Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth

Episode 268: Companies have spent years designing websites, apps, stores, call centers, and all the other ways for customers to interact with them directly. What happens when the customer starts somewhere else entirely? Mark Hammond, Senior Vice President for Core AI at Qualtrics, argues that AI agents could become a new front door to your business. Consider car shopping. Today, you might ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or another AI to compare models and narrow your choices. But there is no reason for the interaction to stop there. The AI could use the manufacturer's own configurator to help you choose options, calculate a price, and eventually take other actions, all without forcing you to leave the conversation and start over on the manufacturer's website. A conversational interface is only part of the story. Mark makes an important distinction about what "agentic AI" actually means. The real change comes when an AI can use tools: search data, run an analysis, configure a product, execute a transaction, or call another specialized capability on your behalf. That creates a second problem. The AI may be extraordinarily capable and still know surprisingly little about how your company really works. "The generic foundation models know everything about everything except the specifics about your business," Mark says. Your employees know your customers, products, terminology, policies, exceptions, and all the accumulated detail that comes from operating the business. Much of that knowledge is not sitting on the public Internet. And an AI cannot make full use of your tools and data if it does not understand that context. That leads to a counterintuitive possibility. AI may not make every company more alike. As powerful general-purpose models become widely available, the knowledge unique to your organization could become more valuable, not less. In this episode, Mark and Rob talk about what agentic AI actually means, how it may change the way customers interact with companies, how AI can uncover signals traditional customer-feedback methods miss, and why teaching AI how your business really works could become an important source of competitive advantage. Guest: Mark Hammond, Senior Vice President for Core AI, Qualtrics Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Timestamped Topics 05:14 – Shifting from what an AI tool can do to the value a customer really needs 08:22 – Why AI-guided conversations could change traditional surveys 11:31 – What agentic AI is actually defined as 15:16 – How AI agents could become a new front door for customers 20:48 – What customer experience leaders should prepare for over the next few years 22:26 – Why general AI models still don't understand the specifics of your business 27:11 – Teaching AI how your business works Notable Quotes 03:00: "What do you see a lot of in the data? Sometimes the things that you really want to focus on aren't popping because they're common. They're popping because, wait, that's not what we would expect to see." 16:00: "If I'm coming in and … I'm shopping for a car, how am I going to do my research for shopping for a car? It used to be that you would go to a review site, go to the individual manufacturer's websites, and you'd start to dig in and do your research. And nowadays you'll go to an agent, and you'll ask it questions, and it will do some of that browsing for you." 21:00: "How do I avail myself of your product or your service? How do I do it in a research fashion? How do I do it in an ordering fashion? Increasingly, I'm going to want to do that not just through your app, or your website, or on the phone, or in person at a kiosk. I might actually just want to do that because I'm talking to one of these natural language agents." 24:00: "The generic foundation models know everything about everything except the specifics about your business." 28:00: "Once you've taught the models how your business works, using your agents and your tools that you have made available, is way more useful than just querying something generically. And so then you get this rich tapestry where everybody's agents can talk to everybody else's agents and life gets better. But that also is very different from the apocalypse that everyone is envisioning, that all of the things that we do will be subsumed by AI. No. Actually, AI is dependent on the things that you do to deliver the value we all want."

Episode 267: API Heat Transfer was responding to requests for quotation when, according to research in one of its priority segments, buyers had already decided who they trusted. The manufacturer of heat exchangers had strong products and deep engineering expertise. It understood much less about how customers chose a supplier for a particular order. It would have been easy to miss the gap in understanding. API's revenue grew with healthy margins. Some customers had been buying for decades. But familiarity didn't necessarily give customers enough reason to defend API when a competitor offered a lower price or faster delivery. Daniel Herrmann, API's Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy, joins Rob Markey to explore how the company is changing its approach. Historically, a customer provided a specification, API built and shipped the product, and the relationship largely paused until the next order or service problem. Their research revealed how much happened while API wasn't in the conversation.  "We realized we were leaving value on the table," by not maintaining the relationship after the sale, but before another RFQ had been requested, Daniel explains. "More importantly, we were not there for our customers when [it] mattered." Getting involved earlier required more than scheduling meetings. Account managers agreed that talking with customers was a good idea. But without an order or technical question to discuss, they weren't sure how to make those conversations useful. API introduced regular reviews with larger customers. They developed a global sales development program to help the API team discuss customers' priorities, alternatives, and business plans. As Daniel puts it, "Investing in the relationship is selling." API also began broadening whose feedback it sought. Procurement's satisfaction with a shipment could reveal little about the maintenance team's experience after a year of operating the equipment. A new relationship survey reaches across decision makers to help API understand what transaction scores alone could miss. Daniel shares with Rob that his focus now is creating what he calls a "central nervous system" for understanding customers and turning stronger relationships into a repeatable way of doing business.  The work is still underway. Rob and Daniel examine the test ahead: whether these changes will lead customers to buy more, give API a greater share of their spending, and generate more profitable business. Guest: Daniel Herrmann, Vice President, Corporate Development & Strategy, API Heat Transfer Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Timestamped Topics 02:01 – The "invisible infrastructure" behind data centers, power systems, and everyday life 09:19 – API's traditional product-first, transaction-focused model 11:00 – The difference between genuine loyalty and customer inertia 13:33 – Why some customers were leaving  21:38 – How aftermarket service can strengthen loyalty and customer lifetime value 26:16 – Building customer relationships when there is no order on the table 27:18 – Why "investing in the relationship is selling" 30:03 – Moving beyond transactional NPS to measure overall relationship health Notable Quotes 11:00: "We weren't asking whether this growth was based on inertia or genuine loyalty. And by inertia, I mean the way we had always done things and customers always engaging in a certain way. We never dug into that because everything felt good." 13:50: "We had a very consistent finding that the real purchase decision happens before the RFQ, and we were in this RFQ stage. And we didn't really understand the buying stages because we never had to previously. But when the purchase decision happens, we're not actually in the room, and so vendor selection is effectively determined before any procurement process begins." 22:02: "And there's a real parallel to API's business. Historically, we were not holding these service contracts, and we were not maintaining continuity. So every time a customer needed something after our initial sale, we were starting from scratch. And that really limits how much loyalty you can build, and it limits your share of lifetime value that the customer represents." 27:18: "Investing in the relationship is selling. That's part of the process, and that's how you evolve out of a transactional mindset. It's: you're not an order taker, you're a partner, you're a consultative partner." 37:12: "Frankly, what drew me to API was this gap that I recognized immediately where we have 150 years of history, over 120 engineers, more than a million installations, and one of the most comprehensive portfolios. But we hadn't really built the centralized commercial infrastructure to match that, and, you know, I always look at that as a central nervous system to understanding your customers."

Episode 266: In Bain's early 2026 Consumer Banking Benchmark, provided by NPS Prism, Chime had the highest NPS among the companies we measured. That raised a basic question: How does a financial technology company serving people who live paycheck to paycheck earn greater loyalty than institutions built around customers with much higher balances? Sam Krause is the Senior Vice President of Operations and Member Experience at Chime. As she explains, Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. "We are a FinTech. We partner with bank partners behind the scenes who hold all our deposits." Most Chime members already had bank accounts. The important distinction is between having access to an account and having a product designed around the way you actually live. Chime operates without branches, giving it lower fixed costs than traditional banks. Members who qualify can receive their paychecks up to two days early or use a free feature called SpotMe for up to $200 in fee-free overdrafts. Those benefits cost money and expose Chime to risks many traditional banks avoid. But about two-thirds of members use Chime as their primary account. Most of the company's revenue comes from interchange on daily card use. Helping members get access to their money sooner can increase usage, strengthening the economics that make those benefits possible. Sam also explains how Chime tries to turn "member obsession" into an operating discipline. NPS is one of the company's three highest-level goals. For example, competitive benchmarking exposed a gap in funding and transfers that internal data alone had not made urgent enough. Chime then combined the NPS Prism benchmark data with direct member feedback to identify the specific problems and change its priorities. The consequences can be intensely personal. Sam describes a member named Carmen who used SpotMe to put gas in her car so she could reach chemotherapy appointments scheduled shortly before her payday. Her story illustrates why a short-term liquidity problem that might look minor to a product team can matter enormously to the person experiencing it. In this episode, learn how Chime preserves member obsession as it grows and leverages better outcomes for members into greater usage, loyalty, and growth. Guest: Sam Krause, Senior Vice President, Operations & Member Experience Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Timestamped Topics 00:52 – Cutting insurance claim resolution from weeks to minutes shapes Sam's approach to customer experience 01:28 – Aligning the business model with what is best for customers 02:51 – Designing financial products for the two-thirds of Americans living paycheck to paycheck 03:25 – Giving members paychecks up to two days early and up to $200 in fee-free overdraft 05:40 – Using primary account relationships and interchange to make the economics work 08:03 – Taking risks traditional banks avoid to give members faster access to their money 09:04 – Distinguishing access to banking from helping customers gain financial control 12:13 – Designing simpler money-management tools for the 80% who are not natural planners 14:14 – Finding the two customer segments where the products have the strongest fit 18:38 – Seeing simplicity and ease of use emerge as the biggest drivers of promoters 19:41 – Helping members increase credit scores by 30 points on average over eight months 22:17 – Scaling customer obsession through employee bootcamps and direct customer listening 24:00 – Making NPS one of three company-level goals 30:30 – Using competitive benchmarks to prioritize funding and transfer problems 32:57 – Building trust in a digital model with 24/7 access to human support 39:30 – Hiring "hungry, humble, and smart" employees as the company scales 41:30 – Embedding company values into employee evaluation and coaching Notable Quotes 08:03 "We're willing to take that risk on behalf of our members." 09:04 "There's a difference between having access and having something that is actually helping you gain control of your finances and reach your financial goals and make financial progress." 15:52 "We figured it out. And it turns out when you can crack that, you gain a very large and very loyal member base." 26:31 "You shouldn't be surprised that senior executives lose interest in something like this if you are not doing the work to prepare it." 28:36 "At the end of the day, it's about the member perception and the member view." 32:36 "We have to do more than a traditional bank would because that's what our members need." Additional Resources about Chime: How Chime is Leading the Way in Customer Loyalty: https://www.bain.com/insights/how-chime-is-leading-the-way-in-customer-loyalty-snap-chart/ What it Takes to Build the AI-Native Modern Bank: https://www.bain.com/insights/what-it-takes-to-build-the-ai-native-modern-bank/ How Analytics Can Deepen Banks' Customer Relationships: https://www.bain.com/insights/how-analytics-can-deepen-banks-customer-relationships/ 

Episode 265: Ryan Fuller started questioning online reviews after two terrible stays at highly-rated vacation rentals. Both had 4.9-star ratings. After Ryan posted negative reviews, the people behind each listing independently offered him £200 to change his review to five stars.  "It was disappointing," he said, "that clearly many people took them up on this offer." On the flip side, the experience explained something that had been bothering him for a while: Places with thousands of positive reviews could still turn out to be terrible. So Ryan, founder of Larrocos Labs and a serial entrepreneur, decided to investigate.  He built an AI system that has now analyzed hundreds of thousands of reviews covering roughly 22,000 restaurants. One example of what he found: In a focused analysis of 4,000 restaurants, about 70% showed at least one unusual review pattern. Some had sudden bursts of five-star reviews. He found one case in which roughly 100 reviews had been submitted within a two-minute period. Others featured suspiciously similar language, unusual concentrations of reviews mentioning particular employees, or reviewers whose histories raised questions about their credibility. None of that proves a review is fake. As Ryan explains, the goal is not to establish absolute truth, but to determine how much confidence we should place in what we are seeing. Ryan discusses what this means for consumers, platforms, and anyone relying on AI-generated information. He also explores an alternative: systems that show their work, identify potential sources of distortion, and tell us how confident they are rather than presenting uncertain conclusions as facts. He sums it up well: "I think we're living in a world where understanding what is real or what is true is going to become one of the most difficult problems for humans to deal with." Guest: Ryan Fuller, Founder, Larracos Labs  Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Timestamped Topics 00:39 – How two 4.9-star vacation rentals led Ryan to question online reviews 03:11 – Why hours spent researching restaurants became a problem worth solving 04:49 – Using AI to automate the process of assessing restaurant reviews 05:26 – Building a database of 22,000 restaurants in six months with 300 lines of code 06:15 – Finding unusual review patterns across 70% of a 4,000-restaurant dataset 07:20 – Identifying sudden clusters of ~100 reviews for one restaurant 08:10 – Treating suspicious review activity as a question of confidence 08:40 – Using repeated staff names and customer incentives as review signals 09:12 – Detecting reviews that describe offers of money for positive ratings 11:05 – Assessing reviewer credibility through history, photos, and detail 12:11 – Building an AI product that checks authenticity and extracts review data 13:01 – Evaluating restaurant experiences across 36 distinct dimensions Notable Quotes 18:00 "I think with AI, it's like rocket fuel, where things can be done at incredible scale and with high degrees of believability in ways that were never true before. I think we're living in a world where understanding what is real or what is true will become one of the most difficult problems for humans to deal with on even just everyday stuff like picking a restaurant." 26:00 "Platforms that start to be more transparent about sources and degree of confidence and potential risks for any information they're providing will become more popular." 28:00 "It's almost just like an arms race. There's no sudden advance in tech or approach that's gonna solve the problem. I'm just pontificating here; I don't have good answers, but I do think this is maybe the problem of our time." 33:00 "The devious thing about AI is that it sounds so credible; we're going through a transitional phase where we're not as well attuned to what the tells are when confidence isn't there." 37:00 "I always try to show the work. One thing we do is we have a letter grade that we assign each restaurant for overall quality. So, it can be an A, a B-plus, whatever. And the very first thing underneath the score, the overall letter, is why it got a B-plus." Additional Resources Read Ryan Fuller's analysis of unusual patterns and manipulation in London restaurant reviews: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryantfuller_london-ai-share-7399118135099973633-Iquu/ See Ryan Fuller's restaurant data visualizations and discussion of how platform algorithms shape restaurant visibility: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryantfuller_datavisualization-londonlife-urbananalytics-ugcPost-7404913381431844864-cM7l/ Here's the article referenced about how a man created his own top-rated Dulwich restaurant: I Made My Shed the Top Restaurant on TripAdvisor: https://www.vice.com/en/article/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor/

Episode 264: BARK maintains more than 800 subscription price points because it has promised customers that their price will not increase as long as they remain subscribers. CEO Matt Meeker explains why honoring that commitment matters, even when tariffs, public-market expectations, and pressure on margins make it costly. Matt started BarkBox in 2011 after struggling to find breed-appropriate toys for his large Great Dane, Hugo, in New York City pet stores. The original idea was simple: Send dog owners a monthly box of toys and treats selected for their dog's size. The first shipment consisted of 78 boxes. With no paid marketing, the business grew through word of mouth.  Customers soon wanted to buy more of the products their dogs loved. That led BARK into individual product sales and, after Target approached the company in 2017, nationwide retail. BARK now sells through more than 50,000 retail doors globally. But expansion came with a cost: Retail gave BARK far less information about who bought its products and why. BARK became a public company in June of 2021. Matt describes how investor expectations shifted his team's attention toward quarterly financial measures that could conflict with investments in long-term customer value.  That conflict became urgent when Matt returned after 16 months away from the CEO role. The company had lost $58 million in the prior years and burned through nearly $200 million in cash. After a three-year effort, BARK reached $5 million in positive EBITDA, only to confront a potential $145 million tariff headwind. BARK looked for other ways to absorb those costs while honoring the price and value it had promised to subscribers. That commitment creates real complexity: The company's engineers must maintain more than 800 legacy prices, including one early subscriber who still pays just $16 a month. Matt explains why he accepts that burden. BARK asks customers to commit to the company, so he believes the company should match that commitment. More broadly, BARK's experience shows why companies often benefit when they protect customer value, even when conventional financial measures cannot capture the full return. Guest: Matt Meeker, CEO, founder, and executive chairman, BARK Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: Customer Confidential Podcast Feedback Send us a note: Contact Rob Timestamped Topics  01:44 – What BARK does, from BarkBox the subscription to BARK Air the travel service 04:51 – How Matt's Great Dane, Hugo, sparked the idea for BarkBox 06:25 – How their first 78 boxes grew through word of mouth 11:04 – Expanding beyond subscriptions and entering Target stores 18:31 – Why BARK went public in 2021 and the importance of financial independence 26:32 – Balancing investor expectations with long-term customer value 35:32 – Responding to tariffs while protecting longtime subscribers Notable Quotes [06:00] "Frankly, we didn't expect anything. We thought maybe there might be a hundred customers out there who subscribed to this thing, we'll learn how a commerce business works, and won't that be fun? That was our ambition: to build something fun and make some people and their dogs happy."  [7:00] "When we started, there were about 38 million households in the US with dogs. Today, that's about 66 million. So that grew really fast." [11:00] "When people said, 'My dog loved this [toy],' it often was followed with, 'Where do I get more of this?' And so that was just an easy leap of us saying, 'OK, here's where you can get more: right here at our shop.'" [15:00] "We went to the lengths of hiring, basically, spies, photographers, and people on the ground to go in. Mystery shoppers, essentially. Watch the aisles, interview customers, and talk about: Why are you buying that thing? What brought you in here? Why is this appealing to you? Because we were just so hungry for information about what's going on in that environment. And that, to me, is still the most difficult part of the retail experience." Additional Resources We discuss another subscription service, Birchbox, on Customer Confidential episode #34: https://baincompany.libsyn.com/ep-43-how-birchbox-unwraps-customer-data-to-open-up-delight | Learn more about Birchbox here: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/insights/birchbox-unboxing-a-fantastic-customer-experience-nps-podcast/  Read about when BARK became public here: https://www.gunder.com/en/news-insights/client-news/barkbox-announces-it-will-become-a-public-company-through-merger-with-northern-star-acquisition-corporation  Read the email BARK sent to subscribers about tariffs impacting their business: https://bark.co/blogs/bark-post/tariffs-barkbox?srsltid=AfmBOor9u9SYva-tQuvmQGao4IbUBs89Hc_t1vvGEvfzASQiIAL4S1dS