Speaker 1: Well welcome back friends to our podcast. Unlocking Your World of Creativity and the world of Brand Experience is certainly changing right now and it's changing on the inside from the standpoint of customer service and training and it's changing on the outside. Now, when was the last time you said I'd like to talk to the manager? No, you probably just left a Yelp review and changed your review on Google rather than talking to the manager. And that's why we wanna talk to our [00:00:30] guest today about that changing experience for the customer and how we can address that. My guest is Adam Alfia and his company is Real Time Feedback. Adam, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: Thank you, mark. Great to be

Speaker 1: Here. And as we think about creativity in the context of creating a brand, I mean the experience is paramount. How have you seen with your clients and in your industries that you work with the changes in that experience?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so brands [00:01:00] spend a lot of money. The customer acquisition cost is so high now people are bombarded with messages. And finally when a customer chooses to do business with you, a lot of times they're let down by that experience because an hourly employee doesn't understand what the brand stands for, doesn't really care about their job, and then lets that customer down. And that reflects poorly on that customer. And now you've had a chance to really wow that customer and it's gone. Like they say, you only have [00:01:30] one chance to make a first impression and if you don't nail it every time customers are finicky, they'll go somewhere else or worse, they'll go ahead and leave a negative review online. So we built a platform called Realtime Feedback that lets you very easily communicate with upper management, take care of the issue while usually while you're on site and give that manager a way to know about your issue. Number one, that's the most important thing. And two, respond to you and take care of it. So we like to say [00:02:00] give them help before they Yelp

Speaker 1: <laugh>. I like that. The old sign that used to say, if you like it, tell a friend. If you don't like it, please speak with the manager. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Well, and particularly with your background, and you described this as good for either the local corner auto shop all the way up to the Fortune 500 brands like Infiniti and Mitsubishi and Ford. But how is this really, let's go back to the brand. [00:02:30] How do you think this is contributing to the brand building for clients?

Speaker 2: So everything ends up with an experience and a brick and mortar location. Usually there's obviously online experience as well, but when the customer chooses to walk into a place of business, you have to really give them a reason to come back and to keep coming. And if they have a negative experiences, there's probably three or four other competitors chomping at the bit to get their business. So when that customer walks across [00:03:00] your threshold of your door and now they're in your world, you really have to do a lot to keep 'em engaged, keep them happy, and if they're not happy, you have to make it very easy for them to let someone know. So as you know, the younger generation you is growing up behind the screens. So they're their face to face communication skills aren't like older people. For example, when I grew up, there wasn't any cell phones.

Speaker 2: It was best you [00:03:30] had a beeper if you're lucky. But when you have everything interaction behind, whether it's Facebook, TikTok, text messaging, my kids almost never answer my calls anymore. So when you have them grow up in an interaction space where they're not communicating face to face and then they go out in the workforce and they don't recognize when a customer's unhappy, it's very easy also on a chain of restaurants and you can sit and look at a table at any table [00:04:00] and really tell if that customer, if you know what to pick up on, is happy with their food, happy with the atmosphere, just by looking at their face, their mannerisms, et cetera. The younger generation really doesn't have those skills. And when a customer is upset, they don't really have the empathy and understand how to react to that. So giving them an opportunity for that customer to now engage with management and say, Hey, I'm not having a great experience, or You guys need to fix that, you guys need to fix this. It really opens up the door for how do I help make the place that [00:04:30] I want to visit a better place, solve my issue, and really leave a happy customer. A lot of cus companies are really trying to do that after the fact through surveys and et cetera. But Nemo's, last time you filled out a survey and somebody actually called you and said, Hey, I wanna discuss your survey <affirmative>, how can we get you back?

Speaker 1: And I always check that box, you wanna be called? I say, sure, why not If I can help you out and the hotel never calls me. No,

Speaker 2: It's strange cuz surveys [00:05:00] are supposed to fill that gap of letting you know when a customer's unhappy. But nobody ever expects a phone call and the business never calls you back. It's really a one way street. I'm giving you my time, I'm giving you my energy to give you my opinion, but that everybody feels like it's going into a black hole just for data crunching. So somebody can say, Hey, we raised our customer satisfaction when in fact if you have a 20% dissatisfaction rate, what are you doing for that 20%? And that's really where we fill the gap of [00:05:30] what happens when a customer's in your place of business is having a bad experience and wants to communicate with somebody and can't find a manager. <affirmative>, most people won't walk around looking for a manager, they'll just leave and not come back or leave, like we said, leave a negative review. So there's really a gap of opportunity to take care of that customer in real time.

Speaker 1: <affirmative>, yeah, the real time being the key here. Well I love on your website, Adam, that there literally is how it works page. I can't tell you how many of these sort magic apps we hear about and we go, I really don't know [00:06:00] how it works and you go on it and I can't sign up or I can't register. It sounds like you've made it pretty simple. I love the step by step process, but maybe you could give us an overview of literally how does this work?

Speaker 2: So we make it very simple. We actually don't have an app. Customer never has to download anything. It's a QR code which everybody's gotten really accustomed to. The pandemic kind of pushed that to the forefront with touchless stuff. But really the unlocking of May, what make QR codes very popular is if integration to the phones camera. So [00:06:30] now everybody knows how they can just point their camera at a QR code, it picks it up and then R QR codes automatically take you to a site that's branded to that customer. It's their own site. For example, at American Airline Center we have tell aac.com. So when they scan that code, it goes to a specific page, they can put in whatever their issue is and then as soon as they submit, they can be anonymous if they want. But we find that over 95% of our feedbacks, as we call them Wanda response, they want that two-way engagement.

Speaker 2: So they'll put [00:07:00] in their name, their phone number, and once they submit, it sends management a notification. If a manager has our app for the business on their phone or behind a computer, they can also get a text message and they can instantly respond to that customer and that customer gets a response via text message on their phone. So now that opens up that dialogue. That's super simple. We even have a patent pending on something where we call trigger codes. That code is already prepopulated with information. So if you're, let's say in a men's [00:07:30] restroom at a business or an arena and you see that the bathroom, how many times have you walked into a bathroom and there's no paper towels and you're walking out wiping your hands on your pants, right? <affirmative>, you're not gonna walk around and find somebody, Hey, you need more paper towels.

Speaker 2: And chances are, even if you do tell them, they're not gonna go find somebody that has the paper towels. So how do we get information from that restroom to the person that can go get the paper towels and put 'em in there? So the QR codes already loaded with the rest with restrooms location and it's already prepopulated with the words the paper towels [00:08:00] are out and the paper towel holder, of course you can add and say, hey, the sink is overflowing or the toilet's running or whatever it is. But it's incredible how people love engaging with something that's super simple, scanning a QR code, putting in what the issue is, and boom, submit and you're you and you're done and you help that business. You walk back half an hour later you use restroom again and boom, there's paper towels. It's like magic. Love that. So really there's a new metric that's being really watched. It's called Customer Effort Score ces that [00:08:30] says that the easier it is that you let you make it for a customer to engage with your brand, they're more loyal. They are because they love that interaction. So we really fit push that button of I need something and I need something. Now, not only can I tell you about it, but I can get a response letting you know it's been taken care of.

Speaker 1: <affirmative>. Well, and we've been talking about some of these industries that are natural and we think of intuitively, restaurants, auto service, retail stores. But again, your website [00:09:00] lists a few unique industries and locations that I wouldn't have thought about. Medical facilities and parks and recreation mean. Imagine being at a park and leaving a question and review and issue or at a medical facility. I don't think I've ever been asked How was your experience at the clinic?

Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So one of the things that we're really pushing for is opening that engagement platform. Especially, I've got six kids, so I'm always somewhere in a park once a week [00:09:30] and a lot of times I'll go, the water fountain's not working or the party potty, porta potty is full or really smells or something like that. No, really, nobody really wants to call anybody anymore. We have a three 11 service here in Dallas that by the time you're talking to somebody's, you know, gotta be on hold for about six or seven minutes. <affirmative> people don't have time for that. If you can put us QR code throughout the park and we've got several parks that are launching our platform and say, hey, there's a swing broken or there's a sprinkler head that's leaking or anything that makes that [00:10:00] park needs attention. Instead of having personnel visit the park once a week and aimlessly walk around looking for stuff, now you can have your residents and visitors to your city be your eyes and ears and let you know about all kinds of issues that really matter to them. And have somebody, it opens up a ticket, they can take care of it, they can respond. Hey Mr. Simpson, thank you for sending up a feedback last week. You'll be happy to know the swing is fixed now it's great cuz people never get responses to the complaints that they make.

Speaker 1: [00:10:30] Well, and if you're are trying to run a repeat business, getting that kind of feedback, well maybe I'll go back, maybe I'll try it again. Maybe they fixed the issue that I had a problem with.

Speaker 2: Yeah, actually there's a thing called the customer service paradox where it shows if you go visit a business and never have an issue, you have a certain loyalty. If you're a customer and you have a issue with that business and they take care of it quickly and efficiently [00:11:00] and to your satisfaction, you're actually even more loyal to that business because you saw what happens when you have an issue and that really differentiates a good business and a bad business, did they do the right thing? And our platform not only lets you know about it, cuz that's really half the battle. Most customers have something that they'd like to change about a business when they walk in there. Whether the light bulbs out or there's a bunch of carts in the parking lot, but they just don't have the ability to really relay that information to a manager.

Speaker 2: And now with our platform, it's [00:11:30] very easy to do. So we actually have our QR codes in several grocery stores. How many times have you gone to the grocery store and you go to return your cart in the parking lot and the whole cart area is full of carts? You're not gonna walk back in with your groceries and find a manager. Hey, so what we do is we have the QR codes on the cart area. So when you're walking out, you just scan your phone and it automatically sends a message without you having to enter anything that says the parking lot needs attention, please, please [00:12:00] come out. So now you're letting the business know something, you can add additional information. But a lot of grocery stores and retail stores spend millions of dollars a year for big brands on parking lot dings and dents from runaway carts, you know, can solve that very easily or at least a majority of it by knowing when the carts are outta control in your parking lot.

Speaker 1: Yes. Well Adam, I want to turn the page a little bit to your own creative process, but first listeners a reminder, Adam Alphia is my guest. This company is Realtime [00:12:30] feedback. And Adam, I think that's your website, right? Realtime feedback.com.

Speaker 2: That's correct, mark.

Speaker 1: All right, perfect. Well let's talk about your own process. I mean, you've got a business that you're building and running. It's a family business too. Maybe you could share a little bit about that dynamic.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so my brother and I have been creating magic for a long, long time. We've been in business together since 2005 when I started the concierge company, Maestro. I'm more of the [00:13:00] sales guy and creative process guy. And he's more of, I think, and he builds a kind of relationship, but he's been very instrumental. It's great working with your brother. You can say things that you cannot say to other people. And also we spend a lot of social time together. So we're always talking about what if scenarios and questions. And that's really this platform feedback, real time feedback was really born out of us being frustrated whenever we go to restaurants [00:13:30] and see a lackluster performance from the staff or the food's bad. And a lot of times there's just not a way to engage a business. The straw that kind of broke the camel's back was actually at a Walmart.

Speaker 2: My kids and I, we adopted a puppy, a puppy from the pound. And we got home and we forgot to get all the essentials, crate dog food, et cetera. We went to Walmart. It was late at night at 11 and we had a terrible experience with the cashier. She lied to me [00:14:00] about a couple things about how many items they can check out at the self checkout with, cuz I needed help cuz we had a large crate. And by the time we checked out she was gone. And I asked the girl, I go, Hey, this girl says you can't scan more than five items. And she goes, oh yeah we can. She, she's lazy, she doesn't like to work. So I found the girl down the hall on our cell phone and I approached her and I said, why'd you lie to me? You know, should have rung me up.

Speaker 2: And she goes, well I didn't feel like doing it or something like that, something smart. So I said, [00:14:30] you know what, I'm gonna report you to the manager. So I took her picture and she got mad that I did that also. So the next day I had my concierge company call the manager. Finally, it took two or three days before they got him on the phone. I told him what happened and he goes, do you have her name? I said, not only do I have her name, I have her picture. So he goes, can you email to me with a brief description what happened, happened and we'll make sure we address it. And then he said something at the end of the call, he goes, man, I really, I'm sorry that took two or three days to get in touch with me. I go, I wish it was an easier process. And [00:15:00] my brother and I have been talking about this forever. So the next morning I came into the office and said, fear, we've been talking about this forever. I think it's time to really go ahead and start building it. And that's how it all started. It was this straw that broke the camel's back. I was tired of being frustrated with my experiences.

Speaker 1: Well and then there's the kind of look in the mirror, the physician healed by self, the sort of shoemaker make your own shoes. What about getting feedback from your team or your collaborators [00:15:30] or your clients? Not to say that it's all mechanical and developed as this feedback loop, but what is it about getting feedback and how do you absorb it, let it in, react to it, respond to it?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So in all of our businesses, whether it's the chain of restaurant shell shack that we own, do we own our own building here? Where I'm sitting today, we've got 19 tenants here in the building. So if you came into this building, there's QR codes all over the place [00:16:00] and our bathrooms and our elevators outside. If there's any issues with the building, please let management know. And I see all of those. So we get a lot of, hey, we're out of paper towels kind of stuff in the bathroom. Hey, we'd like to get some new landscaping, et cetera. But even for our employees, cuz we have hundreds of employees throughout all of our businesses, they always have a direct line of communication directly to me by scanning one of the QR codes or going to tele metra.com and that has a page where everything they [00:16:30] know they can send something anonymously.

Speaker 2: So employees oftentimes, if they have a gripe or they have a compliment, they can even be anonymous. They'll send me feedback. And when I get that, I take that personally because these are my brands and I wanna make sure even not only in customers, but also employees are really happy to be under our umbrella and doing great work. And when you give customers, when you give employees recognition, that really goes a long way. I'd say about 25% of our feedbacks that we get are actually accolades [00:17:00] by customers about employees. And we make sure that we publish that, send the customer, the employee an email saying, Hey John, great job. Look what a customer said about you today. So the thinking goes a long way. People love recognition.

Speaker 1: Yes. Well, and you can't pick up a business paper or look at a business site news site without seeing these terms, employee engagement and how to stop the quiet, quitting and so forth. How does this keep employees both at your companies and [00:17:30] maybe your client's companies? How does it keep them engaged?

Speaker 2: Well, a lot of employees would like to recommend changes that would make their life and their workplace environment better. But a lot of times people are shy about raising their hand and being, making a suggestion or a complaint. And a lot of times they just keep quiet and then eventually it builds and they get frustrated and say, I'm leaving nobody ever, I don't have a voice in this company. But if you know that you can submit something [00:18:00] anonymously, anonymous, anonymously, and that the ceo, um, or your boss is gonna see that, I think it really empowers employees to have a voice and let their employers know exactly what they think. And being anonymous right now, if you wanted to send your boss an anonymous email, there's really, other than you getting a fake email address <affirmative> and going through all that, there's really no way. But if, you know, go into the break room and see a QR code and says, Hey, we really care about your [00:18:30] experience here at our company.

Speaker 2: If there's anything you wanna let management know anonymously, or if you want us to respond, scan this QR code and let us know exactly what you think. I think that really empower, not only does it make that company look really good, but also it empowers that employee to submit something. And imagine you submitting something saying, Hey, I'd really healthier snacks in the vending machine. And then two days later you come to the vending machine and you see updated, healthier snacks, you go, wow, they really do care about my [00:19:00] opinion here. So I think that really goes a long way. Employees wanna feel like they belong in a company, that they have a voice in the company and that really, this really goes a long way into promoting that. Yeah.

Speaker 1: And how is it different, I guess, or better than just the old suggestion box on the wall? I mean, anonymous is certainly a good advantage. How do we make sure that it's not just by send a message out that the managers and the executives really are committed to listening?

Speaker 2: [00:19:30] So I mean, look, it all comes back to response. If you don't submit something anonymously and you put in your name and phone number, we track really not only in our platform do we track how fast a response time is, the management can see who responded when they responded. If you don't respond to somebody, we send you a text alert X amount of minutes later saying, Hey, somebody submitted a feedback you didn't respond to, you get an email the next day. If you're not responding to all of your feedbacks, you get a performance report of how many people you're not responding to. So it [00:20:00] really brings to light, you go, hey, if you're asking for feedback but you're not responding to people accordingly, it's better not to have the feedback loop at all because you're looking even worse if you're asking for people's opinion but not responding to them <affirmative>. So really the suggestion box, we actually used to have a suggestion box in there and then we did a survey about the suggestion box and we found that a lot of employees were afraid to put that in because of handwriting.

Speaker 1: Well that's what I was thinking. You'd think it's anonymous, but I could, I can see your handwriting a mile away. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So [00:20:30] that people think about that and go, oh, they're gonna know who I am because they can match my handwriting to somebody else or to my resume or whatever it is. So this really is a really closed loop system that people love using. It's so simple. It's, it amazed me when we were building it. We said, I can't believe nobody's come up with this yet.

Speaker 1: <affirmative>. Well, thinking ahead Adam, and looking over the horizon, I mean here we are really steering 2023 first quarter right in the eye. What are things [00:21:00] that are you looking forward to? What are either new products, new developments, or even just new creative goals that you have for yourself?

Speaker 2: So one of the things that we just implemented was we realized that a lot of managers wanna have a conversation with a customer, not just through text. So they want to pick up the phone and call that customer. And a lot of times it's from their cell phone. And managers are very hesitant about calling a customer, especially happy customer from their cell phone. Cuz [00:21:30] goes, oh, now they have my cell phone number. Anytime they need something, they're calling me and I don't want that. That's not what I'm looking for. So we just built a mass call feature where managers can actually call a customer directly from their personal cell and it shows a different number like a Uber does. When you call an Uber driver <affirmative>, it's hiding both numbers. So we built that and the next platform that we're building is allowing a manager to actually have a recorded video that they can record on our app and then send that as a text message [00:22:00] to a customer.

Speaker 2: So usually when somebody just responds to you, that's one thing, but if I had a bad experience and the manager records a video, Hey Mark, this is Adam, I'm the manager here at the restaurant, man, I appreciate your feedback. We're gonna take that into consideration. Hopefully we can make that change for you next time you come visit us, come see us. And then I send that and you open that up and go, wow. I mean, how many times have you ever got a video response back from somebody for a complaint that you made? <affirmative>? I think that shows that company really cares. It gives it a little bit more [00:22:30] of a personal, such as getting a text message. So I think that really adds another dimension to another layer of personal attention to our platform.

Speaker 1: I love that. Well thanks for sharing both kind of the past to how it was developed and the current, where the company is and the forward looking where you think the future's going. Really enjoyed our conversation Adam.

Speaker 2: So did I. Thank you, mark.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Adam Alphia from Realtime Feedback and the website is realtime feedback.com Got a great [00:23:00] how it works section, industry ideas, blog, all sorts of information and follow Adam. And you'll learn a lot about, even if you're in the service business of any kind, how feedback and how we can improve the customer brand experience will help us. Adam's been a creative inspiration, really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: Thank you Mark.

Speaker 1: And listeners, we've stamped our creative passport at DFW today. Dallas Fort Worth was our worldwide location, but we're gonna continue our global travels, talking to [00:23:30] creative practitioners everywhere about how you can get inspired for new inspired thinking, how you can organize those ideas, and most of all, how to make the connections and gain the confidence to launch your work out into the world. So join us again next time. I'm Mark Stinson and we'll be unlocking your world of creativity