When I was 25, my mum was proud of the fact that we had never discussed the verity of Father Christmas, which, of course, is not in question. She wanted that story to be a part of my life, so she made sure it was, well into adulthood. I have continued the tradition with my kids. Father Christmas, the story of a toymaker that brings love and joy to children all around the world has been in effect at the Shaw house for over 30 years. Now, we are indoctrinating the grandkids as well. Storytelling a...
Dec 18, 2021•28 min
Imagine that you own a well-known car brand during a global pandemic. No one is coming to the show room to see your dealer’s cars, nor are they bringing them in for service. No one is really driving them around, either. What do you do? For Nissan’s Hussein Dajani , General Manager, Digital and CX Transformation, this wasn’t hard to imagine since he lived it for the past 18 months. He and his Customer Experience Steering Committee came up with a virtual version of the traditional car-buying and s...
Dec 15, 2021•34 min
Fernando has a problem that he wants our help solving. In his industry of branding and packaging fast-moving consumer goods, his clients often tell him to do whatever the competition is doing. However, Fernando knows that while imitation is the highest form of flattery, it’s a less than ideal customer strategy when you want to win customers from the competition. In this episode, we explore Fernando’s business problem, aka Pickle, for our, “I’m in a Pickle” segment of the podcast. We discuss the ...
Dec 11, 2021•29 min
Fred Reichheld, inventor of the Net Promoter Score® (NPS), sees customers recommendations as an act of love. Recommendations are a chance to provide an experience to someone they care about. Reichheld’s new book, Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers , shows tracking the actual referrals is the next level, what Reichheld describes as the “gold” in the business—and the future of your customer strategy. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Andy Taylor, Executive ...
Dec 08, 2021•31 min
I love when listeners write in with their business problems. I don’t love that they have problems, but I love that they share them with us so we can all work through them together. In our latest submission for our “I’m in a Pickle” feature of the podcast, Janet explains that even though their customer comments are overwhelmingly positive, their Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is not where they need it to be. Without any complaints to speak of, Janet and the organization don’t know what the problem is,...
Dec 04, 2021•31 min
I am happy to announce that I am getting my first electric guitar. Many of you know that also means I am buying my first amplifier, too. The one I have my eye on is Fender’s, not because I know anything about amplifiers and their performance, but because I like how it looks like it came straight out of the 1960s. Nostalgia is an important part of my amplifier purchase. When I see the old-fashioned looking knobs on the amplifier, it reminds me of my childhood and the rock stars of my school days....
Nov 27, 2021•29 min
One of our listeners, Jeanne-Claude, has a problem. He sells a complex product and despite the fact that they have the best one in the industry, the competition is outselling them. I can relate. I sold a complicated product when I was in corporate life, and it was always a highly competitive field. It can be challenging to communicate why you are the best when you have a complex offering and you want to tell customers all about it. However, one thing I know to be true is that it doesn’t matter w...
Nov 20, 2021•30 min
Scarcity is something are more used to these days, particularly in light of the supply chain problems we see. Scarcity is something we feel when we are doing thing we have enough of what we need. If we don’t fix the problems at the ports, and the related problem of driver shortages to bring things in from the ports, we might see quite a few empty shelves this holiday season. Not that empty store shelves were anything new to most of us. After the great toilet paper shortage of early 2020, we all ...
Nov 13, 2021•42 min
The 5 Rules to Dramatically Improve The Way you Deal with Customer Complaints A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. Does your organization like to pretend that complaints never happen? When they do happen, does the company sweep them under the rug and hide them from everyone involved? If so, you are not alone. Man...
Nov 06, 2021•32 min
Rachel has a problem. Her boss can’t see the need to change. She is frustrated and doesn’t know what to do. Lucky for her, she listens to our podcast and took advantage of our “Help! I’m in a Pickle!” segment for our advice on what to do. In this episode, we explore what Rachel, or anyone who champions Customer Experience but doesn’t have the support they need from above, can do to convince her boss that there is a need for change. We share strategies and tactics anyone can use to motivate the p...
Oct 30, 2021•30 min
Back in 1994, Steve Jobs introduced a concept at an Apple conference: that the design of their products should begin at the desired Customer Experience and work backward from there . Not long after that, Joe Pine co-authored a book called The Experience Economy , that changed the way at looked at the future of business. In 2002, I began my global Customer Experience consultancy, Beyond Philosophy, a term a bandied about long before anyone even knew what it was. By 2005, I had undertaken research...
Oct 23, 2021•53 min
Total agreement is overrated. Disagreements are good for us. They challenge the status quo and push the standards for improvement. After all, if you only talk to people who agree with you, how would you know when you are wrong? In this episode, I debate with Customer Experience critic Alex Mead , Chief Customer Service Experience Officer, about how we Customer Experience influencers are doing everything wrong. Mead says that our training is outdated, impractical, and worthless and needs an overh...
Oct 16, 2021•35 min
Great business insights with a touch of humor, all put over in a clear, easy-to-understand way. Each week we discuss how you can gain and retain more customers and solve business problems. We look at the theory of how and why Customers make decisions and then break this down into practical actions you can take. Here is one review which we think sums up the show. “The dynamics between the hosts of this show absolutely makes this podcast. Each brings a unique take on a topic, their own perspective...
Oct 14, 2021•4 min
Do you remember Blockbuster, Circuit City, or Kodak? I ask because these brands are not around anymore. They were once the leaders in their field, the only game in town in some cases, but now they are gone. They disappeared because they didn’t respond to changes in the marketplace with new ideas. It isn’t unusual for an organization to be set in its ways. Human beings are also reluctant to change their ways or even opinions. Psychologically, we tend to cling to what we believe and look for resou...
Oct 09, 2021•28 min
A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. If I had a more efficient family and less expensive friends than you have now, would you like to trade? I can guarantee they will save you time and money. My guess is probably not. We don’t measure the worth of our families and friends with metrics like time and money savings....
Oct 02, 2021•28 min
We all love to keep what is ours. As soon as we have possession of something, it becomes part of our “endowment,” a fancy word for “our stuff.” Psychologists call this the Endowment Effect, and it explains how we value things that we have, even if we got them for free. However, we also hate losing our stuff, even more that we enjoy getting new stuff. Psychologists call this Loss Aversion, and it is the overall concept that explains why your free trial might help increase your sales. Some people ...
Sep 25, 2021•25 min
Sometimes customers don’t come back. The two biggest reasons that customers do not come back are apathy and rudeness. With either behavior on your side of the experience, you will lose customers' business. So how do you get them to say, “I’ll be back?” Our guest Shep Hyken, author, speaker, and thought leader for the Customer Experience movement joins us to answer that question with material from his new book, I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again . In this episode, we ...
Sep 18, 2021•36 min
You probably didn’t mean to do it. You were just trying to market the latest brand effort to your new and existing customer base. You were doing your job; getting the message out. Unfortunately, your marketing inadvertently damaged your customer focus. However, marketing isn’t the only area to blame for the problem. How you segment customers also contributes to this damage, as well as how well you understand your customers’ expectations of you. It turns out that all of these areas contribute to ...
Sep 11, 2021•36 min
If you are like most companies, you probably think that you put the customer at the center of everything you do. But do you? There are some critical things that the most customer centric companies do differently than the average company. It requires a mindset that understands the essential nature of it and then a consistent approach to applying it in all the areas of the company, from how you recruit talent and empower employees to how you prioritize customers in your team meetings. In this epis...
Sep 04, 2021•36 min
No one ever sends out an email that they hope no one will read. Well, not on purpose, anyway. No one would go through the trouble of writing, editing, circulating, and then editing an email some more only to have readers skip it and click on another, more compelling email in the inbox. We write and send emails to get people to do something, starting with reading it. In this episode we explore the ways that email marketers can increase response rates to their campaigns using the concepts from psy...
Aug 28, 2021•28 min
A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. A couple of years ago, research from some well-respected firms came back with the conclusion that investing in Customer Experience is not paying off the way that organizations had hoped. One of the reasons that might be the case is because many people are investing in Customer...
Aug 21, 2021•27 min
We were excited to reach our 200th Episode of the podcast! In this episode, we look back on six of our favorite podcasts from these first 200 episodes and what the key learning was from each of them. We want to thank our listeners for tuning in each week to hear our ramblings. We are proud of what we do, but it would be meaningless if it didn’t prove to be a useful resource for people. We hope that it is and that you will continue to join us on this journey as we explore the many facets of custo...
Aug 14, 2021•32 min
It all started with Apple's Air Tags. As soon as I heard about them, I knew that they would be exceptional, and I had to have them. But why? I had a drawerful of other manufacturer's products that did the same thing. What was so special about these? My answer is because these were from Apple, and the reason Apple is the answer is because of Halo Effects. Halo Effects affect people's impression of you and your experiences, and, in some cases, you don't have as much control over these halos as you...
Aug 07, 2021•31 min
When it comes to your bottom line, pricing your products and services is essential. Price it too low and you can’t keep the lights on. Price it to high and nobody will buy it—and you still can’t keep the lights on. So how do you increase your margin (and keep the lights on)? Make sure your pricing is correct! However, pricing correctly is more challenging than it may seem at first. Most companies assume that increasing your margin is a matter of marking up your costs enough that you can make a p...
Jul 31, 2021•31 min
A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. For three years running, Beyond Philosophy has been recognized by Financial Times as a leading management consultancy organization. While I would love to take credit for it myself, I realize that we could never have won without the excellent team we have here. Our team-buildin...
Jul 27, 2021•33 min
In a discussion that echoes the age-old chicken vs. egg conversation sentiment, we engaged in a debate. After meeting a fellow Customer Experience proponent on a new social media platform called Clubhouse, we invited author and speaker Stacy Sherman to debate. The topic: Is Customer Experience the new marketing, or is it an entity on its own? Sherman and I have a difference of opinion. Sherman, a director of Customer Experience and employee engagement at a global organization by day and the foun...
Jul 17, 2021•31 min
Some of you might know that I am learning to play guitar. However, almost none of you will ever hear my covers of Pink Floyd. In fact, that audience is quite exclusive, and includes only me and my wife Lorraine. That is because my guitar playing is something that I do in private, not public. In this episode, we talk about privacy, or rather, the lack of it in today’s online environment. Your customers probably also have some things they would rather keep private, and finding out that you are inv...
Jul 10, 2021•34 min
Maybe it’s a towing service. Perhaps you use an interior designer. It could be that you needed to outsource your call center. Whatever the reason may be, you have outsourced part of your Customer Experience. There is an inherent risk involved, of course, if there are problems. After all, customers do not distinguish between the part of the experience you provide and the part your third-party does. To customers, it’s all one experience and any problems that happen along the way, whether they were...
Jul 03, 2021•31 min
It’s summertime. Do you know what that means? That’s right. It’s time for your summer reading list. I bet you thought you were too old for such things. In this episode, we share 7 essential books for any Customer Experience professional to read, ideally in a tropical locale with a fruity drink in hand. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience From books on Customer Experience to books about psychology to 1990s bestselling business books, we have a wide variety of reading material for Custom...
Jun 26, 2021•28 min
A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. The concepts behind behavioral science are powerful stuff. The psychology that drives how people make decisions has far-reaching and critical influences on how people act as customers. We often hear about small changes that make a big difference on the outcome when you read ab...
Jun 19, 2021•30 min
