Digital empathy | Samuel Cummings

[Samuel] (0:00 - 0:10)

This is the time of our life. There is a battle happening right now. And if you're not paying attention to it, your job will be at stake.

And that is this concept of digital empathy.

[Dillon] (0:20 - 0:44)

Everybody ready? What's up, lifers? And welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh customer success ideas.

That's the second time today. Every single day. I got my man Rob here.

Rob, you want to say hi? What's up, lifers? And we've got JP with us.

JP, can you say hi?

[JP] (0:44 - 0:47)

Vita Valorem, baby. Vita Valorem.

[Dillon] (0:48 - 0:51)

If people aren't Googling that yet, do you think we should keep saying it?

[JP] (0:52 - 0:52)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (0:54 - 0:58)

And we've got Sam with us. Sam, can you say hi, please?

[Samuel] (0:58 - 0:59)

Salute. Hey, everybody.

[Dillon] (1:00 - 1:06)

Salute. I love that. And I am your host.

My name is Dillon Young. Sam, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Samuel] (1:07 - 1:32)

Yeah. Samuel Cummings, CEO, DataPlant. I came from the industry that most people might know of as customer success.

We're all here, right? But I was head of data science at Gainsight at the time. We were all figuring out what predictive modeling is for the industry.

And I got some gems to share with y'all. So I took everything I've learned. And then also becoming a CSM at LinkedIn and winning the Inspire Award.

And I tell you, there's some cheat codes we're going to run through today. Woo.

[Dillon] (1:32 - 1:48)

Sam. I don't think anybody has presented their bona fides better than Sam just did. Which, by the way, your nameplate here says Sam.

But you introduced yourself as Samuel. Have I been insulting you this whole time? I think you have, sir.

[Samuel] (1:49 - 1:49)

OK.

[Rob] (1:51 - 1:52)

OK.

[Dillon] (1:54 - 2:09)

Mr. Samuel, you know what we do here. We ask one simple question of every single guest. And that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So will you please share that with us, Mr. Samuel? I'm shook now.

[Samuel] (2:11 - 2:16)

Yes. He's got a little bit more. What's his name?

Mr. Smith. Mr. Anderson. So, Mr. Samuel.

[Dillon] (2:16 - 2:17)

Geez, that's insulting.

[Samuel] (2:18 - 2:18)

How about that?

[Dillon] (2:18 - 2:20)

I pride myself on my dynamics.

[Samuel] (2:21 - 3:04)

Speaking of AI, I think since we name dropped AI there. This is a time of our life. There is a battle happening right now.

And if you're not paying attention to it, your job will be at stake. And that is this concept of digital empathy. The ability for us to empathize with people at scale will make or break business.

Over the last 10 years, we've seen the amount of accounts that CSMs own grow, almost double. Back when I first started, I'm an agent myself, it was around 20 accounts per CSM. And this is, again, just average across all books.

If we talk about lower segments or long tail segments, it's even worse. So, the ability for us to be in the right place at the right time with the right message is where all the battles are going to take place.

[Dillon] (3:06 - 3:28)

Digital empathy, it feels, because I'm just so tired of hearing AI, digital, and empathy, because they all seem like, I'm not tired of it, but it's more, okay, what can we say that's new about that? So, at first blush, I want to roll my eyes and be like, okay. But so, do you want to go a level deeper on what you mean by digital empathy and what that is going to do?

[Samuel] (3:28 - 3:34)

Yeah, get your pen and paper, folks. I think I told him to call me Samuel. He's a little frustrated, but we'll work with him.

We'll mull him over.

[JP] (3:35 - 3:37)

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

[Samuel] (3:39 - 4:44)

Let's talk about it. So, one of the things I was able to discover was a formula that any person can apply to their life that really takes this ethereal concepts, which, to be honest, I agree with Dillon. When you talk ethereally, yes, it's just buzzwords.

But in the practical, the formula for empathy has three points. It's the context, the value, and the speed. No matter who you are in your job, you can take any email, any interaction.

If you quantify it on those three levers, you can understand how much empathy you have. For example, we can't give away everything for free. I can't give as many discounts to everybody.

So, value is fixed. So, you don't have a limitation there. Context takes time.

You ever call in for any kind of service and the first thing they say to you is, hey, give me a second while I review your account? They're getting context. And so, we have this battle where we can't give infinite value.

Context takes time. So, speed is the other dimension. So, if you look at any interaction, our ability to optimize those three factors is what makes or breaks our ability to provide empathetic experiences.

And ultimately, you give people empathy, they give you money.

[Dillon] (4:46 - 5:00)

All right, Mr. Samuel. I am vibing with you because I don't like the grayness that empathy implies. And you're trying to turn it into a formula.

And I'm still trying to figure that out in my head. So, while I do, JP, why don't you jump in here?

[JP] (5:01 - 7:08)

Yes, yes. I knew Samuel was going to come with this because he gave a really great talk on this. And I think for me, being in scaled especially, this is something I think that we want to be able to provide.

I am not an enterprise CSM yet. And this applies really to everything. But what I really clue in on is he talked about scale, at scale.

This is a really, I think, key part of this. And so, if you have someone like me who's going to average 100 plus accounts, my perception of what the customer is worth, what they're spending, everything is on one side of the equation, right? And on the other side is this person where it may be a low spend of the company, but to that person, maybe this is a lot of a spend.

I see the concept that Samuel is talking about. I think it can be applied many ways. But the way that I see it as this way to work in this weird space where you're speaking with people and there's a temptation to be like, you're not spending X, Y, Z.

I'm not going to. And that's because in my mind, I'm saying the reality at scale, when I'm trying to prioritize, does not make sense. What's great about what Sam's talking about is being able to leverage technology.

If I'm correct, being able to leverage technology and the right data to be able to actually meet that customer and keep that customer without just saying, here you are, so I don't have time to figure this out. So that's my understanding. And I'm really excited to hear more.

I definitely enjoy my conversations with Sam because I think what he presents is a very optimistic way. Samuel has a way to really, yeah, it's his fault. He provides this really great framework and formula for the way that we can actualize this using AI, right?

It's not just the gloom and doom thing.

[Rob] (7:08 - 7:27)

Rob, go ahead. This is good. This is interesting.

I appreciate this because I feel like I haven't heard great, I'm going to say it again, guys. Sorry. Great frameworks around how to think about empathy.

We just hear the word empathy and we're like, oh yeah, why don't you just try going out and being empathetic? And it's like, oh yeah, thanks. Really needed that advice.

[Samuel] (7:28 - 7:29)

Exactly.

[Rob] (7:30 - 8:30)

There's so many ways to interpret that. So I have one observation. I have two questions.

And then I have one minor challenge against this. We have time for all that. Real quick.

Go ahead and try. Less than a minute. My observation is that this reminds me of, I don't know if you guys know the ancient Greek ethos, logos, pathos, when it comes to persuasion.

So ethos is like trust factors. Logos is the logic you use. And then pathos is the emotion you use.

That was the initial observation I had. And I was like, Samuel is our modern Greek philosopher. The questions that came to mind for me, though, we were like, okay.

So we have context, value, speed. And I'm asking myself, I think about the other buzzwords we see, like active listening and personalization and AI. I'm like, where do those fit into that framework?

And that might be a question for you. And that led me to this potential challenge, which is, is speed really a matter of empathy or could speed actually hurt empathy if you go too fast?

[Samuel] (8:30 - 9:54)

You are right on. So for anybody who wants to subscribe and follow me, check me out on SamuelJ314 on LinkedIn. I will give you all the cheat codes.

Let me give you a couple here. Number one, when it comes to speed, there's a balance. And if you take the entire formula as a whole, it varies depending on how much someone is spending.

So say, for example, if I spend $5 million, my expectation of value might be a whole lot different if I'm spending $5. And so the speed can have a certain sweet spot. For example, we all connect with somebody on LinkedIn, but have you ever connected with someone on LinkedIn and two seconds later they're selling you a sales pitch?

Too fast. So there's a sweet spot in every interaction that gives you a good sense of good feeling. Speed is meant to represent we all live in time and space.

So pacing and being at the right time is just as important as having the right message. And then let's talk about personalization. If you take the formula, value times context times speed, and then you equal it, that equal is an example of personalization.

So say I take an email that I'm going to send to somebody. The value is I'm going to give you a discount. The context is I know you called in three times and it took you a long time to get resolution.

You've been struggling, but you've been a customer for us for five years. So the speed is how quickly I can realize that and take action. That email, by definition of adding the value, the context within a certain amount of time creates a personalized message.

[Rob] (9:55 - 9:58)

So it's timing beyond just speed. I like that.

-: 10:30

I think it's also, you could also consider speed of what's the fastest way I can get my message to the customer that fits the context of what they need, right? An email might not be right. If they're super pissed off, it might have to be a phone call.

If they're super pissed off and they're your highest value, it might need to be an in-person meeting, right? Again, but it all has to fit within that formula. This is super interesting.

So can you, Mr. Samuel, tell everybody what your LinkedIn is one more time so everybody can find you.

[Samuel] (: 10:30

So check me out, SamuelJ314 on LinkedIn.

[Dillon] (: 10:36

Awesome. Awesome. Well, that is our time, Samuel.

Thank you so much. This is a really cool, really fun. And anybody who's not watching the video, you're just going to have to watch this all over again because this guy's having too much fun in his kitchen.

No less. This is also the most unique.

[Samuel] (: 10:52

Y'all want some good food? Check out Dillon, check out JP, and check out Data Club, baby. I'll be back next week.

[Dillon] (: 10:59

Oh, this is fantastic. Bye-bye.

[VO] (: 11:10

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetimevaluemedia.com.

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