Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth

Rob Markey, Bain & Company partner and customer experience expert
Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth

The Customer Confidential Podcast unlocks a world of unparalleled customer and employee loyalty insights. Host Rob Markey, a Net Promoter System pioneer, uses his deep expertise and empathetic approach to challenge conventional wisdom, peel back layers of typical advice, and expose the real stories of industry transformation. Take a deep dive into discussions on CX, customer journey, customer insights, Net Promoter Score, and more. Every episode is a master class in loyalty. Guests include CMOs, CXOs, and heroes of customer-centric transformation, along with thought leaders who inspire them. Exploring organizational structures, operating models, goals, and metrics, Rob and his guests from companies such as Vanguard, American Express, and more bring to light practical marketing, product, customer experience, and technology strategies for earning customer-focused growth. This podcast is your source for untold stories of customer and employee loyalty. Challenging, insightful, and instructive—all in one place. Earned growth starts here.

  1. OCT 31

    Ep. 240: Caroline Lombardi | The Evolution of the Chief Customer Officer: From Scorekeeper to CEO Successor

    Episode 240: How has the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) role evolved over time? Traditionally focused on tracking metrics, CCOs now play a proactive and forward-facing role in driving business innovation. In this episode, Caroline Lombardi, Global Head of the Hospitality & Leisure Practice at Egon Zehnder, explores the CCO role’s dramatic evolution. Customer experience—no longer just about tracking satisfaction or retention—has become a valuable springboard for boosting revenue and gaining a competitive edge. Successful CCOs are skilled in holistic customer experiences, from call centers to broader operations. Caroline outlines three emerging CCO models: the Operational Leader who drives change, the Innovator who turns data into growth, and the CEO Successor who integrates customer experience into business strategies. Discover how CCOs are shaping customer interactions and guiding the strategic direction of organizations. And learn why they must adopt a growth mindset to succeed, taking on revenue-generating roles and building strong, cross-functional alliances. Guest: Caroline Lombardi, Global Head of Hospitality & Leisure, Egon Zehnder Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: [01:10] How the CCO role is shifting from being a scorekeeper to focusing on growth and influencing innovation within companies [06:43] The toolkit successful CX leaders need, including operational accountability and having access to frontline teams [07:24] How transformational call center roles have become part of CX leadership, and the benefits of aligning call centers with the broader business strategy [15:36] What kinds of difficulties CX leaders face, such as building the right allies and driving change within organizations that may resist transformation [19:22] Why, from a recruitment lens, some people tend to downplay their job qualifications [23:39] The importance of getting customer experience into the boardroom to drive business results Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [11:56] “Move from scorekeeper to growth mindset and make sure the C-suite understands you can stretch your roles in more ways to add bigger enterprise value.” [12:11] “The best-case customer officer roles are really CEO successor-type of roles.” [15:21] “I can't emphasize enough: If you have the chance to run the contact center, don't think twice.” [16:03] “CX leaders by nature want to drive change. The score is never good enough. You're never done improving. You're never done innovating.” [19:06] “If you are interviewing for a position and you're not getting access to who you think the right stakeholders are, you should ask for it. And if you don't get access, that's a sign. They're hiding it.”

    25 min
  2. OCT 17

    Ep. 239: Dan McCarthy | Food for Thought: How External Data Analysis Can Unlock Competitive Insights

    Episode 239: What hidden insights can customer behavior data analysis reveal about how successful one food delivery app may be over another? Discover how analysis of externally sourced customer behavior data can fuel dramatic improvements in revenue forecasts and strategic decisions. See how competitor data analysis can help identify strengths and weaknesses that are otherwise hidden. In this episode of Customer Confidential, we’re joined by Dan McCarthy, director and co-founder of Theta and Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Dan shares findings from Theta and Bain & Company’s jointly published consumer purchase data study, “Customer Lifetime Value across Food Delivery Competitors.” Together, Dan and Rob explore how they used a proprietary database of credit card transaction data from Pyxis to track customer behavior for subscription services over five years. They describe how accounting for corresponding economic factors like seasonality and the Covid-19 pandemic helped improve forecasts of transaction velocity, spending, and retention. Learn which food delivery app had the best customer loyalty, the most customers, and highest per-customer spending. Guest: Dan McCarthy, Director and Co-Founder of Theta, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Maryland, College Park Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey here. Time-Stamped List of Topics Covered: [02:00] Introduction to customer behavior analysis and business forecasting [05:15] How companies can use historical data to predict customer lifetime value [10:00] Insights from customer data and the role of subscription services [15:30] The impact of external factors like economic shifts and market changes on consumer behavior [20:00] How businesses can improve acquisition and retention strategies using data [25:00] Using customer lifetime value to forecast future revenue and business growth Time-Stamped Notable Quotes: [02:45] “The notion of having a consistent data set with multiple companies in it so you can compare … all these different food delivery companies [means] you can explicitly see them and you can see the same consumers buying across them.” [05:37] “It’s primarily taking these different vintages of customers—where a vintage is defined by, ‘When did that customer make their very first purchase with your firm?’—and then within that vintage, what we want to explain is what these individual customers are going to do in the future.” [07:42] “[The data] is what allows us to say things like, is this company acquiring customers well? Are they retaining customers well? How frequently are they buying? And how does that compare across different companies?” Additional Resources: Customer Lifetime Value across Food Delivery Competitors Pyxis by Bain & Company

    29 min
  3. SEP 5

    Ep. 238: Brian Higgins | Building AI Trust: Verizon’s Bold Bet on Deliberate Progress

    Episode 238: In what appears to be a paradox, Verizon is accelerating its responsible AI journey through a measured, deliberate approach—ensuring its technology is primed to enhance customer experiences when they matter most. Verizon isn’t rushing to put AI in front of customers. Instead, they’re deliberately building trust, refining data quality, and rigorously testing their AI tools internally. This methodical strategy might seem slow, but is accelerating their progress toward a future where AI can take on a bigger, more direct, customer-serving role. In this episode, Brian Higgins, chief customer experience officer at Verizon, explains how their thoughtful AI tool development empowers and supports employees today while laying the groundwork for handling more customer interactions tomorrow. Tools like the Personal Research Assistant are being refined internally, allowing Verizon employees to build confidence in AI’s capabilities before these technologies ever touch a customer. According to Brian, Verizon has focused on “bringing humans and AI together to drive more yield.” By ensuring employees are comfortable and proficient with AI tools, Verizon is building a strong AI foundation. His team embraces a deliberate learning approach vs. rushing to deploy technology for its own sake. Learn more about Verizon’s AI strategy and how building trustworthy internal tools enables smarter, faster, and more personalized customer experiences at scale. Guest: Brian Higgins, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Verizon Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: [02:15] How Verizon uses AI to empower employees and streamline operations [07:05] The strategy behind building AI tools like Verizon’s Personal Research Assistant [12:45] Employee co-development and involvement in AI-driven transformations [19:30] Balancing short-term wins with long-term AI-driven business goals [25:50] Leadership commitment and the role of AI in transforming customer experience Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [02:45] “Customers don't only go into a store. They don't only go to verizon.com. They go all over the place and do all kinds of things with us all the time. You have to pull all that together into one view.” [03:46]  “If the employees aren't happy with their overall experience, it's virtually impossible for them to make the customers happy.” [05:30] “This is another tool in the toolbox, and the employees see [AI’s value] right away.” [11:15] “We had to reorganize everything ... but you can't simply go back to what you were doing before. You [have] to layer in something new.” [22:45] “Our primary focus was on areas of pain for both employees and customers.” [27:21] “This is about bringing humans and AI together to drive more yield. If we were a declining business, it might have a different model. But we're not a declining business. We're a growing business. We need to get more out of the current employees we have.” [32:25] “Personalization is the material unlock—for us and our customers.” [38:32] “We had some challenging times for a few years at Verizon. There was a recognition that we needed to reorganize how the whole company was structured. And we did that.”

    42 min
  4. AUG 15

    Ep. 237: Murli Buluswar | From Analytics to Outcomes: Creating Data-Driven Insights at Citi

    How does democratizing intelligence enhance productivity and drive smarter decision-making? Murli Buluswar, Citigroup’s Head of Analytics for the US Personal Bank, joins host Rob Markey to explore Citi’s strategies for democratizing intelligence. Murli emphasizes building a conversational intelligence platform that enables proactive and reactive insights to reduce friction between curiosity, insight, and decision-making. This approach enhances organizational efficiency, boosts productivity, and sparks more complex problem-solving. Taking a scientific approach, Citi treats customer experience as a key growth strategy. Murli shares how small improvements in customer experience can boost long-term retention and how investing in marketing to existing customers offers quick returns. Citi's in-house Journey Analytics engine integrates financial transactions, customer information, external data, and internal algorithms to identify opportunities that enhance the customer experience. This innovative approach to decision-making—a mere dream five years ago—is now a reality, delivering significant customer value and better business results. Guest: Murli Buluswar, Head of Analytics, US Personal Banking, Citigroup  Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped list of topics covered: (1:07) High-level business overview for context (1:53) The democratization of intelligence (4:49) Clarifying Murli’s role vs. that of a chief data and analytics officer (6:25) The transformation and aggregation of disaggregated teams within Citi—and the need for a global solution (11:42) Customer health index (19:59) Framework to examine actions, forecast outcomes, and bring more intentionality to decision-making (32:30) Automated aberration detection (37:25) Career reflections and parting thoughts Time-stamped list of notable quotes (4:21) “We are building a conversational intelligence platform that allows people to interact with data. There's both the proactive identification of things we might not have conceptualized. And there's the—dare I say—reactive component of, ‘I have a question and I want to ask the engine.’” (6:00) “That's why this notion of democratization of intelligence is important to me. If I can enable the organization to whet its curiosity and its appetite independently, and then rely on my team as we get to the third and fourth layer of sophistication, then I've improved productivity and have freed up time and energy to focus on higher-order problem-solving.” (7:19) “Perhaps about 80% of the team was focused on followership, 20% on partnership, and maybe essentially next to 0% on leadership.” (10:30) “We ended up building a software tool that essentially democratized decision-making across finance, product marketing, and my team.”

    49 min
  5. JUL 11

    Ep. 236: David Tudehope & Joseph Michelli | “Zig When They Zag”: Macquarie's Customer-Centric Revolution

    Episode 236: When telecom rivals offered lower rates and bigger networks, Macquarie bet big on customer loyalty—and won. David Tudehope, Macquarie Technology Group’s CEO, joins Rob Markey to discuss Macquarie’s competitive differentiator: a bold, customer-centric approach. David co-founded Macquarie to prioritize exceptional customer experience over price and network quality competition. Joining David is Joseph Michelli, author of Customer Magic: The Macquarie Way, who shares a key moment about how a product launch was postponed and short-term profits were sacrificed due to customer need misalignment. "We weren't living our purpose if we proceeded. We had to take our medicine and accept stakeholder disappointment," David recalls. That leadership decision reinforced Macquarie's culture. Transparency and real-time feedback improved employer-customer interactions, workforce engagement, and Net Promoter Scores. Sharing real, exceptional service examples inspired employees to excel when creating memorable customer experiences. Impressive results include exceptional shareholder returns and consistently having Australian telecom’s lowest per-customer complaint volume. Guests: David Tudehope, CEO of Macquarie Technology Group, and Joseph Michelli, Ph.D., author of Customer Magic: The Macquarie Way Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped list of topics covered: (00:00:13 - 00:01:12) Identifying market opportunities by recognizing underserved and overcharged segments in telecom (00:01:12 - 00:03:09) Initial business strategy to develop a better billing system and the importance of customer experience (00:03:03 - 00:04:54) Customer experience as a core value and how making tough decisions helps prioritize customer satisfaction (00:04:54 - 00:06:33) Navigating industry competition and differentiating through customer service in a price-focused market (00:06:28 - 00:12:06) Empowering employees with transparency, real-time feedback, and engagement strategies (00:12:18 - 00:18:19) Overcoming challenges like billing complaints and learning from feedback (00:18:19 - 00:26:28) Cultural reinforcement and how storytelling can inspire employees (00:26:19 - 00:28:12) Continuous improvement in NPS through cultural shifts (00:28:15 - 00:31:32) Self-propelled learning and institutional growth and how to develop a sustainable model for continuous improvement Time-stamped list of notable quotes: (00:05:55) "The customer experience is the compass from which we make hard decisions.” (00:05:43) "Our purpose is making a difference for customers that are underserved and overcharged." (00:8:09) "Macquarie has between zero and two complaints a year." (00:17:03) "Our real-time feedback of customer experience scores to staff has been very powerful." (00:17:38) "When we took our hands off the big levers, we actually got significant change." (00:34:42) "We found that when we educated the person on their bill, they became an advocate for us." (00:30:21) "Storytelling has been transformational for our business." (00:35:55) "Our model is self-learning and self-propelled, and it has been that way for 10 years." Additional Resources: Read Joseph Michelli’s book: Customer Magic: The Macquarie Way

    37 min
  6. JUN 20

    Ep. 235: Jon Freier | From Near Death to NPS Disrupter: T-Mobile’s Journey to Customer Leadership

    Episode 235: In 2012, T-Mobile lost nearly two million customers. Its revenue fell precipitously. Its situation seemed hopeless. Then came a new CEO with an audacious plan and a penchant for F-bombs. Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile’s US Consumer Group, joins host Rob Markey to share his firsthand account of the remarkable corporate turnaround. Jon describes the “Un-carrier” strategy, from its risky beginnings to its industry-reshaping impact. He shares how T-Mobile broke the mold, challenged conventions, and ultimately won over customers by putting their needs first. According to Jon, “The whole premise of the Un-carrier movement was about fixing a stupid, broken, arrogant industry.” Under the leadership of new CEO John Legere, T-Mobile used data-driven insights to uncover the “bad profits” that dominated the mobile telecom industry in the US at the time. Determined to not only turn the company around but to change the industry, T-Mobile made a huge bet on customer value and what we at Bain now call Earned Growth: the idea that forgoing bad profits to deliver more value to customers would not only reduce churn but ultimately attract new customers through word of mouth. Jon shares some of T-Mobile’s biggest game-changing innovations. He lays out bets on dramatic changes to handset pricing and contract renewal terms, a daring move from high-priced “buckets” of limited data to unlimited plans, repricing international roaming, and the innovative T-Mobile Tuesdays rewards program. He also highlights the impact of the “Team of Experts” customer service model. The results have been eye-popping. T-Mobile reestablished customer growth, received the highest ranking in the telecommunications & media Internet sector regarding NPS rankings (as measured by Bain’s NPS Prism telecom benchmarking), and has outperformed the stock market by many multiples. Guest: Jon Freier, President, T-Mobile US Consumer Group Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give us feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Additional resources: T-Mobile’s CEO on Winning Market Share by Trash-Talking Rivals Reinventing Customer Service: How T-Mobile achieved record levels of quality and productivity Un-carrier History Learn about Bain’s NPS Prism Time-stamped list of topics covered: [2:29] The dire state of T-Mobile in 2012 [6:00] John Legere’s arrival and the birth of the “Un-carrier” strategy [10:36] Breaking down the old telecom model: from contracts to transparency [16:28] Early signs of success and the importance of leading indicators [19:17] Overcoming internal skepticism and building organizational buy-in [21:51] T-Mobile’s unique approach to customer service and the “Team of Experts” [24:27] Using data to anticipate customer needs and personalize experiences [28:14] Frontline Connect: Immersing leaders in the customer experience [30:12] T-Mobile’s winning loyalty plays: unlimited data, T-Mobile Tuesdays, and Simple Global [33:27] Lessons learned and the future of customer loyalty in telecom Time-stamped list of notable quotes: [3:14] “We were losing two million customers a year … Revenues were going down, costs were going up, and earnings were plummeting.” [3:40] “Hopeless, that would be the word I would use in 2012. We’re just stuck.” [5:59] “In walks a new CEO named John Legere ... dropping F-bombs in a very large all-employee meeting, and you’re like, ‘Did he just say what I thought he just said?’” [12:21] “If you treat customers great and you treat them better than your competitors, guess what? They’ll stay.” [14:31] “The biggest risk is doing exactly the same [thing]. Where our business was, it needed a bold shakeup.” [15:28] “You might not have to be perfect

    36 min
  7. MAY 16

    Ep. 234: Naiara De León & Madison Dyal Anderson | All Customers Just Want to Belong: What Defines an Inclusive Retail Experience?

    Why do some retailers excel at creating a welcoming environment for a diverse customer base while others fall short? Bain & Company's Naiara De León and Madison Dyal Anderson discuss their research on how companies that excel in customer advocacy and inclusion consistently outperform their peers by a staggering 10 percentage points annually. Beyond quantifying inclusion's sizable revenue impact, they also share data from their survey of over 7,700 US consumers on the lasting negative psychological toll exclusion has on retail customers—and why one bad experience can turn someone off a brand forever. We analyze the root of the issue: What causes consumer exclusion in the first place? We also share examples of companies’ winning inclusive strategies, from the importance of eye contact to plentiful product assortment to purposefully designed campaigns. Guest: Naiara De León, Partner, Bain & Company Guest: Madison Dyal Anderson, Partner, Bain & Company Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped list of topics covered: [3:30] Research study overview and key findings [6:33] Research findings on how inclusion is universally important [8:02] Personal experiences of feeling welcomed or excluded in different stores [10:13] Balancing inclusivity with a retail brand’s target market [12:16] How the feeling of belonging or being welcomed affects customer advocacy [13:04] Types of negative retail experiences that lead to customer detractors [15:00] The subtleties of interaction that affect customer perceptions of inclusion [20:14] Examples of companies that have created welcoming and inclusive atmospheres [22:10] How product assortments and staff training contribute to inclusivity [26:32] How retailers can assess and improve their levels of inclusivity for good [30:54] The greater impact of inclusive practices on strategy and market position Time-stamped list of notable quotes: [00:32] “There is this line between welcomed and belonging. The core customer needs to feel like they belong.” [2:24] “Universally, customers across all demographics desire to feel invited and welcomed.” [6:33] “Inclusion matters to everyone. It's actually pretty universal.” [10:34] “The core customer needs to feel like they belong. That's where you are tuning in to those behaviors and those customer segment needs and wants. Make people feel heard and seen.” [14:45] “[In terms of survey findings, there were] verbatims that talked about, ‘The store associate never made eye contact with me. I have hearing loss and that made [communication] very hard. English is not my first language and I need that eye contact to carry all the way through [a conversation].” [31:13] “It is quite profitable to [prioritize inclusivity] because it helps you grow. It helps you lead, versus your peers. It’s also the right thing to do.” Additional Resources: Read Madison and Naiara’s Bain research, In Retail, Inclusive Customer Journeys Lead to Growth

    32 min
  8. MAY 2

    Ep. 233: Eckhart Boehme | Uncovering Hidden Customer Needs: The Power of Jobs to Be Done

    What if the key to creating truly innovative products and solutions lies at least as much in uncovering the deep emotional and attitudinal needs of your customers as in mastering technology? Eckhart Boehme, founder and managing director of Unipro Solutions, shares his approach to putting Clayton Christensen’s Jobs to Be Done framework into practical use. Eckhart demonstrates how in-depth interviews with customers and their families can reveal the underlying personal experiences, emotions, and desires that truly motivate people to seek out and purchase products or services. With these insights in hand, companies often uncover fundamentally different needs than they first anticipated, sometimes even opening up new markets or uses for their products. We also discuss Eckhart’s Wheel of Progress model, which he designed to reveal the hidden layers of reasoning behind customer decisions. It provides a systematic way to deconstruct customer narratives and identify the jobs that are most likely to drive customer decisions along their cyclical journeys. Learn how this model segments the customer journey into phases of motivation, decision-making, and action. He brings this all to life with a compelling case study about finding a senior living place for an elderly loved one, revealing a hidden but critical job to be done: giving the elderly parent a sense of purpose. Our conversation also lays bare some common pitfalls when applying the Jobs to Be Done framework, such as focusing too narrowly on functional jobs while missing the bigger picture of the customer's overarching goals and emotional needs. Guest: Eckhart Boehme, Founder and Managing Director, Unipro Solutions Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We’d love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey. Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped list of topics covered [1:19] How Jobs to Be Done goes deeper than traditional customer needs analysis [3:02] Clarifying what Jobs to Be Done entails and why it’s a game changer [6:08] The Wheel of Progress model and its role in dissecting customer decisions [10:41] Applying Jobs to Be Done in complex customer service scenarios [15:00] The practical steps and challenges in implementing this framework [20:14] Examples of transformative customer insights derived from in-depth interviews [22:10] Strategies for businesses to effectively harness Jobs to Be Done [30:54] Future trends and directions in customer experience research Time-stamped list of notable quotes: [6:26] “You want to understand where the story starts. What [event] triggered people [wanting to conduct] research and go through pain. Understanding what triggers people have is very valuable because then you can start building a relationship—even before people have started going to a search engine to look for a solution." [7:51] “When we look at the customer journey, we call it ‘the cycle of progress’ because we think that people make progress in cycles." [16:01] "We try to design our offerings and the marketing and sales processes to focus on helping customers make progress.” [24:23] “Jobs to Be Done helps you to do the right thing and design thinking helps you to do things right." Additional Resources: Learn more about Eckhart’s Wheel of Progress Learn more about HBS professor Clay Christensen’s Jobs to Be Done Theory and his famous story about how to improve milkshake sales

    34 min
4.9
out of 5
43 Ratings

About

The Customer Confidential Podcast unlocks a world of unparalleled customer and employee loyalty insights. Host Rob Markey, a Net Promoter System pioneer, uses his deep expertise and empathetic approach to challenge conventional wisdom, peel back layers of typical advice, and expose the real stories of industry transformation. Take a deep dive into discussions on CX, customer journey, customer insights, Net Promoter Score, and more. Every episode is a master class in loyalty. Guests include CMOs, CXOs, and heroes of customer-centric transformation, along with thought leaders who inspire them. Exploring organizational structures, operating models, goals, and metrics, Rob and his guests from companies such as Vanguard, American Express, and more bring to light practical marketing, product, customer experience, and technology strategies for earning customer-focused growth. This podcast is your source for untold stories of customer and employee loyalty. Challenging, insightful, and instructive—all in one place. Earned growth starts here.

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada