Navigating the Customer Experience

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Fred Reichheld is the creator of the Net Promoter system of management, the founder of Bain & Company's Loyalty practice and the author of five books including The New York Times bestseller, The Ultimate Question 2.0. He is currently a Fellow and Senior Advisory Partner at Bain, where he has worked since 1977. Fred is a frequent speaker at major business forums and his work on customer loyalty has been widely covered in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Fortune, Businessweek and The Economist.

His upcoming article to be published in November marks his 15th contribution to the Harvard Business Review. In 2012, he became one of the original LinkedIn influencers, an invitation only group of corporate leaders and public figures who are thought leaders in their respective fields. In 2003, Consulting Magazine named Fred as one of the world's 25 Most Influential Consultants.

According to The New York Times, he put loyalty economics on the map. The Economist refers to him as the “high priest” of loyalty. Reichheld graduated with honors both from Harvard College (B.A., 1974) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., 1978). He's based in Cape Cod and Miami.

Questions

• Could you share a little bit about your own journey? How is it that you got to where you are today?
• Could you explain to us what the Net Promoter system is and how companies should really be using it to yield the best results?
• Could you share with us maybe two or three things that you believe are contributing drivers of loyalty?
• What are some things that companies should look at in trying to enrich the lives of your customers? Do they need to understand what type of customer they're serving and does the generation matter?
• Could you share with us what is Customer Capitalism exactly? And how does that impact the consumer?
• 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 also share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you?
• 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? It could be something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
• Where can our 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 keep you on track, or at least get you back on track if for any reason you get derailed. Do you have one of those?

Highlights

Fred’s Journey

Fred shared that early in his career at Bain & Company, he noticed companies similar to us all, some brand new, some quite mature, but they were all outperforming all of the things he learned at the Harvard. Some were crushing it and a good example was enterprise Rent-A-Car, who started out as a tiny little rental leasing agency in St. Louis, and has grown now to become the largest car rental company on Earth without ever having to tap public equity markets, it's still a private company. And you think, Gosh, what I learned at Harvard was a capital intensive business, low growth industry, low margins, there's no way that you could grow on internally generated cash.

So, when he went to meet with Andy Taylor, their CEO, he said, “Fred, there's no secret, there's only one way to grow a successful business sustainably.” And so, he was listening for this great secret. And he said, “You treat your customers so they come back fo

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Dan Gingiss is an international keynote speaker and customer experience coach who believes that a remarkable customer experience is your best marketing strategy. His 20-year professional career spanned multiple disciplines, including customer experience, marketing, social media and customer service. He held leadership positions at McDonald's, Discover and Humana.

Dan is the author of The Experience Maker: How To Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can't Wait To Share, which was released in September 2021. And he's also the author of Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media. He also hosts the “Experience This!” show podcast and “The Experience Maker Show.”

He earned a B.A. in Psychology and Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Questions

• Could you share a little bit about your journey? How it is that you got to where you are today?
• Could you share with our listeners, Dan, a little bit about this book, maybe share with us maybe three to four pillars that the book is built on? And why a company would need a tool like this to enhance our customer experience?
• Could you maybe give us one or two examples of maybe companies that you know, that have demonstrated an immersive experience?
• You mentioned that word of mouth is the best type of advertising for any business. How can we get our customers to the point where they want to share their experiences with us and it's not just a mere experience?
• Have you found that customers expectations have changed somewhat, since the pandemic? Do you find that they're more sensitive to customer experiences, their expectations are higher? What has your experience been as a customer experience specialist in this area?
• In this whole digital transformation space that companies are going through, how do you think we can re humanize the customer experience, even though we're using digital to support that whole transition and make things easier for customers?
• Can you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Can 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 a very long time ago, or even one that you read recently, but it still had a great impact on you.
• Can you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now, something that you're really excited about? It could be 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 keep you on track or get you refocus if for any reason you got derailed.

Highlights

Dan’s Journey

Dan shared that he started out in a marketing role right after college, even though he had never taken a marketing class; he was a psychology and communications, undergraduate major. And he realized once he gets into marketing, that's basically what marketing is, it's psychology plus communication. So, it turned out to work out pretty well. And he hel

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Nathan Foy is founder and CEO of Fortis, nine-time Inc. Magazine honoree as one of America's fastest-growing companies. Fortis provides over 25,000 private, secure trips in 114 countries per year to clientele worth more than half a trillion dollars. These clients routinely ranked Fortis on Gallup surveys as the best in the industry. With offices in Greenville, South Carolina, and Hong Kong, Fortis offers ground transportation to more private jet owners than any other service in the world.

Nathan's first book, What Rich Clients Want: (But Won't Tell You), translates the Fortis experience into a replicable, scalable business model any service provider can recreate. Nathan lives in Greenville with his wife, Pam and their four children.

Questions

• Could you share with our guests a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are today?
• Could you tell us a little bit about that book? Is there a particular strategy or approach that you take to serve rich clients versus clients who are not rich, you want to share with us how it is this book can be applied to everybody in business?
• Can you share with us maybe what are maybe two or three things that you've seen emerge as needs that customers are looking to be even more fulfilled since the pandemic?
• What are some of the approaches that organizations need to take maybe leaders, in order to ensure that your team members are practicing these behaviors or competencies, especially if it doesn't come naturally? Let's start maybe with the first two, professionalism and problem solving. How can you build strengths or strengthen the competencies of your team to ensure that they're demonstrating these behaviors with the customers?
• How do you stay motivated every day?
• 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 our audience, maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, it could be a read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it really has impacted you.
• Could you share with us what's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? It could be something that 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'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 get derailed?

Highlights

Nathan’s Journey

Nathan shared that it was not intentional in its original conception. So, Fortis as a company began as a prepaid taxi cab card for college students. That was his original idea, was to create a card that students could use for transportation, this was in 2000 and this was the era when prepaid phone cards or prepaid meal cards were all the rage.

And so, he raised money from friends and family, he went up and down the East Coast, he built a network of taxicab companies. And their launch was for the Fall moving season of 2001, almost exactly 20 years ago. And it was going pretty well and then, unfortunately, 911 happened and everything changed. They ran out of money, people weren't visiting their kids for college anymore. And so, they started to adapt.

They sold their cab cards to companies. And then shortly after that, they found their first private jet company and they said they wanted chauffeured cars. And then they adapted into that really in the

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Becca Ribbing is the author of The Clarity Journal and has been a coach for over a decade. She's on a mission to help people break out of the cycles of uncertainty and struggle that hold them back. She helps women going back forth and with the big, seemingly endless question of what to do next so they can stop going around in circles and finally figure out what they truly want and create the clarity and momentum they crave.

So many people find themselves stuck and unsure of their direction. Using journaling prompts and helping people become more honest with themselves. She moves her readers forward gently and empowers them to embrace their strengths while letting go of any negative self-talk that has held them back in the past. She's been on many podcasts, including “What to Read Next” and “Say Yes.”

Questions

• Could you share with our audience a little bit about your journey? How did you get to where you are today?
• We have a lot of listeners who are business owners or managers in businesses, females, males, how would this book really help them? Could you share with us just how this all comes together?
• What are maybe one or two things that you would recommend that they could employ in order to just be more confident or have a greater conviction or assertion in whatever they're thinking of doing or not doubting themselves or be so fearful?
• 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 also share with our audience, maybe one or two books that you've read, could be books that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it really has had a great impact on you.
• 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'll tend to revert to this quote or saying, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you refocused if for any reason you get derailed?

Highlights

Becca’s Journey

Becca shared that about 3 years ago, she was going back and forth about her next career move, she had just had her second son and she had been a coach for a while. And she had also been running a mindfulness website that she had to let go when her son was born, her son had a bunch of medical issues, none of them were huge, but they all were very time consuming.

And so, about 3 years ago, she was going back and forth with a friend of hers about what path she wanted to take next. And it was so funny, because she stopped her and finally she said, “Hey, Becca, you are a coach, you've been a coach for a long time, what would you tell your clients in this situation?” And she stopped, she was like, “Oh, what would I tell myself?” And she got off that call and she wrote down all of the questions she asks her clients to help them move forward.

And as she was writing these questions down and asking them of herself, she started getting more and more and more clear. And the thing that came up for her is that she really needed to get back into writing, even though it was difficult with the kids, writing was really truly what she loved doing. And so, this ended up becoming her first writing project. It was just so powerful to have the questions asked that she wanted to make sure they got out to the world.

Your Book,

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Lucas Root is an accomplished speaker, entrepreneur, author, business success mentor, and founder of SGIC Consulting, which works with clients to build a high-performance strategy and implement that strategy across their businesses to achieve the maximum growth potential possible.

With over 19 years of success across banking, technology, investments, health and wellness, athletics, and interactive media (gaming), Lucas helps identify roadblocks to success and where his clients could be heading toward failure. He specialises in speaking to entrepreneurs and business owners on getting their strategy on track for success and massive growth.

Questions

• Could you share in your own words about your journey, and how you got to where you are today?
• Based on your experience as a consultant in the last 6 years working with these different ranges of companies, what are some of the key things that you have coach them on as it relates to strategy to ensure that they are increasing their earning potential, retaining their customers, having raving fans who will spread good news about your business?
• We have a lot of listeners who are business owners and managers who feel they have great products and services, but they lack the constantly motivated human capital. If you were sitting across the table from one of those persons, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to have a successful business?
• Can 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 also share with our audience maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently that has really had a great impact on you.
• What's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something that 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'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you refocused. Do you have one of those?

Highlights

Lucas’ Journey

Lucas stated that he did what he thought what the normal person supposed to do, he went to college, and he got a good degree. And then as he was getting out of college, and this is two decades ago, at this point, as he was getting out of college, he got a degree in mechanical engineering and physics and he decided he didn't want to go wear a lab coat, then obviously, there are plenty of people that are engineers or physicists that don't but that was the picture he had in my mind. And so, he went to Wall Street instead.

And the critical thinking component of a science and mathematics based degree made it easy for him to move into the projects world on Wall Street, which very quickly turned into the mergers and acquisitions execution groups. So that's the team that puts together businesses on a merger. And so, he spent more than 17 years putting together businesses on the backside of a merger. And over the course of that time, he got really good at understanding what makes successful businesses work and what creates the opportunity for somebody else to gobble you up, which is what a merger is.

It's one successful company grabbing another company that maybe is less successful and there are significant opportunities for the bigger company to turn the smaller company into something great, or at least they think.

So, after 17 years, he figured he knew a thing or two and he decided to launch out into the world and share the thing or

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Darin Dawson is the Co-Founder and President of BombBomb, a Human-Centered Communication Platform that enables users to use simple, personal video messages to leverage their best asset – themselves!

Darren leads all sales, marketing, customer success and product development at BombBomb, a fast-growing, Colorado-based software company. He's on a mission to re-humanize the planet and he wants to start with your business communication. He believes that human beings have intrinsic value and that every person deserves to be seen, heard and understood. That's why he co-founded BombBomb.

Questions

• Could you share with us a little bit about your journey in your own words and how you got to where you are today, could you share that with us?
• Could you share with our audience for those who may not have listened to Ethan's episode last year or never heard of BombBomb, what is it that BombBomb does and how can that help a business?
• Why video, why should we use video to connect and communicate daily with people?
• What is customer experience and why do you think it matters?
• Could you share with us maybe some of the values that BombBomb is built on that has helped BombBomb to really be able to realize fulfilling those needs for your customers? And why do you think an internal culture needs to be very impactful in order to execute a strong external culture?
• Could you explain to us in very layman terms, what does it mean to re humanize people? What are we lacking that we need re humanization? Could you share with us what does that really mean?
• Could you also 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 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 a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it still has 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? It could be 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 you use in times of adversity or challenge? This quote kind of helps to get you back on track and get you refocused if for any chance you got derailed.

Highlights

Darin’s Journey

When asked about his journey, Darin shared that he feels like it may be a little bit non typical, so for instance, he never graduated the university, so he didn't go to college, he did but he didn’t graduated as his father said very good advice to him at that age, “Maybe college isn't for you.”

He was always entrepreneurial, he saw that in him and thought that he should pursue that and kind of get after doing his own thing. He grew up on a farm, hard working all his life, got given a good what they call there a Midwestern work ethic and ended up moving to Colorado in 1995 when he was 21 years old and have been there ever since.

So, then graduated school but then started this kind of painting business out in Colorado when he was young, he grew that business, it was actually successful. But then in the late 90s, early 2000s he started being interested in all things to do with internet marketing, Pay Per Click strategies, On Demand strategies, things like that and he got involved in the marketing business, was lucky enough to get ownership in that business, to sell that business and then do that again with another marketing company and then ended up working at a TV station actually running online, m

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Michael Arnold is the author of the book, Slacking Off: A Successful Way to Work from Home and he wrote it especially for those who are considering to work or are working from home and are seeking a work life balance.

He has been a work from home entrepreneur for over 15 years and he's worked with major corporations such as Cox Automotive, Verizon Super Pages, and Major Commercial Finance companies. His journey wasn't a smooth sailing one since he is also human just like us and he made many mistakes along the way. But he has lived to share some wisdom from his own experience to help people on their work from home journey to create successful actions on their own.

Questions

• Can you share a little bit about your journey?
• In your book Slacking Off a successful way to work from home. Could you share with us maybe in five to eight or nine minutes, just what the book is about? Who is it targeted for? And how can it help our listeners.
• Could you share with our listeners since you have so much experience working from home, this was quite new for many people last year March when the pandemic just hit. Could you share with maybe our listeners maybe 1 to3 things, competencies or behaviors that you think someone who is working from home needs to embrace in order to be successful?
• Have you seen customer experience change much since the pandemic as a consumer or even as a business owner?
• How do you stay motivated every day?
• 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 our listeners maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read recently, or a book that you read a very long time ago, but it still has had a great impact on you.
• Could you 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 that 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'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to refocus you or get you back on track.

Highlights

Michael’s Journey

Me: Even though we read a little bio about our guests, we always like to give them the opportunity to kind of just share with us a little bit about their journey. How is it in your own words would you describe how you got from where you are now to where you were before? How did you get to where you are today?

Michael shared that a lot of ups and downs and experimenting in different industries led him to be a work from home entrepreneur and a father and let's say, contributor to the community. And he thinks ultimately, like most of us, he started out trying to be everything he could be at a young age before he was 18.

Work normal jobs like McDonald's, Christmas tree lots, doing landscaping and lots of different things at a very, very young age. And still was looking to find what he enjoyed and that became understanding businesses really fast and sharing, whether it be speaking, or presenting or consulting and he thinks ultimately, when we learn from our mistakes, and we're better people for it, and we've survived the misses, the bullets that fly our way, metaphorically and can live to tell about it, he thinks that's essentially what's brought him here, is his ability to survive through all things or persevere, if you will.

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Jason S. Bradshaw is a global strategic adviser to C-suite executives and start-ups, a keynote speaker on customer and employee experience, digital transformation and leading through crisis.

He has led transformative change with some of the most recognizable brands like Target, Fairfax and Volkswagen. Delivering phenomenal customer-centric growth including over 200% increase in lead generation, $36 million in e-commerce sales in year one, and decades of customer and employee metrics improvements.

He is a best-selling author on customer and employee experience, recipient of over 40 industry awards and voted 1 of 30 global gurus on customer service and experience.

Questions

• In your own words, can you share a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are today?
• Can you maybe share one or two examples of just experiences you've had either working in an organization where you saw that the employee experience is just as important as the customer experience or even in a capacity where you played a leadership role and you saw that it really played an impactful part?
• What are some areas that you think organizations have had to maybe give a little bit more emphasis to, especially in light of this global pandemic?
• Could you share with us maybe what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?
• Could you also share maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, it could have been a book that you read recently, or maybe a book that you read a very long time ago, but it still has had a great impact on you.
• We have a lot of listeners who are business owners and managers who definitely feel that they have great products and services, but sometimes they feel that they lack the constantly motivated human capital, so constantly motivated human people. If you were sitting across the table from one of these persons, what is the one piece of advice that you would give them to have a successful business?
• Could you share with our audience, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? It could be something that 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'll tend to revert to this quarter or saying, it kind of just helps to get you back on track or get you refocused.

Highlights

Jason’s Journey

Me: Even know we read your bio and it really does sum up all you've done in your lifetime. We always like to hear from our guests, in their own words a little bit about their journey, how they got to where they are today. And I have quite an idea because I've read about half of your book, it's all about CEX so I do know a little bit, but maybe you could just share that summary for us so that our guests can get a great understanding of who you are.

Jason shared that his journey started at the age of 14, like so many young teenagers, he wanted to buy stuff and he could have gone and worked at a local store or he could do something different, he went down the path of doing something different and started selling his own telecommunication and computer hardware and software.

And it really came about because he had this undying curiosity of this thing called business, his parents had side hustles, his grandparents had their own businesses and he just thought, there’s got to be a smarter way than just going to work at the local supermarket and getting minimum wage was not the fast track to get the nice shiny gadgets he wanted to buy.

So

Dr. Kaliym Islam is a former Wall Street executive where for over 20 years he led global learning businesses. New York Times best-selling author, Kevin Kurse (The e-Learning Guru describes him as a fresh voice among the usual author Guru crowd…, “who” …brings the credibility of someone who makes a living DOING, rather than TELLING.

Teams under his direction have been:  1. Named learning elite organizations by Chief Learning Officer Magazine. 2. Won International Society for Technical Communication (STC) awards for innovative learning content. 3. Cited by HR Futurist Josh Bersin as best practice learning organizations.

He's written thousands of industry and academic articles and a number of books that focus on leadership, strategy, organizational development, and training and development. His most recent book, The 12 Inch Rule of Leadership: Proven Strategies for Career Success highlights how leaders in industry, government, higher education, k-12 and entrepreneurship utilized a common framework (The 12 Inch Rule) to achieve career success.

He's currently an Assistant Professor of Practice at Southern Illinois University where he helps develop tomorrow's educational leaders.

Questions

• Can you tell us in your own words, how it is that you got to where you are today? Could you give us a little bit of insight on that?
• Your book, The 12 Inch Rule of Leadership: Proven Strategies for Career Success, can you summarize for us in the best way possible, just for our listeners to get an idea of what its framework entails and who is it really targeted towards? Is it just for persons who are new and emerging leaders or people who've been in leadership roles for years? Is this something they could take on to maybe sharpen their leadership skills?
• So, let's break it down. I listed the 12 principles. I just want you to maybe just give me a one to two cents summary of each one. So, let's start with time value, what does that mean to a leader?
• 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 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 a very long time ago, but it still has really resonated with you to this day, or maybe even one that you've read recently that really struck a chord and you would want to recommend it.
• Could you share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about, either something that 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 or get you refocused if for any reason you get derailed? Do you have one of those?

Highlights

Dr. Islam’s Journey

Dr. Islam shared that he looks at his journey, he’s got to go ahead and cite his inner Steve Jobs, you can't connect the dots forward, you can only connect them backwards. So, if he looks at his journey, he would sort of summed up in two words or two phrases, innovation and taking chances.

So came out of the military, spent some time in the military after he screwed up in college for the first time and wanted to change the world. So, his plan was to change the world one child at a time.

So, he went into K-12 education and he started working, at that time, poor community of Bushwick, Brooklyn is now a destination place but at that time it wasn't. It was one of those neighborhoods where you see the car panned by, you see the burnt-out buildings and graffiti on the wall and you hear the statistics about single mothers and drugs and AIDS and these types of things.

And what he did, he started teaching school there and he brought his military background, he brought his college fraternal background, and his love for technology into the classroom. And at that time, his customers were essentially the students and the parents and the administration. So, they put all those things together, being innovative and taking chances. And then students who really had not been successful in their academic careers, but suddenly started to achieve success. They had tremendous improvement. I leveraged that success and started writing curriculum, helping teachers use technology in the classroom.

So, he left his technology background, he left the classroom because he realized that in the classroom, he can only help probably 30 students at a time but if he was in a more of an administrative position, he could impact policy which could impact more students. So, he took a job as an assistant principal at an alternative high school in Manhattan, overseeing their technology and basically migrating them from at that time was an Apple Mac environment into a PC environment.

So, his interests started getting more and more toward technology and how technology can help people learn. Well, it was about that time that his wife informed him that the salary of a school teacher did not afford her the life that she felt that she deserved.

So, he started looking at other opportunities and he actually went to Wall Street, initially to do some technology stuff and they were actually deploying a new technology system. And he was in a meeting, the teacher in him never left so he asked what was a dumb question back then, he said, “Well, what's going to happen on Monday morning, when you deploy a brand-new email system on Friday afternoon?”

And they said, “Well, we're going to get a lot of calls to the help desk, and there’s going to be problems.” And he said, “So are you positioned to support that?” Well, they said, “Well, look, No, we're not.” And he said, “Well, what should we do?” He said, “You should train people, you should give them an education program. What you should do is, rather than teach everyone at the same time, you rotate and bring one department into the training, while they're in the training, you deploy the software to their desktop. So right after having been trained on it, they can use it right away.”

Next question was who can develop the training?

He was a school teacher, had a degree in instructional design. So, he went home that weekend, wrote the training program, and they deployed and it was very successful.

Fast forward a few months later, they were deploying another software system, same situation occurred. He was in a meeting, they said they're going to deploy it, he asked a dumb question, “What's going to happen when you don't train people?” Same scenario occurred. He went home, built the training program and did the training, they had success. And then they had a third software system that they were deploying, everyone looked at him and said, “Kaliym, can you do the training?” He said, “Absolutely not. No way. No way, Jose.”

And they said, “Well, why not? You did it before.” He said, Yeah, but we're playing whack a mole here. We're just reacting, we need a more strategic approach to go ahead to doing this training. He literally went home that weekend that was refused writer, he wrote a strategic training plan for the company with, of course, him at the head of this technical training department. He walked in on Monday morning, gave the president of the company his proposal, he looked at him and said, “Well, start hiring your staff.” So, that was his full foray into sort of corporate supervision and corporate training.

So, they had a lot of success there, he had responsibility for employees. And then they realized that what they were doing for employees could be extended to clients. And so, they said, “Okay, Kaliym, you now have responsibility for customer training.”

And when he looked at the landscape, he realized that it really didn't make a lot of sense to build a staff of 50, 60, 100s of trainers to train customers, because when the need and you got to look back that was sort of late 90s, where people were just learning how to use Microsoft Word, learning how to use Excel, and all these other productivity programs.

So, they realized that okay, once everyone is taught, they don't need all these trainers. So again, in the spirit of innovation and taking chances, they started working with what at that time was called CD ROM training. So, they'd actually program the training on a CD ROM, you would send it out to the various locations and that's how people would take their training. So, he left there after doing some good stuff there, another company asked him to come in and oversee or bring in technology.

So that's what they did, they brought in technology for another firm. He just basically kept on sort of ascending up the ladder, and all these experiences, whether it was bringing in a new technology or different approaches or bringing in learning management systems. He always wanted to help people, so he would write about it in industry magazines and then he got started being asked to speak about things like that.

And at some point, after a bunch of years, and this is something that he’s neglected to say after his wife let him know that a school teacher didn't make the money that afforded her the life that she thought she deserved. Dr. Islam leaving education K through 12 education broke his mother's heart because she thought he had a gift. And he promised her, he said, “Mom, I promise I'll go back at some point.”

So, after 20 years of doing that, and having a lot of success, he said, it's time for him to fulfil his promise to his mother. And he left corporate America, and started doing what his mother asked him to do was going back into education. So, he took on a job as a professor at Southern Illinois University and opened up a small boutique educational consulting firm and now he’s sitting here having a great conversation with Yanique.

Summarizing Dr. Islam’s Book – The 12 Inch Rule of Leadership: Proven Strategies for Career Success and Who is it Really Targeted Towards

Me: Your book, The 12 Inch Rule of Leadership: Proven Strategies for Career Success, could you share with our listeners what that whole framework is about? I'm aware of the fact that it consists of time value, best performance of duty, perseverance, the worth of example, the virtue of patience, talent, expression, economic wisdom, the value of character, kindly attitudes and pleasure in work, and the worth of the organization and the dignity of simplicity. So, it's a lot but could you summarize for us in the best way possible, just for our listeners to get an idea of what this framework entails and who is it really targeted towards? Is it just for persons who are new and emerging leaders or people who've been in leadership roles for years? Is this something they could take on to maybe sharpen their leadership skills?

Dr. Islam shared that it's certainly something that anyone can take on to sharpen their leadership skills. So, the background with The 12 Inch Rule, he is a member of a historically black fraternity or sorority, Phi Beta Sigma. And he’s sure that all fraternities and sororities have these types of things where essentially, there are things that you have to learn to become a member, things you have to memorize.

And one of the things that he had to memorize when he was going through his process was The 12 Inch Rule, and that was close to 40 years ago. And like you said, The 12 Inch Rule time value, best performance of duty, perseverance, the worth of example, the virtue of patience, kind of expression, economic wisdom, the value of character, kindly attitudes, pleasure in work, the worth of organization, the dignity of simplicity, he can't tell you what he had for breakfast this morning. But after close to 40 years, he can rattle those things off like it's nothing. And what he started to observe over the years is that folks who joined this organization fell into two camps, those who, like him could remember it and rattle it off and those who would say, “Hey, that was a long time ago, I don't remember it.”

And what he observed was that the ones who remembered this rule, and these principles, the 12 principles of the rule, their career trajectory seem to be steep. Whereas the ones that didn't remember that I said it was a long time ago, not that they all didn't have successful careers, but their trajectory wasn't as steep.

So, the academic in him try to understand why is this happening. So, he actually set out to do an academic study, his plan was to do research and get this published in a peer reviewed journal to solidify his academic chops. Now, after about the third interview, it blew his mind. He said, oh, my God, the stories that he’s hearing from these members in terms of what they did, how they applied the principles and how it led to career success was mind boggling. And he said, “Well, I can't leave this in an academic journal, there's got to be more of a wider distribution of this information, because it can help a lot of people.” So, they became agile and they basically stopped on a dime and said, “Okay, listen, we're not going to write this in a language that's geared toward academics, we're going to write this in a language that's geared toward playing people who are trying to reach their full potential in terms of their leadership potential, who want to be able to communicate their value, who are tired of being looked over for promotion and who are trying to become better as leaders.” And that's what they did.

And they interviewed 14 different members in a variety of industries, from K-12, to higher education, to entrepreneurs, to people who are working in financial services, people who are working in government.

The tips and tricks and recommendations that they put out there was helpful to him, it reminded him of a lot, it taught him a lot, it helped him become a better leader. And he knows it's going to help other people.

Just tell one story. His son, he’s got a 21-year-old, who he can never get to read anything, ever. In fact, when he was a kid, he tried to pay him to read books, wouldn't happen. He picked this book up and said “Dad, wow, this is pretty good, this is going to be helpful for me, some of the recommendations that they're talking about in the book, I can use on my job.”

He gave it to some of his college friends. Now these are after millennials, Gen Z? They don't read anything, except Snapchat. But his son started sending him pictures of his friends that they were sending him pictures of them reading the book, because they were so excited by it.

So, to your question, he thinks no, it's not just the new and emerging leader, he thinks sort of old folks like him can learn from the book also. Younger folks who really haven't necessarily gotten to a position where they're supervising, he thinks they can get something out of it, he’s seen it from his son's friends. And he’s got a bunch of folks who in the middle, in between who have read the book and said, “This has really been helpful to me.”

A Breakdown of The 12 Principles

Dr. Islam shared that he’s going to do that but he wants to take a step back. So, the beauty of this is, is there are no operational definitions. So, time value, it's something you need to measure yourself by, but the fact that there's no operational definition really gives you the opportunity to apply it in a way that makes sense for you. So, time value as an as an example, it's just that valuing your time. So, if you show up late or his interpretation of it, if you show up late. Number one, you're not valuing the time of the person who you're supposed to have a meeting.

Number one, if you're not spending your time on the right things, okay, you're not valuing time. So, one of the contributors in the book, his name is Jean-Guy Lauture, and he's the Chief Learning Officer for the city of Bloomingdale or township of Bloomingdale in New Jersey. So, he tells a story about how when he showed up at the City Hall one day, and he was working on one problem, one technology problem that was happening while he was visiting.

Now, while he was there, he got wind that they had been experiencing some ransomware. So, some bad actor threw some ransomware on the computers of the township that will put a lot of other things in jeopardy. Now, the issue that he initially came to deal with was important, and that he initially expected to spend his time. But as soon as the other issue came up, he realized his time is better served addressing the ransomware issue and, on a dime, he shifted his resources. And all the people who contributed to the book have different stories about how you can value your time.

Number two is best performance of duty. It seems simple enough, but how do you do your best when you don't feel your best? That there in is the challenge. And he tells a story in the book, one of his experiences was, someone in his organization quit relatively quickly, they actually lost two levels in organization, and he had to step in, and basically perform as a technician and a project manager sort of well below his depth, out of his depth.

He’s more of a strategy guy, so that sort of level of detail really killed him. But if they didn't do a good job for the client, they were not going to take on some additional business. So, even though he hated the work, even though it was out of his depth, even though it was something he really, really, really did not like to do, he had to perform his depth, he had to perform his best at all time. So, that's just one story.

Perseverance, how do you keep fighting through when things get rough?

Me: And I think that's applicable to anybody. I mean, not even leaders, just human beings, because things don't stay easy all the time.

Dr. Islam agreed. That's the point. He tells the story in the book, there was a time when he initially came to Wall Street to do technology stuff and he was overseeing, at that time, they call it desktop support. So, this is before all this remote stuff where you can just take over someone's computer.

Back then you literally had to go to the person's desk and install the software and plug everything in. So, that was his job, he oversaw a team to do that.

And they had a project to install it in a place within financial services called the cashiers, they call it the king, that the terminology that if you're on Wall Street, because the only people that go into that department are the people that work there, they really don't get visitors.

So, if a strange person comes in, all conversation stops, it gets really quiet, and they watch as you walk across the floor. So, his job was to deploy some PCs to that organization and to do it, he had to get the blessing of the guy they call the King of the Cage, his name was Fred Quiñones, he was an executive VP there, worked his way up from the mailroom, and let everybody know that he enjoyed his position, he was the kingmaker. So, he sent an email to Fred trying to set up a meeting so they could schedule the deployment of the PCs, it went unanswered. Left a voicemail, went unanswered, so he did what he used to do back then. He would do what he calls a drive by, he would just stop by his office and start a conversation.

He walks into the cashiers and there's silence, everyone watches as he walked across the floor. And he gets to the corner office, and in front of Fred and he's got a glass office so you can see he's in there reading his newspaper, and in front of his office is his assistant, his gatekeeper, Ann Galante. And he introduced himself, and said he'd like to speak to Fred. She says, “Well, he's busy.”

Now mind you, he’s looking at the guy reading a newspaper. She says, “Well, he's busy, come back later.” So, he goes back, another email, another phone call.

He figured let him show up at a different time of day. So, he showed up maybe 12 in the afternoon, same scenario, get into the cashiers, noise stops, he walks across the hallway, or across the room, look at Fred reading his newspaper, he asked Ann if he could speak with him, “He's busy.”

So, this happened three or four times and now his boss is saying, “Hey, when are you going to get those PCs deployed?”So, he’s feeling some pressure. He said, let me just try one more time. So, he shows up again, same scenario, he’s walking back dejected and a gentleman pulls him aside.

He says, “Listen, you're disrespecting Fred. He's an important man, he's a busy man and you show up here in the middle of the day, he doesn't like it.” Fred shows up in the morning at 7:00 am, he likes jelly doughnuts and he likes his coffee sweet and light.

So, the next morning, he shows up at 6:45 am with jelly doughnuts and coffee, Fred walks in, he’s sitting outside of his office, Fred walks in and he said, “Hey, Fred, I hear you like jelly doughnuts and coffee.” He said, “Come on, Kaliym. Come on in.” He didn't even know he knew his name.

Long story short, they did the project, everything worked out well, they were successful. And at one point, during the middle of the day, he needed to meet with Fred, he couldn't wait till a 6:00 am jelly donut meeting.

So, he goes across the cashiers and by this time, no noise stops, everyone keeps working, they don't even notice him. He walks across the floor, Fred is in his office, obviously in a busy meeting, he’s looking at Ann saying, “I really need to meet Fred.”

Fred looks up, he walks out of his office, he says, “What do you need Kaliym?” He lets him know. He tells other people in the office, “I got to be with Kaliym.” And he kicks them out. So, the tide certainly changed. So, he’s walking out of the cashiers’ area and this guy Ron Kowalski, certain names you remember in your career. He says, “You know, Kaliym, most people stop after the second effort, I'm glad you kept going.” Perseverance.

The worth of example. They have Joe West and he's a Harvard trained epidemiologist in the book, and he runs a small boutique consulting firm, he happens to be African American.

And he tells a story of before the advent of the internet, we can just go online and see anyone's name, he was working on a deal with a client and things were working well. And he actually got the opportunity to go to the executive offices and meet with them.

So, he goes to the offices and Secretary puts him in the room and the executives come in and as soon as they walk in, he could see from the look on their face that they didn't expect that Dr. Joseph West from Harvard was an African American.

So, there's an awkward moment in the beginning, but then they start to make small talk and then they realize that Joe West, he likes a lot of the same things they do, he likes to golf, he likes to smoke cigars and guess what, he loves Ronald Reagan.

Long story short, Joe gets the job, his team does a phenomenal job for the client. And then the client asked him, “Hey, do you have any of the firms that are just like you who can do some other work for us?”

So, of course, Joe goes and recommends another firm, they happen to be African American also. So, he tells a story of how joyful he was when he came back to do a report for these executives and he sees the firm that he recommended in the hallway or outside by the Secretary is waiting to meet with the executives. And he believes it's because of the example that he set as a business owner and how he presented himself. The worth of example.

Next one is the virtue of patience. So, they have a story in the book, Michael Dove. And Michael Dove is an executive at PCSU, which is a financial services firm, he's actually located in St. Petersburg, Florida.

And he tells a story of how his team used to get frustrated because they would make recommendations to the executives and the executives wouldn't act on them.

And what he had to instill in his team was, if you have a good idea, that idea is going to remain good, you've got to be patient, don't discard everything that you've done, because they're going to come back around and they're going to use that idea.

So, what he did he, he made sure that anytime one of his team members made a recommendation that was rejected, that they kept all the documentation. And what they started seeing was that a lot of times they would make these recommendations and while they were initially rejected, sometime 4 or 5, 6 months later, they would be accepted.

And had they not learned to be patient, they might have gotten rid of all the documentation that was associated with some of those recommendations of those projects. And that's really about making sure folks understand what you can do, what you're capable of and sometime that's also tricky, because sometimes when you let people know what you're capable of doing, they look at it as bragging. But if you don't do it, it could cause some other issues.

In one of the organizations that he led, they had a woman who she was a documentation specialist, but she loved doing voiceovers and she did that on the side to make money.

And they were having a lot of trouble finding affordable voice over talent, they tried to outsource stuff to different countries, but the accents just didn't work out.

And he remembered one day in a skip level, he thinks was a two-down meeting, they're having some conversations about where she wants to go in her career and what she does when she's not in work and she mentioned, “Well, I do voiceovers.” “Like, wow, we need voiceover talent here for some of the work that we're doing.” So had she not spoken up and talked about what she's good at, she would never have had that opportunity, she parlayed that into a bunch of other great personal and business opportunities.

Economic wisdom. So, they have a story in the book, Nigel Coelho, and he works for the folks that make the coffee for Starbucks and these other sort of coffee houses. And he speaks to, “I always have to remember, hey, this isn't my money, this is the company's money.”

So, he has to look at it like that, he can't spend it in the wrong way. So, they had to make a decision at one point about whether they invest in a $50 million project, which was in one area versus a $30 million project, which was in another area, and the more expensive investment would have been great for his organization, but not for the company. So, using this economic wisdom, he made the decision to do what was best for the best for the company.

The value of character they have this individual, Reverend Dr. Tyree Anderson, and he tells the story of how he took over as the new Pastor of a church in Alabama. And the old Pastor would let anyone walk in at any time. He didn't want people walking in to cause disturbance with the sermon.

So, he implemented a rule that if you weren't there when the sermon started, there were certain times during the service where people could come in. And so, this was new to some of the older parishioners. So, there was a woman, when she was able to come in, they were having sort of meet and greet when he walks around and greet the new visitors, and she literally cursed him out as he was walking on the floor in the church, and he talks about how it took everything in him to maintain control and maintain good character, even though his character was being assaulted in front of everyone.

Kindly attitude. So, they have Kobina Thomas, who was an executive for UPS United Postal Services in New York. And he tells a story about how he had to let someone go but he had to do it in a way that maintained respect for the person who he was letting go and maintained respect for him.

Pleasure in work. They have a lawyer, Cedric Ashley, who is the editor of one of these legal associations, a Quarterly Journal. And he speaks to the importance of finding something in work that gives you pleasure or else it's all agony.

And he tells a story of helping a woman who was terminated unfairly and the joy that he got from doing that, not because she compensated him, and he did get compensated well, but just to see how relieved she was when the stress of everything was happening in her life, how he was able to take that off of her shoulder and the pleasure that he got in that. And he also speaks to that what you consider pleasure in work changes over the cause of your career. So, an 18-year-old who’s going to look at it differently than a 15-year-old in the workforce.

Then we have the worth of organization. They have Will Worley who is a principal at a school in East Orange, New Jersey, and he just tells a story about just being organized and making sure everyone is on the same page and how he was able to leverage that to provide educational services to his students and his community during COVID.

And then lastly, the dignity of simplicity. So, they have Jerome Evans, and Jerome is a former National Championship for the University of Florida Gators football team. But he's also an executive at a company that sells industrial materials to big construction firms.

And he just talks about the importance of treating everyone with dignity and speaking in a way not to show us how smart you are, but speaking in a way that people get it, and how he speaks the same way to his billionaire clients as he does to the people that clean his house and how that's impacted his leadership.

So, we've got a lot of stories. But again, these principles are ones that individuals can interpret and use in a way that works for them.

App, Website or Tool that Dr. Islam Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Him Business

When asked about an online resource that he can’t live without in his business, Dr. Islam shared that Basecamp is essentially a communication tool. So, he knows a lot of companies are going to sort of agile project management tools, whether it's monday.com or Plutio or Xero, those types of things.

But Basecamp, for him is a great tool for project communication so it allows any documents, you can upload it, if there's a communication, whether it's through email, or you type it directly into Basecamp, all the communication comes there. So, for him in terms of staying organized and knowing what's going on with projects that he’s working on, clients he’s helping, Basecamp is required.

Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Dr. Islam

When asked about books that have had an impact, Dr. Islam shared that he’ll give a couple. So, one is Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter, phenomenal book, most people are familiar with Who Moved My Cheese. And that book is about basically show up and things have changed, so you have no choice but to react to it. Our Iceberg is Melting is a story of a colony of penguins believe it or not, and this one penguin Fred, he's friends with everybody else, but he likes to go off and learn things. He likes to dive underneath the iceberg and at some point, Fred sees a bubble in the bottom of the iceberg and it hits him, “Hey, I think our iceberg must be melting.” Now, he doesn't have a lot of evidence and from the story, Fred is really a junior person. But he's got to now convinced the entire colony of penguins that they've got to change their way of life, because if they don't, they're going to die because the iceberg is melting. And he has to do that with just a little bit of evidence that's below the iceberg that's really inconclusive.

And to him, that's the job of a leader, that you can't just focus on the here and now, you have to be looking at what's going to happen, what are some things that may cause your business to demise?

Or what are some opportunities you need to take advantage of that's going to help your organization be successful and a lot of times you don't find those things at the surface, you got to dive underneath the surface to find those things. So, that book is tremendously important to him, has been helpful.

The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard, because that's all about supervision and communication, and doing it in a way that allows you to maintain first principle, 12 Inch Rule, time value.

Another one is Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow by Tom Rath, so rather than forcing people to do things they don't do well, why not put them in a position where they can spend most of their time doing the things that they're naturally good at? So, those are the three that he would share.

What Dr. Islam is Really Excited About Now!

Dr. Islam shared that what I'm really, really excited about now, he’s actually has a presentation scheduled in South Carolina for a large international organization, and they're doing a session on how do you take your organization from good to great. So, he’s really psyched up about that, they've sent out a bunch of surveys to get a sense of how individuals who are going to be at this conference, how they feel about it and after looking at these surveys, they're going to be really surprised that they're not as good as they think they are. So, he’s really excited about helping them figure out, “Okay, how do we take ourselves from where we are and get to the next level?” So, he’s really looking forward.

Where Can We Find Dr. Islam Online

Company Website – www.thetrainingproacademy.com

Personal Website – www.drkaliymaislam.com

Twitter - @thetrainingpro

LinkedIn - @thetrainingproacademy

LinkedIn – Dr. Kaliym Islam

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Dr. Islam Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Dr. Islam shared the term it comes from a poem that from Muhammad Ali is called, “Impossible is nothing.”

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Links

• The 12 Inch Rule of Leadership: Proven Strategies for Career Success by Dr. Kaliym Islam
• Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter
• The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard
• Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow by Tom Rath

The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience

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The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Shep Hyken is a Customer Service and Experience Expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepherd Presentations. He is a New York Times bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for a lifetime achievement in the speaking profession. Shep works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of five books. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus™, a customer service training program which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset.

Questions

• Your new book is called I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again. And so, could you share a little bit about the book, what inspired you to write this book? How can this book help organizations? What are the core pillars or themes that the book is built on? Just give us in your own words what it's all about?
• You mentioned in the book, the concept of being nice. The behavior or personality of a customer service employee versus the technical side, I wanted you to expand on that for us on what is the importance of that? And what does it really mean to be nice?
• In the book you also mentioned to create real customer loyalty, we first need to understand the difference between loyalty programs and marketing programs. Can you explain to our audience what you mean by that?
• A lot of organizations clearly having to pivot over the last year and a half since the pandemic, trying to look at their customer journey, trying to incorporate digital even more, even those organizations that didn't have a digital as part of their whole process. What are your thoughts on organizations looking to do all those things, but still create that amazing experience?
• Can 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 also share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you?
• Can 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 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?

Highlights

Shep’s Journey

Me: So, I'm going to piggyback off of your last statement, “It's great to be back” because your new book is called “I'll be back.” And so, could you share a little bit about the book, what inspired you to write this book? How can this book help organizations? What are the core pillars or themes that the book is built on? Just give us in your own words what it's all about?

Shep shared that the full title is, I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again. And he joked about the accent, but whenever people say I'll be back, they kind of tried to do that Terminator, Arnold Schwarzengger impression.

And originally, when he started writing the book, he hadn't even thought about that, the tie into the Terminator movie and then about three hours in the starting his outline, he’s going “Yeah, I'll be back. I bet I can play off of that.” So, while it really doesn't have anything to do with the Terminator, he does mention it a few times and the goal is to get your customers to say, I'll be back and you want them to not only say it, you want them to actually do it.

So, there's all kinds of tips, tactics, ideas, and strategies just for the idea of getting your customers to come back and understanding the difference between repeat customers, loyal customers, how to create a more customer focused culture that delivers that experience that gets customers to come back, so it's really about that.

And the really cool thing is, he believes, even with this crazy COVID variant going around, the Delta, he gets the feeling that a lot of the world is starting to feel like they're coming back. So, there's a double message in there that he didn't even anticipate was going to happen.

The Concept of Being Nice: The Behavior or Personality of a Customer Service Employee Versus the Technical Side

Me: Now you mentioned in the book, the concept of being nice. The behaviour or personality of a customer service employee versus the technical side, I wanted you to expand on that for us on what is the importance of that? And what does it really mean to be nice?

Shep stated that being nice is a foundational concept and there's a story behind it that's pretty funny. The idea behind it was, he was asked to do a speech and he was the closing keynote speaker, the last speaker of the day, he had to end exactly on time, because these people had to go to another event and they were all being picked up by buses. So, his client said, no matter what happens, you finish on time.

And ultimately, the speakers ahead of him went longer and longer and longer, and by the time it was his time to speak, there was two minutes left, not the 40 minutes that he was supposed to do. So, he said to the client, “Don't worry, I've got this.” And he gave him this weird look but he walked on stage and the first thing he said was, “Thank you for that wonderful round of applause. I realized that we have to be out of here in less than two minutes. And I promised everybody, the client especially that that would happen. So, we're going to start over and I'm going to give you the shortest customer service speech in the world.”

So, he’s introduced quickly, the applause is here, he’s now standing center stage. Are you ready? Here it goes. Be nice. Then he started to walk off stage and the audience, he stopped halfway through and he goes, “I know it's pretty easy, isn't it.” But think about it for just a moment, he’s still got about a minute or so left.

So let me tell you about being nice. Being nice is foundational, it's fundamental. If you're in a restaurant and they have great food, but the server is so mean to you, you're never coming back, it's that simple. But I want you to realize that being nice isn't always easy, it's simple, but it's not easy.

And you need to think about it because there's going to be times that you're going to be distracted that you're going to be busy that a customer or an internal customer, one of your own team members is going to come and talk to you and you're going to be interrupted, and you're going to be a little snappy, you can't do that.

Foundationally, you must be nice. Now, nothing's changed. He always joked about nothing's changed in customer service and they talked about that in the book. But really, that's a fundamental, people don't want to be treated the wrong way, they want to feel appreciated, they want to feel like it's a place that wants to do business with them.And if you aren't at least nice, well, think about you don't want to put yourself behind just because you weren't doing something as simple as being friendly and nice.

And by the way, they surveyed over 1000 consumers, and one of the most important top three qualities they want in dealing with somebody related to the areas of customer service, sales, whatever, is that they want somebody number one that's knowledgeable and number two, that's nice.

Me: So nice is like, good morning. Nice is, how are you doing today? Nice is the softer side of your personality.

Shep agreed and stated that it's just a soft skill and it is exactly that it is a skill. And sometimes you need to work on that skill, you need to be remembered, and it's a little bit of a smile, it's a little bit of a friendly attitude. And when you combine those together, that's what your customers want and expect from you. Doesn't that sound so simple.

And by the way, they don't spend a lot of time on this in the book, but it's important, he talked about foundation and really what is the underpinning of all the experience you want your customers to have.

And even if you're in the business of an eCommerce company that it's almost all automated, you still have to create this feeling that you're friendly, it's the images, it's the simplicity of how the website works and if they ever do, in fact, call you, if the customer ever does call you, it's how they're treated.

In a B2B environment, maybe business to business, they say is different than B2C and the reality of it is, it's not much different today, because your B2B customers are comparing you to the best service experiences they've ever had. And that could include a retail store, it could include Amazon, it could include a restaurant, it doesn't matter, it's the best service they've had and that's what they expect from everybody.

Me: What if you have an organization where it's just not in the character of the person that's interfacing with the customers to be nice. Generally speaking, in their own personal lives, they're just not nice people, they have a very unpleasant countenance, they're not very welcoming, or approachable, and you feel very uncomfortable around them because of their demeanour and your facial expressions. How do you get that person to be nice?

Shep stated that first of all, he wouldn't have hired that person. So, part of creating a culture that's customer focus is making sure the right people are on the bus and that means you've got to hire right. Now, there are some people, they can still be nice, but they're not cut out for being on the front line, great. Put them in another job somewhere else in the organization, they still have to be nice. But again, being introverted may be awkward for somebody, and we don't want to put anybody in that situation.

But he'll also add that if you've got somebody in the warehouse and their job is to pack boxes with product based on what the customer orders, and by the way, this is a little bit off of the concept of being nice, but that person has a great responsibility to the customer. Because if they receive that box, and it wasn't packed properly and the items inside are broken, or whatever, that's going to reflect on the entire company.

Now back to this employee that never sees the customer in the warehouse, in the accounting department, whatever. If you are going to create a culture that's focused on the customer, there has to be a personality to that culture and the people who are hired have to be in alignment with that personality.

Now, again, being nice means friendly, it doesn't mean overly friendly or overly gregarious, it is really about the fundamental concept of just being friendly and nice to your colleagues and your customers, not overly so that's why even behind the scenes, they still have to have a little bit of something going on there, they just don't have to be quite as dedicated to it as perhaps somebody on the true front line.

The Difference Between Loyalty Programs and Marketing Programs

Me: Now in the book you also mentioned to create real customer loyalty, we first need to understand the difference between loyalty programs and marketing programs. Can you explain to our audience what you mean by that?

Shep stated that let's just take frequent flyer miles for a moment, they call that a loyalty program, the airlines do and the reality is it's a miles program, it's a points program.

In other words, it's a marketing program. In a sense, it's kind of a discount, you buy enough airline tickets, and you fly in the airline long enough, you get a free flight, just like if you go to a restaurant and they punch your card five times, the sixth sandwich might be free.

So, his question is, and he doesn't know if Yanique fly a lot or not, but I talked to people all the time he goes, if the entire airline industry were to take away the miles program, would you still fly on the same airline that you're currently spending most of your time on?

Because most people will try to accumulate miles on one particular airline and he’s surprised it's split. He hasn't done a formal survey, but he’s going to say it's approximately 50/50 from the people that say, “Oh, I'd stay here.” or “You know what, I'd fly a different airline.” And it's that simple. The reason they're staying on the airline is because of the points, not because of the airline itself, take that away, and it's gone.

Now, the other thing they talked a little bit about related to repeat business versus loyal business, is that sometimes-repeat business is due to maybe it's a better price.

“Why do you love doing business with them? They have the lowest prices?”

“What if you found somebody with a lower price? Well, then I'd go do business with them.”

So, the customers loyal to the price, not the company. And the same thing with convenience.

“Why do you go to them? Well, they're the closest one.”

“What happens if a competitor moves closer? Well, I'll probably do business with them.”

So, what you need to do in those situations, if price is how you're competing, or convenience is how you're competing, make sure you deliver a level of service. And when given the opportunity, try to connect with that customer on some kind of an emotional level, make them want to not only do business with you, because of whatever reason they have in their mind, but also make them like doing business with you.

Me: Yeah, I totally agree. So, you're saying then that most loyalty programs or that they dub as loyalty programs are actually marketing programs. So, what really makes a customer loyal, as you said, is that emotional connection. 

Shep shared that it often is, he will add that there are certain programs, like Nike has a loyalty program, it's actually a membership program, it has really nothing to do with points, it has to do with, “Hey, you're a customer and we're going to give you great information about what you're interested in.” So, if he just bought some golf shoes from Nike, and he’s never bought golf shoes from them and since that time, he’s received a couple of really interesting emails, not just about product, but about how he can improve his golf game, and what the new technology and the shoes are.

And so, he learned about these things and he thinks to himself, they know who he is. But what they don't send him is they don't send him information on soccer shoes or football as you might call it in other parts of the world, because they know that's not something he’s ever bought from them and he’s never indicated in the interest.

So, he considers that type of program more focused on gaining the customer in other ways than just giving them true incentives to buy.

So, he thinks that's an important delineation between membership programs and marketing. Now, one other thought before we jump off of this is that some people refer to the Amazon Prime program as a loyalty program and he even thinks Amazon refers to it as the Prime membership program, not a loyalty program and if they do, it's okay. But here's what happens when you're willing to spend $120 a year and it might be $129 a year, you want to get your money's worth out of it so you're going to try to use them as often as possible. That's the idea is give them, the customer, a reason to come back and that's because you spent money with them and you want to make sure you get good value for that.

Organizations Looking to Incorporate Digital Even More But Still Create An Amazing Experience

Me: Now, the book also mentions, it piggybacks a little bit on some of your principles from your previous book, The Convenience Revolution, that was such an awesome book. And it talks about self-service, technology, subscription delivery, access and reducing friction. And I've seen a lot of organizations clearly having to pivot over the last year and a half since the pandemic, trying to look at their customer journey, trying to incorporate digital even more, even those organizations that didn't have digital as part of their whole process. And sometimes in doing that, it actually creates a lot of confusion and friction for the customer because there are so many steps that you have to take, and you're so frustrated and a lot of times you'd want to serve yourself but you can't, you have to end up reaching out to somebody either through their contact center, or even physically visiting their location. What are your thoughts on organizations looking to do all those things, but still create that amazing experience?

Shep shared that there's a lot going on there, he wrote an entire book on the concept of convenience and there's no way he couldn't reference this in the new book, because this is what drives repeat business is frictionless, easy, the company that's often easiest to do business with is the one that wins that means it makes price a little less relevant, so that may not be as important to the customer when they say, it's so easy, it's worth paying for.

And he'll give a quick example of this. Prior to the pandemic, when he wrote the book, by the way, The Convenience Revolution, in his mind it was somewhat of a breakthrough in the thought process, nobody had ever written a book about this. There was an author, actually two authors together wrote a book titled The Effortless Experience, but it was all about the getting customer support and making that easy. This is about everything related to your business, now back then it was breakthrough, then it became trendy and now it's become an expectation, especially with COVID.

So, he’s thinking, well, that's the big change that's happened in this, so we've got to be more convenient. He doesn't spend a ton of time on it, he has two short chapters on number one, the self-service route, because that's what you're talking about is going digital and getting your customers to think digital first. How can I get the information that I need to have without having to talk to somebody, without having to wait on hold? And for the company, it's how can I make sure that our people are handling customer issues that are of a higher level rather than dealing with things that are so simple like, can you check on my order? Can you see if it was shipped? Can you see if the payment went through?

Insurance companies and banks, financial institutions are really making it easy for you to check balances and make claims and that type of thing. So by going digital first, if you do it right, you create this great, easy frictionless experience and when there's a problem, you need to make it seamless for the customer to transition to the human to human connection to get their help. And that's where a lot of companies fail, they actually fail in two areas.

Number one, they create a process that's not always intuitive to the customer and the good news is the design, the user experience, or the UX as they call it today. And that design is getting better and better and people are recognizing how easy it is.

Think about when you go on Netflix once you register and you're in how easy it is for you to find the different movies genres that you want okay. When you go to Amazon, the entire buying process, you have total control over and they make it so easy. So, they become like the poster children of what convenience and easy is about. And so, when you do that the right way, you create really a little bit more distance between you and your competition but he digress.

Back to what happened in the pandemic and why people are willing to pay for it. If you think about it, delivery is a great convenience. He used to have his food delivered from different restaurants, they never charge for it, once we got into the pandemic, they started charging. And he’s not saying we're completely out of it, but we're out of it enough that everybody's back to somewhat business is normal like it used to be. And guess what, they're still charging, and nobody is complaining, they're willing to pay for convenience.

Last year, they did a study and they looked at over 1000 consumers and they found that, he believes it was 60%, this year was just a titch different, but it was around 60% of people were willing to pay more, they want a great service experience but they'll pay even more for convenience. And that number goes up to almost 90% when delivery is actually part of that convenience.

Me: I think a big part of it also, well at least for me personally is safety, with the pandemic and people are so concerned about being exposed, especially as we're clearly going through another wave a lot of countries are going to another wave now, people want to be safe. So if that means I can stay in the convenience of my home and place an order and it can be delivered and the only exposure I'm having is to physically come to the door and just exchange money or if I paid through the app and it's just to get the bag from the delivery person, then I'll definitely rate you higher because I feel safer and I think safety has been definitely something that customers look for that is included in the whole convenience, all because of the pandemic, at least I view it as important. If I don't feel safe in an environment, it's highly unlikely that I'm going to return to the business unless I absolutely have no choice.

Shep shared that 100% safety is of the utmost concern of some people, and you know what it's like, “I'm going to order it, set it at the front door and leave. I'll pick it up when they're gone and they're not there anymore.” But you're right and the digital experience that companies are creating that are making customers feel better about doing business with them, he thinks is a really important piece of building that trust and creating a connection. He might have been doing business the old way with somebody and they knock on the door, and they'd say, “Hello” but if the new way requires or his desire is to have that door stay closed, yet they create a system that allows him to still get everything done easily, he’s still going to be appreciative that that company took the effort to make that happen.

Now, long term, you can't automate or digitize a personal relationship, you still need to create some type of connection. Just before they came on together and they're recording this, he got a call, he won't tell you the name of the airlines, but their initials are American Airlines, AA. And you know what they were doing, they were just calling to number one, say, “We saw that you flew last week and you've been flying a little bit more regular, we just want to thank you for that.” Every one of his flights is booked online, he put his boarding pass on his mobile phone. And other than dealing with flight attendants and people at the gate, he doesn't ever talk to anybody from American, they're losing that connection with him. So, what did they do? They picked up the phone and they made an outbound call just to check and say thanks for business, that's how you humanize the automated relationship.

Me: Amazing. And I'm happy you touched on that because that was actually a question I was going to ask because I get asked that question quite often, with technology and automation and artificial intelligence and chatbots and all of these things that companies are doing to enhance the customer experience. Do you feel that the human interaction is going to fade away?

And I always think, no, I think at the end of the day, human beings like to deal with human beings because at some point, that robot or automation can't answer your question. I've had the personal experience myself, it's like they're automated, they ask you a question, you log on, and they say, what's your name, and you put in your name, you put in your account number, and you tell him the issue that you're having and it seems like the robot is just regurgitating the same information to the point where I have to say, “I would like to speak with a representative.” Then it says, “I don't understand what you are saying.” then I change up how I say it, I say, “I would like to have an Agent.” And then it gets what I'm saying.

Shep shared that he gets it. And that's so frustrating and it should seamlessly take you there, there should be an easy way to get there. But that to your point, it's very difficult if all you are is a digital last company, you're not going to be able to compete with the people to figure out how to create the balance. And the magic happens in the balance and it's different from one industry to the next. And even from one company to the next but they figure it out.

App, Website or Tool that Shep Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Him Business

When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Shep shared that that is a great question. He loves his travel apps, he travels so much, so it's very difficult. So, he’s looking at his phone going, what is it that he can't live without? He loves the communication apps, he’s on WhatsApp a lot and they do a Zoom. How about LastPass. LastPass, which is so important, he has a virtual workforce, and they all have access to different websites, yet they have no idea what his password is, he loves that.

Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Shep

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Shep shared that one of the books that is probably his favorite aside from I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again by Shep Hyken and other books that he’s written. He loves The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage by Joe Pine and James Gilmore, it's one of the greatest books written on customer experience. And even though it was written over 20 years ago, and they did come out with an updated version, he believes that it is as relevant today as it ever was. So, love that book. He loves the Tom Peters book from the 1980s In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. And even though many of those companies aren't around, which is by the way is one of the reasons he likes it, it shows how the most excellent companies, some of them are out of business, some of them were bought out, you cannot ever rest on your laurels but he loves the lessons that it teaches. That's a great book. So, he loves The Experience Economy, probably number one business book in his choice.

What Shep is Really Excited About Now!

Shep stated that he knows he sounds like a broken record but the book just came out, I'll Be Back. So very excited about that. But you know what else? He has a report, it's called the 2021 ACA Report Achieving Customer Amazement.

He did the 2020 last year. So, the 2021 he was going to put out earlier this year, but he felt they were still so deep in the COVID dealings that he thought you know what? He wanted to wait. So, he waited until June to do the research and they just came out with the report. So, just go to his website, www.hyken.com and you'll see the link to get the report.

Me: Awesome. I will definitely be accessing that. I thought the content that you put out last year from the 2020 report and I shared it with a few of my clients, I thought it was really, really great. So, I'm happy that you have an updated one this year.

Shep shared that his favorite stat is, again, by the way, he mentioned a couple of these stats before where they interviewed the consumers. They asked, “Would you rather go to the dentist or call customer support?” 48% of the people said, “I'd rather go to the dentist.” So, it's a great report, it's free. And he thinks there's a lot of great information that would compel a company or an individual to say, you know what, if I don't deliver service, I'm going to lose my customers. This is a reason that I need to keep at the top of my game.

Where Can We Find Shep Online

Me: So, our guests, our listeners would have tapped into this episode when it's released and they are super pumped about your book, I'll Be Back. How to get customers to come back again and again, because I think that's what every business wants, not just to do a one-time sale, but to actually have their customers come back over and over again for their lifetime of that product or service that they're using.

And so where can they find you online, they want to download this report, they want to tap into the book, they want to tap into your journey, see what you're up to? And just really be in touch with you. Where can they find you online?

Website – www.hyken.com

YouTube – ShepTV

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Shep Uses

When asked about a quote that he tends to revert to, Shep shared that this is one that he have come up with on his own. And he doesn't know if he’s ever shared this but “Bad days only last 24 hours.” And here's what happened. He took a daily pocket planner where you write out like what your plans are, it's a calendar. And instead of planning, he reflected at the end of each day, what happened today that was good, and on a weekday, it was business and personal and the weekend, it was pretty much just personal because he tries not to do too much business on the weekends. And he found that within a very short period of time, he realized that even on the worst days, good things happen. So, it was very, very motivational, inspirational, if you will. But it was really inspiring to realize that as bad as the bad day is, it's really not all that bad.

Me: True, very true. I do something very similar as well. But it's more like a gratitude journal, it’s digital actually. I just like have a note, I use the Notes app on my devices a lot, it's so amazing. And you can lock the note if you don't want other people to access it if they're on your phone. But I'll type out 10 things that I'm grateful for that happened in that day. And sometimes I have more than 10, I'll end up writing like 15 or 18, or 20. But then there are other times that I really have to like dig deep and things that I think are simple, I really have to give thanks for and it makes me just realize that, as you said, even if things didn't go your way, or you didn't get the contract you were looking for, maybe you weren't feeling well, or you weren't able to accomplish certain goals that you had set for yourself, there are other things that happened that makes you feel good, especially when you give thanks for them, or show gratitude for them because it really goes a very far away.

Shep agreed and stated that he likes that. It's an attitude of gratitude and that's part of what his little journaling does and you've experienced that same thing.

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Links

• I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again by Shep Hyken
• The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage by Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore
• In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies by Tom Peters
• 2021 Achieving Customer Amazement Survey Report by Shep Hyken

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