The CX Iconoclast

Today, we sit down with Joe Wheeler, the author of the insightful book “The Digital First Customer Experience.” We dive deep into the design strategies used by top brands like NIKE, Amazon, and Starbucks, and how these strategies have evolved to meet the demands of an increasingly digital marketplace. Highlights: Insights from “The Digital First Customer Experience”: 1. Discussion about the book and its revelations on customer experience strategies. 2. Joe Wheeler shares his inspiration for writing the book. Strategies of Leading Brands 1. An exploration of the design strategies from globally recognized brands. 2. How NIKE, Amazon, and Starbucks have set the bar for customer experience. The Evolution of Customer Experience 1. Reflecting on the transformation of customer engagement through digital innovation. 2. A look at the future of customer experience in the tech-driven world. Joe Wheeler’s Expertise 1. Joe discusses his time in executive roles at Bank of America and The Forum Corporation. 2, Insights into the corporate world's approach to customer experience. Don't miss the insights and experiences shared by Joe that could redefine how you think about customer engagement in the digital era. Enjoy the conversation and walk away with actionable strategies for your business. Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Today's conversation explores several key themes, including the intensely personal nature of B2B relationships, the impact of generative AI on the buying process, and the many changing roles in today's corporate landscape. Richard Owen, Liam Fahey and Ralph Oliva delve into the evolving nature of B2B marketing within various industries, particularly those facing competition from innovative startups. It examines how risk-averse cultures can hinder growth and how some firms are investing heavily in technology upgrades to remain competitive. Listeners gain valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities facing CX and B2B marketers in an ever-changing business environment. This conversation emphasizes the significance of cultivating purpose and culture within organizations while adapting to the rapidly evolving market dynamics. Connect with Ralph: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralph-oliva-a805867/ Connect with Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-fahey-executive-director-leadership-forum-author-educator-consultant/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3 Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3 Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Have you ever experienced something like “marketing funnel vision?” Been trapped in a “sub-silo?” Feared a case of “data-blindness?” What a relief to laugh at the challenges of business, which is what cartoonist Tom Fishburne helps us do. Tom Fishburne took an unconventional career path, which might be true of all cartoonists. He started cartooning as a child and continued through his time at Harvard Business School, where his cartoons were featured in the student newspaper. But for many years he earned a living from more conventional jobs, working in marketing leadership roles at General Mills, Nestle, and Method before striking out on his own. Now, as founder and CEO of the Marketoonist, he finds humor in the business world – and turns it into marketing value for brands including Google, SAP, and LinkedIn, as well as many startups. The conversation in this episode takes a look at Tom’s career and explores the care he takes with humor. As a keen observer of the business world – a prerequisite for humorists of any stripe -- Tom has a lot to say about both trends and ongoing themes in business. Some points to listen for: If you’ve ever enjoyed a cartoon about business, you’ll enjoy this interview. Find out more about Tom and subscribe to his newsletter for a weekly cartoon: https://marketoonist.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomfishburne/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Why do only software companies and drug dealers call their customers “users”? Has “CX washing” diluted to overall impact of CX in the business world? Why do so many acquisitions fail to consider the customer experience? And could OCX Cognition really be in pursuit of the “holy grail” of CX? Just a few of the questions our guest, former Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, discusses in this episode. Everybody’s career begins somewhere, but even so, you might be a little surprised to learn that Mark Templeton got his start in sheet metal. Listen to the conversation to learn the story of his career pivot, but suffice to say it turned out to be a pretty epic shift. Mark joined Citrix first as marketing VP, then as president, and then, for more than 14 years, president and CEO, departing after 20 years at the company. He led Citrix as it transformed from a $15 million business with a single product to a multinational software leader in multiple categories, worth more than $3 billion and with more than 100 million users around the world. Today, Mark serves on several boards and offers his very thoughtful mentorship and consulting to up and coming business leaders. On some level, you have Mark to thank for your ability to work from home. Mark was a visionary when it came to virtualization, including mobility management, networking, collaboration, and security, and Citrix did a great deal to popularize and refine many of the technologies we take for granted today as we work from wherever we like these days. He’s also proud, as you’ll hear him discuss, of the design-thinking culture he engineered at Citrix, and of the company’s value-driven culture. We kept the conversation focused on a few areas that have particular resonance in thinking about the customer experience – metrics, acquisitions, and company culture. Some points to listen for: Find Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbtempleton/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Our guest Steve Byrne would almost certainly not have a business to run if it weren’t for the differential power of the customer experience. He’s the CEO of Travel Counsellors, a company that works hard to live by its own rules and to do right by every person involved in its value chain – customers, employees, and partners. Steve had a lot to say about how he approaches these interconnected obligations, and about how the business is thriving despite what could be considered countervailing market trends. At Travel Counsellors, vacationers (and business travelers) work with independent travel counsellors who personally plan and support their travel. Steve led the acquisition of Travel Counsellors from its founders in 2014, and today the company has a network of 2100 independent travel counsellors operating in five countries. The company enjoyed steady growth of 15 – 20% for more than 20 years, and though COVID decimated the business, its bounce-back was impressive. This year, it expects to have about a billion pounds in transactions – that’s $1.2 dollars. It must be said that this is all the more impressive given the massive shift toward self-service and automation in travel. Steve chalks it up to the fundamental differentiator of the company: delivering a customer experience that people deeply value. At the same time, he and also emphasized the importance of adapting to a changing world. A few points to listen for in the conversation: Learn more about Steve: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-byrne-a8451b23/ Learn about Travel Counsellors: https://www.travelcounsellors.co.uk/our-story/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Our guests today are business partners and academic collaborators: Peter Fader and Daniel McCarthy. Their entrepreneurial and academic pursuits are intertwined in interesting ways. On the entrepreneurial side, they co-founded a predictive analytics firm, called Zodiac, that they sold to Nike in 2018, and now they are co-founders and directors of Theta, a predictive customer value analytics company. Theta’s work draws heavily on customer lifetime value, along with an output of Peter and Dan’s academic collaboration – a research-driven framework called Customer-Based Corporate Valuation. That co-invention is just a part of their academic work. Peter is the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he pursues his academic expertise and passion for using behavioral data to forecast customer behavior. Peter is also considered to be one of the world’s top experts in customer lifetime value – and that’s in addition to the corporate valuation model he developed with Dan. Peter works with companies in many industries, ranging from gaming to pharma, has published widely, including three books. Daniel McCarthy is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta School of Business. Dan’s a statistician by training and his research applies leading-edge statistical methodology to marketing problems. Particular areas of interest include customer lifetime value, data privacy, and how marketing and finance intersect. Like Peter, he publishes widely in both academic and business publications. The common ground between OCX Cognition and these two thinkers is a conviction that customers are a key driving force in value creation for businesses. In this conversation, the two collaborators and partners talk about the ins and outs of how customers drive value and what businesses should do to maximize that value. Some areas to listen for: Theta Equity Partners https://thetaclv.com Find Peter Fader on LinkedIn Learn more about his work at Wharton https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/faderp/ Find Daniel McCarthy on LinkedIn Learn more about his work at Emory https://goizueta.emory.edu/faculty/profiles/daniel-mccarthy Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

When the customer experience is poor, should the sales team take the blame for failing to consider the long-term health of customer relationships? Not so fast, says our guest Bill Binch, a sales leader at some of the tech industries fast-growing companies. It’s a bit more complicated than that, and if you’re a leader whose role include ensuring that customers either get value from your solution or deliver value to your bottom line, you’ll learn a lot from this episode. Bill is an operating partner at Battery, an investment firm focused on tech companies, where he coaches and advises sales leadership in portfolio companies. Before that, he was chief revenue officer at Pendo, where he helped drive the annual recurring revenue to $100M in just three years. He spent nine years at Marketo, leading sales as the company grew from its infancy to its IPO, and beyond. And he held sales leadership roles at other heavy hitters like Oracle, PeopleSoft, and BEA. So it was great to get Bill talking about how sales fits into the organization, its role in thinking about the ideal customer profile, and its use of metrics. A few of Bill’s points to listen for: Find Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-binch-302a4a2/ Learn more about Bill’s role at Battery: https://www.battery.com/people/bill-binch/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

In any successful industry, leaders must answer an existential question: How do you evolve and adapt as the world around you changes? Our guest David Tudehope, CEO of Australia’s Macquarie Telecom Group, looks to customers to as the ultimate guide. In doing so, he takes a very unusual approach in an industry known for its poor customer experience. David explained that Macquarie Telecom Group strives to be what he calls “un-telco.” The company was founded just as the telecommunications market in Australia was deregulating, with the purpose of making a difference to underserved, overcharged telco markets in Australia. David has led Macquarie through some notable successes. Over the past decade, for example, the company’s market capitalization has grown 10 times, driven by its profitability increasing by 400%. Constant innovation has been key to this growth – Macquarie has entered new business areas and rebalanced its profit mix from 80% telco and 20% cloud a decade ago to the inverse proportion today. Macquarie relies on three key ingredients for its success: Customer experience through complete transparency, continuous product and service innovation, and an executive team that harnesses innovation. A few of David’s points to listen for: Learn more about David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-tudehope-3217b214/ Macquarie Telecom Group: https://macquarietelecomgroup.com/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

How do you know you’re getting value from your investments in innovation? Our guest Michael Schrage got that same urgent question from his students and clients: In response, he’s become laser focused on measurement, and his thinking has deep applicability to CX. Michael is a researcher at MIT’s Media Lab and a Visiting Fellow in the Imperial College Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He has served as an advisor on innovation issues and investments to major firms, including Google, Intel, IBM, Procter & Gamble, and many more. He’s also advised on cyberconflict and cybersecurity issues. He has presented workshops on design experimentation and innovation risk, and has published widely. After the conversation recording, Michael said that he retracted his use of the word “idiot” in favor of another i-word, “inertia.” Companies get comfortable or stuck with the way things are, he said, and they fail to evolve. But companies that have evolved have one thing in common: They treat their data as an asset. During this provocative conversation, Michael raised a number of issues that deserve careful consideration. For example: About Michael Schrage: https://ide.mit.edu/people/michael-schrage/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mschrage/ “Leading with Next-Generation Performance Indicators,” with co-author David Kiron in the MIT Sloan Management Review: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/leading-with-next-generation-key-performance-indicators/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

What on earth makes your customers tick? That’s easy, according to our guest Paul Marsden, because it’s the same for everyone. And CX leaders would do well to keep the three core needs of fellow humans. Paul Marsden, CPsycol, is a consumer psychologist who helps businesses understand consumers. The conversation in this episode covered a lot of ground based on his unusual specialization. Paul shares many opinions, but – perhaps unusually – they’re grounded in data, research, and analytics. Paul has his fingers in many pies. He’s a lecturer at the University of the Arts London, a consumer psychology researcher and consultant through Syzygy and Brand Genetics, and is featured in an award-winning documentary film, I Am Gen Z. In this episode, Richard Owen gets Paul talking about the research and ideas that captivate him. He offers a lot of counterintuitive perspectives on the underlying concepts and principles behind customer experience. Just some of what the conversation covered: Find out more about Paul Marsden: https://digitalwellbeing.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsmarsden/ I Am Gen Z: https://iamgenzfilm.com/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Does your company mourn the loss of customers as much as it celebrates their acquisition? It should, and it should back up that grief with resources to stop a repeat, says our guest Richard Watts. Richard Watts serves on several boards, including the board of Farmers Insurance, where he’s on the audit committee. It’s a sensible follow-on to his 33 years at Progressive Insurance. From the time Richard joined in 1977 to his retirement in 2010, Progressive grew from a relatively small insurer writing just 70 million dollars in annual sales and with 460 employees, to Fortune Global 500 insurer with 35 billion in annual sales. When he left Progressive, as Group President of Sales and Service, Richard oversaw more than 60 million customer interactions, six call centers with about 9000 FTEs, and the overall customer experience. Now, as part of his board service, Richard continues to focus on the customer experience as one of the key aspects of oversight and guidance. So Richard Owen sat down to get Richard Watts’s perspective on CX, since his career encompasses the birth of the discipline, the introduction of the Net Promoter Score, and a great deal of evolution in the space. As a devoted and thoughtful steward of the customer experience, who guided many changes and enhancements to the customer experience while at Progressive, Richard is well aware of the shortfalls in the field and the CX challenges facing both incumbent and start-up companies. Some areas of the conversation you might especially focus on: do Humans and machines will likely have a happy future together after all. Find Richard Watts on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-watts-6326059/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Feeling threatened by an upstart competitor -- or the looming possibility of one? Don't fight back using the same CX practices that got you where you are, urges our guest Martin White. Before he founded his consulting firm Blackwood86, Martin White was CMO at MS Amlin, and before that he held executive and leadership roles in the financial services space at Experian, Morgan Stanley, GE Money, American Express, MBNA, and more. Customer experience was often part of his remit in those roles, so we wanted to get his thoughts on where CX should fit within organizations, and the special challenges facing marketers and CX leaders at B2B companies. Martin and Richard also talked about the interplay between incumbent businesses and their challengers. The changes within financial services in recent years are familiar to Martin, and offer lessons for CX leaders in any industry where incumbency both confers a benefit and puts companies at risk of disruption – in other words, almost all industries. As you listen, some of Martin’s thoughts you might listen for and consider: Find Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-r-white/ Blackwood86: https://blackwood86.com/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Sometimes, it’s unexpectedly good news for all involved when technology limits the role of people play in the customer experience. But during times of unavoidable glitches in the customer experience, humans are critical, says our guest, Angela Vargo, VP of Marketing at Breeze Airways. Breeze calls itself America’s newest and nicest airline. With a focus on leisure travel, Breeze offers affordable, nonstop flights to underserved routes. A start-up airline is, of course, rare enough that it’s probably worth a conversation for that reason alone, but it’s especially true here because Breeze took a “technology-first approach.” As you’ll hear, Breeze’s approach provides an instructive example of what experience-driven disruption can look like, even in long-established industries. Angela stepped into lead Breeze’s marketing as the country emerged from the most restrictive phases of pandemic – and displayed a great deal of eagerness for travel. She was well suited to the job, drawing on more than two decades of experience in aviation and other industries. Richard Owen and Angela talked about some areas specific to Breeze, like the controversial decision to use chat in place of a traditional telephone-based call center, and some of the challenges faced in a heavily regulated space like airlines. But there’s lots to learn from our conversation no matter your industry. Some areas of discussion to listen for: peoplecan’tFind Angela on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avargo99/ Angela on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngelaVargo Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Should you be worried about loving your customers? Or working to make your customers love you? Our guest Andy Lark has a simple answer: No. Andy Lark, a CMO and chief customer officer several times over, thinks critically and creatively about brand, customer experience, and the trends affecting business today. Today, Andy is CMO at Dubber, world's leading provider of cloud-based call recording and voice AI, but he’s had executive leadership positions at Dell, Sun Microsystems, Nortel, Commonwealth Bank, and Foxtel, while he was chief marketing an revenue officer at Xero, the company was named the world’s most innovative growth company by Forbes. In this conversation, Andy made a number of claims that deeply challenge traditional thinking about CX – he’s arguing against customer love as an organizing principle. See what you think about what he has to say. If you agree with any of his points, consider how your company should approach CX as a result of your agreement. Listen for: Find out more about Andy at https://thedailylark.com/about/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andylark/ Twitter https://twitter.com/kiwilark Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Most companies today don’t have any tangible value, points out our guest Tom Monahan. It’s all concentrated in relationships with customers and the experiences companies provide. Tom Monahan led CEB for decades, developing a compelling suite of research, benchmarks, and decision-support tools and services and eventually selling the company to Gartner. His work at CEB included the development of the Customer Effort Score, at the time a revolutionary way of thinking about the customer experience in terms of friction and ease, and a metric still in widespread use. Since selling CEB to Gartner, Tom has served on a number of boards, and for the past couple of years has been CEO at DeVry University, where adult, working students further their careers. Tom thinks of his DeVry students the way CX professionals should think about their customers – in terms of data, insights, and metrics that predict outcomes. Listen for Tom’s great points about: Read more about Tom's career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Monaghan LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlmonahan/ Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

Will AI put CX leaders out of work? Nope, but it should prompt a fundamental reimagining of the discipline, says our guest Erik Brynjolfsson. What’s at stake? “The companies within each industry that are using digital assets effectively are pulling away from their competitors,” he explains. Erik is a professor at Stanford as well as a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, the Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He’s also a co-founder of WorkHelix, a new company that provides a data-driven compensation platform for the rapidly changing work world. He’s a best-selling author and speaks around the world. Erik’s research and thinking focuses on data-driven decisions, how AI works in business, and the intangible or digital assets of companies. Importantly, he makes useful distinctions between augmentation and automation in his work on AI. His insights offer guidance to CX professionals and other business leaders thinking about how to augment their work with machine learning and automation without automating themselves out of a job. In this episode especially listen for: Erik makes the case that there’s no shortage of engaging work for humans even as AI becomes more powerful. Find out more about Erik at https://www.brynjolfsson.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikbrynjolfsson/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/erikbryn Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3

If you’re exhausted by traditional approaches to CX, impatient with the stunning lack of progress in the field, and done re-hashing the “best practices” that don’t change anything, you’ve found your podcast. Here’s what we know: Companies gain competitive advantage through exceptional customer experience, and customer insights are the best decision-making tool there is. But traditional CX approaches have run their course and it’s time for the next revolution in CX. Tune in with host Richard Owen every two weeks for conversations and interviews with business leaders, academics, and thinkers whose ideas can guide the CX profession to think in new ways about what success looks like. Most of them aren’t CX professionals, but all of them have something to teach us about CX. We’ll take a clear-eyed look at the problems that have hampered the discipline and explore the compelling ideas behind a re-engineering CX for a modern world. Come disgruntled, leave inspired. Subscribe to The CX Iconoclast wherever you get your podcasts. Find out how predictive CX analytics can help your business: https://ocxcognition.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ocxcognition/ Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3