Customer Experience

Part 1 - Mark talksabout employee engagement, how inextricably bound to customer engagement it is and the urgency with which this issue needs to be addressed, considering the negative impact this has on a company's P&L. This week, Mark will discuss just what "Employee Engagement" looks like in the work place and how to begin to evolve a work culture that has passionate, enthusiastic employees behind your brand and your customer experiences.

Mark is a consultant in his firm New Paradigms LLC and an author of a new book "Managing Whole People". In the first of two parts we are going to explore the concept, value and the "how to's" of employee engagement -- and how that relates to customer engagement. Don't miss it!

Consultant, author and educator Dick Lee is founder and principal of High-Yield Methods, a Twin Cities-based consulting firm that helps clients globally manage CRM implementation. HYM views CRM “holistically,” taking it beyond technology to also include developing customer-centric strategies, redesigning business process and aligning strategy, process and technology.

Over the course of his accomplished career, Dennis has started various new businesses, launched brands, and restored prosperity to floundering businesses. His experience ranges from running family businesses to public companies’ global business units, such as Black & Decker’s Hardware & Home Improvement Division, Steelcase, and Administaff. Dennis’ strength is knowing how to hire the right people and develop them to perform at their best. His firm, HR Resources and Performance Group, provides solutions ranging from hosted human resource tools to improve hiring and selection, performance management, communication, and team building.

Our guests are from Spoken Word, a company that brings new technology to customer experience.... Heidi Miller Heidi Miller is the Chief Conversation Officer at Spoken Communications, a speech recognition technology company based in Bellevue, Washington, with solutions that allow call centers to provide a better customer experience. She is passionate about customer service and about building community, whether that be online, live through the contact center or through real-life conversation. With the steadfast belief that an Interactive Voice Response automated system doesn’t have to act like a robot just because it is one, Miller helps Spoken Communications spread the word that good robots (with a little human help) can provide an amazing customer experience. Miller is also the owner and principal of the social media consulting firm, Heidi Miller Media, providing social media solutions for engaging in conversations and building community online and in real life. She blogs for Spoken at http://blog.spoken.com and Twitters at www.twitter.com/spokencomm. Additional information can be found at www.heidi-miller.com. David Milstein David Milstein, VP of Engineering Milstein, Spoken’s solution architect, brings over 15 years of software development expertise and problem-solving to Spoken. His extensive experience ensures that software and program management at Spoken are exceptional and that uptime is at the maximum. Prior to joining Spoken, Milstein spent nearly 10 years at Microsoft Corporation in software development and management positions, working on emerging technology including cryptography, GSM, Smartcard, mobile services and mobile devices technologies. Prior to Microsoft, David was the head of software development at Fortress U&T, an Israeli startup that was sold to M-Systems in the year 2000. David holds 43 issued and pending patents and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer and Electronics Engineering from Ben-Gurion University.

Guests Marilyn Suttle and Lori Jo Vest join g us to talk about their book, Who's Your Gladys? Publishers Weekly says - “It’s the substantive, down-to-earth advice that sets this book apart from its competitors, as well as the helpful chapter-end sections, which contain practical points and thought-provoking questions and answers."

Social media, social media, social media! It seems that’s all we hear about these days. Many find them asking themselves asking “how can social media help me in my business? Isn’t is just a bunch of young kids telling each other what they are doing?” As a visionary and passionate advocate of customer experience, Axel Schultze will share his insights on social media and how it is changing the very foundation of how consumers decide to do business with you.

The cosmetics industry is totally focused on customer experience. It has to be. Customers are not just buying makeup. They are buying a dream, an image -- an experience. Terry Brown realized this when he left his job as President of a large Canadian cosmetics business to start his own company - Face2Face. Face2Face provides a customer relationship management system tailored to the needs of cosmetic companies. It gives executives the knowledge they need to craft a customer experience. It gives beauticians the information they need to develop the relationships necessary to provide customer experience. Terry joins us to share his special knowledge. Know your customer's makeup!

Shelle Rose Charvet, president of Success Strategies is known round the world for her ground-breaking book, "Words That Change Minds: Mastering the Language of Influence." Shelle brings that expertise directly to the issue of Customer Experience in her new book, "The Customer Is Bothering Me." Insightful and pragmatic as always, Shelle will help us decode the interaction that shapes the Customer Experience and give us some practical tips on how to improve that experience for our customers -- and our employees.

Lean Six Sigma with Michelle Lue-Reid. Michelle is co-head of RBC Royal Bank’s Process Excellence unit and is a member of the Retail Shared Services Operations senior leadership team. In her role, Ms. Lue-Reid is responsible for all Lean Six Sigma deployments and initiatives in Canadian Banking and Retail Operations and relationship managing the Lean Six Sigma efforts in RBTT (Royal Bank Trinidad and Tobago) and RBC Bank (USA). She also heads RBC Royal Bank’s Lean Six Sigma Centre of Excellence and Governance team.

Mike Aoki is the President of Reflective Keynotes Inc., a Toronto based training firm. His call center, sales and presentation skills workshops help people improve their over-the-phone and face-to-face communication skills. http://www.reflectivekeynotes.com Mike joins us for what we hope will be an intriguing discussion about call centres.

Mark Healy is the the founder and Managing Partner of Torque Customer Strategy and most recently a Partner at Satov Consultants. Mark's focus is in the area of Customer Strategy including customer insights, customer experience, innovation and go-to-market strategy.

The Customer Experience Show welcomes customer experience champion Jeanne Bliss. Jeanne has been fighting valiantly to get customers on the strategic agenda for over 25 years, with companies like Lands' End, Coldwell Banker,Allstate, Microsoft and Mazda. She is the author of Chief Customer Officer" and most recently "I Love You More Than My Dog"- Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad.