Decoding the Customer

This CX Mini Masterclass explains how you can use your customer journey map and understanding of when customers engage or disengage with a brand to demonstrate customer experience ROI. Show host and customer experience expert, Julia Ahlfeldt, will teach you about the power of customer on-ramps and off-ramps, and how you can use these to develop the business case for customer experience management. The circular journey At the end of the day consumers have many ongoing needs in their lives....

This CX Mini Masterclass covers the concept of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), how to calculate this, and why it’s an important metric for the CX profession. Show host and customer experience expert, Julia Ahlfeldt, will help you understand how to leverage CLV to demonstrate the ROI of customer experience and foster buy-in for customer-centric strategy. Understanding Customer Lifetime Value Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the monetary value - often measured in contribution to profit - that...

Marnitz Van Heerden, the Group Head of Customer Experience a Hollard Insurance shares his perspective on how to realize CX strategy and influence change. Marnitz discusses how his approach to engaging stakeholders has changed with the business' CX evolution. Julia and Marnitz explore what it means to move beyond the numbers and help teams authentically engage with CX strategy and purpose. Julia shares her plan for episodes to kick off 2019. Kicking the beehive 2.0 Marnitz is a CX leader at...

This CX Mini Masterclass is the third of a 3-part installment on the topic of the customer journey mapping. Building on the insights from parts 1 and 2, show host and CX expert Julia Ahlfeldt explores best practices for how to map the customer journey. She shares practical ideas for how to keep teams focused while leaving space for creativity as you map the journey. This episode will set you on the path to leading a great journey mapping session that will foster buy-in and support for...

This CX Mini Masterclass is the second of a 3-part installment on the topic of the customer journey mapping. Show host and CX expert Julia Ahlfeldt shares practical tips and ideas for how to prepare for journey mapping, including planning what data sources you'll need and how to structure your mapping team. This episode will help you lay the foundation for a successful journey mapping effort that will yield the best possible outcomes. Set the stage for customer journey mapping People often...

This CX Mini Masterclass is the first of a 3-part installment on the topic of the customer journey map. Show host and CX expert Julia Ahlfeldt provides an overview of the different types of maps, the kind of information that is normally included in a journey map, and how maps can be utilized to help organizations achieve their customer-centric goals. This episode will help you cut through the confusion and prepare for the first step in creating a customer journey map. The first step to...

Iain Meaker, the Executive Manager for Tourism & Hospitality at Comair/British Airways shares his thoughts on what's unique about airline customer experience management and the broader travel industry. Iain discusses how the organization's purpose statement of "we lift you up" permeates the business and provides a platform for employee and shareholder engagement. Julia and Iain explore how Comair has grown and innovated around the needs of customers and what it means to operate multiple...

This CX Mini Masterclass explores the concepts of customer touchpoints, experiences and journeys. The term touchpoint is so commonly misused. In this episode, show host and CX expert, Julia Ahlfeldt provides clarity around the correct definition and the role of customer touchpoints in experiences and journeys. The customer touchpoint controversy In my first CX Mini Masterclass episode, I explored the definition of CX. In the second CX Mini Masterclass, I looked at the difference between...

This CX Mini Masterclass clarifies the difference between customer experience and customer service. Confusion around the distinction of these two concepts has long been a bugbear of CX professionals. This is compounded by the fact that the word "service" is vague and open to personal interpretation, so CX expert and show host Julia Ahlfeldt provides a clear definition. Clarifying the difference between customer experience and customer service In the previous CX Mini Masterclass episode, we...

The inaugural episode of Julia’s CX Mini Masterclass series tackles a question that goes straight to the heart of CX: What is customer experience? This topic can feel vague and the concept is often misconstrued, so CX expert and show host Julia Ahlfeldt cuts through the jargon to provide clarity. What's in a name? As it turns out, quite a lot. The term “customer experience” is the basis for an important area of business strategy and an emerging field of work. As such, creating clarity around...

Andrew Swan, Senior Business Intelligence Executive at top global law firm, White & Case, shares insight on B2B customer experience and the role of data in managing client relationships. Julia and Andrew discuss the intersection between data and team culture, and how to keep the marketing team from getting too "creepy" with their info gathering. Julia shares some exciting news about the podcast. B2B vs. B2C customer experience Customer experience is the next competitive battlefield. By now,...

Chief Customer Officer of Volkswagen Australia, Jason Bradshaw, speaks about how the company's employee engagement strategy has improved customer experiences. Jason asks show host Julia about her views on some of the CX profession's most burning questions. Together, they unpack a truly horrible car buying experience to determine what went wrong. Next generation employee engagement strategy This episode was a bit different. A few months ago, the Chief Customer Officer of Volkswagen Australia...

CEO of Yuppiechef, Andrew Smith, shares his perspective on customer empathy, the future of retail, and integrating CX as a secret ingredient for differentiation. The South African retailer, Yuppiechef, is truly a customer experience leader, and host Julia guides us through a conversation about how this company's success has been fueled by customer experience. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Smith, CEO and co-founder of Yuppiechef. Now 12 years old, the Yuppiechef brand is...

Diane Magers, CXPA president and CEO, shares her insight on CX industry trends and the evolving professional field. Learn about the CX career development resources that are available for global CX practitioners as Diane and Julia discuss the role of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) in growing the profession. Customer experience is a relatively new profession. Some larger businesses have established a CX team, but others have just one or two dedicated resources - and...

Shaun Ray, the head of CX at Capitec Bank, enlightens us on how this up-and-coming banking brand has achieved market leadership by focusing on simplicity. Julia and Shaun discuss Capitec as a case study in CX excellence, and Shaun shares his views on future CX trends in the financial services industry. In part one of my interview with Capitec Bank’s team, I spoke with Charl Nel and Shaun Ray about the bank’s customer-centric strategy and how they use social media to understand customers....

I recently interviewed Charl Nel and Shaun Ray from Capitec Bank, one of the Big 5 banks here in South Africa. Charl is the Head of Communications and Shaun manages its CX. Firstly, for those who are not familiar with Capitec, it is truly a major success story for a South African Bank. Now 18 years old, Capitec’s primary vision was, and still is, to simplify banking for customers at a time when the financial services industry was renowned for its complexity and lack of transparency. How did...

CX Thought leader and author, Ian Golding, shares his perspective on why customer experience matters, and why CX needs an advocate within the business, even if there isn't a formalized CX role. Julia and Ian review the four tenets of CX from his recently-published book and explore the importance of getting investor buy-in for CX. Ian explains how he is continually inspired by the CX practitioners he works with, and shares his own personal customer experience horror story on a recent flight....

In today’s world, so many of our consumer interactions happen remotely. As banking, retail and other experiences have moved into the digital realm, their support functions have gradually transitioned out of the physical store or branch, and into the contact center. These changes mean that verbal interactions are playing a more important role in shaping consumer’s relationships with brands, and so we need to understand how verbal interactions influence the customer experience. When you...

This episode of Decoding the Customer explores how Multichoice, Africa’s largest satellite TV provider, ignited CX transformation through customer-centric culture change. It started when their CX team brought in several angry customers to give the executives a reality check, and then culminated with a campaign to rally the entire organization around 99 customer journey problems that just needed to be fixed. In our interview, Clint Payne and Landile Chauke, from the Multichoice CX team share...

Understanding the perspectives of others and making decisions within this context is the foundation good customer experience. Customer compassion is key to developing engaging customer experiences, and rallying teams around a common customer-centric goal. Laura Jack is an expert on the topic of compassion, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with her about how embracing and enabling compassion can improve CX. Laura Jack is a counselor, coach and author of the bestselling...