Amazing Business Radio
479 episodes - English - Latest episode: 24 days ago - ★★★★★ - 77 ratingsAmazing Business Radio features customer service expert and New York Times bestselling author Shep Hyken who interviews leading business professionals and other customer experience experts. Each guest shares tips and insights on how to succeed in business. The bright business minds featured on Amazing Business Radio come from all over the world and include viral video stars, corporate CEOs, bestselling authors, thought leaders, and many other inspiring personalities. The show covers a variety of topics related to customer service and customer experience and will provide answers that listeners need to know in order to take their success to the next level. Amazing Business Radio airs every week on, itunes, Soundcloud, and other platforms and channels.
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Episodes
The Future of Customer Feedback Featuring Martha Brooke
June 23, 2020 10:00 - 23 minutesTop Takeaways:- In unprecedented, chaotic and uncertain times, customer interactions are more valuable. Treat your customers with respect and dignity and make sure they feel the value in interacting with you. - Beware of survey fatigue! This happens when customers receive too many surveys, become frustrated and start ignoring them. - There are generally four good reasons and ways to use surveys to collect customer feedback: 1. Tracking studies utilize data from surveys to hel...
Facial Coding in the Customer Experience Featuring Dan Hill
June 16, 2020 10:00 - 28 minutesTop Takeaways:- Facial coding is not facial recognition, but rather how emotions are displayed on the face. - Facial coding is universal, spontaneous and abundant. In other words, it is a plentiful resource of information that, when properly utilized, can help companies understand their customers and ultimately create a better customer service experience. - Collecting and interpreting data from facial coding can help companies understand whether or not customers are having a g...
Culture Design in the Customer Experience Featuring Jason Korman
June 09, 2020 10:00 - 29 minutesTop Takeaways:- Culture and culture design are management systems. You must embed the right cultural norms into your organization in order to influence and drive the behaviors you want to see in your employees. - Think of your organization as a community of people who are tasked with certain outcomes. Help employees understand their purpose and the outcomes they are responsible for; in short, it’s about the employee mindset. - Shift the focus away from making money to taking be...
Redefining Influence in the Customer Experience Featuring Stacey Hanke
June 02, 2020 10:00 - 28 minutesTop Takeaways:- Influence is not what most people think it is. It’s not something you can turn on and off, but is instead about consistent messaging (both verbal and nonverbal) that drives people to action. - Customer service is all about relationships. Those relationships are built over time through consistent communication and interactions. Predictability and consistency are the foundation for a good customer experience. - Remember that communication happens both through lang...
Machine Learning in the Customer Experience Featuring Cameron Weeks
May 26, 2020 10:00 - 28 minutesTop Takeaways:- Many customers believe that companies don’t about customer service. If this were true, the customer support center or department would not exist. However, companies don’t often have the technological tools to provide a great experience. - The customer support department and contact centers have undergone a change over the past decade. They are no longer viewed as a cost, but a source of profit. - Frontline customer service agents have valuable information and da...
Leading with Empathy Featuring Jeff Nicholson
May 19, 2020 10:00 - 28 minutesTop Takeaways:- Even before the world was disrupted by a pandemic, customer service was hard. Customers already thought customer service took too long in terms of hold times and time to resolution. Customers’ expectations have now increased, driving the need for better customer service up even higher. - There is a higher volume of customer service calls since the pandemic began. Companies and agents need to improve their customer service strategies to effectively handle the volume. ...
Proactive Customer Service in Times of Change Featuring Jonathan Lerner
May 12, 2020 10:00 - 27 minutesTop Takeaways:- Optimism is a great trait in a leader—and a sense of humor doesn’t hurt, either! - In order to have a great customer experience, you must have a great employee experiences that incorporates and is empowered by digital technology. Neither technology nor the human element should be sacrificed. - Prioritize adding proactive service to your CX strategy. This means incorporating strategies to fix problems before they occur. - Technology can help make agents more...
Crisis Management and the Customer Experience Featuring Ronn Torossian
May 05, 2020 10:00 - 22 minutesTop Takeaways:- A key finding from 5WPR’s 2020 Consumer Culture Report was that 71% of people surveyed find it important to buy from companies that align with their values. - When it comes to customer service and customer loyalty, it is important to attempt to understand your customers’ values. If you can resonate with what is important to your customers, you will build a more loyal customer base. - Be mindful not only of what you say, but how you say it. These elements have a ...
Humanize the Customer Experience Featuring Rowan Trollope
April 28, 2020 10:00 - 29 minutesTop Takeaways:- A web- or cloud-based interface is an excellent option for working from home, as it allows users access to everything they need without being tied to one specific device or location. - One of the downsides to working remotely is the lack of human interaction and creative in-person collaboration. Communication technology (such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack) can help combat this. - The biggest mistake companies make when converting to a remote workforce is at...
Start by Being a Great Place to Work Featuring Eric Chester
April 21, 2020 11:00 - 32 minutesTop Takeaways:- When the economy is bustling and the unemployment rate is low, the resultant labor shortage makes it very difficult to find (and keep) the best employees for the job. - Even a single bad employee can dramatically impact the morale of other employees. But customer service ultimately suffers the most at the hands of a bad employee. - When you understand the differences between yourself and your employees, you will understand how to manage them better and ultimatel...
Working Remotely in Times of Crisis Featuring Daniel Ramsey
April 14, 2020 10:00 - 24 minutesTop Takeaways:- These are strange and unprecedented times. In a very short amount of time, the United States has shifted from having only 5% of its workforce working remotely to over 50%. - Virtual assistants and workers can help you deliver your value proposition by handling essential tasks that don’t necessarily drive business—such as answering the phone, managing calendars, etc. - On average, it takes companies 60-90 days to find, hire and onboard a new employee. Turning to...
Empowering Humans to Be Human Featuring Vit Horky
April 07, 2020 10:00 - 29 minutesTop Takeaways:- The concept of transhumanism is that we, as human beings, are able to transcend what we were capable of in the past thanks to new technology and innovations. - People use technologies such as AI in their daily lives more than they realize. A good example is a Google search. It is the artificial intelligence behind that search engine that allows it to work as well as it does. - Customers have very little trust in AI and chatbots when it comes to a need for deeper...
The Customer is Your Bottom Line Featuring Horst Schulze
March 31, 2020 10:00 - 28 minutesTop Takeaways: - Everything you learn comes from others. Everyone has an obligation to share what they learn so that more people may benefit. Pass on what you have learned. - No matter what the outcome of your business is, it all starts with your employees doing the job they’re supposed to do. - In order for your business to succeed, you must first understand your market—your customers. You must know what they want and need before you can begin to meet their expectations. - ...
Marketing and the Customer Experience Featuring Mathew Sweezey
March 24, 2020 10:00 - 27 minutesTop Takeaways: - Studies have shown that high-performing companies that enjoy consistent growth are those that focus on crafting experiences. - Studies have also shown that there is a significant gap between the experience businesses believe they’re delivering and the one that their customers are actually receiving. - Marketing is largely responsible for the creation and sustainment of experiences. Therefore, customer experience is the new marketing. - Companies need to ha...
Customer Value is Company Value Featuring Rob Markey
March 17, 2020 10:00 - 32 minutesTop Takeaways:- NPS refers not only to the Net Promoter Score, but also to a system that is a set of behaviors, actions and technology that provides customer feedback directly to frontline employees. While the score itself is important, the bigger impact is on frontline employee learning, making customers feel as though their voice is heard and valued. - When asking for customer feedback, model your approach off of NPS and Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s original Service Quality Index: ask ...
The Secret to Getting Customer Reviews Featuring Rupesh Patel
March 10, 2020 10:00 - 31 minutesTop Takeaways: - Even if you think customer reviews don’t apply to your business, they are still important. Regardless of your industry, customers are reading reviews online or on some industry forum before they decide to do business with you. - Customers look for recent reviews when researching your business. Studies have shown that reviews older than 3 months are considered irrelevant. - If you don’t follow up with your customers, don’t get their feedback and don’t ask for re...
The Radical Relevance of Customer Experience Featuring Bill Cates
March 03, 2020 11:30 - 30 minutesTop Takeaways:- An organization’s message is related to their brand promise and customer experience. The experience needs to deliver on the customer’s expectation, which is created by the brand promise. - Everyone in the organization needs to be in alignment with the message and be able to describe the value. This applies regardless of whether someone is in a customer-facing role or not. - The same consistent message and experience must be delivered to internal customers (emplo...
Be the Disney of Your Industry Featuring Teri Yanovitch
February 25, 2020 11:00 - 28 minutesTop Takeaways:- It’s neither luck nor magic that creates success (though those can certainly help)—it’s hard work. Any and every company is capable of putting in hard work. - Give potential employees a taste of your company’s culture right away. Be upfront about the requirements of the position and the expectations for success. This will help eliminate candidates who may not be the best fit. - During the candidate’s interview, don’t ask all the questions. Allow the applicant to...
The Customer Experience Revolution Featuring Claire Sporton
February 18, 2020 11:00 - 29 minutesTop Takeaways:- It isn’t enough to simply gather data. Data collection without action is a waste of time. You must use those insights to drive positive change within your organization. - Learn how to “fish the big data lake” so you can pull out useful pieces of information about your organization, its processes, and the customer experience. It is crucial to be able to determine what is important and what is not. - Customers want and expect a personalized experience. Microdata i...
Unconscious Bias in Customer Service Featuring Bernadette Smith
February 11, 2020 11:30 - 31 minutesTop Takeaways:- Unconscious bias affects the way we think about others without being fully aware of it. It causes people to make assumptions about others that may or may not be true. - Frontline employees must be trained to be aware of their unconscious biases. When employees act on incorrect assumptions, it can potentially offend customers. - In today’s digital world, anything and everything can be filmed, put on the internet and go viral. This can turn into a PR nightmare for...
The Voice of the Customer Featuring Stacy Sherman
February 04, 2020 11:00 - 30 minutesTop Takeaways:- It’s important to consider and optimize CX across the board, but especially within three key areas: digital channels and e-commerce, sales and the frontline, and especially new product development. - Very few companies take the customer experience into consideration when designing new products. Incorporate the customer’s voice throughout that process and give them a seat at the table from the very beginning. - Poll the customers and personas to whom you’re marke...
Employees Matter Featuring Bob Chapman
January 28, 2020 11:00 - 32 minutesTop Takeaways:- You don’t need to have an out-of-the-ordinary or “exceptional” background to do exceptional things in business and your life. - Business has the potential to be the most powerful force for good in the world. It begins with companies truly caring about their people. - The most important thing for any business is to develop a sustainable business model in which people feel valued. - Many businesses make the mistake of only caring about numbers. Leaders inste...
Excellent Service in an Experience Economy Featuring Jim Gilmore
January 21, 2020 11:00 - 34 minutesTop Takeaways: - The economy has evolved over time from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy, then to a service economy and finally to an experience economy, where the experience a customer has is the most valuable component. - Service and experience are two different but related things. Service is what you as the company do. Experience is the customer’s time and perception of the interaction and relationship that occurs through that service. - Experience goes beyond th...
Simple is Transformative in the Customer Experience Featuring Matt Gillin
January 14, 2020 11:00 - 30 minutesShep Hyken interviews Matt Gillin. They discuss the secrets of driving customer loyalty and a good customer experience (CX). Here’s a hint: it’s all in providing a secure, personalized, and frictionless channel of communication. Top Takeaways: - The biggest challenge facing business today is how to more effectively engage and connect with customers. Companies must find innovative solutions if they hope to overcome this obstacle and find success. - Every organization’s goal should be...
Customer Fandom Featuring David Meerman Scott
January 07, 2020 11:00 - 35 minutesShep Hyken interviews David Meerman Scott. They discuss his new book, Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans, and strategies for businesses to turn their customers into fans and vice versa. Top Takeaways: - Human beings naturally crave connection and the feeling of belonging. That’s where the concept of the “fandom” comes into play. Companies must figure out how they can utilize this to their advantage. Every organization is capable of developing fans. - Comp...
The Emotional Brand Experience Featuring Lindsay Pedersen
December 31, 2019 11:30 - 31 minutesShep Hyken interviews Lindsay Pedersen. They discuss strategies for how brands can differentiate themselves by creating authentic, genuine connections with their customers. Top Takeaways: - A brand is its customer experience, and vice versa. The brand and the experience are built on the relationship between a business and its customers. - Advertising and marketing may attract new customers, but it’s rarely the real reason why customers like doing business with a brand. Customers lik...
Strengthen Your Company’s Core Featuring Katie Mares
December 24, 2019 11:00 - 29 minutesShep Hyken interviews Katie Mares. They discuss her C.O.R.E. Methodology and how it can improve the customer experience in addition to gender inequality in the customer service world. Top Takeways: - In order for your organization to succeed, it must have a strong, solid core. The core is made up of your systems, your processes and most importantly, your people. - Strengthen your organization’s core using the C.O.R.E. Methodology, which has four steps: create, operationalize, result...
The Hospitality Mentality Featuring Rupesh Patel
December 17, 2019 11:00 - 33 minutesShep Hyken interviews Rupesh Patel. They discuss Rupesh’s “secret sauce” to creating an amazing guest experience across his hotels, and how those ideas can translate to the larger customer service world. Top Takeaways: Don’t make the mistake of caring more about money than customer service. Focus on customer service and the money will follow. The first step to creating an amazing experience is raising your brand standards. Define the standards for your business and focus on improving your op...
The Empathy Machine Featuring Joel Makhluf
December 10, 2019 11:00 - 28 minutesShep Hyken interviews Joel Makhluf. They discuss the need for more awareness and empathy among customer service agents and how AI and technology can provide that. Top Takeaways: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool. When used correctly to support customer service representatives and call center agents, it can help humans be “more human.” It’s important to identify the behaviors that annoy customers the most over the phone, whether it’s talking too fast or too slow, interrupting th...
Elevate the Employee (and Customer) Experience Featuring Robert Glazer
December 03, 2019 11:00 - 31 minutesShep Hyken interviews Robert Glazer. They discuss his practice of employee “wish-granting,” common service mistakes businesses make and his book, Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others. Top Takeaways:- Find ways to do something meaningful for your employees around the holidays—or anytime of year. Experiences often are better remembered and make a bigger impact than money. - By investing in your employees, you are investing in the culture of your...
Get Thematic with Customer Feedback featuring Alyona Medelyan
November 26, 2019 11:00 - 29 minutesShep Hyken interviews Alyona Medelyan. They discuss how natural language processing can help companies focus on the most important problems to drive up customer satisfaction. Sound a little technical? It is, but it’s fascinating. More important, it’s relevant. The future is here today! Top Takeaways: Natural language processing is an analytic tool that helps programs and AI (artificial intelligence) analyze and understand “everyday” language. Using natural language processing allows comp...
Will AI Kill the Customer Support Agent? Featuring Antony Brydon
November 19, 2019 10:00 - 30 minutesShep Hyken interviews Antony Brydon. They discuss the role of automation in customer service, and how companies can best use it to improve their customers’ experience. Top Takeaways: When companies switch to AI and other new automation technologies, more often than not it is the customers who suffer. Companies must make this switch without sacrificing the customer experience. AI has the capacity to transform practically every job within the knowledge sector, especially customer service jobs...
Create a Disney-Worth Customer Experience Dennis Snow
November 12, 2019 11:30 - 30 minutesShep Hyken interviews Dennis Snow. They discuss how to define an organization’s level of service and company culture by looking at examples from the Walt Disney World Company. Top Takeaways: There are two steps to defining your organization’s level of service. Step one is to ask yourself what you want your customers to say about their experience. Step two is to ask yourself what you can do to get your customers to say those things. When considering step one, narrow it down to three things yo...
The Bottom Line of Customer Experience Featuring Augie Ray
November 05, 2019 11:30 - 30 minutesShep Hyken interviews Augie Ray from Gartner. They discuss the importance of investing in the customer experience and how to build a CX that will benefit both customers and companies alike. The Interview with Augie Ray: The emergence of new technology and the rise of social media have changed the way customers interact with brands, giving them more channels of communication than ever before. Brands need to pay attention to the entire customer experience across all channels to stay relevant a...
Companies with a Soul are the Future of Customer Experience Featuring Guest Blake Morgan
October 29, 2019 08:00 - 28 minutesShep Hyken interviews Blake Morgan. They discuss her new book, The Customer of the Future: 10 Guiding Principles for Winning Tomorrow’s Business, focusing on the psychological, technical, and experiential components of building a good customer experience. The Interview with Blake Morgan: If you don’t get the simple stuff down, you will lose customers. The “basics” includes knowledge of your customers and their wants and needs. Above all, seek to make their lives easier rather than more diffi...
The Competitive Edge of Empathy Featuring Maria Ross
October 22, 2019 08:00 - 27 minutesShep Hyken interviews Maria Ross. They discuss her new book, The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success, why empathy creates a competitive advantage in business, and how companies can foster empathy from the inside out. The Interview with Maria Ross: Authentic empathy can create a competitive advantage for companies and can reap huge rewards and bottom-line benefits. In an empathetic culture, employees are more innovative and productive, while customers are...
The Competitive Edge of Sympathy Featuring Maria Ross
October 22, 2019 08:00 - 26 minutesShep Hyken interviews Maria Ross. They discuss her new book, The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success, why empathy creates a competitive advantage in business, and how companies can foster empathy from the inside out. The Interview with Maria Ross: Authentic empathy can create a competitive advantage for companies and can reap huge rewards and bottom-line benefits. In an empathetic culture, employees are more innovative and productive, while customers are...
Small Change, Big Payoff with Laurie Guest
October 15, 2019 07:00 - 29 minutesShep Hyken interviews Laurie Guest. They discuss her recent book, The 10¢ Decision: How Small Change Pays Off Big, which focuses on small, simple things leaders and team members can do to enact big, positive changes in their customer service. The Interview with Laurie Guest:Business leaders don’t always need to spend a lot of time or energy to improve their customer experience. Small, simple changes can go a long way toward positively impacting customers.Consider your word choice when speakin...
Customer Service Drives Value Featuring Guest Sam Lessin
October 08, 2019 08:00 - 29 minutesShep Hyken interviews Sam Lessin of Fin Analytics. They discuss the changing needs and expectations of customers, and how to keep customer service simple while delivering satisfaction. The Interview with Sam Lessin:The world is becoming more customer-centric, but not every company is keeping up. There must be more training and coaching present within contact centers and customer-facing roles.Measurement is everything. You can only change what you measure. You must measure and collect data acr...
The Analytic Customer Experience Featuring Guest Tom Goodmanson
October 01, 2019 06:00 - 32 minutesShep Hyken interviews Tom Goodmanson. They discuss trends in digital customer service, including hyper-personalization and fast, frictionless self-service. The Interview with Tom Goodmanson:The “CX revolution” is only just beginning. The trend across industries is toward elevating the customer experience. This has become critical for organizations to focus on, as 9 in 10 businesses say they’re competing primarily on the basis of customer experience.With all the recent advancements in technol...
Customer Understanding Featuring Guest Annette Franz
September 24, 2019 06:00 - 27 minutesShep Hyken interviews Annette Franz. They discuss her new book, Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business. They also talk about the crucial role the employee experience plays in the customer experience. The Interview with Annette Franz:Customer understanding is a cornerstone of a customer-centric culture. You must understand who your customers are, the experience they’re having, the problems they face, their goals, and h...
Customer Service Will Never Go Out of Style Featuring Guest Paul Selby
September 17, 2019 06:00 - 28 minutesShep Hyken interviews Paul Selby of ServiceNow. They discuss the evolution of customer service and customer needs in a digital world, and how companies can employ self-service and proactive service to meet customer demands. The Interview with Paul Selby:Self-service is all about empowering customers and giving them the ability to solve their own problems. This often allows resolutions to be reached faster, which makes the customers happy and eliminates extra work for customer support agents....
Love in Business with Steve Farber
September 10, 2019 08:00 - 32 minutesShep Hyken interviews Steve Farber. They discuss how to implement love into every aspect of your business to drive customer success. The Interview with Steve Farber:Even if you love what you do, there will still be days that feel like work. You must do the necessary things you dislike in order to be able to do the things you love in your business. Doing only what you love is called retirement—but you don’t necessarily need to be retired to feel this way.Societally, we are unaccustomed to us...
Customer Centricity in Business Featuring Guests Peter Fader & Sarah Toms
September 03, 2019 10:00 - 32 minutesShep Hyken interviews Peter Fader and Sarah Toms. They discuss their new book, The Customer Centricity Playbook, and the “Customer Centricity Manifesto,” which teaches individuals and organizations how to build a customer-centric culture. The Interview with Peter Fader & Sarah Toms:A key term is CLV, which stands for “customer lifetime value.” Taking this into account, it is almost always more profitable to retain existing customers versus acquiring new customers.There are high-, mid- and lo...
The Emotional Customer Experience Featuring Guest Chris Bauserman
August 27, 2019 10:00 - 31 minutesShep Hyken interviews Chris Bauserman. They discuss how emotions and personalization play a large role in the customer service and experience of today, and how we can use data analytics to harness that knowledge for improvement. The Interview with Chris Bauserman:The experience economy has changed dramatically over time. Today, who we choose to do business with has much more to do with emotion than with products, technology, or even price point. The companies that differentiate themselves thr...
Think Like Amazon with John Rossman
August 20, 2019 08:00 - 34 minutesShep Hyken interviews John Rossman. They discuss John’s new book, Think Like Amazon, and how to utilize the key factors that drive Amazon’s success. The Interview with John Rossman:Innovation and success come from developing and committing to systems. Be deliberate in how you approach your work and have a “playbook” you can pull from for any situation. Even though your business may change, a consistent system will drive you to success.Identify the durable customer needs in your industry—the ...
Mapping the Customer Journey Featuring Guest Jim Tincher
August 13, 2019 09:00 - 29 minutesShep Hyken interviews Jim Tincher. They discuss journey mapping and how it can be used to improve both the employee experience and the customer experience. The Interview with Jim Tincher:What is a journey map? A journey map is a graphic representation of every interaction a customer has with you and your business. Journey maps can be used as effective tools to drive change and improve the customer experience.It is important to make the journey map highly visual. This will help people remember...
"Sense and Respond" Culture with Jeff Gothelf
August 06, 2019 09:00 - 33 minutesShep Hyken interviews Jeff Gothelf. They discuss how companies must build a culture around listening and responding to customer need. The Interview with Jeff Gothelf:Do work that has an impact on your customers. Don’t measure your work based on completion; measure it based on growth and the positive impact you can have on those around you—especially your customers.Leaders need to start managing product teams differently, putting the focus on the customer rather than on products and deadlines....
Crisis Management in the Customer Experience Featuring Guest Josh Ginsberg
July 30, 2019 06:00 - 33 minutesShep Hyken interviews Josh Ginsberg. They discuss crisis management and why brand integrity is important to customers. The Interview with Josh Ginsberg:When a problem or crisis occurs, it’s essential for customers to see the company take action. However, that action must come from a place of authenticity. If a company has already established a track record of integrity when there is no crisis, it will be much easier for customers to trust they will fix a problem.There are three main componen...
The Trap of “Nincompoopery” in Business and CX Featuring Guest John Brandt
July 23, 2019 06:00 - 32 minutesThe Interview with John Brandt: There’s often a disconnect between organization leaders and customers. Leaders live in a “customer-free zone” where they don’t interact with customers on a daily basis and therefore don’t know what customers most desire. The most important factor to customers is that they feel heard and cared about by the company and its representatives.Get to know your customers. See your organization through their eyes, and take time to shop, work, and even live alongside th...