Transformation Isn’t What You Think | AI, CX, and Real Change w/ Sarah Caminiti | S2E16

Full Episode Transcript

This is the full recorded conversation from The Human Protocol Podcast, published by The Human Protocol Group. © 2026 The Human Protocol Group. Please link to and attribute the original episode when referencing this conversation.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (00:00.998)
Most people think about transformation in a way that they think it's theater, but the real work is actually invincible, right? Change fails when people believe the story, but not the system. Welcome to The Human Protocol, the podcast about staying human while building the future. I am your host, Michael Salomon. Today we're talking about transformation, but not the LinkedIn version, right? Not the press release version, the real version.

The kind that changes how people decide how teams behave and what companies actually rework and this episode is about personal transformation and structural transformation and tech transformation and why much change Efforts fail when we take content and face value Instead of asking what it's really true, right with us today and as our guest is a dear friend Sarah community Sarah

Welcome to the Human Protocol.

Sarah Caminiti (01:02.03)
I'm so excited to be here and holy cow, that was quite an introduction. You like summed up my thoughts on transformation very, very well. Thank you for having me. I'm such a big fan of what you've been producing and I can't wait to talk about all things transformation.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (01:18.434)
Yes, yes ma'am. I'm happy that we're able to finally make in this and take time to talk about this important topic. And you know, before we get into the business, right, I would like to ask you really if you can tell us a little bit about who Sarah is, where Sarah has been and where Sarah is heading for our guests to know a little bit more about yourself.

Sarah Caminiti (01:44.84)
Yes. Well, I'm Sarah Caminiti. I live in Maine. It's finally starting to warm up, which is a beautiful thing. I've got two little boys that put me to bed very early on most days. And I have been in and around the CX space for like close to 20 years. I mean, it was my first job at a general store. I kept running away from it and then kept finding myself sneaking back because at the end of the day, everybody is a customer.

And so you are doing CX work no matter what your job actually is. And for the last about 15 years, I've been specifically in the tech space building, scaling, fixing CX teams. And it has been a wild ride, especially in the last couple of years. I have two podcasts, I have the CX Roundtable, which is a fun way for me to...

forced a lot of incredible people into a video call with me and I can ask them a lot of questions that I wish I knew, especially earlier in my career. We've had everybody from the heads of product for Help Desk figuring out what the future of Help Desk look like to CEOs of ethical BPOs talking about how to outsource in the right way to content creators to WFM, a four part series on it. we're really

digging in to what's happening in the CX industry and what it means to be a CX veteran at this point, so many of us are. And then I also have the podcast, The Career Strategist, which is where this concept of transformation really started to take on a life in and of itself. It was a personal journey of reflection as much as it was an opportunity to teach others about the mistakes that I've made, the things that I've learned and.

and the different ways we can approach our career confidently and strategically and without second guessing ourselves all the time because we can control what we can control. And that's a really important thing to be mindful of all the time because a lot of the times we think we can control everything and we forget about what we actually are capable of changing. And when you kind of hone in,

Sarah Caminiti (04:06.574)
on what you are responsible for. I ask myself three questions all the time. It's was I respectful? Was I curious? Was I kind? And if I can answer yes to those three questions, then I can walk away knowing I showed up the way that I wanted to show up. I'm proud of how I showed up and I can kind of leave it at that and not go into any sort of doom spirals. And it's been so much fun mentoring people around this concept and

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (04:22.792)
I love that.

Sarah Caminiti (04:36.554)
Elevating it in different ways and I have a newsletter where we dig into specific topics It's gone through two series so far on the concept of space the space we take up the space we make for others In the different ways it presents itself and also through career strategy that kind of was a hand-in-hand with with the podcast that just ended its first First season focusing specifically on career strategy and as this was all happening

I stepped into quite an incredible opportunity with a dear friend of mine, Craig Crissler from the CEO of Support Ninja, where we realized we were both trying to solve the same problem separately and from different angles. And once that realization happened, that realization of how we both knew something really important happens in that moment where companies are looking for an outsourcing partner, because it is not every day.

that companies are ready to invest in CX. It is not every day that companies are willing to admit that they have a situation involving their customers that they need help. And how can we take advantage of this moment of vulnerability and use it as an opportunity to build a partnership where we're taking our expertise as CX strategists, CX experts,

to teach companies what good looks like, to teach them how to leverage AI the right way, how to career path the right way, how to value the customer in a way that they can feel it. And so now I'm the head of business transformation at Support Ninja, and I'm building out this arm where we are digging deep into these existing customers and potential customers to figure out how...

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (06:03.453)
Right.

Sarah Caminiti (06:30.094)
Can we make this better together and make sure that they feel less alone? Because it can be really overwhelming when you're trying to solve every problem related to your customer. it took a long time for me to realize that it's OK to ask for help. And it's OK to lean into the incredible folks that are part of the CX community. And it really is a beautiful space to be in. And so I'm super pumped.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (06:56.74)
Awesome, thanks for quite an introduction. For me that I've been following you and know you for some time, it feels that I learned a little bit more today. So I'm sure for those that are gonna be listening, as you can hear, it's quite an experience that Sarah is bringing into the topic of transformation and one that she's very passionate about. So I'm excited for today's conversation, Sarah.

And I love that how we can get better together, right? At the end of the day, for companies that they don't have the how-to or the know-how on how to do things, finding the right partner, right? It's really what's gonna make it or break it in a way. It's very important that they partner with someone that actually care, right? At the end of the day. So the topic of today, it's really transformation. So you're gonna be hearing about transformation a lot, right?

Sarah Caminiti (07:43.394)
Yeah, exactly.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (07:52.04)
And, and, and in many, from many different angles. get ready people. So Sarah, when you hear transformation, what do you think most people get wrong out of the door?

Sarah Caminiti (07:53.574)
shucks.

Sarah Caminiti (08:07.127)
Great.

question to start things off because I had a realization recently of what the real problem is when it comes to the word transformation and it is that most people think transformation is metamorphosis and a metamorphosis if you're familiar with caterpillars and butterflies the caterpillar goes into the cocoon and and dissolves in in that chrysalis and comes out as something completely different.

caterpillar no longer exists. That is a metamorphosis. And it took me playing with my son's transformer toys to realize what is transformation. You look at a transformer, you look at Optimus Prime, that is a truck. That's it. That is a truck. And it takes all of the pieces of this truck.

and it moves it around and it elevates it and it takes on a new shape and it takes on a new purpose. And something incredible that I also realized is a transformer can turn back into a truck. Those pieces did not disappear. Those pieces are just being leveraged in a way that makes more sense for the situation. And then you can always go back. And so I think people

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (09:05.019)
Wow.

Sarah Caminiti (09:30.691)
think that transformation means throwing everything away that you've built and building something new, but that's not true. Transformation exists in the momentum. Transformation exists in those small wins that you do over time to tackle those bigger projects, but aren't as overwhelming. And when you're leveraging momentum to transform,

Then you bring everybody along for the ride. People are feeling proud of the work they're doing because they're seeing the results in small doses. And it's also one of those situations where I'm sure we've all been there before. I know I have many times where, and it's like when you start working out, it feels like you are never going to get in shape. It feels like you are never going to build muscle that this is going to be terrible forever. And then you're six weeks into it and you're like, holy cow, I just

did all of that. Holy cow, I just upped my weights that I was lifting. Holy cow, I see muscle definition in my arm that I've never seen before. And it's because you're doing these small, consistent changes that build up over time. And then the next thing you know, you are transforming your body. It's still the same amount of hard work. It's still the same amount of commitment, dedication, and tension, but it's slow and it's purposeful.

and it's celebratory.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (10:59.042)
And it's just to tackle on that, right? For the most part, isn't really when you announce that you are transforming yourself, but it's what you're doing behind the scenes that people are not watching and the small pieces that you're saying, right? That keeps adding and adding and adding. And that's what really takes you at the end of the day to really transform in a way.

Sarah Caminiti (11:19.211)
Yeah, it's, it's you are doing the work quietly a lot of the time. And something that's been ringing really true to me lately is remembering how important our actions are, how important what we do is to how we exist in this world versus what we say. And for so many of us, we exist a lot in LinkedIn. mean,

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (11:21.937)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (11:42.354)
Hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (11:43.149)
There is a lot of words that are passed around on LinkedIn. There is a lot of claim of transformation on LinkedIn. And that's wonderful that people are feeling pride in wanting to share their accomplishments and their thoughts and everything like that. But the real question is, are you actually doing this? Are you actually doing what you say you're doing? Are you actually feeling this? And

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (11:51.592)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (12:13.079)
And that's a quiet space to be in usually. That is not a performative space. That is not a, I'm not going to announce every day one little change. It's I have done this and it took me this long and I had to do all of these small things in order to get to this.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (12:20.37)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (12:35.573)
It is your actions really do speak a heck of a lot louder than your words as leaders, as individuals, within your space and transformation exists on the doing more than the saying. Yes, it does. gosh, no.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (12:51.752)
And it takes time. doesn't happen overnight. And sometimes you feel like when you're on LinkedIn that you're just so behind because everybody's transforming, it's achieving. And back to the question that you just poised right there, it, are they really doing it? Are they really going through it? Because it doesn't feel like it is. It doesn't feel like what reality means, right?

Sarah Caminiti (13:04.334)
Yep.

Sarah Caminiti (13:16.687)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It's when I was working on the space series, I came across this concept from this tribe in Africa and it's called Ubuntu and it means I am because we are. And I think that that is a piece that we lose a lot of the time in LinkedIn. We lose a lot of the time in those success stories and those, I did it all on my own.

because we forget to acknowledge all of the hands that lifted us up, all of the work that was delegated so that we could be laser focused on what we're working on, all of the different tools we had to use, all of the failures and the struggles and the collaborations that came along the way, because most of the time we just acknowledge that final result. And if we don't acknowledge

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (14:08.135)
I surely do.

Sarah Caminiti (14:14.389)
the world that had to exist in order for us to accomplish, then we are creating a narrative that is going to diminish a lot of people's light.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (14:18.034)
to make that happen. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (14:27.851)
because they are not going to see themselves in what you made possible because it seems too overwhelming. It seems too far out. It seems if they did this by themselves, I have a family I have to take care of. How am I supposed to dedicate all this time? I have a full-time job. How am I supposed to make a podcast? How am I supposed to do all of this stuff? And so then they're not going to try.

because they're not going to feel like they can because they don't think it's possible for someone like them to do what you and I get to do. But the reality is I have a co-parent that

takes care of my kids when they're home and they're loud and I need to get on a video call. I have a team in Florida that helps me with the podcast. I had a brand specialist help me with my colors to figure out how to have a cohesive message. have an incredible community that are editing my conference proposals with me. Like all of these things are collaborative and you can't transform really alone.

because there is a lot that goes into even the smallest amount of change and that's something to celebrate. That's not something to be bummed out about.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (15:43.772)
Yeah, absolutely.

It's always something to celebrate because that's it to make that magic happens. It's really a teamwork at the end of the day. It was always and it was it will always be. It's the people that you surround yourself with that help you that for the most part are invincible because people don't see it. Right. You and I, we are the face of it. But behind the scenes, we have a group of very dedicated human beings actually helping us to to be successful. So.

Sarah Caminiti (16:10.296)
Yep.

Sarah Caminiti (16:17.219)
That's it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (16:18.024)
and help us with all this transformation that we're trying to achieve. So thanks for putting that, because that's always something that deserves to be mentioned and celebrated. So Sarah, since we just opened this segment, of course, with what transformation means and how we can get there, I would like to focus next, on

And what I think it is kind of the three pillars of transformation, which is personal, structural, right, and tech. And I would like listeners to work away with something that they can mentally visualize, right, from your point of view. So when we talk about personal transformation, what do you think shifts first inside a leader, right, before a team can shift, right? So how...

How is that critical and what needs to shift inside a leader to make the rest happen?

Sarah Caminiti (17:18.991)
I love that question. For me, personally, the thing that changed the game for me was I had to learn how to take up space. And I think as a leader, a lot of the time we try to make space for everybody.

but at the expense of our own. And what we teach the people that we are leading is that in order to lead, you have to disappear.

And in order to get anything across the table, you have to quiet yourself and diminish your voice in a lot of different ways. And being in CX, I think we feel this a lot because there's so many different languages that you need to learn in order to connect cross-functionally.

but yet a lot of those other departments are not learning our language to meet us halfway. We're always just supposed to meet them at theirs. And as a leader, I needed to feel comfortable and proud to go first.

I needed to feel comfortable and proud to say, this is what I need to be successful. How can we meet each other halfway? And when I think of the word kindness, which is what I really try to lead with, it is clarity, it is respect, it's curiosity.

Sarah Caminiti (18:59.279)
It's giving them the tools they need to be successful. It is acknowledging the reality of situations. It is being transparent about things that are going on because too often, especially when you're in the weeds and especially when you're feeling really discouraged,

You try to hoard everything and hold it and you tell yourself and I've heard I've heard folks say this before and it always makes my heart rate start to spike whenever I hear this. But if I ask a question of why didn't you tell them your team? Why didn't you tell your team the full details about this and their responses? They can't handle it. That always and I have heard that so many times.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (19:19.922)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (19:42.12)
Hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (19:48.459)
What do you mean? They can't handle it. Have you tried? What happened? And it's usually no. No, I just know. I just know that's too much information for them. That's too much for them to know. So instead, they give something vague. And what happens when you give something vague to someone is their imagination gets to fill in all of the blanks. And so their imagination could fill in blanks that

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (19:49.928)
Hmm.

Right.

Sarah Caminiti (20:17.427)
product doesn't respect CX enough to push this across the finish line. Or my role is gonna disappear because I can't get to these sorts of things. Or my boss doesn't trust me. Or I'm not valued here. All of these things because, surprise, our brain loves to go down the negative rabbit holes instead of the positive rabbit holes.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (20:41.126)
Right. Human beings, right?

Sarah Caminiti (20:44.055)
Yeah, gotta love it. And because you're also asking yourself, what is so bad about this that they can't tell me the truth? And the reality of the situation could be product couldn't get it on the roadmap for this quarter, but they're gonna loop around or they need more information.

Or maybe you missed the deadline, the boss missed the deadline and they couldn't get to it in time and now they know and they were embarrassed. Or maybe it's, you know, the leader is trying to get a piece of tech across the finish line there and it's taking a lot longer and they're having to jump through lot of hoops to get there.

There is no reason why you can't tell your team what's really going on because they are on this journey with you and the same applies to your customers too.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (21:39.784)
Right. Yes.

Sarah Caminiti (21:40.353)
You can be honest with your customers. You can be transparent with your customers because they are invested in the company's success. And yes, there are times where it definitely makes sense to omit certain things. It's not always going to be the way to go, but to bring it back to how to start in leadership thinking about transformation, it is.

taking up space and owning that space and sometimes that space is messy. Sometimes that space is embarrassing. Sometimes that space is uncomfortable. And for a lot of women, that space is going to be uncomfortable, especially when you're doing it the right way. It's going to be so uncomfortable because folks are not used to you taking up space. And so they are going to try to make you take up less space because that's

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (22:14.588)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (22:35.015)
No.

Sarah Caminiti (22:39.551)
what they're comfortable with. That doesn't mean it's wrong.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (22:41.88)
And it's also where the expectations live, Especially when you get to leaderships, the more you grow up, the more expectations about what you can deliver and pressure is on you. So it is as important to take up space when you need it because that's really what makes you also see things a little bit more clear. The challenge, Sarah, as you know, it's

Sarah Caminiti (23:07.535)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (23:11.738)
It's really the expectations that are on us for the most part, where we feel afraid of really, you know, being totally vulnerable in a way that we acknowledge that we need to take a moment before we can proceed. Because there are so many expectations on us that failure is not an option, but it is an option because we are human beings.

Sarah Caminiti (23:14.606)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (23:36.076)
We are human beings and that's I love that point because I think that that comes back to the definition of transformation and the gap there in a lot of ways because that that feeling of those high expectations the feeling that you're not allowed to fail that feeling that everything is on your shoulders and yours alone to to go about this in a very specific way usually those feelings happen because of ambiguity

because there is not a shared language, because there are definitions attached to words that you may not know what those definitions actually are. so transformation, for example, if you have your boss come to you and say, need you to transform this and you say, okay, well, he means I need to blow this all up and I need to build this from scratch. And maybe he does mean that it's really important to get them to say it.

because if they don't say it, then you're running on an assumption and you're not going to be successful. Yes, so just go to them and say, when you said this, what did you mean? And that's all you have to say. Don't try to define it. Don't try to give your take. Give them a moment.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (24:36.646)
and an assumption.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (24:41.628)
recipe for failure working on assumption. Yes.

Sarah Caminiti (25:02.243)
to be explicit and then reiterate it back to them because sometimes folks say things.

and they mean something a lot heavier than they intended and it takes someone repeating it back to them to be like, this is unreasonable. This is actually not what I mean. This is actually so far removed from what I mean. But you won't know any of this until you feel comfortable enough to take up space because then you'll feel comfortable enough to ask those questions.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (25:20.978)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (25:39.336)
And how important is clear communication in all these, right? As you were just mentioning, it's it's from a leaders or even an individual contributor. It's if you're getting requirements from customers, for example, to develop a new feature or something, you always want to work on the basis of having clear requirements. Right. And that applies, I think this is universal to everything. That's when you are not clear about what this is about. Ask.

Sarah Caminiti (25:43.754)
That's it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (26:09.008)
and ask and ask until you have all the information that you need. And people may think this is basic communication, but you would be surprised at how frequent this happens all the time.

Sarah Caminiti (26:09.241)
Yep. Yep.

Sarah Caminiti (26:21.241)
Well, and I think too, something that I've realized is such a core pillar of leadership and CX especially is I view my role and I view like the function of CX in a lot of ways is we need to help, we need to empower people to be able to achieve what it is they're looking to achieve.

but we need them to feel safe enough to ask questions no matter what. Because asking for help tells me that you care enough about getting it right. And if you're not asking for help, there's either something that I have done to create a culture or a dynamic where you don't feel safe enough to ask questions, or you don't see.

the value in it enough to get that clarity in order to go forward. And what happens in these, especially in these transformation initiatives, structurally and in relation to the tech is when you're not asking enough questions or when you haven't received enough clarity, you skip the foundation and you get to the part that's flashy.

You try and breeze to the part that's flashy as fast as you can because that seems like where the transformation exists. But the reality is nothing that is flashy can exist until the foundation is rock.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (27:47.622)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (27:49.007)
solid and from a team building scenario to strategic functions and different strategies and systems and processes to leveraging tech the right way, nothing can happen until

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (28:07.698)
Yep.

Sarah Caminiti (28:13.419)
you have a strong foundation. And that's one of the cool things that I get to do in this new role is I get to teach people what a solid foundation in CX actually is. Because a lot of these companies don't have anybody in CX full time. They don't understand the complexities that exist at a foundational level. I how many horror stories have we heard where they say just turn on the AI?

the AI. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (28:50.554)
especially in times of AI, Especially now in this period that we're going through.

Sarah Caminiti (28:53.447)
Yes! it's... We've been going through it long enough. You can't live under the excuse of you didn't know. We know! We feel it as consumers what happens.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (29:07.008)
History books will have a lot of fun when we look at it in the future about this period. AI is bringing so much, of course, but it's also a mass that people are just thinking that it's plug and play. And I love that you reframed this in a way that people need to understand that transformation, right? Especially when you get to the tech transformation, which you're right, Sarah, that's what people try to go and rush through.

Right? the first thing that they need to do to transform the whole operation before the solid foundation is in place. If you don't have a solid foundation and a person on an extra structure, all right, on your company, when you get to the tech transformation, it's going to expose your weak processes and everything that it doesn't work. And so tech transformation doesn't exist without having the solid foundation, as you were saying. Can't agree more with that.

Sarah Caminiti (29:36.292)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (30:06.159)
Having the solid foundation and I'll also add to it, having a strategy and a plan in place for the individuals that are going to be maintaining that foundation. Because same thing, when you own a home, you learn quickly that maintenance is required to avoid 20, $30,000 surprises.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (30:18.664)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (30:30.731)
So if you are a homeowner, know, you know, in the winter, if you live up in Maine, you've got to turn off your your spigots for for outside with your hose, because if you don't, you will have pipes that burst because they will freeze because they're still producing water through it. And if you have pipes that burst, that is a very, very costly piece of of the homeownership surprise puzzle. And the same thing in in in tech.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (30:52.296)
you

Sarah Caminiti (30:58.475)
If you are building your foundation, which really begins and a lot of time ends around your knowledge base, and if your knowledge base is solid for one day, it will likely not be solid two days from now. Something will have changed that needs to be addressed. And so who's managing your knowledge base? If you're having AI,

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (31:14.962)
you

Sarah Caminiti (31:25.823)
have any sort of communication with customers, who is doing constant QA on that? Who is doing the automations analytics? Who's actually analyzing all the data that you're pulling in? How are you making things better? How are you taking that information and sending it over to different departments? How are you using this strategically within your space and what you can control? And if you don't have someone

who even has like an actual schedule that separates Q work from AI maintenance work or optimization work. You're just saying, we'll figure it out. You have failed. You have failed before you even started because it's gonna change rapidly. You are going to get overwhelmed.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (32:13.49)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (32:22.071)
you are going to be surrounded by a lot of different kinds of noise, different kinds of fires when you introduce AI into your world. And it's gonna be so much harder to think, who am I gonna train for this? What do they need to know? Is their job title gonna change? Is this gonna be a career growth opportunity? What is this going to look like? Because yes, a lot of that tier one work can potentially.

be used by AI. mean, hopefully a lot of it will actually be something that gets fixed within the product because at the end of the day, something's causing folks to reach out.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (32:55.624)
Right.

That's it. That's a good point though. That should be the actual hope that it gets fixed. So not even we need AI for that.

Sarah Caminiti (33:07.339)
one would hope. No, no, we need we need that the actual product to improve so that people aren't asking these tier one questions all the time. But I mean, I could do another whole podcast episode with you on that. But but really, it is what jobs need to be done now. And that's why I love this podcast so much, because you force people

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (33:13.66)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (33:21.32)
I'm sure we can.

Sarah Caminiti (33:37.219)
to think about what jobs need to be done now and how that does impact the worker. And I think that the opportunity for elevation within one's career is incredible right now. If you are a leader who elevates your team and gives them space to explore and grow, because a lot of their work is gonna change, but that doesn't mean that their purpose is gone.

That means that you have a subject matter expert on your team and you need to figure out how to leverage them correctly because they... Yeah, because if you end up letting all of these folks go, you're gonna end up hiring a lot of newbies in and they are not gonna have that tribal knowledge that all the folks you said goodbye to. Yep, completely gone.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (34:12.648)
how to empower them, right?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (34:22.61)
that context will be gone, right? When you remove your most experience without context, AI is nothing at the end of the day.

Sarah Caminiti (34:30.215)
Yep, and if you're not working on your knowledge base, none of that tribal knowledge has been transferred into any sort of documentation. Yes it is! Exactly, but that's the foundation. That is the foundation for everything.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (34:38.202)
And that is hard work, my friend. That is never ending, nonstop hard work. And that's the foundation. And you cannot run away from it. Absolutely. All right. So my next question, Sarah, is what do you think leaders should ask before they get any advice?

Sarah Caminiti (34:50.35)
Nope.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (35:06.536)
from outside sources into their organizations. What do you think leaders should ask, especially in times of AI and transformation that we're talking about? What are the things that you think leader should ask, you you for example, when they're bringing you in and they want to transform their operations?

Sarah Caminiti (35:27.097)
I love this. I feel like I've said that for every question. These are great questions. I think that there's two layers to this. I think that if someone is working with someone who is a CX expert and they want to really take advantage of that, I think one of the first things that you should do is you should have that CX expert have some sort of communication with your frontline team to understand what the reality is and figure out where those gaps are.

along the way, because sometimes we don't ask and they are the ones that are doing the day to day. They are the ones that are hearing the pains of the customers every day. They feel everything in ways that nobody else, no data source even is going to be able to feel it. So give them space to have an honest conversation with the team. And...

see about an AI readiness audit. I think that that is something that needs to be considered. But I think beyond just that foundational stuff, asking the question either to yourself first or to a partner that you bring in, what do I actually need to leverage AI for? What problem is AI going to solve? Because it's not everything.

It is what specific to you is going to be improved by bringing in an AI tool. Because I'll be honest, in a lot of cases, I do not think that a chat bot that is in replacement of a person

makes sense. I do think it makes a lot of sense in e-commerce though because a lot of those questions about returns around order status, yes like that's just regurgitating information and a lot of people especially millennials I feel like don't like having to like call and ask about a return or initiate a return because I know myself I will end up giving

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (37:16.626)
Yep. Billing, invoicing, refunds. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (37:36.639)
some really intense reason as to why I just ordered a shirt in the wrong size and I need to return it. Suddenly it's attached to a relative that doesn't even exist who passed away recently and there's too many tear stains on it and I just I need help getting this thing returned. No one needs that information especially since it's it's not real. So using a chat bot for that

It's emotionless. is transactional. That's it. That is giving you the tools you need to be successful in a way that makes sense to you. But in other scenarios, I don't think that it makes a lot of sense.

Sometimes it really is impactful to have a human answering those forgot your password questions because that's usually one of the first times the customer has an interaction with an actual person from the product. And that is your opportunity to show them that you value them enough to staff a human to talk to them and check in with them and support them and elevate them. Not all the time, but

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (38:14.386)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (38:32.722)
Right.

Sarah Caminiti (38:43.043)
don't feel like you have to eliminate all of that quote unquote low hanging fruit because if you look at your CSATs, you'll probably find a lot of your high score CSATs are related to that low hanging fruit. Yeah, because other people are not having, or those customers are not having that same experience at other places because they're getting a chat bot.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (38:46.962)
Ryan. Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (38:58.162)
Low hanging fruits, yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (39:09.401)
They're getting shoved a knowledge-based article they've already read three times. They're getting all of these other things. They're not getting someone caring enough to walk them through it, to check to make sure that it actually went through, to be a person. And so they are gonna stop what they're doing and they are going to give a CSAT rating that is very high. And they'll probably skip the CSAT section of the other companies that are automating those questions.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (39:39.346)
That's why it's so important designing the best solutions for your customers based on the experience you want them to experience. And that's where the hard work is.

Sarah Caminiti (39:47.253)
Exactly, exactly. And that's why you need an expert too, to have those conversations with because it is so overwhelming and it can go down so many different roads. And if you don't have somebody that's been there, failed a few times, felt the pain a few times, seen what happened, then you're putting yourself in...

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (39:52.978)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (40:01.756)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (40:12.311)
in a disadvantaged space that does not need to exist. Like you can ask for help. You can ask, does this make sense? And to be honest, when you're asking for budget for these tools, it's gonna be a lot easier for you to have a thoughtful conversation with whomever it is that needs to give you that final approval. If you're not saying, I'm just going to add AI to do a bunch of stuff.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (40:38.096)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (40:39.183)
Instead you're saying I am NOT going to leverage AI to do this because I don't think that it's valuable where we are right now. I am going to leverage AI to do this because I think that it will reduce volume by 15 % and I think that that will allow our agents to be able to do XYZ and and have bandwidth to do these complex things. That is how you're going to get budget for things.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (41:05.98)
That's what moves the needle, and especially on that type of budget conversations, right? So Sarah, we talk about transformation a lot, right? But, and I know this next question is something that you're also very kind of near to, which is what can we, how can, what actually creates momentum, right, in a team that has been burned before? And how we can transform that?

So curious to hear your thoughts on it.

Sarah Caminiti (41:39.481)
I mean, it depends on the kind of trauma and damage that they've experienced, but I think that starting very, very small...

is the best way to do it. So let's say for example you have been told no to bring in any sort of AI tool for a really really long time and and everybody's feeling discouraged everybody's feeling burnt out and and you just you think it's a lost cause that you're going to be understaffed under under resourced all of the unders and you're just going to be drowning all the time instead of just accepting defeat which

I don't fault you for doing that, believe me, I have done that many times and sometimes that needs to happen at least for just a little bit for you to catch your breath. Think about what you can control. It goes back to figuring out what you actually have control over. Just like from a personal perspective, in your team space it's the same thing. So what do you have control over? Well, I have control over...

how much pressure I put on my team to answer within a certain time period. I have control over how much opportunity my team has to pause in between conversations so they can kind of collect their thoughts and do that context switching, which will result in more thoughtful replies to the customer if they have that space to breathe. I have control of the knowledge base. So maybe you think, okay,

I'm all right with our, our, you know, average handle time to go up a little bit. I want to take these two folks that are really, really great at explaining things, really, really good at breaking things down. And I want to give them four hours each a week.

Sarah Caminiti (43:24.047)
to go into the knowledge base and start picking away at it. Come up with a maintenance calendar. That was something that I did at a past job that was really, really helpful to make it seem less overwhelming. I gave a certain period of time and took all the different categories and then I spaced it out throughout that period of time. And this was the focus. You did not have to deviate from that focus. And so then that's how you build that momentum. Okay, this week, this

category is my focus. No context switching. I'm locked in on this. I'm going to be able to spot things across multiples. Holy cow. In four hours, I fixed eight.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (43:56.69)
Ryan.

Sarah Caminiti (44:06.347)
Knowledge base articles? What? That's nuts! And then the next week you do it again with a different topic. You've just done 16 knowledge base articles that were outdated in two weeks time and that was just one person. And so you do those little teeny tiny things. You build momentum because the other folks on the team, they're going to feel it too. They're going to think, how can I?

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (44:09.063)
Yeah.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (44:19.368)
Mm-hmm.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (44:31.271)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (44:34.595)
build momentum in something I'm actually really good at. Maybe I think about a process to make this certain situation flow a little differently or have it be a little bit more organized. You know what? Let's try it. And if you are a leader that's trying to build momentum, you have to be a leader that is okay with failure.

because it's gonna happen and you need to celebrate it as data because that's all that it is. You tried something which takes bravery, which takes vulnerability, which takes space that needs to be made for that person to feel capable of trying something that's not a guarantee. You need to celebrate the bravery and the vulnerability and the risk behind it. Figure out what didn't work.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (45:00.072)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (45:23.735)
And then move on. And that's it. The world does not end.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (45:29.064)
And that should be it. And I love that perspective because I think sometimes we don't give enough time to really try. it's all about how we do things, right? And how we implement things and how we bring our teams and our people to feel part of the mission in a way that they feel like they're trying new things. And listening to you right now, it's kind of the power of how

Focus time, it's important, right? When people really focus on tasks and they can see the results of it and what they achieved, it empowers them to keep going. And I think that changes, right? That really changes how they feel about the job, especially.

Sarah Caminiti (46:09.251)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Well, and also if you're giving folks time to do something that is meaningful and beneficial to everybody, but it's just you're giving them time, you're also showing them that you value them and their skills enough to take them out of the fires of the queue to do something else that's going to make everything better. And they're then a part of the journey. And you want...

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (46:28.018)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (46:40.751)
your team to be a feeling like they're a part of the journey, just like you want your customer to feel like they're a part of the journey, because if they feel like they're a part of the journey, then they're invested and they're invested in your success. And you want people to be invested in the success.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (46:58.768)
Always, right? Because that's really what changes everything. It changes people attitude. It changes how people see the work they do, the mission that they can be part of, the customers that they serve. So yeah, I love that perspective. Thanks for sharing that, Sarah. And I want to ask you next about the challenges that we all go through.

Sarah Caminiti (47:03.052)
It is.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (47:25.768)
We really see CX as a mirror or power. And I want to go a little bit where it gets uncomfortable, which is powers, incentive, leadership behavior. So what type of incentives do you think sabotages the actual customer experience when we look at the state of CX today?

Sarah Caminiti (47:52.557)
I think it's just, there's a lot of noise. I think there's a lot of noise and that noise is distracting folks from those foundations of what actually gets a customer to feel invested in the success. And so there's a lot of tools. There's a lot of promises. There's a lot of a lot of stuff and it's changing every single day. But if you can hone in on what good looks like to you.

for your team, your company, for your product, for your customers. And keep putting things through that filter. Then you're going to be a differentiator.

because it's those products that say that they do everything, that actually don't do anything, that are gonna bite you in the butt down the road. It's the niche products that are really going to change the game. And you can't know that you need a niche product if you haven't taken the time to figure out what does good look like here and what is the best way for me to achieve it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (49:02.354)
Love that. Love that. Thank you. And Sarah, we're heading into the final segment. I know we're running a little bit out of time. Yes. I know. So I'm going to try to make it quick. So it's just your piece of advice, right? What is your piece of advice for really human beings navigating this AI era?

Sarah Caminiti (49:13.241)
Sadly. What did we think? Only carving out this chunk of time. We need like four hours.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (49:31.196)
And especially if you can tie to transformation, that would be a beautiful way to end our conversation today.

Sarah Caminiti (49:39.907)
I think one of the biggest things that we all need to be reminded of is we are capable of so much more than we realize. We are capable of incredible things, incredible transformations. And if you are in this world where you are surrounded by noise and buzzwords and what you should be doing, acknowledge that it exists. But then remember, you are very skilled at what you do. You were hired.

because you are very skilled at what you do. Trust that. Build off of that. Try not to build off of the should things that exist everywhere.

Just lean into your own power and your own greatness and how you're going to help other people see their power and their greatness because it has a ripple effect and that's related to tech, that's related to systems, and that's really related to the people that power all of it.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (50:40.232)
Beautiful. Sarah, thank you for the words of wisdom and inspiration. It has been a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you, my friend.

Sarah Caminiti (50:48.963)
Thank you so much for having me. I hope you have a great day.

THE HUMAN PROTOCOL (50:51.974)
Thank you, everyone. We'll see you next week. Take care.