Are you ready to dive deep into the world of customer experience with one of the industry’s brightest minds? In a captivating episode of the CXChronicles podcast, host Adrian Brady-Cesana sat down with Mika Yamamoto, the Chief Customer and Marketing Officer (CMO & CCO) at Freshworks. Mika, with an incredible background spanning tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon, shared her invaluable insights on building customer-centric organizations that truly delight.
This episode was packed with “golden nuggets” of wisdom, and we’re here to break down the major learnings, covering the essential pillars of Team, Tools, Process, and Feedback. Let’s get started!
Team: The Unstoppable Force Behind Greatness
Mika kicked off the conversation by stressing that “anything can’t happen without the team.” This isn’t just about hiring great people; it’s about fostering a culture built on shared values, trust, and collaboration.
Adrian echoed this sentiment, highlighting that “You cannot make world-class customer experience without having excellent employee experiences.” Think about it: if your frontline staff aren’t supported, engaged, and happy, how can they truly deliver joy to your customers?
Key Takeaway: Invest in your team’s culture. Cultivate an environment where trust and shared values empower everyone to work together, “lock arms and run through walls,” as Mika puts it. This creates an “unstoppable” collaborative nature that fuels both employee satisfaction and customer delight.
Tools: Simplify, Don’t Complicate!
This is where many companies stumble. While technology promises efficiency, it often introduces layers of complexity and “tech debt.”
Tech Debt Explained
Imagine building a house and cutting corners on the foundation or plumbing to save time. Eventually, those shortcuts lead to bigger, more expensive problems down the line. In software, “tech debt” refers to the extra development work needed in the future because of choosing an easy, limited solution now instead of a better, more comprehensive approach.
Mika’s philosophy? Tools should “enable your humans… to do what only humans can do.” Freshworks’ mission is to create powerful, enterprise-grade solutions that are surprisingly easy to implement and use, cutting down on the need for expensive, long-term consulting engagements.
“Our ethos is that we do enable your humans that’s in your organizations to do what only humans can do.” – Mika Yamamoto
A big differentiator for Freshworks, as highlighted by Mika, is providing a unified view of the customer. No more getting bounced between departments, explaining your issue repeatedly. A single system means agents can see the full history, making interactions smoother and more efficient. Adrian vividly described this frustration: “Wait, Mika, really quick. You don’t love it when you get bumped to the third call and someone’s like, ‘Hey, Mika, what are you calling in about today?'” We’ve all been there!
Key Takeaway: Choose tools that simplify, integrate, and empower. Look for platforms that reduce tech debt, offer a unified customer view, and provide transparent pricing. Prioritize solutions that offer a quick time-to-value, so your team can hit the ground running without endless implementation cycles.
Process: Connect the Dots for a Seamless Journey
The best tools are useless without the right processes. Mika passionately advocates for breaking down organizational silos and connecting the dots across departments.
“You have to think on behalf of the customer… walk through all of our experiences as a customer.” – Mika Yamamoto
Instead of thinking in terms of “my department’s job,” leaders should encourage teams to walk in the customer’s shoes. What’s it like for a customer trying to get information, buy a product, implement it, or seek support? This perspective instantly reveals where processes break down and where connections need to be forged.
Adrian emphasized the importance of customer journey mapping and creating cross-functional VOC (Voice of Customer) task forces. These initiatives bring together marketing, sales, product, finance, and support to ensure everyone understands the full customer lifecycle and their role within it. It’s mind-blowing how often teams discover, “Wait, we do what?!” about parts of the journey outside their immediate purview.
Key Takeaway: Break down silos! Implement processes that ensure seamless handoffs and shared understanding across departments. Use customer journey maps and cross-functional teams to identify and fix pain points from the customer’s perspective.
Feedback: Your Compass for Continuous Improvement
Finally, how do you stay agile and keep evolving? Through relentless feedback. Mika stresses the importance of gathering feedback from every source: delighted customers, sad customers, lost prospects, and even past customers.
“The best great source of feedback is your customers. And frankly, you’ve got to hold gold with the feedback you might get from a customer who’s sad.” – Mika Yamamoto
Freshworks focuses on building a robust Voice of Customer (VoC) practice to capture, aggregate, and prioritize feedback. Not every piece of feedback warrants a product change, so it’s crucial to identify common themes, urgent issues (P0), and opportunities for future innovation.
Adrian also touched on the Voice of Employee (VoE), reinforcing Mika’s point that “sad employees don’t necessarily delight customers.” Happy, empowered employees are more likely to go the extra mile for customers.
Key Takeaway: Implement comprehensive listening mechanisms for both customers and employees. Aggregate and prioritize feedback strategically to inform product development and process improvements. Empower your frontline teams to act on in-the-moment feedback, giving them the “right tools in their head” and the authority to resolve issues.
Conclusion: The CX Equation for Success
Mika Yamamoto and Adrian Brady-Cesana delivered a masterclass in this episode, proving that building a truly customer-centric organization isn’t just about one magical solution. It’s about a holistic approach where an unstoppable team, empowered by simple yet powerful tools, guided by seamless processes, and continuously refined by actionable feedback, creates an unparalleled experience.
Ready to transform your CX? Tune into Episode 264 of the CXChronicles podcast and visit Freshworks.com to learn more about Mika and her incredible team!
Check out cxchronicles.com for more content like this or if you want to be the next guest!