Biography

Don Peppers is a bestselling author, blogger, widely-acclaimed keynote speaker and global CX authority.

A marketing futurist and accomplished trend spotter, Peppers has educated and motivated audiences worldwide with presentations and workshops focused on how businesses can compete in a dynamic, technologically fast-moving world. His latest book Customer Experience: What, How and Why Now (2016), provides insights and “how to” recommendations for building and maintaining a truly customer-centric business.

Peppers has written nine books with business partner Martha Rogers, collectively selling well over a million copies in 18 languages. Most recently Extreme Trust: Turning Proactive Honesty and Flawless Execution into Long-Term Profits (Penguin, 2016) uses real-world examples to show how rising customer expectations in a more transparent age have permanently altered the competitive landscape. And Managing Customer Experience and Relationships (Wiley, 2017) is the third edition of their graduate-level textbook, originally published in 2003.

Peppers’ and Rogers’ first book, The One To One Future (Doubleday, 1993), put forward a paradigm-shifting idea about the business implications of interactivity that soon evolved into the global CRM movement. BusinessWeek said their book was the “bible of the new marketing,” while Tom Peters chose it as “book of the year” and Inc. Magazine’s editor-in-chief called it “one of the two or three most important business books ever written.”

On the strength of the revolutionary ideas cited in The One to One Future, the Peppers & Rogers Group soon grew into one of the world’s leading customer-centric management consulting firms, helping clients in a variety of industries and geographies make money by using data and interactivity to deliver more reliable and relevant customer experiences.

Now, Don and Martha have once again joined forces to form CX Speakers, designed to deliver keynote presentations, workshops, and thought-leadership consulting focused exclusively on the customer experience and its related topics, which range from digital technologies, disruption, and innovation to customer metrics, social selling, customer success, customer advocacy, trust, and corporate culture.

Prior to founding Peppers & Rogers Group and then CX Speakers, Don served as the CEO of Chiat/Day’s direct marketing unit and was a celebrated ad agency “rainmaker” – exploits he celebrates in his entertaining book Life’s a Pitch: Then You Buy (Doubleday, 1995).

Graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a B.S. in astronautical engineering (seriously!), Don claims he was the only actual rocket scientist in the advertising industry. He also has a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. 

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Business Competition, Future Tense

Technology is raising customer expectations, and now you’re competing with Amazon, Apple, JetBlue, and Amex. Four strategies for succeeding in the transparent future.

The Omnichannel Myth

99% of companies that say they’re “omnichannel” aren’t. Three obstacles to overcome before joining the 1% of companies that really are.

After e-Commerce: Immersive Commerce

Today’s programmatic marketing tactic is tomorrow’s smartphone app, so get ready now for an online CX featuring “chatvertising” and bot-to-bot marketing.

Four Ways to Avoid “Post-Disruption Stress Disorder"

PDSD has plagued more than one business, from Kodak to Blockbuster, and from Apple to IBM. Four strategies for beating the next disruption in your own category.

Customer Trust as a Disruptive Innovation

How to out-do your competitors by earning your customers’ trust, and why this can insulate you from the next big disruption in your business.

Digital Disruption for Fun and Profit

Creating your own disruption is a good way to survive radical technological (or regulatory) change, and offense is always more fun than defense.

Proactive Customer Strategy: The Smart Response to Transparency

Now that what customers say about you matters more than what you tell customers about yourself, what your customers want is for you to be proactive on their behalf.

Uber-izing your business

Trust platforms like Airbnb, Uber and Taskrabbit empower customers with the ability to self-organize, eliminating the middle man. Other businesses can, too. And will.

Proactive Trustworthiness is the New Black

New technology drives new expectations. You need a new strategy, good for 2017 and beyond. Grow profitably and stay competitive with Extreme Trust. Four tasks to do so.

Do Your Customers Trust You? Should They? And Do You Trust Them?

If somebody measured every company tomorrow, how would your company rank? What decisions are you making today that create or destroy trust?

What Would a Trustable [insert your company’s name] Look Like?

Do you give refunds proactively? Host customer reviews on your website? Things to show you’re a leader in trustability, while improving business results at the same time.

What is the Value of a Better Customer Experience?

How to map the customer experience, improve it, profit from it. How does it help us and help our customers? Why is “customer journey mapping” exactly what’s needed now?

The Customer Dashboard

How to measure your success with customers. Metrics needed to drive your decisions and behaviors, eliminate landmines and build customer equity

Customer Metrics You Can Bank On

Providing a better customer experience is costly today, while value is realized tomorrow. Resolve this dilemma to the satisfaction of your CFO. How much more will customers pay if…?

You Can Lead a Man to Data, But You Can’t Make Him Think

Trustworthy data is (1) objective and (2) accurate. That’s half the battle. Five principles for using objective, accurate data to make more scientifically reliable business decisions

How to Make Data-Driven Decisions Without a Statistics Degree

Anticipating human biases, avoiding statistical errors, and recognizing the limits of the data you have. How to talk with your customer analysts, without equations.

Balancing Work, Life, and Getting Where You Deserve to Be

Take it from a woman who has advanced degrees, a history of professional leadership in corporate America and entrepreneurial ventures, and has raised a family while traveling on six continents. It ain’t easy, but you can do it for fun and profit.

Customer Advocacy: Recruiting Your Best Customers to the Sales Team

The pinnacle of Customer Success Management is customer advocacy. How to create emotional, human bonds with customers, at scale, and leapfrog your competitors to own the category.

Customer Success: Competing for Sales in the Cloud

SaaS and other subscription-based businesses must cultivate prospects, not just hunt them. How to manage every customer relationship as a Challenger Sale

Social Selling: Arm Your Salespeople

Turn salespeople into thought leaders armed with social ninja skills. Learn how to sell based on triggers, insights, and referrals

Managing a Successful Customer-Centric Transformation

The key isn’t technology or data or policy. All these things are table stakes. The key lies in the culture of your employees. How to improve and maintain your corporate culture.

Self-Organizing Your Way to Competitive Success

When a customer problem comes in, you want your employees to swarm the problem and solve it, without top-down direction. Here’s how to make that happen.

Empowered Consumers? Or Digitally Augmented Humans?

Today’s consumers have digital super powers undreamed of even a decade ago, but affection, trust, and genuine loyalty can’t be automated, and will never be outdated.

Digital Connections, Emotional Engagement

Customer satisfaction doesn’t generate loyalty, but dissatisfaction creates disloyalty. Design your customer experience to be frictionless first, then emotionally engaging.

Delivering Humanity to B2B Customers

Success, more than satisfaction, drives the business customer. But a successful customer success effort will include genuine, human connections, based on emotion and trust.

Customer Loyalty: What, How, and Why

What it means to “loyalize” your customers, how to do so, why it’s worth the money, and three important obstacles that must be overcome.

Using Customer Loyalty to Make Better Short-Term Decisions

The customer’s memory is the most reliable link between the short-term financial effects of current decisions and the long-term shareholder value they might create.

Are you Loyal TO Your Customers?

Implement CRM processes to make customers more loyal and you’ll almost certainly fail. But do it to improve their lives, and you’ll almost certainly make them more loyal.

Testimonials

Don was a hit with the audience and a pleasure to work with. His content is relevant and practical, and his speaking style is personable and entertaining. He was able to get his message across in different cultures (Chile and Colombia), which is an accomplishment that not all speakers achieve. Were definitely looking forward to working with him again in the future.
– Product Owner International Conferences, Seminarium
Don is a popular voice in business media with nearly 325K followers for his regular postings of original content on LinkedIn. He has been listed numerous times on LinkedIn as a leading CX InFluencer.
– LinkedIn
Don Peppers opened the World Marketing & Sales Forum with his keynote and it was the perfect start. His message was right on target — relevant and insightful. We received great feedback from the attendees. As always, it was a pleasure working with Don and his team.
– WOBI
Don was great! Lots of discussion in our afternoon sessions regarding Don’s content so I’d say he was very impactful…Thanks for making this happen on short notice and please thank Don for delivering a great presentation as always! – Tom Sweet, SVP, Head of Marketing
– Nuvision Credit Union
Don brought an energetic and thoughtful presentation that really challenged how we think about the customer experience. Because of Don, we immediately embarked on a strategy to remove any and all friction from the customer experience. While his presentation was just an afternoon, the impact it had is shaping how we think about how we interact with both staff and customers.
– Joe Hayman, CEO, Southern AG Credit
We invited Don Peppers to be the international speaker for our clients’ leadership workshops. He was a truly inspirational speaker. Don’s presentations were enthusiastic, humorous and based on interesting real-life examples — a perfect blend of proven principles, relevant business case examples and insightful reflection on what it really means to the business and leaders. Don can command an entire room with his high-energy, information-packed and hands-on presentations. He tailored his presentations to perfectly fit demanding customer requirements. He will raise the bar for you, inspire you, and take you to gold standard and beyond!
– McDonald's Academy Training Center (Thailand)
Don brings a fresh perspective and impactful insights around how to truly develop a meaningful relationship with your customers. His ideas and thoughts are practical and easy to understand. I value our partnership.
– Comcast
We had an amazing session with Don and well received by the group.
– Yahoo

Booksby Don Peppers

Customer Experience: What, How and Why Now

Extreme Trust: Turning Proactive Honesty and Flawless Execution into Long-Term Profits

Managing Customer Relationships

The One To One Future

Rules to Break & Laws to Follow

Blog Posts

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Blog Posts

 

Embrace Radical Generosity This Giving Tuesday

As the season of gratitude unfolds, we're reminded of our shared humanity and the power...

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Celebrating Thanksgiving: Grateful Hearts, Bold Milestones

🦃 This Thanksgiving, we at The Keynote Curators are reflecting on what truly matters—our community,...

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“Find a Way” Philosophy to Overcome Life’s Challenges

Overcoming Challenges with Merril Hoge’s Find a Way Philosophy Challenges are a universal experience. Whether...

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Transforming Events with Music to Create Unique Experiences

The Power of Music in Events Few things unite people as effortlessly as music. Whether...

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Five Life-Changing Lessons from Recording 100 Podcast Episodes

How Creating a Podcast Can Transform Your Perspective in Life What if the simplest conversations...

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Celebrating International Men’s Day: Fostering Positive Change and Health

On International Men's Day, we celebrate their contributions and tackle the challenges they face through...

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