Experience ’26 marked a defining moment for the future of customer experience. The conversation has shifted decisively from reactive, survey-led programs to a proactive, agentic model where every signal 鈥� voice, digital, social, and employee feedback 鈥� is converted into measurable business impact.

Central to this transformation is the evolution of experience professionals from scorekeepers to changemakers. Rather than simply reporting on the past through static dashboards, these leaders are now acting as conductors of organizational change, using real-time insights to drive the growth that the C-suite actually cares about. (As 糖心原创 CEO Mark Bishof noted in his , 鈥淐EOs kind of care about scores and sentiment, but they really care about impact and financial outcomes.鈥�)

Leading the charge are the recipients of this year’s 糖心原创 Expy and Partner Awards. These organizations represent the forefront of what modern experience excellence looks like in practice, driving meaningful gains in revenue, retention, and cultural transformation 鈥� proving that a bold commitment to experience is, above all else, a competitive advantage.

These awards celebrate organizations and individuals who are leading the way in this transformation, turning insights into action, empowering employees, and delivering measurable impact. These changemakers set the standard for what鈥檚 possible when experiences are truly transformed. 

糖心原创 Expy Award Winners

CIBC: The Growth Accelerator

CIBC took home the Growth Accelerator Award by proving that CX belongs at the center of the business model. , who leads enterprise client experience strategy for CIBC, shared that their journey began a decade ago when they realized their brand felt fragmented and they were lagging behind peers.

The solution was a massive cultural and operational overhaul. “We built a really mature operating model so that we were listening, learning, and acting from our client insights in a meaningful way,” Leheta said. Crucially, they moved beyond NPS to a “Client Experience Index,” tracking 20 metrics tied to variable compensation for everyone from the frontline to the CEO.

Perhaps the most actionable takeaway for practitioners was CIBC鈥檚 governance model. “We actually built CX into our enterprise delivery framework,” Leheta explained. “Projects do not get funded unless they complete this client experience assessment. We get to be at the table, and we’re actually evaluating client risk.”

Vanguard: Insights to Impact

Vanguard was honored with the Insights to Impact Award for their ability to look beyond what customers say to what they actually do.

, who leads the engagement technology team, highlighted the power of digital behavioral signals. “Prior to us having digital insights, our CX experts really struggled to understand what clients were doing based on our experiences,” Civera noted.

By utilizing session replays and heatmaps, Vanguard could visualize friction points that surveys missed. This shift led to a massive bottom-line win: “We were able to pinpoint and address an issue with why we weren’t converting sales leads. Now we’re seeing double the amount of sales leads from our website.”

Verizon Business: The Power of Employee Empowerment

Verizon Business received the Employee Empowerment Award, proving that a world-class customer experience is impossible without an engaged frontline. , who leads CX and EX for Verizon Business, shared how they bridged the gap between internal jargon and customer reality.

 “Customers don’t speak Verizon,” Scott pointed out. To fix this, they brought the Voice of the Employee under the same umbrella as CX. They also launched the “Experience Hero” program to drive a cultural shift. “It was a required training for the entire organization, not just the sales and service teams. Everyone needed to know that the work you do on a daily basis eventually produces something that your customer will see.”

Santaluc铆a: Leading Experience Transformation

, CX Manager for Santaluc铆a in Spain, was named the Experience Transformation Leader of the Year. 

In the insurance industry, interactions are often high-emotion “moments of truth,” such as a home fire or the loss of a loved one. Paraja recognized that relying solely on NPS was insufficient due to a lack of context and timing. “We were just measuring dissatisfaction, but we were doing nothing to prevent it,” she said. By transitioning to an omnichannel model 鈥� listening to 100% of calls and over a million digital sessions 鈥� Santaluc铆a moved toward prevention. “We are avoiding 54% of churn risk that we detect over all these patterns,” Paraja shared, adding that “listening is not a project鈥t鈥檚 a discipline.”

糖心原创 Partner Awards: Celebrating Innovation and Growth, Together

During the Partner Summit, 糖心原创 also recognized the partners that make these large-scale transformations possible. As 糖心原创 CSO Sid Banerjee noted, these partners are “critical in helping drive value across the CX landscape.”

糖心原创鈥檚 Annual Partner Awards Program celebrates partners who go above and beyond to deliver customer value, drive innovation, and accelerate growth through collaboration. 

糖心原创 Partner Award Winners

: Services Partner Award, for the services partner with the highest sourced revenue for 糖心原创 in 2025.

: Technology Partner Award, for the technology partner with the highest 糖心原创 software revenue impact.

: Fastest Growing Partner Award, for the partner with the highest percentage growth for sourced revenue year over year for 糖心原创.

: New Partner Award, for a new partner with the highest sourced revenue for 糖心原创.

: Business Impact Award, for the partner that delivered the greatest overall business impact.

: Solution Innovation Award for the partner with most impactful solution innovation built on the 糖心原创 platform.

: EMEA Partner of the Year, for the partner with the highest sourced revenue for 糖心原创 in the EMEA region.

: LATAM Partner of the Year, for the partner with the highest sourced revenue for 糖心原创 in the LATAM region.

: APAC Partner of the Year, for the partner with the highest sourced revenue for 糖心原创 in the APAC region.

鈥淲inning together matters. These achievements reflect shared accountability, strong execution, and a deep focus on client outcomes 鈥� and we鈥檙e incredibly grateful for the partners who make that possible,鈥� said Eric Din, 糖心原创 SVP of Alliances.

Closing Advice from the Award Winners

For experience leaders looking to mirror the success of these winners, our spotlight panelists offered three final pieces of advice:

Prioritize Progress over Perfection: “Momentum matters,” said CIBC鈥檚 Stephanie Leheta. “Even if those first few steps aren’t perfect, you’ll actually build confidence.”

Normalize Failure: Verizon鈥檚 Samantha Scott urged leaders to “be bold and to normalize failure as a moment to learn.”

Change the Language: As Santaluc铆a鈥檚 Paloma Paraja emphasized, when you stop speaking “CX speak” and start speaking the language of business value, you earn your seat at the table.

The award winners of Experience 鈥�26 proved that CX is no longer a “survey shop.” It is a growth engine, a risk-mitigation tool, and the ultimate differentiator in an AI-driven world.

Day one of Experience 鈥�26 introduced our rally cry: be a changemaker.

Day two proved why standing still is no longer an option.

The morning opened with the Expy Winner Spotlight featuring CIBC, Verizon Business, Santaluc铆a Seguros, and Vanguard. These teams weren鈥檛 celebrated for running polished experience programs. They鈥檙e recognized for changing how value actually gets delivered inside their organizations.
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The conversations were raw, tactical, and refreshingly honest. Leaders talked about the moments they chose to challenge convention instead of accepting it. The decisions that felt risky at the time, but created real momentum. And the hard-earned lessons that come from turning millions of experience signals into insight the business can act on.

This was not victory lap storytelling. It was a clear look at what happens when experience stops chasing scores and starts shaping decisions. Driving growth. Improving efficiency. Empowering frontlines to fix what is broken and scale what works.

Across sessions moderated by 糖心原创鈥檚 Sid Banerjee and Jodi Searl, and reinforced through a full day of deep dive breakouts, one message landed with force: The old CX playbook does not just slow you down. It makes you irrelevant. Measuring experience without mobilizing the organization around it leaves teams stuck while the business moves forward without them.

, who led the first American Women鈥檚 Everest Expedition, closed the day by bringing the urgency home. Drawing on what it takes to survive and succeed when conditions are constantly changing, she made the parallel unmistakable.

In moments where hesitation has real consequences, one truth holds on mountains and in business: complacency will kill you.

Experience programs can no longer run on soft metrics.

The blunt reality of 2026: NPS alone won’t get you budget.

The advanced programs have built rigorous valuation frameworks. They translate sentiment into specific financial figures. The kind CFOs actually care about.

CIBC didn’t just track customer satisfaction. They built a four-stage maturity model: Driver Simulators, Operational Analysis, Financial Linkage, Valuation. The company partnered with their digital and analytics teams to create driver simulators that predict how operational changes impact NPS. Reduce wait times. Watch NPS move. Watch revenue follow.

They didn’t work in a silo. They embedded themselves in the teams that control the levers.

They did the analysis to understand that promoters generate 15% more revenue and have lower attrition than detractors. With that evidence, CIBC’s CX team stopped being a cost center. They became a strategic value partner. They are building the capability to prioritize initiatives based on projected revenue generation, not gut feeling.

Maersk demonstrated what this discipline looks like in B2B at massive scale. They built a CX program across over 100 countries, incorporating relationship and touchpoint feedback through multiple channels. 100,000 employees. 130 countries. Five years of work to drive business engagement, senior sponsorship, and strong ROCXI.

Maersk wasn’t afraid to step back, review, and challenge their approach to chart a way forward. They proved that even in complex B2B environments (and occasionally real-life crises) the partnership between agency, technology, and brand can deliver tangible impact. Now they have a powerful, embedded CX program with a clear roadmap.

If you can’t connect your work to the P&L, you’re not getting funding. Period.

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The customer journey doesn’t care about your org chart.

Today鈥檚 discussions hammered home a reality that should be obvious, but isn’t.

Customer Experience. Employee Experience. Contact Center operations. These are not separate functions. Treating them that way is organizational malpractice.

This came to life in our panel with Verizon Business and Hyatt Hotels. Both have stopped pretending these teams can operate independently. They’re co-owning initiatives across CX and EX. Linking customer feedback directly with employee experiences. Finding root causes of friction that isolated data sets miss entirely.

Employee engagement is a leading indicator of customer loyalty. When your frontline staff is struggling, your customers feel it. Verizon Business and Hyatt treat this connection as operational fact, not theory.

U-Haul, AdventHealth, and Exelon have also aligned priorities between CX and contact center teams 鈥� two groups that historically chase different goals and leave customers caught in the gap.

When these teams are aligned, resolution is faster. Agents are happier. The contact center stops being a complaint department. It becomes a strategic insight hub.

Santaluc铆a Seguros demonstrated what this looks like at scale. Millions of customer signals turned into “human insights” that drive empathy and active listening. Not just in the contact center. Not just in the CX team. The entire organization.

Data doesn’t change minds. Stories do.

The final theme of day two acknowledged something most practitioners learn the hard way: Data alone rarely inspires change. You need the soft skills to drive hard results.

Alison Levine, who captained the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, closed the conference with a keynote that drew parallels between high-altitude mountaineering and modern business leadership. In environments of uncertainty, clarity and decisive action are the only paths forward.

For experience leaders, this means navigating “extreme altitudes.” Uniting teams to make progress even when the path isn’t fully visible. 

It’s not about having all the answers.

It’s about moving forward anyway. As Alison decreed, 鈥淐omplacency will kill you.鈥�

Vuori demonstrated this leadership when sharing how they use 糖心原创 signals to pinpoint behaviors of top-performing stores. The team doesn鈥檛 try to make store teams 鈥渕ore data-driven.鈥� They reduce noise and give managers clear operational priorities tied to customer friction and business outcomes. They turn insights into repeatable playbooks that actually work because it fits how stores actually operate, not how HQ wishes they would. Leadership now coaches specific behaviors that drive sales and consistency.

Many sessions throughout this event demonstrated that to secure executive buy-in, you must move beyond charts and dashboards. You need narratives that resonate with the C-suite and frontline alike.

What did Experience 鈥�26 actually prove?

Overall, Experience 鈥�26 made one thing unmistakable: the age of watching and waiting is over.

This is a new era.

Experience is no longer something you track. It鈥檚 something you operate. The leaders winning today aren鈥檛 chasing NPS. They鈥檙e connecting omnichannel signals and turning them into real business outcomes.

They鈥檙e changemakers. 

Partners across the enterprise. Leaders who use frontline-ready AI to democratize insight, fix root causes, and deliver measurable value.

This isn鈥檛 a moment. It鈥檚 a seismic shift.
And it鈥檚 only the beginning.

Follow #糖心原创Experience on social media and .

The first day of Experience 鈥�26 is complete! 

糖心原创 CEO Mark Bishof, CSO Sid Banerjee, and CPO Fabrice Martin opened our conference with a declaration: the “Next Era of Experience” is here. 

Their keynote laid out a new rally cry for experience leaders to step into a bigger, more impactful role 鈥� moving from scorekeepers to changemakers who bring the business together and turn insight into action. How? Unite the organization, democratize the data, and establish operating models that empower everyone.

No more vague measures of success. Just results the business can鈥檛 ignore.

In line with this vision, 糖心原创 has been focusing on evolving Frontline-Ready AI toward Agentic AI. We鈥檙e blending proven analytics with generative AI to uncover insights you wouldn’t know to look for, while maintaining the governance and consistency that global enterprises require. 

It was a bold opening, amplified by inspiring stories from our special guest speakers from Bank of America and Accenture. 鈫�

Our closing keynote shined a light on real changemakers from Hyatt, Shipt, Maersk, and Toyota Financial Services, who spoke candidly about how they鈥檙e turning insights into influence to move their organizations forward. Attendees left with a renewed belief in what鈥檚 possible inside their own organizations. 鈫�

Here are the other important themes from day one of Experience 鈥�26.

Some of the best growth stories worked with lean budgets and smarter strategies.

It may be unexpected, but some of the most impressive results shared on day one came from world-renowned companies with the tightest constraints.

Santander had walked into a perfect storm: core cloud migration, branch closures, cost containment mandates, and exactly zero dollars for CX improvements. So they stopped asking for tools and started demanding discipline. Instead, they focused on governance and specific behaviors 鈥� the inputs they could control.

Their internal global NPS benchmark ranking increased 15 points in three years. During branch closures, they realized only 21% of projected attrition. All because they executed a sound strategy of investing in behaviors, not systems.

Mazda took this even further. The team radically decoupled dealer incentives from survey scores. The pressure to score high was creating survey manipulation, not better service. Their internal analysis revealed that a customer who gave a 10 but left no comment spent the same as a passive customer. But a customer who gave a 10 and left a positive comment, indicating a genuine relationship, spent substantially more and returned for service more often.

So they shifted from outputs (the score) to inputs (behaviors). They emphasized Omotenashi, or Japanese hospitality, and removed the score pressure entirely. And customer service retention increased 15%.

This is what a changemaker strategy looks like: the willingness to kill the metric you’ve been optimizing for years because you found a better way to measure what actually matters.

Digital isn’t where brands listen. It’s where customers are.

The leaders who stood out today aren’t chasing customers with surveys. They’re listening where customers already are: online, in-app, and in the actual flow of their experience.

Mayo Clinic Laboratories walked through their pivot away from standard relationship surveys. Their digital-first approach captures real-time web interactions 鈥� the kind of signals that tell you what’s breaking before customers have to tell you it’s broken. This allows the teams to view actionable insights that flow across the organization, not just pile up in a dashboard.

BAC Credomatic showed what happens when you actually use those insights. BAC didn’t just track digital banking errors; they systematically eliminated friction in navigation and security verification. The logic is straightforward: reduce digital friction upstream, prevent contact center volume downstream.

This isn’t revolutionary. It’s just smart. But somehow, most companies are still treating digital as one channel among many instead of the connective tissue of the entire customer journey.

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GenAI joined the frontline, and it’s already pulling its weight.

If 2025 was the year everyone experimented with generative AI, 2026 is the year it has become a teammate that makes frontline staff faster and more confident.

The Venetian Resort Las Vegas shared a number that made people sit up: 25% more work with 25% less investment, with no quality drop. How? AI summaries became the single source of truth, which killed what they called “operational bias” 鈥� the game where different departments blame each other for low scores instead of fixing the actual problem.

Case in point: Pool sentiment scores dropped. Pre-AI, that would’ve triggered weeks of finger-pointing. With AI analysis, they identified the root cause in days: there were not enough chairs. Not service failures, not staff issues 鈥� chairs. Sometimes the answer is that simple, but you need the data infrastructure to see it.

Sekisui House also demonstrated an interesting case: AI as a trust-builder in high-stakes industries. By using Smart Response to close the loop with customers, Sekisui House pushed response rates from the low 30s to nearly 90%. They emphasized that in homebuilding, responsiveness is a proxy for competence. When a builder responds quickly to feedback, customers assume they’ll be equally attentive to building the actual house.

Alyse Fuller from United Rentals also showed what AI means for small teams punching above their weight class. Operating as a team of one supporting 20 regions, Fuller used to cut regional analysis time from a full day to two hours. United Rentals managers are now closing alerts six hours faster on average using AI drafting tools. The result: more time solving problems, less time describing them.

Action over scores. Every time.

In high-stakes industries, a survey apology can’t fix a failed live event.

As Material and Encore highlighted, real impact stems from action, not just data collection. Encore moved beyond score-watching by treating CX as a managed, ongoing capability rather than a one-time project. In the events business, the experience is the product, and there are no second chances.

By anchoring insights to customer emotions and operational standards, Encore ensured that feedback fueled real-time strategy instead of sitting in a static report. This shift from passive monitoring to active enablement allowed their frontline teams to anticipate risks and pivot before issues escalated. They effectively redesigned how insights move through an organization, making data digestible and immediately useful for the whole team.

This disciplined approach led to a staggering 87% customer satisfaction rate and maintained venue retention above 90%. 

This serves as a meaningful reminder that while scores provide a pulse, it is the systemic change in behavior that actually moves the needle. True business value is won through agile execution and emotional resonance.

The real takeaway of day one? True changemakers sit on experience teams.

The leaders who stood out today aren’t keeping score. They’re changing the game, partnering across business lines to fix systemic root causes 鈥� not isolated issues. They’ve embedded themselves into the financial and operational engines of their companies. They’ve established operating models that democratize insight and drive decisive action at scale.

The proof is in the execution: operational excellence beats unlimited resources.

Day two of Experience 鈥�26 will prove this value to the C-suite. But day one already answered the fundamental question: can you transform CX without infinite resources?

Yes, if you’re willing to lead like a changemaker.

Follow #糖心原创Experience on social media and .

These days brands with the best customer experience (CX) programs are doing one thing differently: They鈥檙e building out omnichannel customer experience programs that draw on insights from the entire customer journey, across touchpoints such as phone calls, emails, surveys, social media, digital, online reviews, and more. 

Why? Because listening everywhere that matters, and reacting in the moment, is what it takes to understand and address the root cause of recurring customer issues once and for all. This is what drives improvements across the entire enterprise. 

At 糖心原创 Experience 鈥�25 World Tour London, we had the chance to learn from three global brands that are building out true omnichannel experience programs to reduce their contact center support volume, offer predictive customer service to prevent churn, embed customer insights across their operational workflows, and design more personalized experiences.

In our customer panel, From Insights to Action: Unlocking the Power of Experience Intelligence, three global brands shared real-world examples of the kinds of omnichannel customer experience data they鈥檙e collecting, how they鈥檙e turning these signals into insights and action, and the impact their omnichannel customer experience programs are having on the overall business. 

This panel was moderated by 糖心原创鈥檚 Senior CX/EX Advisor , and the panelists included , (now former) Head of Customer Experience at the British telecommunications brand Three UK; , Manager of Client Experience at one of Spain鈥檚 leading insurance groups Santaluc铆a Seguros; and , Global Head of First Choice/ICCC at global logistics leader DHL Express.

Here are some of the top highlights from this engaging discussion.*

Q: Can you tell us about your customer experience program and share examples of omnichannel experience signals that are being collected at your company and how they鈥檙e used? 

Monika Schweitzer: At DHL Express, we鈥檝e had a CX program in place since 2006 called 鈥淔irst Choice,鈥� which is focused on enabling our company to be the first choice for our customers. It consists of three action-oriented pillars: See it, sort it, and fix it.

In 123 countries, we have 9,000 employees responsible for reviewing and acting upon millions of pieces of customer feedback annually. Last year, our team reviewed 2.6 million omnichannel customer experience signals from important moments of truth and transactions across the customer journey across channels, including calls, emails, surveys, digital signals, SMS messages, and social media interactions.聽

We have governance in place at the global, regional, and country levels, and our employee participants go through a First Choice certification program 鈥嬧�媡hat includes Lean and Six Sigma training. We want to get even more employees involved and expand the channels and touchpoints included in our program. 

Our CX program convenes cross-functional committees that regularly review the status and outcomes of initiatives we鈥檝e launched. We also host country reviews with other countries within a region and at the global level to share how countries are running their programs and offer additional support as needed.聽

Paloma Paraja Alvarez: With over 100 years of history and a purpose rooted in caring for people through every stage of life, Santaluc铆a Seguros has made customer experience a core strategic pillar. 

To support this, we鈥檝e built an end-to-end voice of the customer program that spans across our main insurance product lines: funeral, home, life, and more. 

Our entire voice of the customer program is powered by 糖心原创, which has been fundamental in giving us a 360-degree view of the customer. 

We currently use surveys, Speech Analytics, digital experience analytics, and social media customer experience management to listen across every meaningful touchpoint. We capture both direct feedback and unsolicited signals, such as call center conversations, behavior on our website and app, social media comments, and even customer reviews. All of these inputs are analyzed in 糖心原创, enabling us to detect patterns, risks, and opportunities in real time, and to move from isolated anecdotes to actionable, organization-wide insight.

With 糖心原创 as our experience platform, we鈥檝e evolved from measuring satisfaction to listening actively and acting in real time. Today, CX is not just a function 鈥� it鈥檚 a shared mindset embedded across the organization, guiding how we design services, solve problems, and build lasting relationships with our customers.

Julia Murphy: At Three UK, our goal is to measure customer experience across the entire business, across all channels, across all customer relationships, and across all journeys, using digital experience analytics, Speech Analytics, and Text Analytics. 

We monitor these signals and tie them together with internal metrics, such as reason for contact, complaints, churn, and network data, to understand the overall experience, customer behavior, and business performance.

Q: How are you turning omnichannel experience signals into insights that are interesting and beneficial to your business and operationalizing the data?

PPA: We use 糖心原创 Speech Analytics to analyze contact center calls, helping us detect dissatisfaction, intent to cancel, and operational pain points. We also have predictive models that flag customers at risk of churn, enabling our teams to take proactive retention actions. The key has been connecting customer feedback with operational data like service level agreement compliance, claim processes, and product lifecycle data. By integrating 糖心原创 with our internal systems, we can understand not just what the customer is saying, but why. This has been especially useful for identifying friction points and designing more personalized and relevant experiences across our home, life, and funeral insurance products. These insights are regularly translated into initiatives to optimize digital journeys, commercial processes, and customer service.

One challenge we had was breaking down silos and ensuring CX insights didn’t stay in PowerPoint presentations but instead were translated into coordinated action. Our solution was to democratize access to feedback, customize reporting to each team鈥檚 reality, and create a culture where feedback is seen as strategic. Today our CX dashboards built from 糖心原创 data are shared across departments and updated in real time, allowing operational teams to act directly on what they鈥檙e seeing without waiting for centralized reports. Our insights are deeply embedded into the daily workflows of our organization. Real-time customer signals trigger alerts that are routed to the right teams through automated workflows. We also run a structured process to close the loop, with specialized agents proactively reaching out to dissatisfied customers within 24 hours. 

Q: Gathering and analyzing omnichannel customer experience insights are important steps, but what are you doing to act on these insights?

MS: We use our insights to implement thousands of customer experience initiatives across our worldwide operations. We generally use customer experience feedback in two ways.

One, to address issues at the individual level, resolving issues for a given customer. And secondly, at scale, implementing structural improvements at the country level, with countries analyzing feedback, reviewing their impact scores, and conducting root-cause analysis to get to the bottom of recurring issues. 

Our process is to gather feedback (see it), review and prioritize feedback in cross-functional committees (sort it), and then execute initiatives to improve the experience (fix it). We close the loop by continuously analyzing the impact of the changes we make.

As just one example of how we鈥檙e acting on these insights, recently, I was part of a country review in which the team made changes to improve customer communications. These updates helped accelerate the speed of clearing shipments and reduce the volume of calls related to customers鈥� shipping clearance statuses from 17,000 per month to less than 2,000 per month.

Q: Can you share an example of how omnichannel experience insights have driven change in your business?

PPA: One of the most valuable examples for us is how real-time customer feedback helps us respond proactively to weather-related incidents, such as heavy storms or flooding episodes, known in Spain as 鈥淒ANAs.鈥� By continuously monitoring what customers are telling us across channels 鈥� calls, surveys, social media, and web behavior 鈥� we鈥檙e able to detect early signs of concern or stress linked to these extreme events. This enables us to act fast: We launch preventive communications, prepare our repair service network, and adjust staffing in contact centers before peak demand hits. These insights, captured and analyzed in real time through 糖心原创, allow us to move from reactive to predictive service, minimizing customer effort, preventing potential dissatisfaction, and reducing operational strain across the business.

JM: We have an established change management program for delivering customer experience improvements and a super clear strategy to support this. We have a monthly meeting across our commercial leadership teams that is solely focused on customer experience that flows through to business owners. For instance, when we spotted signals within our CX measurement program related to our pay as you go experience, we introduced a business-wide improvement program to address the issue. 

Want to demonstrate the value of investing in the omnichannel customer experience to leaders within your organization? Download our infographic: for insights into how organizations can use CX to unlock millions in revenue and drive millions in savings.

*This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I recently had the pleasure of hosting . This year’s theme was all about deepening our understanding of customer experience through insights and actionable strategies.聽

Three impressive industry leaders joined me to share their unique perspectives on this timely topic: , Vice President of Customer Experience at Western Financial Group, an insurance broker that operates coast to coast; , Director of Customer Experience at Trulieve, an industry-leading vertically integrated cannabis company; and , Vice President and Executive Advisor for Hospitality and Travel at 糖心原创, who has held management and operational roles with Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International, and more.聽

During the panel, we discussed how silos can create barriers that frustrate customers, how using customer feedback to pinpoint these problem areas can help teams improve the customer journey, and the need for alignment of internal teams for consistent, seamless customer experiences. The panelists also provided real-world lessons in delivering the kinds of customer experiences that build lasting customer loyalty.

Let鈥檚 explore some key takeaways from the event.*

Q: How can you use your CX insights to help identify some of the biggest points of friction in the customer journey?

Geoff Ryskamp: Customer experience is the new battleground for businesses, especially in the travel and hospitality sector, where others’ experiences directly influence consumer choice. To win this battle, we need to identify and eliminate friction points in the customer journey. We see a common friction point at the handoff between marketing and operations. Picture this: Marketing crafts a compelling offer that attracts a customer, but when that customer reaches out, the operations team is in the dark. This disconnect can turn a potentially positive experience into a frustrating one. Observing behavior and leveraging feedback and other signals will pinpoint these friction points, and more importantly, take action on those impacting the customer journey across teams.

Greg Kihlstr枚m: It’s not only data or departmental silos companies need to contend with. There may be goal or incentive silos as well. Part of the solution to this is a better use of CX insights.

GR: I agree and it’s not enough to simply identify these friction points. We need to break down the silos that exist within our organizations. Customers don’t care about internal departments; they expect a seamless experience from start to finish.

When customers run into multiple hurdles trying to fix a simple issue, they get frustrated and feel undervalued which ultimately erodes their trust and loyalty, no matter which department is to blame. Successful companies put the customer first, breaking down internal barriers and establishing shared goals. When teams focus on customers’ needs, they鈥檙e more likely to collaborate and find solutions, even if it means stepping outside their usual roles.

Not all friction is negative. Sometimes, a team member goes above and beyond in a challenging situation, creating a moment of delight. The critical task is to identify and make these positive outliers the new organizational standard.

Gillian Howie: A quote that sticks with me is, “It may not be your fault, but it’s your problem.” It doesn鈥檛 matter who caused the issue. Finding a solution is what really matters. To build customer loyalty, we need to solve the problem, even when we鈥檙e not to blame.

Q: If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. How do you focus on the right things when there is always 鈥渙ne more thing鈥� to do?

Dr. Mel Salvador: The best way to capture the customer鈥檚 voice and figure out the real priorities is through data. We鈥檝e customized 糖心原创 so each department has unique access to the data, dashboards, and reports they need. Our focus is on actionable insights and spotting trends instead of relying on individual opinions. While we can鈥檛 please everyone, this data helps us stay aligned with the company鈥檚 overall KPIs.

GH: It鈥檚 important to help businesses understand the 鈥渨hy鈥� behind it all when we prioritize action items. Often, when we look to implement a new process, we’re sharing a piece of the end-to-end journey. We should take the time to explain how this piece folds into the bigger picture to create the journey that we want for our customers.聽

GR: In CX, it鈥檚 easy to get overwhelmed by a constant stream of data, feedback and organizational requests. This is why it鈥檚 so critical to have a feedback loop between the insights and operations teams that deal with customers daily. When we use this loop, we take the right actions and use feedback to drive prioritized action. Open communication and collaboration are crucial. When we understand the cost of getting it wrong 鈥� lost customers, damaged reputation, these insights become even more valuable to the business to drive meaningful improvements.

Q: What are some of the biggest barriers to creating effective feedback loops so that continuous improvement happens?

GH: One big barrier is getting organizational buy-in when it comes to the importance of closed-loop feedback. We have to respond to customer feedback. Ignoring it is worse than not asking in the first place. We need to illustrate what happens when we ignore the customer鈥檚 opinion so everyone in the organization understands why the feedback loop truly matters.聽

MS: We’re all talking about the same key things, even though we’re in different industries: understanding what customers are saying, responding to their feedback, and getting internal buy-in. A major barrier is the fast-paced environments we’re all in. Priorities can change quickly, so we need to stay focused and clear obstacles. Getting that buy-in is crucial for building customer loyalty and using the tools we have to keep it.

The result? Greater customer loyalty

MS: Sometimes, customers don鈥檛 know what they want or what they don鈥檛. They just know their overall perception of the experience. In turn, we have to be innovative in terms of making the experience better in the long run, sometimes making a few assumptions along the way.

GH: Customer needs are constantly changing. What worked five years ago might not work today, so we have to be quick to adapt. The key is to try new things and let customers show us what works. Stay flexible and ready to pivot, but make sure any changes don鈥檛 disrupt the overall experience.

GK: It requires collaboration, access to the right insights, prioritizing the right actions for the right audiences, and a constant focus on improvement and innovation.聽

*This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

For even more insights from these CX experts, check out the full recording of our virtual event.

To attract and retain customers today, retailers must adapt and innovate faster than the competition. Rapid innovation demands understanding what to address now, and predicting what customers will want next. In order to beat the competition, it is critical for retailers to get these insights quickly in order to know how and where to focus their resources. Sustainable growth and successful innovation start with strong customer relationships, in which customers are willing and ready to provide brands the information they need in order to meet their needs.

Sam鈥檚 Club, an American chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs, is a leader in rapid, customer-centric innovation. Long before 2020 demanded retailers worldwide accelerate their digital transformations, Sam鈥檚 Club had its foot on the gas. From converting stores into distribution centers to launching contactless payments through its app, Sam鈥檚 Club is known to be one of the .

The secret to Sam鈥檚 Club鈥檚 rapid innovation success? On-demand access to its members. Through self-service experience features, like 糖心原创鈥檚 Ask Now solution, Sam鈥檚 Club is able to engage members immediately to discover how they feel and what they need. Ask Now is a feature that allows administrators to add questions to any ongoing live tracking program in an easy-to-use interface within the 糖心原创 Experience Cloud platform. The solution provides a variety of question types, scale types, and segment filters. Once the administrator enters the question into Ask Now, the survey is updated in real time and eligible participants will be able to receive those questions. Results are available immediately in the reporting dashboard.

Tony Lee, a leader on the Sam鈥檚 Club Member Experience Insights team, recently joined a聽糖心原创 Mastercast聽to share how his team is able to stay ahead of member needs thanks to on-demand customer experience management tools. These features were especially critical for the business over the past year, when the coronavirus changed the needs of shoppers overnight. Sam鈥檚 Club knew it had to act fast to change the way it served its members.

Here are a few of the ways Sam鈥檚 Club uses instant customer feedback as its headlights to guide innovation.

Keep a pulse on member needs with an awareness check

The ever changing nature of the past year made clear communication with members especially critical for success. Changing store hours, enhanced cleanings, and updated operations were only successful if members were aware of them. But as social distancing requirements made face-to-face communications nearly impossible, brands were dependent on one-way communication channels such as email, their website, and physical signage to communicate updates to customers.

In one early pandemic leadership meeting, an executive asked Lee: 鈥淎re our members aware of the recent operational changes?鈥� Lee didn鈥檛 know, but he was able to quickly 鈥� while still in the meeting 鈥� spin up a real-time Ask Now survey question to find out. Before the meeting was over, he was able to report back that only a small percentage of members were aware of the recent health and safety measures the company put into place. The team immediately brainstormed ways to improve awareness by changing messaging, moving operational hours to the top of the homepage, and including relevant information in all member correspondence such as marketing promotions. Lee and his team continued to monitor awareness and saw immediate improvements.

Test new solutions with specific segments

Before launching full-scale initiatives across Sam鈥檚 Club鈥檚 nearly 600 stores, the member insights team used instant customer feedback to get preliminary information to deliver back to the business. 

For example, prior to launching curbside services nationwide, Sam鈥檚 Club tested this service through its where seniors and at-risk club members can shop without ever leaving their car. By creating a tag for Concierge Service transactions in the POS, the team could target these buyers with specific real-time Ask Now survey questions. 

Sam鈥檚 Club was able to immediately identify strengths and weaknesses of their concierge service through these insights and make any necessary changes based on instant customer feedback. Everything from the friendliness of the associate, to the condition of the merchandise, to how much time they had to wait in the parking lot, helped improve the service. All of these insights then helped ensure a successful launch of Sam鈥檚 Club鈥檚 nationwide curbside services. And many of the original Ask Now survey questions are now part of standard curbside pickup surveys.

Get into the member mindset

What customers will want next is top of mind for every retailer today. No business wants to repeat the surprises of last year. Luckily, understanding a customer鈥檚 mindset can be as simple as asking them.

That鈥檚 how the Sam鈥檚 Club member insights team has been able to lock into the long-term member mindset and stay ahead of demands. Throughout the pandemic, the team used Ask Now to engage members about how they were feeling and what they imagined the future might look like. 

Lee鈥檚 team quickly discovered that a high percentage of members wanted to keep the number of visits to retailers low but still wanted some kind of normal browsing experience to stock up. Trackers helped identify the types of categories members were going to be looking for in the future, which in turn helped the merchandising team better prepare for their needs. This was especially helpful when planning for the holidays. 

For example, members shared that they did not plan on gathering for Halloween but still wanted to get into the spirit. The merchandising team focused purchases on decorations and limited the mass candy inventory, which was a popular pre-pandemic item for trick-or-treating. When it came to Thanksgiving, members indicated that they were still planning on smaller gatherings but would not be holding back on preparing the annual feast, as many wanted to enjoy leftovers. Tapping into the member mindset ensured Sam鈥檚 Club was well stocked on key items to avoid the inventory plights many other retailers suffered last year. The entire organization was able to better prepare and meet members鈥� needs thanks to these insights.

Preparing for what鈥檚 ahead

糖心原创鈥檚 self-service solutions, like Ask Now, offer retailers an easy, seamless way of quickly capturing insights. With Ask Now, organizations can quickly and easily gain answers to their burning questions, test new solutions, and better prepare for the future without having to rebuild their surveys or impact existing programs. These solutions can act as the headlights to guide any organization as you work to innovate in today鈥檚 unpredictable climate and prepare for what鈥檚 ahead.

Schedule a consultation with an expert to learn more about how 糖心原创鈥檚 self-service capabilities like Ask Now can help you access instant customer feedback to guide innovation at your organization.

Consumers continue to flock to websites and apps, and they expect more from these channels today than ever before. As brands adapt to life after digital transformation fueled by the pandemic, they must learn from online customer behavior to optimize those digital experiences. And those that can turn online customer behavior data into actionable insights outperform peers by . 

But a common issue arises for many brands trying to capture and turn online customer behaviors into insights: scalability. How can you realistically track and make sense of millions of behaviors taking place across your website or app every day? Digital experience analytics offers a purpose-built solution to do just that.

What is digital experience analytics? 

Simply put,  refers to solutions that instantly measure and quantify customer experiences on websites or apps. These solutions typically include capabilities that uncover online customer experience issues with features like experience scoring, behavior detection, and journey analysis, among many others. On top of that, it typically comes equipped with must-have analytical tools for investigating and resolving those issues, like session replay and heatmaps.

Going beyond surface level web and app data, digital experience analytics allows brands to catch a glimpse of the user鈥檚 state of mind. Automatically measuring billions of user sessions and trillions of user behaviors, digital experience analytics can expose exactly what鈥檚 happening throughout the online customer journey. In turn, these insights reveal previously hidden issues and opportunities to optimize web and app experiences which otherwise would go unnoticed.

Turning online customer behavior into truly actionable insights, digital experience analytics has become the ultimate solution for creating friction-free web and app experiences that meet sky-high customer expectations.

Why use digital experience analytics? 

Brands simply can鈥檛 afford flawed experiences on websites and apps. As digital experiences boom with activity 鈥� , up 22% from 2019 鈥� tolerance for friction-filled online journeys continues to shrink. And consumers aren鈥檛 shy about letting you know. If websites or apps fail to deliver exceptional experiences,  while 67% ultimately churn.

Digital experience analytics offers a gold mine of insights around online customer experience. While web analytics, A/B testing tools, and customer feedback solutions each boast valuable data, digital experience analytics gleans unique behavioral insights required for proper web and app optimization.

To reveal the quality of online customer experiences at scale, digital experience analytics tracks every user鈥檚  鈥� millions of daily behaviors at the enterprise level 鈥� to uncover instances of friction, confusion, and interest. With a strong focus on areas like engagement, frustration, navigation, along with technical and form experiences, digital experience analytics tools surface every opportunity to optimize websites and apps. 

And by combining digital experience analytics with other experience management tools, brands can diagnose and resolve issues across websites and apps without any second guessing or misfires. It鈥檚 the perfect data-driven marriage for perfecting online customer experiences. 

Who uses digital experience analytics? 

There isn鈥檛 necessarily a wrong answer here. Oftentimes, it鈥檚 not the sole responsibility of a single individual, team, or department to improve web and app experiences 鈥� it鈥檚 a larger scale effort. In fact,  involves multiple business units or the entire company. Any and every team involved with transforming online customer experiences should gain exposure to digital experience analytics. 

What exactly would digital experience analytics look like in action across your own organization? Take inspiration from a few of these use cases:

• Web analysts spot user journey bottlenecks dragging key performance indicators.
• Digital optimizers find spikes in frustration and confusion connected to new A/B tests.
• User experience designers discover layouts and page elements contributing to poor engagement.
• Ecommerce operators uncover technical issues costing purchases on checkout pages.
• Digital marketers investigate form experience issues sabotaging landing page conversions.
• Customer insight specialists correlate repeated user frustration with low CSAT results.

Given the far-reaching nature of web and app operations, it鈥檚 critical to expose every team to digital experience analytics to deliver the ultimate online customer experience.

What are the tools and capabilities behind digital experience analytics?

There鈥檚 no single digital experience analytics tool or capability that perfectly uncovers every experience issue and optimization opportunity on websites and apps. Each feature brings to the table its own unique data which creates a well-rounded set of insights 鈥� a must-have for quality optimization efforts. Discover the core functionalities of digital experience analytics with this clear-cut rundown:

•  quantifies every behavior, interaction, and journey with a single score, typically scaling from 1 to 10. It鈥檚 the best metric for measuring and benchmarking experience quality on websites and apps.
• Behavior detection accounts for clicks and mouse movement 鈥� upward of a hundred various behaviors 鈥� to pinpoint every instance of frustration, confusion, and interest. Prioritization feedback organizes experience issues by urgency to keep optimization efforts focused on the most high-impact events. 
•  maps out and visualizes every user journey to discover the most popular paths and pages while revealing the most problematic ones creating bottlenecks.
• Segmentation provides a wide range of filters around users and journeys 鈥� like behaviors, device types, A/B tests, and even third-party data 鈥� for granular experience investigations and optimization efforts.
• Technical reports keep track of issues on the backend of websites and apps, such as broken links or shoddy code, that disrupt user journeys and drag experience quality.
•  display aggregated on-page user behaviors and interactions with colorful visualizations and often offer various types like scroll, attention, dot/click, attribution, and behavior heatmaps.
•  provides anonymized recordings of every user session to display exactly how journeys and behaviors unfold at the case-by-case level. More advanced session replays automatically identify the most insightful sessions to watch back. 
• Form analytics measures the experiences and outcomes on any form-based submission page like account sign-ups, checkout screens, and demo requests.

As the digital-first consumer mindset evolves, digital experience analytics will become all-but mandatory for turning online customer behavior into insights that enable crucial improvements to web and app experiences. 

Take a deeper dive behind this solution with Decibel by 糖心原创鈥檚 . It offers a detailed look at every tool, capability, and use case while providing a step-by-step process for putting it altogether to perfect web and app experiences.

Customer expectations are continuously evolving. That’s become all the more true, and it’s clear that this is a trend that’s not going away anytime soon. Amid an environment full of unknowns and constant change, one thing that’s certain is there’s never been a greater urgency for brands across industries to address these evolving customer needs 鈥� in the moment.

A pioneer in customer-centricity, insurance leader State Farm庐 joined thousands of industry professionals at the world’s largest InsurTech event in October, , to share how they’re using real-time feedback to enhance customer experience and, ultimately, grow their business.

Over the years, State Farm has used various tactics to gather feedback from customers to enhance their experiences. But in recent years, the brand has recognized the need to speed access to insights 鈥� to uncover opportunities faster.

“We recognized there was a gap in terms of our pace of getting this feedback, then synthesizing it, and using it in a manner that’s helpful to us,” said Fawad Ahmad, State Farm Senior Vice President & Chief Digital Officer.

That’s why, starting in 2019 the brand adopted a new strategy: gathering real-time customer feedback via surveys.

In 2020 alone, the company deployed 3.7 million surveys via email and received over 600,000 responses, about a 16% response rate, which is higher than their previous approach. Not only that, they’ve rolled out bilingual surveys to reach a growing Spanish-speaking customer base and democratized access to key customer data to a team of over 6,500 State Farm associates.

Here are three powerful use cases State Farm shared for adopting real-time customer feedback.

Real-time customer feedback use case #1: Product improvements

It’s an all too familiar scenario. You’re trying to complete a form, make a payment, or get to the next step in a process online 鈥� and you get stuck. For whatever reason, the website or app just isn’t working.

That was the case for one State Farm customer, who shared feedback about the issue. And that feedback empowered the product team to fix the problem to improve the experience for other customers immediately, thanks to a real-time feedback loop State Farm has set up so that the right team members can act on the voice of the customer in the moment.

Real-time customer feedback use case #2: Customer service coaching and motivation

While in the past team members had to spend time listening to old phone calls to uncover customer insights, today State Farm employees can get instant access to a full day’s worth of feedback in minutes. That means rather than waiting until the end of the month to share dated customer outcomes, now managers can share feedback on a day-to-day basis.

To help coach customer service team members in the moment…

Such as with this real customer comment:

• “The conversation was not very personable. It was not clear on what my expectations should be for the process, and how to use the app to submit my claim wasn’t super helpful.”

…and to help team members feel appreciated and recognized.

Such as with these real customer comments:

• “Everything was explained really clearly and all of the information was helpful. I was even helped out with all of the steps I needed to do. It was simple on my end. The tone of voice was friendly and made me feel less intimidated with having to talk to them over the phone.”
• “My State Farm representative was put in my life to help me get back on track. I don’t think our paths will ever cross again but I thank her for being there for a stranger.”

Countless messages are filled with gratitude, something the company uses to reinforce its slogan 鈥� Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there庐 鈥� with employees.

Real-time customer feedback use case #3: Innovations in pricing and payment options

In addition to solving individual customer pain points, State Farm is always looking to address macro trends. At the start of the pandemic, the brand paid close attention to customer feedback via surveys, conducted direct interviews with customers, and monitored social media comments. They recognized something new unfolding: People were driving less and wondering why their rates were the same.

“This helped us get micro and macro feedback to react quickly to help customers,” said Jon Farney, Senior Vice President, Treasurer & Chief Financial Officer for State Farm.

In response to customers driving less and claims experience reflecting that change in behavior, the company rolled out the to return value to customers and:

• Paid approximately $2 billion in dividends back to customers for a period of time when they were driving less
• Reduced the company’s rates by an average of about 11% countrywide, amounting to $2.2 billion in savings for customers (in addition to the $2 billion in dividends the company paid)
• Offered new flexible payment options for customers experiencing financial hardship

Customer experience matters

“Customers don’t just measure their experience at State Farm against State Farm or against other insurers,” said Farney. “Their expectations continue to grow because of all the different types of interaction they have in so many different parts of their lives.” That’s why State Farm is investing time, energy, and resources to be able to better serve its customers, he added.

Interested in learning more about how your company can benefit from a digital customer experience strategy? Download 糖心原创’s e-book, Stay Ahead of Tomorrow: The Executive鈥檚 Guide to Life After Digital Transformation to learn how engaging in the moment can drive your business forward.

 offers investment solutions and services and retirement expertise to more than 2.5 million clients in 28 countries and offers world-class investment solutions and services and retirement expertise. Driven by the needs of clients, Fidelity recognised the value of improving the client experience through a new voice of the client programme. Powered by 糖心原创, this programme would enable a culture of customer obsession from executives to the front line, deliver service excellence and clearly demonstrate the impact of client experience on strategic outcomes.

With client obsession now a core component of the organization, Fidelity has seen tangible positive commercial outcomes, ultimately improving retention rates of client assets and driving up net new sales.

I recently sat down with Stella Creasey, Global Voice of Client Director at Fidelity, to learn more about Fidelity鈥檚 award-winning voice of the client programme and how it has enabled them to position customers at the core of all strategies and activities: 

How did customer centricity play into Fidelity鈥檚 decision to develop a new voice of the client programme?

Investment management has a history of being internally focused and risk averse. We identified that a keen focus on the customer would give us a point of differentiation in a competitive landscape. But in order to shift to a truly customer obsessed culture, we knew we needed to develop new ways to make real-time client feedback available for everyone within the business to act upon.

What was the situation prior to launching the new programme?

Fidelity has over 2.5 million clients in 28 countries, and we were running 30 separate voice of the client programmes across the business. Customer feedback largely remained within these different programmes, making it difficult to compare client experience across regions and channels. We recognised there was an opportunity for greater integration, which would enable us to prioritise actions and investments 鈥� ultimately improving client experience.

What did you do to overcome these challenges?

We formed a dedicated global voice of the client team to work with 糖心原创 on a new globally consistent approach. The new programme incorporates both relationship and touchpoint NPS, using surveys and touchpoint monitors. We trained over 1,000 Fidelity employees, which means every colleague can access, understand and act on client feedback as part of their everyday work.

Can you give an example of how Fidelity promoted culture change in the business?

Sure. To highlight senior leadership鈥檚 commitment to customer obsession, our Executive Level Close Loop programme invites senior leaders to make outbound calls to 鈥榗lose the loop鈥� with customers and address issues that have been raised in surveys. The initiative underlines the fact that 鈥� from the top down 鈥� we鈥檙e actively creating opportunities to put the customer at the very heart of all that we do.

Thanks to global consistency, you鈥檝e gained broader insights across the business. Are there ways that the new programme also gives you deeper insights, too?

The analytics team overlays behavioural metadata onto NPS feedback, so we鈥檙e able to better diagnose where journey improvements should be targeted. This adds up to richer customer insights than we had before. We also introduced 糖心原创鈥檚 text analytics as part of the initiative, so we鈥檝e gained a more nuanced understanding of what customers are saying through the open comments they leave in survey feedback, which then informs our future planning around customer experience improvements where it matters most in the customer journey. 

How do you make sure the insights you鈥檙e developing result in action?

The new programme is closely integrated with the work of our analytics team so we can link customer feedback to business metrics and understand the impact of client experience on strategic outcomes like net sales, numbers of customers selling their investments to move away from Fidelity, share of wallet and profitability. As well as helping to inform continuous improvement activities within the business, connecting insights about our customers with financial data in this way gives us powerful predictive modelling capabilities. For example, we use analysis to foresee whether clients are at risk of churn. Our client-facing staff can then steer conversations with at-risk customers to better meet their needs and improve retention. 

Read the case study and learn more about how Fidelity International uses voice of the client to increase revenue and customer satisfaction.

The company wants to be known for being the CDMO partner of choice and hearing the voice of the customer is a major step in this direction. They have also partnered with , a leader in customer experience strategy and customer insights, to help activate their goal of putting the customer at the center.

We recently caught up with Olesya Govorun, Global CX Marketing Lead at Pfizer CentreOne, to learn more about why customer experience is vital to their business.

Why is Customer Experience important to Pfizer CentreOne?

The pharmaceutical outsourcing industry is highly competitive. According to , the top 10 players in the CDMO market own less than 30% of the share, with the largest players holding only 2%-4% each. This gives customers lots of choice!

At Pfizer CentreOne, we believe that customer experience is an important differentiator for our business. Based on the feedback from current and prospective customers, we know that how we deliver is as important as what and when we deliver. Customers want to be heard and cared for, and mutual trust, respect, and partnership are more important than ever.

Our customers鈥� molecules are the lifeblood of their business, and we take utmost care in helping them bring their medicines to market as efficiently as possible, based on Pfizer鈥檚 own experience in launching innovative treatments. With each new project, we want our customers to experience what Pfizer CentreOne has to offer 鈥� expertise, transparency, reliability and care.

How have customer expectations changed over time?

Like nearly everyone else, our customers use Amazon, Google, Netflix, and Uber, and the standards set by these innovative technology companies are impacting expectations for our industry. One example is personalization. Customers don鈥檛 want to hear about general capabilities; instead, they want to learn about solutions for their specific challenges and circumstances. In response, our team takes great care to understand customer needs and frame each proposal as a personalized approach.

Another example is simplicity. Life is complex as it is, and a true partner should make the process of doing business as simple as possible. To that end, we recently reimagined our account management system to provide the best support to our customers and give them a single point of accountability.

How important is communication with your customers?

Customers expect transparency. The days of black-box solutions are gone. Our partners want to understand how the processes are working and how their projects are progressing through the system. In response, our teams are creating dashboards and KPIs as a joint vision of success with our customers. By benchmarking ourselves against other industries and getting inspired by best-in-class examples, we can continuously evolve and grow.