CX Conversations

Today the CEO and founder of Be ExtraOrdinary Incorporated and CX Transformation Executive Leader, Carrie S. Lemelin, is joining us. The best way to prepare for and help with problems your customers face is to listen to them. Just being human and being able to say sorry makes us seem more like people rather than robots, which will bode well with the customer.

Carrie’s background 1:02
What to be measuring 4:55
Getting digital 14:20

“Actually the biggest gift a customer can do for you is to complain. Your customers that have the loudest voices mean they’re the most angry and those are the customers that have the real good information so that you can actually make a turn-around.” 5:48

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynlemelin

In this episode we discuss how to move from reactive to proactive preventative customer support with special guest Eric Bonnette, who is currently the Director of Technical Support and Customer Success at Qualys. We talk about why being proactive is essential to having a successful branch of support, such as being able to get ahead and approach issues you may face before they become too big of a problem. Eric tells about the principles he uses to influence his teams to be proactive, and then defines what customer success is to them.

About Eric 0:51
Why proactivity is important 1:38
Principles Eric has used to change and guide his support teams 2:50
Defining customer success 6:21
Technology 10:12

“At the end of the day it is extremely important when you talk about being proactive and moving from that reactive natured state that you’re in. It allows you to gain a more holistic view on the customer engagements while quarterbacking or facilitating, if you will, those engagements.” 5:43

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-bonnette-3014787/

Today we will be talking about next level CX for business-to-business companies—the why, the what, the when, and the how with the VP of Strategy and Analytics at Walker, Troy Powell, and Steve Walker, Walker’s CEO. We will be discussing their latest research report focused on the differences between B2B and B2C customer experience. Learn how they are helping CX leaders create more sustainable B2B businesses by having a customer-centric approach.

Troy’s background 0:56
Steve’s background 4:41
Steve’s Advice/the Maturity Model 13:24
Nailing the CX transformation 19:21

“As opposed to starting with the X data, kind of talk to the business leaders about what they’re trying to drive, and then bring some insights from your customer base that can help them make those decisions better or with a more complete set of information.” 20:41

https://www.linkedin.com/in/troyapowell/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenfwalker/
https://www.walkerinfo.com/

In today’s episode we discuss the top customer service mistakes with Global Head of Customer Success and Support at Mitek Systems, Mike Sasaki. Mike worked for Sketchers and was able to experience how they ran their company and what issues they ran into, giving him first hand knowledge of snags you can run into with CX. Mike shares with us 5 tips to avoid the most common customer service mistakes.

Mike’s experiences 0:53
What can help customer service teams 6:13
What channels are you providing? 10:32

“I’m a customer, we’re all customers. We want to find the answers when we want to find them. Google has taught us to get to the answers pretty quickly. If you’re not providing a really great customer service self-service channel, then you’re missing out on a lot there. So I was probably late to the game with that, but I’m all on board with self-service.” 10:59

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasakimike/

Joining Gabe today we have the Chief Revenue Officer at Blue Chip CRO, Ed Porter. We go over some steps that have helped him in his role to understand the customer better and find out what branches of your business to use in order to determine what the customer wants. Technology doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s there to enable the process of fixing the problem rather than used to find the problem.

Ed’s history 1:20
Deal makers that changed the way the company sees their customers 4:12
Customer service is no longer a one size fits all 8:38
Takeaway to be successful in these different times 17:15

“I’ll tell ya the ones that are really doing it right, you don’t have to be these big enterprises. You just have to look at a lot of these tools and processes that say, ‘Does marketing know what we’re doing on the support side? Are we sharing the same message? Is that message being delivered to that customer?’ And you drive consistency through those channels, that’s how you’re delivering a good customer experience.” 6:06

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edporter/

In this episode we speak with customer experience expert and Interim CFO at Macpherson’s, Michael O’Reilly. We go over various methods on how to improve your NPS, including how they use data to optimize their score. “Find the data that tells the truth, not the data that makes you feel good.” 7:22 We also go over technology and the benefits of using the right tools to increase your results and what Michael has experienced through tech.

Michael’s background 0:33
Understanding NPS 1:43
How they have used data to optimize their NPS score 7:18
How technology plays into the NPS score 9:03

“Don’t stop when you feel good about the data. Really dig into the data and understand what’s telling you the true story, and that’s how you then drive NPS in a sustainable way. It’s also how you get credibility in the organization.” 8:09

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-o-reilly-tu/

Today I am joined by Vice President of Customer Experience at Zones, LLC, Steven Maskell. He states you need to give the customer a reason to share their data with you and he gives questions you should ask yourself, such as what do you know about your customer? Are you able to see how they’re interacting with you? Or is it anonymized? Are they sharing with you information that’s important that you can use? “The two areas where I would say to best understand is to frame it around who are they and what are they doing, and then how are they influencing each other?” 6:52

Steven’s background 0:52
Basics and must haves to help build the personalized experience 5:20
Building an infrastructure to capture the data 7:47



“It took IBM a really long time to build Watson and Watson still screws up. What I would say is this: don’t expect that it’s going to solve everything. Really what it’s gonna do is it’s gonna help you understand a little bit better. A little bit better. That’s what you’re trying to do each and every time.” 11:05

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmaskell/

In this episode we will be talking about who actually owns the customer and to do that we have with us today the Global Director of Customer Experience at Hyland, Justin Chappell. He explains that depending on the company you work for, who owns the customer could be a couple of things. It could be the account management team, or it could be a hybrid approach that uses a little bit of that account executive and customer success manager, both having ownership of the customer, but different pieces of it. “I try to look at ownership as who really has the customer’s best interest in mind and who’s working with them to help them achieve their business objectives.” 2:25

Justin’s background 0:45
Who owns the customer? 1:38
Monitoring customer risk 8:52
ROI 12:22
Retaining 15:41

“So meeting with top companies within certain verticles to allow them to share ‘Here’s what we’re seeing as a business in the outside world. How are you gonna help us achieve that?’ That’s really where you see that investment come back in being a partner in our strategic alignment with their strategies that they’re trying to achieve.” 14:44

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justchappell/
[email protected]

In today’s episode, we have customer experience expert, Annette Pedroza, who has been in the customer service vocation for 20 years now. She gives 3 tips on how to build a customer focused foundation. Tip 1) You need leadership involvement and it needs to come from the top. Tip 2) Assessing your specific environment. There isn’t one strategy that’s gonna work with everyone. Tip 3) Setting realistic goals to be able to execute on your plans. She talks about how they were able to help their team change their way of thinking and what they did to influence that through positive people and attitudes. She was able to influence the whole company and get every department involved in interacting with the customer.

About Annette 0:41
3 tips on how to build a customer focused foundation starting with #1 3:29
Tip #2 7:16
Tip #3 7:46
What got the employees around this new way of thinking 15:30

“Now you had employees who had no direct connection prior to that and now they had a chance to talk directly to the customer and really live that customer centricity value. I just did this one team at a time and before you know it, one VP is talking to another VP and then people are knocking at my door and saying ‘Hey we want to participate. How do we become part of this?’ So really starting small and just growing your sphere of influence and leveraging you that leadership to spread your message. Size doesn’t matter, you can influence a company of any size.” 18:32

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annette-pedroza-ccxp-8465b5/

The Global Director of Customer Experience at Taconic Biosciences, David Grissom, joins us in this episode to talk about customer experience. He has 14 years of experience in customer facing roles and has seen the importance of not just hiring leaders from a certain industry. He uses something he calls the three P’s, which are 1) People, 2) Products, and 3) Process. If your people understand these three concepts and the importance of them, you will succeed as an organization.

David’s story 1:04
The 3 P’s 5:06
Building people around this journey map 10:10

“Really my passion about this is letting leaders not get hung up on only hiring candidates from a certain industry because you’re really doing your company a disservice by not bringing in people with fresh ideas and fresh technology and thoughts to really help your organization move into a different level.” 4:16

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgrissom/