Meet Our 2014 Customer Champions!

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Delivering
Bottom-Line Impact
Fostering
Employee Engagement
Elevating
The Customer Experience
Meet Our 2014 Customer Champions
1to1 Media
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS 2004-2014

1to1 Media Customer Champion: Defined
Behind every successful enterprisewide customer strategy is an individual who tirelessly
evangelizes the customer cause, who reminds employees that customers are the business,
who understands how to transform loyalty into profit, and whose efforts both command
attention and garner real results.
I am a Customer Champion.
1to1 Media

Since its inception in 2004, the 1to1 Media Customer Champions has grown into a one-of-a-kind awards
program that honors and spotlights the individuals responsible for game-changing customer-focused
strategies— a truly unique event that honors the leaders who create innovative change in their organizations.
The awards program now includes a group of more than 130 distinguished leaders representing household name
brands. From sweeping voice-of-the-customer initiatives and data analysis strategies to employee engagement
and omnichannel initiatives, this year’s 12 winners are the creative disruptors in their organizations who play a
critical role in advancing their organizations’ customer strategies.
Take Mike Lester, president of The Melting Pot. He established the ‘Perfect Night Out’ standard of service,
which aims to create a flawless guest experience for all patrons of the restaurant chain. Lester encourages all
employees to adjust their service to accommodate customers’ desired level of experience.
Communication and feedback is also important to Kyle Groff, manager of customer insights, at JetBlue. He and
his team implemented a system that gathers feedback from travelers via social media, email, and surveys and
tracks Net Promoter Score (NPS) trends for each airport JetBlue services. The team determined the experiences
to measure across the check-in, security, and boarding processes and they now track experience trends at each
airport and identify issues and share the feedback with appropriate employees from the CEO to gate agents.
And John Wompey, vice president of operations at Foot Locker, who along with his team, implemented the
Customer First initiative, which resides at the heart of Foot Locker’s customer-centric culture. The program
focuses on customer journey mapping in an effort to help the company understand how customers experience
the brand and how to design interactions around each point that cultivates closer customer relationships.
These three Customer Champions, along with the nine other winners, demonstrate that communication is
leadership and leadership is influence. According to the late Pete Drucker, “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision
to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its
normal limitations.”
The 1to1 Media 2014 Customer Champions have successfully lifted the vision of their employees, the standards
of their cultures, and the perception of their customers.
Congratulations to the 2014 class!
Lifting Sights, Visions, and Standards
Mila D’Antonio
Editor-in-Chief, 1to1 Media
@MilaDantonio

©2014 1to1 Media. All rights protected and reserved. 1to1 Media is a division of Peppers & Rogers Group.
Though not all brands can engage with consumers at the point
of purchase, digital tools now allow many companies to intro-
duce an added layer of personalization once absent from the
average retail experience. Annamarie Bermundo, assistant vice
president of CRM and digital platform development at L’Oreal
Paris USA, works tirelessly to carry out this very vision, deliv-
ering unprecedented personalization and relevancy to boost
engagement no matter where the customer may be.
Because retail stores lack the beauty advisors of department
store brands, Bermundo sought to move the company away
from mass brand advertising and develop its customer-centric
marketing across email, mobile, social, and online display ad-
vertising. Now, L’Oreal customers can interact with the brand
online and via mobile devices to find and test products at home
or in-store. Bermundo and her team recognized that consumers
typically conduct research before completing their purchases.
Thus, by creating ac cessible, responsive programs and per-
sonalization tools, customers can carry their very own beauty
advisor in their pocket wherever they go.
On average, most women have unused beauty products ly-
ing about because they fail to realize the given item isn’t appro-
priate until after they’ve completed their purchase. Bermundo,
however, found a way to leverage digital technology, enabling
the brand to guide, educate, and inspire customers before,
during, and after their in-store experience. Customers can con-
sult L’Oreal’s website or myriad mobile applications to learn
about products, read tutorials, and use virtual reality to test hair
and makeup colors.
“When we built all of our tools, such as our consultation tool,
and laid out all our content and advice, we consulted a lot of
our experts to make sure that, even if consumers didn’t have
a beauty advisor in front of them, they were getting information
that was professional and expert recommended,” Bermundo
highlights. “For instance, we recently launched our Makeup
Genius app, which allows consumers to try on cosmetics virtu-
ally. This is really helpful because in-store we often don’t have
testers, so consumers can easily scan the product and try it on
themselves. In addition, we offer real-time personalization, so
as you interact on the site—as we learn more about you—the
program adapts on the fly.”
While the Makeup Genius serves as a sort of virtual mirror,
allowing customers to see how various shades of lipstick, eye-
shadow, and foundation, the Color and Hair Genius apps of-
fer similar services, as customers can use their mobile devices
to find colors to match their clothes, their next hair color, or
makeup products to achieve certain looks. L’Oreal’s website
also provides customers with fresh ways to interact with prod-
ucts and consume beauty and skincare tips. Users need only
register on-site to turn this online destination into a dynamic
service that adapts and evolves based upon preferences and
prior searches. Recommendations and content are tailored to
deliver personalization in real time, as every aspect of the expe-
rience was designed to shift alongside the individual’s current
interests. Thus, customers receive the most relevant content
and advice for them, thereby building customer confidence and
boosting brand engagement and loyalty to cultivate trust.
Bermundo’s efforts have seen significant results, as site vis-
its have increased 81 percent and satisfaction has grown by 22
percent. Seventy-six percent more visitors have also used and
completed consultations, leading said individuals to add 170
percent more products to their carts.
Under Bermundo’s direction, L’Oreal also launched its
‘Women of Worth’ initiative. This awards program recognizes
10 women each year for their extraordinary efforts within their
communities. The program ties back to the brand’s slogan—be-
cause you’re worth it—as it highlights inner beauty and allows
these women to share their strength and expertise. ‘Women of
Worth’ moves beyond the product, yet speaks to the compa-
ny’s core values, empowering women to look and feel their best
so they may carry their confidence proudly.
Delivering Unprecedented Personalized
Customer Experiences
2014 Customer Champion Annamarie Bermundo, AVP, CRM and digital platform development at L’Oreal
Paris USA, offers customers digital, interactive platforms that enable each individual to experience the brand
before completing the sale, improving both loyalty and trust. —By Anna Papachristos
Annamarie Bermundo, L’Oreal Paris USA
What’s the most important to you:
mission, core values, or vision?
Why?
“All three. It’s really hard to look at
everything in isolation because you can
have a vision, but if it doesn’t tie back to
your mission or core values, then you’re
not staying true to the brand. From our
perspective, and everything that we do,
everything has to tie back to our core
values and our mission. Our mission—
making everyone look and feel their
most beautiful—truly comes through in
everything that we do, so it’s important
to have the tools to carry out that sort of
personalization, which is precisely what
we’ve done.”
THE DIGITAL DARLING
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Delivering excellent customer service across multiple channels is a key component of a company’s success. For Google,
a company with millions of customers across the globe, meeting customer demands includes numerous linguistic and
logistical challenges. Deepak Khandelwal, vice president of global customer experience, plays a key role in helping Google
serve its customers at any time through a multitude of channels and languages.
“Providing a differentiated, positive customer experience is critical,” Khandelwal says. “Especially in the technology field
where there are always newer and better products that are coming out, I firmly believe that it is one of the key success
factors for companies to stay successful for long periods of time.”
One of Khandelwal’s initiatives focused on expanding Google’s customer service beyond an online self-help channel
to live phone support nearly four years ago. Google now offers live phone support in more than 40 languages. And in
response to demands from advertisers and other customers for more help, Khandelwal spearheaded the launch of phone
support in English that is available 24 hours, 7 days per week, as well as live help via video chat.
These initiatives would not be possible without the support of senior executives and frontline agents. The key to getting
people to adhere to your objectives and vision, Khandelwal notes, is to impart a “cross-functional ownership” of the proj-
ects. “In Google’s lingo, that means getting people onboard across products, marketing, finance, and sales and then tying
that into senior level objectives,” he says. “You need people to understand that this is an important goal.”
Google also offers recognition programs for employees who provide a great customer experience. Khandelwal’s team
celebrates excellent customer interactions by pinning notes, photos, and testimonials from satisfied customers on “Cus-
tomer Happiness Walls” in 12 offices around the world, and via an internal website with customer quotes and stories.
Khandelwal also introduced monthly customer satisfaction (CSAT) awards, including an award for online specialists
who achieve 100 percent satisfaction for an entire month, as well as special recognition for those who receive this award
multiple times. And whenever he visits an office, Khandelwal personally presents the awards to employees.
In addition, Khandelwal’s management team conducts monthly employee surveys, in-person town halls, and online
discussion forums to solicit team feedback. The management team is also experimenting with programs to improve team
members’ abilities to focus on the customer, such as a meditation program and more flexible shifts.
All of these programs and processes, Khandelwal notes, are designed to enable employees to provide a seamless
customer experience. “They [the customers] shouldn’t have to know what’s behind the scenes,” he says. “Customers
should just know that they’re interacting with somebody at Google and that person will take care of them, and even though
there’re millions of people who might be contacting us in one way or another, that person is the most important.”
Serving the Multichannel Customer
2014 Customer Champion Google’s Deepak Khandelwal, vice president of global customer experience,
champions convenience and positive experiences for a global customer base. —By Judith Aquino
Deepak Khandelwal, Google
THE GREAT
CONNECTOR
How do you encourage others
to adhere to your customer
experience objectives?
“The key to getting people to adhere to
your objectives and vision, is to impart
a ‘cross-functional ownership’ of the
projects. In Google’s lingo, that means
getting people onboard across products,
marketing, finance, and sales and then
tying that into senior level objectives. You
need people to understand that this is an
important goal.”

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Providing consistency and excellence in customer service often starts with the individ-
ual. As Marketing Director at Marketplace Philadelphia Management (MPM) at Phila-
delphia International Airport (PHL), Anna DiGregorio works with approximately 43,000
associates at more than 170 retailers and restaurants to ensure travelers have an opti-
mal customer experience as they pass through the busy airport.
Several years ago, DiGregorio introduced a common service model—Cutting EDGE
(Excellence Drives Great Experiences)—to help associates provide a consistent cus-
tomer experience. The model includes reminders to greet customers, make eye con-
tact, smile, and be attentive to customer requests.
DiGregorio also works with partners like customer experience measurements pro-
vider LRA Worldwide to create leadership seminars, frontline training programs, and
in-the-operation coaching sessions to further enforce high standards among managers
and frontline associates.
Training programs and coaching sessions are essential, DiGregorio notes, for
helping associates provide excellent service, even though some people may resist
the programs. Many associates assume “that I can’t teach them anything they don’t
already know,” she says. “The most common misconception that people who have
worked in the retail sector have is that they won’t benefit from our training sessions
or learn something new.”
DiGregorio says she and her colleagues slowly changed associates’ minds by en-
listing the help of managers to get employees to attend the training sessions, providing
relevant content, such as discussions about the impact of social media and other rel-
evant trends in customer service, and rewarding employees for excellent service with
gift cards from the secret shopper program.
DiGregorio also introduced a gamification feature in which merchants earn points
for participating in the marketing and training programs in exchange for quarterly and
annual prizes. The program culminates in an annual gala event in which the top per-
formers are recognized in an awards ceremony modeled after the Academy Awards.
DiGregorio is also known for interacting directly with vendors and covers the 183,000
square feet of retail, dining, and service offerings multiple times each day.
DiGregorio and her team’s efforts quickly garnered industry recognition. The con-
cessions program Cutting EDGE has been recognized by Airports Council Internation-
al—North America for several years running, and over the course of Anna’s more than
eight-year tenure has been honored by JD Power’s highest in overall passenger satis-
faction, amenities/food and shops, large airport division, Airport Revenue News, and
the City of Philadelphia.
The key, DigGregorio says, is consistently helping employees maintain high cus-
tomer service standards. “We work very hard to make sure that what we’re discuss-
ing in our training is top of mind, and that people are walking away with something
interesting and useful.”
Setting Employees Up for Success
2014 Customer Champion Anna DiGregorio, Marketing Director at Marketplace Philadelphia Management, implemented training programs
and gamification features to streamline services at Philadelphia International Airport. —By Judith Aquino
Anna DiGregorio,
Marketplace Philadelphia Management
THE PROBLEM SOLVER
What’s the biggest misconception about your role and your responsibilities
in how it pertains to advancing the customer experience?
“The most common misconception that people who have worked in the retail sector have is
that they won’t benefit from our training sessions or learn something new.”
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Customer service professionals often take on the role
of detectives when investigating customer complaints
to resolve an issue. Kyle Groff, manager of customer
insights at JetBlue, uses data analytics and other
tools to uncover insights in the vast amounts of
customer feedback data that the airline collects.
Groff joined JetBlue approximately two years
ago and one of his first moves was launching a
companywide voice of the customer initiative. His
goal? To take the customer feedback data JetBlue
receives and use it to help frontline employees better
serve travelers.
Groff and his team implemented a system that
gathers feedback from travelers via social media,
email, and surveys and tracks Net Promoter Score
(NPS) trends for each airport JetBlue services.
The team mapped out the customer journey and
determined the experiences to measure across
the check-in, security, and boarding processes.
Using NPS as a guide, Kyle’s team started tracking
experience trends at each airport. If a score began to
dip, the team used survey data to identify issues and
share the feedback with appropriate employees from
the CEO to gate agents.
This led to better visibility into how customers felt
about traveling with JetBlue and allowed the airline to
address issues more efficiently. Several months ago,
for example, Groff’s team noticed a low NPS trend
at an airport and recent customer surveys revealed
morning travelers were consistently providing lower
ratings at that airport.
After examining specific survey responses targeting
these travelers, and digging deeper into open-text
feedback, the problem appeared to be that airport
amenities were not located close to where these early
flights departed and it was having a negative impact
on travelers’ overall experiences.
Groff’s team communicated this insight to the
frontline employees and the airport managers and
developed a solution. Gate agents began passing out
coffee and orange juice while travelers waited for their
flights and NPS scores shot up quickly.
Groff attributes his success in helping JetBlue
maintain its reputation for customer centricity to his
colleagues and frontline agents. “Being the manager
I oftentimes have to be the face of the voice of the
customer,” he says. “It’s great to be nominated and
to win awards like this…but our customer support
would be nowhere without the team that stands
behind me.”
In terms of challenges, quantifying the value of a
customer experience initiative for corporate leaders
who are looking for profits can be difficult, Groff notes.
“It’s such a challenge when you look at something
like the customer experience and try to quantify the
kind of financial impact that it has,” he says. “I think
intuitively most people would admit that a happy
customer likely leads to more profit. But saying, ‘this
is why we need to focus on the customer because it’s
worth this amount of money,’ is hard to do.”
THE GREAT LISTENER
What’s the biggest customer experience challenge leaders face today?
“It’s such a challenge when you look at something like the customer experience and
try to quantify the kind of financial impact that it has. I think intuitively most people
would admit that a happy customer likely leads to more profit. But saying, ‘this is
why we need to focus on the customer because it’s worth this amount of money,’ is
hard to do.”
Kyle Groff, JetBlue
Flying High with Data Insights
2014 Customer Champion JetBlue’s Kyle Groff, manager of customer insights, harnesses customer insights to improve travelers’
experiences. —By Judith Aquino

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Before any organization can truly develop its customer-centric
core, leaders must understand that no two customer experiences
are alike. Mike Lester, president of The Melting Pot, recognizes
that perfection remains subjective and that success means read-
ing each individual guest’s behavioral cues to provide an experi-
ence that’s tailored to their preferences.
Lester’s first initiative was to establish the ‘Perfect Night Out’
standard of service, which aims to create a flawless guest ex-
perience for all patrons of the restaurant chain. Lester under-
stands that, while some guests may prefer to enjoy their meals
at leisure, others want to eat without an excessive wait. Thus,
with the ‘Perfect Night Out’ standard in mind, Lester encourag-
es all employees to detect such signs and adjust their service
to accommodate the desired experience. Lester hopes to break
free from The Melting Pot’s stereotype as an elegant, “special
occasions only” restaurant by creating these varied experiences
to encourage retention, return, and referral.
‘Perfect Night Out’ isn’t just about providing delicious food
and an appropriate atmosphere, however. The initiative also em-
powers employees to go above and beyond expectations by put-
ting guests’ best interests first and delivering service in any way
necessary. For example, one cold winter night, a couple left the
restaurant only to find their car battery had died, so they went
back inside to use the phone and call AAA. Instead of allowing
the guests to call AAA, team members took matters into their
own hands, pulled out some jumper cables, and started the car
themselves.
Lester and his team even created an awards program to
recognize teams from franchise locations that deliver phenom-
enal service and exceed guest expectations. Known as Pot on
Wheels, the awards program was inspired by one occasion when
team members brought the fondue experience to the guest’s
hospital room for her and her family to enjoy after she’d gone
into labor during her dessert. These employees live Lester’s phi-
losophy, bringing his vision to light by focusing solely on guest
satisfaction.
“Our employees have the hospitality gene—they care deeply
about others,” Lester highlights. “All we have to do is get out of
their way. For example, there was one family that, though they
weren’t from this one specific area, had vacationed there for years.
[The Melting Pot in that town] was their daughter’s favorite restau-
rant but, unfortunately, she passed away three weeks prior to the
vacation in a tragic car accident. The family decided to make the
annual trip anyway even though they were in mourning. They came
into the restaurant and one of the team members recognized them
from previous years, at which point the family informed them of
their loss. To lift their spirits, the team took care of their entire meal.
They didn’t need to ask permission. They just did it, and that’s
what ‘Perfect Night Out’ is all about.”
Under Lester’s guidance, The Melting Pot also introduced new
menus based on guest feedback. While the menu was originally
developed to reflect team members’ preferences, Lester and his
team discovered that these choices didn’t always resonate with
guests. As a result, the restaurant has been able to add and re-
move items, improve existing dishes, and adjust how items are
grouped within the dining experience. Each individual restaurant
also has the opportunity to offer localized menus, which reflect
the various tastes and preferences of guests in their given area.
Lester also encourages employees to look beyond mone-
tary metrics, such as average spend per guest, for this focus
detracts from their ability to deliver the ‘Perfect Night Out’ as
promised. For Lester and all employees of The Melting Pot,
customer centricity means providing service that reaches be-
yond revenue to develop consistent, positive brand experienc-
es. The company measures success qualitatively, not quanti-
tatively, emphasizing the importance of guest perception and
overall happiness, for those who are pleased are more likely to
return and recommend, thereby benefiting all those involved.
THE COLLABORATIVE
CHAMELEON
Where do great ideas come from
in your organization?
“Everywhere. While traveling around to our
various restaurants, I speak with hundreds of
team members. I have a notebook filled with
great ideas that came from our team members
in every position within the restaurant. We are
already working on many of them to get them
implemented—things as simple as how our
uniforms feel to team members. The key to
environment and culture as an organization is
that we all listen to everyone. It doesn’t matter
who you are. If you have a great idea, you’re
going to be heard, and it will be thoughtfully
considered, with many of them implemented.”
Empowering Employees to Go Beyond
Customer Expectations
2014 Customer Champion Mike Lester, president of The Melting Pot, inspires employees to pursue the ‘Perfect Night
Out’ standard by serving customers on an individualized level in any capacity possible.—By Anna Papachristos
Mike Lester, The Melting Pot

A pioneer of Internet and telephone-based retailing, 1-800-Flowers.com founder and CEO Jim McCann transformed
his flower shop into an international enterprise with more than 35 million customers and inspired other business owners
to follow his example. McCann’s ability to find new ways to improve the customer experience —he was one of the first
retailers to offer an online ordering service and have a digital presence—helped 1-800-Flowers.com gain attention in a
crowded industry. And the company continues to look for ways to improve its services.
McCann says the company recently launched an internal blog for employees to submit ideas and feedback on how
to improve the company’s offerings or processes. McCann declined to elaborate on which ideas the company has act-
ed on, but noted that 1-800-Flowers.com already responds to customer input on arrangement ideas and collections.
For example, 1-800-Flowers.com’s Happy Hour collection, which offers arrangements in oversized martini- and
margarita-shaped vases, were customer inspired and is one of the best-selling product lines in the company’s floral
category. The company also responds to customer complaints through the contact center, email, and social media.
Keeping up with customer interactions on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites has been challenging,
especially when people lob criticisms and other negative messages at the company on these public platforms, McCann
notes.
“When you get into a customer service environment where, basically people who are annoyed or who have an
agenda…can eviscerate you in social media, some uninformed people might look at that and say, ‘Oh, they have a
terrible problem,’ McCann says. “The big challenge for us is to have the strength of our convictions to say, ‘We made
a decision to be transparent even though we’re getting clipped, and our competitors are not, because they are playing
by a different set of rules.”
When asked which customer-centric business leader inspires him, McCann chose Steve Squeri, group president
of global corporate services at American Express. McCann says he admires Squeri for his “almost maniacal focus on
improving the quality of service through technology and having the right set of metrics to know you are successful on
your journey.”
McCann said he was also struck by a former American Express employee who told him that Squeri wants employees
to think of American Express as their best work experience. “That doesn’t mean that it will be your highest achieve-
ment…but even if you go on to work at five or six other companies after that, Squeri tries to make sure employees
reflect back on American Express as the best place they worked,” McCann says. “My brother and I chatted a lot about
that, here in our own shop, to make sure that we are approaching things in the same way.”
McCann says customers and employees urged McCann to be transparent in its interactions with customers because
it demonstrates authenticity and will ultimately benefit the brand. Doing so, “takes some courage and I’m telling you, I
did waver,” McCann says. “But I followed their advice, and we’ve stayed the course to a commitment of transparency.
But it’s challenging.”
Delivering Transparent Customer Service
2014 Customer Champion 1-800-Flowers.com’s Jim McCann commits to conversations with satisfied
and dissatisfied customers. —By Judith Aquino
Jim McCann, 1-800-Flowers.com
THE TRAILBLAZER
What customer-centric business
leader do you admire and why?
“Steve Squeri, group president of global
corporate services at American Express.
He wants employees to think of American
Express as their best work experience.
That doesn’t mean that it will be your
highest achievement…but even if you go
on to work at five or six other companies
after that, Squeri tries to make sure
employees reflect back on American
Express as the best place they worked. My
brother and I chatted a lot about that, here
in our own shop, to make sure that we are
approaching things in the same way.”

CONGRATULATIONS
to Jim McCann of 1-800-Flowers.com
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trademarks of their respective owners. © 2014 Verint Systems Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
We’re proud that KANA Express enables you
to ALWAYS put your customers first.
Our 1to1 Media
Customer Champion

When Eric McKirdy was recruited by Ask.com in 2010 to overhaul
the company’s customer service strategy, leaders for the popu-
lar Q&A web search engine sought someone who could manage
the organization’s customer service portfolio and lead the charge
behind delivering an enhanced experience for the company’s
one-hundred million monthly users. Since joining Ask.com in late
2010, McKirdy has done that and more.
After evaluating and auditing the company’s existing customer
service processes and support systems, McKirdy was able to
quickly identify immediate improvements Ask.com could make.
“Two major things stuck out in my mind,” says McKirdy, who
previously handled communications for a performing arts organiza-
tion. “Ask.com is one of the leading destinations for Q&A, but from
a customer service standpoint, we weren’t mirroring that experi-
ence and providing great answers about Ask.com. We needed to
model that customer experience to allow people to get the answers
they were looking for.”
McKirdy discovered that too many basic customer requests (e.g.
how to change a user name) were resulting in Tier 1 support tick-
ets for information that was available through the company’s web
search engine. McKirdy recognized an opportunity to implement
a self-service system that customers could use to find answers to
many questions on the spot while reducing the number of Tier 1
tickets being generated.
Before the self-service capabilities were implemented, McKirdy
took meaningful steps to help make Ask.com’s culture more cus-
tomer-focused. He banned the use of the word “tickets” in the
organization and other impersonal terminology used in customer
support interactions. “When I visit a company’s website and I’m
informed that a ticket has been issued when I request help, I feel
like I’ve become part of the system,” says McKirdy. “We wanted
to change the tone and the quality of the engagement by person-
alizing the experience and referring to people by their first names.”
Starting with a “blank canvas”
McKirdy and his team sought intuitive support technologies to
help its customers find the answers they were seeking. A pre-
vious CRM system used by Ask.com didn’t offer search-ability
of knowledge-based articles. Also, the responses it generated to
Ask.com users contained a lot of boilerplate and were difficult to
decipher, McKirdy adds.
When McKirdy and his team began examining CRM systems
that offered strong self-service support, one of the companies,
Parature, offered McKirdy and his team a “blank canvas” to craft
the types of experiences Ask.com wanted for its customers. “That
was huge,” says McKirdy. Plus, the vendor offered solid self-ser-
vice capabilities via keyword searches right out of the box which
fit well for Ask.com’s customer base, McKirdy adds.
McKirdy’s vision for providing Ask.com’s customers with
easy-to-use self-service capabilities has been realized. After
Ask.com deployed the CRM system in late 2012, customer sup-
port ticket volume dropped 64 percent in the first two weeks
thanks to the self-service capabilities. Meanwhile, customers’
use of the self-service options has lowered call volumes by 86
percent.
“I thought something was wrong,” says McKirdy. “Crickets
were chirping. I thought I might have re-engineered myself out
of a job.”
McKirdy not only manages the company’s 13-person customer
service team, he’s on the front lines himself, interacting with cus-
tomers by phone, email, chat, and social media to offer support.
He also looks for team members who can relate to the customer
journey and can provide compassionate support.
“I never hire anyone who says they have lots of contact center
experience. That’s not what I’m looking for,” says McKirdy. I’m
looking for employees who understand customers’ behavior and
what they’re looking for.”
Meanwhile, the technological changes McKirdy and his team
have put in place have led to more meaningful communications
with Ask.com’s customers.
Says McKirdy, “The quality of the interactions we have now is
so much higher.”
THE ENABLER
What’s one characteristic you
believe every leader should
possess?
It’s hard to narrow it down to just one.
But I’d say the most important attribute
is to be very flexible and nimble and not
be stuck on the way things have always
been done. Technology is changing
so much and changing the way that
customer service is being done and
influenced so much by Gen Y.
Eric McKirdy, Ask.com
Simplifying Search
Eric McKirdy, manager, global customer care and the face of Ask.com’s customer service team, is leading the
company’s efforts to rebuild its customer service strategy —By Tom Hoffman

13
THE STORYTELLER
What’s the biggest misconception about your role and your responsibilities
in how it pertains to advancing the customer experience?
“There is a common misconception that the team’s main role is to ‘crunch data.’ Some
people assume that we’re just data collectors and that we slice and dice the data and then
move on. We had to get away from simply presenting numbers and stats and do more
storytelling.”
Collecting and analyzing your customers’ feedback is crucial for delivering an
excellent customer experience. But it is also easy to get lost in the data, making it
difficult to identify insights and act on them. As the vice president of client expe-
rience at ADP, Tom Mueller has spearheaded processes to help executives and
other senior leaders better understand their clients’ needs and include customer
feedback in company decisions.
Mueller works with clients in ADP’s small business market. His team listens to
recorded service calls, reads client comments, analyzes CRM cases, and leverages
text analytics to identify specific areas that are important to clients.
Under Mueller’s direction, ADP has implemented processes and technology to
integrate and pull key learnings from CRM data, call center notes, survey responses,
and social media. Armed with this information, ADP employees can close the loop
with unhappy customers, identify problems, and make recommendations on prod-
ucts and communications by analyzing aggregated data.
There is a common misconception, however, that the team’s main role is to
“crunch data,” Mueller notes. “Some people assume that we’re just data collectors
and we slice and dice the data and then move on,” he says. “We had to get away
from simply presenting numbers and stats and do more storytelling.”
Over the past year, Mueller and his team focused on conveying customer
insights through “a journey mapping experience.” To help their colleagues better
understand their clients’ needs, Mueller and his team presented information about
the challenges small business owners face by sharing stories interspersed with
data points, client interviews, and recorded calls.
Supporting the data analyses with interviews and customers’ comments helped
illustrate the insights Mueller and his team were trying to convey. “We’ll present the
data and say, ‘this is what our customers are saying, and now I want you to hear
what it sounds like,’” Mueller explains. “We’ll play multiple calls so that the data
becomes real to them.”
In addition, Mueller led efforts to help employees who don’t directly interact with
the company’s clients feel more engaged with them. One of Mueller’s initiatives
was to have ADP executives including general managers, the company’s president,
and members of the senior leadership team call clients twice every year to gather
feedback ADP has also begun inviting clients to participate in company meetings,
such as brain-storming sessions.
As a result, ADP has begun to incorporate customer feedback into more of
its decisions and communications with customers. For example, during a forced
migration to a new platform, ADP minimized customer churn and received a neutral
decrease in satisfaction (as opposed to outrage) from customers by responding to
their concerns in communications about the change.
“Storytelling is critical,” Mueller notes. “While the data and the insights we’re
providing are important, we also have to come up with an effective way of convey-
ing that data in a way that reflects the customer experience and leads to actions.”
Conveying the Customer Experience through Storytelling
2014 Customer Champion Tom Mueller, ADP’s vice president of client experience, makes data meaningful by mapping the customer’s journey.
—By Judith Aquino
Tom Mueller, ADP

When Glenn Schleicher joined Cisco in 2010 as director of
the Cisco Smart Web Technology Group, his mission was to
elevate Cisco’s customer self-support capabilities. Although
Cisco had self-service technologies in place including
websites customers could visit to find information, it was
becoming increasingly difficult for the technology giant to
keep the systems fresh with content as it acquired other
companies.
To address these challenges, Schleicher placed Cisco’s
customers at the center of these efforts.
“When I first came into the role, there were a lot of peo-
ple collecting lots of metrics around productivity,” Schleicher
says. He decided instead to focus on metrics that are import-
ant to the customer experience.
“I put metrics in place that measure time to completion
and customer success. Can they complete a task in five min-
utes or less? If they couldn’t, we failed. I was new to the
organization, so every customer complaint hit a raw nerve.”
As a Cisco Support Engineer who has spent parts of his
20-plus year career at Cisco in both engineering and cus-
tomer support roles, Schleicher knows how stressful it can
be for customers to find the product information they’re
seeking. “Even before I joined the company (in 1993), I was
a customer calling Cisco and I understood that perspective
very well,” says Schleicher.
Since joining the company, Schleicher has personally han-
dled hundreds of customer support cases and he’s learned a
lot about troubleshooting approaches for Cisco’s self-serve
mobile apps and websites that work and don’t work. He’s
also drawn on his experiences as a consumer to blend in
best practices he’s picked up from other companies that
deliver exceptional customer support, such as Amazon.com.
“Customers remain our true judges”
Even as Cisco’s self-service capabilities have won awards,
including a 2013 Gartner/1to1 Media CRM Excellence Award
for customer service optimization, Schleicher has maintained
his mantra that “customers remain our true judges.”
To help ensure that Cisco is providing its customers with
the type of mobile and web self-service support experiences
they’re expecting, Schleicher and his team analyze 300
global customer survey responses each month along with
behavioral information on the company’s website to evaluate
their journeys and experiences. If it takes customers lon-
ger than expected to complete a task, Schleicher and his
264-person team take a deep dive to determine whether any
process or system changes need to be made.
“It’s very eye opening to see a customer go down a path
you don’t expect,” Schleicher says. “You might expect them
to click on a link but instead they go down a rat hole. These
insights have been very impactful,” he adds.
Schleicher also spearheaded the creation of a customer
and partner advisory board to turn customer input into change
requirements. “Part of it is recognizing that most of the people
who use our website are below management grade, so the
skill sets we look for on the board are people on the IT archi-
tecture side or other direct users,” says Schleicher. “They’ve
given us some brutal but really good feedback.”
For instance, search capabilities for the self-service web-
site have been an issue for customers as Cisco’s content
continues to expand. “People complain about the amount
of time it takes them to find the right content,” Schleicher
says, noting that the company is using these insights to take
steps to make improvements. “Listening without follow-up is
almost worse than not listening,” he says.
The customer-centric approach taken by Schleicher and
his team is paying dividends for Cisco and its customers.
The deflection rate for the self-service website has risen from
76.2 percent in 2010 to 83 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, cus-
tomer satisfaction ratings are at an all-time high and mobile
app downloads have risen 89 percent annually.
Making Self-Service Self-Evident
Cisco’s Glenn Schleicher, director of the Smart Web Technology Group, makes sure the company’s
self-service technologies are designed to meet customers’ needs and expectations —By Tom Hoffman
Glenn Schleicher, Cisco
THE CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE ENGINEER
What steps are you taking to ensure
that you’re continuing to grow as a
leader?
“I think it’s continuing to nurture a strong
sense of self awareness about your own
strengths and weaknesses and you learn
that your approach to the world is very
personalized. The more that you can leverage
diverse perspectives, the more you can draw
on complementary strengths to improve the
approach to problem-solving.”

15
Gregg Tilston, Flight Centre Travel Group
THE SOCIAL
SUPERSTAR
What customer-centric company
do you admire and why?
“Social media shouldn’t be delivering
customer service. Customer service
should be leveraging social media like
they leverage phone and email. With that
said, when I look at some of the airlines,
such as United Airlines and Delta, and
the massive amounts of mentions and
their speedy response times, I really look
up to those companies and how they’re
dealing with customers in a very timely,
relevant manner. We’re talking within
minutes, considering they have hundreds
of thousands of mentions. And while they
may not be able to infuse each response
with quick wit, they deliver a service that
builds customer relationships.”
For many companies, social media remains mysterious, as marketers
and service professionals work to develop their brand’s online strat-
egy. But, for Gregg Tilston, global social media leader at Flight Centre
Travel Group, this avenue offers team members the opportunity to
expand upon the customer experience and build brand advocacy.
Tilston leads his 14-person social team by empowering each mem-
ber to engage with every single brand mention across Facebook
and Twitter in an on-brand, prompt fashion. Previously, customers
who tweeted @Flight_Centre would receive an auto-reply that asked
them to email customer service, at which point they would then
receive another automated message claiming their request would be
addressed within three days to a week. But, as social media becomes
increasingly enveloped in its own immediacy, such methods could no
longer satisfy consumer demand. Thus, Tilston introduced responsive
customer service, thereby enabling his team to move beyond simple
engagement tactics and deliver faster turnarounds and resolutions for
all customer concerns and issues.
Under Tilston’s guidance, Flight Centre’s global team also
received social media training, including tens of thousands of
employees at local travel agency storefronts, to become social
ambassadors. Said programs teach staff to be more thoughtful and
strategic when it comes to delivering an effective, positive in-store
customer experience. “When a customer leaves one of our shops,
often they will go out and tweet, update, or post something about
that experience,” Tilston says. “So it’s all about instilling the mindset
that, the better experience you provide your customers, the more
likely they’ll say positive things about you. Thus, they become your
champion on social.”
Emphasizing the importance of two-way conversations also
drives Tilston’s goal to interact with every social brand mention and
cultivate advocacy. Such behaviors boost satisfaction, ultimately
leading to revenue gains. Consumers who received assistance and
engagement on social media, for instance, were nearly three times
more likely to convert, with these same individuals bringing in 10
times more revenue.
Through its partnership with HootSuite, Flight Centre team mem-
bers can easily access dashboards that display all brand mentions
for the quickest response possible. In one such case, the consumer
believed the speedy reply came from an automated bot. Empowered
by Tilston’s best practices, the employee infused his response with
quick wit by taking a photograph of himself alongside the consumer’s
tweet. This engaging reply brought an element of fun to an interac-
tion that, if unattended, could’ve harmed brand reputation, as the
employee reassuringly extended his helping hand to this potential
pessimist.
One Australian blogger also threatened Flight Centre’s reputation
when she began critiquing the company’s Twitter avatar. The blogger
claimed the pilot in the image looked drunk because his hat was tilted,
causing her to question Flight Centre’s reputability. Rather than ignore
her insult, someone on Tilston’s team took this opportunity to engage
in friendly banter and jokingly Photoshop the hat in question onto the
blogger’s own Twitter avatar. The next day, Flight Centre discovered
the blogger had written a positive post filled with nothing but praise
for how the team handled the interaction, ultimately converting this
potential detractor into an enthusiastic advocate.
Moving beyond these one-off social queries and comments, Tilston
and his team also created real-time information hubs on the Flight
Centre blog dedicated to issues that impact customers and threaten
to disrupt their travels. Through the power of social sharing, these
hubs link to fresh information, answers, and social resources so peo-
ple may better navigate during times of natural disaster, as was the
case with the Icelandic volcano and Brisbane floods, for instance. By
collecting and disseminating information from partners, government
authorities, and social media, Flight Centre’s blog transformed into
the destination for both travelers and the general public to interact
with one another and crowdsource help and goodwill.
Through crisis management, in times of both social and natural
disaster, Tilston has effectively equipped his team with the tools and
knowledge necessary to assist customers with authority and confi-
dence during times of confusion or need.
Delivering Social Service to Build Brand Advocacy
2014 Customer Champion Gregg Tilston, global social media leader at Flight Centre Travel Group, empowers
employees with the social playbook and creative freedom necessary to exceed consumer expectations and cultivate
true fans. —By Anna Papachristos

To deliver quality customer care, companies must think like their
client base. For Gavin Woody, vice president, operations at A Place
for Mom, successful service means blending thoughtfulness and
authority to ensure minimal stress and maximum satisfaction.
Each day, Woody leads the company’s 200-person customer
qualification contact center team, which provides free nationwide
assistance to families looking for senior housing and elderly care.
These agents determine the caller’s interest and desired location so
they may connect the family with one of A Place for Mom’s 300
senior living advisors, who will then refer suitable senior communities
based upon client preferences and requirements. Overall, Woody’s
team serves two customers: families and advisors. Thus, Woody
constantly urges himself and his staff to ask themselves how they’d
want to be treated if looking for care for their own aging relatives.
In his effort to always do what’s right for the customer, Woody
observes numerous data points, such as NPS and customer sat-
isfaction, to develop his understanding of how the customer feels.
Woody actively listens to recorded calls, as well, so he may com-
prehend the customer situation and how his staff handles various
types of inquiries. At the center of Woody’s customer strategy lies
his enhanced quality assurance program, which takes the compa-
ny’s old, business-centric approach to task, adding an equal focus
on the customer experience. Woody established what “good calls”
should sound like, creating the standard by which to measure all
such interactions and building the trust and rapport necessary to
sustain customer engagement. Since implementing this program,
the percentage of families connected directly to an advisor has
climbed from 88 percent to 93 percent, boosting employee confi-
dence in their ability to assist.
When measuring employee engagement, Woody assesses senti-
ment both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, the team’s
call center employee retention rate has drastically improved since
integrating this added emphasis on the customer experience, drop-
ping from more than 7 percent to less than 4 percent. Employee
roundtables and feedback systems, on the other hand, provide
granular insight into how employees perceive the customer expe-
rience, as Woody places great value on the ideas that come from
staff members who work the frontlines each day.
From this data, Woody and his team have discovered great suc-
cess and opportunity for change. In the last year, move-ins—the
number of families helped—grew 30 percent, while revenue jumped
40 percent and NPS increased by 11 percent. These numbers
indicate that this renewed focus on customer centricity and expe-
rience resonates with the company’s client base. A Place for Mom
hopes to perpetuate this momentum even further by redesigning its
approach to IVR.
“We plan to test not having an IVR message at all within the next
few months by connecting callers with human beings right from
the start,” Woody notes. “We want to be thoughtful about our mar-
ket and, often times, those calling us about senior care for their
90-year-old dad or mom are usually between 60 and 65 years old
themselves. With the older generation, people don’t really like auto-
mated recordings. We think that putting humans on the line builds
trust right out of the gate because, in today’s world, the face of
many companies ends up being automated recordings with com-
plex routing systems. Therefore, what you gain in efficiency, you
lose in satisfaction.”
Unfortunately, however, staff members outside the contact cen-
ter run the risk of becoming desensitized, as many will never work
directly with a family to find the best senior care options for their
loved ones. Thus, to uphold engagement and ensure all employ-
ees are functioning at peak levels, Woody instituted a voice of the
customer program that requires every staff member (director-level
and above) to spend at least one hour per month working side-by-
side with an agent as they help families start the process of finding
senior care. Such strategies remind leaders who they’re helping,
thereby creating a companywide focus on those callers seeking
assistance in their time of need.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Employee
Engagement
2014 Customer Champion Gavin Woody, vice president, operations at A Place for Mom, quantifies the
customer experience by providing agents with the tools and knowledge required for quality customer service.
—By Anna Papachristos
Gavin Woody, A Place for Mom
THE NUMBERS GURU
What’s the one piece of advice you’d
give to someone regarding how to
elevate their customer experience?
“Really listen to the customer! Get in the
weeds and actually listen to a lot of calls and,
if possible, watch the interactions that are
happening. It’s easy for people to become
distant from what customers are actually doing,
so we rely on statistics and dashboards to
try and tell us what’s actually happening with
our customers. But the best way to do that
is to go talk to customers. Sometimes, at the
executive level, even when you’re talking to
customers, you still miss the granularity—what
the end user is experiencing—so you must also
listen to random calls and ask yourself how the
customer actually felt to drive decisions around
making a better customer experience.”

Like the human body, careers that are in motion tend to stay in
motion. For John Wompey, vice president of operations at Foot
Locker, life in retail has been one continuous climb, as he started
his journey at the part-time stockperson level and rose through
the ranks, learning from customers along the way.
Throughout his career, Wompey has always sought to estab-
lish truth in order to drive understanding and empathy between
customers and employees. “Being able to work in every position
along the way in retail, you have the opportunity to be on the
frontline of the truth,” Wompey emphasizes. “The truth is where
the experience meets the customer. I constantly have to remind
myself to dial back to what matters most, the customer, and not
only remember the experience I had, but to go directly to employ-
ees in those positions—to respect each position—and get their
input because those on the frontlines are focused entirely on cus-
tomer experience as it stands today.”
Wompey spends most of his time working directly with associ-
ates at Foot Locker locations across the country, helping associates
with everything from staffing and store layout, to employee train-
ing and product merchandising. Wompey specifically taps into the
brand’s comprehensive feedback program to establish what con-
sumers seek at each point along the customer journey, thereby
using this insight to guide decisions and training techniques.
Because his overarching strategy aims to make all customers
feel valued, Wompey focuses his efforts upon listening to their
comments directly and educating employees on how to do the
same. By teaching associates how to decipher the underlying
sentiment for each question or concern, Wompey empowers all
Foot Locker employees to understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ behind
great customer experience. In one instance, when coaching a
23-year-old associate obsessed with basketball, Wompey asked
the young man, “What if LeBron James came in here? How would
you treat him?” With one simple question, Wompey managed to
convey the precise level of attention and care he wanted from all
associates, as these everyday interactions—these moments in
time—generate sales today to create loyalty tomorrow.
To carry out such goals, Wompey’s team implemented the
Customer First initiative, which resides at the heart of Foot Locker’s
customer-centric culture. The program focuses upon customer
journey mapping in an effort to help the company understand how
customers experience the brand and how to design interactions
around each point that cultivates closer customer relationships.
This roadmap highlights touchpoints throughout the customer life-
cycle that are critical to both relationship-building and sales. By
using customer feedback to identify associate behaviors that could
improve experience, Wompey and his team were then able to cre-
ate coaching programs that educate employees about what’s truly
most important to the customer. Wompey notes that young asso-
ciates respond well to quick bites or bursts with regard to training.
Thus, these coaching exercises remain frequent and relevant, for
this style allows learning to evolve alongside customer behavior
and company understanding.
Often times, when conducting a training session, Wompey
will respond to customer inquiries personally to teach employ-
ees how to handle such interactions and to ensure the voice of
the customer remains prominent across the entire organization.
Wompey will call the customer back, tell them he’s training his
managers, and ask if they’re comfortable on speaker. In most
cases, customers are surprised to hear from him directly and
take advantage of the opportunity to help employees understand
their questions and concerns. Wompey’s willingness to “walk the
walk” also offers associates firsthand understanding of how to
put said principles into action.
Wompey truly demonstrates his passion for service by actively
working to build customer loyalty, educate associates, and cre-
ate an internal culture that empowers employees to become
“customer champions” themselves. This dedication impacts
employees personally and professionally, while also enabling an
effective customer experience strategy that improves sales and
satisfaction.
Embracing Customer Feedback to Enhance
Employee Engagement
2014 Customer Champion John Wompey, vice president of operations at Foot Locker, uses voice of the customer
data to uncover truths that drive companywide innovation and employee success.—By Anna Papachristos
John Wompey, Foot Locker
THE TRUTH SEEKER
How have you evolved your
leadership style in the past year?
“Trying to find the truth! I’m determined to
find out what’s really going on out there.
My leadership style has really leaned on
asking questions that are stimulating and
get people to think. Not only think for
themselves and change themselves, but
also find out what’s really going on. I always
say if you ask a professional question,
you’ll get a professional answer, but if you
ask behavior-based questions, you get the
truth. That stimulation to get people to think
is crucial for us to be able to grow future
leaders. Every associate has the potential to
be a great leader—a customer champion—
we just have to help them with the ability to
do that.”

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.

1to1 Media
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