The art of language | Richard Blank

[Richard] (0:00 - 0:15)

I'm very fortunate to earn a living off of speech. I see it as renaissance. More people are texting and not speaking, and people that do speak are lazy.

They have hedging. They have tics. It's not that we're clever.

It's just we're polished. We took our time to make this a craft.

[Dillon] (0:22 - 0:33)

What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man, Rob, with us. Rob, you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:34 - 0:34)

Buenos dias.

[Dillon] (0:35 - 0:39)

And we've got JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:40 - 0:40)

Los sientos.

[Dillon] (0:44 - 1:01)

And we have Richard with us. Richard, do you want to say hi? Pura Vida.

That's right. That's right, as our friend of the show, Byron, would say. Pura Vida, that's where I learned it.

Anyway, I am your host. My name is Dillon Young. Richard, thank you so much for joining us.

Can you please introduce yourself?

[Richard] (1:02 - 1:37)

As I can't tell you how much I'm happy to be here with you today. My name is Richard Blank. I'm the proud CEO of Costa Rica's Call Center.

I'm a long shot from Northeast Philly. Decided to make Spanish my major in college. Doubled down on it and moved to Costa Rica at 27 and worked at my friend's for a couple of years to learn the business from the inside out.

Mid-30s, threw my hat in the ring, started my company, grew to 150 seats, celebrating our 17th year. And once again, the stars were aligned. This should have never happened.

And if you can get past your parents' guilt, you can live anywhere in the world.

[Dillon] (1:39 - 2:13)

Well, that's quite a way to end that. I got to hear more about that. I got a lot of guilt in my life, Richard.

Tell me how to shed it, and if I could just... Well, I guess you're not drinking margaritas on the beach every day, but if I could just live in Costa Rica, shirtless on a surfboard, man, teach me. Teach me your ways.

But Richard, you know what we do here? We ask one single question of every single one of our guests, and that is, what is on your mind when it comes to customer success? You might want to modify that a little bit to sit inside your wheelhouse, but what is that for you, Richard?

[Richard] (2:14 - 4:20)

Well, for me, I need to set the agents straight. I believe in a gamification culture, so I have a happy medium of pinball machines, Pac-Man, and air hockey. So at least when you're bonding, you're relaxing, letting off steam, and recharging batteries, you're not throwing swords on people on the phone.

And secondly, there is a way to readjust tones. And if you're very selective on when you repeat information, not hedging, extending empathy, but you don't need to agree with it, things like that work. And finally, I believe in positive escalations.

The number one million-dollar rule is if somebody assists you along the way, you mention them in writing and verbally. It could be with a gatekeeper, it could be a husband or wife, or anybody that moved your ball along in order for you to resolve this issue. They should be mentioned and praised, because that's the sort of truth that you can tell over and over again.

And if you're friends with Betty at a company, she'll let you get through while she's hanging up on 99% of the other people. And so authenticity, doing some due diligence prior to a customer support call or prospecting, you can anchor with individuals, you can shed some fat, you can show some interest, and a little bit of dedication and structure prior to any sort of contracts. And so these are the things that can elevate a sort of customer support experience compared to just carpet bombing, not caring, repeating, and frustration.

Because I tell you what, there's omnichannel non-voice support with text, email, and chat. It does work, it's gathering, but the final 10% to get the ball into the end zone, that needs to be done through a human connection, because AI and computers can never extend empathy towards your clients. For upsells, retention, referrals, or even the most important mature thing as a CEO, the exit interview.

What your client did to earn the business, what you did to drop the ball. And so these are the final things. If you really want to play this big boys game, the long game, you need to keep an open mind, be vulnerable, and be willing to see what you need to do in order to improve.

[Dillon] (4:21 - 4:45)

Richard, I've got a couple of questions just to set context before I toss it over to the guys. But so it sounds like, and I want you to clarify for me, your call center does both reactive and proactive work. Both prospect, sort of like sales work, as well as customer service, inbound, maybe issues folks are having sort of work.

Is that fair to say? Is that accurate?

[Richard] (4:45 - 4:57)

That is correct, Dillon. And do not be fooled on what Hollywood does. I do not do sportsbooks, casinos, stocks, pharmacies, or sweepstakes.

This is something where in a strict Catholic country, the agents can go home and tell their parents what they do for a living.

[Dillon] (4:59 - 5:04)

I like that. And why Costa Rica? That's just a curious question for me.

Why Costa Rica?

[Richard] (5:05 - 5:38)

I got very lucky. A very good friend of mine from college established a call center here. And it was really just building on momentum.

The fact that it was my major means I could acclimate easier. I just wasn't those loud gringos that expected things. I decided to shed some skin, leave the United States at 27, not use my family's contacts in Scottsdale and Philadelphia to give me that one up.

I wanted to start from scratch. I like the edge, Richard.

[Dillon] (5:40 - 5:59)

I guess what I really meant is why Costa Rica versus, I think, for a long time, we heard it about a lot of countries in Asia, like call centers in India and the Philippines. And then you started to hear it more about, I think, Colombia is a really big one now. What is the differentiator for Costa Rica?

Or is there not? Is it really just whatever the lifestyle choice is for somebody like yourself?

[Richard] (6:00 - 7:00)

Phenomenal question. In regards to BPO, you have offshore and near shore. Remember, my proxemics to the United States, the language capacity, English with the most neutral accent, democratic society, excellent infrastructure, HP, Intel, Oracle, and Amazon have a very large presence here.

What a wonderful labor pool with such exceptional skills. And a lot of people, they lived in the United States, they're familiar with the expats, so they're more attuned to the North American market. And so for me, even in the United States, if you think about it, more people are speaking Spanish.

So even though they can double gun and be bilingual, it allows my agents to Popeye spinach power up their phone calls if they're speaking to Mr. Rodriguez, and they need to do that sort of wiffle ball, home run, crank close. And so I allow people to go back and forth as long as they keep their balance and they're capable of converting a phone call, then by all means, as long as you're not cursing or using bad slang, I believe that if anything you can do to bond with the people, by all means.

[Dillon] (7:01 - 7:04)

I used the yes word earlier, so I apologize. Boys, who wants to get in here?

[JP] (7:05 - 8:44)

I'll go real quick because I think mine's quick. Richard, I appreciate the candor that you bring to this topic and your professionalism, but also authenticity, realness. And I can see that.

And I think that what you're talking about is very real because who hasn't had one of these experiences with somebody on the phone where you know you need someone on the phone, right? These chats, they aren't new. Having an agent digitally, this is not a new thing.

So when you need to speak with someone, I know personally, I have a huge sense of relief. I can tell just by the way someone almost answers the phone, okay, I think that this is going to be good. But I just try to be open-minded and get my question answered.

But there is something of an art to this. And so what I appreciate about this is you didn't try to position this as anti-AI. You really positioned it as something that is going to and will continue to be a very viable and lucrative service, which is we cannot take the human out of dealing with one another.

And we have to always continue to work with the human. I could hear the way that you were talking about the way that people can talk on the phone and the nuances of language and just how far that can go really in someone's experience. I really appreciate what you're bringing to this because we definitely don't talk about this a lot on this particular platform.

But I think that there's something that's really valuable in your message.

[Richard] (8:45 - 9:10)

I think you're right, JP. We don't believe in 10-minute phone calls. I believe in 20, 30-second phone calls.

You need checkpoints. You need tie-down questions, transitional sentences. Don't overkill the name drop.

You give a name, you pause before names and numbers, but you should really be focused on personal pronouns, the you're and the are, and giving that a quarter-second slide for emphasis and rebalance again. It's very easy to do this dance.

[Dillon] (9:10 - 9:12)

It sounds like you've done this before, JP.

[Richard] (9:12 - 9:13)

Quarter-second slide. Quarter-second slide.

[Dillon] (9:13 - 9:14)

Rob, why don't you give it a quarter-second slide?

[JP] (9:14 - 9:21)

I like this. Come on. Come on, JP.

Come on. Come on. Come on, Rob.

Quarter-second slide.

[Dillon] (9:21 - 9:29)

All right. Well, hey, look, before we give it to Rob, who when we started this call was wearing a Jets helmet, Richard, can I just confirm that you are a Birds fan?

[Richard] (9:30 - 9:33)

Oh, 100%, and I'm a die-hard Flyers fan.

[Rob] (9:33 - 9:38)

Hell yeah. All right. Rob, go ahead.

Okay. Voy a hablar espanol.

[JP] (9:39 - 9:39)

No, no.

[Rob] (9:42 - 10:54)

I could. I'm a little rusty, but at one point in my life, I was near fluent, and then I've kind of lost it. But anyway, no, there's so many goodies with what you shared, Richard.

I was trying to think of like, geez, what am I going to say in the remaining short amount of time that we have? Because I was like, first, I was curious about the linguistic side. I was curious about the cross-cultural side.

The side, though, that I really like what you shared is it seems like the framework in which you sort of take... Sorry, I did it again, guys. Framework.

I always... The sort of approach, I guess I should say, that you have when it comes to thinking about your business and thinking about our space, it's like you sort of see it as a game, and there's plays in this game, and there are rules in this game, and there are strategies in this game. And I thought that was so cool.

Even how you structured your business, it sounds like you've incorporated a lot of... I wouldn't quite go so far as to call it game theory necessarily, but it's sort of like a game-like approach that you take to your business. I thought that was really cool, and it's a helpful lesson, especially for folks in CS who, I don't know, I think we all often forget that this can just be a game that we play with our customers at times, as seriously as we might take it, as any Birds fan or Jets fan knows.

[Richard] (10:55 - 12:25)

Rob, my boy, you and I have a luxury trade. It's the art of speech, and it's not... It could be a game if someone feels manipulated, and if you want to persuade in a certain way that's too aggressive, I understand.

But I think an assertive tone is wonderful. You can change vocabulary, use the thesaurus, stop saying help. It's assist, guide, lend a hand.

No more excuse me, say for my clarification, you can fall on certain swords, readjusting tones. I'm very fortunate to earn a living off of speech. I see it as Renaissance.

More people are texting and not speaking, and people that do speak are lazy. They have hedging, they have tics. It's not that we're clever, it's just we're polished.

We took our time to make this a craft, and since English is their second language, I can pay it forward that way. If I'm in the United States, you're like, dude, whatever. But down here, I can really enrich what they're trying to do, and I explain about romantic deaths on the phone.

So por lo menos, if you don't get the resolution you want, but you name-dropped, you listened, you took great notes, you showed empathy, then by all means, you can live with yourself. And so that sort of dignity needs to remain. And finally, if someone curses on the phone, if they're cursing at me, they get a warning second they're done.

But if they're exploding at the end, I give them the Philly guilt. I go, come on, Rob, JP, Dillon, are you finished? And then you say, Richard, I'm sorry.

And I go, are we ready to move on? Yes, we are.

[JP] (12:25 - 12:30)

I'm going to make you feel guilty the rest of the call. I love the guilty going on here, too.

[Dillon] (12:30 - 12:41)

Come on. Richard, Richard, I love your passion, but we are out of time. You ought to come back, and I feel like we could do a couple of these in a row.

So let's make this a series.

[Richard] (12:42 - 12:44)

Gentlemen, I agree. Thank you. Have a good time.

[Dillon] (12:44 - 12:49)

For now, we do have to say goodbye. Thank you so much. Hope to speak to you again soon.

Boys, take care.