5 Decisions Today’s Most Beloved Companies Make That Drive Their Success

Go "behind the scenes" and tap into the decision making process of the top B2B, and service oriented B2C companies at The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. Here you will learn how top customer rated companies thrive in a culture that expects strategic growth and demands competitive action planning.

Join Jeanne Bliss, President of CustomerBliss, Author of Chief Customer Officer and I Love You More Than My Dog: Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, taking place October 3-5, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona as she delivers her keynote presentation:

Becoming a Company Customers Love and Can't Live Without: The Five Decisions of Beloved and Prosperous Companies

Through this session begin the process to understand how your decisions and actions have created your culture. Understand its impact on your customers, on your employees and on your business growth and prosperity. See how far or close you are to earning business outcomes compared to beloved and prosperous companies.

Plus! Hear inside stories on Measurement & ROI, Data Performance, Operational Metrics and Social Media CRM from customer experience, loyalty, research and insights executives at: AT&T, Kelley Blue Book, CVS Caremark, Verizon, AAA Northern California, Rockwell Automation, J.D. Power & Associates, Maritz Research, CPI Card Group, Customer Experience Partners, Customer Bliss, EMC, Forrester, Expedia, Allstate Financial, Peppers & Rogers Group, Pfizer, FedEx Corporation, GE Healthcare, Microsoft Corporation, and more. Download the brochure to see the full program.

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit will enable you to effectively measure, align and communicate your customer strategy to ensure business relevance. Register by Friday, August 19 to Save $200 off the standard & onsite rate. Please use priority code TCEL11BLOG when registering.

We look forward to seeing you this October in Phoenix!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team
Visit the event webpage.
Follow us on Twitter.

Total Customer Experience Leaders Speaker Spotlight: John Cushman of AT&T

In the weeks leading up to the 2011 Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit we're going to be hearing from some of the speakers.

Today we have an interview with John M. Cushman of AT&T. John will be presenting "Creating a Customer Centric Culture" on Oct. 4th 2011 at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. This session will highlight the myriad of reasons why creating a customer centric culture is essential to businesses of all sizes today. Attendees will be provided with a behind the scenes view of how AT&T is blending people processes and new technologies like social media, to improve its own B2B Customer experiences. Tips on ways to link various touch points in the LEARN-BUY-GET-USE-PAY-SERVICE Customer Continuum will be shared. Learn how to:
• Create a Customer Centric Culture
• Identify areas of opportunity
• Track ROI and measure success

To learn more about the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, download the brochure here.

In our interview, Cushman said "what keeps me challenged is the rate of change." Hear more about the changing customer experience world, by listening to the podcast here.

To hear more from and network with customer experience leaders, join us this October in Phoenix, AZ for the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. Register for the event here. Please use priority code TCEL11BLOG when registering.

Storyteller Spotlight Series: Jamie Naughton of Zappos!

At Zappos!, customer service has no time limit. In fact, the record for longest customer care call currently stands at 8 hours and 23 minutes!

I had the pleasure recently of speaking with Jamie Naughton, Speaker of the House at Zappos for the first of our 2011 NACCM Storyteller Spotlight Series. Jamie shared with me some of the secrets that keep her motivated, and the story of the 7+ hour customer call. To hear more, listen to the podcast here.



Jamie will be presenting "Delivering Happiness" at the 9th annual NACCM event. As Speaker of the House at Zappos, Jamie works directly with CEO Tony Hsieh, focusing on the culture for which the company has become known. Learn the different ingredients used by Zappos.com to build a long-lasting enduring brand, including the importance of customer service and company culture. Jamie's one key takeaway: How to Deliver Happiness through Service! Learn more about her session and the NACCM event by downloading the brochure here.

Readers of the Customer's 1st blog can save 15% off the standard registration rate with code NACCMBlog. Register here.

Stay in touch with NACCM, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook or join our LinkedIn Community for event updates, discounts and industry news and information.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Total Customer Experience Leaders Speaker Spotlight: David Blair of Rockwell Automation

In the weeks leading up to the 2011 Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit we're going to be hearing from some of the speakers.

Today we have an interview with David Blair, Director, Customer Experience of Rockwell Automation. David will be chairing the 2011 event, which takes place Oct 3-5, 2011 in Phoenix, AZ. To learn more about the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, download the brochure here.

TCEL: Tell us about a project you are working on or recently completed that you are proud of?

DB: We’ve just completed a new event-based survey that allows us to get feedback on our PROJECT business. The survey is very different from our annual customer survey in that it focuses on the individual project – from proposal through design through start-up. The goal is to both ensure a successful project, and get actionable feedback on our performance.

TCEL: What do you think is the key to a successful Customer Experience program?

DB: Senior Management support. Improving customer experience can’t be done from the bottom up. Moving the needle takes hard work and real commitment. And that comes by senior management talking about customer experience, defining performance goals, linking performance to compensation, prioritizing customer experience expenditures, and taking a personal interest in improvement projects.

TCEL: What inspired you to get in the field? What keeps you motivated?

DB: Motivation is easy. In our company, the Customer Experience Office is not just the messenger for conveying customer feedback - we’re also responsible for driving improvements. So knowing the next customer survey is right around the corner, and I’ll be the one walking through results with the CEO, I’m constantly motivated to drive feedback into actions that will improve our Customer Experience scores. I got into the field primarily because it allowed me to leverage my diverse background (sales, marketing, quality, product development) and interpersonal skills to make some real differences.

TCEL: What is one thing you’re excited about for this year’s Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit?

DB: Meeting peers. In our field, we rarely get a chance to share our approaches, successes and failures with peers. Books and consultants are helpful, but there’s really no substitute for an in-depth understanding of how other companies approach customer experience. There’s no one right way, and the approaches vary widely. My goal is to gather ideas that will form the basis for a strategy that elevates our own program to the next level, and likewise I hope I can offer ideas to help others advance.

TCEL: What is one question you are looking to get answered at this year’s Summit?

DB: My question: How do you keep the vitality in your customer experience program? It strikes me that no matter how good the research is, and how well it’s presented, the enthusiasm naturally diminishes over time.

TCEL: What books or websites are you currently reading?

DB: At the risk of offending authors out there, I’ve found the number of good books around B2B customer experience to be very limited. So I welcome hearing what others have found. I’m currently reading a book called “Wired and Dangerous” by Chip Bell. The book is very helpful in understanding the impact of the internet and social media on service providers. But it goes beyond that to discuss the general psychology behind customer service loyalty. So far I’d definitely recommend it.

TCEL: Thanks so much for taking the time to share with us!

To hear more from and network with customer experience leaders, join us this October in Phoenix, AZ for the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. Register for the event here. Please use priority code TCEL11BLOG when registering.

Social CRM... for B2B?

Are you working in the B2B world and wondering if there is any room for B2B in the social media space?

Social Media isn't just a place for B2C companies to announce promotions or sales or address customer concerns. In fact, it can be an excellent platform for B2B companies to create dialog and form engaging human connections with potential prospects, as well as track industry trends and position themselves as a thought leader in the space.

Check out this recent post on Fast Company for "6 ways B2B companies can take advantage of Twitter" as a starting point.

For more in-depth information on this topic, join us this October at the Social Media CRM
Symposium at the The Total Customer Experience Leaders (TCEL) summit. TCEL is about integrating the voice of the customer into disparate pieces of customer research data within B2B. Our Symposium Day will help you learn how to better manage your customer experience by linking social media research to financial value. To learn more about the event, download the brochure here.

How Microsoft guarantees accountability from its customer facing resources

Join Tim Berry, Director, Customer & Partner Experience, US - Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, taking place October 3-5, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona for his much anticipated keynote presentation:

Steps to Driving Action on the Front Line in a B2B Environment

This session will focus on how to create an end to end process that can be used as a foundation for accountabilities for your front line customer facing resources.
Key learnings will be shared on the following areas:
• Leveraging Senior Leadership to set the correct tone for the discussion
• Integrating the feedback into future account plans
• Holding your teams accountable

In addition to Microsoft the following companies will also share their inside stories on Measurement & ROI, Data Performance, Operational Metrics and Social Media CRM.
AT&T, Kelley Blue Book, CVS Caremark, Verizon, AAA Northern California, Rockwell Automation, J.D. Power & Associates, Maritz Research, CPI Card Group, Customer Experience Partners, Customer Bliss, EMC, Forrester, Expedia, Allstate Financial, Peppers & Rogers Group, Pfizer, FedEx Corporation, GE Healthcare and more. Download the brochure to see the full program.

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit will enable you to effectively measure, align and communicate your customer strategy to ensure business relevance. Register as a reader of our blog with code TCEL11BLOG by July 22, 2011 & save $300 off the standard & onsite rate.

We look forward to seeing you this October in Phoenix!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team
Visit the event webpage.
Follow us on Twitter.

Looking to connect with Customer Experience Leaders?

NEW FOR 2011! Attendees of this year’s Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit will have access to our new, exclusive networking platform Crowdvine.

Meet your fellow attendees, set up meetings and create your own custom agenda all before the event. You can find the community at http://totalcustomer.crowdvine.com/

Want in on the community? Join us at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit this October in Phoenix, AZ. Use code TCEL11BLOG and register for the conference here.

Disruptive Technology and Social Media CRM

Lately we've been looking at the different ways that new technologies can change or improve customer experiences. From customer-centric mobile apps to complaints on social media channels, it's clear that a company needs a digital strategy to survive.

It was with that in mind that I was pleased to read this recent interview in Fast Company on "Why Technology Is The Special Sauce In Growth Planning." In the interview, guest blogger Lisa Nirell interviewed Erik van Ommeren of VINT (Vision Inspiration Navigation and Trends) on the ways that "technology is becoming increasingly pervasive in B2B buyer-seller relationships and strategic marketing endeavors."

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the interview?

"Customers are seizing the opportunities to share their opinions and preferences, bringing more transparency in every market. For organizations, this means that they will have an even stronger motive to create honest and relevant interactions with their customers. Even if technology doesn't change your company directly, the technology will change your customers' behaviors. Through their changed demands, they will change your company."

Honest and relevant interactions are happening as the result of new technologies. Customers are ready to share their experiences and opinions on digital media, and it is now the job of brands to catch up. Social Media and the rise of Social CRM as a practice makes this abundantly clear. Where traditionally CRM was all about using data to better target various customers, Social CRM allows brands to collaborate with customers to discover and solve problems and build meaningful relationships. As Erik says in the interview "It's about people."

Read the whole post on Fast Company here.

Looking to learn more about Social CRM? Join us at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit this October in Phoenix, AZ. At our Social CRM Symposium Day you will learn how to better manage your customer experience by linking social media research to financial value. Register for the conference here.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

New Developments in Mobile Customer Service Apps

New developments in customer service applications on smart phones and tablets, or as society has now deemed them “apps”, is all about increasing revenue for the businesses creating them. In doing so, the user of the application (the buyer), becomes a more engaged and loyal customer by spending less time on tedious details, and more time deciding what to buy. The saying “time is money,” is everything in the application world, and by lowering the time it takes to buy a product, companies make it more likely through consumer-friendly applications to see increased revenues and sales. Essentially, the ease of connection between the seller and the buyer is paramount to retaining customers and ultimately adding to the bottom line.

Increasingly, the competitive landscape between retailers has forced them to expand and enhance their mobile applications to help attract and retain consumers. In today’s technology driven and increasingly wired-world, it is essential for retailers to create applications that allow for buyers to easily communicate with sellers, albeit on a transaction or customer service basis. Current developments in customer service applications by retailers in recent months have helped ease the process of transactions for buyers, and therefore, began to pave a path for productivity and satisfaction for both parties. A significant breakthrough in this field has been a strategy known as straight through processing (STP),that works so that once the seller has the necessary information for a purchase as input by the buyer, it becomes stored and password protected for individuals future usage. By essentially creating a saved account on individual apps within companies computer network, buyers no longer have to dredge through inputting information they may have done just a few days ago. This process has allowed an expedition of the customer service processes and retail sales, by allowing buyers to skip the tedious steps of inputting personal information and instead just punch in a password tied to their personal account. Inherently, this allows for accessibility and ease for the buyer; two traits vitally necessary for enhancing the customers experience with X retailer or seller, as well as increasing the customers likelihood of returning to use that retailer.

For example, in a recent article entitled “15 Mobile Retail Apps that Enhance Customer Experiences” by Sig Ueland, the focus is on retail applications such that are changing and modernizing the relationship between retailers and customers. A preeminent example of this as cited by Ueland in is the Best Buy application that gives customers on a real-time basis access to:
• Track past purchases
• Scan QR codes
• Access reviews
• Compare product prices
• Find in-store availability

The Best Buy application is just one amongst many other applications that have enhanced and eased the connection between large-scale retailers and customers, allowing for a more personalized relationship on portable devices. The correlation between increased personal service through applications and repeat usage of services from individual consumers is overwhelming, and surely signifies the necessity and potential for increased revenue that these customer service applications provide in the long run. Simply put, by connecting major retailers with customers through applications allows companies to connect to their patron on a more personal level, ultimately leading to brand loyalty which is essential for long-term revenue growth.

Chelsea Baptiste is a second year intern at IIR USA focusing on Market Research and Social Media. She can be reached at CBaptiste@IIRUSA.com

Looking to learn more about Mobile Customer Service Apps? Check out  "Is Your Mobile App Customer Centric?" with Matthew Rhoden of Peppers & Rogers Group at this year's Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit.

Total Customer Experience Leaders: Lowest Early Bird Discount Expires Today

Creating a customer centric culture is essential to businesses of all sizes today. And being customer centric means the entire organization must be aligned. The challenge and opportunity to leverage disparate sets of information into strategic action is a shared responsibility and priority across the board. That is why creating a customer centric culture should be on top of everyone's priority list across the organization.

Join John Cushman, Vice President of Business Marketing, AT&T at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, taking place October 3-5, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona as he delivers his keynote presentation:

Creating a Customer Centric Culture

In this presentation, John will provide attendees with a behind the scenes view of how AT&T is blending people, processes and new technologies like social media, to improve its own B2B customer experiences. Tips on ways to link various touch points in the LEARN-BUY-GET-USE-PAY-SERVICE Customer Continuum will be shared.

You will also learn how to:

• Create a Customer Centric Culture

• Identify areas of opportunity

• Track ROI and measure success

In addition to AT&T, the following companies will also share their inside stories on Measurement & ROI, Data Performance, Operational Metrics and Social Media CRM.

Kelley Blue Book, CVS Caremark, Verizon, AAA Northern California, Rockwell Automation, J.D. Power & Associates, Maritz Research, CPI Card Group, Customer Experience Partners, Customer Bliss, EMC, Forrester, Expedia, Allstate Financial, Peppers & Rogers Group, Pfizer, FedEx Corporation, GE Healthcare, Microsoft Corporation, and more.

Download the brochure to see the full program.
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit will enable you to effectively measure, align and communicate your customer strategy to ensure business relevance.

Save $500 off the standard & onsite rate. Register with code TCEL11BLOG here:

We look forward to seeing you this October in Phoenix!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team

Visit the event webpage.
Follow us on Twitter

Looking at The Apple Customer Experience

It's not breaking news that Apple tends to evoke strong feelings amongst their customers. Indeed, "Apple has led the market for the past few years as one of the most innovative, most loved, and most powerful companies and brands in the world." according to stock market opinion and analysis website Seeking Alpha.

Apple products tend to be innovative and ground breaking, setting the bar high, but challenges like the much-complained-about Apple/AT&T partnership and competing technology available more easily or at lower prices do arise.

It's not just the products building Apple fans. So what is it that Apple is doing right to generate this sort of emotion in its customers?

Unique, coordinated customer experiences
This video below from the Wall Street Journal offers some interesting insights into the Apple retail training process that largely controls customer experiences within the store.


Customer-facing team members such as the "Genuis Bar" employees are trained to solve problems, rather than sell, and employee handbooks provide potential scripts for a wide variety of situations. According to this article on PCMag.com "Apple Store staff is forbidden to correct a customer who mispronounces the name of a product."

The in-store experience also extends to design. Developed by executives such as Millard Drexler, formerly of the Gap, and Ron Johnson (formerly of Target and now moving to JCPenney), Apple develops different stores in unique locations, although each has certain elements in common: an open plan, curved edges, natural materials such as wood, glass, stone, and stainless steel. The stores feel like a larger reflection of the products being sold there.

What can we learn from Apple's customer experience successes? This blog post points out ways to translate Apple's innovation to the restaurant industry, and it's easy to see how a corporate culture that balances innovative ideas with highly coordinated in-store experiences can extend to any industry.

What do you think of these inside views of Apple's training policies? Will the public learning of this negatively affect perceptions of the Apple experience? Share with us in the comments!

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Breaking Barriers in Total Customer Experience

Much discussion takes place on the nature of the audience when discussing customer experience - is it business-to-consumer or business-to-business? The answer is, it's both: every customer is a real, live breathing person - a consumer who ultimately seeks out experiences that engage his time rather than waste it. In the Experience Economy, many approaches once reserved for the B2C space have migrated to the B2B space as companies realize they are selling to business professionals who are ultimately "consumers."

Join Joe Pine, Author of The Experience Economy and Infinite Possibility at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit, taking place October 3-5, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona as he delivers his keynote presentation:

Breaking Barriers in Total Customer Experience

In this presentation, Joe Pine will show you how to create economic value from the experience you create for your customers, featuring examples from many industries that go beyond good and services to staging economic experiences. He will also focus on the increasing use of digital technology, which can make such experiences more efficient and engaging. He will in particular show you how to embrace digital technology in such offerings, creating experiences that fuse the real and the virtual.

Joining Joe at the one event focused on Measuring, Aligning and Communicating Strategy to Ensure Business Relevance are leaders from: Kelley Blue Book, CVS Caremark, Verizon, AAA Northern California, Rockwell Automation, J.D. Power & Associates, Maritz Research, CPI Card Group, Customer Experience Partners, Customer Bliss, EMC, AT&T, Forrester, Expedia, Allstate Financial, Peppers & Rogers Group, Pfizer, FedEx Corporation, GE Healthcare, Microsoft Corporation, and more. Download the brochure to see the full program.

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is the ONLY comprehensive forum for B2B and service oriented B2C leaders to come together for a high level exchange around the issues that matter most.

Register by June 24, 2011 & Save $500 off the standard & onsite rate. Register with code TCEL11BLOG here.

We look forward to seeing you this October in Phoenix!
The Total Customer Experience Leaders Event Team

Follow us on Twitter for more updates: http://twitter.com/TotalCustomer

Connect to Your Customers With Social Media - Free Webinar

In association with Citrix, The Institute for International Research invites you to join us for a one hour complimentary Web Seminar.

Social Business: How to Create a Holistic Approach to Social Media
- Alex Beauchamp, Senior New Media Manager, Citrix Online

Thursday, June 16, 2011 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT

Reserve your Webinar seat now

When it comes to social media, there's no single "right way" to use it for business. Within its channels companies of all sizes can engage with prospects and customers to drive sales and provide services in a variety of ways.

What matters, however, is that the social media experience your business provides be consistent across the board. A holistic approach is the key to a successful social media program.

Join industry expert Alex Beauchamp to understand the many components of social business and learn how to put them all together into a cohesive plan that best reflects your organization's personality and value.

In this webinar, you will learn how to:
• Engage and monitor in the social space
• Use reporting metrics, insights and advocates
• Create social content and execute social campaigns
• And more...

Title: Social Business: How to Create a Holistic Approach to Social Media
Date: Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Time: 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT

Register Now. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. This web seminar is sponsored by Citrix.

About Citrix Online:
Citrix Online provides secure, easy-to-use online solutions that enable people to work from anywhere with anyone: GoToMyPC® for remote access, GoToAssist® for remote support, GoToMeeting® for online meetings and GoToWebinar® for larger Web events. A division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the company is based in Santa Barbara, California.

About The Institute for International Research:
The Institute for International Research (IIR) is the world's largest conference company and has been the leader in the provision of business information for over 25 years. IIR produces over 5,000 events annually through its network of offices in over 35 countries.

What Do Your Digital Customer Experience Strategy Look Like?

This recent post on Mashable by Ron Rogowski of Forrester Research points out some important reasons that brands need to have a digital customer experience strategy in the current market to stay competitive.

For example, the role of mobile devices. "This suite of empowering devices has driven customer expectations to new heights, and has increased the frequency of interactions between customers and businesses." (Last week's post on Gripe is a good example of this.)

But what makes a good digital customer experience strategy? Rogowski gave some good starting points:

• Start with company and brand strategy.
• Describe the intended digital experience.
• Direct activities and processes that support the defined experience.
• Guide digital channel investments

More than just a website or a twitter handle, a digital customer experience strategy needs to reflect the overall brand strategy and directly support and reflect offline brand activities.

Together, these elements add up to the real key to a successful digital customer experience strategy - seeing the digital world (mobile, social media and web) as holistic extensions of the brand. These digital touchpoints provide core moments to connect and engage with customers to create lifelong brand advocates.

So what does your digital customer experience strategy look like?

Looking to learn more about customer experience? Join us Oct. 3-5, 2011 for the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit. Hear from the top B2B, and service oriented B2C companies on Measurement & ROI, Data Performance, Operational Metrics and Social Media CRM. Download the brochure here.

Plus follow us on twitter for updated information at @TotalCustomer.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Is Social Media The Place To Gripe?

This post in the New York Times calls attention to a new application called "Gripe." Gripe is a service that allows users to automatically send customer service complaints both to a company and to their facebook and twitter followers.

The makers of Gripe claim that sending the complaints automatically to all Facebook friends will lessen the likelihood of frivolous claims, and features a "word of mouth power" rating to business owners to clarify how many potential viewers a gripe will have.

Given that many consumers are already turning to social media as a channel to vent their frustrations, it seems it was only a matter of time before an app like this was invented. It does provide an important service to businesses, as it alerts them to the problems immediately where regular complaining on a personal Facebook page could be heard by friends, but not by the offending company.

Still, is Gripe really a necessary service? Will having such a "frictionless" way to complain prevent consumers from following proper channels to settle their complaints first? What do you think?