Amazing Business Radio Shep Hyken & C-Suite Radio

How Leveraging Artificial Intelligence Can Be a Win-Win Contact Center Agents and Customers  
Shep Hyken interviews Mario Matulich, President and Managing Director of Customer Management Practice. He talks about how organizations can use artificial intelligence and self-service options to empower support agents and elevate the customer experience.
Top Takeaways: 
There has been significant progress in artificial intelligence (AI), like chatbots and ChatGPT capabilities. This has always been seen as high-potential technology, but in the last few months, it has been used in a more demonstrative way to address challenges faced by contact centers, especially in the post-pandemic environment.

Generative AI and other forms of self-service provide a win-win solution for organizations and customers. It gives companies solution to create a better agent experience, and it allows the customers to resolve issues quickly without having to put up with long wait times.

To address the challenges of hiring and retaining the best people, organizations need to focus on operationalizing flexibility in remote and hybrid setups and personalizing career development.

Artificial Intelligence will not eliminate the need for customer support professionals. Instead, it will assist agents with knowledge management, eliminate mundane work, and allow agents to focus on what they do best: serve customers. 

Predictive analytics powered by AI can accurately assess Net Promoter Score and other measurements of customer satisfaction. 

The employees in the frontline do more than answer phones. They retain customers, generate revenue, and serve as an extension of the research and development department. They have information and insights from interacting with customers that managers and C-suite may not have access to.

Plus, Shep and Mario discuss what to expect in Customer Contact Week Las Vegas on June 19-20, 2023, featuring a keynote speech from Grammy® Award-winning Musician & Entrepreneur, Pitbull. Tune in!
Quote:
"Customer preferences have shifted dramatically in the last couple of years. Many customers want to self-serve. They want to effectively find a quick resolution to their challenges without the assistance of another human being, and AI can make that possible."


About: 
Mario Matulich is the President and Managing Director of Customer Management Practice, a leader in market research, events, and customer-centricity. He played professional baseball for the Cleveland Guardians.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.
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How The Savannah Bananas is Changing Baseball through Fan Focus, Creativity, and CX
Shep Hyken interviews Jesse Cole, founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas. He talks about how he redefined baseball and customer and employee experience by creating a culture that puts them first.
Top Takeaways: 
The Savannah Bananas sells out every game, with a waitlist of 550,000 for tickets. There are 3,000 people joining the waitlist every day. They have 4,000,000 more followers on social media than any Major League Baseball team.

The best inspiration happens from what people are doing wrong. Ask what the biggest friction points in your customers’ experiences are. Then, do the opposite. The Savannah Bananas took the biggest friction points in a baseball game and changed the rules. For example, a typical baseball game can run for over 3 hours. In Banana Ball, each game lasts no more than 2 hours.

Learn from outside your industry and bring that into your organization. Look at the companies you love and why you love them. Identify what you love about those companies that you can start doing with your team.

If everyone in your business makes the customers the stars and gives them the red carpet treatment, you make those customers feel like a million bucks. It changes everything for the customer, and your employees will have more purpose and pride in their work.

Ideas are the future. Work your idea muscle like you work out your regular muscles. Write down a few ideas every day, get together with your team, and share them. You'll get more energy, inspiration, and purpose out of ideas.

Jesse Cole’s latest book, Bannana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bannanas, just came out May 18, 2005. Get it at Amazon. 

Plus, Jesse shares some incredible fan-first moments from their tour. Tune in!
Quote:
"Imagine what the best possible customer experience is and do that. Don't settle for the way things have been done before."


About: 
Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and the owner of the Savannah Bananas. He is the author of Fans First: Change The Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience, Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out, and Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.
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How to Leverage Customer Feedback to Enhance Every Stage of the Customer Journey
Shep Hyken interviews Evan Klein, Founder and President of Satrix Solutions, a customer experience and employee engagement consulting firm. He talks about how businesses can encourage customer feedback and how to leverage that to improve the overall experience.
Top Takeaways:  
·      The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the question that lets your customer rate the likelihood of them recommending your business on a scale of 0 to 10. A rating of 9 or 10 is a promoter. Customers are more likely to recommend you after a great experience.
 
·      A successful NPS program in your business ensures that all of your employees are aligned and understand their role in delivering an exceptional service experience.
 
·      The frontline is important, but we need all employees to act based on the feedback of the customers. Every employee should leverage customer feedback to think about their role in enhancing the customer experience.
 
·      Be open to really listening to the customer. NPS is a good way to start understanding your customer’s experience with your brand. Adding open-ended questions like “What can make your experience even better?” can give you so much more context and rich feedback.
 
·      Survey and ask for feedback from different audiences. Decision makers, influencers, subject matter experts, and users experience your brand in different ways. Tailor your surveys with each customer's experience in mind.
 
·      Leverage your promoters. Use their feedback for marketing purposes, testimonials, and case studies. Find feedback patterns that will influence your product roadmap, service delivery model, support channels, and future investments.
 
·      Plus, Shep and Evan discuss how to maximize customer participation in the age of survey fatigue. Tune in! 
Quote: 
"Be open for context and find patterns across all the feedback you receive from your customers. Probe and understand customer frustrations. Mobilize your promoters and leverage their feedback to operationalize creating excellent customer service."
 

About:  
Evan Klein is the Founder and President of Satrix Solutions. He helps companies increase revenue growth by enhancing customer experience and improving employee engagement.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.
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How to Keep Employees and Customers Loyal to Your Brand
Shep Hyken interviews Bob Phibbs, widely known as The Retail Doctor, host of the Tell Me Something Good About Retail podcast, and founder of SalesRX. He talks about how retail stores (and all types of organizations) can transform their business from a place where people merely buy products to a destination brand known for amazing customer experiences. 
Top Takeaways:  
·      Brands sometimes invest more in products and in how their retail stores look without focusing on the experience. No matter how nice the brick-and-mortar store is, if your employees are not trained to properly welcome and pay attention to your customers, they will leave and buy from your competitors, go or online, where it is faster and more accessible.
·      What's happening on the inside is felt on the outside by the customers. Be mindful of the environment that your employees are going to work in. Empower them with the right tools and training to do their job well. If you fix the people side of your business first, you will create a better customer service experience.
·      Create awareness of what great customer service looks like in your company. Ensure that your employees align with how you want them to treat customers. Teach them to recognize when they are providing a good customer experience and continuously train them to be better and better. 
·      Employees are looking for more than just a paycheck when taking on or staying at a job. They are putting employers to the task of providing a work environment that provides growth and satisfaction.
·      Training is not something you did. It's something you do over and over again. Invest in your employees' training and onboarding. Then, constantly reinforce it throughout the time that they are with you, whether in weekly meetings, daily huddles, or sharing customer feedback and make sure what they have learned translates into their day-to-day engagement with your customers.
·      Plus, learn how not to (in Bob's words) piss off your employees. Tune in! 
Quote: 
"Focus on the people, not the products. You will get higher conversion rates when employees are happy, stay longer, and know how to engage with customers in a way that builds trust."

 
About:   
Bob Phibbs is a customer service expert, author, sales coach, and founder of SalesRX. He works with retailers and brands to increase conversion rates by providing amazing experiences. He shares his expertise on The Retail Doctor.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.
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How to Use Scarcity to Influence Customer Decisions
Shep Hyken interviews Mindy Weinstein, author of The Power of Scarcity: Leveraging Urgency and Demand to Influence Customer Decisions. She talks about the four types of scarcity and how businesses can use them to create community, loyalty, and excitement around their brand.
Top Takeaways:   
·      When an organization makes customers feel special by getting something that appears to be hard to get, they endear customers to the company and make them feel connected to the brand.
 
·      Our brains are wired in a certain way to react to scarcity. Businesses can use this in a positive way to emphasize value and communicate how working with them through their products or services is in their customers' best interest.
 
·      Most people think of scarcity as FOMO(fear of missing out), but it is so much more than that. There are four types of scarcity:
 
1.    Time-related scarcity - when products or services are available for only a set amount of time.
2.    Supply-related scarcity - when a limited number of products are available or when companies want to create a feeling of exclusivity or uniqueness.
3.    Demand-related scarcity - when customers are excited and want to make sure they can purchase a product before it is gone.
4.    Limited edition – when there is a special or rare version of a product that customers love to collect.
 
·      When companies create a scarcity mindset and communicate it well to their customers, it creates a sense of control where the customer feels they have the power to decide when and why they want to buy.
 
·      When companies create a mindset of scarcity with products that customers enjoy (for example, limited edition sports or movie memorabilia), they show that they truly know their customers and how to engage with them.
 
·      Plus, Shep and Mindy talk about how successful companies use the scarcity mindset to create amazing customer experiences. Tune in!
Quote: 
"Scarcity creates community. When done right, incorporating scarcity can help brands create loyalty, excitement, and bond with their customers."
 

About:  
Mindy Weinstein is the author of The Power of Scarcity: Leveraging Urgency and Demand to Influence Customer Decisions. She is a marketing instructor at Grand Canyon University and a program leader for The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Business School.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.
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Patient Experience Best Practices That Every Business Must Do
Shep Hyken interviews Jennifer FitzPatrick, founder of Jenerations Health Education and author of Reimagining Customer Service in Healthcare: Boost Loyalty, Profits, and Outcomes. She talks about how organizations can de-escalate complaints, reduce malpractice claims, and promote better healthcare outcomes by improving patient experience.
Top Takeaways: 
We go to healthcare providers to address a big problem; our health. Some healthcare practitioners know how to treat symptoms and illnesses; however, they are falling short of making the patients feel like they are human beings with respect and dignity.

When patients receive great customer service from their healthcare providers, not only do they provide better reviews, fewer complaints, and malpractice claims, but they also have better clinical outcomes.

Patients are not just comparing their healthcare providers with other healthcare providers. They compare their experiences in the healthcare world with the best customer service they received from anyone in other industries.

Healthcare must recognize younger generations of employees (GenZ and Millennials) are expressing themselves differently than GenX or Boomers. Instead of focusing on external factors like the color of someone's hair or whether they have tattoos or piercings, identify the top qualities that truly matter to your patient's care. Are they compassionate, intelligent, kind, and reliable?

Nobody wants to engage with the healthcare system. On a pain scale of zero to 10, most patients come in because they are at a seven or higher. Find ways to make the experience less painful for them, like setting the right expectations, providing updates, and not making them repeat the same information over and over again when it is not necessary.

Plus, Shep and Jennifer discuss what is more important in choosing a healthcare provider, expertise or bedside manner. Tune in!
Quote:
"Train your people to do the right thing for your patients or customers, don't assume they know. Make sure that anybody who comes into contact with the patient and the patient's family members, from doctors to billing and housekeeping, are properly trained on customer service."


About: 
Jennifer L. FitzPatrick is the author of Reimagining Customer Service in Healthcare. As the founder of Jenerations Health Education, Jennifer helps organizations develop happier healthcare customers.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices