Blazing Trails

One of the most important, significant, but also complicated customer service relationships we have… is with our significant other. They are significant to us; naturally we want to make sure their needs are met. This universal experience is so similar to providing good customer service in the marketplace. We first talk to Francesca Beauman who traces the history of personal ads: what we’ve wanted and not wanted and wanted again from our clients (aka partners) over hundreds of years. Then we turn to Dr. Jess Carbino, who has a PhD from UCLA in 21st century dating, a ton of dating experience herself, and thoughts about how the transaction of love works these days. Also Adam asks his wife if he’s providing good customer service. You’ll want to stick around for her answer.

Tighter margins mean retailers need to innovate to stay competitive during the 2022 holiday shopping season. From dialing up the volume on digital to transforming the role of the physical store, future-looking retailers are putting customers at the heart of every decision they make.

Today, we are joined by Rob Garf, VP and GM of Retail at Salesforce who shares his thoughts on what you can do now to optimize your holiday retail strategy and start building lifelong customer relationships.

This thousand-year-old protein continues to delight the palettes of artisanal cheese-loving patrons. But how do cheese makers Mateo and Andy Kehler, owners of Jasper Hill since 2003, keep up with so many mass-produced options on the shelves? Though it’s a slow, difficult process to arrive at an award-winning cheese – you might even need a cheesemonger like Rich Murrillo to guide you – Mateo shares why a taste is all it takes to birth fine cheese-lovers for years to come.

The Kanesh Archive, a 4,000 year old collection of tablets discovered in Northern Iraq, reveals that customer service is nothing new. Over 4 millenniums ago, textile merchants would keep records of their sales transactions and customer details! In this eye-opening conversation, we welcome Harvard professor, Gojko Barjamovic, and his partner, Agnete, who reveal that these ancient clay records include orders, detailed feedback and requests, and even expense reports for the traveling salesmen! Who knew Quickbooks (or other software) had a great-great-great grandparent?

We went into today’s episode with a big question: when a truly novel product comes to mind for an existing company or just some individual who might end up on Shark Tank, how difficult is it to find out if anyone wants to buy it? So, our correspondent Jane Marie came up with a new product and spoke to the founders of Kirrin Finch, a women’s clothing line that is designed to look like menswear. With their guidance, we take our new idea and go on the hunt for our customer, if there even is one.

How do you create novelty around one of the oldest businesses on the planet? Well, King Arthur Flour is focusing on customers and their wants and needs. Whether it's with recipes or the kind of flour home chefs want, their north star is always, “how do we best serve the baker?” With the help of King Arthur and home pizza oven designers from Breville and Ooni, we talk about how technology in baking is changing the game for pizza lovers.

LAUNCHING OCT 26: Meet The Customer is a six-part series on Blazing Trails taking you through the history of the relationships between businesses and customers.

The automotive industry is in the midst of a historical digital transformation. Today's vehicles are computers on wheels and customers who used to shop exclusively in the showroom can complete transactions online. Tune in to hear Harald Krüger, the former chairman and CEO of BMW and Jessica Geutner, Vice President of Strategic Customers at Salesforce discuss what companies need to do to navigate this uncertain terrain while balancing profitability with research and development as well as environmental initiatives.

We're concluding our Dreamforce 2022 coverage with Bono, an original Trailblazer. The lead singer of U2, cofounder of (RED) and ONE talks about his upcoming new memoir ‘Surrender,’ what fuels his passion for music, art, justice and life.

Our Dreamforce coverage continues. Today we’ll hear Pivot, the award-winning podcast by Vox Media come to life with co-host Kara Swisher and Stewart Butterfield, President & CEO of Slack. Stewart shares his thoughts on the future of work, the metaverse and what’s next for Slack.