The Customer Success Pro Podcast

Using AI in Your Daily Customer Success Routine with Alex Turkovic

September 04, 2024 Anika Zubair Season 1 Episode 7

Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.

The podcast episode features Alex Turkovic discussing the integration of AI in customer success routines. Key topics include practical applications of AI, tools for customer success professionals, and tips for using AI effectively. The episode aims to provide insights on how AI can save time and enhance customer value, with a focus on real-world examples and best practices.

00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast
04:43 - Alex's Early Stages of Customer Success
09:22 - AI Tools and Techniques
14:03 - Daily Uses of AI in Customer Success Tools
18:45 - Comparisons and Evaluations of AI Tools
23:26 - Deep Dive into Useful AI Tools
32:47 - Strategic Implementations of AI
42:29 - Quickfire Questions

Connect with Anika:

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Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com

Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy

Connect with Alex:

Alex’s podcast episode about AI

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Podcast

With over 15 years of experience in customer success leadership, professional services, and customer education, Alex is passionate about creating and delivering impactful and engaging customer experiences for products and services. As the Global Director of Digital Customer Success at Flexera, he combines digital and scaled customer success strategies with customer education programs to ensure optimal customer lifecycle engagement and outcomes. Alex is the host of 'The CX Podcast', where he explores different aspects of building and maintaining world-class digital customer success experiences, with guests who are in-field and executing.



Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/

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Hello everyone. I'm your host, Anika Zuber, and welcome back to the next episode 

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of the Customer Success Pro Podcast. I am a customer success executive leader award-winning, 

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CS strategists, CS coach, and customer success fanatic. I help CS leaders and CSMs 

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build and scale world-class CS processes and teams. I'm a strong believer that customer 

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success is not a destination, but a journey, and it can be a tough journey. But don't 

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worry, I'm here to help. This podcast was created to help make your CS journey a 

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little bit easier to navigate. Join me every month on this podcast where we will 

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dive into the hottest topics in cs, the newest strategies and the best practices 

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in customer success, so you can make your CS journey a little bit easier. Make sure 

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you subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast so 

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that you can continue to learn on this CS journey that we are on together. 

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Welcome back. Today I'm speaking with Alex Turkovich, who is the global Director 

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of Digital Customer Success at Flexera. Alex has over 15 years of experience in customer 

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success, leadership, professional services, and customer education. As the global 

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Director of Digital customer success at flexera, he combines digital and scaled customer 

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success strategies with customer education programs to ensure optimal customer lifecycle 

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engagement and outcomes. Alex is also the host of the CX podcast where he explores 

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different aspects of building and maintaining world-class digital customer success 

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experiences with guests who are infield and executing. Today, we will be chatting 

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with Alex all about AI in customer success. There has been plenty of chat about the 

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importance of how you should be using AI and SaaS and customer success, but how are 

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you doing this? How can you use AI every single day as a CSM to help you save time 

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and provide more value to your customers? That's exactly what we are gonna talk about 

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to Alex today, so stay tuned to get tips, tricks, and best practices on how you can 

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use AI daily in customer success. 

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Thank you for listening to this month's episode of the Customer Success Pro podcast. 

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This is just a quick reminder that this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, 

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CSM RevUp Academy is my complete step-by-step coaching program that helps you elevate 

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your skills and mindset to focus on driving revenue for both your customers and your 

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company. 

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This is a coaching program that walks you through step by step on how to align customer 

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success strategies with business objectives, identify upsells and cross-sell opportunities 

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and foster long-term mutually beneficial relationships with your customers. 

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Within CSM RevUp, you will get the frameworks, strategies, and confidence you need 

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land your next promotion doors will open for CSM Rev of Academy enrollment on September 18th, 2024. 

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It will be your last chance to enroll for this coaching program for this year. 

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If you could use a little extra help with your CS strategy or help hitting your revenue 

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customer success pro.com/csm, rev Upen Academy, or by checking out the link in the 

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show notes of this podcast. 

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So, welcome, Alex to the podcast. I am so very excited to have you on this podcast 

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with us today. But before we get into probably the hottest topic in customer success 

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of the year, can you please tell my listeners a little bit more about yourself, how 

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you started at Flexera, what your role is, what are you up to? Give us your elevator 

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pitch. Sure. 

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well, first off, thank you for having me. It's awesome to be here. 

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I've been a fan of yours for a while and the show, and it's, it was awesome having 

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you on my show, and now I get to be on your show, so that's super cool. 

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yeah, Alex Turkovich, I've been in post-sale kind of education and post-sale for, 

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gosh, almost two decades. It's kind of scary to think about, but, 

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last few years really, I've been just laser focused on digital customer success specifically. 

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So that's been my role at Snow Software now of flexera because there was an acquisition 

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that happened there, 

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super fun. And, 

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yeah, I've been host of the Digital CX podcast for, gosh, year and a half, year and 

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year and change. And, 

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that's been just super fun talking to, you know, in various industry leaders such 

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as yourself about 

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digital and, 

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you know, by extension that has naturally, 

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kind of extended into topic of today, which is really around artificial intelligence. 

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But, uh, yeah, 

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that's been my focus for the last four or five years is just digital, digital, digital. 

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Yeah. Love it. I love it. You push out so much digital, digital CX content. I think 

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it's critical in the world that we find ourselves in where everyone's just trying 

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to do more scale, more do everything and anything in customer success when we can't 

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always do it all. So yeah, I do love all the content, especially the podcast that 

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you're putting out there, and it was an honor to be on your show. So it's, it's really 

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exciting to have you on this one now, for sure. 

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but give us a bigger picture understanding about your team, about flexera. What are 

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the types of customers you're dealing with? What are, 

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is it all digital customer success that you're looking after? Give us a little bit 

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of a bigger picture here. 

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Yeah. 

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so we, 

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you know, we look after, 

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you know, okay, I hate to say that digital is a segment because the, we, we all collectively 

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have been saying, oh, digital is not a segment, but it's a strategy. 

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but at the end of the day, there is still a segmentation element of digital, right? 

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So I do look over global digital cs, which means inherently we do provide some CS 

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coverage for the six, 7,000 accounts roughly that don't have an assigned CSM. So 

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it's a, it's a pretty big account set. 

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and so we do that by way of a team that we've kind of split into two. We have a, 

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you know, a customer facing team. A lot of people would call it a scaled team or 

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a digital CS team or whatever. 

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but I have a, a team of, of folks that are customer facing that 

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reach out to customers at certain times, whether it be time-based or whether it be 

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off of certain triggers or events that happen along the customer's journey. 

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they also do things like, 

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respond to survey, uh, responses, 

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because I'm a massive advocate for if you 

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put out a survey, you better respond when somebody, uh, submits a survey response. 

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definitely. So that's kind of like the customer facing side. And then I've got the 

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programs team, which are focused literally on 

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building and testing and iterating upon all of the digital motions that we have in 

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place or want to put in place. 

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so that's, you know, program manager and a, an analyst to look after data hygiene 

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and all those kinds of, 

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fun little logistics things you could say. Really. I mean, we don't have a CS ops 

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function, so we've been kind of taking on 

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a, a, a big portion of what you might call CS ops as part of that function as well. 

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Awesome. And I think that you just mentioned you really started to focus on digital 

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customer success in your personal brand and everything you put out on LinkedIn and 

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the podcast about a year and a half ago. Is that when you also made the shift professionally 

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or what really inspired you to start in digital customer success or really shift 

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kind of your focus? Was it the role, the company? Where did this all come from? Yeah, 

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a great question. So I spent a lot of time in, 

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professional services and onboarding and just kind of post-sale leadership. And in 

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all of those roles, I always looked for ways, uh, that we could automate to make 

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things easier. 

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my goal has kind of always been to make sure that the, the, the people we have on 

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the team are operating efficiently and that they're engaging in 

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conversations where it really drives value versus just like doing the mundane things 

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over and over again, right? So I've always kind of had this eye towards automation. 

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and about three and a half, four years ago, 

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this opportunity came up at Snow Software to build their digital CS function. 

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And so, uh, I jumped at the chance, had jumped in with both feet and started building 

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a team and started building processes and really injecting, uh, digital CS into a, 

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you know, roughly 20-year-old company already that has been, had been very used to, 

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you know, operating, 

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uh, enterprise level one-on-one kind of, uh, high touch relationships. And so interjecting 

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some of that stuff into, into the business was a really, you know, valuable experience 

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and, and really made me, 

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uh, realize that, hey, this is an intersection of all the things that you love 

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about, 

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know, post-sale. Uh, 'cause I'm massively into enablement and, and education and 

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those kinds of things. I love 

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figuring out how systems work together and data and all that kind of stuff. So it 

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was just a perfect marriage and, and, 

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at some point, 

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you know, I was having these conversations with other leaders around the, uh, 

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around the CS industry about this stuff because, you know, for self-education purposes. 

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And I was like, why? How, why am I not recording this stuff and why am I not putting 

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it out there? And so that just kind of organically led to, hey, let's start a podcast. 

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And, 

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you know, one thing led to another, and here I am year and a half later and 65 episodes 

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later. So 

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I love it. I love it. I still remember when you put out your first episode, I was 

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like, that's cool. Way to niche down in customer success. There's tons of podcasts 

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and content out there, so I absolutely love that you went in that direction. But 

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from the outside, it looks like you've definitely nailed a niche. And when it comes 

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to digital cx, you've ended up in a career trajectory where you're director of customer 

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success. I really love asking all my guests like, 

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what is next in your CS career? What's your next dream or ambition, or the next step 

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really for you now that you've kind of nailed this part of customer success, both 

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personally, but also professionally? That's a great question, and I wish I knew the 

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answer. 

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no, 

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seriously though. Like, 

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I, I've, I've really gotten a lot of value 

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and grati, you know, grad 

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gratification, satisfaction, satisfaction. I was trying to, satisfaction, that's 

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a new word. We're gonna coin that. Yeah, 

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we're gonna, we're gonna go with that. 

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just helping 

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other leaders and organizations, 

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increase their digital maturity, right? I've, I've, that's been a, over the last 

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year and a half that has probably been like the number one source of, 

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personal fulfillment is just helping other organizations do that. And so, 

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I think what the future looks like for me over the next few years is, is, is, 

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continuing to help organizations evolve that way. 

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probably through some, some consultancy, but also, 

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whether it be, 

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W2 or independently as a consultant, 

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that's, that's gonna be the focus. 

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I have con, 

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consciously as part of my career, 

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I wanted to collect experiences. I didn't wanna just niche down into one area, which 

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is why I spent a lot of time in professional services and onboarding and education 

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and those kinds of things. 

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and so, you know, for me ultimately, you know, whether that turns into, you know, 

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c-level, chief operating officer, chief customer officer kind of stuff, or, 

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know, whether I continue down that path of, of building the independent, uh, that 

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that independent consultancy remains to be seen. But that's, that's kind of the crossroad, 

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but that's exciting though. I feel like that's a lot of options and I love seeing 

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a lot of CS leaders kind of branch out. You just mentioned like chief operating officer 

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as well as Chief Customer Officer. I think that there's a lot of directions, customer 

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success is going into the future, and it's really cool to see a lot of what I call 

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my LinkedIn friends, explore different avenues, but also take on different Sure. 

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I guess, challenges and, and really start to sharpen their skillset when it comes 

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to new things within customer success, whether it's consultancy, whether it's niching 

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down into a specific vertical, which I like yourself, have done a million different 

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things, right? 

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I feel like I definitely have it niche, but it's, it's really cool to see customer 

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success evolve over the, the last few years and also looking into the future, like 

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what it can mean for a CS professional as next steps. So thanks for sharing that, 

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even though it's not exact direction, I really love hearing everyone's personal next 

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steps. Yeah, I started car myself a professional mutt, but that didn't really go 

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over too well, so I'm just going with, you know, whatever. 

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No, but I mean a mu I think that's a dog who does build dogs. I'm like, you could 

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spin it in a positive way. I, I could. Yeah. 

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Awesome. Well, listen, I love the backstory, but I think we should get into our topic, 

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which I know you've discussed on your podcast where you've talked about like an AI 

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primer episode. And for anyone listening, I'll make sure to link it down in the show 

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notes if you are interested in, in listening to that 

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episode, Alex has done, but AI has become the hottest, most talked about topic in 

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SaaS in general in the world, and now specifically in customer success. I think a 

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lot of CS professionals know they should be using AI in their CS strategy, but it's 

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still at a loss of how we should do it. How does it play a role in your day-to-Day? 

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And that is exactly what I wanna talk to you about today, Alex, is really 

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the practical use of AI every single day in customer success. So just to warmer selves 

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up into this topic, can you just give us an overview of like how you used AI in customer 

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success, or how you started to use it in your day to day, either in operations and 

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customer success? Just give us a, a starting point here of what you're using AI for. 

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Yeah, it was brute force. I mean, look, I'm in my mid forties, 

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and, uh, you know, the, if when you're in your forties or fifties, it doesn't, 

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you know, adopting new technology, I don't think is, is is 

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the first go-to, like, you just kind of wanna operate as you have been operating. 

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And so for me, it was really like a matter of, you know, ripping the bandaid off 

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and just trying to pull 

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AI into my everyday work stream, no matter kind of what I was doing. And I can give 

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you some, some tactical examples. First off, 

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I've just been trying to educate myself as much as possible on what is currently 

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happening in, in artificial intelligence, just because I feel like, 

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you know, with, with the podcast, I have a little bit of a, 

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uh, you know, it's part of the job description to stay on top of this stuff, right? 

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And to, to share some of those findings and whatnot. 

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but my first stop was just, you know, chat, JPT, uh, you know, uh, the, the, the 

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pro license. 

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and, and using it in a, on a almost daily basis. In fact, 

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I, I've started recently using it on my walks, 

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which, ooh, doesn't, doesn't sound, how are you using it while walking, right? So, 

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this all came about very recently because, you know, these things iterate so quickly. 

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So, so Che or Open AI came out with, 

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GPT-4 oh, which 

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on the mobile app allows you to literally have a conversation with it. 

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and so I'll go on walks and if I'm stuck on something either professionally or in 

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my business or whatever it may be, 

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I'll have a conversation with it about, you know, what it is I'm stuck on, 

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and describe, you know, all the different details of why I am stuck on it, and it'll 

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help me unstick things. So a lot of times, you know, a 10, 15 minute conversation 

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with chat GPT will kind of open up my eyes to some things that I may have been, you 

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know, missing or thinking about in the wrong way. And then when I get back, you know, 

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to come to, to my computer or whatever, I'll have the entire transcript of that whole 

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chat and I'll just, you know, plug and play. I've used it to, 

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you know, create some outlines of shows and, and, you know, uh, kind of draft articles 

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and like, uh, really isn't as, as a personal assistant almost like, and it, it does 

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make me look a little bit crazy. I, I guess not, I mean, it just looks like I'm on 

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the phone. No, everyone's talking to their phones these days. That doesn't sound 

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crazy at all. I guess not. But, 

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I literally use it that way on a daily basis as kind of my personal companion to 

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just help me think through things and get things done. And so personally that has, 

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that has really helped me. 

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I would say the other thing I would add is from more of a CS speci, uh, specific, 

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angle, I use perplexity a ton, 

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for research, 

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because it's essentially, 

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I've almost replaced Google, quite frankly, with perplexity in terms of my searching, 

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because it is, it is, they call themselves a research engine, which is true. I mean, 

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it, it does, you know, give you a nice summary of whatever it is you're searching 

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for, but then also gives you the sources. 

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and I know Google's trying to do that a little bit, but it's still, I mean, Google 

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searches feel cumbersome in comparison. So, 

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I'll do account research for instance. 

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a lot of times when I'm, you know, engaging with an account I didn't know before 

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or don't have any context about, I'll do a, a quick perplexity search 

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on that company and try to get, you know, the, the history and the financials and 

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who the board is and who the investors are and all that kind of stuff. And a lot 

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of times I find myself 

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almost being more educated about that particular company than my points of contact 

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there are. So I use it for interesting things like that just to, just, again, that, 

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that kind of copilot mentality is what I take. 

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I love that there's so much in there that I can just ask so many follow up questions 

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to, but I have never thought about talking to chat bt while walking. I definitely 

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have like a list of prompts and a list of like copy paste of things that I always 

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ask AI to do for me or help me out, like you said, researching customer things or 

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I really have replaced Google with chat GBT, and I thought I was cool with the short, 

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but, uh, like a short key on my, on my keyboard to talk to chat GBT, because now 

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there's like a Mac, 

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app as well for it. So I use that. But you've just given me a great new idea about 

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talking to my phone and basically having a conversation with ai, which is, could 

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be quite scary for a lot of people who are intimidated by it. 

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Yeah, I mean, you know, the, the comparisons when that, when that first released, 

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everybody was making the comparison to her the movie and for right, for the right 

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reason, because it is basically that experience. It's, it's really bizarre. And the, 

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the, what they've done in terms of, 

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the nuances of tone of voice and things like that, it gets sarcasm, for instance, 

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which just blows my mind. And so, 

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you know, it, it is, it is very bizarre. It's a bizarre experience and, and it takes 

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some getting used to, but once you're in there, it's, it's pretty neat. 

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Definitely. I think it's really cool that we're living out all of these future movies 

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that we watch. Like if you think like Her or iBot or like any of these things that 

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I think are like these dystopian future about 

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like robots running our world, I sometimes think like it's kind of cool that we get 

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to actually try this. I know it's intimidating and scary, but hopefully everyone 

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listening to this podcast, you get some ideas to actually take back and apply and 

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realize that these are things that people are using every single day in customer 

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success. And it's really helping us open even more avenues of success for our companies 

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and our customers and for ourselves personally, which I think is the big part of 

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AI that's probably not being unlocked by most people. And you mentioned that you 

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had to go through kind of brute force, Alex, to basically start using it, which is 

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something you did personally, but what about with your team? I know you're using 

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it within, 

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Flexera. I know you guys are starting to use it a lot more in your digital strategies 

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as well. How did you motivate CSMs or your team to actually start integrating AI 

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into their day-to-Day? Yeah, I mean, part of it is, it's, it's an ongoing thing, 

300
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right? Some are using it actively, some aren't at all. 

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and that's kind of personal preference, obviously. I just, I just share my experiences 

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and my own personal experiences and, and the benefits that I get from it, uh, with 

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the team on a regular basis, which just naturally kind of builds curiosity and whatnot. 

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you know, the, I mean the, the other element of AI is that all these, 

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all these companies, uh, these vendors that we're using are starting to integrate 

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AI in 

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some more, some less meaningful ways into various platforms. And so 

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I think, I think, um, you know, part of using it is also just taking advantage of 

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all the, the platforms that are building AI copilot and tools in, you know, into 

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the, uh, into their ecosystems as well. 

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I think it's, for me, what it comes down to is just 

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just being comfortable with the technology. 

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I, I listen to Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk quite a bit, and one of the things that he has 

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always kind of harped on 

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specific to social media, but it applies to ai, is that, you know, you may not be 

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interested in using TikTok. You may not be interested in whatever, but if you learn 

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how to use it and if you learn how to post on it, guess what? The next platform that's 

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coming is gonna be based on best practices that TikTok was using, right? And I think 

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the same thing applies for artificial intelligence, right? Right now is the time 

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to start playing and to explore and to, to, to break stuff using AI and to just really 

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get comfortable with 

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prompting and, and prompting with high quality and, and really flexing those muscles 

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because all of, you know, this is the way it's going, whether we like it or not. 

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And so by ha, by building that kind of, that knowledge base and that that muscle 

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now will just help you going, going forward. And, and this, I think this is especially 

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true for job seekers at the moment. 

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Like if, you know, there's, there's a lot of folks on the market, and if, if you 

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can spend some time now to really get deep into artificial intelligence, guarantee 

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you that's gonna look great on your resume. 

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So, but also it's gonna be such an edge for you as a CSM or a CS Pro or leader coming 

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in, having AI like skillset or just any sort of ideas on how to implement AI into 

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a customer success strategy or an overall business growth strategy is just, that 

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is a skill that I think any employer would wanna see and hear about. So I think it's 

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just, it's beneficial, like you said, to get on the education bus or whatever you 

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wanna call it, and really understand how AI can help you every single day and not 

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shy away from it. And I think most CS professionals aren't shying away from tools 

337
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or technology. We all live in technology where we literally work as professionals 

338
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trying to enable our customers to use our product. So why shouldn't we start using 

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a product or tool that's mostly free? That's the great part. Yeah. Right. Yes, we 

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can pay for chat GBT, but most of the AI tools out there are, are free. And like, 

341
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I just wanted to dive in a little bit deeper into, you mentioned a few tools already 

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that you're using. 

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Are there any other common AI tools or, or apps or platforms that you're using daily, 

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and how are you using them to help yourself as a busy CS pro? Yeah, 

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I mentioned perplexity that I'm just using the snot out of perplexity. I think it, 

346
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it does a really good job of just summarizing the internet, 

347
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you know, whereas chat, DPT kind of doesn't do, you know, it's, it's, it's still 

348
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a little bit limited 

349
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in terms of that. 

350
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another tool that I have grown really fond of is, 

351
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is, well, two of them actually, you know, 

352
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gamma is, is quite known for building PowerPoint decks. Yeah. 

353
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so that's been really cool because if, if I want to go build a, 

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I don't know, a, a, a business case or a proposal or a pitch deck or something like 

355
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that, like whatever it is I want to build, 

356
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I'll, I'll spend, you know, two or three minutes coming up with a really solid prompt 

357
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and it'll spit out a 20 page deck that gives me probably 80% of what I need in terms 

358
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of structure and verbiage and basics, you know, to to, to really build out a, a solid 

359
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PowerPoint deck that probably would've taken me days otherwise, you know? 

360
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So, 

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that's one. There's others that are, I'm drawing a blank on, but I'm sure I'll get 

362
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to them at some at some point during this conversation. That's all good. All good. 

363
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I think that some of the tools you're just mentioning, like, first of all, if you're 

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a CS Pro, that's like struggling time-wise. I know I use AI all the time from like 

365
00:25:11,580 --> 00:25:15,810
a, let me speed up a process, whether it's research about a customer, but you just 

366
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mentioned Gamma, which is a great tool to help you speed up making slides. I know 

367
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we make so many slides in customer success, why not have some other tool make it 

368
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:30,960
visually more appealing Yeah. Or attractive to you because listen, I'm not a designer 

369
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here. I don't know how to design slides. I can put something together, but I'm sure 

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AI can do it better for me. Yeah. And the same thing goes for managing my calendar 

371
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or again, responding back to customers or creating, creating 

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with how I engage with customers. All of these are just, again, prompts, things you 

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start using every single day as a CS professional. And I think you mentioned it earlier, 

374
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it's really how you prompt these tools and how you're able to engage with ai. Yeah. 

375
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That really makes a difference day to day. And 

376
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like, I just wanted to ask, are there any prompts that you're using? How do you save 

377
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your prompts? How do you even go about creating a prompt, maybe explaining that might 

378
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:13,330
be a good place to start? Sure. 

379
00:26:13,930 --> 00:26:19,750
there is, you know, I used to keep a kind of a doc of saved prompts, you know, 

380
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and sometimes I still reference it, but now with chat GPT, you can actually save, 

381
00:26:25,830 --> 00:26:25,800
um, 

382
00:26:26,450 --> 00:26:31,320
save some critical information into chat GPT itself so that it can reference it in 

383
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the future. 

384
00:26:32,550 --> 00:26:34,410
so I'll give you a practical example. 

385
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:35,450
uh, 

386
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I used to ask, 

387
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chat GPT all the time to use a specific tone of voice that kind of, uh, you know, 

388
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I, I, I basically figured out what my tone of voice was in relation to TA chat GPT 

389
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by feeding it 

390
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like a bunch of my articles and, and transcripts and things like that. And it gave 

391
00:26:54,380 --> 00:26:58,790
me back like, these, these are the parameters you would use to prompt me, you know, 

392
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to sound like you. 

393
00:27:00,950 --> 00:27:04,360
and, and so I used to copy and paste that into like every single one of my prompts, 

394
00:27:04,360 --> 00:27:04,990
but now 

395
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:10,450
I've just asked Che GPT to save that out for me, right? So you have this, you can 

396
00:27:10,450 --> 00:27:14,200
literally tell it, commit this to memory, and it'll commit these kinds of things 

397
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:14,620
like, 

398
00:27:15,260 --> 00:27:19,780
you know, tone of voice or, you know, other bits of context about who you are, who 

399
00:27:19,780 --> 00:27:24,190
you work for, what you do, what your field of expertise is, and those kinds of things 

400
00:27:24,220 --> 00:27:28,960
into it so that you don't have to include that in your prompting every time. So that's, 

401
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,770
that's kind of hot tip number one. The other thing that I use all the time, 

402
00:27:33,650 --> 00:27:37,630
and I've talked about a lot, is called the Risen framework, R-I-S-E-N. 

403
00:27:37,650 --> 00:27:43,810
which is a great framework for producing really detailed prompts. And, and that's 

404
00:27:43,810 --> 00:27:44,590
the key, right? 

405
00:27:45,190 --> 00:27:48,820
asking chat JPT to create an article about, 

406
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:51,850
I don't know, electric guitars 

407
00:27:52,970 --> 00:27:57,820
that's going to get you one result, right? But, and a very basic result of that and 

408
00:27:57,820 --> 00:28:01,180
very basic result. It's not gonna be anything that you want. And a lot of people 

409
00:28:01,180 --> 00:28:04,690
stop there. They're like, okay, the novelty of it, right? Right. I mean, an article 

410
00:28:04,690 --> 00:28:08,200
about electric guitars, okay, that's great. It's not really, you know, relevant or 

411
00:28:08,290 --> 00:28:11,110
great or whatever, so I'm just gonna go and write it myself. 

412
00:28:11,620 --> 00:28:12,600
but, 

413
00:28:12,900 --> 00:28:17,420
with frameworks like Risen, there's a few others out there as well. You can give, 

414
00:28:17,420 --> 00:28:21,500
GPT the, the details that it needs to create a high quality, 

415
00:28:22,670 --> 00:28:26,580
you know, bit of work that is aligned with what your expectations are, right? 

416
00:28:27,430 --> 00:28:34,980
So risen, of course, it's an acronym, uh, r stands for role. So you're going to literally 

417
00:28:34,980 --> 00:28:40,990
tell it like what is the role you want it to assume. So, uh, in the case of the electric 

418
00:28:40,990 --> 00:28:41,590
guitar, 

419
00:28:41,610 --> 00:28:42,620
you might say, 

420
00:28:42,620 --> 00:28:49,310
your role is to play the an an, an expert in musical instruments. You've, you've 

421
00:28:49,460 --> 00:28:53,660
been in music for, you know, a couple of decades and you know everything about, you 

422
00:28:53,660 --> 00:28:58,460
know, specifically, you know, instruments used in whatever you like. You can get 

423
00:28:58,460 --> 00:29:02,300
really like nitty gritty with what the role it is you want it to play. But that's 

424
00:29:02,300 --> 00:29:03,740
key because 

425
00:29:04,470 --> 00:29:09,200
it may sound kind of weird to do that, but what it does is it tells, it tells the 

426
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,280
model to ignore everything else that it knows. Yeah. Which is huge 

427
00:29:13,850 --> 00:29:17,900
by ignoring all this other stuff you can get it to focus in and not, not feed you 

428
00:29:17,900 --> 00:29:19,160
with a bunch of weird stuff. 

429
00:29:20,910 --> 00:29:23,510
The next, so r and then instruction is, I, 

430
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,650
that's where you're telling it, okay, I want you to write me this article, or, and, 

431
00:29:27,790 --> 00:29:32,330
and, and those kinds of things. Then you tell, it steps you, you literally, so that's 

432
00:29:32,330 --> 00:29:36,800
s you, you literally tell it, okay, I want an intro paragraph, I want three bullet 

433
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,540
points and sub subheadings, 

434
00:29:39,110 --> 00:29:44,390
you know, A, a closing whatever, and a and a call to action. Like you can tell it 

435
00:29:44,390 --> 00:29:50,930
exactly how you want it structured you. Then the E is the end goal. So you, whether 

436
00:29:50,930 --> 00:29:54,140
you want to drive like website conversions, whether you just want to be informative, 

437
00:29:54,140 --> 00:29:58,730
whether you want to, you know, lead to something else, you can literally tell it 

438
00:29:58,730 --> 00:30:02,810
what is the goal of this, this piece. And then lastly, N is narrowing, 

439
00:30:03,860 --> 00:30:06,920
which I think is also critical. You want to tell it not to like 

440
00:30:07,830 --> 00:30:10,790
do certain things like make stuff up, for instance. 'cause 

441
00:30:11,570 --> 00:30:16,430
uh, chat GPT is great at making stuff up if it doesn't know, right? And so 

442
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:17,310
you wanna narrow 

443
00:30:17,340 --> 00:30:17,790
the answer, 

444
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:22,810
it isn't always the answer. So you want to narrow it down to like, you know, being 

445
00:30:22,810 --> 00:30:28,360
very, very specific and only give you factual information that's related to this 

446
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:33,130
one thing. So that's a quick, quick and dirty run through of Risen, which I use all 

447
00:30:33,130 --> 00:30:33,640
the time 

448
00:30:34,130 --> 00:30:35,650
and it's, yeah, served me quite well. 

449
00:30:36,260 --> 00:30:41,770
Definitely. I think that having a prompt like that and then making sure you are telling 

450
00:30:42,300 --> 00:30:47,110
the tool what to do, because I think a lot of people, like you said, use the novelty 

451
00:30:47,110 --> 00:30:51,670
of chat GBT, like write me a poem about electric guitars or something like, you know, 

452
00:30:51,670 --> 00:30:55,600
the fun stuff that we originally did when we started using AI a little over a year 

453
00:30:55,600 --> 00:31:01,210
ago now. But like you said, it is super powerful when you tell it to do something 

454
00:31:01,210 --> 00:31:06,250
very specific. If you think about even any sort of assistant, we kept referring back 

455
00:31:06,250 --> 00:31:10,390
to it being your, your assistant. Really your assistant's only gonna know what to 

456
00:31:10,390 --> 00:31:16,990
do when you tell your assistant exactly what to do. And again, AI is only as smart 

457
00:31:17,820 --> 00:31:21,850
as the prompts you put into it. And I think that that is just, there's one thing 

458
00:31:22,20 --> 00:31:27,490
anyone takes away from this episode. I would say just get really, really comfortable 

459
00:31:27,490 --> 00:31:32,150
with what you're prompting it to do. Like really work out much like Alex already 

460
00:31:32,150 --> 00:31:37,790
said, tone of voice. What is it you wanted to do? Is it an article, is it short form, 

461
00:31:37,790 --> 00:31:43,700
is it an email? Also formality also even like for example, I use British English 

462
00:31:43,700 --> 00:31:48,950
versus American English for example. Like get as specific as you can with your prompts 

463
00:31:48,950 --> 00:31:53,360
because I think those little bits are what makes AI 

464
00:31:53,970 --> 00:31:58,730
easier for you down the line. If you're just using very generic prompts, you're gonna 

465
00:31:58,730 --> 00:32:02,420
get very generic answers and then you're gonna give up on using it. 'cause it just 

466
00:32:02,420 --> 00:32:06,920
sounds like a robot because you're not telling it to assume a role like you said, 

467
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,720
or not lie or whatever else you need to prompt it to do 

468
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:11,450
so. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. 

469
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,680
Definitely. So we talked a little bit about prompts. We talked a little bit how you 

470
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:21,920
personally use ai. Let's talk about how AI can be used to streamline customer success 

471
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:26,300
processes, specifically digital. 'cause I think a lot of people listening, a lot 

472
00:32:26,300 --> 00:32:30,410
of people that know, you know, that you work in scaled or digital customer success. 

473
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:37,100
And I can see how the, not the easiest, but probably the, the first place AI comes 

474
00:32:37,100 --> 00:32:42,440
into customer success isn't digital or scaled models. 'cause it's like, cool, it's 

475
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:47,300
a tech touch model, let's get something tech to help us out. Has there been some 

476
00:32:47,300 --> 00:32:52,790
sort of strategy or process you've put in place that, that you used AI to do so? 

477
00:32:53,430 --> 00:32:53,990
Yeah, 

478
00:32:54,50 --> 00:32:56,700
it's a, it's, it's a tough one for us because, 

479
00:32:56,700 --> 00:33:01,300
you know, the one thing that we have been struggling with that I've probably learned 

480
00:33:01,300 --> 00:33:02,110
the most, 

481
00:33:02,810 --> 00:33:06,520
uh, from over the last year or so is just 

482
00:33:07,850 --> 00:33:09,160
data quality. You know, 

483
00:33:10,350 --> 00:33:14,900
there, there's a lot of promise in artificial intelligence and using it and there's, 

484
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,760
you know, uh, any number of chatbots out there and there's cool tools that'll analyze 

485
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:23,210
your support ticket volume and suggest knowledge base articles and like all that 

486
00:33:23,210 --> 00:33:24,560
kind of stuff, right? 

487
00:33:25,100 --> 00:33:26,330
The problem with it is, is like 

488
00:33:26,830 --> 00:33:29,660
if you plop it on top of some, 

489
00:33:30,300 --> 00:33:35,690
some kind of ratty or poor poor data, you're going to get poor results out of it, 

490
00:33:35,900 --> 00:33:37,280
just like anything, right? 

491
00:33:37,810 --> 00:33:38,780
And so, 

492
00:33:39,650 --> 00:33:43,540
you know, the, the, the probably the thing, the number one thing that I've learned, 

493
00:33:44,250 --> 00:33:45,70
is that, 

494
00:33:45,890 --> 00:33:51,560
you know, you really want to make sure that whatever you're, whatever you're training 

495
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,430
your GPT or your, you know, your AI tooling on, 

496
00:33:55,430 --> 00:34:00,740
is is built on a solid foundation of solid data that you know is right 

497
00:34:01,230 --> 00:34:06,290
and you know, is accurate. And, and it doesn't have to be like, you know, squeaky, 

498
00:34:06,290 --> 00:34:09,800
squeaky clean. 'cause I've never seen a squeaky clean customer data. Yeah. I about 

499
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,850
to say, when is that ever the case? That doesn't exist, right? That doesn't exist. 

500
00:34:13,850 --> 00:34:17,180
But there, there needs to be kind of a baseline level there. 

501
00:34:17,180 --> 00:34:18,200
one example, 

502
00:34:18,220 --> 00:34:23,720
of, you know, in fact how, how it didn't quite work well, well, for us is, 

503
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,920
know, the, the CSP we're using has, 

504
00:34:25,930 --> 00:34:32,370
a a, a lovely account summary feature that, you know, that that gives us like a nice 

505
00:34:32,300 --> 00:34:37,700
run through of not only you know, who the company is and what they're all about and 

506
00:34:37,700 --> 00:34:41,370
what their industry is and those kinds of things. But then it also runs through, 

507
00:34:41,370 --> 00:34:45,230
okay, this is, this is their history with you as an account. These are the recent, 

508
00:34:45,780 --> 00:34:46,250
you know, 

509
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:51,570
updates and tickets and sentiments and those kinds of things. And, and it's, it, 

510
00:34:51,470 --> 00:34:53,420
it's a lovely, lovely thing, 

511
00:34:54,550 --> 00:35:00,740
but invariably if it's, if it's fed off of data that doesn't quite hit it on the 

512
00:35:00,740 --> 00:35:05,360
accuracy perspective, then it becomes just another thing that people start questioning, 

513
00:35:06,370 --> 00:35:06,890
you know? 

514
00:35:06,900 --> 00:35:11,610
and so that's the big thing to kind of avoid when you're looking at AI tooling, 

515
00:35:12,140 --> 00:35:17,220
and, and, and wanting to implement these things is like, are you ready for that? 

516
00:35:17,250 --> 00:35:21,720
And are you ready to put in the effort that it takes to get it up and running? 

517
00:35:22,450 --> 00:35:24,220
one brilliant thing that, 

518
00:35:24,250 --> 00:35:30,220
I think everyone who's exploring a customer facing chat bot should do is to test 

519
00:35:30,220 --> 00:35:31,420
it internally first. 

520
00:35:31,420 --> 00:35:36,840
and, and I've I've heard of, you know, I've heard several CS professionals that either 

521
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,230
I've had on the show or had conversations with and, and something that we're, we're 

522
00:35:40,230 --> 00:35:41,370
doing right now is like, 

523
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,930
you know, if if you're, if you're implementing this chat bot based on your, you know, 

524
00:35:45,930 --> 00:35:50,790
and, and it's, it's trained on your knowledge base and your community and your support 

525
00:35:50,790 --> 00:35:50,970
and all that kind of stuff, 

526
00:35:51,510 --> 00:35:56,340
test it internally with your internal team members and use it as a, as an internal 

527
00:35:56,340 --> 00:36:01,140
tool for people to get answers quickly to customer questions and those kinds of things. 

528
00:36:01,590 --> 00:36:06,350
Because that's, that's how you're gonna find out if it's, you know, directionally 

529
00:36:06,350 --> 00:36:10,320
correct or if it's not, and what you need to do to fix it before you open it up to 

530
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,240
the masses and, and have it be a, 

531
00:36:12,900 --> 00:36:16,680
uh, kind of a publicly available thing. So I don't know if that answered your question, 

532
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:20,450
but that's where my mind went, Isaac, like I feel like you gave some advice in there, 

533
00:36:20,450 --> 00:36:24,510
which is actually my next question, but you definitely summarized about clean data 

534
00:36:24,690 --> 00:36:29,370
or as clean as you can get it, because that's always tricky in any, any organization. 

535
00:36:29,370 --> 00:36:33,720
And then you also said like, testing internally before you go externally, is there 

536
00:36:33,720 --> 00:36:37,200
any other advice you would give? I think a lot of people listening to this episode 

537
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:42,930
are probably thinking, how can we start implementing AI into our daily workflows? 

538
00:36:42,930 --> 00:36:48,240
Anything else, any pieces of advice or maybe any no GOs with AI in, in their workflow? 

539
00:36:48,540 --> 00:36:54,750
Well, the big no-go, the big no-go is if you are, if you are working with, 

540
00:36:54,770 --> 00:37:00,630
kind of publicly surfaced models, do not feed at any kind of proprietary information. 

541
00:37:00,630 --> 00:37:05,250
Please, please, please, please, please. 'cause basically you are giving your competitors 

542
00:37:05,250 --> 00:37:07,220
a bunch of proprietary information. 

543
00:37:07,550 --> 00:37:08,730
that said, 

544
00:37:08,750 --> 00:37:12,310
you, we made a very conscious effort early on, 

545
00:37:12,330 --> 00:37:14,940
you know, like a year or so ago to actually, 

546
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:21,490
you know, feed chat, GBT, uh, a bunch of our kind of openly available information 

547
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,660
and, and train it on who we were as a company and those kinds of things, which is 

548
00:37:25,660 --> 00:37:29,470
a very interesting thing to think about because anything you put in there, if it's 

549
00:37:29,470 --> 00:37:33,970
not within your kind of company environment, it's gonna go, you know, it, the model's 

550
00:37:33,970 --> 00:37:35,880
gonna be trained on it, right? Yep, 

551
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:36,610
yep. 

552
00:37:36,620 --> 00:37:41,950
so I, I think that's probably the big no go and, and or at least, you know, go verify 

553
00:37:41,950 --> 00:37:46,40
that, um, whatever it is you're interacting with. I mean, if you're using like, 

554
00:37:46,890 --> 00:37:50,830
you know, Microsoft copilot or whatever it is, like you're, you're probably okay 

555
00:37:50,830 --> 00:37:56,260
because it's in your instance of Microsoft 365 or whatever. So just, you know, touch 

556
00:37:56,260 --> 00:37:59,620
base with your IT department and make sure that, you know, whatever it is you're 

557
00:37:59,620 --> 00:38:06,880
doing, um, is either secure or not secure and see what their AI policies are. Um, 

558
00:38:07,210 --> 00:38:12,550
aside from that though, um, my, I mean, look, my biggest advice, and it goes back 

559
00:38:12,550 --> 00:38:17,890
to what I was talking about earlier, is just start using it, you know, integrate 

560
00:38:17,890 --> 00:38:19,930
it into everything you're doing. 

561
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:26,490
whether it's, you know, drafting newsletters, drafting articles, drafting emails 

562
00:38:26,490 --> 00:38:29,460
and those kinds of things. I'm not telling you to like 

563
00:38:29,570 --> 00:38:34,560
draft it, copy and paste it and stick it in your inbox or stick it in your, you know, 

564
00:38:34,590 --> 00:38:36,360
into your outlook to send to your customers. 

565
00:38:37,140 --> 00:38:38,560
but start using it, 

566
00:38:38,820 --> 00:38:43,690
in, in a way that you can, you know, have it basically consolidate a bunch of information 

567
00:38:43,690 --> 00:38:48,700
for you that you would've otherwise gone and, and had to search for in various different 

568
00:38:48,700 --> 00:38:49,330
places. 

569
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:54,640
Pulling that into one place and then creating these kind of, whether it be email 

570
00:38:54,640 --> 00:39:00,340
templates or whatever out, uh, the therefore you, so that then you can spend, instead 

571
00:39:00,340 --> 00:39:03,790
of spending half an hour creating an email, you can spend five minutes polishing 

572
00:39:03,790 --> 00:39:05,170
what, what the output was. 

573
00:39:05,910 --> 00:39:10,990
Yeah. I also think that if I look back at it, I would love to have started to use 

574
00:39:10,990 --> 00:39:17,920
it earlier to validate or to even like, give me a cleanup of my ideas, I should say. 

575
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,340
Yeah, totally. Like if you're building a customer health score or you're thinking 

576
00:39:21,340 --> 00:39:27,400
of building a digital success program or something that you're working on, just ask 

577
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:33,850
it to give you ideas or ask it to refine your idea. I think I wish I started doing 

578
00:39:33,850 --> 00:39:37,690
that sooner because I, I used it for all the fun things, like we talked about earlier. 

579
00:39:37,690 --> 00:39:41,950
I was like, let's make a funny joke about customer success with AI or something. 

580
00:39:41,950 --> 00:39:47,410
And I'm just, I, I really wish I started to use it sooner in more practical settings. 

581
00:39:47,410 --> 00:39:52,420
I wish I started to use prompts more or at least get better at prompting it as well. 

582
00:39:52,420 --> 00:39:56,530
I mean, much like everything else in life, I wish I started so many things sooner 

583
00:39:56,530 --> 00:40:00,430
as well. And like, if there's one thing I would say is like, you should really be 

584
00:40:00,430 --> 00:40:05,810
using it every day. And I hope this episode gives you everyone that wake up call 

585
00:40:05,810 --> 00:40:10,790
of like, you should be using AI somewhat in some way every day. And, 

586
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:11,630
I guess that kind of 

587
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:16,610
just leads me on to the final piece that I wanted to ask you, which is like, is there, 

588
00:40:17,50 --> 00:40:21,140
if you look back at your AI journey and how you've been using it, is there anything 

589
00:40:21,140 --> 00:40:26,240
you wish you did sooner or is there anything that you wish, you know, you would've 

590
00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:30,550
learned faster? What, what is it that you'd love to leave our listeners with? 

591
00:40:31,390 --> 00:40:36,410
I mean, I wish that I had, uh, you know, in retrospect I wish I had gotten in, just 

592
00:40:36,410 --> 00:40:40,340
like you said, gotten in there sooner and, and started using it sooner because I 

593
00:40:40,340 --> 00:40:44,240
was a little bit behind the eight ball and then, and then it was a bit bunch of cramming 

594
00:40:44,240 --> 00:40:44,930
to get me there. 

595
00:40:44,940 --> 00:40:48,360
one thing that has helped me tremendously is, 

596
00:40:48,370 --> 00:40:49,230
there's one, 

597
00:40:49,940 --> 00:40:55,800
uh, daily, uh, live stream slash podcast that I actually listen to quite frequently. 

598
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:57,990
I don't listen to it daily, who has time for that? But, 

599
00:40:58,220 --> 00:41:01,930
I was about to say, whoa, what a commitment. Yeah, but it's called Everyday ai. 

600
00:41:01,950 --> 00:41:06,320
and so I'll listen to it quite frequently, probably two, three times a week. And, 

601
00:41:06,330 --> 00:41:08,900
the ho the host Jordan and his team 

602
00:41:09,460 --> 00:41:13,550
basically summarize what's happening with AI on a regular basis. They have a lot 

603
00:41:13,550 --> 00:41:19,130
of amazing guests from like Microsoft and Google and, and Amazon on regularly to 

604
00:41:19,130 --> 00:41:23,120
talk about what, you know, what it is they're doing as well. But then they'll, they'll 

605
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,170
give you practical advice. So if you look back at their show, 

606
00:41:27,180 --> 00:41:31,910
you know, there, there are episodes that are related to like practical advice on 

607
00:41:31,420 --> 00:41:37,300
how you can just go use it for X, Y, Z or incorporate it into your daily, you know, 

608
00:41:37,330 --> 00:41:38,170
work life. 

609
00:41:38,190 --> 00:41:41,670
that's, that's been instrumental. And, and there's, you know, there's a couple other 

610
00:41:41,670 --> 00:41:45,340
creators out there, but that one in particular is one I pay attention to a lot to 

611
00:41:45,340 --> 00:41:45,630
keep me current. 

612
00:41:46,500 --> 00:41:52,540
Thank you for that suggestion. I also have another suggestion as well, which is Superhuman. 

613
00:41:52,540 --> 00:41:57,840
A, it's a, it's an AI newsletter that comes out every few days and he just has the 

614
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:03,960
top notch, what's happening in ai, what is next in AI prompts that you can copy, 

615
00:42:04,140 --> 00:42:09,420
just like ins and outs of AI in general. And I, I can't say I read every newsletter 

616
00:42:09,450 --> 00:42:12,750
'cause it's every other day I think he sends something out, which is quite a lot. 

617
00:42:12,750 --> 00:42:13,240
But 

618
00:42:13,590 --> 00:42:18,40
I, I have things saved. I try to get through it all. But yeah, there's just tons 

619
00:42:18,40 --> 00:42:21,720
out there and, and thanks so much for your suggestions, Alex. I know that everyone 

620
00:42:21,720 --> 00:42:25,710
listening probably has been taken tons of notes and we could probably keep talking 

621
00:42:25,710 --> 00:42:27,840
for ages, but dude, we can keep going. I wrap up 

622
00:42:29,710 --> 00:42:34,410
and I loved having you on the show, but are you ready for the quick fire questions 

623
00:42:34,410 --> 00:42:40,200
where I challenge my listeners and my, my guest to try to answer this next few questions 

624
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:41,760
in a sentence or less? Are you ready? 

625
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:44,980
Yes, I think, okay. I don't know. Okay. 

626
00:42:46,630 --> 00:42:51,640
Everyone struggles if that helps you out. But my first question for you is, if you 

627
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,930
could predict the future, what do you think CS will focus on next year, 

628
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:58,420
2025 

629
00:42:59,710 --> 00:43:02,860
next year? Gosh, is it, okay, that's 2025. 

630
00:43:03,340 --> 00:43:07,780
look, I mean, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it's this stuff, like, 

631
00:43:08,110 --> 00:43:15,160
it's, it's incorporating these technologies into like our everyday activities because 

632
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:19,360
this stuff is developing rapidly. The cost of development is plummeting and so we're 

633
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:23,290
gonna see more and more and more apps filling more and more and more use cases. And 

634
00:43:23,290 --> 00:43:29,140
so it's gonna be, I think 20, 25 is the year to like wrangle it all into, okay, this 

635
00:43:29,140 --> 00:43:31,60
is what we need to go do with this stuff. 

636
00:43:32,340 --> 00:43:36,250
Awesome. I think that was more than a sentence, but let's see if we can get better 

637
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:37,150
at the next few ones. 

638
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:44,350
So my next question is, which app or software do you use every day, every week on 

639
00:43:44,350 --> 00:43:48,760
your phone or laptop and why? I think I know the answer, but let's see what it is. 

640
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:48,130


641
00:43:48,820 --> 00:43:54,220
mean, perplexity, that's it. You know, it's like, it's become my Google and, uh, 

642
00:43:54,490 --> 00:43:55,360
enough said, 

643
00:43:57,430 --> 00:44:00,610
not sponsored by Perplexity, but I feel like not it's sponsored at all. I should 

644
00:44:00,610 --> 00:44:04,320
actually talk to them about podcast sponsorships should because about them lot you 

645
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:08,560
should, you should, you love them. Cool. Next question is, if you could change one 

646
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:10,840
thing about customer success, what would it be? 

647
00:44:11,380 --> 00:44:12,460
The QBR. 

648
00:44:13,180 --> 00:44:15,400
Ooh, that's controversial. 

649
00:44:16,350 --> 00:44:19,930
Is it though? I mean, everybody talks about how much they hate it and like, 

650
00:44:19,950 --> 00:44:23,980
I don't know. An executive who really wants to sit on the QBR, especially if you're 

651
00:44:23,980 --> 00:44:28,540
low value vendor. Like if you're not part of the huge part of the budget, then 

652
00:44:29,330 --> 00:44:35,110
don't bother. Like, engage in meaningful ways with, with like meaningful information 

653
00:44:35,110 --> 00:44:38,200
instead of just like an hour meeting that has no value. 

654
00:44:38,870 --> 00:44:42,850
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from on that. I have the opposite opinion 'cause 

655
00:44:42,850 --> 00:44:46,910
I have like super high touch enterprise customers, so very different. Sure. 

656
00:44:47,750 --> 00:44:52,360
You know, that's fine. But yeah, I, I can see where it's, it's definitely outdated 

657
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:57,490
and not a good use of time. So great answer. And my last question that I love asking 

658
00:44:57,490 --> 00:45:00,160
everyone is who should be my next podcast guest? 

659
00:45:00,790 --> 00:45:02,620
I should have prepped for this, but I didn't. 

660
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:03,730
Um, 

661
00:45:05,700 --> 00:45:06,550
Sarah Roberts. 

662
00:45:07,500 --> 00:45:11,410
Ooh, Sarah's great. Sarah's awesome. I love Sarah. Sarah's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I 

663
00:45:11,410 --> 00:45:15,190
love her too. Well, Sarah, if you're listening, I'd love to chat to you, but thank 

664
00:45:15,190 --> 00:45:20,200
you so much, Alex, for your time and your expertise and all your insights. 

665
00:45:20,710 --> 00:45:25,930
I absolutely loved having this conversation with you. If our listeners want to learn 

666
00:45:25,930 --> 00:45:30,130
more or chat to you further or maybe have a follow up question, what is the best 

667
00:45:30,130 --> 00:45:34,120
way to get ahold of you? Uh, LinkedIn is great, but you can also go to digital customer 

668
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:35,590
success.com. 

669
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,970
Awesome. I'll make sure to link everything down in the show notes. Thanks again, 

670
00:45:39,970 --> 00:45:42,330
Alex. Thank you. That's awesome. Appreciate it. 

671
00:45:43,870 --> 00:45:48,160
Thank you for listening to the Customer Success Pro podcast today. I hope you learned 

672
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,940
something new to take back to your team and your company. If you enjoyed today's 

673
00:45:51,950 --> 00:45:56,180
episode, please can you take one minute to give me a positive review on Apple Podcast. 

674
00:45:56,450 --> 00:46:00,140
It takes a lot of time and energy to create an episode, and I wanna continue to create 

675
00:46:00,140 --> 00:46:04,790
more for you, but it would be great to know that you are enjoying these episodes. 

676
00:46:04,430 --> 00:46:10,130
Also, do not forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever 

677
00:46:10,190 --> 00:46:14,930
you listen to your podcast as I release a new podcast every month. And if you have 

678
00:46:14,930 --> 00:46:18,890
any topics that you would like me to discuss in the future or you would like to be 

679
00:46:18,890 --> 00:46:23,90
a guest on this podcast, please feel free to reach out. All my contact details are 

680
00:46:23,90 --> 00:46:27,230
in this show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to share it because 

681
00:46:27,230 --> 00:46:31,700
sharing is caring. Thanks again for listening. And tune in next time for more on 

682
00:46:31,700 --> 00:46:35,600
customer success. Cheers to your CS journey and catch you next time.

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