Crack the Customer Code

Jeannie shares 3 tips to prevent organizational structure from negatively affecting the customer experience.

A solid organizational structure is essential to delivering great customer experiences, creating new ones, or solving issues. But too often, we send customers on a journey through our internal org charts instead of a direct path to success – especially when there’s an issue.

While it is important to establish accountability, customers don’t care who in your organization is responsible for solving an issue, so long as the experience is quick and painless for them. And yet, customers often find themselves at the mercy of internal processes when trying to get things done.

“If there’s a customer champion in any organization, it should be in leadership.” -Jeannie Walters

What is meant to keep things organized on the inside can easily spell disaster on the outside- while customer experiences suffer, customer satisfaction drops, and loyalty disappears.

Where does your org chart create nightmares for customers? Jeannie has some expert tips to help you tighten things up and keep them on a rewarding journey. Listen in!

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, 3 Destructive Consistency Issues You Need to Overcome Now
• Customers That Stick® post, 3 Areas to Focus your Customer Experience in 2017
• Episode 39: Does Employee Empowerment Work?
• Episode 249: How Customer Service Training Goes Wrong
• 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 Rocky Romanella, author of Tighten the Lug Nuts:The Principles of Balanced Leadership.

Leadership in business means gearing not only yourself, but those around you for success. Too often, overwhelmed leaders become more focused on the goals of their business than the people and things that make success possible.

How can you achieve consistency in the way you lead, motivate or mentor your people? How do you balance your goals with keeping those around you in a state where they feel valued?

“They want to follow you because you’re that leader with consistency.” -Rocky Romanella

Today’s guest, Rocky Romanella, literally wrote the book on achieving balanced leadership. Through amazing examples and highlights from his book, Rocky shares key some principles of balanced leadership with our listeners. (Spoiler: Leadership skills are not just for managers, politicians, or others we typically consider leaders!)

“Each of us touches an influence in other lives.” -Rocky Romanella 

In this interview, we learn how leadership skills touch those who follow, and core principles to instill in them for an overall successful team.

“You have to believe in your people until they’re ready to believe in themselves.” -Rocky Romanella

Rocky brought some great energy into this interview, and he’s excited to share with you the secrets behind his own success as a leader. Want to sharpen your own leadership skills while inspiring team members, colleagues and partners? Join us!

Interview Highlights

• What's the concept behind “Tighten the Lug Nuts,” and why are leadership principles important to everyone? [2:30]
• Hear the simple, universal wisdom that got Rocky on the right path to leadership at UPS.  [6:35]
• Rocky shares key questions for overwhelmed listeners to achieve laser focus on customer needs.  [9:50]
• How do leaders avoid creating situations where the “highs are too high” or the “lows are too low?” 14:45]
• Rocky shares examples of how empowered employees can achieve balance and “tighten their own lug nuts.” [17:45]

Rocky Romanella, an experienced executive, CEO and Director, keynote speaker, trainer and adviser is founder and principal of 3SIXTY Management Services, LLC. He most recently served as Chief Executive Officer and Director for UniTek Global Services, after retiring from a 36-year career with UPS, the largest shipment and logistics company in the world.

Rocky successfully launched one of the largest rebranding initiatives in franchising history, The UPS Store, which revolutionized the $9 billion retail shipping and business services market. In addition to leading the global strategy of all U.S. and international retail channels, he was an integral part of the integration of many acquisitions, which became UPS Supply Chain Solutions with responsibilities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Latin America and South America and led UPS’s entry into the healthcare industry as part of their supply chain logistics strategy.

Connect with Rocky

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Website

• Rocky's book, Tighten the Lug Nuts: The Principles of Balanced Leadership on Amazon
• 360Connext® post, Destructive Leadership Practices: Is Your CEO in Denial?
• Customers That Stick® post, How Employee Empowerment Really Works
• Episode 204: (Tip) Customer Service Leadership
• Episode 087: The Next Generation of Customer Experience Leaders
• 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 report live from the National Speakers Association’s Influence 2017 conference to discuss the power of situational awareness in customer service.

Are your employees empowered to provide consistently great customer service, no matter what? Giving employees the freedom to act off-script is great, but without situational awareness, that power is not being utilized to its fullest.

“You want to proactively anticipate CS issues and head them off.” -@Adam Toporek

Being aware of situations that happen outside of the normal customer journey, or beyond the scope of their training, gives employees the power to solve problems proactively – before customers get angry or just leave you without a word!

To consistently provide great customer service, reps must be aware of possible inconsistencies in the experience and surrounding context, then get ahead of them.

“The best contact centers are run with very situationally aware employees.” -Jeannie Walters

Today, Adam and Jeannie would like to tell you more about what situational awareness is, and how to integrate this principle into your customer service strategy. If you’d like your customer service team to be situationally aware, then listen in for tips you can use today!

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, 3 Destructive Consistency Issues You Need to Overcome Now
• Customers That Stick® post, 3 Areas to Focus your Customer Experience in 2017
• Episode 39: Does Employee Empowerment Work?
• Episode 249: How Customer Service Training Goes Wrong
• 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 interview Alison Herzog, head of global social business strategy at Dell, about "deep listening" on a large scale.

One of the most important elements to designing experiences is listening to customers. That sounds simple enough, but it’s easy to assume we understand what they’re trying to tell us when we really don’t!

“Are we listening to really understand our customers, or are we listening to react…?” - Alison Herzog

Our customers’ true intentions and the emotions behind them can be grossly misunderstood by humans and machines alike. So what happens when customers engage on so many channels that we need algorithms to sort it all out for us?

To engage in meaningful ways, a socially active business needs more that the right software, qualified staff or a willingness to listen. Today’s guest, Alison Herzog, knows what it takes to connect all these things to a culture of “deep listening.”

“If we don’t care about the person we are serving, then we don’t understand what our purpose or our mission is.” -Alison Herzog

Alison gives us great insight and real-life examples of how Dell balances technology, data, and real-life human interaction to bring listening to a higher level.

With more than 145,000 employees, Dell serves customers in a vast range of B2B and B2C products and services. But they've achieved a culture where deep and empathetic listening are not just practiced, but a part of the DNA.

You can "hear the smile in [Alison's] voice," as Jeannie puts it, while she shares Dell's amazing approach. If a company as large as Dell can win at social intelligence, you can too!

Interview highlights

• What's it like leading the global social business strategy for a large company like Dell? [1:45]
• Alison explains how she puts her ethos of “doing right by customers” into day-to-day operations. [3:50]
• How do the capabilities and restrictions that come with multi-channel engagement affect the ability to listen deeply to customers? [8:20]
• Alison explains how Dell listens in ways that help them better understand customers who straddle multiple segments, products, services and channels. [12:05]
• How does a company as diverse and far-reaching as Dell embed a universal ethic around social intelligence into their culture? [16:30]

Alison Herzog heads global social business strategy at Dell. As part of her role, she recently led integration of all social business strategy and operations in the largest tech acquisition in history.

Alison has been featured as one of 50 influential women in digital marketing twice by TopRank, featured by the American Marketing Association, LinkedIn, and most recently celebrated as one of 7 women shaping digital marketing by IBM. She is passionate about doing what is right, by the customer, and the people she works with, and focuses on data and deep listening to guide her actions and results.

Connect with Alison

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Add Magic to your Customer Service Training
• Customers That Stick® post, Creating a Customer Service Culture with Jeff Toister
• Episode 237: Peter Friedman, Customer Service Messaging Apps
• Episode 204: (Tip) Customer Service Leadership
• 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 explore critical customer segments that typically get ignored when designing customer experiences.

Creating customer segments is a great way to help deliver an easier, more personalized, and more relevant experience for different groups of customers. But in many cases – especially in B2B – the customer journey is much more complex than it seems, and simplifying it is not always an option.

Those moving through your customer journey are not the only people to consider when designing experiences. People who never interact directly with your brand are affected in big ways, and they are also a part of the decision-making. Have you considered these other stakeholders, besides those going through the actual motions and making payments? Who is the customer behind the customer, and what is influencing their actions?

“There’s an impact with other groups we might not consider as end customers.” -Jeannie Walters

The person you’re dealing with, though pleased as they may be with the experience, isn’t necessarily calling the shots. So who is? Understanding these elusive segments is a powerful way to create an experience that resonates not only behind the scenes, but beyond the journey itself.

“Other stakeholders are affected by the #customerexperience and are a part of it.” -Adam Toporek

Today, Adam and Jeannie are exploring ways to design experiences with all stakeholders in the journey- not just those at the wheel. Listen in for 3 hidden segments you need to start considering today!

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Expand Customer Experience Consciousness
• Customers That Stick® post, Turn Your Customer Experience Inside Out
• Episode 172: (Tip) Personalizing the Customer Experience
• Episode 197: (Tip) Using Customer Personas
• 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 7 ways to deliver a faster customer experience without sacrificing quality, vital details, or personalization.

With more on their plates and fewer resources, customers are busier than ever before. So in most customer experiences, time is of the essence. But nobody wants to feel rushed through a transaction, left without direction, or treated in a cold, impersonal manner.

Whatever you’re selling, the pressure is on you to deliver better, more personalized experiences... and in less time! What can you do to create speedier experiences without making them less memorable and rewarding?

“The need for speed is no longer an option.” -Adam Toporek

Believe it or not, you can make a huge difference with little or no additional investment, and in many cases, using (or losing) resources you already have.

Today, Adam has 7 (yes, seven!) tips you can use today to start saving time for yourself and your customers, while actually improving the overall experience.

Do you have 10 minutes to save countless hours for your customers? Get your notepad ready and listen in!

• 360Connext® post, Customers Want Convenience on Their Terms, Not Yours
• Episode 045: The Customer Effort Score
• Episode 151: Bringing the Experience to the Customers
• 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 discuss several ways customer service training goes wrong, how that impacts the customer experience, and what you can do to fix it.

Companies talk or even brag a lot about the ways they train, mentor, and educate their employees. But for all their efforts, many of them are still doing it wrong. It’s easy for leaders to think that dedicating the right amount of time and resources ensures all the right ground is covered... so please don’t fall into this trap!

“Great intentions do not always lead to great results!” -Adam Toporek

It’s not just about following procedures, using available tools and software correctly, and simply helping customers get what they need. Truly great customer service training instills a customer-focused mindset, then works it into company’s DNA. It leaves employees with a greater understanding of customer emotions, a sense of ownership for the experience delivered, and a sense of empowerment to always do what’s right.

“You have to know what kind of experience you actually want to deliver first…” -Jeannie Walters

How do you tackle customer service training in your organization? Is it really doing as much good as you think, or are your employees (and customers) missing out? Some of the most common training practices are weak, ineffective, or even harm the customer experience!

Listen in to avoid common mistakes and deliver the best service possible.

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Add Magic to your Customer Service Training
• Customers That Stick® post, 9 Customer Service Training Ideas That Work
• Episode 091: How to Find Time for Training
• Episode 137: Culture and Customer Service
• 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 explore some universal customer tipping points, or moments of truth in the customer journey, for you to examine today.

3 Powerful moments of truth in every customer journey

Where are your customers when they decide whether to stay on board or jump ship? When do they decide to explore your competition instead of becoming loyal or advocating for your brand? These are powerful moments of truth, and every customer journey is filled with them.

“Any journey has that moment of truth as a point of decision-making.” -Jeannie Walters

While you may have a keen eye on tipping points around deal closings, renewals and upgrades, many moments of truth which can be just as powerful go unnoticed.

“How are you reassuring them and making sure they know you’re there?” -Adam Toporek

Every customer journey is different and has many unique tipping points, so finding them all is hard work! Where should you start!? To zero in on the moments that matter most to your customers, start with these moments of truth Adam and Jeannie have observed in just about every industry.

Tip the scales in your favor by examining these 3 universal moments of truth today!

Related Content

• 360Connext® post, 3 Reasons Your Brain Won’t Let You See the True Customer Experience
• Customers That Stick® post, Negativity Bias and Customer Service
• Episode 235: Customer Experience Touchpoint Tips
• Episode 227: (Tip) Majoring In the CX Minors
• 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 shares 3 powerful questions to get actionable feedback from customers.

Honest customer feedback is the key to maintaining a strong culture around delivering great experiences, but customers have a lot more to tell you than what you’re asking about in surveys! Sometimes you must pick up the phone, go beyond the surveys, and ask some one-on-one questions.

“If you reach out and ask directly, you can listen for the nuance of the answers.” -Jeannie Walters

But who has the time for this, and what should you really ask?  

It could be one customer or a handful of them… but if you put aside a few minutes once a week or month for this, you’ll uncover amazing insights. What can you learn from your best customers, or the ones who’ve just left you – without wasting a lot of your time or theirs?

Keeping these conversations short and sweet is the key, and Jeannie is here to help you get the most impact in the shortest time. Listen in for 3 powerful questions you can ask customers today!

• 360Connext® post, Improve the Experience by Asking the Impossible Questions
• Customers That Stick® post, 5 Empowering Questions to Create a Customer Service Mindset
• Episode 239: Customer Survey Mistakes
• Episode 218: (Tip) Lessons from Former Customers
• 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 discuss Basecamp’s customer service ethic and tackle some of the top challenges faced by support professionals.

If there's one thing customer service leaders need support with, it's connecting with, understanding, and  supporting their own customers! Today’s guest, Chase Clemons, hears all the challenges faced by businesses of varied sizes, then helps them make the right decisions. He’s made it part of his mission to help them help their own customers, and he's sharing some of his best insights today.

“I wish more people knew the customer team was one of the core strengths of your company.” -Chase Clemons

Not only does Chase help Basecamp customers use the product, but he helps them find ways to innovate around the support customers need. He shares fascinating stories, relatable examples, and powerful tips you can use in your organization.

“When you make a solid hire, you don’t need a lot of processes in place.” -Chase Clemons

Providing great service is not about processes, and it’s certainly not about how much you’ve invested. It’s about setting realistic expectations, hiring right to deliver on them, and scaling to fit.

“When you act your size, you’re going to get all the advantages of being a quick and nimble team.” -Chase Clemons

If you’d like to improve the outcomes of your own customer programs, sharpen your pencil, because you’ll want to take notes on this episode!

Interview highlights

• What is Basecamp, and why are thy known for customer support? [2:35]
• Chase describes some of the most common challenges Basecamp customers have in delivering great support. [5:25]
• Chase shares examples of how empowered employees supersede policies to drive great experiences and amazing support. [8:35]
• What are some inspiring ways companies are innovating around customer service? [12:20]
• What do leaders need to know about customer support organizations like Basecamp? [17:15]

Chase Clemons, a support lead at Basecamp with his own customer service podcast, who devours lessons from brands as varied as Wegman’s, Nordstrom’s and Amazon, as well as his own 5+ years of experience, to continually enhance Basecamp’s customer service program.

Chase’s industry knowledge is deep and wide, and he’d love to share customer service best practices with your readers so that they can easily improve outcomes for their own customer programs. For example, he often helps users with questions unrelated to Basecamp - chiming in on why their Outlook isn't working or why their Twitter messages aren't coming to their phone. I’d also be able to put you in touch with Jason to talk about why the C-Suite needs to care more about customer outcomes than any other operational effort.

Connect with Chase

• Twitter
• Support Ops
• Basecamp

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Add Magic to your Customer Service Training
• Customers That Stick® post, Creating a Customer Service Culture with Jeff Toister
• Episode 237: Peter Friedman, Customer Service Messaging Apps
• Episode 204: (Tip) Customer Service Leadership
• 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