The Trusted Guide Podcast (formerly The Delighted Customers Podcast) explores what it takes to lead change when you don’t have formal authority.
Hosted by Mark Slatin, the show examines how trust, credibility, and relationships determine whether ideas move forward—or quietly stall—in complex organizations. Through conversations with experienced leaders, practitioners, and researchers, each episode offers practical insight on influence, alignment, and leading meaningful change without the power to mandate it.
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#135 Emotional Imprinting and the Future of Experience Management
Season 3 · Episode 135
Thursday, May 15, 2025 • Duration 30:43
Join us for a special episode featuring Lou Carbone, widely regarded as the father of the experience management movement. As the founder, president, and chief executive, Chief Experience Officer of Experience Engineering, a Minneapolis-based consulting firm dedicated to customer and employee experience management, Lou brings over 30 years of expertise to the discussion. He pioneered the field with his groundbreaking 1994 article "Engineering Customer Experiences," which may have originated the term "customer experience." Lou is also the author of the book Clued in, How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again and has worked with major companies like Pizza Hut, KFC, Avis, H&R Block, General Motors, IBM, and Taco Bell. He has lectured and taught at leading institutions like Harvard Business School and Cornell School of Business and is currently a Professor of Practice at Michigan State University in the Customer Experience Management Program. Why listen? Lou believes the profession is at a crossroads and will challenge conventional thinking about CX, exploring the current state of the profession and offering insights into moving beyond traditional approaches to create truly distinctive value. He will discuss how organizations can shift their focus from how customers feel about the brand to how they cause them to feel about themselves after interacting with the brand, highlighting the critical role of emotional imprinting in designing memorable experiences that drive value. Tune in as we explore: •What does it mean when we say "customers cannot not have an experience," and how does this fundamental truth shape the approach to experience management? •How can organizations move beyond fixing problems ("fixing broken") to design experiences that leverage emotional imprinting and lead to "distinctive economic value"? •In a world where the definition of CX is fragmented, how can understanding "next practices" rooted in emotion, psychology, and neuroscience help prove the ROI and Return on Strategy of experience management initiatives? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the Delighted Customers podcast on your favorite platform! Your support helps us bring you more insightful conversations with leaders shaping the future of customer experience.
#134 "It's Not About the Coffee": A Starbucks President's Recipe for Delighting Customers with CX
Season 3 · Episode 134
Thursday, May 8, 2025 • Duration 30:18
"It's Not About the Coffee": A Starbucks President's Recipe for Delighting Customers with CX
Join us for an insightful conversation with Howard Behar, a pivotal figure in Starbucks' legendary growth. As the President of Starbucks North America and the founding President of Starbucks International for 21 years, Howard participated in the company's expansion from just 28 stores to over 15,000. He also served on the Starbucks board of directors for 12 years before retiring. He's also authored two books on leadership titled "It's not about the Coffee" and "The Magic Cup," book titles that encapsulate his core philosophy. In this episode, Howard tackles a fundamental challenge faced by rapidly growing businesses: How do you scale operations from a small number of locations to a global empire while preserving the deeply personal customer experience that made you successful? Howard argues that the answer lies not just in the product, but in a relentless focus on people – both employees and customers – understanding that Starbucks was always "in the people business serving coffee, not the coffee business serving people". Listen in as Howard shares firsthand how this philosophy drove extraordinary growth and answers critical questions, including: •How did the philosophy "we're in the people business serving coffee, not the coffee business serving people" shape Starbucks' approach to customer experience? •How did Starbucks manage its rapid expansion from 28 stores to over 15,000 while maintaining a consistent, personal customer experience? •How did leadership make decisions about investing in initiatives and supporting teams, particularly when facing the challenge of proving the ROI of customer experience? Discover actionable insights on servant leadership, empowering employees, the power of listening, and taking calculated risks to build a truly people-centric organization that delights customers and achieves remarkable growth. Don't miss this eye-opening conversation with Greg Kihlstrom! Listen and subscribe to the Delighted Customers podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or find us on your favorite podcast platform Meet Howard Howard Behar's extensive career spans over 50 years in consumer-oriented businesses. He served at Starbucks Coffee for 21 years, retiring after participating in the company's growth from 28 stores to over 15,000 across five continents. He held pivotal leadership roles as President of Starbucks North America and the founding President of Starbucks International. Howard also served on the Starbucks board of directors for 12 years before retiring. He is the author of two books on leadership. Books by Howard Behar: Show Notes and References: Howard Behar has agreed to share his personal document for inclusion in the show notes. Connect with Howard Behar (Generously Provided by Howard): - Cell Phone: 206-972-7776 (Call or Text - he will get back to you) - Email: hb@howardbehar.com
#125 Inside LinkedIn: Designing Value for Members and Customers
Season 3 · Episode 125
Thursday, March 6, 2025 • Duration 42:22
Are you on LinkedIn?
Ever wondered how LinkedIn keeps its users engaged and loyal?
Join us for an insider's view of the platform that drives business networking.
Unpacking Value Creation:
Sam Stern delves into the importance of distinguishing between LinkedIn users—members versus customers. He explains how this differentiation impacts the value each group gets from the platform, ensuring a balance between the needs of paying customers and non-paying members.
Continuous Evolution:
LinkedIn is committed to continuous research, aiming to understand user pain points and iterating solutions based on direct feedback. This approach helps uncover underlying issues and experiment with ways to enhance user experience.
Aligning with the Power Core:
Drawing on Jeanne Bliss's Power Core concept, Sam illustrates how aligning with LinkedIn's core strength as a product-driven organization has revolutionized their ability to influence change and elevate the customer experience. This alignment underscores the importance of understanding and working within the organizational power structure.
This episode promises a deep dive into the strategies that make LinkedIn a powerful networking tool!
Meet Sam: Sam Stern is a customer experience expert with more than 20 years in the field as a speaker, community builder, practitioner, podcaster, and researcher. Currently, he leads the Service Design team at LinkedIn, helping to design and deliver delightful experiences for the platform's 1 billion members and customers. Sam has also created three LinkedIn Learning courses on customer experience, and hosts his own weekly podcast, CX Patterns. In past roles, he started a customer experience team for the footwear company New Balance, and worked in research and consulting roles at Forrester Research. While there, Sam helped launch Forrester's CX Certification training curriculum, and he started Forrester's popular "CX Cast" podcast.
#36: The Biggest Obstacles to Successful Change Initiatives - with Amanda Schmoldt, CCMP, President, ACMP
Season 2 · Episode 41
Thursday, June 8, 2023 • Duration 33:03
What are the biggest obstacles to successful change initiatives?
Amanda Schmoldt has the expertise and experience that only comes from successfully leading change management initiatives at some of the most respected brands in the world like USAA and Neiman Marcus.
Not only is she the President of the Association of Change Management Professionals, but she's also the Senior Director of Change and Transformation Enablement at Halo Branded Solutions.
Customer Experience Management (CXM) and Change Management (CM) are kindred spirits and have a lot in common.
We explore the intersection of both professions as well as some other practical advice for leaders such as:
👉 Why CM initiatives fail
👉 The intersection of CX and CM
👉 How she helped change the culture at Neiman Marcus
👉 What USAA did right when it comes to cultural transformation
👉 Using behavioral metrics to measure success for change initiatives
Meet Amanda
Amanda Schmoldt, CCMP, has more than two decades of experience in organizational change management, human resources, communications, and organizational effectiveness. Amanda is President of the Association of Change Management Professionals and serves as Senior Director of Change & Transformation Enablement for HALO Branded Solutions. In her current role, she leads a team that is dedicated to building enterprise change capabilities and supporting the people side of the company's change and transformation efforts. Before joining HALO, Amanda held various leadership roles at Neiman Marcus Group, USAA, Caterpillar, Archer Daniels Midland, and the State of Illinois. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
You can reach her on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-schmoldt/
#35: The 5 Leadership SUPERPOWERS with Jay Weiser
Season 1 · Episode 40
Thursday, June 1, 2023 • Duration 41:17
The 5 Leadership SUPERPOWERS with Jay Weiser, Principal and Founder, Jay Weiser Consulting
Jay Weiser is a leadership expert.
He's a graduate of the Wharton School, and has consulted at Accenture.
He's worked with recognizable names like Autotrader, Bristol Myers Squibb and others.
Jay helps us think critically about the tensions that exist for leaders and how to leverage them to build superior organizations.
In this episode we talk about:
Lessons for leaders from SVB's failure
How Delta's CEO provided 3 keys to success immediately following the Covid outbreak
How Jay's leadership insights intersect with outstanding customer experiences
And, of course THE FIVE LEADERSHIP SUPERPOWERS
Meet Jay
Jay Weiser is the Principal and Founder of Jay Weiser Consulting. His passion is enabling leaders and organizations to not only survive but thrive in the face of disruptiveness and uncertainty. Knowing traditional leadership capabilities are insufficient in this environment, Jay developed THE FIVE LEADERSHIP SUPERPOWERS™ capability
model to address this need.
Through speaking, training, assessment, and advisory services, he helps his clients succeed by improving their preparedness/readiness enabling them to better withstand disruptions, recover quicker, accelerate forward, and
be positioned to jump on opportunities faster.
Jay has over 3 decades of experience advising executives across multiple industries and various environments. His clients and employers span from the middle market to Fortune/Forbes 500, including recognizable names like
#34: Why do most surveys fail to get results? with Rick Denton, Managing Principle, EX4CX
Season 1 · Episode 39
Thursday, May 25, 2023 • Duration 38:22
Why do most surveys fail to get results?
Rick Denton believes too many companies rely too heavily on survey data and consequently don't get results.
He suggests CX leaders should look beyond surveys to - listen, act, and engage.
It's a simple, yet powerful model we explore on this episode of the Delighted Customers Podcast along with:
👉 What not to ask customers
👉 How to use customer feedback to inspire employees
👉 Why customer experiences are tanking
👉 The importance of aligning brand promise to experience
👉 What's missing in CX today
Join us for a lively and fun episode with two CX pros who also host podcasts
Meet Rick
Rick Denton believes the best meals are served outside and require a passport.
A sought after Customer Experience Advisor and keynote speaker, Rick enables companies to achieve Experience Transformation, guiding them to stop Survey & Score and start Listen & Act, using aTotal Voice of the Customerapproach.
As a Managing Principal at EX4CX, Rick helps clients unlock tangible business value from their Voice of the Customer Programs, create Customer Experience visions, culture and reality while driving revenue growth & operational improvement.
In his leadership roles prior to EX4CX such as with Bose, Capital One and several other industry champions, Rick created customer obsessed cultures, high performance execution systems, and clear outcome-oriented alignment. Rick delivered these results across multiple industries and company size profiles both domestically and internationally.
#33: Applying Lessons from Football (Soccer) to Customer Experience with Greg Uglioni, CCXP
Season 1 · Episode 38
Thursday, May 18, 2023 • Duration 34:12
What does football (soccer) have in common with Customer Experience?
Greg Uglioni, CCXP, Head of Business Transformation / Digital Transformation at Kantonsspital Winterthur connects the two in a very innovative way.
Greg was voted a Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Loyalty 2022 Thinkers360
Greg joins us all the way from Switzerland, to share wisdom from his experience in both financial services and healthcare including:
Creating value centers vs. cost centers
Lessons from soccer that apply to CX
How to win a championship by applying football (soccer) principles
Meet Greg
Gregorio Uglioni is a specialist in Business Transformation, Innovation and Customer Experience.
Thanks to his strong leadership skills, Gregorio has successfully led several transformation programs achieving great results, creating a positive customer impact while relentlessly nurturing a positive innovation culture.
His cross-industry engagement for the development of the customer experience discipline (e.g., with his podcast "CX Goalkeeper", as a Judge at several international events, as a co-author of the global best-sellers "Customer Experience 3" and "Customer Experience 4") and his in-depth know-how allowed him to be recognized and awarded several time in Customer Experience Community.
Gregorio holds two masters from the University of Zurich. He is a CCXP and the world's first certified ACXSPlus.
He started his career at Accenture and is now the Head of Business Transformation at the Cantonal Hospital of Winterthur in Switzerland.
Gregorio's battery charger is his family
2023 Recognitions:
#32: "The Evolution of CX at Walgreens with Danielle Wipperfurth, CCXP, Director of Customer Experience "
Season 1 · Episode 37
Thursday, May 11, 2023 • Duration 55:23
How did a neighborhood drugstore, founded in 1901 and measuring just 50 feet by 20 feet, become the pharmacy all others are measured by and one of the most respected American corporations?
Charles R. Walgreen, Sr took a job at Horton's Drugstore in Dixon, Il because an accident left him unable to take part in sports when he was 16.
After working in several drugstores, he grew increasingly knowledgeable - and increasingly dissatisfied with what he saw as old-fashioned, complacent methods of running a drugstore.
Walgreen saw a clear way to differentiate back in the late 1800's: "...the most dramatic change Walgreen instituted was a level of service and personal attention unequaled by virtually any other pharmacy in Chicago."
Today Walgreens has over 13,000 locations across the U.S., Europe, and Latin American with over 325,000 team members.
Recently, Walgreens has formalized their Customer Experience Management efforts and Danielle Wipperfurth, CCXP, Director of Customer Experience at the storied retailer joins me for a fascinating discussion on The Delighted Customers Podcast.
She shares some practical tips and stories including:
The same as Coke vs. Pepsi? How does Walgreens think of their brand differently from CVS and other competitors
The evolution of CX at Walgreens
The Power of in-store visits
Idea Testing
Preparing for a health clinic from a CX perspective
#31: Understanding Intrinsic and External Motivators to Unlock Discretionary Employee Effort - with Greg Kihlstrom, Principal, Chief Strategist, GK5A
Season 1 · Episode 36
Thursday, May 4, 2023 • Duration 43:06
Greg Kihlstrom is a speaker, author, advisor, and strategy expert.
With a background in digital marketing, Greg brings experience from that background along with his experience in the customer experience world to help companies up their game.
Some of the gems Greg shares:
Understanding intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to unlock discretionary employee effort
Why everyone must have a line of sight to the customer
4 qualifiers for meaningful measurement
…and a whole lot more.
Meet Greg
Greg Kihlström is a best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur, currently an advisor and consultant to top companies on marketing technology, customer experience, and digital transformation initiatives as Principal and Chief Strategist at GK5A. He is also the host of The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. He is a two-time CEO and Co-Founder, growing both companies organically and through acquisitions, and ultimately leading both to be acquired (one in 2017, and the other in 2021). He has worked with some of the world's top brands, including Adidas, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, HP, Marriott, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota, and VMware.
He earned his MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology and is a member of the School of Marketing Faculty at the Association of National Advertisers. He currently serves on the University of Richmond's Customer Experience Advisory Board and the Workhouse Arts Foundation Board as Chair of the Marketing Committee. Greg was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation's National Innovation Committee and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board. Greg is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified, is an Agile Certified Coach (ICP-ACC), and holds a certification in Business Agility (ICP-BAF).
#30: The "Customer Chair": The Power of Storytelling, Richard Dorfman, MBA, Vice President, Customer Experience, Eastern Bank
Season 1 · Episode 35
Thursday, April 27, 2023 • Duration 40:51
The Customer Chair: The Power of Storytelling, Richard Dorfman, MBA, Vice President, Customer Experience, Eastern Bank
Influencing decisions in the C-Suite requires an appeal to both the logical and emotional sides of the brain. Sure you have to have data to support big decisions, but emotions are always linked to influence. Stories are a powerful way to engage leaders to get your ideas accepted.
Rich Dorfman, the CX leader at one of the largest Boston-based banks, shares his real world experience as a CX practitioner and how he used the power of storytelling to influence key decision-makers. In my opinion, there's nothing like hearing from someone who has learned real life lessons to lead a customer centric culture.
Some of the highlights of the episode include:
The Customer Chair - How Rich borrowed an idea from Clint Eastwood to influence senior leaders
The "Axle-breaking Moment" - the power of knowing your audience
Building relationships with key stakeholders
Partnering with key stakeholders to create allies
Meet Rich
For more than nine years, Rich has led Eastern Bank's customer experience efforts managing all aspects of this strategic initiative from program design to Voice of Customer (VOC) measurement and management to analysis and reporting to being the "customer-first" catalyst of the company. The result of Rich's relentless pursuit of this critical outside in perspective has focused and aligned the bank around customer-centric behaviors and attitudes. Key accomplishment include:
> Created a Customer Experience (CX) governance council empowered to identify and repair CX pain points, which then communicates these customer and institutional "wins" to all impacted stakeholders
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Autotrader (Cox Auto), Bristol Myers Squibb, Fulton County Schools, JP Morgan Chase, to Publix.
Jay has delivered presentations to executive groups and has been interviewed for multiple podcasts around the globe. Most recently, he was interviewed by Eric McNulty with the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, a joint program between Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Chan School of Public Health. His thought leadership has been featured on Forbes.com, Rework.co, The Balanced Scorecard Report (an HBS publication),
LinkedIn, and on his website, www.jayweiser.com.
He has a BS in Economics from The Wharton School (UPenn) and his MBA from the Goizueta Business School (Emory).
LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/jayrweiser
Twitter – www.twitter.com/@Jay_R_Weiser
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
In addition to scouring the globe for the best customer experiences, Rick, his wife and two children, love to travel the globe simply to travel. You'll as easily find them in Texas as you'll find them in Thailand. (Ask him about the fantastic grilled squid on a stick!…Or the not so great fried tarantula!) When he's not with the family or clients, you'll likely find Rick hiking on a mountain somewhere in the southwestern USA desert.
Rick combines these loves by hosting theCX Passport podcast, a weekly talk with guests about customer experience and travel.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenton/
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
CXM STARS #8 TOP CX INFLUENCER by CXM
ICMI'S TOP 25 THOUGHT LEADERS FOR 2023 by ICMI
World's Top 200 Business & Technology Innovators by Engati
Top 50 Global Thought Leaderss and Influencers on Customer Loyalty 2023
Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Digital Transformation 2023
Top 25 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Experience 2023
Top 50 Global Thought Leaders on Leadership 2023
2022 Recognitions:
CXM STARS #10 TOP CX INFLUENCER from CXM
"Influencers to follow" from the UK Customer Experience Awards 2022
Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Loyalty 2022 Thinkers360
Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Digital Transformation 2022
Top 10 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Experience 2022 Thinkers360
Top 50 Global Thought Leaders on Leadership 2022
2021 Recognitions:
TOP INFLUENCER 2021 by ENGATI
Customer Experience World Games 2021: Overall Star Player Recognition, 30 July 2021
Thinkers360: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders on Customer Experience, October 2021
Survey2Connect: Featured in the list of the 100 CX Thought Leaders Around The World That Are Changing The CX Game
Some quotes:
"my family is my battery charger"
"When I wake up in the morning, I want to create value, to have an impact and to serve others to achieve our goals together"
"Yes, it is possible to create value for employees, customers and shareholders. At the end, they are all human beings!"
"blending agility & CX will be a key success factor in future"
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
Meet Danielle
Danielle Wipperfurth serves as Director of Customer Experience at Walgreens. Her background includes leadership roles across sectors and internationally in organizations as diverse as an incubator for social impact startups, a creative agency serving the White House, and a luxury outdoor kitchen company.
Danielle's expertise includes healthcare customer experience, the relationship between employee and customer experience, and the power of aligning experience with your brand promise. She is deeply committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, serving on the Diversity Advancement Committee for the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA).
Danielle earned her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and her bachelor's degree from Davidson College. In 2020, she was recognized as an inaugural Emerging Leader in Customer Experience by the CXPA, and now invests in the next generation of CX leaders as Chair of the program.
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
Greg has had multiple best-selling books, including his Agile Brand Guides series on marketing technology platforms and practices. His eleventh and most recent book, House of the Customer(2023) discusses the 1:1 personalized customer experience of the future, and how brands can organize the people, processes, and platforms that enable it. Meaningful Measurement of the Customer Experience (2022), provides guidance on how to create a customer-centric culture that prioritizes customer needs while aligning internal teams around a common goal. His award-winning podcast, The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström, launched in early 2019, discusses brand strategy, marketing, and customer experience with some of the world's leading experts and leaders.
Greg is a contributing writer to Fast Company, Forbes, MarTech, and CMSWire, and has been featured in publications such as Advertising Age and The Washington Post. Greg has been named a 2022 Top 10 Marketing and Customer Experience Thought Leader by Thinkers 360, was named one of ICMI's Top 25 CX Thought Leaders two years in a row, and a DC Inno 50 on Fire as a DC trendsetter in Marketing.
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
> Designed customer feedback programs in every line of business with robust closed loop management processes
> Integrated VOC insights into business plans to drive CX enhancements
> Developed a comprehensive and actionable CX financial linkage analysis that strongly correlates customers' sentiments to their banking business and profitability
> Embarked on a CX maturity benchmark assessment to uncover a defined strategic roadmap for future CX improvement initiatives
Prior to Eastern, Rich's banking career included strategic marketing positions at Chemical Bank/Chase in New York, Shawmut Bank/Fleet Bank in Boston and as principle of his own strategic consulting firm focused on delivering differentiated value to high-revenue small business segments.
