“Social distancing” has become the term saturating the news and social media. Experts all agree that the best way to fight the spread of the coronavirus is to keep distance from others, when possible, and practice some basic hygiene, like washing our hands. That makes things a bit difficult for CX professionals who are used to leading exercises like journey mapping and other workshops that require people to collaborate in the same space. Host Steve Walker and guest Kristina Kittle, vice president of advisory services, discuss ways CX leaders can move to virtual workshop experiences.

The ability for computers to adapt and respond to real-time data provides value to companies needing to streamline business processes. And CX pros have not ignored the potential for this technology to provide better experiences for their customers. Host Steve Walker welcomes guests Sarah Simon, a CX Design Partner for Verizon Business, and Erin Van Remortel, a strategic account executive with Astute Solutions, for a discussion on when A.I. can help - or hinder - your CX efforts.

What is the role of customer experience during a crisis? Host Steve Walker and guests Jonathan Ruchman, CCXP, and Senior Director of Customer Experience at Brookdale Senior Living, and Michelle Morris, CCXP, a Customer Experience Design Partner at Verizon and member of the board of directors for the Customer Experience Professionals Association, discuss the important role customer experience professionals and other customer-focused leaders play in times of disruption and crisis. They spotlight best practices in previous times of confusion and provide practical advice that can help CX leaders take action to help their companies and their customers deal with important issues in this time of uncertainty.

Online communities are now part of daily in life for many consumers and businesses. Most community interaction happens within larger social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But some companies are finding the value of having their own online community that focuses customer interaction and experience to their product or services, allowing for the customization of a user’s experience within their platform. Host Steve Walker welcomes guests Heather McNair and Dan Reese from Higher Logic to discuss the value of online communities and marketing automation to improve the customer experience.

In the second of a two-part series on the value of customers, host Steve Walker discusses with Rob Markey, a partner at Bain and Company and recently published author in the Harvard Business Review, how companies often overlook the compounding value of customers and instead get distracted by looking too much at the present and not planning for the future.

Your customers are why you're in business but are they loyal customers? How do you measure that customer's loyalty and why do companies so often undervalue their customers? Host Steve Walker welcomes guest Rob Markey, an author, speaker, podcaster, and partner at Bain and Company. They discuss Rob's work on helping develop the Net Promoter Score and how it helped simplify the close-the-loop process in customer feedback.

Several years ago, many companies made predictions on the state of the customer experience industry. Walker was no exception, having published a widely referenced report, “Customers 2020.” Now having reached that milestone year in CX, guest host Pat Gibbons and CX thought-leader and Walker’s vice president of strategy and analytics discuss what was covered in that report, highlighting predictions that came true, those that didn’t, and covering what was missed altogether.

Customer experience professionals sometimes hit that wall of having to handle a high volume of tasks and customer interactions but there isn’t the peoplepower or resources to keep up. Strategically add a little automation to your processes and you could have a powerful CX tool that allows the customer to personalize their experience and relieve strained resources. Guest host Pat Gibbons welcome Ejieme Eromosele, Vice President of Customer Success at Snaps, to discuss the advantages of using automation and A.I. in your customer experience.

Customer experience professionals have an abundance of technological choices when it comes to gathering customer feedback, providing vast amounts of data to use in guiding their CX efforts. But sometimes the “low tech” solution is the best option. Steve welcomes guest Jen Pardi Cusick, senior customer experience strategist at Gogo Business Aviation, to discuss how employees across their company participate in a client callback program to gain better insights into their customers’ needs.

Every company has their own unique set of challenges when it comes to providing an exceptional customer experience, and financial services companies are no exception. Regulatory pressures, compliance, and risk management review are just some of the obstacles CX pros in this industry must maneuver, but according to this episode’s guest, that’s not an excuse to provide anything less than a stellar “client” experience. Host Steve Walker welcomes Dan Brousseau, senior vice president and head of client experience at City National Bank, a Los Angeles-based company and subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada, to discuss customer experience in the financial services industry.