Without regular maintenance, your contact center’s back-end software can pile up, causing a drop in performance and even larger issues down the line. Even more concerning, if you are planning a move to the Cloud, you want to ensure you don’t carry legacy problems and dirty data with you.  McGee-Smith Analytics President & Principal Analyst Sheila McGee-Smith and Blackchair CEO & Co-Founder Jason Owen share their tips for keeping your CX software clean and adaptable for future challenges.   Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our ..read more

Over the past decade, social media became a primary way for consumers to connect with large-scale businesses. It offers public transparency to customers which empowers their voices, and it gives companies an opportunity to build trust among their followers. In this episode, B2B tech influencer and content creator Evan Kirstel shares his insights on how some companies use social media to its full potential and how others use it in ways that could harm their brand identity. Ready to rethink what’s possible in CX? Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts ..read more

In the modern customer service world, it’s more important than ever that brands make it clear that they stand for more than just profits.  So how exactly can a company ensure that customers know that it stands for something?  I recently sat down with Aspirational Futures Founder and CEO Sally Eaves to discuss doing the right thing as a company. In this episode of Dare to Reimagine, Sally shares insight on the importance of building a comprehensive ESG strategy, what motivates employees to become brand ambassadors, and why it’s necessary to replace box-checking with actual change.&nbs ..read more

Nearly half of us would rather go to the dentist than call customer support. At heart, it’s a trust issue, and consistency and predictability lies at the core of great CX. Hear our conversation with Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations, LLC: - Why customer experience and customer expectations must be equal - What “skimpflation” is and how brands should respond - How to use chatbots seamlessly and effectively for great CX More information about Shep and today’s topics: - LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shephyken/ - Company website: https://hyken.com/ - I’ll ..read more

The first thing you should do when a customer complains — Thank them. They’re pinpointing issues that the team can now fix. But if you want the kind of team that embraces complaints and goes to work with enthusiasm, there must be a focus on the employee experience. Nick Glimsdahl, Director of Contact Center Solutions at VDS, joins me today to discuss his new book and all the reasons why the employee experience should be your main area of focus for a better customer experience. Join us as we discuss: 138 pages of nothing & the digital transformation Lessons learned about customer experience ..read more

When dealing with every single customer, you have to understand the individual end-to-end customer journey. That requires a single source of truth — which most companies don’t have. Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK Research, joins me today to discuss using data to integrate sales and service. Join us as we discuss: Why sales and service should become best friends The importance of data integrations, especially with the contact center A word of wisdom to the vendor community Why you need a Chief Experience Officer An urgent need to be agile, adaptable, and scalable   ..read more

The ground is shifting beneath us. Because of the pandemic, massive advances have been made in digital engagement and automation. And those twin pillars have led us back to a hot topic from six years ago — the customer journey. When we talked about the customer journey before, we didn’t really know what to do with our data. But now, we have ways to leverage it in a myriad of paradigm-shifting ways. In this episode, I’m joined by a titan of the CX and contact center world, Sheila McGee-Smith, president and principal analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics, to talk about some of these emerging trends ..read more

Do you have the unifying trifecta of method, message, and martech working for you? Or is your customer journey somehow still siloed — with your contact center the least aligned of all? In this episode, I interview Neil Valentine, chief revenue officer at Lucency, about creating a unified customer journey that integrates the contact center into the marketing and sales flow ..read more

Working tools into your retail experiences that allow you to connect with your customer through their mobile device on their preferred digital channels is a tall order. Integrating technology into the customer experience must start with a customer-centric strategy that focuses on layers of gratification. In this episode, I interview Melissa Gonzalez, CEO and founder at the Lionesque Group, about empowering the retail experience with human connection through technology. Join us as we discuss: The surprising survey results about personal mobile devices in stores The overlap between retail strate ..read more

What would you rather do — go to the dentist or call customer support? Forty-eight percent of us say they'd rather have the root canal. Creating customer amazement by delivering consistent, predictable above-average service is what brings people back to your business again and again. In this first episode of Five9’s newly rebranded Dare to Reimagine podcast, I interview Shep Hyken, chief amazement officer at Shepard Presentations, about the role of amazement in customer experience.  Join us as we discuss: - The keys to creating amazement in customers - Being slightly better than average ..read more