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The LEGO brand has been a part of the legacy of all of our childhoods and according to Simone Sweeney, Vice President Global Retail Development at LEGO Group, the already popular LEGO has seen a resurgence as families spent more time together during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In my recent conversation with Simone Sweeney on my LinkedIn Live, we discuss how she and her team are currently navigating the retail landscape due to the shift in shopping behaviors, and we explore what impact the shift in E-commerce behavior has had on their customer experience and strategy.

In my conversation with Will Kingston, Incoming Director & Head of Financial Services (USA) at CLEAR - M&C Saatchi, we talk about how he developed a passion for CX. As a lover of FinTech, his goal has been to modernize financial services in a way that revolves around customer strategy and customer centricity.  Will shares plenty of great tactical advice in this conversation and I think you’ll find some actionable items that you can bring to your team.

In this replay episode, we revisit a conversation with Yamini Rangan, Hubspot's first CCO and a 24-year industry vet, who shares how the company improved their customer and employee experience by becoming internally unified. She also talks about how the company adjusted during the pandemic while continuing to put the customer first. 

This episode is a replay of a popular conversation I had with Leslie Stretch, the President and CEO of Medallia about leveraging customer data to understand and anticipate customer needs. Leslie talks about how the pandemic has become “digital disruption at massive scale,” and the positive impacts this can have on the customer experience.

“We are seeing less of a reliance on cold metrics and more on the people,” says Chip R. Bell, regarding the shift in leadership behaviors since the pandemic. In my recent interview with Chip on LinkedIn, we discussed his 5 main tenets to approaching customer service in his latest book, “Inside Your Customer’s Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions.” The five attributes that keep coming up are: curiosity, grounding, discovery, trust, and passion.

In today’s conversation with Amy Shore, EVP and CCO at Nationwide, we’re discussing how one of the nation’s Fortune 100 companies uses customer data and insights to improve and build upon their customer experience. We talk about aligning the C-Suite to a customer-focused initiative, leadership accountability, and the operationalizing of business according to the goals.  

In my conversation with Joseph Michelli, speaker, author, and business consultant, we discuss his recently released book, Stronger Through Adversity: World Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges. Joseph shares that as he was consulting through the pandemic, he was working with leaders who had different approaches to leadership, but a common thread was to lead with humanity. As folks have been “leading from the bedroom instead of the boardroom,” we’ve seen how important it is to be authentic, to be you, during the process.

Donald Hicks, former VP of Operations at Twitter, discusses various tenets of his approach to leadership at Twitter, the importance of employee engagement and support, and some of the behind the scenes operations that happens in order to keep the platform enjoyable for users. You'll really enjoy this episode!

"The thing is, you're never done learning," says Michael Kuenne, in our conversation about aligning to meet customer expectations, improving quality assurance, and the importance of hiring. Michael is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Extended Stay America, a hotel chain across the nation that offers guests the opportunity to book their stay for a day, a week, or a month. Though Michael has only been in this role for a year, his exposure to different facets of work in financial services and technology consulting had a profound impact on the way he currently views his work. We talk about how he helps the hotel improve its operational excellence.

In our recent Linkedin Live conversation, Aparna and I had an in-depth discussion about the holistic approach that she and the C-Suite have taken to better understand and meet the needs of the organization’s various stakeholders. You will really enjoy this conversation as Aparna shares how Verizon is working hard to evolve in a world where human and consumer behaviors constantly shift. 

I’m sharing a replay of the conversation I had with Dutta Satadip earlier this year when he was still at Pinterest.  Dutta is now the Chief Customer Officer of ActiveCampaign, but as the Global Head of Customer Operations at Pinterest, Dutta shared valuable insights regarding how a b2c and b2b digital platform with millions of users all over the world improves customer experience through coordinated operational efforts.

Today’s conversation with Michelle Musgrove, Senior Vice President of Experience at AARP, is chock full of great tactical advice on what went into building the CX program at her organization. Michelle explains that their work is about embedding the CX skill sets into the organization, and shares the three tracks of work that were developed in order to streamline the process.

As we all take this time to relax and express gratitude for the many things in our lives that are worth giving thanks for, even in this crazy time, it's my pleasure to replay one of the most special podcast shows we've had this year, which was with the incredible author, keynote speaker, and businessman, Tom Peters. Tom Peters is such an impressive thought leader and, also, just a really good human. In our conversation, we talked about the importance of leadership, humanity, and enabling people to live their best life.

As we know, the hospitality industry has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, so it was interesting to hear how Aisling Hassell and her Airbnb team developed a plan to support the “people, process, and product,” during these challenging times. Aisling shares some insights as to how Airbnb, a global organization, galvanized employees and Airbnb hosts to work together on solutions that would allow the company to continue to operate while keeping people safe. Aisling Hassell is the former VP of community support for Airbnb.

In this interview, I am joined with none other than Simon T. Bailey. Simon is a breakthrough strategist who goes beyond feel-good content and provides real-life deliverables that truly impacts lives. He has also authored 10 books, his latest being Be the Spark: Five Platinum Service Principles for Creating Customers for Life. Simon drops a bunch of gems for us in this interview so get ready to take some notes!

Patti Phillips, CEO of Women's Leaders in College Sports, chats with me about the need for diversity in leadership, and she shares the experience she’s had while working in sports, an industry that’s notoriously male-dominated, and the need for more age and ethnicity representations in leadership positions. Additionally, Patti talks about how her team, who relies heavily on in-person meetings and interactions, has been able to lift one another up during the pandemic.

It was a pleasure for me to interview Chelsie Rae Lee, the Chief Revenue Officer at SnackNation for the second time on my podcast. Though Chelsie Rae Lee is the company's CRO, she’s also responsible for the sales team, customer experience, and customer success. Chelsie and I chat about how she’s worked with her teams to shift business operations during the pandemic, while also being employee and customer-focused. She stresses the importance of communication with customers, the need to create new metrics in the COVID business model, and the value of transparency when it comes to employee experience during these uncertain times.  

In today’s conversation with Dr. Oleg Konovalov, who is a thought leader, keynote speaker, author, business educator, and consultant with over 25 years of experience operating businesses, we discuss some of the concepts in his latest book, Leaderology, which tie back to what I like to call, leadership bravery.  

How do you build a new customer-focused initiative within an established public sector? Barbara C. Morton, who joined the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2016, was brought on board to be the organization's first-ever Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer and has been working diligently to bring a human-centered-design approach to her CX strategy. She shares how her vision in creating a veterans-focused experience has helped improve client relationships and satisfaction. 

In today's conversation with Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, author of 15 books, marketing expert, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist—we discuss some of the tactical ways that entrepreneurs and CEOs can navigate leadership during the uncertainties of the pandemic. This includes shifting business models, trying new things, and most importantly, simplifying processes for both your customers and employees.