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Video Transcript:

Drew Nowacoski:
Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. For those of you watching, I’m Drew Novakowski at Shift Paradigm, and with me today is Toyin Powell from WS Audiology. Toyin, welcome.

Toyin Powell:
Hey, Drew. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Drew Nowacoski:
A couple of quick introductions. I’m Drew, product director at SH/FT, and my job is to help companies stop believing money through bad digital experiences.

Toyin Powell:
I love that definition. And I’m Toyin Powell. I am the vice president of marketing operations at WS Audiology, otherwise known as WSA. I have a few areas of responsibility under my belt, but I also lead digital execution and transformation for our US wholesale business. And as you know, Drew, we’ve been on quite a journey.

Drew Nowacoski:
Yes. You have. Can you tell us a little bit about WSA?

Toyin Powell:
Absolutely. So WS Audiology is a global leader in hearing solutions. I’ve been here coming on five years, and it is a fantastic organization and a really special industry to be part of. We support thousands of hearing care professionals or providers as well as patients or end users, really helping to improve patients’ quality of life. We want to bring wonderful sound to all, which is our overall purpose here at WSA. And we do this every single day by aspiring to help 20,000,000 people globally. So, yes, we are a global organization. And our specific ambition here for The Americas is to help reach 10,000,000 more people improve their quality of life by 2028.

Drew Nowacoski:
That’s beautiful. A little bit about SH/FT. SH/FT is a growth strategy and execution partner that organizations call, when they’re tired of shelfware, and need real change. We specialize in modernizing CX, driving channel marketing, and enabling revenue operations, especially in complex, high touch industries like yours. A little bit about why we’re here today. WSA had reached out to SH/FT to better understand the value drivers in their B2B portal and loyalty program. Our goal was to chart a path, across both of these experiences. Toyin, could you give us a little bit of background on what was going on prior to engaging with SH/FT?

Toyin Powell:
We want our providers to have the best experience across all of our channels. So we needed to make a shift, pun intended. So we had done some surveying on our own of our providers as well as our customer service organization, and we started to see a picture of how we could improve what was happening. We’d heard some feedback that the phone experience was easier, and that there were gaps in terms of what we were delivering through our digital experience. It was important for us that we focus on overall improvements that we knew were gonna be the most meaningful to our providers who use our digital tools, but we also wanted to make sure that we were thinking about our new providers who weren’t using our tools as well. We are constantly tracking their satisfaction, their loyalty, and even our ability to grow share and to scale in their in their offices. So we recognized and knew immediately that fixing the experience wasn’t just a nice to have. It really was a business imperative.

Drew Nowacoski:
So true. When your digital tools aren’t trusted, customers, providers, they they tend to revert to human channels. Right? So that starts to inflate your cost. It starts to slow growth, and actually will erode loyalty over time.

Toyin Powell:
We also recognize that this just wasn’t an improvement opportunity for our providers, but there was an opportunity to also improve the way that we manage our business, right, by reducing our service costs. So it really was an opportunity across both spectrums, and a win-win for both.

Drew Nowacoski:
So if you could then kind of expand on that a little bit, tell us a little bit about your relationship with your providers and what you’re focusing on.

Toyin Powell:
Absolutely. Our relationship with our providers is so important. We are consistently focused on making sure that we are giving them absolutely everything they need in order to be successful. We are maniacally focused on supporting them through our innovative products and services. And I use that word maniacally deliberately because it’s very true. Whether that’s through providing the best support through marketing, through our business development, options and and teams, our loyalty program, our award winning customer service teams, and our amazing sales employees that our providers come in contact with every single day. It’s so important that we are giving them absolutely everything that they need in order to be successful. We also recognize in these fast evolving times that WSA also needs to continue to evolve, particularly around enhancing our technology, as well as recognizing the fact that our providers and our patients are constantly changing, and the industry continues to grow and change and evolve.

Drew Nowacoski:
Mhmm.

Toyin Powell:
The information that we receive from our providers and serving them through our partnership with SH/FT really helped reinforce what we knew we needed to deliver in order to have that optimal digital solution and in order to continue to build that trust that you were talking about, Drew, and adoption through our digital channels.

Drew Nowacoski:
So important. What sorts of challenges did you realize were contributing to the lack of adoption?

Toyin Powell:
Yeah. Good question. So as I mentioned before, you know, it’s really important that we’re not only thinking about our providers, but also our new providers. And we really wanna make sure that the experience that they were having through our digital channels is appealing, is easy, is consistent. We needed to make sure that the journey could be improved for for everybody. Mhmm. And whether we’re talking about end to end navigation, whether we’re talking about the process of completing orders, finding information, everything had to be simple simple. We wanted to make it easy. We really wanted to make sure that we were recognizing the opportunities to streamline and simplify their experiences. But at the same time, we also recognized we needed internally to make sure we were improving the information that we were getting. So and the information that we were tracking and how we were monitoring engagement online so that we could really better understand how our providers were engaging with us online and continue to make improvements.

Drew Nowacoski:
Mhmm. Yeah. It is so valuable for a business to have access to information like this so that you, you know, as an entity can make educated decisions to better benefit your providers at the end of the day. Really, I mean, that’s where SH/FT came in. Right? So we did a full assessment, interviews, tech audits, data analysis, customer experience, and we really started to put together the road map that would address not just root causes, but also symptoms associated with it as well. So our primary goal was to arm you, Toyin, with all the tools that you needed to build a strategic plan, to make any business case that was needed to restore trust in your provider journey, and ultimately enable growth of your key metrics. In support of this goal, we assess the current state of your web and commerce experience as well as all the underlying technology and integrations that are associated with it. Friction comes in many forms, seen and unseen. Right? So here at SH/FT, we have a pretty straightforward process for this. Right? So we listen, we map, we prioritize, and we mobilize. And, ultimately, this allows us to understand the problems that a business like yours faces and enables us to provide strategic solutions with actionable insights and opportunities.

Toyin Powell:
Yeah. Couldn’t agree more. And I think that framework that you guys put in place was really was really excellent and really helped us to just make sure that we were understanding what we needed to do moving forward. We heard the voice of our providers loud and clear, and SH/FT really helped us to understand what that meant. You guys gave us the structure we needed, and in terms of understanding not only the the feedback from our providers, but then how do we take that feedback and then put it into key themes.

Drew Nowacoski:
Mhmm.

Toyin Powell:
And then from there, prioritizing work streams that we can actually action on. Right? From there, it was from everything from defining our own Adobe Magento technology, the UI UX, and how it could be improved there. How do we reduce friction across all of the different customer touch points that you talked about? The ease of use to the design systems that would really help scale improvement across how our providers are engaging with our international brands and the experiences that they’re having through all of our different digital solutions. So it was a lot. There definitely was so much fantastic information that was provided, But we wanted to make sure that we weren’t boiling the ocean, so we really SH/FT we really focus on a couple of key areas to focus on. One being around simplifying and improving customer navigation. Absolutely imperative that that was a key area of focus. Another was around making sure that we had order flow, optimization, and we were making the updates to how our our providers were engaging as far as the order process as clean as possible. And then last but certainly not least is around data flow and whether that’s internally and making sure all of our systems are connected and all the data was flowing accurately, but also making sure that we had visibility from a reporting perspective so our teams could understand how we can continue to optimize and improve, but also reporting insights and information that was relevant to our providers who are on our digital platforms as well.

Drew Nowacoski:
I have a quote here coming from the call center. Oftentimes, they call us on custom orders saying you can’t do something. Right? So this quote to me speaks volumes. Providers weren’t resisting tech. They were resisting systems that didn’t meet their needs. If your portal doesn’t work for for edge cases, then it just simply doesn’t work. Right? So that’s when trust erodes and calls start to go up. There’s a couple of items here that we found in the experience that were really causing friction, both in tech and user experience. So a couple couple things. One, product listing. Some of the filtering on those pages on product pages, you know, wasn’t fully functional. Occasionally, like, the data wasn’t pulling in correctly, and users weren’t really getting what they needed to from a tools perspective to be able to make choices on the products that they were ultimately looking for. At times on the product detail page, we would start to see some confusing layouts. So users would hit these areas in their conversion flows and then start to slow down as they had to reprocess everything that was being presented to them. One other area that, you know, kinda came to mind is this. All these disparate systems were passing information back and forth during purchasing flow. We would occasionally see things like conflicting messages. Right? Legacy systems interacting with newer systems. And this makes for a jarring experience, which definitely hurts conversion in the long run. So given all of these things, you know, that we we went through here, what are a couple of the things that you prioritize, you know, after coming out of the engagement?

Toyin Powell:
Yeah. So, again, a really fantastic insightful insights that you and the SH/FT team were able to provide. But again, not boiling the ocean, we decided we needed to focus on or prioritize three things. So improving overall adoption. We needed to get more time for our existing providers on our b two b portal, and then we also needed to make sure that the providers that weren’t using it, had a reason to start using it. Right? So we really wanted to make sure we were improving overall adoption of the b two b portal, whether that was a front end refresh, whether that was better onboarding. We really wanted to make sure that there was reason for our providers to continue to using the portal and use it more and encouraging those that were not to Mhmm. To pivot and start changing their behavior. So, obviously, that then leads into enhancing the customer experience. We really wanted to make sure that they could have everything that they needed in one fell swoop, with our B2B portal, and making sure that that was easy and seamless for them. And then finally, it was around modernizing the reporting. So making sure that we were getting the insights and the data that we needed, but also we were giving insights and data to our providers as well.

Drew Nowacoski:
Yep. Yeah. Very valuable. Right? Especially when the business can pass that back to the providers and then they can use it in their own yeah. That’s that’s wonderful. It’s incredible. So Toyin, explain your experience working with SH/FT just a little bit if you could.

Toyin Powell:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So it was absolutely a pleasure. It was really wonderful to be able to work with SH/FT. And I have to say you guys were remarkable, from the RFP process all the way through. And, Drew, as you may know, I mean, you guys were up against some pretty big heavy hitters in the consulting space, strategic consulting specifically. And you guys knocked it out of the park. So, you know, from the onset, we were really looking to make sure that we were working with not just a vendor, but a partner. Right? And a partner that was gonna really help us make sure that we had transparency in this process and getting the clarity and the information that we needed and could help us really formulate a very strong strategic plan. And that’s exactly what you all did. You helped us identify the opportunities, shaping them into actionable strategies, which I was able to sell in, and then really building that road map. Right? Exactly what we needed to make sure that we were thinking about, not only the short term wins, which everybody wants, but also thinking about the long term value that we needed to also make sure that we were providing the organization and and our providers. And that’s everything I used in terms of developing my strategy. So what you guys provided in terms of guidance and structure was absolutely a game changer.

Drew Nowacoski:
Lovely. I can say for myself and the team included, we really enjoyed partnering with you. It was a lot of fun work with WSA on this. So what’s next for WSA? You know, what’s the future hold?

Toyin Powell:
Yeah. So never a dull moment. We are constantly evolving and changing and always trying to do better and always trying to make sure that we’re giving everything we can to our providers and to our patients in order to meet that mission that I spoke about earlier before. Right? So we need to continue to evolve to support our providers and our patients, and that’s end to end from transactions all the way through to to partnerships. Mhmm. This is a journey, and it’s one that we will continue to be on. We are a 100% committed to doing what we need to do in order to continue to build the best digital tools, whether they are net new tools or improve the existing ones that we have so that we can make sure that we are serving our providers in their day to day, managing their business supporting their business goals, and making sure that they can be effective and support their patient needs as well.

Drew Nowacoski:
Toyin, you have a lot on your plate. What is some advice that you would give to others in your shoes?

Toyin Powell:
So good question. I would say that in the beginning, definitely as much as you can, try and have a clear vision for what you and your organization is trying to achieve. I think I used the expression don’t boil the ocean, earlier in this discussion, and it definitely definitely holds true in this case. Understand what is it that you’re trying to solve for? What are the pain point the main pain points that you’re trying to address? What is the biggest challenge for your organization and for your team? And then right along with that is what does the set what does success look like? Right? As you’re trying to define what that challenge is and what will success look like for you and for your organization. The second thing I would say is make sure you find a really great partner like SH/FT. Some things you are going to know, some things your team is going to know, and they’re gonna be able to manage and lead internally. But let’s face it. Some things it’s better to get an outside expert and an outside point of view, and particularly with a partner that has a true understanding of how to help businesses solve big problems, big complex problems. And that will not only add to your ability to make sure that you’re asking the right questions, but also solving the right problems. And then the third one I would say is internal alignment. Much of what organizational leaders spend their time doing, a lot of what I spend my time doing, is selling in and aligning key internal partners. But it’s absolutely imperative, super important that everybody is keeping their eye on the same prize. We’re all working together, whether that’s our internal stakeholders or key partners. It’s really important to make sure that we’re all rowing in the same direction so that we are able to feel confident that we’re all looking towards the same horizon and achieving the goals that we’ve set out.

Drew Nowacoski:
Toyin, a huge thank you to you and the team of WSA. Thank you for showing up today, leaning in and ultimately caring about the future of digital health care.

Toyin Powell:
Thank you, Drew. It was a pleasure.