Does your CX suck?
Does your dog lose its mind when Saturday morning rolls around and you start vacuuming your home? Is your cat in an endless power struggle with your Roomba? Well, turns out you have two people to blame for that...and today we’re finding out how much their vacuum wars sucked.
In the battle to create the first vacuum, it was actually a battle of accessorizing. Who could help you reach high places? Could this attachment reach under the couch? Are there different settings for hardwood or carpet? Accessories are everything when it comes to creating the perfect vacuum. But that’s true for products across the board. Accessories can bring your CX to the next level, and today’s guest knows exactly how to do it. Christopher Maiwald, Founder and Managing Director of Wasserstein Home and Lectron, does a deep dive into accessories and how you can give your CX the extra boost to delight your customers.
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"Rarely do people come out with a hit product the first time around, so get comfortable with failure—get comfortable with iterating many, many times over." - Christopher Maiwald
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Time Stamps
* (0:00) The vacuum wars
* (5:50) The genius of Wasserstein Home and Lectron
* (7:58) What makes accessories crucial to CX?
* (8:41) The secret to understanding negative feedback
* (9:51) Working with Google Nest
* (11:58) Making accessories accessible
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Sponsor
This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.
Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives
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Links
Connect with Christopher on LinkedIn
Narrator: James felt the familiar tightness in his chest as he made his way from one end of the department store to the other. Back and forth, back and forth he swept. He didn’t mind the monotony of the task. It was the thickness of the air that he couldn’t stand. Day after day, year after year, he swept the floors, and the dust took its toll. James Murray Spangler was now 60-years-old, a failed inventor with a severe case of asthma. Sweeping certainly wasn’t what he imagined he’d be doing at this stage of his life. Yet here he was, covered from head to toe in soot. Dust bunnies the size of elephants haunted his dreams. Things had gotten bad, and James was desperate to put an end to the madness.
He decided to dust off his old inventor’s hat one last time. After weeks of contemplation, he started gathering items together: a tin soap box, a fan, a pillowcase, a broom handle. Then he got to work assembling a strange contraption designed to pull dust from the air...
James wasn’t the only fellow with a vendetta against the dust bunnies. Hubert Cecil Booth was an experienced engineer and inventor whose goal was to make dust go extinct as soon as humanly possible. Hubert was a man so determined, he nearly suffocated himself to death conducting his own dust-eliminating experiments.
While James was tinkering with his broom and pillowcase in Ohio, Hubert was taking the dust wars to new heights. He’d built a behemoth of a machine to battle against the scourge of airborne soot. It was so big it had to be drawn by horse. It was powered by gas, had long, fire-hose-like tubes, and was louder than a modern-day leaf blower. Hubert paraded his machine up and down the street, attracting crowds of curious onlookers. It also had a transparent chamber that collected the dust for all to see. Oohs and aahs could be heard even over the roaring of the motor.
Hubert’s invention drew gazes far and wide, but James had a bit more at stake. For him, the fight against the dust bunnies was more than flashy features. James’ asthma was getting worse by the day. He was determined not to bite the dust before perfecting his dust-biting machine. With a less flashy prototype in hand, James went in search of the perfect financial backer to help him make his dust-free dreams a reality.
So which one of them came out on top? Well, put down the broomstick, throw away your dustpan, and look for the closest power outlet, because the ending to this story...sucks.
Welcome to Often Imitated, a podcast about remarkable experiences from the past, and how they inspire people to create great customer experiences today.
This episode is all about the power of accessories, and how thoughtful details can take your CX to new heights. In this episode we’ll hear from Christopher Maiwald, Founder and Managing Director of Wasserstein Home about how accessories can help unlock new markets, and why his CX philosophy is all about reducing friction. But first, a word from our sponsors.
Often Imitated is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle Advertising and CX. Connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition…to retention…and everything in between. Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at oracle.com/cx.
James Murray Spangler’s invention was called the suction sweeper. And his financial backer bought the patent in 1908, and the two became partners. His name was Boss Hoover. And tother they dusted the competition. It was this partnership that is the reason you probably have a Hoover vacuum in the closet right now. And believe it or not, many Hoover vacuums still utilize the suction system that Spangler originally invented. Spangler’s early work crawled so the roomba’s of the future could...well...glide.
The Hoover vacuum revolutionized cleaning. A must-buy for families across the nation and eventually worldwide. Together, Hoover and Spangler sucked the wind out of Hubert Booth’s sails. His gaudy contraption was too big, too loud, and too cumbersome to be practical for everyday families. But that wasn’t the only reason the Hoover vacuum won out.
The secret to the true staying power of the Hoover: the accessories! Have you ever tried to vacuum under the couch or in your car without those attachments? Impossible. Cleaning upholstery, walls, or bare floors? Boy have I got some amenities to show you. Constantly stopping in the middle of the job to empty the dust container? Here, have some disposable filter bags. For over a hundred years, Hoover’s engineers have developed countless accessories that satisfy customers’ unique needs.
According to Christopher Maiwald, Founder and Managing Director of Wasserstein Home, accessories are all about finding and addressing your customer’s pain points. But by addressing those pain points, you’re not just creating a great experience for existing customers, you’re increasing the size of the total addressable market for your product. You’re opening yourself up to people who may not have engaged with your product to begin with. And Christopher would know, because accessories are his business:
Christopher: So with Wasserstein, we make thoughtful accessories for smart homes. As we make all the cool, cool products that make your favorite smart home brands even better. We make solar chargers for Allo ring, Google nest, uh, different mounts, different brackets, anything that aids in the installation power or decoration of your smart home devices. Uh, one of the programs that we're most proud of is our made for Google partnership, uh, in the wake of this, uh, We tend to get access under obviously strict confidentiality access to, to future. Google nest releases, um, well in advance. So then our product people can build really thoughtful accessories, uh, together with the, for the, for the products that are being, being worked on by the constant view from Google.
Narrator: In addition to Wasserstein Home, Christopher also works on Lectron, where he applies the same philosophy of accessories to vehicles:
Christopher: electron in a very similar way. Um, a few years ago, three and a half years ago, we looked at, uh, the electric vehicle market, the same way we looked at the smart home market five years ago. And back then electric vehicles were much less of a big deal than they are on their. And, uh, it was a small market where, uh, there was very fragmented from a charging and installation perspective. So I tried to understand, well, what are the charging standards in the U S for electric vehicles? So there was, um, , which is an AC charging standard. Then there was, uh, CCS, Tesla, and check. And we wanted to make thoughtful accessories that address cross charging incompatibility issues and make charging for electric vehicles easier. Also the sensory play very similar to Pasa style, although completely different product development and engineering teams, but our customers, uh, and retail partners, uh, have the same.
Narrator: Thoughtful accessories are Christopher’s bread and butter. Products exist to satisfy customers. Accessories, on the other hand, exist to provide additional ways to solve pain points.
Christopher: the user experience for customers that have their smart home devices or electric vehicles, and whenever they go through the usage of these, they always face the same. We like to break it down into three categories. It's always installation and mounting. It's always charging and power. And in some cases it's decorative. Every accessory you will find will fall into one of these categories can be fashion accessories, electronic accessories, smartphone, accessories, smart, home accessories, and electric vehicle accessories.
Narrator: As CX leaders, we can take a lot of inspiration and guidance from the philosophy behind accessories. Remarkable customer experience boils down to one thing and one thing only: reducing friction anywhere possible. For Christopher, that means digging into the details.
Christopher: we closely monitor negative customer experiences. So any kind of, we call this NCA. Uh, negative customer experience that for any product. And that is basically any interaction with a customer that isn't a thank you email or a five-star review is somewhat negative because it means that where the customer either had to clarify, or they had to reach out again or something was wrong. And even a simple clarification email about, uh, the usage of a product probably means that either the user interface of the product wasn't good. Or the, the, uh, accompanying user manual wasn't clear enough. Um, so we really tried to keep friction and communication at a minimum, unless it's a thank you email or we loved your product or something, just glowingly positive. Uh, we generally look at it and we try to try to learn from it.
“I think in the broadest sense possible, just lack of friction. Um, it, whenever you're, obviously, if you want people to do something and that is either use your product or use your services or buy your product or services, the more friction you have, the less likely they're going to do it. So in any stage of, of, of your customer experience may be the retail experience or the product experience or the setup experience, um, reduce friction wherever possible. Just make it really easy for people to use your products.
Narrator: For Christopher’s products and accessories, user manuals are how he and his team communicate with their customers. As we all know, user manuals can be intimidating and clunky. Christopher and his team are working to take away this pain point for their customers.
Christopher: we've been working with the, uh, Google nest product teams in, in mountain view, uh, two years before product launch. Uh, we make sure that the user interface between the accessory and the underlying devices work seamlessly, it gets better tested. Grown. It goes through a somewhat similar, uh, testing and certification process, the underlying Google devices. And then obviously Google has a say in, in, in, in user manuals and how things are being communicated. Um, but generally we try in user manuals, we try to be exhaustive without being overwhelming. Um, Obviously the perfect user manual would be just not having a user manual and you have a product that is just so completely self-explanatory that you don't need it. And this can be often achieved with, uh, with software solutions where just the instructions pop up on the screen. Um, but, uh, for, for hardware products, uh, with no or limited software software integrated. Uh, we need to exhaustively run through the different installation cases, um, and try to cover them without being, uh, overexplaining or too wordy, uh, because otherwise, if it's, if it's becomes a, if people look at a 20 page, user manual, they get annoyed, they get frustrated and they stop reading. Uh, so you could have written anything in there, but it just doesn't become therapeutic.
Narrator: If it were up to Christopher — user manuals wouldn’t even exist. The best products and accessories need no explanation. In other words, no friction.
The other magic behind accessories is their ability to unlock new addressable markets. They solve unique problems for consumers, making your products accessible to people who may not have originally considered purchasing them.
Christopher: This is another example of how we think about the customer expects. So there's a huge rental market of people who really want these devices. So, um, and then there's all these restrictions. They can't really hold, they don't want to leave the doorbell there, uh, and so on and so forth. Um, so one thing that we've been working on, we've been working on a ton of no-drill mounts. So mounting plates that allow users that really want to have a battery powered video doorbell to attach these in the right place with. With an adhesive, um, that is just strong enough that it doesn't fall off, but not so strong that it obviously damages the property. Um, and this, I think is a great example of making thoughtful accessories that, uh, increases the user experience and also enlarges the addressable market, uh, because otherwise these guys, uh, these customers wouldn't have been able to, or would have, would not have been able to, to operate with.
Narrator: So what does this look like for your own customer experience? Chris has the perfect answer.
Christopher: So it has to make your life easier, save your money or save your time. So it needs to add a tangible amount of, of, of, of value to the way you use some direct with your products on a daily basis. H rate a lot and listen to your customers. Um, so it's very rare that you get, or at least I am not aware of instances where people just get it bang on, right. The first time, um, most of the products that you see, uh, out there that have really meaningful customer traction, these guys on the. Uh, integration of something. Now, a lot of these iterations happened before they had mass traction, uh, but rarely do people come out with a, with a smash hit product the first time around. Um, so get comfortable with failure, get comfortable with, with, uh, with iterating many, many times over and, uh, listen to your customers, um, and listened to the data behind your, your, your customer experience. So if your customer says jump, don't argue with Jen, then just say how high.
Narrator: As you incorporate thoughtful accessories into your product...you’re able to create new opportunities to surprise and delight customers. Christopher and his team have shown us that even the smallest accessory can drastically improve a customer’s life.
So your homework for this week is to analyze your current CX and see where there’s friction. Identify the root pain points. Maybe you don’t need wholescale changes or an entire new line of products. Perhaps a simple accessory can help meet an unmet need.
Whether it’s a Google Nest keeping an eye on your front door, or a vacuum cleaning up what you track in through the back, accessories have the power to improve your CX. So the next time you find yourself covered in dirt and struggling to breathe, remember to think of your customer...empathize...then, accessorize. Because it’s all about making your customer’s pain points...bite the dust.
This podcast is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle Advertising and CX. Connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition…to retention…and everything in between. Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at oracle.com/cx.
This is your host, Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. Thank you for listening to another episode of Often Imitated. If you like what you’re hearing, tell one friend. This podcast was narrated by me, Ian Faison, written by David Freiburger, and produced and edited by Mackey Wilson, Ezra Bakker Trupiano, and Jon Libbey. You can learn more about our team at CaspianStudios.com