How does a company create an experience so extraordinary that people want to talk about it? Join us as we sit down with author, speaker, and consultant Dan Gingiss to discuss the secret behind crafting remarkable customer interactions. In this episode, we talk about Dan’s new book, how McDonald’s could do better, and what a taco truck can teach us about the customer experience.

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to supply chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues. The challenges and opportunities stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain. Now,

Scott Luton (00:32):

Good morning, Scott. Luton here with you on supply chain now, welcome to today’s show. Now, in this episode, we’re talking all about customer experience and then some, what is it, why does it matter perhaps now more than ever, and what are some of the leading companies doing to optimize their approach to CX and much, much more so stay tuned. Hey, quick programming. Uh, before we get started here today, if you didn’t love this conversation and you’re going to, because we have a home run guest, Hey, make sure you find supply chain now and subscribe. So don’t miss future conversations just like this. Okay. So as you can see, we have a wonderful guests here today. I want to introduce our special guests. So, uh, our guests today is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, coach consultant, author, and much, much more for over 20 years. Our guests led marketing teams in almost every marketing channel imaginable. He worked for some of the biggest brands that everyone knows and loves, including McDonald’s Humana and discover. He’s a true thought leader and subject matter expert on critical topics, including customer experience, which is really all the rage. A lot of companies are learning how to get this right here lately. And he has recently completed what is being called, quote, the go-to resource for customer experience, a book entitled the experience maker. So we’ve got to welcome into the experience speaker here today. Dan Gingiss Dan, how you doing this afternoon? Well,

Dan Gingiss (01:55):

Thank you for that amazing introduction to Scott. I’m super excited to be here with you and talk some supply chain and customer experience and how it all goes together. Love

Scott Luton (02:05):

It. But you know, I skipped right over this personal note here, cause you’ve got a bunch of them on your website and I love that kind of stuff. And the one that I snagged was are you Dan Gingiss has sung the national Anthem in a group at three major league baseball stadium, Stan. That’s awesome. Yeah, I actually

Dan Gingiss (02:21):

Did that. Believe it or not in business school, because of course everybody goes to business school to join an acapella group. Uh, that was the first and only time I’ve been a member of an acapella group and it was a bunch of guys. I used to say, you know, we’d sit around and drink beer and occasionally sing. And it was the most fun I ever had. Uh, we got to sing at Wrigley field twice, uh, at Miller park in Milwaukee twice. And then also at, uh, I don’t even know what they’re calling it anymore, but what was coming ski park, us cellular guaranteed rate field in Chicago as well, where the white Sox play, what are the white Sox play? Yes. Uh, and it was super fun, really a great time.

Scott Luton (03:00):

Love it. So when you said acappella group, my brain immediately goes to Andy from the office and I cannot remember the name of his acappella group from, uh, from college, but what a, what a classic sitcom series. And that’s one of the funniest funniest dues. It sounds like you all have some similar stories in your background, but so if you can’t tell in Dan’s answer, you know, the backdrop is Chicago. You live in one of the best cities around the world, certainly, uh, uh, iconic American city global city. So is that where you grew up, Dan? It is

Dan Gingiss (03:33):

Born and raised. I’ve spent almost my entire life here. I went to school out in the east coast and then worked for about four years after college, on the east coast as well. And just to show you what, you know, how the world has changed. I came back to Chicago in 2000 to go to business school, but one of the reasons I was pining to come back was that I couldn’t watch Cubs games in, uh, in the east coast and there was no way to do it. And it’s so funny to think about that. Now it was only 20 years ago and obviously you could be anywhere on the planet and watch Cubs games now, but at the time it was something that was really missing for me. And so that led me back home

Scott Luton (04:10):

Love that, you know, a member, um, of course the Braves were everywhere back in the eighties and early nineties. Superstation WTB S but we got WGN where I grew up in South Carolina. So I saw lots of day games on WGN and, uh, Sean Dunstan. And of course, George Bell, when he played a couple of years, I think with the Cubs way back when, of course Greg Maddix and those early days. But, um, I bet you had a ton of great experiences as a Cubs fan, especially here lately with some of the mega teams y’all had. Well, it’s

Dan Gingiss (04:42):

Interesting for many, many years, 108 of them to be exact, the definition of loyalty was being a Cubs fan. And so I learned a lot about loyalty because, you know, anytime you follow a team that sticks for that bat for that long, uh, you gotta be loyal. Uh, and so anytime I meet another Cubs fan, I already know something about them. They’re a, they’re a trooper, they’d been through some stuff, but, uh, yeah, we got a world series win and now we’re bad again. So it’s a, it’s a full circle.

Scott Luton (05:08):

Hey, we get as a braise fan, you know, 95 feels forever ago and we’ve been through some trials and tribulations, but Hey, you know what, on a brighter note, at least baseball has been back, little sports has been back. It’s been a great departure from, uh, this pandemic backdrop, but for sure. So before we get into the heavy lifting and then kind of talk more about a lot of your expertise, let’s, uh, one more personal question for you. So when you, when, if we were to survey your friends and family, uh, and, and say, Hey, what’s one Anon, uh, one, um, iconic aspect trait attribute about Dan. That is so, so Dan Gingiss, um, that’s easily, easily identifiable. What, what trait or attribute would that be?

Dan Gingiss (05:51):

Well, I have to say when I went back to my high school reunion, people did remember me as being the biggest cup fan. They knew. And in fact, there were people that told me when the Cubs won the world series that they thought of me, like people I hadn’t talked to in decades, which was awesome, but because we’ve talked so much baseball and I don’t want people to be rolling their eyes, if they’re not baseball fans, I’m going to give you a different answer, which is that, uh, in the eighties was the execs early seventies and eighties. But I was growing up in the, in the eighties. My dad ran a family business called beingess formal wear, which is a, uh, formal wear rental tuxedo rental company, those franchise throughout the United States. So a few hundred stores across the country. And I was always, I don’t know why, but I was always a really popular guy around prom time. Like everyone wanted to be my friend around prom time. I have no idea why that was, but that brand sadly has gone the way of so many others and is no longer around. But I would say that certainly people that know me growing up that would have been something they would’ve identified with me outstanding.

Scott Luton (06:51):

And, you know, if I recall correctly, your family’s shop was in the backdrop of the blues brothers movie from way back in it,

Dan Gingiss (06:58):

Is that a very good memory and still to this day, all these years later, at least once a year, somebody sends me that clip and says, Hey, have you ever seen this? And, uh, yes, it was the famous small, a car chase scene that ends with them crashing through the window of a Gingiss former. But you are good because if you blink, you miss the sign, like you really have to be paying attention, because if you just blink at the wrong time, you’re going to miss it. But, but it was indeed one of the stores. And my dad’s got a fun story about how they came and asked him if that if they could have permission to do it. And of course they had to rebuild the store and all that, but, uh, pretty fun

Scott Luton (07:36):

That we will have to bring you back and dive into those family entrepreneurial stories and adventures. I bet you could tell us, but today I want to dive into this topic of customer experience. You know, we, we met doing some work for a large technology provider and, and frankly, you know, here in supply chain, of course we’ve been always driven by the customer, right. But, but this, the CX and, and, uh, the phrase customer experience was a new one for me. Right. We kind of think about it in different terms. So for any of our listeners that, you know, maybe have heard that. And, and it’s hard not to hear that these days, because it’s so critically important, leadership’s focused on it, but to level set can define to you, you know, in your term to what customer experience the craft discipline, what does that refer to? Sure. Well, I

Dan Gingiss (08:23):

Love how you introduced that because I could say the same thing about supply chain, that it was just really wasn’t anything I ever thought about until really until you and I met. And, uh, as we’re about to talk about it, it became suddenly there was this aha moment for me, where it was like, yeah, I’m supply chain has a huge impact on customer experience. So I define customer experience as how a customer feels every time they interact with a brand and the two important parts. There are one how a customer feels because perception is reality. So I’m sorry if your mobile app team says that they just built the greatest mobile app in the world and your customers say it’s difficult to use. The answer is it’s difficult to use. That’s how they feel, right? We have to respect that. The second thing is every single interaction.

Dan Gingiss (09:11):

And so, especially in today’s omni-channel world, customers are interacting with companies across many different dimensions. They might walk into a physical location. They might go to a website, they might call customer service. They might engage in social media. They might see a television ad. These are all different channels that they’re engaging. And, uh, and every one of those engagements contributes to how they feel about the brand. And so we have to be aware of all of those pieces and frankly ask ourselves in this digital social world at every step in the journey, would we like this to show up on Twitter or Facebook? And what my book is about is actually flipping that question on its side, which is how do we get this to show up on Facebook and Twitter? How do we make an experience? That’s so great that people want to talk about it, but you got to look at it from both angles as well, because if you don’t pay attention to, Hey, this could be shared and we, this would be kind of embarrassing. If it did get shared, that’s a pretty good hint that you might want to adopt a as some change to that experience.

Scott Luton (10:18):

So well said, I really appreciate that. And for the folks that are watching the video replay, this is what the book looks like. I was fortunate

Dan Gingiss (10:26):

To amazing minds, autograph Dan. I’m not sure if he can do,

Scott Luton (10:33):

But I love that definition. And, and you know, one of the first places my brain goes is, you know, here in Atlanta, we got plenty of, uh, interstates and highways and byways, right. And you know, a lot of folks will put a brand, whether it’s an apple, you know, from the apple company or a Nike swoosh or the popular line of coolers that are really expensive. I can’t remember the name of it right now. Yeah. Yeti. Yeah. They’ll put those stickers in the back of their vehicles, right. For free free. And in fact, they probably pay to be able to do that. And I imagine that when folks do that, they’ve gotten to be thrilled with the products and big fans of the brand as you’re describing. So whether it’s social interaction and some of what, you know, how the brands, won’t those raving fans to share on social, or as simple as the bumper sticker on the back of their car, I guess all of that rolls up into customer experience. Well,

Dan Gingiss (11:25):

What they’re doing with the bumper sticker on the cars, they’re providing word of mouth marketing, which is the holy grail for marketers. You know, marketers forever have been trying to figure out how do we get other people talking about us, because that’s way more credible than anything a brand can say, we all win. If you think about how we shop today for no matter what it is we’re looking for. We ask our friends, we ask our family, we ask our business colleagues, we go read ratings and reviews. We want the social feedback before we purchase. And so what we as organizations need to do is make sure that that social feedback is positive. I want to also point out that you just mentioned some very popular consumer brands and somebody in your audience when you were mentioning. Those said, yeah, well great. But my brand isn’t like that I’m in a boring industry. Right? Well, let me tell you, I worked for a credit card company called discover. And one of the things that absolutely shocked me when I got there is I read hundreds of pages of customer feedback. And there was a word that kept showing up that I never expected to show up for a credit card. That word was

Scott Luton (12:27):

Love. I love it.

Dan Gingiss (12:30):

My discover card, where I was like, what I get it, if you love Coca-Cola I get it. If you love Starbucks, if you love Disney, like I got that, but what you love your credit card? And the reality is I later learned in 10 years at discover, is that for years, discover has been competing on service and experience. And that’s what got people to love their credit card. I have legitimately never heard anyone say to me that they love their fill in your blank bank card. I’ve never heard that before, but I heard it all the time at discovery. And so that just shows you that no matter what industry you’re in, even if you think you’re in a boring industry or an industry where people, you don’t think customers can love you, they absolutely can. It’s just how you treat them.

Scott Luton (13:14):

Gosh, I love that for so many reasons, including discover was my first ever credit card ever years and years ago. And it’s true.

Dan Gingiss (13:22):

That’s true of a lot of people. I have a quick question about that. Was it. Did your parents have a discussion?

Scott Luton (13:27):

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think, uh, I don’t

Dan Gingiss (13:31):

Know, it’s a, it’s a leading indicator of people’s first card is what their parents have. It, it, it, it just is, you can pretty much draw a line and, and most of the time it’s true, but also what is really critical is your first credit card tends to be. And I won’t ask you if this is true with you, it’s fine. Um, but it tends to be the one you’re most loyal to for your whole life. Um, because it’s the first one that gave you credit. It’s the first one that, you know, trusted you. It’s an important moment when you get your first credit card.

Scott Luton (13:58):

Well, so that without going into specifics, uh, agree and never thought about it, but you’re absolutely right. So, um, man, I’m already learning, I got three pages of notes already. Dan, I’ll tell you what

Dan Gingiss (14:10):

Stuff about yourself here. So,

Scott Luton (14:14):

Uh, I want to talk about, so I really appreciate your kind of how we both level set it on the front end if I’m using that word, right. You know, me, me about customer experience and you about supply chain because the worlds are colliding and, and where, you know, gone are the days, you know, wait four to six weeks for delivery, right? That, that, that, and there’s blue commercials with the credit card symbols as folks were, you know, dialing the order, something gone to those days where the supply chain would just kind of how was had it just had to happen, right? It wasn’t a true competitive advantage for the most part, generalizing here. But now here in information age, the Amazon age of some folks call it, you name it where you’re getting stuff fast, getting the right stuff fast at the right price and getting it here, even though you don’t need those socks for years and years, I got to have him tomorrow. I mean, just the landscape has changed dramatically. So question for you has global supply chain management ever had this much impact on customer experience?

Dan Gingiss (15:14):

Absolutely not. I think you’re right. That we were headed in that direction, you know, in the nineties and two thousands, we were talking about just-in-time inventory and, and what’s funny is customers became customers ended up wanting just-in-time inventory, right? They want it now, they first, they wanted it in two days and they wanted it in one day. Now they want it same day, you know, and that’s essentially just in time. But I think what was fascinating over the last year, year and a half is industries as diverse as automobiles and ice cream, we’re experiencing major supply chain disruptions. And normally what I would say is customers don’t care. Like they don’t care about the what’s happening in the background, right. They just want the product there. And the challenge is for people certainly in supply chain and then also for the companies themselves is who’s going to get blamed the company, right?

Dan Gingiss (16:13):

At the end of the day, it could be a shipping problem. It could be a manufacturing problem. It could be a delivery problem. It doesn’t matter. The company is going to get blamed for it because ultimately we look at the company and we say, Hey, your job is to get me the product. I don’t care how you do it. Right. And so I often say that, that, you know, customers don’t care about your org charts, right? So, oh, well, we’re really siloed. Sally handles this department and Mary handles this department customer doesn’t care to them. You’re one company and Sally and Mary are both part of the same company and, you know, sorry, but we don’t really care that you’re in different departments. And so I think that’s been the real challenges. There’s been so many companies, some of which we didn’t expect at all. I mean, I wrote an article about the things that were hard to find during the pandemic and men was at a diverse list. I mean, it was the most random things. Try finding a weight set for your teenage son over the last year and a half. It was impossible. Right? And these are not things that you would expect if someone told you a pandemic was coming down the pike, you wouldn’t necessarily say, oh boy, better, better stock up on the weights or the Portland furniture expected, right?

Scott Luton (17:19):

Hello paper, or the semi-conductors or insert, you know, item here to follow up on that point. Or you’re talking about how, you know, customer just, they’re all one company, regardless of departments and whatnot, you know, we’ve started to see if you go purchase something at a, your local hardware store or big retailer or whatever, when you bring it home and starting to have to put it together in the instructions, it says, Hey, before you, if you’ve had any problems before you return it to the store, Hey, reach out to us. And here’s the number, right. Because I think, I think, and I’ll defer you, but I think those, those companies want to kind of cut off any problems that the past, since they know their product, they can make it right. And they can make it good without any kind of feedback hitting the stores. That’s my hunch. But, um, what would you say you did?

Dan Gingiss (18:03):

It’s so funny. I think you’re right. But as a customer, you know what I think when I see that I’m like, oh crap, what’s going to go wrong. You know, I never thought anything was going to go wrong, but now I’m afraid there is going to go wrong because if they want me to call them, oh boy. Uh, but no, I think you’re right. They want to own that. Um, it’s, uh, also, I don’t know the inner workings of Amazon, but, you know, because Amazon’s return policies are so generous, my guess is that somewhere down the road, the vendors and the, you know, the third party sellers end up having to compensate for some of that. And so it’s just cheaper for them to take a phone call than it is to pick a return to product, not to mention if the product is in box, they may not be able to sell it again.

Dan Gingiss (18:45):

And now it’s wasted and all that. So, um, I think that, uh, overall, I think it’s a good plan, but it does. It’s funny because, and this is, I always teach people this, you know, you have to talk to your customers to understand how they perceive things. And then I’d be interested to see if those companies ever ran that message by potential customers or real customers to say, well, if you saw this, if you saw this buck slip, when you opened up our product, what would you think? And I would tell them, I would think there’s going to be something wrong with this product. Right. And that’s clearly not what they wanted me to think. Okay. No,

Scott Luton (19:21):

It’s a bad, um, as a bad assumption for, to be rolling around between the ears of a, of a customer. Right. And,

Dan Gingiss (19:29):

And I I’ll tell you something else, because you’ve mentioned about building things. I also wrote an article about, uh, can I, can I name a brand positively? Okay. With that? Okay. About target. Uh, because I bought a, um, TV stand from target. Now I had bought furniture before from that wonderful Swedish company that has a delicious meatballs. And every time I wouldn’t pull up in one of those boxes, I mean, if I had hair, I’d be pulling it out because it just, I don’t like that stuff. Some people love building that stuff, not for me. So I get this thing from target and I got my son and I’m like, all right, you know, whatever, we’ll spend a couple hours building this thing. I take out the instruction guide. First thing I noticed is there’s actually words in it, which is a step in the right direction.

Dan Gingiss (20:10):

The first paragraph says, don’t sweat it. This is going to be easy. And I was like, I looked behind me in my, did they know I was sweating and already like, are they talking to me because yeah, I’m sweating it. And then they went on to explain, they said, we did all the hard parts for you. And sure enough, when you went to put the cabinet in, they had already attached to hinges, which is the hardest part. All I had to do is snap. The darn thing in, we built this thing in 20 minutes and I felt so good and accomplished. And I went and wrote this article about target and about sort of the fact that just that first couple of sentences, their instructions telling me not to sweat. It meets all the difference in the world. And you compare that again to not trying to make fun, but instructions that don’t have any words and that are sometimes hard to decipher.

Dan Gingiss (21:00):

And what have you. And frankly, never take 20 minutes, at least nothing I’ve ever bought. And so what I love about that is how different of an experience that is. And then you think about what, what did they have to do? Well, they had to buy it. They had to build a better product, certainly that was preassembled, but it was in the communication and that to bring it back to supply chain, communication is such a key part of the experience when customers are communicated with, when you give them a heads up, when you tell them what’s happening and why they are more than likely understanding, especially if they’ve had a good, long relationship with you. If you hide it and you don’t talk to them and you surprise them and they think their product’s coming tomorrow, and it doesn’t come for another week and now you, you know, a birthday has been missed or whatever it is.

Dan Gingiss (21:44):

Well now they’re unhappy. And so communication is really, really key and what I love. And I talk a lot about this in my book. There are so many places that we communicate with customers that we don’t think of as marketing or experience opportunities. An instruction manual is a great example. A legal doc document is a great example. An invoice is a great example. These are all places that we don’t have to be boring. We don’t have to be like everybody else. We can create an experience. Can you imagine getting an invoice and smiling? It’s possible. You can, even though you’re the one paying, what did he great. If we can make our customers smile when they get invoices, that’s an experience. I love

Scott Luton (22:25):

It. And I love the, I love this, this theme that’s developing from our conversation here today. Kind of what you just shared there. And going back to your time at discover where break the rules, just because the industry is what it is and there’s norms. It doesn’t mean that you as business leader or as a business professional, have to have to do just that and stay in that box. So I love that. And, and just that simple example of the, um, you know, changing how instructions are written and, and, and instead of giving the bare minimum, basically encouraging and uplifting in that one moment that, Hey, you can do this. It’s not gonna be hard. That’s the simple things are the powerful.

Dan Gingiss (23:04):

And the best thing is how much did it cost them to do that on that instruction manual, nothing they were putting in the instruction manual. Anyway, they just decided to print it with language that was a little more friendly and a little more engaging. And I always like to say that companies should refuse to be boring and departments within companies. I talked to a, I did a speech recently to a whole room full of lawyers. And I said, you know, pun intended, there is no law that says you have to be boring right there just isn’t, you can have fun. You can have a personality. And I showed them some legal disclaimers that are so funny that you want to read them. Can you imagine seeing a legal disclaimer and being like, I want to read that again, unexpected experience in a place where it, you know, you went from boring to memorable at some big difference along that line. Right. And I think the more we can do that, the more, you know, people feel good about doing business with us.

Scott Luton (24:02):

Oh, I love that. So speaking of your book, that’s what we’re referencing here today,

Dan Gingiss (24:06):

The period, this one over here,

Scott Luton (24:09):

The experience maker, uh, and that, and this is only your latest publication. You’ve had others, but let’s talk about the experience maker. So I know you can’t do it justice, and don’t give me a book quiz just yet. I hadn’t finished it yet, but tell us a couple of key points that folks can find it.

Dan Gingiss (24:24):

Sure. So the book is experienced maker, how to create remarkable experiences that your customers can’t wait to share. And if that sounds a little like marketing it’s because I spent 20 years as a marketer, and I feel like I live at the intersection of customer experience and marketing. And as I said before, I want to help companies create that word of mouth. That is the best marketing that they can have. So I introduced a framework in the book that is called wiser. It’s my own proprietary method. And wiser stands for witty, immersive, shareable, extraordinary and responsive. And these are five things that companies can do to create experiences that are remarkable and remarkable is an intentional word, literally means worthy of remark, worthy of discussion, right? And so when we create these kinds of experiences, we get customers to talk about us. And there’s research behind that there’s research that has shown that people are more likely and more willing to share positive customer experiences than they are negative ones.

Dan Gingiss (25:30):

The problem is most of us don’t have very many positive experiences with the companies. We do business with what I do this. I do this a quiz every time or the survey. Every time when I’m on stage, I’ll ask an audience, tell me, raise your hand. If you remember the last time that accompany wowed you so much, that you couldn’t wait to tell friends and colleagues. And I don’t care if there’s a hundred people in the room or a thousand for always raise their hand. That’s it. And then I say, raise your hand. If you remember the last time you were disappointed by a company, not only does every hand always go up, but I swear to you, I did a live presentation in June. The guy in the front row jumped out of his seat and said, that was just this morning, right? So let me tell you about it all he wanted to do right when I was speaking. And so the reality is most of the experiences that we have with companies are either average, boring, not worthy of remark or they’re bad. And my book is about how to create the positive ones that we know people want to share if they just had more of them to share. And I believe that can be the ultimate differentiator in many, many industries where there are not a lot of positive experiences being shared. All right.

Scott Luton (26:40):

So folks, y’all got to go get your copy, really good stuff. A lot of great stories, a lot of great, very practical advice from someone that’s been there and done it with some of the biggest brands that you have heard of, and probably still enjoy to this day, just like me, uh, with our friendly discovery card. So I want to talk about some of the news stories that I know you’re tracking, uh, enjoy your email newsletter by the way. And, um, I love your, you know, just like the target example, Dan, I love how you take something that probably thousands of other people have seen, but they haven’t stopped in a moment, call Tom out and say, Hey, this is different. This, this is impactful. This is remarkable. And folks need to take notice of this, cause this is what you should do. Uh, and your newsletter is, is, is built by that. So one of these stories that, that we’ve been looking at here lately, I know you’ve been diving into is a big Donald’s, which middle child, and I just enjoyed. She loves big nuggets and who doesn’t. We were just on a road trip to the day, stopped at our filling McDonald’s and they’ve just hired a chief customer officer. So your take, what, what impact is that going to have? What are they trying to do with that hire and that leadership?

Dan Gingiss (27:48):

Well, thank you, by the way, for calling out the newsletter, I’m going to do a shameless plug and say, if you want, if you’re interested in it, is that CX newsletter.com that will get you to it to subscribe. So I worked at McDonald’s only for about a year and just upfront. I did not have a great experience there for a lot of different reasons. And I tell a story in, you know, kind of within the framework of them hiring this chief customer officer, my, my take on it, is it better, late than never? I mean, I’m, I’m proud of them for doing it. They’ve needed it for a long time. And the, and the reason being this is the story in the, in the blog and the newsletter is that for so long, the focus was so much on the financials that the customer was often lost in the shuffle.

Dan Gingiss (28:31):

And as long as we had a good sales day, it didn’t matter if we off a few customers along the way. And I never liked that attitude because my belief is every customer matters. If you lose a customer, if McDonald’s loses a customer to Wendy’s, if the double loss, right, they’ve lost a customer and their competitor has gained a customer, it’s like, it’s like double, right? And so I think it’s really, really important. And I talked about this concept in my book called the leaky bucket, which is true of almost every company. They have a leaky bucket. These are customers that are walking out the door, and they’re not telling you there, the silent, but deadly wants, they are just leaving because you annoyed them. Somehow you didn’t deliver on the experience that they expected. You didn’t answer their customer service inquiry, fast enough, whatever.

Dan Gingiss (29:15):

And they leave. And those are the most dangerous ones because they don’t even tell you why they’re leaving. I would much rather have someone leave my business and tell me so I can fix it for the next guy than to just leave. And I feel like McDonald’s, didn’t get that. And in particular there, the story in the blog is about when they brought back their sesh one sauce, there was a lot of PR around this, a big story, because it was sort of a homegrown demand from the Rick and Morty show. And they got all these fans to request this ridiculous sauce that, you know, hadn’t been seen since the eighties. And it came back and it ended up being sort of a disaster and success at the same time. It was a success because sales were up that day. It was a disaster because thousands of people waited out in line overnight overnight to get up pack, packet of sauce.

Dan Gingiss (30:08):

Wow. And only learned in the morning that each restaurant only had like 50 packets of sauce. And so people were really angry and I was heading up social media and I’m fielding all of these comments all day long about how they hate McDonald’s, they’re never coming back and this and that. It, you know, I knew some of them were facetious. I knew some of them were just heated at the moment. I also knew some of them probably weren’t coming back. Right. And even if it was a small portion of the tens of thousands of tweets and posts, we saw that day to me, that was a big deal. And what happened internally was there was so much celebration about how this campaign drove year over year sales increases that we basically just swept the social media backlash under the carpet. And I wasn’t okay with that.

Dan Gingiss (30:53):

Um, because I think when you look at, you know, people often ask me, well, how do you calculate the ROI of customer experience? Well, you gotta look at both sides of the coin for one, right? You know, you might’ve gained some customers today, but if you lost even more, it wasn’t a net game. Uh, and so all that to say, I think that McDonald’s was in need of a chief customer officer, and I’m glad they hired one, uh, because they’re good at a lot of things. But I don’t think that that was, that the customer was always front and center. Um, and to me, that’s what makes the most successful companies excellent

Scott Luton (31:26):

Point. And by the way, McDonald’s, please don’t mess with our hot mustard. That’s one, another one is sauces it and goes, depending on what, what franchise you’re at, but nevertheless, all right. So from McDonald’s Dan, I appreciate your, your take on that and, and your transparent take on that two taco trucks. And just, just last weekend, we’ve got a, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants here in, in our neck of the woods, and they do such a great job, or we’re basically raving fans, right. But I’m starting to think from doing some of my homework on some of your POV. It’s amazing what you can learn when it comes to the customer experience from simply a taco. So tell us more, what, what can we learn from a taco truck?

Dan Gingiss (32:07):

So I, you know, one of the things I love about customer experience is it happens every day, everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention to it. And I saw this article in Newsweek that I just absolutely loved about a taco truck owner who had a frequent customer who came by several times a week. And all of a sudden this customer stopped coming by. And the taco truck owner was worried about her and didn’t know what happened to her. And so he called her and left her a voicemail that basically said, you know, Hey, it’s, so-and-so from the taco truck. Haven’t seen you in a while. Just wanted to check in and see if you were okay. Well, it turns out she actually was sick and was at home for awhile. And, uh, and that’s why she wasn’t coming by. Well, this woman ends up creating a tick tock video and sharing the voicemail from the taco truck owner in the video.

Dan Gingiss (32:59):

The video at last count has been seen more than 3 million times. Wow. And all the sudden this taco truck guy is a celebrity. Why? Because he was a human being. And because he, because he had some empathy and caring for one of his customers, he didn’t do anything so outlandish. Right. He just cared. He knew his customer enough to know that she wasn’t showing up and he cared enough to do something about it. And so I kind of asked everyone in any business, do you know your customers that well? And if you do, are you willing to call them up and check in on them sometimes and see how they’re doing? Because that goes a really long way and no, not all of your customers are going to be Tik TOK influencers, right. But that’s not the point. The point is, is that there’s a humanity to business and the companies that are so well loved and you named a few earlier on, but you think about the apples and the Disneys and all that sort of stuff.

Dan Gingiss (33:58):

They get us as humans, they get us, right. And, and we feed, and that’s why we have feelings towards those brands. And, you know, can you have feelings towards a credit card? I guess you can. Right. Which to me says, you can have feelings towards your lawyer or your dentist. I do a lot of work with dentists, right? And there are, you know, you could look at dentistry as being one of the most commoditized businesses in the world, right. They all do the same procedures. They charge about the same amount, you know, because it goes to insurance anyway, and blah, blah, blah. But imagine a dentist who does more than that and who is memorable in some way. And there’s some dentists that are doing wonderful things on social media and, uh, you know, in helping people, I mean, a fear of going to the dentist and all this sort of stuff that make them stand out so that when somebody’s sitting there and say, well, I got three dentists within a mile, which one should I go to?

Dan Gingiss (34:49):

The choice becomes easier, right? Because this guy over here has got a lot of people talking about him and saying how great it is to go to their office. And these guys here don’t see anything. So I’m going to the one, that’s got the great reviews. So it’s, to me, this works in any industry. And I want to kind of follow that by saying, I want to give your audience a practical tip because oftentimes people say, all right, Dan, this is great. But like, what do I, what do I do now? How do I start? And staying on the dentists for a second, did you know that most dentists have their office in the back of the building? And so they enter every morning in the back of the building. That is exactly the wrong place for them to enter. Because if they enter the front of the building, then they see what their patients see.

Dan Gingiss (35:38):

They walk into the, into the, uh, reception area and they look around and see, does it look nice? Are the magazines neatly arranged? Right? And by the way, are the magazines from 2007? Or are they updated? What’s the lighting? Like, how does it smell? Does it look welcoming? You know, these are things that you can’t notice if you walk in the back door. Right? And so what I want to tell you, if you, even, if you don’t literally have a front or back door is become a customer of your own company in any way that you can. And I understand a lot of your folks are, are, uh, are in the supply chain business. And they’re going to say, well, I don’t know if I can do that. Well, then maybe you become a customer of the retailer that is selling your item, or you become a customer of the shipping company that you are working with, or you talk to your customers and have them give you deep insight into what it’s like to do business with you.

Dan Gingiss (36:31):

And what the process is like, what you’re going to hear are things like, and I’m making this up. Like, you know, I understand that there’s a lot of disruption in supply chain, but I just wish you’d tell me, like, I just wish you’d inform me more. And then you’ll be like, wow, well, that’s easy. I can, I mean, I could fix that. I fix the disruptions, but I can fix how I inform people. But you won’t know that if you don’t actually either become a customer or talk to your customers. And I think we all know because we’re all consumers in our real life. When you ask for someone’s opinion, you’re going to get it and be ready because you may not like what they have to say, but it’s going to be incredibly useful to building your business and to enhancing that experience.

Scott Luton (37:13):

I love that. And it can absolutely what you’re talking about. Some folks call it a sensei walk, right? As you’re talking about the dentist coming through the front of the building and kind of very consciously going through their patient’s experience, what they’re seeing, what they’re smelling, what they’re hearing a lot of manufacturing plants, especially those that really believe in five S and six S they will, uh, use their, their continuous improvement champions. And they’ll go on these since they walked, starting in the parking lot, you know, what is it, what does that communicate to your suppliers or your customers, right? That show up in your parking lot and park, and there’s trash, everywhere, cigarette butts or whatever it is, right. It communicates whether you like it or not some aspect of your culture in your operation. And, and you gotta, you gotta, you gotta really approach that holistically to get it right. And, and, and, and those that, that do so have the strongest cultures that impact other aspects of the operation. So I love that, uh, Dan is deeply, uh, applicable to global supply chain.

Dan Gingiss (38:11):

One other, cause I know you love the episode. We’ll give you a quick other example. It’s not mine. It actually is from Howard Schultz’s book. Howard Schultz is the founder CEO of Starbucks. And one of the things, the stories that stuck out in my mind from reading his book is early days, Starbucks was trying to be like these it’s based off of the Italian cafes. And so, and, and it’s supposed to create that atmosphere. And apparently I’m not, I’m not of a coffee stomp to really know this, but apparently in Italy, adding certain things to your coffee is considered distasteful. And one of those things is skim milk, and that’s a very American thing. And so apparently some point early on in days in Starbucks, they didn’t offer skim milk as an ad, as an add on to their coffee. So Howard Schultz used to spend a lot of time in Starbucks restaurants, just sitting there observing.

Dan Gingiss (38:59):

And one day he watches this woman come in and workout gear. And she clearly just been at the gym and she ordered a coffee with skim milk. And she was told that they don’t have skim milk. And she turned around and left. And the next day, Howard Schultz told all of his stores, we’re now carrying Skimbo. Right. And I love that because that is listening to your customer. Right. But also if you go back to a, why were they not carrying skim milk in the first place? It was maybe a nice idea on paper because we want to be like these Italian cafes, but the customers didn’t care. That’s not what they wanted. They wanted the dark skim milk in their coffee, and now they get it. And now they get coconut milk and soy milk and almond milk. And all the other things that they can put in that is truly listening to your customer.

Scott Luton (39:43):

Yeah. Sometimes we can’t get out of our own way. Right. We think, we think we’re thinking about the customer, but really we’re thinking about what we want, what we think the customer wants versus what they really are communicating and shouting at us some times that they want. I love that Starbucks example. Yeah. All right. So we’re going to make sure folks know where to get the book from, but one of my final questions for you, what I love, and you’ve already shared plenty of Eureka moments, but I’m gonna ask you for one more, especially in this, in this pandemic environment where sometimes some days I don’t know about you, but I’m having three or four, especially as we see different places that are, that aren’t quite even as close as we are, hopefully knock on wood to breaking into the post pandemic environment. I mean, we’re talking about sports and the front end, and there’s, there’s plenty of other places around the globe that aren’t even back there yet. And they don’t have that mental departure that is so needed. So, but it doesn’t have to be tied to dependent. What’s another Eureka moment. That’s been a powerful one for you here. Not in relatively recently.

Dan Gingiss (40:42):

I think the Eureka moment, that is so interesting thing about the pandemic. Is it just like it shiny, really bright light on supply chain. It also shine a really bright light on customer experience. And what we found is that customers have this moment where everybody’s suffering, everybody is having, you know, either worried about their health or having health issues. They might be having financial issues are shutoff, right? And it was at that moment that customers looked and said, well, which companies are taking care of me right now? And which companies have disappeared. And I wrote another article again, based on personal experience. But if you remember way at the beginning of the pandemic, we all got these emails from every company that’s ever had our email address and they were all the same. We care about your safety. And we have enhanced our cleaning procedures.

Dan Gingiss (41:33):

And this is what we’re now doing. And if you have any questions visit the CDC website, we got hundreds of these, right. To the point where you just ended up deleting them. I mean, it reminded me like a couple years ago when the European privacy laws changed, we all got the privacy policy emails. Well, I got an email from Charles Schwab who is, I’ve had my bank accounts and investment accounts in for decades. Charles Schwab’s email said, we know that you must be worried about a volatile stock market during these difficult times. So here are a bunch of tools that we have for you to help navigate these difficult waters. They didn’t tell me at all about their cleaning procedures. They didn’t direct me for the 9,000. At the time to the CDC, they gave me what I needed when I needed from the company I needed it from.

Dan Gingiss (42:21):

Right. I mean, it was like a perfect match of, this is what I expect from my brokerage firm. And yes, I am worried about a volatile stock market. And yes, I could use some tools right now. And thank you for understanding where my brain was at. And so few companies did that. They all said, oh, well, everybody else has said in this hand washing and cleaning it email, we better send it to, and it’s like, what, why, why do you feel like you have to check the box? You know, just to say you did it. And I think it’s such a great example. And to me, this was a Eureka moment really early on in the pandemic is like, you know what? There are companies that are going to stand out and they’re going to win because of how they react right now, when times are tough. And sure enough customers looked at these companies and they started the number of customers that switched brands during the pandemic was ridiculous because the brands that weren’t delivering, what they needed, they said, forget it. I’m going to go find somebody that can, and that should wake up a lot of people, right. You know, if you’re not there, when the times are tough, I’m not even going to be around to find out if you’re there when the times are good. And I think that was a big, big learning for us. I love

Scott Luton (43:33):

That. What a great Eureka moment to kind of wrap today’s conversational. But if you, if you want a lot more, uh, to our listeners, if you want a lot more practical in there done that proven ideas and, and, uh, practices and insights, especially on how to optimize your customer experience, make sure you check out Dan’s book, the experience maker and Dan, where can folks find your book and connect with you?

Dan Gingiss (43:58):

You should be able to find it on any fine bookstore that you like shopping at Amazon Barnes, noble Books-A-Million, walmart.com, wherever it will be available in physical bookstores, September 14th. And, uh, also you can go to the experience maker, book.com. We’re offering a whole bunch of bonuses for people that pre-order the book that are completely free and you can get them on that page and then connect with me@dangingiss.com or on Twitter at [inaudible] I’m on LinkedIn as you know, uh, or just, you know, pay attention to what Scott’s posting. Cause I’m usually sharing and liking and on his posts. Uh, but I love to connect with people, love to answer questions. Uh, I practice what I preach. So if you write to me, I will write back and engage back

Scott Luton (44:39):

With you. Love that, and we’re going to make it really easy. We’re going to include all those contact links, social links, you name it in the show notes of today’s episode, giving you one click to get connected with Dan, the book and the whole whole shebang. So big. Thanks Dan Gingiss keynote author consultant, coach Cubs, fan, heck of a guy really enjoyed your perspective here today, Dan.

Dan Gingiss (45:02):

Well, thank you, Scott really appreciate you having me on the show and, uh, keep doing what you’re doing too. Cause it’s awesome. And this is so needed in your space and uh, and it’s great to know you and, and we’ll do it again sometime.

Scott Luton (45:14):

Sounds wonderful. Sounds wonderful. So folks, we’ve been talking with Dan, Gingiss make sure you check out his book, the experience maker available everywhere, where you get your books from now and in stores physically. It sounds like in September. So check that out. But folks hopefully enjoyed today’s conversation. As much as I have Dan is, um, I love how he, he puts it in human terms or whatever he’s talking about. He puts it in treatment terms, human experiences that we all eat can re it resonates with us, right? Those are the best interviews. So make sure you connect with Dan, make sure you get his book. If you like this conversation, make sure you find some watching out wherever you get your podcasts from and subscribe. So you don’t miss any future conversations on that note on behalf of our entire team here, Scotland signing off today. Hey, challenging you to do good, give forward and be the change that is needed. Don’t stick to the industry, norms, challenge everything. And on that note, we’ll see you next time right here as the watch now. Thanks.

Intro/Outro (46:09):

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