The Customer Experience Podcast

Acquisitions are often times of stress and disruption, to say the least.   Our most recent podcast guest casts new light on one of my favorite themes — that a good employee experience is a necessary precursor to a good customer experience — from the perspective of acquisitions and mergers.   In this episode, I interview Isabelle Papoulias, CMO at Mediafly, about her 3 tips for a smooth acquisition process.    Isabelle talked about:   - Customer experience means delight & consistency   - Her double acquisition story   - Top 3 lessons, including checking your biases   - Her role transitions from Sales Director to VP of Marketing to CMO   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

To celebrate the 100th episode of The Customer Experience Podcast, I decided to make you an Epic Takes Mixtape.   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 Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share 10 amazing clips about being a better human.    In this episode, you’ll hear from these 10 guests:   - Joey Coleman, author of Never Lose a Customer Again   - David Cancel, founder and CEO of Drift   - Levi Ayriss, VP of Northwest Field Operations at Dutch Bros Coffee   - Paula Hayes, founder, President, and CEO of Hue Noir Cosmetics    - Mat Sweezey, Director of Market Strategy at Salesforce   - Gil Cohen, Founder of Employee Experience Design   - Rachel Ostrander, Director of Runner Experience at Brooks Running   - Sangram Vajre, cofounder and Chief Evangelist at Terminus   - Darin Dawson, cofounder and President at BombBomb   - Todd Hockenberry, sales consultant, advisor, and coach at Top Line Results and coauthor of Inbound Organization   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

The CX gap is a misalignment between CX and the C-Suite… and it’s the major reason that CX programs fail.   Why? Failure to make the data relevant.   In this episode, I interview Ian Luck, VP of Global Marketing at CustomerGauge, about bridging the CX gap and making customer-centric decisions based on accurate CX data.   In this episode, you’ll learn about...   - What lies at the heart of the CX gap   - The 3 biggest CX mistakes (long surveys, ROI, & data distribution)   - Achieving alignment between C-suite & CX   - The NPS & CX Benchmarks Report   Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:   - CustomerGage’s 2018 NPS® & CX Benchmarks Report Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play,or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

Cannabis dispensaries, being designated essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, have had to pivot how they interact with customers. From online delivery to seed-to-sale tracking, businesses in the cannabis, hemp, and CBD space care deeply about providing a customer experience that is, above all, transparent.   In this episode, I interview Nina Simosko, Chief Commercial Officer at Akerna, about transparency in the customer experience for cannabis dispensaries.   Listen in as Nina and I discuss…   - Why the trend toward transparency is here to stay   - How Akerna came to receive inquiries about garbanzo beans and leafy greens   - How to adapt culturally to pandemic-based challenges in the employee experience   - What the role of a Chief Commercial Officer is   - What Nina learned in large companies that serves her well today   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

User experience refers to how a human interacts with a computer (also known as human-computer interaction or HCI).   Within the last 20 years, user experience has completely recontextualized customer experience because so many of the touchpoints humans have with businesses are, well, digital.   In this episode, I interview Bob Berry, Principal User Experience Researcher at AnswerLab, about the ins and outs of UX.   You’ll hear Bob & I discuss…   - How UX drives all the business outcomes we can imagine   - Who has the gold standard of UX   - What the UX is like at an all-virtual construction company   - 3 fantastic cautions about sensitive areas of being contactless   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

Customer experience is the emotions that a customer feels about your organization. The gateway to strengthening the positive emotions of your consumers is great storytelling.   In this episode, I interview Michael Ashford, Director of Marketing at The Receptionist, about the importance of storytelling in marketing.   Listen to Michael and I discuss...   - What it means to build heroic content   - Dos and don’ts of marking using car commercial examples   - Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand   - How storytelling begins with intentional listening   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

Customer experience is created when 5 elements work in concert: intention, investment, invention, inspection, and iterations.   Each one of these elements has a different type of influence over customer experience as well as leadership and employee engagement. What are they and how do they work together?   In this episode, I interview Jim Rembach, the host of the Fast Leader Podcast and the B2B Digital Marketer Podcast, President at Influence to Action, and Founder at Call Center Coach, about employee engagement and emotional intelligence.   In this episode, you’ll learn about...   - The 5 I’s (Intention, Investment, Invention, Inspection, Iteration)   - How we ruin incredible individual contributors by promoting them   - Difference management is different than diversity   - The 7 aspects of employee engagement & how that circles back to emotional intelligence   Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:   - MHS - Multi-HealthSystems   - Dr. Steven Stein (MHS)   - Jim Harter (Gallup) “It’s The Manager”   - DDI - Development Dimensions International   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

Please email me about this podcast. I would truly love to hear from you.   I’m not kidding. My email is ethan@bombbomb.com.   I’m Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share what I’ve learned from podcast guests about customer feedback.   What you’ll hear about:   - How to make the bad good & the good better   - Why I value customer feedback so highly   - Sources of customer feedback that you might have overlooked   - Episodes that focus specifically on handling feedback   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

To be a good community builder, you have to leverage strategy. Building a community gives businesses and organizations not only a thriving group of customer advocates but also a space to listen to and test out new ideas about the service or product.    But there’s an art to taking the customer experience from ‘I have a problem’ to ‘I am now an advocate of this platform.’   In this episode, I interview Joe Huber, Customer Community Strategist at Sprout Social, about 3 best practices of a great community builder.   What we talked about:   - The relationship between customer experience & community   - Practice 1: Build thriving spaces where people ask questions about the product with one another   - Practice 2: Leverage the spaces to test out new content ideas & themes   - Practice 3: Layer community members’ public feedback into the product design   - Bonus: Common problems in client community building   Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:   - Joe is a fellow podcast host at the Chicago Customer Success Podcast   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

What’s a ghost kitchen & why will we be seeing more of them in the next 12 months?    Among the industries that have adapted the most during the pandemic are restaurants and commercial real estate owners (and in a fight, restaurants would win). We have much to learn about CX from their innovations.   In this episode, I interview Alex Grace, Head of Market Sales and Operations at Fooda, about adaptability and innovation in restaurants.   We talked about:   - The impact of safety restrictions on restaurants & corporate offices   - What a ghost kitchen is   - New dining trends & customer behaviors   - What restaurants can do now to meet customer expectations for adaptability   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Play, and find more episodes on our blog.