Stacy Salvi on Wearables and the Customer Experience

Stacy Salvi on Wearables and the Customer Experience

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Welcome to be customer led, where we’ll explore how leading experts in customer and employee experience are navigating organizations through their own journey to be customer led and the actions and behaviors employees and businesses exhibit to get there. And now your host, bill Stagos.

[00:00:33] Bill Staikos: Hey everybody. Welcome back to be customer led. I’m your host, bill Staco. I have a really amazing guest for you all this week. You’re gonna love this show. Stacy Salvi is the VP of Strategy for moo. Now, I’m not gonna give away what the company does. We’re gonna talk about it in a minute, but before we do, Stacy, welcome the show.

It’s so great to have you on. I’m so

[00:00:52] Stacy Salvi: excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:55] Bill Staikos: Absolutely. My pleasure. So today folks we’re talking about wearables and the customer experience. Now Stacy is an expert in this field. She’s been in this space for a while, as now Moveo is a wearable company. We’ll talk about that in a second, but has really just great rich expertise in this space and a great journey, by the way.

And so before we even get into it, you know, just tell us about your journey, your professional career journey. I think you’ve got a really interesting story because, Not a lot of VP of Strategies started off the way you started off, so let our listeners know how, how you kind of weaved into this role.

yes,

I would love to. So it’s true, I think that I don’t have a very traditional background, but I’m a lawyer by training. Started practicing quite some time ago. Maybe I won’t even say how long ago. ,

[00:01:40] Bill Staikos: this is not part, this is not required for the show .

[00:01:44] Stacy Salvi: That’s totally. And you know, I went directly in-house because I always loved the business side of things.

And there was a period of time may, I guess it was almost 10 years ago now, where I got pregnant. I got accepted to Berkeley Business School. And then I got a job offer at Fitbit. And I will tell you that I only picked two of the three. I didn’t end up going to business school. , but that kind of led towards, you know, where I am now, which has been a lot of fun.

And so, you know, I took the job in legal even though I was really more interested in the business side because you know, when you get offered a ride on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. And I was really happy helping them grow from 70 million revenue to 2 billion in revenue doing all of their transactional work, product counseling, privacy advertising, kind of everything in between.

Growing that legal department, which was awesome. but then at some point my true passion kind of came back into the mix and I wanted to switch over to the business side. And so I started to work, more in BD and had the opportunity to have, be front and center in some of the relationship with Google as that started.

And so, Also during that time, they supported my transition over to, business. So I was the senior director of corporate alliances over there, and then I was doing some product management work as well. So that was fantastic. I I really enjoyed all of those roles. I know there, there are a lot of different ones there.

and then, The transaction closed, between Google and Fitbit. Google bought Fitbit in 2019 and it closed the very beginning of 21. I was the head of strategic partnerships for Fitbit at Google. I loved, Google’s, you know, adherence to excellence. I learned a ton from the team and it was, going to be a really exciting journey.

[00:03:39] Stacy Salvi: But at a certain point, Moo came calling and I was ready to build. And really excited to be a part of their journey. I was fascinated by what they were doing with sensor technology and they say that, you’re gonna shoot your shot. And so that’s what I did.

[00:03:57] Bill Staikos: That’s awesome. That’s a great story. And let’s talk about MOO now.

So tell our listeners a little bit about what the company is doing, what the product that they have, or products I guess I should say. And kind of what’s your role as VP of strategy at a company like muo? Yeah,

[00:04:10] Stacy Salvi: absolutely. So Moo is a relatively small company. a little over 40 people. We are working on creating wearable, but we were really put on the map due to our founder’s, knowledge of, radiofrequency technology.

Mm-hmm. . And so we’ve been working on a chip that can read blood pressure and blood glucose. But first we’re gonna start with a. For women. So I am leading product and business strategy. when I first started, I kind of helped identify what the roadmap should be, where I see us going for the next five years.

Mm-hmm. . And then I turned almost all of my attention to bringing this first product to market. So doing a lot of product management work. What does it mean to develop for women? Mm-hmm. , what do women actually want? , you know, really supporting all parts of the organization. Of course, we’re, we’re somewhat of a startup, so, we all are wearing numerous hats and it’s been a lot of fun.

[00:05:10] Bill Staikos: Is, is there a reason why the, Moana decided to focus on, on women out of the gate with the product or,

[00:05:16] Stacy Salvi: so that decision was actually made before I started. Yeah. But I think it was really, it was really amazing choice when they started to dig into the state of wearables today. What they quickly discovered is that, you know, women are largely underserved in healthcare.

Mm-hmm. , and when you look back, women weren’t even required to be included in clinical trials or medication until 1990 three’s Crazy. A lot of women, it’s crazy. And that was medication that they are taking. Yeah. And women feel really dismissed by doctors and they’re, they have a lot of negative health outcomes because of it.

there was a study done out of the University of Wales. that I think it was about 700,000, heart, you know, or heart emergency cases. Mm-hmm. were, were looked at from the er and there were about 8,000 deaths just because women weren’t diagnosed quickly enough. And so when we think about the application of wearables, there could be, an enormous benefit for women and we can start our platform there and, and also get all the feedback that we want as we iterate and.

[00:06:26] Bill Staikos: Gosh, even saving one life is probably worth, you know, creating a company around, frankly. Stacy, can we start the, like, I want to talk about sort of the evolution of the wearable space. The first Fitbit was 2009, right around there, give or take. How have you seen kind of given your time at Fitbit and then obviously at Google and now, you know, at a, at a company like Moo, how have you seen that technology evolve?

I mean, I’m not, not wearing my, my Apple watch right now. I got, just got an Apple Ultra. I’m so excited. I’m like really interested to see what that thing’s like. But how has the technology evolved and like how has that changed also from a consumer perspective too?

[00:07:05] Stacy Salvi: Yeah, I mean I think what Fipa did was really incredible.

they made steps a currency. It’s so ingrained in pop culture and how we talk about activity and bringing awareness through data and then what they did. basically go to the most difficult place in the body to read heart rate. And they did a great job of that too. And then as we add features, we are leveraging Bluetooth in a way that we’ve never leveraged before.

[00:07:33] Stacy Salvi: We’re sending so many packets over a relatively complex protocol, and they did a great job of that as well. So they really put wearables on the map and in a very impressive. and then Apple has really driven at home through their rings and essentially in, at least in my view, having a mini phone on the wrist.

Yep. You get all of your emails and, and text messages and phone calls, and you can do so much on that really tiny little computer. But of course, what I’m really interested in is how we drive forward on the health applications. What does it mean to build in a way that’s going to be a painkiller for people?

How are they going to manage different conditions? when we look at, at least in America, a majority of Americans are dealing with some sort of chronic condition, and then for those who aren’t, they’re trying to prevent it. And Covid has really accelerated us towards a world where we’re tracking health and taking health into our own hands is incredibly important.

Particularly when you consider how overtaxed the healthcare system is, how busy doctors are. Yeah. How expensive that is. So I really see a world where we’re providing medical grade data with hopefully F D A cleared devices that really bring health into user’s hands and help facilitate a conversation with a doctor.

and drive awareness of some of these finer points that you really couldn’t get information on unless you were with a doctor. But I think that these two worlds are merging.

[00:09:12] Bill Staikos: From your perspective, the health component is super critical. I mean, these devices are saving lives, right? What are some of the, I mean outside of that, cause that’s a super important use case, you know, what other ones are you seeing in terms.

Whether that’s lifestyle improvement. I personally am very, have gotten very into sort of sleep pattern in my sleep behavior and what I’m doing, you know, when my, when the kinda lights go off. What are some of the more, like, more important kind of use cases from your perspective outside of health even?

[00:09:40] Stacy Salvi: I mean, outside of health, I think there are a lot of different use cases. Whether we’re talking about, you know, virtual reality and gaming, or we’re talking about access and payments. I think people are, Starting to become more cognizant of what happens when they go into their phone or they need something in their phone.

You know, I can make a payment for my Apple Pay, but if I open my phone, I might accidentally go into my email and then get distracted. And so I, I do think that there’s a use case for a non-screen device when it comes to getting quickly through a turns style when you go mm-hmm. apart, which is the, the local transit system around here.

Mm-hmm. . so I think outside of health, I see payments and access as being, you know, really big use cases.

[00:10:26] Bill Staikos: That’s pretty cool. Any real obscure ones that you’ve seen come up that, that have kind of, you’ve maybe turned your head sideways and said, why do we do that? You mentioned one when we first met.

You mentioned one. I won’t say here unless you, if you wanna bring it out. Yeah, no, I

[00:10:38] Stacy Salvi: mean, so I, I think one of the issues with wearables is that, , just because we can do it doesn’t necessarily mean we should, and I don’t know if this is the example that I gave you when we talked before, but I’ve seen wearables measure bone salt, and I just don’t understand That was the one you mentioned.

Yeah, . I don’t understand what that is. If I don’t understand it and I’m immersed in this space. Your average consumer doesn’t understand. And that’s why I’m really focused on what is this user experience going to mean for her, particularly for someone who isn’t living and breathing this all day long, there’s a lot of room for improvement in an onboarding process.

How do we teach her? You know, all of the different features. Mm-hmm. , but then also how do we learn about her as she comes to us? What are her goals and what are her concerns? Mm-hmm. , and then how can we dynamically serve that information in a timely fashion? So it’s, a formula. and I don’t necessarily think anybody has gotten it perfectly Right.

[00:11:42] Bill Staikos: That’s what I’m, how are you, I mean, given sort of your product background, I’m sure that, I mean, I know you probably have a, you know, VP of product or head of product. Kind of thinking about your product background and the work you’ve done and the work going on at Moo, how are you thinking about the, the customer experience associated with the product?

And, you know, you are focusing on rings, obviously, which is a beautiful ring. We’ll talk about, you know, we’ll, we’ll mention the, the, website, at the end of the show, but, you know, how are you thinking about that experience from. The, you know, from website to delivery to putting it on to, you know, capturing information and really using sort of the application to, you know, leveraging some of the benefits of the product.

[00:12:21] Stacy Salvi: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I touched on it a little bit before around unfolding that onboarding experience really, deliberately in a way that teaches her about the product. And also we have an opportunity to learn about her. And I think that wearables have done such a great job of, helping fitness buffs optimize their performance.

But where I see, wearables going truly mass and really being for everyone, is through a more simplified experience that meets the users where they. and really celebrates their progress that isn’t necessarily 10,000 steps a day. And that’s certainly not to knock 10,000 steps a day. Cuz I love that too.

I probably don’t get that, but I, I probably

[00:13:12] Bill Staikos: don’t, I’m like, I’m like thinking myself, . I think I’m, I think I like had like 2300 steps yesterday or so. I was like at my desk just plugging away. Indeed I have on those days as well. , when you think about though that intersection between. Customer experience, product, ux, how do you, how might you know, and kind of putting your strategy lens on it, how do you kind of bring those three things together for, for the product to work for the customer?

Well, I

[00:13:42] Stacy Salvi: think it starts with asking the prospective customer what she wants. And certainly, you know, we’re starting with women and women are not a mono. So you have to ask a lot of different women and then parse through the answers, seeing what rises to the top, and then, you know, putting your technologist hat on and empathy hat on, and really figuring out what works for her.

And then iterating. At the end of the day, you know, a product is never finished. It launches and hopefully it land. and then you’re just gonna change it again anyway. So it’s a conversation. It’s a conversation that we wanna be having with our users, really listening to what it is that they’re looking for.

[00:14:30] Bill Staikos: Stacy, would you be able to, like anything surprising maybe, I mean, don’t share too much detail if you, you know, but I would like, is there anything surprising in that research that, or that listening that you’ve done where the folks at Havana were like, well, maybe we’ve gotta think about this Differe.

[00:14:44] Stacy Salvi: I’ve been in this space for a while, so I can’t say that I have been shocked by anything that I’ve heard, but the overwhelming majority of people are really looking for a whole health solution, and I think that what’s different about it than what you might commonly see is that people aren’t necessarily interested in diet or counting calories.

It’s not. Necessarily looking good, although I think everybody wants to feel good and look good. It’s a little bit more subjective, which is what makes you feel healthy. I know that for me, I don’t feel healthy if I don’t get a full night of sleep, for example. Mm-hmm. , some people can run on fewer hours, so I think that tailoring the experience for.

Her goals are without being overly, overly prescriptive on what that should be is a fine dance, but something that we’re hoping to achieve. That’s

[00:15:51] Bill Staikos: really cool. How do you think, what does Whole Health system mean to you? Just for our listeners who may not know the term? Yeah,

[00:15:57] Stacy Salvi: sure. So I would consider whole health activity, sleep, heart health, mental health, mind body connection for sure.

Menstrual. and kind of how that all fits together. So one of the things that we’re really going to be driving towards at Moo is really providing useful and actionable insights, which are harder to come up with than you would think, but really make an experience, sticky and useful. And at the end of the day, the longer she’s in our ecosystem, the more health benefits she should.

That’s really what we’re looking towards. That’s

[00:16:41] Bill Staikos: a good outcome. I’m curious to hear your perspective on the future of this space. We talked a little bit about it when we first met, you know, wearables in other ways. It feels like, you know, certainly, you know, glasses or you know, something on your head is right.

coming pretty soon while it’s here now, obviously, but in, in new versions of, or and new products coming out, I guess coming to market next year or. It has real potential to even all your memorables to even be connecting. I love the concept of a ring. You know, obviously, you know, like the watch, you know, at some point I’m sure these glasses will be, you know, help me will digitize something.

[00:17:17] Bill Staikos: Right. Where do you see it in three to five years? How is this all gonna come together?

[00:17:22] Stacy Salvi: Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple key pieces. will be necessary for it to come together. You know, one is that the sensor technology needs to continue to improve to get to medical grade accuracy. So I think there will be a lot of investment in that alone.

I mean, certainly our focus is on that. Yeah, battery life is going to have to improve. Certainly if you’re wearing something for several days at a time, that’s ideal for getting these continuous measurements. And so that’s always a balance. Any wearable company is constantly making trade offs between a teeny tiny little battery and an optimized performance.

I think that the other thing is probably a little less to do with the wearable itself and just the transmission of the data, you know, to be truly useful. I, I believe that, the wearable data needs to connect through an EMR system, which is, electronic medical records. obviously this would be done, you know, with patient consent, but if we’re going to make this data useful for doctors, then we need to serve the data in a really snapshot fashion to them so that way they can take action with our patients.

[00:18:38] Bill Staikos: Very cool. Very cool. Where do wearables belong in the workplace? Maybe I’ll ask it that way. I mean, I even think back to the sort of the Covid days when I was going into the office, I had a wearable around a lanyard. If we got too close to each other, the lights would turn red on us. We’ve, you know, we would know like the proximity, if someone did have positive exposure, you had a different kind of light turn on, et cetera.

I

[00:19:02] Stacy Salvi: was say that answer Bill .

[00:19:05] Bill Staikos: Were you Yeah, I was gonna say, I stole your answer. I’m so sorry. No, that’s quite a way. But even think. But I mean, I also, I mean, I’ll, I’ll leave this to you, but like, one of the things I think about just wellness generally in the workplace Yes. Could be a really powerful use case.

You know, letting you know like, hey, you may not be mentally prepared or all there to be able to deliver a hundred percent productivity today. Right. And guiding employees or, or the workforce even not just employees, but the workforce guiding them through a workday even.

[00:19:34] Stacy Salvi: Yeah, I th that was the other one that I was gonna mention, so you’ve somewhat read my mind.

I think it’s commonly understood that the more relaxed we are, the better work we do. If you’re really stressed out and high strung, you’re probably not doing your best work or your deep thinking. So helping workers who, especially, workers who are sitting in front of a computer all day, maybe on Zoom calls all day, manage their stress load, know when they’re supposed to, maybe take a break, help guide them through a meditation session.

I all has great applicability in the workforce. ultimately, I would imagine if we were less stressed out, maybe we would be more productive. We don’t need to jam more zoom meetings on our calendar in order to get better product for sure. But ultimately, I, I see that as a great example for in the

[00:20:27] Bill Staikos: workplace.

Yeah. I really, I really hope we start to use that as a society. I like being in customer experience. I work with a lot of contact center teams at the clients that we work with, and that is one of the most stressful jobs in America. One, it’s not a very high paying job, but number two is you’re just constantly on the phone.

I mean, talk about Zoom calls and zoom meetings every 30 minutes. Like think about like the auto dialer that like hits you, you know, hits your queue and you know what? When it’s backing up, there’s just a lot of stress associated with that and you’re just, no one calls to, like, no one calls the contact center to tell the company they’re doing a great job.

Right. You’re dealing with people’s problems all day. It’s really not, it’s not easy work. It’d be wonderful to see something like that. And I feel like a lot of the technology is more focused on how to make those calls, like lessen time, you know, increasing productivity or more calls and less time versus, you know, where’s the technology that’s actually gonna help that individual actually lead a better life.

Certainly love to see that some point at.

[00:21:22] Stacy Salvi: Yeah, and there are companies working on it. There’s an interesting company out of Minnesota called nbu that’s working on that right now. Oh, cool.

[00:21:29] Bill Staikos: Good. Well, I’ll have to check that out. Stacy. I ask each guest, it’s not because I’m a lazy podcaster, but I ask each guest the, you know, what question would you like to ask of my next guest?

I think this is gonna be a layup for you, but I’m curious to hear your answer anyway, , I, I didn’t time it this way. I literally just take the guest, previous guest question and just, you know, put it onto the next one. But my previous guest asked What makes a great product experience and what is your favorite product?

[00:21:57] Stacy Salvi: So I actually spent some time thinking about this because I didn’t wanna give you the most obvious answers. Sure, I’d like my AirPod Pro. I like them, but I did not wanna give you the most obvious answer. my family has something called a lettuce grow, and the reason why we love it is because it’s aesthetically beautiful to look at.

It’s highly functional. It works really well. The setup out of the box was easy. And there’s an element of delight, which I think is required for every high quality product. And the element of delight for this product is that it’s made out of beach plastic. So, we really love it. It gives us some fresh lettuce and different fruits and vegetables.

So that is probably not the answer you were expecting. I know you wanted technology, but I

[00:22:48] Bill Staikos: gave you, I didn’t know. I, sorry, , I wanted the real answer. ok. Well, I’m, I’m, I also, I also have a let us grow. We gotta, during the pandemic cuz like, we didn’t really, one, there are benefits to doing it yourself.

Number two is, you know, obviously we’re not really going to the grocery store. The delivery of stuff at the time. Other products coming to our house, you know, like lettuce and others, like real perishable stuff, which is not great. Yeah. And we still have it, we’re, we’ve got like the, my wife went like gangbusters on his thing.

It’s like the big seven foot version with like the stack of like six or something like that. It’s massive. Yep. You’re right. Beautifully designed. Creates a great product. I love the fact that it’s, it’s built, you know, with, with sustainability in mind and you’re eating something that, you know, you kind of.

in your backyard. Right. Which is pretty special, at the end of the day. Yeah. There’s a lot of just health benefits that too. Yeah. But I love that product.

[00:23:38] Stacy Salvi: Yep. You can just, I don’t know about you, but I just go break, let us off, and then we make salads out of it. I’m not sure I even wash it. .

[00:23:46] Bill Staikos: I, you know,

That’s funny. I have it next to the grill, so when I’m grilling or smoking something, I’m like picking stuff off of it and I’m just eating it right off of there, so I don’t really watch it either. That’s. But really I did kind of roll my eyes at it like, oh my gosh, just one more thing. And then I grew to love it.

And, it’s a great product, by the way. This is not a product plug show, but nonetheless, folks who, folks who are interested to go check it out. All right. I wanna turn the tables over to you for a second. What question would you have for my next

[00:24:16] Stacy Salvi: guest? so I think in this, Crazy world that we are living in right now where we’re bombarded by all sorts of insane news going on, and we’re all working harder than we’ve ever worked before.

My question is a little more personal around how do you find balance in your life and how do you translate that into your working life?

[00:24:41] Bill Staikos: Good question. Wow, that’s a good one. I want to think about that myself too. Well, I’m excited to ask that one of my next guests. Hey, before I let you go, Stacy, first thank you, for your time today, but, I’m curious, hey, where do you go for inspiration?

[00:24:55] Stacy Salvi: So my favorite place in the world is a dude ranch called Greenhorn Guest Ranch, and I go horseback riding for a week. It’s by far the best therapy for me and at home I probably. I definitely engage in meditation and I hit the weights and I got a new puppy. I got myself an emotional support puppy.

[00:25:20] Bill Staikos: Very well.

That’s still a lot of work. . That’s good. What kinda dog? Do you mind me? I

[00:25:25] Stacy Salvi: got a minute. Do you wanna see her? She’s right here. Yeah,

[00:25:31] Bill Staikos: she likes to sit on For the rec. For the record, Stacy, this is the first dog cameo on B. Customer led, so I’m pretty excited. Well, she’s a good one. Oh my gosh, how adorable is that dog?

Yes. How old is she now? She’s 10 weeks old. Oh my gosh. Yes. . Well, welcome to the show. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. What a beautiful puff. Good luck. Cuz puppies are, well, I’ve got two, but they’re older. but they’re still a lot of work. but good dogs. Wonderful. It’s, it’s good to, she has no idea where to go to the bathroom.

She’ll figure it out. yeah. Thankfully, I’m sure she’ll figure it out. Stacy, thanks so much for coming to the show. Really interesting conversation. Really loved your perspective on this space and it’s one that I’m just really fascinated with and, and spend a lot of time reading on and just doing a lot of desk research on.

I think it’s gonna fundamentally change the way we think about experience or experiences, I should say, in a, in a much deeper way than, we might even realize, as consumers and as humans. And, loved having you on the show. Thanks. So, Yeah.

[00:26:34] Stacy Salvi: Thank you. It was great to chat with you.

[00:26:37] Bill Staikos: Thanks so much. All right, everybody, another great show.

We’ll see you next week. We’re out. Talk to you soon

[00:26:41] Stacy Salvi: everyone. Thanks for listening to be customer led with Bill Stagos. We are grateful to our audience for the gift of their time. Be sure to visit us@becustomerled.com. For more episodes, leave us feedback on how we’re doing, or tell us what you want to hear more about.

Until next. We’re out.