Profile

Shaun Smith has been a leader in expanding management attention from the narrow focus on customer service to the wider, more strategic drive towards customer experience. He has developed some of the latest thinking around this subject, helping organisations world-wide to create compelling customer experiences that achieve brand differentiation and customer loyalty.

Current work

Founder of the highly regarded customer experience consultancy Smith+co - firmly rooted in the 'keep it simple' ethos - Shaun has worked with clients in industries including retail, hospitality, financial services and technology to name a few.

Previous experience

Author: The co-author of four acclaimed business books, his latest - Bold: How to be brave in business and win - examines those brands that are transforming their markets through the use of innovative business practices and the use of digital marketing. Bold was awarded CMI's Management 2012 E-Book of the Year.

Presentations: Shaun Smith has spoken to audiences across the world and in many sectors. He is a Fellow of the Professional Speakers Association, a Member of the Global Speakers Federation, and was recently presented with the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence. Rated as one of the top business speakers in the world, Shaun doesn't talk about complex methodologies or magic bullets; instead his approach is refreshingly straightforward, always pragmatic and at times, controversial.

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Media

Video

Shaun Smith | Customer experience expert

Expertise

Talking Points

BOLD: How to be brave in business and win

As we emerge from the recession it is becoming evident that those brands that have stayed true to their purpose and focused on differentiation are those that are gaining and sustaining market share. Find out the secrets of their success. In this high-energy, engaging multimedia presentation Shaun will take you deep into the minds and thinking of the executives within these companies. The difficult decisions they made in their relentless strive to differentiate, how they made these decisions, how they overcame the challenges and engaged their people in the process. We will identify the key insights underlying these organisations' successes - principles that you can take away and apply to your business. You will be inspired to develop new ideas to exceed your customer expectations, and the knowledge to translate these ideas into practical actions that will accelerate your organisation's growth.

In designing a keynote presentation to meet the specific needs of your event, Shaun draws upon those stories and examples from our research that are most likely to resonate with your audience and aligns with the themes of your conference.

Managing Your Customer Experience: Turning your customers into advocates

Customer service is in crisis - not because it's bad, but because it's undifferentiated.How do you create customer experiences that define your brand? How do you create a level of customer satisfaction that is so strong that customers become your best advocates? How do you avoid becoming one of the 55% of companies that drive customers away through their CRM systems?

Uncommon Practice: Differentiating your brand

What are the 'uncommon practices' demonstrated by great brands? What is it that they do differently from less successful organisations? Learn the secrets of Virgin, easyJet, Carphone Warehouse, Harley-Davidson, The Banyan Tree, Amazon.com and many others.

See, Feel, Think, Do: The power of instinct in business

How do entrepreneurs and leaders of highly successful companies use the power of instinct to develop new opportunities and avoid downturns? This presentation explores the methods used by Tim Waterstone, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Ramsay, Steve Jobs, Charles Dunstone and many others.

Living The Brand: The move towards holistic marketing

Many people talk about 'living the brand'; few know how to do it. How do you turn brand promises and values into brand behaviours? What are the ten most common ways to screw up your brand - and how do you avoid them? How do marketing, operations and HR need to work together to truly deliver the brand?

Aligning Your Organisation: Harnessing the power of your people

Implementing strategy is much harder than creating it. Many organisations merge with others or consolidate their brands; some are successful in achieving cost-efficiencies but very few are successful in aligning their people or creating true shareholder value. What are the key ingredients in doing so? How do you energise the people in your organisation to realise the potential value in your company?

Topics

Business

Customer Service

Feedback

We arranged for Shaun to present to the top 500 of one of our major clients in Poland on customer excellence. He was absolutely fantastic. He was able to engage the audience and explain the ... keep readingprinciples of customer excellence in a way that they could understand and act upon. The energy was high, there was lots of laughing and the points were made and driven home. We liked his presentation so much that we asked him to speak at the Management conference for PwC in Poland. He delivered a completely different presentation, tailored to our circumstances and managed to wow the audience again. What can I say - I am impressed! PwC Consulting Central Europe

Your well chosen case-studies and thought-provoking insights gave the team the perfect stimulus for some really beneficial discussion and debate. I've had very positive feedback from the team on your presentation and workshop; your contributions have certainly helped to drive a new way of thinking about how we interact with our clients at London Stock Exchange Group. You clearly spent a lot of time getting to know our business and markets, in preparation for your presentation, and your time is very much appreciated.

London Stock Exchange Group

Shaun joined us for our annual conference where we were re-launching our values for all our customer facing staff. Shaun skilfully wove his presentation around the theme of the day, enhancing many of the messages we were giving with his own experience of working with other successful key brands. Shaun’s session on the day helped to pull together our values and sales strategy and gave all of our team a great kick start to get out there and make a difference.

Big Yellow Self Storage

Huge thanks for your fascinating and entertaining presentation at our annual conference. It was pitched perfectly, and quite awe-inspiring. You really energised the conference, and we're very grateful for the work and time you took to contribute so valuably. That Monday morning was quite stunning. The delegates really loved your presentation.

Booksellers Association

We were looking for a high-calibre speaker who could engage with our senior European team around branding and differentiating the customer experience. Shaun did a great job in understanding the brief, preparing for the event, connecting with the group and delivering a powerful message. 102 of the 103 participants strongly agreed that the session had met their objectives in full.

Staples Europe