Interview with Dan Gingiss

Hello! Please introduce yourself and your current role

My name is Dan Gingiss and I am a customer experience keynote speaker and author. Previously I had corporate roles in marketing and customer experience at Discover Card, Humana, and McDonald's, among others. My company is The Experience Maker, LLC.

If you had to highlight one thing you’re most proud of achieving over the course of your career, what would you say?

It would have to be winning the J.D. Power Award for Customer Satisfaction while leading digital customer experience at Discover Card. American Express had won that award for seven consecutive years, and this was the first time ever that Discover Card grabbed the title. I helped lead the team in charge of ensuring that every aspect of our customer experience was remarkable, not just so we could win an award, but also so that our customers would notice and they certainly did. 

What are the main initiatives you’re currently working on relating to customer experience?

As a keynote speaker, it’s easy to fall into the trap of a “one and done” relationship with clients -- fly in, deliver a remarkable performance, mingle with the audience, and leave. But ironically, that’s not how customer experience works. I always say that customer experience is a journey, not a destination, so you’d better enjoy the ride. As a result, I am creating a series of products and packages that extend the relationship with clients well beyond the talk. This lets me help more people and more organisations get better at CX, which has been my goal all along.

What do you think the biggest opportunities are within the industry at the moment?

Acknowledging that customer experience is the last true differentiator. Too many companies are stuck competing on price or product, neither of which leads to strong results in today's experience driven economy.  Companies that are truly customer-centric understand that every business decision should be made with the end customer in mind and these kinds of decisions are both good for the customer and good for the business.

On the flipside, what do you feel are the biggest challenges that organisations need to overcome?

Chasing too many shiny objects. AI is a terrific example. There are so many things that it can do to improve customer experience, but completely replacing customer service agents to save money is not one of them. Today's customer still demands human interaction, especially when they need help or something in the experience has gone wrong. AI can help with so many aspects of the experience, including hyper-personalisation, predictive analytics, virtual reality, and yes, certain customer service situations. I recently announced a brand-new keynote on this topic, which I am very excited about. AI is definitely here to stay, so we need to figure out how to best use it to enhance the experiences we deliver for our customers.

Do you have any advice or top tips for anyone reading this who’s starting out in the industry and wanting to become a senior leader?

Think like a customer. We’re all consumers in our real lives, and yet when we go to work we often forget about what we like (and don’t like) as consumers. Remember the Golden Rule we were taught as children, to treat others like you’d want to be treated? I’ve found that many customer experience enhancements arise just from looking at the customer journey from the customer’s perspective instead of the company’s perspective. The truth is that customer experience isn’t rocket science; you don’t need an advanced degree to be successful at it, but you do need to be relentlessly customer-focused and use common sense.

What would you say is the key defining factor that will shape the industry going forward?

I do think it will be AI. We are still at the very beginning of the AI revolution, and it’s already blowing people’s minds. It’s only going to get better. The companies that figure out how to use it for good -- to continuously enhance the experience -- will be the ultimate winners.