Ep. 256: Mike Milliron | "We Made It Cool to Care": From CX Resistance to Results

Episode 256: What turns CX skeptics into advocates? A listening engine that makes caring for those you serve the gold standard.

At IMG Academy, a private sports academy and boarding school in Florida, Chief Operating Officer Mike Milliron led the launch of a centralized experience team. "Not interested," said everyone from athletics, academics, athletic development, and student life. Why? IMG Academy's culture initially prized local control. "Owners of experience," says Mike, is how teams saw themselves.

Mike and his team persisted. They built a real-time listening program with trusted access and immediate visibility so coaches, teachers, and staff could act on feedback. The centralized team partnered across athletics, academics, athletic and personal development, and student life to align fixes and remove friction for frontline work.

Results followed: NPS rose for parents and students. Re-enrollment increased. Earned growth forecasts climbed.

"It made their jobs easier," explains Mike. "But also, it helped them get to the end result they want: delivering an unrivaled experience for students."

Guest: Mike Milliron, Chief Operating Officer, IMG Academy

Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company

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Time-Stamped Topics:

• 00:01 — Who owns experience on a campus built on silos
• 00:04 — Non-negotiables like culture change and real listening access
• 00:05 — Mission UCX prioritizes caring for those they serve
• 00:06 — Early financial signals drove re-enrollment to tick up
• 00:07 — Standing up CX and a listening program spanning multiple verticals
• 00:08 — Value lands when CX makes people's jobs easier
• 00:09 — New games unlocked by data and insight loops
• 00:11 — Rapid-fire takes on popular CX buzzwords

Time-Stamped Quotes:

• [09:00] "The most difficult part was trying to figure out how it was actually going to work. Once we got it up and got it moving and realized the value right away, it became one of the smartest decisions, and it made people's jobs easier."
• [9:00] "We introduced a listening program. We introduced a dedicated team to work across verticals. [It was about] just the cultural component of A) getting that team in place, and then B) trying to figure out how do we actually best navigate what's been in place for the previous 35 years—and some muscles that have been built—in a trustworthy way and in a way that people wanted to engage."
• [06:00] "We're starting to see customer experience and NPS go up across parents, students, and essentially all of our experiences in our product lines. We're also seeing employee experience go up, which is super important—that's helped with retention and workplace satisfaction."
• [10:00] "We have different opportunities to actually understand how to drive value and impact. And we're just like, 'Oh my gosh, we never would've thought that we're able to do this.' And how it then ties back to a retention strategy or to a new product or new experience that we want to launch. So, it'sfun to actually see those things come to life."

Resources

"A New Playbook" (Episode 230 with former IMG Academy president, Tim Pernetti)