Episode 4: Mike Aoki shares how delivering great customer experience, and driving sales, don’t have to be mutually exclusive

SHOW NOTES

Today's Guest,

Mike Aoki is the President of Reflective Keynotes Inc., a Toronto-based customer service and sales training company that helps organizations improve both sales, as well as the experience of their customers. Mike does this by working with the people who’s job it is to work directly with customers. In other words, the actual folks we talk to on the phone.

Mike is a renowned expert on contact centre sales and customer service, and is regularly in the top 50 most influential customer service experts in North America.  Mike is often in national media such as The Globe and Mail speaking on exactly what we’ll be talking about today.

Past clients for his training sessions include Just Energy, SYSCO and the Royal Canadian Mint.

This Episode's Conversation

Can you both sell, and improve customer experience, at the same time?

In all of our shows we talk about what organizations can do to improve their customer experience. One of the common challenges companies face is that if you want to provide a good customer experience on the phone, you’re not allowed to sell. Either you sell, or you provide great customer service. It’s somehow an either / or situation.

I was able to catch up with Mike at the start of the summer, and we talked about how he works with companies who need to do both. His clients need to drive sales, as well as make sure their customers love them.

The Surprising Value of Networking Across Departments

One of the very surprising techniques we talk about in achieving this goal is the value of networking across departments so that you can make sure your department, your team, or…you, have all the best information to keep your customers engaged.

What’s cool about that is on this show we often talk about the importance of getting rid of a silo mentality. We’ve all seen it: Each department is basically running on their own agendas and not speaking meaningfully to other departments, And sure that falls to the very senior leadership to create an environment that discourages silos, but also everyone in the company can help with that, simply by walking over to another department and saying hello. Easier said than done, right? Mike spends some time talking about ways to make that happen.

For more information on Mike and how he helps his client drive results, you can reach him in the following ways:

Website: Reflective Keynotes

Mike is also very active on Twitter.  Follow and tweet him at @MikeAoki.

Also connect with Mike on LinedIn at his LinkedIn profile here.

As always, thank you for listening.  If you like what you heard, please let us know by tweeting us @CustExpPodcast, or tweet me directly @patperdue, and tell your friend!

Subscribe and Leave a Review in iTunes

If you haven't already done so, feel from to subscribe in iTunes by clicking here.  And while you're at it, we'd be humbled if you could leave a review.  That helps other Customer Experience professionals find us.

Thank you as always for listening.