In this episode we talk about improving the customer experience and reducing risk through operational excellence, so we brought on Michael Popa. Companies can often go wrong in their strategy when structuring their teams and compensation. So it comes down to aligning on the responsibilities of sales all the way down to what are the metrics each one’s accountable for and how are they compensated for that. Michael gives his method for looking over and assessing business processes responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI). Make sure your different departments are communicating well so that customers don’t have to repeat themselves. The handoff is an important part of on-boarding customers.

• Michael’s background 1:00
• Helping companies get to excellence 4:27
• Where companies often go wrong in strategy 6:07
• RACI 8:16
• Guiding more of the process and strategy 11:42

“That’s where I typically start is understanding the objectives of the company. Understand where we wanna go, where we wanna take not just customer success but the entire customer life cycle and how we build a strategy in conjunction with sales and operations so that we’re investing in the right building blocks, the right milestones, in the right sequence.” 5:20

Today we talk about the power of identification to build employee and customer connection, so we brought on Aaron Painter who is the CEO at Nametag. He explains what makes good customer experience and that comes down to how employees are treated and how they treat customers. Companies need to help employees feel and understand that their opinions matter, which will help create connection with the company and even create culture as these employees interact with the customer.

• Aaron’s background 1:00
• What makes good customer experience? 4:40
• Building culture of happy employees 8:13
• Why is customer support such a hard job in today’s world? 11:44
• Benefitting both employee and customer and why he build Nametag 15:54

“It’s crazy that in today’s world so much can happen from your mobile phone except actually proving who you really are, so it led me down this path of something I’ve been on a lot, which was cyber security and privacy and this intersection with identity and just understanding who customers are because we all know in our field of marketing more broadly, the better we know our customers, the better we can tailor the overall customer experience.” 2:06

www.linkedin.com/in/aaronpainter/

Today we’re talking about how one to one marketing is transforming companies. There’s so much interesting dialogue in the market about commerce and care. Marketing and CX, and how that’s all coming together. I came across somebody that has enormous experience in this space of personalization marketing customer experience, and his name is Chuck Moxley. He is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Blue Triangle and an Advisory Board Member of the Customer Experience (CX) Program at University of California, Irvine.

Why personalized marketing, or 1-1 is so important 3:07
Channels that are becoming more modern 7:37
Consumers now control the value of your product 10:10
Do you have the data? 13:28

“I was having these same conversations going ‘Oh my gosh, they still think of mass media and they still think of it the same way, and they’re using a playbook that’s a decade old.’ They don’t get that the world has changed, so the first step in all of this is a big mindset change. You have to realize the way things were 10 years ago just don’t work. And there’s other factors and other consumer realities, like the fact that the power is shifted. Consumers can now go read a thousand reviews. So it doesn’t matter what you put out there on the TV commercial, they’re gonna read the reviews, and if the reviews are crap and say the product doesn’t work, you’re not gonna make the sales.” 10:51

www.AudienceofOne.website

Today we are joined by Alyce's CEO, Greg Segall, the Head of Customer Success at Alyce, Sean MacPherson, and Vikas Bhambri, Head of Sales and CX at Kustomer. Greg tells us gifting is an investment in a relationship and builds loyalty, strengthening the bonds with those you care about. They have tens of thousands of different options for gifts to send out so people can reach everyone they need to. These gifts can help you build your team and delight customers.

Introductions 0:37
Why gifting is important 3:50
Different gift types 15:55
Situations in which to use gifting 20:44

“Software and Service is a recurring revenue business. You by nature are building all of those experiences and delighting your customers, that’s not only gonna pay out on adoption advocacy, but you’re going to get referrals, you’re gonna get all of that. So when you’re thinking about cultivating your business plan for your gifting strategy, keep all of those things in mind because at the end of the day this is going to reduce your customer acquisition cost.” 23:14

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregsegall/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmacpherson/
www.alyce.com

Our guest today Richard Vernon is a customer experience extraordinaire. He is here to talk CX. The real question we need to ask ourselves these days is how do you go from old to new? What is the paradigm shift? If you want to change a practice or behavior, then you have to change your paradigm and the results you’ll get is change. Spending time on the front lines and seeing customer experience through their eyes is transformational. Sometimes the best ideas will come from those who are dealing with customers all day every day and Richard talks about how they’ve gotten great CX ideas by brainstorming with the customer service reps.

Richard’s background 1:01
Paradigm shift 2:30
Coaching 5:57
How do we truly authenticate a customer in a warm and friendly way? 13:20

“So it went around, there were some ideas shared, but nothing really stuck, and then this cute little gal raised her hand in the corner. She rarely participates and she says ‘here’s what I say. I say well who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?’ I was ready to give her my credit card, my social security number. It was the most friendly way.” 14:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardvernon/

In this episode we talk to the Partner Experience Manager at Twitter, Sioban Massiah. She started off working in marketing back in 2008 when the recession hit and marketing was one of the first things to disappear, so she had to go into sales. She has found while researching customer experience that no matter what you did in any company, if you weren’t empathetic or knew your customer and figured out what they wanted, you would be unable to succeed. We talk about the company's purpose and Sioban says if you put your purpose out there, people who align with it will come to you.

Her background 0:50
Power of connection 3:38
Getting your employees aligned around your purpose 8:37
Empathy and connection with customers 12:20

“I think that the script is the foundation and the training to be connecting and actually empathetic with your customer is what you build off of. You need to hire people where these practices are actually part of who they are in general, or who they want to be and who they see themselves being so that way this script is something they can work with, but they can still connect and empathise with their customers.” 7:20

sio@twitter.com
Twitter: justcallmesio

Today we talk about tools in technology for making the life of customers easier with the head of customer experience and employee engagement for the global company called Schindler Elevator Corporation, Stacy Sherman. She tells and updates us on the current situation with customer experience tech, and then what we should be using still and how we should be adapting/changing to meet current standards. She emphasizes the importance of establishing employee and company culture to maintain a high performing work environment.

Stacy’s background 1:14
Current environment of technology 2:53
Can you use the standard methodology? Or should you change? 8:02
The importance of culture 10:23

“How do leaders be able to really aggregate the voice of the customer and be able to have a pulse of what is going on from structured data, like surveys, and unstructured, social media, rating and reviews, and so much more. That’s where it wins. That’s where the game changes when companies are using tools to be able to listen, respond, close the loop easily.” 5:36

doingcxright.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysherman/

In this episode we have with us the founder of Support Driven, Scott Tran, and we talk about a new community that’s popping up, how it’s used, and what it is and how it has become a great resource for people to share and connect. Tune in to understand how to create a sense of community during challenging times!

Scott Tran and how he created his community 0:52
About the community 3:51
How has the community reacted 6:39
Being more effective with less people 8:51

“There’s also a social aspect to it. We have talented people with different hobbies and that’s often been a way for people to connect in these times. We’ve had quite a few people start making progress.” 10:31

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-tran-188815a3/
supportdriven.com

Joining us today we have Senior Director of Customer Experience at Epicor, Chris Warticki. He has been in the customer service industry for 25 years. He worked at Oracle Corporation for 20 years, and he’s been at Epicor for the last two years running their customer success management team. We discuss the methods Chris uses in his company and how they approach customer experience, satisfaction, success, and the present. He tells us why it’s important not to rush to delight your customers to avoid overextending your teams.

Chris’s background 0:43
Why not rush to delight your customers? 1:30
Customer experience 3:23
Customer satisfaction 4:03
Customer success 5:42
Present 6:52
A big ah-ha moment 11:20

“When it comes down to it, everybody like I said wants our customers and your customers to be successful. Getting the right minds to be able to sit together and quickly evaluate what’s the business problem we’re trying to solve and let’s get it documented for future reference. So we can lean it over time. Go from good to great. Go from better to best.” 11:51

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswarticki/
@cwarticki on Twitter

In this episode we talk to Christine Deehring, the founder and CEO of Bump Boxes, a company that sells special and useful products for pregnant women. Bump Boxes is a subscription service that provides the necessities that a pregnant woman will need each month of her pregnancy. Christine tells us what her company does to bring their values to the customer and how their culture affects how they approach customer service. She also shares some things they do like rewarding their customers based on how long they’ve been with them and improving their structure based on feedback from their customers. Tune in now!

What is Bump Boxes? 0:53
A large spike in their social media growth 1:58
How company culture empowers the customer journey 4:33
How their feedback loop has been made more fluid 12:05

“Recently we rolled out a VIP program. So any mom that subscribes with us gets, depending on how long she’s committed, she gets a specific discount to our store just joining our subscription. And that was something that came up from just customer feedback.” 11:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-deehring-b1468693/

Joining us today we have the Director of Customer Support at FinancialForce, Adam Maino, and we discuss how to develop a world class customer support team. We talk about the importance of creating and cultivating an environment where your employees can fail fast and learn from those challenges. Adam tells us about how the structure of a world class customer support team should be organized and the types of layers and tiers they have. We discuss knowledge center services and how this process helps Adam’s people at FinancialForce. Don’t miss it!

About Adam and his company 0:47
Lessons he has learned 2:00
What the structure should look like 4:15
What is KCS? 7:04
How many employees equal happy customers? 11:22

“With my employees I never tell them what to do. I ask them what to do, right? It’s a request. There are no demands there. I think what we should really be focusing on is coaching our employees and not managing them so much. Kick open the doors and let them do their job.” 10:58

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammaino/

In this episode, we talk to Derek Hixon, Director of Customer Support and Implementation at WordStream. He has been working for 15 years in support and also has a pretty diverse background. Derek tells us what made him change course in life and how he made some decisions that have affected him for the rest of his life. He likes to find out what his team’s goals are, both in the company and as individuals in their own lives in order to build a stronger bond and make his team members and relationships more personable. Derek says to know your team and to use the data as a tool. We’re never making a huge, big change in the team, but we’re constantly making little changes that over time will turn into the big change we need.

His background 1:38
What has made Derek successful 2:57
Things that have changed the way Derek looks at support 11:23
Case analysis 16:10
Working in a box 19:30

“Things are better if they’re done right and slowly and usually you benefit from it in the long term. You can always get short term success with things, but if you have the luxury of time, which you don’t always have obviously, you can do really great things.” 9:02

https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalderek/

Joining us today we have Vikas Bhambri, the SVP of sales and CX at Kustomer, Rob Young, the Director of Customer Support at BambooHR, and Jamie Whited, an expert consultant in client service and client experience. We discuss some of the things and issues each of us has had to deal with during the pandemic. A lot of industries are dealing with an increase in requests and inquiries, and we all have had to adjust and make sure we are continuing to provide that human to human help that people need to continue moving forward. Rob tells how they have been able to focus and become more empathetic with their customers by getting a lot more specific with the questions they ask. We talk about what kind of things to say to the customers who are struggling in these times, and then what we can do to keep the customer service representatives motivated and going in our company visions. Tune in!

Guest introductions 1:21
Where do we go from here with all these challenges? 7:26
How Rob has dealt with increases and decreases in inquiries 11:37
How to approach empathetic or non empathetic customers 15:00
How have they been able to keep the reps going? 18:52

“We always tell the teams, ‘You can only control your reaction. So if somebody is coming at you like that in a very frustrated manner, then you turn around and you just give them the biggest virtual hug and empathy that you can potentially give them, or tell them that you understand where they’re coming from and you are so sorry for their loss, and that we’re going to do everything that we can to make this right for you.’ And that seems to calm people down in pretty much any industry.” 15:29

Today we brought on a special guest, Matt Abrahams, who has quite the background. Currently he’s lecturing at Stanford University in the graduate school of business. In addition, he is a book author of a book called “Speaking Up Without Freaking Out: 50 Techniques for Confident and Compelling Presenting.” He also hosts a podcast called “Think Fast, Talk Smart,” and finally, he is a coach and a consultant, helping many people optimize and strategize around the best ways they can communicate.

His passion for communication 2:20
His book 4:22
Setting the stage for great communication in your business: confidence 8:10
Overcoming nervousness, fake it ‘til you make it 11:18
Getting in the right mindset, or next play mindset 13:15
Dealing with tough or negative communication situations 16:04
The delivery and communicating that you care 17:27
Helping managers and leaders communicate better 19:22

“There are 3 things that I think are most important. 1 is you have to start with confidence. You have to understand the situations that make you nervous and figure out how to manage them. 2nd, you need to think about your content. How do I make my content relevant, specific, and useful for the people that I’m speaking to? So it’s really about honing that content, and 3rd, delivering in a way that really shows warmth, connection, and helps your audience to see that you’re there to collaborate and partner with them. So those are really the 3 foundational principles in all effective communication.” 8:14

nofreakingspeaking.com
www.linkedin.com/in/maabrahams

In this episode we speak with Matt Freedman, brand builder, band strategist, and Enterprise Account Executive at Kustomer. We talk about the me-economy, the generation where everything is on demand and how that’s putting high pressure on companies. Organizations that have been able to keep up are the ones succeeding. 57% of people have said that customer service is the main reason they will remain loyal to a brand. People are spending 20% more on products because of their loyalty to a brand rather than taking the cheaper option. We discuss what people’s expectations are these days, how much it's affecting our current economy, and then what organizations should focus on to meet those demands.

The Me-economy 3:58
The main reason people feel loyal to a brand 11:00
SLS 18:02
Summary of what companies have learned 27:50

“As you’re setting expectations, now obviously going through this new world virus economy that we’re living in, it’s a great time to kind of pause and reset and just rethink, ‘Man, am I really set up and optimised for not only these fringe cases anymore, but this gigantic new wave of demand expectation that this on demand economy has?’” 6:16

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-freedman-aa03028/

Today we talk to Mike Miller, the Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Convey, and Vikas Bhambri, the SVP of Sales and CX at Kustomer. We discuss issues and trends we are seeing in the customer service business, such as a spike in e-commerce and an increase in customer inquiries. Other things like an increase in online orders has put a strain on deliveries and being able to get deliveries out on time. Don’t assume that you’re over-communicating with the customer, but instead always be proactive in communicating with them and wait for them to let you know you’re reaching out too much. We talk a little bit about AI and the effects it’s having on customer service, and then we need to be thinking about how we can be strategic in these times and take advantage of the shift in the market.

Trends and challenges customer services organizations are facing 1:46
What companies are doing well to combat this 7:40
An example of the problem we face now 12:00
Artificial intelligence 14:51

“We hear pretty consistently that customers at least are looking for 3 things, and the first is setting an expectation around when something that is going to arrive. That is harder to do today than it has been historically, but that is absolutely the expectation. They want frequent updates as early as possible as to when that’s going to change, if it is going to change. And then lastly they’re looking for flexibility about delivery options.” 7:48

In this episode we talk to Brad Birnbaum, co-founder and CEO of Kustomer, Matt Dixon, Chief Product and Research Officer at Tethr, and Lauren Pragoff, Vice President of Effortless Experience at Challenger. We talk about some of the largest issues and challenges companies have been facing during the pandemic, such as employees transitioning to working from home and how they’ve had to crack down on making help readily available through their online channels. Another thing they’ve seen is an increase in inquiry volume and a lack of reps to meet the demand of these inquiries. We discuss the fact that the world is ready for more machine learning and more advanced artificial intelligence to meet the needs of this increasing demand. Lauren has seen that a third of companies are actually seeing a decrease in inquiries with the pandemic, so they’ve had to use a proactive outreach approach to keep reps busy. We talk about how many customers go to a lot of third party sources of information in order to get the answer to their questions, such as Youtube or Google, but these sources aren’t always reliable. Brad tells us about a technological shift companies should be using to meet the needs and desires of customers, such as reaching out and answering their question before they actually ask it.

Guest introductions 1:41
The biggest challenge companies are facing and how they are overcoming it 3:56
How Matt has seen people doing more with less 12:28
Types of technologies companies should be adopting now to make this change more successful 25:42

“The thing that really got our customers to stay on our website and not get frustrated, pick up the phone and call is when we started writing at a grade 5 to 7 reading level so that customers could absorb that information quickly. So often our content is laden with corporate jargon, industry vernacular, or stuff that the attorneys made us add in and it stopped making sense to our customers. So go back, make it simple, and it’ll stick. It’ll siphon off those live calls.” 24:42

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-pragoff-99967532/
https://www.kustomer.com/leadership/brad-birnbaum/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleybirnbaum/
Twitter: @bradbirnhaum
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewxdixon/
https://tethr.com/leadership/matt-dixon/

In this episode we talk about an empathy-driven support model with Irene Griffin, the Director of Customer Support at FranConnect. The goal for her team is to listen and understand the customer needs, while building strong relationships. She talks about her hiring process and the importance of high-energy reps. She suggests that hiring the right customer support team is about finding a balance between skills and personality. Technology is natural for younger generations, which means it is easier to learn, but the ability to listen, understand and empathize with each individual situation is just harder. Listen to the full episode for the insights on creating a playbook that gives reps a sample call language versus scripted responses for a more empathetic approach.

What is the empathy driven support model? 1:19
How Irene team builds 8:02
How she manages responses with her team 11:27

“I stick with more of what a sample question might be where it’s just long winded, convoluted, there’s extra stuff in there, and again I’m not looking for the outcome as much as I’m just looking for the reaction and the ability to kind of parse it out, kind of stay cool, and be organized.” 6:40

https://www.linkedin.com/in/irenegriffin/

Today we talk to Douglas Kramon, Director of Customer Operations and Fan Support at ESPN. In this interesting conversation, Gabe and Douglas discuss how customer care and agent care drives customer experience. For fans, sports are memories and emotions created during live experiences. How could ESPN create human connections during COVID-19, when all live events were cancelled? Douglas tells us about their tactic of connecting with their customers by creating a fan-to-fan dialogue. Tune in to this conversation to understand how ESPN has standed with their fans during these hard times.

Douglas’s background 1:02
The recent changes in sports 2:58
Be brief, be bright, and be gone 6:14
Tools they use at ESPN 15:19

“We like to say, and we believe this wholeheartedly, for customer service we are fellow fans in the stands. With our fans, we’re not the suits in the suites, meaning we’re there with you. We’re sports fans just like you and we understand what you’re going through. And if you want to talk a little sport, we do too.” 7:17

https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaskramon/

Today we talk about digital customer service with author, speaker, and customer service expert Paolo Fabrizio. Paolo helps clients integrate digital channels and coaches them on the importance of hiring and training the right digital customer service assistants. In this conversation with Gabe, Paolo touches on the importance of emotional intelligence and the relevant role reps play in taking care and retaining happy customers. Is it different hiring agents for traditional channels vs digital channels? Listen to the full conversation for Paolo’s take.

About Paolo 0:54
Something often Paolo sees in organizations 2:38
How he trains and hires employees differently 6:57
Some of the differences he sees between these channels and the typical channels of phone and email 10:31
Get in contact with Paolo 14:16

“Digital customer service is not just using digital tools, digital platforms, or digital channels. It’s taking care of each digital conversation you have with your customers in order to leverage conversations to retain and attract customers.” 2:08

https://customerserviceculture.com/

In this episode, we discuss the importance of treating your employees like customers to drive customer loyalty. We have with us Vipula Gandhi, Managing Director at Gallup, who has vast experience working in different industries such as hospitality, consulting, and banking. As a true expert in business strategy, business performance and human potential, Vipula will talk about how to leverage information and extract insights to strategically take action that directly impacts the business. Join this interesting conversation to understand how emotions improve the customer experience and how to build a brand that transcends time by taking care of their employees.

About Vipula and Gallup 1:26
What is wrong with the current way we think about customer experience? 3:31
Example of emotional and actionable drivers in customer experience 14:14
The importance of treating your employees right 18:50

“What we have found through science and through our experience of working with clients in this area is that, we don’t want people to complain obviously, but when people complain there’s an opportunity for you to actually increase the emotional engagement with the brand after the complaint more than what was possible before the complaint.” 14:24

www.gallup.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vipulagandhi1/

In this episode, we talk about how to really drive customer experience for high-end brands. We are joined by Jason Henne, Director of Customer Aervice at Momentum Solar. He tells us of how he threw call time out the window and focused more on quality customer experience. We discuss the importance of thoroughly training your reps so that they have the tools to effectively help the customer. Additionally, the Better Business Bureau has given Momentum Solar amazing reviews and Jason tells what they have done to gain and maintain their reputation.

Jason Henne Introduction 0:51
How does customer service vary between similar businesses? 2:40
An example of different, great customer service 7:17
The Importance of training your reps 10:45
How Jason has managed through an emerging industry like solar 15:09
What Momentum Solar has done to maintain their reputation 17:22
The one thing Jason tells all his employees 23:52

“You go into a Lexus dealership for instance, or a Porsche dealership. You are getting red carpet treatment. ‘OK sir, would you like a bagel? Would you like me to get a cup of coffee for you?’ And they keep you updated regularly on your situation and you’ll get a loaner car if you need. You’re not going to get that with the lower end brands. So again, it’s brand reputation, it’s word of mouth.” 5:29

Email: jhenne@momentumsolar.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-henne-6481513/
https://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jason-Henne/3451523495

Today, we talk with Nate Brown who is the Founder of CX Accelerator, a virtual community for CX professionals, and Chief Experience Officer at Officium Labs. Nate tells us how the customer experience industry is evolving and he explains how to drive meaningful change in order to keep up with the ongoing evolution in the market. We also talk about how crucial it is for companies to support their customer service department, how to properly receive feedback from customers, training employees, and the importance of adapting to an ever-changing market.

Nate tells what he does 1:03
How they are able to hear the voice of the customer 12:10
Customer Effort Score 17:39

“If we don’t make our customer experience legendary, then we won’t be here in ten years. This is the way that the experience economy is moving. I have isolated this individual and this function that’s gonna help guide us intelligently in our strategy here and we’re all going to work with this individual as part of the CX Change Coalition to improve our end to end customer experience.” 8:48

https://www.cxaccelerator.com/

Gabe and Vikas kick off this episode announcing that Kustomer has been selected as the only enterprise customer service CRM platform in the Shopify Plus Certified App Program. Now more than ever, the world’s leading brands need CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that can scale and evolve as they do. With this seamless integration, businesses can create contextualized, actionable customer profiles to drive more personalized and data-driven customer journeys. With pressure already high due to the digital transformation forced by the pandemic, what are customers expecting from businesses now? In this conversation, Vikas and Gabe discuss the "MEconomy" and the role of self-service in the customer-business relationship.

Will companies continue to have employees work from home? 8:38
Customer delight 14:44

“We have pressed the fast forward button on the future by 2 years, and that’s just the reality. We can’t go back. We’re not going to go back. The consumer’s not going to go back, the brands can’t go back… Unfortunately, most companies don’t think that far in advance… They’re thinking about it in monthly, quarterly cycles… You really have to think about what would your business have looked like two years from now and operate at that cadence today, which, good luck with that.” 20:05

https://www.kustomer.com/product/integrations/shopify/

Today we have the Vice President of Customer Experience at Instapage, Elizabeth Birch. We discuss how you can help your company be more recession proof through customer experience and Elizabeth says you need to ruthlessly prioritize. This involves knowing your audience and prioritizing them without freaking out and being reactionary. Companies struggle to prioritize when they dilute portions of their company, such as their team and message. Be intentional by picking one or two things and putting all efforts and focus into that thing. “In order to know your audience, you have to speak to them.”

Her background and what she’s been doing at Instapage 0:52
Making companies feel more recession proof through customer Experience 3:47
Why companies struggle with prioritizing 6:00
Know your audience 9:08
Tech and efficiency 12:03
Retention and delighting your customer 15:53

“When we’re faced with uncertainty, we all go into this reactionary mode and we don’t have to do that. Let’s keep it simple and the first point really is just prioritize. That involves knowing your audience. If you don’t know your audience, you’re probably in trouble, so keep it simple, but take a look at what your customer segments are, and then prioritize them.” 5:00

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-birch-a4806315/

Today we have special guest Aarde Cosseboom, Senior Director of Technology and Product for Global Member Services for an E-Commerce company called Textile, and Vikas Bhambri, SVP, Sales and CX at Kustomer, 20 year CRM Contact Center Lifer. We discuss how AI and self-service bots can be utilized to solve issues in customer service. Bots are evolving and they need to be able to move from one platform to another, such as from your website to email, whatsapp, facebook, etc. The new term for this type of bot is IVA, Intelligent Virtual Assistant, which is an omnichannel bot experience. We discuss the importance of letting your customer know they’re talking to a bot so they don’t get frustrated when they ask more complex questions, and when to hand off the customer from a bot to a live agent. We wrap up the conversation with the role agents play in helping improve this technology. Listen to the full conversation for more insights.

https://www.kustomer.com/guides/how-pandemic-affects-customer-service-organizations/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=coronavirus

Aarde and Vikas intro 0:31
What do AI and Self-service bots solve? 1:05
How should one acquire an IVA? 7:01
What are best practices for a hand off from a bot to a real person? 14:17

“People will say ‘Look, AI’s gonna put everyone out of a job. We won’t need sales people, we won’t need marketers, we won’t need customer service people.’ No, because the role will change. Because the technology is great, but you still need people that will go and will optimize the program behind it.” 17:51

Find Aarde Cosseboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarde-cosseboom-99755546/

Vikas Bhambri
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikasbhambri/
https://www.kustomer.com/leadership/vikas-bhambri/

The COVID-19 pandemic is fast-tracking the digital transformation and has changed the way customers interact with businesses, forever. Today, we welcome Andrea Paul, Director of Research at Kustomer, and Vikas Bhambri, SVP sales and CX at Kustomer with more than 20 years in the CRM Contact Center world, to discuss the effects of these challenging times for customer service organizations. Andrea and her team went out and surveyed CX professionals across a variety of industries to understand how their businesses and teams are being impacted, how they are adapting, and what customers are expecting. Join the full conversation for hard data and an in-depth discussion on how businesses can succeed and the role technology plays to achieve efficient customer service.

What 80% of Customer Service Professionals Need 6:49
Is automation the answer? 12:18
Remote work 18:31
What else is holding people back from being effective? 19:55
How Andrea would coach customer service leaders based on her research 26:53

“Almost every company that we surveyed did say that the vast majority of their employees were fully remote now, which makes sense where a lot of states are still in this lockdown. But 34% of the respondents were reporting difficulty working remotely and 23% did say they didn’t have the tools in place to actually do it, which is huge. It’s like 'I’m being forced to work remotely, but I physically cannot do it.’” 18:58

How are organizations keeping up with the spikes in demand while maintaining high levels of customer support? Today’s guests are all about allowing leaders to focus on their business and giving them the ability to hire state-of-the-art sales and customer success support teams, on-demand 24/7. CloudTask CEO, Amir Reiter, and VP of Marketing, Tom Jerkins, help other businesses scale and grow through their outsourced sales organization. The biggest question in scaling customer support always comes down to outsourcing the service center versus keeping it in-house while delivering on customers’ expectations. Find out whether or not you should outsource and the importance of hiring a partner that’s going to bring in the training, processes, and technology that are going to save you money and represent your company the right way.

Why would I, as a company, want to outsource my customer service? 8:40
State of the art training 12:02
What separates BPO’s 15:25
Where People can find them 17:00

“Everybody is looking to each other to create more community and the more community you create, the better it’s gonna be for your business. That’s not why you want to do it. You want to do it because we’re human beings, because we want to support each other. The more human you are, the more everybody’s gonna benefit, in business and in life.” 5:44

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirreiter/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomjenkins1/?locale=de_DE

Today’s guest has been in sales and tech for more than 20 years and started her own business, Inside Sales by Design, 5 years ago to help organizations build and scale their inside sales infrastructure. Dionne Mischler turns cost centers into revenue centers through The Art of the Conversation. Her insights on ‘What can we give’ vs ‘What can we get’ are at the root of building a team of conversationalists that listens and understands the needs of the customer. Listen to the full episode to learn how to coach your organization to manage The Art of the Conversation.

The Art of Conversation 6:40
Key Principle in customer outreach 13:39
Brief Summary 21:25

“I was talking with a colleague of mine and he says that we live an experience economy at this point. And here’s my bold prediction. If you as an organization are not investing in your customer success team turning that corner from an order taker to a ticket taker, cost center to a profit center, your company is going to die and wither in the dust.” 2:37

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dionnemischlerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dionnemischler

https://www.insidesalesbydesign.com/

https://insidesalesbydesign.wordpress.com/

https://www.salesclass.ai/

Today, we talk with Sergio Frias, the president and CEO of The Federation of Canadian-Brazilian Businesses and Chief Customer Experience Officer at The Chartered Institute of Marketing Management of Ontario. We begin our conversation with Sergio sharing his career path, he highlights how he developed his passion for customer experience, no matter where he worked. He shares how he developed a unique customer experience program, NICE (Nurturing Insights about Customers Expectations), and we talk about it more in depth. We break down the 8 components of NICE: Context, Benchmarking, CX Mapping, the Essence of NICE, the Dream of the Customer, Triple Organization, Knowledge Sharing, The Right People at the Right Place, and The True Meaning of Service. Listen to the full podcast episode to understand what are the key underlying principles to improving your customer service and why customer service should be the focus for companies as they recover from the COVID-19 crisis.

Sergio’s Background 0:58
The “Why” and “How” of Sergio’s CX Program 4:50
The 8 Components of NICE 9:20
Implementing NICE 18:34

“ If you want, the job is yours -- you’re going to be the owner of this business. So you buy, you sell, you do everything. All the logistics, distribution, everything. That was a great opportunity for my career. I was not really thinking about CX, but the more I got into that, I realized that I know how to do it, because of the many years working with customers and always being concerned about how to get the customers what they needed, I realized that that was an amazing thing.” 2:41

Reach out to Sergio: sergio.friasrb@gmail.com

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Steve Richards, co-founder of ExecVision. Throughout his career, Steve has been committed to helping companies understand the data behind customer service calls and developing strategies for a continuous improvement around the actual interaction that is happening with the customer. Listen to the full podcast for his valuable insights on the steps to an effective customer service call and how to make sure your agents have the resources they need to improve their performance.

Steve’s Background 1:04
What is Broken in Customer Experience 2:15
How are People Thinking out of the Box? 8:08
How to Be Successful with Calls 14:30

“Why do you measure a sprinter? Why do you time a skier? And the answer is to improve performance… It’s funny, I’ll get caught in this, where you start measuring to measure and you’re not actually looking at how it can affect the ultimate performance.” 3:45

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we get a chance to talk with James Dodkins, known as the Rockstar Customer Experience Expert. Before becoming a specialist in customer experience, James toured the world performing in a rock and roll band. He now takes what he learned from that and applies it to customer experience. We talk about this and how we can frame our customer experience similarly. We also talk about how to structure our team in a way that rewards direct value to customers. We often reward our employees for doing things that don’t actually lead to greater customer satisfaction.

About James 1:21
How to Give Rockstar Customer Experience 5:01
4 Step Framework 9:27
Team Structure 13:24

“Only 4% of dissatisfied customers will complain and the large majority of the rest will vote with their feet. They’ll just leave and go somewhere else. If you are only fixing problems for the 4% of people that complain, you are missing a massive opportunity.” 11:00

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, Al Hopper, principal consultant at Nagurra Networks, joins Gabe Larsen to talk about how businesses can benefit from working on a tiered customer service model. In this thorough conversation about how it works, you’ll also learn why your organization should practice having different levels of service based on different groups of customers, how to apply it, and which types of businesses should have a tiered customer experience.

More About Al 0:43
Tier Customer Service 3:02
Who Tier Customer Service Right for? 7:28
How to have a successful Tier Model 10:07

“The biggest challenge is forgetting that you are a service organization to begin with. They start focusing on the tiered customer service get away with anything.” 15:58

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we are talking about journey mapping with Annette Franz. Annett is the founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She is an expert in this area and has a wealth of experience in applying it. Oftentimes people don’t know where to start journey mapping or they think they are doing it when in reality they aren’t at all. Annette talks through the steps she typically goes through, what journey mapping really is, how to do it effectively and how to use it. Sometimes it needs revisiting every so often and we discuss this as well.

Annette’s Background 1:07
What is Journey Mapping 2:55
How to Do it Right 6:12
What to do WITH a Journey Map 14:46
Revisiting Journey Map 17:49

“A lot of companies... try to just identify things in the current state map... but they don’t get at the root of the problem, which is something internally.” 12:39

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets Podcast, we are going to be talking about journey mapping. To help us out with that we brought on Bob Thompson, the founder and CEO of Customer Think and author of the book Hooked on Customers. His career and company are built on the idea of customer centricity and he’ll be explaining what customer mapping is, why companies should do it, and how to create an effective, uninterrupted flow from beginning to end.

About Bob and Customer Think 1:10
Journey Mapping in General 2:32
How to Journey Map Well 6:54
Information based Journey Map on 12:59

We think of journey mapping as, “walk in your customers’ shoes and then take pictures as you go and read their mind.” 3:09

Today we’re going to talk about keys for CX Transformation and we brought on a very special guest, Siri Osthed who is currently the VP of New Customer Experience at Weave. She talks about how to start thinking through the transformative approach to CX starting with your goals and understanding what you want to achieve. You want to create strategies of how you’re going to achieve your goals and maps, and then move on to the technology next.

Where to start in thinking through this transformative approach 3:33
What causes companies to miss the first step 5:05
Onboarding 1,000 customers 7:07
Getting to where you can have the meaningful conversation 9:39
Requirements 14:28
People 17:57

“You have to think about it from the outside in. How is the customer engaging with the people involved in those different departments as well? So you don’t only have the inside process of how you engage with the customer, but you gotta think about how does the customer engages with you? And there you have marketing like emails. What emails do they get from what team, at what point, with what message? Does it all align? 8:55

https://www.linkedin.com/in/siriosthed/

Kustomer announced it has acquired Reply.ai, a customer service automation platform that helps companies scale intelligent customer service without compromising experience. Our guest today, Omar Pera, CEO of Reply AI, is sharing how companies are winning by propelling an effortless customer experience using AI and automation. We all know that customer experience is becoming more important than ever before. Businesses who prioritize customer experience are the ones succeeding. But how can companies continue to execute on a high level of service without hiring an army of people, or sacrificing the human touch? Tune in to discover how to make customer service faster and smarter.

About of Omar and Reply 1:30
Why do we need bots? 8:41
Examples of AI in customer Service 12:20
Do’s and Dont’s of AI for CX 20:17

“If the customer says absolutely anything that is not related to ‘where is my order’ you go to an agent directly, without waiting, without doing anything, without rephrasing…” 21:45

It's getting increasingly difficult for businesses to get feedback from customers in this fully remote world. We sat down with Hilary Curran from Guru, a customer service knowledge management company, to dive deeper into the techniques and practices they are taking to stay connected and elevate the customer voice during this remote reality. Join us in this episode to discover insights about how to boost your customer experience and make the process easier.

Amplifying the Customer’s Voice 1:58
Collecting 3:51
Getting Customers Involved 7:34
Share and Discuss 8:58
Close the Loop 14:38


“ We’ve created a series of questions that we ask our CX team to think on each week...Some sort of specific questions verses, ‘how is everything going’ Something so broad” 7:54

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Blake Morgan, a customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author of the Customer of the Future. Blake shares how customers and companies are changing and need to change in order to survive. She also speaks on why today and moving forward customer experience needs a greater focus. We also discuss her recent book.

More about Blake 0:57
The Customer of the Future 2:59
The Company of the Future 4:36
Why Does CX Matter to Companies today? 8:26
Recent Book Release 11:34

“Customer service is the only way to stand out. Our products and services have become commodities. We’re simply competing on price. Maybe that works in the short term, but in the long term… we have to compete on experience.” 8:44

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Shep Hyken, a customer service/experience expert, keynote speaker, and Time’s best selling author. He talks to us about his concept of the Cult of the Customer. He talks about treating customers so well that they become fanatic evangelists who preach your good name. We talk about how to achieve this level of customer satisfaction, one of the best ways is consistency. Join as we dive deeper into this topic and learn how to apply it.

Why the word Cult? 2:34
Consistency 9:19
Changing Tradition 15:00
Setting Your Company above others 21:20

“The Cult of the Customer is all about people who are fanatical about taking care of their customers, both internal and external… Ideally doing such a great job that these customers become evangelists.” 4:15

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Jeanne Bliss, Founder and CEO of Customer Bliss. We talk about about her book which explains her philosophy on customer experience. Too often we are watering down or over complicating customer service. Jeanne expresses her thoughts in a way that can help any company, no matter size. Jeanne also offers a link to the first chapter and quiz to her book for our listeners.

Would you do that to your Mother? 2:14
How to start Enabling Employees 7:53
Don’t make me feed you Soap 11:58
Pillars 3 and 4 14:10

“Do you allow for human error? If you return that rent a car 3 minutes late are you get dinged for half a day?...People above process.” 15:31

jeanne@customerbliss.com)

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with Adrian Swinscoe, customer experience author. In this episode we talk about his views on what he calls “Punk CX”. Sometimes we complicate customer experience. We get deep into the weeds of it all and Punk CX is all about getting back to the simple needs. Join us as we dive into this idea of simplifying and and teaching our customers how to help themselves.

Timestamps
Introduction to Adrian Swinscoe 1:15
How Punk CX came about 3:04
How to Simplify CX 8:12
We Like helping Ourselves 12:18

“60% of your in bound demand for help can be solved either by you being better at solving things first time around, or..helping customers help themselves.” 13:27
https://www.kustomer.com/

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, Gabe talks with Mary Drummond. Mary is the CMO at Worthix, a customer survey company, and the host of a podcast called The Voices of Customer Experience. Mary has a wealth of knowledge on customer experience, exploring what the term "customer experience" should mean, and what we're missing within our current definition. Tune in to learn how social proof and brand identification fit into customer experience and learn five key factors that influence purchase decisions.

Intro 0:11
Trends and Problems Facing Customer Service Leaders 2:15
Customer Experience Professionals Association 3:08
Customer Expectations 10:08
Customer Service vs. Customer Experience 11:06
5 Main Drivers: Purchase Discussions 17:43

https://www.kustomer.com/

In this episode, we get to talk with Vikas Bhambri, the SVP of sales and customer experience at Kustomer. Vikas and I talk about a current buzzword in the customer experience world and that is bots. We often hear people talking about adding bots but what makes a good bot vs. a bad one? What will really help the customers in the long run? Vikas talks about what makes an Intelligent bots and how to make bots meet customer needs rather than one that treats all issues the same. Vikas also talks about how to even start for those just jumping into this world.

Background to Vikas 1:13
Defining a “Bot” 5:32
Customizing Bots to Meet Needs 9:15
Advice for first time Bot users 20:49

“Imagine you bought a robot to clean your house and you only put it in one room of your house and said, ‘learn’. And then you unleashed it on your whole house. You’d probably end up with a wreck… When people create these algorithms, they’re only thinking about one problem area.” 9:15

Today on Kustomer we talk with John DiJulius, the president of the Dijulius Group, a customer service consulting firm. John and I talk about the current state of business and how to overcome trials in business such as the shutdown caused by COVID19. Rather than looking at this time as complete loss, John talks about using this time to get things done that your business really needs. We also talk about what our relationship with our clients, employees and leadership should look like during these tough times.

More about John 1:05
Working with Clients during hard times 9:22
Leadership and Employees Relationship 13:54
Using Trials to your Benefit 18:50

“Even a turkey can fly in a tornado, but when that tornado stops flying, the turkeys start dropping. So the people who have worked on customer loyalty and employee loyalty really shine and emerge as leaders in business.” 5:10

In this episode, Gabe chats with Peter Fader, Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of Customer Centricity. Peter challenges the idea that every customer is the right customer. He says instead that we need to change how we treat customers depending on how long they will continue to be a customer, how many purchases they will make, and how much a business will earn from those transactions. He talks about how this shift in perspective will affect the entire focus of a company.

Intro 0:14
Not All Customers Are Created Equal 2:09
Segmenting Customers 7:57
Customer-Based Corporate Valuation 14:20
Key to Finding Success in Customer Centricity 17:35

https://www.kustomer.com/
https://www.thetaequity.com/

Intro 0:14
Not all customers are created equal 2:09
Segmenting customer 7:57
Customer based corporate valuation 14:20
Key to finding success in customer centricity 17:35

https://www.kustomer.com/
https://www.thetaequity.com/

In this episode we brought on Isaac Major who is currently the VP of Customer Solutions at Quantanite. Outsourcing is very useful and an important step in expanding a business beyond certain bounds, but there can be many questions and misconceptions about it and how it works. Isaac says you gotta have someone to manage the relationship with your outsourcing partner/teams, and then from your partner’s side you want to have a business manager as well.

About Quantanite 2:57
Some of the trends they’re seeing in outsourcing 4:00
Staying in control 5:43
Technology they tend to use 7:51
Where does the outsourcing occur? 10:30
Customer retention 13:29
If you’re considering outsourcing 16:44

“In the present, the number one thing your customers care about the most when it comes to your support staff is time. How long do they have to wait to get this resolved?” 9:12

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk about the top 23 customer service trends of 2020. We discuss what customer service has looked like historically, what it most likely will look like in the future, and how to start preparing for that. Take back actionable insights that are relevant to your business, and take your customer service to the next level.

Intro 0:19
Power of Prioritization 1:50
Omni Channel 2:38
Bigger Customer Service Budgets 6:06
Deflection 9:43
Convenience 13:38

https://www.kustomer.com/

On this episode of Kustomer, we have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Merilee Larsen, the assistant professor of Public Health at Utah Valley University. We talk with Merilee about some of the basics of COVID-19, how it is most easily spread, where we need to be most careful, and how to prevent it from spreading. We also speak much about preparedness. This time can feel very frantic. People are buying large amounts of different items (ie toilet paper, hand sanitizer…) and we talk about what is most important to be prepared with. And this is not limited to goods. We also talk about how to be prepared mentally and emotionally during this time.

Background of Merilee 0:45
Basics of COVID-19 2:13
How to Prepare 5:28
Mental Health Preparedness 10:15
Social Distancing 15:39

“We don’t really know how long they can live on surfaces. Scientists are estimating 3-4 hours. So is there a little of a risk to going to the park or touching things that other people have touched? Yes…” 4:08

In this episode of Customer Service Secrets, we talk with the CEO of Kustomer, Brad Birnbaum, about the growth and development of Kustomer and the Kustomer platform. We discuss how customer experience has changed over the years, what has influenced this transformation, and how we need to react to stay ahead of the curve. Brad also talks about what the future holds for Kustomer. Join us as for valuable tips and insights for customer experience professionals. 

Introduction to Brad and Kustomer 0:34
How Customer Service has changed 3:19
Channels of Communication 8:31
Automation 13:34

“One of my favorite things to do is to call Delta and if I get an answer that I don’t like, then I call another agent. So what you’re doing is eliminating [the] other channels.” 11:13