Crack The Customer Code

Today we focus on gratitude with special guest, Award Winning Speaker, Author, and Chief Appreciation Strategist of Grategy, LLC, Lisa Ryan. Lisa explains how gratitude builds on the basic foundation of human connection through thankfulnes; letting people know that they matter, are seen, and are important to us, promotes loyalty, fulfilment and happiness, with people in the workplace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen as Jeannie shares some highlights from business owners who are really striving for the next level in leading customer culture. Do you really understand the experience you're trying to deliver and are you building the right culture for that? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Crack The Customer Code, we're going to try something a little bit different. We're going to go back and recap a little bit of what we've learned from our 360+ episodes. We’ve previously discussed a lot about technology, where it’s headed and how it's going to impact us all in the customer experience and customer service spaces. In this episode, Adam, recaps on some of the best snippets to come out of 70+ episodes discussing technology and its impact on experience and service; from your employee training to automation to the robots taking over, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the comments that Adam and Jeannie receive the most about the podcast is that people like the banter, the personal stories and the fun! We thought the customer experience and customer service wisdom was the draw. Nope! It’s when Adam and Jeannie mess around! So they’ve decided that once a quarter, unless we get hate mail, they’re going to do a Bourbon Summit, in honor of the story that some of you may know, in which bourbon played a huge part in the birth of the podcast itself! As well as discussing which bourbon they’re drinking, Adam and Jeannie also discuss the great way some companies make their customers feel special by offering them exclusive brand experiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is all about showing up. We dive into a pretty interesting discussion about teamwork and leadership - and how that affects service. Listen as Ryan explains the inspiration behind his book title, Thanks For Coming In Today - and the reason why he still thanks employees for showing up every day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who owns what in an experience like travelling? The flying experience, TSA, the lines, the transportation within the terminal, the parking, etc? Adam and Jeannie talk about the forward-thinking Dallas Fort Worth airport, who actually have a customer service command center. This is for people who are working in all different areas of the airport, they all work together in this hub to make sure that they're prepared for various passenger situations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clarity is more important than we think. It’s an interesting topic because we don’t really talk about it because it has everything to do with the success of our business and our customers, so why don’t we talk about it more? We talk with Steve Woodruff about really understanding who we are and what we deliver and how to articulate that so others can articulate that for us. Steve comes at this topic through the lens of referrals. With the idea of having to be clear about yourself, your value, what you do and what you offer first, before others can be clear and refer you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeannie and Adam discuss how to use Customer Service Blueprinting to optimize all the working parts of your overall customer experience, and how Jeannie can train you on this amazing skill today! Fine-tune your customer experience delivery with customer service blueprinting We’ve talked a lot about customer journey mapping and other amazing tools on this show, so it’s time to talk about the next tool in your customer experience toolbox: Customer Service Blueprinting. Taking stock of your behind-the-scenes operations as they relate to the experience delivered is a powerful way to understand not only what’s happening in your customer service, but how it happens, who is accountable, and what needs to happen for the experience to run like a well-oiled machine. "Get that 3D perspective on what’s going on and how to deliver on it!” - Jeannie Walters Customer Service Blueprinting is an amazing way to make these observations and inform critical improvements, so Jeannie has decided to create a LinkedIn Learning

Jeannie and Adam welcome Dr. Thomas Hollmann of Arizona State University to tackle the customer experience education gap between academia and real-world business. Decoding Customer Experience Education for today’s business landscape Customer experience is now a critical focus in business today, so leaders have much to learn about. We learn from conferences, colleagues, webinars, blog posts, podcasts (a-hem!) and many other places. But what about academics? Most of us who have been in business for a number of years will tell you Customer Experience wasn’t much a part of our higher education, if at all. So, as we now have both feet in the Age of the Customer, what has academics done to adapt to this profound shift in focus around what it takes to be successful? Sadly, not much. And customers are not going to wait for your customer experience education to catch up. “Industry is struggling with and looking at totally different topics than the ones that we do when we go to academic conferences.” - Dr. Thomas

Adam and Jeannie discuss the rapid evolution of chatbots across industries and how to make the best decisions around existing and emerging chatbot technology. Chatbots are the new black Chatbots are taking the world by storm! They’ve made their way into foodservice, retail, SaaS, and more. Typically, we catch on pretty fast when interacting with a chatbot. But with Artificial Intelligence making leaps and bounds every day, that could be changing soon! “Our human assets are only as good as the intelligence and the information they have.” -Adam Toporek And it won’t be long before these amazing new capabilities enter the main stream. In fact, kind of technology is becoming more accessible and affordable to smaller companies every day. So, what about your company? To bot, or not to bot…that is the question! “It’s not just the one job or the one role…How does this fit into the journey? And what does this mean? What human controls do we need to put in?” -Jeannie Walters There’s no easy answer to this, but

Adam and Jeannie welcome renowned speaker and customer service video training pioneer Lisa Ford to discuss her time-tested approach to achieving customer service excellence. Unraveling the DNA of customer service excellence Great customer service is pleasant, satisfying, and possibly best of all, easy. So easy, in fact, that it may seem simple from the outside. But from the inside, achieving that level of customer service excellence is anything but simple. So, how do the companies known for great service do this? Moreover, how can you achieve customer service excellence for your organization? “Your customer experience is truly a reflection of your culture." -Lisa Ford Lisa Ford has helped some of the best companies in the world achieve outstanding customer service. In fact, she is a pioneer in the video customer service training industry, and she shared her time-tested approach to help you compete on customer service in today’s highly-competitive marketplace. “When you ask where we’re hard to do busi

Jeannie Walters CCXP explains how to find and leverage key moments that are typically overlooked, but have a great emotional impact on how customers perceive and remember the customer journey. Are you aware of the key moments in your customer journey? Are you focused on the customer journey? I mean REALLY focused? Most business leaders say they are, but few dive deep enough to uncover the commonly overlooked moments that can punctuate an otherwise great experience with negative emotions. On the other hand, these moments have the potential to delight customers and make a positive impression they’ll remember and talk about. So when you think of customer experience on this scale, the customer journey is filled with these moments. How do you find them? How do you know if they matter? More importantly, how can you make them painless, then take the extra step to make them special? “If your environment is off, so is your Customer Experience” -Jeannie Walters Jeannie has been recognized as the authority on Mic

In this powerful interview, globally recognized author Scott McKain shares the secrets behind brands and leaders who go beyond differentiation to become iconic. Does your brand stand out in meaningful ways? Everyone knows iconic brands like Apple, Amazon, and Porsche. They stand out in ways that not only differentiate them from competitors, but make them iconic. But these brands only represent a fraction of those who struggle to make their mark. Is your brand one of them? “Sometimes we need something to shake us up to move us to where we need to be.” -Scott McKain Being different is one thing, but differentiating in ways that have powerful meaning to customers is another thing entirely. It’s not a simple thing that can happen by introducing some gimmick or flashy design. And it’s not something you can come up with by simply researching your competition. It is a delicate and often risky matter with lots of things to consider. In fact, it sends many brands in the wrong direction, and leaves others frozen

Adam and Jeannie discuss how to prevent valuable knowledge from leaving your company along with superstar employees who are ready to move on. Employee turnover is at an all-time high, so there’s lots of advice out there (and in previous episodes of Crack the Customer Code!) about how to keep employees happy and motivated. But whether you like it or not, some of your best people will still leave you. It’s frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking when your superstars resign, but the financial cost of employee turnover can be staggering. In fact, when an employee leaves, the turnover costs can be between 150% and 250% of their annual salary. Wow.  But here’s the thing: A good part of those costs go into training replacements, and it can be a long, slow, expensive crawl to stardom. “What are some of the ways you can stop that knowledge, experience and talent from walking out with your superstars?” -Jeannie Walters But you can cut these costs considerably simply by retaining the knowledge those employees wou

Renowned speaker and author Mark Sanborn shares his leadership wisdom to inspire every employee to deliver extraordinary customer experiences, every time. Leadership is not just for leaders...or followers! Leadership has always been a tricky subject, but being a customer-centric leader today is not for the weak of heart. Just knowing what needs to be done and telling your people to do it is far from enough. In fact, leading this way leads to disengaged employees, high turnover, and ultimately, poor customer experiences. “Indifference is the number one killer of relationships.” -Mark Sanborn Great customer experiences come from a team that not only knows what to do and how, but why. They know it’s not about what happens in the customer journey, but how the customer feels about it. And they need to be empowered to take the lead on behalf of customers positive emotions highlight the experience, no matter what. This is how extraordinary customer experiences are created from ordinary roles! “You don’t mana

Adam and Jeannie kick off 2019 with some of the best resolutions you can make to continuously improve customer experience and customer service all year long. Are you ready to kick off a customer-focused new year? We made it to 2019. Yippee! We had a long, much-needed break, but we’re so glad to be back. And what better way is there to start the new year than to make meaningful resolutions? Perhaps you’ve already made your resolutions about eating healthier and actually using that gym membership, but we’re here to talk about improving your customer experience as part of your strategy for business success. “Our resolutions are all about customer experience and customer service.” -Adam Toporek So what should you resolve to do for your customers in 2019? Adam Toporek and Jeannie Walters are two of the most recognized and respected names in customer experience and customer service, and they’re here to help you hit the ground running. Not only have they shared some of the most important resolutions you can m

Jeannie and Adam uncover the science behind consistently great customer service with Mark Colgate, author of The Science of Service. Get customer service down to a science The problem with customer service is not making it great, but making it consistently great. It is impossible to make people do, think and feel the same things. What is great for one customer may be terrible for the next, or simply may not work out the same way in every situation. So how can we know our service is always great for every customer? And more importantly, how do we hold employees accountable for this? “You can't tell someone they are accountable. They will reject that." -Mark Colgate However impossible this may sound, Mark Colgate, Ph.D has it down to a science! In fact, his latest book is all about how you can take a scientific approach to delivering consistently great customer service. “There’s a really clear science to service.” -Mark Colgate This episode is chock-full of actionable highlights from Mark’s book, the

Jeannie and Adam dust off the crystal ball and have some fun bringing you their expert customer experience predictions for 2019. What are our top predictions for 2019? It’s that time of year again, when we look back at the year behind us and speculate about what’s to come. It’s been an amazing year for trends in business technology, organizational leadership, and customer expectations, so where are we headed based on these?  Here’s a peek at what we’re talking about: 1. Artificial experiences get real Artificial Intelligence has made leaps and bounds in 2018, but we’re not quite ready to let the machines take the wheel in most cases. Is that about to change? We see some exciting things about to happen! 2. Whose role is it anyway? More companies have created executive roles focused on customers, and for the most part, we think that’s a good thing. On the other hand, some have not done a great job at defining those roles. How can leaders avoid creating more of the interdepartmental friction and other sid

Jay Baer enlightens us with his powerful and proven approach to strategically creating, controlling and measuring word of mouth with key takeaways from his new book, Talk Triggers. Create amazing word of mouth ON PURPOSE with Talk Triggers When it comes to marketing, nothing is more cost-effective than word of mouth. However, we tend to think of word of mouth as organic. We assume it’s something we can’t predict, measure, and control. Maybe you get lucky, and maybe you don't. But what if you could get customers talking on purpose, in ways that are predictable and quantifiable? "Word of mouth influences between 50 and 90 percent of all purchases.” -Jay Baer Together with co-author Daniel Lemin, today’s guest Jay Baer has written the book on strategically creating and controlling word of mouth for your brand. It’s called Talk Triggers, and not only do we love this book, but we had the privilege of interviewing Jay to bring you some of the biggest takeaways! In this interview, Jay explains not just why

Jeannie and Adam riff not only on the current state of airline customer experience, but how some airlines are working (or not working) to consider the experience as part of their value proposition. Let's talk about the airline customer experience  Our hosts spend LOTS of time on airplanes, so they can’t help but keep an eye on the industry and make observations about the experiences delivered. But even if you don’t travel as much as Adam and Jeannie, the travel industry is loaded with examples of how customer experience is becoming very much a part of the value proposition.  In this episode, we discuss several of the changes that are happening in the airline industry today, along with some changes many of us are crying for.  While pricing is often relative to experience, that’s not always the case! Could the restrooms get even smaller? Why, yes they can! In fact, it is happening. But why? If there’s one thing about the airline customer experience that could give Jeannie PTSD, it’s this… Customer Expe