What is a customer experience touchpoint? Jeannie shatters common myths and shares tips for a more customer-centric and actionable approach. How does a CX pro define "customer experience touchpoint?" Customer touchpoints make up your customer’s journey, but many business leaders don’t truly understand what this means. They are often not understood from the customer’s perspective, and the popular beliefs about how to identify them lure us into a narrow view of the customer experience. Don’t be de...
Jun 05, 2017•6 min
Are you using customer service bots? So much can go wrong! With Adam and Jeannie to help, you can use them to save time AND deliver better experiences. Customer service bots create customer service nots! If you’ve been a regular listener, then you know that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay. (Check the related content below to catch up!) One way AI has already entered our daily lives is through customer service bots, or chatbots. Though they’ve recently made some great leaps and actua...
Jun 01, 2017•8 min
Adam explains the neuroscience behind different types of organizational conformity, how they help or harm your business, and how to strike a good balance. Organizational conformity: The good and the bad Adam says, “the impetus to conform is strong for many,” and that’s typically a good thing in business. Organizational conformity is necessary to create consistent customer experiences, adhere to regulations, and maintain a stable workplace. But it’s not just about following necessary rules and pr...
May 30, 2017•4 min
Adam and Jeannie discuss neuroscience and new study data to better understand the emotional impact on CX. Understanding your impact on CX We hate to be a downer, but improving customer experience isn’t all about thinking positive. As you push forward, adding moments of delight to the customer journey, are you paying enough attention to those tiny pain points? “As leaders, we have to take the rose-colored glasses off.” -Jeannie Walters A new study from InMoment reveals that negative emotions last...
May 29, 2017•14 min
Jeannie attacks customer experience lip service head-on with tips for turning customer-centricity into action. Undercover bosses in the real world Are you familiar with the CBS television show Undercover Boss? CEOs literally go undercover as employees to discover broken rules and processes, workplace culture issues, and more. (Can you tell why we love this?) “Culture in customer experience has to be bought in at the top.” -Adam Toporek While it’s important for leaders to understand what’s going ...
May 25, 2017•7 min
Jeannie attacks customer experience lip service head-on with tips for turning customer-centricity into action. Walking the customer-centricity talk Business leaders talk a lot about being customer-centric, but honestly, most of them are just talking. It often starts with a big rally or town hall meeting where it’s declared, “we’re becoming customer-centric!” It may make its way into a few emails and become the focus of a new campaign, but this rarely inspires change that leads to true customer-c...
May 23, 2017•7 min
Adam and Jeannie interview Dan Gingiss, author of Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Design Engaging Experiences on Social Media. It's time to own social customer care Providing great customer service is important, no matter what channel is being used. But when it comes to engaging with customers on social, many companies are reluctant to invest where it counts. They fear opening up social channels will also open up the floodgates for serial complainers, trolls and negative word-of ...
May 22, 2017•31 min
Adam and Jeannie share three things all customers want from the experience, regardless of what they do or do not ask for. What do customers want from your experience? All customers are different, have different goals, and may run into different issues through their journey. We’ve talked about many great ways to find out what customers want, including social listening, co-creation sessions, and different feedback mechanisms. These are all great ways to uncover opportunities to innovate around the...
May 18, 2017•5 min
Adam shares tips for preventing small details from spoiling an otherwise great overall customer experience. Small details are a big deal! We usually perceive the phrase “majoring in the minors” as a bag thing, but it’s different when we’re talking about customer experience. Both consciously and unconsciously, the small details have a huge impact on how customers perceive the overall experience. The best companies obsess over these small details – not only to remove pain points from the customer ...
May 16, 2017•6 min
Adam and Jeannie share some lessons we can all learn from recent airline customer service disasters. What can we learn from airline customer service? There’s been so much in the news about airline customer service, it’s time we talk about it here on Crack the Customer Code! Including, but not limited to the customer who was dragged off his United flight, we’re not sure any airline has been left unscathed. “This was so visceral that I think people did respond in a very emotional way.” - Jeannie W...
May 15, 2017•19 min
Adam and Jeannie share tips for gauging your organization’s CX success. If you’re joining us today, your organization is either customer-focused or taking steps to deliver a better overall experience in the future. But there’s no universal road map, itinerary or outline to get you to true customer-centricity. And while they are certainly a part of it, CX success is about much more than simply eliminating bad experiences, creating better ones, and sprinkling in a few moments of delight. It’s not ...
May 11, 2017•6 min
Jeannie shares tips for recognizing and eliminating CX-defeating phrases from your organization. Is your team infected with CX-defeating phrases? One of the things we love about customer experience is that subtle changes can make a big difference. Have you considered the language your team uses around the workplace? Cursing invites its own set of problems, but common everyday phrases we don’t notice can tear our customer experiences apart at the seams. Today I ask you to look and listen for the ...
May 09, 2017•7 min
Adam and Jeannie discuss engineering happiness for true success with Mo Gawdat, author of Solve for Happy. Engineering happiness for true success We often think to ourselves that if we get what, where or who we want in our lives, we’ll be happy. We look to successful individuals, and they seem so happy to us! “You’re happy when the events of life meet your expections of how life should be.” -Mo Gawdat But correlation is not necessarily causation where success and happiness intersect. Why is it, ...
May 08, 2017•30 min
Adam and Jeannie report from Medallia’s Experience-17 conference to discuss common challenges and benefits of instilling culture throughout organizations. Instilling culture throughout big brands Creating or shifting culture is not easy in any company, and in larger organizations, it’s an enormous feat. But as we’ve learned from amazing sessions at the Experience-2017 conference, (for which Adam and Jeannie were provided tickets by Medallia,) this is changing! "Changing the organization to be be...
May 04, 2017•5 min
Adam shares tips for leveraging the wisdom of your team as internal consultants to gain powerful customer-focused insights. Activate your internal consultants There’s no doubt that gaining the true outside-in perspective often means bringing in a consultant, but what if you can’t do that right now? What if you’re not sure where to start? Your team has more insight to share from the customer’s perspective than you may know, and they’ve got lots to tell you. Why not tap into the wisdom of your tea...
May 02, 2017•5 min
Adam and Jeannie discuss balancing innovation around the needs of the future customer with those of the present customer at Medallia’s Experience-17 conference. Is your future customer more important than today’s? Brands are investing a lot in tailoring future customer experiences for the new generation, and we saw many examples at Experience-17. Millennials are the larger of the current generations, so this is important! But millennials aren’t the only group to consider, and they do things much...
May 01, 2017•7 min
Adam and Jeannie report from Medallia’s Experience-17 conference to bring you insights from MGM’s outstanding multi-brand consistency. Multi-brand consistency creates multi-brand loyalty We talk a lot about how to close the gaps between the experiences we offer, but what about the experience gaps we create between connected brands? Each brand may consistently deliver an excellent experience on it own, and that’s great! However, brands like MGM have achieved amazing results from creating consiste...
Apr 27, 2017•6 min
Jeannie shares tips for using insight from former customers to improve the experience for current and future customers. What can we learn from former customers? We thrive on customer feedback to continue improving service and the overall experience, but what about those who are leaving us? Whether it’s because we don’t like to think about them, or because we don’t see the value in communicating with those who will not pay us, we lose sight of former customers. Those former customers are still va...
Apr 25, 2017•5 min
Change your perspective and approach at communication with Jill Schiefelbein, author of Dynamic Communication. Dynamic communication for dynamic experiences We communicate a lot in business, and in many ways, business is actually built on communication. But in our efforts to craft the right message while transferring the right information, our communications work against us. “Unless my words are producing direct action or change, I don’t think they’re successful.” - Jill Schiefelbein All day lon...
Apr 24, 2017•32 min
Adam and Jeannie discuss how to get the best results when you complain as a customer. What do you gain when you complain? We talk a lot about how to handle customer complaints, but we’re switching it up a bit today! We’ve all had those experiences that leave us so steamed, we just want to unload a verbal clip on the next employee who comes our way. But there’s a big difference between getting actual support and just getting your way from service reps, managers and supervisors. Though most of us ...
Apr 20, 2017•12 min
Adam shares tips for keeping your customer experience consistent with third parties or subcontractors. Keeping customer experience consistent in a gig economy Consistency is a key element to customer experiences that drive loyalty, but that can be tough when dealing with third parties. What happens when we hand the experience over to subcontractors, essentially giving up control? Does that mean we will lose control? The incident with United Airlines, which recently went viral, is a great example...
Apr 18, 2017•6 min
Adam and Jeannie clear the hype and buzzwords to really find out who drives customer experience in your organization, and how. Who drives customer experience? Chief Customer Officer, Chief Experience Officer, Customer Success Officer, Chief of Customer Service…The list of possible high-level customer experience titles is as long as your imagination. But what do these titles really mean in your organization and who drives customer experience in your organization? “The only way to drive customer e...
Apr 17, 2017•15 min
Adam and Jeannie share simple but effective tips for calculating customer experience ROI. The elusive customer experience ROI Calculating the return on any investment can be challenging. And when it comes to the ROI of customer experience, many leaders don’t know where to start. It’s not easy to put a numeric value on the intangible results of a customer experience initiative, but it is possible! “If you churn, your profits burn!” -Adam Toporek How do you know if your investment is paying off- f...
Apr 13, 2017•7 min
Jeannie shares tips for innovating when and how it’s needed the most, despite what the competition is doing. Are you innovating for the greater good of your customers? Competition is fierce! So it’s easy to think it’s necessary gauge customer experience against that of the big disruptors like Zappos and Netflix. Too often, companies focus on making a big splash with their next innovation, without digging in to see what that actually means for their customers. "Are envy and rationalization about ...
Apr 11, 2017•5 min
Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask You Answer, shares powerful, proven ways to build trust and increase sales through content. Marcus Sheridan, Sales Lion You want to increase sales, but you don’t have unlimited funds for advertising… What can you do? Believe it or not, this may put you at an advantage. Today’s guest, Marcus Sheridan, isn’t just a sales expert. He is a “Sales Lion!” And he’s here to tell you how content marketing can not only save your business, but push it towards exponential ...
Apr 10, 2017•38 min
Adam and Jeannie share tips for educating customers to increase customer success and reduce support issues. Educated customers are return customers! Have you ever been really excited to try a new product or service, then realized it’s way more complicated than you expected? (For those of us working in the digital world, that can be a daily conundrum!) No matter how useful and robust your product or service is, customers are not likely to make the next purchase, upgrade or renewal if they find it...
Apr 06, 2017•6 min
Adam shares tips to make sure you have adequate resources for service that’s consistently great. Do you have the right resources for service? We know what kind of service experience we want to deliver, but sometimes don’t consider the resources needed to make it happen. And it’s not just about making sure we can deliver great service today, but about being prepared with the resources we’ll need tomorrow. “…all great customer service begins with having the adequate resources in place.” - Adam Top...
Apr 04, 2017•4 min
Adam and Jeannie share unconventional but powerful ways to predict customer behavior. Can you predict customer behavior? We often look to past behavior to predict customer behavior for the future. However, we often have little past behavior to build from. Can we predict the behavior of new or future customers? The short answer is yes… “Past behavior is no indication of future behavior…or, is it?”- Adam Toporek One way to do this is with predictive analytics. But unless you’re a huge company, pre...
Apr 03, 2017•14 min
Adam and Jeannie share tips and best practices for when you need to turn away customers for the greater good. Have you ever had to turn away customers? Maybe there was a time you really should have! When you’re over capacity or getting dangerously close, the obvious reaction is to think about scaling up and hiring more people. However, these things can take time. So what do you do in the meantime? This is something most of us don’t want to think about, but sometimes it’s just necessary to turn a...
Mar 30, 2017•5 min
Jeannie shares expert tips for becoming a CX evangelist or hiring the right person to fill this role in your organization. Do you need a CX evangelist? Customer experience roles are evolving and expanding like never before. Leaders know customer experience is important, but not always top-of-mind for everyone. So many struggle to internalize customer insights, get buy-in from multiple departments, and educate those teams. Whether it’s a partial role or a dedicated one, an effective CX evangelist...
Mar 28, 2017•5 min
