The Account Experience Podcast

“Your NPS has gone up—So Freakin’ what?” with Jamie Thorpe of IPSOS

Today host Adam Dorrell talks to the outspoken recent winner of a CX Star award, which recognises excellence in industry professionals. He’s the guy that coined the phrase “the So-What of CX”.
His name is Jamie Thorpe, and he’s been in CX for more than 20 years.  The majority of his career has been spent in Client Success/Service previously holding two board-level positions and is now Head of Experience Management at Ipsos.  Jamie’s expertise spans Offer, Marketing, CX Platforms, Professional Services, and Delivery.  He is an industry-recognized CX leader in the UK.  His in-depth CX knowledge combined with a commercial and pragmatic/action-oriented style has seen Jamie deliver success with many clients across sectors and geographies.
Jamie talks on the podcast about the 4 key things a CX program needs to do: 
Communicate
Educate
Measure
Reward (as in “what’s in it for me?”)
 And if you can’t do that, you have that “So What?” moment. 
A key stat from Jamie is that 86% of people will pay more for a better experience - 20 to 25% more. Jamie explains how this is built into the Ipsos Roxy Model  - the Return on CX Measurement.
Crucially Jamie talks about how democratizing is critical - “Show me a 50 slide deck that's thrown out to 1000 senior leaders and then wonder why no one reads it -  because you've got to tell stories, think about videos, infographics, create creative ways that are going to grab people's attention.” 
 
This episode contains some strong language. And two Brits, so it’s quite fruity. You have been warned!

How a Sentiment Sandwich Satisfies Executive Hunger w/ Jim Tincher

On the Account Experience podcast today Adam Dorrell’s guest is Jim Tincher - a man who sees the world through the eyes of customers. 
 
 Jim is a customer experience expert, speaker, and author of  “How Hard Is It to Be Your Customer? Using Journey Mapping to Drive Customer-Focused Change”. He’s a fully certified CCXP. 
Heart of the Customer, his innovative customer experience consulting firm, has helped both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies boost revenue and loyalty by harnessing the voice of the customer.
 
Jim talks about how his work with clients and hundreds of interviews have shown him that b2b sales are usually driven by emotions. This is counterintuitive to the common narrative that b2b is all about rationality and decision-making units. Instead, Fear and Trust are two major drivers, with referrals counting for major parts of the decision. Later, rationality kicks in, but until then, b2b owners can explore the emotional side, even creating “enjoyment paths through complaints”. He highlights a story on how to get executives engaged with CX - using the “Sentiment Sandwich” technique on dashboards. 
 
And with other great concepts like the “Affect Heuristic” and the ADKAR change management technique - well, there was almost too much to talk about in the 30 minutes we had. If you care about b2b experience, this is a must-listen. 
 
Jim’s new book Do B2B Better, Drive Growth Through a Game-Changing Customer Experience will be out in the fall. You can reach him on LinkedIn “Jim Tincher CCXP”

How Zip Water Improved Their NPS by 58 Points in a Short 4 Years

Amanda Graham leads Customer Experience for Zip Water in the UK. She shares the incredible story of taking Zip from NPS 2 to 60 in four years. 
In this episode of the Account Experience Podcast, we dive into this journey, and learn what it takes to get such a big improvement in NPS. Amanda tells us how the biggest impacts came from improving First Contact Resolution and a focus on after sales communication. A key link in the chain is also to measure employee engagement - and Amanda explains how important eNPS is to Zip. 
She also passes on a great tip for culture - “Guess the score from the customer comment.” Hint: most employees believe the Net Promoter Score is lower than the one the customer gave. 
Listen to this free flowing and unfiltered discussion, with an outpouring of ideas on how to run a practical and successful Account Experience program. 
 
About Zip Water: 
Zip Water provides sustainable drinking water systems for homes and offices and is well known for it’s HydroTap which is a multi-function tap which delivers filtered, boiling, chilled and sparkling water on tap, instantly.  
https://specify.zipwater.co.uk/
 
Host: Adam Dorrell, CEO & Co-Founder of CustomerGauge
 
#B2B  #industrials #water #sustainable  #ZipWater
 

“Experience is the Future” CPG Industry Roundtable with Coca Cola HBC, Heineken, and Anheuser Busch

In this very special episode host Adam Dorrell is joined by three mega-brands in the FMCG business, all working hard on improving their Account Experience. 
Three senior executives discuss how they have accelerated their business transformation journey: Stuart Ward, head of Sales Capability Coca-Cola HBC; David Aynat, Senior Director of BEES and Head of B2B for Anheuser Busch (USA) and Roderik Rosenbaum, Global Director, Route to Consumer and Sales Capability of Heineken.
Learn how COVID accelerated change in their business, with the digital agenda becoming the number one priority. Acting fast was essential, and voice of customer has driven that.. 
Customer Experience is becoming the new FMCG area of advantage. What’s interesting is how it has become vital in each of these businesses to listen to ALL customers continually, not just sampling a small selection once a year. The challenge is how to deliver Voice of Customer to the front-line staff, not just a central team. 
The panel discuss their current metrics: Engagement coverage (how many accounts give feedback, already at 50% in some countries), speed of close-loop, and Net Promoter (NPS)  
The three companies are committed to driving the customer experience of all customers, across all touchpoints of the business. Listening, acting on feedback and empowering sales teams with the right insights and support they need to close loop with customers. 
So settle back, open the soda or refreshment of your choice and listen to these industry luminaries give insights into the evolving frontline Account Experience. 

You Owe Your Customers an Answer w/ Michael Brandt

Michael Brandt has had one of the most comprehensive B2B customer experience careers of anyone I’ve met. With more than 25 years in customer feedback culminating in the role of  Group Vice President of ABB Group, he has led global Voice of Customer Programs, and rolled out training to 35,000 people in an 18 month period. 
In this fascinating podcast, Michael shares how to tackle customer complaints using a technique based on Don Peppers “5 A’s”: Acknowledge, Apologize, Amplify, Ask, Act. He explains how Japan’s business culture requires special navigation. And how you need to change organizational culture to succeed. 
And he gives insights into how he took ABB’s NPS from 16 to 45, with a response rate north of 25%. His philosophy is simple: “You own your customers an answer”..
Michael is now a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and runs the CX-Excellence (www.cx-excellence.com) organisation to help b2b companies on the road to customer centricity. 
 
Host: Adam Dorrell 
 
Listen to this masterclass in B2B account experience with a global enterprise perspective.
#b2b  #industrials #ABB #monetized

2x‘ing Value With Promoters Featuring Justin Warren @ Wajax

A glance at the website of Wajax will explain the scope of their services. The company was founded in 1858, and is one of Canada’s longest standing and most diversified industrial products and services providers. The images are of enormous construction machines - but it’s all about the people in the business, says Justin Warren of Wajax, guest on this week's Account Experience Podcast. 
Justin, who is Senior Vice President at Wajax, is responsible for the company's industrial parts and engineered repair services business. Over the last three years he led the team developing the Voice of Customer program. He talked to hosts Adam Dorrell and Cary Self about how they set up the program - and some of its successes. 
The Net Promoter based program was all about measuring in its first year, and as it evolved in year two they created action plans for more than 100 locations. Wajax added “monetization” to the program to understand the drivers of satisfaction with a dollar amount attached. And they now have a clear sense of how promoters drive twice the value of detractors - which makes it an easy rule of thumb for all the staff to get behind. Justin explained how the program is driven from the top and how it motivates success. They have 100% follow up rate, truly impressive. The speed of adoption is admirable for a company 150 years young! 
A classic B2B account experience case study - highly recommended for a business with multiple locations and wanting to adopt a customer focus. 
 
Wajax.com
#b2b #b2b2c #industrials #canada #monetized

Fighting The Fear of Feedback w/ Cara Crisler

Our host Adam Dorrell is joined by Cara Crisler, an accredited non-violent communication trainer. And in this fascinating episode, we go deep on how to 'fight the fear of feedback' with a few tips on how to best communicate in a non-violent way. Adam and Cara are also joined by our host from season 1, Cary T. Self. Are you afraid of receiving feedback whether it be positive or negative? Well, this is the episode for you!

Your Customer Experience Needs To Be a Little More Punk

Adam Dorrell is joined by Adrian Swincoe, Independent advisor, speaker and best-selling author on customer service, experience, and engagement. His books include "How to Wow" and best-selling "PunkCX", which celebrates the anti-"prog rock" approach to doing customer experience simple and fast (as opposed to doing complicated, self-indulgent research projects with 10 minute guitar solos).
 
Adrian talks about his new book, "PunkXL", which is all about experience leadership. He talks about the "Quadrification" of our current times and about how he is "in service to service" - and gives a great piece of advice about why listening to frontline staff is vitally important.
 
If you enjoy two dudes talking about old punk records and CX, you will love this episode.

Account Experience + Customer Success = A Winning Combo for Vonage

In this episode, Adam and Dave are talking to Ethan Douglas and Victoria Montague from the Customer Success team at Vonage. They dive into the Customer Success tactics the various business units at Vonage are using to retain and grow accounts. If you're looking for tactical insights to improve your experience program, this episode is for you.

Winning on Purpose with Fred Reichheld

Adam talks with the father of NPS, Fred Reichheld about his new book, "Winning on Purpose". Adam and Fred dive deep on the origins of NPS, how companies are doing it right (and wrong), NPS's accounting companion "Earned Growth", and how digital transformation has made the metric even more powerful.