The Modern Customer Podcast (Blake Morgan)

Since 1987 the share on consumer spending on live experiences and events relative to total U.S. consumer spending has increased 70%. Additionally 3 in 4 millennials would rather buy an experience than a product. All of that is good news for StubHub an online marketplace owned by eBay, which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events. The events industry is a social industry, meaning customers that attend events are often tweeting or Facebooking. Randy Rubingh runs customer service for StubHub and built the social customer service strategy.

The reality about social media is many companies fall into it the same way. A tweet was sent to the CEO or a PR flare-up happened. For StubHub there were misconceptions about what StubHub was. They were accused of being "scalpers" which StubHub is not. In order to clear these misconceptions StubHub started engaging on social media. StubHub took the opportunity to explain what StubHub’s role was. Today they make it a priority to be there where their customers are.

He says at StubHub customer service has a strong partnership with marketing in order to run social media well. Marketing uses Facebook for promotions and--like many other companies--customer service responds to all mentions of StubHub on the web. Depending on the engagement, customer service will step in and store that interaction in their CRM (Siebel). When I interviewed Rubingh on the podcast he said that StubHub believes social media training is more about calibration than it is hardcore scripting. The calibration process includes a review of all the interactions. He says he took smart seasoned agents—and trained them on their tool that tracks and categorizes the mentions (Lithium). The agents then respond. Rubingh believes that on social media a customer service script is not helpful.

StubHub gets about 50K mentions of StubHub, but the number StubHub responds to is only about 5% of those social media interactions. They manually categorize the sentiment.

Rubingh (@rrubingh) is the Senior Director of Customer Service for StubHub and the author of “Call Center Rocket Science”.  Randy has more than 25 years’ experience building, managing, and leading customer support organizations. He has led service organizations ranging from small start-ups with as few as five agents to leading a five-site, international customer service organization with thousands of agents. During the course of his career he has managed over 20 million incoming phone calls.

Learn more about staffing, contact centers, customer service and how to create a killer contact center culture at StubHub in this podcast.

There’s never been a more exciting or more challenging time to be a marketer. Customer expectations are changing by the minute, meaning marketers have to be on the ball to keep up with new ideas. How can they help their companies grow while still keeping their brand current and relevant?

            According to Sally Jenkins, CMO of Informatica, the key is to understand the customers and always be looking forward to a new opportunity. Sally shared her experiences leading a recent rebrand at Informatica. Rebranding is about much more than just changing the logo—it is a chance to make sure messages and goals match what customers want and expect. While a full rebrand doesn’t need to happen on a regular basis, companies should constantly be testing their messages with customers and honing their communication in an ever-changing world.

            The first step of a rebrand is to understand what customers are saying about the company. This can be done with surveys, events, or break-out sessions to get a better understanding of what customers feel about your company and where they are in the customer journey. This information gathering should be open and honest—it acts as the basis for your updated brand, so information that isn’t completely accurate could lead to ineffective results and a brand that isn’t truly aligned with what customers are looking for. The end goal of the first stage of rebranding is a complete understanding of where customers are and where your company can take them.

            From there, companies need to synthesize the information and combine it with other data to find a way to translate what the customers want to the company’s messages, look, and feel. This is where the brand identity is created and when the visual aspects of the brand are connected to goals and vision of the company.

            Sally stresses the importance of first launching your new brand internally with employees. By thinking about employees as your first customers, you can help employees realize how to use the company’s values in the decisions they make at work every day. Once the employees are on board and understand the updated brand, the messages can be spread to external customers for a cohesive customer experience.

            Rebranding is something that needs to be thought about on a regular basis and continuously adjusted as the needs of the company and its customers change with new technology and ideas. One of the best ways to do this is to use data for predictive analytics. Combining the science of data with the art of marketing helps CMOs and their teams stay on top of trends and lead the charge for innovation. In the ever-changing marketing world, data helps companies make informed decisions about effective ways to reach customers.

            To truly keep up with innovation and growth, companies should always be proactive and find ways to disrupt the status quo. In a world where customers where define your brand no matter what, it’s up to the marketers to take charge and help set the narrative the reflects your true brand.

Internal insights and customer feedback are essential to building an effective customer-focused leadership strategy. But it requires continually listening to customers, measuring what matters, and ensuring data is passed to the right teams to make changes and improvements.  

Diana Brown, SVP of Sales Operations and Customer Experience at XPO, involves leaders with the data through feedback loops. Leaders know the importance of data and see it first-hand by talking to employees about what is and isn’t working and the tools they need to deliver a great customer experience. 

This episode is sponsored by Thinkific.

Kevan Gammage is senior manager for MailChimp’s social and Pro support teams. After joining MailChimp’s support team as an agent in 2013, he now helps manages the company’s overall support strategy and shapes the way agents communicate with Pro customers and users through social channels every day.

Effective customer experience strategies happen when C-level leaders drive change and create a customer-focused mindset. In most companies, this includes the CEO, CMO, and Chief Experience Officer. 

But there’s also another crucial role to consider: Chief Revenue Officer. 

Frank Boulben, Chief Revenue Officer at Verizon Wireless, views his role as collaborating across the company to set customer experience priorities. It’s more cost-effective for companies to retain existing customers than to find new customers, especially in a subscription model like Verizon. Increasing revenue comes from delivering a great experience and a great product at each touchpoint. 

When Boulben stepped into his role, he took a deep dive researching Verizon’s customers. That foundational understanding helped him create the customer map. First is the network experience and the core of what Verizon provides customers. Verizon aims to be the best network in terms of coverage and reliability and make that the center of its customer experience. The next layer is the value proposition, or assembling the offers and products that customers want and value. And finally is the touchpoint experience, or how customers interact with the brand. Boulben’s goal is for the experience to be seamless across channels and also be personalized and relevant to each customer. 

Boulben works closely with the Chief Experience Officer and always brings his strategy back to those two main points: an experience that is seamless across channels and personalized. 

The entire Verizon C-suite, including Boulben, regularly listens to customer calls to understand the questions and issues customers face. Boulben says those insights help him see if customer concerns represent larger issues that need to be addressed or if they can be solved individually.

 Without a strong customer focus, revenue can’t grow. Chief Revenue Officers and revenue leaders at all levels play a crucial role in driving customer experience and creating value for long-term, loyal customers.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the new Customer Experience Community here.

In a saturated market, customer experience transcends price and product: it's the ultimate differentiator. Across the globe, brands are constantly innovating and refining their CX strategies to meet the evolving expectations of their customers. Europe, with its diverse markets and cultural nuances, presents both challenges and opportunities for customer experience (CX) practitioners.

Steven Van Belleghem is a CX influencer, and he’s worked with leading companies like Disney, Mercedes, Heineken, and Booking.com. Immersed in customer-centricity thanks to his family's photography store, Steven learned the transformative power of genuine connection.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Customer success and customer service may sound similar. But what’s the difference between these two important disciplines? 

Emilia M. D'Anzica, founder of GrowthMolecules and author of Pressing On as a Tech Mom, has consulted companies across numerous industries on customer success. She says one of the core differences is being proactive versus being reactive. 

Customer success is proactively engaging with customers to help them get the most out of their investment. The goal is to help customers find lasting impact and value from the product to drive loyalty and long-term contract renewal. When customers don’t see value, they’ll switch to the competition. 

Customer success requires building relationships with customers to know where they want to be a year from now and proactively helping them reach their goals. CS leaders and CSMs aim to be continual partners with their customers to help them get the most out of the product and stick with the company. And while CS is often connected with B2B software, D'Anzica points out that companies in numerous industries have robust customer success programs. 

Customer success efforts are directly linked to a business’s operations and should be part of the go-to-market strategy. Customer success impacts the entire customer journey because it helps customers reach their goals and get the most out of the product. 

On the other hand, customer service helps customers when they get stuck. This service takes many forms, including in-app support, a knowledge base or a contact center customers can contact when they need help at the moment. 

Customer service exists to answer questions and solve problems and applies to every industry and type of company. While customer success relies on relationships, customer service tends to have more one-off interactions. A customer doesn’t contact the service department unless they have an issue to resolve. But customer service is also crucial to being there when customers need it and has a strong influence on how customers view the company.  

Both customer success and customer service are focused on improving customer loyalty and helping customers find value in the product or service. Companies with a customer success team also likely have a customer service team to address different issues. 

Although their methods and focuses differ, both customer success and customer service are critical to creating the overall customer experience.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, Karen Dillon—New York Times bestselling author and former editor of Harvard Business Review—shares insights from her book The Microstress Effect and explores how microstress affects leaders, teams, and customers, while providing actionable strategies to address it.

Karen unpacks the impact of these small, everyday stressors and shares practical strategies to reduce their toll. From fostering a customer-centric mindset to creating balance through delegation, boundaries, and self-awareness, she offers actionable insights to empower leaders and transform customer experience.

Don’t miss this engaging conversation filled with insights to manage stress, inspire teams, and enhance your approach to customer experience. Tune in now!

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

For years, Australia has had with a well-established culture of customer experience. In general, companies seem to connect with customers better and offer more personalized solutions than they do in other parts of the world, including the U.S. However, many Australians have hit experience roadblocks with big companies lately, especially when it comes to the contact center. Having trouble waiting on hold or not being able to talk to a human isn’t new, but it can have a serious impact on the overall experience.

In the 1980s, many companies started using IVR, or interactive voice recognition systems, to corral people through their phone systems. These are the phone trees that have customers push buttons for certain types of calls, but that really just end up pushing customers’ buttons with a frustrating experience. Over the years, many companies have continued with the IVR mindset by becoming abusive to customers and mismanaging relationships. Instead of looking for innovative solutions, they hold on to decades-old technology that is frustrating and ineffective.

Many companies, in Australia and all over the world, have the idea that customers will keep coming back no matter how they are treated. That’s not the case. As more companies put humans back in customer experience, they separate themselves from the companies that cut costs and rely on impersonal technology. Research has shown that customers want more human interactions and less technology in their brand interactions. Companies that don’t offer personalized interactions with real humans are losing customers to brands that offer quality service and connections.

Customer experience in Australia will continue to evolve in coming years. As companies turn back to humans in our data-centered world, there will be a greater focus on personalized experiences and real relationships. Data and customization will help brands create one-to-one experiences instead of interactions that appeal to the masses. More companies will also turn to self-service tools to give customers power to solve their own problems and answer their own questions without contacting a bot or contact center.

Although customer experience in Australia may have hit some bumps, many companies still focus on what matters most: customers. By turning back to humans and offering convenient and personal interactions, those companies will build great experiences and lead the way to the future.

It’s a problem nearly every woman has faced: shopping for clothes and taking dozens of items into the dressing room, only to come out with just one or two items that fit. It’s a frustrating experience and one that can cause women to internalize their difficulty finding clothes that fit as something being wrong with their body.

But a new company is getting rid of standard sizing to create personalized, tailored clothing items designed to fit each customer’s body. Instead of standard sizes, customers can easily get clothes that fit their bodies perfectly. Every woman’s body is different, and it’s rare for someone to actually fit nicely into a standard size.

RedThread was founded by Meghan Litchfield after she realized that she wasn’t alone in her shopping frustration. Countless other women also had difficulties getting the perfect fit, especially as their bodies changed. Litchfield and her team aim to turn that frustration around to create a positive shopping experience for all women.

RedThread uses a 3D sizing model to customize fit, and the entire thing can be done from a customer’s living room. Each customer starts by taking a fit quiz so that RedThread can understand their fit preferences and what fit issues they commonly have. If pants are usually too long or too baggy in the thighs, the RedThread team takes that into account in their sizing model. Each customer is then sent a unique link, which she follows to take three photos of herself and one of an empty room. Those images create a 3D model, which pulls 15 specific measurements to get the right fit. RedThread tailors then create the item of clothing to match the size and fit preferences. The finished product is delivered to the customer’s door within a week.

So far, Litchfield says women are enjoying the experience. Aside from creating clothing pieces that women love, RedThread’s goal is to give women the convenience and ease they crave. Modern women don’t have time to search for the right clothing items and take a gamble if they will really fit. In an industry that has long stood by standardized sizing, RedThread is changing the paradigm. Litchfield wants to own the entire process, starting with how women shop to how the clothing items are sewn and delivered. So much thought is put into each piece, which guarantees a great experience. 

Instead of being stuck in a dressing room with nothing that fits, women can now be confident that their clothing will be comfortable and tailored exactly to them. RedThread shows how truly listening to customers can help meet their needs. Understanding your customer and taking the time to create a high-quality, customized product goes a long way in customer experience.

Today’s customers don’t want to wait. 

We’re in a society where customers expect things right away. Sending an email and waiting days for a response or having to sit on hold for hours is no longer acceptable. Customers want to get the help, service, and products they need without waiting. 

As customers experience instant gratification from some companies, they come to expect it from all companies. 

Here are three examples of instant gratification in CX:

1. Fridge No More offers 15-minute grocery delivery with no extra fees. The secret to ultra-fast delivery is using small fulfillment centers in one-mile service zones. Fulfillment centers are laid out strategically so that employees can quickly pick orders and hand them off for delivery via motorized scooter. The focus on local and small allows customers to get excellent service fast. Fridge No More operates in New York City, along with a wave of similar companies focused on near-instant grocery delivery.
2. Disney’s Genie App creates personalized Disneyland itineraries. Visitors to Disneyland can instantly receive a personalized itinerary to maximize their time in the park. Using the app, visitors select their must-do rides, attractions, shows, and restaurants, and the app instantly puts them together in a customized itinerary. Even better, the schedule is updated in real-time based on line conditions and ride closures. The Genie app takes customer experience to the next level to remove much of the planning and frustration from visiting the park.
3. Zelle instantly sends money between bank accounts. In our ultra-connected world, being able to send money instantly is crucial for many customers. Zelle connects 100 million users across more than 1,000 banks to send money between accounts in minutes with no fees. It’s a massive improvement over traditional transfer methods that require customers to visit a bank branch and even over its competitors that charge high fees and make customers wait. 

Instant gratification will play a huge role in the future of CX. No matter your company or industry, every brand can find a way to quickly deliver some aspect of their service. 

What role does instant gratification play in your CX strategy?

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the new Customer Experience Community here.

Sri Narasimhan, Head of Enterprise Customer Experience at CVS Health, talks about his journey from a background in analytics and finance at companies like Medallia and Wells Fargo to his current role. He emphasizes the importance of moving from reactive to proactive customer feedback mechanisms and using quantitative data to improve customer experiences.

The episode also touches on the challenges of unifying multiple business lines within CVS Health, creating a customer-centric culture across a large workforce, and the future possibilities with AI in customer feedback. 

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Customer experience isn’t just about serving today’s customers—it’s about creating a culture and environment that can benefit future generations. 

That’s especially true when it comes to conversation efforts.  

Creating a better world for future customers and growing generations means believing in something better and that the world can grow and change. 

Creating Programs Now to Benefit the Future 

Lisa Diekmann, President & CEO of Yellowstone Forever, is a strong believer in conservation efforts that benefit future generations. She says providing a great experience is all about honoring the history of the past while looking toward future trends and creating a place everyone can enjoy for years to come. After all, nature is the great equalizer—if we protect it. 

Like national parks and natural wonders around the world, Yellowstone saw a huge increase in visitors over the past two years. The park and its non-profit partners responded with a wide variety of programs and experiences for all types of people, from glamping and family-oriented trips to backwoods camping. But Diekmann points out that although every visitor can have their own unique experience at the park, they are all tied together by the need to conserve Yellowstone for future visitors.

Investing in Future Generations 

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Yellowstone National Park recently began selling Inheritance Passes. The $1,500 donation secures guests an annual pass for 2022 and a pass to use in the year 2172. The goal is to improve the park now and give the pass to future generations to use in another 150 years. The campaign shows the impact current park guests and customers can have on the future. Although they won’t be around to see the park in 150 years, they can still contribute now to make sure it’s around.  

As the world’s first national park, Diekmann says Yellowstone is an example of conservation to organizations worldwide. The park and Yellowstone Forever feel responsible for rallying guests around improving the environment, even through small changes. Current conservation projects include installing low-flow faucets, replacing old light bulbs with energy-efficient models and establishing EV charging stations. On their own, these changes may seem relatively simple, but they can yield major future results. 

Conservation matters for every business, not just those tied to nature. Making small changes and rallying customers to invest in the future can create a better world for those to come.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

Steve Hirsch has perhaps one of the most daunting data jobs in the world. As chief data officer at the Intercontinental Exchange and NYSE, his team is faced with massive amounts of data that relate to financial markets around the world, and it all has to be safe, accurate, and usable. It’s a big job, and one that has evolved over recent years with changes and new technology.

One of the biggest changes has been the growth of artificial intelligence, but Steve says we are using the term AI too much and often applying it to technology that doesn’t actually involve artificial intelligence. Steve cites the example of Apple’s Siri, which appears to be AI but is actually just programmed to answer questions in a certain way without taking insights from around and making her own conclusion, which is what actual AI would do.

Automation is playing a large role in the trading spaces, as some exchanges have replaced human traders with computer-based trading machines that use algorithms to find the best deals. Because so much of what happens in finance is driven by models and technology, the industry has faced a number of changes in the past years and decades. To be successful and keep information secure, data experts in the field need to stay informed and on top of the latest trends.

In the data-driven financial world, the Intercontinental Exchange is always looking for ways to incorporate new technology, whether that means building it themselves or going through a good vendor. The main goal of the Intercontinental Exchange is to provide financial data to traders, investors, and academics. That means making sure customers have the information they need to manage their own risks and providing a trusted environment and network that is secure enough for customers to do their required work. The same principles apply to any tech-based business: the goal is always to keep customers’ data safe and secure and provide them the resources to get the job done.

Data, especially related to finances, is particularly prone to volatility. To be successful, organizations need to be prepared for volatility. It shouldn’t be feared, but rather thought of as a way to test that the team has done their jobs properly. Anything from changes in the market to political events, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters can have a big effect on the industry. These events can’t be predicted, so constantly managing data and making sure it is always secure and accurate is incredibly important.

For people wanting to get into the data space, Steve says there are lots of opportunities. Some of the biggest demand now, especially for organizations that analyze massive amounts of data, is for data scientists and data engineers who can understand data and algorithms to make business decisions.

The financial markets affect us all, and having the right data drives smart decisions to keep the markets thriving. Your organization doesn’t have to be as big as the NYSE to take advantage of data—by staying on top of tech trends and avoiding being disrupted with volatile actions, any organization can work towards success.

Customer journey mapping is a critical tool for understanding and enhancing customer experience. Stacy Sherman, a professional speaker, coach and business advisor with a wealth of experience in the customer experience field, recently shared her insights on this topic, along with her perspectives on agent experience, the role of AI, and the importance of communication.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

What started as a college side hustle is now one of the world’s most recognizable furniture companies, with nearly a billion dollars in sales.

What’s the reason for LoveSac’s incredible success? Differentiating not just on innovation, but on customer experience.

LoveSac founder and CEO Shawn Nelson isn’t afraid to adapt and try new ideas to meet customers’ changing demands. LoveSac originally grew by opening retail stores across the country. But as buying habits changed, the company converted its stores to inventory-free showrooms and became a completely DTC brand.

*Sponsored by Calendly

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. 

Most of us hate flying. From delays to TSA lines to smaller and smaller seats on flights—flying is not what it used to be. Many of us enjoy the ease of using Uber on the streets but when it comes to the skies, the airlines—no matter how terrible they treat customers—appear disruption proof. Until now! Enter Surf Air, an All-You-Can-Fly private membership that provides business and leisure travelers with exclusive, hassle-free air travel. Today we talk airline industry disruption. Today on the Modern Customer Podcast we’re joined by Surf Air CEO Jeff Potter who talks about the Surf Air customer experience. Starting his career as an airplane cleaner, Potter eventually worked his way up to becoming President and Chief Executive Office of Frontier Airlines and a member of their Board of Directors during Frontier’s greatest growth period. He also held the Chief Executive Office title with Vanguard Airlines in early 2000. As CEO of Surf Air he oversees all operation and is instrumental in helping Surf Air to expand into new territories. His combined stellar aviation background and luxury product experience as Chief Executive Office of Exclusive Resorts makes him an invaluable part of Surf Air’s success.

In this podcast you will learn:

What is Surf Air?

How does Surf Air create a unique and exclusive environment for guests?

What are the disruption opportunities in the airline industry? 

Taking a relaxing trip by rail or hopping on a high-speed commuter train to the next city is common in Europe and Asia, but it’s a foreign idea for most Americans. Virgin Trains USA is hoping to change that by bringing the future of train travel to the U.S.

The sweet spot for train travel is between highly populated city centers that are within 200 to 300 miles of each other. It’s a distance that most people drive instead of fly, but the trip by car can be full of traffic, construction and detours. Instead, the goal of Virgin Trains USA is to create a network of high-speed passenger trains along busy highway corridors so that travelers and commuters can get where they need to be more in a way that’s quicker, easier and more eco-friendly. Virgin Trains USA president Patrick Goddard says trains are 90% safer than cars and provide faster and more reliable travel.  

Virgin Trains’ first big foray in the U.S. is revamping an old rail line in Florida. After updating the line to connect Miami and West Palm Beach, Virgin Trains is now endeavoring on phase two to extend the line to Orlando in the next few years. Trains that can reach speeds of 125 miles per hour will soon be zooming past people stuck on the freeway on the three-hour drive between Miami and Orlando.

Virgin Trains also has plans to build a train route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas that could cut the three-hour trip to just 75 minutes, as well as other potential sites that could link neighboring cities.

But Virgin Trains is hoping to gain a following not just for its speed, but also for its experience. As the company expanded in the U.S., it brought it architects, designers and visionaries to create an amazing experience in the station and on board. Goddard taps into his hospitality background to ensure the experience disrupts and changes the status quo of train travel in the U.S. and around the world.

A large part of that is the digital experience. Virgin Trains strives for a digital experience that will ultimately involve as little interaction from the user as possible. That means keeping things seamless and simple, such as integrating all forms of transportation from start to finish in a single booking and allowing passengers to order food to their seat from the station or the train. Train travel has the potential to give passengers their lives back instead of being stuck in stressful traffic jams.

The future of train travel is here, and as Goddard says, it’s not your grandma’s train service. A modern network of high-speed trains could transform how people travel and do business as it connects cities and passengers with amazing experiences.

Online shopping and new technology has changed how customers interact with brands and make purchases, and it has had a huge effect on the customer experience. Knowing who your customer is and what they expect from your company is huge, especially when it comes to understanding why customers shop online. How customer experience is put into action changes based on the type of company and industry and what customers need to best have their needs met. However, there are always core similarities; Dr. Volker Hildebrand, Global Vice President at SAP Hybris and author of “The Customer Experience Edge”, has narrowed customer experience down to four fundamental principles: convenience, speed, relevance, and reliability. Companies that have the best customer experiences do a great job with at least three of the pillars.

            Customer experience is a holistic experience, and being able to offer a personalized approach for each customer can give your company a big advantage over the competition. Although companies may have internal silos, customers don’t see that and want a cohesive experience. Volker cites the example of a bank that was having difficulty getting customers to sign up for online banking. When it realized employees in the branches didn’t have any incentive to refer customers online and that the two entities were being run separately, it made changes to unite the branch and online experience and combine the metrics. Customers don’t care about what’s going on behind the scenes as long as they can have a quality and convenient experience, so companies need to take down silos for a unified experience.

            The internet has made the customer journey start way before the customer actually buys a product or steps into the store. Now, customers are doing their research to find out what products are best, and they expect to be able to find all the answers they need quickly and easily. If a company can’t provide those answers, either through a chatbot, online community, or human, they risk losing that customer to a brand that can provide the answers. Thinking about things from the customer’s perspective and making sure all the information is accurate and easily available can start the customer experience off on the right foot.

            One disruptive aspect of online shopping that is changing business models is subscription services. These days, customers can have subscriptions for everything from rental cars to toilet paper. Subscription models offer customers the convenience of not having to worry about ordering something, and they often come with discounts. However, using a subscription model means customer experience is more important than ever. In these cases, the experience and service is really what makes the difference—you’re no longer selling a product, you’re providing a service. Making customer experience an integral part of everything the company does, especially online, can drive growth and customer satisfaction.

            The key to customer experience is finding a way to stand out and putting yourself in the customer’s shoes to provide a cohesive experience from end to end, no matter if it is online or in store.

When it comes to industries where brand advocates play a key role, perhaps no industry does influencer engagement play a bigger role than in sports. Superstar athletes play a key role in driving engagement to the brand—we see it every day especially on social media. TaylorMade-adidas Golf company has seen a sales conversion rate of almost 3.5 times higher than the overall site average thanks to brand advocates. For TaylorMade the order value of customers who engage with advocates is 50% higher than the site average.Today on the Modern Customer Podcast we get advice from Chief Marketing Officer Bob Maggiore of the TaylorMade-adidas Golf Company. Bob oversees brand, product & consumer marketing efforts for TaylorMade Golf, which include advertising, public relations, social media, experiential, design and eCommerce functions. A 20+ year veteran of the golf industry, Maggiore, 46, has overseen nearly every key product launch since 2000. TaylorMade has been the number one driver brand played on the PGA TOUR for 15 years and counting, and its Tour staff includes Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia, all of which are currently ranked in the top 20 of the Official World Golf Ranking.

In this podcast you will learn:

• TaylorMade-adidas approach to influencer engagement on social media
• The CMO’s role in developing a customer strategy
• How a CMO new to the role can get started

The biggest challenge for customer experience teams often isn’t learning new technology, staying on top of trends, or connecting with customers--it’s getting buy-in from executives and proving the ROI of their efforts.

Bryan Sanders, Head of CX, Market Research, Digital at AAA, recommends that customer experience practitioners take a unique approach: do CX on the leaders they’re trying to engage with. 

In a world filled with uncertainty, helping everyday Americans gain financial security has never been more important. That’s been the goal of Prudential Financial since it was founded in 1875, but the company has changed its methods with the times and is now leading the charge for innovation.

One of the big players in that charge is Chief Customer Officer Naveen Agarwal, who views his role as connecting the dots of every customer interaction. Naveen says the biggest challenge in customer experience, especially in the financial services industry, is that it is often organized by product because of how the business is managed internally. This creates a fractured experience for customers, who often have completely different interactions depending on if they are talking to someone in banking versus someone in the credit card department. Naveen’s goal is to connect the entire ecosystem and not let management silos define the customer experience.

Technology and data play a huge role in breaking down those silos. Before Naveen could create a customer-focused strategy, he had to look at the data to understand customers. Prudential’s more than 300 websites and 40 call centers provided plenty of data about why customers were connecting with the brand and where they were in the customer journey. With a base understanding, the team could then improve those interactions with technology.

In the financial world, customers work with either fast money or slow money. Fast money includes things that are done quickly, like account maintenance and credit card applications. Prudential is good at helping customers pay their money faster. On the other hand, slow money involves long-term things like investments and retirement. In these areas, people tend to be very uninformed and overwhelmed. Prudential saw a gap in the customer journey where people were avoiding these big decisions because they simply didn’t know enough. As a result, it created an online content library with resources broken down by subject to help people learn how to manage their money.

This is especially important for people who are left as beneficiaries of their loved ones’ accounts. Prudential’s goal is to educate customers in their times of need, and it does that with an innovative survivor center with content specifically tailored to people dealing with the financial aftermath of the loss of a loved one.

Even with more than 20 million customers across the globe, Prudential still aims to create personalized experiences. By tracking customer behavior, the company can understand each customer’s preferences and stage of life. The goal is that no matter how a customer interacts with the brand, Prudential employees always discuss each customer’s individual needs. In many cases it opens up needs and questions customers didn’t even know they had.

AI and machine learning have played a large role in transforming Prudential’s core values for modern customers. Prudential is one of the best examples of putting AI into action in a way that truly transforms the customer experience. It used to be that applying for life insurance required multiple meetings, tons of paperwork, and invasive tests, which was a drain on the company and its customers. The entire process could take up to 10 weeks before customers were properly assessed for their risk. Prudential moved to AI to turn the basic information provided by customers on their initial life insurance applications into an algorithm to predict risk. The model is 93% accurate and can produce a policy in two days instead of two months. As a result, the number of customers buying life insurance has shifted.

As Prudential moves towards the future, it will continue to put customers first and use the best data-driven technology. Customer-focused executives and team members should understand technology and customer needs because everything they do has a deep layer of technology. Prudential shows that even a long-standing brand can transform itself to serve customers with innovative data and technology.

The past 18 months have brought unthinkable tragedies and uncertainty to the entire world and changed how most people live, work and interact with companies. 

But according to Jon Picoult, author of From Impressed To Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans, out of every crisis comes opportunity. Even with the chaos and uncertainty, there are opportunities to strengthen relationships and improve customers’ lives. 

Engaging with customers in an uncertain world starts by really understanding them, including their new and emerging needs and fears. What matters to customers and what they look for in a shopping experience is likely very different now than it was just a few years ago. By listening to customers, companies can capitalize on these changes to mitigate customers’ challenges and improve their experiences. 

Picoult says that more than shaping experiences, companies are shaping memories. Truly engaging with customers involves stirring emotion. Experiences that are laced with emotion are far more memorable than those that aren’t. By connecting on an emotional level, companies can take customers from a place of vulnerability to a position of strength and create a strong, memorable experience. 

Picoult gives the example of the Australian grocery chain Woolworths, which was one of the first companies to offer early morning hours dedicated to elderly and at-risk shoppers during the early days of the pandemic. Woolworths talked to its customers and realized at-risk people were scared to be shopping during busy times when the store was crowded. So it created dedicated early morning hours, and the practice spread to retailers around the world. Woolworths understood customers’ needs and went the extra mile to connect its solution to the emotions behind the challenge. In the process, it endeared itself to customers. 

In these times of chaos and uncertainty, customers want something they can depend on. They want to interact with brands that will listen to them, understand their struggles and then go out of their way to fix them. Engaging with customers during these challenging times doesn’t mean completely changing the customer experience—it means tweaking your current offerings to match what matters most. 

Although these times are challenging, it’s also a chance for brands to strengthen their relationships and turn their customers into lifelong fans.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here. 

A customer focus and strong customer experience starts from the top. In order for companies to be totally customer-centric, they must have strong leaders. 

However, we’re facing a leadership crisis today where most leaders don’t know how to lead. Jacob Morgan (who just happens to be my husband) is a best-selling author and expert on leadership and the future of work. As he was conducting research for his book, The Future Leader, he came across this startling statistic: most people become leaders in their mid to late 20s, but they don’t receive formal leadership training until their late 30s or early 40s. That means most leaders go more than a decade without any training. No wonder we have such a lack of strong leadership. 

To be effective, leaders have to take training into their own hands. The first step is to create your own definition of leader and leadership. We are surrounded by leadership, but few of us can actually define it. Establishing a definition allows companies to create filters for who they hire and promote. Those filters ensure that the organization is filled with consistently great leaders instead of a mix of great and sub-par leaders. 

Jacob’s definition of leadership is being a lighthouse. The purpose of a lighthouse is to shine light on ships in the harbor and guide them to safety and success. Similarly, a leader’s purpose is to guide their people and organization to success. But a leader lighthouse is useless without ships. Leaders can’t just focus on themselves—they must focus on others. 

From interviews with more than 140 top CEOs, Jacob created the Notable Nine: the skills and mindsets leaders need to adapt to succeed in the future of work. These skills are crucial to becoming a customer-focused leader and creating a culture of customer centricity. 

Mindsets

• Explorer: Become a perpetual learner, be curious and focus on agility and adaptability.
• Chef: Balance humanity and technology.
• Servant: Serve your leaders, your team, your customers and yourself by being humble and vulnerable.
• Global citizen: Surround yourself with different people and look at the big picture. 

Skills

• Futurist: Look towards the future and think through different scenarios.
• Yoda: Practice emotional intelligence and empathy.
• Translator: Develop listening and communication skills
• Coach: Motivate and engage others and create effective teams across geographies and generations.
• Technology teen: Embrace new technology and be tech-savvy. 

A common element for all leaders, especially those leading through the current uncertainty of COVID-19, is to focus on people, not profits. Successful leaders develop their people, set a vision, engage and coach them to be more successful. They are focused more on engaging their employees than hitting their quarterly revenue goals. As Jacob says, putting people first is a philosophy backed by a set of actions. Don’t just believe it—you have to show it. 

Customer experience leadership impacts the entire organization. In order for a business to succeed, leaders must focus on people and strive to become lighthouses that guide others to success.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker and the author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her weekly newsletter here.

This week on The Modern Customer podcast, Christian Mitchell, EVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Northwestern Mutual, shares how the company is blending human touch with AI-driven insights to enhance client experiences—balancing more than 165 years of tradition with cutting-edge technology.

Discover how leadership, a growth mindset, and continuous customer feedback are driving innovation while staying true to their mission of improving clients' financial security. Tune in now to learn more about the future of customer experience and innovation.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

This week on The Modern Customer podcast, we're joined by Joseph Michelli, author, influencer, speaker, and consultant with over 25 years of experience. He'll share insights from his work with iconic brands like Mercedes and Starbucks, revealing the strategies behind launching and maintaining thriving customer experience programs.

Joseph emphasizes the significance of emotional connection in customer interactions, securing C-level buy-in for impactful customer experience initiatives, identifying essential metrics for tracking CX success, and advocating for a balance between cutting-edge technology and the human touch.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

What do you do when your entire business is built around parties and celebrations, but people can’t actually get together? 

That’s the question faced by Party City during the COVID-19 pandemic. But instead of slowing down as social distancing severely limits gatherings, Party City is taking the opportunity to pivot and introduce new services to customers. 

After its stores closed in mid-March, Party City quickly pivoted to buy online, pickup in store and same-day delivery. According to CEO Brad Weston, the company already had these services on its omnichannel roadmap but had to quickly implement them in a few days instead of months or years as originally planned. Party City partnered with a leading digital fulfilment and delivery platform to enhance the delivery experience from start to finish. Delivery has been a huge boost for the company, especially for balloons. A common frustration for customers used to be going to the store to have balloons filled, only to find they didn’t all fit in their car. But with balloons being delivered, customers aren’t limited by the size of their trunk space. 

Even in a pandemic, celebrations still happen. Birthdays, graduations, weddings, new babies, holidays and a host of other things give people a reason to celebrate, just in a different way. COVID-19 has forced the store to pivot many of its products and experiences, especially around virtual events. It now offers kits for easy virtual and at-home celebrations, including a DIY movie night in a box, beach day in a box, graduation in a box and many more. Party City also expanded its online resources to help customers plan and host virtual parties with step-by-step guides. In many cases, customers didn’t need tons of supplies for a virtual celebration, but the resources helped build the experience and push Party City to its new experiential focus. 

Party City is in the business of helping people find and celebrate joy. Much of that starts online. Weston believes that to get customers’ attention, retailers need to provide aspirational and inspirational experiences to start customers down the journey instead of just making products available. In the case of Party City, that means providing inspiration for the entire party experience including entertainment, décor and food, instead of simply selling party supplies. Customers want a one-stop shop where they can plan amazing celebrations and be inspired. 

Party City’s pivot to experiential customer service starts online by providing ideas and planning services. The company is making the big shift towards adding a marketplace of services that customers might want, including balloon artists, caterers, musicians and more. The goal is to help customers with every step of the party process, from brainstorming and big-picture ideas down to the little details and vendors.  

Celebrations don’t stop because of COVID-19. Today’s customers are celebrating together while remaining apart. Party City’s pivot during the pandemic provides new resources and ideas for customers while also putting the company on the path to a more holistic, experience-based approach to celebrations of the future.

It used to be that customers had one basic cell phone that they used just to call or text people, and they would contact the phone’s support center when things went wrong. Those days are long gone. Today’s customers have multiple devices that are constantly connected, and they can interact with tech companies for more than just support questions.

As the technology and mobile world changes, Samsung is also changing its attitude towards customer experience. Instead of what SVP Customer Care Michael Lawder calls the “break, fix model” where customers only came to the brand to fix their broken devices and then got on with their lives, Samsung is now focused on building lasting, meaningful relationships with its customers that go beyond the one-off service fixes. The idea is that as customers become more connected with their devices, they can also become more connected to the brand. More devices means there is more chance to build loyal Samsung customers for life.

Samsung does this by aiming for high-quality customer service through a number of channels. It recently unveiled its truck on the streets of New York City that can service customers similar to how a food truck operates. If a customer needs help setting up their device, their screen to be fixed, or just a place to charge their phone, they can come aboard the truck and get the service done for free. Samsung is also expanding its chatbot ability by using bots to efficiently direct customers to a real person who can answer their questions. Although Michael admits the technology isn’t completely there yet, the idea is that bots will be able to streamline support requests by texting customers a few questions to point them to the right human support agent. Future chatbots will be able to gather more information about customers, which will lead to more customized experiences.

Samsung’s new focus on the end-to-end customer journey means that the focus isn’t just on selling a product or fixing something when it’s broken—it’s on building relationships throughout the entire customer journey. Building relationships that solve problems and improve customers’ lives means that Samsung has to put resources into its programs. By delivering amazing experiences, studies have shown that customers invest more in the brand, which leads to a huge ROI. The internal Samsung motto for service is “Done plus one”, meaning that not only is the problem solved, but employees have the power and are encouraged to go above and beyond to delight customers and make them Samsung fans for life. It’s not just customers who are connected to the products—employees are as well. Samsung lets its employees, especially those in the service areas, use their products for personal use so they can fall in love with them and naturally want to provide amazing service. The hope is that employees will be fueled by their own passion for the brand and products and want to share that with customers.

Customers are more connected than ever before, and that connection will continue to grow with the IoT and as more devices become available. Companies like Samsung know the power of staying in touch with these connected customers to help them not only connect to their devices, but also to connect to the brand.

How does a company that has been around for more than 100 years still provide innovative and customer-focused service? For Nordstrom, it comes down to understanding customers and evolving the experience to meet their needs and exceed their expectations.

Shea Jensen, Nordstrom’s SVP Customer Experience, says the brand’s goal is to make customers feel good and look their best. But what sets Nordstrom apart is how the brand meets the customer where they are. Many other companies think of themselves as channels, but Nordstrom provides a complete omnichannel experience by considering itself a brand, not a channel.

Nordstrom’s digital transformation revolves around finding ways to win with customers in a digital world. The seamless experience between channels allows customers to get the great quality they depend on from Nordstrom no matter how they shop.

However, digital transformation didn’t mean completely abandoning physical stores. Instead, Nordstrom updated its physical locations and added extra services to make the experience as convenient and easy as possible. The goal is to provide access to the brand and its products at a time and place that works for customers. Nordstrom stores are for discovery and inspiration. Jensen says 35% of online purchases begin with moment of discovery in store and around 85% of customers who shop in store started their journey in some digital capacity. The company currently operates three Nordstrom Local stores that serve as service hubs with personal stylists, online order pickup and alterations that are right in the neighborhoods where customers live and work. Nordstrom Local customers spend twice as much as customers who don’t shop at Nordstrom Local. Jensen says the convenient touchpoint becomes part of their daily lives.

Nordstrom Local and traditional Nordstrom stores also use well-trained employees as personal stylists, but the services are often augmented with AI and new technology. The Style Board function allows salespeople to curate an assortment of products for a customer, send it to their phone and then be available for a live chat. When the customer is ready to purchase, it’s as simple as shopping on Nordstrom.com. The experience moves between channels in a way that makes sense for customers.

At Nordstrom, customers are in control. They choose how, when and where they shop, and Nordstrom works to provide a high-quality and personalized experience every time. The shopping journey is no longer linear, but creating a digitally driven omnichannel experience puts customers in the drivers’ seat and gives them control.

Every year, I make predictions for what’s to come in the world of customer experience. After doing this for seven years, I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting trends that really do end up influencing businesses and customers.

But in 2020, no one could have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic.  

It’s been a tough year. Between the pandemic, shutdowns and economic downturn, we’ve also faced environmental issues, a divisive election in the U.S., racial injustice and much more. 

These events might not seem tied to customer experience, but we don’t live or work in a  bubble—we’re affected by what happens all over the world. And we’ll definitely be feeling the effects of this year for years to come. 

With that in mind, here are my five customer experience predictions for 2021:

1 . How We Live And Work Has Forever Changed Thanks To COVID. Nearly every aspect of life and business this year was upended because of COVID. Although a vaccine is making great progress, we will be seeing the impact of the pandemic for at least the next five to ten years. Although most people want to get back to some semblance of normal life, they are hesitant to go back to how things were. 

2 . 2021: Year Of The Uncomfortable Conversation. 2020 brought about a lot of uncomfortable conversations on topics ranging from health and safety to layoffs, Black Lives Matter and supporting women and essential workers. These conversations will intensify in 2021 as individuals and companies will have to look inwardly to address these major concerns and help support underrepresented groups that have been hit especially hard this year. Customers will expect companies to take a stand and really make a difference.

3 . Putting Employees And Customers Above Profits. Many companies made huge efforts in 2020 to support their employees and customers, even if that meant their profits suffered. They invested in employee relief funds and increased benefits, while also listening to customers and providing great service. That trend will continue, and the companies that focus on people instead of profits will see great success.

4 . Ecommerce Rose Immensely And Touchless CX Makes Unignorable Leap. Companies were forced to pivot this year as stores were shut down and in-person shopping was limited. Companies across all industries have increased their e-commerce offerings. And now that customers have experienced delivery and pickup, they don’t want to go back to how things were. Touchless CX will make huge leaps in 2021 as brands work to build experiences for customers who feel vulnerable. In the coming year, brands will have to adopt digital models and creative touchless solutions.

5 . B2B Pivot. B2B companies struggled in 2020 because they depend on in-person conferences and networking that was cancelled or moved online. A number of B2B companies have already pivoted to new ways to connect with customers, and other companies must follow suit. B2B companies have to double down on customer experience through digital transformation and using thought leadership to generate leads because what worked in the past doesn’t work anymore. 

In many ways, 2020 has set the stage for CX in 2021. As we come out of a difficult year, customers are looking for ease and personalization. They want companies to adapt and make a real difference in society. These trends show just how much 2020 changed us and how we can continue to recover and evolve in 2021.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

Remember Mary Kay or Avon? These companies put bread on the table for hard-working women and their families. In fact today’s modern woman cannot always work a 9 to 5 job, and that’s precisely why Stella & Dot founder and CEO Jessica Herrin set out to create a company that was flexible enough for the modern woman to build a business for herself without working 9 to 5. As she says, “9 to 5 just doesn’t flatter.” Herrin is a successful serial entrepreneur having started the company known to many now as WeddingChannel.com, the first company to put wedding registries on the web (it was sold to The Knot in 2006). Her second company was Stella & Dot. Stella & Dot’s business model—where women host parties within their homes and sell the Stella & Dot products (mostly jewelry and accessories)—is catching on like wildfire.Engaging communities is an important aspect of customer acquisition—today a company’s share-ability factor is everything because customers talk. Jessica Herrin is also a CEO on fire recently starring in an episode of “Undercover Boss” where she does things like spend a day undercover working in their “Delight Center” (contact center) and as a jewelry maker. She has a new book out called “Find Your Extraordinary: Dream Bigger, Live Happier, and Achieve Success On Your Own Terms.” 

Listen to our podcast to learn about:

How Stella & Dot provides an experience for both sellers and customers
How companies can learn from the Stella & Dot business model
Stella & Dot’s approach to customer acquisition and customer delight

When you think of companies that put customers first with innovative solutions and personalized service, the wireless industry probably isn’t your first thought.

But Mint Mobile is on a mission to change the traditional model and buck industry trends in the name of better service and innovation.

Mint Mobile’s core mission is to provide affordable wireless service to customers. And one of the main ways it does that is with a unique direct-to-consumer model. While most other carriers have thousands of retail locations, Mint doesn’t have a single store. Aron North, Mint Mobile’s Chief Marketing Officer, says the company is always looking for the most efficient way to bring the product to customers and create an enhanced experience in a digital ecosystem.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

As technology grows and customers gain power to play a bigger role in their shopping and purchasing experiences, businesses must also join in the digital transformation.

            According to Vala Afshar, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, companies need to invest in a CRM (customer relationship management) platform to have a full, 360-degree view of their customers. Without understanding the evolving customer experience, companies won’t be able to stay connected to customers and compete. In today’s technology-driven world, especially as more companies adopt CRMs, the competitive landscape is defined by customer experience. Anything a company can do to improve that experience, including tapping into new technology resources, can make a huge difference to customers and profits.

            Vala narrowed it down to three keys brands can use in their digital transformations. The first is personalization—customers want a great experience that meets their needs and answers their questions. Similar to how technology like Spotify knows what music a customer likes, the future of business applications will involve other smart programs that can better understand the customers and create an accurate and personal experience based on their history and preferences. The second digital transformation key is immediacy. The growth of mobile has put everything at our fingertips and made customers demand everything quickly and accurately. Companies must take advantage of CRM technology to be able to monitor customer experience in nearly real time and to be accessible and helpful to customers at any moment on any channel. The third key is intelligence. According to Vala, artificial intelligence is the definitive technology for the 21st century, and we’re just at the beginning of realizing what it can do. Without accurate AI, brands can’t achieve mass personalization at scale.

            Digital transformations transition to the brick-and-mortar experience, as well. The lines between a company’s digital and on-site presence are blurring—what really matters to customers is that there is consistency in their experience. A customer should be able to have a very similar experience no matter if they are shopping in person or in store. To ensure that happens, companies should take advantage of digital opportunities within the store and the ability of many programs to unite a customer’s interactions in store and online.

            Each customer has a digital path they take on their journey to making a purchase or interacting with a company. Understanding that path is key to creating the ideal customer experience and competing on value and experience. By taking advantage of new CRM software and other digital resources, companies can transform the customer experience and take it to the next, forward-thinking level.

The future of streaming is shaping a new horizon for customer experience. With its focus on data-driven personalization and interactive features, Roku is well-positioned to play a key role in shaping the future of the streaming world.

Bridging the gap between viewers and brands, Sarah Monahan, U.S. Head of Verticals at Roku, reimagines how streaming ads can shape a whole new customer journey.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Since its creation, Lyft has been disruptive. 

It initially set out to eliminate the friction of getting a taxi. But over time, Lyft has grown into a transportation powerhouse. One reason for its success is its total focus on customers. 

When faced with the changes and challenges of the pandemic, Lyft took the opportunity to improve its digital services and undergo a digital transformation. 

The result is a frictionless experience that continues to disrupt the industry and shine as an example for all customer-focused digital brands. 

Customer-Centric Mindset

VP of Customer Experience Eric Burdullis says being a customer-centric organization means paying attention to the things that cause problems for your customers. Contact center agents have valuable insights to solve and prevent issues. At Lyft, the technology team regularly shadows customer service to see things from the customers’ perspective. Many employees even drive for Lyft to understand what works with the product and what doesn’t. 

Burdullis says that brands that aren't paying attention to their customers' problems are missing a big chunk of business. 

Pandemic Shift

Like many businesses, Lyft lost almost all its business overnight when the pandemic hit. And as people eventually started leaving home more, customers began contacting Lyft at higher rates about things that had never been issues before, including flexibility and health and safety inside cars. 

With a new customer mindset and a new world for operating, Burdullis led his cross-functional team to re-think all customer entry points from the ground up through a comprehensive digital transformation. The original goal was to eliminate 90% of contacts while improving NPS. 

The team talked to frontline agents and managers about the tasks they did every day that they didn’t feel were adding value to customers—things like refunding cancellation fees or providing the repetitive quick responses. That list grew to include every problem a customer may face. 

From those thousands of ideas, the team prioritized the customer issues and questions into two groups: those that could move to the app and those that could be proactively delivered.  

Lyft’s previous contact form came from the website, but the digital transformation moved almost everything to the app to create easy access points. 

Instead of waiting for customers to contact the company, Lyft shifted to proactively reaching out to customers who may have a specific issue or providing self-service options to answer questions and resolve problems quickly. The transition required strong data analysis efforts to track the entire customer journey.  

Lasting Transformation

Coming out of the pandemic, Burdullis says Lyft offers better service and in-app connected service to chat and human agents. Instead of all customers having to use the old web help form to connect to a human agent, Lyft is thoughtful about every piece of the journey and intentionally designs with customers in mind. 

Although Lyft didn’t get to its goal of eliminating 90% of contacts, Burdullis considers 65% an incredible win. The digital transformation also improved Lyft’s customer effort score by double, making it twice as easy for customers to get resolution. 

Lyft’s digital transformation is continually evolving, just as customers continue to change and adapt. With a goal to make the experience as easy as possible for customers and a mindset that puts customers at the center of every decision, Lyft sets the foundation for long-term customer success.  

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

Customer satisfaction is on a downward spiral, according to data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Forrest Morgeson, ACSI’s Director of Research shares reasons behind this concerning trend.

Enroll in the ROI of Customer Experience course here: https://customerexperienceroi.com/

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, David Edelman, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and former CMO of Aetna, shares a five-part framework for using AI to drive growth based on his book, "Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI," co-authored with Mark Abrahams.

With decades of experience helping top brands enhance their CX, David shows how companies can leverage AI to drive meaningful growth and create lasting customer loyalty. He explains how AI can empower customers, enable perfectly timed interactions, and support every stage of a growth-focused CX strategy. David also addresses key challenges, such as maintaining human oversight and avoiding intrusive interactions, to ensure AI-driven CX builds trust and protects brand integrity.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Amazon repeatedly tops customer experience lists in addition to every other category for innovation. So what’s the secret? John Rossman was an early employee with Amazon and started with the initial leadership team in the early 2000s. In his book The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind The World’s Most Disruptive Company provides an inside-look at what makes Amazon so successful. Today Rossman serves as a Managing Director at consultancy Alvarez & Marsal. At a time when Amazon rarely talks to the press Rossman’s book looks at all the reasons why Amazon remains competitive and the decision-making that makes the company consistently high performing. Don't miss these critical tips in today’s modern customer podcast.

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, Robert Glazer—entrepreneur, bestselling author, and keynote speaker—shares powerful strategies to master high-performance leadership and elevate customer experience.

Robert explores the importance of clarity, accountability, and his four-part framework for building team capacity. He explains how aligning teams with shared goals, balancing culture with results, and empowering employees can drive exceptional customer experience outcomes.

Don’t miss this insightful conversation packed with actionable tips to transform your leadership and customer experience strategy. Tune in now!

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

You’ve probably experienced this familiar scene: going to the doctor, having to wait to be seen in a sterile office, feeling rushed through the entire appointment and finally going home without feeling much better. It’s no wonder healthcare is one of the top five hated industries in the world.

But One Medical is out to change people’s negative perceptions of healthcare by focusing on the patient experience and making it something people actually enjoy. It’s part of the growing trend to the consumerization of healthcare. According to CMO Doug Sweeny, One Medical thinks through the entire patient experience from start to finish to make visiting the doctor enjoyable. Instead of waiting weeks to get an appointment, patients can use an app to book a same-day appointment or virtually visit with a provider after hours. From the moment a patient walks in, the feel of the office is different. The modern style and calming décor is a stark contrast from typical waiting rooms. There aren’t phones at the front desk, which means receptionists can actually greet patients and talk with them instead of being distracted by a phone call. Appointments start on time, with the average wait time of just 30-60 seconds.

The experience continues throughout the appointment. One Medical has automated much of the paperwork processes to allow healthcare providers to do what they love most—care for patients. They can take the time to build real relationships and meet the needs of each patient. Studies have shown that having a strong relationship with a doctor adds value to members and prevents things like urgent care visits.

Aside from typical healthcare services, One Medical also offers services that patients really want, like mental health coaching, weight management classes, sports medicine, physical therapy and much more. The purpose is to help members meet their health goals instead of only seeing them when they’re sick. The company has partnered with large hospitals across the country to offer advanced specialist care to its patients.

One Medical also works to engage with its employees by allowing them to focus on what matters most: patients. Instead of getting paid based on how many patients they see, all One Medical doctors are salary based.

The entire experience is drastically different from the typical healthcare environment and could revolutionize the industry. One Medical remembers what many other healthcare companies don’t: that patients are people. Visiting the doctor can be an enjoyable experience. Like in other industries, consumers can take their business elsewhere if they aren’t satisfied, so healthcare companies need to understand changing consumerization trends to create a positive and personal experience.

Healthcare is changing, and companies like One Medical that focus on patients and relationships will be the ones paving the way.  

How do you keep your brand on message during a changing digital landscape with a company that is more than 100 years old? That’s the question faced by Toni Clayton-Hine, CMO of the Xerox Corporation, every day. One of Toni’s main tasks is managing an evolving brand narrative to a new wave of customers as her company returns to its roots.

            As the world gets more digital, Xerox is going back to its core products and finding ways to transform its traditional copy machines into systems that manage the entire document experience, both digitally and physically. These days, it’s about more than just making copies, it’s about optimizing the movement of information and what and how information gets printed. Although the company is going back to its roots with a modern twist, the core brand of Xerox is still the same: to innovate how the world communicates, connects, and works.

            To spread the brand message, Toni relies on a team effort at Xerox. Everyone from the product designer to the tech support representative plays a role in how each customer interacts with the product, and everyone has a role to play in the customer experience. Everything the company does is about putting the customer first. Toni’s marketing team works hard to be present where the audience is present. That means connecting with them in new ways, such as social media, and making sure the information is available any place a customer wants to consume it. In today’s sometimes complicated digital landscape, Toni uses the approach of engaging with customers wherever is most comfortable to them to get the information out clearly and quickly.

            There’s also the issue of managing the message to see how well it resonates with customers. Xerox has a large focus of getting its employees out in the field to talk to people who are actually using the products, whether they are re-sellers or end customers. Combined with customer councils, feedback sessions, and surveys, it provides the company with strong feedback to make sure its messaging and methods are effective with customers and that the company isn’t over-promising but not delivering, which could be detrimental to the brand. Staying in near-constant contact with customers also allows the brand to make changes quickly as the digital landscape continues to evolve.

            Even though times are changing, the overall customer experience is still the same, especially when it comes to Xerox products. The customer experience still includes every touchpoint from early research to buying the product and actually using it. Even though the methods may change, the focus is still on engaging with the customer before, during, and after a sale. There are ways to innovate the process and the products, which Xerox does through its Park division, but the idea of sticking to the core brand and constantly engaging customers stays the same.

            The customer landscape is no doubt changing, especially due to technology and increased information. However, by sticking to core principles and looking for ways to reach customers where they already are, brands can join Xerox in having great brand messaging success.

Companies have two choices when it comes to customer pain: hide from it or embrace it. Nate Henderson, CEO of BILT, chooses to feel customer pain and use it as a driving force behind creating an amazing experience. That mindset and customer focus is a large reason BILT has seen consistent triple-digit growth in the last few years. 

BILT was created to address a common customer pain point: assembly. Henderson wondered why companies relied on paper instruction manuals when technology had moved so far past that. BILT is a free app that partners with manufacturers of all types of products, including furniture, appliances, fitness equipment and home items to provide 3D interactive guided instructions for assembly and repair. As Henderson says, BILT turns everyone into an expert and eliminates a major source of friction in many brands’ customer experiences. 

From the beginning, BILT hasn’t shied away from customer pain but has embraced it. In the early days of the app, BILT employees tested all types of products to put themselves in customers’ shoes and discover how they could improve the traditional assembly experience. Instead of avoiding a painful part of the experience, Henderson and his team embraced it and made it their focus.  

The BILT team realized that the most pivotal moment for how a customer views a consumer durable goods brand is 3-12 hours after they finish assembly. A difficult assembly process significantly impacts how customers view a brand and dramatically affects NPS. By changing a typically frustrating assembly experience, BILT takes people who would be detractors in that moment and turn them into brand promoters.     

Aside from NPS, BILT also pays close attention to Earned Growth Rate or the amount of growth that comes from people referring business instead of paying for marketing. Henderson says companies that create great experiences and turn their customers into promoters have the majority of new business come from customer referrals. 

BILT is a great example of the power of Earned Growth Rate. When COVID hit, Henderson wanted to be incredibly lean on spending. Over 20 months, BILT spent less than $1,000 on marketing and grew triple digits. As Henderson says, you can’t sell your way out of a bad experience, but if you create a great experience, people will sell it for you. 

BILT’s entire model is built around embracing customer pain and turning frustrating moments into positive brand interactions, backed by metrics to understand what customers are feeling and the greatest pain points. Empathy helps brands turn customers into promoters and drive long-term business growth.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the new Customer Experience Community here.

The beauty world is full of customers who love to experiment with new products, watch makeup tutorials and spend time finding the best items. 

But what about customers who care about their skin and beauty but don’t want to spend the time finding and trying new products on their own? 

These are known as casual consumers. They want to try new things but are often overwhelmed or don’t have time for the number of products on the market. 

Most beauty companies market to serious consumers, making casual consumers an unserved market, says Ali Edgerton, Birchbox U.S. President. Birchbox was founded in 2010 as a way to provide casual consumers great products without them having to find and experiment on their own. Birchbox was the first subscription box—an incredible accomplishment when considering the thousands of subscription boxes now on the market. 

The innovative concept is relatively simple: each month, consumers receive a box with five deluxe-sized samples of beauty products picked just for them. The model works well for casual consumers who want to try new things and get the right products for their hair, skincare and makeup routines, but who don’t want to sort through products on their own. Birchbox has grown into a multi-faceted platform that allows consumers to subscribe for monthly products or simply buy products from the online storefront. 

Birchbox meets the modern customer where she is by creating a multi-channel experience that relies heavily on data and personalization. When users first subscribe, they answer a series of questions to set up their profile. Birchbox compares that data to how casual consumers relate to the beauty industry to put personalized items in each box. Customers also have the option to choose a few items on their own. 

Data continues after the box has been delivered with a robust review system that allows customers to give feedback for each item and gives Birchbox a better understanding of what is and isn’t working for each customer. As Birchbox collects more data, it provides an increasingly personalized experience. 

Birchbox also stays on top of trends that appeal to casual beauty consumers and puts together curated packages separate from subscription boxes. These products are designed to help casual consumers tap into new beauty trends and get everything they need in one place. One of the most popular recent discovery kits includes everything consumers need to fight maskne, or acne caused by constant mask-wearing. Casual consumers would likely be overwhelmed trying to find the best products on their own, so Birchbox makes it easy for them to get everything in one click. And the strategy is working—the kits are in constant demand and are flying off the shelves. 

Edgerton says Birchbox uses data to create a picture of what customers want and need. Her greatest satisfaction comes from introducing something to a customer who didn’t know they needed it. 

Relying on data to provide personalized experiences and meet customers where they are is a large part of the reason for Birchbox’s success. It hopes to continue its innovative approach to beauty and retail as it sets the example for other subscription models.  

To try Birchbox for yourself, Edgerton is giving The Modern Customer Podcast listeners a discount with code VIP50.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  

Why don’t more companies understand if they get the “right” things “right” with customer experience success will come? Making money is not the goal but it’s the result when the company keeps the customer in mind. All companies today are in a foot race. Unless the company is obsessively trying to make the customer happy, the company risks losing.

My latest podcast guest is Augie Ray, Director of VOC Customer Experience Action for a Fortune 100 financial services company. Augie writes frequently about customer experience. He recently wrote a post (that we discuss in this podcast) about how too many companies treat customer experience as a program and not a purpose--something to be assigned to a couple of employees while the rest of the company goes about its business improving efficiency, acquisition and margins. Augie--citing Forrester--says only 25% of CX professionals say their companies’ customer experience programs actually improve customer experience. He also shares a study indicating that 81% of organizations have seen their Customer Experience Management (CXM) initiatives fail in the last three years.

Augie Ray doesn’t believe everyone in the company is a marketer, nor are they a salesperson. But he does believe everyone in the company should be focused on customer experience. Companies like Uber and Nest understand the power of customer experience and are reaping the benefits. In this podcast not only do we talk about customer experience case studies, we also take a deep dive into a discussion of ROI.

Leaders often want to know of the ROI of a customer experience program. But what is the ROI of doing nothing? Even if you do nothing for the customer experience it will still cost you. There is an impact to not fixing what is broken about your customer experience. Examples of the negative ROI of doing nothing include loss of market share, the cost of ceasing to innovate, and the risk of not differentiating yourself from the competition. Short-sighted management and quarterly demands of "the street" are getting in the way of a clear vision--and hurting customer experience. In this podcast we talk about social customer care, why most companies are still struggling with call volume (and make it the customer's problem) and other major customer service fails.

Technology has changed and improved the customer experience over time, but the most recent transformation with the growth of augmented reality is sure to lead to greater change than ever before. According to Jay Samit, Independent Vice Chairman at Deloitte, augmented reality has the power to revolutionize customer experience in every industry. Our modern world has connected us with devices like smartphones, which puts a world of possibility right in our pockets. But even with smartphones we still have to search for answers. Instead of customers having to seek out information, that knowledge can now be embedded in the environment in a way that anticipate customers’ needs and helps them find solutions where they already are.

Imagine a world where you can wear glasses that look just like normal glasses but that have AR technology that can be customized to match your lifestyle and provide the most applicable information. According to Jay, these glasses are right around the corner and will make it much easier to incorporate AR. Instead of getting lost in a store, AR could light up a path on the ground to get you to the item you need. AR could also help customers see inside a resort before they book and provide glimpses into what the view and accommodation would be like or instantly translate a conversation or signs when users are traveling abroad. AR could also transform the in-store experience by having coupons or product recommendations pop up depending on where customers are in the store and what items they are looking at. Companies around the world are already implementing AR and seeing great results in customer experience. A zoo in Japan has created an augmented reality experience where visitors can use their phones to see a path show up on the streets to get them from the subway stop to the zoo. It’s a fun way to make things easier for customers instead of them wandering around until they find the zoo. Beauty counters have also seen an influx of AR-powered mirrors lately. The technology allows users to virtually try on makeup and see how it would look on their face, plus the mirror remembers what a customer has used and can recommend products based on their preferences.

Over the last few years, there has been a huge growth in customer experience online. However, AR has the power to surpass the internet and offer a better experience than customers could ever get online. Things like virtual inventories, side-by-side comparisons, and being able to see things in 360-degree views will totally change how customers shop and interact with brands. Instead of having to go into a store to try items on and ordering things online and hoping they fit, AR will allow customers to try things on virtually, see them from every angle, and easily compare them to other items.

Augmented reality is immersive learning that hits customers at a different level. It is the extra things that anticipate needs, improve problems, and make interactions with customers just a little bit better. AR is being able to get what you need when you need it and creating seamless experiences that make life easier, more efficient, or more enjoyable. The future of customer experience is strong, and it’s due largely to AR.

Culture has come to the forefront of many business leaders’ minds lately due to attention around issues like sexual harassment and diversity. The problem is that most leaders don’t know how to cultivate a corporate culture that is lively and sustainable, or else they are going about it the wrong way.

Denise Lee Yohn, author of the book Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies, says the thing most companies are doing wrong is thinking there is one just kind of culture they need to create. Many leaders see companies with great cultures and feel they need to imitate them exactly to create cultures that are warm and fuzzy with lots of perks for employees. That’s not the case. What really makes a strong culture is something that represents the brand’s mission and values. Yes, it should be a nice place to work, but the companies with the best results create cultures that are unique and represent who they want to be as an organization.

Instead of thinking as culture the same way as everyone else, leaders should find something that represents their brand and encourages employees to produce the results the company needs them to. That doesn’t always mean perks—as Denise points out, perks are just the tactics many leaders focus on instead of addressing the underlying foundation and strategy that makes a successful culture. Great snacks or a free gym might make employees happy, but it usually doesn’t truly engage them, and the appeal could soon wear off. True culture is long-lasting and goes beyond just nice things in the office.

Companies should be confident in their culture and own it. It’s misleading when a company misrepresents its culture, only for employees and customers to find out that things aren’t really how they seem to be. Organizations need to have an internal culture and outward identity that are aligned so they are authentic in all they do.

Intentional cultures start from the top with an executive team that takes responsibility. Culture isn’t built on its own, but rather requires a concerted and deliberate effort. The CEO and his or her team should think about things like the organization’s purpose, core values, and unique attributes. Those ideas can drive culture and allow the company to create something fresh that stands out from everyone else. A good culture is sustainable and creates a competitive advantage.

Denise shares MGM’s cultural transformation as a good example of how to create a strong culture that engages employees. MGM used to be thought of as an average Las Vegas hotel and casino, but the company wanted to transform into an experience-based brand. All of the company’s employees had to get on board with the transformation, so MGM brought in a training team to work with all 177,000 employees in person. Starting with leaders and working through the various departments, everyone was trained on the new culture so they could embrace the new brand identity. MGM wanted each employee to “be the show” and realize his or her place in creating a show for guests. Investing time in reaching out to all employees helped MGM change its brand and its internal culture into a place where employees feel valued and know they are contributing to something bigger. As a result, MGM has seen an internal transformation and financial gains.

Culture is vitally important to a brand’s success. It is strategic and something leaders should be focused on and very involved with. Instead of focusing on tactics that don’t work, Denise encourages companies to decide that makes them different and build a culture strategically. Creating a unique and sustainable culture can truly turn a business into a strong and successful company.

Internal cultures start from the top with an executive team that takes responsibility. Culture isn’t built on its own, but rather requires a concerted and deliberate effort. The CEO and his or her team should think about things like the organization’s purpose, core values, and unique attributes. Those ideas can drive culture and allow the company to create something fresh that stands out from everyone else. A good culture is sustainable and creates a competitive advantage.

Denise shares MGM’s cultural transformation as a good example of how to create a strong culture that engages employees. MGM used to be thought of as an average Las Vegas hotel and casino, but the company wanted to transform into an experience-based brand. All of the company’s employees had to get on board with the transformation, so MGM brought in a training team to work with all 177,000 employees in person. Starting with leaders and working through the various departments, everyone was trained on the new culture so they could embrace the new brand identity. MGM wanted each employee to “be the show” and realize his or her place in creating a show for guests. Investing time in reaching out to all employees helped MGM change its brand and its internal culture into a place where employees feel valued and know they are contributing to something bigger. As a result, MGM has seen an internal transformation and financial gains.

Culture is vitally important to a brand’s success. It is strategic and something leaders should be focused on and very involved with. Instead of focusing on tactics that don’t work, Denise encourages companies to decide that makes them different and build a culture strategically. Creating a unique and sustainable culture can truly turn a business into a strong and successful company.

How important is it to organize your data around your customer? It turns out that variation in customer demographics can be a powerful thing, and you want to make sure you are taking that diversity of customer into account when building customer programs. Today on the Modern Customer Podcast Zoher Karu ebay’s Chief Data Officer talks about the importance treating different customers differently. He recommends integrating different internal and external data elements together and explains the art and science behind understanding customers. At eBay Karu believes every customer is different and your customer strategy should reflect that. Learn more in this episode of The Modern Customer Podcast.  

Zoher Karu is Vice President and Chief Data Officer at eBay where he works to drive more personal and relevant experiences on eBay Marketplace properties. Prior to joining eBay, Zoher served as Vice President of Marketing Analytics and Insight at Sears, leading efforts to drive customer behavior, loyalty and growth, both in-store and on-line. Zoher holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. 

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People browse Pinterest for inspiration on recipes, fashion, home décor, health and wellness, travel and much more. But in the future, that browsing could easily turn into shopping. Pinterest is leading the charge for smooth, shoppable content—the future of retail and customer experience. 

According to Dutta Satadip, Chief Customer Officer at Pinterest, the company tries to strike the balance between knowing when to personalize and when to scale. Customers want relevant recommended content, but they also want access to a wide range of ideas. Most customers come to Pinterest to find something, so Pinterest is moving in the direction of not only showing users the content they are looking for, but also making it seamless to instantly purchase that item. The vision of shoppable content is that in the future, every pin is a starting point for shopping. Instead of simply using Pinterest as a way to get inspired, users will be able to seamlessly go from pin to purchase and trust that they will get high-quality products.

Although it might seem like a relatively simple problem, Satadip says it is actually quite complicated. 

One of the big obstacles to overcome is when Pinterest users find images on the site but don’t know where to actually buy those items. They may see a great beauty product or piece of furniture, but clicking through the image doesn’t take them to a place where they can buy it. Pinterest and its advertisers are working together to eliminate friction and drive more shoppable content. 

To do so, Pinterest is making sure its shoppable links are for reputable sites. Satadip says Pinterest doesn’t want to connect customers to vendors that don’t sell high-quality merchandise or don’t portray an accurate representation of their products. If a customer clicks through Pinterest to purchase a clothing item, Pinterest wants to make sure that what the customer ends up getting matches the original image. To that end, Pinterest created its Verified Merchant Program. Once a seller has been verified as trustworthy, they receive a checkbox by their name so that customers know the brand is trusted. The program is a win for both customers and retailers because verified retailers can get wider distribution, and customers can purchase with confidence. Building trust is the first step to making customers feel more comfortable clicking through an image and giving their credit card information.

The future of shoppable content comes from finding the balance between personalization and scale. High-quality items have to be scaled to be available to everyone across a wide range of topics, but users also want personalized recommendations to purchase things that match their lifestyle. Satadip says Pinterest is working on finding the balance between high-touch services, such as the white glove Verified Merchant Program, and tech-touch services that use data to scale product recommendations. The secret to building strong shoppable content is to combine humans and technology—both sides are needed to give users a frictionless experience.

As the line between social networks and shopping blurs, shoppable content will appear on many platforms. Pinterest is setting the stage to play a major role in shoppable content that is as smooth as it is beautiful.

This week’s podcast is sponsored by Zendesk.

Things are a little weird right now. The sudden change in the world—and the world of business—has created new challenges. A lot of companies are struggling to keep up with what matters most: their customers. Zendesk is here to help. They put together a six-month complimentary Remote Support Bundle. To learn more visit www.Zendesk.com/modern.

Today, Apple regularly tops lists of companies with the best customer experiences and the most innovative products. But that hasn’t always been the case.

When Apple was founded, few companies even considered customer experience. As the company was first gaining traction, Steve Jobs brought on people who understood customers to take risks and prioritize experience when few other companies were. One of those early leaders, John Sculley, went on to become CEO of Apple.

The goal of Apple under Steve Jobs was to create beautiful products and an experience so wonderful that everyone would want a computer, even people who weren’t tech-savvy. Instead of focusing solely on the processing power and technical aspects of the products, Jobs, Sculley and other Apple leaders prioritized the design and experience. They understood far before many other companies that without a great experience, customers wouldn’t be loyal, no matter the quality of the product. When all other tech companies were run by engineers and focused only on harnessing processing power, Apple realized that computers were for everyone and that great technology could also be combined with a strong experience.

In order for customer experience to permeate through a company, Sculley says it must become a core principle of the organization. Leaders set the example of the importance of experience. This is best done when founders see the value of customer experience and make it a foundational principle of the company.

Sculley says experience has always been relevant, but how it comes to fruition is different now than it was decades ago.

As an executive at Pepsi, Sculley was faced with the problem of being heavily outsold by Coca-Cola because Pepsi lacked brand recognition. Sculley created the Pepsi Challenge to immerse customers in the experience and show the quality of the product. Pepsi ran commercials of customers participating in blind taste tests. Without a label on the bottle, customers largely preferred Pepsi. While the commercials ran on TV, Pepsi also hosted the Pepsi Challenge at malls and events around the country, giving customers a chance to let their tastes decide. Putting customers in charge of the experience gave Pepsi a huge boost and helped it compete with Coca-Cola.

Jobs recruited Sculley to work at Apple because he had helped Pepsi outsell Coca-Cola. They shared a love of design and a desire to do something bold for consumer marketing. Focusing on customers helped create a company that today is beloved by loyal customers around the world and known for creating customer-focused products.

Sculley’s experiences at Pepsi and Apple show the power of focusing on customers and taking bold actions to put customers at the middle of the company.

This week on The Modern Customer podcast, Linda Jojo, EVP, Chief Customer Officer at United Airlines, reveals how the airline is transforming customer experiences by harnessing the power of AI, mobile apps, and real-time communication—while maintaining a strong focus on customer service.

Learn how innovative tools like Agent on Demand and Connection Saver are reducing friction in travel, and discover what’s next for United as they continue to push the boundaries of technology in aviation.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Retention is not just about keeping customers and employees; it's about creating experiences so compelling that they never want to leave.

Joey Coleman, author of "Never Lose a Customer Again" and "Never Lose an Employee Again," shares how to transform your approach to customer and employee retention using his First 100 Days methodology. He has worked with Volkswagen Australia, Zappos, and Whirlpool.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

The majority of customer interaction today happens on the phone, but that isn’t the way most customers prefer to communicate or the most effective way for brands to interact with customers. Phones can be frustrating, email can feel like spam, and in-person communication can be inconsistent. Instead, a growing number of brands are turning to chatbots via Facebook Messenger to add value to the customer experience in a way that is easier than ever and preferred by the companies and the customers.

When Facebook opened the Messenger platform in 2016, it had a good idea of what the technology could do for companies, but Kemal El Moujahid, product manager at Facebook, said the team was surprised by the creativity of how brands around the world were using the chatbot function. Instead of relying on traditional methods like blanket sales offers and mass communication, bots provide opportunities for real-time, personalized communication that can meet the needs of customers right where they are. Brands can easily tailor the needs of the bot to showcase their message and products and reach out to customers in an accessible and useful way.

In order to be successful in building the customer experience, brands need to be clear about what they want their bots to do. A bot that is designed to bring customers into the store will perform differently than a bot that is designed to provide product recommendations and education. Brands need to understand how customers are using the bot and how it can play the most effective role in the customer journey. An example of this comes from Sephora, which uses its Facebook bot to educate its customers about its products and offerings—its bot can provide personalized makeup recommendations and allows customers to find stores and book beauty treatments. Sephora’s customers have a much better experience when they understand the products they are looking for, which is where the bot can help.

Because bot communication is more natural and casual, it adds a personal feel to a brand and helps create a life-long relationship between the customer and the business throughout the entire customer journey. Bots can be used to bring in new customers and to build on existing relationships. McDonalds restaurants in Brazil print codes that link to their Facebook bot—when customers access the bot, they get added benefits and build a stronger relationship with the brand that gets them to come back to the store.

A huge draw for bots is their convenience. Instead of having to download a new app or program, bots are instantly available to the millions of users already connected to Facebook Messenger around the world. Bots can be developed and updated fairly quickly and inexpensively, which means companies can make changes to quickly best meet the needs of their customers. As the customer journey evolves, so too can the bot’s performance.

            Bots will continue to play a major role as the customer experience grows and becomes more personalized. Bots gather lots of information to distill it down to the most relevant information for customers, allowing for better personalization at scale. The days of spending hours on the phone to answer questions are done—today’s customers are all about using bots for questions, service, and product information. As brands around the world can attest, Facebook makes it easier than ever to build customer relationships via bots.

Many consumers want to follow a healthy diet, but do they really know what they’re consuming?

That question was the driving force behind Spindrift, a sparkling beverage focused on ingredient simplicity and transparency.

For founder Bill Creelman, the idea was simple: people should know what they’re drinking. That customer-first mindset is at the core of Spindrift, from the products that are created to the messages that are shared.

Here are three ways Bill Creelman practices customer-centric leadership:

1 . He leverages a core group of passionate customers.

When Creelman first started Spindrift, he spent two years running the business from his house and traveling the country talking to customers about drinks. He realized there was a passionate group of people who loved sparkling beverages but weren’t happy with the current options. 

That group turned into Spindrift’s “Drifter” community, which now has more than 800,000 members and serves as a powerful sounding board for the company. Creelman leads the charge to stay in contact with these customers, listen to their ideas and feedback and even have them test new flavors. He set the stage for embracing one-on-one customer relationships and prioritizing listening to each individual. 

2 . He unites employees around the mission of the brand.

Taking on established beverage companies is a tall order. But Creelman unites his 100-plus passionate employees around the mission of using real ingredients and innovating the beverage industry. Every employee sees the value of their work to increase transparency and create a great product. Creelman says the team doesn’t think of what they do as selling sparkling water but about converting people to a better alternative. 

That mission to be transparent and use real ingredients acts as a guiding force for employees and keeps them focused on customers in everything they do. 

3 . He builds trust and transparency.

Creelman’s conversations with customers and employees revealed the importance of trust. Customers want to trust a brand and know what they are drinking, and employees want to trust the company they are working for. Creelman built Spindrift to deliver in both of those areas with transparency. Spindrift puts all of its ingredients right on the front of its cans—no jargon or buzzwords, just the truth about what is in each product. 

Creelman says it feels distrustful to build relationships with customers without really telling them what’s in the product. Being open and honest with customers shows employees the importance of authenticity and encourages them to be their true selves at work as they interact with customers.

Bill Creelman sets the tone for CX and has grown Spindrift into a customer-centric company that delivers great products and strong relationships.

________

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, Calvin Stovall, Chief Experience Officer at Iconic Presentations and hospitality expert, shares insights from his 30-year career in hospitality and how his leadership approach has transformed employee engagement.

We discuss the importance of emotionally intelligent leadership in creating a highly engaged workforce, hiring passionate individuals, and building genuine, lasting connections with employees. Calvin also offers practical tips on improving employee development, retaining top talent, and fostering a work culture that drives both employee satisfaction and customer loyalty.

If you’re focused on building a strong employee experience that leads to better customer outcomes, this episode is for you!

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Gaining a customer is one thing. Keeping them is something else. 

Chris Goossens, SVP of Customer Experience at FedEx Europe, says the key to success is not just to make a customer but to grow with the customer.

But growing with customers and keeping up with increasing demand and challenges can be expensive. Many companies shy away from innovation because they see it as cost-prohibitive. 

That doesn’t have to be the case. Goossens says that leveraging technology and data can help companies innovate without skyrocketing costs. 

Thanks to new technology, FedEx is delivering innovative customer experiences while still reducing the cost to serve. Goossens says innovation in technology innovation and big data allows the organization to scale and provide amazing service to every customer, no matter the size or value of their shipment.

*Sponsored by Calendly

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. 

How can businesses genuinely embrace customer-centricity? Do companies like Apple genuinely prioritize their customers, or do they place their products above all else? These pressing questions guide our conversation with Colin Shaw.

With a career spanning decades, Colin Shaw, the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, brings firsthand experience to the evolving world of customer experience. With seven best-selling books under his belt and recognition as a LinkedIn Top Voice and influencer in customer experience and marketing, he's a trailblazer in his field.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Even with innovations to medicines and treatments, how the pharmaceutical industry interacts with patients and customers has largely stayed the same for decades. 

But one company is breaking through the push and sell method with a large-scale digital transformation to disrupt the industry. 

Davidek Herron, Global Head of Digital at Roche Pharmaceuticals, believes that all companies can—and must—undergo digital transformations to provide value to their customers. Instead of simply doing things how they’ve always been done, companies in all industries must focus on finding gaps and adding value for their customers.

As with everything, customer experience needs to be central to digital transformation. The goal should be to provide seamless experiences and to make it as easy as possible for customers to do business with the company.  

Herron recommends companies start simple by understanding who their customers are and what they need. This requires really talking to customers and being open to their feedback and suggestions. Companies must understand the feedback and data they get from customers, including how they are capturing it and what they will do with it. Herron believes companies have to be able to measure if they want to be effective. 

Once companies understand their customers, they can start to build core digital infrastructures. Knowing their customers allows companies to deliver the right messages at the right time and makes companies and customers partners instead of a one-sided sales relationship. 

Most companies understand the need for digital transformation, but many are overwhelmed at the thought of completely overhauling their organization. Herron recommends simplifying the transformation by first setting a goal and vision. He recommends under-promising and over-delivering. Leaders must set the tone and be clear about where they want the company to go. With that goal and common cause, the company can start with quick digital wins to show the value of the transformation and gain momentum for further changes. 

Herron says one of the most important things for a digital transformation is to have the right people in place. Having employees who are motivated and are willing to go the extra mile to solve problems improves morale and keeps the company moving forward. Even with all that is involved in digital transformation, finding and retaining top talent should be a priority for leaders.

If the pharmaceutical industry can change with digital transformation, all companies can change. Digital transformation doesn’t have to be complicated. Setting a vision, understanding customers and getting the right people in place can put companies on the path to lasting transformation. 

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  

The foundation of delivering a fantastic experience to customers is listening to them. How can you provide relevant and personalized experiences without understanding your customers and hearing their feedback?

Nationwide Insurance is known for its customer-centricity, largely because of its company-wide focus on listening to customers and using their feedback to continually improve the experience. EVP and Chief Customer Officer Amy Shore says Nationwide’s dedication to offering extraordinary care to its customers starts by listening to their feedback and ideas. 

Today on the Modern Customer Podcast we're joined by David Edelman, global co-leader of McKinsey's Digital and Marketing & Sales Practices, based in Boston. For more than 20 years, Edelman has specialized in helping marketing executives manage the strategy, organization, and infrastructure transformations required to become "digitally adroit" leaders. From creating digital centers of excellence, to developing marketing technology architecture plans, to redesigning entire go-to-market approaches, he has led work that is both strategic and highly tactical.

A frequent contributor to leading publications, and a Top 5 LinkedIn Influencer, Edelman has also spoken or participated in panels at many top CMO and industry gatherings. He also sits on the advisory boards of a couple of small agencies and startups in the social and video markets.

What you will learn in this podcast:

1. The one challenge sitting on every CMOs' desk today
2. Why marketing technology has gotten far too complicated and what you can do about it
3. The one major customer experience challenge facing retailers today
4. The new consumer decision journey

A solid customer experience strategy is based on customer data. But the strategy for clothing and home décor company Anthropologie also includes creativity. 

Chief Marketing Officer Elizabeth Preis says creativity is the heart and soul of Anthropologie. And while data is often historical and focuses on what happened in the past, a creative focus drives inspiration and interest to the future. 

That’s not to say that customer data isn’t also vital. Preis says data helps the company choose the direction to take and what to prioritize, especially when it comes to tracking data trends. Preis and her team are constantly looking at metrics like NPS and customer and product data to see what is trending up or down. 

The company’s goal is to be inspired by data and use it to fuel its creative strategy that has become a hallmark of the brand. 

Data helps the brand better understand its customers and the industry, including what resonates with customers, how they connect with the brand and what they are looking for. Those metrics guide the products to pursue and the channels to prioritize. 

From there, Anthropologie builds out its creative efforts, both in store and online. The physical stores are known for their stunning window displays, carefully curated items and experiential focus, even down to the candles that are burning. 

Preis says the store wants everyone to feel comfortable in their homes and themselves. Anthropologie’s unique collection of products, ranging from jewelry to large furniture, lets customers be true to their creative selves and celebrate their uniqueness. The creative efforts aim to connect with moments that matter for customers, including milestones like weddings and first homes, as well as smaller magical moments like Sunday brunch or smaller celebrations. 

Data is the foundation, and creativity builds unique and memorable experiences. Both are crucial in building a brand that connects with customers and celebrates uniqueness.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the new Customer Experience Community here.

Most companies and consumers know they should fight against climate change and want to make a difference, they just don’t know how. 

With carbon emissions increasing across the globe, it can feel overwhelming to make a difference. Companies don’t know how to start or even if their efforts will pay off and actually have an impact. 

Austin Whitman is founder and CEO of Climate Neutral, a non-profit organization that makes it simple for companies to track and offset their carbon emissions and certifies companies that are actively working to reduce their carbon emissions. The goal is to provide companies a turn-key addition to their sustainability work and to start conversations with consumers about climate change. 

Whitman believes that the fight against carbon emissions is improved when companies involve customers in their eco-friendly initiatives. Not only does it empower customers, but it also creates a powerful partnership for good. Here are three ways to connect with customers on climate change:

1. Make it simple for customers to make a difference. Modern consumers are overwhelmed by choices. Many consumers want to make responsible choices but simply don’t know how. Climate Neutral makes it easy for customers to purchase the most eco-friendly products. Companies that have gone through the certification process can put a label on their products to show customers their products are fighting against climate change. When customers are faced with options of products to buy, they can simply choose the product with the Climate Neutral symbol and know they are making the best choice. The goal of companies should always be to make customers’ lives easier, especially when it comes to making sustainable choices.
2. Show customers change is possible. Whitman says it’s powerful when brands engage with their customers on climate change. Brands need to show consumers that fighting against climate change can lead to real results. Show customers that brands can still deliver high-quality items while reducing their carbon emissions. Focus on what’s achievable. Many consumers are hesitant to make eco-friendly purchases because they don’t want to change from their favorite products or dramatically alter their lives. But when brands showcase that progress can happen without taking away products and quality customers enjoy, it can lead to real change.
3. Offer optimistic solutions. Instead of using scare tactics to engage customers in the fight against climate change, brands should stay hopeful and optimistic. The key is to start a conversation and provide solutions instead of just highlighting the problems. Many consumers feel they’re on their own to make the best decisions to limit their carbon footprints. Show them that it’s a collaboration between brands and customers and that together, we can all make progress. 

Climate change is a real problem for our world, but customers and companies can make a positive difference when they work together. Climate Neutral shows organizations that it’s possible to take a real stand against carbon emissions. When brands involve their customers in the conversation and action, the movement becomes even more powerful.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.

What is the purpose of a brand? This is a question I’ve been asking to a handful of thought leaders. Ryan Hanley--the VP of Marketing at TrustedChoice.com, speaker, podcaster and author of the Amazon bestseller, Content Warfare--was someone I discovered through his show on Periscope where he took it upon himself to dissect an article I had written on the purpose of a brand.

 The purpose of business–according to Peter Drucker one of the most popular management gurus of the 20th century–is to create a customer. But what about the purpose of a brand? How does this popular management quote apply to business today?

In this podcast you will learn:

How to create a successful content curation program

How to be a successful content curator

The modern purpose of a brand

Customer service is a big part of the customer experience, and the call center is a critical focal point for direct interaction with customers. With all the changes in technology recently, I wanted to ask an industry expert his thoughts on the future of the call center in the customer experience space.

In this episode of the Modern Customer Podcast, I had a conversation with an expert who has probably worked with more call centers over the past three decades than anyone else in the world. Brad Cleveland got his start in call centers decades ago and has watched this space grow and develop as a consultant, speaker, course instructor, and author of ten books, including his latest, Leading the Customer Experience.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

It’s the time of year when everyone is making New Year’s resolutions and setting goals for the coming year. 

What do you hope to achieve in 2021? How do you want to improve yourself and your career? 

For many of us, it’s been a complicated year and we’re looking for some change and improvement. 

But too often we fall into the trap of thinking we have to reinvent the wheel and start completely fresh. If we want to make more money, we have to start a brand new business. If we want to lose weight, we have to go on a crash diet. 

But that’s not true—you don’t have to start completely over to find success and happiness. 

Instead of setting New Year’s resolutions, I follow the 5% rule. Each day, I try to be 5% better than the day before. I’m not starting over from nothing; I’m building on what I already have and trying my best to improve every day. I don’t have to start over to get healthy or build a successful business. I work with what I have and improve it piece by piece. Over time, the 5% rule ends up increasing and accelerating the changes I’m trying to make. 

2020 was a rough year. Instead of beating ourselves up when we don’t achieve our lofty goals, we need to show ourselves grace and kindness. Talk to yourself kindly and do the best you can. Instead of feeling the pressure to create this big, amazing thing over night, the 5% rule lets you try your best every day and make small, incremental improvements. 

We don’t need more rules. Instead, we need to give ourselves love and nourishment. We need to check in with ourselves emotionally to really see how we are doing and how we can grow and improve. 

Make 2021 your year, but don’t feel like you have to do it all at once. Be kind to yourself. Aim to be 5% better each day and simply do your best. Over time, you’ll find you’ve reached where you want to be and become the best version of yourself.

To keep improving yourself and continue your entrepreneurial journey in 2020, be sure to check out the BYOB Podcast and our YouTube Channel for proven tips and useful advice.  

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

The consumer experience is transforming, and technology is at the center of it all. One company leading the way is health insurance provider Humana. There are a lot of options to focus on with the customer experience, but according to Geeta Wilson, director of customer experience at Humana, the company looks for where it can make the biggest impact first—by using technology to deliver a better experience to the customers. Humana breaks down its interactions with customers into two categories: assisted and unassisted. Assisted service is when a person needs help to answer their question or perform their task. This is usually done on a phone call or via a chat experience. Unassisted service is when a customer can get the answers they need without any intervention from a customer service representative. To streamline the process and help customers to have a good experience on their own terms, Humana is turning to artificial intelligence. The new Ask Humana tool helps customers get the answers they need by using an online tool similar to a live chat. However, instead of chatting with a human, customers are communicating with a machine that uses trends and previous knowledge to provide the right answers. One area where artificial intelligence tends to lack is with emotional connectivity. Humana has been working on building a better emotional experience by mimicking the connectivity customers have when talking to and chatting with real customer service representatives. There are a number of challenges involved with artificial intelligence, including making sure the information is updated and accurate, that the experience meets customer satisfaction levels, and that the program meets the company’s success metrics. What sets Humana apart in its quest to better the human experience is its approach. The company is focused on finding solutions through rapid experimentation to test their hypotheses. Once a hypothesis is found true, they continue to build on it. Humana starts broad to go narrow by framing the problem, making sure the team has a strong understanding of it, and then framing an experiment to test a solution for the problem. Because artificial intelligence is such an unknown area, the company is in uncharted territory and works to lay out the assumptions and let the results speak. To prove the technology, Humana relies on a number of metrics, including a unique emotional score. Because customers make 70% of their decisions with an emotional response, Humana uses a CPS-style approach to measuring emotion in AI interaction. The company has found that as emotional metrics improve, so do their other success metrics like overall satisfaction and the length of the call. As technology continues to develop, the customer experience will evolve out of necessity. Geeta predicts that advanced machines will be able to analyze data quickly, providing for improved automated processes and customized interactions with customers. Artificial intelligence is just one way that is happening.with customers. Artificial intelligence is just one way that is happening.

How do you create a great experience for customers of different generations? That’s the challenge faced by children’s hair salon Pigtails & Crewcuts, which has two very distinct and different types of customers: children and parents. According to CEO Wade Brannon, the key is creating a personalized and comfortable experience for everyone.  

Haircuts can be stressful for both children and their parents, so Pigtails & Crewcuts aims to create a relaxing atmosphere that is inviting for everyone. Children appreciate going somewhere that is designed for them with child-sized furniture and activities. The salons are also designed to be comfortable for parents with a colorful environment that isn’t too over the top. The salon also has plenty of places for parents to sit nearby so they can also have a comfortable experience.

For children, the main goal of the salon is for them to be comfortable and enjoy their haircut. That’s done through employees who are trained to interact with children and create a safe and calm atmosphere. Instead of rushing children through their haircuts, employees are encouraged to take their time to make sure each child is comfortable. According to Wade, parents look for a salon that makes their kid look good and takes out much of the stress of giving a child a haircut. When children are happy, parents are more likely to also be satisfied with the service.

Pigtails & Crewcuts creates a controlled environment where both parents and children know what to expect. Every time a customer walks in the door, they are greeted by an employee, who explains the entire process from check-in to wait times and even takes new customers on a tour of the salon. Being clear with the process helps customers of all ages know what to expect and helps things move more smoothly.

Both children and parents are involved in the haircut process. Employees work to make sure children are comfortable, and they regularly check with parents throughout the haircut to make sure they are creating what the parent had in mind. Afterwards, parents receive an email follow-up to ensure their expectations were met.

Pigtails & Crewcuts aims to take a sometimes painful activity and improve the experience with a controlled and personal environment. Focusing on both children and parents and being clear with expectations and service creates an environment fit for all groups where both children and parents look forward to returning.

TODAY’S THE DAY … My new book hits the shelves!

There are many leadership books, and there are many customer experience and customer service books. However, very few books combine these two topics.

I am excited to announce that my new book, "The Eight Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building a Business Around Today's Customer," is now available. The book explores eight themes, each with its own dedicated chapter.

To learn more about my new book please visit www.8CXLaws.com

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, Michele Crocker shares her insights on transforming contact centers through customer-focused leadership, AI, and change management.

She dives into actionable strategies for aligning people, processes, and technology to create high-performing, customer-centric operations. Michele also explains how successful AI implementation hinges on effective change management, ensuring smoother transitions and delivering measurable results for contact centers.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Anyone who says it’s a man’s world clearly hasn’t seen the impact women can have on customer experience. As more women flock to customer experience roles and opportunities and bring their unique perspectives and skillsets, it’s becoming clearer that women are in a unique position to lead customer experience.

According to Denise Lee Yohn, a brand-building expert with more than 25 years experience, women have unique points of view that lend themselves well to customer experience. Among those is the natural ability to be empathetic, which is especially important because customer experience really boils down to understanding the customer and what they want. Women can also stand out in a field of men, which gives them more opportunities to shine and share new ideas. As diversity and inclusion becomes a bigger focus at many organizations, not having women involved in customer experience makes companies seem out of touch. After all, women are half of the customer base, so leaving them out of the decision-making process could be disastrous.

I interviewed Denise Lee Yohn on the modern customer podcast. Listen to it here.

That’s not to say that women don’t face challenges in the customer experience space. Some women have to battle with being stereotyped, and not being thought of as credible. Many women suffer from imposter syndrome, at least as they move up in the leadership ranks. That means they don't feel as powerful as they seem and they must fake it until they make it. Society often tells women even in 2017 that their worth is based on their looks, rather than their mind and their work. When you look at the top of politics, of corporations, and even of keynote speaker line-ups, we still mostly see men. Where are the women? We are here, but we face many hurdles uphill, but must support each other in our effort to create more opportunities for women.

Along with personal challenges, inside of corporate America there are challenges women face internally at companies. In many organizations, customer experience is divided across multiple departments, meaning that to truly make an impact, a woman has to be able to influence beyond her scope to people in other areas, and many organizations aren’t currently set up for women to do that. In order to be most effective, many women rely on their content to override the prejudices and use a more logical and analytical approach when discussing customer experience with men.

According to Denise, customer experience is very connected with employee experience—if employees don’t understand or aren’t motivated to deliver a good customer experience, it is much more likely that they won’t. The most successful companies develop an internal culture that is aligned with their brand that then connects that to the customer experience by linking what customers need to what employees need. When employees are treated well and feel valued and connected to the brand, they are much more likely to share those experiences with customers. This strategy seems to work well with women, who often naturally like to make connections between groups and people.

For a woman to break into the customer experience space, she must embrace her differences and channel that unique perspective into something that can contribute to the company. Being deliberate about your career and the skills needed to succeed can make a big difference.

It may be an uphill battle, but women are making great progress in the customer experience space and proving they can connect with customers and drive results in a new way.

Denise Lee Yohn is a fabulous speaker and thought leader and I had a wonderful time interviewing her for my show. She is an important voice to follow.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, speaker and author of the book More Is More. Sign up for her newsletter here.

Morgan Stanley CMO Alice Milligan is tasked with balancing legacy and innovation for a company founded nearly 90 years ago that has become one of the biggest names in finance.

It’s a common dilemma for companies: how do you balance holding on to the brand legacy while embracing the future?

This episode is sponsored by Thinkific.

The customer of the future is here. Is your company ready?

The last few years have caused consumers to re-evaluate their purpose and what they value in life. With new priorities, many customers are changing brands and thinking differently about their relationships with brands. 

Customer experience is a decision everyone in your company needs to make every day. When you invest in making your customers’ lives easier and better, you set your company up for long-term success and loyalty.

Creating a customer-centric mindset means deciding every day to put customers first. There are four ways to do that, which follow my WAYS framework.

Customer expectations have changed over the past 18 months of a pandemic, leaving brands with the challenge of pivoting and adapting not only to a new way of living and working but also to a new way of interacting with and serving customers. 

Scott Finlow, CMO of PepsiCo Foodservice, has noticed two major trends during the pandemic. First is that people are looking forward to re-entering the world and having meaningful connections. As they do so, they want to try new products and have new experiences. Second, people are looking for more purpose in their lives and in their brand choices. That manifests in a variety of ways, including being more aware of the impact of their decisions on the environment and their health and wellbeing. 

But Finlow says understanding and recognizing those changes is only the first step. Companies need to understand where customer needs are heading so they can focus on re-inventing a better normal. It’s not about going back to how things were but instead moving forward and creating a better future. 

Perhaps nowhere is that more important than in the B2B world, where many companies are adjusting to new ways of doing business. Throughout the pandemic, PepsiCo has focused on forming partnerships to help support its restaurant customers as they pivot. The company is also investing heavily in digital and building out services to help its customers along their own digital journeys. 

As customer expectations change, innovation is crucial. B2B companies need to find new ways to meet customer needs and break out of how things have been done in the past. With an increased focus on health and safety, PepsiCo set out to create contactless fountain drink equipment. Finlow says it required the work of multiple departments to deliver on the new hygiene standard. But it doesn’t stop there—the company is also piloting a drink machine in Europe that allows customers to gesture and pour the drink of their choice. Continual innovation provides B2B customers with the tools they need to best serve their customers.  

Customer experience has always required continual change and evolution, but especially in a post-COVID world. B2B companies that stay in touch with their customers to understand their new needs and expectations, find ways to support their journey and continually innovate will lead the way towards the future.   

*This episode is sponsored by Quiq.

Quiq is a leading conversational AI platform that drives two-way conversations to deliver a better experience for people and brands. Quiq enables enterprises to connect and engage in two-way conversations with their customers across varied messaging channels — including Facebook Messenger — in more than 170 languages. Quiq is the future of business-to-consumer messaging; it’s the wingman every brand and CX’er needs.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the new Customer Experience Community here.

Marketing is often thought of as everything that happens before a sale; customer service is everything that happens after. But according to Allan Dib, best-selling author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan, customer service is marketing. The two sides are related and can work together to create a smoother experience overall.

Like in customer service, Dib says the first step of marketing is knowing your audience. Who are you talking to? What are they interested in? In his mind, marketing is the strategy used to get your ideal clients to know you, like you, and trust you enough to become customers.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

I can personally imagine a world where I can get anything whenever I want it. Can't you? In 2015 we've seen a proliferation of successful on-demand companies whether it’s Shoes of Prey where you can design and order your own shoes or Blue Apron that delivers pre-determined ingredients so a consumer can make themselves the perfect meal.

Even airports realize on-demand and no fuss services makes for happy customers and big profits. For example recently on a layover at Newark International Airport I ordered a turkey wrap from an ipad and only interacted with a person who wanted to see the proof that I had paid--they then handed me my wrap. The entire Newark International Airport is littered with ipads. It's eerie that there are very few humans actually working at the restaurants at all. But it's a taste of the future. In fact being able to order what we want when we want it is the future of consumerism. Today it's becoming easier than ever to get our preferences delivered to us directly whether we're at a fast food restaurant at an airport, or even at work or at home.

I can personally imagine a world where I can get anything whenever I want it. Can't you? In 2015 we've seen a proliferation of successful on-demand companies whether it’s Shoes of Prey where you can design and order your own shoes or Blue Apron that delivers pre-determined ingredients so a consumer can make themselves the perfect meal.

Even airports realize on-demand and no fuss services makes for happy customers and big profits. For example recently on a layover at Newark International Airport I ordered a turkey wrap from an ipad and only interacted with a person who wanted to see the proof that I had paid--they then handed me my wrap. The entire Newark International Airport is littered with ipads. It's eerie that there are very few humans actually working at the restaurants at all. But it's a taste of the future. In fact being able to order what we want when we want it is the future of consumerism. Today it's becoming easier than ever to get our preferences delivered to us directly whether we're at a fast food restaurant at an airport, or even at work or at home.

Earlier this year in her “Internet Trends” report, American venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst Mary Meeker highlighted various “just-in-time” companies, mostly from the sharing economy, however there is a growing interest in on-demand companies of all kinds—even liquor. Mary Meeker cites a few reasons why on-demand services have taken off in the last few years that include, “smartphone adoption, mobile payment platforms and social authentication." Additionally the way millennials prefer to work--and the on-demand work suits millennials.  The same report argues that changes in connectivity and commerce impacts the ways people can work, but it’s still early in the game.

So now we have a proliferation of social networks, we have a proliferation of content sites, but we don’t have a ton of brands that marry both. How about companies that bring back-stories to whatever it is they help you create?

There is a large maker movement happening today where people want to create their own stuff. Just because we can get anything pre-packaged or set up doesn’t mean we (especially millennials) like it that way. While some in the “Maker Movement” might be only referring to 3d printing or tools to make technology and robots, it also speaks to a growing interest in returning to creating all kinds of stuff--at home. These stories and content build community and create a direct connection to whatever it is you build-with the ingredients provided to you by the on-demand company. I won’t go so far as to call this a “back to the land” movement but I will say people are interested in doing things that come with a story—that have special meaning—that takes a certain amount of personal effort.  According to TIME Magazine there are approximately 135 million U.S. adults who are makers, and the overall market for 3D printing products and various maker services hit $2.2 billion in 2012. That number is expected to reach $6 billion by 2017 and $8.41 billion by 2020. In a sense the on-demand market can be seen as parallel to the idea of the maker movement. Some of the smartest companies are not only building a following with an on-demand product and services model, they’re also building wildly imaginative stories that accompany these ingredients. They're empowering consumers to create their own imaginative things.

For example, it’s possible that for my next cocktail party I will go on Pinterest, find a recipe I like and then head to the store to buy the various liquors, juices and sodas. However, what if you could find the recipe and have the alcohol delivered to you? What if that recipe was created by your favorite mixologist? This is precisely why the new on-demand liquor company Thirstie has had a ton of early success.

On-Demand Services For Millennials Are About Much More Than Speed

Devaraj Southworth--CEO of on-demand alcohol company Thirstie--believes catering to the millennial is about much more than speed of delivery. With Thirstie it’s about engaging the customer on a higher level, not speed. For Thirstie it’s about educating the consumer on what the product is about. What can you make at home with the product?

They’ve put emphasis on not just a marketing platform to deliver the consumer the bottles of alcohol ordered in under an hour, but they focus on the content and community part of it. They launched The Craft on their main website www.Thirstie.com—an editorial platform, in June 2015. The time spent on the Thirstie site went from 20 seconds to 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Clearly the millennial wants to learn about what they can make and what they can do on a hyper local level.

According to Southworth, Thirstie believes in educating the consumer at the right time and the right place. In studies conducted by the company consumers want to feel “in the know” about trends. For example a trendy mixologist at a restaurant in Harlem, born in Australia--that was a producer of an amazing tequila--might guest post on their content site The Craft. Then the company Thirstie will deliver all the ingredients so readers can replicate the same cocktail recipe from that mixologist. Thirstie said adding recipes to their app increased engagement by 70 percent.

Thirstie is growing 35 percent month over month. According to Southworth they "don’t want to be in 100 cities with 1000 retail partners—they’re moving slowly in a thoughtful way."

Listen to our podcast for more from Devaraj Southworth.

More about Devaraj Southworth:

Devaraj Southworth is the CEO and Co-Founder of Thirstie, a leading national on-demand liquor, wine, and beer delivery company with a content driven commerce platform. Devaraj has been a leader in business, online media and mobile technology for close to 20 years, and is a serial entrepreneur with a number of successful ventures to his name.

Prior to Thirstie, Devaraj built a digital agency to over $10M in sales, sold the Creative Services BU to an Inc. 500 Company, was a VP of Mobile Strategy for Amex, and is a former Deloitte and Accenture Strategy consultant. Devaraj studied Organizational Psychology and Investigative Journalism at Ohio Wesleyan.
 

No one could have ever predicted what would happen in 2020. Aside from the pandemic and its impact on the global economy, unemployment, remote learning and a host of other issues, there are also widespread cries to end systemic racism, fires and natural disasters and a tumultuous presidential election. It’s more than anyone could ever have imagined, and it’s taking a toll on consumers. 

But even with these unique conditions, companies are moving forward and working to grow and provide great service to customers. The question many companies face is how to connect with customers when so much about the world has changed and people are facing so much stress. 

Amelia Dunlop, Chief Experience Officer at Deloitte Digital, refers to it as the emotional toll COVID-19 has taken on people. No matter how it affects each person, the pandemic and other crises have caused stress and exhaustion and changed people.  

Deloitte Digital set out to get a pulse on how customer behavior is changing amidst all of the chaos. A survey of 28,000 Americans introduced numerous stories about the changing human experience and showcased what Americans are going through, where they need help and what companies can do to stay relevant. It comes down to one key area: be human. Consumers want companies that are empathetic and see them as individuals in the middle of a crisis, not just shoppers who are the same as they were six months ago. 

Deloitte Digital’s results found three ways companies can become more human during a crisis:

1. Build trust. Companies have to balance the natural tension between the safety of the group with each individual customer’s freedom in a way that builds trust with customers and is open and authentic.
2. Signal safety. Customers are concerned about safety and often don’t know who to trust. Companies need to create a comprehensive safety plan and clearly communicate it to customers. People look for safety signs that they can see, feel, hear and smell.
3. Redefine connection. Companies must change their approach to physical and virtual interactions to meet the human need to connect while still being safe. Customers still want connection, even if it comes in a different form.  

Being human requires companies to understand their customers and especially how they are reacting to challenges of the current crisis. The Deloitte Survey also found that people fit into three different clusters: 

• Protectors: These are the people who are more concerned about health risks and tend to only trust themselves or their immediate family in regards to safety. They feel anxious and are acting with concern.
• Prevailers: This group is skeptical about how long the crisis will last. They are optimistic about reopening the economy and are likely to be the first for in-person experiences. Prevailers feel skeptical and are acting with confidence.
• Pragmatists: This group falls in between the others and tries to balance health and safety with a push to return to normal. People who fall into this category are feeling calm and acting with balance. 

Although everyone is going through the same crises, Dunlop says each person values different things. For companies to stay relevant and stay human, they have to build empathy and softer experiences for stressed consumers. 

Crises will always be part of doing business, even when they are as unpredictable as 2020 has shown. Keeping a good understanding of customers and staying human can help companies navigate crises and maintain strong relationships.

This week’s podcast is sponsored by TTEC.

Imagine an interaction that’s so simple and easy, that you don’t even think about it!

TTEC calls this ‘mastering the effortless experience’… and it’s the future of CX.

When your competition is just a click away, how do you ensure your customers stay loyal? How do you keep your employees engaged and motivated? How do you make sure your brand thrives?

Managing over 3.5 million interactions daily, TTEC are CX experts who know what it takes to deliver amazing and effortless customer experiences. They combine CX strategy with proven-processes, award-winning people engagement and best-of-breed technology to deliver holistic solutions focused on driving real-world results for their clients every day.

Don’t get lost in a sea of competitors. Effortless is not a destination. It’s a journey. And TTEC can be your guide to an effortless future.

To find out more about how TTEC can help you transform your customer experience visit TTECDigital.com

Every employee plays a role in customer experience, but they often follow the lead of the CEO. At Progressive Insurance, employees follow the customer-centric mindset of CEO Tricia Griffith, which has led to the company’s stock quadrupling in the last four years.

Although there are metrics to measure and processes in place, Tricia leads with her heart and isn’t afraid to trust her gut. She puts people first by getting out of her office, taking customer calls, sitting in as agents handle claims, and surprising partners and customers with in-person visits. 

*Sponsored by Calendly

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. 

Peter Drucker's grandson Nova Spivack, CEO of Bottlenose, says that Drucker would have felt today that real influencers are not spending a lot of time on social media. In The Modern Customer Podcast this week we talk to Spivack who is an entrepreneur and investor who at six years old remembers being in line behind Jack Welch for an appointment to spend time with his grandfather, one of the most famous management thinkers of our time Peter Drucker. These memories are vivid for Spivack who today spends time thinking about the big business questions we face today.

Spivack believes his grandfather felt real influence is not visible but built through face to face interaction. From personal branding and influence to building a brand’s influence, we cover it all in this podcast.

There are many challenges Spivack sees for brands that are trying to build influence. He says while people may be brands, brands are not people. While you can "friend" a brand, this is not a bi-directional relationship. Brands have to recognize that they aren't people and the relationships they're building are not like human friendships. Brands need to become memes--virally replicating ideas that spread through cultures. Spivack says brands are more like viruses than they are like people. Spivack's grandfather coined the term the "non-customer." Spivack argues that you still need to understand these non-customers as much as you seek to understand your customer. It's your non-customers that represent your potential for growth. Brands today spend an immense amount of time but not enough time trying to reach their non-customers.

Recently through there have been some debates around the focus on non-customers from a branding perspective versus purely focusing on the valuable top spending customers.

According to Spivack one of the things brands need to do is think of the risk of having only one niche. If we look at evolution the species that have survived—if you can compare this to brands—are the species that were not confined to one ecological niche. They were able to colonize other niches. You can think of demographics and audience segments as niches. 

In this podcast you will learn

• The best ways to build influence as a brand
• How you can identify new market opportunities
• Examples of brands that are generating awareness through killer content

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

But that becomes even more important in a company serving customers with chronic health conditions. 

Naama Stauber Breckler is CEO and co-founder of Better Health, a company focused on helping people with chronic conditions manage day-to-day life at home. Through innovative end-to-end solutions that bundle the delivery of medical supplies with education, peer support and telehealth services and an intense customer focus, Breckler and her team make it possible for customers to do hard things easily.

The need for at-home care and supplies delivery was only highlighted during COVID when most people suffering from chronic conditions were left at home to manage their care and treatment.  

Before starting Better Health in late 2019, Breckler spent months talking to countless people to learn about the industry, current challenges and where she could have the biggest impact. She ultimately narrowed her focus to urology and ostomy products. Most of Better Health’s customers have chronic conditions, so although the company can’t reverse the conditions, it can make customers’ lives better.

Talking with customers highlighted two major issues: the selection of medical devices can be overwhelming, and online payments with insurance can be complicated. Both of these issues posed massive roadblocks to customers and made their lives incredibly difficult. Better Health prioritized addressing these issues and now offers personalized consulting and recommendations to find the right products and takes over payment issues from the customer.

Better Health operates in an inverted way to make sure everything the company releases truly solves problems people care about. Breckler and her team interact with customers online and go into their homes to understand the experience so they can then prioritize the biggest pain points to make the largest impact. 

That customer focus continues with each new feature the company releases. Employees pore over data to see where customers are getting stuck and dropping from the process so they know how to improve it. 

Every company, not just those in the medical field, can and should make customers’ lives easier. A central focus on customers that starts from leaders, as well as data and feedback, can help companies improve their products and work to best meet customers’ needs.

_______________

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here. 

Saying 2020 was a rocky year may be the ultimate understatement. But after the turmoil and uncertainty, customers, brands and investors want to know what the economy looks like in 2021. 

According to Fox Business Network’s Charles Payne, there’s reason to be extremely optimistic. 

In 2021, consumer savings are near record highs. That, combined with government stimulus money, means that there is a lot of money and the ability to spend it once consumer confidence levels pick up.  

Part of the reason to expect economic growth in 2021 is the concept of revenge shopping or revenge travel as the pandemic starts to subside. After more than a year of shutdowns and quarantines, customers are eager to spend money, have experiences and travel. Payne predicts that customers will want to make up for lost time, which will be great for the economy. 

Although there has been tremendous job loss and countless businesses closing during the pandemic, new business applications have gone through the roof in recent months. The fact that people are confident enough to start businesses is a good sign for the economy, and consumers will likely give a special effort to support small businesses, at least initially. Small businesses are poised for success, and the economy needs them to thrive. But Payne points out that these businesses don’t exist in a vacuum, and uncertainty and actions taken towards big businesses could potentially hurt smaller businesses. For new small businesses to thrive, they need continued customer support.  

The growth of the economy is also tied to the growth of construction and real estate. Over the last year, we’ve seen a growing exodus from expensive cities to less expensive suburbs. Just a few years ago, consumers wanted to rent everything instead of owning, but in today’s world, customers want the control and confidence that comes from owning things, especially homeownership. To rebound after the pandemic exodus, Payne says cities will have to reinvent themselves and become experience hubs. That growth and change could foster new business growth as consumers look to make up for lost experiences. 

The economy is certainly changing in 2021, but overall, things are looking up. With consumers eager to spend, small businesses on the rise and a change and reinvention for cities and suburbs, this year will have a lasting impact on the economy—for the positive.

*Sponsored by Pegasystems #PegaWorld 

It’s almost time for PegaWorld iNspire, the annual conference from Pegasystems. Join them online for free on May 4 from 9 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time to learn how the world’s most impactful companies are driving digital transformation. They’ll have compelling keynotes, demos, and case studies in a highly interactive virtual format and a few surprises as well. Go to www.pegaworld.com to register for free and check out the full agenda. I’ve attended the last several PegaWorlds in person, and virtual, and I can’t recommend it enough, so go register today! That’s www.pegaworld.com.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  

In a sea of celebrity brands, how can a company stand out and attract customers? 

It comes down to being passionate, innovative and empathetic. 

Many celebrities are only involved with their brands as far as simply putting their name on a product, but Bruno Mars’ rum brand SelvaRey is different. He spent three years redesigning the SelvaRey packaging to create a stylish and eye-catching bottle and is passionate about the brand and its products. 

That passion and innovation extends to the entire team and is what attracted CMO Brielle Caruso to the brand. 

Caruso joined the company six months ago, making her the first female Asian American CMO in the U.S. wine and spirits industry. Caruso has helped build numerous brands and knows what it takes to stand out. 

Marketing is really about communicating and building relationships. Caruso believes communication means everything and that brilliant communicators must have strong observational awareness. It’s impossible to be a great marketer without being a great listener. At SelvaRey, that means listening to customers and understanding the context of what they are looking for. In her career, it means actively listening to her team members and building real connections.

Over the past six months, SelvaRey has launched four new products, some of which sold out in days. Part of Caruso’s job has been to educate customers about rum and break down stereotypes and showcase the wide range of products. Listening to customers led the brand to release products at different entry points.  

Marketers are often taught that it’s all about themselves—about sharing their message and pushing their products. But Caruso believes that people who step back and listen, not to respond but to understand and add empathy, become better leaders. 

With that empathy and listening comes humility. Caruso says it’s important to be grounded, which she does by writing down her goals and gratitudes. Especially after a difficult year, she believes it’s important to reach out to people and check in on them instead of assuming everyone is fine. Building those relationships and being humble helps marketers stay focused and grounded, which only adds to their success. In a world full of ego and self-promotion, truly caring about other people can help you stand out. 

Many women in male-dominated industries face the challenge of being the only woman in the room. But Caruso has learned that her unique assets are valuable and important and that she needs to speak up to represent female customers. Women drink alcohol, so companies can’t just have men creating the strategic goals and marketing. They need a woman’s insight and will listen to the women in the room, even if there’s only one. Caruso believes companies need to push for employees and marketers who are representative of the population who is using the product. 

Standing out in the marketing world isn’t always about being the flashiest. It comes down to being passionate, innovative and empathetic. The loudest campaigns may catch customers’ eyes, but lasting success comes to the companies and marketers that know how to build relationships and stay grounded. SelvaRey shows that strong communication can build a winning brand. 

*Sponsored by Pegasystems #PegaWorld 

It’s almost time for PegaWorld iNspire, the annual conference from Pegasystems. Join them online for free on May 4 from 9 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time to learn how the world’s most impactful companies are driving digital transformation. They’ll have compelling keynotes, demos, and case studies in a highly interactive virtual format and a few surprises as well. Go to www.pegaworld.com to register for free and check out the full agenda. I’ve attended the last several PegaWorlds in person, and virtual, and I can’t recommend it enough, so go register today! That’s www.pegaworld.com.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  

Every company wants a magic elixir that makes employees happier, profits higher, and the outlook rosier. According to leading business strategist Charlene Li, that secret sauce is growth. When a company is focused on growing, customers and employees are excited and enjoy an upward spiral. But in order to grow, companies need to be willing to take risks and go outside their comfort zones. Growth and meeting customers needs need to play a critical part in an organization’s strategy.

            Companies that take risks tend to have better customer experiences. Think about it—customers will more naturally want to shop from a brand that is new and finding the best ways to meet their needs instead of a company that is stuck in the past and hasn’t updated its products or practices in decades. In order to take calculated risks, companies must build the growth mindset into their company under the direction of top leadership. The speed of change depends on the industry, but companies should strive to keep up with the fastest moving customers they serve. For fast-paced tech companies, that could mean new initiatives every few months, while other manufacturing companies might take a big risk every few years—it all comes down to what your customers want and expect from your service.

            Part of growing is always finding customer solutions before customers even know that’s what they need. Charlene points to the example of T-Mobile, which talked to a number of customers about their mobile experiences. A common thread was that cell customers hated their carriers, no matter who that carrier was. They didn’t like being chained to a contract and limited in what they could do. With that in mind, T-Mobile took the risk to create the Un-Carrier strategy that has been successful for the company. If T-Mobile didn’t have a growth mindset and a strategy of listening to customers and thinking about the future, they would have missed out on a huge way to set themselves apart from the competition.

            Customer experience is also affected by how companies are organized. In many cases, it can be helpful to have a single person serve as the Chief Omnichannel Officer to bring together the various call centers and customer technologies. This is especially important early on in a company’s customer experience maturity when one person needs to hold the organization’s hand and set the tone for interacting with customers. As things grow and develop and the strategy becomes more engrained in the organization, that person can act more like an organizer to bring together all of the aspects of customer experience instead of being expressly in charge of every detail. No matter the size of the company, everyone needs to have a customer-centric mindset that helps them do their part to create a strong customer experience.

            Understanding where your company is today and where it needs to be in the future can help set a strategy that encourages customer interaction. Charlene suggests creating a customer advisory board and inviting customers to be open and honest and what the company can do better in its customer interactions. Staying one step ahead of the competition and always keeping an eye on the customer can lead to tremendous growth and success, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Instead of being distracted by things that don’t really matter, companies need to create strong strategies to guide their actions and meet those unseen customer needs.

Not many companies end up highlighted on The Ellen Show, but that’s exactly what happened for Capital One, and it can all be credited back to the company’s customer-centric culture.

After her fiancé broke up with her and she moved out, a Capital One customer’s card was flagged for fraud when she ordered furniture sent to her new address. The customer called and explained the situation to contact center employee Tonya, who gave her 4,500 miles for a vacation after her rough breakup and even sent her flowers. The story went viral, but according to Doug Woodard, SVP Customer Operations at Capital One, things like that happen regularly.

At Capital One, a customer-centric culture starts with trust. Executives work to create an environment where they can trust employees, which gives employees freedom to help customers in whatever way best meets their needs. All employees are encouraged to look for ways to build a connection with customers. Doug considers it his job to care for those people who care for the customers. He aims to support the customer-facing associates and empower them to serve customers.

Capital One is so successful with its culture because it starts at the top. From the C-level down to entry level employees, customers are an integral part of the DNA of the company. A customer-centered culture means that customer experience doesn’t just fall on one department—it is the responsibility of everyone in the organization. Everyone has a responsibility to understand customer feedback and make improvements to customer experiences. At Capital One, that happens as leaders invest time in getting closer to customers by going to the call center, reading customer feedback, and sharing that information with their employees, no matter what department they are in. Employees are recognized publicly when they are a hero to customers, which reinforces the customer-first culture.

According to Doug, a customer-centric culture is also built on transparency. Companies have to mean what they say and say what they mean. Culture is transparent to customers, and they can quickly see through words that aren’t backed by action. A customer can easily feel if the employee they are working with hates their job because it will naturally come out in the employee’s attitude. Humility and accountability are also vitally important. It takes humility to really listen to customers and be willing to do what they are asking and listen to their feedback.

Framing is also key to a strong culture. Employees need to see how their work affects customers and the difference they can make. At Capital One, employees know they aren’t just answering the phones at a credit card company, they are helping people with their financial lives. Everything rests on building that sense of purpose, from training and accountability to the quality of the experiences. Identifying the metrics that will measure customer-facing actions can also drive culture and action. It might be tracking NPS or other metrics, but having something to measure makes people accountable and forces them to follow through so the actions are rooted in the culture.

Much of what builds a customer-centered culture starts with the mindset of the leaders and employees. As demonstrated by Capital One, having an attitude of serving customers can permeate the entire organization and lead to great success.

There has never been a better time to be a CIO. That’s according to Vic Bhagat, CIO of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, who has decades of experience in the technology space. Where it used to be that CIOs were fighting for a spot at the table and struggling to get their voices heard, CIOs are now front and center. Nearly every innovative thing companies want to do today, from social, mobile, big data, machine learning, and more, goes through the CIO. However, with that increased visibility comes a bigger responsibility to play a strong role in the customer experience.

            There are often other technology leaders and opinions within an organization, but part of what sets a CIO apart is his or her role as a business leader who must have their finger on the pulse of the business. The CIO has to have a firm grasp on how the business operates so they can know how to best leverage new technology to deliver a world-class experience to customers. In order to know how to best use technology to help customers, the CIO must have a good understanding of customer and work to build a relationship of trust where customers can be honest about the solutions they are looking for and what would make their lives and shopping experiences better.

            Vic views one of his main roles as supporting and advocating for customers, both internally and externally. Internal customers, or employees, who have great technology experiences can pass that on to external customers. Consider how a call center employee who is frustrated with a slow computer or outdated system affects the mood and experience of a customer calling in with a question. Conversely, an employee who has the tech tools to do their job can focus on providing a great experience to customers. The CIO can have a good understanding of what customers want to be able to provide them the solutions to best perform their jobs and be happy.

            At Verizon, Vic and his team focus on helping companies focus on their core capabilities instead of their chore capabilities. If there is an area that is a chore for a customer that would be considered a core at Verizon, the company can take it off the customer’s plate and allow them to focus on their core abilities and goals for growth.

            The idea of customer experience isn’t new. However, with the tools available today, we can create a better and more innovative experience than ever before. The CIO can play a role in making sure the right technology to meet customers’ needs is implemented within the organization.

            The CIO’s role, especially when it comes to customer experience, is incredibly important. With a strong understanding of customers and the effects of technology, a CIO can create innovative solutions and a great environment for customers.

To say the real estate market in 2021 is a wild ride would be an understatement. 

Anyone who has looked at buying or selling a home recently can understand the roller coaster of emotions in this crazy climate. 

But the ups and downs of real estate, especially in the current fast-moving state, require a special focus on relationships and customer experience. 

According to Deanna Haas, SVP of customer experience at SOLD.com, one of the biggest challenges for consumers navigating the real estate world is the abundance of options. Aside from the traditional ways of buying and selling homes, numerous alternatives are popping up that can also be great options. The challenge for people is to discover what option best meets their needs. 

Haas says that above anything else, modern real estate customers are looking for education and an unbiased perspective. Real estate is emotional. And while the numbers are important, Haas says consumers need more than just the data—there must also be a human side to the transaction. 

No matter how people choose to buy or sell their home, they want someone who is as invested in the experience as they are. With properties moving so quickly, it can be easy for sales to become routine for agents and companies. But each sale is unique for its buyers and sellers, who want their real estate professionals to take time to help them understand their options and be invested in the success of the transaction. Consumers want their feelings about real estate—both their fears and excitement—to be heard and acknowledged. 

Personalization is crucial in customer experiences across all industries, and real estate is no different. Consumers want to have a personalized experience, especially as they make such a large and important purchase.  

Ultimately, Haas says consumers are looking for individual and memorable real estate experiences where they are valued and understood. Real estate is emotional and should be treated as more than black and white. 

And the need to deliver a strong experience will only increase--as the real estate industry continues to shift and evolve, understanding modern customers will become even more important.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.

In the fast-paced tech world, it’s tempting for companies to rely on their products. But Logitech, one of the world’s largest hardware companies, knows the importance of being customer-focused instead of just product-focused.

The company takes a unique approach by having its CIO, Massimo Rapparini, also lead customer experience. But the connection between technology, information and customer experience works as Logitech builds a customer-focused company that delivers quality tech products and forward-thinking digital solutions. Marrying IT and CX helps the company lead the charge for innovative support solutions that serve customers. Rapparini points to Logitech’s growth in VR, chat and a worldwide omnichannel experience as success behind the integrated design of technology and customer experience.

Logitech's CX principles drive a customer-focused culture. Employees are encouraged to think through the design of every step of the customer journey. The core CX principles are known in the company as the 5 E’s:

·  Empathy

·  Expectations

·  Effortless

·  Engaging

·  Error-free

Each principle puts the customer at front of mind. Rapparini says that starting with an empathetic mindset puts all Logitech employees in the shoes of the customer and helps them see things from their perspective. From there, they can work to clear set expectations, make the experience as few steps as possible, build customer relationships and remove errors.

Logitech’s diverse customer base comes from creating a wide range of products, from gaming headsets to enterprise technology accessories. Focusing on the customer instead of just the product helps the company grow. The core principles are timeless and applicable to all customers, no matter where they are in the world or what products they purchase. Logitech uses design thinking to create consistent experiences that consider every interaction a customer may have with the brand.

Products may be a draw for customers, but what really keeps them around is the experience. By building a customer-centric culture and focusing more on people than products, Logitech has built a successful and sustainable company with a loyal group of customers.

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, John Rossman, author of 'The Amazon Way' and his newest book 'Big Bet Leadership' joins us. He shares leadership strategies for navigating extreme change and digital transformation, focusing on topics like AI, cost reduction, and rethinking operating models for customer-centricity. 

Rossman shares insights from top leaders like Jeff Bezos and John Legere, emphasizing the importance of creating clarity, maintaining velocity, and taking big, transformational bets for business success.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Buying a car can be stressful and time-consuming. It’s not a task that most consumers look forward to. But Carvana is changing the experience by giving power back to customers and letting them find their perfect car from the comfort of their own home without having to haggle with salespeople.

Co-founder and Chief Brand Officer Ryan Keeton points out that the car-buying process hasn’t changed in more than 70 years. Carvana set out to create “Amazon for cars” to provide an amazing experience for customers to find their perfect used car. Using a wide array of technology, customers can peruse Carvana’s 15,000 cars (a much larger inventory than the typical dealership) and get a complete and accurate view of the inside and outside of each car. Once they choose a car, it is either delivered to their home as soon as the next day or available to pick up at a car vending machine around the country. In perhaps the biggest innovation over the traditional car buying experience, customers have a seven-day window to return the car with no questions asked.

Everything about Carvana is designed around the customer experience. Keeton and the other founders wanted to save people money and use technology to reduce friction. By removing many of the extra people and layers of the dealership buying experience, customers have more control and transparency into the process. Instead of salespeople, Carvana has customer advocates who answer questions about the process and specific cars. Customer advocates don’t fight the customer to haggle for a deal, but are on the same team and work with customers to find the perfect car.

In order to create an amazing experience, Carvana relies heavily on technology and data. The company invested heavily in photo and video technology, as well as logistics to be able to deliver cars to people around the country as soon as the next day. Technology also auto-populates many of the contracts, which turns a multi-hour car-buying experience into a 10-minute transaction. Data helps Carvana measure its progress and target its approach to potential customers.

Disrupting such a large industry hasn’t come without its ups and downs. Keeton says many customers, especially those in new markets, think Carvana is too good to be true. One customer even had 20 co-workers waiting with him when his car was delivered. They had a bet on if Carvana was real and if the car would even show up. To combat skepticism, Carvana works to surprise and delight customers with amazing experiences. Continually delivering on its promises helps Carvana stay close to its brand and customers as it continues to spread its message.

Carvana shows that even well-established industries can be disrupted with a renewed focus on customers.

The B2B space is often an overlooked area for customer experience. But customer-centric experiences are crucial in the B2B world and come from listening to customers and continually evolving. 

When Kristi Langdon joined Daimler Trucks, she saw the company was incredibly product-focused, but not very customer-focused. The company was successful because of its great products, but Langdon knew B2B was shifting its focus to give more power to customers. She stepped into her current role as Daimler’s Head of Customer Experience and worked with the CEO to lead an effort to put customers at the center of Daimler’s B2B experiences. 

Daimler’s true first effort into customer-centricity came in November 2017 with its Customer Experience Day. All 22,000 Daimler employees around the world paused their normal work and spent the day listening to customers and learning about their experiences of doing business with Daimler. During those sessions, one customer made a comment that has become a driving force in the company: “You have great people and an amazing product, but your processes need work. We’ve got to work together on your processes.” 

Customer Experience Day also introduced employees to design thinking, Daimler’s new approach to customer experience. Employees broke into groups with trained facilitators to practice empathetic listening and creating prototypes to solve problems and improve processes. The entire day showed employees the true customer experience, what can be improved and how their work makes a difference. Daimler’s Customer Experience Day is now an annual occurrence and reminder that everyone in the company has a role to play in customer experience. 

By listening to customers, Langdon and her team learned that customers’ main pain points were a lack of communication and nearly everything about truck service and repairs. From there, the customer experience team looked for ways to automate processes to create smoother customer interactions and more self-service options. 

Leaning in to technology to better serve customers requires removing silos, especially between the business and IT sides of the company. As Langdon says, customer-centric models require partnerships between departments. Daimler is focused on shifting technology investments and increasing skills of the workforce so its people and developers know how to best serve customers and help with automation. 

Creating customer-centric experiences means being vulnerable and willing to listen to feedback that isn’t always pleasant. Langdon and her team discovered that Daimler customers have to contact the company an average of six times to get a problem solved, which was much higher than they thought. Daimler is working to lower the number so that customers only have to contact the company once or even not at all because of proactive service that reaches out to customers before problems arise. Getting regular feedback from customers and being willing to listen and improve the unpleasant aspects of the business helps Daimler stay connected with customers and constantly improve. 

Daimler’s push towards customer-centricity is continual. Building customer relationships, opening feedback channels and leveraging technology help the company deliver strong B2B experiences and create a competitive advantage.

This week’s podcast is sponsored by TTEC.

Imagine an interaction that’s so simple and easy, that you don’t even think about it!

TTEC calls this ‘mastering the effortless experience’… and it’s the future of CX.

When your competition is just a click away, how do you ensure your customers stay loyal? How do you keep your employees engaged and motivated? How do you make sure your brand thrives?

Managing over 3.5 million interactions daily, TTEC are CX experts who know what it takes to deliver amazing and effortless customer experiences. They combine CX strategy with proven-processes, award-winning people engagement and best-of-breed technology to deliver holistic solutions focused on driving real-world results for their clients every day.

Don’t get lost in a sea of competitors. Effortless is not a destination. It’s a journey. And TTEC can be your guide to an effortless future.

To find out more about how TTEC can help you transform your customer experience visit TTECDigital.com

Every day, we text to communicate and quickly share news and questions with our family and friends. 

Why can’t contacting a brand be that simple? 

That’s the question that caused Mike Myer to create the digital CX company Quiq. As CEO, Myer has a unique view of the future of conversational AI and its power to transform customer experience.

Conversational AI allows customers to chat with human agents or bots through text on a variety of channels and quickly and conveniently get the information they need.  

One channel Quiq’s customers have seen strong success is through Facebook Messenger. Most customers are already using the platform, which makes it convenient for them to also use it to connect with brands. Through Messenger, customers and agents or bots can send images, create a menu of choices and even provide a carousel of options for quick replies. Myer says Messenger provides rich interactions that can greatly improve a customer’s experience with a brand. It’s a huge improvement over calling a contact center on the phone, which has dominated the industry for decades. 

Conversational AI can be tailored to meet the needs of nearly any type of customer and is helpful with reducing churn, increasing return on ad spend and greatly increasing efficiency. Instead of contact center agents talking to customers individually on the phone, companies can do twice the customer volume with only 25% more agents. Quiq customers have also seen a 40x return on ad spend through Facebook Messenger. In most cases, adopting conversational AI actually leads to a decrease in budget, but it requires the courage to reallocate funds away from traditional contact centers to new technology and bots.

Myer says conversational AI is still on the left side of the bell curve of adoption. But as more companies innovate with conversational AI through Messenger and texting and see the financial and service improvements, the practice will continue to grow. 

Conversational AI is growing, and this is just the beginning. Myer predicts that in three to five years, the majority of customer interactions with large brands won’t be over the phone but will instead be through texting. Brands that take the leap of faith and get on the conversational AI train now are creating the next generation of customer engagement and shaping the future of CX.

*This episode is sponsored by Quiq.

Quiq is a leading conversational AI platform that drives two-way conversations to deliver a better experience for people and brands. Quiq enables enterprises to connect and engage in two-way conversations with their customers across varied messaging channels — including Facebook Messenger — in more than 170 languages. Quiq is the future of business-to-consumer messaging; it’s the wingman every brand and CX’er needs.

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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.  Join the new Customer Experience Community here.

In today’s work landscape, people aren’t limited by what corporate position they hold or what their job title is. Everyone can piece together their dream career with initiative, hard work, and a little luck. Perhaps there’s no better example of that than Jacob Morgan, a leading author, speaker, and expert on the future of work. He also happens to be married to me.

After a few disastrous jobs in the corporate world, Jacob realized he wanted the freedom to work for himself and push himself in new ways. Instead of just getting coffee for executives, he wanted to be guiding them and helping them create good environments for their employees and customers. The path from recent college grad to a successful speaker who now travels the world wasn’t easy—Jacob started out speaking for free and hustling to make his voice heard, but his career has grown and gained momentum over the last decade and put him in a position to continuously expand and grow his brand.

Jacob’s formula for success as a professional speaker and author, or really as just an entrepreneur with a voice, is to “Be everywhere all the time”. To him, building a personal brand comes down to three things: consistency, visibility, and frequency. You need to pick a topic as your expertise and be as consistent as you can with it. Instead of bouncing around and addressing a number of business-related topics, Jacob writes and speaks only about the future of work and employee experience, which has built his brand and made him the go-to expert in those areas. To be visible, Jacob says you have to be everywhere in the most seen places, which includes making podcasts, writing articles, attending conferences, and more. And frequency means doing it all the time. Between the articles, blogs, videos, and podcasts, Jacob’s content is always being published, which keeps him fresh in his viewers’ eyes; the same principle applies to anyone building a personal brand—be frequent to keep content new and fresh.

Building a personal brand is a continuous effort, but it can eventually open doors to new possibilities. In Jacob’s case, it has led him to writing three books and now working with his spouse where he and I can find the crossover between their respective work with employee experience and customer experience.

Between Jacob’s personal experiences working in the corporate world and his research and travels that have taken him to organizations around the world, he has become passionate about organizations building effective employee experiences, which play a huge role in the future of work. As technology grows and the workforce changes, employers need to change their mentality around work to focus less of tasks and more on people. To create a company where people want to work, executives need to be aware of the people who work there, which means getting out from behind their desks and actually interacting with employees and customers. Leaders need to start a dialogue with employees about what they like and dislike and what can be improved. Employees also need to get engaged and join the conversation—if they want to help build a human-centered organization that can withstand changes to the workplace, they need to stand up and make their voice heard.

The future of work is changing and opening doors to new opportunities for people in all industries. To prepare, employees need to build their personal brands and get involved in their organizations. If there is something you are unhappy with, follow Jacob’s example and either fix it or get out. With involvement and dedication, you can better your organization or create your own opportunities to build a career that is perfect for you.

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, Josh Linkner—globally recognized innovation expert, bestselling author, tech entrepreneur, and professional jazz guitarist—shares his insights on how leaders can unlock creativity, overcome fear-driven barriers, and build a culture where bold ideas thrive.

From embracing AI as a co-pilot to applying frameworks like the 'To-Test List' and 'Judo Flip,' Josh shares actionable strategies for tackling challenges with creativity and adaptability. Whether leading teams or enhancing customer interactions, this conversation delivers practical insights to spark bold innovation.

🎧 Tune in now to start 2025 with a mindset of bold innovation and fearless creativity! 

👉 Visit https://joshlinkner.com/ to learn more about Josh Linkner and his work.

Key Highlights for Easy Listening:

01:57 Balancing Automation with Human Compassion in Customer Service

03:28 Turning Challenges into Opportunities with Creative Problem-Solving

05:28 Using the 'To-Test List' and 'Judo Flip' to Drive Creative Problem-Solving

08:52 Driving Innovation Through Small, Manageable Steps

09:55 The Power of Empathy, Artistry, and Emotional Intelligence

11:25 Create Memorable, Human-Centered Customer Interactions

14:59 Cultivating a Creative Mindset for Problem-Solving

17:25 How Leaders Can Build a Culture of Safety, Creativity, and Bold Innovation

22:29 Rapid Fire Questions with Josh Linkner

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of three books on customer experience. Her new book is called The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership: The New Rules for Building A Business Around Today’s Customer.

Follow Blake Morgan on LinkedIn

For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

It seems nearly every company today has a loyalty program, but the meaning of loyalty itself is often still a mystery. 

Customer loyalty in 2021 looks different than it has in the past and even than how many companies view it. 

According to Bram Hechtkopf, CEO of loyalty marketing and technology company Kobie, loyalty is more than just how a customer behaves. A customer who regularly purchases from the same company can appear loyal, but what matters more than the transaction is their emotional loyalty, or how they feel about a brand. 

Hechtkopf breaks emotional loyalty into three areas: status, habit and reciprocity. Measuring customers in those three areas, combined with behavioral data, provides companies with the best view of loyalty. That data can be used to drive better personalization and engagement. 

Focusing on emotional loyalty goes against how many companies have traditionally viewed loyalty. In the past, loyalty was all about transactions, and the goal of a loyalty program was to get customers to the next purchase. 

In 2021, however, loyalty is more than just transactional. Modern brands have to think about the emotional drivers of loyalty. Instead of focusing on just their most loyal customers, Hechtkopf says the best programs cast a wider net to reach out to all customers and then use tiers and gamification to segment customers. These brands build relationships and foster loyalty through more than just points and perks. 

Like many aspects of customer experience, loyalty programs have faced changes and challenges during the pandemic. With supply chain strain and economic uncertainty, customers are more willing to try new brands instead of their trusted favorites. Hechtkopf says that brands that have established loyalty programs have seen the most success because they have been able to leverage their programs as their businesses have pivoted. Instead of focusing solely on transactions, these brands have been able to embrace pandemic trends and outperform the competition while still delivering a personalized experience that meets customers’ needs. 

The companies that think about loyalty not as a program but as an outcome and enterprise strategy have the most success. Hechtkopf says the companies with the best loyalty programs have executives who realize that loyalty is crucial as more than just a transactional program. To tap into modern customer loyalty, brands need to ensure their loyalty strategy aligns with their brand strategy. 

Customer loyalty programs can be powerful drivers for relationships and revenue. But modern companies have to think about loyalty as a state of mind instead of just a program.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

How do you create an experience around an all-natural vodka that shows its history and sustainability? Learn to tell a good story. 

Belvedere Vodka has long been known for its great quality and super-premium product, but only recently has the company began to focus on its historic roots and sustainable efforts. Sharing the story adds to the experience and helps customers feel more connected to the brand. 

Shifting To Storytelling

Instead of simply rattling off talking points and qualities of its all-natural vodka, Belvedere turns to the power of storytelling. As customers are transported to the 110-year-old distillery where the vodka is made and learn the process of turning simple ingredients into amazing spirits, they build a connection with the brand that can’t come in any other way. 

Though the shift to storytelling has been in the works for a while, the pandemic has played a role in changing what customers are looking for. According to president and CEO Rodney Williams, luxury products like Belvedere Vodka are now less about exclusivity and more about the values the brand stands for. Customers are now more aware of the power of nature, what they’re eating and where it comes from. The focus on simple, wholesome ingredients is important to them. 

Belvedere’s success comes in turning its ingredients into a story. It’s one thing to list all-natural ingredients and say your brand is simple and wholesome—it’s another to show the power of your ingredients and what they can become.

Highlighting Sustainability

Belvedere’s new campaign, “Made With Nature” showcases the brand’s history of combining simple ingredients from nature into extraordinary vodka.  

Belvedere has been sustainable and all-natural since before it was a major issue for consumers. For the past eight years, Belvedere has hosted the Raw Spirits Summit to bring together scientists and farmers to study cutting-edge techniques around sustainable agriculture. The company has been able to build on its past efforts in a time when sustainability is top of mind for many customers. 

Williams says “Made With Nature” comes at a time where consumers are increasingly ready to listen to brands that embrace a natural philosophy and are working towards meaningful change. The world cares about sustainability now more than ever before. 

Using Stories To Build Experience

To start storytelling, Williams said the company looked at the brand’s DNA and discovered the long commitment to craftsmanship and sustainability. The brand has always been committed to quality and craft, but it hasn’t told the story directly before. Sharing that story resonates with younger consumers, who care about brands that are natural and have solid sustainability credentials. 

But sharing a brand story will land flat if it isn’t rooted into authenticity. Just like with their ingredients, customers also want realness in their stories and connections with brands. 

In today’s world, stories behind brands are what has lasting value to consumers. Customers are looking to build real relationships with brands and understand where they come from and what makes them tick. Focusing on authentic storytelling allows brands to connect with customers on a new level and build an amazing experience. 

Every brand has a story. If told well, that story can create an amazing customer experience. Like Belvedere Vodka shows, communicating your company’s DNA can make for a fascinating story and build a strong experience.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. 

It used to take customers a lot of effort to shop around—they had to drive from store to store to compare prices and spend time looking up reviews in books, magazines, and websites. These days, the power has returned to the customers—they can comparison shop, find reviews, and even purchase a competitor’s product from their smart phone while still standing in your store. If your company is operating under the old assumptions that customers don’t have any power, you are set up to fail, according to Harley Manning, vice president and research director at Forrester. To be successful these days, companies must go through a CX transformation by stepping back and looking at how they operate and then finding ways to engage and empower customers. With CX transformation, companies shift their focus to looking outwards and make customers the center of their business.

            New technology and social networks provide more ways to create a personalized experience for customers. However, to really have customers at the center of your business, you need to know exactly what they want. Companies can no longer simply start a program or roll out robotic personalization in an attempt to appease customers. Instead of thinking of something to personalize because it will create a great experience, companies should focus on creating a great experience and using personalization as one way to reach that goal. Taking the time to truly understand the customer and to know exactly what they want can help align their needs with the goals of your company.

            A major factor in making the transformation successful is getting executives on board. To be effective, executives must be fully engaged and aware of what is happening in their organization. Harley tells the story of a CEO who went undercover to his various stores. At one location, he noticed lots of people were walking out of the store without buying anything and had to walk past an employee smoking outside as they left the store. That employee turned out to be the store manager, who was leaving a bad image in the customers’ minds. By being present and aware, the CEO was able to take ownership of the situation and address the issue from the root cause by improving the hiring and training processes.

            However, many executives tend to dismiss customer experience thinking that it doesn’t directly affect their bottom line. In order to get on board with CX transformation and improving customer experience, executives need to see the direct relationship between increased customer experience and a customer’s likelihood to stay with the company, purchase more products, and recommend it to a friend. By putting money and statistics behind customer experience, executives are more likely to see how creating a strong customer experience can have a monetary reward for a company.

            Customer experience really comes down to putting the customer first and making their needs the center of the company. By getting everyone on board and staying aware of what is happening both inside and outside the company, you can start to enjoy the fruits of CX transformation and a strong customer experience.

Zappos is considered a leader when it comes to customer experience, but it hasn’t always been that way. When Rob Siefker, now the Senior Director of Customer Loyalty, started representing the company at conferences years ago, he estimates only 10% of people had heard of Zappos. Now that number is around 99%, and the company has become a model of how to create a customer-obsessed culture. However, the road to Zappos’ success wasn’t without hiccups.

Zappos has been an evolving company from the start. When Rob started in 2004, he was working as a temp in the call center on a job that was only expected to last a few days. That didn’t end up being the case, and he has grown with the company over the last 14 years. As Zappos has grown, one thing that has stayed the same has been the company’s customer-obsessed mindset. Although customer trends, expectations, and technology have changed, Zappos has been able to stay true to its brand and respond to a changing environment.

One of the biggest changes for Zappos occurred when the company shifted to a Holacracy model in 2013. Instead of using the traditional top-down organizational system, Zappos wanted to encourage innovation and empower employees by flattening the structure and distributing power. Zappos is now a leader in Holacracy, and it has been a great fit for the company, but it there were challenges along the way. There were a lot of unknowns with the initial transition, especially because no company of Zappos’ size had ever tried Holacracy before. One of the things Rob said the company didn’t anticipate was how to process the natural tensions that come with change. The new system was a bit disorienting at first, simply because it was something employees had never experienced before. Some of the early growing pains could have perhaps been mitigated if leaders had better anticipated the challenges and taught employees how to use the new system to instigate change.

Rob suggests that other companies that move to Holacracy or make any sort of big structural change should recognize that people will likely have a hard time with a significant change and will need time to adjust. Rob recommends involving employees from the beginning of the process and answering their questions right away so they can see how the change will affect them before it actually takes place. Zappos considered its employees when moving to Holacracy and trained them on the new system, but it also wanted to move quickly, and there were areas where it could have been better to slow down and make sure everyone had a firm understanding of the new principles.

However, the challenges of moving to a new system only solidified Zappos’ customer-first culture, and the company came out stronger. Zappos Insights is a consulting arm where Rob and other employees mentor other customer service companies on running contact centers and putting customers first. The key thing for these companies to remember is that every business is different and there isn’t one single playbook for success.

Zappos has grown and evolved over the last decade, and it will continue to evolve as demands and technology change. However, Rob says that the focus always has been and always will be on building an emotional connection between customers and the brand. The company will continue to elevate its customer experience in new ways, including its Zappos Adaptive program that curates products for people who have disabilities or limitations that makes it harder for them to put on clothes and shoes. Zappos aims to provide better service to an underrepresented customer group and to all customers.

Although it hasn’t always been a smooth road, Zappos’ ability to focus on customers and empower employees has allowed the company to take risks and come out stronger and smarter than ever before. Although every business is different, every company can learn from Zappos’ customer-focused culture.

Peter Strebel serves as chief marketing officer and senior vice president of sales responsible for creating and driving innovative branding, communications, marketing and business development strategies to increase awareness, capture market share and build revenue for the brand. Strebel stewards Omni’s centers of excellence including revenue management, global sales, e-commerce, customer loyalty, reservations and call center, branding, advertising, communications, web and digital marketing and market research. Previously, Strebel was the senior vice

president of operations and oversaw the development of brand-wide property standards, guest rooms and other operational areas for the brand’s growing convention collection and resort portfolio. He also worked directly to support Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center, Omni Nashville Hotel, Omni Parker House, Omni Berkshire Place, The Omni Homestead Resort and The Omni Grove Park Inn.

A long-term Omni veteran, Strebel rejoined Omni in 2009 as area managing director and general manager of the Omni Berkshire Place. In his role as area managing director, he oversaw all marketing, sales and operational aspects of Omni properties in the Northeast. During his previous tenure at Omni, he had a successful 10-year career in sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility, ultimately leading to his appointment as vice president of sales and marketing.

What You Will Learn In This Podcast:

• How Omni Hotels differentiates itself with so many disruptions coming to hospitality How customer experience is defined at Omni Hotels
• Who drives customer experience at Omni Hotels
• How is customer service organized at Omni Hotels

More About Our Sponsor Plantronics:

Plantronics offers one of the industry's most complete families of corded and wireless products for unified communications. Widely recognized for their sound quality, reliability and comfort, Plantronics' audio solutions help companies extend the benefits of IP communications throughout the extended enterprise, fostering better business communication and efficiency regardless of where professionals are working.
https://www.plantronics.com/us/company/

Most companies understand the importance of their frontline workers interacting with customers daily. But how many will build a customer experience strategy around them?

At JetBlue Travel Products, the contact center is in the middle of everything the company does--literally and figuratively. 

Digital transformation is all about using technology to better solve customer problems. But a new report from global telecommunications company Telstra found that many U.S. companies lean too heavily on the technology side and don’t focus enough on the people behind the decisions.

According to Nicholas Collins, Telstra President for the Americas, digital transformation loses its effectiveness if companies forget about people. Brands need to continually evolve their businesses as technology and customer needs change. Instead of chasing technology, companies need to focus on what they want to be for their customers.

“Technology alone is not a silver bullet for digital transformation. While investing in the right technology is crucial, placing too much importance on the role and performance of technology in digital transformation is a barrier to success,” Collins said.

There are huge opportunities for companies that have yet to start a digital transformation. Collins says it starts with a top-down commitment from leadership. Companies need to strategically decide what they want to achieve through digital transformation. From there, they should assemble the right teams to bring those goals to life. The foundation of successful digital transformation is people, especially through strong leadership and culture. Telstra’s study found that focusing too much on technology can lead to stalled progress and a lack of measurable outcomes.

It’s easy for companies to get caught up in the technology behind the transformation, but the most effective digital transformation simplifies how people work so they can be engaged and better serve customers. As businesses grow, they often add new products and services that only add to the complexity of the company. Collins recommends that companies regularly take stock of their offerings and processes and find ways to simplify. Work back from the customer and what the brand is trying to achieve and then streamline or simplify as much as possible relating to the customer experience.

Digital transformation really comes down to using technology to simplify and streamline how a brand operates interacts with customers. Collins recommends involving the employees who are closest to the customers because they can often provide insights that people who don’t regularly interact with customers might not see.

Digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. No matter where companies are on that journey, there is still plenty of opportunity to grow and develop. But in order to be successful, companies have to think about people and not just technology.

Many businesses know the importance of becoming “experience-led” and went to get there, but knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Adobe recently created a new customer Experience Index after surveying more than 1,500 people across the country. The results show powerful insights into the minds of customers and show areas where companies are excelling with customer experience and where they can improve.

Delight Me, Know Me + Respect Me, Speak in One Voice, Keep Technology Apparent

According to Tamara Gaffney, Strategic Insights Engagement Group Director at Adobe, the general findings of the study break down into four tenets of experience that businesses should have. The four include: Delight Me, Know Me + Respect Me, Speak in One Voice, and Keep Technology Apparent. These are general themes outlining where companies or industries as a whole can improve. Some companies are doing better than others.

One of the biggest complaints from customers across all industries falls under the tenet of Speak in One Voice. Many customer frustrations arise from brands not following through on promises and not being genuine about what they said they were going to do. Issues also arise when there are hidden fees or the brand isn’t transparent.

Experience Makers and Experience Breakers

Adobe classified certain actions as Experience Makers and Experience Breakers. Making the customer feel tricked is an Experience Breaker. Tamara said it is extremely hard for companies to speak in one voice, especially with all the communication channels that are available these days. In order to cut through the clutter and provide a consistent message and experience, companies need to break down data silos and focus on integrating internally so they can present a united and consistent front to customers.

Companies Can’t Rely On Data Alone

Data and technology also play a huge role in the modern customer experience, though Tamara emphasized that companies can’t just rely on data alone. Survey respondents said they were delighted with new tech offerings, especially when it comes to helping brands create personalized experiences. In the technology section, the highest scores were for the importance of personal service, but the lowest scores were for preferring to interact with a human over a computer. Essentially, consumers understand that there are times when it is easier and better to interact with a computer and times where a human can provide better service. When getting a basic answer or filing a form, consumers like to interact with computers for fast service, but when it comes to getting personalized recommendations or answering more complicated questions, humans do a better job. Customers like to have options of how to get the best service.

Millennials Are The Most Demanding Generation

Another theme throughout the survey related to customer feelings and expectations from different generations. The most demanding generation is Millennials aged 25-34, most likely because they are becoming much heavier consumers. Younger consumers age 18-24 are more aligned with the older generations when it comes to what they expect from brands. However, just because customers aren’t complaining doesn’t necessarily mean they are happy—consumers aged 50 and older are less likely to complain, but it’s often because they’ve given up, not because they really are happier with the experience. The key takeaway from this data is not to assume that quiet customers are happy and to work on creating a great experience for customers of all ages.

Use Surprise And Delight For Mundane Everyday Customer Interactions

There’s also a lot of talk in the customer experience world about the importance of surprise and delight. According to the survey, most companies are doing a fairly good job of surprising and delighting customers, but there is still room for growth. To most effectively surprise and delight, brands should focus on the things customers do most often. A surprise and delight experience for something they do once a year is nice, but it’s more impactful to put that effort into building a surprise and delight experience on something customers do more regularly.

If You Don’t Measure It You Can’t Improve It

Tamara advises all companies to measure how they are doing with customer experience. Although Net Promoter Score is widely used and helps measure customer satisfaction, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Companies that want to become experience-led need to use more detailed data by creating surveys, talking to customers, and looking on social media. They need to understand their own Experience Makers and Experience Breakers and invest resources into strengthening those areas.

Address Your Biggest Challenge Area First

Even the most experience-led businesses can’t do everything at once. As the data shows, there are areas where companies are excelling at customer experience, and there are also areas with potential for growth. The key is for each company to figure out and address the biggest challenge areas and then put an emphasis on surprising and delighting customers at the biggest opportunities. A strategic and informed approach to customer experience can change how brands interact with customers.

Disclosure: Adobe is a former client of Blake Morgan’s.