Epochal Growth | Empowering Leaders to Create Transformative Change
Welcome to Epochal Growth, the podcast dedicated to transforming the way we lead by embodying the change we seek. Embracing the belief that we are the leaders we’ve been waiting for, our mission is to empower leaders to create impactful and lasting transformations in their organizations.
Hosted by industry expert Sarah Caminiti, each episode brings together visionary leaders and change-makers to explore the profound impact of inclusive and intentional leadership. Through engaging conversations and insightful discussions, we reveal how these approaches can revolutionize businesses and drive innovation.
At Epochal Growth, we are passionate about showcasing the transformative power of intentional actions and inclusive practices. Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur, an aspiring leader, or someone passionate about business transformation, our podcast provides valuable insights and practical advice to help you lead differently and inspire growth.
Join us on this journey to unlock the potential for transformative business success. Tune in to Epochal Growth and start being the change you seek in leadership.
Epochal Growth | Empowering Leaders to Create Transformative Change
AI's Role in Elevating Customer Engagement with Rob Dwyer
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Unlock the secrets of AI's transformative power in customer engagement with our special guest, Rob Dwyer, Vice President of Customer Engagement at Customer Direct and HappiTu. Rob brings a wealth of experience from both BPO and technology sectors, shedding light on the nuanced interplay between advanced AI tools and human empathy. Together, we explore the ethical considerations and practical benefits of AI in enhancing customer interactions, moving beyond the limitations of traditional surveys and agent-driven data.
Ever wondered how AI could ease the pressure on support center agents? Discover the fascinating dynamics of modern customer service roles as we discuss the dual challenges faced by agents: delivering exceptional service while generating precise data. Rob offers insights into how AI and automation are revolutionizing post-conversation tasks, allowing agents to concentrate on meaningful engagement. We also reflect on how these technological shifts could redefine the talent landscape in BPO roles, emphasizing the irreplaceable human touch in customer interactions.
Finally, join us for a heartfelt conversation on recognizing potential in unexpected places. Through touching personal stories, we highlight the power of empathy, patience, and encouragement in uncovering hidden talents. We also tackle the complexities of digital communication in today's always-on world, offering strategies to maintain presence and meaningful connections amidst constant notifications. Tune in for a rich discussion that bridges technology, empathy, and the art of human connection in the digital era.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
- Barack Obama
Welcome back to Epochal Growth. I'm Sarah Caminiti and I am so happy that you're here Today. We're going to be diving into a conversation that's as timely as it is crucial how AI is transforming the way we connect with each other.
Sarah Caminiti:My guest, Rob Dwyer, is the Vice President of Customer Engagement at Customer Direct and Happy T and many of you will recognize him because he's the host of Next in Queue, this fantastic podcast that I had the honor of being a guest on recently. He brings a unique perspective on the balance between embracing technology and preserving the human touch in our relationships. We're going to discuss the challenges, the opportunities and the potential pitfalls of navigating this rapidly evolving landscape how to balance AI integration with human connection, the ethical and practical implications of AI and the role of personal growth in a tech-driven world. So, whether you're an AI enthusiast or if you're just curious about what the future holds, there's going to be a lot for you in this episode. Or if you're just curious about what the future holds, there's going to be a lot for you in this episode. This is Epochal Growth, episode 17, with Rob Dwyer.
Rob Dwyer:My name is Rob Dwyer and some of you may know me and I hope many people listening and or watching to this podcast don't know me because if you do know me, you might be a little bit heard. Enough from Rob, let's hear from someone else. But I live in the merry old land of Oz and I live in just outside of Wichita, kansas. It's not actually Wichita, but nobody knows what I'm talking about if I tell them actually live. Most people have heard of Wichita.
Rob Dwyer:I I grew up in this small town. I got out as soon as I could, I left for the big city. I lived in Kansas City. I lived in Minneapolis For 13 years, I lived in St Louis and about a year ago my wife and I moved back to the same small town that we both grew up in and we bought a home land great. So that's why I live in Kansas.
Rob Dwyer:I am a Rock Chalk Jayhawk and I have spent the last uh, over a dozen years in the contact center space, but more recently, since 2020, in the contact center space, but more recently, since 2020, in the contact center technology space. Uniquely, I work for two companies, one that spun out of the other. So I work for Customer Direct, which is a US-based BPO based out of St Louis Missouri, and we support a lot of different small and medium businesses. We support luxury hotels all over the world doing central reservations, we do tech support, we do customer care, e-commerce, support all kinds of fun and interesting things. That allows me to learn about all kinds of fun and interesting businesses. And then, since 2020, about all kinds of fun and interesting businesses. And then, since 2020, HappiTu, which was at one point just a technology division of Customer Direct and is now its own company.
Rob Dwyer:we are in the conversation analytics space. We're transcribing calls and using AI to show people some really cool and interesting stuff about what's happening, interactions between their contact center and their customers. So that's, I don't know. I think that's what people need to know for right now, and then maybe we'll find out some other interesting things.
Sarah Caminiti:They're going to find out more. They're going to find out more. I do have a question about that space that you're in, because you're kind of in a dual situation having the BPO, but then you've also got the technology that the BPO is using and for your time before, you were in this tech space and you were seeing the possibilities with the analytics and AI and how that can really transform the customer-focused change within a company. How were you keeping track of what was going on in these conversations?
Rob Dwyer:It's a really great question. So my purview in the contact center for a long time has been training and quality. When it came to Customer Direct, that was where I started. I led the training department and eventually the quality department, and there are a number of ways that you can understand certain things about customers. Before I was with Customer Direct, I was with a large multinational BPO that lots of people would know of if I told you the name, and we supported a company that you would also know if I told you the name. It's one of the big three telecom players in the US.
Rob Dwyer:So you can use surveys. That's one of the things that we did in a former life, right? So after an interaction, you could push a survey to a customer. You can ask some questions, you can get some feedback. You can get a lot of good things out of surveys. But there are some Rob with surveys. Some of those Rob revolve around the response rate and who tends to respond. I'll tell you who tends to respond. Not me, I don't respond to. Those who tends to respond are people who are incredibly upset or are really excited, those people at the tails of the spectrum on either side, the people in the middle who are like, yeah, things are good. They don't respond as often, even though they may have some really valuable feedback to provide you. They just don't feel motivated, necessarily, I think, because we get surveyed so much. There's so many surveys.
Rob Dwyer:There are also ways that you can identify agent-driven, ways that you can identify what's happening on a call. So most contact centers have a system that allows them to really give a call disposition. It could be chat, it could be email, but it is a way for you to essentially say this is why this customer contacted us and this is the resolution that we arrived at. That can work really well as well, but there are different challenges with it. Number one it's driven by agents, and so there's always a certain element of human error that can be involved in that, bias for sure. Sometimes it's just simple mistake I click on a drop down and I pick the wrong one out of the drop down because I'm trying to move quickly so I can help the next customer. There is also this challenge with that that often there's really only one option to choose, even though we know conversations are not always driven by one particular need. I may call you, sarah and I've got three Rob that I need resolved. And then, if you are the agent at the end of that, you have to choose one option, as this is why Rob called and this is what I did to fix his Rob. But really I called about three things and maybe you fix two of them and the other one had to be escalated. I choose, so there's that Right.
Rob Dwyer:And then I think there's the very traditional call quality department or quality department. I say calls a lot because in my world I see tons of phone calls, but that's not always the case. Right, the channel may be very different. You may be dealing with chats or emails or social media there are all different kinds of channels where customers can reach out to us these days, depending on your business. But the quality department their job is usually to look at, listen, analyze interactions, to understand agent performance. Typically. That's typically what they're focused on, and sometimes they are raising the flag to operations to say, hey, I've noticed something, I've noticed a trend, or I've noticed that we've got customers that are asking about this and it seems like we've got something that's broken. Those are the traditional ways that we have understood what's happening between our frontline agents in support, sales or service and our customers.
Rob Dwyer:And you know we're finding there are incredible new ways to understand those things at scale and to not let things fall through the cracks.
Sarah Caminiti:Oh, I think that that's. There's so many things that I want to ask you about what you just shared, because it touches on so many different areas of things that I've always kind of struggled with with, kind of with how, how companies, especially large companies, interact with their agents and the pressure that the agents have for many different reasons and, of course, it makes sense. I mean, their purpose is to take as many phone calls as they can or answer as many chats as they can, but to what extent? What are you losing because of the speed and the needing to select just one thing and having to?
Sarah Caminiti:If you are in a situation where you need to speed through something you know I know from personal experience, even when I'm doing email support, having to tag and that sort of piece of it if you are feeling overwhelmed, if you are over the conversation, if you aren't giving yourself enough time to actually stop and think about what you just went through with the conversation, you're only getting a nugget, and sometimes it's not really even a nugget, it's just a hint and no one really is able to actually see the full picture and no one really is able to actually see the full picture. So, as a trainer. When you're training all of these agents for what's to come, what kind of approach do you even take with them to make them feel safe to do their job well but also understand that things are going to be looked at in a very agent-focused way?
Rob Dwyer:Well, I think that's changing and I think it's changing in what the expectations are. The more that we are able to automate the knowledge, the insights about conversations, the insights about conversations, the more we can focus on the agent and the conversation and less on the documentation and making sure that you've tagged everything correctly and those types of things there has for a long time been, particularly if you're in a BPO, right? So for those that don't know, a BPO is an outsourcer. I think that's what most people think of, right Business process. Outsourcer is what BPO stands for.
Rob Dwyer:Some people will think of that as a contact center, although outsourcers could do a lot more than just contact center, although outsourcers could do a lot more than just contact center work. But there has long been this requirement for agents in not just BPOs but definitely in BPOs, to label things, to drive reporting, to be able to provide data back to that partner that you're working on behalf of, so that they understand what's happening with their customers, what's happening with the volume of customer contacts that are coming in, and so you put a lot of focus on that, sometimes at the detriment of focusing on how to really provide a great experience as an agent with that customer, because my role is twofold as an agent in a world that doesn't have technology, highlighting some of these insights for me.
Rob Dwyer:It is. Yes, I need to provide great service, I need to resolve issues, I need to make sales right. Whatever my role is and it might be all of those, whatever my role is and it might be all of those and I need to provide good data back to our partner so that they understand what's happening. People think that contact center agents, support agents, like that job is easy.
Sarah Caminiti:It's not.
Rob Dwyer:If you've ever worked in a contact center or a sports center. It is such a challenging job. It can be mentally draining and it is. It's just it's hard. You have to understand technology, you have to understand people, you have to think on your feet, you have to work with a smile on your face all the time and sometimes you're getting beat up left and right.
Rob Dwyer:Oh my gosh, it's such a challenging job, and so the more that we can leverage technology and this is my firm belief the more we can leverage technology to take some of the the lift off of the agents about the things that happen after the conversation, the easier it is for them to actually show up and engage with a customer and have a meaningful conversation, so that we can address whatever those customer needs are, and that's what we're trying to do. There are a lot of companies out there that are working at this at different angles a lot of interesting things and then there are companies out there that are trying to eliminate the human agents altogether, and I'm not a fan of that. It's going to happen in some places and it makes sense in some very specific use cases in my mind, but as a customer, I still want to talk to a person in the most cases, and I think what I want when I talk to that person is for them to be engaged with me and be able to solve my Rob. That's what I want.
Sarah Caminiti:Yep, oh my gosh.
Sarah Caminiti:I couldn't agree more and that's a very valuable point of how companies are looking at AI as a resource and a tool.
Sarah Caminiti:And have you noticed that the type of person that's being hired for BPOs now that technology is in the mix and you still have to? That's the interesting thing about support. It's like we're always going to wear a ton of hats, but those hats are going to shift and the hats could get bigger in some areas and smaller in others, but we're still wearing a lot of hats. We still have to think about the analytic aspect of things while we're on those calls. We just may not be hitting the buttons after, but that's how we're able to answer the questions appropriately and empathetically and fully and anticipate what those next questions are going to be. And anticipate what those next questions are going to be. But since your agents are able to now not have all of that extra stress at the very end, do the type of folks that are attracted to BPO's change at all, or are you seeing that it's the same type of support-focused person that's coming into the fold?
Rob Dwyer:Yeah. So what I would say is I try not to ever paint in too broad of brush strokes when it comes to this, because the people that show up for their daily shift at a BPO the range is as big of a range as you can come up with, and part of it is who are you supporting and in what capacity are you supporting them? I will never forget like many people in a BPO, I started on the front lines, just like everybody else. 2009 is when I got my start, and I will never forget the first time that I sat on the call center floor. I was nesting or hijacking there are lots of different terms for this.
Rob Dwyer:This is where you sit with another agent and plug in so you can hear their conversation and you know, in some cases, during training, you might be running the computer what we call driving so you might be navigating systems, or maybe you're doing some talking, or maybe you're just observing. This was my very first time and I was just observing the guy I sat down with. I was, at the time, about 30 years old. The guy I sat down with was in his early to mid-20s and he had a tattoo across his forehead that said Nothing to prove and I was like whoa, like whoa.
Rob Dwyer:But I'll tell you what that illustrates is that when you are behind the phone, behind the chat, behind the email, there is room for all kinds of different people. And he was a super nice guy, did his job really well. I learned a lot from him just in that one day. My impression of him had I seen him in a different context, maybe just walking across the street would be wildly different than the impression I got sitting with him, observing how he interacted with customers. And I would tell you that you see that in any support center, any contact center you go into, there are just a huge variety of different people. Now, if I am working in support, there is a good chance that I am going to lean in as someone who's really good at support certain things. Right, I might be a little more technologically savvy. I may be a little more technologically savvy. I may be a little bit more nerdy.
Rob Dwyer:I might have, uh, some star wars fandom, uh, in my home office, if I'm working from home right, um, versus if I am in sales, I might be a little bit different, personality wise, but personality-wise. But I don't know that we're yet seeing a different type of person being attracted to BPOs, because I think the people that we attract have a lot to do with the actual work that's being done and the opportunity that is put in front of them. In my contact center, we went work from home 2018, give or take. We weren't 100% work from home, but we started that growth to a work from home model.
Rob Dwyer:then, by the time 2020 came around, we really didn't have that many agents who were still in the office, luckily for us. But there are still plenty of contact centers where agents who were still in the office, luckily for us. But there are still plenty of contact centers where you need to be in an office. There are some where you can work from home, but you can only work from home in certain states where they employ or certain countries. And so I think, right for me as a person who is considering a job at a BPO, I'm going to have certain opportunities that I can take advantage of, and some of those may fit my skill set really well. Some may not, and there may be some that I can't take advantage of because I need to work from home or because I live in a particular place and don't have access to go to certain centers where certain programs are supported. So there's just a lot out there and I don't know that we're seeing a ton of change in the people yet Now. Will that change in the future?
Sarah Caminiti:Absolutely, that's possible. Have no idea who was on that phone with you and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter and you can have so many different things that you think that you're going to end up being attracted to within those spaces. But you will end up Rob being surprised at your areas where you shine and I think, looking back throughout my career, I really learned so much about what I'm really good at by working in a call center, like I was sent to the VIP desk like super, super like two weeks in, because they saw I will stay on the phone with you for a very long time and we will get to know each other very well by the end of it.
Sarah Caminiti:I was invited to people's homes if I started to, if I showed up in their towns and we'd talk for five minutes. But it sounds a little bit creepy now that I say it out loud, though, but I never would have thought that that was something that you could do within that call center space and it was such a great time for me to to kind of hone into that skillset and build those relationships and get a lot of value out of it. And, uh, I would love to know in your career, especially since you were a trainer like you got to see everybody, you got to influence everybody and help them figure out how they were going to be successful in this space. And so having that experience with that gentleman that if you saw him on the street you never would have realized that he was such a lovely, kind person because we all make those fast assumptions how has that changed in how you lead and train and interact with folks?
Rob Dwyer:That is a great question. Ultimately, as a leader, I think you need to approach everyone with a certain level of respect for them as a person and a humility, knowing that you don't know about their life, you don't know where they're coming from. You don't know about their life, you don't know where they're coming from, you don't know their background. And just try to find a way to connect with them, to build a foundation of trust and go from there, because what I've found People will surprise you. They really will, and I have seen People be successful that, on the face of it, when they first got started, I was like I don't know. I don't know if you're going to make it.
Rob Dwyer:I had one gentleman in a training class early in my career. So I did, you know, after I was on the phones for not quite a year, I moved into training and I trained new hires for a number of years and I had this one guy I mentioned. It was supporting one of the big three telecoms, right, cell phones, and this was, you know, the era of the smartphone had been around for a little bit, right? So you're talking about the time when iPhone 4 was coming out. That period, if you think back to then, this guy was still rocking a flip phone. He was a little bit older and I really had concerns about whether or not he was going to be able to learn what he needed to learn fast enough to be able to do the job and do it well. But I spent extra time with him. He was super eager and so I just did everything I could to help him, despite my concerns that you know. I just I didn't know if he was cut out for it and he struggled early on. He absolutely struggled. But you know what, before the year was out, he was one of the top 10 agents on the floor and that, while it took him longer to get there, his focus and his determination and his willingness to learn and to move through adversity, his grit to move through adversity. He just kept getting better and better and better and, before you knew it, he was a rock star.
Rob Dwyer:And one of the things that I took away from that a lesson that I took away from that was not to be too quick to judge how people will perform. It is incredibly important for any business to manage performance and there are going to be times where you have to say you know what. You're not living up to expectations and at some point it may not be a good fit. At the same time, you have to be careful in making sure that you give people enough time to really show you what they can do, and that just taught me not to be too quick to judge how people would perform. I think that is one of the biggest lessons that I learned from a leadership standpoint, from a training standpoint. That I learned from a leadership standpoint, from a training standpoint, and it's a constant reminder that we can all surprise ourselves and surprise the people around us.
Sarah Caminiti:Yeah, yes, and having the BPO space or the call center space be such a melting pot it affords you the opportunity to if you allow yourself the opportunity, to really understand how people learn differently, people respond to things differently, and sometimes you're going to have folks that you notice. Okay, when I said great job to them, their whole demeanor changed, everything changed. It was like you flip the switch and suddenly they felt proud enough to get out of their head and do their job well. And then you've got the other folks that you know. They just come in and they just crush it.
Sarah Caminiti:And I compare this to the hiring process too, and I think the BPO space is special in that regard too, because they do hire people that a lot of other places may not hire on paper because of many different things, and they're a little bit more open. There may be higher turnover because they're taking chances on a lot of folks, but the people that do thrive, like you said, could surprise you. And if only hiring would, hiring processes would take that kind of similar approach. Sometimes, if it's possible and of course in smaller companies that's not going to be a possibility but because you really don't know and a resume doesn't tell you anything.
Sarah Caminiti:Sometimes that first interview doesn't tell you anything because the person's so nervous. And with all the people that you've been helping, because, Rob, you are such a helpful person within this community and you've opened up your Rob, you are such a helpful person within this community and you've opened up your arms to so many folks and I know many people who consider you a mentor. And what you have provided to people that are down on themselves and feel like they can't get in that door or they fail every time that they get into those first interviews is so special. And do you find that because of this community you're building around you and showing people what's possible with kindness, that that sort of BPO anybody could surprise me mentality is starting to spread in the communities that you're in.
Rob Dwyer:Well, first of all, thank you for such kind words. I do think everyone has something to offer. I hope that that spreads. But when I talked about that lesson, I think that lesson extends into business of all kinds and into life.
Rob Dwyer:There is something that we can learn from anyone. We may not know what it is that we can learn from them. We may not even really like that person or see eye to eye with that person. That doesn't mean that there isn't something that we can learn from them. It doesn't mean that they don't have expertise or wisdom that could be useful for us to learn.
Rob Dwyer:And I think all too often and look, I've been guilty of this Like I don't want anyone to think that I am up on a high horse because I'm not. I've made the mistakes, I've discounted people when I shouldn't have, I've made snap judgments and I'm sure I will continue to. But I try to remind myself that even people that I don't necessarily think I like or there are things about them that kind of turn me off that doesn't mean that they don't have value, whether that's in general, because I think all people have value, or to me in this moment or in some moment in the future, and so I really try to avoid again that that quick judgment and we all, we're gonna judge like we just.
Rob Dwyer:This is our, our nature, it's part of the human condition. We make decisions very quickly because it's a survival mechanism. This is how we had to survive for thousands of years is to make quick judgments, quick decisions, and today we don't necessarily need to make those decisions about other people for survival's sake, but our brain still does that for us and I think it's just important to recognize that we don't live in a world where we're out hunting and gathering and I'd like to say not warring with people, but we do still war with people, unfortunately.
Rob Dwyer:But I don't know about you, but I don't have to go out into the backyard to get food every day.
Rob Dwyer:No, I'm thankful for that, and so because of that, because I have a home and a roof over my head, the way that I can approach the world is different than the way that my ancestors had to approach the world thousands of years ago, even though our brain doesn't necessarily work terribly differently than it did thousands of years ago. Long journey to try and keep that on the forefront and to try to learn from everyone around you and understand what it is that you can take away, but it's important.
Sarah Caminiti:It is important.
Sarah Caminiti:No, it really is, and I think that in our industry, in the support industry, where for so long we really haven't had much of a voice and a space for those bigger conversations, and I think it's such an easy thing to forget that all of those things that happened that may not have been awesome, or all those people that may have discounted you or made you feel less than, or folks that you did trust and and then they ended up changing down the road, or people that proved you wrong, all of those things, even if it doesn't like scream in your face, this is a lesson that I'm going to learn and take away.
Sarah Caminiti:They all have an impact and, honestly, I know myself and I am a slowly becoming a convert to not being the most naive human on the face of the earth and believing that everyone all the time has the same intentions as I do to life. But it's been such a positive thing to be able to reflect on those things that aren't super awesome and and then you approach conversations differently and not in a negative way, but just you're able to Rob and making that such a point of focus in your life is such a great thing. That kind of bleeds out of you to the people that you're talking to, because they're able to see, oh, wait a second, wait a second. He's actually like approaching this thoughtfully, and he's speaking to me thoughtfully, this thoughtfully, and and he's speaking to me thoughtfully, and we're a very fast group, this human species, like you said, we make those fast decisions and it's very important to slow down and and actually think about what the other person's saying. So I think that that is a great approach to life.
Rob Dwyer:It's always a work in progress, I will tell you that. But I, you know, work yeah.
Sarah Caminiti:Yeah, and you've got this podcast and you're getting to talk to so many different people and so you have to ask questions thoughtfully and you have to pause and think about what they're saying and take it in. And have you noticed in your outside of podcast world that because you have to be so laser focused in these conversations and really appreciate the words that these guests are sharing with you, that you allow yourself to pause a little bit more when you're talking to colleagues and friends and family?
Rob Dwyer:You know, I wish I could say yes, 100%. It has changed my whole way I interact with people in everyday life. It has sometimes, but I will also say that it's work and, like anyone else, when you're creating new habits, it can be difficult to sustain that habit when you're not focused on it, and so when you're in a podcast, you're having this one-on-one conversation and there's a particular purpose for it. You know, before we started, right, I'm switching off notifications. You know, before we started, right, I'm switching off notifications. I'm trying to eliminate the distractions that exist for all of us. Right, an email coming in, a text coming in, a notification? Right, I'm turning off all of those things.
Rob Dwyer:I'm making a very conscious decision to eliminate those distractions, but then, when you step back out into the real world, all of those distractions, potentially, are popping right back up, and so it is still a work in progress, an effort that I think all of us have to make, when we are with the people that we love, with the people that are closest to us in our lives outside of work, to eliminate the distractions, to be present and to focus on that person and the conversations that we may be having with those people, and I'm as guilty as anyone else at allowing distractions to take me away from being present in that moment and at the same time, I try to be there. Same time I try to be there, but I think in our world it's it's harder and harder to do that because there are so many distractions. This, this whole ability to be digitally connected and on at any time, has all kinds of advantages, and it's also like it's incredibly, it's eating away at the foundations that we as humans have had when it comes to interpersonal communication for centuries, for as long as we have existed right, either in person or maybe a letter. And then we got telephones and that was amazing, but we haven't even had telephones that long. And now we've got all of these different ways to communicate in the moment, all these different channels, and it's changed the way that we expect to communicate and it's changed our level of focus when we are communicating, and that impacts me just as much as it impacts other people.
Rob Dwyer:I think it's a big challenge for us as a society to deal with and we'll see how things go, but I would encourage everyone to just try to be more present, whether that's just putting your phone away for a while when you're with people or turning it off, if you can afford to turn it off, and you can afford it. But there are some people who can't afford it. I get it. If you're a doctor and you can be paged at any time, maybe you can't completely turn off, but for most of us, despite what we think or what we rationalize, we can afford to just turn off for a while and be present, and I think we all should do that, more than we do, myself included more than we do, myself included.
Sarah Caminiti:Oh my gosh, that resonates with me so much. I didn't wear my watch. Today I've got an Apple watch and at first, when I got the Apple watch, I was like, oh my gosh, how could I survive without this? Oh my word, this is the best thing. But, holy moly, does that intensify the sense of urgency for every single thing? And I wonder, as you were talking, I was thinking about, like the reality of, yeah, the telephone hasn't been around for very long, but the telephone was an immediate connection with someone. And do you think that that urgency that we put on every ping and buzz that we get from all the millions of channels?
Rob Dwyer:that we're connected to out the outside world. Uh, having that connection, I don't know.
Rob Dwyer:I'm gonna be very forthright with this answer I don't know, I think there are a lot of different things that go into it. I think what humans want is connection. That's part of the human condition, right? We evolved in these clans, if you will, small groups, our tribe, and we were very connected with a number of people, right, a few dozen people. And today, for some of us at least, right, we live in a big city where there are hundreds of thousands of people that we don't know. We just don't know we're interacting with them. We're not interacting with them and just walking by, but I think we, deep down, still want to connect with people.
Rob Dwyer:Technology has enabled us to connect with those people in our tribe or to find those people in specific tribes, right. So it's really great. If I have a passion about something that is kind of niche-y, I can still find other people who are into that and we can share and we can collaborate and we can celebrate each other and I can have this community right, just like a CX Accelerator Slack community, right, I can find people who are excited about CX and we can share and we can collaborate, but I might find a subreddit that has Lego Star Wars in it and I can share and celebrate in that, or I can find anything that is interesting to me as a person, that I have a passion for, and find other people that have a passion for that and develop a connection, and I think that's amazing. It's wonderful and it allows people who literally 30 years ago may not have been able to find that tribe, or certainly would have been a lot more difficult. At the same time, it creates separate challenges, like all of a sudden I may have, I may now belong to a whole bunch of different tribes.
Rob Dwyer:Right, I've got my work tribe and I've got my my hobby tribe and I've got my work passion tribe and I've got my my actual town tribe and my family tribe and like all these different things, and they're all sending messages at the same time and I don't think we really have figured out how to deal with that effectively as a society. There are some individuals who have figured out how to deal with it and Rob do really well with it, but I think as a society we're still grappling with how do we manage our communications with all of the people that we interact with, to do it effectively, to maintain the relationship that we have with them and, at the same time, to be present in our communications with them without letting other things kind of fall through the cracks that are also important, and I don't have the answer to that. I don't know that anyone does, but it is a challenge that I think we're still grappling with.
Sarah Caminiti:Oh, completely, because it's all changed so fast and all of those tribes just kind of came out of nowhere.
Sarah Caminiti:And what you were saying about how we all want that connection, I think there's also a little bit of that panic of am I going to lose it if I don't get to it right now?
Sarah Caminiti:And so there's no boundaries we don't have any boundaries with any sort of connection and communication and that bleeds into work and having to separate that work time and space and how that connects to home, because, like in these Slack communities where we found tribes of folks that are our CX people, I'm talking to people from all of these different spaces all day, all night, because that's a social thing. Even though it's work related, it still kind of feels socially. And so when do you, when you draw the line and and why do I feel like replying to someone's comment about this loom that they're wanting to get to have in their living room? Right now the loom is not coming. They're not like dying from the loom, but I feel like I have to like drop what I'm doing and answer them. And that's such a valid point that you made, Rob, because we don't know, we totally have no idea how to do it.
Rob Dwyer:Yeah, I think the concentration that the smartphone has created, with all of these different communication channels and or our computers or tablets or whatever, but the smartphone is is the one that I think is with us all the time. We we take it everywhere and it allows all of those channels to kind of come into the same place and right. It's created this and I do it right, it's created the the phone check.
Rob Dwyer:Right, I gotta look like well, we've got some notifications here. I need to see what's there that needs my attention. The reality is, 95% of it Rob doesn't need your attention right away, and we're very quickly becoming that addicted to that and it's really hard to get away from, because there are other things on there that may be critical. Right, it may be communication with your kids or other members of your family. It could be very urgent and that's how you get in touch with someone, but it's all a very new phenomenon. That's not how things used to be right. When I was in school. You'd you'd ride bikes and you just disappear and nobody knew how to get in touch with you until you came back around. That was how it worked and there were dangers associated with that as well. But today we're just. We're just always on communicating with all of these different channels and it it definitely keeps us from being present at times.
Sarah Caminiti:Yeah, I mean, even just having a camera on your phone forces you to to think about how you can have that on you at all times, because you don't want to miss a chance to take a picture of your kid and you don't want to miss a chance to what if they start doing a dance routine and you need to get your video out and and start recording them because you're going to miss it. And just think about when we were growing up, like you, had this huge, clunky camera that was in a drawer somewhere and it would come out occasionally and then you would go to the one hour photo thing and forget about it Rob, and or it would be super exciting highlight of your day. Who knows what kind of photos were going to come out of there, but it was like an event, it was a special thing and now it's just we always have our phones because we always can take pictures. Yeah.
Rob Dwyer:It's all a balancing act.
Sarah Caminiti:We'll figure it out eventually. Maybe I hope Maybe there's an app for it. There Rob is. An app with notifications Yep, yep, to tell us to ignore.
Rob Dwyer:Ignore your notifications. This is your notification. To ignore your notifications.
Sarah Caminiti:You might have one that's urgent. So you need to go through all 47 of the notifications and let us know if it's actually urgent and you need to answer it. But, Rob, this has obviously been such a lovely conversation because every conversation with you is lovely, and I like to end my conversations by asking my guests what's your era? Well, my era is hard for me to define.
Rob Dwyer:I think that this is the era that I'm in. I'm in an era where I am trying to develop myself personally and take some focus on real relationships personally and take some focus on real relationships, and that is different for me a little bit from my younger self, and I am also very much from a work or professional standpoint, like a lot of us, very much grappling with how AI is going to impact. So I would say I'm in a transitional era and it's transitional for me as a person and understanding myself and the people around me. But I think we're all in a transitional moment potentially in how AI will impact things.
Rob Dwyer:I don't think AI is the next NFT. I was a naysayer of NFTs when they came out and I feel relatively vindicated that that was a ridiculous hype. Ai, I think, is fundamentally different in its current iteration and in what it will be able to do, both from a productivity and almost like superpower kind of way, but also from a holy moly. This is really scary and there are some things that we really have to think about and understand how we put up some guardrails, and working with AI is part of the reason that I'm thinking about that, but also I think we all should be thinking about that and understanding the potential implications and how we can harness the things that are good about AI to make our lives better, easier and more productive potential.
Sarah Caminiti:I think that's a good era. I mean the fact that you're just acknowledging it and you're cognizant of the transitional aspect of this entire space right now, like any industry is impacted by AI, and in varying degrees. And yeah, you're right, Like I mean, there's a reason why movies for years have had like the doomsday situation of really AI at its core. I mean, usually there's some sort of Rob involved, but it's for a reason because we don't know. And if anything has told us anything, it's that this stuff moves fast and it changes fast and that in and of itself is a scary unknown. So find the nuggets and treasure those, but don't take in the whole package.
Rob Dwyer:Just kind of wait and see take in the whole package, just kind of wait and see. Yeah, I would encourage all the people that are actively developing AI to remember all of those cool movies that you're talking about, like the Terminator. Those were not instruction manuals, they were warnings. Understand that distinction, please, for all of our sakes.
Sarah Caminiti:Please, you don't want to go down in history as the person that was able to make the minority report a reality. Like that is not. That's not something on a Christmas card you want to put in there, but I love that, Rob. Thank you so so much for your time, and I'm just so excited to be able to talk to you again, so enjoy your day.
Rob Dwyer:Thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate the time.
Sarah Caminiti:I hope this conversation with Rob Dwyer has sparked some thoughts on where we're headed with AI and what it means for our connections. If you found value in today's episode, don't forget to like, subscribe and share this with others that are navigating this ever-evolving landscape. Remember listeners. When you feel it in yourself that a better way exists, you owe it to yourself and those around you to try, because great things happen when you do. Thank you so much for spending time with me and thank you, Rob, for gifting me with your time. I'm Sarah Caminiti. Have a great day.
