Crack the Customer Code

In this special edition “live” from C-Suite Network conference, we discuss the importance of including customer experience in business plans with Vicky Smitley, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Hearthside Food Solutions.

Many business leaders feel that if they have rock solid business plans, then a great customer experience will follow. But few think of creating a culture around customer experience as part of their business plan.

Customers are calling the shots! If your growth engine is not focused on them, the experience you deliver will not stand out among the competition.

“…without customers, a business does not survive.” – Vicky Smitley

At Hearthside Food Solutions, Vicky Smitley has become a customer advocate to really bring customer experience to the center of the business plan. By improving the employee experience, they have developed special programs to bring customer-focused thinking from the C-Suite on out to all employees.

“In order to have a great customer experience, you have to have a great employee experience.” -Vicky Smitley

How can you make customer-centric culture part of your business plan, and incorporate it in your strategy? Listen to this special interview to learn how a Billion dollar company does it, and how smaller companies can do the same.

Matt Dixon is Executive Director of the Financial Services practice and Customer Contact Leadership Council at CEB.  In this capacity, he has management responsibility for the membership programs serving front office and back office financial services leaders and their teams, as well as the programs serving customer contact executives across industry.

Beginning in quality assurance 25 years ago, Vicky Smitley has built a career working for and with many of the world’s largest and finest food companies, mainly in business development roles. Today she serves as vice president of sales and marketing for the $1.3B Hearthside Food Solutions, the industry’s largest contract manufacturer. During that time, Vicky has witnessed tremendous change, innovation and consolidation. Factoid: Vicky never actually changed jobs. Rather, the company she worked for was bought and sold multiple times. Each time Vicky was retained as a leader or coleader of the business development function.

Vicky also is the current president of the Contract Packaging Association, an organization she joined in 2001 in an effort to expand her personal network and to help drive industry evolution. During her tenure as president of the CPA, Vicky has focused on expanding the mission of the organization, raising the profile of contract packaging and closing the talent gap by helping groom tomorrow’s leaders.

Vicky attributes her commercial success to always being an advocate for the customer. Understanding what the customer wants and needs, then finding creative ways for the organization to sell for those needs while generating a profit has proven a successful formula for Vicky and the sales organizations she has led.

About Hearthside Food Solutions

Hearthside Food Solutions, founded in 2009, is the industry’s largest contract manufacturer with 24 food production and food packaging facilities in the US and Europe. The company is the largest producer of snack, energy and protein bars, and one of the largest producers of cookies, crackers and other baked snacks. Headquartered in Downers Grove IL, more information can be found at hearthsidefoods.com

Connect with Vicky

• earthside Food Solutions
• Contract Packaging

• 360Connext® post, What Can You Do to Reduce Customer Effort Today?
• Customers That Stick® post, The Effortless Experience: An Interview with Matt Dixon
• Episode 045: The Customer Effort Score
• Episode 176: (Tip) Hiring a Customer-Centric Employee
• Read "Kick-Ass Customer Service" and more by Matt Dixon in Harvard Business Review
• 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 his thoughts on the importance of 1-to-1 experiences as we hand parts of the experience over to technology.

Customers interact with your brand on many channels at countless touchpoints, whether there’s a human on the other end of the experience or not. And with the power of technology to help deliver these experiences, it’s easy to get caught up in experience design and optimizations.

“…the idea of #CustomerService is still as relevant and important as ever.” -Adam Toporek

This is especially true for experiences that are mostly or fully automated, like purchases made on Amazon. What happens when customers seek the help of a live person? Who is stepping in, and are they helping or harming the experience?

“…an excellent product or service can almost never compensate for an unpleasant service rep.” -Adam Toporek

1-to-one interactions are still the experiences customers remember, talk about, and come back to. Where are the humans behind the experiences you deliver? Adam explains why investing in them is still a priority. Listen in!

• 360Connext® post, Why Customer Service Technology Can’t Replace Humans
• Customers That Stick® post, Omnichannel Customer Service with the Human Touch
• Episode 234: Tips for Customer Service Bots
• Episode 202: Customer Service Tech
• 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 how corporate myths affect culture and customer experience, ways to identify them, and what you can do to set things straight.

It may sound silly, but organizations and the teams within have their own corporate myths and legends. We’re not talking about inside jokes like the goblin that lives inside the copy machine.

Employees accept corporate myths as truths and perpetuate them in ways that cause problems internally until they harm the customer experience.

“If this one person believes it, then other people will too.” -Jeannie Walters

All it takes is one misunderstood communication, one bad interaction, or one “seasoned” employee to uphold and spread an untruth that affects your culture and the experience you deliver.

“The most important first step is making sure you know what these myths are…” -Adam Toporek

It’s up to leaders in your organization to identify, debunk, and correct these myths before they become a cancer within your organization.

In this episode, Adam and Jeannie share some of the most common ways these myths get started, and some classic examples you'll recognize. Listen and learn how myths around processes, internal engagement, and customer perception get started and how to nip them in the bud.

• 360Connext® post and Slideshare, 10 Myths that Stifle the Truth about Customer Experience
• Episode 073: Hacking Your Workplace Culture
• Episode 168: Nate Brown, Service Center Engagement
• 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

In this special edition live from C-Suite Network conference, three-time Stevie Award winner Jason Forrest unlocks the power of customer certainty.

We talk a lot about the correlation between sales and customer experience, but now we get to hear it from an award-winning sales coach and expert. Jason Forrest, CEO and Chief Culture officer at Forrest Performance Group, is a three-time Stevie Award winner for Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year.

“I believe that when certainty is lost, all is lost.” -Jason Forrest

It’s well-known that sales costs more than customer retention. For a company that’s sustainably profitable, loyalty is where it’s at! And Jason says if you’d like to increase loyalty, then you need to instill a sense of certainty in your customers.

“Customers leave you when the experience is different than what you sold them as a prospect.” -Jason Forrest

How do you treat your existing customers, and how does that differ than the treatment you give to prospects?

Giving your customers a sense of trust and certainty is the best way to combat buyer’s remorse, customer churn, and more. Listen to this exciting interview with Jason “live” at the C-Suite Network conference, where he shares his holistic approach.

Interview Highlights

• Jason explains how trust and certainty in the customer experience are essential to sales. [2:22]
• Why think of every customer as a prospect? [5:22]
• Jason tells a fun story about the difference between being treated like a customer vs a prospect. [6:44]
• Jason shares the 6 keys to customer loyalty and retention. [8:45]

As a sales professional, author, speaker, and coach, Jason’s job is to empower professionals and executives to unleash their human performance and master their leadership skills in sales, management, culture and service; for the purpose of increasing profit through people.

Jason grew up under the influence of his father who was a business owner and professional salesperson, his mother, a persuasive speaking professor and Zig Ziglar, his Sunday school teacher and world-famous salesperson/motivational speaker. Jason learned how to drive profit through doing rather than observing.

These influences and experiences shaped him into who he is today – a salesperson first, a behavioral change expert, a national speaker and a coach who pushes organizations to become highly profitable while creating a “best place to work” culture.

Every year, Jason delivers approximately 92 keynotes/seminars and conducts 850 group coaching calls with sales teams, managers, and executives.

Connect with Jason

• Forrest Performance Group
• Twitter

• 360Connext® post, How Do You Define Loyalty in YOUR Organization?
• Customers That Stick® post, Leaning Into Customer Loyalty with Adrian Swinscoe
• Episode 097: The Best Customer Loyalty Metrics
• Episode 058: Jill Griffin, The Loyalty Maker
• 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 shares tips for understanding customer touchpoints from the customer’s perspective and taking action.

Understanding customer touchpoints for what they really are is essential to mapping and evaluating the true customer experience. But common definitions don’t give us an understanding we can act on, and there’s a lot of bad information out there!

A watered-down customer touchpoint definition may fit nicely on a page for the general public, but it won’t help you understand what’s really happening with your customers.

"Put yourself in the customer’s shoes as much as you can…” -Jeannie Walters

Today, Jeannie is giving you her expert definition so you can identify those moments that matter most to customers and take action. User her tips to get started today!

• 360Connext® post, Touchpoint Mapping: Discovery, Enlightenment, and A-HA! Moments
• Customers That Stick® post, Turn Your Customer Experience Inside Out
• Episode 222: 120: Jim Kalbach, Experience Mapping Expert
• Episode 235: Customer Experience Touchpoint Tips
• 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

Bestselling author and customer service expert Matt Dixon to uncovers surprising facts and common misconceptions about delivering low-effort service.

It seems so simple: Reduce customer effort, then you’ll have more loyal customers! But don’t be fooled by that kind of simplicity. Customers perceive effort in different ways than you think!

Today’s guest, bestselling author Matt Dixon, has researched and written extensively on how to deliver a truly effortless experience. Today, he’s sharing many facts that will surprise you, and make you rethink your approach.

“The average service interaction is actually not a loyalty-building experience. It’s actually a loyalty-destroying experience.” -Matt Dixon

Conventional customer service wisdom (yes, even the more current stuff!) has customer service reps doing all kinds of things that sound great, but harm customer perception. Companies are investing a lot into delivering better experiences, but they’re investing in the wrong resources.

“…we actually make it worse during the course of trying to solve the problem. - Matt Dixon

What’s more, companies are responding to this conventional wisdom by creating an environment that invites the wrong types of people into customer-facing roles. Meanwhile, the ones who have what it takes aren't empowered to make a difference.

“What they want is an org where they’re liberated to use their own judgment…” -Matt Dixon

If you want to deliver effortless customer service, then you must understand how customers perceive their own efforts and hire, train, and organize accordingly. What kinds of people do you need on your team, and how can you attract, retain, and provide them with the right environment to deliver? Matt’s going to tell you how to do all of this, so listen in!

Interview highlights

• Matt talks about his extensive research into customer effort and the traits of a “low effort” customer service rep. [4:16]
• How has customer expectations changed, and what do they want from customer service reps today? [8:00]
• Matt shares surprising facts about hiring for balance between personality types in a low effort service environment. What types perform best? [13:50]
• How can you go about finding and keeping the right mix of talent to deliver the low-effort service experience? [22:30]

Matt Dixon is Executive Director of the Financial Services practice and Customer Contact Leadership Council at CEB.  In this capacity, he has management responsibility for the membership programs serving front office and back office financial services leaders and their teams, as well as the programs serving customer contact executives across industry.

A seasoned research leader, Matt has overseen dozens of original quantitative and qualitative research studies on topics ranging from customer service strategy to sales effectiveness.

In addition to his management responsibilities, Matt is a noted business writer.  His first book, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation was a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

He’s been published multiple times in the Harvard Business Review­­, he is a frequent contributor on sales and customer service topics on a number of blogs, and his book on customer service, The Effortless Experience was released by Penguin in September 2013.

Matt holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a B.A. in International Studies from Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he graduated summa cum laude.  Matt currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife and four children.

Connect with Matt

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

• 360Connext® post, What Can You Do to Reduce Customer Effort Today?
• Customers That Stick® post, The Effortless Experience: An Interview with Matt Dixon
• Episode 045: The Customer Effort Score
• Episode 176: (Tip) Hiring a Customer-Centric Employee
• Read "Kick-Ass Customer Service" and more by Matt Dixon in Harvard Business Review
• 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 share common customer survey mistakes and how to avoid them to get thoughtful responses.

Customer surveys are great for getting the feedback we need, learning how to improve our experiences, or finding out where we need to invest.

Recent studies show that most customers ignore surveys, most of those who do fill them out don’t do so thoughtfully, and many who start surveys never finish them. And the survey feedback we DO get? It’s only from the customers who felt very strongly enough to put in the time, so your average customer may not be represented in the results.

We will remember things that are dramatically emotional either way, more than any part of the experience, so if we’re reporting back on something, it’s because we’ve had a dramatic moment of emotion, either good or bad”

“...if we’re reporting back on something, it’s because we’ve had a dramatic moment of emotion...”- Jeannie Walters

What are we doing wrong?

Today, Adam and Jeannie are sharing eye-opening facts and their expert opinions of why customers don’t respond to surveys. They’ve helped clients develop surveys that customers want to respond to, and they’re sharing that wisdom with you.

“How representative is our sample? How representative are the surveys we’re getting?” -Adam Toporek

You can still use surveys to get powerful feedback that leads to action, but you must approach them carefully. Are you asking too many questions? The wrong questions? Find out today and deliver surveys that matter to your customers.

• 360Connext® post and ebook, 10 Ways to Get Actionable Feedback from Customers (part 1)
• Customers That Stick® post, Your Data Is Only as Good as Your Perspective
• Episode 228: (Tip) All Customers want These Things
• Episode 017: Customer Feedback, Mohamed Latib, and Progressive Insurance
• 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 tips for embracing showrooming to compete with online retailers.

If you’re a brick-and-mortar retailer, it’s likely that showrooming is becoming a big, if not the biggest. Every day, you open your doors to customers who just want to check out the merchandise in real life before ordering from a virtual retailer.

And since you may not be able to compete on price and convenience with online retail giants like Amazon, Overstock, and many others, what can you do about this?

“…when they drop the ball on personal customer service, that is when they truly do become Amazon’s showroom.” -Adam Toporek

Showrooming is not the end, and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing! When customers physically come to you, they are looking for an experience they can’t get online. This can present many new opportunities, but many retailers are dropping the ball.

Today, Adam shares a personal story about showrooming, and how the experience begged him to complete his purchase with the competitor online. Are you wasting time and effort on would-be showroomers, or are you using that real-life power to win them over? Listen in for tips you can use today!

• 360Connext® post, Losing Customers to Showrooming?
• Customers That Stick® post, 7 Cool Technologies and Takeaways from Future Stores
• Episode 222: Episode 030: Convenience, AT&T’s Diane Magers, and Department Stores
• Episode 137: Culture and Customer Service
• 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 interviews Peter Friedman, CEO of LiveWorld, a social customer experience company, about the changing landscape of customer service messaging.

Today Peter Friedman, CEO of LiveWorld, joins us for a fascinating update on the present and future of customer service messaging.

Large brands like Walmart and American Express are leveraging new technology to engage customers like never before. Through powerful apps, businesses now engage customers every day, wherever they are, to build more meaningful relationships.

“Convergence of smart phones, social media and messaging puts the point of customer experience in your hand.” -Peter Friedman

But this isn’t just for big brands! Customer service messaging, as Peter explains, is helping to level the playing field. Small and medium businesses are now able to take on the big guys, but only if they’re willing to use these capabilities wisely.

It’s not just about helping customers when they need you, or offering omnichannel support. It’s about creating relationships where customers are more committed, then inspiring them to become advocates.

“The best experience anywhere becomes the minimum experience expected everywhere.” -Peter Friedman

How will customer service messaging help create more meaningful relationships for your customers? Listen in to find out!

Peter Friedman is a social media visionary and veteran with more than 30 years of experience in the space. He is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of LiveWorld, a trusted social media partner to the world’s largest brands, including the number-one companies in retail, CPG, pharmaceutical, and financial-travel services. He’s provided multiple global brands with strategic social media guidance and delivered hundreds of social media programs for them in multiple countries and languages.

Prior to LiveWorld, Peter was Vice President & General Manager of Apple’s Internet Services Division, overseeing the creation and management of social media services such as AppleLink, eWorld, AOL, and Salon. During his 12-year tenure at Apple, his responsibilities also included managing Business Systems Marketing and product line management in the Macintosh division. He is also the author of “The CMO’s Social Media Handbook, A Step By Step Guide For Leading Marketing Teams in the Social Media World”—a practical tool kit and crash course in social-media-theory that helps big-brand marketing leaders learn how to strategize and execute a long-term social media plan in order to create dialogue and deepen customer relationships. 

Connect with Peter

• Twitter
• LiveWorld website

• 360Connext® post, 5 Ways Everyone Wins with Proactive Social Media Engagement
• Customers That Stick® post,When Sales Does Service on Social with Phil Gerbyshak
• Episode 150: Phil Gerbyshak, Social Connections
• Episode 096: Jay Baer, Hug Your Haters
• 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

Adam and Jeannie share 3 powerful ideas to make quick progress with customer experience sprints.

Have you heard of business sprints? The idea is to put most long-term goals aside, then focus exclusively on one goal for a predetermined period. This concept has been taking off lately in business and in government, because it works!

Sprints are a great way to bring departments together to work for a common goal, and get results quickly. Set your calendar for 30, 60, or 90 days, and nip one of those goals in the bud!

With so many goals piling up in your business, it’s easy to put customer experience goals aside in favor of sales and other goals or issues. It’s common to put customer experience aside for another day, then another, until that day never comes. So why not try using customer experience sprints?

Adam and Jeannie are here to help you get started! They’re sharing 3 great customer experience sprints you can start today, and some tips for making them work. Any business can use these sprints, so grab a note pad, jot them down, then put them in your calendar right after the show.

• 360Connext® post, Take Customer Experience Action with these 7 Questions
• Episode 235: Customer Experience Touchpoint Tips
• Episode 228: (Tip) All Customers want These Things
• 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