Jeannie and Adam share tips and ideas to make the holidays more meaningful and less stressful for customers and employees alike. A quick leadership guide for the holidays The holidays are not only about spreading extra cheer, but also about giving thanks. It's one thing to say "thank you" to customers and employees, but showing them you appreciate them is another. Does your gratitude shine through in the way you do business? This time of year is more stressful for just about everyone. So what ca...
Nov 23, 2017•15 min
Adam and Jeannie discuss an innovative approach to the education experience with Katy Lynch, Co-founder and CMO at Codeverse. Codeverse and innovations in education Educating the next generation on coding the things that keep our lives going is critical. But traditional schools don’t provide an environment where kids can excel at coding while keeping parents up to speed with what’s happening and why. Moreover, there are a lot of myths about what an education in coding is really about, and who it...
Nov 22, 2017•26 min
Adam and Jeannie share updated insights on what and how millennials buy and what that could mean for your industry in the future. Are millennial trends destroying your industry? We discuss millennials quite often on this podcast because new trends are developing so fast! This time, we have fascinating (and scary?) new insights because they’re reaching a new phase of adulthood. As it turns out, millennials are different in more ways than we ever imagined. And it’s not just about skinny jeans and ...
Nov 16, 2017•17 min
Adam and Jeannie interview Mark Podolsky about keeping customers happy while maintaining a passive income. Can happy customers and passive income coexist? Earning a passive income is a dream most of us have, but so few of us can do this in a sustainable way. How can you automate most of your workflow while still delivering a great customer experience? Today’s guest not only survived, but triumphed over the real estate crash of 2008. Instead of closing shop like so many others, he used the changi...
Nov 14, 2017•27 min
Jeannie and Adam discuss the content and creation process behind Jeannie’s new customer experience course on LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn is not just for networking, and Jeannie’s wisdom is not just for podcasts! We have a special announcement for you! Have you ever heard of LinkedIn Learning? Formerly Lynda.com, LinkedIn Learning offers video courses to sharpen a vast range of business skills and learn new ones. In fact, LinkedIn Learning is adding new content every day from industry experts sha...
Nov 09, 2017•20 min
Adam and Jeannie interview global customer experience professional Ian Golding to conquer the challenges of operationalizing customer experience. Turning CX wisdom into action with Ian Golding Leaders all over the world are making the connection between customer experience and business success. While that’s a good thing, just talking the talk is not enough! If you read the right blogs and know the right people, all the wisdom and best practices are there for the taking. But few know how to put a...
Nov 07, 2017•31 min
Jeannie exposes unexpected gaps in CX created by transition processes and procedures within the customer journey. Are you creating unnecessary gaps in CX? Who has not had a great experience do a complete 180 somewhere along the way? This often happens during transitions in the customer journey. In fact, experience gaps in these transitions are often invisible from within the organization. Do you know where they are? A great overall experience means not only delivering excellence during every pha...
Nov 02, 2017•6 min
Adam and Jeannie interview creativity and innovation expert Amy Climer, Ph.D. to discover how to foster creativity in your team. Creativity is not just for “creatives” Creativity is a necessary trait for teams from the c-suite on out to customer service. Much of what we do in business requires creativity- from innovation to general problem-solving. But many of us don’t think of it this way! When we’re not prepared for the creative process in these situations, we get bad ideas, push-back from som...
Oct 31, 2017•28 min
Jeannie and Adam discuss today’s multi-device customer journey and share tips and ideas for optimizing your omnichannel experience. What’s your multi-device customer journey really like? Offering a multi-channel customer experience is nothing new. In fact, it’s now expected. So we test our websites on iPhones, Android tablets, and different operating systems. We develop what we think is the best experience for PC users, for Mac users, etc. Then, when we determine the experiences are optimal for ...
Oct 26, 2017•11 min
Adam and Jeannie interview bestselling author and leading sales expert Anthony Iannarino. Closing in on meaningful relationships with Anthony Iannarino Automation is great, but it makes creating lasting relationships with sales prospects much harder. What’s more, dated sales tactics drive what we don't automate. So that personal attention we’re giving often chalks up to wasted energy where both salespeople and customers are concerned. While automation and dated closing tactics may lead to better...
Oct 24, 2017•32 min
Adam and Jeannie discuss the Equifax data breach and how to decide when it’s right to disclose issues to customers. To disclose, or not to disclose? Not everything you need to tell customers is good news! Are you prepared to deliver the bad news when the time is right? Take the recent Equifax data breach, where it was months before customers became aware of the problem. As you may know, the news caused quite a panic! Why did Equifax withhold the information for so long, and why did they release ...
Oct 19, 2017•13 min
Jeannie and Adam smash the myths about customer support software and remote collaboration with HelpScout CEO and Co-founder Nick Francis. How HelpScout customer support makes a difference We’ve come a long way with the ways we offer customer support, but are we shooting ourselves in the foot with the tech we use? More specifically, with the rise of help desk software, customer support has grown cold and sterile - lacking the emotion and the personal touches we get from 1:1 communication. This is...
Oct 17, 2017•27 min
Adam explores real-life situations that exemplify commonly wasted retail opportunities in brick-and-mortar customer service. Are wasted retail opportunities looming in your store? While online retailers like Amazon continue to grow, those who maintain physical locations have a tall order! They need to give customers a real reason to visit, instead of shopping a competitor online. Many customers still prefer to speak to a sales associate, examine the merchandise, and browse the aisles. Real-life ...
Oct 12, 2017•9 min
Adam and Jeannie interview Master of Innovation Stephen Shapiro for a better approach to innovating customer experience and more. A better approach at innovating customer experience Customer needs and expectations change, so it stands to reason that we must continue innovating customer experience. However, too many companies have the wrong idea about what innovation is and how to get game-changing ideas! “People have a confused notion of what innovation is…” -Stephen Shapiro The best innovations...
Oct 11, 2017•31 min
Jeannie and Adam break down some common CX clichés and unoriginal thoughts that stifle truly customer-centric thinking and doing. Are CX clichés hampering your progress? For those situations when you couldn’t have said it better yourself, we have clichés. And while they sometimes represent "a fundamental truth” as Adam says, but sometimes these clichés are used as an excuse not to think deeply say what really matters. Sadly, in the customer experience space, we hear a lot of them. “It can become...
Oct 05, 2017•13 min
In this special edition CX Day episode, Adam and Jeannie interview Lesley Lykins, Executive Director of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. Happy CX Day! Customer experience has come a long way, and the whole world is celebrating on this 5th annual CX Day. Celebrating along with us today is Lesley Lykins, Director of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.) Lesley in particular is very excited to celebrate CX Day this year, and we’re delighted to have her on the s...
Oct 03, 2017•23 min
Jeannie and Adam question the meaning of efficiency and uncover hidden and unnecessary challenges to providing efficient customer service. The hidden challenges of efficient customer service When we think of efficient customer service, the emphasis is typically on what’s happening at the front lines. Then we look at things like “time on call” and other specific metrics to gauge efficiency. However, there are many other factors that play into front-line efficiency, and how they affect the actual ...
Sep 28, 2017•14 min
Adam and Jeannie interview Stacey Hanke, influence expert and author of Influence Redefined…Be the Leader You Were Meant to Be. Is your influence as strong as you think? The ability to influence others is critical to the success of any business or entrepreneur, and there’s a lot of content out there about becoming an influencer. However, many leaders don’t truly understand the chemistry that turns communication into true influence. We often equate our titles, as well as proven success in our fie...
Sep 26, 2017•32 min
Jeannie shares her expertise in digital experience evaluation with 5 sales-killing offenses even the best of us should look out for and tips to make good on them. Digital experience offenses are still everywhere! Are you guilty? Umm… probably. It’s easy to say what you don’t like about another company’s digital experience, but what about your own? Because you know where everything is and how it’s all supposed to work, finding pain points in your own digital experience is not as straightforward a...
Sep 21, 2017•6 min
Jeannie and Adam explore hiring and new employee processes from the candidate's perspective with Undercover Candidate™ Nora Burns. HR Undercover A good team is critical to the success of any business, so why is it so hard to attract and keep good talent? It seems most organizational leaders think their hiring processes are solid - while most job candidates have horror stories about their experience. You’ve heard the horror stories from friends and colleagues... In fact, you probably have horror ...
Sep 20, 2017•30 min
Should you avoid all negativity in customer service training? Adam shares research data, case studies, and expert advice Do you avoid negativity in customer service training? Pop psychology says negativity in customer service training could be harmful and should be avoided. The idea is that focusing on negative situations begets more negative outcomes. However, real customer service situations don’t always go well. In fact, it’s safe to assume that even with the best teams, something will eventu...
Sep 14, 2017•6 min
Jeannie and Adam interview Nienka Bloem, Certified Customer Experience Professional and creator of the Customer Experience Game. Are you learning the customer experience game? Learning about customer experience is becoming a must for business leaders worldwide, but many still don’t really know what that means. For instance, what if you live in a place where customer experience is just taking off? What are your options? It turns out, in some cases, there aren’t many! “The momentum is here in Euro...
Sep 12, 2017•21 min
Adam and Jeannie share tips for defining, finding and optimizing every moment of truth within your customer journey. What exactly is a moment of truth? While every touchpoint in your customer journey deserves attention, some are more critical than others. In short, a moment of truth is a critical touchpoint that can drive your customer to the next level, or chase them away. “Not every piece of the customer experience is AS important…” -Adam Toporek And you may think you already know where these ...
Sep 07, 2017•6 min
Jeannie and Adam interview Kristina Quinones, head of customer experience at MeetEdgar, about amazing growth through a unique approach at customer service. Explosive growth and the MeetEdgar customer service approach Thanks to its unique approach at customer service, MeetEdgar has grown from 2 to 30 employees in three years. So we're proud to interview their head of customer experience, Kristina Quinones. Kristina shares how to use the same approach at your business! The customer service team at...
Sep 05, 2017•21 min
Jeannie and Adam discuss the pros and cons of Tesla’s new strategy for escalating customer service issues. Escalating customer service: Can Tesla’s new strategy work for you? Customers demanding that a service issue or complaint be escalated is often the worst nightmare both for front-line staff and their leaders. While service agents aren’t anxious to admit they couldn’t make the customer happy on their own, team leads and are typically not happy or prepared to take those calls! Now imagine if ...
Aug 31, 2017•16 min
Adam and Jeannie interview karmaCRM founder John-Paul Narowski about smarter ways to manage and nurture customer relationships. Enhancing customer relationships with tech If you’ve user Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software before, then you may know these systems tend to be either lacking the features you need or overcomplicated with features you don’t. Either way, leaders find themselves investing in tools they’re not using to their best potential. “We paid for these tools and I see h...
Aug 29, 2017•24 min
Adam and Jeannie announce exciting changes to our show inspired by feedback from our our fans, friends and listeners. We’re listening to you too! We’d like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for listening, but we want you to know we’re listening too! We thrive on your feedback to continue making Crack the Customer Code better and better, and we get many great ideas from you. As a result, we’ve seen some common themes in what our listeners think would improve the show. Today we’re announc...
Aug 24, 2017•7 min
Jeannie and Adam discuss microchipping employees with RFID devices and how this tech may affect culture and the customer experience. Microchipping employees RFID tags are everywhere, from the microchips that help deter theft in retail settings to those that help us locate lost pets. But employers are taking this technology to another level by microchipping employees. And although it’s a voluntary procedure (for now?) many employees are opting in for the conveniences that come with having this ti...
Aug 21, 2017•16 min
Jeannie shares 3 powerful questions to assess and improve employee engagement for better business outcomes. How engaged are your employees? Employee engagement has a direct impact on critical business outcomes. Poorly engaged or actively disengaged employees lead to high employee turnover, subpar service, and terrible customer experiences. On the other hand, highly engaged employees have an amazingly positive impact on workplace culture, better-informed business decisions, and customer satisfact...
Aug 17, 2017•5 min
Adam and Jeannie interview bestselling author Chip Bell to discover how the best brands are innovating service to create value-unique experiences. Winning customers' hearts with value-unique experiences We all want customers talking about their experience with our brand, but providing great service isn’t enough. And though we hear a lot about the power of adding value, it's easy to weigh the experience down or simply waste money on freebies. You need to add emotional value through unique experie...
Aug 15, 2017•27 min
