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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cut guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy.
[Ad]: Today's checkout features Tom Harris, Chief Revenue Officer at Amasis. Tom supports leading global brands to realize their greatest personalization and omnichannel aspirations and he loves it so much he's been doing it at Amarsys for 10 years.
Nathan Bush: Tom, welcome to the checkout. We, you know, very special international guest, first time on the podcast. First can we have thank you for joining us. We had a great chat with Justin from RideAware in our main episode where we talked about their use for Amsterdam, how he's approaching customer identification and personalized communication. And it was great to hear your perspective from what you're seeing all over the world and with the Amassus platform. But we're here to learn a little bit more about you. I've got five quick questions for you. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Tom Harris: Okay, so I don't know if it's weird, right? So I don't know if it's quote unquote weird. But I, you know I like, I'm a big fan of the mountains. I like going skiing and so when you go skiing it's very important to carb load, right? So cheese, potatoes, all of those things. So I've got this thing where I just love Raclette on potatoes. So I bought myself a Raclette grill to bring the alpine to my London life. So that's the thing I've most bought recently.
Nathan Bush: What's a grill?
[Ad]: I can't even picture it.
Tom Harris: It's a Great question. So what it is, is it's a hot stone where you can cook things on vegetables, meats, all those things. And then underneath it you've got a grill where you basically warm up cheese, turn it into a liquid form and then you push that cheese onto whatever food you want to consume. So it's, I would say, essential for many years.
Nathan Bush: Doing this in the middle of London.
Tom Harris: Yeah, of course, why not?
Nathan Bush: I love it. Number two, which retailer has most inspired you recently?
Tom Harris: I mean, I spoke about it a little bit on the, on the podcast, which was Pet Circle. I just think that the way in which they. Their customer centricity around how, you know, one of my team members, Katie, like I said, she had a situation with, with her dog, for whatever reason it was not needing as much food as well as what it did that she got in touch with with Pet Circle. And rather than, yeah, you know, rather than just say, I don't know, whatever, thank you for purchasing and that's what you've got, they said, oh, thanks for telling us. They gave some, some offers, some, some discounting around the next purchase and then they went, they went above that and they said this is where you can actually donate the food that you've currently got. So I thought that the treatment there was just fantastic. When it comes to businesses that inspire me, it's all about the service, all about putting the customers at the center of what they're doing. That's what I find truly inspirational. I think it makes a huge difference.
Nathan Bush: I love a great example and we had the chat with John Wild from Pet Circle and his theme, even though we hadn't set it up that way, was all about understanding customer. Obviously they're in the master's customer, but I don't think even mentioned you in the, in the episode, but talked all about how customer data is the trigger and the base of everything that they do. So for fantastic case study, that one. Number three, name a piece of tech that you or your business couldn't live without. And again, I'm going to give you two. I'm going to allow you the one. Gimme. Yeah. And then something else.
Tom Harris: Okay. So for me, for me personally, I think this counts, but audible. So I love listening to, I love listening to books, I love learning. So I'm always looking for book recommendations, so if you've got any for me, fire them over. But I'm always asking people or people seem to just tell me what books they're reading anyway. I think it's like that curiosity thing. But yeah, I couldn't live without. Without audible. I think it's fantastic.
Nathan Bush: I agree, I agree. There has to be another piece of tech that you don't mind.
Tom Harris: Would LinkedIn classify. I think that LinkedIn and connecting with people across the globe is fantastic. I've got a, you know, a growing network on LinkedIn. I find it incredibly helpful for networking, for collaborating, for sharing ideas. And since I've been, you know, using that more and more and more, I'm finding that, that, yeah, I'm growing my network and also learning a lot from, from different people and also being able to add a little bit of value as well.
[Ad]: I love it.
Nathan Bush: You know where I was going with that? I was like giving you the lead into Plug A masses.
Tom Harris: Ah, but I can't, I can't. I don't think I can do that. I don't think I can do that. I don't think, I don't think I can plug my own, my own platform into a technology I can't live without. Obviously I would say that goes without saying.
Nathan Bush: There we go. I love it. All right, number four, can you recommend. Oh, here we go.
Tom Harris: Good contin.
Nathan Bush: Can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? What have you been enjoying?
Tom Harris: Yeah, so one of the books that I've recently listened to and it's actually helping me to think about prioritizing and where to focus is the four disciplines of execution. So really looking at how to prioritize, where to prioritize and focus on the wildly important. And yeah, actually incorporating that into, you know, not just my, my personal life, but also in, in business as well, how to focus on wildly important, which I think is, I think is a struggle for everyone with how many things that you can focus on.
Nathan Bush: What's at the top of your list for wildly important at the moment?
Tom Harris: So for, for, for wild important in the business, it's, it's actually how to continue to drive adoption of our amazing products. So when you're hearing about Justin and he's trying out all of those new things, we're looking at how we can drive next level adoption from our customers so that they're using every piece of the platform to as close to 100% as possible and getting the maximum value out of it. And like I mentioned before, that's why I've stayed here for so long, because the platform delivers true value and it's just making sure that that value is realized by our, by our customers.
Nathan Bush: And then in personal life, is it just optimal melted cheese?
Tom Harris: Well, you know, optimal melted Cheese is always, is always a wildly important goal, I believe for many, for many people love it.
Nathan Bush: All right, last question I have for you, Tom. What is your biggest challenge today?
Tom Harris: I would say it kind of folds into that, that previous point there. Right. So there's a reason why I read that book and why I'm finding it so helpful. There's this never ending amount of things to focus on and the lists can get very long, very quickly and that's the same for in our organization as well. So really focusing on the wildly important and I always speak to my team about what's going to move the needle the most. What's going to move the needle most for our customers, what's going to move the needle the most for our teams and then staying truly focused or obsessed with that objective.
[Ad]: I love it.
Nathan Bush: That's advice we can all take. Tom, thank you for joining us on the checkout.
Tom Harris: Thank you so much, Nathan.
[Ad]: Pleasure to hear more from Tom. Jump back into our very special Exclusive episode number 409 where Tom is joined by Justin Bausch, CRM Manager at RideAware. Tom shares his favorite treatment led customer journey triggers and how predictive and generative AI is changing the engagement game. Thanks for listening and until next time,
Nathan Bush: keep adding to cartoon.
