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
Dec 2, 2021 • 25min
Ep. 189: Fred Reichheld | Introducing: Winning on Purpose
A central theme in Fred Reichheld's new book, Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers, is purpose. For Fred, a well-defined company purpose is the engine that drives success. But it's not enough. To succeed, an organization's No. 1 goal should always be to make customers' lives better. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Nov 11, 2021 • 29min
Ep. 188: Tony Wells | Culture, Mission, and Taking a Public Stand
After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, USAA took a public stance on racial justice. But Tony Wells, USAA's chief brand officer at the time, says the organization's conversation began privately. Given the company's history of strong internal communication and employees' deep sense of mission, Wells believed that they were set up for successful discussions and change. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Nov 4, 2021 • 28min
Ep. 187: Tony Wells | Maintaining a Resilient and Customer-Focused Culture
It's tempting to attribute USAA's success to its special expertise in serving military personnel. But Tony Wells, USAA's former chief brand officer, says it comes down to empathy for the unique challenges members face. In this episode, Tony shares how USAA lives its mission every day, how the company quickly adapted to support employees and customers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how it continues to prepare for disruption. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Aug 26, 2021 • 35min
Ep. 186: Hint Water's Kara Goldin | Plumbing a Sweet Spot in the Market
Former tech executive Kara Goldin, author of the new book "Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts And Doubters," shares the story behind Hint Water: How her quest to find an alternative to diet soda led to the creation of an entirely new type of beverage. Her story reveals how persistence and a singular focus on meeting core customer needs can result in outsized success. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Aug 5, 2021 • 31min
Ep. 185: NatWest Group's Paul Smith | Recovering the Spirit of Customer-centricity
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), now part of NatWest Group, is older than some of the world's countries. For much of that time, the very essence of the bank was to put its customers first. But in more recent history, the storied bank had lost sight of that mission, says Paul Smith, director of customer insights and marketing at NatWest Group. In this episode of the Net Promoter System podcast, Paul talks about the journey back: From an old-line and challenged bank into a customer-focused organization that is now part of NatWest Group. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Mar 4, 2021 • 41min
Ep. 184: Caliber Collision's Steve Grimshaw | Restoring Customers to the Rhythm of Their Lives
Few people are loyal to a body shop. Instead, people find them, literally, by accident: after a fender bender, most customers select a shop from their insurer's direct repair program. But when Steve Grimshaw, executive chairman of Caliber Collision, first took over as CEO of the body shop company in 2009, he realized that with repair experiences often driving insurer policy renewals and most body shop business coming from insurer referrals, customer satisfaction matters a lot. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Sep 24, 2020 • 42min
Ep. 183: Lori Cobb | Give Customers a Voice in Powering Your Company's Operations
Lori Cobb found her passion in a leadership role at Cummins Inc. that included responsibility for customer experience and insights: "I love solving problems, and I particularly enjoy solving customer problems," she says. "And customers were hungry to have somebody just listen to what their needs are." Today, she's CEO of Mockingbird Ventures and a principal of AIM Advisory Services. In this episode, she shares some of the lessons she learned on her journey into customer centricity. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Aug 6, 2020 • 50min
Ep. 182: Darrell Rigby | Agile Is Not Just a Method, It's a Mindset
Darrell Rigby believes passionately that Agile is the future. "I do believe that this is the way that companies will be run going forward." His biggest fear, though, is that "there's a lot of Agile that's being done wrong. If we don't fix that, then Agile is likely to turn into the next management fad." Coauthor of a new book, Doing Agile Right, Darrell leads Bain & Company's Agile practice. He joined me to discuss how, when done right, Agile creates a culture obsessed with customer satisfaction. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Jun 25, 2020 • 35min
Ep. 181: UPS Capital's Mark Robinson | How Agile Turns Customer Feedback into Fast Fixes
Mark Robinson, president of UPS Capital, the financial services subsidiary of UPS, joins me to discuss how the adoption of the Net Promoter System at UPS Capital was turbocharged by Agile ways of working and how Agile teams were able to radically speed up needed fixes to the customer experience that frontline employee identified in their huddles. We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback
Jun 11, 2020 • 29min
Ep. 180: Wharton's Peter Fader | The Right Actions and Metrics to Grow Customer Value
Some customer metrics are so good at predicting customer behavior and the value of a company's customer base, says the Wharton School's Peter Fader, that "any sensible investor should be demanding these kinds of metrics. And of course, any sensible executive should be obsessed over these kinds of metrics internally." In this, the second podcast in our two-part discussion, we talk about how executives can use these same metrics to change the way they look at customer investments.
