The Customer Experience Podcast

Have you ever noticed that many B2B websites are good at educating but bad at transacting? Do you recognize that even buyers of complex solutions across longer sales cycles still expect a B2C-type customer experience? Today's guest, Samantha Stone, the author of Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook That Drives Sales, has built her career at the intersection of sales and marketing. In this episod...

Businesses that have historically been built face to face. Personally. Even working by referral only. That’s what we’re exploring today with our guest - a sales and marketing leader who’s done e-commerce and digital marketing work for Fortune 500 level brands and who’s developed a deep expertise in the real estate and prop-tech industries. Ethan speaks with Rivers Pearce, Chief Marketing Officer a...

Trust is the currency of sales. Where there’s more trust there are more sales. And trust is the result of selling from the heart. In a world of empty suits, today’s guest is leading a movement of authenticity, integrity, and trust inside the sales profession. Larry Levine is the bestselling author of Selling from the Heart , co-host of the Selling from the Heart Podcast and a speaker, coach, and t...

When it comes to building communities, many marketers are stricken with questions and fear — What if you lose control of the community? What happens when you no longer control the narrative? What will become of the unknown? On this episode, we’re joined by Mark Schaefer , Marketing Strategist, Author, Professor and Keynote Speaker . In his recent book, Belonging to the Brand, Mark breaks past thes...

What’s the key to success in building a relationship- and referral-based business? Getting to the heartbeat behind the spreadsheet. Connecting with the people behind the numbers. That’s fundamental to the approach of today’s guest, who’s been a sales leader for home builders for years. Amer Syed has served at Century Communities, Toll Brothers, Shea Homes, and Meritage, before recently joining Bea...

In this episode, Ethan shares the results of a 90-day process that added video messages to a team of sales producers, resulting in a 65% improvement in lead conversion. He discusses the challenges of adapting to this change in behavior and how BombBomb, with the help of its customers, co-created a software solution to solve these challenges. The solution included reviewing the team's sequences and...

Experience and Digital Banking at Busey, an organization recently honored as one of America’s Best Banks by Forbes and one of the Best Banks to Work For by American Banker. With 15 years of experience in the financial services sector, Caitlin brings a wealth of knowledge on customer experience and digital transformation. This conversation centers around: Why customer experience is not a “nice to h...

In this episode, we delve into the meaning and importance of customer experience, and how it fits into the larger picture of sales strategy. We also discuss the unique approach of selling a person rather than a product, and the role of trust and confidence in building successful business partnerships. We explore the world of customer experience with Shannan Berry, Vice President of CX and Sales St...

The power of clarity represents your greatest untapped opportunity for achieving greater results with increased confidence and commitment — this is the message of today’s guest in her book, The Power of Clarity. She’s also the author of Uncommon Meetings , The Disconnect Principle , and The Clarity Papers . This episode features Ann Latham, President of Uncommon Clarity . She’s on a mission to fig...

Creating superfan customers should be a top priority for every businessperson and every brand today … but superfans can’t be bought - they can only be created. And they’re created at the intersection of your story - and every customer’s story. These are some of the key themes in a highly recommended new read,Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates. Today’s guest is t...

To celebrate 200 episodes of the podcast, we created the EX Takes Mixtape - 12 top employee experience moments from episodes 101-199. Hear EX-themed highlights with these guests of The Customer Experience Podcast: Stacy Sherman , VP of Agent and Customer Experience at Liveops Brittany Hodak , Keynote Speaker, Author, and Superfan Strategist Elizabeth Dixon , Speaker on Strategy, Innovation, and CX...

To celebrate the first 100 episodes of the podcast, I created the Epic Takes Mixtape - 10 human-centered and human-first moments. I watched every video clip from the first 99 episodes and selected 10 that I thought were transcendent. They reach beyond the day-to-day and speak to our humanity, our goals, and our dreams. I’m Ethan Beute , Chief Evangelist at BombBomb , host of The Customer Experienc...

“What PR clients are really seeking is credibility. They are seeking authority. They are seeking third-party validation. Ultimately, they are seeking one thing above all else: Trust. Brands need to be trusted in the marketplace, or they won’t be able to grow.” That quote comes from the intro of a new book titled TRUST Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World The author of that book and our gu...

In search of business intelligence and GTM insights, we look to our customers and to our customer data. But today’s guest shares with us a critical and untapped resource: our frontline team members. Learn how to better understand customer value by engaging your employees on the topic. Our guest is Chris Wallace, the Co-founder and President of Innerview Group, an internal brand consultancy that he...

This episode centers around brand and trust with trust expert Kurt Bartolich, Founder of BrandCertain and trust expert Cory Scheer, Founder of Trust Centric Consulting. Kurt and Cory teamed up on a national research project exploring trust and relationships between employees and their leadership and companies. The research also included data on trust between customers and brands. They joined Ethan...

Evolving from outbound telemarketer to EVP of Sales and business coach, integrating tools and tech stacks through a merger of two companies, tracing every relationship back to one relationship are a few places we’ll go today with the Executive Vice President of OVM Financial, now powered by Annie Mac Home Mortgage For multiple years in a row, OVM has earned a spot on the Inc 5000 list of the faste...

“Certain words are used in business so thoughtlessly that they have become devoid of meaning: Authentic. Real. Transparent. And there is no one I trust more to rescue them than Todd Caponi.” Those words are from Ethan Zoubek, CRO at Atari. And he shared these words about a fantastic book titled “The Transparent Sales Leader: How the Power of Sincerity, Science, and Structure Can Transform Your Sal...

CX isn’t just a feel-good function - even if feelings are its foundation. We invest in customer experience to improve business outcomes. This includes lowering the cost of acquisition, improving activation and engagement, increasing retention and expansion and more. In short: we invest in CX to grow revenue. This episode's guest is Vaishali Dialani, Customer Experience Analyst at Konabos Consultin...

Two currencies drive the economy - our dollars and our emotions. What we feel always drives our behavior. That’s because more than 95% of our mental activity is sensory and emotive - NOT rational So we must put a renewed focus on Emotional Intelligence in a business framework. Not only is it important to brush up on the basics but be willing to delve deeper into and work on your EQ. This episode f...

“While the customer’s preference for the status quo is, no doubt, a significant obstacle that every salesperson must overcome if they wish to sell anything, there is a second, more challenging obstacle that remains even after the status quo has been defeated: the customer’s own inability to make a decision.” That quote is pulled from the introduction to The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcom...

According to a recent McKinsey & Company report, 71% of consumers expect personalization and 76% get frustrated when they don’t find it. Like it or not, personalization is a norm and it’s here to stay. So it’s key that marketers learn how to make that personalization meaningful, In this solo episode, Ethan walks through a real A/B test which added personalization yielded lower touchpoints to a pro...

“Customers don’t care about organizational structures or silos. They care about the value they’re receiving. To customers, it’s all one service and one experience.” That quote comes from a recent whitepaper about improving CX and EX written by today’s guest.   Justin Zalewski spent a decade with Studio Science, a design and innovation agency that helps businesses design for people and that helps d...

Did you know that in most cases, the top 20% of a company’s customers tend to deliver the vast majority of their revenue? In Today’s episode, Ethan speaks with Ali Cudby Co-Founder & CEO at CXology and Alignmint Growth Strategies. Ali is the author of multiple books including: Keep Your Customers: How to Stop Customer Turnover, Improve Retention and Get Lucrative, Long-Term Loyalty This episode co...

An Executive Vice President of Sales, the owner of an apartment syndication business, the owner of co-working spaces, the CEO at an insurance company, a business and sales production coach, a top 1% mortgage originator, and a firefighter … literally.    Today’s guest has been all of these things and more. And most of them right now - all at the same time.  Hear our conversation with Shane Kidwell,...

An effective story can be a creative way to communicate your brand’s identity and company’s purpose. If you think you aren’t a storyteller, it may be time to change that narrative (pun intended).   Hear our conversation with Anna Marie Pryor, Director of Marketing at Alameda Mortgage Corporation. We discuss:   How she defines customer experience  Who her ideal customer is and what problems she sol...