Jon Picoult is founder of Watermark Consulting a leading customer experience advisory firm and author of the new book From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 principles for turning customers and employees into lifelong fans.” You are really going to enjoy this interview on this episode - Jon thinks deeply about enterprise level customer experience from both a customer perspective and what it takes to create a culture that truly creates a remarkable and memorable experience - well beyond what he considers the low watermark of just satisfying customers
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Jon Picoult is founder of Watermark Consulting a leading customer experience advisory firm and author of the new book From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 principles for turning customers and employees into lifelong fans.”
You are really going to enjoy this interview on this episode - Jon thinks deeply about enterprise level customer experience from both a customer perspective and what it takes to create a culture that truly creates a remarkable and memorable experience - well beyond what he considers the low watermark of just satisfying customers
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I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and the all new Conversations with CommerceNext podcast. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Jon Picoult
Jon Picoult helps companies impress their customers and inspire their employees, creating “raving fans” that drive business growth. He is the founder of Watermark Consulting and a noted authority on customer and employee experience.
A sought-after business advisor and speaker, Jon has worked with some of the world’s foremost brands, personally advising CEOs and other members of the C-Suite. He helps organizations capitalize on the power of loyalty, both in the marketplace and in the workplace.
Jon’s insights have been featured by dozens of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, Inc., NBC News and Forbes.com (where he is a regular contributor).
Prior to establishing Watermark, Jon held senior executive roles at Fortune 100 companies – leading service, operations, distribution, technology, sales and marketing. Early in his career, at the age of 29, Jon earned the distinction of becoming the youngest executive officer in the over 150-year history of a leading, global financial services company.
Jon received his A.B. in Cognitive Science from Princeton University and his M.B.A. in General Management from Duke University.
Specialties: Customer experience & loyalty; employee experience & engagement; operational efficiency; service excellence; brand management; leadership development
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael Leblanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
Jon Picoult is founder of Watermark Consulting a leading customer experience advisory firm and author of the new book, ‘From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans’.
Michael LeBlanc 00:22
You are really going to enjoy this interview on this episode - Jon thinks deeply about enterprise level customer experience from both a customer perspective and what it takes to create a culture that truly creates a remarkable and memorable experience - well beyond what he considers the low watermark of just satisfying customers.
Jon Picoult 00:39
Yeah, absolutely and, you know, that, I think that's a common thread with companies that do this well, is that you know, they're in it for the long game. You know, there, there are sort of two approaches you can solve for the customer experience that's going to maximize long term loyalty, you know, which I would argue is best for your financials in the long run or alternatively, you solve for the customer experience that minimizes defections and you know, that is really setting the bar low. I don't know how that's inspirational to anyone that works in one of those companies.
Michael LeBlanc 01:12
Let's listen in now. Jon, welcome to The Voice of Retail, how are you doing this morning?
Jon Picoult 01:17
I'm good, Michael, glad to be here.
Michael LeBlanc 01:19
Well, it's really great to meet you, I've had the chance to go through your book, it's really great stuff. So, I'm very excited about the conversation and learn more about you and delve into these perspectives that you deliver in the book. Let's start at the beginning. Tell us about yourself.
Jon Picoult 01:32
So, I am Founder and Principal of Watermark Consulting, which is a customer experience advisory firm. I'm also a keynote speaker on customer experience, employee experience and leadership topics. Before I launched Watermark back in 2009, I had a corporate career where I was holding senior executive roles at Fortune 100 companies leading at various times, sales, marketing, service, distribution, and even IT and then in terms of Watermark, you know, the best way to describe the work Watermark does is to tell you about the origins of the name.
Jon Picoult 02:10
So, you know, years ago, before there was Google Docs and Microsoft Word, when people wanted to put a watermark on a piece of paper, they actually did it by making a physical imprint in a piece of parchment and that imprint made the parchment richer and more distinctive sometimes was actually used to prevent counterfeiting and duplication. And that's basically what my firm does, but relative to the customer experience, we help companies to watermark their experience in a way so that it leaves an indelible impression, not in a piece of parchment. But in the minds of the people that you're serving, helping to cultivate the repurchase and referral behavior that's really the lifeblood of any business and in terms of the types of clienteles that Watermark serves, you asked, generally mid to large sized organizations, mostly fortune 1000 firms, cutting across many industries, financial services, healthcare, technology, telecom, consumer goods, just to name a few.
Michael LeBlanc 03:05
All right, let's talk about your book, ‘From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers & Employees Into Lifelong Fans’. Tell me about why you wrote the book. Where did you see some whitespace on the shelf for what you had to say and, and talk about that journey?
Jon Picoult 03:21
Yeah, well, first, I wasn't that busy when I wrote it, just because I actually wrote it during lockdown. Once, once, you know, the pandemic was, was upon us and you know, this is a book that I've had in me for literally a decade, if not more that I've wanted to write and, and so actually, you know, when things kind of pulled back due to COVID, it gave me the opportunity to just sit and focus on writing it and the reason that I wrote it is, you know, my feeling has always been that there are a whole host of indignities that organizations subject their customers and their employees to.
Jon Picoult 03:59
You know, with customers, it's take your pick long waits on helpful staff, if you can even find them, incomprehensible communications and account statements, company reps who simply don't do what they say they're going to do and then in the employee realm, you know, you've got material bosses that don't give any career development, that don't bounce, provide balance, feedback, offer ambiguous direction to people, poor responsiveness, all that stuff. So, there's a lot of toxicity out there and the thing that always bothered me is that, from my work, I know that there are so many simple things that organizations and leaders can do to eliminate those indignities, not just by changing the mechanics of the underlying experience, but also by using psychology using cognitive science to shape people's perceptions and memories of those encounters and that's really why I wanted to write the book to get that message out there.
Michael LeBlanc 04:53
So, right off the top, in the first couple of lines in the book, you set a very high watermark saying if you're satisfying your customers, you're nowhere near doing enough. How realistic is it for you to set the bar that high and, and why is it now such a life or death situation where satisfaction isn't good enough and you've got to be as my podcast partner, Steve Dennis insists somehow remarkable.
Jon Picoult 05:13
Yeah. So, you know, it is. The opening line of the book, as you know, is I think it's, you know, if you're aspiring to satisfy your customers, then you're aspiring to mediocrity and the reason that I say that is because to create real, sustainable competitive advantage, you can't just rely on satisfying the people that you work with, you really need to impress them, you need to leave that indelible positive impression in their minds, that's going to make them excited to work with you again, and to tell others about you and the fact of the matter is that there's lots of research out there that shows satisfied customers defect all the time. So, if you're trying to derive strategic advantage from just satisfying, you're probably not going to get to where you want to be.
Jon Picoult 05:57
Now, in terms of your question, well, is impressing customers setting the bar too high, I would say absolutely not and that's because in many industries, the bar is set so low and you know, here's how I would characterize it for you, Michael, and your listeners and you know, I think you'll probably recognize these kinds of situations, but, you know, when you call, say, an 800 line, and someone immediately picks up the phone, are you not pleasantly surprised, when you're in the aisle of a retail store, you know, and you've got a question, you're looking for something and so you search for an employee to help you, are you not surprised if you actually find one who's just a few steps away and not only is there but is actually competent, and helpful and the reason that I use these examples is because they illustrate something that came out of my research for the book.
Jon Picoult 06:48
I actually found in some of the research, I did that 23% of consumers say business-, they say that businesses do not consistently meet all their expectations. Half of consumers say they're not even surprised when they have difficulty contacting a business to get help and once they make contact more than half say, they're not even moderately surprised when employees fail to be helpful. So, my point is that the calculus around what it takes to delight, a customer has fundamentally changed, people have become so accustomed to bad customer experiences that they've come to practically expect certain annoyances, and then in an environment like that, you know, if you just respond quickly to people, if you do what you say you're going to do, if you take ownership for helping them, these are all things that can make an indelible impression on people, because it's rare that they consistently see such behavior from many of the businesses that they work with.
Michael LeBlanc 07:41
You know, it's almost counterintuitive, because in one way the bar has been set so low in some instances, and your description triggers one of my pet peeves, you know, when you reach out to your customer service center, you get that message sorry, are really busy, so it's gonna be a long wait, I don't know, it's not as much that you're busy, because it's been going on for 18 months, you just don't have enough staff in the contact center, but, but it feels like the bar is so low some days that just answering the phone, as you say, is remarkable in a lot of circumstances, and, or am I overthinking this a bit?
Jon Picoult 08:09
No. I mean, I don't think it's not even that it's good enough, it actually could be impressive. You know, I mean, it's so as you said, it's so often you pick up the phone and you call a company. I mean, in the airline industry now, there was just an article I saw in the paper recently, where passengers were talking about being on the phone for eight hours waiting for someone to pick up at the airline and, you know, that, of course, is not unusual. There are a lot of industries, as you say that just have not done a good job, staffing their call centers appropriately. So, I think, and it's not just call centers, it's just the idea of taking ownership for a customer's need or request and doing what you commit to do. That is something that happens so rarely, that I don't think it is even just satisfying. I think people remember that because they see it so rarely.
Michael LeBlanc 09:02
You tell a story about wrap rage in the book, which is funny, I've got a long history working in retail and you know, you come to realize that things are wrapped that way because, you know, look, there's a lot of theft, but the story you tell about how Amazon recognizes the opportunity and creates and markets frustration free packaging. To me it was a good example highlighting the tradeoffs you need to make sometimes as a business, you need to decide about where you're going to land on customer experience and why, right?
Jon Picoult 09:27
Yeah, I think that it's an illustration that every business needs to consider the constraints in which they have to operate and then architect a customer experience that impresses within that framework. So to your point, brick and mortar stores, they use that special packaging to prevent theft. So, they might not be able to replicate something like Amazon's frustration free packaging.
Jon Picoult 09:51
I think the critical recognition though on their part is that there are things that they can do that online retailers can't and actually, you mentioned one of your earlier guests, former Best Buy CEO, Hubert Joly and you know, Best Buy is actually featured in the book in my book, because, you know, even Jeff Bezos praised Joly, just saying he had done a wonderful job at Best Buy, many people had written Best Buy off along with all the other brick and mortar retailers that were being overrun by the e-retailers, but what Best Buy did is, you know, going back to this idea of finding, you know, what can you do within the constraints you have.
Jon Picoult 10:32
Well, they realize there were things they could offer to customers found valuable that the Amazons of the world couldn't offer. For example, they flip the script on showrooming, you know, which is the bane of all retailers, where people visit the store, see a product and then buy it online from Amazon, they flipped that and they embraced what they called showcasing, where they sought to give consumers a place where they could touch, feel and try out technology, all under the guidance of a well trained staff and that concept, had such great appeal, that Best Buy was approached by other companies to rent out space for stores within stores within the Best Buy. Big Box, you know, so Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, even Amazon and Google, they were showcasing their wares within Best Buy stores. So to me, that's an example of a company that's recognizing Okay, there are certain things that the e-tailers can do that we can't but then conversely, there are things that we can do is a brick and mortar operation, that the etailers can't replicate and that's what we need to focus on in order to differentiate ourselves.
Michael LeBlanc 11:40
You know, one of the things, just staying on Hubert Joly and his great book, ‘The Heart of Business’ for a bit, is his epiphany and it's right in the title of your book "Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans", you do a great job, in the book, of expanding our understanding of customers in the business context, but your perspectives around a more broadly encompassing strategy is as Hubert realized, employees with a secret sauce, beyond all the strategies and all the great ideas talk about that for a bit.
Jon Picoult 12:06
Yeah, I think that, you know, there, I like to think of a great customer experience as a beautifully choreographed performance and, and I love that analogy, because you know, what do you want to happen at a performance you want your audience at the end of the performance to just rise from their seats, applaud, you know, scream for the encore leave the theater and rave about the show to others and if you take the analogy a step further, I think there's an onstage and a backstage piece to customer experience and the onstage piece is everything that your customers can see, feel, hear and touch and I think, you know, most people's heads go to those things when they're thinking about customer experience. They're thinking about the websites, the point of sale, this set of sales counter, things like that.
Jon Picoult 12:51
But then there's this backstage piece and by backstage, I don't mean back office, which is a term that sets me off and I don't like to use, but I mean by backstage, anything that's happening behind the curtain, that while invisible to your customers, nonetheless, influences the quality of the experience that they're going to get. So, some examples of backstage influences are things like, how do you hire and select people, you know, how do you make sure you're bringing people on board that actually have the customer experience gene, if you will, that have, you know, bring the empathy to the table that makes them good in front of customers, how do you onboard them and sort of instill in them your company's sense of purpose and your vision, how do you measure them their performance, and then reward and recognize because obviously, those are things that are going to influence their behavior, either in good ways or not so good ways.
Jon Picoult 13:45
And I think that what, what Best Buy and Joly, what they, you know, really understood when he came on board, I mean, he spent a lot of time just listening to employees, and understanding well, what are the obstacles that you face in delivering a consistently great experience to your customer because, you know, in my experience, I've found 99% of the people that come to work, in any business, they come to work, they want to do a great job for you and your organization, but where companies go wrong is that oftentimes inadvertently, they are putting obstacles and impediments in front of their employees, that despite their best intentions, makes it difficult for them to impress that end customer and so that's, I think a really important part of the equation is not just the onstage piece, but the backstage piece and making sure that everything is aligned behind the curtain. So, those employees are engaged, equipped and inspired to deliver that consistently great impression.
Michael LeBlanc 14:38
So, what we're really talking about here is basically culture. Now let me pivot around a little bit and as you think deeply around the COVID era, and one of the changes I think it's probably brought is a different perspective around where people and how people work. So, you know, how are you thinking around hiring people and maintaining that culture, where you might not actually meet that person or certainly see, meet with them less, you don't have that day-to-day interaction and that is probably the reality to some degree of our future. How are you thinking about that?
Jon Picoult 15:10
Well, I think it gets down to, you really have to think about what is it that shapes a culture and I think there are a lot of things that shape a culture that don't have anything to do with live in person interactions in the halls of, you know, a physical facility. To me a lot of things that shape culture for, for employees for the workforce, is sort of the workplace constructs that surround them, and the environmental cues that are signaled to them and, you know, what I mean, by that, it gets back to some of the examples I gave you, when I was talking about the backstage piece, you know, the tool sets that you give your employees, that, the degree to which those are helpful and allow them to reach their potential and to be the best that they can be. That's something that helps shape a culture.
Jon Picoult 16:05
If you are, if you're developing performance metrics, there are metrics that can create toxic cultures, such as one, you know, there was a bank in the US, Wells Fargo, that came under a lot of scrutiny, because they turned out that they were opening up unauthorized accounts for millions and millions of customers and they got into a lot of trouble with regulators and when people picked apart what went on, it actually came down to the way people in the organization were measured and rewarded. They were measured and rewarded based on how much cross selling they did for each account, and it bastardized people's behavior. So, they started to do really unethical things, just because it was the only way they could meet their metrics and get their bonuses.
Jon Picoult 16:53
So that's an example of another construct in the workplace that creates, that helps shape a culture and mind you it is independent of whether you are in person or remote and then from a leadership standpoint, that actually you know, that's certainly an important lever in shaping culture. You know, 70% of employees say the most stressful thing about their job is their immediate boss and when you're, you know, when you're in a leadership position, I don't care if it's in person, or if it's virtual, there are a lot of things that you can do that can make people feel supported, make them feel like you are advocating for them and those are all things that are going to help enhance the culture because when you know that the company and your boss has your back, and is really trying to help you do your best and reach your potential, you know, you'll walk through walls for those people and that really shapes a culture that I think is at the heart of any great organization.
Michael LeBlanc 17:44
I've been thinking lately about how to create that, that high performance and cherished workplace culture. Without the traditional workplaces, like, you know, sometimes I think we make the mistake of applying the old norms to a new hybrid workplace reality and, and, you know, there's lots of talk about, well, you know, I'm going to miss that casual interactions that, that generated that spark and, and I asked leaders to give me five examples of where that actually resulted in something great, and often, it's a little hard to come by. So, so what does inculcating culture look like in this future, is it, is it more off sites, is it gathering at conferences or things where there's a disproportionate impact of getting people together purposefully, versus casually, as they do in the before time in offices, how are you starting to think about that, as we come to at least, you know, the end of this phase of the code era?
Jon Picoult 18:35
Yeah, I think that you're right, that companies are going to need to rethink how they facilitate those kinds of connections between people. I do think that the jury is out on the degree to which hybrid or remote work is either a, a catalyst or an inhibitor to things like innovation. You know, there really is conflict, conflicting research on that, but, you know, there's no question that there's value in getting to see people in person, at least occasionally and so I think that you're right, that customer, that companies will probably need to be more deliberate about how do they convene people periodically, in order to do that.
Jon Picoult 19:20
I actually have a close colleague of mine who had a largely virtual team, you know, well, before it was invoked due to COVID. It was just happened to be the setup of his team and that was something that he always took pains to do was to make sure that periodically, whether it's semiannual or something along that timeframe that he was bringing everybody together in one place and I think that's something that, that managers will, will need to think more about, but, you know, I also I, I don't want people to lose sight of the fact that it's, it, take for example, you know, having the Zoom with multiple people on it, where it's hard for someone to just sort of stand out as you can in, say, a board room and just speak over, you know, everyone else or just, you know, stand up and whatnot.
Jon Picoult 20:06
I think an example of just how managers can help employees feel good in this kind of setup is you're on a Zoom, and you just take a moment to make sure if you haven't heard from someone in a discussion, that you singled them out, and you say, hey, Jon, do you have anything to add because, you know, it's a lot, it's easy for people to be stepped on in a Zoom and sort of, you know, they, they can't, like, get a word in edgewise and those are things, again, that they are small cues, but they help to shape a culture because what that says to the employees is, you know, nobody out here has an outsized voice, like my manager wants to hear from everybody and then my manager is going to reflect on that input, and then make a judgement, make a decision. So, I really think it's important for people even in the hybrid workplace, even in an all-virtual workplace, to not underestimate how those small subtle cues with how you interact with people, even online, can help shape their views about what kind of environment is it that I'm working in.
Michael LeBlanc 21:02
Alright, well, let's get back to the book for a bit and, and let's get to the back half or not physically, that second part of the great book and it's one of the things I love about your book is that it starts to lay out the, not just the groundwork for your thoughts and philosophies, but then you get to put in basically a playbook like, you have a playbook of 12 principles.Now I know it's kind of like asking you, which is your favorite kid, but of these 12 principles, one of the ones that really, I guess, let's, let's phrase it, some might be table stakes, and others are key differentiators are there one or two that you call out that you would say that, you know, you need to really win and execute at these to be differentiated, and the others are table stakes, and you need to be comparable with them, but you know, just give me a sense of the 12 principles and, you know, give me that kind of highlight.
Jon Picoult 21:52
So, you know, the overview of the 12 principles is basically that the research that I've done over the years, and the companies that excel at customer experience that are creating lifelong fans out of their customers and their employees, you know, basically what I found his they were all dipping into the same set of tools for creating those impressions and the 12 principles is basically just about distilling all of those techniques into a dozen approaches that really can be employed by any business in any industry.
Jon Picoult 22:22
Now, you know, what I explained in the book is that these are universal principles of customer experience because they can be applied to any type of customer interaction or any type of business, but that doesn't necessarily mean they need to be applied universally and what I mean by that is, companies can rightfully choose to accentuate some of these principles over others and that can work really well as long as it's aligned with your brand promise to customers and the vision that you have for your customer experience.
Jon Picoult 22:51
So, to answer your question, I would say that there are certain prints principles of the 12 that have elements of table stakes to them, but they can also be leveraged in a way that kind of takes it up a notch and creates competitive advantage and I'll give you an example of one. One of the principles is about creating relevance to your customer, for your customers, which basically is table stakes in the sense that you've got to deliver a product and a service experience that actually has relevance to the people who are going to be buying it. You know, that's kind of a fundamental, but you can also make that a differentiator too because if you think about it, if you are really good at developing a keen understanding of your customers, it positions you to develop new products and services that address their unarticulated needs and that no longer is a source of satisfaction, that becomes impressive.
Jon Picoult 23:45
So that's an example of something that's part table stakes, but part opportunity to impress. Now, on the flip side, if I had to give you an example of one that I would say is totally not table stakes, but is prime opportunity to impress, I would say it's the principle about advocating for those that you serve being an advocate for customers or employees. My research found that only one in five people believes that businesses routinely act in the customers best interest and so if you do that in a tangible way, if you demonstrably advocate for your customers, and an example being like the way Southwest Airlines and Delta Airlines in the US, they, they forego, they chose to forego millions in revenue to block middle seats for onboard social distancing during the pandemic for over a year or Ally Bank in the US recently eradicated all overdraft fees.
Jon Picoult 24:45
You know, these are examples of companies that are basically taking actions that in the short term, they take a hit for in terms of revenue, but it shows people hey, we're doing something to advocate for what we believe is in your best interest that creates an impression on people, one that they're going to remember, and one that's going to lead them to keep coming back for more as well as to tell others about you.
Michael LeBlanc 25:09
Well, that's interesting, because that gets us back to where we were talking about the companies making tradeoffs. So, a short-term financial tradeoff for a longer-term customer benefit, benefit that's going to really pay off in the longer term, right?
Jon Picoult 25:22
Yeah, absolutely and you know, that I think that's a common thread with companies that do this well, is that you know, they're in it for the long game. You know, there, there's sort of two approaches, you can solve for the customer experience that's going to maximize long term loyalty, you know, which I would argue is best for your financials in the long run, or alternatively, you solve for the customer experience that minimizes defections and you know, that is really setting the bar low. I don't know how that's inspirational to anyone that works in one of those companies, but yeah, I mean, the organizations.
Michael LeBlanc 25:58
Yeah, that's the we-win-if-they-just-don't-leave philosophy, right?
Jon Picoult 26:01
Right. That's right. I mean, the organizations that, that succeeded this, they just recognize the lifetime value of a customer and the idea that if, if you if you cement that relationship, if in the example I just gave you, if they see you tangibly advocate for their interests, I mean, if you've got them on board for the rest of their lives, and you've got them spreading positive word of mouth about you, you know, that's priceless.
Michael LeBlanc 26:25
Okay, last question or second last question. You know, we've, we've been in this COVID era now, for 18, 20 months, I think we can see the end, the goalpost keeps moving a little bit, any early thoughts on how, from your perspective, customers have changed, customer behavior has changed, and anything businesses should be thinking about in terms of their customers, in the end the impact of the COVID era on their habits?
Jon Picoult 26:49
Yeah, I think the key lesson, and it's one that really has, has been signaled in prior economic and societal crises, is that you have to always reexamine what's relevant to your customer. So, it actually goes back to that principle that we were just talking about a moment ago, because and there are examples in the book of this of companies that, you know, I don't want to say that they exploited the pandemic, because that's not the right way to characterize it, what they did is they very quickly stepped back and thought to themselves, immerse themselves, you know, in the lives in the minds of their customers and thought, well, what's relevant to the people that we serve now because, obviously, everything that was relevant yesterday is, kind of, thrown out the window. They've got a new, totally new host, host of concerns and needs and aspirations and whatnot.
Jon Picoult 27:39
So, what might we be able to do differently, how could we tweak our customer experience, are there different products or services that we might be offering, different features, features that we should offer, that are going to achieve greater relevancy for people in this current time and, and I think that that, I think that's a key takeaway from the pandemic, is just the importance of, of continually doing that.
Jon Picoult 28:03
On the employee side of the equation. I think the key takeaway is, I think it's a good one. It's a heightened appreciation, really, for the people that work in an organization at any level and the role that they play. You know, we all are indebted to the, the truckers, the frontline folks and whatnot, that kind of kept things going while we're all locked down, and we're delivering groceries to us or whatnot and so I think that the dignity of all work is something that I believe was reinforced and I hope that companies over the long term will sort of take that to heart and understand how important it is to, to appreciate those employees that are in those roles and to create an environment that helps them to thrive, that not only keeps them safe, but helps them to reach their potential and sort of advances their well being.
Michael LeBlanc 28:55
Well, what a great way to end our discussion. I love, I love all those points and let's leave it there. The, the book is ‘From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers & Employees Into Lifelong Fans’. Jon, thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail, it was a great discussion. If people want to learn more and more about you, more about your work, and more about the book and where to find it. Where do they go, tell us, tell us about that?
Jon Picoult 29:18
Sure. So, if they want to learn more about the book, as well as order it from their favorite retailer, or they can go to the official website of the book, which is www.impressed2bsessed.com. That's impressed2obsessed.com and then if they'd like to learn more about me and my consulting and speaking services, they can go to my website, which is www.jonpicoult.com. That's jonpicoult.com and Michael, I just want to thank you for a great conversation. I really enjoyed being on the show.
Michael LeBlanc 29:50
Yeah, it was my treat as well, Jon, and I wish you continued success and the best of luck and again, thanks so much for joining.
Jon Picoult 29:56
Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 29:57
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts, so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show.
Michael LeBlanc 30:16
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co
Michael LeBlanc 30:25
Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, customers, book, customer experience, employees, companies, watermark, table stakes, principles, business, culture, create, pandemic, impress, Jon, satisfying, buy, industries, frustration free packaging, workplace