The Modern Customer Podcast

Walking into a Krispy Kreme store hits all the senses—the smell of fresh donuts, watching the donuts come off the line, and the taste and feel of fresh donuts.   But modern customers crave convenience, especially during a pandemic. How do you translate that same in-store experience to a digital strategy?   Dave Skena, Krispy Kreme CMO , said that the move to digital and changing customer expectati...

For decades, Net Promoter Score or NPS has been the gold standard for measuring the success of CX efforts.   But its creator says the metric has been co-opted and is misused by too many companies. The most successful way to use NPS going forward is to combine with a new metric for CX success.    Fred Reichheld says the crux of NPS is that every time you touch a life, you either enrich it or dimini...

Effective customer experience strategies happen when C-level leaders drive change and create a customer-focused mindset. In most companies, this includes the CEO, CMO, and Chief Experience Officer.   But there's also another crucial role to consider: Chief Revenue Officer.   Frank Boulben, Chief Revenue Officer at Verizon Wireless, views his role as collaborating across the company to set customer...

Today's customers don't want to wait.   We're in a society where customers expect things right away. Sending an email and waiting days for a response or having to sit on hold for hours is no longer acceptable. Customers want to get the help, service, and products they need without waiting.   As customers experience instant gratification from some companies, they come to expect it from all companie...

With changing customer trends and demands on top of global supply chain disruption and a pandemic, retailers have had to continually pivot over the last few years. One of the best ways to survive the changes is with a mobile, social and digital-first strategy.   When Alicia Waters stepped into her current role as CMO of Crate & Barrel, she pushed to optimize the brand's mobile presence and create...

How do you create a customer-centric company, especially when your job is to help other companies be customer-centric? According to Pega President of Global Field Operations Hayden Stafford , it's all about putting the customer at the center of absolutely everything you do.   Customer-centricity has never been more important, but what customers are looking for is changing. Stafford says the two bi...

For decades, companies built brands by interrupting customers. It was the 30-second ads that interrupted a person's TV watching, the banner ad that interrupted their internet browsing, or the commercial that interrupted their streaming show.   But those days are over, says Jeff Rosenblum, co-founder of Questus . Companies need to move towards empowering their customers instead of interrupting them...

How do customers come to form a sense of who they are?   Brands often focus on loyalty, but much of that loyalty was thrown out the window during the pandemic as customers reevaluated their priorities and tried new products and services.   But even with turmoil and change, some customers stayed loyal to their favorite brands. The difference in these levels of loyalty often comes back to identity l...

Today's customers expect brands to remember their likes and dislikes, which means personalization is table stakes, especially in e-commerce.   Delivering a solid personalization experience starts by leveraging customer data to understand their needs and preferences and adjust the experience in real-time.   Julie Penzotti, principal data scientist at Zulily , says the company collects more than 5 b...

Companies have two choices when it comes to customer pain: hide from it or embrace it. Nate Henderson, CEO of BILT , chooses to feel customer pain and use it as a driving force behind creating an amazing experience. That mindset and customer focus is a large reason BILT has seen consistent triple-digit growth in the last few years.   BILT was created to address a common customer pain point: assemb...

With its stylish and comfortable shoes and bags made out of recycled plastic water bottles, Rothy's bridges the gap between fashion and sustainability. But it has also tapped into the holy grail of customer experience: word-of-mouth marketing.   Rothy's shoes were originally designed for women on the go who needed comfortable shoes that were still stylish. Many Rothy's customers share similar stor...

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is one of the most widely used customer experience metrics across all industries. But according to its creator, Fred Reichheld, countless companies are doing it wrong and end up abusing the system.   The Net Promoter System involves asking a simple question to customers, typically after an interaction with a brand—how likely are you to recommend the brand or company to...

Every day, we text to communicate and quickly share news and questions with our family and friends.   Why can't contacting a brand be that simple?   That's the question that caused Mike Myer to create the digital CX company Quiq . As CEO , Myer has a unique view of the future of conversational AI and its power to transform customer experience. Conversational AI allows customers to chat with human...

Customer expectations have changed over the past 18 months of a pandemic, leaving brands with the challenge of pivoting and adapting not only to a new way of living and working but also to a new way of interacting with and serving customers.   Scott Finlow, CMO of PepsiCo Foodservice, has noticed two major trends during the pandemic. First is that people are looking forward to re-entering the worl...

The last nearly two years have been dominated by short-term thinking. With the pandemic and world changing so rapidly, most companies had to abandon long-term plans to focus on what's right ahead of them. In our personal lives, most of us are more focused on getting through the day than working towards our long-term plans.   Short-term thinking isn't bad, but according to Dorie Clark, author of Th...

To say the real estate market in 2021 is a wild ride would be an understatement.   Anyone who has looked at buying or selling a home recently can understand the roller coaster of emotions in this crazy climate.   But the ups and downs of real estate, especially in the current fast-moving state, require a special focus on relationships and customer experience.   According to Deanna Haas, SVP of cus...

The future of marketing is artificial intelligence.   But marketers are often faced with technical jargon and code instead of tactical ways to improve their strategies. Author and marketing professor Raj Venkatesan says marketers don't have to know how to code, but they do need to understand the concepts of AI to build smart strategies and deliver superior customer experiences.   In his new book,...

Like nearly everything else in the world, leadership has changed dramatically over the last 18 months. Leaders are now faced with a new set of priorities and challenges as they lead their organizations in a rapidly changing world and lead teams and customers who are facing struggles and changes of their own.   Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers and Impact Players , says that leaders who want to le...

Most people don't associate bridal stores with loyalty programs.   Especially in the middle of a global pandemic when most weddings were postponed or downsized.   But the David's Bridal loyalty program Diamond, launched in December 2020, is defying the odds and has already paid dividends with huge amounts of loyal and satisfied customers.   The program was created as part of David's Bridal's trans...

Undergoing a digital transformation is challenging enough, let alone in the wedding industry during a global pandemic.   When Jim Marcum became CEO of David's Bridal in 2019, he was tasked with turning around the 70-year-old company and creating innovative and personal experiences for modern brides. Much of that change has come in the form of a continued digital transformation.   Marcum started by...

Banking used to be a completely people-oriented business. Customers chose the bank that was closest to their neighborhood and went inside to interact with bankers for every transaction and question they had.   But now, what customers look for in a bank and how they interact with their money is changing. Customers now bank more digitally and want convenient technology-driven solutions. According to...

When it comes to marketing, word of mouth is considered the Holy Grail. There's nothing better for companies than customers sharing experiences and talking with family and friends.   And that often comes from customer experience efforts, not traditional marketing campaigns. Dan Gingiss, author of The Experience Maker and Winning at Social Customer Care , says that CX and marketing are coming close...

It's been a long 18 months of pandemic life, and customers are feeling the stress and fatigue of constant uncertainty and chaos. They are yearning for a break and a chance to feel calm and normal.  But when they try to escape with a night out or a trip, they're met with disappointing service.    Companies have to stop using COVID as an excuse for bad service. That's especially true in industries l...

If you ask customers if they want to talk to a bot, most people would likely say no. For years, bots have gotten a bad rap for their nonsensical answers and inability to understand.    But if you ask customers if they want to get correct answers quickly, they would likely all say yes. Modern bots are one of the best and most scalable ways to offer faster, correct service. According to Ben Rigby, V...

The past 18 months have brought unthinkable tragedies and uncertainty to the entire world and changed how most people live, work and interact with companies.   But according to Jon Picoult , author of From Impressed To Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans , out of every crisis comes opportunity. Even with the chaos and uncertainty, there are opportunities...