Flex Workers and How They Improve Customer Experience with Daniel Rodriguez

Yeah, these are flex specialists. Flexible specialists. And it’s a very different group than your traditional call center worker, whether that’s onshore or offshore. We’d like to joke—and you kind of gave me a hard time about Harvard—we actually say it’s harder to become a Simplr flex specialist than it is to get into Harvard, because it’s a 1% acceptance rate. So we have this really, really highly curated pool of people. A lot of them are military spouses—we’ve got Americans stationed on bases around the world. We’ve got teachers supplementing their income. Twenty percent of our flex specialists have master’s degrees. We’ve got aspiring musicians who use this to keep the lights on.

We’re really proud of that group because they represent people’s brands. We’re a technology and a people company. We’ve built tech to solve inefficiencies, but we’ve also got this incredible group of people. I’ll also say—and I don’t want this to come across as too much of a dig at people who build call centers—but those models have 100% attrition. People don’t stay in jobs for less than a year that they like. Those are tough staffing situations. The people with us are signing on and resolving customer issues for different brands because they want to. It’s flexible. They want to do the work.

And, with the pandemic, it’s valuable for a lot of people to have not only work-from-home flexibility but also work-when-you-want flexibility. It’s not just “you can work remote,” but “you still have to work 9 to 5.” That’s a challenge for households with kids, or both parents working. So with our model and our team, the answer is: work when you want. And the result is people bringing a good version of themselves to work. So yeah, we really love the group that we have.

Yeah, one of the things we test for—which I’m not sure if you’d pass or not, and I won’t say either way because I don’t know you well enough—is the empathy quotient. Because some people just want to fire off a response. We’re handling all the digital channels, right? And that’s not the best foot forward for a brand.

We have a really high bar around empathy. We think of ourselves as a tech company, and part of our tech is helping us bring on the right people. Part of the secret sauce is having people who score really high on empathy—because they care.

Yeah, we like to think of it as the crème de la crème—people out there who want to do this work. And there’s a sacred feeling, I think, among company leaders about who they let interact with customers. That bond, if it doesn’t work, can’t easily be repaired. So they try to mitigate the risk with strict training regimens—like a two-week process—and then say, “Okay, you’re on brand.”

But the reality is, people forget by month one or two. It’s a really difficult thing. We solve that with technology in a savvy way. We’ve got machine learning and AI helping people stay on brand in a way that doesn’t misrepresent the company. That’s what we’re really excited about. You can’t always see it, but you see it in the results.

Also, having people who are happy to come to work and say, “Hey, I want to solve some tickets right now. I want to help people.” We get fun notes that get passed around—it means a lot for people to have that flexibility in their schedules and lives. For some people, it’s the difference between being in a tough spot and really thriving, especially in a pandemic, where opportunities are harder to come by for many Americans.

Yeah. I mean, I think one is—you’re actually interacting with a human.

Okay, I think so many people want to interact with people, and so few companies are able to figure out how to make that happen. That’s a huge piece. We talked about this a little already, but the idea of matching cost to actual need—that cracks the code for a lot of people. Like, I’d love to staff up to the level my customers expect, but I just can’t afford to. So I think those are two huge things.

And we’re also on our own journey here. We’re not just thinking about how to keep the lights on 24/7—because it’s the internet, and the lights are always on. That’s what we’re doing today. But we know companies want to improve their customer experience over time. They want technology that helps them play offense instead of defense. They want to diagnose pain before they experience pain, and they want to see more clearly what’s going on with their customers. So we want to take that journey with them.

Yeah, and airlines—you know, everyone loves to pick on airlines, and there’s good reason for it. Airlines aren’t like traditional eCommerce retailers. They’re an oligopoly. There are only a few providers, just like cable companies. And because there’s not much competition, you have to put up with terrible service—unless you’re paying through the nose to make those service issues go away. And you’re paying for that directly.

But in the eCommerce or restaurant space—like a lot of the customers we work with—it’s highly competitive. It’s not that people will never be your customer again, but in that moment, maybe they won’t. And maybe they fall in love with another brand and drift away. You might lose them completely. So it’s critically important, especially for bigger companies—we work with some fairly large ones, and “big” is relative—but if you’ve got $100 million in revenue, you’re likely feeling these pains. What’s fascinating is when you’re small, you smother your customers with love—because you think that’s what you need to do. Then as you grow, you start using words like “optimize,” which often just means, “I’m going to ignore or devalue my customer.” And when that happens, people feel it. They feel like they don’t matter.

And I think what we’re doing at Simplr is saying, “Yes, you do matter. A lot.” In that moment when something’s challenging or unclear—when you have a question or need help—you matter a lot. Whether it’s this purchase or future ones, you do matter.

Yeah, I mean, I do love learning about wine, tasting wine—and also drinking wine. I’d say I’m a wine snob. I’ll throw that out there. You’re welcome to judge me, and I’ve gotten over being judged for it. I started getting into wine just because I was fascinated by it. Like, why is this wine darker than that one? What makes it that way? And it’s a rabbit hole, I’ll tell you.

The certification I have is pretty junior, but it’s enough to make me feel dangerous. People ask me what to get off a wine list, and I generally know what’s going on. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with Napa wines—specifically the ones grown in the mountainous regions. So mountain fruit from Napa. I’ll give a shoutout to Spring Mountain Winery, which is also a geographic location—Spring Mountain—because that wine has really been my obsession.

I promise you that when we get to do this, I will not chug the wine.

Oh my gosh. I guess I’d have to have LeBron James, because we were just talking about him. I think it would be amazing to meet Harriet Tubman. I grew up in Ohio, and we’re on the Underground Railroad route. I remember going on a school tour to see the trap doors in old homes—totally fascinating.

And I’d love to talk to my own dad—who’s alive—but when he was my age. Just to ask, “What are you seeing right now? What’s going through your head?” Because I don’t have any recollection of my dad at my age—he was already a dad when I was born.

That’d be good. We can social distance. I’m not sure anyone’s flying anywhere right now, but if that changes, I’ve got a wine cellar too. We can have some fun social distance in my back patio.

Thank you. You too. Thanks so much for having me.