Podcasts about customerthink

Improving Customer Loyalty through Martech and AI-Powered Solutions   Greg Kihlstrom is a best selling author with nearly 20 books on Martech and customer experience management. Greg shares fresh insights into how companies can leverage marketing technology and AI to bolster customer loyalty and satisfaction.    Whether you're a C-suite executive or a marketing professional, this episode will equip you with actionable strategies to deliver exceptional, personalized customer experiences. Here are three pivotal questions Greg answered during our interview: - How can companies efficiently organize and access vast amounts of customer data for better decision-making? - What are the common mistakes in Martech implementation, and how can businesses avoid them? - How does AI enhance—rather than replace—human work to improve both customer and employee experiences and drive business outcomes? Subscribe to our show for more expert insights. Link in the comments! Greg Kihlström - Biography Greg Kihlström is a best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur, and serves as an advisor and consultant to top companies on marketing technology, marketing operations, and digital transformation initiatives. He has worked with some of the world's top brands, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, FedEx, HP, Marriott, Nationwide, Victoria's Secret, and Toyota.  He is a multiple-time Co-Founder and C-level leader, leading his digital experience agency to be acquired in 2017, successfully exited an HR technology platform provider he co-founded in 2020, and led a SaaS startup to be acquired by a leading edge computing company in 2021. He currently advises and sits on the Board of a marketing technology startup. He executive produces 5 business and marketing-related podcasts, including the award-winning The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström, now top 5 on Apple's U.S. marketing charts and in its 6th year with over 500 episodes and millions of downloads, which discusses marketing technology and its role in the customer experience with some of the world's leading experts and leaders. Greg is a contributing writer to Forbes, MarTech, CustomerThink, and CMSWire, and has been featured in publications such as Advertising Age, Business Insider, Financial Times, and The Washington Post. Greg has been named #1 on its list of the Top Global Marketing Thought Leaders by Thinkers 360, was named one of ICMI's Top 25 CX Thought Leaders two years in a row, and a DC Inno 50 on Fire as a DC trendsetter in Marketing. He's also participated as a speaker at global industry events and has guest lectured at prominent universities and colleges. Resources This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/DELIGHTED and get on your way to being your best self. The Delighted Customers podcast website:https://www.empoweredcx.com/podcast Sign up for The Trusted Guide newsletter here: https://www.empoweredcx.com/newsletter Get the latest news and updates on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markslatin/ Register for the next Trusted Guide Roadmap™ Master Class here: https://www.empoweredcx.com/ The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

The CX Goalkeeper had the great opportunity to interview Bill Price and David JaffeBill's LinkedIn Headline: President, Driva Solutions; Co-Founder, LimeBridge; Chair, Global Operations Council; Advisor, CustomerThink.David's LinkedIn Headline: Consulting Director and Partner in Limebridge Australia Co-author of The Best Service Is No ServiceHighlights:00:00 Game Start00:25 Introductions02:34 Bill's and David's values07:00 Friction09:04 No Service The Best Service11:51 Interactions15:06 The Value Irritant Matrix20:01 Customer ecstasy23:30 Measurements28:11 Personalization31:22 Cultural Aspects35:31 The Future of CX38:35 Books' suggestion40:21 Contact Details41:06 Golden Nuggetsand much more https://www.cxgoalkeeper.com/BillPrice-DavidJaffeABOUT ME:https://www.cxgoalkeeper.comSUPPORT:Do you like my podcast? Support this podcast with Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/cxgoalkeeperSPONSORING:Interested in sponsoring the The CX Goalkeeper podcast?Please DM me on LinkedIn#cxgoalkeeper #customerexperience #podcast #leadership

Bill Price was Amazon's first global vice president of customer service and is the founder and president of Driva Solutions, a consultancy dedicated to creating highly effective customer contact strategies and operations.  He has more than 35 years of experience advising and directing major operations in more than 160 leading companies.  Bill is also the co-author of The Best Service is No Service and Your Customer Rules! A book that sheds light on how frictionless organizations cut costs, grow revenue and create loyal fans by creating products and services that work so well, their customers never have to contact them for the wrong reasons. Price is a frequent keynote speaker, graduate school instructor in marketing and global business management, Board member, and Advisor to CustomerThink with more than 50 posts. He graduated from Dartmouth College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business and lives with his wife Lori in Bellevue, Washington.  Listen to today's interview with Bill, and find out how you too can remove friction for any business from start-ups to major multinational corporations, and deliver great customer experiences with less effort. Key Takeaways Bill narrates the pivotal moment he realized that customer experience was a vital part of the various organizations and companies that he has worked withWhy is it dangerous to shield senior executives from the true voice of the customer?The techniques companies should apply to the process of drafting their senior executives into being more involved with the customers.Bill talks about the differences in business strategies that he has come across from the many organizations that he has been part of during the research and writing of his booksCompanies and Senior Business Executives need to start making decisions not based on profitability but based on long-term goals and objectivesThe companies Bill has worked with for his book: ‘The Frictionless Organization'Competition in business, and why the rush to turn digital has led many companies to settle for digital tools that are confusing and difficult to navigate for their customersTraits that a frictionless organization should exhibit, and how you too can test your organization against these metricsBill names a few companies that are getting it right alongside businesses that other companies should try to emulate Connect with Bill Website (Company) - http://www.drivasolutions.com/  Website (book) - https://www.frictionlessorg.com/  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-price-drivasolutions/  Email - bill@drivasolutions.com  Phone - 206-321-0841

Sabina M. Pons is a management consultant whose focus is on driving revenue protection and growth for technology companies. In her 20+ year career, she has led global corporate teams, managed multi-million-dollar P&Ls, and built teams from the ground up. Now, she serves as the Managing Director of the emerging management consulting company, Growth Molecules. As an expert, Sabina has spoken at the Gainsight Pulse and SaaStr Annual Conferences, presented at HubSpot Grow, spoke at multiple sales kickoff events, and has been featured in the media, including CustomerThink, Rising Tide Podcast, The Customer Success Makeover Show, NPS I Love You Podcast, among many others. With a master's degree in Communication, Leadership & Organizational Behavior from Gonzaga University and a bachelor's degree in Communications from the University of Southern California, Sabina is passionate about igniting corporate transformational change. She also sits on several boards, participates in many mentorship programs, and recently obtained a First-Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. Sabina resides in Orange County in Southern California with her husband, two young children, and Goldendoodle dog, Riley. To shed light on the struggle of mothers in the technology sector, coauthors, business partners, and moms Emilia M. D'Anzica and Sabina M. Pons wrote Pressing ON as a Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries & Raise the Bar for Success. The coauthors conducted 12 in-depth interviews and gathered responses from over 300 mothers in tech from around the world to bring this book to life. The coauthors have the goal of inspiring other mothers to step up and showcase their unique strengths and abilities. D'Anzica and Pons also share their own stories while discussing some of today's most pressing issues. About the Book: While there are many great works celebrating women in technology, Pressing ON as a Tech Mom: How Tech Industry Mothers Set Goals, Define Boundaries & Raise the Bar for Success (Legacy Launchpad Publishing, April 20, 2022) is not just about women in tech. It's about mothers in the technology sector and the struggles and triumphs that they experienced throughout their careers. This book is also for allies of mothers in tech who want to support this movement. https://growthmolecules.com/ https://pressingonbook.com/

Black Goldfish: 10 Keys to Creating a Differentiated Experience by Stan Phelps About the Book: Your brand today is no longer what you tell people it is. It is the differentiated experience (DX) your employees deliver. It is what you stand for and how your customers feel about you. And most importantly, your brand is what your customers and employees tell others about their experience. Black Goldfish is an amalgam of the first 10 colors in the Goldfish Series. The color black happens when you put all the other colors together. Here's a quick overview of the colors and 10 keys to creating a differentiated experience: PURPLE - little things that add value or make it easier for customers GREEN - little things that drive engagement and reinforce culture for employees GOLDEN - little things for your “vital few” employees and customers BLUE - leveraging technology, data, and analytics to improve customer experience RED - embracing purpose in business to benefit employees, customers, and shareholders PINK - differentiating by defying normal and exploiting imperfection YELLOW - contributing to the happiness of customers, employees, and society DIAMOND - excelling under pressure in sales and client management GRAY - leading across the five generations in the modern workplace SILVER - rising above distractions to communicate both loud and clear About the Author: Stan Phelps is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and workshop facilitator. Stan is a TEDx speaker, and an IBM futurist and his writing has been syndicated on top sites such as Forbes, Customerthink, and Business2Community. He has spoken at more than 500 events across Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Ecuador, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US. Prior to professional speaking, Stan had a 20-year career in marketing that included leadership positions at IMG, Adidas, PGA exhibitions, and Synergy. At Synergy, he worked on award-winning experiential programs for top brands such as KFC, Wachovia, NASCAR, Starbucks, and M&Ms. He is the author of The Goldfish series of business books which includes Purple Goldfish, Green Goldfish, Golden Goldfish, Blue Goldfish, Pink Goldfish, Yellow Goldfish, Gray Goldfish, Red Goldfish, Diamond Goldfish, Silver Goldfish, and one other book – Bar Tricks, Bad Jokes And Even Worse Stories: 101 Bar Tricks, Riddles, Jokes and Stories. And, interesting fact – Stan also has a law degree! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/black-goldfish-stan-phelps

How These Three Pillars of CX Drive Profits When Leadership Is Proactive About Customer Experience  This week's guest is Jeannie Walters, CEO and founder of Experience Investigators, a global customer experience consulting firm that helps companies improve loyalty and retention, employee engagement, and overall customer experience. For more than 20 years Jeannie has dedicated her work to creating meaningful moments and real results with one mission: To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™. As the Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Experience Investigators, Jeannie has helped organizations—from small businesses to Fortune 500s—to do just that. In this episode, Jeannie explains the three pillars of good CX to create positive experiences for customers and employees alike. She details how this is possible when customer experience management is proactive instead of reactive.   Jeannie's Journey in CX  Jeannie began her career in fundraising consulting and marketing. While working in marketing, she found that many organizations thought about legal, product development, marketing, and sales but no one was truly advocating for the customer. So about 20 years ago, she and her brother decided to focus on customer experience. They successfully ran a CX firm together until 2009 when Jeannie started Experience Investigators.   She has helped hundreds of companies of all sizes and across three continents strengthen their CX strategy. In addition to being a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), Jeannie is a TEDx speaker, a founding member of CXPA, co-host of the top-rated Crack the Customer Code podcast, and a four-time LinkedIn Learning instructor whose courses have been watched by more than 200,000 online learners.   An active writer, Jeannie's work has been featured in “Forbes,” “CustomerThink,” “The Future of Customer Engagement and Commerce,” and “My Customer,” as well as in university-level textbooks. She has received numerous recognitions for her work in CX.  The Three Pillars of Good CX  Jeannie has found that leaders often view customer experience as something that's nice, purely common sense, or solely focused on measuring feedback. But customer experience that's focused only on tracking customer satisfaction through surveys doesn't actually have an impact on the customer experience itself. This way of thinking about customer experience is an afterthought when what is really needed is forethought and planning to optimize the customer experience.  All organizations have customer experiences, whether intentionally designed or not. Jeannie's three pillars provide leadership a roadmap to be proactive, not reactive about the customer experience including how the entire organization should align to execute a successful CX plan.   1. Mindset  The first pillar lays the foundation for a CX strategy. The organization's mindset determines how to cultivate a customer service culture and ensures everyone in the organization is focused on it as something that is central to their business, not something extra or limited to certain departments.   Jeannie recommends writing a customer experience mission statement that helps everyone align where they're going so they can show up for customers no matter what. The mission statement documents who you are as a brand, including what you stand for. As an example, are you “the fastest” or “the most economical”? She points out the importance of gaining internal agreement on the brand promise in the customer experience mission statement as the north star that everyone in the organization gets behind.   2. Strategy  Next, this mindset needs to be translated into an effective business strategy to ensure customer experience is done right. The strategy must define what success looks like for your customer and for your organization. This becomes the success statement for the organizational goals, what the business leaders care about, how CX can support those goals, and how to measure that success.   Watching CSAT go up and down only helps your bottom line if you connect it to the bottom line. A business strategy builds these connections by, for example, discovering that a higher CSAT results in more satisfied and happier customers that share their remarkable experiences, spend more with your brand, and refer other customers. This connected strategy can support the revenue goals of your organization through increased customer loyalty and retention.   Throughout this process, it's important to be proactive about delivering intentional, positive customer experiences that connect to the central mindset and culture. We can apply best practices such as customer journey mapping, service blueprinting, and other tools. But because we ultimately experience things from our own perspective, we must be intentional in how we develop strategies that draw on the customer service culture to deliver excellent customer support.  3. Discipline  The third and final pillar is focused on crafting the discipline to deliver on the business strategy. This can't be accomplished effectively in silos, so it is essential to build collaborative cross-functional leadership teams that understand their role in creating the customer experience.   Everyone in your organization has a role in the customer experience. Your mindset and culture lay the foundation for guiding the discipline to deliver on your business strategies. Whether collaborating internally with colleagues, working with vendors, or communicating directly with customers from the contact center, everyone in your organization has a contribution to make and their daily efforts have a direct impact on the customer experience.  The Three Pillars in Action  Removing barriers to good customer service creates a chain reaction of positivity and empowers business leaders "To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™.” When organizations embrace these three pillars and implement a focused business strategy for customer experience, they will see measurable results.   By starting with the documented mission statement, you define how you will show up for customers no matter what. Sometimes there are tradeoffs because you can't always be the fastest and most accurate, for example. That understanding needs to be reflected in your company culture and mindset.  Then craft an execution strategy based on your organizational goals so you can measure the ROI you want to achieve. Include in your strategy details such as how each department plays a role in customer experience, how you will build your customer experience team, and how you will measure effectiveness and customer success.   Finally, turn your strategy into the discipline to work with other leaders within your organization. The coalitions you build will make powerful impacts, ranging from how you post jobs and how you hire and onboard employees, to how you deliver your products and how you collect payment.  In sum, by proactively identifying the business goals of your customer experience strategy, deciding on the execution steps necessary to achieve them, and determining how to measure your success, you can transform the customer experience into a strategic asset. By looking at a combination of experiential data (customer feedback) and operational data (customer behaviors) you can gain insights into your customer experience and modify your goals as you go, while remaining grounded in your mission for excellent CX.  Learn More About Jeannie  To learn more about Jeannie and her strategy for good CX, visit   ExperienceInvestigators.com where you can also find Year of CX customer experience resources and workbooks. Visit CrackTheCustomerCode.com to learn more about the podcast she cohosts with Adam Toporek featuring insights and innovations from business leaders.  What Jeannie Does for Fun  Jeannie enjoys spending her free time with her two teenage sons. She loves watching them do what they love, from choir concerts to soccer games. Her oldest son is heading to college in the fall and she's grateful for the time they have together.  Watch the episode video here. Read the blog post here.  

Kevin Wessels is the Founder and Managing Director of RevSherpas LLC, a boutique business growth advisory and customer experience strategy consulting firm for the small business community. He has over 10 years of management consulting experience scaling global companies using his internationally proven and proprietary Client Connect!™ formula. He has worked with some of the fastest-growing digital agencies and financial institutions in the world to accelerate revenues and create more consistent cash flow quickly, inexpensively, and with less effort. To date, his largest client engagement involved directing a multi-year $60M global CRM strategy, digital customer experience, and marketing transformation program for a leading investment management firm. Kevin's specialties are building client-centric company cultures, maximizing employee engagement, boosting staff productivity, revitalizing underperforming marketing strategies, improving sales conversions, and increasing client retention to ultimately significantly grow profits. His work has appeared in CustomerThink, MyCustomer, SmallBizClub, TrainingZone, Disrupt, True Hollywood Talk, Small Business Sense, Hustler Minds, Successful Hacks, BossUp Weekly, The Business Times, Influencer Hustle, USA Business Radio, Thrive Global, and several other media outlets and publications. He is the author of the following books: 1) EXPONENTIALLY OUTPERFORM IN ANY ECONOMY: Proven Growth Acceleration Strategies for Time-Constrained Business Owners to Uncover MASSIVE Additional Revenue in Under 1 Hour 2) CLIENT CONNECT!: Why You Need An Elevated CRM Strategy To EXCEED Heightened Customer Expectations 3) GET THERE!: The Premier Peak Performance and Profits Playbook for Entrepreneurs 4) GROWTH GAME CHANGERS: How to Outshine and Outlast the Competition Without Burning Out 5) DIGITAL MARKETING DEMYSTIFIED: How to Generate MORE Leads Online Even if You're Not a Techie 6) FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS MASTERY: The SIMPLE Way to Understand and Unlock Untapped Profits from Your Financials Even if You're Not a CPA or MBA Kevin earned his M.B.A in Finance from Saint Joseph's University and received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University with a double major in Economics and Spanish. Kevin resides in Houston, TX with his wife, two daughters, and mini Labradoodle.  Follow Kevin:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-wessels-83748959/ Twitter:  https://twitter.com/KevinMWessels Website: https://revsherpas.com/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kevin-Wessels/e/B087X8ST52 Official Heart-repreneur® Site:  https://heartrepreneur.com

Gemma Milne talks with Thomas Wieberneit, co-founder, CEO, and Principal of aheadCRM, about customer journey orchestration, understanding the dynamics of customer consent to provide data during that journey, the importance of consolidating data sources, the two biggest challenges for companies working with CDPs, and how he expects the role of understanding customer behaviors and the customer journey to evolve over time.About Thomas Wieberneit:Thomas is the co-founder, CEO, and Principal of aheadCRM. He helps organizations across industries to unlock their potential through digital transformation initiatives using a “think big, act small” approach. He is a CRM practitioner, with the ability to translate business needs into technology solutions that add value.  He also is a featured columnist at CustomerThink.Learn more:https://aheadcrm.blogspot.com/ Topics of discussionWhen a business has a more accurate view of their customers, what does that mean from the customer’s perspective? (02:25)What building a contextual, consistent view of customers looks like for companies (04:27)Striking a balance between privacy, trust, consent, and using customer data to give them a better experience (07:49)Considerations for choosing the right CDP your business (18:25)The importance of consolidating data sources for an effective (23:07)Security implications for running a CDP (24:49)The evolution of customer behaviors and journeys (27:11) Sponsor linkLearn how Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can empower your sales and marketing teams with an intuitive, flexible, and unified Customer Data Platform. Request a live demo today: https://aka.ms/AA9tofr Contact usEmail: connectedandready@microsoft.com Follow us on social mediaTwitter: https://twitter.com/msftdynamics365LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-dynamicsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJGCg4rB3QSs8y_1FquelBQ

Kathy Klotz-Guest, MA, MBA, MLA, is a business storytelling strategist, author, speaker, and comedian. Founder of Keeping it Human, her mission is to help organizations turn jargon-monoxide into compelling business stories, abolish boring marketing, and uncover boldly creative ideas for marketing content, products, branding and more. She calls them idea orgasms! A podcaster (Keeping it Human's Improvised Marketing Show), stand-up comic and improviser, Kathy has written two other short books on humor, content, and storytelling (The Executive's Bedtime Guide series) in addition to Stop Boring Me! How to Create Kick-Ass Marketing Content, Products and Ideas Through the Power of Improv." Her work has been published in Convince and Convert, Business of Story, Marketing Profs, Ragan.com, PR Daily, Business2Community, and CustomerThink. Her 7-year-old is still her favorite audience to make laugh. ** Go grab yourself a copy of Stop Boring Me! by clicking the image below. *** CONNECT TO LOU DIAMOND & THRIVE LOUD

People connect through emotion, and everything is your stage. I try to find two ambassadors a year. The goal for this is to simply find two ambassadors for your brand that align with your brands values and can organically sell to others. From there, you want each ambassador to find two additional ambassadors. After 20 years of doing this, you would have two million ambassadors. So , how do you start? Focus in on one thing: Your first customerThink: what is that frequency? How am I going to connect emotionally to them? The quantitative reasons, impact, and capabilities will all be provided once you connect emotionallyOnce you have a frequency, you can test the frequency through your social media. You can post a message or piece of content and see what it attracts. And if it starts attracting what you want in terms of engagement, hits, click- throughs, comments, or some other measurable way, you can post more content along the same lines.Original content gives followers insight into your life (and mind), which aids in developing a stronger connection.Content needs to be:Consistent - Your audience needs to know what you are going to deliver in terms of content and when you need a consistent product.Authentic - The truth is what vibrates the fastest, and the more truthful and authentic your message is to you, the better it will resonate with others.With the pervasiveness of the Internet, with a few clicks of a button you can buy more ads to that content (or you can buy ads for other brand- aligned content with similar emotional appeals or messaging), and you can thus continue to build that brand around consistent messages, themes, and values. In fact, a major part of the process is refining and adjusting the frequency you give off. Tweet me @davidmeltzer your favorite takeaway from today's episode and come ask me questions live every Friday at 11:00 am PST / 2:00 pm EST. Text me at (949) 298-2905 or email me at david@dmeltzer.com to join!

“How can we design experiences for everybody if we don't really have everybody in that process?” Perfecting your customer experience could be the most important thing you do at the start of the year. And we’re making sure you follow all the right steps to do it with ease.  Jeannie Walters is the CEO/Founder of Experience Investigators, a global Customer Experience consulting firm. She has 20 years of experience helping companies improve loyalty and retention, employee engagement, and overall customer experience. Jeannie is an international keynote speaker and has a TEDx talk all about microinteractions, those small and often-overlooked moments in the customer journey that have a huge impact on customer emotions. She is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), a member of the CXPA's CX Expert Panel, and a LinkedIn Learning Instructor. Jeannie was named in the Huffington Post as a "Top 100 Most Social Customer Service Pros on Twitter" and the Online Marketing Institute's "Top 20 Digital Marketing Strategists," and recognized as "One of the Top Customer Experience Influencers To Know" on CX Day. Jeannie has co-hosted the top rated podcast, Crack the Customer Code, since 2015, and is an active writer. You can find her work on CustomerThink, The Future of Customer Engagement and Commerce, and Forbes, as well as in university-level textbooks. Jeannie and her team launched the Year of CX on CX Day 2020. Anyone can sign up for free resources at www.yearofcx.com. Jeannie lives with her husband and 2 growing boys and a spoiled dog, spending her free time cheering on young athletes and choir singers alike, and spoiling the dog. In this episode, Jeannie dives into the importance of knowing your customers so you can find opportunities and relate to them. Tune in to learn how to: Build a customer journey for diversity and inclusion with Jeannie’s framework Bring perspective and personal experiences into building exceptional customer journeys Ask yourself the right questions to increase critical thinking around diverse customer experiences Connect with Jeannie at experienceinvestigators.com, yearofcx.com, and on LinkedIn and Twitter.

https://www.engati.com/ Engati is the world's leading no-code, multi-lingual chatbot platform. https://open.spotify.com/show/3G0uQwPnQib22emRi9VhUg Blog link: https://engati.com/blog | Subscribe now. Check out CX Community page - https://www.engati.com/cx-community And CX Content page - https://www.engati.com/cx-content Bob Thompson, Founder and CEO, CustomerThink and Author of ""Hooked on Customers"" talks about scorecard for evaluating a company's customer-centricity and tells us how we can manage and evaluate the behaviors to shape a customer-centric culture. Follow us on Facebook: http://s.engati.com/157 LinkedIn: http://s.engati.com/158 Twitter: http://s.engati.com/156 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getengati/ #EngatiCX #digital #CX #customers #customercentricity

Jim Tincher, CCXP, is a nationally recognized customer experience thought leader, journey mapping expert, keynote speaker and author. Jim led customer experience programs at Best Buy and United Health Group before launching his innovative CX consultancy, Heart of the Customer, which helps start-ups to Fortune 50 organizations use voice of the customer research to improve loyalty and boost revenue. His book, How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer?, is considered a must-read for CX-focused leaders, and Live Help Now, Support Be Influencer Marketing, CustomerThink, Feedspot, and LitmusWorld have all named Jim a customer experience influencer to follow.   Questions   Can you tell us a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are? How is it that you as an expert in this area, could maybe give us some tips as to how an organization can digital look at digitally transforming but ensuring that their team members are also on board with digital transformation? Now, as a customer journey map expert. Could you tell us if you are an organization and you've never done journey mapping before or let's say you did it 5 years ago, what's the recommended time for you to revisit it, to make sure that all the touch points are operating the way they should? What are your thoughts on embracing the power of being digital to the core to enhance customer experience and improving personalization in the process? What are your thoughts on companies that do have different channels? So they operate on multichannels, but they're not operating on an omnichannel perspective where everything is integrated, how can they go about doing that and do you think that's the best approach? How do you get employees motivated? What if they're like, “They're bringing in all of these systems, you have to learn all of these new things, and I’m not getting any new pay for it. I don't feel motivated.” How do you get them engaged, motivated, feel like they're a part of the process? Do they need to be included in the decision making or is it a case where you just roll it out and say, listen, this is a new path we're taking? Could you share with us how do you stay motivated every day? Could you share with us maybe an app, website or tool that you use in your business that you absolutely can't live without? Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could have been a book that you read many years ago or maybe about that you read recently that has read had a great impact on you. Can you share with us maybe something that you're working on now - it could be something that you're working on to develop yourself or something that you're working on to develop your people. Where can they find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge that you will typically revert to this quote - it kind of helps you to refocus, get you back on track? Do you have one of those? Highlights Jim’s Journey Jim shared that he doesn't know why he has always been focused on the customer. He remembered his very first job out of school; he was in technical support and on vacation he wanted to go visit a customer where he was visiting his now wife at her home in Connecticut. And he wanted to go visit a customer while he was there and people said, “Why? Go on vacation.” But it's just the way he has always thought. He went from there to small business and went to Best Buy. If you're in small business, you have to be customer obsessed or you don't survive. Similarly, Best Buy very much focus on that.   And then he went to a new organization and he naively thought everybody was customer focused and found out there were other methods, literally nobody in a marketing or product development group had ever met a client and he was amazed by that. And as a result, they had the most complex products in the marketplace because they were building the products they wanted to buy. And their customers were giving them feedback that this is way too complex, people don't want all this all these features, that they want it nice and simple.   But again, because they didn't have customer feedback, they were building really complex products. And it really came to light when they went out and talked to their customers. So, they divided them into customers who are really successful with their products and those who are struggling. And he created a program called Hug Your Customers, which, by the way, sounds really good until you have a sales rep call a customer to say, “Hey, we want to do a Hug Your Customers meeting with you.” They're Minnesotan's, they don't normally hug, it gets a little awkward.   So, they changed to collecting best practices. But he started taking their executives out to meet the clients and what they realized was that the clients that were struggling were the ones who were using their materials and following their advice and the ones who are most successful, the ones who are ignoring our advice and making their own materials. Now, that's a hard lesson, but luckily, because he was bringing the leadership out to hear firsthand, he didn't have to beat them over the head with that and they learned on their own. And that really has been the foundation of their work today.   Now, what really led for him to start the company is the fact that he got fired a lot because he remembered one VP saying, “Jim, you make a lot of noise.” He does make a lot of noise because they were just so inward focused and he was trying to change the culture.   And one of the things he learned as he was trying to change the culture from the bottom up, and that does not work. You need those pieces, but you have to start with the top and that was one of the lessons that really informed them at Heart of the Customer is that they help an organization think about their customers. They have to engage in leadership from the beginning and that was a lesson he learned the hard way by trying to start with a bottoms up approach.   Me: It's almost like your experiences have literally helped to mold who you are, drive the different aspects that you've envisioned for customer experience, especially with helping your clients to realize their own customer journeys. One of the biggest things that a lot of organizations have been focused on, especially since the pandemic, is their customer journey. They've been looking at their customer journey from end to end and they've also been looking at how it is that because of the pandemic and we're literally forced.   A lot of organizations had I think some companies had been proactive enough to look and see that their customer behaviours were changing and they were adapting pretty well. But some companies were still back operating as if it were in 1995, early 2000. And they fully had not transformed a lot of their customer behaviours into how their business functions.   Digital Transformation Tips Jim shared that's huge and we should break those into a couple of different pieces. The digital part is accelerating. They had a customer experience event earlier in the week and a speaker from Target who was saying that they're 2030 goals now have to be realized this year. There was such a move towards digital now with a Coronavirus that's had causd them to have to pivot very quickly. And they're seeing that across the board.   What's beneficial, their clients have already taken the time to learn what their customer needs and what are the moments of truth in the journey so they can build digital platforms that allow customers to be more successful by understanding those moments of truth as well as those friction points. And they find that's really critical, that if you take a broken process and digitize it, all you get is a broken digitized process and you're not helping anybody.   So, it's really critical back there to understand what are those key needs of my customers first? And so, what they've been doing is during this time, even if the output is to be digital, which it often is, what's more important is to understand what are those customers needs in any online or offline environment?   What are their challenges? What are the points of friction today? And to use that to design the digital. We are people first, digital second, and leaders tend to forget that, they seem to think that we're all digital people and we just need digital tools. No, we need to solve the human need first and use a digital platform to do that.   Me: Ok, so we have to solve the human need first. So, I'd like some practical examples. I see in your just from your bio that retail and healthcare are areas that you have a lot of experience with. So maybe you could give us one from each. Maybe just how it is that you could put the human need first, what does that look like in a real life business example?   Jim shared that although it's been interesting because their customer base, the Heart of the Customer, has not been so much retail, they do a lot of healthcare work, a lot of B2B and B2C work. So, with business customers or as an intermediary to the customer. But one of the things they are finding across the board in almost any industry is the need for operational transparency. And he’s going to back that up, what does he mean by that?   And it's really the world's humankind's second most awesome invention after fire is the Domino's Pizza Tracker. It's amazing how many people they talked to want a Domino's Pizza Tracker for everything, and they find most organizations are not providing that operational transparency.   So, they're to go back 5 or 6 years in time, he doesn't remember when exactly the pizza tracker came out. He can come up with an app that could show you when your dough is put down and who is putting down the dough, and when somebody puts on sauce, somebody puts on ingredients, toss it in the oven. You just said, “Why would I want that? That’s daft.”   But when it showed up, people say, “Oh, I love that, in fact, I want to know if I'm applying for life insurance, I want to know what's happening.” They call it Operational Transparency and there's a great Harvard Business Review article on this, very influential to our thinking. But when organizations provide operational transparency to their customers, the customers feel the organization treats them more fairly, even if the outcome is bad, let's an use example of life insurance. Even if they're declined, they feel better about the process because they had visibility into it. And it removes a lot of anxiety.   They find that's true in almost every industry. They work with distributors who are providing materials to their clients, when they can provide operational transparency to when the order is placed, when products are shipped. Amazon clearly does this quite well, in the business environment; it's not often done as well.   They started to see it coming through a little bit more through some transparency in health insurance. If he submits a claim, he wants to know where that claim is, he wants to be able to see where it's working its way through, and he wants that transparency. So that's what they're finding across the board.   He mentioned that he didn't answer another part of the question going back, so he wants to circle back. And Yanique asked about the digital piece, but also asked, how do they get people to actually implement and understand customer needs and to actually put in place the processes needed.   And this is critical to their entire practice. They build everything they do around change management. And with that, they have a chapter in the book specifically about how to apply change management principles to journey mapping. Now, a number of years ago, it's been like 4 years. They did a survey on companies regarding their success in Journey Mapping, and he’s a journey mapping geek, his license plate is literally, “JRNY MAP”   So, last week they drove down to Texas and dropped off the car to his youngest, that would be the fastest plates you have ever seen swapped out because there's no way Jared wants to have journey map on that car. So, he’s a geek and they did a survey, he thought that everybody, when they asked how successful you were, would give you a 4 or 5, which clearly journey mapping works.   Everybody is going to say it's successful, not what they found. What they found is that only about 1 out of 3 did that. Another 1 out of 3 gave it a 1 to 3 and another one third said it's too soon to tell. Now, they just updated the data. They did another survey coming out here, more about journey management and the numbers are even worse. They're finding that only about 15% are saying that they are really successful. Most, 45%, so that’s literally most are saying it's too soon to tell which is not suggesting it's trending well.   If you spend US $125,000, US $150,000 which is what it takes to do Journey Mapping right, and you tell your boss, if your boss asks you, “Hey, did that work?” And you say, “Oh, I don’t know, it's too soon to tell.” That's not a good conversation.   They find that most organizations are doing the mapping and they're not being successful because they haven't thought about change management. What change management means and they did this research. They found the most important factors in being successful are first of all, knowing what it is you're trying to map, going after an actual business problem. They've had people tell them their business problem is they don't have a journey map.   That's not a business problem; they’ve had other people say their biggest problem is their survey scores are low, although that's not a business problem. We are losing customers, customers are not using us for this one type of product, we have a lot of people calling in, which is costly to them and to us, and those are business problems. So, it starts with going after a business problem because that's how you engage executives.   Second of all, then is involving customers in the process, which they should not have to talk about it, it's called customer journey mapping for a reason. They ran across all these consultants and as well as practitioners who think that if you take a bunch of employees, you put them in a room and give them post-it notes, we got a customer journey map. Not true. Well, they found when they do that because that is part of their process early on is that they get really good answers that are wrong.   Everybody thinks they know the customer journey but when they match that up against what customers actually tell them, there is a huge mismatch between the two. Because you are just reacting to part of the journey you see and very few employees can actually articulate the entire journey and are actually missing what's most important to customers.   So, second part is involving customers. But the third one, which is actually the most important, is who's on the team. If we go back to this, they don't involve their digital team and they mapped the journey and they come up with all these new digital items they need, you go to them and say, “Hey, we have this beautiful journey map.” Telling you all these things you need to do differently.   Well, they're not going to listen to you. Why should they? They've got their own list of things. But if you involve them in the process, you get them as part of it, that's when the magic happens and even more importantly, is involving leadership, getting the leaders to be part of the project, getting them to talk to customers, that's when you start to embed it inside of a culture.   Me: That makes sense. Would you suggest everybody should be involved, at least all of the different touch points that could possibly impact the customer?   Jim agreed and shared that they usually have about 30 people involved in their projects, sometimes more across the organization.   Me: And let's say for an organization with that size of maybe 2500 employees, let’s say they are a financial institution, they have a bank, they have an insurance arm, they have an investment arm. In a case like that, if they're really trying to do a transformational journey it would be recommended that all the leaders from the different business units are involved.   Mike mentioned that it sounds like Yanique has a particular customer or company in mind.   Me: No, not necessarily. But I just want to use a specific example, because I do have some of the persons that listen to this podcast that are in that line of business. So it would be good for them to specifically hear, because sometimes you read books, Jim, and the books speak at a very high level, but they're not bringing it down on a granular level to where you are in the organization.   “I am the marketing associate in the marketing department and I think if we do this in a digital way it will help to influence our marketing efforts.” But how does that transcend into the entire journey from end to end? And is it connected with the other departments on how it is that they are feeding information to the customers from their units? That's where I'm trying to get at so that everybody listening understands that it's not just a responsibility of one department.   Jim agreed and shared that first of all, it comes back to what's the business problem you're trying to solve, and likely you're actually not going to involve all three of those groups because the business problem typically doesn't go across the bank, the investments and the insurance area, it's probably more granular. And so, let's say for example, the business problem. They worked with one bank; let's use that as an example where their business problem was that always the secondary bank.   So, some other bank was the primary purpose, they were secondary and they isolated it because in the onboarding process, that first 90 days, clients weren’t really learning all they could do with the bank, and so they kept it as a secondary kind of a fund money bank, but they weren't using it for their primary checking account, their savings account, the credit card.   They typically came in because they needed a separate bank account for some reason, and they stayed with that. So, they wanted to learn how could they create an amazing onboarding process that got customers to learn that they could use this bank for way more than banking?   In that case, they needed to involve clearly the front line; you need to involve representatives from the individual branches because that's where a lot of the rubber hits the road. You also need marketing, going back to your point about marketing, you have to have marketing there because marketing should be creating a lot of these materials that you're using for the onboarding. Product, because product can learn what they're doing and come up with new products that fit that. The contact centre because they need to match as well what’s happening as well as the digital team. So minimum of these 5 teams, all need to be involved.   Me: So, that's really, really good information. Now, in terms of customer journey mapping, I did a webinar recently and I think one of the questions I asked was how often do they revisit their customer journey map.     Using Journey Mapping In Your Organization Me: Now as a customer journey map expert. Could you tell us if you are an organization and you've never done journey mapping before or let's say you did it 5 years ago, what's the recommended time for you to revisit it, to make sure that all the touch points are operating the way they should? Just to give people an idea, because I think a lot of companies think they built this journey map and that's it, it's almost like a policy or a procedure that was created in 1970 and it stays there forever.   Jim stated that Yanique was right and shared that the journey does change. They just did this survey, which they’re right now on the analysis of and they found that 90% of the respondents basically stopped there with the mapping. They create two different kinds of maps, they create one which is a change management map, highly graphically, the research is pretty clear, and it’s called The Visual Superiority Effect. If you create a highly visual artifact, people understand it more and they remember it, so they have that one.   Then for some of their clients, they go beyond that where they create a data oriented map which is bringing in the feeds of the operational data, as well as the sentiment data, the surveys, to show how that journey is as a baseline and how it changes over time.   If you do that, that largely answers your question, because as long as the journey is working the same and by bringing the operational data and he should say financial as well, you're going to start to see is that journey still healthy or are we seeing more cancellations? Are we seeing lower additional products added on? Are we finding business problems are happening because typically the business problems come/originated by a customer problem.   And so, the sentiments part of that, so you're able to track sentiment over time, hopefully have a journey survey, and have some touch point surveys so you bring that into the living journey map. But you also bring in that operational data so you can see while they're seeing a lot of calls at this phase of the journey or they're seeing that their average basket size going back to retail is dropping significantly or increasing. That's when you need to go back out to your customers, because the working the live journey map is telling you that things have changed and you need to go back and figure out why.   Using Digital to Enhance Customer Experience Me: Ok, so that definitely does answer some of those questions. Now, in terms of personalization, personalizing the experience for the customer. I know artificial intelligence and augmented reality are some things that companies are incorporating into their experience to make it more personalized. I was watching a video recently where IKEA literally has the augmented reality, you just hold your phone or your iPad up and you can just position the furniture in your house to see what it looks like. So you're actually almost choosing it without physically going to the IKEA location. What are your thoughts on embracing the power of being digital to the core to enhance customer experience and improving personalization in the process?   Jim shared that in terms of enhancing customer experience and improving personalization in the process is absolutely critical and not far enough along yet. Amazon has spoiled us all; every area we work in, we tell them Amazon is your competitor. If you're a bank, if you're a distributor as he mentioned earlier, you’re a health insurance organization, you're a non-profit, Amazon is your competitor. Not literally, if you're non-profit, it's pretty hard to argue that Amazon is taking your funds away.   But the mindset, all of our mindsets are changed by Amazon and that expectation. Amazon gives him a personal experience, therefore, when he’s engaging with another retailer, but also when he’s engaged with his health insurance organization, he expects them to personalize things for him. He expects everybody he interacts with, every organization to give him an Amazon like experience and so as a result, he’s frequently disappointed.   AI (Artificial Intelligence) is opening that up for the rest of us that we find the machine learning specifically allows you to understand patterns of behaviour and build and orchestrate a journey as a result.   They have a partner of theirs that does orchestration where you can actually set up individual responses based on needs. And that's a machine learning platform, although you can incorporate machine learning into it. But what they're finding in their research is that a handful of companies are doing an excellent job of really personalizing and building the journey on an individual basis even, or at least in a mass customized level. But most are not there today. There's a huge opportunity.   Me: So there's opportunity for organizations to improve personalization. Another big thing I found also, Jim, in the whole process of customer experience and enhancing it is having more integration across their channels. I use this webinar platform called Demio and so one of my business channels has expanded as a result of the pandemic. So, I never used to do webinars before, but because of the pandemic and I'm not physically going out to the training anymore.   Of course, I'm using webinars as a platform to reach more people and in doing my research, because I'm a customer service trainer. I wanted to use a platform that was customer friendly, meaning if I had an issue technically or there was an issue with just how to use a platform or what to do. I could message them on their response time would be like instantaneously. And of course, after doing research on speaking to other trainers both here in Jamaica and overseas, I was able to pick Demio. They're fairly new in the game and there are some features that they don't have that Zoom has, but one of the things I liked about them was that they were omnichannel and they were integrated.   So it didn't matter which platform I spoke to them on, what it was, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM or it was the little chatbot that was directly on their website, that conversation continued on each platform and each person I spoke to was a continuation of the conversation from before, and it just made things so seamless and easy to transact business with them.   Operating an on Omnichannel Where Everything Is Integrated Jim shared that clearly it's the best approach, as Yanique just said right there and she’s right. You don't want to have to think about, “Did I start this with chat, did I start with the bot, where I started?” You don't care. One of their sayings is, “Thinking is bad. The more you make your customers think, the more at risk you are for losing their loyalty.”   That comes back to the need to be multichannel. He does not want to have a different experience or more importantly, to get different answers if he calls you, than if he chat, than if he uses other methods of interaction. He wants to know he’s getting that same experience across the board.   They find it's hard because they tend to have a siloed approach to improvement, and that comes back to earlier, that if you don't engage the leadership and don't engage the overall organization around this area and again, the parts of the organization that can be part of the solution, then you end up with siloed solutions. If you're building siloed solutions, you're going to be in trouble. But if instead you're taking the time to integrate across them, that's when you can make a huge difference in not just keeping your current customers are bringing in more because you're going to keep your base because they like the experience and they're going to talk to others.   Getting Employees Motivated Me: So, one of the things that we have to also do, and I know you mentioned it earlier in terms of involving the people, involving the people on the ground, the ones who are in the grassroots every day dealing with the customers, they know some of the challenges that the customers are actually experiencing. But how do you get them motivated? What if they're like, “They're bringing in all of these systems, you have to learn all of these new things, and I’m not getting any new pay for it. I don't feel motivated.” How do you get them engaged, motivated, feel like they're a part of the process? Do they need to be included in the decision making or is it a case where you just roll it out and say, listen, this is a new path we're taking?   Jim stated, well, so let's go back to the change management comment earlier. And again, they're big believers in involving change management. They find that customer experience, when they involve a change management approach, they have way more impact.   On a business to business level, Jen Zamora from Dow, they’re a client of Jim’s, they have a great approach. She's been posting every month on LinkedIn, their journey to customer experience and last week's was about how they incorporate change management into their approach, it's a great read. Follow Jen Zamora and look at her posts of what they've been doing.   Now, in Jim’s case, he likes John Kotter’s approach, which is on structure, but they talk a lot about the ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) change model from Prosci. And he likes it because it's simple but not simplistic. And ADKAR is an acronym. If you want somebody to change, they need to be aware of the need to change. They need to desire to change. They need to know what to change. They need to be able to change. And that has to be reinforced.   He mentioned that he’s going to try to convince Yanique to move away from Jamaica to Minnesota. First of all, you need to be aware of your need to move to Minnesota about how it's so beautiful there, it's fantastic, you’ve got to move up there. You need to desire to come up there. You've got to say yes, I don't have any snow boots, I need snow boots, he needs to get you desire that. You have to know how to move there and he'll work with you to get a moving agency. You have to be able to; you've got to be able to find something to move you from Jamaica to up there and you need to continually reinforce why this living in snow is a good thing. So, he has got an uphill battle.   What they find is that most organizations focus on the first A and the K and maybe the second A. So they say, “Yanique, are you aware that you can move to Minnesota, here's how you can do it and let me give you some training on how to live as a Minnesotan.” But he never took the time to help you understand why Minnesota is a beautiful state and why you'd want to leave Jamaica to come there.   It's a high bar. But now let's turn it back to your marketing person. And if you want your employees to use new systems, a lot of groups start with awareness, “Hey, we have a new system.” And then jump right to training. And here's the training. They didn't take the time to say, “And this is why this is going to help you. This is why you should want to do that.” Love the ADKAR model because it helps us remember how I built against the desire component and if your changes are not taking place, that's where he'd look.   How Jim Stays Motivated When asked how he stays motivated, Jim shared that he'll tell you; it's really hard the first few months of the Coronavirus, because even though he’s an introvert, he’s very introverted. He gets a lot of energy off of one to one conversations. A number of years ago like 8, 10 years ago when he was fired from a company, trying to find my new job; he had 133 coffees. Now that doesn’t count lunch, that doesn’t count dinner just strictly 133 just on the coffees and everything else.   And now we bring it to today in March and April was hard because nobody wanted coffee. It’s very easy for us all to pull inside. He gets his energy out of one on one conversations. He loves talking with other customer experience leaders to find out what they're doing.   And so, one of the things he did this year, it actually started before the Coronavirus, you may have seen Forrester’s prediction that 1 out of 4 customer experience people would lose their jobs this year because they're not showing business value.   A year earlier, Customer Think came out with the research that showed that only 1 out of 4 programs can show business value. So in January, he got really interested in that and said, well, what is it that separates that 1 out of 4 who are going to be fired from the 1 out of 4 that are who we all want to be, the ones that are really showing impact?   And so this year, they've interviewed so far 86 people in customer experience roles. They've added a few as well in finance and CEOs to understand what does excellence look like in customer experience. And when he leaves one of those conversations with somebody who's truly expert, he’s motivated, he’s inspired.     App, Website or Tool that Jim Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business Jim shared that there are two he'll mention. First of all, they use Microsoft Teams, there’s a way to connect and to use visual, big fan of that. That's number one, but some way that you can connect and have that camera turned on, that's important.   The Coronavirus taught us about a new tool that he wants to pitch, he’s not an investor or anything, but he loves it. It's called Stormboard. And it is an online interactivity white boarding tool that you do not have to train anybody. It's amazing. The service is really responsive; they have really enjoyed working with that. So if you're looking at a tool for doing online workshops, they loved them, they've been great partners; they’ve been very flexible and willing to teach them how to facilitate. But what they found is that they don't have to spend a lot of time teaching their clients how to use the tool, they just get in and they start to use it.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Jim When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Jim shared that he just came back from vacation a couple of weeks ago out in Maine and what he does when he goes on vacation, this is geeky. He read books and he read three books and half of three others. But the one that really hit him hard is Leading Change, With a New Preface by John Kotter.   Time called it one of the most influential business books of the last 25 years. And he's got a great method of walking through it. And so, as he mentioned, they've used Prosci in the past, he has read their book and that's good from an outcomes perspective. What Kotter does, he walks through a process.   First of all, you've got to create a sense of urgency. What they find most customer experience leaders failing at is the next step, which is to create a powerful change coalition and then from there creating a vision as a total steps. But it just spoke to him. And yes, he realize that that shows how geeky he is in a book on change management, on the beach spoke to him, but he strongly recommends that book.   The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact he liked a lot by Chip and Dan Heath and he interviewed one of them for his blog, getting their feedback at Heart of the Customer. And it was interesting because Jim has a little bit different approach in that they they're all about building positive moments, which he agrees with as well. They don't like journey maps as much because journey maps also focus on the negative but you have to understand what are the most crucial moments are.   But in there, they also talk about do you want to spend your time fixing problems or creating great interactions? And what they find is that most organizations spend their time fixing problems. But the potential of creating great moments of truth with your customers has nine times the organizational value than fixing problems. Great book.   What Jim is Really Excited About Now! When asked if he could share something that he’s working on the develop himself or his people, Jim mentioned both, as mentioned, they’ve done 86 interviews so far to understand what is it that leads to excellence in customer experience. And one hint, it does not involve the letters N, P or S, it's really involving engaging executives, creating a vision.   They are right now in the process of distilling that and hope to be coming out with their own book again, a second book here in probably about 6 months to a year. But they're learning that there are people out there that are truly transforming their organizations around the customer experience and that there is a process that does it, but that it's rare and that most organizations are not having the impact. But there are some that are truly transforming their companies around the customer.   Yanique asked when would that be out and Jim shared that they're suppose to start analysis on the first of the month and do the writing through the end of this year or so, hopefully first and second quarter of next year. But he knows that their original project plan on the last book had them getting done in 2017 and it came out in 2019. But his history is not so good at getting the writing done in time.   Where Can We Find Jim Online Jim shared listeners can find him at – Twitter - https://twitter.com/jimtincher LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimtincher/   Website – www.heartofthecustomer.com   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Jim Uses When asked if he has a quote or saying that he would revert to in times of adversity or challenge, Jim shared that he does and it's particularly poignant during the Coronavirus, and it's from John le Carré, who's an English author, who said, “The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” They find a lot of customer experience people don't actually talk to customers, it's really important. Has been harder in the Coronavirus, it has to be done virtually but if you want to create an amazing customer experience, it starts by talking to your customers and that quote has inspired him for years now.   Me: It's so simple and it's almost like a BFO, like a blinding flash of the obvious, because clearly, how are you going to know what needs to be improved if you're not talking to the person who you are trying to make the improvements for because you need their input, it can't be based on what you feel or think. It must be based on their experience. So you would think, a lot of people are doing that, but a lot of companies don't actually do that consistently.   Jim agreed and shared that a lot of customer experience people don't even do it consistently, and that's the opportunity. So if he was to wish one thing for you, for everybody listening to this, it's that you will tomorrow reach out to a few customers and just have a conversation.   He shared that he had a great interview with the customer experience leader in France and she said one of the benefits of a pandemic is that she used to visit all the customers in France because she could do without traveling. Now, she’s talking to their customers in China, in Brazil, in Canada, because they're all the same distance away from her now.   Me: That's true. The French and the Chinese and the Brazilians, it takes that much energy to call each one if you're calling somebody just the same in France.   Jim agreed and shared that that's his encouragement to everybody is, reach out to your customers no matter where they are.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer? Using Journey Mapping to Drive Customer Focused Change by Jim Tincher Leading Change, With a New Preface by John Kotter The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath   The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Minter Dialogue Episode #374Vince Jeffs is Senior Director of Product Strategy, Marketing AI and Decisioning at Pegasystems, which is holding its iNspire online event on June 2. Vince is also currently the #6 ranked overall author on CustomerThink.com, and the #2 on Customer Analytics. Vince and I discuss how AI has been applied during the pandemic, how to use AI responsibly for example in developing the best customer experience, Pega's Ethical Bias Check to help guide AI implementation.If you've got comments or questions you'd like to see answered, send your email or audio file to nminterdial@gmail.com; or you can find the show notes and comment on minterdial.com. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate/review the show on RateThisPodcast. Otherwise, you can find me @mdial on Twitter.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/minterdial)

Today's interview is with Bob Thompson, CEO of CustomerThink Corp. and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, the world's largest community dedicated to customer-centric business. Bob's also just authored a book: Hooked On Customers: The Five Habits of Legendary Customer-Centric Companies and joins me today to talk about the book, what he thinks being customer centric really means and the five habits of successful firms. This interview follows on from my recent interview: Mobile marketing, customer retention and customers expecting to be known – Interview with Jess Stephens of TagPoints – and is number one-hundred and five in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.

This episode sees Tom Carpenter joined by Global Customer Experience Specialists Ian Golding and Veronika Luxemburg and Clarasys CX expert Emily Jenkins. This discussion evolves from the benefits of the John Lewis 2019 Christmas advert and why there is so much more of a push in the 'Golden Quarter' over any other period of the year. Ian Golding is a highly influential freelance Customer Experience consultant, Ian advises leading companies on Customer Experience strategy, measurement, improvement and employee advocacy techniques and solutions. An internationally renowned speaker and blogger on the subject of customer experience (ijgolding.com/blog), Ian also served on the inaugural board of Directors of the CXPA (Customer Experience Professionals Association). The CXPA is a global non-profit organization positioned to guide and enhance the growing field of customer experience management. He is a columnist for CustomerThink and has authored a book titled 'Customer What, the honest and practical guide to customer experience'. Veronika Luxemburg, also a Global Customer Experience specialist, is the founder of CQX - The trivium of Customer Quality Experience. Veronika is a passionate customer experience coach and global facilitator of change for all types of organisations. A people orientated enthusiast thinking in multi dimensions and experienced to deliver on the customer promise and superior experience. We thank Ian Golding and Veronika Luxemburg for all their contributions to this episode of CX talks! Follow Clarasys on your favourite social media channel for information and to ask questions, alternatively email podcast@clarasys.com!

In this episode we had Jim Dickie, Partner at Sales Mastery discuss latest trends in B2B Sales and Marketing. About Jim: Jim Dickie is a Co-Founder of CSO Insights and Research Fellow for Sales Mastery; an independent research firm that focuses on profiling case study examples of how firms in the B2B marketplace are leveraging sales process, CRM, AI and knowledge to optimize revenue performance. Jim has over 30 years of sales and marketing management experience. Jim began his career with IBM and Sterling Software and then went on to launch two successful software companies. Jim then went on to co-found CSO Insights, which was acquired by Miller Heiman Group. Jim is also a contributing editor for CRM Magazine, CustomerThink, Top Sales World, and a contributing author for the Harvard Business Review. He has served as an advisor to Baylor Center for Professional Selling, William Patterson University’s Russ Berry Institute for Professional Selling, and is a lecturer at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business. Over the past twenty years, Jim’s teams have surveyed over a thousand sales transformation initiatives. Their research has become the benchmark for understanding how the role of sales is evolving, the challenges that are impacting sales performance, and most importantly what companies are doing to address those issues. Having worked with clients spanning multiple industries, including such firms as 3M, ADP, Cisco Systems, Corning, Direct Energy, Fairchild Semiconductor, Federal Express, IBM, Accenture, VISA, Xilinx, McKesson, Unocal, as well as many small to midsize enterprises, Jim has a broad perspective into sales transformation in the B2B world. Top ten takeaways from the episode: “A key question to ask in B2B Sales today is- What’s the next generation of solutions to optimize sales through better solutions.” “I spend part of my time looking for answer and the other part of my time sharing answers!” “One of the major trends we are seeing (because people have access to better data) is that marketing and sales is trying to be all things to all people.“ “We see people spend a lot of time identifying what their ideal prospect looks like.” “We have to start thinking about things from our prospect’s perspective. A personalized message should talk about how you can help someone do their job better. Everyone makes a decision based on personal payback.” “We spend a lot of time doing an analysis to understand who we want to engage with. But we forget to identify how we can help other people do something better.” “We have to earn the right to engage people as Sales and Marketing people today.” “A lot of companies do sales cycle reviews to understand why they lost a deal. But how often do they ask themselves, ‘what did you do to lose the deal’?” “If Customer Support people are not part of a prospecting campaign or part of the marketing campaign, there will always be a disconnect.” “When we did our study, the number one thing people were focused on is AI for lead generation.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Dave Fish is founder and CEO of CuriosityCX an insights, creative, and customer experience agency. He has spent over 20 years understanding the grey areas of consumer behavior. Dave has been directly involved in designing and executing Customer Experience initiatives and has extensive supplier and client-side experience in all facets of consumer behavior research. Dave held executive positions at The Engine Group, The Mars Agency, MaritzCX, as well as at JD Power, American Savings Bank and Toyota Motor Sales. Dave regularly writes and presents on CX topics. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Automotive News, CNN, USA Today, Reuters, and CRM Magazine and on numerous television networks. He is a regular contributor to the American Marketing Association and is a featured columnist on CustomerThink. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Claremont Graduate University and as Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the Sam M. Walton School of Business at University of Arkansas. Follow Worthix on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/worthix/ Follow Worthix on Twitter: @worthix Follow Dave FIsh on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/fishdd/ Follow Dave on Twitter: @DoctorPescado Follow Mary Drumond on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marydrumond/ Follow Mary Drumond on Twitter: @drumondmary

Steve welcomes back Bob Thompson, CEO of CustomerThink Corporation and is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, to discuss the perception of B2B CX trailing in progress from B2C and how B2B leaders see customer experience as an effective way to differentiate themselves within the market.

Annette Franz is founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She's got 25 years of experience in both helping companies understand their employees and customers and identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience - so that, together, we can design a better experience for all constituents. Annette was named one of “The 100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider and is regularly recognized by companies around the world as a top influencer in Customer Experience. She co-hosts the weekly #CXChat on Twitter, serves as an executive officer on the Board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), mentors other professionals in this field to help them advance their careers, and is a speaker and an avid writer; you can find her work not only on her own blog but also on Business2Community, CustomerThink, Quality Digest, APICS Magazine, and more. She is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP). She is also an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council, an invitation-only community for successful business and career coaches. Members are selected based on their depth and diversity of experience. Follow Worthix on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/worthix/ Follow Worthix on Twitter: @worthix Follow Annette Franz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annettefranz/ Follow Annette Franz on Twitter: @annettefranz Follow Mary Drumond on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marydrumond/ Follow Mary Drumond on Twitter: @drumondmary

Ian Golding, is a Certified Customer Experience Professional and Customer Experience specialist. A certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Ian has spent over twenty years in business improvement, working hard to ensure that the businesses he works for are as customer focused as possible. Ian has published over 500 articles on the subject and delivered keynote speeches globally. Ian also served on the inaugural board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), of which he was a founder member. Ian was also the first person in the world to be authorised by the CXPA to teach the Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) accreditation. In 2015, Ian became an Advisor and featured columnist for CustomerThink – a global online community of business leaders striving to create profitable customer-centric enterprises. The site serves 80,000+ visitors per month from 200 countries. Ian’s first book was published in April 2018 – ‘Customer What?’ The honest and practical guide to Customer Experience’ – is already being well received by professionals around the world. Buy Ian Golding's Book, "Customer What?" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Customer-What-practical-customer-experience/dp/1527222160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540782316&sr=1-1&keywords=ian+golding Follow Worthix on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/worthix/ Follow Worthix on Twitter: @worthix Follow Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iangolding/ Follow Ian on Twitter: @ijgolding Follow Mary Drumond on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marydrumond/ Follow Mary Drumond on Twitter: @drumondmary

Host Steve Walker welcome the CEO of Customer Think Corporation and the founder and editor-in-chief of CustomerThink.com Bob Thompson to discuss how he started in the customer experience industry and his thoughts on the future of the CX movement.

Today's Flash Back Friday comes from Episode 92, originally published in September 2013. Born in Zimbabwe, Gary Bembridge has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Natal-Kwazulu (South Africa) and has been based in London since 1987. During his varied career he held roles as diverse as the Global Vice President Marketing for the iconic Johnson's Baby brand, the Global Vice President of eBusiness and the Global Vice President of the RoC Anti-Age Skincare.   He now consults, talks, runs training programs, blogs, podcasts, and writes on his main interests of brand building, positioning and differentiation through his company "Gary Bembridge Unleashed". Gary's Unleashed on Marketing Podcast won awards in the European Podcast Awards in 2010, 2011 and 2012.  Website: Marketing Mix Man Podcast www.CustomerThink.com

Shep Hyken speaks with Bob Thompson, speaker, author and CEO/founder of the research and publishing firm CustomerThink, about his latest book, “Hooked on Customers: The Five Habits of Legendary Customer-Centric Companies.” Bob also shares some best practices for customer service and what is necessary to ensure a successful customer service strategy. If you want to create more customer loyalty (and who doesn’t), you can’t miss this episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to episode number 4 of “Pushing Beyond the Obvious”. In this episode, we have with us Bob Thompson, CEO & editor of www.customerThink.com, the biggest online community about customers and customer centricity. Bob has recently released his book #HookedOnCustomers. We shall talk to him today about what does customer centricity mean and everything that goes along with it. We talk about The fact that most customer centric organizations are such, because their operational fabric is such that they do listen to their customers and act upon it and this is not part of a special program or a project. CRM, Customer Experience Management, social businesses & big data have become buzz words and without the right culture behind the efforts, they do more harm to the business.  The role of Chief Customer Officers & how it is critical to have the CEO assume that role. Some of the mistakes that firms do in their journey towards becoming customer centric and how they can avoid them. What role can the sales, marketing and customer service teams play in the journey When is it not a good idea to listen to your customers (with a good example). The steps that he outlines in his book, Hooked on Customer (which by the way is a great book & you should pick it up): Listen, Think, Empower, Create & Delight. This chat provides some very good insights if you want to or already are on your journey to becoming customer centric. Hope you enjoy the chat. You can connect with Bob on www.hookedoncustomers.com or www.customerthink.com.  

Listen Here: Bob Thompson is the founder and editor-in-chief of the online community CustomerThink.com, which helps business leaders understand how to succeed with customer-centric business strategies. He has just published a new book “Hooked on Customers” which reveals the five organizational “habits” of top-performing companies. How To Make Customer-Centricity A Habit What is the purpose […] The post Podcast: How To Make Customer-Centricity A Habit appeared first on JenningsWire.

I'm Kathy Klotz-Guest, podcast host and CEO of marketing firm, Keeping it Human. We turn marketing-speak into human speak and stories that get results! With this show, we focus on great tips and fun guests without the marketing BS.  If you're looking for jargon-monoxide poisoning, we happily recommend our competition. Creating Customer Delight in a Digital World 'Delighting the customer' is the cornerstone of great marketing, customer engagement, and customer referrals. With the explosion in social media, there are new ways to increase customer service and amplify the customer delight factor. How can we delight customers today? Who is doing it well? What must businesses do to increase delight? Join us Thursday, July 25th, for a great conversation with CEO of CustomerThink.com, Bob Thompson. About Bob Thompson, Founder and CEO of CustomerThink.com Bob Thompson is founder and CEO of CustomerThink Corporation, an independent research and publishing firm specializing in customer-centric business management. He is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, the world's largest online community dedicated to helping business leaders develop and implement customer-centric business strategies. He is a popular keynote speaker in conferences and seminars worldwide.  In 2013, his book on Customer-Centric Business Management will be published, revealing the five habits of top-performing companies.  

Bob Thompson from CustomerThink interviews Zach Nelson, President and CEO of NetSuite to discuss: status of NetSuite business market focus and direction why customers are switching to NetSuite HP partnership Business ByNetSuite Program outlook for SaaS industry in 2009 Podcast courtesy of CustomerThink

Guest: Bob Furniss - speaker, author and highly regarded consultant. Bob Furniss is part of an elite group of independent consultants who is certified by the ICMI - International Customer Management Institute, he is a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), and has authored two books. His most recent book, “Ideas at Work– Powerful Ideas to Transform Your Contact Center,” has been called a “simple read with powerful impact” by industry critics. Bob has a new in-house half-day seminar program called, Operation Impact – a program designed specifically to address the daily struggles of the frontline manager. You can find more about this program and other happenings with Bob at: http://www.bobfurniss.com On his web site you can: - Sign up for Bob’s newsletter and other free downloads - Learn more about the seminar and his books - Find Bob’s contact information Also make sure you check out Bob's blog on CustomerThink.com where he is one of the top-rated authors on this site: http://www.customerthink.com/user/bob_furniss