Episode 258: How did two new leaders turn angry customer calls into executive promises to earn customer trust and advocacy? Charlon McIntosh, Chief Customer Operations Officer, and Melissa Pint, Chief Digital Information Officer, both joined Frontier Communications on the same day in 2021. At the time, Frontier faced both bankruptcy and a reputation crisis: Millions of customer complaint calls were pouring in, with only one way to reach the company. Charlon and Melissa inherited a brand that customers didn't trust. To fix it, they built a system where complaints trigger commitments, leaders face weekly scrutiny, and new product and feature launches aren't approved until they are absolutely ready. "Our CEO, Nick Jeffery, outlined a very simple four-point strategy for us," says Charlon. "Build fiber, sell fiber, improve the customer experience, and improve our operational efficiency." In alignment with these goals, Frontier treated millions of monthly calls as a focus group, and started by redesigning its messy billing process. They used data on call reasons and complaint volumes to guide a weekly, two-hour "earning customer loyalty" meeting across departments. One Friday at a time, owners identified fixes, rather than providing chest-beating updates. Charlon and Melissa's collaborative relationship is an enviable example of cross-functional teamwork. They finish each other's sentences and share a single scorecard. "There is no IT strategy," Melissa says. "There is only the business strategy." "And customers tell us if it worked," adds Charlon. A digital-first agenda became the default. Customers now use chatbots for routine tasks, with a one-tap handoff to a person. Progress runs on shared operations and IT metrics, with the CEO actively observing from the customers' viewpoint, even using customer tools himself, to identify adjustments they could implement in real time. "We were able to shift adoption from nearly a hundred percent of our transactions being handled in a call center to today, where less than 20% of our interactions are assisted between chat and phone calls," Charlon says. "The point isn't deflection. It's a faster, better answer." Guests: Charlon McIntosh, Chief Customer Operations Officer, Frontier Communications, and Melissa Pint, Chief Digital Information Officer, Frontier Communications Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Time-Stamped Topics [00:02:00] Frontier's turnaround mandate and four-point strategy [00:05:00] How experience assurance sets standards and shapes launches [00:07:00] How call volume helps spot customer experience opportunities [00:09:00] How a weekly "earning customer loyalty" forum drives executive action [00:10:00] Frontier's prioritization of billing and communications cleanup [00:18:00] How digital channels rapidly shift interactions [00:23:00] How their chatbot resolves most chats by understanding intent [00:27:00] Diving into results experienced thus far and record-low churn [00:39:00] Issuing a no-go on a marquee launch to prioritize quality [00:45:00] Looking ahead to the future of data and AI Notable Quotes [00:08] "The interactions with our customers every day in our contact channels, those are like mini focus groups. They're telling us what's confusing, what's broken, what we've done wrong, where they need help, and where they need additional support. We used the reasons customers were calling as our initial guide to say what's happening." [10:00] "As a care leader, I have the data. I can tell my partners across the organization where we are making poor decisions and where we have low quality. It's the ability to get them to listen to me. That's what makes the difference in my team's success and our ability to improve the customer experience." [15:00] "As a turnaround company, since we did need to turn around pretty quickly, we did not have the luxury of completely changing core legacy backend systems. … Our strategy was to create a layer on top of them that would bring systems together." [18:00] "A digital-first strategy means things are going to start being automated, and you put things in your customer's hands; you're giving more power to your users to have automated tasks. That drives different traffic in your backend systems—different traffic patterns—that backend systems need to accommodate."
Episode 257: How do you earn the next banking customer's loyalty, one moment at a time? Focus on what customers choose, and why. According to John Finley, head of marketing, technology, and innovation at BMO, a bank operating across North America, customer loyalty shifts with context. His team takes signals—what customers say—and wires them back into the very next touch. They then test whether the micro-fix actually changes the next behavior. The goal is to earn the next choice—and the corresponding interaction. To make this happen, BMO runs targeted interventions wherever friction points show up. For example, "Customers who don't know who their banker is are much more likely to be a detractor," explains John. To address this, BMO will reintroduce the customer to their banker and then track whether that specific change moves the next response. It's a practical and simple playbook: close rapport gaps, personalize the next contact, and measure whether advocacy—not just willingness to recommend alone—drives ongoing loyalty. Guest: John Finley, Managing Director, Head of Marketing, Technology, & Innovation, BMO Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Time-Stamped Topics [00:03:00] Feeding survey input back into the next interaction [00:03:00] Use case on reintroducing the banker to close detractor risk [00:04:00] Causation vs. correlation: designing tests that read the next response [00:05:00] Post-acquisition noise: how integration affects signals [00:06:00] A multi-bank reality of how loyalty shifts according to the situation [00:07:00] Loyalty (the emotional) compared to retention (the behavioral) [00:09:00] Advocacy and "willing to recommend"; why formal referrals fall short [00:10:00] Don't chase more surveys; mine behavioral data to reap value Notable Quotes [05:00] "Customers who don't know who their banker is are much more likely to be a detractor." [06:00] "We're very much in test mode. … We're going to be able to measure how the interaction [customers] had influences the next time they provide us feedback." [08:00] "If somebody's willing to recommend, that's one thing. But if somebody's advocating strongly, it's that next step of loyalty."
Episode 256: What turns CX skeptics into advocates? A listening engine that makes caring for those you serve the gold standard. At IMG Academy, a private sports academy and boarding school in Florida, Chief Operating Officer Mike Milliron led the launch of a centralized experience team. "Not interested," said everyone from athletics, academics, athletic development, and student life. Why? IMG Academy's culture initially prized local control. "Owners of experience," says Mike, is how teams saw themselves. Mike and his team persisted. They built a real-time listening program with trusted access and immediate visibility so coaches, teachers, and staff could act on feedback. The centralized team partnered across athletics, academics, athletic and personal development, and student life to align fixes and remove friction for frontline work. Results followed: NPS rose for parents and students. Re-enrollment increased. Earned growth forecasts climbed. "It made their jobs easier," explains Mike. "But also, it helped them get to the end result they want: delivering an unrivaled experience for students." Guest: Mike Milliron, Chief Operating Officer, IMG Academy Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast here: https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Time-Stamped Topics: 00:01 — Who owns experience on a campus built on silos 00:04 — Non-negotiables like culture change and real listening access 00:05 — Mission UCX prioritizes caring for those they serve 00:06 — Early financial signals drove re-enrollment to tick up 00:07 — Standing up CX and a listening program spanning multiple verticals 00:08 — Value lands when CX makes people's jobs easier 00:09 — New games unlocked by data and insight loops 00:11 — Rapid-fire takes on popular CX buzzwords Time-Stamped Quotes: [09:00] "The most difficult part was trying to figure out how it was actually going to work. Once we got it up and got it moving and realized the value right away, it became one of the smartest decisions, and it made people's jobs easier." [9:00] "We introduced a listening program. We introduced a dedicated team to work across verticals. [It was about] just the cultural component of A) getting that team in place, and then B) trying to figure out how do we actually best navigate what's been in place for the previous 35 years—and some muscles that have been built—in a trustworthy way and in a way that people wanted to engage." [06:00] "We're starting to see customer experience and NPS go up across parents, students, and essentially all of our experiences in our product lines. We're also seeing employee experience go up, which is super important—that's helped with retention and workplace satisfaction." [10:00] "We have different opportunities to actually understand how to drive value and impact. And we're just like, 'Oh my gosh, we never would've thought that we're able to do this.' And how it then ties back to a retention strategy or to a new product or new experience that we want to launch. So, it'sfun to actually see those things come to life." Resources "A New Playbook" (Episode 230 with former IMG Academy president, Tim Pernetti)
Episode 255: One of healthcare's biggest blind spots? When patients turn 18. It's the moment they age out of pediatrics and fall headfirst into a system designed to prioritize older, sicker adults. Physicians, stretched thin, reserve energy for complex cases, giving young adults shorter visits and less attention. That means early signs of medical trouble, like anxiety or preventive needs, go missed. Jason Guardino and Karen San, care experience experts at The Permanente Medical Group, are addressing this massive and often invisible problem head-on. The Permanente Medical Group found that younger patients in their twenties and thirties consistently gave lower satisfaction scores than both pediatric and senior patients. "They didn't feel listened to and they felt dismissed," Jason says. "They felt like there was a lack of compassion during that [medical] visit." That sentiment, combined with rising anxiety, digital misinformation from things like social media, and a national shortage of mental health professionals, creates a high-stakes problem few health systems are equipped to solve. When doctors unintentionally triage young adults as low risk, this puts younger patients' health at risk, "If you don't slow down and focus on providing a great experience, you can miss something that could be potentially very dangerous for this patient," Jason explains. Fixing this gap means rethinking how we treat both patients and providers, from doctors to nurses to clinicians. To drive change, The Permanente Medical Group is listening—literally. Through live feedback tools and real-time digital prompts, they're surfacing patient pain points. That data is changing how care teams engage with young adults and helping leaders understand the double bind facing providers: everyone needs high quality care, despite limited time and resources. Guests: Jason Guardino, Chief Experience Officer and Gastroenterologist, The Permanente Medical Group, and Karen San, Senior Director of Care Experience, The Permanente Medical Group Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Time-Stamped Quotes 00:01:00 – Why young adults often feel overlooked in adult care 00:02:30 – The Net Promoter Score drop for post-pediatric, 18-year-old patients 00:04:00 – Pediatric expectations compared to the reality of adult care 00:06:00 – How provider triage creates blind spots 00:08:00 – Understanding complaints from young patients 00:09:30 – Social media and how people's anxiety levels impact care 00:10:30 – The mental health burden on primary care 00:12:00 – Listening at scale, with real-time feedback 00:13:30 – What patient ratings can reveal, data-wise 00:15:00 – Why compassion still beats automation Notable Quotes 00:00:05 "We don't set [children up] well for when they make a transition into adult medicine. There's an opportunity to strengthen our care delivery model to meet those expectations and the ever-changing patient expectations." 00:00:07 "If you don't slow down and focus on providing a great experience, you can miss something that could be potentially very dangerous for this patient. Even if they're in the minority, I always say, if something happens a few percent of the time, somebody has to be in that small percentage of time—that [means] an injury can happen." 00:00:08 "The system stressors disproportionately affect our younger members because the providers are using this as a kind of survival tactic. They're saving their energy for the more complex patients with more comorbidities. And so it's not affecting our older population the same way it is our younger." 00:00:09 "We have found that the younger population [does] have heightened anxiety. And that's fueled by a number of things. Covid-19 affected their perception of health. Social media is affecting how they define what good looks like. And so they're looking to primary care providers, who may not be experts in mental healthcare, to provide that mental healthcare. And that also creates a friction point that we need to solve for." 00:00:11 "We did a pilot of 5 of our 21 medical centers for several months. And then, in December of 2023, we launched it throughout the entire medical group—so, 21 medical centers and all of our patients. So we're about a year and four months into this, and right now, we're sitting at about 2.5 million results. We have about 1.5 million—what we call 'caring moments'—[where] patients write about their clinicians and the staff. And as we say, it's an expression of gratitude, appreciation, and love—like something we've never had before." Resources Check out Episode 197 of Customer Confidential, where we interviewed Jason Guardino back in 2022 on the importance of compassion in healthcare: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/insights/compassion-in-healthcare-podcast/
Episode 254: What if the future of AI in customer experience is built not by giant platforms but by small, reusable, open source AI agents? Gurdeep Pall, President of AI Strategy at Qualtrics, believes open, modular AI agents will outmaneuver big tech's locked-down systems. In this conversation from the X4 Summit, Gurdeep argues that "experience agents"—task-specific bots that can plug into any stack—will give companies more control, better performance, and real freedom. Closed AI platforms promise convenience, but they trap businesses in rigid walled gardens. Gurdeep argues that modular architectures unlock something better: flexibility, reuse, and evolution. "Break down the agents to very specific functionality," he says. "And those agents can be invoked by many different agents for different types of tasks." This isn't just a tech choice. It's a business and philosophical stance. Qualtrics is partnering with LangChain and releasing open connectors to build an ecosystem of interoperable agents. The goal? Let companies mix, match, and scale customer-facing systems without depending on any one vendor. "This is one semantic level up," he says, comparing today's agentic architectures to the launch of the web and mobile eras. "What agents are going to do for user experience—taking our digital game to the next level—is very exciting." Guest: Gurdeep Pall, President of AI Strategy, Qualtrics Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Time-Stamped Topics: (00:01) Why Qualtrics is going all-in on open agentic AI (00:04) An overview of the Qualtrics and LangChain partnership (00:06) The modular architecture of "experience agents" (00:08) Why one task might require seven agents (00:09) How specialization allows reuse and scale (00:10) Rejecting the walled garden model (00:11) Making open systems friction-free (00:12) A real-time use case from the X4 stage (00:14) Plug and play simplicity for complex integrations (00:15) Why this is a new digital paradigm Time-Stamped Quotes: [7:00] "It's about how you break up the task. Like, when you call the human, the human didn't sit there and not do anything and the password got reset. The human went to a piece of software and they went and worked on it. So, what we are talking about here is the combination of software and the human, now organized most efficiently." [8:00] " If you're able to break down the agents to very specific functionality, then those agents can be invoked by many different agents for different types of tasks." [10:00] " There is one example of a very small, open system called the Internet, which somehow, through open standards, became one of the most incredible innovations of human beings ever. So what we are trying to do is to take a stand and say, 'We believe in open systems and we want to let our customers know that this is a choice.'"
Episode 253: Desjardins thought its cooperative roots made it member-first by default. Then members started leaving. Desjardins is a 125-year-old financial co-op based in Quebec. It has deep community ties and a proud history. But that pride masked a painful truth: Members no longer saw it as customer-centric. The organization believed its cooperative structure guaranteed loyalty—until low NPS scores and rising member churn showed otherwise. Mathieu Staniulis and Séverine Clairet recount how Desjardins confronted its own mythology, restructured governance, and began treating feedback as a system, not a score. Desjardins' wake-up call came in the early 2010s. Despite its co-op status, members said the experience felt disjointed. Branches operated as near-independent entities. "It was really difficult to see the full scope of our company because we were presenting ourselves as different companies," says Mathieu. CEO Guy Cormier led a bold move: unifying the 17 siloed organizations within Desjardins under a single governance structure. But structure alone wasn't enough. Internally, CX, risk, and profit still pulled in different directions. As Mathieu puts it, "People in charge of customer experience only talk about customer experience and NPS. People in P&L ownership talk about their performance—their bottom line. How can they improve their performance, especially on the financial metrics? And then you have the risk people trying to manage risk and deal with regulators always bringing new regulations, especially in the financial industry. And I believe we have to find a way to work together to balance customer experience, efficiency or financial metrics, and risk management." The challenge became about integrating those forces to make balanced, member-first decisions—without sacrificing performance. Now Desjardins faces a new frontier: recreating intimacy in a digital world. Transactions moved online. But financial advice—the core of trust and loyalty—remains unsolved. The question, Mathieu says, is urgent and unanswered: "How do we bring advice into a digital world?" Guests: Mathieu Staniulis, Vice President, Products, Solutions & Digital, and Chief Transformation Officer | Séverine Clairet, Vice President Customer Experience & Marketing Strategy, Desjardins Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Time-Stamped Topics 00:01 – A logout button reveals blind spots in member experience 00:04 – Desjardins' founding story: community aid in a kitchen 00:06 – "Member-owned" in theory vs. practice across 17 silos 00:08 – How Guy Cormier unified Desjardins under one governance model 00:09 – Why NPS lagged despite a strong co-op identity 00:12 – "The S means system": transforming how feedback drives action 00:15 – Balancing CX, P&L, and risk without silos 00:18 – The call center debate: cost now vs. loyalty later 00:20 – Journey teams as a model for cross-functional accountability 00:21 – Digital did the easy part, so what comes next? 00:22 – Can "digital" be intimate? The next frontier for co-ops Notable Quotes [15:00] "It was really difficult to see the full scope of our company because we were presenting ourselves as different companies. … We had to pivot from working together, but in silos." [16:00] "We believe we're member-focused, but we were lagging in NPS. We were also losing membership, so we had to pivot and change all of that, changing the way we look internally at our performance, raising NPS as the top KPI for our company." [16:00] "That's the equation of NPS. Buying more, referring more, and staying longer mean more profitability. For P&L, it means better risk management, because there's a tendency to lower your risk when you have loyal customers with you. So you have to bring that all together." [17:00] "We were very proud of Desjardins, especially in the Quebec market. In some lines of products, we have almost 40% market share. You will see a branch of Desjardins in every town. It's deep in our roots." Additional Resources Read Bain's case study, From Laggard to Leader: Desjardins Evolves Member Centricity for the Digital Age: https://www.bain.com/client-results/from-laggard-to-leader-desjardins-evolves-member-centricity-for-the-digital-age/
Episode 252: Most CX maturity assessments ask how you think you're doing. This one demands proof. Erin Wallace, director of client engagement at MyCX from Bain & Company, is helping to lead a fundamental shift in how companies measure CX maturity. Most tools rely on perception-based self-assessments that reward self-promotion over progress. The Customer Experience Roadmap and Accreditation (CXRA) demands verifiable proof—evidence against 55 global, industry-backed standards. It's not always comfortable, but it's often the turning point. Bain's CXRA challenges the internal echo chamber. Erin explains how most assessments rely on surveys sent to a handful of CX insiders, producing a distorted view of reality. The CXRA demands documentation of policies, processes, behaviors, and measurable outcomes such as customer experience metrics, operational KPIs, or business results. It uses outside-in validation to confront that distortion. This isn't academic. It's where things get real. Leaders often push back. Some insist, "We're better than this." Others admit, "We're not as good as we might think." That tension is the point. Because CXRA doesn't just assess quality—it measures how consistently CX practices are applied across the business. That's how it exposes the "pockets of brilliance" that never scale, leaving most customers with a fragmented, uneven experience and leadership teams with a false sense of progress. For many leaders, conducting the CXRA offers clarity they've never achieved: a shared fact base, benchmarks of world-class practice, and a clear path forward. It doesn't just reveal what's missing, it builds the conviction to fix it. Guest: Erin Wallace, Director of Client Engagement, Bain & Company Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast (feedback link) Key Topics Covered 01:00 – Why perception-based CX tools fall short 02:20 – What defines a successful evidence-based assessment 03:10 – The challenge with identifying "pockets of brilliance" 04:15 – How companies respond to uncomfortable truths 05:40 – Aligning leaders around what "good" really looks like 06:55 – Using 55 global standards to benchmark performance 08:10 – What Bain's CX Roadmap and Accreditation assesses 09:30 – What Erin learned at the X4 2025 Conference in Salt Lake City Time-Stamped Notable Quotes [5:00] "MyCX℠ is a tool anyone in the industry can use, whether you're a strategic advisor, a technology implementer, or a CX practitioner. These should be things we agree on in terms of the standard of excellence for culture, capabilities, and execution." [6:00] "Most maturity assessments—tools to understand where you are and how you're doing with CX—are survey-based. They're perception-based. We send [them] out to a couple hundred people in the company, see what they think, and how they think they're doing with CX. You usually get back a pretty inactionable result. What's different about MyCX Roadmap and Accreditation, which is based on these global standards, is that it's an evidence-based, outside-in assessment." [7:00] "It's an opportunity to dig in and have a conversation. And to evaluate the perception with the policy against results." [8:00] "We look at quality, coverage, and consistency of application across the business. There could very well be a spotlight—like pockets of excellence—that are not applied across the organization in a meaningful way." "[9:00] "What does good look like, and is that really what we aspire to accomplish? And then what will it take to get there? Because oftentimes, everyone has a different opinion of what is 'good.' And do we really want to get there? This helps [organizations] break through and get that bigger investment unlock that's required to lead." Learn more about Bain & Company's CX Roadmap and Accreditation process: https://www.bain.com/consulting-services/customer-strategy-and-marketing/customer-experience-transformation/mycx/ Learn more about the Global CX Standards: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/resources/cx-standards/
Episode 251: In 2018, Dell set out to do something big: turn customer feedback into a system that could not only provide insights, but help set priorities and run the business. They had the data. They had the intent. But they made a compromise that many organizations settle on: Rather than enforce one unified approach to customer feedback, they allowed each team to build its own. While this helped with initial adoption and change management, it also led to fragmentation—multiple tools, different methods, no shared truth. And it got worse over time. Real progress ultimately would require centralizing what had become scattered. When Dell's Marc Stein appeared on this podcast in 2018 (episode 129), the company had just completed its EMC merger and launched a chief customer office. The ambition: one integrated Net Promoter System to tie sentiment to economics and put the customer at the center of every decision. But good intentions ran into a harsh reality: Every function was listening to customers, but no one was hearing the same thing. In this episode, Mike Valanzola, Dell's Senior Director of Voice of Customer and NPS Operations, picks up the story. He explains how misaligned tools, siloed ownership, and governance gaps made customer feedback hard to act on. His team didn't want to tear down what existed. Instead, they brought it together. Through consolidation, centralization, shared standards, and stronger governance, they transformed scattered signals into an enterprise-wide system of action. The turning point came with the Customer Experience Roadmap and Accreditation. The CXRA gave Dell a framework to drive internal accountability and rebuild trust in the system. As Mike describes, cross-functional teams now meet weekly to act on shared signals. Tomorrow's goal? Make every employee a promoter and make every signal actionable. Guest: Mike Valanzola, Senior Director, Voice of Customer and NPS Operations, Dell Technologies Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Time-Stamped Topics 00:01 - Marc Stein's 2018 ambition: a unified CX system 03:50 - Why integration faltered: fragmentation, politics, data overload 06:20 - Mike's mission: centralize tools, enforce governance 10:00 - Transforming custom systems to create shared accountability 13:30 - Early delivery surprises and sentiment gaps 17:10 - Predictive models and operational fixes 21:00 - How Dell built trust in the new NPS engine 27:45 - Weekly action meetings: turning listening into doing 35:30 - Why CXRA certification mattered, internally and externally 40:00 - Reflections on past company decisions Notable Quotes " We have a robust partner community that allows us to expand our scale in terms of the customers that we can touch. Each and every one of those folks has some things that are important for us to hear." [8:00] "We do—and did—as a company, listen regularly, but we didn't always hear. The reason for that came down to every function across the company, ultimately doing their own listening programs, using their own application, governing how they listened, controlling what they got back, and not sharing it." [18:00] "We had been really in a run-the-business function, really focused on NPS management, really focused on owning that measurement for the company. And now, I was proposing a large-scale, end-to-end corporate transformation that was going to require my own team to think about how we operate, and effectively operate differently." [28:00] Additional Resources Hear our 2018 podcast with Marc Stein on Dell's original CX ambition, Bringing Net Promoter to Scale Learn more about Bain's MyCX Roadmap & Accreditation
Episode 250: Comcast solved the age-old problem of how to make employee suggestions a powerful, reliable source of value-driving improvements at scale. Sean McEntire, Comcast's Vice President of Customer Strategy and Operations, explains how the Outer Loop channels every employee elevation—no matter how small—through a disciplined screen, assigns a named owner, and tracks progress in public view. Ninety thousand teammates now feed a single pipeline that forces scattered ideas into accountable hands and verified fixes, solving 7,000 customer pain points so far. A frontline agent's push for an easy‑to‑use, large‑button remote shows the system at work: The idea passed triage in hours, landed on the product team's desk, and shipped nationwide within months—evidence that voices on the floor can reshape the hardware in customers' hands. Once an elevation clears triage, technology, operations, or product leads must respond within set deadlines—accept, reject, or ask for data. Every decision and follow‑up lives on the same dashboard employees use to log ideas, so trust grows with each visible step. As McEntire puts it, "CX is all about transparency. If you're going to be transparent with your customer, you need to be transparent with your teammates." The result? Faster fixes, rising JD Power and NPS Prism rankings, and a workforce that, 10 years into the transformation, keeps feeding the Outer Loop because they've seen their suggestions become reality. Guest: Sean McEntire, Vice President, Customer Strategy and Operations, Comcast Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast (feedback link) Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey. Time-Stamped Topics (00:01) Comcast's early days of the Outer Loop (03:00) Why NPS never drifts when the Outer Loop is active (06:00) What it takes to operationalize trust with 90,000 employees (08:30) Large-button remotes and other frontline-sourced Outer Loop ideas (11:00) Inside the elevation system: votes, comments, and Outer Loop visibility (13:00) Why rejecting ideas can build more trust than accepting them (16:00) An industry-wide trust gap and the Outer Loop's role in closing it (18:00) Moving beyond scores to what drives CX progress (20:00) Synthetic feedback, benchmarking, and the new Outer Loop data stack Time-Stamped Notable Quotes [3:00] "This is our ten-year anniversary of operationalizing NPS within the organization. And we consistently, to this day, listen to both our customers and teammates. We learn from that feedback. […] We act on putting new solutions into the business that improve the lives of our customers and our teammates." [5:00] "We are approaching our 7,000th resolved NPS elevation. So that's 7,000 net new experiences for both our consumers and teammates. And that's true progress." [12:00] "CX is all about transparency. So, if you're going to be transparent with your customer, you need to be transparent with your teammate." [16:00] "CX never sleeps." [23:00] " It's not the score, it's the system. And if people focus on the score, you spend more time trying to explain a few basis points of score change and trying to correlate what may have caused that when it may have nothing to do with that. So it's, the score will be your north star on, 'Are you making progress?'" Additional Resources Learn more about the NPS® Outer Loop by Bain & Company: https://www.qualtrics.com/marketplace/bain-outerloop/ Listen to our two-part 2018 podcast on the origin of Comcast's NPS journey with Charlie Herrin, Comcast's chief customer experience officer: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/insights/inside-a-cable-giants-net-promoter-turnaround-nps-podcast/
Episode 249: When "revenge travel" brought guests roaring back to Four Seasons Hotels, they capped occupancy, turning away guests and revenue. Scott Taber, senior vice president of global hospitality, describes the Four Seasons philosophy: No points, no perks. Just great properties, individual recognition, personal service, and an emphasis on making sure the first five minutes after check-in are spectacular. That belief was put to the test when the world started traveling again and labor gaps persisted at the end of the pandemic. The company had a choice: chase revenue or protect intimacy. It chose intimacy. To avoid overextending staff and diluting the experience, Four Seasons capped occupancy. The organization focused on preserving what Scott calls the "first five": those opening minutes that define a guest's stay. "People want to see your eyes and your teeth," he says. They want to be recognized, not processed. That doesn't mean resisting tech. Four Seasons embraced tools that support connection: a CRM "golden record" surfaces each guest's preferences so staff can deliver personal touches at scale. They also rolled out a proprietary 11-platform chat tool that helps staff resolve 80% of requests within 90 seconds. Last year, they set an NPS record. Culture provides the foundation for the organization's enduring success. Recruiting favors empathy, veterans mentor newcomers, and managers celebrate tiny moments of recognition as fiercely as revenue. With management contracts that stretch a whopping 80 years, Four Seasons plays the long game: culture first. For Four Seasons, the strongest currency isn't points, but people. Guest: Scott Taber, Senior Vice President for Global Hospitality, Four Seasons Hotels Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Topics Covered: 00:04 How occupancy caps protect service under pressure 00:12 No points program means loyalty through recognition 00:20 Salesforce "golden record" and how it personalizes at scale 00:30 The benefits of their chat platform that responds instantly to guests 00:35 Getting culture right, like hiring empathetic staff and having veterans mentor newcomers 00:41 How their 80-year contracts reinforce a culture-first strategy Notable Quotes: 00:02 "It's the service excellence that we want to have in our properties every single day, and making sure that we have the right tools, training, support, structure, to truly bring that to life. And all while creating great jobs and helping to have amazing leaders and supporting them to create great memories and experiences for our guests." 00:03 "We had a record year last year with our guest experience score, Net Promoter Score." 00:11 "Our typical management agreement is 80 years. We want to be with this hotel, we want to be with this project, for the long term. It's the vision of Mr. Sharp [Four Seasons' founder] committing himself to the property and us being committed to the property for that period of time. I think there are some pretty good foundational elements to keep us going for a long time to come." 00:12 " [Customers] want to be remembered and appreciated for their business. Four Seasons doesn't have a loyalty program. We're a small brand: 133 hotels. So, how do we do that in a way that is thoughtful and that helps our employees to be able to remember our guests in the right way?" 00:25 "We want to hire for attitude and teach the skills. So you are looking for someone who wants to connect with that guest and be in sync with what that guest needs at that moment. And that comes with how we teach and how we coach that behavioral side to engage with the guests—what's important for them in the moment." Additional Resources: Connect the dots between the present and the past with our Customer Confidential podcast from 2016, Inside the Four Seasons Approach to Five-Star Service Learn more about how Four Seasons was impacted by Covid-19 in our brief: The Power to Change
Episode 248: At Dominion Energy, keeping the lights on isn't just a priority—it's the single biggest driver of customer experience. But as customer expectations continue to evolve, the bar keeps rising. Customers don't just want to know when their power will be back, they want to know why it is out. And they expect that experience to be as seamless, informed, and intuitive as downloading and using their favorite mobile apps. Meeting those expectations requires transparency, empathy, and a companywide commitment to service. In this episode, Utibe Bassey, vice president of customer experience, shares how Dominion Energy's mission-driven culture empowers this commitment, and how the company is harnessing tools like NPS Prism to better understand what customers need and how they perceive the service they receive—especially during critical moments like outages. That feedback helps teams act faster, communicate better, and focus on what really matters to customers. And it is, truly, a team sport. From operations and audit to communications and compliance, delivering a great experience takes cross-functional alignment and a shared sense of purpose. It's a culture where colleagues often rotate into different areas to build a greater understanding of the customer experience. Through data-driven decision making, a customer-centric mission, and an "all in" commitment to serve, Dominion is proving that customer-centricity can be a utility's greatest source of power. Key Topics Covered: Communicating clearly about service disruptions Aligning teams around the customer journey Bridging the gap between customer perception and reality NPS Prism as a tool to inspire and inform improvements Meeting rising customer expectations in a utility context The value of empathy and transparency in customer communications Cross-functional teamwork and shared CX goals Strengthening a customer-centric culture Guest: Utibe Bassey, Vice President of Customer Experience, Dominion Energy Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey. Notable Quotes: [6:00] "We have a term that we say, 'all in service,' because we're all in service of the customer. We want people, whether they're front line facing or they're in audit, supply chain, or ethics, to connect the dots between … even if it's three or four steps removed, it impacts how customers see our company." [13:00] "The main thing our team tries to keep front and center for all of our stakeholders is that we need a shared outcome." [32:00] "When you have an organization whose colleagues think about the customer in a way that connects themselves to the customer, even personally, this stuff is like wildfire." Additional Resources: Read Bain & Company's Case Study with Dominion Energy: How a National Leader Turned CX Ideas into Action with NPS Prism
Episode 247: What if customers achieve real results—but don't know it? Most vendors sell functionality. Mari Cross wants customers to see impact—in their own numbers, in real time. Mari Cross, Chief Customer Officer at Infor, is dismantling a common illusion: that delivering software features equals delivering value. Infor sells enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools, but Mari's focus is on proving business outcomes. She built a system where customers define the results that matter, track them through the product itself, and act on them with confidence. Her team isn't there to rescue implementations. They're there to make value obvious—and to ensure it keeps showing up. Most ERP systems operate like black boxes. Even when customers get results, they can't always prove it. Mari attacks that gap. Infor's value mapping begins before the deal closes. Once the system is live, telemetry and process mining show what's working and where clients are drifting off course. This isn't a side program—it's baked into the product and reflected back to users in dashboards, metrics, and business KPIs. The shift isn't just operational. It's cultural. Mari rebuilt Infor's customer success team to be proactive, industry-specific, and integrated from day one. That means fewer rescue missions, fewer slide decks, and more conversations grounded in actual product usage and outcome data. And it means the customer success journey starts well before go-live—and runs all the way through renewal. "A good value conversation is if you have some measures in place that are more repeatable than having a value engineer fly in from left field," Mari says. Learn how Infor's CareFor Success program gives customer success teams the tools, visibility, and data to show what's working and where to go next. And learn how and why value delivered is value clients understand. Guest: Mari Cross, Chief Customer Officer at Infor Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast (feedback link) Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey. Key Topics Covered: (01:00) The value void: what clients miss—and what it costs (03:30) Why Infor embeds value mapping into the sales process (06:10) Telemetry, process mining, and outcome tracking (11:45) The difference industry specificity makes (14:50) Mari's CareFor Success program explained (17:30) Getting sales, success, and product aligned (22:15) Making value visible across the customer lifecycle (25:00) How to track value realization in real time (36:00) Culture change and customer empathy Notable Quotes: [05:00] "If someone wanted to stick completely to standard, they could flip the switch on Day 1 and use our product. That's very different than the approach, I think, some other vendors take." [10:00] "In the vision of, 'We succeed when our customers succeed,' the [chief customer officer] role [at Infor] was really pivoted to make sure to focus on ongoing value realization and optimization after the go-live date. That is probably a very unique orientation for Infor." [12:00] "We are very focused on this idea of value engagement. We launched CareFor Success, which is our success program, last year. But it's completing this value-based customer journey all the way through where we are on a regular basis, across all teams, and repeatedly driving value with our customers by helping them look at the data, optimize, and then that visibility into value delivered within the product." [29:00] "We want to be in sync with our strategy when we talk about success motions, because that alone is an incredible power. We can become proactive."
Episode 246: The AI future of customer service is already here—and it's better than most people think. In this episode, Deon Nicholas, President and Executive Chairman of Forethought, joins host Rob Markey to show us how some companies are already using AI to resolve customer issues end-to-end in ways we could barely imagine just a couple of years ago. Deon introduces us to agentic AI: an emerging class of intelligent agents that take real action, integrate across enterprise systems, and adapt to each customer's needs. Drawing on his experience building Forethought's platform, Deon reveals how these systems are resolving issues, improving customer satisfaction, and going live in as little as 1 to 30 days. This isn't a future promise. It's happening now. The episode explores the architecture behind agentic AI, including Forethought's use of multi-agent systems, plain-language Autoflows, and a Discover model that learns company policies from historical tickets and call logs. Rob and Deon dig into risk, hallucination, and data privacy concerns—and how to address them without six-month implementation timelines. A surprising insight? Forethought sometimes adds a delay to its lightning-fast responses. Why? To build trust through operational transparency. Deon explains how even loading dots can reassure customers that the system is working on their behalf. Guest: Deon Nicholas, Founder, President, and Executive Chairman, Forethought Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast (feedback link) Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey. Key Topics Covered [1:00] Agentic AI vs. traditional chatbots [2:00] Why chatbots fail regarding decision trees and limitations [4:00] Real-time AI issue resolution and automation [7:00] AI integration with enterprise systems [12:00] Fast deployment and autoflow policy learning [15:00] Multi-agent AI systems and scalability [18:00] AI adoption challenges and business integration [22:00] Balancing AI automation and human agent handoffs [27:00] Cost comparison of AI vs. business process outsourcing [30:00] Rapid AI deployment and testing strategies Time-stamped Notable Quotes [4:00] "With an agentic AI, you have something that has learned from your business policies. It's read through hundreds of thousands of past conversations, knows the vernacular, knows how to respond, and knows the business policy. So, instead of getting a menu of items, you just have a conversation." [13:00] "You probably already have hundreds of thousands of conversations, whether they're sitting in transcripts, support tickets, [or] call recordings. It turns out that is a wealth of data that can train an AI in such a way that you don't need to manually create all these rules and decision trees and workflows." [ 16:00] "When we first launched our LLM-native AI two years ago, there were some hallucinations. But we've been able to go through, evaluate the model, fine-tune the model, and now we're at the point where it rarely happens. What we typically say to everyone is: 'Test it. Test it before you launch it, run a 14-day free trial, proof of value, run us against anyone else in the market.'" [21:00] "What's beautiful about all of this is now you get to the point where AI can become embedded into the ecosystem—and, ironically, make all of these human experiences better." [21:00] "AI is making it so that when it's time to actually hand off to a human agent, you're far less frustrated, or far less likely to be frustrated. And then the humans will now be resolving issues that require more judgment and more empathy."
Episode 245: What happens when digital transformation becomes table stakes—and customer relationships become the real differentiator? Eduardo Roma, Global Head of Customer Experience Transformation at Bain, believes companies that spent years optimizing transactions and digitizing every interaction are now unprepared for what matters most: becoming more humanized. The human element is now critical, and efficiency can't be mistaken for real connection. Eduardo outlines three forces reshaping customer experience: Digital is now table stakes, customer power has surged to new heights, and predictive, data-driven relationships are setting brands apart. Too many organizations still equate digitization with progress while missing what actually builds loyalty: emotional relevance, early engagement, and personalized support that evolves alongside customer needs. Learn how leading firms are using data to build trust, earn loyalty, and deliver meaningful value—especially in the earliest moments of the customer relationship. And discover how to make customer engagement a true driver of growth. Guest: Eduardo Roma, Partner, Bain & Company, Global Head of Customer Experience Transformation Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Topics Covered: 00:30 – Why customer experience is at an inflection point 01:00 – Digital experiences are now table stakes 02:00 – Generative AI and the shift in customer power 03:10 – Moving from reactive to proactive experience management 05:00 – The limits of digitization when every app feels the same 07:00 – Personalization that creates value, not just sells more 08:30 – The problem with local optimization in product teams 11:15 – Digital capture vs. earning engagement 14:00 – Humanizing experiences with data and behavioral science 17:00 – Creating customer value creation plans 20:00 – How new challengers are forcing incumbents to rethink CX 21:30 – Predictive, proactive engagement and relationship signals 24:00 – Why CX professionals must speak the language of value Notable Quotes: "Now that [companies] have digitized experiences, they really need to humanize those experiences through data. And what I mean by that is how to make interactions with customers much more meaningful, much more relevant, [and] much more personalized in a way that those interactions build enduring relationships with customers." "There are way too many degrees of separation of people who understand the customers and where some of the decisions are being made. It is important for organizations to be aware of those blind spots and to close those gaps." "The whole idea of just focusing on the experience, we need to move people beyond that. Move to relationships, to stop and think where we are on this experience pointing in time. We need a more holistic view." "Now, customers are much more in control. That is [a] transformation of organizations, when they think about the reach and relevance of the relationship they have with customers." Additional Resources: Transforming Customer Experience with AI: A Guide to Sustainable Growth (A webinar by Eduardo Roma, Rob Markey, and Phil Sager) Eduardo Roma on Three Changes on Customer Engagement (Video located on Eduardo's profile page)
Episode 244: What defines a differentiated customer experience? It starts with a clear framework for measuring intangible value and making calculated trade-offs. In this special tribute show, we revisit our 2016 conversation with Eric Almquist, a former partner at Bain & Company, on the Elements of Value. This framework transforms how businesses understand loyalty, brand equity, and growth. Inspired by Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Eric made value practical, categorizing 30 elements into functional, emotional, life-changing, and social impact levels. His research connected the dots between delivering on multiple elements and revenue growth. Learn how successful industry leaders deliberately layer value over time and how even in B2B, solutions that ease complexity can offer emotional benefits, such as hope. Eric was a pioneer in customer analytics and segmentation, his mantra being: What do customers truly value? His valuable insights continue to shape business thinking. Today we celebrate his legacy in customer experience and brand strategy. Guest: Eric Almquist, former partner, Strategy & Marketing practice, Bain & Company Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Topics Covered: [00:01:00] Eric Almquist discusses the Elements of Value and why they were created to help managers better understand demand [00:02:00] Eric's contributions to customer analytics, segmentation, and experimental design [00:03:00] How the Elements of Value were first developed, inspired by questions about what customers truly value [00:04:00] The connection between the Elements of Value and Maslow's hierarchy of needs and why Maslow's model is hard to apply in business [00:05:00] The four levels of the Elements of Value: functional, emotional, life-changing, and social impact [00:06:00] The impact of delivering multiple elements of value on revenue growth and customer advocacy [00:07:00] The 2016 Harvard Business Review article and how the framework connects to Net Promoter Score℠ [00:08:00] Unexpected insights from the research, including how B2B solutions can provide emotional value, such as hope [00:09:00] The evolution of the framework, from 16 to 36 elements over time [00:10:00] How value can persist across generations, such as in heirlooms and wealth preservation [00:11:00] The role of brand strategy and the caution against over-promising value in marketing [00:12:00] Closing remarks from Rob Markey, reflecting on Eric Almquist's impact and legacy Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [00:01:00] "There's a fundamental asymmetry within management that it's easier to manage the cost side than it is the demand side, because the cost, you can see, you can quantify. It's much harder to know how to increase demand, and how to increase revenue. That asymmetry is what's motivated me to develop the elements of value." [00:04:00] "Maslow's hierarchy of needs was developed in the mid-20th century. So as we're drawing on something very old, when I talk to audiences, I'll ask them if they know Maslow's hierarchy of needs and all the hands go up, and then I ask them how many of you have used it to, say, improve a product or think of a new product, and the hands tend to go down. The reason is that it's pretty academic." [00:05:00] "We began to think about functional elements of value, emotional elements of value that could be life-changing. Following Maslow's hierarchy, the top of the pyramid, the highest level of motivation, was around altruism or charitable giving. We call that social impact." [00:07:00] "If you are delivering on zero elements of value by our threshold definition, revenue growth tends to be around negative 2%. If you're delivering on four or more elements of value, the average is 13%. Eight of the original 47 companies that we looked at were delivering on zero elements of value at our threshold. The truth is if you're delivering on zero elements of value for very long, you're probably going to be crushed by a competitor or be acquired, would be my guess." [00:09:00] "[The elements of value] really began as a thought experiment. I began thinking about all the work that I had done over all the decades, thinking about what I've heard in focus groups and interviews and observations and surveys. I began to realize value is not infinitely complex nor mysterious. There are actually things that you can point to that are appealing or not appealing." Additional information on what was discussed in today's episode: HBR article, The Elements of Value, by Eric Almquist, John Senior, and Nicolas Bloch: https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-elements-of-value Eric's perspective on the elements of value: https://www.bain.com/insights/eric-almquist-managing-the-elements-of-value-video/ Episode 117 of Customer Confidential with Eric, What Do B2B Customers Want?: https://baincompany.libsyn.com/ep-117-eric-almquist-what-do-b2b-customers-want Explore the B2C elements of value in more detail here: https://www.bain.com/insights/elements-of-value-interactive
Episode 243: At Emory University, 99% of donations come from just 8% of donors. It's a small alumni minority funding almost the majority of the university. This raises a big question: How do you cultivate loyalty among everyone else? In this episode, Emory's Chief Experience Officer, Cutler Andrews, describes how they're dismantling silos—by merging alumni relations, donor relations, and events—to offer a cohesive experience. They're seeing success. Within five years, Emory's engagement nearly doubled from 28,000 to 54,000 participating alumni. Learn how Emory's four engagement metrics (philanthropy, attendance, communications, and volunteering) feed a carefully designed funnel, turning casual alumni into potential major donors. We also explore how tracking personal preferences and tailoring interactions drives lasting impact. It's about balancing short-term fundraising with authentic relationships. How do you nurture entrepreneurs—those overlooked until "cash out"—and future big givers, without neglecting current donors? Learn how thoughtful engagement fosters trust, broadens participation, and reduces reliance on a few generous supporters. Guest: Cutler Andrews, Chief Experience Officer & Senior Associate Vice President, Emory University Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: - [00:02:19 - 00:03:00] Merging engagement, communications, and marketing: Cutler describes the creation of a unified team to orchestrate all donor-facing activities under one umbrella. - [00:03:39 - 00:04:26] Overcoming siloed teams: How sending separate letters, emails, and event invites—without coordination—diminishes the overall constituent experience. - [00:07:51 - 00:09:00] Engagement vs. fundraising: Cutler explains why alumni relations are often viewed as more feel-good, whereas fundraising may often be seen as purely transactional. - [00:14:36 - 00:16:00] Emory's four engagement buckets: How Emory measures engagement via philanthropy, attendance, communications, and volunteering—and why each bucket matters. - [00:27:00 - 00:29:00] The risk of relying on a tiny donor base: Cutler points out that roughly 99% of their funding comes from around 8% of donors, underscoring the need to reach that remaining 92%. Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [00:00:27] "Ninety-nine percent of our money comes from seven or eight percent of our donors. That's scary, because if that keeps getting smaller, it's a ton of risk." [00:01:03] "We have all of these KPIs and goals, and the only question people ask is, 'How much money [have you] raised?' That's part of the story, but that is the output of a greater story." [00:06:22] "Yes, large gifts help, but alumni engagement has to serve that mission, too. It can't just be, 'Make our alumni community feel good and give them programs.' We have to ask the questions, 'To what end? To what value?'" [00:27:10] "All of a sudden there's an exit and there's an influx of cash, and then everybody's jumping on. It's like, 'You haven't talked to this person at all—why do you think they'll want to engage now?' It shouldn't always be because, 'I know in ten years, they might make a gift.'" [00:33:10] "We've seen engagement go from 28,000 alumni to 54,000 alumni in five years because of that intentionality, that creativity, and thinking through that if somebody does a great event over here, but if we can't market it over here, it's not going to do any good."
Episode 242: Wells Fargo has established a clear position on artificial intelligence: If you can't explain how an AI model works, you shouldn't deploy it. This stance challenges the common assumption that black box algorithms are acceptable costs of advanced AI capabilities. In this episode, Kunal Madhok, Head of Data, Analytics, and AI for Wells Fargo's consumer business, reveals how the bank has operationalized this philosophy to enhance customer experiences while maintaining rigorous standards for model explainability and ethical deployment. The stakes for financial institutions are substantial. As banking becomes increasingly digitized, organizations must balance sophisticated personalization with transparency and trust. Wells Fargo's approach demonstrates that explainability isn't merely about regulatory compliance—it's a fundamental driver of business value and customer trust. Through rigorous review processes and a commitment to "plain English" explanations of algorithmic decisions, Wells Fargo ensures its models remain logical, aligned with business objectives, and comprehensible to stakeholders at all levels. This transparency serves multiple purposes: avoiding unintended consequences, maintaining human oversight of automated systems, and ensuring data-driven decisions actually drive business value. Discover how Wells Fargo's insistence on explainable AI is reshaping everything from product recommendations to customer service, while setting new standards for responsible innovation in financial services. Guest: Kunal Madhok, EVP, Head of Data, Analytics and AI, Wells Fargo Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey: http://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: [00:04:13] Integrating data science into business decisions and ensuring data-driven insights [00:07:29] Kunal's vision for personalization and delivering relevant, value-based products [00:09:22] Wells Fargo's ability to leverage life events and transactional data to better serve customers [00:11:05] Democratizing financial advice and offering tailored advice based on customer needs [00:16:53] Using live experimentation and AI models to tailor product offers and marketing [00:19:17] Strategic investment decisions for new product launches and capacity reservations using simulations [00:22:45] Explainability, and what this looks like in action [00:37:22] Strategies around servicing interactions and the key challenges around this work that demand solving Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [00:00:27] "When a customer walks into a bank, they're expecting you to know them." [00:04:19] "Part of my role is to make sure we use data science in every business decision we make as an organization. And what that means is not just the quality and the fidelity of data, but also that decisions are made not based on intuition, but on real data outcomes." 00:07:29] "Good personalization is: We'll give you the right product based on your interests and your needs, and we'll deliver it in a way that you want. Which is the right channel, the right offers." [00:12:17] "If we can add value to our customers, they expect it. I'm sure when you turn on [a streaming service] today, it gives you a whole bunch of movies, shows to watch, curated just for you, based on your past history. And if they do it well, you actually like that, because you know the next five things to watch. And while that's in entertainment—and financial products are a very different space—that's the bar our customers are expecting us to meet." [00:22:45] "As we train our talent, we've put a high bar on explainability of the work they do."
Episode 241: When is mastering the basics a differentiator? In an industry where complexity is the norm, Prudential Group Insurance has made a counterintuitive strategic choice. While many companies chase innovation through digital transformation and enhanced features, Prudential has discovered that operational excellence—the "absence of noise"—can be a more powerful differentiator. Abhii Parakh and Mike Estep reveal why group insurance demands a fundamentally different approach to customer experience than high-touch industries like hospitality or travel. For Prudential, success depends not on bells and whistles, but on excelling at the foundational elements: reliable execution, friction-free processes, and consistent delivery. "The absence of noise is a tremendous win," Mike emphasizes. "That's not the long-term goal for us. But if you don't get those things right, you won't get the chance to get to the nirvana state where you are separating yourself from the competition because of the experiences you created." Learn how Prudential delivers seamless experiences across its ecosystem of brokers, employers, and employees by prioritizing simplicity and operational excellence. Discover why, in complex B2B2C environments, flawless execution of core processes can be a more powerful differentiator than feature innovation. Guests: Abhii Parakh, Head of Customer Experience, Prudential Financial, and Mike Estep, President, Group Insurance, Prudential Financial Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey: https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: [00:01:16] Overview of group insurance products [00:03:21] The broker, employer, and employee experience [00:06:46] Employees' challenges with insurance products [00:10:21] Eliminating friction to enable differentiation [00:19:02] Customer experience as a growth driver [00:35:48] Overcoming challenges in survey feedback Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [00:05:24] "Modern life is exhausting. The last thing you want to deal with is friction with your group insurance carrier—about reports, getting your commission check, or that we're screwing up the bill and you're getting heat from that client. It doesn't need to be rocket science. There's beauty in simplicity and intuitive experiences that are void of friction." [00:08:31] "The absence of noise is a tremendous win. That's not the long-term goal for us. But if you don't get those things right, you won't get the chance to get to the nirvana state where you are separating yourself from the competition because of the experiences you created." [14:01] "Feedback—while painful to hear—is something you can use as a tool to help get other people in the organization to respond and make improvements that will help you, personally, be successful because they're resolving problems of your customers."
Episode 240: How has the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) role evolved over time? Traditionally focused on tracking metrics, CCOs now play a proactive and forward-facing role in driving business innovation. In this episode, Caroline Lombardi, Global Head of the Hospitality & Leisure Practice at Egon Zehnder, explores the CCO role's dramatic evolution. Customer experience—no longer just about tracking satisfaction or retention—has become a valuable springboard for boosting revenue and gaining a competitive edge. Successful CCOs are skilled in holistic customer experiences, from call centers to broader operations. Caroline outlines three emerging CCO models: the Operational Leader who drives change, the Innovator who turns data into growth, and the CEO Successor who integrates customer experience into business strategies. Discover how CCOs are shaping customer interactions and guiding the strategic direction of organizations. And learn why they must adopt a growth mindset to succeed, taking on revenue-generating roles and building strong, cross-functional alliances. Guest: Caroline Lombardi, Global Head of Hospitality & Leisure, Egon Zehnder Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey: https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: [01:10] How the CCO role is shifting from being a scorekeeper to focusing on growth and influencing innovation within companies [06:43] The toolkit successful CX leaders need, including operational accountability and having access to frontline teams [07:24] How transformational call center roles have become part of CX leadership, and the benefits of aligning call centers with the broader business strategy [15:36] What kinds of difficulties CX leaders face, such as building the right allies and driving change within organizations that may resist transformation [19:22] Why, from a recruitment lens, some people tend to downplay their job qualifications [23:39] The importance of getting customer experience into the boardroom to drive business results Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [11:56] "Move from scorekeeper to growth mindset and make sure the C-suite understands you can stretch your roles in more ways to add bigger enterprise value." [12:11] "The best-case customer officer roles are really CEO successor-type of roles." [15:21] "I can't emphasize enough: If you have the chance to run the contact center, don't think twice." [16:03] "CX leaders by nature want to drive change. The score is never good enough. You're never done improving. You're never done innovating." [19:06] "If you are interviewing for a position and you're not getting access to who you think the right stakeholders are, you should ask for it. And if you don't get access, that's a sign. They're hiding it."
Episode 239: What hidden insights can customer behavior data analysis reveal about how successful one food delivery app may be over another? Discover how analysis of externally sourced customer behavior data can fuel dramatic improvements in revenue forecasts and strategic decisions. See how competitor data analysis can help identify strengths and weaknesses that are otherwise hidden. In this episode of Customer Confidential, we're joined by Dan McCarthy, director and co-founder of Theta and Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Dan shares findings from Theta and Bain & Company's jointly published consumer purchase data study, "Customer Lifetime Value across Food Delivery Competitors." Together, Dan and Rob explore how they used a proprietary database of credit card transaction data from Pyxis to track customer behavior for subscription services over five years. They describe how accounting for corresponding economic factors like seasonality and the Covid-19 pandemic helped improve forecasts of transaction velocity, spending, and retention. Learn which food delivery app had the best customer loyalty, the most customers, and highest per-customer spending. Guest: Dan McCarthy, Director and Co-Founder of Theta, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland, College Park Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey: https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey here. Time-Stamped List of Topics Covered: [02:00] Introduction to customer behavior analysis and business forecasting [05:15] How companies can use historical data to predict customer lifetime value [10:00] Insights from customer data and the role of subscription services [15:30] The impact of external factors like economic shifts and market changes on consumer behavior [20:00] How businesses can improve acquisition and retention strategies using data [25:00] Using customer lifetime value to forecast future revenue and business growth Time-Stamped Notable Quotes: [02:45] "The notion of having a consistent data set with multiple companies in it so you can compare … all these different food delivery companies [means] you can explicitly see them and you can see the same consumers buying across them." [05:37] "It's primarily taking these different vintages of customers—where a vintage is defined by, 'When did that customer make their very first purchase with your firm?'—and then within that vintage, what we want to explain is what these individual customers are going to do in the future." [07:42] "[The data] is what allows us to say things like, is this company acquiring customers well? Are they retaining customers well? How frequently are they buying? And how does that compare across different companies?" Additional Resources: Customer Lifetime Value across Food Delivery Competitors Pyxis by Bain & Company