What does it take to turn insight into change?

Helen Precious: I'd like to start by just giving you all a bit of an overview of myself. Hi, I'm Helen. I head up the account management team here at Wordnerds. And co-hosting with me is Nat, who heads up our customer success team. Nat and I have been wanting to do this series for a very long time. We are the I suppose customer-facing arm of Wordnerds and we meet with CX teams pretty much every day and constantly sort of in the space and the challenge space of understanding how we can help you make your CX programmes more effective.

And in looking at that, we were super interested in a lot of cases, we see the same problems coming up again and again. And I think the best way to sort of help solve some of these problems is to get our peers in the room talking about how they solve some of these challenges. A little bit on housekeeping. So at some point, we are going to introduce Lorna to you and give you a bit more of a background on that.

We are going to have a live Q&A at the end. So, please drop your questions in the chat. We will be monitoring that as we go through and giving space for your own questions to answer some of the sort of problems or things that you'd like to put to Lorna at the end.

Nat Grant: Cool. Thanks, Helen. And yeah, before we introduce Lorna, just wanted to share a little bit about what Lorna is doing now, but also her career history. We'll bring her up a little bit. I don't think Lorna will do it herself. But Lorna actually has a really interesting career history. She spent 17 years at Edinburgh airport. And I think this is where it's really interesting when we start talking about the challenges that we see now in terms of being able to execute on insight and that operational expertise.

Lorna actually spent her first 15 years at Edinburgh airport in a duty manager role in operational delivery and then was the first person at Edinburgh airport to be in a new role which was leading passenger strategy. During the time that Lorna was at Edinburgh airport they won best European airport for their size Scottish airport of the year and UK airport of the year. So they were doing something right and now for the last few years she's been a Network Rail and leading a massive project at the moment which is around uniting passenger feedback across the network.

It's massive job. Believe you're responsible for something shaping something like 80 million passenger journeys a year. So really big and that's I think why it's so helpful for us to be able to hear from somebody who's come from a background where it's been more about executing on information and insight that you have to now designing a programme that helps other people do that as well. Getting started I guess Lorna for people who don't really know what Network Rail do or what someone who's the head of passenger experience at Network Rail does what are you responsible for? Tell us a bit about your job.

Lorna Brown: So my job's evolved over my time at Network Rail. When I first joined, I joined in operations which gave me a really good opportunity to understand just how the railway works day-to-day and what that looks and feels like and just actually how complex and how complicated it is and all the industry partners and the governance. I now sit in the strategy and investment team which is more about that longer term thinking and planning about what do we need from a passenger perspective from the infrastructure what does that look and feel like but also how are we able to demonstrate what that is and articulate that in a way that's meaningful and impactful to people but also quite simple and easy to understand and so one of one of the projects I'm doing there's a few other things I'm doing which is really about accessing infrastructure and using again data to inform that decision But this project is mainly focusing on data and insight and how we collaborate across all of Scotland to make that meaningful and valuable.

Nat Grant: Thanks Lorna. I think it's a really interesting place in which you sit within the organisation with a job title like head of passenger experience and you can really see the sort of operational background that so I guess is influencing your day-to-day at Network Rail. Can we let's just take a step back and think about sort of where you started your journey h and your career within sort of the transport sector let's call it because you didn't start in an insight role did you within Edinburgh airport so for everyone at home and watching can you just give us a little bit of background into what your 17 years at the airport looked like and how that's shaped the way that you look at data today.

The day the data was wrong

Lorna Brown: Yeah. I when I actually started at the airport, I started as a kind of part-time security officer, really unsure as what I was going to do because I thought I wanted to be a singer down in London and then that changed and very quickly was in with the nuts and bolts. I just I loved it. People, places, connecting people to places and kind of what that looks and feels like day-to-day. When I first joined the airport, it was owned by BAA.

Very different organisation, different pace. If you fast forward to when we were kind of forced to sell the airport through the Competition Commission, we were bought over and we worked under a number of different models and the one that stands out the most is when we were working for GIP and Ferrovial and there was a big bit of work there's actually a documentary on it that you can kind of see us you can feel what that transition from the old baggage system into the new way of operating it and kind of looked and very much felt like which was a bit a tricky at times.

And part of our role was we would operate the day and we would review what that day looked like, how many bags were injected into the system, how many failures there were, how many bags planes and kind of what that end toend process was and essentially looking at how we sweated the asset and kind of delayed that investment piece of needing a new baggage system. Whereas in the BA days, it was very much we're going to replace the baggage system and kind of that's what it was going to look like.

And as part of that process was about reviewing the data. And again this is where my kind of my passion kicked in for it. There's one day that stands out in particular where we were standing up the back of the baggage hall and you would review the day how did the day go and we were looking at the data and the data was saying one thing but my view of how the day went was not the same.

And I remember saying that's not the experience we had today. That doesn't feel right. And I remember the statement being said to me as the data doesn't lie. And I said it's not it's not right. There's something wrong. And that gut feel that I had of I know my product. I know my process and I was there and experienced it and I know what it felt like that's not telling the story so different.

And fast forward it turned out that the actual quality of the data. We were using the wrong data. It was a manual process at that time and the wrong data had been put into the system. And that's where you see the value and if the quality of what you're putting in and that human instinct together allows you to really unpick, do you know the problems and really understand where you can improve.

And it's kind of that value of both of them going hand in hand and not seeing that one is more important than the other, but in the round how you assess that and understand the quality of it and making sure that your data is right and it's representative of what you're actually trying to look at.

Nat Grant: I just I love that story partly because I think it gives it really shows the value of your input and actually like in this case trusting your gut feel. I feel like in a lot of conversations that we have in the in with other sort of CX teams we're always told to trust the data and let the data do the decision making for you. And I think often when your gut does tell you that it's not quite right, just having permission to look at that and revisit it is really powerful.

So yeah, great. Let's talk to us a little bit around that was obviously a very early experience into what the power of insight can do for you in an organisation. Where did you where did you make the leap from that sort of operational role into a more experience-led role?

Lorna Brown: So it all started I was telling you this walk around a long stay car park I think driving meaningful change I think it's about someone that's passionate about someone that really wants to deliver and kind of see that voice your customer come to life. So I don't think it's the necessarily my skills in data analytics or anything because that's not my forte, but what I bring to the table is the challenge and the kind of pushing us to be better and to kind of think a little bit differently.

And I think that came across within the airport team and I was taken on a walk to say, look, we think there's a bit of work that we think you'd be really good at. You understand the operation, but you care about what that feels like for my passengers and you're an advocate for that. And initially I was like, "Oh, no, absolutely not. I love the operational get up in the morning and see what's going to happen." And after a few walks in the car park and eventually said, "Right, okay.

It seems like a an exciting challenge." And I think where I was seen as being valuable is there been a whole big bit of kind of strategy, blue sky thinking. Here's what it looks like and it feels like for the airport, but been able to shape that into a way that was meaningful change. And a big part of that was about training, was about people, was about insight and understanding our passengers and what they were looking for from that airport experience.

And then just starting to give a little bit of structure and a who needs to be involved in this because it's not a one man or one woman kind of lead role. It's a facilitating and coordinating the views of multiple people into something that feels achievable, tangible, and not overwhelming.

Nat Grant: I think that's it, isn't it, Lorna? It's that feeling is that having that drive and it's then how do we get this to feel real to other people in the organisation and be interested to know what people who are who are watching at home think because we're about to throw a poll out to everyone as sometimes things are meant to be. At the same time that Helen and I were preparing for this webinar, we knew we'll be speaking with you Lorna.

I saw a post from a guy I follow on LinkedIn called Zack Hamilton. If you don't follow him already, he's very interesting. He has actually a really good podcast. It's got a rude name which I won't share but you can look it up and see for yourself. But he ran a poll on his LinkedIn recently which said which skill will matter most for the next generation of CX leader. There we go.

Helen's not as polite as me so she's giving you the name of the podcast in the chat there. But what's the one skill which would be most important for the next generation of CX leader? So, I think our behind-the-scenes magician, Katie, is going to throw up the poll, but the options were here we go. Customer and journey expertise, business and financial acumen, organisational influence, and AI and data fluency. So, I'll leave that open for a little bit.

And if you guys answer that, I'd be really interested to know what we're saying here in sort of in this conversation and how that compares with the responses that he got. I thought it was just a very interesting way to really view the challenge that people are now dealing with in CX and making it valuable. People are still voting. So, I'll let them carry on filling that in. I did see when Zack posted that he then popped in the poll that his research was on the back of sort of over a thousand conversations where he felt like we actually got to the point where CX leaders can already listen and understand and analyse and actually spoiler alert that the what he found there or what his poll found is that the main challenge is organisational influence.

It's those people in a CX leadership role. How do I manoeuvre the levers in the organisation and influence the right people to drive change off the back of the insight? So, what we've got here in our poll is 43% said organisational influence. So, it was it was the top answer here as well. I think it was over 50% on his LinkedIn poll. It may have changed now. But yeah, really interesting that's what you guys have said as well.

And you put customer and journey expertise second at 33%, AI and data fluency at 14 and business and financial acumen at 10. So really interesting to see how much we really are now at that phase in CX and it's obviously been evolving discipline where it's now about you having to sort of be the operator and the person who sort of really helps affect change as well as getting insight out to the organisation.

Thinking about that, Lorna, I know you're going to talk a bit more about to us about the specific project you're doing at the moment. The reason why we thought it'd be helpful for you to talk to people about this. Was it necessarily because it's, you know, in rail? Most of our customers don't work in rail. Most of the other people on the call don't work in rail, but it's a really familiar challenge of uniting data because most people what they want to be able to do is you pointed out earlier the quality of the insight is influenced by the quality of the data that's going in.

You knew that what you were being told when you were, you know, the data isn't wrong. You knew it was wrong and it was because it wasn't chiming with what you had already seen with your own eyes. And so I think that's probably led you to the point where you are keen to make sure you've got the good quality of data going in. That required not just organisational influence but sort of sector-wide influence which is a mammoth task.

Now got eight operators working together to understand the passenger experience. Like talk to us through that, how you've got through that and something you've spoken to us about is around healthy conflict and what do you mean by that and what's that like for you day-to-day?

Building the Scotland’s Railway Insight Hub

Lorna Brown: So there's a few things when I joined Network Rail something that's really familiar to me when I was talking about it within our organisation. It wasn't normal. It wasn't part of the day-to-day discussion. And I think sometimes reminding yourself that it does feel a little bit strange and a little bit new to people. A lot of the time, I think when it comes to a kind of satisfaction number, a lot of people look for that to put in a report because it looks like you're listening to what the customers are saying, but no one actually digs behind that and say, "Well, who answered that?

Where does that data come from? How many people did we ask? Who when did we ask them and what questions did we ask them?" If the numbers support their objective, it's kind of put in and kind of left alone. And a lot of the time I would say, "But why? But who?" or people would say we're going to increase passenger satisfaction and we say well which bit because there's lots of different bits and which passenger because there's lots of different passengers.

So that was kind of the one part of it is the organisational understanding of what it is and challenging that number and understanding the numbers that you're using and where they come from that also it comes along with a significant amount of investment. So when you're collecting data or you're surveying or you're commissioning a bit of research, it all comes at a cost. And for us, it's a cost to the taxpayer.

We realised quickly within our working group that we all had access to multiple strands of data that a lot of it was already there and available at our fingertips. And if we were to use enhance that, what did we already know, but we just didn't have it cross-pollinated to help us make it something mean meaningful? And that we were we were keeping the investment and using it across different decision- making processes rather than that one bit of commissioned research to better understand this one plan.

So the value in that, the challenge that comes along in the railway is the way that we're set up. It's not easy to share data. You know the way in which it's captured isn't always the same. So just having that kind of clear objective, we went on a bit of a discovery exercise and said if we were starting from scratch, let's put our lanyard to the side. What do we need as an organisation as a as a real industry to help us make sure that we understand passengers views of Scotland railway and we designed that structure.

We had a couple of different options and then we went and said well what needs to be true to enable this to happen and are we all in agreement that this is the vision that we're going after. So setting off with that with a clear understanding of there is an opportunity here getting likeminded passionate people together because that helps you stay motivated and kind of aiming for the goal and knowing that it's something that is achievable.

Kind of setting that structure up. And then being able to set the boundaries and understand the challenges and particularly with the challenge. A lot of the time you'll come up against conflict and very rarely it's not because someone doesn't agree with what you're saying or doesn't want to do what you're doing. So we had all set the vision but we didn't all go off on a merry dance and all together get there.

I use the analogy with you crossing the tightrope. And I think it's embracing that conflict because it's understanding that comes from a place of concern, a place of, you know, misunderstanding or something's happened before or it's worry. And I think if you can embrace that and really look to understand why, what's your concerns? What is it that you're nervous about? What is it that you're not comfortable about and the why? And then when what needs to be true then for us to mitigate that for you or to kind of do we need to leave that to the side and that's not one for us to go after just now and do we need to focus our efforts on something else.

You've got to be able to kind of move and kind of bend and flex with the navigating of getting to that end goal. I think we all have a process, right? And it's step one and then we follow step two and then we follow step three. And I think the more partners you have and what you're trying to achieve, we're not all going to move at the same pace. So, it's been able to kind of manage that dialogue.

And I think I talk a lot probably going off on a bit of a tangent, but I talk about change is a bit like walking a tightrope, right? So, we're all on the platform together. It's all familiar. We feel quite grounded. We know the lay of the land. We know what we do and we know what we bring to that, you know, that platform. And you're saying to people, look, I think there's something across here that's worthwhile as going after.

It's going to feel a little bit wobbly in between, a little bit unsettling, a little bit unstabling, but are we ready to go to the other platform? And you'll naturally see that, you know, some people be like, "Eh, I'm up for it." And they'll run across it and they'll kind of sometimes you actually need to slow them down a little bit. Or you get others that are eking themselves out to the middle bit where it's still familiar and it feels a little bit wobbly.

And you'll get others that are like, "No. I'll watch and I'll see how that goes." and then they realize that they're maybe the only ones left on the platform. So, they get a little bit more inquisitive and they want to kind of come with you. And I think seeing it as that rather than conflict and it's an opportunity or a little bit of hesitancy and really understanding what that is, I think helps you get there and it's not a race.

It's it is a bit of a journey and sometimes embracing the people that are a little bit more willing to go on that with you initially because you then get that oh actually you can get to the other side and it really we didn't fall off nothing broke you know we're all okay and we're here again and you know it feels now familiar and I understand what it is you're doing. I think that curve would change and managing that conflict in a little bit more of an agile way I think definitely helps.

Nat Grant: It's such a good analogy. I like as soon as you said it, I was like, "Yeah, I totally see where those colleagues are in terms of just that behavior of feeling like you've got some people who are really happy to walk into the unknown, not really sure, you know, if they're going to fall off or not, whereas you've got lots of people that really do like to cling to the to one side and sort of edge out slowly." I think it I think it makes a ton of sense.

Lorna Brown: Those people are really valuable because those people, if you're someone like me that's like, "Come on, let's go." They're the kind of the conscience of hold on now. We have we got everything in place that we need to. So, they're not they are just as valuable as the people that want to run across the platform and the people that are embracing the being wobbly in the middle. You need a all of that thinking to help you make sure that you're what you're getting to is right and you've not missed anything.

Nat Grant: Totally agree. Talk to us a little bit about some of the tactics shall we call them or the sort of things that you did at the start of the project to kind of get people on board because for context I think there'll be people on this call who are thinking about that one data channel that they are really keen to get a hold of and maybe need to kind of work with a different team to get a hold of it.

And then you know we've we're then sort of talking about a project here where you've got eight odd organisations actually pulling multiple channels of data all together into one place. So how on earth do you kind of build that scale of project and where did you start?

Lorna Brown: So we initially so I'm a great believer if you think that there's not a problem but if you think there's an opportunity don't go saying this should be better go with your offering of this should be better I think if we done something like this it might give us some value so I initially kind of reached out to across the right stakeholders and said look I think we're missing a trick I want to be able to represent you your passengers our passengers and really understand that voice of the customer I think there's an opportunity for us to do some work together and we set up a working group and the first part of that journey was conducting a listening exercise.

And I didn't do that because very much wanted to be part of that process, but also to demonstrate that we weren't leading from a bias. It wasn't I want to do this and we're going to do that come hell or high water. So we conducted the listening exercise. There was a whole facilitation programme of lots of different one-to-one interviews where everybody had their opportunity to share what's working well, what's not, what they would like, what they're worried about, what they're kind of excited about.

And then all of that was then collected together and played back to the room. And then from the feedback in the room, we said, "Right, this is what we've all said. Here's all the and actually there's quite a lot of common themes here." So that was the lanyards off and we were just if we were going to start designing a customer model from scratch, what would what do we need? What do we all need to enable us to do good work and we came up with three different models and then we had another discussion about and which one do we think is right and the most achievable.

You know, it went from being one team for the whole industry which if you look at what was coming with GBR, you know, that might be where we land. The model that we then decided to go after was that collaboration, sharing of data, sharing of insight into one place that we all had access to. And that is where we ended up with that the insight hub. So we're calling it the Scotland Railway Insight Hub.

Through those conversations as well though again it was the acknowledgement of we've already spent a lot of money going and finding things out. We're already spending money each period as the railway runs which is four weekly cycles asking customers how do I find out what they're telling us and what part of that do I influence and can I play a part of so again we said well what have we got what have we all got access to so we shared awares I kept calling it share awares show what we've got and then we had another opportunity to say but there's also lots of stuff out there as well so there's stuff that gets shared on all the social platforms so how Do we understand what is that rant and raven versus the we asked you and you answered or you wrote to us because you had a an experience that was either significantly positive or sign significantly negative and how do you then put all of that in the pot and start to unpick what the story is and what the drivers of satisfaction and the irritants are.

And again deciding to do that for everything just felt so big and a big ask to say look we need to share the data. So why don't we do it with a bit of a concept. So let's not share everything. Let's pick a period of time and let's put it in there and get something that we can all look and see and touch and feel and see if it's something that's going to actually give us the answers that we've all thought that are out there within the data that we've already got available to us.

And that's when we then connected with the Wordnerds team which wasn't you know I laugh I'd said to Helen and the other day it must be like the version of like speed dating for finding the right AI right insight supplier which it was really inspiring. And it was really motivating being able to talk to someone that just got what you were saying that not only got what you were saying but was also able to say and what about this and what about that and it was really what I needed at that time.

It was like that self motivating topping up my tank to be like no like you are going after the right thing. And then the team been able to say to us let's work on that concept. So we didn't ask for everything. We said just give us four weeks worth of data. Just give us a sample of your data. No one else is going to see it. It's just going to be our group.

We're going to put it into the machine and we're going to let Wordnerds do their magic and structure. We there's obviously comes a lot with a lot of structure and the principles in which you want your data to be sliced and diced. And we've done that with the Wordnerds team. And we were then able to have something that we could show. So see those people that were in the wobbly part of the kind of the tightrope.

Ah, okay. I understand it now. Right. That's fine. I'm kind of more comfortable kind of moving on. And the other ones that were kind of set on the platform and like all right, okay, maybe I'm going to eat myself out of it because I see the value in this and that kind of social piece and kind of sharing what you think the art of the possible is was the journey that we went on and not rushing it.

Something like this of this scale, you can't rush it. You've got to take time and understand that you've got the structure in a sense. And we're still changing what we're doing now with the concepts that we've got and the real kind of live development we've got going on with the hub. Don't know if that answers your questions, but slow and steady listening hearing what people are saying and each time do we still all agree.

Is there anything that's different now? Do we need to change the visions to what we're going after and making sure that everybody's in agreement? We're maybe not all moving at the same pace, but we're still in agreement as to that kind of guiding mind and that we're all going after.

Nat Grant: Perfect summary. And yeah, I think I've my tank was as topped up by the end of that conversation as yours was. I think I came off that call. I was super excited about the vision that you had. So yeah, definitely a mutual feeling there. Just talk to us a little bit around obviously we're in the grand scheme of things relatively early days in this project. We've got it off the ground which I think is just such a huge feat in and of itself.

And for context that first conversation that we had was not even a year ago today. Like it was October last year. I can't remember the exact date so we're probably on a year but we've launched it. It's been running now since April. You've got reports coming out every month from it. So I guess what does the next phase for you look like? What does success look like for you moving forwards with it?

Lorna Brown: So for me success, the ultimate success is that the hub sits on its own. It's a tool and it's the one go-to place for the people that we're working with in Scotland's Railway to go and understand the voice of the passenger and the customer. The way that we have got it set up that you can interrogate the data multiple different ways and depending on the discipline that you work in. And we have now got our case studies on the go where we're looking at it through the performance lens and we're incorporating other data to give an alternative view of a good day's performance and what passengers see and think and feel about that.

We're looking at it through the accessibility lens. So how easy is our product to use? We're looking at it from an opportunities development lens. Where are people a little bit dis dissatisfied and what do we need to go and do about that and so for me it's having it as a as a place that the teams and the people can go and use they don't need me to be there pushing and prodding them to see have you thought about this have you thought about that and the two case studies that we're going after are ones that are really meaningful to the railway so it's understanding passengers use in relation to performance and the accessibility part you know there's no point having a railway infrastructure if you can't use so understanding what that feels like to our passengers.

So that I think getting those two in and then having real life examples about where we've making a difference and we're listening and we're able to not only articulate that back to our colleagues, but use it in the way we articulate it back to our passengers and to see like we listened and we asked and here's what we've done about it. So me not having to be cranking the wheel every day and being able to go and look at what's next.

Nat Grant: I think that's so common, Lorna, because so many people that we speak with, they sometimes feel like they're the bottleneck, right? That everything sort of relies on them. And I know that your vision from the start and I think a lot of people will connect with this idea is that you want to be able to get insight democratised and shared across the organisation so that everybody can use it in their decision- making.

But doing that is really hard. It takes a lot of thought. It takes a lot of planning. I think for anyone who's sort of at the beginning of a project like that, I think your advice to go into listening mode at the start and to really understand where everyone's at, what their jobs are, what they need and what they need insight for, you sort of immediately starting with them and then that sort of iterative co-design so that you're sort of bringing people along with you.

I think really powerful example there. So yeah, thanks so much for sharing that in detail. Sorry, I got distracted as I saw in the chat someone said they have to go to another meeting. So, no worries. We're sending out the recording afterwards if anyone else has to drop off.

Lorna Brown: I'll be watching that back.

The questions CX teams ask us

Nat Grant: We've got questions from anyone who wants to submit a question, please pop that in the chat. We'll get to those in a bit. As part of the series, Helen and I also thought it'd be a good idea to put to Lorna the type of questions that we get all the time from people that we work with. And our goal is that as the series develops, we'll ask the same questions to each guest.

So we s start to really get good bank of advice for everybody who's dealing with these common challenges. So the first one being and you kind of already answered it a little bit but what would your advice be if somebody in their job role has suddenly just inherited the responsibility for now owning voice of the customer or they're new in role or they're just setting that up or they don't think it's working at the moment. If someone's at the beginning of that what else would you suggest to them? What's your best advice?

Lorna Brown: So take a beat. So you're always going to have a view and you're always going to have an idea, but take a beat and stop and understand what's came before. Why that's not worked. Was it people? Was it process? Was it the quality of the data? Understand the data and the insight that you've already got. It cost a lot of money to go and capture intelligence that you need in terms of a passenger.

It's not only cost you money, but you ask for people's time. So make sure that you're harnessing what's already out there and using that as your foundation. And understanding the structure, but then also what is it that you're trying to solve? You know, is it you just want to understand the views of your customers and be able to me measure and monitor it? Or do you want to understand the areas where your customers are really dissatisfied at a level of detail that allows you to go and do insight to action?

So I think it's kind of starting off with that. What am I trying to achieve? What's happened before? What I've already got access to, and then set your plan off from there with doing the listening exercises and making sure that you've got the right people connected and part of that group. Don't do it on your own. Because one, it's just overwhelming and you end up not achieving anything or you're trying to achieve too much.

And then I think set yourself kind of bite-size goals. So even just one thing that you're able to demonstrate this is of value and here's the change I've been able to make because that helps keep you on track saying what is the right thing to go after and it also brings that cultural piece along of look here's why this is important to us and not get frustrated find a network of people that are equally passionate about what you're doing that might not always be in your organisation that might be somewhere else you know how you top up your tank and keep yourself motivated because sometimes I think It's easy to question, am I going am I totally in the wrong space?

Am I do is this just not making any sense? And just kind of have that inner confidence in that you know what you're going after.

Nat Grant: Amazing. I think some really good practical advice there, especially around as you describe it, sort of topping up your tank and just it's hard work if you're the person in an organisation driving change and really doing that work. It's it can be tough. And so I think yeah, I can see Sarah's popped in there that she likes the idea of the tightrope as well, but I think giving people these sort of practical sort of examples of how you've been able to do it, but more importantly, how you've been able to get yourself in that mindset and how you've been able to really work through that change.

This is sort of like my favourite slash least favourite question. When people say to me, "What do you do if someone questions the value of insight or questions the value of CX?" Like what's the point in listening to customers? What's the point in changing things based on their feedback? What do you say to that one?

Lorna Brown: So I don't try to justify I almost kind of say why would you not want to but could you please explain to me why you wouldn't want to know and sometimes you just put that question back I've yet to have somebody give me a really good answer that makes me go all right okay we absolutely should be do not be doing this.

Nat Grant: Yeah, I love that. When I asked you that when we were doing a sort of run through for this, I thought there's such a direct response. Which I should have been able to guess that you would give, but I think it puts the burden on the person who's asking that as a question, right? Because usually we would always welcome as much data as we could if we're trying to make a decision.

So, why would you want to discount this data? Why wouldn't you want to look at that? Next question we had was what is AI changing about how you're running your programme or how are you using it personally and what's it not changing? What have you seen?

Lorna Brown: So AI I think as you read before AI has caused many a debate in my house. I've got a 17-year-old daughter who has a very strong view probably more negatively on AI and then I've got two younger sons who think it's the best thing in the world because they can make it change their pictures to make them superheroes and stuff like that. For me I think AI is as it's a tool, right?

I think there's a bit of a risk of a danger that you think is the answer. It's not. It's just a for me it's a question in your conscience asking, you know, it comes from a whole host of work and historic information and work that's been done depending on the product that you're, you know, you're trying to ask the question against. It's not the answer, it's part of your answer. It helps challenge your thinking.

And I think and if you use it in the right way and in a meaningful way, it absolutely is an asset. I also think the benefit programmes like this, particularly when you're the one that's starting it off. It requires so much thinking. AI is a fantastic tool to help take the capacity of some of that off you to allow you to still have that ability to think, to create, to kind of drive things forward.

So use in the right way in the right realm and making sure that you're not just taking it as a standard answer. It's an answer that can potentially inspire you, motivate you, challenge you to think a little bit differently. And I think within that context, it's of absolute huge value. But it's a danger if you become lazy and you don't think you have to do any of that thinking. And I think it's a good way to challenge your own internal bias.

We've all got it, right? We're all passionate. We all think we know what the answer is and a lot of the time it's right but using AI to either help affirm what you're thinking or not for me the I like to chat and my papers are sometimes a little bit big and even just putting it in to say could you help me summarize this please and having that oh no yeah I'm on the right track and it gives me a much more kind of high level summary of all the work that I'm doing and which would have taken me hours to be able to go and kind of shorten and condense down so Yeah, I do think it's a wonderful tool if you use it within the right kind of confidence and assurance about what you're doing.

Nat Grant: Yeah. Amazing. That's such again it sort of you can see that's how you're how you're using it day-to-day. And I think everyone's approach will be really different. I imagine some commonality but some really big differences as well between people who are getting everything automated versus people who are a bit sceptical. So really interesting to hear how you're using it to especially it's almost like keep yourself and your energy protected for the stuff that you know you want to focus on.

And then the final one from me before we hand over to audience questions we've already got a couple there and please do keep them coming in is you know a lot of times if you're responsible for a voice of customer programme you're as you've already mentioned you're sharing insight and people may already have a view that based on their instinct. How do you help me people make sense of something if it sort of jars against what they expect or if it's not something that they think chimes with what they've seen?

What do you do in that situation? How do you help people use the insight you're generating to make better decisions if it's something a bit counterintuitive for them?

Lorna Brown: So for me, I think it depends on what it is you're looking at and what you're working on. You get some people that have got the way that they do things. You can affirm your belief and your view of what that is or what it's not, but it's normally from your own lens or your own understanding of what that process is. And then when you say, "Oh, but here's other things that some people are thinking and seeing," that can feel unfamiliar because that's not necessarily your experience of that.

And it's trying to say you're from a place of bias. You've got your own your own feeling about that. Stop. Take a step back and have that more structured conversation about what's common and what where can you connect it back to what your view is versus what the customer insight is telling you. Don't tell them that they're wrong. Do you know everybody's got a view? So if I'm traveling on a train, I'm a passenger.

I'm going to have an experience and I'm going to have a view of what that experience like. Mine is still valuable and it's still valid. The same as if you're part of a process, you experience what that process is day-to-day. You've got a view. You're allowed to have a view. But it's taking that step back and say in the realm and in the round what is the story and the narrative that we're hearing here and what is the opportunity to do something different.

So try not to get frustrated and you know don't expect everybody to understand it. There does sometimes come with a little bit of time taking an explanation of what this alternative view is which is not familiar to that person.

Nat Grant: Yeah, really helpful, Lorna. Especially, you know, saying at the start of like we've all got biases, we've all got incident we formed and we've got perspectives that are shaped by the information we've got access to. I think it's really common in an organisation when different people are seeing different slices of data or different slices of an experience to maybe be surprised if suddenly they're seeing what it looks like from a different lens.

So I think that's a really interesting perspective and you're right, there's telling someone they're wrong usually isn't the best start, but also, you know, as you say, respecting the difference of opinion and going back to that earlier conversation we had about a sort of healthy conflict and working through it as well.

Lorna Brown: We have now we've got there's one exercise that we do to help with that here at Network Rail and we've done it at the airport as well. So there's a programme called step in their shoes. So we give an alternative profile. So, we've got passenger profiles and we get people within our teams to go out and experience that product through the different lens. It's not their normal day-to-day. It comes with here's a little bit of challenge.

You're actually a family of six or you're a you've got a big bike with you. Pretend you've got a bike. You need to go and find a seat and actually ask people to experience their journey through a different lens. And then we sit down and have a conversation about it to say, "Huh, I never I didn't see that because I've got my routine in which I travel on the train." and that sometimes being able to say, "Yeah, you've got your experience that ticks your boxes, but actually if you've got a buggy or you've got a bike or you're you've got a wheelchair with you, there's different things that you're then needing from that journey." And having that conversation and then I always say and we've got this insight hub and look how valuable this is because it shows you all those alternative perspectives and the value that can be kind of sought from that.

That's kind of the convincing of why it's something a bit a bit different from what your own experience is for us here.

Audience questions

Nat Grant: Yeah, that makes loads of sense. That sounds like a really valuable programme as well that step in step in their shoes. Cool. Well, I have hogged you long enough, Lorna, with my own questions. So, we've now got some audience questions I'm going to throw up here. So, let's see which ones I'm going to put Lorna on the hot seat for. Which ones Helen may be able to help us out with. I think I've got this one up.

So, first one from Sarah. I love the idea of the tightrope, but how do you avoid losing the people who are racing ahead while you wait for those still holding on to the platform? There you go, Lorna. That one's for you.

Lorna Brown: Oh, that's an interesting one. And I think just being honest. And also saying how far are you able to so what we done with the insight hub? There was people that were like, take everything, have all my data. Do you know I'm really excited about this? And versus other people that was like, no, I can't give you access to anything. I think it's just setting the expectation being really quite clear about the goal and what bit you're going after and saying to someone not right now but that's coming and I think helps and just making sure that you're having the conversation with the people to keep them motivated and say listen just give me a little bit of time because we're having a couple of challenges just now and being quite honest about that but what we also done was have every quarter got everybody back together in the room that they had that opportunity to talk about what's next, what's the art of the possible and carved out that creative space to have still have that excitement and that thinking.

So, it's a bit it's a balance. It's kind of pulling the rope and knowing which bit to kind of it's like the bike coging the spokes of the wheels. So, and it's tiring. It's it takes a lot of time and effort to do that. But I do think having that space that allows you to be creative. What could this be? Are we all still, you know, on the same page? Allows those people to still get excited about it.

Nat Grant: Yeah, I love that. Really practical advice and you can see that you really live and breathe this stuff, Lorna. Like it's come from a place where you're really grounded in the reality of doing this and of really doing organisational influence and driving that change.

Lorna Brown: Lorna 10 years ago probably would have really frustrated everybody would have like ran across the tightrope and been like why on earth are you still there? Like I see you kind of learn and you mature as you go along and you know you I've had my mistakes. But learning from that to see actually not everybody's starting at the same place as you are. Just be mindful of that. And that is probably the best advice I would say.

Nat Grant: Yeah, really good point. And you made it earlier as well, the fact that I guess also comes with experience. You learn to appreciate the different role that those people have, the people who are a bit more cautious that they've got a valuable part to play. Sarah, I hope that answered your question. If not, then feel free to tell me in the chat. Martin asks, let's throw this one up. What metrics would you suggest to measure the effectiveness of the whole data gathering cost both in terms of return on investment for the business but also from the customer perception?

Lorna Brown: So, let me read that one again. So we've got a few ways in which we think we're going to be doing this. So everybody knows there's a science and a number behind if you increase satisfaction by X, you're going to generate additional revenue. I think that's a bit a bit easier to do if say you're selling one product and you can see that the satisfaction increases and you can see that your revenue generation.

The more parts of that you've got to influence, the more complicated that is to be able to dot it back. For us in terms of our product without having so many different organisations involved in it, we're looking at benefits realization. So we've set out a whole context in which we will measure and monitor. We're going to make this investment. Here's how we expect to see that benefit realised. And that's from the infrastructure and the performance of the product down to you're being a little bit more efficient in what you're spending.

But from a passenger lens, it's about understanding the increase in satisfaction that you expect. And I think as well when you look at your satisfaction high top level, sometimes you'll see the tiny marginal increase and you think, well, what's the point in that? Having a data set that allows you to interrogate down to the who is this really going to benefit and understanding that and how can I then demonstrate the layer in which that you're seeing that kind of bigger number come along in your sampling to show the satisfaction increase I think everybody expects return of investment as in it's pounds and it's pennies for us sometimes it's additional journeys or it's an increase in the sentiment or it's an increase in your net promoter I think understanding what it is you're trying to achieve and then defining at the start the best way to measure that increase or that return of your investment.

It's not always about the monetary value. That's a byproduct of kind of what you're doing and but that is also part of our strategy to say it's not easy to see and by doing that we've made x amount more in revenue but you can see patronage hasn't dipped satisfaction has increased. We can start to see that there's been additional journeys taken across the area that we've been carrying out that intervention. So there's lots of different ways and different lenses I think but you can look at that the return of the investment.

Nat Grant: Yeah, amazing answer again so grounded in someone who's doing this day in day out and you can see that it's really trying to understand what are we trying to achieve and then measuring against that. So thanks for that Lorna. That was really interesting as well. It's nice that we're getting these questions because the things I don't know the answers to yet because I sort of knew some of the other stuff that Lorna was going to say but I didn't know the answer to these ones. Question

Helen Precious: Okay question from Emily. You mentioned accessibility. I am often asked how do you ensure accessibility across your service? How do you know who you are not hearing from? How do you tackle that? Lorna

Lorna Brown: We're actually actively doing this. So this is the next stage and I feel really passionate about this and there is no point having a product that is running and performing well if people can't get to it and they can't use it. So we've actually got what we call as a railway for everyone strategy that someone in our team leads I think is a fantastic goal and ambition and it's also understanding well who are the people that we need to be accessible for what are all the nuances that come along with that.

It's more than just being able to use a wheelchair or to be able to walk and have a seat and have a ramp. So we've really defined what those characteristics are and we're then able to slice and dice the data to say what do we know and where are our gaps and how do we go and make sure that we're representing the profiles that we've identified through accessibility and we've recently had a fantastic conversation with Euan's Guide.

They have panels of people and access to all of the voices and the customers that we want to hear from. So we're now looking at how do we go and use that review data and incorporate it into our railway for everyone. We've got that structured in a way that there's four clear pillars that we want to really understand. One is how people get to our stations. What that feels like in terms of how easy the stations are to use, how easy is it for you to get onto your train and then getting off your train and onto your onward journey and what is those end to- end connection points that you know that we then need to go the local partnerships.

So I think again understanding how you want your data to be represented and cut gathering what you've got already looking at what else is out there and just going and having the conversation. So Euan's Guide was a really inspiring conversation because we said to them, "Look, we want to make sure that we're representing the voice of all the people that we need to be thinking about. Here's how we think the data should be structured.

Can we have access to what you've got because we think it's fantastic and can you help us connect to your network of people and other networks that you've got? And then you understand where your gaps are and then you can go and do a little bit more targeted research on who you're not representing or who you're under representing." I think as well we always think that the answer is I'm going to go and do a survey.

It's not. It's like who do I need to talk to and what's already going on and how do I go and create that network with them to say I would really love to work with you. And creating that partnership and that's what we've done. So it's not going to cost us any money to go and make sure that we've got that data incorporated into the work that we've already got underway.

Helen Precious: I love that. And Lorna for anyone who doesn't know what is Euan's Guide?

Lorna Brown: So Euan's Guide was a charity. Now, forgive me because I don't want to say exactly who Euan was. But he they essentially carry reviews. So, it started off with people with accessibility needs. Reviewing public spaces to say this is what my experience was like. If you're traveling and you've got these needs, this one's a really good place to go to or maybe expect to do this and here's how you need to prepare.

And it's evolving over time. And they're about to commission a survey asking people about public transport and public places. So again, we were like, can we get that data because if we can put that into the hub, brilliant. We've got that understanding of the foundations of what people are saying is makes a journey easy or uncomfortable for them. So and there's loads of charities and organisations that advocate for certain things and we want to make sure that we're taking that voice and representing it and that they're a fabulous charity.

Helen Precious: I love that and for anyone who's interested in knowing more about that, I see Lindsay's popped in the chat the link to their website there, but I think that's a really interesting one and that's really sort of thinking outside the box. I don't know how many other people are doing that at the moment, but if you do feel like you've got a data gap, there may well be an organisation with a different data source as you found there. So, that was a really interesting one.

Nat Grant: Cool. Next up, we've got Sophie. So, hi. Customer needs and wants are constantly changing and evolving. How do you try to future-proof the CX work you're doing?

Lorna Brown: So in terms of Network Rail, so we've got so I'm a great believer in delivering brilliant basics. So what are the basic things that people expect? And how do we measure against that? You'll naturally find that those don't ever change. For us, our principles are about comfort, ease, and speed. Do you know comfort in terms of do I feel safe? Is my seat comfortable? Is the place clean? Ease is easy for me to understand where I've got to go and how I'm going to get there and navigate my way to that or buy my ticket and speed as my products on time.

Is it efficient? If there's a different process you need me to do, you know, you're asking for a lot of my time and Euan's Guide talks a lot about time tax and so what is what do I need to invest to go and carry out that activity that you need for me to have the privilege to buy the ticket to travel on your product. So I think making sure you've got that good basic foundation and we have then mapped out all of the different things that we think fall within those categories and what you can start to do is you'll see trends.

So you'll see the things that seem that are repeatable are avoidable. So we are breaking our insight into insight to action or insight to investment. So there's themes and there's trends. So the action is that you need to go and put more bins in. That's not clean. There wasn't great customer service there. We need to go and have a conversation and we need to go and fix that problem. The insight to investment is a h it looks like there's something going on here.

We're not quite sure what that looks and feels like. Let's go and spend a bit of time thinking about it. So, you let your data and your insight guide you on to where that next problem seems to be bubbling and coming from. And if you're ahead of the curve, you can then start to go and understand it and do a little bit more research or a little bit more thinking behind it to get you set up for that.

Nat Grant: Great. Thanks, Lorna. That makes loads of sense. And I think unfortunately none of us has a Mystic Meg on call. So, we are having to find other ways to try and future-proof what we're doing. But I hope that answer work for you, Sophie. Okay. I think this will be our last question. So, one from Pete. If you had a magic wand and could bring into existence any tool, data, process, or device to help you better understand or act on feedback. What would you invent? I would love to see Lorna the inventor.

Lorna Brown: The hub to the insight hub. I actually feel really proud of what we've done. See the fact that I sometimes I got quite overwhelmed thinking I don't think we're going to be able to do this. Having one place where you can store and hold and harness your insight, your data and your intelligence or the ability to change the lens in which you're looking at it and be really dynamic on saying actually I need to understand this a little bit better.

Having that in the one place that is easy to get to. It's not losing the value of anything that's came before. For me I think if you don't have that I think what a waste of money, what a waste of time, what a waste of customer voices and views. So for me it's that one central location where you can store your intelligence that can be used to shape the future which can be used to review the past which can be used to understand the present.

So and I genuinely mean it. What we've got is very different. I've never had it before and I'm really excited to understand what the art of the possible is with it. So one central location, big magic box that your data gets put into and stays there forever.

Nat Grant: I love that. And what Pete didn't know when he asked the question is that you don't need a magic wand, Lorna. You just make things happen yourself. You've already invented what you did and brought it brought it to life. So really great answer to finish on there. I don't think there's any other questions that have come through, but thank you so much for all of the questions and Lorna, thank you for the amazing answers.

Lorna Brown: Thank you for the time being able to talk. It's nice to speak about something that you're passionate about and if there is anybody on the call that just would like a chat of a oh my goodness can you help me download some of my thoughts? More than willing if anybody wants to connect on LinkedIn or anything like that.

Helen Precious: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Lorna. This has been an amazing project to work on, but also an amazing hour just to get a bit more of your of your sort of lessons and learnings on this call as well. So, thank you so much. We will share Lorna's LinkedIn if that's okay, Lorna, just if anyone would like to connect and has more questions on how you got to where you've got to.

And yeah, I guess hopefully we will start to see some of you. We've got this is designed to be a series, so we hope to see you on the next one in November. And we'll follow up with details on the on the next session soon. Thanks all.

Lorna Brown: Thank you everyone.