The Trusted Guide Podcast with Mark Slatin

The Customer Chair: The Power of Storytelling, Richard Dorfman, MBA, Vice President, Customer Experience, Eastern Bank

Influencing decisions in the C-Suite requires an appeal to both the logical and emotional sides of the brain. Sure you have to have data to support big decisions, but emotions are always linked to influence. Stories are a powerful way to engage leaders to get your ideas accepted. 

Rich Dorfman, the CX leader at one of the largest Boston-based banks, shares his real world experience as a CX practitioner and how he used the power of storytelling to influence key decision-makers. In my opinion, there's nothing like hearing from someone who has learned real life lessons to lead a customer centric culture.

Some of the highlights of the episode include:

• The Customer Chair - How Rich borrowed an idea from Clint Eastwood to influence senior leaders
• The "Axle-breaking Moment" - the power of knowing your audience
• Building relationships with key stakeholders
• Partnering with key stakeholders to create allies

Meet Rich

For more than nine years, Rich has led Eastern Bank's customer experience efforts managing all aspects of this strategic initiative from program design to Voice of Customer (VOC) measurement and management to analysis and reporting to being the "customer-first" catalyst of the company. The result of Rich's relentless pursuit of this critical outside in perspective has focused and aligned the bank around customer-centric behaviors and attitudes. Key accomplishment include:

> Created a Customer Experience (CX) governance council empowered to identify and repair CX pain points, which then communicates these customer and institutional "wins" to all impacted stakeholders

> Designed customer feedback programs in every line of business with robust closed loop management processes

> Integrated VOC insights into business plans to drive CX enhancements

> Developed a comprehensive and actionable CX financial linkage analysis that strongly correlates customers' sentiments to their banking business and profitability

> Embarked on a CX maturity benchmark assessment to uncover a defined strategic roadmap for future CX improvement initiatives

Prior to Eastern, Rich's banking career included strategic marketing positions at Chemical Bank/Chase in New York, Shawmut Bank/Fleet Bank in Boston and as principle of his own strategic consulting firm focused on delivering differentiated value to high-revenue small business segments.

Connect with Rich:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richdorfman/

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You Got the CX Leader Job, Now What? with Allison Landers, Chief Experience Officer (CXO) for Banking and Lending, UBS 

Allison Landers knows a thing or two about customer experience. She started her career in the .com space working for AOL and then shifted into financial services working at some of the most respected brands like Key Bank, Wells Fargo, and now UBS, where she serves as the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) for Banking and Lending.

Our conversation was particularly timely given the turbulence in the financial sector and the critical need to earn customer's trust. Allison has taken the helm and successfully led CX practices that were at various stages of maturity. 

Some of the highlights of the episode include:

• Being honest about your brand "perception"
• The first order of business when beginning a CX practice
• How to build trust with key stakeholders
• The two key things to focus on most

Meet Allison

Allison Landers joined UBS Bank USA as Managing Director and Chief Experience Officer (CXO) in 2022. In this new role, Allison is responsible for the design, delivery and ongoing management of end-to-end, omni-channel client and employee experiences. Her focus areas include journeys, client and field messaging, research, Voice of the Customer/Employee and client experience and engagement measurement.

Allison brings over 25 years of experience in Customer Experience (CX), Digital Product Management and Marketing. She started her career in the .com space, working for America Online (AOL), American Greetings and Sabre Networks. Since 2005, Allison has been applying best practices from those industries to move Financial Services forward, leading Digital and omni-channel CX efforts at KeyBank, TD Bank, Prudential and Wells Fargo.

Allison earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism/Advertising from Indiana University and her MBA in Marketing from Marymount University. Allison is active in both the industry and her community. She lives in Little Silver, New Jersey with her husband Steve, their three sons and her dog Daisy.

She can be best reached on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonpainelanders/

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In this fascinating two part mini-series, Lou Carbone distills decades of thought leading ideas that cut through years of misled efforts to delight customers. 

In Part 2 we cover:

• The reason for being of a company should be creating value for customers
• Using Deep metaphors for feelings that connect you to companies
• Based on unconscious frameworks - how do you meet unconscious needs
• Will AI be used for wisdom?

Be sure to listen to Part 2 for more great gems from Lou

Meet Lou

Lou Carbone is foun der andCEO of Experience Engineering®, Inc., an experience management consulting firm, the first of its kind, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Since the late 1980's, Carbone, actually referred to as the "father of Customer Experience Management", has been at the forefront of exploring and developing and creating cutting edge tools and experience management perspectives. He is globally recognized as a significant thought leader in the field as well as an experience management futurist continuously innovative, hands-on academic/practitioner.

He has written and co-authored numerous academic articles and wrote the book "Clued In: How to keep customers coming back, again and again, Published by FT Prentice Hall which won Fast Company's Reader's Choice Award. Including a paper that was cited as the best paper by Sage Publications on Memorability of Experiences. Citations from those works in academic publications number in the thousands.

More than two decades has collaborated very often with Dr. Leonard Berry, of the Mays School at Texas A&M. Len co-authored the book Management Lessons from the Mayo Clinic with Dr. Kent Seltman, former Chair of Marketing at the Clinic and has been recognized for contributing more to academic literature than any other academic ever. 

Lou originated the concept of Total Experience Management™ and a robust methodology called Experience Engineering®. He is the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors at Health Quality Partners and has served on the board of Fairview Physician's Associate Network, as well as the Chairman of the Brown College Board of Trustees. Board Brown College Board Chair. He has spoken across the Globe hundreds of times delivering Keynote addresses.

Prior to founding Experience Engineering Lou was the Global Vice President of Marketing at National Car Rental during the innovative creation of the Paperless Rental Agreement, Emerald Club®, The Emerald Aisle where choose your vehicle. Which the entire industry has now mimicked by the industry decades later.

Lou was a senior executive with major advertising agencies in NYC, Detroit and Minneapolis and served as a Journalist in his early career.

Prior to starting Experience Engineering, Carbone was an advertising executive with major agencies in New York, Detroit and Minneapolis. While with Campbell-Ewald Advertising, Grey Advertising, and Manoff Geers Gross, he worked with wide array of companies including American Tourister Luggage, National Car Rental, Walt Disney World, Eastern Airlines and Howard Johnson.

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Special Edition: CX Update from the CEO of CXPA, Greg Melia

Customer satisfaction is down in nearly every industry and customers are growing more and more frustrated.

This means the risk of customer churn is rising.

If you're a customer experience leader you will want to equip yourself with the best resources to help your organization stand out from this customer frustration.

In this Special Edition of the Delighted Customers Podcast, Greg Melia, CEO of the Customer Experience Professionals Association shares how CX leaders can best prepare for a turbulent world and what trends he's seeing in the marketplace.

Greg returns to the Delighted Customers Podcast to give us an update on 3 things:

1. The Purpose and Benefits of the  Leaders Advance Program in Orlando
2. Resources available for CX leaders and anyone interested in CX
3. Trends from the CEO's perspective 

Meet Greg

Greg Melia, CAE is an innovator and leader dedicated to advancing associations and customer experience. Greg was appointed by the Customer Experience Professionals Association as their first full-time CEO in April 2019. CXPA is the premier global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and cultivation of the Customer Experience profession.  It has more than 55,000 followers in 70 countries around the world.

Greg holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from The College of William & Mary, a master's degree in social anthropology from the London School of Economics, and a graduate certificate in Creativity and Change Leadership from the International Center for Studies in Creativity at the State University of New York. Greg is also a Coca-Cola Scholar and has served as a member of the Coca-Cola Scholars Alumni Advisory Board.  He was also designated an honorary member by Farmhouse Fraternity International in 2016.

Like many in CX, Greg's professional experiences have helped develop his passion for CX. He worked for several years in hospitality, including as an inaugural staff member of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Pentagon City, Virginia. He worked on employee culture and organizational strategy issues for the as an organization development consultant to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, has more than 15 years working with member experience at various associations including the American Society of Association Executives and The US Chamber of Commerce, and background in world-class storytelling at ITN Productions Industry News.

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A Conversation with Lou Carbone, the Father of Experience Management, Part 1 of 2

In this fascinating two part mini-series, Lou Carbone distills decades of thought leading ideas that cut through years of misled efforts to delight customers. 

In Part 1 we cover:

• The difference between customer driven vs. customer centric
• The shift from the industrial economy to the experience economy
• Why we are "inhaling exhaust and expecting to get oxygen afterwards"
• Why CX leaders understand the power of unconscious need

Be sure to listen to Part 2 for more great gems from Lou

Meet Lou

Lou Carbone is the founder, president and chief experience officer of Experience Engineering, a Minneapolis-based consulting firm dedicated to customer and employee experience management. He is widely regarded as the father of the experience management movement. Founded in the late 1980s, Experience Engineering helps companies discover what really makes customers tick and offers solutions to help them increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and repeat business.

A frequent college lecturer, writer and inspirational speaker; Carbone is the author of "Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again" (Prentice-Hall, 2004), which won the Fast Company Reader's Choice award.

Companies that Carbone and Experience Engineering have worked with include Pizza Hut, KFC, Avis, H&R Block, General Motors, IBM, Taco Bell, Progressive Auto Insurance, John Deere, Blockbuster, IBM, La Quinta, Time Warner Cable, Deluxe Financial Services, Office Depot, Audi of America, Royal Bank of Canada, and Boston Children's Hospital.

Carbone has lectured and has taught at many leading educational institutions including the Harvard Business School, Columbia, The Cornell School of Hospitality, Haas School at the University of California at Berkeley, Texas A&M's Center for Retail Studies, Carlson School of Business at the University of Minnesota, Boston University, UNLV and Parsons School of Design.

Prior to starting Experience Engineering, Carbone was an advertising executive with major agencies in New York, Detroit and Minneapolis. While with Campbell-Ewald Advertising, Grey Advertising, and Manoff Geers Gross, he worked with wide array of companies including American Tourister Luggage, National Car Rental, Walt Disney World, Eastern Airlines and Howard Johnson.

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A Five Step Model to Earn Customer Loyalty with Mark Slatin

I've interviewed some of the legends in customer experience on The Delighted Customers Podcast but this episode will be a twist!

In this episode, Patty Soltis, CCXP, and a leader of Patient Experience at The Moffitt Cancer Center, turns the tables and interviews ME! 

It was fun to be on the other side of the table and share why CX is the growth engine for businesses.

In this episode:

• What does it mean to empower my clients?
• Why consistency is so important for business results like referrals, retention, and cost reduction
• The often underestimated cost of customer friction (and how to reduce/eliminate it)
• The 5 Step Model I take to empower my clients and my "why" for serving them

Meet Mark

Above all else, I'm passionate about customer experience because I've learned that when we serve others well, we positively impact their lives and make the world a better place in the process.

I help clients by listening to them and really understanding their goals, vision, and challenges. Whether you are just launching or ready to take the journey to the next level, I leverage my "real world" experience that only comes from serving as a CX practitioner in the financial services industry.

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My focus for the last decade has been leading an award-winning CX journey from launch to maturity at Sandy Spring Bank . During that time, the Bank received numerous awards including The CX Innovation Award (2X), Great Places to Work, Forbes America's Best Bank, and American Banker Best Bank to Work For, The Washington Post Top Workplace, among others.

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I currently serve on the Board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and Chair the Higher Education Subcommittee. I designed and taught a Customer Experience Management Course in Loyola University's MBA program where I held an adjunct professor position. I have served as a judge for the CX of M Awards, and have been featured in the book Chief Customer Officer 2.0 and Customer Experience Magazine.

I have been a guest on numerous industry webinars and podcasts and have been a featured speaker and panelist. Prior to my CX leadership role, I served as a management consultant for companies in a variety of industries dramatically improving their business results. I helped them craft their vision, mission, and core values in addition to designing their revenue growth strategies.I spent the first two decades of my career in sales management working for Fortune 500 companies like Boise Cascade and Standard Register. I hold a BS in Marketing from the University of Maryland, and an MBA from Loyola University Maryland.

When I'm not working, you might find me enjoying time with my kids and grandkids, tinkering with home projects, and chasing a little white ball around. 

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Sami Nuwar got his start as a researcher and evolved to a CX leader at Verizon before shifting to Medallia, a VoC software company that designs solutions for businesses. 

It won't take you long to recognize the depth of Sami's wisdom.

With all the talk about AI and machine learning, Sami talks about a very straightforward approach to using data to drive customer loyalty. 

In this episode we discuss:

• The rational and emotional sides of data
• Why loyalty overall has dropped and how data can reverse the trend
• How AI can be used to scale up customer data in a few clicks
• Why you should never rely on one metric

Meet Sami

Prior to joining Medallia, Sami led experience management programs in global B2B environments, with a diverse background that includes large telecom service & consumer goods manufacturing.

With a deep background in insights, process improvement, and governance, Sami has helped drive customer-centric transformational shifts, aligning execution toward desired experience outcomes.

Subscribe to The Delighted Customer Podcast so you don't miss an episode: https://www.empoweredcx.com/podcast

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The Intersection of Customer Success and Customer Experience with Adrian Brady-Cesana, CXO, CX Chronicles

Adrian spent his early years in Manhattan, helping launch Saas startups in a fast-paced environment. He learned a lot of valuable lessons through the school of hard knocks and he shares some of that wisdom with us on this episode. 

We cover a lot of ground and some of the highlights include:

• Customer Success vs. Customer Experience
• What's the biggest side benefit of investing in CX?
• Why is adoption so critical after a sale?
• What are the unexpected benefits of connecting the dots between EX and CX?
• What it means to build "team pods" to ensure customer success and attract the best employees

Meet Adrian

I have been working in Customer Experience, Customer Success, Customer Service, Sales, Marketing and Sales Operations Management and Consulting for 15+ years.

I've had the pleasure of working in New York with ACV Auctions, Hometeam, onefinestay, H.Bloom, and a plethora of other venture capital backed executive leadership teams.

I've been starting, building and scaling companies and internal customer focused teams my entire career. I've developed an in-depth understanding and appreciation for what it takes to succeed in growth phase businesses as well as the importance of understanding the power of implementing a cohesive business strategy focused on the The Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback.

Today I spend much of my time working with our amazing clients at CXC helping them optimize the Four CX Pillars within their businesses. I'm also the host of of a top 10 CX/CS Business podcast called The CXChronicles Podcast, a weekly show that interviews customer focused business leaders from across the world. Lastly I have a book on Amazon, check it out now to learn more it's called "The Four CX Pillars To Grow Your Business Now -- The Customer Experience Playbook".

Building businesses and finding new customers to serve has always been one of my greatest passions. I've started several of my own companies over the years including; RPM Marketing, Property Armor, Simply Travel, Maids of Manhattan, American Buddha Co, WNYCatering, WNYBnB & most recently CXChronicles, as well as the CXChronicles Podcast. I love building teams and working with customers, it's my favorite part of the game, hands down.

Please feel free to reach out to me today -- I'm always open to meeting and discussing new business opportunities and finding new connections for the future!

CXC Bio: 

CXC believes that customer experience & success is modern selling + a team sport that must be prioritized in any business or industry as you grow and scale!

We help our growth focused clients navigate the jungle of CX/CS/RevOps by helping them optimize The Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback. We do this by working with customer facing teams to ensure that your investments in customer experience & customer success are yielding positive ROI & leading to revenue growth & retention.

CXC provides our clients with a variety of Fractional CXO & CX/CS/RevOps focused managed services including; CX Scorecard assessments, customer journey mapping, curating living playbooks & FAQs, constructing your Voice of Customer Dashboards & providing you with CXC certified leadership support by leveraging the "CX Nation" our community of over 12K+ customer focus

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Why AI is a Game Changer for Customer Experience with OCX Recognition CEO Richard Owen

Richard Owen is an innovator. 

The former CEO of Satmetrix, who helped Fred Reichheld elevate Net Promoter Score to become the world's most popular customer loyalty metric, is innovating again.

Richard is the CEO of OCX Cognition, a newly formed technology company with the aim of disrupting the status quo in the customer experience world. 

In this episode we discuss:

• The economic disparity between the 3 NPS segments
• What's the difference between AI, machine learning, and neurolinguistic programming
• How can this data help companies improve their customer experience?
• The evolution of customer research and why AI is a game changer

And a whole lot more.

Meet Richard:

Richard Owen

Founder and CEO

Richard Owen is one of the best-known thought leaders in the Customer

Experience industry. While CEO at Satmetrix, his team led the development

of the Net Promoter Score methodology with Fred Reichheld, which created the

most widely used approach to measuring customer experience in the

world. 

Together with Dr Laura Brooks he co-authored "Answering the ultimate

question" which quickly became the "how to" guide for NPS practitioners. Richard launched netpromoter.com which was supported by over 20,000 subscribers; the NPS Certification program with over 6,000 companies taking part and a conference series that ran for 10 years and 20 conferences. Today he is the founder and CEO of OCX Cognition, a software and data science company using machine learning to create real time NPS and customer health performance data. Richard has enjoyed a 30-year career centered around the use of technology to transform business operations. 

As an executive at Dell Computer Corporation, he oversaw the re- engineering of the companies supply chain operations, the growth of Dell's consumer business in Japan and, as VP of Online, the scaling of the world's largest electronic commerce business

of the 1990s. He has led two software companies to successful exits, with AvantGo (mobile enterprise software) achieving a public listing on the Nasdaq and Satmetrix, the cloud software co-creator of NPS, sold to NICE Systems. Richard has held several board positions in both public and private companies and has served on compensation, audit and special board committees.

An active venture investor, he most recently joined the board of Ajua, an innovative pioneer in customer data based in Nairobi, Kenya. Having lived in Japan, the UK and the USA, he is a true international business thinker and Africa is a new and exciting passion for him. Richard holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Nottingham, England, and an MBA From the MIT Sloan School of Management. He lives with his wife Susan in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Contact:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3/

https://ocxcognition.com/company/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition

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The Do's and Don't of an Impactful Customer Experience Discipline with Bob Azman 

Bob is a CX veteran. 

He's been around long enough to know what works and what doesn't. 

In this episode he helps you accelerate the path to delighting customers as we discuss:

• His mountaintops and potholes
• The difference between behavioral vs. skill training
• The importance of a strategic envelope around technology
• Where corporate social responsibility intersects CX

Meet Bob

Bob Azman is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Consultant for Innovative CX Solutions, LLC. Innovative CX Solutions is a Customer Experience Consulting firm specializing in CX Design and Execution, Sales and Service Experience Design and Talent Development. As a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), Bob is a thought leader, practitioner, podcaster, educator, and business partner helping organizations become more customer focused and easy to do business with. Bob is an Emeritus Chair of the Board of the Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA.org). 

He is the former Vice President, Traveler Experience, Americas and Global responsible for all customer operations in Canada, the United States and Latin America as well as global sites located in Poland, Manila, Bogota, and Costa Rica as well as related experience in India and Australia. In this role, Bob transformed the customer experience for clients and travelers of Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Prior to joining CWT, Bob was Chief Experience Officer, at Avtex Consulting Solutions, LLC. In that role, he consulted with companies in a variety of industries on developing and implementing strategies to improve their overall customer experience and service operations. Bob also brings a wealth of diverse, general operations and business background as an executive at large corporations such as Thomson Reuters, Ceridian, and Deluxe Corporation. 

Bob earned both his MBA and bachelor's degrees from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. He is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management's Supply Chain and Operations department and at the Rutgers University School of Business Executive Education programs.

He is a frequent speaker on developing effective customer experience and service strategies at industry forums and conferences where he receives top ratings on his interactive approach and unique ability to combine academic principles with real life experiences. 

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.innovativecx.com

Podcast: https://linktr.ee/AllThingsConsideredCX

Twitter: @innovatve_cx

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