In this episode, Alan speaks with fractional CXO Nicholas “Z” Zeisler and fractional CMO Muriel Lotto about how they met, what they have learned by combining their expertise, and how those lessons can help you rethink the way your marketing, brand promise, and consumer experience factor into your business decisions.

Nicholas “Z” Zeisler uses his Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Process Engineering expertise to help brands improve their customer experience as a fractional Chief Customer Officer. He’s on a mission to help organizations better align their CX with their brand promises by figuring out where they’re falling short, taking decisive and deliberate action to improve how they do business, and finding efficiency in the process to drive brand alignment. Z served in the US Air Force and Reserves for nearly 30 years and is currently a professor of statistics at the US Air Force Academy. He is also a Professor of Practice at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad School of Business, focused on customer experience management.

Muriel Lotto uses her marketing expertise to solve business problems and deliver sustainable growth for both DTC and B2B companies. Most recently, Muriel was the CMO of Sightline Payments, a top US payments provider to the rapidly expanding online gaming, sports betting, and casino marketplaces. Prior to that, she spent 7 years at Western Union as the Global Head of Brand and Marketing, where she was responsible for transforming the impact of marketing across $200 million of investment. During those 7 years, the digital business grew from $300 million to over $1 billion in revenue. Earlier in her career, she held senior roles for two of Europe's biggest insurance companies and also had experience working for CPG giants Unilever and Nestle. Muriel has triple citizenship in France, Italy, and the UK, but now resides in the USA. In 2019, she was named one of the world’s boldest CMOs, and today she works as a senior marketing executive, thought leader, and fractional CMO with The CMO Syndicate.

In this interview, Alan, Z, and Muriel discuss how their partnership works and the ways they are bridging the gap between their two specialties. They also give advice to business leaders on how to find opportunities for improvement in the right places, focus on the real issues, and avoid being lulled into a false sense of security by green dots on the dashboard.

In this episode, you'll learn:

How the efficiency of Lean Six Sigma can be used to improve the customer experience
The relationship between brand promise and customer experience
Examples of marketing and CX partnering well
Focus on the red dots, not the green ones.

Key Highlights:

[02:55] Who is Muriel Lotto?
[03:35] Who is Z?
[04:10] How did everyone meet?
[06:20] Z’s background with CX
[08:15] The relationship between brand promise and CX
[09:55] CX partnering with the CMO
[12:15] What do you have left if you can’t deliver on a promise?
[14:25] Misalignment between what you say and what you do
[15:20] Muriel's example of marketing and CX partnering well
[19:30] It’s about listening and understanding that you may not have the answers.
[22:40] Unifying the company through understanding CX
[24:50] Jeff Bezoz dialed up customer care. You should too.
[26:10] Why Z wrote a book and what you can learn from it
[28:15] Focus on the red dots.
[32:15] Muriel’s advice to her younger self
[35:00] Z’s advice to his younger self

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391: Marketing and CX are Two Sides of the Same Coin with Nicholas Zeisler and Muriel Lotto, Fractional CXO and CMO, respectively 38:10 Share

Marketing Today with Alan Hart

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391: Marketing and CX are Two Sides of the Same Coin with Nicholas Zeisler and Muriel Lotto, Fractional CXO and CMO, respectively