Special Episode: The Digital Experiences That Build & Break Trust, With CMO Jillian Als

Episode transcript:

Jose

Hello and welcome to the Smooth Scaling Podcast, where we are speaking with industry experts to uncover how to design, build and run scalable and resilient systems. 

I'm your host, Jose Quaresma, and today I'm joined by Jillian Als, CMO at Queue-it. 

This was a special episode for a variety of reasons. First, it was great to sit down with Jill and get to pick her brilliant brain. On the other side, it was also great to discuss these findings from a recent report that we have done at Queue-it. 

It's called The Age of Online Trust. It was a survey with over 1,000 global consumers. And it was fascinating to talk about the importance of building and maintaining online trust and how the technical work behind designing resilient and scalable systems is foundational in delivering great customer experiences. Enjoy.

Welcome, Jill. It's great to have you on the podcast. 

 

Jillian

Thank you so much. I've been very eager to join, so thanks for having me. 

 

Jose

That's good. It has been a long time coming, so I'm very happy to have you on. 

And we have some time to talk about this really nice report that we have. But maybe before we get into that, could we talk a little bit about reliability? 

Because it's a lot of what we talk about in the podcast about scaling, about reliability. And we often look at it and discuss it from a technology infrastructure perspective. And you also have that perspective, but you also have more of the commercial, customers’ view on it. Can you tell us a little bit about it? 

 

Jillian

Sure. I mean, well, specifically at Queue-it, obviously, or maybe not obviously, but certainly reliability is our license to operate in the market. So as a member of the leadership team, I know that quite well.

If I put on just my commercial hat, I think the same is true, right? I need, as a marketer, a website that is always up and running. And I invest a lot of, well, the company would say I invest a lot of money in doing things for the brand, for the company, to drive growth.

And I have an expectation that if I'm sending traffic to the website, if I'm doing campaigns, all these things, that reliability is an assumed truth. And I think that's like an unspoken contract between myself and the technical side of the organization and more important to address it head on sometimes.

B2B marketing might not be as peak centric. But of course, there are days where things aren't working as they're supposed to be. And it's all hands-on deck thing when that happens. And it's something I assume to be true, but something that when it's broken is a big issue. So if the site is down or is buggy or something, everyone drops everything and goes all in on it, right? 

 

Jose

Oh, yes. And so that's more, I guess, the internal, or your perspective and the teams on it. But in Queue-it, you've also spoken with our customers, but both commercial side and technical side customers.

So, it’s not easy to define, but do you see them looking at reliability in a fundamentally different way? 

 

Jillian

I think they both need it and know that they need it, right? And how to solve for it if it's uncertain might be different, right? So from the technical side, they might have very specific ideas of, “Well, we can scale this, but we can't scale that, or this is going to cost too much.”

Where I personally, of course, having worked at Queue-it, I have a different perspective. But maybe the more traditional commercial side of the business would be like, just make it work, right? I don't care what it costs. I should. Of course, I care what it costs. But, you know, the arrogance that could be there is just I just assume that you can make this work. And coming to a conversation about, okay, but how do we solve for this? I think then the conversation shifts. 

And at Queue it, we do speak with the commercial side of the organization because we touch the end user experience. And then everything that's ingrained in you, in marketing at least, is speed is king, right? You need to be able to act in milliseconds. It affects your conversion rate, et cetera. And we have lots of data that we'll get into that backs up that there are important ways of looking at it that speed is one thing, but the experience is king, actually. It's not the speed itself. And some people are willing to wait if it means that their experience will be better. 

 

Jose

So you're already getting a little bit into our report, right? And this is the name, The Age of Online Trust. Can you tell us how you commissioned it, right? Can you tell us how it came to be? 

 

Jillian

Sure. Let's hop in the helicopter.

So at Queue-it, you know, 15 years old, we were born out of an idea, and we talked a lot about online fairness. And it suited us well, but the market has evolved, the product has evolved, the company has evolved. So around two years ago, we really got introspective to understand what's the problem in the world that we're solving for? What's our why? And I think we did it throughout the organization, but what really rang true to a lot of people was we're operating in a world of noise, digital noise. And it's becoming harder than ever to know who to trust in that.

And we see Queue-it as a way in critical moments to help maintain that very hard-earned trust that brands and governments make with their consumers and constituents. And we know that we don't solve for everything around online trust, but we solve for a number of things. 

So we really wanted to get some meat behind the bones or on the bones for that and get some data behind that for what we felt to be true. I thought it was really interesting to go out and research that and see if it actually had merit.

And the report shows, overwhelmingly so, that these assumptions that we had about this are true. And it is a great reason and a great “why” to be showing up every day here at Queue-it. And yeah, we've had a lot of fascinating finds in the data I know we'll get into. But it is this trust epidemic, if you will, because with the rise of AI, with notifications, it's no longer digital first. It's digital only in some instances, when you interact with either your government or as a consumer. 

So it's never been more important, but it's never been more fragile either. So that was why we commissioned the report. We really wanted to get some data around it to have these important conversations with our customers, but also great for our employees internally to understand the why. 

 

Jose

And in this report, we surveyed people pretty much all around the world, right? And with a broad demographic. Just a little bit about that before we get into the report. 

 

Jillian

So we surveyed, it was 1,050 consumers across the globe that had, the criteria was that they had bought something or exchanged something online, done an online shopping experience in the last six months. English-speaking. But yes, it was global in nature.

So we tried to get different aspects of ways to slice and dice the data. And we did that. And one of the findings that you'll probably ask about was definitely of interest to see the differences in the generations and how they interact or view trust, at least. 

So that was the firmographics, if you will, that we looked at. So it's really truly the consumer constituent, you and me. It's not companies. It's not how they view it. It's how we view it. 

 

Jose

Online trust. It is a broad term, which means different things to different people. How do you define online trust? 

 

Jillian

So I can give you the very corporate answer, of course, but when we look at it and when I look at it, I think about what is it that makes or breaks an experience for me online, and what is it that I can probably quickly tell you what would lose my trust versus what builds my trust. And that was a lot of what we were trying to understand in this report as well. 

But it really, in the lens of Queue-it comes down to reliability. If it's not there, then how can you trust it? 

Transparency. So obviously we interact with instances where there's a lot at stake, be it emotional anticipation of getting this ticket that you've always wanted or a registration for a class that you need to graduate. Like it's a make-or-break moment. So transparency is super important.

Fairness is still very much a core value and a pillar of online trust for us. 

And, increasingly so, around personalization, right? In an AI-enabled world, we should be able to personalize the experience even more. 

So that's how we view it. But of course, things like security are important. And these aspects are not necessarily an area where Queue-it solves. But we're happy and excited to be part of online trust where we operate today. And the sky's the limit. It allows us a lot of innovation and growth going forward of how we could continue to solve for a growing concern. 

 

Jose

And I really like the fact that fairness is there as well. As you talked about, 15 years ago, we were created with this big focus on fairness. And it's not that we're throwing it away from this perspective. It is still in there, but it's with online trust, we're seeing and sharing that it's not only about that. There are other things around it that are required.

I really liked being part of that process as well. It was just a really nice way to get there and nice to see the result. Because a big part of what we do is around peak, is around high demand. 

 

Jillian

I would also quickly say that trust is just as important every day, right? Peak is obviously an opportunity where emotions are running really, high, right? 

 

Jose

And the likelihood, I guess, the likelihood of things going wrong is also higher, right? And so hence the…

 

Jillian

Right. But, I mean, online trust is important. Full stop, right? But at peak, it's just, it's so critical for a brand or government, right? Because so much is at stake for that individual. 

And it's their time to shine. But also, unfortunately, a very fragile time as well. Because you can plan for everything. But you can't plan for the unexpected. And having something in place to make sure that if the worst should happen, that you have something in place to still maintain that reliability, transparency, and fairness, I think is really important.

So it is that emotion, I think, that triggers us as consumers to continue to trust a brand or trusting your government is a big topic, right? But you have expectations. And those expectations are only growing. in terms of our experiences are influenced by the best brands out there, right? 

So I'm originally from the U.S. I've been living in Denmark now for 15 years, so it's not the case always. But when I am home in the U.S., like the Amazon on demand, you expect things instantaneously and they've just continued to increase that customer experience to a point where consumers then compare everything to that. 

Like, “Well, if Amazon can have it here to me in two hours, then I'm definitely not waiting three days for this T-shirt thing, right?” So our expectations are only continuing to grow. And the best brands out there are setting the bar high, and everyone needs to follow along. And that puts enormous pressure on brands, governments, and organizations out there at these critical peak moments because we know what good looks like and we're expecting it. 

 

Jose

Maybe starting to go into some of the data points and findings in the report. And I think very related to that is around the number of bad experiences that people are willing to accept before they start losing trust. There was some very interesting data on that. 

 

Jillian

Yeah. So it's essentially, you know, it takes four great experiences to build trust. It only takes two to lose it, on average. 

I think in some generations, some different data splits we did, it's much more there's an even bigger contrast, right? So we've been dubbing it before we had the data that, you know, trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. 

And I think most of us can relate to that, right. Because if you review a restaurant online, you're more likely to do it when you've had a bad experience than a good experience, right? You speak out more, you remember the bad experiences more. And I just don't think that there's that much wiggle room anymore. Again, back to that expectation thing, us as individuals, what we expect of brands and organizations now. 

So it is something that I know a lot of organizations are investing heavily in, right? So that online trust is becoming the currency in which you interact with your consumers online is so important and puts a lot at stake because it can be lost in milliseconds as well. 

 

Jose

And you have mentioned the generation differences, and I would love to get into that a little bit. Was there anything there that surprised you? 

 

Jillian

Yeah, it's funny because I feel like, okay, aging myself, old millennial. I feel pressured under this digital noise, right? Like I think it's just getting crazier and crazier, but I had an analog childhood, right? 

I grew up, yes, I had computers and these kinds of things, but the internet wasn’t, I mean, dial up a whole nine, right? I really thought that the newer generations of Gen Z would just operate in it as normal. 

But, like, what the data showed was that they are even more critical of organizations, and they value trust even higher than millennials or Gen X. And that was interesting to me because I thought somehow maybe the opposite would be true, but it didn't show that way. 

I mean, it was important to all generations. It's just, you know, the split between them was more obvious. was more obvious with the younger generation. 

 

Jose

Yeah, I was I think, surprised to see that as well. One would expect that somehow, it's a bit more normalized because they live in that, they were born in that world, right? That we all live in now, but being native to it, you would expect that it’s less impactful, but it's the other way. 

I was a bit surprised, but also happy to see that it's, it’s good to see that it's a generation that is coming after mine, so aging myself, but that is also demanding and expecting big things from wherever they are transacting. 

 

Jillian

Yeah, it gives me a ton of optimism, right? You always want the next generation to be better than you somehow, right? I have children. I want them to grow up in a better world. I'm worried I'm making a worse world for them to go fix, you know, collectively. But that was a nice slice of optimism that I saw in the data as well. 

 

Jose

You mentioned that the report did confirm or corroborated some of our, I guess you could say, hypotheses or views from all the experience we have with online trust. 

Are there any data points that come to mind there? I think for me, I can think a little bit around the data points that we have on the number of people that actually prefer to wait instead of going faster, but to a website that is either slow or crashing or having problems. 

 

Jillian

We used the opportunity, of course. We talked and tried to dig in to understand what makes and breaks trust in the survey and for the research. 

But while we had them anyway, we asked them a little bit more specific questions around website experiences and propensity to wait and so forth. I was very pleasantly surprised and happy to see that they do value the experience over the speed.

So the stat was, and I'll look it up, 83%, I believe, were more willing to do a short wait for a website that worked well than get immediate access to a website that was buggy. Right. So that, I don't know that it was surprising, but it was affirming in terms of our mission in the world, right? 

And equally but impressed to see it was 53 minutes on average, people were willing to wait for a highly coveted item. That's more than I expected. I think there's more patient people in the world than me, apparently. 

But it just underlines the importance of that peak moment where there is scarcity involved, right? And you want a fair shot at whatever that might be. You'll wait for it, right? And it seems to resonate with all generations.  So those were two takeaways that I took. 

Of course, great for the brands that we work with to see that the more they trust the business, the more they're willing to spend, the more they're willing to, you know, get involved in loyalty programs. Maybe not rocket science, but now there is some data behind it as well that shows trust is an important factor in building those programs and building your company's growth. 

 

Jose

And I think adding to that, I see also the transparency component, right? I think there's some really nice data around, for example, 73% of consumers say that transparency is important to driving trust.

I guess you didn't ask that way, right? But I would guess that being willing to wait 53 minutes for an item, right? It really helps that you have the transparency in there so that you understand that your turn will come. This is how much time you should expect. 

 

Jillian

Yeah, we call it the informed wait, right? And there's queue psychology. There are so many things behind that of why that's important. 

But transparency is another word alongside trust, right? It's one of the things that's built into trust as we define, it’s something you hear all the time in any interaction, right? People crave transparency, and it's our human nature because it gives us a sense of security, or a sense of control. Even though you don't control, it helps you accept that you're not controlling the entire situation but feel a little element of control. And I think that's just down to human nature. 

 

Jose

That reminds me. There was a study… I don't remember the source. But it was also around waiting and informed wait. It was around that people prefer to wait 10 minutes for a train if they know how long it's left for the train to come than to wait four minutes or three, without knowing when the train is coming.

 

Jillian

Yeah. I mean, think about it this way. Back to the on-demand economy. Like, how many times have you ordered food on an app and, like, tracked the bike or, you know, the driver to your door, right?

It is, I don't know, good or bad, it is built in us that we crave that transparency and want to know where things are. And I think, again, there must be an element in all of us that loves that sense of control. And that transparency is a big part of that. And it also shows, you know, it just gives you that peace of mind as well. 

The other stat was around what builds trust was equally high was the reliability, right? 74% said that a reliable website or app was one of the most important things in driving online trust for them. So that spins us back to your first question to me, why is reliability so important? Well, it's the highest stat we have from the report, right? It's the license to operate. It's not rocket science to think why, but reliable isn't just up or not it's also the experience itself and if it's buggy or if it's intermittent that's not reliable right. Fairness was also definitely a data point, but I think overwhelmingly so was the reliability and transparency 

 

Jose

Any other thing in the report I'm actually going through because I think we've covered it quite well.

 

Jillian

I mean we've covered it we can talk a little bit about some of the stats that like might matter to a business. And obviously this podcast is much more technical in nature, but sometimes you need to understand the why behind what you're doing. 

What is so important about scaling your business systems and relying on tools like Queue-it to help, you know, create exceptional experiences when demand is at peak, right? It's because if consumers trust the businesses and the organizations they work with, they're willing to do more with those businesses, right? 

So you have job security and that your company continues to grow because your company cares about their customer experience right so: 64 percent more likely to be more loyal to businesses that they trust

88 percent, and for Gen Z 90 percent, would be willing to spend more to purchase a product from a trustworthy website versus one they don't trust

And of course recommend, right? So when we look at the digital noise, so to speak, who do you trust? You trust the people you know, right? Whether you're on LinkedIn and listening to the echo chamber there, I can ignore a lot of stuff, but I'll listen to the people that I know personally and have built relationships with. And restaurant recommendations from a colleague go a lot further than reading a review online necessarily. So if you trust a business, 72% are more likely to recommend the business that they trust, right? 

So that's how you also break through the noise as an organization, I think, is relying on those experiences to continue to build your brand when you're not in the room. And it all comes down to those make it or break it moments. 

 

Jose

And we talked about the technical focus, right? I also see this as a confirmation from the end user, like the whole report, right? Confirmation from the end user that all the hard work that we do, that the technical teams around the world do matters, right? 

 

Jillian

Oh, absolutely. 

 

Jose

So I think it's an extra data point, I mean, those last percentage points that you're sweating out there for increasing the reliability of your systems, it matters around the trust and how willing the end users are to interact with you.

 

Jillian

It's Alpha Omega, right? It's the unsung heroes, so to speak. So on behalf of my commercial colleagues, I apologize if we are not making you feel very… what's the best word I could use? Cherished is probably one. But no, I think it's so important. 

And I mentioned it in the beginning, this kind of unspoken contract we have. And it’s important to start making that more vocal. Like, what is it I expect of you as a technical leader? Or what do I expect from you?  Because I'm sure on the technical side, it's like, “Oh, marketing ran this campaign again. They didn't tell us or whatever it might be.”

Communication, always important. And as businesses, we think we're aligned. We think we communicate. But it's never enough, right? We can always be better. There's so much at stake. And the technical teams sitting in the war rooms or the mission control rooms, sweating it out to make those high impact moments of success is just critical to the business. And so appreciated, even if not always explicitly mentioned. 

 

Jose

It is now. So everyone out there, not unsung heroes anymore because now they are the sung heroes, I guess. 

Very good. Thank you for that. I think we covered the report well. I was going through and one of the things I also found interesting was around… we talked about having higher expectations, higher than ever, and that the leaders out there are setting the bar that then we compare a lot of our experiences with.

But I would say I was a bit surprised to see that even from one of the questions it was like, your expectations, how did they change compared to last year? And it overwhelmingly increased, right? I guess, again, it depends on the generation. I think there's quite a generation gap. You have Gen X saying 50% increased since last year, Gen Z, 68% increased. But I mean, that's just in a year. 

 

Jillian

It's moving fast, right? I said it, but the data is there to back it up that it's not getting any easier.

And yes, scaling can be done in many ways. And there's plenty of cloud providers out there, auto-scaling, all the options in the world. But you're only ever as fast as your slowest link. 

And you can't predict everything that will happen. And I think that trying to scenario-build and work together with your colleagues to understand the impact if and when things might go wrong is really important. But if you can see it in the broader context of how much it actually means to you as a consumer, I think you can get behind whatever you need to do to make those experiences great. 

 

Jose

We talked about the tech teams, and the tech leaders and with what we have discussed and with the report in mind, your experience as well, is there any key takeaways for them? If there’s anything you want them to take away from this discussion from the report, what should it be? I mean, we talked about the fact that what technical teams do is important. 

 

Jillian

Yeah, I mean, of course, full stop, what you do matters, right? Absolutely.

I think the other, I don't know if that's a takeaway from the report, but please do communicate with your commercial teams. We're not that scary, I promise. We want to make a mutual success together when we're, you know, building big campaigns, whatever it might be. But just operating as a business takes all hands. And the more open communication lines and expectation setting we have up front, the more smoothly things will run in general. 

And I know, again, as marketing, we come with, oh, we've read this latest thing we want to test, and we want to put it on the website. And we know it still needs to not break the website, right? It needs to make everything run fast, but does it perform at peak? I don't know that as a marketer. I really think about that. I think I'll run it through the lighthouse test on Google. Boom, fine, right? But what does it mean when the site's actually under pressure? And it's not everyone that thinks that way, I think. So we can be better as marketers as well, for sure. 

But yes, what you do matters for the business, but what you do matters for the world, right? And I love that about working at Queue-it. It's like I'm showing up to do something that really matters, that it's, you know, my niece's ability to register for that last class in her senior year to, you know, graduate. Or it's, you know, someone close to me who wants to run the half marathon. Or me that gets the ticket, right? It's these really critical moments in a lifetime. Like, it's actually super personal in some ways that, you know, Queue-it is there, helping. 

Not everyone goes to Disney World every day. But if, you know, they're, you know, using our systems to create experiences for that individual on any given day. I mean, Disney is a big thing for some people. It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, right? Or my daughter wants to go to a Taylor Swift concert, right? Like, it's not something that is necessarily every day, but it is so emotionally important where we touch the user experience. 

 

Jose

Are you, before we wrap up, are you up for some rapid-fire questions? 

 

Jillian

Oh, geez. Sure. 

 

Jose

Just maybe three or four. But it's rapid, so it won't take too long. 

 

Jillian

Okay, so I have to give an answer real fast? 

 

Jose

Yes. And, well, you can take some time. But the rule is, ideally, you don't overthink it. Just share what comes to mind first. 

 

Jillian

I overthink by nature, so let's go. 

 

Jose

But now you have an excuse not to do it. To you, scalability is?

 

Jillian

Important. Important. 

 

Jose

Are there any books, podcasts, thought leaders that you would recommend? 

 

Jillian

I love this guy, Anthony Pierri, on LinkedIn. And he talks a lot about product marketing and positioning, but that's just me.

 

Jose

Okay. So would that be a good person for our technical audience to listen to us or to get a little bit of an understanding of the other side? 

 

Jillian

Yeah, if you're working on infrastructure, it's one thing. But if you're building products, absolutely. I think you want to build products that make a difference, right? And he's speaking a lot about how to educate your market on the difference that it makes.

 

Jose

Last question. Do you have any advice? I'm sure knowing you, I'm sure you do. But do you have any advice that you would give to your younger self or to someone starting right now? In marketing, maybe in the SaaS startup world. 

 

Jillian

Yeah, I think remain curious. If you're young in your career, just say yes. Later in my career, I have to learn how to say no. But when you're early in your career and you don't have kids, you don't have commitments, just say yes, learn, figure out what you like, what you don't like, what excites you, what energizes you, what depletes your energy. Because you have a lifetime ahead of you at work, you might as well enjoy it. And then you learn how to say no. 

 

Jose

I think with that word of advice, I think we can wrap it up. 

Thank you so much for joining us. 

 

Jillian

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. 

 

Jose

And that's it for this episode of the Smooth Scaling Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing and perhaps share it with a friend or colleague. If you want to share any thoughts or comments with us, send them to smoothscaling@queue-it.com. This podcast is researched by Joseph Thwaites, produced by Perseu Mandillo, and brought to you by Queue-it, your virtual waiting room partner. I'm your host, Jose Quaresma. Until next time, keep it smooth, keep it scalable.

 

[This transcript was generated using AI and may contain errors.]