I recently connected with Ozkan Demir, CEO of Pisano, an all-in-one experience management platform that feeds voice of customer (VoC) and voice of employee (VoE) programs back into businesses. The Pisano platform offers reporting and analytic capabilities to help companies better listen to and understand their customers and employees, and allow for the collection of omnichannel feedback and close-the-loop mechanisms.
Our conversation focused on the challenges and opportunities in the employee experience (EX) segment as well as Demir’s thoughts on EX maturity levels. (Responses have been edited for clarity.)
Can you provide some information on the genesis of Pisano and how your background led you to start the company?
I am from Turkey and started working quite young, with one of my first jobs being on a trade zone close to Istanbul. Thanks to my dad, I learned to speak English quite early. I have spent time playing professional volleyball and basketball and am a graduate of Boğaziçi University where I earned a degree in computer engineering.
Before starting the Pisano story, I worked remotely from Istanbul for an American startup as a product manager and software developer. All customers, marketing, and sales employees of the company were in the United States and development was in Istanbul. I began to see the disconnect between those two teams. A lot of features and functionalities were being requested that were not really core to the product and weren’t really being used by the customer. After we worked on the connection between the various teams, we were able to increase our sales and deliver more value to our customers.
I had been thinking about moving to the US but ended up meeting a VC partner who liked to invest in people. They believed having the right people is the primary factor in making a business successful. I had been thinking about starting a business where listening would be embedded into business processes. So, we decided to focus on creating solutions that would help companies listen and connect to their customers. Each piece of feedback teaches, whether it’s positive or negative, and we felt like this was a capability that many companies lacked. This was years ago when we hadn’t heard much about CX or voice of the customer. We were a bit naïve and didn’t know how the market was evolving to be a bit busy and somewhat complicated in other parts of the world.
Pisano has been providing CX solutions since 2015. Were EX solutions provided in your solution set from the start?
We have not been offering solutions for EX since the first day. Back then, people were new to the idea of employee experience, and they thought about it mainly in terms of compensation, promotion, onboarding. But there are a lot of tiny details that affect the experience of the employee.
Turkey Isbank was one of our first landmark customers – it’s a bank with a large branch network and the main driver of their CX was the experience of their employees. We helped them start a process where they asked their customers about the branch experience, and then they went back and asked their employees. We started to focus on if the branch staff were able to use the tools. Did they have the necessary information about the products they were selling? At that point we did an analysis of the correlation between the experience of an employee within that transaction and the correlation with the experience of the customer. It was a fantastic project. In 2019 we applied to a CXPA award, and that particular project was nominated as one of the best ones that has been done with customer experience.
So, that’s how we started to look at employee experience – in close combination with customer experience. We have seen and believe that this is a huge area that is crucial for every business. Employees should be considered “customers” of their employer. With that in mind, we have started to develop deeper EX capabilities.
Now we are at a point where the employment world has been greatly changed by the pandemic. We are now seeing about 60% of our requests being for EX rather than CX. These customers are coming to us in immediate need because of the Great Resignation and because of the shifting mindset towards the employee. Customer centricity has been talked about for years. Employee centricity is relatively new and it’s booming.
What are some of the painful EX challenges your customers or potential customers face, and what are some barriers to successful EX technology implementations?
For the CX segment, even before VoC, we knew what customers did – we had transactional data, call center data, so forth. If you wanted the data, it was there. For employee experience, you are looking at a lot of legacy, old school HR systems and process that were not really designed to listen. These systems were mainly designed to guide employees through funnels and processes they need to go through. There was also a lack of awareness to all that VoE can provide. In the geographies that we serve, VoE was very new to many companies when we first started. Some of these companies were maybe doing one 360 evaluation a year. They didn’t track the journey of the employees to uncover moments of truth, like the onboarding journey, candidate experience, and offboarding. Even feedback collection wasn’t heavily used.
For implementation, on the EX side, technologically it is not typically difficult due to the regulations, which can vary a bit locally. However, where we typically operate, there are one or two, maybe three core HR systems. Due to regulations, this particular market is not a heavily occupied business area. So, when we are actually introducing our solution into a customer’s environment, it’s not difficult as we have a high awareness of the few systems that we are dealing with.
The big difficulty is with trust and confidentiality. When you start these programs, you need to win the trust of the employees so that they respond honestly. People want it to be kept anonymous and there can be some hesitation. To overcome this, Pisano provides 360-degree anonymity and also confidentiality. We know it’s sensitive data – people are providing feedback about their manager or co-workers. All data is encrypted in our database. On top of that, we provide a system to win the trust back. Being able to perform a closed loop looks like magic on the EX side, because it’s much closer than a customer closed loop. It’s literally an arm length. When it’s done well, employers get back to their employees about the results and change processes that need to be changed. This pays off with happier employees.
Do you have thoughts on EX maturity level/adoption in Europe vs. other parts of the world? What are you personally excited about with the future of EX?
We are literally in a period of great change. We are exactly in that moment. Previously, and I am not talking about the US or Western Europe, a company’s value and power was much bigger and unbalanced towards the company rather than the employee. Now, due to entrepreneurship, a lot of new businesses and fast-growing companies are seeing that the growth really happens with the people. It’s the talent that makes businesses succeed. And also, I believe, it’s a change in leadership and management approach. We used to think of one leader that will drive growth and people follow, and now companies are understanding that even the newest members of a team are owners of something and are making change happen.
North America and Western Europe are definitely leading. In other geographies like Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, the number of conversations about EX solutions are increasing.
We are seeing sustained and growing interest. It’s just starting. Right now, we have clients in more than 20 countries in EMEA in a variety of industries like banking, financial services, retail, telecom, insurance, and travel & hospitality. I am super excited about this space. CX has been around for decades, and technology companies have been developing CX for years, but we are still talking about how to get a CX project on executives’ agendas and figuring out how to present it to the board. Employee experience is getting to be so important that it’s not just the responsibility of an HR team, but it’s part of a CEO’s job, and it’s exciting to see it have visibility further up the corporate chain.
On the EX side, if you aren’t doing well, you will not survive and thrive. If you don’t have your employees’ and staff’s loyalty, if they don’t share your company’s vision, it will be very difficult to grow and move ahead. A company can only move as fast as its employees are moving. If it’s a small business, as fast as its slowest employee. A larger company will only move as fast as its median. So, experience of an employee is directly related to the experience of the company.
When we are getting together with CEOs, they are only talking about employee experience. How can they attract and retain the best talent? The key is to know it’s not just the tool, or the medium, but it is helping to provide purpose. We feel the market is big and we are really excited to make more of an investment to be active in it.
What advice would you give a company in choosing a vendor to support their EX needs?
It depends business to business, of course – preferences and priorities for what is needed can really vary. For the regions we serve, the majority of companies are new to EX, so they really need a tool that is ready to use. Have the surveys, dashboards and reporting ready to go and easy to use. Pick a company that makes it easy to buy, implement, and will be there for you with deep experience.
The fact is, EX needs to be addressed pretty urgently. It’s different from CX in that regard. How horrible would it be if you lost your top performing manager tomorrow? Unlike CX, you often can’t entice an employee back with a lower price or better offer. It’s too late! Time is the biggest enemy. For example, if you are late with your communications, perhaps sharing your new salary scheme, your top performers will be gone. So, my advice is start tomorrow – it would be better if you started yesterday or a month ago. Start the listening and understanding so that you can act on the things that will result in a positive outcome for your employees and your company.
Author Information
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
