Global Gurus

For over three decades Ron Kaufman has helped companies on every continent build a culture of uplifting service that delivers outstanding business results year after year. Making transformation his mission, Ron is one of the world’s most sought-after educators, consultants, business thought-leaders and one of the best customer service motivational keynote speakers on the topic of achieving superior service.

Any business can say the customer is king, and many spend a lot of time and money on incremental service improvement. But Ron understands the only reliable way for a company to achieve and maintain a competitive edge is to build a culture that empowers every employee to surprise and delight customers and colleagues every day with truly uplifting service.

Ron is the Founder and Chairman of Uplifting Service, one of the world’s best customer service culture building programs, currently translated into 15 languages for use by clients in every major industry. Ron works with a successful clientele of government agencies and multinational corporations including Singapore Airlines, HP, Nokia Networks, Marina Bay Sands, and Changi Airport. He delivers powerful business insights and global best practices enabling organizations to gain a sustainable advantage through service.

Ron’s methodology includes a set of proven service principles, leadership rules, culture-building blocks and implementation roadmaps that apply effectively across all industries and cultures. This methodology is easily customized to suit the unique needs of each organization, including all departments and team members from leadership to frontline.

Ron is a columnist at Bloomberg Businessweek. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Uplifting Service and 14 other books on service, business and inspiration. Ron has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today. Ron’s proprietary architecture for building an uplifting service culture is now available in one comprehensive volume, Uplifting Service.

Finally, leaders at all levels have a blueprint for making uplifting service a part of everything they are and everything they do.

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., C.S.P., C.C.X.P is an internationally sought-after speaker, author, and organizational consultant who transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices in ways that develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on customer experience. His insights encourage leaders and frontline workers to grow and invest passionately in all aspects of their lives.

Dr. Michelli is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Nielson BookScan, and New York Times #1 bestselling author.  In 2019, McGraw-Hill released Dr. Michelli’s Porchlight Business Bestseller titled The Airbnb Way: 5 Leadership Lessons for Igniting Growth through Loyalty Community and Belonging and World Scientific released his book The MindChamps Way: How to Turn an Idea into a Global Movement. During this year, Dr. Michelli traveled to, consulted for, led private events, and worked with entrepreneurs in South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Canada, and the United States. He was selected as a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and was chosen as an opinion columnist for CEO World. In addition to published articles for both Forbes and CEO World, in 2019 Dr. Michelli wrote a 800 CEORead Customer Service Manifesto, released approximately 75 other articles about customer service and appeared on more than 50 guest blogs, podcasts, radio and television interviews.

Joseph’s other customer service books include Driven to Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the Mercedes-Benz Way, Leading The Starbucks Way: 5 Principles for Connecting with Your Customer, Your Products, and Your People, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire Engage and WOW, Prescription for Excellence: Leadership Lessons for Creating a World-Class Customer Experience from UCLA Health System, The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary, The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and When Fish Fly: Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace which was co-authored with the owner of the “World-Famous” Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle.

Joseph holds the Certified Customer Experience Professional designation from the Customer Experience Professional Association and the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association (NSA). He is a member of the Authors Guild, an editorial board member for the Beryl Institute’s Patient Experience Journal (PXJ), and is on the founders’ council of CustomerExperienceOne. Other achievements include winning the Asian Brand Excellence Award and being named as one of the Top 2 thought leaders in Customer Service by Global Gurus. He received his master’s and doctorate from the University of Southern California.

Having journeyed with a close family member through a six-year battle with breast cancer, Dr. Michelli is committed to social causes associated with curing cancer and abating world hunger.

Chip R. Bell is a world-renowned authority on customer loyalty and service innovation, writing over 650 articles for many business journals, magazines, and blogs.  In 1989, with his co-author Ron Zemke, he invented what is now practiced universally as customer journey mapping. In 2005, he created the now patented practice of customer forensics. He has appeared live on CNN, CNBC, CBS, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, ABC, NPR Radio and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Money Magazine, Success, CEO Magazine, and Entrepreneur. He has authored nine national and international best-selling books including: The 9 ½ Principles of innovative Service; Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do about It; Managing Knock Your Socks off Service; Customers as Partners; Magnetic Service; Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers,  Sprinkles: Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service and Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles which won a 2017 Best Book Award and a silver medal at the North American Book Awards. His newest book Inside Your Customer’s Imagination will be released in 2020.  Many of his books have won major awards and been endorsed by the CEO’s or presidents of such service greats as Zappos, Four Seasons Hotels, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Morgan Stanley, Wolfgang Puck, Build-A-Bear Workshops, JetBlue, Marriott, Kimpton Hotels and Southwest Airlines. Leadership Excellence Magazine listed him among the top 30 thought leaders in North America. ICMI ranked him in the top 10 top bloggers on customer care. HR.com awarded him a Leadership 500 Excellence Award in 2016 for his innovative customer service training programs.  One program won a 2018 Stevie Award for “Most creative classroom training program.”

Colin Shaw has been recognized, by others, as being a Thought Leader in Customer Experience. He established his company, Beyond Philosophy in 2002, to help organizations achieve ROI through improving their Customer Experience. One client, Maersk Line, the world’s largest container shipping company, improved their net promoter score by 40 points in 30 months, which gave a 10% rise in shipping volumes using Beyond Philosophy’s methodology.

Colin has achieved many accolades from others:

• LinkedIn has acclaimed Colin as being ‘one of the world’s top 150 Business Influencers’, as a result Colin now has over 275,000 followers.
• Brand Quarterly readers also voted him one of the ‘top 50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’ for two years in a row.
• The Financial Times has named Beyond Philosophy as being one of the best management consultancies in the UK in 2019.

Colin shares his thought leadership through training, his books and through his podcast, The Intuitive Customer, which is available wherever you get your podcasts from.

Colin is a renowned key note speaker and without doubt, has helped shape the industry. He has made many appearances on TV and radio including CNN, BBC and NPR.

Jeff helps customer service teams unlock their hidden potential. His books include Customer Service Tip of the Week and the bestselling The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. More than 140,000 people on six continents have taken his video-based training courses on LinkedIn Learning (a.k.a. Lynda.com). Jeff’s training videos on LinkedIn Learning include Customer Service Foundations and Leading a Customer-Centric Culture.

Jeff was named one of the Top 30 customer service professionals in the world by Global Gurus. He was also named one of the Top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter by the International Customer Management Institute. Feedspot has named his Inside Customer Service blog one of the Top 50 customer service blogs on the planet.

Jeff holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) certification from the Association for Talent Development.

With 20+ years in the hospitality industry and a lifetime of customer service experience, Steve DiGioia uses storytelling to share real-world tips and tactics to improve your customer service, increase employee morale and provide the experience your customers’ desire.

A certified trainer, coach, author, speaker, and known as “the ops guy” during his tenure at Hilton Hotels, Steve has redefined the operational and service standards for multiple food and beverage departments for some of the best names in the industry. Using a hands-on approach, he has developed numerous training programs and personally mentored countless employees who have successfully moved on to senior management and leadership positions. He is also a featured contributor to the leading hospitality and customer service websites.

Steve continues his pursuit of excellence on his award-winning blog sharing his best strategies on customer service, management, and leadership. Follow Steve on Twitter @Steve DiGioia.

Lior Arussy is an author, visionary, consultant and creative catalyst in the areas of creating delightful customer experiences and executing profitable customer strategies. For his thought leadership and contribution to the industry, Mr. Arussy received CRM Magazine’s “2003 Influential Leaders” award and served as a juror on Fast Company’s Customer First Awards 2005. Prior to establishing Strativity Group, Mr. Arussy held executive positions at Hewlett-Packard and other companies. Mr. Arussy’s syndicated column Focus: Customer reaches over 600,000 readers worldwide every month. He is also the author of four books including Excellence Every Day: Make The Daily Choice (Information Today May, 2008) and Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right! (Wiley 2005) In addition, he has published over 50 articles in publications around the world including at the Harvard Business Review. His accomplishments have been recognized by leading press and analysts such as ABC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Times of London and Gartner. Mr. Arussy completed his undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University and received his MBA from Weatherhead School of Management.

Marilyn Suttle specializes in creating “Suttle Shifts” in the way people think and act, so they can produce massive results. A leading authority in service excellence, business and personal relationships, and content marketing for women-focused online communities, she’s been sourced as an expert by Ladies Home Journal, Corp Magazine, Inc. Magazine, LA Times. And the Chicago Tribune & network-affiliated news programs have featured her advice on communication and leadership.

After working with Marilyn, her clients have won industry awards, raised customer satisfaction levels and gotten lasting results in reducing stress and experiencing greater success and self-fulfillment.

Company leaders have made her presentations available to thousands of employees, improving their quality of life and passion to excel in their professions.

Marilyn presents keynotes and trainings, as well as coaches and consults with professionals at Fortune 500 companies, universities, medical, mid-sized companies. She also works directly with entrepreneurs. Her extensive experience with online community management, and social media helps brands engage deeply with their target market.

Marilyn hosts the Woman-to-Woman podcast series on iTunes, sponsored Kimberly-Clark Corporation, and personal growth gurus like Jack Canfield, founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises, have invited her to speak on their stages.

Marilyn’s bestselling book, “Who’s Your Gladys?” – co-authored with Lori Jo Vest – was published by AMACOM, NY in 2009 and is now available in paperback and as an e-book. Suttle and Vest also created the online course Customer Service Roadmap to allow their training to be more efficiently conducted by companies throughout the world.

An executive who could use some coaching to take your success to the next level? An event planner looking for an engaging keynote speaker for your conference? A business owner or top level executive seeking training for their staff members?

Lisa Ford is a speaker with over 20 years of experience presenting to businesses, associations and government. She speaks throughout the United States and internationally on topics of customer service, leadership, team issues and change. Lisa is best known for her work in the areas of customer service. She is the author of the videotape series How to Give Exceptional Customer Service, the #1 selling business tapes in the U.S. for over 3 years. Her other videos and audiotapes include: Developing a Customer Retention Program, Building a Customer Driven Organization: The Manager’s Role and Personal Power. Her recent book is Exceptional Customer Service Going Beyond Good Service to Exceed the Customer’s Expectations. Lisa designs content personalized to the audience and issues they face. She has also customized numerous videos for clients to use in their ongoing education efforts. Lisa’s experience includes working with Pfizer, Viacom, Edward Jones, CSX, Kaiser Permanente, Morton’s of Chicago, Citgo, American Gas Association, American Diabetes Association and American Veterinary Medical Association. In 2002, Lisa was inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame by the National Speakers Association. She is one about 200 speakers who have been honored over 30 years. She also serves a Board Member of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee.

Shep Hyken, CSP, CPAE is the Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations. As a speaker and author, Shep works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling business author of “Moments of Magic,” “The Loyal Customer,” “The Cult of the Customer” and “The Amazement Revolution.” He is also the creator of The Customer Focus program, which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset. Shep Hyken’s most requested programs focus on customer service, customer loyalty, internal service, customer relations and the customer experience. He is known for his high-energy presentations, which combine important information with entertainment (humor and magic) to create exciting programs for his audiences.

Scott McKain is an internationally known authority who helps organizations create distinction and achieve iconic statusthrough the “Ultimate Customer Experience.^®”

• Scott McKain’s iconic keynote presentations benefit from three decades of experience. He has spoken before and consulted with the world’s most influential corporations.

Scott McKain creates captivating presentations and bestselling books which clearly reveal how to create more compelling connections between you and your customers.He teaches how to attain iconic status with your customers to not only stand out in your industry, but transcend your category based upon your level of customer experience delivery.

• Scott has presented his business strategies on platforms in all fifty states and seventeen countries…from Singapore to Sweden; from Mexico to Morocco…from the White House with the President in attendance; to conferences from Budapestto Abu Dhabi.
• He has been honored with induction into the “Professional Speakers Hall of Fame” and the “Sales and Marketing Hall of Fame.”
• He is a member of “Speakers Roundtable” — an elite, invitation-only group of twenty business speakers, considered by many to be among the best in the world.

Scott is the founder of a consulting and training company that explores the role of ultimate customer experiences in creating enhanced client retention and revenue — and is the author of three Amazon.com #1 business bestsellers, most recently, “ICONIC: How Organizations and Leaders Attain, Sustain, and Regain the Ultimate Level of Distinction.”

Jeanne Bliss pioneered the role of the Chief Customer Officer and is an architect of the customer experience movement. Since 1983, she’s been a five-time Chief Customer Officer, holding the first ever CCO role for over 25 years at Lands’ End, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker and Allstate Corporations. Reporting to each company’s CEO, she moved the customer to the strategic agenda, creating transformational changes to each brands’ customer experience. She has driven achievement of 95 percent loyalty rates, improving customer experiences across 50,000-person organizations. As CEO of CustomerBliss, Jeanne has coached over 15,000 global executives on how to earn admirable growth by improving lives, delivered over 1,500 keynotes, written four international best-selling books on Customer Experience, and cofounded the Customer Experience Professional’s Association. Her CCO books and podcasts are often the first resources executives in customer leadership roles acquire, and they look to Jeanne to guide them and their C-Suite to success in their business transformations.

Teresa Allen a recognized customer service expert for over 20 years, is owner of Common Sense Solutions, a customer service training and consulting firm focused on bringing profitable common sense customer service strategies to business organizations. Teresa Allen is author of two customer service books: Common Sense Service: Close Encounters on the Front Lines, and is co-author of The Service Path: Your Roadmap for Building Strong Customer Loyalty. A thought leader in the world of customer service, Teresa is often asked to share her expertise as a customer service keynote speaker for business and association events across the U.S. and abroad. Her Get Common Sense Blog and timely customer service updates in social media are followed by thousands of customer service professionals worldwide. Teresa is a 2015 recipient of the Customer Service Training Practice of the Year Award from the International Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service.

A seasoned practitioner with over 35 years of hands-on experience, Steve is one of industry’s noted experts in Customer Experience, Advanced Business Process Management (BPM) and Performance Transformation. He heads the Research & Professional Services network within the BP Group.

As a co-founder of www.bpgroup.org in 1992 Steve developed the world’s first and premier network for Business Process Management & Performance professionals. Now in 118 countries with membership of 95,000+ and 25+ global partners.

A noted leader Steve works as a mentor, coach and consultant and has helped pioneer through research and ‘hands-on’ exposure to the world’s leading companies the evolution to Advanced BPM aka ‘Outside-In ‘. Recently recognised as a global thought leader in ‘Outside-In’ Steve continues to evolve process thinking towards a customer centric view of business.

An inspirational speaker (he has chaired and keynoted at more than 25 international conferences since 2001), contributor to leading journals and author of several books including
– A Senior Executives Guide to BPR (1994)
– In Search of BPM Excellence (2004)
– Thrive! How to Succeed in the Age of the Customer (2005)
– CEM – Success without Exception (2006) and
– Outside-In. The secret of the 21st century leading companies (2010)

Steve previously worked for Citibank where he led restructuring and business process transformation programs both in the US and Europe.

Advisor to several boards across the globe and sits on the steering panel of the influential California based BPM Forum, a group of distinguished ‘C’ Levels heading up Global 500 companies.

He received the “Lifetime Achievement Award for contribution to Business” at Gartners Annual Summit in 2007.

Ruby Newell-Legner, is considered the preeminent Customer Satisfaction specialist in the Sports, Leisure and Entertainment Industry today. An industry icon in fan engagement and fan experience, her powerful trainings will leave your employees ready, willing and able to go that extra mile to have every customer coming back for more.

As a Certified Speaking Professional, Ruby Newell-Legner has presented more than 2500 programs in 23 countries and served as National President of the National Speakers Association 2015-16.

As a Fan Experience Expert, she has designed and delivered customized service experience programs for more than 1000 businesses, including 31 professional sports teams in the NFL, NHL, NBA, CFL, MLB and WNBA. From Ferrari World to the Columbus Zoo, from Denver to Dubai, Ruby brings unprecedented expertise and insight on how to create a service culture that motivates employees and promotes guest loyalty and retention.

Ruby offers leading sports, leisure and entertainment companies, 7 Star Service solutions to amplify their brand and bottom-line. She helps them build a guest-centric culture from their front-line employees to their guests, between co-workers and their peers, and from managers to the employees they supervise and mentor.

James used to be an actual, real life, legitimate, award-winning rockstar. He played guitar in a heavy metal band, released albums and tore up stages all over the world, James uses this unique experience to energize, empower and inspire his clients and their teams as a ‘Customer Experience Rockstar’.

James’ passion is helping companies deliver MIND BLOWINGLY AWESOME CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES!!!

He helps companies turn their employees into ‘Rockstars’ and their customers into super-fans.

James also delivers the worlds first and only musical customer experience keynote. Complete with live guitar playing and musical customer experience examples. (See more at www.jamesdodkins.com)

James’ client list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of global brands having worked with companies such as Disney, Mercedes, Nike, Microsoft, Lego and many more.

Not only is James a rockstar consultant and trainer, he is also the host of weekly news show ‘This Week In CX’ and an accidental #1 Best Selling author (long story).

James has been mentioned as one of the world’s top customer experience influencers, been featured in Forbes and has also been described as a ‘CX luminary’ although he doesn’t really know what that means.

James would love to talk to you about your ‘Rockstar Revolution’ today!

Micah Solomon conveys an up-to-the minute and deeply practical take on customer service, business success, and the twin importance of people and technology.” -STEVE WOZNIAK, Apple co-founder MICAH SOLOMON, a well-known business leader, is a top business keynote speaker, strategist, and consultant on customer service, business growth, marketing, and is an expert on the customer experience and company culture for our digitally connected times. He is the author of the new bestseller “High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service” among other books, and his expertise has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine, Forbes.com, NBC and ABC television programming, and elsewhere.

Carol Buehrens has been constructing extraordinary customer experiences for over 30 years for major companies such as Liberty Mutual, Northrop, McDonnell-Douglas, Bechtel, GE, Mercury Marine, and ICW Group Insurance Companies. Carol’s passion for improving customer experience has resulted in numerous awards, including the prestigious “2012 CX Innovation Award” from the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), ICW Group CEO Award, and the Liberty Mutual Star Award. A Founding Member and Expert Panel Member of the international Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA), Carol is also a Board Member of the San Diego Software Industry Council’s User Experience Business Interest Group (SDSIC-UX BIG), an active member of the San Diego Customer Experience Special Interest Group (CX SIG), and Adjunct Professor at California State University Fullerton.

John Tschohl is the guru when it comes to customer service, understanding and explaining how every interaction with a customer can help, or hinder, a company.John created many versions of Feelings and millions of people across the world used it to improve their customer service. In 1990, he changed the company name to Service Quality Institute. John started to develop other programs and then made an acquisition of the Advance Management Group. In 2004, he developed a 3-year service culture plan which is now over 60% of revenue. John Tschohl is the author of seven best-selling books, which are available in a wide variety of languages. Empowerment: A Way of Life. Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service now in its 8th version. Ca$hing In: How to Make More Money, Get a Promotion and Love your Job; The Customer is Boss; e:Service, Loyal for Life, and his latest book and training program, Moving Up.

Kerry Bodine is an independent customer experience consultant with expertise in human-centered design, journey mapping, marketing, and branding. She helps executives co-create innovative products, services, and experiences that truly matter for their customers, for their employees, and for their business. Kerry Bodine’s ideas, analysis, and opinions appear frequently on sites like Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, and Advertising Age. Kerry Bodine contributes a regular column to Touchpoint, the journal published by the global Service Design Network, and she has keynoted customer experience, design, and marketing conferences around the world. Kerry Bodine believes that happy customers lead to happy shareholders. Her recent book, Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, helps business leaders understand the financial benefits of great customer experiences and how their organizations must change in order to deliver them.

Steve Curtin has 20 years of experience between hotel operations, sales and marketing, training and development, and customer service roles working for Marriott International, one of the premiere customer-focused companies in the world. As the Area Director of Training for the New York City market, Steve organized the training efforts at more than a dozen area hotels to successfully coordinate corporate-wide training initiatives. While at the NY Marriott Marquis, Steve worked with a team of Marriott executives to implement training that resulted in dramatic increases in employee and customer satisfaction scores. One such initiative titled The Basics was adapted from the Ritz-Carlton Gold Standards in 1998 and branded by Marriott headquarters to become a company-wide initiative involving more than 3,000 hotels. Since 1992, Steve has delivered interactive and engaging presentations on three continents, in six countries, and 26 states. Steve has delivered over 600 presentations to more than 20,000 people.

Dennis Snow is a Customer Service Keynote Speaker, Formerly with the Disney Institute, Business Author. Snow & Associates works with businesses, trade associations and executives who strive to be world-class service organizations. Dennis Snow and our associates give customized keynote addresses, workshops and training sessions geared toward moving companies forward into customer service excellence. Each program is designed to meet a client’s specific needs and growth area goals.

Robert Spector is recognized worldwide as the ultimate authority on The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence. His best-selling business classic The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America’s #1 Customer Service Company is the first and only up-close and personal look at how this company became the national standard of customer service. BusinessWeek said it “bubbles with customer service insights.” In 2017, he released a completely new edition of the book The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence: Creating a Values-Driven Service Culture, which Forbes picked as the Top Business Book of 2017. Please watch Robert’s author video to learn more about what’s new – for YOU – in the new edition. Robert has been involved in customer service since the age of 13, when he first went to work in his mother and father’s butcher shop in the farmers’ market in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Working alongside his parents, he learned firsthand what it takes to take care of customers–and to keep them loyal. Those lessons inspired his book, The Mom & Pop Store, which features interviews with successful independent retailers from all over the world. Robert believes that the elements of world-class customer service are the same, whether they come from Spector’s Meat Market, Nordstrom, or Amazon.com, the subject of his international bestseller Amazon.com: Get Big Fast.

Harley Manning founded Forrester’s customer experience research practice when he joined the firm in 1998. Today he leads a team of analysts that cover enterprise-level customer experience topics ranging from strategy to metrics and business models. A highly rated speaker with a love of the stage, Harley is the founder of Forrester’s annual Marketing Forum as well as its Customer Experience Forum, which he hosts and moderates. This year, the Customer Experience Forum drew a crowd of 1,300 attendees and became the firm’s largest event. Prior to joining Forrester, Harley spent 18 years designing and building interactive services for companies including Dow Jones, AT&T, the pioneering online service Prodigy, and Sears. He developed his love of research while he was at AT&T Bell Labs, where he was brought in to design user-friendly interfaces for inventions in the field of applied artificial intelligence.

Adam Toporek is an internationally-recognized customer service expert, keynote speaker, and frontline trainer who helps organizations get results by thinking differently about customer service. A third-generation entrepreneur with extensive experience in retail, wholesale, franchising, and small business, Adam understands the impact that customer experience can have on the bottom line.

As the author of Be Your Customer’s Hero, the founder of the popular Customers That Stick^® blog, and the co-host of the Crack the Customer Code podcast, Adam regularly shares his customer experience and customer service insights with a global audience. He has appeared in over 100 media and is regularly cited as a top customer experience thought leader.

In addition to his customer experience work, Adam is an angel investor with an interest in entrepreneurs who disrupt the status quo through innovation. Adam lives in Orlando, FL with his wife Renee and his two dogs, Dalton and Talia.

Renee Evenson is a business training consultant and writer specializing in organizational psychology in the workplace the roles and relationships between customers, employees, and management. Renee understands these roles and relationships well. During her fifteen year management career at BellSouth Telecommunications, her duties included customer service for the small business market; sales and marketing staff management; staff training and development; training material development; sales and incentive program development; team leadership development; and strategic planning. After leaving BellSouth, Renee drew on her expertise and translated her experience into a writing career. Her published books are: Customer Service 101: Basic Lessons To Be Your Best; Customer Service 201: Managing Your People To Be Their Best; Customer Service Training 101 2nd Ed.; Award-Winning Customer Service; Customer Service Management Training 101; Powerful Phrases for Effective Customer Service; and Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Difficult People. Renee has written numerous related magazine articles specializing in customer, employee, and management relations, she has been interviewed and featured in several print and radio media, and she has worked with businesses and colleges to create and edit specialized training courses.

Peggy Carlaw is the founder of Impact Learning Systems, a firm that helps businesses improve customer satisfaction and sales. She holds the belief that people intrinsically want to do a good job at work and her books, training programs, and consulting services are all geared toward helping employees develop the attitudes and skills to become more willing contributors. The result? Employees are more fulfilled, customers are better served, and business results improve .Peggy lives in San Luis Obispo, California. She has an MBA from the University of California, Irvine and a B.S. from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, CA.

Jay Baer, CSP has spent 24 years in digital marketing and customer experience, consulting for more than 700 companies during that period, including 34 of the FORTUNE 500. His current firm – Convince & Convert – provides digital marketing advice and online customer service advice and counsel to some of the world’s most important brands.

His new book, Hug Your Haters, is the world’s first modern customer service manual, showing how companies large and small can benefit from the enormous increase in online complaints and customer feedback.

His second book, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype, was #3 on the New York Times business best seller list, and a runaway #1 Amazon best seller.

Jay speaks approximately 60 times per year world-wide, often with lessons about how businesspeople can use today’s shifts in technology and consumer expectation to gain or keep more customers.

Jay’s Convince & Convert blog was named the world’s #1 content marketing blog by the Content Marketing Institute, and is visited by more than 250,000 marketers each month. Jay also hosts and produces the Social Pros podcast, which is downloaded 65,000 times monthly and was named 2015’s best marketing podcast by the Content Marketing Awards.

A fixture in social media, Jay is the most retweeted person in the world among digital marketers, and the second most retweeted person in the world among B2B marketers. He is also an active venture capitalist, and is an investor or advisor to 25 early stage technology and social media companies.

Convince & Convert is the fifth multi-million dollar company Jay has started from scratch. Before his move into digital marketing in 1994 he was a brand marketer and a political consultant, with major roles in state, federal and presidential electoral campaigns.

Befitting his roots in Arizona, Jay is a tequila collector and maintains his allegiance to the teams of his alma mater, the University of Arizona.

Nicholas Webb is a world-renowned innovation thought leader and expert on customer experience design. His upcoming book “What Customers Crave” www.whatcustomerscrave.com/about-book/ outlines the new science of customer experience and how the worlds of innovation and customer experience design have now collided. As the CEO of Boomē www.whatcustomerscrave.com Nicholas provides customer experience strategy, insights and training to some of the top brands in the world including McDonald’s, Verizon, Gatorade, Blue Cross and Cisco just to name a few. Nicholas provides services to organizations across many industrial verticals including healthcare, guest services, call centers, retail, B2B and hospitality just to name a few. Nicholas is also one of the country’s top keynote speakers on the topic of customer experience and customer service. www.nickwebb.com