What I Know: Customer Experience is Floundering

Today’s compilation features excerpts from two interviews: Christopher McShane, SVP of customer experience at Serta Simmons Bedding, and Jon Picoult, founder of Watermark Consulting. Both my guests speak on the importance of establishing an internal system to improve employee and customer experience. These are two great conversations which dig deeply into the processes and cultural considerations needed to truly change your organization's approach to driving experiences worth having. Enjoy!

I had the pleasure of speaking with neuroscientist, professor, speaker, author, and cofounder of Immersion Neuroscience, Dr. Paul Zak. Give this episode a listen for invaluable wisdom on deepening your customer connections, generating long-term customer value, optimizing employee performance through immersive training, and much, much more.

As we head into the new year, I ask that you revisit this podcast episode, where you’ll find many more valuable gems from my friend, Curtis Kopf. Your business—and your customers—will thank you.

In my conversation with Curtis Kopf, the Chief Experience Officer at REI, we discuss thought processes and strategies that go into navigating successful CX transformations. Curtis is a seasoned leader and CX practitioner who’s worked across a few different industries during his career. He has spent time at Amazon in the early 2000s, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, and Premera Blue Cross. Curtis definitely knows a thing or two about how to develop a customer-first strategy.

As you’re developing what you develop your products, your services, know that—in your communication, you have a wonderful opportunity to rise above—to show who you are as people in how you communicate shared memories.

In this conversation with Matt Baer—Chief Digital and Customer Officer at the longstanding, iconic retailer Macy’s—shares key insights on the importance of getting the fundamental customer experience right before anything else.

In this conversation with Cassandra Crowe, Chief Executive Officer at Sharp HealthCare, Cassandra shares some high-level insights regarding the employee experience transformation at Sharp HealthCare and the ways in which this multilayered process impacted business operations and patient experience.

How are you taking steps to deliver what you do? Are you willing to step outside the bounds of what everybody else does? And take an ADMIRABLE action in how you do it?

Lynda Firey-Oldroyd, CCO of Topgolf speaks on previous career successes at blue chip companies and details the importance of employee and customer experience at TopGolf.

In order to move from where you are, you need to all agree on where you’ve begun. “One version of the truth" is critical. In this episode, I share an exercise you can do with your team to start the process of understanding your organization’s experience reliability.

In this conversation with Andy Clement, the CCO at Kimberly-Clark Professional, who has been with the organization for over 30 years, we discuss how digitizing the sales operations has impacted this B2B business in the post-pandemic world. Those of you in the B2B industry will enjoy this chat, especially if you’ve been in a legacy industry that had to adjust to the digital-first world.