Customer Experience

I'm astonished by how many entrepreneurs overlook the most impactful tool in their arsenal: The art of listening. In a world where everyone is so eager to speak, you can stand out simply by listening. But it's not just about hearing words — it's about understanding the meaning behind them. Here's how to get better at it: 1. Active engagement: When you're in a conversation, focus entirely on the speaker. Put away your phone, avoid distractions, and make eye contact. 2. Empathy, not ego: Stop trying to impress people with your knowledge, and instead try to understand the other person's perspective. 3. Ask, don't assume: Don't just wait for the pause and start talking. Follow up with questions that show you're actually engaged. 4. Reflect and respond: Instead of having an immediate reaction, make sure you ingest what the person said. Then respond thoughtfully. Remember: In a world of talk-talk-talk, you can stand out by simply opening your ears and being interested in new perspectives. ~~~ If you found this helpful, consider resharing ♻️ and follow me Justin Welsh for more content like this.

Fewer things are more misunderstood in Business and Marketing than loyalty. If 65% of people want discounts from a loyalty program, it doesn't mean they like Loyalty programs, or are loyal, it means they like having more money. If 24% of people want personalized, recommended products based on their preferences from a loyalty program. It's because if people do , crazy I know, prefer slightly relevant things, over totally irrelevant things. It doesn't mean they love deep engagement from loyalty programs If 13% "of consumers want brand recognition from a loyalty program", it means they don't understand the question and are just ticking boxes to make the damn survey end. Realistically loyalty to brands doesn't exist at all. Loyalty is an emotion between people. Loyalty makes you go to someone's Wedding when you are tired, broke and stressed. Airlines and upgrades makes you fly Delta airlines to get there, not a sense of relationship or emotional obligation. Loyalty is generally one of 5 things. 1) Proximity. I'm loyal to Publix because it's the closest supermarket to me and it's OK. When we think of regular business, we forget most people are choosing you because it's physically easier. 2) Routine. You are more likely to get divorced than change bank. Not because of love but because of habit and effort. We are remarkably set in our ways, risk averse, lazy and busy. We do things over and over because life is complex enough and 99% of stuff in life is about reducing thought required. 3) Preference. I'm quite loyal to Dyson, not because it's the best electronics maker out there, but generally I prefer the stuff they make. Like all of the above, this looks like Loyalty in all shapes and forms, but it's not. It's transactional 4) Lock-in. Apple now charges me $40 for Apple One, it's an insane amout of money to spend, but what am I going to do? Sell all my Apple stuff and move to Google. When I've 8 Sonos speakers am I going to buy a Bose one? Things work better together, this is a massively underused dynamic for brands 5) Discounts and Rewards. When you stick with one company in some fields, they give you stuff in return. Airlines, hotels, car rental firms, etc. This gives the illusion of loyalty but it's not. It's a sensible transaction that carries on a long as it makes sense for both sides. This isn't to be miserable about the huge opportunities for companies using the levers above, just be more scientific about it. Make products that work even better together, make things easy to buy, make things that are better, and don't throw money at customers thinking it means more than it does. Most loyalty programs lose money and they do so because we're not realistic about how little people really care about them. Lets be more precise and honest about what levers we are trying to pull

One of the oldest questions in #CustomerSuccess is "why did the client churn?" Most companies conduct "Root Cause Analyses" on churn and code losses by "Churn Reason." Often, these processes yield conclusions like: 🤑 The client churned because of PRICE. 🤦🏽♀️ The client left us because of SPONSOR CHANGE. 💲The client bailed because of M&A. The reality is this is like saying, in medical terms, "the patient passed away because their heart stopped beating." But the question in medicine is "why did we get to that point?" The same is true in churn. As such, I think a powerful question to ask is "why do our clients stay?" We have many customers who have been with us at Gainsight for 5 years, and several for a whopping 10 years! Why are they still with us? When you follow this thread, a number of potential answers come out about why clients stay: 📈 The vendor evolves with us and innovated. 💃🏻 We love working with the people. 💸 The ROI we are achieving makes us stay. 🤦🏽 We are stuck with the vendor and it is hard to leave. 💪🏾 There is a huge champion that keeps the vendor there. ↔️ Too may people use it for us to pull the plug. 🧠 The company fits our strategy. Now, you could imagine why a client could leave based upon the above: 📈 If you stop innovating, they might leave. 💃🏻 If the account team changes, they might leave. 💸 If you stop delivering value or another company can do it cheaper, they might leave. 🤦🏽 If the client has a change, they will leave. 💪🏾 If the champion leaves and you are single-threaded, the client might leave. ↔️ If the CIO says "I don't care about adoption," they could pull the plug. 🧠 If the company's strategy changes and you're not on top of it, they might leave. Don't just look at why clients leave. Look at why they stay and learn from it. What would you add? Why do your clients STAY?

Came back from vacation Monday. Inbox? On fire.🔥 Buried in the chaos: a customer story that stopped me in my tracks (and made me so happy). A Customer Support leader at a fast-growing financial services company used AI to transform his team - in just a few weeks. This leader works for a financial services company that’s in high-growth mode. Great news, right? Yes! For everyone except his Customer Support team… As the business grew faster, they were bombarded with repetitive questions about simple things like loan statuses and document requirements. Reps were overwhelmed. Customers faced longer response times. The company has been a HubSpot customer for nearly 10 years. They turned to Customer Agent, HubSpot’s AI Agent, and got to work: - Connected it to their knowledge base → accurate, fast answers - Set smart handoff rules → AI handles the simple, reps handle the complex - Customized the tone → sounds like them, not a generic bot (you know the type) In a short space of time, things changed dramatically: - Customer Agent now resolves more tickets than any rep - 94.9% of customers report being happy with the experience - For the first time, the team can prioritize complex issues and provide proactive support to high-value customers It’s exciting to see leaders using Customer Agent to not just respond to more tickets, but to increase CSAT and empower their teams to drive more impact. 2025 is the year of AI transformed Customer Support. I am stunned by how quickly that transformation is playing out!

In 2012, when I joined ZoomInfo as the VP Product, Growth & Strategy, they were stuck at $9M ARR. When I left 5 years later, we were at over $80M ARR. Here’s the 5-step GTM playbook we used to get unstuck and build the foundation to scale: Step 1: Develop contrarian products that satisfy unmet demand - Most companies can't convince themselves to radically innovate - In 2012, data companies were selling CSVs, no one was investing in product - We took massive risk and doubled down on building products to streamline data delivery - We started to "look different" from the space - Sometimes it's better to "look different" than "be better" Step 2: Focus on SMB or lower end of the market - Market disruption always happens at the low end - As a small company, it’s difficult to compete for your competitor’s best customers - Instead aim your efforts at the customers your competitors would give up without a fight - We focused on the SMB and lower mid market with a self-serve product at a low price - Everyone else was fighting for the more lucrative enterprise customers Step 3: Increase Prices, Decrease Churn, Add Features Rapidly - We rapidly developed features that gave GTM teams ammo for upgrades - With new products, we could add a new line item in the invoice and post growth with relative ease - New features also gave us the reason to reach out to customers to talk about upsell - All this was predicated on our ability to develop a sustained product roadmap with a strong understanding of the impact on GTM and our ability to attach growth initiatives to every small feature release Step 4: Intentionally Design Market Expansion for Virality - Nonlinear growth comes from getting the inbound engine started early - At first, we went after the spray and pray approach with some automation, which worked well - However, our revenues exploded when we started getting strategic with TAM and went after market niches, especially the ones that were ignored by other B2B data vendors - This allowed us to dominate multiple small verticals and as we got popular within those verticals it resulted in word of mouth - virality, inbound inquiries and increased retention contributing to the non linear growth Step 5: Cultivate a Leader's Mindset - Startups are often fighting just to stay afloat - this creates chaos, panic & unrest in organizations - By switching the mental model from a survival mindset to a leader's mindset, you can switch from a perpetual struggle for revenue growth to attempting to decimate competitors - You switch from being a price follower to becoming a price setter in the long run - This mindset provides a purpose, a better decision making framework, and results in a much healthier business and work culture TAKEAWAY: Markets are always evolving, and every market can be disrupted. Any business can get unstuck. The specific plays required to disrupt the B2B data market would be different today, but the ZoomInfo playbook's principles are timeless.

In customer experience (CX), the closed-loop feedback (CLF) model has been a cornerstone for over two decades, originally designed to ensure responsiveness and adaptation. It's time for a change. With the advent of artificial intelligence, it's clear that merely adapting this model isn't enough. It's old tapes. It needs to evolve. Here's what's next: Real-time Interaction Management: Traditional CLF reacts to feedback after the fact. And, traditionally, closing the "inner loop" requires a human to follow up. AI turns this on its head. Imagine a system that adjusts the customer journey in real-time based on predictive analytics, reducing friction points before they affect the customer experience. Large Action Models: We all know that AI can dive deep into data lakes to instantly identify patterns and root causes of customer dissatisfaction. This rapid analysis allows companies to not only close the feedback loop faster, but also implement more effective solutions. This will come in the evolution of Large Language Models, or LLMs, to LAMs, or Large Action Models. Continuous Learning Systems: AI transforms CLF from a loop that ends into continuous cycle of improvement. These systems learn from each interaction, constantly updating and refining strategies to enhance the customer experience. This means that the feedback loop is ever-evolving, driven by AI's ability to adapt to new information and complex variables, seamlessly. CX leaders have to embrace AI's potential to redefine our foundational practices. It's time to innovate beyond the traditional CLF and leverage AI to deliver personalized experiences, and at scale. How are you thinking about adaptive, predictive, and personalized CX strategies? Your answer can't be to hire more people to close more loops. #customerexperience #ai #journeymanagement #survey #CLF

"The answer does not lie in data, but in the stores."  - Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks At first glance, this quote from the CEO who built Starbucks into a #CustomerExperience powerhouse might seem contradictory, but it is not. We live in a world awash with data, and although the solution to being #CustomerCentric may demand better uses of customer data, you can't merely data your way to a better #CX. One of the key problems I see with client CX programs is not that they lack data. They often have voluminous amounts of customer feedback, digital signals, purchase data, and other customer data, but they don't make good use of it. I've grown to hate the term "customer 360" when it comes to data topics because it focuses attention more on adding ever more data sources and less on what data is most useful and how to use it. If you can't use the data you have today, chances are the solution to improving your CX isn't to find yet more sources of data. I think the Pareto principle is a great one to apply here--what is the 80% of value you can deliver from 20% of the "360-degree view of the customer"? Instead of pretending your organization is able to collect, analyze, and use more data, why not identify the 72 degrees (20% of 360 degrees) of data that is most useful and powerful? Which brings us back to Schultz's comments about Starbuck's disappointing results. He said, "The stores require a maniacal focus on the customer experience." That doesn't mean ignoring data, but it means starting with the customer experience and then figuring out what data you most need to understand and deliver the CX. Schultz also said that "senior leaders—including board members—need to spend more time with those who wear the green apron." Seeing the CX from the perspective of both customers and frontline employees is vital. Data is a part of the answer, but so is being willing to spend time observing, listening to, and acting as a customer and a frontline employee. Data is essential, but in my experience, few brands need MORE data to improve their CX. Instead, they simply need to make better use of the data they have, and that means starting with the customer (and not the bottom line), understanding the customer and employee experience, and leading with customer-centric strategies. https://lnkd.in/gHqHxWqB

Mastercard's recent integration of GenAI into its Fraud platform, Decision Intelligence Pro, has caught my attention. The results are impressive and shows the potential of “GenAI in Advanced Business Applications”. As someone who follows AI advancements in Fraud across the FSI industry, this news is genuinely exciting. The transformative capabilities of GenAI in fortifying consumer protection against evolving financial fraud threats showcase the potential impact of this integration for improving the robustness of AI models detecting fraud. The financial services sector faces an escalating threat from fraud, including evolving cyber threats that pose significant challenges. A recent study by Juniper Research forecasts global cumulative merchant losses exceeding $343 billion due to online payment fraud between 2023 and 2027. Mastercard's groundbreaking approach to fraud prevention with GenAI integrated Decision Intelligence Pro is revolutionary. - Processing a staggering 143 billion transactions annually, DI Pro conducts real-time scrutiny of an unprecedented one trillion data points, enabling rapid fraud detection in just 50 milliseconds. - This innovation results in an average 20% increase in fraud detection rates, reaching up to 300% improvement in specific instances. As we consider strategic imperatives for AI advancement in fraud, this news suggests what future AI models must prioritize: - Rapid analysis of vast datasets in real-time, maintain agility to counter emerging fraudulent tactics effectively, and assess relationships between entities in a transaction. - By adopting a proactive approach, AI systems should anticipate and deflect potential fraudulent events, evolving and learning from emerging threats to bolster security. - Addressing the challenge of false positives by evolving AI models capable of accurately distinguishing legitimate transactions from fraudulent ones is vital to enhancing overall security accuracy. - Committing to continuous innovation embracing AI is essential to maintaining a secure and trustworthy financial ecosystem. #artificialintelligence #technology #innovation

Notes on a rebrand... Last week we launched the new Bain Capital Ventures brand. A few nuggets of guidance from this and other rebrands for those embarking on a similar journey: 1) More doesn't mean merrier. Venture firms and partnership structures have a uniquely high number of stakeholders, but even at a startup the number of people who want a say in the rebrand can expand to an unmanageable level. Use the RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) rubric or something simpler like the below to determine how you will get (but not necessarily incorporate) all the feedback from your organization. Example: - Owner: Marketer - Decider: CEO, Maybe cofounding team - Input: Leadership Team, Key Board Members, Key Customers Otherwise, you'll run into problem number two, in addition to a snail's pace timeline. 2) Learn from Frankenstein. Don't build a Monster. If you accept everyone's copy and design edits, you will end up with something nonsensical at worst and drab at best. Find a way to help people feel heard, but also help them understand that there needs to be a unified vision that flows through the entire project. It can't be a little of this, little of that. 3) Avoid messaging sprawl. It hurts to do this... I know. You should still have brand tenets, but above that there needs to be a SINGLE core brand idea. This will cause pain because you will have to get rid of the 6 good ideas in favor of one great idea. That idea should make your target audience feel something -- safety, inspiration, joy, etc. It can't be purely transactional. If you don't do this, you are living in a world of pure product marketing and brand can never be a moat. 4) What's the context? Your customer will often weigh your brand vs. other options. If you build your messaging without that input, you're missing a key part of the puzzle and building in a vacuum. What brands are formidable in your space? Build a grid of their positioning and make sure yours stands out. If you choose to go head to head on brand, make sure you can out-play them in both your words and your deeds. 5) Talk about it but also be about it. Lots of brands talk. Few brands DO. How will you bring the messaging you've worked on to life? How do you show up? What decisions will you make and what will you prioritize that aligns with your positioning? Without this, your brand is just an empty vessel. -- What's your best brand building advice?

Whether you have known me for years or maybe just a few minutes, you are likely already aware that I believe the greatest investment a business can make is in its people. That’s because everything comes down to our employees. Their success is our success, and where we go in the future and how we get there depends on their engagement and commitment. That’s why I was surprised and frankly baffled after reading a recent piece in Fortune’s CHRO newsletter - Employee Experience Takes a Back Seat - predicting a downward investment in employee culture based on recent Forrester research. A downward investment?! You might as well start slicing and dicing your revenue, productivity and performance while you’re at it. According to the research, three trends will fuel the EX recession: (1) Reduction in DEI investments  (2) Reduction in employee engagement and culture  (3) How AI will negatively disrupt the HR process Here’s why you can’t afford to backburner EX: Your employee experience is intrinsically linked to your customer experience. You can’t deliver on your customer’s needs and expectations if you’re not delivering on your employees’ needs and expectations – they go hand-in-hand. And – if “investments in employee wellbeing are taking a back seat,” as the article suggests – then this means that the individuals responsible for driving the business are also ‘in the back seat.’ How can a company continue to be successful in this scenario? The answer is that - they can’t.  That’s why I am proud to be on the front lines of making Verizon a great place to work alongside the best HR team. We are continuously analyzing, evolving and augmenting our V Team experience to ensure our people feel valued and have the resources they need to thrive at work and in life. As employers, we must keep the employee experience at the center of everything we do and operate with that as a lens to measure our impact and success. Because we know the difference between a good organization and a great one always comes down to its people. I am proud to be an outlier and buck this trend because nothing is more important than supporting our #VTeam. Check out the research and share your thoughts below: https://lnkd.in/eSK7aXhR #PostItForPositivity #mondaymotivation #employeeengagement #peoplefirst #employeeexperience #lovewhereyouwork