Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast

In this special episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, host Lauren DeSouza shares an important update with our loyal listeners. As we approach our two-year anniversary, the team is taking a well-deserved seasonal break to recharge and prepare for an exciting return in 2025.

In this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Moe Ash, Founder and Learning Architect at The Catalyst. They discuss the concept of gamification fatigue, recent innovations in the field, and how businesses can adapt their retention strategies to avoid customer burnout.

In this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, Lauren DeSouza is joined by Francisco Bram, VP of Product Marketing, Brand and Business Development at Albertsons Companies. They discuss leveraging customer insights for product development, the importance of customer retention, and how to build strong customer relationships in both startups and large corporations.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren welcomes customer experience expert Joey Coleman to the podcast. Joey is the Chief Experience Composer for Design Symphony, a customer experience consultancy that helps companies create memorable and lasting experiences for their customers. In this episode, Lauren and Joey cover everything from pattern recognition in customer experience and how to turn your customers into advocates for your brand, to the eight phases of customer experience and why Taylor Swift might be the most brilliant marketer of our generation.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is accompanied by Cole Atkinson. Cole is a Senior Product Manager at Shopify, a leading global commerce company, providing trusted tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business of any size. In the episode, Lauren and Cole discuss ways to create lifelong customers, why it's important to treat your customers in the right way, and how companies should approach retention on an international scale.

In this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Prashant Mahajan, Founder and CEO of Zeta.io, a platform allowing product teams to collaborate and manage their products. They discuss the importance of customer feedback in product development, how AI is changing the game, and practical strategies for prioritizing customer input.

In this Greatest Hits episode, host Lauren DeSouza is joined by Elyssa Verhoogen, the Senior CRM & Lifecycle Marketing Consultant at Dojo. In the episode, Lauren and Elyssa discuss how to build a relationship with the customer, why emails can cause anxiety for your customers, and why personalization is so important to lifecycle marketing.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Scott Gardner and Brent Bouldin of New Media Advisors. Together they discuss the importance of SEO in driving customer retention and growth. Scott and Brent also share valuable insights, including the need for valuable content, understanding audience intent, and integrating SEO into the organization.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by customer experience expert, Jim Tincher. Jim is the Founder and CEO of Heart of the Customer, a customer experience consulting firm which seeks to map out customer journeys in order to increase engagement and loyalty. In the episode, Lauren and Jim discuss the difference between the 'changemakers' and the 'hopefuls' in marketing, why an emotional approach to customer retention is so effective, and why businesses have changed their viewpoint on customer experience.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Eddie Hartman, a Partner and Member of the Board at Simon Kucher. Together they discuss the importance of customer retention and how businesses can build strong relationships with their customers, practical strategies for prioritizing retention, and valuable insights for driving long-term revenue growth.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with customer experience mastermind Howard Tiersky, CEO of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency. They discuss why you should put yourself in the customer's shoes, why companies need to be more customer-centric, and what exactly the Love Formula for customer retention is!

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Dennis Wakabayashi, the curator of the CX Hall of Fame, which celebrates the best and brightest stars in the customer experience field. Together they discuss personalization, the impact of unexpected wins, and the role gratitude plays in customer experience.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with John Sime, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Shopify. They discuss John's beginnings in a hotel and how it parallels his own work, how the ambiguity of marketing makes it exciting, why technology without talent is useless, and why you need to be able to read the room instead of constantly upselling.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Rachel Franklin-Heys, Head of Client Success at Pikkal & Co, a leading corporate podcast agency throughout Asia. Together, they discuss the importance of understanding the psychology of consumer behavior for excellent customer experience, the power of storytelling, and building meaningful connections.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by New York Times best-selling author, Dave Kerpen. In the episode, the pair discuss the power of listening in both marketing and life, how social media can be used as part of a customer retention strategy, and why social media is the great equalizer.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza talks with Peter Shankman, a six-time bestselling author, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and host of the Faster than Normal podcast. Together, they discuss how companies can retain neurodiverse employees while also creating neuro inclusive workplaces and how to include and retain neurodiverse customers.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by customer experience expert, Bruce Temkin, the “Godfather of Customer Experience”. The pair discuss the importance of being a student of human beings in marketing, the history of customer experience, and the power of empathy.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza talks with Ben Billups, founder of NOBEL, a leader in the email marketing industry. Join them as they discuss actionable tactics for email & SMS deliverability, like finding your local maximum, and how to stay on top of future industry updates.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by Alice Clark, the International CRM Lead for HelloFresh Market. In the episode, Lauren and Alice discuss why content is your main tool for building relationships with customers, the importance of putting yourself in the customers' shoes, and how large companies can give that personalized, small company service.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza talks with Giovanni Zacchia, an experienced Growth Marketing Lead and Senior CRM Lead at TikTok. Together, they discuss keeping up with technology in CRM, using AI to gain a competitive edge, and leveraging mobile technology to improve customer service.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by subscription expert, Matthew Holman. Over the years, Matthew has worked with hundreds of brands to help transform their subscription models. Matthew is also the Head of Growth at QPilot, a platform which ​​offers merchants dynamic and flexible software to manage their repeat orders. During their conversation, Lauren and Matthew discuss what makes the subscription model work, the biggest mistake companies make in the subscription space, and some actionable tips to try for your own subscription model.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with James Laurain, Head of Growth at Aampe. Together, they discuss James' journey from electrical engineer to marketer, the power of copywriting, and how to use the capabilities of AI for customer retention.

In this Greatest Hits episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, Lauren DeSouza welcomes Jem Bourouh to the podcast. With his Google Ads agency Adcubator, Jem has spent more than $310M profitably. After being in the DTC space for more than 4 years and bootstrapping his own e-commerce brands, Jem's is now investing in and acquiring other marketing agencies and ecommerce brands. Over the course of the show, Lauren and Jem discuss how to find the balance between prioritizing retention or growth, ways to find profitability through ad-spending, and how some companies are crushing it with WhatsApp marketing.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Annette Franz, Founder and CEO of CX Journey. Together, they discuss the importance of culture, predictive analytics, and understanding the needs of employees and customers.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by Nicolas Babin, a strategic advisor and consultant. Nicolas' background as a serial entrepreneur, executive, and board member has spanned from startups to multinational tech giants, such as Sony. Today, Nicolas gets excited by opportunities to help innovative companies achieve profitable growth and key business goals. This time, Nicolas and Lauren discuss why companies need to be prioritizing customer experience, how gamification can help your customer retention marketing strategies, and the ways in which marketing focuses have shifted over the years.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Damon Pistulka, the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Exit Your Way. Together they discuss recognizing the need to improve customer retention, the increasing role technology is playing, and increasing customer engagement.

In this Greatest Hits episode of Retain, Lauren is joined by Brittany Hodak, an international keynote speaker and award-winning business leader. Brittany is widely regarded as a ‘go-to source' for generating and retaining superfans. She's also the co-founder of The Superfan Company, a multimillion-dollar fan-engagement agency that has created successful campaigns and products for the likes of Amazon, Disney and Walmart. This time, Brittany and Lauren discuss how to turn your customers into loyal superfans, why companies must understand what makes them superior to their competition, and how to deal with the threat of apathy.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Sara Caldwell, VP of Customer Experience at Dovetail. Together, they discuss the importance of decision-first customer research for retention, staying connected to the customer with customer facing teams, and not forgetting the long-term.

In this Greatest Hits episode, Lauren is joined by Adrian Swinscoe, a customer experience consultant and advisor who has been growing and developing customer-focused businesses for over 20 years. Together, Adrian and Lauren discuss what aspects of the customer journey create loyalty, how much control businesses have over customer experience, and highlight that not all customers are the same.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Kris Rudeegraap, the Co-Founder and CEO of Sendoso. Together they are unpacking the power of personal touches when it comes to customer retention, discussing the importance of humanizing the sales process, and proposing a redefinition of account-based marketing.

In this Greatest Hits episode, host Lauren DeSouza is joined by Shep Hyken, the Chief Amazement Officer for Shepard Presentations. On the show, Shep and Lauren discuss the importance of building an emotional connection with your customers, how crucial it is to give your customers the service they expect, and why companies need to avoid obsessing over longevity and instead focus on the next time, every time. Shep is an experienced speaker and an international authority on all things customer service, customer experience and loyalty in business. He is the best-selling author of eight books and has worked with a plethora of companies to help them build deep, loyal relationships with their customers and employees.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Uzair Hamid, Founder and Community Lead of CRM DXB. Together, they discuss the importance of customer relationship management (CRM) in marketing, habit formation for retaining customers, and how to track the success of habit formation measures.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Sandeep Dube, COO of Mailchimp. Together, they explore how customer retention can be a simple or far more complex task depending on the industry, and why a many-limbed customer research strategy is the key to understanding how to delight your customers.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Rand Fishkin, serial entrepreneur, author and Co-Founder of SparkToro. Together they are playing devil's advocate, by challenging the businesses industry's obsession with retention, arguing that there is real value in letting go of customers and discussing effective strategies on how to win them back.

For the final Retain episode of 2023, to wrap up the year, Lauren DeSouza is looking back over the previous 12 months to identify the biggest marketing trends of 2023. Joining her to do so is Ahmed Khairy, the CEO of Gameball. Together, the duo delve into the impact of AI on marketing strategies, how companies have moved further towards personalized shopping experiences, why user-generated content (UGC) has taken off this year, and much more.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Glenn Poulos, entrepreneur, author and Executive Vice President of NWS. Together, they unpack the power of cultivating good relationships in business and share key strategies that will show you how to get and stay in front of customers and be a pleasure to do business with always.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Ben Fisher, CEO of Rodeo. Together, they get into whether or not your business should become (or stay as) a subscription based service; how to deal with churn and retention rates; and how to increase revenue through a subscription model!

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Iman ElNashar, Digital Commerce and Innovation Regional Director at eXtra. Together, they delve into the evolution of the customer journey over the years, including how technology played a massive role; why people are a business' strongest asset; and how digital commerce drives customer retention.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Khaled Alaa, Head of Experience at Talabat. Together, they delve into why customers prefer a consistent, normal product rather than an unpredictable fancy one; what makes quality customer service; and how your customer service is a part of your brand.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Adam Toporek, Customer Service Expert at CTS Service Solutions. Together they delve into how to become the customer's hero; how to respond to negative and positive emotions of the customer, and unpacking if technology is a hassle for customers or not.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Will Laurenson, CEO of Customers Who Click. Together they delve into the difficulties of taking on all the marketing and retention responsibilities in a startup, where the beginning of the retention process really lies, what the three key areas of conversion rates are, and why you have thirty seconds to grip your customer.

In this Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast episode, Lauren DeSouza speaks with Mark Ross-Smith, CEO of StatusMatch.Com. They talk all about how he got into the customer loyalty business; why loyalty programs are sometimes more valuable than the businesses themselves; and some of the most common misconceptions of loyalty programs.

This time on Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, Lauren sits down with Dave Norton. Dave is a customer experience expert and the Founder of Stone Mantel, a consultancy focused on experience strategy and design. For the last twenty years, Dave has helped companies like Royal Caribbean, Marriott, US Bank and Best Buy set new standards for customer experience strategies. Together, Lauren and Dave discuss how research into customer experience has impacted the world, what the future of customer experience really looks like, and why companies shouldn't rely on customer personas anymore.

For this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, we're doing a gamification special! So, who better to join host Lauren DeSouza than gamification expert Moe Ash. Moe is the Founder and Gamification Designer at The Catalyst, an innovative learning and development company that focuses on empowering individuals and organizations through transformative learning experiences. He is a trusted voice in the field having spoken about gamification at events, webinars and on podcasts. During their conversation, Lauren and Moe tackle the psychology behind gamification, whether Duolingo is a bad example of gamification, the best ways to implement gamification into your business, and why not every company needs a game.

In the new episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, host Lauren DeSouza is accompanied by customer experience expert and Chief Experience Officer at The Experience Maker, Dan Gingiss. Dan has over 20 years of experience in customer experience, and has held various leadership positions in marketing at companies such as McDonald's and Humana. Together, Lauren and Dan delve into why customer experience is all about getting the little things right, why it's so important to be there when the customer needs you the most, and possibly the greatest customer service email of all time.

In this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, host Lauren DeSouza is joined by Anatoliy Labinskiy, the Founder of GSM Growth Agency, a digital marketing agency that aids ecommerce companies achieve growth. Anatoliy's personal journey exemplifies how determination, self-teaching and resilience can lead to success. He's always been eager to share his knowledge and experience with others and help them turn their eCommerce vision into a reality. Together, Lauren and Anatoliy delve into Anatoliy's challenging founder journey, the difficulties of owning and running businesses, why Anatoliy chose to start a growth agency, and which social media platform is the best for marketing.

In this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, host Lauren DeSouza is joined by Laura Munkholm. Laura is the President and Co-founder of Walla, a boutique studio software built to save time, capture more revenue, and delight your clients. Laura has first-hand experience consulting with hundreds of clients and is an internationally recognized speaker in the boutique fitness industry. During their conversation, Lauren and Laura get stuck into discussing how behavioral psychology can help personalize your customer experience, the importance of personalizing your marketing automation, and what three attributes everyone in marketing needs to have.

In this episode of Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast, host Lauren DeSouza is accompanied by Ron Kaufman, the CEO of Uplifting Service. As a keynote speaker and author who's considered an authority on all things customer service, Ron has helped transform the cultures of many global brands, including Microsoft, Xerox, and Coca-Cola. During their conversation, Lauren and Ron discuss the four categories of value for the customer, why businesses need more than a good product, the fairly unknown origins of the term ‘customer', and how retention works across different industries.

This time on Retain, Lauren welcomes customer experience expert Joey Coleman to the podcast. Joey is the Chief Experience Composer for Design Symphony, a customer experience consultancy that helps companies create memorable and lasting experiences for their customers. In this episode, Lauren and Joey cover everything from pattern recognition in customer experience and how to turn your customers into advocates for your brand, to the eight phases of customer experience and why Taylor Swift might be the most brilliant marketer of our generation.

On the latest episode of Retain, Lauren is accompanied by Sabrina Buus. Sabrina is the Marketing Director for Sephora in Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia. Sephora is a French multinational beauty retailer that specializes in makeup, skincare, fragrance, and hair care products. In the episode, Lauren and Sabrina discuss how to measure and track loyalty programs, emphasize the importance of offering an excellent customer experience, and the value of putting yourself in your customer's shoes.

This time, Lauren is joined by Devam Hirpara, an Ecommerce and CRM Specialist at L'Oreal, the largest cosmetics and beauty brand in the world. At L'Oreal, Devam collaborates with advertisers, marketers, and stakeholders to drive ecommerce success and digital understanding. In the episode, Lauren and Devam discuss why customer segmentation is so useful and important, what three attributes every marketer needs to have, the impact of how your brand is perceived, and why you shouldn't pester your customers with stuff they don't care about.