Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth
Rob Markey, Bain & Company partner and customer experience expert
The Customer Confidential Podcast unlocks a world of unparalleled customer and employee loyalty insights. Host Rob Markey, a Net Promoter System pioneer, uses his deep expertise and empathetic approach to challenge conventional wisdom, peel back layers of typical advice, and expose the real stories of industry transformation. Take a deep dive into discussions on CX, customer journey, customer insights, Net Promoter Score, and more. Every episode is a master class in loyalty. Guests include CMOs, CXOs, and heroes of customer-centric transformation, along with thought leaders who inspire them. Exploring organizational structures, operating models, goals, and metrics, Rob and his guests from companies such as Vanguard, American Express, and more bring to light practical marketing, product, customer experience, and technology strategies for earning customer-focused growth. This podcast is your source for untold stories of customer and employee loyalty. Challenging, insightful, and instructive—all in one place. Earned growth starts here.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 1, 2018 • 34min
Ep. 129: Dell's Marc Stein | Bringing Net Promoter to Scale
Dell has been collecting customer feedback since Michael Dell dropped out of college three decades ago and founded the company. It's part of the company's DNA. The computer maker began its Net Promoter journey a decade ago when it was trying to connect customer satisfaction with economic outcomes. Now the company has a robust Net Promoter System that informs major projects and innovations. In this episode, host Rob Markey catches up with Marc Stein, senior vice president of customer experience at Dell. Marc discusses how the company's comprehensive Net Promoter System has evolved since Dell merged with EMC in 2016.
Feb 8, 2018 • 39min
Ep. 128: FireDisc's Griff and Hunter Jaggard | Stoking the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Rob Markey welcomes Griff and Hunter Jaggard, the brothers behind the FireDisc, a portable propane cooking surface that has become required gear among outdoor enthusiasts. They launched their company in 2010 with a tractor plow disc and an idea inspired by their Texas childhoods, and they have been using Net Promoter to help guide their efforts.
Jan 11, 2018 • 26min
Ep. 127: Q&A with Maurice FitzGerald | Boning Up on Behavioral Economics
When responding to an angry customer, few words are as effective as "I'm sorry." And yet, it's so hard for some people to apologize sincerely. Why? In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will discuss how behavioral economics can inform companies' interactions with customers and how they use the Net Promoter System.
Dec 14, 2017 • 20min
Ep. 126: Q&A with Maurice FitzGerald | Are Cultural Differences at Play?
How does a customer's country of origin affect the feedback they provide about service experiences? Are certain countries home to naturally tough critics? Do people in some countries view rating scales differently? Cultural differences play a role in Net Promoter feedback, but to a far lesser degree than many practitioners assume. The challenge is to separate cultural issues from real service problems. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will take on questions about cultural differences that Net Promoter System practitioners often encounter.
Nov 30, 2017 • 36min
Ep. 125: Darci Darnell | Bringing Net Promoter to the People
Despite companies' best efforts to engage their teams, more than half of employees say they are uninspired and dissatisfied in their roles, according to Bain research. Only 19% of employees say they're inspired and satisfied—a huge opportunity for companies that learn to tap their teams' potential. We've spent the last several years studying companies' best engagement methods and distilling them into a simple approach that other companies could adopt to get their employees' best. We call it Net Promoter for People. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes Darci Darnell, who leads Bain's Customer Strategy and Marketing practice in the Americas and has played a critical role in developing this powerful system.
Nov 16, 2017 • 18min
Ep. 124: Q&A with Maurice FitzGerald | Rallying Teams Around Net Promoter
Building internal support for a fledgling Net Promoter System can be one of the biggest challenges of getting such an effort off the ground. It requires leaders to not only have a strong grasp of loyalty economics and the company's strategy, but the softer skills necessary to inspire and teach employees to do the right thing for customers. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will discuss how companies can rally their employees around their Net Promoter System efforts.
Nov 2, 2017 • 37min
Ep. 123: Michael Farmer | Inside Madison Avenue's Loyalty Challenge
No industry has escaped the disruption of digital technology. Advertising is no exception. Ad agencies, which previously thrived in what was once a loyalty-based industry, are now facing new competition as they struggle to hold on to client relationships. Advertising fee structures have also changed, along with customer expectations. In this episode, host Rob Markey talks to advertising industry expert Michael Farmer, author of Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profit-Hungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies. His firm, Farmer & Co., advises advertising agencies on business strategy, giving him a front-row seat to the industry's dramatic shifts. Michael shares his observations of the changing ad industry and lessons for other companies.
Oct 19, 2017 • 25min
Ep. 122: Q&A with Maurice FitzGerald | The Net Promoter Games People Play
Begging customers for strong scores. Only seeking feedback from customers who had positive outcomes. Altering contact information to make dissatisfied customers hard to reach. When it comes to gaming the Net Promoter System, we've seen it all and one thing is always clear: When employees intentionally undermine a company's efforts to understand customers and improve service, everyone loses. In this episode, Rob Markey welcome back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System. Together, they discuss ways that companies can discourage employees from sabotaging their feedback efforts.
Oct 5, 2017 • 41min
Ep. 121: Aisling Hassell | Unlocking Airbnb's Culture of Trust
Airbnb launched 10 years ago when roommates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia decided to rent out an air mattress on the floor of their San Francisco living room to make a few extra bucks. Now it's a $31 billion hospitality giant that has created a whole new category of lodging. Airbnb's unique business model, which allows people in more than 190 countries to rent their homes to travelers, requires a high level of trust among not only guests and hosts, but also employees and managers. The company has gone to great lengths to infuse that sense of trust, inside and out. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes Aisling Hassell, global head of customer experience at Airbnb. Aisling joined Airbnb more than three years ago after leading customer experience efforts at Sage, Vodafone and Symantec. She has played a critical role in promoting Airbnb's culture among hosts in the more than 65,000 cities where it operates.
Sep 21, 2017 • 28min
Ep. 120: Q&A with Maurice FitzGerald | Why Response Rates Matter
The statistical validity of the Net Promoter Score depends on response rates; the higher the rate, the greater the accuracy. Low response rates can easily undermine a company's Net Promoter System, causing leaders to overlook burgeoning problems or wrongly assume that customers are happy. In this episode, host Rob Markey and Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System, tackle common questions about response rates. Learn more: Creating a Reliable Metric
