The Trusted Guide Podcast with Mark Slatin

Latest Episodes:

#7: Delivering Happiness 2.0 with Alex Genov, Head of Customer Research at Zappos Oct 20, 2022

Show notes

Delivering Happiness 2.0 - Behind the Scenes Look at Zappos with Head of Customer Research, Alex Genov

In 2009, Amazon bought a start up shoe company that broke the mold by selling entirely over the internet .

It differentiated solely on customer service. The legendary stories of their obsession with #DeliveringHappiness (CEO Tony Hsieh's bestseller) shifted paradigms.

Amazon paid for $2.1billion for Zappos.

Zappos is very much thriving today and poised for the next stage of its adventure.

Join us for a fascinating peek into the world of innovation and "meaningful culture" in this episode with speaker, author, PhD, and wicked smart...

Alex Genov, Head of Customer Experience Research, as he shares: - Reflections of working with the legendary CEO, the late Tony Hsieh .- Developing a culture of meaning. -Zappos' scrappy beginnings and how that translated to results down the road - The shift that's Zappos is undergoing right now from customer. service excellence to customer experience excellence - Zappos adaptive, which underscores Zappos is commitment to diversity and inclusion. - His new book called, Forget the Customer, See the Person.

All that and a sneak preview into a little standup comedy from Alex, which should be a lot of fun. : )

Meet Alex

Alex Genov, Head of Customer Experience Research, Zappos.com

Alex is an experienced customer research professional who applies his Experimental Social Psychology background and his passion for research, design, and innovation to solving important customer and business problems. His professional goal is to help teams create remarkable products and services which make people's lives easier and more enjoyable.

Currently Alex is leading Customer Research for the Zappos Family of Companies. In previous positions, he was responsible for research and usability of the products and services for companies like TurboTax (Intuit), State Farm Insurance, and the Active Network. Alex has a PhD in Experimental Social Psychology and over 25 years of relevant experience – 5 years of academic research and over 20 years of customer research in the software industry.

Alex's areas of expertise include: defining and measuring emotions, the psychology of individual differences, usability, market research and consumer segmentation, customer experience research and strategy.

Here's a link to his new book:

Forget the Customer, See the Person: A business guide to deeper customer empathy in uncertain times and beyond

https://www.amazon.com/Forget-Customer-See-Person-uncertain/dp/B0B14MBQRZ

Contact me if:

You have feedback you'd like to share about the podcast
You would like to be a guest on the show
You would like to book me on your show

Email me at mark@empoweredcx.com

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

#6: Gaining Executive Support & CXPA Benefits with Board Chair Nancy Porte Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

In celebration of CX Week this episode features Nancy Porte, Chair, Board of Directors, CXPA.

Nancy discusses 3 important topics:

1. Why gaining the support of executives is critical and how you might go about achieving that.

2. Why CX professionals and those considering the profession might want to join the Customer Experience Professionals Association.

3. On a more personal note - Nancy shares her work in support of disadvantaged children and teens where she serves on the Board of the Children's Village. She also talks about how she applies customer experience principles to help operationalize CX. Meet Nancy Nancy is an Executive leader experienced in building corporate revenue through a loyal and reference-able customer base. Expert in developing Voice of the Customer programs, transforming organizations and increasing satisfaction and loyalty through differentiated customer experience. Experience in Board of Director membership and leadership including professional association and community organizations. Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP). Nancy is the immediate past-Chair of CXPA.

Contact me if:

You have feedback you'd like to share about the podcast
You would like to be a guest on the show
You would like to book me on your show

Email me at mark@empoweredcx.com

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

#5: Designing Digital Transformation to Improve CX with HP's Jaya Sudarshan Sep 29, 2022

Show notes

The race to digital transformation was accelerated by the pandemic. Many organizations have invested time and money and have little to show for it. Jaya Sudarshan shares the secret to blending the right combination of digital improvements to an improved customer experience.

She also emphasizes the importance of designing experiences with an awareness of different country cultures. From the difference in dust levels, electricity portals, and personal applications, she shares how experience design plays out at HP.

Jaya also shares her mountaintop moments and pothole realities that help appreciate the journey of delivering outstanding experiences consistently.

Meet Jaya

Jaya currently leads customer experience initiatives for the CS F&C organization across Greater Asia and India. She has been with the HP family (HP/HPE/HPI) throughout her 18 year old career.

She serves as a Board member for the Global Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) - a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and cultivation of the Customer Experience profession. A passionate Inclusion & Diversity advocate, she has holds office as the communication chair for the global CS F&C DEI council. As a certified #IamRemarkable facilitator, she furthers her volunteering efforts towards building a better, inclusive world. During her free time she enjoys travel, food and books!

Jaya can be reached by email at jayalakshmi.sudarshan@hp.com .

Contact me if:

You have feedback you'd like to share about the podcast
You would like to be a guest on the show
You would like to book me on your show

Email me at mark@empoweredcx.com

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

#4: Building Trust with Key Stakeholders - Author Charles H. Green Sep 22, 2022

Show notes

Trust.

Isn't that one of those soft, touchy-feely words?

In today's word of digital transformation, isn't people skills so...yesterday?

From someone who walked the walk as a CX practitioner, one of the most critical skills is the ability to influence - without positional power.

The ability to build trust with key stakeholders is a golden asset for any business leader but it's essential for a CX or EX leader!

How Do You Build Trust with Key Stakeholders?

My guest on this episode of the Delighted Customers Podcast, Charlie Green, knows a thing or two about building trust - he should, he wrote the book on it.

Here are just a few of the benefits that trusted advisors enjoy. CX Leaders can expect their key stakeholders will:

1. Reach for your advise 2. Be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations 3. Bring you in on more advanced, complex, strategic issues 4. Share more information that helps you help them

Meet Charlie

Charles H. Green is an author, speaker and world expert on trust-based relationships and sales in complex businesses.

Founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates, he is the author of Trust-based Selling, and co-author of The Trusted Advisor and the Trusted Advisor Fieldbook. He has worked with a wide range of industries and functions globally. Charles works with complex organizations to improve trust in sales, internal trust between organizations, and trusted advisor relationships with external clients and customers.

Charles spent 20 years in management consulting. He majored in philosophy (Columbia), and has an MBA (Harvard).

A widely sought-after speaker, he has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Directorship Magazine, Management Consulting News, CPA Journal, American Lawyer, Investments

Contact me if:

You have feedback you'd like to share about the podcast
You would like to be a guest on the show
You would like to book me on your show

Email me at mark@empoweredcx.com

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

#3: Engaging Employees for Outstanding Customer Experiences with Stacey Nevel, CCXP Sep 08, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, my guest Stacey Nevel gives practical tips on how to engage employees and avoid some of the most common mistakes that negatively impact employee engagement.

Have a clear purpose and align your team to that mission is the first step. She provides illustrations of how to do that and steps that winning organizations take to ensure congruence between corporate strategy and how it's lived in the organization's culture.

Ultimately, engaged employees drive customer loyalty, retention, profitability, forgiveness, and referrals.

She also shares an interesting story about how linemen in a utility company were out of alignment with that mission and how that impacted the impact on their clients.

Join us for some fresh perspectives from the Vice President of Voice of the Customer at the rock, Prudential Financial.

Meet Stacey

Stacey is a seasoned Customer Experience (CX) professional with over 25 years of experience designing and managing customer and employee feedback programs. She has a background in CX feedback measurement and management within client-side financial services and insurance companies as well as vendor-side CX technology and consulting providers. Throughout her career she has sought to better understand and share the linkages between VOC, VOE and operational metrics to positively impact the customer experience, customer loyalty and product usability. Stacey holds a B.S.B.A. in Marketing from Georgetown University as well as CCXP, CEM and NPS® industry certifications.

CURRENT ROLE

Currently, Stacey is serving as the Vice President, Voice of the Customer, where she oversees the strategy, methodology and competitive benchmarking of the US VOC program while also service as a senior relationship lead for 3 key business units. Since joining Prudential she has worked to develop a comprehensive Voice of the Customer (VoC) research strategy that supports a continuous cycle of listening, analyzing, action planning and monitoring, partner with Customer Experience (CX) leaders and teams on the design, measurement framework, analysis, synthetization and socialization of customer and evangelize the importance of democratizing customer feedback data to enable timely close loop processes and targeted employee training that drives customer-centricity. In addition to her role at Prudential, Stacey also serves on the board of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) and as chair of the CCXP Advisory Committee.

BEFORE PRUDENTIAL

Prior to joining Prudential Stacey was the Director, CX Consulting for Confirmit Inc., where she grew the Confirmit CX practice through thought leadership and strategic consulting to scope, design and sell customer experience feedback programs to prospective and current North American clients. In 2017 alone, she participated in over 15 speaking opportunities spanning broad CX and industry specific events. She also authored Confirmit's internal methodology document and co-authored their CX maturity model, client onboarding process, and empathy and customer-journey mapping processes. Prior to Confirmit, Stacey has accumulated a wealth of CX and VOC knowledge from her experiences with major platform providers and agencies, including Allegiance, Satmetrix, Vovici, and CustomerSat.

FIRST CAREER ROLE

Citibank, N.A., Manager, Client Satisfaction and Support. Stacey managed the monthly survey and mystery shopping programs for the New York retail bank market for five years. She was the recipient of the Service Excellenc

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

#2: Design Thinking with Diane Magers, CCXP Sep 01, 2022

Show notes

Customer friction can lead to customer defection. Often, companies attempt to fix their customer's pain with a short term solution. Diane defines design thinking and why it's a different approach that starts with putting your customer in the center.

She also shares what led her from a career as a clinical psychologist, supporting those dealing with death and dying, into the world of customer experience management.

What caused her to career to change trajectories may surprise you.

Meet Diane Diane Magers, CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional), MS, MBA

She's the Founder and CEO of Experience Catalysts.

Passionate experience transformation executive and change agent. Sherpa for new and developing experience-obsessed organizations. Thought leader and innovator for engaging associates, customers, and partners. Believes sustainable change requires embedding customer and experience capabilities into all parts of an organization.

Skilled in creating Experience Management business value and systematically changing organizations to align around experience and drive financial impact. She specializes in enabling brands with skills and competencies like design thinking, journey management, and value mapping to drive sustainable shifts in how organizations work to achieve results. Over 25 years of transforming experiences working in and with brands such as Sysco, AT&T, State Farm, Dale Carnegie, CommScope, Invisalign, Ciena, Freeman, Cisco, and Sodexho.

Diane is the Emeritus Board Chair and recent CEO for the Customer Experience Professionals Association, speaks and conducts workshops all over the world to help transform Experience Management strategy into action. She has a very unique background…earned an MS in Clinical Psychology and an MBA. She is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and holds certifications in Voice of Customer, Customer Experience Management, Net Promoter Score, and CX Design, and Innovation LUMA certified.

Contact me if:

You have feedback you'd like to share about the podcast
You would like to be a guest on the show
You would like to book me on your show

Email me at mark@empoweredcx.com

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

#1: From Impressed to Obsessed - Author Jon Picoult Aug 25, 2022

Show notes

Jon shares gems from his new book: From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers an Employees Into Lifelong Fans. Excellence is never an accident. Jon brilliantly pulls the curtain back on proven methods to fundamentally change the way you think about creating a successful, beloved business.

Jon Picoult shared practical and proven principles from his new book From Impressed to Obsessed in this episode. We talk about real world challenges for CX leaders and what cognitive science implies about where organizations go wrong and what leaders can do about it.

Meet Jon

Jon Picoult helps companies impress their customers and inspire their employees, creating "raving fans" that drive business growth. He is the founder of Watermark Consulting and a noted authority on customer and employee experience. A sought-after business advisor and public speaker, Jon's insights have been featured by dozens of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and Forbes.com (where he is a regular contributor). His landmark study on the ROI of customer experience is one of the most widely cited pieces of research in the industry, referenced by firms such as McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture, Forrester, SAP, and Oracle. Jon is also the author of the new book, "From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans" (McGraw-Hill, Nov. 2, 2021), which debuted as an Amazon #1 New Release and has earned praise from business luminaries such as Horst Schulze (co-founder of Ritz-Carlton Hotels), Hubert Joly (former CEO of Best Buy), and Marshall Goldsmith (world-renowned executive coach). Jon has advised the C-suite at some of the world's foremost brands, including companies such as AT&T, Allstate, ADT, Generali, and Becton Dickinson. He's helped these and other organizations capitalize on the power of loyalty – both in the marketplace and in the workplace. Prior to establishing Watermark in 2009, Jon held senior executive roles at Fortune 100 companies – leading service, operations, distribution, technology, sales and marketing. Early in his career, at the age of 29, Jon earned the distinction of becoming the youngest executive officer in the over 150-year history of a leading global insurance and investment firm. Jon received his A.B. in Cognitive Science from Princeton University and his M.B.A. in General Management from Duke University. Learn more at Jon's website: https://watermarkconsult.net/

Contact me if: - You have feedback you'd like to share about the podcast - You would like to be a guest on the show - You would like to book me on your show Email me at mark@empoweredcx.com

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

Trailer Aug 18, 2022

Show notes

The Delighted Customers Podcast is about trust. Hosted by Mark Slatin, the show helps CX leaders become trusted guides—earning executive confidence, influencing decisions, and leading change that sticks. Episodes focus on turning insight into credibility, building CX roadmaps leaders support, and navigating the realities of organizational influence for experienced CX professionals.

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