Frontline Magic Podcast

Jerry Campbell’s frontline career credentials include both senior military and corporate positions; yet despite lived experience across those two very different environments, Jerry believes “The fundamentals of supporting a frontline team are always the same…”

For 2 years, Jerry served as Customer Experience & Social Engagement Manager for 7-eleven stores across America. Today, he’s the Director of Consumer Service for the largest healthcare insurer in America, United Healthcare.

Jerry shares how keeping the basics ‘healthy’ can restart your customer service heart…

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Learn more about Frontline Magic: https://www.frontlinemagic.org/

Les Mills is a company who is crystal clear on its vision: “50 years ago, we had a dream — to make humans fit for life. We bring the world’s best music, moves and instructors together to create life-changing fitness experiences, powered by science.”

Over the past 18 months, the business has had to adapt its model significantly as a result of ongoing lockdowns; and that journey hasn’t been an easy one for staff or customers.

We chatted to Ish Cheyne, Head of Fitness at Les Mills New Zealand, about his personal journey into the role as well as this incredibly challenging time which he says has been “...full of surprises and opportunities to look for new ways of doing things.”

Ish shares four powerful stories that taught him four equally powerful lessons about successfully navigating change to see results when it comes to life; customers and business.

Mitchell (Mitch) Watkins, Chief Experience Officer at Greenix, is a people person – you can see it in his smile when he talks about leading the team of people he truly cares about. He’s had years of experience of frontline sales and spent a career putting his communication strengths and passion for helping people together to become the leader he is today.

Greenix is a company that cares about its customers and the team loves what it does. But...Mitch acknowledges that pest control might not be everyone’s first job choice and that frontline roles aren’t always the easiest roles. He believes that as a leader, you can’t apologize for that, but he does have plenty of ideas around how to keep yourself and your team motivated…

Visit https://www.frontlinemagic.org/ for more content like this!

This podcast is brought to you by AskNicely

As one of the biggest and most well-known brands in the world, Starbucks is on a mission “To inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

The company’s manifesto invites customers to ‘Expect more than coffee…’; while its approach to business is best summed up as “... performance-driven, through the lens of humanity…”

This philosophy has paid dividends across 32,000 stores in 76 countries - but what exactly is the ‘more’ in ‘more than coffee’?

A key player in the success of the Starbucks customer experience to date is Christine McHugh, who started out as a barista and finally left the company many years later as the Vice President of Customer Service and Operations.

We caught up with Christine about what she’s learned about ‘piping hot’ customer service...

Check out Christine's book "From barista to boardroom" if you want to learn more about her time at Starbucks.

This podcast is brought to you by AskNicely.

www.frontlinemagic.org

This podcast episode is a summary of the first season of Frontline Magic Podcast featuring guests from Cleancorp, Disney, Jims Group, Mariott Hotels, Countdown, Hotel Montreal, Edge Pest control, Caci Clinic, GreenPal.

For a summary of each episode visit: https://www.frontlinemagic.org/blog

When Walt Disney built Disneyland in 1955, his vision was to create a three-dimensional movie for visitors to escape to….a place so magical that even today, it’s known as ‘The Most Magical Place on Earth’, with six themed lands and dozens of attractions that appeal to all ages.

At Frontline Magic, we love...you guessed it...magic...and so chatting to Dan Cockerell, previously Vice President of The Magic Kingdom, was an incredible privilege. Dan spent 26 years working for Disney, culminating in responsibility for an unbelievable 12 000 employees and 20 million guests, and is now a highly sought-after entrepreneur and leadership coach.

Tag along as he shares his best tips on how you can create a memorable experience for your customers...

Here’s a quick recap of Dan’s top performance tick-list

Leadership is never about you!

Success lies in the detail...

It’s all about the team when it comes to performance

Consistency is key

Don’t ever neglect to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes

Watch the full video interview and read the summary blog post here: https://www.frontlinemagic.org/

Across all industries, exceptional frontline service (we like to call it ‘magic’) is important, but in the beauty business, that service is more personal and emotional than anywhere else. In New Zealand, Caci clinics are at the forefront of the skincare and appearance industry, with over 40 Caci locations, making them one of the country’s most recognisable brands.

They’re also well-known for their deep sense of nurturing and care for customers who “...from the very beginning of the customer journey our customers must quite often overcome emotional and social barriers to even entering the building,” says Fran (Francesca) Caliari-Pearce, Acting CEO.

Accelerated by Covid and the response to lightning-speed changes to customer shopping habits, there’s a growing trend in retail to build business success through doing what’s right for the customer. But is it counterintuitive to do the right thing instead of managing the bottom line? And how can we make sure that following an ethical North Star, won’t take customer experience south?

We talked to Wadim Schneider, Head of Customer Insights & Customer 1st, to delve into how the infamous ‘toilet paper wars’ played out at Australia/New Zealand’s largest supermarket chains.

www.frontlinemagic.org is brought to you by AskNicely

Green ‘Jim’s Mowing’ vans and trailers parked outside neighborhood laws in need of maintenance across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada are a common sight. What started out as a one-man-band, has expanded over 40 years to 4 300 franchisees, an annual turnover of A$500 million ($521m) and the capacity to service a staggering 35 000 customers a day. But that incredible success didn't happen overnight. It was based on clearly defined service standards; a genuine passion for people and an obsession with asking the same question every day – “How can we do better?”

We caught up with the man behind the franchise, David "Jim" Penman, to find out more...

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After selling his own successful lawn care business, Bryan wasn’t ready to hang up his gardening boots. With 15 years of knowledge, at the time, he knew that he could play a role in innovating and simplifying the process for customers to find a reliable provider, and support those providers to grow their businesses much faster. Bryan caught up with us recently to share some top tips on how to create the very best customer service, and inspire a nationwide team.

For more talks, videos, insights, and tools to support your frontline check out frontlinemagic.org