Top 50 Customer Service Leaders – Best Customer Experience Influencers

 

We are honored to be honored for our work alongside so many of our customer service and customer experience colleagues. At Storyminers, we are grateful for the recognition and realize that the real credit goes to the professionals on the front lines of the daily challenge of gaining support for ideas that will positively change businesses and deliver more value to customers.

Thought leaders come in all shapes and sizes. In the Internet age, it’s hard to control which leaders are real and which aren’t. This is especially true in the customer service industry. Customer Experience (CX) was catapulted into one of the most important aspects of determining business success.

At Netomi, we care deeply about improving the customer experience. So much so that we’ve built an AI tool to help automate mundane, low-touch tasks that leave support teams overwhelmed. We fully recognize and appreciate that there are several ways in which CX can and should be improved that have nothing to do with Artificial Intelligence. That’s why we feel compelled to introduce our readers to a broader group of people who inspire a world of great customer experience.

Every thought leader brings so much to a table that it was impossible to sort a list in any way other than alphabetical order . We’ve documented in detail why we’ve chosen each of these customer service leaders, along with where to follow them on social media below.

Adam Toporek

Adam Toporek is an internationally recognized customer service specialist, speaker and frontline trainer who helps as associations get results by thinking differently about customer service. A generation generator with extensive experience in retail, wholesale, franchising and small business, Adam understands the impact that customer experience can have on bottom line.

As author of Be Your Customerer’s Hero, founder of the popular Customers That Stick® blog, and co-author of the Crack the Customer Code podcast, Adam regularly shares his customer experience and customer service insights with a global audience. He has appeared in over 150 media and is regularly cited as a thought leader in customer experience. In addition to his customer experience work, Adam is an angel investor with an interest in entrepreneurs who disrupt the status quo through innovation.

 

Adrian Swinscoe

 

Adrian helps associations of all sizes deliver better customer service and experience in two ways:

He acts as a consultant on specific service/experience/involvement issues on an ongoing or project-by-project basis and 2) he helps clients build internal teams and leader resources through mentoring, through white papers, keynotes and masterclasses.

Their clients range from large publicly traded companies to leading professional services companies and small fast-growing companies, including Apple, Diesel, Freshworks, KFC, Pearson, Shell, etc… in addition to many smaller brands and SMEs.

Adrian is also a bestselling author, Forbes contributor, blogger and podcaster, and frequent conference speaker, panelist, and Chari. His best-selling book in 2016 is called  How to Surprise: 68 Effortless Ways to Make Every Customer Experience.

Aimee Lucas

 

Aimee Lucas is a researcher, consultant, trainer and speaker in experience management. As part of Qualtrics’ XM Institute, she focuses her efforts on helping organizations optimize their experience management (XM) programs. She leads the XM Institute’s research on CX and EX best practices and broader organizational resources to build loyalty, enhanced by customer and employee experiences. Aimee has more than 20 years of experience improving service delivery and transforming CX through people development and process improvement initiatives.

His areas of expertise include market research, program management, marketing, instructional design and training. Aims to join Qualtrics when it acquired the Temkin Group, a leading CX consulting and research firm. Prior to joining the Temkin Group, she implemented a CX strategy and managed the Voice of the Customer program for Crowe Horwath LLP, one of the top 10 accounting and consulting firms in the United States. Aimee is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and graduated in marketing management from the University of Notre Dame.

Annette Franz

Annette Franz is a founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She has over 25 years of experience (on both the customer and supplier side) helping the company understand its employees and customers and identify what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement and overall experience – for employees, customers and companies to reap the benefits and achieve the desired results.

She recently wrote the book on customer understanding! She is the author of Understanding Making the  Customer: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in the Customer Experience (Not the Heart of the Business) .

Annette was named one of the “100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider and is recognized by companies around the world as a top influencer on the customer experience.

Arie Goldshlager

Arie is an Independent Consultant on Customer Insight, Customer Strategy, Customer Lifecycle Management and Innovation. Arie’s customer lifecycle management work is focused on developing customer strategy and improving the performance of: acquisition processes, customer integration, customer development, customer loyalty, and customer recovery.

His Customer Insight work is focused on developing innovative replacement, targeting, analysis and evaluation solutions.

Arie’s top consulting clients include: Prodigy, Safeway, FedEx, USAA, Capital One, BT Wireless (O2), Sumsung Card, LG Capital and many more. Arie’s industry specialties include: Financial Services, Credit Card, Consumer Credit, Retail, Internet, Telecommunications and other service companies.

His diverse experience includes mandates built on the client side, the consulting side, and the agency side. Arie is also an effective leader of call center performance improvement projects and is particularly adept at balancing business, customer, and front-line perspectives.

Augie Ray

 

Augie Ray is an analyst vice president covering customer experience (CX) for marketing and CX leaders. His cover titles include CX ROI, CX strategy and governance, how CX leaders secure and retain sponsorship, buy / own / defend customer journey, voice of the customer (VoC) and research strategy, customer journey mapping, analytics and CX measurement, the role of social media and word of mouth (WOM) in CX and personality development.

Mr. Ray helps CX and marketing leaders launch and manage successful CX programs, gather and use voice of the customer (VoC) data more effectively, align CX metrics with key success indicators, and improve usage of customer journey maps and personas. It also provides guidance on the “customer experience pyramid,” which helps brands define experiences as more important and identify more powerful and innovative experiences.

 

Barry Dalton

Barry Dalton is a CX technology leader and customer experience strategy leader with accomplishments in the design and implementation of technology strategy and architecture in marketing, sales and services with an industry-specific focus on consumer products, pharmaceuticals, retail and technology. After taking on various roles at Deloitte, Strategy and GSK, he has served as Vice President of Digital Transformation and Analytics at Genpact since May 2018.

He is currently focused on two areas:

• The impact of disruption to the digital customer experience, the next wave of emerging customer engagement channels, and the value of unstructured VOC data on understanding customer behavior and generating demand.
• The revolution that digital engagement and collaboration is having in business leadership and organizational communication.

Bill Quiseng

 

Bill is an award-winning speaker, blogger and writer in the areas of customer service for frontline associates and leadership for managers.

Bill has over thirty years of luxury resort/club management experience. Currently the general manager of Marriott Vacation Club Pulse San Diego, he was the general manager of The Inn at Bay Harbor – A Renaissance Golf Resort, MI, recognized as one of the best hotels in the world by Travel + Leisure magazine.

Bill’s personal accomplishments include the Renaissance Hotels General Manager of the Year recipient, the Marriott International Leadership Excellence and Sales Excellence Awards, the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce Mission Award, and the American Hotel & Motel Association’s Pearson Award for Excellence in Journalism of Hosting.

Bill was recognized for his customer service and insight into the customer experience with the following accolades: Userlike 11 Customer Service Gurus, Fonolo Top 10 Tweeters on Customer Experience, Future Care Today Top Ten Customer Social Service Influencers, and SAP Business Innovation Top 60 Customer Experience Influencers.

Bob Thompson

 

Bob Thompson is an international authority on customer-centric business management who has researched and shaped key industry trends since 1998. He is founder and CEO of CustomerThink Corporation, an independent research and publishing firm, founder and editor-in-chief of CustomerThink. com, the world’s largest online community dedicated to helping business leaders to develop and implement customer-centric businesses.

Author, speaker, and international authority on business management trends, he has been a thought leader in customer-centricity since 1998. His new book addicted to customers (April 2014) reveals the five habits of leading customer-centric companies. Thompson is also co-author of The Blueprint to CRM Success and author of the groundbreaking report “Customer Experience Management: A Winning Business Strategy for a Flat World.”

Before starting his company, Thompson did not have an IT sector for fifteen years. He has held sales and technical leadership roles at IBM, where he advised companies on the strategic use of information technology to solve business problems and gain competitive advantage.

Bruce Temkin

 

Bruce is seen as one of the foremost experts on how large associations build differentiation with the customer experience. During his 12 years at Forrester Research, Bruce has led the company’s B2B, financial services, and customer experience practices. As Vice President and Principal Analyst, he has been the most read analyst for 13 consecutive quarters and one of the most sought-after consultants and speakers in the industry. Bruce is the author of many of Forrester’s most popular research reports. He also led the creation and updating of many of Forrester’s customer experience assessment methodologies and training workshops.

After leaving Forrester, Bruce founded the Temkin Group, a research and consulting firm. As a managing partner, he has consulted with global companies, served as a keynote speaker at key industry events, researched customer experience trends, and authored Customer Experience Matters – one of the most popular blogs on customer experience. The Temkin Group was acquired by Qualtrics in October 2018. The company is a leader in customer experience research, consulting and training (CX).

Chip Bell

 

Chip Bell is a highly sought after speaker and prolific writer. His 23rd book, “Kaleidoscope: Delivering an Innovative Service That Shines,” was released in February 2017 and is an inspiring guide to delivering outstanding service. He won the 2017 Best Book Award for Business Books after winning a silver medal at the North American Book Awards. His newest book, Inside Your Client’s Imagination, released in September 2020.

Chip Bell is a highly sought after speaker and prolific writer. His 23rd book, “Kaleidoscope: Delivering an Innovative Service That Shines,” was released in February 2017 and is an inspiring guide to delivering outstanding service. He won the 2017 Best Book Award for Business Books after winning a silver medal at the North American Book Awards. His newest book, Inside Your Client’s Imagination, released in September 2020.

 

Colin Shaw

 

He is founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps associations grow by identifying hidden and unmet need for knowledge. Colin’s company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, helps associations unlock growth by discovering how hidden, unmet customer needs create value ($). They capitalize on this improving the customer experience to meet these needs, retaining and acquiring new customers in the market. The Financial Times selected your company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, as one of the best management consultancies

Colin is recognized by LinkedIn as one of the ‘150 biggest business influencers in the world’. Brand Quarterly readers have also named him one of the ‘Top 50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’ for two consecutive years. A survey of Global Guru or Controle as one of the top ‘Customer Service Gurus’ in the world.

Colin has written seven best-selling books on customer-driven growth. He is the co-host of the highly successful Intuitive Client podcast.

Colin is an excellent criteria speaker who can inspire associations to focus on their customers. His followers can subscribe to his ‘Why We Buy’ LinkedIn newsletter.

Dan Gingiss

 

Dan’s 20-year career has consistently focused on pleasing customers. He has held leadership positions at three Fortune 300 companies – McDonald’s, Discover and Humana – in customer experience, marketing, social media and customer service.

He is an international speaker who believes that outstanding customer experience is his best marketing. Dan doesn’t just talk about the customer experience; his fast-paced and energetic presentation style creates an experience for his audience that they are sure to remember.

Dan is the author of the book,  Winning Social Customer Service: How Top Brands Create Engaging Social Media Experiences, a host of the Experience This! Show the podcast and be a regular contributor to Forbes. He was named one of the “Top 100 Digital Marketers of 2019” by Brand24 and BuzzSumo and a “Top 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Follow” by TopRank.

 

David Avrin

 

As one of the most requested speakers and customer experience consultants in the world today, David Avrin offers profound wisdom to clients and audiences around the world. With a surprisingly relatable, conversational, and highly entertaining style, David delivers deeply insightful content and content to business audiences across a wide range of industries and categories.

His message and timely lessons on creating, delivering and promoting competitive advantage were enthusiastically received by audiences across America and around the world.

A former CEO group leader and executive coach for the world’s largest chief executive organization, David serves as CEO and business leader in his business brand, customer experience and competitive advantage.

David Avrin is the author of five books, including the famous marketing books:  It’s not who you know, it’s who you know! and  Visibility Marketing! ,   His latest Customer Experience book:  Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back)  was highlighted in Forbes as   “One of the 7 Business Books Entrepreneurs Need to Read”   and one of the  “Ten Best Business Books by 2019 ″

Denise Lee Yohn

 

Through her experience and personal approach, Denise has become a sought-after speaker, inspiring business leaders around the world to build great brands and exceptional organizations. Her key presentations captivated international audiences at schools such as TEDx, Consumer Electronics Show, The Art of Marketing, among others, and in corporate events for Facebook, Lexus, NFL and more.

Denise has written several books, including the best-selling book What Big Brands Do: The Seven Brand Building Principles That Separate the Best from the Rest . She is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes and has been a sought-after writer for publications such as Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Knowledge @ Wharton, ChangeThis, Seeking Alpha, QSR Magazine, and others.

Denise has served as chief strategist in advertising agencies for Burger King, Land Rover and Unilever and as a marketing leader and analyst for Jack in the Box restaurants and Spiegel catalogs. Denise went on to head Sony Electronic Inc.’s first branding office, where they considered major corporate awards as vice president/general manager of branding and strategy. She has served clients as an independent consulting partner since 2004.

Dennis Wakabayashi

 

Dennis is an innovative Customer Experience evangelist with an in-depth understanding of consumer engagement, digital media and reporting analytics.

As a well-known CX subject matter expert, he teaches CX for safaribooksonline.com/Orielly Media as well as CX Marketing classes at SMU. He regularly posts about digital media and consumer experience on sites such as brandwatch. More recently, he was named one of the 40+ for the US Digital Campaign.

Today, Dennis and his team at Integer Group offer integrated engagement programs that enhance brand reputation and drive integrated success for clients such as FedEx Office, Wells Fargo, Starbucks and See’s Candies.

 

Evan Shumeyko

 

Evan is currently focused on the Customer Experience Strategy for BNY Mellon, removing unnecessary complexity and processes to become more agile and able to rethink how they are customers to deliver and maximize value.

Previously, he founded Ogilvy & Mather’s strategic practice (sales training, service design and employee experience) charged with “making brands more human”. Evan has completed assignments for major clients such as American Express, Southwest Airlines, FM Global, IBM, Dupont, BlackRock, E*Trade, etc. He is an expert at transforming the way employees work with customers through various digital marketing strategies. It empowers employees with actionable data and user interfaces to help increase customer engagement.

 

Flavio Martins

 

Flavio is the Vice President of Operations and Customer Support for DigiCert, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise SSL certificate management and PKI technology for IoT security. DigiCert is trusted by representatives of government, educational and Fortune 500 agencies.

Flavio holds a BA in Information Technology from Utah Valley University and a Master of Technology Management from Denver University. His focus is on helping teams leverage technology with the special human factor to create exceptional and memorable customer experiences.

Flavio is an award-winning customer service blogger, customer service fanatic, and has a mission to show that associations can use the customer experience as a competitive advantage and build customer loyalty.

Frank eliason

 

Frank Eliason is an American executive and writer. Named “the most famous customer service manager in the US, possibly the world” by  BusinessWeek , Eliason is best known for developing the use of social media in the practice of customer relations.

He joined Comcast as an Executive Support Manager in 2007 during a period of high-profile public relations issues. In 2008, Eliason, as part of the team assigned to address issues, created the @ComcastCares Twitter account and began responding directly to customer complaints. Eliason, who interacted with more than 10,000 Comcast customers via Twitter, was the subject of declining press attention; he has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Wired, The Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Forbes and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications.

In July 2010, Eliason left Comcast to become Citi’s global director of social media. After receiving multiple recognitions for his role at Citi, Eliason was named Executive VP, US Digital and Customer Experience for Zeno Group in October 2015. He serves on the BoD for the Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals.

Hilary George-Parkin

 

You won’t find Hilary on many “Customer Service Thought Leaders” lists, but she does have one of the most extensive customer service articles you’ll find on the Internet. Hilary is a freelance journalist in New York City. She has (mostly) demanded on fashion, culture, retail and technology for publications including Vox, Glamour, CNN, Racked, Refinery29, Fashionista, iD, Vice News, Curbed and TheAtlantic.com. She also contributes regularly to Footwear News, covering the retail sector. You can find these stories here.

Before going freelance, Hilary studied for Stylecaster, Lucky Magazine (RIP), Styleite (idem) and Harper’s Bazaar. She graduated from New York University and Columbia Journalism School, and she is known from Toronto, Canada. If Hilary continues to write about customer service, we’ll keep reading

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Ian Golding

 

A highly influential self-employed customer experience consultant, Ian advises leading companies on customer experience strategy, qualified, improvement, and employee advocacy solutions. Ian works across multiple industries and has deployed Customer Experience tools and methodologies around the world. Internationally renowned speaker and blogger on the subject of customer experience (ijgolding.com/blog), Ian also served on the inaugural board of the CXPA (Customer Experience Professionals Association).

In 2014, he officially became a Certified Customer Experience Professional. The CCXP designation is for professionals who want to be happy about their experience and skills in setting industry standards and best practices. It is the first global professional qualification for Customer Experience.

Ian is also chairman of the UK Customer Experience Awards and Gulf Customer Experience Awards judging panel and is a featured consultant and columnist for CustomerThink.

Ian’s first book, ‘Customer What, The Honest and Practical Guide to the Customer Experience’ was published in April 2018.

Jay Baer

 

Jay Baer, ​​​​CSP, CPAE has spent 25 years in digital marketing and customer experience, consulting for over 700 companies during that period, including 34 from FORTUNE 500. His current company – Convince & Convert – offers word of mouth, marketing digital and customer experience consulting and consulting for some of the world’s top brands.

His new book, Talk Triggers, is the complete guide to creating customers using strategic operating differentiators that force word of mouth. Talk Triggers is the instruction manual for growing business with customer conversation.

Jay’s Convince & Convert blog was named the #1 content marketing blog in the world by the Content Marketing Institute and is visited by over 250,000 marketers every month. Jay also hosts and produces the Social Pros podcast, which is downloaded 65,000 times a month and was named Best Marketing Podcast of 2015 by the Content Marketing Awards.

A constant presence on social media, Jay has been named one of the top influencers of CMOs, B2B marketers, small business owners and digital marketers. He is also one of the world’s top Global Gurus in Customer Service and Customer Experience.

Jeanne Bliss

 

Jeanne Bliss guides the achievement of business growth through leadership bravery and lofty business practices. It is known globally for transforming businesses for customer-driven growth. 5 times CCO and coach of over 20,000 leaders, her practices have been field tested and proven. Bliss’ 5 Competencies for Customer-Driven Growth have been adopted around the world, and her 4 best-selling books on customer experience and leadership are guides to the CX profession. Jeanne Bliss has delivered more than 1,500 transformative talks around the world, has trained more than 20,000 leaders in leadership to elevate her company to market with sustainable growth. Jeanne Bliss is co-founder of the Customer Experience Professional Association and affectionately known as a “Godmother ” of the customer experience.

Jeff Toister

 

Jeff Toister is an author, consultant and trainer who helps make your employees obsessed with customer service.

He is a bestselling author who has written three customer service books:   The Culture Service Manual , Start the Service Right , and The Customer Service Tip of the Week. Its   Inside Customer Service blog was recognized as one of the top customer service blogs by Customer Contact Center, Credit Donkey and Feedspot, which ranked it as one of the top 50 customer service blogs on the planet. Jeff helps clients develop customer-focused cultures. He has been recognized by various associations as a leading thinker in customer service. Thousands of customer service professionals around the world subscribe to Jeff’s ‘Customer Service Tip of the Week’ email.

Jeff is a dynamic speaker and presentations are always highly interactive, practical and engaging. More than 140,000 people took one of his video-based training courses on LinkedIn Learning, including  Leading a Customer-Centric Culture, Customer Service Fundamentals  and  Working with Troubled Customers.

Jeremy Watkin

Jeremy has over 19 years of experience as a customer service professional, leading high-performance teams in the contact center. Jeremy has been recognized as an innovative leader for his writings and speaking on a variety of diverse, including quality management, outsourcing, customer experience, contact center technology and more. When he’s not working, you can usually find him spending quality time with his wife Alicia and their three kids, running around with his dog or dreaming of native trout growing into a size 16 moose hair caddis.

 

 

 

Jill Raff

 

Jill Raff, founder and driving force of the Jill Raff Group, is a highly experienced CX (Customer Experience) strategist and published author. For more than 30 years, it has provided world-class customer services and experiences.

Jill developed her customer-first philosophy by growing up in the “McDonald’s family”. In 1959, her family opened store #150 in Ocala, Florida. From the age of seven, while following her father and working every station in the restaurant, she experienced firsthand the results of founder Ray Kroc’s philosophy of QSC & V (Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value). Jill was raised with a solid understanding of a strong work ethic and knowing what good customer service can ultimately do for a company.

Jill has made a name for herself by empowering companies to create corporate cultures that deliver extraordinary customer experiences so that customers become obsessed with doing business with them. This work was led by the creation of its proprietary Inside-Out Framework™.

Jim Tincher

 

With an enduring passion for customer experiences, Jim founded a Customer Heart to help companies of all sizes increase customer engagement. Prior to launching a company, Jim led customer engagement initiatives at Best Buy, Gallup and UnitedHealth Group. In the process, he will become an expert in using the Voice of the Customer survey to identify unmet needs, develop new products and improve customer service. Your Customer Heart Customer Experience Model™ is a powerful tool designed with a simple goal: customer loyalty. Customers, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, use their maps to visualize the path to improving performance.

His fascination with the customer experience led him to test himself by becoming a Certified in Customer Experience, only second in the world to receive such a designation. Jim is a frequent speaker, helping employees engage customers through a personal connection. Jim teaches that true customer engagement only happens when you solve a problem and create a personal connection as you do. He is a dynamic speaker, passionate about building a world-class customer experience that results in engaged customers who keep coming back.

Kate Nasser

 

Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™ and Founder/President of CAS, Inc. is a former technology expert turned skills guru who turns interaction learners into business success.

For 30 years, Fortune 500 leaders have chosen Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach ™ to create dynamic inspirational leadership, high-performance teamwork and superior customer experiences. In every lecture and workshop, Kate’s insights are intended to teach how to boost morale, engage employees like never before, and impress the customer with personal comfort.

Kate Nasser is also a founder/host of the weekly Twitter Global People Skills Chat (hashtag #PeopleSkillsChat) every Sunday at 10:00 AM EDT. She is frequently cited in industry journals about morale, employee engagement, customer experience and teamwork. Kate has been named to Huffington Posts’ Top 100 Customer Service Professionals, to a Simplr Customer Experience Stars list for 2018, and to ICMI’s Top 50 Customer Experience Thought Leaders of 2017.

Kate Leggett

 

Kate serves application development and delivery professionals. She specializes in customer relationship management (CRM) and customer service strategies, maturity, benchmarking, governance and ROI. She is an excellent speaker and frequently presents at industry events such as CRM Evolution. It has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine and industry publications such as CRM Magazine, KM World and Destination CRM.

Kate has broad industry experience, with more than 10 years of leadership in CRM and customer service software companies, where she has held senior product marketing and product management positions. She is also a published author on Customer Service Trends and Best Practices.

 

 

Leslie O’Flahavan

 

Leslie has taught writing courses for support center staff, customer service agents and social media managers, helping thousands of professionals hone their customer-focused writing skills. It helps support organizations train agents to write well across all service channels, measure the quality of their writing, and review and maintain their entire library of ready answers. Leslie is co-author of Clear, Correct, and Concise Email: An Essay Handout for Customer Service Agents.

 

 

 

Lincoln Murphy

 

Lincoln Murphy is a growth consultant focused on customer-centric growth. For more than a decade, he has helped hundreds of companies accelerate growth by optimizing the Customer Lifecycle, from customer acquisition to account retention and expansion and defense.

He is the author of the book Customer Success by Wiley! It helps SaaS companies grow by taking full advantage of the SaaS business model and the unique distribution methods that this model allows.

He has spoken at events and conferences around the world, from Poland to Brazil, and from Ireland to Canada, including SaaS University, Freemium Summit, SIIA On-Demand, HostingCon, Pulse, RD Summit, Revenue Summit, #FlipMyFunnel and TSW World of the TSIA.

 

Lynn Hunsaker

 

Lynn Hunsaker is Director of Customer Service for ClearAction Continuum, where she co-founded its flagship ClearAction Value Exchange as a 24×7 silo bridge mentor for marketing, CS and CX roles. During 11 years at Applied Materials (a manufacturer of semiconductor equipment) and 3 years at Sonoco, Lynn’s roles have included Director of Marketing and Business Development, Director of Marketing Communications, Head of Global Quality, Manager of Customer Satisfaction Improvement , Strategic Information Manager and Voice of the Customer Manager.

Lynn has taught more than 20 college courses at UC Berkeley Extension, San Jose State University, Mission College, and UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Extension. As a CXPA Recognized Training Provider, its Excellence in Customer Experience online course has benefited people in more than 50 countries. For 5 years, Lynn led the world’s first global study of B2B CX practices. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and is past president of the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association. Lynn is a lead author on CustomerThink.com, where she is one of five Hall of Fame Award recipients. Lynn has written three manuals available on Amazon Kindle, including Metrics You Can Manage for Success, Customer Experience Improvement Momentum, and Innovative superior customer experience.

Marsha Collier

 

Marsha Collier is an author, radio personality, podcast presenter and educator specializing in technology, Internet marketing and e-commerce.

Prior to beginning his online career, Collier owned and operated his own marketing and advertising company, The Collier Company, and won numerous awards, including “Small Company of the Year” accolades from various associations.

In 2003, her book Opening an eBay Business For Dummies appeared on BusinessWeek’s list of best-selling paperback business books. In December 2011, her book Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide: How to Connect with Your Customers to Sell More ranked #4 among “What Corporate America Is Reading”. In 2013, her book eBay Para Leigos was one of the best sellers on the subject. In 2016, with over 1 million copies of her books in print, she was an all-time bestselling author on eBay. She features the   Computer and Technology Radio podcast with announcer Mark Cohen.

Martha Brooke

 

To apply a science-based approach to improving the customer experience, Martha Brooke founded Interaction Metrics in 2004. Martha is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and holds a Blackbelt in Six Sigma.

Martha brings objectivity and a sense of curiosity to a variety of Client Listening methods. Working with her team of analysts, she measures the successes, gaps and sticking points in the customer experience – and pinpoints the details of how to improve.

To encourage critical thinking about feedback and customer service, Martha leads nationally recognized workshops and conference sessions. She also shares customer experience reviews and surveys through her  blog, which is distributed by  CustomerThink  and other portals.

Prior to Interaction Metrics, Martha specialized in two dot-com companies, Lucy.com and Food.com, and consulted for Nike and Adidas.

Some of the associations Martha Brooke spoke to include Project Management Institute (PMI), American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), HDI, The Score Conference, Customer Solutions Expo, American Marketing Association (AMA) and NICSA at the Harvard Club.

Martin Hill-Wilson

 

Martin Hill-Wilson, an independent consultant with a long history of client engagement strategy and implementation.

He was connected in the first wave of contact center implementation during the 1980s with Merchants Group, one of the first BPOs and transformation consultancies. He ended up as CEO. He is a well-known international speaker, trainer, strategist and facilitator. He also acts as coordinator of contact center and customer engagement services.

Martin teaches masterclasses and redesigns customer engagement for associations under his Brainfood brand. He is also a global authority on social customer service and co-author of ‘Delivering Effective Social Customer Service’.

 

Matt Dixon

 

Matt Dixon is the Director of Product and Research for the Austin-based AI firm, Tethr. Prior to his role at Tethr, he was the Global Head of Sales Force Effectiveness Solutions at Korn Ferry Hay Group, and prior to that, he held various global research, product development and management leadership roles for a CEB, now Gartner . A talented business researcher and writer, Matt is known for his innovative and provocative work in the areas of sales, customer service and customer experience. He is the author of three Amazon bestsellers and the Wall Street Journal – The Challenger Sale, The Effortless Experience and The Challenger Customer- and is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review with more than 20 articles in print and online to his credit. He is a sought-after speaker and consultant to management teams around the world, having presented his findings and insights across a wide range of industry checkpoints, as well as hundreds of senior executive teams, including those from many Fortune 500 companies.

 

Micah Solomon

Micah Solomon is a Customer Service Consultant, Customer Service Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Author, Senior Contributor to Forbes.com, Customer Experience Consultant, and influencer on customer service, customer experience, and corporate culture. He is the bestselling author of four books.

As a senior contributor to Forbes.com, Micah specializes in customer service, customer experience, company culture and hospitality.

He is a bestselling author of three books:  Exceptional Service: Exceptional Profit: The secrets of building a five-star customer service organization, high-tech, high-touch customer service  and  Your customer is the star. His latest book is  The Heart of Hospitality: Great Hotel and Restaurant Leaders Share Their Secrets.

Mike Wittenstein

 

Over three decades, Mike Wittenstein has successfully guided leaders and their teams through times of immense change. Its robust story-based process helps bring clarity to ideas, commitment to results, and growth through strategic thinking. Mike has performed to numerous audiences in 24 countries and over 100 cities around the world. Recognition meeting planners, event planners and corporate trainers for their accessible, understandable and positive presence in front of the public, online, in videos and with the press.

Mike’s results-oriented approach proceed as a Chick-fil-A, a Delta Airlines, a Holiday Inn, an IBM, a University of Phoenix, the Piedmont Hospital, a Transitions Optical, and hundreds of others. Together, Mike’s clients have created nearly $2 billion in value by applying their insights and proven process to the articulation, execution and adoption of their strategies and the design of stories and experiences.

Mike co-led Galileo, one of the world’s first digital agencies, and then joined IBM Global Services as an eVisionary. Now Storyminers founder and managing partner, Mike leads midmarket companies to higher operating results and profitable roles using a unique combination of Storyminers, Strategy, Experience Design and Technology.

Myra Golden

 

Myra Golden is a founder of Myra Golden Seminars, LLC. She is a longstanding data speaker and training partner for many Fortune 500 companies across the country. She creates fun and engaging lessons to use her customers to provide them with the best experience possible.

Myra’s engaging approach to customer service training is loved by her customers. Many of her clients praise her workshops.

Her impressive resume includes many of the world’s biggest companies such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Walmart, Verizon Business and more… Before Myra Golden Seminars started – which started in 1999 – Myra worked at Thrifty Rental of vehicles as global head of consumer affairs. Travel Agent Magazine praised Myra as one of the 100 Rising Stars for leading her team in restoring and building customer loyalty unprecedented in the hospitality industry.

Nate Brown

 

Nate Brown is a perpetual student of the world’s greatest experiences and the people who created them. After spending the first decade of his career managing a complex technical support environment for occupational health software and eLearning, Nate transitioned to the customer experience in 2015. After creating The CX Primer, Brown was dubbed “Influencer of the Year CX” by CloudCherry in 2019, and a CX thought leader by TruRating, Qminder, ProcedureFlow, LifeHelpNow, ICMI and Exceeders. As a passionate project, Nate recently created CX Accelerator, a world-class virtual community for Customer Experience professionals. Nate currently serves as Director of Experience for Officium Labs and can be found at a variety of conferences speaking and training on the CX topics he loves.

 

 

Nick Mehta

 

As CEO of Gainsight, Nick is working with 700 “Gainsters” to create the customer success category that is currently taking over the SaaS business model around the world. Gainsight’s industry-leading platform, the Customer Cloud, helps companies like Adobe, GE, Workday and ADP improve customer retention, accelerate revenue expansion and increase customer advocacy.

Gainsight has been the mainstay of the customer success movement, organizing a global network of events under the Pulse banner. In addition, Nick and his colleagues have written two books on customer success; Customer Success: How innovative companies are reducing churn and increasing recurring revenue, and the economics of customer success: why every aspect of your business model needs a paradigm shift.

Under Nick’s leadership, Gainsight has built an award-winning corporate culture. Just last year, Gainsight was recognized with several best workplace awards, including “Best Company Culture 2018” and “Best Company Perspective 2019” by Comparably, Inc.

Nick was named one of the top SaaS CEOs by the software report three consecutive years, one of the top CEOs of 2018 by Comparably, was a finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year award.

 

Puneet Mehta

Puneet is CEO and founder of Netomi, an artificial intelligence platform for conversational commerce. He has spent much of his career as a technology executive on Wall Street building predictive platforms for large-scale trading systems. In 2010, he co-founded MyCityWay, an award-winning, context-sensitive urban mobility platform, and in 2013 he co-founded MobileROI, a mobile marketing software.

The Advertising Age has placed Puneet on the Creativity 50 list, honoring the most creative and innovative thinkers and doers. Business Insider magazine named Puneet “The Silicon Alley 100: Coolest Tech People In 2010” and “35 Up-and-coming Entrepreneurs You Need to Know.” In his spare time, he rides and works on his vintage motorcycle, mixing music, studying minimalist industrial design and volunteering for two non-profit associations.

Richard Branson

 

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson  (born 18 July 1950) is a British magnate, investor, author and former philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group in the 1970s, which controls over 400 companies in various fields.

Branson expressed his desire to become a young man at a young age. His first commercial venture, at age 16, was a magazine called Student . In 1970, he started a mail order recording company. He opened a chain of disco stores, Virgin Records – later known as Virgin Megastores – in 1972. Branson’s Virgin brand quickly emerged during the 1980s, when he opened the Virgin Atlantic airline and expanded the music label Virgin Records . In 2004, he founded the Mojave Air and Space Port spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, known for the SpaceShipTwo suborbital space plane designed for space tourism.

In March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for “services to entrepreneurship”]  For his work in retail, music and transportation (with interests in land, air, sea and space travel), his love of adventure and his humanitarian work, he has become a prominent global figure. In 2007, he was placed on Time’s list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’.

As of June 2020, Forbes lists Branson’s estimated net worth at $4.1 billion.

 

Ron Shevlin

 

Ron Shevlin is the Managing Director of Fintech Research at Cornerstone Advisors. Author of the Fintech Snark Tank at Forbes and the book Smarter Bank, Ron is ranked among the top fintech influencers worldwide and is a frequent speaker at banking and fintech events (when there were still events).

 

 

 

 

Shep Hyken

 

Shep Hyken is an expert in customer service and experience and the director of astonishment at Shepard Presentations. He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifelong achievements in the speaking profession.

Shep works with companies and organizations that want to work loyally with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic®, The Loyal Shopper, The Cult of the Shopper, The Amazement Revolution, Surprise Every Shopper Every Time, Be Awesome or Go Home and The Revolution of Convenience. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus™, a customer service training program that helps customers develop a culture of customer service and a loyalty mindset. (Now available as an online/web-based training program!)

 

Stacy Sherman

 

Stacy is a leader in customer experience, strategist, practitioner and digital marketing professional, known for humanizing business and differentiating brands beyond price.

Stacy currently works at Schindler Elevator Corporation as Director of Customer Experience and Employee Engagement. She is building and leading a talented CX team, implementing profitable programs and partnering with 60 sales offices to deliver customer excellence.

Stacy’s journey to a CX began in 2013 due to a fortuitous reorganization at Verizon. Her role has expanded to increase customer satisfaction and brand advocacy, infusing customer and employee feedback into new product development, website design, marketing and pricing strategies. Prior to that, she worked for over 12 years in sales and marketing for various companies and advertising agencies. As she gained experience in CX best practices and methodologies, Stacy is dedicated to combining her business expertise with a passion to deliver authentic and real to customers and employees.

 

Steve Curtin

 

Steve has 20 years of experience in hotel operations, sales and marketing, training and development, and customer service functions, working for Marriott International, one of the world’s leading customer-focused companies.

As Area Training Director for the New York City market, Steve has organized training efforts at more than a dozen area hotels to successfully coordinate training across the company. While at the NY Marriott Marquis, Steve worked with a team of Marriott executives to implement training that resulted in dramatic increases in employee and customer satisfaction scores. One such initiative, titled The Basics, was adapted from the Ritz-Carlton Gold Standards in 1998 and marked by Marriott headquarters to become a company-wide initiative involving more than 3,000 hotels.

Since 1992, Steve has delivered engaging, interactive presentations across three continents, in six countries and 26 states. Steve has made over 600 presentations to over 20,000 people.

Steve DiGoia

 

With over 20 years in the hospitality industry and a lifetime of customer service experience, Steve DiGioia uses a narrative  to share real-world tips and tactics  to improve customer service, boost employee morale, and deliver the experience that your customers want.

As a certified trainer, author and speaker, Steve has been recognized three times as the  “The World’s 30 Best Customer Service Professionals” by Global Gurus.org and a “Top 50 Customer Thought Leader” by ICMI. He is also a prominent contributor to leading hospitality and customer service websitesWith the slogan  “Finding Ways to Impress Your Customer,” Steve continues his pursuit of excellence on his award-winning blog, sharing his best strategies in customer service, management and leadership.

 

 

Teresa Allen

Teresa Allen, Customer Service Speaker and Customer Service Instructor, owns Common Sense Solutions, the national customer service training and consulting firm focused on bringing common sense customer service experience and customer solutions to consumers. Business. Teresa has been presenting her acclaimed customer service keynote and customer service training programs in the US and abroad for over 25 years.

 

 

 

 

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