Listen Up!

KAREN MANGIA is Vice President, Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, where she engages current and future customers around the world to discover new ways of creating success and growth together. She has been featured in Forbes and regularly writes for the over 42,000+ employees of Salesforce—an ecosystem that reaches over 3 million people worldwide. She is the author of Working From Home: Making the New Normal Work for You and Success With Less: Releasing Obligations & Discovering Joy.

• Foreword xiiiChapter 1 The Breakdown Before the Breakthrough 1How Do I Manage This Crisis? 2Recovery and Resilience 3Serving at a Higher Level 4The Breakdown Leads to a Breakthrough 4Chapter 2 Don’t Bet on Your Blind Spots 9How “What If?” Became, “Why Not?” 9Would you be willing to bet your business—or your career—on a single number? 10The Challenge: We’re asking the wrong questions—and we’re asking the wrong questions of the wrong people 11The Greatest Nightmare Any CEO Can Face 12Never Again 14Are you willing to do what it takes to retain 100 percent of your customers? 15Decrease Distance Between Your Home Office and the C-Suite: First Steps 18Be Selective 18Why Stop at One? 18Chapter 3 The Beginner’s Mindset 21A False Sense of Security 23Listening is the First Step in Decision Making 25Chapter 4 Big Impact 27Chapter 5 When Organizations are Out of Alignment 37Action is Where Mantras and Missions Come to Life 39How often does your customer feedback tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to know? 40If you consistently achieve your customer experience improvement targets, are you measuring what matters to your customers? 40Do perfect scores alert you to risks? Competitive threats? When a customer is about to leave you? New engagements or sales opportunities? 41How often are you interested in your customers’ feedback, rather than invested? 43Chapter 6 Defining the Digital Divide 47You are Not Alone 49People Before Process 50How Big is Tourism in Amsterdam? 51Transportation Considerations 52Redefining Crowdsourcing 52A Single Signal is Effectively False 53Chapter 7 Better Questions, Better Answers 59Out of the Mouths of Babes 62Chapter 8 Got Genius? 71Moving Day: Entering the Unknown 72Finding Genius 74Chapter 9 Genius, Revealed 83Myth #1: Customers Demand Quick Answers and Short Call Duration Times 87Myth #2: The Survey is the Solution 87Myth #3: “Ease of Doing Business” is an Operations Play, so Attacking It Like a Project is Best 88EODB is Not a Project, It’s a Purpose 88Go Beyond the Survey 89Myth #4: Customer Support is about Resolving Complaints 90Exec Listening Creates New Results 90From Black Hole to Above Goal in 88 Days 91Myth #5: We don’t Have the Resources to Transform Our Customer Experience/Customer Support Right Now 93Myth #6: Great Customer Support is about Agent Knowledge, Productivity, and Extensive Training 93Make It Easier on Yourself 94Myth #7: The Process is the Solution 96Chapter 10 The Secret Sauce 97What Happens When Ego Enters the Conversation 100What’s Necessary Isn’t Always Easy 100Chapter 11 Dealing with Disruption 111A New Destination 115The Right Players at the Right Time 117Chapter is How to Win 121The Customer Advisory Board 123Press Pause on PowerPoint 124Chapter 13 Moving at the Speed of the Customer 129The Value in Bias 130Lack of Knowledge 131Misinformation Endorsement 131Why You Have to Earn the Customer 135Owning the Journey 135New Value, New Solutions 136Human-Centered Design 139Chapter 14 Look Who’s Talking 141Finding Value 143A Match Made in Heaven 144The Customer Experience Assessment 144Building the Relationship 149Community Kills Competition 153Chapter 15 Moment of Signal 155Restoring Hope 156About the Author 161Acknowledgments 163Index 167