The Customer Experience Podcast

Latest Episodes:

93. 3 Best Practices of a Great Community Builder w/ Joe Huber Sep 01, 2020

Show notes

To be a good community builder, you have to leverage strategy. Building a community gives businesses and organizations not only a thriving group of customer advocates but also a space to listen to and test out new ideas about the service or product.

But there's an art to taking the customer experience from 'I have a problem' to 'I am now an advocate of this platform.'

In this episode, I interview Joe Huber, Customer Community Strategist at Sprout Social, about 3 best practices of a great community builder.

What we talked about:

- The relationship between customer experience & community

- Practice 1: Build thriving spaces where people ask questions about the product with one another

- Practice 2: Leverage the spaces to test out new content ideas & themes

- Practice 3: Layer community members' public feedback into the product design

- Bonus: Common problems in client community building

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

- Joe is a fellow podcast host at the Chicago Customer Success Podcast

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

92. What's Next for Restaurants & Offices w/ Alex Grace Aug 25, 2020

Show notes

What's a ghost kitchen & why will we be seeing more of them in the next 12 months?

Among the industries that have adapted the most during the pandemic are restaurants and commercial real estate owners (and in a fight, restaurants would win). We have much to learn about CX from their innovations.

In this episode, I interview Alex Grace, Head of Market Sales and Operations at Fooda, about adaptability and innovation in restaurants.

We talked about:

- The impact of safety restrictions on restaurants & corporate offices

- What a ghost kitchen is

- New dining trends & customer behaviors

- What restaurants can do now to meet customer expectations for adaptability

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Play, and find more episodes on our blog.

91. Align & Engage for Enterprise Sales Success w/ Nema Hashemi Aug 18, 2020

Show notes

Engagement is the moment when customers and prospects interact with the brand. From that moment on, the reality of being that brand's customer becomes the customer experience.

Without effective engagement, there is no customer experience.

In this episode, I interview Nema Hashemi, Director of Sales at Contentstack, about creating engagement between customers and brand and alignment between content and code.

What we talked about:

- The relationship between customer experience & engagement

- What, exactly, is headless CMS?

- How sales is involved in customer success, aka internal alignment

- The present need to move as fast as possible on content

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

90. Why Transparency Sells Better Than Perfection w/ Todd Caponi Aug 11, 2020

Show notes

Buyers barely even read the product description anymore. 96% of us scroll right to the reviews because we want to predict what our buying experience will be like.

The last thing we want is for an organization to over promise and under deliver. We long for transparency.

In this episode, I interview Todd Caponi, Founder at Sales Melon and author of The Transparency Sale, about why transparency sells better than 5.0 ratings.

What we talked about:

- How leading with your flaws appeals to the buyer's brain

- Sales theory from the 1920s… still valid?

- Why buyers spend 61% of their time investigating your claims

- Personalization & value will help your communication stand out

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

89. The 4 Stages of Video Adoption w/ Ethan Beute Aug 06, 2020

Show notes

You already believe that sending video messages is one of the most successful ways to make you and your team members more visible to customers. But you're a little iffy on exactly how to adopt video messages into your organization successfully.

I'm Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share what I've learned about video messaging adoption from years with the BombBomb team.

What you'll learn about:

- The 4 stages of video adoption & their essential questions

- How to overcome the discomfort of seeing yourself on video

- Things people say when they've adopted video successfully

- What it looks like in your organization when sending videos is normalized behavior

Check out these resources I mentioned during the podcast:

- I wrote The Video Messaging Adoption Guide

- I co-wrote Rehumanize Your Business

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

88. Talking CX and EX with Sendoso's Chief Customer Officer w/ Alli Tiscornia Aug 04, 2020

Show notes

Not everyone knows exactly what a Chief Customer Officer does. Even fewer realize that their role is to create delight at every point in the customer experience journey.

In this episode, I interview Alli Tiscornia, Chief Customer Officer at Sendoso, about her relentless focus on customer experience.

What we talked about:

- Defining the Chief Customer Officer role & where they report

- Retention and expansion as a more powerful and less expensive source of revenue growth than acquisition

- Improving the employee experience and customer experience by being a partner, rather than a vendor

- Turning employees and customers into marketers

- Inviting your customers to your all-hands employee meetings

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

87. Staying Human-First In Your Sales Process w/ Tori Belkin Jul 28, 2020

Show notes

People buy from people they like, people they feel an emotional connection with.

But when our sales strategy is to launch directly into the pitch in the first conversation, we get feedback that our company is "too salesy."

The flip side of that is a sales experience focused on human connection.

In this episode, I interview Tori Belkin, Senior Director of Sales and Sales Enablement at Ceros, about a human-first sales approach:

What we talked about:

What experiential content is & its role in sales

Taking a feelings-based approach to the customer experience

Why she hires reps based on the airport test

The importance of conversation & connection before the sales pitch

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Tori gave Simon Berg a shout-out as an inspiring leader

Guru's customer success team is unparalleled

Tori's LinkedIn

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

86. Hiring for Soft Skills, Training for Tech Skills w/ Richard Myers Jul 21, 2020

Show notes

When your tech-oriented customer base is growing faster than you can hire your customer support staff, you have a big CX problem.

Obviously, the solution is to create an internal training program from scratch, right?

In this episode, I interview Richard Myers, Vice President of Customer Support & Success at Linode, about developing his CS training team.

What we talked about:

- The integral part that CS plays in customer experience

- Ricks' decision to create a internal training program from scratch

- The 72-day onboarding process for new hires

- How Linode's core values equip CS to problem solve for customers

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- Rick's post on "Why You Need a Support Training Team"

- Rick's shoutout to Steve Clemens

- B&H Photo Video is a place doing customer experience excellently

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

85. How To Successfully Pivot To A Virtual Event w/ Corey McCarthy Jul 14, 2020

Show notes

64% of all event planners have never done a virtual or hybrid event before. About 60% of attendees have never been to a virtual or hybrid event. Those numbers are from just a few weeks ago.

How can we know what makes a great virtual event so that we can host one?

In this episode, I interview Corey McCarthy, the CMO at Socio, about how to host great virtual events.

What we talked about:

- What it took Socio to pivot itself and its clients to virtual and hybrid events

- The characteristics of a great virtual event (including why you need an emcee)

- Marketing insights for rethinking the customer journey during a pandemic

- Creating communities, even virtual ones, increases brand loyalty and creates evangelists

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- Socio.events

- Corey on LinkedIn

- Steve Axel on LinkedIn

- Who Gives a Crap

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

84. 10 Rules for Building a Category & Community w/ Sangram Vajre Jul 07, 2020

Show notes

We all want to belong to a tribe. The greatest way to grow your business is not to build your brand or throw events — it's to grow a community around the solution to a problem.

In this episode, I interview Sangram Vajre, Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder at Terminus, about how he created the category of and community around account-based marketing (ABM).

We cover:

- A lightning round discussion of the 10 rules of category creation

- What unbranding really means (& how to do it)

- The reasons to promote people, not products

- How Sangram's goal to educate about a problem created a movement

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- ABM is B2B, Sangram's most recent book

- The #FlipMyFunnel movement that Sangram originated

- The #FlipMyFunnel Podcast, well into its 600th episode

Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

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