Category: Podcasts

Customer Experience in a Deregulated Electricity Market 

This week we welcome Katherine Wright to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. Katherine is co-founder and senior vice president of customer experience at Energy Texas, a retail electricity provider in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market. Electricity has been deregulated in the ERCOT market, where the consumer chooses their electricity provider. 

The ERCOT market includes about 85% of Texas, including the cities of Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and much of West Texas. Utilities that were in place when deregulation went into effect, about 20 years ago, manage the infrastructure, poles, and wires. They also read the meters. Independent retail electricity providers (REPs) like Energy Texas manage customer relationships.  

When a customer opens, revises, or closes their electricity account, they do it with their REP. When they experience an outage, they contact the utility. 

On this episode, we explore how Energy Texas differentiates their brand through innovative products and programs, competitive pricing, and excellent customer service. 

Giving Retail Electricity Customers Texas-sized Options to Choose From 

Katherine describes herself as a serial entrepreneur. In addition to Energy Texas, she co-founded Bounce Energy in 2004, which a large competitor bought in 2013. 

Katherine and her co-founders formed Energy Texas in May 2020. Nine months later, Winter Storm Uri caused blackouts throughout Texas. Uri’s impact forced some REPs to leave the retail electric business.  

In the aftermath of Uri, Katherine and her co-founders recognized an opportunity to enter the market and provide innovative, creative products to their customers. Giving their customers choices differentiates Energy Texas from most of their competition. 

Katherine wears multiple hats in her operational role. Her favorite is creating meaningful relationships with customers by doing things differently than traditional utilities and the bigger REPS. Energy Texas does that by offering flexible pricing plans, ensuring that the reality of every plan is as good as advertised, and making every customer experience as easy as possible. 

These four programs demonstrate how Katherine takes the company’s ideals and customer experience strategy and turns them into Texas-sized options for their customers. 

Peak Perks Program 

Energy Texas launched the Peak Perks Program with fresh memories of Winter Storm Uri that stretched the Texas electric grid beyond capacity. This program gives customers an opportunity to help prevent a similar crisis from happening and save money at the same time. 

Customers who sign up for Peak Perks volunteer to reduce their electrical consumption during peak load events. If they’re able to reduce their consumption during the event by at least 10% (based on their usage in a similar time period), they receive a 10% discount on their bill. 

To make the customer experience as easy as possible, Energy Texas alerts them in their online My Account that the company has called a peak load event. The alert includes tips and helpful insights covering appropriate ways to reduce consumption during the peak event. 

Everybody wins. The customer can get a discount for using less energy, Energy Texas keeps them satisfied by telling them how to use less energy, and the grid is under less strain.  

Giddy Up Guarantee 

At energytexas.com you’ll see rates based on average or greater electrical consumption. Energy Texas tracks their competitors’ rates and offers their rates at a discount. The Giddy Up Guarantee program enables Energy Texas to offer an additional discount to new, energy-efficient customers. 

Energy Texas knows how much electricity a new customer is likely to consume by reviewing their history. 

Most electrical meters in Texas are smart meters that send meter readings to the utility digitally. No one is needed to go out to the resident’s home to read the meter. Since the utility that handles metering is different from the REP that sells the electricity, Energy Texas has access to consumers’ meter readings history. 

When a new energy-efficient consumer signs up with Energy Texas, they send the customer an email inviting them to take advantage of an additional discount.  

An additional discount like that is sure to put a little giddy up in their customer onboarding.  

Freedom Flex 

Freedom Flex is for customers who want the flexibility to cancel their energy service if it doesn’t offer the lowest market rates. With Freedom Flex, customers pay a nominal monthly fee. They have the freedom to cancel their contract and sign a new one as frequently as every 30 days.  

So, if a Freedom Flex customer signed a contract for a rate that was low, and now contract rates have gone even lower, they have the freedom to cancel their current contract and sign a new contract at the lower rate. 

Another customer might have a few months left on their low-rate contract when they see in their My Account that rates have been trending up for the last three months. They might want to cancel their contract now and sign a new contract for a somewhat higher rate to avoid paying an even higher rate after their contract expires. 

Freedom Flex doesn’t guarantee customers they’re always getting the lowest rate, but it does give them the freedom to choose. 

Sun Jacinto Solar Buyback Program 

The State of Texas doesn’t have rules governing if or how utilities and REPs compensate solar panel owners for the extra power they generate and then feed to the grid.  

Most REPs that offer a solar buyback program compensate their customers for electricity they feed to the grid at a lower rate than the REP charges them for the electricity they use. 

The Sun Jacinto Solar Buyback Program stands out because it compensates customers at the identical rate that they pay the REP. For example, if a customer puts a thousand excess kilowatt-hours back on the grid and has an energy rate of five cents per kilowatt-hour, they’ll get a $50 bill credit.  

The credit comes right off the month’s bill, and in any month where the customer’s bill is less than the credits they’ve earned, the credits carry over until they’re used up.  

Tex-cellent, Easy-to-Use Customer Experiences  

Another one of Katherine’s most important and rewarding tasks has been to guide the user experience design for the Energy Texas website and self-service options. She’s ensured the customer portal is easy to use and provides customers with effective self-service capabilities that save time and, in many cases, prevent the need to speak with an agent or write emails.  

The customer-centric nature of everything she’s accomplished at Energy Texas makes it easy to realize why the founders’ mantra is to treat customers as they themselves would like to be treated. They call it Tex-cellent customer service. 

What Katherine Does for Fun 

Katherine has three primary outlets for fun. For her family, travel is the thing. They went to England and Scotland for Christmas in 2022, and are planning to fly to Boston and do a New England road trip in the summer of 2023. For herself, Katherine is a big foodie and, as she describes it, “a Pilates machine.”  

To learn more about Katherine and Energy Texas, you’ll find her on LinkedIn, and Energy Texas on their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Teaching Brands to Master “How to Wow” in Customer Experience

This week, we welcome Adrian Swinscoe to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. Adrian is a prolific writer, blogger, podcaster, and the author of four books about customer experience.  

Adrian works with companies looking for cost-effective ways to improve business and team performance, find new customers, and keep their existing ones. He and his associates focus on helping clients improve their customer service, customer experience, client experience, and business. 

His work results in increased profits in sales, higher productivity, increased word of mouth, improved service, and an overall increase in the customer and employee experience. 

On this episode, we discuss the eight sections of his first book, “How to Wow, 68 Effortless Ways to Make Every Customer Experience Amazing.” 

A Guide to Help People Chart Their Brand’s Own Path to Greatness  

Fifteen years ago, Adrian recognized an abundance of opportunities to improve customer service, including staying out of the way of employees who do their best to treat customers well. 

He started writing, and writing, and writing (and podcasting) about it: articles, blog posts, a column for Forbes, and four books. Companies seek his help in building amazing customer and employee experiences.

Adrian describes himself as “an advisor, speaker, and bestselling author on customer service, experience, and engagement.” He helps brands “craft their own level of greatness and deliver their own level of greatness and engagement to their customers.” 

Unpacking “How to Wow” 

In “How to Wow,” originally published in 2008, Adrian organized 68 effortless ways to wow into eight sections. 

The first five sections—Attract, Engage, Serve, Keep, and Refer—are all external, customer-facing actions brands can take. The second three sections—Communicate, Motivate, and Lead—are internal, employee-facing actions. 

On this episode we discuss these eight sections. As you’ll discover, each section leads right into the next. 

Attract 

Adrian’s experiences as a consumer, researcher, and analyst taught him that people don’t like to be “sold to.” He was convinced that there must be better ways to attract people than overt selling. He sought more empathetic and sustainable methods to attract people. Ways that are more appealing to the people you’re trying to attract so that they’re more receptive to your message. 

And once you’ve attracted people, then you can… 

Engage 

To engage people in a sustainable way, you have to step back and take a look at your relationships. In each case, ask where is this relationship now and where is it going? 

Understanding your relationships is the first step to knowing what interests the people you attract. Knowing what interests them enables you to treat them with respect and empathy, and to balance two very different dynamics: making yourself interesting and proving you’re interested in them. 

Knowing what interests them allows you to… 

Serve 

Service goes beyond customer service. It’s about being proactive in service to people across the business.  

How do I serve you? How do I serve you as a marketer? How do I serve you as a salesperson? How do I serve you as a support rep?  

Think about different ways to help the customer achieve their goals. When serving people is part of the foundation of who you are, you can build relationships that mean more than sending them a thank you gift after they’ve bought something from you. 

Strong relationships are relationships you can… 

Keep 

Adrian doesn’t use the word loyalty because he thinks loyalty is a product of what you do.  

Loyalty programs, rewards, and special discounts can help, but keeping customers is about the fundamentals of what we do.  

Keeping is about how you value the relationship. Can you give people access to different things? Can you make them successful? Can you make them feel like they belong?  

When both sides value a relationship, it’s only natural to ask your customer to… 

Refer 

If you’ve gone through the earlier steps, have built strong foundations for your relationships, and continually build on those relationships, then people may be ready to become an advocate for you. 

The key is advocacy doesn’t happen by accident. Sometimes you have to help people be an advocate. Sometimes you have to do something as simple as just asking them. And too many companies don’t ask for a referral.  

Also, bear in mind that sometimes they don’t know how to refer. So, think about their situation and make it easy for them. That can be a powerful way to start driving a stream of referrals back into your business and building your community of relationships. 

Now, let’s move from the external ways to the internal… 

Communicate 

This section is about how we communicate with our customers, how we take what they tell us—particularly around surveys and feedback and customer voice—and how we take it into our business. How do we act on it? How do we then communicate back to customers and tell them, “this is what we’re doing”? 

Again, this is all in service of building relationships, showing people, “We value what you say. We are listening to what you say. We are thinking about what you say,” and “We are acting on what you say.” 

Still, customer survey fatigue is a real thing, and we have to understand that somebody giving us feedback is a gift. We have to make sure we respect their time and make taking a survey easy for them. Make sure they understand that if they give us this feedback, we’ll value it and act on it. 

For many companies, the question is how. How do we connect with our customers? How do we listen to them? How do we act on what they tell us? 

They’ve learned that it takes engaged employees to deliver exceptional service, so we… 

Motivate 

Motivate and Lead are two sides of the same coin: how do we build a culture of highly engaged employees who truly value customer relationships? This culture empowers people, supports people, and enables people to be the best versions of themselves in service of the greater mission to serve their customers. 

Why the same coin? Because how effectively we motivate employees is influenced by how well we… 

Lead 

Sometimes leaders within companies need to do things differently in order to enable, support, motivate, and inspire their employees to do a great job and go that extra mile in service of their customers. That may require them to change their thinking, to do things differently, to lead by example. 

Adrian loves the idea that comes from the old Toyota management system, where managers and leaders would do Gemba walks (Japanese for “actual place” walks). They’d walk the factory floor to understand the work, see processes in action, ask questions, and learn how things were being done. 

He also says you can learn a lot about a company by their Terms and Conditions page on their website. Many are written so only a lawyer can understand them. Some companies have rewritten them in plain language so all their customers can understand. 

Make Improvements Incrementally 

Trying to improve all aspects of customer and employee experience at once can be a great challenge. Adrian cites a concept known as the aggregation of marginal gains, which was popularized by Dave Brailsford, who became performance director for British Cycling in 2003. The idea is that if you execute a series of marginal gains of only 1%, the aggregate of those small gains over time will equal a major gain.  

What Adrian Does for Fun 

If you agree with me that Adrian is a rock star, you may be right. In his spare time, Adrian likes to go rock or boulder climbing—indoors or outdoors, depending on the weather. In fact, after recording this podcast with me, Adrian headed to a nearby boulder gym. Rock on, Adrian. 

To learn more about Adrian and his work, you’ll find him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and his website, www.adrianswinscoe.com. Adrian also recommends looking him up on your favorite search engine, as there aren’t many people named Adrian Swinscoe.

6 Behaviors to Develop Loyal Customers and Employees Through SIMPLE Customer Experiences 

This week, we welcome Matt Lyles to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. Matt is a keynote speaker, customer experience consultant, and host of the SIMPLE brand podcast. He’s also writing a book by the same name: “SIMPLE brand.” 

Matt enjoyed a long career with FedEx leading their brand strategy and guiding the effort to redefine their customer experience. Today, he helps companies deliver experiences that create loyal customers and loyal employees—all through the power of simplicity. 

On this episode, we discuss the six behaviors any brand can use to create SIMPLE customer experiences. 

A Passion for Simplicity 

For many years, Matt Lyles handled marketing and branding for FedEx. He led FedEx brand strategy, guiding their effort to redefine the overall FedEx customer experience and teach it to 500,000 people across the globe. 

Matt and his team grounded the FedEx brand experience in simple customer experiences. Their strategy was so effective that organizations reached out to Matt’s team to present about the FedEx brand at conferences. Matt knew this was an opportunity to grow his career by speaking in front of crowds. And the more he did it, the more he loved it. 

Matt enjoyed all of his experiences at FedEx. As his passion for simplicity and public speaking grew, he decided to share the benefits of simple brand experiences with businesses across the globe.  

Simplicity in CX Delivery 

Matt explains how today’s world is evolving at a rapid pace and customer expectations have never been higher. 

At the same time, he says customer loyalty is at an all-time low with consumers being bombarded by different experiences, many of which are complicated. As previous Digitally Irresistible podcast guest and CX thought leader and author Stan Phelps said, it’s important to differentiate based on experience. 

Thinking about the different things consumers are bombarded with every day and the complexity of our lives, Matt knows firsthand that the best way for brands to differentiate is through their customer’s experience. Customers say the best experience is a simple experience. 

6 Behaviors of SIMPLE Brand Experiences 

Keeping things simple, isn’t as simple as just that. It takes thought and planning.  

Matt has turned SIMPLE into an acronym that outlines six key behaviors his research has shown the world’s simplest brands implement to create the simplest experiences for their customers. Matt has created a SIMPLE Playbook comprised of these six behaviors that any brand and its employees can integrate into their approach to deliver a simple customer experience. This will help earn more loyal customers and employees to maximize long-term customer lifetime value. 

These six behaviors are: 

1. Simple Never Stops 

Matt says things will always need to be simplified so we should continually assess what we can do to make things simpler and simpler. As the world continues to evolve, things will inherently get more complex. When you reach a point where you think your experience is simple, it may not still be simple enough a year or two later. 

2. Innovate to Stay Ahead 

It’s important to look ahead, innovate, and consider ways to continually simplify for the future. What will impact customers and what proactive measures can you take to offer experiences that meet those challenges at touchpoints throughout the customer experience? 

3. Minimize Barriers 

Think about what you can do to minimize barriers that prevent customers from enjoying the full experience you deliver. Some companies, for instance, allow their frontline support staff to offer customers only the minimum level of support needed to solve their problem. Some brands, however, empower their employees to provide first-call resolution and solve the customer’s problem without the need to refer them to someone else. This boosts customer satisfaction and differentiates them from competitors. 

4. Prune It Back 

Just as expert gardeners know, if you want to promote plant growth, you have to prune. In customer experience, for example, this means pruning back a complicated 12-step process to six simple steps, or maybe even three. It could mean if you offer a variety of products and services that give your customers decision fatigue, prune back your offerings to help simplify what customers must decide between. 

Changes to the grocery shopping experience during the early days of the pandemic are an example of this. Traditionally, grocery shopping involved the customer driving, parking, walking around the store, standing in line, and checking out. When the pandemic hit, a number of grocery retailers pruned back the process and enabled customers to order their groceries online, drive up to a designated spot at their local store, and have their groceries brought directly to their car. 

Some grocery store chains then further pruned back when third parties began delivering groceries to customers’ homes. In 2023, some retailers are actually bringing groceries inside the customer’s house and storing them in the customer’s refrigerator and pantry. 

Matt jokes that maybe the next iteration will involve the retailer sitting at the table and making your kids eat their vegetables! 

5. Lose the Jargon 

Speak simply. Clear and concise communication makes it easy and quick for customers to understand. 

In their book, “Made to Stick,” Chip and Dan Heath talk about how we’re all cursed with the knowledge that we use to communicate about our company and our industry. But this turns the average customer off because they don’t understand it. With all the complexity in our lives, customers don’t have time to figure out what a company is saying. We need to make it easier for them by using clear, concise, simple language. Even if you think your industry necessitates jargon, know that there will be disruptors in your industry who embrace simple experiences and simple language. 

Once such industry is insurance. Many insurance carriers use similar language about protecting against damage to your home or safeguarding your assets, and consumers may find this communication hard to understand.  

Some insurance companies are simplifying how they talk to customers. They’re gaining customers quickly through simple language like, if your home is damaged, we will cover the repair cost. This makes it easy for the customer to understand and it appeals to the consumer’s emotions—they’re covered in times of loss and hardship. 

6. Empathize With the Customer 

Understand your customer and what they go through on a day-to-day basis. What are their external goals, their external challenges, and what are their internal struggles? Think about how you can solve or minimize those through your offerings. This includes thinking about the words you use to help the customer feel comfortable. 

Another way to empathize with your customers is to talk to them, listen to them, and observe them. When you observe your customers—especially when they’re using your product or service—you can understand what they’re going through and identify struggles that inform how you can further simplify their experience. 

Keeping It SIMPLE for All Employees 

Matt reminds us that customer experiences are designed and delivered by people. His six SIMPLE behaviors are developed to be easy to instill in every employee regardless of their role, whether they’re a C-suite executive or a frontline customer service agent. These behaviors have been embraced at all levels and promote employee engagement. 

What Matt Does for Fun 

Matt spends his free time with his wife and two young sons. They enjoy checking out different events, going out to eat, and having movie nights together. Living in Nashville, they also enjoy the excellent live music scene, which is made even better when Matt brings one of his sons to a concert. 

To learn more about Matt and his SIMPLE methodology, connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and his website www.mattlyles.com. You can also visit www.mattlyles.com/iqor to access his SIMPLE Playbook which reviews the six behaviors discussed on this episode along with exercises and questions to help instill them.

Supporting the BPO Industry and Driving the Digital Transformation of Businesses in the Philippines 

This week, we welcome Jack Madrid to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. Jack is president and CEO of the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP). He oversees day-to-day operations for the primary trade body and advocacy group for the IT and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) sector in the Philippines. 

With almost 400 member organizations, including iQor, and six partner associations, IBPAP plays a pivotal role in sustaining the growth of the IT-BPM industry by working with stakeholders in the government and academia. 

On this episode, we discuss the role of IBPAP and how the organization supports the BPO industry and drives digital transformation among businesses in the Philippines. 

A Transformative Journey to the BPO Industry 

After graduating from university, Jack began his career as a banker in both the Philippines and Hong Kong. That led him to a role overseeing strategic planning and business development for a Philippines-based conglomerate. 

His career then took an interesting turn when Jack became managing director for MTV Philippines, empowering him to reinvent himself professionally and personally. From there, he was introduced to the BPO industry in the Philippines where he recognized the future of the country and vibrant opportunities for job creation. This prompted his digital journey in marketing, setting up operations for Yahoo Philippines. After a few years there, he set out to establish the first e-commerce marketplace in the Philippines. Several years after that, he moved to Vancouver, Canada to be with family and six years later he returned to the Philippines to lead IBPAP—15 years after his introduction to the BPO industry. 

How IBPAP Supports the BPO Industry in the Philippines 

IBPAP is the flagship association for the IT-BPM industry in the Philippines, primarily representing the industry, its members, its employers, investors who have offshored their operations in the country, and—most importantly—BPO employees. IBPAP has grown to represent 1.56 million Filipino employees in the country since the beginning of the BPO industry in the Philippines several decades ago. 

In fact, IBPAP represents the largest industry in the Philippines in terms of jobs and revenue, contributing nearly 8% of the country’s GDP. The work and mission of IBPAP is essential for advancing continued opportunities to create jobs throughout the country. 

Because the Philippines is an archipelago, jobs extend beyond metro Manila and Cebu to 25 cities throughout the countryside that have their own unique characteristics and talent pools with good universities to educate future talent and further expand the BPO industry in the Philippines. 

The Present State of the BPO Industry in the Philippines 

Jack notes that the BPO industry in the Philippines is entering an exciting new chapter given the COVID-driven migration of 1+ million employees to work-at-home (WAH) and hybrid environments. When onsite operations quickly moved to work-at-home and hybrid environments while maintaining security, productivity, and customer satisfaction, the BPO industry proved it could deliver outsourced customer service success independent of location and environment for global customers spanning different time zones across verticals and industries. 

Jack believes the future is bright as the BPO industry in the Philippines develops more value-added services for brands across the globe. 

Core Strengths and Advantages of the Philippines as an IT-BPM Investment Destination 

Jack says the primary strength of the Philippines as an IT-BPM investment destination lies in Filipino talent. With a population of 110 million, the Philippines has the demographics and the scale to grow the IT-BPM industry even more. The Filipino workforce is world renowned for excellent communication skills, English fluency, patience, empathy, and the ability to adapt and learn new skills to resolve customer issues across different industry verticals.  

Talent supply will always be an advantage, but Jack recognizes the need to continue to build on that strength given the continued demand for offshoring to the Philippines. On top of that, he says the Philippines has done a great job building up the digital infrastructure and internet connectivity throughout the archipelago outside of metro Manila and Cebu. 

As a nation comprised of thousands of islands, each with its own unique population and talent pool, internet connectivity has improved over the years and will continue to improve in the years ahead as IBPAP works with telecom partners. 

Future Opportunities for the BPO Industry in the Philippines 

IBPAP recently launched its IT-BPM Roadmap 2028. They publish a new roadmap every six years to outline specific recommendations on how to grow the industry. 

The most significant part of their Roadmap 2028 is the goal to deliver an additional 1.1 million new jobs for Filipinos by the end of 2028. IBPAP will work with industry stakeholders, government partners, and the private sector to realize this vision over the next six years. 

The roadmap outlines the following four pillars to grow the IT-BPM industry in the Philippines. 

1. Attract and retain investors by reinforcing the ease of doing business in the Philippines. 

2. Cultivate an extensive and qualified talent pool. Work with the Department of Education and other partners in government to strengthen university and high school curricula and collaborate with the private sector to ensure the continued availability and employability of talent for the years ahead. Jack emphasizes that this is likely the most critical pillar. 

3. Improve and strengthen digital infrastructure in the Philippines to ensure strong connectivity in in-office, at-home, and hybrid work environments throughout the archipelago. 

4. Continue to strengthen the Philippines’ industry positioning to meet the challenge of adding more than 1 million new jobs in six years, a goal that took over two decades to achieve in the early years of the BPO industry in the Philippines. 

By focusing on these four pillars, tapping into new talent pools, and continuing to strengthen the Filipinos’ acceptance of the BPO industry as a long-term career path, Jack and his colleagues at IBPAP will continue to support the growth of the BPO industry and drive digital transformation among businesses in the Philippines. 

What Jack Does for Fun 

For fun, Jack’s passion is studying wine. He began his studies a few years ago and now teaches others as an informal wine coach. He enjoys sharing his knowledge about the wine regions as well as the different grapes and varieties of wine. He also spends a fair amount of time analyzing wines through blind tastings. When he’s not honing his wine skills, Jack enjoys playing golf and improving his short game. 

To learn more about Jack and IBPAP, connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and the IBPAP website at www.ibpap.org.

Connect With Employees Through Rewarding Experiences That Elevate Their Engagement 

This week’s guest on the Digitally Irresistible podcast is Jaymee Marquez. Jaymee is a director of operations at iQor Iloilo in the Philippines. She has extensive experience delivering and overseeing customer care delivery in the BPO industry. In her current role, Jaymee oversees a team of three operations managers with dozens of agents on their teams. She understands the importance of engaging iQor’s frontline employees through fun and rewarding activities that inspire them to Be More with iQor and to create smiles for the customers with whom they interact. 

On this episode, we discuss her creative approach when developing employee engagement activities with the teams she oversees and the positive impact these activities have on the CX programs they support.

This episode features colorful images and video clips. Check out the video below to enjoy the complete podcast experience!

Leading Is All About the People 

After studying electronics and communications engineering in undergrad, Jaymee began her BPO career as a technical support agent. She was soon promoted to team lead where she discovered her passion to lead. Progressing through several leadership positions, Jaymee knew that building connections with people was essential to her role. 

She joined iQor as an operations manager in 2017 and was most recently promoted to director of operations for a telco client. Throughout her years in the BPO industry, Jaymee has enjoyed investing in and engaging employees to promote higher levels of workplace satisfaction, whether through fun events, meaningful coaching, or an open-door policy whereby all employees are welcome to discuss concerns. She has found that higher levels of employee satisfaction result in higher levels of productivity. 

The Importance of Employee Engagement 

Developing high levels of employee engagement helps people feel more connected to their team, their company culture, and their customers. This improves motivation and leads employees to be more passionate about their work, translating to a more positive customer experience.  

In customer service, we say that we go the extra mile to make customers happy—at iQor we provide the extra smile. 

To create excellent experiences, Jaymee regularly develops employee engagement programs and activities to connect with her team. She shares a few of them with us. 

Customer Service Week Activities 

In October 2022, Jaymee celebrated Customer Service Week with different daily activities. For the Monday kickoff, all directors of operations wore aprons and went to the production floor to serve donuts to employees. It was fun and rewarding for Jaymee to serve her team which does so much to support customers every day. 

Even though it’s as simple as donuts, directors serving their employees is powerful, meaningful, and makes for many smiles. The week’s activities continued each day: Tuesday was pajama day, on Wednesday team leads dressed up as wizards, on Thursday they dressed up as K-pop stars, and the festivities kept going. 

Monthly Massages 

Before the pandemic, Jaymee and her team hired massage therapists to treat employees to five-minute massages of their choice (back, head, or hands/arms). A nice massage at work was a great treat for everyone to add some Zen to their day. 

Charity Events 

Jaymee also hosts charity events with employees to help give back to their local community. Jaymee especially enjoys celebrating her birthday and the holiday season by helping her community. 

One year on her birthday, Jaymee and her team of employee volunteers visited an orphanage for girls and brought food, played games, and gave out gift bags with dolls and candy. She also got to share her birthday cake with two little girls celebrating their birthdays that month. 

For the winter holidays each year, Jaymee and her team invite local children (ages three to 10) to a special holiday party with games. 

She and her team also host a food program. They invest their own time and money to support members of the local community facing food insecurity. At one of the events, an employee dressed as Spiderman and brought smiles to the children. Jaymee emphasizes the joy she and her employees feel from seeing the children smile. 

Online Contests 

When the beginning of the pandemic restricted in-person events, Jaymee was determined to keep up the high levels of employee engagement and camaraderie through fun online events. With such tremendous success, online events are still a hit today. 

She set up a Facebook page to host online activities and events that would have previously been in person. One of the contests was a competition for the best work-at-home workspaces. Entries with the most “heart” reactions won. Jaymee herself was one of the winners, possibly because of her comfortable gaming chair at the center of her setup! Winners received a gift certificate. 

In another friendly competition, Jaymee led the charge for directors to compete for the best TikTok dance video called Cheers and Yells. Directors danced individually without knowing the song and Jaymee edited them together. The video played on TV screens throughout the contact center and the directors became instant workplace celebrities. They won the competition! 

For Mother’s Day, Jaymee gives out flowers and invites employees to post photos with their moms. Those with the most “heart” votes receive a gift certificate for a date with their mom that includes a special meal. This honors not only employees who are mothers but also all employees’ moms. 

Holiday Celebrations 

On birthdays, every month Jaymee and her team pick a date to celebrate employees with a birthday that month. They enjoy cake and balloons! 

For the most recent Halloween celebration, she invited employees to bring their children for a special trick-or-treat party. The children got to walk the contact center production floor and receive candy. Jaymee also brought in clowns and magicians for a magic show. 

A Fun Work Environment Boosts Performance 

Jaymee has found that fun and engaging activities increase employee happiness levels at work and make it a place they want to return to every day. When they love their job and their colleagues, they have a better overall experience which translates to better performance and a more positive experience for the customer. When frontline employees are happy, customers are happy and that makes for more smiles. 

What Jaymee Does for Fun 

When she’s not working, Jaymee loves to travel, both domestically in the Philippines and to other countries in Asia. She has visited 46 out of 81 must-see cities in the Philippines and she tracks her visits on an online map of the Philippines to be able to look back on where she’s been. 

She’s visited nine countries in Asia, with Taiwan, Thailand, and Cambodia topping her list of favorites. Her travels have inspired her to create digital content celebrating her explorations, Michael King, and restaurants that would delight any foodie.

Three Principles That Elevate the Customer Experience and Enhance Customer Lifetime Value

This week, we welcome Dennis Wakabayashi to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. Known as the global voice of CX, Dennis is a renowned thought leader on the topic of customer experience. He teaches digital marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is also a distinguished speaker at the University of Oklahoma.  

In 2021, Dennis was a keynote speaker at the World Marketing Summit in Turkey, the West African CX summit, and the LATAM CX conference; a workshop leader at Customer Contact week in the U.S.; and the host and MC of CXS Canada’s largest annual Customer Experience event. In 2022, he was named CX influencer for Expo 2020 Dubai. 

On this episode, we tap into Dennis’ expertise and discuss how to create a profitable customer experience based on the insights he shares in his book, “Laying Golden Eggs: How to Create Profitable Customer Experiences.” 

The Writing Was on the Wall for a Creative Career 

Growing up in the inner city, street art provided an outlet for Dennis to express his creativity and transform his neighborhood streets into vibrant sources of inspiration. One day he completed a mural that read, “greatness can start from anywhere.” This garnered national recognition and features on news programs that caught the eye of the CEO of a prominent advertising agency. The CEO appreciated Dennis’ talent and hired him as a production artist. Over the years, Dennis worked his way up to art director, strategist, creative director, and ultimately senior vice president of strategy for a national ad agency. 

Through it all, Dennis maintained his curiosity to investigate what makes advertising and marketing effective and profitable. Today, as an instructor, speaker, and author he shares his thoughts and techniques so others can do the same. 

Getting Omnichannel CX Right 

The modern omnichannel customer service environment adds complexity and opportunity to the customer journey that didn’t exist in years past. It can be a lot for brands to manage omnichannel CX in ways that align with their corporate culture and growth model while limiting costs and maximizing returns. 

This can lead to inconsistencies throughout the customer journey across different lines of business or even from one customer to the next. When organizations create a unified customer experience based on values that matter to them, they can better meet customer expectations and drive consistent revenue. 

3 Components of a Profitable Customer Experience 

In his book, “Laying Golden Eggs: How to Create Profitable Customer Experiences,” Dennis separates the customer experience into three primary components: reputation, reach, and relationship. He finds that prioritizing these three elements throughout the customer journey provides opportunities to increase customer lifetime value, boost loyalty, and support long-term revenue gains. 

These three components unify the important touchpoints that connect a brand to a customer. In the modern digital world, social media and algorithms play a significant role in each of these three elements of the customer experience. 

1. Reputation 

While working for a national burger chain, Dennis stood across the street from one of the restaurants and typed “burgers near me” into his phone. The search results didn’t show the restaurant he worked for, even though he stood only a few feet away. 

Reputation is everything to a brand and its visibility to customers. Google wants to show you the good burgers near you, not just any burger. 

When Dennis later started executing for that brand, he used social media to share great things about the burger chain and build its reputation. Then he introduced product promotions. This strategy yielded more profitable results than simply posting ads. 

Reputation plays a powerful role in today’s customer experience even though it’s not as tangible to measure as other aspects of the customer experience. 

Customers are willing to go out of their way to buy from brands with great reputations, even if their pricing is a little higher than their competition. This creates profitable customer experiences. Conversely, brands that lack a good reputation are hard for customers to find, especially when Google doesn’t recommend them in search results. 

This leads to the second part of the experience. 

2. Reach 

In the burger situation, Dennis found that the promotions they offered through social media (such as a dollar off) would generate a huge backlash of criticisms of the restaurant or the burgers. 

Although this is to be expected to a certain degree due to the nature of expression on social media, Dennis recognized the importance of building a strong reputation before focusing on the brand’s reach through ads or promotions. 

The combination of a good reputation and broad reach reduced customer care costs and increased sales for the burger chain through social media monitoring and responding promptly to negative comments on the internet. 

Dennis finds there is a strong correlation between the strength of a brand’s reputation and the degree to which it can reach customers. 

Because this form of scaled communication relies on algorithms to connect with people online, a good reputation is essential in order to reach customers authentically. This builds a long-term customer relationship that supports greater customer lifetime value and revenue.  

In addition to reaching a wide audience, reach also encompasses omnichannel customer experiences that offer myriad opportunities for brands to connect with customers through various channels.  

By building a strong reputation, reaching customers across a vast number of channels, and developing a relationship with them through the use of technology, brands essentially adopt a business model that more closely resembles a subscription model. 

In this process, loyalty forms a key attribute of the relationship or the experiences that brands have with customers at scale. 

This leads to the third and final pillar: relationship.  

3. Relationship 

With so much content across all these digital channels, brands must think about how to develop and sustain relationships with customers.  

When a brand wants to drive incremental revenue year over year, building long-term customer relationships is one of the best CX strategies they can deploy. These relationships are cultivated well through email and loyalty programs, but many brands have also been able to use social media to convert connections into e-commerce opportunities. 

Digital channels form the main element of most customer experience strategies that drive consistent revenue at scale through strong customer relationships across industries. 

The bigger the brand, the more customers it has, the more integrated its customers are into its technology, and the more difficult it is to advance additional technological opportunities. 

Newer companies and startups, on the other hand, tend to have an advantage in building relationships through digital channels because they’re not built on legacy technology systems. Instead, they start with a new technology base to acquire customers, build relationships, develop a social presence, and build their reputation. 

Dennis finds that business-to-business brands tend to move a little faster in developing their customer experience because they’re typically inbound marketing organizations, while business-to-consumer brands enjoy greater opportunities for profitability although they implement CX a little slower. 

The Role of the Customer Journey 

The customer journey should connect the reputation, reach, and relationship between a customer and a brand. These three principles are connected by transparent, actionable data to create profitable customer experiences at scale for any organization, large or small. 

What Dennis Does for Fun 

Dennis’ family and coworkers would say work is where Dennis finds his fun because he’s always working. 

But that all changed when Dennis received a virtual reality (VR) headset from his family for his birthday. Now, his favorite pastime is playing Beat Saber—a rhythm and music VR game set in a futuristic world. 

To learn more about Dennis and how to create profitable customer experiences, connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and his website www.denniswakabayashi.com.

A Digital Transformation Approach to Enhance CX Cloud Security Within an Expanding Cloud Footprint 

This week on the Digitally Irresistible podcast, we welcome a trio of CX cloud security experts: Chris Fago and Kyle Pierrehumbert from Palo Alto Networks and John O’Malley from iQor. 

We’ve come together to discuss the benefits of a scalable solution that helps provide real-time visibility and full stack protection for all applications that iQor deploys in our cloud-first digital transformation strategy. iQor recently announced our selection of Palo Alto Networks Prisma® Cloud Native Application Protection Platform for integration into our digital ecosystem to further enhance cloud security. This integration supports iQor’s digital transformation initiative to increase our footprint in the cloud while keeping security as a top priority and ensuring end-to-end visibility across all cloud platforms. 

On this episode, we unpack what this integration means for our clients and how it enhances the customer experience that we create for their end customers.  

Career Journeys to the Cloud 

Though his high school peers voted him most likely to host his own talk show, Chris’ career path led him to software sales. He joined a cloud security startup company that Palo Alto Networks acquired in 2018. Today, he’s a technical sales manager on the Prisma® Cloud team helping large enterprise organizations secure their applications from code to cloud. 

Kyle’s social nature combined with his longstanding interest in technology also led him to software sales. After working at several large cybersecurity companies, he now works as a cloud security solutions architect at Palo Alto Networks. 

John shares a longstanding interest in computers and technology. He studied mechanical engineering in college but realized his true passion was for computers and IT. He worked for a consulting organization for 14 years, an HR software as a service (SaaS) company for three years, and has led the infrastructure team at iQor for the past seven years. Today, John is the chief information security officer at iQor. 

The Business Benefits of a Secure CX Cloud 

Maintaining a secure environment is the top priority for iQor’s digital transformation initiative to transition its entire tech stack to the CX cloud —from applications and services to the tool sets we use to support our BPO clients. 

iQor sought a product set to aid in securing our cloud environment. iQor’s existing partnership with Palo Alto Networks to help secure the perimeter of our firewall and enhance data security within the networks made Palo Alto Networks Prisma® Cloud a strong contender. 

Since selecting Prisma® Cloud through a comprehensive evaluation process, John says iQor’s CX cloud security journey with them has continued to enhance our posture in all areas, including network and storage objects, services, servers, and the code we put into our repositories. 

How Prisma® Cloud Supports iQor’s Digital Transformation Initiatives 

Prisma® Cloud is a cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP)—a term coined by Gartner. Chris explains that this is a set of security and compliance capabilities designed to secure and protect cloud native applications from development to production. 

Prisma® Cloud helps support iQor’s digital transformation initiatives by increasing our footprint in the cloud while ensuring security and end-to-end visibility across all cloud platforms. 

A Cloud-First Development Strategy to Improve Customer Outcomes 

Because firewalls can’t solve everything, Kyle points out that every phase of the cloud native application lifecycle presents new opportunities for iQor to further enhance security and deliver better customer outcomes to clients. 

Prisma® Cloud’s scalable solution helps provide real-time visibility and full stack protection across public clouds to detect and prevent vulnerabilities and secure running applications. It alerts iQor teams immediately of any potential risks so they have the opportunity to address them quickly. This includes performing code checks that may require reconfiguration to enhance security before going into production as well as detecting any active threats in the public cloud environment. 

Simplifying Processes and Improving Efficiency Through Cloud Security 

John notes that Prisma® Cloud also improves efficiency with audits and compliance certifications. It enables his team to continually monitor the cloud infrastructure to ensure adherence to all controls that have been put in place by enabling them to set up alerts so they can promptly address any issues. This simplifies the audit and certifications process, enabling John’s team to spend more time developing and deploying code. 

Securing Work-at-Home Environments 

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted organizations to expand their cloud workload deployments at a rapid pace. Chris explains that this presented more cloud security incidents because cloud security investments lagged behind. 

When government orders shut down work-in-office environments in the early days of the pandemic, iQor needed to quickly create secure work-at-home environments for thousands of employees across multiple locations worldwide. This was essential in order to continue to provide excellent customer experiences for our clients’ end customers. 

By adding a layer of security to assist with multi-cloud protection deployment while providing real-time insights into potential vulnerabilities, Palo Alto Networks and Prisma® Cloud have helped us deliver secure work-at-home environments and have enhanced our cloud security. 

Helping the Infrastructure Team Develop Code Securely 

Kyle emphasizes how Prisma® Cloud helps iQor by taking the guesswork out of cloud security. Security is no longer relegated to the security team, it’s a full business effort.  

John adds that Prisma® Cloud helps developers create code securely, without having to be an expert in everything. His teams can focus on developing good, efficient code while enjoying the peace of mind that it’s secure when we deploy it to the CX cloud. With Prisma® Cloud, iQor’s development teams create secure environments without having to be security experts and infrastructure experts. 

What the Trio Does for Fun  

John enjoys spending time with his wife, kids, and dog. He used to spend much of his free time coaching his son’s soccer team, but now that his son is in high school he cheers him on from the sidelines. 

Chris loves baseball and enjoys going to games with his wife and family. 

Kyle keeps it simple. Whenever he’s not at the keyboard, he’s lifting weights, watching or playing hockey, or enjoying time outside with his friends, girlfriend, or dog. 

To learn more about this week’s guests, connect with Chris, Kyle, and John on LinkedIn. Additional details about Palo Alto Networks Prisma® Cloud are available on their website at www.paloaltonetworks.com/prisma/cloud. 

How Integrating Health and Well-Being Into an Organizational Culture Promotes Sustainable Employee Wellness

On this week’s episode of the Digitally Irresistible podcast, we welcome Laura Putnam, founder and CEO of Motion Infusion, a San Francisco-based company focused on transforming organizations to inspire better health and well-being. Her company merges evidence-based methodologies on wellness with best practices in learning and development to deliver creative solutions that address employee engagement, behavior change, and human performance to build healthier, happier, more innovative, and resilient organizations. 

Laura’s bestselling book, “Workplace Wellness That Works,” has been featured by MSNBC, Forbes, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and NPR among others. She’s a frequent keynote speaker and has worked with a range of organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, academic institutes, and nonprofits to be a catalyst for change.

On this episode, we discuss the tremendous impact an organizational culture can have on employees when it prioritizes health, well-being, and the benefits of staying “in motion.” 

Laura’s Career Path to Create a Movement 

As a former competitive gymnast, professional dancer, public policy staffer, international community organizer, and public school teacher, Laura’s career journey and personal experiences led her to the important role of movement builder in the world of health and well-being. 

As a thought leader on health and wellness and CEO of Motion Infusion, Laura is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant who helps organizations recognize and address the critical need for more movement and wellness in our lives. Her revolutionary work has centered on leveraging every workplace to promote better health and well-being for our nation and our world. 

An Organization “In Motion” 

Laura’s mission is to energize individuals, teams, and organizations to, both literally and figuratively, get in motion and make a positive change toward wellness. Her mission centers on closing the knowing and doing gap in health and well-being. 

Although we know we can improve our health and well-being simply by being active, eating healthily, not smoking, and maintaining the recommended body fat percentage, less than 3% of Americans actually exhibit these basic healthy lifestyle characteristics. 

This is the knowing and doing gap that Laura is on a mission to close by empowering every workplace to promote better health and well-being. She finds that the problem, unlike in “The Field of Dreams,” is that if you build it (e.g., a workplace wellness program) they (e.g., employees) will not necessarily come. 

Although workplace wellness programs are created with the best of intentions, they often don’t generate significant employee participation, and the employees that do participate don’t necessarily become healthier. 

Getting organizations in motion to close the knowing and doing gap leverages the workplace to promote better health and well-being by inspiring employees to become healthier and a little closer to their best selves. 

3 Stages of Workplace Wellness 

In Laura’s book, “Workplace Wellness that Works: 10 Steps to Infuse Well-Being and Vitality into Any Organization,” she breaks down wellness into 10 steps that any organization can implement. Today she highlights the three overarching stages of this framework. 

1. Start It: Workplace Wellness That Excites 

Laura says workplace wellness that inspires change begins with shifting our mindset from being an expert to being an agent for change. People don’t get excited about yet another program or company initiative, but they do get excited about feeling like they’re part of something bigger—part of a movement. 

This involves tapping into what matters most to people: envisioning what their best self looks like and moving closer to that goal. Rather than scaring people into making a change by measuring what’s wrong with them and expecting them to get excited about it, we need to help people start with what’s right and take steps to get even stronger. 

In Laura’s experience, the most important part of this initial stage is to look honestly at the organization’s culture and see if it enables people to become their best selves simply by the way business gets done. 

2. Build It: Workplace Wellness That Grows 

The second phase builds on the why. This is where you develop strategies to engage everyone in the organization in the movement. Although it’s important to connect this to the emotional and physical well-being of employees, Laura recommends calling it anything but wellness so employees are more likely to get involved. 

To do this, look for opportunities to integrate it into other initiatives such as leadership development, safety, and onboarding. This can include appealing to leaders with subtle references to wellness such as sharing practices to help them maintain the energy to be effective leaders and develop high-performing teams. You can also appeal to their desire to develop sustainable engagement and build winning teams. This ingrains wellness in the company culture and integrates into daily job functions. 

At iQor, we live by our employee motto to Be More with iQor. This belief that we can all be our best selves permeates our organizational culture so we are empowered and supported to reach our goals. This leads to amazing employee experiences and a better customer experience from the inside out. 

3. Make it Last: Workplace Wellness That Works 

This final stage is about optimizing the organizational culture and environment to create a new norm so people are naturally healthier simply by being in the organizational environment. 

This stage focuses on creating a sustainable movement that becomes the organization’s way of doing business going forward. On a simple human level, the sustainability of wellness initiatives often presents challenges even though we want to prioritize our personal health. For example, New Year’s resolutions often involve healthy practices that start off strong and dwindle by March. 

To avoid this fate within an organization, Laura says it’s important to tap into our deepest human psychological needs. Avoid using extrinsic incentives, and instead appeal to the need to master skills, feel more connected, or fulfill a purpose. 

Wellness for New Hires 

When health and well-being permeate an organizational culture, new hires know things are good from the start, even if they can’t pinpoint the cause. 

Laura illustrates this idea with a story about two young fish who swam by an older fish that asked them how the water was. As the younger fish kept swimming, one asked the other, “what is water?”  

This is how we can describe culture and environment: it’s the water we swim in. Like the two young fish in the story, we may not see it but it impacts our behaviors.  

Though we think of ourselves as creatures of habit—especially in the realm of wellness—Laura argues that we’re more creatures of culture and environment. New hires can feel that the water is different and they swim in it naturally without necessarily defining what’s different. 

Implementing a Framework for Wellness 

Laura notes how we’re all born to move, but are told to sit from an early age. Her framework guides organizations to create a culture that changes that. People know how to be healthy, but often struggle to sustain a healthy lifestyle, despite the abundance of guidance on how to do so. 

By appealing to other workplace motivations, organizations can promote wellness in ways that actually work for employees. And by leveraging the workplace to promote better well-being, we can close the gap between knowing and doing and create a more sustainable commitment to healthier lifestyles. 

What Laura Does for Fun 

For fun, Laura moves as much as she can with others! She brings out her inner gymnast whenever possible, whether in yoga class, on the ski slopes, or hiking in nature. 

To learn more about Laura and workplace wellness, connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter, her speaking engagement website www.lauraputnam.com, and her organizational wellness company website www.motioninfusion.com.

Exceeding Customer Expectations Through a Differentiated Experience Drives Loyalty and Sales

This week, we welcome Stan Phelps to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. As a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator for numerous brands, Stan delivers the message that a purposeful differentiated experience (DX) wins the hearts of employees and customers . Stan shows how differentiation ultimately boosts loyalty, retention, referrals, and bottom-line results. He also says that differentiation isn’t just about what you say, it’s about what you do and, more importantly, how you do it and why you do it. Stan leverages his collection of more than 5,000 case studies to engage his audiences with practical ideas that inspire action.

On this episode, Stan shares the I.D.E.A. framework—his step-by-step method to communicate how to adopt and implement a differentiated experience.

A Quest to Exceed Customer Expectations

Stan worked in marketing for two decades, beginning on the agency side at IMG before working for several large brands (Adidas, the New York Yankees, and PGA of America).  He later returned to the agency side to do experience marketing at Synergy. While there, he created larger-than-life experiences during the advent of social media and saw first-hand how quickly marketing was evolving.

In 2009, he had a moment of truth about the seemingly elusive goal of meeting customer expectations. This led him to collect and analyze more than 1,001 examples of companies that purposely go above and beyond to exceed customer expectations.

That journey led to his first book, “Purple Goldfish,” which is now one of more than a dozen books in a series he has written about creating a differentiated experience.

The I.D.E.A. Framework

Stan’s I.D.E.A. framework is an acronym that outlines how brands can create a differentiated experience to exceed customer expectations. Each phase of the framework involves a straightforward three-step process.

Inquire

In the I.D.E.A. framework, an improved customer experience begins with the inquire phase. This phase helps you build personas of the customers you serve in three simple steps.

1. Gather insights to best understand the customers you serve.
2. Look at things from your customers’ perspective. Think about all the experiences along their customer journey and consider how they relate to you as a brand.
3. Use the information you gain to uncover gaps and opportunities throughout the customer experience. A gap is a friction point where you can improve a specific part of the customer experience to better meet customer expectations. Opportunities are key moments within the customer experience that you can elevate to create a truly amazing experience.

Stan sums up this phase with a quote from the late Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, who said, “There are only two sources of competitive advantage: the ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition and the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition.”

Design

The design phase provides an outline for identifying the parts of the customer journey you want to address and how you plan to improve them.

1. First, set your focus on what you plan to address. Identify the most critical gaps you want to fix as well as the most promising opportunities to elevate the customer experience.
2. Once you’ve set your focus, begin asking big questions to explore different ways you could address the gaps and opportunities. What would you do if you had a year to make the improvements? What if you had a million dollars? What if you had 10 minutes and $10, how would you implement your changes?
3. Then brainstorm and design ideas that address your gaps and opportunities. Think big while also grounding your ideas in reality. Consider how other industries have solved similar issues.

Evaluate

Once you have developed some ideas, evaluate the best ones on your list.

1. The evaluate phase begins internally to ensure you have the capability to deliver on the idea. Look within the organization to answer questions such as the resources it would take to implement the idea, whether you have the organizational bandwidth to deliver on the idea, and if the benefits outweigh the costs associated with the idea.
2. Once you’ve assessed internal capabilities, begin the external validation process. Test your ideas in a focus group, do surveys, or run them by a customer advisory board to validate that your opinions about the ideas align with what the customer thinks of them. There’s often a disconnect between what we think and what customers actually feel; external validation strengthens your plan before you allot resources to the next step.
3. The third and final step is the pilot phase. Test your solution in a specific market or in a limited fashion to validate its effectiveness. If the pilot is successful then you’re ready for the last stage.

Advance

Advance is where the rubber hits the road—where you begin large-scale rollout of the plan.

1. Incorporate the feedback you learned from the pilot and achieve buy-in. Secure the budget and resources you need to effectively implement the idea.
2. Plan the rollout by training your team and creating the processes and procedures to carry out the idea.
3. Determine how you’re going to measure improvement to the experience on an ongoing basis. This critical step takes you back to the inquire phase to ensure you continue to achieve what you set out to do.

Taking a Holiday With a Differentiated Experience

One example of the I.D.E.A. framework in action comes from the hospitality industry. An all-inclusive vacation group that offered week-long vacation packages for guests wanted to identify the gaps and opportunities in their customer experience to make it the best it could be.

Utilizing the I.D.E.A. framework, they stepped into the customers’ shoes and went on a holiday. They found that guests loved the week-long experience, but the final day of the vacation presented opportunities for improvement. Guests would check out of the hotel with time to spare before they departed the resort. During this waiting period, they felt forgotten and ignored—they no longer had full access to the facilities and the staff had moved on to a new group of guests.

Based on that insight, the group set out to design a better experience for these departing guests. They knew the last day of the trip left a lasting impression and they needed to make it the best it could be. After brainstorming and assessing ideas, they implemented one called “Departure Beach.” This was a lounge they created within the resort where departing guests could enjoy a designated experience just for them on their last day of vacation. This capped a fantastic week-long experience and left them with a positive impression that was worth repeating.

A Differentiated Experience That Drives Loyalty

By methodically implementing an organized approach to elevating the customer experience, brands can gain insight into the customer journey and identify ways in which they can exceed customer expectations. By inquiring to know more about your customers and their experience and designing, evaluating, and advancing ideas to make those experiences the best they can be, brands can create remarkable experiences that customers want to share.

What Stan Does for Fun

For Stan, golf has been the silver lining of the pandemic. After giving up the game for several years, Stan reignited his interest in golf with his two teenage sons over the past few years. Spending quality time together, being outside, exercising, and immersing themselves in nature adds to its appeal.

To learn more about Stan and the I.D.E.A. framework, connect with him on LinkedIn (#the1299), Twitter, and on his website at https://stanphelps.com.

How a Digital Transformation Strategy Improves CX, Boosts Revenue, and Reduces Cost to Serve in Healthcare

This week, we welcome Brian Wagner to the Digitally Irresistible podcast. Brian has over 20 years of global operating and consulting experience at organizations ranging from start-ups and private equity to Fortune 500 companies in various high-tech industries, including SaaS, MedTech, medical devices, diagnostics, and life sciences tools. As founder and CEO of Health Insights Consulting Group, he helps small companies grow to become big by transforming organizations to meet unmet customer needs.

In addition to previously holding Fortune 500 chief digital marketing and operations officer roles, Brian has expertise in digital marketing, product development, commercial operations, and M&A. He has led both growth and cost-reduction operational improvement efforts across industries as well as global marketing organizations, overseeing product and go-to-market strategies.

On this episode, we tap into Brian’s expertise to discuss what it takes to create a digital marketing ecosystem in healthcare to improve the customer experience while boosting revenue and reducing the cost to serve.

A Quest to Improve Lives

After college, Brian sought a job in sales and marketing and landed one at a consumer packaged goods company. He worked there for five years, gaining all the insights he could, before being recruited by a small entrepreneurial company in healthcare. There, he solidified his passion for improving and saving lives, calling on interventional radiologists, interventional cardiologists, and vascular surgeons to learn the business from the ground up.

From there his career continued to progress, earning roles in digital marketing leadership and general management, approaching each one with a customer-centric perspective. He took time to understand the customer experience—customer challenges and unmet customer needs—so he could focus on improving patient care and the customer experience while reducing the cost to serve. He assessed how they went to market, established end-to-end marketing tech stacks, and went from push to pull marketing to boost customer engagement and enhance the customer journey.

In all of his experience, Brian has remained true to his commitment to saving and improving lives while establishing operational efficiencies and reducing costs. He’s developed some best practices along the way.

3 Business Functions to Digitize for Improved CX and Operational Efficiency in Healthcare

Brian has identified three business functions that, when digitized, improve CX and operational efficiency, resulting in incremental revenue and cost reductions, specifically in healthcare. By simplifying processes and access to information, customers across the healthcare continuum—including acute care facilities, surgery centers, and outpatient providers—enjoy a better overall experience along each step of their journey while vendors can reduce their cost-to-serve.

1. My Team – Who is the Customer’s Team?

The first opportunity Brian identifies is to improve operational efficiency through a customer relationship management (CRM) system that enables customers to easily find and contact the right person on their vendor’s team to answer their specific question. He points out that with multiple healthcare solutions and products sold by one vendor to a hospital, a customer could have as many as 10 people assigned to support them. In the absence of an accessible digital CRM solution, it is cumbersome to find the right person to answer a simple question or schedule a service request.

With the goal of addressing these unmet customer needs to improve the customer experience for healthcare organizations, Brian led a team that revamped an outdated system and established an end-to-end digital ecosystem platform that enables customers to sign into a secure online portal to view their personalized team.

In the My Team component of this digital ecosystem, customers can view their orders, obtain contact information for their support representatives, and complete product training. Enabling customers to securely access the information they need online on their own schedule improves efficiency, increases satisfaction and customer loyalty, and reduces the cost to serve by redirecting staff to other areas that more directly benefit the customer.

2. My Orders – How Does the Customer Order?

The second opportunity to improve operational efficiency involves optimizing the order placement process. Through a digital ordering experience, customers can conduct initial pre-purchase research, identify what they need without necessarily involving a sales representative, and ultimately place their order online according to their own schedule—which in many cases occurs outside of conventional business hours.

When customers enter the post-purchase experience, they can track their order online (delivery, construction, installation) and set up and complete training sessions to maximize their product onboarding speed and utilization with patients. Having online access to the information they need vastly improves the customer experience for MedTech customers in acute care centers and hospitals which make capital equipment purchases that often require arrangements for construction within the hospital and training on how to use the new product or service. Brian says that customers have embraced My Orders to such an extent that many of them purchase hundreds of thousands worth of capital equipment through the system.

But change can be hard, especially in the beginning before customers understand the benefits it offers for efficiency. The improvements Brian and his team made to enhance the digital customer experience required a lot of marketing and customer support to help customers learn the new processes and enjoy increased productivity so they could focus more on patient care rather than administrative tasks.

These improvements served as a differentiator in the marketplace and incentivized customers to do business with them because of the convenience and efficiency factors. The ease of doing business gave them an edge even when competitors offered viable alternative products as well. Their customers valued the improved process as well as a better customer experience, enabling them to devote more time to patient care.

3. My Training – How Does the Customer Receive Training?

The third opportunity for operational improvements is to revamp how customers arrange to get trained on their new product or service. In the analog world, customers would call their specialist to schedule in-person training. This generally required a lot of back-and-forth coordination and a high cost to serve because the training was delivered in person, which also involved travel, hotels, meals, and a lot of time.

In the digital world, however, the customer onboarding process is much simpler and results in good digital CX. Customers can conveniently schedule on-demand or live training through their secure online My Training portal whenever and wherever they need them.

Digital Transformation Improves CX in Healthcare

By studying the customer journey and identifying areas for improvement, organizations can implement digital transformation strategies to solve pain points in the customer journey and delight the customer from pre-purchase to post-purchase, while also boosting revenue and reducing the cost to serve the customer.

The modern era of pull marketing strategies vs. dated push-marketing methods meets healthcare customers where they are. It empowers them to efficiently transact and arrange training and support in ways that are similar to the convenient and user-friendly experiences consumers enjoy with online merchants such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart. This digital healthcare ecosystem offers acute care centers and hospitals improved efficiencies that allow them to focus on the things that matter most—patient care and improved outcomes.

What Brian Does for Fun

Brian, his wife, and their two young daughters love to travel. They enjoy experiencing different cultures and foods, making human connections , and building a global perspective. Before COVID, they loved going on adventures, but when COVID hit, they hunkered down and found new opportunities for fun.

This year, their travels picked back up and for spring break they went to Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor in Oahu and the Road to Hana in Maui. They did SNUBA where the oxygen tanks float on the water so they could swim down 30 feet for an up-close experience with the marine life and sea turtles.

This summer they traveled to the former Yugoslavia (where Brian’s wife is from) where they spent time with family and friends and visited Montenegro and Herceg Novi on the Adriatic Coast.

To learn more about Brian, connect with him on LinkedIn.