Future-Proof Your Brand: Adapting to an AI-Driven Customer Experience | Ep 27

Tygh Walters  
When it comes to it, it comes down to like three main topics I would say and habits that you should pay attention to. It's like money time and respect. In the business world, when it comes to money, don't take or keep my money when you owe it to me that as a customer, they deserve a refund and they have a very customers have a very strong sense of justice. A lot of times, if it takes too long, or if you're withholding it, or it's not the exact amount, they're gonna let you know when they're going to raise concerns about it. Similar with your friends. I know a lot of friends used to bet on golf and you guys talk about golf. If you owe some guy money, he's he's letting them know about it. And it's irritating him it's on his mind. So when there's a debt when there's a financial obligation to clear it up, and make sure that it's not like something that's outstanding with your customers your business relationship.

Caleb Roth  
Welcome to the Stacking Habits podcast with your host, David, Matthew and Taylor. Our mission each week is to dig into the habits, rituals and routines have guests who are living life to the fullest. But remember, knowledge without action is worthless. So be sure to take what you hear and put it into practice. turn these words into words in your own life. Without further ado, let's dive in.

David Chung  
Well, welcome to another episode of the Stacking Habits podcast. I'm your host, David Chung with Matthew Osborn. And today we have a very special guest Hi Walters, who is owner and CEO of seller smile, your E commerce customer service team since 2017. Their mission is to help brands deliver the best customer service experiences online. Thanks for joining us, Ty.

Tygh Walters  
Thank you for having me, David and Matthew, great to be here.

David Chung  
Ty, where are you joining us from?

Tygh Walters  
I'm based out of the Pacific Northwest just outside of Seattle. Not quite in Seattle proper used to live there. But we recently moved out kind of to get a little bit more space raise a family. So we're short ferry ride from the Space Needle.

David Chung  
That's awesome. And Ty you and I connected a number of years ago, I think. Was it 2017 or 2018? It was some somewhere around bend. Right? Yeah,

Tygh Walters  
I must have been. And I think it was 2017. And we were attending the same conference, Rocky Mountain reseller conference. I don't believe it's going on anymore. But yeah, we we had this encounter. And like what an example of relationships, right? We must have talked, I don't know, for 510 minutes, not long. But we've maintained like a light contact since then. And here we are today, based off of that once encounter, or that first time meeting. So yeah, I remember that very well. And we had our team there. And I'm happy that it resulted in this relationship.

David Chung  
Absolutely. So we can talk about that relationship. I am really curious to hear more about your experience in connecting brands with their customers and sort of maintaining the relationship between that as well. But before we get into that, tell me a little bit about your background. And you know how the idea of Celer Smile got started?

Tygh Walters  
Absolutely. I was telling Matthew before the call. I'm from the Midwest, born and raised in Wisconsin, and I spent a lot of my life focusing on athletics and football. And that was a major driver in my life. It's transferred over well into entrepreneurship in terms of like competition and preparation and working hard, all of that. But where it started was, you know, I was in, I was living in Athens, Georgia, and I was working in a plant nursery. I was sort of like finding my way in life, like, what do I want my career to be kind of finding that after school. And I was just getting really dissatisfied thinking like, I'm overworked and underpaid, and I'm struggling, I had a side business planting trees after hours and a side business actually building small WordPress websites and like basic marketing, MailChimp, lists, things like that. But, you know, once I ramped up to 6070 hours a week, I was just spent, there was extra money, and it was great. But I wasn't reaching like the potential that I wanted to I was still, you know, at a standard of living that I wasn't quite satisfied with, to say the least. So that led me to just really think my trajectory in life. What did I want to do with the majority of my time, I had already earned a master's degree in kinesiology but I was looking for a career path outside of that there wasn't as much there that was appealing to me. So in I had an experience in grad school where I had to write some computer programs to analyze data. And from that experience, I connected the two and in my website, activity and marketing, and I thought like, I really liked coding, I want to be a developer. So roundabout, long story, that desire that kind of early quest to become a software developer led me to seek out a job with a software company. And I found a company called seller labs that was based in Athens, Georgia. They at the time, were one of the main Amazon software providers, they had a flagship product called feedback genius, which automated Amazon email marketing at the time, and a range of others. They're still in operation today. And the goal was to get in there at the ground level, I'm not I wasn't a developer yet, but get a role that I could manage and then get to know developers. And through that learn and, and we're talking about relationships, I wanted to get next to the people that I wanted to become. And I successfully got that customer service job. And that was like the seed that planted seller smile. And in a very ironic, kind of like, circumstance, I reckon. I never became a developer, I had every other role, I was a customer service agent, a product manager, a QA agent, a advertising management consultant, but I never quite got to writing code. And so that's kind of where I am today. Fast forwarding learning how to code still. But anyway, that learning all those roles in E commerce being exposed to the wide world of Amazon, like going from working on this, like plant nursery, to now learning about what is Amazon What does Jeff Bezos prime all like, and it was so much energy back then in the early years. So I reached a point where within seller labs, I spent a couple of years there, and I think it started to occur to me that the in a similar way, I was working really hard, and not quite feeling I was getting the results I wanted. I was getting into like, fire, financial independence, early retirement, doing my own calculations, thinking about that. And it became more about I think, money is important, but time independence, how much could I control my own schedule, I was living on the East Coast, some of our clients were on the West Coast. And I'm like, answering emails at home after hours. And it just felt like, I feel like I should put myself in a position of ownership where I'm not working as hard. I'm leveraging more of my intelligence. It's more manageable. And that was the seed that those that said dissatisfaction again, right that I'm happy with things, how things are, but it could be better in XYZ ways and seller smile was that attempt to accelerate my journey towards independence and gain some of my immediate time back. And the example I keep thinking about was, if I wanted to go to a concert, I don't know, like, it's silly, but like, during the day, I couldn't I have, I gotta be in my office, I gotta die. I need a doctor's note. I don't know if both of you are entrepreneurs. But if you have jobs like that, there are certain constraints where you need to be places against your will, even though you're doing a great job, even if you could do the job. So I think it was part of that like being able to have tie Walter determine when he works and being I don't know, it's some, it's kind of like a an urge of control. Um, so a movement towards that is really what birth seller smile. And that was back in 2017. And ever since then, we've been learning customer service, e commerce and continuing to grow. And what I'll end there is, this isn't just about me, we're trying to offer this type of lifestyle design and opportunity for every one of our team members. We We, on purpose, have a very self directed schedule. We on purpose, let you pursue other opportunities and support you in your goals. So all of our team members are given the opportunity that I was seeking originally like time freedom, choice, freedom, things like that, where we can all live double lives, right? You can have a family and a business income too. Or you can have a hobby and an income, two things like that. Walk

David Chung  
me through some of the motions that you were feeling when you decided to start your own business, because for many people that's quite daunting to leave, stable source of income, and jump into the world of entrepreneurship.

Tygh Walters  
That's a thank you for the question. It was daunting in many ways. It was the second time attempt for me as an entrepreneur, but the first time as like a real business, not just like a solo side hustle. So So yes, there was many unknowns. And generally unknowns are scary. But for me, it's like any tipping point with behavior change. I feel like it reaches a point where there's some imbalance on the other side, like the daunting pneus of my job and the inevitability of its inevitability of its inability to meet my needs that was more daunting than my doing the new entrepreneur thing. I felt like there was greener pastures, and even a better chance for what I was deeming as success gaining my time independence through that entrepreneurship channel, I think was only a matter of time of like me, gaining that context, that perception of understanding where I was in my professional career. Now,

David Chung  
I'm sorry, I'll go ahead Matthew, go

Matthew Osborn  
to I was curious, I don't wanna get too off track of what we're talking about right here. But just you had said, which I liked when you first started talking about how you wanted that freedom of time. I was thinking at first that you're you're now running the business, therefore you're having other people take on that time burden. But then you said it was also important to you to give that kind of freedom and flexibility to your staff and the people you have on your business as well. And that sounds great. But in my mind, I'm thinking like, normally, when you think of great customer service, you kind of think of on demand customer service. Someone's always there someone's always responding. How do you manage that relationship of getting great customer service will also having somewhat of flexibility for your employees and for your staff? How does that dynamic kind of work? Great

Tygh Walters  
question. Yeah, because we can't just say it and not actually execute on it. And it's a complicated dance that we do. There's a minimum number of team members required. You mentioned that customer service is is on demand thing. And not only that, it's seven days a week, no holidays, we're doing it all the time. So what we do is for, for any one of our clients, we train the number of agents, anywhere from two to five usually is the sweet spot. And that allows us to rotate on certain days and have this rotating schedule where some agents are taking off while some agents are on, there's always an expert, subject matter expert with that content on hand and available that day to take care of it. And in addition to that, one of our core principles, core principles is being independent. So we're not, we have a very light meeting schedule weekly, it's maybe a total of 30 minutes. And so what this allows is someone to structure their own schedule, there's a lot of holes in their calendar, so to speak, where they can insert their own work, it allows them to do the personal things that are a little bit more constraining, and still get their work done. I would say that, you know, we we invest all as well as in ongoing education, we're not our agents are independent, but we're not relying on them to, to seek out what they should know all the time. We're as a team, we're identifying the holes in our knowledge. Like, just recently, for instance, we we realized that we didn't understand a certain feature in ShipStation. So we're bringing the education to everyone. And it's allowing them to stay independent, because they don't need to discover that realize it, or how to fix it, or serving it on a platter and they can continue their daily routine. So on top of all that, that rotating schedule, that weekly cadence, we have a very generous, we'll say like paid time away policy. For certain life events or certain events, we're very aware that burnout is a real thing, especially in customer service. And sometimes it's just too much. So we cross train individuals, and we have a whole protocol for when someone was unexpectedly out that we expected them to be here today. short notice, what do we do, we cancel meetings, we have this whole list of how we just we reorganize our whole group schedule to fill in the gap. And it allows that person to have that freedom that when they need it. That's pretty amazing.

David Chung  
So I guess now that we're on this topic, I guess, I just want to jump into the habits. And the I guess the cadences around brands maintaining a positive relationship with their customers. One of the things that I'm hearing a lot of right now is consistency, just being able to be there when the customer wants to interact with this brand. And it sounds like your work with seller, smile involves a lot of dancing, you said to make sure that you guys are available when the customer needs, you know, assistance. But what are some other habits around, you know, maintaining a positive relationship between a brand and their customers,

Tygh Walters  
there's a lot of them that came to mind. And I want to frame this thinking about your, your business relationships, in how they can be similar or different to a friendship. And some of those habits that you keep with friendships are some of those same ones that you'll want to do with your customers or your clients. There's a lot of different business relationships. But specifically, since we're a customer service agency, I'll talk like, as if I'm talking about like sellers, ecommerce sellers and, and the customers we serve, because we're touching both of those areas. So things like, you know, when it comes to, it comes down to like three main topics, I would say and habits that you should pay attention to. It's like money, time and respect. In the business world, when it comes to money, don't take or keep my money when you owe it to me that as a customer, they deserve a refund and they have a very customers have a very strong sense of justice. A lot of times, if it takes too long, if you're withholding it, or it's not the exact amount, they're gonna let you know, and they're gonna raise concerns about it. Similar with your friends. I know a lot of friends used to bet on golf and you guys talk about golf. If you owe some guy money, he's he's letting him know about it. It's irritating him, it's on his mind. So when there's a debt when there's a financial obligation to clear it up, and make sure that it's not like something that's outstanding with your customers, your business relationship. That's something that we pay special attention to we're we like to issue refunds when they're warranted, and I'll give you an example. Seller smile. One of our clients has a Shopify store. And within that we're sometimes editing and working with their coupon codes. Well, one of our agents made a coupon code with a wrong little setting, which meant it would enable it for all cart totals over like $200 so automatically applied. It wasn't the case it was supposed to be like for one single customer. So what happened was dozens of customers got this promo they weren't supposed to. And it was our fault, we had made the mistake. And without our client asking us, we recognized like the morality of the situation, our mistake, the role we played in their financial loss. And we offered that proactively that refunded that credit. And to us, we hope that was impactful for them, they didn't have to spend a lot of time worrying about the money that they felt like we lost them. And that was a way to maintain the relationship. Another example is time. So don't waste my time as a customer or as a client, everyone in this fast paced digital world is getting things sooner and sooner, and that's causing your expectations collectively to increase. We always blame Amazon for Prime shipping and their instant customer service that if you're an independent seller, that's the what you're being compared to. So there's a lot of ways you can waste time or time can be wasted. waiting too long to reply to your customers is the number one, letting a backlog build up not being proactive when things about their order, or shipment have changed, things like that. And, David, you mentioned it, customer service is on demand. So as a business owner, or a customer service professional, the more on demand you can get, the lower your response times that's going to be the better the customers, your clients are waiting less and it feels so good to get a surprisingly fast response. Or even instantly, we talk a lot about the importance of self help systems like FAQs, knowledge bases, self managed return portals, things where the person can get from point A to point B, much quicker. And then the third one, we talk about a habit to maintain his respect, being respectful is a good advice in general. But in the business world, this looks like don't make the same mistakes carelessly, to clients and customers are okay, if you own it. But if you keep doing the same thing that's irritating them that's going to draw awareness. And we've we've noticed that and sometimes a seller smile agents will there's so many ways to not send the right response or not issue the correct resolution to the customer. And if our client is overseeing that, and they take notice, they lose a lot of trust in us that we're able to perform the job that we say we can. So we like to learn once from our mistakes. Try to bake that as solidly as we can into our processes to prevent ourselves from making that mistake. There's other things that come with respect. Don't lie to me, that are deception schemes out there. But your friends want to know the authentic truth your customers do too. So don't be afraid to say the hard thing that needs to be said. I'm sorry, Your order is delayed. I'm sorry, it's sold out. We can't fulfill this, but have a protocol when you need to deliver the hard truth to make it whole to make to make them know that you're respecting them. So I'd say like those main categories, we dive deeper into those but money, time and respect just seem to be the touch points that are the touchiest when it comes to like getting really positive results or really negative ones.

Matthew Osborn  
You seem to have a really systemized approach to your business and all of these kind of procedures in the way you're running. Have you always been a more systemized person in your own personal life and as someone has carried forward into your business? Or is it something that you weren't good at before? And you kind of realized that and then you've brought that into the business sphere, as you've developed personally in that area?

Tygh Walters  
Yeah, I think personally, I feel like I've developed more of a systematic approach over time, there's a lot of good entrepreneurial books and advice that preach on the vitality of systems without them. Without them, I feel like I'm back in that solo struggling printer, you know, single entrepreneur stage where I'm, at my time for money, you know, exchanging that and like kind of like low level operations, I, one thing that comes to mind is the Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a book that's heavily referenced, especially in like SAS culture. And I was introduced to that probably at the peak of, of its when it came out. And that resonated so much with me, because, as I recall, it's about applying the scientific methodology to startups and entrepreneurship, getting validated learning using data to test your hypotheses. And that, from my science, background, and kinesiology, that all super resonated with me, it made me feel like I belong to those that skill set of being systems oriented in science where you're following a method and a protocol. You're not necessarily designing things so much out of the box. So So I guess, like tensor question I, when I read that it clicked and I became more scientific in my approach, the main thing that sciences that I remember from science is like your method, your experiment should be documented so well that another lab in another state, whatever could follow it and get the same result. So talking about systems approaches, that's what we do in our SOPs, that seller smile when we're documenting a protocol, how we should behave, how we should perform. There's video examples, there's links, there's descriptive text, anything we can do to make sure that the The result we're getting for is like actually gotten or like, there seems

David Chung  
to be quite an overlap in, you know, different brands and their relationships with their customers in terms of three things that you mentioned and time, money and respect. You mentioned some core principles, and core values such as like, tell the truth, be honest. And so those appear to be more so, you know, universal truths that lead to, you know, successful relationships between brands and customers. Where does it start to diverge? Where the style or maybe the Yeah, the style of customer service changes from brand to brand? Yeah. Where does it differ?

Tygh Walters  
Yeah, that's a great question. And we talked previously, David about Shopify a little bit. And that popped in my mind right away, where does it differ when you go off of Amazon, when, when you're a seller, or where you're, when you're a business that's operating outside of a platform with unique constraints and setups, most sellers on Amazon appear the same. But when you when you go outside of that, that's where we see the differences shine, their ability to express themselves in their website, and their brand and their policies, everything. So when we work with a seller, we're usually having to navigate both of those worlds, if you're selling on Amazon, where you have to be cookie cutter, and you can't be so expressive. And then when you're selling outside of that, what how that looks in customer service, though, is we have this intake onboarding process, we get on a call like this, and we talk to you about all the things that we need to know, part of what we talk about is your brand and your tone. What is the impression that you want to give your customers how do you want the text to come off, and we have the discussion and ever since since then, as maybe we're many of us are aware, all these AI ll language models are being able to replicate style and tone, just about anything, they can be trained on it. But that's one of the discussions we have. Because I'll give you an example one of our clients used to sell end of life medical equipment, that tone and that style of text is very different. We're talking to a different demographic, in very sensitive situations. So it's more of an academic formal, emotionally bland, but sympathetic. And in certain areas, a whole other side, one of our clients is camping gear, it's usually young people ended outdoors that are they want to be hyped up, we're using millennial language in that. And that's a process that we can come out of the box with some of that language and tone. But it's something that we also refine with the client over time. A lot of times we're taking, like emails and responses that they have, they're saved templates, and we're incorporating starting with those making them better, or we're using those as examples. One of our clients is very particular about language and wording down to what we bold and what we italicize. And so with that we're we have less freedom, but we're using more templated approaches, and that's okay. But you know, it's the clients intention. And the result is there's a more consistent approach, more of your customers are getting that tone and that language that the seller wants to hear. So to answer your question, David, I think it's like, it's it's discovery. A lot of times the clients aren't quite sure they've just written their website in their listings in their own voice. And if you've worked in some of our bigger companies, public companies that have a marketing agency, they there's these different activities to find out your persona and your avatar, and, and all these things. And when we have those materials, we can incorporate them into our emails. We can like we can add images, signature can be fun and wacky or it can be serious. So yeah, I multiple ways to do it. And I think the more we customize our customer service, tone and the messages, the better.

David Chung  
One of the things you briefly touched on was sort of the emergence and the popularization of large language models and AI tools in particular. And I know we, we talked about that quite a bit in our pre call. And I was just looking at the clock to see how long it would be before we started talking about AI and customer service. And we got to a pretty quickly what do you perceive the future to look like with AI tools? And will we be talking to robots in the very near future instead of humans?

Tygh Walters  
I think so. I think it's inevitable, but how it looks how fast it gets there and where in which touchpoints it's in I think is going to be the the the devil is in the details. One thing that I think is going to be central and maybe I should have started off with this. I want to mention that relationships. That's kind of what are the main overarching topics very important. The relationship with yourself very important. I have had the experience of in the privilege of having a therapist for the last two years first It regards, actually a multiple of them from certain relationships and personally, and I think if you have that available to you that that's something you should seek out. It's like proactive health care if I, if I have a health problem, I'm addressing it anyway. But I wanted to say that because I asked my therapist, this question is like, hey, AI is getting really good, like, text based video based, what do you see for your career, because, you know, with with a therapist, you're talking to someone and that an AI is getting to that capability. And his response was, it's all about trust, it will depend on if the technology can make you trust it. If you don't trust AI, you're not going to use it. And it's not going to have the same impact. If you trust it, for some reason, it will be able to hypothetically achieve that same result. When I'm saying that same result, I'm saying the ability to communicate with a human in a transaction in a interchange that allows the result to to be achieved, the result might be a return or refund, the result might be a whole therapy session. But I think if the technology can do it, and it's like, it seems like it's rapidly approaching based on the improvements I've seen over the last few years, it seems like an inevitability. And what I mentioned is my I recently had sort of like an opportunity to get out of customer service and E commerce, but I chose to stay because I want to tell her smile to be a part of that when the technology is probably already there. But it's getting there when it's good enough when it's being applied. I want to see how we can use it and help more sellers, more ecommerce teams apply it to their advantage because customer service, we're doing it the old fashioned way right now. And still. And it's hard. It takes that daily grind and effort hours upon hours, and we still make a lot of mistakes. So I think it's just like, it's an arena that's ripe for improvement. And it seems like a technology that's like perfectly matched for it. Do

David Chung  
you ever feel that there will be a point where the difference between a human representative versus an AI representative is so stark, that, you know, customers will actually prefer an AI representative? I'm trying to think of examples of this. But, you know, I'm sure there are examples like kind of like, how maybe how fax machines were the standard for business communication for the longest time, and email and fax coexisted for a little while. But then after a while, sort of you know, the friction involved with the sending of fax became so large that email became the prevalent form of business communication. Do you anticipate a similar tipping point for AI versus human representatives? And if so, where do you think that sort of friction and lack of friction will be? Very

Tygh Walters  
interesting question. Yeah, you mentioned the different will say like modalities of communication and support. Fax is a great example. It's not so much us anymore. But we have SMS messages or text, email, phone, live chat. And before AI was such a big thing. A lot of sellers were interested in what were called bots, bots, were like programmatic replies that were, I'll say dumb because they weren't AI. But they were still like a modality that sellers were interested in tends to the question that I would, it's hard to say, because AI is being inserted, inserted into all of those modalities. It's now in your email, maybe you're listening to your phone calls. You know, it's listening to the Zoom calls for sure that when we take them. So it's like leveling up all of those modalities. I do know that I attended a Zendesk conference. And they have definitive data that the preference for support modality depends primarily on your age, your demographic, older adults, prefer phone, younger adults prefer self help. And that's like, bots, or knowledge bases, where you can just go to the website and get the answer. That's what I do. If there's a YouTube video for it, or help article, I'm there, and I'm off. So I think taking that model, if you will, David like we prefer what we know and what we grew up with, in five or 10 years, if there's an AI modality versus those, it seems like it followed that pattern, it would be preferred by the younger generation. But if it's in everything, we might just like kind of all benefit from it. Inherently based on how it's woven into the system it's in. We use HelpScout as our CRM, and there's already AI enabled features in there. So customers are like interacting with AI in touch points they're not even aware of.

Matthew Osborn  
I think the most difficult part, at least for me on the topic of AI is that it's advancing so fast. It's very difficult to predict, with any certainty any distance in the future beyond like six months to a year like what AI will look like and be doing two years from now. I feel like it's almost as much as anyone guesses even the top experts snowfield it's as much their guests as the next person is what they will be doing two to three years down the road. I think a good example of that is like years ago, when AI started to appear, and small forums and stuff like that, the everyone thought, hey, it's gonna take over the scientific type things. First, the data things first, it'll never be able to do art. It'll never be able to do the creative things, because you need a human mind to do that. And somehow, AI almost started with the creative endeavors and started creating art and those things and things that we thought, hey, it could never probably do this. It kind of started with those areas and kind of threw off I think everyone's perceptions of it. And so it's difficult. I feel like to gauge where it's going to be. But there was an interview with Lex Friedman did with Jeff Bezos. Have you guys seen that that interview in its entirety at all? Or heard about it? Lex Friedman and Jeff Bezos interview? No,

David Chung  
I've seen very small clips of it. Clips. Okay. Yeah,

Matthew Osborn  
one of the things Jeff Bezos talks about in there that I thought was really profound just to kind of had this talk about technology and where it's going, and how do you know how to focus a organization as large as Amazon. And he said, for any organization, he said, even small ones, Jeff said that people need to focus on what will customers always want, regardless of technology. Regardless of that, he said, customers are always going to want lower prices, he said, he can see a time in the future customers are going to be Hey, I wish I would have paid more for this, or they always want lower prices, they're always going to want their product faster. He's a people are never gonna say, Hey, I wish it came 10 days later, they're gonna want faster shipping, lower prices. And they're gonna want help when they need help, regardless of how that help is presented to them. And so he's like, if you can orient your business around what customers will always need even 10 years down the road, you can be evolved with technology properly, rather than basing your entire structure on him hoping AI goes this way. Therefore, let's try and make my business around this. And so it's interesting that you're thinking about this right now with your business. And like knowing AI is going that direction, you're already thinking, Hey, how can we work with this? to still give the customer the same result and the same customer service? We're giving now that potentially using some artificial intelligence or technology involved in that? Yeah,

Tygh Walters  
it's like humans don't change, but the technology does. So how can we give them what they want? Warren Buffett has a similar idea. And like, what I've read from some of his investments, like what are humans going to want 50 years from now, candy, he has a candy company and like Dairy Queen, so it's like, well, he's gonna want sugar. And pretty much, you know, as long as we're animals and like, so, yeah, I think that the same way, there's like, there's a restlessness in that and orienting your business towards those types of desires. And you mentioned it in sort of Bezos. So we talked about some of those, like, the time and the money, those are like, I don't, I can't see a future where those don't matter anymore. Maybe it will be likely, but they're pretty standard for the most part. So yeah, I would, I would see it the same way.

David Chung  
Now tie, I think one of the interesting things about having you on this episode, specifically for relationships, is sort of being able to juxtapose you know, customer service and like, the relationship between brands, and customers. And you you mentioned, you sort of made a tie to hey, you know, a lot of this is no different from maybe what you'd see in personal relationships between friends. But with AI, it sort of creates an interesting contrast where I don't know about you guys, but I couldn't imagine replacing my friends with, you know, large language models or with AI. Whereas in, you know, in a customer service setting, we can sort of see that reality. And so like, I guess, what is the difference is the transactional nature of the relationship. What are your thoughts on that time?

Tygh Walters  
Yeah. So the difference between interacting with a AI LLM versus a real human? And? I don't know, that's a great question. And I think it comes down to part of what I mentioned before the, in that relationship, it's not an objective analysis of something because they're obviously different, but it's your perception with it. And if you don't trust it, or if you're aware, that it's an LLM, that those things are different, you could be blinded to the fact that it is and you might have a different opinion. So there's it's hard to say, or your opinion could matter based on what your context is. I would I keep coming back to you know, the trust issue but you can't I don't know if you guys get together much physically you can't golf with each other. You can't give each other a handshake or a hug those those things about relationships, physical touch. You can't get them you know, they're still uniquely human. But I don't know some of us getting replaced. Like if, if I was an AI guy right now and you were talking to me, you guys might be both fooled. I have like good eye contact. It feels like you're talking to another human. You might think we have a friendship. And I think if it tricks you it's good enough. Like what's the difference? Almost if but point you notice there's a difference the point where it like fails, like if you ask, Hey, Ty, what's your favorite color, and I said, cow, oh, that's not like a real guy, that's awkward. I don't like him anymore. So I have to be like consistent and convincing over time. You know, I can't change too much, I can't say anything outrageous or, like, if I had weird beliefs, you might, you know, leave my friendships. So it's weird, you know, in many ways, we kind of like create the friends, we attract the friends that we want to be around us, like, we don't go towards those that really reject us or repel us. So I think with an LLM, you'd probably want I imagine, like, maybe you'd want to program it to be more of what you want. And, like looking at it that way, if you could imagine, David, like, if the best programmer could develop the best LLM that can have conversations with you tell you what you want to hear, respond in ways that you're looking for, I think it would be hard to deny that that would be too entertaining, at least. But I think the biggest thing is, you know, it's we're so based in this like physical material world, we know each other has a lifespan, we're gonna die, we change as we age, the LLM is infinite immortal, I don't know. It's like, you know, talking to this, like, God in the in the mountains, I don't, I don't know if you can relate to something like that the same, that doesn't have the same experiences, they can't become parents, right, they can't have a failing business. They're a successful business, they can mimic responses of what it knows humans like to hear in those situations. But I think there's a difference. Knowing that I don't know that like empathy, or that we have heard of mirror neurons, like there's like a compulsive reaction of another physical body to react to you. And knowing that reaction happens is, is magic. And I don't know, I'm more old school, I think that's like something that would be hard to replace.

Matthew Osborn  
Well, I think there's even like we've seen, aside from technology, as far as, like large language models, people still have an allure to handmade items and handmade products versus a product made by a machine. It's not the same as AI. But there's still that sense of, hey, I'm getting this flip flop that was hand leather done by a person it was made in the shop, you feel some type of connection to that, even though there's going to be flaws in that that a machine probably wouldn't have made, we still want that human connection and knowing, hey, this was made by a person sitting down, putting in their own hours, time and effort for me to have this item right here. And even though it might not be as pristine as the one made by the machine, we still have an alert that oftentimes and so I feel like like you said, we can never completely replace that human interaction thing. And I really think as time goes on, there will be almost like a stamp that we'll need of like, hey, this was actually done by a human it was actually written by a human or this was said by a human versus an AI because we'll be drawn to that. I know you guys probably already experienced this. AI and people use chat GBT all the time, you'll read something. And you'll kind of question hey, this kind of sounds almost like something Chet GPT made. And you almost want to dismiss it, even though it's not wrong, you almost certainly want to dismiss it in your mind, because you're like, Hey, David, we have this, this conversation in our Slack channel while ago, how Caleb put a few different thoughts in there. And you and I both thought he was like putting outputs from GPT in there. We didn't think much of it. He's like, No guys, I like took a whole day and wrote like three pages of sauce for you guys. Like, oh, that was actually you writing all that? Okay, let's go back and read that and give it more thought. Because we just we see human interaction is different than the AI interaction, even if it's accurate, I just don't perceive it the same as David actually taking an hour of his day writing out a page of thoughts for me and giving it to me, it's something different about that. And it's tangible.

David Chung  
So I have to real quick. So I think that you bring up an interesting point with that. And I actually have somewhat of an opposing view. I actually think that you know, what humans want what society wants, it's cyclical, and it's based on a sense of novelty and what's, you know, massively available to us? Meaning? Yeah, artisanal crafts and goods are popular right now. But I would argue and say it's because of the last two decades of mass produced, you know, factory made goods. Because if you think before that, Why did everyone want mass produced factory goods, just because you got consistent quality at a low affordable price, you know, and, uh, you knew what you were gonna get, you know, in physical goods, I think there's definitely a cycle, you know, where, you know, there are periods of time where people want more handcrafted goods, because, again, it's not, it's more of a signal to other people, maybe your, your ability to spot trends or, you know, like, have status. But I think what's really interesting is in communication, you know, we talked about how Kayla posted a three page, you know, exposition of his thoughts, right? And we brushed it off because we thought it was generated by Chad GPT. But if you think about five years ago, we wouldn't have thought about that twice, we would have actually read it, and we would have valued it. And so like, I think we're gonna go through these sort of infinite cycles, where there are going to be periods of time where, right now, I'd say like, we're still valuing human connection, just because these large language models, these AI tools, it's just as saturated the market saturated with them. But as we start getting really, really good models that I hate to use the word novelty, but it's just like, so different from the rest of the pack. That's going to be the, the, you know, the style of communication, or the modality that people desire. And then, of course, as that becomes popular, and as that becomes a standard, maybe we'll switch to a different, you know, you know, type of communication or different language model or what have you. And so I actually don't think that humans are hardwired to prefer one thing over the other. I think it really is based on the environment, and it's all relative. What are your guys's thoughts on that?

Tygh Walters  
Yeah, go ahead, Matthew.

Matthew Osborn  
I was curious what your thoughts are gonna think about that. Yeah.

Tygh Walters  
So talking about maybe technology coming and going in cycles for preferring, like standard mass produced versus artisanal? I definitely see that the trend for artisanal only exists because there's the context of the mass produced, which is the more common? Absolutely. You know, I think about like, trying to relate this to ecommerce world. And like what I when I think there, it depends on the context to if I'm one of our clients have very, like high quality, the highest quality urban bags and backpacks you could ever think about. And there's so much product knowledge and specific awareness about that in the owners mind. And the temptation is that like, if we could just like program program, the LLM on that person, it would be like you're interacting with the business owner, who knows everything every time. And hypothetically, the experience would be like, so good, and so well crafted. But right, it's still artificial, you're not talking to them, you're just talking to some program that knows a lot about them and can mimic them. So I, for some people, that's a deal breaker, they want the real thing for other people, I think it depends on their motivation. If you want just the answer to a question to solve your little bit of problem, boom, maybe that's all you needed. But if you wanted to form an emotional connection or relationship, that's impossible, because there's not a person there. So if you so I think then I wouldn't be interested in using one. If I'm going to, I think that's the biggest thing. And maybe like, what I see in determining the preference for either one, if I want to just have a good time with someone and feel listened to, I'd rather talk to a person and that's something that I would choose. I don't know i What is the appeal between between mass producing handmade, there's something about a human touching versus a machine, we feel like there's a humanity and emotion and like livelihood, you're supporting another person one to one. I don't know, if you've had pen pals, you write to some random stranger and they write back. To me, it kind of feels like that, versus another experience, a product of superior quality and design. It just lacks the humaneness behind it, it could might as well have been made from a robot.

Matthew Osborn  
It's really good. Those are good thoughts.

David Chung  
So I guess to that point, Ty, do you think then that humans now now that we've sort of entered the era of machines, where machines can pretty much handle any and all tasks in the very near future? Do you think we've permanently entered the era where us as a society will crave and desire, that human element in all different aspects of life,

Tygh Walters  
I do? Everything I've learned over the years in multiple different contexts from science and religion. In my perspective, it all comes down to that we're social animals. I'm an introvert intp or INTJ. I vacillate, but I'm always an introverted I, my energy is drained in social situations. Even so, I believe that relationships are the key to a healthy personhood. And so I think AI will be ubiquitous in a lot of areas. I'm skeptical on whether it will fill the niche or the role of giving us the relationship vitamin, the whatever that is. And I guess what I said earlier, if, if we have an entity that we feel like we can trust and confide in over time that learns and knows us just like a confidant like a friend, I would have a hard time seeing why that wouldn't be effective, you know, but time will tell and for now, I would urge you to continue to invest in your human relationships. Spend time with people in reality, and virtually like this. It's gonna lead to a healthier, healthier future for yourself, but so, I don't know I just feel like exists. Rated being kind of at the front row seat being in an industry that is being actively changed by this affected by it, as most of us are, are a lot of us are. And I'm ready, I'm exhilarated, I see it that opportunity, I want to kind of ride the wave as it comes out. Let's

Matthew Osborn  
get the feeling that David's trying to replace our relationship with AI is what he's really getting out here. Would

Tygh Walters  
that be more convenient? David, if you could talk to him anytime? And he said, what you want it back? Or would you want? No,

David Chung  
I was actually just thinking about it. It's funny, you bring it up, because one of the things that I I see as a difference between human relationships and you know, my relationship with Chad GPT is that the chat GP, like catchy btw will always give me what I asked for, if I put in an input, it will give me the output that best matches what it thinks that I want. Whereas we have a lot of interactions with people close to us, and we get in conflict. And you know, we have differences. And we have arguments, and we have debate. And I just wonder if that's another part that will hold even more sacred, as you know, time goes on is like, you know, these are elements from human relationships that aren't easily replicatable. Or at least no one's programmed, you know, large language models to disagree with you, right, or give pushback or, you know, friction. But I just wonder if that's going to be one of the things that we start to cherish more,

Tygh Walters  
if you if we have time, I can speak to that perfect segue. Seven years of customer service, or more than that, one thing that I've noticed is in this conflict that you're referring to, in this disagreement, where there's a problem, there's a mistake, there's someone who's frustrated, it's not always bad, it's bad right away. But it's almost like creates a better environment, a better setting, to win over a more passionate relationship and a customer, going through something tough with someone is a great way to bond with them. And if you can save someone, if you can help someone in an urgent time of distress, if you've disappointed them, it sucks, but you have the ability to make it right. And that memory of going from low to high. I think that difference in is the main thing you don't go in from neutral to just success all the time. And like no news is is not noteworthy, I think, to that point. Conflict is part of our psyche. And it exists in our everyday relationships. So it's an existing customer service. And it does I want the brand to to respond with an equal amount of energy when I come to them with an issue and I'm frustrated when I'm worked up. Met, let me trust them for the future. I'm gonna come back to them that will get my back when something goes bad. So yeah, it's a great, it's a great example of how is AI going to handle that? With less mistakes? Do we have less passionate people because just nothing goes wrong? And everyone expects perfection all the time. It doesn't seem like a world I would want to live in. But we know we're always striving towards efficiencies. So maybe it's a double edged sword.

Matthew Osborn  
Do you have any books or podcasts you'd recommend to listeners that have been really impactful for you?

Tygh Walters  
Absolutely. I mentioned a few of them. And your your podcast is Stacking Habits. So I'm guessing that listeners here are like us like we're aspiring or current entrepreneurs are trying to level up in some way. And I'll just say like any book in that way, financially, entrepreneurially is going to move you forward in some way different books resonate with different people. But I think the one that spoke clear to me about like, the frontlines of entrepreneurship is the E Myth. and the E Myth. It's like this. I'm blanking on the author, Robert Gerber, Michael Gerber, the entrepreneur myth, it's, I thought it was like email, like the electronic myth. When I read it, I didn't realize it was about different, like entrepreneurship. And he has these three types of entrepreneurs and like, there's a manager, a maker that has a different one, if you're living in the past, present, or future that opened my eyes to Whoa, like, I might have gotten into entrepreneurship for the wrong reason or like, or did I, it made me question, all of these assumptions I made in my own orientation and entrepreneurship, who I was. And not only that, but what I wanted to be the book is about, like, doing it right, doing it better, and like creating a business that can last long. So if you're into entrepreneurship, you're doing something, the E Myth is going to be, I think, a vital read to set you up your own self awareness as a business owner.

David Chung  
I love that book too. Another great one is good to great. It sort of ties in with the E Myth and a lot of ways. Tie as we start winding this conversation down. We talked about some really interesting topics and we talked a little bit about the future maybe a lot about the future of Customer Service and relationships. If people want to connect with you or seller smile, what's the best way for them to do so?

Tygh Walters  
Yeah, you can go to seller smile.com. It's our website. We have everything there describing who we are, what types of services we offer, anything customer service oriented in the E commerce world we can handle and help you with. I'm on Twitter probably most actively, if you want to follow me personally, at Ty Walters, on Twitter tyg H, strange spelling to my first name. But yeah, I think through both of those channels, that's where I'd be sharing anything that we're up to now and in the future. Wonderful.

David Chung  
Well, Ty, I want to thank you for your time here today. And I think it was just such an illuminating conversation. One last thing I have in my pre notes, I wrote this down I bolded it you talk briefly about I think it was in the context of AI how AI illuminates our shadows is that what do you vaguely remember saying something like that? That sounds like something I would say Okay, I just thought that was so poetic and so beautiful of anything illuminating your your shadow. I thought it was beautiful. But anyway, thanks for this conversation. I feel like illuminated a lot of this shadows are dark points that I don't really think about on a daily basis. So I appreciate you coming on our show.

Tygh Walters  
Thank you so much. Pleasure being here and thank you Matthew and David

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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