Despite trying to do our best every day in customer experience or any other facet of business, we often run up against a wall. We focus all of our energy on performance, and by doing so, our results can actually decrease.

But why would that happen?

Eduardo Briceno, TEDx presenter and author of The Performance Paradox, believes it’s because so many of us are stuck in a fixed mindset. Despite aiming for growth, we don’t properly cultivate a growth mindset in order to help us achieve it. We’re continually putting our best effort into less effective practices, so our results don’t improve.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

The most competitive brands today understand the contact center is an opportunity, and ensuring a customer-centric culture in that contact center is key. The problem for most brands and customer experience leaders is high churn and the reality that burnout is real.

I talked to Brian Dunphy, an experienced contact center and customer experience expert who’s guided customer experience strategy for notable companies such as Disney, Bank of America, WarbyParker, and Postmates.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Over the past few decades, the landscape of the Fortune 500 has changed immensely. Reflecting on this transformation, Alan Murray, the founder of Fortune, offers an intriguing perspective. “If you go back 50 years and you look at the balance sheet of Fortune 500 companies in the 1970s, over 80 percent of the value came from physical entities - from oil in the ground to inventories on the shelves," he says.

But he points out that this is no longer the case. In today's digital age, more than 85 percent of the value of the Fortune 500 is tied up in intangibles such as intellectual property, software, and brand value. At its core, brand value epitomizes the emotional bond a brand shares with its customers. The emphasis has shifted from the tangible to the intangible; from concrete assets to human emotion and ingenuity. As Murray explains, “Ingenuity is the human capacity to craft innovative solutions to enhance life."

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Modern customer experience is data-driven. Management needs data-backed insights to understand what they can improve in their processes or products to yield better customer service. This is why research companies such as Forrester exist.

Forrester is an advisory company offering research, consulting, and other services to help companies make better customer experience decisions.

On the Modern Customer, I talked to Pete Jacques, a principal customer experience analyst at Forrester, about Forrester’s recent report and we discussed that it’s critical for customer experience leaders to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Running a contact center is one of the most challenging processes for a company when offering a unique and positive customer experience. Contact centers are the bridge that connects your customers to your brand and allows them to feel engaged and heard.

So, what makes running one so difficult?

I talked to Naomi Wheeless, the Global Head of Customer Success at Square, about the management and leadership strategy required to modernize and run a customer-centric contact center. 

Square is a publicly traded company providing financial, payment, and marketing services for businesses. Their call center lies at the heart of their customer success strategy. 

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Tanger Outlets has a 42-year history of being an industry leader in branded in-person retail outlets, providing a unique on-brand customer experience for people shopping for unique products from specific brands.

Stephen Yalof, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer, says that for the company and its outlets to remain relevant, it had to pivot towards customer experience in retail outlets instead of simply offering brands a space to sell unique on-brand items.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

In customer experience integrating innovation and personalization is key. Inspirato is a luxury vacation membership company that offers its members access to a curated collection of luxury vacation properties and experiences around the world. The company operates on a subscription-based model, where members pay an annual fee for access to these high-end vacation options. I had the pleasure of talking with Inspirato President David Kallery, about how they are redefining the luxury travel and hospitality paradigm.

Inspirato focuses on creating a compelling customer experience, and through that satisfied customer they get new customers. A staggering 50% of their members originate from existing member referrals. But why does this referral system work so well? It boils down to their customer focus which builds trust, empathy, and genuine connection.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

With its many changes and outside forces, the airline industry is challenging for customer experience. But Oscar Munoz, former CEO of United Airlines, believes it also provides an amazing opportunity to focus on individual customers and remember that even in stressful times and busy travel days, customers are humans and central to everything the business does. 

When Oscar first stepped into his role as CEO of United Airlines, he prioritized developing the shared purpose, or the mission, vision, and values. Over a year, he interviewed thousands of employees about what made United different and why they worked there. From their insights, United Airlines created the shared purpose of connecting people and uniting the world. And because employees were involved in creating that shared purpose, they have buy-in and are more engaged.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Marketing is often thought of as everything that happens before a sale; customer service is everything that happens after. But according to Allan Dib, best-selling author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan, customer service is marketing. The two sides are related and can work together to create a smoother experience overall.

Like in customer service, Dib says the first step of marketing is knowing your audience. Who are you talking to? What are they interested in? In his mind, marketing is the strategy used to get your ideal clients to know you, like you, and trust you enough to become customers.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

What is a customer-centric culture? According to Dr. Chris L. Brown, CEO and Co-Founder of MarketCulture, it’s the environment, behaviors, and how work gets done. At customer-centric companies, the culture revolves around providing an excellent customer experience. That strong culture starts with leaders who set the tone for embracing customers and having a customer-centric mindset.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

From Chief Experience and Chief Customer Officers to Customer Experience leaders, more companies are creating customer leadership roles. These positions can greatly impact customer-centricity, but they bring a common question: where do you start?

Jim Weber, Chief Experience Officer of Comerica Inc, stepped into his current role in late 2019 with a goal to build and expand a customer experience team. Weber says one of the most crucial parts of his job was ensuring he tasked the right person with running customer experience on a daily basis. At Comerica, that’s Maria Adams, the director of CX, who Weber says can see everything and process it strategically.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

A company as large as Choice Hotels, with more than 7,000 locations worldwide, is bound to have a huge amount of data. But how do you ensure data is used to improve and bolster the customer experience?

Noha Abdalla, Chief Marketing Officer at Choice Hotels International, Inc, says data is the cornerstone of the brand’s customer experience. Choice Hotels is recognized for knowing its customers incredibly well and providing a consistent guest experience, which comes from having reliable data.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future.

Where does a customer-obsessed culture start? With the CEO.

Jeff Mezger, Chairman, President, and CEO at KB Home, is known for his customer-centricity. That mindset has spread throughout the company to create a culture of customer obsession. Every employee knows their role and the impact of their work, which leads to incredibly high customer satisfaction rates.

Like many industries, the automotive space has been upended in recent years. With supply chain issues, changing technology, and evolving customer preferences and priorities, the car-buying process is much different than it used to be.

Jennifer Vianello, CMO of Cars.com, says there have been so many predictions about car-buying over the last 25 years that it is challenging to make new predictions. And even with advancements in technology, most customers continue to purchase in person and do tremendous amounts of research beforehand. Buying a car is the second largest purchase most people will ever make and one most people don’t take lightly. 

Most companies understand the importance of their frontline workers interacting with customers daily. But how many will build a customer experience strategy around them?

At JetBlue Travel Products, the contact center is in the middle of everything the company does--literally and figuratively. 

Imagine having an expert makeup artist available whenever you have a question. That's the reality for customers of some of the world's leading beauty brands, thanks to an innovative digital strategy that combines technology and the human touch. 

Salima Popatia is the Chief Digital Officer at Orveon Global, the company behind some of the world’s most recognizable beauty brands: Laura Mercier, Bare Minerals, and Buxom.

Customers frequently read reviews from other customers, but how often do companies get involved? Customer reviews abound online but are often overlooked by brands. 

Liz Carter, CMO of experience management company Reputation, says customer reviews have incredible power.

This episode is sponsored by Reputation.

Most customer experience data strategies include two types of insights: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data tells the stories behind the customers, and quantitative data shares trackable metrics of customers’ actions and a brand’s performance.

But according to Jim Kalbach, author of The Jobs To Be Done Playbook, modern CX teams have an over-reliance on quantitative data, which can distract from building strong customer relationships.

Between stress from the pandemic and the economy, rude customers, and changing technology, many customer-facing employees are burnt out. Mental health is crucial to everyone’s well-being, especially frontline workers and contact center agents who face challenges and difficult conversations every day.

Amy Smith, Chief Impact Officer at TOMS, says we need to talk about our mental health like we would talk about a broken arm, cold, or sprained ankle.

This episode is sponsored by Thinkific.

How does a company founded in 1911 stay relevant and a leader in the tech space today? Continual evolution and a willingness to disrupt.

IBM has long been a leader in the technology industry because of its willingness to experiment and challenge the status quo. Chief Communications and Chief Marketing Officer Jonathan Adashek attributes that to staying on top of advancements and being willing to adapt and find creative solutions.

This episode is sponsored by IBM.

The biggest challenge for customer experience teams often isn’t learning new technology, staying on top of trends, or connecting with customers--it’s getting buy-in from executives and proving the ROI of their efforts.

Bryan Sanders, Head of CX, Market Research, Digital at AAA, recommends that customer experience practitioners take a unique approach: do CX on the leaders they’re trying to engage with. 

Internal insights and customer feedback are essential to building an effective customer-focused leadership strategy. But it requires continually listening to customers, measuring what matters, and ensuring data is passed to the right teams to make changes and improvements.  

Diana Brown, SVP of Sales Operations and Customer Experience at XPO, involves leaders with the data through feedback loops. Leaders know the importance of data and see it first-hand by talking to employees about what is and isn’t working and the tools they need to deliver a great customer experience. 

This episode is sponsored by Thinkific.

The abundance of data available to companies today presents incredible opportunities to personalize their experiences and serve customers like never before. Today’s customer experience teams have the power to know so much more about customers, their preferences, and their history than ever. 

But with technology advancements, privacy challenges, and cookie changes, it’s also never been harder to be in marketing and advertising than it is today, according to Bill Bruno, CEO of customer data company Celebrus.

This episode is sponsored by Celebrus.

It takes a lot to stand out in the competitive DTC food delivery market.

But ButcherBox built a competitive advantage by staying true to one of its core values: being customer obsessed. Chief Product & Experience Officer Lesley Mottla says the value isn’t just words on the wall—it’s something leaders and employees are constantly talking about and living.