Unlock the potential of your business as we unveil the secrets to customer experience marketing with insights from expert Dan Gingiss. Imagine transforming dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates through memorable experiences that naturally generate positive buzz. Gain exclusive access to strategies that identify at-risk customers early, incorporating their feedback to enhance their journey and differentiate your brand through exceptional service. Whether you're a small business owner or a seasoned marketing professional, discover how impactful small gestures can rival large-scale projects when it comes to winning over your audience.
Join us as we explore the intersection of marketing and customer experience, and learn how personalized interactions at your favorite coffee shop can translate into powerful word-of-mouth marketing. With over two decades in the marketing industry, we delve into how small businesses can implement cost-effective customer experience tactics while leveraging user-generated content and brand ambassadors. Imagine your employees becoming your most passionate promoters, enriching the customer experience and amplifying brand loyalty without breaking the bank.
As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of customer experience marketing, we delve into data-driven strategies to maximize customer retention. Discover how forward-thinking companies are using artificial intelligence to analyze customer behavior and prevent attrition, alleviating pressure on sales teams. From revolutionary sampling experiences pioneered by brands like Sipsmith Gin to the latest developments in AI, stay informed and inspired to innovate. Our personal reflections on social media trends round out this episode, offering fresh perspectives on creating authentic, shareable customer experiences that lead to organic promotion and sustainable growth.
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Speaker 1: Customer experience marketing.
00:00:02
It's a buzzword that's been thrown around a lot lately, and
00:00:06
for some time, but what does it really mean and how can it
00:00:09
impact your business?
00:00:09
In this episode, we'll dive deep into the world of customer
00:00:13
experience marketing with special guest, author, speaker,
00:00:16
expert and great guy someone I'm proud to call a friend, dan
00:00:20
Gingas.
00:00:20
From the importance of designing shareable moments for
00:00:23
your customers to calculating the ROI of your efforts, moments
00:00:24
for your customers to calculating the ROI of your
00:00:25
efforts We'll cover it all.
00:00:26
You'll learn how to identify dissatisfied customers early on,
00:00:30
listen to their feedback and take action to improve their
00:00:33
experience.
00:00:33
Dan will also share some real-life examples of companies
00:00:37
that have differentiated themselves through exceptional
00:00:39
customer experiences.
00:00:40
If you want to elevate your marketing game and create loyal,
00:00:42
raving fans, you won't want to miss this conversation.
00:00:43
So stay tuned.
00:00:44
To elevate your marketing game and create loyal, raving fans,
00:00:45
you won't want to miss this conversation.
00:00:46
So stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital
00:00:49
Marketing Coach Podcast.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Digital social media content, influencer marketing,
00:00:56
blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tiktoking, linkedin, twitter,
00:00:59
facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing
00:01:08
there's a lot to cover.
00:01:09
Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or
00:01:12
business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert
00:01:16
advice.
00:01:16
Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer
00:01:22
is your digital marketing coach .
00:01:26
Helping you grow your business with digital-first marketing,
00:01:31
one episode at a time.
00:01:33
This is your digital marketing coach, and this is Neal Schaefer
00:01:39
.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Neal Schaefer, your digital
00:01:44
marketing coach, and welcome to episode number 385 of the your
00:01:49
Digital Marketing Coach podcast.
00:01:50
I just came back from teaching my role of social media in
00:01:55
marketing and branding course at Rutgers Business School, part
00:01:59
of the mini MBA in brand development and marketing
00:02:01
communications.
00:02:02
Always a pleasure to go back East and I'm actually going to
00:02:06
be back East again next week and I will save that information
00:02:10
for our next episode On to this week's news.
00:02:13
So a few things I'm following that I think you will be
00:02:17
definitely interested in.
00:02:18
One is Claude, who are another AI model similar to ChatGPT or
00:02:24
Google.
00:02:24
Gemini Plod, which is put out by a company called Anthropic,
00:02:29
have now announced that they are introducing a new feature in
00:02:33
their Clod 3.5 AI model, which is called Sonnet S-O-N-N-E-T,
00:02:38
and this new model is going to be called Computer Use, which
00:02:40
allows the AI to control a PC, automating tasks like moving the
00:02:45
mouse, clicking buttons and typing text.
00:02:47
So this is what are called autonomous AI systems, the next
00:02:53
evolution of AI.
00:02:54
I mean AI is really I won't say it's only just started.
00:02:58
If you read digital threads, you know that AI has been going
00:03:00
on for decades, but it is quickly evolving into something
00:03:03
new and exciting and this is another area in which I believe
00:03:07
you want to keep your eyes on the ball on the goal on so
00:03:11
Microsoft OpenAI also developing these, but I know a lot of you
00:03:15
prefer Claude, and good to see that they are moving ahead with
00:03:17
this Once again.
00:03:18
If you haven't heard me talk about these news on previous
00:03:21
episodes, these are all part of my newsletter, which you can
00:03:24
subscribe to at neilschafercom slash newsletter, so you are the
00:03:27
first to hear this information.
00:03:29
Also, interesting article about AI detectors that are
00:03:34
mislabeling students work as AI generated when they truly are
00:03:40
not.
00:03:40
In fact, there are reports that indicate false positive rates
00:03:44
as high as 26% to 80%, and this is only dealing with students.
00:03:50
But you can imagine in the business world, if you're very
00:03:53
sensitive to making sure you are not leveraging AI generated
00:03:57
content in your organization, it becomes really really hard to
00:04:01
determine how much AI generated content is actually out there.
00:04:05
And when you consider that, even if you use, let's say, a
00:04:09
tool like Grammarly to edit your content, that will often, if
00:04:14
you go to an AI detector, come up as AI generated content.
00:04:18
So it's sort of a slippery slope.
00:04:19
I used to when working with guest bloggers on my
00:04:23
neilshavercom blog, I used to use an AI content detector when
00:04:27
accepting their content.
00:04:29
I have always used Copyscape, which looks for duplicate
00:04:31
content, which I highly recommend you do as well, but I
00:04:34
have simply stopped using a AI content detector, as long as it
00:04:38
reads like a human, sounds like a human and the advice is spot
00:04:43
on, based on the things that Google talks about, you know
00:04:46
experience, authority, trustworthiness and expertise
00:04:49
E-E-A-T.
00:04:50
I know I said them in the wrong order, sorry about that and
00:04:52
it's truly helpful content.
00:04:53
This is why Google doesn't even care if it's AI generated or
00:04:56
not, as long as it's good, it's human and it shares personal
00:04:59
experiences.
00:05:00
So that's the way that I look at it, and this is a really
00:05:04
insightful article in my latest newsletter that I think you'll
00:05:07
be interested in looking at as well, but it's just some food
00:05:09
for thought for today.
00:05:11
And finally, you know Twitter, which I still refuse to call X,
00:05:15
is really dwindling to a fraction of what it used to be,
00:05:20
and recently I logged in and it said blocked users.
00:05:24
So users that I decided to block will still be able to view
00:05:28
my content, which to me sounds really bizarre.
00:05:34
I mean, that's the whole idea of blocking someone.
00:05:37
So there were a lot of people like myself that were outraged.
00:05:40
I mean, I continue to spend less time on X.
00:05:42
There are some people there that are friends of mine, are
00:05:46
collaborators, and we still engage with each other, but the
00:05:49
number is definitely on the decline and once X announced
00:05:52
this, there were 500 people that went to Blue Sky alone, and
00:05:57
Blue Sky has these tools to help you sort of migrate your
00:05:59
content over from Twitter slash X.
00:06:01
I have not gone that far.
00:06:03
I just find myself spending more time on LinkedIn and a
00:06:06
little bit more time on threads.
00:06:07
These days, linkedin is definitely, for me, the place to
00:06:10
be, and I just cannot spend enough time there.
00:06:11
So that's it for this week's news.
00:06:15
I also wanted to give you some quick personal updates on
00:06:17
digital threads and maximizing LinkedIn for business growth my
00:06:20
two new books, which have not even been out for well.
00:06:23
In the case of digital threads, we are still nearing the one
00:06:26
month anniversary as it came out on October 1st, so very
00:06:29
encouraged by the feedback that I've gotten.
00:06:32
If you have yet to purchase digital threads and you are an
00:06:35
audio book listener, if you go to neilschafercom, slash digital
00:06:38
threads, audible, that's all one word.
00:06:40
Digital threads the name of the book immediately following that
00:06:44
, audible, you can actually get digital threads in audio book
00:06:47
format for free, so long as you are a first time Audible
00:06:51
subscriber.
00:06:52
So this is the deal that I recommend you all check out Once
00:06:55
again.
00:06:55
That is neilschafercom slash digital threads, audible all one
00:06:59
word.
00:06:59
As for Mixamazing LinkedIn for business growth, hope that
00:07:02
sounded right.
00:07:03
I am still working on expanding that content, fleshing out a
00:07:07
little bit more and then creating a paperback, hardback
00:07:10
and audio book version of that as well.
00:07:12
If you have read Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth and
00:07:15
you would like to join my beta reader team for this next
00:07:17
iteration and you have ideas of what you think I should include
00:07:21
to make it an even better book, I would love to hear from you.
00:07:23
Make sure you reach out to me, neil, at neilschafercom or
00:07:30
private message me anywhere on social media.
00:07:31
Let's talk and, yeah, let me help create something that can
00:07:33
help benefit both of us All.
00:07:35
Right, so onto today's interview.
00:07:37
Dan Gingas is no stranger to this podcast, but, unless you
00:07:40
have been a really really long time listener, dan was last on
00:07:44
before COVID, when this podcast was called Maximize your Social
00:07:48
Influence.
00:07:48
This is when I was coming out with the Age of Influence, right
00:07:51
before it way back on episode number 138 in March 13th in 2019
00:07:57
.
00:07:57
At that time, we talked about customer experience marketing as
00:08:00
well, but five years have passed.
00:08:02
It continues to be top of mind, especially with a lot of CMOs
00:08:06
that I engage with, and Dan is just a great educator and offers
00:08:10
a lot of really, really great advice that I think you're going
00:08:13
to like.
00:08:13
Yeah, he's a Chicago Cubs fan.
00:08:15
We'll put that beside us, but he is a great guy that I've
00:08:18
known for, I think, like a decade, and just such a pleasure
00:08:21
and an honor to have him on my show and to see how much he has
00:08:24
grown as a speaker, as an author .
00:08:26
So, without further ado, here's my interview with Dan Gingas.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: You're listening to your Digital Marketing Coach.
00:08:32
This is Neil Schaefer.
00:08:38
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, and welcome to
00:08:41
another live streaming edition of the your Digital Marketing
00:08:44
Coach podcast.
00:08:45
Every now and then I love to invite back old friends who have
00:08:50
a lot to deliver to the audience, and today I'm really
00:08:54
glad to have my friend, Dan Gingas, back on stage Now.
00:08:57
You may not remember I had to go back in my archives but it
00:09:01
was actually five and a half years ago before COVID, when Dan
00:09:04
was on episode number 138.
00:09:07
This is probably going to be episode 280-something, so it's
00:09:11
been a while and back then Dan was talking about customer
00:09:14
experience marketing.
00:09:15
And today Dan is also going to be talking about customer
00:09:19
experience marketing.
00:09:19
But obviously we've had COVID and we've had generative AI, and
00:09:22
these are topics that I talk about in my new book, Digital
00:09:24
Threads.
00:09:24
But obviously we've had COVID and we've had generative AI, and
00:09:25
these are topics that I talk about in my new book, Digital
00:09:28
Threads.
00:09:28
I can't wait to dig in what Dan has to say about how things
00:09:31
have changed.
00:09:32
And I think that the customer experience is something five
00:09:39
years ago that was maybe a little bit more esoterical,
00:09:41
maybe a little bit more enterprise-focused, but I think
00:09:43
today I think we all talk about the customer experience in our
00:09:46
businesses.
00:09:46
So I think it's also a term, a concept, a practice that has
00:09:50
very much become democratized over the last five years.
00:09:52
So, without further ado, Dan, welcome to the show, my friend.
00:09:57
Speaker 3: What's up my friend Neil?
00:09:58
How are you, sir, doing?
00:10:00
Great thanks.
00:10:00
How are you doing?
00:10:01
I am awesome.
00:10:03
I'm so excited to reconnect with you and chat about our
00:10:07
favorite topics together.
00:10:08
Speaker 1: No, it's always a pleasure, and we've had these
00:10:11
conversations back and forth for man, I want to say almost a
00:10:15
decade.
00:10:15
I remember the first time meeting you was when I spoke at
00:10:18
that Motorola Solutions Conference back in Chicago or
00:10:22
Schaumburg, like many moons ago.
00:10:24
So it might be a decade at this point, which is really crazy.
00:10:28
Speaker 3: That was a long time ago.
00:10:29
I was still in corporate America at that time as well.
00:10:31
So many moons, yeah, but that's awesome.
00:10:36
I'm glad that we've been able to stay friends all this time
00:10:40
and supporters of each other, which is such a great thing
00:10:43
about this industry.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, dan is someone like myself that also began as
00:10:48
corporate and then shed the corporate protection and went on
00:10:52
his own and has been a really successful author, speaker,
00:10:54
consultant, so another great guy to follow.
00:10:57
If you haven't been following him, he is a Chicago Cubs fan,
00:11:00
but anyway, outside of that, everything he does I fully
00:11:02
approve, and we always go back and forth on Cubs versus Dodgers
00:11:06
.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can get into that later, but I'm not sure
00:11:08
I'm going to be a Chicago Cubs fan for much longer.
00:11:10
So it's just it's too tiring.
00:11:14
Speaker 1: All right, my friend.
00:11:15
So before I get into, you know everything.
00:11:18
Obviously you are one of many, I think, over the last few years
00:11:23
that has started talking about what we call customer experience
00:11:26
marketing, sort of in marketing , I guess, the final frontier of
00:11:29
how do you deliver value, how do you create value, how do you
00:11:32
differentiate your business from others.
00:11:34
So, Dan, can you just give a brief introduction to sort of
00:11:37
you know what you do now and your unique perspective on
00:11:41
customer experience marketing?
00:11:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
00:11:44
I think that the unique perspective comes from the fact
00:11:46
that I was a marketer for 20 years, so that was my career in
00:11:50
corporate America.
00:11:51
I literally grew up in direct mail.
00:11:53
I evolved into all of the digital channels social media,
00:11:56
seo, website marketing, mobile marketing and so I love
00:12:01
marketing and I like to think that marketing is still up here
00:12:05
in my head.
00:12:06
But there's a different thing that's taken over my heart,
00:12:08
which is customer experience, and I think what I have figured
00:12:12
out is that these things are unbelievably related.
00:12:16
In fact, I truly believe that the single best form of
00:12:19
marketing is customer experience , and the reason is that any
00:12:23
marketer will tell you word of mouth marketing is the most
00:12:27
powerful because it is the most authentic, it's the most genuine
00:12:30
.
00:12:31
Any small business owner will tell you we grow through
00:12:34
referrals.
00:12:35
That's how we need to grow, right?
00:12:36
So other people talking about us, and I believe that when you
00:12:39
boil it down, the best way to get people talking about you is
00:12:43
to give them a great experience.
00:12:45
It's like the old Bonnie Raitt song let's give them something
00:12:48
to talk about, right.
00:12:49
And when we do that successfully, people talk about
00:12:53
us, they say nice things about us and we grow our business and
00:12:56
so that's really where I've leaned in for the last five
00:12:59
years is this intersection between marketing and customer
00:13:03
experience head and heart, if you will and how they play with
00:13:07
one another together.
00:13:08
It doesn't mean you stop marketing, not at all.
00:13:11
It just means that customer experience is something that can
00:13:15
lift up everything else that you're doing, so that you, on
00:13:18
top of all of the marketing success, have your customers
00:13:22
doing some of that work for you.
00:13:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I already have a great comment here on LinkedIn
00:13:26
.
00:13:26
Love the topic.
00:13:27
The customer is the heart of any product, amen.
00:13:30
And I think that a lot of marketers are guilty of
00:13:34
forgetting about the customer or not interacting with the
00:13:36
customer, and maybe that customer experience marketing
00:13:38
brings it all back into focus, as it should.
00:13:40
So I guess you know, for those who are listening, it sounds
00:13:45
like it requires a lot of money or a lot of resources to do, and
00:13:49
one of the things, dan, that you want to discuss was that all
00:13:52
this can be done on a budget, even the smallest of businesses.
00:13:55
Obviously, when we talk about the customer journey, the
00:13:57
customer experience, it doesn't matter how cheap or expensive
00:14:00
your product is.
00:14:01
Every customer goes through that, right.
00:14:03
But just curious for the smaller business, for those that
00:14:07
are budget conscious, what would a customer experience
00:14:10
marketing program look like for that small business?
00:14:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:14:13
So I think the biggest mistake in customer experience is
00:14:17
looking at it as a multi-year, multi-million dollar
00:14:21
transformational project, because when you do that,
00:14:25
especially in a larger company, it gets put up against other
00:14:28
multi-year, multi-million dollar transformational projects and,
00:14:30
frankly, it usually loses and also it just feels like a big
00:14:36
slog.
00:14:36
Nobody wants to do it.
00:14:37
Nobody wants to start or take over a massive project that
00:14:42
moves so slowly, and so I've really tried to focus customer
00:14:46
experience on being what I call a series of little things.
00:14:49
Now it is an endless series, so you have to get used to the
00:14:54
fact that we got to love the journey, man, because there is
00:14:57
no destination.
00:14:58
You mentioned just a couple of the things at the start COVID
00:15:01
and generative AI that continue to change everything about
00:15:06
business, including customer expectations.
00:15:08
So that's why there's no destination.
00:15:10
As soon as we think we're there , our customers are going to
00:15:12
want something else.
00:15:13
But if we enjoy the ride, if we enjoy the journey, then we can
00:15:18
start looking at customer experience as all of these
00:15:21
little things that we do every day.
00:15:23
Then we can start getting every one of our employees involved,
00:15:26
no matter what their title or their job description is.
00:15:29
We can get them believing that they are also in the customer
00:15:33
experience business and I think if you start to ask consumers or
00:15:37
B2B buyers for some of their most memorable experiences with
00:15:43
working with companies, rarely do they say something like oh
00:15:47
well, it was when XYZ Company brought in Beyonce for a private
00:15:51
concert and then we had a private fireworks show
00:15:53
afterwards.
00:15:54
That was the most extraordinary thing.
00:15:56
And, yes, that would absolutely be extraordinary, but at you
00:16:00
know who knows how many millions of dollars it's not something
00:16:02
that's practical for most companies.
00:16:04
I find, when I talk to people, that oftentimes these little
00:16:08
things who knows how many millions of dollars it's not
00:16:10
something that's practical for most companies.
00:16:11
I find, when I talk to people that oftentimes these little
00:16:13
things, things like they remembered my name, they
00:16:15
remembered my order.
00:16:16
I walked into Starbucks and they were making my drink before
00:16:17
I even got to the counter Little things make a huge
00:16:18
difference to people and the good thing is, little things can
00:16:21
be implemented inexpensively quickly, without all the
00:16:25
rigmarole of this massive multimillion dollar project.
00:16:28
Speaker 1: So I want to touch upon a few things there, dan,
00:16:31
this is just a great entryway, a great segue into the
00:16:33
conversation about customer experience marketing.
00:16:35
So one of the things, as you know and thank you for your
00:16:38
endorsement of Digital Threads one of the chapters I have is
00:16:41
specifically on the power of user-generated content, and one
00:16:45
of the sections within there is how Instagrammable is your
00:16:48
customer experience.
00:16:48
So I think there's a definite intersection that we're seeing
00:16:56
between esoterical compare customer experience marketing
00:16:57
with Google Ads versus hey, this is something that we really
00:16:59
need to pay attention to, and I think the other one is and I
00:17:02
talk about a brand ambassador program is really the employee
00:17:05
as brand ambassador right?
00:17:06
And that's where definitely this can take part.
00:17:08
I'm just curious, though, taking a step back from those
00:17:11
intersecting points, I assume, because we're talking about
00:17:14
customer experience marketing, that it's the VP of marketing,
00:17:17
cmo that's that tend to, on paper, seem to drive ROI right
00:17:27
Like a Facebook ad or email marketing, whatever it is.
00:17:30
So I'm curious, getting into customer experience marketing,
00:17:32
when you're talking to business owners, cmos, vps of marketing,
00:17:36
about investing money in customer experience marketing.
00:17:39
Number one, measuring the ROI and I know it's long-term right,
00:17:42
it's, like you know, content marketing as well is very
00:17:45
long-term.
00:17:45
Seo is very long-term.
00:17:47
You don't get the results for several months, if not a few
00:17:49
years, in all honesty.
00:17:50
So I'm curious as to what that conversation looks like
00:17:54
vis-a-vis why they should be investing.
00:17:56
You know the ROI and then what are some of the KPIs that you
00:18:01
might be looking at in a classic customer experience marketing
00:18:04
program?
00:18:04
Or is it more anecdotal, which is totally fine, because when
00:18:07
those anecdotes add up, they're absolutely powerful.
00:18:10
So I'm just curious as to what's the perspective you take
00:18:13
as you're speaking, consulting, talking to executives on that
00:18:17
whole ROI and KPI picture of customer experience marketing.
00:18:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, so great questions.
00:18:22
I'll try to take them in order.
00:18:23
I want to jump back picture.
00:18:25
Or they want to take a video and they want to share it with
00:18:46
somebody, and I don't care personally whether they share it
00:18:49
with a million followers on Instagram or whether they just
00:18:52
share it with their neighbor or their colleague or a friend or
00:18:55
family member, because in so many businesses, all it takes is
00:18:59
one or two referrals from each customer and you're doubling or
00:19:02
tripling the size of your business, right?
00:19:04
So it doesn't have to be massive, but you do have to
00:19:08
think very strategically about what is the moment that you want
00:19:12
people to pull out their phones and take a picture, because if
00:19:14
you can't even fathom that yourself, then that moment
00:19:17
probably doesn't exist.
00:19:18
And so the companies that do this, right, have these moments
00:19:22
in mind, where it's not surprising that this is when
00:19:26
people grab their phone and take a picture, because the moment
00:19:29
is designed for that, even if there's no signage that says
00:19:33
please follow us on Instagram, please take a selfie here, which
00:19:36
I don't suggest that anyway, because you want it to be
00:19:40
natural and genuine, right?
00:19:42
So then, when we get into the ROI, and how do we measure this
00:19:46
stuff?
00:19:46
You know, you and I have been in the social media space for a
00:19:50
very long time and I think one of the things that I always
00:19:54
disliked about this space is that from the very beginning,
00:19:57
social media teams used to claim that you couldn't calculate ROI
00:20:00
and I thought that was BS.
00:20:02
And I called BS on that because it's a marketing channel like
00:20:06
any other marketing channel.
00:20:07
If you can't calculate ROI, you shouldn't be in it.
00:20:09
So just like that, with customer experience, there are
00:20:14
very at your customer retention rate.
00:20:16
I have a theory that I talk about in my book that I call the
00:20:27
leaky bucket, and what the leaky bucket is almost every
00:20:30
company has this is these are customers that are leaving you.
00:20:34
They're leaking out of the bucket, they're leaving you for
00:20:36
the competition and they're not even telling you why.
00:20:39
And these are the most dangerous kinds of customers.
00:20:42
Because they're leaving you, that's minus one customer for
00:20:46
you.
00:20:46
They're going to the competition, that's plus one
00:20:49
customer for the competition, and since they're not telling
00:20:52
you why, you don't even know how to get better.
00:20:55
So I would much rather if somebody leaves me.
00:20:57
I would much rather them leave and screaming and yelling,
00:21:00
posting on social media, telling me everything I did wrong,
00:21:02
because at least I have a chance to fix that for future
00:21:05
customers.
00:21:06
So looking at your leaky bucket and measuring your leaky bucket
00:21:11
is a key way to judge how your customer experience initiatives
00:21:14
and your customer experience marketing initiatives are
00:21:17
succeeding.
00:21:18
If you have a retention rate right now of 95%, and you can up
00:21:22
that to 97%, that doesn't sound like a lot, but depending on
00:21:26
the number of customers that you have, that could be millions of
00:21:29
dollars worth of savings.
00:21:31
And also remember that when we lose a customer out of this
00:21:35
leaky bucket, we're putting more struggle on the marketing and
00:21:39
the sales team, because now not only do they have to hit the
00:21:42
sales numbers for the year, but they got to make up for the
00:21:45
customers that we've lost as well.
00:21:47
And so now our sales teams and our marketing teams are
00:21:50
overwhelmed because the goals keep getting higher and higher
00:21:53
every year and like, no matter how successful we are,
00:21:56
management's just going to give us a higher goal next year.
00:21:58
And that starts to create this sense of exhaustion and
00:22:01
frustration, which doesn't need to be there, because if we're
00:22:04
keeping more customers, we actually don't need to be there,
00:22:05
because if we're keeping more customers, we actually don't
00:22:07
need to acquire as many new ones .
00:22:10
Speaker 1: That's really interesting because in marketing
00:22:12
and in business school, retaining retention rate is this
00:22:17
really critical metric, but no one in the organization is
00:22:19
really looking at it, no one owns it right.
00:22:21
People in marketing aren't necessarily looking at it Sales
00:22:23
are always trying to close new deals but yet it's critical and
00:22:26
I think that when you get above VPs and CMOs of marketing or VPs
00:22:31
of sales to the CEO and the business owners, they understand
00:22:34
that the most.
00:22:34
So that's a really compelling argument and I suppose when
00:22:39
customers leave, then it's those that are in charge of customer
00:22:42
experience marketing to contact them, ask them about their
00:22:45
experience right, Instead of just a plain old marketing
00:22:48
survey, of really being able to put that data to use.
00:22:51
Speaker 3: So one more thing just to back up real quick.
00:22:53
So there's also things that you can do well before that.
00:22:56
So let me give you a quick example from my time at Discover
00:22:59
Card.
00:22:59
We knew if we were looking at Neil's account and I'm using you
00:23:03
just as a fictional example maybe you spend an average of
00:23:07
$1 a month on your credit card, and then, all of a sudden,
00:23:10
july comes around and you only spend $600 on your credit card.
00:23:14
That's a data point that says something might be wrong, right,
00:23:18
and so we got to talk to you then, because you might be
00:23:21
already in the process of moving your card over to a competitor,
00:23:24
but you're not there yet.
00:23:25
We still have a chance to save you.
00:23:27
If we wait till you're down to $0 in September, it's too late.
00:23:31
We're not getting you back at that point, and so there are a
00:23:34
lot of these breadcrumbs that we can follow to look for hints of
00:23:39
customers that are dissatisfied Over time, and especially if we
00:23:43
use AI to take all this data and analyze it, we can start to
00:23:48
see triggers where we know hey, if a customer doesn't log into
00:23:54
our website for a full month, they now have a much higher
00:23:57
chance of a triting later, and so if somebody hasn't logged in
00:24:01
for a month, we got to call them now because we got to get this
00:24:05
before we lose them.
00:24:07
And that, to me, is what a lot of the internal customer
00:24:09
experience marketing is about.
00:24:10
It's looking at the data.
00:24:12
I like to call it VOC and AOC.
00:24:14
So VOC is voice of the customer , that's, listening to the
00:24:17
customer.
00:24:18
What are they telling us in social media, in ratings and
00:24:21
reviews, when they call us?
00:24:22
Call transcripts, chat transcripts, all that stuff.
00:24:24
And then AOC with apologies to the representative from New York
00:24:29
, I'm not talking about her AOC is actions of the customer.
00:24:32
These are the things that we can get from data that our
00:24:35
customer is not telling us but they're doing.
00:24:37
These are logins.
00:24:38
These are how many places are they visiting on the website or
00:24:41
opening the mobile app?
00:24:42
Visiting our store spend dollars on the website or
00:24:46
opening the mobile app visiting our store spend dollars.
00:24:48
All of these things are actions of the customer that we can
00:24:50
also use to determine who's staying and who might be more
00:24:54
susceptible to a great marketing campaign and promotional offer
00:24:57
from our competitors.
00:24:58
Speaker 1: So a lot of those things you've been talking about
00:25:00
I think of just an abandoned cart email is an example of a
00:25:05
stopgap solution, of trying to get the customer back when they
00:25:08
haven't converted.
00:25:09
And I know that from a marketing automation perspective
00:25:12
there's probably a lot of companies that use a HubSpot or
00:25:14
a Salesforce that try to automate some of these things.
00:25:17
Social score goes up, goes down , what have you.
00:25:20
But I guess the perspective you're bringing is it's not
00:25:24
about automating these things to get a better outcome.
00:25:28
It's understanding sort of the reasoning behind that and really
00:25:31
taking this holistic perspective and seeing what we
00:25:35
can do to improve the big picture.
00:25:37
Would that be how you look at it, compared to all these other
00:25:39
sort of stopgap measures that companies try to do
00:25:42
traditionally?
00:25:43
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure, and I have nothing against automated
00:25:46
marketing campaigns.
00:25:46
I think there's absolutely a role for them.
00:25:48
The thing that surprises me, though, is how companies are so
00:25:56
averse to actually communicating with their customers.
00:26:00
So think about it If you go to a call center, right, what's
00:26:03
their number one goal?
00:26:04
Reduce call time, right, and maybe even more than that,
00:26:08
reduce calls at all.
00:26:10
In other words, we don't want to talk to customers, and I find
00:26:13
that to be a very strange strategy, because, if you ask
00:26:18
any business owner what their biggest asset is of their
00:26:21
company, if they give you any answer other than our customers,
00:26:25
they're wrong, because it's the only asset that, if it goes
00:26:29
away, you don't have a business.
00:26:30
Every other asset that you have , it could go away, and you
00:26:34
still have a possibly functioning business, but if you
00:26:36
don't have customers, it's over , and so, to me, if a customer
00:26:40
wants to talk to us, we have got to be open to talk to them, and
00:26:44
I also think we've got to be doing a better job at
00:26:47
proactively talking to customers , and so this is literally
00:26:50
reaching out and having a phone call or a face-to-face
00:26:53
conversation with some customers .
00:26:54
You can't do it with every one of your customers, but just like
00:26:58
you know, they do polling and politics to get a sense for what
00:27:01
the rest of the country is thinking.
00:27:03
We can talk to a few people and we can get some ideas and we
00:27:06
can ask them how are we doing?
00:27:09
What are some things that you like that we do, so that we
00:27:12
could do more of it?
00:27:12
What are some things that we do that annoy you, so maybe we
00:27:15
could stop it, and what are some things that you wish we were
00:27:18
doing, that we're not doing?
00:27:19
So maybe we could start doing it.
00:27:22
And I think too many companies overlook this very, very simple
00:27:25
way to get a really good perspective of how you're doing.
00:27:29
If you want, if you don't really want, to talk to people
00:27:32
directly, then look at social media, look at ratings and
00:27:34
reviews.
00:27:35
Don't be afraid of complaints, because when people complain
00:27:40
generally, it's because they care, it's because they want you
00:27:42
to fix their problems so they can keep doing business with you
00:27:45
.
00:27:45
But too often we just brush off complaints and we say, oh, it's
00:27:49
just this one angry guy or what have you.
00:27:51
You know, at Discover we figured out that every person
00:27:55
that called in with a complaint, we estimated there were a
00:27:58
hundred customers that had the same problem that didn't call.
00:28:01
Think about that for a second, and how powerful then that could
00:28:05
be to just listen to that one customer and try to fix what's
00:28:08
going on.
00:28:09
You're now fixing it for hundreds of customers at once.
00:28:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, amen, brother.
00:28:13
All that makes so much sense, and I want to give a shout out
00:28:16
to Discover, because my daughter , being a college student, got
00:28:20
rejected from every credit card company.
00:28:22
But Discover's like it's in the mail we get it tomorrow right.
00:28:24
So really awesome for giving a new generation of Gen Z students
00:28:28
a chance to increase their credit score.
00:28:30
Speaker 3: So good job, and Neil this is also customer
00:28:33
experience, because I'll tell you that the data behind it says
00:28:36
that people are most loyal to the very first card that gives
00:28:40
you credit Interesting, and that's been true for many, many
00:28:43
years.
00:28:44
This is a long-term investment.
00:28:46
We know that your kid is going to probably be a Discover fan
00:28:49
for a long time because she got you said it was her daughter
00:28:59
yeah, okay, because she got her first card was a Discovery card,
00:29:00
and the other thing that really impacts is what the parents
00:29:01
have, so that often we find can have a big influence.
00:29:04
But again, look at that through a customer experience lens.
00:29:07
It's, you know, think about, and there's a moment, by the way
00:29:11
, please tell your daughter I know you will do this, but way
00:29:13
too many Gen Zers get their first credit card and then they
00:29:17
take a selfie of it with, like, the number right there for
00:29:19
everybody to see.
00:29:20
Please do not do that.
00:29:23
We used to have to go and screen social media posts all
00:29:27
the time and get people to delete them because that's a bad
00:29:30
idea.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: That's funny.
00:29:32
I want to get into something before we hit the record button,
00:29:35
about how good customer experience marketing can
00:29:38
actually help both marketing and sales.
00:29:40
But before we get there, one question that arises is well, it
00:29:46
sounds like it's a sales role, it sounds like it's a marketing
00:29:49
role, it sounds like it is a customer service role, and I'm
00:29:52
assuming you see this as sort of a almost department agnostic
00:29:57
role, in that you really are becoming the voice, looking at
00:30:01
the voice and the action of the customer.
00:30:02
So in companies that are implementing a customer
00:30:05
experience marketing program, is it normally?
00:30:07
You know, social media used to sit in PR and then it went to
00:30:10
marketing and it's still in some organizations?
00:30:12
Is corporate communications right?
00:30:13
So I'm just curious is there one organization or one
00:30:17
department, was it an organization, that this sits in?
00:30:19
Is it like a special role, like in the early days we had social
00:30:22
media leads?
00:30:23
Is there like a customer experience lead or how?
00:30:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the companies that really get it are
00:30:31
doing both.
00:30:32
So they are creating a department, usually led by a
00:30:35
chief experience officer, a CXO, or a chief customer officer, a
00:30:39
CCO and, by the way, a chief experience officer may also be
00:30:42
in charge of in the culture, so that everybody feels like it's
00:30:45
part of their job.
00:30:46
Otherwise, the problem you have is it's like you know, if you
00:30:59
remember back when you were in corporate, who's the one guy you
00:31:02
didn't want to see coming down the hallway at you?
00:31:03
The auditors, Right, because you knew that was going to be a
00:31:07
whole bunch of work and bad news for you, right.
00:31:09
And some companies.
00:31:11
That's how people feel about the customer experience team.
00:31:13
They're like, uh-oh, here comes the CX team.
00:31:15
They're going to tell us everything we're doing wrong,
00:31:17
right, and we don't want that to be the case.
00:31:19
What we want is every employee to feel empowered that if
00:31:23
they're doing right by the customer, then that's part of
00:31:25
our value system and you're never going to get in trouble
00:31:30
for doing right by the customer.
00:31:31
I had a boss that once told me that he observed about me that
00:31:34
every meeting I was in I was wearing the customer hat, so I
00:31:37
was like looking at business problems through the lens of the
00:31:40
customer.
00:31:41
He was right.
00:31:42
I didn't even realize it about myself, but we want every
00:31:44
employee to do that.
00:31:45
You could be buried in the finance department.
00:31:47
You know in some office that you never actually talk to
00:31:51
customers, but chances are you're making decisions that
00:31:54
impact customers, you know.
00:31:56
Think about the guy that decided it would be a great idea
00:31:58
to start charging people to check bags at the airlines after
00:32:01
50 years when checking bags were free right.
00:32:04
That kind of a decision is not just a pricing decision, it's
00:32:08
not just a marketing decision, it's an experience decision and
00:32:11
it clearly affects how people think about your brand and the
00:32:15
overall experience.
00:32:16
So we've got to get more people going through that filter when
00:32:21
they make any sort of decision that might be customer impacting
00:32:24
.
00:32:24
Speaker 1: And we can only hope that Southwest Airlines'
00:32:26
decision to stop their random boarding was based on some
00:32:29
customer data.
00:32:30
Who knows?
00:32:30
I guess we'll find out.
00:32:32
Speaker 3: I think that's a good idea and I will tell you, I
00:32:34
stopped flying them when my ex-wife and I our very first
00:32:38
trip after having kids, very first vacation.
00:32:41
She got put in a middle seat, about 17 rows apart from my
00:32:45
middle seat, and I was like, yeah, this is not happening,
00:32:48
we're not doing this again.
00:32:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, having to explain to my family the first
00:32:52
time because we're used to flying, you know United as our
00:32:57
main airline and the first time we flew Southwest that was I had
00:32:58
to.
00:32:58
Basically it's almost like a religion, like it's done a
00:33:00
little bit differently, you know .
00:33:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:33:01
Speaker 1: But, hey, we talk about that unique customer
00:33:03
experience and I'm sure there's goods and bads, but getting back
00:33:06
to that point that you know, good CX marketing can help
00:33:10
marketing and sales.
00:33:11
I think you've already hinted at it, but I just want to give
00:33:13
you a little bit more dedicated time to for those that are
00:33:16
listening like well, you know, okay, we understand the
00:33:19
long-term play, we understand, you know, voice of the customer,
00:33:22
action of the customer.
00:33:22
How does this ease, or how does this improve our marketing and
00:33:26
sales?
00:33:26
I wanted to give you a chance to talk a little about that.
00:33:28
Speaker 3: Sure, so let's peel back on them separately.
00:33:32
So I worked for a B2B company it was my last job, a late stage
00:33:36
startup, before I went off on my own and this sales team every
00:33:41
year would get sales targets.
00:33:43
And it did feel like the sales targets went up every year, but
00:33:47
maybe it was a small percentage.
00:33:48
But then when we started figuring out that we were losing
00:33:51
customers on the back end, all of a sudden all of the pressure
00:33:55
goes to the sales team, because how are you going to get back a
00:33:58
lost customer?
00:33:59
Well, you're going to have to bring on two new customers now
00:34:01
the one that you were going to bring on anyway and the one to
00:34:04
account for the lost customer.
00:34:05
And so I watched the sales team continue to shoulder this
00:34:10
burden and their job gets, gets harder and their job gets more
00:34:12
stressful and they're more likely to not meet their quotas.
00:34:15
And so if you think, if you sort of play that out in an
00:34:19
employee experience perspective and other types of things, you
00:34:22
start to get burnout, you start to get.
00:34:24
This is why at least my observation for many years has
00:34:28
been that folks that are in a sales capacity at B2B software
00:34:31
companies, it's like every two years they're just rotating to
00:34:33
another company, and so I have a number of friends that have
00:34:36
called on me from you know, four or five companies at this point
00:34:39
, and I think that is because this burden keeps getting
00:34:42
heavier.
00:34:43
From a marketing perspective, I think that you know, number one
00:34:47
marketers are always pursuing word of mouth.
00:34:49
The problem is they tend to pursue it based on, you know,
00:34:53
trying to create a viral video.
00:34:55
I mean the number of CMOs I worked for they said can't you
00:34:57
just create a viral video?
00:34:58
I'm like, yes, if I could do that, I would not be working
00:35:02
here.
00:35:02
Right and so sure, some companies are able to create a
00:35:06
viral moment, and that is, you know, and that does it.
00:35:08
Most companies aren't.
00:35:10
And so if we want word of mouth marketing, which every company,
00:35:13
I believe, does, we've got to turn to experiences in order to
00:35:17
create that.
00:35:18
And when we get other people talking about us, we can take
00:35:22
some of those marketing dollars and literally move them to some
00:35:25
of the things we were talking about before, to retention
00:35:28
dollars, to focusing on existing customers, the ones that are
00:35:31
actually paying our salaries and keeping the lights on, and so
00:35:35
we're able to maneuver a little bit more freely.
00:35:38
And, like I said at the top.
00:35:39
This is not about taking away the sales people's job or
00:35:42
marketing people's job at all.
00:35:43
It's actually about, I think, easing the burden on both of
00:35:46
them.
00:35:47
And then one last thing I'll say is that when we get
00:35:50
customers talking about us, that creates great fodder for
00:35:54
marketing.
00:35:54
You know I'm sure that you've done this too you get a
00:35:57
wonderful testimonial about one of your keynote speeches and,
00:36:01
like you want to put that out there and tell you see, look,
00:36:03
look, what Joe says about me, right, because that's way better
00:36:06
than me saying that I'm great or you saying that you're great.
00:36:09
And so when we get more people talking about it, we've now got
00:36:13
content that we can turn around and use in different places as
00:36:16
well, in a way that doesn't feel quite as self-serving as us
00:36:20
saying we love us, we're so great, go us.
00:36:23
It's other people saying it, and again, that adds to the
00:36:27
authenticity.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that, to me , is the number one, whether
00:36:30
it's from a customer or from an employee, right.
00:36:32
And you know, yeah, and that to me is the number one, whether
00:36:34
it's from a customer or from an employee, right, and I'm
00:36:35
assuming customer experience marketing, employee experience
00:36:36
are two different things.
00:36:37
Yet there's obviously a lot of intersection, but to me that is
00:36:40
the greatest ROI.
00:36:41
And when you can now pool those people that are talking about
00:36:44
you, that are enjoying your customer experience and talking
00:36:47
about it, when you can pool them together into some sort of
00:36:49
organized group and this is where I launch into the brand
00:36:52
ambassador programs and digital threads, you can then
00:36:54
exponentially scale that and all the good that comes from it.
00:36:57
So, amen, I mean, that's in my book and every time I speak word
00:37:00
of mouth marketing is the most effective, and just posting on
00:37:04
social or, from a company perspective, posting a link or
00:37:07
doing a Facebook ad, is not going to incite that word of
00:37:10
mouth.
00:37:11
So really good reminders, dan.
00:37:12
So I'm curious are there any examples, real life examples
00:37:18
from different industries, that you think the listener or viewer
00:37:22
can adapt in their business?
00:37:24
They're sold on what you're saying, dan.
00:37:25
They want to take it one step further.
00:37:27
Speaker 3: So anything that they can sort of mimic or emulate or
00:37:30
be inspired by, to put your words into their action so
00:37:34
broadly speaking, what I think companies need to do is look for
00:37:38
opportunities to be different from the competition and to be
00:37:42
different from what you've always done.
00:37:44
I can tell you, the one answer that my employees knew never to
00:37:48
give me was because we've always done it that way.
00:37:50
That's the worst answer you can give anybody, and the second
00:37:59
worst answer is because everybody does it that way.
00:38:00
So those should be signals that we're not standing out from the
00:38:01
crowd.
00:38:02
So one of my favorite examples that I share in my keynotes is
00:38:04
from Sipsmith Gin, which is a UK-based spirits company, and
00:38:09
they figured out that they wanted to change how potential
00:38:14
customers sampled their product.
00:38:16
And if anybody's ever gone into a liquor store or a grocery
00:38:19
store, depending on the state you live in, you see that person
00:38:22
behind a table and they want to give you a sample of something
00:38:25
and they hand you this little Robitussin cup and I guess the
00:38:27
idea is you're supposed to do a shot of gin or a shot of whiskey
00:38:30
or whatever, and then take your shopping cart and go finish
00:38:32
your groceries.
00:38:33
And so it's a bizarre moment, it's not a great, it's not the
00:38:37
right time, it's not the right place.
00:38:38
So Sipsmith said what if we could change how people sample
00:38:42
our products.
00:38:43
So instead of going to grocery stores and liquor stores, they
00:38:45
went to community festivals, to local festivals in neighborhoods
00:38:49
, and I attended one in Chicago.
00:38:51
They had this pop-up tent.
00:38:53
You walk into this and the first thing you see is a
00:38:56
bartender who is there, absolutely, you know, dressed to
00:38:59
the nines in his Sipsmith outfit, everything's perfectly
00:39:02
branded, he looks like a postcard and he asks me what
00:39:06
kind of tonic would you like with your gin and tonic, with
00:39:08
your Sipsmith gin and tonic?
00:39:09
Now, I used to be a bartender and I didn't even know that
00:39:13
there were different kinds of tonics, and so he educated me
00:39:16
and he taught me about citrus tonic, indian tonic,
00:39:18
mediterranean tonic, and I'm already thinking, wow, this is
00:39:21
really cool, I learned something .
00:39:23
So I pick my tonic and I expect him to put a lime in it, because
00:39:26
any bartender will tell you this is the easiest drink to
00:39:28
make at the bar.
00:39:29
And instead he sends me to the Sipsmith garnish bar, and the
00:39:34
garnish bar has limes and lemons and cherries and dried
00:39:38
strawberries and herbs and spices and peppercorns and even
00:39:41
dried rose petals, and I did some math.
00:39:45
There are over a billion combinations of gin and tonics
00:39:48
that you can make with all of these choices.
00:39:50
So I call this an immersive experience, which is that the
00:39:53
customer is deeply involved.
00:39:55
I'm making, I'm getting to make my own drink, but the moment
00:39:59
that it becomes shareable and word of mouth is when they hand
00:40:03
you a little card.
00:40:04
And I'm actually going to grab it because I have a prop here.
00:40:06
I didn't know that we were going to talk about this, but this is
00:40:09
what the little card looks like .
00:40:10
It's a little Sipsmith card and it comes with an absolutely
00:40:15
adorable little clothespin like the tiniest little clothespin
00:40:18
that you've ever seen and they give you a marker and they want
00:40:21
you to name the drink that you just made.
00:40:24
And so people take out the marker and they write the name
00:40:28
and they put it on their cup.
00:40:30
And then I watched everybody, and nowhere does it ask people
00:40:35
to do this, but every single person in this tent took their
00:40:38
cup, put it down, made sure that the background was just perfect
00:40:43
, took a picture of their drink that they just created and got
00:40:46
to name, shared it and then, for the first time, picked up the
00:40:50
drink and tasted it.
00:40:52
And so what I love about this is that Sipsmith said look, the
00:40:57
way that people sample is not working very well, and it
00:41:00
doesn't, and even though it's the way we've been doing it
00:41:03
forever, let's try something different.
00:41:05
Let's try something that's both immersive and where there's a
00:41:09
moment I talked to you about before, about how you have to
00:41:12
create this moment where you know people are going to pull
00:41:14
out their phones.
00:41:15
The moment in there is this.
00:41:17
It was when I got to name my drink, because now it's
00:41:20
personalized, it's my drink and I just did what came naturally,
00:41:25
which is what came naturally to everyone in this tent.
00:41:27
Take a picture of it.
00:41:28
And so now, sipsmith, not only is getting lots of sampling,
00:41:32
they're getting people to sample it in a better environment,
00:41:34
where they're more likely to like it versus just a little
00:41:37
Robitussin shot, and they're getting people to talk about it,
00:41:40
which is even better because they're getting lots of social
00:41:44
exchanges around this.
00:41:45
And so that's the kind of thing .
00:41:47
You know, that might feel a little big to some of your
00:41:51
viewers, but it's the way that they're thinking about it and
00:41:54
they're starting with the way we've always done.
00:41:57
It is old and boring.
00:41:59
We got to do something different.
00:42:01
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking that you know, what's even better
00:42:03
than word of mouth marketing is including your customer as part
00:42:06
of your product, and that's exactly what they did, because
00:42:08
now they have a billion ideas for different products that now
00:42:11
they can recommend to bartenders .
00:42:13
They could put out recipe books and what have you.
00:42:18
So, yeah, it just opens a whole Pandora's box of various things
00:42:20
they can do.
00:42:20
So very, very cool, dan.
00:42:21
This has been a really inspiring, eye-opening brief 30
00:42:25
minutes of talking with you, and I'm sure it's when you talk.
00:42:28
I mean, you are the experience maker name of your book, and I'm
00:42:30
assuming that if people want to find out more about how they
00:42:33
can implement this in your own organization, they should pick
00:42:35
up that book right away.
00:42:36
Obviously, they should follow you and contact you as well, dan
00:42:39
.
00:42:39
So you know, outside of your book and your speaking, I
00:42:42
believe when we talked five years ago, you also offer a
00:42:45
customer experience audit service.
00:42:46
I'm curious if you still offer that or any other services that
00:42:49
you can introduce to my audience .
00:42:51
Speaker 3: Sure.
00:42:52
So we're doing something a little bit different from the
00:42:54
audit.
00:42:54
Although that's an amazing memory, you must have gone back
00:42:56
to the transcript of five years ago.
00:42:59
We're doing a couple of other things.
00:43:01
First of all, I'm super excited about a brand new keynote
00:43:04
that's coming out that is all about artificial intelligence
00:43:07
and the impact on customer experience.
00:43:09
Obviously, ai is a game changer for all businesses, all
00:43:14
industries, but the way that I look at almost everything is how
00:43:19
does it affect the customer and how do we make sure that it
00:43:21
affects the customer in a positive way, not in a negative
00:43:24
way?
00:43:24
So, super excited about that, and because my brand is the
00:43:28
experience maker, like my current talk, this will be very
00:43:31
experiential, full of examples, full of demonstrations.
00:43:34
I want to show you how it's working, not just tell you how
00:43:36
it's working and it should be super inspiring.
00:43:39
Two other things that I'm doing that I've been very excited
00:43:42
about.
00:43:43
We mentioned before this idea of customer experience being a
00:43:46
series of little things, so I've started a little sub-brand that
00:43:50
I'm calling Little CX Ideas, and this concept is that there
00:43:54
are ideas absolutely everywhere, and so if you need to know
00:43:57
where to get started or you're a little bit stuck and you just
00:44:00
want some inspiration.
00:44:02
I've got the library of ideas to share with you and it is, of
00:44:05
course, ai-based, but it is taking from every piece of
00:44:09
content that I've ever put out into the world, from my books
00:44:12
and my podcasts and my videos and my blogs and all of it.
00:44:16
And that's the free version that's available right now, and
00:44:20
there's going to be a pro version in which we are bringing
00:44:23
in literally millions of data points from online ratings and
00:44:27
reviews and social media posts of actual customers saying this
00:44:31
is what we want or this is what we like, this is what we don't
00:44:33
like, et cetera, and turning those into what I'm calling a
00:44:37
little CX idea.
00:44:38
The little CX idea is basically a sentence that says why don't
00:44:41
you try this?
00:44:43
It's like super easy, and the reaction should be man, why
00:44:46
didn't I think of that right?
00:44:48
And I want to encourage everybody to get into this idea
00:44:52
of customer experience is my job , no matter what my title or
00:44:55
description is, and it's easy enough and inexpensive enough
00:44:58
that I can execute it.
00:44:59
I can do this, so that's one thing that I'm super excited
00:45:02
about.
00:45:02
And then the thing that kind of replaced the audit a little bit
00:45:05
is I have something that I'm calling a CX inspection.
00:45:09
A CX inspection, and this is actually playing off something
00:45:16
that I have observed on so many different companies, which is
00:45:18
that when we look at customer feedback, there are three steps
00:45:21
that we should be taking, but most companies only take two of
00:45:24
them, and I refer to these steps as CAT, like meow C-A-T.
00:45:27
Number one is collect the data.
00:45:29
Most companies don't have a problem with that.
00:45:31
We've got more data than we need.
00:45:33
Number two is analyze the data.
00:45:35
Most companies are pretty good at that, and the problem is they
00:45:39
stop there, and so they take this data and they create a
00:45:42
report out of it that says you know, here's where our NPS score
00:45:45
is, or here's where our customer satisfaction score is.
00:45:47
They hand this to the CEO, who does not need another report on
00:45:50
their desk, and then that's it, and the T in CAT is take action
00:45:56
on this data, and so this is the part where, if we're not taking
00:46:00
action on customer feedback, we are missing all of the value of
00:46:03
this data, and so I've created a product that helps you get
00:46:07
from collect to take action much , much faster.
00:46:10
So we do a brief survey of a hundred or so customers, and we
00:46:15
take that data and immediately get to here's what you need to
00:46:19
do about it, and it's the same set of three things that I
00:46:23
mentioned before.
00:46:24
It's the three things we want to start doing because our
00:46:26
customers are asking for it.
00:46:27
It's three things to stop doing because our customers are
00:46:30
telling us they don't like it.
00:46:30
And it's three things to stop doing because our customers are
00:46:32
telling us they don't like it.
00:46:33
And it's three things to continue doing because our
00:46:34
customers are saying this is what I love about you.
00:46:36
You need to do more of it.
00:46:38
And then, of course, you go do those nine things.
00:46:40
You go do another survey, we'll come up with another nine
00:46:43
things for you, right?
00:46:44
And that's the whole idea of this is a continuous improvement
00:46:47
type thing.
00:46:48
Speaker 1: Right, very cool, dan .
00:46:49
I love hearing the innovations that you're bringing to the
00:46:57
space, really moving all those businesses that work with you
00:46:58
forward.
00:46:58
So thanks for all that.
00:46:59
I hope if anyone's listening, interested in those services,
00:46:59
you reach out to Dan.
00:46:59
And that leads to the final question, dan, is where can
00:47:00
people go to reach out to you?
00:47:02
Speaker 3: Sure thing, dangingascom is the easiest
00:47:05
place.
00:47:05
If you don't know how to spell it, look down at my name tag
00:47:08
right below my name there and go to danginguscom.
00:47:11
I'm also very active on LinkedIn and really love
00:47:14
engaging with people there.
00:47:16
You certainly can find me on Instagram and the other social
00:47:19
channels, but I would say I spend most of my time on
00:47:22
LinkedIn, or suggest the website .
00:47:24
Speaker 1: Very cool.
00:47:24
We'll make sure we have those links in the show notes.
00:47:26
But, dan, the experience maker, thank you so much for joining
00:47:29
us, sharing your wisdom, man.
00:47:31
I mean, it's been five years, but the landscape has changed,
00:47:33
but so have you, and, and you know, continue to innovate and
00:47:36
moving things forward.
00:47:36
So I can't wait to see what the future brings.
00:47:38
I can't wait for us to meet up in person again, ideally Cubs,
00:47:42
dodgers, you know, national League Championship Series.
00:47:44
But if that doesn't happen, we'll we'll have to meet
00:47:46
somewhere.
00:47:46
Speaker 3: Either that, or let's share a together.
00:47:48
That would be fun as well.
00:47:49
That'd be ideal, my friend, I really appreciate it.
00:47:52
Let's not wait another five years, and I'm super excited to
00:47:55
get my hands on a physical copy of digital threads and to scarf
00:47:59
it down.
00:48:00
Speaker 1: Coming soon, my friend.
00:48:01
Thank you again.
00:48:01
All right, see you.
00:48:02
All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview and we are
00:48:06
already in Q4.
00:48:07
Near the end of the year, and because this is episode number
00:48:11
385, that means I'm on a mission to publish 14 more episodes
00:48:15
before the end of the year.
00:48:15
Wish me luck.
00:48:16
Not that I don't enjoy doing them, but, as you know, when you
00:48:19
got a lot going on.
00:48:19
You know, recording podcasts does take up a lot of time, not
00:48:23
just the recording, but it's really the planning, the
00:48:26
production, the post-production.
00:48:27
All of this takes time.
00:48:28
I truly hope you appreciate the efforts that I'm putting into
00:48:31
this podcast and if you enjoy what you listen to, I would be
00:48:35
honored if you could go over to Apple Podcasts, spotify,
00:48:37
wherever you listen to this podcast, and write up a real
00:48:40
quick review.
00:48:40
One or two sentences is really all you need to help expose this
00:48:44
podcast to more people.
00:48:45
If you don't know how to do it, or if you have written a review
00:48:48
, please take a screenshot, reach out to me.
00:48:50
I'd like to thank you personally for your efforts.
00:48:52
And that is it for another one.
00:48:55
I hope you found exciting episode of the your digital
00:48:58
marketing coach podcast.
00:48:59
This is Neil Schaefer, your digital marketing coach.
00:49:01
Signing off.
00:49:03
Speaker 2: You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
00:49:06
.
00:49:06
Questions, comments, requests, links.
00:49:10
Go to podcastneilschafercom.
00:49:13
Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at
00:49:17
neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil
00:49:22
has published to support your business.
00:49:24
While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group
00:49:28
coaching membership community If you or your business needs a
00:49:32
little helping hand.
00:49:37
Speaker 3: See you next time on your Digital Marketing Coach.
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