Crack the Customer Code

Jeannie and Adam share research and expert tips for getting chatbots and humans to work together in harmony.

Chatbots are here to stay, and new research says we love them! However, we have a long way to go before they can fully operate on their own. For instance, bots are great for answering simple questions, but real humans do need to step in to answer the tough ones.

“Not all chatbots are created equal not are all humans.” -Adam Toporek

Even the best chatbots can create experiences that frustrate customers, and eventually, chase them away – especially when real human contact is not within reach. So how can we use chat bots in ways customers will always appreciate? More importantly, how can we use them to reduce effort where it counts without alienating customers?

“AI and bots have the potential to make things better for your customers…” --Jeannie Walters

Inspired by new research, Adam and Jeannie are sharing expert tips for fine-tuning your chatbot to deliver excellent service when it can, and keeping it human when they can’t. What should you rely on chatbots for, and what situations are better left to humans from the start? Listen in for tips you can use today!

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, #SXSW: Emerging AI with a Focus on Greater Experiences
• Customers That Stick® post, 3 Questions to Ask Before Launching Live Chat for Customer Service
• Episode 234: Tips for Customer Service Bots
• Episode 174: Robert Scoble, Augmented Reality and the Fourth Transformation
• We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message

Are you ready to build a customer experience strategy on a solid foundation for the long term? We’re shattering the top 5 CX strategy myths in our upcoming webinar.

• How to avoid the 5 so-called “Customer Experience Strategies” that aren’t strategies at all
• What drives a winning customer experience strategy and examples of companies that “get it”
• How to create a foundation for a customer experience strategy that works for the long term

Join Jeannie August 22nd at 11:00 am Central for some serious mythbusting, live Q&A, and a head start on creating a customer experience strategy that works! 

If you can't make it on August 22nd, don't worry! You'll miss the live Q&A, but you'll still have access to the recording 24 hours after the live presentation. 

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam and Jeannie share tips to unlock your full mobile potential and deliver what customers need most in the moment.

We talk about mobile a lot on this show, but that’s because capabilities and expectations are always changing! Are you keeping up? Because there are many ways to leverage mobile technology to make it easier to do business with you.

“Ask yourself, ‘What does a customer really want via mobile?’” -Jeannie Walters

There are many ways mobile can be used to create a more rewarding, seamless and effortless customer experience, and we bet there are some you haven’t thought of! So we’re sharing some tips and ideas to help you create the best mobile experience possible.

“What people are really looking for is fast information in most cases…” -Adam Toporek

Is your mobile experience living up to its full potential? More importantly, are you sure you’re delivering the mobile experience your customers need most? Listen in to find out and learn some tips you can use today!

• 360Connext® post, Mobile Innovation Is Not About Your Phone!
• Customers That Stick® post, Interview: GetApp’s Top 25 Customer Service Apps
• Episode 262: Ecommerce Still Not Getting It Right
• Episode 237: Peter Friedman, Customer Service Messaging Apps
• We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message

Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam and Jeannie interview Merit Gest to discuss powerful sales engagement and onboarding strategies for customer-focused sales teams.

Sales is often treated as separate from the customer experience. Consequently, sales staff is often not trained to deliver a customer-focused experience from start to finish. Even when customer experience principles are included, typical sales training falls short on empowering sales professionals to deliver great experiences throughout the entire customer journey.

“Onboarding continues…through the entire sales cycle…” -Merit Gest

Merit Gest joins us today to help onboard and train sales staff the right way. She explains that the onboarding process should continue through the entire sales cycle, not just through the initial closing. Therefore, training a customer-focused sales team requires much more time and attention than most of us may think.

First of all, it’s critical to let trainees know they’re being welcomed into a customer-focused team. Next, they need to stay motivated through a long and sometimes frustrating onboarding process.

“People are going to need to have some wins along the way.” -Merit Gest

Above all, sales teams need to have the emotional intelligence to understand the experiences they are delivering from the customer’s perspective. Furthermore, the individuals in that team need to know they will have the support they need to keep at it.

“Whether or not you say, ‘We’re about team,” it should be obvious.” -Merit Gest

Does this sound overwhelming? You’re in luck, because Merit is here to help you develop an onboarding and training process that is both highly engaging and rewarding for your sales team and yourself! As a result, you'll build a sales team that delivers amazing experiences throughout the entire sales cycle. Listen in to amp up your sales engagement today!

Interview highlights

• How can a better sales process set the stage for a better overall customer experience? [2:20]
• Merit outlines the tiered onboarding structure she recommends to clients. [5:02]
• How can we motivate sales staff through a long onboarding process? Merit shares 3 actions to keep them focused and efficient. [8:30]
• What are the most important things professionals should keep in mind as the sales landscape changes and evolves? [13:30]

Merit Gest has more than 20 years of experience working with companies to grow revenue, increase profitability and reduce turnover. She is President and Founder of Merit-based Consulting; a Denver based firm specializing in getting top performers in the door and ramped up fast.   Merit is one of a small handful of specialists in the world certified in both Emotional Intelligence and Cultural Transformation, giving her a unique perspective for hiring, onboarding and retaining top talent.  An active member of The National Speakers Association and now a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and author of Myth Shift: Challenging The Truths That Sabotage Success, Merit engages audiences with content, connection and comedy by day as a popular keynote speaker and by night as a stand-up comedian.

Connect with Merit

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• MeritGest.com
• MeritBasedOnboarding.com

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Add Magic to your Customer Service Training
• Customers That Stick® post, The Importance of Onboarding Employees
• Episode 176: (Tip) Hiring a Customer-Centric Employee
• Episode 249: How Customer Service Training Goes Wrong
• We’re on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message

Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam and Jeannie explore recent research about prevailing ecommerce experience pet peeves and offer creative solutions.

Ecommerce experiences have come a long way since the 90’s, but recent research shows that we still have a long way to go. Customers are still having problems with navigation, personalization, functionality, and just plain poor user experiences.

“It’s still not really about the customer at the end of the day…” -Jeannie Walters 

After great leaps in technology and design, would you believe some of the same pet peeves have prevailed through the years, or even decades? Why are customers still being blamed for “user errors” or just not getting things done?

And these problems are not exclusive to retail. Qualified customers everywhere are shopping elsewhere for software, insurance, telecom services and more due to age-old experience gaps.

We can do better!

Today, Adam and Jeannie explore some of the top prevailing ecommerce pet peeves and what how to fix them. What drives you away from ecommerce sites? What about your customers?

“Embody these principles as much as possible even if you cannot change them.” - Adam Toporek

Listen in to say goodbye to the most common ecommerce experience nightmares!  

• Infographic: The Biggest Pet Peeves of Ecommerce Websites
• 360Connext® post, 5 Reasons your Website Users are SO Frustrated
• Customers That Stick® post, Omnichannel Customer Service with the Human Touch
• Episode 046: Tom Schwab on Inbound Marketing
• Episode 130: Chloë Thomas, Customer Manipulation
• We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message

Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam shares surprising statistics about first contact resolution, why it’s important, and tips for putting this knowledge to better use.

How many steps must a customer take before resolving an issue? More importantly, how does the customer feel about the experience of making contact? Because speediness for speed’s sake tends to harm the way customers perceive the experience.

First Contact Resolution (FCR) is a common metric in call centers. Resolving customer issues quickly is very important! However, a narrow focus on FCR can misrepresent the experience the customer is having and lead to undesired results.

“How can an issue be resolved, but not REALLY be resolved?” -Adam Toporek

It’s common to think a service interaction has been a success if the issue was resolved at the first contact. Consequently, the experience around that first point of contact tends to suffer in favor of boosting FCR.

Above all, customers need service that is not only fast, but leaves them feeling confident and satisfied. How can you balance customer effort with overall experience at the first point of contact?

Today, Adam shares compelling statistics around FCR, why it’s important and what you can do to help your staff better understand this metric. Listen in for tips you can use today!

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, Your Data Is Only as Good as Your Perspective
• Customers That Stick® post, 3 Areas to Focus your Customer Experience in 2017
• Episode 119: CXPA Live, Predictive Analytics
• Episode 208: Can You Predict Customer Behavior?
• We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Jeannie is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) who has held highly engaging Customer Experience Mission workshops for larger audiences, and customized ones for clients with outstanding results. Sign up to learn how to start your own Customer Experience Mission for free!

• Make your mission statement meaningful both to customers and employees
• Ensure customer-facing employees meet and exceed expectations
• Turn ordinary processes into a conduit for your mission
• Steps for creating a mission your team will be proud to get behind

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeannie and Adam interview podcaster and employee attitudes expert Julie Ann Sullivan live from the NSA Influence 2017 conference.

While you may have a solid business strategy and great employees, you may still struggle with engaging your workforce to deliver the best experiences possible. Do your employees WANT to come to work? Even more important: Is their attitude conducive to a healthy and engaging culture? Because policies and and skill sets aside,  a healthy attitude is critical to success in business.

“What’s happening with the attitude of their workforce bleeds into everything else.” -Julie Ann Sullivan

Julie Ann Sullivan helps business leaders understand the best ways to truly engage their people. As a result, customer satisfaction and loyalty improve along with workplace morale and better communication.

In this interview, we discuss the keys to proper employee engagement, and how they affect the experiences delivered. Julie Ann shares some of the creative ways her clients have turned their cultures around to communicate better, motivate their employees, and consequently, improve business outcomes.

“It’s really education first, then figuring out where the gaps are.” -Julie Ann Sullivan

So how does Julie Ann educate business leaders, and see them through to creating an environment where employees not only believe in what they do, but become advocates for the company?

We have a lot of great tips and examples you can follow in this fun episode, so listen in!

Interview Highlights

• Julie Ann explains not only what she does for companies that need to be educated on employee engagement, but why. [2:20]
• What does that education process look like? Julie Ann shares real stories about different scenarios. [3:55]
• Julie Ann, Adam and Jeannie discuss ways to create environments where employees feel safe to share their most honest feedback. [9:20]
• What stops companies from creating more engaging environments and moving forward with a better culture? [12:55]

Julie Ann Sullivan works with organizations that want to create a workplace environment where people are productive, engaged and appreciated. Julie Ann is a professional speaker, trainer and Inspired Leadership Coach.  

As the Founder of Learning Never Ends, her purpose is to create a more positive culture, one person at a time.  She has a diverse educational background which includes a BA in Psychology and an MBA in Accounting.   

Julie Ann was a CPA and spent decades involved in the financial industry and the corporate world.  

As a Professional Speaker, she has spoken for companies and organizations such as, McDonald's USA, the City of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, Howard Hanna Financial Services and Bayer US. In addition, she's currently a podcast host of Mere Mortals Unite and Businesses that Care.

Connect with Julie Ann

• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Website
• Podcast

• 360Connext® post, Are Your Employees Engaged to Tell You the Truth?
• Customers That Stick® post, How Employee Empowerment Really Works
• Episode 252: Alison Herzog, Dell Customer Experience
• Episode 073: Hacking Your Workplace Culture
• We’re on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message:

Jeannie is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) who has held highly engaging Customer Experience Mission workshops for larger audiences, and customized ones for clients with outstanding results. Sign up to learn how to start your own Customer Experience Mission, for free!

• Make your mission statement meaningful, both to customers and employees
• Ensure customer-facing employeesnot only meet, but exceed expectations
• Turn ordinary processes into a conduit for your mission, and positive change
• Steps for creating a mission your team will be proud to get behind

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeannie and Adam discuss creative ways predicting behavior and risk without investing in advanced technology.

Predictive analytics is amazing as it sounds, and the technology is improving rapidly. Machines can now analyze data to predict customer behavior, calculate risks, identify who is likely to upgrade or buy more… The list goes on.

But what if you don’t have the budget and resources to take advantage of this amazing technology?

“You can find behaviors in your customer data without a fancy computer or predictive analytics.” -Adam Toporek

Business leaders have been predicting behavior and risk for many years, without the aid of advanced technology. In fact, you may already have what you need.

How a suggestion or question is framed can tell you a lot about what someone is considering.” -Jeannie Walters

Today, Jeannie and Adam are sharing some old-school ways to gain the insights many now believe to be out of reach without a supercomputer and outrageously expensive software. You’ll have to roll up your sleeves a little, but you’ll be surprised how much actionable data is already there. Listen in to start predicting the future today!

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, Your Data Is Only as Good as Your Perspective
• Customers That Stick® post, 3 Areas to Focus your Customer Experience in 2017
• Episode 119: CXPA Live, Predictive Analytics
• Episode 208: Can You Predict Customer Behavior?
• We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Jeannie is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) who has held highly engaging Customer Experience Mission workshops for larger audiences, and customized ones for clients with outstanding results. Sign up to learn how to start your own Customer Experience Mission for free!

• Make your mission statement meaningful both to customers and employees
• Ensure customer-facing employees meet and exceed expectations
• Turn ordinary processes into a conduit for your mission
• Steps for creating a mission your team will be proud to get behind

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Adam and Jeannie share tips for helping employees understand, align, and stay motivated to achieve goals.

Everyone sets goals to drive their business forward… But teams, departments, and the individuals within them have goals of their own. Keeping all those smaller goals in tune with the greater mission of an organization is challenging!

“We are what we focus on.” -Adam Toporek

It’s critical to make sure employees understand what their mission is and what their specific goals have to do with company-wide goals. They need to stay connected not only to the actions that lead to success, but to the why.

“It’s not about just watching the numbers go up.” -Jeannie Walters

Today, Adam and Jeannie are sharing expert tips on articulating goals, aligning them with the company mission, and keeping employees emotionally invested in achieving them.

• 360Connext® post, 5 Killer Mid-Year Review Questions You Need to Ask Now
• Customers That Stick® post, 5 Qualities of Great Customer Service Managers
• Episode 254: Rocky Romanella, Tighten the Lug Nuts
• Episode 236: (Tip) Customer Experience Sprints
• We're on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message

Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeannie and Adam interview author and medical liability expert Pat Iyer live from the NSA Influence 2017 conference.

Stakes can be high in any business... but imagine if you had legal and medical issues thrown in the mix! Today’s guest achieved amazing results turning the experience around in the high-stakes medical liability industry.

Dealing with lawyers, patients, and issues that require legal intervention, it’s no doubt medical liability is a touchy subject! But Pat Iyer built a million-dollar business by offering experiences that stand out in her industry.

“Everything in our business had to be done well and with excellence.” -Pat Iyer

Make no mistake- Your customers are touchy too! Are you prepared for those moments when things don’t go as planned, expectations are unclear, or tension is expected? Pat shares amazing insights into growing a business with a customer-focused approach – no matter what industry you are in.

Listen in for great advice on creating better experiences in high-stakes situations, and smoothing things over when tension is at an all-time high.

Interview highlights

• Pat talks about how she increased sales and loyalty by offering a unique experience in her high-stakes business. [1:20]
• How can we defuse tense situations like those which arise around legal and billing issues? [4:45]
• Pat shares tips for forming your business objective around creating standout experiences. [7:55]
• What are some great ways to prepare for and recover from hiccups in a high-stakes experience? [10:00]

Pat Iyer MSN RN LNCC is a medical liability expert, professional speaker, author and coach. She works with healthcare providers who want to reduce risks and improve patient safety.

LNCC is the certification granted by the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants and is the only legal nurse consulting certification which meets the standards of the American Board of Nursing Specialties. It is awarded to experienced legal nurse consultants who meet a practice requirement and pass a rigorous exam.

In 1989, Pat established Med League Support Services, an independent legal nurse consulting firm. As a result of reviewing thousands of medical records and talking with attorneys about thousands of cases, she developed deep expertise in the concepts of medical liability and patient safety: from the labor and delivery site to the nursing home, from the emergency department to the ICU, from the outpatient surgery center to the dialysis center, and everywhere in between.

She served on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants including one year as national president. She sold Med League in 2015 and now devotes her time to coaching, writing and professional speaking.

Pat is the author or editor of over 800 books, chapters, case studies, articles or online courses. Her publications have been read by thousands of people and translated into Japanese, Spanish, and the Indonesian language. Pat presents onsite programs, virtual presentations, and podcasts. She is the moderator of podcasts for the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health and Safety.

Connect with Pat

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Website

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Boost Your Customer Service Listening
• Customers That Stick® post, The Importance of Listening in Customer Service
• Episode 245: Vicky Smitley, Business Plans and CX
• Episode 211: Marcus Sheridan, They Ask, You Answer
• We’re on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts

Sponsor message

Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeannie and Adam know how difficult it is to hire right. Often, organizations feel tremendous pressure to fill open roles, and too often, these rushed hires are poor hires.

In this episode, Jeannie and Adam share tips for hiring well you're under the gun.

One way to maintain hiring standards when you don't have time is to compress the hiring process. Make sure to not short the process by eliminating steps but to find a way to execute the full hiring process in a shortened window.

Check out the full episode for Adam and Jeannie's other tips on hiring well when you're desperate.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices