The 2020 CX Solutions Cheat Sheet:

As I've seen the resurgence of the pandemic it's become clear that we all need to do everything we can to support one another. For that reason, I'm sharing some key contacts and resources to guide you along your journey. These are the people I would call to help me. Hopefully they can help you too. 

Understanding Customers:

Market Research: If you're used to Gartner and Forrester (both great resources), you may LOVE working with PSFK. My friend Jeff at PSFK is a proactive catalyst and straight-up detective when it comes to finding the insights that matter. He and his team's "retail" chops are second to none. He's agreed to jump in and help any of you who need to "get smart fast" with regard to customers or CX. Contact: Jeff Wiener

Understanding the voice of the customer and customer emotions: Cathy Zapata is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at RRD and in her role, she sees a little bit of everything. I love her CAN DO style and her desire to help people along their journey (pun intended). So when you need to put your customer at the center of business decisions she's a great resource. Cathy has a CX lab, state-of-the-art customer intelligence tools, platforms and technologies into which you can tap. Contact: Cathy Zapata

Dialog with your customers (at scale): The most challenging thing you'll tackle as a marketer in the world of CX is finding out what's on the mind of your customers at scale. While research, social listening, surveys and regression analysis will get you a lot of insightful perspective, all of that pales in comparison to engaging your customers in an active dialog to reveal the best improvements to your products, services or business practices. Worthix is a platform that does this brilliantly. In addition to being one of the brightest voices of CX in the industry, Mary Drumond is the CMO at Worthix and graciously agreed to be mentioned in this newsletter as a direct contact. Not only will you rethink everything you know about "knowing your customers" you'll be truly impressed with Mary's big heart when it comes to helping everyone (including you) in the CX community! Contact: Mary Drumond

Campaign Orchestration and Marketing Automation:

Marketing Cloud Platforms: Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle: Okay so you either have Adobe, Salesforce or Oracle as your enterprise marketing solution or you have some other platform and you are looking to standardize on one of the big three. My suggestion is to talk to Tim Thies. Tim has experience deploying marketing automation solutions for Fortune 500 brands. His ability to help brands rapidly migrate from "homegrown" CRM solutions to enterprise technology platforms is impressive. Tim has an uncanny ability to understand what you need to accomplish and he explains next steps in easy-to-understand ways. Simply put, he's awesome to work with and standing by to help you. Contact: Tim Thies

Breaking down silos and uniting teams to a common CX approach: The platform I think does the very best job at uniting teams across all business units by centralizing strategy, planning and workflow is Percolate. Percolate introduces a marketing planning platform that connects to every member of your team, organizes your strategy into a common view and connects your agencies, partners, and software platforms. With this tool, you can implement transparency across your stakeholders and manage your teams seamlessly. I honestly don't know why every brand hasn't yet adopted this technology. If you want to unify teams in your organization, my friend Samir has agreed to field any questions to help you learn more about how to take advantage of Percolate's platform. Contact: Samir Dandekar

Technology Solutions:

US-Based technology solutions and business consulting: As you already know, it's not that easy to find a solid technology partner. The thing I look for in tech partners is solid leadership from the top and a culture of innovation. Based on those criteria, if you have an enterprise level technology challenge or business consulting need, my go-to is Credera. The team there is lead by Justin Bell who is probably one of the most compassionate, thoughtful and kind leaders you'll evert meet. Yes, his team is top-notch and consistently delivers IT and consulting solutions for the nation's biggest brands. What I admire most is Justin's selfless demeanor and willingness to help anyone who needs it. We spoke today and he's available to help you. Contact: Justin Bell: 

Off-Shore technology solutions and business consulting: If you're trying to be more aggressive with your technology budget and you are comfortable working offshore, then SpSoft may be for you. SpSoft runs the gamut from cybersecurity, big data, custom solutions and technology integrations. Michael is the CEO and manages a wide range of experts. The nice thing about SpSoft is their ability to scale quickly and nimbly. They can tailor solutions for businesses of almost any size. Here's Michael's information, he too is standing by to help you: Contact: Michael Lazor

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Social Media / Media Buying:

Tik Tok: My first hookup for you is the CEO at a crazy smart startup called HeartBeat. Heartbeat specializes in connecting Tik Tok influencers (of any size) to brands and corresponding audiences. If you want to tap into Tik Tok, Brian can make it happen. He and his team are already working with many leading brands, his case studies are outstanding and he's a genuinely nice guy who can coach you to new kinds of success with social. Contact: Brian Freeman: 

Social Media Buying: It should come as no surprise that what once was a labor-intensive job in the marketing industry is now the province of fancy online tools and self-service platforms. That said, many brands have leveraged things like the Facebook pixel to move media buying in-house. #smartmove. My friend Lindsay is a seasoned veteran of social and media buying and I've worked with her on brands large and small. She is a no-nonsense media maven who can help existing teams fill gaps. Lindsay can be a great option to help navigate social and media buying needs in a pinch. I spoke to her today and she said she'd be happy to help any of my subscribers. Yeah, she's pretty awesome. Contact: Lindsay O'Brien:

LinkedIn: So many people want to connect with the right person at the right time on Linkedin and to be honest most services that promise to accomplish this are lackluster at best. The good news is that my buddy Steve has a proven framework and process to facilitate meetups that make a meaningful difference. If you want to make Linkedin a powerful biz dev or investor relations tool just talk to: Contact Steve Perchikov. He's got you.

Content Development and Production:

Off-shore, on-demand development and production: If you need enterprise level work or a small team to cover gaps, I recommend Agile Infoways. Over the last ten years I've worked with them on small to medium sized businesses as well as national brands. The owner Ronak manages 200+ people specializing in everything from UX, mobile apps, web applications, websites, e-commerce and digital design. Agile Infoways is fast and flexible when it comes to budgets. In addition to having an off-shore team, Agile also has offices in the USA which makes them highly desirable for those wanting to work both locally and off-shore.  Contact: Ronak Shaw

Content creation and production: When it comes to content creation and production with a high degree of flexibility, You can reach out to Bennet Blau. He has access to over 2000 specialists in photography, video, design, art direction and video and he can help you research, develop and deploy almost anything you need. (He can also help you dream up new stuff!). Contact: Bennett Blau

End to end business solutions:

In a class all to themselves. RRD is my pick for holistic business solutions and especially CX. At some point in every brand's evolution, you'll need to find the efficiencies across multiple customer touchpoints. The thing is, customer touchpoints these days can include invoicing, direct mail, retail signage, all kinds of commercial printing, product, packaging, logistics, and supply chain. The teams at RRD are unparalleled at delivering a full spectrum of value. Full disclosure I now work for RRD and these are precisely the reasons why I am part of the team.

Here are the leaders at RRD who can help you tailor an efficient, integrated, data-safe solution to meet your any of your needs:

West Coast: Chris Ren 

Central US: Chris Seal

East Coast: Dave Turek 

COVID-19 Specific Solutions

As a final note, many of you may need immediate support for customer and employee experiences. If you find yourself asking "what can I do to the safety and confidence of my customers and employees," then please reach out to my friend Angela. She can help by providing ideas that are working for other brands as well as helping you think though new and unique solutions for your customers and employees. Contact: Angela Kimes

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About Dennis Wakabayashi:

I was recently named one of the TOP 150 Customer Experience Thought Leaders of 2020 as well as one of the TOP 50 CX People Of The Decade.

Simply put, my mission is to help the world's leading brands deliver Customer Experience solutions that connect digital and physical touchpoints all the way through supply chain & logistics. 

If you have any questions or want to chit chat about CX, just InMail me anytime. I'm here to help!