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Season 1 | Episode 3
From Technology to Engaged Employees with Rebecca Wettemann, Valoir
CEO and Principal Analyst at Valoir, Rebecca Wettemann, believes that empowering employees is the key for growth. Without happy employees, the organization will lose great talent.
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About the Episode
CEO and Principal Analyst at Valoir, Rebecca Wettemann, believes that empowering employees is the key for growth. Without happy employees, the organization will lose great talent.
On this episode of the Fuel Growth Podcast, Rebecca shares her thoughts on keeping employee engagement high—even in a mostly virtual environment—and using technology to enable continuing mentorship and enjoyable experiences associated with the company.
Get the recap of this episode, or check out the site for more episodes, and information about the Fuel Growth podcast, brought to you by SugarCRM.
Guest
Rebecca Wettemann CEO and Principal of Valoir, Inc.
Rebecca Wettemann is CEO and Principal of Valoir, Inc. a research and advisory firm helping leaders optimize relationships between technology and people. With a focus on people apps (HCM and CRM), the future of work, user adoption, productivity, and value, Wettemann’s team combines primary research and unique insights to help clients understand their strengths and execute strategies that support their goals and values. With more than 20 years of industry experience and previous leadership roles at Nucleus Research and IDC her practical experience includes tenures at the International Telecommunication Union and the United States Information Agency where she led digital transformation initiatives and related projects to help governmental agencies bridge the digital divide.
Transcript
Clint Oram
Thanks for joining us today on the Fuel Growth podcast.
Lizzy Overlund
What is the right growth equation for your company? Is it pipeline?
Clint Oram
Brand?
Lizzy Overlund
Products?
Clint Oram
Customers?
Lizzy Overlund
Employees?
Clint Oram
Join us as we interview CEOs, entrepreneurs and seasoned executives to explore what it takes to propel your business into growth. Welcome to the Fuel Growth podcast. Hi, I'm Clint Oram.
Lizzy Overlund
And I'm Lizzy Overlund.
Clint Oram
And our guest today is Rebecca Wettemann, CEO and Principal Analyst at Valoir. Valoir is an analyst and advisory firm focused on the value of technology in customer experience and employee experience. Welcome, Rebecca.
Rebecca Wettemann
Thanks, Clint, great to be here.
Clint Oram
So tell us a little bit more about yourself and Valoir, give us a little little intro to you.
Rebecca Wettemann
Sure. So Valoir has been around for several years, really focused on helping customers understand the value of technology, particularly in the employee experience and customer experience space. And when you think about it, you know, customer experience and employee experience, we often treat very, very separately when we think about technology, when we think about operations. But more and more, they're inextricably linked. And so what we're looking at is helping customers understand both from an HR perspective, and a CRM perspective, how I think about creating those engaging experiences, taking advantage of the technology that's out there, but really maximizing the value of technology, which plays into the human factors. All of us have acted at one point in our lives as employees and as customers.
Clint Oram
So this podcast is all about growth. Our audience here today is here to listen about the key insights that can help them unlock growth for their company. As you talk about technology and customer experience and employee experience. connect that back to the growth topic for me.
Rebecca Wettemann
Sure. You know, Clint, I think when we're thinking about large organizations that we work with at Valoir or small startups, there's often a real disconnect between how I think about employees and customers. And training is a big part of that. Right? So why do I have a sales kickoff and sales training that's completely separate from the way I train and incent other kinds of employees? Why am I looking at customer experience, and the customer journey in a completely separate way than the employee journey? There are lots of things that we can learn if we look at the history of CRM, to think about not how I just do a better CX strategy, but to a better EX strategy that enables my employees, be they in sales, service, marketing or operations, to be that voice of the customer.
Clint Oram
Can you give us a specific example of that employee experience and customer experience being aligned together and how that that helps a company grow?
Rebecca Wettemann
Well, I think what we think about learning and training, there's a key area where for a lot of companies, it's really broken. Learning and training is traditionally sat in HR. It's disconnected from ongoing work, onboarding may happen once a year. And I don't provide that sort of professional personal development and ongoing coaching that I see for example, the sales leadership, with sales mentorship, being able to extend those kinds of capabilities through technology to coach not just the top performers, not just the folks in club, not the folks on the leadership path, but everyone within an organization. How do I think about building a next generation learning and training strategy that is for everyone in the organization that looks at mentoring and coaching, which is often been a key part of the sales organization, and extending that kind of capability to everyone in the organization?
Clint Oram
Okay, so your experience shows that it's often the sales team that gets that extra training, but the rest of the organization doesn't but really, in today's modern era of of communications and social media and just being connected with your customers, isn't it kind of true almost every employee is ends up being customer facing in some shape, way or form?
Rebecca Wettemann
They do, and that's where training and employee engagement really falls short. Right? I separate that whole employee story from the customer story. I'm gonna date myself a little bit, Clint, but if we think back in history, one of my first jobs as an analyst was covering collaboration and knowledge management back in the late 90s. And knowledge management came out and it was really exciting. You were going to map everyone within the organization's knowledge. Let them self-identify as experts, enable people who had never met each other in different locations to connect and share skills, experiences, and that let everyone rate their experiences Well, why is that not available in every organization today?
Clint Oram
What do they do? If they're not using technology? It's hard for me, as a technologist even imagine that kind of world. What do they? Do they just kind of fumble their way along? Or is there just ad hoc?
Rebecca Wettemann
A lot of it is fumbling the way along. The short answer is, most companies get a pretty poor grade, when employees grade them on the ability to support mentorships. Employees create their own networks, outside of the organization. And that makes them more likely to extend those networks as they look for another job. So there's a lot that we can think about bringing that technology in to enable technology, enable coaching and mentoring with our own organization that helps people chart a growth path, learn and become engaged in and love the company culture, and then go back and contribute as mentors in bringing other folks along in the organization.
Lizzy Overlund
Rebecca, when you talk about technology across the company, are we talking about one platform that everyone in the company is accessing to leverage mentors, for example?
Rebecca Wettemann
That's a really good question. Lizzy. If we go back to my old school knowledge management example, it was about putting in a platform that everyone will use didn't necessarily work very well, because the top down approach doesn't always work. And I think what we've seen in the employee mentoring spaces, if there's not a technology available, there, employees will find something else, and they will use it effectively. But the real goal and focus of of HR, and other folks who are thinking about enabling technology, with enterprises: how do I make those tools available? How do I create those opportunities so that employees can take the lead on more viral adoption of tools that make sense. We've seen this in a lot of cases where technology—low-code is a fantastic example, right? Where employees have said, I'm going to look at what's available out there, maybe I have to swipe my credit card, or maybe I can try it for free. But I can seek these opportunities to enable greater efficiency, greater productivity, less focus on manual work within my organization. And low-code, obviously, is a great example of where viral adoption has been a key part of momentum in that industry.
Clint Oram
Low-code being a type of tools that allow people, mere mortals just to map out process flows and do other things, right? Yeah. Okay. Good deal. So my mind goes to community software, forum software. Right. At our own company, we have SugarClub, which is that main hub for learning and for sharing. Are you thinking, that type of technology or even more than that? I gotta believe that, you know, the idea of forums have been around for 20 years? I'm sure there's there's even better and newer approaches that augment that?
Rebecca Wettemann
Exactly. Yes, absolutely. There's a lot out there in the coaching space. But you bring up a really important point, Clint, which is we've looked at communities and forums as a way to enable customers for a long time. Not just in terms of reducing support costs, but enabling customer advocates, enabling those community experts, building up that knowledge base. There's a lot there that we can think about as we think about the employee experience. How do we create those communities of employees who can learn from one another? Who can share skills?
Lizzy Overlund
Yeah, I definitely see this being a gap, but I think back on my career path and companies that I've been at, I can see that being a problem, particularly as technologies become more popular. And we look at tools, like instant messaging tools, where you have access to a lot of information, but it's hard to know where you can go to get that information. You don't know what you don't know.
Rebecca Wettemann
You know Lizzy, I think it's critically important right now, particularly as we think about the future of hybrid work, right? If people aren't in the office to be able to informally network and determine who those people are, that may be helpful, how are they going to find them? There has to be better technology to support that. And if we look at, you know, work from home, we've done a lot of work kind of tracking the productivity from work from home and the engagement of employees. But moving forward, it's about operationalizing a hybrid environment that works for everyone. If we look at our employee experience study that I mentioned, employees who are not working in the office believe that they're missing out on opportunities to network.
Clint Oram
Do you think that might be part of The Great Resignation as well? If they're not getting those growth opportunities?
Rebecca Wettemann
They're not getting those growth opportunities, which is why enabling the technology to level the playing field, not just in terms of collaboration and communities, but in terms of enabling folks to identify what are those opportunities within the organization where I may still be able to stay and grow if I take certain training, if I work on certain projects. We have to create those networks supported by technology, so that everyone has those opportunities to thrive, and continue to be engaged in their organizations.
Clint Oram
So when I hear about the different technology approaches to training your own employees and training your customers and enabling them on whatever products or services that you're selling, my mind goes to that buzzword of digital transformation. And am I on the right path there?
Rebecca Wettemann
You're opening up a big box there, Clint, that's a big box to open.
Clint Oram
So would you align some of these initiatives that you've described back to digital transformation? And would you say that digital transformation is helping companies grow?
Rebecca Wettemann
Certainly, digital transformation is helping companies grow. In our global state of digital transformation study we did last year, we found that companies with a eight or higher score in terms of adoption of digital transformation had 2x the revenue growth of those that were at the lower end of the scale, and a pretty significant difference in terms of profit margin and growth as well. So certainly, advancing along digital transformation is a key factor in growth. The interesting thing that we found, though, is that we often think about the hurdles to digital transformation, being about resources or staff or skills, or budget. What we found were the top hurdles, were really around politics and leadership.
Lizzy Overlund
Why do you think that leaders would get in the way of digital transformation initiatives, Rebecca?
Rebecca Wettemann
Because digital transformation is hard. It's not just about digitizing existing processes. It's about changing the way employees work. It's about new business models, new revenue models. And that is scary. It requires a different kind of leadership, and not to beat a dead horse about learning and training, but it means thinking about how I train, skill network, and upskill employees differently. And it's not a surprise when we looked at digital transformation that HR is a real laggard compared to other areas in the organization around digital transformation
Clint Oram
So happy customers, happy employees equal growth? Is it as simple as that? Is there a playbook that you need to apply to all this to kind of unlock all the pieces that ultimately translate to growth? And also when I think growth, maybe not just revenue growth, but brand growth and everything else in there. So is there is there a way of approaching this that companies can think through and wrap their heads around?
Rebecca Wettemann
I think that happy customers and happy employees are certainly important, but that's not enough. It's really about enabling those employees, and enabling those customers to be brand advocates. To be Chief Morale Officer for everyone in their company, and enabling those employees as well. So we think about, how do we empower? How do we inspire? How do we engage? And ultimately, how do we put the tools in the hands of those customers, and those employees so that they can be an engine for growth and an engine for success?
Clint Oram
You're making me think back to one of our other guests that we've had recently who talked about the power of the referral. Right, the power of the referral as a way of growing your business. And I'm thinking about, you know, it's one thing to ask for the referral. But what's the whole path that gets you to the point where the employee knows to ask for the referral and the customer is excited and happy to give that referral. I'm seeing all these pieces that you're talking about of customer experience and employee experience, maybe coming down to that point of the referral, which is when you've turned somebody into an advocate, they bring you business by telling their friends that you're you're a great company to do business with. Am I connecting the dots in the right way? Is this the path that you're thinking about?
Rebecca Wettemann
It is but that requires advocates on both sides. That means that service agent has to be trained, incented, understand and want to cultivate that relationship and get that referral, just as much as the customer may want to give a positive referral. I think that's another area that we're looking at, sort of the disconnect between how do we onboard and train service agents versus the rest of the organization? How do we bring them into the fold when historically they've been separated, if not, by zip code, at least by floor, from the rest of the company? And how do we think about enabling service agents, service employees to have a growth path within the organization?
Clint Oram
You know, at the front end of my career in the CRM industry, there was a hot topic of turning your cost center into a profit center. Do you remember that term back maybe 20 years ago, and it was all about turning your call centers and your contact centers into a point of growth for the company. But the thing that everybody tripped over was the person whose job it is to deliver great service may not have the skills or the training to ask for the referral, to do that next step in there. What's your thoughts closer aligning the service end of the house with the sales end of the house? And aligning everybody towards revenue and towards those types of activities? Is it really two different worlds still? Or is there the opportunity to bring them closer together?
Rebecca Wettemann
I think we have a unique opportunity right now, for those service managers out here. There's a window right now that is open for you to experiment, to do things differently, to rethink how you operationalize the growth path for service agents. It's not just about agent retention. It's about what's their opportunity beyond the service organization. And when you can put those pieces together, that's where service agent engagement, service agent training makes sense. If we go back to the cost/profit story, Clint, why am I investing in creating advocates as service agents, creating customer facing agents with a high degree of skill and knowledge, if I know they're going to move on to the next job after a certain time period? So I think we have a unique opportunity right now for service managers, as we think about how do we engage agents moving forward in a hybrid contact center in a different environment, in an environment where customers are more used to doing this via video and may want to engage that way with agents? How do I think about providing those same kinds of opportunities for culture and community, but also for growth beyond the service organization so that our service agents aren't being trained to a dead end?
Lizzy Overlund
So Rebecca, what what tips have you seen that have been deployed well by companies in your past or even suggested by Valoir, to help service managers uplevel the skills of their service agents?
Rebecca Wettemann
You know, Lizzy, we've seen some really interesting things happening just in the past few years, as I think about engaging service agents. One of the interesting trends has been around making agents have access to areas like employee resource groups, where they can be involved as employee activists within their organization. You know, typically that sits in HR, and may not be something that call center agents have access to. But what we've seen with the rise of virtual volunteering, and the rise of employee activism, is it's a great way to not just engage agents more within their organization, but to expose them to other employees, expose them to other roles that those employees are offering, expose them to other opportunities for mentoring with different employees within the organization, and exposing them to what other career paths and opportunities may be out there.
Lizzy Overlund
Would you say that human resources typically would own initiatives like this, where they're reminding their leaders to promote things like that, and allow their service, the agents throughout the company, not just service agents, but any employee to feel comfortable participating in other groups or resource groups, as you mentioned?
Rebecca Wettemann
They have. I think the challenge in the past has been with employee agents who are paid by the hour: where does that hour come from? So setting that aside, and incenting agents, providing them with that same kind of PTO, opportunities to contribute and participate in those employee activities can be a great way, not just to build community, and engagement of those employees, but help them to see the other connections, to see the other opportunities within the business.
Clint Oram
So, as we go down this path of happy employees creating happy customers who become advocates who help drive growth, what are some common traps? What are some mistakes that companies make as they seek out new technology, seek out new approaches to creating that happy equation?
Rebecca Wettemann
The common one that we've seen since the invention of the wheel, Clint, is assuming that if you give someone a technology or enabling capability that they're going to use it effectively. Again, I'm gonna date myself, but if we go back to the GoldMine days, GoldMine and Act! were fantastic tools for productivity for salespeople, adoption was incredible with those tools. And what happened when those tools became networked, and enabled folks to share information across their contact databases? Understanding when is a technology ripe, when are the opportunities there for employees? And how do we communicate that to employees in a way that they understand what's in it for them, and not just what's in it for the company?
Clint Oram
With that said, I've always found that that any technology project needs that right impetus from top leadership. They know it's important to the CEO of the company, and people are gonna pay attention to it more so than anything else.
Rebecca Wettemann
Right. But I think too, it's about thinking about how I train employees to use technology in a way that may change the way they work today. Thank you both.
Clint Oram
That's a great point, what's in it for me? Rebecca, we've appreciated all of your insights around how companies can drive growth through investing in their customer experience, investing in their employee experience, again, creating that happy employees equals happy customers equals advocacy equals growth equation there. I'm a nerd, I like to turn everything into an equation in the end. Thank you for joining us today. It's been great to have you here and this was the Fuel Growth podcast, helping companies grow to the next level. Appreciate your time.
Lizzy Overlund
Thanks, Rebecca.
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