CX Conversations (LaunchPod Media)

In this episode, Gabe chats with Peter Fader, Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of Customer Centricity. Peter challenges the idea that every customer is the right customer. He says instead that we need to change how we treat customers depending on how long they will continue to be a customer, how many purchases they will make, and how much a business will earn from those transactions. He talks about how this shift in perspective will affect the entire focus of a company.

Intro 0:14
Not All Customers Are Created Equal 2:09
Segmenting Customers 7:57
Customer-Based Corporate Valuation 14:20
Key to Finding Success in Customer Centricity 17:35

https://www.kustomer.com/
https://www.thetaequity.com/

Intro 0:14
Not all customers are created equal 2:09
Segmenting customer 7:57
Customer based corporate valuation 14:20
Key to finding success in customer centricity 17:35

https://www.kustomer.com/
https://www.thetaequity.com/

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, Gabe talks with Mary Drummond. Mary is the CMO at Worthix, a customer survey company, and the host of a podcast called The Voices of Customer Experience. Mary has a wealth of knowledge on customer experience, exploring what the term "customer experience" should mean, and what we're missing within our current definition. Tune in to learn how social proof and brand identification fit into customer experience and learn five key factors that influence purchase decisions.

Intro 0:11
Trends and Problems Facing Customer Service Leaders 2:15
Customer Experience Professionals Association 3:08
Customer Expectations 10:08
Customer Service vs. Customer Experience 11:06
5 Main Drivers: Purchase Discussions 17:43

https://www.kustomer.com/

In this episode, Gabe chats with Dan Gingiss, who has held marketing and customer service roles at Fortune 300 companies including McDonald’s, Discover, and Cubana. Dan discusses why these two functions — marketing and customer experience — will become more intertwined within successful businesses. By reevaluating company organization and customer communication methods, brands will be able to create remarkable experiences that customers can't resist sharing.

Intersection of Customer Service and Marketing 2:02
Turning Customers Into Brand Advocates 4:22
Affordable Tips and Tricks 11:42
The Importance of Words 13:57

https://www.kustomer.com/
https://www.dangingiss.com/

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk about the top 23 customer service trends of 2020. We discuss what customer service has looked like historically, what it most likely will look like in the future, and how to start preparing for that. Take back actionable insights that are relevant to your business, and take your customer service to the next level.

Intro 0:19
Power of Prioritization 1:50
Omni Channel 2:38
Bigger Customer Service Budgets 6:06
Deflection 9:43
Convenience 13:38

https://www.kustomer.com/

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Adrian Swinscoe, customer experience author. In this episode we talk about his views on what he calls “Punk CX”. Sometimes we complicate customer experience. We get deep into the weeds of it all and Punk CX is all about getting back to the simple needs. Join us as we dive into this idea of simplifying and and teaching our customers how to help themselves.

Timestamps
Introduction to Adrian Swinscoe 1:15
How Punk CX came about 3:04
How to Simplify CX 8:12
We Like helping Ourselves 12:18

“60% of your in bound demand for help can be solved either by you being better at solving things first time around, or..helping customers help themselves.” 13:27
https://www.kustomer.com/

Gabe Larsen, the host of Customer Service Secrets, talks about his experiences in customer service and customer experience up to this point in his career. He guides us through his journey working at companies like Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Gallup, InsideSales.com, and Kustomer, along with some of the knowledge that he has gained through those roles. In this episode, we focus on how to leverage customer service to drive revenue, in a time where we must be customer-obsessed and meet the demands of the modern buyer.

Customer Service Experience 0:30
Behavioral Economics 4:05
Human Sigma 9:01
Customer Obsessed 13:45

https://www.kustomer.com/

Introduction to the Customer Service Secrets podcast with Gabe Larsen.

https://www.kustomer.com/

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Matt Dixon from Tethr about some of the latest and greatest trends in customer experience. Matt is known for his statements on how we shouldn’t try and delight our customers. He explains this further and how we need to redirect our focus to reducing effort for our customers and make it easier for them. So rather than focus on putting out fires, prevent the fires altogether. He also gives direct advice on how to apply this, false myths of customer experience and what kind of people to hire.

Intro to Matt 2:22
Don’t Delight your customer 4:22
How to Start Applying it 16:12
Tethr 29:18

“When something’s gone wrong and the customer reaches out and theyre trying to get a problem fixed, those customers whose expectations are exeeded, are actually no more loyal than those whose expectations who were simply met.” 6:11

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with the CEO of Kustomer, Brad Birnbaum, about the growth and development of Kustomer and the Kustomer platform. We discuss how customer experience has changed over the years, what has influenced this transformation, and how we need to react to stay ahead of the curve. Brad also talks about what the future holds for Kustomer. Join us as for valuable tips and insights for customer experience professionals. 

Introduction to Brad and Kustomer 0:34
How Customer Service has changed 3:19
Channels of Communication 8:31
Automation 13:34

“One of my favorite things to do is to call Delta and if I get an answer that I don’t like, then I call another agent. So what you’re doing is eliminating [the] other channels.” 11:13

A Stanford University study found that productivity actually increases among remote workers. They claim that it was close to an extra day per person per week while workers were at home. Especially with recent events, including COVID-19, more companies are being forced to have more remote workers. This brings new challenges and possibilities for productivity, but how do we effectively manage a remote team during this time? In this episode, we will be going over 20 ideas for how to effectively manage our workers during this time.

Working Remotely 0:10
Start of 20 Tips 2:54

“Top 3 issues...when working remotely were 1. Unplugging After Work 2. Loneliness 3. Communication or Collaboration.” 1:46

In this episode, we get to talk with Vikas Bhambri, the SVP of sales and customer experience at Kustomer. Vikas and I talk about a current buzzword in the customer experience world and that is bots. We often hear people talking about adding bots but what makes a good bot vs. a bad one? What will really help the customers in the long run? Vikas talks about what makes an Intelligent bots and how to make bots meet customer needs rather than one that treats all issues the same. Vikas also talks about how to even start for those just jumping into this world.

Background to Vikas 1:13
Defining a “Bot” 5:32
Customizing Bots to Meet Needs 9:15
Advice for first time Bot users 20:49

“Imagine you bought a robot to clean your house and you only put it in one room of your house and said, ‘learn’. And then you unleashed it on your whole house. You’d probably end up with a wreck… When people create these algorithms, they’re only thinking about one problem area.” 9:15

Today on Kustomer we talk with John DiJulius, the president of the Dijulius Group, a customer service consulting firm. John and I talk about the current state of business and how to overcome trials in business such as the shutdown caused by COVID19. Rather than looking at this time as complete loss, John talks about using this time to get things done that your business really needs. We also talk about what our relationship with our clients, employees and leadership should look like during these tough times.

More about John 1:05
Working with Clients during hard times 9:22
Leadership and Employees Relationship 13:54
Using Trials to your Benefit 18:50

“Even a turkey can fly in a tornado, but when that tornado stops flying, the turkeys start dropping. So the people who have worked on customer loyalty and employee loyalty really shine and emerge as leaders in business.” 5:10

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Jeanne Bliss, Founder and CEO of Customer Bliss. We talk about about her book which explains her philosophy on customer experience. Too often we are watering down or over complicating customer service. Jeanne expresses her thoughts in a way that can help any company, no matter size. Jeanne also offers a link to the first chapter and quiz to her book for our listeners.

Would you do that to your Mother? 2:14
How to start Enabling Employees 7:53
Don’t make me feed you Soap 11:58
Pillars 3 and 4 14:10

“Do you allow for human error? If you return that rent a car 3 minutes late are you get dinged for half a day?...People above process.” 15:31

jeanne@customerbliss.com)

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets Podcast, we are going to be talking about journey mapping. To help us out with that we brought on Bob Thompson, the founder and CEO of Customer Think and author of the book Hooked on Customers. His career and company are built on the idea of customer centricity and he’ll be explaining what customer mapping is, why companies should do it, and how to create an effective, uninterrupted flow from beginning to end.

About Bob and Customer Think 1:10
Journey Mapping in General 2:32
How to Journey Map Well 6:54
Information based Journey Map on 12:59

We think of journey mapping as, “walk in your customers’ shoes and then take pictures as you go and read their mind.” 3:09

On this episode of Kustomer, we have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Merilee Larsen, the assistant professor of Public Health at Utah Valley University. We talk with Merilee about some of the basics of COVID-19, how it is most easily spread, where we need to be most careful, and how to prevent it from spreading. We also speak much about preparedness. This time can feel very frantic. People are buying large amounts of different items (ie toilet paper, hand sanitizer…) and we talk about what is most important to be prepared with. And this is not limited to goods. We also talk about how to be prepared mentally and emotionally during this time.

Background of Merilee 0:45
Basics of COVID-19 2:13
How to Prepare 5:28
Mental Health Preparedness 10:15
Social Distancing 15:39

“We don’t really know how long they can live on surfaces. Scientists are estimating 3-4 hours. So is there a little of a risk to going to the park or touching things that other people have touched? Yes…” 4:08

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we are talking about journey mapping with Annette Franz. Annett is the founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She is an expert in this area and has a wealth of experience in applying it. Oftentimes people don’t know where to start journey mapping or they think they are doing it when in reality they aren’t at all. Annette talks through the steps she typically goes through, what journey mapping really is, how to do it effectively and how to use it. Sometimes it needs revisiting every so often and we discuss this as well.

Annette’s Background 1:07
What is Journey Mapping 2:55
How to Do it Right 6:12
What to do WITH a Journey Map 14:46
Revisiting Journey Map 17:49

“A lot of companies... try to just identify things in the current state map... but they don’t get at the root of the problem, which is something internally.” 12:39

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, Al Hopper, principal consultant at Nagurra Networks, joins Gabe Larsen to talk about how businesses can benefit from working on a tiered customer service model. In this thorough conversation about how it works, you’ll also learn why your organization should practice having different levels of service based on different groups of customers, how to apply it, and which types of businesses should have a tiered customer experience.

More About Al 0:43
Tier Customer Service 3:02
Who Tier Customer Service Right for? 7:28
How to have a successful Tier Model 10:07

“The biggest challenge is forgetting that you are a service organization to begin with. They start focusing on the tiered customer service get away with anything.” 15:58

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Shep Hyken, a customer service/experience expert, keynote speaker, and Time’s best selling author. He talks to us about his concept of the Cult of the Customer. He talks about treating customers so well that they become fanatic evangelists who preach your good name. We talk about how to achieve this level of customer satisfaction, one of the best ways is consistency. Join as we dive deeper into this topic and learn how to apply it.

Why the word Cult? 2:34
Consistency 9:19
Changing Tradition 15:00
Setting Your Company above others 21:20

“The Cult of the Customer is all about people who are fanatical about taking care of their customers, both internal and external… Ideally doing such a great job that these customers become evangelists.” 4:15

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Blake Morgan, a customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author of the Customer of the Future. Blake shares how customers and companies are changing and need to change in order to survive. She also speaks on why today and moving forward customer experience needs a greater focus. We also discuss her recent book.

More about Blake 0:57
The Customer of the Future 2:59
The Company of the Future 4:36
Why Does CX Matter to Companies today? 8:26
Recent Book Release 11:34

“Customer service is the only way to stand out. Our products and services have become commodities. We’re simply competing on price. Maybe that works in the short term, but in the long term… we have to compete on experience.” 8:44

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we get a chance to talk with James Dodkins, known as the Rockstar Customer Experience Expert. Before becoming a specialist in customer experience, James toured the world performing in a rock and roll band. He now takes what he learned from that and applies it to customer experience. We talk about this and how we can frame our customer experience similarly. We also talk about how to structure our team in a way that rewards direct value to customers. We often reward our employees for doing things that don’t actually lead to greater customer satisfaction.

About James 1:21
How to Give Rockstar Customer Experience 5:01
4 Step Framework 9:27
Team Structure 13:24

“Only 4% of dissatisfied customers will complain and the large majority of the rest will vote with their feet. They’ll just leave and go somewhere else. If you are only fixing problems for the 4% of people that complain, you are missing a massive opportunity.” 11:00

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Steve Richards, co-founder of ExecVision. Throughout his career, Steve has been committed to helping companies understand the data behind customer service calls and developing strategies for a continuous improvement around the actual interaction that is happening with the customer. Listen to the full podcast for his valuable insights on the steps to an effective customer service call and how to make sure your agents have the resources they need to improve their performance.

Steve’s Background 1:04
What is Broken in Customer Experience 2:15
How are People Thinking out of the Box? 8:08
How to Be Successful with Calls 14:30

“Why do you measure a sprinter? Why do you time a skier? And the answer is to improve performance… It’s funny, I’ll get caught in this, where you start measuring to measure and you’re not actually looking at how it can affect the ultimate performance.” 3:45

It's getting increasingly difficult for businesses to get feedback from customers in this fully remote world. We sat down with Hilary Curran from Guru, a customer service knowledge management company, to dive deeper into the techniques and practices they are taking to stay connected and elevate the customer voice during this remote reality. Join us in this episode to discover insights about how to boost your customer experience and make the process easier.

Amplifying the Customer’s Voice 1:58
Collecting 3:51
Getting Customers Involved 7:34
Share and Discuss 8:58
Close the Loop 14:38


“ We’ve created a series of questions that we ask our CX team to think on each week...Some sort of specific questions verses, ‘how is everything going’ Something so broad” 7:54

Kustomer announced it has acquired Reply.ai, a customer service automation platform that helps companies scale intelligent customer service without compromising experience. Our guest today, Omar Pera, CEO of Reply AI, is sharing how companies are winning by propelling an effortless customer experience using AI and automation. We all know that customer experience is becoming more important than ever before. Businesses who prioritize customer experience are the ones succeeding. But how can companies continue to execute on a high level of service without hiring an army of people, or sacrificing the human touch? Tune in to discover how to make customer service faster and smarter.

About of Omar and Reply 1:30
Why do we need bots? 8:41
Examples of AI in customer Service 12:20
Do’s and Dont’s of AI for CX 20:17

“If the customer says absolutely anything that is not related to ‘where is my order’ you go to an agent directly, without waiting, without doing anything, without rephrasing…” 21:45

Today, we talk with Sergio Frias, the president and CEO of The Federation of Canadian-Brazilian Businesses and Chief Customer Experience Officer at The Chartered Institute of Marketing Management of Ontario. We begin our conversation with Sergio sharing his career path, he highlights how he developed his passion for customer experience, no matter where he worked. He shares how he developed a unique customer experience program, NICE (Nurturing Insights about Customers Expectations), and we talk about it more in depth. We break down the 8 components of NICE: Context, Benchmarking, CX Mapping, the Essence of NICE, the Dream of the Customer, Triple Organization, Knowledge Sharing, The Right People at the Right Place, and The True Meaning of Service. Listen to the full podcast episode to understand what are the key underlying principles to improving your customer service and why customer service should be the focus for companies as they recover from the COVID-19 crisis.

Sergio’s Background 0:58
The “Why” and “How” of Sergio’s CX Program 4:50
The 8 Components of NICE 9:20
Implementing NICE 18:34

“ If you want, the job is yours -- you’re going to be the owner of this business. So you buy, you sell, you do everything. All the logistics, distribution, everything. That was a great opportunity for my career. I was not really thinking about CX, but the more I got into that, I realized that I know how to do it, because of the many years working with customers and always being concerned about how to get the customers what they needed, I realized that that was an amazing thing.” 2:41

Reach out to Sergio: sergio.friasrb@gmail.com

Today’s guest has been in sales and tech for more than 20 years and started her own business, Inside Sales by Design, 5 years ago to help organizations build and scale their inside sales infrastructure. Dionne Mischler turns cost centers into revenue centers through The Art of the Conversation. Her insights on ‘What can we give’ vs ‘What can we get’ are at the root of building a team of conversationalists that listens and understands the needs of the customer. Listen to the full episode to learn how to coach your organization to manage The Art of the Conversation.

The Art of Conversation 6:40
Key Principle in customer outreach 13:39
Brief Summary 21:25

“I was talking with a colleague of mine and he says that we live an experience economy at this point. And here’s my bold prediction. If you as an organization are not investing in your customer success team turning that corner from an order taker to a ticket taker, cost center to a profit center, your company is going to die and wither in the dust.” 2:37

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dionnemischlerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dionnemischler

https://www.insidesalesbydesign.com/

https://insidesalesbydesign.wordpress.com/

https://www.salesclass.ai/

How are organizations keeping up with the spikes in demand while maintaining high levels of customer support? Today’s guests are all about allowing leaders to focus on their business and giving them the ability to hire state-of-the-art sales and customer success support teams, on-demand 24/7. CloudTask CEO, Amir Reiter, and VP of Marketing, Tom Jerkins, help other businesses scale and grow through their outsourced sales organization. The biggest question in scaling customer support always comes down to outsourcing the service center versus keeping it in-house while delivering on customers’ expectations. Find out whether or not you should outsource and the importance of hiring a partner that’s going to bring in the training, processes, and technology that are going to save you money and represent your company the right way.

Why would I, as a company, want to outsource my customer service? 8:40
State of the art training 12:02
What separates BPO’s 15:25
Where People can find them 17:00

“Everybody is looking to each other to create more community and the more community you create, the better it’s gonna be for your business. That’s not why you want to do it. You want to do it because we’re human beings, because we want to support each other. The more human you are, the more everybody’s gonna benefit, in business and in life.” 5:44

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirreiter/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomjenkins1/?locale=de_DE

The COVID-19 pandemic is fast-tracking the digital transformation and has changed the way customers interact with businesses, forever. Today, we welcome Andrea Paul, Director of Research at Kustomer, and Vikas Bhambri, SVP sales and CX at Kustomer with more than 20 years in the CRM Contact Center world, to discuss the effects of these challenging times for customer service organizations. Andrea and her team went out and surveyed CX professionals across a variety of industries to understand how their businesses and teams are being impacted, how they are adapting, and what customers are expecting. Join the full conversation for hard data and an in-depth discussion on how businesses can succeed and the role technology plays to achieve efficient customer service.

What 80% of Customer Service Professionals Need 6:49
Is automation the answer? 12:18
Remote work 18:31
What else is holding people back from being effective? 19:55
How Andrea would coach customer service leaders based on her research 26:53

“Almost every company that we surveyed did say that the vast majority of their employees were fully remote now, which makes sense where a lot of states are still in this lockdown. But 34% of the respondents were reporting difficulty working remotely and 23% did say they didn’t have the tools in place to actually do it, which is huge. It’s like 'I’m being forced to work remotely, but I physically cannot do it.’” 18:58

Today we have special guest Aarde Cosseboom, Senior Director of Technology and Product for Global Member Services for an E-Commerce company called Textile, and Vikas Bhambri, SVP, Sales and CX at Kustomer, 20 year CRM Contact Center Lifer. We discuss how AI and self-service bots can be utilized to solve issues in customer service. Bots are evolving and they need to be able to move from one platform to another, such as from your website to email, whatsapp, facebook, etc. The new term for this type of bot is IVA, Intelligent Virtual Assistant, which is an omnichannel bot experience. We discuss the importance of letting your customer know they’re talking to a bot so they don’t get frustrated when they ask more complex questions, and when to hand off the customer from a bot to a live agent. We wrap up the conversation with the role agents play in helping improve this technology. Listen to the full conversation for more insights.

https://www.kustomer.com/guides/how-pandemic-affects-customer-service-organizations/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=coronavirus

Aarde and Vikas intro 0:31
What do AI and Self-service bots solve? 1:05
How should one acquire an IVA? 7:01
What are best practices for a hand off from a bot to a real person? 14:17

“People will say ‘Look, AI’s gonna put everyone out of a job. We won’t need sales people, we won’t need marketers, we won’t need customer service people.’ No, because the role will change. Because the technology is great, but you still need people that will go and will optimize the program behind it.” 17:51

Find Aarde Cosseboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarde-cosseboom-99755546/

Vikas Bhambri
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikasbhambri/
https://www.kustomer.com/leadership/vikas-bhambri/

Gabe and Vikas kick off this episode announcing that Kustomer has been selected as the only enterprise customer service CRM platform in the Shopify Plus Certified App Program. Now more than ever, the world’s leading brands need CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that can scale and evolve as they do. With this seamless integration, businesses can create contextualized, actionable customer profiles to drive more personalized and data-driven customer journeys. With pressure already high due to the digital transformation forced by the pandemic, what are customers expecting from businesses now? In this conversation, Vikas and Gabe discuss the "MEconomy" and the role of self-service in the customer-business relationship.

Will companies continue to have employees work from home? 8:38
Customer delight 14:44

“We have pressed the fast forward button on the future by 2 years, and that’s just the reality. We can’t go back. We’re not going to go back. The consumer’s not going to go back, the brands can’t go back… Unfortunately, most companies don’t think that far in advance… They’re thinking about it in monthly, quarterly cycles… You really have to think about what would your business have looked like two years from now and operate at that cadence today, which, good luck with that.” 20:05

https://www.kustomer.com/product/integrations/shopify/

In this episode, we talk about how to really drive customer experience for high-end brands. We are joined by Jason Henne, Director of Customer Aervice at Momentum Solar. He tells us of how he threw call time out the window and focused more on quality customer experience. We discuss the importance of thoroughly training your reps so that they have the tools to effectively help the customer. Additionally, the Better Business Bureau has given Momentum Solar amazing reviews and Jason tells what they have done to gain and maintain their reputation.

Jason Henne Introduction 0:51
How does customer service vary between similar businesses? 2:40
An example of different, great customer service 7:17
The Importance of training your reps 10:45
How Jason has managed through an emerging industry like solar 15:09
What Momentum Solar has done to maintain their reputation 17:22
The one thing Jason tells all his employees 23:52

“You go into a Lexus dealership for instance, or a Porsche dealership. You are getting red carpet treatment. ‘OK sir, would you like a bagel? Would you like me to get a cup of coffee for you?’ And they keep you updated regularly on your situation and you’ll get a loaner car if you need. You’re not going to get that with the lower end brands. So again, it’s brand reputation, it’s word of mouth.” 5:29

Email: jhenne@momentumsolar.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-henne-6481513/
https://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jason-Henne/3451523495

Today, we talk with Nate Brown who is the Founder of CX Accelerator, a virtual community for CX professionals, and Chief Experience Officer at Officium Labs. Nate tells us how the customer experience industry is evolving and he explains how to drive meaningful change in order to keep up with the ongoing evolution in the market. We also talk about how crucial it is for companies to support their customer service department, how to properly receive feedback from customers, training employees, and the importance of adapting to an ever-changing market.

Nate tells what he does 1:03
How they are able to hear the voice of the customer 12:10
Customer Effort Score 17:39

“If we don’t make our customer experience legendary, then we won’t be here in ten years. This is the way that the experience economy is moving. I have isolated this individual and this function that’s gonna help guide us intelligently in our strategy here and we’re all going to work with this individual as part of the CX Change Coalition to improve our end to end customer experience.” 8:48

https://www.cxaccelerator.com/

In this episode, we discuss the importance of treating your employees like customers to drive customer loyalty. We have with us Vipula Gandhi, Managing Director at Gallup, who has vast experience working in different industries such as hospitality, consulting, and banking. As a true expert in business strategy, business performance and human potential, Vipula will talk about how to leverage information and extract insights to strategically take action that directly impacts the business. Join this interesting conversation to understand how emotions improve the customer experience and how to build a brand that transcends time by taking care of their employees.

About Vipula and Gallup 1:26
What is wrong with the current way we think about customer experience? 3:31
Example of emotional and actionable drivers in customer experience 14:14
The importance of treating your employees right 18:50

“What we have found through science and through our experience of working with clients in this area is that, we don’t want people to complain obviously, but when people complain there’s an opportunity for you to actually increase the emotional engagement with the brand after the complaint more than what was possible before the complaint.” 14:24

www.gallup.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vipulagandhi1/

Today we talk about digital customer service with author, speaker, and customer service expert Paolo Fabrizio. Paolo helps clients integrate digital channels and coaches them on the importance of hiring and training the right digital customer service assistants. In this conversation with Gabe, Paolo touches on the importance of emotional intelligence and the relevant role reps play in taking care and retaining happy customers. Is it different hiring agents for traditional channels vs digital channels? Listen to the full conversation for Paolo’s take.

About Paolo 0:54
Something often Paolo sees in organizations 2:38
How he trains and hires employees differently 6:57
Some of the differences he sees between these channels and the typical channels of phone and email 10:31
Get in contact with Paolo 14:16

“Digital customer service is not just using digital tools, digital platforms, or digital channels. It’s taking care of each digital conversation you have with your customers in order to leverage conversations to retain and attract customers.” 2:08

https://customerserviceculture.com/

In this episode we talk to Brad Birnbaum, co-founder and CEO of Kustomer, Matt Dixon, Chief Product and Research Officer at Tethr, and Lauren Pragoff, Vice President of Effortless Experience at Challenger. We talk about some of the largest issues and challenges companies have been facing during the pandemic, such as employees transitioning to working from home and how they’ve had to crack down on making help readily available through their online channels. Another thing they’ve seen is an increase in inquiry volume and a lack of reps to meet the demand of these inquiries. We discuss the fact that the world is ready for more machine learning and more advanced artificial intelligence to meet the needs of this increasing demand. Lauren has seen that a third of companies are actually seeing a decrease in inquiries with the pandemic, so they’ve had to use a proactive outreach approach to keep reps busy. We talk about how many customers go to a lot of third party sources of information in order to get the answer to their questions, such as Youtube or Google, but these sources aren’t always reliable. Brad tells us about a technological shift companies should be using to meet the needs and desires of customers, such as reaching out and answering their question before they actually ask it.

Guest introductions 1:41
The biggest challenge companies are facing and how they are overcoming it 3:56
How Matt has seen people doing more with less 12:28
Types of technologies companies should be adopting now to make this change more successful 25:42

“The thing that really got our customers to stay on our website and not get frustrated, pick up the phone and call is when we started writing at a grade 5 to 7 reading level so that customers could absorb that information quickly. So often our content is laden with corporate jargon, industry vernacular, or stuff that the attorneys made us add in and it stopped making sense to our customers. So go back, make it simple, and it’ll stick. It’ll siphon off those live calls.” 24:42

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-pragoff-99967532/
https://www.kustomer.com/leadership/brad-birnbaum/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleybirnbaum/
Twitter: @bradbirnhaum
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewxdixon/
https://tethr.com/leadership/matt-dixon/

Today we talk to Douglas Kramon, Director of Customer Operations and Fan Support at ESPN. In this interesting conversation, Gabe and Douglas discuss how customer care and agent care drives customer experience. For fans, sports are memories and emotions created during live experiences. How could ESPN create human connections during COVID-19, when all live events were cancelled? Douglas tells us about their tactic of connecting with their customers by creating a fan-to-fan dialogue. Tune in to this conversation to understand how ESPN has standed with their fans during these hard times.

Douglas’s background 1:02
The recent changes in sports 2:58
Be brief, be bright, and be gone 6:14
Tools they use at ESPN 15:19

“We like to say, and we believe this wholeheartedly, for customer service we are fellow fans in the stands. With our fans, we’re not the suits in the suites, meaning we’re there with you. We’re sports fans just like you and we understand what you’re going through. And if you want to talk a little sport, we do too.” 7:17

https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaskramon/

In this episode we talk about an empathy-driven support model with Irene Griffin, the Director of Customer Support at FranConnect. The goal for her team is to listen and understand the customer needs, while building strong relationships. She talks about her hiring process and the importance of high-energy reps. She suggests that hiring the right customer support team is about finding a balance between skills and personality. Technology is natural for younger generations, which means it is easier to learn, but the ability to listen, understand and empathize with each individual situation is just harder. Listen to the full episode for the insights on creating a playbook that gives reps a sample call language versus scripted responses for a more empathetic approach.

What is the empathy driven support model? 1:19
How Irene team builds 8:02
How she manages responses with her team 11:27

“I stick with more of what a sample question might be where it’s just long winded, convoluted, there’s extra stuff in there, and again I’m not looking for the outcome as much as I’m just looking for the reaction and the ability to kind of parse it out, kind of stay cool, and be organized.” 6:40

https://www.linkedin.com/in/irenegriffin/

Today we talk to Mike Miller, the Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Convey, and Vikas Bhambri, the SVP of Sales and CX at Kustomer. We discuss issues and trends we are seeing in the customer service business, such as a spike in e-commerce and an increase in customer inquiries. Other things like an increase in online orders has put a strain on deliveries and being able to get deliveries out on time. Don’t assume that you’re over-communicating with the customer, but instead always be proactive in communicating with them and wait for them to let you know you’re reaching out too much. We talk a little bit about AI and the effects it’s having on customer service, and then we need to be thinking about how we can be strategic in these times and take advantage of the shift in the market.

Trends and challenges customer services organizations are facing 1:46
What companies are doing well to combat this 7:40
An example of the problem we face now 12:00
Artificial intelligence 14:51

“We hear pretty consistently that customers at least are looking for 3 things, and the first is setting an expectation around when something that is going to arrive. That is harder to do today than it has been historically, but that is absolutely the expectation. They want frequent updates as early as possible as to when that’s going to change, if it is going to change. And then lastly they’re looking for flexibility about delivery options.” 7:48

In this episode we speak with Matt Freedman, brand builder, band strategist, and Enterprise Account Executive at Kustomer. We talk about the me-economy, the generation where everything is on demand and how that’s putting high pressure on companies. Organizations that have been able to keep up are the ones succeeding. 57% of people have said that customer service is the main reason they will remain loyal to a brand. People are spending 20% more on products because of their loyalty to a brand rather than taking the cheaper option. We discuss what people’s expectations are these days, how much it's affecting our current economy, and then what organizations should focus on to meet those demands.

The Me-economy 3:58
The main reason people feel loyal to a brand 11:00
SLS 18:02
Summary of what companies have learned 27:50

“As you’re setting expectations, now obviously going through this new world virus economy that we’re living in, it’s a great time to kind of pause and reset and just rethink, ‘Man, am I really set up and optimised for not only these fringe cases anymore, but this gigantic new wave of demand expectation that this on demand economy has?’” 6:16

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-freedman-aa03028/

Joining us today we have Vikas Bhambri, the SVP of sales and CX at Kustomer, Rob Young, the Director of Customer Support at BambooHR, and Jamie Whited, an expert consultant in client service and client experience. We discuss some of the things and issues each of us has had to deal with during the pandemic. A lot of industries are dealing with an increase in requests and inquiries, and we all have had to adjust and make sure we are continuing to provide that human to human help that people need to continue moving forward. Rob tells how they have been able to focus and become more empathetic with their customers by getting a lot more specific with the questions they ask. We talk about what kind of things to say to the customers who are struggling in these times, and then what we can do to keep the customer service representatives motivated and going in our company visions. Tune in!

Guest introductions 1:21
Where do we go from here with all these challenges? 7:26
How Rob has dealt with increases and decreases in inquiries 11:37
How to approach empathetic or non empathetic customers 15:00
How have they been able to keep the reps going? 18:52

“We always tell the teams, ‘You can only control your reaction. So if somebody is coming at you like that in a very frustrated manner, then you turn around and you just give them the biggest virtual hug and empathy that you can potentially give them, or tell them that you understand where they’re coming from and you are so sorry for their loss, and that we’re going to do everything that we can to make this right for you.’ And that seems to calm people down in pretty much any industry.” 15:29

In this episode, we talk to Derek Hixon, Director of Customer Support and Implementation at WordStream. He has been working for 15 years in support and also has a pretty diverse background. Derek tells us what made him change course in life and how he made some decisions that have affected him for the rest of his life. He likes to find out what his team’s goals are, both in the company and as individuals in their own lives in order to build a stronger bond and make his team members and relationships more personable. Derek says to know your team and to use the data as a tool. We’re never making a huge, big change in the team, but we’re constantly making little changes that over time will turn into the big change we need.

His background 1:38
What has made Derek successful 2:57
Things that have changed the way Derek looks at support 11:23
Case analysis 16:10
Working in a box 19:30

“Things are better if they’re done right and slowly and usually you benefit from it in the long term. You can always get short term success with things, but if you have the luxury of time, which you don’t always have obviously, you can do really great things.” 9:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalderek/

Joining us today we have the Director of Customer Support at FinancialForce, Adam Maino, and we discuss how to develop a world class customer support team. We talk about the importance of creating and cultivating an environment where your employees can fail fast and learn from those challenges. Adam tells us about how the structure of a world class customer support team should be organized and the types of layers and tiers they have. We discuss knowledge center services and how this process helps Adam’s people at FinancialForce. Don’t miss it!

About Adam and his company 0:47
Lessons he has learned 2:00
What the structure should look like 4:15
What is KCS? 7:04
How many employees equal happy customers? 11:22

“With my employees I never tell them what to do. I ask them what to do, right? It’s a request. There are no demands there. I think what we should really be focusing on is coaching our employees and not managing them so much. Kick open the doors and let them do their job.” 10:58

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammaino/

In this episode we talk to Christine Deehring, the founder and CEO of Bump Boxes, a company that sells special and useful products for pregnant women. Bump Boxes is a subscription service that provides the necessities that a pregnant woman will need each month of her pregnancy. Christine tells us what her company does to bring their values to the customer and how their culture affects how they approach customer service. She also shares some things they do like rewarding their customers based on how long they’ve been with them and improving their structure based on feedback from their customers. Tune in now!

What is Bump Boxes? 0:53
A large spike in their social media growth 1:58
How company culture empowers the customer journey 4:33
How their feedback loop has been made more fluid 12:05

“Recently we rolled out a VIP program. So any mom that subscribes with us gets, depending on how long she’s committed, she gets a specific discount to our store just joining our subscription. And that was something that came up from just customer feedback.” 11:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-deehring-b1468693/

Joining us today we have Senior Director of Customer Experience at Epicor, Chris Warticki. He has been in the customer service industry for 25 years. He worked at Oracle Corporation for 20 years, and he’s been at Epicor for the last two years running their customer success management team. We discuss the methods Chris uses in his company and how they approach customer experience, satisfaction, success, and the present. He tells us why it’s important not to rush to delight your customers to avoid overextending your teams.

Chris’s background 0:43
Why not rush to delight your customers? 1:30
Customer experience 3:23
Customer satisfaction 4:03
Customer success 5:42
Present 6:52
A big ah-ha moment 11:20

“When it comes down to it, everybody like I said wants our customers and your customers to be successful. Getting the right minds to be able to sit together and quickly evaluate what’s the business problem we’re trying to solve and let’s get it documented for future reference. So we can lean it over time. Go from good to great. Go from better to best.” 11:51

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswarticki/
@cwarticki on Twitter

In this episode we have with us the founder of Support Driven, Scott Tran, and we talk about a new community that’s popping up, how it’s used, and what it is and how it has become a great resource for people to share and connect. Tune in to understand how to create a sense of community during challenging times!

Scott Tran and how he created his community 0:52
About the community 3:51
How has the community reacted 6:39
Being more effective with less people 8:51

“There’s also a social aspect to it. We have talented people with different hobbies and that’s often been a way for people to connect in these times. We’ve had quite a few people start making progress.” 10:31

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-tran-188815a3/
supportdriven.com

Today we talk about tools in technology for making the life of customers easier with the head of customer experience and employee engagement for the global company called Schindler Elevator Corporation, Stacy Sherman. She tells and updates us on the current situation with customer experience tech, and then what we should be using still and how we should be adapting/changing to meet current standards. She emphasizes the importance of establishing employee and company culture to maintain a high performing work environment.

Stacy’s background 1:14
Current environment of technology 2:53
Can you use the standard methodology? Or should you change? 8:02
The importance of culture 10:23

“How do leaders be able to really aggregate the voice of the customer and be able to have a pulse of what is going on from structured data, like surveys, and unstructured, social media, rating and reviews, and so much more. That’s where it wins. That’s where the game changes when companies are using tools to be able to listen, respond, close the loop easily.” 5:36

doingcxright.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysherman/

In this episode we talk to the Partner Experience Manager at Twitter, Sioban Massiah. She started off working in marketing back in 2008 when the recession hit and marketing was one of the first things to disappear, so she had to go into sales. She has found while researching customer experience that no matter what you did in any company, if you weren’t empathetic or knew your customer and figured out what they wanted, you would be unable to succeed. We talk about the company's purpose and Sioban says if you put your purpose out there, people who align with it will come to you.

Her background 0:50
Power of connection 3:38
Getting your employees aligned around your purpose 8:37
Empathy and connection with customers 12:20

“I think that the script is the foundation and the training to be connecting and actually empathetic with your customer is what you build off of. You need to hire people where these practices are actually part of who they are in general, or who they want to be and who they see themselves being so that way this script is something they can work with, but they can still connect and empathise with their customers.” 7:20

sio@twitter.com
Twitter: justcallmesio

Our guest today Richard Vernon is a customer experience extraordinaire. He is here to talk CX. The real question we need to ask ourselves these days is how do you go from old to new? What is the paradigm shift? If you want to change a practice or behavior, then you have to change your paradigm and the results you’ll get is change. Spending time on the front lines and seeing customer experience through their eyes is transformational. Sometimes the best ideas will come from those who are dealing with customers all day every day and Richard talks about how they’ve gotten great CX ideas by brainstorming with the customer service reps.

Richard’s background 1:01
Paradigm shift 2:30
Coaching 5:57
How do we truly authenticate a customer in a warm and friendly way? 13:20

“So it went around, there were some ideas shared, but nothing really stuck, and then this cute little gal raised her hand in the corner. She rarely participates and she says ‘here’s what I say. I say well who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?’ I was ready to give her my credit card, my social security number. It was the most friendly way.” 14:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardvernon/

The Global Director of Customer Experience at Taconic Biosciences, David Grissom, joins us in this episode to talk about customer experience. He has 14 years of experience in customer facing roles and has seen the importance of not just hiring leaders from a certain industry. He uses something he calls the three P’s, which are 1) People, 2) Products, and 3) Process. If your people understand these three concepts and the importance of them, you will succeed as an organization.

David’s story 1:04
The 3 P’s 5:06
Building people around this journey map 10:10

“Really my passion about this is letting leaders not get hung up on only hiring candidates from a certain industry because you’re really doing your company a disservice by not bringing in people with fresh ideas and fresh technology and thoughts to really help your organization move into a different level.” 4:16

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgrissom/

Today we are joined by Alyce's CEO, Greg Segall, the Head of Customer Success at Alyce, Sean MacPherson, and Vikas Bhambri, Head of Sales and CX at Kustomer. Greg tells us gifting is an investment in a relationship and builds loyalty, strengthening the bonds with those you care about. They have tens of thousands of different options for gifts to send out so people can reach everyone they need to. These gifts can help you build your team and delight customers.

Introductions 0:37
Why gifting is important 3:50
Different gift types 15:55
Situations in which to use gifting 20:44

“Software and Service is a recurring revenue business. You by nature are building all of those experiences and delighting your customers, that’s not only gonna pay out on adoption advocacy, but you’re going to get referrals, you’re gonna get all of that. So when you’re thinking about cultivating your business plan for your gifting strategy, keep all of those things in mind because at the end of the day this is going to reduce your customer acquisition cost.” 23:14

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregsegall/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmacpherson/
www.alyce.com

In today’s episode, we have customer experience expert, Annette Pedroza, who has been in the customer service vocation for 20 years now. She gives 3 tips on how to build a customer focused foundation. Tip 1) You need leadership involvement and it needs to come from the top. Tip 2) Assessing your specific environment. There isn’t one strategy that’s gonna work with everyone. Tip 3) Setting realistic goals to be able to execute on your plans. She talks about how they were able to help their team change their way of thinking and what they did to influence that through positive people and attitudes. She was able to influence the whole company and get every department involved in interacting with the customer.

About Annette 0:41
3 tips on how to build a customer focused foundation starting with #1 3:29
Tip #2 7:16
Tip #3 7:46
What got the employees around this new way of thinking 15:30

“Now you had employees who had no direct connection prior to that and now they had a chance to talk directly to the customer and really live that customer centricity value. I just did this one team at a time and before you know it, one VP is talking to another VP and then people are knocking at my door and saying ‘Hey we want to participate. How do we become part of this?’ So really starting small and just growing your sphere of influence and leveraging you that leadership to spread your message. Size doesn’t matter, you can influence a company of any size.” 18:32

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annette-pedroza-ccxp-8465b5/

In this episode we will be talking about who actually owns the customer and to do that we have with us today the Global Director of Customer Experience at Hyland, Justin Chappell. He explains that depending on the company you work for, who owns the customer could be a couple of things. It could be the account management team, or it could be a hybrid approach that uses a little bit of that account executive and customer success manager, both having ownership of the customer, but different pieces of it. “I try to look at ownership as who really has the customer’s best interest in mind and who’s working with them to help them achieve their business objectives.” 2:25

Justin’s background 0:45
Who owns the customer? 1:38
Monitoring customer risk 8:52
ROI 12:22
Retaining 15:41

“So meeting with top companies within certain verticles to allow them to share ‘Here’s what we’re seeing as a business in the outside world. How are you gonna help us achieve that?’ That’s really where you see that investment come back in being a partner in our strategic alignment with their strategies that they’re trying to achieve.” 14:44

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justchappell/
justchappell@gmail.com

Today I am joined by Vice President of Customer Experience at Zones, LLC, Steven Maskell. He states you need to give the customer a reason to share their data with you and he gives questions you should ask yourself, such as what do you know about your customer? Are you able to see how they’re interacting with you? Or is it anonymized? Are they sharing with you information that’s important that you can use? “The two areas where I would say to best understand is to frame it around who are they and what are they doing, and then how are they influencing each other?” 6:52

Steven’s background 0:52
Basics and must haves to help build the personalized experience 5:20
Building an infrastructure to capture the data 7:47



“It took IBM a really long time to build Watson and Watson still screws up. What I would say is this: don’t expect that it’s going to solve everything. Really what it’s gonna do is it’s gonna help you understand a little bit better. A little bit better. That’s what you’re trying to do each and every time.” 11:05

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmaskell/

In this episode we speak with customer experience expert and Interim CFO at Macpherson’s, Michael O’Reilly. We go over various methods on how to improve your NPS, including how they use data to optimize their score. “Find the data that tells the truth, not the data that makes you feel good.” 7:22 We also go over technology and the benefits of using the right tools to increase your results and what Michael has experienced through tech.

Michael’s background 0:33
Understanding NPS 1:43
How they have used data to optimize their NPS score 7:18
How technology plays into the NPS score 9:03

“Don’t stop when you feel good about the data. Really dig into the data and understand what’s telling you the true story, and that’s how you then drive NPS in a sustainable way. It’s also how you get credibility in the organization.” 8:09

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-o-reilly-tu/

Joining Gabe today we have the Chief Revenue Officer at Blue Chip CRO, Ed Porter. We go over some steps that have helped him in his role to understand the customer better and find out what branches of your business to use in order to determine what the customer wants. Technology doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s there to enable the process of fixing the problem rather than used to find the problem.

Ed’s history 1:20
Deal makers that changed the way the company sees their customers 4:12
Customer service is no longer a one size fits all 8:38
Takeaway to be successful in these different times 17:15

“I’ll tell ya the ones that are really doing it right, you don’t have to be these big enterprises. You just have to look at a lot of these tools and processes that say, ‘Does marketing know what we’re doing on the support side? Are we sharing the same message? Is that message being delivered to that customer?’ And you drive consistency through those channels, that’s how you’re delivering a good customer experience.” 6:06

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edporter/

In today’s episode we discuss the top customer service mistakes with Global Head of Customer Success and Support at Mitek Systems, Mike Sasaki. Mike worked for Sketchers and was able to experience how they ran their company and what issues they ran into, giving him first hand knowledge of snags you can run into with CX. Mike shares with us 5 tips to avoid the most common customer service mistakes.

Mike’s experiences 0:53
What can help customer service teams 6:13
What channels are you providing? 10:32

“I’m a customer, we’re all customers. We want to find the answers when we want to find them. Google has taught us to get to the answers pretty quickly. If you’re not providing a really great customer service self-service channel, then you’re missing out on a lot there. So I was probably late to the game with that, but I’m all on board with self-service.” 10:59

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasakimike/

In this episode we discuss how to move from reactive to proactive preventative customer support with special guest Eric Bonnette, who is currently the Director of Technical Support and Customer Success at Qualys. We talk about why being proactive is essential to having a successful branch of support, such as being able to get ahead and approach issues you may face before they become too big of a problem. Eric tells about the principles he uses to influence his teams to be proactive, and then defines what customer success is to them.

About Eric 0:51
Why proactivity is important 1:38
Principles Eric has used to change and guide his support teams 2:50
Defining customer success 6:21
Technology 10:12

“At the end of the day it is extremely important when you talk about being proactive and moving from that reactive natured state that you’re in. It allows you to gain a more holistic view on the customer engagements while quarterbacking or facilitating, if you will, those engagements.” 5:43

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-bonnette-3014787/

Today the CEO and founder of Be ExtraOrdinary Incorporated and CX Transformation Executive Leader, Carrie S. Lemelin, is joining us. The best way to prepare for and help with problems your customers face is to listen to them. Just being human and being able to say sorry makes us seem more like people rather than robots, which will bode well with the customer.

Carrie’s background 1:02
What to be measuring 4:55
Getting digital 14:20

“Actually the biggest gift a customer can do for you is to complain. Your customers that have the loudest voices mean they’re the most angry and those are the customers that have the real good information so that you can actually make a turn-around.” 5:48

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynlemelin

In this episode we talk with Digital Transformation Leader, Customer Experience Zealot, and Global Vice President at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Erik Vogel. He gives us steps on how to deal with customers’ credit and how to protect yourselves from making the mistake of sending products before knowing what their credit is. It’s our job to make sure we don’t ruin the customer’s experience while putting up safeguards for ourselves. Erik gives us some tips on how to communicate effectively and make sure you’re all on the same page.

About Erik 0:46
Making their transition 3:59
Some of the most surprising changes 10:31
Their Metrics and Principles 20:08

“If there’s any takeaway everybody watching this takes is, get the common model, the common taxonomy, and drive that into the organization so you’re all talking the same language. So when you have these discussions–cross B U, cross organization, at least you’re talking about it like this and not like this. You’re bringing it together and you’re talking about it from a common viewpoint.” 18:36

Today we will be talking about next level CX for business-to-business companies—the why, the what, the when, and the how with the VP of Strategy and Analytics at Walker, Troy Powell, and Steve Walker, Walker’s CEO. We will be discussing their latest research report focused on the differences between B2B and B2C customer experience. Learn how they are helping CX leaders create more sustainable B2B businesses by having a customer-centric approach.

Troy’s background 0:56
Steve’s background 4:41
Steve’s Advice/the Maturity Model 13:24
Nailing the CX transformation 19:21

“As opposed to starting with the X data, kind of talk to the business leaders about what they’re trying to drive, and then bring some insights from your customer base that can help them make those decisions better or with a more complete set of information.” 20:41

https://www.linkedin.com/in/troyapowell/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenfwalker/
https://www.walkerinfo.com/

In this episode we discuss a 90 day roadmap to customer excellence, and to do that we brought on Shannon Martin, the Senior Director, Travel Partners Group at Expedia Group. She gives some good advice on how to break down a customer’s issue, and then come up with a plan to solve that issue, finding the root and shifting your approach to avoid that problem in the future. We talk about the question “Why” and use this to get to the root of their issue, which usually takes around 5 whys. Shannon tells how they were able to raise customer and employee satisfaction by no longer monitoring handle time.

Shannon’s background 0:51
Where to start 4:03
Where to go next 7:52
Improve results 9:54
Last step 12:07

“You always wanna start with the customer’s problem. What problem are you trying to solve? And so once you understand what problem you’re trying to solve, then you can think about ‘what are the processes that impact that problem? How does the customer get to the point where they have that problem?’ And then you start looking at breaking that problem apart and what you can then fix.” 2:57

https://www.linkedin.com/in/slearmartin/

Today we’re going to be talking about transforming your CX organization. To do that we got with us today the Head of Customer Experience at Patient Pop, Hunter Schoettle. We discuss how he runs his customer service team and he shares the secrets to his hiring process. Hunter builds a strong base in relationships with his own people in order to help that spread to the customer. He tells us about how they are able to work with other departments and the type of strategy you can use to expand your circle and communications within your company.

About Hunter 0:54
The hiring process 5:24
How data helps them transform 8:22
Which metrics have been right 10:26
Best way to operate outside of your box 14:43

“The main bread and butter, main focus though is on customer retention and that’s really where my department thrives and gives the most value to the company, using those frontline interactions to both gather data, and then analyze and use that to help continually improve the product.” 1:52

In this episode, we’re going over how to build support organizations startup-style with Karen Durenberger, VP of Customer Support at Total Expert. She explains where to begin and says the first thing you need to do is define what your team needs to be, really understanding what type of service you need to give to your customers. You have to ask yourself how you want your customers to describe your customer support team because it’s amazing how much insight you will get into what their expectations are in terms of what they want from a customer support team. You also need to hire/find people who will stick with the customer until they fix their issue, and then diversify the people you bring on in order to have multiple perspectives in your company.

Karen’s background 0:50
Where to start with startup-style 4:10
Staffing and building your team 7:44
Her story of being bold 12:28

“If you were having a glass of wine with your customers over the dinner table –we wish in this era of Covid that we could do that, but let’s all pretend, and you asked your customers, “What words would you use to describe our customer support team?” What words do you want them to use?” 6:43

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-durenberger-1891013/

In today’s episode we have joining us Customer Experience Expert and Sr. Vice President at Masterbrand Cabinets, Billie Jo Timm, and we’re going to be talking about enabling long term sustainability in customer service. She'll give some good advice on how to get people to collaborate by getting them involved in the whole process of exactly what they do and how it impacts the customer. She will explain the various steps of long term sustainability, such as pushing continuous improvement and preparing for a change in culture. Tune in!

Billie Jo’s background 0:50
How she ups her collaboration game 3:57
Continuous improvement 6:17
Change in culture 10:37

“We’ve had great success where they want to be involved because they also can learn things, and learn how to run their business more effectively using similar tools and using similar structure. Many of the customers we have worked with have really benefited from that and are excited to be a part of it.” 5:45

https://www.linkedin.com/in/billie-jo-timm/

Today we’re gonna be talking about operations and how that really plays into the role of helping you transform your customer experience, and with us we brought on the Vice President at Mercy Hospital, John Timmerman. The best thing to do is find out who is performing the best and study their behavior, and don’t study the behavior of the average employee, or you’ll get average results. It’s easy to take your company values and just put them on the wall, but often that doesn’t affect a lot of the people working in the department. John tells us how to deal with the employees that aren’t adapting or don’t want to change with the company.

John’s background 0:52
How to coach organizations to shift from subjective to objective 2:33
What it comes down to 8:16
How to deal with people who won’t adapt 10:54
Stay away from this 24:02

“I’d talk about our values and say, ‘If there’s anything here that you feel uncomfortable with, please we’re gonna take a break and do not come back because this is not the right organization for you. There’s an organization out there for you, we’re just not the one, and that’s OK. We want you to come to that self discovery now.’” 11:50

In this episode we are discussing the best ways to set up your remote workforce and with us today we have the VP of customer care at Magellan Health, Gordon Schleffer. He explains what went on with the customer service world after the pandemic hit last year and what types of businesses gained more calls from customers versus what businesses lost calls. Gordon tells us that the companies that did the best were the ones who had established a strong company culture. The ability of your management and staff to keep your team engaged is the difference between success and failure in this new economic climate. We discuss AI technology that can monitor calls for you and send alerts when something goes wrong in a conversation.

Gordon’s background 0:39
What happened to the customer contact center world after Covid hit? 2:08
What separated the top performers from the bottom? 7:25
How are people managing to be successful in this new work environment? 10:43
Adapting to different technologies 15:24

“To me the critical piece on how successful and how well your contact center is run is based on the culture you create. And so, I think that the companies that have probably fared the best when they sent their staff home were the companies that had the strongest culture.” 7:40

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordon-schleffer-9463245/

Today we discuss employee and customer engagement and the best way to do that is with Senior Director of Employee & Customer Experience at Centene Corporation, Suzzanna Rowold. She explains that the two major elements that drive success in your company are 1) Employee turnover and 2) Quality of leadership. When hiring people, you need to make sure that you have set clear expectations of what they’re going to be doing so that they aren’t blindsided by a role for which they aren’t prepared. Training your leaders to see the bigger picture is crucial in passing that on to your employees, and then making sure you invest in your employees’ growth and improvement is necessary for success.

Suzzanna’s background 0:58
Secrets of how she has been successful throughout her career 3:39
Hiring the right people 6:59
What else to look for in your hires 13:01

“One of the very top parts of ensuring that your on-boarding is really focused to your needs is setting those clear expectations. You really need to have your job descriptions and what you’re posting for those positions be exactly what it is that you’re needing them to do.” 7:00

https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzzannarowoldlcpc/

Today we’re going to be talking about human centered customer experiences and we’ll be doing this with the Director of customer experience from NuAxis Innovations, Amanda Chavez. She tells us how they focus on giving their customers a more human experience by using special creative methods and techniques to just have a conversation and get them to open up. Amanda says that literally the only thing you need to talk to humans is the stuff that you learned in 5th grade English and ask the who, what, when, why, when, and how questions, or the “newspaper questions.” She tells me you need to ask your questions, and then just shut up and listen. This is what people need and want. Common sense uncommonly practiced.

Who is Amanda? 0:58
What does human centered customer experience mean? 1:41
Diving into the details 6:17
Otter.ai 11:14
Additional points, Dark Night of the Soul 14:04

“Taking a human centered approach really focuses on not only knowing the numbers behind who your customers are and what their behaviors are, but actually intimately getting to know those people. Like actually having conversations with them to discover where the pain really lives in that experience, and using a lot of creative methods to reshape that experience for them.” 2:14

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandachavez08/

I have with me today Vikas Bhambri and the Director and Distinguished Principal Analyst at XM Institute, Luke Williams, who is the most senior CX and VOC expert in the firm and is a New York Times best seller, “Why Loyalty Matters,” and has been highlighted multiple times in the Harvard Business Review. We discuss the future of CX and how companies need to shift or prepare for situations like the one we’ve been faced with during the pandemic. Luke tells about how CX tech needs to treat and approach the customer just like an in-store associate would by asking them what their end goal is rather than just the up front issue at hand (17:31).

The XM Institute 1:24
The future of CX in 2021 3:27
Big trends as things might be shifting back to normal 6:36
Vikas’s take on the future of CX technology 8:40
Example of Circuit City 23:26

“Everyone’s kind of figured out that if your digital experience is really frictionless and good, you’re going to be able to build customer loyalty on the back of that, and that’s going to be forever moving forward. That is the retirement of the buggy whip.” 7:27

Today we are going to talk about how to build and scale a CX program even during a pandemic, and to do that we have joining us the Head of Customer Experience and Strategy at ServiceNow, Matt Lombardi. He tells us there are 3 critical needs CX leaders need to embrace. The first one is getting executive buy-in early and often. The second one is track and report on the value that your team is creating for the business, which ties in to number one. Number three is continuously adapting and improving to stay relevant, which is especially true today when our customer’s needs and wants are changing so rapidly.

About Matt 1:30
Three critical needs for CX leaders 3:04
How he worked with his people on this 7:52
How number 3 affects his business 11:27

“Lots of unstructured customer feedback is ideal to understand what levers can be pulled to improve the customer experience. And then when you put those two pieces together, you can really start telling a compelling story about how to drive long term growth to your company. It’s at that point that the power of experienced management becomes clear.” 6:42

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattmlombardi/

In this episode we talk with the Director of Multifamily CX, UX, and Human-Centered Design at Freddie Mac, Kris Featheringham. He emphasizes on the importance of a human-centered design to provide the ultimate tailored customer experience. Kris and I discuss the process and lessons he has learned throughout his CX career, and then go into getting executive sponsorships and what you can do to work with your people to understand more their needs in relation to the needs of your customer base.

Kris’s background 0:47
Process and lessons learned 5:08
Executive sponsorships and process 8:12
Define 12:26

“A lot of times when you sit there and interview someone, they’re just going off their most recent recollection or their most recent experiences. But there are a lot of things that will come out that they would never even have thought to bring up as you watch them. And you’ll come back to them afterward and say, ‘I saw you do this and this. Talk to me about that.’ and then all of the sudden you’ve opened up a whole new can of worms and it’s powerful.” 11:59

https://www.linkedin.com/in/featheringham/

Today we’re going to be talking about customer success and how to do that on a global scale and to do that we brought on Balaji Gadicharla, who is currently the Global Head of Service Support and Success at CipherCloud. He explains some of the ideal trends and practices he has observed while traveling around the globe, such as having someone go to the customer in person, and then establishing dedicated teams. Balaji explains that the best way to become a trusted partner is by understanding them and how their ecosystem works, and then you will be allowed to join that system and move forward with them.

Balaji’s journey 0:55
Trends he has seen as he’s traveled the globe 3:40
Advice/best practices observed 5:46
Why companies don’t understand the nature of their customers 9:12

“We should be able to provide a unified experience to our customers–to all our customers across all incidents. So it should not be transactional–somebody picks up the phone, and then calls your boss, then everything starts falling in place. That’s not how it should be run.” 4:00

https://www.linkedin.com/in/balaji-g-8a3b076/?originalSubdomain=in

In this episode we talk with the User Experience Architect at Pitney Bowes, Nitya Pannala. We discuss this idea of design thinking, which is a mindset, or ideology of approaching every problem in a human centered way. Nitya gives 3 easy rules to put design thinking into practice. Number 1 is empathize and put yourself in your end user’s shoes. Number 2 is go broad before you go deep by considering multiple options before narrowing down. Number 3 is to experiment as much as possible by testing many different ideas so you can nail it before you scale it.

What Nitya does at Pitney Bowes 1:07
Why it’s important to talk about design thinking 3:50
What is design thinking? 4:51
Putting this into practice/3 easy rules 10:34
How people should get started 20:35

“Contrary to popular belief, this mindset isn’t really about design. It’s about helping companies and individuals think differently about strategic options and system impact. It is most powerful when you combine it with strategic context and that’s where design meets business and the most impact happens.” 6:25

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitya-pannala/

Today Vikas Bhambri, Head of Sales and CX at Kustomer, and Josh Neckes, currently the co-founder and president at Simon Data, are joining us to dive into market trends, specifically on the data side. We discuss how companies can better know what’s going on with their customers and Josh tells a funny story about when a company kept contacting him about his marriage that had been called off, but the company didn’t know, so contact from the company kept coming, causing some annoyance for Josh. Companies need to put something in place that analyzes the data coming in, or at least gives auto responses to customers when they have inquiries about issues they’re facing.

Simon’s company 0:50
How data plays a role in D to C 6:07
How it’s possible to bring the formula together 12:55
Where people should start if they are lost 21:01

“Maybe you’re not in an emotional space like weddings or dogs, or we work with a lot of financial services companies, but guess what. Most spaces that are not sellings socks on the internet actually are very emotional.” 14:31

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jneckes/
josh@simondata.com

In this episode we speak with Sami Nuwar, the Senior Principal Consultant at Medallia, which is a customer experience management platform that helps you manage CX in your company and make things easier. We discuss why people lose focus and stop trying operational excellence, and then where to go and what to do when this happens to your business. We talk about optimizing your data collection in order to analyze it and thus improve various aspects of your customer interactions and experience.

Sami’s background 0:37
Why do people get lackadaisical on operational excellence? 2:59
Where to begin to become more operationally tight 4:13
How to avoid being misled by your data 7:41
Advice for the audience 14:17

“The other, I think, overlooked channel for data is the internal knowledge base within the business. The operational data. We all have systems and machines that capture data from our interactions with customers and our daily business, and that is typically a treasure trove of information.” 7:55

https://www.linkedin.com/in/saminuwarcx/

In this episode we speak with the Director of Customer Experience and Employee Engagement at Schindler Elevator Corporation, Stacy Sherman, and Vikas Bhambri, Head of CX at Kustomer. Vikas tells us about the 3 pieces to an effective program: People, process, and technology. We discuss having executives getting involved on the front lines to see and understand directly what’s going on with the customer, and then making sure your employees are feeling valued and heard.

What’s not working 1:32
3 pieces to an effect program 2:13
Bottoms up feedback 7:17
Tactics to drive the employee and customer experience 10:35
Strengthening employee relationships 15:05

“I’m seeing more and more companies put the executives or new employees in the chair of their front line as part of their onboarding. So as part of your onboarding, go sit with your support team, hear your customers, feel their pain, understand their challenges, and then rotate your executives into that on a regular basis.” 8:32

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysherman/

Today we’re going to talk about customer service research and what more than one million phone calls tells us what you’re supposed to be doing to be successful in customer service and to do that we have on with us Vikas Bhambri from Kustomer and Matt Dixon, the Head of Product and Research at Tethr. We discuss how they have gathered data of over a million customer service phone calls and the useful things we’ve learned to improve the customer experience.

How writing “The Effortless Experience” has affected Matt’s career 1:49
The latest research 6:06
Takeaways from the data 17:43

“If you’re a product person and you don’t realize, ‘Wow, my contact center gets real-time feedback on a new feature, or a new service that I’m providing.’ There’s a lack of understanding about the richness of the data that resides in the contact center environment.” 16:10

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewxdixon/

In this episode we have Vikas Bhambri and Kyle Coleman, the VP of Growth and Enablement at Clari, a company that transforms revenue operations to be more connected, efficient, and predictable. We discuss a mistake that many companies end up making without realizing it and what the interaction is that causes customers to struggle a little more in trying to learn about the product. Often looking up and learning about physical products online is pretty easy and there is a lot of information about it, but when it comes to software, specifically individual software used by various companies, the information is usually inadequate.

How Tom has become an influencer on LinkedIn 1:31
Presales interaction that makes things difficult for the customer: the demo request process 3:10
The role of the SDR 6:29
B to B vs B to C interactions 14:46
How does the buyer want to buy? 22:30

“Make it as easy as possible for people to find out as much as possible about your product so that when you have those conversations, they’re as close to the bottom of the funnel as possible. Buyers want to do research themselves. They are frustrated when they can’t find answers.” 9:28

https://www.linkedin.com/company/clari/

On Today’s episode we have Steve Richard, the Chief Evangelist and Co-founder of Execvision, to discuss the importance of call recordings and why this ought to be incorporated into customer support. Plenty of people thought the phone, or calling in to companies for customer support would die out, but if anything, especially with the pandemic over the last year, customer phone calls have increased and this continues to be a necessary tool for companies to have in order to work with their customers.

What Steve does at Execvision 0:45
Why call recordings matter 1:58
Predicting email would die out 6:54
How people are using the data to change 12:17
Scorecard/best practices on collecting data 16:34

“So I think there’s a lot that now companies are able to do that technology has improved, but they can take thousands, millions of calls, do their analysis on it, and actually make business decisions and those business decisions aren’t limited to the enablement of the agent. It’s change in policy, change in product, change in marketing offers. That richness of data is something that’s now available to the business at large.” 11:14

https://www.linkedin.com/in/saleskickoffspeaker/

Today we’re talking about the importance of visual context in customer service and to do that we brought on Vikas Bhambri and Wade Radcliffe, who was Director of Business Development at Streem and is now the Vice President of Strategic Sales at Xerox. We talk about why video can really help improve the customer experience, such as cutting down on troubleshooting or quoting time. There may be some pushback from customers or even service reps that they won’t want to see each other, so Wade’s solution is having both be able to see what each other are seeing and discuss their situation, and then ease into having face to face time.

Wade’s intro 0:30
Why is it important to introduce visuals? 1:48
An example from Vikas 7:08
Visuals and car dealerships 10:33
How to start with visuals 13:43
How it works 15:08

“So I’ve seen your space, now let’s have a face to face conversation about how we go about ordering furniture for you, for example. Like a lot of things in the contact center world, you kind of want to have your channels work for you as opposed to you trying to make a certain channel work perfectly.” 6:42

Today we’re going to be talking about language resilience in this expansion of key superpowers, and to do that we have Edmund Ovington, the VP of Global Alliances at Unbabel and Vikas joining us. Edmund explains why resilience, agility, and flexibility are the superpowers that your company will need to survive. People want to communicate with a company in their own language and it doesn’t matter if that company is foreign because they want to be catered to. We talk about the benefits of expanding and being available to more than just our native locations.

Resilience is a superpower 1:00
Why has language become so important in the customer service arena? 6:10
How companies communicate with foreigners 9:08
Changes Edmund has seen in language 13:24
How can companies expand and scale thinking of language as an advantage 21:00

“Are you showing empathy and a desire to transact with them? We think about this at Kustomer, this concept of ‘the me’ and the consumer, right? And the consumer wants to be–they don’t want to think of you as an American brand or a British brand, right? Yes you might be, but I don’t want to do business with you in your language. Do business with me in my language, and I think that’s where we’re seeing the customer experience evolve to.” 4:19

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmundovington/

In this episode we talk with CEO and Founder at Kustomer, Brad Birnbaum. We’re gonna be talking about this idea of a ticket free future. We discuss how and why Kustomer started, Kustomer focus on a seamless customer experience, and the role of an omnichannel platform to service modern customer needs.

Brad’s background 0:44
The 3 principles on which Kustomer was founded 2:49
What does truly omni channel mean? 4:17
CRM’s role 7:33
Final advice for leaders of customer service 14:05

“You have to adapt, right? It’s kind of adapt or die, right? You have to adapt and that is how you do business in every facet of how you do business. Customer service of course is a critical part of it. You can have a great product, but poor customer service and you probably will not have repeat customers, you won’t have customer advocacy, and in the end you probably won’t win.” 14:39

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleybirnbaum/

In this episode we’re going to be talking about why and how to manage a global CX team. To do that we have two special guests with us: Michael Windsor, the Senior Director of Global Customer Experience at Skybox Security, and Vikas Bhambri from Kustomer. Michael has worked in various places around the world, including Israel where they focused a lot on security, so he tells us what we can expect when working in different regions and how to go about customer experience in those various places.

Where to start 2:22
Michael’s experiences with organic vs. BPO 6:36
Other lessons learned 8:53
Variability from region to region 10:46
Challenges faced 12:07
Scaling globally 14:23
The cost/saving perspective 18:01

“Ultimately the customer experience or customer success starts from when that first sales call all the way in terms of how they’re supported. So not only do you have to make sure that the teams that you manage are aligned with that, you really need to understand that entire customer journey and keep it foundationally the same.” 11:21

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwindsor/

Eric Chon is the Community Support Manager at Zwift, an online competitive cycling app for people who want to exercise and have fun while remaining indoors, and last year they hosted the first ever virtual Tour De France. Today we’re talking about how and why Zwift switched to a different CX platform. Eric tells us of how switching to Kustomer changed their company’s direction and the reasons behind making the switch.

About Eric and Zwift 0:26
Why Zwift switched to Kustomer 3:56
Omni channel 5:54
How moving from Zendesk to Kustomer happened 12:15
Advice for companies considering a change 14:13

“It’s a lot easier for us to kinda see, well how many calls did we get? How long were they? Which teams worked on them? And did that call turn into a chat? Did that chat turn into an email? We can see that transition. We can see how many of those there are and having the tools to be able to see like, well how often are we channel switching? Right? From one to the other, you know, that kind of information is just readily available at Kustomer.” 11:11

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericchon/

Today we meet with Chief Operating Officer at UJET, Vasili Triant, and we talk about how companies have been adapting to the age of the mobile phone. Vasili tells us that people have been saying voice is going to die out since the late 90’s, but the reality is that all channels have been on the rise, meaning even demand for voice interactions is increasing. Vasili tells us about how they interact with their consumers and what UJET is doing to collect their data and take care of them based on their needs.

Does voice have a place in today’s market? 1:42
The big challenges that contact centers are facing now 3:37
Why some companies haven’t been able to change 7:20
How UJET is solving current problems 18:24

“The biggest thing frankly is, where are consumers today? They’re on their smartphones, they’re on web, and meet them where they’re at. So we essentially embed the connectivity between a consumer brand and their app, and we don’t make the consumer go outside of it.” 19:30

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasilitriant/

In this episode we’re going to be talking about CX transformation and driving business value with your CX team, and to do that we brought on Laurent Pierre Jr., the General Manager of Microsoft Azure CXP. We discuss what you need to do to work with your team, your leaders, and the customer to create life time value, or to get your customers to want to stick around for the rest of their lives. We want to focus on investing in the customer journey and get customers to love our company by treating them not just as a transaction, but as an actual human being.

Working with executives 2:04
How CX teams should be driving value 3:27
Where to start to get business value 6:01
More on driving value 9:56
Coaching people through it 14:10
Helping the CX team become the best 19:03

“Probably one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from customers is like, ‘Every time I call this support center, I have to re-explain my environment. I have to re-explain my architecture.’ And so that’s why it becomes important to understand your customer, segment them, but also align industry related technologists that can speak not only the technical language, but the business language.” 10:31

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurentpierrejr/

Today it’s just Vikas and Gabe talking about the issues faced the most in the CX industry and solutions for dealing with them. We discuss how companies might be trying to manage their customer feedback, and then talk about what employees might be experiencing in their own work life and recognizing when they’re frustrated or losing focus in their job and being able to track the data for that. B to B and B to C companies have their various problems and issues that we distinguish and for which we come up with some solutions.

Is customer feedback being managed more often? 3:10
2 things we would do if we had a magic wand 5:56
B to B and B to C customer service 14:00
Varying customer experience 17:19

“We can detect the sentiment of a customer’s email. What if we could detect the sentiment of an employee’s Slack or email? Maybe it will actually show that there’s a negative sentiment, like they’re getting more and more disenfranchised or hostile in their emails because they’re frustrated.” 8:46

Today we’re going to be talking about the power of wait time in driving the customer experience, and to do that we have Tom Reiger, the President of NSI, Inc. and President/CEO at National Business Innovations, LLC. We start off talking about wait time and Gabe asks if it’s really such an important thing to focus on and Tom explains that it’s always something his company is trying to focus on as it can prove to raise your company’s costs by quite a bit if you’re not careful.

Tom’s role 1:27
Wait time 2:18
Understanding certain types of tickets 8:37
What brands are doing to help the consumer have a better experience 13:46
Empowering employees to deliver a great experience 17:31

“You shouldn’t have to hire a million people to find this right balance. So it’s being smart about what you automate, it’s being smart about your channel prioritization, and it’s being smart about how you train and equip your reps to provide that individualized service.” 14:51

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-rieger-33161b1/

Today we’re talking with Vikas and Darryl Addington, the Director of Product Marketing at Five9, and he shares with us some of his own secrets about Artificial Intelligence in the Contact Center. One thing you will have to do if you’re considering using AI for your company is moving towards the cloud, which is where all the data is. There are plenty of benefits to switching over to AI, such as customers being able to get assistance much faster than if they would have to wait for a human being to be available. The problem is it’s often too expensive for smaller businesses, so we discuss ways people can overcome the issue of cost and integrate AI into their own company.

Why people should care about AI 5:12
Are there certain things you need in place to use AI? 6:46
Where people are seeing the benefits in machine learning and AI 12:21
Agent assist capabilities 19:21
Can AI suggest solutions? 22:05
Where to start 27:39

“What [Business] can invest in though is technology using this idea of machine learning, which we can talk a little bit about, they can invest in that to solve the types of problems that they’re suffering from today, which there’s lots of them, especially if you look in the contact center. Tons of room for improvement in customer experience, as we all know, and tons of room for improvement in terms of operations and improving efficiency, and things like that.” 6:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darryl-addington-8055642/

In this episode we’re going to talk about how great companies master modern customer experiences, and to do that we brought on the Director of Operations and Customer Experience at JOANN, Drew Chamberlain. We discuss why it’s so important to have all communication channels that the customer desires to use available to them even if your company struggles with one of those channels. We also talk about AI and whether it’s something your company should integrate into your customer experience or not. Make sure you avoid tricking customers into thinking they’re chatting with a real person.

Optimising customer experiences 3:26
Helping companies be on the right channel 4:44
The best tool to use 5:54
Multi channel vs omni channel 6:45
The 360 view 8:18
Drew’s opinion on artificial intelligence 10:05
Where to start with AI 12:18

“The trick here is the channels that you optimise in, you can try to lead people to that direction, but that doesn’t mean eliminating the channels that you’re not the best at and are gonna cost you more. Maybe you focus on email or chat, but you always have to leave that other channel out there, whether it’s phone or social in case the customer wants to contact you that way.” 5:16

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-chamberlain-2a2a6148

Today I meet with Vikas and Sophie Vu, Chief Marketing Officer at Unbabel, and we discuss how you can achieve high growth and customer satisfaction in our global economy. Sophie tells us how Unbabel is making communication between citizens in various countries easy and improving the way we commune globally. Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more popular across the board today and many people have been worried it may replace people, but language is so complex that people will always have to be around in order to correct the mistakes that AI will continue to make.

About Sophie and Unbabel 0:54
Language operations 2:08
Big picture trends 6:32
AI 8:01
AI and language 11:52
How should people adapt to coming out of the pandemic? 18:59
Your customer has evolved 23:22
Learn more about Unbabel and the research 28:06

“Think of language operations as a way to roll out, centralize, and scale multilingual capabilities across every function in an enterprise, right? We’re starting with customer service, but eventually we want to obviously enable marketing, sales, product, HR, legal, what have you, to be able to function in this global world that we live in.” 2:27

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-vu415

Today I have with me Pam O’Neal, the Senior Marketing Director here at Kustomer, and we’re talking about the importance of social commerce, which isn’t new, but is really hot right now. We talk about the risks and realities of tackling it, how to make it work, and then some of the brands that are doing it really well, and then what’s coming up next. Almost everyone these days uses social media and discovering vendors, consuming, and sharing what one buys is something you have to understand in order to survive in today’s economy.

What social commerce looks like today 4:17
Why social commerce is so popular 8:24
We can’t be everywhere at once 15:05
Pillars for the customer journey 21:31

“92% of consumers said that their preferred platform for social commerce was Instagram. 77% opted for Facebook, 57 for Twitter, 47% for Pinterest. From a business perspective, you guys, 73% of businesses believe that their brand had already created an emotional bond with consumers on social media and that this would ultimately help them achieve greater success across social media.” 7:08

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamoneal

Today we talk to Brad Birnbaum, the CEO here at Kustomer, and we talk about the future of customer experience and the effects we have felt from the big events in 2020. We saw numerous changes last year, expected and unexpected, some of which being a boom in retail and an influx in customer inquiries. Remote work has been a large change that most companies have embraced and it seems companies across the board will keep this change and adapt moving forward. The customer’s expectations have changed as the world has changed, and then we discuss how and what companies can do to adapt and start to win moving forward.

Summarizing 2020 1:32
Remote work 4:03
The change in consumer expectations 5:45
How companies can start to win in 2021 7:11
Artificial intelligence and machine learning 9:24
Multi and omni channels 11:22
The mantra all companies should have 13:29

“I think remote work has impacted the vast majority of us. I think you and I are both doing this from our homes right now, right? So remote working has impacted, kind of almost everyone, and I think the world was trending towards remote work, but wow did we just put that in hyperdrive.” 4:04

In this episode we talk about the 90 day roadmap to customer excellence with Shannon Martin, the Senior Director, Travel Partners Group PMO at Expedia Group. We talk about where to start in getting your roadmap going and how to get it into the mindset of your customer service team. We talk about how to gather data and the best ways you can go about understanding what your team is working with and what issues your customers are facing. Shannon shares an awesome tip on what you can do to end your call on a more positive note with your customers.

How to start thinking about the 90 day plan 1:51
Gather data 4:02
Extracting the right information 5:39
Where to go next 7:45
Ending your call on a positive 9:46
Where to go last 11:57
Last piece of advice 15:58

“In the customer service world I think customer service people are naturally designed to do this, but you always want to start with the customer’s problem. What problem are you trying to solve? And so once you understand what problem you’re trying to solve, then you can think about, ‘OK, what are the processes that impact that problem? How does the customer get to the point where they have that problem?’” 2:50

https://www.linkedin.com/in/slearmartin

In this episode we meet with Wendi Sturgis who has been in the New York scene for the last 25 years. She used to be the Chief Customer Officer before becoming CEO and gives some good tips and advice on what leaders need to know in order to advance their CX team forward. Working overseas has given Wendi a broader perspective on how to be a leader in various aspects of business and tells us how she has learned to scale her business to a global standard.

Recommendation for CX leaders trying to work effectively with their senior leadership 1:05
Advice for leaders trying to maintain focus 4:09
Growing and scaling to a global standard 13:13
Investing in technology 16:11
Finding a balance of where to drive consistency 17:52

“I cannot emphasize this enough. Every opportunity you have as a leader in the internal communications, tell customer stories. Every. Single. Time. You have to every time you get a newsletter out, or speak at a company event, or at your boss’s staff meeting. Tell those stories.” 6:21

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendisturgis

Today it’s just Gabe sharing an interesting experience he had this past week through which he learned some useful lessons. Sometimes leaders can go over a line with how they treat other leaders, which is exactly what Gabe witnessed recently and discusses. We cannot be successful without the various moving parts that make up a business, such as the technology and operations team, or the customer service team. Being able to communicate effectively is essential to overall company harmony and growth.

Working through a customer transformation project with a company 0:51
A bit of advice for all operations professionals 1:25
Structure and process 4:06
Solving a problem together 8:31

“This is not a problem that can be solved just by an ops person. This cannot just be solved by a CX person. You really need the combination to come together and see if they can map this out in a way that doesn’t feel so disjointed.” 8:41

In this episode we will be talking about how to delight your guests, spark your culture, and just ignite everything around you and to do that we have Michael Fiato, the SVP of Guest Experience at Eurest, and the author of The Hospitality Edge: Stories to Delight Your Guests, to Spark Your Culture, and Ignite Productivity. We discuss what to look for when hiring new people, and the common mistakes employers or interviewers make when looking for good quality candidates.

Michael’s back story 2:45
Training people to teach correct principles in your organization 4:16
The interview process 9:34
Separating tasks and purpose to create culture 12:47
Creating the “Disney Way” environment 14:59

“I don’t necessarily need a server that’s been a server before, but I do need somebody that loves people, that loves food, that is outgoing, and somebody said once to me, ‘lead with what you need.’ and I think that sometimes we just don’t do that. Really think about what you’re looking for in a candidate, and then ask for those skills and those qualifications, and you’ll probably get the right person.” 7:45

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-fiato-a2b05039
https://www.amazon.com/Hospitality-Edge-Stories-Delight-Productivity/dp/B08P3JTT8X

Today I met with the Chief Evangelist at CX Effect, Justin Robbins, and we discussed whether the professionals in CX should focus on behavior as opposed to numbers. Quality assurance in the context of contact centers are often the score cards or mechanisms we put in place to understand how our teams are doing to keep their promises, or if we’re complying to processes put in place by the company. Are we doing the right things to drive the right outcomes?

What Justin does 1:18
Scoreless QA 4:00
Predictive vs reflective metrics 7:12
Scale metrics vs indicator metrics 12:19
Getting this into play 14:07
What is holding businesses back from investing in CX 16:48

“Think about the idea of customer experience. If I get 100% on my QA interaction with the customer I just had, that 100% is meaningless when I answer the phone or I answer the chat for that next customer. The game resets. There’s no winner or loser in customer experience, right? The whole point is to keep business going.” 7:56

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmrobbins/
cxeffect.com

In this episode we have a special guest, Evan Hopkins, who is the VP of Global Sales and Customer Operations at Outdoorsy. Outdoorsy is the most trusted RV rental experiences marketplace on the planet, powering road trips and RV adventures. They’ve seen a lot of growth recently and have had to make a lot of adjustments, which Evan explains. At first with Covid they weren’t getting any volume and skipped out on hiring new employees, until the end of May when everyone got sick of being inside and there was an “explosion” of people wanting to use their service.

What Evan does at Outdoorsy 1:21
Handling the sudden growth 4:20
Secrets to help work in harmony with your partners 6:09
How they handled Covid 7:45
From 20 to 175 team members and the hiring process 10:57
Getting people up to speed so fast 13:39
Taking technology to the next level 18:17
Working with founders successfully 20:24

“We’re right in our hiring cycle through April and May and we expect to be adding maybe 80 or so people to our staff, but we hired nobody because we had no volume coming in. No one’s booking, but then all of the sudden near the end of May, everything goes crazy and everyone’s like, ‘I’m going outside again, I don’t care.’ You know, various reasons and RVing is the way to go.” 8:27

https://www.linkedin.com/in/evancbhopkins/

Today we are talking with Kenny Middlebrooks, the Director of Customer Service at Mckesson. We discuss how Kenny has been able to handle customer experience transformation with the right people and getting them to go in the right direction, and then we talk about balancing that process and empowering the agents to be able to grow and even fail in order to experience growth, or helping them know when to break a rule when they need to break a rule. Recording new things and issues your teams run into will help things improve greatly as you’re able to go back, figure out what’s wrong, and resolve those issues.

About Kenny’s time with Mckesson 1:51
Customer experience transformation with the right people and direction 5:29
Balancing process and empowering agents 9:11
Technology 14:01
Phone trees 16:21
Artificial Intelligence 17:49
Don’t make it too complicated 21:47

“If you don’t feel so comfortable doing something, we have different variables of assist, whether it be chat, assist lines, those kinds of things that will give them the benefit of having that extra expertise along with them when they wanna do certain things. But a lot of it has to do with how do they know when to break a rule when they need to break a rule?” 9:57

In this episode we are discussing the future of CX and artificial intelligence with Dan Watkins, President of Forethought and Rose Wang, Head of Customer Experience also at Forethought. Forethought Technologies, Inc. is a Silicon Valley software company founded by a team of Dropbox, Palantir, and Autonomy alumni in 2017. Their mission is to enable everyone to become a genius at their jobs. They are the makers of Agatha, an answer engine for the enterprise, which searches your company’s knowledge bases to generate the most accurate answers.

What is Forethought? 2:45
What is broken in customer service? 7:12
What’s keeping people away from AI 11:08
AI implementation 14:28
How can AI add a personal touch? 20:46
What steps companies can take now to ready their organization to use AI 25:33
Taking AI to the next level 28:19

“Kustomer brings such an interesting perspective I think on a foundation of core platforms, bringing systems together: omni-channel, CRM, those types of words, and adding on layers of artificial intelligence. I think Dan, I think I had a similar conversation as you had with your CEO when you first told me you jumped. I said, ‘Oh you guys are just a chatbot company?’ You’re like, ‘No, look there’s more to it than that.’ And I think this AI piece really is needed and it’s something that the market really, really wants.” 6:21

https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-watkins/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosewang20/