Customer Success Playbook Podcast S3 E71 - Adrian Swinscoe - Unlocking Value in Customer Journeys

Ready to inject some punk spirit into your customer experience? In this episode of the Customer Success Playbook, Adrian Swinscoe joins Roman Trebon to explore the delicate art of reducing friction without losing that vital human touch. From the bustling cultural tapestry of Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival to personal tales of rock climbing and postponed trips to Japan, Adrian sets the stage with personality before diving into why not all friction is bad. He reveals why some “effortful” moments between a brand and its customers actually build loyalty, and how removing them in the name of efficiency can backfire spectacularly. If you’re looking to refine your customer journey without sterilizing it, this episode serves up the perfect balance of practical wisdom and a punk attitude.In a world obsessed with streamlining every process, this episode is a refreshing reminder that operational efficiency is not always the hero of customer success. Adrian Swinscoe brings a nuanced perspective: friction isn’t the bogeyman it’s often made out to be. By distinguishing between “good friction” — those meaningful touchpoints that enrich customer relationships — and “bad friction” that truly hinders progress, organizations can avoid the pitfall of a too-easy, yet emotionally barren, experience. His example of a company that saw sign-ups soar but retention dive thanks to over-simplification is a cautionary tale for businesses tempted to sanitize their customer journey too aggressively.The actionable takeaway? Approach your customer journey analysis with deliberate care and use data combined with direct customer feedback to fine-tune that balance. This means digging deep into customer stories and operational metrics to identify where technology should speed things up and where human moments need to be preserved or even amplified. Adrian’s advice serves as a critical chapter in your customer success playbook, fueling smarter decisions that respect both business goals and the emotional dynamics that bind customers to your brand.Bonus: His reflections on rock climbing as a meditative, focus-driven hobby provide a clever metaphor for the customer success journey itself—it’s about balance, precision, and the right amount of challenge.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: 0:05

Customer success. Welcome back to the Customer Success Playbook podcast. I'm Roman Reaugh, uh, my co-host Kevin Meser. Still out, still not with us, but, uh, we're moving on with Adrian, uh, just like we did last episode. So, like I said, our guest is Adrian Scoe, uh, author of punk cx, author of, um, how to Wow. Speaker, author, et cetera. You've, you've seen I did the intro last show. Go back and listen to it. So Adrian's back to talk about, uh, how to bring some serious punk spirits, uh, to your organization. But before we do, we wanna get to know Adrian a little better. We have'em on the show. So Adrian, I hope you're, uh, buckle up and ready for these really hard hitting questions.

Adrian Swinscoe: 0:49

Let's do it. All right.

Roman Trebon: 0:50

Awesome. So, uh, if, if, if Kevin and I take a take a road trip, we want to come visit you. I think you're in Edinburg. Yes, I am. Awesome. What's the one thing we must do when we're in Edinburgh? What's the, what's the go-to place? We gotta see.

Adrian Swinscoe: 1:03

Well, apart from the castle and all the other kinda bits and pieces,'cause it's like there's not many places in the world. It's got a castle in the center of the city. That's kind of like, you definitely have to go and see that. But I would, I would suggest that if you come, you, you come to Edinburgh, you should plan ahead.'cause it gets quite expensive and really busy. Mm-hmm. But plan to come in August to come and see the Fringe Festival because it's one of the largest arts and culture and, uh, festivals in, in the world. And it's, it's. If you wanna see theater or music or comedy or kind of all sorts of other kind of performances, it says there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acts and stuff and people descend on it. And it's like, particularly in the comedy sort of space, it becomes a, a breeding ground for kind of comics trying to break into the big time. And you see kind of the lots of different names. People come from all over the world to, to do it. So it's, it's, it's crazy, but it's brilliant.

Roman Trebon: 1:56

Oh, I love it. I love our audience. You got, you got a couple months, so get those plane tickets. Look into it. Fringe festival. That sounds awesome. I love, I love that. Adrian, yourself, if you could travel one place you've never been. Where are you going and why?

Adrian Swinscoe: 2:08

Um, Japan, because of 2020, because in 2020 my wife and I had planned this big trip. We were gonna go to Tokyo for the second week of the Olympics, and then we were gonna go on to Fiji and then hang out in Fiji for a little while, and then we're gonna come back, uh, via Australia. And visit some friends and then hang out in Sydney for a little while and then come back all the way home. And that got blown up in, in 2020. And so Japan's definitely on our list. We definitely wanna go back to Japan, so we're thinking about going for the world. Athletics championships maybe next year.

Roman Trebon: 2:45

Ooh. Well, let me know because la last time you shut that, last time you trapped, uh, planned a trip to Japan, you shut down the whole world, Adrian. So let me know. Gimme a little heads up when you're going just in case something happens this time. Just will do, will do. I'm not prepared. I'll, I'll stock up on waters and, uh, toilet paper. Alright, so when you're not researching cx, what's your hobby or pastime that helps you in one?

Adrian Swinscoe: 3:04

Um, the thing that I really like to do, and I've done it for, for a number of years, is I like, I like going rock climbing or bouldering just because I, like, I've, I've rock climbed for a, a long time. Both, I mean, different parts of the world, kind of outdoors, indoors, all these and different sort of like seasons and stuff, but just going to the rock climbing gym and just doing a bunch of routines or trying a whole bunch of kind of problems. It's brilliant, it's great exercise, but it's also quite meditative because it's all about balance and movement and focus and all these different things. So it becomes a bit like yoga sort of thing. You can go off and get your exercise, but then do this kind of thing and you come out feeling everything is, you know, everything just falls outta your mind'cause it requires kinda focus. So it's a, it's a really great way to, um, unwind. But unfortunately I haven't done it for a very while because I've been dealing with some historical. Got like some back injury stuff. There's historical stuff, and so I'm out until September time, but hopefully, I'm really looking forward to getting back into it.

Roman Trebon: 4:01

That'd be awesome. You, you're not one of those three climbers, right? I'm not gonna see up the side of a mountain with any ropes. Right? You have a rope, you're, you're locked in and good to go.

Adrian Swinscoe: 4:08

I am when bouldering is all low levels, so you can jump off onto mats. I have nothing like kind of Alex Honnold that he is a, he is a, he is a, a. An incredible kinda human being in terms of what he does. But no, I'm tied to a rope that even tied to a rope is dangerous enough. But when you can climb just with shoes and short bag, that's kind of different level, man.

Roman Trebon: 4:28

Crazy. I'm scared of heights. I see those guys do. I can't even watch the videos, Adrian. I, I, I get freaked out just watching it. But what they do is amazing. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I think it's time for us to get into our one big question. So, so Adrian, uh, many companies, they wanna reduce customer friction, right? Fewer steps, less friction, easier to get through, et cetera. But how, how do companies do that without stripping out the, the human or emotional connection that really helps us get tied to the brand?

Adrian Swinscoe: 4:53

So I think the thing that we need to be, we need to, first of all, we need to recognize there's, there's good and there's bad friction. And it's essential to know the difference. And I remember, so I'll, to illustrate this, I'll, I'll, I'll. I'll give you an example. I remember talking to the CEO of user testing one time, uh, when he was the former CEO of, of user testing. Andy McMillan, when he was still in post, and he told me this story about a company that, um, that they worked with that was infused by this idea about creating this frictionless, kind of like customer experience. And they ended up taking all these different kinda bits out and out of the process and streamlining it and things Now. Here's what happened. Signups to their, to their product. Kinda went up nicely. But when it came to actually their able ability to retain customers, it fell through the floor.'cause and when they can, when they stopped and they thought about this and that,'cause that was alarming to them, and they were like, oh, it's easier for people to sign up, but we're actually not keeping customers. So it's like, oh, what have we done? Have we actually built this boat? We were trying to sell it with a hole in the bottom of it. But when they looked into it and they spoke to their customers, what they realized was all of the steps that they'd taken out that they assumed were effort. Full, as it were, were the things that were. The word value defining for the relationship they have with their customers. So like imagine you go into a, um, like say, say you like choosing a car or something and you say, I want this car and I want this, this paint work and this finish and this drive, and all these different sort of things. Um. What they were doing is they were taking all these different things out and it was almost becoming automatic, like fixed choices as it were. And actually what they found out was actually it was the choice part of it. The effort that was required to make the choice was the thing that was delivering the value and sealing the relationship they had with their, their customers. And so what they went, they were like, oh, horror and then basically rewound everything that they did to try and. Almost put themselves back to where they were because what they'd done by the whole friction, uh, taking all these steps out, they'd actually eliminated all the value making steps that they had in it. So it's a really important. To, to understand what parts of your process are good friction and what parts of the process are bad friction. And you need to know the difference.'cause you don't wanna be playing assuming that all efforts is bad friction.'cause that could be bad for your business.

Roman Trebon: 7:15

Yeah, no, I love that. I love that story. Uh, it's, it's amazing, right? You take all that out and then your clients are leaving through the back door without even, uh, without even thinking about it, right? So, so for, for organizations who want to do this. Adrian, they want to kind of look at their, their good friction. Bad friction. How do they balance, you know, there's so much I feel like, uh, focus on operational efficiency. Yeah. But how do you do that without losing the connection with your, with your customers?

Adrian Swinscoe: 7:39

It's a really big question and I, I, I, you know, and I. Who don't have time for me to write well, to speak out an essay, an essay on this book. So I, I'd say two, like two things. Yeah. I think you need to do it carefully, carefully, and deliberately. And you have to think about where the customer's kinda journey and where they interact with you and what's the kinda right balance of human and, and and tech and what, what, what, what are things are, are real kinda like pain points that are costing you the costing, uh, the business in terms of operational kind of cost or maybe kind of too much effort that you're losing customers at those kind of points. And then you just need to. Again, go back to the data thing that we talked about on Monday. We need to go get into the data, then think to see about what people are saying about all these different sort of points. And then if it needs to be, get out and talk to people about what works and what doesn't kinda work. Hear are those stories. Gonna listen to those stories, kind of like absorb those stories.'cause if you only, if you do that carefully and deliberately, then are, are you gonna get a real sense of what works and what doesn't work and why you should. What you should be fixing, what you should be leaving alone.

Roman Trebon: 8:37

Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. Awesome stuff, Adrian. Really appreciate it. Big takeaways, uh, really make sure you balance, understand the, your customers good friction, bad friction, uh, simplify, but, you know, maybe don't, don't, don't over, uh, engineer it or, or sanitize it, right. So, absolutely. Adrian, you're gonna come back for a third show, right? I, we haven't scared way yet. Yes, I'm awesome. Awesome. That's awesome. For our audience, I hope you enjoyed the show. Again, make sure you subscribe so you know, when our new shows come out, like it, give us a rating comment that really helps us, uh, get, uh, our show out to more professionals in the customer success world. As always, we really appreciate you listening and keep on playing.