Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth Rob Markey, Bain & Company partner and customer experience expert

Discover the engine of Earned Growth as Rob Markey and Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow and "Winning On Purpose” author, hold a working session on how references and referrals significantly contribute to organic growth.
Rob and Fred unearth the pivotal role that references and referrals play in propelling Earned Growth. They answer key questions such as: How would you characterize different referral types? What are the best mechanisms for measuring and attributing value to them? How do you navigate the tricky path of fostering genuine, organic referrals at scale?
Together, they explore one of the thorniest issues in accounting for the value of referrals: How much of a new referred customer’s value should accrue to the referring customer versus the referred one?
Guest: Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow, founder of Bain's Loyalty Practice
Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company
Time-stamped list of topics covered:
02:00 - Unveiling the Referral Spectrum 08:30 - Measuring the Impact of Referrals 15:45 - Attributing Value: Who Benefits? 22:10 - Fostering a Culture of Earned Growth Time-stamped list of notable quotes:
02:25 - Rob Markey: "A genuine referral, an authentic referral, is motivated by some form of goodwill towards the recipient." 05:45 - Fred Reichheld: "Earned Growth is not just a metric, it's a philosophy." 19:30 - Fred Reichheld: "The value of a referral is the cornerstone of organic expansion.” Additional Resources:
Winning On Purpose by Fred Reichheld Bain & Company’s Insights on Earned Growth Guest and Host Bio Links:
Fred Reichheld LinkedIn Profile Rob Markey LinkedIn Profile Give Us Feedback:
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Why would a world-class sports academy invest in a student center, rather than more coaches, fancy equipment, or dorms?
IMG Academy, a Florida boarding school, turns out some of the most successful college and professional athletes around. Its president, Tim Pernetti, led a massive cultural shift toward customer loyalty.
Tim says IMG Academy used to be highly focused on coaching and sports operations. To be clear, that emphasis on athletic excellence helped produce a large number of highly successful athletes. But Tim and the leadership team saw the potential to add something on top of this: a focus on serving a more comprehensive set of student-athlete needs. Today, IMG Academy leverages student-athlete input to refine its program and operations. New initiatives range from enhancing dining experiences to introducing flexible communal spaces.
Tim shares how an emphasis on employee recognition combines regular student and parent feedback to instill deep, enduring culture change.
Guest: Tim Pernetti, President, IMG Academy
Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company
Time-stamped list of topics covered:
[00:09:17] Global influence and expansion [00:14:25] Culture shift toward experience [00:19:57] Response to student feedback [00:25:32] Investment in campus experience [00:30:01] Recognition's impact on staff [00:35:23] Challenges in universal buy-in [00:37:09] Commitment to improving IMG Academy Time-stamped list of notable quotes:
[00:04:43] “Really, [our early] focus was on intense physical training, like total immersion in tennis. And the result was ten world number ones [were trained here].” [00:07:23] “This is an environment where you're bringing people in from all over the world. You want to have good people in the environment. We put a lot of weight into that, like getting to know kids, and getting to know their parents.” [00:23:17] “We went into meetings with data and said, ‘Here’s what the customer is saying.’” [00:29:16] “[At] a place like IMG Academy, we have everything from coaches, people that serve food every day, and our transportation drivers, [and people] who cut the grass at five o'clock in the morning. And I've shadowed all of them." [00:30:12] “We [recognized a tram driver] with a financial bonus and a gift card to take his wife out to dinner. This guy now is known as the friendliest, nicest, most outgoing person on campus.” [00:30:35] "The biggest tool you have in your toolkit right now is your personal and other leaders' acknowledgment and recognition when people do the right things.” Guest and Host Bio Links:
Tim Pernetti's LinkedIn Profile Rob Markey LinkedIn Profile Give Us Feedback:
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How can businesses transcend traditional customer service boundaries to establish new customer experience benchmarks?
Stan Swinton, Founder and General Manager of NPSx, Bain & Company, discusses how a comprehensive approach to customer experience extends beyond gathering feedback or managing customer journeys.
Stan details Bain’s NPSx framework—comparable to a restaurant star rating, he says—which offers an extensive customer-centricity analysis via 60+ dimensions and eight pillars. Stan shares how this methodology motivates companies to strive for top-tier customer satisfaction.
We also discuss the Customer Experience Roadmap and Accreditation (CXRA). Stan highlights CXRA's effectiveness in uncovering inefficiencies and enhancing customer-employee synergies.
In addition, we explore why businesses frequently restrict their customer experience initiatives to areas such as feedback management, and discuss the essential role of Customer Experience Officers in achieving genuine customer centricity. Finally, we examine the constantly changing landscape of CX benchmarks and expectations, emphasizing the importance of a flexible and adaptive approach.
Guest: Stan Swinton, Founder and General Manager of NPSx, Bain & Company
Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company
Time-stamped list of topics covered:
[16:56] Role of CX: Stan highlights how the NPSx framework aids in defining company decision rights and categorizes 60 different jobs or dimensions to be coordinated. [17:50] Framework Pillars: Eight pillars provide a structured context for internal dialogue on improvement within organizations. [18:15] Framework applicability: The framework's relevance, even for companies that are just starting their CX journey or are less mature in their CX programs [19:19] Framework evolution and review: The living nature of the framework, with ongoing revisions and updates to standards and maturity scales to keep pace with current trends in customer centricity [20:10] Benchmarking and improvement: How clients sometimes feel dissatisfied with their initial ratings but are encouraged to view it as a journey toward improvement, similar to achieving restaurant rating stars in the culinary world [21:48] Identifying opportunities: How the framework allows organizations to identify their strengths and areas for improvement in customer experience Time-stamped list of notable quotes:
[04:49] “We would generally work with a company first to define their taxonomy. One of the things we recognize is a lot of different industries and clients have different ways of defining their experiences. But there are standards and there are best practices that we can bring to the table to help shape that taxonomy and definitions.” [7:28] “One of the things that we recognize at Bain is that a lot of practitioners didn't come from a CX background. There aren't a lot of degree programs dedicated to CX. And when we were looking at the market, we’d say, well, how can you train yourself as a CX practitioner?” [12:31] “Our framework has eight pillars: purpose and leadership, proposition management, customer value and lifecycle management, customer journey management, customer service management, customer feedback management, customer data management, and employee experience.” Additional Resources:
Bain article | The Elements of Value: Understanding the 30 elements of value for consumers can help companies gain an edge. HBR article | The Elements of Value: Measuring—and delivering—what consumers really want Guest and Host Bio Links:
Stan’s LinkedIn profile Rob Markey LinkedIn Profile Give Us Feedback:
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How does a global medical technology company maintain customer focus while managing operational challenges during a pandemic?
In this episode, Tony Ezell, executive vice president of North America and chief marketing officer for Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), explores how integrating customer feedback into your business strategy can maintain—and even enhance—customer loyalty by helping shape business strategies that are both robust and responsive to evolving customer needs.
Tony outlines how customer loyalty and adaptability are essential strategic tools in healthcare innovation. Together, we explore how BD leveraged a customer-centric approach to skillfully navigate operational continuity and customer satisfaction.
We also take a short trip down memory lane to connect the dots from our chat with Tony a decade ago, exploring the ongoing impact of customer experience and Net Promoter Systems on Tony's evolving career trajectory and leadership style.
Guest: Tony Ezell, executive vice president of North America and chief marketing officer, Becton, Dickinson and Company
Episode Highlights
Introduction and Tony Ezell's background [01:59] The balance of operational responsibilities and customer-centricity [04:53] Covid-19’s impact on customer loyalty at BD [05:50] Implementing customer feedback into business strategy [09:09] BD’s challenges and opportunities [12:09] Tony’s NPS work [15:07] Customer feedback scores [20:07] Partnerships [21:30] Connecting the dots between 2014 and today [26:22] Driving loyalty [27:46] Quotable Quotes:
"We have customers who were starting to decide whether they want to go away from us, who are now calling us to engage, to help them solve their problems again.” [01:19] “I always think about what drives loyalty, and do we know what drives loyalty? And are we actually delivering on the things that matter most to our customers, that drive loyalty? And that’s what we’re operating on now.” [04:33] “Our customers see us as one company, not as seven or nine different businesses. And now that we’ve done that, we’re starting to make improvements.” [12:38] Additional Resources:
Hear Tony’s 2014 podcast with Rob Markey: “Breaking Down the ‘Invisible Fence’” Host: Rob Markey
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How does an insurance industry leader integrate a simple yet profound question—Would you do that to your mom?—to transform customer service and decision making? In this episode, Richard Watts, board member at Farmers Insurance and former sales and service president at Progressive, discusses how asking this question improves business operations. He explores how this unique approach revolutionizes customer service and sets a new industry standard for empathy and customer focus.
Richard also shares insights into how this philosophy transformed internal practices, significantly influenced customer satisfaction and loyalty, and how it continues to shape his leadership and strategic decisions. We'll also revisit Richard's journey from biology to computer science and his shift toward customer-centric innovations in insurance.
Guest: Richard Watts, board member, Farmers Insurance
Episode Highlights
Introduction and background [02:05] The genesis of the "Would You Do That to Your Mom?" philosophy [05:10] Reflections on the evolution of customer service in insurance [11:25] How empathy drives customer loyalty and business success [14:15] Challenges and triumphs in embedding this into organizational culture [18:30] The ongoing influence of this approach in Richard's career [22:45] Balancing data-driven strategies with ethical considerations [25:50] Quotable Quotes:
“There isn't a single business initiative or change program that people don't say has to be CEO-led or have the CEO's blessing.” [21:19]
“Having someone out there to take the machete and, hack through the jungle of all these processes, being able to go there and say, ‘Okay, we need real-time processing. We can't live with these batch systems anymore.” [22:30]
Host: Rob Markey
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How do the needs of students at for-profit, mostly online colleges differ from those of typical college students? They often require financial aid, schedule flexibility, and academic support that can go far beyond the norm of traditional higher education. In this segment, we explore why graduation rates have traditionally been quite low at these colleges due to all the challenges students face. How do schools like this strike an appropriate balance of flexibility, support, and rigorous academic programs that will help their students succeed in the workforce?
Ruth Veloria is the chief strategy officer and customer officer at the University of Phoenix. She is on a mission to help more of the school’s students successfully overcome challenges so they can complete their studies and reap the rewards of their education. Ruth and the team at University of Phoenix have spent over a decade working to improve student retention and success rates.
In this episode, roughly a decade after Ruth first joined Rob on the podcast, she shares how the University of Phoenix has achieved a remarkable increase in student retention rates, from 64% to 74%. They now graduate over a third more students than they did 10 years ago. Ruth discusses how the Net Promoter System helped fuel the university’s deep commitment to learning from and acting on student feedback. She describes academic policies that are empathetic versus unempathetic, and how data analysis and feedback have been used to enhance student experience and to support policy and process change.
Episode Highlights:
Overview of a subscription-like model for student enrollment [03:15] Transition of Ruth from the School of Business to strategy and customer experience leadership [07:10] Approaches to student retention and success [11:45] Utilizing data analytics and technology to improve student outcomes [16:25] Adapting to Covid-19: Impact on student experience and education delivery [20:55] Insights into student acquisition costs and orientation processes [25:30] Reflections on the implementation and evolution of the Net Promoter System [30:15] Ruth’s advice for educational transformation and future goals [35:00] Quotable Quotes:
“We went from a 59 Net Promoter Score up to a 73 Net Promoter Score.” [16:33] “We created a lot of entrepreneurs. We got a lot of people excited about changes they could make in the student experience.” [24:19] “We actually set up a pilot team that was using a business leader and tech leader to come together to fix application problems. In fact, we still have that today.” [25:06] Guest: Ruth Veloria, chief strategy officer and customer officer, University of Phoenix
Host: Rob Markey
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