The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show: Recent Episodes
Jeanne Bliss
Join us to learn the leadership practices from C-Level Customer Experience executives at Airbnb, Walgreens, Audi, Premera, The Smithsonian Institute, Barney’s New York, and Adobe among others. They will fearlessly share with you what works...and what doesn’t work as we debunk this role, why it’s not about ”Kumbaya", but rather how the Chief Customer Officer is acting as the human duct tape of the organization - uniting companies to earn the right to customer-driven growth.
Hosted by Jeanne Bliss, five time Chief Customer Officer and author of "Would You Do That To Your Mother?" and “Chief Customer Officer 2.0." Jeanne is joined by CCOs around the world as they share how they gain traction in transforming their business, leaders and operations.
Today’s compilation features excerpts from two interviews: Christopher McShane, SVP of customer experience at Serta Simmons Bedding, and Jon Picoult, founder of Watermark Consulting. Both my guests speak on the importance of establishing an internal system to improve employee and customer experience. These are two great conversations which dig deeply into the processes and cultural considerations needed to truly change your organization's approach to driving experiences worth having. Enjoy!
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with neuroscientist, professor, speaker, author, and cofounder of Immersion Neuroscience, Dr. Paul Zak. Listen to this fascinating podcast episode, in which Paul and I discuss everything from honing in on your company or product’s “superfans” to applying Paul’s immersion formula, SIRTA, to your work (Staging, Immersion, Relevance, Targeting, Action).
As we head into the new year, I ask that you revisit this podcast episode, where you’ll find many more valuable gems from my friend, Curtis Kopf. Your business—and your customers—will thank you.
In my conversation with Curtis Kopf, the Chief Experience Officer at REI, we discuss thought processes and strategies that go into navigating successful CX transformations. Curtis is a seasoned leader and CX practitioner who’s worked across a few different industries during his career. He has spent time at Amazon in the early 2000s, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, and Premera Blue Cross. Curtis definitely knows a thing or two about how to develop a customer-first strategy.
As you’re developing what you develop your products, your services, know that—in your communication, you have a wonderful opportunity to rise above—to show who you are as people in how you communicate shared memories.
In this conversation with Matt Baer—Chief Digital and Customer Officer at the longstanding, iconic retailer Macy’s—shares key insights on the importance of getting the fundamentals right before anything else.
In this conversation with Cassandra Crowe, Chief Executive Officer at Sharp HealthCare, Cassandra shares some high-level insights regarding the employee experience transformation at Sharp HealthCare and the ways in which this multilayered process impacted business operations and patient experience.
In this conversation with Cassandra Crowe, Chief Executive Officer at Sharp HealthCare, Cassandra shares some high-level insights regarding the employee experience transformation at Sharp HealthCare and the ways in which this multilayered process impacted business operations and patient experience.
How are you taking steps to deliver what you do? Are you willing to step outside the bounds of what everybody else does? And take an ADMIRABLE action in how you do it?
How are you taking steps to deliver what you do? Are you willing to step outside the bounds of what everybody else does? And take an ADMIRABLE action in how you do it?
Lynda Firey-Oldroyd, CCO of Topgolf speaks on previous career successes at blue chip companies and details the importance of employee and customer experience at TopGolf.
In order to move from where you are, you need to all agree on where you’ve begun. “One version of the truth" is critical. In this episode, I share an exercise you can do with your team to start the process of understanding your organization’s experience reliability.
In this conversation with Andy Clement, the CCO at Kimberly-Clark Professional, who has been with the organization for over 30 years, we discuss how digitizing the sales operations has impacted this B2B business in the post-pandemic world. Those of you in the B2B industry will enjoy this chat, especially if you’ve been in a legacy industry that had to adjust to the digital-first world.
In this conversation with Andy Clement, the CCO at Kimberly-Clark Professional, who has been with the organization for over 30 years, we discuss how digitizing the sales operations has impacted this B2B business in the post-pandemic world. Those of you in the B2B industry will enjoy this chat, especially if you’ve been in a legacy industry that had to adjust to the digital-first world.
Doing customer math rallies your team not only to ask, “Did we earn more customers than we lost?” But it pushes everybody to care about the why. Find out why in this video.
To get traction that becomes foundation to the way that people lead, you must understand the cores of power inside the organization. In this episode, I share examples of how to partner—or dance—with the power core.
In this conversation, Christopher McShane, the senior vice president of customer experience at Serta Simmons Bedding chats with me about how he helped his team understand weak points in their operations. We spoke about a 90-Day plan he implented and how to develop a plan to improve both the employee and customer experience.
What I know is that customer experience is floundering. We are focusing on the mechanics instead of the meaning of the work. At the end of the day, customer experience is about leading. It’s about leadership. It’s about finding a way to guide your people and your organization to rise to show up as a different kind of company in the marketplace. Customer experience does not belong in a silo.
What I know is that everybody needs a little pixie dust.
When you do things that are unexpected for your customers, they remember you and it bonds you to them. So I want to share some of my favorite pixie dust moments back from my days at Lands’ End.
What I know is that goal mapping not journey mapping is a new way of leading, uniting your organization and earning the right to customer driven-growth.
Goal mapping will drive you to reflect on new customer-driven KPIs. Thinking about: how will you operationally measure the outcome metrics that will earn their goals? Not just asking them how we did or how satisfied they are. And also recognizing in a B2B standpoint, what are you doing to help them achieve their goals?
A goal map starts with the goals your customer wants to achieve and shifts your KPIs. By measuring the things that your customer cares about, it transforms how you do work. Find the show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/whatiknow.
Principles shouldn’t just be words on a wall. They should be used to lead. In this episode, I share a powerful example from my time at Land’s End.
In a recent Linkedin Live conversation, I spoke with Natalie Petouhoff, a senior customer experience strategist and business consultant at Genesys. Her previous experience includes work with brands including Salesforce, Hulu, Marriott, General Motors, General Electric, and many more.
Natalie believes we can imbue technology with our hopes and dreams for a future focused on bettering humanity. Natalie addresses some of the ways this can be operationalized in a book she co-authored, "Empathy in Action: How to Deliver Great Customer Experiences at Scale."
During our conversation, we discuss the notion of blind spots in leadership, and how that affects customer and employee experience.
In my conversation with Curtis Kopf, the Chief Experience Officer at REI, we discuss thought processes and strategies that go into navigating successful CX transformations. Curtis is a seasoned leader and CX practitioner who’s worked across a few different industries during his career. He has spent time at Amazon in the early 2000s, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, and Premera Blue Cross. Curtis definitely knows a thing or two about how to develop a customer-first strategy.
“Connect with people as humans, get to know them a little bit personally, so that you have a connection, so that when times become tough and you've got to challenge them, they feel like they're in a safe zone to do that,” says Holly O’Neill in our recent LinkedIn Live conversation. She and I discuss CX consistency, accountability and metrics, and leadership bravery. Holly’s extensive career at Bank of America spans more than 20 years, which has allowed her to refine her strategic thinking in terms of understanding the big picture then digging into the important details.
When it comes to implementing customer experience enhancements across your organization, how do you know if your efforts are successful? In this conversation that I'm revisiting with Barbara C. Morton, Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Barbara shares some of the strategies and tactics that she and her team have employed in order to improve the CX within a government organization.
In this conversation, you’ll hear from two leaders who have led transformative customer-centric initiatives at organizations that have global reach: Catherine Courage, VP of Consumer UX at Google and Darryl Speach, who at the time of our conversation was Chief Customer Officer of Greystone & Company. Darryl’s prior experience at Disney and New York Life Insurance gave him plenty of insight regarding people-centered work, and Catherine’s experience with human-centered design and UI gave her an advantage in terms of thinking through the customer’s end-to-end experience.
How can we practically put measures in place to improve customer experience for organizations in which the internal and external stakeholders see results? In today’s podcast episode, I revisit two interviews I held with women who were leading CX transformation within their organizations: Michelle Musgrove, former Senior VP and VP of Customer Experience Strategy & Governance at AARP, and Kathy Tobiasen, former VP of Customer Experience at The Nature’s Bounty Co. Both women share tactical advice on how to unite different departments and teams within an organization to be on the same page when it comes to transforming CX that leads to customer success.
Today’s compilation features two brief segments from Raj Sisodia, co-author of The Healing Organization and Conscious Capitalism, and Bob Thomas CCO of YMCA of the North (the Y). Both leaders speak on the importance of connecting purpose to their work. This is a great episode in which we're able to really dig more deeply into the ways you can weave humanity into your business. Enjoy!
“I think the most successful chief customer officers are the ones who realize their job is to make heroes of other people,” says Jon Picoult, founder of Watermark Consulting and author of From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans. In this episode, Jon and I explore a few of the principles from his book to improve customer experience and drive business growth.
While I’m on vacation, I want to replay this podcast and leave you with a few valuable gems from Horst Schulze to inspire us in the new year. Horst is the founder and former CEO of the Capella Hotel Group, Co-founder & Former COO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and author of Excellence Wins. He is currently serving as the expert in residence at Arch + Tower, a boutique, organizational strategy consulting firm specializing in customer and employee experience.
Today's episode features a compilation from two leaders in the B2B industry who decided to grow their company through focused CX efforts, while placing a strong importance on team and employee development. You’ll hear from Andy Schulkind, the VP of CX at Domino North America, and Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations. Both leaders place a high value on developing a trained, supported, and efficient internal workforce which serves as a strong foundation for delivering great customer experience.
“I preach to people to stop linking net promoter to bonuses and stop making it into a target, which makes it the objective as opposed to a learning process,” says Fred Reichheld, New York Times best-selling author, customer loyalty guru, and creator of the Net Promoter Score management system. Fred and I chat about the hard work that comes with good leadership, and the dedication that's needed in order to live up to promises, to put customers first, and to serve as a beacon of light.
In this compilation episode, I'm revisiting conversations with Sherif Mityas, CXO at TGI Fridays, and Troy Barnes, Chief Customer Officer at Pizza Hut Asia Pacific. Their high-level positions had them entrenched in work in which they oversaw CX strategies that impacted numerous restaurants. Sherif talks about how he assessed the work that needed to be done while in the role, and you’ll hear Troy discuss the ongoing journey of level setting expectations and uniting the C-Suite around improving efforts.
Nathan and I discuss some of the principals behind BILT’s success, one of them being that they measure it by their own customer’s success. BILT is a customer experience platform. It operates as an app that provides a 3D assembly experience for customers who need to build a finished item like a grill or bed frame. BILT has worked with companies such as Weber, IKEA, and the Home Depot, to help empower customers and give them the confidence needed in order to complete their project.
As AI continues to be an increasing topic of interest when it comes to customer experience and data gathering, CX leaders should always remember that the human element will always be needed. We need people to create those magic, unexpected moments; to smile at customers, to ask them how their day was, and to know when to go the extra mile.
In my conversations with authors Nathan Foy and Deborah Westphal, both share insights regarding the way a human-focused business model positively impacts growth and relationships.
Do you have support from your fellow colleagues and the C-Suite in managing your CX work? In today’s episode, I’m highlighting portions of two conversations that I had with guests during the height of the pandemic: Michael Kuenne, Chief Customer Officer at Extended Stay America, and Aparna Khurjekar, who at the time, was the CCO of Verizon Consumer, and is now, President of Verizon Business Markets.
Both of these leaders have unique experiences in terms of managing their organization’s customer experience in the B2C realm. Michael and Aparna had the support of the CEO in leading their CX transformations and both shared tactics that helped them build internal partnerships while navigating this work. In these conversations, I think you'll find useful questions to ask yourself and your colleagues, to help you all strategize in a way that puts the customer first.
While I’m taking a break from recording new podcasts and LinkedIn Live conversations, I’ll be sharing a few compilations of previously recorded interviews. We have pulled out relevant insights and chunks of conversation from guests that you’ll find useful as you lead or take part in the CX undertakings in your organization.
Today’s episode features two authors, Alain Hunkins, who wrote Cracking the Leadership Code, and Robbie Kellman-Baxter, author of The Forever Transaction. Both guests share examples and tactics from their books to help you elevate your leadership. Their strategies will help you think through ways to better connect with your audience, your team, and perhaps even yourself! Enjoy!
In this chat with my buddy and colleague, Shep Hyken, we discuss some of the concepts in his latest book, “I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again.” Shep and I talk about measuring a customer’s willingness to come back to your business as an important success metric. I often stress to leaders that retention is a critical metric when looking at customer success; it’s not only about the new customers you’re able to acquire, but who continues to come back to you.
Jenn Oyler and I discuss CX strategies that impact both the employees and customers in a B2B2C organization. We also explore some finer details of the work when we chat about the various CX KPIs that Jenn measures against, how they determine ROI, and her leadership style. Jenn is the vice president and head of customer experience at Principal Financial Group and has experience at State Farm.
Chris Kollas is the Chief Customer Officer at TCS World Travel. TCS World Travel is a unique company that has hosted guests on all-inclusive, private jet adventures for over 25 years. Chris and I chat about how he and his team of roughly 100 employees focus on the customer, the integration of marketing and sales, and how they maintained connections with their customers during the pandemic––a time which was incredibly rough on the travel industry.
"At the end of the day, what we realize is, we all unite under the same thing, which is to drive the customer experience, get the patient what they need,” says Corrie Quaranto, Vice President of Northwell Health, regarding a patient-focused experience at their facilities.
In my discussion with Corrie, we discuss how Northwell has been taking the time to focus on customer care in a way that reduces stress and confusion for the patient during their healthcare experience, especially when it comes to the billing and financial responsibility.
“Customer experience is about leadership. It's about the blueprint for how you run your business, and how you want to show up in the marketplace,” says Andy Schulkind, the vice president of customer experience at Domino, North America. Domino is a B2B company which specializes in the development and production of various printing technologies used for coding and marking.
Domino North America prides itself on its customer service, and it’s this commitment to customer experience as a whole, that has helped Andy succeed in his role. In our conversation, Andy and I chat about setting the foundation in order for the work to be successful.
In my conversation with Holly O’Neill, Chief Client Care Executive & Head of Consumer Client Services at Bank of America, we spoke about the importance that empathy, communication, and flexibility played in the customer and employee experience during the pandemic. Holly and I chat about some of the customer experience processes involved with how BofA uses storytelling throughout the customer journey, how the leadership team embraces feedback, and some important shifts that needed to be made over the past year.
“That's one of the things that I'm a huge believer in is skill sets. Early jobs with skill sets, because skill sets traveled. And I think those are things that I think it's incredibly important to me, as we think about workforce development,” says Lambert Walsh, the Senior Vice President of Customer Success at DocuSign, in our recent Linkedin Live conversation.
While chatting with Lambert, we discuss the importance of developing the skill sets that help set you up for success in a customer-oriented leadership position. We also explore the ways in which the pandemic affected this digitally-focused organization, and how they managed both employee and customer experience during this high-intensity period.
In a recent LinkedIn Live conversation I had with Zvi Baida, CCO at Shufersal, one of Israel’s largest grocery retailers, we spoke about how he and the C-Suite handled the shift in consumer behaviors and demands during the pandemic. During the time of lockdown where folks were worried about access to food, water, and medical supplies, Zvi and his team faced new challenges. They had to think through how to handle increasing supply demand without sacrificing the quality of their customer experience.
In a conversation we recently had on my LinkedIn Live, I chatted with Dr. Philip Zimmerman, life coach, founder of Engineering Leadership Design Company, an author of Unleash the Millennials: and Save the World. We spoke about the millennial desire for purpose-driven work that aligns with their personal values, the need to understand why the work is done, and how to best come together in the workforce. We then explored his “C4” categorization of aspects that every workforce should pay attention to: communicate, cooperate, collaborate, and co-create.
The LEGO brand has been a part of the legacy of all of our childhoods and according to Simone Sweeney, Vice President Global Retail Development at LEGO Group, the already popular LEGO has seen a resurgence as families spent more time together during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In my recent conversation with Simone Sweeney on my LinkedIn Live, we discuss how she and her team are currently navigating the retail landscape due to the shift in shopping behaviors, and we explore what impact the shift in E-commerce behavior has had on their customer experience and strategy.
In my conversation with Will Kingston, Incoming Director & Head of Financial Services (USA) at CLEAR - M&C Saatchi, we talk about how he developed a passion for CX. As a lover of FinTech, his goal has been to modernize financial services in a way that revolves around customer strategy and customer centricity.
Will shares plenty of great tactical advice in this conversation and I think you’ll find some actionable items that you can bring to your team.
In my conversation with Will Kingston, Incoming Director & Head of Financial Services (USA) at CLEAR - M&C Saatchi, we talk about how he developed a passion for CX. As a lover of FinTech, his goal has been to modernize financial services in a way that revolves around customer strategy and customer centricity.
Will shares plenty of great tactical advice in this conversation and I think you’ll find some actionable items that you can bring to your team.
In my conversation with Will Kingston, Incoming Director & Head of Financial Services (USA) at CLEAR - M&C Saatchi, we talk about how he developed a passion for CX. As a lover of FinTech, his goal has been to modernize financial services in a way that revolves around customer strategy and customer centricity.
Will shares plenty of great tactical advice in this conversation and I think you’ll find some actionable items that you can bring to your team.
In this replay episode, we revisit a conversation with Yamini Rangan, Hubspot's first CCO and a 24-year industry vet, who shares how the company improved their customer and employee experience by becoming internally unified. She also talks about how the company adjusted during the pandemic while continuing to put the customer first.
This episode is a replay of a popular conversation I had with Leslie Stretch, the President and CEO of Medallia about leveraging customer data to understand and anticipate customer needs. Leslie talks about how the pandemic has become “digital disruption at massive scale,” and the positive impacts this can have on the customer experience.
“We are seeing less of a reliance on cold metrics and more on the people,” says Chip R. Bell, regarding the shift in leadership behaviors since the pandemic. In my recent interview with Chip on LinkedIn, we discussed his 5 main tenets to approaching customer service in his latest book, “Inside Your Customer’s Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions.” The five attributes that keep coming up are: curiosity, grounding, discovery, trust, and passion.
In today’s conversation with Amy Shore, EVP and CCO at Nationwide, we’re discussing how one of the nation’s Fortune 100 companies uses customer data and insights to improve and build upon their customer experience. We talk about aligning the C-Suite to a customer-focused initiative, leadership accountability, and the operationalizing of business according to the goals.
In my conversation with Joseph Michelli, speaker, author, and business consultant, we discuss his recently released book, Stronger Through Adversity: World Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges. Joseph shares that as he was consulting through the pandemic, he was working with leaders who had different approaches to leadership, but a common thread was to lead with humanity. As folks have been “leading from the bedroom instead of the boardroom,” we’ve seen how important it is to be authentic, to be you, during the process.
Donald Hicks, former VP of Operations at Twitter, discusses various tenets of his approach to leadership at Twitter, the importance of employee engagement and support, and some of the behind the scenes operations that happens in order to keep the platform enjoyable for users. You'll really enjoy this episode!
"The thing is, you're never done learning," says Michael Kuenne, in our conversation about aligning to meet customer expectations, improving quality assurance, and the importance of hiring. Michael is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Extended Stay America, a hotel chain across the nation that offers guests the opportunity to book their stay for a day, a week, or a month. Though Michael has only been in this role for a year, his exposure to different facets of work in financial services and technology consulting had a profound impact on the way he currently views his work. We talk about how he helps the hotel improve its operational excellence.
In our recent Linkedin Live conversation, Aparna and I had an in-depth discussion about the holistic approach that she and the C-Suite have taken to better understand and meet the needs of the organization’s various stakeholders. You will really enjoy this conversation as Aparna shares how Verizon is working hard to evolve in a world where human and consumer behaviors constantly shift.
I’m sharing a replay of the conversation I had with Dutta Satadip earlier this year when he was still at Pinterest.
Dutta is now the Chief Customer Officer of ActiveCampaign, but as the Global Head of Customer Operations at Pinterest, Dutta shared valuable insights regarding how a b2c and b2b digital platform with millions of users all over the world improves customer experience through coordinated operational efforts.
Today’s conversation with Michelle Musgrove, Senior Vice President of Experience at AARP, is chock full of great tactical advice on what went into building the CX program at her organization. Michelle explains that their work is about embedding the CX skill sets into the organization, and shares the three tracks of work that were developed in order to streamline the process.
As we all take this time to relax and express gratitude for the many things in our lives that are worth giving thanks for, even in this crazy time, it's my pleasure to replay one of the most special podcast shows we've had this year, which was with the incredible author, keynote speaker, and businessman, Tom Peters.
Tom Peters is such an impressive thought leader and, also, just a really good human. In our conversation, we talked about the importance of leadership, humanity, and enabling people to live their best life.
As we know, the hospitality industry has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, so it was interesting to hear how Aisling Hassell and her Airbnb team developed a plan to support the “people, process, and product,” during these challenging times. Aisling shares some insights as to how Airbnb, a global organization, galvanized employees and Airbnb hosts to work together on solutions that would allow the company to continue to operate while keeping people safe. Aisling Hassell is the former VP of community support for Airbnb.
In this interview, I am joined with none other than Simon T. Bailey. Simon is a breakthrough strategist who goes beyond feel-good content and provides real-life deliverables that truly impacts lives. He has also authored 10 books, his latest being Be the Spark: Five Platinum Service Principles for Creating Customers for Life. Simon drops a bunch of gems for us in this interview so get ready to take some notes!
Patti Phillips, CEO of Women's Leaders in College Sports, chats with me about the need for diversity in leadership, and she shares the experience she’s had while working in sports, an industry that’s notoriously male-dominated, and the need for more age and ethnicity representations in leadership positions. Additionally, Patti talks about how her team, who relies heavily on in-person meetings and interactions, has been able to lift one another up during the pandemic.
It was a pleasure for me to interview Chelsie Rae Lee, the Chief Revenue Officer at SnackNation for the second time on my podcast. Though Chelsie Rae Lee is the company's CRO, she’s also responsible for the sales team, customer experience, and customer success. Chelsie and I chat about how she’s worked with her teams to shift business operations during the pandemic, while also being employee and customer-focused. She stresses the importance of communication with customers, the need to create new metrics in the COVID business model, and the value of transparency when it comes to employee experience during these uncertain times.
In today’s conversation with Dr. Oleg Konovalov, who is a thought leader, keynote speaker, author, business educator, and consultant with over 25 years of experience operating businesses, we discuss some of the concepts in his latest book, Leaderology, which tie back to what I like to call, leadership bravery.
How do you build a new customer-focused initiative within an established public sector? Barbara C. Morton, who joined the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2016, was brought on board to be the organization's first-ever Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer and has been working diligently to bring a human-centered-design approach to her CX strategy. She shares how her vision in creating a veterans-focused experience has helped improve client relationships and satisfaction.
In today's conversation with Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, author of 15 books, marketing expert, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist—we discuss some of the tactical ways that entrepreneurs and CEOs can navigate leadership during the uncertainties of the pandemic. This includes shifting business models, trying new things, and most importantly, simplifying processes for both your customers and employees.
“I see leadership as a deeply human endeavor,” says Alain Hunkins, speaker, leader, and author of the new book, Cracking the Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders. In today’s episode with Alain Hunkins, we discuss some of the easy-to-understand and implement concepts in his book and how great leadership is really at the core of customer experience. We’ll explore his three concepts of connection, communication, and collaboration, which work in tandem to cultivate a united view of the life of customers and employees.
In today’s show, we’re joined by the New York Times Bestselling author and guru, Seth Godin, who's written over 19 books. He's the founder of Akimbo, and author of the popular, marketing-oriented, Seth's Blog. Seth and I have a great conversation about leadership as he breaks down some of the "alphabets of humanity" from his book, V is for Vulnerable: Life Outside the Comfort Zone. We discuss how some of the principles from this book can be used to guide and grow an organization with humanity and purpose.
I think you'll find today’s conversation with Dutta Satadip, the Global Head of Customer Success and Operations at Pinterest a valuable one, especially as the use of digital media will continue to increase due to the pandemic. Dutta takes us through the many ways in which he’s been able to lead the customer-focused work at Pinterest. Though the company is primarily B2C, it also functions as a B2B, and Dutta shares how they enact data-driven behaviors to improve the platform so that it’s more valuable for both customers and advertisers.
“It is no longer just about the product. It is all about the customer experience, the way we make customers feel when they use the product. That makes a huge difference,” says Yamini Rangan, HubSpot's first Chief Customer Officer. In today’s conversation, Yamini and I discuss the importance of storytelling and of unifying teams within an organization to work towards a common goal. She also shares some of the ways in which HubSpot has handled the disruption of COVID-19.
In this conversation with Leslie Stretch, CEO of Medallia, Leslie and I chat about what he's been seeing from his conversations with hundreds of CEOs. Now that we've had to rapidly adjust to a new way of life, technology is helping us reshape the world and the future. As Leslie said, “it’s digital disruption at massive scale,” and this disruption has an impact on customer experience. It affects how we interact with customers and clients, how we communicate with them, and how we can gather feedback.
“The more complicated your system is, the less your customers are going to trust you,” says Robbie Kellman-Baxter, author of the new book, The Forever Transaction. In today’s episode, Robbie and I chat about leveraging powerful growth strategies around elevating members through subscription-based models. With over 25 years of experience working with well-known and emerging brands, Robbie has become an expert on this approach to membership and customer relationships.
Should we stop considering people skills a soft skill? In today’s conversation with Tom Peters, an incredible businessman, thought leader, and co-author of In Search of Excellence, we chat about the impact that good hiring can have on your organization. We discuss that this is an unprecedented time for leadership and that those who can succeed, are those who care about people and have built a team of employees who also care about people and work with integrity.
I’m so pleased to share this conversation that I had with Horst Schulze, Founder, Chairman & CEO of the Capella Hotel Group, and Co-founder & Former COO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and author of Excellence Wins.
Horst and I discuss the steps leaders can take during this pandemic to help ensure that their businesses survive. We also explore the ways these actions can spread optimism and hope throughout their organization while retaining employees and showcasing humanity. This is a great conversation with some extremely timely advice you can use to help you navigate as a leader who moves with purpose.
In today’s extremely interesting conversation with Rick Evans, the SVP and Chief Experience Officer for the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, you’ll hear some of the tactics and strategies that Rick has employed at this esteemed hospital to improve the patient experience and to increase HCAHP scores.
In today's episode, Julio shares how he organizes complex operations into simpler formats but does so in a way that encourages business growth. He understands the importance of creating and executing strategic plans while also being a storyteller. It is this combination of right and left brain skills that he attributes to his success.
How does your organization keep its "special sauce" as it grows? This is the challenge that Daniel Brousseau, senior vice president and head of client experience at City National Bank, experienced while leading the bank's new CX transformation.
In this episode, Daniel shares that City National was acquired by a bigger bank and was therefore expected to grow. He was stepping into a role that hadn't previously existed, but also into a company that was extremely client-focused and supportive of improving the customer journey.
What can we learn from disrupters like Airbnb which have introduced the sharing economy into the business landscape? This new business model has impacted customer experience expectations even beyond tech platforms. In today's conversation with Joseph Michelli, we discuss his latest book, The Airbnb Way. In this book, Joseph looks at how Airbnb has been able to thrive, based on 5 key concepts that can be applied to any industry.
In today's episode, we're revisiting some important takeaways shared by 4 customer experience leaders in the SaaS industry who were previous guests on the show. You'll hear thought-provoking insights, as well as lessons learned by these leaders who've lead transformations in their organizations. Additionally, you'll hear their responses to my pay it forward question, "what do you know now, that you wish you knew then?" which I know is a favorite for some of you! Enjoy the show.
When it comes to customer success, you have to focus on your internal culture. As I've said before, what's on the inside shows up on the outside. Given this concept, how do you develop your team, evaluate them, and put them in a position to succeed? In today’s conversation, Catherine Blackmore, Global Vice President of Customer Success at Oracle, walks us through the evolution of the purpose of customer success.
Are you leading customer experience in a global organization? In this episode, I speak with Troy Barnes, the CCO of Pizza Hut for the Asia Pacific region. This is Troy's second CCO role, and his background is in Lean Six Sigma and change management. Our conversation around change management and leadership is valuable, and you'll especially find Troy's advice helpful if you're in the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry and work with franchises.
This episode of the Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show is a little different. Adrian Swinscoe and I have a fun, quick rant about some of the things that are bothering us when it comes to customer experience and how it’s approached. Adrian is a customer experience consultant, a Forbes contributor, and the author of the book, Punk CX. This interview was originally featured on his podcast, Punk CX.
With a background in merchandising, marketing, and retail, Sherif Mityas, Chief Experience Officer of TGI Fridays, the familiar neighborhood restaurant chain, has been interested in the following idea: how do you create the right kind of environment in order to be part of someone's consideration set? After many years of experience, he understood that the various components of retail success were ultimately tied to the customer and their end satisfaction.
Customer success is more than just a buzzword, and Guy Nirpaz, the CEO and founder of Totango talks to us about how to actually integrate customer success into the customer experience. In today's episode, Guy talks about the importance of delivering value to the customer and across the entire customer lifecycle. It's about understanding that you need to create lifetime value that goes beyond the number of transactions had with a customer.
Jennifer Severns, Chief Experience Officer at the American Marketing Association, a nonprofit organization, discusses some of the challenges she faced while coming into her role. She has been digging into the multiple dimensions of being a CXO, handling the important underbelly work of people management. She came into the position at a time where the organization was dealing with a decline in membership, so she needed to analyze the sources of membership revenue and determine how to add value around membership renewal, advertising, and events.
In today's episode, I chat with Curt Balara, Chief Customer Officer at Bel Brands about his role as a leader for a B2B2C company. As CCO, Curt has a holistic leadership position over the sales and customer department, focusing on earning the right to organic, sustainable growth. Curt and I chat about how essential it is for the consumer packaged goods industry to become more customer-centric. He shares tactics and strategies that impact his approach to customer experience both internally and externally.
How does the diversity of your team affect their output and synergy? In today's episode, I chat with Leslie McNamara, who is the Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director in workforce development at Citi Retail Services. In this insightful episode, Leslie and I chat about team development and the importance of getting your house in order to bring the utmost value to your clients and partners.
Do you ever think about how the synergy and diversity of your team affect the output of your company's work? In today's episode, I chat with Leslie McNamara, who is the Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director in workforce development at Citi Retail Services. In this insightful episode, Leslie and I chat about team development and the importance of getting your house in order to bring the utmost value to your clients and partners.
How do you lead an organization's CX when there's no blueprint for you to follow? Well, you make your own! In today's episode, Lisa Allen, the first Chief Patient Experience Officer at Johns Hopkins Hospital shares how she combined her experience and knowledge in anthropology to change the way the organization addresses patient experience.
This is a great episode for leaders across all industries, especially those who are the first in their company to lead this role.
I’m excited to be back with new episodes of the Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show. In today’s episode, I have an engaging and enlightening conversation with Craig Langlois, the Chief Experience Officer at the Berkshire Museum in beautiful Berkshire, Massachusetts.
Craig and I explore how they developed strategies to improve the customer experience and flow of the museum, how they handle hiring and employee experience, and the incredible community work they’ve done to prepare parents and young children for Kindergarten.
Have you just become a C-Suite leader for your B2B organization’s customer experience? Or maybe you’re looking to elevate and become a CX leader — if so, you’ll find this episode valuable. We’re revisiting snippets of conversations with previous guests this summer, and in this episode, we’ll hear from Yellowfin’s CCO, Lee Roquet and former CCO of Rigor, Francis Cordon.
Both leaders share tactics that they implemented in the first few months of their role at these SaaS companies.
As we continue to revisit conversations with CX leaders who were previously on the show, today we're going to explore strategies implemented by two CX leaders at global corporations: Scott Allison, CCO at DHL Supply Chain and Jon Herstein, CCO at Box.
Both leaders share great tactics and strategies that they implemented when asked the question, "how did you first assess the work that needed to be done?" Considering they both work at established, global corporations with hundreds (and thousands) of employees, it's interesting to see the scope of the work they chose to tackle
In today’s episode, we take a look at how Lucy Norris, Executive Vice President, Chief Customer Success Officer at Genesys and Daniel Coullet, Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Experience at PTC, handled the first year in their role. Both CX leaders represent tech companies but share advice that can be relevant to CX leaders in other industries.
As a CCO at a young company, how do you assess the work that needs to be done to begin the CX transformation? In today’s episode, we’re revisiting conversations with two CCOs who have implemented CX programs from the ground up: Chelsie Rae Lee of SnackNation and Allison Pickens of Gainsight.
Both women became CCOs of their companies during a time where no formal CX work had been instituted.
We explore improving CX at a large-scale non-profit, specifically at the YMCA (The Y). I chat with Bob Thomas, the first chief experience officer at The Y, who serves the Greater Minneapolis St. Paul area. The Y is a leading nonprofit organization for youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility.
Bob and I chat about his role and the work that he had to do in an organization that didn't have a CX team or any CX experience. He shares that despite this, The Y did a good job communicating that being a CXO would be a strong mission-focused role, which was something that was very important to him. Bob shares some of the strategic approaches that he and his team took to improve operations and culture on the path to creating a better total experience.
How does a global consumer brand create value for its customers, consumers, and employees? In today's episode, we talk to Chester Twigg, the first global chief customer officer at Johnson & Johnson. Chester shares that he was approached for the role because there was an internal recognition that it was a position that could truly add value to the business and the organization to drive a more global consistency around selling.
“I am a bridge builder and I really like that aspect of my role,” says Yamini Rangan, chief customer officer at Dropbox, a SaaS company that offers file storage and collaboration solutions to both individuals and companies. Yamini shares that when you connect with your customers' true needs, you’re able to offer better help and provide value to them.
Yamini offers strategies that she has employed within Dropbox, that keeps her leaders and C-Suite aligned to the same goals of customer-centricity.
"Start by being humble and you will inspire your team to be humble," says Denis Drossart, global vice president of Culture & Experience at Selina, about leadership behaviors enforced within this lifestyle, travel and hospitality brand.
Denis shares some tactics and strategies regarding how they’ve shaped the purpose and culture of this hospitality-disruptive brand. With a focus on leadership and creating authentic connections, Denis and his team have created an essential framework to create the ultimate experience for guests and employees.
In this episode, Aurelia Pollet, the Vice President of Customer Experience at Exemplis, tells us about the company's impressive culture, and how she's been supported in her role to lead the company's CX into the future. Exemplis is a B2B2C, which makes custom chairs and lounges for offices.
Aurelia shares different approaches and strategies that she implemented in order to improve processes and better understand their customers (the furniture dealers), and ultimately, the end consumer.
"I was really looking to achieve an experience that was elegant. I'm a big believer in that," said Eleanor O’Neil, regarding her decision to create a customer success forecasting system. Eleanor is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Workshare, a B2B company that manages document productivity and security software for legal firms.
Eleanor knew she could scale the business and focus on how Workshare's services can truly benefit the customer. Her goal was to figure out a system that would improve customer success while also lifting some of the burdens off of the sales team.
How does a logistics company shift its gears to become more customer-focused? In today’s episode, Scott Allison, the Chief Customer Officer of DHL’s supply chain, shares some strategies and tactics around communicating the brand’s message, telling the customer story, and improving employee and customer experience.
DHL is a global leader in the logistics industry. Though the company operates on a B2B level, Scott understands that the business has a big impact on individuals, and wants his employees to remember that their services help improve lives.
There’s a certain skill that comes with taking the knowledge you've gained and pulling it together for the organization in a way that will help leaders make financial, cultural, and leadership decisions. Rosalyn Curato, CCO of Allovue, a startup EdFinTech (education financial technology) company, knows how to get this done. In today's episode, Rosalyn shares how her background in finance and education consulting contributes to success in her CCO role.
Allovue is a B2B2C SaaS company that builds software solutions to help school districts around the country interact with their financial data more strategically.
“Customer delight is incredibly important, but it’s also insufficient,” says Jon Herstein, Chief Customer Officer at Box, a cloud content management company that serves about 90,000 customers. In today’s episode, Jon explains how he delivers business outcomes to his customers in a B2B SaaS company, where the relationship between the vendor and the customer is no longer simply transactional, it's a long-term relationship that has to be nurtured over time.
“The expectations of people, thanks to technology, are different. You want it now, you want it fast, you want good service, you want it with no friction,” says Fernando Machado, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Burger King, in regards to the company’s transformation to improve its guest experience and meet customer needs. In this episode, Fernando, an extremely successful marketer who's been featured in Adweek and Forbes, shares how he works closely with operations and the franchise owners to make great CX come to life.
Are you responsible for building an entirely new customer experience path for your organization? Monica Whiting, Vice President of Customer Experience at TECO energy, shares tactics and plans to help you strategize short-term and long-term goals for CX, regardless of your industry. Teco is a utility company that provides electric and natural gas services in Tampa Florida, and gas services across the state of Florida.
How does a legacy organization learn how to integrate digital technology in a way that facilitates a meaningful customer experience? Todd Unger, Chief Experience Officer and Senior Vice President of Physician Engagement at the American Medical Association, shares insights and lessons learned along the way, while leveraging his background in marketing and advertising, and product development, to transform a 170-year-old company’s communication methods into the world of digital.
Allison Pickens is a Chief Operating Officer at Gainsight, a customer success SaaS organization, whose role is also inclusive of CCO responsibilities. Allison shares how she united the entire organization to embrace a CX transformation, and the skills she believes are required to ascend beyond a typical CCO role, which helped bolster her organization's success and external credibility.
"Don't look at yourself, look at your customer. Be sure you have your customer in mind when you create something. Be sure it's customer-focused, not self-focused," says Horst Schulze, who is the Founder, Chairman & CEO of the Capella Hotel Group, and Co-founder & Former COO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.
Horst definitely knows a thing or two about creating excellent customer service and has some great insights to share with us—many more of which can be found in his latest book, Excellence Wins. Horst shares the wisdom that transcends hotel management and can be employed by CX practitioners in any establishment where customers are being served.
Does your organization have a system in place for measuring customer churn? In today's episode, I chat with Chelsie Rae Lee, Senior Vice President of Customer Strategy at SnackNation, a subscription service that delivers snacks to homes and offices. In this sense, SnackNation is a B2B2C company, as it partners with grocers and other businesses, while also selling directly to consumers. Diving deeper into your analytics will help you understand why your customers left, if they're thinking about leaving, and how you can work to keep them on board.
Chelsie talks to me about defining her role as the SVP of Customer Strategy and how she worked with senior leadership and her team of account managers to improve employee experience, create a customer journey map, and understand customer churn.
How do we look at the total journey and understand the underlying drive of customers, so we can develop digital products that better meet their needs? Mark Bartlett, Chief Experience Officer at FPX, chats with me about the importance of developing your customer narrative and understanding their behaviors, so you can design products that they’ll get the most benefit out of.
Mark’s B2B experience in technology and engineering have shown him that too many times, engineers and developers build products, only to be disappointed in the end when nobody uses them in the way it was intended. He shares tactics that have been helpful as he rebuilds FPX from a customer-first perspective, to be a B2B value-driven engine.
In today’s episode, I chat with Thales Teixeira, a Lumry Family Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School. Thales has been in this position for about nine and a half years and teaches in the marketing unit. He shares that over the past few years, he’s taught intro to marketing, digital marketing strategy, and E-commerce to his MBA students. Additionally, Thales works with business executives, teaching them about digital disruption and transformation—which is what we’ll be touching on today.
In today’s episode, we’re going international with Rekha Weerasooriya, General Manager of Customer Experience Management and People Development at Dialog Axiata, the number one telecommunications provider in Sri Lanka. At Dialog Axiata, Rekha is in charge of customer listening, customer experience management, and employee experience development. Rekha shares tactics that I think you’ll find valuable, and pieces together a story that shows just how complex running CX within a competitive telecommunications industry can be.
Today I’m chatting with Scott Campbell, the senior vice president and chief client officer at American National, which offers personalized insurance coverage for life, business, and auto expenses. Before leading client experience at American National, Scott spent a large chunk of his career in marketing and communications. He details how this experience has been useful for him, allowing him to understand the importance of wrapping up the work and communicating it back to the organization.
Today, we're doing something a little different; The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show is in both video and audio form. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation between myself and Ben Steele, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at REI. So please do listen to the full interview! REI is an 80-year-old passion-based business; it's a co-op with members, rather than shareholders. As Chief Customer Officer, Ben wants to tell the story of this unique company whose members truly love and support it.
Quite a few of the CX leaders I’ve spoken to on the podcast have shared that previous experiences in sales, retail, and hospitality helped create a foundation for the skills required to be a successful CX champion in their organization. In today’s episode, I chat with Rhiannon Hoeweler, the Vice President of Visitor Experience, Strategy, and Fun at The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, who shares that her stint as a cocktail waitress gave her some of the skills she needed in order to lead this work.
In today's episode, I explore the basics of establishing a core CX foundation for your organization with Darin Byrne, Vice President of Client Experience and Delivery at Wolters Kluwer. Darin and I chat about customer experience as a mindset, and how he was able to define and frame his role in a way that provided clarity for the rest of the organization to understand. This conversation is great for leaders interested in learning how to develop a solid base for customer and employee experience within their organization and then expound upon that.
In today's episode, I chat with CCO Lisa Henken Ramirez, about implementing customer experience Netspend, a young, a finance-related company. Netspend is a leading provider of prepaid Visa® and Mastercard® cards for personal & commercial use. Lisa shares with us how she used her background in consulting and change management to help lead the company’s CX efforts and get Netspend employees to connect more authentically with customers.
As conversations around sustainability and corporate social responsibility continue to increase, I think you’ll enjoy this timely conversation with Michael Bair, Senior Director of Member Experience at Inspire, a clean energy tech start-up. Inspire uses technology to bring clean energy sources to businesses and the homes of everyday Americans.
With over 10 years of experience under his belt, leading customer-facing teams, Michael sheds some insight into how he breaks through some of the challenges to get customers to think differently about their energy options.
Today's podcast is the last replay featuring "best of" content from 2018. Thank you all for your support and for taking the time to listen to these podcasts. I've got a lot of great interviews coming up that I can't wait to share with you!
Today, we're revisiting a conversation I had with Alan Dubovsky, a well-respected colleague in the industry, who is the Chief Patient Experience Officer at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Alan shared the unique situation that placed him in this position at Cedars-Sinai, his prior experience in the healthcare industry, and the extensive work he's done to define his newly created role.
Today's podcast is the last replay featuring "best of" content from 2018. Thank you all for your support and for taking the time to listen to these podcasts. I've got a lot of great interviews coming up that I can't wait to share with you!
Today, we're revisiting a conversation I had with Alan Dubovsky, a well-respected colleague in the industry, who is the Chief Patient Experience Officer at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Alan shared the unique situation that placed him in this position at Cedars-Sinai, his prior experience in the healthcare industry, and the extensive work he's done to define his newly created role.
Today’s "Best of 2018" episode features Patricia Pedhom Nono, who was previously the general manager of customer service & customer experience at MTN Cameroon, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in Africa. This was a really great conversation. Patricia shared a detailed account regarding how she demonstrated the value of a customer-first strategy to a skeptical C-Suite. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb133
“Our lives as human beings are made up of moments,” said Dan Heath in my interview with him earlier this year. One of my most popular podcast episodes of this year features Dan Heath, co-author of the book, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. Though not a CX book per se, it will definitely get you thinking about ways you can differentiate your brand and the experiences you provide to your customers.
I'm closing out the year by replaying some of my most popular episodes from 2018. Today's episode, which many of you seemed to enjoy, features Amanda Sachs, General Manager, Customer & Partner Experience at Microsoft.
This is such a multi-faceted interview because CX for Microsoft involves numerous partners and employees that span the world, so not only do we discuss CX at a local level, but we talk about how to make an impact with teams that operate in different cultures and speak different languages.
In today’s episode, I chat with Alvin Stokes, Senior VP of Customer Experience at Cable & Wireless Communications (C&W), and we discuss how he began a CX transformation in an international telecommunications industry spanning 17 markets. C&W is a full-service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America, and Alvin manages the consumer service delivery workforce across 17 Caribbean markets. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb130.
How do you make health care more personal and customer-focused? This is a topic that comes up in my interview with Antoinette Taranto, Chief Customer Officer at The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. Since the organization historically focused on providers, state legislators, and Medicare and Medicaid services, they wanted to change the direction to become more customer-focused. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb129
Today, I'm replaying one of our most popular episodes from 2018 about the employee experience and building customer loyalty at Hertz with Eric Smuda, VP of Customer Experience and Loyalty. In today's replay notes, we're going to focus on Eric's approach to employee experience at Hertz. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb128
As CX leaders and in our own lives, we've seen that sometimes, finance companies can be a little late to the customer experience train, so I think you'll enjoy today's conversation, as I speak to Samantha Paxson, Executive Vice President and Chief Experience Officer for Co-op Financial Services. Samantha shares how she’s used her communications and marketing background to unite leadership across silos within her organization to provide a more efficient and unified customer experience. I think you'll also find value in the conversation where we touch on the importance of emotional intelligence and how that plays a role in clearly and effectively communicating the needs of the business. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb127.
Do you put the needs of your customers first and focus on the value you provide them? Today, we're replaying an episode that many of you enjoyed, featuring Francis Cordon, the first Chief Customer Officer at Rigor, a SaaS company. In this conversation, Francis and I chat about the importance of putting yourself in your customers' shows in order to earn your right to customer-driven growth. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/126
As a business leader or owner, do you think about how your approach to hiring impacts your organization and customer experience? In today’s podcast episode, I’m revisiting conversations with two previous guests, Mary Winfield, VP of Customer Experience and Trust at Lyft, and Carolyne Matseshe-Crawford, Head of Fan Experience at Fanatics. Both of these women place a strong value on employee experience, and you’ll hear some of their strategies regarding implementation tactics. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb125.
I'm revisiting conversations from two CX leaders who have united their organizations to conduct a CX transformation guided by a specific purpose to enhance the experience. Listen to Vishal Bhalla, VP and CXO of Parkland Hospital, whose 2-year journey with hospital visits inspired him to become a leader in healthcare. Listen to Lee West, Pastor of Guest Experiences at Gateway Church, who shares how his personal experience witnessing new church member isolation inspired him to map a new welcoming strategy. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb124
I’m sharing excerpts from previous interviews with two experienced C-Suite leaders who successfully implemented very tactical steps with a focus on uniting the C-Suite and understanding their needs to advance their CX work. You’ll hear from Brian Lilie, CCO and Head of Technology at Equinix, the world's largest IBX data center & colocation provider, and Isabella Lau, CCO and CMO at Manulife, a Canadian multinational insurance company and financial services provider.
I’m sharing excerpts from previous interviews with two experienced C-Suite leaders who successfully implemented very tactical steps with a focus on uniting the C-Suite and understanding their needs to advance their CX work. You’ll hear from Brian Lilie, CCO and Head of Technology at Equinix, the world's largest IBX data center & colocation provider, and Isabella Lau, CCO and CMO at Manulife, a Canadian multinational insurance company and financial services provider.
I interview Jay Baer, founder of Convince & Convert, and author of the new book "Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customers With Word of Mouth" on how to operationalize experiences that creates word-of-mouth marketing for your business. In this episode, Jay also shares examples from 3 companies (B2C and B2B) who've successfully operationalized talk triggers that keep their businesses booming and customers talking. Get show notes and watch the interview at customerbliss.com/cb122.
In today's episode, you'll hear from Karen Ellis, the Chief Customer Officer of San Antonio airport, and Sonya Lacore, Vice President of Inflight Operations at Southwest Airlines. Both women share how they assessed the work that needed to be done in order to improve customer and employee relations within their first year on the job. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb121
"If you have a customer success job in an organization that isn't interested in customer retention, you need to consider doing something else," says Lucy Norris, Chief Customer Success Officer at Genesys, a technology company that provides solutions for customer experience, marketing, and sales. In today's episode, Lucy and I talk about how they define customer success and customer experience at Genesys, and how she's been leading the CX transformation in the organization.
Do you lead your business by thinking about your customers' wants and needs? Are you putting the customer first? In today's episode, we’re revisiting two conversations with CX leaders representing global organizations about defining customer obsession. You’ll hear from Tamar Cohen, VP of Customer Experience at Zoetis and Amanda Sachs, the General Manager of Customer and Partner Experience at Microsoft. Both women are leading customer experience in these organizations with a “customer-obsessed” mantra. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb119.
In my recent vlog, Jeanne's Daily Dose...Of Reality, I discuss the importance of journey mapping and how you can use it to break down silos and unite your leadership team. In today's episode, we're continuing the conversation around journey mapping by revisiting two conversations I've had with previous guests on the show: Kathy Tobiasen and Sami Nuwar. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb118
I had the pleasure of speaking with Bob Buiaroski, the SVP of Manulife, a leading Canadian-based financial services group that serves millions of customers in 22 countries and territories world-wide. With a background in business and technology, Bob shares how he implemented changes to a CX structure at Manulife that had been in place at the company but not fully developed. He helped Manulife go from ad hoc cx management to embedding it in the organization's culture. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb117.
You may think of gaming as simply a favorite past time of your children or nieces and nephews, but did you know it's actually on track to becoming a 180 billion dollar industry by 2021? Gaming is a huge industry with a lot of devoted customers, which is why it was so interesting to speak with John Pompei, Head of Player Experience Operations Worldwide for Electronic Arts. Get more information and show notes at customerbliss.com/cb116.
In today's conversation with Anand Sampat, the head of customer experience for C2C, a public London commuter train that services 40,000 daily commuters, we discuss how he manages the customer experience for such a complex system. Starting off as a customer insights manager with a degree in engineering, Anand shares how this role gave him an opportunity to understand more of the inner workings of the company and use his analytical skills to bridge gaps and problem solve. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb115.
On today's episode, we're talking to Lee Roquet, the Chief Customer Officer at Yellowfin, a B2B SaaS company that provides a business intelligence analytics platform. Lee shares how determining the power core at Yellowfin helped him understand the company's culture, which laid the groundwork for his CX strategy. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb114.
In today’s episode, I chat with Daniel Coullet, Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Experience, and Elizabeth Curtin, Customer Experience Practice Manager at PTC, about defining customer success and the value of designing a customer room to enhance employee and customer experience. PTC is a B2B global software company that offers a technology platform and solutions to help companies design, manufacture, operate, and service things for a smart, connected world. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb114
In this episode, Rob Markey, leader of customer strategy and marketing practice at Bain & Company and co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0, How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World chats with me about the evolution of both customer experience as a holistic experience and of the chief experience officer and chief customer officer roles over the past few decades. Additionally, we chat about what we look forward to seeing in the future of CX and the work that can still be done to improve organizational transformations. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb112.
We know how difficult it can be to unite silos within your own organization, now imagine you had to unite silos across 17 different state agencies! That's right, when your customers are the employees within a group of government agency partners, you've got a lot of work cut out for you. And today, we'll hear from William Chumley, the Chief Customer Officer for the Governor’s Office of Information Technology for the state of Colorado, who has been uniting leaders, the C-Suite, and silos across 17 executive branch agencies, in efforts to improve IT functions and streamline CX for these agencies that serve the citizens of Colorado. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb112
Over the past two years, the CX leaders and CCOs that I've spoken with have shared great actionable advice and tactics to help you transform the culture of your organization to be customer driven. In this episode, you'll hear from two brilliant leaders who've led CX work in the telecommunications industry. Charlotte Dunsterville, Chief Customer Officer of Sure International Telecom, and Patricia Pedhom Nono, former general manager of customer service & customer experience at MTN Cameroon, share how they first started prioritizing and assessing the work they need to get done in order to transform CX in their organizations. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb110.
“You can’t change Rome in a day. You need a plan and you need to take baby steps,” said Sue Martin Homes, Global VP of Customer Service at Newegg, the leading tech-focused e-retailer in North America. In today’s lively chat with Sue, we talk about her customer service experience and leadership that paved the way for her success in transforming the CX culture at Newegg, a multi-billion dollar company that has been customer-focused since its inception. Get show notes and info at customerbliss.com/cb110.
How do you transform a bureaucracy that was generations in the making? In today’s episode, I speak with Greg Derwart, Managing Director, Administration & Customer Experience at Maryland Department of Commerce. We explore transforming customer and employee experience within a state government agency, and how this work is managed across multiple departments and agencies. Get more information and show notes at customerbliss.com/cb109
Vishal Bhalla is the VP & Chief Experience Officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System, and similar to my guest Shawn Smith in my last interview, Vishal also transitioned into healthcare from hospitality. After a personal encounter spending a few days each month in a hospital for two years, Vishal realized he wanted to serve in healthcare. In today’s episode, Vishal and I discuss how he is managing the transformation of the culture and employee experience at Parkland in order to fundamentally improve the hospital’s customer experience. Get more info and show notes at customerbliss.com/cb108.
Shawn Smith is a Chief Experience Officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Though he’s only been in this position for less than a year, Shawn is responsible for improving the experience of the hospital which spans both patient and caregiver experience, and the overall quality and safety aspect of the center. With a background in hospitality, working in casinos, I chat with Shawn about his transition from hospitality to healthcare and tactics that are helping him implement a CX transformation. Get more info at customerbliss.com/cb107
How do you take insights from customers and drive better decision making and better product delivery? This is one of the many questions that Eric Smuda, VP of Customer Experience & Loyalty of Hertz car rental service had to ask when he joined the company to transform customer and employee experience. In this episode, we chat about improving the employee experience for good CX and how do we build a learning organization in a culture of continuous improvement? Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb106.
In today’s episode, I speak with Antonio Susta, Head of Customer Experience and Customer Service at The Linde Group, a world leading supplier of industrial, processes and specialty gases, and is one of the most profitable engineering companies.
Antonio has a lot of experience blending marketing and sales. As a marketer, he was a fan of B2B marketing for technical products, and spent almost 10 years with Air Liquide, where he became familiar working in a large B2B company in the gas and tech industry.
Now, as a CX leader at Linde, he has support from the board of the company in Germany to implement a CX transformation, as that is the company’s new focus. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb105.
“I really, truly pride myself in surrounding myself with a team of super talented people and letting them shine and be their best selves,” says Carolyne Matseshe-Crawford, Head of Fan Experience at Fanatics. Fanatics is the world’s largest provider of officially licensed sports gear, and in this episode, Carolyne speaks about the importance of employee experience at Fanatics and how that translates to a better customer experience for dedicated sports fans.
"The experiences start from the beginning; the customer has to start feeling that empathy from the beginning when they are prospects," says Francis Cordón, the first Chief Customer Officer at Rigor. Francis is a tech guy who made his way into customer service, taking on CX leadership in the company's newly created role. In this episode, Francis and I chat about the different tactics he has implemented during his 8 months at Rigor in order to improve customer relationships and facilitate customer-driven growth.
In today’s episode with Amy Shioji, Head of Customer Experience at USA Today Network, we talk about how she advocated for a more holistic view of customer experience and loyalty at a media company. Facing challenges from the disruptive nature of the media industry, we talk about how she’s worked to break down internal silos, improve the digital aspect of the USA Today experience, and improve the employee experience as steps to put the customer at the center of their work.
Are you experiencing some challenges from your C-Suite regarding the implementation of a customer experience transformation? In today's episode, I talk to Patricia Pedhom Nono, General Manager, Customer Service & Customer Experience at MTN Cameroon, one of the biggest telecommunications company in Africa. As the company's first CCO, Patricia shares a detailed account of how she proved the value of customer-first strategic thinking and planning to a skeptical C-Suite. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb101.
This is the 100th episode of the Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape show, and I have YOU to thank for it! In this episode, I speak with Amanda Sachs, General Manager, Customer & Partner Experience, at Microsoft. We discuss how she created a path for her global role leading customer experience across all of Microsoft, and how she has engaged with the organization to translate CEO Satya Nadella’s mantra of “customer obsession” into its operating model, engineering and culture.
In this episode leading up to my 100th episode release next week, I speak with Edwin Bodensiek, the Chief Experience Officer for Miles & Stockbridge P.C., a law firm in Baltimore Maryland. We discuss why and how this role can be embedded in a services firm, and the unique blend of branding and “CX” that Edwin brings to this role. Get the show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb99
If you look back on your career journey, do you recognize specific skills and experiences that paved the way for you to succeed in your current role? In today's episode, I revisit conversations with two CX leaders in healthcare, who share how their past shaped success in their current roles. Geeta and Jackie also share tactics and strategies that helped them prioritize and assess the initial work to be done when first stepping into their roles.
Have you recently become a chief customer officer? If you're taking on a CCO role in a company, there's a lot of work that has to be done to get your customer experience program off the ground and running. From getting executive buy-in, to understanding the inner workings of the organization itself, and looking for areas of opportunity, it can all seem so overwhelming. Today, we're going to look at how two customer experience leaders prioritized the work that needed to be done when they first stepped into their roles as change agents within their organizations. Kathy Tobiasen, VP of Customer Experience at Nature's Bounty and Donna Peeples, Chief Customer Officer at Pypestream, share what their first year in their roles have looked like.
If you're leading CX work within an organization, one of the keys to success is to listen to others. Whether you've been doing this work for years or are just starting, listening and gaining feedback has to be an ongoing part of the process. The CX leaders who have been guests on my podcast, always stress the importance of maintaining relationships with internal and external stakeholders in order to advance the work. In today's podcast episode, you'll hear from six customer experience leaders in the B2B industry who share advice about the things they know now, that they wish they knew before they started their work. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb96
Our work as CX practitioners is to put the customer first and think about how we can positively affect their interactions with our brand and organization. Today, we're revisiting some of the answers from previous guests to the pay-it-forward question, "what do you know now that you wish you knew then?" These answers will be helpful to both current and aspiring CCOs. Guests in order of appearance are: Claudiu Coltea (Citizen's Financial Group), Parrish Arturi (Fidelity Investments), Scott Dille (Northern Trust), Brian Lille (Equinix), Rachael McBrearty (Cisco), Catherine Courage (Google), Karen Quintos (Dell). Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb95.
There's so much to learn about successfully implementing a program through your own trial and error, but what would success look like without mentors or help from others? I've always found learning from successful individuals to be helpful, which is why I love asking my guests, "what do you know now that you wish you knew then?" This episode features a compilation of answers to the pay-it-forward question I ask in every episode with tactical advice that you can apply today. Find more information at customerbliss.com/podcast.
"I think the power of collaboration and people talking together and sitting together shouldn't be underestimated," says Charlotte Dunsterville, Chief Customer Officer of Sure International Telecom, a mobile, fixed and enterprise telecommunications supplier in Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, part of the Batelco (Bahrain Telecom) Group of companies. In this episode, Charlotte and I talk about how she united the C-Suite and other departments within Sure International to implement a customer experience program, and how her background in customer service and experience helped her be the transformative leader she is today. Get more information and show notes at customerbliss.com/cb93
How do you define patience experience in a hospital? Alan Dubovsky, Chief Patient Experience Officer at Cedars-Sinai, talks about how he defined his new role at the hospital and how he's been able to lead a patient experience transformation. Get show notes at customerbliss.com/cb92
"Our customers' lives and our lives are made up of moments," says Dan Heath, co-author of The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact in today's episode. Do you think about how you can create remarkable moments for your customers? Dan and I talk about what a power moment is, the recipe for creating one, and how these experiences affect us in our personal and business lives. Get more information and show notes at customerbliss.com/cb91.
"Brands need to do things that build trust and reliance just like interpersonal relationships," says Josh Ives, the VP of Customer Experience Management and Strategy at Samsung Electronics America. Josh has always been interested in the relationship between marketing and services.
Josh's passion for understanding what brands mean to people steered him into a career where he was able to impact how customer service and customer experience affects the relationship with the end consumer. In this episode, I talk to Josh about what customer experience leadership looks like in a large, multi-service organization like Samsung.
Find show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb90
We recently learned that a good friend of ours, Diana Helfinstine, VP of Customer Experience at Essilor, the world's largest manufacturer of eyeglasses has passed away. In tribute to Diana, we're revisiting this podcast episode in which Diana shared how she implemented customer experience strategies that further differentiated Essilor's services, creating greater value for their customers and patients. Find more information in the show notes at customerbliss.com/cb89
Dr. Adrienne Boissy, a neurologist and the leader of the patient, care giver and family experience at Cleveland Clinic and I share the path to embedding experience into a healthcare organization. We chat about what it takes to sustain the philosophy, mindset, and operational priorities to keep this work going. We also discuss how the left brain / right brain skillset helps her succeed in this role. Find more information and show notes at customerbliss.com/cb88
Is your company customer obsessed? If not, it should be! Tamar Cohen, Head of US Customer Experience for Zoetis, a leader in animal health services, shares how she led the leadership team in building the company's CX platform and organization from the grounds up.
Tamar and I chat about how she's been able to define Zoetis as a truly customer obsessed company, where every decision is led by how it will benefit the customer base.
When you lead with customer obsession as your CX foundation, remember that "first and foremost, listen to the customer and be consistent and clear," says Tamar. Go to customerbliss.com/cb87 to get the show notes from this episode.
"I have a passion for customer service and customer care, and I know that I have high expectations." says Kathy Tobiasen, VP of Customer Experience at The Nature's Bounty Company. "When I give a company my money. I expect to be treated a certain way when I’m buying their products and services, and that’s my goal as I approach this work."
In this episode, Kathy talks to me about her path to the role of leader of customer experience. We chat about the interesting application of “CX” inside both the packaged goods business operation, and the customer experience delivered. Find show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb86.
How do you transform customer experience within the postal service - an industry that affects the whole nation? In this episode, Christine Corbett, a hybrid CCO of Australia Post, shares how she's using her background in operations and communications to unite the organization and reinvent the Australia Post customer and employee experience. Find more information and get the show notes at customerbliss.com/cb85
In this 2017 Best of the Podcast episode, I revisit my interview with Catherine Courage, the VP of Ads and Commerce User Experience at Google. Catherine shares practical and strategic advice about how she created the path of her CX leadership role at Google. Find more information and a more in depth description in this episode's show notes at customerbliss.com/catherine
In this 2017 Best of the Podcast episode, I revisit my interview with Jason Bradshaw, CCO of Volkswagen Group Australia. We talk about how Jason transformed CX at VW Australia and the extensive hiring process he went through. To find show notes and learn more about the guest, go to customerbliss.com/jason
As 2017 comes to an end, I’m replaying 3 of my most popular podcast episodes of 2017. In this episode, I chat with Mary Winfield, the VP of Customer Experience and Trust at Lyft. In addition to sharing what leadership qualities helped her advance the work in her position, Mary shared show she defines the customer experience role in a mission-centered company, the importance of good hiring, and how to grow the company responsibly. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/mary.
In my conversation with Isabella Lau, who has held the hybrid role of both CMO & CMO at Manulife Hong Kong for over 7 years, we discuss this emerging expanded role, how Isabella is driving both brand, operational, and cultural leadership – and why her unique background in both operations and marketing prepared her for success. Find show notes and more information about the guest at customerbliss.com/cb81
Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Can you manage a B2B relationship with customer providers and consumers? In this episode, Angie Hicks, CCO of ANGI Homeservices and co-founder of Angi, shares how she built Angie’s List into the valuable service provider tool it is today, and how she transitioned her entrepreneurial and marketing experience into the customer experience role she currently holds at ANGI Homeservices.
How do you transform the culture and operations of your company to benefit the lives of your customers? In this episode, I chat with Sami Nuwar, the vice president of customer experience transformation at American Bath Group, about how his newly established role at ABG allowed him to create processes and operations that switched the company focus from being product-driven to being customer-driven. Find show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb79
Have you ever thought about the end-to-end customer experience of a student in higher education? From interfacing with the admissions department to the platforms used to register and access school resources – the overall customer and user experience impacts a student’s success and perception of the program.
In this episode, I speak with Marc Riesenberg, Director of Marketing for Coding with Kids, who spoke about implementing a CX program and improving the UX while serving as the Associate Vice President of Customer Experience at Bridgepoint Education. Bridgepoint is the parent company of Ashford University and University of the Rockies; its programs are delivered primarily via a progressive online learning platform.
Find show notes and more details at customerbliss.com/cb78
Are you thinking about how to implement a customer experience journey at your startup? In this episode, Adriana Zeman, VP of Customer Success at Zaius, shares her proven path for making customer experience a part of the business in a startup operation. In our conversation, we cover her month-to-month plan to implement a customer success journey that goes beyond the initial onboarding phase. Get show notes and more information at customerbliss.com/cb77
On this episode of Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show, I chat with Ross Garretson, Vice President of Customer Experience at Hunter Douglas North America, about how he builds out both the business to business and business to consumer experience for the worldwide leader in custom window treatments and architectural products.
In today's show with Anne Witherspoon, we learn that sometimes implementing customer experience efforts has to start as a grassroots engagement across the organization. We discuss the skills and approach you need to build a customer experience program and its baseline foundation. Plus, Anne shares the strategy and game plan that helped her succeed in this role.
Did you know that government agencies are working hard to embed customer experience strategies in their operating plan and mindset? In this episode, Anahita Reilly, Chief Customer Officer for the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), walks us through her customer experience maturity map and actions to unite the leadership team, map the customer journey and drive transformation.
Charlie Herrin and I had a open, honest and insightful conversation about where Comcast has been and how Charlie is leading the organization to improve both its experience, and earn improvement in consumers’ sentiment toward the company, and its practices.
In our conversation, Maury Kask walks us through his journey from how his pitch to the board, engaging people across the company, to being named Chief Experience Officer. We discuss the seven work streams he presented, and how he is operationalizing them now in his earned C-Suite role.
Multi-time CX leader Enrique and I have a frank conversation about when it’s time to evaluate if the CX role you’re in has the advocacy you need to be successful, and how to get traction when you’re in the right environment for success.
Sandy Miranda explains her three rules for how to elevate from your existing role to a CCO Role in your organization. Sandy tells of her deliberate path from Customer Care Manager to CCO and how she took actions to earn the role and ensure she could be successful in it.
Libby Duane Adams is a disciplined and mature CCO leader who shares her 6-year strategy for making the role a growth driver in her organization. For those driving B-B technology companies, you will not want to miss her actions, path and how she drove success.
Rachael walks us through her path to provide Cisco with the foundational information that created insights around Cisco’s customer base, and how she is building capabilities inside the organization to value customers, show impact, and focus on their priorities. Her work is connecting directly to Cisco’s “The Network Intuitive”
Damian and I discuss how he is leading the transition, in partnership with his CEO, to make AGL Energy of Australia a service business that happens to supply energy. In our conversation, Damian walks us through his six dimensions of the transformation, and many not-to-be-missed tactics, that he has used to make progress.
Rhonda Basler and I discuss how Hallmark Business Connections is helping companies build bonds with their customers - by extending their products and services. A very intriguing dimension of a company we all know so well - you’ll be intrigued to hear how customer experience is a key part of how they help companies grow.
Zvi Baida and I discuss his very large “hybrid” role where he runs the service operation and customer experience for Shufersal - the largest supermarket in Israel. He walks us through his customer experience formula, uniting process, people and technology. And shares his intriguing tactics of building a board room gallery and videos to unite the C-Suite.
Annette Höher-Bäuerle went from being internal legal counsel at the Thomas Cook group, to leading all of Customer Experience globally. Her skills and long tenure with the company led her to use agile design thinking to prove and implement changes in the customer experience, to gain traction and drive real sustainable improvement. Listen in to hear how she used Google’s 1-day design thinking to implement a 24-hour service promise that led the way for all future work.
Stephen Ingledew has held the customer experience leadership role multiple times. And is now determining his next CX role, maturing his previous role and work so that it is ready to run by the leaders whom he developed. In our conversation we discuss how Stephen developed his skills, and his path to continue to improve the financial services industry - leaving a legacy of improvement.
Tom and I had a very detailed discussion of his first twelve months in his role, from role definition, to understanding the new business he was in, gaining traction with a ground-swell approach, through establishing customer valuation and segmentation, th
Geeta Wilson and I discuss how to tell if a company is ready to commit to a customer-driven transformation, and why a CCO has to know what his or her role should be. And why honoring the past to accelerate the future MUST be the way to approach a transformation role.
Brian Lillie was the Chief Information Officer at Equinix before being named by the company’s executive committee to the Chief Customer Officer role. Learn how his skills, relationship and broad-view as a CIO are making him an extremely successful CCO.
Catherine Courage, who has led customer experience now for the third time discusses how her background in psychology, and deep experience in technology organizations helps her to unite product leaders to deliver a united Google experience.
Mark Slatin, SVP, Director of Client Experience for Sandy Spring Bank describes in detail how he engaged the leadership team and the organization over four years to win TWO coveted Customer Experience Innovation Awards. And most importantly, improve the customer and company experience with the Bank.
Jackie McAtee, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience for Mayfair Medical Imaging and I discuss her path from hospitality and marketing to her hybrid role of both marketing and customer experience. Jackie outlines her roadmap and actions for reimagining and reinventing the x-ray or imaging experience that has driven profits, customer admiration and employee joy in their work.
Drew Neisser, who has interviewed over 200 CMOs and I discuss the evolving role of the CMO, and the expanding “hybrid CMO” taking on operational responsibility and expanding to influence the overall customer experience.
Peloton is a mission based company that deliberately crafted every element of its experience, from the build of the bike to its delivery, usage and even helping people move their bike from one home to another. Our conversation charts Brad’s path from consultant to Bain, to Starwood hotels and his groundbreaking work at Peloton.
Claudiu is a perennial customer experience leader. Accessing his ‘right brain/left brain’ skills so necessary for this role, he calls upon his background at Gallup, healthcare and his operational roles to lead customer experience as a transformation. This is a distinction that we see in leaders who have successfully led operations along their path to leading global customer experience change management - and it greatly impacts the success of the work and the role.
In 2015, Belmont Stakes was awarded the prestigious Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal’s “Sports Event of the Year” beating out such hallowed events as Super Bowl 50. In my conversation Sr. VP & Chief Experience Officer for The New York Racing Association tells us how they did the work to get there ...and beyond.
How do you define the chief customer officer role and lay a framework for your success in the role? 5-year CCO Milista Anderson of FIS Global, the world’s largest provider of financial solutions joins me to answer these questions.
Lexi Reese joins me today on the C-Suite network where we discuss her career trajectory from Chief Customer Experience Officer to Chief Operating Officer in Tech. We discuss her guiding principles for CX leadership and the three skills required to be successful in this role and work.
Tabitha Dunn is a perennial customer experience leader, who developed her passion for this work on the fundamentals of process and quality at the master of the genre at the time, Xerox.
This week, in response to so many people asking me to weigh in on the United Airlines incident, I’ve enlisted my friend and colleague Diane Magers to have a discussion with me to look backwards and assess/discuss what’s gone on to date.
Anne Herman is the Chief Customer Officer for MSA - the Safety Company, the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of safety equipment. Anne began her career as an engineer, moving to global quality and operations. In her role, Anne not only leads the customer experience transformation for MSA, but she also holds responsibility for running the Quality, delivery and support operations for MSA globally.
Brian Andrews is a pioneer in the implementation of NPS - the Net Promoter System™. We talk about his journey in figuring out exactly what it was - well before Fred Reichheld wrote his ground-breaking book. And the critical factors in embedding this approach not as survey-score chasing, but business transformation.
Southwest Airlines has a wonderful approach elevating people inside the organization. Starting with Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus, who joined Southwest in 1978, who rose to that rank after previously working for several years as founder Herb Kelleher's executive assistant at his law firm.
In my conversation with Karen it was very interesting to see how customer experience is expanding to impact all areas of business.
Diana like many who take on this role, took on a newly created role. She molded and created the role inside the organization. She has been in her role for five years. In our discussion we looked back on her path to understand where she got traction, the results achieved and lessons learned.
In my conversation with Diane, it was again interesting to hear her background from technical writer to chief customer officer.
Jim and I have crossed paths over the years like many of us in this space. We are a community. We share fearlessly with each other… which is what this podcast is all about.
In the past year, Jim took on a role of a much bigger community which I am (yes I’m that old!) am also a part of: AARP. AARP is the world's largest membership organization- with 38 million members.
So I was keen to chat with Jim to let you all know about his background and the work he’s doing now.
Mary is another serial customer experience leader who, like many of us gravitated to this work long before it was commonplace or fully understood.
Her background is a progression of skills that led her to this role. She began as a process and quality guru, then connected with technology. These two steps started creating the foundation that led her to this role.
Media is a business vertical that is beginning to engage Customer Experience Leaders. The New York Times has a leader of Customer Experience (who we will soon be interviewing), and I was pleased to see that the UK is also embracing this role.
Robert Bridge is the Chief Customer Officer of Telegraph Media Company. A role which he came to after many years building up to this role from digital roles across multiple industries, including Yahoo.
We discussed the importance of clarifying what the role means and how Robert was a part of defining his role and responsibilities and how his role got expanded as part of the interviewing process.
Robert, like many emerging CCO’s runs many parts of the customer experience, in addition to leading business transformation efforts
Karen Quintos is the Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at the newly formed (since late 2016) Dell Technologies; a merger of Dell and EMC.
We spoke about four key areas in our conversation that defined how Karen approached the role appointed by Michael Dell and how she’s faring in this first year within the role.
Jason Bradshaw is the senior leader for customer experience, the same level as a chief customer Officer for Volkswagen Group Australia. The hiring process for his role was quite thorough, he had to present a proposal for his first 90 days in the role. And importantly he went through a very extensive set of interviews with every level of leadership he would be working with.
Tom Allin hold the very first position of Chief Veteran’s Experience Officer, an appointment made by President Obama. Reporting to the Secretary of the Veteran’s Administration, Robert A. McDonald.
In her transformation role with Lifesize, Amy's position was originally called VP of of Customer Care. Amy knew that this cast her into too narrow of a role for what she wanted to accomplish, so like many she proposed a revised scope and title, which is how she got the VP of Customer Success and Happiness role.
Dayton Semerjian was a Chief Marketing Officer 4 times. Then he decided to put his career to be on a path to become an eventual CEO. Taking on operational roles deliberately to lead toward his goal, he ran a $600 million P&L and then a $2.5 billion P&L for CA technologies. Then took on his current role; General Manager, Global Customer Success and Support at CA Technologies.
Starting many years ago as a customer service rep, Camille has been in the “service” lane her entire career. In our conversation we discussed her successive roles, and why, in particular, the Chief of Staff role prepared Camille for the Chief Customer Officer role.
What’s interesting about the Chief of Staff role is that after years of running operations, it gave Camille the ability to strategically think for the organization. It also gave her the comprehensive view of the business - a critical element for a successful Chief Customer Officer as well.
This is Donna Peeple’s second time in the Chief Customer Officer role, having held the role previously at AIG. Her role now as CCO at Pypestream is with a much smaller company, in start up mode...but according to Donnna the path for her is the same, regardless of the size of the company. The only variables she says are the scale of the work, and the legacy and culture of a larger established company that often makes the work more challenging to navigate.
Carol Pudno is a member of the growing population of “serial” Chief Customer Officers who have held the senior customer experience leadership role more than once. So in our podcast, we focused on the telltale signs of whether to take a role, and what indicators to consider when it’s time to move on to your next customer experience challenge.
Penni Conner has spent her entire career in the energy industry. Her background is interesting as she is professionally an engineer...but found her way to the customer care space. From there, she found her place, where she successfully combined both her analytical and storytelling and change management skills and remained focused in customer experience.
Lee West is the Pastor of Guest Experiences, a very new role in the not for profit “church world” as he calls it. I was very intrigued by this role and really wanted to understand how Lee has gone about extending customer experience into this very important part of many people’s lives.
Brenda Wensil is the Chief Customer Officer at the Department of Education Federal Student Aid Office. In her role she is constantly striving to help the 40 million students paying their student loans and the 22 million students who are applying.
Brenda and I discussed her interesting role and how she is working this role within this unexpected sector. In her role she is working to deliver more deliberate and conscious delivery of the process and services that help students fund their education.
Kevin Bury had a very successful career as the CEO of several technology start ups before he took on the senior customer experience leadership role at the very large technology company, SolarWinds.
Mark Weinstein is the Senior Vice President of Customer Engagement, Loyalty and Partnerships for Hilton Worldwide. Like many customer experience executives, he searched for a career path that matched his skills and passion for helping customers comprehensively across the business. We discussed his multiple roles at Hilton International, which I found most interesting. He began with running Hilton Honors, which gave him a footing operationally in delivery of value for the organization.
Duygo Cibik has a robust history in operations and change management and transformation. So when she took on the role of the Chief Customer Success officer at Reval, she knew she needed to create a very deliberate path to gaining understanding, acceptance and traction in her role.
Jennifer LeMieux, Chief Customer Officer at Gaffey Healthcare took on the role of Chief Customer Officer in addition to her role of running many of the company operations, including outsourced solutions for hospital systems and healthcare providers and technology solutions for management and billing.
In our time together, we discussed the pragmatic path that she took in her first year to identify the major opportunities and work that her role needed to take on, and to unite the leadership team in advancing the work.
Tish Whitcraft is what we call a “serial” Chief Customer Officer type. She has held a version of this role in over four technology driven and internet companies, including Yahoo!, Myspace, and OpenX
In our conversation, Tish walks us through her expanded version of the CCO Role, which is for her, a combination of the CCO and Chief Operating Officer role.
She walks us through her process for vetting and taking on a CCO role, and how she determines when it’s time to go.
There is as much confusion about just exactly “Customer Success” is as “Customer Experience.” In this fascinating conversation with Jose Vergara, Chief Customer Officer of MkKesson Medical Imaging, he debunks not only his role but the actions that define a successful customer success driven transformation and movement.
Darryl Speach is a serial Customer experience practitioner and change agent. With experience leadership roles at New York Life, with the Disney Institute and at Greystone and company, in our conversation together he shares his hard-earned and joyous wisdom with us.
Continuing to explore customer experience leadership in many different sectors of business, my podcast today is with Dave Nelson, the Chief Customer Officer at Armstrong Relocation & Cos, a very large family owned business that provides moving and relocation services - as the agency for a national moving company brand.
In our conversation, Dave and I discussed how he leads customer experience in a family owned business, and as an agency to a larger corporate entity.
He details his very rigorous approach to culture development and employee engagement,as well as accountability - which i found to be very refreshing and clear and actionable.
In this episode, we explored yet another unexpected place where customer experience is taking hold: the Government. Stephanie Thum, Vice President of Customer Experience for the Export/Import Bank of the United States explains how the mandate for service in government has led to wide spread action across many government agencies to address and rethink how they serve.
When Jeb Dasteel first took his role at Oracle it was to guide a burning platform in improving experiences with clients. Over the years, he evolved his role to the Chief Customer Officer - one of the first in the technology sector.
In our conversation, Jeb discusses how the role has evolved, how he has built the team, and how he engages engineers and a very action driven culture to care about and improve customer experience.
In this episode I speak with Renee Cacchillo, who is the Senior Vice President of Customer, Brand and Technology at the Safelite Group. Renee’s path to customer experience leadership is one i like to highlight because she earned her role through the years by proving her ability to lead and run a successful operation. As many CCO level leaders, Renee first ran service delivery and operations, then added brand as the CMO of the organization, then customer experience. She has recently added technology so that she is responsible for much of the experience delivery of the organization.
In our conversation, Renee outlined her clear path in embedding customer experience, including engaging with a data scientist to tell the story of customers’ lives and compel the organization to care about the “why” behind customer experience, emotions and business growth. She then walks us through the progression of actions led to engage employees and leaders to elevate Safelite to the beloved position that they have with customers today.
Dave Mingle is the General Director of Global Customer Experience Execution and Planning for for General Motors. In our conversation, Dave and I discuss the multi-year path that GM has been on to first evaluate and establish the need for customer experience, through the execution stages they are in now. We discuss how Dave and his team used a journey map to clarify and focus the work and how he identified and engaged with early adopter leaders to prove the approach and gain adoption. We discussed the importance of the CEO modeling the behavior that is so critical to this type of transformation taking hold throughout the organization.
In our session, Natalie Schneider, Vice President of Customer Experience at Anthem, Inc. describes the transformation she is leading for one of the largest national healthcare providers. From assessing the many operations and variations of service to uniting the C-Suite and CEO focus, Natalie walks through her detailed plan with practical advice on how to ensure the work from getting too big, and ensuring the work goes on.
Lesley Mottla was part of the team of senior leaders who built the market-disrupting Zipcar business. Redesigning and grabbing a corner of the market that no one knew existed, Zipcar changed the car rental experience forever. Now Lesley is disrupting the luxury shoe market in her customer experience leadership role at M. Gemi. Learn directly from Lesley just how Zipcar used customer experience design and innovation to drive business growth and disrupt that market, and the actions and tactics she counts on and that every start-up would be wise to adopt.
In this episode, Nick Frunzi, who is CCO of Esri, the second largest privately held technology company in the US, discusses the origins of his role and how he navigates the work to achieve success. Already a customer-focused company, Esri’s greatest challenge was moving from thriving from individual’s heroics and service successes to embedding a set of repeatable competencies inside the business. Those of you who have found that your companies also need this will greatly enjoy this conversation with Nick.
In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Parrish Arturi. Parrish is the SVP of Retail Service and Experience Delivery at Fidelity Investments. He's a visionary leader in our space, and here we talk a lot about building customer experience across the business. That's a key area that many new and emergent CCOs struggle with -- they know they 'own' their silo, but they need to embed their silo and the overall idea of customer experience across the business. How can you do that? Parrish offers a couple of distinct ideas in this episode.
Jeanne and Aisling discuss how Airbnb manages global customer experience across 191 countries and 34,000 cities. They explore specific CX tactics Airbnb uses to create not only great customer experiences, but also how they have established a fun and rewar
Jeanne talks with Curtis Kopf in this episode. Curtis was deeply embedded with customer experience at Alaska Airlines before moving to Premara Blue Cross. They discuss the value of building bridges, listening tours, asking the right questions, using analytics wisely, and how conversations drive customer experience
Today’s podcast is with Alison Circle, who is the Chief Customer Experience Officer in another unexpected industry: the Library System. The work that Alison and the leadership team at Columbus Metropolitan Library has in fact been heralded around the world (insert link) in their innovative approaches in this industry many might think is moving toward retirement. At Columbus Metropolitan Library, they are doing the opposite and revitalizing what it means to be a library. Starting with the lives of their customers and the responsibility for a community of learners, they are rethinking the library experience, from how they define their customer, the design of their buildings, how they unite leadership to a higher purpose and what and how they enable young minds to read and establish community.
In this episode Mark Ramsey, General Manager of the Audi America Experience details why Audi made the move to blend their operational customer experience and digital experience responsibilities under one leader. This is a move many organizations are now considering, as these two areas in most are operating as separate silos...contributing to a fractured customer experience. Mark walked us through the importance of building the cultural commitment to customer experience prior to this effort, to ensure that this work would be successful. This cultural commitment work is outlined in a case study in Chief Customer Officer 2.0. Mark walked us through how his team is comprise - which is going to be of great interest - so please include that in the show notes. He then detailed some examples of tools that Audi has built out and operational changes being made.
Samir Bitar and I had a very spirited discussion about his role in leading a transformation of the Smithsonian visitor experience. Like many folks who attain a Chief Customer Officer level type role, Samir had been developing a robust visitor experience for just one of the 19 museums on the Smithsonian campus. His success there earned him his role to lead the work across the entire Smithsonian campus. Talk about human duct tape! Samir shared with us the robust engagement approach that he used to meet with the leaders of every museum to build his proposed approach. He used these insights, paired with a simple draft of the Smithsonian visitor journey at the time to convince the most senior board of regents (including multiple senators and the vice president) why the work was necessary and how he would proceed. Then we talked about exactly how Samir worked to build the first journey map for the Smithsonian which has established the blueprint for countless innovations in the visitor experience, as well as many basic experiences that needed to be consistent from one part of the museum to the other. Finally Samir walked us through a groundbreaking trip planning tool which Conde Nast called a game changer, which is the Smithsonian’s “Trip Planner”. Launching in June we will provide you with the URL.
Scott Dille, Senior Vice President of Customer and Partner Experience at Northern trust bank fearlessly shares his path for leading an experience transformation. You will learn about the human centered listening videos they built to engage the C-Suite and board and the inventive way that they built and deployed their customer room. Scott also shares their approach to the human-centered design lab that guides their customer and partner experience improvement process, and how they are focusing on the millennials banking experience.
In this episode, learn the path that Liberty Mutual’s Chief Customer Officer Margie Dillon took to engage the C-Suite and the specific actions that did and did not work. Learn about the “tipping point” that moved leaders to personally engage, and how she used that commitment to build a 130-person company-wide cross functional team. Hear her story about the communication approach used to connect to employees and to bring the customer experience to life with the development of their customer room.
I am joined with two-time Chief Customer Officer Martin hand. We discussed his transition from a large profit based business where he was Chief Customer Officer at United Airlines, to his role at St. Jude where he leads donor experience. In addition, Martin and I discussed how he depicts and engages leaders with a simple approach and set of metrics that elevates donors as the asset of their business - that gets attention and drives action. Finally, Martin has a proven method for uniting the silos (at low cost) to give the complete view of the current customer journey- critical to gain and unite the leadership team.