Crack the Customer Code

Today we discuss how the wrong perspective on bad customer service blinds us to the vital insight we need to make improvements where they are needed the most.

Too often, customer service is pushed into its own corner. We see this a lot on surveys, where bad customer service is separate from things like long lines at the store, or even rude employees.

When we speak in such general terms about poor service, we cheat ourselves out of the opportunity to get to the root cause of the problem. Before asking customers to rate their customer service, we challenge you to ask this question:

“What does bad customer service really mean to the customer?”

It’s often something very specific that leads a customer to report a bad service situation. But unless we take the time to ask more specific questions, we never get the insight needed to make significant improvements.

Are you ready to uncover the truth about why your customers are unhappy with the service they receive? Listen in!

• Customers That Stick® post, Infographic: What Customers Experience Holiday Shopping
• 360Connext® post, “Such Poor Customer Experience!” 3 Industries I Hear About Every Day
• Episode 137: Culture and Customer Service
• Episode 081: Walking the Talk of Improving Customer Service

Sponsor message:

Do you know how to deliver the superior customer experience you visualize? We can help your team become a force for positive change, starting with a customer-centric mission. The Customer Experience Investigators™ at 360Connext specialize in helping companies across industries and around the globe develop and internalize unique and scalable customer-focused missions. To compete with the other 89% of companies staying afloat by providing better experiences, you need a compass for making astounding changes in the customer experience while breaking down the silos that are holding you back. We offer evaluations, workshops, and roadmaps to keep your wheels firmly planted on the road to a customer-centric future.

Join us on our mission to Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™ today. Visit us at 360Connext.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

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

Adam and Jeannie join veteran change agent Eddie Turner to discuss his innovative methods for facilitating change smoothly and effectively.

Change is often difficult for individuals. But for organizations, it can be disastrous if the process for facilitating change is not carefully planned and executed.

Today’s guest, Eddie Turner, has mastered the art of change management in many industries.

Eddie explains some of the common challenges around organizational change. It’s not just about adopting new processes. It’s also about employees and stakeholders leaving their comfort zones to learn new skills. And for many employees, this can even bring job security into question.

Eddie walks us through the four main stages of change facilitation: Denial, Resistance, Exploration, and Commitment. It’s critical to understand what your employees are feeling during all these stages, and honest communication is key.

Are stakeholders in your organization in denial about necessary changes? Are you afraid your changes will face resistance among employees? Through Eddie’s careful approach, you can open up the lines of communication in an environment where “all titles are checked at the door” and the most valuable input comes to the surface.

Move your change initiative from denial on through to commitment and beyond. Listen in!

Eddie Turner is a change agent who has worked for several of the world's “most admired companies."  Eddie has extensive experience in information technology and teaching.  He now leverages those skills in his work as a leadership development practitioner. Eddie is an International Certified Coach. He practices executive coaching as a member of the International Coaching Community, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and the International Coach Federation. Eddie is an exceptional virtual and face-to-face facilitator.  He facilitates global workshops, strategy sessions and high level meetings.  He is a member of the International Association of Facilitators and certified as a Competent Facilitator by the International Institute for Facilitation. Eddie is a graduate of Northwestern University where he studied Leadership and Organization Behavior. He is also an alumnus of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he completed the “Art and Practice of Leadership Development” executive education program.

Connect with Eddie

• Brian’s website
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Google+

• 360Connext® post, Destructive Leadership Practices: Is Your CEO in Denial?
• Episode 122: Tema Frank, People Shock
• Episode 094: Joseph Michelli, Becoming Customer-Obsessed
• ThinkTank app

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

Today we discuss some of the ways augmented reality (AR) can enhance marketing and overall customer experiences.

According to Wikipedia, “Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.”

Using GPS data to add graphics to real-life environments, Pokemon Go is a perfect example of this technology. But AR is not just for fun and games! Companies are learning how to use AR technology to help customers visualize changes and make better choices.

Adam and Jeannie discuss some ways AR is already changing the customer experience in industries like fashion, beauty and interior design. Companies are leveraging this technology to eliminate a lot of the footwork, guesswork and ultimately, disappointment for their customers.

As this technology continues to develop, we see many opportunities for retailers, designers, educators and more. But there will also be some challenges for companies that rely heavily on real-life experiences. AR may threaten to make those experiences unnecessary or redundant!

Can you leverage AR technology to enhance your marketing strategy and create better experiences for your customers? Listen in!

• 360Connext® post, What do Trends from SXSW 2016 Mean for Customer Experience?
• Episode 103: Will Virtual Reality Make Customer Service More Real?
• Episode 140: Bryan Kramer, The Art of Shareology

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.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

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

Adam and Jeannie have a fascinating and entertaining discussion with Anna Liotta, author of Unlocking Generational CODES.

Anna Liotta, MA, CSP is an award-winning speaker, business consultant and author with a deep understanding of how generational demographics and dynamics can affect the landscape of business.

Early in her consulting career, Anna noticed a common theme:  a fundamental lack of understanding between different generations within an organization that hindered trust, alignment and long-term success.  

Further, this generational misinterpretation or breakdown, was occurring across many different industries from high-tech to manufacturing, wealth management to legal services, and medical care to, insurance solutions.  Anna chose to make alignment and understanding across generations her mission. 

The founder of The Generational Institute™ and author of Unlocking Generational CODES Anna leverages her Generationally Savvy Communication Solutions™ programs to help clients develop strategies for optimal communications across generations.  

Anna’s clients range from consulting with the PGA of America to the NBA, from Amazon.com to Mayflower.

Anna holds a Master’s degree in Interpersonal Communication and has more than fifteen years of experience in the field of intergenerational inclusion, communication and leadership.  Anna is an adjunct faculty member in the University of Washington’s Executive MBA program, and she also serves as the chair of the institutional advancement committee on the board of trustees at Antioch University, as the President of the Columbia Tower Club and as a National Board Member for the National Speakers Association.

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• YouTube
• com

Sponsor message:

Do you know how to deliver the superior customer experience you visualize? We can help your team become a force for positive change, starting with a customer-centric mission. The Customer Experience Investigators™ at 360Connext specialize in helping companies across industries and around the globe develop and internalize unique and scalable customer-focused missions. To compete with the other 89% of companies staying afloat by providing better experiences, you need a compass for making astounding changes in the customer experience while breaking down the silos that are holding you back. We offer evaluations, workshops, and roadmaps to keep your wheels firmly planted on the road to a customer-centric future.

Join us on our mission To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™ today. Visit us at 360Connext.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

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

Today we discuss how customer service situations turn bad or worse when the customer is refusing help offered by front-line employees.

While salespeople are typically trained to handle rejection, many other customer-facing employees are not.

We train our staff to deliver the best experience possible, but sometimes they try a little too hard, creating tension in the customer experience.

This often takes the form of help offered when the customer doesn’t really want it. In many cases, the employee is trying to make the experience better while the customer is perfectly happy how things are. But when the customer is refusing help, there’s usually a good reason.

Are your star employees really listening, or are they creating awkward experiences by forcing what they perceive as better service offerings on customers?

• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Add Magic to your Customer Service Training
• Customers That Stick® post, 9 Customer Service Training Ideas That Work
• Episode 137: Culture and Customer Service
• Episode 081: Walking the Talk of Improving Customer Service

Sponsor message:

Do you know how to deliver the superior customer experience you visualize? We can help your team become a force for positive change, starting with a customer-centric mission. The Customer Experience Investigators™ at 360Connext specialize in helping companies across industries and around the globe develop and internalize unique and scalable customer-focused missions. To compete with the other 89% of companies staying afloat by providing better experiences, you need a compass for making astounding changes in the customer experience while breaking down the silos that are holding you back. We offer evaluations, workshops, and roadmaps to keep your wheels firmly planted on the road to a customer-centric future.

Join us on our mission to Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™ today. Visit us at 360Connext.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

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

Today we join bestselling author and TEDx speaker Bryan Kramer to discuss the power of sharing to drive customer engagement and create lasting human connections.

From sharing content to sharing rides, humans are hard-wired for sharing. But before we can share content and ideas customers will want to engage with, we must first understand why people share things in the first place. How does it relate to our brands? How does it relate to our customers’ goals? Bryan Kramer has it down to a science.

Bryan gives us some valuable insights from his extensive research into the science of sharing, and how it has changed over the generations. It’s still different for everyone, so beware the tendency to assume all members of a given segment or generation share and interact with content the same way!

As humans, Bryan explains, “we want to connect in ways that stands out. We want to be a part of something greater than ourselves.” The best brands strike a great balance between automation and personalization to stay efficient while forging mutually-rewarding relationships.

Before you share anything else, please consider the four common elements to highly-engaging content that goes viral. Brian lays them all out for us and compares some real-life success stories from brands that get it.

Bryan is an author of the recently released bestselling book There is No More B2B or B2C: It’s Human to Human #H2H. Bryan is a Social Business Strategist and CEO of PureMatter where he’s led his agency to consistent growth over the last 13 years earning a spot as one of Silicon Valley’s fastest growing private companies by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Bryan recently delivered a TED Talk for TED@IBM. He has also been listed as the 43rd most talked about marketer by global senior marketers in a report study via LeadTail, The Top 50 Social CEOs on Twitter in the world by the Huffington Post, and was identified as a Top 25 Influencer to follow by Forbes. And most recently listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Tech People On Twitter by Business Insider.

Connect with Bryan

• Brian’s website
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Google+

• Customers That Stick® post, VIDEO: Social Media Customer Service with Jay Baer
• 360Connext® post, The Beautiful Intersection of Content and Customer Experience
• Episode 128: Christianne Harder, Fan Engagement
• Episode 114: Ron Tite, Branding and Creativity Expert

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

Live from the National Speakers Association’s Influence 2016 conference, Adam and Jeannie discuss ways to use content in customer service and improve the overall experience.

Sharing valuable content is now an essential part of a successful digital marketing strategy. Companies have had to pick up new skills and tools, or even create new departments to keep up. So now that we’ve got our content hats on, let’s talk about using those resources to improve the customer experience.

Forward-thinking companies have used content as an alternative to sending customers through the usual processes to get the help or information they need. Adam and Jeannie share some great examples, and some ideas on how content can become a key asset in moving customers smoothly through their journey.

Content isn’t just for marketing anymore. Many don’t realize the content they create is already a part of the customer experience, but it is! You’ve got great content, so why not take it a step further? You can create content that reduces customer effort and creates frictionless customer service experiences. Listen in!

• 360Connext® post, When Content is Just for Marketing, Everyone’s Missing Out!
• Episode 085: Proactive Customer Service and Worst-Case Preparation
• Episode 040: Robert Rose and The New Era of Marketing
• Episode 019: Writing for Machines, Andy Crestodina, and Personalized Robots
• Episode 045: The Customer Effort Score

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.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

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

Live from the National Speakers Association’s Influence 2016 conference, Adam and Jeannie tackle the challenges women face in building professional confidence with expert and speaker, Becky Spohn.

Becky Spohn is an Inspirational Speaker and Trainer with over 25 years in the industry. She uses her unique style of tough-love, humor, and compassion to educate, entertain, and inspire audiences of corporations, associations, and individuals across the country.

As Founder of Confidence Concepts, LLC., Becky directs seminars, workshops, and retreats focused on building both personal and professional confidence.

Becky is a professional member of the National Speakers Association, the American Society of Training and Development, and the International Facilities Management Association. She is co-author of the forthcoming book “Hard-Hats and High-Heels {Lessons Learned from Women in Facilities Management}”. 

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Becky’s website, Confidence Concepts

Sponsor message:

Do you know how to deliver the superior customer experience you visualize? We can help your team become a force for positive change, starting with a customer-centric mission. The Customer Experience Investigators™ at 360Connext specialize in helping companies across industries and around the globe develop and internalize unique and scalable customer-focused missions. To compete with the other 89% of companies staying afloat by providing better experiences, you need a compass for making astounding changes in the customer experience while breaking down the silos that are holding you back. We offer evaluations, workshops, and roadmaps to keep your wheels firmly planted on the road to a customer-centric future.

Join us on our mission To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™ today. Visit us at 360Connext.com.

Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.

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

Reporting live from the National Speakers Association’s Influence 2016 conference, Adam and Jeannie discuss the connection between culture and customer service excellence.

To provide satisfactory customer service, you must be there for customers when they need you. But if you’d like to be known for great service, you must reach out to customers before they need you. A strong customer-focused culture that empowers employees to connect on different levels can create huge opportunities to proactively build loyalty and trust.

Don’t overlook your chance to shine with customers who never had a problem or asked for anything special. JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix, AZ creates a lasting impression of outstanding service for guests who never call the desk. 

We hope this little story from our stay at JWM inspires you to reach out to your customers in an unexpected, memorable way!

• Customers That Stick® post,  Turning a Customer Service Culture
• 360Connext® post, 3 Ways to Add Magic to your Customer Service Training
• Episode 081: Walking the Talk of Improving Customer Service
• Episode 073: Hacking Your Workplace Culture

Sponsor message:

Do you know how to deliver the superior customer experience you visualize? We can help your team become a force for positive change, starting with a customer-centric mission. The Customer Experience Investigators™ at 360Connext specialize in helping companies across industries and around the globe develop and internalize unique and scalable customer-focused missions. To compete with the other 89% of companies staying afloat by providing better experiences, you need a compass for making astounding changes in the customer experience while breaking down the silos that are holding you back. We offer evaluations, workshops, and roadmaps to keep your wheels firmly planted on the road to a customer-centric future.

Join us on our mission to Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™ today. Visit us at 360Connext.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 personal branding expert Jane Anderson live from the National Speakers Association's Influence 2016 Convention.

“When you’re in a personally branded business, you are far more connected to your customers than ever,” says personal branding expert Jane Anderson.

That said, relying on big-brand customer service experience in a personal brand setting can be a huge mistake! Jane outlines some of the key distinctions for us and shares some great examples of how this can go wrong.

It’s crucial to consider everything from how you dress yourself to how you train your staff. Jane explains the three main elements of excellent customer service for clients in a personal brand setting.

What’s the best way to approach unhappy customers as a personal brand? Here’s where making the right distinctions and your personal connection to clients can make the biggest difference. Listen to Jane’s story of how she turned a terrible customer service situation into a highly-valued relationship.

As a bonus, Jane shares some great tips for personal brands using LinkedIn for marketing. The wrong approach to presenting your brand and interacting on social networks can spell disaster for your reputation. Jane has helped thousands of personal brands create an outstanding presence on LinkedIn.

What else can you learn from Jane to polish up and optimize your personal branding? There are lots of vital tips and considerations packed into this special episode. Listen in!

Jane Anderson is a Personal Branding Expert with over 20 years of experience. She has worked with over 12,000 people on having more impact and influence in their careers and businesses. She holds one of the top 1% viewed profiles on LinkedIn and is the host of the number 1 ranked iTunes podcast “Jane Anderson Brand You Show.” Jane is also a mentor on the Thought Leaders Business School, Australia’s leading program for experts in their industry. She is a certified speaking professional. Less than 10% of speakers globally hold this certification. Jane’s clients include Virgin Australia, Ikea, Lego, Mercedes Benz, Cisco, Australian Medical Association and University of Australia. Jane has been featured in BBC Online, Management Today, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Courier Mail, Marie Claire and Today Tonight. She was a nominee for the Telstra Women’s Business Awards for 2014 and 2016.

Connect with Jane

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Jane Anderson.com

• Episode 114: Ron Tite, Branding and Creativity Expert
• Episode 084: Sylvie Di Giusto, Why First Impressions Matter

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