it, you know.
Yeah, I would do so.
I would I would just say with that, with the feedback, don't take it personally.
Yeah.
Because what what one person perceives of you could be how they saw it in that moment. I mean, they might be having a bad day when they turn right and say, oh, you took 30 minutes to reply to my email when I needed a reply at that instant, you know, so it's all based on their perceptions. Don't don't just take one person's personal opinion and
Victoria
get a wide like a wide range of opinions. I put a post up on Instagram a few weeks ago saying that you should ask people in your network, you know, people that don't really engage with you and people that do really engage with you. You know, you know, the people that like you are indifferent to or don't really engage with, you come out and speak to them and ask them and say, you know what? And like, I know we don't engage much on here, but I was I was wondering why that might be. You know, you follow me. Is this something that I'm not providing for you? What can I do? And that will give you, you know, a lot of a lot of knowledge, ask a wide range of people and just be open to the feedback. And like you say, don't take it personally.
So when you were saying getting information, do you mean like primary and secondary research sources? So maybe a focus group or surveys or is that what you were talking about?
I think there's lots of different ways to do that. You know, there are focus groups and surveys you can do. It's your social audiences. I think sometimes I find that focus groups can be quite contrived because they are and surveys as well, because you are specifically put in a survey in which someone writes in the context of that, like, I've got to do this for a survey, whereas if you're doing it in a social environment, more naturally, it's more organic and people are more comfortable in their own social environments. So I think social is quite a good way to do it. And you probably get a better result from doing that than a specific you know, if you do a focus group or Zoom group come in Zoom and tell me how rubbish or how good I am. It's a bit like a weird thing to do, isn't it? You kind of go, but the social it's a good way to do it because it's natural and it's organic and people kind of go, yeah, people are happy to give opinion on social, aren't they?
Sometimes too happy keyboard warriors all the way.
I haven't heard that phrase for a long time.
Oh, they're still they're still there. So, Victoria, if you could give us one example of a well-known brand who is doing this right? Are there any
you, you.
And yet, you know what, like some brands, this so many that do it well, I think, like your audience is a very social like social marketing, aren't they? And I think probably a good brand that they'd be able to relate to is innocent smoothies. So innocent drinks, except they do it really well and they do it really simply as well. You know, they they create great experiences by just understanding the context and understanding people, you know. On Monday I think it was they put a tweet out and it went out on Monday. It was a brilliant tweet. And the tweet was, I'm just going to find it now because it was all gobbledegook and jumbled up and it went out and it was brilliant. And it just said it was like, I'm showing you ladies this now. But if anyone listening, they put all different words. And basically it was gibberish that kind of said the pubs are open now, but if you don't want to get too drunk on a Monday, you could just have a smoothie. But it was all jumbled up the words as though they were drunk. Right? Right. Like so bangun for their audience, they relatable to the context. It got people talking and they just create great experience through really simple stuff. And they engage. They engage with people. They talk to people. There are happy brands. Yeah. So I think they're a really good example
And very regular as well.
Yeah, they are great, they're consistent and they go out and they talk to people. It's not just about them, they make it about people, which is really important.
Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's one of the key points that everyone should take away. You know, it's it's not about you, it's not about any of us. It's about the people who are buying from you. And like you said earlier on, you know, if you focus on the customers that you already have, then others will automatically come because they will refer you to.
Exactly, yeah.
So you came to a realisation earlier on that how people can call your name. Could you tell us how people should refer to you from now on?
It's so Victoria Taylor. Some people call me Vicky and actually the brand is Victoria Taylor UK. But one of my clients said to me is Victoria Taylor. I was like, oh, I've never seen it like that before. Whenever he rings me like that, hi, Victoria Taylor. And I'm like, Hi, Victoria Taylor Uk yeah, Victoria.
OK, well thank you so much for joining us today. Victoria or Vicky or Vicky. Victoria Taylor, we can call you anything. It's not too early in the morning and it's great to have. And we will be looking out for all the great customer experiences
And don't forget to do her download her really brief 50 page downloads.
Go on, Victoria, give us your link.
Victoria Tail. So tail dot UK.
That's just just Google Victoria. Victoria Taylor and thought it should come up. Thanks very much again for joining us. We'll be back next week for more Monday morning marketing. Bye bye
Bye.