The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show – Details, episodes & analysis

Today's compilation features excerpts from two interviews: Christopher McShane, SVP of customer experience at Serta Simmons Bedding, and Jon Picoult, founder of Watermark Consulting. Both my guests speak on the importance of establishing an internal system to improve employee and customer experience. These are two great conversations which dig deeply into the processes and cultural considerations needed to truly change your organization's approach to driving experiences worth having. Enjoy!

I had the pleasure of speaking with neuroscientist, professor, speaker, author, and cofounder of Immersion Neuroscience, Dr. Paul Zak. Give this episode a listen for invaluable wisdom on deepening your customer connections, generating long-term customer value, optimizing employee performance through immersive training, and much, much more.

Doing customer math rallies your team not only to ask, "Did we earn more customers than we lost?" But it pushes everybody to care about the why. Find out why in this video.

"The expectations of people, thanks to technology, are different. You want it now, you want it fast, you want good service, you want it with no friction," says Fernando Machado, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Burger King, in regards to the company's transformation to improve its guest experience and meet customer needs. In this episode, Fernando, an extremely successful marketer who's been featured in Adweek and Forbes, shares how he works closely with operations and the franchise owners to make great CX come to life.

Are you responsible for building an entirely new customer experience path for your organization? Monica Whiting, Vice President of Customer Experience at TECO energy, shares tactics and plans to help you strategize short-term and long-term goals for CX, regardless of your industry. Teco is a utility company that provides electric and natural gas services in Tampa Florida, and gas services across the state of Florida.

How does a legacy organization learn how to integrate digital technology in a way that facilitates a meaningful customer experience? Todd Unger, Chief Experience Officer and Senior Vice President of Physician Engagement at the American Medical Association, shares insights and lessons learned along the way, while leveraging his background in marketing and advertising, and product development, to transform a 170-year-old company's communication methods into the world of digital.

Allison Pickens is a Chief Operating Officer at Gainsight, a customer success SaaS organization, whose role is also inclusive of CCO responsibilities. Allison shares how she united the entire organization to embrace a CX transformation, and the skills she believes are required to ascend beyond a typical CCO role, which helped bolster her organization's success and external credibility.

"Don't look at yourself, look at your customer. Be sure you have your customer in mind when you create something. Be sure it's customer-focused, not self-focused," says Horst Schulze, who is the Founder, Chairman & CEO of the Capella Hotel Group, and Co-founder & Former COO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.

Horst definitely knows a thing or two about creating excellent customer service and has some great insights to share with us—many more of which can be found in his latest book, Excellence Wins. Horst shares the wisdom that transcends hotel management and can be employed by CX practitioners in any establishment where customers are being served.

Does your organization have a system in place for measuring customer churn? In today's episode, I chat with Chelsie Rae Lee, Senior Vice President of Customer Strategy at SnackNation, a subscription service that delivers snacks to homes and offices. In this sense, SnackNation is a B2B2C company, as it partners with grocers and other businesses, while also selling directly to consumers. Diving deeper into your analytics will help you understand why your customers left, if they're thinking about leaving, and how you can work to keep them on board. 

Chelsie talks to me about defining her role as the SVP of Customer Strategy and how she worked with senior leadership and her team of account managers to improve employee experience, create a customer journey map, and understand customer churn. 

How do we look at the total journey and understand the underlying drive of customers, so we can develop digital products that better meet their needs? Mark Bartlett, Chief Experience Officer at FPX, chats with me about the importance of developing your customer narrative and understanding their behaviors, so you can design products that they'll get the most benefit out of.

Mark's B2B experience in technology and engineering have shown him that too many times, engineers and developers build products, only to be disappointed in the end when nobody uses them in the way it was intended. He shares tactics that have been helpful as he rebuilds FPX from a customer-first perspective, to be a B2B value-driven engine.