14. Automation, AI, and Human Relationships with Samantha Stone

If you think a checked box on a survey or net promoter score is an accurate customer satisfaction metric, you’re in trouble. So says Samantha Stone, the founder and CMO of the Marketing Advisory Network. She's the author of Unleash Possible: A Marketing Playbook That Drives Sales, and a regular conference speaker. Stone has worked in marketing, product marketing, partner marketing, and brings a great wealth of experience to this podcast. Abstractly speaking, customer experience is any interaction between a brand/vendor and buyers, prospects, or customers. It can involve placing an order, or taking receipt of a delivered item. It could be a conversation, or an event one attended. There's a second definition in many organizations. Because those interactions happen in so many different places, they create a function that is responsible for the intersection of customers across different touch points. That's really important because otherwise you see inconsistent interactions. Sales operates differently than marketing, which operates differently than support, which operates differently than order fulfillment, etc.