The Customer Experience Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Creating and delivering better experiences for our customers is the single most important thing we can do today. Learn how Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success leaders create internal alignment, achieve desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal and human way. The Customer Experience Podcast explores this challenge at various stages of growth as we all work together on the customer journey from acquisition to advocacy. Each episode features topics like: personal touch, human touch, customer journey, lifecycle marketing, sales process, customer service, customer success, raving fans, video email, video communication, B2B sales and marketing, personalization, automation.
In this episode, we delve into the meaning and importance of customer experience, and how it fits into the larger picture of sales strategy. We also discuss the unique approach of selling a person rather than a product, and the role of trust and confidence in building successful business partnerships.
We explore the world of customer experience with Shannan Berry, Vice President of CX and Sales Strategy at TitleOne. Shannan has been with the company for nearly a decade and in this role for just under a year, and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table.
Shannan shares her insights on:
* How the company culture at TitleOne serves as a strategic anchor for the business
* How can you practically and operationally make employees happy?
* Why solution-oriented thinking is so effective at building better customer experiences
* How thinking like your customer results in exceptional customer experiences
* What the benefits of having an incredible customer experience in your sales strategy are
More information about Shannan and today’s topics:
* LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannan-berry-09148326/
* Company Website: https://www.titleonecorp.com/
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The power of clarity represents your greatest untapped opportunity for achieving greater results with increased confidence and commitment — this is the message of today’s guest in her book, The Power of Clarity. She’s also the author of Uncommon Meetings, The Disconnect Principle, and The Clarity Papers.
This episode features Ann Latham, President of Uncommon Clarity. She’s on a mission to fight the disclarity that erodes our productivity and performance and that of our team members. As President of Uncommon Clarity, she’s helped clients in more than 40 industries from large corporations like Boeing and Medtronic to nonprofits like PBS and the United Way.
In this episode, Ann and Ethan discuss:
* Why the emotional component of customer experience is so important
* How clarity factors into a positive or negative customer experience
* What is a specific definition of clarity and dis-clarity?
* How cognitive load specific movements can help boost productivity
* How specificity, process, focus and clarity work together
More information about Ann and today’s topics:
* LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annlathamuncommonclarity/
* Company Website: https://www.uncommonclarity.com/
* Relevant Links:
+ Check out Ann’s Books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ann-Latham/author/B004VSGMT0?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
+ https://disconnectprinciple.com/
+ https://annlatham.com/
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Creating superfan customers should be a top priority for every businessperson and every brand today … but superfans can’t be bought - they can only be created. And they’re created at the intersection of your story - and every customer’s story.
These are some of the key themes in a highly recommended new read,Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates. Today’s guest is the author of this book and she was a guest on this show on Episode 120We’re releasing this episode on her book’s publication date! Jan 10, 2023
This episode covers:
* Why you need a Chief Customer Officer or Chief Experience Officer
* Where does brand overlap with customer experience?
* What becomes relevant when price is irrelevant?
* What Drives the Experience Economy?
* How to break down the S.U.P.E.R Acronym
More information about Brittany and today’s topics:
* LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanyhodak/
* Company Website: https://brittanyhodak.com/
* Get Brittany’s Book Here: https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Superfans-Five-Step-Multiplying-Reputation/dp/1774580780/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1671576078&sr=8-1
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
To celebrate 200 episodes of the podcast, we created the EX Takes Mixtape - 12 top employee experience moments from episodes 101-199.
Hear EX-themed highlights with these guests of The Customer Experience Podcast:1. Stacy Sherman, VP of Agent and Customer Experience at Liveops
2. Brittany Hodak, Keynote Speaker, Author, and Superfan Strategist
3. Elizabeth Dixon, Speaker on Strategy, Innovation, and CX; Principal Lead of Strategy, Hospitality, & Service Design at Chick-fil-A
4. Mark Schaefer, Speaker and Author of Marketing Rebellion
5. Sue Woodard, Speaker and Mortgage and FinTech Evangelist
6. Shep Hyken, Customer Service and Customer Experience Expert
7. Lisa Earle McLeod, Speaker and Author of Selling with Noble Purpose
8. Andrea Morter, VP of Sales Ops at Get Beyond
9. John Belizaire, CEO at Soluna Computing; Founder and Managing Editor at CEO Playbook
10. Kristie Ornelas, VP of Customer Experience Marketing and Communications at Cisco
11. Ernest Owusu, Senior Director of Sales Development at 6sense
12. Jacco van der Kooij, Founder at Winning by Design
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
To celebrate the first 100 episodes of the podcast, I created the Epic Takes Mixtape - 10 human-centered and human-first moments.
I watched every video clip from the first 99 episodes and selected 10 that I thought were transcendent. They reach beyond the day-to-day and speak to our humanity, our goals, and our dreams.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share 10 amazing clips about being a better human.
In this episode, you’ll hear from these 10 guests:
* Joey Coleman, author of Never Lose a Customer Again
* David Cancel, founder and CEO of Drift
* Levi Ayriss, VP of Northwest Field Operations at Dutch Bros Coffee
* Paula Hayes, founder, President, and CEO of Hue Noir Cosmetics
* Mat Sweezey, Director of Market Strategy at Salesforce
* Gil Cohen, Founder of Employee Experience Design
* Rachel Ostrander, Director of Runner Experience at Brooks Running
* Sangram Vajre, cofounder and Chief Evangelist at Terminus
* Darin Dawson, cofounder and President at BombBomb
* Todd Hockenberry, sales consultant, advisor, and coach at Top Line Results and coauthor of Inbound Organization
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
“What PR clients are really seeking is credibility. They are seeking authority. They are seeking third-party validation. Ultimately, they are seeking one thing above all else: Trust. Brands need to be trusted in the marketplace, or they won’t be able to grow.”
That quote comes from the intro of a new book titled TRUST Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World
The author of that book and our guest today is Scott Baradell, CEO of Idea Grove, a public relations and marketing firm focused on B2B technology that’s landed on the Inc 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies three times and was named one of Inc’s Best Workplaces the past two years in a row.
In this conversation, Scott shares his insights on:
* What is post-truth?
* What is the relationship between buyer persona personas and trust profiles?
* How to build brand trust in today’s business environment
* What is a trust profile and why is it relevant?
* Why you need to tie your brand story into a single narrative?
More information about Scott and today’s topics:
* LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baradell/
* Company Website: https://www.ideagrove.com/
* Other Relevant Links:
+ Check Out Scott’s Book Here: https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Signals-Brand-Building-Post-Truth/dp/1544527829
+ https://www.trustsignals.com/
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
In search of business intelligence and GTM insights, we look to our customers and to our customer data. But today’s guest shares with us a critical and untapped resource: our frontline team members. Learn how to better understand customer value by engaging your employees on the topic.
Our guest is Chris Wallace, the Co-founder and President of Innerview Group, an internal brand consultancy that helps their clients win from within. This conversation covers:
The How/When/Why of surveying your frontline people about customer value
Why you must develop a process to discover value in your own business
How different types of customers get different value from the same offer
What the give and take process is from the top to the bottom
How to close the loop and unlock the passion of your team
More information about Chris and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherewallace/
Company Website: https://innerviewgroup.com/
Other Relevant Links:
https://innerviewgroup.com/infront/
E-book - https://innerviewgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FrontlineInsights-eBook.pdf
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
This episode centers around brand and trust with trust expert Kurt Bartolich, Founder of BrandCertain and trust expert Cory Scheer, Founder of Trust Centric Consulting.
Kurt and Cory teamed up on a national research project exploring trust and relationships between employees and their leadership and companies. The research also included data on trust between customers and brands.
They joined Ethan to share an overview of their early findings. Tune in to learn more about:
Why is trust so important to customer experience?
What is one of the best and easiest ways to build trust inside your organization?
What are three brand truths that are backed up in the research data?
How does brand forgiveness take place?
Why is consistency an important bedrock for loyalty?
More information about Kurt and Cory Below:
LinkedIn Profiles:
Kurt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurt-bartolich-763b23b/
Cory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coryscheer/
Check out the National Survey on Brand and Trust Here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zinWK_kxt4k_mia_wl4LnBTSnpFoxuYY/view
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Evolving from outbound telemarketer to EVP of Sales and business coach, integrating tools and tech stacks through a merger of two companies, tracing every relationship back to one relationship are a few places we’ll go today with the Executive Vice President of OVM Financial, now powered by Annie Mac Home Mortgage
For multiple years in a row, OVM has earned a spot on the Inc 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.
And for several years straight, our guest Matt Beckwith has been recognized as one of the Top Mortgage Loan Originators in the country by Scotsman Guide - one of if not the most authoritative voices in the space. He’s also the host of the “Winning with Beckwith Podcast.” In this conversation we cover:
How to communicate effectively during times of change
Why humility is key in effective communication
How one relationship can be the key to unlocking incredible opportunities
What you can do to find the right team of people around you
What Matt’s Plan is with Season 2 of his podcast: “Winning With Beckwith”
More information about Matt and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattbeckwithlending/
Company Website: https://www.ovmfinancial.com/
Other Relevant Links: Matt’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winning-with-beckwith/id1586835356
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
“Certain words are used in business so thoughtlessly that they have become devoid of meaning: Authentic. Real. Transparent. And there is no one I trust more to rescue them than Todd Caponi.”
Those words are from Ethan Zoubek, CRO at Atari. And he shared these words about a fantastic book titled “The Transparent Sales Leader: How the Power of Sincerity, Science, and Structure Can Transform Your Sales Team’s Results”
It’s the second book by today’s guest - Todd Caponi. We talked about his first book, The Transparency Sale, here on the podcast back on Episode 90: “Why Transparency Sells Better Than Perfection”
Todd is an author - as well as an advisor, speaker, workshop leader, and sales historian - who built his career in sales leadership roles at companies like SAP, Exact Target, and Power Reviews.
Todd’s back on the show to talk about:
When the science of sales began to emerge
Why successful sales leadership is like the ultimate team sport
How the power of sincerity, science, and structure can transform your sales team’s results
How digital pollution and noise impact today’s sales cycle
Where in the sales process can you set consistent and transparent expectations
More information about Todd and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddcaponi/
Company Website: https://toddcaponi.com/
Todd’s Website: https://www.toddcaponi.com/
Check out Todd’s books below:The Transparency Sale:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KFPQD76/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
The Transparent Sales Leaderhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B23DZHFR/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
CX isn’t just a feel-good function - even if feelings are its foundation. We invest in customer experience to improve business outcomes. This includes lowering the cost of acquisition, improving activation and engagement, increasing retention and expansion and more.
In short: we invest in CX to grow revenue.
This episode's guest is Vaishali Dialani, Customer Experience Analyst at Konabos Consulting. She is a Customer Experience Analyst that helps increase said revenue by working at the intersection of CX professional and business analyst. The takes a cross functional approach to CX because it applies to multiple teams in her company and avoids viewing CX as a standalone function.
This episode covers:
How should you install a CX function if there isn’t already one in place?
What is an effective way to collect qualitative customer feedback?
How do we mix human emotions into the data mix?
What are a few themes or trends in customer experience right now?
What are some companies that are effectively utilizing customer personalization?
More information about Vaishali and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaishalidialani/
Company Website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/konabos/
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Two currencies drive the economy - our dollars and our emotions. What we feel always drives our behavior. That’s because more than 95% of our mental activity is sensory and emotive - NOT rational
So we must put a renewed focus on Emotional Intelligence in a business framework. Not only is it important to brush up on the basics but be willing to delve deeper into and work on your EQ.
This episode features Ethan’s conversation with Dan Hill, President at Sensory Logic. Dan is featured in Chapter 4 of our Wall Street Journal bestseller Human-Centered Communication. He’s also the podcast host of Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight and the author of ten books including Emotionomics and its new, updated version Emotionomics 2.0: The Emotional Dynamics Underlying Key Business Goals
On this, his third appearance of the CX Podcast, he talks about:
How common is a depth of expertise in facial coding in areas such as politics, business, sports, etc?
What is a functional definition of Emotional Intelligence?
Why is Emotional Intelligence so Important?
What are some best practices for folks that are engaging people in a sensory and emotional manner in digital experiences?
What are some of the cultural contextual changes that have happened since his book: Emotionomics?
More information about Dan and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-hill-emotionswizard/
Company Website: https://www.sensorylogic.com/
Other Relevant Links:
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
“While the customer’s preference for the status quo is, no doubt, a significant obstacle
that every salesperson must overcome if they wish to sell anything,
there is a second, more challenging obstacle that remains even after the status quo has been defeated: the customer’s own inability to make a decision.”
That quote is pulled from the introduction to The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision (linked below). It's an exceptional new book co-authored by today’s guest, Matt Dixon - Founding Partner at DCM Insights.
This episode covers:
Where does customer indecision come from?
What are the causes, consequences and outcomes of customer indecision?
Why it’s important to focus in on customer needs
What is the Jolt Effect?
More information about Matt and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewxdixon/
Company Website: https://www.dcminsights.com/
Other Relevant Links: The Jolt Effect Amazon Link – https://www.amazon.com/JOLT-Effect-Performers-Overcome-Indecision-ebook/dp/B09NX3G2WX
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
According to a recent McKinsey & Company report, 71% of consumers expect personalization and 76% get frustrated when they don’t find it.
Like it or not, personalization is a norm and it’s here to stay.
So it’s key that marketers learn how to make that personalization meaningful,
In this solo episode, Ethan walks through a real A/B test which added personalization yielded lower touchpoints to a prospective customer, doubled overall response rate and increased lead conversion. He also covers:
What are some specific personalization tactics customers expect?
Why every B2B buyer is also a B2C buyer
Why the word personalized and personal feel so different
How personalized video messaging can provide better context to a situation by targeting more sensory and emotive opportunities
What are the three characteristics of moments that are improved with a video message compared to traditional digital communication?
More information about Melissa Gratias and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanbeute/
Company Website: https://bombbomb.com/
Other Relevant Links: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying
Jamming with Janny: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfFiN5kcgGUHZMpzPsIs2ZE2BAq9xARbe
Dear {first_name}: https://bombbomb.com/dear-first-name-film/
Human-Centered Communication: https://bombbomb.com/book/human-centered
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
“Customers don’t care about organizational structures or silos. They care about the value they’re receiving. To customers, it’s all one service and one experience.”
That quote comes from a recent whitepaper about improving CX and EX written by today’s guest.
Justin Zalewski spent a decade with Studio Science, a design and innovation agency that helps businesses design for people and that helps deliver better experiences - every day for every customer.
He currently serves as Director of Product Design and Strategy, leading a team of designers and developers focused on product design, UX design, and software development for clients ranging from market-leading technology companies to Fortune 500 brands.
In this episode, we talk about:
How should someone be thinking about whether customer experience is best in their organization?
What are the core concepts of human-centered design?
How should you balance quantitative and qualitative data coming in from your customers?
How can research and discovery phases save you 10x down the line?
Why do we typically approach EX and CX as separate things?
What is a Service Blueprint and how does it support a Journey Map?
More information about Justin and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinzalewski/
Company Website: https://studioscience.com/
Other Relevant Links: Delivering Better Services by Aligning CX and EX (Whitepaper) - https://studioscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022_Service-Design-Whitepaper.pdf
Justin’s Calendly - https://calendly.com/studioscience/
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Did you know that in most cases, the top 20% of a company’s customers tend to deliver the vast majority of their revenue?
In Today’s episode, Ethan speaks with Ali Cudby Co-Founder & CEO at CXology and Alignmint Growth Strategies. Ali is the author of multiple books including: Keep Your Customers: How to Stop Customer Turnover, Improve Retention and Get Lucrative, Long-Term Loyalty
This episode covers:
How to Identify and Keep Your Most Lucrative and Loyal Customers
What the key differences are between Lucrative loyals, Limited Loyals and Lazy Loyals
How Customer Success defines a function and Customer Experience defines an ethos
When you must differentiate between Customer Success and Customer Experience
What is the “Bullseye Message?"
More information about Ali Cudby and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile:https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicudby/
Company Website: https://www.cxology.co and https://alignmintforgrowth.com
Other Relevant Links: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0839G6VKQ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
An Executive Vice President of Sales, the owner of an apartment syndication business, the owner of co-working spaces, the CEO at an insurance company, a business and sales production coach, a top 1% mortgage originator, and a firefighter … literally.
Today’s guest has been all of these things and more. And most of them right now - all at the same time.
Hear our conversation with Shane Kidwell, Executive Vice President of Sales at Victorian Finance:
Why we need to fall in love with being excellent at our jobs
How to set effective expectations with your clients
What the main differences are between assumptions and agreements
Where Shane’s strengths lie in all of his businesses
How the mortgage business has evolved since its implosion in 2008
More information about Shane Kidwell and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanerkidwell/
Company Website: https:// kidwellteam.com/
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
An effective story can be a creative way to communicate your brand’s identity and company’s purpose. If you think you aren’t a storyteller, it may be time to change that narrative (pun intended).
Hear our conversation with Anna Marie Pryor, Director of Marketing at Alameda Mortgage Corporation. We discuss:
How she defines customer experience
Who her ideal customer is and what problems she solves for them
How her agency experience helped with her current role
Why adopting a practical approach to storytelling can help brands
What are Milestone-Based-Marketing Goals
More information about Anna and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annampryor
Company Website: https://www.alamedamortgage.com/
Other Relevant Links: Leadership Team
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Merely getting to the sale and figuring out later how to deliver what you sold does not work in a recurring revenue business. Actually, it’s customer success that makes the money now, because they create the experiences for customers around moments that matter.
Which moments matter most?
In this episode of our Human-Centered Communication expert series (which originally aired on September 14, 2021), Steve Pacinelli and I interview Jacco van der Kooij, Founder of Winning by Design, about building a customer impact journey around moments that matter.
Join us as we discuss:
Why sales knowledge comes with great responsibility
How recurring revenue models shift customer experience to customer success
What the Bow Tie Funnel is and how it affects customer impact
What the customer impact journey and counter impacts are
How priority has replaced other buying determinants
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Repeat business is a goal everyone should aim for. But turning it into loyalty means creating an emotional connection between your customer and your brand.
Ask yourself this: What am I doing right now with this customer to make sure that they’ll come back to me and not my competitor next time?
In this episode of our Human-Centered Communication expert series (which originally aired on September 3, 2021), Steve Pacinelli and I interview Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer and Customer Service Speaker at Shepard Presentations, LLC, about the drivers behind customer loyalty — as well as some loyalty killers.
Join us as we discuss:
Why customer service is a philosophy of mind
How to differentiate between repeat business and loyalty
What the common loyalty killers are
How to hire to avoid apathy
Ways to leverage presentation skills to define success
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
What you see on video is pretty much what you get. Video gives you a sense of who the person is. At present and in the future, salespeople need to become comfortable with video through the techniques of “created charisma”.
In this episode of our Human-Centered Communication expert series (which originally aired on September 21, 2021), Steve Pacinelli and I interview Viveka von Rosen, Co-Founder and Chief Visibility Officer (CVO) at Vengreso, about using video to create visibility in sales.
Join us as we discuss:
What the relationship between video and visibility is
Who video is and is not good for
Why video gets straight to the heart of authenticity
When to shift the script to create connection
What the role of LinkedIn is for salespeople
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Here are three quick ways to better assess what people are saying with their faces and emotions (aka facial coding). Pay attention to engagement, the camouflage smile, and the two-sided impact of fear.
The face is the only place in the body where the muscles attach right to the skin. Most of us aren’t aware of what we’re giving away.
In the next episode of our Human-Centered Communication expert series (which originally aired on August 17, 2021), Steve Pacinelli and I interview Dan Hill, PhD, President at Sensory Logic, about emotional intelligence and facial coding.
Dan spoke with us about:
How to imbue a mission into work for employee retention
Why contempt and sadness can be dangerous emotions
What to do to raise our emotional literacy
How Steve Jobs illustrates the positive and negative sides of anger
Why emotions stand apart from the rational parts of the brain
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
Dan Hill, PhD (LinkedIn)
Sensory Logic
Grand Performance
Episode 75: Emotional Intelligence and The Power of Faces
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
If you’ve been on a video call lately (and hasn’t everyone?), you’ve probably noticed how disengaged, distracted, or disconnected everyone is.
This is partly because we’re all operating under the mistaken belief that virtual and in-person are one and the same, except that one just has a camera. Not so.
In this episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series (which originally aired on August 31, 2021), Steve Pacinelli and I interview Julie Hansen, Founder and Sales Presentation Expert at Performance Sales and Training, about video skills for virtual communication excellence.
Julie talked with us about:
How much influence sales has over customer experience
Why video skills are like acting skills
How to speak to a virtual group as if they’re an individual
What best video practices are
How to improve your video presence over time
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Our Human-Centered Communication expert series is back! Listen to our most popular episodes with guests featured in our Wall Street Journal bestseller to pick up perspectives, strategies, and tactics to break through digital pollution and make real, human connection.
Taking a teaching focus means truly listening to and identifying with the customer, and it’s built on a continuous coaching environment. To learn and to teach takes agility, vulnerability, and relatability. Find out how a 3x LinkedIn Top Sales Voice cultivated those traits in himself.
In the fourth episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series (which originally aired on August 10, 2021), Steve Pacinelli and I interview Morgan J. Ingram, Director of Sales Execution and Evolution at JB Sales Training, about personal communication strategies.
Morgan chatted with us about:
Why no single role “controls” the customer experience
What he learned from being open on LinkedIn
How to become one of the 2-5% of people who take action on what they hear
Why becoming relatable and vulnerable was one of his best career moves
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
MorganJIngram.com
1UP Formula
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger
Ralph Barsi on LinkedIn
Stance Socks
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
You may not realize it but you’re already selling your personal brand to people.
And your personal brand is directly related to your company’s brand.
Today’s guest Dr. Cindy McGovern, helps us understand our personal brands and how they can directly coincide with the brands of our companies.
Hear our conversation with Dr. Cindy McGovern, CEO/First Lady of Sales at Orange Leaf Consulting:
How you can establish your personal brand
What people are saying about your legacy
How perfecting your personal brand is not selfish
How to be proactive in selling your personal brand
More information about Dr. Cindy McGocvern and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcindy/
Company Website: https://orangeleafconsulting.com
Other Relevant Links: New Book: Sell Yourself; United Airlines
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The amount of technology we have at our fingertips is vast and wide.
It’s also underutilized in enhancing the customer experience.
Today’s guest, Corey Shelton, helps us understand how we should be utilizing the technology we have to improve our customer experience from a digital perspective to gather data that can be utilized into actionable insights and from a direct human perspective.
Hear our conversation with Corey Shelton, SVP of Marketing at Atlantic Coast Mortgage:
How brand and customer experience are intertwined
How to properly blend tech and humans to improve the customer experience
When to utilize technology to help scale our customer experience
Why it is more valuable to know what our customers do not want from us
More information about Corey Shelton and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thecoreyshelton/
Company Website: https://www.atlanticcoastmortgage.com/
Other Relevant Links: Alex Kutsishin at Sales Boomerang; Dave Savage at Mortgage Coach
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
In some businesses, if you’ve been around for 40 plus years, you should probably think about either retiring or getting an educational refresh on the business. In tech, it couldn’t be more different.
The industry is made of natural learners who gravitate towards using the latest and greatest tools available.
Today’s guest has used their ability to never stop learning to build a tech driven business to help B2B tech startups with first-in-class sales.
Hear our conversation with Edward Golod, Founder, CEO, Growth Leader with Data & P&L at Revenue Accelerators:
What three things a tech startup needs to succeed
How sales is different now from 40 years ago
Why selling to enterprise level C-Suites is so difficult
What the value selling approach means
More information about Edward Golod and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardgolod
Company Website: https://www.revenueaccelerators.com/
Other Relevant Links: Matt Dixon on LinkedIn; Tony Parinello on LinkedIn
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
When you’ve been in the business of customer experience for nearly two decades, you’ve seen every interaction of what CX can mean at the individual and corporate level.
The “why” behind CX and the importance of is as simple as making happiness a habit. Keeping your team running smoothly so they’re happy and keeping your clients in the know so they’re happy.
Easier said than done.
Hear our conversation with Adrian Brady-Cesana, Founder and Chief Experience Officer at CXChronicles:
What the four pillars of customer experience are according to Adrian
Why companies need a dedicated Customer Experience team member
What the challenges are around successful Customer Experience
How the differences between Customer Success and Customer Experience set themselves apart
More information about Adrian Brady-Cesana and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianbradycesana
Company Website: https://cxchronicles.com/
Other Relevant Links: CXChronicles Podcast; Master’s in Customer Experience Management at Michigan State; Airbnb
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
While it may seem simple, member and employee experience is a difficult prospect to manage. There are many personalities, wants and needs to balance.
By taking the time to spend time with people to hear them, understand their perspectives and walk the journey of finding their needs, you build a roadmap of creating a culture that translates to satisfied employees who connect with satisfied members.
Hear our conversation with Jason Champion, Director of Member Experience at NRTC:
Why using employee Enneagrams will change the way leaders communicate
How Jason fell into working in customer experience from sales
What NRTC did to revolutionize member experience during COVID
Where to focus on employee and member experience
More information about Jason Champion and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonchampion1/
Company Website: https://www.nrtc.coop/
Other Relevant Links: The Enneagram Institute, John Gates on LinkedIn, Posie Fields Flower Farm, Chick-fil-A
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Can you imagine doubling or tripling engagement on your social media?
Maybe it’s not as hard as you think.
Take it from somebody whose operations have had an average of 180-240% increase in engagement for customers, boasts a 98% sales conversions and even reigned in an unfathomable 12,000% increase for the likes of monster personality, Gary Vaynerchuk.
Hear our conversation with Kate Bradley Chernis, CEO at Lately.ai:
How to create fans and evangelists out of customers
What a 98% sales conversion rate leader does
How AI can save you time and money
Who can benefit from AI in their social media
More information about Kate Bradley Chernis and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katebradley/
Company Website: https://www.lately.ai/
Other Relevant Links: Kate Bradley Chernis on Twitter, Lately.ai, Lauren Turow on LinkedIn, Southwest Airlines
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
It would be different to receive a marketing email asking you to respond with a “1” for more information on a topic. The campaign most likely wouldn’t have the ROI a brand would be looking for.
For SMS marketing, that’s exactly what’s happening… and it’s working. Texting is the latest marketing funnel focused on personalization and data gathering. Its capabilities in getting target audiences to interact is changing the game for brands and marketers.
Hear our conversation with Sara Varni, CMO at Attentive:
Why SMS texting is the personal and meaningful approach to marketing
How marketing is a long game; not short
Why building a digital persona is so important to marketing
What roadblocks are in place for successful digital marketing
More information about Sara Varni and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saravarnibright/
Company Website: https://www.attentivemobile.com/
Other Relevant Links: Sameer Dholakia on LinkedIn; Glossier
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
We go through life with a million different moments that shape who we are, our experiences and how we interact with others.
How do we differentiate between what matters and what doesn’t?
It’s about the confluence of competition, commoditization and digital transformation.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, here to give you three specific tips on customer experience and focusing on the moments that matter.
Listen in to this episode to learn about:
Why moments matter to them, not you
How the difference between a reactive and proactive approach matters
What digital transformation means for the acceleration of commoditization
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
If you build it…they probably won’t come.
So how do you make them? A key way to do that is by positioning yourself, and what you’ve built, differently.
You’ve got to position yourself in a way that is unique and not easily duplicated. Make yourself the valuable commodity of the conversation and then, you have something of value that will bring people in.
Hear our conversation with Justin Stoddart, Productivity Expert and Founder & CEO at Think Bigger:
Why the difference between doing and becoming is essential
How to communicate with potential clients to quantify and demonstrate value
What it means to create an upstream business model
Why solving problems not related to your business excels your business
More information about Justin Stoddart and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinstoddart
Company Website: https://justinstoddart.com/
Other Relevant Links: The Upstream Model
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
When you move from being a valued member of a team to the leader of a team, there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen.
Whether you’re in sports, fitness or sales, a leader understands that making personal connections are just as important as the job. And what got you to be No.1 in the game, isn’t necessarily what’s going to help someone else. It’s about human-centered connections and opening yourself up to change.
Hear our conversation with Ni Adesokan, Senior Manager, Strategic Brands at Affirm:
How to inject being human to automated virtual interactions
Why connecting with your team on a personal level changes the game
What to do when you get pushback from inbound and outbound sales development
Why shifting your mindset going into a leadership position is so important
More information about Ni Adesokan and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ni-adesokan-b8ba2481
Company Website: https://www.affirm.com/
Other Relevant Links: Le Nguyen on LinkedIn; John Clavadetscher on LinkedIn; Starbucks
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
There are 300 unopened emails in your inbox as of this morning and mentally, you’re starting to shut down.
Sound familiar?
The psychology behind the overwhelm of email overload focuses on productivity as a skill, not a personality trait. Today’s guest boils things down to this: unopened emails are unmade decisions.
The solution is easier than it may seem and based entirely on how you work and thrive.
Hear our conversation with Melissa Gratias, Owner and Principal of Progress Not Perfection:
How to prioritize progress above perfection
How to discern the difference between effective and efficient
Why your inbox is a train station platform
What tricks can help you achieve a sustainably organized workday
Which underlying problems keep people from achieving success
More information about Melissa Gratias and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissagratias
Company Website: https://melissagratias.com/
Other Relevant Links: 4 Ways to Estimate How Long a Task Will Take; JenDangelo.com
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Authenticity is today's buzzword. "Be authentic!" say all the business gurus.
What if they're wrong? What if being authentic is not always the best idea? What if — and work with us here — keeping it real is actually the wrong thing to do?
Listen in on our conversation with Andrew Brodsky, Assistant Professor of Management, McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin:
How employees come off as authentic in their interactions with customers
Why being authentic isn't always the best
What emotional labor is and why it matters
The best and worst modes of communication for virtual work
Why you aren't as good as you think at reading other people's emotions
More information about Dr. Huffman and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsbrodsky/
Company Website: https://www.utexas.edu/
Other Relevant Links: Dear First Name; ABrodsky.com; Communicating Authentically in a Virtual World (HBR); The Dos and Don’ts of Work Email from Emojis to Typos (HBR); Stephanie Fazio’s Fantasy Books; Alderac Entertainment Group; War Chest
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Digital pollution is unwelcome digital distractions that slow us down, confuse, frustrate, and annoy us, and sometimes even threaten us. If it’s not the right message for the right audience at the right time, it’s probably digital pollution — and damages our brand relationships.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, here to give you two specific cautions about operating in a digitally polluted environment. Listen in to this episode to learn about:
What digital pollution is
What the three types of digital pollution are
How we should view consequential pollution
How personalization can cut through some pollution
Why human-centered communication is an antidote to digital pollution
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Nobody is far away or out of reach anymore, not in the digital environment. Welcome to the Death of Distance.
We all can be reached anytime, anywhere. What does the Death of Distance do to us psychologically? What does it do to our safety?
Hear our conversation with Dr. Erik J. Huffman, Director of Information Technology at BombBomb:
How the digital environment has changed our concept of “customer”
What cyberpsychology is and why it matters
What impact digital pollution and the death of distance have
Why cybersecurity is growing so much and needs to grow even more
Why Erik launched MiC Club and the state of diversity in cyber
More information about Dr. Huffman and today’s topics:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-erik-j-huffman-5a187438/
Company Website: https://bombbomb.com/
Other Relevant Links: Dr. Erik J. Huffman: The Making of a Cyber Victim, Human Hacking: The Psychology Behind Cybersecurity, Cyberpsychology | TED Talk
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Learning from the best. When someone rapidly leaps to the top of their field, you know there are plenty of insights to glean.
During the past year Robyn LaVassaur, Executive Vice President of Sales at Summit Funding, went from local sales production … to national sales leadership.
Hear my conversation with Robyn as we discuss:
How to ask better questions to serve your customers
How she leaped to the top of the mortgage
How neural-coupling assists in better conversation
Why problem-solving leads to career success
How to set boundaries to balance family and work
More information about Robyn and today’s topics:
Robyn LaVassaur on LinkedIn
Robyn LaVassaur at Summit Funding
PeakInsideSummit.com
Chewy.com
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
It’s episode 200 — and we’re celebrating the milestone with The EX Takes Mixtape - 12 top employee experience moments from episodes 101-199.
Hear EX-themed highlights with these guests of The Customer Experience Podcast:
Stacy Sherman, VP of Agent and Customer Experience at Liveops
Brittany Hodak, Keynote Speaker, Author, and Superfan Strategist
Elizabeth Dixon, Speaker on Strategy, Innovation, and CX; Principal Lead of Strategy, Hospitality, & Service Design at Chick-fil-A
Mark Schaefer, Speaker and Author of Marketing Rebellion
Sue Woodard, Speaker and Mortgage and FinTech Evangelist
Shep Hyken, Customer Service and Customer Experience Expert
Lisa Earle McLeod, Speaker and Author of Selling with Noble Purpose
Andrea Morter, VP of Sales Ops at Get Beyond
John Belizaire, CEO at Soluna Computing; Founder and Managing Editor at CEO Playbook
Kristie Ornelas, VP of Customer Experience Marketing and Communications at Cisco
Ernest Owusu, Senior Dir ector of Sales Development at 6sense
Jacco van der Kooij, Founder at Winning by Design
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
When it comes to customer data, context is king.
And user testing has become increasingly important as a resource for fine-tuning the customer experience.
It’s a marriage between UX and CX … and today’s guest brings nearly 20 years of experience as a CX leader, strategist, and practitioner who’s designed and conducted hundreds of studies.
Hear my conversation with Janelle Estes, Chief Insights Officer at UserTesting and author of the book: User Tested: How The World’s Top Companies Use Human Insight to Create Great Experiences as we discuss:
How UX and CX play together
Why user testing is a unique solution to gaining human insights
Why UX is finally gaining traction
What types of user testing are effective
How to get started collaborating around the customer journey
More information about Janelle and today’s topics:
- Janelle Estes on LinkedIn
- UserTesting.com
- UserTested
- Don’t Make Me Think
- Outside In
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
How does selling mangoes from a Jamaican street cart lead to skyrocketing success in today’s B2B sales environment?
In this episode, I interview Donald Kelly , Founder and Chief Sales Evangelist at The Sales Evangelist and author of Sell It Like A Mango: A New Seller’s Guide to Closing More Deals , about the best practices when it comes to training-up a successful sales organization in today’s marketplace.
Donald and I also talked about:
- How CX represents the buyer’s whole journey
- Why it’s important to use a cohort approach in sales
- What mindset helps to overcome fear in sales
- How to achieve pipeline accuracy
- How hosting your own podcast adds value
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Donald C. Kelly on LinkedIn
- Donald C. Kelly on Instagram
- TheSalesEvangelist.com
- Sell It Like A Mango
- Logitech
- Apple
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
The human experience is becoming increasingly more valuable.
As we move forward in time, human-to-human interactions are going to become more rare and therefore more valuable.
I’m Ethan Beute , Chief Evangelist at BombBomb , host of The Customer Experience Podcast , and recently coauthor of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Human-Centered Communication , together with Stephen Pacinelli . Listen in today to learn about why human-to-human moments triumph over commoditization and how to balance the tech touch with the human touch.
In this episode, I contextualize and share a short passage from a 90-minute interview with me, Steve, and Mathew Sweezey , marketing futurist at Salesforce, during our research for Human-Centered Communication.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
- Why the power of human-to-human moments increases as we get more digital
- The proportion of rarity and value in human moments
- Why humans are differentiators in sales and CX
- How video messages beat the competition for attention
- What Mat Sweezey’s take is on noise, pollution, and trust
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play , or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Nobody wants to be sold to. Nobody. But nearly all of us are open to learning something helpful.
Today’s guest, an edumarketing expert, teaches sales through education.
Hear my conversation with Ginger Bell, Founder at Edumarketing:
- How to extend customer experience to people who aren’t your customers
- Why education is better than sales
- What mindset shift will enable you to become an educator
- How to use video in edumarketing
- How to get started sharing your expertise with customers
More information about Ginger and today’s topics:
- Ginger Bell on LinkedIn
- Edumarketing.com
- Sue Woodard on LinkedIn
- Archer Hotel Austin
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
How does an iconic brand like Amex evolve to stay connected to their customers? By driving their CX Experience with innovation.
We take a deep dive into customer surveys and look at how Amex uses the latest technology to collect and distill relevant data.
In this episode, I interview Luis Angel Lalanne , Vice President, Customer Voice at American Express , about improving customer listening using technological tools that allow for higher quality customer feedback.
Lewis and I also talked about:
- How Amex handles CX internally
- Best practices for executing customer surveys for high quality data
- A playbook on balancing and processing qualitative and quantitative feedback
- Using NLP to uncover patterns from customer surveys
- What implementing new CX technology looks like at Amex
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Luis Angel Lalanne
- American Express
- University of Michigan
- USAA
- Lippincott Human Era Index
- Sea Scouts
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
We could call it customer experience. Or we could call it love.
How should our customer-centricity change when we want to win digital customers?
In this episode, I interview Howard Tiersky , CEO at FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency and author of Winning Digital Customers , about emphasizing customer experience during digital transformation.
Howard and I also talked about:
- What the three key elements of customer experience are
- Why you need an ambitious vision for digital transformation
- How to love your customers — and earn their love
- What the role of values are in digital branding
- How to temper the pace of change with customer-centricity
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Howard Tiersky on LinkedIn
- Winning Digital Customers
- FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency
- Tony Robbins
- Bulk Reef Supply
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
How do you operationalize innovation? One way is to build innovation into the company culture by incentivizing ideas.
In this episode, I interview Lee Jelenic , Chief Innovation Officer at United Wholesale Mortgage , about living out the six pillars of his company by committing to continual improvement and preserving the human touch.
Lee and I talked about:
-
How positive client experience helps to cut through the noise
-
Why “client” signifies a longer-term relationship than “customer”
-
What guiding philosophy led to growth from 2K to 8K team members
-
How the value of innovation is expressed throughout the company
-
Where humans and tech should intersect
Check out these resources we mentioned:
-
Lee Jelenic on LinkedIn
-
UWM.com
-
FindAMortgageBroker.com
-
Mat Ishbia on LinkedIn
-
Mark Fields on LinkedIn
-
Jim Farley on LinkedIn
-
Delta Airlines
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts,Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
What can we learn from a deep dive into connecting, communicating, and converting more effectively — despite the challenges of digital, virtual, and online spaces — from people who are out there doing it every single day?
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb and host of The Customer Experience Podcast.
In this episode, I share four takeaways answering that question, which I learned from researching the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Human-Centered Communicationwith Steve Pacinelli. My presentation includes clips from several of the experts we featured, including Lauren Bailey, Shep Hyken, Dan Hill PhD, Mario Martinez Jr., Morgan J Ingram, Julie Hansen, and Adam Contos.
Listen to how to turn today’s path into tomorrow’s revenue with human-centered communication techniques:
- Restore human emotion to our impoverished experiences online
- Balance the tech touch and the human touch
- Focus on outcomes, not systems, processes, or goals
- Value the immeasurable
Resources:
- See the full presentation with visuals here: https://youtu.be/bqtVXvJOeT0
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Today’s guest says that love is a competitive advantage. Kindness, compassion, collaboration, empathy, and especially love are all good things in business both for customers and for employees.
In this episode, I speak with Sue Woodard , Senior Advisor at STRATMOR Group, about how to operationalize love for CX and EX.
Sue and I talked about:
-
Why CX is your customer’s perceptions of your brand
-
Whether CX is a team or a culture
-
What the EX-CX connection has to do with humanizing businesses
-
What it means to operationalize love
-
How to start using video (even if you look funny on screen)
Check out these resources we mentioned:
-
Sue Woodard on LinkedIn
-
Rob Abele on LinkedIn
-
Harley Davidson
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
Product-led growth is a great strategy… for about 5% of B2B companies. The other 95% should adopt customer-led growth.
In this episode, I speak with two-time Customer Experience Podcast guest Chris Hicken , Co-Founder and CEO at ‘nuffsaid , about the three elements of customer-led growth and their reliance on superior CX
Chris talked with me about:
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What three things customer-led growth companies do
-
Which of the four types of data to prioritize and why
-
How the philosophy of customer-led growth originated
-
What influence video has in creating value for customers
-
How to start collecting data on customer value
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
‘nuffsaid Magazine
-
Chris Hicken on LinkedIn
-
The Rule of 40
-
Dave Garr on LinkedIn
-
Darrell Benatar on LinkedIn
-
Gong.io
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts,Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening is the secret to selling anything — but most of us don’t listen the right way, even though all of us are in sales roles (yes, all of us).
True listening is looking at the 360° view of what’s happening.
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Cindy McGovern , CEO at Orange Leaf Consulting and author of Every Job Is a Sales Job , about using listening and presence to design a customer experience that customers want to tell others about.
Dr. Cindy and I talked about:
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How to turn non-salespeople into salespeople
-
What it means to realize that selling means helping
-
Why you should be proactive about creating moments that matter
-
What Dr. Cindy’s 5-step sales process is
-
How to use video to create meaningful sales connection
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Dr Cindy McGovern on LinkedIn
-
Every Job Is A Sales Job
-
Orange Leaf Consulting
-
United Airlines
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play , or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our
If customer experience is important to your company, you won’t achieve it without alignment between sales & marketing. Any interaction your customers have with your business can make or break that relationship.
In this episode, I interview Sterling Snow , Chief Revenue Officer at Divvy | Inc. , about customer experience, how he’s been able to achieve alignment with his company, and tips for the listeners looking to do the same.
Sterling talked with me about:
-
The rise of customer experience and who’s responsible for it
-
Divvy’s ideal customer & the problems it solves
-
Segmenting resources to customers of differing size & advice to listeners
-
The feedback loop: bringing sales & marketing together
-
The internal communication needed to create alignment
-
Pros & cons the listeners should be aware of around company alignment
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Sterling Snow on LinkedIn
-
Sterling Snow on Twitter
-
Divvy
-
Woody Klemetson on LinkedIn
-
Calendly
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Play or Google Podcasts , and find more episodes on our blog.
What two things does a leader who cares about coaching do?
-
Hold a mirror up to your own behavior in constant self-evaluation
-
Coach people into the growth they want, not the growth that you want
In this episode, I interview Andrea Morter, VP of Sales at Get Beyond, about being a leader whose coaching style helps others achieve.
Andrea talked with me about:
- Why CX means keeping your promises
- How local and remote work communities intersect
- Why the business advocate position is a better, stronger sales role
- How to get started as a coaching leader
- What the ongoing mindset of a coach looks like
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Andrea Morter on LinkedIn
- Dare to Lead
- Radical Candor
- Coaching Salespeople to Sales Champions
- Thursday Night Sales
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
You want to send video messages because you know that personal connection matters. Here are three ideal moments for using video to help you start.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. Listen in today to learn about increasing confidence, connection, and clarity by mixing video messages into the rest of our digital communication at three key moments.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
- Plain black text doesn’t differentiate us as humans
- Video enhances these three moments that matter:
-
1 Video for personal connection
-
2 Video for emotion and tone
-
3 Video for detail or complexity
Check out these resources:
- Human-Centered Communication
- Rehumanize Your Business
- The Video Adoption Guide
- Examples and Resources
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
What is your company’s way to play? Put another way, how do you differentiate yourself?
It’s customer experience that is the biggest and best differentiator — and employees are the real drivers of CX.
In this episode, I interview Jim Hardeman, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Product Officer at CMX, about empowering employees to deliver quality CX using technological tools that foster innovation.
Jim and I also talked about:
- What the definition of superior operational execution is
- Why brands that focus on employees provide great CX
- How technology should empower humans to achieve quality
- What to measure and how to measure it
- Why relationship building is the key to understanding customers
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Jim Hardeman on LinkedIn
- CMX
- Daryle DeBalski on LinkedIn
- Qualified.com
- Lexus of Chattanooga
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Many organizations work hard to support their customers, but they don’t hold freeform, high-touch, one-on-one conversations with customers. Why? It makes everyone feel vulnerable.
In this episode, I speak with Tonya Bjurstrom, Voice of the Customer and Founder at Dirby, about elevating the experience of your customers by, well, asking them about it.
Tonya and I talked about:
- Why the voice of the customer touches every part of your organization
- What it means to cultivate curiosity about your own business
- Why customers often provide better feedback in conversations
- How KDIs (key desired insights) and KPIs overlap
- How to embrace the vulnerability of human conversation
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Dirby Solutions
- Tonya Bjurstrom on LinkedIn
- Lori Richardson on LinkedIn
- Chewy.com
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The process from here to there is full of failure. Today’s guest is a founder and CEO whose life changed when he recognized that failure actually means experience that he can use to help others.
In this episode, I speak with Sam Jacobs, Founder & CEO at Pavilion, about realizing his entrepreneurial dreams based on openly sharing best practices, ideas, and strategies with peers.
Sam and I talked about:
- What actions a company with humility will take
- How Pavilion grew out of Revenue Collective
- Why a vision should inform values
- What the independence of the professional truly looks like
- How Sam built Pavilion with diversity and customer-centricity
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Join Pavilion
- Sam Jacobs on LinkedIn
- Jim Sharpe on LinkedIn
- Feetures running socks
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Our job as sales professionals is not to persuade someone to buy our product. Our job is to learn what is most important to the buyer and help them obtain or achieve that.
In this episode, I speak with Andy Paul, Author, Podcaster, Speaker at AndyPaul.com, about the four pillars of human-centered sales featured in his most recent book, Sell Without Selling Out.
Andy and I talked about:
- How buyers experience their interactions with sellers
- What the differences are between sales bosses and sales leaders
- How to promote human centricity in our sales approaches
- What the four pillars of human-centered selling are
- Why you should develop your own individual selling process
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Andy Paul on LinkedIn
- AndyPaul.com
- Amanda Lewis on LinkedIn
- Jet Blue
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Video messaging has not moved very fast in terms of being normalized, despite the fact that it can dramatically improve communication throughout the entire CX and EX. There are three reasons why.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. Listen in today to learn about why bad video prospecting has become an indictment on video prospecting overall — and the reasons why video prospecting can be so challenging.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
- Why video is still considered a new communication medium
- How video addresses the emotional impoverishment of other digital communication
- Three reasons why video prospecting fails
- How leaders’ change management prejudices hold back their teams
- Why human vulnerability is uniquely tied to video
Check out these resources I mentioned:
- Human-Centered Communication
- Rehumanize Your Business
- The Video Adoption Guide
- Examples and Resources
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
What matters in digital customer service isn’t the person’s main preference for digital, live, or hybrid. What matters is understanding the process that will create the best experience for the customer at that exact moment.
In this episode, I interview Rick DeLisi, Author and Lead Research Analyst at Glia, about some of the principles in his latest book, Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for an On-Screen World, including the three primary components of the digital customer service (DCS) model.
Rick and I talked about:
- What it means that “customer experience” is a monster noun
- How digital transformation begins with process
- What the 3 components of the DCS model are
- Why reducing live interaction minutes also reduces cost
- Why the perception of effortlessness lies at the root of great CX
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Rick DeLisi on LinkedIn
- Glia
- Digital Customer Service
- The Effortless Experience
- Matt Dixon on LinkedIn
- Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Define your differentiator.
Ask yourself this: “What is it that we uniquely can do that others can’t? How do we amplify that in a way that will be meaningful to customers?”
In this episode, I interview Elizabeth Dixon, Speaker at Elizabeth Dixon Speaks and Principle Lead, Strategy, Hospitality & Service Design at Chick-fil-A Corporate, about the five elements of exceptional customer experience — one of which is defining your differentiator.
Elizabeth and I talked about:
- Why EX is a prerequisite for exceptional EX
- How culture should be defined
- Why customer experience should become a broader ethos throughout culture
- What the connection between differentiation and loyalty is
- What role employee wellness plays in EX
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- ElizabethDixonSpeaks.com
- Elizabeth Dixon on LinkedIn
- Horst Schulze on LinkedIn
- Southwest Airlines
- Drury Hotels
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
In the face of ever-increasing digital noise and pollution, we need solutions …
and today’s guest has been hard at work on one based on these three beliefs …
-
You should determine how people can reach you.
-
You should decide what your attention is worth - and who benefits.
-
Charging unknown senders a small cost leads to better connections.
To help us take back control of our attention, our guest, Andy Mowat, serves as founder and CEO (Chief Email Officer) at Gated.
What we discussed:
- Defining customer service
- The problem of digital pollution
- Limiting access to and monetizing our attention for the benefit of nonprofits
- The manifesto and shared belief
- The value of higher education & alternatives
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The customer is (or should be) at the center of everything a business should be focused on.
If your core values don’t involve being human-centric, which means both customer-centric and employee-centric, chances are that you'll probably get left behind the companies whose values do.
In this episode, I interview Howard Brown, Founder and CEO at Revenue.io, about human-centricity and prioritizing connecting with others through listening and empathy.
Howard and I talked about:
- How to make human-centricity your core value
- What the relationship between CX and EX is
- What it was like to navigate Revenue.io’s recent rebrand
- Why AI should stand for augmented intelligence
- How listening and empathy create better brand experiences
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Revenue.io
- Howard Brown on LinkedIn
- Amazon
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Features are commodities, but feelings are differentiators. Customer experience is the last meaningful differentiator left to us — and we have to navigate it, for the most part, digitally and emotionally.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. In this episode, I ask you three questions about how you choose companies and how your feelings about companies affect your decisions.
Ready to hear the questions? Here we go:
- How do you make the decision about which company to choose?
- How do we create feelings about our company?
- How do we create trust and confidence in a digital world?
- I also mention a takeaway, a solution, and a qualifier.
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The best way to start a podcast is to start.
Yes, there’s more nuance to it, but honestly not that much more.
In this episode, I interview Collin Mitchell, CRO at Salescast, about being a great podcast host, being a great podcast guest, and how podcasting can become a revenue driver.
Collin and I talked about:
- Why it isn’t very hard to make the top 10% of podcasts
- How podcasts create communities
- What CROs and sales leaders should think about podcasts
- How to start your first podcast and misconceptions to overcome
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Salescast.co
- Collin Mitchell on LinkedIn
- Larry Levine on LinkedIn
- HubSpot
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
If we sent our athletes into the field without any pads or helmets, we wouldn’t be surprised that they got hurt. Yet we’re treating our stressed and struggling salespeople as if they should stoically endure the stressors to which we have exposed them.
In this episode, I interview Jeff Riseley, Founder at Sales Health Alliance and author of The Guide to Better Mental Health in Sales, about the major findings from the 2021 State of Mental Health in Sales Report and how we can provide better support for our salespeople’s mental health.
Jeff and I talked about:
- Why it’s challenging to be vulnerable with someone who judges your performance
- How COVID affected mental health in sales — by the numbers
- What role technology plays in eroding boundaries
- What salespeople need to feel and perform their best at work
- Where to start in supporting the mental health of salespeople
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Sales Health Alliance
- MyLeon
- Whoop
- The Rich Roll Podcast
- Kevin Bailey, DreamFuel
- Tommy Short, Think Better Perform Better
- Fantasy Flight Games
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Everyone wants to know how to operate their business effectively. But depending on which of the three growth stages your company is in, the answer will be different.
In this episode, I interview Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist at Terminus and author of MOVE: The 4-Question Go-to-Market Framework, about GTM as a process, the 3 stages of business, and his CX takeaways from his book research.
Sangram and I talked about:
- Why the connected experience is essential for frictionless CX
- How GTM is a transformational process for acceleration
- What it means to be a problem company, a product company, or a platform company
- What 3 things the CEO should own
- How the MOVE framework applies to scaling
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- The MOVE Book
- Sangram Vajre on LinkedIn
- BombBomb
- Gong
- Tim Kopp (TK) on LinkedIn
- Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
I’ve lived in the same residence for almost 15 years. For 14 blissful years, I had no communications with my waste management service, and that was exactly how I wanted it.
Here’s the story of how that changed four months ago for the worse.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. In this episode, I share the story of change management so awful that it made the local news and caused garbage to physically pile up on the streets of Colorado Springs.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
- Why the best CX is an appropriate experience
- Why customers bail when communication is unhelpful
- What the channels and touchpoints were and how they failed
- How not to manage change
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The word “disruption” can make us feel irritation or even angst. What we need is to recognize that disruption on an industry scale means changing how we operate to create better experiences for our customers.
In this episode, I interview Michelle Lisowski, Global Director, B2B Marketing at Uber, about how she's leading a well-known B2C brand into better B2B customer experience.
Join us as we discuss:
- What Michelle means when she says CX is everything
- How Uber for Business is redefining transportation
- Why disruption should be recognized as serving customers
- How Michelle manages multiple lines of business with trust in people
- When customer-centricity became a practice for Michelle
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Uber for Business
- Michelle Lisowski on LinkedIn
- Patagonia
- American Express
- Target
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
He’s the Founder and Chief Executive Angel at SavingsAngel.com and host of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast. His work is syndicated nationally in print, on radio, on television, and of course online. He’s a US Navy veteran. AND he’s also sent more than 4,200 video messages over the past few years!
In this episode, I interview Josh Elledge, who is also the Founder/CEO of UpMyInfluence.com, about how to gross more than $50 million in revenue and build a 7-figure B2B sales system for consultants and agencies — with zero paid ads.
Join Josh and me as we discuss:
- Why we should focus on value and impact instead of chasing revenue numbers
- What the big problem is with paid ads
- How to build authentic relationships with your dream customers
- Why video is the best way to make people fall in love with you
- When you should send video messages
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- UpMyInfluence.com
- Bob Burg
- Adrian Cronauer
- BombBomb
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
For the entire year of 2020, his team booked about 450 meetings. So far in 2021, they’ve booked about 550 meetings in just the first three quarters by sending over 220,000 emails that people want to read.
In this episode, I interview Michael Chambers, Vice President, Sales Agency and Training Teams at Precision Value & Health, about why he puts relationships at the center of everything he does for customers and employees — and cold prospecting.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why relationship and responsiveness are at the center of customer experience
- What the qualities of great candidates are to Mike
- How he designs a successful cold email strategy
- Why it matters to accept “not yet” as a response
- How to stay available to customers and employees
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Michael Chambers on LinkedIn
- Precision Value & Health
- Fernando Mateus on LinkedIn
- Clean My Pavers
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Instead of a slice of cake with a candle, they brought out a box of handmade chocolates with Happy Birthday spelled out in cocoa powder and decorated with a sparkler. All four diners spontaneously took out their phones, photographed it, and shared it online.
“The single best marketing is a happy customer talking about you because it’s the most credible, the most authentic,” said our guest today, Dan Gingiss, Chief Experience Officer at The Experience Maker, LLC and author of The Experience Maker .Dan challenges organizations to create shareable experiences, just like Fleming Steakhouse did for his son’s birthday dinner.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why Dan highlights a romance novelist in his marketing book
- What the WISER framework stands for
- How personalization creates shareable moments
- How to leverage B2C experiences in B2B
- Why Amazon loses money to invest in relationships
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Dan Gingiss on LinkedIn
- The Experience Maker (book)
- DanGingiss.com
- Starbucks
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
There’s no reason to keep them separate anymore: success, support, marketing, and sales. Their common goal is revenue, so their common leader should be the CRO. When we’re talking about the next generation of CROs, a Chief Marketing Officer is likely the best candidate because they’re already doing the bulk of that work.
In this episode, I interview the authors of CMO to CRO: The Revenue Takeover by the Next Generation Executive, Tegrita’s COO Brandi Starr, CRO Rolly Keenan, and President & CTO Mike Geller. We talk a bout why CMOs make such good CROs and how to create a CRO function.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why the rise of the CRO is vital to good CX
- Why Tegrita created a CRO role and wrote a book about it
- How to tame your Frankenstack
- What CMOs can do to shift into CROs
- Where to position RevOps with respect to the CRO function
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- RevenueTakeover.com
- Tegrita.com
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Two and a half months ago, gearing up for the launch of our second book, Human-Centered Communication, we found that mass emails did not perform as well as before. Here’s what has worked: personal one-to-one video messages.
People and relationships matter more today than ever.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. In this episode, I share how our launch strategy has changed to reflect the thesis of our book — that human-centered communication is the most meaningful and successful way to cut through today’s digital pollution.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
- How personalization promotes memory
- What our book rankings are
- How we pivoted our launch strategy for our second book
- What I said in my video messages and how people responded
- Why human interaction matters even more online
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
In one of his interviews at his current company, our guest said this to the CEO:
“If we're going to build an organization that truly earns the love of the customer by providing a consistent experience, we need to put the entire customer journey under one umbrella. We also need to train the team to be maniacally focused on the customer — to understand the market, the industry, and the players’ wants, needs, and wins — by training as a whole, not in silos.”
In this episode, I interview Mark Rosenthal, COO at HqO, about executing his vision to create a culture of collaboration.
- Why workers need to return to the city
- How Mark transitioned from VP to CRO to COO
- How an argument helped shape his defining moment as a leader
- What Mark does to stay engaged with the customer team
- What the three keys to a collaborative culture are at HqO
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Mark Rosenthal on LinkedIn
- HqO
- Waze
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Ignoring an antagonistic relationship at work is one of the worst things you can do — to yourself. Working with someone in a toxic situation can hinder your potential.
You need to learn how to fire your villain.
In this episode, I interview Heather Monahan, bestselling a uthor, renowned keynote speaker, and CEO at Boss in Heels LLC, about her story of creating confidence and overcoming villains.
Join us as we discuss:
- How Heather came to be fired from a job where she was successful
- What it’s like to teach sales at Harvard
- How to fire your villains
- How to provide value amidst changing markets and customers
- What it means to set expectations for customer experience
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Heather Monahan on LinkedIn
- Heather Monahan on Twitter
- Overcome Your Villains
- Giftology and John Ruhlin
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
A “paradigm shift” is a fundamental change in approach or assumptions. Modern communication is in the midst of one — a change from digital pollution to human-centered communication.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. I co-wrote a book about this communication shift with my longtime friend and colleague Steve Pacinelli, CMO at BombBomb, called Human-Centered Communication.
(P.S. It is publishing today! Find it here.)
In this episode, I discuss:
- What the implications of a mass mindset are
- How Steve and I wrote our book around the insights of 11 experts
- How to restore the balance of digital and human in communication
- What human-centered communication means for organizations
- Why you should read our book
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
No one individual has all the answers to everything. With a concept as broad yet essential as human-centered communication, it was going to take many experts — 11, to be exact — to begin to equip us with the knowledge we need to recenter our communication around people.
In this episode, I have the pleasure of chatting with my longtime friend and two-time coauthor, Steve Pacinelli, CMO at BombBomb, about what he learned from the process of writing our book, Human-Centered Communication.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why customer experience is built on the exploration of a shared belief
- Where the idea for the book originated
- What the big idea behind human-centered communication is
- Who each expert is and what you can expect in each of their chapters
- What interactive experiences we created around the book
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- I’ll Be Back by Shep Hyken
- The Experience Maker by Dan Gingiss
- The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham
- Visual Collaboration by Loa Baastrup and Ole Qvist-Sorensen
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
To get better at something, you can’t do it just twice or even five times. You have to do it repetitively — and that goes for sending videos, too. Our guest made a video a week for 41 weeks during the pandemic, partly to improve himself but mostly to help his employees and customers overcome challenges and fulfill dreams.
In this episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Adam Contos, CEO at RE/MAX, about growth through company change and personal improvement to help people.
Join us as we discuss:
- What the three categories of customers are for Adam
- Why your org needs a values statement
- What it was like to rise through the ranks of RE/MAX
- Where you should be looking in a time of disruption
- What Adam learned after making 41 weekly videos
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
If you’d like to be able to sit down with an expert like Shep Hyken, CAO at Shepherd Presentations, or Dan Tyre, Direct or at Hubspot, to ask them about how to implement human-centered communication techniques in your organization, well, you can.
In this episode, you will hear the suggestions that Dan, Shep, and I had for Julie, a sales professional in the continuing education space.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. Join me to hear sales insights from our experts, and if you’d like to join our next live, interactive roundtable event, preorder the book written by me and Steve Pacinelli.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
- From Dan: In 2021, we don’t sell, we help
- From Shep: Connecting with people is warmer with video
- Human-centered design can drive your sales research
- Adding desirability to the intersection of viability and feasibility
- You’re invited to our next interactive roundtable events on Oct. 5 and Oct. 21
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
What you see on video is pretty much what you get. Video gives you a sense of who the person is. At present and in the future, salespeople need to become comfortable with video through the techniques of “created charisma”.
In this episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Viveka von Rosen, Co-Founder and Chief Visibility Officer (CVO) at Vengreso, about using video to create visibility in sales.
Join us as we discuss:
- What the relationship between video and visibility is
- Who video is and is not good for
- Why video gets straight to the heart of authenticity
- When to shift the script to create connection
- What the role of LinkedIn is for salespeople
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Merely getting to the sale and figuring out later how to deliver what you sold does not work in a recurring revenue business. Actually, it’s customer success that makes the money now, because they create the experiences for customers around moments that matter.
Which moments matter most?
In this episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Jacco van der Kooij, Founder of Winning by Design, about building a customer impact journey around moments that matter.
Join us as we discuss:
Why sales knowledge comes with great responsibility
How recurring revenue models shift customer experience to customer success
What the Bow Tie Funnel is and how it affects customer impact
What the customer impact journey and counter impacts are
How priority has replaced other buying determinants
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Repeat business is a goal everyone should aim for. But turning it into loyalty means creating an emotional connection between your customer and your brand.
Ask yourself this: What am I doing right now with this customer to make sure that they’ll come back to me and not my competitor next time?
In this episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer and Customer Service Speaker at Shepard Presentations, LLC, about the drivers behind customer loyalty — as well as some loyalty killers.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why customer service is a philosophy of mind
- How to differentiate between repeat business and loyalty
- What the common loyalty killers are
- How to hire to avoid apathy
- Ways to leverage presentation skills to define success
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
If you’ve been on a video call lately (and hasn’t everyone?), you’ve probably noticed how disengaged, distracted, or disconnected everyone is.
This is partly because we’re all operating under the mistaken belief that virtual and in-person are one and the same, except that one just has a camera. Not so.
In this episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Julie Hansen, Founder and Sales Presentation Expert at Performance Sales and Training, about video skills for virtual communication excellence.
Julie talked with us about:
- How much influence sales has over customer experience
- Why video skills are like acting skills
- How to speak to a virtual group as if they’re an individual
- What best video practices are
- How to improve your video presence over time
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
In the feeling economy, interpersonal relationships drive the success of organizations. Feelings have always been important, of course, but today they are even more important than they’ve ever been before.
In this episode, I interview Dr. Roland Rust, Distinguished University Professor at Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland and coauthor of The Feeling Economy, about the three econ omies and why the feeling economy is the most human.
Roland and I talked about:
-
What the role of emotions is in business today
-
How the three economies are evolving towards feeling
-
What our relationship to AI is and what it could become
-
What causes prevalence of feeling industries today, especially sales
-
Why rationalization is one of the greatest benefits of the feeling economy
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Consumers have turned into prosumers — that is, professional consumers. Before we buy, we read reviews, ask for advice, and do other forms of research about a product or service. What does this mean for sellers?
In practical terms, before you send a message, you’d better know what pages they were on to construe what they are searching for.
In the sixth episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Mario M. Martinez, Jr., CEO and Modern Sales Evangelist at Vengreso, about the art and science of selling to the prosumer.
Mario talked with us about:
-
How people collectively make up the brand
-
What a prosumer is and how we buy
-
Where the line between art and science lies in sales
-
How to communicate that you are interested in others
-
What chapters interest Mario in Human-Centered Communication
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Here are three quick ways to better assess what people are saying with their faces and emotions (aka facial coding). Pay attention to engagement, the camouflage smile, and the two-sided impact of fear.
The face is the only place in the body where the muscles attach right to the skin. Most of us aren’t aware of what we’re giving away.
In the fifth episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pac inelli and I interview Dan Hill, PhD, President a t Sensory Logic, about emoti onal intelligence and facial coding.
Dan spoke with us about:
-
How to imbue a mission into work for employee retention
-
Why contempt and sadness can be dangerous emotions
-
What to do to raise our emotional literacy
-
How Steve Jobs illustrates the positive and negative sides of anger
-
Why emotions stand apart from the rational parts of the brain
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Dan Hill, PhD (LinkedIn)
-
Sensory Logic
-
Grand Performance
-
Episode 75: Emotional Intelligence and The Power of Faces
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Taking a teaching focus means truly listening to and identifying with the customer, and it’s built on a continuous coaching environment. To learn and to teach takes agility, vulnerability, and relatability. Find out how a 3x LinkedIn Top Sales Voice cultivated those traits in himself.
In the fourth episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Morgan J. Ingram, Director of Sales Execution and Evolution at JB Sales Training, about personal communication strategies.
Morgan chatted with us about:
-
Why no single role “controls” the customer experience
-
What he learned from being open on LinkedIn
-
How to become one of the 2-5% of people who take action on what they hear
-
Why becoming relatable and vulnerable was one of his best career moves
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
MorganJIngram.com
-
1UP Formula
-
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger
-
Ralph Barsi on LinkedIn
-
Stance Socks
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Moving forward, nearly every experience is going to be hybrid: both physical and virtual. We’ll need to provide a hybrid experience for our employees as well as our customers.
In the third episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Mathew Sweezey, Director of Market Strategy at Salesforce, about internal marketing, the immersive experience, and employee experience.
Mathew talked with us about:
-
What’s missing from the equation of experience
-
How to craft hybrid experiences
-
Why internal marketing should be your next big focus
-
How to focus on creating immersive employee experiences
-
What managers can do to create a great experience
Here are some links to resources we mentioned:
-
Mathew Sweezey on LinkedIn
-
MathewSweezey.com
-
Salesforce.com
-
Salesforce Futures Lab
-
Patagonia
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
When we communicate virtually, we are using flattened, muted versions of ourselves. Little surprise, then, that virtual relationships degrade over time.
How do we overcome the impoverishment of the virtual world?
In this episode, I interview Dr. Nick Morgan, a communications coach and theorist, four-time author, and President at Public Words, about how virtual communication differs from in-person communication — and how that affects our relationships.
Nick also talked with me about:
-
What the underlying psychology says about virtual communication
-
How to communicate emotional clarity in video
-
What it means that every mistake is permanent virtually
-
Why we should augment, rather than dampen, our emotions on screen
-
How to maintain a virtual relationship
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Dr Nick Morgan on LinkedIn
-
Dr Nick Morgan on Twitter
-
Books by Nick Morgan
-
Public Words
-
HubSpot
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Whether we are training employees, customers, or trainers, video is a powerful form of human-centered communication. When someone who teaches trainers explains the advantage of video, you sit up and take note.
In the second episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Lauren Bailey, Founder and President at Factor 8 and Founder at #GirlsClub. She walks us through the BLISS acronym as well as the broken rung, the confidence gap, and the forgetting curve.
Lauren also discussed with us:
-
Why there are still relatively few women in sales leadership
-
How to apply Bloom’s taxonomy in training
-
What BLISS has to do with video communication
-
How to solve some problems with today’s BDR role
Here are some links to resources we mentioned:
-
Lauren Bailey on LinkedIn
-
Factor8.com
-
WeAreGirlsClub.com
-
USAA.com
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Video is a perfect example of taking automation and inserting more humanity into it. It’s a relationship-building form of communication that centers around what’s human about technology.
In this first episode of our Human-Centered Connection expert series, Steve Pacinelli and I interview Dan Tyre, Director at HubSpot. He explains that everyone in the company is involved in customer experience and must practice ways to reduce friction and build connection.
In addition to his contribution to our book, we chatted with Dan about:
-
What he contributed to our chapter called “The Year of Video”
-
How HubSpot’s flywheel uses best customers to gain more customers
-
Why Dan is so impressed with the expertise of Phil, his “dirt guy”
-
What the video details at the Lions Program (aka Hubspot Academy) are
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The role of customer success is to build value on the promise of what the customer became a customer in the first place. Being so deeply invested in the customer’s journey, CS must become more than trusted. It must become strategic.
Joining me on this episode is Wayne McCulloch, Global Head of Customer Success at Google Cloud (Saas) and author of The Seven Pillars of Customer Success, to talk about the relationship between CS and CX:
Wayne and I also discussed:
-
How there were 5-12 pillars in the beginning of the book
-
What the 7 pillars are, including strategic advisor
-
Why CS is similar to both parents and police
-
How a 1940s movie perfectly illustrates CS
-
Why you should use a 3rd party for customer exit interviews
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Wayne McCulloch on LinkedIn
-
Customer Success Pillars
-
Tom Hogan on LinkedIn
-
Maria Martinez on LinkedIn
-
CLEAR
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Customer Experience in your favorite podcast player.
When you present who you are — your core beliefs — to the customer, do you get head nods, indifference, or hostility? All 3 are great responses, actually. If they’re nodding, they probably share your beliefs. That’s a key tenet of quadrant 3: who we are.
In this episode, I interview return guest Anthony Coundouris, Founder at run_frictionless and author of run_frictionless, about how Q3 (who we are) and Q4 (how we serve) fit in the overall 4-part frictionless framework.
Anthony and I also talked about:
-
Why sharing beliefs should be the beginning of every PowerPoint
-
How to evaluate the 3 types of response to who you are
-
What happens to revenue when you fit the quadrants together
-
What vanity values are
-
How to start conversations with less friction
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Anthony Coundouris on LinkedIn
-
Company: run_frictionless
-
Book: run_frictionless
-
Xero Accounting Software
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Customer Experience in your favorite podcast player.
The key to building a great business and getting a team focused is, first, having a set of consistent core values over time. Once you’ve established core principles around serving your customer, the next step is to continue to optimize around improving that customer experience over time.
In this episode, I interview John Belizaire, CEO at Soluna and Founder and Managing Editor at CEOPLAYBOOK, about building long-term relationships, the wow of customer experience, and his personal mission statement to influence a thousand young entrepreneurs.
John and I also talked about:
-
Building a personal mission statement around what you want to be proud about
-
Why CEOs should be deeply involved in creating customer experience
-
Soluna’s commitment to support green power with global energy
-
The relationship between entrepreneurship and storytelling
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
John on LinkedIn
-
Soluna.io
-
CEOplaybook.co
-
Luxor Mining
-
Interlude NYC
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Those of us who feel we’re not very good on camera would rather have someone else present for us. But we’re losing the opportunity to share our passion and expertise with others who could benefit.
In this episode, I interview Tricia Jane Wiles, Marketing Communications / Host of Accelerating Revenue Series at True Influence and former actor at Disney. She shares confidence-building tricks to overcome imposter syndrome and improve video presence.
Tricia also talked with me about:
-
What she learned about CX from working at Disney
-
Helping others overcome imposter syndrome to appear on video
-
The pep talk she gives herself in the mirror to build confidence
-
How to improve video presence with voice and posture
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
5 Requirements of Your Video Toolkit with Tricia Jane Wiles and Bob Perkins (AA-ISP)
-
Accelerating Revenue Series
-
David Lewis (LinkedIn)
-
Christian Wiles (LinkedIn)
-
Costco
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Virtual professionals not only grant you the time you’ve been craving, but they also improve your customer experience with processes and systems that work.
In this episode, I interview Daniel Ramsey, CEO and Co-Founder at MyOutDesk, about how virtual professionals affect customer experience.
Daniel and I discussed:
-
How VAs earned a shout-out in Tim Ferris’s 4-Hour Workweek
-
Setting expectations: the honeymoon metaphor
-
Why the Philippines provides such exceptional virtual professionals
-
When customers know they need VAs but can’t articulate it
-
Strategic gates and failsafes
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Daniel Ramsey on LinkedIn
-
MyOutDesk
-
Airbnb
-
Uber
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
When marketing speaks to one-to-many, we’re addressing industries. When we speak to one-to-few, we’re addressing personas. But personal relevance in one-to-one messaging means that we speak to how unconsidered gaps will affect that individual specifically.
In this episode, I interview Kristina Jaramillo, Founding Partner at Personal ABM, about the difference between personalized and personal ABM — and why the key is CX.
Kristina talked with me about:
-
What putting the customer first really means
-
How you should be using LinkedIn
-
Personalized vs. personal ABM
-
Who to target and how to target them
-
The relationship between ABM and CX
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Not all elevators are created equal. Some have the emergency button placed too high for a child or a person using a wheelchair to reach. The design is not centered on what a human needs.
Same applies to visual design.
In this episode, I interview Joey Kilrain, Founder/CCO Experience Design at DED, about the intersection between the importance of visual design on CX, UX, and UI.
Joey and I talked about:
-
The complicated Venn diagram of CX, UX, and UI
-
How Human-Centered Design serves customers
-
Tips for having a constructive conversation about design
-
Brand guidelines vs. design systems
-
What Joey has learned from teaching design
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Two of the least aligned teams are often sales and customer success. I’ve learned so much from my podcast guests about why that’s problematic and what to do about it.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. Join me to hear some strategies for promoting alignment between CS and sales.
Here are some thoughts from the episode:
-
How marketing affects CS
-
Making sales to customer success handoffs better
-
What CS can teach sales and what sales can teach CS
-
Aligning pre-sale and post-sale for customer retention
-
The success leader is the conduit between the company and customer
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
If you can combine customer-centricity and innovation as a cultural mindset pervasive throughout your company, then you’ve really got a recipe for long-term success.
In this episode, I interview Dennis Geelen, Founder at Zero In and author of The Zero In Formula, about building customer-centric innovation into the company's cultural mindset.
Dennis and I also talked about:
-
The 3 main components of customer experience
-
Why indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love
-
All things CCI and how it affects culture
-
Calculating the lifetime value of your customers
-
Reducing hunger and raising community love
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Human factors is a field of science that explores capabilities and limitations of humans as they interact with a product, technology, or service. The goal of human factors is to capitalize on the capabilities and to circumvent the limitations to create an optimal human-machine interaction.
In this episode, I interview Anand Tharanathan, Chief Product Officer at MetaCX, about incorporating human factors into every aspect of design.
Anand talked with me about:
-
Tips for building a superior design team
-
User centered design: what it is and why it matters
-
Starting with empathy
-
How to synthesize insights into viable tests
-
Becoming a first-time Chief Product Officer
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
If your brand is the stories people share about you, the concept of brand storytelling is how you take control of those stories by bringing humanity into the way you lead and communicate.
In this episode, I interview Gabrielle Dolan, Speaker and Author at Gabrielle Dolan Consulting and Founder of Jargon Free Fridays, about the trends driving brand storytelling and how to influence stories told about you.
Gabrielle spoke with me about:
-
The power of telling magnetic stories
-
5 types of stories that every business needs
-
Being intentional, authentic, and strategic about sharing who you are
-
The origin story for Jargon Free Fridays
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
GabrielleDolan.com
-
Gabrielle on LinkedIn
-
Gabrielle on Twitter
-
Books by Gabrielle
-
Elise Turner on LinkedIn
-
Habbot Shoes (Flats)
-
Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses
-
Mekong Capital
-
Columbia Restaurant
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Everyone’s looking to you as the new dedicated CX leader to structure the customer experience. What are your two functions? What three practices will help you achieve them?
In this episode, I interview Logan Lyles, VP of Customer Experience at Sweet Fish Media, about being the pioneer of the CX role at his company.
Logan & I talked about:
-
How our mutual friend James Carbary introduced us in Colorado Springs
-
The two halves of Logan’s CX team: customer success and content production
-
What the first 90 days as VP of CX looked like
-
Why incorporate video into your internal and external messaging
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
B2B Growth
-
SweetFishMedia.com
-
Riverside.fm
-
Sounder.fm
-
Megan Bowen on LinkedIn
-
James Carbary on LinkedIn
-
Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The best conversation that you can have with a customer is one in which they don’t walk away without answers. That might sound obvious, but the path to arriving there requires you to know exactly how to balance bot and human — and how to transition seamlessly between them.
In this episode, I interview Ali Biggs, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Intercom, about marketing for a conversational relationship platform (CRP).
Ali also talked with me about:
-
The relationship between EX and CX
-
The conviction that relationships with customers are paramount
-
Utilizing bots to converse at volume
-
Where to position product marketing for greatest effect
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Lauren Vaccarello
-
Nybll
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
If you want to drive revenue growth, you need to have great CX. If you want to drive great CX, you need to have great EX. In other words, the employee experience is a precursor to the customer experience.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. I’m here today to share some of the connections I made about EX while interviewing Mathew Sweezey for the next book I’m cowriting with my longtime friend Steve Pacinelli.
I love to share the things I’m learning:
-
Discussion of The Experience Equation
-
Discussion of the Service Profit Chain article from HBR
-
Discussion of the Heskett, Sasser, Schlesinger Service Profit Chain book
-
Bottom line: How internal service quality drives everything in your company
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Not only should everyone want to have customer experience as an integral part of their org’s DNA, but they should also be accountable for the fact that they are a part of the customer’s experience.
In this episode, I interview Leah Chaney, Founder and Chief Experience Officer at BetterGrowth, about her brilliant 4 A’s of Accountability bucketing system.
Leah talked with me about
-
How customer experience is like a theme park
-
The 4 As and how to scale them
-
How to weave retention into all of your goals
-
Cultural impediments to the CX conversation
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Buc-ee’s
-
BreakoutCS
-
Revenue Collective
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The last cold email you received probably made you feel disengaged at best. It’s also the reason why the average cold email response rate is 1%.
In this episode, I interview Jason Bay, Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting, about bringing empathy back to the sales process.
We also talked about:
-
The 2 sales enablement fails and what should replace them
-
The REPLY method for cold emailing
-
The next wave of video and his video strategy
-
Long form content vs. bite-sized content
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
BlissfulProspecting.com/Ethan
-
Jason Bay on LinkedIn
-
Proposify
-
Apple
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Are we using technology to create barriers between us and our customers? Or are we doubling down on things we know that our customers respond to, like a human voice that’s friendly, accessible, and even vulnerable?
In this episode, I interview Mark Schaefer, COO at B Squared Media and author of Marketing Rebellion, about returning the human voice to the center of marketing.
Mark also talks with me about:
-
Cumulative advantage vs. competitive advantage
-
Two thirds of your marketing is done by your customers
-
A fracture is a business opportunity
-
The role of momentum in change
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
{grow} blog
-
BusinessesGrow.com
-
The Cumulative Advantage
-
Marketing Rebellion
-
Mark on LinkedIn
-
Mark on Twitter
-
Keith Reynold Jennings
-
The North Face
-
Glossier
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The sales funnel is actually a pyramid that looks like this: top-level is sales tools, middle level is sales skills, bottom level is the humanity of the sales professional. By restoring a connection to the authenticity, emotion, and mindset of the sellers themselves, the art of sales can begin to return to the foundation of customer experience: making people’s lives better.
In this episode, I interview John Sweeney, the Owner and Speaker at the Brave New Workshop Theater, about blending principles of comedy, improv, theater, and art to train sellers in using emotion to sell in person and via video.
John & I also discussed:
-
What the art of theater has to do with sales
-
Understanding the real sales pyramid and the mindset of the authentic self
-
How to become comfortable with being uncomfortable
-
Strategies for putting the human at the center of customer experience
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- The Innovation Mindset
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The forever customer is someone who trusts you to solve their problem. They’ve taken off their consumer hat and put on their member hat. They aren’t looking for alternatives anymore.
In this episode, I interview Robbie Kellman Baxter, Strategy Consultant at Peninsula Strategies, about how to achieve forever customers with customer-centricity.
Robbie also talked with me about:
-
Why short-term revenue matters so much less than long-term relationships
-
Her journey toward the forever transaction — and what that looks like for businesses
-
You want to balance acquisition and retention
-
The importance of knowing what your best customers have in common
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Robbie’s books are The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction
-
Robbie’s podcast is Subscription Stories
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Just because someone fills out a form doesn’t mean they’re ready to talk to a salesperson. Two problems stem from this fact: the problem of discerning which leads are ready and the problem of how to nurture the ones that aren’t.
Welcome to the explosion of martec.
In this episode, I interview Jon Miller is Chief Marketing and Product Officer at Demandbase and previously co-founder at Marketo and Engagio, about account-based experience (ABX):
Among the things we talked about were:
-
The evangelistic sale
-
The analogous relationship between CX and ABX, and B2C and B2B
-
Who’s responsible for company culture (not just the CEO)
-
MBAs are important for career switchers
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
As a CRO, how do you change the culture of your org so that customer experience is everyone’s responsibility?
In this episode, I interview Darryl Praill, CRO at Vanilla Soft, about how he distributes the ownership of customer experience across the whole org by dissolving barriers between teams.
Darryl talked with me about:
-
What a matrix organization is
-
How colleagues are influenced by how they are compensated
-
3 ways to create a culture of empathy
-
How marketing leaders can develop their personal brand
-
The role of video in customer experience
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Neewer Photo and Video
-
Darryl on Twitter
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Not only is kindness important on a human level, but it can become a core value for any company. How?
In this episode, I interview Cole Baker-Bagwell is Founder and Chief Kindness Advisor at Cool Audrey, about how and why to turn kindness into a core company value.
Cole talked with me about:
-
The cashmere effect in customer experience
-
The business case for kindness (it’s very strong)
-
Mindfulness and intention in business & its customer impact
-
An answer to the outcome-oriented skeptics
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Cole’s podcast is Kindness Think Tank
-
She mentioned Said Ziouani and Whereby
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
You want to level up your customer experience to customer obsession, but how?
Get started now. In a year’s time, you’ll wish you started today.
In this episode, I interview Joseph Jaffe, host of CoronaTV and Admiral/Co-Founder at The HMS Beagle, about the origins of his show and everything he’s learned along the way.
Joseph and I discuss:
-
The availability heuristic (things that are harder to measure are the more important)
-
How to implement customer obsession as a host
-
The origin story for CoronaTV
-
The art of having real conversations encapsulates entrepreneurship
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Watch CoronaTV
-
Joseph wrote Flip the Funnel
-
Joseph is also on Twitter
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
Are you a text person? Or are you better on the phone? We all know we're better on the phone. We've got our voice tone, pace, and personality to work with.
Let's raise the stakes: Are you a phone person or a face-to-face person?
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. Not long ago, I enjoyed the privilege of presenting at the inaugural TEDx UCCS (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs) about face-to-face communication.
A very quick overview:
-
Why we avoid personal contact even though we know it's more effective
-
The truth about the "93% rule" of nonverbal communication
-
Tying facial expression to empathy, ethics, and justice
-
What you're normalizing in everyday communication
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
These trends will be important for the future of CRM: transparency, multiple companies working together, and proving value using a new wave of enterprise software and data sharing. What if we started to think of the customer being part of our customer system?
In this episode, I interview Scott McCorkle, CEO at MetaCX, about how to reinvent CRM with transparency.
Scott and I talked about:
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The definition of competitive customer experience
-
Trends in enterprise software driven, in part, by the pandemic
-
Feedback on MetaCX’s emotional outcome-based view of relationship
-
Embracing uncertainty, challenge, and mistakes in the startup world
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Scott Dorsey
-
Delta Airlines
-
MetaCX
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for the Customer Experience Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
When your customer base is everyone who needs images (which more or less means everyone), your customer experiences will look as different as your customers do.
What do you focus on to deliver exceptional CX? Among many other things, you have to be easy to trust.
In this episode, I interview Grant Farhall, Chief Product Officer at Getty Images, about delivering a supply of compelling imagery and video content to customers — when customers have such different needs.
Grant and I discuss:
-
Delivering flexibility to a broad customer base
-
Creating a powerful and intuitive search experience (plus Grant’s top search tip)
-
The power of searching concepts and emotions
-
Authentic, raw, and real images
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Shazam
-
Craig Peters, CEO at Getty Images
-
Getty Images
-
iStock
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Employee experience and internal culture are not just a “nice-to-have,” but they bring material influence to bear on measurable business results.
In this episode, I interview 2 guests about CX through EX: Kristie Ornelas, Head of CX Marketing & Communications, and Steve Cox, Vice President of Digital Lifecycle Journeys, both at Cisco (named #1 on the World's Best Workplaces list two years in a row by Great Places to Work and Fortune Magazine).
Kristie, Steve, and I talked about:
-
The focus on retaining employees and helping them to advance like customers
-
To hire diverse people, create a diverse interview panel
-
Enabling employees to serve their local communities
-
The creation of role communities inside of their CX function
-
Why your workplace should be a community, not a family
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Cisco
-
Cisco CX on Twitter
-
Cisco CX blog
-
Nordstrom
-
Yanni’s Bar & Grill
-
Love Knows No Boundaries
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Superfans!
You may have some.
You may have had some and lost them.
You may have fans — who would be superfans — if only you engaged them the right way.
Regardless, you always want more superfans.
But you have to work for them.
In this episode, I interview Brittany Hodak, speaker, writer, and co-founder of the Superfan Company, about what a superfan is and how to build a base of them.
Brittany and I chat about
-
What a superfan is and how you create them
-
The 5 steps of the SUPER system
-
How Brittany got offers from four of the five sharks on Shark Tank
-
The biggest threat to business (it gets no airtime)
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
It opened doors that I didn’t know existed. I met new people, found new opportunities, and received other unexpected benefits from organizing my thoughts.
This result of writing, publishing, and selling a book makes the entire 6-step process worthwhile.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. I am here today to share Part 2 of the 6 Ps of Writing, Publishing, and Selling Your Book.
A very quick overview:
-
The 6 Ps: purpose, proposal, process, publishing, people, and promotion
-
Publishing decisions should be guided by purpose
-
It takes a village of people to publish a book
-
Promotion is ultimately your responsibility
Check out these resources to help you navigate the 6 Ps:
-
This is a blog post of reflection on writing my book
-
Check out this slide deck of the 6 Ps
-
Building Relationships Through Video (my talk about writing)
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Imagine you’re a new SDR, and your manager tells you to ‘Shut up and dial!’ The experience for the person on the other end of the line is going to be less than exceptional, don’t you think?
In order to land promising meetings, we’ve got to stop measuring success by volume.
In this episode, Ernest Owusu — retired NFL athlete turned Sales Development Leader at 6sense — talks to me about…
-
Why volume shouldn’t define an SDR’s success
-
4 sales development tactics that aren’t going anywhere
-
Best practices for hiring and onboarding SDRs
-
The 3 C’s that SDRs need to offer exceptional CX
Follow Ernest on LinkedIn or Twitter @theernestowusu.
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
What should your first 30, 60, and 90 days in a new CX role focus on? Be prepared for most of your time to be spent listening.
In this episode, I interview Jeff Breunsbach, Director of Customer Experience at Higher Logic and Founder at Gain Grow Retain, about designing a peer-to-peer community that goes beyond online.
What we talked about:
-
The relationship between customer experience, community, and customer success
-
The vision underlying Gain Grow Retain
-
The first 90 days in a new CX role
-
Creating a peer-to-peer community
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- The Gain Grow Retain Podcast
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Customer success’s job is to close the little loop — to solve the individual’s problem. But it’s the role of product marketing to close the big loop and adapt company strategy by listening to and acting on the voice of the customer.
In this episode, I interview Lauren Culbertson, Cofounder & CEO at LoopVOC, about how companies can unify their teams around the voice of the customer.
Lauren and I chat about:
-
The 2 loops and how to close them
-
Sources of customer feedback (the importance of natural language processing)
-
Where to position VOC in your org
-
Data sources and segmentation: NPS, online reviews, and Salesforce notes
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Every business is a relationship business. It's really important to humanize a brand, especially when the brand is financial because finance can be very complex and impersonal.
When it comes to recasting a large-scale event into a webinar, it turns out that video networking is really effective.
In this episode, I interview Bo Brustkern who is the co-founder and CEO at LendIt Fintech, about his love for and strategic use of video.
Bo talked with me about:
-
Why entrepreneurs should feel optimistic about FinTech in 2021
-
The strategy for transforming in-person events into personal virtual events
-
The life-and-death pivot his company made in the last 12 months
-
Why he always uses video to share bad news
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
If one of your goals for 2021 includes writing, publishing, and selling a book, you might be looking for a roadmap right about now.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show. I am here today to share Part 1 of the 6 P's of Writing, Publishing, and Selling Your Book.
A very quick overview:
-
The 6 P's: purpose, proposal, process, publishing, people, and promotion
-
Purpose is knowing why you are writing
-
You absolutely need to write a book proposal
-
Your new mantra for the writing process
Check out these resources to help you navigate the 6 P's:
-
This is a blog post of reflection on writing my book
-
Check out this slide deck of the 6 P's
-
Building Relationships Through Video (my talk about writing)
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Would you gateway your product behind requiring anyone who signs up to have a 30-minute conversation with one of your two founders? As in, you won’t sell to them unless they agree to talk to you?
Eric and David did, and it utterly changed how they thought about value.
In this episode, I interviewed Eric Crane, Cofounder and COO at Flatfile, about how he and his team constructed a whole new picture of customer success based on customer experience and value. Eric talked with me about:
-
The relationship between customer experience and customer success
-
The impetus behind his conversation strategy — and its outcomes
-
2 new ways to think about the human/machine relationship
-
What a COO in a SaaS company does all day long
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Purpose is your reason for being — why you do what you do. But noble purpose means that what you do is in the service of others. When you have a noble sales purpose, your reason for serving others sits at the center of your commercial model. And that changes everything.
In this episode, I interview Lisa Earle McLeod, Founder and Keynote Speaker at McLeod & More, Inc., about how noble selling purpose utterly changes CX and EX for the better.
Lisa shared so many actionable pieces of wisdom in our conversation. Here are 3 things you can do immediately and for free:
-
Find and share your customer impact stories
-
Ask how the customer will be different as a result of doing business with you
-
Open every meeting with 90 seconds featuring one of your customers to bring them to life for your team
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Lisa is the author of Selling with Noble Purpose
-
Lisa is a LinkedIn Learning instructor with courses like Leading with Purpose
-
Follow Lisa for her “Work on Purpose” newsletter
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Customer experience usually manifests in a one-to-many or a one-to-few relationship style. But personal experience (PX) is CX on a one-to-one basis.
After all, people don’t care about brands. We care about the people behind the brand.
In this episode, I interview Greg Segall, CEO & Founder of Alyce, about how personal experience (PX) helps shorten sales cycles and build trust.
Greg and I talked about:
-
The relationship between CX and PX
-
Video, gift-giving, and creating relationship with a brand
-
Tips for PX at high volume (hint: also includes video)
-
The role of purpose in an entrepreneurial mindset
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
People are coming to your website because they actually want to evaluate you. Who you are online is something that absolutely impacts your business — whether positively or negatively, depending on how you’ve scaled.
In this episode, I interview Nicholas Holland, General Manager and Vice President of Marketing Hub at HubSpot, about marketing considerations for improving website experiences.
Nicholas talked with me about:
-
Why websites are so crucially undervalued right now
-
The metrics that matter in on-site experiences
-
What’s ahead for marketers in 2021
-
Free vs. freemium at HubSpot and beyond
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Discovering the Aha moment in your business is a big deal. It can affect the entire course of the customer experience because it creates impressions that your customers can feel, remember, and act on.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share some things I’ve learned about Aha moments.
You can hear me talk a bit about:
-
The reasons our team has sent about half a million personal videos
-
The Aha moment with video messages
-
Resources for understanding the Aha moment in your org
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Nobody likes to be sold to. (Not even sellers, if they’re honest.) Instead of being a sale, customers want a specific solution that originates from their current mindset.
In this episode, I interview Kristin Zhivago, Founder and President at Zhivago Partners, about mindset-driven marketing, otherwise known as selling the way that customers actually want to buy.
Kristin talked with me about:
-
How COVID-19 inspired Kristin to formulate mindset-driven marketing
-
Why so many companies don’t deliver on their promises
-
Customer interviews & mindset immersion
-
Selling successfully when nobody likes being sold to
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Kristin’s book is Roadmap to Revenue
-
Learn about mindset-driven-marketing: introduction, example, how to sell
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Customer retention has always been important, but nowadays it feels absolutely vital. Trust, honesty, and relationship are the 3 broad categories of customer retention — but how to boil them down into actionable tenets?
In this episode, I interview Gowri Ramkumar, Customer Relationship Manager at Document360, about her guiding philosophy for customer support.
Gowri and I talk about…
-
The relationship between customer experience & customer success
-
How sales teams should act like doctors
-
How honesty is required at every single level of communication
-
How trust comes first
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- Gowri’s podcast is Knowledgebase Ninjas
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
How can I make people feel like the experience is just for them?
You’d think this question pertains to customer experience — and it does — but it originated from a Magic Moments mindset. As in, actual stage magic.
In this episode, I interview Jeff Kaylor, Fortune 500 Keynote Speaker at JeffKaylor.com and Cofounder at the Magic Estate, about how to bring wonder back into customer experience.
What we talked about:
-
Deliberately creating wonder
-
Planning customer experience by anticipating memory
-
An unforgettable magician is someone fully present
-
The magic moments mindset
Check out this resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Jeff’s forthcoming book is called “Create Magic: Transforming Your Everyday Interactions Into Magical Moments”
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
It’s not just a box of cornflakes. It reflects something about you as a parent far beyond ingredients, taste, and health benefits.
How does your breakfast cereal make you feel about yourself?
In this episode, I interview Susan Meier, Founder and Principal at Susan Meier Studio, about creativity and brand strategy:
Susan & I discuss:
-
The relationship between brand and customer experience
-
What people are really afraid of about creativity
-
The pervasive contempt of design as a waste of time
-
The Venn diagram of customer research and customer needs
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Electrifyyourwork.com
-
Patagonia
-
Doximity
-
Tony Petito, Singapore Repertory Theatre (& the email)
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
You need to acknowledge that employee experience (i.e. happiness) is a bridge to customer experience.
In this episode, I interview Stacy Sherman, the Head of Customer Experience & Employee Engagement at Schindler Elevator and the Founder at DoingCXRight, about the EX/CX intersection.
Stacy and I chatted about:
-
The role of video in EX and CX communication (one of my favorite topics)
-
The heart and science approach to interest in CX
-
Why Stacy spends nights and weekends on elevating the customer-centric culture
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Two sets of customers don’t equal just two customer experiences. Customer experiences are myriad — especially in B2B healthcare technology, where your customers can grow 5x in a month.
In this episode, I interview James Lloyd, Co-Founder and CTO at Redox, about serving both his customers (healthcare software vendors) and his customers’ customers (health systems).
James talked with me about:
-
Managing multiple user experiences
-
What healthcare can learn from other markets & vice versa
-
The wild & mysterious world of telehealth
-
What is the cynefin framework, anyway?
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
You may think you’re selling products or services, but you aren’t. You’re actually selling decisions — and good feelings about decisions.
In this episode, I interview Master Hypnotist Paul Ross, CEO and Head Trainer at Subtle Words That Sell, about how to master selling using the power of language.
Paul shared about:
-
How to imply a mutual relationship in your first sentence
-
Being crafty and sincere at the same time
-
The power of counterexamples in helping reframe a situation
-
3 things that neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) does
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Paul’s book: Subtle Words That Sell
-
Paul will teach you to destroy your prospect’s objections
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Acquisitions are often times of stress and disruption, to say the least.
Our most recent podcast guest casts new light on one of my favorite themes — that a good employee experience is a necessary precursor to a good customer experience — from the perspective of acquisitions and mergers.
In this episode, I interview Isabelle Papoulias, CMO at Mediafly, about her 3 tips for a smooth acquisition process.
Isabelle talked about:
-
Customer experience means delight & consistency
-
Her double acquisition story
-
Top 3 lessons, including checking your biases
-
Her role transitions from Sales Director to VP of Marketing to CMO
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
To celebrate the 100th episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, I decided to make you an Epic Takes Mixtape.
I watched every video clip from the first 99 episodes and selected 10 that I thought were transcendent. They reach beyond the day-to-day and speak to our humanity, our goals, and our dreams.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share 10 amazing clips about being a better human.
In this episode, you’ll hear from these 10 guests:
-
Joey Coleman, author of Never Lose a Customer Again
-
David Cancel, founder and CEO of Drift
-
Levi Ayriss, VP of Northwest Field Operations at Dutch Bros Coffee
-
Paula Hayes, founder, President, and CEO of Hue Noir Cosmetics
-
Mat Sweezey, Director of Market Strategy at Salesforce
-
Gil Cohen, Founder of Employee Experience Design
-
Rachel Ostrander, Director of Runner Experience at Brooks Running
-
Sangram Vajre, cofounder and Chief Evangelist at Terminus
-
Darin Dawson, cofounder and President at BombBomb
-
Todd Hockenberry, sales consultant, advisor, and coach at Top Line Results and coauthor of Inbound Organization
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The CX gap is a misalignment between CX and the C-Suite… and it’s the major reason that CX programs fail.
Why? Failure to make the data relevant.
In this episode, I interview Ian Luck, VP of Global Marketing at CustomerGauge, about bridging the CX gap and making customer-centric decisions based on accurate CX data.
In this episode, you’ll learn about...
-
What lies at the heart of the CX gap
-
The 3 biggest CX mistakes (long surveys, ROI, & data distribution)
-
Achieving alignment between C-suite & CX
-
The NPS & CX Benchmarks Report
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- CustomerGage’s 2018 NPS® & CX Benchmarks Report
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play,or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Cannabis dispensaries, being designated essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, have had to pivot how they interact with customers. From online delivery to seed-to-sale tracking, businesses in the cannabis, hemp, and CBD space care deeply about providing a customer experience that is, above all, transparent.
In this episode, I interview Nina Simosko, Chief Commercial Officer at Akerna, about transparency in the customer experience for cannabis dispensaries.
Listen in as Nina and I discuss…
-
Why the trend toward transparency is here to stay
-
How Akerna came to receive inquiries about garbanzo beans and leafy greens
-
How to adapt culturally to pandemic-based challenges in the employee experience
-
What the role of a Chief Commercial Officer is
-
What Nina learned in large companies that serves her well today
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
User experience refers to how a human interacts with a computer (also known as human-computer interaction or HCI).
Within the last 20 years, user experience has completely recontextualized customer experience because so many of the touchpoints humans have with businesses are, well, digital.
In this episode, I interview Bob Berry, Principal User Experience Researcher at AnswerLab, about the ins and outs of UX.
You’ll hear Bob & I discuss…
-
How UX drives all the business outcomes we can imagine
-
Who has the gold standard of UX
-
What the UX is like at an all-virtual construction company
-
3 fantastic cautions about sensitive areas of being contactless
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Customer experience is the emotions that a customer feels about your organization. The gateway to strengthening the positive emotions of your consumers is great storytelling.
In this episode, I interview Michael Ashford, Director of Marketing at The Receptionist, about the importance of storytelling in marketing.
Listen to Michael and I discuss...
-
What it means to build heroic content
-
Dos and don’ts of marking using car commercial examples
-
Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand
-
How storytelling begins with intentional listening
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Customer experience is created when 5 elements work in concert: intention, investment, invention, inspection, and iterations.
Each one of these elements has a different type of influence over customer experience as well as leadership and employee engagement. What are they and how do they work together?
In this episode, I interview Jim Rembach, the host of the Fast Leader Podcast and the B2B Digital Marketer Podcast, President at Influence to Action, and Founder at Call Center Coach, about employee engagement and emotional intelligence.
In this episode, you’ll learn about...
-
The 5 I’s (Intention, Investment, Invention, Inspection, Iteration)
-
How we ruin incredible individual contributors by promoting them
-
Difference management is different than diversity
-
The 7 aspects of employee engagement & how that circles back to emotional intelligence
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
MHS - Multi-HealthSystems
-
Dr. Steven Stein (MHS)
-
Jim Harter (Gallup) “It’s The Manager”
-
DDI - Development Dimensions International
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Please email me about this podcast. I would truly love to hear from you.
I’m not kidding. My email is ethan@bombbomb.com.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share what I’ve learned from podcast guests about customer feedback.
What you’ll hear about:
-
How to make the bad good & the good better
-
Why I value customer feedback so highly
-
Sources of customer feedback that you might have overlooked
-
Episodes that focus specifically on handling feedback
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
To be a good community builder, you have to leverage strategy. Building a community gives businesses and organizations not only a thriving group of customer advocates but also a space to listen to and test out new ideas about the service or product.
But there’s an art to taking the customer experience from ‘I have a problem’ to ‘I am now an advocate of this platform.’
In this episode, I interview Joe Huber, Customer Community Strategist at Sprout Social, about 3 best practices of a great community builder.
What we talked about:
-
The relationship between customer experience & community
-
Practice 1: Build thriving spaces where people ask questions about the product with one another
-
Practice 2: Leverage the spaces to test out new content ideas & themes
-
Practice 3: Layer community members’ public feedback into the product design
-
Bonus: Common problems in client community building
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- Joe is a fellow podcast host at the Chicago Customer Success Podcast
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
What’s a ghost kitchen & why will we be seeing more of them in the next 12 months?
Among the industries that have adapted the most during the pandemic are restaurants and commercial real estate owners (and in a fight, restaurants would win). We have much to learn about CX from their innovations.
In this episode, I interview Alex Grace, Head of Market Sales and Operations at Fooda, about adaptability and innovation in restaurants.
We talked about:
-
The impact of safety restrictions on restaurants & corporate offices
-
What a ghost kitchen is
-
New dining trends & customer behaviors
-
What restaurants can do now to meet customer expectations for adaptability
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Play, and find more episodes on our blog.
Engagement is the moment when customers and prospects interact with the brand. From that moment on, the reality of being that brand’s customer becomes the customer experience.
Without effective engagement, there is no customer experience.
In this episode, I interview Nema Hashemi, Director of Sales at Contentstack, about creating engagement between customers and brand and alignment between content and code.
What we talked about:
-
The relationship between customer experience & engagement
-
What, exactly, is headless CMS?
-
How sales is involved in customer success, aka internal alignment
-
The present need to move as fast as possible on content
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Buyers barely even read the product description anymore. 96% of us scroll right to the reviews because we want to predict what our buying experience will be like.
The last thing we want is for an organization to over promise and under deliver. We long for transparency.
In this episode, I interview Todd Caponi, Founder at Sales Melon and author of The Transparency Sale, about why transparency sells better than 5.0 ratings.
What we talked about:
-
How leading with your flaws appeals to the buyer’s brain
-
Sales theory from the 1920s… still valid?
-
Why buyers spend 61% of their time investigating your claims
-
Personalization & value will help your communication stand out
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
You already believe that sending video messages is one of the most successful ways to make you and your team members more visible to customers. But you’re a little iffy on exactly how to adopt video messages into your organization successfully.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share what I’ve learned about video messaging adoption from years with the BombBomb team.
What you’ll learn about:
-
The 4 stages of video adoption & their essential questions
-
How to overcome the discomfort of seeing yourself on video
-
Things people say when they’ve adopted video successfully
-
What it looks like in your organization when sending videos is normalized behavior
Check out these resources I mentioned during the podcast:
-
I wrote The Video Messaging Adoption Guide
-
I co-wrote Rehumanize Your Business
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Not everyone knows exactly what a Chief Customer Officer does. Even fewer realize that their role is to create delight at every point in the customer experience journey.
In this episode, I interview Alli Tiscornia, Chief Customer Officer at Sendoso, about her relentless focus on customer experience.
What we talked about:
-
Defining the Chief Customer Officer role & where they report
-
Retention and expansion as a more powerful and less expensive source of revenue growth than acquisition
-
Improving the employee experience and customer experience by being a partner, rather than a vendor
-
Turning employees and customers into marketers
-
Inviting your customers to your all-hands employee meetings
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
People buy from people they like, people they feel an emotional connection with.
But when our sales strategy is to launch directly into the pitch in the first conversation, we get feedback that our company is “too salesy.”
The flip side of that is a sales experience focused on human connection.
In this episode, I interview Tori Belkin, Senior Director of Sales and Sales Enablement at Ceros, about a human-first sales approach:
What we talked about:
What experiential content is & its role in sales
Taking a feelings-based approach to the customer experience
Why she hires reps based on the airport test
The importance of conversation & connection before the sales pitch
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
Tori gave Simon Berg a shout-out as an inspiring leader
Guru’s customer success team is unparalleled
Tori’s LinkedIn
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
When your tech-oriented customer base is growing faster than you can hire your customer support staff, you have a big CX problem.
Obviously, the solution is to create an internal training program from scratch, right?
In this episode, I interview Richard Myers, Vice President of Customer Support & Success at Linode, about developing his CS training team.
What we talked about:
-
The integral part that CS plays in customer experience
-
Ricks’ decision to create a internal training program from scratch
-
The 72-day onboarding process for new hires
-
How Linode’s core values equip CS to problem solve for customers
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Rick’s post on “Why You Need a Support Training Team”
-
Rick’s shoutout to Steve Clemens
-
B&H Photo Video is a place doing customer experience excellently
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
64% of all event planners have never done a virtual or hybrid event before. About 60% of attendees have never been to a virtual or hybrid event. Those numbers are from just a few weeks ago.
How can we know what makes a great virtual event so that we can host one?
In this episode, I interview Corey McCarthy, the CMO at Socio, about how to host great virtual events.
What we talked about:
-
What it took Socio to pivot itself and its clients to virtual and hybrid events
-
The characteristics of a great virtual event (including why you need an emcee)
-
Marketing insights for rethinking the customer journey during a pandemic
-
Creating communities, even virtual ones, increases brand loyalty and creates evangelists
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Socio.events
-
Corey on LinkedIn
-
Steve Axel on LinkedIn
-
Who Gives a Crap
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
We all want to belong to a tribe. The greatest way to grow your business is not to build your brand or throw events — it’s to grow a community around the solution to a problem.
In this episode, I interview Sangram Vajre, Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder at Terminus, about how he created the category of and community around account-based marketing (ABM).
We cover:
-
A lightning round discussion of the 10 rules of category creation
-
What unbranding really means (& how to do it)
-
The reasons to promote people, not products
-
How Sangram’s goal to educate about a problem created a movement
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
ABM is B2B, Sangram’s most recent book
-
The #FlipMyFunnel movement that Sangram originated
-
The #FlipMyFunnel Podcast, well into its 600th episode
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created a variety of crises and challenges at each of its 3 stages. Though the pandemic persists, its consequences are more clear and the crises become more manageable. As we enter a post-crisis phase (Jun 2020-Dec 2021), we must focus on the systems we’ve put in place to communicate with customers in terms of both how they’ve changed and how they must further evolve.
In this episode, Brian Gilman, Vice President of Solutions Marketing at Vonage, shares his perspective on the 3 pillars of post-crisis communications — and what has to change forever.
What we talked about:
-
The permanent changes to customer communication systems
-
Why we say goodbye to “future proofing” (and perhaps to long sales cycles)
-
How to make the immediate shift to fast implementation and decisions
-
The 3 pillars of the post-crisis period: replacement for work from home, fail overs for continuity, and augmentation
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Video meetings are more than likely here to stay. They’re exhausting, though — way beyond mere eyestrain. If more of us are going to work remotely, we need to implement these 3 ways to overcome “Zoom fatigue.”
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share actionable ways to improve your video meetings.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to…
-
Schedule a 25 minute meeting to give yourself a built-in break
-
Quit multitasking during meetings & get permission to look out the window
-
Record a video message rather than having a video meeting
-
Free your time & attention from so many video meetings
Check out these resources I mentioned during the podcast:
-
My book teaches you how to Rehumanize Your Business with video
-
Watch me talk about Zoom Fatigue on the news
-
Learn 6 steps toward better meetings
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
During COVID-19, businesses need to recognize that hearing from and listening to customers has never been more important. Your customers need to feel safe if you’re reopening.
To make customer experience the core of your business, you need to focus on the 4 truths of CX: it should be 1) differentiated, 2) easy, 3) visible, and 4) authentic.
In this episode, I interview Aaron Weiche, CEO at GatherUp and host of the Saas Venture Podcast, about the 4 truths and how to apply them tactically.
What we talked about:
-
Why listening to the customer should be a core part of your business
-
Prospective customers’ focus on reviews and need to hear from current customers
-
Data collection without lowering customer friction is not the win you think it is
-
Psychologically, a 4.78 is more attractive than a 5.0 review
-
3 tactical spaces you should provide opportunity for customer feedback
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Employee experience is the sum of all the touchpoints you have with your employer organization — which equals millions of touches.
Why, then, have 40% of managers not even checked in on how their employees are doing during the pandemic?
In this episode, I interview Gil Cohen, Founder at Employee Experience Design, about intentionality in crafting the employee experience.
What we talked about:
-
How to design for the 8 aspects of employee wellness
-
Why employee experience starts before hiring process
-
How an investment in EX as an investment in your bottom line
-
Why intentionality matters in designing EX
-
Where the best place in your organization is to start an EX initiative
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Customer experience shouldn’t be an afterthought. Unless you’ve intentionally built it into your organization’s core, you probably aren’t offering an especially frictionless customer experience.
Wait, what’s so bad about friction?
In this episode, I interview Anthony Coundouris, the founder of run_frictionless and author of run_frictionless, about removing friction by aligning 4 quadrants in your business.
What we talked about:
-
How to reduce friction by designing to and operating from the four quadrants
-
Why you should ignore your competitors and focus on customer expiry
-
How to attract and hire people based on shared beliefs
-
Why 70% of buying decisions are based out of Q3 (Who We Are) and how to insulate yourself by inspiring irrational buying forces
-
How to uncover wild inconsistencies between what sales leaders think they’re selling and what’s actually for sale
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Data literacy is knowing how to read and understand data — such as the difference between a histogram and a flow chart. Data maturity is knowing how to use data to make decisions — like giving your customers what they want the most.
Right now, a time of great change, is the perfect opportunity to invest in growing a data culture so that in the post-pandemic world, you’ll have both the data literacy and the data maturity to thrive.
In this episode, I interview Piyanka Jain, President and CEO of Ayrng, about how to build data literacy and create citizen analysts.
What we talked about:
-
The definition of data literacy and its relationship to data maturity
-
How data maturity is like making falafel
-
Why a healthy data culture is foundational to crafting customer experience
-
Why data personas precede data literacy
-
Best practices for improving data literacy (3 problems to overcome)
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
- Ayrng’s data scientist and citizen analyst Academy
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
When there’s a face present, 70% of our gaze goes straight to it.
The problem that recorded video solves right now is the problem that it’s always solved. Video connects you to people in an immediate and intimate way that faceless digital communication scientifically cannot do. In this episode, I’m excited to unpack some of the science about video that I shared recently at Narrative Science’s Data Storytelling Virtual Summit.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share what I’ve learned about the science of video from 3 amazing podcast guests.
What we talked about:
-
Our essential human interest in faces (and how our attention wanes when we see a profile instead
-
The way that video makes us think we’re in close proximity emotionally
-
How video jumpstarts social bonding
-
The metric that I argue matters most in communication today
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Dan Hill on Faces http://vid.us/hqpw9j
-
David Meerman Scott on Proximity http://vid.us/2521tx
-
Vanessa Van Edwards on Connection http://vid.us/a0x55t
-
Ethan Beute on the Science of Video http://vid.us/a0x55t
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Our ideas about customer experience have probably changed drastically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Customer experience is no longer just about getting value from a service or experience. It’s actually about helping each other survive.
When customer experience is that essential to keeping our livelihoods and lives safe, we have to revisit its deepest foundation: relationships.
In this episode, I interview Todd Hockenberry, Consultant, Advisor, and Coach at Top Line Results, about customer centricity and inbound organization.
What we talked about:
-
Alignment is actually about teamwork
-
True customer-centricity means knowing more about the customer than they know about themselves
-
A traditional playbook is just frustrating your reps & customers
-
We are all connected, and no one can succeed alone
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Dan’s book is Inbound Organization
-
His coauthor Dan Tyre was also a guest on the Customer Experience Podcast
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The only two currencies in the world are dollars and emotions. Emotion is also an often overlooked component of customer experience. When it comes to human emotions, the face is the window to the soul, meaning that facial expressions — if you know how to read them — truly reveal what is happening on the emotional scale.
The insight that there are 7 emotions in terms of facial coding and that only one of them is truly positive will help companies shape the customer experience and the employee experience.
In this episode, I interview Dan Hill, President of Sensory Logic and author about all things EQ, to hear about how video can unlock human emotion.
What we talked about:
-
3 tips for framing your face properly in video
-
One person on camera is better than two … or three … or more
-
Our buying choices stem from desiring pleasure and avoiding danger
-
The less you see of the face, the less your brain fires
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Emotionomics: Leveraging Emotions for Business Success
-
Famous Faces Decoded: A Guidebook for Reading Others
-
First Blush: People’s Intuitive Reactions To Famous Art
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Everyone tracks some form of data. (We track quite a lot of it if we’re rolling with the times.) But amassing data isn’t meaningful unless we can create a narrative out of the facts.
For example, if you just looked at the cold data of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’d start to feel pretty hopeless, but if the data started to produce fact-based stories, we humans would start to be able to understand it and use it to make decisions.
Even greater than comprehending data using narrative is creating community with data. Our guest today is an expert at both, a person who spends most of her time analyzing not just what the data is saying but how it can serve people by connecting customers not just to her company, but to each other.
In this episode, I interview Stef Caldwell, the Senior Customer Success Leader and Community Architect at Narrative Science, about customer experience and customer success.
What we talked about:
-
What your data can and can’t tell you about your customers
-
What the relationship is between CS and CX
-
Why we must scale the human touch in Customer Success
-
Why to create community around your core beliefs
-
How Stef founded Manifest to address the missing rung — the first step that carries women into management
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Manifest
-
Lululemon
-
Goal setting with Michael Hyatt
-
James Clear’s Atomic Habits
-
Charles Duhigg’s Power of Habit
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
We always talk about brand as a collection of promises that a company is making to its customers. At the end of the day, brand really comes down to the essence of a company.
However, if the people spending the money on the advertising do not have a strong bond with the people delivering that customer experience — the ones facing the customers — you have a catastrophic breakdown between promise and delivery.
Employee experience is customer experience if employees believe in the brand they are hired to represent.
In this episode, I interview Chris Wallace, Cofounder and President at InnerView Group, about marketing and branding to employees, not just customers.
A few of the takeaways:
-
Build employee satisfaction to drive customer satisfaction — an upward spiral
-
Avoid brand dilution by closing the gap between your brand promise and your customer experience
-
Infuse your team with a sense of pride and purpose in their work and in your company
-
Techniques & strategies for improving employee experience
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Now more than ever, having a focus on the customer experience matters. If we're not empathetic to what our customers are going through, we won’t just not make a sale, we’ll make an enemy. This timely reminder underscores the importance of customer data as an avenue for relating to the deep needs of the customer.
You’ve heard of account-based marketing and selling… Account-based information ties into the customer experience just as closely.
In this episode, I interview Shanee Ben-Zur, Head of Marketing, Media, & Growth at Crunchbase, about using data to develop fuller pictures of your customers:
What we talked about:
-
Shanee’s A/B test strategy and project team
-
CX touches wants, needs, and desires - not just finances
-
Organizing and interpreting customer interviews
-
Deeply understanding who the customer is means recognizing their stress & problem solving from a desire to help
-
If you can’t measure it, should you be doing it?
-
Where sales meets marketing meets product
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Brand experience is a promise that the buying experience will match the perceived value of the brand. Therefore, brand experience — education, enrichment, and human connection — begins well before a customer becomes a customer.
When a prospect believes that the brand and the buying experience will match and when that expectation is met… a premium brand is born.
In this episode, I interview Ed Breault, CMO at Aprimo, about developing his brand experience strategy.
What we talked about:
-
Customer experience as a promise
-
His mission to rehumanize the brand experience at Aprimo
-
Achieving “extraordinary influence” within your target accounts
-
Personal brands as the new corporate brand
-
Doing your best work within your “life flow”
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Ed was profiled on DMNews 40Under40
-
He explains the impact of Rehumanize Your Business
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Think of five salespeople you know. Imagine their names and faces. Odds are, at least two of them are struggling with their mental health.
But no one’s really talking about mental health in sales, even though survey research has shown that over 40% of salespeople struggle with mental health.
In this episode, I interview Jeff Riseley, the founder of the Sales Health Alliance, about his passion to create more awareness around mental health in sales — and to help salespeople and sales leaders navigate stressful sales situations in a mentally healthy way to increase performance.
What we talked about:
-
The ROI of investing in mental health
-
The difference between having “luck” and “feeling lucky”
-
The impact of setting sales quotas your reps aren’t likely to hit
-
Thinking about salespeople as “corporate athletes”
-
Jeff’s personal story of mental health awareness and advocacy
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Start Talking PDF
-
Sales Gratitude Journal PDF
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
“People will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.” This quote from Maya Angelou embodies the heart of customer experience.
It’s simplifying the concept to say that customer experience is how you make people feel, but I think it may not be too simple. The essence of customer experience tends to be incorrectly focused on getting customers to do something, but the underlying cause of nearly all of our actions is whether we feel seen, heard, and appreciated.
In other words, if we feel connected, we’ll act.
I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to continue the ongoing conversation of what customer experience is and how it builds relationships.
What I talk about:
-
The definition of customer experience
-
Getting people to do something is the outcome of how they feel
-
Attitudes & feelings toward team members, products & services, and the problem that brought you into a relationship
-
The way you operate bolsters relationship in multiple directions
Check out these resources I mentioned during the podcast:
-
Rehumanize Your Business
-
Ep. 56 on The Customer Experience Podcast
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
The customer experience often starts at or near the buying experience. So, today, we’re talking about creating and delivering better buying experiences.
Every one of us experiences some version of buyer’s remorse every time we make a purchase. Strategizing about creating a buyer’s experience not just to mitigate the buyer’s remorse but to empower the buyer is a huge component of customer experience.
Our guest brings more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience in digital marketing and tech, most often as the Director of Business Development but also as a two-time company founder. He founded his latest company, SalesReach, because “buyers have changed, salespeople matter, and marketing shouldn’t have all the fun.”
In this episode, I interview Josh Fedie, Founder at SalesReach and host of The Founders Mentality, about crafting his company to make better buying experiences..
What we talked about:
-
Customer experience has to do with feelings
-
2 ways to think about personalization
-
Product-driven organization vs. a sales- and marketing-driven organization
-
Strategies for getting started with video
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Josh’s LinkedIn video about video
-
Ep. 40, “The Biggest Transformation in Prospecting in 30 Years,” w/ Dan Tyre
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
We’re neck deep in the Coronavirus pandemic, but digital communication gives us the power to stay connected while we’re physically separated. Should customer communication channels change during a time of crisis?
In this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, my guest and I discuss how digital chat (both live and bot) and video are affected by COVID-19. Listen in as I talk with my first return guest, Samantha Stone, the Founder and CMO of The Marketing Advisory Network and the author of Unleash Possible, about customer communication channels in a time of crisis.
What we talked about:
-
Customer communication channels — including the chat experience
-
The power of video to stay connected even when we’re social distancing
-
Crisis communication through the lens of the Coronavirus pandemic
-
Why we’re so far from gender equality in 2020
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Basically, CX is in a pretty bad state. Stagnating macro studies on customer experience like the CXI metric are just one indicator…
In other words, the so-called “Big CX Dream” has failed to live up to its billing.
In this episode, we talked about some of the soft spots and even illusions in the modern Customer Experience movement… Ben Smithwell joins us on The Customer Experience Podcast!
Ben is the Director and CX/Service Design Principal at Comotion and the Director and CX/Service Design Strategist at Smithwell.
What we talked about:
-
The Spock vs. Kirk customer experience battle
-
The evidence showing that the Big CX Dream has failed to live up to its billing
-
The tendency to treat CX as an ideology rather than a discipline
-
The tool-led rather than expertise-driven nature of CX
-
The human factor that can help fulfill the Big CX Dream
Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:
-
Ben’s TEDx Talk about removing bullies
-
My TEDx Talk about the Flight Back to the Face
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Product usage is a vanity metric.
Actually, product usage is just one of 15 factors that companies should use to build a picture of their organization’s health. These belong in four “buckets” that show what to track instead to create a risk profile for each account (likelihood to renew or churn).
In this episode, I interview Chris Hicken, cofounder and CEO at ‘nuffsaid, about what tracking product usage is (and isn’t) good for.
What we talked about:
-
4 main buckets: Customer Maturity, The Product, The Experience, The Pricing
-
Why the CS leader should own more go-to-market strategy in the future
-
Considerations for product-led growth, sales-led growth, and marketing-led growth
-
Why free and freemium may not be a good fit
-
Considerations for going up market from SMB to Enterprise
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
How do you envision the customer lifecycle? Is it linear or circular? The latter is your best bet if you want lifelong customers. And it’s as easy as ABC...DE, then repeat.
If you’re stumped on what this means for your sales and marketing team, this episode is for you.
Wes Schaeffer, author, speaker, and Founder at The Sales Whisperer, stopped by The Customer Experience Podcast to break down this circular approach to the customer lifecycle.
What we talked about:
-
What an ideal customer lifecycle looks like – courtesy of BMW
-
How the ABCDE process works
-
When to use automation vs. personal touch
-
Why doing things that can’t scale is important
-
How to keep the personal and the human in the sales process
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
If you’re looking to grow your business, then having a raving fan base can help you get you there. Passion is contagious, and they are passionate about what you have to offer.
So, as your fandom flourishes, so will your company.
To accomplish this, you have to give people an experience they’ll always remember – one built on human connection. And that’s hard to do.
But you can’t have truly invested fans without it.
Fortunately, our guest on this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, David Meerman Scott, knows a thing or two about what it takes to create a solid company fanbase.
Reasons to Listen:
- Why real (not virtual) human connection is vital to business success
- What the underpinnings of Fanocracy consist of
- Why giving things away for free is beneficial to making more fans
- How to increase face-to-face proximity with current and potential fans through video
- When data obsession gets in the way of human connection
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- The New Rules of Marketing and PR
- Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead
- Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
Because you're listening to this podcast, I can make one pretty good guess about you… You’re a learner. You intentionally seek out information, meaning that you actively learn as a regular part of your life.
I'll go out on another limb and say that in your week to week — at work, at home, or somewhere else — you’re probably also in a teaching role. In other words, you’re both a learner and a teacher. (To my mind, this is also called leadership.) I've got something fabulous for you in this episode that I think you’re going to enjoy as much as I have. It's called Bloom's Taxonomy.
My name is Ethan Beute, the Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, coauthor of Rehumanize Your Business, the host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and the cohost of the CX series on the B2B Growth Show. In this episode, I’ll be sharing my love for learning and how Bloom’s Taxonomy can deepen your understanding of how and why we know what we know.
What I talk about:
- How I first became aware of Bloom’s Taxonomy
- A brief history and overview of how the taxonomy has evolved
- What the 6 layers of learning are
- Why Bloom’s Taxonomy matters in your day-to-day
Check out our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.
If you want your business to grow and succeed, it needs to be built on a solid foundation of relationships. Obviously. However, creating connection with the right people can be quite difficult — even damaging — if you go about it the wrong way. What if I told you that creating connection is as simple as collaborating with anyone you want to know to create valuable content?
This very episode of the Customer Experience Podcast is both a consequence of and a demonstration of content-based networking. About four years ago, I created some content with someone who is now my friend. It’s a relationship that grew relatively slowly. It took a couple of years of content collaboration before any deals were made. But this is what content-based networking is all about: making content with people with the aim of creating a connection that could turn into future business. You really have nothing to lose with this approach. Worst-case scenario – you end up with stellar content and new relationships.
I’m so honored to introduce you to my friend James Carbary, Founder of Sweet Fish Media, host of B2B Growth, and author of Content-Based Networking.
What we talked about:
- Improving CX with content-based networking
- Making your own luck to create valuable content and meaningful interactions
- Focusing on the process of building relationships instead of the outcomes
- Taking a journalistic approach to content creation
- Balancing online connection with offline connection
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- James was inspired by Never Lose a Customer again by Joey Coleman and all the books by Gary Vaynerchuk
- James’s book is Content-Based Networking
- I’ve interviewed James before at BombBomb HQ.
- He’s interviewed me twice at B2B Growth (Ep 248 and Ep 381).
Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.
As the customer experience evolves, so do our motives.
Consumers are no longer motivated by a great piece of content (if they ever were). They’re motivated as long as you can offer them the best solution at the most essential time.
In fact, the director of market strategy at Salesforce — Mathew Sweezey — wrote an entire book on what exactly goes into context marketing. That book, entitled Context Marketing Revolution: How to Motivate Buyers in the Age of Infinite Media, lays out in detail how marketers can break through the world of endless noise we’ve built.
Luckily for us, Mathew was kind enough to hop on The Customer Experience Podcast and answer a few questions.
What we talk about:
- Why collaboration and executive buy-in make for top marketing performers
- How businesses can grow by way of holistic customer experience
- The origin of his new book, Context Marketing Revolution
- Why we’ve become immune to attention-based marketing
- How to take a human-centered approach to marketing
- The benefits of using video in a holistic CX
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- EF Schumacher - Small is Beautiful
- Searles, Locke Levine Weinberger - The Cluetrain Manifesto
- Pine & Gilmore - The Experience Economy
- Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Message
- Seth Godin - Permission Marketing
- Aldous Huxley - Island
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- Spotify
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- Google Play
When you constantly learn from the best, you become the best. Today we’re learning from some of the best salespeople, who know that the secret to improving customer experience is no secret at all. My most recent podcast guest spent a few years as a Marketing Director before becoming a Territory Manager for UPS, selling supply chain solutions. For the past decade, he’s been blowing out his quotas in sales and account management roles. He currently serves as a Manager of Strategic Accounts at Myriad Genetics.
On this episode, I interview Tyler Menke, Manager of Strategic Accounts at Myriad Genetics and author of The Pirate’s Guide to Sales: A Seller’s Guide for Getting from Why to Buy.
We chatted about everything from Simon Sinek, TED Talks, losing a parent, ending a book, and why medical sales are so hard to break into. You’ll also hear about:
- Our mutual adoration for Simon Sinek, Daniel Kahneman, and TED Talks
- Establishing VALUE
- How strategic accounts is like a quarterback
- What sales should understand about marketing
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
-
The Pirate’s Guide to Sales — Tyler’s book
-
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
-
TED Talks
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- Google Play
Three experience-based goals are the foundation of an amazing agency that builds the concept of experience right into its name: The Participation Agency.
- Translating digital experiences into lived experiences.
- Creating remarkable, resonant experiences without abandoning data and analytics.
- Building affinity between customers and brands through experience.
The extreme laser-focus on experience obviously caught my attention, but as I learned more about The Participation Agency, I saw that its success can be credited to the dedication and energy of the two founders… one of whom I got to interview on The Customer Experience Podcast.
She’s been named Inc’s Millennial CEO Rising Star and one of Adweek’s Disruptors, one of 39 women leading a revolution in advertising, media, and tech, and she’s also the co-founder and CEO of The Participation Agency — Ruthie Schulder.
We had such a great conversation about how experiential marketing builds brand awareness and ultimately relationships.
You’ll also hear about...
- Experiential marketing
- Definitions of placemaking and 360 marketing
- Why it took hustle to build the agency
- The experience Ruthie creates for her partners (clients)
- Why you don’t really need an MBA
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- Google Play
Experience differentiators were the subject of a recent LinkedIn post that grabbed my attention for the way it spoke to the heart of this podcast… aligning to invest in creating and delivering better experiences for our customers. I asked its author to be a guest on my podcast to hear more about his experience in operations, account management, biz dev, and sales roles.
I was so excited to interview Ned Arick, Account Executive at YourWelcome, after connecting with him because of his LinkedIn content.
Keep listening or reading below as Ned dives into what it really means to rewrite the narrative and how he keeps it real on his LinkedIn. The insights he shares will apply to everyone who wants to build relationships and keep the customer experience holistic.
What we talked about:
- Becoming “the educator” and not just the trusted advisor
- What his 12-year-old cousin has to do with hyper-competition
- How to actually rewrite the narrative
- What LinkedIn has done for Ned’s reputation (hint: it’s good)
- Ned’s testimonial about the humanizing power of video
Check out these 2 posts of Ned’s we mentioned during the podcast:
- A Look to 2020
- The Mindset of Charging Admission
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- Spotify
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- Google Play
The most economically valuable thing you can do is to meet customer expectations.
Meet the expectations. Not exceed customer expectations. Not surprise and delight your customers at every turn. Actually, the best way (economically and experientially) to serve your business and especially your customers is to meet their expectations.
I’m Ethan Butte, here today on The Customer Experience Podcast to share my appreciation for a book that I’m, yes, late to the party on. It’s called The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi.
The first chapter of The Effortless Experience starts out by calling out myths that tend to be overlooked by marketing, sales, and leadership — but which are highly relevant to these people and their organizations. There's so much focus on customer delight and the so-called “wow moments,” but not enough focus on something much simpler and more economically valuable: meeting customer expectations and reducing their effort.
- Delighting customers in the service channel does not pay.
- Customer service drives disloyalty, not loyalty.
- The key to mitigating disloyalty is reducing customer effort.
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi
- Matthew Dixon’s other coauthored books, The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer
- Episode 34 with Mike Redbord: 4 Things Every Customer Wishes You Understood About Them
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- Spotify
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- Google Play
Amaze every customer every time … that sounds like a promising foundation for a remarkable customer experience, doesn’t it? That’s the theme of the conversation you’re about to enjoy. My guest today is Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations and a customer service expert and speaker. He’s the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of six books, among which include:
- The Cult of the Customer
- The Amazement Revolution
- The Convenience Revolution
- Be Amazing or Go Home
In this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, I talk with Shep about what it means to be amazing, how amazement applies to the customer experience, and how to use video to beat expectations by just 10% each time, every time.
Shep has years of experience in customer service and has been a speaker on the topic for decades. Keep on reading as Shep dives into our discussion about how to deliver an amazing customer experience by being just slightly better than expectations — and about why “fine” is the danger zone for satisfied customers.
You’ll also hear:
- Why you have to exceed expectations by 10%
- How nothing’s changed in CX in 50 years
- Video techniques to deliver amazement
- Your brand is a promise
- How a car dealership amazed Shep with its superior customer service
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- Spotify
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- Google Play
Today, we’re talking about how people work. It’s no understatement to say that knowing how people think and what makes them tick is a must for everything from making sales to just holding conversations that uplift both sides.
I was incredibly excited to talk to Vanessa Van Edwards, Lead Investigator at Science of People and bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People.
In this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, we chatted about 3 types of people, why video is so important, how Vanessa still challenges herself to be authentic after 12 years on YouTube, and ways to open and close conversations. This episode is not to be missed for anyone who’s ever had to make boring small talk or wanted to know how to develop deeper connections faster.
What we talked about:
- Video produces oxytocin
- Video takes practice
- Dump the script when you’re recording
- Ways to open and close a conversation
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People by Vanessa Van Edwards
- Who’s Your City? by Richard Florida
- Vanessa’s TEDxLondon talk
- The Ambivert Quiz
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- Spotify
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- Google Play
A great employee experience begets a great customer experience. If you want to retain your best team members, you need to value them and invest in them. Today, we’re talking about investments in your sales team - training, coaching, and development. These are things that both make them better and demonstrate how you’re building them up. Did you know that 30% of sales reps get no coaching whatsoever? What does that say about their value in their company? (Exactly.)
I’m so pumped to bring Dave Kennett to the Customer Experience Podcast because he’s so on point with the importance of demonstrating value to sales reps through coaching. Dave Kennett, founder, and CEO of Replayz, also served as VP or Director of Sales, as well as VP or Director of Business Development,m in a variety of organizations in a nearly 20-year career so far.
What we talked about:
- Doing the spadework before the last day of the quarter
- Mentors are better than books
- 30% of sales reps aren’t being coached at all
- You’re going to be kicking yourself in a couple of years if you don’t start using video now
Check out these resources Dave made just for The Customer Experience Podcast listeners:
- How to navigate demos & discovery calls
Where to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast:
- iTunes or Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Google Play
- Google Podcasts
If you've been thinking at all about implementing video into your sales or CS process — and let’s face it, you pretty much can’t be a video denier anymore — you're going to love this episode.
There's been a ton of talk about video lately. Not that highly produced video with background music and a suite of hairstylists, but simple, personal video. Think about these casual and conversational videos as video voicemails.
I’m Ethan Beute, the cohost of the CX series on the B2B Growth Show and the host of the Customer Experience Podcast. I’m talking about adding video into your communication process on today’s episode because it’s the smart next step for you.
I’m going to tell you where to start. So, if you like the idea of video but you're not sure where it belongs, this episode will teach you 3 specific places to implement video and pro tips for how to make the video more effective.
You’ll also hear:
- Why video is great for apologies
- The good news that you don’t need a script
- What “evergreen” videos are
- Time and attention are gifts that can’t be faked
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- Apple Podcasts or iTunes
- Spotify
- Google Podcasts
- Google Play
Let’s drill into sales enablement.
Not just the important question of how we can best prepare our salespeople, but I’m talking here about how we set them up to serve our customers successfully? Sales isn’t about quotas; it’s about pursuing our clients’ success.
Which is why it’s completely apt that my guest on this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast was a customer who was absolutely delighted with Chorus.ai before becoming their VP of Sales. I recently talked with Joe Caprio, VP of Sales at Chorus, about sales best practices, sales enablement (and sales readiness), sales training, and more.
Joe and I discussed the true impact of sales engagement and how you can execute on the strategies Joe has implemented. Stay tuned in for:
- How to make your rookie BDRs as good as your veterans in half the time
- What it’s like to be your own ideal customer
- Time to productivity, productivity per person
- The dreaded Monday lecture
Bonus: Joe reveals what he wishes marketing knew about sales.
Human domination by superintelligences is pretty much the thing to be talking about, ever since the Golden Age of Sci-Fi. Has the passage of nearly 70 years since then made us more or less susceptible to Alexa, Cortana, Siri, and others like them?
That’s what William Ammerman, author of The Invisible Brand: Marketing in the Age of Automation, Big Data, and Machine Learning and the EVP of Digital Media at Engaged Media, came onto my podcast to explain.
We got into discussion about voice, AI, and machine learning, all of which are doing their part to draw us humans into empathic relationships with our devices... even while those devices are becoming better equipped to influence and persuade us. I mean, when a 4-year-old can use voice to search millions of songs in a music library — all without being able to read — then AI has come a long, long way from world domination.
Listen to this episode of The Customer Experience to hear William talk about what he means by invisible brands and how they massively impact marketers and consumers. You’ll also hear about:
- Psychotechnology and how it affects your buys
- “Googlenoia” (Google + Paranoia)
- How chain stores know whether you’re pregnant (before you tell your dad)
- Persuasion has become a science — but has it become an artificial intelligence yet?
We’ll also talk about what you’ll read about when you open The Invisible Brand.
Get more from The Customer Experience Podcast!
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The benefits of being a lifelong learner are priceless. But, have you ever considered learning more about a different profession in order to improve the work you do?
That’s exactly what Scott Barker has done on multiple occasions. Scott is the Head of Partnerships at Sales Hacker and the host of The Sales Engagement Podcast; although, don’t pigeonhole him as solely a sales pro yet.
In this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, Scott and I discuss:
- His definition of customer experience
- What the line between marketing and sales really looks like
- 4 tools sales pros should borrow from the marketing team
- How to explore other worlds in order to inform your own work
Get more from The Customer Experience Podcast!
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My wife and I recently had to go out and buy a new car.
And if there aren't customer experience lessons in that process, I don't know where else they are.
So, on this episode of The Customer Experience podcast, I shared the 5 things I learned about the customer experience...by being a customer.
“One question can change everything.”
Indeed, it can. On the latest episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking with Brian Robinson, author of best-selling The Selling Formula and VP of Strategic Partnerships at Works24.
Brian fills us in on:
- His definition of great customer experience
- How to adjust your mindset before entering a sales conversation
- Why your questions are the main reason deals are closed or not
- How to ask the best sales-related questions
Check out Brian’s #1 Best Seller on Amazon, The Selling Formula, for more expert advice.
Get more from The Customer Experience Podcast!
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Millennials are the most diverse generation in U.S. history with 44% of the generation reporting minority backgrounds.
That means, if companies haven’t figured out how to work with or sell to millennials, it’s best to start— well — now. One idea to seriously consider is cultural empathy.
On the latest episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking with an expert and practitioner of cultural empathy, Kristin Messerli.
As the founder and CEO of Cultural Outreach, Kristin has a distinguished insight into reaching up-and-coming markets.
Kristin fills us in on:
- Her definition of customer experience
- Generational differences in the expectations of companies
- What millennials need from their employers
- The value in understanding cultural nuances within and outside of your organization
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Resources for targeting millennials
- Dave Savage - Mortgage Coach
Get more from The Customer Experience Podcast!
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- Apple Podcasts/Apple Podcasts
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We’re all familiar with the traditional sales-led way of acquiring customers:
They demo the product and are passed along to one of your salespeople. And, hopefully, the perceived value of your product matches their actual experience.
What if you just let them experience the value right away? No strings attached.
This product-led model is what Wes Bush sees for the future of selling (and not only for software).
Wes is the author of Product-Led Growth as well as the founder of the Product-Led Summit. He defines customer experience as the point where perceived value and experienced value meet.
Additionally, Wes shares:
- What product-led growth is compared to a traditional sales-led model
- Hurdles to look out for when transitioning from sales-led to product-led
- What marketers should know about customer experience
Get more from The Customer Experience Podcast!
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Every time Cory Scheer puts on his Brooks running shoes, he has a great experience.
He doesn’t get blisters and his feet feel comfortable.
And when it’s time for a new pair of shoes, he turns to Brooks.
So, how do you create experiences like this? Experiences that make your customers want to come back again and again?
On this episode of The Customer Experience podcast, Cory joined us to talk about why building trust is the key to developing a loyal customer base.
Cory currently serves as Director of Church and Community Engagement at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church. Previously, he’s been the Business Director at a whitewater rafting company in Colorado, VP of Strategic Partnerships at the YMCA of Greater Kansas City, and Dean of Admissions at William Jewell College.
He also earned an Executive MBA and a Doctorate in Education, completing his doctoral work on the topic of trust, value, and loyalty in relational exchanges.
Check out our podcast on Apple Podcasts/Apple Podcasts, or on Google Podcasts/Google Play, or Spotify and even on Stitcher.
Everyone in your organization should be selling.
All the time.
At least, that’s what I learned from Jacco vanderKooij, the founder and CEO of Winning By Design. And, I’d have to say I whole-heartedly agree with him.
On this episode, I talk about:
- The best ways to differentiate your brand
- The anti-silo approach
- Creating scalable processes
- Delivering impact on a constant basis
Resources I mention:
- Books by Jacco
- Winning By Design’s YouTube channel
Check out our podcast on Apple Podcasts, or on Google Podcasts/Google Play, or Spotify and even on Stitcher.
With regard to customer experience, alignment within our organizations and across our teams is one of the biggest opportunities and challenges in front of us.
We’ll get into - and a lot more - that with today’s guest, Sangram Vajre.
Sangram is the co-founder and Chief Evangelist for Terminus, the #1 rated account-based marketing (ABM) execution platform and leader of the ABM movement.
During the episode, we talked about how internal alignment can have a huge impact on your customer experience. Sangram gave some super practical tips on how to go about aligning your teams so that everyone is focused on the same endgoal:
- Have Smaller, More Focused Meetings
- Change your metrics and KPI’s
- Encourage interaction between teams
- Own and Celebrate the Results
- Implement Account Based Marketing
Checkout these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- “Account-Based Marketing: How to Target and Engage the Companies That Will Grow Your Revenue”
- “ABM is B2B.: Why B2B Marketing and Sales is Broken and How to Fix it”.
- Sangram also talked about an organization that is near and dear to his heart, it’s called New Story. Check it out!
Get more from The Customer Experience Podcast!
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In this digital age, people are searching for more human connection than ever before.
As B2B marketers and sellers are finding more ways to automate top-of-the-funnel processes - like chatbots - we may actually be losing leads because of it.
Comparatively, employing live chat can double top-of-the-funnel opportunities.
At least, that’s what Interchanges’ president, Nelson Bruton, has seen. Nelson sits down to fill us in on how we can increase live chat conversations and success.
He discusses:
- Live chat vs. automated chatbots
- Using video to build stronger relationships
- Increasing live chat conversations fourfold
- Reducing friction in the customer’s experience
Check out The Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or Stitcher.
Human, helpful, and relevant. These are 3 attributes we need to create within our organizations to deliver great experiences for our customers.
Dan Tyre, co-author of The Inbound Organization and HubSpot executive, came on this episode to share his insights from 35 years of experience in the business world—including why using video in your prospecting is approaching “must-have” status.
What we talked about:
- Why you should never, ever, ever check your bags at an airport
- Why customer experience is the only differentiator in an age of ubiquitous technology
- The sky-high expectations of today’s customers
- The importance of giving your team autonomy
- Why video is revolutionizing prospecting
- Why self-service equates to excellent service for the modern buyer
Resources we talked about:
-
The Inbound Organization by Dan Tyre and Todd Hockenberry
-
Rehumanize Your Business by Ethan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli
-
Incorporate Massage (and Founder/CEO Amelia Wilcox)
- How to Define a Customer Experience (CX) Strategy [HubSpot blog]
- dtyre@hubspot.com
Customer experience is a moment that is created between two individuals, where a desire meets a craft. Not everyone gets it right every time, but it’s an opportunity to create a moment with another human being as a stimulation for a long-term relationship.
Lance Risser, VP of Southwest Field Operations and Levi Ayriss, VP of Northwest Field Operations at Dutch Bros. Coffee, came on this episode of The Customer Experience podcast to walk us through how to meet customers where they’re at in life and keep your core while expanding rapidly.
What we talked about:
- Why coffee is what Dutch Bros. does—but it’s not who they are
- How to grow fast and maintain your culture
- Several books in the Dutch Bros. resource library
- The Optimist Creed
- How to balance high-volume sales and a deeply personal customer experience
Resources we talked about:
- Raving Fans and The Servant Leader by Ken Blanchard
- QBQ! The Question Behind the Question by John G. Miller
- The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath
- The Optimist Creed
- Si Casa Flores in Grants Pass, OR
- Chick-Fil-A
If you want to learn a little bit about training and certifying your sales teams to speak your customers’ language you’re in the right place.
Alex Rosemblat, VP of Marketing at Datadog, came on this episode of The Customer Experience podcast to walk us through how he’s training his sales teams to truly understand and speak their customers’ language.
What we talked about:
- Your customers speak their own language
- So, how do you learn it?
- Listening for ‘the crinkle’
- Building your curriculum
Resources we talked about:
- Alex’s LinkedIn
- Datadog
- The Digital CMO’s Guide to Marketing Management
There’s something that I’m tired of. I think you're probably tired of it, too:
When you accept a LinkedIn connection request and the person immediately hits you up with an unsolicited and irrelevant sales pitch in a direct message.
So, I decided to reach out to you, to collect your feedback on this issue.
And on this episode of The Customer Experience podcast I’m talking through what you had to say about it and what we can learn from this issue to create the best customer experiences going forward.
In any given company, not all customers are created equal.
So, we need to know where, when, and in whom we should be investing.
Well, on today’s episode of The Customer Experience podcast, we did something a little bit unique — we put customer experience into a financial context. Sarah Toms came on the show to talk about customer centricity: aligning your products and services to the needs of your customers to maximize their value to your firm.
For the past six years, Sarah has served in IT Director roles at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently the Executive Director of Wharton Interactive at The Wharton School and recently co-authored a book titled, “The Customer Centricity Playbook.”
What we talked about:
- What is customer centricity
- What are common myths and misperceptions about customer centricity
- How to get an approximation of your LTV
- What sparked Wharton Interactive
Resources we talked about:
- The Customer Centricity Playbook
- Wharton Interactive
- The Manifesto
Check out our podcast on Apple Podcasts/Apple Podcasts, or on Google Podcasts/Google Play, or Spotify and even on Stitcher.
Research shows that people are actually more willing to share about the positive experiences they’ve had with companies than the more negative ones.
So, why don’t they? Well, most of us just haven’t had those kinds of really positive experiences. So, what can you do to create those positive experiences and change that sentiment?
That’s exactly what we’re talking about today with guest Dan Gingiss. Dan has run social media and digital marketing at companies with household names such as McDonald's, Humana, and Discover. He’s also the Chief Experience Officer at the company, Winning Customer Experience.
Here’s what we talked about:
- Why you should be your own customer
- How to identify and resolve pain points
- How to create extraordinary customer experiences
Customer’s so wish every business understood these 4 things that Mike Redbord shared with us on our our Customer Experience Podcast.
Mike’s the GM of Service Hub at HubSpot, and he came on our show to share a few secrets from inside the customer’s mind:
- What every customer wished businesses understood
- Why CX is a feeling, not an operation, a department, or a function
- Third-party validation
- Customer reference programs
A few resources we shared on this episode:
- Mike Redborn’s LinkedIn
- The State of Customer Service in 2019
Check out our podcast on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, or on Google Podcasts/Google Play, or Spotify and even on Stitcher.
After “What’s the meaning of life?”, here’s the next most important question:
Do I need permission to repost this?
Can’t answer the first one for you, but the second one is a gigantic yes.
I sat down with Sharon Toerek, Intellectual Property and Marketing Law Attorney who helps creative professionals protect, enforce and monetize their creative assets. Her work with small advertising and marketing entrepreneurs is driven by her understanding of customer experience.
“Customer experience means to me that at the end of the day, at the end of the transaction, did the customer feel heard? Did they feel seen?” Sharon said.
You only think you’ve built a great relationship with a client.
But...you didn’t check up on how their goals are evolving.
Churn, churn, churn.
I got to talk to Luke Owen, Director of Customer Experience at Formstack, about what it means to have the words “customer experience” in his job title.
“For me, customer experience is the heart and soul of an organization that supersedes that relationship with the client,” Luke said.
Marketing is a human driven mission, not a money-making endeavor. When you start by treating customers like humans, you will get better results not only for your company, but more importantly, for your customers as well.
Kristy Krueger is the lead marketer for Revel, a healthcare technology company that helps people to take better care of themselves using technology.
She sits down with me to share what she’s learned about customer experience dealing with customers who rely on her company’s mission to help them through their most difficult struggles.
Here are Kristy’s three marketing truths that can make you a better marketer today!
Truth # 1: Live and breathe your brand promise.
Truth 2: Treat Your customers like humans.
Truth 3: Everyone in the company creates the customer experience.
No one can tell the future.
And if anyone claims they can, walk away… slowly.
Yet, there are ways to anticipate some of the biggest turns your business will encounter.
Brand builder, digital transformer, venture investor, and startup advisor, Dave Knox, opens up about three major mistakes he sees startup marketers make. As an independent strategic advisor and host of the Predicting the Turn podcast, Dave has seen the entire gamut of startup mistakes, big business blunders, and enterprise slip-ups.
He has turned all of his experiences into a career of helping businesses anticipate market changes. In this episode, we cover the struggles Fortune 500s are experiencing, holistic customer experience, and more.
Most companies forget that an actual person is on the other end of their marketing campaigns. Brett’s experience working with companies all around the globe to help them improve their marketing reminds listeners that every touchpoint is going to reach a human at some point. The better equipped you are to ask smart questions, the more effective your customer’s journey will be, and the more sales you will make.
As a customer acquisition expert and the VP of Marketing for SiteTracker, Brett shares his secrets to making customers want to engage with your company through asking the right questions, and personalizing the marketing process.
He reflects on his experiences working with major clients around the globe and informs listeners on how they can be more effective marketers.
Today’s guest is Jaime Casap, Chief Education Evangelist at Google.
Jaime helped launch G-Suite and other applications in schools, and he sincerely believes that education can disrupt poverty and transform lives.
In this episode, Jaime talks about what Google’s doing that didn’t seem possible five years ago, why he thinks the customer is always wrong, why “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is the wrong question, and how companies should prepare for the arrival of Generation Z.
If you’re a follower of The Customer Experience Podcast, you may have started to notice a handful of common themes surfacing.
Themes - of course - that have to do with providing great customer experience.
Plus, themes that also transcend the business world.
Host Ethan Beute expounds on the 4 major themes we’ve uncovered on The CX Podcast. This episode covers brand experience, the relationship between humans and tech, and more.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanbeute/
Everyone has an experience of your company. Are you in control of it?
While the cost of keeping customer attention continues to rise, many marketers are still relying on industry trends and best practices to maintain engagement. What if your brand could be the one to set the trend?
We dove into this idea with Jay Acunzo, founder of Marketing Showrunners, to better understand how to drive audience attention through valuable experiences. You might be surprised at what we uncover in this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast.
Brian Gilman has decades of experience in product/service marketing. Right now, he’s the VP of Marketing at Vonage.
He was kind enough to come on the show to talk about how friction is killing companies, as well as how products and competitive intelligence relate to the customer experience.
Marc Rodan was unhappy with his life in the Netherlands. And he didn't think it was possible to be happy there. He thought he'd have to create the life he wanted somewhere else.
But one day he realized that, maybe he didn’t need a change of scenery. Maybe he just needed to change his mindset. He realized that he needed to be willing to experiment and to fail. To just start doing things that would change his situation.
This mindset has a lot of benefits to offer us as individuals. But it can also provide some great wins for companies — and their customers, too.
Marc joined us on the latest episode of The Customer Experience podcast to talk about cultivating a growth mindset and the benefits it offers to your customers. Marc is Co-Founder of Ninjafy, a company that's all about human centric leadership.
Paula Hayes is on a mission to change the face of beauty by putting multicultural women at the center of the modern beauty movement.
She’s in an industry that’s about making people feel good about themselves. But she’s tackling a part of the market that has often been scorched and scorn by that industry.
In this episode Paula who is President and CEO of Hue Noir Cosmetics, shares how brand ambassadors help to extend the company’s reach and also tells the story of why she pulled her products from Target shelves.
Ethan Beute is on a mission to connect people. His method?
Video.
More specifically, his company BombBomb wants us to use the power of video to leverage our personal connections, and provide meaningful social interactions.
Video is the way of the future. In this episode he shares how easy it is to get deeper in your relationships to improve your video, by using your smartphone and connecting with people around the world.
Direct mail used to be a highly “spray-and-pray” activity. On top of that, printers might take weeks or months to send offline collateral.
But with the oversaturation of digital touchpoints today, direct mail has come back with a vengeance—which is why Michael McCarthy founded Inkit. Inkit has upgraded the direct mail game, allowing you to integrate your CRM with direct mail and automate offline artifacts in real time.
In this episode, Michael shares some of the best use cases he’s seen in direct mail campaigns today.
“Obsession is the complete micromanagement of the customer experience.”
According to Matt Knee, Founder and President of MyCompanyWorks and author of the book Startups Made Simple, obsession is a superpower.
Steve Jobs, Herb Kelleher, and Jeff Bezos each have/had it. There aren’t a lot of great companies whose founder wasn’t obsessed with seeing their vision of the perfect customer experience come to life.
Listen in to hear Matt share why obsession is so important and to hear about another superpower he thinks is even more important.
Whatever job you do, whatever industry you’re in, people are going to tell stories about their experiences with you.
It’s been said for a long time that customers that have a negative experience with a business are two to three times more likely to leave a review of that business than customers that have a good one.
A couple more stats that prove how important good customer experience is:
- 88 percent of people trust online reviews as much as they trust their best friends’ recommendations.
- 80 percent of people choose to go elsewhere if they read bad reviews of your business online.
Needless to say, if your customers aren’t telling positive stories about you, it’s impacting you. Whether you know it or not.
What’s a surefire strategy to solidify your reputation for offering a superior customer experience?
We’ll give you a hint. It involves tacos.
Jordan Olivero is the director of customer success at Swimlane. He visited our podcast recently to discuss the power of moments, doing things that don't scale but doing them anyway, giftology, and being your own PR firm.
Olivero read The Power of Moments a year ago and it transformed the way he looked at the customer journey. They broke down the things that are common to any memorable lasting impression.
Those are the places where you have an opportunity to make a moment that really lasts. In customer experience,the moments that are particularly powerful or memorable often have one of these three traits:
- They are pits in the journey.
- They are peaks in the journey.
- They’re at a transition in the beginning and the end.
Sometimes, we get it backwards.
We focus on our KPIs, or what we think the customer needs or wants. We deliver on our expectations, … and then the customer leaves. Because we missed their desired outcome.
How do we become masters of achieving the desired outcome?
There’s no one better to discuss this issue than Jonathan Bolton, our Sr. VP of Operations here at BombBomb. Jonathan nearly single-handedly scaled our customer success organization from a solo act to a 30-person entity, creating amazing customer experiences every step of the way.
He jumped on this episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, and we had an in-depth conversation about ensuring every customer experience is achieving the goals it should.
Trust matters when it comes to customer experience.
People line up at the Apple Store’s Genius Bar in part because they’ve come to trust that they will get a great customer experience.
Whether you’re a B2B or B2C, how can you create trust with your customers?
To find the answers, I spoke with Charles H. Green, CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates. He's the author of Trust-Based Selling: Using Customer Focus and Collaboration to Build Long-Term Relationships and The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust.
For Charles, you create trust by focusing on building a long-term relationship instead of focusing on the current transaction.
Charles suggests that you engage in active listening to make your prospects and customers feel like you understand how they’re feeling.
You've got a hundred days to make customers for life.
Do you know what tools to employ to guarantee they’ll stay?
Joey Coleman does. He is a speaker and writer who's deeply steeped in the customer experience. He's the founder and chief experience composer at Design Symphony [TK: there is no URL for “Design Symphony” - this link is to his consulting website joeycoleman.com], and the author of Never Lose a Customer Again, Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days.
Coleman visited our podcast recently and shared his secrets to converting customers for life.
If you think a checked box on a survey or net promoter score is an accurate customer satisfaction metric, you’re in trouble.
So says Samantha Stone, the founder and CMO of the Marketing Advisory Network. She's the author of Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook That Drives Sales, and a regular conference speaker. Stone has worked in marketing, product marketing, partner marketing, and brings a great wealth of experience to this podcast.
Abstractly speaking, customer experience is any interaction between a brand/vendor and buyers, prospects, or customers. It can involve placing an order, or taking receipt of a delivered item. It could be a conversation, or an event one attended.
There's a second definition in many organizations. Because those interactions happen in so many different places, they create a function that is responsible for the intersection of customers across different touch points. That's really important because otherwise you see inconsistent interactions. Sales operates differently than marketing, which operates differently than support, which operates differently than order fulfillment, etc.
Your sales strategy is as much science as art. The secret is to understand how to improve the way customers buy, renew, and get retained.
Jeremey Donovan, senior vice president of sales strategy at SalesLoft, the leading sales engagement platform, is an expert in sales strategy.
His top level priority, especially in B2B, is about ROI. A prospect needs to trust that you are the right partner to help them achieve whatever their most pressing business initiative is.
We discussed:
- The Definition of Sales Success
- Finding a Needle in a Haystack
- True Personalization Pays Off
- What to Do
- What Not to Do
Like it or not, your customer’s experience is your brand.
How do you make your branding win in the long term?
To find the answers, we spoke with David Brier, Chief Gravity Defyer at DBD International, a branding consultancy and agency. He's the author of Brand Intervention: 33 Steps to Transform the Brand You Have into the Brand You Need.
“I want to rehumanize the way people think about their communication. I just think people are better face to face.”
Today, almost everyone relies on email, texting, message boards, and other impersonal methods to get their work done. Unfortunately, these messages lack the body language and vocal signals that we humans rely on to fill the communication gaps.
And emojis can’t cut it.
Darin Dawson, President and Co-Founder of BombBomb, which makes it easy to record, send, and track video emails within the systems you already use, has built a career on this idea.
He joined us on a recent Customer Experience podcast. Below are some of his ideas on rehumanizing business communication and the world.
Sometimes it’s a bad thing when the sales team closes the deal.
Customer experience often starts with the sales team promising something that the customer success team can’t deliver.
We asked Nick Hart, Customer Success Manager at Outreach.io (a sales engagement platform), how to make sure that the sales team and customer success team are all on the same page.
Salespeople frequently have the mentality of just getting deals across the finish line.
From a financial point of view, the sales team needs to be incentivized to prioritize prospects who are most likely to renew.
In this episode we discuss:
- The Perils of Productivity
- Customer Success Metrics
- Where Sales Causes Problems
- Who Should Send Marketing Materials?
- Bring Your Executive to Work Day
If you want to know why customers leave and you want to know how to win them back, have I got a podcast for you.
I learned so much from David Avrin, a customer experience & marketing keynote speaker, consultant and author, whose most recent book is Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back): (24 Reasons People are Leaving You for Competitors, and How to Win Them Back*).
Avrin helps companies become responsive to their customers and prospect’s needs.
Since the advent of the iPhone 11 years ago, everyone has gotten acclimated to instant gratification.
The problem today is that every failure in customer experience becomes magnified because every person you encounter is armed with a video camera on their phone.
Everyone is on camera. Everything is being recorded. Everything is being shared.
People feel it's not only the right, but it's their responsibility to go online and rant about any slight or infraction.
Unfortunately most companies haven’t adapted to this faster pace. Only 15% of companies have adopted an always-on business model to accommodate their always-connected customers.
Rightly or not, people expect an immediate response.
To learn more about how to get your customers back, click on the podcast link in the first comment below.
“Any brand that you frequent, or are fond of, or use, there's been a journey of some kind,” says Kurt Bartolich, the founder of GUTS Branding, and the author of You Can't Ride Two Horses With One Ass.
Whether your company offers an active (Build-A-Bear) or passive (Southwest Airlines) consumer experience, there are some basic branding truths that successful companies observe.
Unfortunately, a lot of businesses get customer experiences backward.
Customer experience touches every place a customer could possibly interact with your company, even before they buy the product.
Rachel Ostrander is the director of runner experience at Brooks Running.
“I heard a quote, ‘If you want to know where a customer or a company is, look at their sales. If you want to know where they're gonna be, look at their service.’ I believe in that, and my entire career has reinforced that.”
How do you get people to pay attention to your message?
Whether you’re selling to a customer online or speaking in front of a live audience, you need to create a shared belief about what the other person will be getting out of it.
To deep dive into that concept, I spoke with Steve Pacinelli, the CMO at BombBomb who is my co-author of our book Rehumanize Your Business: How Personal Videos Accelerate Sales and Improve Customer Experience.
Here are some highlights of what we discussed.
- Customer Experience as the Exploration of a Shared Belief
- Enthusiasm Is Contagious
- Making Yourself Valuable to Your Audience
- Keep Your Audience Interested
- Little Things That Make a Big Difference
Your content IS your customer experience.
So says the queen of content marketing, Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs and author of the best-selling Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content and Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business.
Listen to learn:
- Measuring your content by your brand message
- The biggest improvements come from the most basic principles.
- Who is your inspiration?
- What brand has inspiring customer service?
- Putting the content customer experience into practice
Businesses are just like people. They must stay healthy and agile, or watch their enterprise arteries harden through apathy and face an early death.
Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of species that survives nor the most intelligent, but the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
The key to survival is transformation and reinvention.
Thus says Joseph Jaffe, the “admiral and co-founder” of The HMS Beagle, which is a strategic consultancy whose name is a nod to the exploratory ship Charles Darwin was on when he developed the theory of evolution. The HMS Beagle helps clients navigate the journey to survival because everyone is in the survival business nowadays.
You feel cheated.
You‘ve tried to create amazing content to win the content marketing game.
And yet your revenue hasn’t shot through the roof. Why?
The problem isn’t your content, it is how you’re putting it all together.
You need to put your content into a content experience framework according to my podcast guest Randy Frisch, who is CMO at Uberflip, a speaker, and author of F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships.
With the right attitude, business relationships, instead of being a depreciating asset, could be transformed into compound interest that pays you over and over.
Getting your business in the right relationship mindset is the business of Zvi Band, CEO/Co-Founder at Contactually, a SaaS-based intelligent customer relationship management (CRM) platform for relationship-oriented industries that helps users develop and strengthen authentic, long-lasting relationships.
Band is also the author of the upcoming book Success Is in Your Sphere: Leverage the Power of Relationships to Achieve Your Business Goals (publishing April 5, 2019).
If your customers can’t trust you, how long will you stay in business?
Probably not long. You’ll dwindle, flounder, and grasp for meaning and a customer base, but at the end of the day, if your customers don’t feel like they can trust you, you may as well close up shop.
At the center of everything, at the core of your business, what is the most important metric that your business can measure?
The customer experience.