We believe that peer-to-peer “experience shares” offer the best form of learning. Such learnings become even more powerful, and actionable, when those who are sharing their experiences are experts who have successfully overcome the same customer challenges that you may be facing today.
So, in this ongoing series we will present discussions with different CX, Research, and Insights Masters. Each interviewee has a track record in optimizing customer experiences, building loyalty, enhancing innovation, and growing sales exponentially.
By learning from these Masters, you will gain insights and develop strategies on how to better understand your customers and take their experiences to the next level.
View Aynsley Toole
Watch Aynsley Toole, Chief Product Officer, Retirement Services, ADP LLC Discuss:
- Why assisting clients in justifying ROI with impact prioritizes customer journey initiatives.
- How quantifying impact through financial metrics from end customers enhances understanding.
- What reviewing and managing changes in the customer journey achieves in problem-solving.
- When reassessing financial impact post-changes informs on improvements or declines to customer journey research.
View Guneet Singh
See Guneet Singh, Sr. Director, Customer Experience, Appfolio Communicate:
- Why challenging leadership to quantify business impact is crucial for defining fruitful paths.
- How visualizing success with the client sets a clear direction for projects.
- What separating insights achieves in preventing scope creep in customer journey analysis.
- When linking customer journey mapping to desired outcomes and breaking it into stages simplifies complex journeys
View Colton Fredy
Watch Colton Fredy, Consumer Insights Manager, Select Health as he Discusses:
- Why understanding the “why” is crucial for departmental connection and customer journey mapping adoption
- How crafting strategies for self-service enhances customer journey navigation
- What instilling confidence in clients about their customer journey choices achieves
- When a hybrid approach merges customer perspectives with internal business insights for journey planning
View Arti Munshi
See Arti Munshi, Senior Manager, Market Research, National University Discuss:
- Why aligning stakeholders on a problem statement is key for effective customer journey solutions
- How examining customer journeys through changes reveals success and failure factors
- What proactive and transparent stakeholder engagement achieves in customer journey analysis
- When timely data review and appropriate respondent incentivization are crucial
View Dan Comenduley
Watch Dan Comenduley, Senior Manager Consumer Insights, US Cellular Discuss:
- Why framing customer journey research in familiar terms enhances its believability in leadership buy-in
- How in-the-moment research yields the most accurate insights for customer journeys
- What characterizes the customer’s journey as a continuous, cyclical process
- When adapting to client communication styles and values strengthens customer journey strategies
View Audra Yankton
Watch Audra Yankton, Manager and Consumer Insights Leader, Hudl Communicate:
- Why discussing financial impact and quantifying it is crucial before starting customer journey projects
- How transforming foresight into insight predicts key learning areas in customer journeys
- What helps guide clients towards new approaches while acknowledging change resistance
- When trust in client relationships leads to exploring complex concepts in customer journeys
View Seth Schachter
Watch Seth Schachter, Associate Director of Market Research, Guardant Health Discuss:
- Why early stakeholder buy-in is essential for actionable customer journey insights
- How clear communication of priorities and roles influences action in devising strategy
- What defines your target objective: focusing on a specific pain point or the entire journey
- When distilling data for executives enhances decision-making in customer journey strategies
View David Duganne
Watch David Duganne, Senior Manager, Customer Insights, Dish Network and Insights Discuss:
- Why delivering the right message at the right time is crucial in optimizing customer journeys
- How competitor services influence your business and the promise your product holds
- What differentiates touchpoints as snapshots from the comprehensive story of customer journeys
- How pain points can be resolved by considering both customer and employee journeys
View Nicole Dave
Watch Nicole Dave, Director, Customer Lifecycle and Insights Discuss:
- Why balancing speed and thoroughness in timelines prevents missing critical components in customer journeys
- How managing momentum and velocity effectively addresses and solves customer journey issues
- When regular planning cycles in projects prevent recurring customer journey problems
- How frequency and severity play key roles in the impact analysis of customer journey stages
View Serena Li
Watch Serena Li, Director of Consumer Insights, Strava Discuss:
- When customer journey mapping reveals that “moments-of-truth” are becoming pain points then it is sure sign that one is risking market share to competitors
- How emerging tech, like AI, could potentially enable a million personalized customer journeys for diverse consumers
- Why identifying specific and detailed project metrics is crucial for customer journey success
View Mirena Zannou
Watch Mirena Zannou, Consumer Insights & Brand Strategy Leader Discuss:
- How a two-question strategy (monetary and personal impact) can help justify customer journey research to stakeholders
- What post-pandemic consumer habit changes mean for customer journey research
- How early engagement with project activators provides crucial context and boosts their involvement in customer journey mapping initiatives
View Nicole Rocchio
Watch Nicole Rocchio, Global Insights Lead – GNI Data Tools, Google Discuss:
- How avoiding “analysis-paralysis” in customer journey research leads to actionable recommendations and measurable business impact
- What targeting for action in customer journey mapping means for business leaders
- Why acknowledging gaps and expert bias is crucial in customer journey mapping for a balanced, accurate analysis
View Craig Alter
Watch Craig Alter, Consumer Insights at Perfetti Van Melle Discuss:
- Why insights must be concise, impactful, and actionable for effective customer journey mapping
- How product sale locations influence diverse purchase cycles and consumer journey paths
- When highlighting financial losses from unaddressed pain points can clarify customer journey research impact
View Samantha Blackburn
Watch Samantha Blackburn, Market Research Manager, WestRock Discuss:
- How blending “B2B” and “B2C” forms a “B2B2C” strategy, covering every customer journey stage
- When cross-segment customer journey research prevents researchers from missing the forest for the trees
- How peak points in customer journeys foster loyalty, while pain points drive them to competitors
View Monica Aguilo
Watch Monica Aguilo, Senior Director, Consumer Insights, Strategy, & Social Impact, MANSCAPED, discuss:
- Why empathy is crucial in customer journey research
- How expanding data – qualitative and quantitative – helps avoid segment bias and gain a comprehensive customer journey view
- Why aligning customer journey insights with business impact objectives is the perfect recipe for baking the “gift-that-keeps-on-giving”
View Manisha Sharma
Watch Manisha Sharma, Consumer Insights Lead, discuss:
- Why exploring the triad of impacts – business, financial, and personal, is imperative to discern the personal ramifications for stakeholders when business and financial objectives align
- How acknowledging personal impact in customer journey mapping and research can transform business influencers into proactive champions, driving investment in research and actionable results
- How new companies can pinpoint and leverage customer experience gaps to sway consumers towards their products and services
View Reva Sheehan
Hear Reva Sheehan, Sr. Director, Customer Insights, mPulse Mobile, discuss:
- What sets customers apart on their buying journeys
- How you can better understand your more “silent” customers
- Where tailored communication can stand out in crafting customer experiences for distinct audiences, sending relevant messages, and adapting to diverse content consumption preferences
View Chris Ogilvie
View Chris Ogilvie, Head of Research and Insights, Netspend, discuss:
- Why benchmarking is indispensable in understanding your customer’s journey in relation to competitors, and discerning the experiences that influence their preferences for one company over another
- How decision-makers’ preferences for qualitative or quantitative data can be harmonized: recognizing the strengths of both and leveraging a hybrid approach for optimal insights
- Why it is vital to transform a customer pain point into a tangible financial metric, be it cost leakage or lost revenue, to drive organizational change and action
View Tisha Cole
Watch Tisha Cole, Director, Customer Insights, Kenvue, discuss:
- What it means to ground the customer experience: a unified framework that fosters the right mechanisms for an effective customer journey
- Why it’s important for internal stakeholders to grasp the nuances of “customer experience” and its varied interpretations across different business sectors
- When to utilize a “hypothesis setting workshop” as a collaborative approach to identify gaps in customer understanding, successes, and the extent of shared insights across business areas
- Why research outcomes become more impactful through the lens of customer personas in both B2B and B2C customer journeys, ensuring a cyclical approach
View Earlene Biggs
Watch Earlene Biggs, Divisional Principal, Commercial Solutions, ICON plc, discuss:
- How customer journey mappers can guide clients on achieving the end business impact that they hope to accomplish
- Why it is critical for senior leaders to recognize that there is no proxy for the voice-of-the-customer
- What we can do to identify how customers may relate to, and differentiate from, each other
View Elena Garvey
Senior Director, CX Team, LinkedIn, discuss:
- When evaluating customer journeys, why it is critical to look at both ends of the customer spectrum, from those who bought in and those who did not
- How researchers and CX leaders should investigate customer journeys
- Why expanding the scope of the audience upfront can provide more significant insights into questions and opportunities that are bound to arrive eventually
View Stephanie Laguna
Executive Director, Market and Product Strategy, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Inc., discuss:
- What can researchers do to get a deeper level of engagement from internal stakeholders in customer journey mapping projects
- Why the insights team must have an in-depth understanding of the organization’s mission and its core values prior to investigating the customer journey
- How developing key metrics that track the cadence of research results will benefit the company to a fuller extent in the long term
View David Schwartz
Managing Director Category Management, Consumer Research and Insights, Conair Corporation, Inc., discuss:
- Why it is vital to investigate what triggers the initiation of the customer journey
- How customer loyalty drivers can be uncovered from analyzing their “post-purchase” experiences
- What behavioral techniques (like eye-tracking) can do to help you better understand your customer journeys
View James Melucci
Director of Shopper Insights, Beam Suntory, discuss:
- The 3 core elements of customer journey mapping design: clearly understanding the underlying “why” behind the project, “how” it will improve the customer’s experience, and “what” will be its financial impact on the organization
- Why working closely with internal and external teams is critical to designing journey questions that are unbiased
- How you can gain “first mover advantage” by transitioning a partnership from a solely financial transaction to a trusted guide approach
View Andrea Krohnberg, CCXP
Global Director, Customer Insights & Experience, Kelly Services, as she discusses:
- why it is impossible to have customer-centricity if teams and stakeholders don’t share a unified perspective
- how there is no proxy for the customer’s voice; and why it is so crucial to speak with real customers (and prospective customers) when evaluating their journeys with your business
- why it is vital to pursue relationship-building with internal stakeholders on the front-end to initiate enthusiasm for the project and to create recognition of their personal impact
Watch Gloria O-B Osardu, PhD
Global Head of Experience Research and Insights, Gusto, discuss:
- why it’s crucial to align with the business’s objectives before initiating a project to prevent “research silos”
- how the customer journey map is an intertwined ecosystem of information rather than a linear thought concept
- how journey mapping (when done right) can showcase the correct way to design and build personalized experiences for a customer’s individual situation
See William Doyle
Global VP, Customer Insights, SAP, discuss:
- how marketers can initiate positive action in a customer journey project by utilizing AI data to transform “insights” into “foresight”
- why managing internal expectations and over-communicating are the pillars of executing a customer journey project successfully
- why it is vital for all businesses to have a journey map that highlights their customers’ “”moments of truth”” in their buying journeys
Watch Marcos Adrián Pérez Sandoval
Director, Consumer Insights, 7-Eleven, share thoughts of:
- why it’s essential for insight specialists to focus on the “why” and “how” their customer journey maps will help internal stakeholders in achieving their “business” AND “personal” goals
- how designing a customer journey mapping project for a specific financial impact often leads to an enormous return on investment (ROI)
- why using a holistic omni-channel research approach when exploring shopper journeys is the key to identifying their hidden purchase triggers
View Greg Tucker
Chief Journey Mapper, Gold Research Inc, as he discusses:
- how business leakages and failures in connecting with customers can be uncovered by embarking on customer journey work
- why organizations should never proxy the “voice-of-the-customer” in the journey mapping process
- how research leaders can design the activation of insights to achieve the full benefits of customer journey efforts
Watch Jelena McMillan
Associate Vice President Research, MiMedx, discuss:
- how insights specialists can help their teams stay connected with the voice-of-the-customer
- why it’s so important for each research project to be designed for a specific financial impact
- how researchers can guide their organizations to not loose focus during the research planning and execution stages
See Marty Seiwert
Insights, Instacart, discuss:
- how data without insights is just overhead; there must be actionable steps to utilize
- how to not fall prey to shiny gizmos but to remain focused on the original business impact that the project was designed for
- why prioritizing key objectives when initiating customer journey mapping is critical to project development
Watch Detra Whitmore, PMP
Vice President of Customer Experience, Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Trinity Metro, thoughts of:
- why a happy employee experience has a positive ripple-effect in the customer’s journey
- how to convert a negative moment-of-truth into a peak point that elevates the customer’s experience
- why talking to customers in real-time can provide helpful insights beyond standard data research
See Bridget Nelson
Head of Brand Performance, MassMutual, discuss:
- how she measures the impact of marketing at the brand level
- the benefits of deep-diving into the customer journey, from initial trigger to purchase, to create a relevant presence at each critical decision step
- how customer journey research often opens various avenues of opportunities, knowledge, and dialogue that foster innovation
See Mac Smith
Head of Cross Portfolio Research, Search & Assistant, Google, discuss:
- why customer journey mapping, when done right, is often responsible for outcomes that have a measurable impact on the business
- how journey mapping can help optimize customer experiences
- what business leaders need to keep in mind when trying to solve their customers journey challenges
Watch Cynthia Sodini
Head of Consumer Insights and Strategy, Reynolds Consumer Products, discuss:
- how she uses customer journey mapping and ethnographic research to better understand how consumers are engaging with her brands
- the importance of planning and designing every research project for a specific business impact and outcome
- how she guides her internal stakeholders to leverage research in more strategic (and not just tactical) ways
Watch John Robert Whitaker
Former Fortune 500, Vice President of Consumer Insights and Analysis, discuss:
- how he leverages customer journey mapping and research to identify key touch-points that optimize customer experiences and drive business growth
- why it’s so important to test and validate internal hypothesis around the customer’s needs and expectations, especially before making key business changes
- the benefits of mapping employee experiences in parallel with customer experiences
Watch Michael Nevski
Director Global Consumer Insights, Visa Inc., discuss:
- how he develops customer personas and evaluates their business journeys
- his best practices for increasing the adoption, and implementation, of research recommendations across different internal departments
- why it’s a good idea to always “design-for-success” when planning customer journey mapping and research projects
See how Brian Cobb
Chief Innovation Officer, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG):
- drove organizational change by focusing on removing key pain-points that were present in the different customer journey stages
- leveraged customer journey mapping to help different departments better understand consumer behaviors and their underlying unmet needs
- improved customer experiences with innovative changes that he researched and tested rigorously for impact
Watch Gordon Hester and Connor Hester
Direct Selling Experts, Co-Founders, Shapetech Solutions, discuss:
- customer journey mapping and how it has helped many direct selling organizations become more “customer-centric”, and achieve hyper-growth
- the important roles that trust, care, and impact play in making a deeper connection with customers
- how the end consumer experience can be optimized, and why prioritizing this is so critical for the direct selling industry
See how Vani Chokra
VP Customer Insights & Communications, Diversey:
- uses customer journey mapping and research to validate internal hypothesis and decision making
- leverages the gaps between what customers need, and what they are being offered, to strengthen her company’s offerings
- helps leaders better understand how their plans and decisions will impact customers
Watch Nyika Allen
Director of Aviation, City of Albuquerque, share:
- her own journey in better understanding her customers
- how she leveraged journey mapping to optimize customer experiences at the Albuquerque International Sunport
- a deep understanding of key customer journey touch-points, and their impact, that prevented her from replacing airport parking attendants with high-tech solutions
See how Billie Jo Timm
Former Senior Vice President, CX, MasterBrand Cabinets:
- leveraged journey mapping to help different departments understand the entire customer experience from start-to-finish
- benefited from incorporating the voice-of-the-customer in each stage of her journey maps
- drove organizational change by uncovering key customer experience improvements
Hear Andy Mecs
Vice President, Marketing & Innovation at StarKist, talk about:
- the different techniques and tools that he deploys to better understand his customers
- how an evaluation of key customer journey moments led to an incredible innovation that sky-rocketed sales
- why it’s so important to keep an open mind when collecting and evaluating customer journey data
Hear Amelia Strobel
Global Strategic Insights & Innovation Leader at Mars, discuss:
- how she uses customer journey data to guide the C-Suite from “insight” to “foresight”
- the effectiveness of story-telling and emotions in driving action
- innovative methods she has used to bring customer personas to life for the entire organization
Watch Erik Vogel
Global Vice President, CX, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, share:
- how he is driving change internally while staying focused on the customer’s experience
- his key pillars to ensuring that all CX improvement efforts are in alignment with customer expectations
- real-world examples of how customer journey mapping and personas can help align and unify different teams to a common goal and vision
See how Jessica Bolger
Head of Insights, VOC, Drinkworks:
- maintains a constant pulse of her customers
- generates actionable insights by focusing on the “moments-of-truth” and triggers in the usage stage of her customers’ journeys
- mapped key insights for a product that had minimal data (as it had just launched)
Hear Yogesh Chavda
Former Head of Insights, Pinterest, share:
- how he leveraged customer insights during the pandemic to bring advertisers back
- the “aha” moments customer journey research can uncover even for everyday commodity products
- what is “Death-by-Data” and how you can avoid it
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