SIMPLE brand With Matt Lyles

In this episode of SIMPLE brand, I talk with Joe Macleod, founder of andEnd and author of Ends and Endineering. He helps brands  intentionally design better customer endings.

Joe and I explore why the end of the customer experience is so often overlooked, why an ending can influence how customers remember the entire relationship, and why businesses need to think about endings as something they can actually design rather than something that simply happens.

We also talk about the different kinds of endings customers experience - from the end of an individual transaction or product to the end of an ongoing customer relationship - and why making it easier for customers to leave can actually strengthen your brand.

What You’ll Learn

• Why businesses invest so much in the beginning of the customer journey but often neglect the end
• The difference between the end of a transaction, the end of a product or service, and the end of a customer relationship
• Why a customer's final experience shapes how they remember the entire relationship
• How to identify how your customer experience ends today and how to design how it should end
• Why making it easier for customers to leave doesn't mean losing more customers
• How intentionally designed endings preserve trust and make it easier for customers to return
• Why customer offboarding should be treated as part of the customer experience
• Why the increase in AI makes intentionally designed endings even more important

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Designing Endings in the Customer Journey

03:53 Defining Customer Journey Endings

04:48 The History and Psychology of Endings

07:58 Why Brands Neglect Customer Offboarding and Endings

11:21 Sustainability, Trust, and Product Endings

16:28 The Different Types of Customer Endings

21:25 How to Analyze Your Customer Journey Ending

24:15 How to Design the End of the Customer Experience

28:31 How Simple Endings Increase Customer Retention and Exits Brand Loyalty

36:44 How AI and Automation Effect Customer Endings

41:53 Joe's 5-song Playlist

About Joe Macleod

Joe Macleod is the founder of andEnd, the world's first business dedicated to designing customer endings. He’s the pioneer of Endineering, a recognized expertise in sustainable consumption and ethical customer offboarding. And Joe is the author of Ends and Endineering.

Connect with Joe Macleod

Joe’s website

Joe on LinkedIn

Joe’s book - Endineering

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In this SIMPLE brand episode, I talk with Greg Tucker, CEO of Tucker & Company and author of Frictionless Brand Experience. Greg shares the six sources of customer friction that can keep you from delivering on your brand promise - and how reducing the right friction can improve the experience for your customers and your employees.    

We also explore an important question: Should your goal really be to eliminate all friction? Greg and I discuss why some “productive friction” actually creates a better experience - and why removing too much friction can sometimes remove something your customers value.   

What You’ll Learn

* The difference between customer experience and brand experience - and why your brand promise matters

* The six types of friction that can keep you from delivering the customer experience you promise

* Why solving internal friction shouldn’t mean transferring more work to your customers

* How frontline employees can help you uncover friction your leaders may never see

* Why too much information creates decision friction - and how to give customers just what they need when they need it

* How observing customer behavior reveals problems that surveys alone may miss

* Why 100% frictionless isn’t necessarily the goal

* How to stay connected to your customers as your organization grows

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Frictionless Brand Experience

04:34 The Difference between customer experience and brand experience

06:34 The importance of delivering on your brand promise

06:57 How FedEx delivers on its brand promise

08:41 Aligning employee and organizational efforts with brand promise

11:00 Overcoming organizational friction and silos

13:10 The role of leadership in customer-centric culture

18:28 The relationship between employee experience and customer experience

24:05 How to identify friction points in your customer experience

26:26 The negative impact of decision friction and cognitive load

31:27 When some friction is actually valuable

32:56 Brand personality and the role of intentional friction

39:16 Greg’s 5-song playlist 

About Greg Tucker

Greg Tucker is CEO of Tucker & Company, a customer experience advisory firm that helps organizations improve customer experience and business performance. He’s the author of Frictionless Brand Experience, which explores how organizations can identify and eliminate the friction that gets in the way of growth and a consistent brand experience.

Greg’s work combines customer research, journey mapping, user experience design, and practical strategies to help organizations better understand their customers and deliver on their brand promise every time.

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Register to attend the 2026 CX Day Celebration in-person or virtually.

In this SIMPLE brand episode, I talk with CX leader and CX Accelerator co-founder Nate Brown about his concept of Servant Challenger Leadership - combining the service, humility, and trust-building of servant leadership with the courage to challenge old systems, assumptions, and ways of working.

We explore how CX leaders can create psychological safety without creating complacency and create an environment where people can challenge ideas, collaborate, and move through change together.

What You’ll Learn

* Why challenging the status quo isn’t enough to lead meaningful organizational change

* How Servant Challenger Leadership combines service, trust, and productive challenge

* Why psychological safety shouldn’t mean avoiding disagreement, discomfort, or change

* How “creative abrasion” helps teams collaborate, innovate, and develop better ideas together

* Why CX leaders need cross-functional allies to create lasting customer experience change

* How leaders can create an environment where great ideas emerge instead of trying to have all the answers themselves

* The attributes needed to lead people through change

* How to help employees participate in customer-centric change

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Servant Challenger Leadership

03:19 The Servant Challenger Leadership Model

12:47 How to Manage Psychological Safety and Creative Tension

17:53 Leaders Need Desire, Confidence, and Capabilities

22:39 Leading Change With a Change Management Coalition

29:09 Examples of Brands Demonstrating Customer Curiosity

33:35 Learn All About the CX Accelerator Community

38:10 The 2026 CX Day Celebration

39:40 Nate's 5-Song Playlist

44:08 2026 CX Day Celebration Details

About Nate Brown
Nate Brown helps organizations better understand and serve their customers. As a CX practitioner, consultant, and leader, he’s built contact centers from scratch, led complex CX functions, and helped organizations create stronger connections between employees and customers across multiple industries.

Nate is also the co-founder of CX Accelerator, a global community of over 5,000 customer experience professionals helping one another grow throughout their careers. 

Connect With Nate Brown

Register for the 2026 CX Day Celebration

Nate’s Website 

CX Accelerator 

Nate on LinkedIn 

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In this episode, I sit down with brand strategist and behavioral science expert Kevin Perlmutter, founder of Limbic Brand Evolution and author of Brand Desire, to explore how understanding your customers' emotional motivations can change the way you attract and retain them.

Kevin explains why traditional brand strategy often leaves out one important person - the customer. We explore why asking “What do we want our customers to feel?” is the wrong question, what brands can learn by actually talking with their customers, and how customer insight can become one of your greatest competitive advantages.

What You’ll Learn

• Why brands often misunderstand what their customers actually care about
• The difference between how you want customers to feel and how customers want to feel
• Why focusing on your brand's “why” without understanding your “who” can lead you in the wrong direction
• Why emotions influence customer decisions more than most brands realize
• Why repeat customers aren't necessarily loyal customers - and how habit can disguise itself as loyalty
• How customer insight can align your entire organization around what matters most to customers

Chapters

0:00 Introduction to Brand Desire

03:13 Advertising and Neuroscience

06:43 The Importance of Emotional Insight in Branding

10:34 Focus On Your WHO as Much as Your WHY

15:11 Finding Shared Emotional Motivation Between the Customer and Your Brand

16:28 When Brands Are Surprised by Customers' Motivations

23:21 Differentiating Customer Habit from True Loyalty

27:22 The Focus, Connect, Evolve Framework

31:28 How to Ensure Consistency Across All Interactions

33:59 Kevin's 5-Song Playlist

About Kevin Perlmutter
Kevin Perlmutter is a brand strategist, behavioral science expert, and author of Brand Desire: Spark Customer Interest Using Emotional Insights. He's the founder and chief strategist of Limbic Brand Evolution and creator of Limbic Sparks® Brand Strategy, an approach that helps brands better understand the emotional motivations that drive customer behavior.

Connect With Kevin Perlmutter

Kevin’s Website 

Kevin on LinkedIn 

Kevin’s book - Brand Desire: Spark Customer Interest Using Emotional Insights 

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In this episode, I sit down with Joe Pine, co-author of the book The Experience Economy and author of The Transformation Economy, to explore why even a great customer experience may no longer be enough.

We explore what it means to move from creating experiences to guiding transformations, how to understand your customers' aspirations, and what brands can do to intentionally help customers become who they want to become.

What You’ll Learn

• Why memorable customer experiences are no longer enough—and what customers increasingly want instead
• How to shift from asking what your customers want to understanding who they want to become
• Why your customers’ transformation journey is different from the traditional customer journey
• Why transformation requires understanding customers as individuals—and creating experiences around their unique starting points and aspirations
• How “time well invested” creates greater value than simply saving customers time or giving them time well spent
• How helping customers, employees, and communities flourish can become a higher purpose for your business

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Transformation Economy

03:16 27 Years of The Experience Economy

05:48 Today Customers Want a Transformative Experiences

11:15 What Customers Are Looking For in Transformative Experiences

16:52 You Need to Understand Individuals to Give a Personalized Experience

22:46 The Influence of Time in Transformative Customer Experiences

25:32 Designing Your Customer Experience As Time Well Invested

28:32 How to Help Your Customers Flourish

31:59 Convincing Your C-Suite to Buy Into Helping Customers Flourish

34:49 How to Help Your Employees to Flourish

37:02 Joe's 5-Song Playlist

About Joe Pine
Joe Pine is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and advisor who helps businesses design new ways of creating value for their customers. He is the co-author of the groundbreaking book The Experience Economy and author of The Transformation Economy: Guiding Customers to Achieve Their Aspirations.

Connect With Joe Pine

Joe’s Website 

Joe on LinkedIn 

Joe’s Book - The Transformation Economy  

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Have you ever wondered why some relationships naturally grow stronger while others slowly drift apart—even when you have the best intentions?

Your strongest relationships won't be built through grand gestures. They'll be built through simple, intentional habits.

In this episode, I sit down with relationship strategist, keynote speaker, and author of The Relationship Advantage, Barb Betts, to discuss what it really takes to build, strengthen, and nurture meaningful relationships.

What You’ll Learn

• Why your most important relationship may be the one you neglect the most
• What self-doubt and imposter syndrome may actually tell you
• The three ingredients every meaningful relationship needs
• Why knowing a lot of people isn’t the same as making people feel known
• A better method than asking for referrals for your business
• Why treating everyone the same is actually harmful
• A simple system for keeping your most important relationships from drifting
• The five-minute daily habit that will transform your customer, professional, and personal relationships

Chapters

0:00 Introduction to Relationships and Their Importance

03:14 Are Business Relationships Limited to Sales Relationships?

08:30 Your Most Important Relationship

14:01 Managing Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome

17:17 The Right Way to Show Vulnerability in Relationships

21:33 The Difference Between Knowing People and Making People Feel Known

24:39 The Right Way to Ask For Referrals

30:05 A System For Managing Your Relationships

35:52 Barb's 5-Song Playlist

About Barb Betts

Barb Betts is a keynote speaker, CEO, relationship strategist, and author of The Relationship Advantage. For more than 23 years, she has helped leaders, sales professionals, and business owners build stronger customer and professional relationships that drive growth, trust, and long-term success. After building and sustaining a seven-figure business for more than a decade with no ad spend or cold outreach, Barb now teaches strategies for building authentic relationships that fuel both business and life.

Connect With Barb Betts

Barb’s Website

Barb’s Book - The Relationship Advantage

Barb on LinkedIn
Barb on YouTube

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In this episode, I sit down with marketing professor, consultant, and keynote speaker Jim Karrh, author of The Science of Customer Connections: Manage Your Message to Grow Your Business.

Together, we explore why so many brands unintentionally confuse customers, why sales teams are often far more confident in what they sell than in how they talk about it, and how clear, customer-focused messaging can transform everyone—from marketing and sales to customer experience and frontline employees—into stronger ambassadors for your brand.

What You'll Learn

• Why brands with great products still struggle to communicate their value.
• How your customers compare you on price when your messaging sounds like everyone else's.
• The three biggest warning signs your messaging isn't working.
• How to create messaging that's consistent without turning your employees into scripted robots.
• Why talking about your customer's world is more persuasive than talking about your own.
• The three components every brand needs to create clear, consistent messaging.
• How expertise and empathy work together to build trust with customers.
• Why your employees may be your most overlooked brand messengers.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to The Science of Customer Connections

03:37 Understanding Messaging Gaps in Organizations

04:28 What Holds Brands Back With Their Messaging

05:24 The Confidence Gap Every Sales Team Faces

10:01 The 3 Big Symptoms of Poor Messaging

18:45 The Importance of Consistency and Cohesiveness in Messaging

19:52 The 3-Point Strategy for Effective Messaging

23:59 How to Ensure Your Message Is Trustworthy

29:03 The Role of Messengers in Communication

33:23 Using Word of Mouth to Spread Your Message

35:50 How AI Can Help or Hinder Our Messaging Efforts

39:38 Jim's 5-Song Playlist

About Jim Karrh

Dr. Jim Karrh is a marketing professor at The University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Business. Roll Tide Roll! He’s also a keynote speaker, consultant, and author of The Science of Customer Connections: Manage Your Message to Grow Your Business. Drawing from experience as a chief marketing officer, researcher, entrepreneur, and consultant, Jim helps B2B sales and marketing teams develop clearer, more customer-focused messaging that drives growth. He also hosts The Manage Your Message Podcast and is a frequent contributor to leading business and marketing publications.

Connect with Jim Karrh

Jim on LinkedIn 

Jim’s Book - The Science of Customer Connections: Manage Your Message to Grow Your Business

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In this episode, I sit down with leadership expert, keynote speaker, and author Stephen Baer to discuss his latest book, Stickology: How to Build Unbreakable Connections with Employees and Customers for Life.

We discuss why emotional connection has become one of the greatest leadership opportunities organizations face today.

From customer experience and employee engagement to leadership and organizational culture, we explore what it takes to create environments where people feel seen and valued—and why the organizations that earn lasting customer and employee loyalty use meaningful connection to create lasting engagement.

What You'll Learn

• Why communication alone doesn't create lasting customer and employee loyalty
• The difference between connection and true engagement - and why that matters
• Stephen's Velcro vs. Glue analogy for understanding why some relationships stick while others don't
• How the Greet. Know. Grow. framework helps leaders build stronger relationships with employees
• Why helping people feel seen, valued, and understood creates better customer experiences, stronger cultures, and more engaged employees
• What makes Trader Joe's customer experience so different - and why it starts with employee empowerment

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Stickology

02:50 Why Employees Are Emotionally Disconnected to Work Today

04:46 The Difference Between Employee Connection and Engagement

05:56 The Financial Impact of Employee Engagement

08:25 Case Study: Shein vs. Life is Good

10:49 Trader Joe's: A Model for Employee Engagement

14:20 The 3 Requirements For Creating Employee Engagement

17:17 The Secret Mindset to Valuing Your Employees

19:01 How to Know If Your Employees Are Engaged

24:04 The Need to Protect Your Employees

28:00 Balancing Between Good and Bad Friction

33:30 How Leaders Can Create Engagement in the Next 30-60-90 Days

37:33 Stephen's 5-song Playlist

About Stephen Baer

Stephen Baer is a leadership expert, entrepreneur, investor, and author of the #1 best-selling book Stickology: How to Build Unbreakable Connections with Employees and Customers for Life. For more than 30 years, he has helped organizations build stronger leaders, healthier cultures, and more meaningful connections with customers and employees. He also hosts the Stickology podcast.

Connect with Stephen Baer

Stephen’s Website 

Stephen on LinkedIn 

Stephen’s Book - Stickology: How to Build Unbreakable Connections with Employees and Customers for Life

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What makes luxury hospitality feel different?

Most people assume it's the beautiful hotels, premium amenities, and five-star service.

But the real secret is much simpler.

It's making customers feel like they're the only customer.

In this episode, I sit down with customer experience strategist, former Five Diamond concierge, and author Jamie Cooperstein to discuss her book, True Hospitality: Lessons Learned from Behind the Concierge Desk.

Drawing from more than a decade serving luxury guests face-to-face, Jamie shares the lessons she learned about creating emotional connections, anticipating customer needs, empowering employees, and delivering experiences people never forget.

Whether you work in hospitality or not, the principles Jamie shares can help you create more personalized, memorable customer experiences.

What You'll Learn

• The difference between service and hospitality - and why hospitality creates emotional connections
• How luxury brands make customers feel like they're the only customer
• The five keys to service excellence
• How to anticipate customer needs before they ask
• The right way to handle service recovery
• Why supportive leadership creates better customer experiences
• How to empower employees to make decisions in gray areas

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to True Hospitality

00:42 The Unique Perspective of a Concierge

04:19 Defining True Hospitality

10:34 The 5 Keys to Service Excellence

21:47 How to Ensure Effective Service Recovery

23:43 Navigating High Customer Emotions

26:50 The Power of Supportive Leadership

32:05 How to Empower Employees in Gray Areas

39:26 Jamie's 5-Song Playlist

About Jamie Cooperstein

Jamie Cooperstein is a customer experience strategist, speaker, and former Five Diamond concierge. Drawing on more than a decade of experience serving luxury hotel guests, she helps organizations create exceptional customer experiences through hospitality, personalized service, employee empowerment, and leadership. Jamie is the author of True Hospitality: Lessons Learned from Behind the Concierge Desk, a memoir that shares the stories and lessons she learned while serving guests at some of Philadelphia's most prestigious properties.

Connect with Jamie Cooperstein

Jamie’s Website 

Jamie on LinkedIn 

Jamie’s Book - True Hospitality: Lessons Learned from Behind the Concierge Desk

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Why do some brands create repeat customers, while other brands create loyal customers—and the very best brands create loyal brand fans?

The answer isn't just a better product. It isn't a bigger marketing budget. And it isn't a loyalty program. It's about creating an emotional connection that makes customers feel like they belong.

In this episode, I sit down with customer experience strategist, Fractional Chief Customer Officer, and author Christina Garnett to discuss her book, Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships.

We explore why customers don't want to feel like transactions, how brands create genuine community, what drives long-term loyalty, and what it takes to turn customers into loyal brand fans.

What You'll Learn

• How treating customers like transactions kills long-term loyalty
• The best ways to truly understand your customers and their needs
• Why organizational silos create friction in the customer experience
• The right - and wrong - ways to build a brand community
• How to move customers from repeat purchases to loyalty to true brand fandom
• Why surprise and delight often fails to create lasting customer loyalty
• How game theory can transform the way you think about customer relationships

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Transforming Customer Brand Relationships

01:28 Defining Customer Experience

03:34 How Brands Treat Customers Like Transactions

07:24 The Ideal Methods For Understanding Your Customers

10:17 Breaking Down Silos for Better CX

13:03 The Right and Wrong Ways to Create a Brand Community

16:33 Repeat Customers to Loyal Customers to Brand Fans

20:44 Hierarchy of Customer Delight

22:51 The Importance of Genuine Customer Engagement

24:48 Creating Memorable Customer Experiences

27:06 The Gap Between Customer Perception and Leadership Assumption

29:13 The Little Things Matter in Customer Experience

31:38 Applying Game Theory in Customer Experience

35:45 Connecting Employee Experience to Customer Experience

37:50 Christina's 5-song Playlist

About Christina Garnett

Christina Garnett is a customer experience strategist, Fractional Chief Customer Officer, founder of Pocket CCO, and author of Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships. She helps organizations strengthen customer relationships, improve retention, build meaningful communities, and create experiences that inspire loyalty. 

Connect with Christina Garnett

Christina’s Website 

Christina’s Book - Transforming Customer-Brand Relationships

Christina on LinkedIn 

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