First off, I’m so excited to finally launch my #CX #podcast and blog that is unlike anything you’ve experienced before. I’ve been working hard with the XO Studios team to bring this to life, and I’m pumped to share the final product with all of you. CX & Chill is a weekly podcast that fuses together people from different industries, roles, and backgrounds to bring you the best stories and lessons learned from brands everywhere.

Companies and brands are built on products and services to be used by customers and yet we forget about the customer experience, and if the customer’s experience is not the first thought in #product build it is essentially last. Fusing different roles, departments, industries and perspectives was intentional for our podcast, as it allows us to help you create truly the best interactions between your brand and customers by hearing tactical advice from the top experts across the world.

Listen to the live CX & Chill interview wherever you get your podcasts or watch below.

When we think about customer experiences, it always seems easier to identify what went wrong during a bad interaction than why something went so well in a good interaction. Bad interactions often feel disjointed or leave the customer feeling scammed or unappreciated. Great interactions should feel effortless and frictionless where the customer doesn’t even feel they are in a customer-loop/journey.

This week I spoke with patrizio spagnoletto (Global CMO, Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming) and Pat Lian (VP of Customer Experience, Warner Bros. Discovery and they shared how they view#marketing and #customer support as a unified team delivering incredible entertainment experiences to their diverse customer base. 

“The marketing team is in the business of making promises, and those promises need to be kept through product experience, content, and everything in between.”

At Warner Bros. Discovery, the marketing and customer support teams aim to work seamlessly together ensuring shifts and announcements made on the marketing side align with the customer support needs. “The marketing team is in the business of making promises, and those promises need to be kept through product experience, content, and everything in between,” stated Spagnoletto. This eliminates so many of the headaches that come with siloed departments operating without regard to the impact on the customer support function.

Our most intriguing part of this conversation, for me, was how the CX team came to be part of the Marketing team at WBD. Spagnoletto shared how CX can really live under/along so many different departments. I strongly believe this mindset is a differentiator and the more companies adopt CX into the company as a value creator and not a cost center the better the experience. Having CX leadership incorporated into the product development cycle upfront is also key to ensuring there is a full loop for customers’ voices to continue being heard. Having CX teams provide feedback prior to customers ever experiencing the product also ensures fundamental and innovative design is included to drive the best experiences for customers vs. a CX waterfall strategy.

This topic led our discussion onto how important it is building brand advocates at the customer level. To build brand advocates one has to start with building an excellent product. Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming offers iconic franchises across all categories, from drama and movies to reality and unscripted shows. By providing the best for each genre or mood, they can better understand their customers and provide them with the best experiences possible. As Pato put it, “As a consumer, you may watch ‘The White Lotus’ at night, and then the day after, you may want to watch ‘Fixer Upper’ because there are just different sides of you and you’re in different moods, right? And we want to embrace that.” By embracing customers’ different needs, sharing information, and prioritizing advocates, organizations can provide exceptional customer experiences. 

“As a consumer, you may watch ‘The White Lotus’ at night, and then the day after, you may want to watch ‘Fixer Upper’ because there are just different sides of you and you’re in different moods, right? And we want to embrace that.”