In episode five of the Techie & the Biz podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing my colleague Lori Thomas, SVP of Strategic Engagement and Transformation (SET) at MetTel, and hear her expound upon how she built the customer experience for MetTel’s top clients through her consulting organization, and her focus on women in technology leadership.
During our insightful conversation, I discovered more about the importance of a positive customer experience and how it is a critical element of any business that involves an interaction between a customer and a company. It encompasses every touchpoint throughout the customer journey, from initial awareness and purchase to post-sale support and beyond.
Lori understands better than anyone that a positive customer experience can foster brand loyalty and long-term customer relationships, ultimately driving business growth. We discussed her technology career over the last few decades and how that laid the foundation for her customer engagement leadership role at MetTel. She’s a firm believer that having a deep interest in emerging technology is a great foundation for understanding digital trends and applies that to customer engagement.
Below are insights I’ve gathered from Lori during our conversation on Techie & the Biz.
Customer Engagement at MetTel
Lori primarily works with MetTel’s largest customers, collaborating with multinational corporations and Fortune 500 enterprises that are complex in nature. Lori takes customer advocacy very seriously, making sure we’re delivering on our commitments but also taking time to make sure MetTel has an overall deep understanding of our customer’s businesses. Lori’s role at MetTel truly brings industry-best thought leadership and peer-to-peer use cases together so that customers can become more educated than they were when they first engaged with us.
The Evolution of Customer Engagement
We had a lively discussion about how customer engagement has evolved over the last 20 years, along with the recent pandemic. She explained how with technological advancements, consumer behavior, new channels for interaction, the emergence of the internet and smartphones, and social applications, customers want to control their narrative. They want to control how they interact with their vendors.
Today, it’s important to make sure that no matter how they’re interacting—whether it be in person or remotely—that it’s a seamless interaction and they can get their real-time information when they need it. I learned how much customer engagement has changed over time from being very product-centric— where vendors would just push out what they were selling—to today as it’s become much more customer-centric.
MetTel Innovation Labs’ Role in Customer Engagement
As a trusted advisor, Lori often plays a leading role in our customers’ innovation journeys. Our early adopter customers want to make sure the products they are bringing into their organizations are the right fit for their business priorities. MetTel’s Innovation Lab was initiated to co-develop solutions with customers in a controlled environment so they can test, trial, and measure success as we develop products with them. So that when the product does roll out, it’s highly effective.
