The foundation of delivering a fantastic experience to customers is listening to them. How can you provide relevant and personalized experiences without understanding your customers and hearing their feedback?

Nationwide Insurance is known for its customer-centricity, largely because of its company-wide focus on listening to customers and using their feedback to continually improve the experience. EVP and Chief Customer Officer Amy Shore says Nationwide’s dedication to offering extraordinary care to its customers starts by listening to their feedback and ideas. 

What does it take to build a disruptive, customer-centric company?

It starts with customer-centric leaders.

Digital investment company Betterment was on my list of the 100 most customer-centric companies in 2022 because of its innovative platform that combines the convenience of digital tools with the personalization of human agents. Aside from a strong digital experience, what sets Betterment apart is its customer-centric leadership.

This episode is sponsored by Thinkific.

What’s one of the biggest challenges of securing a sale? It’s not rejection--it’s indecisive customers.

Customer indecision is everywhere, from B2B buyers making big purchases to customers shopping for clothes online. And it’s become even more evident as global and economic conditions become more uncertain. According to best-selling sales author Matthew Dixon, 40-60% of a salesperson’s qualified pipeline will ultimately be lost to no decision. That’s a significant loss of revenue and customer relationships.

*Sponsored by Thinkific

How do you reinvigorate a 135-year-old brand to connect with new and changing customers?

That’s the question faced by Bibie Wu, CMO of Del Monte Foods.

Customers have changed drastically in the last few years, especially in the food industry. Even with changing trends, Del Monte stays grounded in the goodness of fruits and vegetables. In fact, with more people eating at home, managing their household budgets, and trying to put great food on the table, Del Monte has never been more relevant.

Looking at the consumer industry, it’s clear that things are changing. But what does that mean for businesses, and how can they navigate these uncharted waters?

Kasey Lobaugh, Chief Innovation Officer for Deloitte’s Consumer Industry, discusses 100 topics the six forces critical to navigating the next decade of change in retail.

Millions of customers, thousands of employees, and more than 1,500 stores mean that Petco has a myriad of data and metrics to pull from to track its business growth and success. 

The challenge, like many other companies, is knowing which metrics to prioritize and measure.

Chief Customer Officer Darren MacDonald believes that what gets measured gets managed. It’s impossible to track and analyze every piece of data, so the company has to be strategic in its CX metrics. 

At the heart of customer experience is building relationships with our customers.

But the business side also means tracking those relationships and not lying about them. We can't expect to have a healthy and productive relationship with customers, employees, and investors if we aren't honest about what it's like for our customers.

Build-A-Bear Workshop is known for its unique and immersive in-store experience. As the name implies, customers get to build their own bear or fuzzy friend from start to finish, even filling it with stuffing, adding a heart, and giving it a name.

That great experience doesn’t happen by accident and isn’t something the CEO takes for granted.

To people in the trenches every day, the impact a positive customer experience has on the bottom line is clear. But proving that business case to executives and other teams is a common challenge for CX teams. 

Diane O’Hara, SVP of Customer Advocacy and Insights at CVS Health, represents the consumer at the table of a Fortune 4 company by collecting customer data, analyzing operational data, and working with business units to find the biggest opportunities to deliver a top-tier customer experience.

Most customers don’t come into the car buying process knowing exactly what they want. In fact, many customers find the experience overwhelming and nerve-wracking.

Easing those fears and delivering a personalized and convenient experience starts with knowing where customers are on their journey.

That’s where detailed customer journey mapping comes in to help brands understand the unique needs of their customers and provide relevant, empathetic service. Beth Mach, Chief Consumer Officer at TrueCar Inc., says it’s crucial to understand the highs and lows of the entire customer experience.

Cybersecurity and fraud have long been a part of the modern online experience. Every time a customer interacts or transacts with a brand online, they share sensitive data that has the potential to fall into the wrong hands.

But the last few years have taken fraud to the next level, meaning that every company needs to prioritize protecting their customers.

The customer of the future is here. Is your company ready?

The last few years have caused consumers to re-evaluate their purpose and what they value in life. With new priorities, many customers are changing brands and thinking differently about their relationships with brands. 

Customer experience is a decision everyone in your company needs to make every day. When you invest in making your customers’ lives easier and better, you set your company up for long-term success and loyalty.

Creating a customer-centric mindset means deciding every day to put customers first. There are four ways to do that, which follow my WAYS framework.

If a company wants to be customer-centric and operate in the experience economy, they have to succeed in two areas; psychological and technological. If a company has the right culture, then investing in the technology that empowers employees is a no brainer. But when a founder-CEO who has the vision leaves the company and passes it on to an accountant - that loss of vision can hurt the company. Gary Kelly is arguably to blame for lacking Southwest Airlines’ runway vision - and it has culminated in a very public PR nightmare.