Why is it so hard to be prepared for the service failures that every organization experiences from time to time? Today we explore proactive customer service and how to be ready when things blow up. What's your customer service doomsday plan? No matter how great your customer service team is or how thoroughly you’ve mapped and improved the customer journey, something will go wrong. Are you prepared for the situation that turns it all upside-down? You need to consider two things: A proactive custo...
Jan 25, 2016•24 min
You only have one chance to make a first impression with a potential customer or client. Sylvie Di Giusto is an expert on personal branding and making great impressions that last. The science of first impressions The average person makes about 3,000 impressions per day. How is that possible!? Our guest Sylvie Di Giusto explains the many ways we can make an impression when we don't even know it's happening. Are you ready for this? What can you do to turn those fleeting impressions into advantageo...
Jan 21, 2016•30 min
Cause marketing is a broad, nuanced topic. But when it’s done well, it can create a rewarding experience for customers and forge great relationships with your brand. What makes cause marketing effective? Adam and Jeannie share some great examples of companies that are raising awareness for and donating to nonprofit cause on behalf of their customers. From car dealerships to online merchants, companies across industries are leveraging the power of cause marketing. But cause marketing has become v...
Jan 18, 2016•19 min
Customer perception is a difficult thing to understand, and even harder to change. Do customers see themselves in your brand image? Lessons on Changing Customer Perception Are your real customers properly represented in your marketing? What if 13% of your qualified customers never noticed your brand simply because they can't identify with how you present who your customers are? Customers will buy from those who create an emotional connection, and one of the first steps is making sure they see th...
Jan 14, 2016•18 min
It’s EASY to talk about improving customer service. It's a lot harder to actually do anything about it! Why is it so hard to create a real strategy around putting the customer first? Are you really improving customer service? Making a big deal about becoming "customer–centric" through new options and features but neglecting to deliver what customers actually need to be happy is not really walking the talk. Jeannie and Adam see this happening in many industries, and a few companies are getting aw...
Jan 11, 2016•22 min
Mana Ionescu, President of Lightspan Digital, shares tips and insights on keeping up with the changing landscape of social customer care. Social Customer Care with Purpose In today’s marketplace, as Mana explains, few organizations can thrive and compete without a presence on social media. But what does that mean for customer care? Mana shares some valuable insights for smaller organizations who need to provide a better level of care on social channels without a dedicated social media team. Many...
Jan 07, 2016•23 min
2016 is going to be a wild but shaky ride. Hold on tight! Where’s the next hairpin turn for your organization? Adam and Jeannie have some customer experience predictions to help keep you in your seat. Customer Experience Predictions The landscape of customer experience improvement has changed a lot over the past year. New tech means more robust service solutions and new ways to connect with customers. Hooray! But be warned: It’s a two-way street. Better tech also means greater expectations from ...
Jan 04, 2016•14 min
What will you do to make 2016 the best year yet for your customers? New Year. New Customer Service Resolutions. Adam and Jeannie discuss some of the resolutions they believe every organization should have to make 2016 better for all their customers through improved service and proactive experience design. Destroy the silos! Make things easier! They sound so simple. Get some inspiration to improve your customer’s experience today and throughout the year. Related Content Jeannie’s post, 5 Ways to ...
Dec 28, 2015•14 min
Crowdsourcing is one way companies are reaching customers before developing products or services. What do you think about this modern way of including customers? Is crowdsourcing the way to innovate? Crowdsourcing: Tapping into the collective knowledge, creativity and in some cases, funding, from the community. What happens when you let your customers into the process before you are ready to introduce new products/services? You get ALL the ideas, and that has its own set of challenges. What are ...
Dec 21, 2015•18 min
Aaron Walker, veteran entrepreneur, has built his business around mentorship and used his vast experience to mentor leaders in many industries. Aaron has a great story and shares how he walks the talk, while leading others to do the same. Expert Advice on Growing Your Business Aaron tells us the exciting story of his background in entrepreneurship, which started at the age of 13. (What!?) That’s right! We don’t want to spoil this amazing story for you, but building businesses has been Aaron’s pa...
Dec 17, 2015•29 min
Who doesn’t like playing games, and winning!? Companies across many industries are learning how to gamify the experience for their customers. How can gamification improve the experience for your customers? Can You Gamify The Customer Experience? Gamification: applying the principles of games like variable rewards and real-time engagement. Can you use this to improve the customer experience? Gamifying your customer’s experience can be rewarding for both the customer and the company. Fitness weara...
Dec 14, 2015•15 min
Denise Lee Yohn, author of Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do, discusses the concepts of restaurant and retail stand-out experiences. Unique Opportunities in Restaurant and Retail Experiences Denise has researched and made sense of what really makes an experience profitable, sustainable and special in retail and restaurant environments. The best brands stand for some people, but not for others. Shoring up emotional loyalty and advocacy is an important piece of ...
Dec 10, 2015•19 min
What if you don’t have a budget for lots of perks to create a positive workplace culture? Are there ways to hack culture to make the workplace positive and fun? Hacking Your Workplace Culture Money is often the fourth motivator for workers. The Workforce 2020 report shows how workers today want non-traditional benefits as well. A great culture with happy employees is a key component of delivering the right experience for customers. So how can workplaces today compete with innovative employers li...
Dec 07, 2015•17 min
Matt Phillips is the President of management consulting firm, Phillips and Company. Matt helps us all understand breakthrough innovations and experience. Innovation Improves Customer Experience What is expected in the experience offered to customers and what should be unexpected? These are some of the questions Matt poses when considering innovation. Matt talks about luxury hotel experiences, futuristic customer service robots, and ice swimming in Finland. What are the best ways to innovate? Mat...
Dec 03, 2015•24 min
Seeing the game live used to be enough for sports fans. Now, stadiums are designed to be a multi-screen experience. How are experiences changing for sports fans, and how are the champions delivering victories? Connected Fans Mean More Experiences What is the product of sporting events? With millennial fans desiring connectivity as a key part of the sports event, modern stadiums have to deliver an experience for those fans who are as interested in uploading selfies as connecting with their favori...
Nov 30, 2015•13 min
In honor of Thanksgiving, we’d like to share what we’re thankful for in this episode of Crack the Customer Code! We hope we can inspire you with some great stories of how some unique companies have thanked their own customers. From bold and big acts of gratitude to simply saying the words “thank you,” expressing appreciation is always timely, no matter the season. The Power of Gratitude Giving your customers something unexpected is a wonderful way to say "thank you." Listen in to hear how organi...
Nov 26, 2015•16 min
One of the things customers hate about customer service is finding it. How can customer care be embedded into the entire customer journey? Adam and Jeannie discuss the innovations that are making this more of a reality for customers and companies alike. Offer More by Embedding Service Instead of forcing customers to hunt for the right phone number, the right support department or the right email address, what if the right customer support option was just waiting for the customer where and when t...
Nov 23, 2015•15 min
Annette Franz, creator of the CX Journey blog, gets into the nitty gritty of what makes a customer journey map a powerful tool for any organization. Customer Journey Maps Get Real “Do I need to track all thousand steps?” Different customers have different customer journeys, so what are the best ways to really map their journey? Annette Franz tackles the complex process of customer journey mapping by simplifying it. In this episode, Adam, Jeannie and Annette discuss the changing ways organization...
Nov 19, 2015•18 min
Providing a secure environment for customers is more than just protecting data. What can we do to help everybody feel secure with every transaction throughout the entire journey? Customer Security as a Service Security is often overlooked as part of the true customer experience, but it’s a critical part to consider. Consider not just handling the minimum level of security to avoid liability. Consider how to help your customers feel reassured they are secure. If humans don’t feel secure, everythi...
Nov 16, 2015•15 min
Jill Salzman, creator of The Founding Moms, joins us to discuss global networking and the inception of the world's first and only online and offline meet-up and resource network for mothers. Real Women Making a Difference When asked why membership community building is so important, Jill replies that it's a matter of identifying the need in a community and attempting to fill it. While Founding Moms' meetings began in person with just a few participants, the demand was so great that Jill has expa...
Nov 12, 2015•28 min
With so many options on the market, it is easier than ever for customers who've had a poor dining experience at one restaurant to take their loyalty and hard earned cash to a different venue. That's a lot of pressure on restaurant staff to create positive customer experiences, every time. So, what is the key in the dining industry to keeping customers loyal? Expectations of Excellence The short answer is that everything in customer experience is an expectations game. Almost everyone has eaten ou...
Nov 09, 2015•20 min
Shep Hyken, the Customer Experience Expert and Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations, joins the podcast to talk about fusing disparate elements of customer service into one holistic whole. Realistic Customer Amazement Shep’s advice for a stellar customer experience? Foster moments of customer amazement grounded in realism. Any company can do this, Shep says, and you don’t have to create clever, fantastic, or over the top productions. “The amazing companies are just a little above aver...
Nov 05, 2015•25 min
Superior customer experience is a non-negotiable facet of maintaining a thriving customer base. But how can you deliver an exceptional customer experience without an exceptional budget? Keeping Costs In Line Do you know what you want the experience to deliver? Do you have the team in place, and are they empowered to do the right thing at the right moment? Adam and Jeannie recommend connecting with your team on the front lines to ensure that they are able to communicate effectively with customers...
Nov 02, 2015•17 min
A Superstorm of Change Shel’s latest book, Lethal Generosity, borrows its name from the concept that when a company is incredibly generous to their customers, competitors’ efforts to hijack the customer are preempted. Customers have more power than ever. Technology has put customers “in their rightful place at the heart of an organization, rather than on the outside”, and has created, as Shel puts it, a “superstorm of change”. Social media has empowered consumers to demand the experiences they d...
Oct 29, 2015•25 min
We all know that customer service is an essential aspect of customer experience can often be disconnected from profit. How can you improve customer experience while maintaining the health and profitability of your organization? Three Dimensional Customer Experience Everyone loves profit; the point of having customers is to have a viable, thriving organization or business. But the math behind how customers feel about your organization is often messy and doesn’t always make sense. It may be hard t...
Oct 26, 2015•20 min
While you may think of call centers as a customer service vehicle of the past, new and improved ‘contact’ centers are alive and well. As technology trends direct customers and businesses to mobile, email, and chat platforms, how are these contact centers evolving to best suit both client and customer needs? Can You Hear Me Now? Call or contact centers are an essential customer service arena, but they tend to have a bad rap. The offshoring of call centers has had a negative impact on many centers...
Oct 22, 2015•28 min
As customer experience experts, we have to focus on innovation in ways that others don’t. Our Customer Hero today has created a fantastic model to evolve, innovate, and better suit customer needs. Customization with Innovation and Ease Based in Brookline, Massachusetts, Pantry Market borrows the model of the curated meal from their online counterparts such as Blue Apron and Plated. However, Pantry shifts the principle to a brick and mortar location. They provide a recipe card and grocery list fo...
Oct 19, 2015•11 min
High Expectations Customers are getting more and more savvy about what loyalty means to their preferred businesses, so expectations are high. What can businesses do to ensure that they maintain their most loyal customers and win the loyalty of new ones? First, Jill encourages companies to identify how their specific customers define value and then setting up products and services in those terms. This is not as easy as it sounds because customer value definitions are in constant flux, however, Ji...
Oct 15, 2015•22 min
While it may be fun to be a disrupter, it’s not so fun to be the disruptee. What happens to organizations that have their entire industry shaken up? What can these businesses do to prepare for and respond to disruption? Jeannie and Adam tackle industry disruption, customer experience, and loyalty. We've Got a Remedy for That Having a happy, loyal, dedicated customer base is one of the best remedies to industry disruption. While customer loyalty alone won’t save a brand from sinking, coupling it ...
Oct 12, 2015•16 min
Good customer service can give your company a competitive financial edge. Lori Jo Vest, co-author of Who’s Your Gladys joins the podcast today to identify key customer service strategies to take your company from simply stable to thriving and prosperous. Customer Service Gives You a Cutting Edge Advantage The key to growth through customer service, says Lori, is referral and repeat business. By creating an exceptional, thoughtful experience for your customers, those people will make sure that th...
Oct 08, 2015•24 min
