Full Episode Listing

It's safe to say that most people are feeling the effects of today’s economy. Dealing with financial issues can create a great deal of stress. Families are penny-pinching and, in many cases, grappling with ways to help ease the burden. And many financial companies don’t make that process easy. But there are ways in which companies can make that experience better and promote what our guest refers to as “financial health.” Guest host Pat Gibbons welcomes Rochelle Gorey, co-founder and CEO of SpringFour, a Certified B social impact fintech company, for a discussion on ways to make it easier for people achieve financial health.

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Many companies use them: personality tests or evaluations - ways to help employees discover more about how they and their colleagues work with others. Some might roll their eyes at the mention of them yet others find them very useful in trying to connect to other people in their company. Regardless of how you feel about them, the goal is ultimately a better-working team. And employees working well together means there’s better potential for excellent customer experiences. Host Steve Walker welcome Dan Silvert, partner and president of the Velocity Advisory Group, a strategic consulting company.

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Just like any other business process, customer experience programs need occasional review and scrutiny to ensure it delivers the best possible experience. This is true even if your program seems to be running smoothly. Guest host Pat Gibbons welcomes Luis Angel-Lalanne from American Express to discuss the process in which they transformed how customer sentiment was gathered to help improve their CX.

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For a discussion on how to move a not-for-profit organization from making decisions based on gut instinct to utilizing customer feedback, Steve welcomes Andrea Krohnberg, senior director of customer experience at the YMCA Twin Cities in Minneapolis. They discuss how she led the effort to make customer insights and data a key decision-making driver in the organization and how it improved their CX efforts.

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Creating a meaningful journey map can be a lengthy and expensive process and it's tempting to cut corners. Steve's guest Jim Tincher, founder and mapper-in-chief of Heart of the Customer and co-author of "How Hard is it to Be Your Customer", explains why hastily created journey maps can give you a false picture of your customers.

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“Do NOT ruin your customer’s day” sounds like something that belongs at the top of any list of rules for CX professionals. We’ve all had those moments where an employee with a bad attitude ruined your mood, or you’re left waiting on hold for over an hour and steamed about the experience for the rest of the day. But there are ways where you can help prevent “ruined days” for your customers. Host Steve Walker welcomes guest Jeannie Walters, a CX consultant, speaker, podcaster, and CEO and Chief Customer Experience Investigator for Experience Investigators, for a discussion on why it's important to not ruin your customer's day.

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Many are exhausted over the pandemic and discussing how it “changed everything,” but it would be a disservice to not recognize its effects on the CX profession. But there are some valuable take-aways in what we’ve learned about the experience management world during the pandemic. Host Steve Walker welcomes Jeanne Bliss, a c-suite coach and global thought leader for CX, the Founder and CEO of Customer Bliss, a co-founder of the CXPA, and host of the podcast The Human Duct Tape Show, to discuss CX trends as world emerges from the pandemic.

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Does your brand make a promise to your customers? Then you need to make certain your CX program can deliver on that promise! Steve welcomes back Jennifer Batley, a vice president and certified customer experience professional at Walker, for a discussion on how to make certain your brand aligns with your customer experience.

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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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Companies are always looking to save time and money by taking shortcuts, but don't be tempted to detour around your customers' feedback or you might find your journey map is not accurate to your customer experience. Steve discusses how to avoid this detour with Krista Roseberry, a vice president at Walker, and Tracy DeCarlo, director of performance management, client and member services at ELAP Services.

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Companies often hire implementation specialists to help get their customer listening technology up and running, but don’t do the necessary preparation required to make the process happen smoothly. Guest host Pat Gibbons welcome Walker technology consultants Liz Wallshield and Charlie Rumsey to talk about some of the step companies should take to make the implementation process happen smoothly and on schedule.

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Steve welcomes guest Sonya McAllister to discuss how CX leaders need to be influential - persuading other people and teams to engage and join in efforts to create a customer experience that provides a competitive advantage.

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Educational institutions are beholden to a different type of customer: students. Discovering how students experience the education and services they receive from one of the largest community colleges in the nation requires a substantial experience program. Host Steve Walker welcomes guests Matt Ashcraft and Meredith Warner from Maricopa Community Colleges to discuss experience management within an educational institution and the differences between higher education and for-profit organizations.

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Customer experience is about people: your customers or clients, your employees and colleagues, your business partners – people make the experience. So, it goes without saying that designing any experience should include the perspective of those involved, and human-centered design can help inform that process. Host Steve Walker welcomes Seth Fritz, the manager of the Design Futures team at the Delta Faucets Company, for a discussion on human-centered design.

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Just as a car requires regular maintenance, customer experience programs need regular evaluation, leading to small "tune ups" - or complete overhauls - so they deliver the best possible results for your company. For a company that produces live events, the pandemic presented lots of challenges that required their CX program to adapt. Host Steve Walker welcomes Christine Beishline from Freeman to discuss how they “design for beautiful,” always keeping the end results in mind when evaluating the effectiveness of the customer experience and making changes to deliver the best possible results for the company.

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A key element to building any customer experience program is understanding your customers and creating empathy. And there are tools to help with that: surveys, interviews, journey mapping sessions. But what about the process beyond all the discovery that happens? What do you DO with all that “understanding?” Host Steve Walker welcomes Emily Stump of Indiana University Health for a look at how design thinking can be a valuable tool for CX professionals.

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There's an adage that implies designers and data scientists sometimes don't always see eye to eye. Designers look for esthetics and the functionality while developers and researchers lean towards the data. Why is that? We can all get along and there's no reason why we can't work together! You can use data to create usable and esthetic designs that support excellent customer experiences. Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Caroline Quinlan, digital CX manager for Electric Ireland, for a discussion on how data combined with design thinking can create amazing customer experiences.

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The concept of dashboards is probably nothing new to customer experience pros. We use them to help communicate data like NPS and Loyalty. But is your dashboard up to snuff? Is it showing you the data you really need and is it organized in a way that your employees or colleagues can glean from it the right information? Host Steve Walker welcomes data reporting expert Katie Hatch from Walker to discuss some key best practices in making certain your dashboards communicate the data you need.

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Many companies rely on partners to deliver the best results for their customers – we here at Walker enjoy the benefits of being a member of the Qualtrics Partner Network. But any CX pro will know that it may not be particularly easy to manage the experience when it’s in another organization’s hands, and it’s natural to want to ensure that any experience your customers have with you or your partner reflects your brand promise. So how do you manage the experience beyond your own walls? Host Steve Walker welcomes Andrew Carothers, senior manager of digital experience at Cisco, for a discussion on delivering exceptional experience to and through your partner channels.

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Arguably, healthcare is a unique industry in which lives literally are on the line. So how do healthcare companies and providers plan and execute customer – or in this case, “patient” – experience? Host Steve Walker welcomes guest Patty Riskind, head of global healthcare at Qualtrics, an experience management company, to discuss the importance of gathering feedback to help both the patients and the front-line of the healthcare workforce.

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