In this episode of the Training Impact Podcast, Jeff Walter welcomes Matthew Reyes for one of the most human-centered conversations the show has hosted to date. What begins as a discussion about customer experience and training quickly becomes a deep exploration of motivation, habit formation, and why most training programs struggle to produce lasting behavior change.
Matthew brings more than two decades of experience leading large customer experience and support organizations at companies such as Crunchyroll, Milestone, and eSignal. Throughout the conversation, he makes one thing clear. Training fails not because people are unwilling to learn, but because organizations underestimate the role human needs play in performance, engagement, and consistency. Content alone does not create capability. Systems alone do not create commitment. People perform at high levels when their core needs are consistently met through the way work, learning, and leadership are designed.
Early in the discussion, Jeff and Matthew clarify what they mean by customer experience. While many people associate the term with user interfaces or product design, Matthew expands the definition. Customer experience is the full journey a person has with a brand, from the first interaction through every point of contact that follows. That includes human interactions, support conversations, AI agents, partners, and frontline employees.
This distinction matters because most organizations do not directly control every person who represents their brand. Franchise systems, reseller networks, outsourced support teams, and partner ecosystems all rely on people they cannot easily hire or fire. Yet those people are the face of the brand. Training, therefore, becomes the primary lever for ensuring consistency, trust, and quality across distributed environments.
Matthew draws parallels between early career experiences managing people he could not terminate and modern extended enterprise realities. In both cases, authority is limited. Influence, motivation, and development become the real tools of leadership.
Jeff notes that many learning and development programs are built as engineering exercises. If the right curriculum, instructional design, and content are assembled, performance should follow. Matthew does not dismiss these elements, but he argues they are incomplete. What ultimately determines whether people apply what they learn is motivation.
Rather than focusing on incentives like pizza parties or surface-level rewards, Matthew emphasizes understanding what actually drives human behavior. He challenges the idea that motivation differs dramatically by generation. While Gen Z is often described as difficult to manage, he reframes these traits as signals of unmet needs. Short attention spans, desire for feedback, and emphasis on mental health are not flaws. They are indicators that traditional systems are no longer effective.
At the center of the episode is Matthew’s framework of six core human needs that shape behavior:
Rather than viewing these needs as hierarchical, Matthew explains that they coexist. When one is missing for too long, it dominates behavior. When multiple needs are met simultaneously, habits form.
A critical insight emerges from Matthew’s work in gaming and subscription environments. Through analyzing player behavior, he observed that when at least three of these needs were met strongly within a process, people repeated that behavior. It became habit-forming, sometimes even addictive. This applied equally to positive behaviors, such as engagement with a product, and negative behaviors, such as crime or addiction. The difference was not the mechanism, but the outcome.
Matthew’s experience at Crunchyroll provided a real-world laboratory for studying motivation at scale. Games that offered recognition, connection with other players, and visible progress were used far more than those that did not. Badges, social interaction, feedback, and challenge were not gimmicks. They were expressions of deeper human needs.
When Matthew applied these same principles to workforce development, results accelerated. Rather than relying on generic onboarding or static training modules, he designed experiences that reinforced identity, growth, and contribution. Training became something people wanted to engage with, not something they endured.
One of the most practical sections of the episode focuses on scaling teams rapidly. Matthew shares how he has helped build customer service organizations from zero to hundreds of people in weeks. The process always begins with understanding the audience. Who are the learners. What experiences do they bring. What motivates them now.
From there, objectives are defined not just around skills, but around identity. Who does this role need to become. Training incorporates peer learning, early leadership identification, and constant reinforcement of progress. A strong emphasis is placed on train-the-trainer models, where learners are expected to teach others as quickly as possible. This accelerates mastery and meets needs for significance, growth, and contribution simultaneously.
Jeff connects Matthew’s ideas to the learn-do-teach model common in adult learning theory. Matthew expands on this by mapping different needs to each stage. Learning builds safety and familiarity. Doing introduces challenge and growth. Teaching reinforces significance and contribution. Effective programs intentionally design for these transitions rather than leaving them to chance.
Even difficult or tedious parts of training can be improved. Matthew explains that showing progress, providing feedback, and celebrating small wins help people push through challenging phases. When learners can see the end and feel acknowledged along the way, persistence increases.
Individual Adaptation and Inclusion
One of the most powerful stories in the episode involves an underperforming agent who disclosed ADHD and dyslexia. Rather than forcing conformity, Matthew redesigned the workflow. Voice tools replaced typing. Work was broken into timed intervals. Tasks were gamified. Within days, the agent became a top performer.
The lesson is clear. Performance issues are often design issues. When systems adapt to human needs rather than forcing humans to adapt to rigid systems, potential is unlocked.
The conversation culminates in Matthew’s work mentoring men transitioning back into society after incarceration. The same framework applies. Before goals can be set, foundational skills must exist. Time management, self-measurement, communication, and purpose all matter. Many participants have never been taught how to measure progress or structure a day.
By teaching KPIs at a personal level and connecting actions to future identity, Matthew helps individuals rewire behavior. Progress is not perfect and setbacks occur, but the speed of transformation can be measured in weeks and months rather than years.
This episode underscores a powerful truth. Training is not primarily about content delivery. It is about designing environments that meet human needs. When safety, variety, significance, connection, growth, and contribution are intentionally built into learning and work processes, performance follows naturally. Whether applied to customer experience teams, franchise networks, or community reintegration programs, the principles remain the same. Understand people. Design for motivation. Build systems that make the right behaviors repeatable.
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