We explore the intersection between customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX), and how companies are creating leaders and cultures that are maniacal about their customers.
Visit us on www.becustomerled.com
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We explore the intersection between customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX), and how companies are creating leaders and cultures that are maniacal about their customers.
Visit us on www.becustomerled.com
Marc Havercroft is the Global Chief Customer Officer at SAP SuccessFactors, and a force in the Human Experience Management space; he and his team are not only breaking all of the rules, they're defining new ones altogether.
Marc and I cover the launch of Human Experience Management (HXM) at SAP SuccessFactors, how HXM technology connects to the customer experience management (CXM) today, and how it will connect to CX and come together to shape the human experience in the future.
The speed of HXM and CXM is coming together quickly and will be here in the next year or so. And it's not for a lack of the technology existing, Marc believes it's about the market catching up to the technology and the use cases coming to life.
Marc envisions an ever increasing agile workforce and work structure, and a future where you can plug in to your company, your experience blockchain certified, and be productive on Day 1. Companies and their leaders need to be prepared for this and need to start changing now.
Finally, Marc has a memorable answer to the question of where he gets his inspiration from. Put simply, he's inspired by "rule breakers" - and is energized by individuals who believe the past doesn't define the future; it's the power of what you put in your mind that matters.
I was inspired by this conversation and am excited to see what SAP brings to market next.
Be Customer Led had the privilege of speaking with Antonia Hock, Global Head – The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center. If you're wondering how to set up and design your service experience and your service recovery experience, this is a must-listen-to show.
In this episode, Antonia and I cover:
This truly is an amazing conversation with an industry leader and service veteran. If you want immediate take-aways that you can apply to your practice within minutes of listening to the show, this one is for you!
Download the episode where ever you listen to pods, or here: linktr.ee/becustomerled
Grateful for Antonia and can't wait to visit the Ritz-Carlton in Bali soon!
It's not often you get to interview one of your heroes and an absolute legend in the customer experience space.
I have been a Shep Hyken apostle since I was in CX Diapers many moons ago. So much learning from Shep over the years, whether through his books, his social media content, and speaking engagements.
Shep talks about his journey to where he is today and what set him off to focus in this space.
Shep and I cover Moments of Truth, his "Truth Gap" and why employee engagement is critical in the overall equation of success.
We also cover how technology might be impacting our ability to stay close to the customer and where it's adding value.
Such a great episode and we are grateful for Shep's time with us!
Jill Raff is CEO and Founder of the Jill Raff Group. Jill focuses on helping companies deliver best-in-class employee experiences through her Inside-Out Framework™ EX to CX.
In this episode, Jill and I cover a lot of deep topics, including:
Great episode where we both also share a lot of personal stories that helped shape who we both are today.
Love this one!
Bill Schimikowski is the US Customer Experience Lead for Biogen, and a long-time leader in the customer experience space. Bill recently went to Biogen from Fidelity, and was in Financial Services his entire career before moving over to the BioTech.
Bill is one of those practical leaders that is so thoughtful in his approach it leaves you with, "Huh, why didn't I think of it that way?"
And this is one of those shows where we cover a lot of ground, including:
So much rich conversation and advice in this episode. So grateful to have someone of Bill's caliber on the show...a can't miss episode!
Anne Witherspoon is the Chief Client Experience Officer (CCXO) at Texas Capital Bank and one of the best leaders in this space I have had the good fortune to connect with.
Anne and I talk about her role at the Bank, the skills needed to be a successful CCXO vs. other roles she has held in financial services, and how her background in Operations makes her a better CX leader.
Anne shares insights and advice on how to influence culture from the CCXO seat, and where she feels the customer experience (CX) function, overall, is evolving toward.
Anne also shares her philosophy on metrics and why she's passionate about moving away from surveys as the primary mechanism for feedback.
Finally, Anne shares advice for other female CX practitioners who aspire to move up to a CCXO level role, and advice for allies on how to support female leadership in their organization.
I love this episode because of Anne's passion and commitment to CX as a discipline, her leadership, and her ability to describe and talk about her work in simple terms any CEO can relate to.
I'm grateful for Anne's time and highly recommend this show to any CX practitioner; but particularly to females working in, or looking to break into, customer experience.
Gary Magenta is a Senior Vice President at Root, Inc. where he helps some of the largest brands create differentiated experiences. I have known Gary for a number of years now, and I can honestly say, there isn't a person out there better than Gary in the CX & EX space.
In this episode we talk about his latest book, Blowing Up the Box: Disrupting the Customer Experience. What you will learn:
Gary and I talk about a number of brands in this episode, from Uber and Rent the Runway, to Kodak and Nintendo, and why they disrupt or were disrupted.
Finally, Gary shares his personal journey to where he is today and where he gets his inspiration from.
It was an honor to have Gary on the show. I consider Gary a mentor, and a guru in the truest sense of the word.
Is customer experience ALL we ever talk about? In B2C, definitely.
In B2B, strangely enough, it’s not something you hear that often. @Leahanne Hobson, founder and CEO of Alinea Partners, has a rare story on how B2B companies have a great opportunity to improve their processes and how people engage with their prospects.
In short, I am impressed by her and her company’s work; especially her Secret Shopper program, which covers a great deal of this episode, was just fascinating. By going through the client’s buying journey, Leahanne gives a raw and very rich view of the entire sales process.
The Secret Shopper program is a unique service in the B2B world and a very refreshing topic with inspiring insights you will all walk away smarter from. If you’re not already using secret shopper in your B2B business, I recommend you connect with Leahanne.
I think a lot of listeners will get inspired by Leahanne’s personal story as well. Starting her career in the US, she now works in Vienna with some of the biggest global IT organizations. Having lived in Zurich myself for 3 years, our conversation brought up some great European memories.
Get access to this and all other episodes at: https://linktr.ee/becustomerled.
The CX Allstars include Hollis Roberts, Jill Raff, James Dodkins, and Dennis Wakabayashi. They have created a new training platform to help you and your company navigate the EX to CX journey for your organization, getting everyone on the same page. The course helps you open up your aperture and gives you tactics to improve the employee and customer experience, and ensure it's aligned with your brand.
Hollis Roberts focuses on how you can show up every day to understand who you are, the value you can create, and how you contribute to the success of the broader team and company. For new leaders, Hollis shares wisdom on how to take yourself on as your first project vs. a project to fix the customer experience, and define "the experience of you."
If Hollis helps you on "how to lead ourselves," Jill Raff focuses on "how we lead others" and create employee engagement that creates employee lifetime value. From the staffroom to the boardroom, Jill helps gives you the tools to make people feel recognized and heard so they can translate their work into meaningful customer experiences.
James Dodkins portion of the training platform is about showing you the principles and the mindsets that create ideal customer experiences. You don't have to "wow" your customer at each turn, but you do need to deliver a consistently positive experience, and James will help you do that.
Finally, Dennis closes out the show and his focus is on the known and unknown customer, bringing together data and touch points to create customer lifetime value. Dennis shares his expertise on how to think about the recency, frequency & size of the purchase, and how to align EX and CX closer to your brand to create value.
A star-studded show with four leaders in the EX and CX space, bringing together their decades of experience into one platform to help you accelerate your career.
Stay tuned for more details from Hollis, Jill, James and Dennis!
Sandra Thompson is the Co-Founder of RISE Emotional Intelligence (EI) and we had an absolute amazing conversation around EI, Empathy, and specific tactics leaders can take to better engage with people around them. A sample of things we covered include:
Sandra also asks me great questions where I feel like I was on the virtual chez lounge. Such a great conversation, and timely given many are still feeling the impact of 2020.
Tabitha Dunn is the Chief Customer Officer at Ericsson, leading Customer Experience and Global Sales Excellence. Tabitha is a leader in the CX space with leadership roles at Philips Medical Systems, Citrix and SAP more recently.
Tabitha gives an expert's view on:
Too many insights to list here, but no doubt an amazing show you will walk away smarter from and ready to tackle some of the challenges you might be facing in your role.
Truly an honor to have someone of Tabitha's caliber on the show!
Did you know that about 60% of podcasters haven't published a show in the last 90 days?
Melanie Colling is a speaker, author and podcast host of Business Connections. Melanie is also the co-founder of Experts on Air, helps podcasters build their brand, share and re-purpose their content. Pretty cool company.
Melanie is an expert in collaboration and we spend time talking about how to improve collaboration so that all parties succeed, including the customer, and the importance of it if you're running your own business; don't look at others as competitors, look at them as collaborators!
We also talk about how to ask for help if you're running your own business, and, not surprisingly, it starts with understanding your value first. and knowing what you're looking for.
We wrapped up the conversation talking about podcasting and its importance as a medium to gain insight into different topics, but also to develop your own brand; it's better than blogging or book writing as it's a less crowded space.
[Note: Be Customer Led is not a client of Experts on Air]
What's better than one thought leader on your show? How about having two join you!
Ann Cosfol is the Founder of Design Mind Consulting and Betsy Westhafer is the CEO and Founder of The Congruity Group. They partner to leverage their company's expertise in understanding customer needs more deeply and then defining strategy and design around those needs.
We cover a lot of ground on this show, with a particular emphasis on B2B and the role of customer experience. Specific topics include:
Great show with two industry pros delivering amazing value to the CX community and the companies they work with every day.
Find out more on Ann: acosfol_AT_designmindconsulting_DOT_com, or Design Mind Consulting
Find out more on Betsy: betsy_AT_thecongruitygroup_DOT_com, or The Congruity Group. Betsy also has a podcast called Really Know Your Customer with her partner Tony Bodoh, which is great so check it out!
Luke Williams is an award-winning CX practitioner, researcher, speaker, author, and thought leader at Qualtrics. I read Luke's book, The Wallet Allocation Rule about five years ago, and it fundamentally changed the way I thought about Customer Experience.
Luke is not only a deep well of CX insight, but he shares so much on this show. You also get the sense that he's so deep on this subject, he shared a small fraction of his knowledge in the 50+ minutes we talked.
If you are looking to completely re-think your approach to CX, starting new in the game, or wondering where it is headed in the next few years, this show is for you.
Too much to cover in the show notes. Go. And. Listen. Now.
Stephanie is an amazing leader and is not only leading Customer Experience Management at Teleperformance, but also an amazing human being who focuses a lot on supporting women in leadership.
Stephanie and I talk about:
There's a ton more here, including what our respective secret talents are. Had so much fun here, and it was a pleasure having Stephanie on the show.
Mary Poppen, Chief Customer Officer for Glint at LinkedIn talks about how she is bringing together customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) in her role leading everything post-Sales at Glint.
We talk about the value being created by Glint's technology, and the opportunity of bringing together their platform with the power of LinkedIn and ultimately Microsoft who also owns Workplace Analytics.
Mary and I talk through incredibly important topics including employee engagement surveys, what companies are getting right about employee engagement and, perhaps, what they're not doing as well as they could be.
We also discuss who should own EX in the company and her framework for bringing together CX and EX at Glint; it's a super simple model that uses data you likely already track in your organization.
A must listen to episode with a ton of insights that you can start implementing tomorrow!
Mike Soldan is the Chief Experience Officer at Shmoop, leading Engineering, Product and Content; this is a very new and different way to create the CXO platform, and it's a game changer.
Mike and I talk about how he organizes his team to deliver value for customers and employees, and is taking a human-centered-design approach at Schmoop creating quality products for students and schools across the country. We also talk about the connectivity of CX and Agile teams, and the importance of integration.
Shmoop is an EdTech company, so Mike and I also cover how the industry has been impacted due to COVID, and how it is changing the education landscape forever. A lot more in this insight-packed episode that can't be missed. It's one of my favorite shows.
Such an all-star CXO and an amazing conversation that will no doubt leave you with a bunch of take-aways as you think about customer experience and driving change in 2021!
Gil Cohen is the founder of Employee Experience Design, a company dedicated to helping businesses evolve their people practices to improve both human and organizational outcomes.
Gil and I talk about his journey to starting his own company, the impact of COVID on how companies are now re-thinking their people strategy, and how to nurture corporate culture through a remote work setting.
We also get into employee engagement, how you should think about measuring it, and how employee experience impacts the customer experience.
Gil is one of the few leaders dedicated to Employee Experience, and it's an amazing show with ideas you can start putting into practice today!
Check out Gil's company at employeeexperience.ca
Ryanne Laredo is the Chief Customer Officer at Amobee and is a force to be reckoned with. Few leaders get it right like Ryanne.
This is one of those episodes you tune into and can actually feel yourself growing professionally while listening!
Ryanne and I talk about her journey, how she's bringing together customer experience and employee experience, the importance of listening, OKRs, and how to start - the work is hard, but starting is easy.
Ryanne also talks about her experience as a founding member of Chief, advice for other female leaders out there, and advice for allies investing in female leadership.
I was blown away by our conversation and Ryanne - she. is. fire.
Julie Roehm led Marketing / Marketing Comms at amazingly large brands including Ford, Chrysler (yes, she helped bring the HEMI to market), Walmart, was the Chief Story Teller at SAP (that's a pretty cool title!), and is a contributor to Fox Business Network
Julie is now the Chief Marketing & Experience Officer at Party City, a publicly traded company with hundreds of retail locations across the United States and Canada where you can find the perfect costume, party theme, or inspiration for your next party. If you live in the U.S. and have had an adult or kids party, there's a good chance you've been to Party City or ordered from them online.
Julie and I have a great conversation around Marketing, Customer Experience, and B2B vs. B2C. Julie also shares her amazing journey across multiple industries, including starting her own podcast the The Conversational (https://tinyurl.com/y4p3d38g) where she started #hoshimo talking to industry leaders who had their Holy Sh!$ Moment experience that got them to push ahead personally and/or professionally. This is def a podcast to subscribe to.
Mike Kuenne is the Chief Customer Experience Officer (CXO) for Extended Stay America, a leader in the hospitality space. Mike is not only bringing together Customer Experience and Employee Experience at Extended Stay, and that permeates our conversation, but we also talk about relevant topics, including:
It's a great conversation full of actionable insight. Mike's Operations and Technology background, including across industry, is helping him and his team create meaningful change for their customers and guests.
Alex Allwood is the Director, Customer Strategy and Experience at All Work Together, a business consultancy specializing in customer experience (CX) research, strategy and design; their mission is empowering leaders to make their customers’ lives better. Alex is also the author of Customer Empathy and Customer Experience is the Brand.
Alex and I talk about CX Strategy, Governance, and the importance of elevating CX to the executive leadership team. We also discussed why CX leaders and practitioners need empathy training, how to train for empathy at scale, and the empathy scorecard, which is free!
Finally, Alex and I talk about the importance of journeys, embedding emotion in them for optimal impact, and where some of the journey analytics platforms out there are missing it.
It's a packed show full of Alex's insights end-to-end!
Jessica Noble started Magnetic Experiences over three years ago to help small and mid-sized businesses improve operationally and deliver best-in-class customer experiences. Jessica and I talk about:
1:48 Her journey to where she is today leading her own small business
6:50 Why she started Magnetic Experiences
9:58 Her definition of Customer Experience in practice; Jessica also throws the question back at me!
13:13 Why we need to get rid of all the CX jargon and what we need to use instead
19:18 The importance of governance in a CX practice to support the work
21:33 Why CX is plateauing or failing in some pockets; I provide my own view here too
24:17 Jessica's approach to working with clients and why building confidence with wins is so important
25:39 We talk about her book The Five Customer Experience Mistakes (You Don't Know You're Making) That Are Causing Profit Erosion and why she decided to write
27:45 We discuss my personal favorite mistake from the book: Relying On Heroes to Deliver Great Experiences
37:05 Where and why CX teams and businesses are struggling in solutioning and how to fix that
44:12 What's next for Jessica Noble; she is working on a new approach that guarantees 10X results (what?!!?) and a new Business Case/ROI model
49:16 We close out with where Jessica gets her insipiration from
An amazing conversation with Duena Blomstrom who is an "Agile Anthropologist" and a unique thought leader - a class on her own really - in the Agile and Psychological Safety space. Duena and I cover a lot of topics, and this is the first where I am including time stamps in the show notes. See below for more:
02:30 - Duena outlines her journey, including writing her book and starting her own business
08:43 - Developing culture and if employee and customer experience shoud be a discipline vs. a leadership topic
11:55 - Why the speed of Agile makes it difficult to include CX, and why you need to make the space for EX and CX
16:55 - How Agile leaders are creating the space for EX & CX and are focusing on psychological safety with intent and building this into the Agile process
19:25 - Duena outlines the building blocks of psychological safety
26:20 - Duena and I talk about the genesis for getting her on the show, and her perspective on why CX & Agile are the same discipline
31:25 - Why bringing Agile, CX and EX together isn't easy and the reason we have so much "Human Debt"
33:40 - Why some Agile teams don't have OKRs, or ones that are meaningful, leading to failure
38:15 - Hear about where Duena gets her inspiration from
39:53 - If you want to find out more about Duena and her company, skip to this part of the show!
In this episode of Be Customer Led, we interviewed Ben Eubanks who is one of the most interesting people I've ever met.
Ben has focused his career on thought leadership around human capital management and helping companies and vendors with strategy, content, and more.
Ben and I talk about some very important topics all companies are facing right now, including: the importance of communication points in nurturing culture, how to maintain and develop a corporate culture in a remote or hybrid work environment, the importance of psychological safety and cognitive friction, the HR tech stack and cutting-edge tech available now that will blow your mind, using analytics to improve the employee experience, and how to change culture.
This is such an important conversation given the systemic change COVID is having on every company, and how so many are thinking about a productive and positive path back to a post-COVID workplace.
You can find Ben and the content he publishes in a number of areas, and I suggest you hit him up on LinkedIn too:
Ben's Book AI for HR - https://tinyurl.com/y5rr8g9c
Chris Collins is the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) for Ellucian, a company that develops solutions that power the essential work of colleges and universities. The CCO role is different relative to many others out there, as Chris owns all of Delivery, so everything post sales; the model is fascinating and could be the blueprint for other companies looking to create a similar role.
Chris has significant background in technology, operations, services and all from a customer lens; so you will hear him talk about the evolution of customer experience (CX) and its impact on a business, core competencies needed to deliver against a customer agenda, the impact COVID has had on industry, and more specifics around his role and how that is different relative to other CCOs out there.
We also talk culture change from the customer perspective and how CCOs can influence the transformation.
Chris shares so much practical, real-world experience. He is an amazing leader and role model we can all learn from.
Aarthi is a long-time friend and we had an amazing conversation - she is such a breath of fresh air in the customer experience (CX) space; she is practical, strategic, and knows how to connect CX to business results. This is a monster of a show and we cover a ton of topics. It's a longer one than usual, but you're going to learn from Aarthi throughout the entire conversation.
Aarthi and I talk about her journey to being a CX leader, from her youth being curious about people and their backgrounds, to becoming a Chief Customer Experience Officer (CXO); her view on how CXOs can bring an organization together toward a common purpose; the core tenets of CX; the evolution of CX and the impact COVID has had on her team at M&T Bank; her job as a CXO and what it takes to excel in the role; and the role technology plays in CX.
Aarthi and I also talk about the connection of CX with Employee Experience, and she provides thoughtful, amazing advice for other female professionals, including other women of color, and how that translates into the CX context.
I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I have. I was so impressed that I opened an account with M&T Bank!
Our latest episode where we talked to Wayne Simmons. Wayne is the Principal Owner of Opptiv, LLC - The Service Excellence Company and former Global Head of Delivery for The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center (so, yeah, he knows a thing or two about customer experience and employee experience.
We talk about some heavy topics, including: what differentiates leaders in the CX and EX space, how to develop corporate culture at your company that is focused on your customer, and how CX teams should be thinking about Diversity & Inclusion, to name a few.
Wayne is a friend, an incredible leader, and an absolute class act. If you're not familiar with Wayne or Opptiv, I can guarantee you'll be smarter after spending time listening to Wayne on this episode.
The latest episode of Be Customer Led, where we interview Tom DeWitt, Ph.D. and talk about a master's program he is looking to create at Michigan State University! This program would be the first of its kind in the United States and one of only a few programs offered globally today.
I am so excited about the work Tom is leading for #CX leaders and practitioners, and I think it's going to fundamentally change the #cxtransformation game.
Tom and I get into the details of the curriculum he is pulling together and how the program can have direct impact on an individual's or a team's success immediately.
In this episode we interview Stacy Sherman who is the Director of Customer Experience & Employee Engagement for Schindler Elevator Corp. Stacy is CX Certified, a mentor, author of two books, speaker and blogger on all-things CX.
On this episode, we talk about a ton of different and important topics, including: what got her into the CX game to begin with and how two "wow" moments transformed her professional career from Marketing into CX; the key attributes that can differentiate CX leaders, CX measurement, where the CX function should sit in the org, and what inspires her.
We also talk about our shared love of Shep Hyken. The audio cut out for a min at 48:18, but Stacy shared a personal story about her interaction with Shep.
Visit Stacy‘s website and see all of the wonderful work she is leading - www.DoingCXRight.com
Interview with Brian Powers, Chief Customer Experience Officer (CXO) at Brightstar Device Protection, LLC. We cover a range of critical topics, including how CX has changed over the years, the core tenets of customer experience, impact of COVID on customer experience as a practice, what it takes to become a CXO, and technology being used by Brightstar as part of their CX practices.
We also cover "non-gameable" metrics to measure CX performance and how to connect CX metrics with financial metrics. Two critical topics in the customer experience space right now.
Brian Powers is an amazing CX leader and I'm sure you will learn a ton from this episode - whether you're new to the CX space or have been deep in it for +20 years like me...I know I learned a lot from Brian and have even stolen a few ideas!
Laurie Ruettimann is a true bada$$, host of the podcast Punk Rock HR, writer, author and consultant. We talk about employee experience, how to engage employees in a post-COVID world, and why the "culture" is a lie we tell ourselves.
Jason "JW" Womack talks about building and creating margin in your life to be better every day, the importance of leadership, why reflection is a critical life skill, and creating momentum personally and professionally.
Jamming with the CX Rockstar, the one and only, James Dodkins. We got deep: his journey to CX Rockstar...stardom; why CX is failing as a practice, importance of contact centers and making sure we're treating agents like humans, and the meaning behind acronyms you can't afford to miss - PXR and VACWIRE.
James also talks about the book he never published, but absolutely has to!
Conversation with Seth Grimes, President and Principal Consultant at Alta Plana (www.altaplana.com). Seth talked to us about text and sentiment analysis, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, conversational AI within the Customer Experience Space. We talk about how these analytical capabilities are being used today, and what's next for how these analytics will evolve.
Seth also runs a global event called CX Emotion, taking place on July 22nd. You can register for the event at www.cx-emotion.com. Be Customer Led listeners can use the code: SPEAKER for 20% off of the registration price.