Full Episode Listing
A complete list of episodes from The CX Leader Podcast.
As consumers we’ve all interacted in different ways with companies. Sometimes an automated system, online chat, an app on our phones, or even a live human being. But as customer experience professionals, how do we know which channel is the best option and the most preferred by consumers? And how will AI fit into all this? Host Sara Walker welcomes James Scutt, a principle XM strategist at the Qualtrics XM Institute for a look at what their 2023 Global Consumer Study reveals about consumer channel preferences.
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What’s the first thing you think of when asked, “how well do you listen?” Many CX professionals might think of their listening systems: surveys, close-loop feedback, listening architectures. Some may say they interact with clients on a regular basis. But what about actively listening? Talking less and letting others express themselves, and then reassuring them that the conversation was worth it. Host Sara Walker welcomes Marisa Schwartz, senior regional medical director for St. Luke’s University Health Network, to discuss the importance of active listening.
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It's human nature to compare what we do professionally – and even personally – with others and CX leaders are no different. So Walker, along with the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), launched The CX Leader Pulse as a way to give customer experience professionals a look into what companies are, and are not, doing within their CX programs. The results of the first study are in and host Pat Gibbons welcomes Walker’s own Troy Powell, Vice President of Strategy & Analytics, and Greg Melia, CEO of the CXPA, to discuss what was discovered.
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CX leaders have become increasingly effective at taking action on customer feedback. Today many organizations have effective closed-loop programs that efficiently route insights to the right person for timely action. However, there’s a blind spot – the vast majority of customers never provide their feedback. Actually that’s more than a blind spot. It’s a black hole! This episode's guest has built an impressive early warning system that addresses this problem. Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Maddie Clark, Customer Experience Insights Senior Manager at ServiceNow, for a discussion on how she built an early warning system that addresses the problem of identifying dissatisfied customers that don't provide feedback.
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In today's consumer world, we are inundated with advertising from countless online and offline mediums, and too often companies think that's what really drives their brand. But if you're a customer experience leader, you know experience has possibly become the most prominent ingredient in a company's brand. So how do we make it work? How do CX leaders ensure an experience that influences the brand and reputation of their organization in a positive way? Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Keith Farley, senior vice president for individual benefits at Aflac, to discuss the experience of directing CX at one of the world's most famous brands.
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If you go back in time 10 or 15 years you'll find it was common for a market research function within a company to send out a single survey each year to all customers asking about their satisfaction with the products and services they interacted with. The field has since greatly evolved as what we now call customer experience regularly receives customer feedback from multiple surveys and unstructured data, and we get that data from across multiple channels. But we still have a lot of evolution left if we want to keep up with the changes our companies are dealing with. Host Troy Powell welcome Isabelle Zdatny from the Qualtrics XM Institute to discuss the evolution of customer experience and experience management.
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We'll bet you've heard this one: you call customer support and encounter an automated system. Despite your best efforts to speak clearly, the voice on the other end of the line can’t understand you. Or, how about when you’ve finally reached someone and they need to transfer you to another agent. After waiting on hold for a while, the second agent finally answers the phone but asks you to explain the problem all over again. That is s a particularly frustrating experience, and you’re not alone according to a recent study by RingCentral and Opinium Research. Host Sara Walker welcomes Jim Payne, director of product marketing at RingCentral, a provider of AI-first cloud-based communication and collaboration solutions, for a discussion about the report's findings and how AI can help ease those customer support pain points.
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In this bonus episode, Pat Gibbons describes his experiences at the Qualtrics X4 event in Salt Lake City, Utah, on May 1-3. With thousands of experience management professionals in attendance, Pat had an opportunity to discuss the top challenges facing XM professionals within their own organizations. Hosted at the Walker exhibit booth, professionals were asked to participate in an unique exercise that demonstrated the concerns experience management leaders are facing.
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It’s common today that, as consumers, we receive a survey after all kinds of experiences – shopping, travel, home repair – you name it. You fill out a survey with the hope that it might change the next outcome to be better. But what about the here and now? As experience management improves consumers are demanding action during the experience. Now think of yourself not only as a consumer, but as a patient and the timeliness of feedback and action becomes that much more important. Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Laura Anning, Chief of Patient Experience for Washington Hospital Healthcare System, and Liz Wallshield, Senior Technology Consultant at Walker, for a discussion on using patient rounding as a way to quickly action on feedback.
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Maybe it’s a concert headlining Beyonce, U2, or Taylor Swift? Or perhaps your favorite NFL team is playing their rivals this weekend? Perhaps you prefer events that allow for some more personal creative expression like GenCon or Comic-Con? While we have our personal preferences, few things compare to meeting up with thousands of like-minded people or fans for live events. But those gatherings don’t just happen out of the blue, and just like any other business, the experience matters. And ASM Global just released a new study that highlights what audiences are demanding in regards to live event experiences. Host Sara Walker welcomes Alex Merchán, chief marketing officer for ASM Global, a venue management and live event production company, to discuss their recent study on global audience trends.
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Conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusiveness have been happening in many companies in the U.S., and healthcare is no exception, especially when it comes to the care patients receive. And listening to patients’ needs and concerns is vital to providing doctors, nurses, administrative staff, and leadership with the insights required to providing equitable care for all their patients. But what does it mean to be “equitable” versus “equal” in the care providers give to their patients? Host Sara Walker welcomes Ariel Davis, head of healthcare provider solution strategy for Qualtrics, and Nicole Richendollar, vice president in our client services at Walker, for a discussion on providing equitable care to patients.
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We’ve all experienced it: that nagging, frustrating, and sometimes maddening feeling we get when something collides with our productivity. And while it can sometimes feel trivial, that type of friction adds up and affects our interactions with customers, thus affecting the customer experience. So how do we minimize those points of friction in the workplace? Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Christophe Martel, CEO and founder of FOUNT, a software platform designed to help reduce friction and improve productivity and employee experiences, for a discussion on reducing workplace friction and it's effect on customer experience.
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It's an often-misunderstood industry that exists between healthcare and hospitality and includes all the complexities of strict regulation and event management. And to add more complication, it includes an element of emotional support. Funeral homes and cemeteries walk a fine line of making the final arrangements of a loved one as frictionless as possible, all while knowing there are no second chances at delivering a positive experience. Host Sara Walker welcomes Walker expert Hannah Warren for a discussion on managing experiences within the death care industry.
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Just like any other business process, customer experience programs can sometimes get a little stale or outdated. As CX leaders, it’s our responsibility to pay attention to the customers’ needs and expectations, and adjust accordingly. But sometimes it’s best to take a step back and look at the entire customer journey and, if needed, redesign the journey from start to finish. Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Jaya Sudarshan, a customer experience manager for HP, the global technology company, for a discussion on building a differentiated experience from start to finish.
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What are some of the more common challenges you encounter with your CX program? Have you noticed a particular common problem among CX programs when you converse with fellow CX pros? Benchmarking is an often-tackled problem for customer experience professionals and is not as simple as comparing your numbers with another company's scores. This episode is the inaugural show of a new series we’re calling “CX Conundrums,” where we’ll address common CX challenges and possible ways CX leaders can address them. Host Troy Powell dives into this conundrum with two seasoned CX professionals that have a great deal of experience in benchmarking: Sean Clayton who has 20+ years working with a wide range of companies and James Bampos whose background includes CX at various tech firms as well as leadership on a recent benchmarking initiative with the XM Institute.
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There are many companies today that have embraced customer experience as a key strategic practice, working hard to put the customer first. But there’s often a part of the customer’s journey that is overlooked: when it’s time to pay the bill. Even in a recent episode, our host Pat Gibbons gave an example of a company dismissing customer feedback that identified invoicing as a pain point. So why do companies often adopt this mentality? Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Philip Rürup, founder and CEO of troy, a customer experience focused collections company based in Germany, for a discussion on why CX professionals often overlook the payment process, and why it's worth their attention.
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Great customer experiences comes from great employee experiences. It’s something we’ve discussed in several past episodes of this podcast and you can listen to our CX plus EX episodes on cxleaderpodcast.com. But how can you improve employee engagement for a large group of front-line employees, say a call center or large customer support operation? Host Sara Walker welcomes Victoria Stephens, director of client and payment experience at Flywire, a global payment software company, and a CXPA 2023 Emerging Leader award winner, for a discussion on equipping frontline employees for customer experience success.
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If you're a CX professional then you've read your fair share of customer feedback comments. While most CX leaders love to read great comments from customers, there's always feedback that isn't so flattering, and your instinct may be to spring into action to fix whatever it was that caused the less than stellar review. Customer insights can be a powerful change agent, so leveraging feedback can be a great way to influence change within your company. What if we had some advice from someone on the operations side of the business; people who are responsible for implementing the changes that CX leaders suggest? Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Darren Byrne, vice president of global professional services at Wolters Kluwer, a global software solutions company, for a discussion on how CX feedback can be a driver of change within an organization.
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It goes without saying that designing any kind of product is no easy task. And in the case of software, balancing the engineering needs versus customer expectations can be daunting. Simple things like moving a button from the place it’s been for several versions can cause confusion and frustration. So it’s important to understand customers’ needs and communicate those needs to product designers. Host Sara Walker welcomes Naina Tahnilramani, a senior customer experience manager at Intuit and winner of the 2023 CXPA Emerging Leaders Award, for a discussion on the customer experience when launching new or updated products.
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Ever see the old classic Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The Birds”? There’s a famous scene when a flock of crows attack a group of fleeing school children, swarming without mercy and terrifying everyone in their path. It sometimes feels like that with A.I. - people pecking and swarming at you to try and integrate it into your business in any way possible. And many CX pros are feeling pressure to find ways of incorporating artificial intelligence into their programs. So how can we approach this technology in a way to have it meaningfully contribute to our CX efforts? Host Pat Gibbons welcomes back Mike Miserendino, founder and president of GravityDrive, an experience design consultancy group, for a discussion on how customer experience professionals can take an objective approach in effectively incorporating A.I. into their CX programs.
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