In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Kirt Manecke.Kirt is the author of the best-selling book SMILE Sell More With Amazing Customer Service.We had an interesting conversation about how Kirt has transformed the businesses he's run and worked for through incredible customer service.It's often the simple things that when done well make the greatest impact. Kirt's book is a testament to this philosophy and is an easy read designed for quick implementation.Anyone involved in working with other people, not even just those working with customers, can get value from Kirt's expertise.Here are the Top 10 things to do according to Kirt, listen in to get some context for each one...1) Smile2) Make a friend3) Answer the phone with a smile4) Say please and thank you5) Acknowledge new customers - Even when you're busy6) Never ask "Can I help you?"7) Uncover your customer's ultimate buying motive8) Probe (Ask Questions)9) Listen10) Know your product and your competition To get a copy of Kirt's book or to buy it for your team, go to smilethebook.com To learn how to build a comprehensive Customer Strategy for your business, grab a copy of my FREE download called the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must Have.

Customer Strategy Podcast

Episode 27: Kirt Manecke - Smile, Sell More With Amazing Customer Service

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Sri Ganesan, Founder, and CEO of Rocketlane.Rocketlane helps businesses accelerate customer time to value by delivering a transparent, consistent, and delightful customer onboarding journey every single time.Sri and I had an interesting conversation about what it was like to have his previous business acquired by a large company and then continue to build for 4.5 years!Sri and his team then set to work on removing the challenges and complexities they saw when it came to onboarding customers.Spreadsheets, Trello, Slack, internal docs, external docs, etc are all used in some form or fashion today when onboarding customers but they create siloed workstreams. This not only affects the people running the project but also affects the customer experience.Rocketlane brings everything together in one tightly knit experience. Documents, tasks, communication, notifications, etc. all live in one place.To learn more about Rocketlane, visit Rocketlane.com To learn how to build a comprehensive Customer Strategy for your business, grab a copy of my FREE download called the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must Have.

Episode 26: Sri Ganesan - Founder and CEO of Rocketlane

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Gil Baumgarten, founder, and CEO of Segment Wealth Management.Gil built a billion-dollar advisory firm in less than 10 years on the back of incredible customer engagement strategies.Gil and I get into the specific strategies that have enabled his success. Here are some of the strategies we discuss:- Advocacy - What it means to do everything for your client even if it's not in your best interest...- How to do personalization at scale...- How to use an old-school technique to break through and make a connection with a client...- And much, much, more...To learn more about Gil and Segment, visit SegmentWM.com and GilBaumgarten.com. To learn how to build a comprehensive Customer Strategy for your business, grab a copy of my FREE download called the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must Have.

Episode 25: Gil Baumgarten - CEO of Segment Wealth Management

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Howard Tiersky, author of the Wall Street Journal Bestseller: Winning Digital Customers, The Antidote To Irrelevance.Howard is one of the top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers in the world and has worked with brands like Verizon, NBC, Nutrisystem, Viacom, Avis, Universal Studios, JPMC, Facebook, Spotify, and Amazon just to name a few.Howard and I had a great discussion about his 5-Step Methodology that any company can follow to better understand their customers and deliver an incredible experience.In Howard's words, "Winning with customers is about doing a better job of solving their pain and giving them more delight than your competitors."If you want to find out how to do this, click play to listen to our conversation.You can grab a copy of Howard's book along with the first chapter for free at WinningDigitalCustomers.com.

Episode 24: Howard Tiersky - Winning Digital Customers, The Antidote To Irrelevance

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Wayne McCulloch who is the author of the brand new book: The 7 Pillars of Customer Success.This book is a blueprint for how to build a world-class Customer Success organization and should be read by every Customer Success professional.Wayne does a brilliant job of distilling his vast Customer Success experience from working at companies like IBM, Salesforce, Looker, and his current role running all Customer Success for Google Cloud.To get a copy of The 7 Pillars of Customer Success, visit CSPillars.com Resources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the show

Episode 23: Wayne McCulloch - The 7 Pillars of Customer Success

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Donna Weber who is a customer onboarding expert and the author of the book Onboarding Matters: How Successful Companies Transform New Customers Into Loyal Champions.In our discussion, we talked about the need for an orchestrated customer onboarding, the 6 stages of an orchestrated onboarding, and the principles behind an incredible customer onboarding.Donna shared some practical tips, tricks, and strategies to help you improve your customer onboarding to turn those new customers into loyal champions.To get a copy of Donna's book, go to Donnaweber.com/bookResources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the show

Episode 22: Donna Weber - Onboarding Matters

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Dana Soza who is the founder and CEO of customereverything.com.Dana has just released an e-book called How To Land & Succeed in a Customer Success Career: The Success Playbook for Your Employment Journey.Dana used Customer Success frameworks from me and other thought leaders to create a playbook to guide your CS career. She covers everything from how to get a job to how to advance your career to the C-level.I thought this was a very unique approach and we got into all of the details in this episode.If you'd like to get a FREE copy of Dana's ebook, simply go to https:customereverything.com/ebookResources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 21: Dana Soza

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Matt Barnett, Founder, and CEO of Bonjoro.Bonjoro is a personalized video messaging service that can be used at specific points in your sales or customer success processes to engage in a meaningful way with your customers. The user is presented with a notification that something happened like a new customer joined and will be prompted to record a short 30-second video welcoming them.We got into an interesting conversation around how engaging your customers in a unique and personalized way at specific points is a critical component of your Customer Strategy. Ultimately, engagement with your customers is all about getting them to take the next step.Listen in to find out how you can do this in a highly-personalized way.Resources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 20: Matt Barnett

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Ruben Rabago, Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at Intellum, and Greg Rose, Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Intellum.Intellum is combining Customer Experience and Education to help large brands and fast-moving companies achieve the business outcomes that really matter.Ruben just joined Intellum as CCO a week before recording this episode so we got to dig into what the short-term and long-term goals look like for a new CCO joining an organization.If you have ever been curious about the role of a CCO, you are going to enjoy this episode.We discussed a number of leadership topics and if you would like to learn more, pick up a copy of Nils' book 30 Day Leadership Playbook: Your Guide To Becoming The Leader You Have Always Wanted To Be.

Episode 19: Ruben Rabago and Greg Rose

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Shreesha Ramdas who is the co-founder of Strikedeck, which is now a Medallia company and serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager.Shreesha and I talk about how companies can better achieve retention, expansion, and advocacy in their customer base by utilizing customer health scoring. Whether you are just beginning your journey with a customer health score, or you want to know how to take your customer health score to the next level, you'll find some great direction in this episode. Resources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 18: Shreesha Ramdas

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Alex Katzman, the chief growth officer at Enervee.Alex and I talk about how to develop a joint roadmap that's aligned between the customer and Enervee in a way that allows them to deliver value as soon as possible and help Enervee grow down the line. Enervee provides Choice Engines that empower consumers to choose the energy-saving consumer products and clean vehicles they aspire to. We transform energy efficiency and electric vehicle programs by using the Enervee Score to save customers on their energy costs without any incentives required. Enervee partners with innovative electric and gas utilities reaching over 28 million households in the US.Resources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 17: Alex Katzman

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Sara Bochino, Director of Customer Success at Integrate. Sarah and I got into an interesting conversation around how to build an executive sponsorship program that not only scales but also gets executives involved early in the process. With everything going on in the world today, you can never have too many touchpoints with your customers, especially at an executive level.Resources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 16: Sara Bochino

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Jennifer Chiang. Jennifer is the Director of Customer success at Yup.Jennifer and I got into an interesting conversation about the challenges she was facing when onboarding new employees in the company.Up to now, Jennifer has been able to spend a lot of time with every new hire infusing empathy and understanding for Yup's customers.However, the company is growing and she is no longer able to spend time 1:1 with every new hire.Ultimately, we came up with a great solution to scale what Jennifer was doing to deliver the same result and give her time back.Resources mentioned:Download the 5 Things Your Customer Strategy Must HaveWhat to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 15: Jennifer Chiang

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Maranda Dziekonski, the VP of Customer Success and People Operations for Swiftly. With everything that is going on right now with the global pandemic, Miranda and I talked about the challenges and some strategies for handling engagement and renewal conversations with their customers. Neither Maranda nor I have a crystal ball and know how to handle this perfectly because frankly, this situation has never happened before.But it was really helpful to talk through some of the situations, permutations and ways that the team at Swiftly is engaging with their clients.Resources mentioned:Download the Customer Strategy Method Blueprint.What to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 14: Maranda Dziekonski

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Jake Jorgovan. Jake is the founder and CEO of Content Allies, a firm that specializes in helping industry experts and consultants become thought leaders through content marketing.Jake and I got into an interesting conversation around how to drive the urgency and engagement of his clients. Some of his clients sign up for a service and then don’t engage. When this happens, the Content Allies team has to chase them down and try to prod them in order to engage. Jake has made the work that needs to be done by the client as easy as possible but there's a key element missing. That is what we dig into and what's going to make a real difference.We get really hands-on in this conversation and I’m happy to report that after we recorded this episode, Jake put everything we discussed into action. The changes he made have had a big impact on customer relationships and their ability to deliver a result as quickly as possible.Resources mentioned:Download the Customer Strategy Method Blueprint.What to do next:Click here to become a guest on the showApply to work with Nils

Episode 13: Jake Jorgovan

Listen in each week as Nils Vinje helps CEOs, COOs, Chief Revenue Officers, VPs, Directors and Individuals just like you, improve the customer strategy of their businesses so that they can grow their customer revenue.