The Account Experience Podcast: Recent Episodes

CustomerGauge

Join our presenters including Adam Dorrell, CEO at CustomerGauge, Dave Barber, Global Director of Customer Success, Ian Luck, and Cary Self at CustomerGauge as they dissect how some of the world’s top brands are leveraging their B2B and Channel Partner Customer Experience (we call this “Account Experience”) to create passionate advocates and drive significant revenue growth.

In this episode of The Account Experience Podcast, Adam Dorrell sits down with Lou Shipley — former three-time software CEO, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, board member at CustomerGauge, and author of the new book Unlikely Entrepreneurs, already a top-three Amazon bestseller ahead of launch.

Adam and Lou reflect on more than twenty years of working together, using that shared history to explore what really separates successful B2B companies from the rest. Lou shares key lessons from his book, including why entrepreneurship doesn’t follow a single path — and why experience, judgment, and empathy often matter more than youthful bravado.

A central theme of the conversation is customer and account experience as a leadership signal. Drawing on Lou’s time at Black Duck, they discuss how listening to customers cuts through operational noise, reveals hidden risk, and exposes growth opportunities long before they appear in dashboards or forecasts.

The episode also explores what it’s like to build and lead companies later in life, the advantages of pattern recognition and perspective, and why founders and CEOs should treat customer insight as a strategic asset — not a “soft” metric.

A thoughtful, practical conversation for founders, CEOs, and B2B leaders focused on building trust, resilience, and long-term value.

Find Lou on loushipley.com

In this episode, Adam Dorrell chats with CX royalty, Ken Hughes (the King of CX), about the human side of experience.

They explore how emotion drives loyalty and trust, drawing lessons from B2C giants like Taylor Swift for the B2B world.

Ken shares some great anecdotes about how storytelling and vulnerability make ga reat CX experience. He emphasizes that CX is a philosophy, not just a department, and shares insights on building genuine emotional connections with customers.

Ken’s new book is Taylormaking — get the details from https://www.taylormaking.com/

In this episode, Adam Dorrell, CEO of CustomerGauge, speaks with Mark Fonseca, Partner at Pragmetrics, about his experience conducting over 10,000 customer interviews.

Mark shared his unique three-question approach to B2B customer loyalty assessments, focusing on Net Promoter Score, understanding the "why," and identifying what it takes to achieve a perfect score.

Mark spoke about the importance of creating a "safe harbor for the truth" and building trust quickly to uncover candid insights.

He also discusses how his role as an agnostic third party allows customers to share feedback they might not otherwise, leading to surprising discoveries about customer loyalty and potential revenue opportunities.

In this episode of the AX Podcast, Adam Dorrell sits down with Chris Savage, CEO and Co-Founder of Wistia, to explore the growing role of video in customer experience. Video has become a powerful tool in sales and marketing, but how can it be leveraged to improve account experience and customer retention? Drawing from the world of storytelling and the classic “Hero’s Journey” narrative, this episode unpacks how video can be used to create deeper emotional connections and more impactful communication in B2B relationships. With over 14 years of experience as a Wistia customer, Adam has seen firsthand how Wistia’s product and approach foster long-term loyalty and engagement. The conversation covers:* Why storytelling is essential in CX * How businesses can use video to drive retention * Wistia’s customer-centric philosophy and lessons learned

This episode is ideal for B2B professionals seeking to enhance their account experience strategy through engaging content and effective communication.

Host Adam Dorrell welcomed back the outspoken and often hilarious Ben Phillips, CCXP, leader of Customer Experience in Fortune 500 companies, for the second time!

He’s an author, CX professional, and top voice in the customer experience world — truly one of the few real experts in B2B CX.

The two dove into the strategy gap in B2B CX programs and how internal experience is as important as measuring customer experience.

You won't want to miss this lively episode.

Ben is reachable on https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-phillips-ccxp/

What happens when Customer Experience (CX) moves from buzzword to boardroom priority?

In this episode, Host Adam Dorrell was joined by Nienke Bloem, a globally recognized CX leader and educator with CSP and CCXP qualifications. She’s dedicated to working with customer experience leaders and elevating their CX impact.

If you’ve seen her live or watched her videos, you’ll know her contagious energy and practical approach to making CX strategies work!

Nienke and Adam discuss why CX isn't just a department but a company-wide movement, how to get board members to feel the customer truth, and the two speeds of change (and why leaders must master both)

If you're passionate about B2B CX and want to drive impact at the highest level, this one's for you.

What happens when traditional B2B customer surveys fail spectacularly, yielding less than 1% response rates and delivering feedback that's months too late to act on?

Gerard Hutchings, Head of Business Development Strategy at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, found himself facing exactly this challenge in the asset management industry. But instead of accepting defeat, he created something revolutionary: a customer feedback program where the entire C-suite: CEO, CFO, COO, and department heads, personally conduct 15-minute customer calls using Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology.

The result? Nearly 100% response rates, real-time actionable insights, and clients who comment positively on the organizational culture..

In this episode, Gerard shares how he transformed the fear of feedback into executive leadership opportunity, why "now's not a good time" actually means "now is the perfect time" for customer conversations, and how applying scientific methodology to sales relationships can unlock billion-dollar client insights that traditional surveys simply can't capture.

Disruptors have made a large impact and step-changed performance in many other
sectors.

What if these 3 disruptors did exactly that to established customer experience (CX) approaches: Netflix, Uber, and Amazon?

Hosted Adam Dorrell alongside Nigel Tordoff, Chair of the CPG Experience Council, discussed how
consumer-focused technology companies like Amazon, Uber, and Netflix have disrupted traditional industries through a customer-centric approach, data-driven decision-making, and innovative revenue models.

They explored how consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies could learn from these disruptors by prioritizing simplicity and customer benefit, leveraging data to enhance the customer experience, and implementing subscription-based offerings that empower customers with choice and flexibility.

In this episode of The Account Experience Podcast, host Adam Dorrell sits down with Bill Main, Director of Global Customer Success and Customer Experience at Getronics, to uncover the secrets behind building a truly customer-centric organization.

Bill shares how Getronics achieves a 50% NPS response rate, why customer experience is more than just a number, and how leadership transparency builds trust.

Whether you’re in B2B or just passionate about CX, this conversation is packed with actionable insights to elevate your customer experience strategy.

In this episode, Host Adam Dorrell spoke with Ragna Ghoreishi, a seasoned Vienna-based customer experience (CX) leader and owner of RagnaDigital, a boutique CX consultancy.

Ragna spoke candidly about her experience at a global IT organization working on a large B2B CX project when suddenly the project sponsor and champion left.

This is a situation Adam has seen in many companies. He asked Ragna to open up about how it affected her and how she salvaged the project.

Her tips:

Don't focus on just one strong leading figure; build early on a network of strong advocates with closeness to the board. Carry it on the shoulders of multiple strong leaders
Make it everybody's topic as part of the growth/revenue targets
Ownership needs to be with the functions who can make an impact; make them accountable — you cannot improve CX from a CX team only. It is a business effort!

This episode is a great conversation that can help you plan a large project.

"Our ambition is to be the undisputed LATAM CX leader, delivering experiences 'Only Coke can do.'"

In a special edition of the Account Experience Podcast, Adam Dorrell is in Bogota, Colombia, where he was one of the presenters at The Coca-Cola Experience Summit Latin America 2024.

For its second year, the conference had 80+ attendees and 31 bottler operations represented, continuously serving as an inspiring and highly operational meeting.

The Coca-Cola team invited speakers across the continent to help evolve the vision of experience in the region, which can be summed up as Coca-Cola's ambition to be the undisputed LATAM CX Leader, delivering B2B experiences only they can do.

To understand some of the successes and challenges, Adam interviewed some of the key people there, including:

Luis Carlos Mira Olarte
Customer Experience (CX) Director LATAM, The Coca-Cola Company

Mariana Lozano OrtizGil
Loyalty and Customer Experience Manager, Arca Continental

Christian Nunes Christian Nuñez
Customer Experience Manager, Coca-Cola FEMSA, Mexico

Mauricio Hernandez
Senior Consultant, The Click!

Paulo Mendes
LATAM Value to Market & Consumer Head, The Coca-Cola Company,

Cary Self
Vice President of CX Education and Development, CustomerGauge

In this episode, Adam talks with a friend of the podcast and CustomerGauge Vice President of Customer Experience, Cary Self.

He’s got years of optimizing experience and energizing entire workforces around navigating customer feedback and managing the follow-up process.

Discussion topics include the right timing to follow up (48 hours is just the title of an Eddie Murphy film, not the time it should take you), how to follow up with detractors, passives, and promoters, thank-you notes, and overcoming the “fear of feedback."

And they even take a deep dive into whether it should be called “Closing the loop” or “Following up” — what’s your opinion? Listen to this episode and see if you agree!

Cary Self can be found on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cary-t-self-41393640/

His popular webinar series “Champions of Change” can be seen here in the archives: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Adam’s guest is the outspoken and often hilarious Ben Phillips CCXP, leader of Customer Experience at Fujitsu. He’s an author, a CX professional, and a top voice in the customer experience world — one of the few real experts in B2B CX.

Ben is open about how the program is run at Fujitsu, talking through some of his challenges and how the program is evolving. He’s also generous in talking about real benchmarks in the business.

Adam and Ben discuss the pros and cons of competitive benchmarks: when to use them and how not to get tripped up.

Ben also makes a good point about CX and how it is nothing like Harry Potter.

Ben is reachable at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-phillips-ccxp/ and the link to the B2B benchmarks he refers to is here: https://customergauge.com/ebook/b2b-nps-and-cx-benchmarks-report and https://customergauge.com/ebook/cpg-experience-benchmarks-report

Jackie Kesterson, Director of Client Experience at Orion Advisor Solutions, opens a treasure chest of B2B experience knowledge.

Orion's client base consists of 1000s of investment advisors and wealth managers. As you can imagine, that’s a very demanding customer base! Jackie ensures the voice of the customer is acted on and maintains a client-centric culture to drive business growth.

This discussion covers how rewarding staff on NPS is difficult and asking customers for feedback several times a year is best managed.

Today's episode is a great journey into a real B2B technology company that prides itself on customer experience.

Zahra Eid is the Customer Experience Manager at Beyon, a regional Digital Communications/Telco business based in Bahrain.

She explains how she energized their customer experience (CX) program, growing it from research roots to a company-wide, silo-busting program based on action and connecting CX measurement to revenue growth.

Host Adam Dorrell leads her to talk about the transformation from the Batelco brand to Beyon and how her CX program has become more digital, just like the company's services. Zahra also discusses how the company’s commitment to excellence has helped elevate the brand.

She is a pioneer in identifying market trends, optimizing customer touchpoints, and creating a customer-centric culture within the organization.

This is a fascinating insight into the diversity of CX programs worldwide and how customer experience is evolving in the Gulf region.

This week Adam Dorrell sits down with CustomerGauge client Lucas Mistelske, Vice President of Client Experience at Involta.

Involta is an enterprise-class IT infrastructure partner that provides advanced colocation, hybrid cloud solutions, superior data center experiences, and connectivity with first-class fiber.

Lucas has led the deployment of Involta’s Managed Infrastructure Services offering and spearheaded their Net Promoter Score program.

In this episode, Adam dives into the value NPS brings to Involta, the mechanics within the program, and what Lucas has learned throughout the process.

You won't want to miss this conversation if you're a mid-market to enterprise company looking to scale your customer experience.

Anna-Maija Tanninen is a female entrepreneur who started CX Agency in Helsinki, Finland. CX Agency helps B2B companies successfully develop and lead customer-centric changes through services like customer experience strategy to business design.

Previously she was a partner at Futurelab and a management consultant with Accenture and elevator company Kone.

To use a terrible pun, Anna-Maija can LIFT all your programs.

In this episode, she talks about culture: “To understand if we truly are customer-centric, we cannot observe culture from the corporate level only. We should have ways to experience the culture from the frontline, as well.”

You won't want to miss Anna-Maija's insights on “Silent Information” and her top three tips for B2B CX.

To heat things up with the first episode of the New Year, Host Adam Dorrell welcomes Nick Wood, the Global Marketing Director at Teledyne Gas and Flame Detection; a division of Teledyne Technologies Inc.

Teledyne is coming up on its 75th birthday, marking almost 100 years of providing reliable customer experiences to its long-standing customers.

Adam and Nick dive into why the business made the turn towards a structured strategy (hint: it's all about the data), the importance of closing the loop on feedback, and Nick's lightbulb moments he's had throughout his career that have led to long-term CX success.

The pint is making its way west, and Americans are now beginning to understand why it's been a staple across the pond.

During this quick episode, Nigel Tordoff, Chairman of the CPG Experience Council, joins Adam Dorrell to walk through the article "Americans are discovering the joy of a true pint of beer" in The Economist.

Why is this a trend in the market? How might a trend like this affect the convenience store? What might be driving this new experience?

Join Adam and Nigel as they break down this market shift through a customer experience lens.

When we care, it makes all the difference.

Adam Dorrell, CEO & Co-Founder of CustomerGauge, sits down again with Nigel Tordoff, Chairman of the CPG Experience Council, to consider the ways customer experience can grow a business.

Nigel kicks off this episode by sharing his 'CX Hypothesis' on what he thinks is the best approach for reaching customers and making an impact.

Adam and Nigel dive into testing the hypothesis through an Airline Industry example along with discussing the four groups of people businesses generally have to please + just HOW many people make up each.

If you've been following along with the CPG Experience Council podcast series, this is a fantastic topic to end on.

It's all about surpassing customer expectations.

Back for the fourth CPG Experience Council-edition episode, Nigel Tordoff joins Adam Dorrell to explore CX drivers and what leads to Promoters, Detractors, and Passives.

What happens once you have a happy customer? What is the consequence of not taking the proper action on an upset customer?

The two take a deep dive into Net Promoter Score (NPS), the pitfalls everyone should avoid when leveraging NPS, and how to close the loop reactively and proactively.

Are you listening to 80% of your B2B customer base?

Nigel Tordoff, Chairman of the CPG Experience Council, joins Adam Dorrell to discuss the scale of the CPG industry and the impact it can have on customer experience.

When you look at the consumer packaged goods industry from a wide lens, there are so many different relationships that must work to provide for the end customer.

Adam and Nigel discuss the impact of scale in CPG, embracing technology, setting out what 'good' looks like, and a handful of CPG CX best practices.

Any CPG industry professional won't want to miss this breakdown of the context of scale and how to strengthen every B2B relationship in the process.

Host Adam Dorrell welcomes back Nigel Tordoff, Chairman of the CPG Experience Council, to discuss how a customer's trust in a business ultimately leads to revenue growth.

The two dig into what happens when you open the lines of communication and provide feedback — whether it's a relationship with a consumer, a business (or even a significant other!)

They also highlight Adam's research on how many times companies use the word 'customer' in their public pronouncements. And one well-known brand has revealed just how customer-centric it really is.

If you're looking for a deep-dive on where the roads to revenue begin with your B2B customer-base, this is a must-listen.

Host Adam Dorrell welcomes Nigel Tordoff in the first of five CPG Experience Council-edition episodes.

Nigel, with 30 years of CPG industry experience under his belt, is now Chairman of the Council and ready to recruit those in the trade just as eager to make an impact.

Together they share how to kickstart great CX in CPG and break down the acronym that must be at the core of every program: CLiCS.

What is CX? And why bother? What goes into a program that CLiCS together? Both pull back the curtain on what good looks like and share their own real-life experiences along the way.

Adam Dorrell sits down with Per Braginski, Director of Insights at the Danish-based Novozymes, a world leader in bio-solutions, in a special “on-site” episode. This is a company that operates behind the scenes, as a supplier to well-known brands, including many CPG companies. Process and quality is all-important, not just in product but also in their customer relationship domain.

Per shares how they manage Customer Experience, and measure Net Promoter at Novozymes. The Scandinavian commitment to transparency is shown here: NPS results are published in the annual report - currently, it’s 69.

He also explains the importance of follow-up in the business, and how they ensure a consistently high response rate.

If you are in B2B manufacturing this is a must-listen masterclass in how to run a top-quality CX program.

Are company’s big IT transformation projects like the Berlin Airport, the Elizabeth Line, or the Second Avenue Subway similar in that they take forever with massive cost overruns? We turned to an expert to find out.

Host Adam Dorrell talks with Steve Abramson of Jasmar Associates. Steve has 30+ years of professional services experience across the consumer goods and retail sectors working for large businesses such as IBM and KPMG, and smaller, high-growth companies. In that time he’s worked in many CPG and retail companies including Unilever, Diageo, Coca-Cola, Tesco, Kingfisher, Boots, and Marks & Spencer.

Steve’s practice is specializing in helping companies avoid the pitfalls of big-ticket projects. It’s a scary statistic to know that only 0.5% of projects deliver on time, on budget, and with the required benefits.

He explains that projects don't usually “go” wrong, they start wrong.

What’s needed is for leadership to abandon "False Certainty“ and accept tradeoffs. And those in Customer Experience should watch out for a lack of appropriate buy-in and ownership from the business. Managers can get through this by making it a “business project” with a business owner.

It’s a fascinating insight for anyone trying to wrestle a big project through. Steve’s details are on https://www.jasmarassociates.com

Adam Dorrell talks with Mert Damlipar to explain how digital experiences are at the forefront of today’s retail experience, and how CPG companies need to transform their thinking from a physical world paradigm. Mert is a well known expert in the field of e-commerce and digital marketing: an author, a former director of brands like L’Oreal, Mondelez, Sabra, and holder of multiple degrees from Boston, Cornell and MIT. His current role is Principal of CPG Digital Commerce Acceleration at EPAM Continuum.

Mert shared his insights into how the Digital Shelf has evolved - from the “Long Tail” concept of merchandising everything to now - with a low number of featured items that seem to perfectly match your search. Behind the scenes is an incredibly complex system of algorithms that make up the Digital Platform Strategy.

As the majority of purchase decisions are made online, CPG vendors need to understand this rapid shift. Mert explains the three pillars of the Digital Shelf, and the skills needed to harness it.

And Mert and Adam finish the podcast by contrasting a few concepts from Paco Underhill’s 1999 book, “Why We Buy (the science of shopping)” to today - if you’ve not heard of “Butt Brush” before you should stay to the end!

Mert’s contact details: https://www.epam.com/services/epam-continuum

Muhammad Idrees joins host Adam Dorrell to talk about growing sales by focusing on Customer Experience basics. It’s a lesson for b2b CX leaders on how a unified company approach brings an impressive return on investment.

Muhammad is the Chief Commercial Officer at Engro Polymer and Chemicals Limited, a subsidiary of Engro Corporation – one of Pakistan’s largest and most diversified conglomerates. The company’s

vision is to become a globally competitive PVC producer, and they are well on their way. This is a perfect b2b manufacturing case study - he explains: “How can you make selling a commodity different? Simple - make it a great experience”.

And this is for the CX nerds like me: They have a near 100% response rate - you’ll learn how it can be done. And in just a year, Engro increased their close loop rate by 8%. Which drove NPS up 16 points. And then had a result of topline growth of 17%! Learn more about Engro https://www.engropolymer.com/

“You have to believe in success with customers” Muhammad says. Enjoy his boundless energy in a very practical podcast.

David Gluckman is the genius who invented dozens of the best-known drinks of recent decades, including the iconic Baileys Irish Cream developed 50 years ago this year.

Host Adam Dorrell digs deep into David’s wonderful anecdotes behind the birth of drinks we all grew up with: Baileys, french wine Le Piat d’Or, Cîroc vodka, Tanqueray Ten gin, soft drinks Aqua Libra and Purdeys, the Singleton Malt, Sheridans Coffee Liqueur and so many more.

David tells stories of how a small and determined innovation team flourished inside the huge enterprises that eventually became Diageo. As he explains, It’s not always research-led — it can be gut feeling and a beautiful label that can drive creativity.

He’s also a gifted writer. His book is called “That Sh*t Will Never Sell!” a witty and fascinating account of the beverage business and highly recommended.

If you’ve worked in the industry you’ll know what a legend he is. And if you just enjoy drinking, then you are sure to enjoy the stories behind the brand. A really entertaining episode.

Host Adam Dorrell welcomes Daniel Solomons, CEO and Co-Founder of Update — the world's first and only energy drink without caffeine.

He tells the story of founding the company in New York City after booking a one-way ticket from Sydney, Australia, and now “disrupting an old school market with a product that is equally as effective, healthier, and better for you." It’s fascinating to hear the origin story of how they developed Update.

Apart from the science behind the drink, Daniel is pioneering new channels to distribute Update including directly to his target market, Wall Street influencers. And with that comes the opportunity to make incredible new experiences for the trade and consumers.

You can learn more about Update here: drinkupdate.com

Intuitive Health is driving an Urgent Care paradigm shift in the USA. In this podcast, you’ll hear how they shape their retail health facilities around hundreds of thousands of patients' feedback to get better outcomes and Net Promoter Scores of 90.

Adam Dorrell talks to David Apple, who lifts the lid on how it’s done. David is the CMO of Intuitive Health and leads the company’s marketing and customer experience to drive long-term growth across consumer and business segments in the most competitive healthcare markets in the U.S.

It’s an amazing story and for NPS geeks, we get into the detail of response rates (+20%), real-time scoring, and follow-up timing. And most importantly, how it drives retention business — the true ROI of any program.

You’ll love this episode for Davids's engaging personality and the sheer passion he has for the mission which is helping a million patients get better while saving money and time.

Recorded at the Coca-Cola LATAM and Coca-Cola FEMSA CX Summit in Mexico City - Adam tracks down Paulo Mendes Jr, LATAM Value to Market Head, Coca-Cola. Paulo explains how he’s rolling out a unified customer experience across the entire region: 660 million people, nearly 5 million outlets, and dozens of bottlers.

Paulo relates how he started at Coke 30 years ago as a field sales rep. He really put the hours in - working outlets on the streets, 50 - 55 outlets a day, starting at 07.30 every morning. He’s held many different positions, working in supply chain logistics, planning, and commercial route to market, with 9 years in a global role for Coca-Cola operations and supply chain planning.

Now he is back in his native Brazil, to create an area of business transformation the Value to Market program for the company.

Paulo is passionate about how Coca-Cola is putting consumers at the center, and how they can continue to evolve in partnering with b2b customers. With the company adding water, juices, coffee, and now Alcoholic drinks (we sampled some Jack Daniels and Coke) the offering is broader. Digital transformation creates opportunities and threats, and it’s refreshing to hear how Coke is tackling it.

A must listen for CPG experience folks.

In this episode, Adam talks with Sheena Iyengar on the day of her new book launch “Think Bigger”, on the subject of the paradox of choices and creativity. It’s a sort of follow-up to the episode on the JOLT effect with Ted McKenna, who quotes her work extensively - so we are going back to the source here.

Sheena is the S. T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Department at Columbia Business School and the best-selling author of The Art of Choosing (2010) - that’s where the Paradox of Choice comes from. She is a leading expert on the study of innovation, choice, leadership, and creativity and regularly consults with a range of organizations on methods for innovation. Her book “Think Bigger: How to Innovate” details her six-step problem-solving method - it’s now out - and our discussion took place on the day of recording, 11 April 2023

Sheena talks about how too many choices can paralyze us, referring to her famous jelly experiment. Her work on this led he to think about innovation and creativity, and how it follows on from the “choice dilemma”

As Sheena describes: ‘ “Think Bigger” is a toolkit that you can use to do two things, it can help you figure out what of a whole bunch of choices are better. And if there is no good choice, how do you create a good one?‘

A fascinating insight into one of today’s most important thinkers, this podcast is a great companion for execs thinking about innovation, and guiding customers to the right choice

In this episode of the Account Experience Podcast, host Adam Dorrell talks with Aidan Bocci, an expert in the global consumer goods and retail industry. For many years he was instrumental in improving consumer goods companies’ customer business planning processes. In his career, he has worked with most of the top 100 FMCG companies (like Procter and Gamble) and advised C-Suite leaders in more than 30 of them. And now he’s the co-founder of Growzz, which is a platform to help Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies innovate on processes and to design growth activities that deliver real results.

Aidan is on a mission to change the way that consumer goods companies do better retailer business planning. Because if they change the process, or make the process much, much better, they don't just save themselves lots of time. They make great decisions. The decisions drive great behavior and the behavior drives great results for them. The impact is significant – he describes on the podcast how improving the planning process can make a 35% difference in efficiency and add nearly 5% to the growth rate.

Large CPG companies utilize key customer playbooks, and rely on complex planning processes for success – but as Aidan says “the ugly truth is often that when you peel it back, they're still doing it all in PowerPoint, and Excel”

He talks about some horror stories in modern retailers like Tesco, Walmart, and Carrefour of the waste of money when the wrong POS is delivered, and it’s then consigned to a stock room.

And he’s outspoken on the benefits that planning adds to the experience that retailers have with CPG vendors – it’s the next battleground for improvement with digital transformation.

It’s a must-listen for players in the B2B CPG and retail channels.

Get out your yoga mat because, in this episode of the Account Experience Podcast, host Adam Dorrell talks with Guru Ganesh Khalsa, probably the most sought-after sales trainer in the world. Through his company Concious Selling Inc he’s trained 1000s of high-tech professionals in companies like LinkedIn, Slack, Dropbox, Elastic, BMC, Dell, Oracle, and Cisco.

He’s one of the most entertaining people you will meet, and his rich life experiences (he was at Woodstock!) inform his view on sales as a win-win for all parties. So much to digest here, from his hippy roots to developing hardcore sales techniques, to meditating in order to win at basketball (as well as deals), and discussing his favorite guitar.

It’s a complete treat to listen to this marvellous human being. More details on his company: https://www.consciousselling.com/

Jon Picoult joins Adam to talk about his fascinating new book, “From Impressed To Obsessed: 12 Principles For Turning Customers and Employees Into Lifelong Fans.”

In this episode, we talk about obsession. Jon Picoult, the founder of Watermark Consulting and a leading expert in customer and employee experience helps companies go beyond just impressing their customers. In fact, he says that if you just satisfy your customers, you’ll go broke.

It’s a wide-ranging discussion that covers the formidable power of fints o drive business, how to engineer great experiences, and in a stomach-churning segment, how Jon’s approach to CX was shaped by an incident involving Maggots on a Plane. Yes, you read that right. Don’t eat while you listen to this podcast!

Adam and Jon scratch the surface of the book with some entertaining and thoughtful discussion - but there is so much more - Adam also recommends “From Impressed to Obsessed” as a companion volume to “The Ultimate Question” - check out Jon’s site on https://watermarkconsult.net/jon-picoult/books

In this episode of the Account Experience Podcast, host Adam Dorrell talks with Mark Ebbens, who ran the consulting businesses for two of the largest global med-tech businesses, Philips Health and GE Health. He’s spent his career helping large hospitals and healthcare groups transform the way that healthcare is delivered by harnessing technology, digital and change.

After starting his career in the most demanding of engineering professions - aviation engines - he moved to healthcare consulting which surprised him by having the same challenges. Mark tells about how he’s used Six Sigma in business - and about how many organizations struggle to get past the “Four Sigma Wall”. And he shares some heartfelt stories about how a London healthcare provider had to face up to their worst problems, and what it took to get through it.

Mark talks candidly about how businesses need to work on experience and quality together to get the best outcomes. Enjoy it, especially if you are in the healthcare business.

In a world with so many choices, can you blame buyers who have such a hard time making decisions? Adam meets Ted McKenna, probably the worlds leading expert on customer indecision, and co-author of the hot new business book “The JOLT Effect” - how high performers overcome customer indecision.

In this podcast, Ted explains the origins of “over-choice” - and how to spot the signs of a buy who is struggling to choose. The issue is not FOMO (Fear of Missing out) but more FOMU (Fear of Messing up). In fact, learning into the fear can make things worse. Better to not say anything!

He outlines the four-point playbook - yes, JOLT is also an acronym - of how you can get a customer to move forward.

It’s also not just for acquisition sales. Adam and Ted talk about how understanding the issues help customer success teams as well as new logo sales.

It’s a fascinating talk for all that are interested in sales performance.

Contacting Ted: Ted is a founding partner of DCM Insights, a customer understanding lab that uses data and research to help companies grow customer relationships. Find out more about the JOLT effect at https://www.jolteffect.com/ - there are workbooks and resources to help you succeed.

Mark Elston, Strategy Director at the multi-award winning sales solution agency Powerforce GB joins Adam today. He explains how CPG brand owners like Molson Coors, Haribo, Nestle, Tetley (Tata) and Pladis (formerly United Biscuits with brands like McVities) use collaborative sales and merchandising to grow sales in the retail trade.

He describes how technology is able to bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds - for example, Lenovo buyers often look online before touching and feeling a brand in store. UK retailers, faced with new HFSS regulations (High Fat, Salt and Sugar) have adapted to use more shelf space to present Digestive Biscuits (hey US listeners, that’s like graham cookies, only better). And how crunching EPOS and merchandising data can help predict sales increase.

Of course, it’s a people business. Mark explains how they train and motivate staff to deliver on the brand promise - and then measure how they make the experience a success.

Finally, stay tuned to hear Adam’s terrible dad-joke Haribo/Molson Coors mashup!

Can you define trust? Is it possible to measure it? The answers are yes and yes. In this episode Adam Dorrell talks with Ashley Reichheld and Amelia Dunlop, the authors of the new book “The Four Factors of Trust”

They talk about how it’s possible to measure trust - by understanding Humanity, Transparency, Capability and Reliability for both company as a brand, and for employees. And they introduce the new metric, TrustID which they have open-sourced (in a very transparent and trusting way!) to help make the world a better place.

Ashley talks about how different cultures treat trust, and what to look for in the measurement. Amelia brings very practical examples of how to apply the lessons.

Trust could be the next frontier in customer experience - it’s a must-listen and also a strongly recommended read from the CustomerGauge team.

Check out the Four Factors of Trust here: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Factors-Trust-Organizations-Lifelong/dp/1119855012

None

Adam Dorrell is joined today by James Pannett - Commercial Director of the UK family-owned distillery group William Grant & Sons. You’ll know the brands: leading whiskies like Glenfiddich, The Balvenie, Tullamore, the distinctive Hendricks Gin (Adam’s choice of drink for the podcast), and newer brands like Discarded. His background includes Mars and Molson Coors.

James talks about how joint business plans should not be just fiction - or a nice piece of paper that gets ignored. He highlights the importance of Speaking Truth to Power - making sure that the buyer wins just as much as the seller. He describes how he aims for the “Triple Win” and how he is addressing the brand's aims are just as important as “Don’t screw up the basics”.

This is a fascinating dive into the workings of a well-known beverage company, and how taking into account the experience of the channel is all important.

https://www.williamgrant.com/gb/we/#our-brands

Wow, 2022 is officially over and what a year it was for Account Experience! In this episode, your host, Adam Dorrell, takes us through some of the highlights in Account Experience for 2022 and chats with a few of our resident "Gaugie" experts about their favorite moments.

In the latest episode of the Account Experience podcast, Adam Dorrell welcomes Nate Henderson, CEO of BILT Incorporated, a SaaS company that improves assembly instructions into a user experience revolution that fundamentally changes the way users interact with the brands and products they buy.

Nate explains the impact of having digital interactive instructions for brands like Weber and Siemens. Of course, it reduces paper, but analyzing the way users interact with instructions helps continually improve them, and the immersive environment helps with registration and voice of customer feedback.

According to Nate, BILT’s 3D Intelligent Instructions increase Net Promoter Scores by up to 30 points. Reviews with higher star ratings have a dramatic impact on revenue. And the improved out-of-the-box experience also leads to fewer returns and up to 45% fewer calls to customer support.

Nate is also a passionate believer in the principles of Net Promoter and “Winning on Purpose”, the latest book by Fred Reichheld. He uses the book to provide a common purpose for the entire company and asks all prospective BILT employees to read the book before being interviewed. But Nate takes it a step further with a company book club to ensure the ideas of Customer Love are fully embraced by all employees!

This is an inspiring talk with a customer leader that has built a culture of empowerment. If you love NPS, you will enjoy listening to Nate.

Book suggestions:

How Will You Measure Your Life? - Clayton M Christensen
The Innovator's Dilemma - Clayton M Christensen
The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves - The Arbinger Institute
From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans - Jon Picoult

For more information on how to start a CX bookclub, click here.

Nigel Tordoff is the former Chief Customer Officer USA for the brewer Molson Corrs. Now semi-retired he continues his passion for customers, in particular the independent trade, and is now chair of the industry group Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Experience Council.

Nigel talks about what he learned in a 4 am discussion on the brewery product line - using the concept of positively framing a seemingly unsolvable paradox.

And with more than 2% of the global working population involved in the CPG value chain, he talks about how it’s more important than ever to spread best practices of customer experiences. He’s a passionate believer that companies can pool resources to go beyond the capabilities of today - and that’s for the greater good of all the employees in the traditional trade.

Nigel Tordoff can be contacted via https://www.cpgexperiencecouncil.org/

Today Adam Dorrell chats with Roger Nicholas of Caribbean Based Cite-Up, which is a leading regional distribution and promotion company, giving real-time feedback on in-store product performance. The company covers 20 territories in the Caribbean, representing 180+ brands, in nearly 1000 outlets with nearly 6000 visits a month.

Roger is based in San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago. He calls himself “the hunting dog” because of his deep experience in companies large and small. He is also a certified Net Promoter professional.

Adam is fascinated to learn the cultural differences - and Roger talks at length about how customer service in the Caribbean is different to the US or Europe. According to him, it’s initially less urgent - but way more friendly. There is an opportunity to deliver even better service, and with the mineral wealth of the country, and the highly educated workforce, he says this is a new frontier of growth.

And now Roger is starting a “Customer Experience movement” in Trinidad and Tobago - his vision is to bring the untapped potential of the country for happy business relations, and make the connection to sustainable revenue. His goal is to get the Caribbean to better CX as soon as possible.

Today Adam Dorrell speaks with Adam Clay, who takes us to upper stages of the sales funnel and talks about the prospect experience. Two Adams on a podcast is obviously better than one!

Adam Clay is Chief Revenue Officer for Tomorrow.io, where he leads the global sales and channels teams. He brings experience scaling revenue teams for growth-oriented SaaS organizations - Beyond Identity, Logz.io. Black Duck Software (acquired by Synopsys), Mendix (acquired by Siemens)

We often talk about Account Experience - which for most people sits in the post-sales stage. Adam encourages us to think about what happens before you even close a deal. Adam is passionate about this - he contends that most selling is NOT customer centric. In fact it can be an off-putting and terrible experience.

To make it work he talks about using Disarming Honesty and Self Deprecation. And this can be hard for salespeople. Few companies are disciplined in this.

Adam Clay maintains its better to qualify out opportunities that are not a good fit - it makes better use of everyone’s time. And that’s equally useful as an experience carrier.

If you are in sales or account management there is a lot to unpack in this episode. Adam Clays approach is calm and measured - it’s not just his content but his style that is good to learn from.

Don't forget to join us in Amsterdam September 13th-15th for Europe's biggest and most exciting VoC conference of the year! Fred Reichheld (inventor of NPS) will be headlining with a great supporting cast of brands with Heineken, Coca-Cola, SuperOffice, Briggs, WAJAX, etc.

Today Adam Dorrell speaks with Adam Clay, who takes us to upper stages of the sales funnel and talks about the prospect experience. Two Adams on a podcast is obviously better than one!

Adam Clay is Chief Revenue Officer for Tomorrow.io, where he leads the global sales and channels teams. He brings experience scaling revenue teams for growth-oriented SaaS organizations - Beyond Identity, Logz.io. Black Duck Software (acquired by Synopsys), Mendix (acquired by Siemens)

We often talk about Account Experience - which for most people sits in the post-sales stage. Adam encourages us to think about what happens before you even close a deal. Adam is passionate about this - he contends that most selling is NOT customer centric. In fact it can be an off-putting and terrible experience.

To make it work he talks about using Disarming Honesty and Self Deprecation. And this can be hard for salespeople. Few companies are disciplined in this.

Adam Clay maintains its better to qualify out opportunities that are not a good fit - it makes better use of everyone’s time. And that’s equally useful as an experience carrier.

If you are in sales or account management there is a lot to unpack in this episode. Adam Clays approach is calm and measured - it’s not just his content but his style that is good to learn from.

Don't forget to join us in Amsterdam September 13th-15th for Europe's biggest and most exciting VoC conference of the year! Fred Reichheld (inventor of NPS) will be headlining with a great supporting cast of brands with Heineken, Coca-Cola, SuperOffice, Briggs, WAJAX, etc.

In today’s podcast Russell Markou of Quintain Living talks to host Adam Dorrell about the growing area of CX - that of asking Resident Experience for private individuals and companies that rent living and working space.

He talks about “Home is where the heart is” - and how important the personal touch is to making sure residents are content - this impacts retaining the renter and making referrals.

Russell is Head of Operations at Quintain Living, the management and operations platform of Quintain’s Build to Rent business, effectively a platform that designs, manages, owns and operates homes for renters. Capturing Resident feedback based on Net Promoter is essential to the ongoing success of the brand.

He joined the Quintain business in 2015 as Head of Operations to support the growth of Quintain Living, the management and operations platform of Quintain’s Build to Rent business, effectively a platform that designs, manages, owns and operates homes for renters – BTR is a relatively new sector in UK, renters benefit from an elevated level of customer service along with well thought out designed homes with additional amenity spaces exclusively for Residents to enjoy.

Russell talks about how his previous roles in Radisson Blu and Hilton Hotels helped shape the service expectations for joining Quintain.

At Quintain, Russell oversees the operations for a portfolio of over 3,000 apartments across nine developments at Wembley Park. His original remit of 141 apartments in 2016 demonstrates the growth the business has achieved.

This is an interview that has a lot of insight into the new and growing business of build to rent, and shows how Account Experience is becoming mainstream in a number of segments.

Find out more about Quintain living. https://www.quintain.co.uk/quintainliving

Today on the Account Experience Podcast (the intersection of b2b Account Management and Customer Experience) host Adam Dorrell talks with Maureen Burns, Senior Partner in Bain & Company's Boston office. She is a leader in Bain's Customer Strategy and Marketing Practice, advising clients on a range of issues including corporate strategy, customer experience transformation, especially with digital channels. And of course, implementing the Net Promoter System - in both b2c and b2c contexts.

Most interesting to listeners of this Podcast, she is a co-author of our book of the year, “Winning in purpose” together with Fred Reichheld.

She talks about how the book came about - how she was initially skeptical about “customer love”. Find out how she becomes a convert.

She gives her view on Earned Growth, and how it may (or may not) become an accounting standard. The difference in b2b vs b2c Net Promoter programs. And talks about how in the race to provide digital experience, companies can find themselves in a Crisis of Disconnection. The solution? Love.

Not only is Maureen a leader in the Net Promoter movement, but she is also entertaining to listen to - in fact, we need to get her back when we do our deep dive into Winning on Purpose!

On this episode, Adam Dorrell’s guest is Martin Troughton, Marketing Director, of Safestyle PLC, the UK market leader in replacement windows and doors.

Martin describes his career as “triple-glazed” - and his story is impressive - from starting measuring NPS consistently just over two years ago in the business they have worked on improving customer experiences and improving their score. The rise is from NPS of 6 to where it’s hovering now in the 50s and 60s.

The learnings were sometimes simple: Martin explains that even where the installers park their vans has an impact on the score. And providing extra sets of keys was also an improvement point.

The most powerful section is when he opens up about a recent cyber attack. The Net Promoter score was sensitive enough to track the outage time period - and after they recovered, the NPS bounced back in a short period.

And for trivia fans, you get to find out which company is the biggest buyer of dust sheets in the UK.

As an ex-ad-man, Martin is a hugely entertaining guest. And it’s a wonderful story of how the small things make a difference to the experience.

Postscript:

Martin made some Book Recommendations (titles published in the last year) and we list them here:

Business:

‘Can’t sell won’t sell’ by Steve Harrison. Subtitled “why adland has stopped selling and started saving the world”

‘Go Luck Yourself’ by Andy Nairn. The book points to lessons in luck and really how to make your own. Well written, practical and insightful.

Pleasure:

‘The Curious Rise of Alex Lazarus’ by Adam Leigh (a credible candidate for the nicest man in advertising). It’s the story of a 90’s dotcom start up and the behind the scenes rivalry when money and success are involved.

The Bombman’ by Andy Green - written as a tribute to his father who was in bomb disposal in Ireland during the troubles. A great adventure story with genuine insight into the personality and rivalry of bomb maker vs bomb disposal technician.

Today host Adam Dorrell talks to the outspoken recent winner of a CX Star award, which recognises excellence in industry professionals. He’s the guy that coined the phrase “the So-What of CX”.

His name is Jamie Thorpe, and he’s been in CX for more than 20 years. The majority of his career has been spent in Client Success/Service previously holding two board-level positions and is now Head of Experience Management at Ipsos. Jamie’s expertise spans Offer, Marketing, CX Platforms, Professional Services, and Delivery. He is an industry-recognized CX leader in the UK. His in-depth CX knowledge combined with a commercial and pragmatic/action-oriented style has seen Jamie deliver success with many clients across sectors and geographies.

Jamie talks on the podcast about the 4 key things a CX program needs to do:

Communicate
Educate
Measure
Reward (as in “what’s in it for me?”)

And if you can’t do that, you have that “So What?” moment.

A key stat from Jamie is that 86% of people will pay more for a better experience - 20 to 25% more. Jamie explains how this is built into the Ipsos Roxy Model - the Return on CX Measurement.

Crucially Jamie talks about how democratizing is critical - “Show me a 50 slide deck that's thrown out to 1000 senior leaders and then wonder why no one reads it - because you've got to tell stories, think about videos, infographics, create creative ways that are going to grab people's attention.”

This episode contains some strong language. And two Brits, so it’s quite fruity. You have been warned!

On the Account Experience podcast today Adam Dorrell’s guest is Jim Tincher - a man who sees the world through the eyes of customers.

Jim is a customer experience expert, speaker, and author of “How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer? Using Journey Mapping to Drive Customer-Focused Change”. He’s a fully certified CCXP.

Heart of the Customer, his innovative customer experience consulting firm, has helped both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies boost revenue and loyalty by harnessing the voice of the customer.

Jim talks about how his work with clients and hundreds of interviews have shown him that b2b sales are usually driven by emotions. This is counterintuitive to the common narrative that b2b is all about rationality and decision-making units. Instead, Fear and Trust are two major drivers, with referrals counting for major parts of the decision. Later, rationality kicks in, but until then, b2b owners can explore the emotional side, even creating “enjoyment paths through complaints”. He highlights a story on how to get executives engaged with CX - using the “Sentiment Sandwich” technique on dashboards.

And with other great concepts like the “Affect Heuristic” and the ADKAR change management technique - well, there was almost too much to talk about in the 30 minutes we had. If you care about b2b experience, this is a must-listen.

Jim’s new book Do B2B Better, Drive Growth Through a Game-Changing Customer Experience will be out in the fall. You can reach him on LinkedIn “Jim Tincher CCXP”

Amanda Graham leads Customer Experience for Zip Water in the UK. She shares the incredible story of taking Zip from NPS 2 to 60 in four years.

In this episode of the Account Experience Podcast, we dive into this journey, and learn what it takes to get such a big improvement in NPS. Amanda tells us how the biggest impacts came from improving First Contact Resolution and a focus on after sales communication. A key link in the chain is also to measure employee engagement - and Amanda explains how important eNPS is to Zip.

She also passes on a great tip for culture - “Guess the score from the customer comment.” Hint: most employees believe the Net Promoter Score is lower than the one the customer gave.

Listen to this free flowing and unfiltered discussion, with an outpouring of ideas on how to run a practical and successful Account Experience program.

About Zip Water:

Zip Water provides sustainable drinking water systems for homes and offices and is well known for it’s HydroTap which is a multi-function tap which delivers filtered, boiling, chilled and sparkling water on tap, instantly.

https://specify.zipwater.co.uk/

Host: Adam Dorrell, CEO & Co-Founder of CustomerGauge

B2B #industrials #water #sustainable #ZipWater

In this very special episode host Adam Dorrell is joined by three mega-brands in the FMCG business, all working hard on improving their Account Experience.

Three senior executives discuss how they have accelerated their business transformation journey: Stuart Ward, head of Sales Capability Coca-Cola HBC; David Aynat, Senior Director of BEES and Head of B2B for Anheuser Busch (USA) and Roderik Rosenbaum, Global Director, Route to Consumer and Sales Capability of Heineken.

Learn how COVID accelerated change in their business, with the digital agenda becoming the number one priority. Acting fast was essential, and voice of customer has driven that..

Customer Experience is becoming the new FMCG area of advantage. What’s interesting is how it has become vital in each of these businesses to listen to ALL customers continually, not just sampling a small selection once a year. The challenge is how to deliver Voice of Customer to the front-line staff, not just a central team.

The panel discuss their current metrics: Engagement coverage (how many accounts give feedback, already at 50% in some countries), speed of close-loop, and Net Promoter (NPS)

The three companies are committed to driving the customer experience of all customers, across all touchpoints of the business. Listening, acting on feedback and empowering sales teams with the right insights and support they need to close loop with customers.

So settle back, open the soda or refreshment of your choice and listen to these industry luminaries give insights into the evolving frontline Account Experience.

Michael Brandt has had one of the most comprehensive B2B customer experience careers of anyone I’ve met. With more than 25 years in customer feedback culminating in the role of Group Vice President of ABB Group, he has led global Voice of Customer Programs, and rolled out training to 35,000 people in an 18 month period.

In this fascinating podcast, Michael shares how to tackle customer complaints using a technique based on Don Peppers “5 A’s”: Acknowledge, Apologize, Amplify, Ask, Act. He explains how Japan’s business culture requires special navigation. And how you need to change organizational culture to succeed.

And he gives insights into how he took ABB’s NPS from 16 to 45, with a response rate north of 25%. His philosophy is simple: “You own your customers an answer”..

Michael is now a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and runs the CX-Excellence (www.cx-excellence.com) organisation to help b2b companies on the road to customer centricity.

Host: Adam Dorrell

Listen to this masterclass in B2B account experience with a global enterprise perspective.

b2b #industrials #ABB #monetized

A glance at the website of Wajax will explain the scope of their services. The company was founded in 1858, and is one of Canada’s longest standing and most diversified industrial products and services providers. The images are of enormous construction machines - but it’s all about the people in the business, says Justin Warren of Wajax, guest on this week's Account Experience Podcast.

Justin, who is Senior Vice President at Wajax, is responsible for the company's industrial parts and engineered repair services business. Over the last three years he led the team developing the Voice of Customer program. He talked to hosts Adam Dorrell and Cary Self about how they set up the program - and some of its successes.

The Net Promoter based program was all about measuring in its first year, and as it evolved in year two they created action plans for more than 100 locations. Wajax added “monetization” to the program to understand the drivers of satisfaction with a dollar amount attached. And they now have a clear sense of how promoters drive twice the value of detractors - which makes it an easy rule of thumb for all the staff to get behind. Justin explained how the program is driven from the top and how it motivates success. They have 100% follow up rate, truly impressive. The speed of adoption is admirable for a company 150 years young!

A classic B2B account experience case study - highly recommended for a business with multiple locations and wanting to adopt a customer focus.

Wajax.com

b2b #b2b2c #industrials #canada #monetized

Our host Adam Dorrell is joined by Cara Crisler, an accredited non-violent communication trainer. And in this fascinating episode, we go deep on how to 'fight the fear of feedback' with a few tips on how to best communicate in a non-violent way. Adam and Cara are also joined by our host from season 1, Cary T. Self. Are you afraid of receiving feedback whether it be positive or negative? Well, this is the episode for you!

Adam Dorrell is joined by Adrian Swincoe, Independent advisor, speaker and best-selling author on customer service, experience, and engagement. His books include "How to Wow" and best-selling "PunkCX", which celebrates the anti-"prog rock" approach to doing customer experience simple and fast (as opposed to doing complicated, self-indulgent research projects with 10 minute guitar solos).

Adrian talks about his new book, "PunkXL", which is all about experience leadership. He talks about the "Quadrification" of our current times and about how he is "in service to service" - and gives a great piece of advice about why listening to frontline staff is vitally important.

If you enjoy two dudes talking about old punk records and CX, you will love this episode.

In this episode, Adam and Dave are talking to Ethan Douglas and Victoria Montague from the Customer Success team at Vonage. They dive into the Customer Success tactics the various business units at Vonage are using to retain and grow accounts. If you're looking for tactical insights to improve your experience program, this episode is for you.

Adam talks with the father of NPS, Fred Reichheld about his new book, "Winning on Purpose". Adam and Fred dive deep on the origins of NPS, how companies are doing it right (and wrong), NPS's accounting companion "Earned Growth", and how digital transformation has made the metric even more powerful.

Today's hosts: Adam Dorrell, CEO of CustomerGauge, and Adam Ramshaw, Head of Genroe, an Australian-based consulting company and CustomerGauge reseller that Helps B2B organizations grow with customer feedback, Net Promoter Score, and retention services.

Today’s guest: Janine Scott, Direction Operations for Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific. Janine is based in the Sydney Australia HQ and has evolved the customer experience program over a decade, and also had a variety of roles, all with a customer flavor in areas of commercial, process, or strategic.

Adam Dorrell, CEO of CustomerGauge, and Adam Ramshaw, Head of Genroe talk with Janine Scott about how the B2B feedback and Net Promoter program evolved at Wolters Kluwer. They dive into how they kept up “organizational momentum” as well as how the market has changed. We touch on how you can get different feedback by asking in-app or offline. Transparency is very much part of the Wolters Kluwer program, and Janine adds her tip for success: have a “Strategy One-Pager” and make sure you keep it alive!

In today's episode of the Account Experience Podcast, Adam Dorrell is talking with the CEO of ICON, Helen Hickin. You read the title correctly. Helen and her team have been able to achieve a 100% response rate, a 98% retention rate, and an astonishing 80% of new business comes from referrals. If that's not a world-class experience program, I don't know what is.

Sit back a listen to Helen as she discusses the nuts and bolts of the ICON experience program and how it works.

Adam and Dave talk with Customer Experience Guru, Maurice FitzGerald. Maurice has had an extensive career in CX working with some of the largest tech companies in the world. In this episode he dives into predictive NPS, why it's so important to spend more time with your passives, the most important people to get to respond to your surveys, and the best (and worst) department for a B2B experience team to live.

They say "Every day is a school day", and I continually learn from our guests on The Account Experience™ Podcast. Today's lesson was how Briggs Equipment doubled their CX response rate, by thanking customers and giving to charity!

I was delighted that GEMMA BEDDOW from engineering equipment specialist Briggs shared details of their #AccountExperience program with myself and Liam Prince. She discussed how they turned around their #NetPromoter program to deliver the best #b2b experience to their clients. Gemma explained how they tie #NPS to #retention, make sure that staff embrace all feedback (positive or negative or bad) and make sure that they get real time information to key account staff.

A great takeaway is how a 9 or 10 score from a customer triggers an internal email to the relevant employee to relay a hearty “Thank You”.

She also explained that to boost response, they started to make a donation to charity. And as a result, they have raised more than GBP4000 for Prostate Cancer UK, which is something that the company (and the clients) are very proud. A great listen for b2b service program managers - Briggs just do it right!

Adam and Dave are talking with Tzachi Ben-Sasson, Organizational Psychologist and Head of Global Voice of the Customer at Amdocs. Tzachi talks about how he uses WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) to create a better experience for their customers. The idea is to create win-win situations for all parties participating in the program, including C-suite, account managers, and also customers, who often can be resistant to feedback programs.

Tzachi also goes into the importance of tying revenue to your program; making sure account managers are bonused on getting feedback and then enacting it to make the difference to show the value for customers.

Adam is joined by Ian Luck, VP of Marketing at CustomerGauge to talk about the latest book, "The State of Account Experience, B2B NPS and CX Benchmarks Report". In the book you'll not only find industry benchmarks, but you'll also learn actionable tips on measuring feedback, acting on feedback, growing revenue from your program, cultural changes to make it work, and stories from some of the best B2B companies in the game. Download the book for free here: https://customergauge.com/ebook/b2b-nps-and-cx-benchmarks-report

Adam and Dave are joined by Randolph Carter, Director of Marketing at Rentokil to talk about how Rentokil is building a global brand on experience.

Everything SugarCRM does from a strategic planning standpoint if rooted in one question: Will the help us turn this into a customer for life? Today Adam and Dave are talking with Chris Pennington, Chief Customer Officer at SugarCRM to see exactly how they're making that a reality.

DHL is doing Account Experience right. With 60% contact response rate, over 90% account response rate, and 100% close the loop rate they know a little something about putting processes in place to build a world-class program. In today's episode, Adam and Dave are talking with Markus Engel, VP CDO Performance Management at DHL Supply Chain about how he's been able to achieve this and what's next.

Today Adam and Dave are joined by Lucinda Anderson, Commercial Excellence Manager at Just Eat Takeaway.com. Lucinda is going to share how they used customer feedback to revolutionize home food delivery during the past year.

There's no harder industry to run an experience program in than perhaps telecom. Everyone and we mean everyone, loves to hate on their telecom provider! But Sure is doing things a little differently to change the experience with their customers. Today Adam and Dave are talking with Charlotte Dunsterville, Chief Consumer Officer at Sure to see how they're doing it.

SuperOffice CRM has been running an Account Experience program for over 5 years now. It's part of the reason they were able to secure private equity funding. And keeping employees engaged and excited about growing the program is a huge part of their success. In this episode, Hans Gronsleth is talking with Adam and Dave on how he motivates the front line to continuously improve the program.

Please welcome season 2 hosts, Adam Dorrell and Dave Barber as they welcome Bob Mcninch to talk about the upcoming changes around 3rd party cookies and what it means for CX professionals.

Ian and Cary are joined by Kelly Rader, VP of Digital Experience at Object Edge to talk about user experience and how it affects the overall customer experience.

Eaton is a Global organization with a complex distribution model. In this episode, Renan Cardoso talks about how he implemented an NPS program to ensure an excellent experience all the way from wholesalers to the end-user.

Effortless Office was crushing it with a 98+ CSAT score and everything was great... Until they lost a customer with no warning and no idea why.

It's been over a year since most of us have been able to step foot in a pub. Yet, Heineken has been able to leverage their CX program to stay in touch with bar owners and even grow their footprint. We're talking with Stefan Visser, Lead VoC program & Scrum Master CX @ Heineken to see just how they did it.

Today Ian and Cary are talking about the pros and cons of NPS and CSAT and how to grow your business based on customer feedback.

Today we're talking CX tech stacks! But more importantly, how a bad tech stack leads to unhappy customers and leads to churn.

In this episode, Cary and Ian explain what drivers are and how you can become the superstar in your organization if you start connecting them to revenue.

Promoters are promoters, right? Well, sort of. But what if you could turn your promoters into super promoters? Ian and Cary talk about the different ways to activate your promoters to actively refer your business.

Do you tie revenue to your B2B experience program? If you do, you're in the very small minority. We found over 2/3 of companies don't actually do this! So today we're getting granular and talking about how to begin the journey to tying experience to revenue.

Today we welcome Hilary Zaharko, VP of Marketing, and Carla Lestinho, Client Experience Manager at H&R Block Canada. We dive deep into their tactics for disrupting and acting on feedback at all levels of the organization.

Referrals are your secret weapon weapon to monetizing your experience program. In this episode we dive deep on how companies are utilizing (or not utilizing) referrals to grow their business.

Today we welcome David Apple, CMO at Intuitive Health, to the show. David is going to outline how he used NPS to pivot and deliver exceptional experience to grow during the pandemic.

Today we welcome Tom Studdert from Zoominfo to the show. If you want to learn how to increase customer retention through training and education, this episode is for you. Tom dives deep into "training to retaining", including how he was able to achieve 98.5% retention at Zoominfo.

Today we’re excited to welcome Ondrej Sedlacek to the Account Experience podcast!

Ondrej is the Co-founder of SatisMeter, an NPS and experience software based out of Prague. And in exciting news, CustomerGauge and SatisMeter recently solidified a great partnership which we’re all very pumped about.

In this episode, Ondrej talks about the importance of closing the loop as quickly as humanly possible. And he even has a few cool tips to do it real-time while your customers are either still in your product or using your service. You won’t want to miss this one. So without further ado let’s dive on in.

Today we dive into part 2 of the quick-hitting experience benchmarks episodes. In this episode, we'll be exploring benchmark data centered around whether or not "CX is deployed throughout your organization" and "have you developed a thorough customer journey map" both data points are related as we'll explain in the episode. Some really interesting benchmarks to review here so let's dive on in.

Hi all! We're going to switch things up a bit. We've received a lot of feedback from you all requesting a few B2B benchmarks ....and guess what? You're in luck! Today we're kicking off a new mini-series on B2B experience benchmarks with our yet to be released benchmarks data consisting of over 1,000 responses from B2B companies of all shapes and sizes across the globe. In this first episode, we cover Account Sentiment. More specifically, measuring how many contacts per account you should have to get account sentiment. So without further ado, let's kick off the first in a series of benchmarks episodes...enjoy.

Let me be the first to wish everyone a happy Diwali! This is one of CustomerGauge's favorite traditions internally with great food and even better company. This year, however, we did things a little differently. Here's a hint, it involves our CEO and COO schlepping around Amsterdam to deliver food in person to our EU Gaugies and free delivered food to our US Gaugies. In today's episode, we'll dive into a few details on how your company can also keep culture alive in a digital-first world and why celebrating is more important than ever. Once again happy Diwali and let's dive on in.

Today we're joined by Marianne Mølgaard, she's the group Customer Engagement Manager at Bisnode. And Marianne recently had a great Linkedin post go viral which detailed her global experience program at Bisnode. And full disclosure here guys, Bisnode is a customer of CustomerGauge, but man is their story interesting. And Marianne doesn't hold back. She gives us all the great details on how she operates a program globally across markets, how she rallied teams internally around the customer, and even how the program has impacted Bisnode's business. This is a can't miss for anyone operating a global program. Without further ado let's dive right in.

Today we're joined by Dennis Geelen, the founder of Zero In, a boutique consulting firm based out of Ontario, Canada. In this episode, we talk about Dennis' fantastic new book "The Zero in Formula". It's a #1 Bestseller on Amazon and a great read for any experience professional out there listening. This was a super interesting talk filled with case studies, formulas, real-life actionable takeaways to help you better engage with your customers. I know you're going to get a ton of value out of this talk, so let's dive right in.

This week we welcomed Brian Hodge to the show. Brian is a Leadership Consultant at Dame Management Strategies but also just happened to be the previous champion at Soccer Shots, one of our customers. While at Soccer Shots Brian was the Director of Franchise Operations and he ran their NPS program for the entire brand across the United States.

This talk was a killer example of a champion using data and tying it to financial outcomes. Her literally correlated profitability and growth to hitting a specific NPS score. It's a fascinating episode and I can't wait for you all to hear it, so let's dive right in.

Today we're joined by our very own co-founder and COO Camillia Scholten. In this talk, we dove deep into Employee Experience. Camilla walked us through how she adapted our employee experience program during COVID and how investing in education is setting CustomerGauge up (and our clients) for the future. There are a ton of strategic and tactical nuggets in this one you won't want to miss it! Let's dive right in.

Today we're talking about gaming. No not Nintendo, Xbox, or Playstation. Though Cary and I would love to do an episode on that as well. Today we're talking about all the different ways you can game a net promoter system. In this episode, we tell you why most gaming is bad for your company, how to spot different types of gaming, and yes even how to eliminate gaming and still incentivize the right activity. We love this topic so without further ado lets dive right in.

Today we're excited to have a special guest, our very own CEO and Co-founder of CustomerGauge, Adam Dorrell. In this episode, we focused on the ROI of experience-based referrals. And as a CEO, Adam is really passionate about making sure companies tie their referral revenue to their experience programs and he's pretty candid on why. Let's dive into the latest episode.

In this episode, we're exploring the "3 things you're (probably) doing wrong in your experience program." And we're basing this episode on the hundreds of conversations we've had with prospects and early-stage customers over the years. And you know what, Cary and I have even made these mistakes ourselves back in our program days. So, what are they? Let's dive in and find out!

In part 2 of what we're calling Experience MythBusters, we're tearing down the remaining 2 experience myths, specifically, the perceived effort needed to stand up a software investment for your experience program and prioritizing other programs (like a CRM implementation) ahead of your customer program. We're again lucky enough to be joined by Trishaala Chengappa our very own VP of Product at CustomerGauge to help us bust these things. Let's dive right in.

In part 1 of the Experience MythBusters episode, we're tearing down 2 experience myths we hear from prospects all the time, specifically, data should live with one department and the second one being, you need a dedicated experience team to run your program. And we're even joined by Trishaala Chengappa our very own VP of Product at CustomerGauge to help us bust these things. So get ready for part 1 and let's dive on in!

My co-host Cary and I are both highly qualified to walk you through the (not so) hidden cost of building your experience program internally because we've both built programs at previous companies by stitching together a bunch of different software. And yes we suffered through using manual excel sheets and yes the data was days delayed, you name the mistakes, we have probably made them. But here's the thing, most companies underestimate the true cost of building a program internally. In this episode, we dive into everything you should consider before making the leap to building internally. So without further ado, let's get to it.

In this episode, we're going to cover the most important experience metrics you're probably not measuring. We get into 4 specific experience metrics that will not only completely change the way your program is run, but set you up for more revenue growth in the process. SO what are they? You'll have to tune in and find out, let's get to it!

Do we ever have a good one for you today! My co-host and I dive into Culture Mechanics. Now I know what you’re thinking, but Ian, the first episode was on culture how could we possibly do another episode already? Well because it’s important. Really important! And In this episode, we talk about the 3 pillars of Culture Mechanics: people process and product. The 3 P's if you will. So sit back, relax, and let’s dive on in!

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Account Experience Podcast. And in this episode, we dive into often misunderstood experience activity: journey mapping.

In this talk, we cover a bunch of things like why you shouldn't spend time and money to design out your journey map so it looks pretty. Why you should focus on a Minimum Viable Product version 1 of your journey map, and why your journey should constantly change as your organization learns to optimize touchpoints. If you're just starting or right in the middle of mapping your touchpoint or Account journey, this is the episode for you, so let's dive right in and get to it.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Account Experience Podcast. And I'm excited about this next episode because it's something near and dear to my heart as an experience and marketing professional. Can you guess what it is? That's right, today my co-host and I dive into response rates.

And we go deep. We talk about why you should care about response rate and what low response rates could mean for your business. We dive into a great list of tactics that will help you increase your response rates like testing the sender, subject line, sending time, we talk about customization and using your CEO to your advantage, and a few other great strategies that will help you get more feedback into your business.

This episode is jam-packed, so let's dive in!

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Account Experience Podcast. And in this episode, we cover one of our favorite topics: closing the loop. In this talk, we cover why you're guaranteed to churn accounts if you do not close the loop. how you can properly close the loop (or as Cary coined, feed the loop) at every level of the organization (front line, middle mgmt, c-level) and our own personal journey and learnings gained through our close the loop process. It's pretty clear guys, if you want to start reducing account churn, you need to close the loop. So get your pen and paper out and let's dive into the latest episode.

Hello everyone and welcome to the inaugural episode of the Account Experience podcast, where we dissect how some of the world's top brands are leveraging exceptional B2B Account Experiences to create passionate advocates and drive significant revenue growth. And we couldn't be more excited that our first episode is all about creating a culture of action around your experience program. In this episode we'll cover how you can effectively anchor your program in culture to drive buy-in and action, some tips and tricks to keep the c-level bought into your program, and how to motivate an entire company to serve the customer.

This episode is packed with tactical tips on how you can create an experience culture in your company. So without further ado, let's dive in and get to it.