CX Champions

This episode features an interview with Christian Mitchell, EVP & Chief Customer Officer at Northwestern Mutual. Christian works to elevate the customer experience and deliver bold solutions to set Northwestern Mutual ahead of its competitors. And over his 18-year tenure at Northwestern mutual, he has served in a variety of leadership roles, including as president of their Wealth Management Company when he managed $129 billion in client assets. Host Sohaib Ahmed discusses with Mitchell his journey and various roles at Northwestern Mutual over 18 years, alongside his insights into building memorable customer experiences. They delve into how Northwestern Mutual integrates technology to enhance customer experiences while maintaining a human-centric approach. Mitchell shares his perspective on the evolving customer expectations, the future of customer experience (CX), including the potential impact of generative AI, and the significance of consistency in delivering great CX. Additionally, the importance of data privacy, the challenges of implementing new technologies, and the role of storytelling in reshaping company culture towards more client-centric values are covered.

This episode features an interview with Nicholas Holland, VP of Product and GM of Marketing Product Lines at HubSpot, a leading CRM platform that provides software and support to help businesses grow better. Nicholas shares insights from his eight-year tenure at HubSpot and his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the importance of empathy, observation, and adaptability in CX. The conversation highlights how CX evolves in diverse environments and the necessity of innovating and reimagining customer interactions in a digital world. They delve into the dynamics of customer satisfaction versus loyalty, the transformation of HubSpot into a multi-product, multi-persona platform, and the impact of AI and data on future CX strategies. Nicholas also reflects on personal anecdotes, illustrating how CX principles translate into everyday life and the lessons learned from entrepreneurial endeavors.

This episode features an interview with Micah Sampson, Head of Customer Experience at Intuit, a powerhouse in the FinTech space with sub brands like TurboTax and QuickBooks and Credit Karma that drives revenue close to $30 billion annually. In his role at Intuit, Micah spearheads customer experience management, investing time working directly with product managers, developers and partners to identify and solve customer problems, optimize business processes, and foster customer loyalty and retention. His team is truly customer obsessed. Their mission is clear: constantly improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn and drive revenue growth for Intuit's formidable portfolio of brands. So in this episode, Micah and host Larry Fleischman discuss setting a high standard for CX across multiple brands, getting employees to take extreme ownership of the customer experience across the company, and empowering customer choice through AI, data and technology.

This episode features an interview with Turo’s Chief Operations Officer, Julie Weingardt. Julie brings with her 30 years of operations and contact center experience and has held executive operational roles at Startek, Sitel, and Sykes. Her expertise is in transforming customer touchpoints into powerful relationship- and brand-building tools through the use of highly efficient business practices. And in this episode, Julie and host Larry Fleischman discuss having a mindset of continuous improvement, fostering a customer experience that doesn’t require contacting support, the importance of female mentorship and much more.

This episode features an interview with award-winning CX leader Ron Holt, Founder of Pink Zebra Moving, the first happy moving company. Ron started Pink Zebra in 2020, and is the former CEO & Founder of Two Maids & A Mop, where he served for nearly 19 years. He specializes in franchise development, management, sales & marketing, and leadership. And in this episode, Ron and host Larry Fleischman discuss seizing an opportunity in the market, listening to the customer, and creating a truly remarkable experience.

This episode features an interview with Scott Booker, Chief Customer Officer at EasyPark Group, a leading global parking tech company with the vision to make cities more livable. Scott has extensive experience in leading large organizations in travel, retail e-commerce, and the consumer marketplace. He is the former President of Hotels.com Worldwide and Chief Marketing and Product Officer at Copart. And on this episode, host Larry Fleischman and Scott discuss how he built a loyalty program at Hotels.com, creating different customer experiences for new customers versus loyal ones, and making an experience so easy and simple that customers don’t need to call in for support.

A brand new season of CX Champions is on the way. HGS is excited to bring you insights from top CX leaders at your favorite brands. So get ready to dive deep into the minds of industry pioneers who have mastered the art of crafting unforgettable digital customer experiences.

This episode features an interview with Craig Antonucci, Chief Experience Officer at Autocar, the only American truck manufacturer focused on trucks for severe-duty vocational applications. Craig brings 25 years of experience in building businesses large and small. He has a proven record of helping organizations grow as much as 1000%. He joined Autocar after spending 12 years at BPA Quality, where he designed customer experiences for many leading global companies. And in this episode, he discusses what it was like becoming the youngest Operations Director in the history of Vermont American, how he reached a critical turning point in his career and decided to start his own business, and turning data points into a customer journey.

This episode features an interview with Sarah Diegnan, VP of Customer Experience at ChartHop, a dynamic, visual, and actionable people analytics platform that helps companies manage and support their employees. Sarah leads ChartHop’s customer journey, partnering with customers from the first moments of onboarding through successful execution of all account goals to make sure customers get the most out of ChartHop. With a background in structural engineering, Sarah’s career has taken her from building cathedrals to building customer relationships. And in this episode, she discusses how to systematically design the customer journey, and how she drives value from day one, and how she creates that stickiness factor to get customers hooked on the ChartHop brand.

This episode features an interview with Stacy Armijo, Chief Experience Officer at Amplify Credit Union. Amplify is a member-owned financial cooperative with more than 57,000 members and over $800 million in assets. They’ve been serving all 50 states since 1967. At Amplify, Stacy is in charge of Marketing, Communications and Social Impact. She also handles Retail, Payments & Operations, Human Resources and Training. She has over 20 years of professional experience in the industry. In this episode, Stacy explains how to build meaningful, impactful programs to create a job you love. She describes effective PR strategies, and what resources are most important for any company.

This episode features an interview with Sarah Owen, Chief Product Officer at One Inc, the leading digital payments network in the insurance industry. Sarah joined One Inc. in 2021, and brings with her deep payments knowledge. She has more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles at First Data, Heartland Payment Systems, Vantiv, and TSYS. Sarah is also an inventor, having patented and served as co-inventor on several mobile and digital payments solutions. In other words, she’s a true payments expert. And in this episode, we’re learning from her about making a better product by putting customers front and center, identifying the moments that matter in your customer’s journey, and how One Inc. is at the forefront of a new age in the insurance industry.

This episode features an interview with Jeff Newman, Manager of Customer Care for Porsche North America. He works to provide Porsche car customers with a best-in-class experience that aligns with Porsche’s 75-year history of brand excellence. In this episode, Jeff shares his leadership philosophy, and what he’s seen work over the course of his career. He also explains what makes a customer experience program successful, and how he’s built the program at Porsche.

This episode features an interview with Sarah Dekin, President and COO at Hometap, an equity-sharing company that invests in homes in exchange for a portion of the home's future value. Prior to her work at Hometap, Sarah has served as CMO at Virgin Money and ZipCar as well as EVP of Strategic Marketing and Development for the House of Blues. And in this episode, Sarah shares what she’s learned about customer experience along her career path from the House of Blues to Hometap. She also talks about her key mentorships, knowing when to accept an opportunity, and how she’s blazing a trail in the homeowner experience at Hometap.

This episode features an interview with Glenn Weinstein, Chief Customer Officer at Twilio, a global leader in customer engagement platforms with a market cap of over $8.5 billion. Prior to leading global customer experience at Twilio, Glenn was co-founder of Appirio, a leading cloud consultancy and top global partner of Salesforce, Workday, and Google. And in this episode, Glenn discusses how to introduce IP into your company, the line between good and bad automation, and delivering on the basics of your customer promise so that you can broach more complex customer needs.

Well, hello! We’re gonna guess that you opened your podcasts today and saw CX Champions. And you thought to yourself, “CX Champions? I didn’t subscribe to CX Champions.” And you would be right. We took CX Detectives and are remixing it. We’re doing our OWN spin on customer experience. So welcome! During the show, we’ll be interviewing disruptors in the CX space. People who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and get things done on THEIR OWN terms. In each episode, you’ll hear deep insight into how they built their careers in CX by helping some of the most iconic brands in the world engage their customers. CX Champions is an UNSCRIPTED masterclass on how YOU can stand out, think differently, and re-imagine what a Customer Experience could look like in a digital-first world. So settle back, grab a drink, and get down with CX Champions on your podcast player of choice.

This episode features an interview with Dutta Satadip, Chief Customer Officer at ActiveCampaign, a leading cloud software company offering a category-defining customer experience automation platform. Dutta is a tech industry veteran with over 20 years of experience, having held leadership roles at companies like Pinterest and Google. In this episode, Dutta talks about understanding the ins and outs of customer pain points, building mutual accountability with customers, and key automation techniques that help hook customers.

This episode features an interview with Janelle Estes, Chief Insights Officer at UserTesting, an on-demand human insight platform that quickly gives companies a first-person understanding of how their target audience behaves throughout any experience and why. Janelle has over 15 years of experience in customer research for both B2B and B2C companies to help them transform their customer and user experiences. She has also held UX research consulting roles at Nielsen Norman Group and Forrester Research. In this episode, Janelle talks about understanding your customers as human beings, engaging them in the feedback and development process, and embedding the customer voice in your business.

This episode features an interview with Srikrishnan Ganesan, Co-Founder and CEO of Rocketlane, a high-growth customer onboarding software that lets you collaborate with customers. Sri has over nine years of experience growing and scaling SaaS companies. In this episode, Sri discusses how to speed up employee communication across silos, the critical customer onboarding timeline, and developing accountability with customers so they take some ownership of their own experience.

This episode features an interview with Tom Martin, CEO at Glance Networks, a software company that provides in-the-moment web and mobile co-browsing, screen share, and video solutions that help increase customer satisfaction, improve brand loyalty, and drive new revenue. In this episode, Tom talks about the key to brand loyalty, removing friction points in the customer journey, and how the best technology is invisible.

Welcome to Season 2 of CX Detectives!

This episode features an interview with Venu Gooty, SVP of Digital Strategy and Transformation at HGS, a global leader in consumer engagement, digital CX, and business process management. Venu has over 18 years of IT experience. And at HGS, he’s helping global brands optimize their operations so they can give customers a world-class experience. In this episode, Venu discusses how using a fit index in the hiring process improves employee retention, making sure employees have the best tools for the job, and tracking employee sentiment using analytics.

This episode features an interview with Bruce Temkin, Head of the Qualtrics XM Institute, the leading experience management platform in the world. Bruce is also known as the “Godfather of Customer Experience.” In this episode, Bruce discusses how to move from insight to action more quickly, focusing on sensing change, and how to thrive both personally and professionally in the year of agility.

This episode features an interview with Alexandra Morehouse. Alex is Chief Digital Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Banner Health, a health system with hospitals and facilities in six states. In this episode, Alex talks about addressing data deprecation in the cookie-less future, integrating disparate systems after an acquisition, and the “Know Me” principle.

This is a special episode highlighting key takeaways from past cases. In this episode, host Lyssa Myska Allen discusses tips for the best customer experience, from in-person to virtual, from top industry leaders.

This episode features an interview with Orchid Bertelsen. Orchid is the Chief Operating Officer at Common Thread Collective, an eCommerce growth agency. In this episode, Orchid talks about the three ways to grow, developing strategic partners, and how to do it all without losing the soul of the brand.

This episode features an interview with Alexie Harper and Ori Ratner. Alexie is the Chief Product Officer and Ori is the Chief Technology Officer at the Quantic School of Business and Technology. And they are also both Co-Founders. In this episode, Alexie and Ori talk about keys to designing an engaging UX, challenging learners with real-world scenarios, and how to leave students feeling like they’ve made meaningful progress in their studies.

This episode features an interview with Melissa O’Brien, Research Leader at HFS Research. Melissa discusses simple ways to apply automation to both the customer and employee side to create an efficient and balanced customer experience.

This episode features an interview with Boone Putney, Chief Technology Officer at Fetch Package. Boone talks about bringing excitement and beauty into the customer experience, the importance of all teammates understanding the end user, and how technology and CX go hand in hand.

This episode features an interview with Keren Lynch, Publicist and Manager of Communications for the Anaheim Ducks. Keren talks about the challenges they faced during the pandemic as an in-person events based business. She shares how the Ducks worked to be an asset to their community, and to engage with their fan base in new and unique ways, including socially distanced and virtual events.

This episode features an interview with Tim Ash, Founder of TimAsh.com & PrimalBrain.com. Tim talks about getting inside your customer’s head and creating an intuitive website that feels familiar and drives sales.

This episode features an interview with Robin Laine, CEO and Co-Founder of Transect, a SaaS company providing automated environmental compliance solutions for the built world. Robin talks about advocating for the customer, making a product 10 X better than the competition, and the life cycle of a startup.

Introducing a show about solving the toughest Customer Experience challenges. Hosted by Lyssa Myska Allen and presented by HGS.