Insights from the Masters of Experience will feature video interviews with some of the brightest minds in CX and customer insights who will be sharing their insights, discussing trends, and addressing challenges within the industry.

What do you think people in the industry are most keen to understand in 2023?

Hayley: That’s a tough one. I think the next year,it’s gonna be a really interesting year, just from the macro economy perspective, what a customer is gonna be doing? Where are they gonna start spending on, those discretionary purchases as much as they are and they’re non discretionary? Even price inflation and how that impacts customers. So I think, we’ve had so many years of change. We had bush fires, we’ve then had,COVID. We’ve now come out of it into a period of inflation and, contraction in the economy. So I think as insights leaders, we’ll be really keen to understand our customer and where they’re spending their money. And I think for our commercial teams, they’ll they’ll be really keen to leverage those insights to make some great decisions and some strategic moves that set them up for when the economy does start to to fire up again.

What do you think is the most unique about the Techtronic Industries approach to Customer Insights?

Hayley: I think at TTI, we’re really lucky that we have some incredible global teams that we can rely on, but, we also get to run our own show locally. And so we can really tailor those insights to our teams. We also have some pretty diverse areas. So like many, we’ve got research, for example, or advocacy, or voice of customer, which is really great. We also have data and analytics, which means that we can really merge that data knowledge into what we do in other areas. We also have knowledge management, which means, for us that we can keep an eye out for the problems or the challenges that our customers have with our products. We’re really lucky that we have within our space, a knowledge management function where we can provide that post purchase support as well. So we work on strategy, we work on research, but we also get to partner with the business on those end solutions, as well as with our retail partners, which is really great.

The big trend seems to be generally, but not exclusively, towards re-centralising the insights function, what’s your perspective?

Hayley: And so I was reflecting and, I’ve worked in different iterations, I think, of what we would term insights for over twenty years. And, even, you know, in the case where I was just one insights manager in an organisation, there were still other people doing what I would term insights work. So that could be looking at market analysis.That could be interacting with customers and getting their perspectives, or even conducting research and having those programs.

There’s some real benefits of centralising it – just because you can, doesn’t mean you should go completely self serve. But I find it really challenging from a commercial perspective to centralise everything. So, for me, it’s really about identifying what are the most important frameworks, the governance and the best practice training that we can provide, but then enabling teams to use those tools, use those insights. And in some cases CX and UX teams need to interact one on one with customers to do their job. So how do we empower them with the right skills and techniques to talk to customers, but also share those learns back with the business. Because the the downside of a completely decentralised perspective is every team has their own insights, there’s lots of ways to capture it and sometimes that can lead to real misalignment between teams as well.

How do you mitigate that risk of misalignment and not necessarily providing the clearest perspectivea view on on on that overall business strategy?

Hayley: So I think, first and foremost governance is really important. So making sure that we have the right techniques, the right policies, the right communication across the business to know how to interact with customers in a compliant way. So for example, it can be really tempting to to wanna do research with the customer, but maybe you haven’t completed that privacy form. For example, we haven’t had that consent to use their information in a certain way. So, a foundation of governance,I think, just underpins all areas. And then, in roles where insights has been dispersed for an organisation, say through, we might have an advocacy team.We might have a research team. We might have a UX team. We might even have people research as well, where we’re looking at things like, engagement, for example, or diversity I think it’s also really important for us as leaders to, build those networks in the within the organisation and create opportunities to share. So it could be as simple as, and I’ve done it in many roles, a monthly catch up with all the research teams. So what are you working on? And what have you got and and what tools have you used? Or what have you found, and making sure that sharing occurs, when it is decentralised, as well as having really clear boundaries in terms of where you do need to work with that central team or or you do need to work in particular even with a an agency, where you need that independent perspective or it’s a, brand positioning, for example. I don’t think many teams can run that on their own and do it us. So sometimes there is a point where you say, you know what? Just because I can do this on my own, I can knock it up in a self serve online tool. Doesn’t mean that I I should. I should call any experts. So, it’s a definitely an interesting one to manage.

Which KPI Is the most important to you and why?

Hayley: Sales. Sales and profitability, if I’m really honest, it’s really important that as a team. I love to make customers happy, but if I’m not doing that profitably or it’s not driving a commercial outcome, then really that’s an issue.So I’m really keen on the commercial drivers, and that’s because I’ve worked in businesses that haven’t been safe for non for profit, which would obviously have a very, different perspective. So I like to start with – are we making money, and are we making money in the right places and then work back from there..

How do you go about scaling your operations?

Hayley: So when it comes to scaling insights, I think it’s really important to, first and foremost identify, who’s doing what within the organisation and what the remit of their roles are.So things like again, privacy and governance,I’d always see as being lead through insights in partnership with say legal to make sure we are first and foremost compliant. For scaling insights, one of the most important parts before embarking on any journey is understanding what matters to the business. So how do they see success? What are their key forums? How do they talk about their performance? What information do they require in order to diagnose that performance and then working back from there. So, whether that’s some really tight, useful sales reporting that stops teams getting up at the crack of dawn maybe and compiling those summaries on a a Monday morning, to, having some of those commonly ask questions available for self serve, I find really important, as well as having a really good partnership with an internal cons team to make sure that those insights are not just sitting in some random unknown SharePoint folder somewhere but front and centre and something that team members can access and use.

Lastly, I think induction’s really important. So it can be really tempting to do a really big launch, not really big. It’s sort of a moment, But induction and making sure that every team member understands what’s available in that toolkit for them to use, also counts. It’s changing multiple individuals at a time when it comes to being insights led, not just a couple of leaders within the organisation.

What’s your advice to Australian insight professionals who want to be the best in the business over the next few years?

Hayley: I think it’s really important for insights leaders to understand the business that they work in, we want people to make great decisions. We wanna make sure that we’re providing the right insights, and that really comes from understanding the organisation so before we skip into, oh, we need a brand tracker. Oh, we need an MPS survey. Oh, we should do some, maybe immersions or, we need some really good dashboards, taking a pause and just spending time ourselves immersing ourselves in an organisation, doing some of the ethnography that maybe we would do with customers with our own internal stakeholders. And that really has two benefits. So, A, you can really pick up what the organisation needs, but it also sets you up for success when you have those insights because you understand stakeholders. They know them well enough and that you understand their business that that when you say,Hey, we’ve got to focus here. Oh, there is a challenge there. We need to pivot that, that you’ve built that trust and mutual understanding.It’s particularly important as well because some teams will have different ways of looking at data or information.And so, whether that’s research or some of our more operational metrics understanding how they consume information can also help you tailor your approach, to have the maximum impact.

How do you see AI playing out in insights over the next 12 months?

Hayley: I’m really excited about AI. And there’s obviously lots of different areas within AI. We already use AI. We already use machine learning at TTI. We’ve got a great partner we work with in terms of our text analytics. So, I took a team member who used to literally sit there and read all of our verbatim and code them.And now we have a fantastic natural language processing tool off the shelf that we can tailor rather than building internal models. So There’s some really great, ways that we can drive efficiency, the less time we have to spend on maybe the boring bits, of our role, the more time we get to spend in other areas. We’ve got some team members who already use it for coding, for example, and, and that can be really useful. We’ve got a few pilot cases as well of using same neural networks internally, so I’m really keen to see that broaden and expand across the organisation because, the better we can consume our data, the better we can churn through that.The more time we can spend on really analysing. Are we making the right decision or finding new datasets that that maybe we just didn’t have time to look at before again to make even better decisions than the competition.

How would you describe yourself in three words?

Hayley: So I would describe myself in three words as, patient and understanding. I really spend a lot of time understanding customers under standing people.You know, trusting, I’ve I trust my my team and I trust others,and I really enjoy leveraging the expertise and the the diversity of thought you get from working with lots of different stakeholders.And hopefully a little bit of fun, you can probably tell them a bit bit laid back and a bit cheeky.And so, yeah. So so hopefully, that’s not all doesn’t all need to be serious in life. I think it’s important to also enjoy what you do and and make that a great greater experience for those around you

What are you most looking forward to about Customer Connect 2023?

Hayley: I’m looking forward to, connecting with, so many insights professionals and CX professionals, from across Australia, I think there’s a incredible lineup of leaders, coming to Customer Connect, which will be great. And I think there’s gonna be some, really interesting learnings that they’re bringing to the floor that I can take back to to my role and my team at TTI to to again drive better experiences for our customers.

Customer Connect, 9 November 2023, will bring together 150 of the region’s most influential CX and customer insights leaders to examine this new era of how we must understand and connect with our customers to deliver an experience that sets us apart from the competition. The two track programme, with dedicated CX and Customer Insights programmes, will feature inspiring international keynotes, insightful panel discussions, the best local case studies and lots of opportunity for peer-to-peer learning and conversation..