The Modern Customer Podcast

Things in the world of customer experience are constantly changing, and the CIO is no exception. Instead of simply sitting back and waiting for things to happen, today's CIO plays a more proactive role in finding forward-thinking solutions for the company. That's according to Jason Richard, CIO of Lucky Brand. While the old CIO position may have been limited to the technology side of the business, Jason is involved in many facets of the organization as he looks for ways things can run more smoothly, be more efficient, and leverage new technology. This is incredibly important in customer experience as modern customers demand a consistent, tech-based experience. Even something as seemingly simple as offering free WiFi in stores can utilize new technology and greatly improve the customer experience. As more customers take their shopping online, the CIO plays a large role in making sure customers have a consistent experience no matter where they are shopping and that they don't see any barriers between shopping location. In Lucky's case, customers could be on the website, in a dedicated Lucky store, or at a partner department store, so Jason and his team ensure the technology is the same and that employees can provide customers with the products they need. This includes making sure the company has the best technology to track inventory, accept payments, and communicate with customers. If a customer purchased a product online but wanted to return it in store, as is very common in today's world, the company needs to have the right technology to make that transaction possible. Without proper systems and employee training, customers could be left with a frustrating situation and no way to change it. The CIO's job is to deliver on capabilities to make the customer experience great. The role of the CIO has already changed, and it will continue to evolve as technology and the customer experience changes. The focus going forward isn't simply on making sure computers work and the lights stay on, but rather on delivering on ROI and using technology to make a strategic impact in the company. CIOs can't sit back and wait for other business leaders to come to them with needs of the organization—they must get enough pull behind them that they can innovate and proactively put the right technology in place to drive the organization forward and build a strong customer relationship. In order to do that, CIOs need to be aware of their business, the industry, and the latest technology. In a world filled with evolving technology, customers expect a strong tech-based experience. The CIO can implement changes to greatly improve the customer experience and stay ahead of the technology curve.

Wells Fargo, a company that recently created its first chatbot, shares insights on the benefits of chatbots for businesses. They discuss how chatbots offer self-service with a conversational interface and the potential for a higher level of customer experience. The podcast also covers topics such as the rise of social media in customer service, the importance of security and encryption technologies in chatbot development, collaboration between marketing and customer service on social media, and the future of AI in customer transactions.

It used to be that customer experience took place in person or when a customer called a support line; however, the interactions of today's modern customer are much more digital, meaning there is a huge need for a technology stack to drive a strong customer experience. According to David Rowley, CTO of IAC Publishing Labs, customer-driven technology can make a huge difference within an organization, but it also needs to be thought through so that it is strategic and efficient. Many companies build with themselves in mind instead of their customers, but forward-thinking organizations with the best customer experiences put themselves in the shoes of the customer and think about how their customers interact with the brand. By breaking down the interaction into every touch point, companies can focus on the technology that will best meet the needs of the customer and the goals of the company. The key to a strong technology stack is to make a seamless experience for the customer. Although internally things might be divided amongst various teams and apps, the customer should be able to have the same experience no matter if they are communicating with a brand on social media, browsing products online, or calling in with a question after making a purchase. Many companies focus solely on the discovery phase of the customer journey when customers are choosing which product to buy and doing their research. While that part is incredibly important and is often what drives customer growth, it shouldn't be prioritized at the expense of the later customer stages. After a customer has purchased a product or chosen a service, they can be turned into powerful brand advocates and have the potential to build a strong relationship with the brand. These customers can turn into a valuable tool for referrals and expanding a brand's message, but oftentimes the step is forgotten. Along each step of the customer journey, there should be systems in place that build connections between the brand and the customer and offer a personalized experience that customers will want to share. In order to be truly effective, brands need to combine systems of engagement, or the things they use to interact with customers, with systems of record, or the back-office programs that track customer information. Tying these systems together is critical to monitor and stay on top of the modern customer experience. One of the biggest challenges of the modern customer experience is integrating technology stacks that will last as technology changes and evolves. The key is to focus on the problem you are trying to solve and to understand how customers want to interact with the brand. Some brands have success going through a single stack provider, while others like to piece together services from a number of vendors; there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather each company needs to do what is best for their strategy. The key to staying ahead of the modern customer experience is understanding technology and how the right stack can help companies better understand and interact with customers.

Anyone who says it's a man's world clearly hasn't seen the impact women can have on customer experience. As more women flock to customer experience roles and opportunities and bring their unique perspectives and skillsets, it's becoming clearer that women are in a unique position to lead customer experience. According to Denise Lee Yohn, a brand-building expert with more than 25 years experience, women have unique points of view that lend themselves well to customer experience. Among those is the natural ability to be empathetic, which is especially important because customer experience really boils down to understanding the customer and what they want. Women can also stand out in a field of men, which gives them more opportunities to shine and share new ideas. As diversity and inclusion becomes a bigger focus at many organizations, not having women involved in customer experience makes companies seem out of touch. After all, women are half of the customer base, so leaving them out of the decision-making process could be disastrous. I interviewed Denise Lee Yohn on the modern customer podcast. Listen to it here. That's not to say that women don't face challenges in the customer experience space. Some women have to battle with being stereotyped, and not being thought of as credible. Many women suffer from imposter syndrome, at least as they move up in the leadership ranks. That means they don't feel as powerful as they seem and they must fake it until they make it. Society often tells women even in 2017 that their worth is based on their looks, rather than their mind and their work. When you look at the top of politics, of corporations, and even of keynote speaker line-ups, we still mostly see men. Where are the women? We are here, but we face many hurdles uphill, but must support each other in our effort to create more opportunities for women. Along with personal challenges, inside of corporate America there are challenges women face internally at companies. In many organizations, customer experience is divided across multiple departments, meaning that to truly make an impact, a woman has to be able to influence beyond her scope to people in other areas, and many organizations aren't currently set up for women to do that. In order to be most effective, many women rely on their content to override the prejudices and use a more logical and analytical approach when discussing customer experience with men. According to Denise, customer experience is very connected with employee experience—if employees don't understand or aren't motivated to deliver a good customer experience, it is much more likely that they won't. The most successful companies develop an internal culture that is aligned with their brand that then connects that to the customer experience by linking what customers need to what employees need. When employees are treated well and feel valued and connected to the brand, they are much more likely to share those experiences with customers. This strategy seems to work well with women, who often naturally like to make connections between groups and people. For a woman to break into the customer experience space, she must embrace her differences and channel that unique perspective into something that can contribute to the company. Being deliberate about your career and the skills needed to succeed can make a big difference. It may be an uphill battle, but women are making great progress in the customer experience space and proving they can connect with customers and drive results in a new way. Denise Lee Yohn is a fabulous speaker and thought leader and I had a wonderful time interviewing her for my show. She is an important voice to follow. Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, speaker and author of the book More Is More. Sign up for her newsletter here.

Sheryl Connelly is the in-house futurist for Ford Motor Company. You might be surprised to know she doesn't ever talk about cars. As futurist she says she often finds herself "in the role of the polite contrarian." If you listen to Sheryl, she's a wealth of knowledge about self-driving cars, to shifting gender roles, to how and why companies need to work on building trust with consumers. Her job involves playing the role of contrarian. At Ford she spends time asking her colleagues about their own assumptions around their work. And this is the role of the futurist, to pose possibilities and various scenarios around the future and what could be. Technology has sped up the rate of change and this is why the role of the futurist is more important than ever. "The reason we have so many futurists today is we have so much change happening so quickly. I need to put in the opposite vision just so you can entertain it," said Cheryl. Futurist As Storyteller Part of being a futurist is painting possible pictures of future scenarios. This role is part researcher, statistician but more importantly storyteller. As a storyteller you have the potential to tell an optimistic story of the future or a negative one. Sheryl said in our podcast, "If you're an optimist you have rose colored glasses. That includes economic growth, prosperity, improved quality for masses, education for all, disease and suffering eradicated. But you always have to compare it to the exact opposite." Sheryl is an optimist but does her best to stay neutral. She said, "It's much easier to imagine the many ways to things can go right than go wrong. The end game isn't to see who wins, but to see how expansive you can get with your thinking." Sheryl is very measured when she speaks about the future, even self-driving cars. When I asked her in our interview what impact the media hype has on the work at Ford around self-driving cars she said, "The media hype doesn't drive what Ford is doing. Ford has been working on autonomous vehicles for decades. The really big obstacle is the other stakeholders, barriers or hurdles. [For example] How do you resolve issues surrounding insurance, legislation, data privacy, protocol, partnerships with cities, infrastructures, public and private collaboration in place to monetize the infrastructure?" She added, "who should be in those discussions?" Self Driving Cars - The West Isn't Ready According to Ford the West isn't ready for self driving cars. The reason might surprise you. Ford did research in eight different countries around self-driving cars. What they found was 84% of people in India and 78% of people in China said they would drive self-driving cars. While in the US only 40% of people said they were ready for self-driving cars, and an even lower number for the UK. Sheryl said, "We didn't ask why, but our theory is that China and India have the most egregious congestion takes place, unimaginable for westerners to comprehend. In Beijing the average daily commute can be five hours a day. This isn't an infrastructure problem since in Beijing they have a highway 50 lanes wide. They suffered a traffic jam that lasted 12 days long." She believes that this is why in China an India people are ready for self-driving cars. You also have more fatalities because of cars. However the West is a different story. According to Sheryl in the West the car is an extension of personal identity – the car symbolizes freedom and independence. It's hard to give that up. She noted that autonomous vehicles could add to gridlock. In the podcast we talk about the 2017 Predicting The Future Report released by Ford. The research talks about building customer trust, the rising role of women in society and sustainability. The Rising Role Of Women We talk extensively in the podcast about the rising influence of women and Sheryl talks about how she presents these ideas to various teams at Ford. She said, "The rising influence of women is something we pay attention to." She illustrates to her team members who the rising influence of women impacts society in a variety of ways. "Let me show you how that's playing out in education, budget planning, board membership and company performance. Let me tell you what women are telling us about our cars. Let me tell you how women are responsible for 80% of household decision making. Let's look to other arenas for insights that might change the trajectory of our conversation," said Sheryl. Sheryl is very unique in her role as in-house futurist. You won't want to miss our conversation on the modern customer podcast. For more from Blake M

There's no doubt that technology is changing faster than ever before. At the heart of that in the business setting is marketing, which is becoming a driving force behind putting that new technology into action to reach out to customers and make sure a company is communicating in the right way. One of the biggest changes in the tech and marketing world is artificial intelligence, which will play a major role in the coming years. According to Morag Lucey, the CMO of Avaya, a modern CMO needs to understand all the intricacies of modern technology, including AI. That's because new technology changes the way marketers do their jobs—in order to truly be effective, they must really understand which technology is the most relevant and how it works. AI wasn't even on the radar of many marketers just a few years ago, and now it is one of the fastest-growing technologies. Staying on top of things is vital. The new generation in marketing means that the paradigm has shifted and now marketing is responsible for a larger portion of the pipeline. Technology requires companies to continually transform—what Avaya started out doing 100 years ago is now obsolete, meaning the company has had to transform and pivot many times since it was founded. Marketers are key in helping their company transform and in understanding how to change a company's identity through technology. Marketing really comes down to communication and making sure you are interacting with customers in the best way. As technology becomes more integral, the CMO, CIO, customer experience officer, and others all play a part in ensuring that the customer experience is seamless. Much of this will happen through machine learning and taking advantage of robots and AI to communicate with customers quickly and efficiently. One of Morag's biggest concerns with changing technology is how it affects the skillsets of employees. The entire discipline of marketing is changing, meaning it is more important than ever to have strong talent in an organization. Investing in employees to ensure they have the skills they need for the future is absolutely critical. Artificial intelligence will play a major role in marketing, which means having employees who can understand the process and visualize how to combine human interaction with machine learning will be huge. As for the future of marketing, Morag predicts that marketing will be the top revenue generator for companies within five years, meaning that now is the time to get a firm grasp on technology and how it can transform a company. AI and other technology is transforming how companies operate and market themselves. Leveraging that technology can make all the difference in a successful company that avoids getting disrupted.

It's an age-old marketing question: do you focus on all our customers or only target those who are most likely to drive results? According to Dr. Peter Fader, marketing professor at Wharton, and Tiffani Bova, global customer growth and innovation evangelist for Salesforce, the answer is simple: customer centricity. The idea behind customer centricity is to recognize that not all customers are created equal. Building on the differences in the customer base can be much more effective than simply using a blanket approach for all customers. By focusing on top customers and surrounding them with product recommendations and extra services, they can have an excellent experience and keep coming back for more. That's not to say that middle and lower-tier customers should be forgotten—effort should still be put into finding the right messages and products to appeal to them, but the focus should be on targeting the right products and messages to each customer group individually. In order to truly utilize customer centricity, a company should have a good idea of its brand and why it appeals to customers. Using the vast amount of data now available, teams can see what the customers bring to the brand and what the brand brings to the customers. By understanding what drives a customer to use your product or service, you can better appeal to their needs and know how to reach out to them in the future. Much of that comes from building a strong brand that customers feel they can trust. When customers feel they can connect with a brand, they are more inclined to repeat their business, especially when that strong brand messaging is combined with product recommendations they can trust and use. Companies that best practice customer centricity make it an integral part of their brand and make a focus on the customer a hallmark of their work and culture. Customer experience is just one part of customer centricity, and companies that can build their brands, reach out to the right customers, and leverage metrics will be able to create a loyal customer base and drive great success.

Artificial intelligence seems to be popping up everywhere, and it has the potential to change nearly everything we know about data and the customer experience. However, it also brings up new issues regarding ethics and privacy. One of the keys to keeping AI ethical is for it to be transparent, says Rob High, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM Watson. When customers interact with a chatbot, for example, they need to know they are communicating with a machine and not an actual human. AI, like most other technology tools, is most effective when it is used to extend the natural capabilities of humans instead of replacing them. That means that AI and humans are best when they work together and can trust each other. Chatbots are one of the most commonly used forms of AI. Although they can be used successfully in many ways, there is still a lot of room for growth. As they currently stand, chatbots mostly perform basic actions like turning on lights, providing directions, and answering simple questions that a person asks directly. However, in the future, chatbots should and will be able to go deeper to find the root of the problem. For example, a person asking a chatbot what her bank balance is might be asking the question because she wants to invest money or make a big purchase—a futuristic chatbot could find the real reason she is asking and turn it into a more developed conversation. In order to do that, chatbots will need to ask more questions and drill deeper, and humans need to feel comfortable providing their information to machines. As chatbots perform various tasks and become a more integral part of our lives, the key to maintaining ethics is for chatbots to provide proof of why they are doing what they are doing. By showcasing proof or its method of calculations, humans can be confident that AI had reasoning behind its response instead of just making something up. The chances of AI truly going "rogue" are small, but they still need to be considered, and in order to maintain transparency and trust, the machine's processes should be revealed. An example of this comes from IBM Watson, which is used to help doctors diagnose patients and decide the best treatment options. Doctors can't possibly keep up with all of the data and new studies being created every day, but Watson can scan through millions of records for new data and treatment suggestions. By showing where the information and recommendations are coming from, Watson expands what human doctors can do and provides them with resources to make the best decisions for their patients. Watson isn't making decisions for the doctors, but instead is presenting options with the proof to back it up. The future of technology is rooted in artificial intelligence. In order to stay ethical, transparency, proof, and trustworthiness need to be at the root of everything AI does for companies and customers. By staying honest and remembering the goals of AI, the technology can play a huge role in how we live and work.

A commercial that starts with a bank robbery and ends by showcasing digital technology and customer experience might not be conventional, but that was never the goal of Adobe and its CMO, Ann Lewnes. Instead, the company created an attention-grabbing ad that reached out to customers and kept their attention. Adobe is an experience-based company that known for its digital creativity as a way to engage with customers and create a community and shows how pushing the bounds of creativity can lead to great success. Ann pushes creativity by giving her employees long-term goals to works towards. The goal may seem aspirational or far-fetched, but it inspires people, encourages risk-taking, and pushes them to think bigger. One of Ann's team's most recent big ideas was a contest to celebrate the 25th anniversary of video editing program Premiere Pro, one of Adobe's biggest products. The company partnered with the band Imagine Dragons and released the raw footage of the band's newest music video with the challenge to use Premiere Pro to re-edit the video however customers felt was inspiring. The creative idea yielded more than 9,000 entries and was a huge hit on social media that created a community of younger users. More than just being an attention-grabbing creative idea, the contest showcased the product and followed business strategy. Creativity doesn't come with free reign to do whatever you want, however. Adobe is also focused on inspection and making sure teams can quantifiably show their results. With tools made available to marketers these days, it's possible to back up a creative idea with numbers. Even the most creative idea can be a flop if it isn't backed up with data. Another key to creativity is being aware of trends and what other companies are doing. With a strong team to manage the business, each person can keep an eye on what competitors are doing and use that to fuel their own creativity. To be truly successful, marketers need to be able to use both sides of their brain and be analytical and creative. As companies tap into creativity and learn to push the limits, they can build on their customer experience to create memorable, meaningful events and interactions for their customers. When considering customer experience as the sum of the interactions a person has with a brand, being creative provides more opportunities to stand out and push that sum higher in customers' minds.

What has turned into a successful career as an author and keynote speaker started with a birthday party magic performance as a young boy. When Shep Hyken was just 12 years old, he gave his first presentation of sorts by performing tricks in front of an audience of other kids. Years later, he would begin a full-time speaking career that tapped into much of what he did as a young magician. Shep's professional speaking career has lasted more than 30 years and provides many opportunities for teaching others who want to follow his career path. However, he warns that although professional speaking may seem like a "sexy" career, it actually isn't that glamorous most of the time. The real job isn't simply giving the speech, it's getting the speech. The real work comes from finding speaking gigs and preparing remarks to make every speech and presentation the best it has ever been. Professional speaking can be a lucrative and interesting path, but it is also extremely competitive. In order to stand out from the crowd, Shep provides the following tips: Work hard. Make it your mantra that no one will outwork you. Having a goal to make every presentation the best one creates confidence in the client and helps you prepare. Stay in one lane. Shep focuses only on customer service and doesn't cross over into other related topics. By staying on one topic, he has created a niche for himself and a strong personal brand clients know they can trust. Write books. Although this isn't as powerful as it once was, Shep says that a speaker who has written a book, especially one that has gotten good feedback, can tip the scales in his or her favor. Once a speech has been booked, preparation is key. Shep starts getting ready for a presentation six weeks or a month before the big day by deciding what to speak on and how it will flow. He then asks the client the three most important points for the audience to remember and makes sure he addresses them in the speech. From there, it's preparing his speech, putting the bullet points on a single index card, and practicing and reviewing until he doesn't even really need to use the card. He makes arrangements so that he is at the venue on time both physically and mentally so he can give his best effort to every speech. The world of professional speaking can be exciting and open doors to new opportunities, but it often requires energy, preparation, and determination to be successful. However, by following in Shep's footsteps, you can also build a strong speaking career.