The New Digital Customer: Recent Episodes
Brightloom
The New Digital Customer podcast brings you insightful and inspiring conversations with customer-focused leaders who are transforming and innovating customer experience. Hosts Adam Brotman, the CEO of Brightloom and Chief Product Officer Ben Straley talk with customer experience and digital leaders from some of the world's biggest brands.
This episode features a "Digital Strategy Spotlight" on McDonald's national launch of their loyalty program and their announcement of their new customer experience team. Both Adam and Ben talk about the changing definition of "customer experience" and discuss the operational update for the chain.
Articles and Sites referenced for this podcast:
- McDonalds Website - MyMcDonald’s Rewards
- Forbes - McDonald’s Has Created A New Team To Focus On Customer Experiences
- Marketing Dive - McDonald's creates team to elevate diner experiences
- Restaurant Dive - McDonald's takes its loyalty program national
- CNBC - McDonald’s will launch its loyalty program nationwide in July
Adam and Ben bring you a feature series called "Digital Strategy Spotlight". Here, in these short 15-minute episodes, they discuss a brand's digital strategy or their recent changes to their digital strategy. They then give quick highlights, grade the change, and make predictions for what may be seen next from the brand. On this episode, Adam and Ben will discuss Wingstop.
Wingstop announced that they decided to “take a page from the structure of many leading tech companies, which often house marketing and digital/IT functions together to supplement a 'MarTech' structure." With this change, they'll have two distinct teams that focus on varying levels of communication to their guests. One which will lead what they are calling 'micro,' one-to-one communication, and one which will lead 'macro,' one-to-many communication.
In this episode, Adam and Ben discuss their thoughts on this move into the digital atmosphere and what it could mean for Wingstop's customers and organizational structure.
Articles referenced for this podcast:
- NRN Wingstop Article: Why Wingstop's corporate shakeup is such a game-changer
- Wingstop press release
- Restaurant Dive - Wingstop shakes up marketing structure as it eyes 100% digital transactions
- Restaurant Business - Wingstop Prepares To Take On Manhattan
In this episode, Ben is joined by Brightloom CTO Brian Zimmer and two of Brightloom’s Sr. Data Scientists, Bryan Prazen and Felix Duyls. They discuss cool things happening in data science in regard to the retail and marketing landscapes.
Ben and his team discuss the massive opportunities that exist in data to elevate customer experience and drive efficiencies in terms of how work gets done and to have an impact. They give examples of how broadly the range of opportunities is to use data science in predicting the future.
Ben shares insight into the origin of Amazon Prime Day and how retail companies like Amazon have been able to leverage technology at a massive scale to improve customer experience.
Adam gives his angle on what is happening with “meme stocks” like GameStop and AMC Theaters. He comments on how their recent stock roller coaster and similar crypto activity may signal that we are entering a new era.
They wrap with a brief talk about the resurgence of community into the picture of Community, Commerce, and Content.
On this episode, Adam and Ben speak with restaurant industry analyst Andrew Charles from Cowen. The three discuss what the restaurant industry is looking like now that people are getting "back to normal". Andrew dives into topics like digital sales from the restaurant's platform vs a third-party service and the new dynamics of ghost kitchens and AI voice ordering.
Also mentioned is how brands are now fueled by data and data analytics around what customers want, as well as challenges that have arisen.
On this episode, Adam and Ben dive into the hot topic of cryptocurrency and its potential effect on the digital customer.
They also talk about:
How blockchain and the digitization of money are affecting customer interactions.
Bitcoin versus other alt-coins and whether or not this is an opportunity for customer loyalty programs.
How blockchain technology can provide additional flexibility of loyalty programs when data is distributed by blockchain and not controlled by the retailer.
In this episode, Adam and Ben speak with Aimee Johnson, the CMO of Zillow.
Aimee describes her path to Zillow, how the buying/selling journey been digitized and accelerated by the pandemic, and even speaks about the Saturday Night Live skit around Zillow.
Adam and Ben ask Aimee about houses that have been bought in the past 6 months through digital without anyone seeing the house in person.
They discuss what parts of the customer journey for Zillow that still require a human touch.
Aimee shares how she maintains focus with multiple opportunities and who she feels is doing a good job in the digital marketing area.
In this episode, we are joined by Dan Beranek, Vice President, Digital Product at sweetgreen.
Dan shares insights on learning about in-store merchandising and cross-selling using the customer data available.
We talk about creating better customer experiences and service by using big data.
Dan shares how sweetgreen used mobile and website data to support the full-on shift to digital due to the pandemic.
We discuss the growth of additional customer channels and what that means to business. Plus how sweetgreen went about balancing the data coming in through those channels.
You'll hear the answer to - How do you use data to simultaneously improve the customer experience while building available customer data?
The discussion leans into how data can help give customers more of what they respond to positively versus what they may say they like.
Dan answers the podcast’s favorite question: What digital customer experience is exciting to him right now?
Adam and Ben are joined by the CEO and Founder of Amperity, Kabir Shahani. Kabir discusses the inspiration behind starting Amperity, trends that he has seen in the marketplace over the past year, how the landscape has changed due to COVID, and what he thinks of data-driven marketing.
Kabir talks about some of the most common misunderstandings that customers have around their data and the biggest sticking point for Amperity. Kabir gives advice to marketing and tech leaders.
Lastly, Ben asks Kabir to speak on the brands that have impressed him as a customer.
This episode is a continuation of the awesome discussion from episode 14. We discuss how consumer brands can organize and manage data to unlock value.
Adam and Ben examine and share examples of ways to utilize data to attract, build better relationships, and share worth with consumers.
1) Acquisition 2) Use data to understand & reward customers 3) Operations 4) Use data to better plan for future 5) Using data to generate customer insight.
Adam and Ben also examine what brands need to do to leverage data using one of the 5 purposes. They explore one type of data acquisition to explain and provide details of how to accurately utilize that opportunity to assist with removing friction, product development, inventory planning, customer service, and more.
Adam and Ben then stress the importance of having a team to effectively focus and implement strategies for all 5 opportunities in order to gather, examine, and process data to create more engaging content to attract and retain customers. They strongly believe that following these processes and systems is a stepping stone to growing your business.
Tune in to hear and learn more!
Our first episode of 2021! Adam and Ben are thrilled it’s a new year and it’s time to start at the beginning… a fresh start! Due to the unforeseen circumstances of the pandemic, this is now more than ever the digital era. Adam and Ben share their first-hand experience seeing how data can transform your customer experience.
Digital acceleration over the past year.
Adam and Ben examine and share statistics on the increase of digital ordering and sales due to the pandemic, as well as provide examples of brands and/or corporations that have benefited from this increase.
Different types of data you may or may not have access to.
Adam and Ben explore three types of data you have access to; first, second, and third-party data explaining the meaning of each and how you receive and/or collect that information. They also investigate data you may not have access to referred to as marketplaces.
Five things you can do with your data.
Learn about 5 ways to utilize your data to assist with removing friction, product development, inventory planning, customer service, and more. You’ll also learn what brands are currently utilizing these practices and excelling in them.
Tune in to hear and learn more!
Our first annual trends and predictions show!
Today we’re going to do something a little different. As we near the end of 2020, we’re going to have our first annual trends and prediction episode. Adam and I both feel that 2021 is going to be a huge year for consumer brands.
We’ve come up with 3 key predictions or trends that we’re expecting to see in 2021.
- The “new normal” might not be so new - What will be the new normal?
How has COVID and the pending release of a vaccine affected society’s normal? Also, with humans being social creatures, how does that affect consumer behavior? - The rise of the recurring revenue business model:
Adam and Ben will look at a few businesses that utilize recurring revenue and subscriptions. Can the big retailers start to operate like banks and bill you at the end of the month? Can this blur the line between loyalty and payment? - Another wave of digital-only businesses:
Adam and Ben explore the growth of more direct-to-consumer (DTC) business as we go into the new year.
Will 2021 finally be the year when most consumer brands begin to think about growth from the inside-out vs outside-in? Once you get to a critical mass of data/digitized customer relationships - what’s possible?
Tune in to find out!
Richard Tait joins Adam and Ben in this episode. Richard, previously of Microsoft, Starbucks, and Co-Founder of game company Cranium, is today a Partner with Valor Siren Ventures (VSV).
Richard talks of his time at Microsoft, what he learned there, and his experiences in creating products. Hear the interesting story of how Richard created the game Cranium, a game that was introduced in Starbucks and eventually sold to Hasbro.
Learn about Richard’s practice of resilience and iterative design to accelerate product development. He shares stories of the many creative tactics used to come up with new ideas and then bring them to market in new and innovative ways.
Be inspired by his willingness to put himself out there, respond to the resistance, and persevere in the face of friction.
This wisdom packed conversation delves into using friction as a force for innovation. Hear how Richard responds to constraint with creativity and reframes friction into opportunities.
Richard explains using empathy as an entrepreneurial necessity and shares a story of when he gave a job interview to Satya Nadella... known today as the CEO of Microsoft.
The show wraps with Richard answering Adam’s question of a customer experience that struck Richard as incredible. He gives two examples, including one that he has fully bought into as a consumer.
This week Adam and Ben capture their conversation at the 2020 Netrush Summit to share on the podcast. The Netrush Summit is an annual event designed for premium consumer brands, hyper-focused on the shifting retail landscape.
They discuss how for the new digital customer today, their relationship with a brand is primarily a digital relationship. They talk about how acknowledging that has become the central theme.
Leveraging Ben’s experience from his time at Amazon, they go deep into the discussion of the online marketplace, a website or app that facilitates shopping from many different sources. Ben shares what he thinks about marketplaces and the role they play with the customer relationship.
Learn why and how marketplaces work for both the consumer and the business connected to the marketplace. How marketplaces like Amazon are often the beginning of the customer experience - an onboarding experience to a brand.
Ben shares some examples of ways brands can help shape the holistic customer experience when they start out on a marketplace.
Regarding the customer relationship in a world of marketplaces - Ben and Adam discuss what are the most important aspects of building a digital customer relationship, both from a standpoint of the brand’s role and from the impact of available data.
Matt Oppenheimer, the Co-founder and CEO of Remitly joins the show.
Remitly is a global money transfer service whose vision is to transform the lives of immigrants and their families by providing the most trusted financial service products on the planet.
Matt shares answers to Adam and Ben’s questions like:
How do you help your customers get beyond the trust barrier?
Matt shares how to deliver peace of mind to customers and how that ties into the brand.
He talks about how Remitly started from the first customer, built customer trust, and then began to scale.
How has Remitly, a digital company, change due to Covid?
Learn from Matt what might be a surprising result of the pandemic on his business.
Matt explains the surprising fact that their customer base has continued to send money at a steady or increased rate. Matt talks about how their digital bank called Passbook has affected customer trust.
Matt speaks on their diversity efforts in regard to how it relates to understanding their customers and how that supports customer trust.
Matt gets asked the weekly guest question: What are some brands that have impressed you, as a customer, during the pandemic? What are your recent notable digital customer experiences?
This week we are joined by Rodney Hines, the Co-founder and CEO of Métier Brewing Company. Métier Brewing Company is a mission-driven brewery based in the Seattle area. Rodney explains how Métier has changed their business and customer relationships during the pandemic. He also shares how they have increased diversity awareness through those customer relationships.
Rodney details how the business has been able to grow through social channels and is able to give their customers a virtual experience during the pandemic.
He gives some specific tactics, content strategies, and channels that Metier Brewing uses.
Rodney also tells Ben and Adam why he is not afraid to get political on his social channels and shares personal stories and feedback from customers in response to current events. He also gives tips on how other companies can grow closer to customers by embracing the sensitive social and political topics of today.
Ben asks Rodney to share how the pandemic has changed Métier’s business model and what brands have impressed him.
This week we are joined by Ian Cook, the General Manager of Slalom Build. Slalom Build is a “build-as-a-service” firm that consults and delivers cloud-first software, technology, and data products remotely. Ian explains how Slalom works with a wide range of companies to help them excel in modern technology that takes care of the Digital Customer.
Ian shares case studies from some of Slalom’s consumer-facing work, including two very well known exercise brands.
This case displays some of the ways in which approaching the customer as a Digital Customer helped one company to win.
He shares his experience and ideas on using an experience-led project approach in understanding your customer’s end-user and your customer’s customer.
Ben asks Ian to share some digital trends that he sees on the horizon and if there is something that he thinks marketers and digital leaders should be focusing on.
Other questions and insight from Ian:
What are some of the surprises that companies are facing regarding their technical fluency?
What do companies have to get past early on when creating software and technology and what does Slalom see that customers often may overlook?
What features and ecosystems are companies missing that they need to look into deeper once they move past the technology?
Where is the change curve the steepest - technology or mindset?
Ian reveals the company that has impressed him as a customer.
Michael Ramlet, Co-Founder and CEO at Morning Consult joins this week to give a glimpse into the world of customer insight data. Morning Consult is the largest global consumer insights platform revolutionizing ways to collect, organize, and share survey research data to transform how decisions are made.
Here are some of the discussions and questions answered on this episode:
How are brands leveraging their first-party customer data sets?
Michael shares his thoughts on how big brands like Oreo have maintained and grown relevance with generation after generation.
Comparing Gen Z, Gen X, and Boomer data regarding brand recognition - You’d be surprised at how some major brands are unknown to some segments after years of recognition.
How can multiple generations be addressed to maintain cultural relevance?
What are recent findings in the differences between the Gen Z vs Millennial customers?
What methods can companies do to get a new opportunity with new generations of audiences?
What is the role of personalization and authenticity and which generations need it the most?
What digital channels are really getting people’s attention?
Learn how customer behavior, sentiment, and recognition are being measured through broad customer surveys.
Michael is asked - What is the number one thing he cares about regarding scaling and leveraging customer data?
Adam shares how to talk to your digital customers in the most emotionally connected way?
Michael gives insight into what methods of reaching customers currently tend to be the most effective.
How are new privacy regulations affecting trends of capturing consumer insight data?
What is the gap between State of the Art and State of the Industry in customer surveying?
How has the death of mass media platforms affected brand recognition?
Michael gives insight on his perspective of passive monitoring of social channels (social listening) vs direct customer surveys.
What brands impress Michael Ramlet?
Shane Atchison, CEO, North America at Wunderman Thompson joins this episode to answer pressing questions on the new state of digital customer experiences.
On this episode we discuss:
- How has the conversation changed regarding customer experience?
- Who should a company be focusing on now? Existing customer relationships or new customer acquisition?
- How has the consumer reception to brand interaction changed due to the current pandemic experience?
- What are the signals of upcoming hurdles and best practices for overcoming them?
- What does digital transformation mean for the employee that interacts with the digital customer?
- How can you make content that is relevant enough to make conversation in the live moment?
- What are some of the best practices that brands should look at when auditing their customer experience?
- How has video changed business interactions among both clients and customers to still enable a first-class customer experience over social distance?
Shane gives a great example of building the customer journey AFTER the initial customer interaction.
What has Wunderman Thompson been doing to help organizations update their customer care?
He shares his thoughts on what’s next for today’s CMO.
Get insights on the future paths of the Chief Digital Officer, Chief Customer Officer, and CMO as their roles evolve to serve the New Digital Customer journey.
We discuss the importance of using social sentiment data and how brands can utilize it to have productive discussions and learnings for guiding their brand’s reaction to social issues.
Shane Atchison is the CEO, North America at Wunderman Thompson – a network built to inspire growth for ambitious brands. As a 25-year veteran in the advertising and digital marketing industry, Shane is recognized as an innovative leader who creates meaningful and effective experiences for clients on a global scale. As CEO, North America, Shane is responsible for driving transformative change for clients through consulting, data, commerce, and technology services.
Joining this episode is Rob Tedesco, VP of Product at Hathaway, a digital growth partner to restaurants, consumer goods companies, and retailers.
Rob shares the trends that should be top of mind in digital customer experience. Adam, Ben, and Rob share their experiences with major brands as mobile commerce and marketing converge into customer experience platforms.
Get a view of e-comm today vs pre-COVID in terms of the acceleration of digital customer channels.
How has introspection and empathy changed as brands and marketing leaders re-focus?
This episode examines how brands can get to the “thrive” step, beyond survival.
Adam and Ben talk with the CEO of Godiva Chocolatier, Annie Young-Scrivner. What are the areas of big opportunity and how do we better engage with consumers across the globe? Annie shares how Godiva operated up to the pandemic and how the company has responded since. They discuss the accelerating migration of customers to digital and simultaneous changes in customer behavior.
Dominic Engels, CEO of Stone Brewing, shares how a 24 year old craft brewer has embraced digital and how their customers have adapted to the new technologies and conveniences. Dominic, Adam, and Ben discuss how you can foster and cultivate a spirit of innovation within your team.
Former Starbucks Global Digital Marketing VP and Blue Nile CMO, Alex Wheeler, joins the show. Alex shares insights and learnings in customer engagement from experience and observations of leading global brands. They discuss how to listen to and show how you are taking care of your customers. How has the new digital customer evolved? Are businesses able to create new digital experiences that will last beyond the pandemic? Where do we go from here and how do we innovate to meet the digital customer?
Get familiar with your hosts as Adam and Ben dive into the rapid digital acceleration of customer experience. They share their experiences as dining and retail company executives and their observations on how brands are working to pivot their customer experience through the dynamic shift due to COVID.