Transforming Customer Experience: Lessons from Lynn Daniel, founder and CEO of The Daniel Group

TLC 12.18.24 Lynn Daniel
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Layci: [00:01:00] Hello, listeners, and welcome back to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. I'm your host, and let us not forget former terrible leader, Layci Nelson. I am really excited to welcome Lynn Daniel to the show today. Lynn, thank you for joining us.

Lynn: Thank you so much, Layci. I'm looking forward to it.

Layci: You might hear it in his voice.

Layci: He's joining us today from North Carolina, and he brings a wealth of experience. He is the CEO and founder of The Daniel group and has been helping businesses figure out how to build a successful customer journey since 1989. If I do remember correctly, I cannot wait to dive into this conversation. I'm going to be taking notes for myself today, learning from you, gaining wisdom as we set the stage to really dive into this conversation.

Layci: Can you give our listeners just a [00:02:00] quick outline of who are your. Primary customers that you're helping build out their customer experience. You're a B2B business. Who are you serving?

Lynn: Well, obviously B2B companies, but for example, we serve international motors, which used to be Navistar. So we're doing work for both their dealers and the OEM.

Lynn: We are working for AGCO, a agricultural machinery company, and they are located in Atlanta, but we work with them all over North America. And about 80 percent of the Caterpillar dealers in North America is who we work for. So the typical B2B industrial kinds of companies, if it lifts it, if it moves it, if it rolls with it, then we're probably in that space.

Layci: Excellent. We serve a lot of farmers. So we were talking about this off camera before we started. We serve a lot of people in egg and manufacturing. So I think if we were to Venn diagram some things, we could have some fun overlap. I have been working in this [00:03:00] field for about 10 years now. So you have so much more experience than I do.

Layci: Let's just start with how have you seen the customer service understanding of what that even means morph over the years? I'm sure it looks a lot different than it did when you started.

Lynn: Hugely different. I think one of the distinguishing points is customer service versus customer experience. When I started working, I started out in a sales job after I got my MBA.

Lynn: There were customer service departments and they were generally there to handle the problems that happened after. Now, when people start to think about customer experience, they're thinking about in very broad terms, for example, if you go buy a place of business, it needs to look good in order for the customer to say, Hey, that's an impression.

Lynn: I've got to pay attention to it and they do pay attention to it, not just what happens after the sale, but it's everything [00:04:00] before the sale. It's what happens when you call on the phone. It's what happens when someone delivers a product to you, how it's delivered. It's that whole journey that the customer takes with your company.

Lynn: In order to get their product or service delivered.

Layci: When did it start coming into focus or the shift or the pivot goal from customer service, which is one part of the customer experience journey. When did we start to hear and understand that in the history of the evolution that you've seen in customer service to customer journey? I

Lynn: think it really started in the early 2000s.

Lynn: We started our formal CX program in the early 2000s, 2004, to be exact, 2005. And there were a few other players out there that were doing this, but it was just a nascent kind of a thing. It started building in early 2000s. It continues to build. For [00:05:00] example, we started working with Caterpillar dealers. And then in 2012, Caterpillar Corporate decided that they wanted all their dealers globally have a formal CX program. And so they've since that they implemented that in 2012 and that's continued on.

Lynn: if anything, Layci, I think I'm seeing a lot more interest now. Then I have in the recent past and trying to figure out ways to improve your CX

Layci: From your perspective, what's driving that interest for us business owners? Why are we all of a sudden waking up to this reality?

Lynn: Well, first of all, it's a way to differentiate yourself. Products today are good, quite good. In fact, in most, any market you think about, you go out and buy an automobile. In the 1970s and 1980s, if you want to buy a higher end car, there was a limited number of brands that you went to.

Lynn: Now, those numbers of brands are greatly [00:06:00] expanded. Similar kinds of comments I could make for some, many other markets, construction equipment, farm equipment, you name it. So it's a way of differentiation. Secondly, I think people are beginning to discover that there's some real financial benefits to it.

Lynn: Because customers who are loyal, like doing business with you, they tend to return, they tend to spend more. And the last element of this is a really important one. They tell other people and from our own research, we know this is the case.

Layci: They do certainly tell other people. I think a lot of us, we are just not aware of all of the elements of customer service of customer journey, customer experience.

Layci: But we're impacted by them every day, as customers, ourselves, to all kinds of things, right? That user experience, that customer experience. When you're trying to help people understand the concept. And you want them [00:07:00] to really be able to go, Hey, think like this. What is like a story or a scenario that you walk them through?

Lynn: Many times the best way to do that is start with, well, what are customers saying? So the feedback that we provide that client is rich with ideas.

Lynn: It could be simple stuff like, God, I wish they'd fix their pothole in the driveway to the shop because every time I pull in, I feel like I'm all you, I lose the front end of my truck or it could be, actually, this is a true story. Parts counter, they had a strange thing underneath their door.

Lynn: And it was causing people to trip. So that's the kinds of things sometimes we're talking about. Sometimes it's more important things or bigger things, I should say. Communication, but you can learn a lot of that from your customers and what they're saying to you, and particularly since we're now doing [00:08:00] mostly phone interviews, live interviews, still, we record the calls.

Lynn: And so people are able to listen to these customers and start to appreciate not only

Lynn: the actual content of what they're saying, but also some of the emotion around that.

Lynn: Emotion is a powerful driver for customer experience. Far more so than rational satisfaction. The emotional satisfaction is that kind of icing on the cake for good CX.

Layci: Yes. Yes. Do I feel good? Having an interaction with you, no matter what level it is. Do I feel good? Did you improve that moment in my day?

Layci: Yes. There's so many aspects to it. For the listener that is, like, Oh, you know, I think we do a pretty good job at customer experience, but they don't really have any hard data around it. How do you know, as an owner, how do I know that I need to up my Level of [00:09:00] excellence when it comes to my customer journey.

Layci: What are some flags to look for to go, I might need to call the Daniel group to help me out here.

Lynn: First of all, walk through your places of business and see if the employees are smiling. If they're not smiling, then more than likely, you probably need to pay attention to what's happening with your customers.

Layci: Secondly,

Lynn: it's very easy to do a really short pinpoint market survey with several of your customers or a focus group with them. Although focus groups tend to not be as helpful in this particular situation because there's a relationship that exists between the company and the customer. And sometimes that relationship gets in the way of being honest with each other.

Layci: Yes. Absolutely. You see that in a different regard when we facilitate the 360s and help bosses really understand how they're being perceived. I imagine it's similar dynamic

Lynn: from what you do. I'm sure you can [00:10:00] appreciate that does get in the way and I've seen it get in the way. And the last thing I'll say, Layci, most of the times that I'm dealing with a client or potential client and they say, why are customer service great?

Lynn: Most likely I could take a bet on that one and say, it may not be as good as you think. It's

Layci: Mm-Hmm, ,

Lynn: you know, our tagline is measure, manage, improve. So you gotta start with that measure piece first. If you don't really know what it is, then more than likely, it may not be nearly as good as you think it is.

Layci: Right. Absolutely. For us, that's why employee feedback is so vital when we're working with leaders. Do you often find that people are overestimating the value or the perception quality from their customers? Do they go in typically thinking they're doing better than they are, or is it really across the board variance?

Layci: Most of the time,

Lynn: they think they're doing better than they [00:11:00] are.

Layci: Yeah.

Lynn: We've had some situations where, depending on the person I'm talking to, and this happened with one big OEM, they'd been at it for three or four or five months, and one of the senior VPs called our contact in and said, this data can't be right.

Lynn: We can't be doing that well. Well, the problem was he was the one that had to sign off on the really, let's call them the infrequent, but major catastrophic problems.

Layci: He was handling all the major, major legitimate fires.

Lynn: So all he saw was houses that continued to burn.

Layci: Yep.

Lynn: To him, everything was wrong.

Lynn: Generally, that's not the case. Most people do overestimate how they're performing with their customers.

Layci: Absolutely. When they get the data back, does it change their tune? Are they able to receive it? How do you know this organization actually is ready to redefine excellence versus I don't know if they're actually [00:12:00] open to the work that it's going to take to get where they think they want to be.

Lynn: You're in more of the employee development side of what you do. We're on the customer side. What's that stages of acceptance?

Layci: Oh, yeah.

Lynn: That one has to go through.

Layci: Yep. Awareness, acceptance, and action.

Lynn: Yep. Okay. So typically when they start getting feedback and keep in mind, we've developed our own platform.

Lynn: So they're getting feedback continuously. And first period of time we start hearing, that can't be right. That customer won't say that about us. Or that didn't happen. Then over time, once more information starts coming in, you realize, well, yeah, you. Probably did this particular location, which you thought was a great location is not performing very well.

Lynn: at some point they start to realize, okay, this is for real. And this is where I think really effective senior leadership comes [00:13:00] in

Lynn: to understand what they need to do to change and to help people to change and improve.

Layci: And this

Lynn: is where it's really critical for the senior leaders of a company. To be very much involved in CX improvement efforts.

Layci: Oh, yeah. I would imagine much like us going in and saying, Hey, we're going to help you reorient the way that you are engaging with employees.

Layci: If it's not believed and there's not buy in and actually even a level of co creation from the top, they might as well pay us to throw a dance party. Like it's about the same effectiveness they're going to get.

Lynn: Yes. That executive leadership is so critical and I can think of several of our clients that were the executive team just recently has really sort of stepped up to the plate.

Lynn: And it's amazing what we're seeing in terms of their performance. Their scores are improving. We're seeing more engagement throughout the company. They're actually taking this information. They're using it and saying, okay, yeah. We need to work on [00:14:00] this.

Layci: Right. And where the head goes, the body follows, right?

Layci: Yes.

Layci: I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about your journey as a leader. You've been leading your company since 1989. That is a long time to learn some things and you are still in the game. Tell me just a little snapshot of the sparks notes version, cliff notes version of your evolution from 1989 version, Lynn Daniel to 2024, almost 2025 version in the evolution of understanding yourself as a leader.

Layci: I know that's a huge question that I just asked you, but give it your best shot.

Lynn: I need to divide my time with in the company in sort of two phases. One, when I started in 89 to about 2000, we were very small, one, two, three people. And we were focused more on just project work, marketing, research, strategic planning.

Layci: In the late

Lynn: 1990s, I started noticing with [00:15:00] some of the clients I was working with, there just wasn't this appreciation for. Customer retention. They weren't measuring customers that were leaving them. Yes, they knew the big ones. Others were leaving too. And so I started realizing when I was paying attention So this led me to start work with Blanchard Machinery, which is the Caterpillar dealer in South Carolina, which I'm proud to say they're still a client after all these years.

Layci: Yeah, that's amazing.

Lynn: And it really led to our Experience Connect program that we started now. But along the way I had to deal with, Oh God, we've got to build a platform.

Lynn: I didn't want to hire a programmer because I didn't know if this thing was going to work or not.

Layci: And they're expensive and very

Lynn: expensive. And then the hired our outside company and first proposal

Layci: I got, I said, Holy shit. Yeah.

Layci: But we did it. And I mean, it was pure,

Lynn: I won't say luck, luck always plays. A role in anyone's life,

Layci: right?

Lynn: Whether one a minute or not. [00:16:00]

Layci: I agree.

Lynn: Success is

Layci: opportunity meeting luck.

Lynn: Exactly.

Layci: Yeah.

Lynn: And then the other thing for me and for our company technology Really helped us along.

Lynn: in two ways one just having a platform that we could share information We've got some clients that have 50 and 60 locations Each of those locations can see how they're doing.

Lynn: Cause one of the things I wanted to do, I wanted to make sure that that information was there in real time and they could respond to it. The second part of that was the moving to VOIP phone systems. One of the things that I found out, I discovered truly by accident, there's this whole workforce of people out there, generally stay at home moms who wanted to do something besides.

Lynn: Be a mom, they were looking to make some money. They generally had worked in another job. And so we provided them an environment where they could work from home, didn't have to come into [00:17:00] the office. They could work pretty flexibly. That still is the case. They have flexibility within guidelines because we do have to get a job done.

Lynn: And we've got a very loyal workforce. One of the things I discovered is. If you really create an environment where people feel that they are part of a team.

Layci: Yes.

Lynn: That they recognize for doing a good job. And they're given the freedom to do a good job. They will do a good job.

Layci: Right.

Lynn: I've told new hires when they come in, I said, look, we want to make a difference.

Lynn: We want to make some money. And we're going to have some fun now, whichever order you want to put those in, that doesn't matter. But those are three things we want to do. And I think we've largely done it. We've got a very loyal group of people. We're very effective.

Layci: If you were to look at yourself as a boss, let's say 20 years ago, even we'll just go 20 years in the early two thousands to the way that you are a boss now, [00:18:00] is there been a change in what it's like?

Layci: Now, that's an interesting

Lynn: question. First of all, I don't think I've ever been an overbearing boss.

Layci: Mm hmm.

Lynn: Some people might say that, but I don't think so. Yeah. I generally like to give people enough rope to hang themselves. Unfortunately, I've not had too many people to hang themselves over the years.

Layci: Good.

Lynn: I tend to let them run with it.

Layci: Mm hmm.

Lynn: I found that that's a pretty effective way. If you hire the right people, you give them the guidelines, go with their job. They will do a good job and you don't have to manage a lot. I think now my role is changing a lot and I'm left in the day to day because I have the COO and he's largely running the daily activities and he's a fantastic leader himself, in many ways, a lot better than I am.

Lynn: But anyway, my role is changing, has [00:19:00] changed. I'm focused more on the things like this and being out in public, giving speeches, etc.

Layci: Right. How did you know it was time for you to get a COO? How did you go, Oh, I need to step into a different phase. And when you say he's better than you at things, what are those areas where you're like, this is not my zone of genius.

Layci: He's actually does way better than I do.

Layci: You know,

Lynn: starting out as a consultant, I thought, well, when I get ready to retire, I'll wait till the lease runs out and cut the lights off and disconnect the power and go retire.

Layci: Right.

Lynn: Well, now all of a sudden, or all of a sudden back then, okay, I got some business that has some value to it. And also I've got a lot of people who depend on the business.

Layci: Yes. Changes the game.

Lynn: It changes the game. And I really wanted to find a person who was. Able to be an effective leader and work in our culture. Cause our culture is, well, all [00:20:00] cultures are different. I think ours is different. It's not for everybody, you know, hard driving, overbearing person would not work here.

Lynn: what I've learned about myself is I'm much more of an entrepreneur, I'm much more of a. Thinker about what we need to do. Probably less good. I never was great at it, but as it's gotten older, I'm less good at the day to day, keeping clocks working and all that stuff.

Lynn: I will admit I'm not the best at that. I despise it.

Layci: Most entrepreneurs aren't. I'm not either. I've got to have people around me that. You can take the reins on that. You do it because you have to, but then you quickly realize, I don't like this. I

Lynn: don't like much at all. I'm not very good at it.

Layci: Right, right.

Layci: I

Lynn: really am not. I'm just not very good at it.

Layci: Right. Well, it's come to that point in the interview, Lynn, where I invite you in to the confessional to share your story of Your own [00:21:00] experience of leadership mistakes, missteps that you've made or a story of one that you've made in your past and then how that shaped you and impacted the way that you lead today.

Layci: So welcome. The floor is yours. Let's hear your confession.

Lynn: My biggest mistake, I believe. You've probably been through similar phase. You start out, you struggle a bit, you have to get it moving, you get it moving, you start making some money, you feel, I

Layci: can breathe,

Lynn: breathe again, the credit card bills are paid off and that kind of stuff.

Layci: Yes.

Lynn: But also I think what I did, I started playing small ball too

Layci: much. Mmm. Talk more about that.

Lynn: Uh, when I say small ball, probably should have been more willing to. Um, experiment with things way back when,

Layci: and it wasn't because I

Layci: just wanted to hold on to the money,

Lynn: it was more about, I guess, didn't quite have that team in [00:22:00] place to help do it.

Layci: And

Lynn: secondly, you're working in an environment where you've got a lot of your business in one sort of big group of customers, you're thinking, okay, am I going to lose that group of customers at some point?

Lynn: Well, I think that time is long since behind us. But I think just really not pushing down the gas,

Layci: in my own experience, it's like I learned the lesson and then I think I got it. And then I have to learn it again, a different way.

Layci: What was the moment or the experience? Did it come slowly over time or was it an epiphany of I got to push the gas pedal all the way down?

Lynn: It really happened. I think I brought Doug, the COO on board.

Layci: Okay. And when did he come on board? How long has he been there?

Lynn: He's been with us nine years.

Layci: Okay.

Lynn: I hired a, actually turned out to be his ex college professor, who's an industrial psychologist.

Lynn: I didn't want to hire a headhunter because the hit rate on headhunters is, with all due respect to the headhunters the hit rate is [00:23:00] not that great sometimes, but we took a different approach. That sort of spurred me to do a lot of thinking about not just the new hire, but also about the organization.

Lynn: And I think one of the impacts it's had on me is I'm probably the one now who's pushing the pedal a lot harder in many areas, specifically our tech area to get some things moving. Maybe because I'm out of the day to day fire, I can push a little harder than perhaps I used to.

Layci: That makes a lot of sense.

Layci: So it sounds like you get a lot of. Fulfillment, joy, classic entrepreneur in the big ideas, the R and D, the, Hey, let's try this and see what happens. But yeah, if you don't have the space to do it because you're running the day to day, it is a lot harder.

Lynn: You know, Layci, I think another thing about this is since I'm the primary owner of the company, Yes, to a degree, my money I'm gambling with, so I have [00:24:00] the flexibility that others in the company do not have.

Lynn: And I think to urge them to do something or to provide air cover, if nothing else, I've always said to people that are in our company, don't come to me to ask permission. You come to me to beg forgiveness. Because I'd much rather see someone try something and fail than. For me to tell them or ask me what to do.

Lynn: I try to provide some air cover for our team

Layci: to do

Lynn: things that maybe otherwise they would not do.

Layci: Yeah, that's so important. The permission to fail is huge. When we're helping teams figure out why is their innovation lagging, one of the first diagnostics we look at is have you given them explicit permission to fail?

Layci: If you haven't, well, that's the first roadblock we got to get through. This has been such a great conversation, Lynn. I'm sure we have some listeners that are like, We need to like understand what it means to have an excellent customer journey. We could use some help. The [00:25:00] data service sounds amazing.

Layci: How do they find you? What's the best way to get a hold of the Daniel Group?

Lynn: Obviously our website, www. thedanielgroup. com.

Layci: Excellent.

Lynn: My email address is lindaniel at thedanielgroup. com. It's L Y N N. My phone number is 704 749 5018. Always looking for a chat.

Layci: Thank you, Lynn. We will drop all of that into the show notes and people please connect with Lynn.

Layci: I look forward to continuing to follow your work, follow you, learn from you, and hopefully have more conversations in the future. Thank you so much.

Lynn: Thanks so much, Layci. I enjoyed it.

Layci: All right, listeners, you know the drill. Until next time, go manage like a leader.

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