Meet our 2015 1to1 Media Customer Champions!

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1 WWW.1TO1MEDIA.COM/2014CHAMPS ©2014 1to1 Media. All rights protected and reserved. 1to1 Media is a division of Peppers & Rogers Group.
1to1 Media
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS 2004-2014
MEET OUR
CUSTOMER CHAMPIONS
Take a look inside to find out who holds
the key to customer success
2015

1to1 Media
You make superior customer experience look easy, and TeleTech knows the significance of that
achievement. Leaders like you use a holistic and creative approach to establish a vision, enable continuous
improvements across the enterprise, and put your employees on the path to customer centricity.
We congratulate Hal Hawkins, of Verizon; and Mark Nolan, of T-Mobile for being named
2015 Customer Champions. Your leadership inspires us and your results motive us.
We look forward to your future successes.

WWW.1TO1MEDIA.COM/2015CHAMPS 3
Stephen R. Covey said, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to
reply.” The 2015 1to1 Media Customer Champions are doing the former and proving that listening to understand
leads to big results.
Take, for instance, Seth Hall. As the senior vice president of customer service at Philadelphia Insurance
Companies, he’s considered to be one of the main drivers behind the company now actively listening to its
customers with purpose. Seth also takes the time to call customers directly to find out about their experiences
with Philadelphia Insurance and encourages the company’s executive management team to do the same.
At Safelite AutoGlass, Renee Cacchillo, senior vice president of customer brand and strategy, created a new
service assistance tool by listening to employees. After finding out that a technician enlisted a friend who
knows sign language to communicate to a deaf customer the extent of his repairs, Cacchillo and her team
then developed official company videos in American Sign Language and Spanish, which are available to all
technicians to assist hearing-impaired customers.
Finally, by listening to customer feedback, Meghan Curran, senior vice president of marketing and sales at Shedd
Aquarium, made a few tweaks to the program schedule which resolved seniors’ complaints thereby increasing
the number of visitors. Senior visitors indicated they didn’t want to visit the aquarium while noisy groups were
also in attendance. In response, Curran championed a new Senior Days program in September on Wednesdays,
the quietest day of the week. Over the course of five Wednesdays, Shedd welcomed 1,500 seniors.
It’s easy to mistake listening as a simple, passive task, but it requires more than just the ability to absorb
information from someone else. Listening is a process, and an active one that requires entire organizations to
participate.
The 2015 1to1 Media Customer Champions are proof that listening requires commitment, but ultimately is the
key ingredient of creating memorable customer experiences and moving customer strategy forward.
— Mila D’Antonio
Listening Is the Key Ingredient to
Successful Customer Experiences
Mila D’Antonio
Editor-in-Chief, 1to1 Media
Follow me: @miladantonio, connect with me on linkedin/miladantonio,
or share your ideas via email at mila.dantonio@1to1.com

Mikayil Hajiyev
Digital Marketing Manager,
Nar (Azerfon)
CHAMPION IN ACTION
After noticing that the company’s
social media specialist was
overwhelmed by a rise in social media
traffic, Mikayil combined its social
media communications with the
customer relations department, and
significantly reduced the wait times.
Why is he a Customer Champion?
Having only joined the company last year, Mikayil quickly addressed an issue that was
leading to delayed response times through the company’s social media channel and
positioned the customer services department to better manage inquires.
The Forward Thinker
As a digital marketing manager at Nar, a subsidiary of Azerfon, a mobile telecommunications company
located in Azerbaijan, Mikayil Hajiyev keeps a close watch on developing trends that impact the customer
experience across social media and the Web. He also identifies opportunities to help employees provide
customers with optimal experiences.
For instance, Hajiyev noticed an increase in customers reaching out through social media (the company
has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and YouTube) but the company only had one representative managing
its social media accounts. A communication bottleneck was quickly growing as a result.
The social media specialist “was trying to respond as quickly as possible, but she can only work so many hours, and for
complicated issues, she would have to wait for a response from someone in the back office which slowed things down even
more,” Hajiyev notes. “We clearly needed a solution.”
Hajiyev resolved the issue by combining Nar’s social customer care efforts with its customer relations department. Five contact
center agents are now managing the company’s social channels, which greatly reduced the response time. A more even
distribution of tasks also allows the social media specialist to focus on other factors that affect the customer experience such
as overseeing response and solution times, making sure that the information that’s being shared is accurate, and being a point
person for issues that customer relations agents can’t solve.
Additionally, integrating the company’s digital communications with its customer service department adds variety to the agents’
tasks and helps them stay more engaged with their work.
Hajiyev also spearheaded the launch of a website that provides roaming information such as country data and prices. He also
came up with the idea of aggregating information about mobile carrier services in Azerbaijan, making it easier for travelers to
compare prices and plans
Acknowledging that digital communications will continue to grow, Hajiyev further streamlined the company’s customer service by
redirecting email queries into the same platform as its social communications. As a result, agents have a central platform through
which they can receive and respond to digital queries. — Judith Aquino
BIG RESULTS
Integrating the company’s social media channel with its customer relations department had a significant effect
on the customer experience. The average response time decreased from 38 hours to as low as 21 minutes,
making Nar “the only mobile carrier providing complete customer social care in Azerbaijan,” Mikayil claims.

Mark Nolan
Senior Director, Service Partner
Management, T-Mobile
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Mark is leading a company-wide
initiative that focuses on customer
centricity. The program is designed
to educate all levels of staff on
scenarios and situations in which
it’s appropriate to buck standard
policies and procedures to provide
a better customer experience.
Mark empowers employees to treat customers as individuals by promoting
a culture of excellence and ownership.
The Innovator
It’s easy for customer service departments to over-rely on scripts and guidelines and miss
opportunities to earn the loyalty of a customer with a personalized approach. Mark Nolan
recognized this tendency after working for more than 20 years in contact center and customer
service organizations.
As senior director of service partner management at T-Mobile, Nolan challenged his colleagues
to do better. Nolan is spearheading a T-Mobile-wide initiative, ‘Finding the Yes,’ that is centered on customer centricity.
The program is educating all levels of staff from front-liners to executives on specific scenarios and situations in which
standard policy and procedures can be broken in order to better help the customer.
A key part of this program is not to discipline front-liners when they take an extreme customer-centric approach, even if
it involves giving customers significant credits and other actions which may be perceived as overly generous. Each “un-
carrier” customer situation is evaluated and coached independently, Nolan explains.
“We want to help our representatives ‘find the yes’ in a responsible way,” he says. “And so we teach folks to consider
the reason and circumstance of each situation and decide what makes sense?”
Nolan also leads a key employee engagement group called “T-Voice” for front-line agents. This initiative focuses on
the front-line employee experience and targets areas in which employees need assistance in better understanding or
navigating T-Mobile offerings. The initiative’s purpose is to ensure that front-line team members have the knowledge,
tools, and empowerment to effectively tackle and resolve customer concerns. Employees are also encouraged to speak
up about issues that they observe from their perspective as front-line agents and share ideas for further improving the
customer experience. — Judith Aquino
BIG RESULTS
Mark’s efforts to instill a customer-centric approach in the company has contributed to significant business impact.
During his leadership over the past two years, T-Mobile’s customer satisfaction score has risen from 4.3 to 5.28 on a
six-point scale, and its interval one-call resolution improved from 28 percent to 22 percent.
Additionally, T-Mobile is the only U.S. carrier with substantial net-new subscribers. The company added 8 million net
new subscribers last year alone and expects the trend to continue throughout 2015. T-Mobile Care is also the winner of
the J.D. Power industry award 11 times out of the past 14 measurement periods.

Hal Hawkins
Director, Global Support Operations
Call Centers, Verizon
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Despite all the years Hal Hawkins
has spent in the industry, he
believes the keys to success when
delivering customer experience can
be found in the clichéd pearls of
wisdom his late grandmother used
to bestow upon him: good manners
cost nothing; treat others how you
would want to be treated; and do it
right the first time. Hal has worked
tirelessly to bring these values to
life and ensure Verizon’s “process
simplification” promptly connects
customers with individual associates
best equipped to resolve their
issues by eliminating unnecessary
transfers, holding statements,
and callback recommendations,
ultimately improving first call
resolution (FCR) as a result.
Hal empowers employees to solve problems by providing them with the
tools and resources necessary to satisfy customer needs and deliver
customer experience with empathy and efficiency.
The Tech Support Simplifier
When Verizon split Operational Responsibility between sales/service and tech support in March 2015, Hawkins
immediately turned his attention toward “process simplification” within the contact center. Hawkins wanted
to dive into the minutia that generated less than ideal customer experiences and eliminate any nonsensical
processes that led to customer dissatisfaction.
For instance, when new high-speed Internet (HSI) customers performing self-installs called to check on the
status of their service, tech support representatives would reference their process guides, which prompted them to tell the customer
that work was still being performed on their order. If service was not up and running by 9 p.m., they were urged to call back. Such
roadblocks often hindered satisfaction and retention. To eliminate this obstacle, Hawkins removed such messaging immediately and
provided contact center associates with a revised process that allowed them to work on issues they could resolve, and commit to a
scheduled callback for issues that were anomalies or needed additional time to fix. Hawkins also trained a specialized group to take
action on unusual situations and follow up with the customer, thereby alleviating customer wait times.
His team’s approach to quality assurance, business change, and performance management. “Quality assurance call observations are
now focused on the entire customer experience, with ‘checkbox’ and scored QA observation forms becoming a thing of the past,”
Hawkins explains. “Every process [Verizon’s] call centers use is viewed through the customers’ eyes for effectiveness and effort.
Performance management techniques are now much more balanced. Historically, the routines were almost exclusively compliance-
based—Did the representative do what she was supposed to do?—whereas today the overarching focus now is resolution-based—Did
the representative fix the customer’s issue?”
Hawkins’ dedication to improving the customer experience and his desire to solve customer issues proficiently upon first contact
ultimately led to the removal of unnecessary transfers, holding statements, and callback recommendations. Instead, Verizon now
focuses on finding the correct individual within the company, or its strategic partners, who’s equipped to resolve the given customer’s
issue right away. Hawkins guarantees that his employees have all the tools and resources necessary, so they may bypass antiquated
or illogical processes and focus on the issue at hand. Eliminating the stress associated with informing the customer they need to be
transferred or to call back later inevitably produces a happier, more confident support organization. — Anna Papachristos
BIG RESULTS
By reducing the hurdles between first outreach and problem resolution, Hal and his team have been able to boost CSAT scores,
drive loyalty, reduce churn, and create positive word-of-mouth. Over the past four years, Verizon improved FCR within the
tech support call center enterprise by 10 percent. For support organizations of this size, even a 1 percent uptick can result in
thousands of fewer calls, reducing volumes and support costs as a result. Hal, however, has helped create a new dynamic by
balancing quality and cost, or first call resolutions and average handle time, as the case may be, thereby giving contact center
associates the freedom to take the right amount of time to resolve an individual customer’s issue, creating the resolution culture
Hawkins always envisioned.
©2015 1to1 Media. All rights protected and reserved. 1to1 Media is a division of Peppers & Rogers Group.6 WWW.1TO1MEDIA.COM/2014CHAMPS

Terry Cain
Vice President, Global Customer
Engagement, Avnet, Inc.
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Terry adopted an enterprisewide
customer service and experience
strategy to maintain this focus on
‘putting customers first’ as Avnet
integrates newly acquired customers
He and his team implemented an
annual customer survey as part of
their effort to build a consistent CX
program. In 2015, Avnet surveyed
more than 100,000 customers,
resulting in the creation of Avnet’s
double-closed loop model, which
allows Avnet to fix short-term
problems and perform analyses
for more permanent initiatives
simultaneously.
Terry created an internal culture dedicated to improving the customer experience
by making sure all employees understand why CX matters and how their roles
impact customer engagement and relationships.
The Employee Advocate
Terry Cain firmly believes that solely gathering data doesn’t demonstrate genuine customer
care. Companies must act upon this feedback and establish a culture that encourages all
employees to put the customer first if they’re to truly cultivate loyalty and bring about change.
To guarantee all employees followed this customer-centric mindset, Cain launched Avnet’s
‘Journey to Customer Centricity’ workshops.
Through these workshops, all employees learn and appreciate Avnet’s new CX model and goals, with 5,000
employees having completed this training thus far. Cain takes the time to meet all attendees before the workshops
to make them feel comfortable and earn their attention prior to each presentation. Afterward, Cain sends personal
thank-you cards to each new hire and attendee, ultimately leading by example and demonstrating the traits all
employees should try to emulate in their everyday interactions with the customer.
“We had the opportunity to have real conversations about how we can get to the next level of customer experience
maturity,” Cain describes. “We had fun and were passionate together dreaming about the possibilities of becoming
customer centric, and we were inspired looking at the barriers we’d like to overcome. Ultimately we told stories that
reminded us that, even now, in the midst of a technical and social revolution, Avnet makes the world of technology
a better place to live, work, and play. Our customers are not just a transaction to process. Avnet recognizes that our
customers are the only reason for our business, and that our employees are the means to serve our customers.”
These workshops, as well as frontline data access, have saved several key accounts, for employees have the foresight
to spot client issues earlier and react quickly to minimize impact. Visibility into this data has been critical in the
preservation of pivotal accounts. Cain notes that the flow of information is an output of Avnet’s CX focus, and such
rapid reactions are worn as an employee badge of honor, as nothing takes priority over making sure clients are happy.
— Anna Papachristos
BIG RESULTS
While Avnet’s enterprisewide CX program may only be in its early stages, Terry and his team have already established
NPS as the global KPI for customer engagement, which saw an uptick of four points over the past year. Avnet also now
manages all surveys on one single platform, which enables the team to deliver NPS-based relationships surveys to
approximately 100,000 customers per year. Internally, Terry led his team to create customer-centric workshops, which
have been attended by 5,000 employees and counting.

DeLania K. Truly
Vice President, Sales, Central
Region, CUNA Mutual Group
CHAMPION IN ACTION
DeLania K. Truly revamped
the Culture Survey to better
understand the drivers behind
employee engagement and
how employee-related issues
impact the customer experience.
In response, DeLania and her
team created the Bright Ideas –
Roadblocks section of the CUNA
Intranet, which provides employees
with a simple way to communicate
with her and the customer
experience team directly. Such
access allows employees to report
CX issues or identify opportunities
to enhance CX in the future.
Why is she a Customer Champion?
Since assuming responsibility for customer centricity at CUNA Mutual Group, DeLania
has become the face of customer experience, guiding everyone from the Board of
Directors to frontline employees to adopt the same customer-first mentality.
The CX Evangelist
Being a customer evangelist is an important role at CUNA Mutual Group, and one that
DeLania K. Truly, vice president, sales, Central Region, takes seriously. In fact everyone
within the CUNA Mutual Group family recognizes Truly as the leading expert on the
customer because she regularly evangelizes on behalf of the customer experience at each
level within the B2B organization.
Truly leads the company’s Customer Experience Task Force in an effort to better understand customer needs. She
recognizes that it’s important to solve the customer’s rational and emotional needs simultaneously to create long-
term satisfaction and customer loyalty.
“Customer experience is an absolute passion for me, but I am not alone,” Truly explains. “We have so many other
CX passionate people in our organization, starting with our senior leaders and building throughout our frontline
teams who work closest to our customers. Providing a strong customer experience is table stakes for doing
business and growing relationships over a lifetime.”
To reinforce this initiative, Truly helped restructure how the company shares customer feedback with its sales team
to cut the amount of time between receiving and responding to the incoming data. Originally, sales executives
received customer feedback three or more weeks after the insight had been submitted. Now, executives receive
feedback in less than 48 hours after submission so they can follow up immediately. Easier access to customer
data and timely response rates support Truly’s customer-centric mindset by putting others’ needs ahead of the
company’s needs. — Anna Papachristos
BIG RESULTS
During her time with CUNA Mutual Group thus far, DeLania has led the creation of an entire series of customer experience
modules focused on: why the customer experience is important; understanding the difference between being a vendor and
being a partner; opportunities to drive loyalty through the customer experience; and looking through the customer lens.
These modules have already been rolled out across CUNA Mutual’s sales and marketing departments, with more soon to
follow, thereby creating a consistent CX foundation across the entire company. For example, sales executives can now
access customer data within 48 hours of submission, down from three or more weeks initially.

Sean Rivers
Director of Operations
Technology, Republic Wireless,
a division of Bandwidth
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Sean Rivers’ strategic vision enables
every member of the Republic
Wireless family communicate with
and troubleshoot for customers and
prospects without separating the
customer from basic human interaction.
Rivers actively defines the tools,
processes, and policies that make
customers happy and, for the last four
years, has achieved this level of success
without one single contact center
agent waiting by the phone. Effective
CX programs typically have their own
support center, but Sean’s initiative
creatively employs technology, allowing
the company to maintain its industry-
leading 4,000:1 customer to agent ratio,
while staffing for 24/7 support.
Sean employs technology to enhance human interaction, not replace it, thereby empowering
customers and employees to help one another resolve problems and establish relationships
that expand upon the traditional approach to customer service.
The People Person
Sean Rivers, director of Operations Technology at Republic Wireless, knows that when customers
have to wait they aren’t happy. He also understands the value of insights produced from the wisdom
of the crowds, so he’s putting peer-to-peer communities to work to help solve customers’ issues.
Under Rivers’ guidance, Republic Wireless now offers a community that empowers customers to help
other customers by answering each other’s questions. His philosophy focuses on four key areas: 1)
Be where the customers are quickly and with authority; 2) offer comfort, provide wisdom, and make decisions; 3) measure
everything and benchmark often; and all decisions big or small should be tracked for effect.
This philosophy serves as the foundation for his customer community. By submitting their queries to the community,
customers receive and answer or response from designated knowledgeable customers within 10 minutes. The platform
facilitates Q&As, discussions around service announcements, idea management with direct interaction from the product team,
and new feature labs. The community also enables customer-to-customer ticketing, which taps Expert Customers to answer
30 percent of incoming queries, thereby freeing up service agents to work on more pressing cases.
“Customer experience is the amalgamation of every experience the customer has during the lifetime of their service,” Rivers
emphasizes. “In support, we are only part of the overall experience. Since the customer experience rarely starts at neutral, we
have to make the most out of every opportunity to put our best foot forward.”
While Rivers stands firm in his support of human interaction, he also recognizes that certain tools help accelerate the
process, boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty in the process. Machine Learning helps the internal triage team read and
coordinate every request so they can adequately prioritize the influx of tickets and make suggestions as to which tickets might
benefit from an Expert Customer’s insight. Also, agents aren’t chained to their office or desk, resulting in higher engagement
and retention, for these employees have the opportunity to interact with and get to know customers better, creating the
foundation necessary for long-term customer loyalty and retention. — Anna Papachristos
BIG RESULTS
Sean focuses on the negative to increase the positive. Prior to taking over the direction of support tools, Republic
Wireless had an average CSAT of 65 percent. To boost happiness and satisfaction, Rivers sought to get more people
involved so the company could improve its response time on lower priority questions and issues. By incorporating
crowdsourcing techniques, Republic Wireless has been able to reduce response times from 24 hours to less than three
minutes for about 30 percent of all tickets, thereby achieving a 5 percent rise in CSAT. Overall, Republic Wireless now
averages 86 percent CSAT across all tickets and 90 percent for those handled by Expert Customers.

Renee Cacchillo
Senior Vice President of
Customer, Brand & Technology,
Safelite AutoGlass
CHAMPION IN ACTION
After learning a technician enlisted
a friend to record a video using sign
language to explain repairs to a deaf
customer, Renee developed official
company videos in American Sign
Language and Spanish. These are
available today to all technicians
through their company-provided
smartphone.
Renee has spearheaded customer-driven improvements across the company from
customer services and marketing to IT and workforce management.
The High Achiever
As the Senior Vice President of Customer, Brand and Technology at Safelite AutoGlass, Renee Cacchillo
approaches every opportunity with passion, vision and a burning desire to make lasting improvements. It’s
no wonder then that the customer-centric approach that she introduced when joining the company in 2011
has taken hold throughout the entire organization.
For the past several years, Cacchillo has led a cross-functional team in envisioning the customer of the
future. Improvements included managing the customer recovery department and having technicians available for appointments
when and where the customers need help.
Such advancements have allowed Cacchillo to continue to grow in her role. This year she began a new journey: To help spearhead
the IT team while continuing to lead customer experience and marketing. Working with the IT team was a logical addition to
Cacchillo’s responsibilities because Safelight’s technology team had access to reams of data that could help the company evolve at
a faster pace to meet the needs of the customer.
“We had been collecting a lot of data from NPS surveys that we weren’t mining,” Cacchillo explains. “For me, this brought on the
question, what do people not like [about Safelite’s customer experience?] and what I found were many comments about what could
be improved, like our website.”
In her current role, Cacchillo has led improvements to the company’s website based on customer feedback. They included making
the site accessible across devices from a PC to smartphone or tablet; reducing the number of steps to schedule an appointment
or obtain a price quote, and adding more visual tools like videos and images that help customers enter the right information about
their vehicle. It has also led to several automated customer experience enhancements like “On-My-Way” text alerts that are sent to
customers prior to appointments.
Cacchillo has also recently implemented a workforce management system called FlexForce through a partnership with Kronos
that helps managers create efficient labor schedules and streamline operations. This impacts the customer experience by helping
technicians better manage their schedules and show up for appointments on time. — Judith Aquino
BIG RESULTS
As a result of simplifying the online scheduling process, Safelite saw a 12 percent increase in the number of consumers
who scheduled appointments compared to last year. Additionally, online requests for quotes went up 66 percent and the
company’s Net Promoter Score increased three points this year, which the company attributes to the improvements it
made to its customer experience.
For other companies that want to improve their customer experience, it’s important to listen to customer complaints—
as well as compliments, Renee says. “Make sure you’re also listening to what you do well, because you don’t want to
accidentally change something and cause harm,” she advises. “Don’t change just for change’s sake.”

Timucin Guler
Assistant General Manager,
Marketing and Communications,
Opet
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Timucin introduced a system for
collecting customer feedback that
streamlines communication between
the company’s call center and its
gas stations to allow agents to alert
managers of customer service issues
before they escalate.
Timucin introduced initiatives and campaigns that enabled the company to
take a proactive approach to improving the customer experience and make
customer-centricity a brand differentiator.
The Problem Solver
When Timucin Guler joined Opet, an oil and fuel company based in Turkey, the company
faced a number of customer experience headwinds: Opet did not have a centralized
customer engagement strategy, nor did it have a system for collecting and acting on data
insights, and its call center services were disconnected from the rest of the company.
By introducing customer loyalty strategies combined with innovative engagement tactics,
Guler helped transform Opet into a data-driven, customer-centric company. For instance, Guler introduced the
“Excellent Service Program” to keep track of customer satisfaction levels and give customers an opportunity to
provide feedback.
Under the Excellent Service Program, after an Opet Card or Opet WorldCard holder completes a transaction at one
of the company’s gas stations, the cardholder is contacted through an outbound call or text to determine whether
or not he was satisfied with the service. If the customer gives a negative response, the Opet Call Center follows up
with that person to learn more about the unsatisfactory experience. Information from the call is then shared with the
station manager and with upper management to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Guler has also spearheaded partnerships with other companies to extend the benefits of being an Opet customer.
Some of the campaigns he introduced include an opportunity to earn air miles through a partnership with Turkish
Airlines, as well as points that can be applied to discounts at Arcelik, a household appliances manufacturer, among
other partnerships. — Judith Aquino
BIG RESULTS
Timucin’s efforts to streamline the company’s operations and make them more customer-focused has yielded significant results.
Opet attributes part of its success as the second-largest company in Turkey’s fuel sector with 936 gas stations and an 18 percent
market share to its focus on the customer. Additionally, for the past nine years, Opet has earned the highest customer satisfaction
index score in its sector in an annual survey conducted by Turkey Quality Association and the University of Michigan.

Urmas Karner
Managing Director,
The Somerset on Grace Bay
CHAMPION IN ACTION
On February 9, 2014, the 50th
anniversary of when The Beatles
played on The Ed Sullivan Show, the
electricity went out across Turks &
Caicos. Urmas, an avid Beatles fan,
brought his guitar onto the resort’s
croquet lawn that was lit by tiki
torches and sang Beatles songs with
the guests deep into the night.
Urmas interacts with customers continually during their stay at the Turks &
Caicos resort, recognizing and rewarding employees’ customer-centric actions,
which results in a memorable guest experience.
The Crowd Pleaser
Urmas Karner, managing director of The Somerset on Grace Bay, who has been working
at the resort for the past two-and-a-half years, knows from his previous experiences in
working for large hotels in Manhattan as well as large golf course management companies
that big operations can become impersonal and by-the-numbers.
Recognizing that the hospitality industry thrives on the person-to-person experience,
Karner walks the grounds of The Somerset multiple times each day to interact with guests. As a smaller resort,
The Somerset strives to distinguish itself by the personal and memorable experiences provided to its guests, and
Karner is right in the thick of it.
Karner dresses up for Halloween each year to greet guests and their children. He has played Santa Claus each
Christmas that he’s been with the resort. He hands out roses to guests and staff every Valentine’s Day and
Mother’s Day. He truly enjoys seeing and making customers happy.
Karner endeavors to remember the names of each guest that visits the resort and he also hosts a weekly cocktail
reception. In fact, Karner is the inventor of the resort’s signature drink – The Somerset Sunset – which is a blend of
rum, cantaloupe juice, and a few other secret ingredients. Karner also goes out of his way to recognize individual
staff for taking special care of The Somerset’s guests. He understands how important the staff’s contribution is
to the guest experience and how employees appreciate being recognized for their efforts. In addition to serving
as a terrific role model, Karner stays engaged with his staff by playing on the resort’s volleyball team, inspiring a
competitive team spirit among various departments of the resort’s hospitality team. — Tom Hoffman
BIG RESULTS
When Urmas first joined The Somerset, the resort was ranked #29 on TripAdvisor among Turks & Caicos hotels. Now,
The Somerset is ranked 13th, ahead of some world-renowned resort brands, even though The Somerset is a single,
standalone boutique property. The resort’s focus on delivering memorable customer experiences helps explain the
dramatic increases in occupancy rates (up 70 percent) and revenue (up 90 percent) over the past two years.

Carolyn forged long-term relationships between customers, partners,
and EMC, producing better outcomes for everyone.
Defender of Data
When Carolyn Muise started at EMC, data was an afterthought. Data teams operated in silos, there
were no standard naming conventions, no cataloging process, and no governance board to ensure the
protection of customer data.
Muise, the vice president of Total Customer Experience at the Big Data company, changed all of that.
As a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, she knows how to get results. She realizes that the transition
and management of diverse customer data sets is the most effective way to acquire customers. This is why she spearheaded
EMC’s Big Data Lake—a master data management initiative to improve data integrity, quality, and provide a central platform
for overall data governance. In fact, her leadership around master data management is one of her biggest successes. “Our
Business Data Lake and Master Data Management strategy allows EMC teams to proactively drive continuous improvement in
solutions and services that are relevant, customized, and add value to our customers,” she says.
Under her direction, EMC’s cross-functional teams have pooled hundreds of data sets and data sources into a central
repository (“Big Data Lake”) and applied standard naming conventions, consistent cataloguing processes and established
a governance board to ensure that customer data is both protected and accessible so employees can take proactive action
to best serve customers. The Data Lake allows field teams to make faster and more informed decisions, which drives better
account alignment and customer satisfaction.
She’s also encouraged EMC’s Customer Service team to implement a predictive service model, which empowers 300+
front-line service managers to proactively follow up with potentially dissatisfied customers and has resulted in 80 percent of
managers reporting at least one customer or business benefit and a 153 percent increase in customer satisfaction.
Although EMC’s customer satisfaction increases can largely be attributed to Muise’s focus on data and her efforts to integrate
the organization, she credits her team as the driver of the company’s success. “At EMC, I am fortunate to have 66,000 team
members. Each one of these team members impacts the customer experience,” she says. “It is this team that is truly the driver
behind the success of TCE Program and our world-class customer experience.” — Mila D’Antonio
BIG RESULTS
Since taking on her role as leader of EMC’s TCE program, Carolyn has contributed to significant business impact: An NPS
increase of 86 percent since 2013, record-breaking and industry-leading customer satisfaction scores, implementation of a
company-wide standard to tie executive compensation to NPS metrics, and $80 million in cost savings as a result of TCE-
led operational efficiency efforts between 2013 and 2014. Her efforts have also resulted in 80 percent of managers reporting
at least one customer or business benefit and a 153 percent increase in customer satisfaction.
Carolyn Muise
Vice President, Total Customer
Experience, EMC Corporation
CHAMPION IN ACTION
In 2014, Carolyn spearheaded
a company-wide “TCE Day”
celebration to recognize EMC’s
customer-centric culture and
thank employees for their
work. In its first year, the event
achieved remarkable success:
4,000 customer and employee
attendees at 13 celebrations
in seven countries, 100,000
social media views and active
engagement from EMC leaders
across the company, including
CEO David Goulden.

Meghan Curran
Senior Vice President, Marketing,
Guest Experience and Sales,
Shedd Aquarium
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Guest insights revealed that
senior visitors can be challenged
by high noise levels and crowds.
Meghan championed a new Senior
Days program on Wednesdays
in September—traditionally the
quietest day of the week and
quietest month of the year—to
help make visits by seniors more
pleasurable without the cacophony
of hundreds of school children on
field trips. Over the course of five
Wednesdays in September, the
aquarium welcomed 1,500 seniors.
Meghan Curran is continually focused on improving all aspects of the guest experience
at Shedd Aquarium, including on site, online, and through each of the touchpoints
that visitors use. She strives to understand the needs and interests of the aquarium’s
guests, overseeing its audience research and evaluation team to apply visitor feedback
that’s then used to help increase customer engagement and satisfaction.
The Customer Curator
Meghan Curran, senior vice president, Marketing, Guest Experience and Sales, Shedd
Aquarium and her team of 175 staffers are responsible for cultivating relationships with
Shedd’s close to 2 million annual visitors, maintaining its status as one of the top-attended
aquariums in the U.S. and a cultural icon in Chicago. Since joining Shedd Aquarium 15 years
ago, Curran has worked tirelessly to help Shedd’s staff better understand and act on the
needs and interests of its guests.
Curran was the driving force in the creation of Shedd’s in-house marketing agency which has built out Shedd’s brand
while ensuring that guest insights are infused throughout strategic planning. These measures have ensured delivery
of more meaningful guest-centric experiences.
For instance, Shedd Aquarium houses what it claims is the oldest fish in any aquarium in the world, an Australian
lungfish named Granddad that joined the aquarium just in time for Chicago’s 1933 World’s Fair. Since Granddad is
brown/gray and doesn’t move a lot, many guests might otherwise pass him by or mistake him for a log. But Curran
and her team have brought attention to the world’s oldest known aquarium fish, helping to further distinguish the
guest experience at Shedd.
Curran has also made it much easier for guests to plan a visit. For instance, in the past, guests who wanted to make
advance ticket purchases online were redirected to an online ticket agency where the web experience was difficult to
navigate and they were assessed an additional service fee. Shedd has since brought online ticket purchasing to its
own website and has simplified the customer journey while offering online discounts. — Tom Hoffman
BIG RESULTS
Under Meghan’s direction, Shedd’s customer engagement efforts have made a sizable splash on business
performance. Since online ticket purchasing was redesigned, Shedd has more than doubled advanced sales and
expects to beat its highest revenue year by more than $1 million in 2015. Guest satisfaction has also soared. Shedd
Aquarium’s Net Promoter Score has increased nearly every month for the past 15 months running.

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BIG RESULTS
Over the past six years, Hall has proven invaluable throughout Philadelphia Insurance Companies’ pursuit of improved CX.
For instance, the organization’s revenue retention rate rose to 93 percent in 2014, while the account retention rate grew to
90.8 percent. Overall customer service satisfaction scores also rose to 94.6 percent in 2014, as the company hired 33 new
account executives and collected more than 50,000 customer survey responses. Between 2010 and 2013, the firm also saw
its NPS rise from 52.7 to 55.3. As of 2015, the company’s NPS now resides at 57.2
Seth Hall
Senior Vice President,
Customer Service, Philadelphia
Insurance Companies
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Seth often takes the time to
call customers directly to learn
about their experiences with the
company, encouraging his executive
management team to do the same in
an effort to make listening everyone’s
top priority. Seth’s customer-centric
spirit has trickled all the way down
to frontline employees, as well, for
many now take the time to send
handwritten thank-you notes to their
customers because they, too, feel
strongly about creating solid, personal
connections. Employees now send
notes at such high volumes that
these cards are on backorder with
the supplier. Customers have been
so touched by gestures that they’ve
begun sending their own handwritten
notes in return.
Seth employee to extend their reach beyond the traditional bounds of customer
experience, which makes each interaction more personal than the last.
The Eager Listener
Since joining Philadelphia Insurance Companies in 2009, Seth Hall, senior vice
president of customer service at Philadelphia Insurance Companies, has spent his time
transforming the organization’s customer experience program. Hall quickly noticed that
customers and prospects had many questions and concerns because of the recession,
so he enacted an initiative designed to ensure customer feedback results in meaningful
change. Hall recognized that data cannot serve its purpose unless the team pays attention and takes action,
closing the loop between company and customer.
“We have made tactical and strategic decisions based off of the feedback we have received directly from
our customers,” Hall explains. “In addition, we have put in place very robust and comprehensive action
management processes whereby we are responding and reacting to surveys within the same day. We are
responding to let them know we received their feedback and we are working to determine the appropriate next
steps. On many occasions, simply making that call and letting them know we heard them and are taking action
is enough to make them believers in our commitment to service.”
Through annual NPS surveys, transactional contact center surveys, and formalized CX strategies, Hall and
his team learned that, while customers value Philadelphia’s live chat capabilities, many couldn’t find the chat
button on the website. The company immediately changed its location on the site, thereby increasing chats by
10 percent and reducing call volume. The team also recognized that billing issues accounted for 33 percent of
customer complaints. In response, Philadelphia introduced a more efficient billing system so that agents could
more effectively manage and assist policyholders. — Anna Papachristos

Urvashi Sheth
Senior Director, Global Customer
Care, SanDisk
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Until September 2014, submission of
warranty replacement requests online
wasn’t available for U.S. customers,
and survey feedback indicated
the company needed to improve
its turnaround time for warranty
replacement. Convinced that SanDisk
customers will benefit immensely
from a new and easy process, Urvashi
submitted her case to SVP of the
retail division with risk mitigation
strategy. That same month, an online
warranty replacement process was
implemented for U.S. customers.
Urvashi listens to customer interactions on a daily basis, reviews customer survey
feedback, and makes appropriate adjustments in real time.
The Intent Listener
Urvashi Sheth, senior director at SanDisk, says she continuously aims to make meaningful improvements
and create an environment of trust for the company’s customers.
In achieving this, she says it’s most important to listen to the interactions between the company’s
customer care centers and customers. “This provides me with information about where the gaps are
in our processes, about what makes our customer comfortable interacting with us, and about what
their immediate needs and concerns are in regards to our products and services,” she says. “I can then use such knowledge to
enhance the customer experience.”
And she does.
Part of Sheth’s daily routine is to listen to customers and communicate their needs, ideas, and feedback received at all levels
of her organization. A good example of this routine is her weekly meetings with call center managers, supervisors, and Quality
Assurance agents where she discusses problems, new ideas, processes, and improvements and then communicates their
ideas to executives, team members, and other departments like Product Marketing and Engineering. This loop of continuous
communication and improvement has resulted in a very high customer satisfaction rate of 93 percent and above worldwide. The
team under her leadership has also won Gold in the 2014 Gartner and1to1Media Customer Experience Excellence Awards.
“I give customers the confidence that they are being heard continuously by implementing various services and innovative solutions
based on their feedback,” she says. “This in turn creates a relationship based on trust, which is one of the most important factors
in fostering long-term relationships with customers.”
One of the biggest cultural changes she has made during her tenure at SanDisk is empowering agents to resolve customer issues
instead of escalating to the next level. This has created a culture of creativity and autonomy and agents have gained a sense of
pride and job satisfaction. — Mila D’Antonio
BIG RESULTS
SanDisk Global Customer Care operates 50 depots in China and India and is in the process of launching in Brazil. The result
of this undertaking to the business is immense:
• Customer satisfaction at these depots is up to 97 percent.
• YOY sales in these countries continue to increase by 5 percent over the past three years creating, huge customer loyalty.
• The high rate of agent engagement has kept agent attrition rate at SanDisk contact centers at 5 percent this year
compared to 13 to15 percent in the industry.
• With the ability to make immediate decisions, agents are able to provide quick resolution to customers which has
increased first-call resolution rate by 12 percent.

Joseph Agresta, Jr.
President, Benzel-Busch
Motor Car Corp
CHAMPION IN ACTION
Joseph gave the company’s
service agents and salespeople
tablets so that they can quickly
assist customers wherever they
are, leading to a more convenient
and efficient customer experience.
Joseph has given his employees the tools and resources they need to
better meet the demands of today’s customers.
The Digital Groundbreaker
In the highly competitive world of automotive dealerships, Joseph Agresta Jr., president of
Benzel-Busch Motor Car Corp, understands that the customer experience is critical. He also
knows that convenience and efficiency are important factors and so he spearheaded technological
improvements that allow the dealership to come to the customer.
For instance, Agresta equipped his employees with tablets so that they can conduct the greeting
and vehicle walk-around at service points and complete paperwork while the customer remains in the car. He also
eliminated cashiers and equipped his staff to process payments anywhere in the dealership. Finally, he equipped
every corner of the business with Wi-Fi to enable his team to be mobile and flexible and to optimize the experience for
customers. For example, if a customer wishes to conduct business in the cafe or the lounge, it can be done.
“Typically in a dealership you move the customer from place to place,” Agresta explains. “At our dealership we have
rebuilt the entire facility to bring the business to the customer.”
Additionally, Agresta believes that engaged employees deliver a higher level of service. But with 350 employees, and soon
approaching 400 after the company opens a third dealership next year, it can be difficult for employees to feel connected.
Therefore, Agresta emphasizes the importance of team-building activities amongst managers and their employees. The
company regularly hosts dinners and lunches, as well as quick meetings, to give employees an opportunity to connect
with each other and provide feedback.
“We started as a family business and even though the company has grown a lot, we try to keep things casual and make
sure it still feels like a small, close-knit business,” Agresta says. — Judith Aquino
BIG RESULTS
In the automotive business it’s not unusual to have a turnover rate between 30 to 40 percent. Benzel-Busch has a
turnover rate that’s below 8 percent. In fact, Benzel-Busch’s dealer retention rate rose from 21.6 percent in September
last year to 22.7 percent this year. Joseph attributes this to providing his team with the tools and continuing training
and development they need. This drives both high levels of employee engagement and customer service.
Additionally, customers frequently turn to the company for additional services. In September alone, 91.7 percent of
Benzel-Busch’s customers received additional services, compared to the benchmark average of 60.8 percent.
©2015 1to1 Media. All rights protected and reserved. 1to1 Media is a division of Peppers Rogers Group.18 WWW.1TO1MEDIA.COM/2015CHAMPS

David Bray
CIO, Federal Communications
Commission
CHAMPION IN ACTION
David has championed the move to
cloud computing. This past Labor
Day the organization successfully
completed Operation Server Lift,
powering down all remaining
systems at FCC, retiring some
legacy systems, transferring
several systems to newer
hardware, and physically moving
all systems to a commercial service
provider. There are no servers left
at the FCC’s headquarters in D.C.
David says the cost savings is
immediate.
By acting with benevolence, competence, and integrity, David was able to gain the
trust of leaders, employees, and consumers to modernize the FCC by moving to the
Champion of the Cloud
Earlier this year, both Forbes and The Huffington-Post ranked The Federal Communications
Commission’s CIO David Bray as the most active CIO in social media, earning him the title internally
as the “world’s most social CIO.”
Bray’s social status was earned in part because he believes that social media can cultivate a
network of “positive change agents” both within and across organizations. “I think any public
service professional should listen and learn from the public, as well as use social media to share some of the challenges and
successful efforts we’re delivering,” he says.
He says most people don’t think about the FCC until they have to—because they want to stop the robocalls, or they need
help settling a dispute with an Internet carrier. That’s why Bray ensured that answers were easy to find via the FCC’s
Consumer Help Center. The site, built on Zendesk and rolled out this year, represents a shift away from a 15-year-old,
on-premise, legacy, consumer complaints system, and replaces 18 outdated complaints forms. It was the first FCC project
rolled out under Bray’s ‘cloud-first’ initiative. Now citizens can check their statuses, modify complaints online, and get quicker
resolution times. They can also view the interactions between the FCC and various providers as the complaints get resolved.
Before launching the new system, Bray had to first communicate goals throughout the FCC. He did this by establishing a
communications timeline and through daily stand up and weekly meetings with the Office of the Chairmen. To encourage
behavior change, incentives were offered in the form of training and demos. These were communicated in terms of value, time
reduction of processing, and happier clients.
Along the way, Bray built trust by stepping in front of the flak his team would sometimes get from government and
contractors. “As Peter Drucker said: ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast.’ You can have the best strategy in the world, but if
you don’t take into account the different cultures of the different organizational units, it won’t matter…. By taking a bottom-up
approach, a good executive leader takes on the role of a facilitator and cultivator to provide a safe space for employees to
raise questions.” — Mila D’Antonio
BIG RESULTS
David’s customer-centric approach of transparency lead to business benefits, including the ability to reply to complaints via
online and mobile and inform customers throughout every step of the process. The system now handles more than 400,000
complaints annually with quicker time to resolution. There are specific benefits for the FCC too: Transparency to congress on
complaint data and internal reporting and transparency from an employee and policy standpoint.
David made sure employees benefited too: increased process efficiencies; reduced workload; real-time collaboration with
providers/carriers, as well as the ability to telework. This project generated $2.8 million in overall savings.

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