In his 10+ years at Comcast Cable, Tom Karinshak has helped craft great customer experiences in both the digital and in-person worlds. On this episode, he tell us his secrets to crafting a great CX, and how he thinks about innovation and the future of customer experience.

3 Takeaways:

• Employee experience is a key to unlocking and improving customer experience. Your employees are the face of your company, and the key to customers having a great interaction.
• CX leaders need to embrace customer feedback - and have thick skin. In order to prived the best experience, you need to be willing to hear the worst feedback.
• It's not enough to play it safe. Customer experience leaders need to be willing to lead out front, even when it's risky, because consumer expectations are always increasing.

Key Quotes:

• “We operate in an incredibly dynamic and competitive marketplace. There are a lot of choices that are out there for our customers...and we recognize that and that's why we work so hard.”
• “Guess what? If the employees have the best tools possible, they can focus on the customer experience when they need to and how they're creating that when they're providing customer service. Because of that, I don't have them having to worry about, some of those other things that decrease work productivity."
• "As a CX leader, you have to immerse yourself in those experiences. You have to get others to immerse yourselves in those experiences."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

Tom Karinshak serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer for Comcast Cable. In this role, he oversees all of customer experience including customer care strategy and operations, phone, chat, and social media agents, and field operations strategies and teams, working together to ensure we deliver a simple, consistent, and excellent customer service experience each and every time. Tom and his team also oversee employee tools and innovation, and the implementation of new and innovative digital technologies to meet and exceed our customers’ needs and expectations.

Tom joined Comcast in 2010 and has more than 25 years of leadership experience with multi-service providers and leading consumer brands. Before joining Comcast, Tom served as Managing Director and Customer Experience Director for Barclay’s Bank of Delaware, where he designed and built a top talent customer experience, marketing, and operations organization. Prior to Barclays, Tom was at AOL, where he held a variety of senior leadership roles across the marketing and operations departments.

He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army for over six years as a Combat Engineer Captain. Tom holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an M.S. in Engineering Management from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Episode Notes:

Something that is extremely important when it comes to relationships is really knowing who you are working with. Joey understands that working in the concert business, a lot of what goes on is about the customer, but he also knows that a large part of his job is working with many of Live Nation’s partners and different stakeholders.

3 Takeaways:

• Rejection is something that happens, and it’s okay. It’s very important to know and understand that if you know you are okay with rejection you will have more of a chance to succeed.
• Don’t forget to be happy. Everyone wants to be successful in their job, but in reality, being happy is the definition of success.
• When you talk to a customer or a client like they are a real person, just from that alone you have already got their attention because you’re treating them like they are a real person and they matter.

Key Quotes:

• “There are so many things that go into putting on an event of any sort, not just concerts, whether it's insurance, whether it's liability, whether it's logistics, whether it's the security that no one ever thinks about it, they just come to the event and not that they think it just magically appeared, but at times it seems like it just magically appeared, but make no mistake, there is a ton of work that goes into it”
• “The [customer] asks you the question what's going on because you've said to them, I'm not having a great day. So now you've basically made yourself vulnerable. That’s authentic...Now. All of a sudden, in a matter of 15 seconds, my bond with you was strengthened exponentially."
• "The more you meet people and the more you treat them just like people and the more you cheat, look at them to see who they are, the more real and rewarding that interaction can be."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

Joey Scoleri is currently Head of Industry Relations for Live Nation Canada. He creates marketing strategies which promote and co-brand superstar artists along with newer talents to connect directly to fans through Live Nation’s vast array of direct and partner fan connection channels. Joey has worked on tours with U2, Jay Z, Madonna, Coldplay, Aerosmith, The Weekend, One Direction, and many more. Prior to this Joey spent 12 years at The Disney Music Group working with artists such as Queen, Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Hilary Duff, Rascal Flatts, and more in his capacity as VP of promotion and sports marketing. Joey also worked at Elektra Records and steered campaigns from artists including Metallica, AC/DC, and Motley Crue. Before moving into the management side of the music business he spent 10 + years as “Joey Vendetta” at Q107 Radio in Toronto as Program Director, Afternoon Drive Host, and as a National Television Personality for many years.

Trends 

• It Will Get Worse Before it Gets Better - CX Accelerating ability to respond to Problems and Challenges. 
  • Takeaway: Problems don’t follow the calendar; stay close to the trendlines in the data. 
  • Takeaway: Build within your team's rapid response? 
  • Takeaway: Finish strong; Learn and count the blessing
  • Scott: Collective Health’s team responded so quickly
• Feel Relief and Grasp Reality -  lots, and lots of work to do. 
  • More opportunities will exist for value destruction and creation
  • Takeaway: Focus people on the need to have patience, discipline, and focus over the long haul
  • Takeaway: “Every interaction is an opportunity”
• Transformational Opportunities Rapidly Emerging - in impact / Social Enterprise / Social Justice / ESG / SDG programs
  • Takeaway: Partnerships are going to be important in 2021. Co-marketing is important. Show not tell who you are. 
  • David talking about brand building, CX is the new brand  
• People Are Seeking -  connection, truth, trust, and engagement
  • Takeaway: Get them to speed to talk to a human faster. Meet them where they are. 
  • “Devetta talked about technology an automation” 
  • An anecdote about moving resourced to Friday nights
  • Personal touch wherever you are

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

Ian Faison is a former Army Captain, West Point graduate, and Afghanistan veteran. He was a partner at ThisIsGrowth.com and a founding partner of VETCON, the premier conference for military veteran entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors. He is also the CEO of Caspian Studios.

CX means something different to every company, and when it comes to Coldwell Banker, it means balancing a number of competing interests, including customers and realtors. On this episode, Coldwell Banker CMO David Marine talks about what it's like to take on that challenge and how he builds an emotional connection with his customers.

3 Takeaways:

• When it comes to real estate, CX might be a little bit more important because when you are working with a customer to find them a home, it’s not temporary, it’s forever, and forever is something that can't be taken lightly.
• The job of a CX leader within CB is to fix a problem for the customer and that problem often pertains to the location of living, style of homes, and making sure the customer is happy.
• In order to have a great customer experience, you need to make sure that everyone on your team has bought into your CX vision, and having open discussions with them about their client conversations is one way to get everyone on the same page.

Key Quotes:

• “We have a 99% awareness of our rebrand amongst the age of community and it's showing a 60% positive perception of our brand from where we were even just a year ago. So that is making strides in the right direction. This year before everything happened in 2020 was going to be a major push amongst consumers, as well as continuing into 21 as we've had to reshift some of our plans. But we're also seeing that consumer perception is extremely positive to it as well.”
• “Now it's commonplace to have virtual open houses, which I wasn't involved with even really and ever think it was going to be effective as a thing, but having someone, an agent in there, Hey, I'm here at this virtual open house. Let me take you around, throw your questions in. They do it through FaceTime, through zoom, all these different tools that are available to anyone and we're seeing that that was an effective way to get people, to experience the home without having to make the Trek out there and even leave their living room on a Sunday afternoon.”
• "Simplify, it's not gonna be easy, but that's going to make things simpler and better for our end consumers, through their experience with our brand."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

As the Chief Marketing Officer for Coldwell Banker, David does more than just market the longest-running real estate brand in the industry. With over twenty years of digital, content, and social marketing experience, he’s obsessed with telling the story of the brand in ways that can’t be ignored.

David started his career with Coldwell Banker in 2002 and has since held almost every role imaginable within the marketing group. In addition to developing the highest-rated ad ever in the real estate category and leading the first rebrand for Coldwell Banker in nearly half a century, David is most known for his affinity of storytelling and leading a team of diverse, thought-provoking marketers to reshape a brand that has existed for 114 years. Marine has been the force behind the first real estate video-centric YouTube channel, the adoption of a data-driven and AI-backed proprietary app called CBx, and transforming the brand’s marketing into content and social machine.

Every customer is different and has different needs. As VP of Customer Operations at AmerisourceBergen, Devetta James knows this and works to implement systems that are personalized to those various needs. In this episode, she also talks about listening to the customer’s voice, implementing operational changes, and much more. 

3 Takeaways:

• It's important to remember that every decision that gets made may not be the right decision for every customer and the job of the CXO is to decide what is best for the majority of their customers.
• The job of a CX leader is to fix a problem before the customer has told you how they want it fixed.
• In order to have a great customer experience, you need to make sure that everyone on your team has bought into your CX vision, and having open discussions with them about their client conversations is one way to get everyone on the same page.

Key Quotes:

• “It can never be black and white with the customer because every customer is different, But in theory, the process of what we need to understand is the same. So we make sure that we address those different themes with all the customers to understand their translation.”
• “If a customer says something on a survey, we do a query for all of our calls to see if it's a theme, and if we see things in our calls, we then do a survey to the customer to get a better understanding of what that means to them.”
• "You not only need to understand the persona of your customer, you need to translate that into how you operate for those personas."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

With over 20 years of experience in healthcare operations, Devetta James offers a unique blend of leadership, vision, and knowledge. She is the Senior Vice President of Customer Operations for AmerisourceBergen and her vision is to provide exceptional experiences through integrated service and support.

Devetta has been with AmerisourceBergen since 2006 and has a passion for connecting people, process, and technology. Devetta currently leads the customer service, customer integration and data management, customer platform support, clinical account services, and account experience and commercial analytics teams.

In addition to her role as a leader, Devetta is one of the founding members of the Black Leadership Council now known as BOND, Black Organization for Network and Development, an Employee Resource Group at AmerisourceBergen. She is on the board of Imagine Well, a non-profit organization whose goal is to educate and empower its clients in their respective fields to refine their focus and production output within the community and Camp Summit, a non-profit whose mission is to provide barrier-free outdoor experiences that promote personal growth and foster independence for children and adults with disabilities.

Devetta holds a Master of Science in training and development from Amberton University and a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Northwood University. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, family, and friends, catching a good movie, and listening to great music

Something that we stress on this show is that customer experience matters. Scott is so focused on outcomes and driving real impact because when you’re dealing with people’s health, you can’t afford to get it wrong. For Scott, a good customer experience isn’t just an NPS score or a customer satisfaction number, it’s a healthy patient.

3 Takeaways:

• It's important to remember that the customer is an actual person and not just a piece of data.
• Great CX leaders really care about their customers, and that relationship begins early in their careers.
• When you embrace your customer, you represent their interests, and you aren’t content to simply stick a bandaid or a happy face on their pain points.

Key Quotes:

• “The voice of the customer is really important. How you pull the voice of the customer from your frontline people that are talking to members every single day - those insights - all the way through your product and your technology, that then starts to really shape your overall experience.”
• “We follow a very disciplined operational excellence plan. We have quality assurance coaches that listen to the calls and we look for common themes out of those calls."
• "Embrace the customer, embrace your teammates. If you take care of your people, they will take care of your customers."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to activate your CX vision. Download it here.

Bio:

Scott Murray is the CXO at Collective Health. He spent 15+ years at eBay where he was most recently Vice President of Customer Service Technology Solutions. He played a key role in expanding their operations in Utah and co-led the transformation of eBay’s global customer service with a focus on improving the customer experience while decreasing costs annually. Scott attended the University of New Mexico where he studied Business Administration.

When most of us make CX decisions, the impact is relatively small. But for Stan Little, CXO of United Way, the impact is potentially much bigger. United Way works with millions who are in need across the world, providing them with a number of important services. On this episode, Stan explains how he is able to work with countless partners, volunteers, and community members to create customer experiences that resonate and get results.

3 Takeaways:

• It's important to bring your unique perspective to the customer experience. Your background will help inform what unique contributions you make.
• Your perspective is only one data point. It's also important to get the perspectives of all key stakeholders who are involved in the customer experience.
• CX is rigorous. It's not fluff. It should be measured, analyzed, and improved in a scientific and rigorous way.

Key Quotes:

• “Your perspective is simply an input for you to evaluate as you're designing and implementing a robust experience for your end-users and stakeholders.”
• “Think bigger than what you believe is possible - bigger than the current technology, the current reach, the current norms, or anything that constitutes 'this is how we've always done it.' Try to think about how to break that."
• "Customer experience is rigorous. I would change the perception that it's a capricious concept. It has rigor to it."

Thank you to our friends

This episode is brought to you by IBM. If you are responsible for Customer Experience, they've created a White Paper just for you. In the CX North Star Report, you can learn more about how to active your CX vision. Download it here.

It feels like we are on the precipice of a customer revolution. 

Many companies say they are obsessed with their customers.

But from the outside, it is very hard to tell who is leading the charge. 

In customer-centric organizations, there is often a visionary leader who drives the customer experience -- regardless of their title. 

Whether you're an executive in marketing, IT, sales, service, or HR -- you need to build smarter customer experiences. 

It is your job to drive innovation, foster trust, inspire loyalty, and demonstrate value to your customers. 

This podcast is for those who are driving forward CX at their organizations, no matter what their official title is.

Each episode shares the vision and story of a leader who created innovative -- and unexpected -- ways to empower their employees and delight their customers. 

I’m your host Phil Dillard, and I am excited to bring you stories and insights from the top minds in CX.

We will help you build smarter customer experiences that earn loyalty and foster trust.

So tap subscribe get ready for The Customer Experience Show or learn more at TheCustomerExperienceShow.com.