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
Sep 7, 2017 • 36min
Ep. 119: Jennifer Hyman | How Rent the Runway Makes a Statement with Style—and Service
People feel good when they look good—it doesn't take a fashion expert to tell you that. But that feeling compounds when you make it easy for people to access clothing that's unique, fits well and suits the occasion. That's the Rent the Runway approach. The company launched in 2009 with a mission to help women feel their best by renting them designer clothing and accessories through an innovative subscription model. The service has been a huge hit, allowing the company to earn more than 6 million members and more than $190 million in venture capital. In this episode, Rent the Runway's CEO and Cofounder Jennifer Hyman discusses the company's disruptive business model and how it built a loyal following in one of the most fickle industries out there.
Aug 24, 2017 • 30min
Ep. 118: Q&A with Maurice FitzGerald | What's in a Benchmark?
What does it take to develop meaningful competitive benchmark Net Promoter Scores? What is the relationship between benchmark trends and revenue? What if your company is small or operates in a niche industry with few competitors for comparison? Competitive benchmark Net Promoter Scores provide an objective and fair basis for comparing your company's feedback to the feedback your competitors earn. Done right, they can provide the basis for goal setting and prioritization at the highest levels of a company. However, calculating a sound benchmark score can be challenging and complex. In this episode, 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 tackle questions about competitive benchmarking from members of the Net Promoter System Forum on LinkedIn. Learn more: The Benefits of a Competitive Benchmark Net Promoter Score
Aug 10, 2017 • 49min
Ep. 117: Eric Almquist | What Do B2B Customers Want?
What do customers really want when they buy a product? Some benefits are fairly obvious—convenience and quality, for example. But some customers, even those in business-to-business (B2B) markets, are seeking far more from their purchases—hope, self-actualization and motivation. Bain Partner Eric Almquist returns to the Net Promoter System Podcast to discuss developments in his Elements of Value framework and how companies are using it. Eric introduced his framework, which draws on themes from psychologist Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs," last year in Harvard Business Review. In recent months, he has been expanding the framework to consider the specialized needs of companies in B2B markets.
Jul 27, 2017 • 43min
Ep. 116: Sarah Robb O'Hagan | Going to Extremes for Customers
When faced with a scrappy challenger, it's not hard for established brands to lose sight of their core customers, especially if they're in a highly competitive market. These situations usually arise when an established brand starts to lose market share to a buzzworthy upstart. When that happens, a company's leaders might debate whether they should change course to chase a new competitor or try to reconnect with the brand's base. Sarah Robb O'Hagan, CEO of the indoor cycling company Flywheel Sports, knows this scenario well. More than five years ago, she helped turn around PepsiCo's multibillion-dollar Gatorade brand when she was president of the sports drink's division. She went on to serve as president of the high-end gym operator Equinox before taking the helm at Flywheel Sports. Sarah, who's also the author of Extreme You: Step Up, Stand Out, Kick Ass. Repeat, shares her experiences in this episode, including her views on what it takes to connect with customers.
Jul 13, 2017 • 51min
Ep. 115: Maurice FitzGerald | Tackling Net Promoter Questions from Practitioners on LinkedIn
What if a company wants to adopt the Net Promoter System, but lacks the resources and time to fully implement each aspect of the framework? Is something better than nothing? In this episode, Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, the retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implementing the System. Together, Rob and Maurice will tackle this question and others submitted by members of the Net Promoter System Forum on LinkedIn, a group for Net Promoter practitioners that Maurice manages. The Net Promoter System continues to evolve and improve based on the experience of thousands of companies. Maurice and Rob reverse their roles in this episode, allowing Rob to share the latest thinking on critical Net Promoter issues, such as best practices for questions and tactics for collecting deeper feedback from business-to-business companies.
Jun 29, 2017 • 38min
Ep. 114: Fred Debruyne | The Secret to Happier Customers? Think Simple and Digital
Telecom executives are under pressure from their customers, shareholders and other stakeholders to become more digital, to exploit the new technologies and opportunities that will enable them to deliver more services and operate more efficiently. Some companies approach their digital transformation as a series of boxes to be ticked: mobile apps, better web services, more online transactions. But these companies are missing out on an opportunity to reinvent themselves. The most forward-looking executives will take advantage of this pressure not merely to digitalize their companies, but to deliver remarkably better experiences for customers. In this episode, host Rob Markey talks to Bain Partner Frederic Debruyne. As head of Bain's Telecommunications practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Fred has been helping companies tap digital technology to radically simplify their customer experience, using Bain's Simple & Digital approach.
Jun 8, 2017 • 3min
Ep. 113: Shorts | Maintaining Customer Intimacy at Scale
In the old days, shop owners were on a first-name basis with their customers. Of course, the owners cultivated these relationships within their communities for years, allowing for the intimacy that so many companies aspire to today. It's tough to achieve—top leaders often drift further away from the front lines as a company grows. But technology is changing all that. Now companies are harnessing their customer data to form much deeper relationships at huge scale. In this short episode, we look at these new opportunities in relationship building and how firms of the future will need to adapt to take advantage of them.
May 18, 2017 • 41min
Ep. 112: Tom Springer | Mining the Big Data Opportunity in Customer Loyalty
If you're an angry customer, the last thing you want is another generic offer from the company that has raised your ire. These missteps can irreparably damage a relationship. But companies that know how to collect, analyze and act on customer data will learn to avoid these situations, says my colleague Tom Springer, who leads Bain's Advanced Analytics practice. They'll use that data to calibrate their offers based on a customer's level of advocacy, allowing them to expand relationships with promoters and avoid missteps that might leave detractors feeling exploited. Most companies have vast amounts of customer data—such as the recency, frequency and value of purchases, as well as the number of service calls—but few are using it to its deepen those relationships. Tom is helping companies harness Big Data in ways we couldn't imagine 10 years ago, creating new opportunities to build loyalty.
Apr 27, 2017 • 43min
Ep. 111: Shawn Achor | Why a Little Praise Goes a Long Way
Employees who are sincerely happy almost always provide a better customer experience. But what can companies do to make a meaningful difference in how employees feel about their work? Shawn Achor, The New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness, says that companies can do a lot. In fact, sometimes the solutions are as simple as encouraging social interaction and praise. In this episode, Shawn discusses the connection between happiness and success, and his work with Fortune 100 companies that want to increase employee engagement.
Apr 13, 2017 • 3min
Ep. 110: Shorts | The Story Behind the Smiley Face
Long before social media and online surveys, shopkeepers relied on a simple measure of customer sentiment: whether their customers were smiling. In this short episode, Fred Reichheld and Rob Markey share the story behind the Net Promoter System's signature smiley face icons, and discuss how one number can become a powerful learning tool for inspiring lasting change.
