Navigating the Customer Experience

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Tim Attinger is Co-founder and President of OvationCXM, with nearly 30 years of executive management experience in financial services, financial technology and digital transformation. Prior to Co-founding OvationCXM, Tim held executive roles in digital transformation and growth with successful exits at Monitise, a global mobile money platform acquired by Fiserv and Blackhawk Network, which went public in 2013.

Before this, Tim had an extensive career with Visa. He managed a $1 Billion plus global portfolio of digital businesses, led product innovation development, and was part of the executive team that took Visa Inc. public in 2008. Preceding roles including building and managing strategic growth initiatives for First Data (now Fiserv) and managing client engagements for a host of Fortune 100 companies with Windermere, a McKinsey-spinoff boutique strategy consultancy.

Questions

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Tony Sternberg is the CEO and Co-Founder at ProsperStack, a platform that helps subscription businesses with automated retention. Prior to ProsperStack, Tony was president at CATS software, having joined the company as an early employee and playing key customer facing product and operations roles.

With over a decade of experience in SaaS, Tony is passionate about building customer centric organizations, while applying those same sorts of philosophies to help shape the culture of the company and create an environment where people love to work.

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Welcome to Navigating the Customer Experience. Thank you so much for joining us today for another episode. We have been on a little hiatus, our last episode published was the latter part of December 2022. It's been a roller coaster of 2023. And I'm so happy to bring you another episode of Navigating the Customer Experience. This episode is not an episode with a guest, it's a solo episode.

And I just wanted to kind of start off the year with some key reminders that I believe as a business regardless of whether you're a solopreneur, or you're an entrepreneur with a small client base, medium client base, large client base, whether you're service based, or product and service based, that we take some time to look at the importance of being responsive.

And I think it's critical for us to be responsive as business owners or employees in an organization with team members as well as with customers. Now, responsiveness is so important and it's not just about being polite and friendly, it's actually a very key component that can guarantee whether or not you're going to be successful, or you're going to be unsuccessful.

So really, and truly, what does it mean to be responsive, it really means being available and attentive to your customers’ needs. And those two needs are their emotional and their intellectual needs. If you've listened to my podcast before, you will know that emotion

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Sarah Diegnan is ChartHop’s VP of Customer Experience, after leading implementations at Acuity Brands, Opower and Oracle, she brings operational excellence to creating and delivering a world class customer experience for all ChartHop’s customers. She is an expert in leading a customer journey, partnering with customers from the first moments of onboarding through successful execution of all account goals, making sure customers are getting the most out of CharterHop.

In addition to her SaaS experience, Sarah was a practicing structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and worked for the commercial real estate developer, Tishman Speyer.

Questions

• Can you share a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are today? What catalyst got you into the customer experience journey? And just a little bit about who you are in your own words?
• Could you tell us a little bit about your company ChartHop and what is the service or product that you provide?
• What is your view on the customer journey through an HR lens. And how do you think EX impacts customer outcomes, the ins and outs of a customer health score?
• Are there any emerging trends that you've seen in the CX space, in the employee experience space that you think organization should really be paying greater attention to or tapping into as we embark on our new year?
• Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Now could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had a great impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you read quite recently, but it surely has created an impact maybe had great value in your leadership delivery and you just really would love to share it with us.
• Could you share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
• Where can listeners find you online?
• In times of adversity or challenge, do you have a quote or saying that you tend to revert to, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you back refocused if for any reason you get derailed.

Highlights

Sarah’s Journey

Me: Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share with us in their own words, a little bit about their journey, how you got to where you are today? What catalyst got you into the customer experience journey? And just a little bit about who you are in your own words?

Sarah shared that sometimes she likes to say that she has a bit of a meandering path to where she is today. But she thinks that's actually something that is common amongst customer experience professionals is it takes a lot of different skill sets and she thinks you can build those at a lot of different areas. And so, she started her career as a structural engineer, was something that she always wanted to be when she was a little kid, people would ask, what do you want to do, and she wanted to design buildings, she wanted to design skyscrapers.

And so, that is what she did, she set out to do it, and she went to school, she went to engineering

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Rama Sreenivasan is a co-founder and CEO at Blitzz, a live remote video support and inspection platform. Rama has led the company through its initial inception launch and subsequent growth to several million video support minutes per month. Major customers include BMW, Sealy, FedEx, and Rogers Telecommunications.

Before founding Blitzz in 2017, Rama spent several years working as a Scientist and Educator. His biggest joy comes from helping others solve their problems and he is passionate about finding effective ways to disseminate knowledge. Rama has a PhD and MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park. He also did his Postdoctoral research at MIT in Cambridge, Boston.

Questions

• We always like to give them an opportunity to share in your own words, how you got to where you are today and why you ended up on this journey that you are on?
• So, could you share with our listeners a little bit about Blitzz? What does Blitzz do? Is Blitzz an acronym for something and may I ask? I'm not sure if you actually have a reason for it. But like, what inspired you to name the company Blitzz?
• The whole method of augmented reality enabled Smart Glasses that your company is using to enable hands free support, making it even easier to fix a car stereo appliance and more. Could you share a little bit about how that works? And what the process is? And how easy has it been for customers to transition using this new method of resolution?
• What are some trends that you see emerging in 2023 and beyond as it relates to technology, maybe one or two that you have observed, or you see that are emerging that you'd be willing to share with our audience?
• Could you also share with our audience what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read very recently, or even one you read a very long time ago, but it really has had a great impact on your life, and you just believe it would be a good value to share with our audience.
• Could you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two things that you do personally to stay motivated every day, despite any challenges or adversities that you may face?
• Could you also share with our audience, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people?
• Where can listeners find you online?
• Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you’ll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed.

Highlights

Rama’s Journey

Me: So, even though we read the bio of our guests, the formal constructed background of where our guests history is, and how they got to where they are today, we always like to give them an opportunity to share in your own words, how you got to where you are today and why you ended up on this journey that you are on?

Rama stated that that's a pretty deep question. Start with a little bit about his background, he grew up in India and Indonesia, so two countries far away from here. And always been guided by a lot of the values from his parents, his dad was an engineer. He's retired right now and back in India, and his mom was a teacher as well. So, a lot of great values growing up and the fundamental thing was always trying to care for people, to help them. And his strength in math and science naturally led him to be an engineer, just like his dad.

And he alw

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Amanda Ono has spent her career learning to maximize a company's most valuable investment - it's people. Boasting over 20 years of international experience in organizational development, HR consulting, and change management, she has implemented successful talent and leadership initiatives in six countries across four continents. You can currently find her at Resolver, a Kroll business and worldwide leader in defining risk intelligence, making her mark as both VP Customer Experience and VP People & Culture.

For most of her professional life, Amanda has been on a mission to understand what makes highly effective organizations tick. As an undergraduate in psychology, she saw pioneering research on the effects of unconscious bias and racism in resume screening up close. After graduating, she honed her craft by tackling training and organizational development at talent management firms across Canada. Soon her skills were in such demand that invitations to implement leadership programmes across the globe started to roll in - first in South Africa, followed by Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Since joining the Resolver team in 2016, she's only expanded on her record of success. Implementing processes and strategies that have enabled Resolver to scale by over 120%, expand into four countries and acquire three companies. Amanda's efforts have led to being recognized as one of Canada's great places to work six years in a row. Despite her accolades, Amanda is determined to continue engaging, accelerating and giving her colleagues at Resolver to deliver on the company's motto: Aim big, Be Great, and Be Loved by Customers.

Questions

• We've read, the formal background of who you are and where you are today. But we'd love for you to tell us the audience and myself, in your own words, a little bit about your journey and how it is that you got to where you work today.
• Could share with us maybe three to five things that you think is critical for leaders to embrace and practice on a daily basis in order to really have successful teams in an organization?
• Sometimes I find that HR in an organization, very few organizations where I've interacted with the team members of a company, and they feel so comfortable going to their Human Resource people, how could we change that, what are some ways that we could look for opportunities that HR can really play the role they're supposed to play?
• Could you also share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
• Could you also share with us what are some books that you have read that you believe have had the biggest impact with you? Maybe one or two you could share with us, could be that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you read recently, but it really has impacted you.
• Could you also share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
• Could you share with us one or two benefits of HR or the people arm of the business actually using it technology to enhance the experience that employees have in the organization? How can technology help that?
• Where can they find you online?
• Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, and the quote kind of helps to get you back on track and kind of refocus you on what you're trying to achieve?

Highlights

Amanda’s Journey

Amanda stated that as you can hear, she’s had a nonlinear career path and she truly thin

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Andrew Wolgemuth founded Wove to recreate the way couples buy engagement rings in a highly traditional and outdated industry. Andrew grew up in an entrepreneurial environment working at his parents jewellery company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After attending West Point and serving as a Platoon Leader in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, he attended Stanford's GSB’s Ignite Entrepreneurship Programme where the idea for Wove was born.

Questions

• Could you share with our listeners a little bit about your journey, at least your journey into entrepreneurship, how did you get to where you are today? And what kind of propelled you into that space?
• Could you tell us a little bit about your ecommerce company? What's the name of the company?
• As a business owner, you're operating in the ecommerce space and I'm sure a lot has changed since COVID. What have been some of your key learning opportunities that you've been able to capitalize on? As you know, we went through a pandemic, and now we're emerging out of a pandemic, how have you been able to still satisfy clients, meet their demands despite all of what was happening globally?
• What are maybe one or two key things that as a designer communicates with the client, they try to focus on to ensure that those things are manifested into the product to make people feel like they're a part of what you're purchasing.
• How hard is it to kind of lead a remote base team and leverage their expertise seeing that you're not all in the same space?
• And do you find that the customer experience is better because you're able to kind of navigate that journey, control that journey as much as possible, you have more control over the things that may impact your customer in a positive or a negative way.
• Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Could you share with us maybe one or two books that you've read, either recently or in the past that have had a great impact on you.
• Could you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
• Where can listeners find you online?
• Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed?

Highlights

Andrew’s Journey

Andrew shared that entrepreneurship actually started for him in his childhood. Both of his parents were young entrepreneurs, they started a family jewellery company when he was just a baby. And so, much of his childhood was spent watching his parents start a business. And he thinks many of the lessons that he learned from watching his parents, both himself and his siblings took with them as they entered into the real world.

About Andrew’s Ecommerce Company Wove

Andrew shared that their company is called Wove. They’re www.wovemade.com/. And what they specialize in is custom engagement rings and wedding bands. So, essentially, the way that their process works, they match their clients with one of their in ho

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Justin Zalewski is the Director of Product Design and Strategy at Studio Science. He leads a team of talented product designers and works with clients to solve business problems through design. He and his team are experts in rapid prototyping and running experiments to more quickly learn from and deliver value to customers.

He has led projects with clients ranging from market-leading tech companies to Fortune 500 brands. Some of his clients include Angi, Genesys, Simon, Stack Overflow, and Cummins.

Questions

• Now, could you share with us, in your own words, just a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are today?
• So, customer and product design. Now, tell us a little bit about Studio Science. What is Studio Science and what does Studio Science do?
• So, maybe could you share with me one or two trends that you've seen in the customer experience space that you think is critical for a business to constantly be looking at to ensure that they are keeping current with the needs of their customer?
• Why do you think it's important for not only the customer experience, but the employee experience to ensure that your alignment in terms of needs is not just on the CX end but it's also on the EX end and what does that look like in terms of it being beneficial to both?
• Now, could you also share with us what is the one online resource, tool, website, or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Could you also share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
• We do have a lot of persons that listen to this podcast, who are business owners, as well as managers and they believe that their companies have great products and services, but from time to time, they do lack constantly motivated human capital, so the people are not as motivated. If you're sitting across the table from one of those persons today, what's the one piece of advice that you'd give them to increase or improve their motivation and have a successful business?
• Could you also share with us Justin, our listeners would have tapped into this episode, they would like to connect with you. And so, they would like to know where can they find you online?
• So, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you refocused if for any reason you got derailed.

Highlights

Justin’s Journey

Justin shared that he started in the world of design and the way he started was a little more in the world of graphic design. And that led him into just kind of a natural curiosity into the more technical side of things. And so, he started to kind of branching out from just the visual design of things in visual communication into building things and figuring out how things work. So, getting into code, building websites, building apps. And that led him into product design.

So, figuring out what is the UX, the user experience of making sure that these kinds of things are intuitive, easy to use, fun to use, and really meeting customer needs. And that caused him to broaden his lens, especially the last 10 years and his time at Studio

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Brad Sugars is internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs. Brad is a best-selling author, keynote speaker and the number one business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30 year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9 plus companies and is the owner of the multimillion dollar franchise Action Coach. As a husband and father of 5, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business, that's why Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you.

Over the years of starting, scaling and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road but if you can learn from those who have gone before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone. That's why Brad has created 90 days to revolutionize your life, it's 30 minutes a day for 90 days teaching you his 30 years experience on investing, business and life.

Questions

• Could you share a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
• In your bio, it mentioned that at the end of the day, you want to be working in a business that can work without you. Like so many people don't understand that concept. Could you explain what that means?
• And so, maybe could you share with us, let's say 3 to 4 success principles, or just things that will help to make you be more successful as a business owner or an entrepreneur.
• Could you share with us I would say maybe, let's move it up to five traits that a leader needs to really grow and develop their people.
• Where do you get to that point where you're starting to attract really quality people? Is it because of the energy that you're giving out, your leadership style, what makes the right people or attracts the right people to come to you?
• What's your views on marketing? Is it something that still needs to be occurring to keep present in the customers mind? And if so, based on the fact that marketing has changed so much I would say in the last 10 to 20 years as you've mentioned, which platforms do you focus your marketing on?
• Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
• Could you maybe pick one or two that have had a great impact on you over your lifetime? It could be a book you read recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago.
• What has been your experience, I would say, let's narrow it down to the last one to two years of customer experience. And I know it's a very general and a wide question, but we just want to get an idea of how your experiences has been across different industries, like travelling to a hotel, or airline or restaurant, or even just local stores that you may visit in your community where you live.
• Could you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
• Where can listeners find you online?
• Before we wrap our interviews up, we always like to ask our guest, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge you’ll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps get you back on track if for any reason you get derailed.

Highlights

Brad’s Journey

Me: Now, even though we read our guest bio, we always like to give the

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Sanja Licina is here to discuss with us all of the wonderful things that we can help you to master your customer experience. Her goal in life is to help make people happier. Most of us spend so much of our lives working and there is still a tremendous opportunity to help people feel better connected to their companies, to their colleagues and to feel passionate to make a difference with their work.

So, she's dedicated her career to helping companies create a culture that employees love to be part of. She has been fortunate to travel to over 60 countries and lives on three continents. And through this journey meets the most amazing, inspirational and passionate people. Collaborating this incredibly diverse group has given her even more confidence that together she can make a difference. Those who know her are aware of her deep passion for data and technology, which will be a key to helping all of us transform the world of work.

Questions

• Could you share with us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
• Could you share with our listeners what is QuestionPro? And how does that really dove tail or fit into the whole customer experience puzzle? How does your company help customer experience?
• QuestionPro focuses a lot on market research. Could you share with us if your target is predominantly large companies, or let's say for example, someone has an organisation with 20 employees, but they have a pretty large customer base, would your company be able to provide services for them as well? what are some key indicators or trends that you have noticed since you're already in this space, what do you think companies need to be focusing on in order to ensure that they're really tapping into the needs of their customers?
• Could you share with our listeners, how do you stay motivated every day? What makes you keep going?
• Could you also share with our listeners, what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Could you share a book that has had the biggest impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago or even one that you read recently.
• Could you share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people?
• Where is the best place that listeners can find you online?
• Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you get derailed or just get you back on track with what you're working on. Do you have a quote like that?

Highlights

Sanja’s Journey

Me: Even though we read your bio that basically gives us a summary of what you do. But we love to hear from our guests in their own words, a little bit about how they got to where they are today.

Sanja stated that as mentioned, she’s had a privilege of living on three different continents. And she’s actually talking with Yanique right now out of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, and spend about half of her life in the United States. And so, for her, she’s had this incredible pleasure of i