Tisa Sinclair’s work experience has given her the opportunity to engage in several areas of communications from public relations to social media and digital marketing. She currently leads a D.C. based team that forges the ongoing social care strategies, processes, and official responses to members and nonmembers as they interact with AARP’s digital content. This program is a key feedback component to the AARP customer experience strategy.
In this episode, Tisa talks about her role at AARP, how having a clear company vision and a centralized communication hub for all branches of the company allows AARP to keep their communication and messaging consistent across the board, how they were able to get their employees and representatives in 53 different states to buy into their communication strategy, how customers usually provide feedback to AARP and what she’s found surprising in all the feedback, how having company values and purposes are valuable to the service teams, what it was like building loyalty and trust with their social media followers and customers, the three Experience Pillars AARP aligns their values and messaging with, and more!
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Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast! If you’ve listened to the last few episodes here on the podcast, you know that we are interviewing people that are going to be speaking at the Smart Customer Service Conference in Washington, DC, April 29th through May 1st in 2019. These folks are experts and leaders in the customer service arena and it’s fun to have them here. It’s fun to learn more about them, to be able to hear a little bit about their personal experience, what motivates them, and their expertise. So I’ll be a fellow speaker at the conference, so there’s some personal enjoyment for me in just being able to connect with folks ahead of time too. But I think that what you’ll find is that in this conversation with Tisa, we’re going to really have the opportunity to hear from somebody who’s really in it right now and has had some major success at AARP.
So, I’m just going to share with you a little bit more about her here in a second. But if you’re interested in attending the Smart Customer Service Conference then go to the show notes at voiceofinfluene.net and we’ll have links there for you so that you can learn more about it and possibly see us there.
Tisa Sinclair’s work experience has given her the opportunity to engage in several areas of communications from public relations to social media and digital marketing. She currently leads a D.C. based team that forges the ongoing social care strategies, processes, and official responses to members and nonmembers as they interact with AARP’s digital content. This program is a key feedback component to the AARP Customer Experience strategy. I’m really looking forward to hearing more about this.
Andrea: So, Tisa, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!
Tisa Sinclair: Hi, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here!
Andrea: So tell us a little bit more about your role at AARP?
Tisa Sinclair: Sure. I mean, you explain a bit in the intro, but I lead the social response, or more widely known as social care function, here in AARP. As you know, or for those who don’t know, AARP is one of the nation’s largest nonprofit organizations that’s really dedicated to empowering Americans who are 50 and older, especially when it comes to choosing how they live as they age. My team oversees everything from response governance to customer analysis. And like I said, this program is a key feedback to the overall customer experience strategy, especially since that team or that area is responsible for really defining and developing the strategy and tactics that’s necessary to enhance the overall consumer experience.
So we engage with and assist members in need. We proactively share resources. We answer questions and offer guidance. And we provide that response for home governance, customer experience feedback, brand perception analysis and just act as an overall escalation point for our sensitive issues and topics that’s encountered by our organization.
Andrea: You just said something that I don’t even know what you mean, so you said, you provide escalation for sensitive topics that are relevant to people in AARP?
Tisa Sinclair: Yeah. So the way that the response function operates in AARP is that we have an internal, sort of in-house, escalation team, and then we work with a third party vendor that works with our more transactional sort of items. So they focus on interaction such as member questions, how to join. Membership items for AARP take up more than half of our volume. So it’s really important that we have a team that’s dedicated just to that area, and they will then escalate anything more complex or nuanced to the internal social response team. But all teams that engage with our consumers, they do so we’re aligned with messaging. We all work under one tool so we can centralize our operations, and this also alleviates us not to have to respond natively and in each channel, so ongoing centralization is really key. Hopefully that answered your question.
Andrea: Yeah. So it sounds like AARP has done a lot of work on coming up with what that central ideas, the central principles or messaging, the way that you message things that that is all centralized, then you work from that. Is that kind of part of what you’re saying then?
Tisa Sinclair: Yeah, definitely. So we’re a relatively new team, I would say. When it comes to centralization and consistency, that was one of the major key initiatives that we wanted to really improve our overall experience. The addition of our new operation has really kind of widened the interaction channel choice for the 50+ community so we can be there to meet them where they are. And once we were setup and established, we then focused on a lot of initiatives but the main one was definitely centralization and consistency. So by kind of funneling all of our social channels into one tool to engage, we were then able to really ensure that all of our answers across properties were consistent and then all of our processes scale.
In addition to that, we’re pretty unique because in addition to the social response team, my team, we also have 53 state offices who have their own social properties. So it was important that we coordinate with them so then they can properly be equipped, and we can all be aligned with responses. And that includes building out like an internal communications hub to create that further drive, that consistency of centralization to help drive those state contacts and information that will align with our guidelines.
Andrea: Sure. So it sounds like you have done an incredible amount of work, number one, to just identify what needs to be in that tool, what needs to be in the communications hub, but then also to be able to communicate it to everybody that’s all that up there in the frontlines. Do you mind sharing with us a few of the things that are in the communications hub, in the centralized documents, or the things that are key components that you’re trying to make sure stay centralized and consistent?
Tisa Sinclair: Oh sure. We have sort of like a master document or guideline so the states can kind of make sure they have that resource there, just in case they want to kind of grab under various topics, under various issue areas. It’s really important that we’re aligned on how we do certain things. So you know, the how-to’s, what to hide, what to block, how to respond to certain messages regarding membership, how do we respond to trolls, or how do we respond to partisan comments. We get those pretty often as well.
We also wanted to make sure that we provide a quick access to certain tools that we use because some of their tools are different, which is fine. But the whole point is to make sure that we’re centralized in the resources that we have and the messaging and the talking points because it’s really important that we’re aligned across the board.
Andrea: Is there anything in particular that you have done that really has helped to make sure that everybody is onboard and everybody is able to understand these guidelines, understand how to use the things that are in your communications hub?
Tisa Sinclair: It was definitely a huge effort to kind of create this centralized space to drive those state contacts. I first did a discovery phase. This is where we kind of find out the states challenges so we can better accommodate them and develop just better solutions for consistency across the organization.
And then the next phase was kind of figuring out how we can alleviate some of those pain-points from a social response perspective to then start building out that page, and it did include focus groups and surveys. So I work with various team members for each of the states just to kind of figure out their pain-points, figure out what’s working, what’s not working, and then after that just kind of doing my little analysis to figure out how we can better serve them and how they can better, you know, help us as well.
Andrea: And then was there some sort of training that was involved as well?
Tisa Sinclair: Well, we haven’t done the training yet.
Andrea: Oh, OK, you still in the middle of it.
Tisa Sinclair: You know, we’re still in the thick of things. We’re still trying to get that hub, that centralized space up. But when that does happen, because we work on a separate engagement tool that we will have to roll out a distribution plan to eventually get those states trained on the tool that we use because it would make sense, right? If we want to be centralized, if we want to aligned, if we want to be consistent, it would make sense to engage under the same umbrella and under the same tool. So we definitely have plans to roll that plan out soon.
Andrea: That would be really hard. I’m just in awe and admiring the work that you’re doing, but I’m wondering too how are you able to get buy-in from folks that have to make changes? Is there anything in particular that’s kind of come up and you’re like “Oh, this is something we’ve had to address to get buy-in.”
Tisa Sinclair: Yeah and no. It actually wasn’t hard at all. I think even just from up top, there was this need to be centralized. You don’t want to look like an organization that’s saying different things from different areas. So everyone was really excited where everyone was really onboard. You know, people are always maybe apprehensive to change but once they realize that we’re moving in the right direction and these changes are only for the better, I think that it was a lot easier to really get that buy-in. It’s really no easy feat, right? We’re talking about 53 states, to train, to respond, to answer any questions. But from what I’ve seen so far in the thick of things and my work, it’s been that with positive response.
Andrea: That’s awesome! Is there one thing that you think has made the difference in the success of your customer service team or this whole process in this initiative?
Tisa Sinclair: I think that goes back to the centralization and consistency. Like I said, having everything under one roof, being able to scale, because of that we were able to grow our social properties. And as a result, we had really surprising and engaging conversations which then revealed really new ways to increase member engagement and loyalty, which is key, which is really, really important for our function.
And as we continue to kind of wire in more of our social properties to even widen the amount of channels that we service, I think right now, we’re at over 25 channels and that includes social media. We service article questions. We have a very expansive community forum that’s extremely active and we try to help out there. We even respond to app reviews. Because of this, we will be able to see those deeper effects that we haven’t seen before in the space, like MPS and membership renewals and just membership lifetime value for our members.
Andrea: I can imagine that working in customer service to provide excellent service or excellent experience for your members probably comes with its own set of challenges in trying to know exactly what they need for their age group, for their demographic. Is there anything in particular that you came across that surprised you?
Tisa Sinclair: Honestly, we get a lot of misconceptions about who or what AARP is. I don’t know, I found that pretty surprising. I always felt like it was a brand that people kind of automatically equated or related to an organization for the 50 plus community but a lot of people think we’re an insurance company. They think we’re aligned with certain parties. So it’s always interesting to hear people give their opinion on the type of organization that we are. I think that that really surprised me the most.
Andrea: And when you say they’re giving their opinion, does that mean that comes out in conversations, in social media; where do you see this coming out?
Tisa Sinclair: Definitely, even under our own media. We do a certain post about something that we support an initiative or a campaign. You know, people very freely voice their opinions, as we encourage, you know, we don’t sensor people within reason. We encourage people to have dialogue among themselves and with us. And through that dialogue, we’re able to kind of glean sentiment and how people feel not only towards AARP but just toward whatever issue that’s plaguing them at the time. So it’s really great that we’re able to be there and step in and show our support and share resources, anything that we can to help our members and nonmembers.
Andrea: I would imagine that that’s really helpful for creating the documents that you need or the talking points that you need to put in your centralized hub.
Tisa Sinclair: Yeah. It’s really kind of cool to see the work that we do and how it can help shape the conversation and that helps us report on trending topics and adoptions and really encouraging and facilitating those conversations among our members. It’s a great, great opportunity these comments to identify opportunities to probably convert brand detractors to brand loyalists, to watch for member prospect opportunities, or to reinforce the multidimensional value of AARP. There are just so many ways that we can tap into our engagement and our comments in the community.
Andrea: Have you found that values or having a personal purpose are important in the training and empowering of the service team?
Tisa Sinclair: Definitely.
Andrea: I’d love to hear about it.
Tisa Sinclair: You know, I think that your values, they really help to define your brand. It’s important that you clearly define your core values and then act in accordance with them. You want to show that in everything that you do. You want to celebrate that. You want to tell employees and customers what they are and you know, we do have our own strategic pillars to help guide our goals and that’s to monitor, to console, and to engage. We want to act as that real time beacon for AARP outside brand identity and reputation and we do. We try to deliver our value though our advocacy. We try to deliver our value through our information and of course we try to deliver that through our service. So it’s really crucial that we provide things like training that helps kind of reinforce that culture and really help strengthen your workforce commitment to those values. And you know, hopefully, that will help provide that direction towards your goal.
Andrea: Sure, and do you personally feel connected to values or feel like you have a purpose in this? I can imagine that you do. You sound pretty connected, so I’m wondering what makes this personal for you. Why do you care besides, you know, it’s your job?
Tisa Sinclair: No, no. I care because, well, A: I love what I do. And you know what they say, people who fully know and understand your organization’s value, they’re more likely to describe themselves as fully engaged with their work compared to people who do not. I think that shows in the work that I do. It shows in the work that my team does. You know, I like to feel like I’m a part of something that’s larger than myself. And this feeling of commitment and belonging, it really helps bring out the best in myself and in my team and I see that every single day.
Andrea: Do you feel like you have that sense of purpose, that you’re making a difference for the older adults in the country or that sort of thing? Is there also that kind of lofty kind of purpose that you have too?
Tisa Sinclair: Yeah! I mean, we do so much. And it’s really important to me and to my team that we develop and focus on a really intimate, empathetic relationship with our members through these conversations that we have with them day in and day out. It really helps build trust and positive sentiment because with this demographic, we’re starting to see that growth on social channels.
There was sort of apprehension at first, but once they start seeing that people were there, in the trenches, answering their questions, servicing them, and meeting them where they are, I mentioned that before, we started to see that trust kind of slowly, kind of like peeling the layers. And because of that, we started to see that engagement grow, which to me is a testament of the work that we do.
Andrea: Do you think that that took a certain amount of time, I mean, how long did it take for the sort of positive sentiment, this trust to kind of start to really grow for AARP?
Tisa Sinclair: Yeah, it didn’t happen overnight, right? It’s a slow process. First of all, having that empathetic language is really key to a lot of our conversations, particularly when we converse around those sensitive topics. So it’s really important that we make sure that we kind of ladder up to our pillars by expressing our values with empathy, honesty, and humanity. You know, that is how we inspire that trust and it’s not something that happens overnight. Like I said, we’re very young and scrappy team and we’re less than two years old. And we’re just now starting to see that change, which is really exciting because we know that it can only grow and scale up from here.
Andrea: I know that AI is kind of becoming more and more in the conversation about customer service and how we interact with people, are you finding that that is coming up for people in AARP? Is this going to happen more you utilizing AI more? What changes do you see coming down the pipe in the next few years?
Tisa Sinclair: I think right now the focus needs to be or is going to be on the importance of customer experience. You know, I think a lot of companies, from what I’ve seen from the conferences that I’ve attended and just being here in the organization, you know, brands and organizations across the globe are starting to really integrate that CX into a sort of broader range of business operations. I’ve always said, you know, we all need to create a culture that has costumer focus which means that every decision is made with the customer in mind and everyone in the organization knows or should know, how they impact the overall chain of customer service strategy.
And I think a part of that is a couple of things, you know, there’s personalization. We need to create a more personalized, I would say, frictionless experience for our customers because they now expect more and more of brands and us to provide them with experiences that are just more tailored to their individual wants and needs since they do expect brands to be relevant and timely with things like promotions and campaigns and products. Or just any services that’s based on their own personal data. I find that more and more consumers are starting to find impersonal experiences really frustrating. So I think companies really need to get, including ourselves, we really need to get on board with personalization and consumer expectations because it is continuing to shift and we should expect this to be more of the norm.
Andrea: And I know that it has a lot to do with the people who are actually on the frontlines, the people who are actually having conversations with the customers, with your members. What makes that person who is on the phone or maybe it’s through an email or whatever it might be, what makes that person a really trusted adviser to the customer while at the same time being a brand ambassador for the company? Have you found anything in particular that’s helpful for that?
Tisa Sinclair: You know, and, I feel like I’m repeating this, we always want to be direct, transparent, and human, which is why we make sure that we align ourselves or align our messaging and our voice with our experience pillars, and we have three. The first is that we want to ensure they’re interacting with us is inspiring. That can be anything from making your greetings personalized using that empathy and manners. You know, please and thank you go a long way, being authentic and even a little bit of surprise and delight, you know. If you can or when you can, you want to go above and beyond to really provide members and nonmembers with the peoples’ community with back to back, that personalized service and that solution that they might have never considered.
You also want to provide that effortless experience and that can be something as simple as making sure you’re meeting the members where they are and responding in the appropriate channel and being really specific with their resources. You know, giving as many applicable details as possible and really sending those relevant links that leads directly to the actual needed information and resources that they requested. You don’t want to send anyone down a rabbit hole and make them even more confused and just being concise in providing the right information while not overwhelming them. And then I would say the last pillar is making sure users are compelled to feel that AARP gets them.
So that can be anything from being casual you know, you want the people who reach out to us they feel like interacting with the real person and not some like automated system. That means customizing our language to match the tone. Of course, you know, we have a template language as a guide.
It’s always important to have that but also adding that customization for each response to kind of match the questions and the tone of the member. Basically speaking their language, using the same words that they use if you can and I think it really shows that AARP is a trusted source. And it makes you feel like you can open up and it makes you feel like, “Hey, I can come back to the same source and they would be able to help me in my time of need,” whatever that may be.
Andrea: So many great things that you’re doing and it’s interesting to hear about this. I’m sure that you’re going to be digging into this more deeply at the conference. Can you tell us just a little bit about what your session will be about?
Tisa Sinclair: Sure. So one of our major goals this year is to focus on thoughtfulness in the language. To improve the customer service experience, via social and like I’ve said that empathetic language is key through a lot of our conversations, particularly when we converse around sensitive topics, particularly caregiving. So we knew that a solution to this problem was to kind of enhance our interactions by crafting our responses to be more human and validating in nature, therefore non-template based.
We want to kind of treating these new interactions at casual conversations among friends. So members kind of feel reassured if they’re talking to a real human as opposed to a bot. I’ll definitely dive more into this at the event but you know just showing how our team works really hard to kind of implement this more intimate and personal approach and the route that we took. The trainings, working extensively within our in-house caregiving team to ensure that our voice and our messaging was aligned.
I’m going to talk about the topics that we included such as overhauling our knowledge base to help agents find those relevant resources faster inserting that, sort of, appreciative language in our responses. So this includes starting our messages by just thanking people for being a caregiver. You know, a lot of caregivers, they don’t feel appreciated so that touch of validation alone can have a huge impact and some of these stories are just heartbreaking.
So it’s really important that we let them know that before we go into our spiel about resources that we have which is really important, we just want people to know that we’re there. We’re here and just thank you. Thank you for just being such an amazing person. Thank you for doing what you’re doing with your spouse, with your parent, just thank you. And that little touch right there made all the difference and we started to see a shift in how people reach out to us in our overall engagement and I’m going to dive into how we did just that.
Andrea: I love it! I love that idea of validating the person that you’re talking to. That’s huge. I love it!
Tisa Sinclair: Thank you!
Andrea: Well, thank you for being here with us on the Voice of Influence podcast. Tisa, I appreciate you sharing your experience and I look forward to seeing you at the conference soon.
Tisa Sinclair: Same here. Thank you guys so much for inviting me. I had a great time.
Andrea: Awesome! We’ll see you soon.