Theresa Szczurek Of Radish Systems On 5 Ways To Create a Wow! Customer Experience

Know your customer well. Listen and learn. Understand how to provide them value.

As a part of our series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Theresa Szczurek.

Dr. Theresa Szczurek’s illustrious career spans leadership roles in both private ventures and public service. As Co-founder, COO, and Corporate Board Member of Radish Systems, LLC, she spearheaded the development of groundbreaking telecommunications technologies. Her entrepreneurial journey includes leading Radish 1.0 to a successful acquisition and later founding Radish 2.0, which set industry standards in mobile communications. Beyond entrepreneurship, Dr. Szczurek’s tenure as Colorado’s Chief Information Officer underscored her commitment to advancing information and communications technology across state agencies. A sought-after thought leader and author, she continues to impact the technology landscape through strategic consulting and board memberships, all while fostering innovation and leadership development.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I grew up in a large, blue-collar, Polish family in the suburbs of Chicago with a solid education at St. Mary of Czestochowa Catholic School. As my personal foundation of core values took form, including the importance of integrity, my determination also gained strength. My motto became: “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

As a first-generation college student, I was one of the first in my family to graduate from college. I fell in love with higher education, continuous learning, and the impact it can have on one’s life and the community. I became curious, learned as much as possible, and got the best grades. It paid off. My first job after graduating with my B.S. in Mathematics was as a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) with AT&T Bell Labs, the premier research and development labs. A family friend and another fellow student opened the door; this shows the importance of making and keeping relationships along life’s journey. This began my love to work with the right people to improve business communications.

Twenty years later after that beginning, I was living my dream –or so I thought — climbing the career ladder. But I didn’t realize the price I would have to pay for my position as one of the highest-ranked women in my division. The lack of a personal life and 60-hour workweeks were taking their toll. Behind my back, colleagues resented my promotions. My boss instructed me to act without integrity, “Kill Larry or Larry is going to kill you.” Then the company sent that boss, instead of me, to announce the new product I had worked on for three years. Finally, my heart broke through over my rational-thinking head and cried out, “Make changes. Follow your heart, in harmony with your head. Pursue passionate purpose.”

I heard the wake-up call. I left to pursue the entrepreneurial dream. After we sold the first venture, Radish Communications Systems (aka Radish 1.0), people asked me how we did it. So, I undertook a rigorous, multiyear, research study to distill a practical approach that others could use to get all they want in life. I speak about and authored the Amazon-bestseller, Pursuit of Passionate Purpose (Wiley), which provides my proven, step-by-step success formula.

Taking a nearly two-year tour of duty in the public sector away from my latest tech venture Radish Systems (Radish 2.0), I served in the Governor’s cabinet as State of Colorado Chief Information Officer and Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Information Technology overseeing all IT/cybersecurity and leading digital transformation for the $30B state. My wildly important passionate purpose was “Customer Delight.” I still pursue that purpose as I run Radish 2.0 and as I consult/coach/speak/provide value as a corporate board member.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

When I was starting at Bell Labs, we used computers based on the Unix operating system. In Unix-based operating systems, the “*” or asterisk can be used as a wildcard character in command-line arguments to represent multiple files or directors. “rm” is a command to remove or delete your files. Unix had no protections built in. So, if you typed in a command, a little box would NOT pop up to ask you “Are you sure you want to do this.”

One day, a directory appeared on my computer entitled “*”. How it got there, I was initially not sure. When I saw it, I made a big mistake. I typed in “rm *”. All of my files and directories were instantly deleted. I yelled out.

The co-workers in my hallway heard me and had a huge laugh at me. As a joke, my office mate had created the “*” directory on my machine when I had left my desk without properly closing down my computer. Back in those days, there were few computer protections and time-outs. I was naïve to trust my co-workers. The lesson I learned is that security is extremely important for employees and the company. As we know, one careless or malicious action by an employee can lead to a major cybersecurity incident affecting millions of users.

The second lesson is to always have a solid back-up. After this shocking event, the IT department was able to restore my files from back-up. The third lesson is to have a support team and be grateful for their efforts. I said thank you.

For years, I could hear people recalling and then laughing, “Did you know that Theresa actually typed in ‘rm *’ on her Unix machine.” While embarrassing, I was glad that it provided such a learning experience. This case was a joke, but it could have been real.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

In my career and life, I have stood on the “shoulders of many giants” and have benefited from connections with many people and spiritual forces along the way including my parents and relatives, the nuns at St. Mary School, many educators, business and professional teammates, and supportive friends. Sir Isaac Newton is right, “If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

When I was at Bell Labs, I set up a meeting with my supervisor Nelson. I asked him, when will we talk about my career development? He laughed and said, “No one does your career development for you. That is up to you.” It was funny because I was, like many people who are just starting out, too naïve. The lesson is to take responsibility for where you are and where you want to go with your career. Then figure out a plan on how to get there. You can ask others, formally or informally, to be your mentor and to provide you with some guidance. This is why I serve as a mentor and coach for many people. Ultimately, it is up to you. It takes courage.

In starting my first start-up, I found a talented business partner I had worked with at AT&T Bell Labs, Dr. Richard A. Davis (the RAD of Radish). It takes money to make money, even when operating frugally. Where would we get the funding for Radish? It started with founder’s capital and next, we sold unregistered securities through a Private Placement Offering. It is fortunate that Richard and I fell in love and got married just a year after founding the venture. What a strategic funding decision! The weekend of our wedding, we raised enough money, in lieu of traditional wedding gifts, to carry the company for six more months. Our friends and family helped us achieve our dream. I became the ISH of Radish for ‘including Szczurek happily’ and am grateful every day for my supportive husband Richard who has helped me in and beyond Radish.

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business?

The most important element in a successful company is growing revenue that exceeds expenses so there is profit. You can have good technology and products/services, however, if people or businesses do not buy it, it will NOT generate revenue. The most important people, after you, are your CUSTOMERS. The most successful firms are passionate about serving their customers — keeping them, listening to them, providing them exceptional value, helping them become your champions, and attracting more of them. Customers provide sales revenue and without revenue, no amount of cost-cutting and expense management will make you profitable.

Revenue comes from customers who buy your products/services. Happy customers buy more and more of your products/services; they become repeat customers. Repeat customers generate the most profitable business because the expenses to sell to them are low. They spread the word to others who try and then buy your products/services. And they will give you feedback to help you expand your product/services line.

How do you generate happy, repeat customers? Through the right product/service which offers a fantastic customer experience and through outstanding customer service.

We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

The definition of a ‘good experience’ is not always intuitive and apparent and it changes over time. Companies need feedback. Sometimes they do not realize how important certain things are to their customers. Firms will have blinders on and believe their way is the best way. And firms may not want to spend what it takes to create the good experience, thinking that what they offer now is good enough. This is a fallacy. Sooner than later customers will change their buying behavior as a result of a poor experience and stop buying. Ongoing customer research is so critical.

A company may have started with a product/service that provided a good experience, but then technology, market expectations, and competition change. The original concept becomes obsolete. Smart business leaders know they must continue to innovate because there is a ‘change or die’ aspect to business success. Often, they don’t know how to meet the customers’ evolving needs. That is why I conduct customer surveys and focus groups for my clients, and then help them develop and implement plans. I also work to build in the ability to submit customer feedback right through the use of the product, especially via online or mobile applications. Then firms must collect and analyze the data, summarize their findings, be open to new insights, develop a plan, and take action on an ongoing basis to improve the customer experience.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

More competition helps companies to improve customer experience. Here’s why. Customers see innovative approaches from other firms. They then begin to demand and expect that from all competitors. If a firm does not offer that experience, or better yet, deliver an even smoother, faster, better experience the firm will lose out. The customer will go elsewhere. That is why continued competitive analysis is so important. Going to a trade show is one way to get some insights into your competitors. However, inputs direct from the customer’s mouths is best. In the focus groups that I run for firms, I ask the participants about their impression of the firm’s customer experience (CX), what in their mind does that include, what is working to provide a great CX and what is not, what are other firms offering that customers would like to see and don’t care about, and why? I can also test different user interfaces of a product. I can refer to a certain part of the CX, such as customer support, technical support, or even an interactive voice response system.

Other external pressures to force a company to improve the CX include enhancements of technology. For example, with the introduction of Visual IVR (interactive voice response) solutions that have a much better CX, firms with painful, frustrating IVRs will experience more customer attrition and unhappy customers.

Another pressure to improve CX comes from an increased focus everywhere on customer satisfaction. Net Promoter Score or NPS is one increasingly popular measure. NPS is based on one simple question to ask your customers: “how likely are you, on a 1 to 10 scale, to refer your family member or good friends to this firm? Why?´ We want happy customers with high NPS (average 9 or 10) who will promote your firm and brand.

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?

Challenge. As Chief Information Officer of the State of Colorado, one of my wildly important goals was to develop a platform for digital transformation that allows 5.8M residents to have access anywhere, anytime.

The Solution: The myColorado [https://mycolorado.state.co.us/] mobile app with the Colorado Digital ID™ became the solution. With the app, Coloradans can also renew their driver’s licenses, receive notifications about important state news, securely store personal and payment information, and easily search for online state services in one place. Since the initial launch of myColorado with Digital ID, several new features have been added, including access to 17 additional online Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) services with the myDMV integration, Chat support, COVID-19 updates, vaccine records, and helpful resources, access to Colorado’s Medicaid app PEAK®, ADA (or American with Disabilities Act) enhancements, and the ability to search for state jobs.

Action.

The Digital ID enables Coloradans to create an electronic version of their Colorado driver’s license or state identification (ID) card that can be displayed on smartphones for proof of identification, age, and address within Colorado. The Colorado Digital ID is a secure, unique visual representation of what has traditionally been the legally accepted official physical format of a person’s identification. It WOWed Coloradans because it provided great value by allowing residents to interact with government services and businesses in new virtual workflows.

Results. myColorado app with Digital ID received a warm reception from residents, creating customer delight. The residents were WOWed!

Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

After its initial introduction with 50,000 downloads, there are now over 1M copies of the app downloaded. Its functionality keeps evolving over time now providing a wallet, storage of fishing and hunting licenses, and links to other government services. It makes it EASY for Coloradans to do business with the state.

And it WOWed others too, as evidenced by winning an Innovation Award from the National Association of States CIOs. It was one of the first state digital IDs and other states followed.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience.

1. Know your customer well. Listen and learn. Understand how to provide them value.
2. Set the intention. Have a passionate purpose to create a WOW! Customer Experience.
3. Pursue that passionate purpose with a plan, proper people, and persistence.
4. Assess progress. Gather feedback. Recognize what is working and what needs to change.
5. Iterate. Keep working to get better and better.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

• Capture and remember what was done and why there was a WOW!
• Ask for a testimonial. Why was this a WOW?
• Write up a case study to explain the story, if possible.
• Spread the word, with approval from the customer, via communications including your blog, newsletter, website, collateral materials, and social media.
• Do it again. Use this information to create more WOW experiences and encourage further diffusion of the innovation.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

The movement that will bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people is called “Pursuit of Passionate Purpose.” My purpose is to help others find and successfully pursue theirs. After we sold the first venture, Radish Communications Systems (aka Radish 1.0), people asked me how we did it. So, I undertook a rigorous, multiyear, research study to distill a practical approach that others could use to get all they want in work and in life. I speak, lead workshops, coach, and conduct strategic planning sessions based on the Amazon-bestseller I authored, Pursuit of Passionate Purpose (Wiley), which provides my proven, step-by-step success formula. This approach works in both your business and personal life. It helps ordinary people become extraordinary. It starts by finding your passion, connecting it with a meaningful purpose, pursuing that purpose with a plan and the proper people persistently, until you assess progress. Then you recognize success and make mid-course corrections to continue.

Radish is a pursuit of passionate purpose. Another big one I am working on with a group of outstanding leaders is implementing a solution in the world to solve the climate crisis.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresaszczurek/

X: https://x.com/TheresaSzczurek

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!