Podcasts about Net Promoter

You can theorise about Customer Experience all day, but gaining a Net Promoter score of 90 is not a theory. It shows a great focus and implementation of Customer Experience. This week, we are exploring how this was achieved with Kamron Kunce, VP of Marketing & Customer Experience at RJ Young. https://www.rjyoung.com/ RJ Young has been in business for over 70 years and boasts a world-class NPS score of 90+ — no small feat in today's hypercompetitive market. Kamron shares how they've transformed their Customer Experience, navigated organisational silos, and are thoughtfully introducing AI into their processes — without losing that all-important human touch. If you're wrestling with legacy systems, struggling to turn CX theory into practice, or figuring out how to scale with AI without alienating customers,  this episode is packed with practical tips you can take away today. And, if you're a regular listener, you'll know this one plays right into one of Ryan's and my favourite themes: breaking down those silos! Best Quote From the Episode “Customer Experience is everyone's responsibility. It's not just about Customer Service — it's about aligning the whole organisation around delivering value at every touchpoint.” — Kamron Kunce, RJ Young Key Takeaways ✅ CX must be a core business strategy, not a bolt-on function of Customer Service. RJ Young's “Make It Right Guarantee” puts this principle front and centre. ✅ Map your Customer Journey — and revisit it regularly. Quarterly and annual reviews keep RJ Young's CX aligned to ever-evolving customer expectations. ✅ Break down silos with transparency. Weekly cross-functional updates and quarterly company-wide video broadcasts ensure alignment across 700 employees and 9 states. ✅ Cross-functional collaboration is critical. Everyone, including Finance and HR, plays a role in the Customer Experience. ✅ Thoughtful use of AI is the future. RJ Young is leveraging AI to improve backend data insights and operational efficiency, without removing the human element that drives loyalty. ✅ CX + Culture go hand in hand. Embedding CX into your company culture is essential for sustainable success. Resources Mentioned RJ Young: https://www.rjyoung.com/  Kamron Kunce: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamronkunce/ About the Hosts: Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 87,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn. Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World's Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and serve their customers. Ryan has a new book called “The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things” Harvard Business Press 2025    Follow Ryan on LinkedIn.   Subscribe & Follow   Apple Podcasts Spotify

You can theorise about Customer Experience all day, but gaining a Net Promoter score of 90 is not a theory. It shows a great focus and implementation of Customer Experience. This week, we are exploring how this was achieved with Kamron Kunce, VP of Marketing & Customer Experience at RJ Young. https://www.rjyoung.com/ RJ Young has been in business for over 70 years and boasts a world-class NPS score of 90+ — no small feat in today's hypercompetitive market. Kamron shares how they've transformed their Customer Experience, navigated organisational silos, and are thoughtfully introducing AI into their processes — without losing that all-important human touch. If you're wrestling with legacy systems, struggling to turn CX theory into practice, or figuring out how to scale with AI without alienating customers,  this episode is packed with practical tips you can take away today. And, if you're a regular listener, you'll know this one plays right into one of Ryan's and my favourite themes: breaking down those silos! Best Quote From the Episode “Customer Experience is everyone's responsibility. It's not just about Customer Service — it's about aligning the whole organisation around delivering value at every touchpoint.” — Kamron Kunce, RJ Young Key Takeaways ✅ CX must be a core business strategy, not a bolt-on function of Customer Service. RJ Young's “Make It Right Guarantee” puts this principle front and centre. ✅ Map your Customer Journey — and revisit it regularly. Quarterly and annual reviews keep RJ Young's CX aligned to ever-evolving customer expectations. ✅ Break down silos with transparency. Weekly cross-functional updates and quarterly company-wide video broadcasts ensure alignment across 700 employees and 9 states. ✅ Cross-functional collaboration is critical. Everyone, including Finance and HR, plays a role in the Customer Experience. ✅ Thoughtful use of AI is the future. RJ Young is leveraging AI to improve backend data insights and operational efficiency, without removing the human element that drives loyalty. ✅ CX + Culture go hand in hand. Embedding CX into your company culture is essential for sustainable success. Resources Mentioned RJ Young: https://www.rjyoung.com/  Kamron Kunce: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamronkunce/ About the Hosts: Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 87,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn. Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World's Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and serve their customers. Ryan has a new book called “The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things” Harvard Business Press 2025    Follow Ryan on LinkedIn.   Subscribe & Follow   Apple Podcasts Spotify

Do you think about how AI is going to shape our future in business?Victor Cho might have the answer! As a longtime member of the Conscious Capitalist community, he is a CEO/Advisor and Board Member (best known for his work with Emovid) with a deep passion for building online customers experiences that truly delight (Net Promoter 80+) and define markets. Victor's philosophy of considering society as a crucial fourth stakeholder in business, alongside employees, customers, and shareholder is grounded in his emphasis on transperancy, empathy, diversity and integrity.In this episode, he explains his operational framework for maximizing positive societal impacts, minimizing negative ones, and fostering transparency as well as the transformative potential of AI in business.**If you enjoy this podcast, would you consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes only a few seconds and greatly helps us get our podcast out to a wider audience.Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.For transcripts and show notes, please go to: https://www.theconsciouscapitalists.comThis show is presented by Conscious Capitalism, Inc. (https://www.consciouscapitalism.org/) and is produced by Rainbow Creative (https://www.rainbowcreative.co/) with Matthew Jones as Executive Producer, Rithu Jagannath as Lead Producer, and Nathan Wheatley as Editor.Thank you for your support!- Timothy & RajTime Stamps00:00 Welcome to The Conscious Capitalists00:23 Introducing Victor Cho01:44 Victor's Journey to the Fourth Stakeholder Philosophy04:05 Operationalizing Societal Impact06:09 Frameworks for Positive Business Impact14:15 The Role of Data and Collaboration19:29 AI and Social Responsibility22:42 AI's Impact on Business Models23:16 Cost Reduction and Efficiency24:15 Intelligence as a Service25:20 AI in Asynchronous Video Communication27:23 AI's Role in Conscious Capitalism31:15 The Future of Work with AI36:54 Leadership in the Age of AI38:14 The Importance of Suppliers and Authenticity42:03 Conclusion and Further Resources

The Three Dimensions of Customer Value CreationRob Markey ought to know a thing or two about customer loyalty. Rob was a CX expert and thought leader at Bain long before he and his colleague Fred Reichheld introduced Net Promoter to the world. He is a leader in Bain's Customer Customer Strategy and Marketing practice and the co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0 with Fred Reichheld.This episode was originally intended as a deep dive on customer loyalty through the customer lifecycle for my Michigan State University Master's students but it was just too good to not share in an episode.  As usual, Rob brings insights and wisdom to empower anyone interested in creating value for their customers starting with the three dimensions of value according Bain uses in their approach with clients. Also included in this episode:

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.  Show references: David Green | LinkedInhttps://www.blenheimpalace.com/Head of Innovation at Blenheim PalaceDavid Green is responsible for driving innovation at Blenheim to deliver value from the implementation of novel business methods and new concepts. His role involves building a culture of continual improvement and innovation, bringing together and contextualising novel datasets through a data and IoT network infrastructure, and identifying opportunities to enhance customer experiences.David leads the research and development at Blenheim, cultivating university partnerships, that helps fuse specialised knowledge with Blenheim's diverse landscape and practical challenges. Moreover, he initiated the Innovation and Continual Improvement network, fostering collaboration among sector leads to share expertise and address common challenges. Joseph Paul | LinkedInhttps://vennersys.co.uk/Associate Director – Key Account ManagerWith 10 years of experience in SaaS Account Management and 6 years at Vennersys, Joe works closely with visitor attractions to optimise system performance and internal processes. He acts as a conduit between attraction managers and Vennersys, helping facilitate constructive communication to further develop and improve Vennersys' own services based on customer needs or industry trends.In his personal life, Joe can either be found playing hockey for his local club or taking long, refreshing walks in the hills and fields near his home. Transcriptions:  Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today's episode I speak with David Green, Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace and Joseph Paul, Associate Director - Key Account Manager at Vennersys.We're talking about data - but not just the importance of it (we all know that right?). David and Joe share the exciting data and AI reporting systems that Blenheim have created, allowing them to predict, and not just report on past performance. This is a really interesting episode and if you're been a little bit put off or a little bit scared about AI up until this point, this might be the episode that changes your mind.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: David, Joe, it is lovely to have you both on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me on Skip the Queue. David Green: It's great to be here. Joseph Paul: Thanks for having us. Kelly Molson: That sounded very positive, guys. Thanks. Feel the enthusiasm. David Green: Let's see how the first question goes, shall we? Kelly Molson: Listen, everyone worries about these icebreaker questions. It's just we're just in a pub, in a coffee shop having a little chat. That's all it is. Right, I want to know. We'll start with you, Joe. What was the last thing you binge watched on your streaming service of choice? Joseph Paul: Gosh, that's a very good question. The last series we binge watch was a series called Bodies on Netflix, which is about a murder that happens in four different time periods and four detectives are trying to solve the murder. Very good if you haven't watched it.  Kelly Molson: I have seen this and Joe, it hurt my head a little bit.Joseph Paul: Yeah. It is hard to keep track of some of the plots through the different times, but there's a very good ending worth watching if you haven't, David? David Green:  I don't think I have. I didn't get a chance to watch TV. Kelly Molson: So same question to you, David. That's a really good series as well, Joe. I thoroughly enjoyed that, although it did hurt the backwards forwards bit a little bit, was a bit mind blowing. Same question to you, David. What was the last thing that you binge watched? David Green: Well, the last thing I probably binge watched was probably Breaking Bad. That just sort of shows you how long ago it was. I binge watched anything, but I'm desperate to watch it again. It was so good. I was just hooked on the first episode. I just loved every single minute of that. Kelly Molson: Have you seen that, Joe? Joseph Paul: Yes. Very good series. Probably one of the best of all time. And the question back would be, have you watched Better Call Saul? David Green: Yeah, but I didn't find it as good. I say I didn't find as good. It was still great. I'm very fussy in the Greenhouse song. Kelly Molson: I feel like I'm the only person in the whole world who's not watched Breaking Bad, which is this is quite controversial, isn't it? Everybody says that I would love it and I should watch it, but I feel overwhelmed that there's so many series to it and it would take up all of my TV viewing time for months and months. It would be the only thing that I could probably watch for the entire year and that feels too much. Joseph Paul: It's well worth it. Absolutely. You should do it.Kelly Molson: Dedicate 2024 as the year for Breaking Bad. David Green: I'm going to own up. I've not watched a single episode of The Crown either and some of it was filmed at Blenheim. So I'm really embarrassed to admit that on this podcast.Kelly Molson: That is a statement in a half, David. See, this is why I do the icebreakers. You never know what dirt you're going to get out. David, we're going to start with you with this one. What is the one food or drink that you cannot eat and you can't even think about without feeling a little bit queasy? David Green: That's cheese pastry straight away. I remember when I was at school, we had a home economics club. I remember making these cheese straws and I took them home and I was so environmentally ill after these cheese straws ever since, I just can't even look at cheese pastry. All these nibbles that people without for drinks can't bear it. Cheese and pastry together is wrong. Kelly Molson: This is really sad. I love a little cheese straw. I feel sad for you that you can't eat a cheese straw, David. I feel sad for you. Joe, what about you? Joseph Paul: I can pretty much eat anything and I'm not overly put off by much. I think the one thing that turns me away from food is horseradish and any sauce. That's probably my only sort of food that I won't go to and puts me off eating anything that has.Kelly Molson: Just horseradish or sauce in general. Are we talking like, sweet chilli dip? No?Joseph Paul: Just horseradish. So anything that has that in it, I will stay away from. But apart from that, I'll pretty much eat anything anyone puts on my plate. David Green: I think you're missing out, Joe. Kelly Molson: Do you know what's probably really nice as well? Is a cheese straw with horseradish.Joseph Paul: But cheese straws are the best. David Green: I'm going to have to leave the room in a minute. We could talk about cheese straw. Kelly Molson: Sorry. All right, let's move on from that. Right, I want to know I was quite kind to those ones. I want to know what your unpopular opinions are. Joe, let's start with you. Joseph Paul: Not sure this is going to go down too well, but my unpopular opinion is Harry Potter is an overrated film series. Kelly Molson: Books or films or both? Joseph Paul: Films, predominantly. Kelly Molson: Wow. I mean, my husband would absolutely agree with you. So I got him to watch the first one and then we got halfway through the second one and he paused it and looked at me and said, "Kelly, I just can't do this. Sorry." And left the room. That was it. Done. Joseph Paul: I can understand. So in our household, we alternate between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. So we compromise. We have a Harry Potter, then a Lord of the Rings, then go through. Kelly Molson: Is your partner Harry Potter, then? Joseph Paul: My wife is very much a Harry Potter fan. Kelly Molson: Interesting. That is quite controversial. How do you feel about that, David? David Green: Very disappointing. Joe, actually. Joseph Paul: Sorry to let you down. David Green: We might have to end this now, Joe.Kelly Molson: This beautiful relationship that we're going to talk about. End over Harry Potter.  David Green: Harry Potter and cheese straws. Kelly Molson: David, same question to you. What is your unpopular opinion? David Green: Didn't think I had any unpopular opinions until I started really thinking about it, but I have to say, my original this is really good either, really was dancing, non professional dancing. I mean, I'm not a dancer, I've got a body of a dad. I am a dad and my wife and my daughter are very good dancers and I think it's just years of standing by a bar at a wedding with that person, go, "Come on, get on the dance floor, come on." And they drag you up and then busting moves is probably the wrong description, but it's just looking around the room on the floor with other people sort of bobbing around awkwardly looking, and all the blokes tipped you looking at each other going, "Oh, get me home." It's that awkwardness, I find really difficult and I'm going to be cheeky. And another one, because I just remembered that concerts is another one, so you spend a fortune going to a concert. David Green: I took my daughter once to Ariana Grande and I'd just been dragged to Arctic Monkeys and we drove hours and hours to this place and my wife had got Rose lead, I think, which was I needed binoculars to even see the stage. I was absolutely freezing, completely freezing. I didn't dress appropriately, I was dressed in a shirt and tied, typically, because that was Arctic Monkeys. Kelly Molson: You went through a shirt and tied Arctic Monkeys? God said, "Well".David Green: I remember walking down to the bottom of the stadium, I'm freezing, I have to go and get some clothes, and they let me out and I had to buy Arctic Monkeys merchandise and I came up the steps wearing an Arctic Monkeys hoodie. Number one fan to my wife and daughter, absolutely laughing hilariously.  David Green: And I had to listen to the music for 2 hours and then I got home about three in the morning and my wife had promised me dinner out, went to Wild Bean Cafe at 01:00 A.M. on the way home. Kelly Molson: What a treat.David Green: Dancing and concert. Laura just sneaking next to one in. Kelly Molson: Well, no, I love this. I mean, it's like an elongation of it, isn't it? They go hand in hand.  I would be that person at a wedding, they're trying to get you on the dancefloor. Which made me start laughing and then I lost it. Shirt and tie at an Arctic Monkeys gig. What were you thinking? David Green: I don't know. Kelly Molson: I think that's my favourite unpopular opinion yet. Amazing. Thank you both for sharing. Shall we talk about some serious stuff? David Green: Have you cried on a podcast before?Kelly Molson: Before I've had a cry, I've definitely had a cry on the podcast, but a cry of laughter, I'm not sure that's really got me today. Right, serious stuff. We're going to talk about data today, which is very serious stuff. We all know the importance of data. We've talked about data hundreds and hundreds of times in various different guyses. On this podcast, however, we're going to talk about reporting today, but with a twist. So reporting is often usually about things that have already happened. We're looking at past visitor numbers, we're looking at how many visitors came and how much they spent in the cafe on a particular day, what the weather was like on a past particular day. So we can predict whether it might be like that this year. Kelly Molson: But Blenheim are doing something completely different with reporting, which, when we had a chat about it prior to this episode, it blew my mind a little bit. And it's such a brilliant case study. You need to share this with the world. Firstly, though, I want you to just, both of us, tell us a little bit about your role and your background. So, Joe, can you start first? Tell us a little bit about your role and how you came into it. Joseph Paul: Yeah, of course. So I've been in the industry for six years now within the visitor attraction industry, working at Vennersys, and my role is a Key Account Manager. So I work closely with our clients throughout the lifetime of their contracts, so making sure they are getting the most out of the system and that sort of return on investment they've put into the software they've purchased. So I've worked closely with David and the Blenheim team for about six years now, and prior to that, I was also in account management as well, within a software business. Kelly Molson: Great. David, over to you. David Green: Variable history with Blenheim. I think next year will be the 30th year when I first walked through the doors. So when I was studying at college, it was my first sort of part time weekend Christmas job, and I was a bubble up for the 11th Duke and Duchess, and that was great. If I got I know stuff. Kelly Molson: I feel like there's a podcast episode on its own about that part of your career. David Green: I'm not sure I could speak too much about that, but I remember when I finished college, my mother said, "What are you going to get a proper job?" And the phone rang and I ended up working at Blenheim. Moved into the clock tower at Blenheim. That was my first flat. It was quite incredible, I have to say. But after leaving when I was 21, I just changed direction. So I became a developer, so I learned to programme and I worked for a little agency in Abingdon for two doctors who were both very bright guys. Yeah, I just put the hours in and learned to programme and really, that probably led to where I am today. I learned very quickly to problem solve and learned very quickly how to develop things. David Green: So when I finally joined Blenheim again, full time enabled me to sort of trial new things very quickly, fail fast. And that kind of led to our first real time reporting platform, which I developed myself. Kelly Molson: Amazing. David Green: This was really a combination of seeing that the business had lots of data and seeing that a lot of the data was inputted in manually. So being able to develop something that could contextualise data in a better way, but get people looking at the data in a much faster way, I think that's where it started from. Kelly Molson: And that is what we're going to talk about today. You've got a really interesting job title. So you're Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace. Are there many other heads of innovation in the sector? Because there's lots of kind of I mean, ALVA, for instance, brilliant organisation, they do lots of kind of individual meetups. So heads of marketing meetups, CEO meetups, head of visitor service meetups. I haven't seen them do a Head of Innovation meetup yet, so I question how many of you are there? David Green: I don't think there's very many at all, but the title is becoming more and more known, I think, across multiple sectors. And it was really the sort of creation I was Head of Digital at Lent for eight or nine years, and it was really the creation of Dominic Hare, our CEO, who saw the need for research development. The role is really about hunting for problems, and as much as we're well known for our visitor business, we have a thriving land business and a thriving real estate business. And I get to work across those three tiers, which is really exciting, hunting for problems. I get to work with universities, so we have a really strong university partnership, both at Oxford Brookes and the Oxford University. David Green: And this really allows us to bring in the latest research academics into a real world environment to solve problems together. So that's really exciting. But then the sort of second thing I work on as Head of Innovation is live data, so I have a data background, so it meant that very quickly I could bring all of our data into one place to drive greater insight. And then the third tier is looking at sort of customer experience changes. So if anyone sees my post on LinkedIn, you'll see we've brought in a new returnable cup scheme of all of our cups are RFID enabled. So looking at eradicating single use cups right the way through to a transformation project around implementing digital wallets and pulses. David Green: So there's lots of different things right the way through to encouraging our visas to come by green transport, which is very much tied into our 2027 pledge to become carbon neutral. Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Yeah. That's really interesting that you sit across so many different facets and it's not just about data and reporting and digital, really. So what we're going to talk about today is a particular project that you've both been involved in, and I'm going to kind of split this into two, because there's two areas that I kind of want to focus on. I want to hear about what the project is and all of the things and benefits that it's brought to Blenheim, which David's going to talk about. Kelly Molson: And then, Joe, I want to then come over to you and talk about how you kind of made this happen from a supplier perspective and the things that you need to work through together with your client and maybe some of the things that you've had to change and implement to be able to support your client, to do the things that they want to do with your system. So, David, I'm going to start with you. Can you give us kind of an overview of what this project is like, the background to it and then what led to that project happening? David Green: Background is like many organisations in this sector, we have lots and lots of data. Often we report out of proprietary systems, we then contextualise our data very well and I wanted to bring all the information to one area so we could really apply context but also look at in that data. So this sort of built off our first real time reporting platform that were able to get data into the hands of the operations teams, other teams, really quickly. But it wasn't really supportable just by me here at Blenheim. So were looking at one, finding a platform that we could utilise to allow us to get data out to feedball in a much more secure way. I was handling all the visualisations and things and there's better tools for that. So that's one of the reasons. David Green: The second thing is looking at data, I wanted to try out using AI to identify patterns. So what's the correlation between certain data sources? There's one, a group of visitors wearing wet coats. Does that have an impact on the environmental conditions? What's the optimal number of people that retail space to maximise their understand all those sorts of things were unanswered questions. So I engaged one of our Oxford Brookes relationships that we already had and we applied for what's called a Knowledge Transfer Partnership. So a KTP, which is match funded, that's Innovate UK match funded, and I highly recommend them as a starting point. And what that does, it brings in an associate who works full time. David Green: This project was, I think, 32 months, but also you get access to different parts of the university and in our case, we had access to the technical faculty as well as the business faculty. So you've got real experts in the field working with an associate that's embedded here, Lennon, that can help us solve that problem. And we're fortunate enough to win the application and the grant money and then we cloud on. So we called it a Smart Visitor Management System. That's the headline and really the two key subsystems of that was the customer insight and prediction. So we wanted to look at how we could predict business numbers. We know all of the knock on impacts of that in terms of better planning, reducing food waste, all those sorts of things. But then we also want to look at the visitor flow. David Green: So that's almost saying, "Well, where are visitors right now and where are they going to go next?" But they're the two sort of component parts. Kelly Molson: Such a brilliant introduction to AI as well, because I think it is such a current topic right now. And I was at a recent ALVA meeting where there was a phenomenal speaker talking about the implications of AI and the opportunities that it could bring. And I think there was a 50 - 50 split of the audience of 50% of them were terrified about this new technology and what it might potentially mean. And then 50% were really inspired by it and see these huge opportunities from it. But I think this is such a brilliant case study to show how it can be used to your advantage in a very non-scary way. David Green: I think with AI can be scary, but actually it's all about governance at the end of the day. And actually what we're doing is using machine learning to identify the patterns in large data sets to help us be better informed. Kelly Molson: What have been the benefits of implementing this kind of level of data reporting? So what have you been able to do that you couldn't previously do? David Green: Well, predictions is one. So ultimately we all budget. The first thing to probably say is that when we do contextual reporting, normally we access our data from a proprietary system and then bring it into some sort of spreadsheet and then try and tie it into a budget. That's sort of the first thing. It's really getting all of your data sets in a early. So we had budget, we had weather, we had advanced bookings, we had ticketing from different sort of platforms. And the starting point, before we talk too much about end benefits, were developing a data strategy in this centralised concept of a DataHub. So all of our data is in one place, and we're using APIs and direct connections and data signature Vennersys to bring data into one place. David Green: We also looked at platforms, environments, so were looking at Azure, we're a Microsoft business. So actually we decided Azure was the right sort of plan for us and we came up with a very broad strategy that said anything else we procure in the future has to best in class or it talks to the DataHub and often if it's best in class as an API. So you can get that information into one place. So that's the first thing. The joy of using something like Microsoft and other platforms are available, I would say, is to access the power platform. And the Power platform sort of answered the problem around how do we visualise our data, how do we automate some of our data and what data is missing and how can we collect it? David Green: So using things like Power BI and PowerApps, I think was really crucial. Once we had all of our sort of data organised, we had the pandemic and of course, one of the sort of big issues around predicting, certainly when you've got lots of data sets, you're trying to look at patterns in data and your data is finely structured, then you get hit by something like this and where are the patterns? What's changed? The business model completely changed. We were a 10% advanced booking business. Suddenly were either zero or 80 or 100 and then sort of now about 65. So that was a bit of a challenge as well. In terms of then looking at the missing data. And we'll talk a little bit maybe about sort of the centre network and how do we measure things in remote places. David Green: But ultimately the core of this project was the DataHub, the ability to bring everything into one place, ability to push that data out. So answering your question in a long winded way is really about getting the data into hands of people, to allow them to plan better, to be prepared for the day, what is likely to happen today, what are the patterns in that day? And this is where we develop things like a concept of similar day. So a similar day might be one that has similar number of pre bookings, has similar weather. We look at weather in terms of temperature, wind and rain. It might have a similarity in terms of an event day or a weekend or similar budget. And that concept allows us to look forward, which is great. The predictions tend to look at other things. David Green: So we have one naive prediction that looks at previous performance in terms of pre booking to predict forward. And then another one, we have what we call an adaptive prediction, which allows us to look at advanced bookings and then see the change in advanced bookings over time against budget, to then alert us to the fact that we might experience more visitors than expected on that particular day. Kelly Molson: Gosh, that's really powerful, isn't it? Does that mean that your team have access to kind of a dashboard that they can look at any given time and be like, “Okay, we can model next week based on these predictions?”David Green: Data is pretty much everywhere, so we have one really nice thing and we have this. When I built search platform was TV screens across all of our staff areas. We have a ten OD voltwim across Blenheim. Everyone has access to that data. And that could be how traffic is flowing on the driveway. We use ADPR to look at how busy traffic is outside of our park walls. We look at car park capacity. We look at how happy our staff are using what we call a mood metric. So we put those smiley buttons in staff areas to determine how well they think the day is going. So we have access to all of this sort of information, but also then sort of more business reporting through Power BI. David Green: So we have a series of what I've called sort of visual representations of activity, but also sort of data that we can export into Excel. So we do a lot of finance reporting as well through Power BI. Again, all reporting from that single source of the truth, which is the DataHub. And if anyone's going down this route, I always describe it, I call it the product hierarchy. I always describe it as the giant coin sorting machine, which means that we're comparing apples with apples. So if you've got a particular product type, let's say annual park or House park and gardens, or park and gardens, you budget against that item, against adult, child, concession, family, young adult, whatever, you create a product hierarchy that matches that to your actual ticketing sales. David Green: And it doesn't matter then who sells your ticket, you're matching to that same product hierarchy. So think of it as a giant column sourcing machine that then every five minutes builds that single source of the truth in a database, then can be report out either through digital screens locations or Power BI. So, lots of tunes. Kelly Molson: It's incredible that level of access that you can give people now that must have improved how the team feel about their working day. It must have really helped with kind of like team culture and team morale. David Green: Absolutely. One, it's about engaging. Our teams are really important. People are the most important commodity we have at Blenheim. So having a series of management accounts, they never see their impact of engaging our businesses and giving our business a really good time, focusing on that Net Promoter Score, giving them access to that information. So, well done, look at the impact is really important. So, yeah, it's been fairly transformational here at Blenheim. Kelly Molson: Wow. What do you think has been the biggest impact? David Green: I think access to the data, better planning, there's more to do. We're embedding these tools, people that trust these tools. It's no mean feat. So getting good. What's nice to see when things aren't coming through quite right or car park speeds and we say it is, it might be data pipeline that's got awry. People very quickly come to us and say, "It's missing." So, seven days a week our team is sort of monitoring and seeing people use it. Moodmetric is great. Our cleaners now, they clean our facilities based on usage because they can see how many people have used the loo's by using our sensor data. So that's again, it all impacts that Net Promoter Score. And I will say on Net Promoter, love it or hate it, Net Promoter Score is all about looking backwards. David Green: Typically what we try to do is to create the equivalent to on the day. What can we do about it right now? How busy is traffic flowing on a drive? Do we need to open another kiosk? How busy will the cafe get? Will we run out sandwiches? So we've got alerting looking at that comparison to similar day and are we trading above or below that? So again, we can send an alert to say, “Make some more sandwiches or do something else. The loos need a clean.” All of these sorts of things are built into the visitor management system to allow us to really optimise not just the visitor experience, but our staff engagement and experience as well. Kelly Molson: So you've got this really proactive approach to it, which actually makes you reactive on the day because you can move quicker, because you can make easier decisions about things. That's phenomenal. I love that the team have taken real ownership of that as well. I think embedding something like this, it can be quite challenging, right. People don't like change and these things feel a bit scary, but it feels like your team have really engaged with them and taken ownership of the system. David Green: Absolutely. It's no mean feat. Two challenges embedding something new like this. Absolutely. That's change management. The second thing is data pipelines, ensuring all of your sensors and everything is online and working. And when you're dealing with such high volume of data sets coming in, you really need to be absolutely on it. Second to the sort of broader and maybe more granular reporting, one other thing we've devised is a series of KPIs, which pretty much any attraction. David Green: Most might already have a series of KPIs, but KPIs to look forward. So actually in this moment in time, are we trading ahead or behind versus this time last year? So if you start comparing apples with apples at this moment in time, what was RMR's booking? We share these KPIs across the whole site and that could be relation to bookings or even spend per head versus budget spend per head for the next 30 days. David Green: Visually, we put these on all of our digital screens very quickly can identify when we need to do something, be driving that by marketing activity or celebrating success. We've got a very clear picture and that means everyone's along for the ride. Everyone gets access to this information. Kelly Molson: That's absolutely phenomenal. Joe, I'm going to come over to you now because I can only imagine what you were thinking when David came to you and said, "Right, we've got this idea, this is what we want to do." And you're one of the platforms. Vennersys is one of the platforms that has been working with him. I think it's quite a long relationship. Is it? It's about 16 years.Joseph Paul: 16, 17 years now, I think. Long relationship.David Green: Yeah. I was five. How old were you? Joseph Paul: Wasn't conceived yet. Kelly Molson: Wowzers. That is a long relationship. Okay, so I kind of want to know from you, Joe, to make this happen, what have you had to do differently as a supplier? So how have you had to interact with your clients' needs and what steps did you have to go to kind of understand what the outcome was going to be? Joseph Paul: Yeah, so I think firstly that the system has an enormous amount of data in it and I think the first step for us was to understand exactly what Blenheim were looking to get out of the system and plug into the sort of the DataHub that David was talking about. So that kind of comprised of some initial conversations of what they were trying to achieve. And then following that it was all about workshopping and making sure were going to present the data in the format that David and the team at Blenheim Palace required. Joseph Paul: Yeah, I think fundamentally it was just working closely with the team there and getting those requirements in detail and making sure weren't missing anything and really understanding everything they were trying to achieve and pushing that in a simple and easy format for the team to then push into their views and into their KPIs that they required. Really the main focus for us was pushing that data out to David and the team into that DataHub in that format that was easily accessible and sort of manipulated for them. Kelly Molson: I guess there's so much it's understanding what are the key know, what are the variables here, what are the key points that we need to do this and how do we go about doing this for you? Joseph Paul: Absolutely. Because there's a number of options and a number of different ways that data can be pushed to clients. So it's understanding what the best is for that client and their resource because that's also important. Not every attraction has unlimited resource or the expertise in house to sort of obtain that data, but also, even if they can obtain that data, they might not have that sort of resource to then create their own dashboards and create their own reporting tools from a repository. So it's really understanding every kind of asset and every level to that sort of client and then working closely with them to achieve their goal. So it might be more resource from our side or working closely with the expertise that they might have in house. Kelly Molson: Or suggesting that they might need to get extra expertise. So this is something that we talk about in terms of API integration all the time, is that it absolutely can be done with any of the systems that you have. If they have an API, yes, you can integrate it into whatever other system that you want. But who takes ownership of that internally? And do they have the capability and do they have the resource and do they have the capacity to do that? And if that's a no, who can be trained to do those things? And how do we facilitate that as well? Joseph Paul: Yeah, absolutely. And in this case, as David highlighted, he's clearly got the expertise himself and others around him to produce all these fantastic sort of views and dashboards that are displayed all around Blenheim Palace. So in this sort of example with Blenheim Palace, it was all about getting the data to them and making sure it was in a format that they could work with easily. Kelly Molson: And you've worked together, Joe, you said about six years. You've been at Vennersys now, but the organisation has worked with Blenheim for over 16 years, which is testament to the relationship and the product that you have. Has this process that you've been through together, has this changed or strengthened the kind of relationship between supplier and client? Joseph Paul: Yes, I think from our point of view, we like to see it as a partnership. I think David would agree, and we want to be a part of their journey, but also Blenheim and want to be a part of our journey. So we're helping one another to achieve our individual goals as a partnership. So that relationship goes from strength to strength and we continue to have those conversations, whether that's myself or others within the business, to Blenheim and pass around things that we're coming up against in the industry, but also vice versa. So if David's got his ear to the ground and has a suggestion around how our platform could be improved, that's fed back to us. Joseph Paul: And we have that back and forth between client and supplier, but we like to see it as a partnership and work closely with them to achieve their goals and also our goals together.David Green: I don't want to make Joe cry, because I've already made you cry, Kelly, but seriously, over that course of 17 years, and I'm sure lots of people listening to this podcast will realise that it's always challenging working with other suppliers. You have your ups and you have your downs, but we've had way more ups than we've had downs and our business has changed massively. We went through a process of becoming a charity, so suddenly gifted all the admissions was really important and Joe and the team really helped us achieve that. David Green: Vanbrugh was not a very good forward planner in terms of he was a great architect, but actually, we have a single point of entry and to try and gift aid so many visitors, we have a million visitors a year coming to them to try and gift aid such a large number on a driveway is really difficult. So actually, working through that gift aid at the gate process, we're looking at that gift aid opportunity was one of the key projects, really, that we work with Vennersys on. Kelly Molson: But that's where the good things come out of client supplier relationships, is that you're both challenging each other on what the objectives are and what the outcomes potentially could be. So you work in partnership together and then everybody gets the better outcome. When we first spoke about this topic, what I thought was brilliant is that you have such a great case study, you have such a great showcase piece here, both of you, for how you've worked together and what you've been able to develop. I've absolutely said that you need to pitch this as a talk at the Museum and Heritage Show because I think it's an absolutely brilliant topic for it. It's so current and something that other organisations can go away and kind of model on. Kelly Molson: I don't know if you saw, we had Nik Wyness on from the Tank Museum last season who came on and basically just he gives away his kind of process as to how they've developed their YouTube following and how they've developed kind of a sales strategy from it. And it's brilliant. He's great at kind of coming on and going, "Yeah, this is what I did, and this is what we did, and this is the process and here you go. Go and do it." And I think you have an opportunity to do that together, which I think is lovely. David Green: Isn't it nice though, that we don't feel in competition and we can work together? We created what we call The Continually Improvement and Innovation Group which we have lots of members who have joined from all different places, from Chatsworth to Be Lee to Hatfield Outs and so on and all that is a slack channel. It's a six monthly meeting where we all come together and we discuss our challenges. You talked about are there many head of innovations? Well, may not be, but actually sharing our insights and sharing our lessons learned is incredibly important and that's not just Blenheim, lots of other attractions are doing lots of brilliant things as well and we can learn from them. So really exciting, I think, to do that. David Green: And again, very open, I will say, and I'm not going to plug a gift aid company, but there's something called Swift Aid that we're just looking at and wow, can we do retrospective gift aiding? Is it worth lots of money for lots of attractions that have gift aid on their admissions? Yes, it is well worth looking that up. Ultimately they have a database of 8 million centralised gift aid declarations that you can utilise there's commission but it's well worth looking at. If anyone wants information, please just LinkedIn with me and we'll discuss them. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Again, this comes back to what we've always said about how collaborative and open to sharing information this sector is. What we'll do is in the show notes listeners, we will link to both David and Joe's LinkedIn profiles. If you want to connect with them, feel free and then actually David, Joe, if there's anything you want to share that we can add into those as well that would be useful for listeners. Then we'll pop them in there as. Kelly Molson: Actually, David, I've got one more question for you on that Slack channel, which I think is really interesting. It's great that you've set that up. I think those kind of platforms are really good at just facilitating conversation and it's really good to understand what people are doing from a supplier perspective. Do you have suppliers as part of that conversation as well, or is it purely attractions? David Green: I've kept it, I'd say non commercial, but we have invited speakers into the group to come and talk about it. But at the moment it's a closed environment. I think most people are more comfortable having sort of open conversations, but what it's really good at doing is it could be a question about compliance or sustainability or returnable cuts is a good one. It could be varying topics and we can just provide access to the right people here at Blenheim and vice versa, and other organisations if we've got questions. So, yeah, it works, it's growing, it's open, it's not ours, it's everyone's. So if anyone wants to join it, then we'll stick a link at LinkedIn maybe on the plot cups at the end of this. Kelly Molson: Oh, Fab, that's brilliant. Yeah, great. I think that's a really nice way of doing it with suppliers as well. It's difficult, I think Joe and I would probably say all of these conversations are really interesting for us because it helps us understand the challenges that the sector has and it helps us understand how we can make the things that we do so much better. So it's hard sometimes when there's closed environments like that, but the sector does so brilliantly at putting on conferences and organisations that we can all be part of as well. And again, platforms like this where we can come on and share the things that we're doing.Kelly Molson: That brings me back to the last question for you, Joe, is about has this process between the two of you and what you've been able to build together, has that helped Vennersys  as a supplier build out other services that you can then offer to kind of the wider sector? Joseph Paul: Yeah, so I think through this journey we've realised that data is really critical, but we also realised, as we kind of mentioned before, that not everyone has the resource to build their own visualisations of data and linking those to their sort of key performance indicators. So we work with Power BI as well on behalf of our clients, so we can also visualise that data that's within our systems. And that's really to help them get the most out of the data that is in our system, but also in that sort of more real time scenario, rather than having to extract a report, put it that into an Excel and get that information out. Joseph Paul: So that's one service that's kind of come out of that relationship, but also expanding on our sort of open API as well. So additional endpoints so that clients can also extract that data in real time and that continues to grow with other clients as well as we sort of go down that journey with some other clients. So, absolutely. It's helped us sort of open up another avenue which has benefited other clients in the past couple of years, but also moving forward as we sort of expand on it.Kelly Molson: Brilliant. And that's the sign of true partnership, isn't it? There's been some incredible wins for both of you involved and it's brought new opportunities to both of the organisations. Thank you both for coming on and sharing this today. So we always end the podcast with book recommendations from our guests. So I wondered if you've both been able to pick a book that you'd like to share with our listeners today. What have you got for us? Joe, we'll start with you. Joseph Paul: Mine's a little bit out there. David Green: We know it's not Harry Potter, Joe. Kelly Molson: Absolutely not. Joseph Paul: Well, that would be a curveball if I started to plug the Harry Potter series. Hey. So recently, I was in Albania in Tirana and I was on a guided tour. And they were talking about the Ottoman period. And I realised I know nothing about the Ottoman history and I was interested about it more. Joseph Paul: So my in laws purchased a book called Lord Of The Horizons, which is all about the history of the Ottoman empire. So that's my current read at the moment. And if you're into your history and into your sort of empires, it's definitely worth a read. So that's my recommendation. The Lord of Horizons. Kelly Molson: Nice. Joe, we just got a little insight into some of your hobbies there and your likes that we didn't know about. Good. Okay. Thank you. David, what about you? David Green: Mine is The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wallaban. It's an incredible book. Now, I read lots of strategy books, data books. My wife thinks I'm really sad. This book is not any of that. This is about how trees communicate and I was absolutely enthralled with it. So this talks about them like arousal networks, how trees communicate through their roots, the noises and the sounds that trees make when they're struggling, when they're thirsty. It led to a lot of laughter on holiday with my daughter drawing pictures of trees with ears, but trees can actually hear. And from that, I was able to come back and look at one of our land projects where we're building a small solar farm at the moment, actually looking at the sort of benefits to soil health while we're putting solar on sort of fed degraded farmland. David Green: So we're using something called soil ecoacoustics that will allow us to listen to the sound of soil. So listen to soil for ultimately to index how healthy that soil is. So this one book has led to me reading a number of different research papers, cooking up with the universities to then test and trial something completely brilliant around identifying health through acoustics. So book is absolutely brilliant. There's a follow on book, but if you look at Peter Wallabin, he's written a number of books. Absolutely fascinating. Kelly Molson: Okay, wow. One, what an incredible book. I had no idea that trees could hear or talk. That's blown my mind a little bit, especially as someone who's a bit of a tree hugger. I'm not going to lie, I made a statement. I was with a client yesterday and were talking about AI. And I said, sometimes the conversations around AI just make me want to go outside and hug the tree in my back garden, take my shoes and socks off and just put my feet on the grass because I just want to connect with nature again and just get out of a tech world. So there's that. So I'm definitely going to buy that book. But two, how your mind works as well, how that book has taken you on a journey of innovation again into something connected but completely different.David Green: Again, it's really data. So you're welcome. We'll happily show you that site and put some headphones on you and we'll make this public as well, so hopefully we can share the secret sound of soil and other things as well. But really fascinating. Kelly Molson: That to me sounds like a David Attenborough show. Maybe we'll make it another podcast episode at some point. I'd love that. Thank you both for coming on and sharing today. As ever, if you want to win a copy of Joe and David's books, go over to our Twitter account, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Joe and David's books and you'll be in with a chance of winning them. Wow. Thank you for sharing. It's been an absolutely insightful podcast. There's lots of things that we're going to put in the show notes for you all. And as Joe and David said, please do. If you've got questions around what they've talked about today, feel free to connect and we'll pop a link to that Slack group in the show notes too, so you can join in with these conversations. Thank you both. David Green: Thank you. Joseph Paul: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson:  Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE! Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!

Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been a crucial part of the business world for nearly two decades. It was initially presented as the ultimate metric, the one to rule them all. Its simplicity and focus on customer satisfaction made it a darling of the industry. However, with the evolution of customer research and feedback analysis, the idea of NPS as the singular, all-encompassing metric is being questioned. Even though two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies still employ NPS, it is no longer considered the only measure of customer satisfaction. In this episode, we are joined by John Dawes, a professor at the Erenburg-Bass Institute, who will share his research on NPS. This episode will likely challenge what you know about NPS and shed light on some of its flaws. Our Guest Webpage: https://johndawes.info/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-dawes-059bab10/ Our Hosts: Follow our updates here: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/⁠⁠ Get in touch with our hosts: Marc Binkley: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/ Vassilis Douros: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/⁠ Links & Research: HBR - The One Number You Need to Grow https://hbr.org/2003/12/the-one-number-you-need-to-grow HBR - Where NPS Goes Wrong https://hbr.org/2019/10/where-net-promoter-score-goes-wrong Qualtrics - THe Ultimate Guide to NPS https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/customer/net-promoter-score/ Int. Journal of Market Research: NPS - What Should Managers Know? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14707853231195003 A longitudinal Examination of NPS and Firm Revenue Growth https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228660597_A_Longitudinal_Examination_of_Net_Promoter_and_Firm_Revenue_Growth Byron Sharp - NPS does not predict growth https://byronsharp.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/net-promoter-score-nps-does-not-predict-growth-its-fake-science/ Fred Reichheld - The Ultimate Question 2.0 https://www.amazon.ca/Ultimate-Question-Revised-Expanded-Customer-Driven-ebook/dp/B005E8AKVM/ref=sr_1_1 Why NPS is a bad tool and what to use instead https://archive.researchworld.com/why-net-promoter-score-is-actually-a-bad-tool-and-what-to-use-instead/ Brand Growth Potential https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11002-023-09682-7 How Brands Grow https://www.amazon.ca/How-Brands-Grow-What-Marketers/dp/0195573560 Timestamps 0:44 - Intro to John Dawes 2:24 - What NPS is and how it's measured. 3:50 - Why NPS benefits from extreme scoring 5:48 - The downside of the NPS scoring method 8:38 - Why 66% of Fortune 500 companies use NPS 10:40 - The false promise of high NPS scores 13:44 - The trouble with NPS-based incentives 16:46 - The disconnect between NPS scores and business performance 19:30 - The challenges of NPS with growing vs established brands 21:28 - The effectiveness of NPS vs. past sales as a predictor of future growth 26:02 - Are NPS detractors actually bad? 29:50 - Is NPS a superior metric to CSAT scores for predicting growth? 33:17 - What is NPS good for & what to ask instead 37:56 - Can Google Reviews replace NPS? 39:25 - Metrics better than NPS for predicting growth 42:53 - Can we put the NPS genie back into the bottle? 46:47 - If not NPS for growth, then what? 49:32 - 50 years of brand performance disproves loyalty as a growth driver 52:19 - How to find out more about John 54:01 - Post-pod with V and Marc Where to Listen: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-sleeping-barber-a-business-and-marketing-podcast/id1609811324 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4v0kaM350zEY7X2VBuyfrF?si=7083317d5afd488b ⁠⁠ Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84MWVjYWJhNC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwji_oSOopP-AhXnlo4IHTZKBgYQ9sEGegQIARAC Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sleepingbarberpodcast © 2023 Sleeping Barber

In this episode, we launch our new show name: The Customer Confidential Podcast. We chose it after seeking lots of listener and guest input and believe that the new name better reflects the show's mission—namely, to delve into untold stories of customer and industry transformations, sharing the journeys of both well-known and unsung heroes of customer centricity. We also seek out deep conversations with the thought leaders who inspire the best practitioners.  Also, in this episode, which also marks our 10th anniversary, host Rob Markey welcomes back frequent guest (and Rob's longtime mentor) Fred Reichheld, Bain fellow and founder of Bain's Loyalty practice. Rob and Fred trace the evolution of Fred's earned growth rate concept from its roots in Fred's early work on customer retention at Bain. They unravel the intricacies of customer-centric metrics and how they have changed. They note the impact of genuine referrals vs. those that are bought and differentiate between earned and purchased growth. Importantly, they acknowledge and explore challenges in quantifying earned growth and how some companies have begun to tackle them successfully. Guest: Fred Reichheld, Bain fellow, founder of Bain's Loyalty practice, and author of Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers

Learn how you can fight gender bias so women leaders can succeed  As you know, I do a lot of work around women leadership. The title of my second book is Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business, and I have recently co-written with Edie Fraser and Robyn Freedman Spizman a third book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, due out September 26th. So I'm all about helping women in business succeed. My guest today, Jennifer McCollum, is the same, having dedicated the last 20 years of her career to helping leaders and teams and organizations fulfill their potential, particularly women leaders. She helps women find their passion and their purpose, and I'm thrilled to have her on today's podcast. Her mission is to change the face of leadership by accelerating the advancement of women leaders. Mine too. Listen in, learn, and please share. Watch and listen to our conversation here Nine key takeaways from our discussion today 1. Clarity is much more challenging for women than it is for men. It's one of the biggest hurdles that women face. And by clarity, I mean, if I were to ask you, Look ahead one year, three years, five years…what does success look like for you in your life, in your role, in your environment? 2. Women tend to define success through the lens of others: my team's success, my company's success, my family's success. As a woman, you need to develop the skill of creating clarity for you, your own future. 3. Jennifer's new book, In Her Own Voice: A Woman's Rise to CEO: Overcoming Hurdles to Change the Face of Leadership, takes 25 years of Linkage data and research and calculates what it will take to accelerate the advancement of women in terms of the unique challenges that women face on their path to leadership and how we can all support approaching gender equity in the workforce. 4. Gender bias has been internalized, so much so that we women may be preventing our own advancement, consciously or unconsciously. 5. We know that women and men ask for things equally. It could be money or title, but it also could be resources or flexibility or staff. But women tend to retreat when they're told no. And we can learn a lot from our male counterparts who tend to go back in. So how do you make the ask, when do you make the ask? 6. All leaders need to be developed, but women need to understand the unique hurdles they face. We don't need to fix the women. They're fabulous leaders. We need to help them in overcoming the obstacles that exist to their advancement. 7. At the CEO level, we've just crossed the 10% barrier in terms of the number of CEOs who are women. But of those, only 1% are women of color. 8. The numbers still aren't changing quickly enough. We have about 28% women in the executive leadership ranks and 26% in the leadership ranks, the VP level. But as you go down, director all the way to the manager level, we're just not making enough progress at all. 9. All of us can do something. All of us may not be in positions of power and influence to be executive sponsors but all of us are in a position to be allies. How to connect with Jennifer You can reach out to Jennifer on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or the Linkage website, or send her an email at jenniferscherermccollum@gmail.com. For a deeper dive into women and leadership, check out these 3 blogs:  Blog: What Can Women Do To Challenge Gender Stereotypes In The C-Suite? Blog: How Can Women Overcome The Roadblocks To Building Their Businesses? Blog: Best Tips And Tricks For Women To Work In Male-Dominated Industries Additional resources for you My two award-winning books: Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business and On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights Our website: Simon Associates Management Consultants Read the transcript of our podcast here Andi Simon: Hi, welcome to On the Brink with Andi Simon. I'm Andi Simon, I'm your host and your guide. And as you know, my favorite listeners, our job is to help you get off the brink. How do we do that? We want you to see, feel and think in new ways and understand that change is painful. On the other hand, if you begin to get the kinds of tips and tricks to begin to see things in a new way, you go, Oh, that's how it's done. That's how someone else did it. And I can as well. So I have a wonderful guest with us today, Jennifer McCollum. Jennifer and I met through the Women Business Collaborative, and it's a wonderful organization for women of all kinds and all companies to come and participate as we collaborate to propel women forward. But Jennifer is here today because I just love what she's doing to help train and develop women so that they can become the best that they can be. So, Jennifer, thank you for being here today. I appreciate it. Now, let me tell you about Jennifer and then she's going to tell you about herself. And as you know, in our format, she does a much better job than I can. But here's Jennifer. Jennifer grew up in an entrepreneurial home in Germany. And there's a story there, I'm sure. And her unique childhood not only instilled in her grit and resourcefulness and an ironclad work ethic, but she describes herself as a hustler by 15 and a desire to help others, which I think is the important part here, to excel like she has to her full potential. You know, someone in our past offers us an opportunity to do something in our future, and sometimes we're not aware of it, but all of a sudden we go, Oh, I did that. Someone else can do a little bit more. She's on a mission to help talented women rise higher and higher in positions of leadership. And on the other side of that, to help organizations understand how to enable them to do just that, to create the cultures where women can excel, thrive and together, men and women can really do better. The winding road she's traveled led to her current position as CEO of Linkage. Linkage is now part of the SHRM organization (Society for Human Resource Management) and together they have visions for how to take Linkage, quite frankly, to a new place. It's really going to be exciting. She oversees the strategic direction and global operations of the leadership development firm. The mission is to change the face of leadership. It's dedicated more than 35 years to advancing women and accelerating inclusion in leaders and organizations. Jennifer is an acclaimed speaker, a consultant and author, and I love the fact that her book is coming out in November. So we're going to time this so that you can see it. She's going to show you a picture of it in her own voice. It's got a really interesting story to it. And it's a very important time for her to share where she is. And that's what this whole podcast today is about. My last little thought, because I sometimes forget this myself, she's a wonderful mother of three children, all guys. And I say guys because they're sort of grown up children and I have a happy husband and they love to travel. She loves to ski. And Jennifer and I have a lot in common. So today's talk is going to be very collaborative. Jennifer, thank you for coming today. Jennifer McCollum: It's always very humbling to have someone else talk about you and introduce you. So I appreciate you. Andi Simon: Well, you know, sometimes you say, Who is that she's talking about and laugh sometimes because we haven't heard of ourselves. It's hard to get a mirror that looks at you and says, Oh, that's who I am. Jennifer, it's important for the audience to know more about you. That bio is lovely, but at the end of the day, who is Jennifer? Tell us about your journey and then how do we get to the next stage where you're helping women? All kinds of different ways. Please, who's Jennifer? Jennifer McCollum: That's such a big question. I have dedicated the last 20 years of my career to helping leaders and teams and organizations fulfill their potential. And there's been a really special place in my purpose and my passion around helping women leaders. So even back, you know, 30 years ago, I was creating pro bono visioning webinars to help women leaders find their passion and find their purpose and as luck would have it, I ended up five years ago as the CEO of Linkage. And as you said, our mission is to change the face of leadership. A big chunk of our work is focused on accelerating the advancement of women leaders, but also helping all leaders become more inclusive and purposeful. I can take you back a little bit further. I have 20, 22, 23 years in the leadership space. I run leadership businesses at publicly traded companies. Now, at Linkage, which was just sold to a wonderful organization called SHRM. Before that, I grew up at the Coca-Cola Company and traveled around the world working on the Olympics and the World Cups and sports marketing. And then I evolved my career into leadership at the Coca-Cola Company and beyond. Andi Simon: People often ask about our own journeys. You know, I'm an anthropologist, but I'm also an entrepreneur, and I was a corporate executive. How do you know where you're going? Early in those years, are we sampling? Have I found myself? People talk about imposter syndrome. As I said, I've always been an imposter. I was never quite sure I was competent or capable. Others saw me that way and I said, Oh, that's interesting. How about yourself? Was there a plan to your journey or did you just sort of make it happen? Jennifer McCollum: I love your use of the word sampling. I would even expand that into dabbling. So, you know, this was advice that was given to me early on in my career and if it's helpful to others, this was a senior executive at Coca-Cola who said, “In your 20s, try a lot of things. Don't worry about money, don't worry about titles. Try and get a sense of what you're good at and what you're passionate about.” So through my 20s, yes, I started in public relations and sports marketing and evolved into public affairs, but I knew in my 20s, somewhere around 26 or 28, that I was good at it, but it wasn't fueling my passion or my purpose. So then the executive said, “Okay, in your 30s, really double down and take a lot of risks and figure out where you can apply your skills and your passion.” And it was in my 30s that I jumped ship from Coca-Cola to the world of the internet. And it was part of the first internet kind of boom and bust. And that gave me the confidence to then create my own consulting firm. And so I became a consultant in the leadership space. Coca-Cola had trained me to do that, and that's where I really started to find what drove me. And so I was working with leaders and teams all around the world, but really buoyed by Coca-Cola's belief in me, and that was my launchpad to becoming a consultant in the leadership space. And then the executive said, “In your 40s, put your head down and work really hard. Make a lot of money so you can retire in your 50s.” What that meant to me was actually doubling down on what my passion was. So throughout my 40s, I went back to the publicly traded world. I worked for multiple companies, running businesses and the leadership development space, and really then found that it actually wasn't the designing and the delivering of the consulting as much as the management and the growing of the businesses designed to make the world's leaders a better place. And I have to say, now in my 50s, it's a beautiful decade to be. I feel so aligned to that purpose. Andi Simon: Well, and part of what you're sharing is that we can plan, but part of it is knowing ourselves. And I don't think that's inconsequential. It's not the job. It's really getting to know what makes us. You know, the good news is, you were very successful regardless of which of those jobs you were in. But now the question is, what's my purpose? You know, what have I mastered? And how do I have the autonomy to go and do that in a way that gives me great pleasure. And I smile when I wake up every day. It's pretty cool. Jennifer McCollum: And you're hitting something really important, and I'll call that clarity. And sometimes that's the discovery of purpose, discovery of strength, discovery of passion. Some of us are lucky enough to grow up knowing exactly what we want to do, exactly the contribution we want to make in the world. That actually isn't the case for most of us. And there's this process and this is actually much more challenging for women than it is for men. It's one of the biggest hurdles that women face. And by clarity, we mean, if I were to ask you, Look ahead one year, three years, five years…what does success look like for you in your life, in your role, in your environment? Women tend to define that through the lens of others: my team's success, my company's success, my family's success. And so that we call it the kind of the skill, the muscle of creating clarity for you, for your own future is something that I've worked really hard at from my 20s, which gave me the confidence to leave Coca-Cola all the way now into my 50s. And I do it very regularly. Andi Simon: That point of clarity is so interesting because I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I spent 20 years in corporate in a very entrepreneurial fashion, and nobody quite knew what an anthropologist in business was supposed to do so I could play that one out all the time. And you found that people weren't quite sure if I should have a PhD or not. But I began to think that I knew I wanted to be in my own business and after 9/11, I said, good timing. So that's 22 years ago. But like you, I knew who I was. I'm a creator, I'm an entrepreneur now. How do I do that in a way that can be very successful? And I always thought of it for our clients being the beneficiaries of who we are and what we can do. So that's what we do, then what they need. So it's a really interesting story. You share now that you're at a point that your book is very much of a cataclysmic moment. You know, it's important. Books are important. You know, my third book is coming out in September. And every time I write a book, it's less about the book than about what it can do to help others. And I have a hunch this new book is very full of wisdom that you want to share. And I would just love you to tell the story to our listeners about it because they will walk away saying, Oh, I gotta get that book. Tell me what's in the book. Jennifer McCollum: Well, and thank you for asking, and going back to the clarity. If you look back on the vision documents that I created all the way back into the early 2000s, it always says, I am an author, I am a speaker, I am on stages impacting thousands. And it is now finally the result of a lot of hard work and you've done multiple of these. This is my first book. This is the executive summary, In Her Own Voice: A Woman's Rise to CEO: Overcoming Hurdles to Change the Face of Leadership. It's actually coming out in November, so anyone can pre-order it. But what I am so excited about for this book is, it takes 25 years of Linkage data and research and frameworks and experience on what it will take to accelerate the advancement of women. It puts it together with very personal stories, not only my stories, but other CEO and C-suite women, to help all of us, women and men, understand what are the unique challenges that women face on their path to leadership and how we can all support approaching gender equity in the workforce far faster than the World Economic Forum is predicting, somewhere around the 125 year mark. Andi Simon: Well, 125 years is almost impossible to imagine since you and I want it to happen tomorrow. My question is always about why it's so hard to see the opportunities. And it's two sides. Part of it is the way women see themselves in others. And part of it is the way our society and our culture see men and women and their different roles. In the book, though, you've really begun to master to lay this out. Talk to me a little bit without giving away too much about the thinking behind it In Her Own Voice. The title itself is telling you a great deal, right? Jennifer McCollum: So you framed it perfectly. There's really two sides to this. One is what we have more control over as women leaders. So deepening our understanding not of the external bias that exists in the world. And we could talk a lot about that another time. And it's real, but it's really how that bias has been internalized and how we may be preventing our own advancement, consciously or unconsciously. So just to give you a little sneak preview, Linkage has studied and we support it through coaching and assessment and development and our big Women in Leadership Conference. We support the individual woman leader and overcoming some of those hurdles. The top three are clarity, which is what we just talked about. The second one is proving your value, where women tend to give and say yes and volunteer to more and more and more. And we call it putting your head down and overthrowing the boat, hoping that someone will notice and they usually don't. And then the third one is making the ask. So we actually know that women and men ask for things equally. It could be money or title, but it also could be resources or flexibility or staff. But we know that women tend to retreat when they're told no. And we can learn a lot from our male counterparts who tend to go back in. So how do you make the ask, when do you make the ask? So those are three of the seven or eight hurdles that we cover. The other side of this, which I love that you framed it this way, is what can organizations do? We actually call that the organizational surround. And we study these things. We know that there are very specific levers organizations need to pull. The first is around their culture. Do women feel valued? Do they feel like they belong? The second one is around their talent systems. Is there equity in the talent systems, all the way from acquisition to pay to high potential selection to succession? The third one is what we call executive action and commitment. This is one of the lowest scoring ones and this is, are the executives truly committed to advancing women leaders? Are they doing more than saying the right things? Are they actually doing and modeling and sponsoring women or other underrepresented populations? And then the fourth one is the one that Linkage does a lot of work in, and that's leadership development for women. So again, we know that, you know, all leaders need to be developed, but women need to understand the unique hurdles they face and they need some, you know…we don't need to fix the women. They're fabulous leaders. We need to help them in overcoming the obstacles that exist to their advancement. Andi Simon: You know, as an anthropologist and I also have three leadership academies for three different kinds of organizations, the questions are very profound and very important to me in the work that we do, as well as to my emerging leaders who are trying to understand all this. But I often find that people don't know what to do. They say the words, they have good intentions, but then when the time comes for action, they go back to old habits. And we know so much about the neurosciences and the brain and the cognitive sciences, that the habits are very comfortable. And so they go to whatever they learned early, whatever happened to them that seemed to work okay. And the idea of moving out into a foreign place where they're uncomfortable, the amygdala hijacks the whole idea and says, That's dangerous, go away. And so part of the work that we do is almost like theatrical performance. I said, We're going to change. You used to play Macbeth, and I share this with you because the metaphor seems to be comfortable for people to get. And now you're going to play Hamlet. And in Hamlet, the women get promoted and they get advanced. But you don't have a script for it and you haven't had any rehearsal time. And both of you need to play a different role in a different theater. That is life. And I share that with you because what I realized without rehearsal time, they don't practice. They don't know what it is they're going to do. Have you found the same or do you have a different perspective on it? Jennifer McCollum: Well, interestingly, I would actually use that kind of frame on both sides. So first, let's talk about the women themselves. And yes, what is comfortable we can extract you from your workplace. We can develop and coach and assess and send you to very inspirational conferences and you will go back into the workplace if left to your own devices. It's scary. It's uncomfortable. How do you start to flex that new muscle? And so in our very best, you know, clients and the very best scenarios, women are doing this through community, so they're not doing it alone. And we will have, and I'll give a big shout out to Disney as an example. Disney will send 100 to 150 women to our conference across their business units, but they bring them together and then they find ways to keep them together in communities so they're supporting each other. Andi Simon: Before you go on to the second, let me emphasize to the viewer or the listener that we're monkeys. We model ourselves over watching others. And so that community isn't inconsequential. Because if I think, This is what they want me to do and I don't see anyone else doing it, I flee it. But if I watch someone else doing it, I can model it and bond over it. So those communities aren't inconsequential. They're essential. Does that make it consistent with what you're saying? Jennifer McCollum: I'll go to my second point in a minute, but just based on that, I want to give you a really specific example this weekend. So it was the 4th of July weekend. I'm part of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches Organization. It means the world to me to be part of this. There were a couple hundred people in the group. About 150 of us gathered in Nashville just a few days ago. And this group is full of authors, thought leaders, academics, CEOs, coaches.  It's an incredibly inspiring group. Three quarters of the group are like you. They have published book after book and they're very confident as authors and thought leaders. So I showed up at this event. I have a box of 200 of these and my literary agent has said, You will ensure that this gets in the hands of every one of that network. I got there and I realized something was going on with me. I'm incredibly confident as a CEO. I'm confident as a team leader and manager and mentor. I'm confident as a mother, a wife and a friend. I took that box. We call these things monographs, and I hid them behind the piano at the Belmont Auditorium in Nashville, this beautiful auditorium. And the monographs are hidden in a box. And I would take one out at a time and would kind of sheepishly show one person at a time. And finally, it took a group. There happened to be this group of women that were surrounding me. And they said, Well, where can I get one of these? And said, Well, they're in a box behind the piano. And they said, What is wrong with you? Here you are a thought leader, an author, and you're hiding your gifts behind the piano. And it hit me that I needed that monkey tribe, right? I needed a community to help build my confidence. And it was such a big lesson for me. I was trying something new. I'm flexing a new muscle. Okay, so that's that story. Well, that's not going to go to the second piece. Andi Simon: Don't lose that story because for the viewer or the listener, those are the kinds of stories that will change the way you think about what you're doing. And when you go to that meeting, you're going to hand out business cards. And I've heard people say, I've left the meeting because I didn't feel comfortable. I said, Push, go in there, hand out those cards. Be real. Next point. Jennifer McCollum: So well, and actually, just to finish that, on that point, when this is a huge problem with women, we call it recognized confidence.  And it's another one of the hurdles. Look, you mentioned imposter syndrome just a little while ago when we were getting ready for this call. We know you can't beat confidence into anyone. You also can't beat imposter syndrome out of someone. But here's what you can do. You can develop the skills to promote yourself like I was trying to do over the last couple of days. But if you don't feel ready to do that, I wasn't ready to self-promote as an author. I phoned a friend and this is what women can do a lot better. Surround yourself with people, women or men who will help hand out that card. What happened was, they started grabbing 10 and 20 and were handing them out for me. And the response I got from people overwhelmingly helped me build that confidence. So that's kind of another tip and trick to phone a friend. You don't have to do it on your own. This was okay. Well, what if, you know, we invest in companies? Do they invest all the time in their women leaders? And those women leaders come back full of hope and confidence and optimism, but their companies don't change. Their manager doesn't understand what they've been through. They don't get access to that stretch assignment. The talent systems don't change. The executives don't really act on what they've learned or what they've invested in. And this is one of the biggest challenges. And I'll tell you another story. And he's one of my favorite ones, Tom Greco, who has up until recently been the CEO of Advanced Auto, a big client of ours. I was on a webinar with him about a year ago when they launched their Women in Leadership program, and he said, “As the CEO, I will tell you, our leadership does not represent our customer base. We need more women. We need more people of color. And I have done this before when I worked for Frito-Lay and Pepsi, and I am going to commit to this and I will become a sponsor. My direct reports, their direct reports. By the way, there are 2025 of us and we are overwhelmingly white men. And that is going to change on my watch.” So that's an example of executive commitment in action, and that's what companies need to do. What do they need to do proactively to change their culture, proactively to change their talent systems. And we help with that as well. Andi Simon: And I'll add one more dimension because I've had to work with boards who are also the white guys. And even if the executives were advocating, they always often rolled their eyes as if this was a sidebar, not the bar. And conversations at board meetings weren't about…I can't tell you how many times I was the only woman on that board and or at a board meeting where there were 49 men and just me. We didn't say very much. And people said to me, That sounds like a joke, depending on what time in our evolution it was. But the point is that there are different barriers along the way to transformation. And to your point, if the leadership really commits to it, now the question is, How do the the men, the women and the leadership begin to see a different reality, almost a different visual of the whole world that we're living in with a whole different interactions and training each other to talk to each other? It's like a foreign language coming together. Jennifer McCollum: And I'm glad you mentioned the board level there. I mean, as you and I both know, being very deeply entrenched in the Women's Business Collaborative where we are making the most progress is that the board level now, it's not as fast as we would like, but we are making more progress there than anywhere else. At the CEO level, we've just crossed the 10% barrier in terms of the number of CEOs who are women. You know, only 1% are women of color. So we can talk about that separately where we tend to focus as we move down in the pipeline. The numbers still aren't changing quickly enough. So we've got about 28% women in what I'll call the executive leadership ranks and 26% in the leadership ranks, kind of the VP level. And then as you go down, director all the way to the manager level, we're just not making enough progress at all. And so it takes a couple of things. One, we can't wait for CEOs or boards to become enlightened all at once. We've got to focus on this from many different lenses. And one thing I love, especially because I know your listeners are a very broad range across gender, across role, across age and across experience. All of us can do something. And I talk a lot about this spectrum, from allyship to mentorship to coaching, all the way up to executive sponsorship. All of us may not be in positions of power and influence to be executive sponsors. All of us are in a position to be allies. In fact, that's what happened to me this weekend. The people who surrounded me said, Look, phone a friend, I'm going to help you. They were all my allies and it was a really beautiful thing. Andi Simon: Well, but your story is a very powerful one as well, because in some ways you weren't sure how to ask for their support, but they saw an opportunity to reach out and help someone who wasn't mentoring, wasn't sponsoring, it was collegiality, in a very sorority-like fashion. But I have a hunch that the guys began to catch on to some of this as well. And I do think that there is a desire to do better. Do you have any of the data to share on why the diverse, inclusive companies do better and why that's so hard to get people to pay attention to? Jennifer McCollum: Even have an anecdote. The data is so clear. Andi, you and I have seen all the various studies around when you have diversity. We can talk about gender diversity. We can talk about racial diversity. Those were where most of the studies sit. But whether it's at the board level, at the C-suite level or at the leadership level, whether it's financial metrics like revenue and margin or whether it's operational metrics like more effective decision making and better innovation, or whether it's internal metrics like engagement and retention. By and large, gender diversity and racial diversity, by every single count, it's better. So here's my favorite story. Dr. Tanya Matthews is the CEO of the International African American Museum. It's just opening now in Charleston. So if you're in the Charleston area, run to that museum. And about two years ago, we were thinking about writing this book. And in all of my presentations, I was leading with a lot of the data. And I finally just got fed up and said, Dr. Tanya, I don't understand why it's just so mind blowing that the data is so clear and any rational leader in a position of power to hire or promote diversity, why don't they just do it? And she said, and I quote, “Girl, if it were all about the numbers, we would have solved this problem a long time ago.” I can hear her saying that. I love her so much. And she said, “The forces for change have to be more powerful than the forces for the status quo.” That is true, that it's not going to be numbers and data. It's going to be appealing to the head and the heart, appealing to the emotion of fathers with daughters saying, I want something different for my daughter. I want to make sure that if she wants to be a CEO, she has a better chance than 10% of the Fortune 500. Or It's the Tom Grecos of the world. “I need my staff to be reflective of my customer base.” And that's not everybody that's ready and aware. But that's where our starting point is at Linkage. We choose the clients who have, that awareness in that readiness. Andi Simon: Well, and that's a good point to try to work with a client who hasn't come to their own aha moment or the realization of it is very difficult because you're going to be pushing this ball up the hill. But your point about the data shouldn't be underestimated because as an anthropologist, we learned early that out of context data do not exist. And I used to teach a course “Is your data talking to you and can you hear it?” And it's the hearing part, because you'll take that data and manipulate it to do anything you like with it, including ignoring it. You know, doctors love to delete the data that don't conform to the way they like to do things. Learned that early on. But to your point, the data is very compelling and whether it's your KPIs or whatever else you're looking to achieve as a leader, make sure that you've got alignment around that with the right people who can get you there, as opposed to pointing fingers, complain and blame and find all kinds of excuses because often the resources are there and the gap is not that you don't have the resources, it's that you're not using them wisely. And to your point, then that requires a different mindset, a different set of values. And my last point before I go back to you is that we decide what the heart and the eyes, and that's extremely important. The data is in the head. I've got to see it. So storytelling with the data is not inconsequential. What does this tell you? Jennifer McCollum: I guess the other thing I'd say is, what are you tracking? We spend a lot of time with our clients who say, We're tracking our talent acquisition. We're tracking our diversity metrics and we're tracking our retention. And, you know, we just say, You know what, that's great. Those are all leading indicators. You've got to get ahead and start tracking the leading indicators. So when McKinsey a year ago reported that there's a huge issue at the director level, so for every one woman who is promoted, two women leave. At Linkage, we weren't surprised by that at all because we've been tracking. We've got about 20,000 women in our database and with our Women in Leadership Institute every year, we're gathering thousands and thousands of women's perceptions around their organization. So we're actually at a macro level looking at what do they feel, what do they think about their culture, their talent systems, their executive action and their leadership development as a woman, But also what is their commitment, their engagement, their values fit and their net promoter score? And by every count, especially the Net Promoter score, that director level was a zero, which basically meant, Don't believe anything. They didn't care at all to promote that their company was a great place to work for women, and their commitment was less than 50% which said, if I'm offered another job that is similar to yours, I'm out of here. McKinsey's The Great Breakup is grounded in, unfortunately good data, bad experiences. “I see what's happening. I'm not stupid. I'm out of here. And I'd rather go, being, you know, a success in my own business.” You were or I am. And not to fuss around with this other system that's evaluating us in a way that I can't get ahead. So I often say, Look, we know, and this is super interesting. I mean, you may remember, many more women lost their jobs during Covid than men. And there was this big concern across 2020 and 2021 that women in the workforce were the lowest that they'd been since the 1980s. And there was this thought that, Oh, my gosh, this is going to not only delay gender equity by a decade, which is what the World Economic Forum came up with, but how long is it going to take us to get back to above where we were with women in the workforce in the 80s? It only took two years. The women all came back to the workforce. But it's not that women are leaving the workforce, it's that they're leaving you. They're leaving your organization. And so, our question to the organization is, Look, if you're having trouble retaining women and attracting women, that's on you. Why is that? Let us help you figure that out. Andi Simon: Oh, I could tell you many stories. I'm not going to share them for now. We are just about ready to wrap up. You and I could talk for much longer about an issue of great importance to both of us, mostly because we both have lived our ways through this, personally and professionally, and we have a bigger purpose, which is to help others and their organizations really understand the richness that comes with diversity of all kinds: cognitive diversity and challenging ideas, beginning to see curiosity, all kinds of things that will open up possibilities for them. I enjoyed this tremendously. Jennifer, one or two things you'd like to end with so that folks can remember the wisdom that you've brought today. Jennifer McCollum: I'm happy to offer a few things. I'm at a really interesting, pivotal point in my career with the book coming out. And as we integrate Linkage into SHRM, it's kind of like landing the plane on a five year journey. And I always think these are really important inflection points in life. So I'll leave with two things that are really helpful for me. If they're helpful for your listeners, I hope so. Number one is, grab the opportunity when you see it. And this takes tremendous courage. And I'll go back to my first leadership role in a publicly traded company when I was running a business unit and my peers left and I saw the opportunity to run a much bigger part of the organization. And just as my boss was saying, we need to get your peer replaced. I went in and said, I don't want him replaced. I want to run it. And so I'm now thinking about what that looked like at this stage in my career? So that's the first thing. And the second thing that goes along with that is, don't move quickly until you have that clarity. And I can tell a lot of stories about how I jumped reactively a little bit earlier, just even five years ago in my career and made a mistake because I wasn't clear about what I wanted. So you're the entrepreneur. I'd worked at multiple publicly traded companies and I landed in that sweet spot of the private equity-backed small to mid-market company. And that was my landing place, but only because I gained clarity. So I will offer up those two things. And finally, if you are a woman who aspires to advance in her career, or a man or woman who aspires to support the women leaders in your life, please, please, please consider In Her Own Voice. It launches November 13th, but it's on pre-order on Amazon now. Andi Simon: And I know Amazon awaits you with joy, as does Jennifer. Jennifer, this has been joyful. If they would like to talk to you further, is there a best place where they can reach you? LinkedIn or someplace else? Jennifer McCollum: Absolutely. So Jennifer McCollum, Linkage CEO, a SHRM company. I am available on LinkedIn. And you can also go to our website at Linkageinc.com. And Simon: And as you can tell, Jennifer is a wonderful mentor, sponsor, colleague, idea person. And sometimes you just want to use her time very wisely. But also the book is full of her thinking that will help you as you begin to pursue your own career. And there is no straight line. The one thing you should understand is that while you may think there's a goal at the end here, there's really a path that takes you there. And the path is as much fun when you look back on it and as it is to be certain. Humans want certainty. It doesn't work that way. So I want to thank all of you who come to our podcasts and who who put us above the 5% globally of all podcasts, which is really an honor. We enjoy sharing with you and our book, Women Mean Business, comes out September 26th. It is a compilation of 102 women who share their wisdom with you. And if you think of the two books as a collage, you're going to have lots of interesting points of insight, and they always say, turn a page and change your life. That's what we're all about. How do we help you become the best that you can be? My other books are available on Amazon: On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights is about anthropology and how it can help your business. And Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business is about women who smashed the myths of women in business. We keep wanting to help you change. And so today I will say goodbye with great joy. Jennifer, thank you for joining me. It's been fun and I love your conversations. We'll be back. Bye bye now.

  Fred Reichheld really needs no introduction, but here are some highlights. The founder of quantitative loyalty, Fred is best known as the creator of the Net Promoter® system of management used worldwide as THE loyalty predictor in business. According to The New York Times, he put loyalty economics on the map. But while he was trained in economics and is known for his work in quantifying the link between loyalty and profits, in this conversation Fred really wants us to focus on why it makes sense to treat people right. Listen in to hear why making shareholders rich is not the main purpose of companies – it is actually enriching people's lives. And wait until you hear his views on how NPS has been misused by many! About our Guest: Fred Reichheld is a Bain Fellow and founder of our Loyalty practice, which helps companies achieve results through customer and employee loyalty. He is the creator of the Net Promoter® system of management. His work in the area of customer and employee retention has quantified the link between loyalty and profits. Fred's books, The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value (HBSP 1996); Loyalty Rules! How Today's Leaders Build Lasting Relationships (HBSP 2001); The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth (HBSP, 2006) and The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer Driven World (HBR Press) have each become best sellers. In his most recent book, Fred reveals how NPS practitioners including Apple Retail, Philips, Schwab, Allianz, American Express, and Intuit, have used the Net Promoter System (NPS) to generate extraordinary results. He explains how NPS helps companies become truly customer-centric, unleashing profitable growth through systematically converting more customers into promoters and fewer into detractors. WVU Marketing Communications Today: Marketing Legends is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master's degree programs in Marketing Communications.  

In this episode, Troy interviews Robert Gauvreau, the Founder, and CEO of Gauvreau Accounting Tax Law Advisory based in Peterborough, Canada. Robert has set up his own professional accounting firm to provide proactive accounting, advisory, and taxation services to businesses, practicing professionals, and individuals to create a public accounting firm focusing on 3 fundamental principles. From working at a global firm as someone who's gone through a public accounting background, now running a professional accounting firm that provides the highest quality proactive accounting, taxation planning, and client services. Gauvreau was established in 2008 and has been in operation for over 15 years. Became an award-winning licensed public accounting firm with over 10 million dollars in annual revenue and has 84 people that are all across Canada.  Robert mentioned that resilience needs to be something that every business owner can deal with and cope with because it's not easy to handle and it can also affect the workflow of business. So he added, “The reason that so many businesses fail, number one is they run out of cash, 82% of businesses that fail. They run out of cash flow, not because they're not the smartest people, but they don't have the best business plan.”  This Cast Covers: Sharing his journey from working at a global firm to starting his own gig by managing a public accounting firm. Specializes in providing proactive accounting, advisory, and taxation services to businesses, practicing professionals, and individuals. Growing from $200k in revenue in the first year up to cracking the $10 million number this year with 84 people that are all across Canada. Offers a MILLIcoaching program that helps business owners grow and scale and earn their first million dollars a year. States how spending time with business owners in the proactive space and connecting with people regularly can enhance the understanding and unity on making the business succeed. Admitted into fellowship with CPA Canada at the young age of 26. A lifetime achievement award for being a professional. Takes ethics, integrity, and professional competence very seriously. Focusing on making relationships that have a huge network of business coaches, and starting to test value add opportunities to contribute to those markets. With a Net Promoter score of 73.2 in his 100% of commitment. Gives practical pieces of advice on how to make a good partnership works. Links:  Bob's Linkedin Bob's Facebook Bob's Instagram Additional Resources: Gauvreau Accounting Tax Law Advisory  The Wealthy Entrepreneur by Robert Gauvreau The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek     Quotes: “Change is hard for people, then merging two cultures together is tenfold harder.” —Robert Gauvreau “You can actually go to your competitors, and tell them exactly what you're going to do. Share with them your best tactics, and none of them will do it.” —Robert Gauvreau   “If you want to grow as a business owner, you've got to be committed to getting yourself uncomfortable.” —Robert Gauvreau  “If you're looking at a partnership and money gets involved, make sure you outline how the partnership works.” —Robert Gauvreau  “When challenging times happen, find a way that works for you to get yourself back to positive momentum.” —Robert Gauvreau

When it comes down to it, there are ultimately two forms of business growth: Earned and Paid. Earned growth comes from doing the best things for your customers so they keep coming back and bring their friends along too. And as paid channels become more expensive with increasingly diminishing returns,  it has never been more important to harness your earned channels.   In this episode  Fred Reichheld, creator of the Net Promoter®, discusses the concept of Earned Growth and reveals how brands can start to re-balance their marketing efforts by delivering more earned growth alongside their paid channels.  

Fred Reichheld, creator of Net Promoter and author of Winning on Purpose, shares how professional services firms can become truly client-centric and realize the promise of NPS. The post Loving Your Clients with Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow and Creator of Net Promoter appeared first on Rattle and Pedal.

Fred Reichheld, creator of Net Promoter and author of Winning on Purpose, shares how professional services firms can become truly client-centric and realize the promise of NPS. The post Loving Your Clients with Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow and Creator of Net Promoter appeared first on Rattle and Pedal.

Exploring the Connection Between Love and Loyalty - Fred Reichheld [NPS]Fred Reichheld is the creator of the Net Promoter system of management, founder of Bain & Company's Loyalty practice, and author of several books.Some people and companies implement NPS the wrong way by treating it as a score rather than a system, focusing on the number rather than the customer relationship.The right way to implement NPS is by treating it as a system, focusing on building customer relationships, and using the score as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.NPS has evolved to include different methods of measuring and acting on customer feedback.Love and loyalty are closely related, as customers who feel loved by a company are more likely to be loyal and to recommend the company to others.Companies that focus on frontline team leaders are more likely to succeed in building customer loyalty.To be remarkable, companies must provide a unique and valuable customer experience.Persistence is key to building customer loyalty over time.Only 10% of executives believe the primary purpose of the business is to enrich customers' lives, highlighting a need for more customer-centric thinking in business.ABOUT NICK GLIMSDAHLSubscribe to my bi-monthly newsletterFind Press 1 For Nick on YouTubeFind me on TwitterFind me on LinkedInLISTENER SUPPORTPurchase Nick's books: Reasons NOT to Focus on Employee Experience: A Comprehensive GuideApparel: https://www.teepublic.com/user/press-1-for-nick Support this show through Buy Me A CoffeeBOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:Learn about all the guests' book recommendations here: https://press1fornick.com/books/ BROUGHT TO YOU BY:VDS: They are a client-first consulting firm focused on strategy, business outcomes, and technology. They provide holistic consulting services to optimize your customer contact center, inspiring and designing transformational change to modernize and prepare your business for the future. Learn more: https://www.govds.com/ This podcast is under the umbrella of CX of M Radio: https://cxofm.org/Podcast-Shows/ SPONSORING OPPORTUNITIES:Interested in partnering with the Press 1 For Nick podcast? Click here: https://press1fornick.com/lets-talk/ 

What's the Pioneering Edge for Today's CX Leaders according to NPS Creator, Fred Reichheld?There's so much to unpack in this episode:Fred shares about a personal vulnerabilityWhat's the right way to listen to customers?What is the huge mistake companies make relative to referrals?How do you know if you've won or lost?What is financial capitalism and why should it die?What's on the pioneering edge today for CX leading companies?Will Southwest Airlines recover?And a ton more!Fred Reichheld BioFRED REICHHELD is the creator of the Net Promoter system of management, the founder of Bain & Company's Loyalty practice, and the author of five books  including the New York Times bestseller The Ultimate Question 2.0. He is  currently a fellow and senior advisory partner at Bain, where he has worked since  1977. Fred is a frequent speaker at major business forums, and his work on  customer loyalty has been widely covered in the Wall Street Journal, New York  Times, Financial Times, Fortune, Businessweek, and The Economist. He has  made fifteen contributions to the Harvard Business Review and, in 2012, became  one of the original LinkedIn Influencers, an invitation-only group of corporate leaders and public figures who are thought leaders in their respective fields. In  2003, Consulting Magazine named Fred as one of the world's “25 Most  Influential Consultants.” According to the New York Times, Fred “put loyalty  economics on the map.” The Economist refers to him as the “high priest” of  loyalty. Reichheld graduated from Harvard College (BA, 1974) and Harvard  Business School (MBA, 1978). He is based in Cape Cod and Miami. Video about Winning on Purpose - https://www.bain.com/our-team/fred-reichheld/Catch Fred's Articles on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-ideas-2023-battling-inflation-companies-cant-just-fred-reichheld/Subscribe to The Delighted Customer Podcast so you don't miss an episode: https://www.empoweredcx.com/podcast Subscribe to The Delighted Customer Newsletter for practical tips and insights: https://www.empoweredcx.com/delightedcustomersnewsletter

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Federico Spagnoli, at the time President and Head of Emerging Markets Ecosystems for Prudential Financial LATAM, now Vice President of International Total Wellness Solutions. Federico is well known for his work launching Vitality in South America and providing health services to over 1.5 million South Americans, who can today download an App from their mobile device to get access to a multitude of health services.  During this podcast, Sabine and Federico evaluate 1) Federico's vision about enhancing people's physical, mental, and financial wellness, 2) where the world of health insurance is going regarding protection and prevention, 3) relevant strategic distribution approaches by augmenting the broker channel, and 3) tips for those interested in monetization models.   KEY TAKEAWAYS I joined Prudential 6 years ago doing an executive program with SAID within Oxford University focusing on disruption and innovation. Part of the theme of my paper was related to disruption in the insurance industry because we haven't seen this in the industry in many years. When I started focusing on the critical driver affecting our customers. I realized there were a lot of opportunities there for us to start thinking very differently about how we approach business today. These past six years have been the first time I've worked in the life insurance industry. I was asked why life and health insurance companies aren't doing more to prevent conditions and situations that eventually will become a claim, like high cholesterol, which – in some instances – include a pill that can reduce mortality rates by 50%. That led me to look at the aging population, which, along with global warming, is one of the biggest challenges we're facing as a society. We need to look at the ability to retire comfortably and the ability to afford rising healthcare costs. This made me think about a lot of new technologies and data capabilities that are coming to market that life insurers could use to start preventing, anticipating, and mitigating bad conditions. Mortality risk is not top of mind for customers because today, we live longer. The problem we face today concerns aging populations and how to reduce the risk of being unhealthy through behavior change. Physical, mental, and financial wellness is the ability to understand your emotions around money and develop healthy feelings and a personal literacy around money and wellness. Physical, mental, and financial wellness topics also encompass the tools and strategies that help you feel secure and in control of your personal life. The insurer can engage directly with the customer through the SuperApp, where behavioral economics and gamification allow for the insurer to influence the customer's behavior by providing annual physical checks and rewards through coins, integrated into a marketplace with choices for rewards, and continuously bringing fresh and exciting content to the viewer.   BEST MOMENTS ‘If you follow a customer-centric approach, you can't view customers with one lens. Not being able to afford healthcare services could result in mental health issues because one has anxieties, which also affect one's physical health -- all generated by limited financial means. We have to look at them all together and provide a single integrated solution.'‘We're now shifting from life insurance protection to lifetime protection.'‘New generations are thinking more about global warming, social impact, financial inclusion, and a more balanced lifestyle. In insurance, we are already connecting with these customer groups over a long period of time because of the nature of the insurance that we sell. We can start introducing several solutions as part of a platform that can address and be much more relevant to our customer's needs and behaviors and influence them.'‘Customers that are using the Prudential platform provide a Net Promoter score that is twice higher than those customers that don't use the platform. The highest level of satisfaction has a direct impact on renewal rates, and platinum customers show higher life expectancy and lower claims ratios.' ABOUT THE GUEST Federico Spagnoli is passionate about Ecosystem/Strategy and Innovation. General and Life Insurance professional with international experience. Expertise in re-underwriting insurance portfolios, strategic planning, M&A, and business development.  Over six years in Prudential Financial. PII Regional President of Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Peru (through the JV with ILC/Habitat AFP). Direct responsibility for Prudential Seguros Argentina and Prudential Seguros México.  Responsible for managing the PII's relationship with AFP Habitat and acting as Europe - Latin America head of strategic business development. Member of the Board of Directors of Prudential Seguros Mexico and AFP Habitat About Prudential Financial:  Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU) was founded on the belief that financial security should be within reach for everyone. For over 140 years, Prudential has helped our customers reach their potential and tackle life's challenges for now and future generations to come. Today, the group is one of the world's largest financial services institutions, offering individual and institutional clients a wide array of financial products and services. With operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Prudential Financial is known for delivering on its promises to its customers and is recognized as a trusted brand and one of the world's most admired companies.  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Rob Markey on the Delighted Customers Podcast Part 1 of 2What would you expect from one of the top CX thought leaders in the world?A powerful, insightful, revealing interview so packed with gems that I had to break it into two parts!Rob Markey is the Co-Inventor of the Net Promoter System and the Co-Author of The Ultimate Question 2.0.In Part 1 (this episode):We discuss:Loyalty levers to pull in a down economyHow loyalty leaders can excel in a recessionWhy Rob initially rejected a single question to measure customer loyalty?This misinterpretation of Net Promoter ScoreWhy that one question was selected as the right question to measure customer loyaltyRob Markey BioHas led dozens of successful customer-centric transformations at large, global companies​Creator of Bain's approach to customer-centricity​ Introduced Earned Growth through Customer Value Management in “Are You Undervaluing Your Customers,” Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 2020​ Co-inventor of the Net Promoter System; co-author The Ultimate Question 2.0; Leader of Bain's NPS Loyalty Forum​Founder of Bain's Customer Strategy and Marketing practice​30+ years at Bain​MBA, Harvard; BA, Brown​ Ran 7 marathons and aspires to complete all the world majors by 2024And by the way, happens to host his own podcast, The Net Promoter System Podcast

 In this episode I speak with Fred Reichheld, creator of the Net Promoter system of management, the founder of Bain & Company's Loyalty practice, and the author of five books including The Ultimate Question and the New York Times bestseller "The Ultimate Question 2.0, whose recent book is, WINNING ON PURPOSE The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers," whose wakeup call was how loving customers by treating them well produced loyalty through earned growth that far exceeded profits than taking an accounting approach and bought growth through ads and manipulative enticements. https://www.bain.com/our-team/fred-reichheld/

We are very excited to have Fred Reichheld, the creator of the Net Promoter system of management and the founder of Bain & Company's Loyalty practice, as our special guest on The Way Forward podcast series. Fred is known for “putting loyalty economics on the map” and is a trusted expert in customer loyalty. Two thirds of the Fortune 1000 now use Net Promoter Score (NPS), the world's leading customer success and loyalty framework. Companies that achieve the highest NPS in their industry consistently beat the stock market over the past decade, with annual returns of 26%+, and outperform the vast majority of private equity funds. The very best return across the universe of funds and ETFs tracked by Morningstar barely reached 19% over the decade.The issue at hand is that a July 2021 Bain & Co. survey of business executives revealed that only 10% of business leaders believe the primary purpose of their company is to enrich the lives of their customers. 90% of today's executives dismiss the unbeatable advantages of a customer-centered purpose, which is sine qua non of loyalty leadership.In his latest book, Winning on Purpose, Fred Reichheld shows why all businesses should make enriching the lives of customers their primary purpose. It's the best way to ensure sustainable growth, happily fulfilled employees, and robust investor returns. He unveils Net Promoter 3.0 – updated for our current business and social environment and introduces Bain's latest invention, Earned Growth, which provides an accounting-based twin for Net Promoter Score.

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. With an entertaining and inspiring mix of both personal stories and qualitative business data, our guests Darci Darnell and Maureen Burns show why all businesses should make enriching the lives of customers their primary purpose. Their book “Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers” highlights the Net Promoter 3.0 System (NPS) – which is a metric for predicting company growth and customer lifetime value – and emphasizes how the age-old Golden Rule is what ultimately lies at the heart of customer success. Darci Darnell is the head of Bain's global Sales & Marketing practice and a leader of Bain's gender parity initiatives and sits on their Global Women's Leadership Council. She holds an MBA from The Tuck School at Dartmouth College, as well as a B.S. in Business Administration, with honors, from Washington University in St. Louis. Maureen Burns is a leader in Bain's Sales & Marketing practice and works extensively with clients on topics relating to marketing excellence, the Net Promoter System, customer journey redesign, and digital transformations. Maureen earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's degree, with honors, from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.   THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… people who want to understand how to improve their business models via enriching customer experiences and sustainable growth practices.   TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… The primary purpose of a business should be to enrich the lives of its customers. If you can take care of your customer base, they will take care of you by providing repeat business, bringing their friends, and generating overall larger profit shares. The NPS can be used as a tool for orienting your company on the right path to align your product design with the needs of your customer base.   WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… Both Darci and Maureen place humanity at the center of their business models, which ultimately allows them to be even more remarkable no matter what business venture they are exploring.   Running time: 30:02 Subscribe on iTunes   Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram   Find Darci on social: Website Twitter LinkedIn   Find Maureen on social: Website LinkedIn   Darci & Maureen's Book: Winning on Purpose

Victor Cho is a CEO/Advisor/Board member who has a deep passion for building online customers experiences that truly delight (Net Promoter 80+) and define markets. He does that through a leadership ethos grounded in transparency, empathy, diversity, and integrity. The building blocks that he deploys most from his toolkit (other than customer-centricity) are: the use of testing/data, leveraging networked business model dynamics, and creating organizations with recursive leadership engines.

“Love” isn't a word you often hear in business. It seems to run counter to the calculated numbers and tedious plans crafted in many boardrooms. But in his new book Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers, Fred Reichheld, a Bain fellow and creator of the Net Promoter system of management, makes it clear: Loving your customers is the key to continued success.

Arnaud et Anthony parlent du « credo », le petit guide du parfait salarié d'Apple Retail. Anthony se retient très fort de chanter l'autre credo, et c'est mieux pour vos oreilles. Arnaud enregistre depuis une « alcôve », et c'est tant pis pour vos oreilles.RéférencesLe « credo » original (2009) :Apple Retail, une expérience enrichissante.Nos collaborateursChez Apple, nous pensons que nos collaborateurs sont une ressource inestimable.Nous aimons travailler avec des personnes dynamiques, intelligentes et intéressantes, passionnées par l'univers Apple.Nous offrons un cadre de travail stimulant, conçu pour que vous puissiez vivre une expérience professionnelle unique et acquérir des compétences qui vous serviront toute la vie.Nous sommes pour l'innovation et le changement.Nous savons profiter de notre diversité, de nos talents uniques et de notre passion pour renforcer notre image dans le monde entier.Nous sommes une communauté au sein de laquelle les relations intéressantes, la communication ouverte, les découvertes, les progrès et les évolutions enrichissent chaque jour nos vies.Notre clientèleNos magasins ont été imaginés pour susciter l'engouement pour nos produits et fidéliser nos clients.Nous cultivons en toute occasion les relations du public avec Apple : le lancement d'un nouveau produit, l' achat (sic) ou bien les services personnalisés.Nous nous impliquons avec enthousiasme auprès de nos consommateurs, nous leur faisons découvrir les technologies et leur montrons tout ce que nos produits peuvent apporter à leurs vies.Nous faisons au mieux pour inspirer nos clients à chacune de leurs visites, pour que nos magasins soient un endroit convivial où il fait bon acheter, apprendre, créer, obtenir de l'aide et revenir.Nous mettons tout en œuvre pour offrir aux utilisateurs des expériences enrichissantes qui leur permettront de profiter au mieux de nos technologies et de repousser leurs limites.Nos engagements au quotidienNous nous conformons aux « Apple Steps of Service » pour chacun de nos contacts avec la clientèle.Nous impliquons nos consommateurs en facilitant les séances d'essai et la découverte de nos produits.Nous sommes toujours au fait des dernières technologies Apple et les intégrons dans la mesure du possible.Nous gagnons la confiance des clients en leur recommandant des solutions qui répondent à leurs besoins, que ce soit à la maison, à l'école ou en entreprise.Nous allons au-delà des attentes de nos clients en leur proposant des entrevues brèves, personnalisées et efficaces, que ce soit au Genius Bar, pour une Formation personnalisée, une séance de Shopping personnalisé ou un rendez-vous en atelier.Nous considérons notre programme One to One comme la meilleure façon d'aider nos membres à s'équiper, à se former et à se lancer.Nous créons une communauté grâce à des programmes passionnants pour tous les clients, comme des événements spéciaux, des ateliers pratiques et des programmes personnalisés pour les jeunes, les enseignants, les professionnels et les nouveaux venus sur Mac.Nous utilisons Net Promoter pour analyser l'expérience des employés et des clients et identifier les services à améliorer.Nous encourageons un dialogue ouvert avec nos collaborateurs et notre public afin d'échanger des idées qui nous permettront d'améliorer nos magasins, nos procédures et nos performances.Nous considérons chaque problème rencontré par un consommateur comme une occasion de faire valoir nos qualités. Nous écoutons et répondons immédiatement à toutes les remarques des clients en prenant en charge personnelleme Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Whether we've been deeply, personally affected by this pandemic or are simply trying to get ourselves and our loved ones through it, we're all sharing a version of the same experience. For customer experience professionals, that's been a new challenge. My colleague Maureen Burns and I have seen some companies fumble it badly. But many others have tuned into the experience with empathy. They're creating experiences and offering innovative solutions that are building a deep reservoir of trust and loyalty with customers and employees that will last long after this pandemic is a bad memory. In this episode, Maureen joined me to talk about what it is that customers and employees really need right now, and how the answer varies by company. And I also asked Maureen for her answers to some of the practical questions that Net Promoter practitioners are asking about soliciting customer feedback at a time like this.

Welcome Loyal listeners, in today's episode of the loyalty minute we're going to be looking The Loyalty Economy. In the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review (which you can find the link to the full article at theloyaltyminute.com) you'll find fascinating and interesting insights as to how you can determine tangible value to customer loyalty, particularly in a publicly traded company. But it can also be useful for any company looking to determine the true value of customer loyalty. While is it not recognized GAAP accounting methodology yet, there are some pretty good arguments as to why and how it might become one. Of course since we only have a minute here, I can't get into the nitty gritty details, but I think you'll find it is a good read. While qualitative measures such as Net Promoter and customer satisfaction scores are also of use to investors in assessing customer loyalty, companies would need to source such measures from independent third parties that publish their methodology and present them in consistent formats. One important take away is, Companies earn loyalty when they anticipate and meet fundamental, often unexpressed, customer needs. Doing this depends on two sets of capabilities: design thinking (or better yet, outstanding customer experiences) and careful application of cutting-edge technologies. To learn more about this, and a ton of other customer loyalty insights, please visit theloayltyminute.com Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rob-gallo/message

Luis Angel-Lalanne, vice president of customer listening for American Express, explains how his team goes beyond the mechanics of simply providing Net Promoter scores and the drivers behind them. At American Express, that can mean combining Net Promoter data with other operational data and performing an analysis to uncover previously unrealized links that affect customer experience .

Sandy Rogers's efforts to measure customer experience at Enterprise Rent-A-Car were part of the inspiration for the design of the Net Promoter system. Today, Sandy is the global practice leader for loyalty at Franklin Covey and coauthor of Leading Loyalty, but in this podcast, he also describes how he managed to convince the leaders of Enterprise, a large, successful company, to take chances that would wind up changing their fundamental approach to customer service. It started with figuring out how to measure customer experience. Sandy is someone I've been learning from for many years, and as usual, speaking with him was both inspiring and educational. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.  

John talks to Cheryl Clemons (LearnerLab, StoryTagger) and Steve Rayson (Kineo, Buzzsumo, Anders Pink) to get insights about how learning people can use marketing techniques to help engage learners. They also address the thorny question of whether and to what extent it makes sense for learning people to think like marketers.   TOPICS 01:25 Should you think like a marketer? 10:04 User-generated content (UGC) 13:40 Influencer marketing 16:46 Brand 24:50 Product design 28:24 AI 36:58 Evaluation   Steve mentions a tool called Satismeter used for collecting Net Promoter feedback - https://www.satismeter.com

Former GE executive Beth Comstock has a long and successful track record of finding stories within a company and using them to create strategies, build entrepreneurial teams and take imaginative risks. The author of the recent book Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change, Beth spent nearly three decades at GE. As vice chair of business innovation and, before that, chief marketing officer, she led efforts to accelerate new growth, develop digital and clean-energy initiatives, seed new businesses and build brand value. She was also part of GE's pioneering efforts to adopt Net Promoter® and learn how to use it as both a metric and as a vehicle for telling customer stories.

Like fitness or dieting, getting started with the Net Promoter System is easy in some ways. Executives are typically optimistic and excited about their fledgling program, riding the high of their early wins. And then something emerges and threatens that momentum. But like maintaining good health, the companies that stay the course learn to anticipate their customers' needs, allowing them to deepen relationships and deliver bigger financial results in the long term. That's what happened at CA Technologies. In this episode, I continue my conversation with Dayton Semerjian. He guided the enterprise software company through a Net Promoter journey that returned it to growth. In this episode, Dayton discusses the challenges he faced while bringing culture change to CA and how he overcame them.

CA Technologies' Dayton Semerjian joined me on the podcast in 2016 to discuss his approach to managing the enterprise software company's customer experience in a rapidly changing industry. At the time, the business-to-business service provider was deep in a Net Promoter journey that would ultimately rebuild its customer relationships and return it to growth. Fast forward two years and Dayton's efforts as general manager of global customer success and support not only surpassed senior leaders' expectations, they made CA an attractive acquisition target. In light of CA's success, I invited Dayton back on the podcast to reflect on his experience in the first of a two-part interview.

Follow-up calls offer an opportunity to hear real customers describe, in detail, the things that make them love your company, or not. And they can involve senior executives in learning what it's like to be an average customer or an average frontline employee—to get out of the mindset of “corporate” and into the world where customers interact with your company every day. In this episode, Rob Markey continues his conversation with Charlie Herrin, Comcast's chief customer experience officer, who has been leading Comcast's multiyear Net Promoter turnaround. He discusses some of the most important drivers of culture change there. 

Cable company executives know they have shaky relationships with many customers. In fact, most have been working to improve their customer experience. And one or two are taking truly radical steps to improve. Comcast, one of the biggest Internet providers in the US, is among those working hardest to earn more trust and loyalty from customers. In this episode, Rob Markey talks to Charlie Herrin, Comcast's chief customer experience officer. 

Rob Markey welcomes back Fernando Cadena, director of associate engagement at Elwood Staffing Services, which places 25,000 temporary employees at companies across the country. Fernando has been leading the firm's Net Promoter efforts, which began six years ago when he first sought feedback from the company's associates. He has since expanded the company's feedback efforts to its customers. Net Promoter feedback has helped Elwood Staffing improve its customer experience, increase employee retention and build better relationships with the companies it serves. 

Year Up has helped thousands of young adults leave minimum wage jobs and forge meaningful careers. Its one-year program has served almost 20,000 people since 2000, and the vast majority end up in roles at major companies or in college.   Delivering such strong results requires Year Up to balance the needs of its students, donors and the companies that provide critical support and internships. The organization has been using the Net Promoter System to gauge those relationships to ensure that everyone's needs are met.  Garrett Warfield, senior director of research and evaluation, and Research and Evaluation Manager Jess Britt say that feedback is simply part of Year Up's culture. In this episode, Rob Markey talks to Garrett and Jess about Net Promoter's role in achieving the organization's mission.      

Host Rob Markey talks to Celine Del Genes, vice president, concept to consumer, for Adidas Football. She oversees the sports apparel company's go-to-market strategy for soccer shoes and gear, managing key decisions about pricing, sales channels and marketing approaches. Celine is also a Net Promoter practitioner and uses the method to gauge customer reaction to company initiatives and product design. She recently brought together social marketing, agile decision-making and Net Promoter feedback in an innovative campaign to promote Adidas' Glitch soccer cleat. 

Dell has been collecting customer feedback since Michael Dell dropped out of college three decades ago and founded the company. It's part of the company's DNA. The computer maker began its Net Promoter journey a decade ago when it was trying to connect customer satisfaction with economic outcomes. Now the company has a robust Net Promoter System that informs major projects and innovations. In this episode, host Rob Markey catches up with Marc Stein, senior vice president of customer experience at Dell. Marc discusses how the company's comprehensive Net Promoter System has evolved since Dell merged with EMC in 2016.

Rob Markey welcomes Griff and Hunter Jaggard, the brothers behind the FireDisc, a portable propane cooking surface that has become required gear among outdoor enthusiasts. They launched their company in 2010 with a tractor plow disc and an idea inspired by their Texas childhoods, and they have been using Net Promoter to help guide their efforts.

How does a customer's country of origin affect the feedback they provide about service experiences? Are certain countries home to naturally tough critics? Do people in some countries view rating scales differently? Cultural differences play a role in Net Promoter feedback, but to a far lesser degree than many practitioners assume. The challenge is to separate cultural issues from real service problems. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will take on questions about cultural differences that Net Promoter System practitioners often encounter.  

Despite companies' best efforts to engage their teams, more than half of employees say they are uninspired and dissatisfied in their roles, according to Bain research. Only 19% of employees say they're inspired and satisfied—a huge opportunity for companies that learn to tap their teams' potential. We've spent the last several years studying companies' best engagement methods and distilling them into a simple approach that other companies could adopt to get their employees' best. We call it Net Promoter for People. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes Darci Darnell, who leads Bain's Customer Strategy and Marketing practice in the Americas and has played a critical role in developing this powerful system.

Building internal support for a fledgling Net Promoter System can be one of the biggest challenges of getting such an effort off the ground. It requires leaders to not only have a strong grasp of loyalty economics and the company's strategy, but the softer skills necessary to inspire and teach employees to do the right thing for customers. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will discuss how companies can rally their employees around their Net Promoter System efforts.

Begging customers for strong scores. Only seeking feedback from customers who had positive outcomes. Altering contact information to make dissatisfied customers hard to reach. When it comes to gaming the Net Promoter System, we've seen it all and one thing is always clear: When employees intentionally undermine a company's efforts to understand customers and improve service, everyone loses. In this episode, Rob Markey welcome back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, they discuss ways that companies can discourage employees from sabotaging their feedback efforts.

What if a company wants to adopt the Net Promoter System, but lacks the resources and time to fully implement each aspect of the framework? Is something better than nothing? In this episode, Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, the retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implementing the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will tackle this question and others submitted by members of the Net Promoter System Forum on LinkedIn, a group for Net Promoter practitioners that Maurice manages. The Net Promoter System continues to evolve and improve based on the experience of thousands of companies. Maurice and Rob reverse their roles in this episode, allowing Rob to share the latest thinking on critical Net Promoter issues, such as best practices for questions and tactics for collecting deeper feedback from business-to-business companies.  

Rob Markey discusses how he became a Net Promoter convert with Fred Reichheld, inventor of the Net Promoter Score.

Why does the Net Promoter scale go from zero to 10? Why is passive not the same as neutral? Rob Markey answers these questions and others in this episode.   Recommended reading:  The Benefits of a Competitive Benchmark Net Promoter Score Creating a Reliable Metric

In this short episode of the Net Promoter System Podcast, Rob Markey explains how a customer advocacy office, or CAO, can be a focal point for learning about—and improving—the customer experience. A customer advocacy office can serve as the project management office that coordinates product development, marketing and other functional groups in the organization to focus on the customer experience. Net Promoter provides the methodology and the tools; the CAO is the arm of management that puts the methods and tools to work. Learn more: The Essential Role of the Customer Advocacy Office

  A number rarely tells the whole story. That's why leading Net Promoter companies ask customers to discuss their experiences in their own words.   Bain Fellow Fred Reichheld returns to the podcast to talk about the shortcomings of multiple-choice surveys, the power of verbatim feedback and some common customer service myths.  

Some people have a knack for forming genuine human connections whether it's with customers, colleagues or employees. They have a gift for making people feel special. The ability to speak with authenticity and authority might come natural to some people, but it's a skill that can be learned, says Jordan Harbinger, cofounder of The Art of Charm, a program that teaches people how to improve their social skills. Why should this matter to Net Promoter companies? These skills are critical to delighting customers and engaging employees as Jordan explains in this episode.

It's a scenario that we routinely face: a company starts off using the Net Promoter System with great enthusiasm, gets a number of quick wins and then hits a wall. They inevitably ask themselves: "What are we doing wrong?" My colleague Aaron Cheris, one of the chief architects of Bain's Net Promoter System, gets this question a lot. So he helped craft an assessment tool that allows companies to measure their efforts in a straightforward and quantitative fashion. His premise was simple: find out what Net Promoter leaders are doing and work backward to understand why their results are so stellar. In this episode, Aaron discusses how companies use the assessment tool and what Net Promoter leaders do differently.

Maurice FitzGerald, the recently retired vice president of customer experience for the software business at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, has been happily married for more than 25 years. But one Valentine's Day, he had an epiphany about why some couples stay together for the long haul and others don't—and why that knowledge is so critical to improving an organization's customer experience. Maurice shares those insights and others from his Net Promoter experience at HP Enterprise in this episode.