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
Feb 18, 2016 • 47min
Ep. 70: The Business of Habits: Why You Just Can't Put Down Your Phone
Fifty years ago, few people could have guessed some of today's most common habits. Habits like having a mobile phone within arm's reach at all times; checking Facebook or email multiple times an hour, or calling an Uber instead of a cab. All companies dream of inspiring such new and compelling habits in their customers, but few manage to achieve it. Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, shares his theories on what sets these products apart.
Feb 4, 2016 • 41min
Ep. 69: The Biggest Challenges of Adopting the Net Promoter System
The Net Promoter System is simple in concept, but adopting it can be a cataclysmic event for an organization. From asking frontline employees to reach out to customers to asking finance to manage new metrics, turning Net Promoter into tangible results typically requires significant culture change. Bain Partners Andreas Dullweber, Jason Barro and Maureen Burns discuss some of the biggest hurdles they encounter as they help companies build customer-centric cultures.
Jan 28, 2016 • 4min
Ep. 68: Shorts - Converting Loyalty Into Economic Advantage
Earning goodwill among your customers isn't enough to ensure long-term growth. Leaders must also create the conditions that enable and encourage loyal customers to do what they’re inclined to do anyway. They have to offer customers a continuing stream of products or services that stand out from the competition. They have to deliver those goods at the right price, at the right time, through the right channels, using the right messages. And sometimes they have to help customers communicate their experiences to friends, relatives and the world at large, as Rob Markey explains in this Net Promoter System Podcast short.
Jan 22, 2016 • 3min
Ep. 67: Shorts - From feedback to action
Customer feedback is pointless if a company doesn't use it to improve the customer experience. To create loyalty, Net Promoter System companies use this input to address individual customers' concerns and inform systemic improvements, explains Rob Markey in this Net Promoter System Podcast short.
Jan 7, 2016 • 3min
Ep. 66: Shorts - Leading a Net Promoter System company
Greatness doesn't come just from getting the managerial levers right. It comes from inspiration, from people at every level feeling excited about doing the right thing by customers. That's the objective that underlies a CEO's commitment to focus on customers, to lead by example and to coach others in the organization. In this Net Promoter System Podcast short, Rob Markey discusses why putting loyalty at the heart of a business requires executives to view their jobs in a new light.
Dec 22, 2015 • 3min
Ep. 65: Shorts - The economics of loyalty
Unless you know how much more valuable your top customers are, you are flying blind. It's impossible to know how much to invest in efforts to create and retain more of these customers. In this Net Promoter System Podcast short, Rob Markey explains how companies use the Net Promoter System to understand the needs of their most valuable customers.
Dec 17, 2015 • 46min
Ep. 64: How Bonobos designs a tailored shopping experience
If you’re struggling to find pants that fit, the last place you probably turn is the Internet. But men's clothing retailer Bonobos is using customer service, feedback and design to challenge this assumption. On the latest episode, Bonobos Cofounder Andy Dunn shares his philosophy for creating memorable customer experiences both online and in stores.
Dec 10, 2015 • 36min
Ep. 63: How text messages helped a phone retailer turn up feedback
Mobile phone stores increasingly depend on loyalty economics to drive their businesses. As a result, every customer interaction in one of these stores is vital. It’s a chance to wow a customer with a great experience, or to frustrate them with long waiting times, pushy salespeople or poorly trained technicians. Yet store owners generally struggle to get enough customer feedback to know how their customers’ purchasing experience feels to them, or what needs to be improved. Jimmy Salamanca, who runs six U.S. Cellular stores, discusses how he uses Fosubo, a feedback collection tool that uses text messaging, to gauge the customer experience. Fosubo CEO Misa Chien joins the discussion to explain how the tool works. Learn more about this episode
Dec 3, 2015 • 57min
Ep. 62: Lessons from great founder-led firms
Why are so many of the global loyalty leaders run by their founders or their founders’ family members? What do they do that increases their ability to achieve and sustain customer loyalty? James Allen, head of Bain's Strategy practice, has studied successful founder-led companies in great detail. On the podcast, he discusses how companies can preserve what he calls the Founder’s Mentality while they grow into some of the largest firms in the world. Learn more about this episode
Nov 24, 2015 • 39min
Ep. 61: How Qualtrics stumbled on the Net Promoter System
A few years ago, Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith realized that there were 130,000 different versions of Net Promoter surveys in the survey company's system. The Net Promoter Score had become wildly popular among its customers, yet there was little consistency in its application. Ryan saw an opportunity to make it easier for Qualtrics customers to measure their Net Promoter Score. On the podcast, Ryan talks about Qualtrics' history, its Net Promoter tools and how it uses the Net Promoter System to keep the voice of the customer inside the company as it grows. Learn more about this episode
