Would Recommend: Real Stories From Businesses Worth Talking About with Nikki McKnight

Most founders spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract the right clients but very few spend time thinking about whether the right clients can actually find them.  Nikki sits down with two brand photographers who have cracked that problem wide open, and what they know about making your personality visible, communicating before anxiety sets in, and designing an experience that filters for f...

Nikki hates board games. The rulebook comes out, the energy dies, and the fun sits three feet away behind a wall of logistics. Except once: a Pokémon card game showed up at Christmas and broke every rule she thought was inevitable and it quietly changed how she thinks about client experience design. What you'll hear in this episode: Why the Pokémon Battle Academy box is one of the best exampl...

Every service business owner has felt it: you do the work, the client is thrilled, and six months later it's like you were never there. Nikki sits down with two professional organizers: Brittnei Gaudio of wellnested living Co. and AnnMarie Zezima of Organized A to Z Inc. The two of them have spent years solving exactly that problem inside people's homes. The principles they've built...

Two years ago I walked into a steakhouse for my birthday and walked out with a story I apparently cannot stop telling.  This episode is that story, and more importantly, it's layers of surprise and delight that we can take into our own businesses.  None of this costs a lot. All of it requires a decision. What you'll hear in this episode: The specific moment at Fleming's Prime Steakh...

Scope creep. Client reliance. The quiet chaos of selling a service to a human being who doesn't always know what they want. Call them agency problems if you want, but if you've ever said yes to something and spent three weeks wondering why, this conversation is for you.  Andréa Jones and Natalia Kaplan have both built agencies from the ground up, blown past their own limits, and come out...

There is a 1970s children's television show that had a more rigorous empathy standard than most businesses apply to their client communication. And the test its head writer used on every single sentence before it could air is one of the most useful frameworks Nikki has ever brought into a client engagement. What you'll hear in this episode: How the Mr. Rogers' writing team stress-te...

What does it mean to design something a customer will hold in their hands every single day?  Nikki sits down with two founders who built physical products rooted in confidence, clarity, and self-belief, and who both obsess over the experience long after the order ships. What you'll hear in this episode: The story behind the pink metallic envelope, and why Lisa gets unboxing videos from custom...

This is the first episode of Would Recommend, and Nikki is starting here on purpose: because customer experience is one of the most used and least understood terms in business, and getting it wrong is quietly costing founders more than they realize. What you'll hear in this episode: Why customer experience and customer service are not the same thing, and why that confusion is where most found...

Some businesses get reviewed. Others get raved about. Would Recommend goes behind the five stars with the founders who earned them. I'm Nikki McKnight, CX and operations strategist and the host of this show. Every week, I sit down with founders who built something worth talking about and get into the real decisions behind it. What they designed on purpose, what broke, what they rebuilt. The t...