WISE TALK November 2014: Sue chats with Steve Curtin, a recognized customer service expert, speaker and author of Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary.

Drawing on extensive experience in the hospitality management industry and countless experiences with his clients, Steve shares insights on why exceptional customer service today is rare and offers practical tips you can use right away to raise customer service levels. His tips will help you generate a fantastic customer experience that inspires customer loyalty.

Follow him on Twitter: @enthused

WISE TALK October 2014: Sue Bethanis hosts John A. Goodman, Vice Chairman of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, a customer experience researcher, innovator, and entrepreneur, and author of Strategic Customer Service and Customer Experience 3.0: High-Profit Strategies in the Age of Techno Service.

John discusses why companies need to do more than provide great customer service, how technology can be used to improve your customer experience, and how to build a culture of empowerment and emotional connection. As his roots were in engineering, John will also provide tips to help you understand how to measure and quantify any customer experience strategy.

Follow him on Twitter: @jgoodman888

WISE TALK September 2014: Sue Bethanis hosts Annette Franz, a recognized customer experience management expert, thought leader and influencer, and author of the customer experience blog, CX Journey.

Annette discusses the importance of putting the employee first in a customer experience strategy and the impact that responsibility, ownership, accountability and trust can have in employee engagement. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience, Annette’s tips will help you build a customer-centric culture to support your customer experience strategy.

Follow her on Twitter: @AnnetteFranz and @CXJourney

WISE TALK August 2014: Sue hosted Chuck Wall, Founder/CEO of MarketPower Group. He’s an experienced entrepreneur, advisor, speaker and author of two books, his latest being Customer CEO: How to Profit from the Power of Your Customers.

Chuck explains why customers have the reins in big business, not companies.  Understand why it’s vital for companies to understand the core needs of their customers today, and will offer tips to improve the customer experience.

Follow Chuck on Twitter: @customerceo

WISE TALK June 2014: Sue hosts Dr. Alan Gregerman, President and Chief Innovation Officer of Venture Works Inc. Dr. Gregerman is an internationally-respected expert on business strategy, innovation, and the customer experience as well as an award-winning author of three books on innovation and business success. Dr. Gregerman shares insights from his latest book, The Necessity of Strangers, to help us understand why our individual and business success is dependent on strangers.  His tips help develop a more stranger-centric mindset so we can tap into the value strangers can offer us and unlock leadership and business potential.

Follow him on Twitter at: @alan_gregerman

WISE TALK April 2014: Sue hosts Steve Portigal, an expert interviewer, and founder of Portigal Consulting, a boutique firm that helps companies discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves.  His specialty areas include ethnographic research, qualitative market research, user experience and design strategy, among others.  Steve shares tips from his book, Interviewing Users: How  to Uncover Compelling Insights, and insights on a successful user research study, including finding participants, designing the interview strategy, formulating and asking questions and managing yourself and participants through the stages of the interview.

Follow him on Twitter at: @steveportigal

WISE TALK March 2014:  Sue hosts Janice Fraser, entrepreneur, designer, advisor, guest lecturer and Founder and CEO of LUXr, a company democratizing great startup advice by putting it online. Through LUXr, she has coached, taught, and interviewed thousands of entrepreneurs in startup communities across the United States and around the world. Janice is a startup founder who loves startup founders and an avid champion of experience-driven product strategy.  Janice will change the way you think about product development processes and principles.  With more than 15 years’ experience in Silicon Valley, her insights will help you focus on the end user experience to deliver stellar products and services.

Follow Janice on Twitter: @clevergirl

WISE TALK February 2014:  Sue hosts David Burkus, assistant professor of management at the College of Business at Oral Roberts University, founder and host of LDRLB, a podcast series focusing on insights from research on leadership, innovation, and strategy and author of The Myths of Creativity:  The Truth About How Innovative Companies and People Generate Great Ideas.

David helps bust out of our creativity myths, in general, and especially when it comes to applying new ideas to the way we understand, interact, and support our customers.

WISE TALK January 2014: Sue hosts Catherine Porter, Vice President, International Development, at OpenTable. Catherine’s expertise includes international expansion, business development, and marketing, most recently at LinkedIn, where she was responsible for launching and leading LinkedIn Japan.

Catherine shares tips on learning about international user needs and integrating them successfully in your product or service, overcoming challenges with accommodating unique international user needs (such as social or cultural norms) while maintaining brand consistency, and offer ideas for measuring the effectiveness of user experience initiatives.