Women in Customer Success Podcast

120 - The Most Underrated Communication Tactic: Playbacks - Fallon Relay

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Episode 120

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How can playbacks help you perform better at work? Fallon and I talk about this underrated communication tactic that can improve your customer success skills and significantly boost your career. Because truly understanding what your customers are saying can help you stand out in your professional journey.

Fallon Relay is the Global Director of Customer Success at Burt Intelligence. With over a decade of experience in customer success within both SaaS and startup environments, she has seen companies go from 0-100. And she has also seen some of the growing pains that come along with that journey. Throughout her career, she's always been drawn to the importance of building genuine relationships with customers. 

In this episode, you’ll learn about: 

  • How to have conversations with customers
  • Where to start with playbacks
  • How playbacks help you
  • The importance of active listening
  • How to understand your customers better


Take some time to listen to this episode and learn how playbacks can help your career grow and improve your customer interactions.

Follow Fallon! 

This episode was brought to you by Deployflow.

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Speaker 1:

What is one underrated communication tactic so powerful that, when applied properly, can foster your relationship with customers, help them feel heard and understood and help you ground and lead any conversation? Tune in to this episode and meet Falon Relay, as she is giving us a mini-masterclass on the power of playbacks. Hi everyone, this is Maria Scobepillai and you're listening to Women in Customer Success podcast, the first women-only podcast where remarkable ladies of customer success share their stories and practical tools to help you succeed and make an impact. If you want to learn more about customer success, get career advice and be inspired, you're in the right place, so let's tune in. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Women in Customer Success podcast. Today, I'm joined by Falon Rille, global Director of Customer Success at BERT Falon. Welcome to the show. Finally.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you, hi Maria. Thank you so much for having me. I'm truly honored to be here. I am a listener and supporter of this amazing thing you're doing, so thank you for creating this.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you for giving us your time. I'm really excited that the audience can get to know you a bit better today. So let's start with just a few questions that they can paint a picture about you, and then we're going to go into more deeper conversation about a career and communication approaches for customer success managers. So let's start with location. Where are you based in the world?

Speaker 2:

I'm in the United States, so I'm located in Charleston, south Carolina, but I am originally from New York.

Speaker 1:

I'm hearing so many awesome things about South Carolina and North Carolina as well. It was never yet on my list that I can just imagine that it is a wonderful, wonderful location. So in a way I little envy you that you are there. I'm sure there are great things you're doing there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we really enjoy it. Me and my husband are originally from New York and moved down here because it was in the same time zone as New York, which was important to us. But lovely beaches and we're really enjoying living here.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful. Oh, you mentioned beaches, but tell me what are your hobbies. What is it that you're doing there?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so some of my hobbies. I really love getting outside, so whether it's on a beach or a boat or going for a hike, all of those things really invigorate me. So getting outside and getting in nature, and also I foster kittens, so this time of year there is a lot of kittens and other animals that end up in shelters, so it's the season where, hopefully in the next few days, I have a few kittens in my house to get ready for adoption. How amazing is that.

Speaker 1:

For how long are you fostering typically?

Speaker 2:

It depends. So when they're really, you can get them at a few weeks where they still need to be bottle fed, and the goal is to get them to a place where they're heavy enough to be neutered and adopted. So it could be a few weeks, it could be a few months. It really depends on the kitten's size and their health. But it's really a great experience to get to help them and then see them move on to their forever homes. It's I love it.

Speaker 1:

Gosh, it is awesome. Now I think I'll get all emotional because we like little kittens. And now my kids started asking for last few weeks and like, of course I think they're going to get it because we all like it, but this approach, what you're doing, is just so much better, it's just fantastic. It's just doing something so much more than you know, just having a little kitten for a pet for your whole family. Well done to you for that. Thank you, yeah, fallon, would the 16-year-old you be surprised to find you in this current job and the whole industry?

Speaker 2:

I do think the 16-year-old Fallon would be surprised to find myself in a customer-facing role. I started high school, I was in high school at 16, and I did have a little bit of a fear of public speaking. So to now, do that jump from call to call with customers, I think?

Speaker 1:

I think, yes, the younger me would be quite surprised that that I'm here but there is no surprises for for me, because, because I've seen you in so many different approaches, in coaching especially, and I I was always of like really high opinion of you. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you in the podcast and I would like you to tell us a bit more about, like your career growth and progression, maybe not all the way back when you were 16, but you know, maybe from the university days onwards, like how did you even find yourself in customer success?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, good question and thank you for that. So my career journey has been anything but linear, but it's been filled with a lot of valuable experiences. So I went to school in New York. I wanted to stay in New York. I started off as a assistant analyst at an ad agency. I ventured into property management in New York City to property management in New York City.

Speaker 2:

But where things really started to click for me is when I discovered startups and smaller companies and growth stages. My first role in a startup was actually as a marketing manager where I spent a lot of time behind the scenes so building decks, analyzing data not a lot of customer interactions in that role. But what I did learn is that I really love the autonomy and the tangible impact I could have at a startup or a smaller company. So I think I knew deep down marketing might not be the best fit for me. I did miss some of the customer facing aspects of my previous role in real estate and that's when I started consulting and also discovered customer success. So since then I've worked at a few smaller organizations within the customer success team and I'm currently the global director of customer success at a growing ad tech startup.

Speaker 1:

And how does that work Like being a global director of customer success?

Speaker 2:

tell us a bit more about your day to day both in North America and Europe and, yeah, I oversee the customer relationships there. So one of the perks is I do get to come over to Europe and see some customers time to time and we also have a lot of developers in Sweden, so that's always fun. Sweden is lovely, so it's been really great, but I also just have a really really wonderful little team. So how big is the?

Speaker 1:

team. So it's a little team, but yeah, so we're definitely growing.

Speaker 2:

We have a few success managers and a few solutions engineers, but mainly a team of five to six. We have two interns right now as well. That's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

In fairness, I haven't heard of many companies that are taking interns in customer success. I wish there are many more who do, because it's a wonderful career. So helping somebody who's still at university just to discover what it is all about that can help them massively later on in their career. Okay, this is great. So you've been a lot in startups and you've been wearing so many multiple hats as it is in startups doing just loads of things, because it's a small team and everybody needs to pull their sleeves on and do the work that has to be done for customers. You have developed and designed so many different playbooks and concepts and approaches in your career playbooks and concepts and approaches in your career. What is one thing that you think is the undervalued approach. That can help a lot, but people don't think about it too much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's tons of things, but one thing I know I mentioned maybe talking about today a little bit is this idea of customer communications and how to have conversations with customers and how to actually understand what they're saying. So this idea of playbacks repeating or paraphrasing what someone is saying Playbacks To you, making sure yes, playbacks To making sure you know you're on the same page with your customer and, at the same time, demonstrating understanding, building some trust and rapport and also encouraging further discussions.

Speaker 1:

I just like the whole idea when you said it's playback to a customer to build a rapport to understand what they're saying. It's playback to a customer to build a report to understand what they're saying. I mean, it's a communication tool, isn't it? But so often we all are just concerned about what am I saying next. Oh, customer is talking to me, I'm writing notes, or you know, sometimes people even open other tabs and it is visible, even if they thought it wasn't even on the call.

Speaker 1:

But like it just doesn't seem that we are always so in tune in our conversations and, on another hand, it is like the first how to even say. It's like the first valuable thing customer will know about us. Have we heard them? Were we even listening? So I'm really excited to hear more about your whole idea about the playbacks. Why is it needed? How do we do it? What are some tips that the listeners can take immediately, straight away and, after listening to this podcast, when they are on their first, next customer call, what is it that they could be doing to really start adopting this concept of a playback?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. And something you said there active listening right, Making sure you're actually listening to the customer. But even with active listening, sometimes the customer throws so much at you where they may not even know exactly what they're asking you. So this is where playing back what someone is saying to you is really powerful, and I think it can make a huge impact. If maybe some people are already doing this, but if you're not incorporating it into your day-to-day and into conversations with customers could really make a huge impact.

Speaker 1:

Fallon. I'm interested to know how do we start having those practices in our daily conversations? So what are some tips that can help us think about it and then really portray in a way that will help us build those relationships with customers. Where to start from?

Speaker 2:

Right. So let me lay out a scenario and maybe walk through how to handle that situation with a playback. So let's say you're in a customer meeting and in this case you work at a company who helps customers build custom kitchens. So your customer starts talking about what they want and they say something like we're looking to. We're really excited about this. We're looking to create this brand new kitchen. We want the cabinets to be white. We want my cousin to paint a mural on the wall. Perhaps maybe the floors can be gray or brown, maybe brown, maybe brown. We need lots of storage. We want those pull-out drawers. I don't know where the fridge is going to go yet, but how long do you think something like this would take?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, eight weeks, it's done. I have no idea what you need, but eight weeks, that's it.

Speaker 2:

Right. So many of us may just want to answer that last question, right? The customer threw so much at us and they may not be totally clear on what they want, and the last thing they ended in is how long will this take? And I think this is we don't all work at. You know, a custom kitchen place. But this is a scenario that I see play out all the time, where customers overload you with information because they're excited and it's our job to kind of help them understand what that information means and what they want. So some of us may respond it would take approximately eight weeks, right, easy one. Yeah, right, but this is a great place to use a playback, so a better way possibly to capture all that information that they told you would to be something like wow, it sounds like you really are excited about this kitchen. You have some really great ideas. What I heard you say is you want white cabinets and a mural somewhere in the kitchen. Is that right? And with that, they can say, yes, I want white cabinets. I think the mural might look best on the left wall and maybe the colors are more muted to go with the white cabinets. So now, just by asking that question and playing back, you're demonstrating one that you heard them right, that you're understanding that they want the white cabinets, and that helps build trust and rapport with the customer. And now you're also encouraging further discussion. So now you know that that mural belongs on the left wall, so you're starting to open the conversation and learn more about the expectations of the customer.

Speaker 2:

Another thing they said is the floors right, brown, gray, I'm not sure. Well, you could say something, something like it also sounds like you're a little unsure about the floor color. You're debating between gray and brown and they may say, no, I actually know I want brown floors. I think there'll be more classic and they may have, in all that time that they were telling you everything, thought that they made that super clear that they wanted brown floors. Um, because in their head it may have been very clear, but by playing it back to them and what they said, you can get that clarification and now agree that they definitely want the brown floors. So I hope this demonstrates a little bit of how playback can really help you clarify what a customer is looking for can really help you clarify what a customer is looking for. Kind of just repeating or paraphrasing what someone says, shows that you're actively listening to them, that you understand them correctly, and gives you some time to demonstrate that you understand what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

I really love that in so many different ways I'm using the same thing, or at least I think I'm using when I'm coaching. It's like one of the typical methodologies, right? You need to play back just to get that everybody are on the same page. So I love when we start doing that with customers much more than when we are immediately focused on what do we tell them? How do we respond to that question Am I saying the right things?

Speaker 1:

How do we respond to that question? Like, am I saying the right things? How much can I reveal, you know, especially if you're talking about the actual features that they may want to see in the product? Like, how much am I allowed to talk? So, basically, just removing everything that comes next, everything in our head, and allowing ourselves time to really play back to customers with confidence in order to get that understanding and alignment. I really, really love what you're saying and it is such a simple concept, right? How many of us do need to practice that? I mean you just need to remind yourself to do it next time when you're on customer call. Yeah, absolutely?

Speaker 2:

And something you said really really stuck with me. Is that often right? We were thinking a lot about what our response should be and we want to have the right response right. We want to just make sure the customer knows we know what we're doing, but sometimes we skip a few steps of actually clarifying that. And I think that's where playbacks really help you, because when you play back things that a customer said to you, it not only clarifies to you but it can also clarify to them. So, going back to that floor example, they had a debate right there when they were going gray brown, gray brown, I'm not sure and maybe in their head they said, oh yeah, brown. But when you ask that, they actually clarified that for you too, for themselves and for you. So it's really about like aligning with the customer, because if you're all on the same page and asking those questions, you're going to have better results in the long run and you're going to be able to understand what they want and help them.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

Csms very often like to call themselves trusted advisor, and it's a good term. Everybody loves it right themselves trusted advisor, and it's a good term. Everybody love it right. But now I'm seeing how much that concept of playing back can help CSMs become trusted advisor even more, because you're really going back to almost everything.

Speaker 1:

What customer is saying and checking it out and as you're checking it, you're clarifying with them is Is that what you thought? And you can, you know, add a little bit of a color to it as well. Oh, you wanted a mural on the left-hand side with cabinets. We have had few customers who have done it, and then they also, you know, included these drawers on the right-hand side. Or you just start almost giving bits of ideas and that ultimately showcase that you're working on the same things with our customer. You have experience with it, you understand best practices and you're not pushing into them, but you're just, you know, taking little bits and pieces based on what they want to do. So I have seen it really like such a nice, nice way of showcasing what you can do for them as well.

Speaker 2:

Just, by playing it back. Yes, absolutely. I think a really important thing to know too is sometimes this is hard to do. Sometimes it's a lot easier to give a simple answer. Sometimes we feel uncomfortable getting clarification on things we may not totally understand. I would encourage people. The ultimate goal is to understand what the customer wants so you can help them. So no question is silly or stupid, and using playback to kind of get that clarification can really build a stronger relationship. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

You know what? Now I'm straight away thinking of so many different use cases of playbacks now and also thinking why is that not something that we just normally use much more often? Why are we forgetting? But this reminds me of any situation with escalations, having three or more people on the call right, and everybody are putting their ideas and saying what is not going well, what they would like to see, et cetera. So when you as a CSM step in and say so, let me play this back, or let's recap, or let me see I get it right, so you are saying that X, y, z, blah, blah, blah, whereas here we are seeing something else, and then you're just again bridging the gap between all of those different stakeholders and you're grounding everybody down just by pulling the conversation in direction of let's play back what everybody said. It's a wonderful tool.

Speaker 2:

Yes, for sure. I think, like you said, grounding the conversation right and people change their minds. So it's interesting to actually have those discussions and at the end agree on what you all discussed and what next steps should be kind of a coaching tool as well.

Speaker 1:

I'm of the beliefs that CSMs are coaches for the customers in just so many different ways. So again, if we all start adopting Playbacks as a coaching mechanism, how much easier will it be to actually have those conversations with customer and just have it as our normal day-to-day toolkit? I just wonder, is that something that you're seeing as well, or what would be also other use cases of playbacks, like let's brainstorm? I'm just starting to think a lot now, just because it seems to be such an underutilized tool that can bring so many benefits in the conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think for coaching, it's definitely helpful Also in your personal life. To be honest, I have used this in my personal life where you're not on the same page with your partner or someone and sometimes it requires just you know. What I hear you're saying is X, y, z, and often even with the people we love or closest with, we also just want to give them advice or respond. So it is nice to sometimes use a playback so your partner knows you hear them. So it applies to professional life, but I would say playbacks can also really improve your personal life too, if the people you're talking to feel heard and then can further explain and have discussions about the topics at hand.

Speaker 1:

Feeling heard. That's very deep because in you know, all this very quick culture we all are used to. You know, listen while we are doing something else, while we are multitasking, and very often people do feel that they have been listened to, maybe, but they haven't been heard. And when you said we can apply it in personal life, do feel compelled to start doing it, because I am first one who is really fast to respond quickly Either kids either husband. I'll try. I'll try to do something about it. So I'll try to play it back.

Speaker 1:

No, it's just an incredible tool and it reminds me of some of my previous managers, one among them who was, I think, awesome in grounding the conversation exactly with the playback tool. He would just say let me play it back. So this is what I understand, and I remember all of us leaders in the room would just be oh yeah, actually you actually heard what I said, like you understood what we thought, and that just gives you a bit of you know, a bigger sense of value as well, because your leader is listening to you and he is interpreting that in a way that you want them to interpret. It's such a wonderful tool. Thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah, and you're right.

Speaker 2:

Right, it gives the person who's speaking validation, that they are heard, which is important to customers. When you're building those relationships, your customers want to make sure you can help them and understand what they're doing, so getting that buy-in. There's also this concept of starting with a question that you know the answer to, like are you? So I heard you're from New York and they say yes, getting that first yes is can start the conversation on such a good foot that you now have that buy-in and you understand each other and can build from there.

Speaker 1:

I love this. So, fallon, for everybody listening who are going to have their next customer call in a few moments after they are done listening to this podcast, what is the immediate steps that they can take? So now they have the concept, they understand why playback is such a good thing. They understand the benefits for themselves, for customers, for people around them. If, how should they practice? Like what is the easiest way to play it back? Do you have like a few opening sentences or questions that you do, like what is the easiest way to play it back? Do you have like a few opening sentences or questions that you do it? Or what is your typical go to when you want to play something back?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no good question. I'm glad you say practice, because I do think practicing playbacks is important. So if you have a team member or maybe your entire team wants to practice scenarios, come up with scenarios and practice playbacks. It's very helpful because you're constantly learning. Sometimes I forget to use them right. I just want to give the answer. So it's very helpful to constantly be practicing this type of approach. One thing with playbacks is making sure you're actively listening to start. One thing with playbacks is making sure you're actively listening to start, so hearing all the information, and then you can say things like I hear what you're saying and repeat back, or what I hear you saying is and kind of start to start your playbacks that way. So you're phrasing it as repeating, kind of, some of what they said. And I would say also don't be afraid to pause. I think we often want to fill the space with words and sometimes in those pauses you can learn a lot after you ask a question.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, helen. Thank you for sharing this wonderful concept with us. As we are wrapping up, I'm interested to find out from you, apart of this communication tool and surely many other approaches, is there anything that you can contribute as being a really important factor in growing your career, any other skill or type of approach that you're doing that maybe not many other people are doing Like? I just wonder what else is in your. You know recipes for a great communication and in that way, you know building a strong career, as you did for yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say for career growth, definitely leveraging resources and finding an amazing mentor like this podcast is a great resource and mentors find someone who can help you and that you can bounce ideas off of. And then, as far as tactics, I think the two best things is communication practice, communication skills and understand how to prioritize things Interesting one. Understand how to prioritize things Interesting one yeah, prioritizing rate, especially in a CSM role. A lot of things get thrown at you, and thrown at you fast, and there's a lot of fires. And then there's bigger projects and there's so much happening that sometimes you get stuck, you get frozen. What should I start with? What should I do? So? Just learning that if you need help prioritizing, ask for that help, maybe align with your team.

Speaker 2:

I have these six things on my plate. What's the most important? What things should I focus on first, and then breaking that down into bite-sized pieces so you can actually get things done. This is something it took me a little while to learn. I think I was a yes, yes, yes person in the beginning of my career and it's overwhelming right To just say yes to everything and then being like when am I going to find the time to do all these things. But once you learn how to prioritize things making sure you know how much you can get done and communicating that with your team clearly that you know I have capacity for these two things or those the right things to focus on Getting that buy in on those things you're prioritizing and then you have a clear, clear mind to just focus on those things and push the other things aside, because I think a lot of us often run in circles trying to do everything Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

That's sometimes the easiest I mean very difficult but easy way of wasting time during the day Just trying to do a bit of everything and without actually focusing on one thing that you could potentially do in the day. Yeah, yes, yes, absolutely. So. This has been a wonderful conversation. I really am grateful for you for giving us so much, so much color to the playback, something that is and could be very simple to adopt, to start using on a regular basis with customers, daily, in private life as well.

Speaker 1:

But very often it's just underrated because we are very quick to talk about things, ask questions, wanting to be seen as we know it, we understand it, we know exactly what is the next best thing, rather than taking a pause and playing back to customers and other people and understanding what is really going on, what are they really saying, and then starting from there, I'm really grateful that we managed to have a conversation about it and, I'm sure, for the listeners, try it out Practice. Practice makes perfect right. Try grounding the conversation and I'm interested to hear from you at the end, like what would be the reactions of some of your people or some of the customers when you start using this new approach. Fallon, thank you so much for this. It was wonderful At the end. Where can listeners find you online?

Speaker 2:

Yes, find me on LinkedIn, Fallon Relay. If you have any questions about playbacks or anything else, I'm happy to help. So please reach out. Thanks, Fallon.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening. Next week new episode, Subscribe to the podcast and connect with me on LinkedIn so you're up to date with all the new episodes and the content I'm curating for you. Have a great day and talk to you soon.