Customer Success Playbook S3 E25 - David Singer - Human Touch in Customer Support

Summary: How do you strike the perfect balance between automation and human connection in customer service? In this episode of the Customer Success Playbook, hosts Roman Trebon and Kevin Metzger sit down with David Singer, Global VP at Verve, to explore the critical role emotional intelligence (EQ) plays in customer interactions. Dave shares compelling stories and practical insights on when automation should step aside to let human empathy shine. From AI-driven escalation detection to real-world examples of EQ saving the customer experience, this conversation is packed with actionable takeaways for business leaders.

Detailed Analysis: Customer service is evolving fast, but one thing remains constant: customers want to feel heard. David Singer dives deep into the interplay between automation and human interaction, highlighting that while self-service tools are invaluable, there are moments when a real human connection is irreplaceable. He walks us through the nuances of identifying these moments—whether through journey mapping, intuition, or advanced AI tools that detect emotional shifts in real time.

Dave illustrates his points with vivid anecdotes: a well-timed call from an online car retailer, an empathetic insurance agent cementing lifelong customer loyalty, and AI tools that recognize when an agent is emotionally drained. His key message? Emotional intelligence isn’t just about customer experience—it’s also about empowering employees to perform at their best.

For businesses looking to optimize their CX strategy, this episode offers a fresh perspective on harmonizing automation with authentic human engagement. Now you can interact with us directly by leaving a voice message at https://www.speakpipe.com/CustomerSuccessPlaybook

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Transcript

Roman Trebon: 0:10

Hi everyone, and welcome to the Customer Success Playbook podcast, where we bring you actionable insights and fresh strategies for driving customer success. I'm your host, Roman Trevon. Joined with me as always by my co-host Kevin Metzker. Kev, we got a great show lined up today. You excited for it?

Kevin Metzger: 0:26

I am, I am. And we've got the Global Vice President, David Singer of Verve. He is joining us to share his perspective on how emotional intelligence in customer interactions can elevate the entire customer experience. Dave, welcome to the show. You, maybe you wanna tell us a little bit more about yourself, talk about the field again. Sure.

David Singer: 0:46

Thanks Jaron. Guys, I been looking forward to this for weeks now, Yeah, I'm Dave Singer. I lead the global go to market practice for Averant across our portfolio. I've been with Averant for, wow, almost, 25 years now. ran right from when we were selling nothing but compliance, recording, and quality up through now. We offer everything we need for CX automation. and most recently, anyone who follows me on LinkedIn. I've been known for the shield for the last five years or so since, cameras came on in COVID and, I'm really happy to be here, guys.

Roman Trebon: 1:15

Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, Dave. All right, let's jump right into it. our Monday show is our number one tip. So, Dave, what's your number one tip for helping organizations weave emotional intelligence into their customer experience strategies? Sure.

David Singer: 1:29

When you think about customer service, there's always now a blend of self service and assisted serve. And more and more customers, like, Hey, the more we push to self service, more containment, lower, lower costs, et cetera. So I think the number one thing is to recognize that at a certain level of, emotional or financial importance, people want to speak to people. Right. And that's because whatever service they need, whether it's, buying a house, filing a claim, talking to a doctor, it matters to them. And humans are uniquely good at showing, empathy and being present and building connection. So I think that, the number one thing, I recommend is, Look at whatever industry you're in and whatever customer service you're providing and recognize where do we need people? And if we focus the people on where we need that empathy and connection and presence, we automate the rest. Then we give to our customers, what they need in terms of that real connection, that real emotionally aware. Service moreover we give the agents time to deliver that service because we've taken the noise off So I really think of it as recognize. Where do you need that? Eq expressed and how do you segment what you try to automate versus what you always want people to deal with? Because that's what your customers need

Roman Trebon: 2:52

So, Dave, do you recommend customer or for companies that are looking at this where to weave in emotional intelligence mm-hmm and where to self-service? do they typically build out customer journey maps to try to understand that? how have you seen companies go about to kind of identify where we should automate and where we should interject that emotional intelligence.

David Singer: 3:10

It varies. Sometimes there's really complex journey maps of what's going on. Sometimes it's very intuitive, right? if you're filing a medical claim, you probably want to talk to a human at a certain point about what's going on. So we see sometimes it's journey maps. Sometimes it's very intuitive. and sometimes it's driven by, the outcomes you want to get because we always want a good outcome for our customers. Obviously, the best interactions when there's a good outcome for, the customer for the company or for the brand and for the agent. So if you look at the kinds of interactions where there are desired outcomes for the organization, where having the agent engage with the right emotional intelligence to help the customer in the right way is going to help the agent feel more engaged and more empowered and more connected and drive a better outcome for the brand because they're getting delivering customer service. Gets better loyalty. So I think looking at those kind of situations where it matters, right? if all I want to do is, for example, I got a visa gift card last week. And I bought a bottle of wine for my wife, and I wanted to check how much balance was left on this visa gift card. I don't need an empathetic, emotionally connected, present experience to check this balance. I want to plug a number to a website, get a number back, grand, I'm done, right? Yep. But, you know, when I was, you know, I bought a car using, one of the online You know, car purchasing services, right? Nameless for now, but it was great. 99 percent of it was online, which is exactly what I wanted. And then when it got to the final point where there was a chance to, you know, close or not close, we're going to upsell. Can you provide better service? Then they engaged a person. Right. So I could do all the stuff that didn't matter, get to the end of where I'm ready to go. And now before you make that, that step, Hey, let's get, let's get someone on the line. Let's make sure you're ready. Let's make sure you're going. And it was really helpful to have that experience. One more example, cause I'm all about examples today, guys.

Roman Trebon: 5:03

No, I love it. I love

David Singer: 5:04

it. You're on fire. Um, I remember when I was, just, you know, a new grad from college and my first new car I'd ever bought living in my first apartment after I moved off campus, working my first real job. I came home on Sunday night and someone broke into my car, like smash the windows, took all my stuff. I was devastated. Right? So pick up the phone. I call my insurance company and, human answer the phone. I explained what happened and he says, okay, Mr Singer, we'll have our, adjusters and our staff here on Monday morning and they'll reach out and get back to you. We just I'm here. We don't make sure there's someone always available to tell you it's going to be okay. We will help you get through this and we will make this okay. So don't worry about it. And after that, I would never change insurance companies for the rest of my life. Because at that moment, it was critical to have that emotional connection. Cause I was at a very elevated state and just having someone say, Hey, it's going to be okay. 10 years of loyalty.

Roman Trebon: 6:09

Yeah. And imagine Dave, you calling in nowadays and you get an intelligent virtuation saying. Hi, Mr. Singer. what seemed to happen to your car? Not, not the same. I'm assuming not 10 years of loyalty from that. no, exactly.

Kevin Metzger: 6:21

Is there anything yet in the systems where you're able to distinguish, Hey, we've got a situation. Where there's, there's an elevated emotional charge coming into the system. It maybe it's best to exit the person to, because you can't always, not every scenario you're going to recognize up front and you may be filing somebody through some kind of automated system. And are there ways at this point of recognizing, Hey, this is an elevated situation, let's bring somebody in for emotional.

David Singer: 6:57

Yeah, absolutely. and you raise a good point. It's, you know, instinctively people think, Oh, it's all obviously recognized when my customer's getting upset or elevated. But, you know, if you're from New York, you may not recognize that, some people from the South get more and more quiet and polite, the more upset they get. Right. It's not what you would expect from a New Yorker from New Jersey is going to get, very, elevated even at a good moment. Right. So, You know, shameless plug for forbearance. we have some AI tech that measures customer experience and employee experience in real time. So you can provide guidelines to, you know, alerts to the agent when things are going the wrong direction. You can provide alerts to the supervisor so they can come and help. And what's really important there is not just the customer experience, it's also the employee experience. So, if Roman's on the phone and he's just taken three terrible calls in a row. And you watch, the ex line for Roman starting to, fall off a cliff as a supervisor. I want to come in and say, Hey, Roman, you know what? I just scheduled you for a 15 minute break and you've had a rough time of it. Go get a cup of coffee, walk around the building, just, take a beat to recover and expressing that emotional intelligence to your employees allows them to do that to your customer.

Roman Trebon: 8:14

I love it. Dave, I love your number one tip. You've given us more than one thing to think about, which I love. All right. We didn't scare away. You're coming back Wednesday, right? Absolutely. We couldn't keep you away, Roman. We're gonna keep you away. Get the stories, get the analogies back in the hopper. I want to hear more on Wednesday. Fantastic stuff to our audience. Thanks for listening. As always, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you know, when our next episode is released, you'll get a notification. Like it comment on it subscribe leave a review. we appreciate you listening as always kevin keep on playing