Orlando, Fla., May 15, 2018 – Jeanne Bliss grew up as the third of seven children in an Italian family. Her mother would stay up late hand-stitching clothes for her daughters’ dolls. Her grandmother would cook for the entire family, sometimes tossing out food because it wasn’t good enough.
Such lessons learned from watching the behavior of our parents are lessons that need to be brought into the business world, said Bliss. By applying our mothers’ collective wisdom on running a family—be kind, treat each other kindly, trust one another—to running a business, not only creates happier customers but drives growth.
Bliss shared her “Make Mom Proud” business strategy with several hundred attendees as the introductory keynote speaker at Loyalty Expo 2018 at the Carine Royale Resort in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday, May 15.
Bliss is the author of the book, “Would You Do That to Your Mother: The ‘Make Mom Proud’ Standard for How to Treat Your Customers” and a customer service expert who pioneered the role of the Chief Customer Officer at Allstate, Lands’ End, Coldwell Banker and Microsoft.
Whether in the strategy room or on the frontlines, it’s easy to forget what it’s like to be on the other end of our business decisions and practices. But you wouldn’t forget, if your customer were your mother, she said, sharing four keys to becoming a mom-approved business:
“Be the person I raised you to be.” Sometimes processes designed to create efficiencies get in the way of the human element, she said. By applying “The Mom Lens” helps you show up as a caring company.
“Don’t Make Me Feed You Soap” Create a “no strings attached” mentality, she said. Mix the Golden Rule with policy.
“Put others before yourself” “Put others before yourself. In order to achieve your goals, you have to let your customers achieve theirs first.” And, she added, customers are three times more interested in working with a company that focuses on the emotional aspects of their customers, and it creates as much as an 85 percent increase in sales.
“Take the High Road” Connect your conscious to your community and create “radical transparency.” When you trust your customers, they trust you in return and reward you.
“Now more than ever, companies need to show human standards that could ‘make mom proud,’” she said, “applying the basic values most of us learned as children to attract customers vs. repelling them. Companies need to earn the right to growth, with compassionate service that is all-too-often neglected.”
In addition to Bliss, the 11th annual Loyalty Expo includes:
• Keynote Speaker Mitch Prinstein, author of book “Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World,” which examines the role of popularity in our development, and how it continues to influence our happiness and success today. Prinstein’s perspective as a leading psychologist delivers a valuable message about what it means to be “popular,” and how that dynamic manifests itself in our everyday lives.
• Loyalty Landscape: The State of the Industry Report, which brings clarity to the current and future states of customer loyalty. The report includes benchmarking metrics and longitudinal findings regarding how brands are approaching challenges, technologies, customer data and measurement year-over-year.
• The Inaugural Loyalty360 Top 10 Awards, which recognize excellence among the top tier of Loyalty360 members, stretching across multiple categories. The awards are judged by a panel of experts, based on success and influence in driving the industry through continued support, thought leadership, and advocacy.
• The Loyalty360 Awards, which are an annual showcase of customer experience programs that drive business success by using innovative tools and techniques to understand the customer and develop emotional bonds with them through outstanding customer experiences.
• General sessions led by brand experts, including:
• Christine Duffy, President of Carnival Cruise Line, who is speaking on, “Inside Carnival’s Quest to Empower Employees and Improve CX in the High-Touch Cruise Industry.”
• Jim Lyski, EVP and CMO of CarMax, who is speaking on, “Data and Personalization Drive the Journey; How Carmax is Evolving to Meet Customers Whenever and Wherever They Want to Shop.”
• Brian Popelka, SVP of supplier and customer care for Overstock.com, who is speaking on, “Helping the Customer Help Themselves: Overstock's Move Toward Self-Service Could Reimagine the Customer Experience.”
• Jackson Jeyanayagam, CMO of Boxed, who is speaking on, “Loyalty Straight to Your Doorstep: The Story of Boxed, and How It Continues to Shake Up E-commerce.”
• More than 20 interactive workshop and breakout sessions focusing on:
• Loyalty Program Trends: Examining loyalty/referral programs, traditional and next generation initiatives for rewarding and retaining loyal customers
• Big Data & Analytics: Identification and collection across mediums and channels for strategic analysis, segmentation and descriptive and predictive results
• Customer Experience: Creating tailored and targeted customer experience structures and processes
• Customer Relationship Management: Building strong and engaging relationships with your customers
• Social Media: Understand how to best use this now vital channel for reaching customers and rewarding advocates
• Mobile: Taking your loyalty initiatives mobile to enhance the customer experience and further build customer engagement
• Omni-Channel Loyalty: Delivering a consistent, relevant and optimized experience across all channels to match (and exceed) customer expectations
• Payments: Adoption of new payment technologies and embracing tender-neutral and tender-differentiated loyalty
• Voice of the Customer: Designing effective strategies for creating robust customer dialogues and gathering and listening to feedback