“Having  different opinions helps the journey and solves the problem differently. It's part of getting it right.”

This week on Be Customer Led with Bill Staikos, we are joined by Amanda Whiteside, Worldwide Head of Customer programs at Amazon. 

She has been working on developing a multi-year strategy that is the foundation for Amazon's global, commercial, and customer strategies for shipping. 

She leads a large team of technical product and program managers, focusing on five distinct business functions, including onboarding and integration, customer service tracking and delivery, billing and sustainability, and business analytics. 

Throughout today’s episode, Amanda shares her knowledge and thoughts on the role leadership plays in the CX & EX spaces and bits of wisdom she accumulated along her journey.

[01:21] Amanda's journey – Mentioning the versatility she had throughout her career, Amanda shares her journey from sales to programs and products.

[03:48] Customer Experience – Amanda explains how she incorporates customer experience into her work. 

[05:01] Amanda's Work - Amanda describes the type of work she does with her team.

[06:30] Two Sides of The Same Coin - Given her emphasis on leading a broad, diverse workforce, Amanda shares her philosophy on the synergistic relationship between the customer and employee experience.

[08:12] Stakeholders – Dealing with multiple stakeholders is quite challenging. Noting that Amanda outlines her encounters with a wide range of stakeholders. 

[10:50] New Normal – Customers' perceptions of digital commerce have shifted due to the global pandemic. Amanda discusses how she and her organization prepare to deliver the types of experiences that consumers increasingly want.

[13:13] Employees and Feedback – Amanda explains how she manages the employees and enhances the employee experience by listening to them daily and having a self-development day.

[16:37] Leadership Style – Amanda describes how her leadership style may have evolved.

[19:35] The Future - Amanda expresses her thoughts on how she sees the customer-obsessed or customer-led culture evolving over the next year or two.

Resources:

Connect with Amanda:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amanda-whiteside-880503209

Be Customer Led - Amanda Whiteside on CX & EX Leadership

[00:00:33] Bill Staikos: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another week of be customer led. I'm your host bill steakhouse. I have a very special guest with us today. Amanda Whiteside is worldwide head of customer programs. She's responsible for delivering a multi roadmap that drives Amazon shipping's global commercial and customer strategies.

[00:01:11] Thanks so much for joining.

[00:01:14] Bill Staikos: now. It was gonna be a fun conversation. I can't wait. I've been waiting, actually. I'll wait for this. So our first question, Amanda to every guest is to tell us about your journey and some of the differentiating factors that helped you achieve the role you're in today.

[00:01:43] Amanda Whiteside: Yeah, it's a great question, bill. I've really enjoyed the diversification that I've had throughout my career.

[00:02:14] So again, solving very real problems for often very growing businesses. And I really enjoyed my time. I think it's important for everyone to do since and seals and some type of commercial role. So I think it teaches you how to engage with people and how to really figure out how to sell something. So more recently in my time at Amazon, I've been able to.

[00:02:54] I often get people asking me, how have you gone from sales into program and product, and it's not a linear path. It takes a little bit of kind of bumping your head. Side and on people believing in you. So I've been very lucky to really get to this point.

[00:03:12] And I want to talk about your role a little bit, if that's okay. And how you focus on a customer experience. I have often found that some of the best customer experience leaders like to be like, take me, for example, I've been in customer experience for plus 20 years. That does not make me the best leader at all in this space.

[00:03:44] So just tell us a little bit, I mean, it is a pretty big remit that you've got, which is wonderful. Clearly your experience, catered to what you're doing. How do you bring the customer experience into the work that you're doing? How do you think about CX as part of your day?

[00:04:03] We're in a very. Lucky position, I guess, within the business that we're very close to our customers. So things like customer services, like contacts and escalations defect, data on pickups and deliveries, it allows us to really understand what's going wrong and what's going right. And then we bolster that with things like C-SAT, customer interviews and I'm making sure that whatever we understand from our data, we're also validating that with VOC to bring it to the forefront of the organization.

[00:04:43] Bill Staikos: could not agree with you more. I've worked at organizations, Amanda. Everybody owns a little piece of the Cod, right.

[00:05:06] Maybe if somebody, even some of the more challenging things that you've got to deal with, kind of given the role.

[00:05:27] I enjoy. Working with multiple teams, multiple geographies, multiple different opinions. And it really helps challenge me in high. I think about better stakeholder management, which I know a lot of larger organizations really struggle with. So it's something I'm kind of personally always thinking about how can we do better?

[00:05:59] Bill Staikos: I know I have a imposter syndrome every day.

[00:06:27] That's really a challenging thing.

[00:06:43] And then articulate that. And then how do we embrace other members of the organization to really think about how we go over and above on a solution? The customers didn't expect one that solves what they asked for and goes further. So I think then also having those different opinions really helps the journey and solves the problem differently.

[00:07:11] Bill Staikos: So in you, if you think about sort of your team and the focus on experience, not only from, from your customer's perspective, but also to sellers and large corporates that you're dealing with regularly, how does this change your approach to customer experience?

[00:07:48] Generally, particularly as you get up into maybe like a chief experience officer or chief customer officer role, like you're dealing with so many different constituents from HR, the CEO, CFO, customers, partners, vendors, et cetera. Tell us a little bit about your approach.

[00:08:14] So not necessarily hard, large corporations operate. So this has forced us to think differently about our products and how they've scaled and evolve. Further to that. We have different customers within the cm service. So we have obviously our shippers that our sellers and our B2B business partners, and then end recipients who is more of a, B to C relationship that we facilitate there.

[00:08:59] So, at Amazon where it's quite helpful at a time. So when we think about things like tenants, really setting up. What matters. And how do we think about the prioritization of that? And when we have difficult trade off decisions, how do we make those decisions? often CX professionals will struggle on trade-offs between costs and customer experience and whatnot.

[00:09:26] Bill Staikos: Well, I mean, trade-offs is such a big part of the work that we do, and it never feels like there's one right answer, right. Or like the best answer sometimes just because of the issues that you're probably dealing with and others out there are dealing with can be really complex.

[00:10:06] How do you see this evolving even over the next year or two and for different industries, it's different retail would be very different than banking or hospitality, et cetera. Are you doing anything that helps you and your organization prepare for delivering the types of experiences? Consumers are now demanding or even thinking about how just consumer behavior may even be evolving or change permanently.

[00:10:34] Amanda Whiteside: Yeah, it's something that I'm really focused on right now. And, and in general, just very fascinated by it. Even on retail, from the hybrid experience of, of high a customer enters a store and then has a digital experience online.

[00:11:07] And that's really what we need to get ahead of to, to try and at least start by merging those two experiences and recognizing when defects happen and get ahead of that. Customers are really expecting nowadays that they don't have to tell us what their problem is. We should already know. And it's so true, but a lot of businesses don't know because they don't have the intelligent infrastructure.

[00:11:46] Bill Staikos: So I look, if I think about Amazon, you have really driven a lot of the behavioral change we've seen in consumers. And I think in a really positive way, I don't think there's a day goes by actually that there's not an Amazon box on my, or, I mean, I think that I, I mean, millions and millions and tens of millions of consumers out there, our province, similarly, that happens where, when we first met Amanda, you talked about listening to employees and feedback, and you even have internal tools to be able to understand daily, what's on your mind and what's happening and use that as a leader.

[00:12:46] If you can share that again.

[00:13:05] That is and how they can try to. Make sure that teams feel engaged, make sure there's really strong diversity inclusion through. Right. One thing I was in does a really good job off is a platform called connections, which allows the employees on a daily basis every morning. Answer a multiple choice question.

[00:13:39] And what that does is it puts data behind employee experience. And it's great as a leader because then I get a detailed report with these questions and it, it talks to me about my leadership ability within the team and how I'm engaging the team. And I can look at leadership and engagement and kind of separate them, but also bring them together to give an overall score and really that as a monitor, right.

[00:14:21] And then we try to find ways in which to improve it. So it's something that I'm very grateful for. I appreciate a lot of businesses. Maybe you wouldn't have it because it takes a lot of time to invest in those types of tools. we're already trying to get improvements in CX. I think the X is something that hopefully is a fast follow.

[00:14:41] Bill Staikos: So look, I love the fact that as an organization you're doing that. Amazon talks a lot about customer obsession, but that can not come without employee obsession as well. And having this daily routine where as a leader, you're looking at, and you've got a big organization, right?

[00:15:24] I hope that's okay for you if they do. So I'm really curious, Amanda, as a leader, are you changing your approach? For your role. Like if you think about like it, you must be, you're getting this daily information and like you must be even just not changing gears every day, but really being able to reflect back and say, how can I improve?

[00:16:01] Amanda Whiteside: I think it's, I've definitely become better at listening and understanding, but really empower my team to be part of that change.

[00:16:24] Amanda Whiteside: And I, employees are very much at the forefront of the discussion and, they have an opinion and they want to really frame how their work life is going to have a balance and on what work that they do that interest them. And I think we need to be part of that conversation and be part of their development.

[00:16:57] So we need to think about being flexible, having a hybrid approach. These are all kind of buzzwords, but it's, it's really the direction the world is

[00:17:16] Do you mind? Is that okay? Yeah, of course.

[00:17:36] What are they missing in their core skillset? And we spend time just thinking and talking about what those things might be, and then they can use this day to get ahead. So it might be a free online course. It might be something that, they want to get a qualification in. So these days come throughout the year and they're able to use their time as they see fit.

[00:18:10] So it's a nice opportunity that we can pass on to our teams so that they can take advantage of that.

[00:18:35] How do you see that evolving over the next couple of years? I mean, five years, probably too far out, but like at least over the next couple of, do you see them coming together more and how will. Yeah,

[00:18:55] So I felt like I was doing a lot of stuff and being quite misunderstood. So I, I very much feel like I find my people and I'm within that. I think we can share a lot of best practices and a lot of tools and frameworks. I'm, I'm hopeful that. That continues to become the norm within businesses and businesses that are just a little slower to catch on, really grab a hold and go on the same journey.

[00:19:34] Bill Staikos: Yeah, I'm hoping that technology helps us get there much more quickly. Actually I can see, as I could see a time in the next year or two, frankly, where those can be looked at in parallel in the same screen or whatever that looks like, where those journeys are even connected. The employing the customer journeys are even connected.

[00:19:58] Amanda Whiteside: and ultimately we should find a place where within CX and edX their key functions or, topics in our business side, but it should become, these rules that are dedicated CX should become part of the norm.

[00:20:17] Bill Staikos: So you mentioned Amanda, that you're new to the CX space. Well, within CX or outside of CX, I have a new question that I ask all the guests.

[00:20:31] Amanda Whiteside: Yeah, I think I actually don't have a specific name in mind, but I am really inspired by the community that I know. I feel very much a part of, and I've really enjoyed being able to network and unshare those ideas. And I think there's a lot of really relevant female leaders that are really paving the way for a lot of us.

[00:21:07] Bill Staikos: I think one of the wonderful things about the CX community generally is that we really genuinely want to help people be successful. And in our heart of hearts and I've one of the things that I've done throughout my career is I've always asked for help, which is really important. And, I find leaders like yourself and like others and say, I'm struggling through this problem.

[00:21:51] And gosh, I'm really floored by some of the best practices that you've, that you share with us. And hopefully some of our listeners take them away immediately come tomorrow. I'd love to have you back on the show some time, but in the meantime, I look forward to kind of, following what you're doing and the stuff that you're putting out there as well.

[00:22:07] Amanda Whiteside: today. Yeah. Thank you so much, Phil. I really enjoyed it. We'd love to come back.

[00:22:15] Amanda Whiteside: The car listening to be customer led with bill staikos. We are grateful to our audience for the gift of their time.