Jon Picoult

If you’re aspiring to satisfy your customers, then you’re aspiring to mediocrity. That’s the fascinating premise behind this keynote, and it will fundamentally change how you think about creating a successful, beloved business.

Jon explains why building customer loyalty requires not just satisfying customers, but impressing them – forging indelible memories which drive the repurchase and referral behavior that is the lifeblood of any thriving business. With fascinating case studies and engaging stories, he reveals the 12 proven, science-based principles that legendary companies use to create truly impressive brand experiences – the kind that turn more sales prospects into customers, and more customers into lifelong fans.

Whether you serve external or internal customers, you’ll emerge from this program with specific, actionable ideas for turning your organization’s customer experience into its greatest competitive advantage.

A great customer experience is like a beautifully choregraphed performance. As with any performance, an important part of this one involves what goes on backstage – in the work environment and with the leaders who shape it.

In this insightful keynote, Jon highlights the parallels between how great companies cultivate engagement with customers, and how great leaders accomplish the same with their workforce. He explains how leaders, via their own personal behaviors and the workplace constructs they create, have an unparalleled opportunity to encourage customer-focused behaviors throughout their organizations.

Lots of companies fly the “easy to do business with” banner. Few ever actually fulfill that promise, as most consumers can attest. In this fascinating talk, Jon reveals how great companies make it not just easy – but completely effortless – for people to do business with them.

Using eye-opening statistics and amusing real-world examples, Jon explains why an effortless customer experience is such a rare and powerful competitive differentiator. In addition, for versions of this keynote geared towards leadership audiences, he explains how to eradicate distracting, unproductive effort from the workplace, so employees can keep their focus where it belongs – on their customers.

The key to delivering a great customer experience? It’s all in your head! That’s because creating a great impression on customers isn’t just about shaping their experiences, it’s about shaping their memories.

In this fascinating program, Jon describes how great companies capitalize on cognitive science to influence how customers perceive and remember their experiences, driving the repurchase and referral behavior that’s at the heart of any successful business. From improving sales close rates to building positive word-of-mouth to enhancing employee engagement – you’ll find the principles outlined in this program to be invaluable.

In 2008-09, during the height of the Great Recession, Hyundai Motors increased its market share by a remarkable 40%. Starbucks lost half its market value during that same economic downturn, yet emerged stronger from the recession, outperforming the S&P 500 by more than six-fold.

Just a few years after the Covid-19 pandemic’s Great Cessation decimated the air travel industry, Delta Airlines bounced back strong, delivering a shareholder return that was more than twice that of its peer group.

These are just three examples of companies that skillfully leveraged Customer Experience strategic principles to not just survive a period of crisis, but to thrive in the aftermath. In this fascinating and timely program, Jon reveals the techniques that smart companies use to strengthen customer loyalty during even the most challenging times.