Colin Flanigan - Amplifying the Voice of the Customer

About This Episode On the Delta Huddle Podcast, we've discussed two areas that really benefit from beta testing, that being support and customer success. And one other area that really really benefits from getting the voice of your customer in early is customer experience. Now, customer experience is much more than just how the customer interacts with your product. It also extends to how they interact with your entire organization, whether that's reaching out to support for help or working with sales to get more of your product. And today's episode, we talked to Colin Flanagan, director of Customer Experience at Sayge. Now, in Colin's ten years as a leader, he's helped fight churn, create seamless experiences for customers and really strengthen the voice of the customer across organizations. Now, during our conversation, we talked about how trends are changing customer experience, how surprise and delight is suddenly out the door, why it's best to be transparent in a customer experience environment across your entire organization, and how tracking the customer's journey is essential for building a really great customer experience. In This Episode: (0:00) - Intro (2:27) - Colin’s start in customer experience and what customer experience entails (7:50) - How CX, Support, and Beta Testing mesh together (11:50) - Changing trends in CX and leveraging testing to discover those trends (22:52) - Empowering support via feedback and understanding the end user experience through testing (30:35) - How early should the conversation about CX start in product development? (36:28) - Why great beta program managers understand CX and keeping stakeholders informed during planning (40:45) - How sales and support can massively impact a beta program (44:20) - What keeps Colin passionate about CX? (50:47) - Using context to help understand the customer journey (56:44) - Advice Colin would give to his younger self About Our Guest Colin Flanigan is the Director of Customer Experience at Sayge (http://hellosayge.com). In his 10+ years as a CX leader and consultant, he has grown and assisted churn-fighting, delight-producing customer-facing teams across industries. He delights in building and scaling excellent, seamless experiences for customers, strengthening the voice of the customer across organizations, and developing quality leaders. ‍ Resources and Links Beta Test Planning Kit: https://bit.ly/sw_plan_kit Beta Recruitment Kit: https://bit.ly/recruit_kit Centercode Visual Theming Guide: https://bit.ly/visual_themes Beta Agreement Kit: https://bit.ly/agreement_kit The Beta Shipping Manual: https://bit.ly/ship_manual The Tester Engagement Pocket Guide: https://bit.ly/tester_map Beta Test Incentive Kit: https://bit.ly/incentives_kit Beta Test ROI Kit: https://bit.ly/beta_roi_kit The Definitive Guide to Delta Testing: https://bit.ly/guide_to_delta