These days, it seems that I travel to events overseas more than in the United States. While many companies around the world believe they are behind U.S. companies, I can say that from first hand experience, any company pursuing the future of customer experience, innovation, and brand is ahead of the game…regardless of where it’s based. When I receive an invitation to present, it exemplifies, at least to me, that those attending the event are keen on learning about how to…
Sharing a Personal Story – A Rare Glimpse into What Inspires Me and How I Got Here
Believe it or not, I’m a private person. I know it seems ironic. After all, I was one of the early group that worked to bring social media to the forefront in the early 2000s. But, I still tend to not share personal information online. I do however, share my work freely with everyone in the hopes of creating a community of betterment in business, government and society. There are rare occasions however when I do open up to share stories that…
4 Keys to Designing New Customer Experiences
On a cold and rainy day in Minneapolis before year’s end, I joined my Prophet colleagues at Le Meridien Chambers where we hosted a breakfast of brand champions. It was the second time this year that I was invited to speak to some of the city’s (and the country’s) most prominent companies and this time I had even more new research and ideas to share. During the two hours that we were together, I presented findings from “The 6 Stages of Digital…
CX Starts with Understanding Today’s Customer Experience, Then Designing Them To Be Amazing and Integrated
The following discussion represents Part 2 of my conversation with Loyalty360 CEO and CMO Mark Johnson. In this last part of the series, Change Starts with You Altimeter Group’s Principal Analyst Brian Solis is dedicated to creating change within brands and bringing customer experience into the spotlight. The first step, Solis told Loyalty360 in a recent discussion, is to define the CX problem and use that to guide solutions. More specifically, he challenged businesses to rethink what CX really means across the…
It’s Time to Change How Companies Perceive Customer Experience (CX)
Last year, I spent time with Mark Johnson, CEO and CMO of Loyalty360, to discuss all things Customer Experience (CX). The conversation was so rich, it resulted into a two-part series exclusively for the Loyalty360 community. Now however, I’ve been given the green light to share the conversation (parts 1 and 2) with you here. Part 1 – This is the Year of Customer Experience If you ask 100 executives what customer experience means to them, you would likely get 100 different answers. The need to…
Wynn Las Vegas Hires Digital Butlers, Places Amazon Echo in 4,748 Guest Rooms
Many hotels offer USAToday for guests. Now guests at the Wynn Las Vegas will simply say, “Alexa, read today’s USAToday headlines.” I believe the future of any brand is directly tied to the experiences they design and deliver consistently through the customer lifecycle. It’s not just any one thing, it’s everything. That’s the definition of customer experience after all. It’s not the technology company’s invest in, nor the touch points they modernize, nor the new policies and processes they introduce…
An Intern’s Review of WTF: What’s the Future of Business
One of the little known stories about my previous book, What’s the Future of Business: Changing the way businesses create experiences, is that I wrote and published it after I had started my latest book, X: The Experience when business meets design. While it stands on its own, WTF is technically a companion book to X and can be read as a part 2 of sorts. One of the lesser known facts about WTF, is that it wasn’t even on my docket….
The Importance of Designing Customer Experiences
SXSW is one of my favorite events of the year for many reasons. It’s an experience where serendipity becomes the new gravity and almost everyone you meet has incredible stories to share. Upon arrival in Austin, I drove straight from the airport to the Sysomos lounge to see my dear friend Amber Naslund and her team. She was kind enough to host my very first booksigning of X the evening before SXSW was set to kick-off. The place was packed! What…
Introducing a framework for experience architecture
Alan Quarry is one of those people that makes you smile and earns your trust and respect within minutes. He also has a pretty killer video setup. Alan invited me on his show to talk about X and I gladly accepted. The minute I plugged-in to his video feed though, I instantly wished I could teleport to his studio. #jealous. In X, I introduce framework for experience architecture and how one can become an xperience architect. We talk about what that…
An Xclusive Look Behind the Story of X and Why Experiences Really Matter [VIDEO]
I was recently in Orange County, Calif., where I had the opportunity to share insights from X and also host a book signing for the LinkedOC community. While there, event organizer Bryan Elliot and entrepreneur extraordinaire shot an episode for his popular business TV series, “Behind the Brand.” It’s a pretty epic show he produces that rivals anything you see on prime time TV. In this episode, we discuss the story behind the X, what makes experiences matter and how…